Planning Commission, Cac & Pros - Regular Meeting

I'll introduce the last one. Did you change shoes? Yeah. We just heard that it's been cool up to 73.

That's all we did. I also took a video.

I'm not the only one. Thank you.

Welcome you to our September 16th City Council meeting and the time is 610 and at this point I'd like to ask for a roll call please.

Nice Mayor Lowe. Here. Council Member Gurney. Present. Council Member Dean.

Yes, Kate.

Council Member Farrar-Rivas. Present. Mayor Wellender. Present.

Yes, and now that we're all present, I would like to welcome everybody to participate in the Pledge of Allegiance as you are able to. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Point of order, Mr. Mayor. The pledge of allegiance should be opened up to the public. Each and every item on the agenda should be opened up, sir. Thank you. You're welcome.

Okay, we did have a closed session and there is no reportable action for this evening. And so I'm going to turn to my fellow council members and ask if there will be any comments about the agenda and whether or not I can get an approval of the agenda as it is written.

I move approval. I'll second that.

Further discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please.

Vice Mayor Lowe? Aye. Council Member Gurney? Yes. Council Member Dean?

Aye.

Council Member Favarabas? Aye. Mayor Wellender?

Yes.

Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Very good. So moving right along, we are now entering the time in which the public has an opportunity to make comments that are not appearing on the agenda but fall within our jurisdictional matter. and at this point everyone is given the opportunity for two minutes and we're going to have up to ten people that can queue behind the podium and if there are more than ten people that wish to speak you certainly will be able to do so and that will take place later in the meeting. There will be a second opportunity to speak. So you're not required, but it's always nice to identify who you are, so I welcome the first individual to the podium.

Okie dokes. Hello, council and attendees. My name is Jack Allen, resident of the area, and I am back here to again implore the council to cancel the contract with Flock Safety. I understand that recently there was usage of this technology to help an awful incident that happened on Sonoma Plaza. However, it must be noted that a press release was released before full information was available, and my understanding of the basic rights that we have is you are innocent until proven guilty. This is a side note for what this software is capable of causing effectively as it was a key use in this statement and release of four individuals' names. Flock has no oversight, no regulations on a federal level. The city of Boston has just cancelled their contract with Flock Safety over these issues of how their data is used and how it is stored and shared. Even in the House, Representative Massey has introduced an act with a whole bunch of bipartisan support about cutting federal funding due to the unscrupulous ways in which Flock Safety is handling data, information, and just how they function. In the tech world, trust me, bro, is not a defense. And this is almost what they are leaning on at this point. And it is highly concerning. There are other alternatives out there. The council's silence on this issue is speaking volumes. It is time to get Flock out of Sonoma. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Jack.

Good evening, Council. Mayor, I did want to bring to your attention that it is highly unusual for a city agenda to both have the roll call and the pledge of allegiance as the same item on the agenda. I've never seen that before. Normally it's broken out as roll call and the next item is pledge of allegiance, and each and every item on the agenda must be opened up to the public as required by the Brown Act. So I would urge you to make that change so we don't interrupt the mayor with that Brown Act violation. Also, as the mayor said, it's our right as members of the public to remain anonymous. And the legislature has been clear about this and for good reason. There are times when members of the public want to stay anonymous. There's some very difficult and delicate issues that are discussed before the city council. Members of the public do not want to be put on a blacklist. It's happened. They don't want to be retaliated on. There are goons that work in government that go after people, you know, middle of the day, middle of the night. And if you read the law, my federal lawsuit that I emailed to each one of you, maybe you have, I have over a $6 million lawsuit against the city of Cotati right now for retaliation and violating my rights. My third lawsuit is evidently they're slow learners. So read that lawsuit. It's a peach. So, also, when I was on the city council, it's very commonplace for each city council member to have the right to call a member from the public back up to the podium if you have questions. I know the Brown Act requires that you cannot respond to a person at the podium. Okay, but you can call that person back to clarify some misinformation. You can also look over to staff and ask the staff to reach out to that member of the public for more information. You can also ask the public if they'd be mind if they would leave their email address so that you can respond to them privately. But I rarely see that, and it shows to me it smacks that you don't care. You should be inquisitive enough to be able to call people back up. Also, this two-day advance notification to the city for a disability accommodation is ridiculous. It's something that you should be able to talk to the city clerk about, and we should be able to be on file as having a disability, and that we don't have to reiterate it every time we come up again. So on the Zoom access, I wish I could access this from home. I can't. I work nights. Many of us in this community work nights to keep this economy moving. I'd like to be able to do this from work, okay? So you must be able to have the public to respond to you, ask you questions via Zoom. I know that's on your agenda later tonight. I have to go to work, keep this economy moving, but it's long overdue. Thank you.

You're welcome. I do just want to point out that we did give it optional so that as you were reminding us what is required in terms of stating the name or not, please note we did say it was optional and that we are consistent. So anyway, anyone else would like to step forward on this? Please.

Yes, this is a separate commentary from agenda item 9.1, and I'll be speaking to that later.

Okay.

I am in receipt of the email string between Lori Alderman, a disabled individual, your city clerk, Rebecca Barr, and your deputy city clerk, Monique B. Savies-Burns, I hope I pronounced that right, concerning Ms. Alderman's attempts to speak to item 9.1, which is about speaking accommodation required by the federal ADA law. It seems that common sense is overruled by bureaucratic whimsical rules, and that proves that common sense isn't all that common. According to Ms. Burns, if the council approves providing Zoom access, then Ms. Alderman can speak remotely after the decision is made. I would say not only is that too late, but if you have the ability to immediately connect with Zoom after the decision is made, that should be offered at the beginning of this meeting rather than at the end. You could even give direction to staff, which is sort of what Mr. Barrager was talking about, because you can only give direction on public comment, not on any item on the agenda. Certainly you can call somebody up on a regular item on the agenda, but public comment is a different animal according to the Brown Act. Getting back to what I was saying, if you have an ability to immediately connect with Zoom, that should be offered at the beginning of this meeting rather than at the end. You could even give direction to staff to enable this ability so all may participate in deciding whether you will or won't comply with the law. As you have a Zoom link provided on the agenda and state that you can flip a switch to enable audio commentary after the passage of 9.1 in whatever form you do it, I'm not asking you to violate the Brown Act by responding to an item not on the agenda. I'm asking you to follow the Brown Act and give direction to staff to flip that switch now. Thank you. Thank you very much.

okay seeing no movement I will close the public comment at this point and we'll continue on and bringing it back to the dais we have an opportunity for meeting dedication do we have any comments or suggestions I'm going to go ahead and put forth a recommended meeting dedication this evening, if I could. I would like to dedicate this meeting to a Mr. John Francis Avila. Unfortunately, he was the victim of our Fatal Plaza assault on Labor Day evening. He was a Sonoma resident, and as I understand it, he was also a businessman. It was a tragedy, and when such an event takes place in our town, it is unnerving. Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and friends. On a sidebar, I'd like to publicly acknowledge and express my gratitude and thanks for our police chief team and available resources for efficiently bringing this Incident to a point where the legal process can move forward. So again, I am Dedicating this meeting to a mr. John Francis Avalon Now moving on to council members reports and Comments and I believe I started left last time. I'm gonna come right this time Thank You mr. Mayor

I'd like to talk a little bit about our wonderful trip on the smart train. Last Tuesday, many of us and some people who are in the audience as well took the 40X bus to Petaluma where we caught the smart train. I went south to Larkspur, took the ferry, went over to the city, had a lovely lunch, did some shopping, came back. And it was really well received. There's a wonderful video that's been posted on several social media accounts, certainly on mine if you want to take a look at it. It was really well received. And I want to thank everyone who showed up that day and thank the staff for all the support that they gave to this production. something I've been working on in my role as a commissioner on the Sonoma County Transit and Climate Authority. I've been bringing this up because there is no, we tend to focus on the 101 corridor and Sebastopol and Sonoma being east and west are not given as much attention. So part of the goal of mine and I think of many others is to make sure that Sonoma and Sebastopol have a vote on the smart train board the authorizing legislation for smart specifically excluded Sebastopol and Sonoma it was thought to be simply a one-on-one corridor thing and now because of its tremendous success and it's going all the way up to Healdsburg, and they're adding Geyserville. We know that there are tracks in Sonoma, Shellville specifically. If we at some point are able to connect, we can connect all the way to the Capitol Corridor train, which goes to Sacramento and all the way to Chicago if you want to go. So it really is part of the future because of climate change, because of growth, because of the environment, putting in transit in this portion of Sonoma County is essential. And I will continue to be an advocate for that. Kind of a pain in the you know what in that committee, I think. But after our successful adventures last Tuesday, I think we have some converts that truly believe that Sonoma Valley can be part of a transit system that connects to the corridor. And there's no reason that we have to have Highway 37 be so full of cars because we have no other way to get to those destinations. So I'll leave it there, but I will say that also at SCTA this week on Monday, we also looked at the Highway 37 plan. I'm probably going to be working on that on that commission. There's a lot of work to be done, you know, regardless of moving traffic to another portion or to trains because of sea level rise, we really have to work on Highway 37. And I did bring up the fact that I'm a little concerned about the toll portion of it because it seems to disproportionately affect lower income workers in the place that they have planned to put that toll, which is after Sears Point. going to Solano County. So I did bring that up. The other thing that came up, it was mainly items from public comment, but I do want to acknowledge that there are many residents in the Shellville area that are very concerned about Caltrans' plan to put a roundabout on 8th Street East and 121. We know we have to do some mitigation there. It's a dangerous area. But whether or not it needs a large roundabout as opposed to a traffic signal or some other mechanism or whether or not we should do something on Burndale, all of those comments were well received and we will be looking at that. And because it's appeared in Numerous publications, I wanted to acknowledge the people from Sonoma that did come to the meeting and voice their concerns on that. So thank you very much. A little bit of a lengthy, I'm usually known for my very short reports, but this one was kind of a big deal. Thanks. Thank you very much.

Yes. First of all, the Tourism Improvement District did not meet this month, and that meeting was canceled. But the Library Advisory Board did meet on Thursday, the 10th of September. And just a couple of things from that meeting. The fall book sale... is going to occur this October on the 3rd from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and also on the 4th from 1 p.m. that would be Sunday 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. our Sonoma Valley Library through the administration is working with a vendor facilities by design for quotes to bring in new adult and teen furniture for Sonoma Valley Library and then Hot off the press, there is a new branch manager. They've selected Melanie McCollum as the new branch manager who previously was with the library system managing the Guerneville, Forestville, and Occidental libraries collectively, I believe. And so we have a new library manager. The Nepalese fundraiser is scheduled for Tuesday. the 22nd from 4.30 to 8 o'clock and I'd like to thank the City of Sonoma for working with the Nepalese community here locally to allow them to use the Vets Hall and if you are interested the public is welcome there's no admission fee but they are hoping to generate donations and If you were interested, you would want to make your donation directed to the California Sherpa Association and with a memo of the Nepal Flood Relief Fund. And then lastly, today I had occasion to walk through the Veterans Cemetery. And then I even walked through the two little pocket parks over on the east side. and I would just like to commend The work that's being done, the vet, I'm not sure I've ever seen the vet cemetery look as good as it did today. And it was very, very pleasant. I got to speak to one of the park, or one of the folks out there, city employees. And I don't know who's responsible for those pocket parks. Looked really good today as well. So congratulations to whoever's responsible, but please share that with your teams. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mayor. Yes, so I was very fortunate to be able to participate in the Sonoma Valley Meet Smart event. While I didn't take Smart from Petaluma, I did go from Sonoma to Petaluma. And the great thing about it, it was a lovely, I think it was actually like 35 minutes, ride to get to SMART, and then from there, you know, it's pretty quick going any direction on SMART. But it was just, you know, it was very efficient. It was fun. You know, it would be a great place. You can work on it. The bus is great. It's very comfortable. So it was exciting to see how many people showed up for it, too, so I really want to congratulate our vice mayor on that event and the success of that event. That was fabulous. And it got a lot of media, so yeah, and I, you know, as well as others here, we're always having to say, Sonoma, or if you're from Sebastopol, yeah, Sebastopol, yeah, the corridor is lovely, we love it, but there are other places in the county. So, and then on, actually, yesterday evening, I went to the Sebastiani Theater Foundation presentation on the Sebastiani renovation, which seems to be moving along. Not where they need to be yet as far as fundraising, but it's a really exciting addition to the plaza. They're gonna be, I don't know if people are aware of it, but they're gonna renovate the theater itself, keeping the character of the theater, but renovating and bringing it up to new ordinances and standards, I think they still like to move what were they saying to move the curtain or the lights or something they're still pulling sandbags in the back you know it's like you know so it's a beautiful theater but it still functions as it did when it was built in 1933 so that's going to be updated and there will be a 50 seat theater built on on the back side the east side of the theater and so that will allow for events to be able to happen in like so you could have a performance in the big theater and you could have a movie in the back theater with those 50 seats and that allows our theater to bring more movies here because if you bring a movie to a theater they require that you have to be able to show it on a regular basis for a number of days well for so it will actually make our theater a more economically viable over the long run. So it's an exciting project that's moving forward and going on. Then I just wanted to announce that tomorrow night there is an event for the Cancer Support Sonoma that's called Wig Out. and that is happening at Jacuzzi Family Vineyards. It starts at 5 o'clock. Other than that, Sonoma Clean Power did not meet in September, so I do not have a report from there, but will next month in November. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Mr. Ding?

