City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

On September 15th, 2026, a regular meeting of the Santa Barbara City Council. Would you please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance?

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

Madam Clerk, would you call the roll, please?

Certainly, Council Member Friedman. Council Member Santamaria. Here. Council Member Gutierrez?

Present.

Mayor Ruff? Here. Mayor Pro Temsden? Here. Council Member Harmon? Here. And Council Member Jordan?

Here. All right. Is he here?

He's here.

All right. Do you have a ceremonial item to read?

Yes. Item 1, Mexican Independence Day.

Dia de la Independencia is Mexican Independence Day, September 16th, 2026. Whereas September 16th, 1810 marks the beginning of Mexico's struggle for independence, an historic movement that ultimately led to Mexico becoming an independent nation. And whereas Dia de la Independencia is a cherished celebration of Mexican history and heritage, honoring the courage, perseverance, and aspirations of those who sought freedom, and self-determination. And whereas the city of Santa Barbara is proud to recognize the generations of residents of Mexican heritage whose contributions have helped shape the character, culture, history, and vitality of our community, enriching our city through their traditions, accomplishments, entrepreneurship, civic engagement, service, and contributions to our cultural, educational, and economic life. And whereas the greater Santa Barbara Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has long supported and advocated for the Hispanic business community, fostering entrepreneurship, economic opportunity, and community connections while celebrating the heritage and contributions of Santa Barbara's Hispanic community. And whereas the celebration of Mexican Independence Day during Hispanic Heritage Month provides an opportunity for all Santa Barbans to honor Mexican heritage and celebrate the many individuals and families whose contributions continue to strengthen our community. Therefore, I, Randy Rouse, by virtue of the authority vested in me as the mayor of the city of Santa Barbara, do hereby proclaim September 16th, 2026, as Mexican Independence Day. Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you. Wow, this is so exciting. Thank you very much. Thank you, council members, Mayor Rouse. Thank you, members of the public. Well, what can I say? 54 years for me in Santa Barbara, pretty much all 54 years very active in the community, and it seems like things just get better and better. The weekend started with Carlos Santana at the Bowl. Mayor Rouse and I, both of us, were with him backstage, and it seems like things continue. Thank you. Thank you. On behalf of the greater Santa Barbara Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, we thank you very much, council members and Mayor Rouse, staff, for this beautiful, wonderful proclamation. I have a collection of them, and my collection just keeps getting bigger and bigger. So on behalf also of some of our board members are here, one thing that I would like, I'm very proud to say that our membership, which is almost 300, reflects our community. We welcome everyone and in my board all the 11 board members we have very we're very diverse so we welcome everyone and we want to make sure that we include everyone in our community because Santa Barbara is not just Latinos it's not just whites it's a whole very diverse community and we want to definitely promote that we are the chamber for everyone so thank you Thank you so much.

And thank you, Miguel, for all your years of work and effort with the Santa Barbara Chamber. We do appreciate that.

My pleasure. Thank you.

Okie dokie. With that, are there any changes to the agenda, Madam Administrator?

Thank you, Mayor Rouse. We will just, as we've done in the past, if there are any items pulled from consent, we will hear those before the general public comment.

Very good. Thank you very much. And with that, we will move to the consent calendar. Madam Clerk, you have some items to read.

Yes, item two, adoption of an ordinance to amend municipal code title 16, liquid and industrial waste disposal and to update standard condition and pretreatment program administrative documents, ordinance adoption, recommendation that council adopt by reading of title only an ordinance for the council of the city of Santa Barbara. amending Title 16 of the Santa Barbara Municipal Code relating to liquid industrial waste disposal by the amendment of various sections to authorize the Water Resources Director to establish and implement an electronic document receiving system consistent with the federal cross-media electronic reporting rule and to designate the Water Resources Director in place of the Public Works Director in various sections or subsections of Title 16. Item 4, adoption of the State Street Master Plan and amendment of Title 31 the Santa Barbara Municipal Code ordinance adoption, recommendation of the council adopt by reading of title only, and ordinance of the Council of the City of Santa Barbara adopting the State Street Master Plan and amending Title 31 of the Santa Barbara Municipal Code. Item five, authorize the city administrator to execute a loan for the development of land by the Housing Authority of Santa Barbara related to the Parma Court Project Ordinance Introduction Agreement, recommendation of Council A, introduce and subsequently adopt by reading of title only, and ordinance of the Council of the City of Santa Barbara approving a 30-year loan agreement with the Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara in the amount of $1 million for development of the real property located at 915 East Montecito Street to be used for permanent affordable housing to be secured by a deed of trust and a 90-year affordability control covenant imposed on real property and authorizing the City Administrator to execute such agreements subject to approval as to form by the City Attorney as necessary. Item 6, contract for Phase 5 poly and per Fluoroalkyl Substance Investigation Efforts with GSI Environmental Inc. at the Santa Barbara Airport Resolution Agreement. Recommendation that Council B adopt by reading of title only. A resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Barbara amending resolution number 2026-057 adopting the budget for fiscal year 2027 to appropriate funds for the contract for phase five poly and pair fluoroalkyl substances investigation efforts with GSI Environmental Inc. at the Santa Barbara Airport. Item seven. Fiscal year 2026 fourth quarter review resolution recommendation that Council C adopt by reading of title only a resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Barbara amending resolution number 2026036 to approve the proposed fourth quarter Q4 adjustments to fiscal year 2026 revenue and expenditure appropriations as detailed in the attached schedule of proposed Q4 adjustments and D adopt by reading of title only a resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Barbara amending the position salary control resolution number 2026.072 for authorized positions for fiscal year 2026. Changes are effective September 19th, 2026. Item eight, resolution approving the 2026 to 2028 hourly employees bargaining unit Memorandum of Understanding and amendment of resolution number 2026072, the position salary control resolution for fiscal year 2027 resolution. Recommendation of Council A, adopt by reading of title only a resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Barbara adopting the 2026 through 2028 Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Santa Barbara and the Service Employees International Union. Local 620, our Employees Bargaining Unit. and B, adopt by reading of title only a resolution of the Council of the City of Santa Barbara amending resolution number 2026072, the position and salary control resolution for fiscal year 2027, affecting the salaries of certain classifications in the Our Employees Bargaining Unit, effective September 19th, 2026. And that is it for consent, Mr. Mayor.

All right, thank you very much. Are there any items that need to be pulled for comment or extra votes? A separate vote, I should say. Okay, I will be pulling item four for separate vote. Are there any speakers online who wish to speak to a specific consent item?

We have one raised hand for Ana Garcia. I will call on Ana Garcia to find out what item.

Would you say that this item she wants to speak on, please?

Ana Garcia, can you please state which item you wish to speak on?

Yes, hello. My name is Ana Garcia, and I am here because Eric Friedman is running for mayor of Santa Barbara, and he is trying to run a campaign as your local nice guy next door.

Ms. Garcia, we're...

He's in York.

I'm sorry. Ana Garcia, we are looking for which item. If you wish to speak on a consent item, tell us which one. Otherwise, we'll bring you back at consent at a general public comment.

General public comment.

Okay, thank you. No raised hands for consent, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, very good. And then with that, we'll come back to, I shall entertain a motion for the balance of the consent calendar absent item four. Moved by Gutierrez. I'll second. Second by Friedman. May we have the vote, please?

Yes, this is a motion by Council Member Gutierrez, seconded by Council Member Friedman for the consent calendar except for item four. Please go ahead and vote.

Pass unanimously. Thank you very much. And I would request a separate vote on item four. So moved. Second. Okay. Moved by Sneddon, seconded by Jordan. May we have that vote, please?

Very good. This is a motion for the recommended action for item four. Motion by Mayor Pro Tem Sneddon, seconded by Council Member Jordan.

Please go ahead and vote. Passes 6-1. Okay, very good. That concludes the consent calendar. With that, we'll go for a report from the Finance Committee. Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Today, the Finance Committee heard two items. One was the fiscal year fourth quarter review. And for the fiscal year 26, the $1.6 million deficit for the year, but that was projected, so the numbers came in right where the original adopted budget came in. We do still have some challenges ahead that we are working to address in terms of some revenue and some potentially unexpected anticipation. But overall, for the last year, we came in where the budget was projected And we're continuing to look at our expenditures going forward. And that is item seven today on the council calendar that we just passed. And then the second item was to execute a loan for the development of the Housing Authority Parma Court Project. This is a partnership with Housing Authority, City of Santa Barbara contributing funding in the school district for 30 deed restricted affordable housing units. right across from the Trader Joe's on the east side. So we did unanimously approve that, and then that was a part of today's consent calendar. So those are 30 deed-restricted affordable units that will be in effect until 21-16 on the east side. All right, very good. Thank you very much.

And with that, we'll move on to general public comment. There's three minutes at the dice for anything that is not on today's agenda but within the purview of this body. And we'll start out with Mark Redmond. So just Mr. Reverend, we're not doing signs and stuff.

I'm giving Megan this. She won the Emmy for best council member. Sarah, can you pass this to Megan Harmon?

Go right ahead. She gets the white rose.

I think she's done a great job. She ought to run again, but she didn't run for mayor so bad. Anyway, I brought my elf on the shelf. I was Santa Claus the last three years, both in the Santa Nueva Mall and the one at La Cumbre. And anyone want some of these? I got about another 500 to pass out. A college kid made 3,000. I passed out a bunch of them. Anyway, the Emmys were last night, and the Chiefs won last night against the Denver Donkeys. Well, call them the Denver Broncos. I'm a fighter. I'm a fighter. Last night, I had a crazy dream. Santa Barbara was shining clean. My name in lights, City Hall, but maybe Eric Friedman's going to be there. Everybody's standing tall, affordable homes on every street, neighbors talking, people meet. Left and right, Republicans and Democrats, side by side, not fighting. I'm tired of the fighting. Got the whole town full of pride. They're saying, Mark, don't stop believing. You're a fighter. You can be mayor. Write in ballot. Eric says, Mark, you're not on the ballot. I said, I had 138 votes, and I know they're legal. But somebody in the county elections doesn't like a clown. If Zelensky, stand-up comedian, can be the leader of Ukraine, I can be the leader of this city, and I know how to lead this city. I've got a lot of good ideas. My idea was to have the shuttles going from Arlington to the, the wharf and they took it and ran with it. Now it's, you know, they've been doing it since April, 2025. Anyway, um, there's a lot of goals downtown needs. Every child believes and knows you can build a life you seek. If you dare to dream with me, less despair and less abuse. I want to run all those sex traders out of town and the drug dealers. More chances and more truth. Bring the American dream back home. Make this city strong enough. I hear the future calling my name, but I don't have any money. 165,000 donations from corporations. I'm running a grassroot committee with door hangers. And you know what? Maybe the people elect me because they're tired of politics as is. Megan probably knows that. Anyway, if you dare to dream with me, I want the chances for everyone to have a fair shot at the American dream. Not just the one percenters. And I mean, you know what? Gas prices are still up $2 a gallon. When is that war in Iran? And our kids are going to have to pay $3 trillion for the last four months. And half of our ammunitions are gone. What in the heck is going on in America? Let's get a democracy back, not an oligarchy. And let's take Trump down because he's done 34 felonies. Now his secretary... of defense has given him a pass and he should be in jail. I'm going to vote for the, I'm going to vote for him to be impeached the third time and convicted and go to jail.

Stacey Ribbage, Hispania.

Vote Redmond for mayor.

Thank you.

I'll give you a candy cane.

I was Santa Claus. It's Ms. Hispania's turn now. Thank you.

All right. Everyone have a good day. Paul's coming. This was in my backyard, sycamore leaf. It's dry in California, fall come early, five days early.

Mayor and council members, although there are topics I'd rather be discussing today, I'm here once again to discuss public records requests. On June 9th, I came here to request consideration of a community land trust, the kind of topic I'd rather be discussing for the Paseo Nuevo property. That same day, which is now more than three months ago, I submitted a public records request for documents substantiating the claims made in the June 2nd staff presentation. At that point, I didn't understand that months would go by with no production of documents to back up those claims. My goal is to always come informed. I request documents because I don't want to make comments based on misunderstanding or guesswork. Getting documents that help me understand the data and the thinking behind what's being considered lets me update my own understanding. I come to bring an alternative perspective, and I want to make sure that what I share is grounded in the best information available. The only documents I've received in response to my June 9th and 16th requests are the Coaten Memo from 2013 and the Long Range Property Management Plan from 2014. Related background material, but neither of those documents substantiate the claims made in the staff presentation. I'm talking about the claims that 100 to 200 affordable units would result from a $5.7 million housing trust fund contribution, the claimed $320,000 increase in parking revenue, the $120,000 increase in property tax revenue, and the claimed public benefits that would result from the purported $100 million in private investment. The Department of Finance letter that was referenced to support the valuation of the land at $0 was also not included. Under the California Public Records Act, each item requested is supposed to be closed in one of two ways, a statement that no such documents exist or a statement that documents exist but are being withheld under a specific exemption. Marking a request complete while producing something else entirely isn't either one of those. Other requests I have made are just regularly postponed every two weeks, citing either the need to search for and collect the requested records from field facilities or other establishments that are separate from the office processing the request, or the need to search for, collect, and appropriately examine a voluminous amount of separate and distinct records that are demanded in a single request. After several months of patience, I understand this takes time, I do begin to have questions whether there is a plan to ever provide those documents. This is a real impediment to my ability to come and comment here as a knowledgeable community member when I haven't been provided access to documents that are relevant and that belong to the public. What I really want to do is bring new evidence and new ways of thinking into conversations about what we need for our community, perspectives that would help us better achieve the outcomes we say we want. well-being for everyone in our community, access, things like housing affordability and vibrant walkable neighborhoods. It's important that I and other people who care about these issues have access to the documents. I encourage you to take that responsibility seriously and make documents available. Thank you.

Thank you. Matt Kilbrane.

If I can get a moment for this to come up before the clock starts, please. As all of you know, I'm a candidate for mayor. I was a candidate for mayor in 2021. And there's a lawsuit against you guys coming up for trial September 28, 2026. where the city of Santa Barbara conspired with a transgender person to accuse me of a hate crime I did not commit back in 2021 when I was running for mayor and didn't even make the news. So that's what the lawsuit's all about. So now I'm running for mayor again. And on September 11th, 2026, sailed a boat into harbor and got arrested. They arrested me for a restraining order that's expired that the city of Santa Barbara filed against me in 2022 after they cut the anchor chain on my boat and caused her to get destroyed. And I did a citizen's arrest on the person that cut the chain, I think. There's a few of them involved. But anyways, to pass over that and just get to what I wrote today that's on my website, I'm trying to get in touch with Police Chief Gordon, and I just met her. So for everybody to know, With the money I will win from the trial against the city of Santa Barbara on calendar in Ventura Superior Court, September 28th, 2026, I will introduce grand scale humanitarian projects such as subsidizing the rent for young parents. The case number is 24CV01175. The cause of action is defamation and conspiracy to commit defamation. When I ran for mayor of the city of Santa Barbara, I conspired with a transgender person to accuse me of a hate crime I did not commit and did not even make the news. On September 11, 2026, I brought a boat into the harbor and they arrested me for a crime I did not commit. I believe they thought they would have me taken care of in jail and I would not show up for my trial. I am requesting that the chief of police open an investigation, but she is ignoring me. I am thinking about contacting the Attorney General, but I am busy preparing for my trial. The press did not and will not report on how a candidate for mayor of Santa Barbara was arrested on 9-11. The Santa Barbara news press excluded me from the first mayoral debate. Thank you for hearing me.

All right, next speaker is Steven Sidlowski.

Beloved Mayor, City Council, and Santa Barbara citizens, I am Stephen Gerard Sidlowski, a Third Order Franciscan, and I would like to open up with Holy Scripture first. Counselors of peace have joy. This is in Proverbs 12, 20. I'm delighted to learn that Santa Barbara, you of course have a Franciscan mission here. Your anniversary date is actually December 4th, in case you did not know that. I'm a pro-life speaker, so I amplify the joy of the spirit of God is love for his creation. Some pro-life history to preface a new public safety possibility for Santa Barbara. Ronald Reagan, former governor of California and U.S. President, wrote the first letter of support to the Washington, D.C. March for Life to Nellie Gray, the founder. I met Nellie Gray in Washington, D.C. and learned the legal importance of pre-born personhood. Please know also that 4,000 citizens attended the California March for Life at the state capitol earlier this year. including myself. I'm providing you four contents for you to review. Content number one is the precious feet pin. This is provided by the Heritage House in Snowflake, Arizona by Missy Mwata. It shows how large our feet were in our mother's wombs at 10 weeks, okay? The second content I'm providing you is a general letter talking about the new direction of USA pre-born personhood cities. You're going to have, I think, your League of Cities meeting, and I hope some of you will start amplifying it later this month. Content number three is the most important. It's a resolution in support of a future Santa Barbara, California declaration of a friendly and safe pre-born personhood city. And finally, you have my Bible bookmark now, so you can contact me with any questions you might have in the future. I'd like to close with a simple song because music lightens the heart. On the back of your Bible bookmark, it's going to go, Let the beating heart, let the beating heart show you there is life in the womb. God bless you in your journey of life. It's time to make California golden with new pre-born personhood cities. Thank you. Jane Doe.

Thank you.

