City Council - Regular Meeting

Silence, please. Thank you. Uh to this point, I ask look up and down the DAS and ask any of the council members if they wish to have an item um moved uh any changes to tonight's agenda. And so seeing council member Barnacle, I propose that we move item 12 before item 11. I'm going to be recusing from item 11. And I' like to not just wait in the back while we head on to

I see um um any other um agenda changes or deletions. Is that um um proposed change acceptable to the body? Any objection? Then we will u adopt that change on our agenda tonight. and follow that order. Um we always start a meeting with uh several proclamations, sometimes good news in the community and things and um tonight we have uh two of such events and I'd like to invite uh Joanna Rooney to the podium. Joanna, welcome. And Joanna is the American UN Association of University Women President, our pedaluma co-president and um I will read our proclamation um now and let's see it is equal pay day whereas over 60 years after the passage of equal pay day act of 1963 women especially minority women continued to suffer the consequences of unequal pay. Whereas, according to the US Census Bureau, women working full-time year round in 2025 earned 81% of what men earned for full-time work and 76% including part-time and seasonal workers, down from 84% at 78% in 2024. And whereas according to graduating to a pay gap, a 2012 research report by the American Association of University Women, the gender pay gap is evident one year after college graduation, even after controlling for factors known to affect earnings such as occupation, hours worked, and college major. Whereas in 2009, the Lily Led Better Fair Pay Act was signed into law, which gives back employees their day in court to challenge a pay gap. And we now must pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would amend the Equal Pay Act by closing

loopholes and improving the laws effectiveness. Whereas a lifetime of lower pay means women have less income to save for retirement and less income counted in social security or pension benefit formulas. Fair pay strengthens the securities of families and eases the future retirement costs while enhancing the American economy. And whereas fair pay equity policies can be implemented simply and without undue cost or hardship in both the public and private sectors. And March 26 symbolizes the time in 2026 when the wages paid to American women catch up to the wages pend paid to men from the prior year. Now therefore, be it resolved that I, Kevin McDonald, mayor of Pedaluma, along with all the members of the Pedaluma City Council, do hereby proclaim March 2026, March 26, 2026, uh, that's tricky, as equal payday and urge the citizens of Paluma to recognize the full value of women's skills and significant contributions to the labor force and further encourages businesses to conduct an internal pay evaluation to ensure that women are being paid fairly. early. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Mayor McDonald and the members of the Paluma City Council. Thank you for recognizing the gender pay gap. As Mayor McDonald just said, right now women are earning 84 cents on the dollar for every uh dollar that a man earns. And women of color are earning even less, between 52 cents and 63 cents. Over a lifetime, this loss income can affect retirement and family stability. AW Morgan Hill, sorry. A AWS from the city of uh Paluma, we are thankful to you for your proclamation of pay equity and and recognizing that it's essential to a fair community and we thank you for your leadership. Thank you.

And thank you. Tonight we also have a an additional proclamation and I would like to invite Dan Austerman. Dan, are you in the house?

Yes. Um and this one is for career technical education month and um uh it's generally accepted by the school district and Dan being the representative of the school district and I will read a bit of it into the record. um career technical education month. Whereas the city of Paluma is committed to fostering a strong, inclusive, and resilient local economy supported by skilled workforce prepared to meet the needs of current emerging industries. Students who participate in high quality career connected learning demonstrate increased academic engagement, persistence, achievement, improved well-being, and greater clarity about their future educations and career goals. And whereas the career technical education CTE provides critical connections between academic learning and real world applications helping ensure students are prepared for postsecary education, meaningful employment, and lifelong success. And we have a strong program in our schools. So now therefore, be it resolved that I, Kevin McDonald, mayor of Pedaluma, along with the members of the Pedaluma City Council, do hereby proclaim February 26th, 2026 as Career Technical Education Month and recognize career technical education as a vital strategy for opportunity, youth opportunity, workforce readiness, economic development, and the continued vitality of the Pedaluma community. So thank you to our schools. We have a couple presentations for uh publican council tonight and that lead will lead off with Soma Water and their budget and we have Dan Herrera. There you are Dan, deputy director of operations to come and introduce the presentation for us. Uh good evening uh mayor, council,

members of the city government, and members of the city of Paluma. Uh I'm uh here to introduce Jake Spalding from Sonoma Water. He will be presenting the budget for the water transmission system for next year's fiscal uh fiscal year. Also, I want to bring to your attention, we do have a consent item for directing our WAC representative to vote on next uh next month's WACt meeting. So, please uh take that into consideration. Jake And um just in um in in going with uh trying to keep us out of the alphabet soup too much. Whack tac for the public benefit.

Gotcha. Thank you. I'll do my best to stay away from the acronyms as well. Thanks Dan. Um so as Dan said, my name is Jake Spalding. I'm the new financial services uh division manager at Soma Water. And I'm going to walk you through uh real quick at a high level our 2627 proposed budget and rates uh for the water transmission system. And then after the presentation I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Uh next slide please. Um so real quick just a little bit about Sonoma Water. You know we do uh we have multiple functions. Um, you know, we do flood control, we do wastewater services, and then we also, uh, serve as the wholesale water supplier for Soma and Marin counties. Um, you know, we have, uh, nine main customers, uh, which are cities and water districts, uh, with the city of Penaluma obviously being one. And we ultimately serve about 600,000 residents in Soma and Marin. Um, you know, we have a pretty robust transmission system and we've included a, you know, a map of that showing you some of the features. you know, it's got everything from uh tanks and collector wells, uh treatment facilities, uh booster stations to help push the water along, and then pipelines. And so we have three main pipelines or aqueducts. We have the Santa Rosa, the Pedaluma, and the Soma. And obviously, this community is served off the Pedaluma aqueduct. Um and I mentioned this just to say, you know, not not everyone pays the exact same rate because people are served off a different uh infrastructure. Next slide. Um, you know, Sonoma Water, we're pretty proud of the the budgeting process that we go through. Um, it's very transparent and collaborative. So, each year we present a j a draft budget to the uh technical advisory committee, finance subcommittee um in mid January and then we work with all the water contractors uh you know until we ultimately bring this to our board in uh late April for approval. um

did want to say thank you to both Dan and Chelsea for participating in that committee this year. Um and you know really can't stress enough how much it really does help the process to have this collaboration. Um also would like to uh you know mention I think Dan did as well that you know the the TAC uh technical advisory committee has also voted unanimously to support the rates. Next slide. Um so once again a little bit more about the system. You know, I mentioned not everyone pays the same rate, and that's because it's not actually just one fund. There's multiple funds, uh, roughly 30 of them, and each one of them has its own budget and rates, and then those are compiled depending on who the customer is to make the composite rate that you pay. Next slide. Um, challenges, and I I believe we presented these on these last year, too. You know, we're facing uh several, and they're not totally unique to us. Uh, you know, the city is is facing many of these same challenges, too. One is aging infrastructure and as we all know as things get older it costs more to maintain them and it's also very expensive to replace them uh as they get to the end of their useful life. Um we've also had rising operating and maintenance costs. You know they really spiked during the pandemic. Some of those have started to come down but we are still seeing supply chain constraints uh with some of the infrastructure that we need to buy the equipment. Um we're also seeing you know increased labor costs uh increased costs for things like chemicals. Um and so all these are still weighing on on the costs. Um uh we also you know Sonoma Water we have a fully volutric rate and unfortunately that means that when deliveries are not increasing when they're stable or when they're going down it does put additional pressure on rates and you know the the uh trend in our area uh continues to be a small downwards slope. Um and lastly I didn't put it on there but I you know we've talked about it before you know natural hazards we are susceptible to seismic events particularly uh but also flood and fire. Next slide.

Um you know uh also wanted to talk about some of the achievements that we've had and we've we've done this in collaboration with the water contractors. I'm not going to go uh into all these um and there's more information about these in the packet that we provided and also on our website. But you know common themes here you see are you know things like resiliency whether it's to drought or other uh hazards. Um things like education for our youth uh in the in the water uh department. Um, also, uh, you know, dealing with the biological opinion in the river. Um, and I threw a couple other, uh, pro projects on there. Um, also that just kind of highlight we're always seeking outside funding to help offset rate increases. So, those last three projects you see on there are ones that we attracted a lot of grant funding for. Next slide. Um, so what does this mean for rates? Um, you know, after taking in all the considerations of what the system needs, uh, we're proposing rates that range from about 8.21 21 to 8.97% for the uh contractors served off the three main aqueducts. You can see Pedaluma's in the middle column up there at 8.97. Um and ultimately that rating uh still means that one gallon of water delivered through the system costs about half a penny. Next slide. Um so what's in the budget this year? Uh on the capital side, we have $3.55 million in hazard mitigation projects. You can see four projects up there that we're uh seeking additional appropriations for this year. Uh some of these are specific to the Pedaluma Aqueduct. You can see the Wilford booster station up there. That's one that will definitely benefit this community. Uh next slide. Uh in addition to uh hazard mitigation projects, we have about $7.4 million uh in other projects that help with resiliency. Um, I've thrown four other projects up here that are in this budget. Um, you can see the the bottom two. Um, that's one project that is a

large multi-phase, multi-year project. It's going to take about a decade to complete. Um, but that's one that you'll continue to see over the next nine or 10 years. Next slide. Um, on the operations slide, I've listed some of the high priority projects that we're uh proposing. it comes out to about $48.7 million. Um there's things up there that um you know are going to help us get a better idea of what the system needs in the future like the transmission system master plan and that's one that's going to help us map out you know what the system needs are when we can sequence those how much it's going to cost so we can make sure that we don't have rate spikes in the future. Um, you know, other things up there are things like emergency inventory procurement, which we've been doing for several year years to make sure we have pipe and other uh other pieces of equipment on hand in case there is a big seismic event. And also our tank maintenance and tank rehabilitation program, which is a very large effort that we have. Next slide. And then finally, you know, we have what we call the sub funds. Um, these are separate funds that fund specific uh uh work. uh they fund things like the biological opinion uh our work in uh dry creek doing habitat restoration uh urban water management planning as well as water conservation efforts. We're proposing $10.1 million in that uh category. That is a slight increase uh from the prior year and that's mostly due to the fact that we're still implementing some of the projects on the first uh biological opinion and as you may know we were issued a new 2025 biological opinion last April and we have new requirements that we're starting to implement. Next slide. Um so when you put it all together you can see that we're proposing a total budget of 78.41 million. Um of note you know that is $3.62 62 million less than the prior year's budget. Um, other things to note on this slide, the capital projects is showing a pretty big decrease. You'll

see up there. That's not actually a decrease in the level of work we're doing. It's just that we didn't need as much new appropriations this year to implement some of these multi-year projects. Um, and we have a lot of them that are hitting in the next couple months, uh, going out to award. I believe we have, uh, two in March and one in June. So, uh, a lot of work being done. I don't think our team's really ever been busier. Um, another thing to note there is, you know, we are proposing less in the use of grants, use of fund balance and bond proceeds. That's really an indication that the last couple years, uh, water sales came in under budget and we didn't have as much fund balance to help offset the rate increase. So, that's why you're seeing a rate increase even when we're proposing a budget that's lower than the previous fiscal year. Next slide. Um, just to show you, you know, where our costs hit and this changes uh, a little bit year-to-year. Um, you know, operations and maintenance is our biggest biggest expense. This year it's 62%. Capital projects is our second biggest bucket at about 14%. And then the sub funds and debt service round out the rest. Um, because we had that lower capital project uh need this year. Uh, ON&M is showing up as a as a bigger piece of the pie than it did last year, but typically capital projects is a little bit bigger than that. Next slide, please. And can you click five more times or six more times? This is an animated slide. I mean to remove it every year because it takes so long. But um you know we're showing you kind of a primer on how our rate is calculated. And this is all uh in in uh accordance with the terms of the restructured agreement for water supply. And what that says is basically we take the cost of operating the system and then we divide that by the amount of water sold. And the amount of water sold is um stipulated to be either the last 12 months of actual water deliveries or the last three years annual average uh whichever is less. Uh this year it's the 12-month actuals which is that 41,776

number. And of note, you know, that is 1.5% less than the number that was in the budget last year, which is another reason u that the rate increase is happening when the budget is going down. Next slide, please. Oh, one more. Um, this is just another view of the rates and this time it's showing you kind of the line items for those different funds that I mentioned before. Um, and how we come up with that rate. Um, one thing I did want to point out on this slide is there is that line for the discretionary aqueduct capital charge. That is a charge that the contractors put on themselves um that acts as a a rate stabilization tool that allows them to build up fund balance for the aqueduct so that they can implement capital projects in the future. Um, this year Pedaluma elected to keep it at the same rate it was last year, so at $10 per acre foot. Next slide. And just to give you, you know, a little bit of idea of what the future holds. This is an example. It's not meant to say that these are the rate increases that you're going to see over the next 5 years. And we do re-evaluate this every year. Um but when we plug in you know the future needs of the system right now with some assumptions things like you know only 1% growth um what we come up with is that we are going to see rate increases in that 10% neighborhood for the next several years. Uh there's a couple reasons for this. Um you know it's mostly tied to the capital program and you can see at the bottom of the slide there we actually have two other bonds uh in the in this 5-year window. Um and they're very large bond amounts. there, you know, amounts that we have not typically in the past bonded for. Um, some of the work that's going on with that is directly related to the Paluma Aqueduct, including aqueduct replacements in the out years. Um, we are also going out to bond this year. Um, we are issuing a bond in May, midmay of this year for about $33 million, uh, to fund, um, the current year and two years of the capital program. Next slide, please.

And I think this might be my last one. Um, you know, every water system is different. So, it's not a direct applesto apples comparison. Um, you know, everyone has different treatment needs and and different water sources and whatnot. But when you look at a purely dollar per acre foot uh uh figure, um, Sonoma water is still affordable compared to the other wholesalers in the area. And next slide. Oh, just a couple key dates. Uh so the TAC did vote on the technical advisory committee did vote on March 2nd. The water advisory committee is scheduled to vote on March on April 6th and then we will be going to our board for adoption on April 28th. And with that, if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

There you go. Thank you very much for the presentation and um I'd like to bring it back then and see if the council has any questions but we will open to the audience for questions when or not questions but comments when we get to the general public comment period. So if you have something that's a good thing put on a card and get in the queue to address this issue and I think I saw council member Barnacle's hand.

Yeah. Um thank you for the presentation. Always appreciate seeing it. um question around you know declining sales and you know that driving up costs. Is there a healthy growth rate? Because obviously a lot of growth is going to require massive investments in the system for expansion and things like that, but is there a healthy growth rate that you would say is going to help us to stabilize that because seeing rates, you know, essentially grow by what, you know, not quite double over the next 5 years is a little alarming. And that's my second question. And I'll just tee that up too is like do you see rates flattening out at any point out in the future or are we going to see a 10% increase sort of as long as you're forecasting?

Um I'll I'll take the second one first. Uh you know so we we do look out 20 years. Um so you know we are are looking out past this five years. There will definitely be some periods where will will it will get lower, but because we have aqueduct replacements out on uh the schedule, we actually have three phases of pedaluma aqueduct uh replacements going out, I think 2033, 2037, and 2040. Um you know, there is a lot of a lot of need there um for for the long-term future. Um, that being said, you know, we we're currently uh taking a look at all of our aqueducts. Um, and one of the things that's in the budget this year is the transmission system condition assessments. So, as we get a better idea of exactly what condition some of these aqueducts are in, we may be able to push some of those farther out on the timeline and and bring that rate down. Um, you know, in regards to demand, uh, I'm not the water resource demand, uh, guys. Uh, but I would say, you know, 20 years ago, we were doing about 60,000 acre feet of water deliveries. Uh, now we're at about 40. Is that a bad thing? In in many senses, it's a great thing. We haven't had to implement those large capital uh, you know, capacity increasing projects that you mentioned. Um, also, you know, it's conservation is good. we have drought years where supplies are limited. So, I don't want to say that it's a necessarily all a bad thing. Um, I think there probably is some demand hardening. I mean, we've we've attacked a lot of the the wasteful water use. Um, so hopefully it won't be going down at the rate it was before. There also has been quite a bit of development, you know, so we're we may see that start to tick in slowly as more uh more residences are filled and whatnot. But there's there's other things on the horizon like commercial landscape which is uh getting heavily regulated at the moment. So um I don't

see growth there at the moment. Um I don't see much growth there at the moment. I'm I'm hopeful there may be not because people are using more water but because there's more customers to deliver to. I guess um maybe in future presentations you can touch on or have some of the other folks um just add something in of like what different you know demand projections might look like right what had you know just what if every city in the county um actually achieved their housing goals like what would we look like there what if we saw a certain amount of you know commercial growth or a agriculture growth um just so that we get a sense of what the trade-off is of of some of this stuff because I agree, you know, obviously conservation's great and all of that. Um,

but and we and we are working on our current urban water management plan which I believe is due July 1st. Um, so we'll have new numbers to incorporate into our long-range financial model when that's done. Wonderful. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Council Member Shribs.

Well, uh, thank you for the presentation and yes, the cost increasing. of Colorado University came out with a study saying our underground pipes um for water in and out of our cities are um where 50% are already outdated and uh outdone their uh useful life and so yeah large replacement needed so I would support that yes is is it actually enough uh is the um the nine and 10% going to be enough to actually replace all the aging equipment that we got going or do we need to speed that up actually

you know based on our longrange financial model at the moment it is enough um you know those those bondings that I I had in the out years I mean one of them I believe was you know almost $150 million not just for the pedaluma cube for for the system as a whole um so you know with our current plan we are showing this is enough to to implement those projects which really are historic in our in our history we haven't bonded for that much before right because these are pretty huge bonds you're going after yeah

okay um so that's about supply um uh to the cities. But what about the supply to you? The natural supply, the rain basically. Um cuz the last drought we experienced had a similar start as like this year, early rains uh November, maybe even a little bit of December and then shut off January and February, even though we've had close to average this year.

Um so it's possible we may be kicking into a drought sequence since we've had several rain years. Um, so what what can we do now or should we do now? Um, thinking that we might be entering into a new drought cycle. Do we need to start conserving right now to maintain our water supply um in case this is a start of a droughty uh sessions?

Uh yeah, and I and I'd defer to to Don Seymour and our water resources guys uh for most of this, but I would say, you know, right now our our reservoirs are healthy. Um some of the things that are different between last drought and this drought you know one we are now implementing fo or forecast inform reservoir operations on both uh the lake mendescino as well as uh upcoming on lake Soma um that I don't remember the exact amount but I believe it's it's almost like twothirds of a water uh annual water deliveries we're secure we have been able to secure in those in those reservoirs. Um so we have we have more flexibility there because we haven't had to dump as much water as we had in the past. Uh so the reservoirs are looking healthy at the moment. You know we have also taken some other steps uh for resiliency. You know we've implemented the Santa Rosa Plains wells where we have uh uh installed or are installing three wells in the Santa Rosa Plains and rehabbing them. We're also installing um ASR or aquaer storage and uh recovery uh features on those. So, we would be able to take winter water um out of the river and inject that into the groundwater basin. So, we'd have another secure source there. Um so, we're we're taking steps. I don't see right now that it's there's any indication we need to panic. Um and I I think my water resource guys would agree with me there.

Right. Yeah. I'm not going to have a panic. Just like maybe we just be thinking about always think conservation, constant conservation from this point forward. Yes. It's just something we want to promote uh just in case uh to be more prepared down the road. Uh the other concern in the supply of course is population growth because other cities are at the moment u maybe growing a little bit faster like Ronard Park and Santa Rosa are trying to put a lot more housing back in uh right now compared to uh what we're able to achieve here in Paluma. So, is there going to be differences down the road, city to city, um or or projections of populations that are going to have any influence on what needs to get done? Uh if I follow the the question correctly, um no, I don't think one city growing at a different rate than another one's going to affect any of the needs of the system. Um, and the the cost to each contractor is not different uh if you're both served from the same aqueduct. So, it's not like your your rates or the needs of your system would change based on another city's growth.

Okay, good. So, we have robust system working properly basically. Um, and with the increases, we're able to cover the costs, at least cover for water. So, we're should be good for at least 10 years. Okay. Yes, that's a nod. Yes. Okay, just checking. Thank you, Council Member, Vice Mayor Darly.

Hi, Jake. Thank you for the presentation. So, I I was under the impression last year when we voted on the increase, it was to handle all the aging infrastructure over time that that increase itself would be able to handle it. Um, and you know, Pedalum has been historically really good at conserving water and to continue to see rate increases doesn't seem like much of an incentive if if it's always making up for, you know, that gap in what was conserved. Um, so what I mean when Sonoma Waters forecasting their budget, what you know, can you be taking a more conservative approach to how you budget things so that we don't have to see these rate increases for people that are really working to conserve?

Um, yeah. I mean, we're we're required to do an annual budget and we're only putting in there what what we need for that specific year. Um, so, you know, the the rate increase any one year, it doesn't necessarily um cover our whole program because most of our projects are multi-year projects. Um, you know, that being said, whenever water deliveries do come in above budget, that uh money drops into fund balance and then we use that in the next year to help offset the rate increase. And that's why it's really hard for us to forecast, you know, the next next three years of rate increases or or or whatnot. So, you know, we do take a very conservative view. Um, we go through the the budget with the water contractors and they question us, you know, do you think you can accomplish all of this in this in this time frame? So, you know, we're we're reviewing it constantly throughout the year. We're reviewing it with the water contractors and we're putting forward a budget that we think is is uh fair and reasonable and addresses the needs of the system um and also maint maintains that we have a reliable system uh while trying to keep the cost as low as we can. Thank you. Yep.

