City Council - Regular Meeting

Mr. Mayor the time is 6 o'clock are we ready to begin we are ready to begin

Recording in progress.

Oh, good. Okay. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the regular meeting of the Petaluma City Council Petaluma Community Development Successor Agency for Monday, July 20th, 2026. As you know, we've recently begun accepting public comments, both in person and via Zoom, and this is in compliance with State Bill 707, which is an update to the Brown Act, California's open meeting law. Because this is a new process, we do ask for your patience as staff gets used to the technology and work on refining our procedures. So as per our regular procedures, if you wish to provide a public comment on tonight's agenda and are joining us in person, please fill out a speaker card. They're located in the hallway outside the chamber and bring it to our clerk who is at the front of the chambers. As per the new procedures, for those who are participating via Zoom, please raise your hand virtually when the item is called. Those participating over phone and Zoom can raise your hand by pressing star nine. The city clerk will provide these instructions during each public comment period. So please do not raise your hand yet. Please wait until, to raise your hand until the item is called. Please note that concurrent translations services are available in this meeting in Spanish and a variety of other languages. And to access translation services online, please use the link on the agenda. To access the language in the room, please scan the QR code on the sign in the back of the room. Okay. So, Madam Clerk, with that, let's have our roll call for the evening.

Barnacle?

Present.

Cater Thompson? Present.

Here.

DiCarli?

Here.

Now?

Here.

Quint?

Here.

Shribs? Here. McDonald?

Here.

And we do have a quorum.

Wonderful, thanks. And let's all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. In a moment of silence, please. Now, from time to time, the Council uses this opportunity to honor a member of the Petaluma community who has contributed to the fabric of Petaluma through their efforts and life and has recently passed. Tonight is a moment of such honor and sadness, and I'd like to close tonight's meeting in honor of Bernie Albom. Bernie passed away this month at the age of 90 and had been active in Petaluma issues until just recently. Bernie had been involved in so much of Petaluma over so many years that I can't cover it all, but he was a science teacher. And that doesn't begin to cover or describe Bernie. So let me read just one quote from the press Democrat in 2007. A small sign on D Street reminds cyclists to ride on the right side of the road with the traffic. Fittingly, the sign is on the wrong side of the road where cyclists who are not... where cyclists who are not riding with the traffic will see it. Fittingly, the sign is bilingual. This is since many local cyclists hail from Mexico, where the custom is to ride against the flow of traffic. Bernie did this. Bernie was an out-of-the-box thinker and achiever. Bernie is a recipient of the Sonoma County Lifetime Environmental Achievement Award. He was a member of the county and of Petaluma's bike advisory committees. He was instrumental in the starting bike to work day in the county. He worked with COTS to help their clients succeed. He is a founding member of the Friends of Lynch Creek Trail. And I'm pretty sure that Bernie bicycled to heaven and formed a committee to help make it better there. Tonight we'll be closing the meeting in honor of Bernie. So at this point in the meeting, we looked at our agenda and I look up and down the dice to see whether tonight's agenda has any modifications to be made on it. And seeing no council member proposing, then the council agenda tonight is exactly as you see it in your handouts or online. And we move now to general public comments. And as for our regular procedures during general public comment, the public is invited to make comments on items of public interest that are within the city council's subject matter jurisdiction and that are not listed on the current agenda. Public comments are limited to three minutes per person. And depending on the number of persons wishing to address the council, time will be allocated in equal shares equaling no more than 20 minutes. As for our new procedures, and as a reminder, we will now be accepting comments from Zoom as well as in person. The in-person and remote commenters will be granted equal time. So if we have more than 20 people wishing to speak, the first 10 in-house speakers will get to speak and the first 10 remote speakers will be able to speak. Zoom tracks the order of hands that raise, and we'll work from that list. In order for Zoom and in-person participants to know if they have the first 10 or not, then the names of the speakers will all be announced. Additional comments will be heard after the last business item on the agenda. If there are less than 10 in each in-person and online, then we will balance out until 20 speakers have been heard in the evening. So we will hear the in-person comments first. I will call speakers to the podium. Once these have concluded, the city clerk will call upon remote speakers to unmute themselves and in turn make their comments. It's a bit of a learning experience for all of us, so I appreciate your patience in this new procedures. And back over to the city clerk here.

So we did receive eight comments ahead of the meeting, and also there are 20 attendees joining via Zoom. So at this point, I will start a 30-second clock for general public comment. During these 30 seconds members of the public attending in person should bring their speaker speaker cards to the clerk's desk if they have not already done so, and members of the public attending online should raise their virtual hand. Those attending via phone should press 9 to raise their hand and speaker requests received after this time may not be accommodated. Okay, we did receive three hands online, and those are S. Kirks, Veronica O., and Theodora Scarato.

So we have three hands raised.

Three hands online and 12 comments.

And we have 12 cards right here.

So 15 total.

So that's a 15 total. And so with 15 speakers, it's one minute each speaker tonight. And it looks like everybody gets a chance. So our first speaker is Christopher Brown. To be followed by Jennifer Boyle.

My name is Christopher Brown. I'm from Little Woods Mobile Home Park. And I'm here just to state that the psychological terrorism from Harmony Communities continues. Our parking is still abominable. Bullying is being continued. And it feels as they operate without impunity. The City Council, you guys have been great. everybody is supportive has been great. But I just feel like nothing's happening with them and there's no there's no they're operating with no impunity. That's what I got.

Thank you very much Jennifer Boyle to be followed by Tina Yonkers.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council, City staff. We, the mobile home park residents at Youngstown, Littlewoods, and Capri continue to feel the weaponization and intimidation in our parks. Youngstown mobile home owners and management continue to make to market and sell mobile homes they own to all age families. This is still unlawful as the senior park overlay zoning has remained in effect since October 2023. AD20 still does not allow any mobile home to be sold as all ages, nor does it allow purchase agreements, leases or rules and regulations to say anything but senior park as spelled out in the lawful zoned ordinance. Under California laws and note, And notably, federal laws and local laws, the following apply. Possible civil violations. Fraud or intentional misrep...

Thank you. Our next speaker is Tina Yonkers, to be followed by Marie Cuneo.

Okay.

Thank you. Possible civil violations, fraud or intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, violations of state consumer protection laws, breach of contract or warranty failure to make required disclosures, unfair business practices, possible criminal violations, theft by false pretenses, real estate or business fraud, forgery or falsification of documents, perjury. A, B. 2596, which just codifies existing laws for senior parks, will be on the consent floor in the California State Senate when legislatures resume work August 3rd. In addition, I know I won't be able to finish this, so I'll just leave it at that.

Marie Coneo, to be followed by Jimmy Rankin.

Thank you.

Thank you. In addition, Little Woods and Capri both have been served with another arbitration with the clear intent to bleed residents legally dry since large equity park owners are not winning the arbitrations. Abuse, frivolous pleadings, and intimidation are among these egregious acts. Youngstown, Capri, and Little Woods mobile home parks residents have and continue to experience reduction of services of pools, keys, clubhouse hours, management hours, trash, overcharges, and demand credit. These permits to operate in Petaluma should be suspended immediately. We have heard rumblings from a few non-mobile park disgruntled residents that the city of Petaluma is not prevailing in court and just learning about one case where it was not dismissed immediately. The cases in the federal, thank you.

Thank you. Jimmy Rankin to be followed by Kelly Rankin.

Hello. So I live on Vallejo and D Street. The company Rebuild Petaluma Together has opened a house on 316 Vallejo Street, which they call a shared housing development. They have a lot of people there that are using drugs. We've seen prostitutes walking down the street, people speeding up and down the street that we've never seen before. I grew up in this neighborhood. I've lived there for 32 years. We have not had problems like this recently. People's houses have been being broken into and there's a preschool not more than half a block away. So I just feel scared because I work an hour and a half away from home and I get a call from my wife saying that the back gate to our backyard has been open to close until my dog ran around the corner. and started barking, and that's when the door closed. So I just don't feel safe in my neighborhood anymore since this house is open. And it's only been three weeks, maybe a month, that they have been living here. Thank you.

Thank you. Kelly Rankin, to be followed by Mark Kimberly.

Okay, I'm on the same topic that he's on. So our neighborhood has gone downhill again, and I'm super disappointed in the city for this. Nobody in the neighborhood was informed that this would be happening. We were not consulted. We have been a neighborhood that has had its share of homeless in the area, in the armory. with the soup kitchens where the home for this place is now. And so we finally have this neighborhood with these beautiful families. Look right here, these beautiful babies walking through the street all the time. And now they're afraid. One of this couple back here doesn't even want to buy a house in our neighborhood because of this situation. And Mayor, what I was told is this was your idea. So I just want you to understand that the community, I'm speaking for a lot of people. I've been talking to all my neighbors. The fear is big. This couple back here has their houses to the back. They're here screaming, yelling, cussing all the time, all throughout the night. Again, we are seeing all kinds of things, and they're about to bring in 10 shipping containers and build more houses for low-income housing, so I can only imagine it's gonna get worse.

Thank you. Mark Kimberly, to be followed by Tim Porteus.

I have here this government-issued license plate, 135-7501. I found it in Santa Rosa. According to DMV, this belongs on a vehicle that's owned by the City of Petaluma, but not in the possession of City of Petaluma. There was no release of liability filed. The government plate's not returned, so the vehicle has not been sold. It's just missing, but no one here seems to know about it. I investigated further and I found the actual truck as well. It's sitting in Santa Rosa in front of 1906 Bel Air Way. I suggest that you report it stolen and have Santa Rosa PT retrieve that for you tonight. Guess who lives there? I'll give you a hint. His initials are MS, and him and his corporation were fired by the city of Petaluma and six others recently. You know, the same guy that built millions of dollars out of all of you in this city over the last eight years. You did nothing. The same guy who allegedly killed animals and falsified records to hide it, as you all did nothing. The same guy you all protected and covered for for years, ignoring all reports and complaints. Yes, that's the guy. Here's your license plate.

Thank you. Tim Porteus to be followed by Christine White.

Hello. The cases in Federal and Sonoma County Court that have been dismissed are over. The additional frivolous pleadings, in our opinion, are headed the same way. There is not one case where the large investment mobile park owners have prevailed dating back to 2003 in Petaluma's surrounding areas. Different judges, different opinions, but when all the facts are shown, they produce the same result. These residents do not want notoriety nor even recognition for standing up for the truth. They simply want peace, calm, legitimate business practices that follow the city, state, and federal existing laws. Sadly, we have lost some of our seniors as recently as three days ago that never saw their money returned or their social security in their past last days on a mobile home that they own. Our city has stood tall in the protection of the most vulnerable as they have voted time and time again after careful analysis to defend, enforce, and strengthen their own laws and ordinances.

Thank you. Thank you. Christina White, followed by Michael Shapiro.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. First of all, I wanted to just say I am so sorry for everything that Little Woods is going through. It's just I've listened to it time after time at all these meetings, and it's just I empathize with you. I wish I could do something. I cannot. But know that you have people who are thinking good things for you. Secondly, I'd like to say thank you to Chris Cornett for their grazing. They, for the first time, have grazed behind our home, and they are still back there. The sheep will be back there for probably another week, so it's phenomenal, and they're doing such a great job, so we feel protected. And lastly, I've been approached by many people asking me about data centers and what is Petaluma. Have I heard anything at the city council meeting about the data centers? I know fairgrounds are being approached to put in data centers. Big concern for everybody is water. We have a water issue here in California, here everywhere. We need to have water for our people. And Data centers use a lot of water. So just concerns, and I don't know when that's going to come up in a city council meeting. Thank you.

Thank you. Michael Shapiro to be followed by Jexi Mondragon.

Good evening. I'm here to make my annual plea to ban gas-powered leaf blowers. I don't know how to get this accomplished, but I do know that communities that have done this have reported that the quality of life has vastly improved. Much less noise, far fewer fumes from these gas-powered leaf blowers. These leaf blowers burn gas and oil, and about a third of that is expelled in an aerosol, so it's basically an airborne oil spill. And this is what we and our kids are breathing. I was in Washington, D.C. Two months ago they have successfully banned gas powered leaf blowers. I spoke to a gardener, I spoke to a woman at the Smithsonian who manages the garden there. Everybody's thrilled with it and I can actually document that with video if you're interested. Petaluma has a great climate ready plan. We're three and a half years away from 2030, less than that actually. And if the goal is really carbon neutrality, one of the easiest and most productive ways of getting there is to do a slow but gradual and progressive ban of gas-powered leaf blowers. You can start with a few months a year and then go from there. Thank you very much.

And our next speaker will be Jexi Mondragon, to be followed by Nina Zito.

I'm good evening council. Thank you for all the hard work you guys do to upkeep my little P-town hometown. I appreciate it, but I'm here to ask you, I'm here to ask more of you as so many folks for me have. I have recently been aware of how many flock cameras we have around the city of Petaluma. And I would request that if the contract is coming up soon, I remember that was something that was mentioned at some point. It might be open for community discussion that we do not renew the contract with flock. They are tracking people's locations. They're lying about keeping our data. They can be easily hacked, and they're using AI, and the AI can get it wrong. And they're giving our data to ICE, which is a transition that I'm also requesting that when the council puts it on the agenda for a non-cooperation ordinance with ICE, that every one of you does the right thing and votes in favor of a no-cooperation ordinance. Thank you.

Thank you. And Nina Zito, and then we go to our Zoom participants.

Thank you, Council. I appreciate the Council's creativity in making public comment available. I'd like to point out that it feels disrespectful to folks who make the not inconsiderable effort to show up. and take time from their day and to have their remarks weighted with people who just feel it's enough to dial in. And I do feel that's disrespectful. Perhaps that time can be allotted differently, or perhaps people can provide a reason why they can't show up in person. But it invites flooding the zone, as we've learned to think, with stakeholder remarks that don't necessarily reflect the will of the community. Thank you. I think this is important.

Thank you. Now over to our clerk to do the Zoom work.

We did also receive one late hand up. I don't know if you want to accept one additional speaker. Sorry, online.

Please do that.

Okay. So we'll start with S. Kirks. I'm going to allow you to speak and then ask you to please unmute yourself and make your comment.

Good evening. Susan Kirks, Petaluma. The city of Petaluma has engaged in eight harmful and destructive actions at the Paula Lane open space property in West Petaluma. I'm speaking about one of those this evening with the need to correct that action. About 10 days ago, a little fawn was struck by a vehicle and severely injured on Bodega Avenue at Paula Lane. The fawn was down at Bodega Avenue with the mother doe and the other twin fawn where they never would have been had they had access to their natural home and habitat. The City of Petaluma has installed barbed wire fencing around the perimeter of the open space property on Paula Lane, and that fence should never have been installed, and it needs to be removed. That is my comment this evening. And by the way, the fawn was euthanized by Fawn Rescue after Marin Humane came and retrieved it.

Our next speaker will be Veronica Oh. Please unmute yourself and make your comment.

Hi, good evening. Council and community, thanks for allowing me to comment tonight. Data centers are a climate issue, and I want to name that. They cool through evaporation, consuming water that doesn't return to the supply, in a state already managing chronic doubt. And the power behind them mostly still comes from the grid that isn't fully clean yet. So every new facility adds real ongoing demand. at the exact moment when we're trying to bring down emissions and not add sources. A company called GlobalStack is pitching exactly at fairgrounds across the state. I don't want one at ours, and I don't want one anywhere on Sonoma County's farmland. This isn't the use that belongs on land we're trying to keep agricultural and climate resilient. My ask is to agendize a 12-month moratorium on data center land uses so the community can weigh in and staff can define this use and set standards before a proposal arrives rather than after. Thank you very much.

The next speaker is Theodora Scarato. I notice you lowered your hand. If you're still interested in making a comment.

Thank you. I'm testifying in support of agenda number two, consent request for a proposal for a data center moratorium. Data centers bring together nearly every type of pollution, air, water, land, light, noise, and EMF with impacts that can extend for miles. Communities are blindsided by proposals, and by the time residents become aware, it's often too late. I work on this issue nationwide. Cities, counties, and the state all have a role to play, and the first step is putting a regulatory framework in place before, not after, a data center proposal arrives. A proactive regulatory framework, it helps you avoid costly litigation, protects public health, and equally important, it spurs innovation towards lower impact AI infrastructure. Air pollution. As an example, a single hyperscale facility may have 40 to more than 50 diesel generators on site, and they are regularly run. A report by Caltech and the University of California, Riverside, reports called the Unpaid Toll, documents how data center air pollution is crossing state lines. It is steeply increasing fine particle pollution. And I did submit extensive documentation in my comments. Thank you.

Thank you very much for the comment. We're moving to our next Zoom speaker.

The next speaker is Andy Schrader.

Hey, Andy Schrader from Petaluma. The woman who said that we shouldn't have Zoom capability obviously doesn't have to pay $100 for childcare. Thanks for that comment, lady. I want to call in and second the ban on leaf blowers. I want to second getting rid of barbed wire that's inhibiting wildlife connectivity. I also want to second getting rid of flock. surveillance cameras. But most of all, I want to say that the City Council should hear and discuss data centers. I work on Colorado River compact issues. Lake Mead is at a record low. Lake Powell is at a record low. When Southern California can't get water, they take it from Northern California. And we really need to do everything we can to save water. Also, data centers will deeply inhibit the city's ability to meet its climate goals. So we need to do everything in our power to make sure that they don't come to Petaluma. And the city council should hear that as soon as possible. Thank you.

That's all of our online comments.

Thank you very much. That concludes the speakers for general public comment tonight. And I'd like to bring it back on up to the council. And this is our opportunity for council to report in on what they've been busy with since our last meeting. And I'll start with Council Member Shribbs.

Just one item to report. I was watching the news story on TV a week or two ago, and it turns out Sacramento is having an infestation of a new insect. It's called the Turkistan cockroach, not the Oriental, not the German. It's a Turkistan cockroach, which is a little different species than other cockroaches. It's new in town. It's come to Sacramento, and they think it may have come in on the planes from Travis Air Force Base that go to the Mideast area and back again over the last several years. So it's come in a few years ago, but apparently it's gotten really bad in Sacramento. However it is, we need to have awareness of it. And I got really aware of it because I think I have an infestation in my front yard. So anyway, I took the actions, I took all the recommendations, and it looks like, fortunately, it doesn't climb walls as well. It is an outdoor cockroach, not an indoor cockroach. It seeks water. It's the only reason it comes indoors. It doesn't like to climb, likes wet environments, mulches and the like. And so I did all those things, put out traps, cleaned out the yard, and pretty much got it under control. So I don't see any more. I haven't seen any in about three weeks. So that's been really good. That's a good report that is manageable. But be aware that there is a new insect here in town coming from other countries. So it's just something new to be aware of at this time. So when you see it, don't automatically assume a German oriental. It might be the new Turkestan. And they grow very fast and propagate. Anyway, just for awareness, thanks. Thank you. Okay.

That's disturbing. Thank you. Councilmember Quint. Yeah, that's a tough one to follow.

So I just, I don't have any liaison reports for tonight. I do want to say, I want to congratulate the Petaluma National Majors Little League team for beating Rincon Valley and winning the District 35 All-Star Tournament. They advanced to the Section 1 Tournament. This is the same team that in 2012 went all the way to the World Series, and if they continue to win, Who knows? They're a good team, a good group of kids playing, and some really good coaches over there. So share your support. I also want to share concerns. I wasn't here last week. I know there was discussion around ICE. I just want to share that I share our community's concerns over the actions of ICE. I'll leave it at that. And I also support a phased-out ordinance on gas leaf blowers. I realize that that's not a priority at this time, but I do think it's a good thing.

Thank you. Council Member Now?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I attended the Petaluma Police Department's display day, and you can still have the same opportunity on Tuesday, August 4th from 4 to 7 on the Petaluma Fairgrounds. Oh, sorry. You will get to see up close the equipment, enjoy free food, meet staff, win prizes, learn how to be safe in our local neighborhoods. It's a wonderful free family event. And I have a gift for the mayor here. Our local Petaluma Regional Library had a 50th anniversary. I was given the task of remembering opening day in 1976 when I was a sophomore at Petaluma High School. I was excited for a modern library to do research and homework and hang out with friends. Plus, this modern library had a copy machine. For our mayor, a book bag for the occasion. And I like to visit on Wednesdays when my grandkids get to read to the dogs at the library. On a more serious note, I want to address our city attorney about Little Words Parking. It's still an issue and a lot of the tenants have tenant agreements with the owner that they have parking privileges, but there is no parking privileges. And I'd like to have an update to the council on how that's going with the owners. And on the leaf blowers, I don't know where the gentleman went, but I would like to see maybe our Climate Protection Committee bring this back and talk about how we can do something in Petaluma. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Barnicle?

