City Council - Regular Meeting

Well, good evening. I'm Mayor Erica A. Stewart and I'm here to say that all of the council members are here in person for our regular meeting. Will you please join me in the pledge of allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. City Attorney, can you report out in close session? Thank you, Madame Mayor. The council did meet on one matter of existing litigation in the matter of Randall Arseno versus the city of St. Louis Abyispo and no reportable action was taken on that matter.

Thank you. Um today we'll get to start our meeting with a presentation uh regarding the citywide single vote transition and our communications and outreach plan. With that, I'll hand it over to Deputy City Manager Greg Herman.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members. We are really happy to be here tonight. Uh this presentation will focus on just how we're going to educate and inform the community via about the upcoming change to our election system for this November. Um this is a follow-up to the corresponding ordinance adoption from your previous meeting. I'm joined tonight uh by Natalie Harnett and Wit Centezy who are key members of the team that are going to be moving this project forward. But I do want to reinforce to the counciling community that the entire city is going to be behind this effort as we really see it as one of the most important things that we're going to embark on over the coming year. So tonight is really about uh acquainting the counseling community with what this plan looks like. We'll go over a variety of strategies, metrics, uh and how we're going to uh make sure that we communicate with everyone. But the short story is that we're going to use every single tool to tool that we have in terms of communications. And we're going to be trying some new tools as well that we haven't been able to use in the past. and we won't miss a chance, regardless of what we may be speaking about, to remind people about how they can make sure that their vote counts in this upcoming election. As a quick reminder, if folks weren't at the previous council meeting, we're here to talk about the implementation of a settlement agreement related to the California Voting Rights Act. Uh this agreement uh does result in a new system for electing council members, and that's called citywide single vote for council. Uh it is a relatively straightforward system. Instead of voting for two council members, everyone will vote for one with the top two council members being elected. And I also want to stress that the process for electing the mayor remains exactly the same. Uh as the council is aware, this isn't necessarily a change that we asked for. Uh but like cities across the state and even locally, uh we were forced to make a change or instead face costly litigation or move to other options. Uh ultimately the council approved this plan as the best fit for our community. Uh and we

think it is because it preserves the ability for people to continue to vote in every election for council members and to select their candidate of choice from across the entire city instead of being constrained to a geographic region. It's also legally recognized. It's lowcost for us to be able to implement and it is compatible importantly with our county system which we consolidate with for our election services in the city. We know that this can be a big change for everyone and like I mentioned we take it quite seriously and be really focused on this over the coming year and I'm super excited to be able to hand it over to Whit and Natalie to tell you a little bit more of what that will look like.

Thanks Greg. Uh Wit and Tezy. Um before I go into the outreach strategy for our communications plan, I want to first talk about how we developed the plan. In 2024, the city council directed staff to put together a comprehensive communications and outreach strategy for this change. We hired one of the city's on call communications consultants, Treepy Smith, a nationally recognized marketing, technology, and public affairs consultant consulting firm in the summer of 2025 to develop this comprehensive plan. We chose them because we knew we would benefit from their expertise in voter outreach and voter education. They have worked with many communities across the state of California on voter education campaigns that enhance transparency and grow communitywide trust. Together, we reviewed past input, public comment, and public hearings. All of this information indicated a strong desire for clear, consistent communication and voter education leading up to the general election in 2026 in November. We held focused conversations with city staff, council members, county elections officials, and human and the human relations commiss, all of which provided incredibly important input uh and feedback that was incorporated into the plan. We also reached out to the community via a survey that gave us a really good benchmark to understand community awareness of this change, but it also provided us with key areas that were previously unclear and helped us to understand what community members want and need when it comes to explanations, visuals, um, and educational materials. So, let's dive a little bit deeper into the community survey for a moment. The city uh surveyed 464 voters and community members to help inform

communications. Um and we conducted the survey in late 20125. An analysis and report of the findings is included in the communications plan. But I did want to highlight some key points. First, awareness of the change and why it's happening is low. A significant share of the respondents across all demographic groups had not heard about the upcoming election change and express expressed confusion about why the city's adopting citywide single vote, how it affects their ballot, how many candidates they can vote for, whether the change impacts representation. This shows a clear need for early planned uh and plain language education. Second, the new voting process is not yet clear to many voters. Regardless of background, many respondents indicated that they are uncertain how the new process works. Uh they want the city to provide simple explanations, examples, and visual aids. They are concerned about making mistakes on their ballot and they want to make sure that their vote counts. And third, preferred information sources vary widely. We already kind of knew this. Uh the survey confirms that the city must use multi- channelannel a multi- channelannel approach to reach all voter groups. Top channels overall include social media, direct mail and printed mailers, um printed materials, local news websites and newspapers, the city's website, community meetings or workshop, and word of mouth. But for harder to reach groups, uh they have a higher resilience or sorry reliance on word of mouth communications to raise awareness. They have a strong desire for Spanish first communications, not just translated once clicked communications and preferred uh meetings at schools, parks, and community centers. So that was uh a really helpful key metric that came from the survey.

Now, let's look at the outreach plan itself. Every good communications plan needs clear goals. The primary goals of the communications plan are to clearly inform residents about the change, encourage voter registration, provide clear direction on how to vote to prevent invalid ballots. I did want to note about that. Number three, uh the good news is that most voters have already been making this shift in the past few city council elections. In fact, about 70% of voters in the last city council election voted for only one candidate. So, this change may not be a huge shift for most voters. However, we are aware that for the remaining 30% uh this change might be harder to understand uh and we want to make sure that everybody knows how to make their vote count. And then finally, uh, our last goal is to support voter turnout that meets or surpasses previous election levels. These were identified as communications goals based on input from city council, community members, partner organizations, uh, the county elections office, city staff, and volunteers. We also took into consider our took into consideration our agreement related to obviously the California Voting Rights Act uh, to make sure everything was aligned. Now, let's dive a little bit deeper to get a sense of what success actually looks like. These key performance indicators were formulated based on data from the community survey as well as reported election results from previous elections. First, we want to maintain or increase the number of registered voters here in slow. Of the roughly 41,000 eligible voters in St. Louis Abyispo, about 70% are registered to vote. We want to maintain this or increase this number for the 2026 general election.

Second, we want to maintain or reduce over votes um of ballots cast. Ideally, we don't want to see any over votes. That would be an ideal situation in this year's election, but we understand that that's realistic. There are over votes in every election. Um on average, uh about 18% of ballots contain over votes for city council election. And this is looking from for at data from 2020 to 2024. Some years have more, some years have less. Uh to make it reasonable, we're hoping to maintain this average or reduce it to 0.15%. We also and finally are uh seeking to meet or exceed voter turnout this year. We looked at voter turnout in midterm elections um in 2022, 2018, and 2014. The average midterm election turnout is about 64%. Uh we're hoping to meet or exceed this for this year's election in November. And again, you know, these are are really helpful metrics for us to look at after obviously we do the communications and Natalie's going to go into a little bit later how we're going to measure success during communications and be able to pivot and be nimble throughout. Um but it's helpful for us to have a set of targets so that we can understand overall outcomes not just output. Um we will also be tracking communications measures things like email open rates, website traffic, uh video views, social media engagement, but we want to make sure that we aim for more than that and tie our success to the election itself and not just communications metrics. So now we've we have an idea of what our goals are, what we're going to be measuring. Let's talk about who we're reaching. Uh to put it simply, our job is to reach everybody. Um but in order to do that, we recognize that we need to put in a little bit of extra effort uh to include those who have been

historically marginalized and members of harderto-reach groups in St. Louis. I've listed a few here um to give you an idea of what I mean by historically marginalized or harder to reach groups. Essentially, what that means is that we need to go to greater lengths to not only make sure these groups are aware of the change, but help everyone understand how to make their vote count in the upcoming city council election. What that looks like is meeting them where they are. For example, we'll go to the senior center and local senior living facilities to speak directly with seniors and help them understand this change. We'll go directly to neighborhoods and host popup tents withformational materials to inform community neighbor community members in that specific neighborhood. We'll have a booth at farmers markets and other events to make sure we're reaching people who may not be aware of this change. We'll visit Kpali and Questa College campuses and hostformational tables there and present the information to faculty, staff, and students. And we'll reach out to faith faith-based organizations to host tables outside of their congregations. These are just some examples of things we're going to be doing um beyond what is typically done for this type of outreach for the city. The key takeaway here is that we need to meet people where they are. We cannot expect that they will come to us for necessary information. We also see this as an opport opportunity to build new connections. And in just a few slides, Natalie is going to share a little bit more about the tactics in the plan that outline that will outline exactly what we do. So, now that we know who we're going to reach, let's talk a little bit about our messaging. What are we going to say? The communications plan identifies three primary key messages to voters. It really outlines what residents need to know about council member elections. It's important for voters to understand the impact of their vote and why this agreed upon alternative to district

voting is what we're moving forward with. We are also going to make sure that voters know that this does not change the way they vote for mayor, only council members. The following key messages and talking points will be used throughout this education campaign. First, you get to vote in every election and put all your support behind your preferred council member candidate. In previous city council elections, voters could cast uh votes for two candidates. Often, voters only selected one. Uh, in district elections, voters would only get to participate in elections for city council members every other election. That means every four years for our city council. They would only be allowed to vote for one candidate who lives in their their district in their essentially neighborhood, even if they prefer a candidate in another district. With citywide single vote for council, all voters will continue to participate in every election and may select any candidate they believe best represents their priorities regardless of where in the city they uh the voter or their preferred candidate lives. Number two, you get to vote for one council me council member candidate and the top two win, creating a level playing field for everyone. Many voters already vote this way, so it may not be a difficult shift for a lot of people. With only one vote, no singular group can boost multiple preferred candidates at once. Candidates are also less able to rely on second choice votes. This can create a uh can create more space for new voices, and candidates uh are uh tasked with gaining meaningful support. This can also create an opportunity for candidates who might not have had that same opportunity in a system where one larger group can vote for multiple choices. And finally, you can unite with others across neighborhoods who have shared priorities to more effectively support a single council member candidate with only one vote. Communities with shared

priorities um including smaller and minority communities or coalition of smaller groups can uh build broader coalitions so that they can unite support behind a candidate across different groups. This can help connect communities or neighborhoods across regions. They don't have to worry about boundaries um that may not have previously collaborated. It'll foster relationships that extend beyond an election cycle and will hopefully uh create more engagement within the city. This also allows for more more collaboration, coalition building to make a real difference in who wins the election. Now, we know what you're going to say. Let's talk about our strategic approach to outer uh outreach and voter education. The city is going to be taking a phased approach to outreach and engagement in which each phase builds upon the previous uh the progress of the previous phase. A phased approach was also a direct recommendation from the county clerk recorder's office um and aligns with initial expectations for communications and engagement. The outreach will begin with broader education about the change to help residents understand what is happening and why. then transition into practical voter information. Getting closer to the election, we will guide the community from awareness to action. What this looks like, uh, from January to June, we're going to focus on building awareness and understanding of citywide single vote for council. Our focus will really be on registered voters, partners, and harder to reach groups. During this time, we will explain the new voting method and why it's changing and how it affects voters. We will emphasize the vote for one top two win messaging and emphasize that this uh method of election is uh about fairness, simplicity, and legal compliance. Tactics include website updates. We're currently working on revamping our

single wide city vote landing page. It'll include our first mailer and explainer video and clips that we can then circulate around social media uh presentations and our community meeting schedule. I want to emphasize that in this face phase to differentiate from other city outreach and garner widespread community participation we will be developing a distinct brand for citywide single vote the education campaign a unified visual ident identity will reinforce the initiative's credibility. It will make communication clearer and more accessible and it'll help the uh initiative stand out against the city's broader communications. Finally, uh in September, I'm sorry, not finally, next is uh phase two, September or June through September, how to participate successfully. This is when we're going to focus on ensuring that all eligible voters know how to register to vote and how to vote successfully in the city council election. Our focus will be on hardertoreach groups, eligible non-registered voters, and candidates. We will share voter registration messaging um and how to fill out the ballot correctly. In during this phase, we'll send out the second mailer will include canvasing, student outreach, and digital ads. And then finally, phase three, September through November, will focus on voting successfully. This is when we are going to be amplifying the county messaging and providing reminders leading up to election day to encourage registration and uh ensure that residents are aware of what the ballot looks like and where to vote. Our focus will be on registered voters and candidates. And we'll coordinate with the county elections office to share ballot instructions, deadlines, and voting locations. It'll include our final mailer, ads, uh, meetings, door knockocking, and, uh, social media countdowns. And now I'd like to pass the presentation to Natalie

Harnett to discuss our outreach tactics and budget, as well as next steps. Thank you, Whit. Um, Natalie Harnett, policy and project manager for the city. Um, so I'm just going to go through some more details here when it comes to outreach and educ uh engagement tactics. Greg stole my quote, but um we really plan on using all of the communication tools in the toolbox. Um we have some of the fixed deliverables that are going to be done on the month on a monthly basis and those are listed uh up here on the screen and then we'll be doing a bunch of other um outreach tactics as needed. We'll also be looking into additional ways of engagement including possible development of a volunteer program. Um the core focus through all of the engagement tactics is going to be maintaining a consistent and clear messaging. As Whit mentioned earlier and what we've heard um consistently from council through our survey and our community partners is that the most effective way to spread this information is going to be through those trusted relationships and partnerships. um especially for the harder to reach communities. So, we know that people are more likely to trust information that comes from familiar and local voices. So, our goal is to get to those um voices. That means we'll be relying heavily on our community partners and really on all community members to um help us share that clear, accurate, consistent information. The city will of course be there to help support our trusted messengers by providing tools, messaging, and staff support so that they can be successful and confident messengers. The city of St. Louis Bispo, as you know, is uniquely fortunate to have an incredibly engaged community. Um, and this partner-driven approach is one of the outreach tools that we're most excited about. Through our communications plan, um

you'll see that we've identified more than a hundred community partners ranging from larger organizations like the chamber to local Latina groups, schools, and civic organizations. Um we also see this as an opportunity to build new connections. So to anyone who is um here or possibly watching from home, if you're part of a group, whether it's u maybe a neighborhood or apartment complex group or a book club with friends, um we'd love to connect with you. so we can meet you where you are and or provide the tools that you need in order to help us share this me message within your own communities. Um measuring and adapting uh the plan is intentionally designed to be evolving um as needed. So we expect that there will be hurdles and there will be times when we need to pivot and that's okay. Um, we expect to pause, check in, and adjust the tactical approach as we go with the plan kind of serving as that framework to come back to. Um, we also will have regular check-ins with our key stakeholders that can help provide feedback on how the outreach is going um and provide feedback on maybe some ways that we can um improve our outreach, especially to those historically marginalized communities. Um, we'll support this through monthly meetings and regular internal check-ins as well. And then, as Wit kind of mentioned, success is going to be tracked using those metrics. Um, website traffic, social media engagement, ad reach, meeting attendance, and media coverage. Um, we also have a city email set up so anyone can provide feedback as we go by sending an email to voting slowcity.org and that is already live. um or finding us at any of the upcoming outreach events or activities that we have planned. Budget. I personally love looking at budgets. So, we have um council adopted as part of this financial plan um a

budget of $120,000 for this effort with 90,000 in the current fiscal year and an additional 30,000 which will be available after July 1st. Um to date we spent about 10,000 on developing our project plan and then most of the execution of the plan itself is going to be done mainly inhouse. Um so the big budget items are you know the direct mailers to all of our residents along with the print TV and radio advertisement. Um most of these budget align items are best estimates. So we do expect that um you know some things will maybe go over over and some will come under. So we have some contingencies built in as well. So what now? Um in the coming weeks, we'll be finalizing our branding and materials for the first phase. Then comes launching a phase one outreach, including beginning to meet with our community part partners as well as form um community working group. As you heard from our county clerk recorder last week, we'll also be working very closely with the county to ensure that we can kind of piggyback off of their regular outreach um and ensure that our timelines and messaging match up with theirs. We will continue to provide council with reporting progress as we go and we do intend to come back to you later in the spring with an update on how the outreach is going. With that, that concludes our presentation. Um, but I think we're happy to take any questions that you might have and we have more details on our slowcity.org um the single vote site as well as the email address that I mentioned earlier.

Wonderful. Thank you so much both of you, all of you. Um, I know that there are a couple questions already, but I'll wait to pass on mine. Okay. Well, then let me start. [laughter] So, some people have asked me why not uh mix techco and my understanding is we didn't have as many people that spoke mixo in slow city and that was the reasoning why. Is there any else I can add to that or you would like to add to that? I also do want to mention uh it's my understanding that mixed techco doesn't have um uh it's more of an oral language um and less written communications and so um a lot of our communications will be translated into uh Spanish. It will all be English and Spanish, but we're really going to focus on kind of visual communications and visual aids for anybody who uh doesn't speak English or Spanish or read English or Spanish.

Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Um and then there was a comment to me about June. Um we have a lot of things going on in June. Um primaries of uh California, but also um in the elections, but also school changes K through 12 Quest in May and Calpaly in June. And I noticed in um we'd be having the different community meetings every single month. Would we consider maybe having two in May and skipping June just with all the different things going on? I'm just wondering do we I notice adaptability was definitely a key. So just kind of depending on who's responding, how would how would that work? So we kind of make sure to manage that time period of June being so unique.

Thank you. Okay. I heard we could do that. Great. Thank you. Well, I'll save the rest of mine. Council member Marks. Oh, thanks. Uh, yes. I'm uh curious if uh you considered having a handout in the utility mailers for those people who don't uh necessarily um uh how do I say pay attention to email or even have email uh who want to write a check and bring it right here to city hall and pay it or actually put it in the mail.

Yes. Good. Okay. Have you contacted the League of Women Voters? They're big on voter registration to see if they would help us educate city voters. They are on the list for our community working group and we are going to be inviting them to participate in monthly meetings. um we will be they're on they're also on the list of over a hundred community partners and we will be reaching out to them to help us develop um educational opportunities that align with kind of their schedule as well.