I can also add to that. Um this is Chelsea Thompson, director of water resources and utilities. Um so the city has a current 2023 rate study that goes through fiscal year 2728. Um that rate study projects annual water rate increases of 2 and a.5%. And those are supplemented by annual passroughs for um inflation and for the cinema water wholesale rate. And um although it seems high this year um following a nearly 11% increase on the snow water rate last year, it's right in line with our um inflation or the the wholesale water rate increases projected in the rate study.

Thank you, Chelsea. Okay. And um I I think that uh conservation is good and rates suffer. Dynamic is challenging for any of us to explain um or or or explain why we want to go there, but I get it. Um and uh you know, as someone who looks at his winter water use, the three-month winter water use, and tries to drive that down to save my all year, the the multiplier in our all year and uh got it down a little lower this year. What does the um half cent per gallon mean on my water bill? I mean, my water bill in winter is 100 gall $100 a month. How much will this change on my winter water bill? What percentage of the entire rate is that 10%. We haven't done that calculation. um it's going to um equal a 29 or yeah 29 cents per 100 cubic feet. So it's um like I mentioned that with the annual rate increases of 2 and a half% plus the annual projected passroughs for inflation and snow water rates the total um water and wastewater bills are anticipated to increase by 6% annually through fiscal year 2728 and this um rate increase won't throw off that projection. It's right in line with what the rate study projected. I guess I'm I'm saying that this is a pretty small number compared to what the cost in Paluma and our water bill being half sewer bill and things. So that that's good to know. Um well um appreciate that very much and I hope you'll stick around till our general public comment concludes in case anyone in the public wants to add on a question. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next presentation is also water. And tonight we uh have uh Chelsea Thompson, our director of water resources and utilities to take us through our uh draft integrated water master plan and recycle water facilities planning study. The floor is yours, Chelsea.

Uh thank you. Joining me tonight are Steve Warl, deputy director of water resources and utilities at Ellis Creek, and Dan Herrera, our deputy director of water resources and utilities at the Waterfield office. We also have Danielle Favlla, who as of today is our newly appointed water resources and conservation manager. Uh, tonight we're presenting an overview of the draft integrated water master plan and associated recycled water facilities planning study. You may hear these plans being referred to tonight as the IWMP and the recycled water study. Originally, tonight's item was planned as a workshop on the integrated water master plan or IWMP along with the recycled water facilities planning study. As we approached the meeting, the IWMP document was still being finalized and not ready for a full workshop. So rather than postponing entirely, we wanted to provide a preview of the planning work currently underway. Tonight we'll briefly touch on the water supply alternatives evaluated through the IWMP process, but the primary focus will be on the outcomes of the recycled water facilities planning study. We'll highlight the recommended recycled and portable water projects identified as next steps, discuss major wastewater infrastructure needs and financing considerations, and then open it up for council questions. Please note that we plan to return to council later this year with a full workshop once the draft in integrated water master plan is complete. At that time, council will have the opportunity to review the plan in greater detail. Before diving into the planning work, I'll I'll start with a brief overview of the recent historic drought that helped shape this effort. In 2021, or the 2021 water year was the

second driest on record, following 2020, which was the fifth driest. Together, 2020 and 2021 became the second driest 2-year period on record, significantly reducing storage in our regional reservoirs. Pedalum receives about 90 to 100% of its drinking water from Sonoma water which manages Lake Mendescino and Lake Sonoma in the Russian River wershed. During drought conditions, both Sonoma water and the city rely on local groundwater wells to supplement reduced reservoir supplies. During the recent drought, reservoir storage dropped to historic lows with Lake Sonoma reaching its lowest level since the reservoir was created in 1984. In response, the state asked communities to reduce water use by 20%. Pedaluma reduced water use during this period by 20 26% ranking sixth in the state and first in the Bay Area. Even with those conservation efforts, by early winter of 2022, there was still serious concern about whether the region could meet water demands if drought conditions continued. That experience highlighted a reliance on regional surface water supplies and the need to strengthen long-term water supply resilience. I'll now turn it over to Danielle to cover several key projects that came out of the last drought. Thank you, Chelsea. Um, so although the most recent drought impacted our entire region and created significant challenges, it also accelerated important investments in our water system. Because of the drought, we are able to secure ser several grants that were that are helping us build long-term resilience. The to start with one of them, the Adobe road phase one project expanded recycled water infrastructure to support agricultural use, adding about 300 acre feet per year of recycled water. We also received funding for the advanced metering infrastructure, also known as AMI, which replaced more than 21,000 water meters. These smart water meters improved leak detection,

increased customer awareness through tools like ion water, and are expected to save around 600 acre feet of water annually. There is also the fully grant-f funded aquifer storage and recovery pilot that allowed us to research and test if it is feasible to bank drinking water underground so it can be used during emergencies or dry seasons. And finally, the Reneer and Maria Drive recycled water expansion that will help offset portable water used for irrigation at schools, parks, businesses, and other landscaped areas. So, while the drought presented real challenges, it also helped us secure the funding needed to strengthen Paluma's water supply and conservation efforts for the future.

Thanks, Danielle. So turning towards the integrated water master plan, why did the city launch this? Really, it's the story we've just been talking about so far tonight. The future water supply is less predictable due to drought, climate change, and ongoing potential for emergencies. The IWMP is an overall process that evaluated a range of local water supply options rather than relying on a single solution. So the idea is more of a onewater approach rather than our potential um segregation of recycled water and portable water. The results of this study will guide future capital projects, grant funding opportunities, and long-term water supply planning. And the recycled water feasibility planning study or the recycled water study is just one component of the IWMP. It was completed with state water resources control board grant funding and is finalized and available on our website for review. So looking at holistically all of the options considered under the IWMP. Uh I'm not going to go through them one by one on this slide, but you can review we really threw everything at the dart board and wanted to see what would stick was the approach. So this includes different options for using recycled water to offset portable use. Considered portable water reuse or IPR or DPR, which we'll talk about a little bit more later. It considered alternatives that increase Pedaluma's ability to use groundwater during drought or dry years. And then also looked at uh brackish desalination of uh water as an alternative. And we also considered administrative options that are different from your typical capital projects. Taking all of those different alternatives uh required methods of evaluating them against each other. So

the project team used both quantitative and qualitative measures to evaluate and score and rank all of the options. So our quantitative criteria included how much local water supply in acre feet per year. the alternative would produce or offset and then the construction cost so that we could evaluate uh apples to apples and a dollars per acre foot per year. So remember that 1,500 uh dollars per acre foot per year from snowmoal water. That's one of the benchmarks we used for evaluating other options of supply. We also considered qualitative measures including ease of implementation which covers you know the regulatory or technical complexity of the alternative the environmental impact in alignment with pedaluma's broader climate goals and then the social impact of different alternatives. So again here I'm not going to go through this line by line um but this colorful matrix basically takes all of the alternatives and ranks and scores them against each other with higher ranking alternatives on a scale of 1 to five being shaded green and the you know more poorly ranked alternatives in red. So we're going to talk just about a subset of those alternatives tonight. So, broadly for the IWMP, the most highly ranked alternatives were associated with groundwater. I'm going to skip over those and let Dan cover them in a little bit more detail. Um, I will briefly touch on storm water capture and treatment. So, this was an option where we would consider capturing storm water and retention basins throughout the city and treating that for reuse to either um recycled water or portable water quality. that scored pretty low um due to a combination of cost and technical complexity. And then brackish desalination was evaluated in partnership with uh the Marine Municipal Water District. And this option also

scored very low due to the extremely high cost and a low potential supply of brackish water available. So um we're not really going to focus on those too much more and we'll skip back to the more highly scoring options and I'll let Dan take it away. Awesome.

Thank you, Steve. So, as Steve mentioned, groundwater wells provided to be a highscoring alternative. Um, as you can see from this graph, uh, showing Sonoma water aqueduct imports in blue and groundwater well production in red. Uh, groundwater can be an important portion of the city's water supply, especially during droughts. Uh, the city will continue to utilize Sonoma water as its primary source of water supply, but having local production of groundwater is a priority of the city. As a side note, we often use purchase of Sonoma water as a benchmark comparison on a cost per acre to prioritize water projects. It was used throughout this study. So this uh here we are looking at the city's groundwater well network. Active wells shown in blue and inactive wells shown in red. Uh water quality varies across the system. And while our primary wells uh bolded and underlined have uh water quality that is fully usable, our other active wells have limitations that have kept them as only secondary wells when used when necessary. Uh bringing additional wells into regular service represents an opportunity to increase local supply capacity and strengthen reliability during droughts and emergencies. Expanding our well network, particularly on the west side of Pedaluma, where we currently do not have any wells, also improves preparedness for disruptions um or um or emergencies. Uh for these reasons, well systems uh improvements and expan and expansion remain a priority in the city's CIP program. Next year, a well sighting study uh determine the location of our next wall on the west side will be completed with a wall construction project to follow soon after. Uh here we have um a groundwater treatment recommendations. So as part of our water master planning, we developed a planning level cost estimate for bringing some of our less optimal wells into reliable service. Having a target treatment infrastructure would allow the city to rely on that groundwater supply during peak demand and drought with

consistent operations and without customer impacts. For planning purposes, the representative treatment approach is green sand uh pressure filtration. So it's a proven groundwater process that removes iron and manganesees, odor and other constituents. Planning level construction cost uh of this is is approximately 1.8 million and we use our Stony Point well uh for that study. Uh the wells targeted for this treatment could actually add about 600 million um 600 gallons or I think 600 I think it's 8 acre feet per year. um uh reliable local supply. Oh, no. So, 600 gpm or 970 acre feet per year if operated year round and at full output. That's about $1,900 per acre foot. So, okay, another water supply alternative that was considered and ranked relatively high was aquafer storage and recovery known as ASR. Just recently and last December, the Water Resources and Utilities Department wrapped up the fully grant-f funded ASR pilot program. ASR is a method of injecting and storing portable water into groundwater basins, utilizing the basin as a natural underground storage reservoir. This stored water is then available to be pumped out and used at a later date when demand is high or during drought emergencies. The pilot program included three separate cycles that included recharge, storage, and recovery phases. Each cycle started with the recharge phase, which consisted of injecting Soma water imported aqueduct water into our groundwater basin through the Deloro well site. The injected water was then stored for increasing lengths of time and each cycle ended with the recovery phase which included pumping out the injected water and monitoring water levels and water quality sampling and testing. The pilot was a success, but

recharge rates were lower than expected and water quality did not see any long-term improvements. The major limiting factors were the high depth to water levels and the limited aquifer capacity did not allow for any significant recharge or storage. The feasibility study is in its final stages of review and should be completed in April. So shifting gears now, we're going to talk about recycled water alternatives using the same ranking criteria um but pivoting and not thinking about you know portable water supply instead of considering recycled water offset. So the highest ranked alternatives that we'll go into more detail on included expansion of the urban recycled water network. This is primarily due to the fact that these are a direct offset of portable water and actually direct portable reuse which we have a separate slide on to explain its scoring. Other alternatives that were evaluated that we're not going to go into as much detail on include on-site treatment systems. So this is where a building or development project has its own on-site wastewater treatment and reuse. So some of these projects have been implemented in larger cities. uh they really are not feasible or economically viable in pedaluma with the scale of development here. We will also talk a little bit more about recycled water uh a agricultural recycled water expansion. Uh you'll see it's a relatively low score but there are reasons and specific projects where this kind of expansion does make more sense. We considered membrane bioreactor satellite systems. So the way to think about this alternative is it's a separate wastewater treatment plant uh a plant in a box as it were located uh adjacent to large recycled water users

or potential recycled water users. This alternative scored pretty low because of the technical challenge of operating that kind of treatment plant on a seasonal basis during only the recycled water uh season, the dry season. And we also looked at increasing seasonal storage at Ell's Creek to be able to capture more water during the wintertime and reuse that as recycled water during the summer. This scored low again because of the extreme cost associated with expanding the pond network and because of the geotechnical challenges uh associated with that kind of uh civil engineering work, civil construction work. So looking at direct portable reuse or DPR. So this is again where waste water leaving the treatment plant is then uh treated through additional purification processes advanced treatment and filtration to then be reused directly in the distribution system as portable water. So you'll note that this scored relatively highly at an overall 3.0 which is along with our best alternatives but the cost score was one and that's because the expanded treatment would be likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars. So this is something that we see is potentially down the road in 20 30 40 years uh but is a strategy that at this point in time really is not commensurate with the investment available in the wastewater enterprise. And now I'll kick it back to Danielle to talk about our recycled water network.

Thank you Steve. So, this map shows our existing recycled water system, and some of our larger recycled water users are labeled. The Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility produces and delivers an average of 1,400 acre feet of recycled water a year to our recycled water customers. The city is currently serving 55 active recycled water accounts that make up the city's urban and agricultural recycled water program. These accounts include parks, schools, com commercial businesses, golf courses, and agg. As a part of the recycled water facilities planning study, we evaluated how to better leverage this existing system to expand urban recycled water use within our service area to increase portable offset and to strengthen our water supply resiliency. Next slide. So to begin, we focused on two important questions. Is there real interest in our urban and and agricultural areas to connect or convert to recycled water? And is there enough recycled water to meet the potential demand? Uh these questions led us to create an outreach plan to gather information and feedback from actual potential recycled water users. Next slide. So to start to determine if there was a need and want for urban recycled water from urban customers last year the water resources and conservation department performed targeted outreach to potential urban users located along the proposed recycled water pipeline expansion routes. First, we reviewed over a 100 dedicated irrigation accounts along the proposed and planned expansion areas to determine if there was demand and compiled a list of the highest users to reach out to. This list, I'm sorry, this list included HOAs, schools, property management companies, and more. uh a

majority of the customers we contacted expressed strong interest interest in connecting to the system especially if the future pipeline were to run adjacent to their property. So from here we then reached out to the agricultural side to gauge interest and determine how much real potential agricultural demand there was along Adobe Road and Lakeville Highway. We mailed out 112 surveys with 40 of those surveys being sent to possible potential future users. Out of the 112 surveys we sent, we've received 20 total surveys back, including 10 from current users and 10 from potential users on Lakeville. All potential users were interested in receiving recycled water, stating the potential cost of the recycled water would be the main factor in their decision. And eight out of 10 of the potential users stated that they had land for recycled water storage. And six of the current recycled users were open to land lease or purchase for recycled water storage. Uh however, it's important to note that the survey did not address the financial side. The survey did not include questions on if the these potential users would be willing or able to help fund or build or maintain storage. So I want to address um on the agricultural side one of the trends we've seen over the last several years to highlight how agricultural recycled water use is uh complicated from the city's management perspective. So what you're seeing is the overall a water use decline over the last 5 years and there's really two factors worth highlighting in this. The first is that climate and seasonal weather patterns really drive how much a water is needed.

Um late rains really cut down on the amount of a water demand we have to meet and then conversely dry uh winters can lead to big increases. So those swings are well outside of the city's control. Similarly, we are seeing an overall decline in vineyard water use specifically which is related to ongoing changes in the wine grape market that also the city can't really control. So highlight that just to point out that this is a very fine line to try and thread when we're looking at how much water we're planning to deliver. And now I'm going to let Dan talk about some of the specific recycled water expansion projects. Thank you. So looking here, this is an overview of uh potential future recycled water expansion that we have uh we have looked at. Um so we have analyzed potential agricultural and urban expansion of our of our recycled water system. Um altogether we estimate future recycled water demands could reach over 500 5,000 acre feet per year, which includes about 1,400 acre feet per year from existing customers. Uh looking ahead, our focus is on where we can expand recycle water service in in both urban and agriculture areas and looking at which expansion opportunities make the most sense to prioritize. So the first area we evaluated is expansion along the Adobe road. Um it has a relatively high uh cost score um which is basically due to existing uh grants and potential potential grants utilized for this cost. Uh the first phase of Adobe road alignment was completed in 2024 uh using grant funding from the department of water resources. Uh the second phase uh Adobe phase 2 is currently in design and will complete the Adobe road loop back into the existing recycled water system. We are currently seeking um Bureau Reclamation grant funding for this for this project. Uh looking at this, just to take a quick

note, the life cycle cost is about $845 per acre foot, which is um comparable to to normal water. The other agriculture recycle water we evaluated was along Lakeville Highway. The cost score is low essentially because the project is going to be about $50 million to complete this project. Um there is a low life cycle cost at 11 100 acre feet per year but it really is due to potential uh high demands on the system but that really needs to be evaluated further um as as recycled water uh agriculture recycled water demand evolves and the system continues to expand. So we really need to evaluate those those demand numbers. Uh this is our urban south expansion alignment. Uh this is a priority project because it has potential grant funding. Uh it would extend the recycled water from existing system along Eli Road uh across Highway 1 to serve the fairgrounds in the future and if if additional funding uh becomes available, it it could extend across the river to serve our high use customers. Uh finally, this is the urban uh pipeline expansion uh planned in the north of the city. Um it is is being phased uh as a priority after the urban south. Uh the potential water supply score is high due to the number of potential customers but the cost is very high with a life cycle cycle cost of over 12,000 acre feet per year. Okay. To summarize, our proposed water supply projects are to increase new wells, to improve local supply reliability, to evaluate wellhead treatment options to improve water quality, and expand usable groundwater, and finally to expand the urban south recycled water system for urban irrigation. Uh, this project has a potential for federal and state grant funding opportunities uh with different match uh different city match requirements.

This slide is highlighting our phase approach for the urban south alignment. uh you will see a primary pipeline that extends throughout the project uh with expansion uh with and with secondary lines serving areas of demand. Uh the project has three phases with phase one having the potential for future uh for this bureau reclamation grant funding opportunity. uh phase two which brings the system from the freeway to Hopper Street area and phase three which brings the system across Pedro River uh currently do not have funding sources. So earlier tonight we covered water supply projects that were initiated through drought relief funding. Now we're shifting to what comes next. We're working with our consultant team, Kennedy Jensen, to incorporate results from the aquafer storage and recovery pilot project and finalize the integrated water master plan. Once complete, staff will return to council later this year with a draft final plan uh and more detailed overview of the alternatives that were considered. At the same time, the city is updating its water master plan, which Dan mentioned. This plan focuses on long-term uh water infrastructure planning. As part of that effort, we're conducting a well sighting study on the west side of town to evaluate potential locations for groundwater exploration. If groundwater supplies are identified, this could lead to a future capital project, which would develop a new municipal well and improve water supply resilience on that side of town. The water master plan is also evaluating treatment options for several existing city wells that currently exceed drinking water quality limits, which would allow those wells to be brought into the distribution system. Alongside the planning efforts that I just mentioned, the department is advancing several near-term actions. Our water operations team is piloting operational adjustments in existing wells to see if water quality can be improved operationally before investing in treatment infrastructure. We're also

pursuing grant opportunities to support the next phase of recycled water expansion. So in addition to the local strategies discussed tonight, regional efforts led by Sonoma Water also play an important role in strengthening Paluma's water supply reliability. Jenk mentioned some of these in the earlier presentation. Um Sonoma Water has developed a regional water supply resiliency roadmap focused on improving reliability of the Russian River system. Some of the key strategies um on that road map include aquafer storage and recovery at a regional scale which is being being explored with the three local groundwater sustainability agencies along with expanded groundwater use in the San Santa Rosa plane for um for use during drought periods. Another important initiative uh that we briefly discussed is forecast informed reservoir operations or FOI. This uses improved weather forecasting to safely capture and store more water during winter events or winter storm events. Pharaoh has um already successfully been implemented at Lake Mendescino is now being evaluated for Lake Sonoma. Over the past three years, Pharaoh has helped retain 30,000 acre feet of additional water at Lake Mendescino. For context, Sonoma Water uh delivered about just over 41,000 acre feet of water to its contractors last year, meaning that FOR represents a significant increase in regional supply capacity. Looking ahead down the road map, uh the the Lake Sonoma FOR program is anticipated to increase storage by about 30,000 acre feet per year um by 2028 and potentially up to about 70,000 acre feet per year from current storage levels by the year 2045. These efforts increase water storage and existing re reservoirs without building new infrastructure and directly strengthen long-term water supply reliability for communities like

Pedaluma that rely on Sonoma water system. So again, we're going to shift gears and focus on a couple of wastewater projects. And the reason why that's relevant tonight is as much as we've been talking about recycled water and portable water, the funding for our recycled water capital projects comes from both the water and the wastewater enterprises. So, we can't really have a comprehensive conversation about the recycled water um capital improvements plan without thinking about the wastewater enterprise as well. So one of the projects that this council and this community has been hearing about for quite some time is the pips parallel force man. So this is the primary force man conveying all sewage from the city of Pedaluma to Ellis Creek uh for treatment. That force man is about 50 years old and is reaching the end of its useful life. So this project aims to put in a parallel line so that we have more resiliency for that force main. So right now the current uh status updates that we're sharing are that we expect to wrap up all permitting for this project and issue bid documents this summer uh to be awarded a construction contract in the fall and construction to last about a year and a half wrapping up in spring or summer of 2028. Similarly, the actual pump station itself that conveys sewage through the force main was also included in the 23 rate study for uh upgrades. So, that rate study was relatively limited in scope at the pump station and included just replacing some of the pumps. The first step the city team took in kicking that project off was to conduct a condition assessment for the pump station itself. And the major finding of

that condition assessment is that it is likely best to fully replace the pump station rather than just upgrade the pumps. Um that comes down to the lack of seismic resiliency for this also 50 plus year old structure. So the next steps for this project are to complete design of the new pump station and then construct that station and tie it in to the new force main optimally completing in the you know middle or end of 2028 as well. So these are two pretty significant projects. Um they are not projects the scale of which the wastewater enterprise can use annual funding to support uh the capital expenditure. So we are proposing initially a $70 million wastewater bond this spring. So the the proceeds of that bond would fund the force main project and ideally the pump station project as well. Although at this point in time it's a little bit early to know exactly what the pump station is going to cost. So uh we will bring that bond issuance back to council later this year in June. Uh we can probably talk about some minor questions today, but really expect to have a lot more information for you in June. The key takeaways for tonight, I'll mention are that the existing uh rate study covered these projects, but since the 2023 study was completed, the scope of both and the costs of both have expanded. That said, the debt service for the $70 million bond is something that can be supported within the current uh rate structure. So we we do not expect to need to raise rates just to support the debt service on this bond. And finally, there is the potential for a smaller 2027 bond if either the force main construction costs end up going over budget or if the pump station is higher than initial estimates uh predict.