Yes, one update. I attended the ribbon cutting for the Sonoma Clean Power solar and storage project. It's a four megawatt project up in Mendocino County. It is currently our largest solar and storage project by a factor of four. It brings our evergreen portfolio to 20% served by local solar and storage. So quite a feat, and we're the only CCA in California that's serving 100% of our evergreen portfolio with local renewables.

Fabulous. Council Member Cater-Thompson?

Thank you. I, too, would like to, well, actually with the leaf blowers, I've been talking to Michael for a long time about this, and can this be just incorporated in the general plan, go in that direction since we're close to completing our general plan? And I would like an update on the house on Vallejo Street. You know, it's challenging when you're dealing with unhoused homes, And I think we just need to make sure that the neighbors feel protected and that what's happening or what they're saying, I want to know if that is happening. So I would like an update on that. And that's it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Vice Mayor DeCarli?

Good evening, everybody. Over at Parks and Rec, we elected new officers and there was no net change there. I think everybody stayed the same. We talked about there's a trail on the east side of town that's going to be getting a new name and kind of narrowed that down. I'll save that for when it comes to council. And then no airport meeting, but I will say that the taxiway is finished. Everything looks pretty good. I think they're wrapping up some few little things here and there. And then I Yeah, I did attend the rebuilding together, their new house that they just bought over on Vallejo. And as you saw, some neighbors came and just spoke about it. So I would kind of like to see, too, that we're doing a good thing by not introducing problems to neighbors over there. And, you know, the other weekend, it was a Swiss picnic in Penngrove outside of Petaluma, but a lot of Petalumans that go to it. So rich Swiss heritage around here. So that was fun. That's every year right after 4th of July if anybody ever wants to attend. And then I did also attend the library's 50th anniversary. As you heard, Councilwoman Nao gave a great speech there. John Sheehy talked about his bibliomania as a child. Harlan Osborn gave us what he put the common man's recant of libraries in town in that part of of Petaluma, and then Mary Dooley talked about her addition to the library that she did some years ago. And so that was really great, you know, great community thing. And then at the Sonoma County Fair, the 4-H auction is coming up. That's a great way to support agriculture to go out there. You know, the kids work really hard on these projects. It teaches them about business, responsibility, raising animals. And, you know, they're always looking for buyers to help support them. they'll use that money to further their projects, go to school, and help them really understand what responsibility is. That's all I have this evening. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I do want to address that Vallejo Street house. You know, I think it's a great step forward to try and provide low-income housing in the community and solve our homelessness problem. But a step forward can't be a step backward at the same time. We have to make sure that it doesn't harm the neighbors as we move on. Also, on a much lighter note, now that the World Cup has concluded and all normal business can continue, you know, I note how many watch parties there were around town and how that helped businesses. I was at TAPS to watch, but I love TAPS because I love the businesses that face the basin and then do well. And that all leads to, I want to commend the team that put, from the float house, that put together the huge Bands on the Basins Festival on July 11th. I mean, you could walk kayak to paddleboard to kayak right across the basin. It's just one more big fun thing in Petaluma. And I also want to commend the same weekend, Art and Garden Festival on July 12th, also another huge year. And I helped with the team that tabled for the improvements to the Trestle Promenade now, and thanks to Downtown Business Association for their efforts there. I attended the County Homelessness Coordination Committee meetings, and we're still moving on trying to reduce and get through the impacts that changes at the state and fed are bringing to our systems. I was able to help with the Chamber of Commerce with their new officer installation meeting, too. So I've been a busy short two weeks. And with that, I'd like to ask the city manager for her report.

Thank you, Mayor, Council, community. Just a couple things. Speaking of events, we have the 19th Annual Petaluma Music Festival that will take place this Saturday on the fairgrounds. They're going to feature 14 bands. The gates open 1130, and music will continue through 930 p.m. Family-friendly, local food, three stages, and all proceeds support music education programs in Petaluma Public Schools. For tickets, go to PetalumaMusicFestival.org. Also, in our continuing effort to address downtown parking, we've added seven angled on-street parking spaces on the C Street block between 1st and 2nd. make it even easier to visit downtown businesses and restaurants. And the new spaces were striped late last week, and they're available now. And then I'm going to ask Brian O of our Community Development Department. Welcome back, Brian, to talk about the Rebuilding Together project on Vallejo.

Thank you, City Manager. Brian Oh, Director of Community Development. I didn't see – sorry that I didn't catch the constituent community member that was here. I'll go back to the tape and try to connect. But there's a request on the Vallejo project. The city has had an initial, very preliminary – preview of the housing proposal there rebuilding together recently purchased it it's been an underutilized site for many many years and so it's very early in the process there's I mean at this point I'd say it's conceptual no permits have been submitted but uh everything um every indication from drake the executive director down to the staff with rebuilding their really strong partner of ours for the city um every indication points to wanting to be a good neighbor and there was a recent introductory community meeting that the vice mayor had referenced i suspect we'll continue to have those or encourage those from rebuilding and any public safety issues, much like with any neighbourhood, we have the means to ensure that our safety and any code or compliance issues can get addressed, whether it's through code enforcement or public safety. And so, Mayor, we'll continue to provide updates as they come from the property owner.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that report.

And that concludes mine. Thank you.

And that concludes City Manager's Report. And that brings us to our consent calendar for the evening. And at this point, I look up and down the dais to see whether any council member wishes to poll any of the consent items. Councilmember Barnicle? Item two. Item two, please. And that's item two being pulled. And let's move to public comment on this and on the consent calendar. And we will take public comment on the consent calendar in its entirety. And when we bring it back to council, we'll have a voting on the two issues separately. So please... bear with us while we have our little movement in the room. As we open public comment on the entire consent calendar, the public is invited to make comments on the listed items. Our procedure on the agenda will follow the process that I outlined extensively earlier. And except that the number of speakers is not limited in this case, and public comments are limited to three minutes in person. However, the time per speaker may still be reduced depending on the number of speakers. We will hear in-person comments first. I will call on speakers at the podium. Once those have concluded, the city clerk will call upon the remote speakers to unmute themselves. So, city clerk, it's your, take it away.

We did receive 12 comments on item number two ahead of the meeting, and those are posted online. We also have 23 folks joining us on the zoom at this time. I will start a 32nd clock. During these 30 seconds, members of the public attending in person should bring their speaker cards to the clerk's desk. Members of the public attending online should raise their virtual hand, and those attending via phone should press star 9 to raise their hand. Speaker requests received after this 30 seconds may not be accommodated.

We have 10 cards and one hand, that's 11 speakers. And so I'm gonna shorten the speaking time to two minutes per person for this item. And I'll start with Donald Johnson and move to Darren Rackeson. Donald Johnson. Going once, Donald Johnson. Darren Rackusen, to be followed by Alex Adali.

Thank you. And I think John Hanania ceded time on this item as well. So if you have his card, I need to call his name or just to make sure we get the time.

John Hanania. Thank you very much. The two minutes will be doubled.

Excellent. Thank you. So AI data centers, obviously, are a major issue across the country. Jurisdictions keep getting caught flat-footed. Projects are lobbied and approved before residents have a chance to weigh in. If you want more information on it, Erin Brockovich has put together the comprehensive website on the proliferation of AI data centers and the issues surrounding them. Just this morning, though, one of my environmental consulting hats, I received an email from Eurofins, international testing company, talking about the risks and sounding the alarm that development is outpacing regulation when it comes to AI dentists. And I was pointing to the threats.

Sorry, I have to interrupt. You need to make a nexus to an item on the agenda.

So you're talking about consent calendar, item number two. There's a memorandum proposing the discussion of a moratorium on data centers, correct?

It is not to be deliberated tonight.

Well, we're going to talk about the discussion of whether or not a discussion of a moratorium should happen. So I'm giving context to that end. I'm literally going to get to the sentence of we should have a moratorium.

Carry on.

Kevin, we're in control here. All right. So it's certainly logical and smart to meet this moment with an open discussion of an AI data center moratorium. Box checked, Kev. I've seen Petaluma get caught out by undesirable land uses before when our layered land use rules and ordinances proved ineffective at stopping unexpected and undesirable land uses that came forward. So I hear the argument, why not just wait for the ICO? If you guys have interfaced with our IZO from 2008, it was widely considered as riddled with loopholes and inconsistencies that have been closed over the years. But that history is a reminder that the IZO is not a perfect or permanent document. Zoning codes and even general plans can be changed. The protections they offer are mutable. When a proposed project doesn't conform, developers work to change the ICO or a general plan, create overlays, or use other tools to get around zoning protections around land use. I've also seen developers bundle undesirable uses with a desirable one to help push it through. The Davidam project is a great example. The D Street extension homes were resisted for 20 years until the developer promised to expand Helen Putnam Park, and now the park looks infeasible, but we got the homes. So an example of where projects come forward, and even if the council and staff say that a land use is not desirable, there are ways that a developer makes that happen and pushes it through. Could a data center developer change or skirt code? Could they package a data center with a more attractive project or an environmental concession to sway decision makers? A moratorium or an equivalent policy action is a stake in the ground. It demonstrates community values and clearly signals what we want to do to prohibit this land use. I understand that a concern is a moratorium would defer existing work on the zoning code updates. But beyond the mutability of the IZO, the timeline for those updates is unclear. And honestly, we're talking about generating word documents. I can't believe we can't draft an IZO update and discuss a moratorium in parallel. As the mayor says, we can tie our shoes and chew bubble gum at the same time. I think we can make a couple word docs. The trickiest part is defining what the data center land use actually is, and that will have to be done eventually. Whether it's now through discussion around a moratorium or later when we roll out updates to the ICO, there is a strong argument to front load that work now. We need to at least have a public discussion of these issues. I don't think the public at large has heard almost anything about the city's stance on data centers, even as we constantly see stories of communities run over by these projects. Discussion of a moratorium is warranted. It is a logical step, and we would hope the city would be an ally in those kinds of discussions. Let's not get caught flat-footed when we have this much lead time and this many cautionary examples. Let's get ahead of an emerging land use trend and have the conversation in the open, the merits of a moratorium, what other tools exist, and how we intend to prevent or shape the future of this land use. Thank you. Thank you.

So in council chamber, we generally observe a certain decorum, which means neither cheering nor jeering anyone. So let's not have that behavior again this evening. Alex Adela, to be followed by Heather Gallagher.

It's Adele, just so you know. Here to talk about the data centers, the moratorium. I feel like nobody wants a data center in their backyard. It's pretty simple, you know, and there really isn't much more to say than what, I can't remember your name, but what he just said, which is, you know, air pollution, noise pollution, EMF, everything comes up and everything checks off. It uses a lot of water. Nobody wants it. So a moratorium to make sure that it doesn't get pushed through, doesn't get past anything would be great. That's really all there is to say. And I think you guys all get it. Nobody wants it. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Heather Gallagher to be followed by Dean Barbaro.

good evening council community staff thank you for bringing the topic of discussion of data centers while considering a ban in the general plan we have all heard of the health hazards and environmental hazards associated with standalone data centers And we are now learning of the same hazards associated with AI data centers disguised as standard office buildings or R&D facilities. The equipment needed to support these massive technology companies create low frequency noise pollution, water usage concerns, and light pollution issues. that harm residents and adversely affect agricultural communities. Please consider setting a precedence for Sonoma County by opposing all attempts from tech companies who encourage you to sign non-disclosure agreements that conceal project details from the community during the permitting and approval processes. Thank you for investing in our health and safety by dedicating your time to place a moratorium on data centers, big and small. Your decision influences the surrounding communities to do what is best for the entire Sonoma County agricultural community. Thank you.

Thank you. Dean Barbaro? Barberio, to be followed by Susan Ball.

So I'm new to this subject, but yeah, I hear nothing but bad news in the news about water usage of these centers. And I use AI occasionally. I asked it today what it thought. It said, yes, regulate me. So I thought that was good advice. So I would just encourage you to Probably speaking for Petaluma that people want enforceable protections in place ahead of time. So I thank you ahead of time for doing that.

Thank you. Susan Ball should be followed by Beverly Alexander.

Good evening. I encourage you to ban instead of do a moratorium. I have been on sort of the ground for 10 years on following water in Sonoma County. I started out protesting the wells being taxed at the Santa Rosa grounds, Santa Rosa Plains Protection Organization that is anything but. I have discovered, we discovered that the water is being sold to Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa is selling it to Marin, Marin is selling it to Oakland and Oakland is selling it to the LA area. We are running out of water here. Our groundwater is not being sustained. Most of the supervisors are backing the vineyards. The marijuana and the agriculture is being harmed. Farms are being sold because they don't have any wells. This will increase if we start moving in data centers. These are big guys. They will come in and make lawsuits that you will not be able to deal with. So you have to start at the beginning. You have to start at a ban and then get your ducks in a row for what's coming at it. That's what I'm saying.

Thank you very much. Beverly Alexander to be followed by Paul Alexander.

Good evening. I'm not tall enough. And thank you for listening. And I'm amazed to think that the library is 50 years old, because I remember bringing our children to the B Street Library and going upstairs, and they had vinyl records, all kinds of stuff. Anyway, to get to the point, again, about the data centers, A moratorium, I too would love a ban, but if that's not possible, a moratorium will give us time to study, to take public feedback, and to show that you really respect your constituents and let developers know that Petaluma will stand firm. There will... And one of the lines that I saw there was about standalone data centers. Does that mean they can attach anything to a data center, like a swimming pool? That's meant to be sort of a joke about the development. But, you know, once something is attached to a data center, it no longer is a standalone. And these developers have a lot of money, a lot of resources, and I don't want to see them pushing us around. So we really, really need to have all our ducks in a row, and I think a moratorium will help with that. So thank you for listening.

Thank you. Paul Alexander, to be followed by Jorge Regbiati.

Good evening, council members and fellow Petalumens. I also support a moratorium on data centers, although a ban would be even better. But if we must consider them, here are some points I'd like to, and they've been eloquently expressed already, but I'll express them as well. Petaluma needs a data center moratorium built into our general plan. Now, to protect our quality of life, our climate, and our environment, a moratorium is needed with no buy-write permitting, where developers pay 100% of infrastructure costs, and the industry reclassification zoning and code loopholes are closed. We need meaningful and defensible noise and vibration frequency limits, air and water pollution and usage limits and heat island effects limited. And we need to consider limiting surveillance and flock data impacts. So developers are sliding in, getting through by somehow becoming listed as not standalone. That was mentioned before. Or tenant improvement or ways to dodge local restrictions that are not airtight. We have to be careful of that. So we need a moratorium or ordinance that isn't comprehensive would be barely better than no ordinance at all. So we need our city to proactively close these loopholes now. not discover them open later. And finally, Petaluma wants strong and forcible protections in place before, not after, a developer shows up. Thank you for your time, and please take this seriously.

Thank you. Thank you. Jorge Ragamagliati, to be followed by Don Johnson. Second chance for Don.

Thank you. Can you hear me? I strongly support the request from council members Alex DeCarli and John Shrips to impose a moratorium on the construction of data centers in the city of Petaluma. In my opinion, a ban would be even more desirable. The environmental impacts of these data centers have become public knowledge for communities where they are deployed and nationwide. huge amounts of water for refrigeration of the computers, huge amounts of electricity, air pollution, light pollution, sound pollution, et cetera. These environmental impacts are very great, but the main purposes of the data centers are even more concerning. Some of those are real-time location tracking, behavioral data capture, biometric and financial surveillance, automated enforcement tied to digital ID, and programmable money of every individual. This already disastrous list is complemented with the Department of Defense project of creating AI-controlled fighting robots. Your decision to ban any data center in Petaluma should be easy to make if you come to understand that the benefits are hard to find and the risks are many and very large.

Thank you. Thank you. Donald Johnson. Not seeing Donald. We'll go to our Zoom participant now.

We have one speaker on Zoom, and that's Amy Taylor. I will ask you to unmute yourself. Amy, if you could go ahead and unmute yourself and make your comment. Sorry, we're not hearing you, Amy.

I made a mistake and I wanted to speak on Agenda 12.

Okay, got it.

Sorry about that.

No problem. Okay.

Okay, that brings it, that closes public comment. That's the last Zoom and last house card we have. So I'd like to bring it up to council. And again, we've split this into two sections. I'd like to treat the bulk of the consent calendar first. Any questions or comments on that? Or may we have a motion on the all items but two consent calendar? I'll move all items except two. A second. We have a motion from Quint and a second from Shribbs. May we have a roll call vote?

Barnacle?

Aye.

Cater Thompson? Yes. DeCarly?

Yes.

Now?

Yes.

Quint?

Yes.

Shribbs?

Yes. McDonald?

Yes.

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you. And now to the matter of item two. Item two arises on our agenda as a standard tentative agenda and a request to modify the tentative agenda. So the issue at hand is what the issue is, and not the advocacy of it, but the clarity of what the issue is, and also whether the timeliness of it warrants assigning it to a, that's a deliberation we're having as a council at this moment. Council Member Barnicle, you asked for this to be pulled. Why don't you lead the conversation?

Yeah, appreciate the concern about data centers. I certainly don't want one here. I checked with Sonoma Clean Power CEO and he said we have a very early report system with anyone looking at data centers. Also, the staff I asked the question here, there's been no reported action or interest in data centers in Sonoma County that he's aware of and that our staff is aware of in the city of Petaluma. Still, it says, though there is not a permissible use within the city's implementing zoning ordinance, there are loopholes that leave the city vulnerable. And my question to the two council members who put this on is, what are the loopholes that leave us vulnerable?

Would either of the advocates like to address that? Council Member DeCarli.

Thank you, and I appreciate everybody coming to speak on this. Councilman Shribbs and I brought it forward because we do believe it's a very serious issue, and there's a lot of concern nationwide and in our state about this, and a lot of concern based around things everybody mentioned, but certainly water and energy consumption, the amount of land it can take, what that would do to us here. There's also health concerns and a whole lot of unknowns about them. And so, you know, we just saw over the hill there was one proposed in Calistoga. That's really not that far away. And, you know, that's arguably a very similar town in some ways, too. You know, you wouldn't expect one to pop up there, but there it was. And so in initial discussions with staff, we talked about doing an ICO update and they've agreed that they wanna do that and put that in there. And I think that's wonderful, but that does still leave us vulnerable for however long that takes. And best case scenario, we'd be looking at four months of where we're at now until that's implemented. And given how long ICO updates, how long it's taken to get here, we're way behind on those. four months is the best case scenario. So that could take even longer. And that said, that's why I think we should be looking at a moratorium. And the value of a moratorium here is it actually gives us 12 months to really be thorough, to think about it, consider all the different things, because data centers is a very broad term. And there's been a lot of concern about staff time, prioritizing things. And when we give 12 months to staff to determine this, to help ban it, that's going to give them a lot of time to fit it in with everything else. And then we won't have to worry in the meantime about anything coming in. So I think the moratorium is a valuable tool in that sense. You know, what I'd really like to have on this is also a public discussion. And I feel the public needs to hear our stance on this. It's a great opportunity for us to declare our values and say that we don't want this here, if that's how the entire council feels. That's how John and I feel. And, you know, it provides transparency. It, you know, helps with public trust. You know, and we should be discussing things like NDAs with staff if somebody comes in and wants to actually discuss something like this. So I think that's an important thing to have because if we just do an ICO update, we're not talking about things like NDAs. And so, you know, if this prevents even one data center from being built, I feel it's a very valuable use of our staff's time and resources.

I think you were being asked if you could identify the loopholes that you were referencing.

Yeah, I mean, some of them were addressed in the first public comment. So all a developer has to do is come to town, request a variance, request new zoning, and they're able to start that process. They go through CEQA, they go through all the hoops, and, you know, and... And they're rolling. And one of the things I was assured of when I first started this discussion is we would never allow a data center to be built here. But I'll let Councilman Tripp talk about it. But we do have some small ones. And maybe those are OK. Maybe they're not. I don't know. We're going to have to define it and figure it out. But, you know, we already have them built and I've been assured that they never would be. So the biggest loophole is somebody coming in and, you know, it's, I mean, nobody ever thought there would be a six-story hotel right in the center of downtown, yet there were loopholes found and staff went with it.

Council Member Barnicle?

Okay. I'm interested to hear where Council Member Scherb is found.

