General Plan Advisory Committee
General Plan Advisory Committee
Thu, October 20, 2022
Agenda items
Vote records
Discussion summary
Transcript
Meeting summaryAI-generated
General Plan Advisory Committee — October 20, 2022
This was a working session of the General Plan Advisory Committee (GPAC), a advisory body with no binding vote authority. The meeting focused on policy and strategy ideas across four topic areas — Parks & Recreation, Economic Development, Arts & Culture, and Transportation — with brief consultant presentations followed by small-group breakout discussions between GPAC members and the consulting team. No votes were taken; the session was designed to give consultants early directional feedback as they develop draft policy frameworks.
Call to Order, Roll Call, and Logistics
The meeting opened after a brief delay waiting for a quorum (ten members). Spanish interpretation was provided throughout. Members of the public were invited to listen in on breakout room discussions but limited to speaking only during designated public comment periods.
Staff and Project Updates
Staff provided updates on the Housing Element process: the public draft review period has closed, receiving over 200 online responses. Three sites were removed from the site inventory (sites 08, 09, and 10 near Cinnabar Avenue, and 307 Petaluma Boulevard South, a city-owned site under consideration for a fire station), and one new site — Washington Commons, near the fairgrounds — was added. The revised draft will be submitted to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) for a 90-day review. Staff also noted that a City Council workshop on the fairgrounds was scheduled for October 24 at 6:00 p.m., and highlighted a recent October 10 Council workshop on Crosstown Connectors, from which Council directed staff to prioritize the Caulfield (southern) crossing.
General Public Comment
Darren Rokusan raised two issues he hoped would be addressed in the General Plan: (1) protecting the North River Forest area and shifting policy away from the Rainier Crosstown Connector, following a contentious Council meeting on the topic; and (2) establishing a City Arborist position and urban forestry department, an idea emerging from the Tree Committee. He asked whether these directions could be embedded in General Plan policy.
Parks & Recreation — Presentation and Breakout Discussion
Consultant Megan McNulty of Raimi + Associates presented an overview of current park conditions (approximately 550 acres across community, neighborhood, and pocket parks; 12 acres per 1,000 residents, well above state averages) and proposed policy directions for the General Plan update. She noted that the Parks element is not state-mandated and will be distinct from the Natural Resources/Open Space element, which will be addressed at the November meeting.
Key policy ideas she introduced included: treating public space as an integrated citywide network (inspired by Vancouver, BC); developing equity-based park service metrics beyond the blunt "acres per 1,000 residents" measure; creating carbon-neutral parks; and potentially updating the Parks & Recreation Master Plan as an outcome of the General Plan.
In the breakout discussion, GPAC members expressed strong support for the integrated network concept — the idea that all public spaces, corridors, waterways, and natural areas function as one interconnected system rather than isolated destinations. Members emphasized:
Equity of access: Several members noted that the east side of town has richer amenities than the west, and that the current metric obscures who actually lacks park access.
Intergenerational design: Support for parks that serve seniors and children simultaneously, including "grandparent parks" and improved senior center capacity (the existing senior center on the east side was described as inadequate, with calls for a west side facility and potential use of the fairgrounds).
Creative and active programming: Members called for the city to fund recreational programming staff, not just physical facilities, and to partner with community organizations.
Revenue generation: One member suggested designing parks to include income-generating features to reduce reliance on the general budget.
Wildlife and sustainability: Members emphasized that parks should be managed to support healthy wildlife populations, native plantings, soil health, and climate resilience.
Urban forestry: The idea of a parks or public works department with oversight over corridors, street trees, and landscape districts — giving the whole city a more "park-like" character — resonated strongly.
The fairgrounds came up repeatedly as a potential transformative park opportunity, though staff noted that Council direction on the fairgrounds was still pending following the October 24 workshop.
Economic Development — Presentation and Breakout Discussion
Consultant Dina Belzer of Strategic Economics presented baseline findings: Petaluma holds 15% of Sonoma County jobs, but 80% of those workers commute in from outside the city. Key industries include food and agricultural manufacturing, medical device manufacturing, small high-tech firms, and a vibrant restaurant and entertainment sector.
She introduced an Equitable Economic Development framework (drawing on Brookings Institution and PolicyLink work) emphasizing job quality over job quantity, entrepreneurship as wealth-building (especially in immigrant communities), support for workers without advanced degrees, and a shift toward circular/local economies.
Policy ideas included: supporting 15-minute neighborhood commercial centers; transitioning struggling shopping centers to mixed-use; supporting green industries and flexible workspaces; bolstering micro-businesses and home-based startups; and using city procurement to advance equity goals.
Discussion questions posed to the group included how to balance experimental programs versus established tools, and how to operationalize the GPAC's goals around circular economy, food sovereignty, and just transition away from fossil-fuel-dependent industries.
One public commenter (Dwayne) later echoed this theme, urging the city to better understand the income levels and housing needs of existing in-commuters, and to stop subsidizing car use (e.g., free school parking) while complaining about traffic.
Arts & Culture — Presentation and Breakout Discussion
Consultant David Plattner-Saunders of Cultural Planning Group presented findings that Petaluma's creative economy — encompassing nonprofits, individual artists, and for-profit creative businesses — accounts for 10% of all employment (approximately 3,000 jobs and $138 million in earnings as of 2019), which he called surprisingly high for a city of Petaluma's size. He noted that arts and culture is not a state-mandated element, and proposed expanding the definition of "arts and culture" to encompass a broader definition of creativity integrated throughout all General Plan elements.
He highlighted examples of cities embedding artists in municipal departments (Boston, Minneapolis, LA County) to address transportation safety, public health, and community engagement goals.
The breakout discussion was notably enthusiastic. Key themes included:
Broadening the definition: GPAC members unanimously supported expanding the arts and culture element beyond traditional fine arts to include architecture, landscape design, food culture, and community creativity.
Public art funding: Members called for increasing the current 1% public art requirement (noting it had been reduced from a higher percentage historically) and suggested a new Public Art Master Plan as an outcome of the General Plan — including exploration of a 2% standard.
Design quality: Members lamented the loss of a design-focused Design Review Committee and called for higher architectural standards throughout the city, including public facilities.
Arts in the built environment: Ideas included reimagining alleys as vibrant cultural spaces, gateway art installations, colorful wayfinding, and requiring artfulness in all public infrastructure (fences, restrooms, corridors).
Community access and programming: Sierra Downey proposed a "Pie in the Sky" vision of teaching artists rotating through neighborhood community centers, accessible free or low-cost to children and seniors — drawing a parallel to Boston's artist-in-residence model.
Institutional support: Members called for stronger city support for the Petaluma Arts Center (possibly funding the executive director position), Día de los Muertos and other cultural street festivals, and school-city collaboration on arts programming.
City organization: Christine Rebelo raised a broader question of whether the city's departmental structure needs to be reorganized to support these goals going forward.
Transportation — Presentation and Breakout Discussion
Consultant Allison of Fehr & Peers presented a proposed shift in how the General Plan frames transportation: moving from mode-based goals (driving, biking, walking, transit) to outcome-based goals centered on climate, accessibility, health and safety, and land use integration. She described Petaluma as currently "predominantly auto-oriented" with significant barriers to non-driving modes, particularly for cross-town trips.
Proposed policy directions included: a complete streets framework tied to land use context (modeled on Denver's street typology system); a Universal Basic Mobility framework to eliminate financial and physical barriers; Vision Zero roadway safety policies; updated parking and curb management policies; and implementation-focused policies to help staff take action.
The breakout discussion (which drew the largest number of GPAC members) was not captured in detail in the transcript, but public comment afterward reflected themes of dissatisfaction with the pace of transportation change, interest in micro-transit, and the need to stop subsidizing car use.
Public Comment (Following Breakout Sessions)
Several members of the public offered substantive comments:
Darren Rokusan (returning): Suggested ecological park metrics including tree health and soil microorganism composition. Also expressed frustration that major public issues (Riverfront moratorium, Rainier connector) are being deferred to the General Plan without adequate opportunity for meaningful public participation in the process.
Susan Kirks: Offered to share Wildlife corridor mapping data with consultants, noting that existing conditions reports contained inaccurate information about Petaluma's proximity to wildlife corridors. Also called for outreach to Miyoko's Creamery as a model for equitable, innovative economic development. Noted that voters are "not happy" about transportation.
Beverly Alexander (Protect Wild Petaluma): Suggested interpretive signage throughout the city (natural history, flora/fauna), better real-time community event communication online, a river commission modeled on the Coastal Commission, and culturally focused neighborhood community centers.
Dwayne: Urged analysis of what kinds of jobs in-commuters hold and what housing they need; criticized the "externalized cost" of auto infrastructure as a self-defeating policy cycle.
Veronica Olson: Called for parks to shift toward climate-smart design — native plantings, soil regeneration, reduced grass and pesticides, and water catchment integration — arguing that climate goals will solve the maintenance problem if taken seriously.
Isha Gonzalez: A 26-year-old mother and longtime resident living near Lakeville Street, she called for more equitable pay for artists participating in public projects, greater enthusiasm for arts integration, and expanded public participation opportunities in the General Plan process.
Closing GPAC Discussion and Meeting Format
Several GPAC members offered closing thoughts:
Bill Wolbert cautioned against longer meetings if the result is simply more topics crammed in with less time each; he preferred fewer topics with deeper discussion.
Dave Alden said he would support occasional second meetings per month rather than extending individual meetings beyond 2.5 hours.
John Schribs/Roberto asked that the North River area, Crosstown Connector policy direction, and the upper river plan (presented by Friends of the Petaluma River) be added to future GPAC agendas to get formal group direction.
Staff confirmed that all public comments are logged and shared with the consulting team, and that some issues (like the Rainier connector and land use alternatives) will be addressed in the General Plan process as it matures. The tentative November agenda topics are Land Use, Natural Resources, Climate Adaptation, and Safety.
Key Takeaways
Integrated public space network: GPAC members and consultants aligned strongly around a transformative vision — treating all of Petaluma's public spaces (parks, corridors, waterways, streets, natural areas) as one interconnected network prioritizing ecology, equity, and multiple modes of access, rather than isolated park destinations.
Equity-based metrics needed: The current "acres per 1,000 residents" park metric was widely criticized as inadequate; consultants are developing new equity-based service and maintenance metrics to guide future city investments.
Broader arts definition: GPAC unanimously supported expanding the Arts & Culture element to encompass architecture, design, food culture, and community creativity — and integrating arts thinking throughout all General Plan elements, not just a standalone chapter. A new Public Art Master Plan (potentially with a higher funding percentage than the current 1%) is expected to be recommended.
Transportation reframed around outcomes: Fehr & Peers is proposing to shift General Plan transportation goals from mode-based to outcome-based (climate, safety, accessibility), with a complete streets framework and Universal Basic Mobility concept as key tools.
Public participation concerns: Multiple public commenters expressed frustration that high-profile community issues (North River area, Rainier Connector, riverfront parcels) are being deferred to the General Plan process without sufficient structured opportunity for the public to meaningfully shape those decisions.
AI-generated summary from voice-to-text transcript. Not the official record. Verify important details with the source documents linked above.
What happened at this meeting
CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order after waiting for a quorum of GPAC members to assemble. Staff noted that all members needed to be present before officially starting the meeting.
ROLL CALL, LOGISTICS AND MEETING OVERVIEW
Roll call confirmed the presence of 16 GPAC members including Dave Allman, Stephanie Blake, Phil Boyle, Aaron Jamaleski, Delia Diaz, Mary Dooley, Sierra Downey, Roger Leventhal, Ileana Madrigal, Roberto Roselia Marez, Chris Rebelow, Bill Reinhardt, John Schribs, Josh Simmons, Janice Cader Thompson, and Bill Wilbert. Staff provided logistics reminders including muting protocols, closed captions and Spanish interpretation availability, keeping video on, raising hands to comment, and speaking slowly for interpreters, with Eric and Maria available for technical support. The meeting structure was outlined to include general public comment, brief staff updates, four topical presentations (Parks and Recreation, Economic Development, Arts and Culture, and Transportation), and small group discussion breakouts between presentations, with members able to move between discussion rooms before reconvening as a large group to discuss intersections and takeaways.
GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT During General Public Comment, the public is invited to make comments on items of public interest that are within the Committee’s subject matter jurisdiction and that are not listed on the current agenda. Public comments are limited to two minutes per person. Depending on the number of persons wishing to address the Committee, time will be allocated in equal shares totaling no more than twenty minutes.
# General Public Comment Summary
During general public comment, several community members addressed planning and resource priorities. Darren McCuison advocated for protecting the North River Forest Area and redirecting general plan policy away from the Rainier Crosstown connector project, while also proposing the establishment of a City Arborist and urban forestry department. Dwayne criticized subsidized parking at schools for incentivizing driving and worsening traffic, while Veronica Olson, representing Parks and Recreation, called for climate-smart park design featuring native plantings and natural play elements. Additionally, longtime resident Isha Gonzalez urged greater public participation in planning processes and increased funding with equitable pay for community artists.
During general public comment, several community members addressed planning and resource priorities. Darren McCuison advocated for protecting the North River Forest Area and redirecting general plan policy away from the Rainier Crosstown connector project, while also proposing the establishment of a City Arborist and urban forestry department. Dwayne criticized subsidized parking at schools for incentivizing driving and worsening traffic, while Veronica Olson, representing Parks and Recreation, called for climate-smart park design featuring native plantings and natural play elements. Additionally, longtime resident Isha Gonzalez urged greater public participation in planning processes and increased funding with equitable pay for community artists.