So that's what we've got and we'll turn it over for questions. Thanks. I think um I think I'll kick it off with a few c couple um questions. Um really appreciate that the people have conserved as much as they have and taken us from 60,000 acre foot uh at snow water down to 40. So that's like 33% reduction. I mean that's phenomenal. Plus I love what you're doing with the um the new program at the dams where you're getting um 10% 15% more yield out of the same dam. So, that's an awful lot of good news in the in in the water supply side of things. And um I didn't hear a focus here on what Pedaluma needs to do and why it needs to do it. I mean, if there's that much more water supply coming out of Lake Sonoma, you know, what is the amount we want to achieve locally with all these things? and I saw a real shotgun approach of, you know, getting into everything and finding out where every bit could come. My first question is what's our goal? How much water do we want to generate? I get the resiliency westside wells, things like that, but just in terms of the need, what's the need we want to address?

Yeah, thank you for that that question. Um, and we realized that we weren't addressing that question in this overview tonight. Part of the reason why we we moved from a workshop to a presentation is because we are using our updated 2025 urban water management plan which is currently in the process of being updated um as a way to identify that gap in supply. Um the urban water management plan is a state required planning document that's updated every 5 years. It includes um what's called a drought risk assessment. Um the that assessment projects demands over a 20-year planning horizon under three different scenarios under a normal water year, single dry year, and a multiple dry year. It uses historic um dry dry watery year data um for that scenario. And because the city is currently updating its 2025 urban management plan, we don't have um the the results of the assessment. Um, for example, the the 2020 urban water management plan projected a shortfall um for a single dry year scenario in the year 2045. And we're um we're waiting for the updated plan to be able to get that um that projected, you know, supply shortage to use as our gap that we're um identifying. And um the so the short answer is when we return with a final IWMP, we'll present the projected shortfall from the updated drought risk assessment of our urban water management plan. Um we will also identify the um the supply that each project that we're considering um will help us close that gap. We will also speak to FOH and the regional storage that that that helps the city with.

So the existing water supply plans um says if we hit a drought we'll tell the people to conserve and in the last and then if we had worse drought we tell more conservation and if we had worse worse then it's drought you know it's it's a lot of goes up to like 40% request. Um, and because we wrote that, we didn't have to do these big project, expensive projects. I think in the in the that's how the bargain was made in the in the past. Did we get through the drought okay with that kind of logic, past drought?

Um, so the or the water shortage contingency plan is a required planning document of the urban water management plan. It needs to be updated a minimum of every 5 years. And so that document will be um presented in a workshop in April as a part of the urban water management plan. And um

I think we got we did get through the past by asking the people to do that. And so I think the question that comes up when we do our workshop will be do you want to spend the money or do you want to keep in this conservation kind of thing? I love the part that you did about bringing in the AMI so people can um know what their own water use on a real short-term basis. I know everybody has to hook their own email up or they won't get the notice that their pipes are leaking that day. But if but if you do hook up your own email that will happen, but that's conservation. All these things are projects you're proposing. I think they're all come at a higher cost than water conservation, right? So that's that's one of the things I'm thinking about. But when you talk about egg work, I'm wondering why we're talking about recycled water projects in egg if they don't save us any potable water and they don't reduce our risk of conservation in the city limits. So why is egg an important thing to talk about with recycled water? Are we talking about wastewater disposal problems? Um is that what we're talking about

in short and historically? Yes. So historically that was the disposal of water and I think that's rather than put in the river.

That's right. Or you know in the dry period we're we're not allowed to discharge in the river. So during the summer months that's our outlet uh for water that we can't store on site. And I think that's going to be continue to be an important part of Ellis Creek's overall operations in the medium to long term. I'm super stoked that this is coming to council because the last few years we've asked every time we took a grant for like 75% of the cost of something. We said we put city money in was 75%. So half of the 25 12% coming from water rates, 12% coming from sewer rates into a projects and why was that, you know, was that still a good strategy if it didn't help us in town? So I think we have to own that that should all be paid on the sewer side as disposal. And the other question that keeps coming up is a u you know with Sonoma water they have a big lake and they have um and then they have big reservoirs on the way down here and then we have a number of tanks. What will recycled water require in the way of a lake or in the way of um distribution tanks within the system? are those being costed into all the things you're talking about?

Um, so I I think there's two parts of that question that I want to focus on. The first, if we were looking at putting recycled water from Ellis into a portable water reservoir that's on the indirect uh portable reuse side. Yeah, I don't I don't know of a local water reservoir we do that with, so maybe no. Yeah, that's right. That's not an option. It's so that that's the IPR alternative that is extremely costly from a treatment perspective.

But would we store waste water and then retreat it during the summertime? You know, collected in the winter like a regular one. So, we need to go to the farmers. Maybe we need egg water so we can get a a ranch lake. So, um, yeah, that was one of the questions in the survey that I think maybe Danielle can speak to as well was asking about would you build your own reservoir to accept recycled water at a lower rate during the offseason. But, but I'm not worried about their consumption. I'm worried about them contributing to our solutions. You know, we're we're making an ask of these people, not for their own benefit. So, our current um recycled water a agreements do require on-site storage storage

for their own benefit. But do we have enough at Creek? It does actually benefit the city supply because we require them to pull water during off hours um and and yeah, and early season off season. Yeah. So, these are I'm looking really looking forward to the workshop because I really want to drill down on a lot of these questions.

Yeah. And just to circle back to your um your question about water conservation and how that's adding to that supply gap, we will talk about using water conservation in a dry shortage scenario similar to the last drought that we just experienced in 21-22 and show that that is the most effective, you know, way, you know, it's really seen as a water supply. So, um, the lowhanging fruit for us is always going to be water conservation, um, and using our local groundwater supplies.

You brought a lot of data tonight and I really appreciate it because, you know, if we note that we have 10,000 acre feet, um, of potable use in town, 10,000 and we have 600 u recycle water in town for offsetting other portable uses. Actually, that that's a good number. 600 is a good project, but it's not really impactful. And and I think that's the thing is like how high before the offset counts against what we need in in in our water supply picture. That was that was my thoughts on this tonight. Uh Councilman member now.

Yes. Um the um we got a letter from Paluma Golf and Country Club supporting this and it got me thinking about the one that is not up and running and that's out on Adobe Road, Adobe Creek uh golf course. Is there any contact with the owners of that property to put in a a reservoir or retention? And it they don't need the water cuz they're not watering a golf course, but it would be helpful just to have something other than dry weeds out when you're first coming into Paluma to have a reservoir with with wild flowers or I'm just throwing the idea out there because the letter came from a golf course that would like to have this and is waiting and then we have a golf course that's no longer there that could maybe possibly work with the city to for a solution.

I think I thought you were proposing that they just move over there and to use the recycled water. No, I don't think that's possible. The Adobe Golf Nine-hole golf course is sweet. You get a really nice view of the city, but the Adobe Creek golf course is really in sad shape. And I don't know who the owner is anymore. It's the same guy. Who's Oh, is it Larry Awesome? Yeah. Oh. Oh, well, let's talk to him. He's right in Sonoa County. Can we talk to him about working together for a reservoir? I mean, they they need to do something with that land. And I'm thinking, is it possible we have a

So, it's a good it's a good question and we can certainly evaluate the feasibility of looking at storage. Um, I think the challenge is that constructing new storage is incredibly expensive. And so, uh, we can do some preliminary evaluation of what those costs look like, but they're going to probably well exceed the other alternatives at at play. Um, building new ponds is not cheap is the short answer. Thank you. Sure, Council Member Shri.

Um, yeah. Uh thank you for uh thinking forward all these possible options. Um just looking at the the best which is the the groundwater options uh trying to increase that we were given a we have a current price per gallon to the customer of less than a half penny per gallon. If we go ahead and even the best alternative in the groundwater, let's say we do that, what would be the cost per gallon to the customer for that type of water compared to the half cent? Yes. So, we we've done some preliminary um just for city staff uh electrical costs, you know, just the regular operations. It's pretty comparable if not less actually for us to operate our own wells. Um the issue is just the capital cost to to to construct those wells. So during the year for us to run our wells, we it is actually reduced cost uh for us.

Okay. So it still be less than a penny a gallon then. Yeah. I I look at it as $1,500 per acre foot is kind of what the price we use to pay um uh some of water and it's it's it's less than that. So yeah, it's okay. I was thinking that so groundwater is reasonable. It's not like it's going to be four or five cents per gallon. Correct. like triple or quadruple the cost. Just double the cost probably at most. Yeah. Okay. Good. Just want to establish what that potential might be for comparison sake.

Then um and then in the recharge study that was done at first I thought it was sounded like it was going to be very successful. It was successful in its operations but it's being done uh when it's rained quite a bit and so the the ground is already pretty uh full of groundwater at this time. And so trying to recharge what's already full maybe not of good timing for the study to be done. Can we do we need to redo that study during a mid drought sessions so that when it is droughtier we use winter water recharge then and then have the water in in in the summertime.

What I would say is that that is one of the issues that we we found is we're not we don't use ground water a lot only during droughts. Right. So when we did our study uh we haven't depleted the groundwater table. So, I mean, you you might be right when after a couple years of drought where that that that you know is depleted, there's more room for the groundwater for us to pump water into. So, um we may be able to revisit that. I mean, but I'm not sure how uh we have really really high groundwater here. Um you know, even in times of drought, we're talking a couple feet. So, I think right now it's about 10 feet, I think, to to hit the groundwater table. And so, during times of drought, it it goes down to like maybe 20. Um but it's not not significant. So we can explore it but you know I'm not sure what what

and so we we have good ground water here. Yes coming off the hills. Okay good. Uh next one on um the water that's being uh for agricultural use of our current recycled water. I think we're we're heading toward close to 100% I think uh from what prior reports. So once we get to that point to expand that out um how much more water could we actually send out and then how does that actually benefit the city by sending our our recycling water outside the city rather than using it inside our city? Where's the real benefit of sending it to a versus keeping it inside our city and using it in our city? Sorry, can you clarify what do you mean 100%.

Okay. Um I know we're trying to get to 100% use of our recycled water. I know we're getting we're trying to get there. Um are we getting Okay, first question would be are we I thought we were going to be getting close with a couple projects that we're but that we're putting out there now. Yeah. So jump in on that one. During the summer almost all of the water that comes into the plant is discharged out as recycled water. So we're not net increasing our storage during the summer at Ellis Creek.

Okay. Good. So it's actually the winter time. All right. So uh but still so by using uh sending out to the a lands I mean to build new projects out into the agricultural sector high cost they benefit they receive lots of our water is that really a benefit to our city what's where's the profit to the city so I think that's exactly the point and why we don't see a lot of largecale expansion proposed in agricultural recycled water like at this point most of the benefit has been in avoiding dry season discharge and we are getting that benefit today and so there is certainly diminishing returns in building out additional a recycled water pipe.

Okay. I just want to make sure that that clear on that point there. So that's why we want to uh do some of the other groundwater projects as a higher priority. Correct. And focus on the urban area where it is portable offset.

Okay. Good. And then last one is uh if you go back there was a map you showed up the very first one showing the lines. Uh if you go back to that map there's some um you ended up with some end points next to the freeway. if you could bring that that very first map up. I think it was looked a little greenish. It was early on in the presentation and there was a couple lines that ended up by by the freeway on the east side of the freeway. I was kind of wondering where why are those lines going there? Who's using it at those end points? Uh before this

before before the existing network. Yeah. So that one there. Yep. Okay. Um in fact, there was uh Okay. I think there was one other that had dotted lines going out, but you have uh right now coming down. It looks like Lake Park. So, which color on this map do you want me to zoom in on? Okay. Red or blue? Maybe it was the other map, but I was looking at the other one. Let's go back to the other one. Not this one. Not that one.

Okay. It's close to this one. Sorry. Maybe it was the one that was had the two lines heading toward uh getting to the freeway. And so anyway, there was endpoints there. It was It wasn't the other one. First one. Yeah, maybe the first one you showed. Yeah, the end. Yeah. Okay. The existing network. Yes. The existing. Are you looking at the rain and the

So So it comes down. Yeah. So Reneer isn't even uh listed here. That's that's going to be added to this. Um because there you have uh um and of course because you have Washington uh there but there's no Reneer and it goes all the way over to the Lake Horn Park over there. But is um so if that comes down Reneer and it comes down to the freeway where where are those end points where where what where are they feeding

is McDow is essentially the end point right now and that's really just because of that's where the dollars took us. So um so right now the the one that's goes horizontal is the Maria pipeline and then the two stubs that go down one's one's right here and that crosses the freeway. you can hit um uh what's the creek? Deer Creek has potential for uh recycled water plus any anything that there is some projected u potential demand across the freeway. Um and you know that so it's for future expansion there if ever we ever go there. And then the Maria I mean sorry that um the Maria where it goes down until McDow that's going to be used to create a loop system uh that ultimately hits Lindberg and then goes across the freeway to the fairgrounds. But so those are just those are existing pipe in the ground right now and they're there because that's how far the dollars got us.

Got it. Okay. So there's a plan to extend those under the freeway and to keep those ongoing. Yes. So the other the other maps will show the expansion parts of of the of the pipeline network. These were in conjunction with uh pavement projects. And so essentially what we did is we put the recycled water line in in conjunction or prior to the recycle to the pavement so that we don't you know damage brand new pavement down the line. Okay, good. So anyway, we we're already pre-building some things that are moving forward and will be extended out correct to the east side a little bit more east of the freeway at least.

Okay, just want to make sure that clearly that that's that's the plan because it wasn't quite clearly stated in so far. Okay, thank you. That's all I had for today. Council member Barnacle. Congratulations, Danielle. Okay. Well, that's good. And um I believe that's the council's questions for you. And I hope you'll stick around for general public comment in case I have a quick question. And council member Kater Thompson.

So when I'm looking at this map, there's almost like two phases. One phase is to get under the freeway and then the next phase would have to go under the river for the potential of getting to the golf course. I mean that's now we're really talking a long time out. I mean this is money time money and time and and because of the cutbacks with the federal government how's that going to affect us? I think we I'd like to know that at the workshop exactly how that's funding for all. Essentially, we look for grant funding for all expansion projects.

I mean, I just want to be realistic about time frames and are we really going to get money and we're spending billions on wars right now. So, there's a real concern where how it's going to trickle down back to the cities because we have previously received grant funding. Yeah.

Yeah. So, a couple things is um the the map that shows phase one, two, and three. The phase one section is really the the next feasible priority that if we were to um acquire enough outside funding for that se that segment. Um that would be the most direct route of phase one projects identified that would get us closer to or to the fairgrounds and then ultimately the most direct route to the west side. So, um the the phase one, phase two, phase three that's in bold, um towards the end that really highlighted our priority projects. Doesn't show all of each phase, but it shows the most direct line to um to the west side. We do know that Pedaluma Golf and Country Club has been um is a really large portable water user and interest in recycled water. So, we did outline that to be prepared to have that conversation tonight. Um but really for the the next segment we're trying to get to from where we're um our current pipeline is um really to underneath the 101 so we can gradually make our way to the fairgrounds.

Okay. And are we also planning um for the north specific plan that's happening right now and that development that'll eventually happen?

Yeah, that is sure. So yeah, that that's part of our north expansion that, you know, as part of this plan, that was a little bit of a secondary pri priority compared to the urban south. But um as we've had conversations with the planning, you know, with with that plan with the um the consultant that's doing that, we definitely have highlighted the opportunities there. Um you know, we have looked at North Mcdow as being a potential area and looked at areas along the corridor for recycled water use. So we we've shared that with the planners um as as they develop that North Pacific plan. There's definitely opportunities for use of recycled water there.

Okay, that's great. And then well the other I guess question is is are you looking at Maria Drive just extending it because the pipe is already there? No, we we had a couple high users um along along Maria. Um one of the last ones we hit was across Safeway to McDow Park right there. And so that was a high use we identified and then took advantage of again that idea of their paving Maria and let's not let's get the recycled water in while we have the funds we have grant funding now put the pipeline in place get those connected and then utilize that as a jump off point to either hit to down towards Lindberg towards the fairgrounds or or

No, I I understand that but I'm asking would it would the pipeline on Maria be a jumping point to the specific plan? Oh, of course. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, yes. Yeah. It's definitely they know that there's existing recycle water that's in the area right now. Okay. And then put and then use that for where we want to expand. Okay. And the other thing is I just think we have to be realistic with the golf and country club because they think this is going to happen a lot sooner than it is and it really isn't because it's it's phase two and then you have to have phase three to get there. Okay. Thanks.

Thanks. appreciate you being in this, you know, long-awwaited process and looking forward to it. I am worried about the big picture whether any of this will pan out uh at all because of the system upgrades and things like that and making sure we have all the costs written into any kind of project. I mean there's no storage distributed storage in there now. You're going to need something at some point runs on you turn a pump on and it slams everything in the system with water. you be needing be needing a lot of upgrades for any of this to pencil out and we need to know how far we we are behind at Sonoma Waters. So great report. Thanks for being here tonight. And that moves us to um our general public comment tonight. And um during that time, the public is invited to make comment on items of public interest that are within the city council's subject matter jurisdiction and um that are not listed on the current agenda. And public comments are limited up to three minutes per person. And depending on the number of persons wishing to speak, uh we u we may um have to limit to a total of no more than 20 minutes. And so additional comments other than that will be we heard at the end of the evening's agenda. And I'd like to ask our city clerk if we received any cards or letters, fan mail.

Uh we did. I believe we received 12 general public comments. Uh, and at this time I will start a 30-cond clock. Uh, so during these 30 seconds, uh, members of the public should bring their speaker cards to the clerk's desk if they have not already done so. Speaker cards received after this time may not be accommodated. Okay, we have uh six cards in for tonight and so we have uh three minutes per person. If you uh uh feel the need to speak for three minutes, there's um that time for you. And our first speaker is Jod Johnson to be followed by Tim Portius. Good evening, mayors, city council, and city staff. Our mobile park residents in Youngstown, Capri, and Littlewoods living with the weaponization of closure, ground rent increases, violation of senior park overlays, retaliatory parking removal, and failure to maintain by these large investment group mobile park owners are weary. We imagine the city must feel the same as our law-abiding residents and our law-abiding city continue respectfully to uphold the laws in arbitration in courts of law in federal courts of law. These bad actor park owners and the management they have at each park uses ordinances, senior park overlays, violation notices, and more like toilet paper. Just recently, the discovery that candidates for our area have accepted the maximum donation of 5,900 $5,900 by the organization that funds and helped these large investment group owners

abuse both residents and cities was shocking. We remind all that WMA, their association, is suing the state of California and the attorney general for AB 2782 and that their members are weaponizing closure and retaliations in all cities and counties in California, including Paluma. Failure to maintain is evident in Youngstown, Capri, and Littlewoods with park-owned properties in violation of HCD health and safety standards. Water and sewer continue to be overcharged, and there are no posted bills per law up in Youngstown, Littlewoods, or Capri. Ground rents continue to be increased beyond the allowable RSO annual amounts, which leads to more gouging and greed. We continue to ask the community and our city to support putting a stop to the proposed HCD fee increases to all mobile park residents with intended CPI increases per year and a neverbefor rounding up of those fees. We need the help of all to prevent this from pass by passing legislation in what is a money grab on seniors and vulnerable residents simply trying to live within their means with pride of mobile home ownership. The mental health of our seniors and vulnerable families is of major concern. It's at this point when isolation, withdrawing, and the sense of impending dread lays all residents prey to these bad actor park owners. Thank you to each and every one of you for protecting all your citizens and safeguarding unsubsidized affordable housing. Preserving the right for all and not just the rights of the wealthy is evident in your governing. Advocating requires courage and strength. We so see these in each of you. And if I take a moment, every city council meeting out here is our mobile home residents who come to keep this prolific case of abuse front and center, not just for you, but for our community. Thank you, Pedaluma.

Mobile residents united.

