City Council - Regular Meeting

Council Member Moulton. Here. Council Member Fernandez. Here. Council Member Bauer. Here. Council Member Contreras-Deloche.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Castellano. Here. And Mayor Bergel is absent. Thank you.

Thank you everyone for being here tonight. We'll begin this meeting with a land acknowledgement. The land that Eureka rests on is known in the Wiat language as . Past actions by local, state, and federal governments removed the Wiat and other indigenous peoples from the land and threatened to destroy their cultural practices. The city of Eureka acknowledges the Wiok community, their elders, both past and present, as well as future generations. This acknowledgment demonstrates the city's commitment to dismantle the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism.

And we'll follow that with the pledge.

Thank you. There was no closed session, so there's nothing to report out of closed session. And we'll begin with Mayor's announcements. We have a handful of announcements this evening. We'll start off with a proclamation honoring Michelle McKeegan and Keep Eureka Beautiful. And Councilmember Bauer will share that.

Where is Michelle? You want to come up to the podium? Excellent. So this is a proclamation and recognition of Michelle McKeegan for Keep Eureka Beautiful, 30 years of dedication and service to the city of Eureka. Whereas in 1996, Michelle McKeegan led the effort to establish Keep Eureka Beautiful, creating an all-volunteer organization dedicated to restoring civic pride and helping make Eureka a more beautiful, vibrant, and livable community. And whereas this commitment to collaboration extended beyond Eureka through participation in the Keep California Beautiful Network, recognizing that communities throughout California face complex environmental and waste management challenges that require education, cooperation, and citizen involvement. And whereas in 1997, the city of Eureka formally recognized the value of this partnership and endorsed participation in the Keep California Beautiful network, affirming that the goals of Keep California Beautiful were in concert with those of the Eureka community. And whereas Michelle was instrumental in encouraging the Eureka City Council to embrace the vision of Eureka as a tree-lined city, in recognition of this vision, the Eureka City Council adopted resolution number 2002-04, establishing the city of Eureka as a tree-lined city. And because of the importance of this commitment, readopted the resolution 2007 through resolution 2007-19. And whereas in 2005, Keep Eureka Beautiful launched a community-wide street and yard tree program through Keep Eureka Beautiful that resulted in more than 550 trees being planted in sidewalks, front yards, and public parks by the end of 2010, helping turn the vision of a tree-lined city into a tangible reality throughout Eureka. And whereas for three decades, Michelle McKeegan has given her time, energy, creativity, and unwavering commitment to Eureka, inspiring generations of residents to see their community not simply as a place where they live, but as a place they can actively shape and improve. And whereas as Michelle retires from her leadership of Keep Eureka Beautiful, the city of Eureka recognizes that her greatest contribution may be the civic pride she has inspired in others and the enduring example she has set forth through three decades of service. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Scott Bauer, on behalf of Mayor Kim Bruegel and the City Council of the City of Eureka, hereby honors Michelle McKeegan for founding Keep Eureka Beautiful and for over 30 years of extraordinary volunteer service, leadership, advocacy, and dedication to making Eureka a more beautiful, environmentally responsible, and livable community. and that the City of Eureka extends its sincere gratitude to Michelle for her tireless efforts, her belief in the power of community, and her enduring commitment to bringing people together around the shared goal of creating a healthier, safer, more prosperous, and more beautiful Eureka. Thank you for reminding us that every tree planted, every property improved, every street cared for, and every act of civic pride makes a difference.

So 30 years. 30 years was a lot of work, let me tell you, but a lot of fun. And over the years, I think we've come to be real partners with the city in this tree planting effort, and that makes me feel really good because that means it's going to continue. Chris Crema is going to replace replaced me and she's terrific we're going to have planted twice as many trees this year as last so she's quite wonderful I have a husband who has a who always says he has a shovel and a pickup but Chris has a husband who has a shovel and a pickup and an auger so we're ahead of the game thank you everyone

Thank you, Michelle. And our next proclamation will honor National Pace Month. And I believe that Barbara and Jennifer are here. And Council Member Fernandez will read that proclamation.

City of Eureka Proclamation program of all-inclusive care for elderly, PACE, September 2026. Whereas the elderly population in Humboldt County is growing rapidly with a significant impact on healthcare needs and costs, and whereas the program of all-inclusive care for the elderly, PACE, is integrated comprehensive model of care that allows older adults who qualify for a nursing home level of care to continue living safely and independently in their homes and communities, and whereas participants enrolled in PACE receive all Medicare and Medi-Cal covered services along with additional supports such as rehabilitation, transportation, nutrition, social engagement, and family caregiver assistance that promote overall health and well-being, and whereas PACE programs assume full financial responsibility for participants' medical care and related services including hospitalization and long-term care through capitated payments from Medicare and Medi-Cal, thereby helping to control costs for the state while improving quality of care. And whereas Redwood Coast Pace, a program of the Humboldt Senior Resource Center, has served more than 750 older adults in Humboldt County, with over 400 older adults currently enrolled with centers located in Arcata, Eureka, and Fortuna, providing a trusted local resource for families and seniors alike. And whereas Redwood Coast PACE celebrates its 12th anniversary of serving the Humboldt community, and whereas the PACE model of care has consistently demonstrated improved health outcomes, greater participant satisfaction, and enhanced quality of life for older adults while supporting families and strengthening communities, And now, therefore, I, on behalf of the mayor and Eureka City Council, do hereby proclaim September 2026 as National Pace Month in the City of Eureka and encourage all citizens to recognize the importance of Redwood Coast Pace, a program of the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in ensuring dignity, independence, and quality for care for our community seniors.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much for having us today and celebrating not only National Pace Month, but our 12-year anniversary being in Humboldt County with the Humboldt Senior Resource Center. This big milestone for us is also celebrated by the fact that we hit 400 participants. And once upon a time, we started off with two, and now we have 400. And also, once upon a time, they only thought that we were going to get a little over 100 or 130.

Boy, we proved them wrong, right?

The need in our communities here, and with support like the city council and the citizens of Eureka and Humboldt County, we're able to provide that services. I also want to note that it's also National Senior Center Month, which we're also celebrating with the Humboldt Senior Resource Center, and we'll be having an open house Wednesday, September 23rd, 430 to 6. Everyone's welcome, including the community, to come tour our campuses here in Eureka and see all the programs that the Humboldt Senior Resource Center does. Anything else, Barbara?

I think that's it. Thank you for your support. We really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you. It makes a huge difference in people's lives, the work you do. And with that, we're adding a couple of other items to Mayor's announcements, and that's recognizing and honoring the legacy of two community members, David Cobb and Mary Gelinas. We know that many people here in Humboldt County and beyond are grieving their losses. Feelings. And I'll begin with honoring David. I know that Ruthie here, if you would like to come up, you may come up while we share this. I have a little bit to share about David's life and then we'll give if you I know you'd like to say something Ruthie and then I want to make sure other council members have a chance to speak if they like and then we'll do the same with Mary just in terms of the order of things. Let's see. First, I just want to take this time to remember and honor David Cobb, who died on September 7th, and that many people in Humboldt County are grieving He was an attorney, organizer, activist, and longtime advocate for economic and political democracy. He came to national attention through his work with the Green Party, and was a Green Party nominee for president in 2004. And he later managed the Jill Stein-Ajamu Baraka presidential campaign in 2016. He was a co-founder of Move to Amend, focused on challenging corporate constitutional rights and the role of money in politics. He was much more than a national political figure, because he became deeply rooted in Humboldt County. He was a leader in developing and advocating for local initiatives around cooperative economics, food sovereignty, mutual aid, indigenous sovereignty, and community resilience. And he was someone who believed deeply that ordinary people could organize and create change. He brought an unusual and unique combination of legal knowledge, political experience, organizing skill, and limitless enthusiasm to community work. He devoted himself to ideas that he believed could make the community a more democratic, cooperative, and just place. His legacy is not simply these positions, but also the people he organized with and the community that he built around him. And he challenged us to imagine a different kind of democracy and economy, and then to actually begin building it. My condolences to you, Ruthie, and David's family, and many friends and colleagues. And thank you for being here tonight.

Thank you so much, Leslie, both for acknowledging David and for the care and support that you have offered to me since last week when he passed. So many community members have stepped forward to be supportive, and it is so much of that legacy of love that was so important to David. A solidarity economy is one that includes everyone, where everyone is honored and where everyone's needs are met and where everyone is able to contribute according to their capability. And he really did believe a new world was possible, that we didn't have to suffer under the capitalism that we have right now, that I know a lot of people treasure because it's all that they know. But there is another way of being together, and that way is through love. One thing David taught me above all other things was to always listen to other people's opinions. and to try to understand where they were coming from. He said that he could talk to anybody, and he could. Sometimes he made them mad, but he still talked to them. Many of you may not know it, but I have known David since sixth grade. We went to junior high and high school together. We only got back together again 13 years ago today. Today we consider our anniversary. Guess just the last thing that I want to say is do listen to each other. Put aside differences. Try to find solutions that are good for our community, not just good for business. I appreciate all of you and all of your work, and I especially appreciate you, Leslie, and Mario as well, and Katie, and I don't know the other two of you, and Kim, wherever you are. I know you're listening. I hope you are healing well, and I look forward to seeing you soon. Thank you all.

Thank you, Ruthie. I know other council members may want to say something as well. Council Member Fernandez.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. David was very encouraging regardless of political beliefs. So as long as they aligned with recognizing agency of individuals and the belief that we deserve a well functioning and sustainable community. And I think you touched on that very much in just that, Ruthie. Two stories. You know, having lived up here nine years, David was one of the first folks that I met in terms of organizing out here. And the fact that Health Care for All was having its moment back in 2017 and continues to, but it was still in a bit of nascency there up here. He had let me, he'd let my union members and I kind of piggyback on something that was occurring at Humboldt County Courthouse. And so for me, with my members going through what they were trying to in terms of getting their contract from the county, the home care workers and such, it meant a lot that, you know, he not knowing me and him, you know, having just met me, I think like that morning. allowing us to take part in that space says a lot. The fact that he tried to get me to speak on behalf of my members, I was like, God, no. I'm new here and I'm still learning. I'm going to leave that to my members who've been here for however long they have. But it is something that sticks with you because it gives you the opportunity to learn more about David's personality and that welcoming nature of his. The second piece, and this is more anecdotal and a bit amorphous. I love the fact that there are people that believe David had a cabal. of leftists in Eureka or Humboldt County dedicated to dismantling government and sowing chaos. If anything, it speaks to his force of personality and ability to organize, though once more, it was about dismantling anything that wasn't working, systems of oppression. It's about that complete overhaul and making the community accessible to everyone.

Thank you. Council Member Moulton.

Thank you very much. I think I met David at a Green Party event in Texas one million years ago. And every time I saw him since then, it was working on behalf of something that helped a community take care of each other. And I think that's a good life's work. Thank you.

Please.

Yeah, I didn't really know him that well, but I knew, you know, knowing what he did, the energy he brought to organizing people around a goal, you know, to make this world better, whether you agreed or disagreed with him, you had to respect that and to respect that he truly cared and he was a great speaker. And he was authentic. And we need millions more like him if we want to see change in our world, whatever change that may be. But I appreciate people like him, the energy that they bring to a community and to wanting change, which he had some great points. I hope his legacy lives on. I hope we can all... be like him because he was a good human. Thanks.

I took a class out at CR in 2018 I wanted to take a government class and that was actually how I met him and he was 2017 or 2018 he was invited to come out and speak and I was in this class with a bunch of very young young people and I thought who is this guy he had everybody completely whipped up like he by the end of it they were really excited everybody was nodding along he really had them pumped and I thought wow, what a talent to have that you can get a bunch of young people that excited about government and about possibilities. And he just had this huge smile, huge laugh, and massive personality. And afterward, we spoke for a few minutes, probably about 20 minutes, and we talked about a number of different things. And we had different views on some things. And, you know... But I really enjoyed the conversation, and I walked away from that thinking, that was really interesting. And then years later, he was advocating, doing advocacy work with the Wiyot tribe, and I was already elected, and I bumped into him again through that. And he was on the phone with me saying, here's why they need to wait dish come on needs to be the ones to have this housing project this is why and we talked off and on throughout that day and I just we talked since then too but I just thought the conviction that he had about how important it was to him that they that they be heard and that they have this opportunity it really came through And, you know, it's not important whether or not you have all the same worldviews, you know, underlying principles. And we both, you know, wanted a better world for people. And I appreciated that about him. I appreciated that he used his massive personality and incredibly bright mind to try to benefit people. And I think it's a real loss for our community to have somebody that bright not be here.

Thanks, y'all. And David was a friend of mine who inspired me and engaged with many conversations and someone who I learned a lot from and with. And for sure, the study that I engaged with David around Cooperation Jackson and other cooperative endeavors and movement building endeavors part of the path in which I was like, oh, someone like me could, you know, an artist in the community could run for council. And I'm very thankful for his impact on my life and in our community. Let's take three breaths in silence just to kind of have a moment. Thank you. And it's been a week. I want to also take time to honor Mary Gelinas and remember her legacy here in this community as well. She died last Wednesday, September 9. And she's also a person whose influence can be felt across Humboldt County and beyond. Mary was an organizer and an organizational consultant and educator and facilitator and an author and community leader. She and her husband, Roger James, founded Jelenus James in the early 1990s and spent decades helping organizations and communities work through complex challenges and make better decisions. She had a doctorate in education and devoted much of her career to understanding how people communicate, collaborate, make decisions, and function together in organizations. Her doctoral dissertation focused on effective meetings. She and Roger co-led the Cascadia Center for Leadership for 20 years, graduating more than 500 leaders from across sectors and native sovereign nations. She worked with many Humboldt County institutions, including the city of Eureka, Humboldt Bay Municipal Water District, and the Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District. She was a writer and thinker and published works such as Talk Matters and Space Is Not Empty. Her writing explored communication, consciousness, relationship, leadership, and the often unseen dynamics that shape how people interact. As recently as this May, she was still writing publicly about presence, awareness, agency, and how our choices affect people and communities around us. She had a particular gift for helping people listen to one another and find possibility in the midst of complexity. Her work reminds us that civic life is not only about policies and decisions, it's about how we gather, how we listen, how we disagree, whether we create enough space for people to contribute their wisdom. My condolences to Roger, her family, her colleagues, and all the many people who had the privilege of learning with her. And I know Will Folger wants to come up and say a few words. He worked closely with Mary. Thank you, Will.

