City Council
City Council
mar, 2 de junio de 2026
Puntos de agenda
Registros de votación
Resumen del debate
Transcripción
RESUMEN DE REUNIÓNGenerado por IA
Concejo Municipal de Santa Rosa — 2 de junio de 2026
Esta fue una reunión ordinaria del Concejo Municipal que incluyó una sesión de estudio sobre estrategia de vivienda, dos proclamaciones, una audiencia pública sobre el Plan de Gestión Urbana del Agua, y varios informes sustantivos, entre ellos una propuesta importante de reestructuración de la deuda de pensiones. La concejal Fleming estuvo ausente durante toda la reunión. La sesión también generó comentarios públicos significativos por parte de residentes del vecindario Creekside que se oponen a un mapa de riesgo de incendio en la interfaz urbano-forestal (WUI, por sus siglas en inglés) incluido en el calendario de consentimiento.
Sesión Cerrada — Negociaciones Laborales (Puntos 3.1 y 3.2)
El Concejo se reunió en sesión cerrada para dos conferencias con negociadores laborales. No surgieron acciones reportables de la sesión cerrada.
Sesión de Estudio 4.1 — Estrategia de Vivienda de Santa Rosa
El Director de Planificación y Desarrollo Económico Gabe Osburn, la Subdirectora Jessica Jones y la Directora de Vivienda y Servicios Comunitarios Megan [apellido no identificado en la transcripción] presentaron un panorama general exhaustivo de la estrategia de vivienda multidimensional de la ciudad. La presentación abarcó el Plan General, los planes específicos (incluidos el Downtown Station Area Plan y el South Santa Rosa Specific Plan, actualmente en desarrollo), el ciclo de Asignación Regional de Necesidades de Vivienda (RHENA), las tendencias de producción de vivienda asequible, los programas de incentivos de tarifas, y la estrategia de activos del centro de la ciudad — incluyendo la posible reurbanización del terreno de 7 acres del City Hall, que será objeto de una sesión de estudio más profunda el 16 de junio.
El personal destacó que la producción de vivienda en Santa Rosa se disparó entre 2021 y 2025, impulsada en parte por $38.5 millones en fondos de recuperación por desastre del incendio de 2017 que ahora están llegando a su fin. Se espera que la producción de vivienda asequible regrese a un nivel de referencia más bajo.
El eje central de la sesión de estudio fue una solicitud de orientación al Concejo sobre dos disposiciones opcionales de legislación estatal:
Assembly Bill 1033 (AB 1033): Permite a las ciudades autorizar la venta separada de una unidad de vivienda accesoria (ADU) respecto de su vivienda principal, utilizando un modelo de propiedad similar al de los condominios. El personal describió esta medida como relativamente sencilla de implementar, con San Jose como uno de los primeros en adoptarla. No aumenta el número de unidades permitidas, pero crea una nueva vía hacia la propiedad de vivienda. El Director Osburn señaló que aborda un problema real — la escasez de oportunidades de propiedad para compradores primerizos — aunque el impacto en el número total de unidades sea modesto.
Senate Bill 10 (SB 10): Permite a las ciudades reclasificar parcelas para permitir hasta 10 unidades, exentas de revisión ambiental, dentro de media milla de las estaciones SMART o en terrenos de relleno urbano. El personal lo caracterizó como más complejo, con puntos de decisión importantes en torno al proceso ministerial frente al discrecional, la delimitación de terrenos y la divulgación comunitaria.
Se ofrecieron comentarios públicos sustanciales por parte de defensores de la vivienda, representantes de Habitat for Humanity, el grupo Santa Rosa YIMBY, Generation Housing y la Cámara de Comercio — todos expresando un fuerte apoyo a ambos proyectos de ley e instando al Concejo a adoptarlos. Varios oradores vincularon la producción de vivienda con la disminución de la matrícula escolar, el acceso a la atención médica y el déficit presupuestario de la ciudad. Algunos oradores abogaron específicamente por SB 10 como la herramienta de mayor impacto; otros priorizaron AB 1033 como una medida más fácil de implementar.
Orientación del Concejo (sin votación vinculante — sesión de estudio): El Concejo alcanzó consenso general para:
1. Instruir al personal para que desarrolle un paquete de adopción del AB 1033, trabajando dentro de la capacidad existente del personal sin retrasar otros proyectos prioritarios (South Santa Rosa Specific Plan, zonas de entretenimiento, trabajo de desarrollo económico del centro, renovación de la designación pro-vivienda).
2. Celebrar una futura sesión de estudio sobre SB 10 para examinar opciones, precedentes de otras ciudades y ventajas e inconvenientes con los proyectos en curso, antes de comprometerse con su adopción.
Varios concejales (Okrepkie, Rogers) expresaron preocupación por sobrecargar la capacidad del personal, enfatizando que no querían que el impulso en los proyectos existentes de vivienda y desarrollo económico se detuviera. El Alcalde Stapp y otros señalaron un pleno alineamiento filosófico en los objetivos de vivienda, siendo el único desacuerdo la priorización táctica.
Proclamación 7.1 — Mes de Concienciación sobre el Cuidado de Crianza (mayo de 2026)
La concejal MacDonald leyó una proclamación en honor al Mes de Concienciación sobre el Cuidado de Crianza y en reconocimiento a Our Village Closet, una organización sin fines de lucro de Santa Rosa que proporciona artículos esenciales gratuitos a jóvenes de 0 a 25 años afectados por el sistema de crianza temporal. La Gerente Municipal Interina [nombre no identificado en la transcripción] ofreció palabras personales, revelando que fue colocada en un hogar de crianza a las dos semanas de nacida y posteriormente adoptada, y que su familia continuó acogiendo niños durante toda su infancia. Agradeció a los padres de crianza y a los proveedores de servicios. Amanda Kitchens, cofundadora y directora ejecutiva de Our Village Closet, aceptó la proclamación e invitó a los concejales a visitar su centro de recursos en Mendocino Avenue.
Proclamación 7.2 — Día de la Independencia de Eritrea
La concejal Rogers leyó una proclamación en reconocimiento al 35.° aniversario de la Independencia de Eritrea (24 de mayo de 1991) y las contribuciones de la comunidad eritrea de Santa Rosa. Representantes del Eritrean Community Center of the Bay Area estuvieron presentes y aceptaron la proclamación. Se tomó una fotografía con el Concejo.
Informe del Personal 8.1 — Actualización del Plan de Empoderamiento Comunitario
El Gerente de Participación Comunitaria [nombre no identificado] presentó un avance de los próximos eventos patrocinados por la ciudad en junio, incluyendo el Desfile del Orgullo del Condado de Sonoma (6 de junio), limpiezas de arroyos en el Prince Memorial Greenway (6 y 20 de junio), un día voluntario en el parque en Community Park (7 y 13 de junio), una mesa informativa en la Celebración MLK Juneteenth (13 de junio), la reunión final comunitaria de seguridad vial organizada por el SRPD (18 de junio) y un programa de experiencia policial juvenil en julio.
Audiencia Pública 16.1 — Plan de Gestión Urbana del Agua 2025 y Plan de Contingencia por Escasez de Agua
La funcionaria del Departamento de Agua Claire [apellido no identificado] presentó la actualización quinquenal requerida del Plan de Gestión Urbana del Agua de la ciudad, cuya fecha límite de entrega al estado es el 1 de julio de 2026. Santa Rosa cuenta con 54,000 conexiones y suministra aproximadamente 17,000 acre-pies de agua anualmente. Principales conclusiones: el suministro de agua proyectado supera la demanda proyectada hasta 2050, y una evaluación del riesgo de sequía muestra suficiencia del suministro hasta 2030 incluso en escenarios de años secos.
El Plan de Contingencia por Escasez de Agua (sin cambios desde 2020) establece 8 etapas progresivas de respuesta a la escasez de agua, que van desde reducciones voluntarias del 10% (Etapa 1) hasta cortes obligatorios de más del 50% (Etapa 8). El personal presentó dos herramientas opcionales de tarifas y sanciones — una tarifa uniforme por escasez de agua y una penalización por uso excesivo — ambas de las cuales requerirían aprobación expresa del Concejo antes de su implementación.
El personal recibió comentarios públicos escritos, algunos de los cuales plantearon preocupaciones sobre la asequibilidad de la vivienda (fuera del alcance de este plan) y preguntas sobre si el crecimiento habitacional es sostenible dado el suministro de agua. El personal respondió que los nuevos desarrollos planificados ya están incorporados en las proyecciones de demanda, y que hay una página de preguntas frecuentes disponible en srcity.org/uwmp.
No se ofrecieron comentarios públicos en persona. Esta noche no se tomó ninguna acción; la aprobación formal está programada para la reunión del 16 de junio de 2026.
Punto de Informe 15.1 — Encuesta Comunitaria "Let's Talk, Santa Rosa"
La Directora de Comunicaciones Misti Wood y el Analista Administrativo Luke Fraser presentaron los resultados de la amplia encuesta de participación comunitaria de la ciudad, lanzada para informar el próximo proceso presupuestario. Se recibieron más de 2,200 respuestas (al 26 de mayo), distribuidas de manera bastante uniforme entre los códigos postales de la ciudad. Aproximadamente el 70% de los encuestados vive en Santa Rosa.
Los encuestados clasificaron cinco prioridades de servicios; el mantenimiento de la respuesta a llamadas de emergencia 911, servicios médicos de emergencia e incendios ocupó el primer lugar en general. Sin embargo, los comentarios de la encuesta revelaron que la situación de personas sin hogar, las condiciones de las calles, el mantenimiento de los parques, la seguridad vial y la asequibilidad de la vivienda se mencionaron con mucha mayor frecuencia de lo que su clasificación sugeriría. El personal señaló una puntuación baja de concordancia "Kendall's W", lo que significa que a los residentes les resultó difícil clasificar las prioridades porque consideran que todas son importantes.
La gerente municipal enmarcó la encuesta como contexto para la próxima presentación del presupuesto el 16 de junio, señalando que la ciudad enfrenta un déficit estructural de $17.5 millones en el próximo año fiscal. Sin nuevos ingresos, se proyecta que los recortes a los servicios esenciales — incluida la seguridad pública — aumentarán.
Votación: Moción para recibir el informe presentada por el concejal Ben-Wills, secundada por la concejal Rogers. Aprobada 6–0 (Fleming ausente).
Punto de Informe 15.3 — Reestructuración de Pensiones "Fresh Start" de CalPERS
El Director Financiero Scott Wagner presentó una propuesta para reestructurar el Pasivo Acumulado No Financiado (UAL, por sus siglas en inglés) de $482 millones de la ciudad a través del programa de reamortización "Fresh Start" de CalPERS, combinado con una reducción estratégica de $26 millones en fondos de pensiones restringidos.
Sin intervención, se proyecta que los pagos de pensiones del Fondo General se disparen a $49 millones para el año fiscal 2031. La estrategia propuesta aplana y reamortiza el calendario de pagos, logrando $37 millones en ahorro total de costos, liquidando el UAL seis años antes de lo programado actualmente (en 2043 en lugar de 2049), y ahorrando $28 millones durante los próximos cinco años. La ciudad mantendrá el control local de los fondos de estabilización de pensiones y obtendrá una elaboración de presupuestos significativamente más predecible.
Esta acción modifica formalmente el contrato de Santa Rosa con CalPERS y consolida la reestructuración. Wagner enfatizó que este es el primer paso en una estrategia más amplia de estabilización de pensiones, y que las políticas del Concejo en torno a los fondos de reserva y la reinversión se desarrollarán en sesiones futuras.
La concejal MacDonald solicitó que el personal desarrolle un marco de política a largo plazo para el Concejo — activado por la eventual reducción en los pagos de pensiones — para dirigir sistemáticamente los ahorros hacia el mantenimiento diferido, la infraestructura (CIP) y las reservas de estabilización de pensiones, en lugar de permitir que esos fondos sean absorbidos por las operaciones generales.
Votación: Moción presentada por la concejal MacDonald, secundada por la concejal Rogers para adoptar la resolución que autoriza la ejecución de la enmienda al contrato de CalPERS y aprueba la reducción de $26 millones del fondo de pensiones. Aprobada 6–0 (Fleming ausente).
Calendario de Consentimiento (Puntos 13.1–13.18)
El calendario de consentimiento incluyó puntos de rutina: aprobaciones de contratos, ordenanzas que establecen la compensación para la próxima Gerente Municipal Interina (salario anual de $341,420, vigente a partir del 27 de junio) y el nuevo Fiscal Municipal (salario anual de $305,760, vigente a partir del 3 de junio), y una segunda lectura de la actualización del mapa de riesgo de incendio en la interfaz urbano-forestal (WUI) (Punto 13.14, del cual el Alcalde Stapp se recusó debido a un conflicto previamente declarado). El Punto 13.9 fue pospuesto para la reunión del 16 de junio.
Los comentarios públicos significativos se opusieron al Punto 13.14, el mapa WUI. Varios residentes del vecindario Creekside argumentaron:
El propio testimonio del jefe de bomberos de que Matanzas Creek actúa como cortafuegos contradice la inclusión del vecindario Creekside en una zona de alto riesgo de incendio.
La ciudad ya ejerció discreción al eliminar 800 viviendas en Fountain Grove y Mountain Hawk del mapa, lo que demuestra que tiene autoridad para realizar más cambios.
El mapa podría aumentar las primas de seguro o provocar cancelaciones de pólizas para personas mayores y familias con ingresos fijos.
Los residentes solicitaron un retraso de 90 días para presentar su caso, equivalente al tiempo otorgado al jefe de bomberos.
Varios residentes manifestaron haber notificado formalmente al fiscal municipal su intención de solicitar un recurso de mandato judicial.
Votación: Moción presentada por la concejal Alvarez, secundada por la concejal Rogers. Aprobada 6–0 (Fleming ausente) para los puntos 13.1–13.8 y 13.10–13.18 en conjunto. El Punto 13.14 se aprobó 5–0 con el Alcalde Stapp recusado y Fleming ausente. El Punto 13.9 fue pospuesto.
Puntos clave
Reestructuración de pensiones aprobada: El Concejo aprobó por unanimidad una reamortización "Fresh Start" de CalPERS combinada con una reducción de $26 millones de fondos restringidos, ahorrando a la ciudad un estimado de $37 millones y eliminando la deuda UAL seis años antes de lo programado — un hito fiscal importante que ha atraído atención a nivel estatal.
Orientación sobre estrategia de vivienda impartida: Se instruye al personal para que desarrolle un paquete de adopción del AB 1033 (venta separada de ADU) dentro de la capacidad actual, y para que regrese con una sesión de estudio sobre SB 10 (hasta 10 unidades por parcela) — con la restricción explícita de que ninguno de los dos esfuerzos debe frenar los proyectos de vivienda y desarrollo económico en curso.
Alarma presupuestaria activada: Los resultados de la encuesta "Let's Talk Santa Rosa" se presentaron como contexto para un déficit estructural de $17.5 millones; la gerente municipal advirtió que sin nuevos ingresos, los recortes del segundo año podrían afectar la seguridad pública y otros servicios de alta prioridad. La presentación completa del presupuesto es el 16 de junio.
Segunda lectura del mapa de incendio WUI aprobada pese a objeciones del vecindario: Los residentes de Creekside se opusieron formalmente a la inclusión de su vecindario en el mapa de riesgo actualizado y señalaron una posible acción legal; el punto se aprobó en el calendario de consentimiento de todos modos.
Compensación del personal clave establecida: Las ordenanzas que establecen los salarios de la próxima Gerente Municipal Interina ($341,420) y el nuevo Fiscal Municipal ($305,760) fueron aprobadas como parte del calendario de consentimiento.
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Qué ocurrió en esta reunión
CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS (Government Code Section 54957.6) Agency Designated Representative: Mayor Mark Stapp
The City Clerk called for public comment on closed session items 3.1 and 3.2, which were conferences with labor negotiators under Government Code Section 54957.6. A member of the public (Janice) attempted to comment but was redirected by the Mayor, who noted that her comment was not relevant to the labor negotiator conferences and would be better suited for public comment on non-agenda matters. No substantive discussion of the labor negotiations occurred as this was a closed session item.
CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS (Government Code Section 54957.6) Agency Designated Representatives: Lori Ann Farrell, Interim City Manager; Scott Wagner, Chief Financial Officer; Dominique Blanquie, Human Resources Director; Siara Goyer, Labor Relations Manager Employee Organizations: Public Safety Management Association (Employee Unit 9) RECESS CLOSED SESSION(S) AND RECONVENE TO OPEN SESSION IN THE
Item 3.2, also a conference with labor negotiators under Government Code Section 54957.6, was grouped with item 3.1 for public comment purposes. The same public comment procedures were followed, with the Mayor clarifying that comments must be relevant to the specific closed session items. The council then recessed into closed session to address both items 3.1 and 3.2.
SANTA ROSA HOUSING STRATEGY The Planning and Economic Development Department presents this study session to provide Council with information regarding housing regulations associated with State legislation. Council will take no action except for possible direction to staff. This item has no impact on current fiscal year budget.
# Santa Rosa Housing Strategy Summary
On Item 4.1, Mayor Stapp introduced the Santa Rosa Housing Strategy study session, noting that supporting housing within city limits has been a longstanding council goal. Director Gav Osburn of Planning and Economic Development led a comprehensive presentation explaining how the city's housing initiatives comply with state legislation through four main pillars: state law compliance (including Regional Housing Needs Allocation), community needs (reducing housing costs and enabling homeownership), community growth aligned with economic development, and downtown/transit-oriented development. The presentation outlined the city's planning framework—including the General Plan, specific plans for downtown and station areas, and the Housing Element—emphasizing that while the private sector produces housing, the city's role is to create enabling policies and track outcomes. Staff highlighted existing programs including fee reductions for affordable housing (down to 0% through January 2028), the 2025 Missing Middle Initiative, and approximately $3.5 million in annual federal funding, while presenting two optional legislative tools: Assembly Bill 10.33 (allowing separate sales of accessory dwelling units for affordable homeownership) and Senate Bill 10 (enabling up to 10 units on single parcels near transit). Council directed staff to develop an adoption package for AB 10.33 and conduct a separate study session on SB 10, with multiple public speakers including representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, Habitat for Humanity, and housing advocacy groups supporting these measures as essential tools to address the housing crisis and its impacts on workforce retention, education, and community economic health.
On Item 4.1, Mayor Stapp introduced the Santa Rosa Housing Strategy study session, noting that supporting housing within city limits has been a longstanding council goal. Director Gav Osburn of Planning and Economic Development led a comprehensive presentation explaining how the city's housing initiatives comply with state legislation through four main pillars: state law compliance (including Regional Housing Needs Allocation), community needs (reducing housing costs and enabling homeownership), community growth aligned with economic development, and downtown/transit-oriented development. The presentation outlined the city's planning framework—including the General Plan, specific plans for downtown and station areas, and the Housing Element—emphasizing that while the private sector produces housing, the city's role is to create enabling policies and track outcomes. Staff highlighted existing programs including fee reductions for affordable housing (down to 0% through January 2028), the 2025 Missing Middle Initiative, and approximately $3.5 million in annual federal funding, while presenting two optional legislative tools: Assembly Bill 10.33 (allowing separate sales of accessory dwelling units for affordable homeownership) and Senate Bill 10 (enabling up to 10 units on single parcels near transit). Council directed staff to develop an adoption package for AB 10.33 and conduct a separate study session on SB 10, with multiple public speakers including representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, Habitat for Humanity, and housing advocacy groups supporting these measures as essential tools to address the housing crisis and its impacts on workforce retention, education, and community economic health.
PROCLAMATION - FOSTER CARE AWARENESS MONTH - MAY 2026
# Foster Care Awareness Month - May 2026 Proclamation Summary
The Santa Rosa City Council unanimously presented a proclamation recognizing May 2026 as Foster Care Awareness Month, accepting it on behalf of Our Village Closet, a nonprofit founded by foster parents that serves up to 300 youth and 150 caregivers monthly by providing essential items and support. The City Manager, drawing on personal experience as a former foster child placed in care at 2 weeks old and adopted at age 5, emphasized the importance of awareness and representation in helping people understand available resources and pathways for those in the foster care system. Amanda Kitchens, co-founder and executive director of Our Village Closet, described her 14 years as a foster and adoptive parent in Sonoma County and highlighted how foster care affects entire families, including siblings, grandparents, and reunifying parents, while inviting community members to support foster families through volunteering and donations. The Mayor and at least one Council Member, both certified resource family caregivers themselves, expressed support for the proclamation and acknowledged the positive impact of foster care support services in the community.
The Santa Rosa City Council unanimously presented a proclamation recognizing May 2026 as Foster Care Awareness Month, accepting it on behalf of Our Village Closet, a nonprofit founded by foster parents that serves up to 300 youth and 150 caregivers monthly by providing essential items and support. The City Manager, drawing on personal experience as a former foster child placed in care at 2 weeks old and adopted at age 5, emphasized the importance of awareness and representation in helping people understand available resources and pathways for those in the foster care system. Amanda Kitchens, co-founder and executive director of Our Village Closet, described her 14 years as a foster and adoptive parent in Sonoma County and highlighted how foster care affects entire families, including siblings, grandparents, and reunifying parents, while inviting community members to support foster families through volunteering and donations. The Mayor and at least one Council Member, both certified resource family caregivers themselves, expressed support for the proclamation and acknowledged the positive impact of foster care support services in the community.
PROCLAMATION - ERITREAN INDEPENDENCE DAY
# Summary
Mr. Rogers presented a Proclamation to the council recognizing Eritrean Independence Day on May 24, 2026, commemorating the 35th anniversary of Eritrea's independence achieved on May 24, 1991. The proclamation highlighted Eritrea's geographic location on the Red Sea coast in the Horn of Africa, its diverse ethnic communities, and significant achievements including meeting all pre-2015 Millennium Development Goals. The proclamation also recognized the Eritrean Community Center (ECC) in the Bay Area, one of the oldest Eritrean community centers in the United States, and its work in Santa Rosa helping community members overcome cultural, linguistic, and institutional barriers. Members of the Eritrean community attended and spoke in support of the recognition, with no public opposition voiced. The council adopted the proclamation and concluded with a photo opportunity featuring council members and community members.
Mr. Rogers presented a Proclamation to the council recognizing Eritrean Independence Day on May 24, 2026, commemorating the 35th anniversary of Eritrea's independence achieved on May 24, 1991. The proclamation highlighted Eritrea's geographic location on the Red Sea coast in the Horn of Africa, its diverse ethnic communities, and significant achievements including meeting all pre-2015 Millennium Development Goals. The proclamation also recognized the Eritrean Community Center (ECC) in the Bay Area, one of the oldest Eritrean community centers in the United States, and its work in Santa Rosa helping community members overcome cultural, linguistic, and institutional barriers. Members of the Eritrean community attended and spoke in support of the recognition, with no public opposition voiced. The council adopted the proclamation and concluded with a photo opportunity featuring council members and community members.
Puntos de agenda (37)
Procedural (8)
1ProceduralHTTPS://SANTA-ROSA.LEGISTAR.COM/CALENDAR. CLICK ON THE "IN PROGRESS" LINK TO VIEW;
Information on how to access the meeting agenda online through the city's legislative management system.
2ProceduralVIA ZOOM WEBINAR BY VISITING
Information on how to watch the meeting live via Zoom webinar.
3ProceduralCOMCAST CHANNEL 28 OR 26 (ESPAÑOL), AT&T U-VERSE CHANNEL 99; AND
Information on how to watch the meeting on local cable television (Comcast and AT&T U-Verse).
4ProceduralVIA YOUTUBE AT HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/CITYOFSANTAROSA Public Comment may be made live during the meeting In-Person from Council Chamber or submitted in advance via email at cc-comment@srcity.org by 5:00 p.m. the Monday before the City Council Meeting. IN THE EVENT A COUNCIL MEMBER PARTICIPATES REMOTELY BASED ON JUST CAUSE UNDER THE BROWN ACT, THE CITY WILL ALLOW FOR PUBLIC COMMENT THROUGH THE ZOOM LINK OR DIAL-IN
Information on how to watch the meeting on YouTube and instructions for submitting public comments before or during the meeting.