Okay, let's get back to the original question, which is why even think about a discussion about a moratorium and about timing? And I think it's the right time to at least have a discussion, whether we go with it, this or that, or how we define it or what we ask staff to do. I think it's the right time to do it, to at least have a discussion on this thing, on this issue. Because there is things happening. So here's, I'm going to give you a list of what brought me to this conclusion of the things that are happening in our state and even locally. So data centers are being supported by, of course, the tech industry and the AI companies and the global folks working out there. but it's also being supported specifically by Gavin Newsom, our governor, is fully supporting him, and he has the full support of the Ag Department, which is now pushing him and actually seeking out fairgrounds all over the state to put these on. Recently, Calistoga had a proposal put down for their fairgrounds, which also included a heliport for people transporting drones so it wouldn't be a standalone thing. So if there's laws against standalones, that can be bypassed. There's also one in Morgan Hill that was proposed. It's been denied temporarily under moratorium. So it's happening there. The largest, there's a proposal right now in Santa Clara County for the largest AI data center in the world. is being proposed at Santa Clara County right now and is probably going to go through because that's where the tech industry is. Another factor, we have been called Telecom Valley. So we're not Silicon Valley, we are Telecom Valley where we had AFC and we were the leaders of telecom. We still have all that expertise still here and a lot of them are still working here. And because of that, what people may not realize, we have two data centers here in town already. They're already here. One is a data center. It's small. It's a pilot study. We have a company in town that's actually producing special optic tools, optical cable tools connecting these servers, and they have a testing room. I've seen it. Actually, a really nice company, local, almost all local employees from the Telecom Valley, they're working on it. And they're producing these special little things about the size of your thumb for data centers from all over the world for tens of millions of dollars right now. So we actually may be getting one cent per sales tax from this company. right now, and they're operating right here in town. The second company, which I wasn't even aware of, is called X2NSat. They have a small data center. It's using 1.2 megawatts of power right now, and it actually serves the satellite community. It actually is hooked up with satellite dishes on the roof, and they're actually hooked in right now, and they've got high-tech equipment cooling potential on there to keep them cooled down right now, not as much water. They're actually using electricity cooling systems rather than water cooling systems from what I'm reading here from my notes. So these are things that are happening right now. Right now in the U.S., there's 1,500 to 3,000 data centers in various stages of construction or proposal. In California, Right now, there are 32 new data centers being planned right now in California with 2,270 megawatts of additional power. And where's this power coming from? I thought, oh, they'll do it with solar and battery backups. And turns out, no, they're going to be using natural gas and even small nuclear power plants is what's actually being used worldwide right now. So it's all fossil fuels. So that was a concern. What are they targeting? Not necessarily cities anymore because there's a lot of cities already. There's four here in California nearby that are already saying, let's look at it. So that's already happening here and around California is actually leading. There's some legislation right now in California legislature that's pushing this forward a little bit slowly. But there's two bills right now on this in California. There is a, oh, by the way, and even the folks that are, what I did, I used AI to actually do this. I'm using AI almost every day now to do something. And some of the letters we got in, anti-AI, saying no data centers. Obviously, they were produced by AI, so we're using it. And so, it is going to be, it's coming, it's going to be worldwide, it's happening. And there's even more in other countries than even here in the US now being proposed and done. They use consumption of water. So, it's the size of facility that matters. For large ones, they can run up to one to five million gallons of water a day. And they're using a huge amount of energy. We're talking about on-grid now. They can promise to produce more energy than they use and actually give energy to the grid. But it's all going to be fossil fuels or nuclear right now. So these are the concerns that are happening right now. And given that, we've already had two proposals here in the Bay Area, Calistoga and Arwee. is Sonoma County a possible target? So yes, Sonoma County is a target. The farmland here is a target. They may even come through as a possible offer down the road here. So right now, there is no proposal for us locally in Sonoma County. But in my perspective of looking at the near future, yes, would they come here? And what power do they have to push forward? Maybe not. The largest property you have here in town, I think, is 18 acres. Small data center could easily put on 18 acres, not the big. So it's a scale. So we already have two in operation. It depends on the size. What size do you want to limit? If we say, oh, no big ones. OK, well, then they're going to come in with a 10 acre one. and maybe do that. And it's going to provide service. Does our hospital need a data center? Maybe. That's where it's going to be. So these small ancillary data centers, we may like to have here. We may want to have technology. We may want to have Telecom Valley again and have our folks here working on this and produce AI centers, the small ones that are ancillary and beneficial to us. We use locally for our local businesses, for our local hospital, whatever. So that needs to be discussed. as to what is it we want here, because we already have it here. So where are we going to put the limits on? And what are we going to tell the county? Us, the city, needs to tell the county, hey, awareness, wake up. It may happen. It may come this next year. Are you prepared? So I just want preparation to happen. Anyway, that's my rationale as to why it needs to be at least discussed and thought about and maybe planned ahead We may not have to take an action right now. We may not have to put on a moratorium because there's no proposals right now. And it looks like our staff said we have some regulations in place to slow it down, stop it, whatever. I just want to have better planning and to move forward so that we're thinking ahead and have future options and actually push it up to scale as to what we want the county to do, what we want the state to do. Let's have a voice in this matter. So that's why now I think it's important to do it now. Okay. rather than later. Anyway, that's my discussion.

Council Member Barnacle, does that answer the question you asked?

No, it doesn't, but that's all right. I don't doubt that a fallow vineyard is a target and that the downturn in the wine industry makes our county a target for data centers. But I don't see prime real estate in our city being a target for this. And I don't see... Like, some of the commenters talked about San Jose. San Jose explicitly allows data centers in their commercial general, combined industrial commercial, industrial park, light industrial, heavy industrial, transit employment centers. All of them allowed explicitly. Petaluma doesn't even define it. The closest we come is exactly what you described, which is a business that does processing and equipment and things like that, having a data center there to support their business. And with a with a council that says that we support business and we want to see economic development to then take a business that's generating tens of millions of dollars for our city and saying we don't want another one of those because of a small a small data center in their facility. I think that we're Putting a moratorium on that is the wrong thing to do. Addressing it in our zoning code where we're actually addressing policy and we're talking about policy is the right way to approach something like this. The other thing is there are the idea that we can walk and chew gum. Absolutely we can. We do it every day. The idea that we can continuously add more things to our plate without compromising the amount that we show up for our mobile home parks because our city attorney is ultimately going to be involved in this. Is, you know, like there's only so much that we can load on our staff. And I don't think that this is a risk to our city right now. What I do see every day is people not being able to afford housing here. Like it's not lost on me that people my age that are on this council or people that are not my age on this council but have kids, all of them, if they're living in this city, have been helped by their family members. And that's not the city that I want to work on. That's not the city I want to govern. I want to try and address those problems. Those are real problems that I think we should be focused on. And this right here, put it into the zoning code update. Put it into the general plan update. We've got four planning processes running right now. And we want to add in an emergency moratorium for a problem that currently doesn't exist. We have zero applications in the works anywhere in the county. And neither one of you could identify a loophole yet you said there was loopholes I'm just like what problem are we trying to solve other than like we need this so I'm a no on this because it's a distraction okay uh Councilmember Quinn

Yeah, you know, I'll share. As I was hearing, listening to Councilmember DeCarli and the members of the audience speak, the first question that came to my mind was, I want to understand the loopholes. And so thank you, Councilmember Barnicle, for answering that, because if there are loopholes, I really want to understand it. One question that I have, and I don't know if this is for the city attorney or not, but in our IZO, if something isn't, specifically identified as a permissible use, how is that treated?

As an impermissible use.

Can you define that for the layperson?

Sure. It means effectively we have a ban on that use unless and until the council chooses to amend it and lift it.

Got it. So just in terms of the discussion of loopholes, can you give your point of view in terms of how at risk we are from loopholes?

Thank you councilmember Quinn to be happy to do that. So we have looked at this issue because there's no debate about the potential impacts of of large data centers and standalone data centers that members of the public has spoken about council members have spoken about we're seeing the literature about that there's lots of discussion among municipalities about that. But the issue is, are we at risk of the council having to approve a use because it's already permitted? And the answer that we see when we review the code is no, because standalone data centers, large data centers, are not a permitted use in our code like they are in San Jose, as Councilmember and other jurisdictions, as Councilmember Barnicle has pointed out. So we don't see the risk. I'd like to draw a comparison to the last time staff recommended and brought forward moratoria on a use in Petaluma, and that was when the council had already indicated a desire to prohibit future new gas station uses in the city. And we recommended and brought forward to the council and the council enacted moratoria, first the urgency one that can last 45 days and then the renewal that you have to start on immediately because the first one will last 45 days, that can extend it a year. I don't think we needed the third renewal that could take it up to three years. And that, and we recommended that because it was a real risk because we knew there were developers that were in interested in in proposing gas station uses and it was a permitted use in the city and there was a land that was developable where was a permitted use so I would contrast with that with our our current circumstance and so if we given the council concerns, given the community concerns, given our own awareness as staff of the potential negative impacts of large data centers and standalone data centers, if we thought there was a risk, we'd be already working on it. And so, and certainly, you know, anticipating the council directing us if we weren't already working on it. So, the other thing I wanted to mention procedurally is that for the city council, for the city to enact a moratorium, that's under section 65858 in the government code. We need to make findings, urgency findings, that there's a risk with respect to a change in the land use scheme that the council wants to freeze the status quo because of that risk while it's considering legislative change. And so we have to have those urgency findings about what the risk is. Excuse me. And it's like the risks are like the ones I described that were real risks when the council was considering and, in fact, ultimately did adopt what was the first ban on new gas stations in the United States. So we... I think we'd have a difficult time making those findings in this case. And the reason why is because we don't have a risk, because we're protected by the fact that we have a de facto ban already against large data centers and new data centers, because they're not a permitted use. And what's helpful for us about that is, let's see, I was going to look at the timing that staff provided regarding the Updates that are that are already scheduled. So there's a planning commission session scheduled for August 11th. That's a study session planning commission public hearing scheduled for September 8th and city council first reading October 5th. on zoning code updates. And that is a wonderful and a lovely time for the whole community and the council to have this discussion that I think is probably, because it's not a permitted use now, is probably gonna have to, I anticipate it having a different focus, more like the one Councilmember Barnicle just suggested, and that is recognizing that large data centers, standalone data centers are not a permitted use what policy does the council want to consider and potentially adopt and receive public comment about and staff recommendations about to ensure that uses like we have in place now that don't present the water usage, power usage, other nuisance conditions, risks to the public, such as large and standalone data centers do, so that we can have that economic development in a way from businesses that don't raise those threats. So that's what I would say in answer to that question if I missed anything. Oh, one other thing is, and this is quick. So the loophole that the Vice Mayor identified is always a risk. And that is, right now, The zoning code does not permit large data centers, standalone data centers. An applicant could come forward and apply for a discretionary decision by the council that would be subject to environmental review and discretionary deliberation by the council to add that use as a permitted use to make a zoning amendment. And if the council, in the course of the zoning amendments that are planned that I just talked about the scheduling of, were to prohibit use or permitted in limited circumstances as an ancillary use it could still in response to subsequent action or later council could still change that so that it's not really a loophole the possibility of discretionary legislative change always exists but it's only based on the decision of a majority of the council so I don't think unless the council will be inclined to approve such a thing, I don't think that's a real risk because the council gets to control that. So that concludes my answer. If there are more questions, I'd be happy to address them.

So I'm satisfied from that that... Our current situation is that we don't have a lot of, we don't have any loopholes. And if anyone disagrees with that, I'd welcome your input. From my perspective, I don't know, if I could act like the mayor for a moment, I'd like to see a show of hands from the council. Who here is in favor of a standalone data center in Petaluma? Seeing no hands. Okay. So my point is that from my perspective, none of us want it. And so the question at hand is do we act immediately to stop some threat that doesn't exist right now? Or do we wait a couple of months, a few months, and address it in the zoning code? And so that's kind of the question from my perspective. When, you know, if there is, if there's things being thrown out, they give us anxiety, like the data centers are coming in and they're gonna overrun our fairgrounds like they are in Calistoga. To me, that feels a little bit like, you know, just trying to create fear and anxiety. And what I would say to that is, and again, this is just, this is me using AI. Hopefully it's from a data center that's in Iowa. I just asked the question, what's going on in Calistoga? And the proposal was not a formal development application. It was a conceptual presentation made by a private company. And, you know, it was, you know, the approximate use of five acres on a 70-acre site. It was a presentation. It wasn't a formal proposal. And what happened? No application was ever filed. No entitlement process began. No environmental review occurred. After the public backlash, Calistoga's deputy city manager stated, that the city would not pursue this idea further, and discussions with GlobalStack ended. And that fairground hasn't been in use since 2012. It's completely dilapidated and overrun and or overgrown. And it doesn't, from my perception, it doesn't represent what we're dealing with here. And so... I would suggest that we, instead of creating a distraction for staff to work on, that we let them address this in the code update, the zone update. Thank you.

Councilmember Now?

Well, thank you, Councilmember Quint, because two weeks ago I didn't know what a data center was, and I had to go to AI to ask them what a data center was. But bringing up the fairgrounds, one thing that makes our fairgrounds different, and I want to smash all rumors, the other fairgrounds are mainly owned by the state of California. So our governor could... suggested data center. Petaluma owns its fairgrounds. We have control of it. And no data center is going to go there. Please spread that rumor. The other thing is I applaud the two council members who brought this forward because it's the protocol to if a council member wants to have a discussion about something, you can't talk to more than two council members or it's a Brown Act violation. So you have to put it on an agenda request through these channels. and it comes to the consent calendar. I welcome this discussion, but everything our city attorney said in, I don't know, maybe two, three minutes, I would like to read two or three times. So this is the reason we put it on the agenda so that the city attorney can write all those words down and we can read it and read it and read it until we understand legalese. So I really want our city to be proactive, but 20 years ago, and the city attorney can remind me, when we had a request for a ban on plastic bags, and I don't remember if it was an ordinance or a ban, but it took, what, 20 years to have that ban in place, and they first came to the cities, and there were some legal issues. So we want to be proactive, and I suggest that our climate committee bring something to us as well, because I would like to hear from them. That's what they're for. And I believe Mr. Sribbs, you are the liaison to that climate committee. And I don't know if they've ever talked about it. And then we need to have the staff report and our vulnerability and the legal details. And then we have a very robust public discussion. And what do we add to the general plan? Council Member Barnicle is right. In October, we're going to be hearing about zoning. I'm looking forward to that discussion and what we can do and put in place for our next 20 years general plan. So I look forward to that. And I thank everybody who came and spoke today. I thank everybody who texted me, phoned me, emailed me. and caught me on the streets or in social media and had a conversation. But please know that none of us are in favor of a data center in Petaluma.

Thank you. Council Member Cater-Thompson?

Thank you. Yeah, I'm actually looking forward to the zoning code. We've been waiting for a long time, and that's right around the corner. And I hope everybody that spoke tonight actually participates in that and sends information in. And I just want to bring up... You know, just another comment, there is a council member that continually brings up that we need an Amazon distribution center at Aluma. One of the locations was close to the Deer Creek Shopping Center. And, you know, when we're doing zoning codes, I want to make sure that that is also included, that you do not have Amazon district.

Excuse me, Councilman, we're staying focused on whether to agendize it.

I understand that. We're talking about zoning, and I understand what we're talking about, but they do cross, and they are both impactful. And so I think this should be done during the zoning phase. which is right around the corner, but people need to participate. Because data centers are not something we want. We understand the negatives about those, the water, the electricity, the sound. That's well known. And that's not what we want in our town. And just to reiterate, that's why we took the fairgrounds back so we had control. There are 54 DAAs in the county, in the state, and we are not one of those. And I applaud the council for pulling out and taking back our fairgrounds for these very reasons. So we have total control of what happens in our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member DeCarli, something? Yeah, no, I'd like to respond to a lot of that. I don't think we want to respond. I think we want to say whether we have this to be agendized in the next meeting. This is not the discussion of AI or data center.

This is the discussion of agendizing it.

So you have an opinion, and you should express your opinion on why it's an imperative to you. Yes, I understand my role.

So basically, it's called being proactive and getting out front of something. I feel like a lot of times we aren't. And then there's lawsuits. There's a lot more staff time that goes into something. There's more council meetings that are required in time. This is an opportunity to be proactive here. I mean, it's really that simple, and it's a very real issue. And I don't think that anybody pretending it isn't. And then saying that they don't want data centers, that doesn't make sense either. So, you know, a concern that John and I looked at in what does a moratorium look like was, you know, this would be part of the discussion. We determine, you know, what supporting infrastructure is to an existing business and determine how many square feet that is. So we could be looking at something like, you know, it's a moratorium, but under 1,000 square feet it's allowed. You know, that's an example of it. And then that way you're not prohibiting anything that should be allowed is going to contribute to our economy and to the betterment of our city. That's just one way, but we can't determine that without a discussion. And so I will make sure this is working because Councilman Barnicle, you said I didn't describe a loophole, but I did. Thank you City Attorney Danley for describing it in detail. But it's as simple as a zoning text amendment. And you just had a former planning commissioner with four years of experience watching this happen over and over and over again. And Dan Lee just admitted it was possible. You know, maybe it's harder, maybe it's not as easy of a path, but it is possible through a zoning tax amendment. And, you know, again, I want to go back to wasting staff's time on this because that was kind of one of your points is that it's going to waste a lot of staff's time. But how did you feel about staff's time during the bathtubs?

I think we're varying off of the topic. No, I'll get right back on.

No, I can finish it. So, you know, I think we need to listen to what the public wants here. I think we need a standalone discussion on this, not to just loop it in with the IZO updates, though I do appreciate that because that is what I ultimately want to see. But this deserves its own discussion. And the public wants this conversation. And that's what I'm trying to get agendized here. And I do find it strange that there's so much pushback on this because this should really be a nonpartisan issue amongst my colleagues and I.

Thank you. And for my part, this was just a discussion of whether this should be on tonight's agenda. In a minute, I will explain what the voting means when we get to that such and such part. But I do think the conversation about loopholes is a question of what one's perception is. Certainly, what looks like process and public process to most of us often feels like a loophole. I mean, a loophole means it could get done. Well, if it gets done by a public process, not a trick, then it's not a loophole. It's part of the public process. Now, a moratorium is a process, and what we find is we need to have a finding for it. We don't have the basis for that, so we don't have something we can do in terms of a moratorium. There's no urgency. Qualification is not there, so it doesn't have public process. If we did have a moratorium on something, the loophole would be public process. The things that we're worried about getting public input on and participation on are all part of public process. I concur that we do not want, that would not be a beneficial use for any lands within the city to have data center here. That does fly in the face of large economic interests, AI, data center, big, powerful interests. So I'm interested in getting this tightly in to our ICO. We have the opportunity for a workshop in the next month and a half in the August-September window that the Planning Commission is already scheduled for. We've said that this needs to be a priority. Staff has heard that this is an issue that should be in the front end of the IZO conversations. So I think that that is the adequate and correct place. We talked about staff utilization of staff time. I would rather they did it in the correct process to really put the right nails into it for the workshop they already intend rather than divert their work planning away from the ice out issues, away from the mobile home park issues, away from the other priorities that we have. I wish the city to achieve more, more and better, and I think that works by having it done efficiently. So with everybody having weighed in, we have a situation here where the tentative agenda is listed. It does not list the added item of a discussion or of an action as requested by the participants there and the advocates. Due to council rules, if a request is made by two council members, it gets put up to this level. So the motion that's on the floor right now is, do we have the discussion added to? So if we make that motion, then the yes position is we're adding that as an agenda item. And if we vote no, we're saying we don't want any of that agenda approved, make a new motion. And then the alternative is if the motion made is approve it as is without the request, then the yes is approve it without the change. So do we have a motion from the floor? Council Member Barnicle. Council member.

Sure. Yeah, I'll give the discussion and what we've heard. I'd like to amend the motion, if I may. I'd like to, instead of calling for an immediate moratorium, which is what we would like to have, what we originally suggested, given what staff has said and what you have just said about maybe postponing to actually putting it into a workshop or future to discuss, because the loopholes we have, too. already in town. It's a size. Are they small, medium, large? We already have small. So the amendment would be, let's have a discussion later on this year and just say we would like to have that in order to have, as you said, maybe include it in a planning workshop and have that as a topic. And I would then suggest, okay, let's take it off the actual moratorium.

I think where you're going with this one is to not add the action to the tentative agenda tonight. But I think the part you're asking for is a promise of this conversation happening and happening before the end of year is more direction to staff.

Yes.

And so that's not part of a motion, but I think staff's pretty well aware of our intentions. So your proposal is approve the consent calendar as is. The tentative agenda as is. Right.

Yes, with that understanding.

With that understanding. Thank you. We have a second. Second. Can you clarify what that means? We are approving, or the motion is to approve the tentative agenda as written without the request for change.

And we have a motion by trips second by barnacle when one question so I do see merit in in addressing this through the zoning code update. Can we direct staff to to the to the extent possible address it in the zoning code update which is August September October will have to planning commission hearings and it'll come to the council is that possible yes and staff are already preparing for that all right and then definitely before the end of the year so yes.