Hello, Mayor, Pro Tem, and Council. I'm Will Folger, the Human Resources Director with the City of Eureka. And it was my great privilege to be able to work very closely with Mary, who cared very deeply about what we're doing here at the city and all over the county. As you just said, Mary's deep well of knowledge spans from many decades of doing this work of researching it of educating others in partnership at literally every possible level that life can offer to people with her husband and work partner roger james spanning from east coast to west fortune 500 companies large organizations small ones small teams big teams but eventually she became ours here in humboldt county instituting the Cascadia Leadership Program, and then ultimately working closely with the cities of Eureka and Arcata in building what has become a really great but also very targeted and applicable leadership academy called the Bay Cities Leadership Academy. Um, it's crazy to me that I was just here at our last meeting talking about how we're getting ready to kick off cohort five of the Bay Cities Leadership Academy. And, um, preparing to meet with Mary and begin this process yet again and adapt it. And, of course, last Thursday I was shocked as I sat down to what I was expecting to be a meeting with her that I had also just gotten that news. It's a tremendous loss. And she really, really believed I think very deeply in what it was Karen Deemer and I on behalf of my colleagues here with the City of Eureka were trying to achieve in creating a program like the Bay Cities Leadership Academy for local government leaders. so much so that she remained involved even after her quasi-retirement so much and was so giving of her time and between her and Roger so generous with their just home of unbelievable knowledge that they donated to the city of Eureka so that we could continue this program and continue educating based on the research that they have done. I hope I'm speaking to this well enough. It was my privilege to work with her for just about five years, but others have known her far longer, and anyone who does, knows that she has those unbelievably special qualities that make her the perfect conveyor of the information that she thought was so important for getting people to be able to connect, and it's about listening. When you spoke with her, you truly felt heard and listened to, and you could always feel a very deep and sweet, kind-hearted connection with her. I feel honored to be able to carry this forward with my other partners and alumni of this organization, the BCLA, and, of course, Karen, who is, I believe, with Roger right now, and I'm sure Roger as well when he's ready and healing through this, but for me, I just want to impart what I think is, I don't have written statement here, I'm just speaking from the heart as I'm sure she would hope, is that talk really does matter. How we speak to each other, how we convey our message and how we receive others' messages is just so important to how we connect and how we understand and how we build community. And I think if we kind of keep that in mind, I think that all of us can easily carry forward the legacy that she's established. And really one of her life's work was knitting the community together. And we're so lucky to have had such a power couple In our community who worked with us and cared about what the city of Eureka is doing.

So thank you very much Thank You director Folger and any council members like to say anything I We just want to honor her life. I know some of us, she facilitated our strategic visioning, and so her work lives on in the work we're doing today. And we'll take three breaths in silence in honor of Mary. Thank you. It feels meaningful to remember both David and Mary together tonight. They were very different with different ways of working. They both deeply believed and enacted that belief in the capacity for people to shape their communities from organizing and building movements to helping people listen and collaborate. both leave us stronger than we were because they were here and I know we all look forward to continuing to lift up their work and you know many different ways just honoring the humans that make up what a city is and becomes We're going to shift to some presentations. Thank you for being here tonight. Lots of love and care. And then just I know there are members of the public who are also here to make public comments, so I just want to let you know that that is coming. So next we're going to have presentations, and then we'll have the public comment period. So thank you all for being here tonight. First up we have Special Projects Manager Marceline with the operations complex project update. Thank you, Katie, for being here.

Hello. Good evening. I have a presentation prepared. The city is currently undertaking our operations complex project. And oftentimes, those items come to the city council when there's specific action. We don't have a specific action requested, but it is a large project, and it's occurring in multiple phases. So we thought it's helpful to provide incremental updates. The city has been working through a number of steps related to this project. We've gone through property acquisition, CEQA, environmental studies, design steps, construction documents, and awarded of construction phases. In the past, we've come to city council related to a contract award or a budget authorization. This update tonight is really just a progress report. The project site is at 3993 Broadway, and that is on the south end of Eureka. The city purchased property from the Ocean View Cemetery. That escrow and approval process started in November of 2023. We closed escrow in May of 2024. This particular location is outside of the coastal zone or other hazard areas. Our current corporation yard is in the coastal zone and in another number of natural disaster or hazard areas. Getting this project up and running has been a long-standing goal for the city to relocate from our existing Public Works Corporation yard. This new facility will serve as our day-to-day corp yard, but also function as an emergency operations center during critical incidents, emergencies, and natural disasters. That property acquisition process was undertaken. Staff team came to council on a number of matters. One was a schematic design process and a construction management at risk process. In September of 2024, council approved a contract with Swinnerton Builders, and that really got us moving into the construction phases. Some of this information is being repeated, so we can just kind of be refreshed. But we had initially hoped to build multiple buildings at the site to model some of the work we currently do with the fleet shop and then also some of our other operations. The outcome of design was to have a one building scenario. This was a sample rendering by the former architects, Scott Edwards Architecture, that showed that one building scenario. We furthered that design process. And through that reduction, we really looked at targets for budget. This was also a time when we made the distinction that we would not be relocating any other staff. For example, from City Hall, there was a contemplation of relocating staff or trying to create some efficiencies. So with the one building scenario, we are only moving those staff from the corp yard and those existing uses to this new site. And then this helped get us into budget. The other benefits here with the one building scenario are that we retained some space on the south end of the project site if there was a desire for future council or future leadership to have a second building or potentially on the north side of the site as well for additional build out over time to be strategic and thoughtful. This is a snapshot. It's difficult to squeeze everything into slides of what the phase one components included. So this gives you an idea, lots of little lines on the page here. But these would be what we would refer to as underground wet utilities. So we see storm basins. And then we see stormwater infrastructure coming out of the site. There's some other wet utilities that are coming up into the site, bringing water or sanitary sewer services. What's not shown on some of these drawings are also the underground electrical, any of the grading contours. This gray pattern here represents the hardscape areas that would be completed during phase one. So again, just a review of that work. look at that happy group here we are kicking off our phase one uh site grading and underground utilities work this uh production of cds meaning construction documents for phase one occurred between february to may of 2025 that was with our former architect scott edwards architecture and that contract was awarded in july of 2025 so that work has been ongoing earthwork, grating, stormwater, those underground utilities I mentioned, site concrete, paving, and a portion of the fencing and the gates. So I brought you some fun photos to share what this looked like happening out at our site. Again, a lot of earth moving, clearing, and grubbing, setting up the site. We'll see in a lot of these photos this black perimeter here. That's our silt fence that holds the perimeter of the site. Our underground utility installations. the connections of utilities this is down on sunset connecting in for our utilities in that location the massive storm water features that have been installed at the site and then another silver lining we'll call it we did stockpile the native soil material from this project and then later in 2026 another city project was able to use that material at our wastewater treatment plant facilities so makola construction was able to utilize that for our Eliminate the Bypass project. So we tried to consolidate our resources, utilize our construction contractors, and be efficient with the work. This is just a snapshot of some of the underground electrical. I know it's not really exciting. It's all underground. But this was ongoing, a lot of concrete perimeter curbing. And then a lot of our perimeter fencing. Again, this is going quick here, but just to understand that our contractors had temporary fencing, they had silt fencing, and then we had permanent fencing. So a lot of layers of being able to sequence the work. This is a great shot of what Wyler used to look like at Sunset and Wyler. Prior to finishing out there, we were able to pave that portion of Wyler. And then this is just kind of another snapshot of the whole site. You can see the curbs have been installed. There's a big giant stockpile back in here. And then this is a more recent as of just last week. So the site has been paved. That soil stockpile is gone. We are getting into a punch list for phase one. And we are working towards wrapping that up for phase one. For phase two, the city did kind of switch gears. In January of 2025, the city council authorized a contract with NMR, Nichols, Melberg, Risotto Architects. They are based in California. And their team came on board and came up with this design. Part of our struggle was the initial design team was based out of the Portland, Oregon area. And they were very instrumental for the city in getting us through early environmental and early concept designs. But we really needed on the ground constructability kind of a team locally that understood Northern California. Phase two construction documents were developed in the early part of 2026. Council awarded a contract for that work, and that work of phase two includes a full metal building shell. Um, that would include 21,000 square feet of enclosed space, 3,760 square feet of a covered awning. This, the entire pre-engineered metal structure with three interior mezzanines. Roofing skylights, insulation windows, siding and exterior doors. So the reason that we needed to design and award that work is that this is a pre-engineered structure. Over the last period of months from April until most recently, I would say late July, August, we've been working through the final designs for that structure, that framing. And that framing, it produced, I'll say, 85 sheets of calculations that now our building department is reviewing. And those calculations help us to determine what the loads will be and what the footing requirements are. So it was not feasible for us to bid the foundation work until we had designed the phase two structural work. So initially when the city launched this project, we were hoping to work with one design team and potentially one construction manager at risk and dovetail in all these phases together. We needed to really manage our budget and manage our resources, and so we've pulled these out and bid these competitively. So phase two, I think I might have mentioned that a couple weeks back. We do have a building now designed and now ordered that is just the shell, and that is a five-part delivery. Those first two days of delivery start September 28th and September 29th. So that's our phase two project. Our phase three project is that final foundation and all those interiors. So this gives you a point of view of what is remaining. So this next contractor, these construction documents were developed between March to July of 2026. The contract award is actually on your agenda tonight. And this includes bringing from those underground utilities that we saw the pictures of into the foundation footprint, stubbing up those utilities, pouring those footings and pouring that foundation. The documents are structured so that the incoming awarded phase three contractor has 60 days from the notice to proceed to complete that work. Then they need to back away from the site and allow 75 days for that phase two shell to be erected and placed. And then they would return to the site and finish the interior. So it's all of the interior framing, electrical, mechanical systems, plumbing, fire suppression, door locks, you know, anything that's happening on the finishes, the flooring, the restrooms, all of it. And then they would also be connecting all of these exterior hardscapes that you see. So this work would continue into 2027. Following those days that I mentioned, we'll see this work occurring into probably this time next year. Here is a nice preview of our future building. So I mentioned that we have an awning. It's almost 4,000 square feet. And part of this is because a lot of our equipment currently is stored in inclement weather. We own a lot of expensive and valuable equipment that helps our crews every day in their work. So providing some covered storage. Other components of this building are the interior spaces where we can drive equipment in and out to unload and load trucks. We can store equipment. We also have our fleet section of the building that has a large enough roofline and also mezzanine to allow for a crane so we can provide mechanic and kind of equipment access. This is just a preview of what it looks like for our mechanics to work on some of the larger pieces of equipment. We do have some limitations with our current building. in that we cannot use the lifts and open for access at the same time. So our new building will give us that access and some more efficiencies for our mechanics. And that is kind of a summary of everything that is being brought forward. Are there questions about the construction phase report?

Councillor Moulton.

I think you're wrong. This is very exciting. I'm very excited. Just watching how this whole process has gone from like, oh, we need to get the emergency vehicles out of the tsunami zone to first draft, second draft, to assessing needs, to ordering a building. I'm delighted. And I know that you in particular have been key for this whole project. So I want to thank you for your efforts as well as this update. Yeah, that's all no great work Council member Fernandez.

Thank you. And yes, thank you for putting together the presentation on this You had said in the timeline presented for the courtyard that it would be an additional 300 some odd days after today's potential approval and so when might that work begin or when would that timeline start at timeline start and

Well, let me check my slides because it's hard to balance the numbers. So we have a phase three that has a 60-day period. Then of those 300 days, we do not count the 75 days so that the time clock stops. So then when they resume, they have 240 days remaining. But what we're looking at is November of 2027. We're looking at a full year's worth of work.

Yeah, that's what I was wanting to... Thank you for answering that. Thank you for reading my mind in that effect.

so then looking at that work is that to project completion or is that just phase three at that point that would be ability for us to occupy the spaces so the same thing we want to do at the time when this work is ongoing is figuring out furnishes finishes you know anything else that we will need at the site and we'll be doing that concurrently just as we've done in trying to multitask

Well, no, it speaks to the work, again, of the staff and the folks that we're utilizing in terms of construction because to have this come to concept to the council in 2023 and then potentially have it done, you know, weather permitting, by November 27, you know, it's a four-year timeline, really, and that's quite exceptional for a project of this size, especially in a community its size. SO THANK YOU FOR MAKING ALL OF THAT POSSIBLE. THEN OF COURSE, WHAT BECOMES OF THE OLD CORP YARD?

WELL, THE CITY HAS UNDERTAKEN A SURPLUS LAND PROCESS. SO I MIGHT OFFER SOMEONE ELSE TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION. YEAH.

SO WE WENT TO COUNCIL WITH THE SURPLUS LAND PROCESS. THAT'S BEEN COMPLETED. AND WE ARE IN NEGOTIATIONS WITH COSTCO CURRENTLY FOR A GROUND LEASE FOR THAT PROPERTY.

Okay. Just putting it out there, they were willing to have housing built in SoCal through a private developer. Just saying.

Yeah, there would be a zoning. Right now it's just an expansion of their parking lot, but that doesn't mean that they can't change that.

Just putting the idea out there for them here. All right. Thank you.

Council members? OK. We will open this up for public comment. No. No, we will not open this up. I apologize. You may comment on this during the open public comment period. Thank you for all of your work. We know that this is a lot to manage. And I do know that, just so the members of the public know, the operations complex phase three has been pulled from consent. So there will be the chance to comment on that if you like. Thank you. We'll now move on to the feasibility study for the Elk River Wastewater Treatment Plant. I believe Director Willer is coming up to share about that. Thank you, Director Willer.

Yeah. What's up? Okay. I can stand. Oh, yeah, I'm good. It's good for you to stand. Now the question is, can I remember how to raise this thing? I can't, but that's okay. Okay, more pro tem. Pardon?

Oh, geez.