12.1ProceduralMay 5 and 6, 2026, Regular Meeting Minutes. Attachments: Draft Minutes - May 5, 2026 Draft Minutes - May 6, 2026
The council will approve the official minutes from the May 5 and 6, 2026 council meetings.
12.2ProceduralMay 12, 2026, Regular Meeting Minutes.
The council will approve the official minutes from the May 12, 2026 council meeting.
12.3ProceduralMay 15, 2026, Special Meeting Minutes.
The council will approve the official minutes from the May 15, 2026 special council meeting.
21.1ProceduralUPCOMING MEETINGS LIST
A list of upcoming council and board meetings will be presented.
Closed Session
3.1Closed SessionCONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS (Government Code Section 54957.6) Agency Designated Representative: Mayor Mark Stapp
The city will hold a closed meeting with labor negotiators regarding employee negotiations, with Mayor Mark Stapp as the city's representative.
Qué ocurrió
The City Clerk called for public comment on closed session items 3.1 and 3.2, which were conferences with labor negotiators under Government Code Section 54957.6. A member of the public (Janice) attempted to comment but was redirected by the Mayor, who noted that her comment was not relevant to the labor negotiator conferences and would be better suited for public comment on non-agenda matters. No substantive discussion of the labor negotiations occurred as this was a closed session item.3.2Closed SessionCONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS (Government Code Section 54957.6) Agency Designated Representatives: Lori Ann Farrell, Interim City Manager; Scott Wagner, Chief Financial Officer; Dominique Blanquie, Human Resources Director; Siara Goyer, Labor Relations Manager Employee Organizations: Public Safety Management Association (Employee Unit 9) RECESS CLOSED SESSION(S) AND RECONVENE TO OPEN SESSION IN THE
The city will hold a closed meeting with labor negotiators for the Public Safety Management Association to discuss employee compensation and benefits.
Qué ocurrió
Item 3.2, also a conference with labor negotiators under Government Code Section 54957.6, was grouped with item 3.1 for public comment purposes. The same public comment procedures were followed, with the Mayor clarifying that comments must be relevant to the specific closed session items. The council then recessed into closed session to address both items 3.1 and 3.2.General Business
4.1General BusinessSANTA ROSA HOUSING STRATEGY The Planning and Economic Development Department presents this study session to provide Council with information regarding housing regulations associated with State legislation. Council will take no action except for possible direction to staff. This item has no impact on current fiscal year budget.
Staff will present information about state housing laws and regulations so the council can consider potential changes to Santa Rosa's housing rules, with no immediate vote expected.
Qué ocurrió
# Santa Rosa Housing Strategy SummaryOn Item 4.1, Mayor Stapp introduced the Santa Rosa Housing Strategy study session, noting that supporting housing within city limits has been a longstanding council goal. Director Gav Osburn of Planning and Economic Development led a comprehensive presentation explaining how the city's housing initiatives comply with state legislation through four main pillars: state law compliance (including Regional Housing Needs Allocation), community needs (reducing housing costs and enabling homeownership), community growth aligned with economic development, and downtown/transit-oriented development. The presentation outlined the city's planning framework—including the General Plan, specific plans for downtown and station areas, and the Housing Element—emphasizing that while the private sector produces housing, the city's role is to create enabling policies and track outcomes. Staff highlighted existing programs including fee reductions for affordable housing (down to 0% through January 2028), the 2025 Missing Middle Initiative, and approximately $3.5 million in annual federal funding, while presenting two optional legislative tools: Assembly Bill 10.33 (allowing separate sales of accessory dwelling units for affordable homeownership) and Senate Bill 10 (enabling up to 10 units on single parcels near transit). Council directed staff to develop an adoption package for AB 10.33 and conduct a separate study session on SB 10, with multiple public speakers including representatives from the Chamber of Commerce, Habitat for Humanity, and housing advocacy groups supporting these measures as essential tools to address the housing crisis and its impacts on workforce retention, education, and community economic health.
7.1General BusinessPROCLAMATION - FOSTER CARE AWARENESS MONTH - MAY 2026
The council will proclaim May 2026 as Foster Care Awareness Month in Santa Rosa.
Qué ocurrió
# Foster Care Awareness Month - May 2026 Proclamation SummaryThe Santa Rosa City Council unanimously presented a proclamation recognizing May 2026 as Foster Care Awareness Month, accepting it on behalf of Our Village Closet, a nonprofit founded by foster parents that serves up to 300 youth and 150 caregivers monthly by providing essential items and support. The City Manager, drawing on personal experience as a former foster child placed in care at 2 weeks old and adopted at age 5, emphasized the importance of awareness and representation in helping people understand available resources and pathways for those in the foster care system. Amanda Kitchens, co-founder and executive director of Our Village Closet, described her 14 years as a foster and adoptive parent in Sonoma County and highlighted how foster care affects entire families, including siblings, grandparents, and reunifying parents, while inviting community members to support foster families through volunteering and donations. The Mayor and at least one Council Member, both certified resource family caregivers themselves, expressed support for the proclamation and acknowledged the positive impact of foster care support services in the community.
7.2General BusinessPROCLAMATION - ERITREAN INDEPENDENCE DAY
The council will proclaim a day recognizing Eritrean Independence Day.
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# SummaryMr. Rogers presented a Proclamation to the council recognizing Eritrean Independence Day on May 24, 2026, commemorating the 35th anniversary of Eritrea's independence achieved on May 24, 1991. The proclamation highlighted Eritrea's geographic location on the Red Sea coast in the Horn of Africa, its diverse ethnic communities, and significant achievements including meeting all pre-2015 Millennium Development Goals. The proclamation also recognized the Eritrean Community Center (ECC) in the Bay Area, one of the oldest Eritrean community centers in the United States, and its work in Santa Rosa helping community members overcome cultural, linguistic, and institutional barriers. Members of the Eritrean community attended and spoke in support of the recognition, with no public opposition voiced. The council adopted the proclamation and concluded with a photo opportunity featuring council members and community members.
8.1General BusinessCOMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT PLAN UPDATE
Staff will provide an update on the Community Empowerment Plan and progress toward its goals.
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The Community Engagement Manager presented the Community Empowerment Plan update for June, highlighting multiple city department participation in upcoming community events including the Sonoma County Pride Parade and Festival on June 1st, creek cleanups on June 6th and 20th, a park beautification program on June 7th and 13th, the 50th annual MLK Juneteenth celebration on June 13th, and a community traffic safety meeting on June 18th. The presentation also announced that the Santa Rosa Police Department is accepting applications for the Youth Community Police Experience program running July 13-16. No council questions or public comments were recorded during this item.11.1General BusinessMAYOR'S/COUNCIL MEMBERS' SUBCOMMITTEE AND LIAISON REPORTS (AND POSSIBLE COUNCIL DIRECTION TO BOARD REPRESENTATIVE ON PENDING ISSUES, IF NEEDED) 11.1.1 Council Subcommittee Reports 11.1.2 Sonoma County Transportation and Climate Authorities (SCTCA) 11.1.3 Sonoma County Water Agency (SCWA) - Water Advisory Committee 11.1.4 Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) 11.1.5 Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District
City council members will report back on their work with various regional organizations and committees, including transportation, water, and land conservation agencies.
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Mayor provided subcommittee and liaison reports, including remarks about students from Maria Carrillo High School (Hudson Rather and Joshua Cam) who won a countywide video contest on water conservation. The Mayor also reported on a tour of courthouse square and downtown Santa Rosa with 8 members of the Sonoma County tourism team, joined by Assistant City Manager Director Osborne and Economic Development Director Scott Adair, to discuss downtown improvements and tourist attraction strategies. No council member questions or public comments were raised on these reports.15.1General BusinessREPORT - LET’S TALK, SANTA ROSA REPORT BACKGROUND: This report summarizes key findings from the “Let’s Talk, Santa Rosa” survey, examines areas of agreement and disagreement among community members, and contextualizes those perceptions alongside performance data and prior surveys to inform future policy and budget decisions. Staff will provide updated participation numbers and analysis at the Council meeting because outreach and data collection are ongoing.
Staff will present key findings from the 'Let's Talk, Santa Rosa' community survey to help inform future city decisions about policies and budgets.
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# Let's Talk, Santa Rosa Report SummaryStaff presented the "Let's Talk, Santa Rosa" community survey results, a comprehensive engagement initiative led by Misti Wood and Luke Phase on behalf of the City Manager's office. The survey gathered over 2,200 responses through bilingual outreach via social media, direct mail to 50,000 households, and community presentations, identifying residents' top priorities as maintaining emergency services (9-1-1/fire/police), street and public space maintenance, and addressing homelessness and affordability. While ranked priorities favored emergency services, qualitative comments revealed a disconnect, with public safety concerns (crime, substance abuse, homelessness) mentioned far more frequently, indicating residents experience these issues daily and perceive them as interconnected threats to neighborhood safety. Council members discussed survey methodology limitations and emphasized that visible improvements in highly-ranked services are essential to maintain community trust as the city addresses a $13.8 million budget shortfall. The council approved receipt of the report and requested detailed impact analysis within two weeks, with continued community engagement planned over the coming months to inform budget deliberations.
15.2General BusinessREPORT - INDEPENDENT POLICE AUDITOR ANNUAL REPORT (THIS ITEM IS CONTINUED TO THE JUNE 16, 2026, REGULAR
The independent police auditor's annual report on police department activities and complaints will be discussed at a future council meeting.
15.3General BusinessREPORT - AUTHORIZATION TO EXECUTE AN AMENDMENT WITH CALPERS TO BEGIN FRESH START PROGRAM FOR PAYOFF OF
The council will authorize an amendment with CalPERS to help the city pay off pension obligations more quickly through the Fresh Start Program.
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# SummaryCFO Wagner presented the city's authorization to execute an amendment with CalPERS to begin the Fresh Start Program, which aims to address the city's $482 million unfunded pension liability by flattening CalPERS payments and strategically deploying $26 million in restricted pension funds to save $28 million over 5 years and achieve complete payoff by 2043—six years faster than the current path. Wagner characterized the program as "a giant leap" in the city's pension stabilization efforts rather than a final solution, with the plan projected to decrease the $52 million in additional annual expenses the city currently faces through 2037. Councilmember Donald commended the strategy and raised concerns about underfunding in the Capital Improvement Program, deferred maintenance, and infrastructure, requesting staff recommendations on policy-based solutions to automatically allocate future savings toward these structural deficits. Staff acknowledged the need for strategic council policies around General Fund reserves and pension stabilization to ensure long-term fiscal stability without requiring repeated council action. The motion for the City Manager to execute the CalPERS amendment passed with 6 affirmative votes (Rogers, MacDonald, Ben Willows, Alvarez, Vice Mayor Okrepkie, and Mayor Stopka), with Councilmember Fleming absent.
Consent Calendar
13.1Consent CalendarMOTION - APPROVAL - GENERAL SERVICE AGREEMENT NUMBER F003219 FOR ABANDONED VEHICLE ABATEMENT SERVICES RECOMMENDATION: The Police Department recommends that the Council, by motion, approve a two-year General Services Agreement Number F003219 with Cream’s Towing, Inc., Santa Rosa, California, for abandoned vehicle abatement services for a total amount of $300,000, and authorizes the Purchasing Agent to make non-substantive changes to the Agreement, subject to approval by the City Attorney, and execute the Agreement. This item has no impact on current fiscal year budget.
The council will approve a two-year contract with Cream's Towing to remove abandoned vehicles from city streets for $300,000.
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The Council voted on consent items 13.1 through 13.8, with item 13.9 continued to a later meeting. Councilmember Rogers moved to adopt these items, and the motion passed with 6 affirmative votes, with Councilmember Fleming absent. No specific discussion of individual items was recorded in this portion of the transcript.13.2Consent CalendarMOTION - FIRST AMENDMENT TO INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT NUMBER F002610 WITH THE RECORDS MANAGEMENT DIVISION OF THE INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEPARTMENT OF THE COUNTY OF SONOMA, CALIFORNIA RECOMMENDATION: The Finance Department recommends that the Council, by motion, approve the First Amendment to Intergovernmental Agreement Number F002610 with the Records Management Division of the Information Systems Department of the County Of Sonoma, California to extend the term one year and increase compensation in the amount of $200,000, for a total contract not to exceed amount of $700,000 and authorize the Purchasing Agent to make non-substantive changes to the Amendment, subject to approval by the City Attorney,
The council will extend an existing contract with Sonoma County for records management services and increase the payment by $200,000.
13.3Consent CalendarMOTION - SECOND AMENDMENT TO BLANKET PURCHASE ORDER 169623 WITH ENVIRONMENTAL LOGISTICS, INC. RECOMMENDATION: The Finance Department recommends that the Council, by motion, approve the Second Amendment to Blanket Purchase Order (BPO) Number 169623 with Environmental Logistics, Inc., Bloomington, California, to extend the term one (1) year and increase compensation in the amount of $150,000, for a total BPO amount not to exceed $449,000 and authorize the Purchasing Agent to execute the Amendment. This item has no impact on current fiscal year budget.
The council will extend a contract with Environmental Logistics for waste management services and increase the payment by $150,000.
13.4Consent CalendarMOTION - CONSTRUCTION CONTRACT AWARD - C02557
The council will award a construction contract to complete a city project.
13.5Consent CalendarMOTION - APPROVAL AND ISSUANCE OF A PURCHASE ORDER FOR THE PURCHASE OF SIX (6) INTERNATIONAL HX620
The council will approve buying six new garbage trucks for the city's trash collection service.
13.6Consent CalendarRESOLUTION - APPROVAL OF A COOPERATIVE AGREEMENT WITH CALTRANS FOR STONY POINT ROAD PROJECT INITIATION
The council will approve an agreement with the California Department of Transportation to move forward with the Stony Point Road project.
13.7Consent CalendarRESOLUTION - APPROVAL OF A CONSTRUCTION AND FUNDING AGREEMENT WITH SONOMA-MARIN AREA RAIL TRANSIT DISTRICT FOR WEST THIRD STREET SIGNALIZED GRADE
The council will approve a construction and funding agreement with the local transit agency for traffic signal work on West Third Street.
13.8Consent CalendarRESOLUTION - APPROVAL OF GRANT OF UTILITY EASEMENT
The council will approve allowing a utility company to use city property for infrastructure purposes.
13.9Consent CalendarRESOLUTION - APPROVAL OF FISCAL YEAR 2026/2027 GRANT AGREEMENTS FOR PUBLIC SERVICES AND FAIR HOUSING (THIS
The council will approve grant agreements for public services and fair housing programs in fiscal year 2026-2027.
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Item 13.9 was continued to the June 16, 2026 meeting. No discussion of the substance of this item was recorded in the transcript excerpt provided.13.10Consent CalendarRESOLUTION - AGREEMENT TO PROVIDE ADMINISTRATIVE
The council will approve an agreement for city staff to provide administrative support to another organization or agency.
13.11Consent CalendarRESOLUTION - GENERAL MUNICIPAL ELECTION - NOVEMBER 3, 2026: CALLING THE ELECTION, REQUESTING CONSOLIDATION WITH THE STATEWIDE GENERAL ELECTION AND ADOPTING
The council will officially call for a general election on November 3, 2026, and request it be combined with the statewide election.
13.12Consent CalendarRESOLUTION - APPOINTMENT OF INTERIM CITY MANAGER, APPROVAL OF INTERIM CITY MANAGER EMPLOYMENT
The council will appoint an interim city manager and approve their employment contract and compensation.
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The city clerk read into the record the proposed ordinance establishing salary and compensation for the new interim city manager effective June 27, 2026. The annual salary is $341,420 with no merit or cost of living increases unless approved by council, along with benefits including $500 wellness incentive, vacation/sick/administrative leave, health insurance, CalPERS participation, deferred compensation, and $500 monthly auto allowance consistent with other executive management employees in unit 10.13.13Consent CalendarRESOLUTION - APPOINTMENT OF CITY ATTORNEY AND APPROVE EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENT BY RESOLUTION AND SETTING COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS BY ORDINANCE
The council will appoint a new city attorney and approve their employment agreement, salary, and benefits.
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The city clerk read into the record the proposed ordinance establishing salary and compensation for the new city attorney effective June 3, 2026. The annual salary is $305,760 with cost of living and merit increases subject to maximum salary ranges, plus benefits including 5.5% city contributions to deferred compensation ($400 monthly wellness benefit), $250,000 life insurance, same leave and health benefits as unit 10 executives, CalPERS participation, $500 monthly auto allowance, and reimbursement for state bar dues and continuing education.13.14Consent CalendarORDINANCE ADOPTION SECOND READING - ORDINANCE ENTITLED: ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA ROSA TO AMEND CHAPTER 18-46 - 2025 CALIFORNIA WILDLAND URBAN INTERFACE CODE ADDING SECTION 18-46.202 - DEFINITIONS, WITH LOCAL AMENDMENT, AND UPDATE THE EXISTING DESIGNATED WILDLAND URBAN INTERFACE AREA RECOMMENDATION: The Fire Department recommends that the Council approve the second reading and adopt an ordinance to amend Chapter 18-46 - 2025 California Wildland Urban Interface Code to add Section 18-46.202 Definitions, with local amendments, to the Santa Rosa City Code and update the existing designated Wildland Urban Interface Area. This ordinance, introduced at the May 12, 2026, Regular Meeting, passed by a 6-0-0-1 vote (Stapp recused).
The council will finalize an ordinance updating Santa Rosa's wildfire safety rules to match the 2025 California Wildland Urban Interface Code with local modifications.
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# Combined SummaryThe Council discussed two ordinances during second reading. Regarding housing legislation (Assembly Bill 10 and Senate Bill 10), Councilmember MacDonald raised concerns about SB 10's reduced oversight and requested staff feedback before proceeding, while Councilmember Rogers supported moving forward with AB 10.33 but expressed hesitation about SB 10 due to capacity constraints and potential impact on ongoing projects like the South Santa Rosa Civic Plan. Councilmember Okrepkie agreed with concerns about SB 10's implementation challenges but acknowledged the city's need for more affordable and diverse housing types. The Council also discussed adoption of a wildfire risk map (WE MAP) ordinance, where staff and the Fire Chief presented the map and disputed public commenters' claims that municipal adoption would increase insurance premiums; residents from the Creekside neighborhood objected to their inclusion in the map and requested a 90-day delay, while also raising concerns about the city's discretion in map creation and contradictions regarding Matanzas Creek's classification as both a fire hazard and fire break.
13.15Consent CalendarORDINANCE ADOPTION SECOND READING - ORDINANCE ENTITLED: ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA ROSA TO AMEND CHAPTER 1-10 - OPEN GOVERNMENT OF THE SANTA ROSA CITY CODE RELATED TO SB 707 BROWN
The council will finalize an ordinance updating the city's open government policies to comply with state law (SB 707).
13.16Consent CalendarORDINANCE ADOPTION SECOND READING - ORDINANCE ENTITLED: ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA ROSA PRE-ZONING THE PROPERTY LOCATED AT 1977 MARSH ROAD TO THE RURAL RESIDENTIAL (RR-20) ZONING DISTRICT, ASSESSOR’S PARCEL NUMBER 036-035-011 - FILE
The council will finalize an ordinance changing the zoning of property at 1977 Marsh Road to Rural Residential (RR-20).
13.17Consent CalendarORDINANCE ADOPTION SECOND READING - ORDINANCE ENTITLED: ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA ROSA ADOPTING A TEXT AMENDMENT TO THE PLANNED DEVELOPMENT 0308 POLICY STATEMENT FOR THE PROPERTY LOCATED AT 5555 MONTGOMERY DRIVE - ASSESSOR’S PARCEL NUMBER 031-080-034, FILE NUMBER MJP14-012 (REZ14-016) RECOMMENDATION: The Planning Commission and the Planning and Economic Development Department recommends that the Council approve the second reading and adopt an ordinance to amend the text of the Spring Lake Village Planned Development Policy Statement (PD-0308). This ordinance, introduced at the May 12, 2026, Regular Meeting, passed by a 6-1-0-0 vote (Alvarez no).
The council will finalize an ordinance amending the Spring Lake Village development rules for the property at 5555 Montgomery Drive.
13.18Consent CalendarORDINANCE ADOPTION SECOND READING - ORDINANCE ENTITLED: ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF SANTA ROSA AMENDING TITLE 20 OF THE SANTA ROSA CITY CODE BY RECLASSIFYING THE PROPERTY FOR THE SPRING
The council will finalize an ordinance reclassifying property zoning for the Spring Lake development area.
Public Hearing
16.1Public HearingPUBLIC HEARING - 2025 URBAN WATER MANAGEMENT PLAN AND 2025 WATER SHORTAGE CONTINGENCY PLAN BACKGROUND: The Urban Water Management Planning Act (Act) requires every urban water supplier that provides water for municipal purposes to more than 3,000 connections or supplies more than 3,000 acre-feet per year (AFY) of water to adopt and submit an Urban Water Management Plan (UWMP) to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR) every five years. The Act requires updates to specific information in the UWMP regarding the system, forecasted future supplies and demands, and requires the urban water supplier to hold a public hearing of their governing body to review and adopt the UWMP. The Act also includes a requirement to prepare a Water Shortage Contingency Plan (Shortage Plan), which details how a water supplier plans to respond to water shortage levels ranging from up to 10 percent to over 50 percent. The City’s previous UWMP and Shortage Plan, the 2020 UWMP and Shortage Plan, were last adopted by the City Council in June 2021. The Shortage Plan was subsequently amended by the City Council in November 2021. The deadline for water suppliers to adopt and submit their adopted 2025 UWMP and Shortage Plan is July 1, 2026. RECOMMENDATION: The Board of Public Utilities and Santa Rosa Water recommend that the Council hold a public hearing to receive
The council will hold a public hearing to approve Santa Rosa Water's five-year plan for managing water supply and demand, and a plan for responding to water shortages.
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# SummaryClaire Northerly from the Planning and Economic Development Department presented Santa Rosa's 2025 Urban Water Management Plan and 2025 Water Shortage Contingency Plan, required by state law for water retailers with over 3,000 connections. The presentation detailed water demand projections through 2050 incorporating growth, climate, and population data, showing that Santa Rosa's water supply exceeds projected demand even during drought conditions, indicating strong water security. Staff outlined an 8-stage water shortage response framework with progressive enforcement measures, including customer alerts and warnings before implementing penalties, which feature a 1,999-gallon buffer and an appeals process. The department conducted extensive public outreach through notices to surrounding agencies, utility board meetings, water bill notices to 54,000 customers, and a dedicated website. When Council Member Rodgers asked whether the city has sufficient water to support additional housing, staff clarified that current projections include known planned developments, and any additional projects would undergo separate water supply assessment before council approval.