That would be satisfying.

Thank you. Thank you. Council Member DeCarlo.

I don't know if I can perhaps readdress the motion, but, I mean, the motion was what we were looking for was on the August 3rd meeting to have this discussion, discuss the moratorium, and, you know, everything that's in the memorandum that was submitted on the 13th.

The request the request was to like you say that was the request and that's the request is not part of the motion that's on the floor. It's to approve without the request. Motion and second. So I mean we have a roll call vote on that.

Barnacle I cater Thompson. Oops, you're muted. Yes, can you hear me? Yes, thank you. Do Carly?

No, I support the original.

Now? Yes. Quint?

Yes.

Shrives?

Reluctant, but yes.

McDonald?

Yes.

And the motion does carry with one no vote.

Thank you very much. That moves us to public hearings, matter for consideration. We have a resolution authorizing the city manager to accept the spirit of Petaluma Beacon as a gift from the Petaluma Rotary Club to the city public art collection and execute related donation, transfer, installation, maintenance, and moral rights documents. To help us through this, we have Melissa Abercrombie, our public arts specialist. I'm very glad to have you too.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, city manager and staff, and the public. Before you tonight is this proposed spirit of Petaluma Beacon, a public art gift from the Petaluma Rotary Club. For installation of the Petaluma Boulevard South at Crystal Lane, Roundabout. Following nearly a year of design refinement and technical review, the Public Art Committee at its May 28th meeting unanimously recommended that City Council accept the work as a gift. This is a picture of the current conditions of the Petaluma Boulevard South roundabout. It is one of the city's primary gateways and has long been identified in the Public Art Master Plan as an appropriate and prioritized location for public art. Rotary's proposal transforms the site into a welcoming civic gateway while maintaining access to the roundabout's existing utilities and infrastructure. The Spirit of Petaluma Beacon builds on Rotary's long history of investing in community projects throughout Petaluma, from Kenilworth, Walnut, McDowell, and Letrasera Parks to the Miracle League. The beacon continues that tradition through a privately funded campaign supporting the artwork's design, fabrication, installation, and initial maintenance plan of five years. Rotary, to date, has raised approximately $145,000 from private donations towards its $150,000 fundraising goal. The vision for the spared Petaluma Beacon extends beyond a sculpture. It integrates public art, gateway signage, landscape, and lighting into a unified welcome at Petaluma's southern entrance. Tonight, we are discussing the artwork. The design was developed collaboratively by artist David Best, local engineers, fabricators, and city staff to create a distinctive landmark that responds to the site constraints while ensuring visibility, public safety, utility access, and long-term durability. The artwork. The approximately 24-foot tall sculpture features a slender steel supporting an illuminated circular petaluma bracelet. Visible from multiple approaches, its open perforated design provides visual transparency, prevents water collection, and creates a distinctive landmark by day and a subtle beacon by night. The site has many constraints. Although it appears open, the roundabout contains irrigation, drainage, electrical facilities, utility access, and the Sonoma County Aqueduct. Input from the Community Development Department, Public Works, Utilities, Sonoma County Water, and the Police Department shape the artwork's location, footprint, and height to protect infrastructure while maintaining roadway safety. The project brings together internationally recognized artist David Best and local fabricator Royce Van Bebber of Van Bebber Brothers Steel. You may recognize them as a collaborative pair on the Petaluma River Arch on the Lynch Creek Trail. So if you're looking towards a feature within our community that exists that shows these types of materials and uses, you can point to there, which was installed in 2022 and to this day has only required periodic graffiti removal. The sculpture will be fabricated locally using ASTM A588 weathering steel, commonly known as core 10. This will be a half inch to three eighth inch in thickness. Also, we'll be using structural steel and engineered concrete foundations designed to current California building codes. The corten steel develops a stable protective patina that resists corrosion. This is because it has a higher amount of copper, chromium, phosphorus, and nickel. These alloying elements form a protective layer that prevents extensive corrosion to the sculpture. making it exceptionally durable and low maintenance. It's designed as a permanent public artwork with an anticipated lifespan of up to 75 years, if not more. The beacon will require only routine inspections and occasional cleaning based on its construction materials. The Spirit of Petaluma Beacon underwent the city's established review process through the Public Art Committee. Staff evaluated the proposal using the Public Art Master Plan, particularly the policy on gifts and loans. and the Implementing Zoning Ordinance Chapter 18. On May 28th was the unanimous decision to move the item forward as proposed to the City's Council for acceptance. The Public Art Master Plan specifically identifies gateways and roadways, so it makes it really easy for us to look based on the informed decisions that were created in policy. We wanted to make sure that this created a memorable sense of arrival. That was why so much staff weighed in on the front end to make sure the design really reflected what was required of the site. In the end, the site had 10 foot by 10 foot section available out of a 90-fit diameter. The Petaluma Rotary chose in their design to use a much smaller section and to make it in scale with the site, they reflected the diameter of the circumference of the roundabout. And that's what you see in that bracelet shape is them using best use and best practices to create a design that that site would allow. The proposal fulfills the Public Art Master Plan's vision for the Gateway by creating a permanent, durable landmark that enhances community identity while respecting the needs of the site. Staff finds the Spirit Petaluma Beacon is consistent with Section 18.120 of the implementing zoning ordinance. Rotary will fund the first five years of maintenance, which will include lighting as needed. That would be the replacement of the bulbs. Periodic inspections so that the project is always being reviewed to make sure it hits the standards of the design that they had hired Van Bever and David Best to create. and they will deal with graffiti and do the abatement as needed for the project. Rotary will fund these first five years, and acceptance remains conditioned on final engineering, permitting, utility, traffic safety, insurance, maintenance, and legal approvals. Staff and the Public Art Committee therefore recommend the City Council accept the Spirit of Petaluma Beacon as a gift to the City. Thank you.

Thank you. We're set, right? We're set. Thank you. Any questions from council? Council Member Schribbs?

Thank you. I did submit a whole bunch of questions, I think, earlier, which you did answer online. So it's all available there for everyone to go take a look at. So there is a couple of concerns out there. I just want to make sure everything gets addressed. I think you did address that you're actually going to look at the water flows so that there is actually water capture rather than water runoff off that site, because I'm looking at a lot of hardscape there, rather than ground soil for penetration. So that's That you're going to be working on that. And then the other thing I was looking at is for the birds and wildlife. There is a couple of concerns there is if birds may start inhabiting it, like they have here in town, a couple of buildings here in town, whether or not there's any. knowledge already that these types of structures are going to either have lots of nesting in it or not, and if the birds will be able to pass through it or not. So is there anything that we know already on these structures and how we're going to work with the bird life?

Yes, David Best had at one point created a sculpture that had had a bird enter it in Sacramento, and there were concerns, and that was information that informed us with River Arch and with this project. So when you see the scale model of it, it might show a cap when you can see it at Copperfields or Petaluma Market, and that was really designed so that you could see the lighting in these maquettes that are available throughout the community. In the actual design, there will be some kind of netting or a perforated covering so that it won't become a basketball hoop, a nesting ground, or a debris catcher for any kind of leaves. It's really designed to be something that's perforated, breathable, but not in any way would trap large insects or animals or birds.

Okay, just making sure that the wildlife gets protected on this. And then on the lighting, I know a couple folks are working with the city on what's called a night sky project or dark sky project, which in case you're changing the light temperature and also the timing of the lights and intensity of the lights, illuminations, for reducing interference with any wildlife that could be bats or anything floating around in that area. So will we have control on that?

Yes, all lighting will be approved after building department review. It will hit all standards for daylight settings and it would be internally illuminated. So that's all going to be part of their application process and that will be applied to how that's reviewed.

Good. So if there's some internal lighting, that means there's probably a ladder on the inside of some sort that things could be maintained if anything goes wrong on the inside?

No, it's going to be two foot by two foot wide in the column from the base, and then it builds up. So there would not be a ladder inside of it. You would have a ladder or something in which you climb, you enter the top and change the lighting.

Okay, so what you're saying is that there is an entry point somewhere below the base that folks can get into and then... Yeah, there will be an access point to replace the LED lighting, and it would be compliant with all of our standards. Okay, so the actual, what it looks like to me, there's some symbolism that's implied here that I see, and maybe other folks, I thought one person wrote in that they saw something also, but it could be a water tower type, because I've seen water towers of similar shape. Also, even the Eiffel Tower in France has a pillar, and it expands out for a restaurant on top, but also our Liberty statue, our Statue of Liberty has a torch that has a very similar shape, and the only difference is it has little flames on top. So is it possible that maybe if, I know in fake fireplaces, it looks like flames, but it's not, just by lighting and a few types of gimmickry, be able to create a flame-type looking thing. Is there possibilities that we could add, enhance it, on like 4th of July and other special dates, to be able to enhance it with some sort of lighting effects?

I imagine there's probably a way to do that, but that's not what I've prepared for the evening. It's probably true of almost all of our art pieces, that they could be augmented with lighting in some way, but for this particular piece, it would have a mesh covering of some kind, and I imagine an LED light, like there are flickering ones that look like fire, so maybe we could replace it with something like that, but I'm really, that would be up for discussion at a later date. As of right now, I would suggest that we review the project as is.

Okay, because as the, because I saw recently, being my wife's from New York, looking at the GE sign that just got put up there, and with the drones that are out there, LEDs have various lighting displays, that this structure is large enough, fancy enough, that we could actually create a lighting display that is more artistic around it, not just flashing, not just a solid white light. So I'm just asking if that's possible to be included at this point in time.

I wouldn't imagine we'd included as part of this conversation, but it is something that could be considered as a little later date if there's funding or will to support it.

Okay. Those are my questions. Thank you.

Any other questions? And seeing none, let's go to public comment on the item.

We did receive 15 public comments ahead of the meeting, and those are posted online. And we have... Currently 15 people attending the Zoom meeting. So at this time, I will start a 30 second clock. Just bear with me while I get my clock going. Okay, now I will start at 30 second clock during these 30 seconds members of the public attending in person should bring their speaker cards to the clerk's desk. Members of the public attending online should raise their virtual hand and those attending via phone should press star nine to raise their hand speakers requests received after this 30 seconds may not be accommodated.

So we have two speaker cards here tonight, and we also have one online. And so I'd like to invite up Lena Furlong to be followed by Sue Simmons.

Hi. Thanks for having, thanks for allowing me to speak on this. I wanted to represent the Rotary Club of Petaluma on this project here as I am a Petaluma resident and I was able to buy a home here by the skin of my teeth and work in really super long hours in the field of landscape construction and contracting, right? As a mom with a young boy and no familial support at that time. And now I've I've lived here for 13 years, and I am part of this wonderful group called the Petaluma Rotary Club. And in my experience in the last few years of being in this club, what I've learned is that we have a really rich history, being 104 years old this year, of going around the city and focusing on the seven areas of focus, which are Rotary's sort of foundation, which include peace building, environmental impact, education, economic development, maternal and children health, eradicating diseases, and clean water and sanitation. And through that information, what I noticed is that this group of people get together and they have a lot of fun making friends in the community with something to do, you know, giving themselves sort of fellowship, but going around and improving on our wonderful community here. And every single person in Rotary is a volunteer. And virtually every dollar that comes into our club is dispersed. And that is the sort of main focus of the Rotary Club of Petaluma. So when our 103rd president, Sherry Ranney, sat down with me at lunch and talked to me about what she wanted to do for her legacy project, which is being passed on through the next couple years, through the next few presidents, and she focused on the south entrance to town. naming, citing the CNN news naming our town the sixth best place to visit in the country. And she was like, look at this mess. We've got to do this for the city of Petaluma. And for all of us who have worked, we're raising our kids here, we're arguing with each other and being each other's friends and we're in community and we're raising this town together. That's what this project is about. And it is the true spirit of Petaluma as we come together in community and working with the city has been amazing on this project so far and so many North Stars. And we're really looking forward to a yay vote tonight and to be able to, you know, bring this piece forward. And in the spirit of 81-year-old David Best, who is a Petaluma resident, and Royce Van Bebber, who is a 125-year-old business this year. What? We also have a number of supporters that are not only centennial businesses from this town, but, you know, younger businesses or businesses that are 80 plus years old. And what a cool testament to the city of Petaluma and what our community is to be able to bring this forth for our posterity and not just a civic landmark. But anyway, thank you. Cheers.

Thank you. Sue Simmons. Diamonds.

Good evening, everyone. Thank you so much for all your time and energy that you put towards the city. And I feel pretty blessed to have joined the Rotary with this group of people. And the brainstorming and the energy and the love that has went into this project really speaks to the spirit of Petaluma. I'm third generation. Most of you know me. I've been driving in and out. probably walking in and out and rode my bicycle in and out of that entrance. That's everything that's ever been. And I think all the entrances to Petaluma mean something, and there's quite a bit of love and energy put into this project. And I think cleaning it up, making it something special, but I think the spirit is really the word for it. It's taken a lot of, a lot of our Rotarians bring a lot of things to the whether it's engineering or landscaping. And they have certainly tried to cover and think of everything that you all needed and everything that's been stated for a project, including all the underground. So it's my extreme pleasure as a person that lives here in Petaluma, has raised my family, to have this happen. And I'm only hoping that it continues on throughout the city and throughout that entrance, because it really is just the beginning. So I'm very pleased that you're going to take a vote on it. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. And now to our Zoom participant.

Yes. Chris Rainey, please unmute yourself and speak.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much to the council for your time. Again, my name is Chris Rainey. I'm a resident of Petaluma since 1991. and live in the Westridge area. My wife and I are both speaking tonight on behalf of the Spirit of Petaluma Beacon Project. We wish we could be here, but we're on vacation. And as I said, this is an art piece that's going to be installed at the Petaluma Boulevard south of Crystal Lane. Obviously, we're also both members of the Rotary Club of Petaluma. One of the things that I want to emphasize here is how Petaluma, truly Petaluma-centric this is. Again, it's being designed by David Best. It's going to be built by Van Bever Steele. And you've just spoken to Lena, and Lena is going to be our project manager and installation general contractor. Melissa has also laid out a lot of the detailed information that we've been working on with the city for the past year in terms of its guidelines. I also want to thank very much the city for their guidance and support and encouragement all through along this piece. Also very, very excited to say that we've raised over 95% of the funds. We have a $150,000 goal. We're at $145,000. We will exceed our fundraising goal, and we're very excited to be able to move forward with that. This is, again, like I mentioned, a very truly Petaluma-centric project, and we recommend that the council vote in favor for the city manager to accept the spirit of Petaluma Beacon as a gift from the Rotary Club of Petaluma to the city of Petaluma. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Thank you for calling in from vacation. And with that, We are closed on public comment, and so I'd like to bring it back to the dais for any comment before we move the item. Council Member Quint.

Yeah, sure. I just want to say I think the project is incredible, and I want to express my sincere appreciation to the Rotary Club for bringing this to life, and my appreciation to the city for working with the Rotary Club, and I can't wait to see it. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Shribbs.

Yes, very strongly in favor. I just want to double check on the height. Is there any problem with the height in our zoning or anything? Because it is a pretty tall structure.

You're addressing staff? Yeah. Yeah.

The elevation conforms with the site, and we felt like it was really adequate in that it is not in the view shed for traffic. So it's elevated far above. The height was also chosen specifically so it would be visible from the 101. So when people are passing through, they might see it at night as a beacon, just showcasing what our community stands for and our creative vibes.

And did we check any wind resistance factor there so that it's strong enough to withstand?

Yes, there are structural calculations included, and they will also be submitted when they pull their permits.

Okay, good. I just thought I'd just double-check on those two features there. Otherwise, I'm very supportive of this project.

Thank you.

Council Member Barnicle?

Yeah, this is not every night you get a really good news project. So thank you to the Rotary Club, to President Rainey, David Bess, Royce Van Bebber, Petaluma Rotary, and Soul Landscapes for being the project manager on this. We have so many great community members in this town that do great things, and this is just another shining example. So I'm happy to support it. Thank you. Council Member Now?

Thank you to the Rotary Club. Thank you, members, for being here. Thank you to David Best and Royce Van Bebber. My love for partnerships with the city and nonprofits goes way back. Little do people know that the painting of the Coca-Cola sign, for years, that funds came from our heritage homes here. annual home tours that we have in the Christmas parlor doors. And I'm not sure who funds it now. And then there was also the Balshaw Bridge lights were paid for by River Festival funds that were collected during the River Festival years. So I'm wondering, and I'm going to throw it out there to staff and the public and Rotary, after five years, there is no funding, but could we put together something that the public could add to it? Right now, the Beautify Petaluma nonprofit partnership with the city, downtown, hanging baskets and the solar lights is all funded by the public. Public is sending in money. So I didn't know if the Rotary thought, you know, in six years, could we have like a little fund already established so we could put money into it. And it would, you know, when people pass away, they like to. you know, give to the city that they lived in. So I support this project and any other partnerships and I love public art. If you go up and down 101 North, you can see lots of public art and this will really stand out for our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Cater-Thompson?

Yeah, thank you. I just think this is fantastic because that area, this is the gateway into our city, one of the gateways. And this is going to be, you know, a great piece of art. I want to thank David Best and Royce Van Bebber for their collaboration. And I want to thank the Rotary for their collaboration with the city of Petaluma. And I think this is a great project. And the new president, I think, is fantastic. And with that, I'd love to move this.

Thank you very much. Member DeCarli?

I just want to say I appreciate all the Rotarians coming in, the effort they put in, Royce and David, and that's about all I have to say about it. Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate the idea and bringing it here tonight. I appreciate the patience of waiting until your item gets called in the evening. Not sure that lighting with fire would be anything other than triggering in Sonoma County, so... But... But I really appreciate that this is our happy item for the evening. You know, a lot of tense goes on, and you brought us something fun. So thanks to all who were involved, and thank you, Melissa. And I think with that, we have a motion from Councilmember Cater Thompson. Do we have a second?

I'll second.

A second from now. And a roll call vote, please.

Barnacle?

Aye.

Cater Thompson?

Yes.

DiCarli?

Yes. Yes.

Now, yes. Quint?

Yes.

Shrives?

Yes.

McDonnell? Yes. Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you very much. Thank you for being here and advocating the issue. And that moves us to our next issue of the evening. Which is? Item 12, a resolution approving the City Council's response to the 2025-2026 Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury Report entitled, Animal Service Revisited a City Asleep at the Wheel. And to help us with this presentation, this item, we have Assistant City Manager Brian Cochran. Brian, it's yours.

