City Council - Regular Meeting

led by myself. So, please stand if you are able and join me in saluting our nation's flag. I pledge allegiance.

Hey, thank you. Uh, roll call, please. Council member Funk here. Council member Nuome here. Council member Peak here. Mayor Pro Timerez here. Mayor BBO here. All present.

All right. Thank you. Well, if you are attending in person this evening or if you're listening through one of the many avenues you can receive the city council meeting, welcome to everybody. Uh we will begin uh now with our consent calendar. Our consent calendars consist of items that are considered routine and non-controversial by the staff and we act will be acted upon uh by a single motion of the city council unless an individual council member wishes to request an item for separate consideration and we will take public comment on the consent agenda. So I'll start by asking if there's any member of the uh council wishing to pull an item for separate consideration or question. All right. Thank you. With that, we'll see if there's any public comment on our consent agenda. Anybody want wishing to approach the uh podium on items one through four? D1 through 4. Okay, seeing none, we'll return it to council for a motion.

Move approval of consent agenda. I'll second. Okay, we have a motion by council member Funk and a second by Mayor Promanderas. Roll call, please. Council member Funk, yes. Council member Nuome, yes. Council member Peak, yes. Mayor Promanderas, yes. Mayor Broau, yes. Motion passes unanimously.

Okay. Thank you. We will move on now to updates from the city manager, Mr. Lewis. Thank you, Mayor and members of council. Welcome to the holiday season in Atascadero. Right. As you look outside our windows, it's absolutely gorgeous. We are really pleased to have garden lights and winter nights. The council energized the suntan garden with the help of children on Friday night. We have over 3,000 lights on our trees and it looks just like a Hallmark movie. I've been hearing that a lot lately and that was kind of the look we were going for. So, uh, thank you to our lighting sponsors who bring this display to life with generous contributions from Central Coast Community Energy, Souza, PG&E, and others. And so, um, really really appreciate that. And, um, it's beautiful and it'll be on display through January 11th. So, we really hope that you stroll the lights often and then eat dinner or, uh, make a nice purchase downtown while you're enjoying that. We had a tremendous walk around the lake, too. I think the whole city was there last Saturday. Uh beautiful weather, lots of lights and it was quite crowded around the lake and uh Santa made an appearance there as well. So, uh we're well into the holiday season. Winter Wonderland is coming this Friday uh for an exciting snow driven event uh uh from 5 to 9:00. We'll have over 70 tons of snow this Friday and uh that will be featuring a sled run and uh massive snow play areas on Entrada. Santa will once again kick things off with the ride down that slide and we always appreciate that he rides down safely so he can deliver toys later. Uh the Sen Gardens will be a holiday wonderland with vendors and rides and events. Santa will be at city hall until 8:00 p.m. Uh and then you'll enter Santa's area through the North Pole entrance on the West Mall side. And I really want to thank the Kuanas Club of Aascadero for their work in building the massive snow slide. Uh it is quite a feat. will be out there starting around 10 am on Friday. Uh and then Questa Springs Ice and Atascular Hay feed for supplying the the snow and the hay that does that. The event is free to the public and again I encourage you to

visit uh our shops while you're down there. Many of the vendors have painted their windows. There's a competition going if you have seen some. There's a great Darth Vader one on El Camino at Carbon 5 which is kind of cute. And uh just give a look at those to on Friday. Holidays aren't over yet. Holiday Magic is at the zoo, Central Coast Zoo, on December 20th from 10 to 1. This is when we give all of our wonderful animals uh presents and they get to enjoy those presents by opening them up and seeing a lot of neat things. You can actually we have an Amazon wish list uh that you can actually go onto Amazon.com under Central Coast Zoo and uh purchase uh neat feeding things and and toys and enrichment activities for our animals. And animal enrichment is a very important part to being an accredited zoo. So, we make sure that we track and stimulate the animals and try and create natural um activities for them uh as they go throughout their day. The zoo will be dressed up with holiday decorations, holiday music, and magic with Andy Morris. That is always one of my favorite things. And we have great gift ideas to check out in the gift shop with Santa. And one of the best gifts is a season pass, a membership uh all year long to enjoy the zoo. We have a neat thing we're trying this year. The Itascadero Police Department is reaching again into our community, which is wonderful. Crafts with cops. How about that? Um, I don't think they're making toy guns, though. I think that they are going to have a fun-filled day where kids and officers can connect on Tuesday, December 23rd. So, this is a really neat thing right before Christmas Eve and Christmas. And uh you can go to the community center from 12 to 2. We'll have free hot chocolate. It's free entry. What they are making are wooden door hangers, Christmas cards, coloring stations, and uh you can decorate your own magical elf tote bag or elf socks. I think the mayor would look great in elf socks. Perhaps uh we can go together. This sounds, but we're not free because we're not kids, so we'd have to pay, I guess. But there's a special guest appearance, too, uh at this crafts with cops. I really thank the police

department uh for doing this and engaging the community and reminding people that our police department uh are wonderful people too and we appreciate them sharing with our families. Let's see. Man, there's more going on. New Year's Eve, join us at the Central Co Zoo for a countdown to New Year at noon instead of midnight. So, this is for little ones can enjoy. Uh from 10 to 1, we'll have a ball drop uh with and cider to at noon, but the events from 10:00 to 1 free uh with admission or Zoom membership. So, we'll have some uh party poppers and different things and it'll also be again festivities for the animals. So, another fun activity and this is I think is one of the new things we're trying to do to continue to build interest uh in the zoo and attract uh even more families. Uh next slide I want to talk about. We had discussed um the wastewater task force a couple meetings ago and I think it's really we're trying to build awareness in the community that we do need a new wastewater plant. We need it now and we have significant environmental regulations being placed on us by the state in our new plant that uh will make it a quite a endeavor a very expensive investment for us and so uh we have selected per the wastewater task force uh this contract was something I could sign as city manager but I want to share it with the council that this work has been done. We have selected a high qualified consultant uh to conduct a customer user classification study. this study and this is really important because we want to make sure we will need to make rate adjustments and they are going up to pay for the debt service on the new plan. However, I think the community uh is owed a really hard look and the council has tasked staff with making sure that the rates are as accurate and low and and um being charged to the user for what they use as possible. So really trying to recover what people use in the wastewater system. And so this study will evaluate our existing rate categories and look at a variety of equitable user classifications, proportionate water contributions that