Votos adicionales registrados en actas
Receive the Let's Talk Santa Rosa Community Engagement Report
aye 6 · absent 1
Alvarezaye
Ben Willowsaye
Flemingabsent
MacDonaldaye
Okrepkieaye
Rogersaye
Stappaye
Adopt Resolution Authorizing City Manager to Execute Calpers Amendment for Fresh Start Program and Approve Strategic Drawdown of Restricted Pension Funds
aye 6 · absent 1
Alvarezaye
Ben Willowsaye
Flemingabsent
MacDonaldaye
Okrepkieaye
Rogersaye
Stappaye
Adopt Consent Calendar Items 13.1-13.8 and 13.10-13.13 (with 13.9 continued, Mayor Stapp recused from 13.14)
aye 5 · absent 1 · recused 1
Alvarezaye
Ben Willowsaye
Flemingabsent
MacDonaldaye
Okrepkieaye
Rogersaye
Stapprecused
Transcripción literal disponible
132 segmentos de transcripción indexados
currently on the Spanish Channel to commence interpretation of the meeting for those just joining the meeting, live interpretation in Spanish is available. And members of the public or staff wishing to listen in Spanish. Can join the Spanish channel by clicking on the interpretation icon in the Zoom toolbar, it looks like a globe here on your cell phone or tablet locate the 3 dots captain lightly and put a check mark on your preferred language. Click done to activate and begin the interpretation. Won't you join the Spanish Channel? We recommend you shut off the main audio. So you only hear the Spanish interpretation. It's teacher we use, please restate this in Spanish. >> See when a stat of it letting do it. Do think that since she was and a Spaniard but exit it kind as different the few. Students have eke and it seemed know that a deal with that Accu katyana not. But I think that whole issue of whether this soon to say that just added in that debate that went on to live funnel Moby the case in those to feed those kids when started yet. But this super dot funny odor, that it's an issue, but they get and then take it easy. It will it repeat any different that you want, but it's few of Spanish voice. Now should be to definitely condone only stop when they entered another. Second, Thomas could have replaced and it cannot spending on up to keep it in hope it up with a disc which at auto immune show that meant the is putting out. That's yes. Back to you. >> On the time is college. Mean MADAM City clerk, would you please call the roll? >> Thank you. Mayor
Councilmember Rogers, PRESIDENT Councilmember MacDonald here, Councilmember Fleming. Absent Councilmember Ben, we alos here. Councilmember Alvarez isn't Vice Mayor Okrepkie here. Mayor stopped Let the record reflect all councilmembers are present with the exception of Councilmember Fleming. >> Thank you. One or closed session items we have today items, 3.1 3.2, both conferences with labor negotiators. Are there any members of public who would like to comment on either of these items? MR. Do it. Go ahead. Thank you to Wayne. Are there any of the any of the members of the public would like to comment on the closed session items? Carmen? >> So >> And >> Jen, Jen us, this is it this is about the closed session items. What does this have to do with with the 2 conferences with the labor negotiators? >> always you know. >> So that genesis sounds like a comment that would better way to to items not list on the agenda. But that has nothing to do with this item. Janice, it sounds like you're commonly better place. With the public comment non agenda matters. But thank you for being here. Are there any other members of the public would like to make comment? Seeing none? We'll close public comment and a recess in a closed session. Yeah. I mean only look for sites. You visited the majority. Yes, he
spoke his going. I think read the message gave are doing just And >> Welcome back, everyone. The time is 302. And we reconvene in open session. MADAM City Clerk. >> Thank you. Mayor Councilmember Rogers. Councilmember MacDonald air Councilmember Fleming, as absent Councilmember Ben Willows here. Councilmember Alvarez as Vice Mayor Okrepkie here, Mayor Stapp here. Let the record reflect all councilmembers are present with the exception of Councilmember Fleming. >> Thank you very much. All right. We will move on to our study session item. 4.1, our Santa Rosa housing strategy. We've got the whole team here. MR. Osborne kick us off. Absolutely. Gave Osburn director of planning economic development. I do apologize. Really just get it. >> water here. Not in the best shape in milder years. But before we jump into this item, I would like to extend a big happy birthday to ms Nicholson's, Chris, to my right. This is a milestone birthday. I'm not going to say which one, but I do appreciate her commitment to the city to the residents of Santa Rosa and her craft for showing up on a monumental birthday. So happy birthday. And with that said on move on to the presentation today. So the item before the council is a study session associated with the city's housing strategy. The support of housing within the city limits has been a council goal for number of years. And in response to those council goals, there has been the adoption of a number
of policies and procedures to support housing through the form of policy work through the form of initiatives through the form of incentives to help out with a financial challenge of housing. In addition, the state of California as move forward with a number of legislation pieces to require the city to perform certain actions. Score housing. So what we'll do today is show how all of those pieces work in harmony to essentially provide an overall housing strategy for the city of Santa Rosa. So the areas of feedback that we're looking for for the council today, obviously we're open to feedback on any of the information that's provided. But what we will talk about at the end of this presentation is 2 pieces of legislation that the state has put forward over the last few years that are optional. Much of the state legislation is a requirement, but we have 2 pieces that are optional that we're looking for guidance on the council as to whether staff should continue exploration and potential moving forward to council options for adoption. So our housing strategy really focuses on a number of different areas that effectively act as the foundation for the strategy. The first and most critical is compliance with state law. What we have seen is the state of California has put forward requirements to pretty much all jurisdictions that require a plan to develop a certain number of units throughout the jurisdictional boundaries over the course of a defined period of time that is referred to our Reena cycle. I will discuss that more detail on future slide, but that compliance is a really important element because local jurisdictions must follow this state legislation. The second piece, which is
equally as important as community needs. Much of what we hear from the community is the need to reduce the cost of housing that has rent and purchase components to it. Obviously much of the housing that we focus on to increase density rent based but providing a path to homeownership is critically important. Many of us that have been fortunate enough to purchase property understand that that is probably the most valuable asset that we will have in our lifetime. So how are we providing providing an opportunity for folks to get through that barrier that ultimately result in generational wealth? The 3rd component really is community growth and how it intersects with economic development. Housing is growth. So as we produce housing units that has the ability to increased population as we're discussing the potential recruitment of businesses into the city of Santa Rosa limits. One of the first questions I get is what is the population? The second question behind that is what our housing trends look like over the next 5 years. So population is an incredibly important indicator to really increase economic development and to achieve our goals on that front. Specific component has downtown in transit or housing development. Much of Santa Rosa's housing has occurred through the expansion of single-family subdivisions over the course of many years. This is not unique to Santa Rosa. This happens in many jurisdictions. So as that
expansion starts hitting up against boundaries, then there's a desire to go back to the core and look at more urban infill and to better understand how from economic development strategy, housing can be increased in that court. I think the city sits in a fairly unique position in that area due to the number of city assets, the potential he could be analyzed for a better use in the downtown core. So that's an important piece of the strategy. Just a quick road map on some of the items that the council will see on the housing front in the remainder of this calendar year. We have today study session, which is a general housing strategy on JUNE 16th of this year. We will be doing a second study session that focuses on downtown economic development strategies with housing being a very specific piece to that and an important piece to that. And then our 3rd item will be a study session on the impact fee initiatives. There have been a number of temporary programs that the council has adopted, that reduce impact fees for housing developments both in the downtown and for affordable housing units. We will bring forward a comprehensive conversation of joining those together in a singular strategy, understanding that the council desires to extend those or to make any changes. When we look within our strategy, there are really 4 main pillars our focus points or areas that we really include has ripped foundational elements for how that successfully moves forward. The first is vision and there are really 2 documents that make that up. And these documents all discuss in more specific terms and future slides. But what we're really looking at here, our general plan and then associated specific plans, the
general plan is really the north star for the city. It is the guiding document for what goes where and that's very specific to commercial zoning residential zoning, understand where residential units are built in, understand how it all ties together from an infrastructure standpoint so that that's a critical foundational document. But it's it's at a very high level. It sets for a general policy specific plans. Take that information and look at a regional area and make the information more specific. So look at development details. They will look at specific land use. They've can occur and they can ultimately really help with seaquist reminding when developments come through. So their specific piece to encouraging housing. The next really is framework. So that takes the division and turns it into really an actual document. Our main framework We'll talk a bit about our downtown strategy as we move forward in this bucket as well. It really is the housing element. The housing element is going to take the specific numbers of units we need and turn that into an actual plan. Once again, I have a bit more detail future flights. Delivery is a really important component to It really deals with implementation tools, policies and resources that talks about how we take a vision for housing in turn into reality. And of course, we also track outcomes. Really, focusing on production which much of the housing strategy is that's focusing on the number of units developing. But it's important to note that what we're trying to do is increase our housing stock. So that means preservation of existing
housing. In addition to So diving into our vision, the general plan which the council adopted recently is our plan out a 2015. This serves as a long-term blueprint for growth and preservation. And as I mentioned, it really focuses on generally what goes where so the concept of zoning for residential for commercial and understanding all the parts and pieces that I that together when we from that into specific plans that translates those policies and to area specific guidance, probably our most popular specific plan is the downtown station area plan that really looked at our downtown core. It looks at zoning in certain areas. It's encouraging dense cities. It's also encouraging flexibility. So it really understands what the needs are from a development standpoint and it shows them in a plan. It also looks at infrastructure needed to support that. I think the important piece here is when we talk about streamlining of permitting specific plans are very important because they streamlined the environmental review. When the development is consistent with the specific plans, we also adopted our North Station area plan while ago. And there will be a future update to that. The North Station plan looks at the area around the northern smart station that looks at the intersection of them all the adjacent residential units. The senator, how center is a junior college intersects with that and really much of the focus from the state is to increase density around transit stops. So look at how we potentially can meet state requirements on that front, but and also excuse me, increase residential density around the transit station. Our rose, an area specific
plan was very critical to the rose and annexation, prime example as we adopt a specific plan that develops that land use prior to annexation. So we understand really the guiding principles for that area once it annexed into the city limits that leads me into South Santa Rosa specific plan, which our current effort under development now to look at the southern portion of Santa Rosa Avenue to understand in the event of annexation, what that plan would look like. So our framework, as I mentioned, the housing element focuses heavily on our regional housing needs allocation or arena. Reena is a process where the state determines and a certain geographic area, the amount of housing units that are needed then within that area, the total housing units are then assigned to counties and jurisdictions, each housing unit. That's a sign has an affordability category to it. So that is our goal of housing units that we have to meet over a specific time frame and that recycle, which is an 8 year period. The city has to show how we potentially can produce units. That year period. So the housing element looks at available land. It looks at how those units will be distributed across that available land. And it looks at the policies and procedures that would promote that production. What's important to note is housing is generally produced by private entities in the private sector. So there are a number of economic factors that can affect whether housing goes through or not by the responsibility of the city is to set forth a plan that shows it can be done. Excuse another piece of the framework is our downtown city asset strategy. And it's been a discussion
from the council for number of years going back into the past and it really takes a look at the number of assets that the city has in the downtown and due to those number of assets, how the city can potentially influence positive growth in the downtown from an economic development benefit. And I think what's important to know when when looking at a downtown asset strategy is the concepts of live work and play. They're very critical pillars. And typically for the cities that have successfully maneuvered into re-imagining their downtown, they had all 3 of those pillars. So, for example, work is the businesses that employ people in the downtown that drives daytime commerce. For those of us that work out of downtown. And we freaked frequent businesses before and after work. So it really supports really that lunchtime crowd. It is very critical to those businesses that didn't need that level of activity. Live is obviously a piece that really is housing centric obviously in a walkable community, someone lives and works downtown. But by providing housing units, you're driving that foot traffic. You're making it more attractive to businesses that MAY want to invest. There's options such as grocers that come into the mix because of housing units. So that's very critical because you're increasing the population in the downtown. The play is associated with activating the space bringing people that do not live in the downtown core work into the downturn court. There. And those are either individuals from the city or from outside of the city. So becomes a tourism peace focus of hotels and some of those other pieces such as offensive support hotels become critical. So when we look at the downtown assets, it's really understanding. Do they
hit those 3 pillars? So when we're activating underutilized public land, how do we look at potentially sporting that with housing and mixed use development? That seems to be the most common. You're hitting the work. You're hitting the sales tax generation of the commercial. But you're also bringing the live into it. How can we also increased downtown vibrancy and walkability that's creating an environment. People want to be in driving people to that area that all strengthens economic activity. As we redevelop, we're bringing property tax and but a lot of this becomes a sales tax generation tactic. And that's what successful downtown's do. They're hitting on all of the revenue streams. So when we look at this, it's really important to focus on those 3 pillars and understanding are reacting space to meet the 3 pillars and ultimately is creating a more active and resilient downtown course. So when we look at out the activation strategy, obviously the city Hall site becomes very critical to that piece. The city hall site as well situated in the downtown core. It has eyes on a creek. It's close to a transit station. It's very close to the course center which is now courthouse Square. It also represents 7 acres within that area, which is the largest single site in that downtown area. So any any change in the downtown can be transformative for excuse me to the city Hall site can be transformative to the overall down. How so once again as we run it through the 3 pillars. What are some potential options? And that's that's really an important piece in it. It gets into start of the housing concept, the hotels, the restaurants, because it's a tempting to look at how we can meet that demand and having such a sort of a from an acre standpoint, there is the potential of hitting those
3. So we do know this is a very detailed conversation. We do know that city Hall site and housing in particular is very critical to the downtown. So our goal is to have a more detailed conversation on JUNE 16th with the council through a study session format to do a deeper dive into this concepts. So with that, I will hand the presentation over to Deputy Director Jessica Jones to talk about the delivery strategy. Thank you, Gabe. So as over these next few slides, we're going to be really talking about. >> The cities delivery from a policy perspective on furthering our investment in our housing and development of housing within the city. So as the council will recall in 2018, you adopted a fee incentive program. Was based on encouraging housing production increase density in our downtown area. And it provided incentives for a man in couple facilities fee and park feet perspective based on building height. And there are also some additional incentives that were added in there for projects that included onsite affordability. That program was set to run through AUGUST of 2023. And then 2022, prior to that expiration, the council provide an extension. So the program now runs through AUGUST of 2026. So that's obviously this year. So as mentioned earlier in the slides, we will be coming back to you. Mayor first meeting in AUGUST with a recommendation for adding some additional time to that incentive program. And then in 2024, the council adopted a resolution that provided an incentive for deed restricted affordable units. And that was a three-year program runs
through JANUARY of 2028. And that provides reduced couple facilities, fees down to 0 for units that are providing affordability. And then also in 2024, the council's part of the development. Few services update. You adopted some fee reductions. Some of those reductions included a 50% reduction in building permit and engineering development services fees for projects that included hunter for to be 100% affordable housing as well as housing in our downtown area. So the council, as you are well aware, have adopted numerous policies over the years related to increasing both housing options as well as streamlining our permitting process is. Some of those. And we've kind of identified here on this slides. Recently, the council adopted a missing middle initiative that was adopted in 2025, we have not yet seen that come to fruition with any actual applications coming in, but we're very excited about that program. It provides for smaller, more affordable units that are in areas that are we also brought initiatives to implement our housing element of those included options for tiny homes on wheels as well as various I write approvals, including for smaller residential developments. As a council knows we bring forward every year regulations to adopt state housing regulations. So, you know, will be going into those and a little bit more in the next slide. But do respond new legislation that's really
aimed at dressing. The housing crisis. And then in 2018, a program that's been ongoing and has been relatively successful is the reduce review authority process multifamily projects in our priority development areas. So those projects that would normally go before the designer of Ian Preservation Board for Design review are reduced down to the zoning administrator level. And that process provides for a more efficient process, more timely and less expensive for the applicants but still provides that opportunity for public engagement. And so it's it's been a very successful process. So as I state housing laws or something that we deal with every year in the last 10 years, it's about 2016 that the number of state housing to come out each year has increased dramatically. We've seen well over 100 new housing laws within that 10 year period. And again, they they are designed to combat the housing crisis. So we do come forward each year changes to our zoning code to implement those laws and some of them can be done through checklists in administrative review process is internally, but many of them do come before the council. Some of those pieces of legislation require moving from or local oversight to state mandated production. It includes strict review times that we have to comply as well as that more ministerial process, which I'm gonna get into in our next slide. These changes have also brought along streamlining for the Environmental review or seek a review process as well as reforms to density and zoning regulations. And those include various changes, too. Accessory dwelling unit laws
as well as new laws like sb 9 which provide for smalls subdivisions and small urban development. So this chart outlines kind of the differences between the ministerial process and the discretionary review process. I'm just going to highlight a couple of the key points here. So as you can see on the side, both public hearings community input are not required for ministerial projects. They are required for discretionary review. We typically for discretionary projects provide neighborhood meetings as well the present projects going through either a public meeting or a public hearing process. The minister projects are not required to go through that Nor is there typically time to do that. Given the state mandated timelines that we have comply with. So those on the ministerial side, we're really looking at checklists, really making sure that the project's meet the objective standards that are set forth in our are various codes and our general plan to make sure that the project complies, if the project does comply, then it moves forward to the building permit process. And it's it's been something that generally worked. Well, we do get concerns from community members when projects show up. But we had a recent example of a project that went through a ministerial process that came in in FEBRUARY and was just
issued building permits. So really does speed up that review process they can oftentimes take a lot longer. The other piece of this is that through the ministerial process, there's a much lower cost again because we don't have the amount of staff time involved in and the outreach piece and preparing for meetings, writing all the technical reports that we have to bring forward to the decision makers. And so it's less of a cost more timely for the applicants and is also more predictable process for applicants. So delivery of our housing policies is typically handled by our advanced planning team, which is headed up by Amy Nicholson here. And and we so we've got are in the planning division. We've got the advanced planning team, which does a long-range policy review. And we have our development review team which processes all of our new development applications. Prior to 2016 when I talked about the kind of that's really when a lot of the housing law started to really kick into effect. The advanced planning included about 2 people. It was generally a supervising planner and a staff planner and most of the policy work that was necessary to complete council goals deal with other state mandated things that were in at that time could be handled by those 2 planners. However, as mentioned, we've had incredible increase in state mandated policy that as well as as additional other policy worked of come up over the years that advanced planning
team has increased to 4 planners. So one supervising planner and 3 staff planners. And even with that under the current amount of policy work, which there is an attachment to your staff report that it identified some of the work that we're currently working on. We do not have enough staff capacity to process those state mandated and council goal policies with the 4 planners that we have. So way that we've been handling that recently is trying work within the means that we have our development review team currently is does not have as heavy a workload. Right now. Development is down a little bit. So we've been having those. Some of those players come over and work on some of the policy work, which has been very beneficial for planners and helps us get those policies out. But it really becomes a challenge when our development review kicks back. And so it's it's it's a challenge that we're continuing to work through. So now I'm going to hand it over to director passenger to move on with the presentation. Thank you, Jessica. So as Gabe initially touched on with our Reena goals, one of the ways that the city and the housing authority which support your efforts helps advance affordable housing units is through the administration of our federal funding as well as local resources that we compile annual basis to provide as loans to develop parks. So for the past 3 years, we've averaged about 3.5 million that's available to go out for new production as well as rehabilitation of existing affordable housing units. This funding allows the projects to then pursue tax credits. Ponds or funding that's available from the
state. So Ari says resources are generally the first in our relatively small and then they pursue the larger amounts that helped the projects come to fruition at the state level. Some of the other tools that we use and housing and community services are affordability agreements through the density bonus and housing allocation ordinances. These allow developers to seek variances to zoning code in exchange for that to dedication of affordable units. Those restrictions are 55 years and are secured against the property. Similarly, when we provide loans to developments, we have 55 year regulatory agreements that ensure the long-term affordability of those units for those households and then finally, the other tool that we use to help advance affordable housing projects and has certainly retracted in recent years. Our project based vouchers and this was regulation that allowed a portion of our voucher pool to be dedicated to specific projects. So there's a cap on the percentage about yours that you can do that, too. I can go up to 25%. We have reached that percentage. So we have a variety of project based vouchers at developments throughout Santa Rosa and that allows those residents to have a voucher tied to the project that they can reside. Next slide. I think Jayden Games going to jump in really quickly on this next slide. Thank you. Megan Circling back on the delivery front to our downtown asset strategy. What the council is seen in the past is really significant ever effort to. >> We look at existing parking
areas and the downtown once again for a best and highest use. So that's taken the form of surplus ing underutilized properties. What we've seen come out of that action as we're currently looking at a 300 mixed use development under an exclusive negotiation agreement on one of those, we have a redevelopment site out for rfp for the development partner for another. And we have a site completed the Surplus Lands Act and ready for rfp this year. So this is really an example of how the city and the current and future councils have looked at and avenues to basically increase the best and highest use on some of the sites downtown. So once again, this is an item that will dive into more detail on 16th. But we just wanted to provide a solid understanding of what this looked like because it's a critical piece to our delivery strategy when it comes to downtown redevelopment and are Associated Economic strategy. And at this point, I'll move the next slide and hand it back to director passenger. >> All right. So with all that background, we want to touch on some of the efforts that the city has achieved over the past. Nearly 10 years. And as you can see through this attached chart and the various colors we've had a lot of housing units come to fruition and certainly between 21 and 25 we've seen and extraordinary increase in the number of multifamily units that have been permitted and constructed within a city. Say we have pretty consistent construction in single-family, which is the likely kind of teal color throughout our reporting period. And then 80 use, which are noted in yellow have steadily increased and this goes back to the co changes that Jessica mentioned that we address back in 2018
next slide. Please. So next, want to touch on our reena efforts and we have few following slides that provide bit more context for because of our chart doesn't really explain the efforts the city has undertaken and how much we have achieved. So as you can see, we consistently have robust moderate units and that we're able to deliver. And again, these are the efforts of private developers constructing units. You'll certainly know between 21 and 23. We see I significantly increase in are very low and low-income units. This can be directly attributed to the influx in disaster recovery funding that came to the city. 38 and a half million dollars as a result of the 2017 fires. Those were coupled by federal tax credits that a purse were also able to access as well as an increase in affordable housing funding at the state level. So there are robust resources that were available in twenty-twenty that a lot a lot of these projects to seek financing and the position themselves for construction. We are returning back to a more normalized affordable housing funding cycle. As I noted, we have about 3 and a half million available this current fiscal year for 26 27. And that has been the case for the past couple of years. So we're going to see our affordable housing production returned back down to a to a lower level as a result of decrease resources. Next slide. Please. So what I wanted to touch on because again, the bar bar chart doesn't provide that much. Contacts is just the number of projects that have been completed and brought to the
community and affordable housing. So as you can see in 2016, one project was completed. But as we move through the years we see more and more projects that we were able to deliver for our residents. Certainly as we get to 21 is when we start to see things pick up and then 22 just on this page along we have 3 projects that were able to deliver. Over 100 affordable housing units. So again, these are restricted for 55 years. And I have units set aside for various income categories. Next slide. Please. 20 twenty-three's when we started to see a lot of the projects that were assisted through our disaster recovery funding as well as those tax credits and other resources such as state homekey. That's where we see Saint Vincent de Paul comments. All of these projects reach completion and started to lease up so significant. Progress was made in that time period. As we return to a normal morning, my cycle, we're seeing that kind of trend back down. But I would like to note because we touch early in the presentation on Surplus City Land, South Park comments was the former senior center site on. But wrote, thank you. That the city's surplus to a developer we were able to use Housing Authority resources project based vouchers and were able to bring this project to fruition relatively quickly. And with that, been turning it over to Amy Nicholson. Oh, I'm sorry. One more site. And some of the other tools that we use and housing and community services and with the housing authority are funding for the rehabilitation of mobile homes. We currently have a process open. We're mobile home owners can seek funds to provide some life safety improvements to their mobile homes. We have received funding recently too restart our down payment assistance
program. You MAY remember we kicked one of those off following the influx of the p money and were able to assist a handful of residents in purchasing their first home. So we're excited too restart that in the coming months the city also funds a fair housing contractor. It's fair housing advocates of Northern California that provides assistance to tenants and landlords in adjusting in addressing discrimination issues that they MAY be encountering. We also refer residents to legal aid to navigate through some of the the issues that they MAY be having. And then finally, we administer the Mobile Home Rent Control Program. And that provides rent caps on mobile home spaces in the city's mobile home parks. We monitor those on annual basis to make sure that the proposed rate increases are not exceeding 70% of cpi on an annual basis. So with that, I'm turning it over to tv. Thank you. And good afternoon. Mayor and council members so building on today's presentation, the next few slides will focus on 2 optional policy tools available for council consideration and direction. >> So as you've heard the majority of the city's recent work related to state housing legislation has focused on implementing what is mandated so that includes updates to our local regulations and processes as well as implementing our housing element. The 2 optional policies that will be discussing today include Senate Bill 10 and Assembly
Bill 10. 33 and both of these options would require staff capacity and policy and program development. So starting with Senate Bill 10. This legislation is essentially a zoning tool. What it does is it can allow cities to increase residential density on parcels to allow up to 10 units on a single parcel. This rezoning would be exempt from any environmental review, which would typically be required. And there are specific locations where this rezoning could be applied. To. The areas include the one half mile radius around both of our smart stations and can also include water identified as urban infill sites. So these are sites that have either previously been developed or that are substantially surrounded by development, which really opens up pretty large portions of the city. As a part of this rezoning effort, if directed by council. One note that I want to highlight any very high fire severity zones that have been identified by Cal Fire could not be included as a part of this effort. In addition to any open space, our recreation lands that have been approved by the voters. So while properties that meet the criteria that is outline on the slide, could it receive that increase in residential capacity? The number allowed per parcel and the exact locations would be at the discretion again of the City Council. So some benefits and considerations as it relates Senate Bill 10, it would increase the allowed housing opportunities within the city. >> Particularly in areas that already have access to
infrastructure and utilities. This bill also provides a lot of flexibility. So there are no requirements for the types of housing that would need to be developed on the site's just relates to the number of units that could be allowed. So this could help to provide housing types address a variety of the needs within the community. If the council directed staff this. Program could be set up to be ministerial. So as Deputy Director John spoke about earlier, this creates a more streamlined, unpredictable process for housing developers to move projects forward. Some considerations for the council include the significant staff effort that would be associated with developing this program. This would include extensive site analysis and mapping across the city to determine what sites might be appropriate and what development standards would be applied. There would also be extensive community outreach necessary for this increase in residential density. And then, of course, the development of the ordinance itself. There MAY also be community concerns as it relates to increasing residential density. So again, working through our community engagement that MAY also brought in the amount of time and staff resources necessary to complete the effort. So turning to assembly Bill, 10, 33, this legislation is focused on the ownership opportunities rather than new housing production. Be 10. 33 allows for cities to establish a process to allow for a
separate sale of an accessory dwelling unit from a primary dwelling unit. And this is done through condominiums style ownership model. So the intent here is to provide additional lower costs, homeownership opportunities by allowing a legal accessory dwelling unit to be sold independent from a primary unit. So potential benefits, one of which already mentioned would just be a lower cost entry to homeownership based on the size of an ad, you as well likely a smaller lot size. This could also provide for while, building opportunity for any homeowners that currently have an accessory dwelling unit on their property. And would allow residents are property owners to leverage what's an already existing building instead of having to construct a new one. Some considerations what the implementation of this optional state bill include. >> The >> administrative work required both on staffs and as well as a property owner to create a program. And then updates to the city's regulations. Because of the condominium style ownership model, there would be requirements for legal agreements for items like maintenance and access. But this work could be completed by additional staff capacity being allocated from our planning and economic development team. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Director Thank you, MISS Nicholson just to close
us out. So as a reminder, we're happy to receive any feedback regarding housing strategy from the council. >> What staff is hoping for today is that we can get specific direction on the 2 policies Nicholson just described and really what we're looking for is on our initial analysis, what we've identified is from a staffing capacity standpoint be 10. 33 is a bit more streamlined and less intensive than sb 10, maybe 10. 33 also has a number of examples from other communities that helps us out immensely I can't say that it's necessarily a copy and paste from that strategy. But much of the heavy lifting has been done and we've had jurisdiction such as San Jose that have adopted and actually have practice doing so. So that actually streamlines much of that work. So if there's a desire to move be 10. 33 is fairly packaged and really has less decision-making process and we think we can explore and move forward with a potential adoption. So really, what we're looking for is that does the council have an interest in staff prioritizing that as we move forward this year when it comes to sb 10, there's a number of various decision-making process. Isn't there to understand what it looks like and that is whether it is a ministerial or discretionary process and where it would potentially apply. So with that being the case, our recommendation would be to do another study session about sb 10 to allow us to further explore if that's the council's direction and come back with those various options. So the council can understand the decision points. Understand what a community engagement strategy would look like and further explore. So those are the 2 areas that we're focusing on.
