City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

We're ready.

Hello. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for your patience. We are going to go ahead and get started with our Tuesday, September 8th, Rohnert Park City Council meeting. And we will begin with the roll call.

Council Member Adams. Yes. Council Member Jurichet.

Present.

Council Member Rodriguez.

Here.

Vice Mayor Elwer.

Present.

Mayor Sanborn. Present. All council members are present. Thanks. Thanks.

And if those who can would please rise, we will do the land acknowledgement followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. The City of Roanoke Park acknowledges indigenous peoples as the traditional stewards of the land. Let it be acknowledged that the City of Roanoke Park is located within the traditional homelands of the Federated Indians of Great and Rancheria, comprised of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo peoples. And if we could please have Claire from Foster River Arts lead the Pledge of Allegiance. That'd be lovely. Put you on the spot.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you. Okay, in the event that anybody wants to provide public comment for tonight's meeting, I'm going to go ahead and just open now with this statement. So public meetings are a limited public forum, meaning that there are rules for commenting at these meetings. Comments on non-agendized items are going to occur only during the designated public comment period on the agenda, and they must address matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. Comments on agendized items must relate to the specific item on the agenda and must occur during the public comment period designated for that specific agenda topic. If comments don't fall into these categories, the city is going to provide an initial warning that you need to stay within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city or on the agenda topic. And if the initial warning is not followed, then the chair, myself, will direct the city clerk to cut the microphone. And throughout the warning system, I will be seeking city attorney's guidance in identifying any comments that aren't within the subject matter of the city or are not related to the agenda items being heard. So members of the public attending in person wishing to comment are encouraged to fill out the pink public comment cards, which are found at the back table. And these aren't required, but help us stay organized. So following in-person public comments, individuals participating remotely on Zoom or on Zoom by phone who would like to comment on any item must select the raise your hand feature within a minute of the agenda item opening to be recognized for speaking. And that is the housekeeping. Okay, so we are going to go to item four on the agenda, which is presentations, starting with one of my favorite things, the induction and pinning ceremony for our new public safety officers, Quincy Curry, Brennan Razo, and David Vasquez. Chief, welcome.

Starting out well.

He's a little excited to be retiring, can you tell?

OKAY. I'M HERE TONIGHT AGAIN TO PRESENT OUR NEWEST ACADEMY GRADUATES. I KNOW WE'RE HERE PRETTY EARLY. THEY JUST GRADUATED ABOUT A WEEK AND A HALF AGO. NORMALLY THEY'RE WITH THEIR FTO'S BUT I ASKED OUR CITY MANAGER MARCELLO FOR A SPECIAL FAVOR OF ALLOWING ME TO INTRODUCE THEM BECAUSE PROBABLY THE LAST GROUP I WILL GET TO INTRODUCE. SO PLEASE BEAR WITH ME. SO FIRST I'M GOING TO CALL UP PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICER TRAINING David Vasquez.

All right.

So David was born in a small pueblo outside Guadalajara, Mexico, and then moved to the United States with his family when he was seven years old. David attended Piner High School in Santa Rosa. And after graduating, he attended the Santa Rosa Junior College, where he obtained his associate's degree in fire technology. DAVID THEN ATTENDED THE SANTA ROSA JUNIOR COLLEGE PUBLIC SAFETY TRAINING CENTER AND ACQUIRED HIS EMT CERTIFICATE. THAT WAS IN 2023. FOLLOWED BY THE COMPLETION OF THE FIRE ACADEMY IN DECEMBER OF 2025. AND THEN HE DECIDED HE WANTED TO BE A TWO-WAY HERO. SO HE CAME TO THE CITY OF RONARD PARK WHERE WE SENT HIM TO THE ACADEMY AND HE GRADUATED FROM THE POLICE ACADEMY IN 2026. SO DAVID'S BEEN QUITE BUSY. Prior to attending the academy, David was a reserve firefighter for the city of Healdsburg for approximately two years, in addition to being a lead seller hand at Hawks Winery in Healdsburg. David enjoys working on vehicles and spends his time with family and friends. He also enjoys going to the gym and camping. David was hired as a police officer trainee with the city of Roanoke Park in March 23rd and is currently in his department orientation and is preparing to start his phase one FTO. Welcome, David Vasquez. I'm sure there's more that David put down here than in attendance is his dad, Francisco Vasquez. So good to see you again.

Nice to see you again.

All right. Next we have Brennan Razo. Come on up, Brennan. I just want you to know that when we come here, I ask them to write their bios. So this is them telling you about themselves. All right. Brennan was born in Modesto, California, and has lived in Oakdale his entire life. He now lives in Santa Rosa. He attended Oakdale High School and later completed coursework in Modesto Junior College, where he received training through the Modesto Junior College Regional Fire Academy. PRIOR TO PURSUING A CAREER IN PUBLIC SAFETY, BRENDAN WORKED FOR OTHER AGENCIES INCLUDING COOPEROPOLIS FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT, CAL FIRE AEU, AND ANGELS CAMP FIRE BEFORE JOINING AMADOR FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT WHERE HE SERVED AS A FIRE ENGINEER FOR THE PAST FOUR YEARS. BRENDAN IS NOW COMPLETING THE PROCESS OF BEING A PUBLIC SAFETY OFFICER WITH THE RONARD PARK DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY, A GOAL HE HAS HELD SINCE HE FIRST APPLIED AT AGE 21. Brennan enjoys everything to do with outdoors, including hiking, backpacking, mountaineering. Brennan also enjoys spending time with his family and friends, as well as working out. Now, Brennan, I added the family part on that, so you'll probably remember that in the future. Brennan was hired as a public safety officer with the Roanoke Park Department of Public Safety and is currently completing department orientation before beginning the FTO program. His mother, Roxanne Simmons, and father, and mentor Rich Hodder are here. Raise your hands. There they are. There they are. All right. Brennan Razor. So last but not least is Quincy Curry. I will say you might want to grab your Kleenexes and sit back for the ride on this one. Quincy won the bio writing this time, I think. I did tell him he's in trouble because yesterday he got it to me and it was all in first person. So I said, now I have to go through and change it to Quincy because it's going to sound strange me reading I, I, I the whole time. So I did change a little bit. All right. Quincy. Quincy was born in San Francisco and has lived in Santa Rosa since he was two years old. He graduated from Monaco. GUMMARY HIGH SCHOOL IN 2022, WHERE HE PLAYED FOOTBALL AND SET THE SCHOOL'S SQUAT RECORD. HE STATES HIS NAME IS ACTUALLY ON THE GYM WALL. AFTER GRADUATING, QUINCY ATTENDED THE SRJC WHILE WORKING FOR MORINNE COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT AS A SEASONAL FIREFIGHTER. DURING HIS TIME WITH CAL FIRE, QUINCY WAS ASSIGNED TO STRIKE TEAMS AS FAR NORTH AS MEDFORD, OREGON, AND AS FAR SOUTH AS LOS ANGELES. QUINCY GRADUATED FROM THE FIRE ACADEMY IN MAY OF 24. from SRJC with an associate's degree in fire technology in May of 25, and from the SRJC Police Academy in August of 26. He enjoys spending time with his girlfriend, even though she is currently in college in San Diego, where she is studying to obtain her bachelor's degree in nursing. While Audrey is away at college, Quincy says he's trying to get better at playing the guitar and building his skills. Quincy spends much of his free time on FaceTime with Audrey, When not FaceTiming Andre, he enjoys listening to podcasts on topics he is interested in, as well as topics he knows nothing about. Quincy's faith is very important to him, and he attends church every Sunday as he strives to get closer to Jesus. While growing up, Quincy looked up to his father as a police officer, and he would watch him leave to work most mornings through his bedroom window. He would also do station visits and remember telling his dad that he couldn't retire until they were partners. I told you. Things changed during this 2017 Tubbs fire when his Aunt Peg lost her home. Quincy was in middle school at the time and recalls being so affected by this event, he decided to pursue a career in firefighting. When he later learned of the public safety model in Roanoke Park, he realized he no longer had to choose between the two professions. Quincy is very excited for the opportunity to make an impact in the community he is a part of. and that he can become a role model for the family he plans to have in the near future. Quincy is currently completing his orientation and will start the FTO program on October 4th. In attendance today is his mom, Jody Curry, and his dad, Richmond Curry, who I also, again, want to thank you for your service during your time. Thank you. Quincy Curry. All right, as we spoke before, one of the most important parts of becoming a public safety professional is getting to be pinned. And they had the opportunity to select somebody at their graduation. And they have another opportunity to select somebody today to pin their badge. It's very significant. Badge pinning is an important part of this job. So David, who would you like to pin your badge today? My father. OK. There you go. Thank you, sir. You got it. Please feel free to come up and take pictures. You don't have to wait. We want pictures. Thank you. Brennan, who would you like to pin your badge today? Quincy, would you like to pin your badge? OK, and we're starting a new thing today moving forward. Usually they sign their oath of office, and then we take it from them, and they get a copy, right? But since it's so special, Sergeant Savas actually came up with the idea, get him full credit, but we wanted to send him off with something more than just a white copy piece of paper. So we have a sign of offices.

And with that, the council would very proudly like to take a family photo. And that could be everyone who raised them plus us.

They mean it, really. They do. You got to go up there.

We should be very proud, very proud of these guys, right? I'm proud. So proud of them. One, two.

Everyone stay. Chief and our sergeants.

Good job. Good job.

Hey, guys. The size. All right. One, two, three, four.

Thanks again.

Councilmember Rodriguez would like to share a few words before you go.

I just wanted to say welcome and congratulations, and I was just commenting to the Chief. Three with fire experience. Hello, baby. That is a great hire. I wish you all long and prosperous careers in the City of Roanoke Park and welcome to the family.

I just wanted to say it seemed like a theme of legacy that you guys are all establishing and continuing. And thank you, Chief, for the legacy you're leaving as this being the last group that you're handing over to the city. So welcome, of course, to the city of Roanoke Park, the friendly city for a reason. And you're coming into a community that is supportive of our public safety and really all of our staff. And so we're glad to have you all and look forward to seeing how your careers take off.

It's so nice to see you here with your families. I thought the chief was going to get genuinely choked up there because you are his last incoming class of public safety officers. We've been blessed with him for the past eight years, and we hope we're blessed with you for many more years to come. Thank you.

I was really good. I didn't cry. So, this pretty much sums up, Chief, what your legacy will be for this city from now on for many, many years. As a mom, I feel for the mothers that are here that are crying. I know letting your child go, it's really hard. One thing I have to say, you have raised him well. All of you parents have done a great job. Now the community will benefit from your investment. Have you seen those TikToks when the parents are like, after 16 years, finally, we did it. So this is pretty much what is happening. Not only you are sharing your child with the entire community, But, you know, we also going to make sure that you have a team of wonderful people that will take care of them and will be protected. So welcome to the family. And we are pleased that you chose Ronald Park.

