City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. I'm going to call this uh Camrio City Council, the CSD, COB, and the Sanitary Agency of Camaro to order, please. And I'm going to ask the city clerk to call roll, please. Sure. Council member Martinez Bravo, here. Vice Mayor Tennyson here. Council member Trembley here. Council member Santangelo here. And Mayor Kildy here. We have a quorum. Okay. Councelor, I know we have some close session items. Would you like to explain the reasons?

Certainly. Yes, mayor and council. We have three items listed on close session. uh to our existing litigation which is the Roy Allen slurry seal versus the city as well as OPV Coalition versus Fox Canyon of which the city is a defendant and then real property negotiations related to 200 Flynn Road and if there's any reportable action I'll make that report. Okay. So with that we are going to recess and we'll be back at 5.

being our close session and I'm going to ask the clerk to uh um open up the Camrial Sand uh sanitary district, Camrial Library Board, Successor Agency along with the city council. So, uh, city clerk, will you do a roll call, please? Yes. Um, council member Martinez Bravo here. Vice Mayor Tennyson here. Council member Trembley. Council member Santangelo here. And Mayor Kild here. Okay. Flag salute. I'm going to ask Susan, would you lead us tonight, please?

Please stand. Hand over heart. Ready. Begin. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

Okay. So, we've got the approval agenda and recommending that we move the discussion U before item T um if that's okay with the council and I'll ask the council if there's any other changes as well. So, the uh question is to move you before item T. Everybody okay with that? I'm fine. Okay. We do have concurrent city clerk on that.

All right. So now um we've got a very exciting evening tonight. We've got a presentation at AYSO's 50th anniversary and Janette Rosling is here, Commissioner Alexander Dyer, AYSO player, and he's also the mayor for the day here. So I'm going to ask Xander to come up here and I have got a little presentation for you. Xander, do you want to I can come down there or you can come up here. How about you come up here? How about this?

All right. Welcome, Mayor. God, you look great.

All right. We have got um a certificate the 50th anniversary for Alexander Xander Dyer, our mayor of the day. And I'm going to talk a little bit about ASO here. And ASO was founded in 1964, which is actually the year that the city camera was incorporated. So it's got a long history as far as not only soccer, but with our city as well. and it's the nation's oldest soccer program. Now, that's something to be really proud of. Uh, region 68 has proudly served Camaro, Somas, and Santa Rosa Valley since 1975, welcoming children ages 4 to 18, and offering one of the county's largest special needs program, Epic. Everyone plays in our community. More than 50,000 children and 30,000 volunteers, that is an amazing number, have been part of the program which is nationally nationally recognized for excellence in leadership and volunteerism. Its annual California Strawberry Cup, now in its 30th year, brings over 240 teams to Cambrio and funds scholarships so every child can play. As a regional commissioner, Janette Rosling exemplifies the ASO spirit of family participation with her husband volunteering as a referee and scheduler. That is a tough job. and their sons growing up through the program. Spec special recognition tonight goes to Xander Dyer, mayor of the day. A Camrio native

and a 2024 Camrio High School graduate. Go Scorps, right? Continuing his education at Anacappa Adult Trans Transitory School in Oxnard, Xander is known as a leader, a coach, a teammate, and now mayor for the day, and always ready to help others. Xander's passion for sports runs very deep. a 15-year ASO player. He now competes as a goalkeeper on the Epic Platinum team and also plays Special Olympic soccer. You are one busy young man along with floor ball, swimming, bowling, and basketball. And there anything that you don't do? Wow. Okay. His adventurous spirit extends to surfing where he placed fifth in his first competition. Beyond uh that fe beyond the field, he loves listening to all types of music and enjoys impersonating Michael Jackson

thriller. All right, Xander. Congratulations to region 68 on 50 years and to Xander Dyer representing the very best of ASO. Congratulations, Xander. We have a certificate here for you. I'm going to put this right there. We have a certificate here for you. I'm going to open it up to my council. I'm sure they have comments too as well. But this is a certificate of recognition presented to Camro Asil Soccer 6850th anniversary. That is really really impressive. I won't read all of this here, but uh has more than 300 soccer teams and 2500 boys and girls ages 5 to 18 participating in our fall spring league. So before I open it up for you to say something, I'm going to ask my council members if they want to say something first. So we're going to start with the council and I'll st start with Martita tonight. Marta, do you have anything for Xander?

Yes. Thank you, mayor. And Xander, uh just so you all know, I've actually known Xander and Maya and the family since uh Xander, you were in like kindergarten at La Mariposa um school. And so I've really had the honor of getting to know the family and of my f my children um engaging with your kids as well. I'm just super super proud of you um for everything that you do, everything that you are and who you are. Uh we all love you in this community, Xander, and we are all so so proud of you. Um and I know none of this could have been possible without support of your family who is here as well and your mom who loves you so much. Um and thank you also to all AYSO volunteers. Um, we're all the NAYSO family. Fully supported as well. I was team mom for a while. So, yes.

Thank you so much. Vice Mayor Tennyson, anything tonight? Uh, yes. Xander, you have a reason to be proud. Stand tall. Pump your chest out and put your fist in the air and say, "I'm a winner." Say, "I'm a winner." I am winner. There you go. And congratulations to mom cuz I know you couldn't I didn't know her name. She just introduced me as mom. I know you couldn't have done it without mom's support. So I'm proud of the support she's given you and keep moving forward Xander. Good job. Thanks. We have council member Trembley. Anything tonight?

Sure. And and my congratulations. Uh Xander, congratulations on everything that you are doing. Um, you are remarkable. Um, Janette, thank you for all of your work and thank you to your board of directors, all of the staff. I think everybody on this day has participated uh with their kids uh in AYSO at one time or another. I know I spent many years as both a coach and then as a ref as a not so good referee, but but I learned from the experience. You're welcome to come back. Yeah, I don't know that I could I don't know that I could move as quickly as I would need to up and down the diagonal pitch, but I try.

There you go. But in all seriousness, AYSO is an extraordinary organization and in terms of our youth development, I can't think of a of a of a there are many great organizations and AYSO is simply at the top of that youth development organization. So Xander, I repeat what Chief Tennyson said, pump your fist hard and say I'm proud of what I'm doing. I am doing and congratulations to you. It's great. Thank you, Susan. Anything uh tonight you'd like to add?

Yeah, thank you, Xander. Thank you for being here tonight. So proud of you. You really are the best of ASO. Keep staying involved. Keep um staying um active. And um I was telling Janette when we were taking our picture that I used to be an ASO kid. So I played ASO for many years. My kids played AYSO. Um I was a team mom. Um I probably stepped in as an assistant coach at some point and I was a referee. So, um, ASO runs very deep in our family and I appreciate all that you do, all that you do for the kids and for the community because as, um, Council Member Trembley said, um, it really is an extraordinary organization and it really belongs in our community. So, thank you.

Thank you. So, Xander or Jan, would you like to make any comments? This is a good time to make comments if you're so in. So, thank you uh city of Camrio um council. Thank you to all the city uh members who belong to the city because we can't do AYSO without you. 100% volunteer organization. We work very very hard all the time and we do it for right here. Xander is is the epitome of our players. He is player development. Everyone plays. We try to good sportsmanship. We try to player player development number one. But when you can see a kid who at four years old tips over when they get ready to kick a ball because they don't know how to stand right to players who are goalies and stuff who are playing at the top levels and having fun and come back as parents and then grandparents is is amazing. Um, I just want to thank all of you for supporting us and we're glad to support the city by having Strawberry Cup and Camrio Cup tournaments where we bring in lots of revenue for the community because we have teams that come from as far away as San Francisco and San Diego for our tournaments and they like to spend money here especially at toppers and especially at uh getting uh at the hotels and stuff. And it's funny because I got a phone call already. We don't start this until May. And I'm already getting phone calls for Strawberry Cup already. So, it's uh it's one of our best tournaments because we have the best fields, best weather, and everyone says everyone when they come here, they feel like they're coming home. So, thank you for everyone supporting us, supporting the program. Um Pleasant Valley Recreation Parks Districts is our best friend. They take really good care of us and can't wait to do another 50 years. And on behalf of the kids of

Camaro AYso mayor, we want to present you with your 50th anniversary soccer ball. So you can bring your grandkids out and can start join us anytime.

That is wonderful. Thank you so much for meander. I was looking forward to this all day to present this certificate of appreciation to you and all that you've done, Janette. Everybody that's participated in 50 years in ASO, all the volunteers, parents, family members, everybody that makes this happen. This is a real success story and I'm so proud of you, Xander. You are unbelievable young man. So, I think they're going to want to take some pictures of us here. Maybe, maybe not. I think we'll put that and we'll do one picture together here with that then.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

This is awesome. Unbelievable. Thank you so much. Could I inquire of the mayor whether he's going to do a demonstration with the soccer ball in front of the chambers? Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Uh, now we get down to general public comments for non-aggendaized item. Um, and I'm going to ask, madam clerk, do we have any um anybody like to um do a a comment at this time from the public?

Yes, we do. We have currently I have eight speakers that have signed up for general public comment. Um, I'm just going to state the rules real quickly, just in case you didn't know. It's everybody's given three minutes. Um, your timer is going to show up up on the screen on the corner when it's focusing on you when the three minutes is up, but then they'll be ready to move to the next person. So, what I'm going to do is call up the first person and the next two people so that they'll be ready to come up. So, our first person is going to be Blanca is gonna be first and after Blanca will be um Mark Perryman and after that will be Robert Hart. So come on up and blanket.

I want to start by saying this. I know that neither you nor the sheriff can change federal laws. I know who to call about that. And yes, I have called them. But I also know that there's more that our local leadership, this council and the sheriff office included, can be doing right now. I've shared with you examples previously from across the country where local governments and local law enforcement have taken action, some action, any action to protect their residents. Unfortunately, what we've seen here in Camrio and from our sheriff has been zero action. When the excessive federal presence happened recently in Oxnard, where dozens of federal agents showed up to arrest just two people, my daughter saw those videos, she turned to me and asked, "Can they come to my school? Can they come to the Boys and Girls Club?" I smiled, hugged her, and told her, "No, they can't." Changed the topic, asked her about soccer practice. Ayso, by the way. Um, but the truth is I I lied to her because that's not true. We've already seen incidents across this country where federal agents have targeted minors and students. At the last city council meeting here on October 22nd, I stood right here and suggested that we make spaces like schools safe zones. And immediately after I spoke, the sheriff stood here and he said, and I quote, "You can do that all you want, but the reality is the federal government government is not going to listen to it." End quote. So I ask you, if not our sheriff, if not our local leadership, then who? This is why many of us say only the people can save the people. Because as long as the sheriff continues to make comments like that, and as long as you, Mayor Kildy, continue to say things like you did, quote, they just that's just the way it

is. End quote. We hear your message loud and clear. It is a message of defeat. So, our community will continue to do what we've always done, protect one another. But if our local leaders choose to act defeated, to act as if their hands are tied, then you cannot also criticize us for stepping up when you refuse to act. Thank you.

Well, good evening everyone. Uh it's great to be here. Thank you so much for your service to the great community of Camrio. I'm Mark Perryman. I'm running for Ventura County Supervisor for District 2. A little bit about me. I'm here to kind of introduce myself to the council and uh express my interest in working together uh uh when if I'm elected would love the opportunity to work with staff as well as the council on many important items. There's a lot of misunderstanding about what a county supervisor is and what they're actually supposed to do. So, if you go back to the California Constitution, 1849, way before I was born, uh you'll find that the board of supervisors are responsible for the health, welfare, and safety of this area. Uh and if you process that for a minute and you think about the 24 more than two dozen departments that exist in the county of Ventura, there's a lot that the county is responsible for, especially in partnership with a great municipality like the city of Camaro. But there's a lot of opportunity that exists to work together. There's a lot of opportunity to make change, a lot more than perhaps what we're seeing today. Um, I'm a former chief of staff for the county of Venturus. I've got a lot of experience in this space, but I'm also a management consultant. So, I'm not a politician. I'm actually a practitioner. I know how to write these ordinances quickly. I know how to adopt the changes that are needed. I know how to work together and build coalitions across the community. And that's what I'd like to do. Uh a couple of things of interesting ideas that have come up after discussions with um you know restaurant owners right here in Camaro. Uh you look at our public health ordinance. This uh public health ordinance is an ordinance uh that's actually a state law that we ultimately implement locally. a lot of restaurants that they say something to the effect of, "We really hope we get this inspector because this inspector at least understands our business and they know that we're here trying to do good in the community, but at our other

location, oh my gosh, it's a nightmare because we don't know what to expect from time to time. This is 2025. Have we adopted an ordinance locally that sits on top of the state law and allows for interpretation like the county of Los Angeles has, like San Diego has, where ultimately there's a rubric that's in place where businesses can look at it and go, I know what I'm going to be expected uh to deliver when they come in. Or and conversely for the general public, what they can expect from a restaurant. I can tell you in LA County's instance, 20% reduction in hospitalizations due to foodborne illness just after they put in place this new ordinance out there. This wasn't recent. I I'm sure we've all gone to LA County at one point in time. You've seen the letter grades. You've seen, you know, many great restaurants just as you have here. This is just one of many great ideas. We could talk about airports and the opportunity for the county to do quite a bit more. We've heard the jets coming in. The skies late at night. County owns and operates these airports. There's a lot more we could do.

Thank Thank you. We we have a three minute time and I want to be fair to everybody. Thank you. Okay. Our next speaker is Robert Hart and after Robert will be Claudia and after Claudia will be Joseph. Your honor. My name is Robert Hart. Um, I've lived in town here. You can speak in the microphone if you wouldn't mind, Robert. Thank you.

I I've lived in town here for about 25 years now. Um, uh, I've had, um, in my last place, you know, um, problems with plumbing and stuff, but this place where I'm at now, the smoke is coming through, um, the walls, you know, and from outside. And even if they close a place up, the smoke pours into my place. People come over to my place and they get sick. And I've been sick. I got chronic bronchitis now. I've called the city. I've been in here. I I've done everything. And I I just I've run up against one wall after another. Um I've even called the authorities. Um I've written the HOA. I've gone to the management. I And for the last two years, I've been trying to get these people to stop smoking. And in some papers it says like you can close the doors and windows and smoke in your place. And then other ones say it's not okay. And it's like I I just know that it's pouring into my place. I don't drink or smoke or anything, but it's making me really ill. So my health, my my um life um

quality of life is, you know, is threatened because I'm a singer, songwriter. I work with a lot of, you know, named people in the business and um I'm just I'm sick and and I'm I'm trying to find out what to do because I don't know where to go. I don't know who to call. I don't know what to do because I've I've just run into one wall after another. And that's all I come here to say. And I thank you for your time. Okay.

Thank you. Claudia is next and after Claudia will be Joseph and after Joseph will be Sarah. Good evening. My name is Claudia, an 805 undocu volunteer. The volunteers of 805 undocued community members are here again time after time because what's happening in our community affects all of us. We care deeply about our neighbors, especially the most vulnerable among us. And that's why we continue to show up. Our volunteers are out in the community every day observing excessive force by federal agents, providing mutual aid, hosting know your rights workshops, and building connection through community events like creating markers for the project marker project. We invite you to join us for a day and see the world through the lens of volunteers. We do this work because we believe that everyone deserves dignity, safety, and a sense of belonging here in the 805. I'm here tonight to ask, what else can be done for our community? How can we strengthen collaboration between residents, city staff, and city council to create real lasting solutions? We'd like to ask again about starting a stakeholders meeting that brings together council members, community organizations, and residents to identify priorities and take action. The 805 volunteers are ready and willing to help organize that first meeting here in Camaro and get the ball rolling. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Joseph Dzinski Jr. I'm a resident of Camaro. Um, three topics. uh one in ICE incidents on October 29th uh to issue a warrant for two people. The federal government sent in about 17 vehicles, about 40 plus agents and a Bearcat um closing down part of North A Street and uh I guess trying to intimidate us. Um the the real weird thing is that uh Oxar Police Department didn't show up. Um, and we wanted I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the one hand, I know that the uh Ventura County Sheriff's Office position is to come in on the side of ICE and to protect them when they call for mutual aid. On the other hand, what I saw when police wasn't there, when police weren't there were the use of batons, chemical munitions, uh, bearing rifles, tasers, and the use of flashbang grenades. Oxnard is furious. Even Mayor MacArthur, a 30-year law enforcement uh, veteran. Um, and this just highlights the need for our immigration stakeholders meeting so we know exactly what we can or cannot expect from the city of Camaro regarding uh, immigration enforcement. The second thing I'd like to talk about is uh, a disturbing trend of Camaro Police Department andor the Ventura County Sheriff's Office chasing people into school drop off lines to issue tickets on their way in. Um, not only does that just make drop off more difficult at schools, we're already having problems getting people through uh uh drop off lines, but it disrupts the environments there. It panics students who do not have good relationships with law enforcement. And it's the same when they decide to gather outside of the SUS Ranch Apartments complex. Uh the sheriffs do or the Camo Police Department do. It panics the residents there. It is not a sign of safety for them. Um, so if you're wondering about the relationship between law enforcement and the community, you should seriously consider this and maybe work with Commander Tennyson over here

to make sure that we're not harassing people on school grounds or out front of vulnerable communities. Finally, when it comes to ALPRs or the flot cameras, a judge in Washington just ruled that flot camera data, all of it is subject to public record and that anybody can request that data. Um, so all the data that's currently being collected right now, whether it's on the hot list or not, is something that can be soon petitioned through a Freedom of Information uh request. My struggle here is that these were put in place mainly to protect businesses from theft is what we heard and to maybe look out for certain plates. But now I can look up any of your plates to see where you've been in the county if I wanted to. or more importantly people who would want to cause damage to you all or to anybody else especially stalkers can now requisition that data and find out where people are at. It is putting the uh protection of businesses over the expectation of privacy for community members and I am dread I am very much asking you all to reconsider the use of flat cameras in Camaro. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. And after Sarah will be um Bev Dansville and then that'll be Dr. Michael Coslo.

