[2:29] . >> we're ready. >> hello, good evening,

[3:01] everyone. Thanks for your patience. We're going to go ahead and

[3:03] get started with our tuesday, september 8th, rohnert park city council

[3:08] meeting. We'll begin with roll call. >> councilmember adams.

[3:12] >> here. >> councilmember giudice. >> present.

[3:16] >> councilmember rodriguez. >> here. >> vice mayor elward.

[3:20] >> present. >> mayor sanborn. >> present.

[3:22] >> all councilmembers are present. And those who can, would you

[3:26] please rise, we will do the land acknowledgment followed by the pledge of allegiance.

[3:36] the city of rohnert park acknowledges indigenous peoples

[3:37] as the traditional stewards of the

[3:38] land. Let it be acknowledged that the city of rohnert park is

[3:39] located within the traditional homelands of the federated

[3:43] indians of graton rancheria, comprised of coast miwok and southern pomo peoples.

[3:56] pause river park lead the pledge of allegiance. That would be lovely.

[3:59] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of

[4:01] america and to the republic for which it

[4:03] stands one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and

[4:08] justice for all.

[4:21] thank you. Okay. Wants to provide public y -

[4:25] comment for tonight's meeting, I'm going to go ahead and just open now with

[4:30] this statement. >> public meetings are a limited public forum meaning

[4:39] that there are rules for commenting at these meetings.

[4:41] comments on nonaagendized items are going to occur only during the designated

[4:46] public comment period on the agenda and they must address matters within the subject

[4:51] matter jurisdiction of the city. Comments on aagendized items

[4:54] must relate to the specific item on the agenda and must occur during the public

[4:58] comment period designated for that specific agenda topic.

[5:01] if comments don't fall into these categories, the city's going to provide an initial

[5:05] warning that you need to stay within the subject matter jurisdiction of the

[5:09] city or on the agenda topic. If the initial warning is not followed, then the

[5:14] chair, myself, will direct the city clerk to cut the microphone and throughout

[5:18] the warning system, I will be seeking the city attorney's guidance in

[5:22] identifying any comments that aren't within the subject matter of the city

[5:25] or are not related to the agenda items being heard. So members of public

[5:41] attending in person wishing to comment are encouraged to fill out the pink public

[5:45] comment cards which are found at the back table. Those aren't required.

[5:48] but help us stay organized. So following in person public comments individuals

[5:52] participating remotely on zoom or on zoom by phone who would like to comment on any

[5:56] item must select the raise your hand feature within a minute of the agenda item

[6:01] opening to be recognized before speaking. That is the housekeeping.

[6:04] we'll go to item 4 on the agenda, which is presentations, starting with

[6:08] one of my favorite things, the induction and pinning ceremony for our new public

[6:15] safety officers, quincy curry, brennan razo and david vasquez.

[6:20] chief, welcome. It's a little excited to be retiring, can you tell?

[6:38] >> okay. I'm here tonight to present our newest academy

[6:44] graduates. I know we're here pretty early.

[6:45] they just graduated about a week and a half ago. Normally they're with their

[6:50] ftos but I asked our city manager, marcelo, for a special favor of allowing me

[7:01] to introduce them because probably the last group I will get to introduce.

[7:04] please bear with m. So first I'm gonna call up public safety officer

[7:10] trainee david vasquez. All right. So david was born in a small

[7:21] pueblo outside guadalajara, mexico, and then moved to the united states with his

[7:26] family when he was seven years old. David attended ioneer high

[7:30] school in santa rosa. Attended santa rosa junior college where he obtained

[7:36] his associate's degree in fire technology. David then attended the

[7:41] santa rosa junior college public safety training center and acquired his emt

[7:46] certificate. That was in 2023. Followed by the completion

[7:48] of the fire academy in december of 2025. And then he decided he

[7:53] wanted to be a two-way hero. So he came to the city of rohnert park, where we sent

[7:58] him to the academy and he graduated from the police academy in 2026.

[8:02] so david's been quite busy. Prior to attending the academy, david was a reserve

[8:08] firefighter for the city of healdsburg for approximately two years.

[8:14] in addition to being a lead seller hand at hawks winery in hillsboro.

[8:19] david enjoys working on vehicles and spending time with family and friends.

[8:22] he also enjoys going to the gym and camping. David was hired as a police

[8:28] officer trainee with the city of rohnert park, in march 23rd, and is currently

[8:34] in his department orientation and is preparing to start his phase 1 fto.

[8:39] welcome, david vasquez. I'm ure david put down here that his dad is david

[9:01] vasquez. Next we have brennan razo. Come on up, brennan.

[9:05] I just want you to know when we came here, I ask them to write their bios.

[9:11] so this is them telling you about themselves. All right.

[9:16] brennan was orn in modesto, california, has lived in oak, dale his entire life.

[9:23] he now lives in santa rosa. He attended oakdale high school and later completed

[9:29] coursework in modesto junior college, where he received training through the modesto

[9:34] junior college regional fire academy. Prior to pure suing a career

[9:37] in public sfety, brennan worked for other agency including cooper poulos fire

[9:46] protection district, cal fire aeu and angels campfire before joining amador fire

[9:51] protection district where he served as a fire engineer for the past four years.

[9:54] brennan is now completing the process of being a public afety officer with

[9:58] the rohnert park department of public safety. A goal he has held since he

[10:01] first applied at age 21. Brennan enjoys everything to do with outdoors, including

[10:05] hiking, backpacking, mountaineering. Brennan also enjoys spending

[10:10] time with his family and friends as well as working out.

[10:13] now, brennan, I added the family part on that. So I will remember that in

[10:18] the future. Brennan was hired as a public safety officer with

[10:23] the rohnert park department of public safety and is department orientation

[10:27] before beginning the fto program. His mother roxanne simmons

[10:31] and father and mentor rich hodder are here. Raise your hand.

[10:40] there they are. Brennan razo. Last but not least is quincy

[10:52] curry. I will ay you might want to grab your kleenexes and sit

[10:56] back for the ride on this one. Quincy won the bio of

[11:03] writing this time, I think. I did tell him he's in trouble because yesterday he

[11:10] got it to me and it was all in first person. So I now I have to go

[11:15] through and change it to quincy because it's going to sound strange to me reading.

[11:20] I, I, I the whole time. I did change it a little bit.

[11:23] all right. Quincy was born in san francisco and has lived in

[11:28] santa rosa since he was two years old. He graduated from montgomery

[11:32] high school in 2022 where he played football and set he school squat record.

[11:36] he states his name is actually on the gym wall. After graduating, quincy

[11:40] attended the sjc while working for the marin county fire department as a

[11:46] seasonal firefighter. During his time with cal fire, quincy was assigned to

[11:50] strike teams as far north as medford, oregon and as far south as los angeles.

[11:55] once he graduated from the fire academy in may of '24 from sjc with an

[12:00] associate's degree in fire from the srjc police academy- in august of '26.

[12:06] he enjoys spending time with his girlfriend even though she is currently in college

[12:11] in san diego, where she is studying to obtain her bachelor's degree in

[12:19] nursing. While audrey's away in college, quincy says he's

[12:22] trying to get better at playing the guitar and building his skills.

[12:26] quincy spends much of his free time on facetime with audrey.

[12:31] when not facetiming audrey he enjoys listening to the podcast on topics he is

[12:39] interested in as well as topics he knows nothing about quincy's faith is very

[12:43] important to him and he attends church every sunday as he strives to get closer

[12:47] to jesus. While growing up, quincy looked up to his father as a

[12:51] police officer. And he would watch him leave to work most mornings

[12:55] through his bedroom window. Whoa also do station visits and remember telling his dad

[12:59] that he couldn't retire until they were partners. That's why I told you.

[13:03] things changed during 2017. The fire when his aunt peg lost her home.

[13:09] quincy was in the middle school at the time. And he recalls being so

[13:13] affected by this event he decided to pursue a career in firefightering.

[13:16] when he later learned of the public safety model in rohnert park, he realized he

[13:20] no longer had to choose between the two professionals.

[13:22] quincy is very excited for the opportunity to make an impact in the xhoon.

[13:27] he is part of and that he can become a role model for the family he plans to have

[13:31] in the near future. Quincy is currently completing his orientation

[13:34] and will start the fto program on october 4th. In attendance today is his

[13:39] mom, jody curry, and his dad, richmond curry, who I also want to thank you for

[13:44] your service during your time. Thank you.

[13:47] quincy curry. All right. As we spoke before, most

[13:56] important parts of becoming a public safety professional is getting to be pinned.

[14:03] they had the opportunity to select somebody at their graduation.

[14:08] they have another opportunity to select somebody today to pin their

[14:10] badge. Very significant badge pinning is an important part

[14:13] of this job. So david, who would you like to pin your badge today?

[14:19] okay. There you go. Please feel free to come up

[14:29] and take pictures. If you want pictures. Brennan, who would you like

[15:07] to pin your badge today? [applause] quincy, who would you like

[15:56] to pin your badge? Okay. And we're starting new

[17:04] thing today. Moving forward. But usually they sign their

[17:08] oath of office and then we take it from them and they get a copy.

[17:14] but beings it's so special, sergeant savis actually came up with the idea, give him

[17:20] full cedit, but we wanted to send them off with something more than just a

[17:24] white copy piece of paper. So we've got. >> as part of the counsel,

[18:00] we'd proudly like to take a family photo and that could be everyone who raised them,

[18:05] plus us. >> they mean it, really. They do.

[18:08] you've got to go up there. >> member rodriguez would like to hare a few words

[20:35] before you go. >> I just wanted to say 3 welcome and congratulations,

[20:48] and I was just commenting to the chief, three with fire experience, hello, baby,

[20:53] that is a great hire. I wish you all long and prosperous careers in the

[20:57] city of rohnert park, nd welcome to this family. >> it seemed like a theme

[21:11] of legacy that you guys are all establishing and continuing, and thank you,

[21:18] chief, or the legacy you're leaving, as his being the last group that you're

[21:21] handing over to the city. So welcome, of course, to the city of rohnert park,

[21:26] the friendly city for a reason, and you're oming into a community that is

[21:30] supportive of our public safety and really all of our staff.

[21:33] and so we're glad to have you all and look forward to seeing how your careers take

[21:38] off. >> so nice to see you here with your families.

[21:41] I thought the chief was going to generally choked up here because you are his

[21:47] last incoming class. >> you have raised them well, all of you, and you've

[22:32] done a great job. Now the community will benefit from your

[22:38] investment. Have you seen the tick-tock when the parents after

[22:44] 16 years finally went -- this is pretty much what is happening.

[22:50] not only are you sharing your child with the entire community, but we're also

[22:54] going to make sure that you have a team of wonderful people that will take care

[22:58] of them and will be protected. So welcome to the family.

[23:02] and we are pleased that you chose rohnert park. >> as a parent, I can only

[23:12] imagine how proud you re of your children and thank you for sharing them with us,

[23:15] and encouraging them to work hard. That work is very deeply

[23:21] appreciated here in our city. Thank you all.

[23:25] you may go celebrate. >> all right. So we have one more

[23:47] feel-good presentation this evening, and that is going to be for september 226,

[23:52] that will be national service dog month in the city of rohnert park, now

[23:57] that I'm all weepy. This is near and dear to me as a person who osters

[24:04] service dogs. I wanted to make sure that we recognize their impact

[24:06] here in our city. Okay. The proclamation as the

[24:14] mayor of city of rohnert park proclaiming september 2026 as national

[24:20] service dog month. Whereas service dogs make a profound difference in the

[24:22] lives of people with disabilities by providing assistance, independence,

[24:29] companionship, and whereas national service dog month recognizes the extraordinary

[24:34] contributions of these highly trained animals and the people and organizations

[24:37] who prepare them and place them with those who need. And for us, service dogs

[24:45] assist individuals with a wide range of needs, including visual and hearing

[24:49] impairments, medical conditions, mobility challenges and

[24:54] trauma-related conditions. And whereas paws for purple heart is a national

[25:02] nonprofit with a presence in our region supports veterans through canine-assisted

[25:08] therapeutic programs and service dog training strengthening he powerful

[25:11] bonds between people and dogs. And whereas these programs

[25:14] create meaningful opportunities for veterans while helping prepare

[25:17] service dogs that bring greater independence, confidence and quality of

[25:21] disabilities.iduals with - now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, emily

[25:28] sanborn, as mayor on behalf of the city of rohnert park proclaim september 2026 as

[25:34] national gnats and encourage all residents to recognize and celebrate the invaluable

[25:38] contributions service dogs and the dedicated people and organizations including paws

[25:43] for purple hearts whose work changes lives. Duly and regularly

[25:49] proclaimed this eighth day of september. If you would like to share a

[25:55] few ords as the recipients of this proclamation, we have with us our senior

[26:00] program instructor and regional director from paws for purple heart.