we could apply to future rates. The council will receive that study uh in early spring and uh make a selection on the model that you think most represents uh and is the fairest model. We will also uh ask for the endorsement of the wastewater task force. The city is also working with the task mutual water company. We really appreciate the water company will be allowing us to use water use records by category. So not specific people's records, not specific accounts, but restaurants on average use this and dry cleaners use this and that will be very helpful and helping us to uh check our accuracy. So um HDR engineering has been selected to provide these services and work will commence this month. uh the East Mororrow Road winter stabilization repair. I wanted to share uh there were concerns from residents about Mororrow Road, the East Moral Road that was damaged in the storm uh a couple years ago. Uh we have contracted with Kirk Construction to install winterization improvements to prevent slide from expanding uh and to ensure driver safety. Uh these improvements were completed in early December and included uh repaving in the pavement area damage by the slide. So you can see that we've also instituted measures to prevent water from infiltrating into the slide area and some modest drainage improvements in K rail. The slide is budgeted uh for full repair when the street is rehabilitated in 2030. However, I will be bringing item to you next month. Uh it is only fair that this is covered by the Federal Highway Administration as an alternate route to 41. It's we have San Marcos's covered, but this street is widely used when there's accidents and road closures on 41 at that spot as an alternate route. CHP routinely uses this and I think we have a very good argument that this should be covered by that. So we will be bringing a resolution to you have to consent to that uh and pursuing that funding first. That I think is only uh only right. So I want that neighborhood to know and I want the council to know that we have not forgotten East Mororrow Road. We are doing work there and we are pursuing a full rehabilitation of that that portion of the road. Another road we worked on, Santa Rosa Road on West

Front. Uh, multiple drivers have impacted the pedestrian safety railing here. And, uh, this has been hit, I think, three times since in the last two years. Uh, and we have repaired it and repaired it. We worked with Porter Construction to repair the handrailing and install warning signs to improve pedestrian safety and visibility. Uh, and we did just complete these improvements. So, many people ask about this, too. Uh, you've never fixed that. You we actually have fixed it and then it gets hit again. So, I think we want to continue to talk about this. uh the the last driver uh it was uh an accident that was careless and we are pursuing cost recovery for this work if people would be curious about that. Uh but that is something we've done. I want to speak quickly as I wrap up about uh we have received some concerns about the fiber installations on the west side and the polls that have been popping up as astounded is putting in the fiber. First of all, this is a really good investment in our this is bringing competition and very high quality fiber optic network to a rural area that will be reliable and have greater connectivity speeds of up to 2,000 uh bits per second. And so that's important. U it does uh include temporary pole installation. So the idea and and they're here to speak tonight, but they are installing this because they want to get this up and running and introduce this internet. And you'll hear there's actually some discounts for seniors. This is a really good thing for our community so they can be connected to uh the the the world through the internet. Uh there'll be over 230 mi of cabling uh going in above ground to the end of 2026. The goal is to share poles and use poles and so I'll let them speak to that. Um but more so people have asked what can the city do? Can we uh get these polls? Can we get this undergrounded? Can we And the answer is really no. California legislature passed into law Senate Bill 378 and Assembly Bill 965. In the past few years, it outlined a need to upgrade current communication networks to higher speed fiber optic networks to facilitate growing community needs like remote work, distance learning uh for students,

emergency response, commerce and etc. The bills push cities and counties to facilitate the permitting and installation process in the most cost-effective and expeditious way possible. We must do that. And so the utility companies coming forward present the plan and and we must by law allow that. State and federal legislation encourages digital access and part of that support limits our ability to regulate installation. So I appreciate that Astound has representatives here tonight to speak to what they're doing and what their goal is. I think it'll alleviate a lot of the concerns uh that we have in our community. I did want to share we received a note from our federal lobbyists today just to kind of talk about this. many of the big utilities uh and especially uh the telecommunications companies because there is such a push to get internet to all um are working they don't want to work through cities there's tens of thousands of us and they really looking for state and federal preeemption this is a trend that we're even seeing now in Washington DC the federal communications commission has released a notice of proposed rulemaking called build America eliminating eliminating barriers to wireless deployments this will significantly restrict uh cities and states further from telecommunications installations. And so uh the bill uh has is moving quickly. We are watching it. Uh National League of Cities, US Conference of Mayors and National Association of Counties are supporting a joint letter in opposition. Uh that this may go too far. But I wanted to share that because even today rulemaking is occurring in Washington further eradicating our ability to uh represent residents and make sure these are done in a in a way that uh is has some process. So this is actually removing more process. There isn't much left. Uh but this bill would pretty much remove the rest of it. So I did want to share that with the council and the community uh that this is what the state and federal government is doing. Uh we're also seeing it in housing, but that's a whole another topic. So anyway, uh for questions, I'm happy to answer those. And for city and city sponsored events, you can always go to visitaskcadero.com and I'll finish on behalf of the staff

wishing the council and the community a very merry Christmas and a happy holiday, a very happy new year. I'm confident 2026 will be a spectacular year for us. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Lewis, if you could go back to that map. Uh, and if and if you don't know the answer to this, maybe the estound representative can speak to this because I know we can't discuss this item since it's not on the agenda, but we can ask a question, I think. And and if you could address what does the blue and the red mean on, you know, little spots on the map. Well, we can we can wait then till Mr. Buckingham comes to speak. You don't have to answer it right now. Just be please be prepared to answer that question when you do speak. Um, okay. And if you could back up to the um um Santa Rosa West Mall slides or picture there. Um this the first picture on the left is obviously on on West Front uh and and the other one is on Santa Rosa, I assume, just above uh the gym there. Okay. So, got it. And so both both uh streets fronts have been fixed as far as the railing is concerned. Okay. Excellent. All right. Thank you. Do any other members of the council have any other questions for the city manager? Council member Newsome,

thank you. You were speaking about Mororrow Road and the need for using that as a emergency response um just in time because there was a rollover this morning and PD had the road closed doing one way as they're trying to retrieve those out of the ravine. So, I'm glad that you brought that to to light. It seems a lot of people are challenged with that area, especially coming downhill. So, thank you.