And I'll just be five for five and say, as a parent, I can only imagine how proud you are of your children. And thank you for sharing them with us and encouraging them to work hard. That work is very deeply appreciated here in our city. So thank you all. You may go celebrate. All right, so we have one more feel-good presentation this evening, and that is going to be for September 2026 as National Service Dog Month in the City of Roanoke Park. Now that I'm all weepy, I'll just say that this is near and dear to me as a person who fosters service dogs, so I wanted to make sure that we recognize their impact here in our city. Okay, the proclamation of the mayor of the city of Verona Park proclaiming September 2026 as National Service Dog Month. Whereas service dogs make a profound difference in the lives of people with disabilities by providing assistance, independence, and companionship, And, whereas, National Service Dog Month recognizes the extraordinary contributions of these highly trained animals and the people and organizations who prepare and place them with those who need them. And, whereas, service dogs assist individuals with a wide range of needs, including visual and hearing impairments, medical conditions, mobility challenges, and trauma-related conditions. And whereas Paws for Purple Hearts, a national nonprofit with a presence in our region, supports veterans through canine-assisted therapeutic programs and service dog training, strengthening the powerful bond between people and dogs. And whereas these programs create meaningful opportunities for veterans while helping prepare service dogs that bring greater independence, confidence, and quality of life to individuals with disabilities. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Emily Sanborn, as Mayor on behalf of the City of Roanoke Park, proclaim September 2026 as National Service Dog Month and encourage all residents to recognize and celebrate the invaluable contributions of service dogs and the dedicated people and organizations, including Paws for Purple Hearts, whose work changes lives. Duly and regularly proclaimed this eighth day of September. And if you would like to share a few words as the recipients of this proclamation, we have with us our senior program instructor and regional director from PAWS for Purple Hearts.

Would you like to be our spokesperson, Claire?

Great, thanks. Yeah, and the microphone should be on already.

Hello, my name is Claire Richardson. I'm the Regional Director of PAWS for Purple Hearts. I've worked at this organization for five years and firsthand have seen the impact that an animal can make on an individual's life. For our organization, specifically a veteran's life, and as we are in our second week here in the North Bay of client training where veterans have flown in here locally to receive dogs trained by our instructors. The powerful change that it makes in their life is no small feat. And it really does take a village. And I just cannot be more proud to work for this organization and with people who share the same values and care so deeply about our community is a beautiful thing. So I just want to say thank you so much for recognizing the importance of a service animal and for having us here today. So thank you.

Thank you. And would Arrow be up for a photo?

Well, wrong one. Wrong one. Okay.

I know I do so many of these now.

Just one second, please.

Non-functional term.

there we go thank you good evening mayor and city council members I'm here with Scott Sanders our sustainability manager and we have a briefing here regarding assembly bill 1572 compliance in relationship to non-functional turf so turf that doesn't have a functional uses some of our street medians etc so let me get into this briefing here the agenda is the law timeline and key definitions where the city will be impacted by this assembly bill and This is an unfunded state mandate and some estimated impacts our path to compliance and ordinance update and reimagining these affected spaces How did we get here? The first step was drought. So that led to this assembly bill, 21-22. And then there was an emergency turf watering ban in March of 2022. Then Assembly Bill 1572 made it permanent in October of 2023. The author of this assembly bill was Assemblywoman Laura Friedman, and the co-author was Senator Harry Stern, and this was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom, October 13th of 2023. compliance timeline is October 2023 is signed into law then September 8th 2026 today we're providing a briefing and then January 1st 2027 is our irrigation shutoff deadline so that's when we'll have to shut off irrigation water to these affected areas which which we'll we'll see further into the presentation January 1st 2024 this Assembly Bill takes effect then October through December 2026 we'll come back to Council with the ordinance update. So looking ahead, when others must comply. January 1st, City of Runner Park, we will have to be in compliance. It means we have to shut the water off to these areas that are deemed non-functional turf. January 1st, 2028, this will apply to commercial properties, businesses, and institutions. January 1st, 2029, will be the HOAs and multifamilies. So this... city of roller park this is the first step is local governments and public agencies our deadline and January 1st 2028 commercial industrial institutional properties and then January 1st is a homeowner association and commerce common interest developments so Functional versus non-functional turf. Functional turf is ground cover turf located in a recreational use area or community spaces, parks, sports fields, playgrounds, picnic areas, such as all of our parks. Non-functional turf, as you see, is turf that is not functional turf by statute. Turf in street right of ways, mediums, parking lots is non-functional regardless of what surrounds it. What's exempt and what isn't? Exempt is not restricted. Turf irrigated with recycled water, which we do have several areas that are irrigated with recycled water. Functional turf, parks, sports fields, recreation areas. Trees and perennial plantings targeted irrigation will still be allowed. Cemeteries are excluded, not exempt. Nonfunctional turf on city property irrigated with potable water. Street mediums, rights of ways, and parking lots. Turf that is fenced off or inaccessible for recreation. And this is what drives our 22 parcel inventory. This is an unfunded state mandate. Assembly Bill 1572 requires the city to stop irrigating identified turf with potable water by January 1, 2027. It does not require full physical conversion by that date. The physical conversion work, removing grating and ground cover, can be phased in over subsequent budget cycles at a sustainable pace. Where is the city impacted? In total, the city, we've identified 7.04 acres that need review before January 1, 2027. This excludes parks, recycled water, and the golf course drive medium. It also excludes the country club drive medium because that is designated as a park. So turf acreage by location. Commerce Boulevard, so north and south, that's a total of 3.2 acres. Bodway Parkway is approximately one acre. Heritage Lane, approximately one acre. East Cotati Avenue, 0.8 acres. And Snyder Lane, about 0.64 acres, which totals about the 7.04 acres. Here's some examples of some affected areas. Here's Commerce Boulevard. There's Commerce Boulevard North. You see our 101 sign there. And then you see that's right there near Business Park Drive. So that's all Commerce North, which is designated non-functional turf. That's one of our biggest areas of non-functional turf. Here's some additional corridors that will be affected. East Cotati Avenue, approximately 0.8 acres in total. There's Bodway Parkway, approximately one acre, and Camino Ecclesio, about 0.23 acres. Estimated impacts near near term impact to stop irrigation by January 1st 2027 Here's what here's what will follow visual is things are in the turn brown after it quits raining So turf will be visibly brown ago dormant once irrigation stops Operational conversion work competes with existing public works duties. Pays depends on how much is done in-house versus contracted. The first and foremost thing is we have to work on keeping irrigation going to the trees, so modify those systems to ensure the trees still receive water. ESTIMATED IMPACTS, MORE ESTIMATED IMPACTS, WHAT'S VISIBLE IS IT'S GOING TO TAKE YEARS. IT'S NOT GOING TO FIRE, YOU KNOW, SOME FUTURE. JUST PUT MOLTS AND WE'RE GOING TO WASH AWAY WITH THE STORMS SO PEOPLE ARE SO, AND PROBABLY INSULT AB 1572'S DEFINITION, FIRST 2027 DEFINITION UPDATE. WE ARE WORKING ON IT. Preparation for tree comp imaginating spaces is convert the spray heads to drip or bubbler mentors so mature trees Can keep the water they need without irrigating turf around them This is the best practice for all the sites with established trees And we'll confirm that you know field varicate field varication, but we want to protect these mature trees You know why while lessening the use of potable water for a non-functional turf? TURF REMOVAL, DEMOLISH AND OFF HAUL NONFUNCTIONAL TURF DOWN TO GRADE CLEARING THE SITE FOR MOLTS OR OTHER APPLICATION. THIS IS BEST FOR PARKWAY STRIPS AND BUILDING GROUNDS WITH NO TREE CANOPY. IT'S PRETTY STRAIGHTFORWARD AND IT CLEARS THE SITE AND REMOVES THAT TURF. wood chip mulch cover, finished converted areas with the city's existing wood chip supply, plus ongoing tree trimming to suppress weeds and hold soil moisture. This is best for most inventory because we have the material on hand. We'll use our existing supply on hand. It's just the labor to install it and remove the turf. Our next steps, track one is cap or adjust irrigation valves controllers at each identified parcel. Confirm shutoff in the field before January 1st, 2027. Prepare public communication before shutoff. Turf will be visibly round before the conversion catches up. Low cost, largely staff time, no capital outlay required for this. Well, there'll be a minimal cost for retrofitting these irrigation systems. Our track two is phased at 2027 and beyond physical removal grading and conversion So the first one is field verification functional use calls mounted site grading and tree canopy so that's basically ensuring that we identify those trees and work on continuing irrigation to the trees and In-house removal and wood chip cap on highest priority corridors. Removing corridors and remaining corridors contracted work where in-house capacity is short. Establish care and scope irrigation retrofit for tree zones. And that was it. Questions?

Council, let's take your questions and then we'll go to public comment before you share your extra thoughts.

Thank you. So from what I understand, the City of Santa Rosa has no more capacity for Purple Pipe. Do we know during the course of this timeline if any CONVERSATIONS HAVE BEEN HAD ABOUT MAYBE INCREASING THAT CAPACITY?

SO THE ISSUES WITH THESE SITES IS GETTING THAT TO THE LOCATION? CORRECT, YEAH. IT WOULD BE VERY, IT WOULD JUST BE COST PROHIBITIVE. COMMERCE NORTH, FOR INSTANCE, THAT RECYCLE WATER SYSTEM, IT'S ALL It's non-pressurized over there. So we looked at it. You would have to install a booster station because that serves Roberts Lake and the golf course, and that gravity flows in the ponds, and they have pumping systems that pump out the ponds to irrigate the golf course. So all these sites, recycled water is not in the vicinity. It would be very cost prohibitive.

And I'll note that the median along Country Club Drive has been designated as a park. Can you kind of talk me through the process there and how that happened?

Could we duplicate it? Yeah. Very early in my tenure here, and I remember it was during a drought, and it came to the attention of the council that basically the water would be shut off there. So to remain that green zone, it had to be designated as a park at the time, which made it exempt from those drought restrictions.

Okay. But to be clear, what was the process? In other words, how did that happen? Maybe that's a question for the city manager.

We would have to bring it back and determine how, especially if it was done several years ago, we can go back to our history and records and see how that designation was done for that particular area. I'm sure it's included also in our park number as far as the number of acreage that we have for park, but we can come back with a response for that.