Thank you. Well, if you are excited about the operations complex, be prepared to be even more excited about talking about our Elk River Wastewater Treatment Plant. Good evening, Mayor Patem and Council. I am Jesse Willer. I'm City Engineer and Director for the Engineering Department. Tonight, Katie Marcellon, Special Project Manager, who you just heard from. We will be presenting on our feasibility study for discharge from our regional wastewater treatment plant, the Elk River Wastewater Treatment Plant. This study is a significant task from a long list of NPDES permit related tasks going back almost 15 years. We have a lot to cover tonight, but this presentation is just an introduction to this study. So don't feel like you need to absorb all the details all at once tonight. This study is still in draft form and will be released for public review later this year. This feasibility study looks at a broad options as to how we can meet permit and policy requirements. It is also contemplates potential options to comply with those requirements. And with that, we will start the slideshow. One thing that we're probably all aware of, we're located on Humboldt Bay. This is the reason why Eureka exists, is because of this wonderful water body that we have here. You can see a list of features that we have. This is the heartbeat of our city, and we feel very tied to being stewards of this water body in the surrounding areas. Next slide, please. Our wastewater treatment plant, the Elk River Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant, is located at the end of Hillficker Drive on the south end of town. The facility is a trickling filter-based treatment plant. That means the treatment train is generally made up of primary clarifiers, trickling filters, secondary clarifiers, disinfection, and discharge. There are other components within there, but that's the general treatment train. The plant was commissioned in 1984. Our receiving waters are Humboldt Bay. Our discharge currently goes out on outgoing tides, so we can discharge whenever the tide is outgoing. The wastewater treatment plant was constructed in high ground, so when the planning for the plant was contemplated, the elevation was looked at and it was constructed, the major components between 15 and 20 foot of elevation. Adjacent shoreline is lower. The inundation along adjacent shoreline is between 9 and 10 feet during king tide events. That's critical, you know, as we move forward with sea level rise planning and looking at how we make changes at our treatment plant. here's another view of the treatment plant in the forebay there you can see our facultated sludge lagoons currently we have a project that is converting one of those facultated sludge lagoons into an equalization basin to help us comply with another permit requirement to eliminating discharging of effluent that has not been treated with secondary treatment during our wet weather flows. So that project is currently getting ready. It should be completed in the next six months or so. Could be completed much sooner than that. We're working through some things, but yeah, it's very, very close to completion. That's a huge project for the city, major investment in our infrastructure and very critical for our discharge permit. Current policy, this is the fun stuff. We are a bay discharger. That means our outfall currently is extended into Humboldt Bay. That means that we fall under a policy called the enclosed bays and estuaries policy. This policy went into effect back in, quite a while ago. The dates you see there, 1984 to 2016, that's when our permit, we were considered an ocean discharger. That means that we did not fall within the enclosed bays and estuaries policy. There was a water quality order, 7920, That water quality order discussed Humboldt Bay and it discussed how discharges to Humboldt Bay, the details of discharges to Humboldt Bay, and it very much focused a lot on Arcata's discharge at the time as they were given an exception to the enclosed bays and estuaries policy at the time that their plant was created, which was very near to the same time that our treatment plant was constructed. Our current permit requires us to complete a feasibility study. That's why we're here tonight. We need to analyze alternatives and select a preferred alternative. Currently, I mentioned earlier, we have this feasibility study that we're looking at. We're going to contemplate ocean outfalls. With those contemplated ocean outfall alternatives, we'll be looking, we modeled those outfalls. We've looked at potential enhancement projects for alternatives that might stay, keep our discharge within Humboldt Bay. We also looked at two alternatives, a new wastewater treatment plant and a deep well injection. The concept of injecting our wastewater into the very deep parts of the earth. As I mentioned before we have our eliminate bypass of wet weather flows project in the final stages of construction As you all familiar our treatment plan or maybe you're not familiar but our treatment plan is located the end of Hill Ficker Drive Very new very near to the entrance to Humboldt Bay our discharge outfall extends out into the navigation channel, which has a very deep connection to the outfall of Humboldt Bay. And I think that's originally why our discharge was considered a ocean discharge from 1984 to 2016, because when discharging on outgoing tides, the vast majority of our effluent would leave Humboldt Bay and go out into the ocean. So here's what we will be covering tonight. We're looking at four general topics here. Eliminate discharge from Humboldt Bay. So we will talk about a new ocean outfall, a connection to an existing ocean outfall, the RM2 outfall, which is operated by the Humboldt Harbor District. We can talk a bit about the modeling of those ocean outfalls. We will talk about how we might continue to discharge to Humboldt Bay. We'll talk a little bit about the modeling. We'll look at our guidelines for why there is a possibility for us to continue our discharge, and then also look at what those enhancement options might look like as far as alternatives and projects. The other two bullet points you see there, the wastewater system and the deep well injection, were not found to be technically feasible, so we won't be talking about those tonight. All right, so new ocean outfall pipeline options considered. We see three options here on your board. The first option would be the green line on the screen. The yellow box on the lower right hand side, that is the existing location of the Elk River Wastewater Treatment Plant. The green line shows a route that was contemplated to direct a a directionally drilled outfall underneath Humboldt Bay, underneath the Samoa Peninsula, and out into the ocean. You'll see two yellow dots on there. Those are two ocean depths. 79 feet and 42 feet. We'll be kind of talking about those a little bit in the next few slides. What that means, those are in reference to a depth of closure. Depth of closure is the area near the shoreline where you start to get away from where the storms that would be generated, larger storms that are generated would stir up sand on the bottom that could potentially cover up a diffuser section of an outfall. So basically we would need to have our outfall would need to be outside of that area where those Storm generated waves would stir up the seafloor and might cover up the outfall depending on different storm events. So that's what those two depths mean. It's kind of a range. So we looked at a range of options as far as our discharge 42 feet. That would be a less conservative option where there is still there's a higher potential that you would have sand movement that might cover up your diffuser ports. The 79 feet is more of a conservative estimate. So we looked at both of these options from a cost, from an engineering standpoint, pumping, construction costs for the additional length of outfall that would need to be extended. So that's what those two points of reference mean. So option one is a continuous pipeline. That was found not to be feasible because of the length. There's not currently a, there's not currently been successful directional drills of that length. So that's something we couldn't necessarily drill directly from the wastewater treatment plant all the way out to one of these options, the 42 or the 79. We have to find a place to lay up in between that in order to provide another pump station and then move and then go to another section of directional drill and potential trenching on the seafloor in order to install that second section. So again, not feasible, option one. Option two, we looked at a two-segment pipeline, wastewater treatment plant to the peninsula and the peninsula to an ocean diffuser via HCD, which is, that's your directional drill. This is a dual segment, 30 inch steel PVC pipeline, approximately 6,200 feet from the treatment plant to the peninsula and another 6,200 feet from the peninsula to 42 foot offshore. The other new ocean outfall option is the one that goes out further. So rather than having 6,200 feet to the peninsula and another 6,200 feet, you'd be looking at 6,200 feet plus 600 or 6,000 feet of directional drill. And then another near mile of open trench out to the, from the 42 foot depth to the 79 foot depth of closure. Another ocean outfall option is, rather than creating a new ocean outfall, to tie into the existing ocean outfall at the Redwood Marine Terminal 2, the RMT2 as we call it. contemplated the same crossing distance from the wastewater treatment plants the peninsula but then included approximately 12,500 lineal feet of new pipeline extended north along the peninsula up to where the RMT t2 outfall starts and That's A bit of a different option, given that it is rather than creating a new infrastructure, you're tying into an existing piece of infrastructure. The RM2 outfall was previously used during the pulp mill days on the peninsula when we had multiple pulp mills that were operating out there. The discharge from their effluent that came out of their processes was discharged to this plant. So it's a piece of infrastructure that's been on the ocean floor for a number of years. It would have to, of course, be retrofitted in order to take up more use, similar to how we might use it. So that's kind of the second ocean outfall option. Whenever we're looking at these ocean outfalls, we need to look at what are conflicts that we might have or considerations for the design. We haven't found any notable utility conflicts. We have staging area on the peninsula, given that the city owns and operates the airport out there. There is a lot of environmentally sensitive habitat on the peninsula, a lot of dune mat, which is a very critical habitat area. Dredging is something that we would need to take into consideration when it comes to depths of drilling. Of course, pipeline capacity size material, outfall, kind of your standard engineering material review. Horizontal directional drilling was found to be probably the most, to make the most sense as far as constructing pipeline under the bay and out into the ocean. Again, 30 inch in diameter. We'd have to install a new pump station on the peninsula for any of these options in order to convey to the new ocean outfall or to an existing ocean outfall. That's a significant pump station. And there's a diffuser section for all options that we've done significant modeling for in order to determine how currents in the ocean would affect discharge, you know, tides and currents, how that interacts with our near coastal waters, the entrance to Humboldt Bay. So all of that was, we've gone through significant near field and far field modeling of our discharge in that area. So that's been evaluated. And then, of course, evaluating sea level rise and climate change adaptation. So I will be rather quick with these slides, but the details here, we talk about new ocean outfall too. This is going to a 42 depth of closure. We talked about the lengths there. You can see the cost. It may be a confusing number. I know that it was for me, but as you'll see in the bottom of the first table, you're looking at $170 million. And that is just for the pipeline construction. The second box on the bottom, that is for the construction of the pump station on the peninsula. That's another $6.6 million roughly. None of these costs, this is just strict construction costs. This does not consider engineering design, permitting, environmental documents. There's a lot more that goes into this, but for the sake of our alternatives analysis and being able to compare costs, this is what we've arrived at for cost comparison, but something to consider when you're reviewing these alternatives. Option three, this is to the deeper depth of closure, 204 million, same pumping costs roughly, 6.6 million. Thank you. And the RM2 outfall tie-in, 46 million and similar pumping costs. Um, this, and again, this cost does not include, so again, none of these costs include design permitting, environmental document, those sorts of things. But this one also does not include. any purchase price that would have to be worked out with the harbor district or becoming a tenant of the harbor district those are just too early in the process to be in those details but that's something that is certainly an important consideration how as a city we want to make sure that we are making good decisions responsible decisions with our control of our processes and how we are able to

work that it's just it's an important consideration and now you will be lucky enough to transition to Katie for a period we're gonna just try to shake it up a little bit so Jesse addressed the ocean outfall components and my work with this my role with this work is relatively new but I do have a background in some of our shoreline planning, sea level rise adaptation planning. And so that's where we do have some crossover. So the additional kind of tasks or homework for the city of Eureka to deliver back to the regional board is to study what would it mean for the city of Eureka to stay in the bay, to keep our pipe where it is, and what are the policy guidance that would get us moving in that direction. So to be able to help us all think about Jesse gave us big numbers and drawings going out to the ocean. Now we've got to switch over and think about the bay. This is kind of just thinking about our coastal setting, the historic context. We mentioned when RMT2 was running. You can see the smokestacks here. You can see the pulp mills here. Part of the role that we're in right now is we operate a treatment plant, but we are under the governance and the regulation of Regional Water Quality Control Board. That entity has changed and modified regulation over time. And it's a result of actions from prior historic uses. So in Humboldt Bay, over the decades, we're going to say between 1940s to 1970s, we know there was a period of resource uses. Lumber and fisheries boom. We saw dramatic impacts to water quality. Also at that time, the wastewater collection systems and treatment systems were quite limited, even within the city of Eureka and what infrastructure we owned or operated at that time. This resulted in Resolution Water Quality Order 7920. We refer to that one a lot. It was a multi-month, multi-day event specifically focused on kind of dire water conditions in Humboldt Bay. And kind of from the state water board and regional water board, they looked at this and came up with this water quality order. So they directed all of those jurisdictions locally, Eureka being one of those, combine our collections and treatment systems, move from primary treatment to secondary treatment, and provide enhancement to the water quality above that which would occur in the absence of the discharge, meaning if we were to continue to discharge in Humboldt Bay, whether it's Eureka or Arcata or the other various dischargers, we would have to demonstrate all of these components. And that has continued to come down to us through our permits. This is just another snapshot of the bay, and it's important to note we have some similarities, but we're also unique in our position where Eureka is oriented compared to North Bay or South Bay. We saw another shift between the 1980s to the 2020s. We saw increased environmental regulation for those natural resource-based industries. We saw a broader-based awareness and shifting of regulatory policy to address that historic or past environmental impact and generally improve water quality. And then we saw this really big shift to promote restoration and watershed projects along our shoreline areas, and Eureka has been um advocating for you know mitigation projects restoration projects anything that we can do in tandem with our other shoreline projects we also saw during this period that wastewater collections and treatment systems shifted not just from secondary treatment but now there was this focus to reduce ini we're looking at you know completely eliminating wet weather bypass flows so all components of our collection system are moving into our treatment train And this is universal. This isn't just for us locally, but this is how, while we did build our treatment plant in the 80s and we established it to have an ocean discharge, we are not in control anymore. The regulatory agencies are trying to get stricter, protect the environmental resources we have, and so now we have to shift. Looking ahead, we see the impacts of sea level rise and we're looking towards sea level rise planning so when we think about policy guidance looking ahead humboldt bay between 2030 and 2070 we know that our eureka shoreline has increasingly exposed to sea level rise we have areas that are experiencing tectonic subsidence with higher sea level rise so we know that we're experiencing a larger growth or more projected growth with other above other california communities We have a high amount of rainfall each year, the intensity and the duration of the storm events. So all of these factors, we really wanted to bring this forward back to the regional board and say, how do you expect us to plan for these enhancement projects to guide us in alternatives to stay in the bay when we're really looking back at a resolution, the water quality order 7920, it was really based on THE SPECIFIC FACTORS AT THAT TIME. SO REGIONAL BOARD TOOK THE STEPS TO ADOPT A RESOLUTION. THIS WAS ADOPTED IN FEBRUARY OF 2026, EARLIER THIS YEAR. THE EARLIER INCLUDED BASED INITIAL RACE POLICY AND WATER QUALITY ORDER 7920 DIDN'T REALLY ACKNOWLEDGE THE CURRENT CONDITIONS FOR HUMBOLT BAY AND THE WATER QUALITY THREATS RELATED TO CLIMATE CHANGE AND SEA LEVEL RISE. SO NOW AS WE'RE ADVANCING OUR FEASIBILITY STUDY, WE'RE ALSO INCLUDING RESOLUTION 26005 that addresses any project that does address the fuller realization of beneficial uses, climate adaptation and resilience, habitat restoration and creation, removal of legacy pollutants, and disadvantaged communities and public health. So that was a long story to remember the decades that we've gone through in having oversight of our treatment plant and that we are really governed by the policies that are adopted. At City Council's meeting on September 1st, the City Council also adopted a similar resolution acknowledging this policy guidance. And that gets us into some of the proposed Bay enhancement projects that will be part of this feasibility study and could then advance for additional analysis. These are three locations that are showing up. And we're going to talk about the three locations that were identified through some of the coastal resilience planning work. So this work is done in tandem. There is also a fourth enhancement project that's not shown on this graphic. And that would be to work in partnership with HCSD to address the unsewered areas that are to the north around Ryan Slough and then to the south around Humboldt Hill. The policy guidance that we've received does address not just statewide but regionally identifying projects that could support any continued resources for disadvantaged communities. So this slide is just demonstrating where we have low income or disadvantaged community numbers. And then we've also identified that one of our project locations is adjacent to a mobile home park So this is our McCullens pump station. And the proposed project would take a hardened shoreline that's currently in place that's been reworked over time to help protect the infrastructure here and expand into the bay to create more of a natural shoreline. So this is a cross-section view, natural shoreline, existing infrastructure. And then in a future, this would be a near-term project, in a future project, maybe even retreating utilities back behind the pump station. This project would use potentially reuse or imported sediment to be placed in the landward areas and cover that riprap to create more of a horizontal levee or a softened shoreline. These are some other views of the analysis that was done related to climate adaptation and the utilities that are in place. The existing shoreline is hardened with riprap. So this project would transform that existing hardened shoreline, create a habitat system, and create kind of this continuous habitat range while also protecting the infrastructure. So that is one project that is being reviewed. This is a second project. We are calling this the pole shed restoration. This currently is a large open parking area adjacent to the Bayshore Mall. The parking lot would be converted, and a series of tidal channels would be installed. A tide gate would be installed to control tidal exchange, and we would do more analysis on hydraulic connectivity. And then an elevated trail would be placed on the backside of the project area. This project location does have a number of utilities related to it. And it's a zone that we have been watching just in terms of our inundation mapping. This is also a site that was a historic mill site. And we've been undertaking a number of studies over the last few years to identify what legacy pollutants are still at the site, how there's a preliminary work that was done through a Brownfields grant to help us identify methods for remediation at the site. And not only would we be able to remove those legacy pollutants, but we would be able to create habitat. So again, a snapshot of ways that we could utilize property that maybe is not being utilized currently and create an enhancement project and also address some of that policy guidance that I was speaking to. And then this is a third project. It's north of Pound Road. This includes adjustments to the grades in this location, which is Pound Road, or people think of this as the Hicksharee Trail or access to our waterfront trail. This property is currently part of the city's treatment plant, kind of a green belt buffer. And the work here would be, again, installing a series of tidal channels, creating additional habitat corridors, changing or relocating specific infrastructure to protect that infrastructure. It addresses climate change and resilience. It also creates habitat. And then I'm going to pass this one over to Jesse.