Thank you, Mayor. Same thing. I was attending the SMART, another program, I'm so grateful to Vice Mayor Sanyo and this is a great opportunity for city of Sonoma connected, interconnected with the outside. And it was so exciting. When we, out on the bus, arrived at Petaluma, we see the Petaluma City Mayor waiting for us and working with us. Just like the family and, you know, friends. That is truly, you know, that is our, you know, the meaning. And another thing is, I think, And geographically, Sonoma is a little bit far away, but each of the residents here, we try our best, try to be connected with the outside. And thankfully, you represent us for the future of the 101 corridor and transit as a system should be included in Sonoma. And on the September the 10th, I was attending a Zoom meeting sponsored by League of Cow Cities. That is United We Stand Against the Hate. Because in October the 18th to the 24th, that is United Against the Hate Week nationwide. The reason why I was attending this event because during the pandemic, I was reported by a local resident's mother and daughter just finished their work from the Bank of America. And they were stopped by a man shouting and yelling and saying, go back where you came from. And both of them very scared and also didn't report to the police. So several months later, when we were just in a casual conversation, they mentioned about this. I think this is very important. Everything here looks like it's very peaceful. And fortunately, they tell me, and then through me, I can tell more people. Because And hate and the bias, it's truly a dangerous threat to our communities' safety and security. And during this meeting, we shared a lot of information with each other and how to make more awareness for the community. For example, how to display, distribute posters and share action cards and host film screens. A lot of information. If everybody is interested, you can go to the website League of Cow Cities. So that is a great opportunity. And also, I hope out in the city, we're going to participate and unite against the hate week that is October 18 to October 24. That is my report. Thank you.

Thank you very much. So I'll pick up and had a chance to go up to Cloverdale to what is called the Sonoma County Mayors and Councilmen's Association, Council Members Association. And at that time also Sonoma County Transit and Climate Action Director Jim Cameron was there along with the director of SMART. And although she didn't ask me to in her absence, I began to say how important it is not to forget Sonoma on the transit corridor for 101. And they did give some very positive statistics. Apparently the smart train is up in ridership 28% and there were 160,000 riders for a month. So that was significant and 43% of them were like your mayor, seniors. So that was good. And also, kudos goes out to our information officers, Ms. Sarah Tracy, for being very effective in pushing out the message, which has already been expressed how successful the ride was. I had the opportunity along with some of my fellow council members to be at the 9-11 unveiling of the sculpture and the remembrance of this event. It was very good. I thought it... was well attended and it was very meaningful and it was a solemn reminder. But it also was a celebration of a significant piece of public art, which I'm sure we're going to be talking about that topic later. I had a chance on the 13th to go to Sebastiani Theater and attend a movie called Free For All. It had to do with a celebration of the significant role that libraries and librarians have played down through the years. And in part it was because of the recognition also of the Carnegie Library that we have had here in town. And again, it was a very informative event. On Monday, I had the opportunity to travel to San Francisco and to go to Senator Adam Schiff's office where I had a chance to meet with one of his reps, field reps, and it was an opportunity to put a name to a face, a community, to an office. And also to be talking somewhat about two opportunities of either future grants and or that thing that we hear quite often about earmarks and somehow if we could get something redirected to our community. Now to end, I have two public service announcements. Item number one, there is a candidate form coming up on September 29th put on by the Chamber of Commerce at... the Swiss Hotel, and it starts at 5.30, and it's something that I would encourage everybody to attend to be introduced to the candidates for District 3. And my last, I'm sorry, we have our District 3 council member. District 1, thank you. The last thing is that on this Sunday there's going to be a special movie on again at the historic Sebastiani Theater. It's celebrating the women's club Sonoma that I believe are here present. So that ends my comments and I will now turn it over to, although I missed it in the last council meeting, to our permanent city manager for her comments.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council, and community members. I was also going to mention the 9-11 memorial, which I thought was really, it was very well attended, and I wanted to appreciate and thank Chief Aker and his team and all of those that participated in the ceremony. It was really beautiful. I also wanted to acknowledge that earlier this evening, both Jennifer Gates, the Community Development Director, and Dave Janz, the Parks and Rec Director, represented the city at the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation's annual garden party and awards ceremony. where the city received a bronze plaque, which is apparently extraordinarily large, which is why it is not in the council chambers right now, recognizing our historic Carnegie Library building. So I want to thank the League for this special recognition and for its longstanding commitment to preserving places that help tell Sonoma's story. So I don't know where we're going to put that, but we'll put it on display somewhere for everyone to see. Also wanted to mention the Sonoma Women's Club And thank and appreciate them for and the foundation for their meaningful contributions to the community and recognizing their 125th anniversary this year They've been working with staff and submitted a proposal to fund and help beautify enhance the Italian fountain area in the plaza the foundation's been collaborating with city staff over the last several months and their concept includes refreshed landscaping irrigation improvements and Pathway renovation mechanical and cosmetic upgrades the found itself The woman's club foundation is graciously committed to raising the funds needed for the project and is partnering with the valley of the moon garden club to provide volunteers for ongoing support once the improvements are complete So we are there in the process of finalizing the landscape enhancement project design of their own Oh, I'm sorry. I misspoke. It's the value the moon garden club. That's doing their own project as well. Also helping with the volunteering process Once the design and fundraising are complete, staff will bring a final design, proposed agreement, and project timeline to the council for consideration. And also, I was going to mention the event just at the beginning, the documentary, this Sunday at 2.30 at the Sebastiani Theater. So thank you so much also for being here. The Peter Hassan sculpture that we've been talking about is also... um about to be installed so this is really exciting the staff's been working with the cultural and fine arts commission as well as the artist on the final details to place peter's donated sculpture titled cycles three in the plaza site prep will begin later this week extending through next week and the final installation and dedication is scheduled for thursday october october 1st to kick off the monthly art walk so stay tuned for more details community is invited to attend and gather and recognize mr. Hansen for his generous donation and the newest public art installation in Sonoma an update on street maintenance our annual street maintenance work is underway the crews are completing pavement preparation ahead of the slurry seal application which is now scheduled for the 21st and 22nd of September between the 21st and 23rd of September residents on affected streets should watch for posting of parking restrictions and contractor notices The updated street-by-street schedules and project maps are available on the city's website. We also have Movie Under the Stars this Friday night, which will be showing Back to the Future, which is like one of my favorite movies of all time, on the north lawn of Cinema Plaza as part of our free Movies Under the Stars series. It begins about seven o'clock, so it's been really well attended and a really fun event, so I encourage folks to come out for that. water and winter readiness so we're looking ahead recognizing that this is projected to be a pretty intense season winter season so Sonoma water will host a water year update webinar on September the 30th covering rainfall current reservoir conditions water supply flood protection and what to expect heading into the next water year this also comes as city staff continue to do our own seasonal preparedness work, including regional coordination, emergency planning, ongoing operations center readiness and training of our city staff. We will be bringing a more comprehensive winter preparedness update to the council later this fall. Also wanted to mention that we have an administrative services director recruitment ongoing. The city launched the recruitment. It's a key leadership role with strong, we need somebody with really strong finance and budget background, but also will be responsible for human resources, risk management, and information technology. Applications are being accepted through October 4th, so spread the word. We're going to find somebody amazing. We also have the Sonoma Plain Air. It's been really fun. I've seen, I don't know, four or five artists with their easels out around town, and up you know, out in the outskirts as well, which is really cool. So the festival is Saturday at the Plaza where artists will work throughout this week and then they'll be on display and available for purchase. And then coming, this coming Monday, the 21st, the Pisa and the Plaza event, piece, not pizza, piece in the Plaza event is returning. It sounded like I said pizza. uh don't confuse anybody this is a free half day family event with live music and yoga meditation classes and a wellness hub which is presented by sonoma ashram okay a couple more things earth day photo contest closing reception our sixth annual earth day photo contest exhibit which will wrap up uh the reception will be monday september 28th from 4 to 5 30 here in the council chambers The contest is a partnership between the city and Sonoma Community Center, and this year we received 26 entries highlighting Sonoma Valley and the theme of water in our shared natural resources. The photographs have been on display here in the chambers. The reception is an opportunity to meet the participating photographers and enjoy the exhibit for one last time and to celebrate their work. I also wanted to express my sincere condolences to the family of John Francis Avila, who sadly passed away this week, as the mayor mentioned. I also wanted to appreciate and recognize the incredible work, professional policing work, that was done by Chief Cutting and all the staff at the police department, the investigators, and the support we've gotten regionally in investigating that case. And to that end, I've asked Chief Cutting to come and speak on a few things about this situation.

Mayor, City Council, thank you. Thank you for yielding some of your time, City Manager. I just wanted to give a quick overview of a timeline of what's occurred over the last week and a half. And just to put it into context, Sonoma hasn't had a homicide or a murder since 2010. So it's quite a significant event for the city. On the 7th at 10.30 at night, Mr. Avila was located in the Sonoma Plaza in the Italian Fountain area, unconscious and unresponsive. He was transported to a local area, a regional trauma center, where he never regained consciousness. On the 8th, in the early morning hours, our detectives from the Crime Scene Investigations Unit and the Violent Crimes Investigations Unit responded out to Sonoma from the Sheriff's Office. And they did so because at the time, we really didn't have any idea what happened. We didn't have any present witnesses that had seen or observed what occurred in that area. So on the 8th, in the early morning hours, I put out a press release asking for additional information and any witnesses to come forward. We knew people were in the area, but they had not identified themselves to us. That continued around the 9th. We identified through several witnesses that a crime had occurred and an assault had taken place in that area. The victim, Mr. Avila, was still unconscious but alive at that time on the 9th. And so we converted the investigation from an unknown issue to an assault causing great bodily injury. And the investigation sort of started moving forward pretty quickly from that point. We located a lot of videos which gave us some vehicle, some potential vehicles. We used our license plate reading system throughout the city or around the city and were able to identify several suspect vehicles and rule out several vehicles. That all transpired up until the 12th and on the 12th we identified the suspect vehicle and the suspect driver That subject was detained and arrested The victim was still alive at that time. So he was arrested for assault causing great bodily injury on The 13th in the very early morning hours. Mr. Avila passed away our deepest condolences to his family who are local and That's when our investigation revealed the other three suspects who were involved in that situation and the altercation in the plaza. On the 13th, the investigation continued with the arrest. And the 14th, in the early morning hours, I was able to meet the public... Public Records Disclosure Act, CPRA law, 7923.600, which requires that I release incident details, victim information, and arrestee details at a prompt time upon the request of the media, which we had had pending for almost a week. But under that same law, I am able to refrain from putting that information out for the sake of the investigation. So on the 14th, when I released that information, we had also confirmed with the family that they were aware that we were putting it out. On the 14th, in the early morning or late morning hours, we were notified that a piece of evidence that we had already collected had been released publicly. This was a video of the actual assault which caused the death of Mr. Avila. To say it was anything less than disgusting to have that released publicly would be an understatement. However, Apparently, it is lawful for someone to, under the First Amendment, to post that on a social media page. We did reach out to Facebook, the host of that page, and asked to have it removed. All we received from it was a restriction that under 16 would not be able to view that. I did post a statement about that. later that day just identifying that that was not released by our means and that we were also very upset by the release and we had asked for it to be removed and it was not going to be removed as a result of the host of the person hosting that page refused to take it down As of now, the four people were arrested. Charges are being discussed through the district attorney's office. I know three, well, four of the people, I believe, have been released from custody. And one person is being charged in that case. And the charges get changed by the district attorney's office, which is very standard protocol. So, kind of moving on from that. I wanted to talk real quickly. Last week, or the week before excuse me we had a meeting that the Sonoma County Chiefs Association which I'm a member of. We met and discussed flock and our flock sharing regulations within the county. And we decided that, as a group, we are going to restrict our sharing. We utilized the Cal OES, California Office of Emergency Services, mapping system. And so we use that map because there are already pre-designated borders that law enforcement follows for sharing of emergency services. And we felt that was an appropriate line to designate our sharing of flock data. Currently, it is allowed to be shared statewide. And so what we are restricting it to is zone 2, 3, and 4 of the Cal OES zones. And essentially, it is Monterey to the north on the coast and the Sacramento Valley to the north in the central all the way to the Nevada border. So essentially, nothing south of the Sacramento Valley, and nothing south of Monterey. So Southern California, we are cutting off on our sharing. It doesn't mean that we can't legally share with them if they have an investigation that they are following and they need information. They can make a request to the administrators of each system, myself being the administrator of the Sonoma system. If they make a request to me with a case number, then we will provide that information. But they don't have the right to search through our database. And the only other thing is we also added the requirement that every request includes a case number. Although it's been a standard there, we are now making it mandatory that you must have a case number with every inquiry. So it's actually a crime. That's all I have. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Now I would like to give our city attorney the opportunity to comment thank you so this evening we have two presentations and these are all things that we always like to do and so at this point we are going to make a presentation number one and this is designating September as childhood cancer Awareness Month in the city of Sonoma And I do believe we are connecting with Zoom with a young woman. And prior to giving her an opportunity to speak, I wish to read the proclamation. all right declaring september twenty twenty six as childhood cancer awareness month in the city of sonoma whereas childhood cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children And then one in 285 children in the United States will be diagnosed by their 20th birthday. And 46 children per day, or 16,790 children per year, are diagnosed with cancer in the US. And the average age of the diagnosis is six years old. Eighty percent of the childhood cancer patients are diagnosed late and with metastatic disease. And on an average, there's been 0.6% increase in incidences per year since the mid-1970s, resulting in an overall incident increase of 24% over the last 40 years. Two-thirds of childhood cancer patients will have chronic health conditions as a result of their treatment toxicity, with one-quarter being classified as severe to life-threatening. And approximately one-half of childhood cancer families rate the associated financial toxicity due to out-of-pocket expenses to severe. And in the last 30 years, only six new drugs have been approved by the FDA to specifically treat childhood cancer. And the National Cancer Institute recognizes the unique research needs of childhood cancer and the associated need for increased funding to carry this out. And hundreds of nonprofit organizations at the local and national level are helping children with cancer and their families cope through educational, emotional, and financial support. And researchers and health care professionals work diligently dedicating their expertise to treat and cure children with cancer. And whereas too many children are affected by this deadly disease, and more must be done to raise awareness and find a cure. Now therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Ron Wellander, Mayor, on behalf of the City Council, do hereby declare the month of September 2026 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in the City of Sonoma. And I believe at this time, I believe there's a young woman that would like to make some comments.