But as I mentioned, happy to take any feedback on additional housing strategies that the council MAY be aware of, that we haven't discussed. So with that, I would like to close out we are available for any questions. The council MAY have. An excellent and thoughtful presentation from the planning team. As always. Thank you and happy birthday, me. Thank you for spending it with us. >> And MR. MR. Osborne especially impressive to watch you recover after you're obviously stressful journey here. I have to say found that mesmerizing. In fact, I'm looking at MISTER Not here. As as the city continues to to look for ways to get our community to tune in or city council meetings. Reza is not a bad idea to have our staff give highly technical presentations after performing strenuous work of some of some kind this really to dampen up So thank Thank you for that. Let's bring it back to council for questions. MR. Donald. >> Thank you, mayor. And thank you for the presentation. I do have a couple clarifying questions because of these 2 pieces of legislation that we're going through. Either of the adoption of either a b 10. 33 and 10 help achieve our reena numbers. >> be 10. 33 does not increase density. And I think that's an important that allows ownership of that unit that is already allow so individuals can build units. And I think that's important from a neighborhood ability standpoint for the community to understand it does not increase density or unit types. It just allows ownership to change. So the easy answer is no, because there would be other pass sb Yes. So that would be pathway
to increase density on certain Lots. That wouldn't necessarily have that right now. So in a situation where a developer elected to take advantage of that option, the these are proposals where the state as they go through sort of exploratory understanding the various parts and pieces that can support housing. It's either mandatory or optional, but they're all focusing on increasing housing production and often focusing on increasing density. So sb 10 would have the option to help out with our reena totals. Okay. Great. >> And then I know there's some administrative duties that would come about for sb 10. Are those similar to the sb 35 Administrative duties that we currently go through for those high density housing projects that seem to be exempt from some of the environmental impacts and studies to streamline process. to kind of go together or are they 2 completely separate things >> I think they could go together. They are 2 completely separate things in the sense that sp 35 is a process that the state set forward to require a ministerial review of an application. So as Deputy Director Jones mentioned in a situation where a developer and meet certain objective design standards and the criteria under state law, we verify essentially through a checklist that they meet those requirements and they're able to move straight to building permit sb 10. And this is really the reason why it needs a bit more explain next from nation is at leaves holes in that process. It doesn't specify how it should work. So that would really leave it up
to the council to determine when approving a development project under sb 10, whether the council elects to move forward, more ministerial process or more of a traditional discretionary process. I would state that the ministerial process for the reasons ms Jones mentioned they're easier on staff. They obviously have more of a stream, minor predictability aspect to developments. They're generally more appetizing for developers, the challenges they create in the community is they remove the public engagement process through the development review cycle. To kind of follow up on that. Some of the concerns that I've heard around specifically, I think sb 35. >> Is that there isn't that engagement and where does that come into play on traffic studies and and what how that impacts a community. When we add high density housing and they haven't gone through that process to the sun to the feedback of, hey this, putting 50 new units here 100 new units here is creating quite a mess. And this area do these pieces of legislation just say you don't have to do and we're going focus on the housing and worry about your traffic issues later or do they require that those same studies are done like in regular development. Thank you for the question. Councilmember. >> We have options with implementing Senate Bill the rezoning itself. So what allows for the additional residential density is exempt from environmental review. And so that's often times when we would see at least a high
level review of traffic impacts. >> a variety of other environmental impacts. If the council wants to keep it as a discretionary It's still go through the typical public hearing process, but someone would have the ability to construct more units that that typical review could still occur. So the public can put the review of traffic studies. But the real limitation when a process is ministerial, is that you can only require what's very clear in the regulations. And so anything that does require some judgment is is eliminated from being considered. If that top as a way, we couldn't deny So it's not in that legislation. >> And we find that this is going to be a traffic nightmare. We can deny it if it meets the qualifications of the legislation itself that when I'm understanding? >> Let's Okay. So I'm I'm gonna try and back up a little bit because this gets complicated. Very quickly. That's why I'm asking So first is the allowance of the additional units. And so normally you would look at the general plan or the specific plan for the land use that's allowed. So that would include the number of residential unit who could have on a lot. And so those plans do that. High-level analysis to ensure that we have services and infrastructure you know, looks at traffic in circulation. And then most projects come in and their review to ensure they're consistent with those documents and traffic impact study MAY be required depending on details of the project, but at a high level,
those have already been reviewed. What's different about Senate Bill 10 is that it actually allows for more units than what the general plan are. Specific plans have analyzed and because the rezoning is exempt from the environmental review process that would have to happen as a part of the ordinance development because there is an interest in U.S. Understanding what impacts would be that wouldn't be mandated by legislation. But but certainly be important to understand. Or it could happen later on in the process. Like you mentioned, they provide some type of traffic analysis and then that's reviewed by city staff and is available to members of the public. >> And so just to go back, I'm jumping back and forth. So I appreciate you following me on this one. 10. 33, those are for existing ad used to be sold. Not for somebody to be able to buy a lot. Do 9 split and then sell the a do you or does that's to meet the qualification of it. >> be 10. 33 can apply in any circumstance where there's a legal ad you but it does not allow any more accessory dwelling units >> than what is currently allowed now. So really just provides an opportunity for someone to sell the accessory dwelling unit, but not to create any more den water currently allowed. >> Okay. We have a policy that allows for construction for ad use in the city that were actually trying to streamline that process. Encourage if they're in the process right now of building an ad you are.
30 people out there that plan to do that meeting. Our current ordinance would then allow them the opportunity to sell those as well. Yes, okay. That's so same goes like if I have a house and I decide in 5 years and atu, this allows that to happen. Why is there a homeowners association connection to that piece of legislation and who oversees that homeowners association. >> Yeah. So it's interesting. The ribs of the subdivision of land is governed by the Subdivision map Act, which is a state requirement. And so currently now, if someone does what is referred to as a lot split that lot split creates what is known as common interests land. So sometimes developments have land that is owned in common. Sometimes they have shared driveways. Words on somebody is land but somebody else has rights on it that effectively the state code is referred back to either a homeowners association or other means acceptable. So with an ad you which is likely built behind a single-family dwelling, there likely is a vehicular and pedestrian access need unlikely is a shared driveway. So typically how that's formed is that I would not envision that there would be the desire for one to create an association because there really isn't necessarily a common interest that needs to be covered. What happens is those normally take the form of joint maintenance agreements because the 2 property owner shared driveway at some point the driveway
needs to be repaved. And then that recorded document addresses the shared ownership. So what the subdivision map Act does is steps in and says that anything that share their needs to be a mechanism to ensure that the maintenance of that shared improvement is on the title and is covered in perpetuity. That's very helpful. Thank you. So I have one more question on. If if these are all like ministerial duties and checklists. >> And somebody has a concern about it. What's the process for an appeal for community members have some things going in. They have concerns about it. It's a checklist. It feels to me like they met the requirements and there's really not anything a community member can do. What wouldn't what would that? What would your feedback on that So it's a word becomes challenging as when state law dictates the process because essentially in certain circumstances and I think sb 35 is a prime example when we can make the findings, there isn't a defined appeal process under state law. >> If the council elects to form a ministerial process. And I'm happy to hear from my counterparts here. If there's any additional feedback on this, that the council has the flexibility to really break that in. And the reason I say that because there's a number of director level approval process is that my position has the authority to initiate where there is a defined appeal process for those under code that elevates to a board or commission or to the council. So we're sb 10 leave some of those gaps. The
council has the ability to program essentially create a bit of a hybrid from what exists from sp. 35 are some of those defined state processes where we've we've lost some authority to fill in the gaps in in a way that balances out the community needs. Thank you. That's it for my questions. Thank you. MISS Ben Wills. Thank you for the presentation. >> I just had a couple questions, I think about maybe 10. 33, because it it sounded like correct me if I'm wrong, that. >> You feel like the it's. >> Pretty forward and that you could. For lack of a better word easily implemented. But I did notice on slide. 21 said both options both sb 10, 10. 33 ab require prioritization of resources and there's a lot of talk about staff impacts. And so I'm just I'm just curious about that I be great. I know that doesn't necessarily add to our numbers of time at went back and forth. But at the same time, it sounds like it. Like I said directly easy to implement. But how would that affect staffing given that if I heard correctly, for example, one project started the process in FEBRUARY and just ended. So those about 4 months and I think some of the feedback that we get is always about much in general permits in general taking too long. Process is taking too long. So and it's not your fault. I just mean that we're already dealing with a lot of
workload. You all are. So I just wanted wondered if you could talk a little bit about that. Yes, happy to and thank you for the question. I think that really is always the challenge of. >> As we're brought forward with good ideas from a policy standpoint and how does that fit in the overall universe? I think what we're seeing right now is that on the entitlement side, because when we hear statements from the communities that permits take too long, the permitting process takes too long. It's important to dissect where that permit is what division it's occurring because much of what we're running into now is there's not as much activity moving through the planning side, which is more of the entitlement and much of that has to do with the streamlining efforts that the state moved forward with that most developers right now are trying to take advantage of those. They create more consistency in the process so that actually creates capacity on the development review side. Now the minute application comes in, that capacity is gone. And that's the challenging university run into. We don't control the level of activity that we see because that's based on the community's needs. So what we typically do with these as we have to understand, if it's on a list or not and much of what Jessica her team is focusing on is what is state mandated. And that has grown over the years. And a lot of the spreadsheets that we've provided showing the capacity that's critical. But activities such as entertainment Zones. South Center is a specific plan to some extent, those have the ability to shift So usually what we do is once we know that it needs to be on the list, we go through the exploratory figuring out what the need is, whether it can be done through professional
services and consultants because oftentimes that acts as a relief valve. But that takes budget for doing other things. So if the council does have a desire to move forward and typically what we'll do is we'll analyze. That is part of the process. So when we do have very much of a copy and paste sb 10 will be a different animal because that will give us the opportunity to come back and have a real conversation about priority and what would happen if we wanted to go down this road with our proposal. Now they be 10. 33 saying can move forward. What I would envision is entertainment zones and some of those more not mandated process is that we have to go through MAY have an impact on the timeline. But very much of that is based on the ebb and flow of capacity that exists out of current development and what we've tried to do to be more efficient with staff is to make sure we can have planners go back and forth between the 2 because private development work does have enough to does go really significant applications and more applications than the team can handle. And then it slows a little bit. So what I would envision is that it gets into and maneuvering of the timelines for the non state mandated as as we move forward. But you're likely talking about moving out a few months here and there that I just I'm not seeing a lot of the work and we've had a long conversations about this because it started with its a lot of work. And as we explore and we look at what's done and then we can have more of a reasonable timeline. But
writing staff reports bringing in front of the council going to the planning Commission, right? Those are all steps that that affect that. So we don't have a solid answer at this point on what that would look like because it is a been dependent, a lot of factors. But I do appreciate the question. And I know the team appreciates it. If we really thought it would affect capacity, we likely would have brought forward that we need to have a study session again to discuss prior to station setting. So we do think based on where other jurisdictions sit with this in our analysis that there is a lot information that we can pull off of and it becomes more of the adoption process than the formation. There isn't an environmental component to this. So we think it is more streamlined and I apologize for the long response. But I really appreciate the question because it's an important aspect of what the teams dealing with right now. Thank I think it's upper right now. >> Thank you. Vice Mayor. Thank you, MR. Mayor. >> Thanks so much for that presentation. Really appreciate it. Zooming out a little regarding sb What percentage of the stuff that is involved in sb 10 is a city of Santa Rosa already doing. Are taking efforts that sb 10 is trying to do in other municipalities in already doing in here on our own. Thanks for the question. Vice Mayor. >> We're not currently doing anything. That's exactly like was beaten allows. But in the general spirit of increasing residential density we are. And so it's not at that 10 units. >> Parcel level per se because that actually equates to an extremely high density depending on lot size. But we
are looking at increasing densities in the North station. We recently updated our downtown stationary specific plan. So that's and a similar theme to increasing near transit as well as just in our urban infill sites or kind of central to the city. We worked on missing middle housing, which also increases residential density. So similar efforts but not identical. >> Okay. So not identical twins, but like fraternal Twins, kind of a thing. And far as Ab 10, 33 are there other municipalities that we've looked at? I know you said that there's some packages that have done that implemented it, right? I'm not I'm not really concern about the looking about markets are about the results combined with the implementation of the efforts. So we've seen in areas that have implemented a be 10. 33 have significant Do we have any sort of information on that? All right. That would necessarily call them son in significant. And the team can correct me on this. If if I misspeak. But I believe San Jose was one of the first adopters. If not the first adopter. >> And they saw their first date. You go through not too long ago. So I think one of the challenges is anytime you subdivide. You're creating dedicated utilities for that additional unit. Your meeting, specific requirements. So there's quite a few construction elements that MAY make it cost prohibitive so I can say that we've seen an example. Ina Sebastopol was a more recent adopter. Obviously, there's not a test case there yet, but it does not seem as if San Jose Open the flood gates and saw a significant number of inquiries on this. And San Jose is obviously a much
bigger jurisdiction. Okay. >> And then the kind of dovetail off of council rain. Weather says question the line that really stuck out to me in the staff report was the capacity to implement non mandated state housing housing initiatives is limited, that is extremely diplomatic. Congratulation. That is a very diplomatic. Term to basically say that there would be Akron saying there's going to be tradeoffs. I mean, that to you had a longer answer. But I'm just trying to get down to the nitty gritty of it is that we're going to pick something else slow down or put aside if we want to implement that. Is that correct? Yes, I think it's a fair statement that they would have to be tradeoffs, that the team is really moving it at full capacity at this point. And most of the workloads on the various staff members are programmed. >> It's really understanding of what those tradeoffs are and whether they would significantly impact the projects that are not on the state mandate west. And that's where we go based on complexity that the impacts and likely will be minor when we really figure that out based on level of effort needed to move Aby 10, 33 forward. But thank you for the question. Okay. Thank >> Thank you. And really MISS Been we Los MR. Think went to the heart of what I what I what I was asking. Was looking for the trade-off here between potentially pursuing either sb 10 or a be 10. 33 and keeping the momentum going and losing the momentum on other projects like on missing middle housing. One of the things in the presentation did very nicely is outline how much the city of Santa Rosa has done over the past 10 years. I mean, we were one of the first pro housing cities in the state for nothing. All right. We see the impact of the
numbers and conceptually you've got complete buy-in from council. I think if I'm reading my colleagues correctly as well as from staff are on the line and on went on and wanting to loosen up and creating opportunities whenever we can. It is difficult to figure out where the real opportunity whether it is continuing to to put all of our existing resources towards the missions we have underway or pork or pursuing some of these other avenues, my my into eating correctly that there's more interest from staff at this moment. 4 a b 10. 33 than there is for sb 10 for reasons of just to the return on investment. >> Yes, I agree. I think that that is a fair statement. As the director of the apartment, one of the challenging things for me is to address the I don't have a path to homeownership in this community. And there's not too many things that we can do other than figure out ways to financially subsidize that. I think in a creative scenario we're creating an ad. You putting a property line around that ad. You selling that off allows one to basically threw an affordable by design concept potentially have property that they can on at a lower amount that allows them to build equity for many of us that started off in the housing market and the community. This was condominiums, condominiums are produced at the same level of rate. So although I don't necessarily see that this will produce a vast number of units, it does address a community problem statement. And there's not too many tools in the tool box that do that will do that. So for that reason and that reason alone, we see value in it understanding at the end of the day, ultimately how cost
effective it is. You know how the lending industry response to this like a lot of that is unknown whether becomes feasible or not. We're not sure. But this is an area where we can put something forward. It's an optional tool that solves that problem. And for that reason and that reason alone through aggressive housing strategy, it makes sense because addresses that problem statement where most things are not able to do that. Tonight. We're putting and again, I think we're all in agreement that that that getting his first steps on the housing ladder housing ladder, particularly the first steps of ownership is so critical. >> It would be nice to revive our car, condiment condom market in some way. You also touched on as well. There are a lot of uncertainties work in the areas of insurance in terms of financing, even terms of utilities, including in some, you know, unusual, unusual circumstances. Like, for example, sector septic systems as opposed to being on on city wastewater. Do I hear correctly or to hear you wonder line of those are really their own tested and that there are a lot of uncertainties about what hour homers, how how potential homeowners would make those areas work. >> Yes, I think that that when it gets into utilities and access, those are standard issues that anyone subdividing land has to address. And usually with that results in is obviously if the property is on a septic system and you've created a unique parcel, typically, the unique parcel cannot share those utilities. So if you're on city services, the same holds true that oftentimes it's dedicated connections, water
meters pg e service. So they're often times in a subdivision is a substantial cost for doing the infrastructure needed to support that. Even when the infrastructure is on a very small parcel. And that's what we've seen over over the course of time. So what is really unique about this mine is it allows it's a different way to allow a subdivision. The can already occurred today to support to you. It doesn't reduce the cost of construction. Those still exist and many of the issues that pertain to those subdivisions likely still exist with a b 10. 33 and it just creates an additional tool for the smaller unit to have its own parcel and to allow a separate legal ownership. But, yes, it's not getting out of those utility issues because I believe any time you create unique property ownership, you create those issues with utilities, separation and having everything stand alone. That's clarifying. Is the county pursuing either one of these? >> they're exploring. I'm sure. Do we know what direction the county is headed? >> We're not aware of what the county's is doing relative to these 2 bills. Is there any advantage to the city to to wait until we have more information and to develop in tandem? >> Or we separate enough where we go in our direction is just as efficient. >> I believe one of the challenges and it's oftentimes why some of these requirements for local jurisdictions don't apply to counties is counties often struggle with density for obvious reasons. They're
usually not public utilities for what and well in our excuse me, water and sewer in unincorporated areas. Certain areas there are. But the majority of county, they're not. It's very much focused on well and septic those utilities naturally restrict development. So something like sb 10 is problematic. Many times just on that front that is difficult to develop and many of those county areas because of the utility availability be 10. 33, because the county has ordinances for accessory dwelling units and as long as they have that this is just an ownership over the top of it Well, and septic issue can be problematic. There. So we're happy to coordinate with the county to understand what they're doing. But I do see a difference between how cities and counties would adopt sb 10 where there might be a little more uniformity through Ab 10. 33. >> Thank you. All right. That my question. Nothing else from counsel Ms Rogers. Quick question. >> So its developers, I know >> someone already owns it that they can. So the atu go ahead with this. But developers for instance, there's like Citi Ventures does 18 use. >> On top of the home and then they sell the whole the whole home. I know the homeowner can do it, but can the developer now split it? We go ahead. With this. Understand what my question is. Thank you. >> Yes, that would be a possibility. So the reality is developer and existing homeowner construct an we often see through new subdivisions, residential subdivisions, the
incorporation to use. And I think you raise a really interesting point is that many in the in those denser areas and we've seen in many developments they to you is really a second story to the single family were attached to the single family. So what the ab 10 33 allows is what is referred to as airspace designations for lots. So when you own a piece of a structure above another that is defined as an airspace and it's illegal property boundaries. So is commonly referred to as airspace condominiums. We've seen a lot of that type of development where people own a space, an apartment complex and that MAY be one of the areas to where it becomes more enticing for developers to incorporate that because selling atu separately from the single family dwelling MAY be more profitable than selling them all together. So it MAY create an incentive to incorporate more ad using developments. But point councilmember we don't. Our initial pass has not seen an issue with that being incorporated in the current development project, which would involve a single family you. All right. Thank you. All opened up to public comment. We're going we're going to go to 2 minutes for public comment. >> We've got both Mikes open. A number of you've signed up. We know this is a room full of people interested in housing Thank you all for coming. Let's start with MR. To it. And then after MR. Do it will go Adrian Covert and Paul Schwartz. You could be waiting if you could be waiting by one of the mikes. Let's use them both to be efficient. But if you're buyer, you're my so we can. I would just moving along. Dwayne, Go ahead. Thank you, sir. >> My name is doing to it. I'm from Roseland. Also a member of the Sonoma County housing
advocacy group formed 30 years ago because there's a dearth of affordable rental residential units still. One of the problems that housing crisis is about is the way zoning has kept. Affordable rental residential housing units from actually being provided as well as they could be. Thanking the staff for the nice presentation. We would ask that you would focus in on sb 10. And also as before which allows for the use of faith based lands. Developed. There's a approach here that you can take. Without it being too onerous up on staff. Examples. Recently, Burbank Avenue Apartments were built. Burbank Avenue. They went through fast. Any of the complaints from the community were just steamrolled over. It's just like tough luck. The state says you got to have affordable housing. You're getting affordable housing, even if your community doesn't want it example is going to be the one on Montgomery Drive. They're at the Saint Eugene's site. So if you look at sb 10 and has before as positive additions to what bureaucrats like to call the tool box. You'll have your tool box to get out there and start to get. Affordable residential rentals. And last but not least look over t and t building. We were told that they were going to put affordable housing in there. And it's not been done yet, but they got all kinds of good incentives in the past. So you have to hold the developers feet to the fire to make it happen. Thank you. Thank you to Wayne Adrian, the ball and then Stephanie.