thank you Katie I'll cover a couple more project or another project and then we will wrap up so as was mentioned earlier another potential enhancement project would be partnering with Humboldt Community Services District they are a part they do contribute to our inflow into the treatment plan and contribute to the cost of maintenance to the prop to our treatment plan and would be contributing to the cost of projects that would meet requirements in order to put us in compliance with our discharge requirements they have mentioned that they have projects that could potentially help sewer unsewered areas in their in their their service area. They have areas potentially such as the surrounding areas in Humboldt Hill and then parts of Ryan Slough to the north of Eureka. So those are the two general areas. There could be other areas as well that they may be able to take that on. This could be an important component. I know it's an important goal for the Regional Water Quality Control Board to reduce potential water quality impacts from aging septic systems that could be potentially, if they were to allow discharges, could enter into tributaries of Humboldt Bay. so that that's generally what that project component could look like so we talked a bit about our two our ocean outfalls our continued discharge to humboldt bay we're not really going to get into the two options that were not found to be feasible and let's see where do we go from here technical feasibility so we we took a look at our different alternatives and looked at what is the possibility of this to actually come to fruition given engineering and construction-related constraints. New ocean outfall, while possible, has a lower technical feasibility than most of our alternatives. A tie-in to RM2 is more moderate technical feasibility, though there would be some challenges with using an existing outfall that's been in place for decades. We have our different enhancement sites that Katie related. Those all have fairly high technical feasibility. Those are all generally projects that would be within our capability and would be technically feasible. Again, new wastewater treatment plant and deep well injection were not found to be feasible alternatives. Financial feasibility is another critical component. Here you see a list of the projects, both the ocean outfall type projects and the enhancement type projects. We do not have the HCSD project listed here. But that's also on the table. You can see the capital costs escalated for 2030. Those are the actual project costs. So what we want to accomplish with this table is really try to give you context into what a capital cost like this might look like when it comes to our sewer fund and so for a for the let's say the 45 foot depth of closure option a nearly 200 million dollar project what we'd be looking at is when it says a rate study impact that's almost an annual increase to the existing to the ad to the existing fund so and at the end it says a hundred and seven percent so that basically means you'd almost be by taking on a project of that magnitude through financing because we would have to finance a project like that we'd almost be doubling the amount of what our current sewer fund is and the rates that are associated with that. So that's a very important consideration when you're looking at these numbers. You'd be talking about significant rate increases by taking on any of these projects, and that's something that shouldn't be Ignored there's also the caveat at the bottom that these capital costs do not include environmental documents any right away that would need to be purchased for Sewer mains or for any of these projects design permitting construction management and inspection And to give a breakdown a little bit more, this is the level that we took. Finance Director Millar gave us some help in trying to project out what these, why these rates might look out to that 107% that was, we kind of alluded for that depth of closure of 49 feet. You can see that, you know, looking at starting to have to fund this in 2030, which is about when construction would have to start, because that's generally what our schedule and our permit is requiring. that we would be needing to start to really increase that additional debt service in that fiscal year 2030, 31, and that it would increase significantly from that point, you know, $11.5 million per year on top of what our already increasing budget would look like. So these are rates that include inflation and then also with that additional debt service on top of it. Next slide, please. So this kind of wraps up our presentation. Our next steps are to, we are required to submit our feasibility study to the regional board by October 1st of this year. At that time, the regional board will, on their schedule, will be putting out a public process to get comment on the feasibility study. Our plan is to come back once that public process has been completed and we've had some time to work with regional board staff on their thoughts on the comments, their thoughts on the feasibility to come back to you and to have a more in-depth discussion once we have more information to provide. And we thank you for your time.

Thank you so much. I believe that council members may have questions. I just want to thank the members of public who are here listening. This may not be why you're here, but both of these projects that were spoken to tonight are things that people really depend on their cities to solve so that they don't have to solve them. So let's see, Council Member Bauer.

Yeah, thank you for the report. It's kind of a lot. I mean, you know, for ratepayers, right? I had assumed that the projects, the pole shed, and the other two, didn't know that realize they'd be so much and I didn't I thought we'd be doing all three you know as a combination probably but I guess the question about that is if we were to do one two or three of those would that guarantee that we could still be a bay discharger or you know two years later they say you know there's just future projects you have to do that's a big question

we have i wouldn't say there is any certainty in any of this we're trying to put together projects that we feel best represent the city of eureka our dedication to humble bay and that meet the requirements of the permit and There's a process. Our next deliverable after the October 1st isn't until 2029. That's when we have to go back with our final, that's the deadline to submit our final preferred alternative. So there's a period of time in here where we'll be Working with regional board staff evaluating these options But that will certainly be a process of back and forth to try to understand how we you know it was really important step in that resolution in place with regional board and and with council here so that we do have a

a place to start a baseline to start from but certainty is difficult to come by well then the next question sorry um... is funding availability is there anything prop one or you know the state for disadvantaged communities to maybe access so any of the suite of projects we're looking at would the state possibly help us with that because i think doubling of rates would be kind of significant for a disadvantaged community.

No, that's very true. Those are significant numbers that we put on the screen. We're dedicated to trying to find funding. We have been. I think there can be challenges with these type of projects depending on how state agencies look at them as far as being able to have funding come in. There certainly seems to be some opportunities that might be able to dovetail with what we're doing. The amount, you know, it's difficult to say at this time like how much money could we bring in grant funding. You know, no stone unturned as far as trying to find grants, trying to find, you know, hopefully other funding sources. You know, maybe there's something that the state can do to try to, to the table you know we're a small we're we're not considered small by the um by the clean water srf standards but we are a relatively small jurisdiction in the state of california we're a disadvantaged community and you know we have a we're looking at some significant costs here to try to wrangle and we need to leave no stone unturned

And I think we spoke about this institution visioning the last piece of key visionings that SRF is a state revolving fund. Smaller communities such as Arcade, I believe they got 80 million for their plant because they qualify for that state revolving fund. We are 6,000 in population above what would qualify us for that. So because of that, we don't have access to those funds. We do have access to loans. One of the things I wanted to add that Director Millar was making mention of, at that high level of 200 plus million, we would have difficulty even financing that with our current credit and status of our sewer fund.

Thank you.

Any questions? Council Member Fernandez.

Yeah, I've got quite a few, if you can bear with me. Let's see. So just starting off light, for the permit, and even then, how often are we required to complete this feasibility study? Or is it just part of this current permit?

Yeah, it was part of our last permit, and it's part of this permit as well. So once the idea is that we're on a compliant, you know, we have a set of tasks that's going to put us in compliance, kind of like a compliance schedule. So we have the feasibility study that's due now. We'll say it's like more or less like a draft feasibility study. Final feasibility studies due to the regional board on October 1st of 2029. After that, we have a series of deliverables when it comes to providing an environmental document, providing 10% design, providing full design and specifications. Those are all submittals that we have with the regional board. that are on a time schedule. The project needs to be completed by 2042. That's the deadline for completion, meaning it's constructed, it's operational, and we are in compliance with those requirements. So that's the general timeframe that we're looking at.

Okay. And then, let's see here. You had touched on a piece about some of the technical aspect about the drilling depths. the unsuccessful drills, given the, uh, given the length, uh, that would be required. And so you said we hadn't seen anything successful in that. Is that successful regionally? Is that successful throughout the state or is it just like a standard that we haven't been able to meet?

Yeah, that's like a, uh, I don't know if I'd say worldwide standard. That's like a general, you know, this. that length of drill just hasn't been successfully accomplished. Okay.

So, yeah. Well, yeah, and that gives us some perspective, or it gives me some perspective, too, in looking at how we pursue this then. When you were talking about the RM2, about using existing infrastructure, and even of, you know, the varying, what was it, outfall to the ocean, those new ones, how dated is the infrastructure then if we were to tie into that? I know you touched on that it belonged to, what was it, the older logging?

Yeah, I believe, I don't know the exact date of installation, but it's decades old. So when the pulp mills were active, that's the discharge they used. Currently, it's owned and operated by the Humboldt Bay Corporation. harbor district um i think they took it over at some point but i'm not i don't remember the exact date but it is not a um you know when you think of having to maintain a piece of infrastructure that's located in the salt water in an active ocean setting there's there's maintenance requirements um that you know are going to be coming up sooner than later right so it's definitely something we can't not think about you know what are those um those are potential costs that could be coming you know, in the near future, connecting to an existing outfall like that.

Yeah, and I know that it was in place prior to our treatment plant being in place, that outfall. I'll also say that when they're comparing apples, you know, they wanted to just do the construction of this. When you're looking at the RM2 connection, one of the big things when it comes up with permitting is mitigation. We'll have to mitigate even if we do a new outfall, but the amount of mitigation involved in going to RM2 through all that dune mat is going to be significant. I'm no expert and I'm not an engineer, but based on previous projects that have done that amount of mitigation and monitoring that's required with that mitigation, your price for going to RM2 is not going to be significantly different. from doing a new outfall, especially in consideration of negotiations with the Harbor District, whether we purchase it from them or whether we lease it from them. I'd say that those costs are going to be very similar.

Well, that's what gives me some pause and some concern with that particular one, because I know you're presenting to us what the options are. And of looking at the ocean, or at least a new ocean outfall, that one is the least expensive option. of the three, but not necessarily the least restrictive in the sense of like, what's the longevity of this then too? Or what is the process both in terms of our relationships? And so thank you for that. How would the Coastal Commission view any of that project if we were to look at ocean outfall? Do they have any say in that or is that something we have to take into consideration?

certainly yes we would definitely have to get a coastal development permit there would be significant probably on both projects whether it's a new outfall or whether it's a you know the connection up to the Redwood Marine Terminal outfall there would be significant permitting requirements that's in both cases

And even the third case, if we were to do some of those remediation projects, those will require CDP, too.

I get the feeling that they would be more accepting of remediation. But even taking that into consideration when we're looking at those projects in the pole shed, what was it, the McCullen treatment, and then I'm forgetting the third one there. Is this to help mitigate or is it like a restoration program? Because, you know, I don't mean to minimize the work that you put into this, but I'm imagining it as kind of like a cap and trade. Like here we are beautifying this, but we're still putting the outfall out into the bay. So how am I to reconcile that?

Yeah, you know, we have the resolution lays out, you know, kind of what the criteria are to receive an exception to the enclosed bays and estuaries policy. That's why it was such an important document that get moved ahead. It gives us a way forward so that that policy outlines which Katie went through and listed out all those different criteria that are listed in the resolution. And so those resolution, those criteria they aren't necessarily like tied back to the outfall of the pipe, so to speak. So those are just different project criteria types that we could use, whether alone or in conjunction, you know, as a suite of projects in order to try to meet that to, I guess it would be called to gain an exception to the enclosed base nest choice policy.

and one of those main tenants is water quality and all of those projects would enhance water quality so whether it's the living shoreline in the habitat and because of that habit increasing water quality as well as the pole shed property the removal of contaminated soil those things all contribute to enhancing water quality okay well that was the follow-up question so thank you for that city manager

And then the last piece, and then probably the biggest then for rate payers is the cost that you had put up there. And so what was the, and this might have to go to someone else, but what was the rate of inflation used to determine the projected costs?

I believe it was 6%. Okay. 6%. Okay. Okay.

No, and I appreciate that because that is something that we have to take into account too because, yeah, understanding we can't predict, we can't prognosticate what it's going to be other than up and more. That's really all we're left with. So I was curious if it was the standard 2%, but it sounds like it's going to be more potentially. And then, yeah, you've already shown us how that affects rates. So thank you.

Any other council members with questions? Thank you. Thank you for this work and your presentation and for your care and kind of navigating the importance that we steward both the Bay and the citizens of Eureka. I think you've done a lot of good work. You know, hopefully members of the public make comment on this when it goes before the Water Quality Board, you know, that, you know, speaking to the stewardship that people of Eureka have for Humboldt Bay and that, you know, that this would, in my opinion, be a detriment to, in terms of the fiscal impact to citizens if we had to extend that outfall out to the ocean. So thank you for your work. And we will close this item and move to scrolling through. There are no board and commission reports, and so we're going to open up the public comment period. This is the time for members of the public who wish to be heard on matters that do not appear on the agenda. City council policies to limit each speaker to three minutes. Such time allotment or portion thereof shall not be transferred to other speakers. Pursuant to the Brown Act, the city council may not take action on an item that does not appear on the agenda. OK. Let's start. We'll start here, and then we'll just kind of ping pong back and forth. Thanks for being here.

Okay, my name is Misty and it's rather appropriate what I wanted to speak to you about tonight actually. I came to Humboldt three years ago and I was homeless. I was kicked out of the rescue mission and also Betty Chin's and went on to become a caregiver that actually helps PACE clients and they were represented here tonight. I've been doing that now for three years and it's been a huge blessing to be a part of this community and My goal in being here is to be an example of what can happen when people in the community unite to help people like me. I've been down and out. I worked in prison for 12 years before my daughter went to college, and I became severely mentally ill. I've since recovered. I no longer take any medications, but I rely completely on my faith and hope in Jesus Christ. In light of the mourning that you're experiencing, I just want to encourage you and tell you that it's never too late to turn your heart to the one who can soothe every ache that it has. And I personally know that people think, My faith, Christianity, is a very divisive thing, but I'll tell you this. I voted for Bill Clinton. I voted for Barack Obama. And I voted for Joe Biden. And I voted for Trump. I don't like what's going on in the world today. I don't agree with a lot of things that are being done. How my faith is being represented in the government, but I do pray for my leaders I pray for you guys all the time and I really want to be an instrumental part of doing something good for Everyone in this community through what I believe and what it says in the Holy Bible which is where my faith comes from and the scripture that I have for you tonight is Isaiah 61, 1 and 2, good news for the oppressed. The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and proclaim that the captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord's favor has come. Hallelujah and amen. Thank you.

Come on up.

All right. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. Because of lack of time, I want to give a little bit of context. so this is a recording from the september 3rd humboldt county human rights commission meeting the guest speaker was luke brownfield he runs the public defender's office and conflict council and this is a question that i proposed in his answers and i wanted to resonate with you guys because you're not all at fault entirely for the reason why our criminal justice system is Fucked but it's policies and ordinances that have filled our criminals our jails with our own house community members so here just Cases

For example, social work, I'm going to have a public council.

It's amazing.

It's helped me tremendously. It's my ride or die rockstar. It's helped me navigate lots of situations that have come up. So, like, I do understand, like, what you guys are doing. What you can in the social work department, I just feel that the gap that's creating the strain on the criminal justice system has to be within policies and ordinances that exist that criminalize homelessness. which leads to a piling of the population being our in-house community. Trousing them in jail is not a permanent solution. And I think we should, as a community, maybe come up with some better ways to treat that situation so it's not an in-and-out-of-jail situation for people.

You're preaching to the choir here. I agree with you 100% on that. But I guess the question would be, what percentage of the population in jail typically, and I don't know if it's going to vary, is on House Committee 100?