So I apologize for this mask, but the other day somebody told me that when I stood up here, I was seen on the TV. I didn't know that. And they weren't happy with what I had to say, and they were kind of mean to me. And it made me realize that all of you guys You guys have made a choice to do things good for us, to do what you think is best to make Santa Barbara a good place. And all of you, buddy, who comes up here and stands up for... Making things better, improving for a community puts their life at risk to some. Sometimes you've got people who hate you because you've done something that they didn't approve of. You said something that's upset them or something they misunderstood. And sometimes they love you because you've done what they wanted and it's all good. I don't know much about how the cities run. I want to be an active part of my community. I was raised to believe that you do things because they need to be done, whether somebody's watching you or not. You just take action. The other thing I've learned, I was taught, was that if you want to make a change, you've got to be the change. And I try to encourage my kids to make sure that if they don't like something, they go to City Hall, they tell them, follow the laws, don't break them. Because if you break them, you're going to pay the consequences. But there is a system set up to help you change things in the way you want to. So I'm wearing the mask because I don't want people hating me. I don't want to get hurt. One of the things you guys have heard me come and say about the cigarettes, I see that you guys are looking for money to do all the things you guys are doing. Maybe you can start a little group where you can give the people in the red outfits, the ambassadors, maybe an ability to ticket people who smoke since they're walking up and down Santa Barbara Street. Or maybe you can designate me a job where I can get that so that we can maybe get some money and also encourage people not to smoke. I am allergic to cigarettes. It's not I don't like cigarettes, but I'm allergic to it. And with COVID, with all the infections that people have had, there are other people like myself who need help with that. So please, can you please, please encourage the non-smoking here. I've gone around passing out pamphlets. I talk to people, and I approach them and I say, could you please move aside? I don't say, you know, turn off your cigarette. I say, would you please move aside? They get very volatile. I shouldn't have to be the one telling them because I'm not a policeman. I'm not an authority, but I am a citizen who needs to be able to have a place where I can breathe. you know, without feeling. So that, and then I'm running out of time, I see it. I just want to thank all of you for everything you've done. And I want to also encourage bathrooms, public bathrooms. I've watched a woman right across, next to the sheep, some fancy restaurant right on Cota Street, pee right there. And there's other people who are... Thank you.

Jeff Schaefer.

I like that mask.

Good afternoon, Mayor Ross, members of City Council. I want to thank you in great ways for all the work that you've done for the vulnerable in our city. Here today, we have a presentation coming before you on October 13th, but I've come today primarily because Alia Azariah can come today, and so she's going to do some public comment. I'm sure you read the independent article today And so I wanted you to have the opportunity to meet her while she's in Santa Barbara and kind of hear her story directly. And I want to thank city staff. I want to thank SBPD. I want to thank all of you for your involvement in the work we're doing related to ending the commercial sexual exploitation of children and youth. And if at times it seems like Jeff Schafer's become frustrated or when I started working with people on the streets, I was 40. in this city and now I'm 62 and so some of you might know as you approach not not retirement but saying that at some point you've got to you've got to hang it up and let other people kind of do the work and I've recognized within as we're trying to serve kids in our county and the system has been created around homelessness I mean we have coordinated entry we have we have professional case management throughout the county we have the vulnerability index right When it comes to some of the kids that we're talking about, that are 13, 14, 15, 16, we don't have any of that. We don't have the funding. We've started with a case manager at NOAA to help them replicate. We don't have the same energy or effort behind it. And we're talking about children. So when you think about like stating that during a study where it takes 17 times, right? Sometimes before somebody who's on the streets will accept services. Imagine being 13, 14, 15 and not even fully knowing what is happening in your life and who do you talk to? Who do you reach out to? How do you get assistance? It's hard enough for people like us to know how to navigate our own medical plan, right? So when it comes to trying to help kids, this is kind of the the final push effort for me, and so looking for all the support that we can get for that. Last thing I would say, because we won't be presenting on it on the 13th, is I'm meeting with Supervisor Hartman and former Supervisor Das Williams to begin to talk about the potential of a youth CSECI policy and prevention council. I had a policy council when I worked for the Central Coast Collaborative on homelessness. I'm wondering if we also need a policy council when it comes to working on this issue. And that would include working with all the major cities across our county. And so we'd be looking potentially for somebody from the Santa Barbara City Council if they wanted to join on that if we create it. So thank you for your time.

Thank you. Alia Azaria.

Yeah, thank you. My name is Alia Azariah. I'm Director of Collective Impact for a national organization that addresses exploitation and trafficking, both systemically and through services. I'm also a survivor of CSAC. If you read the independent article, I won't go too deep into what my experience was, but most of my exploitation did happen here, not just in Santa Barbara, but really in the ten blocks surrounding this specific building for many years in the early 2000s. And outside of my national work, I also contract locally outside of my role with Safe House Project to address gaps in the systems and services responding to CSEC youth, specifically in Santa Barbara County. And through that work, I have the opportunity to work alongside the Santa Barbara District Attorney's Office, Noah's Anchorage, Santa Barbara Juvenile Probation, SBPD, SBSO, Olive Crest, NOAA's, the CSAC Steering Committee, Rescue Mission, and others. And in that capacity, I have really the privilege of sitting with so many people, both service providers, professionals, elected officials, and of course, other survivors who share my experience of having been trafficked in this county. And I had an experience a few months ago where I sat with both a woman in her 70s who'd been out of her exploitation for about 50 years, and a 13-year-old who'd been out for a couple of days within the same week. And what stuck with me was how similar our experiences, our stories, our vulnerabilities, and our journey into that terrible experience was, despite how much has actually changed in our world in that time. And in many ways, specifically in our county and in our state, vulnerability has increased. We're living in with enormous wealth disparities. with housing instability, with unprecedented digital access to children and young people, the pathways through which somebody can identify, access and groom and exploit a vulnerable child have fundamentally changed and honestly gotten easier and more significant. But what else has changed is that we also have more equipped resources, more engaged systems, although we have huge gaps, as Jeff shared. We also have more public officials who understand this issue, who are committed, and are more willing to act than we ever have in our history before. And because of that, I also think we have a greater reason to hope than we have in other times. And so I just want to thank all of you, specifically Board of Supervisors, SBPD, SBSO, SBDA's office. for your previous support of the solutions that we've built to better protect and respond to Santa Barbara County youth that are vulnerable to CSECI. And I look forward to your continued support, your continued championship of this issue as we work to ensure that there are less and less children who are vulnerable and who of course end up experiencing this terrible thing. And that we continue to grow to be a community where we don't just acknowledge this issue, but we actually put systems and change and finances and time into the things that will actually combat this issue. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, do we have speakers online for general public comment?

No hands raised for general public comment, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, but I don't have a speaker slip for you. Okay, then I will walk on Zoom and speak. You're not going to let me speak here even though I signed up. Did you fill out a speaker slip? I signed up on Zoom. Oh, so you're here? Okay. So you just identify yourself and go ahead and speak then, please.

Hello, my name is Ana Garcia, and no matter how often you try to stop me from speaking, I'm gonna make it happen. I'm here to remind everyone that Eric Friedman is running for mayor of Santa Barbara, and he's trying to run a campaign as your local nice guy next door. He is endorsed by Salud Carbajal, so do with that what you will. It's important to remember that the donations accepted by candidates are value statements. Friedman has consistently voted against housing protections for us, the residents of Santa Barbara. He may have a perfectly logical explanation to offer for that, but I have a theory as well. In my opinion, based on the evidence of who is donating to his campaign, he has accepted a total of $195,228.78 in campaign funds. $29,489.78 of those funds are contributions from outside of Santa Barbara, meaning that they came from people who literally cannot vote for him because they literally don't live here. Where are some of the other major donations coming from for his campaign? Let me tell you. First, we have current out of touch mayor and council member Randy Rouse and Mike Jordan. So look at their politics and decide if they represent the SB you want to live in. The SEMA Corporation, it's a property management company that has given Friedman $4,996 and then again $4,999 in two separate donations. Kenny Slott from Investec Real Estate Company, $2,500. Scott Smeagol from Arcana Corporation, Lansco Properties Inc, $1,000. Peter Lewis, the real estate developer of the building that sold to UCSB offering market rate housing for UCSB employees, donated the max amount, $5,900, and then also donated $2,500 to Eric's city council run in 2021. Finally, and the most interesting, in my opinion, is Herbert Simon from Indianapolis, Indiana, giving $5,000. Who is Herbert, you ask? He's a real estate developer who lives in Indiana, owns the Indiana Pacers along with other sports teams, and has a home in Montecito that sits empty or is rented as a vacation rental to his billionaire pals, I assume. Pay attention to this pattern. Eric voted against housing protections for us because his loyalty is to his donors, the real estate developers. He will also probably be voting against the people in our demand to remove ALPR surveillance cameras later today. Your vote for Eric is a vote against the people of Santa Barbara. Choose your candidates wisely. I'll be voting for Kristen Sneddon. If you have a few spare dollars, consider donating to her campaign because otherwise we allow Friedman to control the narrative with his big real estate dollars. Let's show how we the people are united against corporate money and politics. Flush Brown down.

Okay. Further speakers? Madam Clerk, we're still no speakers online, correct?

Correct, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, very good. With that, we'll close public comment and move on to the administrative reports. You have an item to read?

Item 14, preview of statewide ballot initiatives for the November 3rd, 2026 general election.

That's in six weeks.

Right after Halloween.

All right, Ms. Anderson, Shelby?

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Barbara Anderson. I'm Senior Assistant to the City Administrator. And this afternoon, I'm joined by Carly Shelby, who's Deputy Director of Townsend Public Affairs. So we are here today because there has been a request from Council as well as citywide partner organizations, especially our affordable housing stakeholder groups, to facilitate an informational presentation on the measures that have been placed on the ballot for the November 3rd election. As you know, a number of these measures include proposals that are aligned with our legislative platform, but also include key components that would not be intended to have positive impact both for the city as well as our residents. We wanted to take this afternoon to walk through each of them and be able to answer any clarifying questions. So there's no need for council to take a position on any of the measures. But if you would like to do so, an action can be facilitated to support a resolution that would be drafted by staff in return for adoption. So at this time, I'll turn it over to Ms. Shelby.

Thank you, Barbara. And good afternoon, honorable mayor and members of the city council. As Barbara noted, I'm Carlin Shelby with towns and public affairs. Um, we can get into the 14 statewide ballot measures, um, that we have for consideration on the November 3rd ballot. So five were placed on the ballot by the legislature. Those are the first five that voters will see, while nine qualified through citizens initiative processes. The ballot could have been considerably longer. Six qualified initiatives were withdrawn following negotiations that included the Taxpayer Protection Act, which I'm sure many of you are familiar with. And another measure missed the signature verification deadline. Um, and even after all of those changes, voters will face many consequential decisions related to housing taxes, elections, healthcare, environmental review, and local revenue authority. Um, so beginning with proposition one, this is the statewide housing bond. This would authorize $11.25 billion in state general obligation bonds. Of that amount, $10 billion would support affordable housing programs, and 1.25 billion would support the CalVet home loan program. The housing funding is geared towards supporting new development, rehabilitation, preservation, and acquisition of both rental, housing, and home ownership, mostly targeting a zero to 80% AMI category. The legislature would appropriate the funding over several years, and the state general fund would pay the debt service. One important accomplishment that I want to note for local governments is something that we worked hard toward achieving, and that was the inclusion of $200 million for the local housing trust fund program. That program was established under the last statewide housing bond, and all of the funds were subsequently exhausted after five successful rounds. So it's really positive to see this program be invigorated. Um, for Santa Barbara, this creates, um, a potential new funding source, especially with the city having a local housing trust. Um, moving onto proposition two, this is more of a technical bill that was put on the ballot by the legislature. It would double the maximum size of the state's budget stabilization account from what is currently 10% to 20% of annual general fund revenue. So this does not impose a new tax or require the state to deposit the full amount immediately. It simply allows California to build a larger reserve structure when revenues and budget conditions permit. The argument for this measure from proponents is that California's revenue structure is usually extremely volatile given that we have a very progressive tax structure that depends on our high income earners. And a larger reserve could help the state avoid severe program cuts borrowing and payment deferrals during recessions or emergencies. Moving on to Proposition 3, this would remove the scheduled 2031 expiration date for the higher income personal tax rates across California, which were originally approved in 2012. Those rates currently apply to higher income taxpayers. The measure is estimated to maintain between $5 to $15 billion in annual state revenue. although that amount would fluctuate significantly, again hearkening back to our progressive tax rate structure. California relies on these income from capital gains and high earners, and we deposit most of this funding into K through 12 schools and community colleges and other education programs. So if this were not approved, we could see additional budget volatility and decrease in revenues associated with these services. Proposition 4 would remove California's statewide prohibition on public campaign financing and allow state and local governments to establish these programs. So no city or county under this measure would be required to create such a program. Instead, the measure would give each jurisdiction the legal authority to decide whether Public financing makes sense locally. I believe there's only a handful of cities throughout the state that do this presently Depending on the model selected a program could match small donations it could provide grants to qualifying candidates or distribute voter directed campaign vouchers and Any participating jurisdiction would need to establish eligibility spending disclosure and oversight rules So this could be an option for the city or for any city that wishes to choose to do that. I Um, proposition five really came out of the, uh, 2021 recall of governor Newsome. It would change how California replaces a statewide elected officer following a successful recall. So under the current system, voters answer two questions at the same election. It is, should we recall this candidate and who should replace them? Um, under proposition five voters would only decide on whether to recall the officer. In that circumstance, let's say that the the governor is recalled The lieutenant governor would fill the place until a subsequent election where they would ask that second question So the measure applies to statewide officers not anyone other than those folks on Proposition 37 and now we're moving into the measures that have been placed on the ballot by a voter initiative. I This would authorize up to $25 billion in bonds to provide mortgage assistance for qualifying home buyers. I want to make a distinction between the $11.25 billion general obligation bond funds that came from the state. This is financed purely through private lenders. So the program would finance up to 17% of the purchase price of a qualifying newly constructed or converted home. The general income ceiling would be 200% of the area median income. So really targeting those middle class home buyers within the 80% to 120% or 200% AMI category. Applicants would generally have needed to live in California for at least one year, provide a down payment of at least 3%. and occupy their property as their primary residence. So the program is structured so that homeowner payments would ultimately repay the bonds. Again, it goes up to $25 billion, but we don't know for sure how high that number could get. Proposition 38 is another statewide bond measure financed by general obligation bonds. This would authorize $8.4 billion in state bonds for immunology and immunotherapy research. Half of the funding would support new or designated research institute, while the other half would be distributed through competitive grants to public and nonprofit agencies. And at least half of the funding would target cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's disease. Proposition 39 would establish a new identification requirements for voting in California. People voting in person would need to present qualifying identification. Vote by mail voters would need to provide the last four digits of an approved identification code number that would need to be newly created. And counties would now have new annual responsibilities related to citizenship verification and reporting that they do not currently have. Implementation would require counties to revise their voting systems, election materials, staff training, provisional ballot procedures, voter outreach and verification processes. And the recurring statewide cost is estimated to exceed approximately $10 million annually. So this is really one that would impact Santa Barbara County, not necessarily the city directly, but the broader debate will likely focus on election security and voter access. Proposition 40, so the next three measures are kind of the confusing conundrum of the billionaire tax measures and the other two that have been put on the ballot to thwart the passage of the billionaire's tax from the opponents. Proposition 40 was the initial billionaire tax. So it would impose a one-time tax of up to 5% on covered assets held by certain individuals and trusts with more than $1 billion in assets. The measure excludes real estate and certain retirement accounts and it could generate tens of billions of dollars with 90% generally dedicated to healthcare and the remaining 10% directed to food assistance or education. So the revenue estimate is significant, but also the uncertainty. State officials anticipate that California could lose some ongoing tax revenue if affected taxpayers change their residency or restructure their assets. And then Proposition 41 would require audits of programs supported by a new billionaire's tax or statewide special tax like what Proposition 40 would enact. So it would require an initial audit when a tax is proposed and audits after enactment. So the measure would also restrict the state's ability to exempt new tax revenue from the constitutional appropriations limit, meaning that it could not be spent or kind of saved as we currently do with general fund revenues. That provision is particularly important because it could conflict with Proposition 40's proposed asset tax structure. And then finally, to round out the billionaire tax measures, Proposition 42 would prohibit certain future taxes on financial assets, business interests, intellectual property, other forms of personal property. It would also prohibit certain retroactive seat taxes taking effect in 2026 or later. So it essentially would preempt the enactment of Proposition 40. It also creates that direct conflict. In sum, Proposition 4 would establish an asset-based tax while Proposition 42 could prohibit the state from collecting or imposing that. And then finally, just to tie it all in a bow, the simplest way to understand the differences between these three is that Proposition 40 creates the tax. Proposition 41 constrains on how its revenue could be managed. And Proposition 42 attempts to block this type of tax altogether. All three measures would amend the California Constitution. So none has automatic priority over the others. If conflicting provisions pass on the same ballot, the general rule is that the measure receiving the higher number of affirmative votes controls the extent of the conflict. So only one can prevail. We can't have multiple of them passing. And then two more. Proposition 43, this was actually the deal cut in solution for the Taxpayer Protection Act being pulled from the ballot. It would require a two-thirds voter approval for all special taxes. Right now, if you have a citizen's initiative, You enjoy a 50 plus 1% approval rate at the ballot if it's put on by citizens. So this one could make future dedicated revenue measures considerably harder to approve if one is seeking kind of that special tax structure. This repeals a very famous court decision, the Upland decision, and it's something that the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association and other kind of opponents of the Citizens Initiative structure have been pursuing for some time. And then Proposition 44, this is one of the health clinic spending initiatives that we've seen on the ballot over the last couple of years. This would require non-profit federally qualified healthcare centers to spend at least 90% of designated funds on program services and no more than 10% on administration. Supporters argue that this directs more money to patient care. Health centers may argue that the definition of administration could constrain necessarily spending on technology, but this is really one that we've seen before, and I believe that it's failed multiple times on the last ballot. And then finally, Proposition 45 is a measure that has to do with CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. At a high level, it would create an expedited process for a broad group of projects considered essential. This would include most housing, transportation, water, healthcare, school, broadband, clean energy, and wildfire mitigation projects. So environmental review for a qualifying project would generally need to be completed within a year, 365 days. And courts would have 270 days to resolve a CEQA challenge. The measure would also make changes involving the alternative analyses, evidence, judicial remedies, and the ability to amend the law. The argument is that CEQA has been expanded beyond its original environmental purpose, and that it's frequently used to delay projects for reasons unrelated to environmental protection. Opponents would argue that the measure goes much further than accelerating environmentally beneficial or affordable housing projects and that it could lead to unintended consequences such as freeway expansions and energy facilities. I will note that this is not a constitutional amendment. This is an initiative, statutory reform. So if for any reason this is passed and requires any cleanup, the legislature, by virtue of a two-thirds vote, would have the authority to modify some of these provisions. And that concludes my lengthy presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

All right, very good. Thank you very much for the presentation. We have one speaker, Penn McCormick. You have three minutes, Mr. McCormick.