Good evening, Mayor Kildy, city council, city staff. My name is Sarah Wesky. I am here as part of 805 immigrant rapid response network and 805 undocu. I have been here many times begging you to take action against ICE. And I am here once again asking you to take action. It is November 12th and while ISIS's budget ballooned at the start of October, we are still waiting on you to help the community. At this point, I don't know how else to tell you how scared people are and how desperately support is needed. We are out here every day patrolling, distributing aid, giving rides to vulnerable neighbors, and doing everything we can to support our community. All without support from those of you on the dice. Solo pueblo salvo. If you see any ICE activity or have been impacted by them, please call or text the 805 and document hotline 8058708855. You can also follow us on social media for updates on ICE activity and how we've been helping the community. You can volunteer with us. We have several volunteer trainings coming up and you can find information about those on our social media and our website. City Council, we need support at every level of government. Do something to help this crisis. You've had opportunities and refused to do the bare minimum. Don't continue to be silent. Stand up for the people you represent. Thank you.

Thank you. Hi, good evening, Mayor Kildy and council members. My name is Bev Dansfeld and I'm here speaking as a resident of Camaro in my individual capacity. So much has happened since the last uh city council meeting. It's been a very busy time for all of you. I know between the state of the city, the Adulo um Kimrio celebration with um state of the region and then outside of that looking at the raid that happened at a street that others have referenced. It's a lot to unpack within 3 minutes even if we're just looking at the state of the city when that was 50 minutes. Um, but looking at the state of the city and the state of the region, one of my biggest concerns is yes, things can be great and there can still be challenges. And with those challenges, they need to be acknowledged. We can't provide solutions if we don't acknowledge that there's a problem in the first place. You hear people time after time coming up here expressing their concerns, their fear, their insecurities. And with these type of events, even at state of the region, people it I feel gas lit. I feel like I am dismissed. I feel like the community is not feeling heard, that they're not being acknowledged. That acknowledgement is all that we're looking for. And then I thought about it being at the stakeholders meeting, there's this sense of miscommunication, a lot of of fingerpointing and whatnot, and and trying to find common ground. Then I thought about it and some leaders may feel we are doing something. You you gave to food share, right? You you've done these videos and there's this ask of well you're not doing enough. What does enough look like? That is something for all of us to

figure out, right? Because I don't think enough can be described and I don't think there is ever going to be enough done because there is just such a heavy weight. so many problems and so complicated on so many levels and I understand the restrictions and the limitations and trying to acknowledge that and see what can we do again focusing on what we can create and what we can do for the community. I bring all of this up to say um just again reiterating that these conversations can be held in these stakeholder spaces. City of Oxnard is doing it. I encourage you to attend them. um to see how they go. And um it's a productive conversation because you're able to have a conversation. It's not people speaking three minutes at a time every two weeks um with without actually having a dialogue. Um I just also want to bring up Halloween. I was out with my family trick-or-treating and out at University Glenn and I had to take a moment. I had to step away from being with my kids. Why? because I saw fog and I saw orange lights. I was triggered. I had PTSD from being at the glass house raids yesterday.

I'm sorry this three I'm sorry I have to keep everybody to three. I apologize. Okay, then we have Dr. Michael Coslo and our last speaker I have signed up is Spencer Richie.

Good evening everyone. I think you have a copy of my executive summary today. Mr. Mayor and distinguished council members, I rise as a US congressional candidate in the district to address proposed bipartisan legislation. I have pres previously presented to leadership to other city councils within the state that within our cities that we are experiencing a contentious environment among Americans wherein we are working diligently to correct the adverse impacts of open immigration laws. In that light, I've been in contact with the office of Representative Maria Alvara Salazar, a Republican from Florida, who introduced the Dignity Act of 2025, HR4393 in the US House of Representatives on July 15, 2025. a bipartisan effort to strengthen border security in the United States. Provide effort to uh uh to um undocumented individuals with an opportunity to obtain legal status and work visas if they meet certain strict requirements and update aspects of the US immigration legal system. Filing fees for work visas would be offset by tax credits. The bill is also sponsored by Representative Veronica Escobar, Democrat from Texas, and an additional 10 original Republican co-sponsors. This bipartisan effort comes as new polling indicates that eight out of 10 Americans believe immigration is a good thing for the US and support allowing undocumented immigrants to earn legal status if they meet certain strict requirements over a period of time. The bill is divided into the following three sections. One, border security for America act, border security and asylum reform. Mandatory everify. Two, dignity and American promise and the dream act. Three, fairness for illegal immigrants,

employment and student visas. The dignity act of 2025 is a groundbreaking bill that offers the solution to our immigration crisis. help secure the border, stop illegal immigration, and give long-standing productive immigrants a well-deserved chance to stay and work here. No amnesty, no handouts, no citizenship, just accountability and a path toward economic stability and a better future. And if you have any questions, please feel free to go ahead and ask. I thank you all. Thank you for your comment. Thank you.

Thank you. And just a comment, I do have the handouts that he provided and I'll make sure that all the council get that after the meeting. Our last speaker I have signed up is Spencer Richie. Hello. Good evening all. Um, you'll notice I'm not wearing a mask because, and that was actually a decision I came to because one, the city council refuses to keep up with the times in the rest of the county by having closed captioning. So, I figured the way I get help was for making lip reading easier when I talked. And two, it doesn't appear that you're actually listening to any of us. So, this is I talk more for the people at home anyway. Um, and then the second issue I have is why so secretive about the fact that you you've been looking into as a city getting, you know, at least one of the huge plots of land by the um Flynn Mission Oaks intersection that SEX currently has. If you if you're trying to hide that you're looking into building, I know I know like transitional housing, formerly homeless housing, low-inccome housing there and you're just trying to sneak it by everyone, it's not going to work. um people are going to figure it out and like so you really just might as well be honest about it to your own taxpayers such as myself and work with you know work with concerned business owners to you know make the direly needed solution of more low-income housing here more palatable to everyone. And then my third issue is that honestly with all that, you know, with the flock cameras most recently and you know, all your other garbage that you know of you

not even just turning a blind eye, not even just complacently smiling as ICE terrorizes our whole town, our whole community, our whole region. But, you know, also with the, you know, with the flock cameras and, you know, basically doubling down on having the Z contract with openly ICE collaborationist like Fryhoff and his VCSO. So, that makes you a whole bunch of collaborations, too. It's to the point that like as bad as it sounds, I'm pretty sure I and a bunch of other people would think, you know what, it'd be hilarious at this point if you know you managed to do something that irritated Ice or whoever agrees with ICE and you got consequences from them because of it. And honestly, it should not be to the point that, you know, anyone finds it hilarious for someone to get targeted by fascists, but unfortunately it is. You should understand that no one is safe under fascism. I don't know why you why you seem to think that. Stop thinking that and start actually helping what we elected you to do us. Thank you. Bye.

Thank you. That was the last speaker that I had signed up. Okay. So, with that, um, we're going to get down to council staff and intergovernment reports. And we've got the the new FCGME executive director here tonight. Is it John Demer? Did I pronounce your last name somewhat correctly, John? Yes, sir. Pretty close. It's Demur. Demurs. Thank you.

So, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, thank you very much for the opportunity to come and give a couple brief remarks tonight. Primarily, I'm just here to introduce myself. Said John Demurs. I've been uh in the seat of the executive director at Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency for for three months now. And it is somewhat consequential because I am actually the despite the 40 plus uh year history of the agency, I am the first person to hold that position on a permanent full-time basis. In the past, it has always been the collateral duty of uh executive leadership within county public works. So, within the three months that I've been there, one of the things I'm trying to do is is to get out to uh to all of our stakeholders. um city of Camaro being one of five cities that is wholly or partially within the agency's boundaries as well as a number of uh consequential agencies such as United Water Conservation District uh Pleasant Valley uh County Water Agency, Kayagas Municipal Water District, etc. the the major purveyors of water within the area. And the reason that I'm doing that is because I believe that managing the groundwater resources within this area is a team sport. Uh perhaps it's just my uh my Navy background, but one of the things I like to say is that we all need to be rowing the boat in the same direction because of course if we're not rowing in the same direction, what we're going to do is go around in circles. And I think that in the in the recent history, that's what we've been doing. We've uh all been working but not working together and not working collaboratively. So I'm making it my mission to to try to achieve some collaboration and uh solve this problem collectively. All of us, my agency, your city, the other stakeholders that I've mentioned, uh we all have slightly different missions. We have different stakeholders that we need to work with and we have somewhat differing interpretations of

the hydraological data but fundamentally we all want the same thing. We all want ample water of good quality and at reasonable cost. So I think that that is uh achievable but I think it's only achievable if we work together. So, I'm just here tonight to introduce myself, to let you know, let your constituents know that uh my door is always open for phone calls, emails, and conversations. And what I'm trying to do is work together collaboratively with all the other stakeholders uh to reach a good dis a good place for groundwater here within the agency's boundaries. So, I look forward to working with you. I've already worked uh and met with several members of your staff, the Mr. Ramirez, the city manager, public works director, and others. Uh, I look forward to working with the city and with the stakeholders as we move forward to a to a collaborative solution.

Thank you for your time, sir. Thank you very much for being here. Thank you. Uh, we have a Mr. Mayor, may I make a comment? Yes, we have a comment. John Deur.

No, I just I I wanted to let the I wanted to let uh my fellow city co colleagues, city council colleagues know I sit on the Fox Canyon Groundwater Management Agency board of directors. I'm privileged to represent five cities uh on uh the agency board. Uh and John, you you've I I'm very complimentary of what you've been doing. Uh you have hit the ground running. uh you have a very strong organizational management and navy background and that's um very evident uh in how you are approaching your duties. I think you've demonstrated excellent leadership and collaboration skills. So um I want my council colleagues to know uh that you are working uh very hard and I appreciate it for the benefit of uh Fox Canyon GMA. So thank you Mr. Mayor for letting me make a quick comment.

Well, thank you. Thanks John for being here tonight. Thank you. Thank you, John. All right. Um, next we're going to have a library update. Is Mandy here? Yeah, there's Mandy. Hi. Proceed, please. Mandy.

Good evening, Mayor Kevin Kildy and Library Trustees. Today, I'm going to present our third annual business education series titled Junior Entrepreneur that's geared for student ages 9 to 17. Megan Proffetta, the library's business services coordinator, is a leader on this project, but is not able to be here today because she's leading a separate RFBC program at the library right now. So, I will do my best to honor all of the fantastic work that she has done with this program series. So, the goal of Junior Entrepreneur is to educate students about workforce development and entrepreneurship, helping them build business skills to envision and create a better Camaro. This year, the junior entrepreneur program has had the largest interest to date with 33 students attending the first workshop. Students learn the basics of business, such as setting a business goal, identifying what makes a good product, and how to attract customers. At the end of the workshop, students had to design their own business plan if they wanted to practice selling goods at the Junior Entrepreneur Marketplace. Part of the business plan includes creating a business name, identifying a business goal, and describing their unique product. The students also covered how to price items, how to accept payments, and everyone got the opportunity to practice their sales pitch. RPC is pleased to announce that 17 students will be selling their products at the Junior Entrepreneur Marketplace, which will take place on Saturday, December 13th for Santa's Village at the Community Center Park in Camaro from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. And some of the junior entrepreneurs selected for this year includes Jasmine's Jewelry and Keychains, Bookmark Extravaganza, and Poffet Clawset, which will supply the perfect handmade pet accessories for dogs and cats. RBC will support these junior entrepreneurs with ongoing

guidance and will take care of the event insurance coverage and vendor entry fee at Santa's Village. The insurance and entry fee valued at over $100 per student helps reduce financial stress for families who want to give their children their entrepreneur opportunity. We encourage all of you to support our junior entrepreneurs at the marketplace on December 13th. And that concludes my presentation. I'm happy to address any questions.

Thank you. Any questions of Mandy? No. Well, you're doing a great job with no questions. So, keep it up. very important season that we're embarked upon and some really great things at the library. So, if you have a moment, stop on by. Yeah. Thank you. All right, that's going to get us down to council comments and tonight we're going to start off with Vice Mayor Tennyson tonight, please.

Thank you, Mayor. On October 23rd, I attended the VCOG Ventura Council of Government's administrative committee meeting and along with the rest of the council, the state of the city address. On the 27th, the public safety and emergency preparedness committee meeting along with council member Marta Martinez Bravo. The city had a wastewater reclamation plant workshop on the 28th that the entire council attended and a special council meeting also on that day. On October 29th, I attended a VCOG planning meeting with the outgoing chair and the new executive director of the Ventro Council of Governments. On October 29th and and I want to la the police department, we had our third annual trunk or treat. I believe the third annual. It started the first two years at the police department and I know the police chief was hoping to have about 800 children and family members attend and it was so overwhelming the next year they had it. I'm going to guess they had over 2,000 children and parents show up. So, in collaboration with the Pleasant Valley Reck and Park District building and because of space constraints at the small parking lot at the police department, they moved it to the community center on Burnley. And I'm going to guess because I had the pleasure of pushing my 89year-old mother around in her wheelchair during the event that I'm going to guess there were at least 4,000 children. Um, and people say that our police department doesn't have community outreach. These were families from all walks of life in Camaro and they were out there. It was a pleasant evening. There were no incidents of violence. There was no disruption to this family activity and it was an overwhelming success. It was a

well publicized event. And again, there were no problems. And I give kudos to the police department for creating this community outreach to all members of our community, parents, children, grandparents, and all family members. And I also want to congratulate Pleasant Valley Reckon Park for collaborating with the police department to make this the most successful trunk or treat. I know it was successful because normally my neighborhood is overwhelmed with trick-or-treaters and I love Halloween and it's the first time in 11 years I haven't gone with grandchildren to trickor treat because they left me for Hawaii. I only had 12 kids show up and I think it's because of churches and public venues like this that host the trunk or treats in a safe familyfriendly environment and I hope we continue it. Now, I'm going to get on a little soap box. This last week was an important week. Um, Monday was the 250th birthday celebration of the United States Marine Corps, which I, as an 18-year-old, enlisted in 51 years ago. I know I don't look that old, but I really did. I proudly served in the Marine Corps. The very next day, we celebrated Veterans Day. And if there's a segment of society we all know, we all owe a great gift of gratitude to, it's our military veterans. We have 16.4 million Americans that served in World War II. Today, there's anywhere between 66,000 and 100,000 still alive, all in their 90s. We had 7.2 million Americans that served during the Vietnam War. They didn't get the respect they deserved. There are 610,000 still alive. The difference

between those two wars and today is they were all conscripts. There was a draft and many of them still volunteered. But there was a draft and some of them went against their will. Some of them fled the country to avoid it. But they still deserve our respect because they responded to the call of the United States government. Today, for the last 52 years, starting in 1973, we have had an all volunteer armed forces. United States Army, United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, United States Coast Guard, the Air Force, and now the Space Force. These are young men and women of all stripes from our country that volunteer to serve their country. And I'm proud of my service and I'm proud I see a couple of veterans in in the audience and I know there's at least one veteran at the far end of the dis um from the Navy and I salute you for your service and I thank you and we all need to respect and honor the service of the men and women that put on the uniforms to defend the United States of America. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Well said. Um Susan, you want to? Thank you. Um on October 23rd, I attended the economic development and land use committee and then later that day, the state of the city. Um and Mayor Kildy, you did a great job. Thank you. Thank you.

Um October 28th, the wastewater reclamation plant workshop and then right after that was the city council special meeting. October 29th was a CPA finance committee. Um um November 6 was CPA board and then earlier today um along with council member Trembley I got a tour of Dizdar Park which is coming along really really nicely and was really exciting to see that today. Um happy Veterans Day and to all who have served thank you for your service. Thank you. That's all I have. Tony, you want to

Sure. Thanks Mr. Mayor. On October 23, u I attended the state of the city presentation and ditto ow to what Susan said. Kevin, you did a great job.

On October 24, the Metroink board of directors meeting in Los Angeles. On October 28, we had a council workshop um meeting at the water reclamation plant. On o on November three as the president of the California Association of Sanitation Agencies, I attended a a clean water summit in Northern California which basically just involved the small leadership of of statewide leadership of statewide associations in the wastewater field and among other things. Uh we met with a member of the state water resources control board regarding regulatory issues. on November 4, um um a fuel hedging adoc fuel hedging committee meeting for Metroink on on November 7, uh meeting of the Ventura County Transportation Commission, whose executive director is here this evening, who we'll hear from shortly. Uh and today was busy a Dizdar Park site tour with Susan. It's come, the park is magnifi, it's going to be magnificent. uh a board briefing for Metroink. Uh I had an update meeting relative to our general plan update efforts and then tonight's council meeting. And I'll just echo um Susan's sentiments, Dave sentiments uh regarding our veterans. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your service. That's it.