For the misdemeanor population in jail, it's probably 100%. For felony population in jail, it's much less than 100%. um not necessarily it's critical for somebody who's in his houses um i don't know the percentage i'd probably put it getting close to 50 but under 50 percent um i will say that i i do agree that um the policing and rounding people up and putting them in the jails 100 on the wrong policy

That's the person running your public defender in this county, conflict council, asking for more millions of dollars to run another conflict council office so we don't have to contract more and more cases out, costing us millions and millions of dollars. Your part and your policies have definitely led to that. You're not alone. I'll be at Arcata tomorrow with the same situation. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. OK. Next. Sorry, there's someone on the side there. OK. Come on up. Come on up.

Hi. Thank you. I live on a one-way street that has a bike lane. And it's really close to a traffic signal. And every day I see a lot of people run the red light, mostly on e-bikes and e-scooters. In spite of a tremendous effort by the police department recently to educate the public about what you're supposed to do on an e-bike and an e-scooter and a bicycle, Unfortunately, we had a couple of serious accidents recently. They were both on streets that had bike lanes, but the bike lanes either weren't used or were used incorrectly, and other traffic laws were not followed. Us older riders, we know the rules because we drive. We have driver's licenses. We learned how to drive. We learned the rules of the road. Is it possible that a lot of the younger drivers don't really know what the traffic laws are? In spite of EPD really trying to help them know about it and understand, I'm starting to think because we don't have driver's ed in high school anymore and we don't have any discussion in the elementary schools about bike safety like they used to, But no more. So I'm hoping that in the future, at some point, it could be considered to delay construction of more bike lanes until we have this figured out, how we can get the public better educated and riders be held accountable and responsible. Thank you. Thanks, Joanne.

Hi, my name is Joanne McGarry and I spoke earlier today at the Board of Supervisors on similar topics, but going along with the bicycle topic, I just want to remind you that I've spoken before about the importance of the future accommodating people who use bicycles as opposed to automobiles to get around. I use an e-bike and I use a bus and I use my feet. And sometimes people drive me places. But I just had to store my e-bike at a friend's place for a few days because, as I shared in the past, I have to keep my e-bike in my living space. And the future cannot be that reality. It needs to change so that people who use bicycles do not have to sacrifice their living space to store the vehicle that they use to get around. And I agree with all the safety concerns that we have right now with people not doing the right thing and not knowing the right thing to do. So that's that. I guess I wanted to talk about emergency preparedness as we head into this super El Nino type of thing. And I'm really concerned about things like our sewage treatment plants and Our roads as well and again, what are we preparing for and how are we practicing? And what are we doing to get prepared for heavy rains for floods for Kelvin waves? You know, we need to there's so many car accidents already and when we have inclement weather like in severe Cases, what are we going to do? to get people out of their cars and not causing accidents. We really need to start thinking ahead about preparing people for alternatives to driving their car in bad weather. And the final thing I wanted to talk about, which I talked about earlier today, is peace. Peace in the world, peace in our communities. And I just discovered that United Airlines is going back to shipping weapons equipment in passenger cargo planes to Israel. And I know that this city, along with Arcata and the county, we passed a ceasefire resolution a couple years ago But it did not include the resolute that many of us wanted, which is no more weapons to Israel. And maybe it's time to revisit that concept in our communities because the current administration in Washington is just about ready to send a ton, many tons of bombs to Israel right now. And we need to not have that happen.

Thank you. Come on up.

Good evening. Before you start my clock, when can we say something about the operations complex? Can we say it now?

I mean, you could say it now, but it is on the agenda and has been pulled, I believe. So once we pass the consent calendar, that will be spoken to.

Okay. Then the only thing I want to say is... I also want to thank Michelle McKeegan. Way back when, when I was able to walk with my dog, I used to pick up trash, not thinking anything about it. And one day she stopped me and she said, I want to give you an award. And I said, what for? And she said, picking up the garbage. And I still have that award. And in fact, several people after that point stopped me and said, you inspired me, and now I pick up garbage. And I even had, back in those days, the garbage trucks would pick up, would have to physically pick up the garbage cans and dump them in the trucks. And one of the garbage trucks stopped me one day, and he says, I'll empty your bag. And I said, I don't know if you can handle it. It's awfully heavy. Anyway, thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else in council? Come on up, Troy.

Yeah. Troy Ritchie with the Carter House Ins. it's obviously I'm just trying to have dialogue at every every opportunity just this morning I because I'm just repeating what my tourists are are commenting off and on but again great comments about the hotel their experience but the Open drug use and things like that overnight or are creating problems for our our tourists and as they're paying bed tax and Being part of that that community that they're experiencing the the comment that resonated today for me is that you know, they chose the Carter house or Eureka for the proximity of restaurants and and And they actually said in his comment that he chose to drive to Ferndale, to Trinidad, where life felt safer to walk about town. not saying that we feel it's unsafe, but unfortunately, much like some people lock or don't lock their doors, safety is in the mind of the person that's experiencing it. So as I'm looking at tourism, we've got to do a little better about trying to figure out what those steps are. If it, since e-mail is a difficult thing for me, I'll just leave Silly email chain here to pass along to you guys, but thank you so much for your time and the conversations I've had Ironically, I was looking at this as a camping ordinance situation because I'm I'm plagued with people in my alley constantly and I'm not in the library district and I'm not in the old town district, but when tourism is affected by From here to there. It's something to think about So thank you so much.

Thank you. Anyone else in council chambers who wishes to make a comment at this time? Is there anyone on Zoom? i see no one on zoom thank you thank you and with that we will close the public comment and move on to council reports and we did have someone just raise their hand okay um phone number ending in 678

Hello, City Council. This is Jennifer Kalt with Humboldt Waterkeeper. And I just wanted to comment on the wastewater treatment feasibility study overview, which I realize the full study will be released later. But I just want to remind everybody that exceptions to the enclosed bays and estuaries provision policy are required to actually consistently treat and discharge the wastewater in question in a manner that would enhance the quality of receiving waters above that which would occur in the absence of the discharge and with the exception of moving to an ocean outfall i'm really confused as to how any of the projects that were laid out by staff would actually do that and You know, I realize that all of these projects are going to be very expensive. I think Council Member Bauer raised a really good point that even if you pursue these alternative projects that aren't going to actually be increasing the quality of the discharge, there's really no certainty either from the regional board or from, you know, people who choose to enforce the Clean Water Act You know, I find it really interesting that there's no mention of the consent decree with Ecological Rights Foundation because my understanding is that the city is under that consent decree as well as the MPDS permit. So, you know, I think the public has a right to know about that. And I think the city council has a right to know about that. And it's hard for me to tell if that's even being discussed. and how that fits into all of this. So, you know, just want to remind you, I think I agree, we all care about Humboldt Bay, but trying to do these, you know, restoration projects or, you know, it would be great to have the HCSC unsewered areas become part of the collection system, but you're still going to be discharging to Humboldt Bay. And, you know, perhaps the city of Eureka could pursue a joint project with the city of Arcata if Arcata is more eligible for state revolving funds where there could be a regional wastewater treatment system to discharge to the ocean because you know really it's pretty disgusting that any of these cities are discharging the Humboldt Bay which people swim in and surf in and eat oysters out of and eat fish out of so I look forward to seeing the report and thinking more in detail about it, but just wanted to flag all these things for you now.

Thank you Thank You director cult Anyone else on zoom? No, I see no one else. Thank you. I'm glad we caught that one And I thought we will close public comment and move on to council reports. Let's start with council member Contreras Deloach

I actually don't have anything to report I had surgery shortly after our last meeting and so I've been recovering most of that time I did recover in time though to celebrate my 50th birthday this last Sunday and got to go hiking and I am old half a century but got to go hiking and do some other stuff so that was really nice but yeah I actually have nothing to report I think this is a first oh thanks

Thank you, Council Member Bauer.

Thank you, Mayor. I was fortunate enough to attend the 25th anniversary of 9-11 and climbed all 100 plus What is it? You know, stories with all of our, a lot of first responders and other community members. And it was a challenge and a great honor to celebrate with all those folks that keep us safe. I also attended the Redwood Empire Division of Cal Cities that we had here in Arcata, Arcata hosted. And we had a great meeting just connecting with each other from a number of cities here on the north coast that Redwood Empire represents. And I was reelected to the board of directors for Cal City. So very excited about my last two years getting to work, continue to work with the League of Cities. And I also attended the Redwood Coast Mountain Bike Association had a bike race in Blue Lake, which was super well attended. Brought a lot of people. I think there was people from 10 different states. So great event to bring people into the community and stay and, you know, eat food and do all those things. So it was a really great community event. That's it. Thanks.

uh and i should say uh happy birthday council member contours and thank you council member bauer for representing our region um as we for cal cities um council member fernandez yeah so uh we meet with eureka city schools tomorrow for our two by two uh my time with the redwood region economic development commission redeck we recently redid our bylaws so we meet quarterly now And since I'm on the executive committee, we meet as needed. And just shortly after the previous city council meeting, I think a day or two after, we met to review a change, I think in four different loans, discussing their terms. Let's see. And then Councilmember Castellano and I had our two-by-two with the Humboldt Community Services District where we discussed the feasibility study. There was an issue of ownership and responsibility around one of the gravity sewers and then a discussion about voter franchisement for a property owner who lives within city limits. but is getting services through hcsd so figuring that out and then uh didn't interview with lost coast outpost last week so that may be on there soon at some point this week and if i have time next week uh unfortunately i won't be attending the league of cities with you all But since I'll be here local for most of the week, I'm going to try and attend the North State Emergency Management Conference, a portion of it anyhow.

Thank you. Council Member Moulton.

Thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. I have no official travel to report, some coming up though. Starting at the last meeting, I went to the next thing I did was Arts Alive, which was a little quiet. Hopefully that picks up more as we head into more of a shopping season, shop local. I spent some time serving with the personnel board that meets as needed, currently needed. I missed the Humboldt Bay Fire meeting because I was off on a bucket list trip to see some accordion player in Oregon, by which I mean Weird Al. Looking forward tomorrow to Bolt Fest, the official premiere screening of 10 short films produced the inaugural year of Access Humboldt's Film Incubator at the Eureka Theater. And I wanted to mention that because that's benefiting two very different but very important local community resources involving like media and culture and getting together and telling our stories. And I'm looking forward to the League of California Cities next week. It's a great chance to learn what other cities are doing with the same challenges that Eureka is facing and showing off a little bit, seeing how good ideas get to work. Thank you.

Thank you. A few quick things to share. I attended the two-by-two with HCSD, the Humboldt Transit Authority meeting, the Humboldt Waste Management Authority meeting, Northern California Association of Nonprofits Leadership Group, the Eureka Main Street annual meeting, and I will also be traveling next week. I believe Council Member Bauer, are you traveling? Okay, so many council members are traveling next week along the city staff and Then I do want to let folks know at the end of the month the last weekend of the month the Eureka cultural arts district is putting on the culture Commons festival It's a three-day celebration of art and culture in Old Town, the Old Town area, and they are looking for volunteers. So if you go to the Eureka Cultural Arts District website, you can find out more information about that festival. And with that, we'll move on to the consent calendar. We do have one item that's been pulled, which is G3. So we'll just be voting on consent G1 and G2. All matters listed under this category are considered to be routine by the city council. It will be enacted in one motion pursuant to city council resolution 2011-22. Remember the public would like an item on the consent calendar pulled and discussed separately the request shall be made to a council member Prior to the meeting unless the specific request is made by a council member the consistent calendar will not be read There'll be no separate discussion of these items.

I Move that we approve the remaining balance of the consent calendar second.

There's been a motion a second, please vote Five yes votes motion carries Thank you. And that will bring us to G3, the award bid for number 2027-01, the operations complex phase two, or phase three. Come on up. It's good to see you again, special project manager Marcellon.

I am a project manager with the engineering department. My name is Katie Marcellon. Thank you to our council members. This is an item about the bid award for phase three. And the agenda summary addresses the steps of the bidding, the notifications, and then the bids that were received. And the recommended action is to award to the low bidder, which is Adams Commercial General Contracting.

And I'd be happy to answer any questions. Does anyone have any questions for this item? Okay. Would anyone from the public wish to make comment on this item? All right. We have a member of the public who wants to come on up. Thanks for being here.

Thank you. My name is Phyllis Coy and I have a few concerns about the operations complex. The dates from September 15th through the end of November is 76 days. One of the dates, the foundation and stub up utilities is 60 days. And then there are 75 days for the building shell. And then after that, there was a gap. And then they're saying 300 working days for phase three. And it'll be done by the November of 2027. It doesn't add up. So my question is... If the building is not done by the end of November of 2027, is there a penalty going to be applied for each day they go over the 300 workday thing that was stated? Because that could amount to considerably.

Thank you. Thanks. We'll go ahead through any other questions or comments for public comment, and then we will have Special Projects Commander come up and answer that question. Is there anyone else who wishes to make comment on this item in person or on Zoom?

I see no one on Zoom.

OK. I'll go ahead and close that item. Special projects manager Marceline, would you mind coming up and answering that question for the public? Thanks for being here.

Sure. The number of days that are allotted are also managed through a series of start and stop times. And so sometimes we think about days as like consecutive days in the calendar. However, there's other components of our contract that allow for weather days or other critical path day timelines. So I think the bigger question was about what happens if it's not done on time. And yes, there are liquidated damages. In fact, what was not stated, but what is as part of those bid documents, there's a Liquidated damages if they don't hit the first milestone So there's trigger milestones for a 60-day period and then there's also a final completion liquidated damages component So the city's trying to increase our ability to ensure a project is completed within the time schedule that we envision Thank you so much for answering those questions Okay

I think we're good. Do any members of the council wish to make comment or entertain a motion on this? Council Member Fernandez.

I move staff recommendation. And then I just want to say, yes, I was the one who pulled this, but I think everything had been fantastically covered in the presentation earlier, particularly about the goals and the metrics. So, again, I'm grateful to see this moving at the speed of government, which is exceptional in this case. I think we're doing fantastic work on that front.

Great. Thank you. And it allowed a moment of clarification for the public, which is fantastic. We have a motion and a second. I just want to note that Councilmember Contreras-Dolosha is taking a short break. So I believe we can just go ahead and vote without her present. OK, great. So go ahead and vote, please.

Four yes votes. Councilmember Contreras-Dolosha absent. Motion carries.

OK, we're going to take a five minute break, no longer than that, and see you back at 8.15. Okay, Councilmember Contreras-DeLoach, Councilmember Bauer, City Manager Slattery. Come on back, y'all. I mean, do what you will. Freestyle dance moment, we don't know. OK. We're going to go ahead and get the meeting going again and move to, is there any legislative action or correspondence for tonight? Anyone on council? OK. Seeing none, we're going to move to item I, ordinances and resolutions I1, bill number 1062-CS for closed and vacant property registration ordinance. Thank you, Director Kenyon, for being here.