Thank you, and I really appreciate that. What concerns me is that Roanoke Park has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions of any jurisdiction in the County of Sonoma, and now we're going to be removing seven acres of turf that was previously sequestering carbon. So, we're kind of, you know, the state is competing with its own goals, right? On one hand, they're saying we have to save water, which is laudable, and I understand. At the same time, they want us to reduce greenhouse gases to meet their net carbon zero emissions by 2030, they're saying. So, obviously, that goes counter to this. So, it is concerning. And, of course, have we run the numbers on this in terms of how much this is going to cost us?

I ran some high-level numbers. And I mean, if you convert that to square feet, that's roughly 305,000 square feet. If we took the cheapest price at $1 square foot for mulch, that's approximately $300,000. Now, if we went to the higher level of full native planning, I mean, that could run you up to $3 million at $10 a square foot. We don't like that approach because that puts additional labor requirements on the public works department, more staff time, because that's all handwork to get in there with weeds. So you can see the range there. But mulch, and that's a very conservative estimate, $300,000 at that seven acres.

Okay. Thanks. I'll let my colleagues comment. But if any of our state partners are listening, certainly a lot of these laws are well intended, but they come with consequences that are very unfortunate. And, you know, these unfunded state mandates are just the bane of jurisdiction's existence. So I'll leave it there.

Council, other questions before we go to public comment? Questions?

Thank you. I do have a question. Assuming it rains a lot this year, you're going to turn off the water, but then nobody's going to see any of the results of this for several months. So my question is, do we have any plan to put property signs, I would euphemistically call them lawn signs, signs on the property that previously had lawn on it to say, this is turning brown because of XYZ or QR code or whatever, because all of a sudden we're going to get phone calls, why aren't you watering the grass anymore? Well, we're not watering the grass because some people up in Sacramento decided that wasn't in our best interest. So somehow we need to get this out and, you know, short of knocking on everybody's door and stapling a notice to their forehead, I'm not sure how to do this.

Yeah, I'm going to let Scott answer this because he's involved in the committees and the state and other local entities are dealing with this compliance.

So signs, perfect idea. That's definitely going to be part of like the public outreach. When we bring up this ordinance update, the public's going to have to comment on it. So they're going to get acknowledgement from that. So in the next few months, it's going to be this whole public outreach that we're going to do to help inform the public that these areas will be turning brown. And I love, I didn't even think about the signs, but I love that idea and definitely having those in your high traffic.

I don't know why I'm thinking about signs now either. It just sort of came to my mind, right?

Oh, yeah, I'll even get it on the digital board, right? Well, just because.

So I do have another. Thank you, by the way. The other question I have is on the corner of Country Club and Golf Course, if you come off the golf course, there's a whole bunch of green there as you kind of turn the corner. Is that a park?

That's part of the golf course, correct.

That is part of the golf course.

There's one.

When he's hitting the ball over there, they've got a big problem.

They've stopped playing golf. Yeah, exactly. There is a lot that the city owns on Commerce and State Farm and from Herc Reynolds there. That's city-owned. So that turf there. Say that one more time. That turf area, that whole parking lot is city-owned. So that turf there on State Farm and Commerce is going to go brown. the city owns that parking lot. So that will fall under AB 1572.

Thank you for the information. Not for the information, but for sharing the information.

Thank you, Mayor. The concern is our constituents, just like my colleague just said. A lot of times when those rules come, the city council, we pay the price for something that we are not even author to that. What I'm going to ask is for you guys to make sure that our constituents really understand what is going on because there have been rules that have been changing, and when they change, I mean, we also are, you know, included, right, facing those regulations without even having any power over it. And that bill will be a good example because once it starts getting brown, I can just see our constituents being pissed off because they will say, well, we have been really conservative with our water. We already have been shutting down a lot. My lawn is brown, okay? It's been like that for a while because We have been following rules but there are certain people that that is going to put them to the edge and I will appreciate if that part of communication is clearly put out there so people understand that that the council cannot reverse anything and this is something that it's a bill that is mandated to all the cities because when a park are used to the green lawn and You guys public work, take good care of it. Switching from green to brown, that is my concern. And plus, it's going to cost us money. And we've been telling our constituents that, hey, we don't have the money, and this is not really helping us, really, when it comes to the budgeting, that we have been already really thin on what to do here. So I really will hope that you guys will help on that side of the communication.

Thank You vice mayor yeah, I want sure that our public outreach is you know We'll be working with other local entities make sure that we're all have common messaging

Just to add that too, I've already been to a few meetings on HOA managers. They're very aware of this coming down the pipeline. The public's going to become very aware seeing us firsthand do it because then commercial businesses are going to have to follow next year and then HOAs the following year. So HOAs are already trying to convert areas right now. So they're very well aware of it, but now just getting the broader public aware of it will be our next step.

Because it's all fallen on us because they elected us to really make sure that we are speaking on their behalf and that part is where, you know, we need you guys to be upfront with them.

I have a few questions before we go to public comment. Can you just confirm that the current infrastructure irrigation infrastructure is all one system in these spots that we can't cut it off to the turf and still water the trees like the whole point is that you have to reconfigure that to be able to just water the trees

yes that's correct mayor we we will have to um reconfigure the systems and and remove the spray and put bubblers or emitters just for the trees otherwise it's going to require some hand work digging and yes some pipe reconfiguration gotcha and then i was curious we've have we reached out to daily acts as a possible contractor eventually down the road this is what they do

I'm assuming you have.

We have. And what they want to do is install these native plants, which are kind of high maintenance. So it's hard to get them to come in just to put a mulch layer on it. But we've had talks with them.

Good to know.

Meeting tomorrow, actually.

And then the wood chip supply that we have that we're caching, is that the mountain I see at the downtown site?

That's part of it and we resupply the at the Sports Center.

So that's free to community members Coming from our own tree work here in the city a lot of it crap Sonoma water also provides some that's good to know and then do we have a sense of the potential gallons of water saved on that three hundred and five thousand square feet and

I do not have that, but I can provide that to City Council, yes. Not urgent, just curious. From the meter reads, yes.

Sometimes it's a little more exciting than hearing, you're saving water, to say how many gallons.

Yeah, and as you know, that varies from wet seasons to dry seasons, but I can provide that to City Council. Absolutely.

Okay, and then I think my last question, actually I had two. There was a mention in the presentation about field verification. Is that just going through and doing an audit of the spaces and making sure you understand what's needed in each of those spaces?

correct it's a lot of it would be like the grading that would need to be done a lot of these are mounds that go straight to the curb so if you just threw a bunch of mulch on there two inch storm comes it's all in your street now so it'd be verifying those areas that would need excavation and then it's verifying which trees are going to get the tree rings how many of those you need to buy and so on triage

And then the last question I really do have is we have all this information we're trying to collect in the field verification around the turf, which is related to the trees that are next to the turf. Is the tree inventory database that we have something we can use to help track this? Or are they two separate things? We're going to have another new project management system that doesn't talk to our existing outreach and tree, whatever that one's called.

It would have to come from field verification. We did get a GIS layer from the state, and it just shows like the green areas between trees. So that's what I've been looking at, and I can count it. It wouldn't take much, but you could easily identify. All right.

Those are my questions. Excuse me, Mayor. Your good questions prompted a question for me.

I figured.

Go ahead. So have we run any kind of an analysis about increased fire danger because of this?

No, we haven't, Councilmember.

And I raise up the sedimentation issue too, right? That's the Laguna sedimentation is the biggest problem. Now they don't want to water these areas, which then will turn to dirt eventually if they're not protected, which then will release dirt into the streams. So that's the angle I'm always against and they don't care. Crickets. Yeah. Thank you.

So we're talking about water saved. We just had Sonoma Water in here when we were talking about raising water rates and they said because they're not selling enough, because everyone's saving enough, now we're raising the prices. You guys didn't make the decision, obviously. But I guess to the earlier question, do we know how much water will actually be saved? And then can Sonoma Water give us some sort of estimate of what that cost could look like?

I can provide that, council member. Yeah, I'll provide a five-year average to the council, kind of running through the different seasons. And I'll give you a cost. Irrigation water is a commercial rate, so that's pretty easy to figure out, not like residential. So I can provide that.

Okay, thank you. And I guess to my colleagues, we'll be asking a lot of these questions to the legislators as well and seeing that this the impacts that they are putting, not just on our budget, as you mentioned, but then like that with the water on the people to do what? And then we have fire concerns and continued water concern for sediment. And it's just, I don't know, but thank you.

Yeah, our biggest concern is just, you know, the labor involved. So that's what we're trying to coordinate and take a phased approach to it. That's, you know, our best strategy.

Just one more question. You said we had 3,500 square feet that this is going to affect?

305,000 square feet.

Sorry, 305,000 square feet. Okay. How many thousands of square feet do we have that we're watering that are not going to be affected by this?

In the parks, council member? Yeah, I would have to come back.

You don't have to give me that tonight, but I'm just curious. Be able to show, look, it's only going to affect this percentage of town. Let's put it in perspective, right?

So you want to know how much functional turf we're irrigating?

Exactly. How much functional turf we're irrigating compared to how much we're going to stop irrigating so that we can say to people, look, yeah, this is turning brown, but we're still irrigating all of this, right?

Would you like us to include the golf course on that?

Well, actually, I'm glad you asked that because, like, in our tree inventory, we didn't include the golf course, right? So one day, you know, when the sun and the moon and the stars light up, I'd love to have an inventory of the trees and the golf course. But for right now, the cost of irrigating that, absolutely, I like that included. So thank you very much for that.

Okay. We're going to go to our very patient public for their comments before we come back to the council. So I'm officially opening the public comment period.

We don't have any speaker cards for this item, and we don't have any participants on Zoom with their hands raised.

Okay, great. Well, I happen to recognize Peter Alexander here. Would you like to provide public comment? Yes, go for it.

You guys are setting me up. I mean, come on, really? You guys are amazing. Native plants, high maintenance. as opposed to cactus. Fire dangers, living cactus, firewalls. I think you guys, if I didn't know better, this is a total setup, then maybe I don't know better, but I'm just going to go forward. All right, so the Sonoma County is basically like a desert sort of weather area anyways, for the most part. and cactus fences on roadways or wherever would be honoring Burbank's works and also common sense. Okay. I mean, most of the lawns, maybe not all, but most lawns to me seemingly serve as gopher habitats and places for dogs to stop off and say hello. And the cactus, There are gourmet restaurants in the Southwest that are using cactus, all versions of it, the actual leaf, the plant, the fruits, and high-end restaurants that, you know, maybe it's just time for perhaps you'll be leading the way in this realm. Needles or no needles? You got them both. Luther Burbank created some very high fruiting varieties with virtually no needles. And they're really quite wonderful and they're low glycemic. And why not have the first all sand golf course in the country and call it the sand trap and we'll get Tiger Woods over here and we'll do something interesting and initiating an imaginative, innovative leadership in different realms. Lastly, I'll share the fact that the reality is that you can simply examine places in Santa Barbara, many places down in Southern California, and a lot of Arizona, where they utilize cactus and agaves as the mainstream, almost virtually non-watering landscaping material. all of which can produce either sugars or syrups or foods and what have you. So thank you for letting me bring this up one more time. It's available. It's easy. It works. And someone in Sonoma County is going to be the first city to utilize this common sense availability that was born with Luther Burbank and others. So thank you very much.