Good afternoon. Mayor Rouse, city council members, Kelly. If I have paint on myself, I was just at COTA. We're working on painting this week. My name is Penn McCormack. I'm here on behalf of Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County in support of the city taking a formal position of support of Proposition 1, the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act. At Habitat Santa Barbara, we see every day that solving our housing crisis requires a comprehensive approach. That means addressing homelessness and creating new affordable rental housing, but it also means preserving a pathway to home ownership for working families who increasingly cannot afford to remain in this community and the community they serve. Prop 1 makes a significant statewide investment in that full housing continuum, including $600 million for CalHome, California's only state program dedicated specifically to the production and preservation of affordable home ownership. For organizations like Habitat and other nonprofit housing providers in Santa Barbara, CalHome is an essential tool. It helps nonprofit home builders leverage public funding alongside private philanthropy to turn projects into homes and give lower-income families an opportunity to build long-term stability and generational assets through homeownership. These state investments also work in partnership with local dollars. Prop 1 includes $200 million to support local housing trust funds like the ones we have here, strengthening the ability of communities like Santa Barbara to leverage our own housing investments. We appreciate the city's continued partnership with Habitat and its commitment to addressing housing affordability locally. A formal position on Prop 1 is an opportunity for the city to communicate the importance of continued state investment across the full spectrum of affordable housing. Thank you for your time and continued partnership.

Thank you. Speakers online for this, Madam Clerk?

No, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you very much. Okay, with that, we'll go back to council. I think we'll start with a round of questions. This is a little unusual because we don't usually bring this kind of activity to council for positions outside of the ledge platform. So I think we'll go ahead and have a round of questions. And then if anybody cares to input or deliberate on a direction for staff, I think we don't really have a defined action per se. You're looking for potentially direction to draft something, is that correct?

So I think, Mayor, what we're looking for is if there are any of these propositions that the council would like us to bring back a formal resolution to either support or oppose. And so I think that's what we're looking for is just direction to bring that back.

Okay, very good. So we'll start with a round of questions from everybody first and we can move into that kind of deliberation. Ms. Sneddon.

Thank you, Mayor Ross. And I do have just a question, I guess, about formal resolutions and is that with the idea of the city posting sort of

endorsements of propositions or where does the the resolution is just for us to let community know what would be beneficial from the city's perspective for the residents of Santa Barbara so typically we would post it on our legislative page share it with our legislative delegation also Townsend would have a copy so they would know and could advocate that the city of Santa Barbara supports or opposes and I don't know if there's any other places that we

Yes, I think there's an opportunity for us to distribute through our City News and Brief and other informational mechanisms to, again, educate the public about the propositions and the position of the City Council.

Great. And then I would just have two questions. One, are there any specifically on here, I mean, I'm I know what I would recommend positions on certain of these, but any of these that have to do with data centers or that we anticipate might be streamlining data centers or anything that could be against data centers.

Yes, thank you, Councilmember, and happy to take that question. Out of all of the 14 proposed initiatives, I believe that the one that may be tangentially involved in data center, maybe not necessarily streamlining, but accessories to data centers, could be Proposition 45. The language associated with the CEQA streamlining processes includes kind of a long list of vague categories that I think could have some additional information. So while not explicitly streamlining data centers, I could see accessories to them being streamlined.

And I agree with that assessment, too. So I was hoping to get clarification on that. And then... Any of these specifically that have to do with local control versus state control from our sort of charter city perspective?

Yeah, from the charter city perspective, I would say that Proposition 43 is one of the largest changes that we would see, and that really just has to do with the ability to place measures on the ballot and, you know,

effectuate them for revenue purposes okay so sort of regardless of what we might think otherwise this would be more difficult for us to operate as a charter city okay thank you so much thank you uh i don't see any further questions so we can move on to if anybody would like to either deliberate or give direction for coming back with stuff i know that uh I find it's helpful because I get asked constantly about the different ballot measures, and so it's nice to have this kind of information going forward. I'm not a huge fan of the initiative of the law process myself, but I think it's good for us to be able to at least be informed about what may affect our local municipalities. And with that, I'll come back to counsel for anybody that has a comment or input on this process. Mr. Friedman.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Carly, for being down here. I think over the past few years that we've had Townsend, it's been really beneficial for us at the city to have you in Sacramento and also in Washington advocating on our behalf for statewide issues, but also what we locally hear. Just in general, on Proposition 1, the bond, fully supportive of that, and we do need to take a position on that. I recommend that we do take a position. In support of it, housing is one of the top issues, if not the top issue that we're facing in our community, affordable housing in particular. And on top of that, that is the funding mechanism to refund from the state the match for the local housing trust funds. And that was the whole reason for creating the local housing trust fund is to secure those matches. And it did lead to the project with the housing authority down the street in my neighborhood. where we have 45 units that are being constructed right now. We set up the Housing Trust Fund, got the state match, and then the Housing Authority did the rest. So it's very important, and I want to especially thank Senate Pro Tem Ramon because she went too bad to include that as part of this. It wasn't initially in there. And so to recognize that, it's important that we at Santa Barbara recognize that and how it will benefit us here locally for Proposition 1. And then there's all the other benefits as well for the housing. And then in terms of Prop 43, which is the other one, that is one where I also support recommendation not to, let me put that back, a recommendation to oppose that. This is one in the California League of Cities has taken a position on and is not supportive of this because of the impacts that it would have to local governing and the ability for local governments through citizens initiatives and the citizens wanting to and the residents wanting to support local programming. It would make it that much harder because those are majority votes right now. And to have 35% of the people vote no and then that service would go away, essentially, or the possibility. That gets into issues of fairness and equity in terms of what the residents want. The league has sent, throughout the course of the year, has really followed this. I know that through my work as the Channel County's president of the league, we've sent out to all the cities here opposition to this, so I would support bringing that back as well for formal opposition and sharing that with it because of the impacts that it could have to us when we look forward to our what we need to be able to do in the future for our revenues as well as providing services. And then the last one, and I appreciate the question being raised about data centers, because we had talked about that this morning on Prop 45, that there is an unintended consequence there. So how we can either, if it's opposed because of that unknown, where we don't want to be streamlining data centers, but we want to make sure that we're taking every precaution, throughout, in our region, Santa Barbara and in the county here, to ensure that those just don't pop up and we have an unintended consequence where we're trying to support housing, which is the goal of this, could lead to something that is vastly different than that. So if we could have, if we have to take opposition to it, I'm okay with that, but at the same time, we maybe get more information on whether or not the data centers would be streamlined through it. Because that is the fundamental issue because when you look at who's supporting these and who's not, this gets into housing production. And that's something that's also a priority. So I want to make sure we understand the tradeoff there and the data center issue more. So maybe when you come back, we can fully understand the data center issue. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Sanaria.

Thank you, Mayor Rouse. I agree with Mr. Friedman on 43 and Prop 1, but I wanted to add a couple more. So yeah, also agree, I'm okay with us taking a formal position of no on Prop 43, because that would, of course, limit our ability here for citizens to have their own initiatives. YES, ON PROP 1, THANK YOU SO MUCH, CARLA. YOU DID A GREAT JOB AT EXPLAINING ALL THE BENEFITS TO IT. PROP 45, THANK YOU, MAYOR POTEMS-NETTEN, FOR BRINGING UP THE ISSUE OF THE DATA CENTERS. MY CONCERN IS THAT AND, I MEAN, WHEN WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HOUSING PRODUCTION AND EXPEDITING HOUSING PRODUCTION, WE HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WHAT IS IT COMING AT THE COST OF. AND WHILE WE DO NEED TO BUILD MORE HOUSING, WE CANNOT BE, FOR ONE, OVERBUILDING, WE CANNOT BE giving developers the ability to just bypass these very important environmental regulations solely for the purpose of building more housing, because that is going to come back and catch up with us later when our air and water quality is affected. So I'm more than happy to take a position of no on Prop 45. I think that would be the... ESPECIALLY WITH THE HISTORY THAT SANTA BARBARA HAS OF BEING A LEADER IN ENVIRONMENTAL WORK, HONESTLY, ACROSS THE COUNTRY. THEN THERE'S OTHERS THAT WERE LISTED HERE BY OUR STAFF WITH THE MEASURES WITH THE GREATEST INTEREST TO THE CITY. I WOULD LIKE TO ADD A YES ON PROPOSITION 40 AND SUBSEQUENTLY A NO ON PROPOSITION 41 AND 42. Proposition 40 is definitely not perfect, but it is going to be critical for us to ensure that healthcare can continue to be funded across the state, especially in the face of the cuts to healthcare funding that we've seen through the Trump administration. Prop 41 and 42 would essentially invalidate Prop 40, so I think it would make sense for us to take a position on those as a package. And I will be honest, with Prop 40, I mean, I have concerns about the fact that it's temporary, and it's going to give us this funding, but it's not really solving the long-term structural issue of how we fund healthcare in California. But it is, in my opinion, a sort of pilot program so that we can see that you can tax billionaires, you can tax people with excessive wealth, and no, the economy's not going to crumble. So... I'll just reiterate really quickly, a no on 43, a yes on one, a no on 45, a no on 40, oh sorry, a yes on 40, and a no on 41 and 42. Thank you.

Ms. Sneddon.

Thank you, Mayor Rouse. And thank you for this presentation, this opportunity, and it's really nice to see you in person. So I'll just go down in order of the numbers. Prop 1, yes. I mean, anything that helps towards the local housing trust fund. And this is one of the purposes of what it was formed for. And those matching funds are really important. And this one specifically names veterans. And I think that is an area that we're not necessarily specifically addressing. So Prop 1, yes. I would say yes, Prop 2, 3, 4, 5. In Prop 37, a strong yes, and that's another one, mortgages for middle-income buyers, that is the missing middle, and we've struggled with that quite a bit, and if there are ways to have those first-time buyers, home-buying opportunities, so very strong yes on Prop 37. On Prop 39, a very strong yes, no on the voter ID, especially right now, but really always. And I would hope that we could come out strong against Prop 39. I would say yes to Prop 40, and then no to the conflicting Prop 41, 42. definitely no on prop 43 because it conflicts with our charter city and 44 I would say no for the reason that some of our nonprofit health clinics this could be too constraining and and thinking of that and then for 45 I I don't know if there is time to come back with more information. I mean, this is coming soon. And I would say a very strong no on 45. My concern here is streamlining of data centers and then it's also energy, water, possibly grid, things that have to do with capacity. These aren't small one-off housing projects that might be exempt. These are large projects that can link up across the whole state and we would sort of immediately lose control over those and those larger systems are those that might have the largest environmental impact to our water systems. And energy might sound all good, but there are a lot of energy sources that are very water intensive, space intensive, that I wouldn't want to exempt from CEQA.

So I think what we could do is if the council wants us, it sounds like a couple folks would like some more information, particularly about Prop 45. So we could bring back a potential resolution with that additional information the council could choose as part of the package, and the council could choose not to take a position. Just because we bring it back does not mean the council has to vote on it. Got it, thank you.

Well, I'm a strong no on 45, either way. And then I would add, sort of for future, since we're here as a group and we rarely do this all together, I would really like to see us for future advocating for replacement in some way of the funding that was once the redevelopment agency, so something in community reinvestment. We talked about that yesterday. We need some way to be reinvesting back in any kind of formal opposition to data centers, AI data centers, any kind of formal opposition to state parks being taken over by federal overreach. and then any positions on major issues that take away local control, and then anything to do with ocean marine sanctuaries or protections. And then I'd like to make the recommendation that because so many of these have to do with sustainability and resilience, and that department is working with local government climate alliance, that if I could suggest, and we discussed this yesterday, maybe at least one joint meeting with the legislative committee, recognizing that that committee will be entirely new starting January, and then also the Sustainability and Resilience Committee will be entirely new in January, that there might be a joint meeting between those two on specifically moving into the future initiatives or things that we could support specifically about sustainability and resilience. And thank you so much for bringing this forward. Ms. Harmon.

Thank you. I agree. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for the report. I guess just a couple reactions. There's a lot of what all my colleagues have said that I agree with. I still sort of remain fundamentally confused about what our approach to advocacy is, though. I had sort of been under the impression that we're going to be very, very focused. And while in the sense that these propositions all sort of affect us in the global sense, to me, I guess I don't totally understand, are we taking a position on everything, even when it says there's no local revenue impacts, or are we really trying to be targeted and really hyper-specific and focused in our advocacy, which is how I sort of understood it. I think they're just two different things.

I think what we've generally tried to do is be focused, and so I think the three that are particularly specific impact would be Prop 1, Prop 43, and then potentially 45. So I think if we are going to recommend just, we're not saying the council should take a position on all of the measures, but I think consistent with our past practice, you know, being a little more targeted in the approach. Thank you.

That's very helpful. That's what seems to make best sense to me in terms of how to be really effective with our advocacy in Sacramento. But of course, if the council takes a different direction, obviously I will support the majority. Those were the ones that I picked out as being really aligned with our both sort of specifically stated priorities for our legislative work, and so I'll just say quickly, Prop 1, my colleagues already said it, fully in support of that and really would encourage us to take a strong support position. Prop 45, what was the other one? There was one before that.

43.

43, and that's a no, so I agree with my colleagues on that. And then I am in a different place on Proposition 45. I really support CEQA streamlining. I have seen so many really critical, important, good projects absolutely be crushed under the weight of an impossible CEQA regime. I personally would like to see us do an oppose unless amended to specifically carve out data centers within the list of approved projects. With that amendment, I support CEQA streamlining. I think it's necessary. And I understand there's a risk with everything, but There's also a profound risk that these good projects that we need, these infrastructure projects that are critical to the future of our state, simply just can't be built. And we're seeing them fail over and over and over and over. And so I personally support it but agree with the carve-out and so would advocate on my end for an oppose unless amended.

Mr. Jordan.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thanks for whittling it down to three. I was pretty much tracking with Council Member Sneddon all the way to CEQA. But I share the same, I think, as Council Member Harmon does on 143. Those are great for me. 45, I agree with her, too. I've been in the sandbox long enough to see if a project isn't sent away, it is financially crushed to get from idea to completion. And that more and more today includes even big projects, but also just includes normal housing projects that we want to be built. I mean, we don't even, there's no doubt in my mind, I don't know, and everybody sitting behind me doesn't really know the cost that that brings to a completed project that we put through the system every week here. And then we moan that something can't be built that is intrinsically more affordable. So something's got to be done. And if the devil's in the details, even that line is not written right because it sounds really good. I'm old enough that I don't trust any initiative ever. So I'm game for those three, but I agree we should be making a statement that there is a need for some type of CEQA resolution. I'm also old enough that I get disturbed that 25% of these are citizen initiatives because I think those are a failure of the system as we've designed it. Nobody's held accountable except for the decidedly special interests that had the funding to put together that initiative, totally for their benefit. And if the people sitting in front of you at whatever level are not doing the job or not putting out putting laws in place that you agree with, that's where you take that into your hands and take care of it. I can't think, I mean I probably can if I worked hard at it, but I just can't really think I appreciate ever a citizen initiative and frequently they just don't work out as they were said to work out because somebody's always got their finger in that from their personal point of view, so. I'm happy with those three. Most of the others, if you want to get into them, I think I tracked on everything the same as Council Member Sneddon did until we got to CEQA. Thank you.

Mr. Freeman.

Thank you. A great discussion.

It's just Council Member Harmon's point, the pose unless amended. But since we can't amend it because it's a ballot measure.

Council Member Freeman, no.

So I just wanted to, it's what's on there. So that, to me, would actually lead us more towards the position of a, If it was you know, maybe the legislature next year We could make a comment to those comments setting it up for the next legislative cycle, but we don't have that option I just wanted to clarify. Okay.

Thank you. You are correct.