PROJECT AND STAFF UPDATES a. Updates on initiatives related to the GPU b. Clarifying questions from GPAC members
# PROJECT AND STAFF UPDATES SUMMARY
Christina presented updates on the Housing Element public draft review, noting that over 200 community responses were received and staff adjusted the site inventory by removing sites 08, 09, 10 near Cinnabar Avenue and site 307 Petaluma Boulevard South (a city-owned fire station), while adding Washington Commons near the fairgrounds; the draft will be submitted to HCD for a 90-day review period. Staff also updated the committee on General Plan initiatives, including revised existing conditions reports now posted online, and invited members to the October 24th City Council workshop on the fairgrounds at 6 p.m., with Bill asking about the "pro-housing" designation and staff explaining it is a specific program requiring criteria like a certified housing element to unlock funding opportunities. Dina Belzer from Strategic Economics presented Petaluma's economic baseline, highlighting that while the city contains 15% of Sonoma County's jobs, 80% of workers commute from outside; she identified key economic strengths including agricultural and food manufacturing, medical device manufacturing, tech businesses, and downtown amenities, and introduced a framework for equitable economic development focusing on job quality, wages, and enhanced opportunities for underrepresented groups. Roberto raised a procedural concern about how public comments from other meetings reach the consulting team, and city staff clarified that all comments are collected and shared with the consulting team, though noted that Transportation discussions are still in early stages and some topics like crosstown connectors will be addressed as the work progresses.
Christina presented updates on the Housing Element public draft review, noting that over 200 community responses were received and staff adjusted the site inventory by removing sites 08, 09, 10 near Cinnabar Avenue and site 307 Petaluma Boulevard South (a city-owned fire station), while adding Washington Commons near the fairgrounds; the draft will be submitted to HCD for a 90-day review period. Staff also updated the committee on General Plan initiatives, including revised existing conditions reports now posted online, and invited members to the October 24th City Council workshop on the fairgrounds at 6 p.m., with Bill asking about the "pro-housing" designation and staff explaining it is a specific program requiring criteria like a certified housing element to unlock funding opportunities. Dina Belzer from Strategic Economics presented Petaluma's economic baseline, highlighting that while the city contains 15% of Sonoma County's jobs, 80% of workers commute from outside; she identified key economic strengths including agricultural and food manufacturing, medical device manufacturing, tech businesses, and downtown amenities, and introduced a framework for equitable economic development focusing on job quality, wages, and enhanced opportunities for underrepresented groups. Roberto raised a procedural concern about how public comments from other meetings reach the consulting team, and city staff clarified that all comments are collected and shared with the consulting team, though noted that Transportation discussions are still in early stages and some topics like crosstown connectors will be addressed as the work progresses.
GENERAL PLAN POLICY AND STRATEGY IDEAS The General Plan Consulting team will give presentations on the current status of General Plan work related to their area of specialization, followed by breakout rooms for discussion on policy and strategy ideas between the consultants and GPAC members. This sequence will happen in two rounds. a. Brief presentation by representatives from Strategic Economics and Raimi + Associates regarding policy and strategy ideas for Parks and Recreation and Economic Development in light of GPAC Working Group recommendations b. Topical breakout room discussion on policies and strategies i. Room 1: Parks and Recreation ii. Room 2: Economic Development c. Brief presentation by representatives from the Cultural Planning Group and Fehr & Peers of policy and strategy ideas regarding Arts and Culture and Transportation in light of GPAC Working Group recommendations d. Topical breakout room discussion on policies and strategies i. Room 1: Arts and Culture ii. Room 2: Transportation e. Public comment f. GPAC discussion as a large group
# Summary: General Plan Policy and Strategy Ideas Presentations
Staff introduced the General Plan update's policy and strategy framework development, which incorporates previous working group feedback reviewed by consultants and incorporates recent City Council direction to prioritize the southern Caulfield Crossing for transportation improvements. Presentations were given by Megan McNulty from Reaming Associates on Parks and Recreation (noting Petaluma's strong 12 acres per 1,000 residents but identifying equitable access gaps), Dina on equitable economic development (emphasizing quality jobs, 15-minute neighborhoods, and circular economy models), David Plattner Saunders on Arts and Culture (highlighting Petaluma's 3,000 creative jobs representing 10% of employment), and Allison on mobility policies (proposing outcome-based rather than mode-focused transportation goals). Committee discussions emphasized the need for integrated, interconnected approaches—including a networked park system connecting natural areas across the city, expanded public art funding (potentially to 2-3%), and creative economy strategies that support diverse communities—while also raising implementation concerns about ensuring these policies translate into actionable programs with dedicated staffing and funding rather than remaining aspirational.
Staff introduced the General Plan update's policy and strategy framework development, which incorporates previous working group feedback reviewed by consultants and incorporates recent City Council direction to prioritize the southern Caulfield Crossing for transportation improvements. Presentations were given by Megan McNulty from Reaming Associates on Parks and Recreation (noting Petaluma's strong 12 acres per 1,000 residents but identifying equitable access gaps), Dina on equitable economic development (emphasizing quality jobs, 15-minute neighborhoods, and circular economy models), David Plattner Saunders on Arts and Culture (highlighting Petaluma's 3,000 creative jobs representing 10% of employment), and Allison on mobility policies (proposing outcome-based rather than mode-focused transportation goals). Committee discussions emphasized the need for integrated, interconnected approaches—including a networked park system connecting natural areas across the city, expanded public art funding (potentially to 2-3%), and creative economy strategies that support diverse communities—while also raising implementation concerns about ensuring these policies translate into actionable programs with dedicated staffing and funding rather than remaining aspirational.
Agenda items (8)
Procedural (8)
1ProceduralCALL TO ORDER
What happened
The meeting was called to order after waiting for a quorum of GPAC members to assemble. Staff noted that all members needed to be present before officially starting the meeting.2ProceduralROLL CALL, LOGISTICS AND MEETING OVERVIEW
What happened
Roll call confirmed the presence of 16 GPAC members including Dave Allman, Stephanie Blake, Phil Boyle, Aaron Jamaleski, Delia Diaz, Mary Dooley, Sierra Downey, Roger Leventhal, Ileana Madrigal, Roberto Roselia Marez, Chris Rebelow, Bill Reinhardt, John Schribs, Josh Simmons, Janice Cader Thompson, and Bill Wilbert. Staff provided logistics reminders including muting protocols, closed captions and Spanish interpretation availability, keeping video on, raising hands to comment, and speaking slowly for interpreters, with Eric and Maria available for technical support. The meeting structure was outlined to include general public comment, brief staff updates, four topical presentations (Parks and Recreation, Economic Development, Arts and Culture, and Transportation), and small group discussion breakouts between presentations, with members able to move between discussion rooms before reconvening as a large group to discuss intersections and takeaways.3ProceduralGENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT During General Public Comment, the public is invited to make comments on items of public interest that are within the Committee’s subject matter jurisdiction and that are not listed on the current agenda. Public comments are limited to two minutes per person. Depending on the number of persons wishing to address the Committee, time will be allocated in equal shares totaling no more than twenty minutes.
What happened
# General Public Comment SummaryDuring general public comment, several community members addressed planning and resource priorities. Darren McCuison advocated for protecting the North River Forest Area and redirecting general plan policy away from the Rainier Crosstown connector project, while also proposing the establishment of a City Arborist and urban forestry department. Dwayne criticized subsidized parking at schools for incentivizing driving and worsening traffic, while Veronica Olson, representing Parks and Recreation, called for climate-smart park design featuring native plantings and natural play elements. Additionally, longtime resident Isha Gonzalez urged greater public participation in planning processes and increased funding with equitable pay for community artists.
4ProceduralPROJECT AND STAFF UPDATES a. Updates on initiatives related to the GPU b. Clarifying questions from GPAC members
What happened
# PROJECT AND STAFF UPDATES SUMMARYChristina presented updates on the Housing Element public draft review, noting that over 200 community responses were received and staff adjusted the site inventory by removing sites 08, 09, 10 near Cinnabar Avenue and site 307 Petaluma Boulevard South (a city-owned fire station), while adding Washington Commons near the fairgrounds; the draft will be submitted to HCD for a 90-day review period. Staff also updated the committee on General Plan initiatives, including revised existing conditions reports now posted online, and invited members to the October 24th City Council workshop on the fairgrounds at 6 p.m., with Bill asking about the "pro-housing" designation and staff explaining it is a specific program requiring criteria like a certified housing element to unlock funding opportunities. Dina Belzer from Strategic Economics presented Petaluma's economic baseline, highlighting that while the city contains 15% of Sonoma County's jobs, 80% of workers commute from outside; she identified key economic strengths including agricultural and food manufacturing, medical device manufacturing, tech businesses, and downtown amenities, and introduced a framework for equitable economic development focusing on job quality, wages, and enhanced opportunities for underrepresented groups. Roberto raised a procedural concern about how public comments from other meetings reach the consulting team, and city staff clarified that all comments are collected and shared with the consulting team, though noted that Transportation discussions are still in early stages and some topics like crosstown connectors will be addressed as the work progresses.
5ProceduralGENERAL PLAN POLICY AND STRATEGY IDEAS The General Plan Consulting team will give presentations on the current status of General Plan work related to their area of specialization, followed by breakout rooms for discussion on policy and strategy ideas between the consultants and GPAC members. This sequence will happen in two rounds. a. Brief presentation by representatives from Strategic Economics and Raimi + Associates regarding policy and strategy ideas for Parks and Recreation and Economic Development in light of GPAC Working Group recommendations b. Topical breakout room discussion on policies and strategies i. Room 1: Parks and Recreation ii. Room 2: Economic Development c. Brief presentation by representatives from the Cultural Planning Group and Fehr & Peers of policy and strategy ideas regarding Arts and Culture and Transportation in light of GPAC Working Group recommendations d. Topical breakout room discussion on policies and strategies i. Room 1: Arts and Culture ii. Room 2: Transportation e. Public comment f. GPAC discussion as a large group
What happened
# Summary: General Plan Policy and Strategy Ideas PresentationsStaff introduced the General Plan update's policy and strategy framework development, which incorporates previous working group feedback reviewed by consultants and incorporates recent City Council direction to prioritize the southern Caulfield Crossing for transportation improvements. Presentations were given by Megan McNulty from Reaming Associates on Parks and Recreation (noting Petaluma's strong 12 acres per 1,000 residents but identifying equitable access gaps), Dina on equitable economic development (emphasizing quality jobs, 15-minute neighborhoods, and circular economy models), David Plattner Saunders on Arts and Culture (highlighting Petaluma's 3,000 creative jobs representing 10% of employment), and Allison on mobility policies (proposing outcome-based rather than mode-focused transportation goals). Committee discussions emphasized the need for integrated, interconnected approaches—including a networked park system connecting natural areas across the city, expanded public art funding (potentially to 2-3%), and creative economy strategies that support diverse communities—while also raising implementation concerns about ensuring these policies translate into actionable programs with dedicated staffing and funding rather than remaining aspirational.
6ProceduralCOMMITTEE MEMBER GENERAL COMMENT Open time for thoughts, reflection, and closing comments from GPAC members
What happened
# GPAC Committee Member General Comment SummaryDuring general comment time, committee members offered diverse closing reflections and actionable feedback for the General Plan process. On arts and culture integration, Bill Reinert advocated for embedding creativity into the Charter to position Petaluma as a global leader, while Janice highlighted how public art enhances safety and community identity, and Asaya suggested leveraging the existing one percent public art ordinance to fund architectural enhancements. Sierra proposed a comprehensive vision for arts programming in neighborhood community centers as part of the 15-minute city concept, including free classes and artist-in-residence positions modeled on Boston's successful program. Regarding process and logistics, Bill and Dave emphasized the need for fewer topics with deeper discussion time rather than extended meetings, while other members raised important feedback on environmental metrics, transportation, housing affordability, and equity considerations. Staff confirmed they would provide written materials on the next topics (land use, natural resources, adaptation, and safety) for committee review before the next meeting.
7ProceduralWRAP-UP
What happened
Staff and consulting team members (including representatives from CPG Fair, Peers Strategic Economics, and Ramey) were thanked for their participation and thoughtful work on the general plan. The meeting was being wrapped up with expressions of gratitude to all GPAC members and participants for their engagement throughout the evening.8ProceduralADJOURN Any member of the public who needs accommodations should email the City Clerk at cityclerk@cityofpetaluma.org or by calling 707-778-4360. The City Clerk will use their best efforts to provide reasonable accommodations to provide as much accessibility as possible while also maintaining public safety in accordance with the City procedure for resolving reasonable accommodation requests.