Would anyone else like to provide public comment before we close the public comment period? Yes. You get three minutes to say whatever's on your heart.

No, it'll only be a minute. I'm just wondering why don't we pull some water? I know this has come up before with the ocean, but why aren't we maybe pulling water somewhere? Maybe build something like that to pull the water and we might have water for irrigation. That's all I'm saying. I know it doesn't rain a lot, but you know maybe what it does? I think that would cost less than what's going to happen here. I hate to see Roanoke Park go brown. I really do. And I know it's not on you. It's up above. But we've got to do something here locally, I think. Maybe you can think about that. Thank you.

All right. Seeing no other interest, I will close this public comment period. Oh, wait.

We have one more.

Come on up. Isn't it interesting how we all inspire each other? Hi, I'm Dennis Maine. I apologize. I missed the part where I captured your name.

What is your name? I'm Dennis Maine. I did fill a card out.

Oh, thank you, Dennis. This makes more sense to me.

And I've got comments here. I promise I'll stick to highlights because I'll leave the paper. Go for it. I wanted to try and persuade you to keep the honeybee pool open this winter. particularly with regards to seniors.

I should clarify that this specific topic of this presentation is what this part of public comment is. I apologize if that wasn't clear. So for the presentation specifically about item 5A, that's what we're looking for public comments for right now.

I'm sorry, will there be a chance to address this later on in this meeting?

Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Yeah, just a minute early. Okay, anything else from well, I should say officially closing that public comment period we'll come back to that and council Is there anything else you would like to ask share? before we proceed Okay, we've exhausted all of our questions that's amazing thank you and thank you for the presentation thank you both Okay now We're on to item 6, which is our public comment period. I will just read this again to be clear. So anyone wanting to address the council on any consent calendar item or anything that is not listed on the agenda, now's your chance. And you'll get three minutes. And for those attending in person, thank you. If you did fill out a speaker card, not required but helpful. And those on Zoom, you can... Raise your hand virtually right now by pressing star nine, and the clerk will unmute you when it's your turn. Okay, so we're going to go to Mr. Peter Alexander.

Thank you, Mayor. Through the eyes of horse whisperer Robert Redford, Yes, I have seen, and here's what I saw. Before and after he shot, hee-haw. A baby donkey who wished like Pinocchio to be a real boy. Have you watched his videos? He was but filled with true love and great joy. Now the speaker before you is Peter, whom I know, and showed up to instruct him through his dream. And me, surprisingly, hanging out with some rather serious warrior angels, serving the Almighty Supreme. Tell me, please, what is greater than love, most true? So please play YouTube Dolly Parton on Hee Haw, singing I Will Always Love You. And how about that Ring of Fire by Brother Johnny Cash? Sang it on Hee Haw, quite a missive and a smash. The Ring of Fire is also 369 active volcanoes lining a horseshoe curve. What kind of entity kills innocent equines? Such horror, such nerve. And let's remember the Smothers Brothers, such animal lovers. Google your noodle to them with mule sounds on hee-haw. And so too Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore, possessing truth and love at the core. Yes, indeed, every donkey is absolutely more humble and honest and loving than most any human monkey." And wasn't it he in a manger with a hee haw by his side when born, later riding triumphantly upon a hee haw before they crossed him of his life so torn? My temple church of the emerald fire sharing truth and love with Carmina Salcido taking us higher, uniting all true warrior servants, singing Ave Maria with true spirit and soul. and soul, the promised lands, gardens being our goal. The path is narrow, all life is sacred, from the whale to the sparrow, from the redwood tree to the cactus, is genuine kindness so difficult to practice? My crusaders, my knights, my veterans, my warriors are the champions of the world, under the red, white, and blue unfurled. Turn up the music, release the Christos power, rosebud, rosebud, rosebud flower. My women warriors, like my daughters who walk upon waters, All strength and love supported from beyond and above. Cease now all animal abuse. So to the donkey and Mustang horse slaughter. It is done. Aho. Not long ago, some of you were reintroduced to Carmina Salcido, who I had the pleasure of knowing a little bit. And I just wanted to let you know that she had her birthday two days ago, and she is where she started off when she got famous, in the Petaluma Valley Hospital. And she's not looking for a handout, but maybe a hand up. She's still there. And I want to share one last thing, and that is that I was given from the most high, last thing, that the reason she did not win...

Thank you, Mr. Alexander. Ms. Bess McKay, would you like to speak next? And after that, we'll have Veronica Madsen.

Thank you, City Council, for having me. I'm not here to talk about Walmart. Surprise. I want to start by acknowledging that homelessness is a deeply human issue. People who are living in vehicles or outdoors are obviously facing serious hardships. And I believe any response should be respectful, compassionate, and connected to services. That being said, our neighborhood, which is by Walmart, Emily and Eleanor, has been experiencing growing impacts that we need help addressing. Emily, where you enter Mountain Shadows Plaza, has become an RV parking lot. Not only RVs, cars, vans, et cetera. We currently have an RV that has been there for, I'm going to say, approximately three weeks. It runs a generator. It has approximately six to eight dogs in it with people. there is an extremely strong odor and possible issues of sanitation or dumping concerns that multiple neighbors have observed and reported. So over time, we've seen all of these vehicles, and often what we see is they pull up and they start unloading. And they pull almost all their belongings out. But these belongings also include gas cans, propane tanks, which feels like it creates a broader safety concern. Now, I'm not making any assumptions about anyone's intent. But the combination of long-term vehicle parking, generator use, fuel containers, propane tanks, multiple animals, odor, and possible dumping do raise concerns for us as a neighborhood, and including animal welfare as part of that. Neighbors have contacted Roanoke Park Public Safety through non-emergency lines. We've also submitted items through the city channel. The most recent one, which I actually submitted yesterday, and this never happens, but I got an answer today, was that this is not homelessness, which is an option on your reporting site. is not a code compliance issue and they will contact public safety. Well, my commentary just on that report I got today is if it's not code compliance, why is it on there to submit? We're not asking the city to criminalize homelessness or move people along, but we're asking to find a balance and a coordinated response that provides outreach services, safety reviews, animal welfare reviews, and enforcement of reasonable health, safety, parking, dumping, noise, and nuisance rules. The nuisance we're pertaining to are the dogs running free. And I thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Fife, for the extra details on that. And I'm sure Chief can connect with you if he hasn't already. Okay, we have Dennis. It's your turn now. Thank you so much for your patience.

I feel like I was just here. My apologies, no poetry here. But I'm going to read some quick excerpts. As I said earlier, I'm here to try to persuade you to keep the honeybee pool open this winter. particularly relating to seniors. Some quotes here that I got from articles when I went trolling. Swimming is one of the safest and most effective exercises for seniors, offering full body fitness, joint protection, and cardiovascular benefits from living your senior life July 27th this year. Swimming provides full impact, low impact full body workout, and regular swimming increases flexibility, range of motion, and balance. It's cardiovascular and metabolic health, which raising heart rate, improving circulation, lowering blood pressure. This contributes to lower heart disease and stroke, improved cholesterol level, weight management, metabolic health. It helps with mental health. I can vouch for all this stuff too. I swim. I'm 71. I feel great most days. It promotes mental health. It's considered because of reducing stress, improving mood, enhancing sleep quality. The next article we're quoting is from the John Hopkins Medicine web page, talking about how swimming can give you cardiovascular strength with almost no impact, a real plus, especially as you get older, which we all hope to do. People recovering from injuries and women after pregnancy can also gain from a water workout. The final point, negative effects of seniors stopping exercise for three months from the Science News today, May 20, 2025. Stopping exercise for three months can lead to several negative effects on bodies, including increased risk of falls, accelerated muscle and bone loss, higher disease risk, cognitive decline, because lack of physical activity is linked to cognitive decline, and worsened mental health, because it's a good Good way to blow off your anger or steam or tiredness or whatever. You get in the water, do your 50, and you're feeling pretty good. That's it. Thank you much. Please do keep in consideration. I'll leave the full thing.

Thank you very much. We can all work on improving our spoken word poetry. Okay. Does anybody online want to provide public comment? Great. We are going to go ahead and close this public comment period and move to the next item. Yes, you're inspired. OK, go ahead.

Oh, it's on. Hi. My name is Veronica Madsen. I live at 1167 Emily Avenue. I could see this trailer from my house. And I have a child who's 22, a female. And I frequent the area to go to Walmart. And I feel endangered, so I hope our public safety could help us, please. I don't want anybody, if they're homeless or don't have a house, to be kicked out. But please just make the area safer. We just want the city to maybe follow up with us, like maybe what's logged, what's documented, maybe what you're doing. Maybe get some more answers from you would be good. Because it seems like the same people would just keep calling and keep calling or emailing in. And I have a brand new RV. And I park it in front of my house. And day two, I have a ticket that I need to move it. I don't think that's fair. So I just hope city council, if you could, and public safety, I know maybe it's not a priority because You know, they are out doing other things that might be a higher priority. But when it's a danger to walk over there, and the people that live there in those condos, the backside, I'm not sure if you're familiar with that area. So I believe it's the 1,000 block of Emily there. Yeah. I mean, I guarantee if they were parked in one of your neighborhoods, D section, F section, H section, that RV would be gone in a day. So please just try better. That's all we ask. Thank you.

Anyone else want to provide public comment? Okay, I will go ahead and close public comment period. And appropriate, is it not appropriate to ask Chief to just give a quick statement on what the rules are or? What the process is.

Mayor, I would suggest that the chief follow up. I know there's been follow up, so I'm sure that as time permits right now, he will meet with the group here. Okay. Thank you.

Fantastic. Thanks in advance, chief. Okay. Then we're going to move on actually to item seven, and that is our consent calendar. So I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent calendar as it is, unless anybody wants to pull an item for discussion or otherwise.

So moved. I'll second that.

Lovely. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed?

Okay. She'll pass us by zero. Thank you.

Wonderful. Then we were going to go on to item eight. Our regular items, starting with 8A, and that is going to be consideration of and approval of Resolution 2026 of 72, adopting the City of Roanoke Park's Urban Forest Management Plan. Hello, team. Welcome back. And if you would do the honor of introducing our friend from Davie Resource Group, I'd appreciate that. I don't know if we got him a name badge.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Amanda Bunty. I'm the General Services Operations Manager in Public Works, and I'm joined here today by Michael Capone from Davey Resource Group, which is our consultant, and Scott Sanders, our Environmental and Sustainability Manager. And we will be presenting to you this evening our urban forest management plan. So we contracted with Davey Resources Group about 14 months ago and have been working on this plan and are very proud to bring it forward this evening.