Thank you, Tim Portius to be followed by Bruce Hagen. The paper's been finished. So, this is just me. Usually, I talk to you folks and I read with Jod's words. And these are heartfelt, hard to write, hard to read, hard to say, and you guys have to listen to them. I do not envy you, but I respect you very much. what you do is impossible. Thank you. You guys are really doing it.

Thank you. Bruce Hagen to be followed by um Heather Hley.

Good evening everybody. Um, last year you may recall I came here as part of Safe Streets Paluma to talk about a suggestion or a project called tree parking where we would get the schools involved with planting trees in unused street areas and taking care of them for seven years and that's kind of chugging along. But in the meanwhile, my grandson started up at McNeer School. I talked to the principal. They were interested in doing something like that but not in the street rather on campus where they need more shade. So this turned into something called heritage groves where we're going to do the same thing on campus. There's going to be seven tree parkletits established. Uh and those are going to be kept by each graduating class for all seven years from kindergarten through sixth grade. So my uh grandson uh Joe is TK now. Next year he'll start off. He'll be in kindergarten. They will develop their own tree parklet with help from the adults. And after six years when he's a sixth grader, he will hand down in the in the uh in the spring in the graduation ceremony, his class will hand down their tree parklet to the uh to uh TK kids they've been sharing it with for a year. So there's curriculum that goes around this. the idea of looking out for seven generations fits nicely within those kindergarten through uh sixth grade and u just wanted to give you a heads up on that and these parklets also have the capability of being demonstration sites for what the city's climate action committee is doing now I think they're referring to them we're referring to them as um habitat gardens but they can all be demonstr habitat demonstration habitat gardens where in addition to native trees There will be pollinator plants, hedge rows, and just lots of other opportunities for them to establish a sense of place that they can improve and

leave it better than they found it. Pass it on to the next generation. If you have any questions, tinyurl.com heritagegroves or you know how to reach me. Thank you.

Thank you, Heather Haley to be followed by Chantel Rogers. Hi, my name is Heather Haley. Um, I live in Midtown Pedaluma with my two sons. I am a business owner and a homeowner. Uh, I work as a therapist where the presence of nature within our amazing city supports my and my clients well-being. My topic is the order of tonight's agenda. I would very much like to be able to stay to the end of this meeting to express my thanks and views as would my fellow pedalumans who have turned out to support your work engaging with the hard issues tonight. Unfortunately, we have to get home to tend to our families and obligations. We support our folks who can stay for the entire meeting. We want a beautiful, healthy, livable city. We want climate action as a community and we don't want to lose another minute in moving forward. We are grateful for all the work you have done so far to address climate change and make Paluma a model city that other cities admire and can replicate. You are paving the way for greater change. Please lead us with courage. Thank you.

Thank you. Chintel Rogers to be followed by Aazi Jedari. Good evening. Um, at the recent public safety advisory committee meeting, the members voted to recommend that the city council consider alternatives to our current use of flock cameras. Also noted was that the timing should take into consideration both the upcoming budget discussions and the end of the flock grant funded period in September of this year. Councilwoman now who in the city who is the city council le onto this committee and as such voted with the majority to consider alternatives reported back to the council this recommendation during the last city council meeting. So now what? I don't see it on any future agendas. I believe multiple city council members need to request to have the matter agendaized or is it the city manager who puts it on a future agenda? Does the issue quietly die if that doesn't happen? Use of these particular AL RFS is a significant escalation of citizenry surveillance and data sharing risk which jurisdiction after jurisdiction has deemed unacceptable and so have canled their contracts. I hope that you will do whatever is needed to agendaize a discussion as the issue deserves the council's scrutiny. And since I have extra time, so excited, three full minutes, um it's been a long time, um I'm going to move on to general comments um themselves. As you are aware, I'm sure that there are changes coming. Um the new state mandate requires that uh virtual participants participants are allowed to again um comment from home or from wherever they they are. So, I imagine you're in the process of re-evaluating general comments and I

hope part of that discussion will include um adding some time. Um, as I'm sure we can all imagine, if there are participants from home, there are going to be a lot more people who would like to speak. And though none of us want these meetings to go any longer, this is really our sole opportunity as citizens to communicate with those who govern us. It's not the same to send an email. Um, and I'm not sure that the mayor's uh backfilling of speakers at the end of the meeting is actually going to fly with the new requirements that mandate that um virtual and in-person um participants are allotted the same consideration in terms of their um their participation and their comments. So, um anyway, I look forward to the new um uh the new regulations and I know that a lot of people who can't make it down here are really excited to again be able to participate in these city council meetings. Thank you.

Thank you. Um we have Javi uh Shadari. Uh hello, good evening council. My name is Ojasi Chadri and I go to Kasa Grande High School here in Pedaluma. I'm here to continue the discussion on water and shift the focus specifically to plans for the Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility. Since November of last year, I became involved in the biomass to bofuels or B2B project at the Ellis Creek Water Recycling Facility, touring the site, learning about the environmental potential of excess methane, and diving deeper into the topic through my own research. Through my findings, I would like to urge the council to support the B2B project and approve for compressed natural gas production at the site because by doing so, the city can increase their revenue through the sale of renewable fuel and also further climate goals by reducing methane emissions. I've detailed the monetary costs and other alternative plans in my written public comment letter, which I already emailed to the city clerk. As a young person, I really love seeing environmentally focused initiatives being implemented in my local community because these projects are what improve life for people of the future. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. And um before I say that's the last speaker, I I don't usually comment, but I do want to comment that that was really one fine piece of writing and research. I think we all I mean six pages eight pages of of uh plus that many of references behind and so I hope you're in touch with staff and uh and achieving things because that was one fine piece of writing. Thank you. And that was our last public speaker for the night and now we'll move to council comments and I'll ask council member now to lead us off. I will remind all that sometimes council gets long in its comments and um we're really gonna try and set uh stick to three minutes and we're gonna start a clock and all that kind of fun stuff. So

is the clock started Caitlyn?

Okay. Good evening. I have no liaison on committee meeting reports tonight but I do have a public service announcement for my district 3 neighborhood and others. Are you can interested in improved safety, slower speeds, reduce traffic congestion, and enhanced trail connectivity, safer crossings on Lakeville Highway? Then please join us Tuesday, March 24th for an interactive openhouse to learn more and share your input about proposed safety improvements on Lakeville between Pedano Boulevard North and Browns Lane. So mark your calendar for the open house meeting on Tuesday, March 24th, 4 to 7 at Miwok Elementary School, 101 St. Francis Drive. Um, included in the meeting will be Spanish translation, pizza. I say always have pizza. They'll come. Beverages and children's activities. So you can bring your children. Thank you to the city of Pedalum staff and the Sonoma County Transportation Climate Authorities. And to learn more and sign up to receive project updates, please vi visit the city website. And I don't know if Bruce Hagen's still here, go by Mig Miwok school and see our monarch garden and the trees that were planted by the relief group. What was that? Two years ago. It was the hardest day of my life digging in adobe. Anyway, thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member Quint. How fast was that? One and one half. That was impressive. Thank you. Um

uh reporting out from the last PAC meeting, pedestrian bicycle advisory committee, we received a presentation and and had the opportunity to provide feedback on the Cfield Lane and Eli Boulevard South safety and pavement upgrade projects. Um I had the uh privilege this last uh last week to um guest lecture at Ruters University in their road to supply chain on the impact of tariffs uh to on US businesses. So I was proud to participate in that. And this past week I had the privilege of participating in the Santa Rosa Junior College community round table and I thought that was a great event. Look forward to seeing more great things from SRJC. Thank you,

Council Member Shrebs. Okay, see if I can keep under three minutes now. All right. Um, several of us did visit the uh classes over at Pedalma High School during political science week over there. Um, and but I was surprised that only one student out of the uh the class um actually rode their bike. everyone else drove and so I had to remind them about uh active transportation plan. Um also that according to research from Stanford we're going to run out of oil in 50 years and it's going to get limited within 25. So yes we need to do prepare preparation for that um expectation. The second I also was uh like with uh council member Quint. I went to the SRJC roundt and uh demonstrating some lots of lot folder of handouts here for that. And the um we got a letter summarizing it. But basically uh what everyone was saying and what they reported back to us was that we wanted to strengthen the workforce and career education, expand student pathways and early career exploration to increase awareness, outreach and community engagement. Know it's getting more people on campus especially the older folks through um lifelong learning. We need to expand that and strengthen community partnerships so that more community presence from the JC in our community. So those are some of the outcomes of what was discussed and there was oh well over uh about 30 people there all a lot of leaders from the community uh not not the council but a lot of leaders were there to to come up with this uh analysis and recommendations which were which were actually being listened to which is really nice. The North Bay Watershed Association coming up on April 9th is having their 25 year anniversary u and they're having the conference down in Marin. So it' be really good. And at the same day, we also have the museum opening an exhibit on our tidal wetlands, which I'm also helping out on

the um uh getting materials together for that. Uh we of course we have trees coming up shortly. And in the downtown business association had their annual dinner um and meeting of new officers came up, but basically it uh they do a lot of work for us in the downtown area. In fact, this Tuesday, which is tomorrow morning, 8:00, if you want to join in, uh there's beautifification of downtown. So come in with your scrapers and your brushes and brooms and we're going to clean up downtown from graffiti and stickers and make make the downtown look a little bit nicer at 8:00 in the morning to about 10 o'clock in the morning. So um I I'll be down there working there tomorrow. Uh but they do a lot of things. They do uh lots of communications, merchant events, and um and just the improvement district like like tomorrow's beautifification. So that's my report.

Wonderful. Thank you, Council Member Barnacle.

Thank you. Um the planning commission met last Tuesday. We reviewed an appeal from uh from a neighbor on a project at the old um raetball club. They are they've making that into a self- storage facility. And we also approved um a recommendation to the city council to allow RV storage uh in that planned community development. So that'll be coming before us. Um it was it's exciting and welcome because we obviously need more RV storage uh in the city to help get them off the streets and things like that. So that was um welcome and I will say that uh by the sounds of it from both the the person who was challenging the the project and um the applicant um our staff did a great job of mediating the uh the issue and finding common ground. Um we also we will be talking about it. heard our tree preservation ordinance and Sonoma Clean Power um had a deep dive on our integrated resource plan, which is something we're required to do every two years, but basically just showing where we're going to supply all the electricity that we're going to sell. So,

thank you, Council Member Kater Thompson.

Um so, I was in Sacramento last Tuesday, um lobbying with the Sonoma County Water Agency. Um we had meetings all day long but it was it was really interesting learning about all the different jurisdictions and what their concerns and their needs were. Um so it was quite educational and it was a really long day but um it was I water is really important you know to educate yourself on and being in Sacramento and seeing how the sausage is really made. It's um it's good and it's good for the city and it's good for the entire county. But I my my SCTCA meeting, the Sonoma County Transit Climate Action meeting, we did talk about the Lakeville um corridor discussion and so I will be there on the 24th and I really encourage people to come. It doesn't matter if you live within the area because it's something it's an area that we use all the time and it's really dangerous and there's going to be just a good um discussion and we really want to hear from the public on what the public thinks about the project because it's it's a big project. Um and we're also going to you know then you can kind of finger and look up um D Street a little bit you know where smart interconnects and so look at the broader picture. Just don't look at Lakeville kind of spread out a little bit. Um, my smart meeting. There's really no report because I have my smart meeting on Thursday. And let's see, anything else? Um, there were some other things. I was going to go to Sacramento tomorrow to go to an HCD hearing, but that has been cancelled until April, which is great. Thank you.

HCD. We're doing the alphabet thing. Housing community development. Uhhuh. Important. Thank you. Very important,

Vice Mayor. Good evening and thank you to all the tree advocates for coming. Actually, I had to check my calendar, make sure it wasn't St. Patrick's Day yet. I'm not wearing green today, but um uh no leazison reports um but I did on Saturday attend a presentation by a local historian at the Pedalum Art Center, uh Katherine Reinhardt. She did a really cool presentation on catering to the car, a retro road trip down Pedaluma's main street where she um highlighted many buildings that are still here today and you know why they were built. Um they're they're used to the car, some were dealerships, some were service centers, drive-ins, um restaurants and so it was really cool to see how some of our town developed based around that. And I also want to give a shout out to the Paluma Arts Center. I talked to the director and some of the board members afterwards and they're feeling really good about the art center right now. They've expanded their hours and added Sunday to their schedule. So, they're now open Thursday to Sunday from uh 12 to 4:00 p.m. They've been uh last year they started doing some major fundraising and were able to raise $300,000 and hire some part-time positions, which is part of why they're able to open longer now and do more exhibits. And um you know they're starting a new program called the PAC Academy that will feature more art classes and youth programming that begin this summer. And um the word on the street with them is that PAC is back. And so they're very excited and um hoping that more people will come down and support their local galleries.

And if you're not a member, join. So right, that's what we're saying here. Yeah. Visit artcenter.org.

It's a membership base. So, it's not a problem. Um, it's been a busy um two weeks for me. The um one of the fun ones, I got to pen a letter accepting a a gift of historical photos from Exchange Bank here. And I want to thank our council member now for brokering all this and the vice mayor for transporting these I believe be displayed in city hall. And then um last week uh um there was a ceremony at the museum, the Pedaluma Historic Museum where there's a planting of a white rose of peace and this was led by Heidi Cune who coincidentally is our grand marshall for this year's butter and egg parade. She's a McNair family heir and and a leader in a global effort called Roots for Peace and they they removed landmines worldwide to allow improved agriculture especially women-driven agriculture. There were representatives of consult from the consoles of Kazakhstan, Japan, Vietnam, Peru, China. I mean, Paluma proud. I mean that was a very cool day and a good choice as grand marshall. I also attended the Paluma City Schools environmental literacy and climate action committee workshop. I attended uh three events at uh the the JC event that we mentioned previously, the Paluma High uh speaker day, and yeah, I did ride my bike and uh and then I met with the staff of the Secure Families Collaboration. Looks like I'm going to use everybody's time. and um the secure family collaboration uh collaborative uh who's got a they're in the immigration space and they're building public private partnerships to support Sonoma County immigrant serving communities. I attended the Chamber of Commerce meeting on why agriculture is integral to Pedaluma 2050 with the city economic development staff and appreciate them being there. Uh met with pedalum healthcare center to discuss the challenges serving the community and what they see coming. They serve over a thousand persons a day. Um met with the

PPSC cafe 211 team over at the Novak facility and the uh county council council on aging uh staff and the chief council to the California State Assembly Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care. Uh all regarding senior services in Paluma uh in Cafe 211 serves over 250 meals a day both in the hot uh delivery and the on-site lunches. So, big shout out to Tracy and the rest of the working there. I attended the uh immigration workshop in the workplace. Um that was put on by the Asian-American um um coalition of North Bay Asian American Pacific Island Coalition and uh the speakers were the Sonoma Immigration Service North Bay rapid response network and was sponsored by the city and by the chamber and downtown business. Attended the Sonoma County Mayor's Um, let's see. What did I do here? Um, attended the mayor's uh countywide mayor's meeting. Had a couple of main topics. Again, immigration and ICE was a key thing. Uh, it's important to realize there's 85,000 immigrants in in the county and one in six u um have um dubious legal status. And so, it's it's a big issue. Um and um then I just want to note uh um that next week we have our council goals meeting in case uh you know want to participate on that. That's a big event. I want to thank council member Barnacle for reminding us of that last week. So it's still on our all our radars. And with that I'll pass it off to city manager.

Thank you mayor, council, and community. Uh join us this Saturday, March 21st at the Gazi Community Center from 1 from 12 to 2 for an all ages workshop for the Paluma North Smart Station area specific plan. The event will focus on shaping a shared vision for the area around the station and along the Mcdow corridor. The workshop will begin with a recap of community feedback received at the previous workshop, followed by a hands-on activity to identify pri priorities and explore options for the plan area, including housing, environmental uh and circulation access. There will be light refreshments and raffle prizes. So, please um join us and help shape the future of the east side. Also, you may notice some construction activity, some new construction activity around town. Um today work began on fire station number one at D Street on a year-long seismic upgrade and interior renovation project. Um and you'll also notice right around the corner the temporary fire station on the boulevard is up and operational and housing our fire staff from station one during this construction period. And then Mela the Gallagher senior living project that includes 82 senior apartments and eight memory care rooms. demol demolition work has begun and the permits are getting reviewed right now. So, lots of lots of work during that construction period. Um, thanks mayor. And um I think just in response to the public, I think we have a workshop coming on our um Zoom participation at meetings coming in and um that's uh going to kick off and be live come July 1stish.

That's correct. And I don't know Caitlyn if you'd like to Yes. that date. So, uh, the city attorney's office and myself will be bringing an item to council in May, uh, to discuss what that's going to look like and then we'll kick off with remote participation in July.

Great. Thank you very much. Uh, that takes us to the consent calendar for the evening and, um, like to look up and down the dis and see if anyone wishes to uh, have any item removed from that. And not seeing uh that, then I'd like to ask if the council has any questions uh of staff on the consent calendar. And not seeing that, I'll ask the clerk to open public comment on the consent calendar.

We did not receive any comments ahead of the meeting on the consent calendar. And I don't have any cards on the consent calendar, but this is the moment if anyone has them. And I'm not seeing anybody moving quickly to turn in a card either. So we will close public comment and bring it back up to the dis. And uh any comment or motion? Council member Shriv.

Just a comment with one of the uh items on there is our urban forestry management plan. Um so that we're going to be codifying it and and bringing it forward. Um, and it's in the uh consent calendar, not in the agenda item because I think we've already talked about it a little bit, but a report now is available. Uh, the full report, it's like 60 80 pages pages long and detailing um the actual plan um which is more a very philosoph philosophical but plan to uh really move us forward into bringing a lot more forestry to our city and a lot more biodiversity. So that's in the consent calendar and not in the agenda uh item later on. So that just letting know folks know there is a difference between the two and that the agenda item is is just for the tree ordinance for protecting the trees that are already in existence whereas the urban forestry plan is more about creating future and we saw just mentioned that that's why the the two are differentiated and one was put in one spot and one was put in the other spot. Um, and just as ask the lawyer just case city attorney, uh, being that I wrote the technical manual for the city for tree protections way back when, many years ago, um, and I've worked on this project for trees for a long time, is there any reason I need to recuse myself on this topic?

You would need to recuse yourself if you if that was compensated, if you have an interest, a financial interest in that work. I I worked for free. So So no financial interest. It sounds like It sounds like there's lots of interest, but none of it financial. So I don't say All right. Thank you. Did you wish to make a motion? And I'd like to uh make a motion that we u um go ahead and approve move the consent items. Second. So we have a motion by Shribs and a second by Barnacle. And um seeing no further uh comment, I'd like to ask for roll call vote on the consent calendar. Barnacle, hi. Gator Thompson, yes. Yes.

D Carly, yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Shri, yes. McDonald, yes. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you very much. So this is where we um ask that the agenda be modified and that uh 12 be taken at this time and 11 be u the item to follow 12. So um so um I item 12 is a first reading of an ordinance approving zoning text amendment to the comprehensive to comprehensively modify chapter 17 tree preservation of the um implementing zoning ordinance and to also amend municipal code chapter 1308 trees and other vegetation providing feedback on modifications to permit and enforcement fees associated with implementation of new tree regul. population making findings that this action is categorically exempt pursuant to SQA guidelines. Um, and to help us uh with this tonight, we have uh Heather Hines, our special projects manager. Heather, the floor is yours as soon as the computer gets hot. Are we good to go?