[26:07] would you like to be our spokesperson, claire? The microphone should be on

[26:12] already. >> hello, my name's claire richardson I'm the regional

[26:17] director for paws for purple hearts. I've worked at this

[26:19] organization for five years and firsthand have seen the impact that an animal can

[26:24] make on an individual's life. For our organization,

[26:27] specifically a veterans life, as we are in our second week here in the

[26:31] north bay of client training where veterans have flown in here locally to receive dogs

[26:35] trained by our instructors, the powerful change that it makes n their lives is no

[26:41] small feat. It really does take a village, and I just cannot

[26:45] be more proud to work for this organization and with people who share the same

[26:49] values and care so deeply about our community is a beautiful thing.

[26:52] so I just want to say thank you so much for recognizing the importance of a service

[26:57] animal and to having us here today. Thank you.

[27:02] >> and would arrow be up for a photo? >> just one second.

[29:44] there we go, good evening mayor and city councilmembers.

[29:48] I'm here with scott sanders, our sustainability manager. We have a briefing here

[29:53] regarding assembly bill 1572 compliance in relationship to the nonfunctional turf.

[29:58] turf that doesn't have functional use that some of our street medians, et

[30:02] cetera. Let me get into this briefing here.

[30:07] the agenda is the law timeline and key definitions where the city will be

[30:10] impacted by this assembly bill and this is an unfunded state mandate and it's some

[30:18] estimated impacts, path to compliance and ordinance and reimagining these affected

[30:23] spaces. How did we get here? The first step was drought.

[30:31] so it led to this assembly bill, 2122 and then there was an emergency turf

[30:38] watering ban in march of 2022. And then assembly bill 1572

[30:43] made it permanent in october of 2023. The author of this assembly

[30:52] bill was assemblywoman laura friedman, and the coauthor was senator harry stern.

[31:01] and this was signed by governor gavin newsom october 13 of 2022.

[31:08] our compliance timeline is october 2023 is signed into law.

[31:12] then september 8th, 2026, today, we're providing a briefing and then

[31:17] january 1st, 2027, is our irrigation shut off deadline.

[31:19] so that's when we'll have to shut off irrigation water to these affected areas, which

[31:23] we'll see further into the presentation. January 1st, 2024, this

[31:30] assembly bill takes effect. Then october through december of 2026 we'll come

[31:34] back to council with the ordinance update. So looking ahead, when

[31:41] others must comply. January 1st city f rohnert park, we will have to be in

[31:46] compliance, means we have to shut the water off to these areas that are deemed

[31:50] nonfunctional turf. January 1st, 2028, while this will apply to

[31:54] commercial properties, businesses and institutions. January 1st, 2029, will be

[31:59] the hoas and multi-families. The city of rohnert park, this is the first step is

[32:07] local governments and public agencies. Our deadline january 1st,

[32:15] 2028, commercial industrial and institutional properties, then january 1st

[32:18] is the homeowners association and common interest developments.

[32:24] functional versus nonfunctional turf. Functional turf is ground

[32:30] cover turf located in a recreational use area or community spaces, parks,

[32:35] sport fields, playgrounds, picnic areas, such all of our parks.

[32:40] nonfunctional turf as you functional turf by statute, turf and street right of

[32:47] ways, medians, parking lots, is nonfunctional, regardless of what surrounds it.

[32:52] what's exempt and what isn't. Exempt is nonrestricted turf

[32:59] irrigated with recycled water, which we do have several areas that are

[33:05] irrigated with recycled water functional turf, parks, sports fields,

[33:13] recreation areas. Trees and perennial plantings, targeted

[33:16] irrigation will still be allowed. Cemeteries are excluded not

[33:20] exempt. Nonfunctional turf on city property irrigated with

[33:24] potable water. Street mediums, right of ways, and parking lots turf

[33:28] that is fenced off or inaccessible for recreation and this is what drives our

[33:33] 22 parcel inventory. This is an unfunded state mandate.

[33:40] assembly bill 1572 requires the city stop irrigating identified turf with potable

[33:44] water by january 1st, 2027. It does not require full physical conversion by that

[33:49] date. The physical conversion work, removing grading and

[33:52] ground cover can be phased in over subsequent budget cycles at a sustainable

[33:58] pace. Where is the city impacted. In total, the city we've

[34:03] identified 7.04 acres that need review before january 1st, 2027.

[34:08] this excludes parks, recy recycled water and the golf course drive median.

[34:17] it also excludes the country club drive median. Because that is designated

[34:22] as a park. The fur if acreage by location.

[34:25] commerce boulevard so north and south that's a total of 3.2 acres.

[34:29] broadway parkway is approximately one acre. Heritage lane, approximately

[34:32] one acre. East cotati avenue, 0.8 acres and snyder lane,

[34:41] about .64 acres, which toldz about 7.04 acres. Here's some examples of some

[34:49] affected areas. Here's commerce boyfriend. There's commerce boulevard

[34:51] north. You see our 101 sign there. Then you see hat's right

[34:55] there near business park drive. So that's all commerce

[34:59] north, which is designated nonfunctional turf. That's one of our biggest

[35:03] areas of nonfunctional turf. There's some additional corridors that will be

[35:11] affected. East cotati avenue, approximately 0.8 acres in

[35:16] total. There's byway parkway, approximately one acre and

[35:25] camino collegio, about .23 acres. Estimated impacts, near-term

[35:33] impact of stop irrigation by january 1st, 2027. Here's what will follow.

[35:37] visual is things are going to turn brown after it quits raining.

[35:40] so turf will be visibly brown and go dormant once irrigation stops

[35:46] operational. Conversion work competes with existing public works

[35:50] duties. Pace depends on how much is done in-house versus

[35:55] contraed. Theormat thing keepo modify tho trees still

[36:02] estimated m timeline.e we're

[36:07] this in we ha could be mul going to comple

[36:16] budgetng to spendi wehave ms. So r excavatee thing take cmplie

[36:36] har make. The city's use ordinance mustnded definitions deadline.

[36:56] october/novemb this year with hat. An targetthat,

[37:11] 2027. Working thattecurrently. Irr one of three complementary

[37:23] approaches to reimagining spaces is convert the spray heads to drip or bubbler

[37:31] minters so mature trees can keep the water they need without irrigating the turf

[37:34] around them. This is the best practice for all the sites with

[37:37] established trees and we'll confirm that, field verification.

[37:40] but we ant to protect these mature trees while lessening the use of potable water for

[37:49] nonfunctional turf. Turf removal, demolished and off all nonfunctional turf

[37:59] down to grade, clearing the site for molds or other application.

[38:03] this is best for medium parkway strips and building grounds with no tree canopy.

[38:09] it's pretty straightforward. It clears the site. Removes that turf.

[38:14] woodchip mulch cover, finished converted areas, with the city's existing

[38:18] wood chip supply, plus ongoing tree trimming to suppress weeds and hold soil

[38:24] moisture. This is best for most inventory because we have

[38:26] the material on hand. So we'll use our existing supply on hand.

[38:31] it's just the labor to install it, remove the turf. Our next steps on track one

[38:37] is caps or adjust irrigation valve controllers at each identified parcel, confirm

[38:43] shutoff in the field before january 1st, 2027. Prepare public communication

[38:48] before shutoff. Turf will be visibly brown before the conversion

[38:51] catches up. Low cost, largely staff time.

[38:53] no capital outlay required for this. Well, there will be minimal

[38:57] cost for retrofitting these irrigation systems. Our track two is phased at

[39:04] 2027 and beyond, physical removal, grading and conversion.

[39:09] first one is field verification, functional use calls, mounted site grading

[39:14] and ree canopy. So that's basically ensuring that we identify those trees

[39:19] and work on continuing irrigation to the trees. In-house removal and wood

[39:24] chip cap on highest priority corridors. Removing corridors and

[39:32] remaining corridors contracted work where in-house capacity is short.

[39:36] establish care and scope irrigation retrofit for tree zones.

[39:41] and that was it. Questions? >> council, let's take your

[39:47] questions then we'll go to public comment before you share your extra thoughts.

[39:52] >> thank you. So from what I understand, the ity of santa rosa as

[39:58] no more capacity for purple pipe. Do we know during the course

[40:03] of this timeline if any conversations have been had about maybe increasing that

[40:11] capacity? >> so the issue with these sites is getting that --

[40:15] >> the location. >> it would be very -- it would be cost prohibitive.

[40:21] commerce north, for instance, that recycled water system, it's all --

[40:27] it's nonpressurized over there. We looked at it.

[40:30] you would have to install a booster station because that serves roberts lake and the

[40:35] golf course and that gravity flows n the ponds and they have pumping systems that

[40:39] pump out the ponds to irrigate the golf course. So all these sites recycled

[40:44] water is not in the vicinity. It would be ery cost

[40:48] prohibitive. >> and I'll note that the median along golf course or

[40:52] country club drive has been designated as a park. Can you kind of talk me

[40:57] through the process there and how that happened? >> that happened --

[41:02] >> could we duplicate it? >> very early in my tenure here.

[41:05] I remember it was during the drought. And it came to the attention

[41:10] of the council that basically the water would be shut off there.

[41:15] so to emain that green zone it had to be designated as a park at the time, which made

[41:21] it exempt from those drought restrictions. >> okay.

[41:24] but to be clear, what was the process? In other words, how did that

[41:31] happen? Maybe that's a question for the city manager.

[41:36] >> we would have to bring it back and determine especially if it was done

[41:39] several years ago, we can go back to our, I guess our history and records, and see

[41:46] how that designation was done for that particular area.

[41:49] I'm sure it's included also in our park number as far as the number of acreage that

[41:55] we have for park. But we can come back with a response for that.

[41:58] >> thank you. I really appreciate that. What concerns me is that

[42:02] rohnert park has the lowest greenhouse gas emissions of any jurisdiction in the

[42:07] county of sonoma, and now we're going to be removing 7 acres of turf that was

[42:14] previously sequestering carbon. The state is competing with

[42:17] its own goals. On the one hand they're saying we have to save water

[42:20] which is laudable and I understand immaterial. -- understand it.

[42:27] but at the same time they want us to reduce greenhouse gasses to meet their net

[42:31] carbon zero emissions by 2030 they're saying. So obviously that goes

[42:36] counter to this. So it is concerning. Of course have we run the

[42:40] numbers on this in terms of how much this is going to cost us.

[42:43] >> I ran some high-level numbers. I mean, if you convert that

[42:47] to square feet, that's 305,000 square feet. If we took the cheapest

[42:53] price at $1 per square foot for mulch that's approximately $300,000.

[42:57] now if we went to the higher level of full native planning, I mean, that could

[43:06] run you up to $3 million at $10 a square foot. We don't like that approach

[43:16] because that puts more labor requirements on the public works department, more staff

[43:20] time because that's all hand work to get in there with weeds.

[43:23] so you can see the range there. But mulch, that's a very

[43:27] conservative estimate, $300,000 t that 7 acres. >> okay.

[43:32] I'll let my colleagues comment. But if any f our state

[43:35] partners are listening, certainly a lot of these laws are well-intended but

[43:39] they come with consequences that are very unfortunate and these unfunded state

[43:46] mandates are just the bane of jurisdictions' existence. I'll leave it there.

[43:52] >> council, other questions before we go to public comment?

[43:56] questions. >> thank you. I did have a question.

[44:01] assuming it rains a lot this year, you're going to turn off the water, but then

[44:06] nobody's going to see any of the results of this for several months.

[44:10] so y question is, do we have any plan to put property signs -- I would

[44:20] euphemistically call them lawn signs on the property that previously had lawn on

[44:24] it to say this is turning brown because of x, y or z or qr codes because all of a

[44:34] sudden we're gonna get phone calls. Why aren't you watering the

[44:37] grass anymore. Well we're not watering the grass because some people up

[44:40] wasn't in ur best interest.- so somehow we need to get this out and short of

[44:45] knocking on everybody's door and stapling a notice on their forehead, I'm not sure

[44:50] how to do this. >> I'm gonna let scott answer this because he's

[44:53] involved in the committees and the state and local other local entities are

[44:57] dealing with this compliance. >> so signs, perfect idea.

[45:00] that's definitely going to be part of like the public outreach.

[45:02] when we bring up this ordinance update, the public's going to have to

[45:05] comment on it. So they're going to get acknowledgment from that.

[45:08] so in the next few months, it's going to be this whole public outreach that we're

[45:14] going to do to help inform the public that these areas will be turning brown, and I

[45:18] didn't even think about this. I love that idea.

[45:21] and definitely having those in -- >> I don't want to give out

[45:24] signs either, but it just came to my mind. >> I'll get it on the

[45:29] digital board because -- >> so I do have another -- thank you, by the way.