All right. So they they might also be a good a source of volunteers. Um, have you considered yard signs about um, vote for one? I brought that I brought this up earlier when we were talking about it. People in the city of St. Louis Abyispo pay a lot of attention to yard signs. So, I just want to hope that you'd consider that.

We we we have heard that. idea and so yeah, we're happy to consider that as a part of the plan. Look at our overall budget. I think the whole approach will actually feel similar to the education that we do typically of like say there was a ballot measure on the ballot and that yard signs are something that can be done as a part of that effort. And so we're happy to take a look at that. Yeah. And also possibly door hangers. We looked at that door hangers. Yes. And I also wanted to mention and that that will be um a portion of our printed materials budget. So, we're going to be looking at the budget overall and kind of seeing uh where we will get the most bang for our buck. Good. Thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Vice Mayor Francis.

I was so excited to see that you guys are going to be going out and presenting to groups that want you to come. And I was wondering if the best way for interested groups to get in touch is through the voting at slow city email. Awesome. And is there kind of a set number that you're targeting in in these groups? So, should people try and gather five or 10 or 20 neighbors together or have a certain number in their organization before they reach out?

No, I would say if anyone's interested in receiving more information, the first step is to contact us at the email address and then we will figure out the best mechanism. It could be dropping off flyers, it could be organizing a meeting, it could be forwardingformational materials that we have electronically. And so I think the right point is to just reach out and then we'll figure out you'll get it started. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you, Council Member Boswell.

Uh yeah, just a question about the the neighborhoods. Apologies if you mention this, but how are we going to select the neighborhoods? Do we have data that shows spatially differentiated voting patterns and lower participation neighborhoods? Okay. Um, thank you for the question and we do have some information, the information that's available. Um, and we can kind of narrow down what neighborhoods we want to focus on and we'll be working with our GIS department or program in order to do that. Thanks. Thank you, Council Member Shoresman.

Thank you. Yes. Um, really excited about this. have been looking forward to this part of, you know, it's it's unfortunate that uh in some ways that we're here and having to do all this education, but um it's important and I love that it's kind of giving us an excuse, if you will, to really do some voter registration as well as just voter education. I think we can have never enough of that. So, um one thing that I wanted to kind of emphasize is the uh the student populations. I know I noticed in your timeline you had several uh items when you were going to be reaching out to certain student groups and uh Mayor Stewart mentioned you know a couple of them with Qua and Kalpali sort of having different school periods of when they might be the best to approach and I noticed um that Kalpali and Qua weren't always noted um in the timeline. So I might take a look at that. just recommend that you take a look at that with an eye to when their school calendars are and make sure that we're hitting those populations at the right time. The other group, a student oriented group that I didn't see explicitly called out, um, is high school students. And maybe I just missed it, but there's a lot of brand new young voters. And I know there's probably some history classes and some government classes at the high school that may be interested in hearing a little bit more about this and use it as part of their educational curriculum. So, just wanted to throw that in there. Uh, and then also, I'm hoping that uh because we're about to do the community academy that there might be a lesson or a unit in the community academy about the single vote.

Yes. [laughter] wonderful because I think our own residents are our best messengers for some of this and the community academy participants are particularly interested. So I think they would be a a great population to tap into. And then last but not least, I I know I can speak for myself and that I'm happy to receive any of theformational materials and I think one of the values of council is that uh we get around the community a lot and so I'm happy to come and speak to groups with you or just have uh you know in my backpack handy every day some of those flyers to distribute as I'm out in the community as well.

Thank you. Um, also, you know, this year Cowpaw and Quest will be relatively at the same time, so that might be a little bit easier, which will be nice. Um, the as far as the ballot bowls though, the the bowls where they try to get people registered, I think kind of telling the Cowpolling Questa students in like April might be good because they get their new staff excited about that for the um new student body governments. Um, but I do remember very distinctly about radio back in um the diversity task force days talking about Spanish radio was a a great way to to get to our constituents. And um I noticed Telmundo on the TV, but I didn't see the Spanish radio um in the list. So I just assume you're going to be looking at that, but I just had to kind of make sure I mentioned that. Um, the other thing I was thinking about with um, October is just kind of a highlight between the end of September, beginning of October when mailin ballots come out. Just um, I know I love the visual idea and maybe that maybe that's the direct mail that comes out at that time because some people love their direct mail or their absentee get it done and get it get it over with. Others hold on to it for a while until they get around to turning it in. So, just depends that I would bring out those two. And then, um, so thrilled that St. Louis Coastal is in here. Um, I know in September I've often come and spoke and done I forget what it's called, like a salon where they do some education. So, maybe staff could come because I know that'll be election time. So, any of us that are running for re-election at that time, we could not be there, but maybe staff could come and share during that time. With that, almost every school in St. Coastal has PTA and boosters. And so, um, I know that's complicated every year to make sure we're part of that, but I think that's talk about word of mouth. Um, every parent having that knowledge is

really, really helpful. Council member Marks.

Uh, yes, I ignored my own vote. Sorry. I also wanted to me mention the candidates. The candidates are going to be canvasing the neighborhoods um and um uh handing out their literature and possibly if there could be some kind of just small lightweight because the heavy all that stuff carrying it around something about the single vote that could be handed out at the same time. Everyone when they uh run for office their basic message is vote for me, right? And but [snorts] if they also could uh help dis disperse that information at the same time, I think that would be good. Partly what people do, just my observation is that they start piling up campaign literature next to the ballot and then at some weekend they say, "Oh, all right. I'm going to bite the bullet. I'm going to vote." And they sit there and they start going through the campaign literature. And so if our literature about the single vote is in there too, um it it should really help and it and then when you're doing your campaign [clears throat] your candidate meetings and all that um to just uh help the candidates themselves become a workforce. So yeah, thanks.

Thanks. Yeah, that council member I'm sorry, candidate orientation is a great place for that. Yeah. Well, I'm sure more than you wanted from all of us. [laughter] Any any other questions or comments? All right. Well, thank you so much for presenting this information. This has been a lot of uh new surprising information for the community who hasn't been paying attention to this. So, I really appreciate you bringing it in front of everyone. Thanks so much. And with that, we'll say um hello back to our city manager um for the city manager report. Mayor, can we just pause for one second so I can try and get the cameras unstuck?

Yes. Yeah. I was noticing we had some interesting following or lack of following. We're going to do a five minute break. See you in a minute. Well, thank you for the quick break. I think we're back on camera and ready to go. So with that, we will go back to the city manager for her report. City manager. Great. Thank you. Happy to be here this evening. Um we've got just a handful of slides. I know um some of us were here last week and there were a lot of updates we provided and just want to catch everyone up on a few more. Uh so first up, we want to remind everybody that our community academy is launching soon. Our application period opens on February 2nd at 5:30 p.m. Uh, and so we want to make sure people are aware, if you're thinking about it, if you might even just wonder what is a community academy, please come on and check it out at slowcity.org/academy. Uh, the community academy is a free program we offer every other year that provides a behind-the-scenes look at our city government, that provides opportunities to meet our city council members, department heads, and staff, as well as to network with other community members. Uh, there's also a number of kind of behind-the-scenes tours as well that we offer. It's a great opportunity if you're interested in becoming more involved in city government. If you're just simply curious about what what it is that we do here and you want to learn

more about how the city works. It's again 6 weeks held on Monday evenings from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. It runs from March 9th through April 13th and we do provide dinner. Um the program is open to anyone age 18 or older who lives, works or attends school in St. Louis Bispo. Spots are filled on a first come, first- serve basis. So, that's part of why we're highlighting it again here. So, we encourage people to mark their calendars and apply as soon as applications open. If you have any questions, plea, please email us at slow communityacademys slowcity.org. Next, we want to um let everyone know about a new uh series of events that are coming soon. Our um we're excited to share that we we will be soon launching the belonging project which is a free public series that's hosted by our office of diversity, equity and inclusion and it will be launching next month. The belonging project is the next iteration of our community belonging series which was a series of community events from held between 2023 and 2025 designed to promote dialogue and create opportunities to expand cultural awareness. This project aims to promote access and belonging for everyone in the greater San Los Aispo area and will have its first event in late February. Um, we've identified that date up on the slide, February 25th from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. So, please keep an eye out for the official announcement uh that we'll be continuing to roll out, but you're seeing it here. Um, and welcome to please sign up at slowcity.org/subscribe to get all of our latest news. We also want to make sure folks are aware that we just opened a new community survey. We are conducting outreach for an upcoming uh complete streets project for our foothill corridor. We're gathering feedback in two main ways. First is an online survey

that opened just today and will be open through March 17th. It can be accessed using the website shown um at up above at open city hall or by using the QR code shown on the slide. We'll also be hosting in-person events, including a community workshop and pop-up events uh in the Foothill area as well. So, dates and locations will be announced soon. This outreach is really important as we go about designing what a complete streets plan looks like for the Foothill corridor. It helps us better understand community's concerns and priorities, and we'll use this input to develop draft design concepts and share those later this year. We also wanted to share a bit of good news. Um, we just really want to highlight we're proud to share that over the weekend BBC Travel posted an article listing St. Louis Abyispo uh actually first on their list in their top 10 list of most sustainable small cities in the US. Uh, this article marks a significant win in our efforts to share our community's values and focus on sustainability as part of our marketing and public relations efforts. It's also perhaps the first ever mention of the anorobic digtor out at the Coal Canyon landfill. We've got a lot of pumping fists, which is amazing. Um, and all of that hard work that our community has invested in over many years, it it's people are taking notes. So, I think it's important to highlight it for everybody. They also really uh highlight our downtown slow farmers market, our walkable streets, mission style architecture, and proximity to Ed Valley wine country and the coast. It also features a lovely quote from our local wine maker um Brienne Engles of Shamisel. Sustainability is more than a guiding principle. It's a core identity of who we are. It is the lens through which every core decision is made. And I think that really sums it up beautifully. Um just so folks know, BBC travel reaches more than 143 million unique monthly visitors per month and

the UK is a top international market for slow. So, we just we'll say yay and yay for anorobic digesttors. Um, next we we're just highlighting or running through our list of items that will be on our next agenda which will be on February 3rd. Um, wanted to highlight on our consent agenda. Um, we do have an item proposing to seek permission to remove the oak tree uh near the future slowrep theater project. Um and so just wanted people to know this is something that we'll we'll be considering approving um after a really close look by our arborist. The determination was made that that tree most likely won't uh survive the construction and so uh unfortunately this is a a piece that we need to bring forward for consideration. Um our public hearing and business items include an ordinance to amend our campaign contribution ordinance related to uh making it consistent with the Lavine Act. and then a study session to discuss our Laguna Lake golf course operations and maintenance and u potential direction on future operations there. And with that, that's the end of my report.

Thank you. What a great report. And not often is the digesttor uh a conversation piece, but it needs to be more. So, uh really excited. I had someone text me, I think it was last night, say, "Did you see St. Louis Abyspo?" It was really cool. Any questions for the city manager? All right, with that, we'll move on to public comment. So, public comment, just for those in the room who haven't been here, um this is for items that are not on the agenda. So, if there's anyone that has a public comment, city clerk, yes, I have one um speaker. It is Sean Harris.

Thank you. Come on up, Sean. You'll have three minutes.

Oh, no. That's the entire public comment. If we had multiple people. Yeah. But three minutes is the max. And we'll have it up here. You'll see it on the screen. You'll It'll give you It'll start to beep at you. Sean, hold on one second. Can you press the button? Oh, there you go. Sure. There you go. You're good now.

Thanks. Sean Harris, been since the early 80s. I'm just here to inform the council that I was detained on uh uh December 29th by whom I can only presume to be local police and uh DHS at on Bulock Lane, which is the bottom of Laurel Lane. 6:15 in the morning in the dark, I got in my car. I live I was living I moved, but I was living at the dumpy apartment complex down there with a large Hispanic population. Got in my car and a official with a tactical vest and a police patch stuck his face in my car asked for my ID. Now, I'm a certificate parillegal from UCSD. I have a bachelor's degree in history. So, I'd like to think I am It's hard to fool me, but I got fooled. Okay. There was no agency identification on there, no badge. I don't know who this guy was working for. Honestly, I thought it might have been the cartel, you know, because there's a gang activity and, you know, in that apartment complex. I don't know what was going on. And I had to get to work. So, I gave him my ID. I didn't argue. And I was frankly intimidated because I I was blocked in by a minivan in front and back and on side. 6:15 in the morning. It was dark down there. And uh so I went to so you know he said and I asked why and he said uh that there was a report of a stolen car. So you know he ran my name and god knows what database let me go and I went to work and I stopped halfway there called the police department. Spoke to the wash commander said that they were informed by DHS that uh they're going to be running some activity in the county and all this. So I assumed it was ICE. My question is uh is about the police. You know, I you know, I'm not a genius, but I believe the federal government, they don't have police, uh they can't, you know, they don't have like police officers. If they do, it's on like state parks and whatnot. Um, and if that's the case, uh, you know, that was St. Louis PD. Now, I don't think St. Louis, unlike San Francisco, has a, uh, you know, an overt policy of not assisting in these kind of immigration sweeps. Um, so I just, I just want you to be aware of what your police department's doing. Um my wife and stepson have green cards. They're brown and Muslim. Okay. So these

are targets by our current administration. Um so and fortunately my wife didn't have to go to work that morning. She was on vacation. My stepson was on vacation from school. So if they had been detained when I when I went I just decided to go home halfway. I just I called it a day and went home. When I got there there was glass in the street, some lady screaming upstairs. Um and the window in a car was broken. Okay. So uh I don't know what's going on. Um, and I just want you to know this is your police department. Okay. Um, so I don't know what kind of guard rails are in place to prevent our local police from becoming nothing more than an extension of the federal government, you know. Um, and and instead of being local police, they're I consider them uh royalists um uh during the 18th century and the colonial period of the United States. Okay. Red coats. I don't know who they represent and why they are even doing that, you know. Uh, and if that was an actual Sandless PD, and I have questions whether that was, uh, what gives them, you know, who who gives me authority to do that? Who's giving them direction to do that? You know, I would ask that you guys curtail the that kind of activity.

Thank you. Thank you so much for telling us. Um, and we'll continue with the rest of of public comment and then I'll ask the police department to come and share um what they do just so that the community can know what they do. Um, any other commenters? No. Thank you. Um, I know that Chief Scott is not here today. Uh, Deputy Chief Amarosa, would you like to share how [gasps] our police officers um work with or through or around ICE? And um also just want to make sure that you uh give the phone number for anyone who's experiencing anything in our community that might need to give a phone call.

Yes, no problem. Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of council. Brian Amaroso, deputy chief for the police department. um I can share with you and all of this information that I'm going to talk about is on on our website. Um but California law enforcement um agencies are governed by multiple California laws uh California values act, truth act and tr trust act and collectively they prohibit local law enforcement from working with immigration on immigration operations. So, um, the last speaker, I do not know who those individuals were or what patches they had on their vest, but I can tell you it was not the St. Louis Police Department. Um, so, uh, if anyone wants to call the police or needs to call the police or is concerned, uh, our non-emergency line is 8057817312. That'll get you right to dispatch

and of course 911 for an emergency.

Thank you so much. I I many people continue to ask me, you know, what number to call and where to go and what to do in a situation um that was described earlier. So, I appreciate that. Um and I I know there are couple people have shared with me kind of, you know, the Thank you, Vice Mayor, for bringing the updated uh know your rights, red cards. Um and at the same time, when you know that feeling of I can't move my car, what do I do now? Do you have any suggestions for people? You know, my suggestion would just be to comply with what the individuals are asking of you until you can remove yourself from the situation and then if you feel the need, contact or come to the St. Louis Police Department to report what occurred and, you know, we can certainly look into uh what those incidents were.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Francis. Yeah, thank you very much. And we received some uh correspondence from Chief Scott uh writing back to a concerned member of the community I believe just this morning. And in it he mentioned that if uh a member of the public isn't sure who is stopping them, they don't have identifying information that in that case we can reach out or they can reach out to Slow PD who can help verify um who it is, what agency is um stopping them and uh verify who might be in the community. Is is that still the best advice for members of the community?

Sure. I just don't know. These situations are rapidly evolving so people may not have that opportunity. Um and so the safest thing to do is to comply and then when available come to the police department. Certainly if they have the opportunity to make a phone call, they're always welcome to call the police department and we can dispatch an officer to understand what's occurring. And and just to be really clear, if uh ICE is conducting an operation, slow PD is never going to be there assisting ICE with that operation. That is 100% correct. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for that, Council Member Marks.

Uh yeah. Um, so in a situation such as um Sean um described, could he have just called 911 and [clears throat] asked for our police to show up and protect him under that cir under those circumstances if he didn't know who they were?

Certainly. Everyone has the ability to call 911 on their phone. It's impossible to talk about each circumstance and understand what the person is being asked to do at the time by um assuming it's a you know lawful you know law enforcement officer. Um it would be impossible for me to stand here on a podium and present hypotheticals of when you should call and when you shouldn't call. But if it's safe to do so, you can certainly call. Otherwise, the advice would be to comply with the lawful orders and then come to the police department if you have questions about whether we were involved or felt that somehow um you know some law was broken etc. So our police could just witness what is going on and not interfere with the immigration folks but at the same time protect uh our residents say the residents who are also observing or filming what's going on.

I'm not sure I understand the question. I mean uh if the St. Louis Visbo police showed up. What would what would your role be in that in that scenario? In these scenarios, if there's an operation ongoing, we would make contact with whoever their supervisor was on scene, just verify that they are uh who they say they are. We certainly will not uh interfere or stop federal law enforcement officers from performing their duty um in our city. We don't have the authority to do that. Just want to make that clear. Okay. Thank you. Thank [snorts] you, Council Member Shoresman.

