City Council - Special Meeting

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. It's Monday, February 2nd, 2026, and we are at Carmel City Hall, and I'm calling this special meeting of the Carmel by the Sea City Council to order at 300 p.m. City Clerk, could you please call the role? Sure. Council member Baron here. Council member Bter here. Mayor Prom Delves here. Council member Drama here. Mayor Burn here.

All are present. What a beautiful day it is outside. I went for a walk just before I got here and I c couldn't help but thinking about all the people around the country that are in sub freezing temperatures and no power. So, let's keep them in our thoughts and prayers because it's not easy. We just found that out here just for a few days. I'd like to welcome everyone attending today both in person and remotely and thank you for taking the time to participate in our city's work. This meeting is being conducted in a hybrid format. You may participate in person or via Zoom. And you may also watch the live stream on the city's YouTube page or view the recording later if you do not wish to make a public comment. Nova, could you please read the public comment instructions?

Sure. During special city council meetings, public comments are permitted on items listed on the agenda. After each item on the agenda is introduced, the mayor will invite the public um to speak on that item. Each speaker has three minutes to speak unless otherwise adjusted by the mayor. Stating your name is optional. However, it's helpful to identify your name in the meeting minutes. Remote or in-person participants who do not comply with the requirements of the Brown Act will be muted. Thank you. Do you have the consent agenda items to put up? Um, I can.

All right, I'll get started with it. We'll now cover the consent agenda items. These items are intended to be routine in nature and do not require discussion or independent action. However, members of the council or public may ask that any items be considered individually for council discussion and/or public comment. Unless that is done, one motion may be used to adopt all recommended actions. I'll just read quickly through the list, summarize the longer ones. Item one is to approve the January 12th, 2026 special meeting minutes and January 13, 2026 regular meeting minutes. Item two is to approve the December 2025 check register summary. Item three to approve the December 2025 monthly reports. Item four is a resolution 20269 authorizing a free use day of the Sunset Center for a Garden Club of America lecture and book signing event at Sunset Center lobby. Item five is a resolution 202610 authorizing the serving of alcohol on public property for Carmel Culinary Week. Item six is a resolution 202611 authorizing the consumption of alcohol at the farmers market third Thursday events in 2026. Item 7 is a resolution 202612 authorizing the serving of alcohol on public property and the erection of tents on public property for the Carmel Art Festival. Are there any items that the council would like to pull?

Yes. Which one? Um, resolution 2026-010 authorizing the serving of alcohol on public property for Caro Culinary Week. All right. Anybody else? Uh, Mayor, can I pull something? I know it's not normal, but I just I wanted to make a comment on the monthly reports on number three. Number three? Yeah. Okay. Anybody else in the public would like to pull any item out of the seven? Seeing none, anybody online? There's no hands raised online. Okay, we'll bring it back here. Uh, let's start with Jeff. Item six. Can we uh Yeah, it's item five.

Sorry, it's item five. Okay. Not item six. It's the caramel culinary week. Do you want to can we vote on the rest of them first? Yeah, let's do that. Okay, good idea. Uh, so we're going to vote on items 1 2 4 6 and seven as it turns out. And I'm looking for a motion to approve those items. Some moved. Second. I'll second. Okay. Roll call, please. Council member Baron, yes. Council member Ber, yes. Mayor Promels, yes. Council member Dram, yes. Mayor Burn, yes. Motion carries. All right. Very good. Now, let's move to item five, it turns out. So that's the resolution about serving alcoholic caramel culinary week. Jeff.

Yeah. So I haven't um we haven't really had this discussion, you know, we've had discussions about the consumption of alcohol on public property in the city and and while I'm willing to um fine letting this one go, you know, I'm wondering where the limit is. Um, you know, this is two items in the course of a week, two uses of city property for uh the serving of alcohol, closing the streets, and it's it's for me, this is at my sort of tolerance for Caramel Culinary Week. So, I don't know. I don't know what would happen next week, next year, if they came back and they wanted to have three events or four events or whatever, but two is pretty much at my limit uh for for how much alcohol I think we should be allowed to serve on the streets here. So, I wanted to I wanted to make the bullet and make that comment um in case anybody else thought the same or people don't think the same or whatever. Are you just you're you're giving us a a heads up that in the future you would like to have a more detailed discussion on that as opposed to right now?

I think things are I think things like this are always better it's always better to have discussions about things like this before the before the situation comes up and maybe I'm just one of five and and if that's if that's uh if that's the way it is then that's completely okay. But I but if I'm not 10 of five, then it would be better that we have this discussion now but before at some point in the either now or in the near future before it comes up next year at this time. So you're you're suggesting maybe for a future agenda item we we agendaize that subject. Well, I think we could I think we could have the discussion right now. Okay.

Um you know, at least we would know if everybody's okay. Admittedly, there there hasn't been really been any warning since that's not allowed. All right. Um, can I just and are you saying that there's too many events because there's three items here and then each of those has two events. So, it's too much happening that we're doing alcohol and public streams.