Thanks for having me. Kristen Kenyon, Development Services Director. This is a first, the hearing for a foreclosed and vacant, well, sorry, it's a first reading for the foreclosed and vacant property registry ordinance. This ordinance would track the number, location, type, and duration of vacant properties, which would allow us to maintain current contact information for responsible parties and could potentially be a foundation for other future city actions like outreach incentives or enforcement measures. um it would cover foreclosed properties that are in an active foreclosure process so a notice of default would have been recorded and in this case the responsible parties must proactively register with the city And then it would also cover certain vacant properties that the city determines are vacant and meet certain criteria, like not adequately secured, boarded, or similarly secured, unsafe or substandard, property maintenance nuisance issues, or vacant for six plus months and not actively used and maintained. The city would send a written notice requiring registration within 30 days. So the ordinance is registration focused, not a penalty. It would require you to register and then to annually renew that registration until the responsible party requests termination of the registration and city approves that termination. There would be $125 annual registration fee that would cover the city's administrative costs. And there would only be enforcement for failure to comply with the registration requirements, not any enforcement related to the existence or duration of the vacancy. We don't have to go through this slide, but I just wanted to highlight that a fee is, by definition, cost recovery. And I kind of brainstormed all the things that we would have to do to administer this program to explain why there would be a fee in the first place. how is this different from our existing vacant building ordinance that we adopted in 2024 that when we were deferring implementation pending litigation this would allow us to start gathering information now the existing vacant building ordinance focuses just on vacant buildings and tenant spaces whereas this Ordinance is brought more broadly focused on vacant and foreclosed properties and also in the existing vacant building ordinance the city takes the first step to notice property owners with the proposed ordinance foreclosed properties properties would have to proactively register and um the existing ordinance generally prohibits buildings from remaining vacant for more than 90 days and they start to incur penalties this does not prohibit or penalize vacancy the 2024 ordinance includes maintenance monitoring and penalty provisions this one only requires registration and the 2024 ordinance is intended to address the condition and duration of vacant buildings and spaces whereas this ordinance is intended to just track Vacancy and foreclosure trends and establish responsible party context So if a property could fall under both ordinances the city would proceed under one or the other not both And here is the suggested motion when you're ready, thank you Thank You director Kenyon any questions by members of council Councilman Fernandez

Thank you. Thank you for that. You've answered the bulk of my questions already through this how it differs and such and so thank you for that my question is likely to be answered by city attorney because the Supreme Court sorry not the the court case that was referenced in here had a decision come out recently and so I'm curious how that plays into this if at all at the moment and

Correct, Councilmember. I just had access to the opinion today, but the Court of Appeals in San Francisco has issued a ruling that holds the San Francisco ordinance, which was on the ballot as a Measure M down there, illegal under something known as the Ellis Act. And the Ellis Act essentially prohibits any actions on the part of a public entity that would force people to rent their homes if they desired or rent residential space that they control if they desired not to do so. And the plaintiffs in that case were individuals that were situated in various circumstances where they they had uh residential units uh two two-plex duplex or above uh that had vacancies and they stated their reasons why they didn't want to rent those other spaces, but felt that they were being forced to by the tax that Measure M imposed. Measure M imposed a tax of up to $40,000 for a residential unit of above a certain square footage. uh and i think it was 2500 square feet uh forty thousand dollars a year uh for the right to hold that unit vacant um the court the city tried to defend on the ground that they were a charter city the court said no that's not a not a good defense here because you're in direct conflict with state law and even though you're a charter city You have home rule privileges in many areas. You cannot directly contradict state law that was intended to occupy the field statewide. So bottom line is the court decision does not affect the ordinance that Director Kenyon has presented to you today. I believe it does have potential effect on the other existing ordinance out of 2024 but even there it requires significant analysis because none of the dollar figures for example are anywhere close to what occurred in San Francisco so we need to look at that ordinance see whether there are any other provisions that would have a significant tendency to force people to rent their properties and or would create a prohibitive effective prohibition on keeping their units vacant because we're not allowed to either prohibit vacancy or force rental or tenancy.

So then it's likely that the vacancy ordinance from 2024 is going to come back at some point for us to review.

I think there may need to be some revisions. So yes, I'm not recommending that we lift the uh stay if you will that we have imposed ourselves on enforcing the terms of that ordinance uh just yet but i would say we'll be back to you very soon very soon with recommendations um that might make that ordinance enforceable and effective okay and then to director kenyon's point you know there's a fee associated with this because we're running a program

The idea really here is that we know which properties are vacant, which ones may require a closer look just to make sure that not necessarily compliance, but just to make sure that nothing's going wrong around that property.

Yeah, the assembly of information that we seek to accomplish here has very legitimate planning purposes. And, you know, enforcement, code enforcement, housing, inventory, maintenance purposes, those kinds of things are important.

significant and they're legitimate and they don't violate the Ellis Act thank you city attorney my question director is then how did how did we arrive at six months versus say three or ninety days just in discussions with code enforcement that's something that I originally had it a shorter amount of time

then we added that if you're actively constructing you wouldn't that wouldn't count um so it could be shorter if council wanted to go that way well then i'm curious because in understanding code enforcement in their capacity then would this be would this be difficult for them if it were three months or does six months give them a little more time i think they just wanted to be reasonable um So they might be on the line. I don't know. Yeah, Matt Morgan, our code enforcement director, is on Zoom. Derek, can he unmute himself?

Thanks, Matt, for being here.

Yeah, thank you. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Yeah, no, there's a whole bunch of factors that play into it. Sometimes, like you said, like 90 days, there can be a turnover quickly in some of these properties. So I felt like six months was a good starting point. Just as we've seen in the past, like with vacant properties, some of them, they're problematic for just a short time and then they're reoccupied or rented out again shortly after. So we don't want to start that with every single case. We wanted it to be... We wanted to kind of have a timeline. Six months seemed like, at that point, we should probably have it registered so we can track it better.

Okay, I appreciate that answer. And so then, yeah, it does seem like... this would give a little leeway to the property owner. And this is something we can always reassess, too. And that's actually part of what this registration program helps with, is that vacancy rate. So OK. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other council member questions? OK. Seeing none, we will open this item to members of the public for comment. Is there anyone in council chambers who wishes to make comment at this time? Anyone on Zoom? I see no one. We'll close public comment on this item and bring it back to council for discussion and a motion.

Councilmember Fernandez I move that we waive full reading read by title only and introduce bill number 1 0 6 2 CS an ordinance of the City Council adding subsection 150 point 1 3 0 through 150 point 1 3 7 to the Eureka Municipal Code to establish a foreclosed and vacant property registration program second

Great. And I just want to thank you, Director Kenyon and Matt, for all of your work on this and your thoughtfulness in it. This is something that comes up a lot in conversations on Eureka Main Street and with other community members and also hopefully can help affect and inform our planning for things like the housing element. So I look forward to this being implemented. And with that, any other members of the council wish to make comments? All right, please vote.

Five yes votes, motion council. Five yes votes, motion carries.

OK, and with that, we'll move on to reports and action items with the data center regulations discussion. Who is presenting that? Is that you, Director Kenyon?

Again, me, yes. Thanks for being here. You stuck with me for another one. All right, so last meeting, I think it was, there was a moratorium adopted. And part of that process is thinking through future permanent regulations. So this is the first time we're talking about that. A data center is essentially a server room where housing and operating the computing equipment is the primary purpose of the facility. So the basic technology of a data center isn't particularly exotic. We have a server room right here at City Hall. It houses servers in the supporting electrical, cooling, networking, and backup systems needed to keep them operating. A data center is fundamentally the same concept. It houses servers along with the equipment needed to support them. And as these two images show, thank you Derek for the server room image, that can happen at vastly different scales. The other major difference is what all of that computing equipment is being used to do. Our servers support city operations and data centers can support everything from basic data storage and cloud services to streaming, financial transactions, and increasingly AI, artificial intelligence. We need to add a definition of data centers to our zoning codes and regulate them separately because, first of all, they don't fit neatly into any of our existing land use categories. They are similar to industrial warehouses and looks. They're large buildings with limited employees. And they are similar to utilities and behavior in terms of needing major electrical infrastructure and continuous operation and cooling and energy backup systems. But they are different from both. Their primary activity is computing. Another reason we should regulate them separately is because their impacts can be unusual, especially as they become larger in scale. Data centers demand large continuous electrical loads and potentially large amounts of water for cooling. The concentration of electrical equipment batteries and backup power raises public safety considerations. Cooling and power equipment can operate around the clock, creating noise impacts. Reliance on backup fossil fuel generators can create air quality and greenhouse gas emission impacts. Data centers can also involve very large, relatively blank buildings with few employees, raising built form concerns. And with giant big box buildings and the speculative nature of current data center development, there are long-term questions about decommissioning and adaptive reuse of these buildings. Also, there's this bigger existential threat of AI that we're hearing a lot about in the news that's kind of like another layer on top of all of this. So that was just kind of a very brief Synopsis of the impacts, there's more detail in the agenda summary. So a separate land use classification would allow Eureka to decide where data centers belong and apply standards tailored to their scale and impacts. Data centers come in many forms, and there are a lot of industry terms used to describe them. The challenge is that these terms describe different characteristics and overlap. A data center might be enterprise or co-location. depending on who it serves edge if it's located near the users it serves for faster processing and hyperscale is how large facilities are described very large facilities the same facility might support cloud services ai cryptocurrency mining or other computing Data centers can also serve very different sectors and be built in different ways. So while these distinctions are useful for understanding the industry, staff does not recommend using them as zoning classifications. A single facility can fit multiple categories, and those categories don't necessarily tell us what its land use impacts will be. Given that, staff recommends a much simpler distinction for zoning purposes. If the computing infrastructure is incidental to another primary use, like the city's own servers at City Hall, it would remain accessory IT infrastructure. It would not be regulated as a data center. A data center would be where operating that computing infrastructure is itself the primary use of the site. From there, the first and simplest regulatory option is to define data centers as a distinct land use and prohibit them as a primary use in all zoning districts. Accessory IT infrastructure would continue to be allowed as part of other uses. So that's option one. Options two and three would instead allow data centers as a primary use in certain circumstances. For those options, staff recommends distinguishing facilities based primarily on scale rather than the industry categories we just discussed. We would establish a locally appropriate threshold, most likely based on total electrical demand, to distinguish a smaller data center from a larger one. The next question then would be, what threshold would we choose? Data centers vary enormously in scale. For some local context, the existing Edge Connex data center in Arcata, shown on this slide, is about one megawatt. At the other end of the spectrum, new data centers in 2026 commonly seek 50 to 100 megawatts, and the largest AI campuses can require hundreds or even more than 1,000 megawatts. To put those numbers in perspective, PG&E uses roughly one to two kilowatts per housing unit as a general planning estimate. So a one megawatt data center is roughly equivalent to the electrical demand associated with 500 to 1,000 homes. PG&E has told us that one substation serving Eureka is already at capacity, and one has about 10 megawatts of remaining capacity with a planned upgrade to add more capacity. Yet in today's data center market, even a 20 megawatt facility may be considered relatively small. So what is considered small at the national market level is not small in Eureka. We would probably have a much smaller threshold for Eureka. If council is interested, and for context, PG&E has told us if a user is going in with two megawatts or more to let them know so that they can plan for it, so that's number I've heard. If Council is interested in allowing smaller data centers rather than prohibiting data centers altogether, there are four basic questions we need direction on. First, as we just discussed, how small is small? Second, where should they be allowed? This map shows our industrial districts and our more intensive mixed-use districts. Industrial districts are the most obvious fit because they are already intended to accommodate uses that you don't necessarily want as a neighbor because of their externalities, things like light and noise and odors, as well as larger, more utilitarian buildings with blank walls and substantial mechanical and electrical equipment. So while a data center might not match the general look and feel of what we want in our central business district, a smaller data center is generally consistent aesthetically and operationally with the character of our industrial areas. We could also consider allowing smaller data centers in some of our more intensive mixed-use districts where we already allow some light industrial uses. These areas have more residential and other sensitive uses nearby, so there is a greater potential for land-use conflict. On the other hand, these districts already have stronger standards for compatibility and pedestrian oriented design, including objective building design standards that a data center would have to meet. And third, what should the approval process be? Staff recommends a conditional use permit process if we go down this route rather than allowing data centers by right. And then I wanted to clarify something that I think caused some confusion at council's last meeting. Just because someone has the right to apply for a conditional use permit does not mean the city is obligated to approve the use. Use permit is a discretionary permit So by definition the city has discretion to oppose conditions or even deny the permit based on subjective findings like compatibility with surrounding area and protection of health safety and welfare the fourth question is what use specific standards should apply and If we allow smaller data centers, staff recommends developing standards that directly address the impacts we just discussed, utility capacity and consumption, public safety, noise and air quality, and the physical form and eventual reuse of these facilities. Those standards can work in a couple of ways. Some can be very objective. For example, we could establish a specific noise limit at the property line, prohibit fossil fuel backup generators, require utility confirmation that adequate capacity is available, and limit the maximum size of an individual building. Other standards could be more performance-based and evaluated through the use permit process. For example, we could require a project to minimize potable water consumption, minimize and mitigate extraordinary utility demands, or demonstrate that its cooling system is appropriate given available water and wastewater capacity. That combination is useful. The objective standards establish clear minimum requirements that every project has to meet. The more performance-based standards allow us to respond to the particular technology, scale, site, and circumstances of an individual project. So I don't want to go through everything on this slide because tonight we're not looking at establishing the details of the regulations. We're just more looking for general what level of regulation and types of impacts you want us to address. But I'm happy to go through this in more detail later. And then option three in the agenda summary asks a different question. Could a larger data center ever leave Eureka better off than if it was not built? The AI boom is driving an extraordinary national investment in data centers and the infrastructure needed to support them. A lot of people compare it to like the construction of the national highway system. It's just like this massive infrastructure investment that's happening. And this investment could be very extractive on local rural communities and has been consuming limited utility capacity, driving up utility rates, causing all sorts of issues. Could there be a situation, there's a lot of articles on this, where a local government could leverage this infrastructure investment to benefit itself? And if so, what would it take for Eureka to consider it a true win-win? And so Brainerd I think gives us a useful test case for that question. It's a 76 acre aging underutilized industrial site that has some unusual characteristics. It's relatively isolated, already industrially zoned, and doesn't have deep water access that would make it particularly valuable for coastal dependent industries. So it's zoned general industrial, not coastal dependent. It also has significant constraints. It has no city water or sewer connections, limited electrical infrastructure, a single driveway access point that Caltrans is not too excited about any use that has too many customers or employees. and long-term sea level rise exposure. And that's what makes it an interesting test case. If a very large investment were proposed here, could we leverage that investment to address some of these existing constraints and leave behind infrastructure or other improvements that have value to Eureka beyond the project itself? So this slide is really a brainstorm. If council wanted to explore option three, what might it take for a project of this scale to feel like a true win-win in Eureka? Some of these things are directly related to the project and its impacts. Where we can establish the necessary nexus and proportionality between the impacts and the improvement, those could potentially be required through our regulations or imposed as conditions of approval. But some of the broader community benefits are different. We can't simply require an unrelated community benefit because a project is large or profitable. Those types of benefits would generally need to be voluntarily negotiated through something like a development agreement or community benefits agreement. So tonight we're really looking for policy direction, not a final decision on ordinance language or specific standards. The questions on this slide summarizes the major choices and the agenda summary has the more detailed questions for council to consider. And then based on the direction we received tonight, we'll come back with a more developed regulatory framework. The amount of work and the timeline will depend on the approach Council wants us to pursue. A framework for potentially allowing larger facilities would require substantially more research and likely outside technical and legal expertise. So if that's a no-go, that would be helpful to know, because then I will not research it. And then... There is also a separate timeline for the coastal zone. Any new data center regulations affecting the coastal zone will need to be incorporated into our ongoing local coastal program update and ultimately certified by the Coastal Commission before they can take effect. So tonight we're looking for enough policy direction to understand which path council wants staff to develop and therefore what the next phase of work needs to look like. And these pictures, I asked Google to give me some nice-looking data centers, and this is the best I could find.