[45:33] the other question I have is on the corner of country club and golf course, as you

[45:39] come off the golf course, there's a whole bunch of green there as you turn the

[45:44] corner. Is that a park? >> that's part of the golf

[45:47] course. Correct. >> there's one --

[45:49] >> over there they've got a problem -- >> yes, there is a lot that

[45:54] the city owns on commerce and state farm. And from park reynolds

[46:02] there. That's city owned. >> say that one more time.

[46:05] >> that turf area, that whole parking lot s city owned.

[46:08] so that turf there on state farm and commerce is going to go brown.

[46:15] the city owns that parking lot. So that will fall nder

[46:18] ab1572. >> thank you for the information.

[46:51] the concern is our constituents just like my colleague just said a lot of

[46:54] times when those rules come the city council we pay the price for something that we

[46:59] are not even altered to that and when I'm gonna ask for is you guys to make sure

[47:03] that our constituents really understand what is going on because there have been

[47:06] rules that have been changing and when they change, I mean, we also are

[47:11] included like freezing those regulations without even having any power over it.

[47:25] that bill will be a good example because once it starts getting brown I can

[47:29] just see our constituents being pissed off because they will say well we have

[47:34] been really conservative with our water we already have been shutting down and

[47:41] my lawn is brown. It's been like that for a while because we have been

[47:45] following the rules but there are certain people that is going to put them to

[47:48] the edge and I will appreciate if that part of communication is clearly put

[47:51] out there so people understand that he council cannot reverse anything and

[47:57] this is something that it's a bill that is mandated to all the cities because

[48:13] rohnert park is used to the green lawn. You guys will take good care

[48:17] of it and switching from green to brown. That is my concern and plus

[48:20] it's going to cost us money and we've been telling our constituents that hey we

[48:24] don't have the money and this is not really helping us really when it comes to

[48:28] the budgeting that we've been already really, really thin on what to do here.

[48:35] so I will really ope you guys will help on that side of the communication.

[48:40] >> thank you, vice mayor. We'll ensure our public outreach is, we'll be

[48:45] working with other local entities to make sure we all have common messaging.

[48:49] >> thank you. >> to add to that. I've already been to a few

[48:52] meetings on hoa managers. They're very aware of this coming down the pipeline.

[48:57] the public's going to become very aware seeing us firsthand do it.

[49:03] then commercial businesses are gonna have to follow next year and then hoas

[49:08] following year. So hoas are already trying to convert areas right now

[49:12] so they're very well aware of it but now just getting the broader public aware

[49:15] that will be our next step. >> because it's all on us. Because they're electing us

[49:20] to really make sure that we are speaking on their behalf.

[49:24] and that part is where we need you guys to be up on. >> there are a few

[49:32] questions before we go to public comments. Can you just confirm that

[49:36] the current infrastructure irrigation infrastructure is all one system in the spots

[49:42] that we can't cut it off to the turf and still a lot of trees.

[49:48] like, whole point is that you have to reconfigure that to be able to just water the

[49:54] trees. >> that's correct, mayor. We will have to reconfigure

[49:57] the systems and remove the spare and put bublers or emitters just for the trees.

[50:02] it's going to take some work digging and some type of reconfiguration.

[50:08] >> gotcha. Curious, have we reached out to daily act as a possible

[50:15] the road is what they do?n - I'm assuming we have. >> we have.

[50:20] what they want to do is install these native plants, which are kind of high

[50:25] maintenance. So it's hard to get them to come in just to put a mulch

[50:29] layer on it. But we have had talks with them.

[50:33] >> good to know. >> even tomorrow, actually. >> and the wood chip supply

[50:39] that we have that we're caching, is that the mountain I see at the

[50:45] downtown site. >> that's part of it. And we reply at the

[50:50] sportscenter. So that's free to community members.

[50:52] >> that's oming from our own tree work here in the city.

[50:55] >> a lot of it, correct. Sonoma water also provides some.

[51:00] >> good to know. And then do we have a sense of the potential gallons of

[51:06] water saved on that 305,000 square feet. >> I do not have that.

[51:13] but I can provide that to city council, yes. >> not urgent.

[51:20] >> from the reads. >> sometimes it's a little more exciting than hearing

[51:26] you're saving water to see how many gallons. >> yeah, and as you know

[51:31] that varies between wet seasons and dry seasons. I could provide that to the

[51:37] city council. >> absolutely. I think my last question,

[51:39] there was a mention in the presentation about field verification.

[51:42] is that just going through and doing an audit of the spaces and making sure you

[51:47] understand hat is needed in each of those spaces? >> correct.

[51:51] a lot would be grading that would need to be done. A lot are mounds that go

[51:57] straight to the curb. So if you just threw a bunch of mulch on there.

[52:03] two-inch storm comes, it's all in your street now so it would be verifying those

[52:06] areas that would need excavation and then it's verifying which trees are

[52:11] going to get the tree rings how many of those you need to buy.

[52:14] >> on triage. And then the last question I really do have is we have

[52:18] all this information we're trying to collect in the field verification around

[52:23] the turf which is related to the trees that are next to the turf.

[52:29] is the tree inventory db that we have something we can use to help track this

[52:32] or are they two separate things we're gonna ave another new project

[52:36] management system that doesn't talk to our existing gov outreach and tree

[52:41] whatever that one's called. >> it would have to come from field verification.

[52:45] we did get a gis layer from the state. And is it just shows the

[52:49] green areas between trees so that's what I've been looking at and I can

[52:53] count -- it wouldn't take much. But you could easily

[52:55] identify it. >> all right those are my questions.

[52:58] >> excuse me, mayor, your good questions prompted but I figured go ahead so have

[53:02] we run any kind of an analysis about increased fire danger because of this.

[53:06] >> no, we haven't, councilmember. >> and I raised that

[53:10] segmentation issue, too. We've got laguna sedimentation, the biggest

[53:17] problem now they don't want to water these areas which then will turn to dirt.

[53:21] eventually if they're not protected which then will release dirt into the

[53:26] stream. So that's the angle I'm always against.

[53:28] and they don't care. Crickets. >> thank you.

[53:33] >> so when talking about water saved, just had -- o water in here when we're

[53:41] talking about water rates, they said because they're not selling enough not

[53:47] everyone is saving enough. Now we're raising the prices.

[53:54] so like you guys didn't make the decision obviously but I guess to the earlier

[53:57] question, do we know how much water will actually be saved and then can sonoma

[54:01] water give us some sort of estimate of what that cost could look like.

[54:05] >> I can provide that councilmember, I can provide a five-year average to the

[54:09] council kind of run you through the different seasons.

[54:12] I'll give you a cost. Irrigation water is a commercial rate it's pretty

[54:16] easy to figure out, not like residential. So I can provide that.

[54:21] >> thank you. I guess I'll defer to my colleagues, we'll be asking

[54:27] a lot of these questions to the legislators as well and seeing the impacts that they

[54:30] are putting not just on our budget as you mentioned but then like that was the water

[54:37] on on the people to do what, and then we have prior concerns and continued water

[54:41] concerns for sediment, and it's ust -- I don't know. But thank you.

[54:50] >> yeah, our biggest concern is just the labor involved.

[54:54] so that's what we're trying to coordinate and take a phased approach to it.

[55:01] that's our best strategy. >> just one more question. You said we had 3500 square

[55:09] feet that this was going to affect. >> 305,000 square feet.

[55:13] >> sorry. 305,000 square feet. How many thousands of square

[55:16] feet do we have that we're watering that are not going to be affected by this?

[55:20] >> in the parks, councilmember? I'd have to come back --

[55:24] >> don't have to give it to me tonight. But just to show it's nly

[55:28] going to affect this percentage of town. Let's put it in perspective.

[55:31] >> you want to know how much functional turf we're irrigating.

[55:35] >> exactly. How much functional turf are we irrigating so that we can

[55:40] say to people look, yeah, this is turning brown but we're still irrigating all

[55:43] of this. >> would you like us to include the golf course on

[55:46] that. >> actually I'm glad you 3 asked that because tree

[55:49] inventory we didn't include the golf course. So one day, when the sun and

[55:52] the moon and the stars line up 'd love to have an inventory of the trees on

[55:57] the golf course. But right now the cost of irrigating that, absolutely,

[56:01] I like that included. So thank you very much for that.

[56:06] >> we're going to go to our very patient public for their comments before we

[56:10] come back to the council. So I'm officially opening the public comment period.

[56:18] we don't have any speaker cards for this item and we don't have any participants

[56:22] on zoom with heir hands raised. >> great.

[56:25] I happen to recognize peter alexander here. Would you like to provide

[56:30] public comment? Yes, o for it. >> you guys are setting me

[56:38] up. I mean, come on, really? You guys are amazing.

[56:45] native plants high maintenance as opposed to cactus.

[56:50] fire dangers, living cactus. Firewalls. I think you guys -- if I

[56:56] didn't know better this is a total sfup and maybe I don't know etter but I'll go

[57:00] forward. All right. Sonoma county is basically

[57:02] like the desert sort of weather area anyways for the most part.

[57:07] and cactus fences on roadways or wherever would be honoring burbank's works

[57:18] and also common sense. Okay. I mean, most of the lawns,

[57:23] maybe not all, but most lawns to me seemingly serve as gofer habitats and places

[57:30] for dogs to stop off and say hello. The cactus, there are

[57:36] gourmet restaurants in the southwest that are using cactus, all versions of it,

[57:42] the actual leaf, the plant the fruits and high-end restaurants that maybe it's

[57:48] just time for perhaps you'll be leading the way in this realm.

[57:55] needles or no needles. You've got them both. Burbank created some very

[58:01] high fruiting varieties with virtually no needles. They're quite wonderful and

[58:06] they're low glycemic. And why not have the first all sand golf course in the

[58:11] country and call it the sand trap and we'll get tiger woods over here and we'll do

[58:16] something interesting. And then this year, you can have imaginative innovative

[58:23] leadership in different realms. And lastly, I'll share the

[58:26] fact and that the reality is that you can simply examine places in santa barbara,

[58:31] many places down in southern california and a lot of arizona where they utilize

[58:36] cactus and gaves as the mainstream almost virtually nonwatering landscaping

[58:44] material. All of which can produce either sugars or syrups or

[58:49] foods and what you have. So thank you for letting me bring this up one more time.

[58:55] it's available. It's easy. It works.

[58:58] and someone in sonoma county is going to be the first city to utilize this common

[59:02] sense availability that was born with luther burbank and others.

[59:07] so thank you very much. >> would anyone else like to provide public comment

[59:13] before we close the public comment period? Yes.

[59:18] you get three minutes to say whatever is on your heart. >> it will only be a

[59:23] minute. I'm just wondering why don't we pull some water.

[59:26] I know this has come up before with the ocean. But why aren't we maybe

[59:30] pulling water somewhere, maybe pulling something that could ull the water we

[59:33] might have water for irrigation. That's all I'm saying.

[59:36] I know it doesn't rain a lot. But maybe when it does I

[59:40] think that would cost less what's gonna happen here. I hate to see rohnert park

[59:45] go brown. I really do. I know it's not on you it's

[59:49] up above, but we've got to do something here locally, I think.

[59:53] maybe you can think about that. Thank you.

[59:58] seeing no other interest, I will close this public comment period.

[1:00:03] oh, wait. We have one more. Come on up.

[1:00:08] it's interesting how we all inspire each other. >> I'm bruce main.

[1:00:13] >> I missed the part where I captured your name. >> I'm dennis maine.

[1:00:17] >> thank you, dennis. >> I've got comments here. I promise I'll stick to

[1:00:24] highlights. I want to try and persuade 3 you to keep the honeybee

[1:00:30] pool open this winter, particularly with regards to seniors.

[1:00:34] >> I should clarify that this specific topic of presentation, this

[1:00:39] presentation is what this public comment is. I apologize if that wasn't

[1:00:43] clear. Specifically about item 5a. That's what we're looking

[1:00:48] for public comment for right now. >> I'm sorry, will there be

[1:00:51] a chance to address this later? >> absolutely.

[1:00:56] yes. We're just a minute early. Okay.

[1:00:59] anything else from -- I'm officially closing that public comment period.

[1:01:03] we'll come back to that. Council, is there anything else you would like to ask,

[1:01:09] share before we proceed? Okay. We've exhausted all of our

[1:01:15] questions. It's amazing. >> thank you.

[1:01:16] >> thank you for the presentations, thank you both.

[1:01:21] okay. Now go on to item 6, which is our public comment

[1:01:26] period. I will just read this again to be clear.

[1:01:28] so anyone wanting to address the council on any consent calendar item or anything

[1:01:34] that is not listed on the agenda, now's your chance. And you'll get three

[1:01:40] minutes. And for those attending in person, thank you f you did

[1:01:43] fill out a speaker card. Not required but helpful. And those on zoom, you can

[1:01:50] raise your hand virtually right now by pressing star no. 994.