Yes, good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Shwetha Vedagiri. I'm a sophomore working with the Neve Ronald Foundation, and thank you so much for issuing this official proclamation designating September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in Sonoma. Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease for children in the U.S. Having Sonoma officially recognized this month means so much. It lets our local families facing a diagnosis know that they are seen, supported, and are never fighting alone, and highlights the vital need for increased research, better treatments, and support for a cure. Thank you to the Council for your leadership in elevating this cause, and to everyone fighting alongside these young warriors every day. Thank you so much.

You are most welcome. And we would like to thank you for all of your good efforts on this just cause. So again, thank you.

Mr. Mayor, if I may? Yes. I also wanted to thank our young guest for bringing forward this request. It's very personal to me, and I just wanted to share that I was really touched when she asked us to do this. My 10-year-old granddaughter, Abrela, has had brain cancer twice, once when she was three and once when she was five. And I love that you referred to these children as warriors because we call her the warrior of our family. She beat cancer twice, and she is one of the lucky ones. But there's a lot, a lot of children out there suffering. So I really appreciate the work that you're doing to support children with cancer and their families. So thank you.

And at this time, I also would like to invite the public, if anyone would like to step forward and make any comments, you're more than welcome to. Okay, seeing none, again on the part of the City of Sonoma, we thank you and wish you well in your endeavors of doing this great work. Okay, thank you. Okay, the second proclamation in honor of Sonoma Valley Women's Club on the occasion of their 125th anniversary. And to the best of my knowledge, none of the original members are here this evening. So let me begin by offering up the reading of this proclamation, and then I will give the opportunity for the club members to come forward and speak as they wish. Honoring the 125th anniversary of the Sonoma Valley Women's Club, Whereas on September 21, 1901, 11 women met and formed the Sonoma Valley Woman's Club. And many of the founding members were from pioneer Sonoma Valley families, establishing a tradition of community involvement that has endured for generations. And at the club's next meeting on October 5, 1901, 60 women attended and became charter members, demonstrating from its earliest days a strong commitment to fellowship, civic engagement, and service. And the purpose of the Sonoma Valley Women's Club has remained steadfast throughout its history. to promote community improvement, support the Sonoma Plaza, provide social and charitable services, and contribute to the well-being of the people of Sonoma Valley. And whereas for 125 years, generations of club members have generously contributed their time, talents, leadership, and financial resources to benefit local youth, nonprofit, and charitable organizations, civic causes and residents throughout Sonoma and Sonoma Valley. And members of the Sonoma Valley Women's Club have worked throughout the decades to preserve and enhance the Sonoma Plaza and other community landmarks while supporting projects and programs that enrich the cultural and civic life of our community. The City of Sonoma is proud to recognize the remarkable legacy of the Sonoma Valley Women's Club and to honor the generations of women whose dedication has helped strengthen our community. Therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Ron Wellander, Mayor of the City of Sonoma, do hereby declare September 21, 2026, as the 125th anniversary of the Sonoma Valley Women's Club. And in the City of Sonoma, I encourage all residents to join the City Council in celebrating this historic milestone in recognizing the Sonoma Valley Women's Club for 125 years of outstanding service, generosity, fellowship and contributions to the people of Sonoma and Sonoma Valley. So, at this point I'm tired, so I'd like to welcome someone from the club to come forward if you so wish to.

The club and the foundation would like to thank the council and Sonoma for all your support. It's a very exciting year for us, 125 years. We've been in our clubhouse since 1916. We're still trying to preserve it. It's a historic building here. The plaza is like the living room of Sonoma. And so our ability now to maybe make some more improvements to it and the artwork that's coming, it'll be even more wonderful. I wasn't prepared to say anything. So I thank you from the bottom of our hearts. I thank the community for supporting us. And we hope to be partners with you in the future. Thank you.

AT THIS POINT, TOO, I WOULD LIKE TO OFFER UP TO THE PUBLIC AN OPPORTUNITY IF YOU WISH TO COME FORWARD AND MAKE ANY COMMENTS REGARDING THIS PROCLAMATION OR RECOGNITION. AND THEN SEEING NONE, THEN I WILL GIVE YOU THIS PROCLAMATION, BUT I BELIEVE I AM OBLIGATED FOR A PHOTO.

WE WANT ALL OF THE WOMEN UP HERE.

Yeah, everybody.

Wonderful, awesome. One, two, three. Come to the movie on Sunday.

Thank you.

Please come to the movie on Sunday. It's free.

All right, moving on, we are now at the consent calendar. And the items under the consent are considered routine and will be acted upon in one single motion. there'll be no separate discussion unless members of the council or staff request a specific item or items to be removed and dealt with separately. So at this point, is there anybody either at the dais or at the staff level that would like to poll anything on the consent? Yes.

Yes, I would like to poll item 7.6 for some comments, please.

Very good. Anything else? I, too, want to make comment about 7.7. I will be recusing myself because I live within proximity of this project. So I will be asking the clerk to make note in the minutes that I would not be voting on that one item. But then I will be able to stay seated. So with that, we have one exclusion. So I'm looking for a motion for acceptance of the consent items with the exception of 7.6, which we will pull and deal with separately.

I move approval of the consent calendar with the exception of 7.6. I second.

Very good. Any more discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please. Public comment. Oops, I'm sorry. Public comment. Seeing no movement, I'll bring it back for roll call.

Vice Mayor Lowe? Aye. Council Member Gurney? Yes. Council Member Dean? Aye. Council Member Farrar-Rivas? Aye. Mayor Wellender? Yes. Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Okay. Then at this point, we're going to bring up 7.6, which is to adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Sonoma City. adopting volume one, two section appendices regarding multi jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan. So with that, I welcome our staff.

Hi. Good evening, Mayor, Council members. Emergency preparedness is the name of the game and so I did prepare a little slide show just to go over some basics of the hazard mitigation plan. This was a multi-jurisdictional hazard mitigation plan. So the first volume is quite lengthy and deals with the county as a whole and then the annexes are each individual jurisdiction. There are 22 of them. Tonight, we were just asking council to adopt the city of Sonoma's annex specifically to the countywide hazard mitigation plan. Before getting into the plan itself, I want to provide just a little context about where this document fits within the broader emergency preparedness work. Among some of my other duties, I should have introduced myself. I forget. Sarah Tracy, I'm a senior management analyst. I'm also the city's public information officer. And just for fun on the side, I also am serving as the assistant director of emergency services. So I help coordinate things for Emergency Operations Center and by design then was very involved in making sure that this plan came to fruition. The hazard mitigation plan is one piece of a very large picture. It's primarily identifying our risks and actions that we can take over time to reduce those risks before disaster happens. What exactly is a hazard mitigation plan? Or as I will probably say, and I try not to, but emergency preparedness, there is not an acronym they don't love. So we refer to it as the HMP, and you also hear EOC, and they all rhyme, and I'm sure we could come up with something to say about that. But at the highest level, a hazard mitigation plan basically asks three questions. What hazards do we face? And I'm talking about natural hazards specifically in this case for this plan. Where are we vulnerable and what can we do to reduce the risk over time? This is about mitigations, actions to take before disaster to reduce future impacts. As I mentioned, it's not the same as the city's emergency operations plan. That is a separate document with a separate purpose. It isn't intended to describe how we manage events or how we respond to events. It's all kind of taking place in a separate action before. Maintaining an adopted plan, maintaining an adopted Federal Emergency Management Agency, also known as FEMA, approved mitigation plan is really what sets us up for success and allows us to remain eligible to pursue certain federal mitigation grant opportunities. That is generally the primary purpose of doing this document in the way that we have is this is a very much FEMA-driven document and requirement. So this was a lengthy planning process, and we're very grateful to the County of Sonoma's Department of Emergency Management for coordinating the multi-jurisdictional effort. This is the second round where they have done that in this model, so it's worked quite well. They have a contractor that helps them through the process and helps provide different jurisdictions with a lot of the data and resources and worksheets to be able to put these plans together. It's also fairly technical, as I mentioned. So FEMA and the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, also known as Cal OES, have specific requirements. We are worksheet crazy. Templates, documentations that jurisdictions have to go through. So this is not a free-form planning process. There are requirements. You have hazards of concern, which are identified. You must then provide certain mitigation efforts within those hazards of concern. So there's a formula to it. Our city team worked within that established framework to assess Sonoma's hazards and vulnerabilities and to develop mitigation actions and also review mitigation actions from our previous version, whether we needed them ongoing or if they've been completed, et cetera. Public participation was also built into the process. There were numerous opportunities for input. This was about over a year's worth of planning, so there were different levels of involvement. There were surveys, there were, of course, newsletters there were public forums by the county the city also did have our own in-person meeting with in partnership with the county and the fire district and not to brag but we had the most people of any jurisdiction come not surprisingly I told him that would be the case most importantly the complete draft plan was made available for a full month for public review and comment before moving into the state and federal review process that gave the community opportunity which they needed it's very lengthy i will say um gave the community an opportunity to not just look at the actual the individual concepts but the actual draft plan and there was a little bit of a extension of that because um the full annex was translated into spanish for review um which i don't and i believe had not been done previously so that was um quite an undertaking accounting we appreciate them for that too So following that planning and outreach process, the plan then goes to Cal OES, and they do their review. And if they need to send it back, they do. And then once Cal OES approves it, then it goes to FEMA, and then FEMA goes through its review. And then when they approve it, then I can finally bring it to you. So that is at the point at which we are tonight. So just a little bit about the mitigation strategy, kind of a little bit of the nuts and bolts that might be of interest to folks. The mitigation strategy identifies, starts with identifying and ranking the hazards of concern, specifically for the city of Sonoma. So in the county of Sonoma, wildfire, drought, earthquake, extreme cold, extreme heat, extreme wind, flooding, landslide, and then also was included in their sea level rise and tsunami for our county specifically. The city of Sonoma, again, this is natural hazards. The City of Sonoma's hazards of concern did not, sea level rise and tsunami were not considered major impacts to our specific community and so those are not included in our action plans although the county and other outlying jurisdictions certainly have included those and would certainly impact us in other ways but not directly in terms of what we could do for our mitigations. Just as a side note, because this is a question I got often, is I don't see cyber attack in here. I don't see pandemic in here. I don't see active shooters in here. That's not the type of hazards we're talking about. There are many hazards. We have different plans and different processes for assessing those types of risks. So as you can see, wildfire is our only hazard that's ranked high. There's only three rankings. You can have high, moderate, and low. Well, I guess four technically if it doesn't, like for us with tsunami and sea level rise, there's no impact. This is at top of mind, Christina and I both have attended this week the annual Wildfire Leadership Summit, which is put on by After the Fire, the organization which was born out of our experience in 2017 is holding their um three-day conference at hannah center where it's a collection of fire survivors organizations first responders and others who have come together and created a really amazing network to help other communities who inevitably been going through unfortunately as they say it's the the fire survivors club and it's grown quite a bit so that's always top of mind for us and we are still in fire season and Public information officer of taking the opportunity. Everybody get your go bags ready. See your get your checklist. Get the evacuation zone map. We have some out there. Please pick one up before you go. Drought earthquake, extreme cold, extreme heat, extreme wind and flooding are all ranked medium. And landslide is linked low. I will just note extreme heat, extreme wind, and extreme cold. Those were new hazards of concern identified by FEMA this year. Previously, they were all kind of under this one. If you look back at past plans, you might wonder why we didn't have mitigation efforts for those. It was under one umbrella of kind of like extreme weather, which is they've now parsed them out. So that allowed us to do more mitigation strategies specifically for those. another thing you'll notice is in the past plans climate change was a separate hazard which is tricky looking at it alone since it impacts other hazards this version it was included in every single mitigation item that you will notice there is one of the pieces of the worksheets was kind of like how is climate change in climate affecting this hazard and kind of what things you take into consideration for that in terms of how it's adaptation and mitigation go kind of hand in hand there excuse me so those ranking rankings together with the assessment of our vulnerabilities we looked at kind of the community what do we have we don't have what would we need help inform the mitigations that the city annex has. The annex ultimately identified 33 potential mitigation actions. I think of these more of a strategic list of opportunities. Some people describe it as a wish list. This isn't an action plan. This is primarily a plan, if you put it in the plan and you have it outlined and you start some work on it, the chance of getting something funded through a grant process is much greater. So that is kind of the impetus to really, some cases, maybe dream a little big or outside of the box in hopes that something might arise. So, some of these can be incorporated into existing work plans or have or underway already. Others may depend on partnerships or future grant funding. So, again, this is not something that you're approving that all of these will happen. It's just the goal is that we would get them moving and hopefully get some funding for them. So just to kind of clarify, because I know we have so many plans, the hazard mitigation plan brings this countywide analysis down to a city level. So it identifies the natural hazards that are relevant or vulnerabilities, as I mentioned. The emergency operation plan, which is another big guiding document for us, serves a different purpose. It establishes how the city organizes and coordinates when an emergency actually occurs. That includes our EOC structure, EOC Emergency Operations Center, which is literally a physical building attached to this building, but also functions in a virtual format or in different forms. The roles and responsibilities and how we work with our response partners. Then in addition to that, we have annexes, just like the City of Sonoma's annex, if that has a mitigation plan, is an annex of that plan. We have many annexes for our emergency operation plan. Those are much more detailed procedures, procedural documents that build on the framework, so it's based on a particular hazard. So it functions in much greater detail, gives staffs more specific guidance on how we would respond in case of whatever that particular hazard has to be. These pieces are connected, but they're not interchangeable. So the hazard mitigation plan is primarily about reducing long-term risk. The emergency operation plan and its supporting annexes are really procedures on how we prepare, organize, and then operate when something does happen. So this slide speaks a little bit to the broader philosophy behind not just our emergency preparedness, but in general in the emergency preparedness space. First, we don't do this alone. I think I probably don't have to say that here. Everybody knows that Sonoma is a small city surrounded by a much larger unincorporated valley. Fire, law enforcement, the county, the operational area, and regional partners all have distinct roles and our job is to understand and practice the city's role within that larger system. The second preparedness is a whole community effort. Whole community is a term you hear a lot in emergency planning and you know there's always kind of like the person who's not in the room that's a very, we're looking at making sure that All the vulnerable populations that we can think of are considered when we're making these plans So this means working with community organizations, which we have thankfully many wonderful ones here Trusted partners and thinking of how we can reach people who may face like language Access transportation technology or trust barriers during emergency and finally It's about continuous improvement. So we plan, we train, we practice, we learn from exercise and incidents about where we have our gaps and we make improvements and we just continue around and around and around and around. So readiness is not a finish line, unfortunately. It's a capability that we can continually grow and maintain and that is the long range effort. So what does that look like in practice for Sonoma? We have an internal emergency operations center working group we meet regularly to go over things like plans but also for actual logistical things as well. We have a community partner group that meets. We participate in operational area coordination calls weekly and then they have larger ones ahead of major seasons to understand what we're looking at from a regional level. And then of course regular staff training which happens pretty commonly. We're also working through practical pieces of readiness, so plans, procedures, equipment and technology, communications, documentation, supplies, making sure staff understand what's expected of them during an activation. We are all mandated disaster workers. Every city worker takes an oath to do that, so it's a serious role, and we take it very seriously. Okay. We always know there's more work to do. It's never going to be done, which is why we plan to come back to council with also just a broader for your information, more emergency preparedness and also kind of the winter readiness as we did last year. We had a little bit of a preview of kind of extreme cold and what that looked like for the city and how we responded. We will do something in ahead of the rainy season as well. So tonight's action is specifically the adoption of the annex of the hazard mitigation plan specific to the city of Sonoma. But I recognize that the council and community has many questions that go beyond mitigation and into the city's broader kind of emergency preparedness and response capabilities. But rather than trying to compress it all into that item, again, we will be returning to council in the fall with a more comprehensive emergency preparedness update because we've been doing a lot of work and we want to tell you about it. That will give us an opportunity to talk to you about our EOC structure and trainings and all the regional coordination and public information warning, all the things that I'm sure is on everybody's mind. So we can use that discussion to talk specifically also about winter readiness. It is no secret we are all getting lots of questions as the media is doing a fantastic job of getting people aware of El Nino, although certainly the predictions and weather forecasts still are a bit uncertain, so we are still watching that. So tonight, the hazard mitigation plan Gives us that piece of kind of the larger emergency management picture. Staff of course recommends the council adopt the already approved by Cal OES and FEMA City of Sonoma annex so we can maintain that framework and also our eligibility to pursue those grants because that's going to be the next effort. So almost everybody at these tables worked on this at one point or another, Diane included. So if you have any questions, this might be a little bit of a group effort, but happy to answer if you have them.