Verbatim transcript available
81 transcript segments indexed
recording it'd be nice if in the breakout room you could um do the do a zoom recording Eric you can't do that as host candy it has to be somebody in the room uh to do a like a local file recording you mean yeah recording of the breakout room discussion um yeah anyone should be able to I'd have to be I have to assign you that ability um it's a little tricky though because if you have co-host access I'd have to remove your co-host access give you that capability um and you may lose the ability to unmute yourself so it could get problematic but um you propose a way to do it that's I've learned so what we what we worked out with Michelle just as a Fail-Safe is that Michelle logs in twice um using a an audio account and then um just a normal one um and she records with one and then I give co-host access to the other so that one can record and the other can speak freely if I allow you to I mean I I can't allow to record local files first um and then give co-host permissions after um it just may not it may not work I'm not certain I don't think I've tested that okay do you want me to send that email to the gpack or do you have it I have it all pulled up you're on mute yeah if you have it ready to go um right I just got it to Sierra okay and it's the address that ends in 8537 um eight five three seven yes okay are we still waiting for a quorum we are we are we're at uh sticks I believe okay Michelle did you see Bill join yep build Builders joined both bills right I only see one Bill
Reinhardt is here yep I got something from Ali's thing she [Music] won't Christina do you have a preference for which one of us share a screen with a slide deck why don't you go ahead and so I see I saw eight folks from gpac so we've everybody else has got all right [Music] foreign [Music] so members of the public that are here just we're just taking a moment until we have a quorum of the gpac to start the meeting officially foreign with Roberto nine with Aaron so I think we need one more to get to ten I believe Chris is on her way she was looking for the link but she hasn't yeah the link only showed up in the agenda which is tucked in but like this first or second item on the um meeting materials list so you have to dig down into which one and to find it so rather than being up front in an email by itself uh so that so has to be searched for so next time maybe send it send the link directly to us and uh so it's right there in the email itself would be helpful thanks John we just sent it to everybody as well and here's Chris all right everybody I think that we can get started [Music] here is recording in progress thank you all right good evening everyone and thank you for your patience while we waited for the gpac to assemble uh we are really excited to talk with you about some of the general plan topics that we're going to be tackling together over the course of the next few months uh so Ron why don't you go on to the next slide and then we can we can dig in I'm sorry to um
to interrupt we haven't been oh okay sorry about that interpretation is [Music] thank you very much I will go through the roll call and then Ron will help lead us into the presentation all right and I see that the Spanish interpretation is working Dave Allman here sorry Monica I'm sorry we haven't been assigned yet ah Eric can you let us know when that is complete should be assigned now yes we are great all right thank you all Dave Alden Dave is here I see him Stephanie Blake [Music] Phil Boyle here Aaron jamaleski I see Aaron's rectangle Delia Diaz Mary Dooley I saw Mary come in Mary can you let us know if you're here I can't see everybody's rectangles I'm here great thank you Sierra Downey Roger Leventhal Ileana and zunza Madrigal I saw Ileana Ileana are you still here dear can you hear me yes thank you Roberto Roselia Marez here Chris rebelow here Bill Reinhardt here John schribs present Josh Simmons Janice Cader Thompson and Bill Wilbert I'm here thank you all right we'll keep trying to keep track of folks who are doing a little bit later thanks so much and Ron I will turn it over to you all right um just a few Logistics which you've seen many times before um as you know you can you the gpac members you have the ability to mute and then mute yourself um members of the public you'll have that opportunity when we get to public comment there is closed caption available for everybody along with the Spanish interpretation again we do ask that you stay muted unless you're
speaking including both in the large group and during the small group discussions this evening likewise gpac members we ask that you please keep your video on so that we can see your friendly faces members of the public likewise we ask that you um keep your video off during the meeting you're welcome to sit in on the small group discussions but we'll have you listen in your opportunity for public comment and we'd like love to see your faces as during public comment oh and I think we're all well practiced at raising our hand in Zoom um and that may be very helpful during the small group discussion and then later during the large group discussion about the topics were that are on the agenda for tonight likewise public members of the public drink public comment raise your hand if you'd like to make public comment and if you are having any difficulties with technology email Eric at the address on the screen likewise if you are having trouble with any of the Spanish interpretation Maria's email address is on the screen and here is the friendly reminder primarily to people like me who tend to speak too quickly we ask everybody public commenters presenters feed pack members just please remember that we have two very hard-working Spanish interpreters on providing access this evening but for them to be able to do their job very well we need to speak slowly likewise not everybody is a planning geek and so if you do use any acronyms please explain them so that the interpreters know how
to interpret them and so we've got a exciting meeting tonight um we're really going to have a chance to dive into some the first set of topical issues many of which working group members have been honing in and diving in on in the last months along with other community members as usual we're first going to do some pump general public comment get some brief staff updates we're really trying to reserve as much of the meeting time as possible for these topics specific um discussions you'll you'll meet members of our technical team later in the evening as they make their presentations um and that's how the evening is going to go there's going to be two presentations quickly on Parks and Recreation and then Economic Development and then we'll break into small groups and gpac members can choose which of those topics they'd like to discuss and can move between rooms if you'd like we'll then come back as a large group your two additional very short presentations on arts and culture and transportation and then you'll have the opportunity to have small group discussions about those topics and then at the end we'll come back together again as a large group after an opportunity for public comment to talk about intersections and takeaways from the small group discussion Eric if you could take over I'm not sure if the timer translated from SharePoint or not do I need to do something on this end to get a starter do you want to use your own timer we can do either way um typically uh the
timer seems to work I'm happy to use my timer and share my screen or you can use the in um in presentation if it's working for you uh I don't see an obvious way to get it started so I'm going to have you do it okay no problem um I'll share my timer give me just one moment set it for two minutes here all right thanks for your patience okay I am seeing one hand raised Darren mccuson I've asked you to unmute you'll need to unmute yourself thank you Eric uh and I just wanted to elevate two topics that I think may actually be discussed in next month's meeting in November November looked more focused on natural resources and environmental justice I am curious to see how we can Elevate two big issues that have come before Council and that is uh the issue of protecting the North River Forest Area you know there's just discussion this past week or two at Council a very heated meeting about the Rainier Crosstown connector and then it's been discussed frequently on different city council candidate forums in mayoral candidate forums and it was kind of determined that to protect that North River area if we want to move away from the Rainier project the decision was to go in a different direction with Project funding for other connectors but it was also said that doing something in the general plan to shift policy away from that connector would be one of the better Solutions likewise with protecting Riverfront Parcels so I'm curious to see how you could we could Implement that kind of
policy direction if it is the will of of the people in this group uh and then I also wanted from last night's tree committee meeting to elevate an idea of the City Arborist and an urban forestry Department again this was something that through staff and different council members we kind of landed on yeah we'll establish a tree ordinance which we're working on updating uh that chapter 17 tree preservation part of our zoning ordinance but a big part of that may be having a City Arborist and maybe an urban forestry department and I'm not sure if that would simply be a resolution in Council or if again that would be the policy direction we embed in the general plan some ideas for the members and the public to think about thank you thank you great thank you Darren Eric I do know that the timer is set for uh 20 minutes and not the uh two minutes I meant to set um we can just change that um I also do not see additional hands raised um so I believe I can stop sharing my screen for general public comment here thanks Christina yeah thank you Eric and uh yeah Christina if you want to do you want to do the project and staff updates yes happy to do that we are going to be very brief because uh this is a really rich topic that we're a series of four topics that we're going to be diving into so I want to let you know that we saw you last during the housing element public draft review process the public draft was open for a little bit longer than the required 30 days we did quite a few
presentations and then also got quite a few letters from different Community groups as well as community members we also had an online form where folks could enter very specific feedback on particular sites and policies of the housing element we got over 200 responses so we were really pleased with that and next slide please we have been working on integrating the feedback that we have heard from all of these folks next slide please [Music] we have adjusted the site inventory to be responsive to gpac Planning Commission and Council direction to remove the sites that were approximate to Cinnabar Avenue they were sites0809 and 0-10 those are no longer in the inventory and we also removed 307 Petaluma Boulevard South where there is which is a city on site where there has been some discussion around having a fire station and then we added Washington uh Washington Commons which is a small project across the street from the fairgrounds you can see that 0 19 in this map and that will be the site inventory that moves forward in our draft to hcd we also worked to emphasize the importance of our climate goals identified our priority to become a pro-housing city and recognized as such front by hcd updated efforts to increase representation on our boards and commissions and then clarified our approach to VMT we are going to very very shortly sending that draft to hcd for that's Housing Community Development for a 90-day review period Then the draft element will be revised given their
commentary taken back to Planning Commission and city council for adoption ideally review adoption and then hcd will have 60 days to certify the housing Outlet we wanted to let you know that we received quite a bit of feedback or at least some Germain feedback on the existing conditions reports that we published last year and we worked with the Rainy folks to respond either in a brief paragraph As Egypt as a part of each of those reports or in the body of those reports and those updated reports are now posted online next slide please we also want to invite folks to come and listen to and participate in the October 24th CE Council workshop on the fairgrounds that is coming up on Monday at four o'clock and one of the questions that the city council will be responding to is the place of the fairgrounds in the general plan process and just to clarify six o'clock not four o'clock oh sorry my brain had a problem Bill did you have a question yes I was just curious um about the implications of Petaluma being considered pro-housing uh as opposed to what I mean we can't be anti-housing but what what does that designation really mean that's a great question it's a fairly specific um program and so I think that the best approach right now is for us to get you some documentation on that program I don't have it all memorized and Bill one of the things I do know it does is it makes us eligible for funding opportunities that we wouldn't otherwise be eligible for so I know that there is a
incentive for cities um for funding opportunity um and there's there's some there's a number of things that you have to show you've done which we've done most of them like you have to have a certified housing element you have to I ca I can't name off I can't rattle off the criteria but most of them we've we've done uh it sounds it sounds positive thank you and I just wanted to know you know we we heard from some folks that they weren't aware of events coming up uh Council and so on and we try to keep everybody updated but I did want to make a pitch for the community update email there was one that came out yesterday and these are a great way to stay in touch with upcoming Council meetings or public meetings Etc uh and you can do that by going to cityofpetaluma.org subscribe you can sign up for the community newsletter as well as alerts about upcoming commission committee Council meetings foreign looking forward we have this set of things to look forward to we have the fairgrounds Council report and workshop as I mentioned on Monday we're looking forward to that sstat report following their presentation to us a month and a couple of months ago I think um we went through the hcd review of the housing element we're anticipating that this fall we will have a draft climate action plan that will be out for public review and of course we will bring that to um we'll we'll bring that to you and then we will be working on draft policy Frameworks and Alternatives and that's some work
that we're getting into this evening over the course of the winter we will be having further discussion of those policy Frameworks and beginning to think about land use Alternatives which we will be working to refine and and Detail in the spring through some topic area a focused topic focused meetings and area of focus meetings can I add something Christy and I I did want to touch on the um recent city council workshop on Crosstown connectors that was held on October 10th and that Mr rakusan um referenced in his public comments so um there was a request from the city council as part of Citywide um priorities to have a conversation about Crosstown connectors so that was held at the Council on the 10th of this month opportunity to look at Crosstown connectors both existing and proposed in the current General plan um both vehicular as well as an emphasis on looking at existing and opportunities for active Transportation connections um and um so that was held one of the things that did come out of that was the council gave direction to move forward and prioritize the southern Crossing so the Caulfield Crossing um and and move forward with that and there was discussion about the general Plan update and looking at different Crosstown connections um and that was one of the points in the vision statement or one of the guiding principles I can't recall which one that has come forward through this process about building those connections um so that will be part of the general plan
process in terms of looking at Mobility improvements looking at land use patterns and transportation connections for all modes as as part of that so it is something to look forward to as we move forward with this process thank you heather were there any additional clarifying questions from gpac Members about any of the updates shared okay hearing none we will move on to the main agenda item this evening a little bit ahead of schedule excellent okay so again as Christina mentioned as I noted earlier this is an exciting moment we've I some of you I know have been anxious to get to this points from the get-go um this opportunity to begin talking in depth about um strategy ideas policies actions goals specific to your particular topics and areas of interest and passion we got you started on that with the working groups earlier this year and many of those groups have provided us very very useful um feedback thoughts recommendations we thank you for that we've been looking at them very closely you'll see that the members of the consultant team this evening have been considering them as they've been working on their initial drafts of the policy Frameworks um a little bit of background in context we've talked about this over the last few meetings we have we wrapped up recently a series of uh topic focused technical meetings between City staff and the consultant team um covered this before but we really focused on just confirming our Baseline understanding building on all of the
previous work you've helped us with existing conditions Vision pillars and principles and with all of that under our belt confirming broad goals for the general plan and then really spending the bulk of our time in this discussion these discussions brainstorming creative ideas and that's in particular where we took many of the gpac recommendations into consideration and on your right is the list of topics that we've talked about over the series of those meetings since then the members of the technical team have been working on all that further fleshing out some of those ideas and working them into draft policy Frameworks for those of you not not familiar with this planning term a policy framework is an outline of the proposed General plan goals policies and to the extent that they're already clear some of the implementation actions we do it by elements initially and not necessarily implying that that's how they'll end up in the general plan but we do focus on them topically initially and they're really that next incremental step following the work that we've done so far and as a platform for the work that follows which is really that initial administrative job draft of the general plan on the right hand side of this screen you have a general workflow Christina covered some of it earlier um fall is working towards these initial administrative drafts then we'll be again holding a series of meetings both with you and departments through the end of this year and into next year to