Thank you. um good evening thank you uh madam mayor and vice mayor council members um for the opportunity to be here and talk to you about this plan um it's been a pleasure working with amanda and scott brandon and other members of the city to develop this plan over the past year or so So, the goal today is to go over the general project scope and talk about a few things like the project timeline, go over some community engagement summaries, and then the real core will be looking at the recommendations that are in the plan. And then afterwards, of course, questions. So when we're looking at a project as big as a management plan that takes over a year to develop, we break it down and look at it really through four categories. So the first of these four categories is the background in operations review. This includes reviewing existing city documents, policies, but also talking directly to staff and finding out how forestry functions on a day-to-day basis. We worked with staff across multiple city departments to understand how they interact with the urban forest and where responsibilities overlap and where there's opportunities for better coordination. The second major component is the canopy analysis. This is where we're taking a look from downward-looking imagery and LIDAR to take a look at what the land in Roanoke Park is made up of. So we take a look at canopy and how it's distributed across the city. And we also take a look at not just the trees that are there, but the benefits that come from those trees, like urban heat reduction and stormwater mitigation. Equity is also examined in this process, helping us identify where additional planting could provide the greatest community benefit. All of this came together in a priority planting plan, which is a tool that the city can use to make sure that future plantings are better focused and where they'll have the greatest community impact. The third component was stakeholder and community engagement. This is where we developed a plan including outreach materials, an online community survey, and community workshops. Engagement helped us understand community priorities, concerns, and the input eventually would be paired with all the technical analyses and develop the recommendations in the plan. Another thing I wanted to mention that is in support of this plan is that the city is currently working to develop an urban forestry hub site and story map that will further serve community engagement. So after all of this, the final goal is to develop this into a working urban forest management plan. The recommendations that we will discuss later, they don't stand alone. They are the result of bringing together technical analysis, operational review, policy review, staff input, and community feedback. From there, we developed an implementation framework that gives the city a realistic phased path to putting those recommendations into practice over time. So as I mentioned, this is about a year, a little bit more than a year timeline. So the project kicked off in July of 2025 with the first several months focused primarily on understanding the existing urban forest conditions. We did that through that urban forest assessment, interviews with city staff, and then doing policies and operations reviews. From the fall through early 2026, the project shifted to community engagement with the launch of a community survey and the community workshop, both virtual and in person. When all these items were done, we brought them together into development of draft one, which was submitted to the city in March. And then the following months were involved with city review and refinement of the plan until the final plan was delivered in August of 2026. And now we're here, where we're talking about the details of the plan. So before going into some more detail, I did want to cover community engagement because it's important. As was mentioned earlier, making sure that the community knows what's going on is vital to the success of any initiative. So as part of this plan, the engagement, like I mentioned before, it involved not only an online survey, it involved an in-person community meeting and then a virtual community meeting. I do want to acknowledge that participation in the online survey was very low and that participation in the virtual meeting was very limited as well. So taking that into consideration, we made sure that the recommendations and items that we heard were referenced in the plan but they didn't We did not take them as an overall representative of Ronin Park. So it doesn't mean that those conversations weren't valuable and that they aren't shown in the plan. So a little bit of talk about where is Roanoke Park's forest today. So right now, Roanoke Park manages about 16,000 public trees, which is a good amount of public trees for a smaller city. And it has a 14% canopy cover. One of the things that stands out when we look at the data, one of the key data that stands out is that the public inventory has a concentration of a few dominant species, particularly coast redwood, which makes up almost a third of the inventory population. So these numbers about the trees and the makeup of the land give us the baseline to move forward into developing of recommendations. So the recommendations themselves, which are the core of the plan, are to establish a long-term vision, but they are intended to be practical and implementable over a phased period. So across the recommendations, there are a few consistent themes, creating a more coordinated citywide approach to managing the urban forest, moving from reactive to proactive maintenance, preparing a long-term canopy stability, and creating a shared responsibility across city departments and with the community for the stewardship of the forest. So, the plan includes 10 recommendations and I just wanted to make sure that we gave ample time to go through these and give you as much information as I could. So the first recommendation is to establish a dedicated urban forestry division within the public works. So this recommendation really sets the organizational foundation for everything else that's recommended in the plan. Right now, tree responsibilities are spread across forestry, parks, streetscapes, and with each doing some level of tree-related work. The issue is there's no single program with comprehensive responsibility for urban forestry. So coordination often happens on an as-needed basis rather than through a formal structure. The plan recommends bringing overall responsibility under a dedicated urban forestry division within Public Works. That doesn't mean other departments will stop working on trees. Parks, streets, planning, and all other will have important roles with the urban forest. What changes is there's one clearly identified lead responsible for city-owned trees, standards, coordination, and long-term management. This is an important first step because many of these recommendations follow depend on having an organizational structure and accountability in place. I need a drink. It's a lot of talking. Recommendation two, expand urban forestry staffing. Once the organizational structure is established, the next question is whether the city has staff capacity to support it. Right now, the city has a relatively small core forestry staff with parks, seasonal staff, and contractors helping supplement capacity. The plan is not recommending that the city immediately hire a large number of people. Instead, it recommends a tiered staffing strategy where positions are added when funding becomes available. The staffing structure in the plan shows one potential path for growth, including additional tree-focused field positions. As capacity grows, the city can progressively take on more proactive pruning and inspections, planting, and other work. The recommendation also connects staffing with training and advancement, so employees have a pathway to build skills and move up within the program. The important point is that staffing, funding, and workload need to grow together. Number three, formalized arborist, I'm not going, I did go through, sorry, I didn't think it might click. Number three, formalize arborist authority and define inter-departmental roles. The recommendation is about clarifying who has authority to make tree-related decisions. The operations review identified uncertainty where forestry intersects with streets, planning, development, and infrastructure projects. That led to delays and inconsistent outcomes and decisions being handled differently from one situation to another. The plan recommends formally defining the city arborist's authority for things like removals, pruning standards, as well as clearly establishing when arborist reviews need to occur. For development and capital projects, the key is getting the arborist involved early in the process. It's much easier to design around a tree and resolve infrastructure conflicts during the planning rather than after everything is designed and established. So this isn't about adding another approval layer. It's about creating a clear and predictable decision pathway across departments. 4. Implement proactive maintenance cycles and measurable benchmarks. This recommendation is about moving from reactive to proactive maintenance. Right now, much of the tree work is driven by service requests, safety concerns, or immediate issues rather than scheduled maintenance. The inventory information we have shows the scale of the need that the City has. More than 70% of the City trees were identified as large trees in need of routine pruning. The plan recommends working towards a five-year pruning cycle, so that meaning every year roughly 20% of the trees are pruned. That gives the city an actual benchmark to plan staffing, contracting, and budgets around. TREEKEEPER CAN TRACK PROGRESS AND WHETHER THE CITY IS ACTUALLY MEETING THESE IDENTIFIED GOALS. AND THEN IN THE LONG TERM, THEY CAN ADDESS, THE LONG TERM GOAL IS TO ADDRESS ROUTINE NEEDS BEFORE THEY BECOME COSTLY EMERGENCIES. NUMBER FIVE. invest in training, certification, and safety compliance. As the City builds staffing capacity, it will need to make sure growth is supported by appropriate training, qualifications, and safety practices. The Operations Review found that training budgets have been limited and that safety training and documentation needs to be formalized. Tree work is specialized and potentially hazardous work. So, the recommendation includes a baseline of boriculture safety training for staff performing this work. That includes alignment with industry standards like the ANSI Z133 and other best practices. Beyond the safety, recommendations include continued training in pruning, data tracking, climbing, aerial lift operations, and technical skills. There is also an important workforce development benefit. Training and certification gives the employees that expertise and the ability to advance. Overall, this recommendation supports a safer operations and long-term employee development. Recommendation seven, modernize work order and integration across systems. Currently, right now, the city is The city data is supported across multiple different platforms, gov outreach, mobile MMS, and this leads to difficult, sometimes manual communication between the two systems. We are proposing that TreeKeeper become the central reporting system for all tree-related items, making sure that tree data is tracked and usable and actionable to support both budgetary and resource information. Number eight. right-of-ways and tree infrastructure. We are recommending that the City assume ownership of right-of-way trees by an alteration of Municipal Code Chapter 1224. The reason we are advocating for this is because it gives the City more control and more leeway to make decisions when it comes to the trees in the public right-of-way. It will allow for a standardized infrastructure conflict response to make sure that everything from accessibility to tree protection and the needs of the community are considered when there are infrastructure conflicts. It will also make sure that we are planting better trees and managing the problem before the trees start to heave the sidewalk. Recommendation nine, strengthen policy framework and ordinance clarity. So one of the things that came through this process is realizing that there's a lot of confusion between departments and with the public when it comes to the tree protection We are recommending that there be a strengthened tree protection ordinance that clarifies the city's protection of both trees on public and private property, that standardizes the removal thresholds, and allows for mitigation requirements to make sure that canopy loss is prevented wherever possible. This is also an operational item, making sure that it's not just about the code language, it's about building operating procedures between departments to make sure that forestry is being compensated for its time and that it is tracking the actual cost of arborist reviews and the workload that is being put on forestry. And then 10, expand community engagement and shared stewardship. So the goal is always that a forest is not just on the public property. The 16,000 trees don't represent the entire forest. You need to engage both developers and private property owners and HOAs to make sure that they look at the forest as their own and it's a shared stewardship. You do this by building on already successful events such as the existing Arbor Day and then establishing formal partnerships with HOAs and developers to make sure that items like tree survival rates and establishment success is part of standardized procedures and making sure really that you are building a sense of shared stewardship, not just between the city and the community, but the city and its other stakeholders. So, all of these recommendations are not intended to be implemented right of way.

You know, that's not going to work.