We're good to go. Good evening, mayor and council members. um Heather Hines, special projects manager with the city and um I am supported today by Ben Anderson who works with urban forestry associates who has been our consulting arborist um and has been working closely um with city on both the tree preservation ordinance and the um master plan. So Ben is here to um help support this effort um answer questions on some of the daily practice of um implementing an ordinance as he serves in this role for a number of different jurisdictions. Um so we are here tonight um to talk about the tree preservation ordinance. Tonight's review going to give you a staff report of where we've been, some of the background, including a recap of the planning commission's recommendation that um took place not quite a week ago. Um it was a quick turnaround on this one. uh an opportunity to receive public comment and then introduction of the ordinance that includes both amendments to the implementing zoning ordinance and the Pedaluma municipal code. And then also um there was some detail in the staff report about some of the fees that the city will need to establish. Um so that has not been agendaized for action this evening. uh but more some feedback and discussion and then that would come back as a separate item at a future meeting. So background um on this effort um an update to the tree preservation ordinance has been on the city council's top 10 priority list. Uh there has been quite a bit of community discussion um

urging the city to recognize the benefits of a healthy urban forest and prior prioritize preservation of Paluma's tree canopy. The tree advisory committee uh created robust resources as the starting point for this effort and Pedaluma relief has been an important community partner um with the city for this effort as well. Um the city and relief uh received some grant funding from Cal Fire that is um the source of funding for both the urban forestry master plan and the update to the tree preservation ordinance. There have been a number of public meetings that have been held about the tree preservation ordinance. Specifically, there were two study sessions with the tree advisory committee. um a study session with the planning commission and then as I mentioned last week the planning commission held a public hearing um on this item and forwarded a recommendation to the city council. The topic of trees, tree preservation ordinance has also been part of other planning efforts and related discussions and meetings including uh the city council goals and objectives, our general plan update process, the development of the urban forest master plan, blueprint for climate action, and the urban forest canopy assessment that was done to inform the master plan. So trees have been an important dialogue for some time in the community and really what all of this dialogue has urged is to recognize the value of trees for all that they do and benefits they bring to the community. Um from carbon sequestration to improving air quality, creating shade and a sense of protection along our rights of way which in turn

encourage use of active transportation. um providing protection of our ri riparian habitat along creeks and the river. Um so this is really what has been uplifted by that community discussion. The modifications or amendments to the implementing zoning ordinance. It's a comprehensive um update to that existing tree preservation ordinance in the ICO. Um so I want to focus on some of the key modifications that um you will see looking at the um the ordinance which is included at exhibit A to attachment one. Um, so one of the key things that these modifications do is they create a broader applicability of the city's tree preservation regulations to all trees greater than 6 in in trunk diameter. Um, this is a departure from our existing tree preservation ordinance which recognizes protected trees as a relatively short list of tree species. um and and outside of that does not provide a whole lot of regulation uh for tree preservation um unless part of a development project. The modifications include a range of exemptions. um they're limited in order to ensure we are preserving our existing trees and canopy, but also trying to realistically look at situations where tree um removal may be required and may be for the benefit of um the trees and the community. So, there's some language in there about removal when a tree is in proximity to a residential foundation or

when um a tree is in proximity to other larger trees um when removal of that tree might might be a benefit. There's also an inclusion of nuisance tree species that are exempt from the ordinance. That is a departure from um the current tree preservation ordinance. one of the the biggest changes and staff are quite excited for the clarity and um and streamlining that we think this will do is there is a single tree removal permit currently between the implementing zoning ordinance and the pedaluma municipal code there's some conflicting um language about the process the permit requirement um sometimes requiring multiple departments um to be reviewing um a tree removal permit um that that causes things to take longer or confusion. So, we're really looking forward to this to um improve that internal um procedures around review of tree removal permits. There's also clarification of replacement ratios reference to payment of a replacement in Lou fee when trees cannot be replacement trees cannot be accommodated on the site. Um there's an expanded discussion around preservation as part of development projects and this is really looking at prioritizing um preservation of trees early in a development process to ensure that the trees the largest trees or the trees in the best health the best specimens are preserved and the project is designed around that. Um requirements for tree preservation for ministerial permits. This has come up when maybe a tree isn't proposed for removal, but because there isn't

adequate preservation um a preservation plan on site um construction can often end up damaging a tree or losing a tree just because the right um parameters weren't in place. Um so setting up some of those standards for tree preservation and protection plans and then clarification of enforcement and penalty provisions. So that's a overview. One thing I think that it's important to emphasize is this tree preservation ordinance doesn't prohibit all tree removals ever. It is it is um prioritizing the preservation and making sure we're looking at trees as a community resource as an important part of our community's infrastructure and um planning to protect them to the greatest extent we can. So, last week the planning commission reviewed the ordinance um and unanimously approved a resolution recommending that the city council adopt the ordinance. Um there were some limited revisions to that ordinance. Those are presented in track changes at attachment 4. Um and I'm going to touch on those quickly. Um the planning commission previously as part of the study session that the planning commission held um at the end of last year, there had been a concern about um reducing the burden of the additional regulatory um oversight on individual single family property owners. And so one of the things that staff had proposed to try to um address that concern was uh an exemption for trees up to 12 in on privately owned parcels that were already developed with single family detached residences. Um so this

was not to exempt them completely but to allow slightly bigger trees um to be um exempt from the ordinance on those individual privately owned residential properties. Uh the planning commission after discussion at their hearing um recommended eliminating that exemption. So it took it back to the 6 in um diameter for all trees that um are regulated through the ordinance. Um they did also recommend that we add um language as part of the exemptions recommending property owners document the exemption prior to removal um to assist themselves in any complaints and code enforcement um inquiries that might come since exemptions are exempt from any kind of permit or review. Um so we did add that language in. Um and then uh clarification under the exemption for imminent situations was another thing that the planning commission recommended. And finally, there was some discussion and some modification around the replacement ratio for development projects where that ratio would be based solely on 15gallon replacement specimens instead of a kind of graduated um depending on the size of the replacement tree. So those were the primary um four things that the planning commission recommended. There were some miscellaneous surgical edits that you will also see in that attachment for the clean version before the city council as exhibit A to your um to the ordinance itself incorporates all of those um items that the planning commission recommended.

So the the permits process and fees seem to be um the one of the things of most interest as part of this tree preservation ordinance. So I want to just kind of roll through a couple of the um the improvements and then I will walk through um some of the in the permitting under individual situations. So, as I mentioned, a single tree removal permit would be required for a tree, whether it's on private or public property and including street trees. Um, the ordinance uh the regulatory oversight and requirement for tree removal permit would be for all tree removals with a 6 in or greater trunk diameter. Um, so that's that's as I mentioned a change from the protected species that are in the current ordinance. The enhanced review review for development projects doesn't drastically change the process um that is currently in place for looking at tree removal permits as part of a discretionary development project. It more just provides some clarity and and nuance. Um references the um the site design principles of thinking of the trees early as part of designing a project. Um and includes some um additional findings and conditions of approval. As part of that process, uh there is um the the process has really been set up um utilizing a consulting arborist for uh staff support given that we do not have an in-house um arborist available to oversee all the tree removal permits. So that is integral into the process as is set up

um and subject to change. If those um if the staffing um for the city changes over time, that could easily evolve um with the ordinance as written. Um let's see, approved street uh tree removal permits for street trees would be required as part of the encroachment permit application. So really the encroachment permit becomes really the um the traffic control and the safety provisions of doing any sort of work in the right of way and not a look specifically at should this individual tree be removed and replaced. Um so um that's part of that single tree removal permit being used for a variety of situations. um tree protection measures as part of building permit submitt when work is in proximity to existing trees. I think this is a really um important improvement to um the process to make sure that even if a tree is not proposed for removal, we're identifying that tree when um construction is happening in proximity to that tree, including things like tree protective fencing on site um and showing it on um building permit plans. As I mentioned, um the fees, adoption of fees are not before the council tonight, but we did provide some discussion of them um to receive feedback. Um the tree removal permit, we're looking to set that similar to other flat fees out of the community development department. Um fees like fence permits um and sign permits. um separating out a site inspection fee so that when that's needed that would be charged. it is not always needed um for review of um a tree removal permit and

also offering that as a a pre-application consultation option as well to help homeowners probably most specifically when they've got an issue with an existing tree and looking for um input from an arborist or consulting arborist could offer um that on-site consultation um as well uh discussion of updating our administrator ative citation fees which have not been updated in more than a decade um and establishing a replacement in loo fee that would be applied when um replacement could not be accommodated on site. So again those are some of the highlights um of important components of the permit process and fees as we move towards implementation. So I want to point out some key um components of the tree protection ordinance around permitting for individual property owners. So again off offering that optional site consultation early to help problem solve see if sometimes trees can be preserved and um the objective of the property owner can be accommodated um by thinking outside of the box looking at different options. um highlighting that there are a number of exemptions in the ordinance that are probably particularly useful for individual property owners such as that proximity to foundation um of residential structures. Um the community development director is the review authority for tree removal permits for individual property owners. Um when we're looking at creating the permit application, we are looking to allow applicants to respond to the required findings um as well as self-certify um that replacement has been um completed. So trying to look for ways to reduce those costs and increase that

efficiency. Um, another thing that um came out of the study session with the planning commission was allowing individual property owners the option to either replace a tree on site or pay the um in loo fee um to to satisfy that requirement. Um some different things for uh tree removal for street trees. Um, many are the same, but there are a couple things that probably are more um more focused on this type of permitting, such as the exemption for public utility protection um or imminent hazards. Um, similar to individual properties, the community development director is the review authority in this situation. Um and then again allowing some of that self-certification um uh um to streamline the the the permitting and um enforcement on that. Another item that came out of the study session with the planning commission was in uh replacement for street trees. Payment of the enluff fee is not an option for replacement of street trees. It would be required to be planted with a new street tree. um and the approved permit again required for the um application for an encroachment permit. And then finally, permitting for development projects. Uh we're looking for um as I mentioned that early um site design principles demonstrating that they were thinking of tree preservation when they designed the project. Um requiring a project arborist early and throughout construction. um requiring tree preservation and protection plan. And then the review authority shifts for for these types of um discretionary development projects where the planning commission or the city council would be the review authority alongside the

entitlement review um because they're so intertwined um not not seeing them as two distinct um processes. There are supplemental findings for approval and standard conditions of approval. Um, similar to existing procedure, a security deposit may be required as we move into construction um to ensure that we have those adequate protections and then um a different replacement um value required for these types of projects. just as some of the as we're we're looking at different um fees and and and trying to come up with the right um fee uh establishment for these processes. So again, tree removal permits, we've been looking as similar to other flat fees. Um when a tree removal permit is part of an an entitlement, a discretionary development review, it would be part of the cost recovery. um that site visit or that pre-application consultation um being looking at $250 for that. Encroachment permits for trees is currently $268. So whether that we can pick up some efficiency um with that given that the review of the tree would not necessarily be part of that. Um we will look at that when we um dig into um the precise permit fees. um security deposit. Um this 20% of a of a tree value of a 100,000 or less or 10% if it's more than 100,000 that's in the current ordinance carrying that forward. Um and then um enforcement penalties um referencing placement values and that um reference to where replacement values um where we establish those. There were a couple um items that came

up through council questions um that wanted to um or public comment that I wanted to provide some clarification on. One was around the permit and replacements for a development permit on an existing sing single family residential um property. So this something like um somebody building a large shed behind their house or um constructing an accessory dwelling unit. So the intention was not by getting that building permit to kick it into a category of development similar to development of uh of a mixeduse building. So um staff is prepared to offer some um clarifying language should we get to um a motion um to keep that at the same replacement requirements as an individual tree removal permit on a single for a single family um property. Um, another question came up about the penalty fees in um, I think it's um, subsection 17.140. Um, and the idea was that there would also be replacement required otherwise we're setting up something where it might be cheaper to cut it down and ask for forgiveness. Um, so that was the penalty for doing it um, you know, for for removing a tree um, without the appropriate permits. And then there were some questions about the heritage and landmark trees um uh replacement requirements. The draft TPO directly references the existing heritage tree requirements um and replacement requirements in the municipal code. And as part of this effort, we did not update that section of the code. So it's directly referencing um what that um municipal code section says. um if if there's um a desire to see that section

updated in the future, we can look at um look at that as part of future um code update cycles. Um I think we've talked a lot about street trees. Um street trees has been a a real central concern expressed by both members of the community and the tree advisory committee. Um identifying that need for that greater clarification and efficiency. staff would agree with that and some of the conflicts the existing codes present for um review of those permits. Um so uh I think we've covered the other the other items on that. I do want to touch briefly on the Pedaluma Municipal Code Chapter 13.08 because that is part of the ordinance before you. This section of the pedalum municipal co code specifically addresses trees within the public right of way and this is what conflicts with conflicts with the existing implementing zoning ordinance but it also conflicts with um the proposed updates to the TPO. Um so the modifications that are proposed is really to bring that into alignment with the proposed amendments in the AOC. So you will see a clean version as a exhibit B um to the ordinance and then there's also a track change version at attachment 7. Uh almost done but wanted to touch on education and resources because this is another thing that comes up a lot. Um so this is not directly addressed in the ordinance. Um, but I wanted to highlight some of the things staff is looking um at doing in order to um kind of continue the education around the new ordinance, the new procedures and offering resources. So, we have started a tree um web page on the city's website and looking to expand that um with different resources, communicate those updated

processes um um revised regulations, application forms, educational materials, some information there also, I think this came out of the master plan effort, an acknowledgement that there's a lot of confusion about maintenance of street trees and who's responsible. So including information about that as a resource as well. So this is one of the things um we're we're looking to do to kind of consolidate all of those tree resources in a single place on the city's website instead of currently it's kind of spread throughout um and provide those resources and education. So, there have been quite a few public comments. Um, they have been posted online as they have come in um that Caitlyn has received them. You also had an attachment with the public comments that we received um as part of the planning commission hearing. Um generally the comments are supportive um of the adoption of um the updated TPO. There are some specific comments um that provide recommendations on ordinance language um that the city council may wish to discuss as part of their deliberation and happy to answer questions about those as they may come up. So finally, um, recommendation to introduce an ordinance approving a zoning text amendment to comprehensively modify chapter 17 of the ICO and amend um, chapter 13.08 of the municipal code, making findings consistent with the required findings for amendments as outlined in section 2550 of the ICO. This is also in your staff report and in your ordinance. Um it was also part of the planning commission's resolution. Um we welcome any feedback on the enforcement or

permit fees as part of tonight's dialogue and then also making findings that this action is categorically exempt pursuant to SQL guidelines section 15307 and 15308. And with that um mayor I'll turn it back to you and we're available for questions. Okay. I suspect there might be questions. So, um I mean you got to know I just love it when we get to a council goal that we might be putting it getting it done tonight. So, I mean because it's it's hard to do the things that float up to council goal level. And I think this one I think I might be the only council member here who was on when this was uh first or actually council member Barnacle as well. And um so it's been uh working its way through the public in the process and I'm really glad you're here tonight with this this ordinance. Big fan. So who wants to start with questions here? Council memberships.

Okay. Not not too hard. Um let's see the um first one is I just want to this is a really robust comprehensive ordinance. Um did you have to create all this ourselves or did we able to uh have sources that we actually were able to grab it and reuse um elsewhere? This is a lot of work got done as

um thank you for that. Um it has been a robust process. Um no we had a lot of work that was done by the tree advisory committee. We had a lot of done work that was done by relief as you know that were was our starting point. We also look to a lot of different jurisdictions to see how they dealt with things um and suggestions through different jurisdictions.

Right. Uh given the robustness, is there other cities that have similar comprehensive ordinance? Yeah, Ben and I were just talking about this a little bit um and trying to decide like where on the on the continuum um this is and there are definitely jurisdictions that are more have have uh more regulatory control. For instance, Fairfax looks at 4 in or greater period. Um, there are other ones that have less and will exempt like all fulls I think Santa Rosa all of their single family zones they completely exempt it um from from the ordinance um with with some minor exceptions. So there's kind of a continuum. Um I would say that it's um on the leading edge but not necessarily the most prohibited.

Okay. But there's other cities that even have stronger ordinances than this. Yes. Yes. Okay. That's I just want to make that clarify that even though we're we're we're heading toward that goal.

Good. Then um um I think when the planning commission went from the 12 down to six. Um one of the major concerns was uh safety safety for the individual homeowners. Um now I've done tree work. Um I actually was a TA in an arborist uh class way back when. Um, and so I got trained in how to take down trees, but I'm looking right now. I've got a project in my backyard. I'm going to put it in a shed and I got to take out two trees. Um, um, one I just took out which is just right at 6 in. And I could manage that myself pretty well, but I looked at over 6 in and I'm going, hm, do I want to It's It's close. It's well over 20 feet tall. Um, and u um, so do I take it out myself or not? And I'm thinking that any tree over 6 in is probably going to be taken out more by professionals than homeowners because it gets pretty daunting when you get into that size uh of of tree in that age of tree. So, um all the fines and fees are pretty much reference the actual home owner or the land property owner uh as as far as what they're conducting with, but most of the work is going to be done on six inches or more. It's going to be done by professional either a landscaper or a tree service. um where do they fit into this ordinance? Um and how are they going to respond and how much training are they going to get and enforcement that they're going to do self- enforcement on all because they're out there every single day pruning and and cutting down trees. So they're the key people, not the homeowners because homeowners may not know not know the regulations as much, but they should. So how do we work with them? So, one of the things um we're looking to do is to send something out to all of the the tree surgeons, arborists, tree removal services in the area to say, "Hey, the city has a new a new ordinance." Um, that's one of the things we can do, um,

to try to bring it to their attention, to do something, to ask them to look at it, to bring themselves up to speed, um, to let them know of some of the enforcement provisions in the updated ordinance. So, that's one of the things. Okay, good. And we have looked at Yeah. And also, how many of these ser tree services or landscapers to do this work? I mean, how big of a job is it going to be to kind of track what's going on?

Uh, well, so the first bit of that is variable if a tree service deals with the permits or not. Some do, some don't. You know, typically the bigger and better tree services will handle the permit process for their client. And those same tree services are going to be pretty encouraged to report violations. like Sonoma Marine Arborist is one of our local ones and they always try to get permits and it drives them nuts when they see work going on that they know requires a permit. You know those street trees. So like I know that they specifically have like a list of all the street trees that have been removed in Paluma without a permit because they want a level playing field because they're you know it's it's costly and timeconuming for them to get those permits and and it's not fair for them to compete with those businesses that aren't following the rules. So, I think some of those long-term established companies in Paluma are going to be advocates for this and are going to help us with enforcement. Right. So, we're certainly even on my street, uh, just even with my neighbors. Um, I've helped out trim a couple things, but I had one that oh, I they got a really low cost bid, only $500, and the tree went down to nothing. Um and so uh again the landscapers who who are willing to do the work for very low cost not going to be into permitting everything. So how do we actually get this enforced um into that because that's that's the key this this 6 in to 12 in uh that of where when you actually need big equipment to get in there but a lot of this hand work is being done by the landscape crews. So, how do we enforce it with them and how do we get that communication and how well do you think uh can we make that happen?

I I think that's going to be tough honestly and and that's not going to be something that's in the ordinance and that can be a conversation for later. I think those trees those specifically between 6 and 12 in trees are ones that we have to accept that we're still going to get people removing those without a permit. Those are going to be harder to catch, but as long as they're included in the ordinance, it's at least going to be a signal to those people that they should think twice about removing them and we're going to save more of them, you know, than if we just leave it at that 12 in,

right? And so I'm getting at the fees like there's a $100, $200, $300 fees uh for for x number of times within a year, whatever. And these folks, uh, like my next neighbor just said, he's going to get a tree taken down and it's $800 to take one tree down. So, um, I can't see a 100 or three $300 fees to be much impactful for the landscape if if is it possible we could rem I say, "Hey, if you get caught enough times, you you take away your license, you may not do landscaping work anymore." If they can we can we get to that point?

He slid that o over to me quickly. Um, I I would probably um ask Eric for some input here. I'm I'm I'm not sure what the I'm not sure how um a tree removal company what license and what what the criteria for maintaining their license is to be honest with you. So yeah, I'm just trying to find this loophole in here that that what's going to happen practically and because I've done I've seen enough of this work being done and I'm just trying to find out where is the loophole and how can we close it. Yeah. And yes, Eric,

if um if the council would like I can respond briefly to that. So the um in se in in section 17.140 that's the enforcement provision and the ICO amendments and there's a lot of there's a it's a quite a menu of um enforcement options and and and I was just double checking while while you're asking the qu question council member Shribs in terms of who's targeted and and um potentially subject to enforcement action. and it's any person who cuts, damages, or moves a tree in violation of the chapter. There's criminal penalties available um that are misdemeanors. There's administrative uh penalties that can be brought. Um there's um replacement value um fine. There's um um in two different ways and there's civil and administrative actions that are available. So that could be brought against homeowner, that could be brought against tree service, it's any person that's violating these provisions. So acting without a permit. So that that's pretty flexible. And I'm not actually seeing a loophole. The issue I think is going to be um uh getting reporting information to know about the violation.

Okay. Good. So so one of the important things is the education of the public. So if the public we have lots of folks here uh that have been reporting going on. So if that if we actually get that reporting upped a little bit and and the public educated a little bit more then then the reporting is going to happen um a little bit more by the public as oh I've see this tree got happened did damage we can follow up and find out and investigate and then there could be fines looks like some other things that could be done to really make make really force the issue a little bit and stop doing this. Um otherwise it will continue to continue. Um, okay. So, those those are I may have some other comments, but I think I'll hold those are the questions I have. I'll have comments later. Thank you,

Council Member Quinn.

Thank you. Um, can you walk me through sort of the process today as as it exists today? If if I'm a a small builder who I'm either looking to build an ADU on someone's property or maybe I've got a 10,000 square foot lot. Uh maybe that lot has a an existing single family home and I want to take it down and put up a forplex or maybe the lot's, you know, empty, you know, except for it has a few trees on it and I want to put up a forplex. Um what what does that process look like today as it pertains to trees for that builder? So building a forplex is a discretionary re site plan and architectural review is required. Um so under five units it's an administrative review but it still has all the same findings and and requirements for that. So, if you were building a a a forplex, we would require a site plan that identifies any existing trees on the site um and and would require as part of that process uh the replacement consistent with the ordinance requirements today um or payment of a in l a replacement fee. So, so that's what's in place today, not this particular plan or not this particular ordinance.

Well, this ordinance does in that case it's it's very similar. It's some clarity in here. There's some changes to the replacement value. There's some emphasis on trying to plan your project around existing trees if you can to preserve either the existing trees on the site or the best specimens on the site. Um so it it doesn't drastically um change the process for that type of project where you've got a discretionary review. What it does change is right now if you were just had a lot and you were building an ADU for instance, uh there's not a requirement for a tree removal permit um as part of that because it's just a building permit. Um, so this would have a requirement that again you identify, yeah, this tree, this tree is going to be removed so I can build my ADU and there would be a replacement requirement whether it be in kind or payment of an inluff fee if you didn't want to replace it on that single family lot.