Well, one of the one of the things is um uh my big cons, you know, one of the events is the Carmelo Art Association. You know, there are three things on this agenda that have to do with alcohol. One of them is the Carmel Art Association um event. One of them is the third Thursdays, which we've had conversations about in the past, and I'm kind of okay with the way that that's set up. And the other one is the um visit Carmel, the the culinary week, which has two events associated with it. And I'm my eyebrows are going up at the amount of alcohol that, you know, the city's role and the amount of alcohol given our you know, what we talk about all the time and and all that. So, my eyebrows are going up at two events for Caramel Culinary Week. And uh I would raise an objection next year if there were three events. Um and maybe we could have a discussion now or maybe nobody wants to which is completely fine and we could bring it back or we cannot do anything. But that's my those are my uh those are the things that are going through my head. Alisandre,

I would just say if we are to have this discussion, I think we should make it a separate item and notice it for the public because there probably are opinions out there that we want to hear from. Anybody else have an opinion?

No, I think it's a I think it's a worthy discussion. I mean, these are the kind of um it's the incrementalism that you know, you look up one day and you're like, whoa, we've got a whole new thing going on here. So, I think it's a worthy thing to raise. I have some questions about just for my own edification about how much money we get like when we close down an entire street and just curious about what some of the um the other vendors who maybe aren't involved in the event think about closing down the street. So, I have some questions as well. Maybe add that to the subject. Yeah. Um I have nothing to add. I'm I'm fine with where we are and I haven't really had time to think about okay

the rest of it. So, all right. Public comment on that item. Anyone? Amy, you're good. Okay, let's bring it back. Um, was this number? I s I sense that we probably have votes to pass this at this point.

Yeah, I I'll, as I say, I'll definitely vote to pass this. Like my issue is not my issue is not with uh necessarily with this one item, but we have gone from one event. I think last year it was only one. We've gone from one culinary week event to two culinary week events. And you know that's that's sort of my my line is somewhere near there. So, I would suggest that anybody that has an interest in this, maybe forward your notes to Brandon and we'll bring it up at the future agenda setting meeting and come up with some kind of a concept that might work. Does that sound good? Sounds good. Thank you. All right. So, uh let's I I'll make a motion to approve uh approve that item. Thank you, Jeff. Second. Roll call, please.

Council member Baron. Yes. Council member Ber. Yes. Mayor Prom Del. Yes. Council member Dramoff. Yes. Mayor Burn. Yes. Motion carries. All right, we're going to move on to orders of business. Item number. Oh. Oh, you had another one. That's right. Number three. Skip right by it. Let's go back to item number three. I think you got a comment. Most

I'll be very brief. Just a comment. Um, I just wanted to highlight, um, you know, we we've been working, Russ and I with our team have been working to, um, get that AMR contract in place where, uh, every time our ambulance rolls out of the city, city gets a $2,000 fee for that. That contract was slated to be, uh, in place February 1st. We were just speaking with the fire department today. We're remaining on top of that. Uh there's some lastminute language, nothing substantive it doesn't sounds like between the county and AMR being worked out, but we've been told that that count that contract will be retro to February 1st. It's important to point out because if you look at the report, the reason I pulled the report is because there's 56 runs of our ambulance outside of the city, $2,000 a run. You can do the math. It's $112,000 in revenue. Uh even if you know we we're offset because if if AMR has to come into our city, of course, we're going to pay for that service as well. But even if you offset, say there's a dozen, um you're still looking at $88,000 in revenue. So, I just wanted to remind the council that we're working on that and it's it's an important initiative that that we've been tracking and I I think we'll uh we'll see a benefit from in the future. I might add to that even with those 56 out of the area, we still hit our our 91% almost 95% u effective rate, which is our goal. So, good job for that this month. All right. I guess we need to vote on that one as well. Do I have a motion?

I move to approve item number three on the consent agenda. Second. Roll call. Council member Baron. Yes. Council member Bter. Yes. Mayor Prom Delves? Yes. Council member Dram. Yes. Mayor Burn. Yes. Motion carries.

All right. We're going to move on to orders of business. These items require council discussion, debate, direction to staff. Today's agenda focuses on traffic safety and related policy matters that affect both residents and visitors. I want to thank the city staff and our city clerk for preparing these items for our review tonight. Our first order of business today is item 8, resolution 2026 2013, adopting a policy on the distribution of tickets and passes. Who's going to take that on?

Nova. All right, Nova, go. All right. Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. Um, this item before you is um just to go over what's in the packet. It's a proposed policy to adopt a um ticket and passes distribution policy for the city. And just to give a little bit of background, um the FPPC requires that all local officials, which includes elected, appointed or designated city employees who receive complimentary tickets to report their acceptance. Um agencies do have the option to adopt a policy regarding the distribution of the tickets and um that policy may result in the tickets not being um considered as gifts. So, they don't need to be reported on the individual's form 700. Instead, they're um reported on the form 802 by the agency. Okay. So, how does this affect us? If the policy is adopted, tickets from outside organizations may be given to the city via the city administrator and then distributed under the policy rather than giving directly to that um public official. Um, if they're distributed under the policy, then um, as I just mentioned, they wouldn't be subject to the FPBC's annual gift limit, which currently is $630 from anyone source. Um, so, and it's just a different meth method of reporting. Rather than the 700 form, it's the form 802. So, what's reported on the form is the