We developed a tiered structure with some overlap because in reality some things will process faster than others. And so we break that down into four different phases or five different phases. First is the Four different phases, sorry. First is the foundation, the second capacity, and then operations, and then long-term. So the foundation phase is this where you're creating the policies and the authority funding systems necessary to transition from reactive to strategic management. So this is where you're establishing that urban forestry division, you're defining responsibilities, and you're creating stable funding mechanisms to make sure that the funding is there to support the program needs. Capacity phase. This is where you're expanding the city's ability to deliver the forestry service. You're incrementally growing forestry staff, you're clarifying ownership and responsibility for the right-of-way trees, and then updating municipal code to strengthen tree protection policies and invest in staff training and certifications to continue growing the department. the operations phase. This is where everything starts to get moving and where the city moves from reactive maintenance to proactive maintenance. Where the five-year pruning cycle where 20% of the trees are being pruned every year starts to be not only implemented but tracked where you're looking to reduce maintenance backlogs, and that's how you're defining success. You're integrating structured succession to make sure that you're not just planning for today, that you're planting and planning for the forest in 20 to 30 years from now. And then you're expanding public outreach. And then lastly is the long-term phase. This is where you are maintaining and growing and improving through data and best operational practices. You're looking to sustain funding and staffing. You're looking for a continued structured succession plan to make sure that what is happening now will live long past this 25-year mark. You're using good data and tracking long-term success to make decisions not just based on what you see but what the data is telling you. And then where you're looking how you can best integrate trees into infrastructure planning and capital projects. And then strengthen community stewardship because the key is to make sure that Everyone looks at Runner Park's urban forest as their urban forest, something that's valuable to them, something that they want to protect, and something that they know they need to keep around for their children and their children to come. That's all I got. Thank you.

All right, questions. Who, what, where, when, why, how, and then we go to public comment, and then we'll come back to the exciting comments, which I know you want to share.

Thank you. I'll be on a short leash. No questions, Mayor.

I might have a question. I guess I can't say that was a great report because that's not a question, right? We'll skip over that. You were talking about a five-year pruning cycle. What is our pruning cycle right now?

There is no pruning cycle right now. Okay.

All right. That's what I was thinking that was the case.

So, right now, there's no cyclical pruning. It's just reactive based on.

Okay. So, when something happens, they, right. You were talking about not just city trees, but making sure all of our stakeholders are brought in, HOAs, single family dwellings, apartment buildings. so that everybody's part of this tree, kind of a, not a tree master plan, but the whole process, the urban forest, right? How do you and other neighborhoods go out into the community and talk about this and bring them in? Because as you saw when you held sessions before, there was not this overwhelming rush of people to come and talk about this, obviously, what is so very passionate to you. How do we go out into our community and get some buy-in?

That's why you build on successful events and then holding individual events like community workshops and any sort of specifically identified event, it's tough to get the engagement. But when you're there and you're popping up at events where there's already people, that's where you can start to have the conversation. And that's where you can really start to build a little bit more momentum and get some buy-in. Asking people to show up is difficult, but showing up to where people already are is a good way to start the conversation.

I like that. Thank you very much.

And just to add, we're doing another stage of a story map that actually takes all the data we've been collecting, that gives it into a presentable format for the public. So that's our next stage that we're working on now is to create this website, which will be a hub where residents can all come to and then see their urban forest for themselves and hopefully get some more connection to it.

I think schools would be a great place as well because, you know, kids are all about the environment trees.

That's what was so great about all of the middle schoolers that came to Arbor Day this year. And now they get to look at those trees in front of the community center every time they drive by. Any questions? Okay.

We will go to the public. I don't see any public comment cards, but I'm officially opening public comment period. If anybody here would like to speak or if there's anybody online. Who would like to speak? We don't have any speakers' cards or comments for design. Okay, marvelous. Now, do I recall correctly that we need to give full 30 seconds? We can close it. Okay, just wanted to double check. Thank goodness. Okay, back to comments.

Yay. So this is great. A long time ago, we planted a bunch of trees. No plan, no clue, no nothing, just a bunch of trees. Now we have a bunch of really big trees, including all those redwoods, and they're in dire need of attention. So first of all, thank you for addressing this issue. And I think this is a great opportunity to partner with SSU if there are opportunities for kids to do internships, et cetera, partnering with the Center for Environmental Inquiry and others over at the University. I think that would be great. I love recommendation number eight, getting control of the right-of-way, because we've seen this repeated in a number of different things, whether it's sound walls or whatever, where all of a sudden we realize that we don't have the right-of-way in these instances. But yet, at the end of the day, the residents are going to say, this is your problem. And so just recognizing that all of it is our concern, I think, is really important. Just thank you for the real hard work. I appreciate it, and I will hope that you have shared this or will share this with the Planning Commission, because I think it's important that they hear this. We do have some development that is yet to take place, so maybe we could implement some of this in real time with new approvals and development agreements that are happening, and with my personal goal being the eradication of the Chinese pistache tree, of which I am definitely jaded. And that completes my comments. Thank you, Mayor.

I just appreciate the report. It was it's actually pretty easy to follow. I know I've had this conversation with Amanda where I'm like, why don't we just do like section by section? instead of having everybody scramble somewhere in an emergency only. So it's good that we see this happening. We're able to come up with a plan and take care of our city because, as I usually say, that's also part of public safety, right? When we lessen the potential of branches falling or just blocking stops on, you know, whatever it may be, this is beneficial to our city in more ways than one. So I do appreciate the work put into this. And I think when we're able to just talk to our constituents and talk to our neighbors about the importance, you know, it's pretty easy to get. So thank you.

I REALLY APPRECIATE THE REPORT. IT'S INTERESTING, YOU KNOW, YOU GO THROUGH THIS LONG PROCESS TO GET THE GENERAL PLAN READY AND THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN, OH, THIS WAS IN OUR GENERAL PLAN AND NOW YOU'RE COMING FORWARD. SO IT'S REALLY GREAT TO SEE THE COORDINATION BETWEEN CITY MANAGER, THE DIRECTOR OF, WHAT'S MARK THE DIRECTOR OF? PUBLIC WORKS. THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC WORKS. I'M SORRY, I JUST HAD A FLASH THERE. NO, I AM OUT OF IT TONIGHT. At any rate, the Department of Public Works and you folks to come in and follow up on what we're all working on here and see things move forward. Sometimes I look at the general plan and I think, well, that's just some great ideas there. But to see them implemented is very heartwarming. Thank you very much. And I do know Mark is over at Public Works, so thank you.

Are you awake?

No.

Well, basically everybody have said what I wanted to say. Now our constituents will have something to see because some of them have had concern about outgrown trees, and now they have the answer. So thank you for the report, by the way, as well.

I have a few questions that I should have asked earlier when it was that time. Can you, while you're here, Davie Resource Group, speak a little bit, for the record, about some of the trees that are struggling? And I ask that because, in particular, our coastal redwoods are just having a time. And I think people look at them and they think maybe, oh, the city's not taking care of them or something, which is probably true in some regards. There's a reality there that has, it's outside of our influence, but it's still our responsibility to respond.

I can't, I don't have the inventory information in front of me right now, so I can't speak in detail, but I can speak to the coast redwood. And, you know, The reason that the Coast Redwood is suffering is because the Coast Redwood was never designed to be planted in an urban setting. And this is not a unique problem to Roanoke Park. I see it in other cities down in the Bay Area, too. So I think one of the key, and that's why we mentioned the successional planning, is it's not just about looking at what's there now. What are you going to put there next? And then what's that going to look like in 30 years? It's about making sure that there's no species monocultures. So you drive down the street and you only see one tree, which looks beautiful, but it's not practical when some bark beetle comes through and kills everything. So I don't want to speak and give you bad information around what trees are doing well and what aren't, but I can tell just specifically from the redwoods.

One of the things that Davie Resources Group is working on in this next phase for the hub is actually a species selector tool. So you could touch on that one a little bit more, but people will be able to look for climate adapted species that would complement their neighborhood based on our tree inventory.

So yeah, as part of this project, we developed a climate adapted tree species list. And the way that we do that is not just by looking at things like infrastructure conflicts to make sure that they're going to be rightly suited for sometimes smaller tree wells. But we also look at heat modeling and where RONER PARK IS TODAY AND WHERE IT'S PREDICTED THEY'RE GOING TO BE IN THE NEXT 10 20 30 50 YEARS AND THE GOAL IS IS THAT UH IT'S IT'S BASED ON HEAT MODELING IT'S BASED ON SIZE ALL OF THESE PRACTICE WATER NEEDS RIGHT IT WAS TALKED ABOUT AND THEN YOU TALKED ABOUT PURPLE PIPE IT'S IT'S NOT JUST THE WATER NEEDS IT'S WHAT KIND OF WATER CAN THESE TREES TOLERATE RIGHT BECAUSE RECYCLED WATER HAS HIGH SALT CONTENTS AND A LOT OF TREES like redwoods, don't do well with high salt content water. So that list will be publicly available right now, right? So that list will be publicly available on the urban forestry hub site. So the hub site will be a place where people can go to and access not just the urban forest master plan but the land cover summary report that was created as part of this plan the resource analysis that was created as part of a project before this and Then there'll be a story map which is an interactive tool where they'll be able to access the data from both that resource analysis which looks at the inventory and then the land cover analysis which looks at everything and And on that site, there'll be information around tree selection and everything like that. The tree selection tool, I believe, is on the next phase, not right now.

The one you're working on?

No, the one we've talked about after that. But the list will be available, and there will be suggestions.

That is fantastic. I can say that I went to a lot of public meetings this year, and I think that the urban forest management plan meeting was one of my favorites. There was so much great content, and I do look forward to there being a hub for other people who maybe weren't as engaged before to tune in when they're feeling it and be able to get that information, because I agree with you. You kind of have to show some success to get the peer pressure for people to care about this public benefit that we can't deny how important it is. because it keeps us breathing. I think that you addressed all of my questions. I'm very much looking forward to us having a plan. It's really, like you said, the reactive model that we're going with now. My district includes East Cotati where that tree fell and busted the roof. and then the sound wall had to be replaced, and that's some expensive stuff. We could have taken care of a lot of trees for that amount of money. So we may not be able to do it now, but I appreciate us having a plan going forward. And thank you so much for your contributions to this. Looking forward to the next phase. Okay, without further ado.

I'd be happy to make a motion to adopt the urban forest management plan by resolution as presented.

I'll second.

We have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Nope. Resolution 2026072 is adopted by Pfizer. Thank you. Great presentation. Marvelous.

Thank you very much.

OK. And our next. Regular item is going to be item 8B. We are receiving a Department of Public Safety annual staffing update. We have here Chief Matos and Ms. Tracy Rankin. Welcome back.

Good evening. You want to do the clicker?

I will do the clicker. All right. Thank you for having us here tonight to present this item to you. Okay. I didn't know someone was coming in, but yeah, go ahead.

So we wanted to talk about the staffing and recruitment challenges that are I wanted to talk about the staffing and recruitment challenges that are unique to our Public Safety Department. To go through them briefly, competition between agencies offering large signing bonuses and lucrative compensation packages, a lack of specialty assignments for our staff to diversify their career opportunities, Law enforcement agencies throughout Sonoma County and statewide are competing for the same pool of candidates that we are. The recruitment process is lengthy and demanding. And believe it or not, remote work in the private sector does play a factor with those that have challenges with their personal schedule and they don't want to be committed to a 24-7 holidays type of job.