further flesh and flesh those out and vet those all in preparation for bringing public draft policy Frameworks to the public for discussion um first part of next year which then is the platform for the administrative so with us tonight we have four uh members of our technical team or four representatives from four members of our technical team we're going to first hear a presentation from Megan McNulty who's with reaming Associates focusing on Parks and then she'll turn it over to Dina from strategic economics who's going to share some initial ideas about Economic Development then we're going to pause and break into two discussion groups you can choose which topic you'd like to talk about um and we'll talk about these topics for about 40 minutes or so we'll then come back together Fair appears we'll make a presentation on some of the ideas related to transportation and David from cultural Planning Group will make a presentation about arts and culture ideas we'll then break out again into small groups by topic before we come back together as a large group for some final related discussion after public comments so with that I'm going to turn it over to Megan McNulty presenters if you could just before you start briefly introduce yourself um some of your background and again I'll remind you that we want to keep these presentations relatively brief so the reserve as much time as possible for the small group discussion hi everybody uh my name is Megan as Ron said I'm at Randy and
Associates um I work mostly on General plan updates and specifically I've written um several Parks elements and I've also worked on land use elements throughout the state so I'm excited to get you to know you all tonight and engage in conversation so for the purposes of tonight I'm covering parks recreation and public facilities so first covering the role of parks and recreation in the general plan uh Parks and Recreation facilities they're not state required General plan elements so assessor not fairs not significant guidance from the state as to what must be covered however clerks and public facilities elements throughout the state they typically guide Park priorities and plan to ensure that they're sufficient recreational resources facilities and amenities to serve the growing population over the next 20 or so years The Horizon of the plan the existing General plans Park element as well as the update will cover things like classification of archetypes locations for new parks and Facilities metrics for measuring the quality of Park Service as well as general policy guidance for the Parks Department um I want to fill out as well what this element will not do for the purpose of focusing on conversation tonight so the natural environment in open space obviously they intersect with the Parks and Recreation system but as we mentioned earlier these topics will be discussed in more detail at the next gpac meeting and they're actually going to be covered in a separate General plan
element so really talking tonight about program city parks and public facilities um I also want to point out the specific details regarding things like Park design specific amenities recreational needs and funding these will be included in a Parks and Recreation master plan so a good way to think about it is that the vision of the general plan it's going to be carried out in more detail in things like the Parks and Recreation master plan next slide uh to quickly set the table based on the analysis and the system conditions reports here's a snapshot of current Park and facility conditions in Petaluma so the city has about 550 per acres in three different Park types there's Community Parks neighborhood park parks and pocket Parks um residents are generally well survived parks at least according to this Park Service metric which is 12 uh Park acres per 1000 residents I would say that generally most California cities do not have service ratios this size so this is actually really good however um what that service ratio lacks is Nuance to so for instance we know that not everybody has great access to Parks so 44 of petaluma's population lives within a five-minute law most people are within a 10 minute walk but there are still people who do not have that convenient of access and then on the public facility side um the city has a variety of facilities such as pools the senior center and Community Center just sort of recreational needs um though the studies are strong parks and
facility system the working groups did recommend some really excellent strategies to maintain and enhance parks and facilities in the general plan so we've laid out some ideas here but some of them to call out or include developing new perks that are connecting Park some open spaces and also incorporating strategies to combat climate change in parks inside so with that um we have a list of overarching priorities for the general Plan update um based on from the general plan of day-to-day as well as your input from the Titan Pool um working groups so these include priorities like expanding Park service for a growing population we also want to Center equity and ensure ease of access and Equitable access to facilities parks and services just to make sure that everybody regardless of age ability or other characteristics can come together and enjoy the city's parks and Facilities um we also want to make sure that the city's parks and facilities are well maintained and of course incorporate sustainable practices and climate action strategies in parks and Facilities so I have a couple of big overarching uh policy and strategy ideas to share with you um I will say this is not an exhaustive list but these are some of the kind of the bigger ideas that we want to run by you and discuss so the first is the idea of thinking a public space as an integrated uh Network and this network will be inclusive of things like the natural environment things like habitats River Open Spaces as well as
programmed parks and public spaces and really the benefits of this include really elevating the importance of parks and facilities in connectivity when guiding City decision making but also creating more Equitable access to public space throughout the city so making sure there aren't pockets of the city where people don't have access to amenities a president is Vancouver British Columbia where they've used this sort of thinking to guide our planning efforts so you can see in the the figure that I've shown is that the network is inclusive of essentially the entire city and again it centers Equitable access uh there's some other new ideas to share with you um to some things include creating carbon neutral parks and Facilities um thinking of parks and Facilities as internal intergenerational Gathering spaces it's a little bit of a mouthful um so essentially what this means is making sure that everybody regardless of age or ability can gather and enjoy a space together new service metrics to measure Park service so as I mentioned the city's Park acres per 1000 residence metric it doesn't really provide much Nuance it doesn't help the city understand who exactly is well served or not well served by Parks so there's a need for a new equity-based metric to understand where in the community and who in the community has the greatest part of meeting and this metric it would be important because it would be used to guide City priorities things like funding and also decision making for
new parks and park improvements um another metric would be related to maintenance currently that's a huge challenge for the parks department so this metric for maintenance would help determine which parks and facilities are most in need of Maintenance and again prioritize maintenance we also have an idea to continue to partner with Community organizations for joint use and maintenance we also have an idea to align a city organization with goals so essentially as you know we mentioned a public comment before maybe rethink the organization of this of City departments to ensure that the city is best equipped to manage parks and facilities and then lastly we have a couple um new plan updates that could be initiated as a result of this General Plan update so one would be an update to the parks and recognition master plan to implement the vision of the general plan and then potentially as needed an update to the Petaluma River plan all right so here are a couple of questions to guide discussion um so first one is your highest priority for Parks what do you think the the Elementary Center how should the city measure the quality of our service based on what I was talking about um shortly before regarding the equity metric who should the city partner with for programming and maintenance to Parks recreational facilities and public facilities and then lastly what other ideas do you have for uh Parks and Recreation so that's the end of my section I'm excited to dive into all of this with
you in a moment um but I will turn it over to Dina to talk about Economic Development yeah thank you Megan just briefly sorry Dina um yeah thank you Megan excellent overview um probably reason we're giving you these short presentations to you back members is to give an idea of like the types of subtopics that you might want to talk about in these small group discussions and so now Dina is going to give a similar presentation for economic development and then again we'll have a chance to break into small groups to talk about Parks or economic development in more detail and we are the discussions are by no means limited to these questions we really want to see this an opportunity to have a substantive specific conversation between the technical team and gpac members who've given a lot of these same topics a lot of thoughts so so thank you Megan uh Ena go ahead great thank you Ron uh and good evening to the gpec members I'm Dina Belzer and I'm president of strategic economics some of you may have met my colleague Derek Ron who is a principal at strategic economics Derek is on a well-deserved vacation tonight so he will not be with us but I've been working with Derek um and with the staff so I am happy to be here with you tonight um the um I wanted to start by giving you a sense of um also I want to say um uh what Megan said which is that economic development is also not a state mandated element for a general plan so uh again we do not have the same kind of mandate from the state
and we can really work with whatever you all think is most appropriate uh to put into the economic development element so in terms of thinking about Economic Development we always want to start with the Baseline what do we have today um so and what are our key strengths so Petaluma has a very strong employment base given the size of the city you have 15 percent of Sonoma County's jobs however 80 percent of the people who work in those jobs commute from outside of the city and some of this is because you have uh big businesses or relatively good sized businesses and there may not be the right kind of Workforce uh or people within Petaluma who are able or interested are willing to take those jobs um on the other hand these industries are exporting product goods and services all over the uh the region and the state and in some cases the country so you have of course agricultural related did production food manufacturing these are things you all know that Petaluma is associated with but what you might not know is that you have medical device and equipment manufacturing and you have a variety of other small Tech businesses uh small high-tech businesses you all may recall that there was a um big push in the Telecom industry up into Sonoma County uh in the early part of the 2000s uh and while most of that has left the area there is still a residual of that that has benefited and continued to thrive in Petaluma but also Petaluma is a night spot and um an entertainment so you have a
lot of wonderful restaurants and shops and entertainment venues that people come to Petaluma to participate in and then the fact that you're accessible to high but through Highway 101 you have a very highly educated Workforce you also are surrounded by agricultural area soon you will um well you already have a Smart Station you have another one potentially on the way uh and as you know you have the historic downtown and river access so these are all assets that continue to make Petaluma from cyber location for businesses so one of the things that we ask ourselves is what is the role of city government in Economic Development when we talk about economic development at the local level we're often talking about the attraction of new businesses the expansion of existing businesses and then the ability to retain or keep businesses who are already in the community and the more traditional tools that cities use to do this are Landings policy and regulation so do we have the right zoning in place making Capital Investments are our roads in good shape uh taxes and fees setting them uh appropriately to act as incentives instead of disincentives but the other thing that CDs do do is do a lot around operations Partnerships working with small businesses Petaluma does a huge amount of Outreach to work with its businesses but then also participate in Partnerships and programs that can really facilitate some of the community's goals and we're we're going to talk about this a little bit more
with the next slide a series of slides one of the things that Petaluma has talked about in set as a goal is Equitable Economic Development and I'm presenting this framework to you tonight so that you can begin to put more specific Concepts around um Equitable Economic Development The Brookings institution and then policy link uh have been working on this framework so most cities are many cities when they talk about Economic Development and increasing the number of jobs in the community they often only talk about that in numeric jobs how many jobs have we gotten but in the case of an equitable framework for economic development we want to talk about what are the quality of the jobs that we're getting are they paying a minimum wage is there an opportunity for career advancement are the businesses that are coming in following basic health and safety regulations and then another thing we want to really look at is growth and Entrepreneurship uh we've talked for many years about home ownership as a form of wealth creation but we also know that in many communities particularly interestingly and often immigrant communities entrepreneurship is also a way that people grow wealth and so to the extent that a community can support entrepreneurship particularly at a very small scale that contributes to an equitable Economic Development framework and then finally there's looking at enhanced economic opportunities for low-income people and people of color statistically these people often
have a lower level of educational entertainment other in other words maybe they've only completed high school or only have a few years of a post secondary degree and so one of the issues again around what is a good quality job is whether or not the job pays a high a high wage or a relatively good wage without requiring an advanced degree um in comparing um uh traditional Economic Development and Equitable Economic Development traditional approach again just focused on an expensive skilled looking at the tax incentives is the race to the bottom and trying to really lower state taxes and regulations but in terms of a more Equitable approach this really focuses on trying to build a talented Workforce build building a skilled Workforce working with supporting uh existing businesses especially in Innovation Industries and that's something I know you're particularly interested in looking at anchor institutions hospitals sometimes sometimes community colleges are ways to facilitate this process but by working with the workforce and supporting entrepreneurs and then finally quality of places in becoming an increasingly important Economic Development tool so the gpac is clearly focused on economic development you have identified this in the guiding goals that you've talked about you want a Petaluma that has workers of all types who can afford to live in the cities so that you can shorten people's commutes you want a vibrant uh local economy and have the ability to be adopting to
Future conditions uh and think about minimizing uh future externalities in other words negative impacts from businesses looking at a just transition away from potentially fossil fuel based uh or other waste generating Industries into industries that are more regenerative in other words they're giving back to the environment and looking a loop in the economy and finally you want a framework so that the city of Petaluma can continue to receive the resources it seemed needs to provide services and to shift away from extractive uh or exploit of economies towards as I was saying a more circular or local economy where businesses are supporting each other so some of the policy ideas that we're starting to recommend to you I'm just gonna I know I'm I'm going on and on because this is a topic I could talk about forever so I'm gonna try to go quickly uh talking about experimental programs for closing the wealth Gap um having City staff use um their procurement process to advance Equity um looking at creating 15-minute neighborhoods which again ties back into the parks and public facilities discussion supporting shopping centers to transition into mixed-use places looking at supporting a green industry and more kinds of flexible spaces for green businesses next slide let's just keep rolling through okay diverse and as if you want to have a diverse and self-reliant economy um so what this might focus on is the growth in retention on businesses that are in a cluster meaning that they work
together and support each other a local food chains so that again businesses that are supplying food from raw inputs through processing all the way through a point of sale could um or or being supplying the food and beverage industry um new businesses that are ready to start and Grow Again looking for ways to really work with small businesses micro businesses looking for ways to be sure that we're supporting these and in the last uh several years there's been a lot of focus on looking at home-based businesses that then jump into a bigger business as they start to grow and move from home into a a more traditional a commercial setting so other strategies revenues so our questions for you tonight are what is your highest priority you've identified a lot of priority Pros policy priorities um to what extent should City resources focus on experimental programs versus really continuing to build off of the very solid set of established tools the city has to what extent should policies focus on intricity in self-sufficiency versus Building Wealth and supporting external Services we can talk more in the breakout group about what that means um and then how might the CD support the gpac's recommended goals around circular economy repair and mending based economy skill sharing food sovereignty just transition we'd like to hear more about your thoughts about how you're actually think about operationalizing history so I'm going to stop there and I believe we're going to get ready to go
thank you very much Dina um as Dina noted we've got people here tonight feedback members who are passionate about many of these topics that you all are as well um we'll jump right into that conversation now um so just briefly to cover some of the logistics we're going to do two rounds of this and looking at the clock I think we're going to want to actually reconvene Eric if you could help us with this around 750 so a little less than 40 minutes actually um so have about half an hour as in small groups for this initial round of discussion gpac members and members of the public you're welcome to pick whichever room you like I'm we're hoping and kind of expecting that you'll go to topics that you thought about and worked on as part of a working group um if you do find yourself in a group where there's lots of people and you have interest in both topics consider shifting to the other one we want to make sure there's a critical mass in both rooms to have a robust discussion uh the presenters will be facilitating the discussion and helping to manage the time there's also going to be a note taker in each room um and some again logistics for those of you interested in the Parks ideas that Megan introduced and some of the questions she has posed stay right where you are for those of you who would like to join Dina for conversation a more detailed conversation about some of the exciting Equitable Economic Development ideas she put on the screen please move yourself to breakout rooms so