[1:01:54] and the clerk will unmute you when it's your turn. Okay.

[1:01:59] so we're going to go to mr. Peter alexander. >> thank you, mayor.

[1:02:16] through the eyes of horse whisperer robert redford, yes, I have seen and here's

[1:02:22] what I saw before and after he shot hee haw. A baby donkey who wished

[1:02:28] like pinocchio to be a eal boy. Have you watched his vdeos?

[1:02:33] he was but filled with true love and great joy. Now, the speaker before you

[1:02:38] was peter whom I know and showed up to instruct him to his dream.

[1:02:43] and me surprisingly hanging out with some rather serious warrior angels serving the

[1:02:49] almighty supreme. Told me please, what is greater than love, most

[1:02:54] true? So please play youtube, dolly parton on hee haw

[1:02:59] singing I will always love you. And how about that ring of

[1:03:02] fire by brother johnny cash, sang it on hee haw, quite emissive and quite a smash.

[1:03:13] the rim fire is also 369 active volcanos lining a horseshoe curve what kind of

[1:03:20] entity kills snnt equines, such horror and such nerve. And let's remember the

[1:03:26] smoothers brothers so to anal lovers google your noodle to them with mule

[1:03:32] sounds on hee haw and so too. Winnie the pooh and eeyore

[1:03:37] possessing truth and love t the core. Yes indeed every donkey is

[1:03:40] absolutely more humble and honest and loving than most any human monkey.

[1:03:45] wasn't it he in a manger with hee haw by his side when born, ater writing

[1:03:52] triumphantly upon a hee haw before they crossed him of his life so torn.

[1:03:56] my temple church of the emerald fire sharing truth and love with carmeno

[1:04:06] salcedo taking us higher, uniting all true warrior servants singing ave maria

[1:04:14] with true spirit and soul and so the promised lands gardens being our goal the

[1:04:20] path is now all life is sacred from the whale to the sparrow from the redwood

[1:04:25] tree to the cactus is genuine kindness so difficult to practice.

[1:04:29] my crusaders, my knights my veterans my warriors are the champions of the world under

[1:04:34] the red white and blue unfurld. Turn up the music release

[1:04:41] thee christow's power. Rosebred, rose, bud flower. My women warriors like my

[1:04:49] daughters from beyond and above. Cease now all animal abuse

[1:04:53] so too the donkey mustang horse slaughter it is done a ho.

[1:04:58] not long ago you were some of you were reduced to carmin know salcedo.

[1:05:04] who I had the pleasure of knowing a little bit I just wanted to let you know that

[1:05:07] she is had her birthday two days ago and she is where she started off when she got

[1:05:11] famous in the petaluma valley hospital and she's not looking for a handout

[1:05:15] but maybe a hand up. She's still there. And I want to share one last

[1:05:18] thing and that is that I was given from the most high last thing.

[1:05:23] >> times up. >> thank you, mr mr. Alexander.

[1:05:27] ms. Beth mccain, would you like to speak next? And after that, we'll have

[1:05:33] veronica madson. >> thank you city council for having me.

[1:05:38] I'm not here to talk about walmart, surprise. I want to start by

[1:05:43] acknowledging that homelessness is a deeply human issue.

[1:05:46] people who are living in vehicles or outdoors are obviously facing serious

[1:05:53] hardships. And I believe any response should be respectful

[1:05:56] compassionate and connected to services. That being said, our

[1:06:02] neighborhood, which is by walmart, emily and eleanor, has been experiencing

[1:06:08] growing impacts that we need help addressing. Emily where you enter

[1:06:14] mountain shadows plaza has become an rv parking lot. Not only rvs, cars, vans, et

[1:06:24] cetera. We currently have an rv that has been there for I'm going

[1:06:28] to say approximately three weeks. It runs a generator.

[1:06:34] it has pproximately six to eight dogs in it with people.

[1:06:40] there is an extremely strong odor and possible issues of sanitation or dumping

[1:06:47] concerns that multiple neighbors have observed and reported.

[1:06:52] so over time, we've een all of these vehicles and often what we see s they pull up

[1:06:58] and they start unloading. And they pull almost all their belongings out.

[1:07:03] but these belongings also include gas cans, propane tanks, hich feels like it

[1:07:11] creates a broader safety concern. Now, I'm not making n

[1:07:17] assumptions about anyone's intent, but the combination of long-term vehicle

[1:07:21] parking, generator use, fuel containers, propane tanks, multiple animal odor and

[1:07:28] possible dumping do raise concerns for us as a neighborhood.

[1:07:33] and including animal welfare as part of that. Neighbors have contacted

[1:07:39] rohnert park public safety through nonemergency lines. We've also submitted items

[1:07:44] through the city channel. The most recent one, which I actually submitted yesterday

[1:07:51] and this never happens but I got an answer today, was that this is homelessness

[1:07:59] which is an option on your reporting site is not a code compliant issue and they

[1:08:03] will contact public safety. Well my commentary just on that report I got oday is

[1:08:07] if it's not code compliance, why is it on there to submit?

[1:08:10] we're not asking the city to criminalize homelessness or month of people along, but

[1:08:15] we're asking to find a balance and a coordinated response that provides

[1:08:21] outreach services, safety reviews, animal welfare reviews, and enforcement of

[1:08:27] reasonable health safety parking dumping, noise and nuisance rules.

[1:08:34] the nuisance we're pertaining to ere the dogs running free.

[1:08:39] and thank you. >> thank you for the extra details on that.

[1:08:41] I'm sure chief can connect with you if he hasn't already.

[1:08:50] okay. We have dennis. Thank you so much for your

[1:08:56] patience. >> I feel like I was just here.

[1:09:00] my apologize. No poetry here. Some quick excerpts.

[1:09:04] as I said earlier, I'm here to try to persuade you o keep the honeybee pool open

[1:09:10] this winter, particularly relating to seniors. Some quotes here that I got

[1:09:14] from articles when I went trolling. Swimming is one of the

[1:09:19] safest and most effective exercises for seniors, offering full body fitness

[1:09:24] joint protection and krvr benefits from living your senior life july 27 this

[1:09:29] year. Swimming provides full impact, low impactful ody

[1:09:34] workout. Regular swimming increases flexibility, range of motion

[1:09:38] and balance. Cardiovascular and metabolic health, which raising heart

[1:09:43] rate, improving circulation, lowering blood pressure. This ontributes to lower

[1:09:48] heart disease and stroke. Improved cholesterol level. Weight management.

[1:09:54] metabolic health. It helps with mental health. I can vouch for all this

[1:09:58] stuff too. I swim. I'm 71.

[1:10:00] I feel great. Most dys. It promotes mental health.

[1:10:08] it's considered because of reducing stress and improving mood enhancing

[1:10:12] sleep quality. The next article quoting is from the johns hopkins

[1:10:16] medicine webpage talking about how swimming can give you cardiovascular to build

[1:10:24] strength with almost no impact. The real plus especially as

[1:10:27] you get older, which we all hope you do. People recover from injuries

[1:10:31] and women after pregnancy can also gain from a water workout.

[1:10:34] final point. Negative effects of seniors stopping exercise for three

[1:10:39] months from the science news today may 20th, 2025. Stopping exercise for three

[1:10:44] months can lead to several negative effects n bodies including increased risk of

[1:10:48] falls, accelerated muscle and bone loss. Higher disease risk,

[1:10:54] cognitive decline because lack of physical activity is linked to cognitive decline

[1:10:59] and worsened mental health because it's a good way to blow off your anger or steam

[1:11:04] or tiredness or whatever. You get in the water. Do your 50 and you're

[1:11:09] feeling pretty good. That's it. Thank you much.

[1:11:14] please do keep in consideration. I'll leave the full thing.

[1:11:21] >> thank you very much. We can all work on improving our spoken word poetry.

[1:11:29] does anybody online want to provide public comment? All right.

[1:11:34] we are going to go ahead and close this public comment period and move to the next

[1:11:39] item. Yes, you're inspired. Go ahead.

[1:11:45] >> hi. My name is veronica madsen. I live at 3767 emily avenue.

[1:11:54] I could see this trailer from my house I have a child who's 22.

[1:11:59] a female. I frequent the area to go to walmart and I feel

[1:12:05] endangered. So I hope our public safety could help us please I don't

[1:12:09] want anybody, if they're homeless or don't have a house, to be kicked out.

[1:12:13] so please just make the area safer. We gist want the city to

[1:12:16] maybe follow up with us, like maybe what is documented maybe what he

[1:12:24] you're doing, maybe get some more answers from you would be good because it seems

[1:12:28] like the same people would just keep calling and keep calling or emailing in and I

[1:12:33] have a brand new rv and I park it in front of my house.

[1:12:36] and day two, I have a ticket that I need to move it. I don't think that's fair.

[1:12:44] so I just hope city council, if you could and public safety, I know maybe it's

[1:12:52] not a priority because they're out there doing other things that might be a

[1:12:56] higher priority. But when it's a danger to walk over there nd the

[1:12:59] people that live over there in those condos, the backside.

[1:13:02] I'm not sure if you're familiar with that area. So I believe it's the

[1:13:06] 1,000-block of emily there. Yeah. I mean, I guarantee you, if

[1:13:11] they're parked in one of your neighborhoods, d section, f section, h

[1:13:20] section, that rv would be gone in a day. So please just try better.

[1:13:25] that's all we ask. Thank you. >> anyone else want to

[1:13:28] provide public comment? Okay. I will go ahead and close

[1:13:36] public comment period. And appropriate, not appropriate to ask chief to

[1:13:42] give a quick statement on what the rules are or the process is.

[1:13:47] >> mayor, I would suggest that the chief follow up. I know there's been follow

[1:13:53] up. I'm sure that as time permits right now he will

[1:13:55] meet with the group here. >> thanks in advance, chief.

[1:14:03] >> then we're going to move on to item 7 our onsent calendar.

[1:14:07] I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent calendar as it is unless somebody

[1:14:12] wants to pull an item for discussion or otherwise. >> so moved.

[1:14:16] >> I'll second that. >> lovely. All those in favor.

[1:14:21] >> any opposed? Okay. Passes 50.

[1:14:28] and we're going to go on to item 8. Our regular item.

[1:14:33] starting with eight a and that is going to be consideration of and

[1:14:40] approval of resolution 2026-72. Adopting the city of rohnert

[1:14:45] park's urban forest management plan. Hello, team.

[1:14:50] welcome back. And do the honor of introdu

[1:15:00] introducing our friend from davey resource group, I would appreciate that.

[1:15:05] I don't know if we got him a name badge. >> good evening, mayor and

[1:15:13] council. My name is amanda bunte. I'm the general services

[1:15:18] operations manager in public works. I'm joined here today by

[1:15:23] michael cappon from davey resource group, which is our consultant, and scott

[1:15:26] sanders, our environmental sustainability manager. We will be presenting to you

[1:15:32] this evening our urban forest management plan. So we contracted with davey

[1:15:37] resource group about 14 months ago and have been working on this plan and are

[1:15:41] very proud to bring it forward this evening. >> thank you, good evening,

[1:15:53] thank you madam mayor, madam vice mayor, councilmembers, for the opportunity to be

[1:15:57] here and talk to you about this plan. It's been a pleasure working

[1:16:01] with amanda and scott and brandon and other members of the city to develop this

[1:16:05] plan over the past year or so. So the goal of today is to

[1:16:10] go over the general project scope and talk about a ew things like the project

[1:16:17] timeline, go over some community engagement summaries and the real core

[1:16:21] will be looking at the recommendations that are in the plan.

[1:16:24] and then afterwards, of course, questions. So when we're looking at a

[1:16:37] project as big as a management plan that takes over a year to develop, we

[1:16:41] break it down and look at it really through four categories.

[1:16:44] so, the first of these four categories is the background and operations review.

[1:16:48] this includes reviewing existing city documents, policies, but also talking

[1:16:53] directly to staff and finding out how forestry functions on a day-to-day

[1:17:00] basis. We worked with staff across multiple city departments to

[1:17:03] understand how they interact with the urban forest and where responsibilities

[1:17:08] overlap, and here there's opportunities for better coordination.

[1:17:10] the second major component is the canopy analysis. This is where we're taking a

[1:17:15] look rom downard-looking imagery and lidar to take a look at what the land in

[1:17:24] rohnert park is made up of. So we take a look at canopy and how it's distributed

[1:17:29] across the city. And also we take a look at not just the trees that are

[1:17:33] there but the benefits that come from those trees like urban heat reduction and

[1:17:37] stormwater mitigation. Equity is also examined in this process, helping us

[1:17:41] identify where additional planting could provide the greatest community benefit.