Yeah, I just want to back up, I think, what uh Vice Mayor Francis and our deputy chief are saying here with the with the words of our chief from the email that he sent to this constituent. It says, um, [clears throat] "If someone witnesses suspicious activity, kidnapping, harassment, or believes a person might be impersonating law enforcement, please call 911 for immediate assistance, and we will respond. If someone suspects an ICE operation is underway and slow, your police will respond immediately to deescalate, maintain peace and security, and work to validate any local or federal warrant or investigation in nature." So, that's what the role is of RPD um in those situations. I feel like it's pretty clear and that was nice language. So, I just wanted to read straight from that email. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Deputy Chief. We appreciate you. You're welcome. City Attorney.

Yes, Madame Mayor. I I just want to add because I think a little bit what I'm hearing from Mr. Harris is it was dark in the morning and I wasn't sure who was approaching me and it is certainly We are certainly within our rights as citizens to ask to ask if there is a warrant, to ask why you're being detained, to film those interactions, and to call the police for assistance if you believe that you are being approached by someone who is not giving a lawful order as as uh Deputy Chief Omaroso suggested or you would like someone to verify that. um understanding that people are in understandable fear given what is going on in our country on the streets of our cities uh and essentially the lawlessness of some of the approaches that we're seeing. So understanding that there's a great deal of fear even when uh the person approaching may be a lawful authority. So, um I think in in our community certainly respectful interaction, certainly non-aggression, certainly never violence, but also certainly understanding that our community is here to support our residents in asserting their lawful rights.

Absolutely. Well said. Thank you so much, Vice Mayor. Yeah. Thank you. I just wanted to thank Mr. Paris for coming here and and sharing what happened to you and to say I'm we are very sorry that that happened to you and I'm I'm sure that's caused some some stress and pain for your family and I'm I'm sorry that that we have to worry about that in our community.

Thank you. And I I very much agree. We've been having some conversations and in light of many people having celebrations and recognitions and remembrances and obser uh observances of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s um birthday has also of course brought to the forefront um injustices that are happening today and um people continue to share with me um fear and concern and sadness around what's happening right now. And so, um, just continue to help your neighbors, help your friends, um, and let them know their rights. Um, let them know the numbers, um, so that they can, um, be as safe as possible. Ask for ID, and, uh, don't go with someone that, uh, you don't know is lawfully able to take you. With that, uh, [sighs and gasps] sometimes public comment is is deeply deeply challenging and just want to thank you for that. With that, we'll move on to consent. And the consent agenda is for items that are not considered to be uh controversial. There are things just kind of take care of as paperwork in a sense. So, we have a couple items under the consent agenda. Anyone have anything they need to pull or have change comments on? All right. Do we have any public comment on the consent agenda items?

No, we do not. Oh, sorry, Council Member Marks. I I'd like to um move staff recommendation on the consent agenda. Great. Thank you, Council Member Shoresman. I'll second that. Thank you very much. And can we have roll call, please? Council member Marks, yes. Council member Shoresman, yes. Council member Boswell, yes. Vice Mayor Francis, yes. Mayor Stewart,

yes. The motion passes 5-0. With that, we move forward to the public hearing and business items. We have a couple items today and the first item is our 2025 state legislative briefing. And then we'll get right on to um kind of in a similar vein, a potential consider invitation to join letter from the county of St. Louis Abyispo requesting state legislation related to Diablo Canyon Power Plant. So, it's a a perfect following to the state legislative briefing. And with that, I will introduce um Deputy City Manager Greg Herman.

Thank you, Mayor Council members. Happy to be here tonight. I will be brief, but as you know, this is an annual item that we bring before you to review uh bills from the 2025 legislative session, and it's also an opportunity for the council to appoint an ad hoc committee uh to consider updates to our legislative platform. I'm happy to hand it over to Natalie for the presentation, who is also the author of several reports for you this evening. Thank you, Greg. Happy to be here. Natalie Harnett, policy and project manager. Um, and I help oversee the city's legislative platform. Um so the purpose of this meeting is an annual item that we do to check in with you all on major um state legislative items over the last year and to give council opportunity to appoint a two- member ad hoc committee to review and update the legislative platform for 2026 which will be brought back um for adoption in April. So, as you've noticed over the last couple years, we've started emailing council when we send out a lot of our legislative letters. We've been giving you updates throughout the throughout the year on stuff that's going on. So, in light of that, I am going to try and keep this presentation a little bit briefer than it has been in the past. Um, but I'm happy to take any questions uh at the end if you have them. So, in total um in the 2425 regular session, two two,300 bills were introduced with about 900 reaching the governor's desk. He signed about 794 of them or about 87% making it to law. Um the city had a very active year as well and we advocated on 38 legislative matters. Uh just a little bit of background for the audience. The city is a member of the League of California Cities, otherwise known as Cal Cities. Um Cal Cities is an association that represents and advocates on behalf of cities at the state level. So in the agenda report, you'll see that we've linked their

annual legislative briefing which highlights all of the bills and also goes a little bit deeper into some of the information that I'll cover today. Um quick budget update. Overall, the state was expecting a significant budget deficit of about 11 billion. Um, ultimately, it was balanced through budget cuts, um, deferrals, and the use of reserves. Unfortunately, some of those cuts did include programs that, um, trickled down into local agencies. For example, one of the major ones was the homeless housing assistance and prevention grant program um which was unfunded entirely in 2526 and is um funded again in 2627 just at a lower level than it had been previously. Um taking a look at 2627 earlier this month the governor released the preliminary budget proposal. Uh the good news is that it shows that the state is in a relatively good financial position. um much better than the legislative analyst office forecast several months ago um which indicated a deficit of about 18 billion dollars. Uh the not so good news is that it also acknowledges that the state revenues are very volatile and there are in the future years are likely to experience some large deficit. So because of that, a lot of the funding went into reserves and some of the other rainy day buckets um instead of going back into the programs that the cities were hoping that they would. [snorts] Overall, we'll have to wait and see if anything changes before May. Um but we do expect that the state grants that we get are going to become even more competitive. On the positive side, voter approved Prop 14 funding um is beginning to be allocated with an initial investment of over 3.5 billion for statewide climate and resilience projects. Um stat will staff will be tracking upcoming grant solicitations to assess opportunities

that align with our programs and projects that we have planned. So, I've broken these down into categories and I'll highlight some of the major bills, but there's a lot more within the report, too. Um, so a lot of these cities are still trying to figure out what the implications are and how best to implement them. Um, a lot of them open doors to new policies or tools, but that also often requires either the adoption of ordinances or program development um to fully implement. So for today, I'm mainly going to focus on the ones that the city is required to comply with or things that have been um of particular interests over the last year. So, starting with housing, um, as it has been for many years now, the state is doing whatever it can to try and increase the housing supply. This is a shared goal with the city. Um, however, the problem is that a lot of these measures take away the city's discretion to determine if a development is actually good for our community and the adverse impacts um that they [clears throat] might have on the community and the environment. So in this case uh AB 130 and SB131 are related and those basically allow a statutory um exemption from SQA for certain infill housing projects and AB893 which is one that allow or requires ministerial approval for certain housing projects near colleges. Um, so for anyone who's listening, it's basically a lot of state measures that make us um allow certain development projects even if they don't comply with what our um zoning is. Uh, on the community services side, there are several behavioral health and homeless program updates uh, which are intended to increase accountability and improve oversight uh, for treatment centers. Most of these are good news items um and will help our partners specifically at the county um with our local homeless community. Uh a

couple of the changes include allowing homeless individuals to receive medical services in the field through Medicare and the expansion of eligibility for the existing care court program. Uh moving to governance, transparency, revenue and taxation, SB77 is probably one of the most impactful bills. It is the most impactful bill passed last year. Um, and this is going to have real impacts for the way that we hold public meetings. So, staff intend to come back to council in May actually with a more comprehensive update on this one. But in short, the city must allow for virtual attendance for city council meetings as well as a variety of other policy changes. Um, another big one that we are already feeling internally, uh, is AB 339, which requires the city to do labor notice requirements, um, for contracting out any service that is could be covered under job description of our represented positions. Um, unfortunately, this does include a large portion of what the city contracts um, the city's contracted services. And you know, we've set in place some um processes to review RFPs and such as before they go out, but it has led to a slowdown in our procurement process. Uh SB 346 is considered a big win for cities in 2025 and it introduces several new short-term rental tools. Um these are tools that the city can implement um and would be done so through an ordinance. We're working with our finance team to see what that would look like um and if it would be worth it for the city to maybe implement some of those tools for public safety. As you might remember, in 2024 um one of the Cal City's priorities was retail theft and property crime. Addressing those things, um this year it was all about wildfires and I think that's a trend that we'll

see continue for the next few years. All in all, uh 40 wildfire related measures were enacted last year and they range from a variety of new grant programs um to changes on how insurance companies can account for things like home hardening efforts um and the zone zero requirements for environmental quality. Um, a few to point out. SB 415 was enacted to clean up the big warehouse bill that passed in 2024. Um, with the updates, it's now clear that most of the provisions will not apply to the city of St. Louis Bispo as they're specific for uh warehouse distribution distribution areas, which we are not. Um AB 1207 updates and extends the California's cap and trade or now it's called cap uh cap and invest program through 2046 and creates a new rebate fund which is intended to help uh lower energy costs, increase legislative oversight of climate spending and updates how electric utilities apply um climate credits to the customer bills. SB456 is a kind of small but visible win. Um, this one exempts muralists from needing to have contractor's licenses. Um, as many of you know, a lot of the city's planned painting projects were replaced with vinyl wrapping uh projects, which are still beautiful, but um, it'll be nice to be able to have a wider um wider net of vendors to do some mirrorless work. Lastly, there's a bill um that uh authorizes the sale of 10 additional liquor licenses in Slow County. This is not one that the city advocated for or against, but I thought it might be something um interesting to point out for our local business community.

With that, that um con concludes my report for today, but I'm happy to take any questions. Um and the action will be for council to either appoint an ad hoc committee or direct staff to make updates for adoption in April. Uh just a note, this question came up this morning at agenda review whether the council always does this every year and the answer is that we have recently for the last few years I think since I've been in this position. Um but historically council has not always opted to do that. So it's not a requirement. Um but yeah, with that that concludes my presentation.

Thank you so much. Um I appreciate this. I know that during the Calities we get some updates on the board and then some of the policy committees, but we didn't really get that here until you started bringing these to us. So, thank you for that. Uh Council Member Marks. Uh yes, I [clears throat] uh have a question about the virtual attendance at council meetings. Um, unfortunately, this council has had some pretty horrific experiences with people um, uh, phoning in uh, with, um, [clears throat] really uh, racist, homophobic, uh, antisocial, sometimes uh, pro uh, profane um, messages. Um, is there any kind of control that uh the council could exert over um in some way um screening or vetting the nature of the message or uh perhaps recording it and listening to it before we actually hear it? or are we just um do we just have to accept whatever comes comes across?

Thank Deputy City Manager Herman.

Thank you, Council Member Marks. That's a great question. There are some provisions in the law for what are referred to as decorum standards. We are still tracking the development of those across the state. I know our city clerk is looking at those very closely. Ultimately, those they would need to pass uh first amendment test to ensure that they're legally enforceable, which means that there's likely to be limited control that we have. There may be other approaches to how we manage that comment that may be novel and could potentially dissuade that. And I think that is something that we'll be looking at. We're planning to come back to the council in May with the full imp implementation of SB77 and we'll have our recommendation at that time as to the best way to manage virtual public comment. Thank you very much, Council Member Shoresman.

Thank you, Council Member Marks. I've been concerned about that uh that law, too, and how we're going to implement it and try to protect our community from situations that we've had in the past. Um, but my question, uh, there's only one bill that, um, you didn't really talk about that I had some questions about. It was AB 382, which is about lowering speed limits around school zones. And so I've heard lots of complaints over time about speeding around schools and we're a safe routes to schools community. We try to do the improvements into infrastructure that we can around schools to make them safer. But I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the definition that they say it's when children are present uh we can lower speed limits around schools. Is there any more light that you can shed on what flexibility this will give us in those areas or any of you? I am not like super wellversed on this particular one. Um happy to happy to follow up with more information on that. Um,

yeah, I'm I'm sorry I can't. It's okay. Thank you for that question. We'll definitely have to get a follow-up. Oh, no. City Manager McDonald. I actually don't have a whole lot more to add other than I know our transportation team is really up to speed on these changes in the law and certainly wanting to make sure that we have all those tools available to us. So, it will be something that we will be looking at and bringing back uh with those certain areas in mind to make our streets safer. Thanks. Well, I look forward to the opportunities that this could bring us. Thank you, Council Member Boswell.

Um, yeah, I just really wanted to thank Natalie for keeping track of almost 800 bills. [laughter] I don't know how you keep track of 800 bills. Um, so thank you for doing that. And then just a suggestion uh on AB 382, maybe uh we can make sure when the vision zero plan comes to us later this year that that's maybe addressed somehow in the staff report. That's a great idea. Thank you. Thanks.

Because it's always this interesting question when children are present. Do you mean just in these school hours? Do you mean every play they might have an activity they might have? What exactly does that mean? So, thank you for bringing the question up, Vice Mayor. Yeah, I was just going to advocate for keeping our new tradition alive and uh appointing an ad hoc committee and seeing if there was uh any interest from my fellow council members. Um I I feel like you would be a great member of that committee. I am volunteering myself. Oh, good. Okay. She's volunteering herself. Council member Boswell.

Yeah, I'm I'm willing to do it again. I did it I did it this past year. Yep. Yep. So maybe one more time. Wonderful. That would be wonderful. Uh do we need an official vote on that? Yes, we do. Okay. I comment. Oh yes, public comment. Sorry. I was so excited about that. [laughter] Exactly. Um do we have any public comment? No, we do not. Thank you. With that, I would love to move uh the um staff item and bring forth the ad hoc committee with Vice Mayor Francis and Council Member Boswell. Council member Shoresman.

I will thank uh Vice Mayor Francis and Council Member Boswell for signing up for the ad hoc committee and second that motion. Wonderful. Can we have roll call? Mayor Stewart. Yes. And thank you. And thank you. And thank you, Council Member Shoresman. Yes. Council member Boswell, yes. Council member Marks, yes. Vice Mayor Francis, yes.

And the motion passes 5-0. Thank you again. I truly truly appreciate it. [sighs and gasps] Um, not feeling my overwhelming stress on that, huh? [laughter] Um, well, for that, I just want to again thank um, Natalie. you really continue to bring I know we said about 800 bills, but I mean this starts out at like 3,000 bills. So, um just as a little bit of level setting for the community to hear how much that Natalie continues to um work on this and I know with um Vice Mayor Francis and Council Shoresman, some of the policy committees we've been on, we continue to watch some in like more specific industries or sectors. But thank you very much. And then [clears throat] next we're going to kind of in continue in the state legislation uh concept and we'll talk about the joint letter potential joint letter uh from the county regarding the Diablo Canyon power plant. So city manager thank you. I think moving along as you said in the theme of uh Natalie's amazing work here we are in the next item that she's helped put together. Um I will go ahead though and present some slides uh setting up the conversation. So first off just to explain why we're here right now. Um back uh right before the holidays, we received a request from the county to consider joining a letter that is identified as a a kind of coalition letter um seeking support for legislation related to ongoing uh operations at the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. The pre three primary requests and we went ahead and put the lang the actual specific language in the letter up on the screen here. Um the f first is to support the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's approval process and establish a state licensing pathway to authorize the plant to operate for up to