here in a minute Eric will put on our screens an option to join a breakout room if you want to shift Economic Development move yourself if you don't you can stay right here and you can also use that option anytime during the discussion to move into the other room members of the public again you're welcome to listen in on these discussions and move yourself between rooms as you'd like on the third will limit the discussion of gpac members there will be public comment after these two rounds of small group discussion before the large group discussion the g pack reconvenes this point I do want to ask if there's any Spanish speakers that would like to participate and let's make sure they listen are able to listen in on in Spanish if you could please raise your hand I don't see the hand raising so Eric let me know if somebody has when I see Christina you have a comment yes um while while people are thinking about which group they want to go into I just want to recognize that these are incredibly Rich topics and I'm sure that many folks want to weigh in on and think about all of them so first you're very welcome to go to the different groups and participate in them if you would like to go to more than one and then secondly we just want to recognize that this is the beginning of these conversations or part of the beginning of these conversations this is not going to be your only opportunity to give feedback or head around these topics um so this is to consider this our first our
first go around one of one of several thank you Christina Eric was there anybody who wanted to make sure they were able to listen in in Spanish I think we may um check in with our interpreter um on that I don't see any hands raised for that okay well so regardless the main room will continue to be um interpreted into Spanish um somebody would like to participate in the economic development room be sure to let Eric or Maria know so Eric at this point if you could give us all the option to switch rooms or stay in the main room that would be great the option should appear on your screens now we do want to ask co-hosts not to close all the rooms that will bring us all back here so thank you thank you so again if you'd like to join the economic development conversation please choose to go to the breakout room if you click the breakout room button scroll down yeah the option to shift yourself is down at the bottom of the screen call out window yeah Ron this is Dave Alden yep I seem not to be on the list I see you in the main room list would you like me to you to the breakout room would you like me to help you yeah if you could I don't yeah yeah move into the breakout room I don't see my name at all Medina because I don't see my name oh our pizza I'll move you I I can move you or wrong one of us will move you does anyone else have any trouble finding a way to move themselves well this is Chris rebelow I may want to I'm going to start out in the main room but I may want to switch I
don't see myself on the list either so do I just so it's funny I I do so when you get to that point give me a heads up okay but also if you click on more you should have the option to click on breakup breakout room should you see yourself all right and just to clarify uh you you just open up the the box that says breakout rooms and then your name doesn't show up but you click on join once it's open that's right there's there's actually no list um you'll just just as David said you'll just find a breakout rooms button at the zoom panel at the bottom of the window sorry I was seeing a list maybe that's because I have a different co-host status or something anyway Megan I think we're ready to go I think we have the group of folks here that are interested in talking about Parks maybe to kick off share screen with a slide back on with the questions and get the conversation started and and Eric if you give us an alert halfway through and then a five minute warning before 7 50 that would be helpful yeah so when I put up my screen so just to clarify on the gpac we have Iliana Bill W Bill R Christine Mary am I missing anybody who's in this room that's also in the gpac uh yeah it's Bill Reiner uh Ileana Christine Mary think are the gpac members all right trying to share screening um I don't know if I can wait sorry you know I can't ask NATO while I'm doing that yeah yeah if folks have why don't we start off with just see if anyone had any media questions or comments about images yeah
um I know I went through um through a lot of ideas very quickly vacation I'd like to first ask if anybody has any questions about the presentation or immediate comments or reactions to it um I think feel free to just jump in but if things you know we had a lot of people or things get a little unwieldy maybe um raise hands let's start with Mary hi thank you Megan um my question first is really basic um you reference the parks and Facilities working group and um I was on the open space and natural resources working group and I just didn't know who was on the parks and Facilities working group so I wanted to make sure that you actually meant the same group actually I can I can address that actually it was it was working group recommendations related to parks and facilities and actually several of the working group recommendations touched on the topic open space um uh sense of community demand and one or two others as well so we lifted all of them in gradable yeah apologies I may have um okay all right so because facilities kind of threw me for a loop yeah um okay well I'll just start with that and then let other people ask questions about uh Bill W or not WR I see Bill R is hand raised all right uh similar question just to clarify I think you mentioned that there would be a separate uh open space and natural resources element and it's going to confirm yes so there's a state required uh conservation element um Ron you can correct me I think the the title of the element I don't
think it's going to be conservation might be open space and natural resources but essentially this element will cover um topics relating more to the natural environment things like you know conservation cultural resources hydrology um you know preservation of the natural resource my life's ecology Etc so this element the parks and rec element I know there's a lot of overlap but this covers more about um you know city parks recreation thinking about the programming of of city parks um and as I mentioned as well as just um you know ensuring that there's an equitable access to parks and facilities and sharing that the city continues to provide parks and Facilities as the city grows and bill will be talking about natural resources open space at the November meeting and Rincon is the consultant that's working on that policy framework so they'll be here to talk with you about okay does anybody know somebody questions or comments or reaction study ideas um how about Mary unmuted one more question on the um uh 12 acres per thousand was what you uh presented that we have in Petaluma and um the goal I guess for that you stated was five acres per thousand is that in the current General plan um I'm wondering uh is there any sort of comparison um to similar cities with so much uh open space surrounding um to get an idea because the number is a little bit abstract to understand how it really relates to people and and I was also that's one and then secondly um talking about people's access
to the parks there was 84 percent within a 10 minute walk um supposedly and um and that may be true but I think a graphic um metric is the way a graphic representation is the way to prove it and we know from looking simply at aerial maps that there's big dry areas where they there's not a park in and maybe it's a postage stamp of the park and so I guess that gets back to your comment about quality of what this park is you know it if if it's a pocket park to serve a huge neighborhood it's not really doing the job so anyway those are my comments slash questions about these um these statistics these numbers quantifiers those are great questions um so the the park acres for 1000 residents um I'm I can't think I'm sure that there's like a state resource off the top of my head um but I think a good place to start would be to look at General plans in cities surrounding Petaluma or kind of cities you think might be like Petaluma because this is typically how cities and general plans at least measure park access um I I agree it is very it is very abstract um and as you mentioned it uh you know it doesn't take into account the park access so that's where the the new metric um can come in and uh both of those findings are from the the existing conditions report which is available online but I think as you know we continue to develop this policy framework you know we'll take a look at this map as well as other data and research with a bit more you know Nuance to really identify the areas
where um you know people are lacking in access to Parks as you say not all parks are created the same there's the postage size parks and the huge ones so um yeah with the new with the new based Park metric we want to try to you know help the city decision makers understand Park Service in a Way Beyond just that that acres per 1000 residents metric if I had to say a bit so Mary it's an excellent question that's really one of our big questions is what are the best set of metrics that the city should use to make sure that everybody has equal access to Parks recreational programming Etc and what what are those new metrics we recognize this one really isn't serving the city doesn't tell us enough about what the city should be doing so what are the better metrics we could be using and work into the GP as a means to make sure that parks and related programming is is meeting the goals the community goals over time so a related question maybe I'll turn it over to everybody is how do you think the city should measure uh quality of Park service so we mentioned access to Parks amenities and Parks is there anything the city should be else should be thinking about when thinking about where to you know um Finance improvements and Parks or where to plan new parks what about areas of the city that you think might not have existing areas of the city that even they don't have quality access to Parks Mary I don't want to be the only one chiming just so everyone knows who's listening and um here
uh Bill Reinhardt myself uh John tribbs and Janice care Thompson had spent quite a bit of time as our working group on open space and natural resources and our big Focus we took in a lot of input and and we focused on um the the North River area and as a Central Park um and this is also work that's being done by other groups in in the city um the friends of the Petaluma River has proposed a a um a plan for uh North River Park that would extend all the way down um to uh McNair Peninsula so there's been a lot of thinking on it in like I don't so I was wondering if there was any new ideas I'm not not wanting to share I just don't I we've kind of we've done a lot of this work already so maybe there's some new thoughts but I'll talk and talk and talk yeah is there anybody else that wants to jump in foreign Janice oh you're muted still muted I do that all the time um maybe I can meet you ask Ed oh can you hear me now yes yes sorry it was stalling for some reason so I was just at a meeting at the Kennelworth um you know park by the library and just you know talking with groups about more neighborhood parks and more pocket parks and you know the need for that and you know instead of just doing parks that just have you know normal Park equipment you know being much more creative you know how Park you know look more of art um that kids can play on it could be for adults and I just think there needs to be more creative ways of looking at the parks and I think actually our Park
commission is actually doing a great job um you know looking at different ways for neighborhood parks but there's also you know areas um they don't have access to parks and so when you know we're talking about the river plan or the River Park that Mary was talking about um you know there's so many interconnections um you know I just feel like everything should be interconnected even if you're looking at neighborhood parks how do they connect to the bigger picture of the Nature Park um you know for what I call the corona reach which is the upper part of the river and I just think we need to look at those interconnections um so people can actually have that access but also within the parks you know instead of just putting up regular playgrounds integrate them in more Integrations for all ages so that's it when you say um like creative ideas of looking at parks um you kind of mentioned Arts but are there other like what else do you mean by creative um you can just have you know just make sure there's tree coverage you want to have areas for Community to be able to gather you know within neighborhoods um you know whether it's birthday parties or just a family wanting to you know gather for something but also um you know just more interactive parks thank you you know more activities you know for um you know yoga and other things you know that you know I'll see in other parks on the west side more so than the east side [Music] is not equal distribution of the types of amenities of
parks well it's not just the amenities just people um knowing that they could have access to do activities in the park and you don't have to call and make a reservation just following up on what Janice said I really like that you guys included the intergen the possibility of intergenerational parks so there's a lot of equipment that can be used by people of all ages there's equipment you know you can have uh some places have things called grandparents Park where grandparents take the kids to the park and um you know the grandparents have their kind of workout area and stuff and the kids had their area but but they they intersect with each other I also think there's an issue around Parks as physical places and what's in those physical places and also then recreational programming I know for instance that there's uh we only have we have one senior center in town it's on the east side um it is uh not adequate I think for the interest that the people who go there and you know they they want it they want bigger they want better I think that that needs to be looked at um I'm curious how the future of the fairgrounds factors into all of this because I've heard about parks at the fairgrounds and people have talked to me about wouldn't that be a great place for a new Senior Center because everybody could could utilize it um and then also there's people who live on the West Side who have asked for a senior center on their side of town so um yeah just I think there's an issue you know
the city's never been when I think when the quote City thinks of Parks and Recreation they think about facilities and they don't think about programming and maybe there needs to be Partnerships with those or the city needs to make that commitment and you know hire people who specialize in in creating programming which I actually think would be great because it would pull more people in and would get if there was creative programming I think it might encourage more people to to utilize the parks and get active and engaged several follow-up questions but uh first I actually want to ask Ron just given you have a bit more knowledge about the paragraphs process than me can you can you talk briefly about things with the general factors that's a good one I refuse to say anything about the fairgrounds the soonest okay uh yes that is a smart response but just to kind of give Megan a little bit more of that context um being excited it's still being decided um Monday will be a big uh you know kind of direction from city council um but what we've heard from community members and especially the panel um the lottery selected panel is a strong uh support and and need for greater park access um at all all year round not just during specific activities that you pay for unfortunately only have about seven minutes yeah so um I'll turn to Bill and then okay great uh boy sorry we got the clock I have several kind of rambling thoughts not well organized but I'd less like to throw them out and I'll
try and be quick and speak slowly so we can get interpretation but um one one thing I think the general plan if in any possible way it can is rather than to approach Parks as the concept of individual places that are placed within you know whatever they are the neighborhoods all the different scales of parks um somehow if the general plan can influence the character of the city so that it feels more um like the city itself feels more Park like and you know some of the things I'm thinking about are um having a parks department or whatever have more of a purview over rather than just places but um connection connectors and corridors and so we've been talking about the concept of um you know the urban forestry department or somehow having an overlap with public works so that um you know that somehow are whatever our Landscape and Lighting districts and our corridors and things like that can at least have some oversight so that it gives the character of the city more of a park like rather than you know thinking of parks as a specific destinations so somehow if we can influence and include corridors in the kind of in the jurisdiction of our Parks um context um so I and I think within the parks that we have and the ones we're going to build I think what we need are you know A diversity of uses and distinct uses so that you know we have everything from urban city parks downtown like Plaza and things like that and they're all High character and um but they support a variety of uses
so you can have Urban Gathering spaces as well as our large-scale Recreation and um and passive uses you know and and real like some like the North River you know have areas that are large areas that are designated for Passive use and all these Parks whether they're recreational you know Sports Parks should all be managed in a way that supports you know healthy Wildlife pop populations and Mobility um so you know Management's that's a whole other you know strategy of Park management but I just think that needs to be a priority so that um you know wildlife habitat is as much um an asset of the park says you know as access and Recreation if I could just chime in here just because I had the benefit of participating in all of the strategy meetings we had I gotta tell you Bill that's exactly we heard that almost in every conversation whether we were talking about Transportation utilities and infrastructure Parks and Rec open space and natural resources we all kept we kept coming back to that exact ideas like hey what if we thought about all public spaces in the entire city as an integrated Network that first served natural functions and supported you know Wildlife corridors habitat restoration and then secondarily we're transport you know modes a variety of different types speeds Etc and then at the same time had had recreational opportunities interwoven with it not just isolated and Parks official Park spaces but like throughout the entire network and not just Parks but you know