Questions of council. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. And our next item is community forum, and community forum is reserved for persons wanting to address the city council on any matter not on the agenda, but over which the council has jurisdiction. The Brown Act does prohibit the council from discussing matters not on the agenda. However, we may at our discretion ask council ask staff to contact a speaker or to ask answer a brief uh question uh regarding issues raised during community forum at our at our discretion. Speakers are limited to three minutes and we ask you to please state your name for the record. Uh so if anybody wishing to come forward and speak at community forum, please approach the podium. We'll begin with our first speaker and thank you. Thank you for coming. All right, now it's on. You guys hear [gasps] me? All right. Yes. Okay. Uh, good evening, mayor, council members, and city staff. My name is Stfan, and I'm a local resident here that was affected by an illegal fireworks incident this past July 4th. I wanted to sincerely thank you for your time, attention.

Our next agenda item is discussion of the ordinance regarding fireworks. So, if if your comments pertain to that, I'd like you to hold off to that agenda item if that would be okay. That's fine. Okay. Thank you. Because

this is community forums for items not on the agenda. Good evening, council and mayor bro. Wendy Lewis with El Camino Homeless Organization. I'm here today really to offer um a lot of thank yous. Um we are coming off of Thanksgiving where we all got to celebrate with our families and uh enjoy a delicious meal. And that was happened at both Echoes because of the community support. So we also huge thank you to everybody who came out. We had the most spectacular turkey trot. It was our seventh annual and those that have have attended it keeps growing and growing and growing each year. We had over 1,500 attendees and it was just the spirit of this community. That's all I can say. It felt good. You saw friends you hadn't seen. We now have families that have made it their annual tradition and the most important thing is that the funds that were raised will really support the services that Ekko's providing to um help people have a pathway back into housing. Um, it was the most successful from a donation as well. We raised over $100,000 and that huge thank you to the Beloved Foundation who matched the community donations which was $36,000. And so again, um, tonight is a night of thanks. Um, I also want to thank one of our partners that I didn't realize was going to be here. Um, Mr. Buckingham from Astound. They also have been donating services to Echo for over a decade, which helps us not only have incredible services to do all the work we need to do on our computers and laptops and telephones, but they also save our budget, which helps us put that savings into very coste effective programming that we offer at Echko. And then I also want to thank um just the community, our incredible staff. Um, we're coming to the year end and all the celebrations and we already have filled over 40 children who are staying with us their holiday wishes. So, all of the

children are taken care of. Their parents will be able to get those gifts and give to their kids so the kids can have that special celebration. We're currently working on filling wishes for adults. So, um, at Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, we try to give something new to every adult that comes to us. And sometimes that's one of the most moving things we see. Someone who hasn't received a gift in years. And showing that we care really is one of those steps that helps people get ready for services and into our 90-day program, which we want to thank the community for all of that support. As well, we have um exceeded last year's record numbers. So, between our shelter services and outreach and our homeless prevention, we've helped 370 individuals or children either find their way into stable housing or stay in stable housing. And so, just want to thank the community. I'm out of time, so I can't tell a heartwarm story with the partnership with the police department. So, I will come back in the new year and do that one because it was really amazing. And if you want to see it, jump on Ekko's Facebook page and read Robert's success from a couple weeks ago. Would not have been possible without the collaboration we have with the city and this incredible police department. Thank you.

Thank you and thank you for the update on Ekko's activities. Uh Mr. Buckingham.

Hi. Good evening. Um, I'm Jeff Buckingham with Stound and, uh, just by way of introduction, uh, I've been in the telecommunications business on the Central Coast since about 1983. Uh, you know, we started a little company called Call America and got to know many of you people and, uh, o over all those years. Um through that course of that time we had a number of different companies culminating in coming together as digital west. Um we uh started building fiber optic networks and one of the things we figured out pretty quickly is it's really really expensive to do that and we were having a really difficult time figuring out how to fund it. And so um we met the guys from Astound and at a conference and really liked them and they had some uh interest in some network down in Santa Maria they came to visit us. We enjoyed working together and decided hey let's come together they said if you join up with us we will build out fiber to as much of the central coast as we can and that's really how the partnership between a town and the city of Tasero started and I think the the city of Tasero did some really smart things we partnered together to build initially to build a network to all the city facilities but when we built it we got some grant money to do that. We had in mind that we would build out to the rest of the city. So once that happened, two other things came into play. One is we got a grant to build some underserved areas of a tasker and pasarobels. But the big one was astound agreeing to put in about $24 million to build out to most of the homes and businesses in Atascadero.

And that's that's astound money coming in uh from investors to build it. So what we're our plans uh are to serve about 12,700 homes uh in Atascadero. Right now we're uh working on the kind of the west northwest side of 41 and highway 101 headed out in that direction and actually selling services today. the cost of service. To give you an example, someone can buy service that's a gigabit up and a gigabit down for $40 a month. We also have senior discounts of 1995 and 99.95 at lower speeds for lower income folks to be able to serve them. Uh, everybody in Atascadero who's can be served, every house will be visited by my friend when Carlos Herrera here or one of his co-workers and anybody can call 8053931367 to speak to him directly and work out any individual details or ask any individual questions about their homes. Oh, and to answer the question, Charles, the the blue is aerial and the red is underground. Okay, thank you. Didn't didn't know that. All right, thank you very much. Thank you for coming and speaking. And our next speaker, please.