Thank you, Marta. Uh thank you. On October 23rd, I attended the economic development and land use meeting with council member Santangelo. on October 23rd. I also attended the state of the city. Uh thank you so much to our staff, to the business alliance, and Mayor Kildy. Uh wonderful job. Thank you. Thank you.

On October 27th, I attended the public safety and emergency preparedness meeting. Uh October 28th, I attended the wastewater reclamation plant uh city council workshop and then that was followed by a close session that evening. On October 30th, I attended the groundbreaking uh over in Thousand Oaks of Amjen's 600 million center for science and innovation at their headquarters. Uh this project not only is an investment in Ventura County's economic development through the innovation in high-paying jobs, but it is also a commitment to advancing collaboration, research, and discovery of life-changing therapeutics for patients um with serious diseases. So, I'm I'm actually really excited about uh that project. Although it's not in Camrio, it will definitely have an impact here. And then on November 1st, I attended the city of Ventura's uh diia loss muertos celebration. Uh many of you may know or notice that I very often uh ask to ask our council to adjourn in honor of our community's loved ones. and uh doing so I believe provides a space to celebrate their lives and the goodness that they brought to the city of Camaro and truly the gift that every person is to our world. Um I believe it's another way to honor our mission of Lasudad or the people are the city. So just a little bit about the loss muertos. It's a beautiful and culturally enriching tradition and one that reminds us to honor our ancestors and those who came before us with gratitude, love, and joy. Um, it was truly an honor to be a part of such a meaningful celebration out

there. And uh thank you also to my fellow council members for uh partaking in our ad adjourments um to which offer such a meaningful and memorable moment moments for our community members who offer who honor their uh beloved dead. And on November 3rd, I also attended the Distar Park uh site tour. And I'm a very visual person, so I I took some video. It's up on my Instagram, Bravo for Camrio. You can get a sneak peek. It's actually really, really exciting. I think it's going to be a wonderful park for children and families and people of all ages to come together and and have a good time. Uh, and then scroll here. November 5th, I attended the Many Mansions Volunteer Build Day. Uh it was an event at Rancho Sierra Senior Apartments um which is going to be providing housing for extremely lowincome seniors and seniors experiencing uh homelessness. Um and really thanks to the donation from IKEA. Um so the apartments would be uh furnished with the essentials and and the volunteers helped to assemble the furniture and add those special touches to help our seniors uh feel at home. Um, I think it's important to build a house, but it definitely takes some effort to build a home. And on November 7th, I attended the disaster training for elected officials at the Seami Valley Police Department. Um, it was led by Patrick Maynard from the Ventura County Sheriff's Emergency Services. And after that, I was provided a tour of their police department, which included their call center, which uh I think it gave me too much anxiety. It was very busy um non-stop uh calls. So,

um I kind of got to see it in action. Uh and then on November 10th, on Monday, I attended the state of the region report from the Ventura County Civic Alliance. They always do a a great job and have their report ready to go. And uh November 11th, we also celebrated Veterans Day. And thank you to all of our veterans. Um ditto to everything that was said by Council Member Tennyson. And also a special thank you, Council Member Tennyson, for your service. Thank you. You're welcome.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. So, um I attended Thursday, October 23rd. gave this state of the city and I want to thank all the staff and I want to thank my fellow council members and everyone else that was there and attended and has seen it. Uh I especially want to call out Michelle and Peter um our employees that worked uh very long and hard uh to get uh myself and uh the program ready. So, I want to personally thank both of them for their uh effort and all of our staff that were very supportive of getting me ready for this. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Um, also Saturday, October 25th, I was at the ribbon cutting for Toys R Us ribbon cutting and that was at the factory outlets. So, if anybody wants to go buy some toys, it's fully stocked and it's a beautiful, beautiful facility. So, that was a lot of fun. Uh, Sunday, October 26th, I attended Adalfo Camriel's birthday celebration and we were able to uh break the piñata. I believe Vice Mayor Tennyson, I think, did that as well. And that was a lot of fun, too. And one thing I've learned is kids really love candy. So, that's really cool. Uh also uh Tuesday, October 25th, I also attended the workshop of the wastewater reclamation plant. And Tuesday, November 4th, we had a ribbon cutting at the Mountain View organic waste facility and that's in Oxnard. And that's with the Harrison and Agramman. And that's all about recycling food waste. And so what do we do with food waste? Well, Harrison and Agramman have developed this processing uh for our food waste. It's state-of-the-art. If you ever get a chance to go over there and visit it,

it's it's well worth it. Um and I just encourage everybody, I know it's a little cumbersome, but keep recycling your food waste, too. Uh there is a market that's being developed for it, and it's super important for the life of our landfills, among other things, as well. Um, Thursday, November 6th, I had a BRSD board meeting. Uh, later that day, we had a ribbon cutting at Smile Spa Dental. It's a new dental office over there by the Home Depot. If you get a chance to go up to state-of-the-art. It's pretty cool what they can do. Um, everything's in house. It's actually a husband and wife that are both the dentists there. And they are very hands-on, very, very good people. This is their second dental office. I believe their first is in Agora and now they've moved to Camrio. So, um really wish them nothing but success here. It's a it's a beautiful facility. They've done a a very good job with that. And I just also want to ditto what my colleagues have said about our our veterans and our 250 anniversary for our armed forces. I ditto all the comments that uh were said about that. Okay. Uh so with that um that is going to get us down to the consent calendar. It's item F through P. Any public comments uh city clerk that you're

I don't show anyone. Okay. Consent calendar. Any council questions on the consent item today? There is a motion in a second. And we'll get ready for the vote. We get that. Okay, that passes.

Okay, passes unanimously. All right, that's going to get us down to it's uh item Q. This is a public uh hearing on this. It's the adoption of the 2025 resi re revised building codes by reference city and there's no staff report on this item. It's a second public hearing as required by state law to adapt the 2025 building codes by reference. So with that, I'm going to open the public hearing and I'll ask the clerk, are there any public comments on this at this time?

No, there's no public comments on this item. Okay, there's no public comments on this. So, I'm going to close the public hearing and I am going to ask for any uh disc uh council discussions, questions or anything else. Any else? Okay. So, with that, would somebody like to make a motion and second? Did you get that a motion? And I believe was there a second? Yes. Did you get that, Madam Clerk? Yes, I did.

Would you prepare us for the vote, please? And that passes. Okay. Thank you very much. All right. That's going to get us down to item R. It's the Ventura County Transportation Commission short range transit plan. And we've got Martin Ericson here tonight with us. uh VCTC and PPT and Martin, I know you have an associate as well, but uh welcome and proceed when you're you're ready.

Thank you, Mayor Kildy. Members of the council, uh it's great to be here tonight to speak to you about our short-range transit plan. Again, I'm Martin Ericson, the executive director of the Ventura County Transportation Commission. I um have been executive director for four years, but I was the transit director for six years before that. A position that's being done extremely well by Claire Grai, who is actually on vacation tonight, so I get the pleasure of of covering for her uh or trying to cover for her. She's she's done an excellent job. I'm also joined by Jeremiah LaRose with Farah and Piers who will be giving a a brief overview of the short-range transit plan in a few moments. But basically, the the short-range transit plan is a is a critical document for transportation transit agencies specifically. Uh, I've been doing this so long that I remember when I wrote my first plan back in 1996 for the Santa Barbara Metropolitan Transit District, it was still a requirement of the federal government to have a short-range transit plan before you would get federal funding. Uh over time it became voluntary but a but a very a widely accepted best practice and that is really just to always be taking a look at how you are designing transit routes in your communities, how they can possibly be improved. uh what is changing in the transit landscape in terms of either vehicles or technology and just the the mobility issues that we all know uh have been changing over time. So with that, I'm going to introduce it to turn it over to Jeremiah and we will both be available for for any questions afterwards. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. As mentioned, I'm Jeremiah Lar Rose with Faren Piers. We're the um project consultant team uh working with VCTC and all the stakeholders across the county on this plan. Um and uh I'll go briefly through all of these slides and focus uh a little bit more of my time on uh the concepts that have been developed for Camaro. Um as Martin described, the short-range transit plan is really to help provide a roadmap for the next 10 years or so. um to try to develop a better transit network with the resources we have and identify opportunities to secure better more resources. Um with the goal of increasing ridership, providing staff with uh recommendations to improve the operational efficiency um some strategies for how to attract more people to the transit that we have um and um perhaps most importantly address inequity in the transportation network which is really a key focus uh this round for us. Um there are many components to NSRTP and you'll see in a moment. We've been working on this for about two years at this point and uh each of those components help us helps us answer some questions to further those objectives. So who could use the trans who could use transit service? Where are they? Where do they need to go? Understand how the current transit system performs um and then start to develop uh actions for uh modifying the service. but also in this particular SRTP um beyond just the service modifications, giving staff better tools to evaluate over time um so that this uh plan really is carried out over 10 years and helps them um continue to refine uh the work that gets implemented after uh after we complete ours. Um we are near the end of the consultant uh role in this project at this point. As I mentioned, we've been going about two years at this point. um at which time uh we're preparing to turn over the the concepts, the

recommendations, the the layout of the plan to the staff at uh all of the stakeholder cities and agencies in the SRTP to carry those forward. The major theme of service improvements in the SRTP at the county level, you can see here, um, is really to identify opportunities to streamline transit service in each of the local communities. And doing this at the county level is a little bit unique, right? There's many different agencies, including the city of Camaro's own Camaro area transit that operate their own service. Um together that forms or should form a network where you can get around town and you can connect to regional intercity services, Metroink and other providers um to get between communities. And a main finding of our work to this point has been that we can reinvest and uh reinvigorate some of the local services in ways that will help people circulate better in their own community in including here in Camaro. Um, and in doing so provide better connections to the regional network so that we're able to attract riders for both purposes. For people to get around town for their needs uh here at home and for people to connect to that transit service that's getting them to other parts of the community for many reasons, some of which you you heard about um earlier um in tonight's meeting. So we'll talk a little bit more specifically about a few of these but just want to call attention to um you know some of the communities where this is really the most important um beyond Camaro Santa Paula uh Filillmore and Pyu are really uh also receiving kind of a recommendation for significant overhaul in their services um and then uh neighboring more park uh we're looking at optimizing there's a lot of service providers in that area because of more park college and we can coordinate better between the providers to um take advantage of of those resources.

um in Camaro. This is a map of what's proposed to be uh introduced uh and what would be discontinued. And I'll take a moment, if you'll allow me, to just walk through what's on the map here. Um the transit service that exists today that Camrio uh transit operates, there's two. There's one called the fixed route and there's another called the trolley. Um the trolley is uh quite productive and has a strong history looking back uh over the time since it was introduced in fact for this SRTP. And so uh I'll just say upfront we're not recommending any changes to that. The service design makes sense and we think that the other recommendations we're going to make will actually even further help uh attract more ridership to the trolley. the fixed route service uh that exists today um it doesn't quite fit the the need uh and the the demand travel demand in the city. And as we looked at this, we really felt like best practices would suggest um a network that covers more of uh the city sort of west of um uh Lewis, if you will, and um creates two loops, each operating uh once an hour, but they would be offset by 30 minutes. And the the outcome of that would be transit service throughout Camaro approximately every 30 minutes, which is the same frequency as the trolley, covering most of the area where the majority of the population is. And doing that would reduce uh service as you can see in the dash lines here, including on the the east portion of town in the Leisure Village area. Um, and a little bit of coverage in the middle down um I believe that's Arneal in the uh the north south and in the middle there. Um by reducing those coverage areas and reinvesting in these two uh sort of opposing direction transit loops, we would extend transit service to a much greater portion of the

population in uh Camaro who really could benefit from that sort of frequency and predictable schedule throughout town and reserve the resources for the dialeride program which is very popular throughout the city but it is also expensive to operate. operate um and it's best suited for populations like the people who live in leisure village who are um already heavily using the dialeride program. So um although there's some tradeoffs in a service design like this, the intent is not to reduce the dialeride program um and force everybody over to the fixed route transit, but to offer those alternatives that the dialeride program would remain. It would allow us to free up more resources to provide better and more uh efficient and reliable service for the areas of the community that are further out from the center, including Leisure Village, and create a route network uh that gets you to things like the center of town and to the Metro Link station um or to the outlets um on a more uh consistent basis throughout the day. So to summarize what that means, the current service um in terms of what we call revenue hours, that's hours of service that are provided uh every year, um the roots are about um 5,300 hours a year. And the recommendation if fully implemented with uh the two birectional loops as we saw on the map would double uh that amount of uh service um shifting some of the resources from the existing um fixed route service over to fill in that new service. Um that would increase the residents who have access to the service from uh today about 18,000 within walking distance of a fixed route bus stop to 33,000. um it would increase the number of buses operating and so the result of that on the far right of the table is that the operating cost for the fixed route

service would increase tremendously. The uh ways to offset the increase in that cost we're working through with staff. Some of that would be absorbed by freeing up um some of the dialeride program. people who currently are using dialeride because that's effectively the only option to them um would benefit from the lowerc cost new transit routes that are that are being recommended and so many of those trips may shift from dialeride to fixed route allowing us to shift the resources allocated from dialeride to fixed route. Um happy to answer any more questions on this. I will also point out um staff and VCTC have been working for quite some time to identify other means to control costs on the dialeride program which again is really valuable but it is expensive and um some of those efforts include implementing more modern technology that has really helped improve the efficiency of that service and still serving the same number or more people than we were before. And I'll just go briefly over some of the other changes around the county. um VCTC uh intercity service as um part of the plan um actually just recently launched improvements to the coastal express service that connects commuters from Camaro uh and points west to uh Santa Barbara, Galita and Carperia. Um, we have a concept for a redesigned east county service between Seami Valley and Thousand Oaks that would close uh some service gaps between those two communities and focus the transit resources in that area where there's the highest level of demand and the greatest opportunity to attract ridership. Um, and there would be some modifications to the existing crossount limited which is a route that currently runs Seami Valley more park uh Sus Camaro and onto Ventura. We would remove an overlapping segment between Seami Valley and More Park College where Semi Valley Transit also operates and in uh

in doing so that streamlining allows us to operate the crosscount limited more frequently. Um that provides an alternative for Metro Link service which as uh you all probably know is relatively frequent as far as as far as More Park, but there are fewer trains continuing west of that point and so the bus would become uh an alternative option for those trains that uh terminate in More Park. And that was it. So happy to answer any questions. Thank you very much for your time. Any questions? Do you want to start? Yeah, may um what kind of community outreach um was involved specifically in Camaro in uh coming up with this short range transit plan?

Yeah, thanks for asking. So um we used a range of strategies. We've uh done an online survey and that was um almost two years ago now. I think about a year and a half. um online survey with uh hundreds of responses from across the county. I don't know off the top of my head how many in Camaro, but but a fairly good response rate for the online survey. Um we've held several uh public meetings here in Camaro um at the library. Um I believe all of them were at the library. Um we had a few participants in sort of each case. Um sometimes we paired those meetings up with VCTC's efforts. For example, the uh annual unmet needs process. tried to put those two together so that we would capture a bigger audience. Um some one of the outcomes of uh those interactions actually was speaking with um representatives from the Boys and Girls Club which was one of the things that helped drive the redesign of the service. Um they expressed a need for better connectivity between the high school and their programs and to um circulate uh young people and their their staff around um in the evenings. And so that helped inform some of the design we saw today.

And and how are you able to project ridership with an increase in bus service and a decrease in at least one of the fixed routes on the east side of town? How are you projecting an increase of ridership to make it um effective or efficient with an additional bus running on these routes?

Great question. Um the uh we don't have a a wrership projection per se. So I just want to make sure that uh we're talking on the same terms. Um the number that I showed on the presentation, if that's what you're referring to, is a measure of access. So it would be how many people are within a uh short walk, I think 10 to 15 minutes of the existing bus stops on the current fixed route. And then how many people would be within the same distance or short walk of the uh proposed routes. And that's where we get the u approximately 15,000 to approximately 30,000 uh residence number. In terms of uh our confidence, if the question is sort of our confidence in the success of the proposed routes, um they follow a lot of uh the design principles that makes transit strong and and works well in a lot of communities, including sort of the post-pandemic conditions that um is a driver of a lot of these studies uh in the last two or three years. um how are we attracting people to transit? So part of that is make it easy and consistent, right? The idea that um the roots are easy to follow and understand and look up that they run consistently and that they come often enough that you can use it, right? And the analogy I often uh offer to people is um a lot of people say, "Well, I just drive everywhere." Well, would you just drive everywhere if your street was just closed uh you know, every other hour of the day? Probably not, right? And I think it's the same in terms of transit decision-making. We have to have service operate often enough that it works and people understand that they can take it when they uh need to make their trip and not that they have to organize their travel around the limited times the service is running. So the comparison to the current service is that it doesn't meet those criteria. It's not running um consistently frequently. It's a little hard to interpret. Um and we wanted to bring all those elements together. So, if these changes are implemented, um, it falls on the city to try and get out the

information to the local residents. I saw how many residents live within the quarter of mile of of public transportation. Um, Californians love their cars. Um, they love being able to drive places, get in them as soon as they're done and get home and not wait for bus stops and things like that. How do we work with VCTC and the city to encourage people to at least examine the opportunities for public transit? Because I can tell you I haven't ridden a public transit in Camaro since my daughter was four years old and that was 1985.