[1:17:44] all of this came together in a priority planting plan, which is a tool that the

[1:17:48] city can use to make sure that future plantings are better focused where they'll

[1:17:52] have the greatest community impact. The third component was

[1:17:55] stakeholder and community engagement. This is where we developed a

[1:17:58] plan including outreach materials and online community surveys and

[1:18:03] community workshops. Engagement helped us understand community

[1:18:07] priorities, concerns and input eventually would be paired with all the

[1:18:11] technical analysis and develop he recommendations to the plan.

[1:18:15] another thing I wanted to mention that is in support of this plan is that the

[1:18:19] city is currently working to develop an urban forestry subsite and story map that

[1:18:27] will further serve community engagement. So after all this, the final

[1:18:31] goal is to develop this into a working urban forest management plan.

[1:18:35] the recommendations that we will discuss later, they don't stand alone, they are

[1:18:40] the result of bringing 3 together technical analysis, operational review, policy

[1:18:45] review, staff input and community feedback. From there, we developed an

[1:18:48] implementation framework that ives the city a realistic path to put those

[1:18:54] recommendations into practice over time. As I mentioned, this is

[1:18:59] about a year, a little more than a year timeline. The project kicked off in

[1:19:03] july of 2025, with the first several months focused primarily on understanding

[1:19:09] the existing urban forest conditions. We did that through that

[1:19:13] urban forest assessment, interviews with city staff and doing policies and

[1:19:17] operations reviews. From the fall through or through early 2026, the

[1:19:22] project shifted to community engagement with the launch of community survey and the

[1:19:28] community workshop both virtual and in person. When all these items are

[1:19:33] done, we brought them together and to develop a draft one, which was

[1:19:36] submitted to the city in march. The following months were involved with city

[1:19:43] review and refinement of the plan until the final plan was delivered in august of

[1:19:51] 2026. Now we're here, where we're talking about the details of

[1:19:56] the plan. Before going into more detail, I did want to cover

[1:20:02] community engagement because it's important and as was mentioned earlier making

[1:20:06] sure that the community knows what's going on is vital to the success of any

[1:20:10] initiative. So part of this plan, the engagement, as I mentioned

[1:20:14] before, it involved not only an online survey, it involved an in-person

[1:20:18] community meeting and then a virtual community meeting. I do want to acknowledge

[1:20:22] that participation in the online survey was very low and that participation in

[1:20:28] the virtual meeting was very limited as well. So taking that into

[1:20:33] consideration, we made sure that the recommendations and items that we heard were

[1:20:38] referenced in the lan but they didn't -- we did not take them as an overall

[1:20:45] representative of rohnert park. So it doesn't mean that

[1:20:48] those conversations weren't valuable and that they aren't shown in the plan.

[1:20:58] so we're going to talk about where is rohnert park's forest today.

[1:21:03] so right now, rohnert park imagines about 16,000 public trees, which is a good

[1:21:09] amount of public trees for a smaller city. And it has a 14% canopy

[1:21:17] cover. One of the things that stands out when we look at

[1:21:20] the data, one of the key data that stands out is that the public inventory has a

[1:21:25] concentration of a few dominant species, particularly coast redwood,

[1:21:30] which makes up almost a third of the inventory population.

[1:21:35] so these numbers about the trees and the makeup of the land gives us the baseline

[1:21:41] to move forward into developing a recommendation. So the recommendations

[1:21:49] themselves which are the core of the lan are established a long-term

[1:21:55] vision, but they are intended to be practical and implementable over a phased

[1:22:01] period. So cross the recommendations, there are a

[1:22:04] few consistent themes creating a more coordinated city wide approach to

[1:22:08] managing the urban forest, moving from reactive to proactive maintenance,

[1:22:14] preparing a long-term canopy stability and creating a shared responsibility across

[1:22:21] city departments nd with the community for the stewardship of the forest.

[1:22:29] so the plan includes ten recommendations and I just wanted to make sure we gave

[1:22:36] ample time o go through these and give you as much information as I could.

[1:22:40] so the first recommendation is to establish a dedicated urban forestry division

[1:22:45] within the public works. So this recommendation really set the

[1:22:50] organizational foundation for everything else that's recommended in the plan.

[1:22:54] right now tree responsibilities are spread across forestry, parks,

[1:22:59] streetscapes and with each doing some level of tree-related work.

[1:23:03] the issue is there's no single program with comprehensive responsibility

[1:23:08] for urban forestry. So coordination often happens as an as needed 3

[1:23:14] basis rather than through a formal structure. The plan recommends bringing

[1:23:19] overall responsibility under a dedicated urban forestry division within public

[1:23:24] works. That doesn't mean other departments will stop

[1:23:28] working on trees, parks, streets, planning and all other will have important

[1:23:35] goals with the urban forest. What changes is there's one clearly identified lead

[1:23:40] responsible for city-owned trees, standards, coordination and long-term

[1:23:43] management. This is an important first step because many of these

[1:23:48] recommendations followed depend on having an organizational structure and

[1:23:50] accountability in place. I need a drink. It's a long one.

[1:23:57] recommendations two. Expand urban forestry staffing.

[1:24:03] once the organizational structure is established, the next question is whether

[1:24:06] the city has staff capacity to support it. Right now, the city has a

[1:24:12] relatively small core forestry sat with parks, seasonal staff and

[1:24:16] contractors helping supplement capacity. The planning is not

[1:24:20] recommending that the city immediately hire a large number of people.

[1:24:23] instead, it recommendation a tiered staffing strategy where positions are added

[1:24:28] when funding becomes available. The staffing structure plan

[1:24:32] shows, in the plan, shows one potential path for growth.

[1:24:37] including additional tree-focused field positions.

[1:24:42] as capacity grows, the city can progressively take on more positive proactive

[1:24:49] pruning and inspections, planting and other work. The recommendation also

[1:24:53] connects staffing with training and advancement. So employees have a pathway

[1:24:57] to build skills and move up within the program. It's the important point is

[1:25:00] that staffing, funding and workload need to grow together.

[1:25:14] number three, formalize arborist authority and define intersmart venting

[1:25:24] rules. The recommendation is about clarifying who has authority

[1:25:26] to make the tree-related decisions. The operations review

[1:25:30] identified uncertainty where forestry intersects with street planning, development

[1:25:34] and infrastructure projects. That led to delays and inconsistent outcomes, and

[1:25:38] decisions being handled differently from one situation to another.

[1:25:41] the plan recommends formally defining the city arborist authority for things like

[1:25:48] removals, pruning standards as well as clearly establishing when arborist

[1:25:52] reviews need to occur. For development and capital projects, the key is getting

[1:25:56] the arborist involved early in the process. It's much easier to design

[1:26:00] around tree and resolve infrastructure conflicts during the planning rather

[1:26:04] than after everything is designed and established. This isn't about adding

[1:26:11] another approval layer. It's about creating a clear and predictable decision

[1:26:17] pathway across departments. Number four, implement proactive maintenance cycles

[1:26:28] and measurable benchmarks. There's recommendations about moving from a reactive

[1:26:32] to proactive maintenance. Right now, much of the tree work s driven by service

[1:26:38] requests, safety concerns, or immediate issues, rather than a scheduled maintenance

[1:26:42] t inventory information we have shows the scale of the need that the city has.

[1:26:46] more than 70% of the city trees were identified as large trees in need of

[1:26:49] routine pruning. The plan recommends working towards a five-year pruning

[1:26:55] cycle. That meaning every year roughly 20% of the trees are

[1:26:58] pruned. That gives the city an actual benchmark to plan

[1:27:03] staffing, contracting and budgets around. Treekeeper can track

[1:27:07] progress and whether the city is actually meeting these identified goals.

[1:27:12] and in the long term they can -- the long-term goal is to address routine needs

[1:27:17] before they become costly emergencies. Number five.

[1:27:24] invest in training, certification and safety compliance.

[1:27:28] as the city builds staffing capacity, it will need to make sure growth is

[1:27:33] supported by appropriate training, qualifications and safety practices.

[1:27:37] the operations reviews found that training budgets have been limited and that safety

[1:27:41] training nd documentation need to be formalized. Tree work is specialized and

[1:27:46] potentially hazardous work. So the recommendation includes a baseline of arbor

[1:27:54] culture safety training for staff performing this work. That includes alignment with

[1:27:59] industry standards like the ansi z 133 and other best practices.

[1:28:05] beyond the safety, recommendation continue training in pruning, data

[1:28:10] tracking climbing, aerial lift operations and technical skills.

[1:28:13] there's also an important workforce development benefit.

[1:28:17] training and certification gives the employees that expertise and the ability to

[1:28:21] advance. Overall, this recommendation supports the safer

[1:28:25] operations and long-term employee development. Recommendation seven.

[1:28:35] modernize work order and integration across systems. Currently, right now, the

[1:28:41] city data is supported across multiple different platforms, gov outreach,

[1:28:47] mobile mmis. And this leads to difficult sometimes manual

[1:28:53] communication between the two systems. We are roposing that

[1:28:56] treekeeper become the central reporting system for all tree-related items

[1:28:59] making sure that tree data is tracked and usable and actionable to support both

[1:29:05] budgetary and resource information. Number eight, right-of-way

[1:29:14] tree infrastructure. We're recommending that the city assume ownership of

[1:29:20] right-of-way trees by an alteration of municipal code chapter 1224.

[1:29:25] the reason we're advocating for this is because it gives the city more control and

[1:29:29] more leeway to make decisions when it comes to the trees in the public

[1:29:35] right-of-way. Standard -- it will allow for a standardized

[1:29:40] infrastructure conflict response to make sure that everything from

[1:29:44] accessibility to tree protection and the needs of the community are considered

[1:29:51] when there are infrastructure output. And we also make sure that

[1:29:56] we are planting better trees and managing the problem before the trees start to

[1:30:03] see the tide wall. And recommendation nine, framework and ordinance

[1:30:12] clarity. So one of the things that came through this process is

[1:30:14] realizing that there's a lot of confusion when comes to the tree protection code.

[1:30:20] we are recommending that there be a strengthened tree protection

[1:30:27] protection ordinance that is on the public and private property that allows for

[1:30:36] mitigation requirements to make sure that canopy loss is prevented wherever

[1:30:39] possible. And then ten, expand community engagement and

[1:31:12] shared stewardship. So the goal is always that a forest is not just on the

[1:31:19] public property, 16,000 trees don't represent the entire forest.

[1:31:24] you need to engage both developers and private property owners and hoas to

[1:31:31] make sure that they look at the forest as their own and it's a shared stewardship.

[1:31:37] you do this by building on already sfunl events such as the existing arbor day and

[1:31:48] establishing formal partnerships with hoas and developers to make sure that

[1:31:54] items like tree survival rates and establishment success is part of

[1:32:03] standardized procedures and making sure that really you are building a sense of

[1:32:07] shared stewardship. Not just between the city and community but the city

[1:32:11] and its other stakeholders. So all these recommendations are not intended to be

[1:32:21] implemented right away. That's not going to work. With he developed a tiered

[1:32:27] structure with some overlap because in reality, some things will process faster

[1:32:31] than others. And so we break that down into four different -- five

[1:32:38] different pages, first the -- four different phases, sorry, first is the

[1:32:41] foundation, the second, capacity, and then operations and then long

[1:32:46] term. So the foundation phase, you're creating the policies

[1:32:52] and the authority, funding systems necessary to transition from reactive to

[1:32:58] strategic management. So this is where you are establishing that urban

[1:33:03] forest division, defining responsibilities, and you're creating stable funding

[1:33:07] mechanisms to make sure that the funding is there to support the program needs.

[1:33:15] capacity phase. This is where you're expanding the city's ability

[1:33:19] to deliver the forestry service, incrementally growing forestry staff and

[1:33:27] clarifying ownership and responsibility for the right-of-way trees and

[1:33:31] updating municipal code to strengthen tree protection policies and invest in staff

[1:33:36] training and certification to continue growing the department.

[1:33:40] the operations phase. This is where everything starts to get move and where

[1:33:47] the city moves from reactive maintenance to proactive maintenance.

[1:33:50] where the five year pruning cycle where 20 percent of the trees are being pruned

[1:33:56] every year starts to be not only implemented but tracked. Where you're

[1:34:00] looking to reduce maintenance backlogs and that's how you're defining

[1:34:05] success, integrating structured succession to make sure you're not just

[1:34:10] planning for today but you're planting and planning for the forest in 20 to 30

[1:34:15] years from now and expanding public outreach. And then lastly, it's the

[1:34:20] longer term phase. This is where you are maintaining and growing and

[1:34:26] improving through data and best operational practices. You're looking to sustain

[1:34:34] funding and staffing, you're looking for continued structured succession plan

[1:34:40] to make sure that what is happening now will live long past this 25-year mark.

[1:34:47] you're using good -- using good data and tracking long-term success to make

[1:34:53] decisions not just based on what you see but what the data is telling you.