agency name and contact, the event description, dates, ticket value, the ticket source, where it came from, um who used the tickets, the number of tickets received, and it um identifies the public purpose associated with the tickets. And the draft policy in the packet lists several examples of what's considered um a legitimate public purpose. So this is just um to show you what the form looks like. It's just a one-page form. Um if we adopt this policy, the form would be filled out um by me and then signed by Brandon and then I would post it on the city's website for transparency. Um so what the proposed policy does it it establishes a clear process for the city to accept and distribute these tickets. Um currently the city is not involved in the distribution of free tickets or passes. Um the policy defines allowable public purposes. It ensures transparency and public disclosure and it provides consistent procedures for staff and officials to follow. So, if we were to adopt this policy, um, an organization that wants to give out free passes, they could contact Brandon and give the passes directly to him. And then he would reach out to the city officials and say, "Hey, who wants to go to this event um, at the Sunset Center? We have x amount of free tickets. Who's interested in going?" Um and then typically it'll probably be a first come first-s serve basis unless um there's some other reason to limit it to just council members. Um the policy says that the source that's giving us the tickets, they can't um specify who it goes to. So it would be distributed under the policy which is

first come first serve or um at the city's discret discretion. key restrictions. Um there's no resale or exchange if you're if you're the one receiving the tickets. You can transfer it to an immediate family member or one guest. Um the policy says it's not going to be disproportionate. It's not always going to be given to the same individual. Um and if a ticket is going to be not used, it can be returned back to the city and and given to somebody else. the posting requirements. If the um policy is adopted, it will be posted on the city's website and the link to the policy will be um posted on the FPBC's website. The form 802 will be posted on the city's website within 45 days and the forms are maintained for at least four years as public documents. There's no fiscal impact associated with adopting this policy. um that there's minimal administrative duties and it would be handled by me and Brandon. So the recommendation is to um adopt resolution 2026 013 adopting a policy on the distribution of tickets and passes and if there's any questions I will answer them.

Good job. Good job. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody have a question?

Yes. Go ahead. So, let's say I'm just using a random example, Meals on Wheels, and I'm having an event at Lla, and I have five tickets. Um, what am I allowed to what is Meals on Wheels allowed to do? Um, so if this policy goes into place, like what is Meals on Wheels allowed to do? Are they allowed to simply tell the city like you or Brandon that I have five tickets and you can do what you want? Are they allowed to say I have five tickets for the five council members? Are they allowed to say I have five tickets for Brandon and the director of public works or Brandon and senior staff or whatever? Or are they simply allowed to say I have five tickets? Like how much leeway does the organization have? Well, um, if they have five tickets and so it's for every council member, I think the city administrator could say there's enough tickets for all five of you to go. If you want to go, let me know. And then if somebody didn't want to go or couldn't go, then he could go down the line and offer it to other um city employees. So, are they allowed to um like are they allowed to say these tickets are for council members first and then staff second? Are they allowed to say they're not for council members and they're only for staff? Are they allowed to say they're for council members and not for staff? like are all those things acceptable or

well I think if they wanted to say these are only for council and nobody else then I think that would have to go the traditional route of giving it to that individual and they would report it on their form 700. If they said, "We want these for council, but if council can't go, you can give them to other people." Then they could gift it to the city and we could decide how they're distributed. But if they're going to say it's for specific people, I think you'd have to um uh consider it as a form 700 and an individual um gift. I think I might I'm excuse I was going to say I might be able to add a little bit um context to that. If we look at the policy under section uh 2B which is my page numbers got cut off. I think it's page 90. Um anyway it's B at the top. It says distribution of tickets or passes and um under section two it says tickets or passes shall be distributed under this policy at the sole discretion of the city pursuant to the policy and that tickets or passes distributed under this policy shall not be earmarked for distribution to a city official or a person of any outside source. So I think the intent is that it would be distributed per the policy. And then if you look at section B4, it says once received, the tickets um distributed pursuant to the policy shall be distributed by the city administrator on a first come first serve basis in a manner that's consistent with this policy and its restrictions. So in your hypothetical, if the city were to receive pipe tickets, then would be distributed per the policy and

Okay. So, so my question then is given this policy and my example, what is the city allowed to do? Like I'm hearing you say we're going to distribute it according to the policy, but what's the policy? Like I my question was can can an individual can Meals on Wheels send five tickets to the city and say these five tickets are for city council members? Is that okay? My answer is no. Okay? Because it says in the policy that they cannot earmark it for distribution to a city official. So me meaning that they can't say this is for a particular person. Um and and by saying it's for council members, they've identified who can receive the tickets.

Well, they've identified a set, right? So the tickets the tickets go to the city and then the city pursuant to the policy distributes the tickets. Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you, Hans.

Um, Brian, does it have to be that way? I mean, I know that there's language, you know, in some of the FPPPC documents about um and in relating to form 802 about how you can't be you can't have this be relating to a specific individual, but that like Jeff said, it's a sort of a class of individuals. Um, would it be possible to write the policy uh in such a way that somebody could allocate it to the council without running a foul of that rule?

Well, I'd have to go back through the policy and I don't have it in front of me, but other than the ones that was drafted, I know that Nova and I sat down went through the policy um and the regulation and we looked at other samples of other policies and that's how this policy was drafted to be consistent with what we understood the rule to be. Um, I don't recall from that exercise whether or not we focused on that particular question. We could certainly do that and bring this back to you at a future meeting. Let me ask Brandon another question. Brandon, in reality, like in practice, what do you anticipate is the most common

I was just going to ask the counselor because I I can see you we have the written policy which says at the discretion of the city administrator. That doesn't mean the city administrator can't have a a standing practice of going to the five council members first. I mean, I think that that's like the logical progression. So, Brian, is that is that something we would have to put in writing to effectuate that? Could or maybe you need to do some more research on that, but that seems to your question, council member, that would be my natural inclination is to start with the city council. Um, could I could I ask a question to to broaden this? Who is qualified to receive the tickets in this scenario? At what level of employee in the city? I think technically the policy is anybody.