Well, thank you very much. And at this point, I'll bring it back to the dais for questions of staff.

Yeah, so I did have a number of questions, and it was really those last several slides that you showed that really answered those questions of really looking at the overall emergency plan. I had attended a meeting on September 3rd. It was my birthday, and it was the only meeting I attended that day, and it was the meeting of the Global Center of Science and Environment. And one of the things they had brought together, a number of people that talked about tools that are available now for data to be able to analyze, especially around water and flooding and flows, but also they had a representative from Boulder, Jonathan Cohn, who had talked about their process. And this was some of these last slides, some of the language I was looking for in the plan, which is the approach of our approach, which is that approach of the readiness is a cycle, that it's not in these times when we're so, times of really significant uncertainty, it is really important for us to be thinking about learning as a priority as well as planning. And so exactly what you were saying about iterate, learn, practice, improve, and it's so necessary to practice, so even doing, When we did the prescribed fire on Montini, that was a practice to see what would happen. And it builds that trust, how important that is to build that trust. So when something happens that is severe, everybody is ready to trust everybody that they're working with. You're not building trust in the middle of a fire. disaster or event. Maybe it won't be a disaster, but an event.

Incidents, they like to call them incidents.

Incidents, I like that, incidents. And the tabletop exercise, you know, great. So I really appreciated that, and one of the reasons I did want to bring it out is I I really was glad to see it on the consent calendar, but this is for me kind of I think one of the key priorities for everybody to be thinking about being prepared for what are the risks that we're facing in these uncertain times. And I appreciate very much climate being put out into the separate sectors because I think people take it more seriously then when you talk about climate as flood. or you talk about climate as heat and the relationship that that has to health and our community and our revenue and what that means about functioning. So anyway, so I was really, really glad to see those last slides. That's what I was looking for. The only thing that I didn't see is what is being done in regards to really staying up to date. And maybe you'll get this when you're also going from this conference. you know, the most updated data tools that are available. And I realize making sure maybe we can't afford to have those tools, but does the county have those tools?

Yes. I don't remember the number off the top of my head, but there is certainly, to your point about data-driven, that's definitely something that was talked about. There are so many tools that are coming out right now. It is going to be a little bit of an effort to sort out what is useful and possible and usable for us. But yes, data is the name of the game. And we do have a mitigation item specifically about capturing more of our data for non-declared emergency events. So as we're seeing more localized flooding or something that we're just seeing because we're getting more water at one time. um just capturing that better so that we can understand what the real costs are um not just to literal physical costs of money that the city is doing to attend to those things that may be happening more frequently but aren't leveling necessarily reaching to the level of a declared emergency or an activation worthy incident and so those are that is something that we're looking at we we would all like data everybody wants the data so i'm with you if you find something let us know too because it's it's a It's a conversation happening a lot in emergency management of how to get that, because everybody wants data-driven.

And I know our water agencies are doing a lot of work there. Yes, yes.

And you did mention stream flows. I don't know. Just a shout-out to One Rain Sonoma, the website they set up. sensors after 2017 fires, really in the hopes of identifying if we had any mud flows, that that would be identified because they could see the level. And those have continued, though, throughout Sonoma County. So during rain events, you can actually go and watch the flow of all the streams if you don't want to do your drive-bys like I do. That you can watch it and do it from your computer, but and there are current technologies And I'm just not sure how that you know kind of what the data how the data is captured and where it's used But Sonoma water does look over those yeah, and it's sea level certainly can affect us in many ways even though I know it's not Any other questions up here?

Okay, okay, please

I'm glad that you put in a drought as a second hazard mitigation plan. That is important. It seems the water is not a serious issue for the past several years, but potentially that is really, really the problem. Because out in the city, heavily relying on Russian River and the Eel River, and right You know, we have the pot of value project and also acceptance for how to saving the water. I didn't see we have any effective measure to, you know, to prevent this from happening. So we can think how we can. and cooperated with the regional water agency, for example, Moon Valley Water Agency, because we are facing the same issues. How we can work together and collaborate and improve the management and save the water. even we can develop any future in the water source because 85% or 90% of Sonoma rely on river water. Maybe in the short term and the long term we can consider because it was said decades ago there's a local plumber thinking about good water storage and against the mountain and in the back. I'm not sure in the detail if you can... I think it is recordable. Yeah, maybe you can find out this kind of idea is still valued or we can... go back and look at it because water is really the issue for our city in the long term.

Absolutely. I know if you're a California, if you live in California, California native, it's always in the back of your mind, right? We are always thinking about drought. So thank you for that. There are some mitigation actions in there mostly focused on aquifer. recharge and storage but and other ways that we can help you know was it slow it spread it sink it to try to keep as much water as we can while it's here so thank you for that any more questions all right at this point I'm gonna open up to the public to come forward okay anyone else wish to come forward and speak on this topic that's before us

OK, seeing none, I'm going to bring it back to the dais for discussion and possible motion.

Yeah, I would move to accept the hazard mitigation plan.

I second. Even before I ask one. I like that. Discussion? None? Roll call, please.

Vice Mayor Lowe? Aye. Council Member Gurney? Yes. Council Member Dean?

Aye.

Mayor, or sorry, Council Member Farr-Refus? Aye. Mayor Willender? Yes. Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Very good. There aren't a lot of privileges that a mayor has in this small town, but one that I'm going to take is that I'm going to declare a 10-minute break for whatever needs to be done.

Thank you.

I'd like to bring this hearing back to order, but I'm going to wait a minute because I see there's one very valuable person missing. So continue chatting, and upon receiving our city manager, we'll continue. Dr. Warner, and at this point I welcome staff forward to speak to 8.1.

Well, thank you, Mayor and City Council. Jennifer Gates, Community Development Director. Before you tonight is the introduction of the ordinance to require art be provided with private development or the payment of an in lieu fee. So just as a reminder, in June, the City Council adopted updated fees, which did include the option to allow for an in lieu fee to be paid with a public art requirement. So again, an in lieu fee provides the developer or an applicant the option to mitigate the impact by paying the city a fee in lieu of actually providing that. So tonight we're going to talk about art. The last meeting we talked about trees. So around that art, we did present an ordinance. We needed to update our ordinance, and so we presented that to Planning Commission, and they proposed some additional amendments, and so those are gonna be presented to you tonight as well. On August 5th is when we first announced provided this in a public hearing however we did not actually hear the item at that time and city council had requested that cultural fine arts commission have an opportunity to also hear about this ordinance and so on august 20th it was presented by the parkinson rec director dave janz to the cultural and fine arts commission who reviewed and provided their feedback so as a introduction so we are relocating what currently exists in our municipal code under the public art fund text which is in chapter 19.51 which is in our um basically our development code for the city and we're going to move a majority of that to a new chapter of 3.45 public art fund. This is because Title III is really focused on finance and this is where we also find our fire impact fee. what this does is actually establish a public art fund and then also is going to continue the annual city allocation of the 0.25 percent which is budgeted from the general fund expenditures on an annual basis we did look it up it has it started the fund itself started in 2009 but the city has been contributing 25 000 since fiscal year 23-24. and so that is capped at $25,000 in the ordinance today that is also we noticed a when we looked back at the ordinance between Planning Commission and presenting it to you we realized that we had missed that cap and so we have reintroduced that cap into that ordinance for your consideration tonight In addition, we are modifying the existing Chapter 19.51. It will continue to require that all public projects with a total valuation over $250,000 to dedicate 1% to public art with no cap. um and then this is only pertaining to the portions of the costs that are paid from the general fund itself so it wouldn't include any of the additional funding that we we receive from like the federal government or the state so a large project our general fund contribution when also we're going to add that development projects would be subject to the public art requirement of one percent and there are some exclusions and i'll talk about this in a second and then also that the value of the art can be spent on public art to be installed on the site But it needs to be visible from the public right of way. This is not a requirement that it has to be accessible to the public. So we are not, by doing this, giving access to the public to somebody's private property. So we want to make sure that that's clear as well. So when presented to the Planning Commission, staff had presented an initial proposal that included commercial new construction, remodeling, repair, or reconstruction for commercial and or multifamily projects of five or more units, and also had a permit valuation of more than $250,000. And that would be, you know, set what I would call the trigger to provide public art. in conversations with the planning commission their concern about an impact on housing and recommended to remove multi-family housing from the list of applicable project types they also recommended increasing to one million dollars So that is what's being presented to you tonight. The other is, as I noted before, there are some proposed exemptions as well. These are items that can be very costly and add cost to a project already, and these include like repair or reconstruction due to acts of nature or calamity, so a flood, an earthquake, so rebuilding. Historic preservation tends to have a higher cost due to the materials. And then also then there are certain needs that we have for fire sprinklers or retrofits for seismic that can be additional costs as well. The reason why affordable units is crossed out at this point is because the recommendation from Planning Commission was to remove housing altogether. So I wanted to give a couple of examples and then I'm gonna finish up with the additional comments from Planning Commission and the comments from Fine Arts Commission. So the 1%, these are just example projects of what this could be based on square footage. So when we're determining what that construction costs are, we're going to use the ICC building valuation and that's going to tell me a per square foot value. This is a standard that is used and we all cities for the most part will use this as their standard so we're going to determine a valuation by that and then one percent of that is that art value that again they would provide on site or pay a fee in lieu of that art so for a five unit project that is 1200 square foot each we're looking at a total of eleven thousand around eleven thousand dollars A restaurant remodel of about 400,000 would be about 4,000. And then the 120 unit multifamily with a portion of affordable units. So again, we did recommend exempting affordable. So if it included affordable, it would be around 180. And if it exempted that square footage, it would be around 171. So this is just based on some you know, back of the napkin estimates. We also wanted to provide you some example cities, what other cities have around us or also known for art as well. So what the percentages that they currently are at, what kind of projects it applies to, and then what kind of projects it actually includes in that and if they exempt residential from their 1% or 8%. So as you can see, a number of them do use the 1% mark for artwork. There are a couple of interesting ones where if it's a private, like in Livermore, if it's private, it's a less amount, but public construction projects are the 1%. Another interesting one is Berkeley, which if they're doing the artwork itself, it's a higher percentage than if they're actually paying an in lieu fee. So those are the different types of things going on around us. So when we had discussions with planning commission, um, we did continue the discussion to say, if city council did decide to put multifamily back in, what would that, what would you recommend in addition? And so per our discussion, they were saying that they would recommend a multifamily housing of 20 units or more so that we're not disincentivizing small developments. They also would continue requesting the exemption for all affordable square footage on a project. Cultural Fine Arts Commission met, their recommendation was to go back to what was initially proposed, which was the multifamily housing of five units or more, $250,000 valuation trigger, and to exclude the affordable housing units from the fee calculation. so in order to make modifications to title 19 there are findings that need to be made for consistency and so we have done that for you and that the proposed amendment is consistent with our policy 5.9 which is to promote public art and also to establish a public art ordinance of the community development element which is originally done and we are now modifying so the recommendation for tonight is to introduce the ordinance repealing and replacing chapter 19.51 and adding chapter 3.45 to the municipal code with the proposed modifications by planning commission and finding the ordinance exempt There are alternative recommendations that were discussed in your staff report. The first is that if City Council wants to amend the ordinance with changes already discussed by the Planning Commission, the City Council can direct staff to make those changes and reintroduce the ordinance. Or if the City Council wants to amend the ordinance with modifications that were not discussed by the Planning Commission, the City Council must remand the ordinance back to Planning Commission with the specific directions on what the Planning Commission should consider. Then the Planning Commission will hear the item again and consider your direction and make a new recommendation to City Council. And we would then do a reintroduction of the ordinance. And staff and the attorney can help you with what that looks like, depending on where this conversation goes tonight. I do want to make you aware, if you do not have a chance, there was a public comment that was received or sent to the city council tonight around 4 o'clock from the Housing Defense Fund in regards to concerns for requiring public art with housing and potential conflicts with certain acts that they have identified. And for that discussion, I am going to point to our city attorney.