facilities like every all public space is kind of this interconnected web and really and then that obviously would have huge implications if you noted like how the city actually thinks and operates about all these facilities so we're really intrigued by that idea and then we I think we got it originally from the working group report but you know it's that we really want to run with that and we're kind of curious if like is that that the direction they really want us to go in sounds like it is um but it's it's really it's quite intriguing it'll be quite groundbreaking I I love that holistic approach I think it's great Chris rebelow here I think it's it's holistic I think it's I think it's I think it's great I mean I think about the downtown you know it being being uh green and active and somehow connects you know it's it's all it's like all one body right even though you know even though the heart is different from the hand it's like it's all it's all one body I think it's great watching the clock maybe get Genesis comment make sure we're getting a couple more points can I oh sorry but it's great to hear thanks for jumping in but I just want to throw in a couple more things um Chris mentioned the idea of programming and one of the things that came up in another working group was maybe the city needs a community engagement officer or something and it just um as a hub for organizations to coordinate and you know and reach out to the community um let's see I had oh the other
thing is um the economics of parks you know in all my work in Parks funding is always a problem and it always will be but I think our Parks we should sort of look at income generation and revenue um and build it in so that you know we're not having to just count on um General um budget dollars um you know maybe maybe our Parks we should look at Revenue generators um and figure out ways to do that that's a great point though and I apologize less than a minute left I do want to make sure Janice has something again this is as Christina said this is the beginning not the end of the conversation so I really appreciate your comments Janice no I actually I'm just following with Bill and with Chris I mean I I totally agree with everything that they're saying and going to this meeting tonight that's what the people at this meeting were saying we wanted everything to be integrated and not look like you know it's not a pocket park that's just in one neighborhood how do we connect everything and I think um that's the direction I'd certainly like to go and I I believe the community would too so I'm looking forward to the workshop for the fairgrounds because I feel like we've just not been able to talk about that and I think we need to actually finally have that conversation and open the door of what it can be and it's connection to everything else that's it thank you Megan thank you everybody have we have our mandate Megan yes exciting mandate okay thank you everybody and Eliana I'm sorry
you got cut off right as you were starting and we got pulled back do you want to finish your thought s thank you do you want it Ileana will you you could also uh send an email to staff with your thoughts and then they'll share it with us yeah quickly yeah you're just starting to screen I know right yeah and and we haven't we had a notion that would certainly be the case as Christina mentioned this is the beginning of the conversation not the end um we've been we really wanted to make sure early on though the technical team had Direct exposure with gpac members to exploring more depth some of the ideas you shared with working groups so um again it's the beginning not the end but we do want to cover two additional topics this evening presenters I'm going to again ask that you keep the presentations as concise as possible you've got good ideas in there let's cover them really quickly so we have more time for discussion again about arts and culture and transportation um so with that I am going to turn it over to David from cultural Planning Group if you could introduce yourself and then present your ideas that'd be great share screen foreign would you uh do you mind if I uh share my screen oh not at all yeah so good evening everybody I'm David plattner Saunders with the cultural Planning Group I Am David we're not I'm not seeing your screen David sorry anybody else all right we'll try this again we see your entire there there we go thank you perfect yeah I took a little delay
there while the video card catches up so um again I'm David plattner Saunders with the cultural Planning Group I'm one of two consultants in our firm working on the arts and culture element for the general Plan update and um like our other technical team members I am delighted to have a chance to talk with you as gpac members tonight so to start um let's clarify a few things about arts and culture in the context of General plans arts and culture like Megan said about Parks and Recreation is not a required element for a general plan in California there are no State Standards or minimums to be met so this is not about compliance foreign has chosen to include arts and culture as an element and it did so in the previous General plan simply reflecting uh the importance of arts and culture in the community the sense of place and quality of life working group recommendations acknowledge and suggest a role for arts and culture we'll look at some of them in a minute and they are also implicated in several parts of the vision statements the city's primary focus in the Arts so far has been on public art art is required in both private and city or public real estate development and you can see on the slide a map of the current public art collection showing a very strong concentration in and near downtown now Petaluma also has a surprisingly robust creative economy those of us who just spent the last half hour with Dina have been talking about the overall economy but in talking about the
creative economy we're including non-profit Arts and Cultural organizations individual artists of all types and then for-profit creative businesses and employment and you can see from the snapshot that creative jobs make up only 10 percent of all employment in Petaluma this was a big surprise to us the totals about three thousand jobs and uh there were 138 million dollars in Creative industry earnings these are 2019 figures so just before covid so creative business in Petaluma include craft brewing you know the largest is Lagunitas uh Brewing artisanal food manufacturing foodie restaurants and design firms each have employees that with a broad range of professional creative training and skills and your second largest creative industry is artists writers and performers who are all primarily self-employed creatives here you see the map of all creative businesses in Petaluma they're found everywhere in the city this is significant first because it shows how professional creativity in many forms is integrated into Petaluma geographically economically and socially and it also suggests a wider different definition for arts and culture in the general plan so now looking at your working group findings we see first that petaluma's defining characteristics include its active and diverse Arts community traditional events and volunteerism the recommendations you created in your three Focus areas for this working group include many opportunities for arts and culture to contribute to
Improvement for example the first one in the natural and built environment recommendations is increasing walkability and social interaction these are objectives where Arts and Cultural Events Creative Design Creative Communications and public art to name just a few can be part of the solution here's a quote from the gpac most recent report and presentation to cancel acknowledging the intersectionality of General plan topics we couldn't agree more and we want to explore this kind of innovative thinking for the arts and culture element it'll be part of what we talk about this evening in our discussion group here are some key ideas for tonight's discussion first petaluma's definition of arts and culture is inclusive inclusive of multiple forms of creativity so it includes but extends Beyond traditional arts and culture second Petaluma sees itself as an Innovative City you and staff have emphasized this from the start of the process it's a core value this is illustrated by petaluma's 1976 U.S Supreme Court case limiting housing growth a landmark case through to the adoption of the urban growth boundary and many other examples the city seeks to employ Innovative practices and Views Innovative practices not just for their own sake because they view them as a way to best meet Community needs and fulfill the governmental mission and third cities are increasingly using artists and creativity in new ways to enhance the work of municipal government so arts and creativity can be
integrated into nearly all areas of the general plan let's look at a few ways cities use artists and creativity for non-arts purposes cities like Boston and Minneapolis have ongoing artists in Residence programs where artists work within a city department on a great variety of tasks artists also work on planning and design teams to enhance Place making within area planning artists and other creative professionals are often essential to the success of cultural districts and affordable live work projects and we're all familiar with the value of Arts programming and public art in parks and as we heard in the earlier presentation petaluma's Parks and Recreation Department has set a goal to improve and expand services in parks so let's look at the image on this slide it's from LA County Civic strategists program the county has about 10 artists working in County departments each year this is a transportation project where the artist is supporting project zero that's an initiative dedicated to eliminating pedestrian fatalities they found that using simple artwork made by children and their fam and their parents like the images pictured on the slide significantly increase awareness and compliance with project zero the artist Clementi Hanami had the blindingly simple idea of using art to increase relatability and draw people into the effort to eliminate fatalities especially in lower income communities in our last slide I want to tee up some discussion questions for our small group
where does creativity intersect with Mobility housing Economic Development equity and other topics in the general plan what is your highest priority for arts and culture can we expand petaluma's arts and culture element to Encompass a broader definition of definition definition of creativity you know is that appropriate for the GPU and how can we Infuse arts and creativity throughout all or most of the general plan elements and with that I will stop the share and pass it back on yeah thank you David for those who want to dive into that conversation with David we'll have an opportunity in a few minutes the first we're going to have Allison from fair and Pierce who's in a similarly short overview of some of the ideas that they're thinking about based on your work as well as their own analysis and but from City staff um Allison would you like me to share screen or you I would love it if you shared your screen for me Ron sure thank you foreign my name is Allison I'm joined here with my colleague Matt from fair and pure we work on a lot of projects throughout the Bay Area and have been involved in quite a lot of recent Transportation Planning um for Petaluma as well I'm so excited to dig in deeper with you all today um next slide so as reflected in our existing Transportation conditions assessment the Petaluma of today is currently predominantly Auto oriented and there are quite a lot of barriers to traveling across town as discussed in the recent across town workshop and that's
true both for people who are driving across down but also in particular for those who might be walking or biking but if it's been emphasized multiple times already tonight Petaluma has really ambitious climate goals in order to achieve the city's climate goals and address the climate emergency we need to encourage more people to walk bike and take transit and that requires prioritizing accessibility for these modes and roadway safety as well um next Slide the general Plan update is not alone in tackling this challenge as I mentioned there are a lot of ongoing planning efforts related to Transportation this table shows just a sampling of things that uh staff are currently working on and what the transportation factor of the general Plan update will do is provide an overarching Vision goals and direction that will help the continue guide these ongoing and also any kind of new future Transportation Planning efforts that the the city undertakes next slide so these are some of the uh things that we've heard from the gpac related to transportation in Petaluma so far and what we want to achieve through the general Plan update all of this feedback in addition to feedback associated with the activities listed on the previous slide have informed the the thinking that has gone into the key policies and strategies that we're going to be sharing And discussing with you tonight and next slide so the goals in the current General plan are focused around mode so thinking about you know
driving biking and walking Transit Etc um for this General Plan update what we are proposing is to shift the transportation goals from being focused uh on mode to instead being focused on outcomes and specifically what we've heard um it in terms of outcomes is uh achieving pass along with climate goals um promoting accessibility health and safety integrating land use and transportation and really making sure that staff can implement the policies and actions that are in the general plan um in the interest of time we're going to go through these uh pretty quickly but we can return to our next set of slides in the breakout groups and revisit any of the concepts presented uh in the next few slides so next slide um this first goal focuses on addressing cuddling with climate emergency through the lens of Transportation um through policies and actions that will make it easier for people to use non-driving modes and also by supporting the growth of electric vehicle uh in Petaluma next slide what we've also heard is that it's really important to prioritize accessibility for all nodes and for all people and so one of the important updates for the general plan is to adopt a complete framework to get guide Transportation Planning in Petaluma and the image on this slide shows an example from the city of Denver where the streets designations the industry typologies are really Guided by the adaptation land uses um so that there's a strong tie between land use and transportation another key
aspect of accessibility that we've been thinking about is um thinking about incorporating a universal basic Mobility framework so that Petaluma eliminates all barriers to Mobility we think a lot about physical barriers but this would help us to address other potential barriers such as Financial ones for example that's what from the perspective of health and safety uh potential policies would support video Zero which you all know about now and roadway safety uh and also make sure that petaluma's roadway Network can support emergency access and emergency response throughout across the city effort um as I've alluded to transportation is really closely tied to land use um and this next group of strategies addresses new land use of new land use development in Petaluma and make sure that all of these are updated so that the transportation programs and infrastructure that are associated with new land uses really help to achieve the stated goals of um climate accessibility and health and safety and really closely tied to this is how do we use the curb and how does parking affect how people travel within Petaluma next slide and finally um we've heard again and again that implementing change is really important and can be particularly challenging and so the general Plan update needs to better support staff in in taking action to achieve Petaluma Mobility goals so I know that was pretty quick but we're excited to discuss some of the these ideas further in the breakout group um to help
Focus that discussion the slide summarizes our key questions for you um that will help us further refine these Mobility policies and strategies so our outcome based goal helpful uh and understandable to you does establishing a modal hierarchy to inform um an updated complete streets framework makes sense to you finally what kind of specific Transportation Network changes should we consider including in our policies um and then also just appearing what are your priorities um is there anything we've covered here so far that um you really want to emphasize is there anything that might be missing from our list of um policies great thank you Allison nice and quick and concise and very clear appreciate it um we're going to quickly break into small groups again give ourselves about 30 minutes again in this case those of you who would like to talk about arts and culture some more with David stay right where you are for those of you who would like to jump into the conversation around Transportation along with Allison and her team join room number one um and Eric if you could give us a halfway warning around 8 25 and then a five minute warning at about 8 35 that would be super helpful I think now people have the option to move themselves to the other room break out rooms are indeed open wow people were quick to jump to transportation man are you having trouble moving yourself yeah yeah as much as I wanna thank you you're not gonna move you hope we still have some gpac members here oh
good uh so Bill Dawn Mary Christine Anna's Bill okay great got a nice critical mass David I think we're ready to go ready let me know I can share screen or you can as helpful for the to support the conversation um I'll share my screen when needed thanks so uh welcome everybody glad to have you here for the arts and culture discussion if any of you wanted to be in the transportation discussion I think there's a leave button on the bottom right it'll put you in the other group let me uh briefly show you the uh discussion questions again and we will Dive In so where does creativity intersect with Mobility housing Etc many of the different topics in the general plan what is your highest priority for arts and culture can we expand petaluma's arts and culture element to Encompass a broader definition of creativity and how can we Infuse arts and creativity throughout uh General plan unit elements so I think we have kind of a big group so let me ask if you'd like to contribute an idea please raise your hand and we'll organize our uh our conversation that way first of all let me see if there were any comments or uh questions uh coming out of the presentation I made a few minutes ago okay Phil yes thank you David a great presentation I'm just curious so I think you listed uh petaluma's employment section the the creative employment sector is roughly 10 of all workers in Petaluma is that I get that number right yes that's right what's it I don't know if you know what's it what's a
typical city is that a high number low number or we like everybody else that's a high number I mean you're a small City so the absolute numbers are not gigantic but that's yeah significant and I think it was a surprise to everybody who as we were creating the existing conditions report anyone else have comments or questions arising from the presentation before we move to our formal discussion questions foreign so you know obviously the theme one theme of the presentation was a broad broader definition of arts and culture and ways that it can intersect with other topics in the general plan you know where do you see um where do you see that intersection let's see I think I saw Christine's hand first and then we'll go to Bill so one area I see is that it definitely I mean it goes with the whole Economic Development when there was you know how do we how do we build wealth in this community and I think the the creative especially in the the food and beverage uh that that realm um in our latinx community I mean there is talk about what do we do with uh empty retail spaces what do we do with uh empty big box stores and there are examples from around the country where these spaces have been repurposed for multi-use sometimes they involve housing sometimes they involve it you know small small businesses that are international you know that are ethnic in in flavor but I think that we could that we could build that could the arts and culture could be part of Building Wealth in our our