Got it. Can can you um I guess what I'm trying what I what I want to get to is really kind of understand um sort of the magnitude of additional cost or um or uh you know process that's going to be required for someone for a small residential project whether it's again whether it's an ADU or you know uh just trying to you know I I think about you know our current state of housing And I think we, you know, all of our, you know, we all have a goal or or most of us have stated a goal that we we'd like to see more more housing. I mean I understand that you know some of the bigger projects can probably absorb uh the additional um you know the additional complexity or or any of the additional requirements that the new ordinance would put on you know a larger company but for a you know kind of like a a smaller project. Can you can you sort of frame up for me the additional effort required?

Um, so again, I don't think that the effort changes that drastically for a small project that is a discretionary project like a forplex.

Um, because it it is already required to do that process. Um, so that's already happening as part of that review. So I don't see that um in particular in that situation causing a significant change in processing time or costs. Um, and I would also say with a ADU, for example, um, it it's going to be part of making sure you have that on your you're identifying the trees on your site plan.

Um, and you are replacing either by planting another 15gallon tree, let's say, to to replace it or um, payment of it in Luffy. So it's it Yeah. So it sounds like for like an ADU it's the effort I mean there is some additional effort and cost above and beyond what what is current

what is current. What about a like a you know 100% affordable housing project. I'm thinking of a project similar to um what is it on East Washington across from the library. How would this impact the ability of our partners who are trying to build affordable housing?

Um, so oftentimes those projects are objective there um subject to the objective um standards in our ordinance. So the objective standards would require that there be a project arborist which it does today. um that um is required that they identify the existing trees and the size of the trees on the site and that they replace them or pay the enlies as as clearly outlined depending on the trunk diameter being proposed for removal. Um so again, this was not this ordinance doesn't say you can't remove the tree. It's trying to encourage um thoughtful design to preserve trees when that is feasible. Um some examples of this is we did have a project who had a lot of trees on the site and they came in and their their site plan showed basically a clearcut of all the trees on the site and we said well wait a minute there's a lot of lovely trees on the site. We're not understandably you're not going to save all of them and build your housing development. like there's a shift there, but what are the what are the largest or healthiest or kind of the the nicest specimens and can we save some of those and plan around? So, it's it's codifying some of that encouragement to do that early on, but I it's not drastically changing the process for those type of projects.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. the public weighed in quite heavily on that subdivision and that tree issue if I remember right. Yeah. Cumber Now,

um just real quick, um the enforcement is mostly complaint driven. So in a neighborhood you'll have a neighbor who's cutting down a tree and then all of a sudden you're going to get phone calls. So how would I know if my neighbor did everything correctly in cutting down his tree? So, there's going to be a I mean, hopefully you talk with your neighbor and they say, "Oh, yeah, I got a permit." And it's good. But, um, so if somebody called in a complaint and said, "Hey, my neighbor at, you know, 476 Western is cutting down, you know, just cut down a tree. Do they have a permit?" I believe we also have a online permitting portal where somebody could also put the address in and see if there was a tree removal permit that had been issued for that for that property. Um so that is something um that I believe neighbors can do to see if there's issued permits um on on their neighbors property. Um

so run that one through me one more time. You go to the website and there's a portal or do you There there's a there's an an a through I'm forgetting what the permitting software is called. Intergov. Intergov. Thank you. That you can look up um current permits issued based on an address. Okay.

So theoretically, if your neighbor was doing, you know, you could get on there and you could say, "Oh, yeah, they have a tree removal permit." Well, I know when you're having a roofing done, the permit is like stapled to your garage door or the piece of wood by your house so that the neighbors all know. If you're having a a fence put in, you don't know if your neighbors gotten the permit, if they're getting a new water heater, you don't know. Um, so I was just curious because people ask me all the time, do anybody ever get a permit? And I'm like, uh, well, they're supposed to, but also when a swimming pool or anything is you, the permit is actually on the the property so you can tell your neighbors that you got the permit. So, I was just wondering if signage had to be that permit had to be displayed. So, we did not that's not part of the way we structured this ordinance was not to post a a notice of um a tree removal permit.

Is that um roofing example? Is that like labor law rather than city? Wh why why would that be a thing? I mean, I know we're supposed to get uh heating and air conditioning permits to make sure that the heater is the right u standards, but they're not publicly posted. So, yeah. Okay. Um, we'd have to check and get back to the council. I'm not aware of that that's a local requirement. Um, um, there are local jurisdictions that do have posting requirements for certain kinds of permits. We probably I'm not sure we could find us. Yeah. Okay. Council member Darly.

And that is a common thing for tree removal permits and other municipalities too that you have to post the permit on the fence. It's not universal, but it's common. Hi, thank you for the presentation. Uh, do we know what percentage of trees are between 6 and 12 in or roughly how many trees that is in the city? Uh, no we do not.

Okay. How um how did we land on six inches? Um we looked at a number of different what different jurisdictions had done. Um what you know for instance the 4 in in Fairfax um other people six you know other people more than that and that was a recommendation that came out of the tree advisory committee. And then um pardon me the um the funds that are you know fees fines etc. Where do those all go and what do they get used for?

So, um the way the ordinance is written, they would go into an urban forestry account. Um and then that would be used for um you know, obviously the permit fees are to pay for the the review process. Um and then it could be used for tree planting efforts. It could be used for sometimes grant funding that's available. um requires a match, a local match. So, it could be used for things like that around trees. It could be used for um park planting or um right ofway um replanting efforts.

Okay. So, it would kind of stay within that realm and not just get dumped into general fund or something.

Um that's the objective is to have it um be collected and to be used on tree related um initiatives by the city. Okay. And then um kind of back to the ADU thing, you know, let's let's say someone wanted to build an ADU in their backyard and and that's something the city's trying to encourage and you know to help with housing and um say they have like four or five trees in the backyard and there's nowhere else to put them and they have to go. I mean what what sort of a cost does that look like roughly to the homeowner? Um so the way it is currently proposed um as I mentioned um an individual property owner would have the option to plant replacement trees or to pay an inlue fee because obviously understanding um when you're looking at individual single family properties um you have limited space especially if you're doing something like adding an additional housing unit on site your available space for trees is even less. So recognizing that and giving the option to pay the enloffy, we have not established the enloffy um the replacement in Luffy. Typically those are um set as kind of the average cost of a replacement tree plus actually um the installation of it. So um it varies widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Some have it down more like three or4 $500. Some of them, some jurisdictions have it up like over $2,000 for a replacement. Um so I think we were thinking something on the lower end of that. Um maybe um $400 or $500 as the replacement. Um but open to feedback from the council on on any initial um response to those.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, cuz I mean, even if you had just a a few trees that had to be removed and you couldn't replant more, um, you know, that could be probably over $1,000 easily to a homeowner. And, you know, they're trying to do something the city's encouraging, but then at the same time essentially getting penalized for it in a way. Um, do um I mean, do fruit trees count as a replacement tree? You know, in those sort of situations or in any situation? Um they could if they're um the only the only time we have a um specific list of um trees appropriate trees is on our street tree list. So um a 15 it just says that it's a 15gallon specimen. It doesn't specify like for somebody's backyard. It doesn't specify um the type of tree required.

Okay. And what if um somebody's in a situation of their insurance company is saying for fire risk, you know, or whatever the case may be, you have to cut your tree down or or or something or where are they going to drop you or raise your premium or

um so we did include language um that covers that um and I think it's one of the um approvals for um the findings for approval of a tree removal permit. um does say uh that the tree has been deemed a hazard in writing by the fire department or insurance carrier. So that that is an option. Also recognizing that sometimes and I use myself as an example. I got a very scary letter from my homeowner's insurance saying you have to take your trees out. and I love my trees and I didn't want to take them out, but when they say we're going to cancel your insurance, it's a pretty intimidating um approach. So, I was able to work with an arborist to understand better, oh, it doesn't actually have to be replaced if it is a certain distance from my roof overhangs and work with somebody um to come up with a solution. So, I didn't have to um remove my tree and I was able to maintain my insurance. So hoping that some of the stuff with the consulting option that we would offer um allows sometimes home homeowners that maybe don't want to take those trees out but they're trying to find a solution to um have that as an option as well.

Okay, thank you Patrick.

Yeah, Heather, if you want um the urban forest management plan did look at the size of trees. So if we want to answer the question on that. Yes. Um it's not comprehensive in that it was looking mainly at trees in parks and street trees. Um but for the parks it's about 37% of trees are less than 6 in in diameter. Um and if you go up to 12 that's that's another 27%. So about half the trees in parks are less than uh 12 in. And then for street trees, it doesn't break it out easily, but the graphic I'm looking at um it looks like about half the street trees are um less than 6 in in diameter. So

So that's not including on private property, correct? That does not include No, but that's helpful. No, thank you, Patrick. And then um let's see what um what's the criteria for determining what a nuisance tree is? Um, so the nuisance trees are those specific species that are included. Um, I think there's like but I think it's broader than that, right? Because of the um uh the tree technical manual, right? So it's it's these species and as may be periodically modified in the city's tree technical manual. Okay.

So it could change over time. Okay. Okay. And I'm curious about liquid ambers and are are those in the manual as a nuisance tree or are are they considered one? Uh, council member Shribs would be the one to answer that. It's not on the list that we're proposing because the the thought behind the nuisance tree list is these are trees that are a problem in pedaluma and should be removed and people shouldn't have to ask because they're invasive. Liquid amber is not invasive and there are some beautiful examples of liquid ambers all over town and if people could remove those without a permit we could potentially lose a lot of trees. Like those are some of the big trees that we're trying to keep.

Yeah. I know I mean they are very nice trees but I mean there was a time where I think the city was handing them out to people and and encouraging them to be planted in sidewalks and we have a bad situation now with with our sidewalks and retaining walls and other you know other areas where the roots have stayed very shallow and and you know that's a big problem sidewalks in in Paluma and um so to me you know a tree that does that is is somewhat of a nuisance. They are nice trees, but

yeah, part of that is just because of the timing of when they were a popular tree to plant that there are so many big old ones around. And right now it's red maple. Red maple does the same thing. It's still not on our nuisance list. You know, in in 20 years, people are going to be cursing red maple the same way that they curse liquid amber today. And even crepe myrtles, their roots, they because we worked on the street tree inventory in Paluma. There's examples of like pretty small crepe myrtles in Paluma that are lifting sidewalks. So just because a tree has roots that can lift a sidewalk, I mean there are also lots of examples of liquid ambers in Paluma where their roots are not lifting the sidewalk. You know, they're just a lot of big old liquid ambers and some of their roots are causing some damage. like that's not we didn't see that as a reason that people should be allowed to remove them without a permit. It it might be a reason that they could get a permit if if those roots are damaging the sidewalk and there's no way to reasonably fix the sidewalk and keep the tree healthy and stable. They might be able to remove it, but they shouldn't be able to remove it just because they're worried that their liquid amber might damage the sidewalk. They should have to ask somebody.

Okay. Well, I just I mean it could be looked at too as you know the city's already requiring and forcing you to pay for a new sidewalk and then on top of that now you have to pay for permits for it and it's you know it it becomes a big cost to to homeowners. Yeah. And I mean you already need a permit to remove a street tree. We're not that's not changing. That's an existing ordinance.

Okay. And then um uh see I think my last question you know is around you know what so in in the ordinance there's language about you know prosecuting people misdemeanors things like that. Um what what sort of laws would the city be referencing to to do those sorts of things? our code. I mean those penalties are are available by the authority of the council adopting the legislation and would who would authorize those enforcement actions and you know the focus of our code enforcement activity is always compliance. So um we always seek voluntary compliance first and and look for what are appropriate measures. I mean, misdemeanor prosecutions bring jury trial rights, and that's not something we're eager to get embroiled in or subject our residents to. We're those are just it's a menu of options to make sure that the um regulations are enforceable and and staff have the tools they need to to ensure that the will of the council in enacting the legislation is being carried out.

Okay. No, I would I would hope Mr. meters isn't the direction we want to go. Um but I I guess one of my concern is is you know probably most of the population isn't isn't even aware of the current ordinance. Um you know let alone the coming one and so I I think probably see the case quite a bit or at least with smaller trees you see people taking it upon themselves to just to just cut them down because they think they can. And um so you know talks about the first offense being a misdemeanor or fines or you know I mean people just aren't going to know and it's it's going to be an innocent mistake.

Well, you know anytime we um uh provide legislative updates, the council enacts new legislative changes, it we almost always see that it's a good idea to do information outreach to the community. um whether it's parking or you know building code changes or whatever. Um it's just and we've done it with mobile home regulations. There's lots of information on the website about that. I think this is a great example of of something that we'd want to work with the communications team to get information out there. As you've heard tonight, as the council has heard from staff, um the changes actually are not all that extensive in comparison with the existing regulations. there there are added um um uh remedies. Um

it I mean it the way it reads now is any tree over 6 in um would be it would be the removal process for a street tree. Well any any street tree I believe. Okay. I'm just curious with like a fruit tree as an example when all the fruit drops and somebody chooses not to pick them up. What is the recourse? Is there any recourse in the um today?

So for instance, a plum tree is considered a a nuisance species. If it was causing a hazard on the sidewalk, that would be an enforcement under requirements for maintaining okay the the tree and the sidewalk and the and the non-hazardous condition in front of your house. Okay, I don't really have any questions. I've read this pretty thoroughly and it was well done. Okay, Council Member Barnacle.

Uh just one thing. Um I think in the planning commission that we waffled back and forth uh on the 12 to six and the big thing that was driving it as uh council member Shri said was public safety and um that when you get to a 12-in uh tree that's when the potential for personal injury property and damage things like that starts to become more of an issue. And um we didn't want to create like 8 in and 6 in, you know, and just like one standard and um that was the the sort of rationale for it. Thank you. Did you have another question? Okay.

Um Dan, you mentioned that SBAS pulls $250 to go out and basically consult. Um and I think that was on your slide, Heather, that roughly we're talking $250. Um, I I mean, you know, it's not a penalty. It's just a consultation thing. And I think if you want to encourage people to have someone come out and look, I think it should be much more reasonable because I think we're talking about having arborists locally go check it. And it's probably a pretty short drive for them. Um, maybe as much as, you know, a few minutes, 10, 15 minutes to look at a tree and determine whatever you have to. So, I mean, it's it's a very short amount of time and it's kind of a lot of money for that, you know, just to have someone come out and look. So, I think it would incentivize people more to have a much lesser fee, you know, that's that's more reasonable. So, I don't know how the rest of the council feels about that, but

I think we're going to have a longer discussion on fees at time certain here and that's going to be something we're we're needing to talk about. Okay. At what point do we have a conversation like that? Do we have a date in mind for review of schedule fee? When that will come back? Well, the idea would be we would um have that coming back before the ordinance goes into effect. So within 30 days after second reading. And is that on our agenda to be bringing a fee schedule conversation in o only related to trees? But it's not it's not agendaized yet.

Well, so that's the coordinated requirement there. Yep. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I um um I'm going to jump in for a minute. Why don't you jump in?

I just wanted to to um piggyback off of Council Member or Vice Mayor D Carly's question. I think it's because we don't have an arborist on staff, so they have to be outsourced. So that's where the the cost comes in as a homeowner of a 60 year old plus red maple that was planted when the house was built and has grown. It's so expensive to maintain. I usually get three estimates from local certified insured bonded everything my father expects of me as a homeowner to ask for. and they will give me a um an estimate for whatever they need to do, whether it needs to I've had wires put so it didn't split. I've had limbs trimmed off the top, off the side for, you know, so it doesn't touch the roof. Does a city um look if I was to really drastically change it? Would an arborist um estimate would that work for the city instead of having an outsourced arborist? Do you mean could you submit your own privately hired arborist report as opposed to having the consulting arborist go out and look at the site? Is that the question is

yeah the um like cinema is who I use but I always get two other estimates. They do not even charge for those estimates for any tree. Like there was an oak tree in the front yard that needed to was next to the sidewalk that was encroaching the street um lamp. So we needed to trim it down. It's not on my property. It's on the neighbors. Um you have a free estimate that the arborist gives the homeowner. Would that work? Well, yeah. And for for regular pruning and and of your trees, there's no permit required.

But if my neighbor wanted to have it remove, you know, if he wanted to remove it for some reason, he would get those estimates and

they're free. Does the city accept those estimates and di, you know, the diagram what the arborist says needs to be done to remove it? I it would depend on yeah I I can't answer it like across the board but if if that arborist whatever you have from your private arborist responds to you know includes pictures includes rationale and responds to the findings for removal of a tree and that is submitted with the tree removal permit that could be considered. Okay. So, does that help Vice Mayor?

Yeah. Well, that that makes me think of another question or comment at least. Um, you know, what if that were the case that you know, tree service comes out, does a free estimate, send something to the city? I mean, it's a big difference between zero and $250.

Well, so the $250 is a service. It's not required. It's a pre-application. So if somebody doesn't want to hire um an arborist um they could have our cons the city's consulting arborist come out and talk to them about what's going on with their tree, why what are they looking to do, what's the challenge they are facing, um that kind of thing. Um if if somebody there's a difference between just a cost estimate of tree removal and an arborist report evaluating the tree. Um, so if you ju if it's just a cost removal to remove it, that's not going to help us evaluate the tree removal permit findings. If it is an arborist report that says, "Oh, this tree has I I'm I'm not an arborist, so you know, has like a health issue." Um, I'm going to hand it over to Ben.

Can I can I ask a question, please? Let's let's let's roll some of these questions into one difference between an arborist and I mean is it tree service are they an arborist? Uh yeah they might employ a certified arborist. So usually what people mean is a certified arborist which is someone that holds a certification from ISA. an arborist. Anybody can call themselves an arborist, but no one you have to be a certified arborist to actually say that and then you've taken a test, right? And so if somebody was going to hand you something from an arborist, you want to make sure it was a certified arborist. Correct.

Yeah. And a lot of times people will put a fake number on there or an expired number, but that really shouldn't come into play. Uh so the whole idea is that when someone applies the way that we're imagining this, we have listed the findings of approval. So someone as part of their application will indicate which finding they think they meet and then they're going to provide evidence for that and then that application staff will look at it, review it, see that it's complete and forward it to currently the consulting arborist that's on contract with the city or maybe someday the urban forester that's on staff. They'll look at that and if it's a really nice complete package, they might not have to go and look at the tree. And that's the desk review. And then the fee is just the same as a fee for like a sign or or a fence really as basic as like those fees can get. If it's not and the application is not complete or it's like a fuzzy situation where someone is saying that a tree is diseased, but the pictures don't really show it and it requires a field visit, then that's what has to happen next. And that's when someone that's qualified goes out and looks at it. But if someone that's really qualified, like Snowman Marin, has put together some sort of documentation that clearly shows what the issue is and they've got like good credentials and a good reputation, then whoever is reviewing that is going to see it and be able to trust that. But if it's Joemo's tree service that has a bad reputation and is known for exaggerating things and they say, "Yeah, this tree is dead." and you see a picture where there's like green leaves in it, you're like, "Well, no, it's not." And I guess I have to go and look at this tree. And sometimes when I do that, I'll find something that they didn't even know was wrong with it and and it does need to come out or I'll see the thing that they were worried about is is not a real thing. I don't know if that helps things at all, but

Okay. Yeah. I just I just wonder how viable a service it is if if somebody who's qualified can say like okay well the city charges 250 for this we can do this for something much more competitive. Oh it always comes down to the city's say. So even if someone does it for less and they submit that application that goes in front of either the consulting arborist or hopefully eventually the city's urban forester and they look at it with their critical eye and they're the one that makes the call. It's not because they paid someone to say something, they're going to get to remove it.

Okay. It does touch on one of my concerns is like the added costs we're having in different venues. Um I really have no concern about what we call development where where there's new a new facility. They they should be part that should be part of the package of the plan of what you're doing. even if developments in ADU, I mean that's hundreds of thousands of dollars you're going to be able to do it. I worry about the single residential and and so um I'll come back to that point, but um we haven't talked about is the the built commercial uh space

um trees that are getting pruned. They're not they're not in the exemption for residential. We're talking about they're not in new development. They're just pruning. Could you talk about what happens on a regular residential that want I mean a regular commercial built commercial that wants to remove we we have some horror photos right now of North Mcdow and uh and I'm wondering what should have been the course for them or what will this mean to them?

Um so if there if it's a street tree um then you know it's the same it's the same process. Um if it's a commercial with no um if it's pruning there is no there is no permit requirement um or encroachment oh right encroachment it would right there's no encroachment if it's on the property and it's pruning um if it's a street tree then uh there is a requirement for encroachment permit because you are doing work

right yeah those are mostly all uh street trees that we're looking at in that case. Um and the but the ordinance covers all trees one way or another. So it's it's it's good in that regard. Um that would be the uh the questions I have now. I'll go back into comments at a soon point. Council member Shrebs. I'm just adding a couple uh uh questions here. There's some uh flex flex in here. Uh first one is assuming this is going to move forward and then we have to work on uh probably rewriting the technical tree manual a little bit to and then do some other modifications. Um about when if if everything goes well about when does this come into play? Are we talking about weeks, months or a year from now that this actually that we actually start receiving the permits? Uh, no. They would be um start coming in the date that the ordinance becomes effective. The permit requirement would be there.