Hi, my name is Ron Barber. Um, I I appreciate that Old Marorrow was already brought up and I'm I'm a resident on Old Marorrow and I was walking on the the 16th of of November and uh at 3 PM I saw the police roll up uh uh 41 and close the road at that time and I had 163 cars pass me as I walked back down Old Maro. So, we do appreciate that a lot of traffic gets detourred onto that road then. And you know, I appreciate that it's one lane, but that's for 2 263 feet. I measured it today. Um, and but the um there's another section where it has a a cliff that's within 3 ft of it. Um, and much of the road is in very very bad shape. So, it's not it isn't just that one section. And I appreciate that what was done in in November, I mean, sorry, December to improve it. So, it does look pretty good, but the rest of the road is in very bad shape. And we certainly can't be waiting five years to get that road repaired as it's currently budgeted. So

thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

Good evening, mayor, council members, everybody. Uh my name is William Arfeld. I am the property owner of where the business the artery is located at 9135 Santa Margarita Road. I'm here to object to the loading zone that was installed next to my business. On August 30th, 2023, my wife Barbara Nunees, myself met with Nick Dar and Jim Lewis. We met for about an hour and we expressed to them how important it was to have parking next to our business because our business is ba you know a big part of it is based on picture framing and picture framing carrying it from your car to your business is awkward and so the loss of the parking next to our business was a significant impact on us. At that meeting Jim Lewis put his initials on the design plan and said that the parking would be restored. Nick Dar also said the same thing. He said the whole area parking would be restored. A short time later, I get an email and it shows that instead of parking being restored, we have now yellow paint. Well, yellow paint means loading zone does not mean parking. And it limits a customer to 10 minutes. Well, 10 minutes is seriously inadequate for our business. And if you walk around our neighborhood, you all are I pretty confident most of our neighbors would say the same thing. We tried to negotiate about this. Numerous emails. I sent a letter um and I got no response after well initially I got a response that this is done and we're not going to talk about anymore from Jim Lewis. And after that I have not received any communication from the city staff at all. That's been over a year now. So, it really feels odd that

our our CI civil servants who are here to serve the public won't communicate with me. I've been very reasonable. I have not tried to take up everybody's time. Um, and I know this is just one small little piece of the puzzle on traffic way, but there's more to it. Um, other businesses are now uh circulating a petition to address this issue in a bigger picture on trafficway. So, it's not just us. This is a problem on trafficway that needs to be addressed and it needs to be addressed soon in my opinion. So to me it's weird that they won't communicate with us. Um so that's why I'm here. I didn't want to do this. I'd rather have dealt with this in a private meeting and and try to resolve things. Um, recently there was a sign installed next to our business and we were warned that that the sign was going to come in about a year ago. Uh, we tried to negotiate a change to the sign to make it longer for the customers to have time to come into our store, but uh, they refused to do it. And now that sign was placed in a location that blocks our egress to our back door. I see that I'm out of time. I I'll stop. But I I think that's a serious problem, the blocking of our egress. and I'm going to aggressively challenge the city on that point.

Any questions? Uh, no. I know that copious amounts of times copious amount of staff time has been spent on this issue and as well as my time. Um, so thank you for your comments. May I respond to that? Uh, no. I think we're done. Okay. Noted.

All right. Seeing no other speakers, we will close community forum. We will move on to the next agenda item. G1 fireworks and consideration of a social host ordinance and this item will be presented by the police chief Dan Settles. Good evening, Mayor Barau, city council. As mentioned, I uh will be uh introducing a urgency ordinance that will regulate social hosts who allow illegal fireworks. But before I do that, I was hoping that I could give you a little background. Make sure I got this one. Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. Before I uh here, is that better? Can you all hear me now? All right. So, before I get started, I want to give you a little background on how we got here. Uh there currently is an ordinance that's set in place uh that makes uh the use of any type of firework in the city of Tascadero illegal. However, there's been some issues with uh our ability to enforce that u ordinance. Specifically, uh the issues that we have when it comes to enforcement is we would need to identify specifically who it was that actually set that uh firework off uh in order to give that person a vi a violation to give them a citation. Um, additionally, um, generally speaking, when we have something that's a misdemeanor or administrative fine, you would have to the the the officer that's actually given the citation would have to be the person that actually sees the violation. Um, so both of those tend to be uh an issue when it comes to fireworks because a typical type of call that we have for fireworks is fireworks that are going off in a in a neighborhood and the police respond to this and they're able to confirm that fireworks, yes, we're going off and they're able to identify where it was coming from, perhaps even identify who's the person that's in charge of the

social event. But trying to determine who actually put fire to the wick is is actually very difficult. you need some kind of cooperating evidence. Um you need to either have seen it something and that always becomes very difficult and that's exactly what happened uh on July 4th of 2025 when we had a call for service and the exact scenario that I just laid out is is what happened. Uh we were able to go to a call uh some of the the community members uh from that incident are in the audience right now and we were able to identify and confirm yes we have plenty of evidence that there were fireworks dangerous fireworks that were going off in this neighborhood. However, uh we were not able to identify the specific person who um uh lit it off. So we were stymied. There was nothing we could do enforcement wise. Uh fast forward to July 22nd of this year. uh a lot of those community members came to a city council meeting and raised their concerns and their frustrations and also uh brought to uh everyone's attention that there are uh ordinances called social host ordinance that potentially could solve our issue. Uh city council at that time uh instructed staff to to look into that and uh I concur. I think that the ordinance that we have put together and are introducing and proposing tonight actually solve uh that issue and actually uh the way it's written uh goes above and beyond that. I think we've taken a lot of lessons learned from other neighboring agencies that have had similar problems and we've written some provisions in this ordinance that will address lessons learned from these other agencies. So, so how does this ordinance actually solve these problems? So, well, under this ordinance, a social host is held strictly liable for the illegal fireworks discharged during an event that they are responsible for. Additionally, under the current ordinance that we have that makes it