20 additional years. The second is to enact legislation to address a unitary tax treatment at the plant. Unitary tax is a fairly wonky term that u but at the end of the day it creates a a really big impact for our community. And I'll circle back around on that. And the last is to support the California Coastal Commission's land conservation and public access plan. Um, and really again trying to hit at that ongoing desire for conservation there. We're really here because uh the city has taken positions and given direction on uh the the plant and operations there on the last the second two items on this list. So really um express support for fair and ongoing tax uh support from the plant. The next being um conservation and ongoing into the future of the land surrounding the plant. Um really coming out of the conversation when the plans were for the plant to um close and decommission over time. This first item um the city has not taken a position on the length of the um lensure whether the plant ought to be licensed again or have that uh license extended and to continue its operations. And so we're here before you wanting to bring this conversation forward to see if uh the city should be added to that county letter. the um the unitary tax treatment is something that's created a really significant impact for a lot of our uh neighboring jurisdictions. Um most specifically the St. Louis um Coastal Unified School District, which has seen u millions of dollars of cuts to their revenue source and had to go through a number of steps to address that deficit. Um and so a lot of effort has been um put behind uh work

around some legislation to address those impacts. And there's been um I know the county and staff at the county and a lot of their consultants have been helping them bring this item forward to really support that partnership in addition to the county itself and receiving that additional tax revenue. Um let me go back to the there we go. So uh there's obviously quite a history at the plant uh as well as the city's involvement in its operations and we'll go back to 2016 2017 when the discussions around the plant's closure started coming forward and at the time um the city council um actually adopted five guiding principles to advance in anticipation of uh lenture ending in the future. This was coming out of a lot of um conversations about well what happens when the plant closes. Again a lot of tax treatment and revenue that our local jurisdictions receives. A lot of economic activity and generation for our local um workforce. There were a lot of concerns about what will the future of our uh region look like if it closes. And so, um, there were a number of guiding principles that we looked at very specifically and adopted, um, to to make sure that we were all aware of what are the main points of focus here and really community safety, fiscal mitigation, uh, jobs in our local economy, long-term planning for the facility, and, uh, future land use. Uh so we participated in uh forming a coalition of cities that worked um collectively with the county and St. Louis Coastal Unified School District as well as a number of other agencies to establish a number of these mitigation measures. There were a lot of steps along the way. Ultimately legislation was adopted to get those things put in

place that resulted in SB 1090 passing in 2018. It implemented some one-time economic development funding and essential services mitigation um funds that provided a number of things to address the plant closure. The city received a one-time payment of about $1.8 million that uh to support economic development initiatives and then has received about $76,000 annually through that essential services mitigation fund that ended just last year. Again, the intent was to sort of help all of our jurisdictions weather the change that was going to happen when the plant closes. Um, obviously the plant did not close and so we are in a new universe to some degree and so everybody's in this state of wanting and needing to pick up the pieces and address some of these lingering issues. Back in 2022, when conversations were going on about the potential for the LA the plant to continue operating, a coalition of cities came together once again and signed a letter advocating for nine key points for the legislature to consider ultimately getting to SB846, which was an urgency statute adopted um by the legislature that it directed the PUC to allow PG& to pursue to extending its license its operations through 2030. Um, nine guiding principles is kind of a lot to summarize here, but they were a number of similar items, right? So, safety, um, land use planning, um, looking at SB 1090 certainty. So there was a concern that maybe would somebody have to give the money back that had been paid to our local jurisdictions. Really continuing the concern about fiscal mitigation, land conservation, workforce. Um but then also some uh

concerns about future treatment of the spent fuel on the site. Um wanting to continue prioritizing renewables as just an energy source in our our local region. and then really uh advocating for a timelimited extension at that time. That was really the last time that we all here in this room um talked about the plant operations about fiscal impacts, economic development, you know, environmental concerns, um conservation, and so based on that, we're here today to seek direction on whether we should sign on to this letter. So obviously since uh 20 18 and then 2022 the state uh authorized continue operations through at least 2030 subject to federal and state approval. So there are a lot of additional regulatory bodies who are continuing to do their work to consider ongoing operations there. um safety oversight. Um there's again that's being provided through uh those other nuclear regulatory commission, other agencies that are reviewing the plan really closely and looking at um whether to consider operations through 2030 and potentially beyond. Um that includes uh federal licensing, coastal permitting, and emergency preparedness reviews. And those are all underway. Um, and then really highlighting again our uh unitary tax dilemma that we're all in. So, state law assumed permanent closure. And so, if you have a plant out there that's not operating any longer, then um it's not being taxed at the same rate or as it was before. But that's not the reality of what's happening. And so, we're in this kind of limbo right now that we're trying to lots of parties are trying to address. Um and then uh for the city, our fiscal impacts directly are relatively modest um either under the

mitigation measures that were put in place um as negotiated, but then going forward. So our unitary tax receipts are um much smaller than a lot of other jurisdictions, most notably the school district and the county. Um, so with all of that, the county put this letter together. Their board of supervisors, um, back in December, uh, reviewed a letter and, uh, requested that it it be sent, but also that outreach be done to all of the affected other cities and agencies in our region, um, who are particularly impacted by the unitary tax piece of the equation. Um we know uh our city is the second to last city to consider this issue. Um Mororrow Bay will be considering it on I believe uh January 28th. And so the county intends to uh send the letter the next day on January 29th. So that's what we're looking at um at this point. So our recommendation is really just to consider and give us direction on whether to participate in this uh in the letter presented by the county. Um we have a number of other alternatives. One includes drafting an independent advocacy letter that could be done in a number of different ways. So one could be staff we we could draft a letter um that is consistent with our past direction and no new direction would need to be provided. we would be able to draft that up for the the mayor's signature. You could give us direction to write really any kind of letter that you would like us to to send with different points in it. And um we could do that at any point. Uh again, I think that end of January time frame is probably a good idea. We know there's a lot of work happening on the legislation right now and so there's a desire and a hope for the support to get into the legislature very soon while they're

drafting bills and have things coming forward in the near future. This could be in addition to or instead of signing on to the county's letter. So that's another option as well. And then you can decide to take no action on the letter one way or another. And at that point that the letter would move on but just without our concurrence um you know city seal or signature by the mayor. So with that I'm happy to try to answer questions. um the world of uh regulatory bodies and reviews of the tax system, rate setting, um you know, PG ongoing oper it's uh it's very complex and so I I'll try to hang in and do what I can to fill in any blanks.

Thank you. I also think we have some people in the audience who might be able to help if push came to shove. And I just want to say with the alternative one, um, you know, we talked about this very briefly because this request came to us December 22nd when most people were on vacation and, um, instead of making this decision to go ahead and sign off on this based on our current legislative uh, platform um, between the city manager and deputy city manager and myself, we said, well, we have to bring this to the public because otherwise they don't get to have the full experience of understanding what is in front of them and what the city is signing off of. And I figured as my colleagues, as council members, you would appreciate that being that different people share with you their uh input and insights and thoughts around um Diablo and the unitary tax. So that's why we're here today. And with that, um Vice Mayor Francis.

Yeah, thank you very much. City Manager, is there a specific regulatory or legislative deadline that we're up against that's kind of rushing this through? Um just curious, you know, why we can't take a little bit more time to answer some of these questions ahead of um submitting a letter. I believe there is. I just don't have the date off the top of my head. Okay.

Yeah, it was early February. I don't remember the exact date, but the bills will be uh written um by our senators and assembly members uh early on. And so for us to get this bill in as far as uh input into their bill, it is now or we put our input in after they write their bill and say, "Please change your bill."

You're welcome, Council Member Marks. Uh yeah, I'm not sure the city manager or Natalie can answer this, but [clears throat] is there any data or evidence that the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant would be capable of safely operating for another 20 years? What what I can say is that um there are uh I do have and was able to find the most recent safety report that's available on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's website. Uh and that they have been maintaining that are and are in the process of reviewing and ensuring that they're doing their due diligence in reviewing the plant for all of those measures that are identified in the plan. But of course, um, I we do have folks, although Oh, we we do have others in the audience who are probably much more intimately involved with that.

So, short story is no, we don't have any information whether there's data. The NRC the NRC has it on there.

The NRC has data regarding the next 20 years or just to 2030. The most recent plan that's posted there is from 2011. And so I believe they're in the process of evaluating where they're at going forward and in looking at that's part of their analysis uh for the license itself. Another question, has there been any financial analysis about what kind of taxpayer subsidies would be necessary in order to uh allow the investorowned utility to uh comp uh continue operating the plant for the till for the next 20 years? Is there any financial data that's available about what what impact it might have on the uh taxpayers?

I don't have any of that at my fingertips, but okay. I would point at the PUC process, the CPU process for that analysis and um data that would be available. Okay, that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. And just as a reminder, we are not determining whether the business is going to succeed for the next 20 years. We're just sharing if they were to, we would want to be supportive of a unitary tax. That is all that we are saying today. If we wish to say that, Council Member Shoresman. Yeah, I'm going to try to formulate this question, but this process of of the Diablo closure staying open, question of how long it will be open has been complicated and lots of hearings from different bodies over time and lots of um discussion and many lots of which we as a city have been involved with. So, this might be a really basic question. Um, but if I'm remembering correctly, the plant was originally supposed to close in 2025. The letter is advocating for uh continued operation for up to 20 additional years. I feel like there was or has been um it's still operating now. Obviously, after 2025, it did not close. So I believe there's an extension period that's been discussed also of five years and I don't know when that five years if that five years has started already um when the 20 years would start. Maybe these are detailed questions that are maybe beyond the scope of just deciding whether we're going to advocate for 20 years or not. But I'm just kind of curious about the logistics of some of these time frames. I don't know if anybody can answer any of those questions. So, I believe it was uh SB846 that addressed this time frame we're in now, which is which was an extension of five years through 2030. So, we're in this 5-year extension period. Um, and

what's being discussed is a 20 years beyond that, I believe. Um with the idea in mind that you know the the thought is that that enables for some greater level of certainty from a planning standpoint and an investment standpoint in in the plant itself. Um but that's where we're at is we're we're in this window right now of the short extension and then what's being discussed is a longer than that extension up up to an additional 20 years. So up to 2050 basically, right? If the current extension period we're in is up to 2030, then the next one, this 20-year period would be up to 2050

if I'm understanding correct. Thank you. Just trying to wrap my head around the dates. Thank you. And I I think the key is up to and I know we've said this a couple times, but I just want to make sure we say make that very clear is it's up to the NRC and the Coastal Commission and CPU and Diablo and P Gen to all say this is the magic number and uh we don't have to identify that today luckily um because otherwise then we none of us would have the information. [laughter] Any other questions? All right. Do we have public comment? Yes, we have three public comments. Thank you.

Uh first one is Eric Daniels, then Ben Liippard, and then Rachel Whan. Madame Mayor and Council, welcome. I mean, well, thank you for having me. Good evening. Uh I wanted to thank both the county and the city for being engaged in the question surrounding Diablo Canyon's future. the men and women who work at the plant appreciate knowing that they have partners like you. Uh, regarding the protection of the coastal lands that's mentioned in the letter that the county is asking you to sign on to. I'm happy to report that the issue was satisfactory res uh resolved with recent action by the California Coastal Commission in December. Their decision supports the continued operation of the plant in alignment with the state's uh clean energy goals while providing a plan for permanent protection of Diablo Canyon lands. On the matter of the other two items that are addressed in the letter, please note that Pen is committed to working with leaders in Sacramento, both [snorts] in the legislature and with the governor, if and when these items are brought before us. So, I'm not here to advocate for the letter because we don't want to get ahead of what the legislature is going to bring to us to consider. Uh, but having said that, your advocacy and the county's advocacy on these matters will certainly help to gain some attention on the subject. While I'm here, if I have a couple of seconds, I'd like to just try to address a couple of the questions that were posed. Uh, it's a the we're currently in the five-year extension period now that the legislature authorized uh in SB846. At the same time, we are applying for a 20-year license renewal for the license of the reactor from the NRC. That starts at 2025. So, if an additional time frame is addressed by the legislature for the plant to operate, that's an if it happens, it would be up through 2045.

If the NRC ultimately agrees to that 20-year license, so not 2050 as mentioned. And I can also mention uh I'll give a quick statement to address council member Marx's points. Both the NRC and the Diablo Independent Safety Committee have independently review Diablo Canyon's power power plant on many of these safety concerns. And these are ongoing. They don't just stop at one or any particular time. They go on as long as the plant is uh in operation. The NRC has um reviewed a [clears throat] number of questions that have been that have come up regarding seismic risk, reactor vessel embritlement, compliance with uh coastal zone management act and has denied these petitions uh repeatedly uh to in other words to say that they have no merit and the safety of the plant is continuing to be safe and into the future. And so hopefully that answers your question real quickly. Thank you. We appreciate that.

Uh, hi there, Madame Mayor, council members, staff, members of the public. Uh, just want to point out I have the squeakiest chair, so I'm sorry. I sat down and I found the squeakiest chair somehow. Uh, my name is Ben Liippard. I'm a resident of Slow. I'm a father of two daughters at Los Ranchos and St. Louis Coastal Unified and I'm one of the co-founders of the the St. Louis Coastal Parent Information Network which has an unfortunate title that we chose without it's very long. Um my co-founders are are Annie Ain Kafru and Emily Goodman. I brought this book with me today and I have to say my 5-year-old Maya wanted to me to let you know daddy tell them I let you use the book but it's mine and it's called Slowly Slowly Slowly said the sloth. Now, the reason I brought it is because I talk fast about this stuff sometimes and it's complicated and I'm trying my best to be clear and concise, but my brain goes really fast sometimes, especially when I'm talking about my kids. Um, our organization respectfully asks that the city council uh not sign on to the county's draft letter as it currently stands. Um, I think you did an amazing job avoiding so many pitfalls when you discussed both unitary tax and the history of SP 1090 and SBA46. So many pitfalls and you did a really I mean awesome like it's really hard to do. Um the one thing I I point out is it's three it's three and I'd say three and a half really big separate issues ongoing operations you know beyond 2030 unitary tax treatment which which is again highly complicated and then the land use and those are just three really complicated things. Our our position has always been you know extended operations is is something you want to talk about on its own. um unitary tax I know is related to that and I and I can feel M Ortiz leg getting annoyed at me saying this but but I I think it just needs to be something you consider separate in my opinion. Um we've we've been in discussions with um you know the county and I think I think we're probably

headed somewhere pretty good and I think you're going to see legislation pretty soon. Um I think you're right in that early February is the is the timeline for introducing legislation especially when with respect to unitary tax. I think you got to be be a sloth. You got to be careful. You need to know what's going to be in that legislation. There are big pitfalls and handwavy language is not the way to get the right funding for our kids to be honest and and and for quite frankly the the city and the county and everyone else. Um I'm just going to take a minute for uh for myself. I had 30 seconds. This is not SLC pin. This is me talking. This is very heavy. I'm new to all of this. I'm I moved here in 2022. I had no idea what SP846 was. I had no idea what SP 1090 was. I'm trying to figure all this stuff out and it's exceptionally complicated. There's a weight that comes with a lot of this. Um that creates pitfalls. And so this is usually I say it to everybody else, but come talk to us about this stuff because there's a huge information gap and I think it's important that everybody talk about these issues as much as possible. Thank you all so much.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Stewart and council members. I'm Rachel Whan and I'm the governmental affairs coordinator at the slow chamber. I'm here tonight to urge the city of St. Louis Abyispo to sign on to the letter put forward by the St. Louis Abyispo County Board of Supervisors in support of the continued operation of Diablo Canyon and the reinstatement of the unitary tax. The Slow Chamber strongly supports keeping Diablo Canyon open and we respectfully ask for your support as well. Diablo Canyon provides roughly 10% of California's electricity, clean, carbon-f free energy that is essential to meeting our climate goals while maintaining grid reliability. At a time when California is facing growing challenges related to energy affordability and reliability, losing Diablo Canyon would be a significant setback. Diablo Canyon is also the largest private employer in Slow County, supporting more than 1300 head of household jobs. These are highquality jobs that anchor our regional economy and support local businesses, families, and public services. The loss of Diablo Canyon would be detrimental to our community with ripple effects felt across the entire region. Robust safety protocols and rigorous regulatory oversight alongside continued advancements in other clean energy technologies will ultimately determine how long energy generation at this site will continue to utilize nuclear technology. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has recently determined that Diablo Canyon is safe to operate for another 20 years. This finding reinforces that the plant can continue to operate safely while

providing reliable clean energy and economic stability for our community. In addition, the slow chamber strongly supports reestablishing the unitary tax. Its removal has had substantial and ongoing impact on our local school district. Since it was eliminated, our schools and students have experienced reduced resources and increased uncertainty in long-term planning. Impacts that directly affect educational quality and the strength of our future workforce. Reinstating the unitary tax through state legislation is a critical step towards restoring stability and fairness for our schools. We are asking for your help in making that happen. By signing on to this letter, the city of St. Louis Abyspo can play an important role in advocating for our students, educators, and families. The county board of supervisors letter reflects a unified regional approach to issues that affect all of us. We respectfully ask that the city council add your voice and support this effort. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Any other commenters?

No, I have no more speaker cards. I believe our um supervisor forgot to put in her slip. [laughter] Sorry about that. Good. Supervisor Donna Te's leg.

Yes, I am supervisor Don Te's leg and I represent district three which includes part of the city and it definitely includes Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Um, thank you very much. Um, in the, you know, in the effort of collaboration, regionalism, the county wanted to bring this letter forth to all the cities and those signitories, um, to the original 1090 legislation. Um, this was a 50- vote at the board of supervisors in December. Timing is is important to understand here. Why why why um, a lot of things have been happening all of a sudden in a sense, but not really. waiting for the five-year extension. All those boxes to get checked happened. Waiting to see the thing that some people cared about the most, which was the land conservation and the um public access that got box got checked and then as was noted um plant operates safely now and with the NRC's 20-year approval that just was finalized, that box got checked. So everything's starting to happen in in rolling forward. Also in the backdrop of all of that, of course, is the fact that um the California Public Utilities Commission just asked for 6,000 more megawatts of power to be added to the portfolio. So it's very clear that the state is going to need more power. It's very clear that here we have one of two solutions for base load um carbon-f free generation. There's uh Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and there is hydro. We don't have any hydro here. We have hydro in the state but it's not as robust as we would like to see. But this is really important for us to meet SB 100 goals. That's 100% carbon-f free by

2045. that's going to be very difficult for the state to meet. So this is why all these things are happening legislative wise is that we really have this energy demand probably the decommissioning was probably a forecast that wasn't well done looking back and it happened but now everybody understands and now of course with the AI demand that just makes it all the more with that you have to know that from 3CE perspective which you're a member which I'm on the board which you we're all joining is that the cost of renewables has become very challenging very challenging to execute very challenging with battery and without battery without generation it makes it impossible to meet those goals. So as a city that really looks at sustainability and carbon-f free energy um this is a very important piece. I think that the other things I would like to note here is that um that this is the one of the most studied plants in the entire world that there is not a plant that has more triple redundancy of study than this plant and it's a plant that we're very proud of here in San Louis Abyspo and we're going to continue to be proud of it and I think that that's one of the things is that we at the board felt very important about not um having a an old narrative and coming with a new narrative. So again, um we look forward to your vote. Five other cities have joined us. It's up to you

and I thank you. Thank you. Any other com public comment? No, that was it. Okay. Thank you. Bringing it back to the council. Vice Mayor Francis. Yeah, I wanted to thank all of the members of the public for coming out and speaking today and wanted to check with my colleagues here on a a temperature check on um potentially tackling a a side letter via an ad hoc. Um, obviously PG& is an important community partner, but um, a little concerned that this letter gets us out beyond our skis and wanted to dive a little bit into some more specificity on on some issues. Like

before we jump into that, uh, city manager had a comment from all of the commenters. Sorry, I just wanted to quickly clarify the uh the deadline that we're looking at in the state legislature is February 20th for introduction of bills. So, just one note on the on the timing we're looking at. Appreciate the timing. Thank you.