Is it director level and up or my understanding is that it would be anybody who would be filing a form 700. Okay. So who is that? That's the question. Any any employee in the city? Any employee. Yeah. So all employees in the city file 700 if they if

not not all employees but um under that form 802 you can put um a department you could put like parks and recreation department and so there is a a place where you can put you don't if it's if it's members of staff you don't have to put their name but if it's a city council member you have to put their name. Um, but an example that the FPBC gave was Parks and Rex department received two tickets and then a council member received two and then Boy Scouts of America received 10. Those are were beested by the city. So that was the example that the FBBC gave on their website. So I mean under the policy you could give it to a number of staff and this is how it would be reported on this form. But in addition, if the city administrator has this isn't really a question, maybe we should just finish our questions and then have this discussion.

I think it's a better way to go. Anybody else have questions? Go ahead. Thanks, mayor. Um, so my question, nobody's Why did this come up? Like who brought this up and why is there a need to make this change and make this policy? This is just like a general housekeeping type thing. Um, a lot of cities already have this policy and we don't and so it was just brought up as maybe something we should have as another way of accepting tickets and reporting them.

And it came up um it came up in conversations with Nova and myself and Brian. Um, you know, there have been there was some some recent recent actions in the news that we heard about um where these these jurisdictions didn't have this policy in place to to protect the employees and the council members of of accepting gifts. Um, and so we thought this would be the three of us thought this would be a good uh sort of cleanup item, housekeeping item as Nova put it. One more question. How many do most cities have a policy like this? Um, looking at the FPC's website, because they post links to every city. I mean, there's probably at least a hundred or more that are posted. I don't know how many cities there are in California, but it seemed like quite a few already have this policy.

So, a good a good percentage of cities have it. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions?

I would only say that based on what I've heard from the questions here that um it might be helpful if we went back and got you answers to your questions um and bring bring it back. Um the way the policy is currently written to get to the point that I heard earlier about could the um a donor specify that the five tickets are go to go to the council members. I know that from what we read that um the donor could not specify who was to receive them and I just like I said I don't have the policy right in front of me but that's what that's what I recall reading um and that's why the policy is written the way it is to say that they can't be earmarked um so we thought that that issue had already been addressed in the policy and then to go to Brandon's point about whether or not he can distribute to um um to give priority to the council what the policy reads is that the city administrator would distribute them on a first come first- serve basis. So I interpret those words to mean that if if Brandon were to announce that he has five tickets to a particular event, it's the first five people that say they want to go. To me, that's first come, first serve.

Okay. Any questions from the public? Anybody online? There's no hands raised online. Okay, let's bring it back for further discussion. Anybody else want to start? Oh, go ahead.

Yep. Sorry. Thank you. Um, so I have some uh sort of comments and I'll start by saying um I'll start by uh putting Brandon on the hot seat and riffing on what Brandon said, which was this is an effort to protect employees and council members. And I completely agree. Um I I agree that we should protect employees. Like that's completely valid. Like I don't need, you know, use the Meals on Wheels example. I don't need, you know, Ken and Marissa to necessarily report on their form 700 that they get invited to a a thing at uh, you know, a thing at Laia for for Meals on Wheels cuz Meals on Wheels wants to thank the city. Like I think that's But I think that the I think that the notion of protecting council members, like I don't feel like I need to be protected by you. I I don't feel that. And I feel that that um I feel that uh using the like having these things um uh disclosed on form 802 where honestly I didn't even know form 802 existed until this staff report until this staff report. I think having things exposed on form 802s like that's not transparent to me as opposed to the form 700s which every agency posts on their website. And admittedly the disclosure is a year late but um you know because you report retroactively but um uh um you know that I think that's just more more transparent than 802. So I don't really believe and and you know Brandon you and I had a conversation up we on the hot seat again. You and I had a conversation about this in your office and we were talking about networking and you know the advantages of networking and and it got me to thinking about why or an organiz like what the nexus is between an organization giving us tickets and what they hope to get out of it and what we hope to get out of it by

accepting tickets. And I think uh to use the Meals on Wheels example, um if if uh Meals on Wheels gives us five tickets because Meals on Wheels got $3,000 for um you know, $3,000 by the mayor's program or the council's program or whatever out of our budget. That's kind of okay. Like goodwill stuff is is for me okay, especially if it's an employee, if it's a a staff member and and not, as I said before, a council member. Um uh networking, you know, which was the example that uh you brought up. I'm less okay with that. Like I'm less okay with sort of subverting disclosure because it's a good networking. Like I think there's some I think there's some advantage to someone being able to like correlate the networking opportunities that you know to use an example that we were talking about the the annual Pebble Beach the things that Pebble Beach used to have in their off their thing. I think that those something like that should be disclosed. Um um so I'm uh I'm really on the fence. I'm more um I'm more amendable to doing something with to doing something as I said before to doing something to protect employees, but I'm much less amendable to doing something to to protect council members. And what I would ask is that if we um you know my other questions like notwithstanding which I think are still valid questions if we do decide to proceed further um I do think you know the city has a lot of mailing lists and I think in the interest of transparency part of this policy would be um that the city would have a mailing list of people that would receive copies of all of the 802s that are filed uh by the city sort of automatically. Like I don't know if we do that with 460s and 470s, whether there's a way to sign up with Netfile or whoever to sort of automatically get copies of that. And maybe I should ask