>> Adrian, go ahead. >> Good afternoon. Thank you. Mayor and council members for the opportunity to speak. My name's Adrian Covert today representing Santa Rosa Yimby a Pro Housing Association of Santa Rosa residents. >> Also a resident of the West end and a parent of a child that Santa Rosa City schools. >> I know this is a housing strategy session, but really this is about so much more than just housing. It's about affordability. It's about the school closure crisis due to a lack of demographics and lack of families starting here. It's about the city budget deficit as well. Because each of those challenges are downstream of the problem of having built too few homes relative to demand over the past several decades. I'm very excited that the city is entertaining, adopting an sp 10 ordinance be 10. 33 ordinance because these 2 ordinances would help expand homeownership opportunities expand units, availability and expand the supply in a way that minimizes both new liabilities also new impacts because these are infill type opportunities that we're talking about, which is exactly what we need to be talking about. And as the city prepares to go to voters to ask for a tax increase to help balance the city's budget deficit challenges. It's really important that the city be able to go to voters and say we're doing everything we can to use every single free and low-cost policy tool at our disposal to naturally
increase the pie increase revenues with more property tax receipts, more sales, tax revenue and growing population. So on the prioritization effort, I hear staff's challenges. I would say sb 10 is unique and that it's what can help us create more units, more units more quickly. It's a much more powerful tool. 10. 33 is fantastic. It creates ownership opportunities. But as 10 is what will help create the units. Thank you. >> Thank you, Adrian, Paul, Stephanie. And then John Contreras. All right. Good afternoon. Paul Schwartz amount. Commercial real estate broker in Santa Rosa. And I thank you for the opportunity to speak to the council and staff. >> Want to take a moment mention that. And I think Adrian did it good job of times together. Strong local economies really dependent on adequate housing. And I made this case recently here few weeks ago. When teachers nurses, first responders, service workers. >> Young professionals can afford to live here. Businesses struggle to attract or retain employees, which limits our ability to grow and prosper and attract firms to this area or retain firms in Santa Rosa. Housing actually is the is the foundation of a healthy economy. It supports local businesses strings strengthens our tax base attracts investment and helps ensure that future generations can continue to live and work in Santa Rosa. I think that it's very difficult given that and wrist in response to the mayor's question to the staff about our why very difficult to quantify what the arrow
eyes because there are both direct benefit, direct results that come to the city and the city budget. But there are many, many other indirect results to come in an economic forum that we MAY not MAY or MAY not be able to quantify or even track in terms of attracting companies, creating more jobs, things of that sort. As Adrian said, the the impact of sb 10 probably more substantial. If we look at it at night, I'd encourage you to look at. Yes, there are staff costs and implications. And certainly respect Gates efforts to quantify all of those things for you. I but I also think it's important to recognize that it might be a small price to pay to generate a far greater return on investment in the long run or even in the short term. I don't know that we have the answer to that. But I think the I think the result of adopting housing policies that support diversified housing is going to only benefit. >> Thank you, Paul. I want to Stephanie and then John and Ananda. Stephanie, go ahead. >> Good afternoon, Mayor vice mayor and council members. You heard my name is Stephanie and I'm here tonight representing generation housing. I want to thank you. Council and staff are holding this study session and offer our gratitude for the awfulness and the real long-term thinking that staff have brought to the housing strategy that was share with you I have a few comments I just want to share based on the presentation on sb 10 to clarify that the House, the types of housing that we're talking about, our duplexes
Triplexes port parks says and Corey or departments that fit right into the character of some of our most favorite neighborhoods in Santa Rosa. Allowing the separate sale to use is really low hanging fruit and Sonoma counties to possible already did it. They are seeing an increase in the development of a to use on plan projects. And that first ad you in San Jose that Director Osborne reference sold for 30% less than the neighborhood cops that's actually addressing and then addressing the mayor's question about the county sb 10 is a program of their housing element and they also have a v 10. 33 on their work plan. Kind zooming out a little bit at the beginning of the staff presentation today. You a chart was shared showing that permitting is returning to pre fire, rebuild efforts. It might feel like a return to normal, but it is a return to development crash post recession as a community. We really got used to these don't slow development numbers. But when we look at the wider history. We can see that we were significantly lower below other just decade said I heard from some of you that you're concerned about the slowing of momentum. That chart shows that momentum has already slowed. So to counteract that we really need to look all of the tools available. There is not a single policy. I'm so sorry. Bad news that is going to solve the problem. But each tool that we continue to work on is going to chip away at the shortage that impacts every single member of this community here. We would ask you today to give staff clear direction to bring back options for consideration adoption on both of these
policy presented today. Thank you. Thank you, Stephanie. >> Jon Ananda. And then Nick Pass a rally. >> Afternoon. Thank you. Mayor staff and distinguished Council members and thank you to the city team for wonderful presentation. John Contreras on with the Providence Foundation for Memorial Hospital. Problem of Valley and Healdsburg Hospital. And I'm here to speak on behalf of the efforts of generation housing and these measures or as we're calling them bills consider and really want to encourage you all to look deeply. As you've already been doing to the wonderful ramifications that can impact our community in a positive way. I've been an educator for 30 years. 28 years here in Santa Rosa and I over those years far too many families struggling and trying to have their children come back to the county and live here after their college years, which for many was impossible. So to hear these creative ways that you are considering to bring affordable housing to our community is a benefit and it is encouraging to me. So on that note, thank you very much for this effort for the encouragement for all of us here. And I ask you to please consider the oversight that's necessary to push this forward. Make it happen. Make it happen. Now. And we'll have a better community because of it. And also not forget that health care is extremely important to us. All. So all this in for double housing connects not only to education and our schools, but to the health care that we all
desperately need on a daily basis. So again, thank you all. And Mark, let's reconnect again. >> Thank you, John. And thank you for do all of our speakers for tying together the issues of education, health care and housing costs. The point is well taken Ananda Nick and then Rachel Jeffries. >> Good afternoon. Mayor Staff council members, city staff. I want to start by acknowledging the work this council is done in advancing housing policy over the last several years. It's clear that housing remains a top priority and we really appreciate your continued willingness to explore new tools and strategies to address this critical challenge. Housing remains one of the most significant challenges facing our economy, our workforce and our community. The chamber supports efforts expand housing opportunities across all income levels and increase pathways to both rental housing and homeownership that reflect that needed variety. We appreciate the inclusion of options such as sb 10 and maybe 10. 33 as part of is discussion and support continuing to explore innovative approaches that can expand housing choice and created additional pathways to homeownership. We know there's no single solution to our housing challenges and addressing them will require a broad range of tools that support housing opportunities across all affordability levels, housing, types and stages of life, ensuring that Santa Rosa residents have options, whether they're seeking affordable rental housing workforce, housing, homeownership opportunities, or the ability to remain and grow within our community over time. As council considers housing initiatives, we
encourage continued focus on a few principals reflecting the chamber's policy platform. First continue improving certainty, transparency and predictability. The applicant's navigating the development process. Second continue expanding opportunities for ministerial and by right approvals where appropriate. 3rd continue. Looking for ways to reduce unnecessary time cost and complexity and housing development and forth continue ensuring strong coordination across city applicants experience a clear and efficient process. Finally, as you continue to navigate competing priorities and limited resources, we urge you to evaluate housing strategies based on measurable outcomes, increase housing production, expanded housing choice, improved affordability and faster project delivery. We appreciate the partnership in this work and stand ready to continue to work with you. Thank you. >> Thank Thanks to the chamber. All right, Nic, Rachel, and then Polish all. >> Manager for Habitat for Humanity of Sonoma County. In my role, I work directly with local families who are striving to achieve stable affordable homeownership. I guide them through our application process, financial education classes, mortgage preparation, and ultimately the journey of becoming homeowners are families who have lived in Sonoma County for years. Never knew that in just a short time, homeownership would become unattainable. Many have given up entertaining the possibility of homeownership altogether, all the while,
while dealing with sustainable rents, overcrowded conditions commuting long distances are constantly worrying that one unexpected expense could force them out of the community that I love. This is why I support sb 10 and sb 1033. As be time. Give City is an important tool to thoughtfully create more housing opportunities in areas where families need access to jobs, schools, transportation and services sb 1033. Is also important because it helps expand pathways to affordable homeownership. Home ownership is part is truly life changing. Children finally have a stable place to do. Homework and grow up. Parents came the security of knowing they will not be forced with sudden rent increases or displacement. Families are able to begin building modest financial stability and generational opportunity for the very first time. Please know that not every family needs a large single-family home with a backyard, but all families desperately want stability, dignity and long-term security that comes with owning a home of their own policies that support diverse housing types, unattainable ownership opportunities will make that possible. Habitat of humanity for Sonoma County. We believe housing solutions must include both affordable rentals and permanent affordable homeownership opportunities. We are grateful to see the city continuing to explore strategies that address the full spectrum of housing needs. Thank you. Nick. Thank you, Rachel. Pa law and then Valerie. >> Rachel, the floor is How okay? >> Good afternoon. Mayor and members of City Council. My name is Rachel Jeffries and I service the director of Community Engagement and fund development of Habitat for
Humanity of Sonoma County. Thank you for the opportunity to speak regarding Santa Rosa's housing strategy. 15 years ago, I came to Sonoma County to attend Sonoma State University like so many others iPhone iPhone love of this community and decided I wanted to build my life here. Today. Even with a college education and a stable career, home ownership still feels more like a distant dream. She bubble reality for me personally. I know that I'm far from alone in that experienced through my work with habitat. I see firsthand how deeply the current housing climate impacts working families, young professionals, essential workers, seniors and longtime resident throughout our community, people who contribute every day to the vitality of Santa Rosa are increasingly being priced out of home ownership. And in many cases pushed out of the community that they love. That's why Habitat for Humanity of Sonoma County support, thoughtful housing solutions like sb 10 be 10. 33 and why we support the housing for Healthy Communities Initiative. Sb 10 give cities more flexibility. If we want to address the housing crisis, we need to make better use of the land processes. We already have. Evie 10. 33 important because it creates a new pathways to a tunable homeownership and communities like Santa Rosa were single-family. Homes are out of reach for many people. This can help create more realistic opportunities for first time and middle income home buyers at habitat we believe solving solving housing crisis requires a full spectrum of housing solutions. Housing is not a one size fits all and our communities need a diversity of housing types
that reflect the realities of the people who live and work here. We need housing policies that make room for all housing types starter homes, to use affordable rentals and permanently affordable homeownership. 2 like Habitat because people at different stages of life have different housing needs and they all deserve a place Santa Rosa. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you. For the son of a state plug. >> and then Valerie. >> So that turned out to be a perfect segue to my talk because I now represent senior housing Santa Rosa Mobile Home owners association that I came here 20 years ago as the Vista volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. I've an advocate for housing, affordable housing for many years. And I know most of you MAY know already that. >> This is probably the last bastion mobile home living is probably the last bastion of affordable housing for many of seniors, especially but also just low-income people. And it is unfortunately also a wonderful investment opportunity for very wealthy investors who are moving into the county and into the city. Now cutting town mobile home park was purchased by Harmony. A couple of weeks ago and the residents are really nervous they're they're facing rent increases and other kind of insidious increases to their rent. Bill. It's it's really it's really scary. Concerning. And I just hope that all of you are aware and it sounds I was ignorant when I came here about these particular bills. But it sounds like elemental
in focusing Affordable housing, Valerie. Paula, thank you. And and we are aware. >> Valerie, go ahead. >> I'm Valerie Stocky. I currently work for the county is Sonoma as a housing navigator, housing unsheltered folks and pride previous to this spent 35 years an affordable property management. I'm also a proud member of a Santa Rosa Mobile owners association. As we continue to ask the council to consider and push for a senior overlay on our senior parks to protect them to remain senior housing. I also want to thank the council for their thoughtful questions and the housing authority in the housing Department for looking at all the creative ways we can provide housing in this county mobile home parks are. >> a wonderful opportunity. And that could be an idea in the future for not just seniors but employees, young people trying to stay in this county that can't seem to afford to do that. And we really want to encourage the hull integration of education, health care, seniors. And I just want to remind you, seniors are about 20% of our population in Sonoma County. We're one of the largest growing senior communities in the country and we vote and and we care about our communities. It's a beautiful community. We live in. But in order for us to have a healthy community, we have to take care of our most vulnerable
people. Otherwise we're going to have another big show. Red ata, pr mess and then everyone will be scrambling for money to address it in the last 5 years. Most of my clients are senior women. Many of them exporting to experience dementia and have nowhere to go. Thank you for for your efforts. >> Thank you, Valerie. Are there any other members members of the public would like to make comment on this is Carmen It moving towards the microphone go thank you, Mayor. >> Mayor and council. I agree that there needs to be a diverse population in Santa Rosa in all of Sonoma County is a matter of fact. All of the state is matter of fact, but it all costs money. And I want to say that I attending a housing authority. I believe it was meeting. And they were building 8 or 10 small homes. The homes were really tiny for the vets and they re to 50 1000 each. And the protection of the mortgage was 55 years. And that's speaking right now. 55 years is at least a generation and a half. And we don't want to be dumping housing costs somebody else enjoyed a long time ago. And by 20 years, they MAY not even be functional anymore. So I just want that to in people's minds that this all cost money and we need to come up continuously with creative ways for money. And I think is Sonoma County has always had
real draw. Now, the previous draw naturally or wine industry because everybody wanted to come here after we won the you know, special award. So people would come here will then they've pulled away and there are cities in our area that's still attract. And I think that there needs to pushed not for the wine industry, but for the intellectual industry that we have had a company on our journey here. There are many brilliant people in this area. And these people have also brought money and they are able to pass along the word. And I think we need to promote more as far as having international conferences coming here. Thank you. Thank you, Janice. Are there any other members of the public would like to speak on this item? >> Seeing none. We'll close public comment and bring it back to my colleagues for final comments and direction. Final thoughts and or direction to staff MR. Donald. >> Thank you, mayor. So I'm comfortable with the implementation of ab 10. 33 things that make sense. >> We're looking at first time home owner opportunities. It also helps potentially that the property owner, if they need to sell something off because they're getting older or they can see a way reducing their costs or property taxes. And and that there's still some complexities to me around this shared space. And I know that's gonna take some development that from stop it. It sounds like that was an area staff was comfortable with taking because it's
little bit. It's a little cleaner legislation for you to fall anything that you can implement? I think that's ministerial so that it doesn't require as much oversight. The checklist, I think would be helpful to staff, but also to the process of the homeowner who's trying to do the lot split and get that taken care of. As for us, we 10, I still have some questions on it. I have questions on how it relates 35 can they do in 10 as we 35 reducing oversight for studies that potentially need to be done is sb 10. I'd like to know the vicinity of where that would take place. It saying downtown infill area. Would that include things only by smart or is that included in our bus station as well as far as transportation. How that could potentially impact the 7 acres of the city host that you were talking about for development would be helpful to have that in place versus not being in place. So I think that one needs a little bit feedback from staff for me just so that I'm comfortable knowing what we're taking on versus the state. You what state puts on us for us to to do like the sp. 35. So because we have a little bit the ability to study it a little bit more. So we understand the implications of it and understanding what the other jurisdictions who have adopted it have had to go through. And if they've been
able to learn from some of the legislation so that we can fill those holes appropriately for our city. I think that would be helpful, at least for me. You know, obviously, my colleagues, we have a different opinion on that one. But for just for my comfort level I'm an honest Thank you, Wells. Thank you, Mayor. >> I would. I would agree with Councilmember MacDonald on the assembly Bill. 10, 33, if Be willing to bring backs how that would work for you and and the best possible way in terms of staffing prior to nation. All of those things that we talked about with wrist in and also because I think a good. Respect to Senate Bill. 10, I kind of been going back and forth because of the ministerial process and but I also know I keep coming back to the fact that we need more housing. So with that in mind and thinking about the fact that it will be if I understand correctly, primarily infill development and around transit. And I think that's all very positive for us and something that we need. I would love to see how that also would work for us. And how if at all possible. And that's more complex. But how it would how it could be implemented or follow through because I think it's something I don't know if adopted, if we have to follow it to the so that so. >> Whatever options that you MAY all have in trying to implement something like this. I recognize that this is a lot trying to implement both. But I also think that we need to find ways to continue to to build more housing, particularly affordable housing and different types of
housing, which is what I'm interested more diverse forms of housing because I think that's, you know, we we hear from our seniors, we hear from our young families. Everybody has a different need. And so I think all of those things are important. I think that's it for me. Thank you. >> Thank you. MISS Manly lows, MR. Creepy that you want chime in. I think for me, I'm not opposed sb a study session for sb 10 or the implementation of ab 10. 33, however, I am hesitant to do it at the behest of or head at not at the behest, but at What sort of looking >> To >> do to the detriment of the effort that we put 10's hundreds of hours towards months, years of doing already. 10's, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars like the South Santa Rosa Civic plan or entertainment zones or anything like that that were already deep into and getting close to the finish line Study Center as we tend get answer. Some of the questions of my colleagues have would be great. I I don't know if I would be you. In favor of moving that forward. After a study session putting a significant staff time towards it. So that's some of these efforts we've already undertaking our slow down or put to the side. We have a lot of efforts that discussed already for economic development we're also going, I believe, in work in progress. There were going after our pro housing designation, the second round of uprising designation helps us with funding. So the last thing I want to do is lose momentum on things that are
already helping us do economic development and build housing just to look at other things that are helping us build more housing does. It seems counterintuitive to me, but I also don't want to put it to the side and saying absolutely no to it. So I think pursuing it. Yes, but prioritizing or things like I've already discussed is not something I'd be interested in. Thank you. Ms Rogers. >> Thank you, mayor. Be 10. 33, I'm all for it. I think we should move forward. >> With that. >> When we get to sb due to capacity then Councilmember Okrepkie said I think it's very important for us to know that there are we could do everything. Reportedly. The fact is we cannot do everything because we don't have the capacity to do it. Sb something that I would like to look at in the future when we do you see that we can do it and do it? Well, all for duplexes and triplexes in homeownership, like I always say and like you said is a way for generational. Well, and having 2 children that are graduating next year from college and unfortunately they can't afford to live anywhere else. But in my house, they will be coming back home. So I understand the importance of meeting the housing and homeownership, but we just don't have the capacity right now. So I would like to see that in the Date unknown. But right now, I don't think that we can. We can handle that unless another jurisdiction MAY be does it and streamlines the process for us, then that would be great. And happy birthday. Thank you, MR. Alvarez. >> Thank you, Mayor. I think
we can all agree that. Rose from. From the housing. And with all innovative ideas or or strategies, the one thing that we're constantly redundancy. And so really, that's my only questions that we look at that and and with we're not creating 2 processes were between processes. I think question, whatever the answer that there's a possibly for us would doubt adopt something. Hybrid, whether it was not suggesting this, but I think I heard site specific. >> Or or >> Taylor into whatever applicant applications before us. But just the redundancy, I would hate to see multiple processes or one process create the different cycles. And and and these for part of a policy to satisfy the need. Thank thank you. Well, from my part, I hope that all of the housing advocates that we have in the room right now, I know we have many are pleased with the impact of their work over the past many years where you've got clear unanimity on council and among staff. >> And the only disagreement is on the logistics of we best push forward. A housing in the city. So I'm simply going to of the called the comments of my colleagues, which is that yes, conceptually there's interest. Certainly Navy 33 ab 10. 33 because it sounds like there's an efficient way forward. Also, an ab tend to the extent that this provides anything that our current missing middle housing project doesn't. Very clear interest and not letting either of these get in the way of the extensive projects that we have under way. One thing that it's it's sometimes hard for community members to keep a
handle on because you're not in the middle of it every day like staff or like council is how much is going on right now with economic development with downtown planning and with housing strategy, if you tune in for our council meetings over the coming months or if you have been tuning in, you're going to see regular significant updates in these areas. The city has a lot of pretty significant projects underway, which are going which some of which have already hit the public eye, some of which are coming and they're all in this space. And so the last thing that you hear that you heard it from everybody out on the day is here. The last thing we want to do is get in the way of that and we have complete faith in in staff, in our city, in our city managers and and in our planning team. To figure out how to manage those those tradeoffs from a different projects. So, yes, by all means at some point, let's talk about 10. 33 look at that. Look at the PRESIDENT And other cities figure out what can be valuable here. Should that get in the way of some of the of the other significant project you have under way now? Same with same with sb 10 is it is an interesting to the extent that it's helpful. Let's talk about it. Let's do a study session. Let's evaluate it. Whether we're talking about getting the way of strategies around the city hall site entertainment zones in the downtown other downtown development, opportunities and cetera, et We don't want to throw it is not our attention on the day as to throw wrench in the works. We we want to give you give staff and our city managers them the leeway to figure out the best way to manage those projects. Does that. I don't I'm not sure that was specific direction.