I Know someday I'm gonna discuss to Go ahead Apologies me routes.

I just put myself in the queue call on me whenever you want. So Well, I can turn it off and then wait I just was going to ask that if we're focusing in, which I think is a good idea, that we really consider Prop 39 because it really does impact voter ID and citizenship checks really particularly impacts our local electorate and our community's ability to vote. And I think it's strong that it does affect us locally. So I would ask that also be considered in one of our focused advocacies.

Question for you, Mr. Dominguez. We're not actually, we're provide direction as needed. So we're not actually, are we doing a vote per se? What are we doing with staff here today? I don't really understand.

Yes, honorable mayor. I think, and then Mr. McAdoo stepped out for a second, but hearing what she said and looking at the agenda item, what we're looking for is direction in terms of being able to come back. So picking legislative propositions or anything that you would like us to come back with in terms of,

Either supporting or against having a motion to that effect would be most helpful to give us that direction and mayor us I just want to clarify we would need yeah a motion a second a full vote of council to draft a resolution for each of these positions We can do it all at once but it would come back as resolutions on a consent agenda item I'm really uncomfortable up here debating language from an issue of law An issue of law is usually mr. Jordan said it's hastily written.

It's not it's a failure of our legislative process and And what you're talking about is if it's our language. So when you go to the propositions on the ballot, it does require, I know that Ms. Shelby and company have done the deep dive and you're trying to not kill us with too much detail. However, I'm uncomfortable with us going down this direction. I think the briefing is great. I think it's a fabulous idea. But the idea that we're doing something out of our legislative platform process, which we normally do this with, is new. I'm not very comfortable with it. I think the initiative process is a very political one and very politically driven. And I think we have our own issues, and I think things are going to be revealed to us as we go on. So if you bring things back for discussion, that's great. Things with a printed resolution is something I... I don't think I want to be a part of it. I don't think that's something that we do. Now, if it comes through the ledge platform process and the advocacy letter wants to be written, that's fine. But I'm just a little curious on why we're, like I say, debating this quasi-legislative thing that is initiative law, which is driven by usually special interests on one side or the other, both. So I'm a little... little uncomfortable with that. Mr. Attorney, you had a comment you wanted to add?

Sure. To answer your question, maybe to assuage your fears, I know we don't have the resolutions before us today, but you mentioned the advocacy letters. I think that's the shape of what the resolutions would be. If you look at most of our resolutions are acts of support or condemning an act. So we wouldn't be in the resolution dissecting something in terms of the wording, it would just be a general overall, you know, here's the substance of the bill. It's an expression of either support or not. That could be the form of the legislation. So we have, I mean, we do have the letters you talked about, but the resolution is, a collective, it's also a way to effectively do the same thing that those letters do as well.

Well, of course, as we speak as a city or a city council, and we've got a split vote, what does that mean in terms of our, I mean, obviously the majority of council says X, but.

Mayor Ross, we wouldn't move forward with a resolution if there wasn't a majority of council in support of it.

Yeah, but I mean, if it was a 4-3, there'd still be a majority of council supporting it. And is that really the word of council is the word of all people up here?

No, that's a, that's a fair concern. I wanted to clarify to, um, from what the city attorney said, our advocacy letters are to legislators that are still in the legislative process, right? So it can be very pointed, very specific. We then ask for or request amendments, um, you know, to specific bills. This is to, um, convey our support or opposition to the public as they're going to the ballot. Um, so again, it's unusual for the city council to take positions on ballot measures that are statewide ballot measures. We did want to bring this forward because we were getting a lot of fair concerns and questions about the complexity of what we're dealing with on the ballot before us. So we definitely primarily are here for educational and informational purposes. But you also, again, are welcome to take action.

Well, my point exactly. The complexity is exactly right. And that's the problem with initiative log. And the people, I really do appreciate the information and the presentation so that we can help our constituents understand and maybe And we all can take our individual positions because we're all voters. But I'm just a little nervous about going forward and just saying this is what the city recommends on this X, Y, and Z. So I'd like to say this process is new, it's different, and I'm not comfortable with the way this straw poll thing we've been doing up here is going.

So whatever you want to do.

How's Peggy? Well, it did sound like there were strong majority council opinions on Proposition 1 and Proposition 43. And then I think we can do some additional research on Prop 45 and bring that back and let the council make a decision about how to move forward, whether or not to take a position. But I think both 1 and 43 are very clear within the city's purview, very impactful to the city. and have very clearly defined in terms of their impact. So I think those are pretty clear.

If that's the case, then can we take this as we do in other cases with council direction where you'd go forward with what you've assumed was the consensus up here, or do you actually need a hard vote?

We have the consensus. We'd come back with the resolutions.

No, I get that, but I mean today.

Yes, so I think the consensus is that For Prop 1, we'd bring back a resolution in support. For Prop 43, we'd bring back a resolution opposing. And then for Prop 45, potentially a resolution opposing, depending on the additional research and clarification of the language.

I just didn't want to go down the entire list and go yay, nay with everybody. I just think that's out of bounds for what we do.

I think what we would recommend is probably keeping it narrow on those pieces of legislation that really do have direct impact on the city's legislative powers and financial impacts. All right. We've got a couple of lights on. Ms. San Maria?

Thank you, Mayor Rouse. I'd like to ask my colleagues if you're willing to take a formal position on taxing the billionaires at Prop 40. I know that it might be seen as it's not something that's going to impact us here locally. It is. These are our own residents that are being affected by those cuts to health care funding. I've been asked by constituents if the city can take a position on this, especially because of the conflicting propositions. And I do think that in the spirit of education, if we are able to educate our constituents on this is why the city is taking these positions. That would be beneficial. So, I mean, even just to bring back a resolution, you may vote against, you know, taking a position at that time. But I'm curious to see if anyone else is willing to take a position on taxing. It's going to be the top 200 earners earning over a billion dollars, so only those with excessive wealth. So just wanted to see if anybody else is willing to take a position on that.

And this is kind of my point, really, that we're going to be doing this. But anyway, your question still stands, Ms. Santa Maria. So anybody on council? Okay, I'm just waiting to see if there's a – do you want to respond to her or do you have something else to say?

I'm going to respond to her.

Okay. Ms. Nedden.

Thank you, Mayor Vow. So I personally support 40 strongly. I don't know I would support if the city was comfortable taking a position on that. And maybe for something like this, maybe we need a larger majority to support something if the city is standing behind it. But the two that I do want to flag, I mean, you know, getting it down to five, but the one for mortgages for... think that would be really helpful to residents of our city and be in line with our housing element goals and so that's where I think the tie-in for that one is and I feel very strongly that the prop 39 on the voter ID given how much of our city would be impacted by that as voters and I think that's a major impact locally to our city. So I would say 1, 37, 39, 43, and then 45 seems like we might not have all on board, and 40 I would support, but we might not have all on board. Just down to those.

Ms. Harmon.

Thanks, Mr. Mayor. So again, where I'm having some trouble here is I can tell you what my position on Prop 40 is, which is that I strongly support it. But that's different from whether the city has made an analysis that it is a good thing for the city given all the potential risks and what I believe is a clear potential reward. So with any number of these, I And it's sort of what I was trying to allude to earlier. I have my own personal, what I'm going to do on my ballot. And I do think that that is different than the position that the city can or should take on all of these propositions. And so I guess if we can come back with an analysis that articulates that, I don't know that really, Ms. Anderson, you look like this is devastating idea, and I also don't want to ask you to do this, so I don't know. And then on top of that, are we going to be sending out our positions to voters in a widespread way? Are we making a mountain out of a molehill here? I think we might be making this a bit more complicated.

Council Member Harmon, I think that's why you saw in the staff report that there was only two staff recommended positions on two of the individual propositions for exactly what City Administrator McAdoo was articulating, which was a direct impact to the city, either negative or positive. So again, I know it's a balance of we wanted to respond to our constituencies that more education and more information about these propositions is needed. But you're right that it's now led to a kind of an unwieldy process. that I don't think directly benefits the city right now to take positions on that many propositions.

Mr. Duermes. Thank you, Honorable Mayor. I think Council Member Harmon and Ms. Anderson kind of stole my thunder, but I think you're right. There is a plethora of bills, and don't forget, I think Ms. Anderson did an excellent job explaining how this is different from the advocacy letter because this is going to the public, the voters. So I guess when you're looking at what the recommendations and the guidance are, and why we have the staff recommendations, the way to separate it is, I think all of them have impacts to the city, but what is direct impact versus indirect, right? A lot of these are going to affect people and have a direct impact, but when it talks about our governance, our ability to function, that is more direct. So that might be the bright line rule in terms of affecting your governance, affecting our local rules, affecting our process, and that's why staff, I think, highlighted these two. So that may be the bright line in terms of, you know, what bills you would want to make such a resolution on versus in general. Maybe that will take something and make it at least more concise and efficient. So.

Mr. Henry, you had another comment on this?

Very briefly, thank you, Mayor Rouse. Thank you, Council Members Harmon and Mayor Pro Tempsenet for supporting to tax the richest in California. It's okay if the majority does not want to take a position on 40. My reasoning for that is because of the complexity, we need to be able to explain how these would counter each other because that is the biggest question that I'm getting from the public. But if we don't want to go forward with that and it's just myself and Councilmember Harmon and Councilmember Sneddon who are in support of taking a position at all in Prop 40, it's okay if we don't end up doing that. But I do want to echo that Prop 37 and especially Prop 39, those should be considered They, especially Prop 39, that has significant impacts here in the city, in the county, as we are working to protect our elections from masked agents being there intimidating voters. And so, this is one of those things that, I mean, we can't be afraid of something sounding too political. Spoiler alert, everything we do up here is political. Every single thing, even if we don't want it to be, is just the nature of the job and the work we do. But this one in particular is really going to cause some lasting impacts, I think, if people are misled about what it means. And then Prop 37, as we continuously talk about the housing crisis here, a lot of us here have brought up that we want to protect renters, but we also want to create paths to home ownership. And really, it's going to be the only way for people to get out of this endless cycle of living paycheck to paycheck. Renting is if they have a viable path to buying a home and this would be one of them So I do think that that would help alleviate part of a you know a piece of the housing crisis Especially for our middle-income workers that missing middle that we always have so I am in full agreement with council members that in on Adding 37 and 39 if we don't want to add 40 heard the other four of you loud and clear even though you didn't say anything But I really would encourage 37 and 39 if we won't do the billionaires tax Mr. Gutierrez

Yes, thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would agree with Mayor Pro Tem Sneddon's stances on these propositions. And I also just want a voice that I could firmly say that the majority of the people in my district would want us to support Prop 40. So I just want to be on record as saying that.

Okay, so gosh, where do we go from here?

I mean, I think for the city to take a position, I tend to agree with what Mayor Pro Tempstead said, which is maybe a super majority of the council to represent the city's position on an initiative feels like a more sort of, if we're going to take an official city position on something. So, I mean, I'm sort of struggling a little bit because I think, you know, there's some mixed opinions on some of the initiatives. It does, I think, If we were going to go with five votes, there were definitely Prop 1 and Prop 43. And then I guess I would look to see if Prop 37 and 39, if there were five votes, five raised hands to bring a resolution back on any of those.

Mr. Freeman.

Thank you. So with Council Member Harmon's point, there's the personal opinions and there's the city opinions, and I totally concur with that. Prop 1 and 43 are definitely something in the preview of the city that we are taking the citywide perspective. However, the other ones as well impact members of the public, especially, I agree, Prop 39. Because if you can't get to the ballots, then you're not going to have that access. So in the fact that 1, 43, 45, 39, and 37 have been raised, When I'm supportive of bringing those back, I agree where Mayor Rouse is. I think 39 is one that the public is asking us to show some leadership on that, especially, again, if it's restricting people's access to be able to get to the polls. And we're talking about a ballot. So to not take a position on that, that's almost counterintuitive. So I fully support bringing that back. And then 37, again, this is a personal one that we need more homeownership opportunities. And so if we want to bring that back, I'm fine with that. I think we could do that. And it's in line with what we promote here. So again, 1, 43, 45, 39, and 37. If we go beyond those, it starts getting into the issue of diluting it. And so that's where I'm at. My preference would be to stick with 1 and 43. But if there's a supermajority that want to bring it, that'll be it.

Okay, so it's, and then we'll, again, on Prop 45, do some additional analysis and make sure we have clear information for the council when that comes back.

Okay, and I'll just continue to state my opposition to the process in general that we shouldn't be reviewing initiative law up here. We should be talking about policy and law, but not initiative law. It's proposed, and that is, for some of us, introduced to us today in a broad conceptual way, And I think that's, I think initiative law generally has a lot of unintended consequences. It's made quickly and oftentimes under emotional stress. And I just don't think it's something we should be trying to vote on light item today. I just think, and I think it's unfair, like Ms. Harmon put out, it's unfair because you're having a city position versus your personal opinion. And which one are we voting, which one are we putting out there, so. I will be abstaining from the process altogether. I'm not going to participate in this. So from there, do we want a motion?

No, we'll bring, because we're not voting on anything today, so we'll bring those back because we don't have a formal recommendation or on the agenda.

Everybody good? All right, so do that. Thank you very much, Ms. Shelby.

Thank you.

And with that, we'll move on to the next item. You have the item to read, Madam Clerk?

Yes, item 15, consideration and direction regarding contracting for an alternative automated license plate reader camera system for CATA selected by city staff consistent with input provided by the city council at its August 25, 2026 meeting.

All right, very good. And with this, I... Have a fair amount of speaker slips. Not sure what the final number is yet. We will go until a quarter of to put in new speaker slips and or raise hands online. At that point in time, we'll be able to tell exactly how many minutes everybody's going to get. Great.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm going to kick this off. There's no PowerPoint today. This item is coming back consistent with the agenda item from August 25th council meeting. Initially, that August 25th council meeting was to report back on the termination of the flock camera contract and the staff-selected alternative camera. At that meeting, the council discussed the not wanting to have a new camera system altogether until a more comprehensive review of the itemated license plate reader system could occur. Because that was not agendized for that meeting and because that... action is within the city administrators purview. We needed to actually agendize it at a future meeting, which is what is on the agenda for today. Um, and so we just wanted, because as part of our staff, uh, uh, work, we always like to present alternatives for the council's consideration just to make sure that we are transparent. Um, and after talking with the staff team that would be working on the policy review, um, that policy review could take up to a year to accomplish. And so there would be no camera system in place for the police department during that period of time so one a few options that were presented within the staff report the first is the direction to postpone any implementation of an automated license plate reader camera system for the police department until the policy review occurs and to give me the direction to not enter into that contract and The other could be an alternative where the VRCADA contract could be executed under the existing policies that there could be, again, that comprehensive overview of the policies and that there could be quarterly public updates to the Police and Fire Commission regarding implementation, system use, and status of the policy review. And then another could be just to provide alternate direction other than those two options. Just wanted to make sure that we were transparent in a number of sort of the timeline that we think it might take to do that policy review and to just make sure the council had full information before giving final direction. So that we're here to answer questions at this point.

All right, very good. So it's Madam Administrator, since we're not doing a presentation per se, I was thinking should we go ahead of them with the Public comment before council questions end?

That's fine. I think the council could do questions and comments altogether if you wanted to do public comment.

Let's do that. Do public comment first? Very good. I've got a couple more minutes so we can still accept, but let me go on. Okay. So we have just about an hour's worth of public comment filed if I do two minutes per. And you can certainly also combine to add together to combine time if you want to give one particular speaker more time than that. So let's do two minutes per speaker. And knowing that we still have about two minutes left in when we're going to accept further speaker slips. So we'll start out with Jerry Simmons. And Jerry Simmons will be followed by Hilary Licht.

Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, council members. My name is Jerry Simmons. I'm a resident of Santa Barbara, and I'm here this afternoon to urge the council to instruct the city administrator to not enter into a contract with Verkada, and instead to take this opportunity to re-examine the use of APLRs in the city. I realized that as recently as January of 2024, the city reexamined this issue. but in my view, the world has substantially changed since that time. Such a review would include an evaluation of the risk to privacy interests by residents and visitors in Santa Barbara, as well as an evaluation of the importance of such technology for the law enforcement people. The city staff and the council are to be commended for recognizing the dangers posed by the flock system and for terminating the city's relationship with the company. At the last meeting, the Verkada system was described as safe, closed, agency controlled, which is really designed just to catch the bad guys. I may be old and I'm technologically challenged, but even I can recognize the dangers of gathering huge amounts of data that is searchable no matter how well intentioned the original the original objectives are. I find it disturbing that we get reports of data from ALPRs being used and integrated in other intelligence systems that result in individual harassment as well as mass surveillance. Please don't rush headlong into another contract. Please take the time to do a thoughtful review. This is really a tough, important issue.

Thank you. Thank you. Followed by Gary. I think it's honey, for some sake. Hope I got that right.

Okay, thank you.

Hi. I'm not in favor of any automated license plate reader or ALPR use. The Institute for Justice has identified well over 100 incidents of ALPR abuse in police departments, including romantic stalking, wrongful stops in detention, non-law enforcement use, and other types of misconduct. On the other hand, not every article on ALPRs I've read makes police departments look bad. A paper published last month involving 216 police departments demonstrates that when departments used their usual investigative methods to recover stolen vehicles, it took them an average of 3.8 days. Using ALPRs only sped things up by an average of seven hours. A different study in Piedmont, California found that despite that community spending close to $600,000 on ALPRs, only 0.3% of ALPR hits turned out to be useful investigative leads. And in Roseville, California, police reported flock misread the license plates hits 71% of the time. I think we could use taxpayer funds in Santa Barbara in much more strategic ways. Thank you.