[1:34:56] and then where you're looking how you can best integrate trees into

[1:35:01] infrastructure planning and capital projects, and then strengthen community

[1:35:07] stewardship because the key is to make sure that everyone looks at rohnert

[1:35:13] park's urban forest as their urban forest. Something that's valuable to

[1:35:17] them, something that they want to protect, and something that they know

[1:35:20] they need to keep around for their children and their children to come.

[1:35:26] that's all I've got. Thank you. >> all right.

[1:35:34] questions? Who, what, where, when, why, how, and then we go to public comment

[1:35:40] and then we'll come back to the exciting comments. >> no questions, mayor.

[1:35:46] >> I might have a question. I guess I can't say that was a great report because

[1:35:54] that's not a question, right. You were talking about a

[1:35:58] five-year pruning cycle. What's our pruning cycle right now?

[1:36:01] >> there's no pruning cycle. >> okay.

[1:36:03] all right. That's what I was tinking. >> right now there's no

[1:36:10] cyc cycleal pruning -- >> o when something

[1:36:14] happens they -- right. You were talking about not just city trees but making

[1:36:24] sure all of our stakeholders are brought in, h hocthat everybody is part of this

[1:36:32] tree kind of a not a tree master plan but the whole process before us.

[1:36:42] how do you and other neighborhoods go out n the community and talk about

[1:36:47] this nd bring them? Because as you saw when you held sessions before, there

[1:36:52] was not this overwhelming rush of people to come in talk about this obviously

[1:36:57] what is so very passionate to you. How do we go out into our

[1:37:01] community and get some buy-in? >> that's why you build on

[1:37:08] successful events and then holding individual events like community workshops and

[1:37:17] any sort of specifically identified event, it's tough to get the engagement.

[1:37:23] but when you're there and you're popping up at events where there's already

[1:37:28] people, that's where ou can start to have the conversation.

[1:37:31] and that's where you can really start to build a little bit more momentum and

[1:37:35] get some buy-in. Asking people to show up is difficult, but showing up to

[1:37:42] where people already are is a good way to start the conversation.

[1:37:46] >> I like that. Thank you very much. >> and just to add, we're

[1:37:52] doing another stage of a story map that actually takes all the data we've

[1:37:55] been collecting and gives it in a presentable format for the public. That's our next

[1:38:00] stage is to create this website which will be a hub where residents can come to

[1:38:05] and see the urban forest for themselves and hopefully get more connection to it.

[1:38:10] >> I think schools would be a great place as well. Because kids are all about

[1:38:16] the environment and trees >> that's what was so great about all the middle

[1:38:25] schoolers that came to arbor day this year and now they get to ook at those trees

[1:38:29] in front of the community center every time they drive by.

[1:38:32] >> any questions? Okay. We will go to the public. I don't see any public

[1:38:38] comment cards, but I'm officially opening public comment period.

[1:38:42] if anybody here would like to speak or if there's anybody online who would

[1:38:47] like to speak >> we don't have any speaker cards or comments at

[1:38:50] this time. >> if I recall correctly, we need to give 30

[1:38:57] seconds -- we can close it, okay. Just be wanted to double

[1:39:00] check. Back to comments. >> yay.

[1:39:06] a long time ago we planted a bunch of trees, no plan, no include, no nothing, just a

[1:39:11] bunch of trees now I have a bunch of trees including all of those redwoods and

[1:39:16] they're in dire need of attention. So thank you for addressing

[1:39:19] this issue. And I think this is a great opportunity to partner with

[1:39:24] ssu if there are opportunities for kids to do internships et cetera

[1:39:30] partnering with the center for environmental inquiry and others over at the

[1:39:34] university that would be great. I love recommendation 8

[1:39:36] getting control of the right-of-way. We've seen this repeated in

[1:39:39] a number of different things whether it's sound walls or whatever where all of a

[1:39:43] sudden we realize we don't have the right-of-way in these instances but yet at

[1:39:48] the end of the day the residents are gonna say this is your problem.

[1:39:52] and so just recognizing that all of it is our concern, I think is really important.

[1:39:58] and just thank you for the real hard work. I appreciate it, and I will

[1:40:05] hope that you have shared this or will share this with the planning commission

[1:40:09] because I think it's important that they hear this.

[1:40:11] we do have some development that's yet to take place so maybe we could implement

[1:40:16] some of this in real time with approvals and development greements that

[1:40:28] are happening and with my personal goal being the eradication of the chinese

[1:40:36] pistache tree of which I am definitely jaded. That completes my comments.

[1:40:40] thank you, mayor. >> I appreciate the report. It's pretty easy to follow.

[1:40:45] I know I've had this conversation with amanda where why we don't do this

[1:40:50] section by section instead of having everybody scramble somewhere in an emergency

[1:40:54] only. So it's good that we see this happening we're able to

[1:40:58] come up with a plan and take care of our city because as you usually say, it's also

[1:41:06] part of public safety when we lessen the potential of branches falling or just

[1:41:11] blocking stop -- whatever it may be, this is beneficial to our city in more ways

[1:41:17] than one so I do appreciate the work put into this and I think when we're able to

[1:41:22] just talk to our constituents and neighbors about the importance, it's

[1:41:27] pretty easy to get. So thank you. >> I really appreciate the

[1:41:35] report. It's interesting, you go through this long process to

[1:41:37] get the general plan ready and is all of a sudden oh, this was in our general plan

[1:41:42] and now you're coming forward. Coordination between city

[1:41:47] manager, director of -- what's mark the director of? Public works.

[1:41:52] director of public works, I'm sorry, I just had a flash there.

[1:41:56] no, I am out of it tonight. At any rate the department of public works and you are

[1:42:02] folks to come in and follow up on what's -- what we're all working on here and

[1:42:06] seeing things move forward. Sometimes I look at the general plan and I think

[1:42:10] there's some great ideas here but to see it implemented is heart

[1:42:16] warming, thank you. And I do know that mark is over at public works.

[1:42:22] so thank you. >> are you awake? >> no.

[1:42:26] >> well, basically everybody has said what I wanted to say now our

[1:42:34] constituents have something to see, because as some of them have concerns about up

[1:42:42] grown trees and now we have the interest. So thank you for the report

[1:42:45] by the way, as well. >> I have a few questions. Can you while you're here

[1:42:56] speak a little bit for the record about some of the trees that are struggling?

[1:42:59] and I ask that because in particular, our coastal redwoods are just having a

[1:43:07] time. I think people look at them and think the city is not

[1:43:10] taking care of them which is probably true in some regards, but there's a

[1:43:17] reality there that's outside of our influence but still our responsibility to

[1:43:24] respo respond. >> I can't -- I don't have

[1:43:26] the inventory information in front of me right now so I can't speak in detail, but I

[1:43:30] can speak to the redwood. And the reason that the coast redwood is suffering

[1:43:39] is because the coast redwood was never designed to be planted in an urban setting.

[1:43:43] this is not a unique problem so rohnert park. I see it in other cities

[1:43:49] down in the bay area too. So I think one of the key -- that's why we mentioned the

[1:43:58] successional planning, it's not just about looking at what's there now, it's about

[1:44:04] what are you gonna put there next and then what's that gonna look like in 30 years,

[1:44:10] it's about making sure that there's no, you know, species mono culture so you

[1:44:16] drive down the street and only see one tree which looks beautiful, but it's

[1:44:20] not practical when some bark beetle comes through and kills everything.

[1:44:24] so I can't - I don't want to speak and give you bad information around what

[1:44:30] trees are doing well and what aren't, and I can tell just specifically for the

[1:44:37] redwood. >> ne of the things that the davey davresources group is

[1:44:45] working on for the should be the species selector tool. Could touch on that one a

[1:44:50] little bit more, but people already able to look for climate adapted species that

[1:44:57] would complement their neighborhood based on our tree inventory.

[1:45:04] >> as part of this project, we developed a climate adaptive tree species list.

[1:45:10] and the way that we do that is not just by looking at things like infrastructure

[1:45:16] conflicts to make sure that they're going to be rightly suited for sometimes smaller

[1:45:21] tree wells but we also look at heat modeling and where rohnert park is today, and

[1:45:30] where it's predicted they're going to be in the next ten, 20, 30, 50 years.

[1:45:35] and the goal is that it's based on heat modeling, it's based on size, all these --

[1:45:43] water is talked about. And then we talked about purple pipe.

[1:45:48] it's not just the water needs, it's what kind of water can these trees

[1:45:52] tolerate because recycled water has high salt content and a lot of trees like

[1:45:57] redwoods don't do well with high salt content water. So that list will be

[1:46:06] publicly available right now, right that list will be publicly available on the

[1:46:14] urban forest hub site. So the hub site will be a place where people can go to

[1:46:19] and access not just the urban forest master plan but the land cover summary

[1:46:25] report that was created as part of this plan, the resourcing analysis that was

[1:46:29] created as part of a project before this, and then there will be a story map which is

[1:46:37] an interactive tool where they will be able to access the data from both that

[1:46:41] resource analysis which looks at the inventory and then the land cover analysis

[1:46:45] which looks at everything. And on that site there will be information around tree

[1:46:54] selection anything like that. The tree selection tool I believe is on the

[1:46:58] next phase, not right now, though. After that, yeah.

[1:47:04] but the list will be available and there will be suggestions.

[1:47:09] >> that is fantastic. I can say that at this went to a lot of public meetings

[1:47:14] this year, and I think that the urban forest management plan meeting was one of my

[1:47:18] favorites. There was so much great content, and I do look

[1:47:21] forward to there being a hub for other people who may be weren't as engaged before to

[1:47:26] tune in when they're feeling and be able to get that information because I agree

[1:47:30] with you, you kind of have to show some success to get the peer pressure for people

[1:47:34] to care about this public benefit that we can't deny how important it is.

[1:47:40] because it keeps us breathing. I think that you addressed

[1:47:44] all my questions. I'm very much looking forward to us having a plan,

[1:47:50] like you said, the reactive model that we're going with now, you know, my district

[1:47:56] includes the east cotati where that tree fell and busted the sound wall and

[1:48:01] then the sound wall had to be replaced and that's some expensive stuff.

[1:48:06] we could have taken care of a lot of trees for that amount of money.

[1:48:08] so we may not be able to do it now, but I appreciate us having a plan going forward.

[1:48:13] and thank you so much for your contributions to this. Okay.

[1:48:20] without further ado -- >> I'd be happy to make a motion to adopt the urban

[1:48:24] forest management plan by resolution as presented. >> I'll second.

[1:48:30] >> we have a motion. We have a second. All those in favor say aye.

[1:48:35] any opposed? Nope. >> resolution 2026017 is adopted by a 5-0 vote.

[1:48:45] >> thank you. >> okay. And our next regular item is

[1:48:53] going to be item 8b, we are receiving a department of public safety annual

[1:48:58] staffing update.3 we have here chief mattos and ms. Tracy.

[1:49:08] welcome back. >> >> good evening.

[1:49:31] >> I wthank you for having us tonight to present this item to you.

[1:49:39] okay. I didn't know someone was coming in.

[1:49:44] >> we wanted to talk about the staffing and recruitment challenges that are --

[1:49:50] >> you need to turn on your microphone >> I wanted to talk about

[1:49:54] the staffing and recruitment challenges that are unique to our public safety

[1:49:59] department to go through them briefly, competition between agencies offering

[1:50:05] large signing bonuses and lucrative compensation packages, a lack of

[1:50:14] specialty assignments for our staff to diversify their career opportunities, law

[1:50:20] enforcement agencies throughout onoma county and statewide are competing for

[1:50:24] the same pool of candidates we are are. The recruitment process is

[1:50:28] lengthy and demanding and is believe it or not remote work in the private sector

[1:50:33] does play a factor with those that have challenges with their personal schedule

[1:50:36] and they don't want to be committed to a 24/7 holidays type of job.

[1:50:46] >> as you know, you saw the three gentlemen tonight. They went through a grooming

[1:50:52] process to get here. The hiring process with backgrounds, medicals,

[1:50:58] everything is about four to six months, a very extensive background.

[1:51:01] the police academy is now 21 weeks. They added another week.

[1:51:07] so it's actually five weeks and -- five months and one week now.

[1:51:14] we do a unique thing after you get out of the academia we don't throw you right

[1:51:18] into the car, we spend about three to three and a half weeks with an orientation

[1:51:23] during which time you do your range, detac, you do next week they start traffic

[1:51:31] collision school, there's some report writing stuff, we familiarize them with

[1:51:36] everything you're gonna do in rohnert park so you have all your log ones so when

[1:51:40] you step in the car you have a lot of that needed training already so you can

[1:51:44] be efficient on the streets. That's about three and a half weeks.

[1:51:48] once that's done you go into your four month, 16 week training program.

[1:51:53] that's a minimum training for a new officer. We usually get them out

[1:51:57] between 16 and 18 weeks. Then they go on to the street where they will work

[1:52:05] as a solo officer for about a year, they will go on the list for the fire academy

[1:52:12] and then we get a place in the fire academy they attend that.