Okay. So, is this a the date it is today or is it going to be a second reading? There's a second reading and then it's 30 days after the second reading. So, we're talking about two months maybe. Yeah. That that this goes into play. And is the city uh are we ready to restart receiving permits? we will be by the time 30 days after the second reading. I mean we've done a lot of thinking about it and talking about it. We have not created the application form itself. We have not you know put put it into um interg um those kind of things. So those are the things we will

because I don't neighbor wants to cut down the tree now so he doesn't have to worry about it if he does it in the next two months. Okay, that's one thing to check in um just for flexibility for um whether we have to do it now or we can do this later. Um because I know Bill Reinhardt gave us some recommendations talking about because 15 gallon trees are like okay has been the fifth standard a lot but uh box trees as applicable for replacements versus just 15 gallons. So he had some recommendations in there. Um, so we don't do we have to do work on that today or can we wait until we talk about fees and um work on whether or not to change that and and add in the box trees as replacement values?

No, that that's part of tonight's action um that we'll we'll need to discuss um if there's a change if the council would like to see a change to what how it is currently written. That would be part of

Okay. Because the difference for me um because I know up to 15 gallon trees, it's the actual height of the tree. And so the the folks that are in nurseries like I ran my nursery and um it's the height. So they make the trees really thin and really tall. And that's a 15gon tree which is only maybe one inch diameter. um versus box trees which have a lot longer time, thicker trunks and it's by the size of the box and and basically the uh an overall size of the tree versus just the the height of the tree because it's all specimen based. So the question is um can we can we add that in and and if we do it tonight is there a way of getting uh like what Bill Reinhardt wrote in can we get those recommendations in tonight or is that how flexible are we in in writing up it up? Yeah, we're where um staff will be available to um incorporate any modifications that the council wants to ask as part of the motion um for amendment, you know, modifications to what is proposed um such as that section. Um and I would imagine it would be part of uh conversation with the council um when you bring it back up conversation. I'd love to hear from Ben on the exact uh his his opinion about whether uh to start thinking in that not just 15 gallon tree.

Yeah. Um so the background on that in case anybody didn't see those comments is that uh as it's written we're really promoting 15 gallon trees and if people want to plant larger than that they can. Um, but we're trying to maximize the number of trees that are being replaced where like in in Bill's recommendation, I think he had some large container size, a 36-in box counting for 10 trees where if you think in like tree timelines, if we look 40 years into the future, that's the difference between I mean that the size difference goes away and we've got one tree versus 10 trees. So, we're really more focused on getting as many trees as possible. And uh he also makes a comment that like that it's not true that the smaller trees establish faster. And I mean it is true in my experience. It's also true in the scientific literature. They've done studies on this uh through ISA and through Ed Gilman who's like a prolific researcher in our field that smaller container sizes establish more quickly and that those differences in establishment period are exaggerated by harsh conditions. So like especially street trees and and trees that we're planting in a drought with water restrictions, those smaller trees are going to be more successful and the difference between their sizes does in my experience again and in the literature disappear over the course of the first few years of the treere's life. So you can spend three times as much, 10 times as much on a bigger container size and get one tree or you can spend like a fraction of the cost and get many more trees that are more likely to be successful and 50 years from now you get way more trees. So that's the thought process that's behind that like focus on smaller trees. Okay. I just want to see if there's any flexibility because I know like

developers may want to put in some larger specimen trees um in replacements um if it's a larger property and in the developing. So I think that it just as long as staff can consider that in the process. Yeah, it doesn't have to be in the ordinance but it could be in staff's can look at recommendations that's and actually that's going to be our decision point tonight your discretion or your ability to be persuasive.

Right. And the other one was on the is there any flexibility on um because you you basically are adding in an encroachment and a tree removal permit together for $381 per tree. And I'm thinking a 7 in a single 7in tree that could be taken down by a landscaper in less than an hour might only charge $200 to take it down. And yet that may require a $381 fee to the city to take down a 7in tree. Is there any flexibility that oh if it's if it's a smaller single tree that there is some flexibility if it's being done quickly and that we really don't need um that much of a fee.

Well, I would I pass Heather in a sec, but that probably doesn't need an encroachment permit because you only need an encroachment permit when you're blocking the street and if it's a really small tree, they they might not especially like a landscaper is not going to have a big truck that usually it's going to fit in a driveway. And that sounds like a a desk review that's not going to require a field visit. So, it's going to be the same. It's going to be a pretty minimal permit fee for a tree like that, but maybe it could be even lower. I don't know.

And that's that's great feedback and we can um we can look at those ways that we can keep that fee as low as we can and cover costs associated with the review. Yeah. So, I want to encourage the homeowners to bake the applications or the landscapers who are doing this work because if it's if it's $381 to make an application, then it's going to be an automatic fee right from the get-go. They go, "No way I'm ever going to do that." Um, so we need to be have some sort of fee structure so it's a if it's a if it's a necessary thing and it it's being done, it's small and it's done quickly that that cost is is is there to encourage for people and if they want to have help, they can get help. So anyway, I just would recommend some flexibility uh on on that fee schedule based on the size or quantity of the trees being removed as a as a concept.

Is that can we get that in there? It's not in the ordinance. Yeah, we'll decide that. But I was asking can we do that? Okay. Then it's up to the council whether we want to do that or not. Okay, good. Thank you. Okay, those are the three three questions I had. Thank you Thompson. quick comment back on the the box trees because I ended up I called Bill and we had this conversation and I basically came up I felt the same as um staff does that you actually get more trees so you in the long term you're going to get a better coverage than having 10 trees versus 20 trees. So

yeah, we're drifting into comments, but uh I I'll want to pick up that ball and run with it when we come back up here as well. So um good. Uh let's go to public comment. Will you take it away, please? We did receive 25 public comments on this item and those are posted on the website. And I have received two cards, but if anyone else would like to submit a comment, uh why don't I start a 30 second clock? I don't remember.

That's how it's

okay. There you go. Our first speaker is Nina Zito. Our second speaker is Charlie Little.

Thank you, council members. Uh and um s such a lot of work has gone into this. What what strikes me is uh there's no mention of the impacts of removing these trees on the people who have to live around the removal and I really appreciated uh council member now's question about well notification and it it feels to me if we're going to have a an extremely machinery intensive polluting noisy disruptive because many of us work from home process um that the public needs to be prospectively notified. Hey, got a tree. It's coming out. FYI, it it's a a really kind of curious um omission from a a city which lists among its primary goals like empathy. Give me some empathy. I'm trying to do some work. I'm trying to sleep. We can fix this. And maybe Anyway, uh please give that some thought somehow.

Thank you. Charles Little to be followed by Eric Leland.

I can make this quite brief. I'm Charles Little. I'm a retired school teacher and a historian. Um, I think the most wonderful thing about what you folks I hope are about to do is that you are elevating trees and the tree canopy in our town of Paluma to the the elevation of it in in I get a little excited sometimes about trees. It's it's it's you're making it part of the infrastructure of the town. We're recognizing that Paluma feels that trees are really important and we want to keep them. We want to keep the ones that were already here because they're important. These guys have put together a really great program, a great ordinance. I certainly hope you pass it. But I think the overarching thing is this this business that we're raising trees up to a very important thing in our town. And that's wonderful. But I I just occurred to me tonight when I was listening to the discussion. I hadn't thought of that part of it before. It's it's kind of a second thought. Trees are kind of a second thought a lot of the time, but here they are. Here we are. We're raising it up to like like in like streets or anything else. So, that's all I have to say. Thank you, Eric Leland to be followed by Wendy Jacobs.

Thank you. Um, I just want to give a big plus one to many neighbors, including uh Charles, thank you. Um, taking the time to submit supportive comments for protecting tree canopy and panel for many years and this has been going on for a long time and multiple committees and commissions uh and in public meetings and community meetings as well. So, just thank the whole community. Um, working to protect our neighborhood trees has been, you know, really quite unifying experience over the past several years. There's been a lot of things that haven't been unifying in town. This is not one of them. It's very unifying. Um, you know, the founding of Relief Pedaluma came together with a bunch of folks with divergent views on some issues, but we came together on trees. Um, and catalyzed hundreds of volunteers to turn out at planting events, community meetings, and here at city council and other uh committees and commissions. Um, city council and staff have regularly participated in all kinds of tree events, tree plantings, um, some of the community events where we just gathered to talk about trees. Um, neighbors have found common cause all over the place. Uh, residential tree program for instance. Um, so, you know, I think we're all coming together on the benefits of trees, the beauty of trees, the environmental and health uh, positive consequences of trees. I just think that's a great thing. It's been a long time coming. I really appreciate all of your work here um and all the community as well. I urge you to support the updated ordinance language. Um it's been a long time coming. So, thank you.

Thank you. And our last speaker, Wendy Jacobs.

Thank you, Wendy Jacobs. Speaking for relief pedaluma, we are really looking forward to a 21st century tree protection ordinance for pedaluma that aligns with climate and general plan priorities, restores consistency, clarity, and enforcement, protects important community resilience from unnecessary destruction, and provides much greater community benefits to offset some of the long-term negative effects of development and redevelopment. I I will say we're very sympathetic to the desire and for fast solutions, but relief does support the 15gallon tree replacements for best results. More trees mean long more long-term survivors. Relief is very happy to work with the city on long-term funding solutions for our investment in the urban forest. Thank you council and city manager for your leadership on this challenging issue. Thank you Mr. Danley. Thank you Patrick Carter. Thank you very much Heather and Ben.

And thank relief. And I've closed this public uh comment for the night. Um I I would like to ask for staff would like to uh take a minute to reply. Is there a notification of neighbors and that can be linked into a permit issue? There is not as this is currently um as this is currently set up. There is not a notification of neighbor to neighbors of a tree removal occurring. Um I'm trying to think and I nobody from I don't know what the standard procedure for a building permit. Um oftentimes with development like entitlement large um development review projects there perhaps is um in some situation there will be a condition of approval that notification happened. Um but I don't know that there is for individual building permits. I would just say other jurisdictions have um required the person removing the tree to put a permit and the permit up like 10 days or two weeks before they do so and yeah large enough that on the tree so people can see the permit. So that might be a

Can we address this by just saying that's direction to do something about notification? That that's a little vague for an ordinance adoption. Mr. Mayor, I meant direction to staff on developing the format, right? Well, but we tree permit's going to come up, is it? This is for the council to take legislative action tonight that we can't substantively change at the second reading. So, um but the tree application or tree permit,

right? It could it could be um um practice um of implementing the ordinance and not a requirement in the ordinance. Um, the other thing I would say is is that is um that works with a street tree. It doesn't work with a backyard tree.

Yeah. So, and I would also, so just a case study, Yville recently updated theirs because like a tree was removed and there was no public notice and people really panicked about it because it was a high visibility tree and they sort of knee-jerk updated their ordinance so that it required mailing a notice to every neighbor within several hundred feet of the home, which was really arduous and caused like more public input than they would have normally gotten and they're really, you know, we're updating the full ordinance now and we're going to we're going to dial that back. So, ideally, it's just going to be a posting on the front.

Let me swing down to Council Member Quinn. Yeah. I I guess to play devil's advocate, I mean, I um to the point that Council Member Trips was making earlier, I think one, you know, we want to encourage people to get permits. And so I think if we make u you know for a standard tree removal if we have arduous notification requirements that's going that that could be enough to push people away from getting the permit. Council member Barnacle.

Yeah. Um, having been on here when we put this on, um, I I feel like Council Member Shribs was on the council when he was on, but he was on the tree committee when this came and it was him driving it. So, thank you. Um, I uh strongly support what we have here. Um, I'm big fan of 15 gallon uh trees. We want 10,000 trees. That doesn't come from a bunch of 2,000 bo uh, you know, $2,000 boxes. that comes from a bunch of $150 trees. Um, I'm wearing my green shirt in solidarity. I got the memo last last week, so thank you. Um, I got my tree in my front yard. I love it. Um, and you know, I'll just say like this is here because of us, not because of some state mandate. This is something that the council set this goal and staff did the best they could as we saw in the in the the slides of going through workshop after workshop and public hearing and um this is here after multiple people have poured over this. Um and as my father says well done is better than well said. And this is where the rubber meets the road. We absolutely want people to pull permits and we absolutely don't want people to be willy-nilly cutting down trees. So, um I don't want to have noticing requirements that makes it arduous and they don't do it. I also um don't want to create a situation where we undervalue the the cost of a permit and um and it just it it doesn't have the intended effect. Hopefully, we don't see a lot of tree replacement permits coming, right? Like all of these whatifs are hopefully a bunch of edge cases that are going to be handled by professionals. Um if we start to see something bubble up, we can change it. Yville, I'm sure they're going to be

changing their noticing requirements because it's it only takes a couple of uh bad examples. Um and uh you know I I think um the the one the one thing I will say here is um an exemption for care customers. Um, if someone says, you know, I'm on the the low income tariff at PG&, you know, um, paying maybe they can pay for the permit, but the replacement tree or something like that, like um, you know, for a real financial hardship or for someone where they're having to choose between, you know, eating and heating and things like that. Like, I don't want to create another hardship on people. Um, and so I'm I'm all for exempting, you know, folks who don't have the financial means from having to pay for replacement trees and even for a permit because it's not going to be that much and it's going to be an extreme edge case, I'm sure. Um, but I uh, you know, we have a goal to install, you know, put 10,000 trees in the ground and um, that's not going to happen by like that. if that's our goal like then this ordinance is helping us to achieve that goal and um it doesn't help us to start watering it down um for a bunch of whatifs and ifs and buts and this and that um that really is you know as as grounded in reality as the other thing that we might go to right and so um I hope that we uh move this forward with you know hopefully some sort of an exemption if someone can, you know, demonstrate a financial hardship. Um, and that would be my um is there. It's not a motion because I know there's going to be other people commenting on it, but um you know, I just I'm

passionate about this because this came from us, right? This isn't some state mandate and our staff worked on it. Relief's done amazing stuff. our school district, our school board has all, you know, been really supportive of this. The community's come together around this and um like for us to get all in our heads and wound around the axle on something like it it feels um like we're making this more complicated than we need to. And I know that I'm we haven't had the discussion yet, but by way of the conversation and the question line of questions, I have a feeling that folks are really wrapped around the axle on some certain things and I don't think it's that big of a deal.

Council member Kater Thompson,

I agree. Um I support the 15 gallon tree and an exemption and I think um staff and relief and the community has done an amazing job. I mean, I read this thing three times because I really needed to understand what was in this ordinance and I think everything is what we really want for this community. I mean, I just give my example 10 or 11 years ago, Jerry started an acorn of a black oak and it is a beautiful tree now in our front yard and the circumference is it's 11 in. I mean, it's a beautiful tree and fortunately I will be dead before it has to before it, you know, gets huge. But I mean, it's amazing. And we also had redwood trees that the kids brought home little saplings and we had to take out five of them because they completely destroyed the fence line, but we kept the heritage one and we augmented the fence so it would be protected. And I have it trimmed every 10 years. And that's just an obligation that we do because this tree is just an amazing tree. Um and and the schools don't give out little saplings anymore. And I think that was a lesson to be learned. But I think this ordinance is really well written and kudos to everybody that worked on it. And I'm ready to move on it.

Thank you, Council Member D. Carly. Um I I do have one more question um about you know I know there's an exemption for trees near power lines things like that but what about you know I think we've all seen PG& in recent years going around and just flat topping things and really cutting trees to a point where it's just like what did you do to it? Um, I mean, is there anything that I understand the the, you know, safety aspect there, but I mean, is there anything that this ordinance can do to protect against some of that? Um, public works has been um working with PG&E to try to, and I don't think anyone is here from public works um to try to establish more of a agreed upon process. Um so PG&E um doesn't have CA can remove or cut trees without our approval for protection of of their lines. Um we have fallen into an agreement with PG&E that they will at least notify the city prior to the work being done. So we are trying to work with them as much as we can to avoid those circumstances. But we have some limited um uh control.

Mhm. Okay. And we will continue to try to continue that grow that relationship and that communication.

Okay. Good. So, it's being addressed. Um Okay. Well, no, I mean, and I've I've seen um you know, quite a few trees get cut down around town that were very old, nice, big, you know, native trees, and that's that's the kind of thing that's bothered me. And so I am glad that we are strengthening a lot of the language in the ordinance and and in the code. Um my only concern with it is that um you know I I think it's I think a lot of this is is defensive language you know to to prohibit people from cutting trees down or making them replace stuff and not um you know on the offense where it's like let's incentivize and encourage people to plant. And I think in that regard, we might meet our tree goals, you know, much much more if we're we're incentivizing people um instead of making them nervous that they're going to get penalized in in some way or another. Um but, you know, I think a big part of our heritage is our 19th century town. And we have to remember that what complements the beauty of our town are a lot of the trees that are just as old or older. And so, you know, I'm happy that we're going to be protecting those trees and other native trees that are much younger to give them the opportunity to get to that size and that age.

And yes,

just in response to that, um, Vice Mayor, complete acknowledgement that a robust tree program is not just an or not just a tree preservation ordinance. So there is the other part of that which is the incentives and the tree planting and the um working with our community partners like relief to um go out and incentivize um perhaps there will be a time when we'll have a nest egg in that urban forestry account where we can say hey you want to you want to street tree you know street trees on the city or you know those kind of things. Um so um that is not lost on staff that there are multiple pieces to a robust tree program citywide. This is one piece of it and we will not um ignore that other piece of it and look to see that continue to grow and especially with partnerships with with relief and other community partners.

Okay. No, that's that's encouraging to hear because I know Relief works hard to get trees in around town and the tree committee too. So good.

Yeah, I think this um represents a pivotal time. I mean um you know, we've said tree protection ordinance and that's great, but um several years back my neighbor wanted to put in street trees and the process was a very not positive experience. The the process and city oversight for street trees was burdensome. Relief just did thousand street trees. I don't know. I mean a big number of street trees. you know, it's pivotal what we're where we are right now on this and that's a very good place. Uh it aligns strongly with climate. I don't know if we've said it. I think you know uh I don't if we can't say it enough times. Um and on some of the things we do for climate, it's leadership. It's a symbol. It may not be perfect. And so, you know, sometimes you have to be a little bold and and and step for things. My worry is whether this one had overreach in it and that the burden of the fees which we still are going to have to sort out exactly fees whether that is kind of productive to the goals and whether there's community backlash for what otherwise should be an inspirationally good thing. Um I uh like listening to the decision between 6 and 12 in and that being based on people's individual safety. That's not about the tree anymore. That's about the intelligence of the community and that's not what the ordinance should be about. The ordinance should be sticking to the tree issues. So I would love to see what u last week right before the um planning commission I met with Wendy and Diane and said tell me about the ordinance and and they said 12 in you know was something that relief could live with. And then, you know, when you watched the final episode at about this time last Tuesday night, 10 o'clock, and it was it was like, "No, no, we pivoted and we went to the 6 in." And I'd love to see us still be at 12 in because of um the potential to have

overreach where people are not supportive of this when it's their tree, you know, when it's when it's other people's trees, of course, we make that statement. But when it's our tree and the burden of fees on us, it's a little we view it differently. Um I I would love to see bigger box trees in the subdivision context because they they serve a different purpose in a subdivision. Um they there is a place for larger tree and there should be some credit for it and and um um I agree on that. You know, the count is important too, but we're um often in subdivision, you're already in multiple count for replacement anyways. And and the two inch versus uh whatever side, you know, twoinch credit on your diameter trees gets you more trees. So, um I think there's a place for a larger tree. Um but but I do agree with the hardship. Um though, thinking about this in terms of land owners and privilege, I'm not sure we're going to see a lot of applications for hardship, but having a safety net is never a bad thing. And um so those those are my thoughts on it. I'm glad we're here at this date. Council member now.

Um thank you and I agree with my um council members to my right over here have already spoken. Um I'm ready to move forward with this. Um, back to um, one of our public's comments was about um, loud, you know, disturbance of equipment, especially tree removal equipment because there's the um, um, what do you call it when you put the tree in to get the

muler. Thank you. It's almost 10:00. Okay. So, the mulching really is loud and I remember just having my tree um trimmed and that wire put in and they were there eight men for probably eight hours. Luckily, I have good neighbors. I talked to all of them. So, just to remind the public, our sound ordinance or is 10 to 10 10 in the morning to 10 at night. What's No, I think it's 7 a.m. to Oh, they can start that early.

Yeah, I believe the noise ordinance is starts at 7:00 a.m. We'll have to look. We'll look it up in the background. I can remember the time.

Okay. Only because only because I I know if I was trying to sleep in and my neighbor was mulching a tree next door at 7 in the morning. Wow. That's I'm retired. I forget what people's um get up that early. Um the um the equipment that I if the hours could come back and I know we probably wouldn't be mulching after dark. So anyway, um I think a lot of the historic trees were planted by probably Mr. McNeer's wife back in the 1800s on D Street. And I talked to someone who had bought a heritage home on Keller Street and they said they bought the history of that tree being planted. They know they have, you know, they have sidewalk conditions to deal with around that tree, but they said the tree came with the house and they, you know, it's going to have expenses along with the sidewalk. And so anyway, I just want to put that plug in there that people know that when they buy a home with a street tree that was planted probably by a mayor's wife back in the 1800s that it's probably going to have to be early 1900s. It's going to have to have some extra care and expense. So anyway, thank you for everyone who had anything to do with this. It's a long read. I did not read it three times. I read it once and highlighted, but um thank you,

Council Member Quinn.