Thank you. Gary?

I'm Gary Hunt, and I would like to give my two minutes to Larry Moran.

Okay, very good. Thank you. Thank you for pronouncing your last. I couldn't get that last consonant in there, so okay, thank you. Anna Garcia, and followed by Raina Angel. One more time? Okay, and what's your name, please? And you put a slip in? Thank you. Okay, Ms. Garcia, you have a... I'm also doing my time. And your name is? Sarah Beck. And you have a slip in? Yes. Okay, very good. So, Ms. Garcia, you have five minutes.

Sweet. Okay, well, this comment is mostly geared to the three white men on the dais who have seemed unsupportive of getting rid of ALPRs. meaning council member Eric Friedman, who's running for mayor, current mayor Randy Rouse, and council member Mike Jordan. I assume the rest of you will remain aligned with your previous comments, especially Megan and Oscar, as you all have been screaming about this for years, long before any of us really realized the impact of it. So I hope it's not for you, but if there's any question about that, I'm also talking to you if you're thinking about changing your mind for any reason. We demand no surveillance. The only way to ensure our data and privacy are secure is to not collect it in the first place. These cameras have the capabilities to be misused and abused, which has been discovered in several places around the country. Santa Barbara is not special, even though I know everyone likes to think we are. And if we allow the use of these cameras to continue, we are trading a whole lot of our civil rights for a whole lot of nothing in return. These cameras do not increase police's effectiveness in solving crimes in any meaningful way that is worth what we are giving up for them. As mentioned, a study of 216 police departments found that improving recovering times for stolen vehicles was only about seven hours. So to get a stolen vehicle back seven hours sooner, are you willing to be tracked? Are you willing to have the entire community be tracked even though we're here demanding that you not do that? Uh, additionally, a poll in Arizona found that 54% of Republicans and 73% of Democrats oppose ALPR use by police. That's the majority. Even Republicans see that this is a harmful policy that is not worth the risk. The Institute for Justice, as you heard before, identified 100 plus incidents of wrongful use of these systems. These abuses and misconduct are against real people. It's not just statistics. These are real, mostly women who have been harmed by the use of these ALPRs. And again, not saying that our police department is going to be the ones that do that, but anyone who can access the information that we are choosing to collect when we don't have to can potentially do this, right? I HOPE NO CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS ARE WORKING IN THE BACKGROUND WITH ANY LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY TO CHANGE YOUR MINDS IN ORDER TO PROTECT YOURSELVES FROM ANY POSSIBLE HIDDEN SKELETONS IN YOUR CLOSETS. I HAVE SEEN SOME FACEBOOK POSTS THAT MADE ME CONCERNED ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF THIS BEING A THING. WE DO NOT WANT MORE OVERSIGHT surveillance tools that PD wants to use. We want our right to privacy protected. We want our data secure, which means no ALPRs period. We got the flock out and we met all ALPRs with it. Do not move forward with an ALPR contract. You have time. There's no urgency to get this done today. The entire community for the most part is telling you we do not want this. And Eric, if you want to seem like a mayor candidate who the people should trust. This is an easy vote. No, we do not want to be surveilled. People have been talking about this for a very long time. Your city council comrades included. You may not see a reason because we know the reason most of the people are up here against this. It's the women, right? Because we are the ones in danger. You all are going to make decisions. that are gonna impact me, your female colleagues, your daughters, your wives, your sisters, your coworkers that are women. So do the right thing for once. Don't vote for your own interest as rich white men. Give a fuck about other people.

Okay, Raina A. Back to two minutes, please, Madam Clerk.

Hello, everyone. I'm a little bit concerned on why we are here today. I'm a little bit flustered. If we are getting rid of FLOC, which are automatic license plate readers, we're getting rid of them for a reason. Why would we substitute that with another thing that's the same? You know, it's the same exact thing, just a different name. So why would we substitute one thing for the same thing? It just really doesn't make any sense. The error rate on these license plate readers, like she said, is 71%. That's huge. So people are going to be tracked and harassed illegally and unlawfully, and right now when there is federal agencies kidnapping our brown people, 60% of our community is brown, we can't allow that in this city. It just really is not okay. We don't know who's going to be able to access. I know that they're saying that it's just our police department, but just our sheriff's department is allowing federal agents to come and kidnap people who are just getting arrested, cited, and released, and they're going straight to the federal department. And they don't have, they're not showing any warrants, they're not having to do anything, so what is gonna happen with these license plate readers when ICE gets a hold of these documents, footage and the records. It's just really concerning and I really urge you to not move forward with another thing that just has a different name. It's the same exact thing. Thank you.

Thank you. Tanya M. Followed by Ruth.

I'm going to donate my time.

I'm sorry, your name is? And you fell asleep? Thank you. Okay, we have four minutes then.

Cool. Once again, we're here during the workday. Happy Independence Day to Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and tomorrow for Mexico. I'm here to advocate for complete independence from all ALPR cameras, including Verceda. SBPD says they don't share information from these cameras with ICE, But they do share with the Sheriff's Department, who then not only freely shares info with ICE, but actively works with them to kidnap our neighbors. This includes telling ICE when a vulnerable community member is being released, but also using their vehicles to block community volunteers from observing ICE vehicles in Santa Barbara and Goleta communities. On top of that, there is overwhelming evidence that law enforcement agents use this technology for nefarious purposes despite the data that the system is being abused. And like she said, it's not just law enforcement we're worried about. People can hack these systems and use this information. It has been used to stalk ex-partners, track protesters with no crime alleged, help ICE locate immigrants, and pursue women across state lines for abortions. Security vulnerabilities have exposed sensitive data to the public internet. Furthermore, y'all stated that it is a legal requirement that vehicles have license plates, but ICE repeatedly kidnaps our community members using vehicles that do not have license plates, including this very morning when the Sheriff's Department stood by and watched as ICE agents came and stole our community member from our city jail. pepper spraying left and right, getting all crazy, being completely unprofessional, while also doing something that's just unimaginable and unfeasible to me of stealing people from their homes. There is no federal regulation for these cameras. There's no independent oversight. There's no warrant required because the Sheriff's Department just gives out information. And after all that, there's little evidence these cameras actually reduce crime. We're surrendering our civil liberties for a system that can't prove that it works. Let's not forget that there are cameras other than ALPR cameras, CCTV, and other internet enabled cameras that do surveillance that local police, sheriffs, governments, and ICE access for facial recognition as well. And this includes ring cameras. So for anyone watching who's in the public, maybe rethink using ring cameras on your home or wherever you got that going on because it can be extremely problematic. are being used to help steal people from our city. These are community members, these are our neighbors, right? And it's not okay. So when you sign off on one thing, you're signing off on so many other things as well. And so I just want to look y'all in the eyes and just say, watching people get taken from their homes or even from the jail, is wild and they are being handed over by sheriffs to these federal quote unquote agents, right? And it's so mind blowing to see this happening in our city and just continue to happen over and over again, no matter what regulations we put in place. So please say no to all ALPR cameras and please just ruminate on what's going on in our city and our community because it's absolutely wild and not okay.

Okay, Ruth. And Ruth will be followed by Anna Arce.

Hi. I'd just like to express my support for removing all ALPR cameras. I just want to stress the urgency of that. Every day that they're up is another day that people are being targeted through these surveillance systems and are having to be fearful of going to work and going about their day. And I really don't think we need this kind of surveillance in our communities, especially if we've seen so often it's being used to prop up ICE and help ICE kidnap people. And it's just a very destructive force. Just to reiterate the things that have been said. It's not helping reduce crime, it's helping enable this kind of overreach of our freedoms and our rights and our ability to feel safe and be a part of this city and this community. So, yeah, I would like to... see all those cameras be removed and especially not anything that like can share people's information with like ICE or these agencies that seem to be collaborating with ICE. And yeah, thank you.

Anna Arce. And be followed by Larry Berndt.

Okay, so good afternoon Mayor and Council Members. I'm Anna Arcee, Policy Advocate with Cause, and I'm requesting the Council to defer this contract and complete a comprehensive review of the City's ALPR policies before moving forward with any new systems. I do want to acknowledge the City and Chief Kelly Gordon for making the decision to end its contract with FLOC, which is a huge step forward. And at this moment, it is also important that we take a step back and establish clear policies before simply replacing one mass surveillance system with another. Because important questions about privacy, data retention, access, sharing, oversight and accountability still need to be answered. And those questions should be answered publicly with community input before the city commits to another vendor. Deferring this contract is not about preventing the city from addressing public safety. It is about making sure the public safety tools are governed by clear rules and appropriate safeguards and our community has an understanding on how information is being handled. Please do not rush into another ALPR contract. Put policy first, conduct a comprehensive review, involve the community, and establish strong safeguards so that we do not have to keep coming back to council when breach securities happen that will cost our city money we all know we cannot afford to spend because we rushed into a contract to completion. Thank you.

Thank you. Larry Barrett. And Larry, you have five minutes. You've got donated time. You set the timer to five, please, Madam Clerk.

I'll try not to ball anything up and throw it over my shoulder. Mayor, members of the council, at your meeting on the 25th, City Administrator McAdoo stated that this matter would be brought back to you on the consent agenda as a very simple item that would not need further discussion. that would delay implementation of the tech until the ALPR policy is reviewed. On that basis, we were persuaded this matter would be routine and procedural, and we did not mobilize our members to come speak to you. If there's been a change in direction, this would be alarming. The policy review that you called for on August 25th needs to take place before you can proceed with Verkada, and we can start that policy review today. Per state law, police ALPR policy must be displayed prominently on the police website. It isn't. If you know what you're doing, you can click your way to a so-called license plate reader's transparency portal, which in turn will forward you outside of the police website into a page on Flock's website. That's true today. That page reads in full. The page you are looking for doesn't exist. This is not transparency. And it's also not a temporary error because it's been in place since at least Thursday when I first looked. If you are smart enough to locate the police ALPR policy within the 900-page policy manual, you'll find things you wouldn't expect there. For example, SBPD has assured us the Verkada system would give our police exclusive access and control over ALPR data. That's not what the policy says. The policy requires... that ALPR data retention access be managed by the vendors. The city's August 25 memo says that per SPPD policy 415, LPR data is retained for a minimum of 30 days and is then purged unless it constitutes evidence in a legal proceeding. That's not what the policy says. The policy says that ALPR data must be retained for a minimum of one year. If SBPD has been deleting its data after 30 days, it's been doing so in violation of its own policy. Council Member Gutierrez, you raised this question with John Dimas on the 25th. He told you if the policy does not correctly state the way the city retains its data, that's a litigation risk. You got one. We've been assured that SBPD does not share ALPR data outside the city. I believe that. However, the policy says something different. In one place, the policy says the city, the police may share ALPR data across the state, but not with federal agencies. But elsewhere in the final paragraph of the policy, you'll find a requirement that the city provide ALPR data to any federal, state, or local law enforcement agency upon mere receipt of a request that contains a case or incident number. This particular provision is written as a direction, not as an option. And to make it clear, the policy means it. The provision is highlighted in the original. And of course, that's blatant violation of state law. It really brings me no joy to say this, because I have the greatest respect for city administration and city police. But the policy is not consistent with the assurances that you've been given here in this room. I've only touched on a few of the things. that a simple review will find by going through the policy. I do not think this is the result of anything intentional. It's just the opposite. It indicates the pressing need to do what you asked the city to do three weeks ago, to undertake a thorough policy review before contracting for new surveillance technology. The city and the police have urged on us the urgency of replacing the flock technology. But you can contrast that with the city's assertion it doesn't have time to review the use of ALPR for at least another year. In the three months since we learned that flock was out, or even the three weeks it's been since we were last here discussing this, we could have performed this ALPR review. And we've offered to work with the city on this. You've received an email from us about this. The city has put us off. This isn't the schedule that we set and the city can't have it both ways. Can't tell you that it's urgent to put these cameras back in place while at the same time they tell you they don't have time to talk to us or deal with the policy. This is not a schedule that we've put into place. In short, you don't have a policy in place that allows you to legally use this technology in compliance with the way the city has actually used this technology before, you can't move forward with Ricotta on the basis that you've said.

Thank you. Thank you. Marilyn Brewer, followed by Luke Klinger.

Okay. Well, no matter where you get your news these days, you must be aware that there is a national backlash against the use of flock. And the ACLU has made it very clear that it does not matter who the vendor is. The issues of unwarranted surveillance are there no matter who the vendor is. We have now learned, and it's been clear to me already, that we do not have adequate policy that reflects the current reality of the use of ALPR. that if we now go ahead with the contract without policy coming before the contract, where is the incentive to even go ahead with a thorough policy review if it's going to be so difficult and take so much time? Oversight is not enough. We need a new policy and we need community input that gives us a policy that we can all live with and trust our city and our police. Thank you.

Thank you. Luke Klinger. Followed by Brittany Z, Luke Klingler.

Hello, I'm Luke Klingler. I have so much to say. I'm gonna try to get through it all. So I was here at the last city council meeting and our emphasis on the policy was brought forward by our mayor and then our police chief was informed us that we tried to use our facial recognition technology through the flock system when someone damaged the system and that is in breach of our policy. The importance of the audit has been highlighted. And unfortunately, AI algorithms have become so advanced that the only way to audit the algorithm itself is through another algorithm. I would like to share the idea of the New Jim Code, which is brought forward by Ruha Benjamin's Race After Technology, Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. The New Jim Code, I will loosely paraphrase and define as the biases and prejudices from centuries persist in modern technology. Invention now possesses man. Presently, we see that instead of legislation, the code holds the responsibility for enforcing racial segregation. When I tried to audit the Sheriff's Department for Flock, I was also sent the website.

Thank you. Thank you. Brittany Z, I think it is, followed by Ian Page.

Hi, my name is Brittany Zarate. Mayor and council members, thank you for taking the time to hear all of us today. Again, I want to thank you for listening to us last time and ending the city's contract with flock and ensuring the cameras are mostly taken down. But this ALPR technology, is opposed by the majority of people in the US. Studies show that 54% of Republicans are against any form of ALPR technology, 73% of Democrats. And additionally, studies show that ALPR technology only on average helps solve cases about half a day sooner than they would be solved ordinarily on their own, in some cases as little as seven hours faster. And it does nothing to help prevent the crime and theft in the first place. So this tool isn't as powerful as any company would lead us to believe, right? They're all trying to make money off of us. And additionally, there's little evidence that any version under any name of this technology is safe. While SBPD is giving assurances that they are not sharing the data, we don't really have a mechanism to check. And additionally, Santa Barbara Police Department hasn't shown evidence that they're gonna protect us from the federal government. They don't respond when our community members are bear sprayed by ice. They don't respond when ice is driving erratically in our community. They don't respond when ice is driving without license plates. So even if Santa Barbara Police Department does protect our data, Data leaks are now part of everyday life. We all get an email once a week being like, my, your data was hacked. And so personally, I don't feel safe, along with more vulnerable community members, knowing that cameras can track my routes and routines, and that data can be hacked by someone intending to do harm. We demand that there are no ALPRs until there's a thorough review of the city ALPRs policy, and we demand the city protect our data and privacy. Thank you.

Ian Page, followed by Myra Page.

Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the City Council, Officer Peterson, Sergeant, Chief, City Attorney, and City Administrator. You all know me. You know where I stand on this. I think the constitutional right to privacy is being infringed by these cameras. What we were told the last time is that the community would have a chance to have input on this and we could discuss this and try and come to a balance. I understand today that there's an attempt to put in force a way to adopt the Verkada system, which I think is an unacceptable lateral move. The police chief wants something up and running and I understand and we have actually even discussed the need to have it up and running to have a tool for the police department to do these criminal investigative operations that are necessary. However, in looking at the overall balancing of what the community seems to be looking for, and we don't have a vote on this from the community, But there appears to be a strong sense of urgency by what I believe is probably a majority of the community that they not be put under surveillance. That we not take the risk of this administration that we have 858 days left with. This federal government that has gone and strong armed people right out of their homes, right out of their cars, right out of their trucks. because they have a racist policy coming from the top. My ancestors faced this. I have privilege today. I am not facing this threat. My neighbors, my friends are facing this threat. And I know emotionally I shouldn't be going there, but this is not the right way to go. One more quote, and this is only a second long. As the famous earliest 20th century author Stefan Zweig wrote, we finally know that that world of security was not but a castle of dreams. Thank you.

Ira Page. Okay, thank you. Okay, the speaker's online, Madam Clerk.

We have two online speakers who raised their hands by the deadline, Waleed Afifi and Katie Sanders. Waleed Afifi, please go ahead.