They're all fake.

They're probably all generated by AI, yes. That's it for me.

Thank you, Director Kenyon. Appreciate the research and the example cases. Members of council, do you have questions or input? I just want to say I think there are members of the public who want to make comment on this possibly, so I will open it up to public comment since folks have stayed with us that long. But I'm going to turn it over to council first. Council Member Moulton.

Should we limit to questions first and then comments after public comment like we normally do or does it matter?

Sure, we'll do it that style.

Okay, because I broke it up. I just have one question about extraordinary utility user standards. Don't we have some things on the books right now for when users use... Is there anything that we have in place right now that would already sort of cover this? I'm thinking about when the brewery had to get special equipment because they were putting out a lot of effluent and taxing the system. Is there anything like that across the board that already exists when it comes to water usage or power usage?

No, I think that with the Lost Coast Brewery, when that was developed, there was negotiations with the owner to have those discussions. And those enhancements to the treatment of their effluent were – Basically, in order for them to have to not pay such high sewer rates going forward, we did the same thing with PacChoice. PacChoice, because of the potency of their effluent, we worked with them on a treatment system so that it's treated prior to going into our system.

So those are case-by-case basis and they're not something in place already. Okay, thank you. That's my only question for now. Sorry, any other questions?

Councilmember Fernandez.

I've always got questions. Director Kenyon, you touched on that it is possible to require certain amounts of energy, renewability. Is that something that I saw in there, correct? And so we could dictate like you have to have solar panels, you have to. generate X amount of your own to do that? Is that something that could be a requirement?

Yeah, I would definitely check with our attorney, but I could see that happening as an offset of high utility users. They're creating externalities with their energy use that

Creating new renewables would mitigate so I feel like there's a direct nexus and proportionality in there and and so then we could we could You know dictate that around their their backup as well Correct potentially and I know that that was a concern that councilmember Moulton had brought up last time as well that if they're utilizing batteries the potential for a lithium ion fire, that type of thing.

Yeah, Chief Sitcher also brought that up. Thank you, Chief. There's definitely trade-offs there with the large battery backup systems have are a fire hazard.

And then I think one of the portions on there, you had recommended not utilizing a particular workload that they could operate under. It wasn't the megawatts. I think it was one before that. You said that there were certain standards. Maybe we might not want to consider those.

Oh, the different industry labels?

Yes, there we go. Thank you.

What types of... There's a lot of ideas about, oh, there's five types of data centers. But if you look into it, the categories kind of overlap and are confused. So I just would rather not go that direction in our definition.

No, no, no. That's understandable. You've shown us a few pictures too, and I know something that we're working on at least unifying in our jurisdiction is design standards, but could we augment that as well so that way it's not just a brick-like blob sitting out in the middle of nowhere potentially? Could we again dictate what the building might look like to some extent?

Yes, and I would definitely recommend limiting the size of the buildings, not just for aesthetic reasons, but because we struggle to reuse big boxes. But if you look at Arcata's data center, I can, can I bring it up?

Mm-hmm.

this would be a blank wall that would not be allowed in our mixed-use districts because we have we have objective design standards that would require more of this building it would have to have transparency you know like transparent windows and doors at ground level it'd have to have a prominent entrance it would have to It would have to interact with the street to not detract from the pedestrian-oriented environment. That would be in the service commercial. But in our industrial area, we have a lot of buildings that look just like that, that are just warehouses. I had a picture of one on railroad here. I mean, this is the general look of our industrial area. So I don't know if we really need to worry about aesthetics in our industrial zones.

I mean, you know, if we're building out our beta zoo trail and such. True.

Or we could, like, have mural requirements or something.

I'm not against that. To a finer point, then, when you were showing us, well, yeah, this map, actually, so thank you. Is it possible, would it be feasible, then, to say that you could only... If we were to go in the direction of allowing it, you could only operate within the hinge industrial or the heavy industrial.

Correct. If you wanted to just limit it to an industrial.

Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Bauer. Yeah, I do have a question about power. Could we require that there be excess power prior to allowing for, let's say, a 10 megawatt facility?

I know.

You know?

That's the tricky part, is that with power, you have to develop the infrastructure before they come online. And so this is why we really would need, if we were going to allow a large facility, you would need assurances. That's what these other states that already have all these data centers are now passing legislation to say, even if you don't arrive you're still liable to pay the cost of all that infrastructure upgrade that we did in anticipation of your so they're prohibiting speculative development that way but yeah you have to build it before they start operating um that you could definitely negotiate something with them. So if that's what it would take for us to agree to it, we could put it out there. And then if they might not want to, that might not be feasible, and then it wouldn't happen for us.

Thank you.

I have one quick question, then we'll open it up to public comment. at the last meeting when we discussed this, mentioned that there had been an entity interested in a data center here. And I was just curious, just in terms of kind of understanding the type of data center that people are interested in, if we could, I don't need to know the name or whatever, but just sort of like the type of data center they were interested in, if there's any information on that.

I don't think we ever got that far with them. OK. What do they call rattling the bushes? I don't know what that saying is, but they were just kicking the tires.

And often you don't know. And that's part of the question of like, could we negotiate and leverage properly? Because when one of these big companies goes into a jurisdiction, they often are not announcing who they are. You know, they're creating an LLC and they're having consultants. on their behalf because they're worried about the public reaction to it so that is an issue with with data center development the question the places that we've been asked that people have asked about have been on Broadway so service commercial and then by the bridge, which is also the Samoa Bridge in one of the industrial buildings over there, which would also be service commercial. And then on Brainerd, we got a question, too, about it. That's what got me thinking about Brainerd

Thank you. And one more question from Council.

Thank you. Then would it be possible to do something along the lines of, again, saying you can only operate at this size in industrial, but if it were to be Brainerd, then we can leave that open to that potential discussion where it might be something larger, so kind of have half of one and one of the other?

Right.

Okay.

I think for larger ones, we could... It could be more than a conditional use permit. It could be like this overlay that only applies to very specific properties.

Thank you. Okay. Any members of the public wish to make comment on this in council chambers? Okay. I did see a hand come up on Zoom earlier. Let's have our Zoom commentator.

Humboldt Waterkeeper.

We can't yet hear you. In case you started talking, we're working on. Hi, everyone. There we go.

Sorry about that. It takes a while to do all the unmuting and stuff. Hi, Jen Fault with Humboldt Waterkeeper again. I really appreciate that you're having this discussion. It's really complicated. And I just wanted to let you know something that just came across my radar. You kind of touched on the wastewater issues a little bit earlier. But some water keepers in Georgia in particular have been testing the discharge from some of these facilities and finding things like PFAS and heavy metals. And then there's another one in Wyoming that for some reason had a virus in the discharge. And I don't really understand why, but it's a pathogen that is antibiotic resistant and causes a lot of harm to people who are immunocompromised. And so that's just, you know, I know most of the discussion on data centers has focused on noise and energy and water consumption, but the wastewater issues are pretty major. And if the wastewater treatment plant can't, you know, remove those things and then, you know, as we were talking about before, it ends up in Humboldt Bay, that's, you know, that's a concern as well. And then I also wanted to mention, maybe you mentioned this, but the city staff in Arcata had, they mentioned that the data center there, while also it's small, but it's taking up space in a part of the city that they feel should be used for, you know, business that would create more jobs. And so... You know, just thinking about the commercial service areas, you know, somewhere on Broadway or whatever, it just kind of seems like not the greatest use of the city's real estate in an area where there's less traffic and there would be, you know, a lot of jobs. But now Arcata has instead this, you know, building with a fence around it and maybe two or three people working in there where there used to be a lumber store. So I just thought I'd mention that as something to consider. And again, I really thank you all for tackling this because it is a really huge issue with a lot of different moving parts to consider. So thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for sticking through the meeting. We'll bring it back to council to make comment and to, you know, share information with staff with what they want the scope and content of the future ordinance to look like. Council Member Bauer.

Yeah, thank you. I have a lot. I mean, this is, I think, part of your report. There's 4,000 operating data centers in the United States, eight times as many as China. And... think about it a lot. I've been reading articles about AI and one of the main reasons for all these data centers is to eliminate a lot of jobs and that's not the business that we're in as a city, I believe. So I'm thinking option two, small data centers. I recognize that there are needs. We have server farms, we have businesses. There are needs for computing power. Yet, I don't see the need for a large data center, especially given our constraints with power. That's a big one. I think it was Cal Poly that couldn't get hooked up at one point. Fortuna couldn't get hooked up because there was no transmission. There was no capability. We're talking long-serving systems. components of our community and then talk about bringing a data center. Let's say to Brainerd that's 10 acres. Where is that power coming from? We don't even have it. We don't have a transmission. So I think, you know, small data centers are I think they should be on battery backup. I personally, I understand that there's fire risk with lithium ion batteries. There's fire risk with diesel generators. So I think no more gas Jennys in our community. And I think, you know, battery should be the only option. And I think all power should be 100%, like you said, repower, 100% renewable. When it comes to where to locate these things, I think obviously not residential. Industrial would be the reasonable spot, but consider setbacks too. Apartments, anything. How much of a setback are we talking about for that ambient noise? You hear the stories about these things can be really noisy, so we need to consider noise setbacks. What else do I have here? Oh, I think the definition of data center, I think Assembly Bill 1577, I think does a pretty good job for defining exactly what a data center is. It's already legislation. It's passed. We don't have to like explore something completely different. It's been done. It's been looked at by the state. Let me see here. Yeah, and I think all your suggestions that you put into the report are great. You've done a really thorough review of this. But, you know, I definitely want to see us explore no large and small as needed with all these caveats about having the power, you know, that would be renewable, that kind of thing. Thanks.

Thank you. Council Member Contreras-DeLoach.

So I think I'm inclined toward option one, which is just prohibit data centers as a primary land use of a site. But I had a question. Could computing infrastructure that's incidental and subordinate to another primary use, so like I... By the way, I appreciate all of the work that's gone into this so far. So thank you. But I did have, I'm wondering, is there a way where they could get, where somebody could get around that as primary land use? Is there a way to maybe go around that and be like, this is being used for, technically it's this, but really it's just a data center thing?

No, there's more language in our accessory use provisions that make clear it has to be economically subordinate as well as space-wise.

Okay.

The only thing that could be difficult is if... A use that has multiple locations has one server room serving it because our accessory use provisions are very clear that it has to be a use on the same site. So we could have to write some sort of caveat in if we wanted to allow a business with multiple sites in Eureka to have their servers at one location.

Okay. My thought on it is it's a poor use of finite resources. I think it's a poor use of finite resources. And I think that it would be an antagonistic toward or in opposition toward other goals that we have set environmentally with housing and with our energy use.

Thank you, Councillor Moulton.

Thank you. Appreciate the comments from my colleagues and, of course, all the thoughtful information here and the thoughtful questions. I tend to look towards option two with several of the caveats and limitations and definitions that Councilmember Bowers brought up. The only reason I wouldn't go towards option one is because I do feel like there is potential there for loopholes but that might just be my lack of understanding of the the nuance of it but also there is potential for businesses that are exclusively online a streaming service or a processing service or even an locally homegrown AI that isn't causing any problems. And as long as they are not causing these, as long as they are operating at, I like two because it keeps them at a scale that prevents them from doing the things that we are trying to avoid, from negatively impacting the community while not just strictly cutting off an entire branch of information technology just because it's related. So I think there's potential for exclusive data-based uses for particular places as long as we keep them in good size. And option three, I wouldn't... Um, I was having a hard time imagining where in Eureka would be appropriate to have like a large one. So even opening the door for that, or even opening the door for future councils to allow for that, uh, was very worrisome to me. Then you brought up Brainerd and I was like, well, we could use that better. Couldn't we? But then the driveway thing, you know, you want to use some, do something out there that doesn't have any people going back and forth. Um, but still, I feel like, uh, Something extraordinary happens. We could talk about that. But for what we're doing now, I would tend towards option two. And as far as where, sticking with industrial, I think we service commercial or is just not the place for something that doesn't serve customers. It doesn't serve the community.

Thank you. Council Member Fernandez. Yes.

Yeah, I'd be completely adverse to having any sort of data center, you know, how we define to be determined within the service commercial district. Hence, my questions earlier about zoning it, particularly for industrial services. And then, you know, looking at option one, prohibiting data centers except when incidental and subordinate. And so that has me thinking that, you know, for what limited resources we have up here in terms of AT&T, Optimum, and Vero, you know, where are those housed distinctly if not within the city of Eureka? Do we know that off the top of our head? because then I have a tough time saying like, it's yeah. How does that serve us in our best interest?

So, yeah, it's a good question. I feel like, well, we don't have a data center use type yet. So if one of those companies, I would probably call them a public facility and regulate them as a public facility land use classification with their data center as incidental to their public facility use. But again, this gets at the question of if they have a, yeah, something we would need to explore more in how we write it.

And just remember, we're under a moratorium right now. Right.

Could you explain to me, though, what you're getting at? I can't tell which way you're headed.

Well, again, like Councilmember Moulton and Councilmember Bauer, I'm looking at option two, but it's kind of sussing out a bit more of what leeway there might be in option one. Because, you know, if you are... for lack of a better industry, if you are streaming or if you are providing cloud services, That's your primary use. It's not incidental to another. On-site use, yeah. Yeah. So it's like if we were to provide those services here within Eureka or even regionally at that point, you know, out of Eureka, there's no workaround to that then is what I'm saying. So I'm looking at option two because we could still constrict the size. We could still constrict the energy use. And so that's what I would be looking at if we were to do that. If that makes sense, okay, and then to councilmember Bowers point, you know AB 1577 does provide a good framework, but it also exempts 10 megawatts or less so we would want to be a bit more restrictive in that You're right.

Right, right.

Yeah It's good except for that one piece yeah So so yeah if I were to look at this I would I would still want to look at option two but again as restrictive as possible without necessarily killing a potential industry because again, looking at what could be provided to us just because of how regional and how remote we are, what could we develop here?

Council Member Bauer.

Yeah, a couple other thoughts. You know, I think any data center would need to be a conditional use permit. There's no principally permitted data centers. I think we need to be cautious about, I would call it stacking. So, let's say we go with 5,000 square feet that somebody can go, sure, I'll put, you know, there's four parcels or I'll split a property up into ten parcels and put one on each. Now we're at, you know, two acres of data center. Making sure we limit it based off of parcel size or something so we don't see that kind of thing happen because industries do do that. And then the public comment process needs to be robust. And you mentioned that, you know, however way we go, that public input is thorough throughout the process. That's it.

Let's see. I have a couple of things. Anyone else? We can go back around. Let's see. Generally, in agreement with the option two, though, I think that even within that, like, to me, 10, though, doesn't even meet the definition threshold for us would still be large. So I do feel like having a gradiation within the small makes sense in terms of...