Thank you. Uh yeah, I just want to echo all of the um the accolades and the thank yous for uh our relief pedaluma. U you know, I I personally benefited from a relief tree right in the middle of my front yard. I'm grateful for it. Um I drive by or bike by or walk by Deloro Park every day and uh it has a bunch of relief trees planted in it. Uh and you see that all over town and um it absolutely makes our town better. Uh it makes our um it it it will go a long way for helping our climate and I'm excited to um support this. Thank you,

Council Member Shribs.

Okay. Long time coming. I've been uh working with trees now. Started the nursery 20 years, more than 20 years ago now. So I've been growing trees and um worked with relief at the beginning. Get that going. Uh was on the tree committee u for like 10 years. Chair of that for maybe I think like six or eight of those years. Um so I'm all for this. I'm I'm really glad we're finally here making this happen. So this is like a bucket list item for me um making this happen. Um, so I'm I'm very much in favor of moving forward with with what we already have, which is a very robust, very extensive, comprehensive ordinance right now. And there's always staff even in in the permit process, staff does have there's always a little flexibility that can kind of negotiate, move around if it comes down to either fines and fees also to okay, replacement trees about what type of quantity. There is a there staff has flexibility in in the process, not done in stone. So, knowing that, I'm happy to leave it up to staff for that whatever those details, the flexibilities. We'll work on the fines maybe next time, uh, coming in here, fines and fees, but I'm all fully supportive of this whole process. The 6 in I probably would have gone for um maybe 8 in, but I said no, 6 in is just fine. That's a good starting point. If we need to back it up later, let's back it up u after we see how the public responds and make sure that the process works. I want to get this working and I want it in in play. Make it happen now and then if we need to modify it, we can modify it later. But I'm all for making this happen right now tonight as is. Thank you. And I'll make the mo movement motion to to move it at this point unless you have something else to add.

And but before we do that, I would like you to make the motion, but uh you know, out of respect, but I'm going to hold off asking you to do that till we bring it back to staff and the one or two items that we were talking about amending. And council member Barnacle is you and staff on a wavelength here.

Yeah. On the 17.070 tree replacement A, it says all removals approved but not associated with a development project shall be replaced at a ratio of one tree per 12 in of trunk diameter or portion thereof. The applicant may plant replacement trees on site or pay the applicable inloo fee or combination of the two to fully satisfy the requirement. Could we add a sentence after that that says, you know, this requirement may be um waved if an applicant can demonstrate a financial hardship. U Eric and I were um noodling about that about the exemption and thinking it might be good to work it in when we bring the fees back to build in some exemption from um inloo fee or um permit fee for um financial hardships.

That's that's perfect too. I didn't know whether we could do the replacement and the in and the the permit together but um that works for me. Wonderful. And um I think you also had something about garage ADU.

Uh I would like to suggest that we add um a new 17070 B that says all TR tree removals associated with a development permit. And if you go back to the definition of development permit, that's a building permit. Um, on a privately owned parcel that is developed with an existing single family residence shall be replaced at a ratio of one tree, minimum 15 gallon per 12 in of trunk diameter or portion thereof. The applicant may plant replacement trees on site or pay the applicable inluff fee or a combination of the two to fully satisfy the required tree replacement. This is that kind of that section that was brought up is if you're doing an ADU in your backyard or a shed or a pool, do you fall into becoming a um development project the same? So it it it reiterates that that is remains that lower replacement level. So I if if if the council when there is a motion that would be um a clarification that staff would encourage. The other um clarification is um oh bear with me. Where did it go? Um it's 060 tree removal permits when a permit required suggesting that it should read it is unlawful to remove or relocate any street tree or any tree with a trunk diameter of 6 in. There should be a permit required for removal of any street tree. It's the city city street

tree in the city right ofway and somehow that got dropped. So even if it's a street tree of 5 in, you still need a permit because it is a street tree and we need to there needs to be a permit review for that and that'll be an encroachment slashtreat. Yeah.

And and mayor and council, could I ask a quick follow-up question to council member Barnacle's um suggestion? Um, totally agree with Heather and we did have the sidebar conversation about the best place to do fee exemptions is when we come back with the fee um, enactment for the council. Um, but it sound like council member Barnacle wanted to also create an exemption for the replacement requirement itself. And I just wanted to clarify. Yeah, that's what I was think like the replacement requirement. If the enloo fee is going to be done by that and someone says I'm not paying it could be handled through the inloo fee, right? They could say I'm not going to replace it and I have a financial hardship for the inloo fee and then

right we can totally do it that way. But the clarification I wanted to to get was did you want to exempt the replacement requirement altogether or just the fee? Do do you do you see the distinction? Um so that if someone had a hardship they they wouldn't they wouldn't have the Yeah. They wouldn't have to replace it. But they could say that they don't want to replace it. They would rather pay the fee anyway. And then and then there's an exemption in the feed that that works. That works. Okay, that's fine with me.

Ben just brought up a good um a important point and we had talked about this previously. If you what we want to make sure is that there isn't it doesn't there's not a dis disproportionate lack of tree replacement in disadvantaged communities within Paluma. So we might want to think about in such a case there there's a city supplement or program to replace the tree or pay the replacement for the replacement. Or you might find that over time you're seeing more loss and less replacement in areas of the city that actually need more trees because of a long history of not having that same investment. So I think I think it's probably something as part of the fees we should look at how exactly we do that to make sure we're not creating a situation moving forward. If I could if I could go ahead.

It just feels like a partnership with our our partners and here in the audience who can help address the the tree shortages in in those communities, right? Because because what we're talking about here is replacements and and avoiding and regulating those versus programs to add canopy where it's lacking. That's sort of on us and our partners. So I I think that from a policy standpoint that makes sense in terms of implementation. Okay, let's bring in one more point point of view here. Vice Mayor,

um do we then have to establish criteria for what is a hardship? We will when that comes back we'll have to have some nice clear you know and we could peg it to things like um you know some of the language we have and some and about income levels like for for some of our programs that are that are pretty well established um or some other factors so we can staff can noodle that when we come back so that you can give us clear direction about that when you make a decision about fees. Okay. Um yes.

Uh two other minor modifications. The title of section enforcement violation violations and enforcement. Um and then also um under the penalties as um indicating that it's a it's a penalty and it's also required replacement. Think we're all clear on that. And the language should be too.

Um, just weighing back in on the hardship thing. I think that's for a construction building permit. Would seem to be very hard to declare a hardship if you were in such project. I we don't have any problem including but I think for a practical matter we're not looking at risk to this. I'm thinking uh senior citizen on fixed income living in an old house that has a tree that's growing over and she's going to he or she is going to um have their insurance canled and it's a hardship, right? And there's a tree replacement required because of

because they're going to cut down a tree. So, they're supposed to replace it, but you know, they can basically say, "Hey, look, I'm you know, I'm on a fixed income. Like, I've got enough problems around the house, whatever." Yeah, great clarification. Thanks. Did you want to make a motion consistent with uh the amendments we've talked about? Um well, first a question on um uh adding in the hardship and and reducing fees. I think already don't we already have a process like in all the permitting processes that if there's hardship, they're trying to get a permit done, but there's hardships that they could actually get some reduction in in some of the fees or costs. There's there's no across the board mechanism like that.

Method like that. Okay. Just then then then then I would be fine if whatever language needed to be added in then. So well we'll we'll newly I think the council's given good direction about that. We'll come back with some choices that I think will work for you about when you act on the fees. Okay. With that I'd like to make the motion to move this item. I'll second that. Okay. So, we have a motion by Shribs and a second by Kater Thompson and a roll call vote, please. Is that inclusive of the modifications that staff mention? Yes. All the modifications that you've uh suggested uh to be included. Okay. Thank you. Barnacle. Hi. Cater Thompson.

Yes. D Carly. Yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Shri, no. No. Oh. Oh, I mean yes. McDonald. Yes. Motion carries unanimously. That's wonderful. Congratulations.

And thank everybody. I thank staff for putting this together. I know what a heavy lift it was and thank all the participants who stayed the course on this. Good night. We have one more item and I um that item is item 11 and it's an adoption of an urgency ordinance first reading and um the non-urgency ordinance and um the city council amending chapter 1709 of the pedalum municipal code all electric construction in newly constructed buildings uh to convert chapter 1709 to a policy promoting but not requiring electrification in new construction and substantial remod models in support of building electrification, economic, public safety, and greenhouse gas benefits. Continuing the city's non- enforcement of chapter 1709 since the ruling of California Res Association, City of Berkeley, April 2023, eliminating all mandatory electrification requirements and directing staff to continue research potential policies and programs for achieving the city's blueprint for climate action goals consistent with applicable law. And before we actually have staff to to jump in, we had a council comment. Uh, I'll be recusing uh because I work in the area of building electrification out of abundance of caution. Thank you.

Please have the record show the council member Barnacle is recusing for this um item. And with that, we have our city attorney, Eric Danley, to take it away.

Thanks you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, good evening, council. Um, members of the public and staff. Eric Danley, city attorney. Thank you for laboring through that um completely non-catchy item title. Mr. Mayor did a great job. So, I'm planning to be brief in introducing this item, but ready to answer any questions of the council. This is really an action to conform the city's municipal code with our practice regarding electrification regulations um that we've been following since the city of Berkeley decision of the Ninth Circuit was was filed. So, some quick background. Uh, May 17th, 2021, the council adopted chapter 17.09 in the Pedalum Municipal Code. It enacted local amendments, the California Building Standards Code. Um, the city was among 70 California jurisdictions that adopted electrification requirements, but many of them did it did them in different ways. Some police power regulations, some building code changes. Um, enacting chapter 17.0 09 was consistent with the city's climate emergency framework which identified electrification to eliminate fossil fuel use in buildings as a strategy um and action to help the city achieve its carbon neutrality goals. So not too long afterward um in April 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit invalidated the city of Berkeley's ordinance prohibiting natural gas infrastructure in new buildings. Um the Berkeley regulations unlike pedal limos were just under its police power not building code regulations but the court's ruling in that case was very broad and it said that um the energy policy and conservation act which regulates the energy efficiency of certain covered consumer products actually preempts local ordinances that effectively prohibit the installation of

natural gas appliances or infrastructure. Um so regardless of whether local regulations provided for electrification um in in the local building codes or just as a police power regulation um the um ruling would would prohibit um the local requirements um for electrification in new buildings and in Paluma's case substantial remodels. Um, I'm just going to note that that was um the ruling was caught many of us by surprise given its breath and the fact that EPA was really only regulating um providing for consistent regulation of energy efficiency standards as opposed to choices of of building energy. Um and I'm also going to note that um the US government itself was an amikas in that litigation in support of Berkeley's regulations not opposed but in support and so there's no mention of that in the ruling or this national league of cities or league of California cities am there's a lot of amicuses in support of of the Berkeley regulations. It was surprising there's no mention of that in the court's ruling. So, um, fast forward to January 5, 2026 this year. Um, despite the city's non- enforcement of chapter 1709's electrification requirements, the US Department of Justice um filed suit against the cities of Pedalum and Morgan Hill challenging the electrification regulations. Um, the complaint alleges the cities are preempted, the regulations are preempted by EPA, which was not that that conclusion was not a surprise to us since we concluded that ourselves after the ruling of the Ninth Circuit. Um, um, and we didn't have a chance to confer with the the Department of Justice since

we found out about the litigation um, with the press release that was issued the same day it was filed. Um given the foregoing, our recommendation to the council is to amend chapter 17.09 to um convert the chapter to a policy that encourages but does not require all electric construction in new construction and substantial remodels. the proposed um amendments to our code um the urgency version and the regular version. The urgency version which we're recommending the council adopt tonight and the regular version that we that we recommend the council give first reading to tonight um would accomplish that. All the mandatory requirements have been eliminated. Um um we would also um the the draft that we presented to the council for action would also include direction to staff to continue to evaluate legally defensible approaches to advance the city's climate action plan goals in light of the ninth circuit decision and other applicable law as well as the pending federal litigation. And that concludes my introduction of this item. Be happy to take any questions from the council. Thank you.

Thank you very much for that report. Any questions from the council? Council member Shrebs. Okay. So, um, a little bit on this. Uh, we've gotten two letters from one of our constituents, uh, with raising two questions. Hopefully, they will be fairly easy to answer. Uh, first was that, um, did we require uh, Living Spirit um to do all electric? Was it a requirement for them or was it a option that they did voluntarily?

I I just I just um summarized for the council what our conclusions were when the Ninth Circuit opinion was filed um and what the legal recommendation was and what my understanding of our practice has been. I don't have specific details about that particular project, but we can review question got raised. I thought I'd just get it answered. Well, yes and and and I can I can we can follow up and provide more detail to the council about that.

Okay. Just if there was a case, but assuming uh you are correct, we have not u required it on any at this point. That is my understanding and that has certainly been the recommendation of my office since I mean as I think you can tell from my comments tonight and I think you can recall from from communications um with my office and the council that we followed all those developments pretty closely. Just wanted to get the clarity on that. Yes,

because that was raised raised question. Um the second one um having gone through both the Cal Green and also T24 reports for like even the ADU I built the state has strong requirements um for electrification and how that's done along with working with P Gen and given those expectations now uh being required from the state level uh is is it really necess since these are recommendations rather than requirements do we really need this ordinance at all at this point because the state pretty much has the recommendations in there through their T24 process and Cal Green process. It's still recommend. So, do we even need this as within our our own rules since we're just recommending?

Can we just Well, that's for the council to decide, but um what we're presenting tonight is um is responsive to the council's direction about this issue. Yeah. So, I just wanted to raise that as a possibility. See if we just um instead of just making the extensive changes, just just eliminating it entirely. Is there any problem with that? Any foreseeable issue? Council member, I think that's for your colleagues to decide. We're here presenting this item consistent with my understanding of the council's direction on this issue.

That's right. we that's we're we're in um a situation and we want to make sure our position is clear. So um I think that's what we asked to be brought forward. Um and so after we do public comment maybe we'll um discuss that on amongst ourselves here. Oh that that's good. I just wanted to raise it up as possible and if there's any problems if we went that way. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? No I'll wait for comment. Comments or questions? I have a question. Um, are we sure that making the ordinance voluntary is the equivalent to repealing it as far as protecting the city

from what? From the lawsuit. So it is our it is my view um um and the view of outside council that um if the council takes the action that we've presented tonight consistent with the council's direction that the litigation that's been brought will be moot.

Okay. Thank you. At the same time, also consistent with the council's direction, um the council has some very strong commitments and policies through its climate action plan or blueprint for for climate action as it's now called to respond to climate change and carbon neutrality goals. Um and there's lots of scientific facts including lots of citations in this action before the council tonight. um which citations are from the US government agencies. Um so so um this action is um um consistent with the ninth circuit ruling. It we believe would make the complaint moot. Um but it also is um responsive to and continues to support in a general way the council's climate change response goals. So and my understanding is that's been our direction. So it's the council it's the council's decision to make. Um it's not for us to prescribe. So thank you. I was going to ask in somewhat of a rhetorical way if we ever felt that this was intended to be followed up on, you know, with sufficient case to invest federal resources to do this, but I think that's best said as rhetorical. And I'll move it over to public comment at this time.

We did receive four public comments on this item ahead of the meeting. And I think I have one card incoming. Our first public speaker tonight is Shantel Rogers.

Hi. Um, there's a couple things I wanted to say. Um, first off, it seems a little disingenuous to me to say, well, the city um had this ordinance on the books, but since this time it didn't enforce the ordinance. So, so what does that mean to developers who came to the city? that the ordinance is on on the books and uh and so that's what they are presenting and the reason that spirit living came up I'm sure with whoever wrote to you is because uh it was like 6 months after the Berkeley issue where they came through and said we're doing all electric and we're doing it because the city of Paluma has this mandate date on the books. They have a restaurant there. Nobody wants a restaurant with electric, you know, if you don't if you don't have to. Um the other project is the Gallagher project that's all electric. Great. Well, Bill Gallagher sued the city of Santa Rosa over their gas um uh you know, they're they're trying to get rid of of gas in in infrastructure as a developer. So I think it's pretty, you know, you could it's not a stretch to imagine that he would not have preferred for his um um project to be all electric, but that's what Paluma was um saying that they that they that they wanted. So I mean at this point this is sort of neither here nor there. Um, but I don't think it's helpful to come back and do basically the same thing and say, well, we suggest,

you know, this is this is what we'd like you to do. It's voluntary. You know, I mean, what's going to be wellreceived by the city? It that's not the same as saying we don't have that because it's not legal for us to have that mandate anymore. you can voluntarily do what the city wants you to do and I would imagine wink wink nudge nudge that you would get a better reception from the city and I I don't know that that's fair for developers to have to um navigate that those nuances. It should be really clear if if we if we're not going to do it, then it should be off and everybody who comes um should be um you know uh evaluated under the same criteria whether they're going gas or electric. Otherwise, it's not really I don't think um fair or clear to anybody who might want to develop in town. So those are just my thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. Um and that closes public comment for the item. Bringing it back up to council and back to our city attorney.

Just to address a few things just briefly. Um Mr. Mayor, thank you. Um first, the Galer project is not an all electric project. Um secondly, I want to just read from um the purpose um section policy and purpose of what's been brought before the council section 17.09.005 voluntary nature. The provisions of this chapter are advisory and voluntary. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require as a condition of project approval or otherwise all electric construction or to prohibit an otherwise code compliant fuel choice. Any project applicant's choice in favor of the building electrification encouraged by this chapter is voluntary and is not a condition of application completeness, permit issuance, inspection approval, or granting of a certificate of occupancy. That's we think pretty clear. Thank you.

Thank you. I think um and just to kick this off, I think this document does two things for us. One, puts us in a better legal place. Not that we were in a bad legal place, but it puts us in a very clear legal place and so I support it. Second, it reiterates our climate imperatives. We um we've made commitments in so many programs and and as I noted earlier, sometimes it's an uncomfortable place with trees and overreach and things like this, but sometimes you have to make the statement for the values and the values are cl for climate are strong. So encouraging participation in a shared vision is a great thing and having to have one more strong statement that that's our values here in Paluma even though it's not a requirement. I think that the document does those two things really well. So anyone with any council member Kater Thompson? just um my comment is that I'm hoping the administration will end one day and so then we can actually um talk about things like um climate again and that we're not getting sued all the time and you know let's be real clear. We have a mad man in the White House and we are going to go ahead and just throw an ordinance out to accommodate him? No, I don't think so. I think this is we do this for our city. This is completely mandatory. I mean, it's not mandatory, it's voluntary. And um and what we're finding, what developers are finding, it's cheaper to actually go electric instead of gas. And so that's why they're going in that direction. And yet they're still putting some gas in for certain things. But um this is the future. And I just don't feel as though we should bend for somebody that just wants to have a war for everything and then we're going to

bend for that. And so I'm very happy to move this and just move on.

Hold that thought for one second. I want to see if there's any other comments. That's Council Member Quint. Yeah, I as I was sitting here listening to um folks deliberate on this uh I was thinking about the question of, you know, should we just repeal it uh or should we amend it as proposed? And I think what was going through my mind, mayor, is really the same as what you eloquently articulated is that it's a statement of our values. And so I would advocate that we um that we approve it and um really to reiterate the statement of our values.

Thank you. Do you have any council member? Now,

um, three years ago, um, when I got elected and I I knew this ordinance had been approved by the prior council and I was talking to, um, the restaurant chef Charlie Palmer, and I said, "Do you know Paluma has this all electric? How is that going to work in your world famous kitchen in Paluma?" and he says a lot of communities have gone in this direction and myself and other chefs have learned to use electric. We do prefer gas but we have learned to think about the future. So that told me that okay, it's it's okay to um think about the future and I think that is why that council put this in place and I'm ready to move forward to do whatever we need to make it voluntary and keep our city out of lawsuits. Thank you,

Council Member Shri. Um yeah also um talking about the restaurants and I've seen enough um webinars by celebrity chefs now and other places that there is a movement restaurants are moving to induction stoves particularly um they're finding that um because if you have gas you have to have much larger air filtrations you have the smells involved you have carbon dioxide poisoning for the workers that are in in the site um and so the HVAC systems have to be much stronger longer. Uh so costs are much higher uh that they discovered using gas and that turns out the induction stoves turned out to be more efficient anyway. They they're even hotter now than even the hot gas stoves. They could they even make them hotter than the gas stoves. Um so uh faster heating, more low cost. So there is a movement for restaurants to actually go that direction. It's going to take some training and time, but it is happening. So that that's one thing I just wanted to from the comment that was made earlier. The second thing is um a couple of the questions I asked. I just wanted a clarity of what the truth was and what we're really about. I'm totally in favor of what has been said that we have set a policy. We are climate change. That's what we are all about. What's where we go going and so I absolutely emphatically want to keep this where we're going. I think uh our city attorney did a great job of the conver converting the language and if we can do that and still keep an ordinance that is recommending um I'm all in favor of that keeping us in within our policy. So I just want to be clear about where I'm coming from and why I'm asking questions and where I want to go. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll make that motion. We have a motion from Kater Thompson. A second. A second from now and looking for a roll call vote, please. Barnacle is recused. Kater Thompson, yes. D Carly, yes. Now, yes. Quint, yes. Shri, yes. McDonald, yes. Motion carries unanimously. Thank you. That and um I'm let me just clarify that was a motion for both the urgent and that was for the agenda item as recommended. So that is two ordinances, one of which we'll see again as a second reading. Correct.

Yeah. All right. Um, great meeting everybody. Thank you very much for all your efforts. This meeting is ajourned.