Okay, thank you. Good evening, Mayor and City Council members and members of the community. This presentation tonight summarizes the City of Petaluma's formal response to the 2025-2026 Sonoma County Civil Grad Jury Report, as the Mayor just stated. We do have a resolution for the Council to formally approve the response and then transmit that response over to the Grand Jury. The report this this new report is a follow up to the report that the civil grand jury did last year which looked at animal services throughout Sonoma County and many of those recommendations that they made a year ago we are working on and working toward implementing. Purpose of tonight's presentation is to review the grand jury findings and recommendations, explain the city's responses, and highlight the actions that are already underway to strengthen animal services in Petaluma. While the city does disagree with several of the factual, legal, and policy conclusions that are contained in the report, we recognize the importance of public accountability and continuous improvement and we acknowledge the grand jury's role within Sonoma County to contribute to those objectives. Our goal tonight is to respond to the grand jury's most recent report, but also and importantly chart a path forward for Petaluma's animal services program together with the council and our service providers and our community. We want high quality, humane, and responsive animal services that Petaluma can rely on. We're very fortunate to have a shelter here locally, which is a benefit to the community, and we want to ensure that we can continue providing those services into the future in a sustainable and accountable way. So throughout the presentation tonight, we will discuss both areas where we agree that improvements are warranted and where they're underway and where the city believes the report mischaracterized or misunderstood the city's actions, responsibilities or legal authorities involved. Next slide, Caitlin. So first I wanted to touch on some of the actions that have been happening since the Grand Jury report from a year ago. And some of these we mentioned in that prior report or there have been updates to the Council and community over the last year on some of these activities. So we did invest in some shelter capital improvements, roofing, HVAC, fixing water leaks, painting, and a variety of other improvements to make sure the shelter could properly handle the animals in its care. We retained a consultant to assist North Bay Animal Services, NBAS, with compliance and as we documented last year, they declined to take us up on those consultant services or participate with the consultant. We have worked on strengthening oversight and planning per Council's discussion and request at your March 2nd meeting. We have hired a firm and are in the process of conducting a fraud risk and compliance review that's underway of the NBAS financial records. And additionally, as you know, at the March 2nd meeting, Council directed termination of the NBAS contract, and that was effective March 31st of this year. At that same time, we transitioned to Marin Humane, who stepped up as our interim service provider, operating our shelter, doing licensing and animal patrol or animal control duties for the city of Petaluma. We also, around that same time, were developing and issued an RFP for a longer-term provider to take over from Marin Humane, and we are currently in those discussions and will return to Council for approval of those agreements in the coming months. And then finally, and we'll talk through this a few times tonight later in the presentation, but the Council has initiated And the city is actively participating in collaboration around a JPA joint powers agreement or consortium or another regional service delivery model to improve and standardize and stabilize services throughout the county. Next slide please. So just a few summary points to hit here at the top. The city remains committed to providing humane, transparent, and accountable animal services. We support continuous improvement and we recognize and have been working towards strengthening reporting, records management, and contract oversight. We welcome constructive recommendations while respectfully disagreeing with many of this current report's factual and legal conclusions. We had many significant improvements already underway at the time, and actually prior to the issuance of this latest civil grand jury report. And one of the challenges that is not really touched on much in this report, but really more in the last report from a year ago, is that the challenges faced by animal services are more regional in nature. and they require regional collaboration. We can't fix this issue by solutions that are being borne by one jurisdiction. I think it's safe to say that our future and upcoming animal services contract will serve as the primary mechanism for implementing operational improvements and accountability measures, and we'll talk through some of those tonight. And again, the city is working with regional partners to develop a sustainable and high quality model for Sonoma County moving forward. Next slide, please. Just wanted to touch on the structure of the report a little bit because these responses are mandated by law and we are required to respond in these very specific languages. So on the findings, for each finding that the grand jury assigns to Petaluma, we must respond either we agree, we disagree in part, or we wholly disagree. I would say in many of these, we wanted to say we agree in part, but we're required to say we disagree in part and then explain what we agree with or what we disagree with. On the recommendation side, there are four different choices that we can choose. put forward in terms of what we are doing with each of the recommendations. So we can say either the recommendation has already been implemented, the recommendation has not yet been implemented, but will be in the future with a timeline. The recommendation requires further analysis and the grand jury states that we're supposed to have the analysis completed within six months. or the recommendation will not be implemented because it is not reasonable or not warranted. And again, those are the descriptions in the law that govern our responses. Wanted to mention just a little bit about how we've structured this because it is different than the report itself. Because many of the findings also have a corresponding recommendation, we tried to group those together in the presentation so that we can talk about similar findings and recommendations together rather than having to repeat ourselves multiple times as we move through all of these. So I think we can go to the first one here. So finding one and recommendation one, these really deal with council authority and a thought from the grand jury that the council, excuse me, has ceded much of its authority and governance over animal services to staff and to the city manager. We wholly disagree with this finding. We think that the governance is consistent with the charter. The council retains its legislative and oversight authority, and it appears that the reason that this finding came about in the report is really a misunderstanding of the council manager form of government that we have in Petaluma and in much of California. and a misunderstanding of some of the charter provisions and how authorities or tasks and administrative tasks are delegated down to the city manager. We feel that staff fully acted within charter-defined administrative procedures and the budget authority and council direction. There's a specific action that the grand jury cites in this particular finding and in the body of the report and some of the background materials. And that was the council's decision on March 2nd to provide direction to staff to terminate the agreement and to generate and execute a new agreement with an interim service provider. The council direction was very explicit and very clear, and that's what the city council does all of the time. You all provide direction to staff, and the city manager and the rest of the city staff implement that direction. So we feel that that structure and the way that those decisions and implementation occurred were fully within the law and fully within the regular course of how the council and the city staff do the public's business. recommendation one is related to purchasing limits and signature limits and we did not choose or propose to implement that there is a significant existing governance framework for purchasing within the city there are multiple controls in place and oversight in place there are some purchasing provisions in the charter and purchasing provisions in the municipal code that govern those overall procedures and this particular action fit within that. So we did not feel that that needed to be implemented. If we were going to look at that, it is a much bigger discussion than just animal services. This really implicates our entire purchasing structure and that would be a much longer conversation and more involved conversation. Next slide, please. So finding two dealt with the reporting of NBAS, the lack thereof, or the very slow and untimely nature of their reporting. They were required to report at least once or twice per year, as well as provide an annual audit, et cetera. So the city disagreed in part because, well, let me first address what we do agree. We definitely agree that the reporting was lacking. It needed to be strengthened and we look forward to strengthening reporting of our future provider. It will improve and we absolutely agree that it can improve. But the finding goes further to say that because of the slow reporting, the city or the city management was unable to assess the performance of North Bay Animal Services. I don't think that's fully correct. We had inputs, not just from their reporting, but from members of the community, from city council members, from talking directly with North Bay Animal Services about some of their challenges. So there were many inputs into our ability to oversee them. The reporting was one of them, but it didn't fully impact our ability to oversee them. The recommendation two, we do plan on implementing. We will implement a more robust, regular, we're looking right now at a quarterly reporting framework with our new service provider. with metrics that will be regularly reported out and they'll be standardized so you can follow from quarter to quarter how the performance is tracking. Next slide. So finding three links up well with recommendation six, so we're talking about both of those on this slide. This is related to animal licensing, performance, and monitoring. We said that we disagreed in part on this one, and really the focus here was basically almost a repeat finding from a year ago that talked about needing stronger, better licensing performance and enforcement. But the finding here said that this was neglected by the city management and the city of Petaluma. We took issue with that because we don't think it was neglected. There's a full ability for any members of the public to get their dogs licensed. That is the obligation of the animal owner. And That was always and continuously available, even under the North Bay Animal Services contract. So while yes, it needs to be better, and I think we can do better, and that is one of our goals in our new contract, we don't agree that this was neglected. The new service contract will address this, and in recommendation six, that is a recommendation from the grand jury to select, purchase, and implement a new licensing software platform. They named a particular one that is used throughout Sonoma County. This is, I think, essentially redundant because once we select and contract with our new provider, they will then implement that new software package for our residents. to be able to get their dogs licensed. And then part of our reporting will include licensing data with those quarterly reports moving forward so that we can see what that performance looks like.

Next slide.

All right, F4, finding number four in the report in conjunction with recommendation nine, these addressed resident complaint tracking. So if you have a problem with the service or you think something wasn't handled correctly, how do you make a complaint about it? We disagree in part with this. And the reason for saying that is we do agree that the complaint procedure, the clarity of it, how do you make a complaint? How do you track whether that's been responded to or not? That can absolutely be improved.

And we feel confident that that will be improved in our new agreement.

Where we disagree on this one is that the finding says something like that we were unable to receive complaints. And I think we would disagree with that because clearly we did receive complaints. Council received complaints, staff received complaints, usually through email, through phone, et cetera. And when appropriate, we researched those and responded to those complaints. So I don't think it was, we were fully unable to, but the tracking and the documentation could be better. So we do look forward to implementing that improvement in the future with the upcoming agreement. Next slide, please. Finding number five, we don't have a recommendation that directly corresponds to this one, but this one related to the financial stability and oversight of North Bay Animal Services itself. And then it also wrapped in how that impacted other cities. So this one, this was a bit of a head scratcher, I think, for staff. We wholly disagree with this one. because the finding implies that the city has some sort of fiduciary duty to the nonprofit or over the nonprofit, and we do not agree with that. The city doesn't owe the nonprofit a fiduciary duty. It's actually the nonprofit board that needed to be ensuring that they were fiscally sustainable, that they could provide the services that they were contracted for, and to monitor their sustainability and potentially communicate with us if they were seeing challenges on the horizon.

The second half of this finding

essentially states that because they're saying that we didn't properly monitor their financial stability, that that somehow caused insecurity or risk to the other cities that were contracting with North Bay Animal Services. And again, we do not agree with that. The city is not and cannot be responsible for the contracts that other cities have with their animal services providers. So this one, we couldn't quite make that connection as to how Petaluma itself could have caused or otherwise been responsible for those types of risks in other cities. With that said, This is one where we agree that financial reporting overall for the service provider can be improved, and we do look forward to that being improved and are confident that that will happen with our upcoming provider contract.

Next slide, please.

Finding number six related to statewide shelter oversight and whether the lack of statewide shelter standards and shelter oversight provisions could have contributed to NBAS taking on multiple contracts that maybe they didn't have the staffing or the financial wherewithal to handle. We did agree or I guess disagree in part and also agree in part. And it is true, there are not statewide shelter standards or shelter oversight. So all of these shelters are able to kind of operate a little bit differently from one another. But we do, as we've mentioned, support regional coordination and think that some shared standards do make sense and could help. But we, again, don't necessarily see the connection between the statewide oversight or lack thereof, and NBAS's financial stability or their ability to provide the services that they had contracted for. And so moving forward, again, we will participate in that countywide process that is kicking off here. Next slide, please. So finding seven is closely related to recommendations three and five in the report. And these all deal with the dangerous animal hearing process. So in the event that there is a significant bite that occurs and an animal control officer determines that an animal may be potentially or is a dangerous declared animal, there is a process for the animal owner to go through a hearing to ensure that they have received due process in the restrictions that are going to be placed on their animal, whether it's muzzling or confinement at home or posting of signs at their home. And there are a variety of potential mitigation measures that an animal owner can be subjected to if their animal is declared potentially dangerous or dangerous. The specific finding in F7 is that the grand jury didn't feel that our code and the definitions of how the hearing is conducted and who is the hearing officer, that those hearing officers were not truly independent and that that could have compromised the due process rights of the participants in the hearing. We did not agree with that finding. We think it's clear when you read the various provisions in Chapter 9 of the Municipal Code that there is the ability and there is the obligation to appoint independent hearing officers. And the city manager and the appointing authority of the hearing officers has that ability. And that is also our practice and our procedure. that we would always appoint an independent hearing officer. So we feel like this is already kind of taken care of in our code and there's not a change that's needed. The recommendations were one, or recommendation three basically said, change your code to allow independent hearing officers. So again, we think that's that's taken care of. Another one, recommendation five, that I feel like resulted from a bit of a misconstruction or misunderstanding of our Title IX regulations is that it wanted, bite victims basically to be a party to the hearing. And that's, unfortunately, that's not how the code is constructed. The purpose and the intent of the hearing and the hearing officer is actually to allow the animal control officer to present the evidence of the case, the incident, what happened, and this is why we are putting these restrictions on the animal, and then for the animal owner to present contrary evidence if they would like some of those restrictions to not be implemented. So the victims, while they provide absolutely critical evidence and testimony in those hearings, and the input, I think, is really critical in what the hearing officer ultimately decides, the victims themselves are not actually parties to that hearing. So that's, again, just a difference of interpretation or understanding of our code. Yet, bite victims in these cases do have other avenues to seek redress, whether it's filing a claim with the animal owner's insurance company, seeking civil litigation, etc., So yet in spite of that, in spite of some of the differences or disagreements we have on this particular topic with the grand jury, we do think it's relevant to review the Title IX regulations. And so we can absolutely do that. There are likely some ways we can clarify some of these regulations, make them stronger. So that's something that staff can engage in when the timing is right. Next slide, please. Okay, finding eight and in conjunction with recommendation four related to records management and records retention. This is actually more specifically related to records around bite cases and victims' ability to receive records, to request records. And we said disagree in part. We do agree with much of the finding that the records management needs to be strengthened. There were instances where the records were very slow or they were incomplete or other issues. And we fully agree that that will be strengthened in a new future provider contract. But the way finding eight is worded in the report, it also could be read with the assertion that no records existed and no records were ever provided. And so we didn't think that was accurate. I mean, we know that's not accurate. So we disagreed with part of that finding. From a practicality standpoint, we are in a different position with these types of records than we are with regular city created records. So in animal services, most if not all of the records that somebody would be requesting or needing, they're created by the provider and they're maintained in a provider database, whether they're paper files or electronic files. So the city is really reliant on the provider to keep the records, manage the records, and inventory them properly, as well as timely and accurately provide the records when requested. So again, and I know I sound like a broken record, but as we're moving to the new contract, this will be a piece of it. It was included in our RFP for services that we want to make sure that the provider we select and contract with is fully equipped to implement this recommendation in accordance with the Public Records Act and with victims or other folks' rights to request records.

Next slide, Caitlin.

Okay, recommendation seven. Again, this is kind of a repeat from the report a year ago, advocating for and wanting the city to participate in a regional governance model. We said that we would partially implement this, not because we don't want to implement it, but because there are plenty of questions around timing, around what the agreement and the collaboration will look like, what the costs will be. And then ultimately, clearly the city council still needs to approve and analyze that and tell us to move forward with the consortium concept. So again, timing is up in the air, but we're actively participating in the county as started those discussions. Next slide. So just a few high-level themes and we're wrapping up here. So I think one thing that we saw from the grand jury is concerns about governance, which we did not agree with most of those conclusions. Improper delegation of authority or issues or problematic regulations that needed to be corrected in a significant way. Definite themes around oversight, and we've mentioned those multiple times. So stronger reporting, stronger records management and records retention. complaint procedures for folks who are not happy with the services and then monitoring all of those things to be able to see, are we meeting expectations or are we falling short? Really, it's the new service agreement because we are currently in an interim agreement with Marin Humane. The new service agreement will be central to all of the corrective actions that we're talking about tonight. And then the collaboration with our regional city partners and county partners is a key to long-term sustainability with our animal services in Sonoma County. Next slide. I think we'll wrap up on this one. So we just wanted to conclude by acknowledging that there are opportunities for improvement. There absolutely are. We acknowledged that a year ago. We've been working diligently on some of those corrections, yet we did not agree with many of the findings that were in this new report from the grand jury this year. We've got contractual improvements, procedural and operational reforms underway. And our future focus areas will include really all of the above, service delivery, reporting, transparency, records management, and regional coordination. And just in three or so short months, we're already experiencing a new level of service with Marin Humane, and we look forward to continuing the discussions with the county and Sonoma Humane about our long-term service model moving forward. And I think that's all we have for the presentation. And staff are happy to answer questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Big, big topic tonight. This is the question period for Council. Do we have any questions of Council Member Schmidt?

Yeah. Some of the main a couple of questions in here, but the main one breaks down to the some of the legal language that our response had a lot of nice, really legal language in and how how it described both what we agreed with and what we disagree with. So I just want to find out a little bit about what are the legal consequences like we've disagree with some of the findings. Are there any, or what we agreed with? What are the legal consequences now that it's been reported? We have a report back. Could people take us to court as to whether or not this is truthful or not? Things like that. So what are some of the legal consequences after we make this report back?

So the grand jury, the civil grand jury, is a recommending body, an investigating and recommending body. But the counsel is the... is the Petaluma electorate's elected representatives and the legislative body of the city. So the decision whether or not to implement the grand jury's recommendations is solely the council's. There were no, as the assistant city manager pointed out, we had some strong disagreements and we explained those in detail with the grand jury's We believe misunderstandings about our charter authorities, the significance and lawfulness of the council's action in directing staff and staff's action in implementing that. So those are legal matters, but the council, or I'm sorry, the grand jury Is, as I said, investigating and recommending body, they're not a court. They're overseen by the presiding judge. And they're advised by county council that is assigned to them, but that's it. So it's really up to the council to conclude with staff input and community input. What direction the council has. going forward as to these issues and what we've provided is our recommended draft based on the analysis and explanations we've given um to be the legally compliant response you saw brian talked about the pretty formulaic way we need to structure our responses that's prescribed in the penal code statutes that govern these reports so so there's no direct legal consequences. With respect to our animal services program, like anything else we do, we have to follow the law, we have to follow our charter, we have to follow the municipal code, and there's potential legal exposure if we don't. But we don't believe there are any instances of that kind of exposure. If there were, we'd be identifying those.

Right. So I'm looking at possible exposures on things because I found the language to be avoiding of a lot of details that were very generic, vague and inconsequential and hard to measure as goals and hard to really see what is actually going to happen. It was very bad. We're going to improve. We will make it better. I didn't find a lot of, was that on purpose? What did we exactly, we said we agree in part, but you never listed what we actually agreed to and what was the evidence that we agreed to that was found. And even in the results, we're going to improve. We're not really listing. We're going to do this. We're going to have a database. We're going to have a city control of this. So what you described on your screen seemed to be a little bit more detailed about what we're actually going to do, not just improve. I was wondering why that language was avoided or intentionally, or do we really need to add in the language of what do we actually agree with, what parts exactly?

Well, as Brian explained, I mean, I don't know if you want to, maybe we should bring back up that slide that has those formulaic responses that the penal code dictates that we use. So we really, we used the language that the law requires that we use. As Brian said, it would have seemed, I think, I don't know, Maybe we would have preferred to use language about agreeing in part instead of disagreeing in part, for example, because it's just more negative. But that's what we use the language that's required in the penal code. I leave it to staff. There's certainly no desire on our part to not be clear in the responses. It's a rather detailed draft that we provided to the council. We've been pretty clear about the process that's underway. We've also been clear that The real nitty-gritty of the running of the program and the obligations of the contract service provider is going to be in the scope of work of the services contract, and that's what we'll be using to hold the contract service provider accountable, and that's And I would suggest that that's what the council should use to hold the service provider and staff accountable in terms of the administration of that contract. So I don't know. I don't know what I'm missing in the response, but that's... Well, I mean, maybe an example is helpful.

So... For example, finding number four, and I'll just read it verbatim. By failing to develop a system to document and respond to citizen complaints, the city manager's office lost opportunities to receive and respond to community input. So that's pretty vague in terms of what the grand jury is recommending for implementation. Now there is a corresponding recommendation, but basically all of the recommendation says is the city council should adopt a system to receive and follow up on citizen complaints. I mean, the recommendation is also very, very vague and it leaves a lot of the detail to be filled in by the city. So again, like Eric said there at the end of his comments, we'll be looking to work with our service provider and we included specific language in the RFP that said, please outline and it's a requirement to have A clear reporting and complaint procedure as well as we required in the RFP that the with the quarterly reporting all of the complaints that are filed with the service provider need to be provided to the city manager's office. So we're starting to outline what that looks like. But again, depending on. the provider's own systems, what they already have in place, how their routing and oversight already looks. The specific details of the process may still need to be worked out and finalized. So that's kind of part of what we're going through now in developing the agreement and the scope of work with the future provider. But other ones in this report and in some of the city's declarations that we are going to make improvements here or improvements there. Those are going to happen once the new provider is already on board. They're up and running. We can see, you know, what does their data look like? How are their procedures and flow within the shelter? What are the specific procedures about bite reporting or animal control calls? So some of these things, again, are going to have to wait. Other ones, I think we can have a little bit more clear idea of what they're going to look like with input, again, from the provider as we move forward.

And I guess the last question I have is if we wanted to, do we need to accept this, like, right at this point in time, do we need to accept this report pretty much as written? Are we allowed to tweak it? Do we can we advise you to go back and look at some of the language that's in there? Because the way it's written in some ways, not very. Natural it's has some legal languages as I said, it's a very tight document is what we can say in there. So, is there any how much effort would it take? And are we required to actually review in more detail or in detail how to take it to the next step? Do we do that? Or just. Go with what you've got at this point.

So the agenda item is structured with the resolution for the council to approve the report as written. The council also would have the option to amend it here tonight if somebody wanted to propose and approve specific language changes, that's fine. The report, I think I've done the, 90-day calculus. So we have 90 days after the issuance of the report. I believe that would mean we would need to have the report to the grand jury and approved by something like August 9th. So if the council wanted us to come back on August 3rd, that is theoretically possible.

Let me put this differently. Did you have a particular area or paragraph that you wanted to?

Well, the only one, like reading through it in general as I'm reading it, having been in the corporate world looking at documents of complaints and revisions and recommendations, from the corporate world, this would be very dissatisfactory because there's no details in it. It's very vague language, and we expect measurable goals to be listed down a little bit more in detail to flesh it out. So that was... That's not a question. That was a question, but it was a... A request for like thinking about what opportunity we have to revise some of that and how much effort is really worth putting it at this point in time.

Yeah, I'm kind of with you on that. I hear you on this. I think the grand jury report requires us to do certain things, address certain things, but it doesn't, you know, many of the things that we're saying we're addressing aren't available on the timeline to reply to the grand jury. They're to develop more metrics and more specifics for our benefit, for the community's benefit and things like that. So I like the idea of having more detail in when the RFP comes out or when the negotiated proposal comes out. but for the timeline of getting it in August date, I think this is the kind of data that the grand jury's looking for. You're treating this problem when you address it.