Thank you, Ms. Gates. For the record, David Ruderman, your city attorney. We did receive the public comment this evening. I believe it was also sent to the council. The Housing Defense Fund raised a number of issues related to the public art ordinance. A few of them have been considered by the courts and have been found that they aren't a problem per se. First Amendment issues, there's a rational basis review for public art ordinances. The takings claim, that's a specific claim that has to be brought by a particular developer, and we don't have any case law of a developer successfully prosecuting a takings claim with respect to a public art ordinance. With respect to the housing element, You know, the general plan consistency findings that are in the staff report, courts give broad leeway to the council to make findings with respect to consistency with our general plan and our housing element. The other issue that they raised was under the Housing Crisis Act. So Housing Crisis Act went into effect in 2020. So to the extent that we have reviewed and looked at public art ordinances that were implemented prior to that time, they're not necessarily evidence that a new public art ordinance is necessarily free of Housing Crisis Act issues. And the thing that they identify in particular is that the Housing Crisis Act says that new design standards imposed after 2020 have to be objective. So we've dealt with this in the multifamily context. We have objective design standards. These are standards that you have to look to an external source to determine whether or not you meet the standard. And it's not just up to the reviewing body, the planning commission's decision about what constitutes consistent with the community character or something. Obviously, art is a difficult thing to define, and we in this ordinance do not have any particular standards that would come forward in a policy that is referenced in the ordinance that would actually lay out those things. So we don't have any case law finding that a public art ordinance does not comply with the Housing Crisis Act. So there's no law on this as far as we are aware. And it's not something that we necessarily have an issue with because we have not developed standards. And honestly, we don't know whether or not a public ordinance is a design standard as is referenced in the Housing Crisis Act. So there is leeway here for the city, but I don't think that it would be fair for me to say that this is without risk if we were to impose the public ordinance on residential properties in addition to the policy issues that have been raised in the staff report as well. So that's kind of an overview of my assessment of the public comment from the Housing Defense Fund and I'd be happy to answer questions.

Any questions for Mr. Ruderman? Is the housing defense, I'm trusting this is just standard operating practices on their part, wherever they get the wind of any community putting forth any idea that they may interpret as an impediment to building housing, they're going to squeal like a stuck pig.

Yes, as far as I'm aware, the Housing Defense Fund often comments on cities' changes to their zoning ordinances, and often it's always from the perspective of trying to ensure that it's easier to build housing.

Are you aware of, at least in this region, any municipalities that have been sued by the Housing Defense Fund?

Personally, I'm not aware, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I certainly know of cities in our area that have been sued with respect to housing issues, not necessarily by the HDF.

Mayor?

Yes, please.

Can you also answer those same questions in regards to Takings claims? Is this more applicable to this?

I don't think we have a takings issue, honestly. First of all, a takings claim wouldn't even be ripe yet. There has to be an actual development, and we'd have to analyze the specific facts and circumstances with respect to that development. But you need to essentially deprive the developer of all economic use of their property. And a requirement that's this minor I think would likely pass muster with respect to the takings.

Anyone else for Mr. Wiederman? Well, then let's, any questions for Jennifer?

How many projects, commercial projects over, let's just say 250,000, do we generally have in the city of Sonoma?

commercial we will have only small tenant improvements for the most part we don't get too many larger new constructions or major remodels at time that you know the project that I did put up that's a real remodel but it was just a small tenant improvement didn't include all their costs in altogether. It was just that portion that needed a building permit, to be honest. So I wouldn't say that there are a lot. I think in the queue right now, I can think of one large restaurant coming through. That'll be a restaurant remodel.

And just ballpark the cost of that?

It'll be over a million dollars.

over a million. So, okay, thank you. I may have other questions, but thank you for that. Sure.

Yeah, can you put slide seven up again, which is the examples? Yeah, and just so that we can Oh, there was, yeah, there's this one that I didn't, but then the one before, yes, thank you, sorry, six, or eight, oh, it's six, okay, thank you, I just wanted to look at that further, and I guess we're looking at, maybe it's helpful for us to look at this in regards to residential, no residential percentage cap, so that we can

So right now there's no cap proposed that wasn't discussed at all by the commission of setting a cap on a project.

I think I meant it the other way around. It's not a cap.

It's the starting amount. The starting amount.

Yeah, the starting amount. I don't know what the opposite of cap is.

I called it a trigger. I don't know. A trigger. Okay.

A cup. I don't know. The floor. The floor. Here you go. Thank you. Thank you for the floor. Thanks.

Anyone?

Jack? My question is, do you have any number, maybe you don't have, during the past years or five years, any financial differences if we are using And the 250 has a threshold of one million. And the threshold difference and the threshold of different financial differences.

There will definitely be more projects at the $250,000 mark, for sure. Because if you think about $250,000, those are very small. So that's why we were trying to be very specific around what new construction and remodeling and things like that. Today, just as an example, a bathroom remodel costs around $250,000. They're not cheap. They're quite expensive. So we get a lot of kitchen, bathroom remodels altogether, and those have been around that mark. But that's why we're not including single-family homes as well. So that's why we're looking for the multifamily.

Thank you.

Oh, let me go first.

So with regards to affordable housing projects, I gather there is a belief that this ARP fee would be detrimental to developing those kinds of projects. And the reason I ask this is it seems to me in those kinds of developments they potentially could benefit the most from public art. And I'm just kind of curious as to why we would think about not imposing it with affordable housing.

Sure. So when you think about affordable housing projects, every dollar counts towards that project. And they are scraping to find all of the different funding opportunities to put a project together. So when you're adding additional costs, Sometimes those costs can't be paid for maybe by those funding sources. Sometimes they can. Just depends on what the actual, if it's like a permanent improvement, maybe that can be incorporated. But again, it's additional cost to an already multimillion dollar project. So when we look at affordable housing projects, and in general as you can see around everywhere they are removing all impact fees from affordable housing whether it's traffic fees or other things so you see this around everywhere is to try to help these affordable housing projects get through but there would be nothing to prevent the city from contributing that's correct public art too and so you know most of the projects that we have here are market rate housing with an affordable component so that's why i wanted to make sure i said the only the affordable unit square footage would be removed from that if it did if we did include housing um to make sure that we are understanding that are recognizing that affordable housing is being removed from the impact.

Thank you.

Please. Yes, so what you said, I have two questions or just one other comment around your question, Council Member Gurney, is if we had banked in lieu fees and those banked in lieu fees could go to affordable housing projects. So the other question is when the Planning Commission, when we're looking at the five units floor for multifamily versus the 20 multifamily, what type of financial analysis did they have to get to that number?

So there was no financial analysis aspect of that it was more about the idea of. Looking at density of development and wanting more. basically smaller developments to come about versus the larger developments. And so I think that's where that 20 unit came about. Most of us have the five unit because that's, that's a kind of like a standard marker for a lot of things. Density bonus starts at five units. So, and even our inclusionary ordinance starts at five units. So that five units I've seen a lot of different places.

And then, so in Sonoma, on average, generally the projects we're looking at are, you know, I mean, 20-unit project for us. is a medium to good size project, right? Or is it a large project? I'm thinking it's more medium to good.

No, it's probably more on the medium side. So if you think about entitled right now, Montaldo is 52. The First Street East project is 34. The projects that we had, we have one that's the 120, and then A couple more in discussion that are more than 20 units.

And is there anything legally against breaking that out so that you could do a smaller percentage on lower unit projects and a higher percentage on the larger unit projects?

No, I don't think that would be .

All right. Thank you.

Go ahead. A few questions. Historically, we had a public project that cost $3.25 million called the Chase Street Bridge, of which we were funded, I think, 89% by the feds, and we paid 11%. Did we make a public art contribution on our portion of what we, the city, had to pay for?

No.

And why not?

I have to look back at that. I don't know if I found that resolution. I found another one where the city, when they are approving projects, they were making a finding of not contributing to that fund. So we did look back at what has been contributed to the fund. We have $120,000, which is the $25,000 that we've been putting in, and then some $18,000 that was previously supplied. Okay.

So if we look at the history of Sonoma in terms of development, in the last three years since you've been our development director, have we had any commercial projects

New commercial?

Just commercial. Something that would be either built from the ground up or remodeled significantly.

We've had Eldorado Kitchen was a remodel that was quite large. MacArthur Place had new building and the spa remodel. Let's think. Those are my biggest ones that I can think of since I've been here.

Sonoma Valley Inn.

Sonoma Valley Inn, that's correct.

That's true.

That was a big remodel.

IN TERMS OF ACTUAL RETAIL COMMERCIAL TYPE BUILDINGS, I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING THAT WE'VE BUILT OF LATE. SO WE'VE TALKED ABOUT HOTELS, WHICH IS GOOD FOR OUR COMMUNITY. WHAT I'M TRYING TO PUT MY HEAD AROUND IS A TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT THIS POTENTIAL IS GOING TO BE AND THAT IN REALITY, IF THAT ORDINANCE PASSED BACK IN 2009 FOR THE CITY TO GIVE A DONATION, THAT IT WASN'T UNTIL 23, 24 THAT ACTUALLY A CONTRIBUTION WAS MADE, SURE FEELS LIKE WE'RE BEHIND THE EIGHT BALL. AND I JUST BELIEVE, BASED UPON MY OWN EVALUATION OF THE ZONING MAPS AND OPPORTUNITIES, IT JUST SEEMS LIKE WE can put something in writing, but I'm a skeptic right now as far as how much is actually going to get built. And I Would also like to know, let's just develop the scenario. We come back to you and say we aren't married entirely to what the planning commission wants. We want to do some changes that aren't even aligned with what staff's original recommendation was to planning. So we wanted to step out of the lane a little bit. Now, it goes back to planning with our comments. review it, and come back with a recommendation. At that point in time, is the city council obligated to accept that? Or say, for instance, if they didn't agree with, say, the housing component that we wanted to include, that we could, at that point in time, because they had a chance to discuss it, that we could override that as a council and say, no, we want what we had forwarded to you. You chose not to pursue it. or to bring it forward, do we have that so it's not a ping pong back and forth?

Right. So take a step back. So depending on what you guys talk about tonight, it may be that we just make those changes and reintroduce it.

But that's where they have to be changes. I believe you told me that either staff recommendations originally that went to Planning Commission and or

except the changes that planning commission has most recently done no so any um so it sets basically think of it as a bubble i guess of the the things that they talked about if you're somewhere in there so if you want to do less than one percent they've basically talked about you know that's something that you set already that's the fee that you set um as well as in the ordinance so we can talk about that one making it less if that's what we want to do the dollar amount of a million dollars is you know sounds like you want to go less so anything less is fine Um, if you want to add housing, you can add the housing back in. They've already discussed housing. They gave you a recommendation of not including housing. And they also talked about if you did that 20,000, the 20, if you want to do less, more, go back to five, all those things were discussed.

Based upon what you know about what's in the pipeline, Montalvo, who I understand it right now, it's the entitlement but nothing and it's up for sale and reality is we're trying to find a new buyer who reality would probably have to re-entitle it. or not. Depends on what they're doing. Depends on what they're doing. So I'm just trying to understand what the expectation might be for the next two, three years as far as what can actually be generated. I know that several of the projects that we've talked about are in the park where it's not within city limits, so they'd have to be annexed in. So I'm just trying to understand if we go with their recommendation, which is fairly limited, as far as high levels, it doesn't sound like we're going to actually be collecting much in the way of money. And so that concerns me because, again, we've had this art fund policy for a long time, and we've done nothing with it. So I also am a little concerned because in trying to understand what Councilman Gurney had mentioned, that in reality, affordable housing projects do benefit from public art. It's been studied. It's been known. It's done. So I took the opportunity to reach out to Burbank Housing CEO and had a discussion with him because I said, if we impose an art in lieu fee, does that kill the project? And this is just one, and granted Burbank is probably the biggest buyer in Sonoma County that I'm aware of. He said no. He says the other killers are more of the other fees that you've talked about. So I would be much more interested in looking at a decrease in percentage, that being a half percent, a quarter percent, or something. But again, I'm concerned about where the bottom floor is. given reality as far as the kind of projects that have been coming through of late. And then also to, again, try to, again, if we're going to promote ourselves as a public art community, we have some grounds to make up, and that's going to be, we can't entirely depend upon philanthropers giving money, or donors. So that's where I'm I am not inclined to ask questions. This is a discussion. So let me go back to my questions. This might be to the city manager. Will you confirm that in the 26-7 budget that we are giving a contribution to ARG, please?

Correct.

Thank you. When the city... Planning Commission had identified multifamily being no smaller than 20. Again, was this based upon their gut that this would discourage smaller units that would be inclined to build affordables or be inclusionary, that they were just going to be, again, become a detriment or an impediment?

I think they were thinking that it would be an impact on that development of the smaller size.

Okay. And, okay, my last couple. So, I do have a question. Under the Exhibit A, which is the proposed amendment, under the purpose 19.51010, it says, A public art program that provides community benefits by positively impacting property values, the local economy, and vitality of the city by enhancing the visual and aesthetic quality of development, et cetera, et cetera. So I like that sound, but my question then is why it almost seems like we're apologetic coming up with an art in Lufi, and yet it says it impacts property values, and I'm saying in a positive way. I'm just trying to understand a little bit more about what have been some of the dynamics behind what these recommendations going forward because, again, my concern is simply based upon history. We haven't had a lot of construction. It dribbles and dribbles. I'm just hoping that, I'm tired of being told we're behind Healdsburg, we're behind Napa, we're behind Yonville. So I'm just hoping that we can come up with something that's not a take, that's not abusive, it does not become a detriment to development, because I want housing. I sidetracked again, so I'll stop talking. Any other questions up here? Yes.