[1:52:15] that's four to six months because there's two fire academies per year, one is

[1:52:20] an intense fire academy where they are going monday through friday, eight hours

[1:52:23] a day, the other is a bifurcated academy where they go three days a week

[1:52:32] and one day so it extends the time. They do that because

[1:52:35] oftentimes people who are in the -- who have a job they're not yet in the fire

[1:52:41] service, can't just quit their job and go to fire academy four days a week so

[1:52:45] they have a n extended one where you can stillextended one where you can still work.

[1:52:49] we put them in both. And then when they are in that extended academy,

[1:52:56] number of hours we have them work two days on the street before they go to the fire

[1:53:01] academy so they generally assigned to traffic at that time.

[1:53:05] but that is what it takes to get one person on the street.

[1:53:12] >> the cost break down for public safety officer overall when all facts are

[1:53:19] considered in the pre-employment process with things such as the polygraph

[1:53:24] exam, the live scan, the psychological evaluation, the background

[1:53:28] investigation, the medical evaluation, and then adding in as well the medical

[1:53:36] evaluation, the post academy, a trainee's salary and benefits for six months,

[1:53:41] the pso1 salary and benefits for four months, and then the stipend for the person

[1:53:46] that's training the ew officer for a period of four months accommodation up to

[1:53:54] $121,759 per public safety officer. >> during 25-26 fiscal year

[1:54:05] we had a few separations, as you know, we lost one of our public safety deputy chiefs,

[1:54:12] we lost two public safety sergeants. Ten public safety officers,

[1:54:18] four dispatchers full time, one dispatcher part time and one management analyst.

[1:54:23] that was what we lost during that fiscal year. And we were able to appoint

[1:54:29] eight public safety officers, one dispatcher full time, one dispatcher

[1:54:32] part time, a management analyst, and a public safety records clerk.

[1:54:37] so not quite, but close. What's that? Oh. >> and so where we are now,

[1:54:52] we currently have two trainees attending the police academy, we have

[1:54:56] three officers attending the fire academy, we have six officers in our sto program

[1:55:02] and a -- >> whole different story >> and hoping to get four

[1:55:09] trainees, recruiting right now for the jnuary 2027 police academy.

[1:55:16] >> with that, we'll take any questions. Because that's what we love

[1:55:20] doing, answering questions. >> these presentations for us, photo, photo, photo,

[1:55:28] data, questions. Council, questions from you before we go to our public?

[1:55:36] >> going back to separations and appointments, I'm gonna

[1:55:40] assume this happened before we ratified the contract the last meeting.

[1:55:47] that was deputy chief, sorry, I was reading that wrong.

[1:55:50] but deputy chief, we have a chief coming in, madam city manager I'm assuming we're

[1:55:55] waiting for him to come see the department and the needs if another deputy chief may

[1:55:59] be needed, budgeted for, et cetera? >> so currently -- I'm sure

[1:56:05] chief mattos can clarify this, but the position of the department was for the

[1:56:12] deputy -- we have obviously two deputy achieve positions currently vacant.

[1:56:16] but the recommendation of the department was to do under hires, bring in police

[1:56:22] offic officers. Now, my understanding right

[1:56:23] now is that we don't have any overhires or we do have two overhires.

[1:56:30] but the plan is for the incoming new director of public safety to evaluate

[1:56:36] obviously meet with the department, make sure that he gets the input of the

[1:56:39] department and see what are the needs in terms of the administrative side of the

[1:56:45] operations so that would -- that's something that you would expect for the new

[1:56:50] chief coming in. >> okay. And then for the

[1:56:53] appointments of eight public safety officers, does that include the three we pinned

[1:56:59] today? >> this report was effective for the prior

[1:57:02] fiscal year, so to not include the ones that we have today.

[1:57:06] >> okay. Okay. So in theory, because it

[1:57:11] says ten public safety officers that separated, but if we added these three we

[1:57:17] could be up to 11 new appointed officers. >> as a public, it's -- I

[1:57:28] understand it's fiscal year 25-26 but I also want to be fair on our actuals, what

[1:57:34] it's looking like right now >> I actually broke that down.

[1:57:37] so we are currently allocated in our budget for a total of 58 public safety

[1:57:44] officers, four of those are allocated to measure h. So right now, we have the

[1:57:49] four measure h and we have 56 officers that were technically we have two

[1:57:55] overhires. But with that being said, we're looking at actual

[1:58:01] boots on the ground, so we have 60 public safety officers.

[1:58:09] of those, two are trainees in the police academy, six are in the fto program,

[1:58:15] three are in the fire academy, two are on complete disability industrial

[1:58:24] related, so that leaves of a total of 13. So if we're looking at

[1:58:28] public safety officers only, not including sergeants, lieutenants, deputy chiefs,

[1:58:32] that means we have 47 actual boots on the ground at this point.

[1:58:39] >> that's helpful. Thank you. And then going back to the

[1:58:44] cost break down, I don't even know if this can be tracked or how far back you

[1:58:49] can go but when the city is investing over $100,000 into our officers that we need

[1:58:55] and we're trying to catch up with all of that with fto and all that, are we seeing

[1:59:00] an average time of how much is the city investing and how quickly are they

[1:59:05] departing? Because that's a huge cost. >> I can look at that for

[1:59:10] you for sure. >> yeah, I'd like to see how -- life happens, I know

[1:59:17] we've seen that with our officers that life really threw them a curve ball and

[1:59:25] they just couldn't be with our department anymore and hopefully they will come

[1:59:29] back when life to treat itself but to kind of in a sense see that walk out the

[1:59:34] door it just really puts a lot of strain on not just the city budget but the

[1:59:40] department budget. I would like to see what can we do to -- it sounds so

[1:59:47] horrible because these are humans but like what's our return orn investment and

[1:59:50] how do we kind of keep that, and it's not just the investmeno we kind of keep that, and

[1:59:54] it's not just the money, it's also the time getting -- the institutional

[1:59:57] knowledge that leaves. So when you've got five, ten, 15 year folks, that's

[2:00:04] who self because there's a history, people can explain why there's certain policy

[2:00:08] or why things are done a certain way or why we wouldn't want to shift

[2:00:13] another way but when we're having people constantly leaving, you can't really

[2:00:18] create a culture and a community with that. So I don't know how we here

[2:00:21] at this dais can continue to help that because whie are investing the money but how

[2:00:29] do we kind of assist when folks are leaving to get -- I mean --

[2:00:33] >> if I could just make a quick statement here. So we introduced these three

[2:00:41] new officers today. I think a couple maybe a month ago I introduced three

[2:00:46] new officers, cg, tyler and baldero and prior to that I introduced elliot and

[2:00:56] beltran. We're hiring some amazing individuals.

[2:00:59] I mean, they're intelligent, they're well spoken, they have a love for this job,

[2:01:05] and they care about it. And they're amazing young men.

[2:01:10] and when we're recruiting good people, people want to come to rohnert park, they

[2:01:15] want to be part of the public safety department, they want to work here.

[2:01:19] what I'm seeing is not -- getting them in the door has not been our problem.

[2:01:25] as I said before, uantity may be down, quality is not. So we're getting good people

[2:01:33] in the door. What really these numbers show is we're not keeping

[2:01:38] them in the door. And so, you know, figuring ways to retain them so they

[2:01:43] don't walk out the door is what I think the ob of the council is going to be

[2:01:47] because they're here, they're good, and we want to be able to keep them because

[2:01:54] every day they work here, they bring that knowledge and they get better and

[2:01:58] better and the most hurtful thing for me as a chief is to watch someone who is just

[2:02:03] getting there leave because I don't have a specialty assignment for them or

[2:02:08] because someone else in the county is the paying more money.

[2:02:11] so I think where you're going, if I could nswer them in the door, they're ng-

[2:02:17] wonderful people, we gotta figure ut how to keep them here.

[2:02:22] the retention is where we want to concentrate >> I know you and I have

[2:02:28] talked about it a lot but with our new chief coming in I'm looking forward to what

[2:02:32] is that, because we're not the operations, we can support a lot but we

[2:02:38] can't -- I would like to hear that at some point in the future of what is a

[2:02:43] retention plan that's feasible and that that's sustainable for everybody

[2:02:49] involved. That's I think what we're looking at as we just had

[2:02:54] those presentations of state of mandated things that we have to oot the bill for

[2:02:59] because people thought that was a great idea. I'm trying to look at what

[2:03:02] is sustainable for the department, for the hard work, truly, chief that

[2:03:07] you've put in over the last eight years and to keep that going, because I can't say

[2:03:11] that our department doesn't show up. They do.

[2:03:13] and know that they're working really hard. And so I just -- it's hard

[2:03:18] to see that amount continuously leave. That's all for me for now.

[2:03:27] >> thank you. Just curious, trainee salary benefit and benefits, the

[2:03:37] cost for the six-month period is 55943. That is non-handle salary,

[2:03:43] correct? >> that is correct. That's not an annual salary.

[2:03:46] >> okay. So that -- because I don't want somebody looking at

[2:03:49] that and thinking wow, they're a trainee they're getting this much and then

[2:03:54] you're dropping them down to 55386, that was a four month salary and benefits schedule

[2:03:59] and the one above it is a six month salary and benefits schedule

[2:04:03] >> yes. >> I just want to be clear on that.

[2:04:05] chief, did you a comment? >> while they're in the academy, I think it's bottom

[2:04:12] step, that's less ten percent and then when they get out of the academy they

[2:04:16] move to an a step. So out of that year, ten months, they're being paid

[2:04:20] in the academy one price and then the -- >> I just wanted to clear

[2:04:25] in case somebody is looking at the sign wondering what are those numbers are about.

[2:04:29] my second question is, chief, I don't want to put you on the spot, how many

[2:04:34] different departments did you work for your career? >> this is my third --

[2:04:41] >> third department -- >> but I did work for the marin county da's office for

[2:04:47] about two years >> three public safety units.

[2:04:50] and how many years have you been in public safety >> 37.

[2:04:53] >> so three -- so every ten yearsish, I guess I think you hit the nail on the head

[2:05:00] when you said it's the council's job to figure out how to retain these folks.

[2:05:04] I agree with you and I agree with councilmember rodriguez here.

[2:05:08] I will say, however, that it is a generational thing, and I have young adults in my

[2:05:17] home, where this is something I want to do, then something else comes along,

[2:05:23] I think I'm gonna go do this over here now. And I think there's got to

[2:05:27] be a way to capture back the I'll be here ten years before I move somewhere

[2:05:31] else. There has to be a way to keep them.

[2:05:33] I don't know what that is. But I think you've rightly addressed kind of what the

[2:05:40] issue is. Can you just go forward the slide where you talk about

[2:05:45] the comings and goings. This is from july 1st, 2025, to june 30, 2026.

[2:05:52] >> yes. >> okay. So we separated from 19

[2:06:02] people, and we placed in the city eight, nine, ten, 11, 12.

[2:06:11] is that the normal -- what's the historical -- >> well, I think we have

[2:06:17] some numbers out there that I think they've been looked at them before, but I mean,

[2:06:22] when you look at this, because of that hiring process, right, I could lose

[2:06:28] somebody in 25-26 and because of the hiring process I might not hire

[2:06:32] them until august of 26. So I was able to replace them but it doesn't show

[2:06:38] tthe -- >> I think she mentioned

[2:06:40] that, councilmember rodriguez. I appreciate that.

[2:06:44] I think this is some very thorough nformation and certainly gives us something

[2:06:47] to think about in the coming months. I appreciate it.

[2:06:51] >> thank you; mayor. Chief, I'm kind of curious a little bit.

[2:06:56] and I have to ask the question. So when it comes to

[2:07:01] retention, in certain entities, public entities, they have, like, rules where

[2:07:12] if you come, you want to many could and join us, this is the amount of time that

[2:07:18] you have to work, right? Or stay with us before you think of leaving.

[2:07:25] is this something that our public safety department can put in place or it's not

[2:07:31] something that's doable. This is out of curiosity. Because if someone goes to

[2:07:38] the military or the navy they pay for their education and all of that, but they

[2:07:43] have like a certain period of time where they have to serve before leaving.

[2:07:48] is that something that is is doable in this case or not? >> so when I became the

[2:07:56] admin sergeant in woodland that's when I got into the hiring process and started

[2:08:00] understanding it. Early on in that venture, I thought why don't we put

[2:08:04] people on contracts, why don't we tell them we're gonna put you through the

[2:08:09] academy and you have to work for five years, and I think every chief would say that's

[2:08:13] a great idea. But I think michelle would back me on the fact that we

[2:08:19] cannot force people to stay any certain numbers or we can't -- I mean, it's -- you

[2:08:24] can't put somebody in the position at least in law enforcement to say if we

[2:08:28] hire you, you have to stay here this long. It violates the law.