I believe it. Yeah. Um I'll offer a couple of things the SRTP is doing specifically to address that and maybe Martin wants to to add a little bit of color beyond that. Um, one of the key things that we examined in this work is what are the cities, the staff, VCTC collectively and individually doing to help promote transit, make sure people are aware of it. And VCTC in particular is doing a lot of really great stuff. um the individual cities all have sort of different capacity to match that kind of um investment in marketing and promotion, but it really does come down to having a strategy for marketing and promotion. So in brief, the SRTP actually spends quite a bit of time on that in addition to the root proposal to help staff with a roadmap of where should you put your energy in connecting with the community, how should you do that, who are those people? Um and also on the evaluation part, right, as I mentioned, after we finish this work, um staff have to be able to carry that out, right? And obviously they it would be great if they came back and hired us every year, but I don't expect that. I want them to have the tools to do it themselves. And the report really focuses on, okay, if you're not achieving sort of this level within a year, here are the strategies to employ to try to attract more riders before we decide, okay, this isn't working and we have to roll back service. And I think that's perhaps the most important message I'd like to convey tonight is what we've seen over time in transit in general and not just in Ventura County is that being too quick to decide something's not working and roll it back because it costs money. It does take time. It takes energy to uh get the word out.

Sure. And and I I would just add uh briefly to to Jeremiah's points that um if if the city were to eventually adopt these recommendations, which is still a lot of process, you you would come back to you and you'd have to actually formally approve all these recommendations, but they were developed in in a in a manner of partnership. And that's really been one of the themes I've been emphasizing uh for all of VCTC is that we are only as good as our partners. all 10 cities, the county, um, other agencies, Boys and Girls Club. So, the city, the city would be joined by VCTC in helping promote these changes. And again, the connections with Metroink, uh, for instance, uh, VCTC inner city, Camrio enjoys a great train station that's also an important transit hub for our inner city buses. Um, so finding, you know, finding the way to, as Jeremiah noted, draw more people who potentially can use transit that that aren't right now because it's really not an option to them, but also balancing the needs where we've made changes to make sure that we're not leaving anybody um with with less options than they had before, if if that makes sense. But it is it's a very dynamic time, you know, especially post pandemic. Um, the world's mobility is is not just here. It's it's changing and and it's happening quickly. So, um fair and peers and the expertise they bring in what's happening in other communities and not just to our south but around the around the country, other parts of California is is important to look at.

Thank you. Anyone else? Uh Mr. Chair, thanks Mr. Mayor and Martin and Jeremiah. Thanks for being here this evening. Thanks for the presentation. Actually, can we go back to one of the first slides dealing with your timeline on this?

Uh, no. I Okay. Yeah. All right. Um, so first of all, before we talk about that, I'm privileged to represent the council on the V on the Ventura County Transportation Commission and I also represent the Ventura County Transportation Commission on the Metroink board of directors. um public transit and transportation challenging transportation planning is extremely challenging. It's critically important for many individuals, especially for essential workers, but there are also times where you're basically taking a leap of faith in trying to make sure you're designing systems that are going to work for folks and that are efficient and fiscally efficient. Um, so I have great appreciation for what you do. I I I really do. I think um, first of all, with respect to the project process timeline, I think one of council member Tennyson's uh, questions uh, with was with respect to more public outreach. Um, I I think I have been thinking about your recommendations. I basically would say I take some of them under submission. I want to think about them some more. I do think that they need some additional analysis and additional specific data support uh for the recommendations. I'm not trying to say I'm Missouri and show me, but in a way I am. I'd like to see some more data behind that. And I think need some more review by city staff. I think my concerns are number one I don't I don't think we've had the amount of and this is not being critical of you because the preliminary public outreach was way back in early of 2024 and now you've gone through these process now you need to do the hard part of some more public outreach and so for example I don't know that there's been the public outreach to Leisure Village for example uh which is in the the district that I'm I'm privileged to to be elected from um so I

think there needs to be more public outreach. I think there needs to be I want to make sure that the transit is efficient. I I'm not sure. My expectation is if we change or adjust the existing fixed routes, I want to make sure that the buses are full or as close to full as they can be. I don't want to see empty buses running around the city. And and so and I'm not saying that they would be empty, but I am saying that I am I I'm just exhibiting a healthy skepticism or healthy show me based on the data that that's what we could expect in terms of adjusting the fixed routes. You're absolutely right about the dial ride and the and the and I think postcoid and post pandemic we really have gone to much more of a DI model and it's far more popular to a dialide model and some would argue it's far more efficient. It is expensive but it's more efficient in in many ways. Um uh I I'm I'm concerned about trying to increase our writership especially on the fixed route. I I don't I'm not convinced that that would be um that would be the the case and I'm um healthfully skeptical about doing tiered rates. I don't uh for that system I'm not quite sure whether or not so none of it none of this is a no I don't want to do it. It's more of a I want to think about it more and specifically from those issues. I'd like to think about this some more, but I appreciate you being here. You got a tough job, right? And so, um, thank you for, uh, thank you for making the presentation. I'm particularly interested in seeing the public outreach side of this and the community engagement and transparency side.

So, thanks Jeremiah. Thank thanks Mark. I'll just briefly mention our report with um, I believe most of the data, if not all that you're looking for, um, is due uh, to VCTC during December. And so should be in front of the commission. Sorry, in front of the commission as a draft in January. Right. So I'm looking forward to seeing the actual data in about 60 days. So I don't want to get too I I I don't want to get out over my skis here. Uh and I'm looking forward to seeing that data. So thanks Jeremiah. Thanks Martin. Thank you. Mart.

Uh thank you uh to both of you. If you can please scroll over to the map. I had some questions. There you go. Um so my uh comments are probably similar um although you know I'll put it in the form of a question. I'm looking at two areas on the map

and that is one of them is actually more in the unincorporated part of Camrio uh going toward uh CSUCI on Lewis Road. Um there's going to be some development happening there with a very vulnerable population of seniors. um also a population where there's going to be um tiny homes built and so given that there is that vulnerable population. I I and maybe you've already started but as people move in as people start settling in I'd love to see what uh some of that data can look like in terms of outreach. um although they are not within the city of Camrio, I mean they're still our neighbors and they will still be uh joining and and welcoming being welcomed here in the city. Uh the other one is also over by uh Camrio Springs. So I'm not sure if you had any community outreach data. I know that over by Camrio Springs there is also a large pretty significant uh population of seniors in that community and you know I I personally would want to know and make sure that we're providing equitable access to uh transportation because I have heard um here or there that sometimes it's even hard because it's so uh much on the outskirts of the or toward the end of the city out in the southern part how it's harder to get uh back into even city hall. Um so I think my recommendation would be similar in those lines but maybe being a little more um equitable to focus on those parts that may be missing or maybe you know you have some of that information already and I just I'm not privy to great. Um I will say um thank you for your comments and that we have um I believe previously discussed with staff the recommendation about the developments going out towards CSUCI. So

we're working with um BCTC operates the service that's going out that direction today and we're working with them on what that might look like to modify it um to include um service near there.

Um Camaro Springs is maybe a little bit less familiar to me. What I would say about that um off the top of my head is just that um we're not proposing any immediate changes to the city's dialeride program. So, um presuming that that area is in the coverage area, which we I can confirm with staff after this meeting, um they would continue to have service and potentially if the fixed route service is successful, it would be even easier for them to get a ride because the intent of the fixed route service is to um open up more capacity on the outskirts of the city on the dialer ride program, which is where that would function best,

if that makes sense. Um yeah, I mean on the map. So So quick question. When you said you talked to staff already about the development um at CSCCI, you're talking about the one on campus or by campus or just throughout on Lewis Road. My yeah, my understanding and I I don't want to get too specific because I don't want to misquote something. I'm sure I'm remembering off the top of my head here, but um my understanding was that we have discussed a little bit of the the various developments along the Lewis Road Corridor towards um campus and I wasn't referring specifically to any developments on campus. Oh, got it. Okay. Thank you. Um,

and I just wanted to add that we appreciate um, Sean Cruz and and just city staff have been great partners in this working with uh, Jeremiah um, and BCTC's transit team, Claire and and others. Um, and also the county Ventura planning staff has been involved in this also. And I I think that's um as Jeremiah noted, one of the challenges is trying to maximize resources to for instance provide more service in in peripheral areas that where new growth has occurred because even in the last two years, some of these developments have come online. Some are being built out.

Some will have a bigger impact uh than than than some previous developments. So finding the best way to provide transit service for for those communities is something we're looking closely. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Well, I want to thank both of you for being here. Um I'm going to be um looking at, as you know, transit is always about stretching dollars. I mean, there's never enough money in transit. We all know that. So, uh, funding mechanisms and perhaps being able to tap into resources that may or quite frankly may not be there as well. So, I think anything that you can do to make it more efficient, increase wrership, and stretch those dollars, I think will be very important. So, I'll look forward to seeing uh what the future brings for bless you for uh both of you here. So, uh, thanks for being here and I know your work continues and we look forward to working very closely with you because it's a very important issue.

Thank you. Thank you, mayor, council members, and and I finally just wanted to thank um you mayor and council and city manager and assistant city manager for allowing VCTC to meet here monthly. We had another great meeting on Friday and this is a wonderful new council chamber that we're very excited to to meet in. So, thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your time. Thank you. All right. So, this was just to provide comments to VCTC and there's no vote on this there. There's not, but I do have a public comment. Yeah, I do have one person. Absolutely. Let's have a public Absolutely. Would you like and that's gonna be Spencer Richie. All right, Spencer. There you are.

All right. Hello. So once again, I'm Spencer Richie and um I will never be quiet about the city council, especially live, especially, you know, running a city that is as full as uh seniors who tend to have a higher proportion of hearing and auditory processing issues. you. Yeah, the city really needs to have closed captioning during its meetings. Um and then um for the actual comment um one I would be I'd be incredibly overjoyed if you know fixed route went was extended until 8 in the evening because as it currently is it does not cover the whole regular business workday which is a problem for me because um I am a receptionist front desk person for the um well my my name's position my title is recreation leader but I in reality I'm mostly a receptionist but I work in the Pleasant Valley Senior Center which is part of the Cal the Camrio Community Center complex and my shift in the afternoon it ends at either 4:30 or 4:45 during the regular business day and I've been freaking out if I can't get a dollar ride home, which I often can't because again, it's way too overloaded because the, you know, the time availability for the route bus is so garbage right now. Um, so yes, I would support expanding the route, the fixed route access until 8. Um but my next

concern is um yes we do absolutely need a route bus stopping by Cam High the Roxy all that down there but must it come at the expense of servicing Leisure Village? Like the last time I checked most of the bus's current ridership or at least a lot of it was le was through Leisure Village. And then my third issue is that you say over and over and over again that you know um we that you know it's so expensive. We got to stretch our dollars when funding public transit. But I find it so funny that apparently all your public transit money seems to go into funding ICE and funding collaboration with ICE via funding VCSO. So, I don't know. I don't know what you're going on about. There's no money for buses. There is money for buses. It's just all going to helping ice.

Okay. Thank you. So, we've been going at it for a while. So, the chair is going to call a 10-minute break.

Maine uh relocation Cal Towns utility agreement and Eric Maple. Eric's going to be here and start us off with this. Please.

That's okay. We'll just There we go. There you go. Can you hear me? Okay.

Okay. Kind of tall here. So, let me make this work. Okay. Good evening, mayor, council. Uh, my name is Eric Maple, water resources manager for the city. I'm going to be talking about the city drinking water pipelines located beneath Lewis Road and the need to be moved um to move them to accommodate a large CALR project in the area. In the resulting recommendation to council, the CALR state route 34 improvement project is a large transportation project that stretches from Rice Avenue in Oxnard to Somas as shown in that red line on the screen. In the city of Camrio Limits, the project runs the length of Lewis Road starting in South Camaro to just past the city's Dalter facility in northeast Camaro on Sus Road. The CALR project includes road improvements such as bike lanes, storm drainage, guard rail upgrades, sidewalk, a traffic signal, and curb ramps. So, it's a a generic type of transportation project that just spans a really long distance. Um, CALR anticipates to bid the project in early 2026 with construction starting late 2026 and early 2027. The project includes improvements beneficial to the city such as a new traffic signal and sidewalk on Temple Avenue and bike lanes. However, the project does affect city- owned and operated drinking water pipelines beneath Lewis Road in the area shown in the red circle on this map, which I'm going to talk about a little bit more. So, one thing um a little bit of background um for those not familiar is that Calrans essentially owns and operates State Route 34 and they essentially have senior rights on that road for the m for the majority speaking situation including this water main situation um as it's their road. In early 2025, CALR notified the city that

its water main pipelines were in conflict with the CALR proposed improvements in various locations on Lewis Road, which are shown in these red dots here. And the city staff began coordinating with CALR on a solution. It's customary for large transportation projects to notify utility owners like the city, gas company, and others of conflicts early in the project design cycle and request them to relocate their utilities to make room for the project. The city does the same thing to other utilities in its own roads when we have large projects. In this case, the normal process would have been the city hiring a consultant, doing a project bid package, bidding the project, and hiring a contractor to relocate the water lines out of the way. Uh that would have taken at least one or two years in going through the whole procurement process and all of that. So, CALR and city staff work together on a faster, more efficient solution given CALR project timelines. I believe they have some grant timelines that they're really pushing to bid out the project. Also, they notified us somewhat late. Um, but we accommodated that. Uh, the city worked with CALR to design the water main relocation work and CALR agreed to use their contractors to physically relocate the city mains as opposed to the city hiring a contractor. There's efficiency in having CALR relocate the our water lines as their contractor will already be on site because it's a massive project. They'll have their traffic control in place and and all of that and they'll also it'll help with the the construction coordination. City staff and CALR work closely to incorporate the water main relocation design work into their overall bid package for that that huge long job that I showed you on the red line on the map which should result in a fair bid price given that this work is small compared to that large transportation project that they have. This collaboration resulted in the CALR agreement before you to compensate CALR for their work in completing the design that city staff uh

closely guided and for CALR to relocate the city water manes as part of their overall project. The city would owe CALR approximately $60,000 to pay for their design team's work for the water main relocation plans and specs and approximately $670,000 to reimburse CALR for the construction work once the physical work uh to relocate the city water mains is completed. That's when that reimbursement would be. The construction amount shown is the current bid estimate and is subject to change once CALR bids the project and staff has evaluated the detailed construction estimate and is within normal ranges. This concludes staff's presentation and staff's recommendation to council is to authorize a city manager to execute a utility agreement with CALR and any necessary documents and agreement amendments with Calrans for the relocation of the city's water main and Lewis road project area. I'm available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Any questions of Eric now? Eric, I have a question. Who's going to pay for this as far as that amount of money? Does CALR pay for that? Do we pay for that? Who's who's going to pay for that? So, the city will be paying CALR out of our own water funds for relocating our our pipelines, the city pipelines. The rest of the work is all paid by CALR. So, the new traffic signal at Temple, CALR is paying for that because it's part of their normal project. And there's some sidewalk infill and bike lanes. That's all Calrans paying for that. But we do have a responsibility to relocate our water manes physically out of the way. So instead of us doing that, we'll be paying CALR that amount.

Will it be uh new construction material or will it be what's there rehabbed? How is that how is that going to work? Um well essentially the the reason why we have to relocate just to get a little bit more detail is CALR is installing some storm water pipelines that are right uh kind of crossing over our water line. So we're going to be installing new water main but but installing it deeper. So it'll be new water line deeper in several spots to to make room for their uh storm water pipelines. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Uh vice mayor has a question I believe. Just one quick question, Eric. This is supposed uh construction start in 2027. Yes.

And what's the time frame for the total project? I may have missed it. Uh I actually don't know. Um I don't know that from from coordinating with CALR. Um I'm still waiting for some other details from them, but um just based on my experience, it probably pretty significant. Maybe a year, something like that. And will that have significant impacts on Lewis Road traffic when that goes on or

Yeah, I can imagine it will. Um, and we've had some coordination with Calrans, but because they brought us in a little bit late into the process, we're still kind of evaluating those. This was their primary concern right now was the utility relocation. Um, but we will continue to to coordinate with CALR um uh on some of those things and some of the other improvements in their draft control on Lewis. But at this time, I I don't have a detailed coordination on that part of the project. And I know we have plenty of time, but it'd be nice to get feedback on the length of the project and make sure we have adequate time to get um information out on our city websites and social media so that our residents know that there's going to be traffic impacts on Lewis.

Yeah, correct. We'll be sure to do that. Thank you. Any other questions, Martita? Uh thank you so much. Uh the question that I had is I know you mentioned that this type of utility relic relocation is standard. Are you referring to just the project in it of itself or uh the actual manner in which we are they're doing Calrans is doing the work and then we are moving forward with reimbursement.

Um I guess what I meant was to say that it's standard. I say I'm I would say the general practice of moving pipelines out of the way for a project is probably customary. Um having CALR move our pipeline out of the way for us is probably not customary. But in this case um they were under a very tight timeline and and they couldn't accommodate their project if it took us two years. So, this CALR arrangement to have them do it for us is somewhat unique, but it seems to be a win-win. Um, but utility uh relocation in general is customary. Okay. Thank you so much.

Any other questions? Um, Madame Clerk, do we have any public comments on this item? No, we do not. Okay. I'll ask for further council discussion and or motion. I'm happy to move uh the recommendation. There's a motion in a second. Would you prepare the vote, please? I'm sorry. This is a No. Yeah. Yeah. We need to prepare the vote, please.