illegal to use fireworks, it's currently a $100 fine, which is a bit inadequate. This particular ordinance makes it a $1,000 fine, and there is up to 10 violations a day. So, $10,000 a day maximum. I think that it's um important when we look at this slide to understand uh on point one exactly what we mean by a social host and what it means to be held strictly liable. So for that I'm actually going to read that verbatim so everybody knows exactly what we're talking about. A social host means any owner or private of private property as listed on the most recent assessment rule and or any person who has the right to use, possess or occupy public or private property under a lease, a permit, license, rental agreement or contract andor any person who hosts, organizes, supervises, officiates, conducts, or uh accepts responsibility for a gathering on public or private property. Strictly liable means liability for a wrongful act regardless of such person's intent, knowledge, negligence, or lack thereof in committing the wrongful act. And this truly is the key to why this solves our problem. And I think it's important to note that if this ordinance had been set in place on July 4th, 2025 when we had that call, we would have been able to uh enact some kind of enforcement because it took care of the two problems that we were talking about. Again, we can't identify exactly who did it and the enforcing officer wasn't the person who actually saw the violation. Well, the reason why this host this host ordinance works so well is because you're attacking this problem from a different angle altogether. Not knowing exactly who set off the firework becomes

a moot point because now what we're trying to establish is one that fireworks were set off and two that we can identify who the social host is. If we have those two elements then we have a violation. And so in other words, it just completely takes it out of the equation. So no longer do we have to worry about the fact that some that an officer didn't see it. no longer do we have to worry about the fact that we can't specifically identify who let off that firework. Now pro um clearly the uh the primary goal for any type of ordinance that regulates the use of fireworks is uh you know protection of life and property. But this ordinance has other provisions that were specifically tailored. And again, a lot of this is specific to other social host ordinances that we've seen, but also tailored based off of the uh lessons that we've learned some from fires that have taken place in other uh local a municipalities such as the fire that we saw in Templeton on 4th of July 2025. That was a large response. Uh there was a lot of costs that were associated to that response. uh when it comes to um this ordinance, we learned that lesson and there's a provision that was written in there that lays a foundation for the city to be able to recover uh the costs associated to that type of response. And the types of things that uh that includes are uh personnel costs, any type of medical treatment for injured first responders, uh repairing of equipment or damaged city property, and costs associated with the disposal of illegal fireworks, which again are all things that would have to come out of our general fund if we didn't have an ability to recover some of those costs. And then what's not on this slide, but before I turn it over to questions, I wanted to bring up a few other provisions that I think are really smartly written into this this ordinance and again tailored for it based off of

other uh lessons that we've learned. One lesson that we learned is well, what if the person that is the social host or the person responsible is a minor? And well, this one uh this ordinance takes that into consideration and the the guardian is somebody that can also be held strictly liable. Another uh provision uh talks about spectators, right? So if you have uh a party that's taking place and you have a lot of people that are setting off fireworks or spectating, uh what can we do about that? There's a provision in here that you can uh violate somebody who is spectating as well. Which leads me to another point which a question came up to me uh was well does this ordinance take away our ability to actually sign a citation to the person who actually was um lighting the firework? Uh because there's it's it's very plausible that if you know somebody was lighting a firework at someone's party and they saw that the host was getting a citation, they might say, "Hey, that was me. I did that." Well, the instant after somebody lights a firework, they are now a spectator because so they are there as well. So under this provision, we're able to violate and give a citation to that person as well. It doesn't take away that opportunity for us. Um, and then another question that came up that uh we addressed here was when you talk about a host being held strictly liable for something, it brings up the question that, well, what if I'm holding a party and somebody lights a firework off and, you know, don't I have an off-ramp? Don't I have a way of not being held liable for this? And that there is a provision in here for uh for that to happen as well. If uh somebody is a social host and they become aware that a fireworks are being let off at their party, if they are the ones that initiate the call to the fire department or the police to come and assist with removing those people off of that property or getting rid of those

fireworks, then they are exempt from this uh from the from being cited for this. Uh and with that, I stand for any questions you may have. All right. Thank you, Chief. We'll begin with Council Member Peak on my left. up to 10 violations in a day. Is that 10 separate videos of in one hour of 10 different fireworks going in the air or is that 10 different police calls?

10. So, we could be the same call and it would be 10 different uh fireworks, individual fireworks being set off. So, we would have to be able to uh to do an investigation, articulate why we believe that there are 10 separate incidents. uh specifically when you look at that incident that we all saw the video for uh back on July 22nd during our meeting um you could tell there was definitely more than one and you could look at those video and you could try to determine exactly how many there was um but we'd figure out as many as we we could and uh up to 10. We can we can come back to you if you had another question. Okay. Mayor Mayor Promanderas,

thank you. On the on the violations that you would hand out to um individuals, I'm trying to understand it. The host would be one that would would get it. The person that lit the firework possibly if you know if they're able to identify that specific person and then the spectators. So pretty much anybody there that doesn't try to do something about it to stop it would you could hand out 50 tickets or 50 citations to at at an event. Is that how I'm understanding this?

So so technically you could but the intent behind this is that you want to stop the the activity. You want to you want to bring it under control. So our intent is not to go there and find and and detain every single party goer and give them a ticket for this. Um really the spectator thing is is there because we realize and we understand that there are going to be uh party partygoers within that event that are uh the agitators if you will and it gives us an avenue to to approach them as well. So it's so the intent behind this is not to uh to give a citation to all the intendities of a party. Okay. And then the second question I have is you say currently the fine is $100.