Mary Mary at the Pine Cone uh whether whether there's a way to do that. But, uh, getting copies of all of the 802s as they're as they're sort of, uh, as they're sort of filed, I think that would be a worthwhile goal to sort of restoring the transparency that, uh, might be sort of missing if we go down this route. Thank you,

um, I'll take a maybe slightly different tag. I I actually really appreciate um, the three of you being proactive. I think this is exactly the kind of thing when we think about, you know, the team being proactive. This is the kind of housekeeping stuff that um that I think it's I think it's great. Um I also think I understand Jeff's point about the form 700 having sort of a single point uh of data for everyone and gifts, etc. Um but I also think it kind of removes some friction. We're volunteers and so to the extent that we don't have to report every guest pass and you know to all these different events that we get invited to and you know the staff can help us with that. I actually think that that's kind of helpful. Um you know at the end of the day if if Mary Schlle um she's going to have access and looking at these 802s and I think for transparency purposes that's just fine. So my my overall comment is I think there are some good questions that were raised about I think the typical use case or a very common use case is going to be hey I want the council members to go to this and maybe just a little bit of a deeper dial on can that be achieved with the policy. I don't believe sort of I think Brian Brian would agree with me that it can be achieved the way that it's currently drafted. So um yeah maybe just one more look at that and um you bring it back. Um, I mean, I could go into a long winded diet trap about the slippery slope of free stuff for elected officials. Um, I if if you had come before me and said we we want a policy where none of us take anything free, I would be um I I would make the motion to support it because I think that's where we should be. Um, and that's certainly where I am. Um, but I I don't really need to launch that.

Well, I just did. Um, so

come back. So, I would just say Brian, I I think the finetuning I would look for would be, uh, can, in Jeff's case, Meals on Wheels, can the submitter of the free stuff, um, state a preference? you know, it's not an absolute, it's a preference. So, that helps inform um Brandon when he's making a decision. You know, my other concern is now we've and I don't have this fear with Brandon, but you know, now you've just sort of given power to the city administrator to give out free stuff. Um, and I don't love that either. Thank you.

Thanks, Mayor. Um, I I fall on the side of what what Jeff was saying. um it just feels like it's a workaround to not have to do the form 700 um to report gifts. And I I feel that we should leave things alone with that. Um and I do agree with what Bob just said is that it could potentially open up ethical issues or favoritism in a future administration, you know, um if if staff is, you know, favoring certain people and giving these tickets out. Um, and it really, you know, the only events where it would be over the amount for a form 700 would be something like the Pebble Beach Concursors. And then the question is, is there a legitimate government purpose for any of us to really be there? Um, or is it just hobnobbing and socializing? And I think it's more of the hobnobbing and socializing. Um, and you know, Brandon and I had some of this discussion, you know, this morning, uh, uh, during our weekly meetings and and he said it's the importance of the networking, but I'm maybe it's more important for staff to be doing the networking, um, rather than us as council because I still see it as more of a social thing. So, I'm not really in favor of um, this policy. I mean, if we can gear it towards um, other staff members getting the tickets, I'm I'm more okay with that. But I think as far as council, we should stick to the form 700.

Yeah. Well, I the way I see this is it actually enables because we're already filling out the 700 forms. So, we're already doing that, but staff clearly isn't like waking up in the morning and getting a net file report that says your your report is due because you've got a ticket for meals on wheels. So if they have to do that same reporting, this eliminates them to do that and it actually enables them to go to these things because otherwise they end up on the front page of the pine cone for not filing their report properly on time. So I actually see this as a way to whether it's reward, enable, empower other city employees to go besides us because we're going to get offered those and we just turn fill out our form. As long as it's below $630 a year, it's okay. and and that is visible, but I heard Nova say that this is very visible. You're actually going to post it, right? You don't post my form 700s.

Yeah, the form 700 is Oh, it's posted online, but it's not It's posted online, but it's on the FPBC's website um because they took over um the reporting for um elected officials. The form 802 would be on the city's website, so it would be probably easier to find. Um there I think an easy way of of even make making it more visible is every city council packet has um the P log. I could always just add the 802 forms filed that month to that.

But like you said, this is almost more visible than the than our forms because you have to go on the FPPC site and look it up and it's not that easy. You can't find it clearly. But I just see this as otherwise it's just more difficult for employees to go or they don't report it and and they're subject to some problem later on and and that could happen.

So that's I I I don't see any risk in it because if if you're a council person that believes that you shouldn't use it, you don't have to use it. You just let's just say for a concourse if if they say we're going to give Brandon five tickets and he gets to pick he gets to pick who's who's I don't know how we pick but that's the rules. It's it's sort of a law and that's just how it works. That policy is sort of standardized I think. But if if I want to go I ask for the ticket they give me the ticket. I report it or pay the difference between what the ticket is and what the limit is. That's just how it works. So, I just see this as a good thing for the employees of the city and directors and so on to be able to participate. But, but if uh the other people don't think so, I'm okay with that, too.