So as you know, you saw the three gentlemen tonight. They went through a grueling process to get here. The hiring process with backgrounds, psychs, medicals, everything, is about four to six months. It's a very extensive background. The police academy is now 21 weeks. They added another week. So it's actually five weeks and five months and one week now. We do a unique thing after you get out of the academy. We don't throw you right into the car. We spend about three to three and a half weeks with an orientation, during which time you do your range, DTAC. Next week, they start traffic collision school. There's some report writing stuff. We familiarize them with everything you're going to do in Ronard Park so that you have all your logons. So when you step in the car, you've got a lot of that needed training already so you can be sufficient on the street. So that's about three and a half weeks. Once that's done, then you go into your four-month, 16-week training program. That's the minimum training for a new officer. We usually get them out of there between 16 and 18 weeks. Then they go on to the street where they'll work as a solo officer for about a year. They'll go on the list for the fire academy and once they hit that and we get a place in the fire academy they attend that. That's four to six months and the reason is because there's two fire academies per year. One is an intense fire academy where they're going Monday through Friday eight hours a day. The other is a bifurcated Academy where they go maybe three days a week and one day so it's it extends the time they do that because oftentimes people who are in the Who have a job? They're not yet in the fire service Can't just quit their job and go to a fire academy five days a week So they have this extended one where you can still work. So we put them in both and And then when they are in that extended academy, because they work a shorter number of hours, we have them come in and work two days on the street before they go to the fire academy so that they're generally assigned to traffic at that time. But that's what it takes to get one person on the street.

So the cost breakdown for a public safety officer overall when all facts are considered in the pre-employment process with things such as the polygraph exam, the live scan, the psychological evaluation, the background investigation, the medical evaluation, and then adding in as well the medical evaluation, the post academy, a trainee's salary and benefits for six months, the PS01 salary and benefits for four months, and then the stipend for the person that's training the new officer for a period of four months comes up to $121,759 per public safety officer. So during 25-26 fiscal year, we

We had a few separations. Of course, as you know, we lost one of our public safety deputy chiefs. We lost two public safety sergeants, 10 public safety officers, four dispatchers full-time, one dispatcher part-time, and one management analyst. That was what we lost during that fiscal year. And we were able to appoint eight public safety officers, one dispatcher full-time, one dispatcher part-time, a management analyst, and a public safety records clerk. So not quite, but close. What's that?

Oh.

And so where we are now, we currently have two trainees attending the police academy. We have three officers attending the fire academy. We have six officers in our FTO program, and we have enough FTO?

That's a whole different story.

I bet. And we're hoping to get four trainees. We're recruiting right now for the January 2027 Police Academy.

With that, we'll take any questions, because that's what we love doing, answering questions.

That's the fun part. Thank you. She's presentations for us photo photo photo data questions.

Okay council questions from you before we go to our public So going back to the separations and appointments I'm gonna assume that this happened before we Ratified the contract this last meeting so we have it. Oh That was deputy chief. Sorry. I was reading that wrong as chief I was like we have a chief for a chief but deputy chief isn't we have a chief coming in and Madam City Manager, I'm assuming we're waiting for him to come and see the department and see the needs, if another deputy chief may be needed, budgeted for, et cetera.

So currently, and I'm sure Chief Mattos can clarify this, but the position of the department was for the deputy. We have obviously two deputy chief positions that are currently vacant. But the recommendation of the department was to do under hires bring in police officers Now my understanding right now is that we don't have any over hires Or we do have two over hires but the plan is for the incoming new director of public safety to evaluate, obviously meet with the department, make sure that he gets the input of the department, and see what are the needs in terms of the administrative side of the operations. So that's something that you would expect for the new chief coming in.

And then for these appointments of eight public safety officers, does that include the three we pinned today?

This report was effective for the prior fiscal year, so it would not include the ones that we have today.

Okay. Okay, so in theory we could, you know, because it says 10 public safety officers separated, but if we added these three, we could be up to 11 new appointed officers. I just, as the public, it's... I understand it's fiscal year 25-26, but I also want to be fair on our actuals on what it's looking like right now.

I actually broke that down. So we are currently allocated in our budget for a total of 58 public safety officers. Four of those are allocated to Measure H. So right now, we have the four in Measure H, and we have 56 officers. So technically, we have two overhires. But with that being said, If we're looking at actual boots on the ground So we have 60 Public safety officers of those two are trainees in the police academy Six are in the FTO program three are in the fire academy two are on complete disability industrial related and So that leaves a total of 13. So if we're looking at public safety officers only, not including sergeants, lieutenants, deputy chiefs, that means we have 47 actual boots on the ground at this point.

That's helpful. Thank you. And then going back to the cost breakdown, I don't even know if this can be tracked or how far back you can go. But when the city is investing at over $100,000, into our officers that we need, and we're trying to catch up with all of that, with FTO and all of that. Are we seeing an average time of how much is the city investing, and then how quickly are they departing? Because that's a big, that's a huge cost. Absolutely.

I can look at that for you, for sure.

Yeah, I'd like to see how, you know, life happens, but I know we've seen that with some of our officers, that it's just life really threw them a curveball, and they just couldn't be with department anymore and hopefully they'll come back when when life situates itself but to kind of in a sense see that walk out the door it just really puts a lot of strain on not just the city budget but the department budget and i i would like to kind of see what what can we do to It sounds so horrible because these are humans, but what's our return on investment? How do we keep that? And it's not just the money. It's also the, sorry, I'm getting really tired, the institutional knowledge that leaves. So when you've got five, 10, 15-year folks, that's so helpful because there's a history. People can explain why there's certain policy or why things are done a certain way or why we wouldn't want to shift another way. But when we're having people constantly leaving, you can't really create a culture and a community with that. And so I don't know how we here at the dais can continue to help that because we are investing, we're investing the monies, but how do we kind of assist when folks are leaving to get, you know, I mean.

So if I could just make a quick statement here. So we introduced three new officers today. I think a couple, maybe a month ago, I introduced three new officers, CJ, Tyler, and Balderon. And then prior to that, I had introduced Elliot and Beltran. We are hiring some amazing individuals. I mean, they're intelligent, they're well-spoken, they have a love for this job, and they care about it. And they're amazing young men and women. We're recruiting good people. People want to come to Rohnert Park. They want to be part of the Public Safety Department. They want to work here. What I'm saying is not getting them in the door has not been our problem. As I said before, quantity may be down, quality is not. So we're getting good people in the door. What really these numbers show is we're not keeping them in the door. And so, you know, figuring ways to retain them so they don't walk out the door is what I think the job of the council is going to be because they're here, they're good, and we want to be able to keep them because every day they work here, they bring that knowledge and they get better and they get better. And the most hurtful thing for me as a chief is to watch someone who's just getting there leave because I don't have a specialty assignment for them or leave because someone else in the county is paying more money. So I think where you're going, if I can answer your question, we're getting them in the door. They're wonderful people. We've got to figure out how to keep them here. The retention is where we want to concentrate.

I guess put this in a predicament. I know you and I have talked about it a lot, but with With our new chief coming in, I'm kind of looking forward to hearing what is that, because we are not the operations. We can support a lot, but we can't, you know, I would like to hear that at some point in the future of what is a retention plan that's feasible and that's just sustainable for everybody involved. That's, I think, what we're looking at as we just had those presentations of state-mandated things that we have to foot the bill for, because people thought that was a great idea. So I'm just trying to look at what is sustainable for the department, for the hard work, truly, Chief, that you've put in over the last eight years, and to keep that going. Because I can't say that our department doesn't show up. They do. And I know that they're working really hard. And so it's hard to see that amount continuously leave. So that's all from me for now.

Yes.

Thank you. Just curious, trainee salary benefit and benefits, the cost for the six-month period is $55,943. That is not an annual salary, correct?

That is correct. That is not an annual salary.

Okay. Because I don't want somebody looking at that and thinking, wow, they're a trainee, they're getting this much, and then you're dropping them down to $55,386. That is a four-month salary and benefit schedule, and the one above it is a six-month salary and benefit schedule.

Yes.

Okay. I just want to be clear on that. CHIEF, DID YOU HAVE A COMMENT?

WHILE THEY'RE IN THE ACADEMY, I THINK IT'S BOTTOM STEP LESS 10%. RIGHT. AND THEN WHEN THEY GET OUT OF THE ACADEMY, THEN THEY MOVE TO A STEP. SO OUT OF THAT YEAR, 10 MONTHS, THEY'RE BEING PAID IN THE ACADEMY ONE PRICE AND IN THE CAR THE OTHER PRICE.

THANK YOU. I JUST WANTED TO BE CLEAR IN CASE SOMEBODY'S LOOKING AT THE SIGN AND WONDERING, YOU KNOW, WHAT ARE THOSE NUMBERS ABOUT. MY SECOND QUESTION IS, CHIEF, I DON'T WANT TO PUT YOU ON THE SPOT. How many different departments did you work for in your career?

This is my third department, but I did work for the Marin County DA's office for about two years.

So three public safety units. And how many years have you been in public safety? 37. So every 10 years-ish, right? I guess I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it's the council's job to figure out how to retain these folks. I agree with you. I agree with Council Member Rodriguez here. I will say, however, that it is a generational thing, and I have young adults in my home where this is something I want to do and then something else comes along. I think I'm going to go do this over here now. And I think there's got to be a way to capture back the I'll be here 10 years before I move somewhere else, or there has to be a way to keep them. I don't know what that is, but I think you've rightly addressed kind of what the issue is. And then can you just go forward the slide where you talk about the comings and the goings? That one's right there. So this is from July 1st, 2025 to June 30th, 2026. Yes. Okay. So we separated from 19 people and we placed in the city 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Is that the normal, what's the historical rate?

I think we have some numbers out there, and I think they've been, we've looked at them before, but, I mean, when you look at this, because of that hiring process, right, I could lose somebody in 25-26, and because of the hiring process, I might not hire them until August of 26. So I was able to replace them, but it doesn't show in these numbers.

Okay. And I think she kind of mentioned that, Councilwoman Rodriguez, so. I appreciate that. I think this is some very thorough information. It certainly gives us something to think about in the coming months. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mayor. Chief, I'm kind of curious a little bit, and I have to ask the question. So when it comes to retention, in certain entities, public entities, they have like rules where if you come, you want to come and join us, this is the amount of time you have to to work or stay with us before you think of leaving? Is this something that our public safety department can put in place, or it's not something doable? This is out of curiosity, because if someone goes to the military or the Navy, they pay for their education and all of that, but they have a certain period of time where they have to serve before leaving. Is that something that is doable in this case or not.