Yes. and we're raising it to a thousand or proposing to a thousand. Um, do jurisdictions such as Atascadero, any city, county, whatever, have the right to raise it or make that number whatever they want and and is it something that can be challenged because somebody can say, well, you know, you made it an unreasonable high number or whatever. How how is what's the legality, you know, picking the fine amount? That might be for

right. Yeah, I think I'll defer. So, there are uh two approaches to it. There's administrative fines and then there's criminal fines. Um a criminal violation that's filed as a misdemeanor um by state law has a maximum fine of $1,000 per violation. That's something that can be imposed by the court. That's not something that we would do locally. As far as administrative fines, um since it's not a criminal violation, we have a little bit more uh leeway on that and there is some state law basis um to allow higher fines for different types of administrative violations. So, we're trying to uh not not um make it terribly ownorous, but sufficiently strong that someone would be deterred by the potential for a fine of that size. Um we also do have the power locally to define what a violation is. So, if it's a separate violation for each firework, um that's something that we've got the power to uh to regulate ourselves.

So, this this citation is would not be a misdemeanor then. Is that it? It would depend on how we actually prosecute it. Um, sometimes administrative enforcement is more effective. I tend to have the philosophy that the lowest type of enforcement is generally the best. If uh if you don't get compliance, however, if it's a repeat offender uh and administrative uh enforcement is not working, then the criminal courts are a good way to make that happen. uh because it takes it out of the city's hands, puts it in front of either a judge or a jury, and then they have to plead their cases there.

All right. Thank you. Before I before I pass it down to council member Funk to clarify on that, in the way the ordinance is written, I see mention of a notice of violation and administrative fine, can the violation under this ordinance be prosecuted as a misdemeanor? Absolutely. Okay. So, either or depending on the circumstances or Yeah. And that's prosecutorial discretion. Um, I will, uh, get the reports from the police department and make recommendations. Um, if I believe it's serious enough, I can prosecute it as the city's prosecutor. We do that from time to time on cases. Um, but every violation of the city's municipal code can be prosecuted as a misdemeanor in the criminal courts. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Council Member Funk,

following up on on that question, um, if is the prosecution done by the city attorney, yourself, or the district attorney, and does that matter? There are two ways that it could go to the criminal courts. If it's a violation of the state penal code, for example, um, that would be prosecuted by the district attorney's office. uh prosecutions of the city's municipal code are handled by my office.

Okay. Um, and then we had had an exchange earlier as I was trying to make sure that this ordinance does what we want it to do. And the language around who's a spectator uh was of a little bit of concern because it appeared to me that uh people who might you know run out when you know and uh with their you know phones and get pictures to be able to alert law enforcement uh to the problem would could also meet that definition of spectator. Um, if this since this is a city thing, it would be filed by the uh city attorney, can you describe how you would use uh prosecutorial discretion uh to make sure that we don't go charging people who are trying to help us uh help keep the city safe uh with being spectators under this ordinance?

Sure, thanks for the question. While the definition of spectator under the proposed ordinance is very broad, prosecutorial discretion, what I look at when filing a case is, is the violation that we're trying to prevent going to be furthered by the prosecution that I'm doing. So, if I'm going in and prosecuting someone who brought me the video of the actual event, then that's not going to further the the prosecution. So, that's a prosecutorial discretion where I would not charge a person like that um as a spectator. However, if there were 16 people standing around a Roman candle cheering and screaming and uh whooping it up, those are spectators that I might be interested in preventing from doing that in the future. So, that's how I would differentiate.

Sure. And I presume that you would be able to tell what they did with those videos, too. It would differ, you know. Yeah. Whether was sent to the police or sent to Tik Tok or you or Instagram. Yeah. It's it's like any criminal prosecution. and you have to weigh the evidence and I have an independent ethical obligation not to charge a case criminally that I don't believe I can prosecute beyond a reasonable doubt. So I have to look at that and make that determination and there have been instances with the police department where I've said yes probably a prepoundonderance of the evidence this happened but not beyond a reasonable doubt I can't file this.

Okay. Thank you. A couple other questions. Um the that are a little more general. Um, in terms of the cost recovery, and I'm I'm I'm not sure who's going to answer this one, but uh if if somebody with fireworks sets off a fire that requires the uh airplanes to respond, as we saw a number of times on other kinds of situations uh this summer, um would the cost, what's the approximate cost that the city might bear of of a a plane coming in for a fire retardant drop and uh is that something that we could um send the bill to the person that instigated that fire?

The answer is yes. U section 4.805 of the proposed ordinance is response cost and it says that the city shall be entitled to recover from any person found to be in violation of any provision of this chapter the city's full response costs. Okay. And uh if if for the city manager or anyone else if you can recall uh from this summer I recall that you were watching the planes coming in with fire pardon drops and counting the cost of each drop. What approximately was that he can give you a better idea. I can approximate it but Galler Chief Bryson.

Yeah I'm hesitant to give you an exact number. We have not been build for a fire from aircraft from the state or the federal aviation uh resources. Um and I'm hesitant to throw out a number because I'm going to be off a little bit, but um for any of the responses this summer, we were not build. I think for effect you could share. We were not build because those were in the state resource area and so there was some but nonetheless I think if these if a fire broke out in the panel neighborhood in the center of the town and we requested that type of resource in a local fire it could be a five figure number. The plans aren't $1,000 a drop. They're

more than that. So I think I think you get where you're trying to get. This is a large number right ballpark. This is

this is a uh a cost that might put that $10,000 a day limit to shame. Yeah. So, we really don't want people to burn the place down. Okay. And then um could you describe the uh plans to publicize this ordinance? We're being asked tonight to do put an ordinance in effect that if at least four of us vote in favor will go into effect immediately. um and with the intent that uh folks who might be tempted to uh celebrate New Year's Eve with illegal fireworks uh would be less tempted to do so. For this to work, we've got to tell people this is now a really big find. That's the deterrent effect. Can you uh briefly allude to what the city has planned for publicity of this new ordinance? So, so at this point, I mean, we're we're going to be uh obviously one of the easiest ways that we can do that is through social media. Um, we're going to uh also, uh, you know, try to get the word out. I a lot of times when when an incident takes place, I get a lot of phone calls from our local press and they ask me questions and the favor they do in uh, in return to me is when I have something that I would like to uh, get the word out on, I call them and I say, "Hey, I have something that's really important that I would like you to help me get out." So, uh, that's another, uh, avenue that I use.