Well, I think there's a I think there's a position in the middle where maybe perhaps we could write a policy that was just for the employees and not for the council members. So, council members would be subject to this the the gift restrictions that we are whatever those are that we already have. um and employees would fall under fall under this policy. So that would be uh fine by me. And uh Brian, if I'm not mistaken, my conversation with Brandon this this afternoon about this was that there are sort of two limits, right? There's a there's a $100 winner. There's a low limit that be below which nothing is reportable and then there's a there's a a tier in the middle that is legal but reportable. And then there's a tier above that which I think is what the mayor was talking about. That's just illegal. Correct. So there's I don't I don't remember what the numbers are. It doesn't come up with me.

Yeah. I have to look I always look them up when I need to. Um the last time I I don't care what the numbers are. Just Yeah. But is that right?

You're right. There is a tier. If it's if the gift is below a certain dollar amount um then it's not reportable. If it's above that dollar amount, it is reportable on your form 700. And then there's a maximum um from any one source and I think nobody said that was 630. Um that's my recollection as well. So you could not receive um more than 630 a year from one source even if you did report it. It's a it's a hard cap. So So using my example, if we were to come back, if you were to come back with a policy just for staff, the $630 limit sort of goes away. like I I can't imagine why staff would be invited to it, but maybe there's a thousand plate dinner that someone would invite staff to, but um both of those limits sort of go away and things are just reported on the form 802.

That that that's right. Okay. Anybody Anybody else have a discussion item on this? I think we've gone around now at this point.

Well, it's it's a little mudded at the moment. So, I'm trying to figure out if we can give it some structure. Um, you made a pretty good point about empowering the city administrator with this power of doling out tickets. I'm less concerned about that visav staff because he's their boss, but we're supposed to be his boss. Um, so, you know, you made some compelling arguments about the form 700. So maybe that bifurcated structure where you just have these organizations send the tickets straight to a council member and then you can put it on your seven your form 700 and then have the staff, you know, do the the 802. Maybe that's a better approach. I agree.

Yeah, I I think let's just focus on staff and let council do their own thing. Okay. Sounds like we need to change the policy. We will come back with a policy as you directed. Thank you.

Okay. Good discussion. Thank you everybody. That's the way it's supposed to work. All right. Um, next order of business is 9 AB413 daylighting down downtown speed limits. Chief, good afternoon, Mayor Council. Today I'm going to talk to you about an update on AB413, the impacts of the daylighting law since it was implemented really in 2025, and talk about the downtown speed limits and some options for you to consider related to a traffic engineer study. All right. Um historically in October of 24 a staff report was presented by the prior chief Tamasi uh which really began the implementation of AB413 in our town. The existing parking map is pretty similar to what it is now. There has been a few changes. In November of 24, the uh AB413 was produced for city council and voted in 24002. And then in December, uh the ordinance was adopted for your on your second reading. Daylighting uh for anyone who isn't part of that discussion is that a person shall not stop, park, or leave standing any vehicle whether attended or unattended except when necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic or in compliance with the directions of a peace officer or official traffic control device in any of the following places. And it talks about 20 ft from an approach of any marked or unmarked crosswalk or within 15 ft of any crosswalk where curb

extension is present. The exceptions are the local authority can establish a different distance if both the following requirements requirements are met. A local authority uh can do that by ordinance if there's an established traffic safety standard or a local authority has uh marked the different distance at the intersection using paint or a sign. loading zones. The yellow zones that are in our town um allow for commercial vehicles to park within 20 feet of vehicle approaching uh of the vehicle approach side of a crosswalk marked or unmarked which are listed. And then uh I wanted to just highlight the red zone which is 20 ft of a vehicle approaching. Again, any marked or unmarked crosswalk within 15 ft of a crosswalk. Here's what here's what the data shows. I pulled 2024 traffic collisions in our town in 2025. Uh the most for both years are on ocean. There's an increase in 2025 on mission especially like mission and sixth mission and seventh that area which is both sides of mission at at ocean. And then San Carlos is pretty steady with both years. And then Hunipro, I put a star next to it because it was down. And I can't 100% tell you why the traffic collisions are down on Hunipro, but it is significantly lower in 2025. There were the same amount of collisions in 24 and 25,64 each year. Um, the stop sign improvements were put in in October, and I added that just so I could report back to you a little bit about what I'm seeing. Um in October the uh compared to the year before there were six I believe six collisions in 24

at those areas where the stop signs did not exist and right when they were installed it went down in October to two. So there was significant drop in October. There's also been a significant increase in traffic enforcement around our stop signs downtown and the numbers for January look a lot lower than last January 2025 in collisions. So my findings on AB413 is that it is helping. I think it's too early with the time and data point that I would need to tell you it's 100% working, but I do see a difference in the type of collisions. Um 2025 had more speed related collisions and a lot of those were starting to show up on mission which could be a change in traffic patterns. Um just people are choosing to drive differently. Sometimes they're guided differently with different GPS uh mapping programs. Uh the crashes continue to be concentrated on those four corridors I told you about those four main streets. The number one cause of collisions is still unsafe turns, which is usually people pulling out from a parking slot or pulling into a parking spot, speeding, and then other rightaway violations. Um, the community input, the traffic enforcement form that the community has been able to do in the last year and tell me where they want more enforcement aligns perfectly with the data where people are complaining about. It aligns perfectly with both years of data really. And when it comes to speeds, we can change speeds. Um, AB43 describes how you can change speeds in our town. I'm going to jump into that. in order to change speeds in our town. Um, which I've been asked to consider 15