community yeah absolutely thank you let's say I think Bill reinert you were next thank you um since we're talking about intersections between arts and culture and the general plan one of the themes that's been coming up is the idea of being a leader you know not only locally but globally and uh one thing I I don't it's definitely a crossover thing but to to somehow build into our general plan and our Charter or something we have opportunities for creativity and policy um experimental policy similar to like our quick build Street projects where we can try things out you know so our local government can be I think that would lead to more uh evolution in in the way cities work and possibly positive and Propel Luma to be a global leader um you know we need to allow for that it's really hard to change policy now and I just like to see some creativity in that um but anyway I have some other comments but I'll hold them thanks okay thank you um Janice let's go to you and then bill well I just want to go back to you know talking about transportation and arts and you know and how um it can make you know a community much safer and and I just think that's very important and I think you have to educate the public um on why it is important so I just like the idea of Arts um you know on the streets you know to slow traffic down um and I I'm just going to go back to when the McDowell intersection was done which was you know 20 some 20 years ago the biggest complaint was the kiosks on those
four corners and with those maybe they're not beautiful but with those four kiosks did it slowed traffic down so you weren't just in a blank space and so I think it's so important to have art you know with Transportation so you don't feel like you're in a blank space which makes everything more unsafe but that was just a Hot Topic 20 years ago about why would a community waste money on putting those kiosks up there and yet you know 20 years later I'm hearing this is a great idea and so it's I just want to point that out um and it does give people space to sit you know if they have to cross you know a really wide Street you know and so it's like for all ages you know to to feel safe um even walking across the street and when you have um an object there um it just gives you that a sense of safety but it really slows people down and people don't really um understand that and so I think it's really education is very important that's it yeah I agree Bill and then asaya I thought Janice was going to talk about art cars and custom cars there for a minute no no no no thanks Bill I thought you were going to steal my uh my comment but I uh um I won't say I was hurt but in your introduction about all the ways that uh the artists that are engaged in the community you didn't mention Landscape Architects or or architects and I know our work can be kind of dry but at the same time on Commercial projects that have a percentage of the of the construction costs going toward art projects it
could just as easily easily be turned into um the architecture to enhance the materials maybe that that wouldn't be affordable by the project or or enhancing the landscape creating a little um corner or something a public space but the architecture is something that affects our lives all day every day or at night too and um I think that um it can bring more art into our lives and we really consider it to have yeah no no need to argue that case um we we certainly agree with you those of us on the Consulting team absolutely is a member of the public and so I apologize you're going to have an opportunity for a public comment right after this and we're obviously if you hold your comment until then okay back to Christine then Mary so you just want to follow up on the idea of um art as education and art as information there's always this complaint around town that people don't know what's happening people you know that there could be artwork on Corners you know that would that would let people know what's coming up what's happening what's happening in your neighborhood I think about San Francisco and when there are distinctive neighborhoods those neighborhoods are called out with um cool graphics artwork but that that could be a defining characteristic of the city too we talk about wanting to appreciate our various neighborhoods and artwork is definitely a way to do that creates pride and it's just it's an identifier so I'll talk about absolutely absolutely yeah gosh I feel like
we're we're in a choir we're gonna all break into song here in a minute Mary and then back to Bill hi thank you um so we have this public art ordinance which is one percent of uh construction costs go to Art um they are the collected and held or um the applicant has the option to to build something or to put something into their new project um I think the ordinance is is good it needs to be strengthened um it needs to be supported but that's kind of more political and not necessarily the purview of the general plan um there I don't know how to do this but um we whenever we build a public facility we should of any kind I don't care if it's a restroom or a fence around a ballpark um it doesn't have to look like every Cyclone Fence in every lowest uh common denominator building because it's we've got this budget we should put art and artfulness as Bill had uh Wolford had mentioned in every uh public structure and and care more and use creativity in that way to show oh hey there now there's a great way to do a ball field I I mean I've seen these these um done and uh it just takes not just solving the problem functionally but thinking about how to bring Beauty into every aspect of our city and if it's a public facility it actually could be regulated um and pushed for um our alleys our places for our we already have graffiti in some of our alleys our alleys are garbage um dumpster holders instead of a live places where people could be that have this funk and feeling of history and
texture and um coolness and so we have places to work on that we tend to turn our backs on that's what happened with the river um Petaluma River they turn their backs on it and we're slowly starting to wake up to it and making them alive place um so I think we and I also think some street closures would create like one of those images that you showed with all those people dancing in the street we have places for that where people would naturally gather but um we you know cars are more important than people so I would love to look at new ways to take what we have and just change the um change some opportunities yeah uh one theme I'm hearing in all of your comments so far is taking a very broad mindset about how to incorporate art but also Aesthetics and design and creativity uh throughout the city bill thank you I completely agree with everything that's been said and one other thing I think we need to do is to bring back our design Review Committee that's design based rather than land use space you know when we climbed it together with the Planning Commission we sort of lost that and I also think we we need to hold out for quality and architecture and I agree with Bill's comment that you know if the one percent can be transferred to you know embellished architecture I think that's valuable I think um you know we have a great building stock of historic architecture and would be great to have some contemporary compliments um but we're not really getting a lot of great
architecture so that's one comment the other one is that we have the petalum Arts Center which I think is a fantastic organization but struggling and it's just it's pathetic that you know we as a community have such a wonderful organization that's so well loved by everybody but you know we just we're too small in town to provide the funding but I think really that's an opportunity for the city to um carry some weight there and you know if we're serious about this maybe the the Ed at the Art Center should be a city funded position and I know there are incentives already that get money and they get you know rent and things like that but let's embrace it fully anyway thank you okay yeah uh let's see Janice well I I agree with um the three last people's comments but with the one percent for art originally I I believe it was two or three percent and then it was brought down and so I think it is important to have policies that you know can't be shifted so we know you know how much we're gonna actually have for art and I think it's important one percent to me is certainly not enough um but I I like the idea you know Bill's talking about you know including art in the architecture I mean it's just it's so interesting you know to walk around and see um you know art you know when I look around and I look at buildings I look at them as art you know when I've been to other on vacations and I don't see that here and I think it's important to incorporate that um also but I mean you know
public art is important and it should include architecture but I think we really need to strengthen our um one percent for art um and I know it can't be done in the general plan but can just as long as language is in there strong language for the need for art in multiple ways yeah yeah I I certainly hear hear that Janice and I wanted to mention that we've had a number of uh formal discussions and also informal with the public art committee and staff and we will be certainly recommending in the general Plan update a new um public art master plan uh the committee really feels it's needed we think it's needed so that would be parallel to the recommendation Megan talked about to do a Parks master plan as an outcome of the general plan and and with that would um a recommendation or a number a different percentage you know for the one percent for Arc would that be included or if you what would two percent look like what could we get with two percent three percent well we haven't been through a process to formally recommend that but I can tell you that there is a trend nationally to expand from one percent to two percent simply because you know more financial muscle is needed to make a public art program do what the community wants it to so I'm sure that would be on the table as part of the parks master plan but I want to make sure you know given the tenor of all your comments so far it sounds like one of the questions we're asking you can we expand petaluma's arts and culture
element to Encompass a broader definitely definition of creativity it sounds like you agree with that idea am I reading the room the electronic room correctly are there people who disagree with that or have other other perspectives it's the choir David okay uh Sierra just gave a big thumbs up uh her thumbs up works even if her camera doesn't that's fantastic um okay so what is your highest priority for arts and culture what's a kind of must do within the general plan within this General plan element we've heard about the importance of looking at public art expanding the use of creativity throughout the build the built environment and in public facilities what else what what other priorities do you have for arts and culture bill yeah I can't help myself um but it kind of goes back to some of the other things we've talked about tonight about um Community engagement and coordination I think uh and and to pedalam Arts Center um as a hub but I think education and opportunity are things we need to look for you know give people a place to be creative and opportunities to be creative in public and um to get people excited about art um and you know those are abstract Concepts but those are priorities to me okay and when you say give people places and opportunities um what kind of places are you thinking about well like pop-ups you know like um any kind of a downtown in a urban center you know maybe there's an opportunity to have kids get together and create art on a on a Saturday and
um so there's activity there's um engagement there's interaction and there's art um so temporary things that are installations are just opportunities to get people together and that again I think something that a city program would right now we have the new heart Aluma on Keller Street and um they're sort of trying to do that kind of a thing but if we're talking about it as a city then let's let's that's something we can do yeah let's see um I think we have Bill and then Sierra you're on mute bill happens to all of us thank you I I'd like the city give more support to um cultural street festivals uh Dia de los Muertos is the one that comes to mind because it's close at hand but it's a it's a wonderful celebration but it never seems to really have a home here it's supported by the art center one year and you know kind of a loose affiliation in next year and it kind of struggles um to occur and I think it's uh too bad the other thing that I think uh falls under art is I would love to see the Downtown Association sponsor uh competition for storefronts uh window displays for the holidays there's a few uh businesses in town that do a great job decorating their windows for the holidays um Petaluma textiles comes to mind but um I think uh if they started recognizing those people they would get a much stronger following and um it would be it enticed people I think to to walk around and see what people are doing absolutely yeah Sierra I think you're next okay so this is my big Pie in
the Sky dream after listening to everyone's awesome comments and mulling over it I would like to add um something that came to mind when I was listening to everyone's ideas especially about built environment and stuff like that when one of our goals is the 15 minutes um like City the walkable community centers where every neighborhood really has its own like heartbeat and I don't know what else you do at the community center but I would like to see um just space where kids can access free or really I don't equitably priced I don't know how you do that um art classes but not just Visual Arts I would love to see like the dramatic arts I would love to see music I would love to see all these sorts of things accessible to our youngest community members but also some of our oldest community members who maybe live in that area they might even be experts in those fields they might be able to teach those kids like that would be such a great way of building community and intersecting with the design of the built environment how we're building those small community centers to really integrate with each Community spot but also when you mentioned in your presentation about um what was it artists Artisan residence I think it would be so cool to have I don't know if it's like a publicly funded position or what what it would be but multiple artists in residents who would maybe circulate through these um uh these little community centers or maybe there's one for each Community Center I don't
know and they would kind of just be there to provide enrichment care for these kids or seniors or whoever else is going there um and really and really just support a cultural or like a community culture of arts and not just visual art but all the Arts and this is something that I do like a little bit right now with the Rincon Valley School District I'm a teaching artist there my huge theater to like kindergartners and it is the most joyful process so if we could have that in walking distance in Petaluma to everyone I mean that would just be that's my Pie in the Sky dream that would be so cool that is a beautiful dream a beautiful vision and Sierra I just wanted to mention in my presentation as almost in passing I mentioned that Boston has an artist in Residence program in fact they do exactly what you're talking about they send uh teaching artists and and other kinds of artists residencies into community centers and rec centers throughout the city to do a very much a version of what you're describing yeah no kidding yeah okay um Christine and then uh Mary again so I you know when I think like what's most important to me it's kind of two-pronged I think it's really important to take advantage of the downtown space and make that really vibrant um somebody mentioned Alleyways those Alleyways need to be totally reimagined and places where people can do artwork where there can be pop-up events where there's room to interact um the area around The Trestle hopefully in the very near
future there's going to be some permanent chess tables that are going to get installed there that are designed for hopefully to encourage intergenerational activity that whole area down there is ripe for artistic development you know maybe we maybe we paint big games on the concrete and kids can play and and do artwork but but that it it needs I just see like thing things being really colorful and then that colorful aspect just permeating all through town and that there would be I hate to use the word branding because that's so corporate but that there would be there would be like an identity where people would go oh Petaluma cares about the Arts all kinds of arts and that that that would be that would be part of the fabric that would be part of the fabric of the city and we've talked earlier what in the other session and talk about holistic views you know when we need wayfinding signs for people to find bike Lanes well let's do those in a way that are colorful that that support support Petaluma as um you know a place that appreciates arts and culture but to have to have a look and feel that that touches a lot of what's going on in town Mary see I think I lost track I called on the wrong person Janice absolutely I thought it was me okay yeah yeah Barry I uh yeah I didn't hear you oh sorry I forgot to unmute um so listening to Chris and Sierra thinking about how these ideas um actually become part of a general plan and not just um ideas that somebody else has to implement that
the general plan has absolutely no control over um maybe we're talking about the Parks and Recreation um department and Staffing and asking for um that we need to create a position which I think Bill might have brought up um because I these Pie in the Sky things are are great but I just don't want us to think that they're going to happen without actual policy that changes I think the personnel and um and I don't know how it's written you you hopefully know how to do that um I'm thinking about also what Chris said about how do you look make it look like Petaluma cares about art well first of all gateways um when you enter certain towns you can tell right away that they have a strong art component we don't have that um and we but we could in the public art master plan actually which I worked on um and I'm glad it's going to get updated uh positions aren't we need to implement it we need to make sure that we are moving along with the implementation of these things because these aren't new ideas they just don't happen um but I think uh you know these kinds of expansive ideas the 15-minute neighborhood uh creating places allowing open space for Creative Theater Arts and unexpected things to have happen first we have a place and then we have a program those two come together and it works it's all okay thank you let's see Janice and then Christine I think we're closing in on our time I'll just be quick but I think it's important um you know to really work with our school boards on