Right. I generally agree with the overall perspective on it. I'm just missing the length of the agreements was very vague and small and the disagreements was very long and a little more detailed and i was expecting a little more balance between the two but uh that's that's that's just me if i would rewrite it but again uh this is a legal document i just want to be careful around the legalities what could be used for down the road if we say if we try to be too tight do things good point thank you council member quinn any uh questions we're still on questions

Yeah, mine is just more kind of, I think, pretty basic. You talked about a software solution. Was that for licensing only?

The specific software that the grand jury referenced was specifically for licensing, yes. Got it.

where I was kind of where my head was at with the whole challenge around reporting. You know, most organizations use some kind of you know, ERP to run their operation. And I would think that reporting, you know, ought to be able to, you know, come out of that. So I wasn't sure if that software license, you know, if that platform was something that would solve for that. But just kind of looking online, it seems like The major animal service players that are in, you know, in this area, aside from North Bay Animal Services, have robust systems. So one would think that reporting, they ought to be able to, like, that's kind of like standard stuff. one would hope. That was my only question on that. In terms of the, again, this is just kind of an immediate thing on the whole, you know, having a procedure for dog bites or animal bites, you know, both Sonoma Humane and Marin Humane have, their portals have a place for dog bite reports. So whoever the responsible party is, maybe it's something as simple as the city's website has a link to that. know right at this point in our current setup it might be confusing as to who to go to so just a suggestion that was it okay councilmember now

Thank you. On the findings, one, there is no mention of the now, we don't have the Animal Services Committee, but is that something that we could say that we're going to bring back? Because that has the public sitting on the committee with a council liaison. I remember being on it in 2007, and it helps bring these things to the attention that if it slips through the cracks like this, you know, the grand jury found that things slipped through the cracks. And I'm embarrassed that it happened in that element, but I'd like to know how we can bring an animal services committee back so that there is some more attention given. And that's what our committees do is they look into it and investigate and bring things to the attention of staff and the council. So that's one of my questions. The other one is the dog licensing. I know that the findings F3, it's ultimately the responsibility of the owner, but many of the owners are not computer literate and They're going to depend on a paper bill, just like their water bill, just like their PG&E bill, because not all dog owners know, oh, I need to remember to pay my dog license. They may not know when it... it needs to be renewed. So that was one thing I wanted to ask that maybe we think about, those people that aren't on computers who depend on paper bills for renewing, licensing, et cetera, and paying bills. The other one was The finding of F5, and I have to find it real fast, explain how our partnerships with nonprofits work. They accuse us, of course, of not having responsibility to review financial stability of NBAS. We have many nonprofits that we contract with. to do services in our community. Maybe you can explain what is in the contract that we can see their financial obligation to the city because we don't have we didn't have anything to do with the other things that NBAS was doing other than what our city contract so maybe you could explain that and I think that's all my questions the other ones were on our afternoon questions or council questions so

Sure. So specifically on the financial oversight, you're right. We do have many nonprofits that we work with providing services. There are typically standard, you know, pretty vanilla provisions within the contracts that talk about, you know, we have the ability to inspect books and records and we can audit, you know, ledgers and invoices etc if if we want um i i don't know of a time that we have needed or chosen to exercise those provisions i mean the reality is at the end of the day the obligation for the service provider is to provide the scope of services that is in the agreement right and how they do that that's really on them and that they're a third party non-profit that is not affiliated with the city other than the fact that we are in a contract with them So that's why in the body of our response, and I think in my comments tonight, we mentioned that the duty is really on the board of directors of the nonprofit to ensure that they have the stability, the financial wherewithal to provide the level of service that they're committing to. Or we need to have a follow-up conversation, right, about do we need, is there some help that the city can provide? Do we need to change the scope, amend the contract, et cetera? But I can't think of another time when we have needed or elected to essentially audit the financials of another third-party nonprofit entity that we contract with.

Yeah, my comments kind of go along that same line. Not so much critique of what we've written in the grand jury, but the lessons learned and how we're adopting them here. Like in our new proposal, our new contract with non-profit, more on Council Member Now's point. You know, we require insurance from each of them. We require the insurance to be updated every year, and we require that somebody check that they sent in the insurance and they're still under contract. And one differentiation between most contracts and this contract is this is an enduring contract, a multi-year contract. It's not, you know, put in paving from this corner to that corner. So, It requires us to monitor on a longer-range basis. While we wouldn't want to audit a firm, you know, there should be triggers to show that a board is weakening or not fulfilling their obligation, and yet they're providing us a critical service. Can we have things in like they must submit their annual financials? We won't judge, but just the fact that they did them and submitted them is a sign of robustness. Similarly, their... tax responsibility. Even the nonprofits have to file a tax. And in many of them, you see that that's the burden they don't actually get to because they're too busy chasing animals or whatever their primary function is, is they've lost organizational strength. So I would love to see us. have that. I'm seeing head nodding. So that was a question. The answer is yes. Great. Then the second question. So in the bite victim at hearing, is it typical or have we examined yet whether that is a typical process for, say, Marin or Sonoma? In looking at some other cities procedures it's it's pretty typical yes so I would love to see that recommendation agreed to down the road and those those are 2 my 2 primary questions councilmember to currently.

What happens if this city refutes the grand jury's report. which I think in this case, I mean, a lot of it is refuted. I mean, what happens then?

Well, I think that was reflected in Eric's answer to Council Member Schroed's question a bit. There's no sort of legal weight behind the recommendations necessarily. It is a recommending body. Our obligation is to file a response and state whether we agree or disagree with the findings and why, and then report on the recommendations and whether or not we are electing to implement them, or maybe they've already been implemented. So that's really the extent of the city's legal obligation in this grand jury process.

And then what tools or methods do we have to get some of the answers people are seeking out of NBAS? You know, for people in the public and people affected by this?

I'm sorry, could you elaborate on that? The answers?

I mean, people have lots of questions and answers and have for eight years now. And so what, you know, people are kind of demanding accountability. What sort of tools do we have? You know, as somebody who's contractually obligated to us, probably considered a partner in a nonprofit, like, how do we get those answers?

Well, we've started that process a little bit. The council at the March 2nd meeting requested a forensic audit of NBAS. We have kicked off with an auditing firm, and it's not a full forensic audit at this point, but it's a risk review and a fraud risk review and a contract compliance audit. review, basically. And so that is what we view. That's sort of like step one. We'll see what that comes back with. And if we need to follow up on any of the findings from that report, then we'll go ahead and do that. But that's, I think, where you're headed. And we look forward to working with the accounting firm to see if they come back with anything substantive.

What does a risk review mean?

Well, they're performing a variety of procedures, looking at their detailed general ledger data. So we have that and looking at what, you know, are there any irregularities in the payments, any things that might trigger or think that there could be some fraud that had occurred. So they're doing a variety of reviews of their financials to to see if anything kind of pops or like rises to the top that, hey, we think there might be a problem here. We should look further. And they may or may not find anything. And so we're kind of waiting for that review to be concluded. And then we'll see if there are any next steps that come from that.

Are we receiving compliance on that? I'm sorry? From NBAS, are we receiving compliance? Thus far, yes. And then, you know, one response in the letter refutes that authority was not taken from the council. So how frequently over the past eight years were serious issues, regular reporting, oversight or matters, you know, of concern brought to the council?

How often were those issues brought to the council? Is that the question?

Right, because the whole question in that part of the report is about, it questions whether city manager's office is making all the decisions or the council. The response has been, this is the council's authority. How often over that eight-year period were issues brought to the council?

And reports well there were multiple touch points during that time so the city council through a public process you know our p process and publicly notice meetings issued the original contract back in twenty eighteen there. There was an amendment to that cost so the initial agreement was a three year agreement there was an amendment to that agreement that the council deliberated on I believe in twenty twenty. to do a contract extension. And so that came to council at a public meeting and it was approved by council. We did have the discussion about as council member now alluded to the animal services committee, I believe that was in 2022. So that was another touch point. And then we've had the grand jury reports for the last two years. So that's at least four or five times we've reviewed it. Additionally, the council approves of the budget every year, ultimately. And that's just one piece of authority that the council exercises. If there were concerns that the council felt needed to be addressed, you obviously all have the ability to speak to staff, speak to the city manager, and request new analysis, different analysis, or bring an item back. And actually, I'm sorry, I failed to mention one. The March 2nd meeting, I think, is another good example where We recognize the issues, brought it to you all for a decision, and you made the decision that you made that night. So anyway, there have been a number of them.

And then what, I have a couple more questions. What action was the city supposed to take if contractual obligations were not fulfilled?

Essentially, there are two ways that we can enforce the contract or enforce noncompliance in the contract. One way is that we can withhold payment. So if there's a portion of the services that we didn't receive, we can withhold payment. The second way we can enforce the contract is to terminate the contract for noncompliance. So those are essentially the two enforcement mechanisms that we have.

No, thank you. Because I did pull up the contract, and it is stated several times, and the first being in the standard of performance that, you know, contractors failure to comply with any laws or regulations applicable to the performance of the services shall constitute a default subject determination of this agreement in accordance with Section 25B of the agreement. So, you know, I mean, I'll talk more about that in comment, but it seems like there were several years where they violated this. And again, it's mentioned throughout the contract more and more times. Kind of the last question I have is...

Excuse me, Vice Mayor. I'd like to just briefly add there are those formal remedies in the contract, but... There are other steps that can be taken. We took some of them. One of them was when the consultant was retained to try to improve the performance that we knew was lacking. And that's not something the contract spells out, but it's an option. Another option is amending the contract if it's thought that the scope isn't clear or there's some other kind of change in the contract or requirements that need to be added to ensure compliance. That's an option. And I think we would have anticipated and did anticipate that we might be seeing those results as a result of the consultant engagement, but we know that wasn't successful because NBAS wouldn't cooperate. There are the express remedies stated in the contract and as the awarding agency, and with remedies in the contract that include termination for convenience, it doesn't have to be for default, and we can always propose amendments. So there's quite a range of things, and those are some of the additional steps that were taken regarding the performance issues. Thanks.

And then, you know, this grand jury report is largely based around the city's response to everything. And so, you know, one of the things that would help me understand this better is who were the city employees that were involved in the NBAS contract and oversight of it?

Well, the city manager's office is ultimately the administrator of the contract. So, I mean, I think that's the answer to that question. In conjunction, you know, the police department has a role at times. If there are enforcement cases occasionally, you know, many calls for service occur in our parks department, in our city parks. So, that's another department that has an interface with our animal services provider. But ultimately, the administration of the contract is with the city manager's office.

But we have other involved departments, too. Invoices are approved and payments made through finance. The legal department, obviously, we played a direct role in implementing the council's direction to terminate, but also played the role in reviewing and recommending approval of the initial contract and amendments, et cetera. So under the oversight of the city manager's office, there are a number of involved departments, including legal and finance.

Right. But then who, I mean, who were those main employees, I suppose, that were constantly daily involved in this?

That was myself. Yeah. In conjunction with Peggy.

All right. Thank you. And let's bring in Councilmember Cater-Thompson.

I'll wait for the next.

Okay. Councilmember Barnicle.

Yeah, a couple of questions. Considering how much I would say we largely agree with the sort of qualitative reporting was inadequate, things like that, that we are very much aware of. The legal discrepancies, the fact that county council was involved in this, have we talked to county council about any of these things and found out what's going on? Because I agree that some of this stuff just doesn't make sense.

No, we've not. And I don't know that, you know, we have a great relationship with our colleagues in county council, including with Josh Myers, the new county council. I don't know that they talk with us about that, nonetheless, because, you know, that's their client communications. I don't know how much time we spent with the grand jury, but it was a lot of time to try to provide as much clear information as we could in response to their questions. I personally spent at least a couple hours with the full um grand jury to respond to their questions and I and the the information that we included in our response was information I shared with them both then and also I sent them a subsequent follow-up because it seemed like they still had some there were still some things they weren't grasping so well so I don't know I'd we you know if if they wanted to have dialogue with us we'd be happy to have dialogue about that

Okay. So Mayor asked my question about the hearing process. Have we looked at other cities in their hearing process and if victims are able to be party to those hearings and things like that?

We've looked at some. I think the analogy, you know, it's not a... Municipal courts have been absorbed in the Superior Court system, so that kind of victim redress is there in the civil system. If there were criminal, you know, liability or charges related to animals, then our police department would handle that through the DA's office. But as we explained, The most important role victims play is coming forward with complaints and concerns and then as witnesses, and like in a criminal trial, it's the prosecuting agency that controls the proceedings. It's not the involved parties and the witnesses. And the redress that they receive in the criminal context, like in the animal services context, is in the sanctions and the safety protections with respect to whether someone's incarcerated. In this case, it's whether safety conditions are imposed on the animal owner. So it's a pretty parallel situation.

parallel pretty parallel process and then we give that information to and we met with the grand jury yeah I'll say that's one of my concerns because of the specific dog bite case that we have that where it was just really mishandled and so I don't know how that applies to our hearing process or whatnot but Just, I guess my question, I don't think there's a question there, but that's where my question's coming from, all right? So the finding F5 about financial oversight, you know, we're not their board, but we did ask them for a budget update, correct?

I would say regularly and to ask if they had any needs. Do we need to tweak things? Do you need better administrative support? How are the status of your vehicles, et cetera, et cetera? So we were continually meeting with them and asking if they needed additional support. from the city to be able to effectively do their job.

Right, because we didn't, and they never gave us an updated budget from the initial contract, right? We never saw an escalation? Correct. Is that accurate?

Other than in the 2020 extension amendment, we did change the contract. The original contract had a certain percentage of the license fees actually coming to the city. We tweaked it so that NBIS would be able to keep all of the license fees to be able to elevate their overall funding.

Okay. I would add that to the report. Multiple times, we aren't their board, but we did ask them multiple times for a budget update. And then... You know, one of the other things that sort of catches me off guard with this is that we committed to an RFP by the end of the NBAS contract, which was July 31st, 2026. And this came out before that whole process. So a lot of the responses of what we were doing, or the main response of what we were doing was rebidding the contract. And they issued this. Where did that come from?

I'm not sure that we fully know, but it is clear that they were working on a follow-up as far back as January of this year. And so I think, again, this is me surmising, so this is all speculation, but I think they had a certain direction that they were looking at with the report. And then when the March 2nd council meeting happened and the council gave us direction to terminate the agreement, I think that kind of shifted the direction of the report. In fact, I think in the report it says the scope of the investigation significantly narrowed after the March 2nd meeting. So it changed some of their findings and the direction that they were headed, but I think it was clear even in March that we were clearly headed toward doing a new RFP for services because we had that checkpoint with the NBAS agreement July 31.

Got you. So reading between the lines, we were headed for a different report. They were probably going to scold us for not taking corrective action on NDIS. And then we fired them abruptly and the scope of their findings and report narrowed.

That's how the report reads, again, sort of reading between the lines. There also was the, I don't know if you call it news, but the information that NBAS was not cooperating with the consultant. And so since I think that in last year's report, that was a piece of our corrective action that we were taking. Since that process did not succeed, that was sort of a new, you know, instigation to look back at things.

Okay. And then the other one that I had a question on was... The when we were on the reporting in the last report, my sense is that part of this, you know, part of it was the news that they weren't working with the consultant. The other part we committed to was quarterly reports from NBAS. And I can't remember getting quarterly reports from NBAS after we submitted the last grand jury report. Did we get?

No, I think the intent of that was with a new provider that we would be insisting on quarterly reports. And speaking with the provider, that is already their standard practice is to do quarterly reports. So it will fully be in line with the reporting frequency that we requested and we said to the grand jury.

okay i will be digging into that during my public com or during my comment um and then um so there's two more questions that i have about the status of the audit and where we stand with that when that will be complete and we'll see that back and then um the process of getting data we're well past the the period where they should have furnished all of the results and all of that stuff Can you talk about how cooperative they've been? And do we have literally everything right now that we are supposed to have? Because some of the public comments are saying that we don't. And I'm wondering where we stand on the audit and capturing data from NDIS.

Yeah, so one of the provisions of the agreement was that after it's terminated, they have 60 days to furnish us with all of the data. So with a March 31 termination date, that basically would have meant the end of May. We received significant amount of data from them by the end of May. We received even more after the end of May. There were two major provisions things that we received after, which were some of the database stuff that they had. They had to work with their software provider to be able to get that data, so it was extended out significantly past May 31st. And then, Prior to May 31st, we did receive a large drop of multiple dozens of boxes of paper records, but it has taken us up till now, and we are still not totally complete, going through all of those records, categorizing them, cataloging them, etc. So that's still ongoing, but I would say generally they did comply with the the procedures to turn over all of the data to the city. And I think I can say that we have everything that we were expecting to have when the contract terminated.

Thank you.

Oh, and then your question on the audit itself.

Timing of it.

Yeah, so timing is a little bit up in the air. I would say we should have some at least preliminary things back from the consultant within one to two months. It is a significant amount of data that they're looking through, came over in kind of a not very convenient format, so they're having to kind of reconstruct some of the pieces. So once that process is completed, I think they should be able to have some initial analysis done within maybe one month or max two months.

Great. And then Council Member DeCarli and I received sort of a trove of data from a member of the public. Can you confirm that that's been passed on to the auditor? Yes, it was. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Quinn? Okay. Council Member DeCarli?

when brian when you were talking about all the data that was received how i mean was that months years i mean about how much data if you can even say i don't know what kind of mess it was when it came in but about how much data was that uh the full eight years that they were the provider yeah and was it all encompassing of everything the city was asking of them as far as we know yes it was quite all encompassing yes

Okay, let's move to public comment and I'd like to ask the clerk to invite the public in.

Yes, we received five comments ahead of the meeting. And those are posted online. And we have 12 people in the zoom meeting. And at this time, I will start a 30 second clock. Whoops. All right. Well, that's three minutes, but we'll watch for 30 seconds. Members of the public attending in person should bring their speaker cards to my desk if they have not already done so. And members of the public attending online should raise their virtual hand and those attending via phone should press star nine. to raise their hand. Speaker requests received after these 30 seconds may not be accommodated.

We have five cards from the public in the house, and we have two Zoom participants for a total of seven. So let's start with Sierra Morantz and be followed by Derek Childs.

You all have copies of these. Okay, I find some of the draft responses to the grand jury's report a bit disingenuous, especially the pieces about prompt action. Your position about a bite victim's rights is just ridiculous. I first came to my city council member, mayor, city manager, and attorney in October 2024 after four months of unresponsiveness from MBAS following a vicious dog attack. Brian and Kevin, you acknowledged that MBAS wasn't getting the job done as it should, but even then it took a month to get a summary response from MBAS via the city manager's office. As time went on, you saw the saga unfold from lack of action to excuses around why documentation was taking so long. For a documentation example, city staff said the debatement reports that I requested were taking NBAS so long because of extensive redacting required. When we got them after four months, it was only seven documents with three pages each and very little content, redacted or otherwise. By December 2025, Kevin, you even noted that NBAS had not been the partner that the city would desire, that efforts were in place to change that, but you couldn't share more and you asked me to wait until June 2026. After NBIS was terminated, I asked for a review of my case. The officer assigned is one of the new Marin Humane officers that worked on my case while she was employed by NBIS. She and her supervisor told me they do not have all the documents and asked me to send them over. However, while I was compiling those, I got an email from Brian Cochran telling me that Marin Humane had determined too much time had passed and they wouldn't be taking further action unless new incidents were reported. It's ethically questionable to put a person on a case when they worked on it as a prior employee of an entity that was terminated for cause. If Marin Humane wasn't able to truly assign a neutral person due to whatever reason, the city should have made that clear and asked me to wait for a permanent provider. Or if you knew nothing would be done, you should have taken ownership and you should have told me so. It also brings into question how other existing cases are being addressed and the need for a fully funded long-term solution. I'm far from the only bite victim in the city of Petaluma. There have been some big cases recently. With that, here's what I'd ask you to do. First, make sure you're being forthright in your response to the grand jury. Next, move to a fully funded long-term animal services solution that completely moves away from NBIS and bring back the Animal Services Committee. Finally, listen to your constituents when they bring evidence of city and contractor issues and continue your full investigation of NBAS. By the way, the dog that attacked me has been unlicensed since January. Its rabies vaccine is up in less than a year. Thank you.

Thank you. Dara Childs and Tom. And let's go to Mark Kimberly then. But I don't have a card for Mark Kimberley. So I'm going to assume you turned in a card and wanted to just go ahead and have the card and go ahead.