We could have more than two types.

Yeah, exactly. To me, there's something about the one to two megawatt versus eight megawatt. I think that having a little bit of gradation within that, but still nothing over 10 in terms of... maximum and then generally I'm on board with you know the recommendations about renewals and the parcel size relationship and the other kind of things that Councilmember Moulton, Fernandez, and Bauer brought up. And I do respect your perspective, Councilmember Contreras-Deloche, though I do think in terms of job creation, I think there may be some opportunities for job creation for small data centers that And then adding in information around discharge as well, we'd want to bring back. After this discussion, does anyone else on council have anything to add? And this will be coming back before us, so there will be more opportunities there to add in more information. Fernandez? Yes.

Just, again, Director, you had touched on the analogy or that folks have been putting forward an argument that this is like the National Highway Defense System to some extent. Because if there were to be any sort of collapse in IT, it would be a detriment to any small community such as us, for instance. But thinking on that, there's no local way to regulate it as a utility, though, is there? I'm sorry, that's one I'm just kind of throwing out there that nobody's prepped for, but it's just curious.

Yeah. Well, if we create a data center land use classification, we can then say it's very clearly not this other land use classification. We can build in that distinction. Even if it might fall under utility, we can say regardless of that, it falls under this category and it's regulated this way. But what I was saying with that was just the comparison people are making is like the amount of investment going into it relative to the size of our economy.

Okay. Well, thank you for explaining that because I went in a completely different direction. So, all right.

Not that it's like, yeah, needed for, but yeah, I guess.

That's a much larger question than you were prepared for. No, it's fine.

I think what I'm going to bring back is the potential for smaller data centers in industrial zoning districts for council to weigh in on more and then eventually vote on. Most of our industrial land is in the coastal zone. That'll come back as part of the LCP update. And then we have a tiny hinge industrial area in the inland zone. So it's going to take more than the 45 days, though. So the next thing that will happen is we'll have a hearing on extending the moratorium.

So, yeah, and I think the intent will be to try and incorporate, while we won't do it by code, but an allowance for smaller ones as a part of that moratorium, correct? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so we'll come back in two weeks with a modification of the moratorium based on this discussion today, but it'll take a while for Director Kenyon to get the inland code update and even longer for the LCP.

And just for... my own clarity, how large was our server room again?

Oh, yeah. Derek looked that up for us. Oh, he's going back up to it. It was like a kilowatt, 100 kilowatt hours per day. So that's adding a time component. That's like maybe four kilowatt hours so uh like continuously so it would be like uh more than a home for sure but uh like you know 12 000 times less than a large data center and and this is the it system that serves all of eureka well no just we have we have three different server rooms okay but this is the one at city hall okay okay thank you he said it cost about $50 a day in electricity just that one yeah and I asked them about cooling and they said on a warm day it's not yeah it's AC it's not any you can't really notice a difference in the server room versus outside of it

OK. Thank you. Do you have the information you need, Director Kenyon?

Yeah. Thank you so much for giving me very clear direction. I appreciate that.

It was an excellent report. Members of the public, if you didn't get a chance to read it, there's a lot of great analysis here. So if this is a subject you're interested in, I recommend taking a look at it. With that, we'll move on to future agenda items. Do any members of council wish to bring something forward in the future? Sorry. Yes. Conceptual also.

Don't want to limit now for the entire future.

Great. Okay. We will now move on to city manager reports. City manager Slattery, you have an ADU housing trust fund update?

Yes, thank you Mayor Pro Tem and good evening Mayor Pro Tem and Council. At a previous meeting there was a request for an update on the Eureka Builds It program and an update on the Housing Trust Fund. So we have with us tonight our Utility and Cleanup Batter Special Projects Manager, Topoluski, and with support from Director Mabar.

on the ad financing program you could build it and a quick update on the housing trust fund thank you good evening mayor pro tim and council i'm excited to be back to give you an update on the eureka builds it adu financing program To summarize my presentation from about six months ago, the goal of Eureka Builds It is to increase housing. Eureka Builds It aims to streamline the ADU process and provide financial incentives in many cases. EBI, as we call it, is a collaboration between our planning, building, and finance departments. EBI presents an opportunity. We need more housing. There are about 6,000 single-family residential properties currently, and each one can accommodate an ADU of some sort. ADUs provide housing without altering the character of Eureka as well. To look at the EBI framework, there's basically four phases we can break it down into. Phase one verifies the site suitability and financial capability or capacity, sorry. Phase two is for design and permitting of the ADU project. Phase three is the construction phase. And phase four rolls it over into permanent financing. And to give you some recent EBI updates We had a design professional RFQ that went out to bid and has been completed We have been identifying funding sources and applicability We created an application process We have an internal process worked out for city staff for project flow. And we have notified the first five project applicants that were on our waiting list. So going through those items individually, the design professional RFQ is completed. resulting in a pre-approved list of design pros. This list will save time and ensure each accessory dwelling unit project is handled by a capable design professional. Through the RFQ process, we selected eight design professionals that are now pre-approved. We identified our identification of funding sources and applicability. We're going to have Finance Director Millar jump up here in a few slides and dive into that topic. The application process, an application PROCESS WAS CREATED BY HOUSING PROJECT MANAGER KRISTEN RAYMOND AND CONTACT COMPLIANCE SPECIALIST CANDY SMITH. SO BIG THANKS TO BOTH OF THEM. THIS STEP WILL IDENTIFY AN APPLICANT'S FUNDING CAPACITY SPECIFICALLY IN REGARDS TO GRANT FUNDING POTENTIAL. WE CREATED AN INTERNAL PROJECT FLOW CHART THAT IDENTIFIED OR FOR CITY STAFF AS THE PROJECTS FLOW THROUGH OUR CITY This involved identification of city departments that ADU projects will affect. We also identified key staff in each department. The departments involved include finance, building, and planning. And so the application process has begun. The first five applicants that were on our waiting list have been notified and instructed to begin the process. We've provided applicants, emailed them with pre-screening forms to fill out. AND GAVE THEM INSTRUCTIONS FOR SUBMISSION TO COMPLETE AN APPLICATION. NOW, I BELIEVE COUNCILMEMBER FERNANDEZ, YOU WERE CURIOUS ABOUT THE ADUs WE'VE PERMITTED RECENTLY. AND SO THIS TABLE SHOWS THE LAST SEVEN YEARS. You can see in 19 and 20, it was kind of mellow, about six per year. And then starting in 21, 22, we started to ramp up. And the last few years, we've done low to mid 20s of ADU permits per year. So trending up. And with that, I will hand it over to Finance Director Millar to discuss funding sources.

Thank you, Riley. So we have identified a number of different funding sources for this program. We currently have PLHA monies, CDBG home, CalHome. These are coming from or everything about PLHA is considered program income. So we are currently reaching out to these different programs to get approval to go ahead and use these different monies for different purposes for this program. Currently, the PLHA, we can go forward with those monies. These are monies that were given to us by the state for this program.

Sorry, while you're going through this, can you just remind us what the PLHA stands for?

Permanent Local Housing Assistance? Christian Kenyon is there, but it's Permanent Local Housing Assistance.

Okay, great. We'll just go forward with that.

Okay, CDBG. I could try to... Community Development Block Grant.

Carry on. Anyways, so PLHA is...

We have the green light for that one.

We are currently working with the reps to ensure that we can use those pots of money. And then the final one, the housing trust fund doesn't actually exist because we did not get the grants or not. We didn't get our application approved. It was very competitive. and we didn't have a current program in place so we didn't get a high grade for our application but that said we want to repurpose that half a million dollars to use as a revolving loan fund the idea is that we will preserve that half million dollars for the next round of housing trust fund applications and i'll explain how that that revolving loan fund would be used in this program In addition to the numerous funding sources, we have different tracks for our applicants. So at the top, we have the first track. This is called the income restricted rental track. And what that means is that if you intend on renting out that ADU that you want to build, and you are open to renting it to somebody that is at 80% or less of the area median income, you will get the benefit of a number of different subsidies. And I'll go into that later. The next track is the low income downsizing track. So let's say you have a large house and you might be the only one that occupies that house. This would be an opportunity for you to build an ADU to live in. You would have to qualify at that 80% or less AMI threshold. So you would get the benefits of all those subsidies and then you could actually rent out your main house at market rate and you would still be in compliance with these funding sources. Next we have a moderate income workforce track. This would target incomes between the 81% to the 120% AMI. We will use PLHA monies for this track because it's the only funding source that will assist with those types of incomes or in that income range. Then we have the pure market rate track so these would be applicants that don't need any subsidies that have the money to build the adu and they just want the Assistance of city staff to walk them through the process to help them find their designer and to help them through the construction period Next we'll talk about funding uses and Um, so to break the process down into, um, three main parts, you have the design and permitting. So this is where you, you know, you initiate the conversation with the city and then you identify a designer, a design professional, or maybe you pick a, uh, set of pre, um, approved plans. uh then with that information you can begin your building permit and then once you submit your building permit and it gets approved you get into you go into active construction uh it's pretty clear what construction means in this case you're building the adu or the junior adu and once that's built and complete you get the certificate of occupancy and then that's At that point, we approach the bank, and then we deploy some of those funding sources. So there's a handful of different funding sources that have to be used in very specific ways. And then there's four different tracks of applicants. So it kind of gets a little bit confusing. It's almost like a matrix of processes. So if you're that income restricted rental track, You will be able to take advantage of the CDBG and CalHome monies in that design and permitting phase. They will use the revolving loan fund in the construction phase. And then for permanent financing, a different set of funding sources will come into play. The exciting part about this track is that almost all of the pre-development costs, even through the building application and the design professional costs, we can actually provide grants. So all of that work up to the construction phase should be completely covered by some of these funding sources. And then in this stage, we're just going to use the Eureka Revolving Loan Fund as recycled capital. So the idea is that we will limit our exposure to the construction risks to half a million dollars. So we will only deploy enough projects or We only allow enough projects to get into construction, assuming that they will not exceed that half million dollars. And then once in the permanent financing stage, we will deploy deferred loans or principal forgiveness in addition to the private financing or the financing from the bank.

And sorry, Director Muller, we're going to extend the meeting. Council Member Moulton? I'd like to make it, how much more time do you need?

five minutes I'd like to make a motion to extend the meeting to 940 second please vote five yes votes motion carries okay thank you thank you okay so next we'll look at the low-income downsizing track this is very similar to the first track so these individuals would also be eligible for those front end subsidies. So pretty much that whole, all the work leading up to construction would be covered by grant monies. They would utilize the revolving loan fund just like everyone else. And then during the permanent financing stage, we would also deploy certain financing strategies like deferred interest or principal forgiveness. Next we have the moderate workforce track. So this is targeting people that fall within the 81% to 120% AMI. We will use the PLHA monies for these applicants because those are the only monies that can assist with incomes in that range. These will be a little bit different. These will not be grants, so there's no free money for these applicants, but they will get the benefit of deferred loans and deferred or low-interest loans. And that will happen both at the beginning and at the end of the process. And then we have our market rate applicants. So they receive zero assistance. They will pay for staff time. They will pay interest on the construction loan part. And then once that's built, we will also work with them to find a bank to provide the permanent financing and to replenish the revolving loan fund. And that's all I have for tonight.

Thank you. Any questions or thoughts on this? Council Member Walton.

That was only two minutes.

Council Member Fernandez.

I love everything you laid out, and I love the fact that we're able to provide assistance. And so I am curious, then, if someone should start to show signs of default or if someone outright defaults, what's our recourse? How do we remedy that?

So, it depends on the funding source that's used. But in general, so if someone, because we have utilized CDBG and home monies in the past for first-time homebuyers or rehab loans, typically what happens is that uh because most of the loan is a private entity or a bank they are the the first ones to essentially act on that default so usually it's the bank coming in or you know declaring default and then they're going to have to work with the bank through that process and typically what happens if the the homeowner can't make or their loan payments is that the bank is going to be the first person to get repaid. And then if there's any equity left, those monies will actually go back to the city if those monies were, let's say, CDBG or home.

Right, because I'm curious because if it's an ADU, are you foreclosing on the ADU if you're the bank? Is it a lien from us then if we're the city? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

So our strategy is to work with their – so assuming that they have a loan on their house, we are going to try our best to work with the bank that they're currently using because that way you don't have collateral issues and it won't get – into a situation where maybe they default on the ADU and then lose their house. We don't want that to happen.

Right. Yeah. Okay. And then my last question is, we had said that there's an internal flow chart about the about the different departments and that process. Could we publicize that?

Yeah, we're going to publicize a lot more. We're going to work with these initial five applicants to kind of to make sure what we thought we would do is actually what we are gonna do. And then with that pilot program, we'll make sure to develop a lot of materials for both the applicant and for staff because it is a fairly complicated program and it touches a lot of people and numerous agencies at times.

All right, thank you.

I have a couple of quick questions. For the income restricted, is there a time period in which the income that needs to stay with the house?

Yeah, depending on who they're serving, because there's different tiers, you know, you have 30 percent AMI and under, then you have 30 to 50 percent. So based on who you're serving, you're going to see a difference in, you know, the the period in which they need to rent to somebody at that income level. So if it's, you know, 30% or less, they might only need to do that for 10 years. If they're, you know, between 50 and 80%, it could be 20 years. So it is really going to expand and contrast based on how deep or how low income the renter is, the better the subsidy.

And if they sell the house, would then they basically have to pay that back at that point?

Correct, yeah, or a portion of what they were awarded.

And then in terms of monitoring this, will city staff be monitoring that, or how is that?

Yeah, and we have a process for that already. You know, the loans that we've made to the larger multifamily projects are the, you know, I'm losing. Yeah, so we do have to do annual monitoring around those monies.

And then just last question. It seems like this will become more apparent soon, but in terms of how people get on the list to participate.

So we currently have, on our website, we currently have an interest list, so if you, off the top of my head, I don't know what the way of getting there is, but if you search for housing in the city of Eureka, you should find this ADU program on our website.

Great. Thank you. Okay.

Yes, Council Member Moulton. I just thought of something while you were talking. Is there somewhere in all of this if somebody has an ADU that is not up to, hasn't been certified or maybe needs just a little bit of work to get it up to code to get a certificate of occupancy? um there's a lot of handshake stuff you know a lot of garage apartments and things around if somebody has something that's close to an adu and they don't need to do this whole process but they just need a little help like getting that middle bit done or getting a little bit of work done or just getting it permitted correctly is that would that fit into this possibly we would make a route for them because that's an easy win so yeah you could do that and then

if we are awarded the housing trust fund and have funds for that that was the intent of that correct is to have other programs whether tenant improvements or property owner improvements that could be used through the housing trust fund okay we can make good use of some of the ones that are already out there and just not quite ready

Yeah, and there's going to be more information on this, but there are different ways to make this process easier, and especially based on the type of development you want to do. If you want to do a junior ADU or a conversion of a garage, that's going to make it not only cheaper, but much easier to navigate through this process.

Oh, cool.

And it actually opens up more funding sources in that case.

Wow, great. Thank you.

Wonderful. Thank you so much for being here and with that this meeting is adjourned.