And I'm look like I'm still waiting for the mayor's vote. It's not on here. It's not. Um, how are you voting? Oh, there we go. Hang on here. Okay. Okay, got it. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. And that passes. That passes. Okay. So, that's going to get us down to item U. It's the FY202425 strategic uh plan year. You're in progress uh memorandum. And we are going to have Carmen Nichols with us is going to take this. Carmen, please.

Thank you and good evening, city council. It's my pleasure to provide you the fiscal year 202425 strategic plan year-end report. You were provided an update in February uh for the first part of the year. This report closes the year through June 30th. Tonight's presentation is a snippet of the productivity invested towards the city council strategic plan. Um other examples of work are outlined in the progress memorandum provided as part of the agenda report. staff's efforts support um and carry out the city's mission which is dedicated to providing effective and efficient municipal service uh that promote a high quality of life, economic vitality and a safe environment for all. The fiscal year 2024 25 strategic plan is comprised of 10 goals and 100% of those goals are activated meaning that staff efforts um are pro provide support to um all 10 goals. There are 33 objectives with staff supporting 100% of those objectives through various projects, programs and activities. Of the eight action strategies in the current plan, four are complete, two are complete and ongoing, one is deferred to this current year and one has been started and is ongoing. And typically when action strategies are complete, they are incorporated in operational work plans. If they not are just they're not not always just one and done. They are incorporated in our operations. So, as we look at the key achievements under our first value, which is fiscal management, I chose three areas um which I wanted to bring up to to your attention tonight. Understanding and maximizing the city's fiscal position is critical for strategic planning and ensuring that the city's resources are invested with prioritization in mind.

staff are aggressively seeking grant funds and federal and state appropriations, evaluating investment options, and studying fiscal opportunities for major projects. I wanted to draw your attention to this slide which um summarizes our efforts on grants and other funding opportunities. There are eight focus uh areas including emergency management, energy, fleet, housing and homelessness, public safety, transportation, water and work and the workforce. We have applied for about approximately $56 million in grant uh for grant funds. Efforts include evaluating all funding assisted by consultants to review, evaluate eligibility, and assist in applying. When we are unsuccessful, we make a concerted effort to meet with awarding agencies to learn um on how we can strengthen our applications for the next the next uh uh review. Currently, um our largest largest awarded grant in the fiscal year is a $7.3 million grant to support the anal supportive housing project. Our lo largest pending grant is the um water reservation replacement. So, we're waiting to hear back on that grant. So, additionally, an action strategy developed through last year's strategic plan is the development of the the strategic financial plan for the water reclamation plant to help us understand the district's financial capacity and identify optimal financial strategies. Several projects are in the pipeline to improve public facing services. Projects such as city hall chamber remodel, which is now complete, provides an audio, video, and accessibility improvements. The progress report pro report provided um an update on eight additional projects with several others already in the pipeline. The techni technology modernization plan identifies solutions

necessary to advance both internal and public facing operation. Advancements in technology will bring efficiencies to and expand the way we conduct business in our community. One major major endeavor this year included the prioritiz the project prioritization framework that was used for the current year's project budget development. Priority ranking categories include factors such as legal compliance, public health and safety, asset condition, and others. The process ensures that the city's resources are used on projects and programs aligned with city council's priorities for the community. Moving on to community enrichment. Information and communication are critical factors in fostering a strong community. The Mountain Fire taught us that we should continue to be ready, nimble, and critical communications must be timely. As a result, staff created a storm readiness and weather preparedness web page. Library staff supplemented emergency preparedness through library programs and workshops, and we continue to provide CERT training to willing community members. Efforts in homeless and mental health objectives resulted in a 7.3 million encampment resolution fund grant aimed at providing transition housing. And it's also supporting the hotel voucher program and the development of an affordable housing project which includes services such as target outreach case management um and site cleanup. Uh you'll be hearing more about the strategic plan, the homeland strategic plan um at the next report, but I wanted to draw your attention to this slide which um uh illustrates our efforts in um our uh homeless community. There have been 51 exit from homelessness, including permanent housing, shelter, transitional housing, and relocation of family reunification. These positive outcomes were made possible through partnerships with key community stakeholders, particularly particularly the dedicated efforts of the Ventura County Healthcare Agency's case manager,

who provided targeted support, including credit repair, mental health services connections, and coordin coordinated care for clients with behavioral health challenges. The city's collaboration with local landlords, the area housing authority, faithbased organizations, and regional service providers enable flexible, comprehensive response to client needs from household items and moving assistance to benefits navigation for veterans and child care coordination for families. As a result of commitments made by the council this year, 25 dedicated housing units are in the pipeline, which include 10 permanent supportive units in the county's program funded by Homekeep Plus, nine permanent supportive units in our Neil Road project funded by our ERF grant, and six temporary units in the Berry Street interim housing project. Public safety strategies continue with targeted special details such as those to combat organiz organized retail theft. The police department continued to leverage technology to assist defective law enforcement strategies such as automated license plate readers, artificial intelligence, and opticom, which is used to advance traffic lights during emergency situations. Supports for the arts continues. For example, a community engagement effort launched between the city and Sai arts um was to bring art for the Dizdar park renovation project. Also, the library offered a series of highlighting local art. Staff continues to deliver messaging and promoting diversity and inclusivity through events, recognition opportunities, and through community programming at the library. We have also expanded our pro uh promoting observed holidays. The city council support to nonprofit work in our community continues with an investment guided by the community service grants and community event funding programs. Not accounting for direct support, this past fiscal year,

the city contributed almost $350,000 to nonprofits under the grant programs. Key achievements in goal number three. In support of California State University, staff has seen an increase in student ridership. Passengers with a college ID increased by 745% from the previous year with a total of 6,483 trips and 8,60 riders. We continue to monitor enrollment to create strategies of retaining graduates in our community in pro in programs that align with key industries tied to our community such as computer science, research and development, health science. CSUCI recently expanded in research and academic capacity through Gateway Hall, a facility with attractive features including meeting space, classrooms, and study areas. Key achievements under goal number four, land use and transportation. The Santa Rosa Road adaptive project replaces 11 traffic controllers and introduce and introduce an adaptive traffic management systems with the project expanding throughout the city. Adaptive controllers provide the ability to adjust traffic flow under real-time traffic conditions, reduce congestion, and improve efficiency. Advanced video detection improves by um improves bicycle detection and data collection for better informed traffic management. Phase one of Opticom installation is complete. This enables emergency response vehicles such as police and fire to preemptively change traffic signals to green on approaching an intersection. Ride Co software program has enabled and made it easier to book, view, and cancel reservations. Since the beginning of the launch on August 4th, 2024, we've provided 72,466 trips for 115,000 passengers. 52 and a.5% of the rides are share rides and 46% of trips are booked by the

application or through the website. In keeping sight of the transit needs of our community, the city participated in BCT short-range transit plan. You heard that item tonight. Key achievements under goal number five, environment resource management. Water conservation continues to be a large focus. community me continues through all of our communication channels as well um as school field trips to the Dalter providing an early education into the importance of natural resources. The advanced meter infrastructure project more commonly known as AMI replaces the city's approximately 4,000 water meters provided providing autom automated meter reading and water usage information. Other CIP projects uh supporting WAS water conservation include water reservoir and pump station installations. Environmental sustainability and energy efficiency is also a focused goal. Reliability of power is essential for providing business continuity during power outages. The installation of a standby generator is well underway here at city hall and the next stop will be the corporation yard. We continue to partner with the Clean Power Alliance for projects that further advance the city's goals of infrastructure resilience. And just this year, we also received a grant for $250,000 from CPA for uh vehicle, I'm sorry, electric fleet transition. The water reclamation project is the largest project that the city and Cameo sanitation district will undertake thus far. This is a generational project that when complete will thrive for decades and provide safe, effective wastewater treatment, meeting regulatory compliance. To move forward on this, the city conducted its first workshop on October 28th to receive an in an an introduction on the financial capacity and affordability

that will influence the overall design. The consultant is looking into the district's long-term financial plan, aligning capital investment needs with funding strategies and implementation schedules. At the workshop, staff also presented on the role of the owner's advisor that will provide independent technical and programmatic expertise from planning through construction, guiding the se the city through the project's life cycle. Community redevelopment goal number six. Five families assisted this were assisted this year by receiving a $50,000 down payment assistance loan. This loan helps close the gap needed for a down payment to the city's portfolio of affordable housing. The city's undertaking two very lowincome projects, Berry Street and Arneal Road projects, which will create supportive housing in the um as outlined in the progress memorandum. You will also find additional projects that continue to grow the overall housing portfolio including Kixa Apartments, William Homes, U Pelra, Bissa Compania Homes, and Lenar Homes. The Camrio Commons area has long been a focus of the city council. The market analysis has been complete completed and it identifies incentives to facilitate redevelopment and re investment in the strategic plan area. It also identifies potential funding sources to support public improvements um and other strategies. Speaking of strategies, the Oldtown strategic plan is expected to be presented to the city council in January. The plan provides a road roadmap of action strategies that help strengthen Oldtown's economic vitality. The community uh engagement on the strategic plan solicited over 700 responses, which makes it a top community focus and item of interest. Economic development

action strategies in the economic development strategic plan are now achieved and are incorporated into daily operations. A plan refresh is targeted for quarter 1 2026 to ensure that future endeavors are aligned with city strategies. Choosecameo.com continues to be a strong business information and marketing platform for the city. 14,000 choosecamerio.com page views are recorded and the site has over 3,000 subscribers. In terms of business business retention and expansion, Camrio's business base is broad and active with nearly 4,400 firms operating in Camrio. 75% in commercial districts and 25% homebased. 3,700 companies that serve our market are based out of the city. While demand is up in retail, vacancy continues to be at a low rate of 3.7% compared to the state's overall figure of 5.4%. Industrial space with 11 million square feet and over 100 manufacturers has a 2.9 vacancy rate compared to the state's average of 7.3%. The office market continues to adapt to new work patterns um and has a high vacancy rate at 11.7. And finally, the city business program continues to support our business community. The revolving loan fund approved about 890 th 890,000 to support 13 new businesses. Community relations goal number eight. City staff and library staff are working collaboratively to expand youth engagement and provide opportunities for the youth to get involved from informational booths at concerts at the park as well as at other events to re-energizing the teen advisory board and inspiring them to promote youth involvement in government and

volunteerism. Additional efforts are planned for this current year. Numerous opportunities were provided for community engagement. Since March 2023, staff have conducted 48 DALTA tours with over 850 attendees. The Los Personna's Community Academy, excuse me, the Los Persona's Community Academy continues to be well attended by community members with a limit of approximately 20 attendees per cohort. This annual program allows for community members, staff, and council to learn from each other. Several informational workshops occurred last year with plans this year to continue engaging and leveraging leveraging community participation. Government governmental relations key achievements include operations and emergency preparation um efforts. As a matter of operations, we continue to prioritize communication with local public agencies that serve the community. Of critical importance is the availability of services to our community including emergency preparation. City staff is cons is in consistent communication with the Southern California Edison Clean Power Alliance and other public safety partners. Additionally, we stay close to other public agencies such as CSUCI, school district leaders, county, state, and federal leaders as well as our nonprofit partners. On legislative efforts, the city took positions on 14 different bills and additional legislative and tracking analysis focused by both staff and our college interns. Additionally, the city worked with Assembly Member Bennett on Assembly Bill 367, which requires water suppliers in Vura County to have backup generation at all critical infrastructure. The city was able to negotiate amendments to the legisl legislative language that significantly lowers the city's financial impacts. Key achievement 10, employee relations.

The human resources department has taken the lead in advancing the city council's goal of maintaining an optimum work environment. Building strong leaders through the organization with a commitment of supporting the city council's vision is making great advancements through a new a newly developed leadership program. will continue to provide ongoing training on technical skills, soft skills and technology. In addition to other other efforts, the HR department continues to work on NEOGV platform. Perform is a platform that allows for an efficient performance evaluation process. HR continues to update their digital um forms into a digital format. regarding programs and other projects bridging the gap with HR continue to foster a collaborative and engagement environment for employees participating in many internal activities. Other initiatives that have started or with continuous implementation include modernization of personnel rules and wellness initiatives. The slide before you also uh reflects the productivity in HR. The city of Camrio have hired 31 new employees with 12 promotions internally. The average tenure of our employees 7.73. Number of trainings produced 32. Average time to hire 80 days. Vacancy rate as is low at a 2.4%. Retention rate is 88.2%. And HR transactions uh processed annually are 468. What are the next steps? Advance. We continue to advance existing work and action strategies. We also are looking at a citywide organizational assessment. We are in the RFP process at this time to assess our work plans and the resources. Creating key performance indicators that will align with the strategic plan and create a more effective plan that will monitor, help us monitor, report and use the

information for future decision- making and recommendations to the city council. Fiscy year 24-25 um strategic plan has ended in June 30, but the 2526 strategic plan, which we're currently working under, will be brought to the city council in January. We'll provide you a progress update at the time and then we'll continue to develop goals for the next fiscal year. That concludes my presentation. Okay. Thank you very much. Any questions of Carmen at this point? Yes, Mr. Trembley has a question. Carmen,

thanks, Mr. Mayor. Uh Carmen, thanks for uh a great report and thank you to all of our city staff for all of your efforts. Can we go back though to slide uh three, please on the performance summary? Can you just walk me through again on the action strate uh No, that's seven. Back to three. There we go. Yeah. Eight action strategies, four completed, two completed and ongoing, one deferred, one started and ongoing. Can you list for me the completed ones? just wasn't sure I was following you.

Okay. Under goal one, um, we have one action strategy that has been completed. Um, would you like me to read that one off to you? I I didn't I don't need a I just I just was interested. Four have been completed, two are completed and ongoing. One's deferred, one's starting ongoing. I just thought you might have a list of what those are.

Um, not exactly. Goal two has three action strategies to have been completed. One is deferred. Under goal five, one action strategy is ongoing. Under goal number six, one action strategy is completed. Under goal number seven, one action strategies completed u and will continue to be ongoing. Under goal number eight, we have one action strategy that has been started and we'll continue um we'll be continue to proceed with it. Okay. Thanks. I may well have missed it in the memorandum that went out. But on the other hand, perhaps you could provide to the council just a list that just in just in very one pager that just details what those are. I will do that. Four that are completed, the two that are completed ongoing, etc.

I will I will do that. Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Any other questions? Carmen, just have I think Well, it's not a question. I'll wait for a a comment uh here. Um so, let's see. Are there any public comments, Madam Clerk, on this? No, there's not. Okay. So, let's get a sc council discussion. This is a receiving and file, but is there any further discussion on this? Anybody have anything else? I just noticed interesting, Carmen. Um, you don't have to answer this right now, but like writership to CSUCI was up 745%. Is there any further data or anything that you may have at this particular I just find that kind of interesting. Wow. Yeah, that's

yeah, I don't have any further information on um we do have increased writership by our college students. Um where they're going and where they're coming and going, I don't have that information. I'll check with our um our staff and see if I can get that information for council as well, but um when we've checked for student ID, um it's it's significantly up. So, it tells us our students are using our transit system.

That's a good thing. That's a good thing. All right. I appreciate your u report commen very effective and informative I appreciate that. So before we do the next uh agenda item that's the city camera homeless strategic plan, we have to shuffle the deck up here for just a bit. So I'm going to just call a twominut recess while we shuffle the deck.

convening the meeting. Uh, thank you for being patient with me tonight. Um, the next is the city camera homeless strategic plan and we have Lette. Lette, do you want to lead us off here tonight, please? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry, let me make sure I'm on. Uh, good evening, mayor, uh, council members, staff, and members of the public. Uh, my name is Lette Torres, senior management analyst here at the city, and I'm pleased to introduce Colleen Murphy, uh, principal with Lassar Development Consultants homeless solutions team. Colleen has been leading the development of the city of Camaro's homelessness strategic plan, and she brings over 13 years of specialized expertise to this work. As a nationally recognized expert in homelessness strategy, Colleen focuses on unsheltered populations, encampment response, and system coordination. Her uh experience includes developing effective approaches to street outreach, vehicular homelessness, and strategies that assist jurisdictions of all sizes in addressing homelessness. Um, and she resides just north of us here in Santa Barbara. Uh, and Colleen will now present the draft homelessness strategic plan.