Yes, thank you to city council and administrators for taking my comment. And I'm just going to echo what everyone else in the room has been saying. being against ALPRs, I will say this. We've gone decades without this technology. The complex of military surveillance industry is trying to convince us that it's essential for our own safety. It is not. As a professor at UCSB, I rely on empirical data, as I'm sure you do, too, as city council members. A thorough review of the data has already been sort of reviewed in this comments. will show us that, in fact, it harms our communities more than it does good. So I strongly recommend that you look at those data and that you think about the harms versus the benefits. And any suggestion that it is essential means that we've been unsafe for decades before it came along, which is simply not the case. I will say that if you're sort of curious at all about the possibility or the potential uses There's a lot of evidence in Israel about the potential uses of ALPR cameras in really, really violent ways. We know that Israel has trained many of the police departments, not Santa Barbara specifically, but in the US. And so it doesn't take much imagination to think about how these ALPR surveillance technologies could be used against us. I will end with this. It is sort of the height of white male privilege to not have to worry about how surveillance will be used against you. So I would just urge you to listen to our female constituents, listen to our constituents from marginalized communities and from communities of color. They are telling you what is at risk for them. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Our next speaker is Katie Sanders. Katie Sanders, please go ahead.

Hello. Can you hear me? Yes.

Yes.

Okay. ALPR cameras create a searchable database of where people go and where their vehicle goes. And the data can be tracked over time. It's not like an observation or a snapshot, which is a one-time thing. I don't have an expectation of privacy when I walk or drive down the public street because I know people can see my license plate. However, my expectation of privacy is violated when police or someone else can type my license plate number into an ALPR database and see everywhere my car has been for the last month or week. Maybe I went to Planned Parenthood. Maybe I went to a protest or a mosque or a synagogue. These databases build a picture of my activities. They are not just license plate readers. They are trackers. Before cell phone tracking and ALPR databases, If police wanted to know my activities or where I went, they would have to physically surveil me and get a warrant, and they would have to use resources. That's not the case anymore. There have been instances where police officers are using these databases, as mentioned, to search for people for personal reasons, stalking their exes, tracking someone who went to an abortion clinic. The government or an ALPR company shouldn't be able to type my license plate number into a computer and reconstruct everywhere I've been. There are no guarantees that this database will not be misused or hacked or have the data sold. Once the data is out there in a database, it's too late. As private citizens, we have no control over how it's used, who's using it, or maybe who's selling it. We are going to lose our privacy and lose local control in our community, and the technology is changing our community without input from the public or our approval. There's no buy-in for what you're proposing, and I say we have to put the brakes on. We don't need a surveillance state. Thank you. That's time. We don't need these ALPRs. Thank you.

Thank you. Further speakers? No, Mr. Mayor. Okay, very good. Back to council. Ms. Harmon.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Is this for questions and comments?

Yeah.

Great. Thank you. Just a couple questions to start, and first a process question, Ms. McAdoo. Just because a couple of speakers alluded to this, my understanding of this item today is it's exactly what we... asked to have happen. We simply couldn't take this vote because it wasn't agendized in August. So we're back. Correct. So just to be clear, I guess theoretically it could have gone on consent, but this allows for more public comment. It does.

And then I think I just, after the discussion with staff and understanding the workloads, I just wanted to be very transparent about sort of what we think the length of time for comprehensive engagement process and review of the policy and taking it to police and fire commission, bringing it back to council, all of those processes. So I just wanted to be very transparent with that. And it likely would have gotten pulled off consent anyway, so I just decided to not put it on the consent calendar.

Okay, perfect. So that's my understanding as well. It's not a new – there's not a new conversation we're having. Okay. And on that last point, it's a year for when this will come back best case? I mean –

if you want to do both the citywide policy and the police department policy realistically, given the staff members who are working on it, primarily Ms. Anderson in my office, who's also working on the rent stabilization ordinance. I just, there's only so many things that, so many hours in the day that people can work. And so I just, I'm just being very transparent about that. And, you know, for example, short-term vacation rentals, we've been working on for three years. Yep. So.

No, I appreciate that. Just confirming, and I certainly agree and understand there's only so many hours, and we already asked you to do so much, but that's a challenge. And I'm not sure who this question is for. Maybe, Chief, it's for you, or maybe it's for you, Ms. McAdoo, but given the timeline that a comprehensive look, and I was clear in August, and I feel more strongly about it now, thank you, Mr. Barron, for your work really drawing out some of the specifics and the policies that we need to look at that An assessment of our approach to privacy generally and specifically is absolutely warranted. But given the timeline, have we thought about alternatives for this year? Namely, I'm thinking, well, let me back up and say I actually don't support surveillance at all, but I understand I'm maybe on the fringes of this conversation. But CCTV is an option that folks are more comfortable with as opposed to AI, have we thought about, or the system that we use at the parking lot, which is one terminal that isn't using a third party, have we thought about some of these alternatives as interims, and why or why not?

Mayor Rouse, Council Member Harmon, we are looking at all alternatives. I think the big thing was In the initial ask from council, it was to go and look for an ALPR alternative, which we did and which is what we came back with, which is Verkada. So we've had very little time to now, if in fact the city council says no to the ALPR period, then we're gonna have to look at all their alternatives. Yes, I am in fact passionate about this. I understand there's privacy concerns. I also know that this technology led to the identification and successful prosecution of someone who murdered someone in cold blood who I sat with and told this individual's mom that her son had died going to the gym in the middle of the afternoon. And without that, information that was come from the investigation from an LPR that would have not occurred. And so I understand the policy concerns. I understand the need to make sure that we are working through data privacy appropriately and how things are evolving. You know, now you have the international associations of chiefs of police that are, you know, now have a think tank and there's, this is certainly an evolving area based on all of the pieces that we have seen. And we are willing to actively engage in that. So that is part of what we're doing, is looking at what are our options at this point.

Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I know we share the same ultimate goal here. And we have had multiple conversations about this, though we certainly come at ALPR in particular from a different perspective. I know ultimately our goal is the same, which is to keep our community safe in all the ways that we can. I feel really challenged to make decisions like we're asked to make today unmoored from the policy work that we know that we need to do. I don't see how we can move forward with a contract that has the implications that it has knowing the timeline that we're looking at to do the work that we need to do to develop this policy. Chief, again, with great respect to you, I understand what you're saying. My work as a policymaker is to really try to thread the needle so that we have the systems in place to ensure the safe uses of these technologies. And I just don't think we have those systems in place. In the interim, the alternatives that can be pursued, will not be on council when those come forward, but I think those need to be considered in the interim. But yeah, my position hasn't changed from August 25th or whenever that meeting was, and I don't personally see how we can move forward, though I do understand this is a challenge and I think it will take a lot of creativity on all our parts to figure out what the interim looks like. So with that said, yeah, I'll be voting, I guess, not to move forward with this contract. And I also want to just specifically say thank you to the folks in the room and who are listening, who are getting engaged in this conversation. But ALPRs are just the absolute tip of the iceberg when it comes to privacy and safety. I mean, I honestly feel a little bit silly, frankly, having this much conversation about ALPRs when we have so many profound risks that we live with when it comes to digital safety, when it comes to privacy, day after day, that we just don't even, doesn't even occur to us to worry about. It doesn't mean that we should ignore the ALPRs, and I'm glad that we are initiating a conversation, but I think we all need to take a really good, hard look in the mirror about what we choose to do when it comes to privacy, because the risks are profound. And one of the speakers, sir, you mentioned Ruha Benjamin, and I just want to say I've been reading some Ruha Benjamin. I highly recommend for anyone who's interested in privacy and issues around race and data and technology has certainly shaped my own thinking, and so appreciate that being brought to the fore, and I hope that will be part of the conversation for my colleagues as this privacy policy is shaped into the future. So, thanks.

Mr. Nedden.

Thank you, Mayor Rouse, and thank you, Council Member Harmon. I completely agree. And so I'll just reiterate what I said before. The world has changed, and nothing about surveillance is simple now. We're in a particular moment in time. I also want to reiterate, there's absolutely no indication of impropriety on the part of our police department. Honorable in every way, have not shared data, have not misused data. And this really isn't about our police department. It's about the potential misuses outside of our police department. And I don't have the same confidence beyond our police department. I just really want to make that as clear as possible that this is not in any way about our fine police department. But looking beyond that, and especially given the news we've had this week regarding AI and potentials that people don't even know what it's doing or going to do, and I can't imagine that anything that is doing any kind of ALPR or surveillance, even if today it isn't using AI, Tomorrow it will. There's just, I don't think any business model would not in some way be using AI. And we frankly just don't understand it. And on top of it, the environmental impacts of that. And just the more broad potential for misuse does not outweigh the risks. I think it's okay that the policy will take a year. I think the world is gonna be different again in a year's time. in ways I think we're not fully understanding right now, even as we're talking about it. And again, on that broader question of privacy in general. And I haven't gotten a single email, communication, talk to anybody who has said, please reverse that direction or decision, not a single one, and it's been sitting for a while, and really from some surprising places, support that I wouldn't have thought otherwise, and was brought up today, protesters, those seeking medical care across state lines, really just any of us, and including the targeting of our perceived as immigrant community. It's not even, needs to be even verified or not that people are targeted. I just can't see that the risks outweigh The rewards, and absolutely it can help solve crimes, but also the potential of creating new crimes in its misuse is not worth it. So our cars are surveilling us, our phones, ring cameras, Every Tesla going around is surveilling every other movement and with so much surveillance and then with the use of AI that we know is biased. AI is biased and racist and sexist frankly. It tends that way because the internet tends that way. The potential of misuse I think is too great and I completely agree. To the extent that we even can get a grip around our part in surveillance, I think it's okay for it to take a year to really look at this more deeply. So my recommendations from the last meeting still stand.

Mr. Gutierrez? Thank you, Mr. Ross. Thanks for everybody for coming out and speaking up. So this is an issue that's been keeping me up since I was a kid, to be honest, watching dystopian futuristic movies about where our society was gonna be facing. And it is a trip to be sitting up here right now being a decision maker in this specific topic. I too have heard from my community members that they don't want this, but I've also had to speak to the victims of crime directly, asking me why couldn't the city do more to help prevent or apprehend the people responsible. So I'm in this weird space where I'm trying to uphold the oath of office that I took and also do the will of the people. So the only way I could be supportive of some kind of surveillance system, and I've said it before, is if it's done in-house by us, not by third-party corporation. I want us up here to be held responsible if it's misused. And I also want representatives from Indivisible to be allies in the process of... of the contract or usage of the technology. That's the only way I could find this to be acceptable in any way. Other than that, I'm open to hear from my colleagues. Mr. Friedman.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a few questions and then comments. I appreciate all the public comments. I think they raise a lot of very salient, pressing issues that we're trying to grapple with as a country on surveillance. Mr. Barrett, your comments about the policy that's in place or the policies that we're using versus what the policy is in place, I want to get some clarification from the city attorney. To those points, there's a policy that is on the books that differs from what we as a community would want. And so is there, Mr. Barrett pointed to there was a litigation risk that if we're following the policies that our police department wants, our city administrator wants, that we would want for the local control taking out the ability to interact with the federal government, even the sheriff, just our own inside internal city. Are there, if we started doing that and it was in violation of our policy, is there potential litigation risks?

Honorable Mayor, Council Member Friedman, I'll answer in terms of the legal question. I don't know what actually is occurring in terms of any inconsistency. But the legal answer to that question is we must follow the policy. The policy is brought before legislative body, allows for public input. that is the standing document. And everything in that policy, because of the process that is brought forth, must be followed to the T. So, you know, obviously if there were inconsistencies on that, you know, there could be a writ REQUIRING US TO FOLLOW THE EXACT POLICY. BUT I DON'T KNOW IF THERE ARE ANY CONSISTENCIES, BUT THAT IS IMPORTANT. THE OTHER IMPORTANT THING, TOO, IS YES, THE POLICY MUST BE CONSPICUOUSLY PLACED ONLINE IN THE DOCUMENT. SO THOSE ARE THE TWO THINGS. SO I HOPE THAT ANSWERS YOUR QUESTION.

AND IT'S NOT?

I DON'T KNOW. I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT QUESTION.

IT'S NOT. YEAH. I KNOW. I HAVE TO, FOR THE RECORD, OUR OWN CITY STAFF. YOU RECOGNIZE THAT IN THERE. SO THIS IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE From what the policy would say is there's issues with the federal government coming in and wanting to access our data, and if they can point to that policy, would we have to turn that over?

Well, I will say this. You can write any policy, but no policy will be iron proof from a warrant. So if we have the data and a judge signed up, not a subpoena or anything like that, an actual warrant, failure to comply would be a violation of law. We would be putting employees criminally liable, be held in contempt, and everything else. So there's no policy that you could write that would say that we could defy a warrant or a court order. That would be illegal. So no matter what you write, that issue has to be set in stone.

Okay, we're done with public comment right for now. Thank you.

This is helpful because it seems there is, from what we want to do, should we go with option two versus what's on the policy, there is some disconnect between the two.

Sure, and just to clarify too, the policy in terms of, to clarify on that point, if you write a policy in terms of that there's no sharing with any other government agencies, let's say that is a change, and I don't know if that, can't remember, it's been a while since I looked at the policy, but if you had stronger language in terms of sharing and who has. Or if we kept it, let me give you a further example. If you kept it in an inter-system, non-sharing third-party vendor on the policy. So we just kept everything in-house. We control the data. We have the data. We store the data. It's not a third-party vendor. My point is, even with that policy, if someone got a warrant from a judge to access those records, the policy can override that portion of law. A warrant is a warrant.

Thank you, Mr. Dwayne. I'm going to ask a couple questions to our chief. So first of all, a couple questions. One brought up on CCTV, and you have talked about this. What are some of the issues with CCTV as an alternative that you see?

You have to have someone actually monitoring it at that moment and at that particular time. If you're talking about not storing the data, it's only what you're seeing live. You have to have someone actually watching the camera and see what is occurring real time. It's what you hear of real time crime centers at some agencies. So you're monitoring those cameras real time. They're very useful tools. It's a very different tool than LPR because you're not able to go backwards. If you're not capturing it and someone's not actually looking at that particular moment in time, you can't go back a couple days later and see if you see that vehicle. Real-time crime centers are very, very valuable, but it is a different tool. And like I said, if it is the will of counsel that we don't pursue LPRs, Yes, we're going to have to look at other types of technology and of course that is one of them.

And does CCTV, just for my own, because we talked about it as well, does it pick up any facial or voice recognitions on some of them or is it dependent on which type you use?

You would have to have specific software. It's not the cameras themselves, it's the type of software that you're using as a result. But if you're not If you're only doing what you real-time observe versus keeping those recordings, that's different information.

And then in terms of the sheriff, do we share our data with the sheriff? That was raised in the public comment.

No, we don't share our data with the sheriff's department. In fact, at this point, we don't even have access to any of our data. We lost access to all of FLOP. the moment that it was turned off. So the questions about why when someone goes on and logs on now and nothing shows up, it's because our flock system is completely off. All of our cameras are down, all of our system is off. And we don't have access to any of that data either. So there's nothing on the transparency portal because we have terminated our contract and it's off. And just a point of clarification, It is against state law for us to share our data outside any agency within the state of California. So we would be in violation of state law if we shared our data. It would require an actual judicial warrant if it came from an outside agency outside of California. By law, we cannot share outside the state of California without a judicial warrant.

Thank you. This is maybe... maybe for the chief or maybe Ms. McAdoo. So there's two policies as I understand it. There's the police department policy and how we regulate the use of this, and then there's the citywide policy and all the ALPR, because it's in other areas too, whether you're going to the beach or whether you work downtown, you gotta park in a parking garage. So with a year estimated timeline, is it possible to speed that up by perhaps having the police department policy go on a separate track from the overall policy to the Fire and Police Commission and come back to us in a sooner time so we can start that process of getting public input of the police department, being able to explain what their policies are. Is that something we could do on a parallel track, given the staff resources that we have?

I mean, I'll let the chief respond to the police department resources, but it would also require resources from the city attorney's office. But I'll let the two of them respond.

if it is the will of council to be willing to hear the police department's policy, not as one big package with city policy, we certainly can start that work now where, you know, there would be the possibility that, you know, we could bring that to clearly we would engage the community and we could bring that to fire and police commission, hopefully the first part of the year. And then to city council, hopefully, you know, shortly thereafter, we certainly, you know, clearly motivated to, aside from the bigger work of the city policy, we certainly, you know, would do that. And the city attorney and I could sit down and have a conversation about what that timeframe and that, that work looks like. But, But if that was the direction of council, we could certainly work in that direction if city council is willing not to hear it all together. But the police department specifically first, we certainly could do that work. And like I said, clearly we're motivated to do so.

And I would echo the same thing. I understand the policy is important. So if council directed us, we would make it a priority. It's not so much... the difficulty in writing it that would cause the length of time. It's obviously the input from all the stakeholders, from the public on that portion. If council wants us to go to fire and police commission, that's another extra layer, another extra step if they want us to come back to the council. So that's where we need some direction. But to answer in terms of a workload issue, we would definitely make it a priority.

So just from the city attorney's staffing perspective and the police department's, we could start the process there. But in the meantime, when we get the full staffing for the overall policy, we could do that. But this gives us, it continues the conversation. It doesn't let it sit for a year. We get more public input up front. And we can go to the fire police commission so they're publicly noticed meetings. So we could start having those conversations. And maybe, Chief Gordon, would those help? If we have those initial discussions just within the police department, would those help the overall discussions later on when we're looking at the full policy?

I think so. I think there's a lot of work being done around a LPR period right now. Like I said, you know, you have the international association chiefs police just put something out today. There's some think tanks. I think that, you know, um, this is clearly not just a Santa Barbara issue and, and watching what other cities are doing and some of the, the different changes in policy that are being made. You know, we certainly can look at, um, how our language is written about who we share, don't share with. We can certainly talk about, you know, our retention period and we could, you know, sit down and have those conversations. I think Anna Ars actually was the one that mentioned, you know, And her comments, it wasn't a resounding, no, it was, we want to do the work. So I think there are definitely some community partners that would be willing to sit down and shape, help us shape policy as we move forward. And, you know, we welcome that conversation.