miles an hour, which means all of us consider 15 miles an hour in the core downtown area between uh 8th and 5th and Hunipero and Monovery. In order to do that, there has to be a professional engineering and traffic study done for our town. You can change it to the speeds that are appropriate. Um, every once in a while the speeds go up. They recommend higher speeds than what what you think. And that's happened before, I think, on Hunipro. Uh, but we didn't change our speeds to a faster speed. Uh, chapter 10.12 contains the speed limits right now. And, um, I didn't do the work on this. I'll give Brian credit, but the, um, most of the streets are 25 miles an hour in our town. We have some designated 15. and then uh looks like one at 20, but most are at 25 today. And um my opinion of that is that 25 is too fast on our downtown streets with all the pedestrian traffic we have. Now, if uh if the city were to consider changing the speeds for some streets, then ordinance would be necessary to identify which streets and which corresponding speed limit would go with those streets. The traffic study would allow you to have the best information to create an ordinance and come up with traffic safety standards that would make it safer downtown. Um I I also uh the reason why we can tie in the AB413 here is that we see that speeds are a factor in both years 24 and 25 collisions. Speeds have some factor there. And um the same traffic study would allow us to look at the parking and what's happening downtown. If you reduce the speeds to 15 miles an hour downtown, you may have an option to

increase parking uh by changing the length of the red zones or where certain zones are right now based on what the engineer is showing. Um I'm very hesitant to do that until I read the study to be candid with you. I I just daylighting became a law for a reason and I have to I' I'd have to look at it and really digest it with your help to make sure we're doing the right thing for our community. In conclusion, in order to conduct a traffic study for either of these purposes, speed limits or daylighting, you would have we'd have to retain a qualified traffic engineer. If the traffic study is prepared, you would need to review the traffic study to determine what options would be best along with me and then see what's more appropriate for our community. Today, we recommend I recommend that you receive this report on AB413 and that you provide direction if you're interested in retaining a traffic engineer for a traffic control study with the goals of looking at parking and also reducing the speeds downtown. I did a um quick check with a couple cities and it looks like they can range anywhere from 15,000 and up depending on what we ask of them. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Chief. Questions? You can start. Thank you, Chief, for your presentation. Um I've got a couple of questions. So, um we've learned that we have three speed limits in town. 15, 20, and 25. But we don't really have many signs or any signs at all because well, for one, just visually, we don't want visual clutter. So, how do people even know about what the speed limit is and where it's different and all that?

It's a great question. Some sometimes the speed limit is literally, as you've seen, painted on the on the road, like um is it second or third? It's it's painted on the way to Carpenter. It's painted on the road. That's one way that people know about just a change in speed and why it's re not recommended is the law. Um, but there are not a lot of speed signs. So, people assume that residents and downtown areas minimum would be 25 miles an hour. The only way to to let the community know is to post signs explaining that the speed limits downtown are let's say we choose 15 15 miles an hour. There would have to be some some new way to notify of course a whole campaign to notify the community and the visitors that come to town. Maybe when they come into town depending on what we all what you agree is the right way to notify them.

Okay, couple more questions. Um and then how would you um as police officers um enforce this lower limit? Like what would you need to do? It's just like the limits are now. Like if there's someone driving 30 mph down ocean and they cause a collision and the officers are able to prove that sometimes through technical ways they can prove that or through if they see it, which is not very often that we actually get to see them, they can cite for the speed violation. But what worries me is, let's say we do lower the speed limit downtown. Most people would probably get away with driving a faster limit because there's I mean there's a limit to how many officers we have and how much you would be focusing on making sure that they follow the lower speed limit.

Correct. It's not perfect, but I do think when people visit, if they know the speed limit is 15, maybe I'm just a total optimist, but I do think a lot of people that come here are great. And I do think it would at least have them think about the speed limit being different than maybe what they're used to in other towns being 25. It would slow them down. I don't think we we've done a couple independent studies and it seems like people drive around 13 to 15 miles an hour down ocean. Um even on the side streets, they aren't jamming down usually a lot faster than that. But but um to make it codified, to make it memorialized in law and notify people could slow down the speeds and reduce a lot of those speed related collisions.

Okay. And then my last item um I I thought it was very uh important that you said during the report that it was helpful but too early and more time and data is needed. Um in our staff report, I just wanted to read this quote and just ask you if you still stand behind this. Um, you wrote, "At a high level, AB413 appears to be helping with safety downtown, um, as records show traffic incidents are less concentrated in primarily high-risk areas." And that's sort of your summary that you stand by. Yes. The results so far. And how much time would you

want to be able before like let's say before we go to a traffic engineer, like could we do another six months or nine months or even another year with everything in place? because there's a bit of an apples to oranges since we added new stop signs in certain streets. So like to give you the time so you can get that data like could we do this another year and then talk about doing a traffic engineer. Thank you. Yeah, I I think um it wouldn't hurt to have more more data like in January of next year then I can look at all of 26's year right

for to see what the impact of the street signs would be. Um, but you you live here. So if if if you think and feel that 15 miles an hour is is safer, you you guys hit the nail on the head with Monvere and the stop signs for sure. I I trust you and I just am kind of looking for your direction on if you want to go that direction now. We could start the traffic engineering study now. Thank you. Bob.