Thank you. Greetings. Good evening, uh, Mr. Mayor and council members. Um, and also the mayor of the day, uh, Xander. I wanted to also acknowledge him. Also, thank you for the opportunity to present the city of Camaro's draft homelessness strategic plan for your consideration tonight. This plan gives the city a clear, actionable roadmap to reduce homelessness amongst Camaro residents. It builds on the foundation already in place through Project Hope and local housing investments and it lays out the steps needed to expand capacity, align resources, and move more residents into stable housing. The plan is both data informed and communitydriven, refle reflecting the local conditions and input. The plan was developed uh with a strong partnership with the project team composed of city and county staff with support from our firm Lissart Development Consultants, a Californiabased firm that specializes in housing and homelessness strategy. Next slide. Oh, thank you. And so wanted to uh give some foundation on how we got here today and the vital Kimaro voices that helped to shape this plan. The planning process actually began in September 2022 when the city updated its housing element to include the creation of a homelessness strategic plan. LAR then began its work with the city to help create uh this plan in October 2024 and has continued this work to date. Over that time, we performed a detailed landscape analysis that included significant data analysis with extensive community input. We reviewed your homelessness and housing data to

understand what's working and where are the gaps. We also met with city staff and elected officials, the project hope team, county partners such as behavioral health and the housing authority. Local service providers, faith-based organizations, business and nonprofit leaders also played an active role. We also heard directly from the general public through community meetings, surveys, and received feedback directly from people with lived experience of homelessness in Camaro. The result is a plan that reflects the voices and the unique needs of the people who live in Kamaria. And so the plan uh the draft plan that we are here to talk to about today starts with a clear picture of Camaro's housing and homelessness landscape. It highlights both the city's progress and the challenges that remain. It then outlines what's needed to close those gaps through a two-phaseed approach. Phase one focuses on building local capacity and alignment. Phase two focuses on scaling housing and services to meet the level of need. Together, these two phases move the city from planning to implementation, starting with the groundwork and then building towards long-term impact. And now I'd like to welcome Chief Tennyson to discuss Camria's landscape and the city's current service delivery model.

Thank you, Colleen. Uh, good evening, mayor and council. I think it's important as we begin to look at the homeless strategic plan to understand the demographics of those who are homeless in our city. In January, in our point in time count, we identified 90 homeless individuals within the city. This is up from 30 just six years ago. But I would like to point out that that increase isn't quite as it seems as there is some important context that the numbers alone don't tell. During the last three point in time counts, our Project Hope team did a great job identifying all of the locations where homeless reside in our city and pointing our counting teams in the right direction to find and count them. The current number really reflects a much more accurate understanding of homelessness in our city that we've had in years past. In addition to knowing where the homeless reside, also knowing the uniqueness of our homeless population is key to developing solutions to better manage our homeless population. For example, we know that about 70% of our homeless population resides in vehicles, in RVs, pickups, and cars. This is important because they present different challenges to overcoming homelessness. Additionally, about half of our population is employed to some degree, either part-time, full-time, or seasonally. More than half of our population has some sort of substance abuse issues, whether alcohol, drugs, or prescription medications. And last, at least half of our population has mental health related issues. As I mentioned earlier, all of these demographics are important when looking for solutions to better manage our homeless population. Up to this point, all of our homeless services delivery runs through Project Hope. This council has strongly supported our efforts, increasing our staffing from one deputy just a few years ago to a senior deputy, community services coordinator from the county's whole person care, senior management analyst, and an intern from the city of Camaro. Our team is focused on intensive and extensive outreach as the first step to developing individualized solution

that uh that meet each person's unique needs. Our team identifies and attempts to meet with every single homeless person who makes their way into our city. And through partnerships they've built with other governmental organizations, local churches, and other nonprofits, we connect people with the help we know they need. Another benefit of our Project Hope team is that we constantly evaluate our service delivery and make staffing recommendations and changes in order to be as effective as we can. The community service workers you all agreed to add through a grant uh last year is evidence of this. She's housed 44 people since starting in 2024. And what we've seen through her efforts is that in providing housing for people, their outcomes improve when they have a roof over their head. And from a law enforcement perspective, in many of these cases, our calls for service drop drastically and in some cases altogether because people have more stability in their lives and are better able to work with us. One of the most important things I'd like to highlight is the by name list that Project Hope has created and that you will find in the homeless strategic plan. The by name list is something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the county. It's a list updated every single day of every single homeless person who makes their way into our city. It's the most accurate count of homelessness that exists and is key to developing effective strategies. It tracks people when they come into our city and when they leave our city and by what extra strategy they left. Our list doesn't stop there, however. As the Project Hope team further filters that list into an active Camaro list, we look at each individual's background to determine that they do in fact have long-standing ties and connections in our community. It's only those who we verify with significant ties to the city who will receive the full support of the project hope team and all of the resources that the city of Camrio can provide. For those who maybe have heard about our program from areas outside of Camrio, they can and will be referred to

other resources, but they will not receive all of our Project Hope services. This prevents us from falling into a if you build it, they will come scenario. And finally, as I mentioned before, this council's been incredibly supportive of our efforts to better manage homelessness over the last few years. Council has approved the acceptance of $7 million in grants and $2.4 million in general funds along with funding our senior deputy in order for us to have the proper resources necessary to address homelessness up to this point. And now I'll turn it back over to Colleen to discuss the homeless strategic plan.

Thank you, Chief. So, as I mentioned, the proposed plan includes a roadmap with a menu of strategies that can help guide the city's approach over the next five years. Phase one focuses on creating the right conditions for success. Thank you. Um that includes exploring a renewable local funding source while continuing to pursue existing resources that exist through the county, the continuum of care, state and federal funds and reducing barriers to housing development and expanding staff capacity to strengthen the city's response. This phase also emphasizes partnership, working closely with the county, the continuum of care and housing authority to align efforts and to avoid duplication. And finally, it prioritizes transparency and public engagement. That means building tools like dashboards, continuing community outreach, and providing regular updates to the council so progress remains visible and measurable. With that groundwork laid, uh, phase two then will turn to implementation, delivering the housing and services to reduce homelessness. And as we shift to phase two, and that's really where the rubber meets the road, it really then is the following three years and looks to develop additional permanent housing options and uh add new affordable and supportive units and expand interim options such as motelbased shelter and other opportunities for residents living in their vehicles. It also includes a prevention strategy that helps to keep people housed through rental assistance, shared housing, and other local supports along with flexible funds that can remove small barriers to housing. And finally, it also includes workforce development, recognizing that long-term housing stability is tied to income and

opportunity. These combined efforts will help more residents move into housing and remain there. All these strategies work together to change the balance helping to move uh more people exit homelessness than enter it. And so as chief uh alluded to that um it's important to understand the true need of homelessness in your city. And so while the point in time count uh is an important measure, it has limitations um to be able to understand the true need as it only provides a snapshot of one night and does not capture how many people become homelessness throughout the year and how many people exit out of homelessness. As such, this plan focuses on two key trends to help track need and impact. It's looking at annual inflows into homelessness and outflows out of homelessness. Inflows into homelessness represent residents who newly lose housing or return to homelessness. Outflows represent those who move from homelessness into permanent housing. Homelessness begins to decline when more people are housed each year then become homeless. The plan lays out how the city can achieve this by keeping inflow steady and through prevention and stabilization efforts while steadily increasing housing placements yearover-year. By maintaining that balance with fewer people entering and more people exiting homelessness, Kimrio can make measurable progress towards his five-year goals. And so, uh, I'll just take a moment with this graphic. It basically shows you uh throughout the year of through that by name list you're going to be looking at your inflows of people falling into homelessness. Then you're looking at who's actively homeless throughout the

year and then those that are exiting out of homelessness into permanent housing. And so we looked at your baseline data from this year to understand how many inflows or how many people are experiencing homelessness today and looked at then if you uh we modeled of what if you could keep your inflows static through prevention efforts and by uh making sure people who are housed can stay housed and then by increasing those housing placements that if this uh northstar can be met that you could see a pretty dramatic reduction in homelessness. And so the baseline here reflects about 90 residents uh currently experiencing homelessness. And if you see that increase in housing placements and increase in prevention efforts and you can keep the inflow stable, you could potentially reduce homelessness by twothirds. Progress will be tracked through the city's by name list which identifies every resident experiencing homelessness in Camaro and monitors who's entering and exiting the system over time. This allows the city and its partners to measure outcomes in real time and adjust strategies as needed. While conditions may change in the future, thus impacting these data, having a north star to guide your work will be important for you all. And so as the plan moves from uh draft to implementation, the city will continue to engage partners and the community to put these ideas into action. Early next year, we'll be convening key stakeholders and community members to discuss moving this plan forward once approved. This will then help identify pri priorities for that first phase and maintain the

collaboration that shape the plan itself. The goal is to keep momentum going, ensure transparency and create opportunities for residents and partners to stay involved as implementation takes shape. And to close out, I wanted to um I wanted to first of all thank you uh leave you with this recommendation um to adopt the comm sorry um Camaro homelessness strategic plan. And I wanted to thank the council, city staff, the project hope team, uh the county and regional partners, the lived experience advisors, and the many, many service providers and residents who contributed to this process. Their input shaped every part of this plan you see tonight. With council's approval, Camaro can move forward with a clear, realistic strategy to make the homelessness uh situation in this community rare, brief, and nonreoccurring. Thank you for your time.

Okay. Thank you. So, um, we're going to have perhaps some council questions and then we're going to have council discussion, but before I do that, I know it did go to committee. Do the committee have any questions that they'd like to ask at this particular point? You have any? Okay. Does any of the council members have any questions they like? Mr. Tramly.

Thank Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Um, first of all, I just want to begin because I do have several questions. I I want to begin by stating that what our city staff and what Project Hope staff, our Project Home team have accomplished in in the recent years is is extraordinary. I I we are blessed by their by their work and I think it's fair to say that all five of us up here have consistently supported uh the their efforts. Uh we've uh expanded funding for the uh for the project hope team. Uh in April of this year, we ratified the state's 7.3 million ERF grant uh for the addition of nine units on our Neil Road. Thirdly, in May of this year, we did the approval of the affordable housing project and addition of six housing units on Berry Street. And in August of the year this year, just a few months ago, we reached anou uh with the county of Ventura as a partner in building an 88 unit complex on Lewis Road and contributing $2 million capital investment from the general fund for 10 units dedicated to Camaro residents. So it to put this in context before I start my question, I think it's really noteworthy that the city is likely going to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in operational costs for the first two projects in the years ahead, specifically the Barry and the Arnneal uh projects. And as the staff report itself notes, u the city's investments through fiscal year 2627 uh approximate about 10.4 million. So that's $8 million in grant awards and and 2.4 $4 million in general fund allocations. That's almost $2.5 million general fund allocations. So I I firmly believe that the city and all of us have an obligation to seek solutions to alleviate homelessness.

Um that's the right thing to do. Now the input on the plan, if I read the staff report correctly, came from about 250 individuals. Uh about 175 of them were by survey. uh and about 75 in person. I I want to remark that we I view my role personally on the city council and I think we have an obligation as a city council to be fiscally responsible for all 70,000 of our residents. We need to keep perspective. We need not to go over the top. And and I what I'm especially concerned about, for example, is um when we're facing astronomically high infrastructure costs in the next 5 to 10 years, including it appears, somewhere north of $200 million just for our water reclamation plan upgrades, which is the largest public works project in the city's history. So when I'm asking my questions, please do not be critical of of my questions. Uh I'm not being critical in any way of our of of our efforts. uh Lette and Colleen Eric, you've done a you've done a remarkable job um on all the efforts on homelessness, but I think we need to engage in some exercise and critical thinking um and asking questions about the underlying themes and the specific measures in the in the draft plan, the fine print. So, the five the fine print is 146 pages, which I've had about five days to review. And that's kind of my occupational habit uh is to review the fine print in in in 146 pages. And this print and you can follow along because I'm going to be asking questions based upon this draft plan. It has a noble attempt. It's it's some of the specifics that I'm I'm concerned about. Um first question is I think it's correct and so help me here uh Colleen or or Lette. If we approve this plan, we are committing to a 5-year series of specific measures. I think you

in fact you use the words clear actionable a clear actionable roadmap in your remarks. So am I am I thinking of that correctly? These are specific measures.

So if you look at the strategies that are in the tables, uh it is a road map, but you get to drive the car. And so while it gives you some pathways uh to help you achieve those goals, we believe it has the flexibility for the city to decide what it wants to prioritize, when it wants to prioritize, and how to prioritize those those resources. And so while it is a roadmap um there are certain pathways uh so investments where to prioritize how much that's why we left it open to the city to determine how to do it when to do it and uh how to prioritize. As we said the landscape will change um as your needs change um year after year. Uh we expect that you might need some things more than others. So, we hope that this plan is written in a way to help you be able to shift gears when you need to as the pathways change.

Well, I and I app I appreciate your response, but when I read the text of the plan and specifically the fiscal provisions in the plan, the land use reform measures in the plan. There are very actionable steps that if we approve this draft plan tonight, we're going to be undertaking in year one. And so that's what I want to focus on because I think there are some very specific steps that we're if we approve this that we're going to be taking on right now. So in that extent this doesn't strike me I mean it doesn't strike me as aspirational. It strikes me as uh we're going to be uh putting a great deal of effort and spending more money and staff time and consultant time which is fine but on review of some of these. But there are things that we would be saying and committing to immediately in year one. And that's what I'm I'm I'm concerned about. The staff report states that our annual homeless count increased by only 1% this past year and the growth rate is stabilized. Um so could you elaborate for me on the two we gave two central imperatives in the staff report. C could you elaborate on what those two central imperatives are? I believe uh one of the imperatives was focused on housing uh a central imperative on housing and the need to increase housing opportunities um as a measure to address homelessness. And the second imperative Thank you. I I think what it said Lette said if I

can is that the two central imperatives are the first one is the inter permanent housing for residents who are already experiencing homelessness and the second is permanent affordable housing to address upstream crossing. Correct.

Right. Okay. Um, am I reading this right in thinking that this strategic plan, particularly if I'm focusing on imperative number two, is in large part guided by the desire to focus on producing more affordable housing and and not strictly speaking uh housing just for homeless individuals. I think that's a fair read, isn't it? It's a much broader plan. uh we see affordable housing to be inclusive of uh permanent supportive housing which is for people experiencing homelessness. However, uh the investment in affordable housing helps to prevent homelessness. So we are seeing people on fixed incomes becoming the largest new people falling into homelessness for the first time and so having more affordable housing helps to keep people and preventing them. And we know that it's more coste effective to prevent homelessness uh than once somebody becomes homeless that it becomes uh much more cost prohibitive for your city.

Right. And and I understand that and and that makes that makes sense. But imperative number two is a I look at that the way you're the way you've drafted this plan that is a very large umbrella through which permanent or through which um um interim and permanent housing for current homeless individuals or soon to be homeless if that's the case is occupies a small part of that overall affordable housing theme. Am I reading that right?

I think I'm reading it right. Correct. I think that that's a that's a fair read. Um, okay. So, first topic, I've got five I want to ask questions about. The first topic is our city is currently engaged, as I think you're aware, in a very comprehensive general plan update process. Um, and I guess I missed it, but where in this 146 page plan is the strategic is that process acknowledged?

Uh, where where is it where is it discussed? Because I can't find it and I'm not being critical, but I can't find it. And there's a great deal of overlap between what you're suggesting in this homeless strategic plan versus what we're trying to accomplish now in this general plan update, which includes, of course, from a particularly from a housing element standpoint, increasing our affordable housing stock. So, can you help me out? If you can point me to the page in the draft plan that tells me where I can find that discussion, there's a very tiny mention of it on page 20 under timeline. But the reason I'm asking is you the plan makes very very extensive recommendations regarding land use measures under goal number two in the draft plan uh in order to reduce barriers to affordable housing. And it it it includes the s suggested expansion of land use zoning reforms streamlining development approvals and increasing ADUs. and it's saying city you should do all of this but what I would like to know is where is that in the context of a discussion on our entire general plan update.

Um so it's it's included in reference to the housing element which is the part of the general plan that uh set in motion this requirement to adopt a homelessness strategic plan. So as a part of the background analysis, I know that uh Lassar and the team of consultants reviewed the housing element um and the plan uh you know the general plan as it existed during the time when the landscape analysis was uh conducted.

Okay. But is there any discussion of that in the draft plan? I couldn't find it. I don't think there's any discussion of integrating these efforts with everything we're doing on the housing plan update side. Yeah, I again I believe this can inform that work as you see fit. So this can be the roadmap to also inform your update.

Well, the difficulty that I'm having is I don't want to believe that this plan is being done in a one silo and our general plan engagement is being done in another silo. and if there was language in the in this draft strategic plan that would integrate the two concepts specifically and talk about it. Um that would be very helpful. Um and and I just I keep thinking I I I missed it. So I is there any in here? Again, let me ask. I mean, is there any substantive discussion about integrating and and analyzing the homelessness plan measures within the context of our of our general plan update process? And I think the answer is no. Am I reading that correctly?

Um, yeah. I think it was a matter of sort of the timing of when this plan started to take shape and um came into uh you know the analysis portion and then when the general plan update process started the the two uh processes just didn't overlap. Okay. Um but but like Colleen said, it's certainly something that could inform the plan and and uh be brought into the discussion. Right. Well, about the broader plan,

right? I'm sorry. I mean, I've only had five days to look at look at all this, so but I I I I didn't see it. Okay. So, if that's the case, then logically, isn't it am I thinking that um the issue of homelessness is being, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but being conflated into a much larger issue of affordable housing. Is that a right way to think of it? And I don't mean conflating to be a negative term.

Uh affordability um is a a leading impact impactor to homelessness. And so we know that the affordability crisis has been the result of why we've seen a 200% increase in homelessness. If you look at the increases in housing costs aligning with increases in homeless counts, those those graphs really go hand in hand and and look the same. And so by addressing your affordability challenges, you will also be able to address your homelessness by preventing people from becoming homeless. Uh ensuring people who are on fixed incomes and who have other needs can address it, but also it helps you with people who are exiting out of homelessness. There are a number of people who are working as uh your your by nameless list points out that need affordable housing uh to end their homelessness and are working but need some place that um fits within their means.

So I appreciate that question.