What about individual single housing? I see on your chart five units, restaurant remodel 120. What about, for example, the three properties that we approved a month or so ago that looked like

they were multi-million dollar properties how are they assessed so single-family homes are not included so think about your providing you're making a requirement to actually provide public art so then you would be saying I want you to provide public art on your private home not that you charge a fee you're you're saying I want you to do art and so when we When they looked at providing that 1% to the project in our impact fee memo that you had when we did the fees, they were really looking at larger commercial type projects. So under the building code, a commercial project is a larger multifamily project.

Is it possible to have a policy that single family homes over a million dollars would be assessed an in lieu fee not required to put public art on their property because they're you know it's a private residence but the reason i'm asking this obviously is that that's where the big money is being spent and that's where the people have money and you know this is so i'm just curious um how the wealthiest people building housing are somehow exempt from this?

MR. In order to charge an in-lieu fee, there has to be something for it to be in lieu of. So there has to be an obligation to, in this case, install public art. And the in lieu fee is only in order not to do what is otherwise required. So we would not be able to simply impose the fee without having the obligation unless we were to do, you know, try to put this under the Mitigation Fee Act or something. But I am not aware of public art fees being justified in that manner. It's unlikely that that would work because there are statutory limits on when you can impose a fee like a mitigation fee.

I understand. Good try. It doesn't seem fair.

I do have a quick question back to that one restaurant for a million dollars, is that the Depot restaurant, Depot Hotel?

No.

Because something like that, if it does get remodeled, would that not fall under historic preservation? So the ability to gain an art contribution would be either considerably less or not at all.

Potentially, yes. Depends on what they're reviewing.

Okay, if we have no more questions for staff at this point in time, I'd like to open it up to the public to come forward and speak on this item. And again, it's optional. If you wish to state your name, great. You've got a couple of minutes to share your thoughts, please.

Good evening, my name is Deb Emerson. I'm a Sonoma resident of 11 years and for seven years of that I served on the Cultural and Fine Arts Commission until this past December. I did have the opportunity to attend the CFAC meeting on August 20th and I was hoping that I would go there and there might be someone from the Planning Commission that was there that could comment about how did you come up with these arbitrary numbers. But unfortunately there was no one there to explain that. What I did learn from that meeting is that the commission had put together a very comprehensive study. And it was that study that looked at all of the public art type of programs in the area that came up with the recommendations for the ordinance. It was very well thought out. It did very wide cross comparisons of local jurisdictions and what they're doing with their public arts program and then how that compares to the city of Sonoma. So I view what the Planning Commission in amending that is really, it's going to be an effort to kill our public arts program and that really touches me and I think it's much unfortunate. Sonoma is not a large developing city. We heard it just now that there is in fact only one project large enough to trigger this amended $1 million threshold project that would be in the queue. And we can do better than that. Art is important to Sonoma. Art is a draw that brings people to Sonoma. And it's not only important for our tourists and our guests that visit our city, but it's important for our residents too. It's important for all residents, including lower income residents. Those are the people that likely need it the most. They can't afford to go to museums. They can't afford to attend all the cultural events that we may be afforded ourselves. So I strongly encourage Sonoma City Council to support public art. Do not accept these amendments that the Planning Commission has put before you. The Cultural and Fine Arts Commission recommendation to the ordinance was based on a comprehensive study. Thank you.

Thank you. I know you're out there.

I'm a resident of Sonoma but I'm also chair of the cultural and fine arts commission. We call it CFAC. I'm speaking as a resident tonight but you can ask me questions. I can't speak for the commission but I can give my personal opinion. I am, as always, grateful to be here, to serve in this position, and also I'm grateful that City Council has included in their annual goals, five goals, two of them are included, the arts are included. And that's frankly unprecedented in this city. It hasn't happened before. I've looked it up, I've checked, it's not there. Sonoma's in a new phase, we can all feel it. Many of our residents, many of us are leaning in locally. We are nervous about the world. We're nervous about what's happening out there. But over and over and over, people lean in. We had Dave Janz, our parks director, and I were invited to go to the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art the other day to speak about our public art policy. It was a gloomy, rainy night. We had four days' notice to put something together, and they had four days' notice to show up. And the place was packed. And people were leaning in. They were listening about public art. They wanted to know what was going on, because they can feel it. October 1st, Peter Hassan's piece. the Twin Towers piece, the piano in the plaza. And we've got four public art proposals coming through our portal with ideas. People are donating things. We have so many donations, we're like, I can't tell you. People are hungry for this. We have studied 47 comparables and benchmarked and looked at multi-family housing. We know that most small towns use five as the standard. We can go deep. Our ad hoc committee is going to be working on all those sorts of questions like affordable housing, historic preservation, cultural organizations if they're adding. We don't want to disadvantage them. But why do we think that the arts are a disadvantage? Why are we having that turn to us? The arts are an advantage. And I'm sorry I've gone over, but hopefully you will look at a data-driven perspective and really appreciate what we all care about housing, but we also care about the spirit of our community. Thank you.

Thank you.

good evening city council Amy Harrington 235 East Napa Street first of all thank you so much for your public service yay you guys are amazing I'm currently on the board of the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art and we're very interested in what happens tonight and very supportive of the CFAC version of this ordinance I just wanted to point out just as a historical kind of artifact that even when I was on the city council, people would say, oh, we need to lower our fees for developers because that's why we don't develop more housing here. And then we did a study of all the areas around us and we actually had the lowest fees and it had nothing to do with that at all. And so I think that is kind of an old refrain that we say like, oh, we know why other places have more development than us. It's this or that. But when we looked into it on my time on the council, that wasn't true. And it was just that this is a small town with very few jobs. There aren't many jobs here. And there isn't a lot of transportation. And that, in general... not conducive to building a huge amount of housing those are some larger factors at play and it really wasn't our whatever our little local fees were that's what we found at that time so I would say the same thing is probably true here today that this is in addition to just being a wonderful addition culturally a great way to add something to our economy in addition to our wine and our natural beauty that we would be known as a hot spot for coming to really enjoy art and so I hope that you're able to support the CFAC version of this ordinance thank you thank you next

Good evening, and thank you for this opportunity. My name is Linda Ygueras. I am on the board of the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art. I chair the development committee. I first joined the board in 2000 when I moved to Sonoma. Subsequently, I was traveling a lot and had to step back, and two years ago I rejoined the board. So I have seen the evolution of the board. I have seen the evolution of the museum. I have seen the appetite for more art in this community and the resounding success of multiple exhibits at the museum that have gained national recognition. In terms of underrepresented artists, the museum has done an exceptional job. And I do recall, being Latina, that when we started the Dia de los Muertos exhibits, it brought more and more of the Hispanic community downtown, so to speak. Because when I first moved to Sonoma in 2000, you didn't see a lot of Hispanic faces south of Boys Hot Springs. And now I feel that the museum has contributed to the richness of our cultural life in the Valley, and particularly in the town of Sonoma. So I would encourage you to support the arts in any way, shape, or form that you can. And certainly in your capacity as council members, you're in a position to do that, and in a very significant way. So I look forward to hearing more about the support you're going to give the arts. Thank you. Thank you very much.

My name is Linda Keaton and I am a resident of Sonoma. Thank you for the opportunity to address the council and thank you for considering an ordinance to add chapter 3.45 public art funds to the city's municipal code and thank you for your previous support of public art. I HOPE THAT YOU WILL ADOPT THIS ORDINANCE WITHOUT THE AMENDMENTS PROPOSED BY THE COMMISSION. THE MUSEUM'S COMMITMENT TO PUBLIC ART IN SONOMA HAS BEEN SIGNIFICANT. SVMA HAS PARTNERED WITH THE CITY ON FIVE VERY SUCCESSFUL LARGE-SCALE PUBLIC ART PROJECTS, AND WE'VE INSTALLED TWO MURALS BY MARIA DE LOS ANGELES IN GLENELLIN AND A MURAL IN BOYS SPRINGS BY THE ARTIST CHORBOOGIE AND A GROUP OF SONOMA VALLEY TEENS. we have a project coming up we hope next summer it's been approved by the cultural and fine arts commission and it will come before the council likely after the first of the year and we hope that these partnerships between the museum and the city will continue the value of public art to a community is well researched and well documented Public art has the power to improve a city's quality of life, public safety, it boosts tourism, it increases revenue to our businesses, and it supports the creative local economy. Most importantly, public art educates and inspires with equitable access. It is developed by and for communities, and the best of it celebrates our diversity. It allows historically marginalized and disinvested communities the chance to develop and express local culture and an artistic voice. All residents can equally access and enjoy public art every single day. People engage with public art in a way that no museum or gallery can offer. One of the most endearing memories of public art in Sonoma for me was watching small children making garlands for the deer that were placed in the plaza near the duck pond in a previous city-museum public art partnership. It's a joy seeing the public connect to their community through public art. It benefits everyone and inspires us to think critically about where we live and who we are. It gives people joy, something we are sorely in need of. For public art to grow and thrive, it needs significant investment and support from the city. I'd like to commend Sonoma's Cultural and Fine Arts Commission on the thoughtful, multi-year, data-driven project to significantly broaden Sonoma's public art. Thank you for your support of public art and our community, and I hope you will adopt the ordinance to add public art support to the city's municipal code without the amendments. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. I will now, seeing no movement, close public comment and bring it back to the dais for further discussion.

I've been looking at what is impeding the production of housing. And I appreciate Ms. Harrington's comments. What has really impeded housing and increased the cost have been the tariffs imposed. The tariffs have increased everything from countertops to washing machines to lumber and so forth. It's been a tremendous negative impact on the housing market. And what we're talking about is an absolute drop in the bucket. compared to these draconian efforts that have resulted in average people not being able to even upgrade a simple bathroom. When you say $100,000 or whatever you said about a bathroom, it's just rather insane. So these are the things that are policy-wise uh, killing us in terms of our ability to provide the kind of housing that Americans deserve. Everyone deserves. And so I don't see this as the impediment. Um, I understand, you know, where the planning commission came from and that's their perspective. And, and I, and I appreciate the ability to have this conversation. But when I did the Year of the Arts when I was the mayor, I just can't tell you how many people were affected by that, who were recognized. And I said, I'm not asking to really even make more art. I'm just wanting everyone to look at what we got and shine a light on it. And that was great. But now we need to take the next step. And a place as wonderful as Sonoma, as beautiful as Sonoma, deserves to have an art community of that same standard, as delicious as our wine. And I will be supporting the Cultural and Fine Arts Commission's recommendation. Thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor Lowe. That was very eloquent. I appreciate everything that you said. And I loved the statement earlier that was made by the women of, you know, the women's foundation here in Sonoma is the Plaza is a living room of Sonoma. And we think of the living room, I know I have art all over my living room. And yes, we have some art in our plaza. And I walk through the plaza probably every single day. And just the piano being there, the number of times I walk through the plaza probably it's probably at least half of the time someone's playing that piano and they're not alone there's a crowd around them listening to it and so I mean what that just does for community for health I mean we don't have to go in all the benefits there's so many benefits of art but I think also the economic benefits are something that we really need to be thinking about because the energy for art for art from the people that live here and the people that will be attracted to come here why people come here to see the theater that we have here, the film festivals that we have, our beautiful plaza, all of our beautiful buildings that can even be better enhanced by more public art. And I think that that is really, we need to be looking at what is really gonna help us build strong economic viability for our community. And I really do believe that it is really related to the energy around having a beautiful creative community. I mean, when I lived here in the early, late 70s, early 80s, it was really an artist town. You know, how we got by was bartering with each other. You know, it's like I sold my dance, my dance lessons got me wine. You know, it was just, you know, like all part of what was going on. And it was really, and, you know, I mean, I think that we can rebuild that. I think that it's going to be a very positive thing in the long run. So I completely support it. I don't need to go on and on and on. I support the CFAC movement. proposal and I agree that it's kind of a drop in the bucket I wish there was a way there's three buildings three houses going on within five blocks of my house and I'm sure gonna probably sell for if they sell for three to four million dollars you know so we have to we have to tap into this wealth that is here in a way to really it's gonna benefit everybody in the long run

Thank you so much. You know, art is our life of the Sonoma. I'm wondering, you know, we have a lot of the donations and Connie just mentioned. If we change this kind of policy and if it will reduce the passion of those donors. Seems like, oh, you have the money, you can get support from the government, from the fees. That is, I don't think we have an answer right now. And another thing is, because, you know, Art cannot be measured by the numbers, but it is unmanageable, the impact. So, in this kind of a situation, I don't believe if we change any threshold, because I believe in fine arts committees taking the decision. And they're in a passion to participate. Thank you for coming here. And you guys also support me to make the decision. So I would like to support and project as is. Thank you.

Oh, I'm sorry. What are you supporting?

I'm supporting fine art.

Well, I'm just wondering if we could apply this to ADUs. They've got to be more expensive than a bathroom. I don't know. Anyway, it's quite simple. As a council, we've supported public art. We've been moving down this path for the four years I've been on the council. And I don't see the reason why we want to look at THE INCREASED VALUE AND THE INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF UNITS. SO I'M GOOD WITH THE PROPOSAL USING THE $250,000 VALUE AND THE FIVE UNITS.

THANK YOU. I DO HAVE A QUESTION, IF I COULD. I TAKE THAT BACK. I'M JUST GOING TO MAKE A STATEMENT. would like to bring back to the diocese for discussion the idea based upon my conversation with CEO of Burbank and then also making maybe an assumption and then please the community development director can correct me but I'm speculating that we're probably going to be doing more affordable housing than market rate housing in the foreseeable future Okay. All right. So then I'll, okay. Then I'll go back.

In this sense of a hundred percent affordable, like of a, for instance, like Montalvo. So Montalvo would only have, how many was it?

52, 50 units.

And 25% of that was like 12, 13. Thirteen of those units were affordable.

But that's the way it's currently structured. But you've been in conversations with affordable housing developers, Burbank, Midpen. I thought they were looking at total affordability.

They would if they were to purchase it. They would do a 100% affordable product.

Yeah, so that's where I'm headed. Are you suggesting that your forecast for total affordable projects in Sonoma is precious few?

Precious few. Okay. Maybe two.