And from a staffing perspective from both police and city attorney, we could begin that process in the early part of, of next year. going to fire police commission, doing the kind of prep work over the coming months, and then come back or develop a process of what that would look like. But it's not something that we would do in the next month or two. I just want to set expectations. It's something that we would want to set up a whole process, what we need to look at, what the bifurcation would mean, and set that up, and then come back in the early part of next year with the police department policy first.

The police department, yes, Honorable Mayor, Council Member Freeman, you're right. First is outlying what the process is. looks like because you can we have a starting point of the current policy right but what needs to change from the current policy and right how is that process in full how do you get the input what is the first step do you go to a fire and police commission do they get comments you come back um so there's there's a lot of that involved in terms of staffing i'm happy to be the primary person so again we'd make it a priority and it would be my promise to council to do that um It's just what was the most efficient process to hear all the voices, the community, as to this issue that balances the, because it's a national conversation, right? What fits the community, what fits the community's needs, and the balance of the conversation you're hearing out there is the concerns for for transparency, for control of that data versus crime solving issues, right? That's really the balancing test you have in place here. And that's why you need the input to hear all those voices in regards to that balancing test of what fits this community. It's not a one size fit all. Some communities have done away with them. Some communities have doubled down on ALPR. What does the community say in terms of this issue?

And that's information that we could give to the Fire and Police Commission to vet as well, the different options. Okay. I guess done with questions, I'll make comments. So first of all, I find myself where Council Member Gutierrez is. It's a very tough issue for all of us, no matter where we are. One is we all want to protect our civil rights and our civil liberties. We also wanna make sure that we have the tools to address crime in a non-intrusive way. And one of the issues that sticks with me is when it came to the presentation a couple weeks ago, and then we heard it in public comment today, is human trafficking. And we heard from public comment today that this individual was being, when she was younger, was in human trafficking in a 10 block radius around this building. And so that's the trade off that the city attorney was just speaking to, was we wanna do everything we can to provide the tools and to address human trafficking, prevent it from happening. If you read the Independent, the woman who spoke today is featured in the Independent. And in the article from last week, the FBI has identified Santa Barbara as an area with high propensity for human trafficking because of our location on a major corridor. between two major cities. And so that is something we want to make sure we have the tools. At the same time, there's two other aspects on the other side that are going on. One is on the national, federal level, there is just a fear of what the federal government is doing on all sides. Pretty much everybody in the country now is afraid of what the federal government is doing. And even if there are rules in place, Are they gonna break the rules and ask for forgiveness later? We don't know, it's happening. So there's this lack of trust in the federal government that is coming down into the local level. And that's the balance and what my fear would be is if we have something and we put all the safeguards on here and something were to go awry because of that federal government coming in, who's gonna get the blame? it's gonna be at the local level, at the local level. Yeah, you're pointing at me, yeah, but who's to blame? Yeah, it's whoever up here, but it's also at the local level, even though we put all the controls in there. And so what I'd like to propose is that we actually do bifurcate the issue, that we don't go forward with it today, that we do bifurcate the issue with the PD policies and move those forward. I think there's a good, information that the chief has and the chief is willing to work with the community to do that and I really appreciate that chief. Work with our city attorney and try to move that forward as the National Association of Chiefs is working on this and we get more information. And then that will inform the overall process as we go on. And then we have to look at the website and all those things that we need to do immediately to make sure we're compliant. So that would be my recommendation. And I just wanna say this, I'm never gonna make, a decision based on the color of my skin. And if you guys want to keep saying that public comment, First Amendment, go for it. But Mr. Barrett, you made some salient points. Those resonate because then it's a dialogue that's constructive. I'm able to ask the city attorney questions and the city attorney's answer raised some doubt if we went forward what the risks were going to be because you make constructive dialogues. So again, First Amendment, if you want to come after me, do it. You want to point at me, do it. I'm fine with it because that's what it's all about. That's why we're up here, First Amendment. And you could see that I'm not supportive of going forward with it today. I want to give our police chief and the department the chance to review their policies with public input using the fire police commission and start that process rather than waiting a year. So that's what I would recommend is we bifurcate it and go down that path.

Thank you. Mr. Jordan.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

I have a couple more questions too. What I was hearing today described as what we're trying to do is not what I understood from the presentation several weeks ago. So the cameras that would be put out there by Burkata, that's all they are and they are not capable of whatever your understanding is of AI use. Is that correct? They're just a camera.

They are a camera with Lots of features. The only features that we are using of those is ALPR.

I think I asked then also that it's not a camera with a lot of features. It's only one feature on that camera. It's a different camera that has all the other, that as you add the features in, you need different cameras.

It's the same camera, but you buy the camera with only the features that you're using. already turned on. So we don't have the ability, if we buy the Verkada camera and we say we're buying it as an LPR camera, we don't have the ability to switch the technology on it to make it something else.

And neither does anybody else? Correct. Okay. And the process for taking that data, again, I'll just explain this in the way I heard. So the process of using that data is you get a picture of a license plate at one station in your office, one chair in your office, and you have to go to another chair or station in your office to get into a different system, say California DMV, and to actually use the number on the license plate to get information from the state of California as to the registration or driver's license associated with that license plate. Does that sound like that's right?

Yes.

Either one of those situations is anything conceivable under our general understanding of AI being used in that process?

We are not using AI software in that process.

When people stand up and talk about ALPR and AI as if they're married at the hip, that is not an accurate characterization of what you're making in the use or the actual mechanics of the Verkada system?

Correct. There is some AI on the back end of the software, which allows... AI is AI.

Can we have a little civility out there, please? We're trying to speak. You had your chance to speak. It's our turn. Thank you. We can also clear the room and finish up without everybody. We've all had a chance to speak. So please let's have a civil hearing and let's just respect each other. Thank you.

Sorry.

I apologize. I lost my train of thought.

I have an issue when someone questions my integrity. My impression was workstation to workstation, you get a number, you go to a system to find out who's connected with that number, that this characterization that everything ALPR involves AI, there is none of it in either one of those. But do you think there's some in the second workstation where you're actually pulling the identifying information associated with that number?

On the California DMV side, there is not AI. The way in which Forcata works, and Sergeant Peterson could probably give you a better explanation of it on the technical side, is the way in which the camera and the information is pulled from the video footage uses certain technology to pull it from the video in the searches itself.

So it's like looking at a car and it might zoom in on what it ascertains is a license plate. Correct. Rather than staying on a brake light. Correct. Okay. All right. Thanks for that. So I think we have more work to do here. I don't know what the work's like, but clearly we have more work to do. I'm personally not willing to, I think the comment was, It's okay to have a year gap. I don't think it's okay to have a year gap. You hooters and hollerers have the luxury of not being that mother that had a person killed, or the guy who was shot on the wharf, or any of those people. The people that aren't speaking to this today are the victims who aren't here. I guess in somebody's head, they can come to a conclusion that the risk of something being abused supersedes the ultimate risk of a crime not being solved or stopped, and I would say that I think you'd change your religion when that happened personally to you, but If that's your opinion right now, that can be your opinion. And it clearly points to that we have more work to do. I don't think, I still don't think it's entirely clear in my mind exactly what the VRCADA is or how that would work. And my preference would have been, walking in here today, would have been how to reduce that if it's a year, it might be a year and a half of outreach. How long did we do outreach on rent stabilization? Two years? I mean, so I think that's a horrible amount of time to lose a tool that has merit and that the administration of that tool is being painted unfairly by, other people, not by our particular loss of public trust with anything we've done. That's how I weigh it, and you're free to weigh it anywhere else you want to. But I would have walked in here today and hoping we could reduce that down to something like three months, be ready with some part of those two crazy policies that clearly are old and outdated. And even if we just had to write one just for this particular use, just for this particular moment for three months to be ready to go, that would meet approval with the public. I clearly don't think we're going to get approval with the public. I don't think we're going to get approval with the public in a year. And I think... It's just the level of mischaracterization that's out there in the conversations that I've heard today, that it's any time you say ALPR, it means AI, and it leads to abuses and that. That is not what I've heard being talked about with the Verkada system. And so until we can get to a point where we separate out that type of chatter from what is actually being proposed and sell that and get everybody's buy-in, I think we're not ready. But, you know, if that comes down today other than direction and an actual number on waiting a year without having that local tool, I'll be opposed to that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

San Maria?

Thank you, Mr. Rouse. I have a couple questions for, I think it would be our city administrator, but when the policy was first adopted, was that done in a bifurcated manner? In other words, was it the PD policy first and then the city one or the city one first? How was it first adopted a few years ago?

I wasn't here when that policy was first adopted.

I'm happy to answer that. Thank you so much. Sure. Honorable Mayor, Council Member Santa Maria. It wasn't done all at once. So the city policy came in first that dealt with parking lots, et cetera, and the police department. So for example, the city policy didn't go to fire and police commission, but the police department did. So it was bifurcated, as you said. So it wasn't just one time.

Thank you. I'll explain why I asked that. So I know Council Member Friedman brought up the possibility of a bifurcation. And when I heard it at first, I was thinking, yeah, we could try that. But the more that I look at both policies, there's very clear discrepancies between both of them. One of them says that you need a warrant to release the data. The other one says that as long as you have a case or incident number, you can release the data. These are conflicting. suspect that the reason why there's conflicting information is because they were not done together and I'm trying for us to learn from our past mistakes even if we weren't here when those mistakes were made so that we can do this all together and hopefully have some consistency between the policies because otherwise we're just going to keep coming back here with these inconsistencies in the public rightfully so being angry at us.

That's an excellent point in terms of where I see where you see The inconsistencies and so from my understanding and the police department correct me The warrant issue is for example Required because state law says we cannot turn over this data, right? So for example, let's say FBI or some other Homeland Security is asking for that We can't now warrant is different now if it's just the act warrant, you know That's something different. I mean, you can always try to quash that, but it's a big mountain to climb. I believe the policy where it talks about a case number is different in terms of, I believe, sharing between within cities. So within, let's say, downtown parking with our police department, not another outside agency like that. So correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I believe, what that understanding is on that.

The city attorney is correct. The city policy that talks about if... which is what we came back with in 2024 was the city policy that allowed downtown parking to provide us information. We don't have access to the actual system if we have a case number. So take, for example, if we're talking about the Fiesta stabbing that occurred last year, we have a case number. We're actively investigating. We're asking for the information. specific to a case to the downtown parking, we have to provide them with the case number and the reason that we're asking for the data versus getting a judicial warrant in order to access the city's data by the city police department.

Okay. So just, just to make sure I'm understanding you correctly chief. So you're saying that when you share data, you're talking about within the city, correct? Okay. So let me ask you chief, cause I'm seeing here in the police departments and the PD policy manual, the last page of the policy says, The city shall provide ALPR data to a federal, state, or local law enforcement agency for use in criminal investigations or to respond to public safety incidents upon receipt of a request that contains a case or incident number. In addition, information gathered shall not be disclosed to the public or civil matter or less required by law, etc. So this here says the city's providing, shall provide ALPR data to federal, state, or local law enforcement agencies for use in criminal investigations or to respond to public safety incidents upon receipt of a request that contains a case or incident number. So that is not requiring a warrant for you to share the information with other agencies.

If you look at what that's referring to, that's the City of Santa Barbara ALPR policy. that's referenced within our policy.

Right. And so as a city, we don't have to, I just, I'm looking for clarification cause it's under the PD manual.

So it looks like it's, I understand. I understand the confusion with it. It's because we do in fact include the city's policy as an attachment to our policy.

Okay.

But if you look at that four 15.9, that is specific to the Santa Barbara city policy. And I understand the confusion and I understand the need that there does need to be some clarification to that section because what the way that reads is that, um, we, we actually can't provide data to federal agencies, but, but it says here that the city can, the city, but if we did that, it would be in violation of state law. So there is a clarification in terms of city policy. So the city policy is going against state law that the city policy should not include the word federal is to the point. But if you're, if you're reading the entire policy through that section, the four 15.9 is specific to the city's policy.

Okay.

And so to the point there, there does need to be some clarification on that point and some rework of that, because if you go up, And in terms of the departmental policy that's above that, it's very specific because it's references the civil code and the codes of the state that say that we cannot do that. And there is specific state law that says we cannot. So to the point, I understand the confusion. I understand the point that there needs to be some correction to that and some work on that. But that bottom section is specific to the city's ALPR policy. And we include the ALPAR policy. If you look in our policy manual, the city's policy is actually attached to it. Right.

Mr. Drummonds? And to give some background, I think I'm a mayor, council member, senator, mayor. So I think when first the city policy came about, so not the department policy, but the city policy, there was some debate about whether just police department can just make a request for records from like downtown parking, the data. And there's nothing stopping a request like that. It's basically intra, right, within the department or within the city, two departments can ask that request. But I think council at the time and the community was concerned just by having just blanket requests. They wanted something, insurance that was like a legitimate business necessity, legitimate police reason to do so. So that was placed in there in terms of requiring a case number in that language you see. So it's intra between downtown parking and the police department, not any outside agencies. Then when the police department policy came upon, it was around the same time also state law that we're not allowed to share this data. That is not to be read as the ability to inter-exchange, which means outside, outside our agency and Homeland Security. So as we go through this policy, that's how we operate. We operate under those confines completely. You know, one of the things that we will do, obviously, is even provide further clarification because As you mentioned, what happened was all these policies were bifurcated. So I think when you're at least doing that, we can look back at the city policy, even have further clarification. But how we operate, we operate where we do not share that data because as the chief mentioned, that would be violating state law. And state law trumps even our policy. We can't conflict with state law because that would be a violation. Even if you have it in a policy, we cannot conflict with that.

And if you look... up into the departmental policy. And this is actually the way city policy should read. It should be congruent with this. If you look at the PD policy above that, for the purpose of this policy, a public agency is limited to California state or local agencies, including law enforcement agencies and does not include out of state or federal agencies. And then it lists the civil code. Got it. So, so I understand where the confusion is. I'm, I'm not questioning it that there's confusion and that there does need to be clarification because that same language should actually exist within city policy. And it looks like to make sure that that is, that is clear. But despite to the city attorney's point, despite the fact that that language needs to be changed on the city policy side, the city cannot share because we would be in violation of state law and does not share with any federal agency.

Okay.

So I want to put aside the issue of PD and downtown parking because I don't think really anybody here has an issue about the departments within the city sharing data. It's about, it says here, ignore federal, ignore state, local law enforcement agency. That includes our sheriff. And I know that we've said before, we're not sharing that data with the sheriff, but I think if what we're doing in practice is not matching up to what the policy is literally saying in writing, I mean, talk about litigation risk, I'm a little worried about that. So let me just explain and clarify what that actually means.

And I understand where the confusion is. So let's just, I'm going to use the bad word of flock right now. In the flock system, if you are a flock customer, so any city that has flock, You choose whether or not you want to share your data within FLOC with an outside agency. We've never, we've always taken the stance that we would not share our FLOC data. So, for example, the Sheriff's Department cannot go in and use our data in FLOC. They can't see our data.

We can give it to them, right, with just an incident or case number. That's what it says.

Well, they would have to come to us and say, listen, we're investigating this case. do you have data specific to this case? And if it meets the requirements, then we would say, yes, we have data. No, we don't have data. This is what we can share with you.

And that's without a warrant? Sorry to interrupt.

Yes, and it would have to be approved by a supervisor if we were to do so. Because there are cases, especially in our county, where we have agency to agency where we're looking for the same suspect. So then we work on those cases together. So that is where that comes in. It's that interagency cooperation when we are working on cases together. We've had cases where we had a request from Palm Springs because, and to the point, a lot of those happen to be human trafficking because they don't typically stay right here. there can be interagency sharing under the principles and guidelines in the policy that you're reading, but they have to be approved and they have to meet. It can't just be a general, hey, you know, can you give us that information? And we have to track that and we have to make sure that it meets all of the requirements before we do so.

Okay. So that's under the discretion of our police department.

Correct. And that is where that seat. Does not require a warrant? Correct. But never could that be the federal government and never could that be for immigration purposes because we're specifically prohibited from doing so, which is where our supervision and our internal audits to make sure that we are not sharing that information with anyone that is outside our policy or the law.

I don't know if we can say, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure if we can say that it's not used for immigration purposes. If we're sharing with the sheriff and the sheriff is literally picking up people at the jails and, and, you know, co coordinating with ice that they can pick, it would have to be a criminal case, right?

Okay. The sheriff's department can't call us and ask us for information related to an, an ice case. If they were calling and asking for information, it would have to be related to an actual criminal case. Gotcha. Okay. And we have to document that and we have to document the reason and the type of case that it is. It can't just be, Hey, can you give us this information on, on whatever they're asking for that there has to be a criminal reason in a criminal case that it's related to, you know, whether that's, like I said, where we have someone that's being trafficked between city to city, or if it was on a kidnapping, you know, those type of cases would be what that is used for.

Okay.