Okay. All right. Um well, let let me move to a second let me move to a second topic and and that's one of the recommendations in here and and specifically if you're following along on this on the draft study uh I'm referring to goal number one uh section 1.3 on page 18 and appendex 3 on pages 60 to 61 in case you're trying to follow along on the draft plan. So there are several suggested revenue sources on the local level for further study. uh which would include and by the way there is a recommendation made to review th starting right now review those spend time funds on review and analysis of these but they include approving a real pro am I reading this right a real property transfer tax or it's commonly known as a mansion tax on homeowners increasing business taxes to pay for affordable housing geo bonds a supportive housing services tax, income tax on individuals, increasing our city's sales tax, implementing a food and beverage tax, and a tax on rental properties. Those are all what you what the plan currently as written suggests that we spend time reviewing and analyzing and deciding if we want to do. Did I read that right?

Correct. Okay. And those are and the plan characterizes those as best practices. I think right if I'm if I'm reading it right okay um and those have been if I'm reading right those have been implemented in urban cities you know that the table showing where they've been implemented uh uh goes back again and again and again to San Francisco Berkeley Portland and Seattle am I am I reading that right

uh there are other communities that have utilized these funds sometimes they're also done through the counties uh that they represent and What's important is that these are again a menu of things to consider. Uh what's challenging right now is uh while uh Kimrio has done a really great job of uh going after funds through the state through the COC but those funds are very much uh driven by the priorities of your funer. And so by having locally controlled resources that allows you then to decide how you want them to be used per your need. So, it's just more of a if you need more funds and in a world where funding could be reduced through HUD funding, having a locally controlled revenue source really gives you the power to decide how to use it.

Oh, I I agree completely and I think our staff has done just an exemplary job of going after uh state and federal funds and that that $7.3 million ERF grant is a prime example of of the work that our the outstanding work that our that our staff has done. But I'm talking now about local revenue sources. Correct.

And I'm talking about all the measures that you that this draft plan recommends that we spend in year one right now to start to look at seriously. So I guess my question is are there any cities that are similar to Camaro that have implemented these measures including geo bonds, increases in sales tax, a mansion tax on property owners, etc. Can you think of any? I could I couldn't find them in the draft plan. I'd be happy to do a review and to look at size and revenue source and get back to you, sir, and get back with those specifics.

Okay. Okay. Um, so when the council approved a a preparation of of the homelessness strategic plan, I'm going back to what was it? Oh, it was January of this year. Um the staff report indicated that one task would be identifying potential funding sources outside of the general fund. That's what the I went back to the staff report and read that in preparation for this meeting. Wouldn't a sales tax though typically be a general fund revenue source?

It it is. And so I think again I think it's really important to know that these ideas are but ideas. And so if the city decides that this is not a good fit for you or there is not uh the interest in it by all means it it is just meant to be the exploration of it. Um and if there are other revenue sources that you can tap into per the other uh revenue sources around city, state, uh county, then this is something that as as it's uh written is really about saying this is not a priority for your city at this time.

Right. But it's fair when I read it to to to draw the conclusion particularly on the tables and in year one two three four that that the recommendation is we start right now to look at those measures. It could be a time uh it could be something that takes some time. So giving the city enough time to explore the feasibility, the interest uh get uh political or get community input from it, those all can take some time. And so giving you enough time to explore the feasibility is why we recommended starting that sooner than later. and also with some of the fiscal considerations of uh potential uh re steep reductions in HUD funding that could happen in the next year by setting your city up for success in case those funds are lost. Uh that gives you an opportunity to replenish some of those.

Right. Okay. All right. Let let me let me ask you some questions about a third topic and goal in the draft plan under goal three uh and on pages specifically pages 23 24 and 25 for the action steps goals 3.1 and 3.2 two and appendix 4 uh that's all about expanding local capacity and I don't think I saw that in in the PowerPoint but among other things what the draft plan says recommends is that we that the city create a new housing division and it it talks about that in a couple of pages specifically to address homelessness and creating new positions like right now do that do that right now in year one um so my question is and it's not to you Colleen I think it's going to be to Greg or Carmen or Lette, have the city staff looked in detail at that suggestion? And among other things, A, have you evaluated the current housing staff workloads? B, shifting responsibilities to the city manager's office from the existing community development department, which this draft plan recommends, and C, evaluating the cost to the general fund of these new positions, which are being recommended that we do right now. Yeah, I think the the short shorter answer is is that we for some time have been having those discussions internally just about the need and kind of the workload as it relates to housing in general,

affordable housing um issues that we're facing. We're cons currently considering limitations on um mobile home parks and whatnot. So, um, and then just greater control, um, and what a housing, for example, housing authority may provide the city. Not saying that we're we're close to being there, but, um, doing those type of things. And just internally between the city manager's office, we're finding with Lette's work and whatnot, there's kind of a natural, uh, kind of relationship and taking on more responsibility for that as it relates to the homelessness space because she she does quite a bit of work there. and Cameron um our former intern was doing quite a bit of work. So, we've been having discussions as to whether or not adding staff, that's very much a budgetary type thing and something that we would include each year as part of our budget process and the council's appetite for that.

Have you looked at the cost of that yet? We are in the process now. We're always every day we're evaluating those costs and whatnot and whether or not it's realistic relative to other things we're working on. So, I guess I guess if I'm reading, is it a fair read that we would then be setting up a housing division in the city manager's office separate and apart from our community development department? In other words, we'd have two

units. No, the the sort of proposed or uh suggested staffing structure recommends just one housing division. um uh currently as it stands under the community development department, but you know that could be assessed to determine really what would be the best fit for a division that focuses on housing and uh homelessness. But if I'm a but if I'm a developer and I'm coming to the city and I want to subdivide a parcel of land and put in 100 new units, typically that whole entitlement process would come through the community development department. Correct.

Correct. So does the plan identify how the two would be integrated and how we aside from the new positions how that governance would occur and how that work would workflow would go does the plan because I I couldn't I'm sorry I'm not being negative I couldn't find that in the plan doesn't talk about that at all yeah I think it did not go into that detail I think that would need the feasibility of doing it finding the funding and then figuring out where work lies and what needs to remain where would be a follow-on process. So

yet the plan is saying that we do it right now in year one. I would say uh starting the work year one and of course if it's going to take more time um by all means uh many of these are are considered north stars and starting that process uh but knowing that as more resources flow into the system administering those those resources do take more hours and more people so making sure that it's set up for success also.

Okay. Um, so fourth topic I want to ask some questions about is is the development of permanent supportive housing. And I I the the action steps that I'm referring to are section 7.1 7.3 on pages 39 through 41. And I I totally get it that that's a great discussion to have. I think Vista Companro is the is the is the great example uh of the city's work together with the with uh area housing agency and many mansions. Um, but maybe I missed it in the strategic plan. Where in the discussion in the homelessness strategic plan or on the recommendations is is integrating analysis of of these measures within it's kind of a question I asked before within the current general plan update which is going to focus on the housing element. I can't find it. Can can you point me to a page? I'll I'll look to city staff on the idea around integration and and any plans

because well let me let me I I don't think it's there. I mean to be cut to the chase I don't think it's there. I don't think there's a discussion but we we use the term action steps and action strategies here and we've used it very successfully. We just had a prior presentation on on our goals. So some of the action steps and if you go to uh pages 39 and 40 specifically some of the action steps for increasing permanent housing production to meet goals which is a a major part of this draft plan and specifically I'm referring to goal 7.2 two. Some of the action steps which including we would be doing in year one would be identifying local providers with landlord recruitment and experience in master leasing. We would have a focused analysis of existing market rate rental stock. We would secure units through direct lease negotiations, master leasing, etc. and expansion of landlord incentive programs. And am I reading the timeline on page 41 correctly, think that that would be occurring right now in year one, right? We'd be moving toward that.

Uh so looking at the timeline, uh it does put as a goal as launching a master leasing program in year one, um as well as doing some feasibility analysis. And so again, it's looking at the feasibility of some of these strategies in year one. Of course, if things do take longer as they often do, uh these timelines again are are guidelines and guideposts, but we always know that things could take longer than that. And we see many cities like yourselves needing more time, less time, and so again, not meant to be prescriptive, but uh a a northstar to to uh plan towards,

right? But it's not just aspirational. In year one, for example, on page 41, it's identify and secure units, launch landlord engagement strategy. So there are very specific, if I'm reading it right, very specific measures that if we approve this plan tonight, we're obligating ourselves to do. Am I reading that right? Because that's what's in year one. Again, is that a fair read?

We uh look to the city in terms of the uh the spirit of this plan. Um when we create these plans, we look at these as as guidelines and uh suggestions and things to uh plan around knowing that they are not meant to be prescriptive but to support uh your plans. And of course as things change, adjusting them as you need is is really important to have that space to revisit these and and rethink how this all works because in three years time it could look very different. So revisiting this plan would be helpful.

No, I get that. I um uh question to Greg or Carmen or Lette. Has there been any evaluation at all of the cost to the city of these measures or their feasibility even preliminary analysis?

No, not that I'm that was not included in in this analysis. So, what reading looking again at page 41, you know, at the language that we're being asked to approve, um, it indicates, I think I'm right, Colleen, master leasing can overcome stigma or credit barriers, but places administrative and financial risk on the city or service providers. Am I reading that right?

Yeah. Master leasing can be a very successful strategy and lower cost strategy uh by uh being able to take on the leasing piece from a centralized way. And so a lot of cities of your side have successfully taken that on. Uh perhaps starting small and trying a pilot to see the feasibility of it. Could be a strategy, but has been um really a a means to be able to find other strategies other than building um and also just doing a traditional rapid rehousing project. So it's a something that more and more cities are looking to to address their housing strategy. Well, when I'm when I'm reading the considerations on that last column under the third bullet on page 41, it goes on to say uh that insurance and contingency reserves may be necessary. So, it does pose considerable financial risks to the city. Correct.

I would say that that's what the draft plan says that these are considerations as you're thinking about doing this work to to consider as possible. We tried to put in every item that could happen. It doesn't mean it will, but trying to plant the seeds as you're figuring out how you want to take these action steps, things that you decide that perhaps do not work well for you. And so thinking about those considerations as you move into implementation to see what you can what you can do.

Okay. No, thanks for that. Um, looking at page 39 under consideration, it it and I quote, "Deep affordability levels will require layered financing." Can you elaborate on that for me? What does that mean? Sorry, can you point me to the area, please? Page 39, goal 7, section 7.1, second bullet. Deep affordability levels will require layered financing.

Yeah. So depending on the AMI requirements can often then adjust who funds how they fund and so looking at that affordability matrix might impact uh the funding requirements. Okay. All right. Um let me let me just switch gears for a second. Um and I think this is more this is probably more of a question for Jason to put you on the on the spot Jason. Uh and Colleen, thanks. So I switch over. Um Jason, when

in in your professional experience, because you've been doing this for a while working with our homeless population, you've done an extraordinary job with with the project team. Are most people who are homeless No, let me try a different way. When you go out with your team and you are offering services to homeless individuals, is there a significant portion of the homeless population who actually decline services?

I would say there are a group that do decline services. There's more of a group that want services, but they want it on their own terms. So, let's say we want resources, but we want them a certain way. And there more often than not we're unable to supply those resources in those way in that way. Uh there's also a good portion of the people that we work with that do have mental illness that their mental illness almost restricts them from like they they don't believe they need the resources that we're offering. So I mean one thing that Project Hope does do is we're pretty persistent. I mean we go out and we talk to the same people over and over and over again. And if I talk to someone 10 times, hopefully on that 11th time that we go talk to them, they're going to say, "Hey, I will take that resource." Or

sometimes not all the resources are available. Sometimes different housing opportunities become available, different mental health um resources become available that weren't available the first time we talked to them, but now are available the 10th time we talked to them. So to answer your question, yes, people do decline services, but a lot of times people want services their way and we're unable to offer it at that time. And sometimes in the future we can. And then other times it's just we continue to talk to them about the services we can offer until they decide that yes, that will work for me.

Okay. I know that helps me because I I was reading the language on page nine of the draft and and it end it ended up it it indicated or it stated that um um that it is a common misconception or later on it uses the term myth uh that most people who are experiencing homelessness are service resistant and I was trying to make sure I could understand that comment in context because I didn't think it was accurate um based on based on on experience. So, thanks Jason. I I appreciate that very much. So, I've got a one fifth topic and it's it's on your section entitled community buyin and I'm referring specifically to pages 9, 31, and 33 and sections 5.1 and 5.3 respectively. U Colleen, can you tell me the difference between section 5.1 and 5.3? Because 5.1 is promoting community buyin and 5.3 is increase awareness of services. is 5.3. I kind of read it and think it's duplicative of 5.1. Really? Isn't it saying the same thing?

Give me one moment to compare them. Yeah, I'm sorry. I've only had a little time to look at this. So, I appreciate you educating me. I'm happy to and I appreciate your review.

Okay. So, uh, one of the things through the, uh, community engagement process, um, that was really helpful was that there was, uh, real interest in identifying what works, what's happening, um, understanding the trajectory of people experiencing homelessness in Camaro. And so having uh opportunities to share your good work and to create conversation and to help to uh educate the community on what works, what doesn't is really important. So some of that is around uh data. Um so creating uh transparent ways about the great work that's presented here. So if somebody can't make it to a city council meeting that they have a one-stop shop to be able to see that information. And then also in 5.1 it's around that community buyin and also a way to have uh frequent community feedback. And so that feedback loop that you mentioned making sure that all citizens have an opportunity to continue that process beyond this goal is 5.1. And then moving to 5.3 um it's around uh a lot of people then mention specific services. So saying if I'm in trouble where do I go for help? So there was a lot of people that said I or if I know somebody who's in trouble that I don't know where to go for help. So this is more of a direct connection to resources of being able to help un help people who are in those binds to be able to know what are those flyers those resources to help get those connection of needs. So 5.1 is the more macro information and 5.3 is more programspecific information. So when somebody has uh a need that they're not calling um chief's phone number, but that there's a way on different resources to be able to get

help um 24 hours a day. Okay. All right. No, I I get that. Thanks for that because 5.1 is really I guess promoting community buyin, but 5.3 specifically says among other things about how Camaro residents are often unaware of what services are being provided and approaches implemented. So, let's educate them on it. Okay. Um, thanks, Mr. Mayor. That that's all the questions I have for now. I'm gonna have a number of comments when we're when we're done. Thank you. Thank you, Colleen. Thank you, council member.

Thank you. Are there any other questions from any council member at this particular point? Okay. I'm going to ask city clerk, do we have any public comments on this before we get into our

I do have two people signed up. Um, the first person I have is Brian Schumacher. And then the second person I had was Spencer Richie, but she'll be back. Excuse me. Uh, good evening, Mayor Kildy. Uh, council members, my name is Brian Schumacher. I am advocacy and community impact manager uh, for Autism Society of Ventura County. Um, I'm here tonight on behalf of our advocacy committee, uh, who each week review agendas from local city councils and school boards, uh, to make sure that people with disabilities are represented in decisions that affect their lives. Uh, we want to express our strong support for discussion item T, the city of Camaro's homelessness strategic plan. Uh, we would also like to express our heartfelt gratitude uh, for your meeting with ASVC, hearing our concerns, and valuing our perspective enough to ask for guidance. Um we are proud to be cited as a partner on this important project. Uh highlighting the importance of advocacy and collaboration and fostering understanding and growth within our community. Uh gathering data on disabilities among the unhoused population is crucial. It allows us to better understand the unique challenges faced by individuals uh particularly those with autism and developmental disabilities. By recognizing the diversity within marginalized groups, we can create tailored responses to address specific needs and ensure that essential supports are provided. Understanding the complex intersections of homelessness and disability is vital for developing comprehensive policies which effectively meet the unique needs of our community. Through your strategic plan, Camryo is taking important steps to demonstrate a commitment to better understand and address the needs of its residents. Through our collective efforts, we can advocate for the systemic changes required to improve the lives of all community members. ASVC emphasizes the importance of culturally inclusive

policies that respect and value diversity. It is essential that our local government reflects these principles in its decision-making process. Thank you for your commitment to create a pathway to housing for all Camaro residents. Uh we appreciate your dedication and making Ventura County a more equitable place for everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now we have Spencer. It's your turn. And that's all I have unless anybody else want to speak. Yeah.

Sorry. I just I just I just put on lotion. So, okay. Okay. Um hi. Um all right. So again, third third reminder that I am speaking without a mask on because um you know my lips moving like people being able to see my lips moving is the only way that people with hearing and auditory processing issues like myself and tons of Cameo's population considering how many seniors live here um are able to follow along what's with what's on screen because, you know, this city, you know, refuses to do basic accessibility measures and have closed captioning like pretty much everywhere like, you know, tons of other places in the county do. But anyway, um beyond that, um sorry, thinking I what if you're so offended um council member Trembley at you know the city doing anything to help you know make anything affordable or living or or livable for you know the people who like do not make enough money to live in

Cam Rio but for a variety of reasons pretty much must live in Camaro. You could have just said so. Like it's none of us are fooled. None of us are fooled by, you know, you spending god knows how long grilling that poor city employee who, you know, spent, you know, probably with like, I don't know, one or like a few workers. I don't know. Um I don't know. But, you know, she's one of the like she's she's spent she's put so much time into this and you you repay it by grueling her and basically insisting over and over and over again with way too many words that you don't actually want to actually help, you know, people who are unhoused, homeless, or, you know, at risk of becoming unhoused/homeless here in Camaro. It's it's actually pathetic and I'm really in and and I actually live in your district and I could not be more upset that at least how you know how things have gone so well for me that like you know I haven't been able to work enough to get the health care I need. So, I've had to be on SSI and unfortunately people get kicked off SSI if they run for office. Otherwise, I would have run for office against you so long ago. Like, yeah. Good night.