That gives us a little bit of wiggle room then. Um, so uh, you know, there's just some questions around the cost impact of the additional expans extension. Um, and just ensuring that the obligations of the the 5-year extension are met before we're negotiating a 20-year extension. Um, looking at all of the community benefits like public safety, emergency response investments that we might need to look at if we're going to extend another 20 years, as well as additional conservation opportunities. I know that uh Senator Leairard is sponsoring legislation right now that's going to focus on the unitary tax issue, but that's only going to take us through 2030 and wouldn't account for continued operations. So, I'd like to have a little more clarity on that particular issue. Um, as well as uh clarity on a plan for spent fuel operations if operations continue and uh just want to be a little bit more specific in our language before signing on to an advocacy letter. Thank you, Council Member Boswell. Boswell,

I have to think about the ad hoc committee. Um, I think one of the interesting things about the ad hoc committee is we might be back here in six months being asked to take a position on the legislation itself. Once the legislation is written and introduced, I'm I'm sure there's going to be a lot of interest in taking positions on that. So there might be a longer term buyin for an ad hoc committee to be prepared to both short-term and long term. Um uh it's also the case that we could simply wait to comment on the legislation. Uh I don't think what the city of slow has to say is going to matter much in terms of how this piece of legislation is written in the next uh two weeks. Um so we could uh take more time and simply wait for the legislation to come out. that would give us some more time to do some more work if we wanted to do that. Um I will say however that um uh taking a position on number two and three in the letter I'm I'm fine with as as has been noted in the staff report. Uh those are issues that are consistent with our current legislative agenda and our past uh positions um on uh on the power plant. Um I'm not comfortable taking a position on number one either for or against uh the plant but um I think I simply believe we should take no position on extension of the plant operations. Um and I think that for a variety of reasons but there's a couple that are most important. uh one is that this is an issue most people I know have a position on this issue and have a strong position on this issue which is not the case with every piece of public policy that comes in front of this board. Um and for some people it's an existential issue and how they approach it. uh for for me to feel comfortable taking a position on an issue like that, you

know, at a minimum, I would need to see an open public forum with more educational opportunities and opportunities for the public to comment further. And frankly, I'd want a statistically valid survey of the community's position on the power plant. Um it's that big of an issue to take a position on. Uh secondly, um I would simply want a much more detailed briefing on if I'm going to take a position on whether a nuclear power plant should continue to operate. Um I mean that's currently above my pay grade uh in terms of my level of expertise about a whole range of issues uh particularly as they affect the city of Sanispo narrowly. I mean there's a broader set of issues but there's very much a set of issues around us uh in terms of you know impacts to electrical rates for our residents um uh risk assoc associated with energy operations and energy storage impacts in employment and our economy um impacts to our GHD emissions reduction goals which are important to us and have been mentioned you know there's just a lot of things that I feel I would need much more briefing on to take a position position um on this issue. So um you know as of today I would not take a position and I really question whether we should at all at any point um in the future. The issue is one that um has a relatively smaller impact on the city as an as a municipal entity um but yet is one that is highly divisive in the community. Thanks.

Thank you, Council Member Marks.

Um, well, I I [clears throat] agree with uh my colleagues Boswell and and Francis who've spoken so far. Um uh I think that an independent advocacy letter [clears throat] supporting points two and three as they were u mentioned on the slide um specifically we're talking about the five guiding principles in 2016 2017 and then the nine key points in 2022 um uh and then um I would support an ad hoc committee to draft uh a letter that also would bring up additional um points that are relevant to the this city's a well-being [clears throat] and I'd be willing to serve on that with somebody. Um, I do have to say that I'm also, this is a a bit of a policy thing, but taking a position on a specific project is something that the city has avoided assiduously since 1998 that I've been tracking what the council has done. And I think it would be a very poor policy on our part to start um, cherrypicking specific projects. [cough and clears throat] Um, as council member Shoresman pointed out, the uh plant was built to last 40 years, which was up in 2025. There was a fiscal analysis by PG&E that it [clears throat] would not pencil for the investment owned investorowned utility to upgrade the plant to continue operating. Um, and so they decided to decommission in 2025. They did not

decide to apply for an extension because it would be too expensive for them. So, where's the money supposed to come from? It's not going to come from uh it's not going to come from the PG&E shareholders because their whole point is making a profit. Um, I I wanted to also say that safety is a very important issue. Uh, I agree with council member Boswell. Our city residents are very divided on this on this issue. And um I believe that uh it's also not within our jurisdiction to um um make uh analysis, make any kind of opinion about the nuclear power plant continuing to 2050 or 2090 or, you know, the year 3000. I mean, whatever. It's really not uh something that we're equipped and I believe it's outside of our jurisdiction. We have also been very deliberate about not taking on issues that are outside of our jurisdiction. Um I think it is very important to support the unitary tax. It's unconscionable that the um plant is continuing to operate but uh is not subject to tax at all under the assumption that it's already been decommissioned which is not true. It's like a fiction. So they should not just pay unitary tax, they should pay back taxes as far as I'm concerned. And then in [clears throat] terms of conservation, uh I appreciate what the coastal commission has done, but it's not good enough in my opinion. We need to have um

more comprehensive conservation measures. So that's my point of view. Thank you. Thank you so much, Council Member Shoresman.

Thank you. Gosh, it's it's interesting to listen to what everybody says. I think we're there's overlap in uh in some of our opinions, but not everybody uh is seeing it exactly the same way. Um which I always find interesting about our deliberations. I want to thank uh the public commenters who um shed some light on some things and also just uh pointed out some of the complexities of all this. And thank you to staff for answering some of my questions in advance and agenda correspondence as well. [sighs and gasps] Uh, in regards to the letter and the three main points, I think in the county's letter, um, I'm I'm hearing some things that I I mostly agree with. I I I think that the county did a really good job of simplifying down some very complex issues into three bullet points that are going to be easy to digest and people can kind of get behind. And, uh, clearly some of our colleagues in other cities and jurisdictions have already. And so I appreciate that they've taken the lead in that. Uh I am very supportive of the conservation the the bullet on the conservation elements. I think I'm hearing uh similarly more generally from others that we're we're all in support of that and it is aligned with our legislative platform. So that one's that bullet point is not a stretch for me. The unitary tax um seems like a simple one too. Uh but the more I talk to folks about it and the more I start to it's like peeling back the layers of an onion. It gets very complicated very quickly. And I think uh the I think some refinement in the language would be good. And I think uh I would like to see that in a letter of our own that kind of gets at that a little bit better. Uh I also am hesitant

to support the 20-y year up to 20-year extension uh the way it's written right now. um for some of the same reasons that my colleagues have mentioned. It's uh I feel I feel more comfortable with the way that we've approached the other advocacy letters that we've done in the past focusing on things like safety planning uh lessening financial impacts on the community. Looking at the duration uh specifically is it's hard to put a number on on that for me uh just from a gut check level. So I I would I can recognize the the timeliness the importance of the timeliness on this and I think it would be good for us to do if we are going to do a a a side letter as you called it or our own letter I think it would be good to do it in conjunction with the county's letter so that we can uh all come at this around the same time and in advance of the legislation. Um, but I would be supportive of of drafting our own letter that kind of tweaks uh some of the elements a little bit more and I'd be happy to sit on an ad hoc too if that's what we decide.

Well, thank you so much. This is why we brought this here today is um I had a feeling there would be some different um input than we have heard from our neighboring cities in the county. Um the timing of this is tough because really I think Senator Larry would want to hear from us sooner than later as he is um putting together his legisl uh leg his bill and um you know originally the the letter came to us on January sorry December 22nd asking for us to uh approve or not by January 10th. So, um, as far as going along with this the county letter, I don't think it will go along with the county letter, but we are definitely welcome to write our own side advocacy letter, um, in whatever way, shape, or form. So, not to not to cause any problems with that. I just want to make sure we're um, not delusional that it's going to go with the county letter at this point. Um I think that alternative three was the original um one of the alternatives which is write a letter in accordance to our current legislative platform and that seems to be more along the lines of what everyone the the commonalities I'm hearing um which is supporting uh the unitary tax to a point um making sure we highlight safety making sure we highlight that we need the energy Um but it doesn't seem like we have alignment on um the up 220. So for me um knowing that we have almost 10% of California's energy comes from Diablo, I cannot see us supporting it going away. Um NRC has already said they agree with the safety for the next 20 years. So I think we have this challenge right now which is um safety has been brought up

numerous times and safety has been cleared by the NRC which is the nuclear regulatory commission that identifies safety um and an independent safety commission. So I think as far as if we want more from the NRC or we want more from Diablo, we want more from somewhere with the task force um that will be created from I've heard at least two people here interested in being part of that task force, maybe three. Um [snorts] you know, please give some guidance on to what that looks like, what that safety looks like. um because there's been a national agency and an independent commission that's already said safe. So um not saying it is safe or not. I'm just I'm just sharing that that input. Um so at this point um I would suggest for us to [sighs] um go with alternative three where staff would put together a draft letter along with our current legislative platform to move forward what makes sense that we've all agreed on as a community so far. um and then the task force to continue on because when that policy comes forth or sorry that draft bill comes forth we're going to need um to be ready to have some sort of response. So that's my two cents. Um council member Marks

thank you. Well, uh, yes. Uh, I think, uh, I don't know where you got alternative three that, um, alternative draft and independent advocacy letter. Is that the same thing? There was, um, on your I think it was on Oh, maybe it was the general correspondence or maybe it was Well, at any rate, anyway, doesn't matter. I'm uh I'm indic I would like to at some point make a motion that we draft an independent advocacy letter limited to the elements consistent with the city's adopted legislative platform. Um sorry, I should have said alternative one. That's the one I'm talking about. Sorry. Is that alternative one? Yeah, sure.

Well, I'm I'm not numbering it. I'm just going with the staff report that we received uh for the agenda uh today. which is draft an independent advocacy letter uh limited to the elements consistent with the city's adopted legislative platform. Um and um so I think I think there's uh at least a majority um agreement to that

and then the question is uh how do we feel about an ad hoc uh committee? One thing that has been suggested is that or that the city manager uh suggested when she gave her report was that the uh staff put together the letter um in that uh you know in that mode just limiting the uh to the elements consistent with our adopted legislative platform to be signed by the mayor. And do we want to do that or do we want to go ahead and do an ad hoc uh committee? That would take more time. It'd be more in depth. I'm I'm open to uh either alternative really, but if we go for the ad hoc committee, I'll be willing to serve on it or defer to my colleagues if there are two people who also want to do. We can't have three.

Yeah. Council member Schwarzman. Uh I have a question and a response to what what you were saying. So uh I was thinking that the ad hoc committee maybe the letter could not go out at the exact same time as the but close in close relationship. I was thinking an ad hoc committee could meet next week starting with a basic letter draft, you know, a a draft started by staff and then tweaked by the ad hoc committee and then could probably would need to be approved by us as a council. So, it could probably come back quickly um maybe first meeting in February and then and then go. Um maybe that's overly optimistic, but um

I don't know if you've seen our agenda forecast. [laughter]

Yeah, maybe it could be on consent. It might get pulled. I understand. But this is a controversial issue. But that's the timeline that I was sort of thinking of. Um the the question that I had was I guess is to council member Boswell about um the need for the ongoing nature of the ad hoc committee. I was thinking in terms of just an ad hoc committee now to draft the letter and then I suppose if we needed an ad hoc commu committee in the future it wouldn't necessarily need to be the same one to review the legislation but um just trying to get clarification of the reasoning behind extending the ad hoc committee longer.

Council Boswell I don't think we necessarily need to do that. Um, all I was thinking is if we anticipate that we might be asked or want to take a position on the legislation, which will follow a few months down the road, that we should be doing something between now and then to prepare ourselves to take a position on that legislation. I mean, this came to us very fast, right? It did.

Uh, I mean, it's kind of odd that we've have not a lot of people in the audience and not a lot of uh not much correspondence on this. I think it's because a lot of people just don't even know it's it's it's it's h it's happening. Um that'll change as the legislation becomes increasingly realistic. So, um they don't need to be the same. We can talk about it if we come back with a letter from the ad hoc committee. We could talk more about it then or or just agendaize it for a future council meeting. I I do feel like I I don't want to I don't want, you know, 30 days to take a position on a letter again this summer.

Okay. So, thank you for that clarification. I'll I'll just close with um uh to Council Member Marx's point. Uh, I would be okay, I think, with just focusing on the the letter on the two topics that we are more or less agreed on and excluding the discussion of the 20-year timeline from our letter if that's what we all agree on. I do still think there could be some tweaking of the language around the unitary tax. I think there's a lot more to that that needs to be described a little more clearly.

City manager Thank you. And just to throw out another alternative, um we our uh platform that we just talked about, um we can certainly roll this into a specific piece of our legislative platform. So that's another opportunity for us to get direction from the ad hoc committee on legislation that we might want to be um advocating for. and I can call out, you know, anything related to the the power plant in the future. So, there's a few different ways, you know, we thinking that we might um want to and we identified it as an alternative. We do actually have a a draft letter that uh pulls those last two um items from the county letter since they were consistent with what we've talked about before. We have that prepared. it would be, you know, fairly simple for us to put it together and send it out. Um, if we are looking at an ad hoc committee that wants to dig into more of the details on unitary tax and you know any any more of the specifics if there's more time uh the February 20th is the that you know that next deadline for the state legislation. We have two meetings between now and then. Um our agenda is we basically have a week to get a letter done and on for the next meeting uh in February on February 3rd. So just from a timing standpoint, just want to put that out there too.

Thank you for that additional clarification on dating dates. Vice Mayor Francis. Yeah, knowing that there's already a draft letter in existence, um I I do like the idea of getting a couple of additional sets of eyes on that draft letter just to give a little feedback on the specificity and nuance um on these two issues, particularly if we've got another letter coming from the county that's advocating um for that that longer time frame. Even the conservation issue, I think should maybe address that there's a advocacy happening for a longer time frame. and um our desire to see, you know, more conservation if the uh plant is to continue to run longer and uh more negotiation around community benefits and uh unitary tax issues if the plant were to continue to run. But um I'm also in favor of just addressing those last two bullets. Uh it sounds like there was some consensus around that. Um but I would love for us to get a little bit more in the weeds on that. not too in the weeds. I know we don't have a lot of time, but just enough to make sure that we really get our point across here.

So, I'm hearing a task force of some sort to look at this letter, which therefore then um would provide that draft letter on the 3rd or the 17th. Is that what I'm hearing, city manager? I think it it depends on the direction you'd like to provide. I mean, you all could select a couple of um council members to review the draft that we've gotten and provide feedback and direction on the content and we could go ahead and that could be final, send it to the mayor for signature. But if you'd like it to come back to you all for review and a final approval on a future agenda, I think we could do that um on the February 3rd meeting on consent.

Great. That would be wonderful. Thank you. So, I heard at least three people that wanted to be on the ad hoc committee. So, how are you going to row Shambo? Vice Mayor, I'm going to defer to my colleagues and let them uh take this one. All right. So, I heard council cons sorry council member Marks. Is that council member Marks and Council Member Boswell or Council Member Shoresman? Council member Shoresman and Council Member Marks. Yes. I feel like I'm at an auction. Yes. Okay. Okay, I'm hearing a yes from council member Shoresman and Marks. Thank you so much. So, um, can I have a motion? Vice Mayor,

uh, I would like to move the creation of an ad hoc committee to, uh, look at the, uh, two issues that are already outlined in our legislative platform and bring this letter back to us on the uh, on the third on the consent agenda. Great. Thank you so much. Should I have a second? I'll second it. Council member Marks seconds. And roll call, please. Vice Mayor Francis, yes. Council member Marks, yes. Council member Boswell, yes. Council member Shoresman, yes. Mayor Stewart,

yes. And the motion passes 50. Um, thank you for the deliberation. Um, one of the things that we often get is, "Ah, you guys are all just 5-0." But the conversation is um often different, difficult and interesting to get to the point where we're going to our next step. So I appreciate the ad hoc committee for uh looking at this uh letter and I appreciate the staff for the amazing turnaround. I remember getting the call for the 20 seconds saying what? Um so thank you for that and and unfortunately coalition building takes a little longer. Um, but we appreciate being able to involve the city more uh the city as a whole more. So, thank you very much. I hope that uh anyone who wishes who is listening to this, please share your comments sooner than later. And with that, let's take a 10-minute break. I will see you all back just before 8:10. Well, hello everyone. We're going to return back to our regular meeting and we will have the conversation around the St. Louis Bispo County Council of Government's presentation on the local roads first proposed ballot measure. Um with that I will forward it on over to mobility services director Jennifer Rice. All right. Good evening madame mayor, members of the council. I'm Jennifer Rice, deputy director for public works for mobility services. And the item before you tonight is a presentation from Kendall Flint with DKS Associates on behalf of Slowcog. And James Worley from Slowcog is also here to um provide support as well. And they'll be presenting on a potential transportation sales tax measure being considered for the November ballot. The recommendation tonight is to receive the presentation and provide comments. I do want to bring

attention to an agenda correspondence that was sent out earlier today and it included the most upto-date version of the draft transportation expenditure plan and the draft ordinance and that was dated January 16th 2026. Um these two documents have continued to be updated and refined to incorporate input received from various jurisdictions as Slowcog has been presenting across the county. Um so likewise tonight is this council's opportunity to provide comments on that draft plan um that Kendall will be presenting on. Uh there is potential that as this progresses an item will be coming back to the council on March 3rd to approve the expenditure plan and ordinance um before it would go to the SLCOG board for adoption April 1st. So with that, I do want to thank Kendall and SLCOG staff for being here today and hand it off to Kendall for the presentation.