this also you know to integrate you know if we're looking at art for kids you know the schools and the cities have always been it's supposed to be separated and I feel like we're at a time when that separation isn't happening anymore and I think there can be a real collaboration um you know working with the schools um you know for kids even learning art and being able to produce art for the community and I'm not talking about the benches that you know they used to build that were uncomfortable but it was still a community art and they could be recreated in a different way but I think it's just working with our schools also is important okay yeah thank you let's see I see we're counting down about the last minute Christine it looks like you get the last word today uh so I I don't know whether this is part of the general plan or not but as I'm listening to all these great conversations tonight I go what's the Park and Recreation Department what's this department what's that department like does the does the city need to reorganize itself Department wise that you know is is what we have does it make sense does it work and I know it's like it would be a hullabaloo of a project but I'm I'm just I don't know that the structure and the organization that we have now Works going into the future [Music] yeah another topic that came up um in our conversations with staff and the commission committee I just want to thank everybody and and David just to close I think you have like a big
thumbs up and like go even more ambitious so so you have free license thank you everyone appreciate the conversation tonight yeah it looks like everybody's back in the main room um thank you again uh technical team members and members of the gpac I know the two groups I sat in lots of very robust comments lots of great ideas a lot of synergy I think the consultants in the team rooms I was in I think we're leaving with even more great creative ideas for to to integrate into the policy Frameworks that they're working on so thank you everybody um Eric we're now at the point for public comment if you could facilitate that for us please right and I've corrected my clock to reflect the correct time of two minutes um I see one hand raised Darren with hewson I've asked you to unmute you'll need to unmute yourself thank you Eric I will say that I sat in on the park committee as well as the transit committee I appreciated the robust discussion from some of our Petaluma luminaries here in this gpac I will say for Park metrics I know we're trying to figure out metrics to measure Parks I think low hanging fruit is the health of the trees in the Parks as well as an accompaniment to that that I think would set Petaluma apart in terms of how seriously we take ecological and environmental health would be to add in some element of soil science you know going beyond the psk the metrics that you use in agriculture that is measuring soil nutrients and even just going to simple analysis of soil
microorganisms you know the spectrum of bacteria and fungal composition generally more bacteria Rich soils supporting kind of shrubbier less tree-like plants and then fungal compost soil compositions supporting healthier trees so I would love to see the metrics and parts be based around on the health of the Flora maybe the fauna and the fungi from the transit committee I want to elevate the idea of micro Transit but more broadly I just want to comment too on just the public input in this process I know we have had a chance to comment I would have loved to participate in those discussions that were going on I know this is the only chance for the gpac to have some of this discussion with its members as well but you know a lot of big issues brought up at Council a lot of citizen-led issues like Riverfront moratoriums issues that you know have been brought forth have been relegated to the general plan process saying well public we can't do anything show up to the general plan and it feels hard to engage and push some of those issues through when there isn't a chance to talk and participate in those discussions I know there's time limitations vast amounts of materials covered and we're just getting started but that would be General feedback I have just because again some issues get tabled to the general plan and I think the public wants to have the chance to to see that through great thank you Darren up next is Susan Kirk's followed by uh bed that protects wild Petaluma Susan I've
asked you to unmute you'll need to unmute yourself thank you um well this was an interesting meeting to attend and as a member of the public and listen to the discussions so I'll just share a few few items of feedback from the the work the subgroups that I was in um you know I was pleased to hear in the early discussion about the natural environment once again along with Equity guiding the um being the foundation for pretty much all processes from that and I'm glad to hear Wildlife corridors mentioned again so I'll just share with the Consultants when you're ready I'd be pleased to meet with you to share with you the information about our Wildlife corridors and Petaluma Valley it's actually pretty straightforward and can be used as the land use planning tool and for one of this connectivity um well one of the connectors that you discussed earlier the information you had in your um earlier version uh about Petaluma being adjacent to the cinema Valley Wildlife Corridor was actually completely inaccurate so um I think that the community will be pleased to see and begin to understand where our Wildlife corridors are and also where Crossings are along Highway 101 that need to be modified um then let's see oh on economic development oh I really want to see our city expand Economic Development and I would like for the Consultants to reach out to mioco center of miyoko's Creamery for some new uh new business ideas and certainly what the future will be for agriculture and then lastly
on Transit I have 15 seconds I liked John shrimp's comments because um he mentioned he's not talking with voters than I am also so I would just like for you all to note that the voters are not happy about Transportation thank you [Music] okay thank you for your comments Susan up next is Bev at protect wild Petaluma who I believe is Beverly Alexander I Bev I've asked you to unmute you'll need to unmute yourself okay now I'm unmuted I tried three times and it kept saying that I wasn't allowed to um so I heard the idea of having um signs I was thinking that um you know kind of like we have way signs that at community centers and places where things things are happening at Kenilworth there should be signs outside that say what the activities are for that day so when people come by they can see it and also uh maybe the city could have daily online announcements too about what's happening and where it's happening and I think that we could look at what John Crowley is doing with the Aquas um and and do something like that where people can always check the website and see what's happening it doesn't have to be in the newspaper um I think it would be nice also if we had signs that taught about our surroundings all over the city uh similar to what is at Ellis Creek it could be partly historical partly about the fauna and Flora that are presently here and also about the ones that used to be here I would like to see um something like the coastal commission for the river we could have a
river commission to protect the river environment and um to have projects go through an approval process with the river Commission um I like the idea of the neighborhood centers um and I like the idea of if we could have community centers in each neighborhood to put some emphasis on culture sharing um to let people um learn about each other's cultures and that's it thank you great thank you Bev up next is Dwayne followed by Veronica Olson Dwayne I've asked you to unmute you'll need to unmute yourself uh thank you very much um yeah I appreciate all the the good input that was here um privacy on the question of Economics I was not I would like to know if there's information available on the specific type of jobs people are commuting here for um it's it's nice to reach out to bring additional employers here but it would also be very nice to design our housing so as to provide housing for the people who are already working here so they don't have to commute and I don't know whether that's um what in what range do we need the houses that they can afford or whether we don't build enough of the type they would like to live in but we don't build it enough of the type of communities they would like to live in but I would like to know who who is commuting here and how we can help out uh see that they are well housed and the second point I would make would be on Transportation the major problem with with transportation in the last hundred years is we've externalized the cost to an
extent extreme amount and wherever possible we should just oppose the the subsidies I hear people complain that we have schools um the traffic becomes bad after school but I would ask what would you expect if we subsidized parking at the high school and then complain that we have too many people driving to the high school they we continually make decisions like that that cause the problem and then wonder why we have a problem so thank you very much for your work [Music] great thank you for your comment Dwayne up next is Veronica Olson followed by Isha Gonzalez Veronica I've asked you to unmute you'll need to unmute yourself foreign thank you so much for all the great discussion and work um I wanted I was on the Parks and Recreation um group and one of the things I I keep hearing is about one of the issues in the city is the maintenance of the parks but I'm I'm always bothered by that on on one level in terms of our future planning because um if we're really going to start um changing our parks to be climate smart Parks we're going to have to work on soil we're going to have to go to more native plantings we're going to have to get away from grass and pesticides and heavy watering um so like our entire focus of how we build parks and what our philosophy is on Parks and how that connects to our other Greenways and green areas is super important in addition to that is how does that work with our catchment of water so forth so I just wanted to say that that's a problem but we're
probably going to be automatically solving it if we are if we are adhering to our climate goals um and that would include really really looking into regenerative practices and permaculture and soil augmentation um in terms of the um design of the parks I'd like to also put forth that natural elements um going for more natural sort of oriented parks and and getting away from the plastic kind of playground typology um would also be in in alignment with that um I guess I'm running out of time but I also wanted to say on Transportation with 15-minute neighborhoods um that there'd be a localization of places and they're there for people to go to so there isn't going to be as much of a need to Traverse all the time across town thank you thank you for your comment Veronica up next is Isha Gonzalez I've asked you to unmute you'll need to unmute yourself good evening um I apologize for any backfeed um I would like to Echo what uh Mr Darren Rock Houston said in terms of participation and how it would have been nice to be able to participate in these conversations as a member of the public um Mr Whitmore I'm now in the tub with my son I would have appreciated getting these words out sooner um especially being a long time resident I'm a 26 year old mother of two toddlers who go to school in town and I live over by the memorial dog park so by very busy Lakeville Street where these projects will wind up getting implemented I just wanted to say that there is so much room to implement the
Arts in these projects um I don't know if you guys have heard of the Bay Area mural project or um if you guys are aware of the several non-profits in town like life on Earth art um who specialize in making large installation art pieces um but I love what Janice was saying as far as expanding the budget for that it would be great if if we could bolster the artistic Community by creating Equitable pay for those artists who participate in these projects I know that the under Secretary of Health and Human Services is looking for projects to invest in in terms of rehabilitating underserved populations so you could create Community engagement and involvement through these projects it just I would love to see way more enthusiasm behind it as well as yeah more public participation I'm going to have to get back to my son in the bathtub but yes open up more room for public comment please [Music] great thank you for your comment Isha I'm not seeing any additional hands raised um I'll go ahead and stop sharing my screen and pass it back to wrong all right thanks um I am trying to share my screen okay there we go um so they're my final two agenda items folks was General gpac discussion about um the four topics we presented tonight and then also final gpac thoughts and one specific question as part of that second piece that we're interested in given as we all experienced tonight the challenge of trying to cover lots of different topics in the limitations of a it's already a two and a half
hour meeting we're curious whether people are open to a longer meeting in November I think we actually have additional topic more topics to cover that night and so so as you as you're reflecting on tonight's conversations the substance of it we definitely want to hear your comments on that but also if you have any thoughts on whether you'd be open to a longer meeting in November that would be helpful as well so again General discussion and comments about all the issues we talked about tonight in our any intersectionality additional observations people have that they didn't have a chance to share during the small groups bill go ahead uh not so topic specific but you mentioned the future meetings um a couple of the sessions I was involved in we were just getting going around you know 20 minutes into it so I I would not be in favor of having longer meetings if it meant just packing in more topics we need we need fewer topics and more time to discuss them I think to to make it really meaningful that that's my comment Roberto go ahead yeah this is a quick question uh the exact you know the comments that were provided in another meeting that were I guess for meant to be forwarded here from the general public how are those filtered through if they come up somewhere else do they get emailed uh and then addressed during the topic I know we have like on the website you know emails from people who have responded and we get those but for stuff like that that's you know impacting like the
discussion today on Transportation do those get for instance to the group that's you know was Consulting us today or how would those get you know heard I get since they weren't allotted for here today I'm one of someone from the city wants to respond to that protocol for those sorts of comments sure yeah we we collect all of the comments that we get and we make sure that we share them with the Rainy team and we have a place where we're storing all of the comments and then uh if there's a comment that's specific to a consultant we also include them when we received the comment and I will also add that there's been a couple things that have come up that we will get into with this with the general plan and the general plan advisory committee and um and some of them we just haven't yet so there's a lot of things that like come up at city council for instance you know the the conversation about the crosstown connectors and and Rainier and are we going to move forward a different uh Transportation network with this new general plan than what we had with the old one well we're not quite there yet right we're just starting to dip our toe into talking about Transportation so there are some things that I know are referenced and people are anxious to get get kind of dive into and we will get there and we're getting there um so just just it's it's not it's not um it's not that we're not listening it's that we're still it's still premature to kind of get into some of the detail of it I
appreciate the clarification yeah I only ask because I can't attend every other meeting so I was just curious of the logistics but yeah I understand Heather how the the process where they might be relevant later on and stuff like that so they're being documented so that that's good to hear so thank you great thank you Dave yeah this building off of what bill was just saying probably like most of us here I'd be happy to engage in longer conversations on some of these topics but I'd be very hesitant to have the meetings go beyond two and a half hours or just it gets gets old um if we had to add a second meeting two months once in a while I know it'd be hard to make it all make the schedules work but I would be supportive of that thank you done can you unmute America there we go okay that works um yeah I just want Heather said I was going to say almost exactly what what Heather was saying um we'd had a good presentation to the city council the other day on the connectors we also have friends at the Panama river which has started a presentation on the um the upper river area uh which are both of those topics would be transformative for this city and I think I would like to make sure that those Concepts get included in a discussion here to see what wanted direction is for the general plan forward so I just want to make sure um those two two things we get on the agenda here and that we as a group say we agree with what city council uh said and uh what's been presented by City staff
is it what direction do we need to go in plus the plus this new concept of the park so those are critical key things that we need to make sure happen thank you John any additional thoughts related before topics we addressed this evening or thoughts on future meeting format no just uh the topics are going to be different right next week we're not revisiting these correct yeah I mean based on tonight's experience and some of your feedback we'll you know think again about how best uh keep your involved in these substantive conversations yeah it's kind of the tentative plan is land use natural resources adaptation and safety and I'm forgetting a topic uh sorry it's all right wrong they're different right so yeah yeah it's a different set of topics what we're trying to do is provide this touch point for Consultants while they're working on the graph Frameworks to help them confirm they're on the right track the group so I was in tonight that was sounds like definitely the case but we would like as quickly as possible to get you something in writing to look at and respond to and dive into even deeper and so what we'll be talking about is how to both keep the process moving along and most efficiently and effectively engaging the gpack while we're doing so your feedback has been helpful any other comments I just want to say I have really appreciated Aaron's thumbs up through this meeting tonight she has been on point with her thumbs up thank you Aaron why thank you heather okay I've
been seeing no additional hands um Christina or Heather you want to just close us out sure I'll start thank you all for hanging with us through a lot of varied content and for giving us your feedback uh you know do feel free to send me any any additional thoughts that come up and I'll relay them to the team and we will get you materials shortly on our next set of topics this really is an exciting time to to shift from being focused on Outreach and visiting and then housing to to all the different pieces of the general plan and we really look forward to digging into this with you over the next few months and yes thank you gpac members all thoughtful comments as usual and also just thanks to folks from um cpg fair and peers strategic economics and Ramey for taking time tonight and for all the thoughtful work you've been doing and I hope you found it useful to hear directly from yeah gratitude to everyone that participated tonight thank you okay with that thank you all recording stopped thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you