Okay. Thank you. Uh, madame clerk, are there anyone else? That's all I have.

Okay. All right. So, we are going to uh start with a council discussion. And I know this went to the committee. I'll ask in the uh discussion, does the committee have anything that they want to add that hasn't already been added yet? This came to the committee shortly after the council approved us to engage with the consultant on the homeless strategic plan. Uh I had an opportunity to interact with them on more than one occasion. I know that at least four council members had either one- on-one or one-on-one um interactions with the consultant to get our ideas and what we saw as the uh needs for Camaro and our homeless community. Um I've had a couple presentations on the public safety and emergency preparedness committee. Um I guess I read it with a different light than council member Trembley. Um, I saw it more as an aspirational document. I did not see it as you have to do A, B, and C. We're not attaching any dollars to this tonight. I saw it as a menu choice of options if the city wants to address homelessness in a meaningful way. And we can pick to do one or two items. Even though there's timelines that say year 1, year 2, year 3 through five, there's nothing that says we have to do each of those action items. And so that's kind of the lens I had when I viewed it. That's the lens I've had with multiple strategic plans in my professional life prior to being on council is their goals. even though you implement action plans. Now, when the city did its strategic plans, we implemented action items and spec specific objectives, I felt like this

was more here's opportunities for you. Here are choices you can make. You don't have to do all of them. You can do one or two of them, but start moving the ball forward. We're playing football. We have to get 10 yards for a first down. we only may make it to this, you know, two yard line and be eight eight yards short of the first down. So, that's kind of how I viewed the document when council member Martinez Bravo and I had the opportunity to review it and that's still kind of how I see it, but I understand um Council Member Trembley's perspective. I just looked at it through a different lens. Mart, would you like to add?

Yes, absolutely. Um, so yes to everything that council member Tennyson said. Um, council member Tennyson and I sit on the public safety committee and we were able to uh go into this in uh quite depth over some time. Um, first of all, I actually am extremely proud of the work that our city has been doing. um staff, project hope, the sheriff's department, the county uh and uh uh and you as well. Uh and so just to start there, I think that as a matter of fact, after I read this, I thought we should be winning an award u because of the good work that we are doing. um whenever I go into Cal Cities and you know I've been going to the different uh sessions and I've been going to some of them that talk about homelessness and I think we're so much more ahead because of where we are heading and what we have in front of us and the way that I also view the document is not like something that we're married to uh but something that has options um that we can select from and you know a road map right but that will guide us to to that right direction. Um, one thing that I will add just because I just attended the state of the region uh meeting and the state of the region report on page and this is uh from the civic alliance on page 104 to 105 there's a section on there on homelessness and there's a section on there specifically about homelessness among children and I think as we talk about people who are experiencing homelessness. It's so important to remember that these are real human beings, that it's important to humanize

people um not just as statistics, not just as the data, but as real people in our community who are struggling. Um in terms of homelessness among children in Ventura County, almost 10,000 students lack stable housing. And just to read a piece of this is uh the measure the uh this data comes from the Ventura County Office of Education homelessness education program. The methodology differs differs from the county's annual uh count of homeless people which was discussed uh here as well. Um the student survey uses a broader definition of homelessness. students are counted as homelessness um if they are if they live in a motel or shared housing due to economic hardship while the annual homeless count only considers uh people homeless if they are living um in a shelter or vehicle or outdoors. Um, third, the homeless count only measures how many people are homeless on the day of the count, while the student survey counts every student who has been without stable housing at some point in previous years um or in the previous year. Due to these differences, the student survey shows a much higher count of homelessness um than the point in time count. And so I think with that it's important to just be aware that the issue of homelessness is a lot more severe than what we may think it is. And I think it's important to act now. Um, and in terms of the impact, um, children who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless are more likely than their permanently sheltered classmates to be unprepared for school, poorly nourished, sleepdeprived, and to have an unstable

and stressful family life. uh though a motel or a garage might technically qualify as a shelter um they really fall short be u you know in offering a stable environment for that child. So I personally think it's important to support our our strategic plan. Um, I do know that homelessness is a very complex issue that affects the safety and the health and the quality of life of every person um throughout the the county and the city who's impacted. Um, I think that this strategic plan um provides a structure and as I mentioned a a a roadmap to address the challenges u not only effectively but compassionately. Um, and I know uh in terms of costs, I I do think that early intervention actually saves money. Um, investing in prevention and housing placement um is far more cost-effective than relying on emergency services or law enforcement responses or hospital care for unsheltered individuals. And while these may be temporary fixes, the reality is that if we keep doing that, we're only treating a symptom and not attending to the root causes of the issue. And I do think that by starting with a homelessness strategic plan, we're actually attending to the root causes of this important topic. Um I think the plan I agree that the plan further uh lays a stronger foundation for project hope uh providing a clear and actionable path forward and I really really like the fact that it is

communitydriven. The reality is there's no such thing as a perfect outreach, but you know, I would be open to definitely always including more uh outreach. U but I really did like the fact that it was communitydriven and it involved the collaboration among the city leaders and the county uh local organizations um and and residents and people with lived experiences as well. I thought that was uh spectacular to to really bring in their own perspective. Um so I think that together uh we can continue to enhance public safety which this city prioritizes significantly and uh at the same time improve the quality of life and reduce emergency calls uh through um through this uh long-term sustainable solutions. I really as somebody who is uh very embedded in the social sciences, I believe in datadriven policy. And so with our approach that is datadriven, um I think it also is aligned with uh best practices. And while we also see uh recent data um that there is an increase in homelessness counts throughout the county um we also see that it could be a very much a worsening issue especially when you're including um children which I had mentioned that topic and um I know Chief Tennyson you talked a little bit about this but I think understanding our population is I think the fact that 70% of those experiencing homelessness reside in vehicles in our city um and many face me

such unique challenges um you know about half were mentioned were employed and about half are also experiencing mental health issues and I think because that's such a vulnerable population we really need to be uh very strategic in terms of how we move forward Um the question about or the comment that was made about resistance to care, the reality is that the the the less functional a person is that means the more help they need from a mental health stance. And so that may mean that they might be actually more resistant. So the more resistant they are, the more care they actually need. Let's see here. So, all that to say, um I think I agree with Council Member Tennyson on the way that I perceived this. Um so, at at this point, I I would feel comfortable with it and I but I would be open to other discussions from other council members.

Thank you. Um, Susan, do you have anything that you'd like to add? Yeah. Um, so I'd like to start by saying how proud I am of the work that this city has done in regards to homelessness issue

to begin with. Um, and that that hasn't always been the case. Um, I can remember the day when people used to kind of make fun of Camaro and how we would take care of our homeless. And um, I'm really happy to say that that's not what we're doing today and we've really turned things around. Um, I too read this strategic plan as aspirational um, as opportunities. Um, I didn't see it as something that we are bound to do. Um, although I don't want to see this plan be shelved.

Um, I do see it as a road map. Um, where we can sort of pick and choose what makes sense for us.

Um, I agree with Martito when you said how complex homelessness is. And so I think um issues that are as complex as homelessness deserve a really comprehensive strategic plan. Um and that might list off things that we may never do. Um and we may need to add things and this plan I'm sure will be a living document as we work with it and go over the years. Um, but I seem to I guess my perspective was I took this as aspirational as well. So I I guess I took it the same way that you guys did in the committee.

That's all I've got. Do you want to follow up? You want me to go ahead? Yeah.

Okay. No, thanks everybody for for your comments and and uh you know I um my intention was not to offend anyone. it was to exercise some critical thinking after sitting down and actually reading the text, the print in the draft plan. Um, I support doing this homelessness strategic plan and and we spoke at the beginning about all the steps we all five of us up here have taken over the course of the last year in particular in terms of supporting our homelessness population, our homeless population, and also supporting affordable housing. I mean, we've done an awful lot and and and I I I really um by asking tougher questions, I'm not uh minimizing that work at all or those efforts and I really appreciate the efforts of our consultant uh and and of our staff. Uh our project home team, our project hope team does terrific work and and and I fully support it. And we need affordable housing. We desperately need affordable housing. And I and I think the way the two central imperatives have been laid out is fine. I I I it makes perfect sense uh to me. But at the same time, the plan has to be realistic. Uh my concern is that the draft that's before us, it's got great intent, but I think it's over the top. It's not just aspirational. It calls for us to actually commit to several policy decisions in year one. The way I read it, I think it it's got items, and I tried to point this out and probably didn't do a very good job pointing this out in my questions, uh, of items that either fail to recognize other city issues spec

specifically on the land use side, uh, or are unrealistic. I mean, Camerio, and we all know this, we're not San Francisco, we're not Berkeley, we're not Portland. um what this plan this plan and what we decide is in this plan needs to be appropriate from a land use standpoint and from a fiscal standpoint. I don't want to change the plan fundamentally. I I don't I I think it's all the fundamentals are there but I think it respectfully needs to be reshaped to make it more clear um uh on the issues that that that I have brought out. Uh my request is that we send this back to our council committee uh that reviewed that reviewed this for more work and more revisions and bring back a revised draft. I really want to support this this plan. Um I can't support it in its current form. Um I think it needs to be revised in at least six areas. And I tried to get to this through my questions, but let me just lay it out. I think it has to acknowledge and integrate with our general plan update process. We're being asked to commit in this plan to specific actions. Look at the action steps in section 2.2 on page 20 in advance of our general plan update process. I don't think it's wise public policy to pre-ordain the general plan update process. We're putting ourselves in a box otherwise. But it could just be revised to say, "Hey, we've got this plan process going. We're not pre-ordaining anything, but we have to integrate it. It's it doesn't acknowledge that process at all. And Lord knows the five of us have said, we all know that the city over the years has literally spent millions of dollars on its general plan process and exercising local land use control. And I think it's fair to say, you know, the question now over the last several years

because of what everything coming down from Sacramento for me as a local land, as a local elected official, is that a waste of money? I mean, we've all bristled. We have all bristled when Sacramento has shoved Yimi legislation down our throats and it's a loss of local land use control. I mean it looks like it w it looks like I I you know we don't want let me give the prime example the prime example was the just adopted SB79 which fortunately does which was um drafted by Yimi proponents and it's a perfect example of a top- down Sacramento measure but specifically the land use measures that are in goal I think it was goal two um seem at best at best inconsistent with our local land use controls and what we have jealously been safeguarding as we should as as local officials and there and what concerns me is there isn't an acknowledgement of that in the in the plan. Um so I think we're we're we're way out over our skis on that. Number two, I think the plan needs to be fiscally realistic and responsible. I think someone could assert that if we're voting to approve this plan, we're indicating that we want to study an implementation of a tc increase taxes on residents, including a mansion tax on property owners, geo bonds, and increased sales taxes, and specifically look at section 1.3, page 18 in appendix 3. So those measures may be okay for Berkeley. They may be okay for San Francisco or Portland, but I really question whether or not and I don't believe they're appropriate for Camaro. We have an obligation to be fiscally responsible for our city residents, including all of those who are homeless

or in danger of becoming homeless or who need affordable housing. we have extraordinary infrastructure obligations over the next 5 to 10 years on behalf of all 70,000 of our current residents. I think thirdly, we we have to look seriously whether or not and there has to be some discussion on whether or not we want to create a new housing division. Um and specifically pages 24-25 and appendices 45. Some could argue hey that we're just creating a new bureaucracy by approving the plan. Um there's no recognition of what the organizational challenges might be, of what the cost might be. Are we setting up a h is it are we going to have a discussion at least about not setting up a housing division which is competing with our community development department? I don't think that's a wise thing to do. Um fourthly, I think we need to look seriously at what measures might be realistic right from the outset. identify what measures might be realistic in our community for permanent supportive housing. Do we are we really going to in year one, as the plan says, are we going to identify and secure units, including a master leasing program? I I don't think we are. I don't think we should from a policy standpoint. And I also want to make sure that the plan really addresses seriously the concerns of of residents about our homeless program. It does say our residents need to be educated more. I need to be educated more. Everybody needs to be educated more. But one of the statements in here on page nine that frankly bothered me was to say in essence it's a myth on on the fact that that you have a substantial number of homeless individuals who are service resistant. No, that's not a myth. That's true. And if someone reads that and says, "Well, that's kind of dismissive of what my concern is." There were other concerns that I agree with what the plan said in terms of characterizing concern about sentiment. I really want to approve this plan. I do think it also has to state

and there should be a preamble saying this is aspirational. We're only intending that this is a roadmap. It we're not trying to make specific policy commitments but as the language in there is right now it does. I that's the way I read it. So my view I don't want to change the plan fundamentally and I applaud you. I mean th this takes a heck of a lot of work on the part of Lassar and our and our and our employees and I really applaud you for it and and we we need to move forward. What I'm asking for is I I think we should not take action on the draft plan tonight. I think we should return it to council committee for more discussion and some reddrafting and some editing of comments and addition of comments commensurate with the discussion. And that would be my motion at the appropriate time to do that. I'm not opposed to doing a plan. This is a great idea and we should be doing it and we're all in on trying to work on this issue and work on the larger issue of affordable housing. I just have serious concerns about this specific draft and its fine print. That's it for me for the moment, Mr. Mayor.

All right, I'll jump in here. I'll be relatively brief because of what said. Um, first of all, like all of us, we've been dealing with the homeless issue for several several years. Uh, I was on the council when we implemented Project Hope, and at that time, it was a state-of-the-art program here, and it's been very successful. I'm fully aware that things have changed since then, like a lot of other things have changed here. Um bottom line is going to be not that um we ought not to implement this plan, but I'm looking for flexibility not only for this council, but future councils to be able to have the flexibility about what we can do for various reasons, not the least of which is financial here. Anything you do with homeless costs a whole lot of money. That's the bottom line that we're all dealing with here. There's a lot of zeros at the end. So, I'm looking for flexibility from future councils here for this plan. I've read the plan. I want to commend you for it. I've read it several times. I've gone back and forth and read sections. It's been it's really really a a great draft plan. I commend our subcommittee here for looking into it and really asking a lot of questions. This whole issue is issue is is very complex and there's not a one size that fits all. I think uh what was said that there's a whole bunch of people that's not that they don't want services, they want services on their own terms. And that's been my experience. I'm sure that's been a lot of other experiences. a whole lot of other stuff that goes into baking this

pie here, but that's one of them, too. However, I feel extremely strong about this issue. I think it's important that we get as much council con uh uh agreement, if you will, on this as possible. I think it would set the pace for future councils here and for our homeless population and new and unique ways of financing here. I want to get as much concurrence as we can. This is a priority, but it's not like a priority that we have to approve necessarily tonight. And I'm not saying that we kick the can down the road. I'm not in favor of that. But I think there are some questions that have been brought up tonight that are worthy for more discussion here. So my suggestion is yes, that we do not vote on this. We bring it back to the committee. I'm sorry committee, you worked very, very hard on this, but this is one of the most important documents I think the city has ever had. It's certainly in the top 10. So I think a little bit more time to get these issues somewhat resolved I think would benefit all of us here. So the suggestion that I have is that we could bring this back again committee I I I really apologize to you. I I know but I think it's important that maybe that we're not always right but we get this right and we get it as right as we can. So my my you know thoughts are that we bring this back at a a future date not to be decided tonight with these questions that would have more data and that that's been been brought up. So that's my suggestion.

Yes, you certainly can. I I appreciate what you are saying, Mr. Mayor, and and I really want to approve this plan. I think it's important that in in this circumstance that we strive to approve a plan 50-0. I I really would like to see unonyimity uh for the reasons that our mayor has mentioned and I think it sends a message. I just and again I don't think it has to change fundamentally. I just think there it's got to be reshaped to be clear. So that's why I'm suggesting we defer action on this tonight and I'm ready to make a motion and to send it back and I'm not criticizing my colleagues on the council. I can't remember the name of the committee. Which one was it?

Public safety. Yeah, public s Thanks. I can't remember the name of the committee. Um that we just bring it back, have some revisions to it, and then bring it back to us. And um I I want to support it. I I think it's really important we do this on a five- zero vote. So that's my ask. Is that a motion? Yeah, my motion would be although I think council member Tennyson wanted to say something, but I just have a question for our city attorney. Um, next month we have the city council reorganization. If there's new membership on the public safety emergency preparedness committee, will they be able to deal with this issue?

Yes, those are both Brown Act bodies. They've been noticed and now there'll be a new Brown Act body that will now take their place. So yes, I will support your recommendation, Mr. Trembley. So my my motion would be to take no action on this draft plan, return it to the is it the council public safety committee thank you for that a for more discussion and reddrafting commensurate with our discussion this evening. That's my motion. I'll second it. There is a motion in a second. We prepare for a vote, please.

I'm just going to do this verbally since it takes a little bit to change that. So, we'll just go for the vote. Um, Council Member Martinez Bravo, yes. Vice Mayor Tennyson, yes. Council member Trembley, yes. Council member Santangelo, yes. And Mayor Kildy, yes. Okay, so that passes. All right. Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Let's see. I think we're at the end of the agenda. So, if there's no further items to be brought forward tonight, we're ajourned. Thank you everyone for being here.