Thank you very much. And good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the council. Again, I'm Kendall Flint with DKS Associates, and it's my pleasure to be back here tonight to talk with you again about this measure. I think some of you may recall um we were here in 2016 um with the measure. Very nice to see you again, Council Member Marks. Um what we are looking at today, let me make that move. It did not move for me. I'll let you move it there. Okay, first of all, I think most of you know the Council of Governments is basically made up of the seven cities within San Los Sabispo County as well as the county itself and their board basically representing all of the uh residents and businesses here in the county. Um meets regularly on transportation issues and large transportation investments that are happening throughout the county. One of the things that is unique about this agency is that it does have the ability to create an expenditure plan and become what's called a self-help county. And currently, there are a number of those that I'll talk about in a moment. We are not one of them. Um, you may recall that in 2016, uh, we missed that opportunity by about 450 votes. We're making the same face, Council Member Marks. Um, it was not fun, but but but we're in a different place now. One thing that I think is very important for people to understand is that transportation is expensive and I think a lot of folks are concerned that you know what happens when we're already paying high taxes at the gas pump with SP1 etc etc and we do see money from SP1 but frankly it's not enough and I'll talk about that a bit more in a moment. Currently we have a number of needs here in the county that have been identified through both the um US 101 south mobility study and the US 101 north and there is a small amount that is funded but right now badly needed um investments both in northbound interchanges southbound also interchanges there is no money for that and without that type of investment we would be unable to address the needs of the region both from an economic standpoint and frankly from a quality of

life standpoint from residents and folks that live here and have to be on these roads all the time. So, one of the thing that is important to note that money that comes from gas tax, this is the amount that's been coming over the last uh 2018, 2022 and 20 2026 projected these funds are going down. They are not going up. And one of the reasons for that of course is the prevalence of electric vehicles. But it's also about the cost of living and the cost of driving cars in general. After 2020, a lot of people realized that they'd be able to work from home and a lot of people took advantage of that. And so on the one hand, that's been great for the environment. On the other hand, it's not great when you're trying to generate tax money from gas taxes. Now, in that same time frame since 2016, and now, you can see here the transportation sales tax that was collected by our neighbors in Santa Cruz County, Monterey, and Santa Barbara. Now, Santa Cruz, Monterey, uh, Stannis Loss, and Merrced were the four counties that were able to successfully pass measures in 2016. Um, you can see here the millions of dollars they've been receiving every year based on those those revenues when Slow County has not. I think the bigger issue here is that they have been able, like the other 50, sorry, 25 self-help counties in California, to leverage both state and federal funds to increase the impact of that money. So in Santa Cruz as an example, they won $350 million with the grants during that time period. Monterey 227, Santa Barbara almost $800 million. So when you look at what we could have done during that period and did not, it's well north of a half a billion dollars, which would have been a substantial investment in badly needed uh local road maintenance, infrastructure improvements, transit services, and what in the area. And you can see here that that that is not something that that is good. Now, one of the things that we've been doing

differently from 2016 is taking a closer look at what the individual jurisdictions wanted to see. Um what we learned in 2016 in the and the years following is that while each city did prioritize local road maintenance, each had different ideas about things like bike and pedestrian trails and the percentage of funds that should go to those ditto for transit where here in slow city we might see more people using public transit less so let's say in Paso or other areas. So over the last several years, both the Slok staff and my team and also others have been out in the community, 70 plus meetings, ongoing presentations. We've been doing focus groups throughout the county and polling. We've done all kinds of things to find out what people really wanted. And that's why the measure that you see tonight, which has been developed and refined over the last several months, is very different than what we proposed in 2016. really allowing the local agency, the local jurisdiction to retain the most control over the funds that come to us locally. So the way that the split works right now is that for every year when we generate a half cent sales tax, it's about $35 million a year. 55% of that money would come back to the local agencies, that's the cities and the county for um local road repairs, safety, that's safe routes to schools, bike, pedestrian. In this work though, it also includes if you wanted to increase um for example bus services or you wanted to buy a new bus or increase something you could do that. So it allows for that maximum flexibility. It can only be used for transportation projects. So it cannot be used for police, fire, parks, anything else. Now [snorts] that half cent also goes to regional projects and one of the things that we heard very loud and clear um not surprisingly that especially in the unincorporated areas there was a concern about you know what's in it for me it's all going to go to slow you know it's all going to be in the in this in the metro areas what about us in Cambria and

San Simeon Ocean San Miguel so one of the things we looked at is separating the county into four regions and then developing regional pots which means that for those regional projects with which 40% of the money would go. They would be by sub region. So each area gets a set aside again based on population and then those agencies working with county and working with Slowcock would identify those projects that were best suited to move forward. Now these are projects that are already included in the adopted regional transportation plan which you all participate in along with the other cities. So they're not random projects. They're things that have already been vetted, had already been looked at. Um, one thing to keep in mind on the regional projects, I know that $35 million and the $14 million a year seems like a tremendous amount of money. Um, it's not. When it comes to actually building something in interchange or freeways, it's really not that much. But what we use it for is to get everything shovel ready so that the environmental review, all the planning, all the other things that we need to do can work and then use that to leverage those larger funds that we get from larger grants from both the state and the fed that can actually implement those types of projects. Now, um I think the most important uh line in this graph is what the city of San Los ais would see every year. And so this is basically $3.2 2 million for your local um local road repair, local maintenance, and what you can do with what you like. Um for those that are watching that may have concerns, the unincorporated area of the county also gets funds. Um we've been working with the county on what the best approach of that would be and they've opted to go with um by supervisorial district to ensure that every section gets something. So in case you have friends or family somewhere else, they're also going to get their share as well. Now, when you look at the bottom of this graph, you'll see two other line items that go for 4% for senior disabled veterans, mobility improvements, and administrative costs. Now, through the polling and through all of the

engagement, but specifically through measurable statistical data, we know that that folks have a real desire to make sure that there's either subsidized or um under underwritten services for that target group. Overall, transit did not pull exceptionally well everywhere. In some places it did and in some places it didn't. So the idea here was to set aside funds that we know people wanted to see specifically because they called it out and then let the individual agencies def decide within their regional dollars or within their local dollars if they wanted to use more or less funds for transportation or transit services. the administrative costs. I'll go over in more detail, but that's really to make sure that this contract between the voters and these agencies is met with oversight um uh audits, independent audits and all those kind of things. So the big question um we also have is how is this going to work? We have implementation guidelines and and safeguards. So first of all, how will the money be spent? Um the idea in the plan is that this is a transparent process so that residents would be able to come to the city um as you go through your normal deliberations for budget hearings and when you're developing your capital improvement plans, they'd see the line item that was from measure whatever the name of the measure is going to be, what letter it might be moving forward. And that there would be of course opportunities for them to see how it's been used in their areas. Um how the money is being spent. There would be a citizens oversight committee made up with one individual from each city as well as five from the supervisorial districts, not in the city limits, but in in the incorporated areas to make sure we're not double dipping anywhere. They'd be looking at annual reports that the cities would provide. We'd be working with staff. And again, these are not intended to be um over overdoing it. It's just at the end of the day, much like we do Calrans grants or anything else, we have to show where the money went. People would like to know if you have tax money, how you've spent it. It's a pretty reasonable request. So they'll be looking at that. One thing I think is also interested and we borrowed on this one actually from

our friends in Orange County Transportation Commission. Um we included a comprehensive review program. So since we're looking at a 30-year measure that every 10 years there would be an opportunity to kind of open it up again and see if there are new things out there that we need to amend. Not changing the percentages, but you know if flying cars show up and that's something we want to make um available. Okay, we can we can do that, right? Um, one thing we get a lot of questions about, and I'm sure that some will come up tonight, is maintenance of effort. This is the same language that's required by California state law is regarding uh SB1, which is the gas tax. And what it says is that the city needs to continue using the funds or that it is already on a normal year allocated for uh maintenance and operations for their for their road maintenance programs consistently. They can't replace that with the tax funds. It has to augment it. So if you had one year, I know it happened in um Grover Beach in in Atascadera where you had an unusually high year of investment. That's an exception. We're talking about the specifics of yeartoear that's normal and we have three years that have been carved out for that. Um that is not a negotional negotiable issue. It is required by state law that the maintenance of effort goes in there. So as I mentioned, this is going to be a 30-year measure as it's currently uh envisioned. Um the cities of course would have to provide the information to the citizens oversight committee. They would make regular presentations to both the slow cog board and members of the public. Those would be open as well. There is a language in there that would allow bonding. We are not certain whether or not the slow cog board is going to want to move forward with that or not. Um there's some pretty strong parameters about what can and can't happen with that. But just so council is aware, if for [snorts] whatever reason in time goes by that there was another citizens initiative that said, "Well, we're going to repeal this," it would not relieve the bond indebtedness. So any bonds that were issued would still have to be repaid by the agencies and the

underlying members. So it's just something to keep in mind. Um they can be amended um by any uh at any time with a twothirds majority vote for the general public. So once this is locked in, that's it. So our process has really been to go back to add everybody. That's what we're doing now. And see what uh refinements need to be made, what does it cost? It's about $250 a week for the average person. This is taxes on goods, not taxes on medicine or groceries or um rent or anything like that. But it's just basic things. You know, if you buy a shirt, if you go uh to a restaurant, if you um buy a car, these are all things that would be covered. Um right now you are our last presentation for councils. Um and next week we'll be meeting with the board of supervisors and then [snorts] on February 4th we'll be taking back the um let's call it the draft final the draft final ordinance and expenditure plan for the SLOC board. At that meeting they'll have an opportunity to determine whether or not they would like to adopt that plan and and make that the the land that they want to move forward on. And at that point, we would then make arrangements to come back to this uh body as well as the other cities in the county for a a or nay vote on the plan itself and on the ordinance to say your support. If that happens, then at the April 1st meetings, the SlowChok board would then move forward to request that the board of supervisors places this on the ballot in November. Um at this time, that uh election is scheduled for November 3rd, and it would require a twothirds majority in order to pass. Um, so with that, I'm available to answer any questions you might have on the process or what's in the expenditure plan or the ordinance. Um, and looking forward to your questions.

Wow. Thank you. That was the fastest I could have ever imagined this to go through, but yet thorough and awesome. Council member Marks,

um, yeah, could you please go back to that chart where you were looking at the distribution with the cities and also the Yeah, thanks. That's it. So, I'm interested if it's going by supervisorial districts, I assume that when it says north county, that's both district four and district five. So, great question. Um, there's two pots in this. So, when you look everything that's above the 55% and you see unincorporated area there, that is the unincorporated time. That's where the supervisorial districts will come into play only in the local road match, right? And in the 40% those divisions which let me come back to that map so you can see it. For example in the central area this will include the city of St. Louis Abyispo as well as Avala right and south county would include a royal grande oceano pismo and Grover. So all those things are done geographically this way. and it kind of broke down into um needs of the types of improvements that people would like to see and sort of a um a balance of not only population but expenditure. So that that's how it would lay out.

Okay. Well, going back to that [clears throat] that earlier Yeah, here you go. So something like the Praau road uh interchange, it's regional, but it's in the central county, but it serves everybody because frankly um [snorts] there is more um there's more commuting to and from the city of St. Louis, Abyispo, right

and also Kalpali uh than any place else in the county. So our roads um by our roads I mean the roads in the city but also in the central county just get more traffic from everybody. So I don't know if that's taken into consideration. It's a smaller amount but in terms of vehicle miles traveled or however you want to it it is. So when we look at a regional project, we think about regional projects are those that have benefit or impact to multiple communities and PRA is an excellent example of that because while it exists within the city limits of the city of St. Louis Abyispo, it also serves people that are going both north and south as well as visitor traffic. Now, a really um interesting and again part of the flexibility um that would likely emerge as a regional project, but the city could say we would also like to use some of our local money to supplement that project. Um and that would be a really good example of one where that could happen. Likewise, we see things like, you know, Bob Jones Trail or other areas where we have a city that might a trail may start in one city and wind up someplace else. There's all kinds of flexibility to make sure that you would be able to work collaboratively to move those types of projects forward.

I guess what I'm looking at is that it's a smaller amount, but I think it's more traffic. So, I'm not sure how they came up with uh perhaps the mayor who sits on on the board of Slowco can tell us how how that computes.

Again, it's it's based on population of the region. That's that's the number. it's the population. And that was actually one of those things by consensus. I I don't know who asked it, but I know someone did. There's a question about how does everybody figure this out? And and there are different answers for different um councils of governments. Some go road miles, some go population, some go sales tax, some do all kinds of combinations of 20% of this, 15% of that. One of the things we wanted to make sure of based on public input is to make it simple, make it enforceable, and make it be something that we can easily uh keep up with, right? And so over the last uh gosh uh several months, we met with the city managers, we met with county staff, and this is kind of what the consensus came up with that everyone felt was the fairest approach. And so we did look at other opportunities out there. Um, at this point, this is what's being proposed, but if you have other comments or direction that you like the board to consider, we can certainly bring that back.

No, I don't really have any basis for changing it. I just noticed it's a little bit less and uh I think we have more traffic. Like I said, I'm not So, um, thanks for answering the best you could. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you. Yes, our city itself does almost triple in size throughout the normal workday, which is challenging and I hear what you're saying. Um and the agreed upon decision was on population. Thank you, Council Member Shoresman.

Thanks. Yeah, my questions are kind of along those lines and I I asked it I asked a lot of the questions in advance, so thank you for covering some of them. Um, can you give some examples, some specific examples of [clears throat] what a regional project might what some regional projects that we know are already in existence that might be good candidates for the regional share of the funds.

So, uh, Sloco commissioned two studies over the last eight years. One was the this north US 101 north improvement project and one was US 101 south. On the US 101 South, we were looking at potentially auxiliary lanes going on and off the freeway to make it easier as as you for those of us that have the joy of that quick get on 101. Um there are definitely some places that could be improved. That would be a project. In North County, that by uh the bypass, the 40 46 101 connection, that's one that would be possible. Um in some of the other areas, we do have some um coastal trails that have been uh populated. people were interested in seeing some of those. Um the others that that to council member Marks's uh point, there are some uh intersections or I'm going to say um connector roads that are larger that are not a CALR facility that potentially um LOVR, you know, that those kinds of things that have multiple impacts across communities would also be looked at as regional projects. and really looking at the we call the tier one which are the ones that rise to the top of the regional transportation plan which is updated every four years. There are priority projects that have been laid out on those. I think most people think about again traffic enhancements and mitigations specifically in South County when you were coming down um southbound and you all of a sudden you hit uh Pismo and it starts to get a really you know in that area there's a lot of real congestion issues down there. Um just really every area has their own unique thing. In the north coast, there's questions there about Highway One and what improvements might be made there. There's currently another study that's about to kick off on Highway One North improvement. So all of those potentially are regional projects of I do want to note though that if this is if if there was a desire to uh increase um regional transit services, let's say between uh Paso and St.

Elizabeth, but that there's room in there if the if you choose to have uh regional projects also considered in transit as well. That seems like it would be a hard one though because this is technically one-time funding each year and that would require ongoing investment.

It's more like you'd have to buy the bus for it and you know, so there's there's different ways of doing it, but we were again just trying to make it as as flexible. Um it's the same kind of thing with um you know uh intelligent transportation systems, signal timing, those kind of improvements. One thing we're seeing um a lot of other counties explore right now is use of measure funds for um resiliency planning like evacuation planning um climate change, sea level rise, all those kind of things that are can potentially affect the transportation network. Those all fall under the same category. Same with safe routes to schools too. Um, so back to the regional projects, some of the ones you mentioned, auxiliary lanes on Highway 101. We talked, someone brought up the Praau Road interchange. This is like $4 million, almost 53 million if we're looking at the central county portion. Just the PO road interchange in itself is estimated to cost 145, $150 million. this is not going to get us even close to where we need to be for some of these large projects. So, is it really realistic that we could leverage enough funds to

I'll give you a great example. So, in San Los a Bispo County, they took um $44,000 of their measure L money and wound up with 180 million. Um so, it is possible and there are I'm not saying it's guaranteed. I'm not saying it's guaranteed for any one thing there, right? But but what this money is best suited for is making projects shovel ready. So it's basically you may have some um right-of-way acquisition. You may have environmental documents you need to move forward on. You may have just the basic planning side of it, the the studies, the things that are required to get things going with CALR. The other thing is that you know even with CALR right now, as I'm sure you may or may not be aware, they are not in the business of capacity building anymore with additional lanes. So everything right now is shifting for them to be on managed lanes. So studies that relate to that or can justifi justify that and manage lanes can also be used for bus rapid transit. There are a lot of different ways you can get around it so to speak. But yeah, make no mistake this even with this amount of money, which again is not a small amount of money, but any one of these major projects are multi-million dollar pro like tens of hundreds of millions of dollar projects. They're not small.

And I'm gonna pass it to Mr. because we had a lot of this conversation during the workshop on 13th, including the um projects you were asking about.

Yeah. A couple additions. Uh Kendall mentioned Santa Cruz County leverage putting in $30 million from their measure and leveraging over $15 million from the state one cycle, one project. So that's possible. But you asked the question uh Council Member Shoresman, what's regional in the central county area? Slowcog has funded regional projects like the Losos Valley Road interchange project, the railroad safety trail project, the train station improvements. All these are different multimodal things. They're regional in nature. We've we've seen them as regional and necessary for us to fund. Also, we would continue doing those projects in collaboration with the city. It's not us saying this is what we think you need to do. It's working with your staff identifying what the most important thing is in this case in the central region and I guess the unincorporated county staff would say here's what we think is in the unincorporated region most important to them and figure out what the best project is through the SLOG board to decide.