So you disagree with the grand jury report again, right? How many times You know, it reminds me, I disagreed with every traffic cop that ever gave me a speeding ticket. I disagree with the IRS every single year when they tell me I've got to pay them some money. But it doesn't matter, because I know they're right, and I stand up and do the right thing. And I think it's about time you people do the same. You are in such denial, and... I just have to say, look at all the trouble you've brought on yourselves and on this city by hiring a known criminal in a private contract and then covering for him and lying for him for eight long years. Look at where you're at. Peggy Flynn, look at where you're at. Brian Cochran, people are organizing right now to get you out of office. Do you know that? And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that happens. they're also organizing for about half of this council to do recalls on you. And I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that happened, because first they're going to ask for your resignations, and we know that won't happen. And when that doesn't happen, they're going to try to pressure the council into terminating your employment, and I know that won't happen. So then they're going to recalls, and then they're going to the ballot box. There's only two or three people here that are trusted whatsoever, and you brought it all on yourselves. But I didn't even come here to talk to you people. I came to talk through you to the people of Petaluma. Because you stopped listening to us years ago. You've had your back turned to us, and we know it. For eight years you stood by. You watched while a criminal and a thief dismantled the animal sheltering system in Petaluma. You watched as they stopped providing reports. Cash only thrift stores popped up. Services to the public went into the toilet. Concerned citizens came here to this podium and begged you for your help and you did nothing. You lied for those people and you covered for them. Your response to this report makes it clear you see nothing wrong with starving dogs while selling donated food in their thrift stores, people being mauled by dogs in the streets and then being ignored, failing to investigate bite cases, rabies protocols being ignored, or with the criminal director's salary climbing to the highest in the county for any shelter director while simultaneously taking loans from his board of directors to stay afloat. To you, that was all okie fine. How foolish. We've had multiple grand jury reports criticizing your lack of oversight, but your response shows you still claim that you've done nothing wrong. You're supposed to be our leaders. Leaders have ethics. They have honor. They have honesty and integrity. And all those things are in very short supply around here. Stay tuned. A lot more is going to happen.

Thank you very much. Tom Chamberlain, to be followed by Nicholas Harris. Tom Chamberlain. There you are. Hi.

Ready, set, go. Good evening. After reading the city's draft response to Animal Services Revisited, A City Asleep at the Wheel, I feel compelled to speak before the council on this document. The Sonoma County Civil Grand Jury, which is composed of 18 fellow citizens, spent a year investigating fellow citizens' complaints about ongoing operations of our local animal shelter. They issued their report, which I have read, and which this citizen found clear and well supported. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the city's draft response, which is now before the council this evening for their approval. Quite frankly, I am at a complete loss in trying to understand it. For example, regarding finding number one, which I consider one of the most substantive matters raised, the allegation that the city manager exceeded her authority to uniformly terminate and execute contracts. The grand jury clearly stated that actions of this nature required council approval and that, quote, no vote was taken, unquote. After reading the city draft response several times, I struggled, but I believe that the following is the city's position. Terminating North Bay Animal Services contract, approving a replacement contract to Marin Humane, and committing funds to cover this transition are just administrative actions only needing direction from the council and are well within the city manager's authority. At least this is my, a citizen of Petaluma, understanding. If correct somehow, I don't see how approving contracts and committing funds is just an administrative action. As I see it, the overriding question here is, did this action require a vote by the council? A simple yes or no answer was all that was required. Yet I see no evidence in the city's draft that this was ever addressed. In conclusion, this citizen believes that a redrafting of the city's response is mandated in simple, clear language, specifically identifying those areas which the city perceives as, quote, shortcomings, unquote, in the grand jury report. The citizens of Petaluma need this. Thank you for hearing me and for your representing our city, and I am looking forward to the council's discussion on this matter.

Thank you.

Thank you. Nicholas Harris, to be followed by Nina Zito.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Council Member DeCarli asked a question earlier. It was actually the wrong question. You asked what happens if the city refutes the report. The correct question is what happens... if the city council of Petaluma refutes the report. The report by the grand jury is made to the council. The council is replying. You are being asked to reply for six of the eight recommendations. What you need to ask is what happens to the city council if you refute this report? It's not a legal question. Because the answer is it's a loss of public trust. Many of you, through your questions, have intimated the report as it's written does not really make sense. It's confusing. There's not plain language. I appreciate your comments, Councilmember Barnicle. Clearly, this report needs to be rewritten. Sort of summarizing what I heard from Mr. Cochran's presentation, staff says the provider didn't perform per the agreement. And then says, staff says the solution will be to make a new agreement better. It's going to incorporate better parts to the agreement. A better agreement doesn't solve performance and contract management. The overall message from the civil grand jury is that the council needs to take control and ensure staff can and will manage the service. It's really the core of management. Management cannot blame a line employee or a vendor for failure to execute. Under some circumstances, yes. But given the record of what this report, and just by nature that the issue is the result of a civil grand jury investigation and a follow-up, it's not appropriate to be putting the onus of contract performance, financial stability, everything back on the contractor. It just doesn't fly. And I really want each and every one of you, and Janice, you too, hi, to take that message to heart. What I think is appropriate is an ad hoc subcommittee to draft a response to this with independent legal counsel guiding that ad hoc committee. What the clarifications that the city attorney gave to the grand jury and their repeated conclusions that defy, that's concerning.

Thank you. Nina Zito.

Thank you. I appreciate the renewed attention to animal issues in the city of Petaluma, and I'm struck how we're awash in a lot of detail and minutiae and contractual discussion. i feel like we need to really step back and consider this city's position on how animals fit into our community here it evidence of our lack of attention we well we've grown terribly quickly is found just in our city parks. I've entreated council people to walk with me at our designated dog run at Oak Hill Park, which is unfenced, where broken glass continues to bubble up from landfill. broken glass, and where the Much Valley Hood grazing program leaves behind foxtails, which are a documented menace for dogs. Now, in a city that does this at a designated dog park, should we be surprised that we have humane concerns? Because people aren't paying attention. We've grown too quickly. We really need to step back. I appreciate, Councilmember, Now it's remarked that an animal services committee needs to be reestablished. I think we should include our police department. Thank you for rescuing a dog from an overheated car, 98 degrees inside. We should have a veterinarian. We need behaviorists. We need our parks department, and I've entreated our director of parks to walk with me and look, for example, at Oak Hill Park or McNair where there's no water. These deficits show that despite the pretty pictures on the library, and I will admit it's a gorgeous mural, there's just an awful lot of fluffery and puffery around how much we, you know, we're committed to dogs and whatnot and feral cats, but putting the rubber to the road? No, we're not doing it. And We're not. We're lying to ourselves. And the member of the public who spoke about lack of public trust emerging is sadly right. We can't let that happen. Thank you for rejecting this resolution as it stands now.

Thank you. Let's go to Zoom audience now.

Yes, the first speaker will be Amy Taylor.

you would unmute yourself and make your comment can you hear me yes we can hear you now okay good evening this city council has allowed themselves to be bullied by city manager peggy flynn and assistant city manager brian cochran instead of supervising them that's backwards your job is to oversee cities It appears staff sets the narrative, sets the agenda, and this council just falls in line. Time after time, when the public brings evidence, staff says everything is fine. And instead of challenging them, you just repeat it. For the last eight years, the city's animal service control operator, with documented oversight failures, the grand jury found those failures, the contract failed, was ultimately terminated, yet we're still being told one failed, no one is accountable, and somehow everything is just fine. Enough is enough. Brian Cochrane, you brought up findings number six. The connection to that is that you let Mark Scott use your shelter for other cities' animal control. with that being said uninvestigated and uncharged crimes are still crimes mark scott north bay animal services did 114 cruelty cases broke public public health laws on rabies for years and sold donated dog food in their cash-only thrift store, but yet there's no forensic audit. Yeah, you said you're starting an audit, but it's not a forensic audit, and you're not holding them accountable. If you have a fraud case, I would like somebody to email that to me, a fraud case number. Stop telling us that because someone said that they care about animals, oversight doesn't matter. Stop defending failures instead of investigating them. Stop asking the public to ignore what happened and accept a story that doesn't match the facts. The council answers to the people of Petaluma, not the city manager and not the assistant city manager. If you are unwilling to exercise independent oversight, unwilling to hold staff accountable, and unwilling to tell the public the truth about what happened, then do us all a favor and resign. Step aside and let voters elect representation who allows the city to do their job, not to protect the city council or city hall. Thank you.

Thank you very much. That concludes public comment on the...

Sorry, we have one more.

We have one more. Yes. Thank you very much. My bad.

Sail White, if you would unmute yourself.

Hi. I hope you can hear me. I'm on my headset. First of all, I just have to point out that an earlier speaker in general... Sorry, that was my fault.

Sorry, that was my fault.

Let me mute one more time. Earlier speaker in general public comment came forward with a license plate belonging to a truck that belongs to the city of Petaluma, which is currently parked in front of Mark Scott's house in Santa Rosa. I am really curious about what the city is going to do to follow up on that and whether the city gave Mark Scott this truck or loaned Mark Scott this truck or not. It's not aware that Mark Scott stole this truck. And I'm bringing this up because it's kind of illustrative of the amount of oversight that the city of Petaluma has been doing all along. And this is happening right now. I don't know how much time I have left. But your staff's response to the grand jury report is downright fucking sorry, dishonest. Much like your staff's interactions with the public regarding animal services for the past eight years. Staff asserts in its response to the grand jury report that throughout the contract term, city staff worked extensively with NDIS, this is a quote, to strengthen its operations, improve management practices, forecast staffing and capital needs, and enhance organizational systems and processes. That was a quote. Okay, so great. So despite this unprecedented hand-holding of a city contractor by staff, The performance of NBIS declined precipitously over the nearly eight years that it held the contract, to the point that numerous unaltered, unvaccinated, and even diseased animals were released to the public under the pretense of foster to adopt, leaving members of the public potentially exposed to rabies from an unvaccinated animal. Many people paid for spay, neuter, and vaccination, services that NBIS was contractually obligated to provide. Meanwhile, dog bites were ignored or minimized, leaving the public exposed to unknowing needs of dogs with serious bite history. Council and staff were aware of these issues for many years. The City of Petaluma spent eight years making excuses for this shady operation while playing rabies roulette with its citizens. This response, this draft response, further states, However, despite substantial city support and ongoing oversight, it ultimately became evident that NDIS would not develop the operations necessary to consistently meet its contractual obligations. When that conclusion became clear, the City Council acted promptly, directing termination of the contract at its March 2, 2026 meeting. This statement is preposterous and dishonest. NBAS failed to provide minimally adequate services for nearly eight years before the council acted promptly on March 2, 2026. The huge unanswered question is why. Why did city staff work so hard to protect this particular contractor? Why did city council advocate its responsibility to the electorate by allowing staff to run interference for a contractor whose work was criminally incompetent at best? When city staff finally terminated the NDIS contract with cause this past March, the reasons cited were refusal to work with the city's animal services consultant, failure to timely provide annual reporting, and failure to notify the city that it was utilizing city resources including the shelter facility. Just have to say, those things were ongoing, and you all never did anything. Thank you.

Thank you. And that closes public comment on the item for the evening. I would like to bounce back to staff and ask what's known about the truck in Santa Rosa and that situation. Are we following that situation?

One of the... Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

So prior to this meeting, I haven't had an opportunity to look too much into that license plate, but the information was forwarded to dispatch. We will take a case and do an investigation on what the status of the vehicle is, if the plate belongs to a City of Petaluma vehicle, and as we normally would. We'll follow up on that.

Thank you. And just to add on to that, part of the closeout procedure that we've been undergoing with NBAS excuse me, is to close out from a financial and from an asset perspective. There were a lot of assets in the shelter at the time of the termination that were NBASs. There were also a lot of assets that were the cities. Most of that is complete. There were several vehicles and other pieces of equipment, trailers, those three modular homes out to the side of the shelter. that different entities owned different pieces of equipment. We went through a process of deciding which ones needed to stay at the shelter and remain in city ownership, which ones were NBIS owned and could go with them. And there were a couple of vehicles on each side where we said, yeah, we don't need this anymore. Let's look at a valuation and then NBAS can buy it from the city effectively and also vice versa. There was at least one vehicle that we wanted to buy from NBAS. So we are working through that process now and have been to create that final accounting to close out everything from a financial perspective with the agreement.

Is our fleet manager Patrick Carter here to maybe give any light to that? As to maybe the status of the truck, does he know anything about it?

Well, again, I think what I'm saying is there was one truck, one vehicle that NBAS, we agreed to sell to them because it was not in good shape. The city really couldn't use it, and Marine Humane was unable to use it. So we agreed on a value, and then NBAS was able to buy that truck from the city effectively. Pat, I forgot if you want to...

I would say exactly what Brian just said. Okay. So who would like to start the comments at the end of tonight's discussion? No one has comments. Okay. Council Member Shribbs.

Yeah, this is overall is a sad situation. We have animal services in several cities around us have failed. So these things, lots of it has been hidden. It's not unique to us. And so we are facing a basically a failure in operations at this point. Now, what do you do? Do we spend a lot of time writing a report, getting all the responses, or do we spend time fixing the problem? And I don't like the report. I would not write it myself that way, but it's a report. It's a recommendation report saying we're going to do better at this point. I don't want to waste time having legal and us. And it's just like the wordsmith of report that may or may not be adequate. I don't want to spend that much time on responding in a report. What I want to do is I want to fix the problem. So I'd much rather have staff spend the time to come up with the exact recommendations that we're looking for. I'm not sure if we can legally just go ahead and say, oh, we agree with this, this, this, and this, and this. We failed here and here and here and here. That might be good for the public to hear, but I'm not sure how productive that was or how legal that might be. But I want to hear... What are we going to do? What are the positive recommendations? We heard several recommendations tonight. So Brian, you did a good job of saying, hey, we're going to do this, this, this. You had a whole list there that did not appear in the report. Do we send it? Do we put that in the report and make it part in stone? Or do we just make it happen? So at this point, I'd rather just make it happen in reality and move forward. This is all one or the bridge. Just admit that it's been a screw up entirely on this whole thing. Let's put on the water on the bridge and let's make it right. That's where I would like to go.

Thank you very much. Council Member Barnicle? Yeah.

I would say I'm largely in Council Member Sherb's camp on this with a few modifications. So on R3 and R5 on the independent hearing officers and the victim participation in hearings, I would say not be implemented as written. We say we're going to review Title IX. I'd like us to review what other cities in Sonoma County are doing and bring that back for the council when we are looking at the next, the RFP response or approving the contract. Whenever the next time that we're going to, whether it's receiving the audit or whatever, I want to actually look at what the other cities are doing on that front and... edit this to to say that that's what we're gonna do is we're gonna look at the other cities and the council will direct staff to take action you know following that the When we bring forward the reports and the RFP, actually when we bring forward the contract, there's going to be a few things that I'm going to be interested in. The SLA for records furnishing, that's, you know, absolutely a non-starter or important one. I want like a really, really clear complaints process and escalation process that does not create a cycle of sending someone who made a complaint back to the organization that they're complaining about. the you know the and then the reporting i think the our police department they do an annual report and they come in front of us and they report out on their metrics um i'm fine with quarterly reporting we can receive and file those on consent and people can ask him questions about him or what have you but annually i think i want to have like one time where someone comes in and sits in front of the council and presents it in the same way that our police department does And then I note that, you know, a lot of the right metrics are in there, rabies vaccines, licensing, things like that. I want to make sure that we have trends in there of like, how are they doing relative to last year in the same way that, you know, we have that with our police department too. And then it's not just data with a point in time, but we're actually giving a context and we're looking at improvement and quality service. So a few things. I think this grand jury report rehashes a lot of the things we already knew, which is that we didn't do a good job on contract oversight on this front. And NBAS was not performing adequately. I take responsibility for not doing my oversight job in a more forceful way. But I'll note that we submitted our grand jury response on September 8th. So it wasn't a year after we submitted the grand jury response. It was actually four months. And when they started their new like, you know, investigation into us. So we were like there was a lot of work that was underway that we were we were taking to try and, you know, Bringing on the consultant to try and fix the operation is the interim step of trying to make it better. At the same time, when we brought the thing forward in March, we had a draft RFP that we were issuing. So it wasn't like we were asleep at the wheel. I take issue with that piece of this report more than anything is that we were absolutely looking to replace them. And that's the piece that I take most issue with. In terms of additional things, I think I'd like to add a line that we made requests for budget increases and things like that to NBAS into the financial oversight response. And, you know, I definitely agree with, like, the qualitative critiques of the city and NBAS and our role in this. But I think also the legal issues. responses that were provided. Like, I think there's like, they're capturing the issues properly and we're responding with the legal facts. And those are two separate things where we're just sort of talking past each other in this report that kind of, that's what the grand jury process sort of like lends itself to that it's, and it's not very satisfying. But I would say overall, like we're, I think we're taking a lot of action to address a lot of these different things. And I'm definitely with Council Member Shribbs that that's like where I want to focus is getting a new provider in and making sure that we have all the right checks and whatnot in place. Mayor Redekopal.

Council Member DeCarli.

Before I jump into my comments, I have a question for the city attorney based on some of the public comment. Is it possible to run the clock out on the statute of limitations for an open dog bite case?

Do you mean is it possible for it to run barring the case or is it possible to extend it?

Well, I'm saying if I understood correctly, they said her case was closed. You know, it was too far back, couldn't do anything about it. So, I mean, can you just allow the clock to run out on something like that and be like, didn't happen? You know, we're done?

Well, when a statute of limitations runs, I mean, it can have the effect of barring prosecution of whatever alleged violation occurred. What I don't know is factually if that was the case or if that determination was based on evidence or some other consideration. I don't know. I don't have that information, and I don't know if any of us do, but we can seem to get it.

Is that something we can provide more direct support to? to try and help an investigation in that case, given that there was years of nothing happening?

So maybe a little more detail on this without going too down in the weeds, but staff's understanding of this case is that the original incident occurred and the dog was declared a potentially dangerous dog, which is the level one of the different distinctions in our code. The owner was served with a provisional abatement order, which is how the process works, specifying that they had to comply with certain regulations, putting a sign up, muzzling their dog, making sure their dog's leash, get licensed, spared or neutered, et cetera. That order went into effect. It's still in effect, I believe, because there's usually a three-year runtime on those regulations. So there were a couple of other, so subsequent to that, there were a couple of other incidents that occurred, not bite incidents, but other witness reports of seeing the dog lunging or different behaviors. And I think the assumption or the conclusion may have been that, or actually let me step back. The question may have been, were those behaviors that were witnessed and reported to, I believe, NBIS at the time, were those sufficient to then upgrade the dog's designation from potentially dangerous to dangerous, which is the next level of designation, comes with more restrictions, et cetera. I don't think that that happened in terms of finalizing any conclusions one way or the other, but the assumption would be, if the upgrade to dangerous did not occur, that the animal control officer at the time did not feel that those rose to that level. When Marine Humane came on board, they went back and looked at the case again just to look through the record. And essentially, my understanding is the same conclusion occurred. that the evidence that was presented by those witnesses was not sufficient to upgrade to a dangerous dog. And so that's why there was no further action taken. However, and this is really important, the potentially dangerous designation is still in effect. And one thing that Marine Humane has been hitting quite significantly in the three to four months that they've been on board is ensuring that those items in the abatement order that must be abided by, by the dog owner, are in fact being abided. being abided. So that's been the follow-up that they have been working on and trying to get in contact with the dog owner to make sure that everything is kosher on that front. So that's an ongoing process. And in speaking with them anecdotally, their usual process is that every, at least every six months during that three-year period, so essentially six touch points during the abatement orders effect, they're going to be following back up with that owner to make sure that all of those provisions are in fact in place. So if Marin Humane were continuing, and I know they're currently our interim provider, they would continue to do those follow-ups until the three-year mark and the end of that abatement. So that's more of the history and background in terms of the investigation and the potentially dangerous designation on that case.