[2:08:32] so as much as we'd like that commitment, we can't get it >> so basically you are

[2:08:39] investing money to -- to somebody that you know will not be there.

[2:08:45] so if they finish the training, you pin them, in two weeks they're like I'm

[2:08:50] out and they're out, and so you wasted 1 hundred thousand dollars in public

[2:08:57] funds for that. So that's basically what I hear.

[2:09:02] >> well, I would -- >> but we need to have some sort of the rules based on

[2:09:06] that. I mean -- >> I would -- the

[2:09:13] characterization of what you're saying could happen? Yes, it could happen.

[2:09:16] we do a very thorough background when we get somebody.

[2:09:20] but never had anybody leave that soon. But even losing a three-year

[2:09:24] officer, that hurts. And they come in and they want to be a public safety

[2:09:30] officer, they want to be here. And then after they worked

[2:09:34] here for let's say five years, they look up and say well, all we have is

[2:09:40] detective as a specialty assignment none of those detectives are coming out

[2:09:45] for a while so I'm probably not going to do anything else so I might look

[2:09:49] somewhere where I might be able to get into a specialty assignment.

[2:09:52] it's that three to five year mark where seem like we get them walking out the door

[2:10:00] because they're very confident and they're starting to know really what

[2:10:03] they're doing. And they're a great commodity for another

[2:10:06] agency. They're very well trained and ready to go.

[2:10:10] you hope they will come in and commit and stay and you know you hope they will come

[2:10:14] in and they'll start a family because it's harder to leave when you have a

[2:10:18] family right. So we try to created that. When you hire them, it's a

[2:10:26] shot how long -- I hope they'll stay forever or at least ten years before they

[2:10:33] move on. But giving them more opportunities throughout

[2:10:36] that, giving them the ability to move, councilmember adams asked me

[2:10:43] how many places I did. I was in woodland for 17 years and one of the reasons

[2:10:49] for that longevity is because every three or four years I had an opportunity

[2:10:56] to go do something different. So my career was constantly

[2:11:00] chang changing. But there was sometimes in

[2:11:02] my career where I'm like I just don't want a ush a black and white anymore.

[2:11:07] I want to do something else and this is what I'm gonna do, and that's where I

[2:11:11] started looking for other opportunities. So giving them the

[2:11:16] opportunities in the department will help retain them because that's what

[2:11:21] they want, they want challenges and they want change

[2:11:22] >> so basically people are tired of eating a steak every single day, sometimes

[2:11:29] they want some vegetables? >> exactly. >> so how can -- so this is

[2:11:40] something internal that needs to happen, right, or is that what I'm hearing,

[2:11:46] like something internal that needs to happen in the public safety department

[2:11:52] necessarily -- the money is part of it but also opportunities in the public

[2:12:03] safety itself, is that what I'm hearing? >> well, and I'll clarify

[2:12:08] that, because you're -- >> I'm asking -- I'm curious

[2:12:11] >> you're saying the exact truth. Those opportunities -- I'm

[2:12:18] able to create those opportunities when I have staffing, and when I can't

[2:12:22] maintain that evel of staffing because I keep getting people walking out

[2:12:26] the door or I get these long-term injuries, then I can't create the cops team,

[2:12:33] I can't add another motor, I can't get the dui car out there.

[2:12:40] because I'm patrolling fires the first time. So as we can retain, we can

[2:12:47] hire good people, keep them here, those numbers can build up to where I can say

[2:12:52] now I have the staffing to where I have full patrol, full fire, and I can put a

[2:12:58] three person cops team out there or I can put a dui war out there or something like

[2:13:04] that. So it's a bigger answer because yes eshgs internally

[2:13:10] I can create that stuff, but I have to have the staffing to do it.

[2:13:15] otherwise I'm just robbing peter to pay paul and moving chess pieces around

[2:13:21] >> thank you, chief. >> okay. Questions from me.

[2:13:29] I cannot remember when but tracy will, we had a staffing report update on

[2:13:36] all the departments, it was this year, probably within the last ouple months.

[2:13:40] when was it? I was trying to look back to see where we were at on retention in

[2:13:45] other departments. I know it's more obvious and extreme with public safety

[2:13:51] because the training rocess is so long, but I guget the sense it's not only in

[2:14:00] public safety that we're having retention challenges >> it's all our departments

[2:14:06] right now honestly. >> it was this year, though, right? Probably a

[2:14:10] whole year ago. But, no, and hat we've seen with public safety right now

[2:14:15] it actually feels ike it's kind of rotating departments.

[2:14:20] we have it at public safety, we've just had some losses upstairs in development

[2:14:25] services, now we're seeing some in public works. It kind of rotates

[2:14:30] unfortunately. And I think that a big part of it as well, because

[2:14:35] employees can move from retirement system to retirement system, they

[2:14:40] aren't afraid o stay put anymore. >> thank you for the extra

[2:14:48] insights on that. And then I had other questions.

[2:14:51] let me see if I can find them. I think I was just curious

[2:14:57] about -- when I was looking at the report about the referrals, we do -- refer a

[2:15:03] friend, then you both stay, you get money. Which is great.

[2:15:06] I'm curious if you could look up at some point how many of those folks are

[2:15:12] still here. Obviously they got their referral money, but I'm

[2:15:17] curious if they got it and left or got it and stayed. Just curious about that.

[2:15:26] and, yeah, we'll go ahead and go to public comment and then if there's anything

[2:15:32] left that the council will come back. Would anybody from the

[2:15:35] public like to speak on this item during this official open public comment period?

[2:15:40] okay. For those at home, there's a huge crowd here, just so you

[2:15:45] know. Is there anybody on zoom? >> no, mayor.

[2:15:49] >> great. This is me closing public comment period.

[2:15:52] and any final thoughts from the council? >> only that I didn't have

[2:15:57] any questions, but some of the dialogue here has prompted me to think about

[2:16:03] just retention in general and so -- and I agree with councilmembers rodriguez and

[2:16:10] adams and you that retention is not only our biggest challenge but hopefully will

[2:16:17] be an opportunity as well. So... >> great.

[2:16:25] looks like we are all set. Thank you for the presentation.

[2:16:28] we - let's see here -- we don't need to approve anything on this one.

[2:16:34] it has been received. We appreciate it. Thank you.

[2:16:41] all right, folks, we're on to item 9. Committee and liaison and

[2:16:46] other reports. Council, do share. >> we did have a board

[2:16:51] meeting at the bridge, nothing really need to report.

[2:16:54] however, I did share on social media that we had a surprise visit while I was

[2:16:58] chairing the finance and auditing committee, one of the clerk for the board came

[2:17:02] up and said nancy pelosi is here and we were like, nancy pelosi is here and she just

[2:17:09] showed up in the board room and it was wonderful, it was really cool.

[2:17:14] I had a hance to meet her. She is an amazing woman, very lucid, extremely

[2:17:21] knowledgeable and definitely has a lot of fight left in her for sure.

[2:17:26] we've heard she's going to be doing in terms of teaching at berkeley so

[2:17:30] excited about that, but it was an honor to meet her, and, of course, I would

[2:17:35] remind everyone that she was instrumental in getting the bridge $400 million for the

[2:17:40] seismic retrofit so I think she wanted to see what all that bught.

[2:17:49] >> I got to attend the child care planning council since I've been appointed by

[2:17:55] our mayors and councilmembers association I officially get selected by

[2:18:00] the board of upervisors on the 15 pth so I'll forward some of the information that

[2:18:03] looking at zip codes and money that's needed. We needof the information that

[2:18:08] talked about, we're looking at zip codes and money that's needed.

[2:18:10] we need two thousand2,000 spots available. That's how many kids are in

[2:18:12] need of access to child care, early child care. So I'll be pushing to our

[2:18:19] state legislators to see how we can get that because as we know when you take are

[2:18:24] of children and families you boost the economy. So that would be really nice

[2:18:28] to see that number lessen in terms of the wait list. And chamber of commerce,

[2:18:35] tomorrow there is a mixer happening at santino's coffee and we had senator

[2:18:48] caldon at the networking luncheon and I have to commend all of our staff and

[2:18:56] our city manager and the attorney's office, senator caldon gave the city of

[2:19:03] rohnert park a shout-out and said the city of rohnert park is always ready.

[2:19:06] there are some cities he has to beg to be ready for a grant, and when his office

[2:19:10] contacts the city is going great, we're all set up, thank you very much, and so

[2:19:14] he said it makes it enjoyable to see that the funds, where they're going,

[2:19:19] how quickly the staff is to jump on them and to be, so just experts in your field

[2:19:26] as always. So that was great to hear from him.

[2:19:31] I think that's it. >> I don't have anything current to report.

[2:19:37] thank you. >> I didn't have any committee meetings, but I

[2:19:42] had other things. I would like to just share that we didn't get this

[2:19:47] evening but actually I actually did at the proclamation for the north

[2:19:53] bay show time entertainment our host of the rohnert park car show and I wanted to

[2:19:58] give a shout-out to frankielima, it is hispanic latina heritage month, and

[2:20:09] so that proclamation was and we have been over at sonoma state the center for

[2:20:16] environmental inquiry has a gro groovy installation that you

[2:20:19] can go nd visit while you're along the creek behind sonoma state near the

[2:20:24] butterfly gardens and I recommend it. It's an interdisciplinary

[2:20:29] project, engineering, arts, all these folks have gotten together and collaborated on

[2:20:33] some projects that encourage you to interact and engage with the space, and yeah.

[2:20:40] check it out. You'll know when you see it. And then I also attended the

[2:20:46] candle light vigil for he nepal and the flood victims and the good part was

[2:20:55] getting to know a ocal nonprofit based here in tune the united nepalese of

[2:21:04] california and they are doing wonderful work to support the nepalese

[2:21:08] community here and also to fund raise for victims of the disaster.

[2:21:14] so I encourage you to look them up of. Nepalese california right

[2:21:20] related to that, since we did have a mini an earthquake here in the area

[2:21:26] the other day, who felt it on the third? That just reminded me that we

[2:21:30] definitely want to make sure we're starting to prepare ourselves.

[2:21:34] I say starting because I highly doubt any of us have our go bags ready and all

[2:21:40] our alerts set up. Just a reminder you can o to the soco emergency.org to

[2:21:49] get reinspired and I hope that little mini earthquake reinspired you as well to

[2:21:54] better prepare and we'll be talking about that here in the city as we prepare for

[2:22:01] big rain this season and how we can do more regarding sandbag prep and other

[2:22:05] things, communications to get ourselves in order. Let's see here.

[2:22:08] today is the three year anniversary for the cabayan filipino market.

[2:22:17] they're right there on commerce. Check them out.

[2:22:20] and this saturday the 12th the asian american pacific islander coalition is doing

[2:22:27] a youth leadership summit at sonoma state and it's their first ever and I'm going to

[2:22:34] stop and say hi and here we're doing we're doing the natural disaster

[2:22:41] preparedness workshop and pickle ball club has a d - tournament this weekend, and

[2:22:47] the greek and middle eastern festival is on the 12th and 13th at st. George orthodox

[2:22:58] church. Just the 12th and 13th alone, it's exciting stuff.

[2:23:04] and then on the 18th through the 20th I want to remind you that we're doing e-waste

[2:23:12] collection and that's at the community center and I highly ncourage you to

[2:23:18] gather all those miscellaneous things that used to work and don't,

[2:23:22] anything electronic can be recycled for free and it's a drive-through.

[2:23:27] it's super easy to do. That's all 'm going to share for tonight.

[2:23:31] I just -- >> I'm sorry you want to see more?

[2:23:35] >> on the 12th it's also noah's barbecue fund raiser is happening and I believe

[2:23:42] the 19th noah on the -- 19th that we're doing city of rohnert park in conjunction

[2:23:51] with the metro club at rancho is mexican independence day so check

[2:23:58] that out. It's open to the public and it's the third year and also

[2:24:02] shout-out to our entire community from the african film festival the previous

[2:24:09] weekend the car show this there's so much happening - here and getting to talk to

[2:24:16] neighbors, just the range that's available is incredible.

[2:24:20] so I think we're still somewhat of a hidden gem but I've heard there's a lot of

[2:24:27] neighboring communities starting to come on over so another appreciation to city

[2:24:31] staff, however it is that you guys all help in those capacities.

[2:24:35] they're all successful and safe. >> all right, folks, we

[2:24:42] have item 11. Anything want to add anything to a future agenda?

[2:24:48] no? Okay. Then with that, this meeting is adjourned.

[2:24:52] have a beautiful rest of your evening. [ adjourned 7:54 p.m. ]

Rohnert Park City Council, Rohnert Park Financing Authority (RPFA), Successor Agency to the Community Development Commission

Agenda

Transcript