Right. I I understand that this is like a different pot of money even than some of the grant making and project support that Slooog has done already in the past and that those opportunities might still be there or even to leverage with some of these funds. Um I was just trying to get to the point where I could understand how much money is needed and that this is and for some big projects a relatively small amount of money even though 35 million is a lot more money than we've got today. So recognizing that

have this in the presentation and note to self we probably should have. So in the regional transportation plan when we when we project out over 30 years right there's currently um a 2.1 or 2.2 billion dollar deficit in or shortfall. Right? So this measure with with everything that's currently programmed in the regional transportation plan almost gets us halfway to filling that gap um in that same time frame. And that's that is substantial. That is a lot of money. That's without the leveraging. That's just the money that would come in from the tax measure over that time. So when you think about the leveraging, it kind of almost gets us there to break even. But I want to be really clear about that because it's not like this measure passes and tomorrow everybody's roads are up to a pavement condition of 100 and everything gets built and there's unicorns and happiness and joy everywhere we go. It it just doesn't work that way. But this is actually sort of a um it's almost a band-aid, if you will, in order to sort of keep us from losing any more ground in pavement condition and the ability to maintain and and enhance a local transportation infrastructure that will allow us to continue to thrive um e economically as well as a quality of life. The other thing that I think is really important, um, 25% of this money that comes in is potentially paid by visitors that come to this area for the wine, for the beach, just to get away. Um, and that's our friends, neighbors, and people that are supporting our businesses. So, this is one of the few kinds of taxes that does that. And it's appropriate because they're on the roads doing that at this time. They are using that. So, just another

Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean that's one of the things that we benefit in having a healthy tourism industry here is that a lot of our sales taxes paid by people who are coming here and visiting um which is wonderful. I just have two more questions. I'll try to keep them quick. Um so related to the the regional share again uh does slowcog the way the plan is written have the flexibility to use funds if there's a multi-jurisdictional or multi-reional project to use funds from the different pots or um in order to make that one big project happen that

or so hypothetically hypothetically let's say that um the city of San Lucispo and the city of oh I'm trying to who's closest Paso, right? That they want Well, that's going to be a long bike ride. I don't think anybody wants Pismo. Pismo. Let's go. Pismo that you guys wanted to do a trail or something together. All right. Or you had something that you want to do a park and ride lot. Um, you know, some type of something something. You could do that and you could you could do it with your local funds and potentially tap into regional. So, you could actually use multiple things to make it work. Another thing to keep in mind is let's say that there is a um that the city of San Louis Bispo for whatever reason uh needed more money in the first two years and and Pismo is not really ready to go yet with some of their stuff. You can do inter agency um loans between agencies between cities through anou provided that everybody's on board with that. You still have to account for the money. you still have to have the same at the end of the day the same percentages that are going to everyone but there is the flexibility to make th those kinds of things work and I think that's one thing that we really tried to in the language is to encourage collaboration as opposed to isolation right so that's why we don't have one-sizefits-all for bike and pedestrian trails because again different places different needs people in Los Osos are not necessarily thrilled about the idea of sidewalks curbs and gutters they really don't want them, but they do want safe routes to schools, right? So, we have to make it flexible enough that people can get what they want in their own communities.

Thanks. Last question. The map. Um, can you talk to me about how this map came to be? I'm gonna let James take that one because he drew it with his own hands.

Nope. Nope. Nope. Didn't draw it. Um, this map actually goes back decades that Slok has used for sub regions just like this. Um, it predates me. I go back to 1996 and it was designed before GIS was available at Slocog. So, it was sketched out. Now, it's a little more definitive with GIS because we could follow the boundaries a little bit better. It does follow kind of natural boundaries in terms of ridge lines. U, I'll say watersheds loosely, but okay. Um there's four sub regions here. SLCOG sometimes talks about a fifth sub region because we have a non-attainment area in St. Louis Bispo County on the very far east side. It's east of Crestston. It's east of Shanden, but we draw a line over there that isn't shown on this map. Um because we have to do analysis for that area in order to uh spend funds in our region everywhere. Uh it also gives us a bonus of uh congestion mitigation air quality funds from the federal government. It's not our fault that the air quality is bad out there. It's all drift in from LA, Sanwain Valley, and Bay Area. Our total population out there is somewhere in the neighborhood of 800 people to a thousand people over 40% of our land area. But going back to the map, why is it this way? This is how it was designed. I guess I inherited it and uh we've kept it. They're good analysis units we feel for um likeminded communities. Um I've always had I've always struggled with Avala Beach. Do they really fit better with St. Louis Pispo or do they fit better with Pismo Beach? Um because these lines were drawn way back when we've kept it with St. Louis Bispo. Um Pismo Beach, Roy Grounded, the five cities area and then south uh we've kept that. And then the north coast, um, anybody that can see

the ocean from their town is considered north coast all the way up. Um, very top of the peaks of San Los Bispo can see the coast, but not most drivers at the top of the peaks with their vehicles anyway can see the coast. Does that make enough sense? Yes. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you, uh, Vice Mayor Francis. Yeah. Thank you very much. I don't know if the uh band-aid analogy is the sexiest sales pitch, but uh I guess it kind of works to get at what we're trying to fill the gap here. Um, one of the questions that I keep kind of coming back to, you talked a lot about how this is kind of a a new we're approaching this in a new way of allocating the funds to kind of address some fairness issues and then that is why um the use of the superposorial districts is coming in so that each of the different unincorporated regions then has more control. But I I have a question about whether or not then that potentially just sort of isolates the pots of funds and makes it a little bit more challenging to tackle the bigger projects. Essentially just dilutes the power of the funds by putting them into the the separate pots. I don't know if I articulated that well, but

you did and you did and we've actually talked about that with county staff. Um just to be clear, that is not the major regional money. That's just for the local road maintenance, like for local road funds, safe routes to schools, that sort of thing. And the reason for it is that consistently people that are living in the communities in corporate areas were not as confident in the the in knowing that they were going to actually get money for projects in their area. And they did. This county supportive supervisors has talked about that. And then one of the things was basically like, well, what if we just had it all in one pot and you trust us and we're going to do it. And I absolutely don't mean this the way it's going to sound, but they don't trust them to do it. They that that's why so they wanted to make sure that there was going to be a a trail of money that they could say, "All right, I know that

district one is going to get so much of this money for the unincorporated areas, not for the cities, but for the unincorporated areas, so they can get what they need to get repaired in their areas." That's what really important to places in like uh Losos and Baywood Park and certainly Oceaniano and in other places, right? So that's why it was done that way. It was really about transparency and fairness and and really came out of the discussions for the supervisors who all seem to feel that that was the best way to do it as well.

And can I just add to that? So not just this the supervisors were fine with it, but it was it was from the people that were contacted. they were um giving their input of at least I know I can go knock on the door or send an email or pick up the phone to one person where um when it just came to the slow cog board, they felt it was too nebulous. So this way the transparency and accountability was more clear for the people they were um serveing.

Thank you. And this is something we talked a little bit about in our briefing, but just for um folks who might be listening once this passes. Is there any flexibility for kind of readjusting how the the funds are allocated or is that set in stone?

So, it's not adjustable by the type like 55% for local, 40% for regional. But as I mentioned, every 10 years we have an opportunity to look and see, do we need to refine definitions within those categories? Are there new things that have come to pass? Um, as an example, Whimo is very popular in in some cities. I'm terrified of it myself, but um, but what if that comes into being and we have some sort of technology that's not currently addressed in the plan, but fits in. So, we could do that. If you were going to change anything from a percentage standpoint, like let's say you were going to say, right now it's 55%, but what if you said we want that 75%. That would have to go back out to the voters for them to approve it. So, this does lock in those numbers for the 30-year period, but it does allow for flexibility within the various categories to make adjustments based on new things that people want to prioritize. That can also include new projects. So, just as we see the regional transportation plan being updated every four years, right? There may be new things that come into play that we don't know about now or there may be new funding opportunities that the federal government or the state government prioritizes that are not priorities now that you know position us in order to take advantage of those opportunities.

So that comprehensive program review only really could allow different project types but it wouldn't necessarily change how the map is drawn or any of the allocations even within the 5540 are done. Correct. Once the measure is passed by ordinance and by the plan, it's basically a contract between Slowcog acting as the transportation authority and the voters. And so it has to stay the same for that reason. And can you remind us uh what percentage of voters would need to vote on that in order to change it? Twothirds. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Boswell.

Uh thank you. Let's see. Um maybe following up on that uh in 2030 we have the uh next census. Will changed population numbers result in a change in distribution? Correct. So the population uh right now the snapshot is based on the 2020 2020 census but yes um the census was updated every 10 years. So the population would be updated as well. I think it's important to note, again, not saying it's going to happen, but if Oceanano, for example, decided to incorporate, it'd become a city, then all of these numbers would change accordingly to adjust to the population of Oceaniano and how that affects both the county and everyone else. But the fundamental um way that it works would remain the same.

Okay. And that kind of the example you gave and the population, these would essentially happen kind of automatically or do they have to go through that 10-year review? They would happen automatically. So that basically as the as part of the process, we would be looking at those numbers and seeing how they adjust over time. Um other things that can cause adjustments um if the if any of the cities for example were to implement a sphere of influence that changes their population that would trigger a readjustment. So if Pasa Royals for example went out and annexed another you know 200 300 acres and that brings their population up by 10,000 that would be adjusted at that point for all of these numbers as well. Okay. Um, can you put the schedule? I think you had a schedule slide.

Sorry. Um, [snorts] um, so uh I thought I saw something about you anticipate coming back to us again.

Yes. So if uh well I'm I'm going to think really positively now at the next Slowco board meeting which would be the first week of February. If they approve of the board, approve of the ordinance and the plan and that means that they have adopted it, then what'll happen is each city and the county will have another presentation and opportunity to also um approve of formally approved by resolution the plan itself. And then we need the cities and the county to approve of that plan before it could come back to the slowcog board for the final action which is the April board meeting when they would request that the uh measure be placed on the ballot by the board of supervisors. So the board of supervisors actually has the final action which is putting it on the ballot but the request comes from the slowco board ask acting as the transportation authority.

Okay. Yeah, that was what I was wondering if it's a form, you know, this we don't have to take action tonight, but the next one would be a formal action through resolution. Does that require [snorts] all uh seven cities to approve? Uh as long as we have majority approval by population, then it moves forward. And I can tell you we anticipate, you know, obviously we don't know until we get there, but at this point it seems that the cities are on board with this to move move it forward at least to the ballot. Great. Um, and March 3rd is the date that it's tenatively coming back to us. March 3rd. Okay, great. Um, okay, that's all I have for questions. I have a few more comments later. Thank you, Vice Mayor Francis. Sorry, just one more.

Um, where do we account for the population of Cowpali or how do we account for that? Really good question because it did come up a couple times and in fact, um, you know, we were we were asking, you know, should we could put that in with the city of San Los a Bispo? Should be. It's not. So that particular um population is considered part of county. So it goes into the county pot at this point and that was what everybody agreed to. So can I hear a little bit more about kind of the reasoning behind that because to me that feels like it's more of a technicality and then just short changes us the funding that we need in order to maintain the roads that they're using.

Um I'm trying to figure out how to answer that because we we we have had that discussion and maybe James you've got a better long discussions with with city managers. multiple discussions in 2025 and the population of Kpali the dorm beds really it's just the dorm beds that are on campus land in district five in the unincorporated areas and it was not adjusted to be in the city of slow because it's not in the city of slow even though they're shop

even though everything they do well their lives if you live in the dorms 90% of your life is on campus you go to class you eat there you sleep there you entertain somewhat there and then entertain in downtown and you go to your doctor's appointments and whatnot, but if you live there, your your life is primarily there, but not entirely. You're right. Yeah. And then a good portion of their population isn't obviously living in the dorms. Um, and then they're counted in our but they're counted within the city that live in the city. Correct. Okay.

They are counted in your regional. They are counted by in the region. Yeah, I'm going to chew on that one for a few more minutes. And [laughter] in the unincorporated pot, they would be counted in the district five. So we you'd be hitting up your supervisor district 5 say, "Hey, maybe Calpali needs to extend the railroad safety trail north toward toward Mororrow Bay." Okay. Thank you. Again, going back to every group should be able to go back to their supervisor that is responsible for them to be able to have accountability and transparency. Um, council member Shoresman,

sorry, just follow up to that because so Kalpali is in is in for the for the 55% Calpali is in the unincorporated share but it's in the regional central region. Yes. So, so all when we look at the central region, so looking here on this map, right, um, San Lucispo, everything in that central region, which is the city of San Lucispo, the unincorporator of Appaloo Beach, that also includes everything at Kalpali. So that entire population of that area is considered part of the regional. So they're count so the Calpali residents, people that live on the campus at Kalpali are treated differently in the two Yes.

parts of the formula. Well, I would say that the formula the formula is different, right? Because the one the first part of the formula is specific to local streets and roads and the second part of the formula is really for um regional projects. And within the regional projects, there are different pots of money. So, you know, as an example, in a regional project, you might have improvements for roads that go from Kpali into St. Louis Abyispo or into other areas. That might be a regional project in the in the making, right? Um but that that whole region benefits Avala [clears throat] Beach uh as example just got a round not a roundabout yeah a roundabout down there and some other improvements. Um depending on where those projects are and what other regions are affected by them or people going in and out those may be also considered regional projects. [snorts]

Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much for this really um good of presentation and answering the many questions. Um I uh Mr. Wley, if you could at a future date share that um jobs uh handout that came at the workshop to the council, I think that might help answer some of those questions. It was gloriously called grants projects or something of that sort that Rich was in charge of when going around. I think that would be a little bit more helpful too to help picture what those different regional projects could be. Murphy is finalizing that document right now and we're trying to get up on the website end of the week.

Okay, cool. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. All right, with that Oh, sorry. Before I go to public comment, Council Member Marks, I'm just curious if parking actually is considered part of transportation. [snorts] It can be. So if you have a park and ride lot because again these are all things that you know are going to be part of the TR like you can have a transportation transit center you can have uh lots in general it's anything that involves um connecting people into a community so you should What about parking structures wayfinding is allowed I'd have to go back and double check and see if a structure is allowed. I believe it would be but I need to double check that to make sure.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. With that, do we have any public comment?

Yes, we have one speaker card from Rachel Whan. Good evening. It's me again, Rachel with the Slow Chamber. Um, I'm here to encourage the city to support Slowcog's draft expenditure plan for the proposed self-help sales tax measure to fund transportation infrastructure. This measure presents a significant opportunity for our community to leverage local dollars to unlock a much larger amount of state and federal transportation funding. Many competitive grants require a reliable local match, and without one, projects are often delayed or never move forward. To put the scale of this opportunity into perspective, if Measure J had passed in 2016, St. Louis Abyispo County is estimated to have received roughly $700 million in transportation funding since then. This is an extraordinary amount of investment that we've missed. And that same level of funding would become available if this measure passes. These funds would deliver direct and tangible benefits to our community. They would support improved street maintenance, safer travel for students, seniors, and all road users, expanded options for pedestrians and cyclists, and stronger regional connectivity. Reliable transportation infrastructure is foundational to economic vitality. workforce mo mobility and quality of life for residents, businesses, and visitors. Our neighboring counties already have self-help sales tax measures in place and have been collecting these funds for years, allowing them to advance major projects and successfully compete for

additional outside funding. Passing this measure would finally position slow county to compete on equal footing. It's also important to note that essential purchases like groceries, healthcare, and housing are exempt. And similar to the city's local revenue measure, this tax allows non-residents to help support the transportation system they use. As a major tourist destination, that shared responsibility is critical. Finally, the draft expenditure plan preserves local control, giving municipalities the flexibility to invest their share of funds in projects that best meet local priorities with strong account accountability measures to ensure funds are used as promised. For these reasons, we urge the city of St. Louis Abyspo to support Slowcog's draft expenditure plan and help bring meaningful transportation investment back to our community. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Any other commenters? No, there are not. Thank you. Well, with that, um, you know, this is a report that we receive, not a motion, but this is definitely our chance to, um, have some feedback to give back to Slowcog and team. Uh, council member Boswell.

Thanks. Yeah, our direction recommendations receiving comments. So just a couple of comments. Um one I appreciate the uh Jamer's comments particularly about the leveraging. I mean to me this is perhaps one of the biggest issues here uh is that we have put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage with not only our surrounding counties but I think it's 90% of the state population is covered under self-help. Um competition for transportation dollars is fierce. I suspect it's going to get bit tougher. Um, and you know, and we've we've just really put ourselves at a disadvantage for leveraging those state and federal transportation dollars, which are our dollars, right? I mean, those those dollars are funded by our taxes. Um and uh you know so I think that's just such a key point here even beyond how much it's just going to raise for us is that putting us in a much more uh advantageous position for competing for that state and federal funding. Um the second is I mean we've heard a lot of discussion about this uh and I asked a lot of questions in the briefing on this about you know using using population as a primary determinant for the amount. I mean I think it does um I I think we have you know a relatively you know as the as the regional job center and with Calpali um we have a you know we carry a disproportionate share of the transportation impacts in this region that aren't effectively reflected that aren't reflected by uh population numbers. I would probably at the end of the day prefer to see another uh metric. However, I also understand the real need for simplicity uh here. Uh this is a this is a big ask for uh the voters in

the community both in terms of of the complexity of the measure we're asking them to vote on but also you know asking to vote a sales tax onto themselves. And so I think we also have a responsibility to put forward as as straightforward and as simple to understand measure as we possibly can given the complexity. So I recognize that that's that's what we're trying to balance here. Uh so I appreciate that. Um slowco I know I spent an incredible amount of time trying to figure out how to b balance uh the regional fairness issue with the clarity for the voters issue. So that's my comments. Thank you. Thank you so much, Council Member Shoresman.