Okay. Well, where I was headed was just the idea of not going with a 1% for affordable, but to put in a less percentage, a quarter percentage for affordable. And I know that a large project is going to be more than $10 million, but $10 million at a quarter percent is $25,000. So again, based upon what Burbank said, that's not a deal breaker. And I'm just going back to the history of Sonoma and what has been built in the last ten years, and it's been precious little.

So I have a proposal around that. If we were to do a quarter percent, that we could potentially mitigate that in working with the developers and say, once we have if we have money in in the fund and say that we if it's a problem for closing that deal that we could pull money from the fund to meet that quarter percent so that's something that we could potentially do from the council correct so at any point with any fee there is an opportunity for them to come to you to ask for exactly a waiver of a fee or a reduction of a fee

So we don't necessarily need to build something like that in?

Correct. But if we don't have a fee requirement, they're not going to come and offer it, correct?

So I'm giving an argument to potentially do a quarter percent for affordable housing.

And where I'm just simply headed is, yes, we have the opportunity if they were to come to us and say, if you go that route, it's going to be a deal breaker, then we can come back and negotiate. Right. But if we don't have something in place, they're not going to offer it.

Right. And the reason I agree with you completely, because I do agree my concern is 100% affordable housing. I have a problem with 100% affordable in the first place because I think we should all communities should have different levels of wealth within the community. I think it enriches the community. But I realize that that's, you know, we have people, it's important for us to do that. But we want there to be public art there. I mean, we definitely want there to be public art. And I think we have a comment from our chair of our Culture and Fine Arts Commission. I'm wondering if we can address her comment. She has her hand up over there.

That's at the discretion. At the discretion of the mayor.

Sure.

I think it would be in our minutes from our last CFAC meeting that we did have this discussion about wanting to place art in affordable housing despite it not generating the money. And that is probably going to be worked into the ad hoc for the public art policy. We have a committee working on the details to help make that happen. Because we are aligned we we agree that there should be art in affordable housing areas and That public art funds can be used anywhere in us in a community and you certainly want to spread it out so I think our tendency here is to think about the plaza is the place to put art or on a corner of a bank or something, but the the fund can be used to

make joy everywhere thank you so yes please so you know I think that without without negotiating here quarter percents or this percent or whatever I believe that there's a sentiment on this council that I'm hearing that if a proposal came forward and it was you know, linked to, would you please waive this 1% and they were going to build affordable housing, I mean, I certainly would support something like that because if that's a deal breaker and with the, you know, the crisis that we have in housing, you know, that could come forward. But that's, we always have that discretion, right? And so I think that's the point that Ms. Gates is making that If we have something, you know, just like any of the other fees, you know, sometimes people want to use the plaza and they come to us and say, we're a nonprofit, we can't afford to pay blah, blah, blah, and we waive a fee. I mean, I think we always have that opportunity. So to me it would be easier to keep it consistent. If it's not a deal breaker, they'll go for it. If it is, then we negotiate it. Am I wrong? Am I wrong? Does that, am I hearing what you're saying correctly?

You are. You are, but I think currently in the proposed ordinance there are exemptions and affordable housing is one of them. And so that's the question.

Yeah, and I think that's fine.

I think that's fine.

But also, you know, if there were some other project that came forward and, you know, we felt it was necessary or whatever.

So I'm confused. So we have an exemption for affordable housing. We had a discussion recently about a quarter percent, and then you were suggesting that keeping it simple at 1%. Is that 1% without affordable?

Well, I'm keeping it consistent with what was proposed by the Culture and Fine Arts Commission.

I mean, most of the projects that have affordable housing also have a significant amount of market rate housing. And so under the proposal, whether it's under the Culture and Fine Arts Commission proposal, that development, which has some market and some affordable, is still going to have a public art requirement. It's just that the value of that art is going to be based on the permit valuation of the market rate units.

And that's clear, but then if we do get that 100% affordable, then we have no leverage. We have nothing. We have nothing in place. allow us to collect anything I do like what the chair said I and I think I would get support from all of you about the idea that we're not limited to putting basing what funds we do collect and limiting where we put the art and I we'd be have the heart and the will to want to include art at an all affordable housing project but I do think that if the council wanted to impose the public art requirement on

all affordable housing units, there would be some risk because of the posture that we're in in terms of our housing crisis and the way that the legislature has looked at this issue and has been, as you know, consistently passing laws to limit our ability as a city to condition affordable housing.

And also, remember that last year we gave $250,000 to help fill a gap for Burbank to purchase 18 units. So that's something that we'll continue to see is they will be asking for funds.

But that's totally different. That's because back in the day we put a clause of 30 years for the duration of keeping it.

Oh, I'm talking about just in general to do affordable housing projects. It is very typical for an affordable housing developer to look to the city to contribute funds.

something to the project in a a large amount okay so you're kind of taking one so if i could clarify i mean i i think we got apples and oranges here going on but um the proposal excludes the affordable housing but you know there's quote unquote there's other projects such as like maybe there are providing a work your housing missing middle what I mean we always have flexibilities is all I'm saying we have that flexibility so I think that what is before us from the culture and Fine Arts Commission you know is is in keeping with our attorneys interpretation and still allows us if there's something that comes forward that we really think is needed we we have options yeah

So if, I was going to say if we have the spirit, then let's not detain emotion.

I have another question. Please. Because today we mentioned about 1% of the general found a location and also we have and a cap, 25. And also I read in the paper that said previously it was omitted by accident or something like that. Forgot. It's possible for us to remove this kind of cap because according to this year, next budget year, as in a 20 million, you know, if without this kind of cap, should it be $50,000? Right?

I understand what you're saying. So what I was talking about, let's see. so our annual city allocation is 0.25 percent um of the general fund expenditures you specifically um what commission um sorry council member i go to commissions too often council member dean was talking about was we do currently in our code have a cap of 25 000 per fiscal year that has been in there for a long time and that may change over time and so do we want a cap is the i think what you're now asking your fellow council members. Do we keep that in there at all? Or do we just leave it? Do we remove it? Or do we keep the $25,000? You can always go over it again.

That is my suggestion, if possible. And of course, Ably City Council need to discuss.

If I may just chime in on this question. I think one thing, kind of big picture to consider with the city's budget and current structural deficit is that that we may want to reconsider that we're moving a cap or increasing when we look at the next fiscal year's budget is there a lot of amazing things that the council like we look at our goals and priorities there's a lot of things that we need to fund from the general fund so I hear the spirit of supporting public art and moving forward with that I agree with that I also think that there is some fiscal prudency to maintaining a cap, just for your consideration?

I would not support an increase at this point in time just because of that. That doesn't mean we can't change it if we get healthier, but I'm just happy as a clam that we're actually going to continuously do it now and when we haven't done it in the past. So I would suggest we keep the cap.

so with that and any more questions or i'm going to go back and solicit a motion if there so is such okay the same page so based on the conversation that has been had we can actually introduce the ordinance tonight because the information that has been is before you you have before you with what the language would be with one with the one modification that it would be affordable square footage

Right, so in the agenda packet, the proposed ordinance is the one that the Planning Commission recommended, but the next page is the strikethrough of what the Cultural and Fine Arts Commission had looked at and approved. They essentially approved what would not have been changed, I guess.

Yes, except for one modification. and that is in regards to the very original conversation in the proposal was that it would be a hundred percent affordable project and that was being modified by both that was recommended to be modified by both the cfac and the planning commission to be the affordable housing square footage so that is the only modification so with that change i still believe we can still introduce tonight unless i get a no

So would you please then state for our benefit, orally, what the CFAC has proposed, including this one change, so we can hear it up here at the dais and hopefully either agree and make a motion to accept that.

Can you see if this works? Okay. We are in business. That was not the one I wanted.

I got all kinds of stuff.

Oh, sorry. I'm looking at the wrong one. There we go. New name. All right, so this is at the very end of your packet. This was the planning commission recommendation page. And so in it, you'll see a strikethrough. So this is what it looks like at the very top. Proposed planning commission modifications with the strikeout. So if you have it in front of you, it's on the very first page of that you go down. So with the private development project definition, you're going to be adding in multifamily back in all of the texts that you see in regards to multifamily development, the five or more units, the $250,000. And then if you see that the construction shall not be subject to the requirements, that very first strikeout, it says multifamily development that regulatory agreement with a government agency restricting occupancy to qualifying households not exceeding specified incomes for 100% of the units. We're going to remove the 100% of the units. so that it would apply to all so that would apply to all the only the affordable components of market rate housing so that's the only language that would be extracted would be the four a hundred percent of the units and also to clarify that's just the amendment to 19 to chapter 19.51 the new chapter

3.45 is the same as Exhibit B to the ordinance. Yes. For the record.

So the new chapter is just basically a repeat?

Yeah, there were no changes proposed to Chapter 3.45 by any commission.

Okay. So without clarification, would someone like to entertain a motion?

gonna try I move approval of the recommendation from the cultural and Fine Arts Commission with the amendments as noted in the last sentence of section what is that number it's not on the screen anymore the development of the development of 19.51020B.

I second. Let's make sure we got that last thing.

Yeah, the definition of a private development project. Okay, it's the definition. Yes, under the definitions, it's A, And it's the exemption for affordable units.

Okay. And I heard a second. Is there a further discussion? Seeing none, roll call, please.

Vice Mayor Lowe? Aye. Council Member Gurney? Yes. Council Member Dean?

Aye.

Council Member Ferraris? Aye. Mayor Wellender? Yes. Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

all right now we're moving on to um 8.2 which is a discussion regarding adus and at this point i'm just going to defer to our staff thank you mayor wellander good evening council

So the item before you is the introduction of an ordinance which would amend chapter 1945 of the Sonoma Municipal Code relating to ADU development. So as you're aware, ADUs and JADUs are required to be approved ministerially under and under streamlined standards. And local jurisdictions are required to, if they have an ordinance with development standards for ADUs and JADUs to be in compliance with state law, generally speaking. We brought the, we had a planning commission study session in June of 2026, so just a few months ago, to bring the discussion forward to the planning commission. During that study session, they inquired about just some general information related to ADUs, kitchen requirements, and deed restriction language that had changed. At the August 18, 2026 Planning Commission staff did bring forward some information related to their research of those topics as well as bringing forward the draft ordinance and in which case the Planning Commission approved the draft ordinance with minor modifications and those minor modifications were provided to you in the PC ordinance attachment, so very minor. It was an expansion on the ADU definition to include efficiency units and mobile homes in the definitions which just matches state law verbatim, as well as using the acronym for ADU throughout the entirety of the chapter. so since that planning commission hearing where they recommended approval of the ordinance to the city council with minor modifications there have been some additional minor modifications and that just came out of caution we did have a comment from HCD as, I mean, I'm sorry, not HCD, the Housing Defense Fund. And so we just removed any potentially subjective language after that commission hearing, although it wasn't substantial. So here are just some of the amendment highlights. We included definitions of ADUs, JADUs, multifamily. These are questions that we get a lot when folks come into City Hall or meet with us, meet with planning staff, exactly what that means. Updates to fire sprinkler requirements or rather when fire sprinklers are no longer required. The number of allowable units, ADUs and JADUs per lot in different types of development scenarios for existing and proposed developments. additional provisions that are required within ADUs and JADUs. We also tried to clean up the language in general and just make it more of a readable document. I know you may not believe that, but I tried very hard to do so. And just taking out language that wasn't necessarily benefiting the reader and stating things that were not required, which didn't really, weren't as applicable to the reader. so you know obviously if you guys have any questions related to the language within the ordinance which is pretty much a reflection of the state law the next steps would be to do the second reading or adoption of the ordinance at the next hearing after that it would go to HCD for approval so ADU ordinances now go to HCD for approval hence our the amount of time and review we've spent on this ordinance we're really hoping to get it approved through HCD on the first try the planning commission laughed at that because it it proves to be very difficult the first time but we'll see Additionally, we're developing submittal checklists, a checklist of conditions specified in certain sections of the state code, the health and safety, frequently asked questions, just generally getting up to speed with what the state requires and then also just more resources for the residents of Sonoma and subsequent developers. So staff is recommending the introduction of this ordinance and finding it exempt from CEQA pursuant to the code sections referenced on the screen. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Any questions up here from the dais? Oh, no.

I'll have a comment later.

So, no questions up here. Then I'm going to turn and open it up for public comment. So is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak on this item? And I'm seeing two shaking heads and one no move. So I'm suggesting that I close public comment, bring it back to the dais for discussion and possible motion. No comments. Go ahead. Before you make a motion, real quick, do you have a question or a comment?

No question.

Comment? Oh, please, comments.

Yeah, that is basically and also another way for the city to consider affordable housing. We fully support affordable housing in different ways.

This is ADU related, but not specific to this. Is there a discussion in the courts about allowing a homeowner to subdivide his lot to create that ADU being separate?

Yeah, so it's referenced in the ADU. Actually, it's not in the ADU. It's somewhat referenced in the ADU state law, but then there's a limited further discussion in another section. And that's separate sale or conveyance of ADUs. So essentially creating an HOA or condom. condominium that was one of the research topics that came out of the Planning Commission study session so after that meeting I spent quite a bit of time researching just jurisdictions in the state that have implemented implemented that there's only been I think about seven jurisdictions they tend to be denser larger cities and So San Francisco, San Jose, I believe Santa Cruz, Berkeley. And then we do have one local jurisdiction, Sebastopol, that has implemented it. However, there was no developed processes around that. And I also reached out to HCD to try to find more information out about, cause there was questions about whether those could be deed restricted and I didn't get a response from HCD. I think so to answer your question simply, yes, there are discussions about that. Yes, there's the potential for that. However, the law is, it's so new at this point and it's so vague and ambiguous that there are, um, it's not quite catching any steam. There's concerns about funding and whether folks can get loans on that type of development and then whether that really funnels the ability to have such projects, handing that over again to larger developers that have The funding in order to do that, and it sort of takes away from the purpose of potentially first time homebuyers. Um, and then it sort of gets away from. Perhaps the intention of the law. So we are going to be bringing that back for further discussion once we can get more information or, um. Or receive more direction from counseling.