But does that give you sense of of of councils interests? >> No, thank you, mayor, that that is specific direction and we can work with that just to ensure that we heard that correctly. What we will do is we will work on a potential adoption package for ab 10. 33 within the natural staff capacity that exists through the flow of projects without modifying the timeline of the existing projects. Specifically those that are on the economic development front. We will do the same with sb focusing on a study session. And during that study session, we will bring forward options and some history with sb. 35, we will look at what it takes to incorporate sb 10 as worded. We will give the council some options for add-ons and we will have a very specific idea of timelines and impact that an adoption schedule half and we will do both that study session and the adoption package once again within the timelines of existing projects and not affecting those dates. Comes up. >> All right. You've you've read it correctly. Thank you all that there's some there's some spectacular were coming out of the planning Department of the city. I hope everyone pays attention. Thank thank you for all the work you're doing and thank you for all the community. Anderson. S please keep leaning in. All right. We're gonna move Thank you again. Thank you. Ian Planning team. We're going to go on to item number 6. Our report on our clothes. Sessions and I can I report that there were no actions to report from either of our
closed session items today and we will move on to one of the fun items for this evening, something that everybody on council enjoys our 2 proclamations beginning with item 7.1. Our proclamation for Foster Care Awareness Month MAY 20 20th, Donald, I'm Gonna Turn this one over to you. Thank Mayor. >> It's my pleasure to read this proclamation tonight. Whereas every child deserves safety, dignity and a sense of belonging. And whereas children and youth and her foster care due to circumstances beyond their control, think they sing trauma, disruption and uncertainty. And whereas foster parents can ship caregivers and reunifying families provide essential care, stability and support during times of transition. Community support and meeting basic means with dignity, such as clothing. But car seats, hygiene items and school supplies can ease transitions and allow caregivers to focus on connection and healing. As our village cause it Santa Rosa based nonprofit founded by Foster parents provides no-cost essentials, comfort items and connection to youth ages 0 to 25 impacted by foster care. Serving up to 300 use and more. Then 150 caregivers each month through a welcoming Choice Center resource Center. And whereas Foster Care Awareness Month is an opportunity to uplift these youth and families and to remind our community that everyone can play a role in supporting foster care. Now,
therefore, maybe resolve that. Our mayor Marks tap of the city of Santa Rosa on behalf of the entire city council in recognition of our community do hereby proclaim MAY 2026 as a foster care awareness month in the city of Santa Rosa and encourage all residents to show up with compassion to support youth and families impacted by foster care and help build a community where every child feels seen valued and supported. Thank you, MR. Donald. And we're going to go to public comment and also take a photo. But first at the concern over to our city manager who has a few words to say. >> Thank you, Mayor. I wanted to address this item on tonight's agenda because it's the first time that I've worked at a city and they actually cook proclaimed Foster Care Awareness Month. I wanted to speak this evening because I'm a farmer, former foster child. And I have found that in many instances, people are shocked to hear that. And I feel that representation is really important. I think it's really essential for folks to know that if you have been in foster care, if you've been a foster child, if you've been in the system, there are paths for you to move forward in life. Their assistance programs. There's resources and I feel that, you know, speaking out about my experience as a former foster child helps to increase awareness and it helps to educate people about the impacts of being in foster care. I was police in foster care 2 weeks old. Both of my parents, one of my parents was a minor. She was 17. She was in foster care herself. So a second generation foster care,
if you will. I had the fortune of being placed with the family right away and then was adopted by the family. When I was 5. However, throughout my my parents continue to be foster parents and we had many kids come through our doors and it was just enlightening experience. Not many have had the fortune that I did to be placed with one family right from the beginning at 2 weeks old, many have been multiple homes. I've been and had been suffering from homelessness. Their families had struggled. And so it was enlightening experience for me. Even as a foster child to be able to be there, be a sibling nba, caring relative. So all the kids that came through our home and our doors. And so I just wanted also from the bottom of my heart, thank our village closet and all the different providers that work children and families that are affected by foster care and to think foster parents for doing the great work that they do because it's it's definitely needed night have experience that firsthand. And so thank you air for allowing me this opportunity to see evening is not something they speak on very often. But it's something that I realize is helpful to share because it does help to promote and increased awareness. And so thank you for that. >> Our score so glad you chose to speak all of us here and I'm sure everybody in the audience just so you don't feel honored see little bit company all and that my wife and I did get certified as Rhys as a resource family. Several years ago. We had a wonderful experience. So for
anybody interested in this space, by all means talked to talk to closet, tlc or other local providers. I really is wonderful work with amazing results. Thank you. All right. We're going to a photo of well, actually, no, we're going to we're going to who who with Amanda. Amanda Kitchens. Would like to say a few words with even whichever up at the podium or or down front? >> Thank you for coming out. Amanda. >> Mayor and council members, thank you very much for for recognizing MAY and proclaiming it has foster care awareness Month again. My name is Amanda. I've been a foster and adoptive parent here in Sonoma County for the last 14 years with my husband. And and it's that journey that led me to my role as co-founder and executive director at our Village Closet. And I speak for everyone at t-Mobile. See when I say it's truly an honor to accept this proclamation on behalf of all the children, the families and the caregivers that we serve at our village closet. Much like Councilmember said, foster effects whole families and affects entire families. Right? It's it's a child whose world changes in an instant. It's a foster family who says yes to play spent then is scrambling to find the things that they need. It's a brother and a sister who wonder if they're going to be split up this time more again. It's a grandparent stepping into a moment of crisis and needing support MAY be meeting those grandchildren for the very first time or finding out that they have grandchildren. And it's a reunifying parent that's doing the hard work bring their children home and create stability. And so. We get to step into that gap with
them and we get to support them and provide essentials that really help. Create connections. That's stabilize a family and that strengthen the family being here today feels especially meaningful because it was 5 years ago today on JUNE second, 2021 that we were able to open our resource center here in Santa Rosa just down the street on Mendocino Avenue and anyone who hasn't been there. I am courage you to come by. Give tours Councilmembers. Mayor Vice mayor, we would love to give you guys a tour and because we believe that everybody can step into foster care that everybody can say yes to helping. Our village closet. Not only do we support these youth and these families, but we give the community an opportunity to step in a level of washing clothes that go into our resource center or sanitizing toys or donating creating a drive for diapers or things that we need volunteering for an hour, volunteering at an event donating funds. There's so many different ways that anyone and everyone can say yes to foster care. So again, on behalf of our village cars and everyone that we serve. We really do appreciate this recognition. This proclamation because together we can all show up and we can all. Create an environment that tells you the Intel sees family. We see you. We're here. We're community that cares. And we're here to support you. So again, thank you for your time and this proclamation and thank you for caring and hopefully we'll see you at the resource center soon. >> Thank you, Amanda, thanks
again to our village closet now will open up to public comment. Are there any members of the public that would like to make comment on this item? Seeing none. Right. On to the photo, Amanda, if you could come down any other members of your team. Let's take a look a photo of council. I thank you again to our village closet and we will move on to item 7.2, we are not done with our proclamations for the evening. We proud to do a proclamation again for Eritrean Independence Day. So glad we had that. So many of you came out. I've been turned over to MISTER Rogers. Thank you, mayor. >> Whereas every became independent on MAY 24th 1991. After a brutal 30 years or in the mobilization of an impressive National Liberation movement. And whereas 3 is a country that lies on the west coast of the Red Sea in the Horn of Africa inhabited by a mosaic of diapers, 9 ethnic communities. And whereas it reaches Capital City has more. Is Africa's secret modern a city recognized by the un as the first World Heritage site in a hurry to get. And whereas every tree is natural resources include gold and global dominance cycling in marathon runners. And whereas as of 2013 at Atria achieved all pre help Millennium Development goals. And whereas that are you tria community center, isis, the of the Bay area that was established in
the late 1980's. It's one of the oldest, every tree in community centers in the United States. And whereas the ecc in Santa Rosa strives to help alleviate some of the problems faced by every tree. In Northern California by helping them overcome any of the cultural. Linguistic and institutional barriers. And whereas the members of retreating community have provided Santa Rosa with a unique cultural influence and have fundamentally enrich the character up and city. And we're at ecc in that is in collaboration with local government in organizations is actively engaged in helping community members. Now, therefore, it MAY be resolve that our mayor and on behalf of the entire city council in recognition of our community on the 35th anniversary of every train Independence Day here by proclaims Sunday MAY 24 twenty-twenty between Independence Day. Thank you, MR. Rogers and and thank you for going. So many members of the community came out. >> And I think we have a few speakers here is that raid? What it sure want to see easier to come down the stairs on a thank you very much. If we could set up to the mic in front. >> I'm so so. Thank you very much doing that and support that and let you know about Yeah. >> you feel free to take a seat in yes, be great in the mike. So everyone can hear. >> because today he get the met again. See, he can and I would say thank you all the time. The audit in my heart. And thank you very much and
this unique. Thank you so much. >> No fate. And thank you for coming out as there. Is there anybody else who would like to say a few words? No. Thank Well, let's let's see let's see if we have any members of the public and want to speak. We'll open up to public comment or their members of the public here that we like to speak on a on a separate a of Eritrean Independence Day. Seeing none. We'll close public comment and will write to the fun part. Why isn't everybody come up? And we'll with a photo of council. Thank you again to all the members of our Eritrean community came out today. We always enjoy doing this in council chambers. Seeing as how we are a few minutes after 5 o'clock we're going we're going to shift around the agenda little bit. We're gonna do our first public comment on non agenda matters. So this is a chance for members, the public to speak on items that are not listed on the agenda and then we'll go to our our public hearing for the evening. So will open up public comment on non agenda matters. Are there any members of the public here would like to make comment on items not listed on the agenda? I see one rabbit to grab the microphone right here right there. There you go. >> Hello, my name is Diane Ballard lives and I live. Go. My first time speaking. I live on Glenbrook Drive in Santa Rosa right behind the west Skate Park. On West Brook Drive. My neighbors and I on Glenbrook Drive oppose this community garden that a group of older women want to put together. They want to put in a big shed. They want to put in planner boxes and my
neighbors. And I feel that we need the park to be for children because they run. They play. They play soccer and there's big events that happened there. My neighbors and I we're concerned about. We've had a little bit of a rat problem and we know rats like certain type of compost. We're concerned about that. We don't want any type of garden on the North side which backs to our homes on Glenbrook Drive. I yeah. Just to let you know down one block on 3rd Street in Stony Point Road. There's a church called the Presbyterian Church that has a community garden there. One block away. And I've attended these a couple of the meetings that these older women are wanting to do the Presbyterian Church, their community garden, it's gone downhill. And if you drive by, you can see all the weeds and everything growing up. And I'm concerned that it's going affect this beautiful park. So that is my spiel. I encourage you guys not to go through with this. I am going to the community advisory board meeting, file number 2, 6, >> 0, 3, 7 ca b. >> Diane, thank you. Thank you for coming comment and good for you for going to the the cab meeting and my apologies when you'd stat you are from the podium that you are back live with the open door couldn't really see was speaking. So thank you. Thank you thank you for making time
to come out tonight. So are there any other members of the public that would like to make comment on non agenda matters, MR. Do it. Before we start. >> That's the time limit today. 2 minutes to win. >> Hello, my name is Dwayne DeWitt from Roseland. And just by chance, I've been to a skate park. >> I've been going there since they built it because there were no parks over in Roseland. I was young and we would right over to that park, that park along that it be the spot where kids can play and do what they do. I've come to talk to you today about Roseland about Roselyn Creek, the trends since that are living in the creek and nearby are creating a lot of problems. They've been this for years now, years and years and she tore down the houses that would have allowed us a bit of oversight at essentially what needs to happen now. And these be mowing. All that high grass all drying out. They build fires down there. I was going to build one of the excuse me. I was going to bring one of the bags from the charcol cats that they use. Plus one of the canisters from the butane that they use for the fires that they start in your city park that says no fires. So I didn't bring it because you never know how the people here might feel about coming in with something like that. Long story short. We've been asking for rocks also along Burbank Avenue and McMahon Avenue to keep the four-wheel-drive vehicles from just driving up
in there, which they do now. So I'm hoping that you, folks, when you come out next month for the park a month day at Southwest Community Park. So didn't come down on this case. It's north coming north along Burbank Avenue to Roseland Creek. See the nice spot. We got trying to do there. We're really working hard. For it to be a Pomona Park and preserve. It's a good spot. We can make good things happen if we work together on that and I want to leave you with this. Also. We rose and appreciate all your efforts. We're here to say thanks and so many ways, but I'll be so. >> Thank you. >> Thank you to Wayne. Are there any other members of the public would like to speak? >> I see one in the back. Please take the podium. The floor is yours. >> Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Patrice and thank Council members for your service to the city. I'd like to speak quickly about the Creekside neighborhood in particular, the roads in our neighborhood. And if you've not been through that part of the southeast corner of Santa Rosa. I encourage you to drive through. The people that live in that neighborhood either work from home, they're retirees. They are stay-at-home moms, dads, but the people that are coming through the neighborhood typically are cutting through over to Montgomery High School. The other the other schools cutting over to Bennett Valley Road Highway 12 getting downtown. And so our roads are probably some of the oldest neighborhoods in the city and yet they have been
neglected. And so I continue to call them it materials lap and speak to others and public works to figure out when our neighborhood will be prioritized, not just for filling potholes but complete, you know, read pavement in there. Those houses are late 50's or early 60's and the people that are coming through are really the ones that are continuing to to them up. It's not really the homeowners that live in or so. Thank you for your consideration. And I hope you'll prioritize that topic. Thank you trees. Are there any other members of the public would like to speak? >> Seeing none. We will close this iteration of public comment and will go on to our public hearing for the evening. This is item 16.1, our public hearing for regarding the 2025 Urban Water Management plan and 2025 water Shortage, contingency plan. Claire, thank you for being with us tonight. >> Okay. Good afternoon. Mayor stabbed and members of the council. I'm Claire northerly. I'm going to be talking today about our 2025 Urban Water Management plan and are 2025 water shortage. Contingency plan. >> Urban Water Management Planning Act choirs that urban water retailers, basically anyone that has over 3,000 connections or supplies over 3,000 acre feet of water per year complete an urban water management plan to put that in perspective. Santa Rosa has 54,000 connections and last year we supplied about 17,000 acre feet of water per year. So we're we're required to put together an urban water management plan and have for
some time now. The plan basically assesses long-term water supply availability and reliability. The reason why we have to complete this, obviously we have to comply with state law but it also helps us helps us understand what our future water supply is. And our future water demand as it also helps us maintain eligibility for grants. There's numerous grants within the state of California that require the haven't adopted urban Water management plan on the books in order to apply for those grants. These plans are updated every 5 years. And this next plan is to JULY first 2026 for the 2025 plan. I should also say that what the plan is not is very flexible. There's a very prescribed and prescriptive way that this plan has to be developed and enacted their specific chapters that we have to complete their specific tables that we have to complete. There's not a lot of flexibility from the state on what goes into this plan. So you'll see here there are 10 specific chapters that we must complete. And within those chapters, other specific tables that we have to complete. We'll really be highlighting today Chapter 6 through 10, which are sort of the needy are part of the plan. The most substantial part of this plan is the water demand. Water demand is projected from 2025 all the way out until 2050. And there's numerous factors that go into that projected demand, including growth projections, such as what are future climate is going to be like the economy, future population projections as well as employment. That also inherently includes housing
type as well. We also look at past water use and we also looked at look at new plan. Developments that we know are coming with in Santa Rosa. We also incorporate into those water demands water loss. We have to do an annual state required water audit that helps us understand things like unbilled authorize usage which would be, including like firefighting flows, for example, real water loss which are leaks and breaks in her own water distribution system and apparent loss. So all of that water losses also incorporated into future demands. We also incorporate our urban recycled water demand into our demands and then subtracted from the demand is passive water, conservation savings. So this is the natural replacement of fixtures over time such as toilets and faucets showerheads, etc. That are, of course, getting more efficient over time. And so we want to incorporate those savings into the future. Demand. Here you can see the green line is our future projected demand. And the orange line is our future projected supply. You can see we're in a really good situation, which is not always the case. You can see out projected until 2050 we have sufficient supply to meet our projected demand. We're also required as part of Under Management Planning Act to complete a drought risk assessment. This is for the subsequent 5 years after the plan years. So for for all of California's 2026 through 2030, this is based on dry year. Potential supply. And as you can see here, our supply meets our demands, which again has really good news. If we go into a a water we are projected to have sufficient
supply to meet our demand. Also as part of our water management plan were required to develop a water shortage, contingency plan. This is sort of our drought and water shortage. Document. It tells us how we can respond to water shortage, scenarios. It talks about demand reduction strategies that we might employ. It talks about fees that we could implement and it stab lysias protocols for for triggering water shortages. We have 8 stated 8 stages within our water shortage. Plan the percentage reduction is all the way starts. It sort up to 10% voluntary reduction that we might ask our community wide to participate in all the way up to a stage 8, which would be an over 50% reduction that we would request from our customers in the most dire circumstance. To to clarify with slide says this is no change from what was adopted by council in 2020. There are 2 water shortage, penalty options that the council could enact. These would both require councils express approval prior to the adoption. The first one is a water shortage fee. This fee really to support the utility financial health? It's a uniform uniform fee amount that would be across all customer sectors. And of course, there's alternatives to this. There's also delaying capital improvement projects or using reserve funds if we needed to. There's also excess used penalty. This is a penalty on our customers to encourage conservation. It's
entirely preventable by customers. And it's based on the customer's ability to meet their water allocation. So in later stages and drought, stay just 5 through 8. We providing water allocations to customers. If they stay within that water allocation. The excess use penalty is not placed upon their account. So here is the actual water shortage charge that could be enacted based on the stage of drought or the stage of water shortage and the reduction target. Again, this would require councils express approval prior to enacting this. Here's some more details about the excess used penalty. Again, this is entirely avoidable by all customers. And it does include a buffer. So there's 1999 gallon buffer prior to the penalty being enacted and there is appeals process as well for this penalty. So this table here shows what the actual structure is. So, for example, in stage 5, if a customer goes over their allotment by more than 2000 gallons and they would be charged $5 per 1000 gallons that they went over there allocation. Of course, we never want to penalize people right away. We want to offer progressive enforcement first. We would, of course, alert a customer to a violation offer technical assistance. We have robust water use efficiency team that can offer technical assistance, leak detection. You know, there's resources out there that we would offer. And then if needed issue a warning and then if needed
apply a and for those of you who who are around in our in our previous droughts, you know, the extensive amount of outreach that the water department does during a water shortage. Everything from water bill inserts letters directly to our customers. Postcards, social media ads. I even use letters, you know, ad buys presentations to all sorts of groups. Attendance at local events, fairs and festivals and partnering with working partnering with specific community groups and direct outreach as well. Tips to specific groups. So just high water using customers, cetera. So we would employ all of these tools prior to any kind of fear penalty. Water Management Planning Act requires a I'm out of public input into this plan. So we did do a notice of plan preparation, which is a letter that sent out to all of the surrounding cities and counties and water utilities. And that was sent out in JANUARY of 2026, we've also been to the Board of Public Utilities, Water Conservation Subcommittee in FEBRUARY. We sent out public noticing to all 54,000 of our customers through a water bill in certain billing period of MARCH, which is not required by the plan. But we felt like it was important to ensure that our customers have the opportunity to review this plan and understand that. We also have posted the plan both online on a dedicated website as well as in printed copies at 2 of our city offices. Again, not required, but we wanted to go that extra mile in offering our customers the ability to read and understand this plan prior to public hearing. We also went to the Board of Public Utilities in
MAY. And of course, now we're here in JUNE. So we've had a pretty public noticing period. And as I said, there's a dedicated website that's been updated you know, throughout the years, really since 2020 and beyond with the draft plan. Before get to the recommendation, we did receive public comments on this item. Unfortunately, they were delivered yesterday so they weren't able to be incorporated within to within the slides. But I did want to just address are a few of them. I think some of them were more about the affordability of housing and affordability of Santa Rosa, which is not really within the scope of the urban water management plan. As I said, the Urban Water Management plan is pretty prescriptive report that has specific table specific sections, specific chapters that are required by the state and were not able to you know, describe other kinds of issues that MAY be occurring in Santa Rosa that aren't related specifically to water supply and water demand in the future. The other kinds of comments that I think we received are more about housing type and maybe that single-family residential homes use more water than other types of homes. And therefore, we should prioritize other types of housing. Again, this plan is not about housing, but I can say that housing type is already included within the demand projections inherent in the projections, our water use for every kind of customer. Single family residential unit is already that water use is already included within the demand. So we already have justified that there is
sufficient supply to meet that demand. So just wanted to touch on both those served high-level, respond to those public comments that we received. So with that, I have a recommendation. Santa Rosa Water recommends that the council held a public hearing, which we're doing now to receive comments on the draft plan, provide any direction that you MAY have on the 3rd water management plan in the water shortage. Contingency plan and then the adoption of these documents will be considered at the next city Council meeting on JUNE 16th. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions as well have a public hearing. Claire, thank a few of us who serve on the water boards are part biased. So we find these these policy items fascinating, but they thank you for bringing forward. Thank you for all the work. >> Our quick clarification for Austin Council. Do you need do need direction on specific items like the excessive use penalty or Rainy night? >> there are no specific items that we need direction It's more for your discussion. >> All right. Thank you for So turning over the counter to council questions at this time. Not even this Rodgers. Done only question. We could underline with the point you made at the end very diplomatically, which is a question that all of us get all the time. I do. We have enough water to build to build more houses. >> Yes, there we The project did, as you saw the projected supply includes new planned developments. The new plan developments that we are aware of are already included in the estimated water use of those new plan. Developments that
we're aware of are already included within the supply. If there are additional developments that were outside of the supply are outside of the demand that we've already projected that would go through a water supply assessment process and would be brought back to council as a public item to be reviewed and discussed at that time. But as of now, the answer is yes, short answer. >> Thank you. And for those in the audience or online, what did a Google to get them to this place in the city website that has just value is of information on that on that exact question. You look at all the all the projections in charge that you want to see. >> I would say the best web say is here. The sr city dot org slash uwm tea because that's where water management plan is. And we've linked on that site. Several other documents and reports that MAY be helpful and interesting which they have a faq page. That specifically goes into a long list of questions about housing and building during a water shortage. Us. Thank you for that. >> All right. If and other questions from council that we will officially open the public hearing. Is there anyone in Council Chamber Council Chambers tonight who wishes to make comment during this public hearing? Now is your chance pine on water policy for the city of Santa Rosa. Seeing none were to close public hearing and bring it back to council for a motion. And any final discussion or adoption. Would be wise for a face additional discussion. Hold on a moment see. Make sure we got exactly when you do here. Is there any additional discussion from
council? Still no firm U.S. Rogers? Still no. All right. Now she's there's it's it's dinner time. All right. No, no final discussion from from either other. Just to thank you for all for all the work. And we don't know that there's no motion. Just want to clarify with with are turning. There's nothing else is needed. >> I think that's correct. Mayor adoption will take place at the JUNE 16th. >> Perfect. So we're good to go for it for this evening. Anything else from counsel them? >> Thank you for the wonderful presentation thank you to the water Department for all the work that you do to ensure that we have safe drinking water. >> That is a nice way to end it clear. Thank you. And thanks to the a-team. All right. We'll see what we will see you in a couple weeks. And with that, we will. We'll hop back up to item 15.1. Our report on. Let's talk Santa Rosa. This wood is this is one years. Come on down. Un is that you and today? All right. Well, we are all eager to to buy to have this discussion. Thank you for all your work on this project. >> Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Vice mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Misti Wood. I'm the communications and intergovernmental relations officer. I'm here tonight with Luke Phase or in the city manager's office. He's an administrative analyst and we're here tonight to present on the let's Talk Santa Rosa Community survey results. I'll start with some background information. Pass it to Luke to discuss those survey results in more detail. And then the city manager and I will conclude with our final