Okay. Thank you, Council Member Newsome. I have nothing else to ask.

Okay. Thank you. Um, I did have a couple questions regarding I'm the spectator because the definition, you know, is basically anybody watching. So, I mean, if I'm having a party with 50 people in my backyard and, you know, unbeknownst to me, my foolish friend here, he, you know, starts throwing shooting off fireworks. Um, in theory, everybody is a spectator. Some of them are going, half of them are saying, "Hey, that's really cool. Good job, Mark." [laughter] And the other half are saying, "What the heck are you doing?" And and [snorts] so you're saying as the owner, I would have to react quickly to to say, "What the heck are you doing?" You know, we could get in a lot of trouble for that. Um and then we're not I mean, because I can imagine some property owners will go, "What the heck are you doing?" And then they they they hope nothing's going to happen. They're not going to call the police. They're not going to report it. They hope it, you know, nothing bad happens and it just goes away. But then the neighbors are out there, you know, taping this um because they're very upset or or I could see, you know, you could have some people on the street saying, "Hey, that's really cool." And you have a bunch of other people saying, "What the heck are you doing? That's, you know, stupid and dangerous,"

right? Um and so if I mean, if a homeowner if you then you know neighbors call, homeowner, you show up and the homeowner says, "Hey, I told him, you know, that was a dumb idea. you shouldn't do that. Um, he'd have to basically the own homeowner would have to actually finger somebody in their party or take responsibility as the social host or property owner, right?

Correct. Yes. Well, you know, and then we can also look at other video that exists, any type of other cooperating evidence. I think one of the important points when it comes to the spectator and I like I can um use another type of crime as something to illustrate that but I think we've all seen videos where uh you know cars will take over an intersection and they'll start doing donuts and all these people come out and they they're spectators. You can tell when you're looking at these videos the spectators that are encouraging the behavior, the ones that are, you know, a part of the problem and those that are curious and just came out and the ones that aren't really um part of the problem per se. Um in most of those cases, unless you have something like this that is written uh the way this is written, there's not a lot you can do for somebody who just came out to watch. Even if you look at the video and say, "This person is clearly a part of the problem." Having something like this written into this uh uh ordinance gives us the ability to to address that and the intent behind it is not is is absolutely not. You know just like anybody who is at the party we have the opportunity to write a ticket for uh that that would defeat uh and erode the public trust that we have and that is number one uh uh thing that we that legisl legislative laws don't want to do. you know, we are very careful to uh preserve the public trust and that I understand is one way to to erode that and that's so it's not our intent.

Well, and speaking of this in terms of videos and video evidence, what what I like about this is that you know in the past basically was you had to have police officer witness the offending party commit the offense. And it's always bothered me a sense that nowadays you have video and as long as it's genuine video, video seems like great evidence. But in this case, you you can use the video of a neighbor who's sitting there and and they're, you know, they're taking video of repeated fireworks. Uh the video would be substantial enough evidence to prosecute because you're essentially now prosecuting really more or less the property with the the property owner being the default, right, responsible part.

Again, the way this is written, you're you're making it some of that a moot point, you know, because now we're we're trying to prove different things. um you know and um well I lost my my train of thought on it but yes that's okay well so and then speaking of of of the um property I think it's clear in here though that if you you know rent your property out then it's it's the tenant whoever has the lease hold the right to be there and hold a party they're the presumed uh responsible person and we're not going to hold the property or responsible correct for the actions of their tenant right

unless it's but but they they could have something in their lease that says like they do in St. Louis Bispo where a lot of the you know college oriented leases will say you know you're responsible tenant for paying noise violation that sort of thing. So certainly they could do that that's something that landlords could perhaps be advised to do to notify their tenants that they're responsible for any violation of this nature. Okay. Um all righty. I think that's it and uh we will open this up to public comments. So, um, apologize for cutting you off earlier, but now is the time.

Uh, no problem. Um, hello again, mayor, council members, and city staff. Uh, I'm going to skip through a lot of this because this was a great discussion that I've definitely appreciate. But I did want to point out that, um, one other aspect of this proposed ordinance is the ability for someone who's accused or or issued a citation to appeal. um which I think is a very reasonable expectation um for anyone who might have a you know reservation about this ordinance. Um anyways, I just wanted to extend my heartfelt thanks to the city and especially to police chief and fire chief for uh taking the time to meet with our neighborhood. Uh the willingness to listen, answer questions, and share expertise in this area has been invaluable and it showed how committed you are to keeping our neighborhood and our city safe. I really appreciate your time and your effort. Um the uh illegal fireworks aren't just a nuisance. They pose a real danger to people, pets, and property. I do think that this ordinance accurately reflects the um danger that every single match, every single firework, every single projectile that lands in your backyard um poses to the entire city. I mean, we live in a in a flammable state. So, um, this ordinance is a important step forward, especially with its inclusion of enforceable action for social host citations. Having the clear consequences laid out with the ability to appeal, uh, makes for a genuine difference and helps prevent future incidents like the ones that we have experienced recently in our state. It, uh, thank you again for your leadership, your collaboration, and your commitment to protecting our community.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other persons wishing to speak to council? All right, we'll close public comment on this issue and I and bring it back to the council for a motion. And I do want to comment that we we certainly appreciate the neighborhood and how they handled this issue and how they brought this to our attention in in July after July 4th and how um you know they basically revealed to us something that we hadn't adequately thought about that is we had an inadequate ordinance and as a result of their action in July you know we asked staff to come back with us and now we're here this evening in time to do this before New Year's Eve. Um, and so again, we we appreciate how the the neighborhood handled this. So with that, I'll turn it over to my colleagues, see if anybody has any further discussion or a motion.