Thank you. And so I feel like it would help public trust a lot in this whole process if staff were able to, in cooperation with Marine Humane, go back and look at a lot of these cases that are unresolved and to try to get special attention. to those to resolve them so that those people can move on with their lives and not have to continue to worry about these things or think about them and give them some kind of peace with it. So that said, I don't see the response to the grand jury as sufficient. It has a tone throughout the whole report that I feel lacks a lot of accountability. It's, you know, and that's what I feel like my job is, is, you know, to hold people accountable for things, you know, no matter the circumstances. I mean, this is eight years, you know, this isn't like two weeks or a day or a mistake here or there. This is eight years of... You know, oversight that didn't work, a contract that didn't work, a contractor that didn't work, and then staff that, you know, allowed this to happen for years. And a lot of what's referenced in the response to the grand jury is, well, council made this decision on March 2nd. And, you know, a lot of that centers around that. But again, there were years prior of not a whole lot done. And I can't help but wonder when that came to us in March, that was all right around the time of everything that was going on up in Clear Lake. So I wonder if things would have continued as usual had that not happened. And so there's, I don't know, I've had a lot to say about this and I may come in bits and pieces here, but I just don't find it acceptable to just simply move forward and say it's water under the bridge. I think we need to go back and look at what happened, you know, because the public wants accountability. They've lost trust over this. And I think we have to go back and analyze what went wrong and make sure that there is accountability. And so, you know, I think we should almost have a special meeting over that, you know, not even just an agenda item, but we need to really look at that and see what happened in that time, because it doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense. And everything around it is nobody can lay their hands on or really get into, you know, and everything's spoken about broadly and generally. So I think we should really be going back and having a hard look at things Again, I don't think this response is satisfactory. I think we should be now, if it were still MVAS, we'd be looking at, we should probably be looking at oversight almost every week. But being that it's Marin Humane, Sonoma Humane, whoever it's going to be in the future, probably a monthly report doesn't make as much sense because these are more trusted organizations. we should absolutely still have oversight and reporting that's done. It's necessary. And again, the city has a lot of work to do in rebuilding public trust on this process. Everything has to be as transparent as possible. So let me see if anything else.

no i i think that's i think i've mostly said it all so but yeah i i'm not going to i'm not going to support this uh response to the grand jury thank you um i just i i think councilman carly touched on something um very valuable in in that um we have the potentially dangerous designation and it should remain current is i believe what we were saying um What other conditions are in the potential? I mean, does it require continuous licensing, continuous vaccinations, things like that? Is it within our ability now to look at that should be an open potentially dangerous designation and ask for compliance on that? You know, ask the owner, is the dog still in license? Whatever else is in the conditions, is that a path we can follow? You're talking on that specific case? On that specific case.

That is what is currently happening, yes. So Marine Humane is contacting the dog owner, and they have, to make sure that they're licensed. I know certain conditions have already been complied with, like the dog was neutered, things like that. But the signs have been out, at least to the last report that I got, the beware of dog signs. And there are a variety of other things that we need to ensure 100% compliance, and that's what they're working on, absolutely.

I think it would be warranted to provide the victim some of the data and or in CC to counsel, you know, the status of that, especially if it's still open, that isn't a fully compliant designation at this time. So that's a suggestion. We can find an update, sure. Thank you. Council Member Now?

Yes, I definitely agree that edits are needed in our response and take more of the criticism and vow never to repeat it and show that we're putting New policies in place bring back animal services committee. I really like to see a staff report. I know it's more staff time and more expenses, but I think it's worth it to the community and regaining their public trust. Thank you to the public that stay this late and on the zoom to make comments. Ironically, three years ago this last weekend, there was news in the Argus Courier and online social media that North Bay Animal Services had gone to the City of Stockton and helped their animal services out, and they even gave a shout-out to the City of Petaluma for lending support for them to do it. So when our complaints started coming just a year later, we give it back to staff, and that's what council does when we get a complaint from the community. It's usually a CC with numerous names, and we usually send it back to staff. We need to have more accountability when these, um, um, complaints come in so that this doesn't happen in the future. And we need to, um, like, thank you council member barnacle for saying that we do in council memberships. We do have a lot to, um. improve and we promise to improve but we need to readdraft the Responses to show that commitment and add and edit with the council's Recommendations this evening and take more ownership to the errors that were pointed out in the grand jury's. I'm finding so those are my comments Thank You Quint Yeah, as I kind of think back in I

With my time on council and how this issue has unfolded, when I first got here, there was dialogue around some concerns that were largely contributed by MBAS being underfunded. and the city stepping in and having dialogue with MBAS around how can we support you better. And that really didn't take shape and start to correct any of the concerns. And then the grand jury report came out And then we, if I'm remembering this correctly, the city, in our attempt to comply with the grand jury report, hired the consultant. the consultant was trying to work with NBAS. And at that point, my recollection is that, you know, there were growing concerns because of NBAS being uncooperative and working with the consultant. And that really started to you know, paint a picture that we need to do something and we need to, you know, submit an RFP. There was discussion around that. And shortly after, the Clear Lake thing sort of, you know, blew up. Am I remembering that correctly? You know, I don't feel like the city was asleep at the wheel. I feel like we were working to try to do something, and then we ultimately made the decision to, when it was evident that there was little to no cooperation to make the change. And, you know... And I'm concerned that this grand jury report came out right in the middle of us trying to respond to the first grand jury report. So I don't see, as I reflect on the responses that staff gave us tonight, I can't look at any one of those responses and say, that's a bad response. I do think, I mean, I agree with Council Member Barnicle and the suggestions that he had. So I'm, you know, on the same page with him and Council Member Shrives. You know, I think we, you know, we're on a path to making this better and we're going to continue to make it better. And so I support the reply.

Thank you. Council Member Cater-Thompson, you want to weigh in?

Sure. You know, my big concern with all of this is really the dog bites. And it was not handled well by NBAS. It's gone on for a long time. And I really have concerns when we're talking about dogs of potential dangerous versus dangerous. I just think if there's a dangerous dog, we have to take action and we can't, I just don't understand why we have all these different steps. to get from potentially dangerous to dangerous. I want to just talk about Clear Lake real clear. I mean, the town of Clear Lake had responsibility also. But it seems as though all of this is on the city of Petaluma. And Clear Lake had an absolute responsibility to understand what was happening in their shelter. I I do agree with what Councilmember Barnicle, his comments. But I think we also need to move on and start making decisions of who's going to be the next shelter, who's going to take over the shelter. You know, I go back to when this... NBAS got the contract in the first place. It was a political move. It was a mess on both sides. We should have gone with Marin Humane at the time, but the council didn't. And I don't believe anybody on this council was there at the time. I know I was at those meetings, though. I chose not to participate because I didn't like the way the politics was happening. And I feel like there's politics being played here by this constant blame, blame, blame And I think we need to stop the blaming and actually take the action, move forward with a new shelter provider. and move forward because it's really about the animals. And this is becoming too political, and people are forgetting that the animals are the most important. I do want to just mention that we do know that there was a leak in the grand jury well before the report came out, and I know the grand jury watches this, and I want them to know that that happened and that they should address that within the grand jury itself. I agree with Councilmember Quint that we do need to move on. And I think this is about the animals. And we need to get the personalities out of this. And we need to monitor. And we need to get reports back on where we're at with getting a new provider. And that's where I want to go, is moving forward. It's about the animals. and keep the politics out of it, and let's just move forward. You know, the report, I mean, we could do some tweaks in the report, but at this point, it's due at a certain timeframe. And what's the ramifications if the report is not submitted in time? I'd like to know that. And that's about it. Looking forward to a new provider and moving on to protect the animals in our community.

Thank you. I am going to ask staff to weigh in and say what's the ramifications of not complying with the timeline.

I'm going to look that up. I didn't contemplate that we wouldn't. Okay. You go ahead with that part. We'll continue with our part.

I'll look it up while you're deliberating. Thanks. Okay. Council Member Shribbs?

Okay, now after hearing the other council members and the direction that we're sort of going in, it looks like there may need to be a little bit of a rewrite, but if we can just do a few tweaks here and there. Yeah, the change in tone, as it was mentioned.

I'm going to come back to that issue in a heartbeat. Can I ask you to hold that comment for a second? Sure. Thank you. So as the council member who hasn't weighed in yet, I'm going to weigh in.

Okay.

And... So, number one, I appreciate all the actions the staff has taken to get us from where we were to where we are. I think more actions are going to be super necessary as we get the new provider, and that's what you're indicating in the grand jury report and in the RFP that we've been discussing here, which we have to sort out before we're in. leaves on us. You know, we need to sort out the contract with the new. And when things go bad, as they have, change is needed and you expect to take a lot of criticism, significant criticism for the performance of things. I think the grand jury had many good ideas. I don't like that they The way the state rules are written for grand jury is that they force you to say I disagree rather than I agree. So it looks like there's more disagreement, but I think on the whole there's more agreement. They had many good ideas. I've been over and toured the facilities in the last months, and I see a lot of improvements. I know the thing you mentioned about some properties that are still there that are owned by other parties, we have a lot of work to get to the finish line. But there's so many less animals there, and the cacophony is gone. And that's horrible for animals to have that kind of... terror going on there. So I'm appreciating what's been done by dropping North Bay and getting competent help in. I am very concerned that we are now going to have a significant cost. I can't identify where the cost is going to come from yet, but But apparently we weren't paying the real cost of doing animal service previously, and we're headed into that. The JPA, super critical. Every city up here has a different set of rules for how you treat animals, and it doesn't work like that in Marin. All the cities have the same set of animal rules, and that would – be what a JPA could bring for us. I appreciate with Council Member Shribbs' original point there that There's lots we need to do, but we need to do that. We need to get on with doing the new thing well. And that's kind of my bottom line is, you know, we better, we need to do better and we will. So those are my thoughts on this. Mr. Turney, do you have the answer yet?

Not quite yet, but we'll shortly.

The next thing I want to tackle is I did hear two council members, two and a half maybe, before I cut you off there, that suggested some editing of the document. I did hear broad support for completing the document this evening. So I'm going to kind of ask, can the changes that we wish to have be done in the document tonight? And since you haven't had a chance to express them, I'll go back to Council Member Shrives now.

Okay, so I was going to go through hopefully some smaller changes that could be done hopefully fairly quickly. Here's what I would like to see. There was just, there was like one statement in there that basically hit me hard. I'm going, okay, it was a bit derogatory. The jury counsel, the grand jury doesn't understand how the charter works.

Can I ask for a page reference?

I forget exactly where it appeared. It had to do with the administration charter.

I ask then also that staff, do we have a red line version of this that's available to us?

We don't, but I think the comment that Council Member Shrives is referring to is in F1, in the response to F1. I think, yeah.

So that sort of like sets a tone and I think was at the very beginning of one of the statements of we disagree and that was sort of like stead. So that was a bit of a negative Feedback to the grand jury, oh, you don't really understand. So that's the type of tone that was set, and it just hurt me a little bit when seeing that. So in the we agree in part or we agree in those agreement statements, what is it we agree to? Because it doesn't say what are we agreeing to. We agree in part. Well, what is it we're agreeing to? So I want to see, we agree that, yes, your statement of this is correct. I want some admittance. Yes, we agree. What are we agreeing to? That should not be a vague, oh, in part. We agree in part. But now we're going to disagree in detail. So the agreements need to be, what do we agree with?

So I'm suggesting that you want editing that can't be done tonight.

tonight. That might be out, Bob. If it could be done, if they understand it, I'd release them to just kind of work on it and then have them review it.

And can I say that you'll then, any suggestion you make, you'll leave to discretion of staff and pass the resolution?

Yeah, yes. I'd be willing to do that with a final reading by the mayor to just double check that it was done.

Sure. So this is F1 you're talking about, which The finding is, apart from approving the annual budget statement goals, the council has largely delegated its governing authorities to the city manager. This allows the city manager to take actions that are not authorized. That's the one you're talking about? And then the response is the city wholly disagrees?

Not where we wholly disagree. It's where we say we agree or we agree in part.

So this is not, finding one is not the one you're worried about?

No. It's whatever we say we agree or we agree in part. Like a statement of what we agree, what are we agreeing to before we disagree in part. So a little bit more definitiveness.

So, I mean, if we're going to ask staff to do this offline with an approval, a little bit of specificity. Okay. So, and not your clarity, but staff's clarity of what your thought is. Right. And the rest of the council understanding what your thought is. So, first to staff, do you think you can do that?

Yeah, so, you know, overall, I would say on the findings, we did try to do exactly what you're saying, council memberships. We could go back through and make it a little more explicit. I'm just looking at one like finding F6 that talks about there's no state or county authority that exists for periodic inspection of animal shelters. This enabled NBIS to contract for services with multiple cities, et cetera, et cetera. So then the response is the city disagrees in part. The very next paragraph starts, the city agrees that there is no comprehensive state or county system, et cetera, and the city also agrees that regional coordination could improve consistency, efficiency, compliance, and animal welfare outcomes. So, again, we tried to state where we agreed, and then the rest is why or what we disagreed with, but I'm happy to go back through if we need to do some cleanup to make it very explicit when the points of agreement versus the points of disagreement.

Okay, so I think we've got that. Is there another point you want to make?

Yes, one more. You made several recommendations tonight in the PowerPoint, but I don't remember reading some of those in the actual report. And at the very end, even instead of stating F1 and R6 and responding directly, either in this report or a report back to us, I would like to see a full report. This is the fix. I would see a whole list of this is our fix.

So I'm going to suggest...

So I'm not sure if we need it in this report, but I would like to see that fairly soon.

I would like to suggest the RFP is coming to us fairly soon. I think Marin's contract expires end of August, and the cover memo can have exactly the lessons learned that you're referencing.

Yes. Yes. So I'd be happy with that. But I want to make it clear that we want to see the RFP list in detail the things that have been missed and what we need to fix.

So we submitted the RFP and it's already been responded to, but the contract will show. Actually, we've listed that in the contract provisions for the new provider of what we were going to do.

That's great. But Councilman Nell also suggested, I think there's two or three of us thinking the same, that maybe we need to have a committee that actually oversees or looks at it, not just their own board of directors, but we need to have a little bit more citizen oversight.

So that's not part of the grand jury, but I guess it's something that could be brought in with the staff report.

Correct. So we need to make that fix also. It may not be in the report, but somewhere we have to hear back.

Just trying to get clear what we're in this document.

I think for the responses, what I'm trying to get to is, in general, But because when quit said the responses were appropriate for the legal language is required with this type of report indeed we we feel like yes agree to all that but but we need to focus on the fix okay so that's where I'm going over to the city attorney.

So there's no penalty if we're not timely, because remember the grand jury, and I just was doing, I looked at the statute, did a little bit more research. Remember the grand jury is just a recommending, I'm sorry, an investigative and recommending body. It's not an enforcing body. So there's no explicit penalty. And the other thing I wanted to just note is this. The structure of our responses that Brian referred to in F6, they're all that way. They all say use the prescribed language, and they say city agrees that, city does not agree that, city agrees that, the city does not agree that. So we really did use that structure. So if you look at it, I think – That's how that was intended to work, to be clear, actually. Right. To distinguish, even, you know, working consistently.

It's their language that leads with disagree.

Right, right. But as to the question about what happens if we don't file it timely.

Okay, thank you. And that replies to Council Member Cater Thompson's question, so we're set on that front. And Council Member...

should clarify one other thing and that's the legal implication the practical implication is that it's it it would not reflect well in the city if we failed to be time no it would not would it yeah right okay let's not do that council member now you have well it's for the city attorney what if we bring it back to the august 3rd that still gives us time isn't august 9th the deadline

So the response, it wouldn't give us enough time to quickly incorporate all this.

Where I was going with this is if there's nothing that requires substantive change and we have the sentiment on the council that we're going to resolve tonight, and I think we could do a straw poll on that. When I was listening, we have broad support for moving on and getting on tonight. then um we wouldn't need to come back even though even though there was no penalty to taking it out to september and we have to we have notes on council member barnacles suggested edits that at least i don't know i'm working my way across yeah okay so um council member now you had a you said errors was there a specific error you needed to comment on um oh gosh um

The, I think it was on the dog bite, I don't know what finding that was. There was definitely errors made by the city that prevented it from, I mean, it became a situation.

So you don't mean errors in the report, you mean errors in practice?

Errors in what we did as a city, protecting our citizens from dog bites and future dog bites. I don't remember what finding it was. It's just how the formal complaints are made.

And that should be the kinds of things that we're clearing up in the RFP and in the metrics that we're using. Okay, so no edit to the resolution.

So policies going forward would prevent that from happening again.

A lot of that's really, really important. I mean, we get... Councilmember Kite.

I think the change that we made with canceling the contract with MBS and going with Marin and Sonoma I mean, they already have the procedures in place for capturing dog bite reports. And so to me, I think that's an issue that's been remedied.

So I'm hearing no modification of the reply to the grand jury.

No, I just wanted it to be really emphasized in the response that we are doing this with future policies and future...

I'm sorry, you do want a statement in?

No, I was just saying, I was backing up staff in their findings.

Yes, okay. I'm sorry about that. It's okay, it's light. And then the other editorial offering was from Council Member Barnicle.

Yeah, page eight. There's a paragraph on page eight where we sort of dive into. It is the second from the bottom. So it says the agreement also required NBAS to notify the city if additional funding or other contractor related issues arose. that could affect performance i think right after that sentence you could add a sentence that says the city also made multiple uh inquiries to nbas um about the need for additional funding and then i think that would play that would be fine there and councilman barnacle also mentioned that regarding the review of our regulations we should indicate that we're reviewing those of neighboring jurisdictions Yeah, so on the R3 and R5, I don't see, I think there's going to need to be more considerable rewrites than we have time for tonight. I'm comfortable with you taking my guidance, but I would say that instead of the city will review Title IX procedures, I would say the city will review Title IX procedures as well as the practices of other Sonoma County cities and return to council with an analysis. And I would put that for, there's the response, the first sentence says, will not be implemented because it's not warranted and not reasonable. I would say this recommendation may be implemented following a review of Title IX procedures and other city practices from Sonoma County cities. And I would just make that the, and then I'm comfortable with everything following that as long as that's the first sentence.

I think, sorry, council member, the issue with changing the first sentence is that that first sentence is the mandated phrasing. It literally says, if you're going to say it will not be implemented, it's because it is not warranted or not reasonable. But I think your edits on the second part of that sentence are valid and we can absolutely make those to reflect what the city is actually going to be working on in the future.

Okay, that's fine. And then on R5, similarly, there's the first sentence. Page number, please. 16. The first response sentence says the recommendation will not be implemented because it is not warranted or is not reasonable. I would say... related procedures from other Sonoma County cities will be reviewed and like a summary of analysis and potential changes will be presented to council.

So given that staff is clear on that, is that an acceptable? I'm straw polling the council right now. If anyone has a problem with Basically allowing that to pass through tonight to vote the resolution and have staff make that fix behind the scenes. If you have a problem with it, raise your hand. Seeing no hands, looking even into the Zoom, then that's going to be an element that will say as amended in our motion. We'll have to say it as amended. Okay.

So, do you want me to make a motion or you got amendments?

If we're set, I think we're set and it is motion time.

Are you saying to pass it tonight as a pass-through or we're just going to come back to a rewritten document on the 3rd? No.

This is, yeah, I'm asking if you're comfortable having that amendment that was proposed and discussed there, a verbal direction. And we passed the resolution with the modifications suggested at council.

The alternative is we wait for them to make the modifications. Say it again.

I don't want to bring it up.

And then, will you be the final reviewer?

Question? Yeah, because otherwise, at this point, I want to go through it in... Councilmember Barnacle went through it and making suggestions. I did not do the fine tooth comb. Now I want to do the fine tooth comb. So I want to go through it in detail now and actually pick out sentence by sentence because that's what's needed. So I want to go through and edit. I'm famous for redlining.

To a larger extent than can be accommodated.

I may do a larger edit now since we're doing this.

Can I call for a vote?

That's what making a motion means? Yes.

I would like to make a motion that we accept it, that we pass it with the suggested edits that Council Member Barnacle offered.

Friendly amendment for Council Member Shribbs' amendments as well.

Okay, so we have a motion. Do we have a second? Second. Second by Barnacle. And are we clear on what the...

could you quickly recap what the modifications are just kind of for the record the to the the the as we have are to mention that that we requested by just from NPA s that's in what session remember John

That's an F5. Thank you.

And also to note that our review of the regulations will include comparisons with those of the other Sonoma County cities for analysis and report back to Council.

And those are in recommendations three and five. And then I also, I thought council member Shrives at the beginning of your comments, you had mentioned potentially softening the language in F1 regarding the misunderstanding of the

I would say that there's a few references to not understanding the municipal code, and if I'm characterizing you, that was the sort of thing that made you bristle. So look for references to the grand jury not understanding the municipal code would be maybe a... more sweeping way than just F1, because there's multiple instances where we say that.

And also restating what we are going to do versus what we disagree with.

And what we agree with, yeah, to make it clear.

And I would also, maybe if we could, Council Member Quint, direct the Mayor to have a final review before submission. If you would accept that.

He's got to sign it, so yeah, I would expect that.

Okay, so we have a motion and we have a second. And we're ready for a roll call vote. Thank you.

Barnacle?

Aye.

Cater Thompson? Yes. DeCarli?

I can't sweep this under the rug and move on, so I'm a no.

Now? Yes. Quint?

Yes.

Shrives?

No.

McDonnell?

Yes.

Motion carries with two no votes.

Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody who stayed. We're all looking forward to a new and better day for animal services in Petaluma. And with that, we come to the end of the meeting, and I'd like to remind everyone we're adjourning in memory of Bernie Albom. So thank you very much, everybody. Good night.