thoughts. So let's start with some recent history. The city council has identified fiscal sustainability and budgeting excellence as one of its strategic priorities and has made some difficult financial choices in the recent years. Last fiscal year council made significant cuts to address a 15.2 million dollar structural deficit, including 54 positions being eliminated. And in the upcoming fiscal year council is facing the city is facing a 17 and a half million dollar structural deficit. The proposed 2, your strategy before you that you're currently considering includes nearly 10 million dollars and solutions and a onetime use of 7.6 million dollars in reserves. Without additional revenue. The structural deficit is projected to increase, misses attending more significant cuts to core services, including public safety. Knowing the financial challenges that we face now and over the next several years, the city conducted an initial residents survey in JANUARY of 2026. To get a sense of service priorities from our residents. After receiving those results, we knew we wanted more robust community engagement and community feedback to help shape priorities in the budget, planning process and long-term fiscal planning. And that's when we launched the Let's Talk Santa Rosa survey. So we'll start with the JANUARY survey. It was conducted with 423 people. While this is a statistically valid survey, it's a very small number of people compared to our population. And it was conducted with residents only. The top priorities identified were maintaining public safety services and maintaining streets and public services. I'm sorry, public spaces. The details of the priorities on the screen in the presentation MAY look familiar because we've discussed as a council
before and they were the basis for the let's Talk Santa Rosa survey. I'd like to highlight the fact that more than 80% of respondents identified the priorities on the screen here as either extremely important or very important. And that brings us to the Let's Talk Santa Rosa survey that we recently launched and why we're here tonight. Let's talk center is the survey was launched to better understand Community community members, city service priorities. We conducted broad, inclusive, bilingual outreach in order to get as much input as possible on Sunday service priorities from the community. The survey was heavily promoted in English and Spanish on social media. In our news letter on our website via Direct Mail and e-mail in city facilities at presentations that community groups posters at the Santa Rosa Mott Santa Rosa Plaza Mall in a library and city council conversations as you were all well, well aware. We sent direct mail to about 50,000 households that include a qr code to participate digitally. And it also had a tear off card. So folks could return that if they were more comfortable with a hard copy and that yielded really good results of the 600 or so hard copies that we received. The vast majority of those with those tariff card. So it turned out to be an effective way to reach our residents. The direct email was a letter from the city manager to community leaders with an office with an offer to meet and solicit feedback and talk about the budget. Current challenges we're currently facing. And we conducted additional direct follow-up with 62 groups and individuals
with that same offer. We received over 2000 responses. And I do have to say I'm pleased with the results that obtained as much feedback as we did. And I think that's reflective of not only our outreach efforts, but also indicative of the fact that this community really cares about what's going on. At this point. I'd like to pass it over to Luke to get into the details of the survey results. Thank you, director. Good Evening Council. Name is the patient with the city manager's office. And I'm gonna try maneuver to the stream here. >> All right. So as the director would mention, we received over 2200 responses, which is a very strong result there. >> this survey is ongoing. As of right now, it has not completed. So these results are, as of MAY 26th. But right now analysis is pretty stable. So I don't see a large increase or change in these unless there's a large influx coming in. But you can see here that about 70% of the respondents, a live in Saint Rose. They do not own a business work in Santa Rosa. And you can see in the distribution of zip code participation. It's fairly even just evenly distributed across codes except for in a zip code. 9, 5, 4, a 7 where you see the lower persis patients. 87%. There. These are the only 2 demographics that were collected during the survey. And that was for reasons that I will discuss
later on here. Moving. And you can see on that the residents were asked to rank these 5 priorities for services be taking 9.11, or skis maintain see medical services and fire response services. I'm not going to read them you all have a good eye but they're shown here as a Laker, its one to 5, 5, being the highest and one being the lowest. This is aggregate score of all of the responses overall. So you can see that maintaining 9, 9, 1, one emergency medical and fire responses was the top choice. Overall. There's a tie for second place and 4th and 5th place as very close as well. There. I do want mention that these rankings again, the Agri overall and that if you look at specific clusters being the residency status of living or working or their zip code, those rankings do change a little which all dive into a little bit further here. So we could see that about 40% of participants 9-1-1, in this fire services as their priority. Well, 60% of those respondents did not. So the little variance, Korea that you see here shows that the rankings were generally close together and we see that and those ties for second place in the clothes scores for 4th and this place. It also indicates that the most participants are ranked 9-1-1, in this fire close to the top choice. And we also see that there's the candles coefficient of concordance that Kindles w
that is a score. Is what from 0 to one and basically measures the agree ability of those people responding to the Typically any scores below 0.3 indicate that there's little blow agree ability across individuals. That's important to see because when you look at the results going forward Identifying a a top choice was was difficult. The like your score helps identify that winter when there's a lot of nuances with individual responses. So survey respondents were also given the important the opportunity to share what other priorities were reported. The incident improvement suggestions open. I ended comments section. These comments were then used to analyze and interpret their results and systematically excuse me and then sent the size the results and up items. The medically. You can see the frame that work that was used there for the qualitative analysis. The on there's only a few things point out there. The mean that's basically what aspects of the comment was used. That was driving their was their comment about the quality of service that they they experiencing. Was technology or equipment in that service being provided as a staffing levels knowledge base of the staff or is it the rules are not rulemaking procedures. And in that service, another important thing to evaluate during The survey was the stance of those comments. So if you receive a comment that's negative like a complaint or a barrier to
service of some kind, you can have a negative comment. But if you you can overall support that service ultimately so like my wife likes to say criticism, this law Because another part and point to point out there was the action ability framework. So that wasn't in a pretty innovative approach to look at these comments determine if there was a specific enough information in those comments to in theory assign someone for follow-up or or to investigate further or if the comment was contextually based or conditional can just or conditional. I could out on the internal dashboard that was made, but I won't because and there are not everyone All right. So the next few slides that I'm gonna show on show you how these comments were used and interpreted to identify the key themes here. So public safety and transportation were mentioned and 35% of the comments and maintenance was mentioned in 15% of those comments, which makes sense because of the framing of the survey was about those 2 topics homelessness and affordability or 2 topics when grouped together and make the second most frequent frequently mentioned topic ai group affordability with homelessness in the situation because over 50% of the tied to affordability were related to housing access. So group together there. So you can also see that by Clinton multi Mueller little transportation were highly polarized in the comments of 47% support and 40% opposed. I find that was interesting. So I highlighted there and also just to
highlight that there's a mixture of comments and in topics that need some of the quality of analysis challenging in all. Get to those dozen a second. You'll see a there at the bottom right there, making the city nice and inviting again would go a long way in attracting tourism and business. That's a quote. There I think indicative exemplary of just kind of the overall theme that was was was found in this. Kate announced And then I want to share some of the community voices with the council's because that put the council because sometimes when review data sets and large points of data, you forget that these are people in our community sharing their experiences and their So I want to share some some quotes to that pulled out and they kind of our illustrative of the overall themes here. Reading all the comments you can see that people will often mention public safety is kind of this blanket comment. But when you when they mention specifics about public safety concerns, they often to express a desire to feel safe. Walking in the neighborhoods where Parker downtown. And that's a feeling that has impacted by myriad of things. Another key thing in that you'll see there are participants expressing that all the options are prioritized our priorities to them in they found difficulty making those making decisions. And that's kind of reinforced by that Kindles w Square that I mentioned earlier. And it's also affects the high
exclusionary of paper that I'll get to in a moment here, too. Last comment on here, the when you look good, you feel good when you feel good, you treat yourself and your community better. That is really at the core of what was identified through these comments. I said before that comment was illustrative. I think at the core this one ties it all together. Moving this. This slide is here to explain a few things, but mainly that the ranking of priorities doesn't always align with what the comments are saying. So maintaining in this and fire services was ranked the top priority while topics like public safety regarding crime are strict conditions or homelessness. There are mentioned far more in the comments and I know that there there MAY be some public safety officials in the So and I'm just the messenger here for this next comment. But many of the responses question, the allocation percentage of funds for public safety versus those for public works works. And I mention that because it is important to in reading these comments with a of thought on from this was crucial to understand the thought process and motivations of those people that participated. So it made me think why are these prevailing in the comments? Are their service gaps or performance gaps and they're driving some of these perceptions when you look at the departmental data from annual reports, they suggest that police and fire services are stable and their high performing. This data was from 2024. And I re I understand and recognize that there's there's trends from year to year and that impact those. And but the 2025 annual parts were available yet. And for
the purposes of gauging public perception around some of these services, this was a this was effective, insufficient. Data reported by the county of Sonoma shows Santa Rosa has an overall decrease persons experiencing homelessness over the past 5 years. You can see that here from 2022. To 2023 decreased by 30%. Some of that was due to one-time believe that was arpa funding that was being utilized. And then we there's a modest increase in 2024, but still lower than levels in 2022, then we also in 2025 a decreased by 16%. Overall, 518% reduction from 2022. So what does all this mean? So despite the progress of a very, very talented public safety officials, they're fantastic housing community Services Department, homelessness remains visible, highly visible in the community and some of the comments tend to conflate public safety crime concerns with homelessness, which there is some intersection there. But they are systematically different. But that might help explain why these topics are so prevailing in the comments. Next. Need not acknowledge that there are some limitations that the Surrey presents. Now, the goal in this survey was too increased participation and get as many people 2 involved as possible. So purposely omitted data collector, student data of demographics by doing that. We also increase the risk that some viewpoints are magnified while others are suppressed. But we sought over 2200 people respond, which is overall command also, the online
survey had required fields and formatting for how to wring priorities. While the paper survey lack those guardrails, which led to approximately 12% of those paper service being excluded. That's not to say that they're not being evaluated are not being reviewed. Its just that, that they they will need to go through a separate process and including in this Allen might have skew the real overall results. Additionally, there the anonymous nature of the survey allowed people to submit both an online survey and a paper survey. There are steps to mitigate that, but it does potentially have the risk of in elevating certain viewpoints. The survey essentially asked 2 questions, what services to residents fear and what services affect their daily life daily quality life in looking at the priority rankings alone cannot effectively answer both those questions. Residents tend to prioritize prioritize services that you're losing, especially in economic least stressful times. And even when those programs have been already institutionally protected in this context of the survey, public safety likely functions as a symbolic foundational service. One that residents prioritize because of its perceived role in protecting their overall quality of life. The city MAY not be experiencing a public safety performance gap but maintaining current current service levels, especially for and fire, are critical to sustaining community confidence in the services. You know, quality of life is driven from the tangible
visible conditions of the city and it services so persistent concerns about road conditions, park maintenance, traffic behavior, housing, affordability, homelessness. Those reflect issues, residents and killer daily and the experience firsthand. Although these creek concerns do not always rank highest on budget priority priority Although these concerns do not rank highest and budget priorities Station service, the consistent feedback that was received indicates that they strongly influence community sense action and perceptions of safety. So the key takeaways, this which should be no surprise to any members of this council. It's that if investments are concentrated in these highly ranked services, residents expect to see visible improvements in their daily life. The perceptions of safety and satisfaction. Otherwise we risk an increase of frustration and distrust. Even if those funding decisions are well-intentioned in transparent. Thank you, MR. Phase or so to conclude. I just like to offer some final thoughts and observations from looking at the data with MR. Fraser and also being in several community meetings. >> The survey shows that people's lived experiences, shape their service priorities. So simply put how people feel defines our priorities, which makes sense because we're all human. For me. One of the biggest takeaways from those results in from the feedback I heard during community meetings and MR. Fraser touched on as well. Is that everyone wants to feel safe. And that's no surprise. That's a very basic core human need that we all have. The challenge is that what safety means looks and feels
different to everybody. So for some people, it's feeling safe. Driving your car down the street for some people feeling safe. Walking down the street for some people you feel like when you call 9-1-1, a police. Sarah firefighters going to show up and oftentimes all of the above. Additionally, it's clear to me that our committee members have a thirst for accurate information. This again is not surprising. We live in a world of instant gratification. Instant information with technology and our cell phones to the public expectation is really high. So I will admit that we are not always able to meet that high level of public expectation of instant gratification, but we do our best to set to release accurate and timely information to the public, making sure that it's vetted, making sure that it's true. And so I think it's worth repeating for the public tonight what we've said at these community meetings, which is follow us on social media and sign up for our newsletter. You can hear information directly from the source directly from the city. And then finally, this conversation isn't ending. We are still facing budget challenges and well, you've heard some feedback about the budget process and you're receiving the full report tonight. We're going to continue to engage with our community. We have additional presentation scheduled and we're going to continue to inform our community when key budget decisions are made by this council. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to the city manager for her final thoughts. Before we wrap up the presentation. Thank you Mist and thank you, Luke, for that great presentation. And
for dedicating so much time to the survey results. >> Survey analysis and this emphasis that you provided this evening. I wanted to share with the council just the importance of the survey results as it relates to what to our residents, businesses visitors. What do they all feel are the most important aspects of what we do in our roles as government officials. We wanted to know if the survey that was conducted in JANUARY was illustrative was a just a point in time was a smaller samples. We really wanted to get a more broad-based representation of the public reporting to us what their priorities were as we work through the budget deliberations. This has been a meaningful and a very descriptive experience about how people perceive living in Santa And so we wanted to make sure that you had that information and then it's timely because and I very next meeting will be presenting the budget to you for next fiscal year. As you know, as your interim city manager, I'm recommending a 2 year strategy the first year starting JULY one. We'll have some cuts in the budget about and some solutions tolling. About 10 Million. That's about 10 of the 7, 17.5 million dollar problem. The remainder will be solved by reserves. And so that gets us through year one. But there is a summer of 2027 dynamic that we will be discussing the few when we
meet again in 2 weeks where we will describe to you what the impacts would be if we had to cut another 7 and a half and then, of course, expenses will grow. We're looking at about 14 million dollar shortfall about 13.8 million for the next fiscal year. So while we've presented solutions for the budget, JULY one. We are very concerned about the potential cuts to all of these services that are still important to the public in year 2, if we don't have additional revenue, I can share with you that I've looked under the hood. I've gone through extensive analysis of the city's budgets, bringing my experience as a cfo to bear and working very closely with our finance teens. And we're truly at a crossroads. And so we'll continue this conversation in 2 weeks will present the budget for the fiscal year starting JULY one to you. But it behooves us to have a conversation when we meet again on the 16th regarding the potential cuts to the services that most of the public, you know, feels are near and dear to what it takes to run and effective safe city with a high quality of life next summer. If we don't have additional revenue. And so I want to thank the team for putting this together like to thank the Council for your support of this survey and actually the public because the are there the basis for this information. And we've had we've seen the stacks of mail coming in into our office and it's been pretty considerable. And these are great survey results that basically a firm. But we were thinking and of in terms of right instincts in terms of
what you know, what's important to the public. And so we'll have more information for you in 2 weeks. But we wanted to let you know where we are thus far. But how important this conversation is moving forward past JULY one some recommendations that will be making to you in 2 weeks about how we feel we can solve some of these problems between infrastructure and public safety and everything that the committee holds near. And year. Thank you. MADAM City manager. >> With that, the communications and intergovernmental Relations Office recommends that the city council received the let's Talk Santa Rosa report and we are available for any questions that council MAY have. Thank you. >> Thank you. MISS MR. Fraser and thank you for that framing the city manager this has been this has been a high priority item for all of us on on the dais. And so we all of us and looking forward to conversation, questions right now. Again, this is we've all been in the mix for a while and this item. Seeing no questions. Just Did you guys you guys draw straws to determine who would explain candles? Coefficient of can cope. Concordance. I was really I was I was very impressed with MR. Fraser. >> His data analytics and his analytic skills are really impressive. >> All right. I even heard mention of the Lakers score. He went deep in the survey that methodology. >> I told you I was honored a morning star where Socks right Thank you. Thank you for the for the diligence. All right. What will open this up to public comment? I'm hoping this is that a few of those in attendance today actually participated in the service survey or if not even know if
you can. There are still ways to participate online. >> Any members of the public wish to wish to make comment on this item. Alright, we'll close public comment and I'll bring it back. Actually. Bring back to MS. Been winless for a motion. And then any final discussion from from our group. >> And that's the I that we approve receipt of the report on the let's Talk Santa Rosa Community Engagement initiative. >> All right. We have a motion. We have a second. Any final discussion. MR. Donald. >> So couple quick comments. I really appreciated what you said when you when when folks said I didn't want to rank these one to 5 because they're all number one to me. So I think that's important because once like it depicted by percentages and then another slide actually made them rain 5 to one. So those seem to be easier. Like do you want 9-1-1, to be here quicker or do you want us to, you know, cut grass? Clearly, that's an easy one rank when you're looking at it. But I think the percentages to me was really telling that the community rings all of these things very important to us and the question I get is, Wolf, we only have 5 things that we want to prioritize. How can we not do that in a budget of our size? So I appreciated city managers comments and I look forward to hearing about potential solutions. And since we have so much engagement from the public right now, I'm hoping to see that equal engagement as we move forward on strategies to help us close this deficit so that we cannot just for basic services, but really the Santa Rosa that are community want. So thank you
for the survey. It really great job on how many responses you got, that it's significant amount. So I appreciated that you did in 2 different ways as well. I know that's a lot of extra work for all of but I appreciate it. >> Here here, thank you for that. And I'll add also that in addition to the survey responses, the city team has been out talking to hundreds of groups and individuals across the city and that's going continue for the next several months. So it's not just survey results. It is face-to-face. Communication were representing a lot of data and making sure that everybody's up to speed with what the decisions we're making here at the city. Thank you very much to both of you for coordinating that. We all right. We've got a motion second by believe it was mission MR. Rogers was that alright, MADAM City clerk, can call the vote whenever you're ready. Thank you, Mayor. >> Councilmember Rogers, Councilmember MacDonald tie. Councilmember Fleming is absent councilmember Ben Willows. Councilmember Alvarez Vice Mayor Okrepkie. I they are staff. Yes. That motion passes with 6 affirmative votes. >> Thank you and thank you both. Once again. You're welcome. All right. Item 15.2 is continued. This report on the independent Police Auditor annual report is item is being continued to the JUNE 16th 2026 regular meeting or on to item 15.3, which is our report on our offers, ation to execute an amendment with Calpers to begin for the Fresh start program for payoff of unfunded liability. Cfo Wagner. This is starting to seem a little bit like showboating on your part to make sure the council is aware of how much money you have saved the city with your with your ingenuity. You can read you can report otherwise. Good evening, mayor staff members
of the council. Thank you for that. For my standard. Welcome appear to council. We. >> We are very excited as a group, but who have not the first step, not the last step. There will be more Calpers conversations to come. But this is a moment to recognize that this is not first or last step, but really a giant leap in the state cities, pension, stabilization efforts. And excited to talk about that here tonight. I'm gonna do a brief overview of really what has been a years worth of action from our finance subcommittee along with this council to really make a big step in the city's pension funding. I will briefly share that is the reaction to this item was unexpected very inspiring, very encouraging. And I think a lot of folks that wanted to reach out to us in finance or through the city manager's office all had the same talking points of, hey, I know I'm the only person that's really, really interested in this. And that's not true. It turns out everyone is really interested in this and everyone's really interested to hear about how the city of Santa Rosa is taking an innovative approach towards what we're doing here. Tonight's action really is going to be that final step of taking that formal leap with Calpers to move us into a fresh start program. And I'll be going through the next action as part of that. Tonight will be this item brings forward a resolution for the city manager to execute the necessary documents with Calpers to lock us into this fresh start program with them. As I've mentioned in the prior meetings, just like refinancing your house or refinancing a car. This does
lock us into this program. That doesn't mean that there's not going to be future opportunities to maybe make changes. But this is a formal action with Calpers to change our contract and how we pay off our unfunded liability. Few church gains and losses are not going to be ultimately affected by this action. Whatever is going to happen, the future's going to happen in the future. We're addressing what's happened up until this point. Briefly, go over what we've been talking to as Calpers mountain for ever. Congratulations. I will no longer be able to talk about it as Calpers Mountain. This is going to be Calpers Mesa or Calpers tunnel, which is really what we're creating. We're creating a flatter line that we're gonna be able to ties these expenses along with our revenues. Any better way. But this is what it looks like prior to that action and our struggle is in that dotted red box and what it shows is that over the next through 2037, we will have an additional 52 million dollars worth of expenses on our current path that we're going to change tonight. Fortunately, we're going to see a lot of benefits not only in the short term, but from the long term of this strategy. We're talk about that in a moment. As we've been looking at this over the last year council along with staff has really pushed these 5. What I would say is our Northstar of 5 objectives towards what we wanted to accomplish in the strategy. We wanted more predictable budgeting that matches our growth when revenue with our gross isn't expenses, we want to decrease the total amount
paid. We're going to end up paying less on our unfunded liability by doing this. The great thing also is we're going to pay off our liability quicker, not just kicking down the can to make this problem go longer. We're going to actually make the problem go away faster. 6 years faster at that. We're going to maintain local control of local funds. That's something that we really like to do in the city manager's office, along with the Finance department. We like having some authority in some control for our council to be able to pivot if things unexpected things happen and we know unexpected things happen. We're going to provide the maximum amount of cost avoidance in this strategy over what I would term the short term, which is really the next 5 years. We presented these options to council last time and we gave 3 council gave the direction the comeback with an implementation option. One, that is what we're here to implement tonight that marries a what we call a fresh start, which is flattening out our payment with Calpers, along with a ramp-up of using one time funds to kind of bring us along the path to get to that increased payment. The great news is that this strategy is going to save us. 28 million dollars over the next 5 years. A total of 37 million dollars. We could to maintain that local control like we talked about getting much more predictable budgetary path. And like I mentioned, we're going to pay off for unfunded
liability 6 years earlier. So that Calpers mountain is turning into this which really is the da did orange line of what we'll be doing and what you'll notice is that we're saving seeing those experience evenings really over that first 7, 8 years up on that chart. But again, the really great thing is also falls off. So it's going to fall off completely by 2043, what that means to our community and what means to agencies that we will have. If all things go to plan, which I know it won't be perfect, but we anticipate it being pretty close. We will have 482 million dollar liability. That is substantial accomplishment and something that we can be proud of is the community and council can be proud of to c s mayor that that is the victory lap for sure. Here are. Those numbers is on an overall getting into the weeds basis. He was going to be critical about this is really communication going forward. This isn't going to be something that we set and forget this is going to be part of our upcoming budget discussions here going forward of how we're really maintaining this pathway that I talked about attention, stabilization. How are we doing? How does it compare to this? How how we enacted it? I'm really confused and optimistic that it's even possible. We do better than this. I think I think that's very possible. So with that all and with the recommendation and that the Finance Department recommends that city council adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute amendment to the city's contract with Calpers to implement a fresh start him or try station of the city's you.