So when I became the admin sergeant in Woodland, that's when I got into the hiring process and started understanding it. And early on in that venture, I thought, why don't we put people on contracts? Why don't we tell them, if we're going to put you through the academy, you've got to work for us five years. And I think every chief would say that's a great idea, but I think Michelle would back me on the fact that we cannot force people to stay in these certain numbers, or we can't. I mean, it's... You can't put someone in a position, at least in law enforcement, to say, if we hire you, you have to stay here this long. It's a violation of law. So as much as we'd like that commitment, we can't get it.

So basically, you are investing money to somebody that you know will not be there. So if they finish the training, you pin them. In two weeks, they're like, I'm out, and they're out. And so you wasted $121,000 in public funds for that. So that's basically what I hear. So we need to have some sort of rules based on that. The characterization of what you're saying could happen, yes, it could happen.

We do a very thorough background when we get somebody. I've never had anybody leave that soon. But even losing a three-year officer, right, that hurts. And, you know, they come in and they want to be a public safety officer. They want to be here. And then after they've worked here for, let's say, five years, they look up, they say, well, all we have is detectives as a specialty assignment. None of those detectives are coming out for a while. So I'm probably not going to do anything else. So I might look somewhere where I might be able to get into a specialty assignment. So it's that three to five year mark where it seems like we get them walking out the door because they're very confident. They're starting to know really what they're doing. And they're a great commodity for another agency. are very well trained and they're ready to go. So you hope they'll come in and commit and stay. You hope they'll come in and they'll start a family because that's harder to leave when you have a family, right? It's harder to leave when you know each other and your spouses are friends with other spouses. So we try to create that. But when I hire them, it's a shot of how long. I hope they'll stay forever or at least 10 years before they move on. But giving them more opportunities throughout that, giving them the ability to move. Councilwoman Adams asked me how long or how many places I'd been. I was in Woodland for 17 years. And one of the reasons of that longevity is because about every three to four years, I had an opportunity to go do something different. be it FTO, be it detective, work at NARCS, work here. And so my career was constantly changing, right? But there were some times in my career where I'm like, I just don't want to push a black and white anymore. I want to do something else and there's, This is what I'm going to do. And that's where I started looking for other opportunities. So giving them the opportunities in the department will help retain them. Because that's what they want. They want challenges and they want change.

So basically people are tired of eating a steak every single day. Sometimes they want some vegetables.

Exactly.

So how can... That's an interesting way to put it. So... So this is something internal that need to happen, right? Or is that what I'm hearing? Like something internal that need to happen in the public safety department to, so it's not necessarily, you know, Well, money is part of it, but also opportunities in the public safety itself. Is that what I'm hearing?

Well, and I'll clarify that because you're... I'm just... I'm curious. You're saying the exact truth. Those opportunities can... I'm able to create those opportunities when I have staffing. And when I can't maintain that level of staffing because I keep getting people walking out the door or I get these long-term injuries, right, then I can't create the COPS team. I can't add another motor. I can't get the DUI car out there. because patrol and fire is the first thing. So as we can retain, we can hire good people, keep them here, those numbers can build up to where I can say, now I have the staffing to where I have full patrol, full fire, And I can put a three-person cops team out there, or I can put a DUI car out there, something like that. So it's a bigger answer because, yes, internally I can create that stuff, but I have to have the staffing to do it. Otherwise, I'm just robbing Peter to pay Paul, and I'm just moving chess pieces around.

Thank you, Chief.

Okay, questions from me. I cannot remember when, but Tracy will, we had a staffing report update on all departments. It was this year. It was probably within the last couple months. When was it? I was just trying to kind of like look back to see where we were at on retention in other departments. I know it's more obvious and extreme with public safety because the training process is so long, but I get the sense that it's not only in public safety that we're having retention challenges.

No, it's all of our departments right now, honestly. And I'll have to pull that report and see when it was. It was this year though, right? It was this year. Probably a whole year ago. But no, and what we've seen with public safety right now, it actually feels like it's kind of rotating departments. We have it at public safety. We've just had some losses upstairs in development services. Now we're seeing some in public works. It kind of rotates, unfortunately. And I think that a big part of it as well, because employees can move from retirement system to retirement system, they aren't afraid to stay put anymore.

Thank you for the extra insights on that. And then, let's see, I know I had other questions. Let me just look real quick and see if I can find them. I think I was just curious about the, when I was looking at the report about the referrals, you know, we do, if you refer a friend and you both stay, you get money, which is great. I'm curious if you could look up at some point how many of those folks are still here. Obviously, they got their referral money, but I'm curious if they got it and left or if they got it and stayed. Not an answer we have to have today, but just curious about that. And yeah, we'll go ahead and go to public comment, and then if there's anything left for the council, we'll come back. Would anybody from the public like to speak on this item during this official open public comment period? Okay. For those at home, just so you know, there's a huge crowd here. Is there anybody on Zoom? No, Mayor. We don't have anybody on Zoom. Great. This is me closing public comment period. And any final thoughts from the council?

Not only that I didn't have any questions, but some of the dialogue here has prompted me to think about just retention in general. And I agree with Council Members Rodriguez and Adams and you that retention is not our biggest challenge, but hopefully will be an opportunity as well.

Great, looks like we are all set. Thank you for the presentation. We, let's see here, receive it. We don't need to approve anything on this one. It has been received. We appreciate it. Thank you. All right, folks, we're on to item nine, committee and liaison and other reports. Council, do share.

So we did have a board meeting at the bridge. Nothing really new to report. However, I did share on social media that we had a surprise visit while I was chairing the finance and auditing committee. One of the clerk for the board came up and said, Nancy Pelosi's here. And we were like... Nancy Pelosi's here. And she was here, and she just showed up in the boardroom, and it was wonderful. It was really cool. I had a chance to meet her. She is an amazing woman, very lucid, extremely knowledgeable, and definitely has a lot of fight left in her for sure. We've heard that she's going to be doing something in terms of teaching at Berkeley. And so we're excited about that. But it was an honor to meet her. And of course, I will remind everyone that she was instrumental in getting the bridge $400 million for the seismic retrofit. So I think she wanted to come and see with all that bought.

I got to attend the Child Care Planning Council since I've been appointed by our mayors and council members association. I officially get selected by the Board of Supervisors on the 15th. So I will forward some of the information that we talked about. We're looking at zip codes, money that's needed. We need 2,000 spots made available. That's how many kids are in need of access to child care, early child care, just for Sonoma County. So I'll be pushing to our state legislatures to see how we can get that. Because as we know, when you take care of children and you take care of families, you boost the economy. So that would be really nice to see that number lessen in terms of the wait list. And Chamber of Commerce, tomorrow there is a mixer happening at San Pino's Coffee. People could go join them there. Yeah, should be pretty fun. And we had Senator Cabaldon at the networking luncheon. I think that was last week. I'm fusing all the days. And I have to commend all of our staff and our city manager and the attorney's office, Senator Cabaldon, gave the City of Roanoke Park a shout out and said that the City of Roanoke Park is always ready. There are some cities that he has to beg to be ready for a grant. And when his office contacts, the city is going, great, we're all set up. Thank you very much. And so he said it makes it enjoyable to see that the funds, where they're going, how quickly the staff is to jump on them and to be so just experts in your field as always. So that was great to hear from him. I think that's it.

Yeah.

I don't have anything current to report. Thank you.

All right. I didn't have any committee meetings, but I had other fun things I would like to just share. We didn't do it this evening, but I actually did at the Rohnert Park Car Show a proclamation for the North Bay Showtime Entertainment, our hosts. of the Rohnert Park Car Show. And I just want to give a Frank, Frank, a shout out to Frankie Lemus. It is Hispanic Latina Heritage Month 915 through 1015. And so that proclamation was presented to them. And we have been over at Sonoma State. The Center for Environmental Inquiry has a really groovy installation that you can go and visit while you're along the creek back behind Sonoma State near the Butterfly Gardens. I highly recommend it. It's an interdisciplinary project, engineering, arts, kinesiology. All these folks have gotten together and collaborated on some projects that encourage you to interact and engage with the space and yeah check it out you'll know when you see it and then I also attended the candlelight vigil for Nepal for the flood victims there and I got to the good part about it was getting to spend some time I'm getting to know a local nonprofit based here in town, the United Nepalese of California. They're right down the street, and they are doing wonderful work both to support the Nepalese community here, but also to fundraise for victims of this disaster. So I encourage you to look them up, Nepalese of California, right here in Runner Park. related to that since we did have a mini earthquake here in the area the other day who felt it on the third um that just reminded me that we definitely want to make sure we're starting to prepare ourselves i stay starting because i highly doubt any of us have our go bags ready and all our alerts set up cool if you do but just a reminder you can go to socoemergency.org to get re-inspired i hope that that little mini earthquake re-inspired you as well to better prepare And we will be talking about that here in the city as we prepare for big rains this season and how we can do more regarding sandbag prep and other things, communications, to get ourselves in order. Let's see here. Today is the three-year anniversary for Cabayan Filipino Market. Congratulations to them. And they're right there on... Commerce. Check them out. And let's see here. This Saturday, the 12th, the Asian American Pacific Islander Coalition is doing a youth leadership summit at Sonoma State University. It's their first ever. I'm going to stop by and say hi. And we are doing here in the city at the community center on the 12th, same day, the natural disaster preparedness workshop. And then it's a busy weekend. Pickleball Club, I think, has a tournament this weekend. And the Greek and Middle Eastern Festival is on the 12th and 13th at St. George Orthodox Church. So make sure you get a chance to check that out this month. Just the 12th and 13th alone, buckle up. It's exciting stuff. Yeah, so there's that. And then take a break. And then on the 18th through the 20th, I do want to remind you that we're doing e-waste collection And that is at the community center. And I highly encourage you to gather all those miscellaneous things that used to work and don't. Anything electronic can be recycled for free. And it's a drive-through. It's super easy to do. So you can look on the Zero Waste Sonoma website to learn more. And that is all I'm going to share for tonight. I know you all want to go home. Can I just add? Sorry. Did that inspire you on a few more?

Yeah. On the 12th, it's also Noah's barbecue fundraiser is happening. And then I believe is it the 19th? Noah, is it the 19th that we're doing City Runner Park in conjunction with the Mecha Club at Rancho is hosting Dia de la Independencia, Mexican Independence Day. So check that out. It's open to the public. I think it's their third year as well. And just also shout out to our entire community, you know, from the African Soul Festival last year, previous weekend the car show this past weekend greek festival there's so much happening here and getting to talk to neighbors of just just the range that's available too for all of our neighbors is incredible so i think we're still somewhat of a hidden gem but i i have heard there's quite a few other neighboring communities starting to come on over so Just another appreciation to city staff, however it is that you guys all help in those capacities. They're all successful and safe. And yeah.

All right, folks, we have item 11. Anybody want to add anything to a future agenda? Nope? Bedtime? Okay. Then with that, this meeting is adjourned. Have a beautiful rest of your evening.