I'll just comment briefly that nobody, we're not trying to uh be down on people having safe ways to have fun. what we're looking at is wanting to make sure that uh nobody in the no business or home in the community goes the way of Temple and uh Feed and Green uh which was just some kids who wanted to have a little fun by seeing if a firework couldn't land on the top of that building. Uh if I'm roughly characterizing the the case there. So I I'm really encouraged that we have this. It helps keep our community safe. We have learned that um that most of our community is at at least moderate uh fire risk and quite a bit of our community is at high or very high um hazard of fire and so we need this kind of protection for our community uh to keep everybody safe. So, I'm I I if nobody has a f further comments, I am happy to move approval of this uh ordinance. Um as the staff has recommended it, it's an urgency ordinance.

I'll second. Okay. Thank you. We have a motion by Council Member Funk, second by Mayor Promand Dereas. Roll call, please. Council member Funk, yes. Council member Newsome, yes. Council member Peak, yes. Mayor Promas, yes. Mayor Bravo. Yes. Motion passes unanimously. Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks again to the neighborhood. All right. We will move on to our next item, which is council announcements and committee reports. I will begin on my right this time with Council Member Nome. So many things to report. I feel like it's been an eternity since we met.

Well, it's been we had the city schools committee meeting on November 21st. uh great conversations and partnership uh working all for the benefits of our youth. Um a few things that came out of that was something that I'm asking um our young councils to come to our community forum and present perhaps on a monthly basis. Um, a lot of the elementary schools on up have a um, council uh, student body. So, it'd be nice to have them kind of present or come speak to us about some of their um, challenges and get to know their elected officials. A lot of them don't know who we are. So, that'd be nice to engage them. Um, I have a slow cog and RTA meeting tomorrow. Uh we were delayed a week because of ESAC. And then I found out today that with League of California Cities, our Channel County's division, um I was um appointed to the public safety committee for the year 2026. So I will be representing our city on a new committee this year. So looking forward to that.

All right. Thank you, Council Member Funk.

Uh yes, we had I do have a number of of items. Um, [clears throat] we had the the homeless services uh uh oversight uh council on November 19th and we uh recommended a very significant uh set of grant funding proposals for um the majority of funds that we'll have for the year. Uh that's the first time that we've used a process that very explicitly uh involved u performance criteria as part of the formula for uh showing who would get the money. Um and it was also care allocated out in advance in terms of the nature of the services that would be funded so that we would come up with a set of recommendations that were strategic for the community as a whole and targeted towards achieving the highest possible results. Um and those will go to the board of supervisors. Um [clears throat] we also u approved the appointment of our very own chief Danles to be a become a member of HSOC. that will become final after approved by the board of supervisors. Uh that routinely. Um [clears throat] then we had another piece of HSOC business. The uh HSAC delegated to the executive committee approval of a set of grants that um are typically um the largest source of funding for permanent supportive housing services. Those are the services that keep people with severe mental illness or other major disabilities uh to be able to stay housed. Um and it's really critical. We have um well over 90% success in keeping people housed who have that kind of service even though they are the people that are most difficult to keep housed. Um there's a lot of uncertainty arounding those around around those grants. The um and I won't go into the

details. Uh but we're going to we're trying to do the best we can to stay with the timeline and use local criteria to get the gist of what the fed feds want. Um and crossing our fingers that it will be a workable process going forward. We may have a court result the morning of the meeting. This will be an urgency meeting on on December uh 15th to meet the timing of the ordinance. That's a Monday. Um and um is it will also encompass for tune business that HSOC would would have done on the 17th. [clears throat] And then let's see on on November 14th I attended a reach um event a regional roundt event. Um, we had a lot of discussion about some of the kinds of businesses and looking at where we might attract the light manufacturing and those kinds of things that would are particularly well suited to some of our Atased aerospaces. And uh lastly, [clears throat] the uh groundwater um basin sustainability agency will be meeting on December 17th. this at a routine meeting, but I'm share a little bit about what we're doing with our um wastewater task force.

Okay. All right. Thank you, Mayor Prochanderas. Uh I didn't have much, but let's see. Last Thursday, business met. Uh we meet quarterly. So, that was actually a really good meeting. The they continue to do an outstanding job of promoting all of St. Louis Bispo County. uh projection numbers look good as far as visitors coming here and all the activities that um they had to choose from up and down the coast uh I think is great but other than that that's all I have uh council member Peak

yeah since our last meeting we had the city schools committee uh like um other news commented on it was very encouraging was great to sit with our new superintendent for a little bit longer period of time and get to peek under the hood a little bit more and Um it's always productive meeting with the city schools and the the super um superintendent's office. Looking forward to continued part partnership. And um let's see. I did have an IWMA meeting uh last uh between our last meeting and now since it's been four weeks since our last meeting. Um and nothing a particular note to report. We are IWMA is not meeting this month. Um things are going pretty pretty well. Um I attending a Central Coast Community Energy Board meeting tomorrow afternoon. Uh and at our last county mayor's meeting, we had the pleasure of hearing uh state senator Monoke Monnique Leone from Santa Barbara. Um she does represent the far south end of St. Louis Bispo County and she's the incoming Senate majority leader in the legislature. So it was uh uh good to hear from her. So, um, and that's all I have. And so, any any individual determinations by any member of the council? Council member F.

I'd just like to, uh, wish everyone who's, uh, celebrating Hanukkah a happy Hanukkah starting on Sunday and all who are celebrating Christmas a merry Christmas. Sure. And thank you. And I would note, uh, I don't think anybody expected us to, but, to be clear, we will not be having our second uh, meeting in December on the fourth Tuesday of December. So, uh, we will see you all next year. So, merry Christmas, happy new year, and we will see you all in the new year. Thanks. We're journed.