And I mean, clearly we, you know, if it is the direction that we're given never to share, that is clearly something we would have to take, but there, there is also a risk and, and issues with that because when we have a case that takes us out of our jurisdiction, we're asking the other agencies for the same information because we, We had a big burglary ring that was hitting here. They were hitting the sheriff's area and they were hitting in Ventura. It took all of our jurisdictions to come together to solve that and to take the individuals responsible into custody. So we still have to have the tool to be able to share information. We have to have the safeguards in place to make sure that we are doing it by policy by law, that we're doing the audits and doing the things that we're talking need to be, and I think to my point from the last meeting, certainly something that could be as part of this is that we're reporting that quarterly to the Fire and Police Commission with what those shares, how many outside agencies we've shared with. It would never be that they have access to our data. It would be they would have to call asking us for specific things for a specific case and for a specific reason.

Okay, thank you. Let me ask you about the time that we keep or store the data. So I know a public comment referenced that on one policy it says you can retain the data for up to a year, but PD is only retaining for 30 days. And so is there, I don't know who the question is for, but is there a conflict there of, you know, if you're deleting your data after 30 days, instead of the year long, I think that's what the city policy says.

Both policies. We only keep our data for 30 days. Okay. I mean, that's the way it's always operated. That's always been the way it is for PD. We talk about 30 days. That's our retention period. The only time that we retain data longer is if it is specific evidence to a case. Right. where then it's attached to a case. That makes sense.

And I think that's where review of the city policy, if there's a desire to look at how long the city data is kept. I mean, I think that's where that review is helpful because as circumstances change, there may be reasons which the city may want to reduce that retention policy.

Sure. Yeah, I just want to make sure that we're catching all the discrepancies. I think that's also what's landing us in this mess is that people are reading different things depending on which policy they find online.

And I will just add, too, that in that mix, not to overcomplicate things, thank you, Council Senator Maria, there's also state law in terms of the government code in terms of records retention. So, for example, like surveillance, like actual video, like you see in a library or something else, right? That has a different retention period of a year because it's actual video. So there's also state law in terms of retention that must be followed as well. And that's part of that review process as well.

Thank you so much. Chief, I just have another question on the Verkada system itself, since that's the recommended one from staff. Did you say, I just want to make sure I heard you correctly, did you say that Verkada cameras did not use analytics on people, like they don't detect people, or they do? Was it clear in what you said?

So Mayor Rouse, Council Member Santa Maria, the way that the cameras that we are purchasing are programmed is they do not use any of those other features. They are set for ALPR only.

OK. So I just did a quick Google search. And on the Verkada website, it says, people analytics uses edge-based camera processing to detect people and faces and analyze attributes such as clothing color, apparent sex, and the presence of backpacks. All Verkata cameras detect people by default, but you must enable people history to use advanced analytics like searching by face or clothing color. So the Verkata's website says that all Verkata cameras detect people by default, and then if you want to do very specific searches, then you have to enable something called people history.

We are not purchasing that. So Sergeant Peterson can speak to that, but that's... We're purchasing the specific ALPR software. We're not purchasing license for the people analytics or those pieces and the way the program, the cameras that we're getting to be programmed, they're programmed for LPR only.

Are you sure? I believe you. I'm just, how sure are we of that? Because it says all of our Kata cameras detect people by default.

Mayor Rouse and Council Member Santa Maria, The Verkada cameras can only function in one of two settings. They can focus in license plate reader mode, or they can focus in people analytics and vehicle analytics. They cannot do both. So in the way that the police department intended to use these Verkada cameras in license plate reader mode, we cannot use the cameras for people analytics or vehicle analytics. And that information is available on Verkada's website.

Okay. So then we're, it's, you're saying it's in the hardware that we cannot toggle the people analytics is what you're saying.

Mayor house and council member Santa Maria. My understanding is that it is in the software. I'm not a hundred percent sure on that.

Okay. Okay, I'm kind of stuck on this point just because I'm looking at the website. It says, to use Verkada's people analytics features, no additional software or hardware is needed. All Verkada camera models support people analytics, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, Council Member Santa Maria, I would just, I mean, if the council is wanting to defer the purchase, which I'm hearing a majority of the council, I'm not sure it's worth getting into the details of the camera system tonight. If the decision of council is to defer any contract with Verkada until after review of the policies, which is what I'm hearing, I'm not sure it's worth the council's time this evening or members of the public time to go through the details of the Verkada system. the policy review may result in a completely different outcome.

Sure. So I just need clarification on this. This is something that the public brought up. And I'm just, I'm reading something different than what we're hearing. And I'm just asking for clarification on why is it that the website continuously says all cameras detect people, but we're hearing that some do, some don't.

Mayor Rouse, Council Member Santa Maria, I will say it again. The way in which we're purchasing the system And what we've been told by Verkada is once it is programmed for LPR, it cannot be used for the other side, which is the people and vehicle analytics. I'm not here to debate what we're seeing on the website or not seeing on the website. I'm telling you what we have researched and what we recommended to purchase and the way in which we intend to use it. and the way in which we are purchasing it.

Okay, I think when we come back, what would be helpful is for you to bring back that, right, and showing us this is the software that you're purchasing, and very clearly show the public and us, honestly, that it's not what the website says. It's not that I doubt you, it's just that I need to resolve this, this just doesn't match up, you know what I'm saying? So if we're going to evaluate this further, we need to really understand what it is that you're setting up, because I'm hearing two different things.

I completely understand what you're saying, Councilmember Santa Maria. We did not come prepared tonight to get into a longer conversation on Vercada tonight. Because if that is the route we're going based on the conversations, I would actually bring a Vercada rep here to answer the questions for you. That would be great.

Yeah, that would be great.

Okay, we can say that from now.

Mr. Dornish wants to weigh in here.

Oh, please, yes.

Sure, I think one of the ways to kind of address this issue Because I understand the concern is not the trust in our police department, but the trust of a third party vendor. And how do we know that they are operating on the up and up? They're a company, and they're for profit. So one of the ways to handle and give an extra layer of security is to have really strong contractual terms and what consequences are from a financial standpoint of breaches of that data. So the best way to deal from that is from a pocketbook standpoint. And that's how we would address an issue in terms of, been suing if there were breaches of that data and all that. So that would be the way we would hopefully address that issue.

Okay. Thank you so much. I'll just give very brief comments and I'll end. I don't have more questions. But thank you, Chief, for indulging me. I just wanted to clarify some things just to get a clear understanding of what it is that we're doing. I don't think it comes as a surprise that my stance on this has not changed. As we are talking in the broader scale of fiscal responsibility within our city, if this is widely unpopular and we have a police force that has been solving crimes successfully for decades, I don't necessarily think that this is going to preclude our police department from doing the job they do. I think that we have a pretty fine department that can hold its own and has been keeping people safe for as long as they've been around. And this is very new technology. I don't want to rush into things and make the same mistakes again. I want to just address a couple of comments that came up. When we talk about human trafficking and the very real issue of that and the folks that are experiencing crimes that ALPRs could help solve, I heard human trafficking come up multiple times. I can't help but think, you know, what else is human trafficking? It's ICE agents kidnapping people. They don't have license plates that we can track. So if we wanna resolve kidnapping, we should start with trying to figure out what we do about that, which I understand we're very limited here locally. But it's very disingenuous to say we care about kidnapping, except for all the other people that, you know, we can't really track. And it's not necessarily an issue, definitely not an issue from the PD or from city council or community, that's just the way that these federal agents are behaving. They're driving around recklessly, they don't drive around with license plates, but I'll tell you right now, no license plate, ALPRs don't help us there. And there is far more of that kidnapping happening right now than the other kinds. And it's not a speculation. These are numbers and statistics coming out of the, I think someone mentioned the hooters and hollers out there. The hooters and hollers are the people that are putting their own bodies on the line to keep people safe from, again, people who are driving around recklessly without license plates and kidnapping people. So I really think we need to be very careful about when we are thinking about adding surveillance technology, keeping it, expanding it, whatever it is that we're doing, we already don't have the public's trust in this, and I don't blame them. This is something that I don't want to delay it because it has to be addressed at one point or another. At the same time, I'm very sensitive to our staff capacity, and I know Ms. Anderson does... a phenomenal job on taking on so many of the city's important projects that I would think it's really unfair for us to go to her and tell her, do it faster. Because like Ms. McAdoo said, there's only so many hours in the day. So I'm more than willing to open up this time so that the community can give proper input, Fire and Police Commission can give input, Ms. Anderson can have more time to complete the other projects before we get to this one. There is already such a long list of priorities that we give her that I wanna make sure that we're not de-prioritizing other things for this, because this is important, but we also need to move all the other things forward. I'll leave it there because I think we've heard from most of us up here, I mean, the consensus out in the public, I think Mayor Pro Temps mentioned this and I wholeheartedly agree, not one person, I keep tallies every time people do public comments because I want to have a literal, I just keep my own stats on how people are leaning because we're supposed to do the will of the people. Last August 25th, not one person spoke in favor of flock cameras. or I think maybe one did, who was sort of like, yeah, out of 30, whatever it was. Sure. I didn't see anybody today. I have gone through my email multiple times. Not one email has came in about, please, more surveillance. I think our citizens understand that the police department is, of course, has a large workload, and they have the crimes they need to solve, but at the same time, I have not heard anybody say that the marginal benefit that we are getting is worth the civil liberties that we're giving up. And again, it bears repeating that this is not a comment on our own PD, it's not our own PD that we're saying is misusing the data, but this is, we are bound to make continue to make mistakes if we don't pause and review this policy before it goes forward. So my position from the last meeting stands. I don't know if we need a formal motion or vote, but I would be, when the time comes, happy to make a motion to delay the contract until we can properly get public input for both policies. I worry about doing them separately because that's how we got here today.

And that is the action we need today from council. So that would be option one in the staff report.

So I'm actually going to make a comment. So it's very clear that the abuses and the racist policies of ICE have driven us to these kinds of conversations. And unfortunately, when these things happen nationally, going back even to the George Floyd thing, it tends to color the conversation surrounding all enforcement, fair or otherwise. When it comes to the cameras and the observations, we've had these discussions for years with stoplight cameras. I fought for 15 years as the chair of the downtown parking committee to get cameras at the kiosks, which ended up getting us a couple of cases solved where kiosketeers were actually beaten up and robbed from. So there are uses, and these are tools. I still, and I actually say, I can't remember this conversation was going to be about policy and not necessarily about equipment today. So I hear what the audience is saying and I do see the discrepancies between the languages. So I think that needs to be cleaned up. However, like Mr. Jordan and Mr. Gutierrez were talking about, we also have law enforcement issues. When you have a limited number of officers Technology is a multiplier. It's not a multiplier to track or to surveil. It's a multiplier to protect. And that's what the main purpose of all these things are. Our police department never violated any breach of trust during their whole time, even with the flock cameras, even though other agencies apparently did. I don't think they have any intention of doing this otherwise. They're dedicated to serve and protect. They really take that pretty seriously. I think it's important that we get this policy right. I think we need to get it. I don't know how we expedite the timeline, because like Ms. McAdoo said, we've got so much going on. I would have taken option two, actually, to go ahead with a contract and then bring back quarterly updates to the Police and Fire Commission, which we so painstakingly formed after the George Floyd incident. And I think that is a very public meeting That is a meeting that can be analyzed, and we can really get the truth of the matter out. Besides, Chief, what is the downtime if you were to order forgot equipment? What would the downtime be before it was operational?

It would take us at least 90 days to even just get the cameras, and then we'd have to install them and train on using them, so.

So if you were to receive, just the hypothetical, if you were to receive them in 90 days and we would, you know, have a first check-in with the police commission, and then as we trained up and we got the system operational prior to it being initiated, we could have more police commission-type presentations. In the meantime, I think the language cleanup, I think, has been identified by all here as something that's got to be a high priority to make sure it's understandable for the entire public. Because I do think, Chief, there are some inconsistencies there.

Yes.

Yeah. Okay. Very good. All right. So like I said, I do know we just had a presentation earlier today about trafficking, and it's something I take seriously. I work with the Olive Crest people up on the Hill, and it's a real thing, and it does exist here. So I'm not about to deny a useful policing tool, something that might actually help solve and or prevent a crime. So that's my position on it, but I will entertain a motion on what we have in front of us. And Ms. McAdoo, it's pretty much an option one or option two at this point.

Or a third option if the council so chooses. Okay. Option one is what the council asked us to bring back at the August 25th meeting.

Right, and then option two would be go ahead with the contract, but then bring back to the police commission on those regular intervals, especially prior to that. And then also all of those include cleaning up the policy language so that it's consistent, understandable, obviously dovetails with state law. All right, very good. Ms. Santa Maria.

Thank you, Mayor Rouse. I'd like to make a motion for option one, which was the direction given by council in August 25th meeting. Second. Second.

Okay, first and second by Harmon. Mr. Gutierrez.

I just want to make sure that we have community organizations like Indivisible be be pivotal on the policy being written? That's just my recommendation, unless it's already in there.

That would be absolutely part of our process, as it always is. And all of the groups we've been meeting with regularly, we are happy to engage as we revise the policies.

All right.

That's it.

So, Chief, where does that option one put us in terms of implementing this equipment, which obviously you see some value in, otherwise you wouldn't be here going through all this?

If option one is the desire and vote of council, that means we would not move forward with any new LPR technology until after all the policy work was done?

And our timeline and policy work potentially is, even if it could possibly expedite it? We would have to. We're going to meet internally and we'll come up with a timeline.

And we're going to have to have community engagement and built into that. So we'll need to meet to work through that schedule.

given everything else that's on the workload.

All right. It's not happening. I mean, it's not happening within the 90 days. No, I get that.

Because we have to have the cameras.

And once again, since we're not exactly flush with all sorts of officers to do all the things that we want to do and protect the community, we're going to have that one piece of technology that won't be part of our arsenal, right? Okay. All right, very good. There's a first and a second on the floor, and that is for option one. Okay, Madam Clerk, may we have the vote, please?

This is a motion by Councilmember Santamaria, seconded by Councilmember Harmon, to approve option one from the staff report. Okay, go ahead and vote, please.

That passes 6-2 with Rouse and Jordan dissenting. I think we both wanted to see implementation a little bit quicker on the equipment. But I think we're all on the same page about getting language cleaned up and getting policy set so it's understandable by all parties. Am I correct on that, Mr. Jordan?

Okay, very good. Well, thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. Let's see. Council Committee Assignments and Reports. I'll give you one. I got to do something actually really cool, which is kind of rare. I got to present a Carlos Santana Day, what is a concert at the Bowl, to Carlos Santana himself, who was a very gracious man and accepted that on behalf of our recognition, of course, the Mexican Heritage and Independence Day, the dovetail with the concert, and the boy can still bring it. So I've got to tell you, it's unbelievable. So good stuff. That was fun. Ms. Nedd.

I'm so glad that happened, Mayor Rouse, yeah. So we attended CCRB, Sierra Club monthly meeting. We had a council procedures meeting, still working on updating that handbook. A lot of good progress there. Attended the Housing Authority's housing meeting with Presidio Springs along with Council Member Santamaria. I THINK MANY OF US ATTENDED THE 9-11 REMEMBRANCE, THE 25-YEAR HONORARY ANNIVERSARY, ATTENDED A CITIZENS PLANNING ASSOCIATION MEETING, DISCUSSING LAND USE POLICY WITH JOAN HARTMAN, AND THAT'S IT. MR. FREEMAN. ONE MORE THING. ONE MORE WAS MONACEDO ASSOCIATION HAD A VERY COMPREHENSIVE neighborhood meeting on El Nino and what they're doing in the creeks and getting ready for the storms.

Mayor, just on that point, I wanted to highlight next week we are going to have a similar presentation here at the beginning of the council meeting. So I just wanted to alert the public that we will be doing an El Nino presentation for city preparation here at the beginning of council meeting next week.

Thank you. Mr. Freeman.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I attended the 9-11 commemoration. Thank you to our First responders who put that on for the 25th anniversary, it's important that we all come together as a community to remember and reflect on what happened, and it was a very moving ceremony. Attended the Italian community annual barbecue, and it was great to see members of the Italian families coming around. Ate a lot of pie and a lot of food. Thank you to them for inviting me, and Mayor Oster there, and then the Democratic Women's Social Lab event on the upcoming elections and what to be looking out for that they held last night. So thank you to them women for putting that on.

Okay, Ms. Sanria.

Thank you, Mayor Rouse. Also attended Council Procedures Ad Hoc Committee. We're working on, as the name suggests, council procedures going forward. Also attended the Presidio Springs meeting with those tenants and Mr. Rob Fredericks. Been meeting biweekly with Eastside residents and business owners on MILPA's improvements and just economic vitality in the Eastside. I got a couple more. Civil Services Commission yesterday and to the point that Ms. McAdoo made about the presentation for El Nino. So Public Works and I and other departments in our city were putting together a El Nino preparedness meeting September 24th. at the franklin center starting at 5 30 p.m so it is free open for the public we will be discussing um you know how we can prepare and get folks to ask and get their questions answered on how to prepare for leo and that was just for east side residents so if council members would like to attend we need to notice it as a public meeting so we were not intending to do that but if you would like to attend

please let us know and we will make arrangements accordingly. Thank you for clarifying that.

Sorry, I opened the party up to everyone. It is meant for the folks that live right near the Houtash Culver and the Sycamore Creek since they are very heavily impacted, so we're trying to do it in the neighborhood that's impacted. But if any of you want to join, you are more than welcome to.

We just need to be careful. Just let us know.

Thank you.

And we stand adjourned.