Yeah, great. A REAL QUICK COMMENT. I LOVE THE IDEA OF A CHECKLIST BECAUSE THAT, TO ME, AGAIN, COMMUNICATES TO THE APPLICANT AND CREATES A LITTLE BIT OF THE VAGUERIES OF WHAT IT TAKES TO BUILD AN ADU. SO WITH THAT, I'M GOING TO SOLICIT AND SEEK A MOTION.

I MOVE APPROVAL OF THE ORDINANCE.

DO WE HAVE A SECOND?

I'LL SECOND IT.

OKAY. FURTHER DISCUSSION? INTRODUCTION. WE HAVE A SECOND. ANY DISCUSSION? NO DISCUSSION. PLEASE, ROLL CALL.

Vice Mayor Liu. Aye. Council Member Gurney. Yes. Council Member Dean.

Aye.

Council Member Farrar-Rivas. Aye. Mayor Wellender.

Yes.

Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Thank you very much. All right. Now we're going to transition now to our regular calendar, and we are dealing with items 9.2. Mr. Mayor.

Mayor. It is after 9 p.m., so we do need a motion to proceed.

I move that we proceed with the next item.

Do we need a second we voting is just not that's good.

Okay, no discussion roll call, please Yes councilmember Dean Councilmember for our Rebus Aye. Mayor Wellender?

Yes. And so with that, we're going to go right to 9.2, which is an adoptive resolution adopting a reasonable accommodation policy for Brown Act meetings. And at this point, I'm going to turn it over to our clerk. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor. Rebecca Barr, city clerk. Good evening, all. The item before you tonight for consideration is the adoption of reasonable accommodations policy for our Brown Act meetings. Adopting the policy will establish a clear and consistent process for staff members, the public, and city's legislative bodies to request and process accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. First, I just wanted to mention SB 707. It was effective January 1, 2026, and it added remote participation requirements to the Brown Act, but only for eligible legislative bodies. To be considered an eligible legislative body, it has to be a city with a population of 30,000 or more, or a city and a county that has a population of 600,000 or more. Sonoma does not meet either of these thresholds, so it's exempt from that provision of SB 707, that remote access mandate. However, that exemption doesn't excuse the city from separate independent ADA Title II obligations to provide meaningful access to our public meetings. It is worth noting that while the Title II requires us, it does require us to give primary consideration to an accommodation that's requested, it does not require the city to provide that exact accommodation. The city may satisfy its obligation with an alternative that's equally as effective. We will, the policy does say that we'll give primary consideration to that preference, but it does retain discretion to determine what accommodation is reasonable and appropriate under the circumstances, so long as the alternative provided is effective. The proposed policy before me tonight sets out standard accommodations, such as sign language interpreters, assistive listening devices, captioning, and accessible materials. These can be requested with an advance notice to the city clerk, and the advance notice is being requested to allow sufficient time for the city to provide those things, such as an alternate format agenda, a reader, recordings, large print documents, and sometimes even an ASL interpreter is requested. The policy allows remote participation, such as Zoom, as an accommodation for both members of the public and the legislative body members with a disability subject to the appropriate safeguards that are in the Brown Act. The policy directs the city to resolve doubt in favor of accessibility. We won't deny a request solely because it came in late. It was after what we had suggested in the two business days. if it can still be reasonably accommodated. If a specific request can't be granted because it would impose an undue burden or fundamentally alter the meeting, then we'll offer an effective alternative to be able to still participate. The policy also sets out simple request procedures and protects the confidentiality of the disability-related information. If the council adopts the policy, staff would also recommend a related adjustment to how we currently do general public comment and how it's structured. Staff recommends a remote commenter using an accommodation would not count towards that 10-person cap of in-person speaking speakers. And that after we finalize the 10 in-person speakers, then we would go to the individuals who are requesting that accommodation for remote access. And they would not have to wait until the second period of public comment. Staff doesn't anticipate any significant ongoing fiscal impact based on this policy, though we do need to realize that individual accommodation requests may involve additional costs, such as, again, obtaining those interpreters, different readers, that type of thing. And as they arise, they would each be evaluated on an individual basis. And if and with that staff recommends that the council adopt this policy So it provides a clear and consistent process for handling accommodation and requests under the ADA if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them and City attorney city manager also here to answer questions.

I Was How do you anticipate advertising this or making this information and the options that you have just expressed of note to the public? Will it be on a website? Because it sounds like this is a change, and it sounds like we are accommodating the requirements, but how are we going to be advertising that this is what we're offering?

Well, we haven't explored that yet.

Okay, fair enough.

But I would, definitely there would be information on the website of how you request an ADA accommodation. We can, I can talk with our PIO about possibly, you know, creating a form, just the easiest way of how to get the information out.

All of our agendas include and are required to include information about who to contact regarding the ADA accommodation. So this is just going to really help staff on the back end in terms of how they're going to process that and what accommodations they're going to be able to provide without further consideration. And then obviously if it's an accommodation request, from one of the council members or another commission, it will also inform staff of that and we can certainly make our commissions aware of that at meetings as well.

Okay. Please. Right on the agenda it says accessing public meetings and there's links and there's a portal and my guess is that, you know, upon approval of this new language that there will be something on every agenda that says, you know, please contact, here's the number, here's the link, you know.

Great.

So I had a quick question in regards to accommodating, according to ADA, someone that also was not an English speaker or a fluent English speaker. I didn't see that listed as an accommodation. Is that something?

That's not a disability. That's simply an interpretation issue, and those are always available.

Okay. No other questions? Okay. At this time, I will invite the public to come forward.

I do think we're trying to pull up the policy itself. that you can you can view this is what this is what is being requested for approval I don't know if it's it made it into your staff report so that's why so why thank you well it is here and I think at this point I won't detain opening up to the public so at this point

you wish to speak on the item on the agenda you're welcome to come forward okay first off it's item nine point one nine point two on the agenda Secondly, the Brown Act already includes language for translation. You get double the amount of time if you have a translator. Getting to my comments now, council, city attorney, the Sonoma general public. i'd like to thank you for your rapid consideration of this federal requirement to allow participation from those who can't personally attend your council meetings i thank mr ruderman for his detailed dissertation on the subject at least i thought it was his dissertation until the city clerk took over these are my comments on his points sb 707 effectively proves that our california legislature passes laws without considering the supremacy of federal legislation designed to protect the rights of all citizens regardless of the state in which they reside. As we have a First Amendment right to address our grievances to our elected officials, any law restricting that right should be unconstitutional on its face. Secondly, any elected body who respects their constituency and wants to hear from them would reject this exemption out of hand. This isn't a matter of cost when you provide the opportunity to elected officials and have Zoom capability for people to watch. It is elitism to only allow officials to participate and not your public. Considering Mr. Ruderman's point on the ADA and what I have just stated, you don't have the ability to claim that you may deny a two-way audio participation from disabled individuals. Now, what I'd like to point out is earlier you had a presentation, and I think I spoke to you about this, Mr. Mayor. You had a presentation where you invited a person to come on and speak on two-way audio. That's not an elected official. Now you've really stepped in it because... If you deny this ability to a disabled person, you already have an example of where you have discriminated against these people because you allowed somebody else to do it who wanted to be part of a presentation. Solano County's 2026 population is estimated at 455,676. Pretty accurate estimation if you ask me. And my town's population is around 22,000. We have two public comment periods and take comments from anyone who wants to speak at both times rather than restricting comments to those who haven't spoken during the first. Our meetings rarely run late and are still poorly attended. We also have a three minute time limit with a two minute ADA accommodation. That's just for your information. I'm not suggesting you do that. As for Mr. Ruderman's commentary in proposed public meeting accessibility policy, I do not disagree with his claims, but would suggest that hearing devices or other assistant devices should be available in sufficient quantity during any meeting without requiring advance notice. As my true concern is availability of two-way audio, stating that, quote, accommodating one of the rules does not by itself require the city to open remote access to the public generally, end quote, again goes down the path of elitism. Why in the world would you not open these meetings for participation from your own citizens regardless of their situation? Again, there is no cost differential. Time would be your only consideration, and either you want to do this job for your citizens with their participation or you don't. I appreciate Mr. Ritterman's policy directive to allow remote participation for public comment beyond the 10-speaker limit. What is missing is the Brown Act requirement or requires that the public, all of the public, may comment on any item of interest listed on the agenda. And this means all public. items on the agenda, including roll call, council members' comments, or the Pledge of Allegiance. When you make your motion to follow the law, I would appreciate that you recognize the public's right to speak to all items and not just public comment because there is some concern amongst the people that I know that are disabled that that wasn't there. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Anyone else like to come forward? Seeing no, I'll close public comment and bring it back to the dais for discussion. Please.

Thank you for public comments and I really appreciate it and also that is the learning and the process for me as well because disability accommodation process is not only a requirement to be compliant and also that is truly what it means, open government. So disability should never prevent a resident from participating for the city council make any decision. Thank you.

Okay. Do you have any other comments, Mr. Willerman? Any thoughts before we seek a motion?

I guess the only other comment I would have is I think that this looks like the policy that we've set forward is a good policy. And what we need to do now is to see how it works. And then if there's other issues that we need to address in regard to this policy, after we have this policy in action, then we can make adjustments to it. But I personally don't understand why we need to have comments for the Pledge of Allegiance. But that's just from my point of view. So it seems to me like we're giving the opportunity for someone with a disability to comment in the areas where it would be appropriate for people or what I think is not maybe not appropriate is the right word but where we would want, where people would want to have their public comments. I don't know if you can address to me, like, why?

Well, we've always allowed anyone, regardless of disability, to provide public comments, and we've always provided reasonable accommodations to anyone who's asked for accommodations. What we have not done recently is allow two-way Zoom public comments, and that was based on a policy direction after our Zoom bombing incidents that we closed the Zoom. So with this policy change, we will allow Zoom public comments for individuals who have claimed they have a disability that prevents them from coming to the meeting in person. Previously, we allowed them to provide written public comments. We've offered to read their public comments during the public comment, whatever public comment section that they wanted, whether that was general or specific to an item. We've offered to play audio if they wanted to provide us with an audio. so those have always been available and we've been happy to accommodate this is just a slight change in that with respect to the zoom for individuals who are unable to get to the council chambers and then obviously the other existing accommodations which are listed in there we've always we've always provided we provide listening of devices the clerks clerks are well aware of how how those types of things And then the new thing, obviously, is the provision for members of our legislative bodies to appear remotely as an accommodation, not necessarily as a just cause or emergency circumstance. This does relate to the supremacy clause that the public commenter mentioned. We had an attorney general's opinion, and then the legislature followed up with codification in the Brown Act that provides that if a council member has a disability that prevents them from coming to a meeting, we can offer an ADA accommodation where they can appear by Zoom without having to fulfill the just cause and their presence is considered in-person presence for all purposes. So for purposes of a quorum, the fact that they're on Zoom won't matter. It will be as if they were in the room. So there are a number of exceptions that are allowed when a council person or a commissioner appears with an accommodation. So this policy lays all that out and makes sure that our staff is properly processing those requests as well.

Thank you. Thank you. Based upon your description and what was put forth by the clerk, I certainly feel comfortable in that we are making effort to not discriminate and to give avenues by which everyone can participate. So at this point, I believe I support what has been proposed. But I will ask if anyone else would like to.

I want to move to approve. to adopt the resolution adopting reasonable accommodations policy for Brown Act meetings, establishing procedures for providing reasonable accommodations and effective communications to individuals with disabilities who wish to attend, participate, or access the city public meetings.

Is there a second? Second. For the discussion at this point, roll call, please.

Vice Mayor Lowe. Aye. Council Member Gurney. Yes. Council Member Dean.

Yes.

Council Member Farrar-Rivas. Aye. Mayor Willender. Yes. Thank you. The motion carries unanimously.

Very good. At this point, we do have an opportunity for a second public comment, and it has been expressed there may be interest by an individual that would like to participate via Zoom. I want to open this up for that opportunity should it be requested.

Mr. Mayor, we do have one public comment.

Please.

Bringing in Lori Alterman.

Thank you. Good evening.

Good evening. I've been the one asking for Zoom access for two months, and you've denied me access. You denied me today, and you basically put me at the back of the bus. You wouldn't even let me talk on the item agenda. You wouldn't let me talk in July. How much money have you spent? um, to silence one disabled person's life. I need Zoom because I have a hearing disability and a physical disability and I need closed captioning. Okay. This is why public comment I had sent to all of you, but obviously none of you read it. There are some structural parts that are wrong with this. First, it creates an illegal medical privacy barrier by forcing more remote participation to be treated strictly as ADA accommodation. The city is establishing an administrative gatekeeping process. Under the ADA, a public entity cannot require citizens to publicly disclose private medical diagnosis or jump through bureaucratic... hoops just to exercise their First Amendment right to speak. For residents with hearing impairments, Zoom is not a special privilege. It is the only way to access high quality audio and live captioning. You cannot mandate what a reasonable accommodation is. Second, It accidentally creates a two-tiered system of citizen. By exempting ADA-accommodated remote speakers from the proposed 10-person public comment gap, this policy ensures that the remote speaker has a guaranteed right to speak, while a regular citizen standing physically in the rooms will be cut off on the 11th person in line. The ADA is designed to level the playing field, not to grant structural or procedural advantage to one class of residents over another. Third, it is a policy that invites immediate exploitation. Because flagrant law prohibits the city clerk from aggressively interrogating or demanding medical proof from residents requesting an accommodation, this policy relies entirely on the honor system. Anyone who figures out that checking the ADA request box guarantees them a slot to speak and bypass your 10% limit will begin utilizing it. Instead of reducing friction or managing public input, this policy creates a massive loophole, infringes on medical privacy, and sets the city up for an expensive civil rights suit. I didn't feel like I was going to do that, but now I think it's personal. If this council truly wants an orderly, transparent, and legally compliant meeting, the solution is simple and cost-effective. Open Zoom access for all citizens equally, remove the arbitrary caps, and eliminate the need for unworkable medical gatekeeping policy. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else on Zoom?

No, Mr. Mayor.

Okay, with that,