Thank you, Council Member Boswell, for kicking it off. I want to thank the team for uh spending time with each of us to kind of brief us on this advance in advance. Really always appreciate having the opportunity to ask questions in advance and also um for all the work that you've put into this. It's not an easy job to try and figure out something complex like this and make it simple enough for uh voters and people in a with a variety of different opinions on these topics uh to to get everybody on the same page. But I agree with Council Member Boswell that we're leaving a lot of money on the table by not having a being a self-help county. So overall, I think this is probably, you know, something that's been a long time coming and something that we need. Um I do have some feedback [laughter] for what it's worth um from from one council member and I I wanted to uh touch on the formula a little bit. uh while I understand the use of population uh to make some of these ca to make the two categories and it does seem like we've built population into the formula twice um in two slightly different ways and I'm curious uh I didn't get a chance to do a bunch of research on some of the other self-help counties but I'm curious how they've balanced the different ways of creating the formula to try and create fairness this um while simplicity at the same time and seems like we've used population two times. I don't have a better idea honestly of how to do it. Um so I I can't really comment on that specifically. Like I said, I wish I had had more time to look into it, but um but that that would be my comment on the formula. I wish I wish it was taking into account something like vehicle miles traveled or roadway miles or

something like that. Um, also I guess this is just a bit of feedback for the rest of the process as you go forward with trying to get the word out and explain this to people. I really do think it would be good to be able to talk about some specific examples. Even if they're not, we're going to fund this, but these are the types of projects that will be funded. Uh I think that would help create clarity for residents in different parts of the county so that they can see how this might come back to them. Uh you know whether it's the project on 101 that you mentioned or the Praau interchange or maybe there's you know an example of a project up in North County that you can use as an example. I think that might just create a better visual picture for people. Um, last but not least, and this is probably the one that I um have struggled with the most, is the map. Um, I respectfully disagree with uh Mororrow Bay and Los Sos being more like uh the north coast than they are like San Los Bispo. I can appreciate that. Uh, for Slocog's purposes, this map has been in existence for a long time. Um but over the years and in a variety of other ways, slow is connected to Mororrow Bay and Los Soosos. And I think by roadways um is not the least of the examples. There's it's it's really hard. There's only two ways in and out of Los Soosos. One goes to Mororrow Bay and one goes to St. Lucispo. So I think we're intricately connected to that area by by that in itself. Also, we share a we share a school district with Mororrow Bay. We share a three a seat on the 3CE board um and OSOS. Yes. Um share a school district with both those areas. We share a 3CE seat um with Mororrow

Bay. Uh in terms of homeless services providers, Capslo is the main service provider for San Los aispo and it's also the main service provider for that part of the coast. uh we share a supervisor district with Mororrow Bay. So I think there are lots of connections between us and Mororrow Bay and that would change um it it wouldn't um it it wouldn't change the order I don't think I don't know the population of Losos but it would increase the population share of the central region if Moro Bay and Losos were included and it would uh shake up that proportion a little bit. So realize that's a stretch to ask for at this stage, but this is a feedback session. So if I can give feedback, that would be my feedback.

Thank you, Council Member Marks. Thank you. [clears throat] Uh yeah, basically I really support this as I did in 2015, 2016. Uh I was very disappointed when uh when we lost by such a it you said 400 votes but I think it was what like 1% or something or two yeah it it was so close to being twothirds that it just it uh it was it it stabbed me to the heart I have to say. I think I was the chair of Slowco at that time. [clears throat]

Um, so I just wanted to say that I really like the fact that there's a chance for inter entity exchange and kind of layering of these different um, kinds of things. And I'll give you an example like with Calpaly um, and the city, you know, people from time to time talk about having a roundabout at the corner of Grand and Slack. [clears throat]

I'm not even I don't even know if that's a real project, but people have talked about it. So, I I I think that um um it's important with district two, north coast, district um five, which includes Atascadero and then district three. So about 65% of the constituents in district three live in the city and um about I think 20% of district two live in the city and then district five it's making up the difference maybe 15% something like that everything north of Montter Street is in district five and uh I lived in district five for many years right next to Kalpa At any rate, the funds that are part of the unincorporated area but are um divided by supervisorial districts. I think it's also important [clears throat] to recognize the fact that district 2, three, and five also represent the city of St. Louis Abyispo. other cities are entirely contained within a district like Tascadero, you know. So when it comes to regional um allocation of regional um monies that are um considered uninccorporated so Losos is unincorporated though there are 20 CSDs they're essentially urban in the county. At any rate, um I think that that needs to be taken into account when we're talking about these inter agency

exchange and layering um layering uh different kinds of projects where there's a nexus that has to do with vehicle miles travel, you know, basically origin and destination studies. You you guys I know COG's got all all this information. So you know if people who live in Losos are driving to St. Louis Bispo to go to work or you know and then talk about Kalpali. It's not just the people who happen to live in the dorms. Uh it's the staff, it's the faculty again origin destination and then beyond that events every year [laughter] move in right graduation parents weekend poly um you know uh gosh openhouse there's so many different events that draw people from the whole state uh and the and they're driving they're coming here with cars and like that. So, I don't know how exactly this could be taken into account, but you know, the wear and tear on our roads and infrastructure uh is significant. And uh I don't know if there's perhaps some way of encouraging [clears throat] creative use of the without changing the formula as presented. if there'd be some way of encouraging the inter entity uh exchange and layering of of projects so that if if somehow you could bring that out in the outreach. I [clears throat] also hope that you do some kind of analysis or you may have already done it of where those missing 400 and one votes lived where did they live and do like extensive outreach there. Not that it's the same people. A

lot of new people have moved to the area. But [clears throat] if you know, if you can really figure out, okay, here's where we lost, we lost in Caiukas or whatever. Uh, you know, that would really help design your outreach. That's going to be crucial to the success of this measure and I certainly wish you will. So that's it. Yeah. Thank you, Vice Mayor Francis.

Thank you so much. I'll just uh start by saying thanks again. The presentation was really lovely and impactful and um I'll start by saying that I am very much in favor of this. It's truly shocking to see how much money our county has left on the table uh over the last years and without having a self-help measure and very much eager to see this succeed. Um, but I think I I will also echo my colleagues concerns about um some of the issues with the map itself and how uh funds are being allocated. Quick back of the envelope calculation and it looks like uh 27.5% of District 5's population is on Calpali's campus. And I know we're talking about uh that being a population that doesn't go very far, maybe mostly on campus, but when they do go somewhere, they're going somewhere within the city. And um I I'm just worried that once this passes, you know, as as we've said, we're we're stuck with the calculation as approved by the voters. Um, and I know we want to keep this simple and clear and use the maps that have been used for the last however many decades, but it really feels like it misses a big part of how people are actually using the roads. The fact that our city doubles in size uh every day with uh people coming in to work and to play. And um I know we're a little late in the game to to be making changes here, but since it's a feedback session, I will uh offer my feedback. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Boswell. Thank you. I want to uh follow on a comment Vice Mayor Francis made. Um so the the unincorporated portion in the 55% Calpali is going to generate that for district five. So that money, could that money be spent by Calpali, their state agency? Interesting. I don't know if I can answer that or not.

Right. So they're I mean they're weird, right? It's an unincorporated area, but but not really not in the way we generally think of unincorporated area because the state Could they ask that some portion of those funds be allocated to um either the city or regional transit system to the extent that they serve onto campus in Monterey County which passed measure X um Cal State Monterey Bay does get Measure X funds. So, they've used that to connect the campus to local um cities and they're using it for transit.

Great. Thank you. And did they already have a contract with the city for their bus transit that they that like Kpali does? And uh Monterey Selena's Transit is the provider there, right? But did CSU Monterey Bay already have a contract with the city? I do not know.

Okay. So, I I think there's there's so many factors we can't really even begin to discuss because we don't necessarily know those. Um, I will I just want to go back to the regional conversation. Um on the slowcog board, one of the conversations we've had a lot is the thinking regionally and then the numbers in the 40% and getting separated out and people really feeling like this is mine and we're accountable um was was a definite concern and um and that south county versus central versus north was truly from what I understood the best way that people in the community would feel there was accountability. And so for us to see a measure pass where all people or many people could as many people as possible could get to that 65% um we had to really look at what we could do to make this regional. Um and and and I will say that in the ability to borrow in a sense money from north county to a south county project, south county, north county project, etc. Um was where we would take those every four years and think think strategically have the vision and think about what what does regional look like? What do those big projects look like? And that was the conversation that um we were having at the slow board. So I also want us to remember as a council we have the ability to advocate to the slow cog board as a whole um to say make sure you're thinking regionally um as this if if this passes um we have done this already with monies that a grant was um expiring from another area north much north of our county and um we were able to kind of

trade. We we knew we had a project right now we needed to get done and we could take their money, get the project done, and we promise that later on when their project is more ready, we will give some of our money back to them. Um so we're allowed to borrow like this. And so just kind of want to remind people that this is this is still possible. The thinking regional is possible. Um, but the importance of accountability and transparency to every community member in our entire county to pass this um, ballot measure is also very important. So, I'll just leave that at that. Council member Shoresman,

thanks for bringing that up, Mayor, because that's why I was asking about the regional shares and the flexibility initially because I don't want to hamstring us. Um,

yeah. So, um, it's important. Um, just back to the followup on the Calpali's portion of or Cal where Calpali sits in the unincorporated. Do I remember correctly and I think I saw it in the revisions to the plan that it's been sort of agreed upon by the districts that they want to take that that unincorporated share of the 55% that looks like it's about $8 million for the unincorporated parts of the county. And they want to divide that equally by districts so that each district kind of has its portion instead of so in order to do what we were what was being hypothesized the fifth district would kind of have to give up part of their share for Calpali to put some of that money towards transit in the Okay, just wanted to make sure I was understanding that.

Well, thank you. I don't see any more lights on. So, I I just um I want to echo that list of projects. This is what we shared in the workshop, too, is we need to make um the ballot measure as clear as possible to the community to see kind of what they're getting in a sense for the money that they're willing to um vote for and also remind people as you did um this is not all their dollars. This is um tourism dollars. people who come and visit as much similar to what our sales tax was or is um which is we really get more um bang for our buck with this with this um ballot measure and I I really hope that people can understand um per halfsent but also with the leveraging ability that um the money we have lost as you have shared already in this presentation um for infrastructure projects is huge and yes there's no guarantee But we see it time and time again in all different counties throughout California. And I will say as I have sat through meetings um statewide meetings um state legislators and federal legislators tell us if you were a self-help but you're not. And so we're not inclined to give you money compared to other counties in our in our state. So that alone makes me want to um bring this forward and hope that people want to um vote for this tax measure and at the same time if they don't I also want to bring this forward. I want to give the the community the ability to have the chance to put their voice through this. So that's uh all I have to say on this um all about voting and letting people vote and sharing their vote. This is what we're talking about in these last couple weeks. So, um, we'll keep talking about it, don't you worry, as our communications plan shared earlier today, um, about a different topic, but similar. So, thank

you very much for sharing all of this. Um, I know it was a lot and it's late, but thank you. Oh, you're welcome. Um, so that brings us to our final point, the leazison reports and communications. And while last times was much longer because we had multiple weeks of no meeting, this time we've only had one week. So, uh nice and quick, I will say that um we do have the visit slow county advisory committee meeting at 8:30 tomorrow morning. So, I'll be there and tell you more about that on February 3rd along with city manager. Um also, last week I had the pleasure of um being on the KCPR CowPoly radio. Um, oddly enough, well, I should say first and foremost, we talked about slow life and what that looks like. Um, to call this place Sllo, but at the same time, we talked about street signs of all things. Um, the students want to know why the street street signs look as they do and have the font as they do. And I encourage them to talk to the professor, uh, Brian Lawler, who was, um, on campus still to this day. And of course to come and talk to our beautiful public works people and um talk about the history of that just a little bit more. Obviously we also have that on our uh website. Uh we had our our mayor's meeting on Friday and we talked a lot about the bills similar to we had our conversation today um and local roads a little bit. We also talked about the bird festival in Mororrow Bay. So that was fun. Um, but I will say that we talked about ICE and um, it was an interesting conversation and I will say that there were two themes that came up from pretty much everyone was there is fear in our community and we want to decrease some of that fear by giving them education of what we do in all of our different communities. And I think um luckily we

got to do that a little bit today um with deputy chief Amaroso and um our city attorney and city manager is of course we will uphold the laws we need to uphold and our police officers will not be assisting ICE in any way. Um so just remembering to please call our um 8057817312 our non-emergency line. If you see something please say something. I know I say that um quaint statement a lot, but it really means something. Um and then also yesterday I got to have the honor of uh speaking in Paso uh for the Martin Luther King Jr. um celebration and and um the students from the choir got to sing and it was a really great event. And lastly, um I'm just going to take a little uh little moment on Saturday. Um, I started something with a local uh uh local personal trainer in the community, uh, Mike Robinson. It's celebrating his 16th anniversary of MZR Fitness. And we've been talking all the last year of how do we get our community out and moving just a little bit more. And so many times people tell me, well, I can't afford it. I can't afford it. I can't afford it. We have beautiful places to go hike and slow and all of that, but sometimes that's a little intimidating. So, we have a free free um all ages workout and just want to encourage people to get out and move. So, if you have any questions, check out my social media. Also, on Saturday, we'll be going to the uh Matani uh which is the ArabAmerican Community uh oral history and installation at Kpali Library. With that, Council Council member Marks.

Thank you. Um well, I attended my last IWMA meeting on the 14th of January and um everybody, it was interesting. They all said, "What? You're still here?" "Oh yeah, hi." Anyway, I explained. [laughter] Um so we did the personnel review of Kobe Sky after this is his first uh six months. um and also approved his participation in the South County leadership. Um um which I think is really uh a good idea. He needs to meet people and make friends being new. Um and so February 11th, it'll be Michelle Shoresman uh on the board with Mike Boswell as the alternate. And uh I encourage you guys to reach out to uh the IWMA and get as much onboarding as you can before the 11th. Um so what else we did in that meeting was finalize [clears throat] the sale of the real property across the street. It's uh it sold for $780,000 uh which is the listing price. Um and that money will be applied to um backfill the reserves that were utilized to purchase the building at 555 Toro uh which was a little bit more but anyway it u makes the reserve whole again. Um, we also all uh attended the chamber banquet. I think almost all. No, my uh some up three of us. Three of us attended the chamber banqu banquet and it was wonderful that um Jerry Lechance got the uh citizen of the year. She's really great. Um and also today was the

first day that the center for dispute resolution in St. Louis Bispo College of Law uh received their first cash um donation and I wanted to let you know that that uh effort is continuing and the first priority is going to be to reinstate slow solutions. um the contract that was previously held by Creative Mediation to assist with community dispute resolution services, but they need to raise a certain amount of money before they can uh fund doing that. And so during our budget discussions, I'm going to bring up uh the um possibility that the city could uh make a donation toward this effort. um uh earlier uh than uh possibly uh contemplated in the past so that we can get the services going so that they're there when Calpali um probably starts in the fall. Uh we really need it and also Qua and Kpali need to pitch in. So that's what we're going to try to do is first things first get slow solutions up and running. so that the community has a benefit of mediation and dispute resolution services. Uh we really need it and we're suffering without it. So, um that's coming up. Thank you.

Nice. Thank you, council. Member Shoresman.

Yes. As well for sitting in last week at the downtown slow board retreat. I was out Tuesday night and so I appreciate that he pinched hit for that um for that retreat as well. On Thursday, uh I attended the active transportation committee meeting where the ATC looked at our paving plan for this next goround and they gave uh the meeting went from 6:00 p.m. till 9:30. Uh and I think they gave some really thoughtful feedback. Um, I still have couldn't stay for the whole thing, so I have to go back and watch the last hour. But, um, as always, uh, thanks to the active transportation committee for, uh, for putting in so much time and effort and care and thought into our paving plan so we can get the most out of those dollars. Uh, we did some interviews for our human relations commission last week, the mayor and I, we have an unscheduled vacancy that hopefully we got a a good candidate that will be coming forward to the whole council. uh very soon here. And then uh as the chair of the Homeless Services Oversight Council, I participated in an interview last week with KPMG, which is a consulting firm that the county has hired to uh to do some assessment of the services provided by the Department of Social Services. They've been working their way through county departments and uh DSS is next. So they were doing stakeholder interviews. So, I participated in that. Uh, and tomorrow I have a Homeless Services Oversight Council meeting at 100 p.m. in room 101 at the Department of Social Services in case anybody is interested in attending. Oh, and um, one last thing, um, attended the the chamber dinner as Council Member Mark said, but

before the chamber dinner, uh, attended a memorial service for a gentleman named Jim Conway. Actually, Council Member Marks was there as well, who has been a longstanding uh resident of the county and has donated generously to a variety of causes and was a frequent sponsor of many performances at the performing arts center in particular. So, big big supporter. Yes. And former faculty faculty ameritus at Kalpali. So, um big supporter of lots of things in the county and uh his presence will be missed. Thank you, uh, Vice Mayor Francis.

Yeah, thank you very much. Uh, you forgot to mention that you also attended the point in time counting on Thursday. So, we were there together getting ready for doing the, um, county's point in time count this coming Tuesday, right? One week from tonight.

Um, and that same day, uh, we had the, uh, SCC, the, uh, student community liaison committee. uh where we heard about um the quarter to semester city impacts from uh Calpaly and also received the annual noise report uh from Christine Wallace. Great to see that those numbers continued to trend down at least our our complaints and uh so that's a really good sign. Um that same night I had my last caps meeting. I'll be handing the baton to council member Boswell. Uh we as always had a really packed agenda, but kind of one highlight is that we approved uh submitting an EPA grant for a brownfield site cleanup on 46 Praau, which is a property that's close to the 40 Praau shelter. And this uh particular site has uh hopefully in the future is going to be a family shelter. Um so we're hopeful that we'll get that $450,000 to get that cleanup done and get moving forward with that really important project for our community. And then Saturday night was wrapped up with the celebration with you all at the chamber dinner. And I'll leave it there.

I'm looking forward to forward to the cleanup and see how that goes. And uh I went to the virtual training for the point in time count. So I can't wait to see you all at 5:30 in the morning. [laughter] Uh Council Member Boswell, thank you. Yes. Um I also attended the active transportation committee uh meeting. Uh fascinating discussion. Um just really appreciate the work of the advisory committee. It's always nice watching them do their job. Um and really appreciated uh there was quite a few folks from the community who came and spoke. Um and just really thoughtful comments from the community and very helpful comments I think both um to the ATC and what will ultimately come to us. So thanks.

Thank you so much. What a great wrap-up. There's so much going on all the time. And [laughter] we will be back here on February 3rd at 5:30. And uh we'll see you then. Have a great night. Thank you.