Well, additionally staff recommends the council approved the concurrent strategic drawdown of 26 million in restricted pension funds to achieve budgetary stability and long-term costs. Abundance with that. Again, like I mentioned, this is the culmination of many hours of work from this council that I covered very, very briefly. But with that, I'd welcome any questions on this program as we move forward. Thank you. Thank you. And the many hours of work came from you, Scott and your team and from our city manager. This was this was just fabulous work. I'm glad that the press Democrat covered Brady getting calls from other other cities across the state. More nba's of the job you did were certainly appreciative. >> colleagues questions on this item. MR. Donald. >> Thank you. Cfo Wagner and I I want to commend you on bringing really strategic smart plan forward for the city to be able to dress. You know, 482 million dollar liability is quite significant. For me, looking at our long term deficit and infrastructure and some of the things that our community continues to tell us is a priority. I'd like to ask you. And know we've we've spoken about this and I think that even MAY have said it last time. But there is going to be a fall off at one point that will be significant. However, as early as 2031, we start to see a drop. And so I'd like to ask if by council policy we can start to appropriate money and this would be a staff recommendation of when the appropriate time is because we
do have deficit, the deficit that we need to cover in the next several years. But where we would appropriate money and start by council policy sort of like savings account. Where we would focus on deferred maintenance we would focus on the Calpers issues so it doesn't ever build again. And when influx is based on the rate that they set, if we have some money set aside like we had in the 15 trust, we could address those and we see some spikes that even happened on the chart through the fresh programmer count fresh program. Is that what it's called and whatever it is. You know what I'm talking about and then the 3rd thing would be, you know, for me look at. See, I'm looking at what might 3 things where it was coffers, infrastructure and deferred maintenance. So 3 things that we know we're underfunding, we're underfunding our cip, which is costing us more and under funding and we have no set aside, I think for deferred maintenance. So looking at that and those are the things that really I think haven't addressed our deficit in the long term. So would there be aware, give an idea of what you can bring back to council so we can start on that process right now. Get in place. >> Thank you. Thank you for your question. Councilmember Donald in and it is very apropos because coming with budget adoption and certainly will be talking some more about our unfunded needs that are outside of pension and especially with our deferred infrastructure streets as as high as would brought up earlier. This is these are things that the council are
seeking to. The community is really coming to us with you. Core of your question? No, I think is something that we've been talking about his staff from the beginning of this process. >> in >> It also has been part of the last time I was here. I was here with Mike Myers from any chair financial adviser in and they've been particularly successful of trying to tie these types of actions with council policies. We intend to do that. So just as I mentioned, that this is not a one-time action that will be coming back. I've been discussing and even had some initial conversation with the interim city manager Jason Nutt is I think will be helpful is coming next. Council goal setting to really this council is in a unique position as councils com, for my opinion, because you all have experienced now 2 different stages of the economy locally, 2 different stages of how that city's any fiscal position, very strong positions and now having to make very difficult conversations. This staff along with council has a level of expertise now fiscally that. I think that we should leverage. And I think the way that I would suggest leveraging that further is around are when it comes to council policies really taking a hard look at our General Fund Reserve policy. And how does MAY be that the pensions stabilization path that putting forward? How do we make sure that future councils have the same policy understanding of how to make sure that that pathway doesn't start going in the wrong direction. Again, the reality
is that when you do that fought fully and you do that strategically and with a methodology. Agencies are successful. We have a track record now being looked at state and say, hey, there's of the policies that folks have done that worked. We're having an opportunity here now in Santa Rosa to do that to enact a policy that's going to work. We are going to build off of that. That needs to be brought into little bit on having a better understanding of our facility liabilities that we have out there. Very large as well. And how do we start making policies that help the organization remain on this pathway? Really of what I am describing is reinvestment, right? How do we reinvest as a community and as it has an agency, is that helpful? That's very helpful. And that sort of along the lines, you know, when you see a large drop off Stotts a significant savings that year. But if by policy there was a formula and you're going to be. >> The brain that actually figures out the formula depending on what our savings is is sort of divided into those 3 different areas. So you might not be able to start for a few more years. But once it triggers something than not comes out and is it helps us with that stabilization. And to me that is the long-term impact that we can do as a council that doesn't make anyone else have the ability need to have awareness fiscal stabilization as counsel has had to do. So I I know it's not always the sexiest topic,
but I really liked to, you know, make a long-term impact for the decisions that we made today. And this item that you're bringing forward not only really long-term impact. So I commend you and your staff and everybody who's been part of this. But for me that other peace Council can do is fix this long-term problem doing that by policy to me is the smartest way for us to do that. To support future councils and really our community. So. Other than just commend you over and over for the work on this, that would only be my recommendation of something like to see brought back when it's appropriate. Thank you. Any of the questions from council. Let's throw it open to the public. Are there any members of the public would like to comment on this item? >> Seeing none. We'll close public comment. Let's go back, MR. Donald Stewart a motion in a second and then any final discussion. This item. >> Somehow I exited out of my complete agenda. So I apologize for the moments away. And got it. I move adoption of the resolution. The council, the City Centre. Rosa, authorizing the city manager to execute an amendment to the Calpers contract for a fresh start. Reemerges Ation and approving the drawdown of restriction pension funds and approval of strategic use of 26 million in we structured 7th district pension funds to support budgetary stabilization and long-term pension cost avoidance. Second. >> motion and a second by MISS Rogers. Is there any final discussion? On this item that no well and are strongly
supportive of. Seeing none. Nevada City clerk, what's called whenever you're ready. >> Councilmember Rogers, I Councilmember MacDonald tie. Councilmember Fleming is absent. Councilmember Ben Willows. Yes, Councilmember Alvarez, Vice Mayor Okrepkie. I mayor stop. Yes, the motion passes with 6 affirmative votes. >> Scott, thank you again. Fantastic work. All right. We have finished our reports. So we're going head back up to our previously scheduled programming MISS Horta. Thank you very much for your patients. Back to item 8008.1. Our community empowerment plan. >> Good afternoon, Mayor Vice mayor and city on out the community engagement manager with the communications and Intergovernmental Relations Office and that will be presenting the community Empowerment Plan update for the month of JUNE on JUNE seeks several city departments will join the Sonoma County Pride Parade festival including Santa Rosa Police. Senator Joseph, I didn't see the The parade will MARCH through downtown studied at 11:00am and the festival will be held at Old Courthouse Square from 11:00am to 05:00pm for more information visit Sonoma County pri dot org on JUNE 6 and JUNE. 20th senators of water is hosting a creek cleanup. The Prince Memorial Greenway, all ages are welcome to participate. We're going to use me. Don't Park footbridge. You know, 6, 9, 8, k so street at 10 in the morning to sign up. Please visit is our city Dot org, slash calendar on JUNE 7.13, recreation and parks will host. It's mostly park in multiple didn't hear program. Community Park 700 Park Drive from 9 in the
morning to 12:00pm. Bring friends and work together come and meet new people while helping to keep our packs in great shape. Also JUNE 13 communications and into mental relations office planning at the transportation and senators, the police department would-be table in at the 50th annual mlk Juneteenth celebration. That will be held at mlk Park. 1, 6, 7, 1, Henley Street from 10:00am to 05:00pm for more information visit Sonoma County Juneteenth dot com. On JUNE 18. The Santa Rosa Police Department is hosting the last its community traffic safety meetings. The meeting will be held new vintage church, city 0, 0 Sonoma Avenue from 5.30, to 07:00pm. These meetings are designed to provide community members with an opportunity to share traffic related concerns directly with police stuff, including issues such as speeding railway safety, unable to traffic patterns. On JUNE, 20th, the real 70% Asian community will host their mostly volunteer. What they from the 9 in the morning to 12 noon projects include the cemetery. Beautification efforts such as landscaping projects painting and use maintenance work. Finally, the center the police Department accepting applications for the youth community. Police experience. The experience goes from JULY 13th through JULY 16 with a location to be determined during the program. Participants will enjoy hands-on learning some of the dice and themselves with Rosa Police Department, its
policies and practices for questions about the program or at the gate or the application process. Please email is rpd mean at this. Our city Dot org or call 7, 0, 7, 5, the city. 5, 5 seat up. And that concludes month can be empowering. Been update. Thank you. This sort of. Thank you very much. Our questions. >> On a you being too modest. You forget the child in the wild event where personal county water also to also tabled are 60600 students Howard Parker, 600 kids and their families. >> Was that last week? I think that's I said was Saturday. Yeah. And that's the center everywhere. Yes, has to be on it. According to many things. So another successful event out about kids and their families is a beautiful day in combination with the snow and trust and Southeast Greenway volunteers. So thanks to the city for being out there. Nor the questions are meeting or not the public comment. Are there any members of the public that would like to? Praised Ms Horta and our community engagement team for all the work of seeing none. We'll close public comment. Thank you. Very thank you very much. Thank you again for your patience time. Let's see onto our item. Number 9, our city manager and city attorneys reports MADAM City manager, any reports this evening. I just had 3 quick updates. So first, callous to the along the lines of the survey in the U.S. Talk center is a survey. What's important to the community? >> The cause still the road pavement, rehabilitation and utility improvements project
is moving forward from want to Boulevard to highway 12 is scheduled to begin on Monday, So that's this upcoming Monday. It's a 12.7 million dollar construction investment which will improve multi-modal roadway conditions and had safety for all users and upgrade critical underground infrastructure along this important Northeast Santa Rosa corridor to keep the committee informed dpw, Transportation and public works will host a virtual community meeting on Thursday, JUNE 11 at 05:30pm, where staff will share the project. Details. Along the lines of additional infrastructure improvements. Still be a new hawk signal and Fulton Road and Pine or Creek Trail. So I'm pleased to report that this is the 4th high intensity activated crosswalk or hawks signal citywide. It will item mid-block safety enhancement that provides a controlled crossing for pedestrians and cyclists and is activated only when needed. It improves visibility and reduce conflicts with vehicular traffic along this busy corridor and the project will enhance access the trail and surrounding neighborhoods and it supports the city's commitment to save connected transportation for all users. And last live Juilliard, I'm pleased to announce that the lineup is now available for this year's live at Juilliard concert series as we celebrate the event 31st year since 1994. Labor to er has grown
into a cornerstone of our cultural calendar, bringing together artists, audiences and local vendors and a vibrant celebration of music community and creativity. This year's series features an exciting mix of musical styles from Indie rock. And so to Latin pop blues. Americana, Motown and contemporary pop. But it's happening in JULY. So I'll be gone. I won't enjoy it. But I'll be watching. I'm sure hear all about it. Performances will take place on the lawn at our beautiful, chilly our park and Sundays from 05:00pm to 07:00pm beginning JULY 12 through AUGUST. 16th. Please join us. Thank you. City manager City attorney. >> Thank you, mayor. There is no report out of the city attorney's office tonight. >> Thank you. Thank you both. Any public comment members, public wish comment on either of those reports. Seeing none. We'll close public comment item 10 statements of abstention or recusal. What council members? Excuse me, writes, Mayor, I have I have a a statement extension recusal. I I've got regressed a bit of extension rather recusal. One of the 2 item, 13.4 and consent. It's the it's the Wild Land. Urban interface map issue. I had to recuse myself from from the conversation a couple of weeks ago and the is an item on part on consent item. 13.4 that pertains to that. So I will not leading the discussion with our consent items of our will. I will remain here at the dais. That is that is why vice mayor, we leading All right. Let's see mayor and Councilmembers reports. Are there any Mayor, Cara, their knees counselors mean, are you kidding? Yes, is. It item 13.14, 13.14 rather sorry. I
spoke too quickly. Thank you. MADAM City clerk. Lets see mayor and Councilmembers reports MR. Rogers who want to kick us off? >> it is very I just wanted to say that I was able Memorial Day at the Veterans Cemetery here in Santa Rosa. And although I put the mayor kind on the spot, I want to say he did a great job at representing the city. So thank you very much care for your words at presentation. Thank you for helping with that. That was a great event. >> And thank you for I think your thank you for mentioning that been winless. >> Thank you, Mayor. I just a quick one. Well, kind from Sonoma County Homeless coalition. Just reporting out from our last meeting. So county staff reported on federal hr one otherwise known as big beautiful bill. Health care and calfresh impacts. These include increased work requirements and eligibility determination, which will happen every 6 months versus annually. And narrowed eligibility for non-citizens based on the information shared from the presentation. The county estimates 9,000 to 25,000 residents will lose medic. How and for 407 excuse me, 4,700 will lose calfresh benefits. Implementation is pending. Federal guidance staff are developing potential mitigation strategies and have identified resource needs which will be presented to the Board of Supervisors during the JUNE budget hearings. Resource modeling Indyk indicates 124 million is needed annually to absorb the impacts of hr one. And I know I've been mentioning it at the
last our last few meetings as I come back from the homeless coalition that we're really concerned about the impacts and how it's going to affect our community and, you know, our entire state. So just. And we're hoping for the best. And the coalition is working on some solutions. For example, looking at nonprofits MAY be working together, especially where they out overlap so that we can a look at some ways to save money. In order to do more with less, which we are all doing right now. So just wanted to share with that love you. Thank you. Could you explain most MISS MacDonald? >> Thank you, Mayor. I just have a few things I wanted to say. Thank you to the junior commission on the status of Women and girls for asking me to be their keynote speaker at their graduation a few weeks ago. It was really amazing to me these projects that these young women in our community are doing to address concerns for from girls in our community. And so it definitely a highlight. And the weekend a few weeks ago. I also want to say things to the city Works Department for that Wednesday night market event. That was a couple weeks ago that I was able to go down there in attendance are so many kids playing on our equipment and so thank you to staff setting up down there and making that event. So big for our communities. See all the work that we do for the city. And finally, I want to see things for letting me attend the Colgan Creek, ribbon-cutting project. I believe that was spearheaded by storm watering creeks department. The plans that they needed to do the
refurbishment of that creek so that it is not 20 year. Fled 100 year flood own free. Thank you to them in the Parks Department for having everything cleaned up. I was terrified. I'd heard there was thousands of snakes out there. But thanks to the department for making sure that I didn't get to have that terror has to me that day, right? Seeing a snake. So I just want to say thanks everybody for having it all cleaned about there so that I didn't have mass hysteria and and run away quickly. >> So thanks to everybody for all that they do for the city. That's a great project that we have done now. >> Thank you, MR. Donald Vice Mayor. Thank you, MR. Mayor 3 quick things 2 weeks continue from the city is was accompanied by the ceo, the Chamber of Commerce to attend Icsc in Las Vegas, which is >> the >> artist. Probably economic development conference on the West Coast. But it is it's strategically areas specifically surround design around commercial real estate commercial. Real estate brokers progress. Retailers and cities are trying to basically make relationships in and provide connections. A lot of good has come out of that. I don't want to spoil anything. But if everything goes well, there will be some of exciting announcements in the near future of some new businesses coming to Santa Rosa to do business. We were very well received and it was very well received that we as a government where they're trying to encourage business is coming community because that is not the norm. Second last week, the California their Council was in town for their annual conference. I was
able to speak on the merits behalf. This is important because cmt see was one of the important organizations that helped craft the one of the the most truest forms of local government, which was a grassroots citizen led initiative adopted by council with work from planning staff, the non-profit world and public safety all together come together to help close some size businesses as well as some some women out of out of human trafficking, which has an immense rewarding opportunity. Alright amendment, see rewarding situation for all of us to be a part of something that important. And then finally it give a shout out and he's donuts on the corner of coffee in pine or was named one of the 100 best donut shops in the United States by DoorDash. I can attest that I had them Sunday and yesterday and today for gotta have some leftovers. Great. They continue on the tradition of what is the dominant donut seen the great state of California and the heritage of the Cambodian family owned donut shops. There's actually a in an entire documentary about it, which is very fascinating about how it differs from the East Coast and how Duncan Donuts try to come here in the 90's and failed miserably because we had our own great donuts here. How about you guys have done a All right. But yeah, was shot and he's done it in the family that runs It's a great thing to have on the map for the city Santa Rosa. I thank you all say we offer that to another Santa Rosa Ward that we just It was it was announced at our Russian River Watershed
Association board meeting last week. >> 2 students from Murray, a career high school and she was it was not I not has net has Hudson Rather and Joshua Cam for Maria Correio when when the county wide Vo video contest. So congratulations to them. Congratulations to Maria The subject was it with its water conservation. It's an annual it's an annual video. Video competent contest creation contest. So glad to have that trophy here in Santa Rosa. And then also let's see one of yes, thanks to assistant city manager, not Director Osborne and then our economic development director Scott Adair. They join me on a tour of courthouse square and our downtown with 8 members of the Sonoma County tourism team talking about the improvements in our downtown. The plans for downtown ways that we can ways that we are attracting tourists here and want to do more in the future. It was a productive discussion with more meetings to follow by in line with the conversation heard from the dais tonight about how the city is doing everything it can to make itself attractive to visitors and to businesses. So with that, we'll open up the public comment on our mayor and Councilmembers reports. Many member of the members of the public like to comment on anything they heard from many of us at the dance, seeing none. We'll close public comment. We will go on to our approval of minutes item 12. We have 3 sets of minutes. I let's see. I was 12.1 through 12.3. Our MAY 5th and 6th Army
12th of 5/15/2026. Minutes. >> Are there any edits to the minutes from my colleagues? Seeing none any public comment? On the minutes. Seeing none will approve the minutes as submitted. And I'll turn it over to MR. Okrepkie for consent. All right. We will move over to item 13 consent items. I do believe there's a portion of it that does need to be read by the city clerk. Is that correct? >> Or when you are ready, thank you. >> To Meet Brown Act requirements prior to council taking final action to establish or change the compensation of certain types of city executive positions. Norrell summary of the recommended recommended action must be made in the same meeting item 13.12. The proposed ordinance would establish the salary and compensation of the new interim city manager effective JUNE 27th 2026. The salary is the same as the former city managers and the remaining key terms are consistent with executive staff's benefits. The following is a summary of the interim city manager's salary and compensation proposed in the ordinance and the annual salary of $341,420 with no merit or cost of living salary increases unless expressly approved by council the same $500 per year. Wellness incentives paid in JANUARY for the calendar year provided to executive management employees in the unit. 10, the same vacation leave sick, leave administrative leave and holidays provided to executive management employees in unit 10, the same benefits provided to executive management
employees in unit 10 for health dental vision, life and disability insurance participation in Calpers retirement program for a one, a Deferred compensation program and a retiree Health Savings plan. The save the same $500 per month. Auto allowance personal vehicle use for city business provided to executive management employees in unit 10 item, 13.13, the proposed ordinance would establish the salary and compensation of the new city attorney effective JUNE 3rd, 2026. The key terms are the same as the previous city attorneys contract and or are consistent with executive staff's benefits. The following is a summary of the city attorneys salary and compensation proposed in the ordinance and annual salary of $305,760 with future cost of living increases in salary in accordance with the cost of living increases provided to the other executive management employees not to exceed the annual California Consumer Price Index unless expressly approved by council at council's discretion annual merit increases subject to the maximum maximum salary ranges. Stab list for the city attorney classification. City. Conch attributions equal to 5.5% of the city attorney salary into a 4.57. Deferred compensation program. $400 per month. Wellness benefit a life insurance policy in the amount of 250,000 during the term of the agreement, the same vacations, sick leave administrative leave and holidays provided 2 executive management employees in unit 10, the same benefits provided to executive management
employees in unit 10 for health, dental vision and disability insurance participation in Calpers retirement program for a one, a Deferred compensation program and a retiree health savings plan. The same $500 per month. Auto allowance for personal vehicle use for city business provided to executive management employees in unit 10 reimbursement for annual state bar dues membership. In up to 2 California lawyer, a associations sessions and attendance at reasonable continuing education programs. All right. Thank you very much. >> We will go to city, but he is looking to pull any of these items specifically know we will go to public comment on the consent. >> Calendar. There's anybody. We have 4 people signed up right now. So the first will be Jennifer, then dawn followed by Patrice and anybody else who would like to follow. Please go ahead line up behind the podiums. It will be 2 minutes. Jennifer, when you're ready. >> Members of the city Council. I'm Jennifer Rick. Know, I'm a resident of the Creekside neighborhood. I'm here for the second reading of that. We map this will create a substantial economic hardship on the Creekside neighborhood. As I stated at the previous MAY 12th meeting a large majority of these residents are senior citizens on fixed incomes, young families in this neighborhood are also on tight budgets. Acting mayor, the MAY 12th meeting, held himself out to have 20 years experience in
the insurance industry. He assured council members and the public, including all the residents who attended the MAY 12th meeting her affected by this will not the adoption of this where we map would not cause an increase in insurance premiums and or risk of cancellation. He stated there were bullet on the insurance commissioner's website that really amounts cannot be used in underwriting insurance policies. Mean, there is a law in place that would protect you from cancellation or premium hikes because that we're not this is incorrect. There's no law to protect our residents from having premiums increased. Our policies canceled to the contrary. Insurance companies look at the state, not by Cal Fire. And then when the local municipality like Santa Rosa adopts the moving map, the insurance companies consider that to be more evidence that the area has a high fire risk because insurance companies assume municipalities have done their own ground investigations to determine whether or not the state was correct. If a city overlays the room app with the state municipality is basically stating that it is a high fire risk area that's leading to increased insurance premiums and or cancellations. Police say this matter for 90 days and give us the same amount of time as you gave the fire chief at the MAY 12th meeting to present our case as to why the Creekside neighborhood should not be included. And this will be a map. I will note you guys spent a lot of time tonight talking about housing, affordability. Proving this map is going to drive people out of our neighborhood because they can't afford the insurance premiums and they can afford a home harden their homes, homes. Thank u. Next. Is dawn followed by Patrice? And then Susan. >> Members of city council and
a nominee for the administrative record. I hereby incorporated by reference or formal objection, intent to seek a writ of mandate served on the city. Attorney and clerk on MAY 28th and e-mailed directly council members yesterday. The MAY 12 0st reading of the we map was corrupted by misstatement of law. Fact, first, the city claimed it lacked discretion that is false and or government code 5, 1, 1, 7, 9, you have absolute discretion to modify this map. In fact, you've already exercise that discretion by removing 800 homes from Fountain Grove and Mountain Hawk. Second, the fire history presented to you was disingenuous. Catastrophic fires driven by the deadlock Diablo winds of coming from Napa County burning tens of thousands of acres as they cross into Santa Rosa. This happened in 1964. 2017, 2020. There is no history of catastrophic fires at Matanzas Creek Area. Chief Logan pause evidence of West wind-driven fires was a 2 acre fire in Fountain Grove 3 years ago. This is ironic excluded portions of Fountain Grove from the we map used a 2 acre fire Grove to include our neighborhood into the William out. Matanzas Creek contradiction Chief Long talk claims. Matanzas Creek is a severe fire risk. But when pressed on MAY, 12th that this was the city's absolute duty to maintain that creek. He pivoted and said creeks actually act as a fire break and you don't want to do creek maintenance. He then cited a fire in Mountain Hawk where the creek worked as a firebreak and protected homes. It cannot be both a fire break
in a fire hazard. If it is a fire break as we in chief long-haul believe it should be excluded from the fire map. If it's a fire hazard, the city has an absolute duty to make it fire safe. Thank you. Thank u. Next up is Patrice, followed by Susan. >> Good evening. Members of the city Council. I'm Patrice Toil and also for the administrative record, I hereby incorporated by reference are formal objection and intend to seek a writ of mandate served. The city attorney and clerk on MAY. 28 that e-mail directly to each city council member yesterday. The MAY 12 0st reading of this we map was corrupted by misstatements of law fact. At the MAY 12 meeting Fire Chief Lowenthal went into great detail as to why a creek should be left in its natural state. And that maintenance of creeks make them more of a fire hazard as MISTER Norman said, he's chief Lowenthal also said that creeks usually act as a firebreak and in fact, several homes in Mountain Hawk have been spared in a prior fire because the creek did just that. It acted as a firebreak preventing the fire from advancing on their homes. We agree with the fire chief's position that creeks act as a fire break. We believe that Matanzas Creek would act as a fire break for anything east of it, including but not limited to the creek side neighborhood and its surrounding streets as such. The Creekside neighborhood should be removed from the propose where we map. However, if the city takes the position
that Matanzas Creek is a high fire risk, then under the municipal code, the city has absolute dominion and control over Matanzas Creek. This means that the city's portion of the 95 million received from Pg e Fire Settlement, which was granted for fire remediation, work needs to be spent on Matanzas Creek. This does not mean clear cutting a creek means doing thoughtful, substantial tree work, living living up trees, raising the canopy, removing dead trees. Deadwood and any other hazardous fire materials. So which is it? Our creeks fire breaks or not. It just can't be both by and we're asking the city to stay this matter for 90 days. So that will be allowed to have equal time is the fire chief to present our issues and concerns. Thank you. >> Thank u next us Susan. Since on district 2, I started coming to the city Council. 30 years ago because there are things I was reading about that the year, obviously you're not the same people. But this has been going on for 30 years. There are things you are considering none of it made sense. The Canon City Council wasn't using common sense at the time. The first thing that brought me and was a proposal for road for commuters to go through Fountain grows with the promise that, oh, no, no houses would ever be built. There. And we came and we said, we know houses are going to be built their own. No, they won't. Well, you know what happened then? We were then objecting to the houses and we're told no, no, you won't see them because we are going to let them cut down the
trees. There are rules about the ridge line. And what do you know? They were allowed to cut down the trees. And since then, there have been fires. >> we brought the Patriot Act before the city Council. And we said this surveillance is going to result in greater surveillance. And Mayor Jane b# # # # # said, oh, no, no, you feel the city council. You feel the chambers, but you're wrong. We know better. Those were her words. We now know that we are surveilled more than ever. So I'm asking you to use like I could go on asking you to use common sense. You've heard the explanations already. I don't have to repeat them here. Common sense tells you that we do not live in an area that is a high fire risk and the areas that are a high fire risk and been downgraded. None of it makes sense. Some simply asking use your common sense. I know you've got it. Please use and thank you. >> Thank you. There anybody else in the room that would like to speak? Please make your way to microphone. >> I'm Gayle see more of a property owner and Bennett Valley. Earlier there was a presentation other remember the top, the title, but it said the priority in your city is that your constituents and residents really want accuracy. That's what's so important to them. And I feel and many others in our neighborhood feel that the updated proposed updated when we map is not accurate. None of us the neighborhood are
against. Defensible space fire, hardening our houses. We all want to do that. We've been in contact with the city Fire Department for a workshop on that. But we do feel that we've been unfairly singled out in our neighborhood and i would invite some of the council members to come in. Take a walk with us and look at the area that is proposed see. That's pretty arbitrary. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else in the room that would like to speak on this? >> Any of the consent items? Seeing none. We will close public comment know that item 13.9 is listed as being continued. So with that, that will be reflected in the motion. So with that, I'll turn over to councilmember our as for a motion. As I like to forward a motion to adopt consent items. 13.1. >> Through 13.8 with 13.9 being continued and 13.10 through 13 point a team with Mayor Stapley Keys from 13.4. 14 stated Prior 13013.9 being can do to the to 63 meeting and further reading of the text. >> I'll give that to Councilmember Rogers of on the second. So with that, we have a motion a second. Is there any other discussion anybody? Seeing none? We will go to the vote. Then. >> Councilmember Rogers, I council member member MacDonald. I Councilmember Fleming is absent councilmember Ben Willows. Yes. Councilmember Alvarez Vice Mayor Okrepkie. I mayor Stapp. Yes. The motion passes with 6 affirmative votes with Councilmember Fleming. With
regard to item 13.14 passes with 5 affirmative votes with Councilmember Fleming. Absent Mayor stop recused. >> Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor. All right. Coming down to the end. We have no Move ahead. Item 17 written communications of which we have non item. 18 public comment on non agenda matters. This is the public's last chance to make comments on items not listed on the agenda. >> Are there any? Seeing a close public comment. I thank you all. Tell the community the creekside area came out and we're officially adjourned.