Yeah. Just one question was um when when we implemented the law um we took away the greens spaces um but then replaced them with red and yellow and there's still some greens out there. Um can you explain and well three of us weren't here um when all that took place. Can you explain to me as best you can the rationale of um it's more like when when was a yellow allowed, when was a green retained, and when did you decide it needed to be a red? And then what what kind of behaviors are you seeing with with all of the above? Sure. Yeah,

thanks for the question. And and and also how I think I'd heard we lost 40 of something. Did we really lose 40 or with the reinvention of the yellows, did we get something back?

Thank you. Yeah, 40 is the number that I've always read that we've lost. Um, each color zone I've I personally have seen like yellow loading zones. The community uses the yellow loading zones to jump in and grab something. Very similar to a green zone. And it might not be the intent of the yellow zone because it is a commercial loading zone, but that is what I see a lot. Um, the green zones are definitely down from what they were initially. So, you'd have more regular parking. And this is from my conversations with Chief Tamasi when he was here. Um, so you you might I think you're hitting the nail on the head like on the yellow zones, they are used for other reasons by locals. Um, but the green zones have decreased. And that is one of the the two biggest complaints I get from the community is that there aren't enough green zones for businesses. And secondly, that um that folks are parking in the yellow zone for an hour or longer.

And I I can let me add just a little bit to that because I think I was I was here when this was going on. So you're correct in that 40 is the net loss. So, a lot of the a lot of the greens got turned to yellows. And I don't remember the exact metrics, but the what the chief what the former chief Tamasi did uh the state law gave guidance as to which intersections could turn into a yellow loading zone and which ones what were the qualifications where it had to be pure red. And so he went through the downtown with those qualifications, which again I don't remember what they are, so forgive me, but uh that's why we ended up with the mix of yellow and reds that we did. So just what I think I heard you say is basically what dictated that is what has to be read is red and if it's not red

it's yellow. It's like a 1950s sorry um sorry Joe McCarthy. Um if if it didn't have to be red you made it yellow. That's correct sir.

Yeah. Um so the statute says that um a local authority so us can establish a different distance for daylighting if quote the local authority establishes the different distance by ordinance that includes a finding that the different distance is justified by established traffic safety standards. So, I understand like we can go out and do a whole study about traffic and everything, but that seems like a pretty basic question. Like at 15 miles an hour, what do established traffic safety standards say about the appropriate daylighting distance?

Do we know the answer to that?

I I have read it. I don't remember it off the top of my head, but it is it is memorialized for sure. So I think um the way I read that what I would what I would take from that is so in order to to deviate you have to prove to the state because it's state law that you you have these these standards. I think we would use if the council went that way, we would use a speed reduction study and then we would couple that with just traffic flow data uh accident reports and all that to make a comprehensive report put together by that traffic and engineer to say here here's the new set of standards and one of the things that changed that standard is the the deviation the lowering of the speed limit. Um so I don't think we know the full answer to that question. That's sort of the reason we're asking if you, you know, if council sees the results of what AB413 done has done over this period of time and you say you we're happy with where it's at right now, let's let it roll for another 6 months, 12 months and see what more data we can get and then we'll decide if we want to go further and try to deviate from the law by um you doing a traffic study, doing a speed reduction. Um if if you're happy with it now or if you say, you know, it doesn't seem like it's working at all uh or you want to do something different, then we can do that right now. But it sounds like the chief's recommendation is to, you know, get some more information before uh we do anything drastic.

Thank you. I I think um speed limits are different than parking. Let's keep this to questions at this point and we'll come back for the discussion. Jeff or Hans, I don't think you're finished. Yeah. No, my other question was, do you have examples of other cities in California that have gone below 20 feet? 20 miles? No. No, I do not. 20 feet, chief. I think the council member was asking any cities that have gone and changed that 20 foot stopping distance. Yeah. No, I did check uh with just people I know that run different cities and um they haven't ever deferred from the state law. Thanks, Jeff. You have some questions.

Go ahead.

Um, so I'm looking at 10.12.10 miscellaneous streets and it says the primma speed limit for these streets and it lists a whole bunch of streets which we'll talk about in a minute shall be as follows when signs are erected giving notice. And so to Allesandre's point, um, and maybe a different a different point as well, what's the legally enforcable speed limit downtown? Like what's the limit on, you know, for a street that's not mentioned in this lengthy list of streets that previous council members have decided they like? Um, you know, so for example, it says the speed limit on St. Carlos between 8th and Camino Delmonti is 25. Um, what's the speed limit on St. Carlos between 8th and 13th or what's the speed limit on like how do we like is there a speed limit in town?

Well, there's two speed limits. There's the posted speed limit if it's posted and the second is the basic speed losser. So, you can um the speed limit could be 25 mph, but if it's not safe for conditions to drive 25 m hour, then you're violating the basic speed law, which is 22 349 of the uh vehicle code. So, there's two speed speed limits. Most people, if it's not posted, are going to assume the default speed limit in town is 25 miles an hour. Um, and so are these speed limits. So there's a whole list in this ordinance of speed limits that are 25 miles an hour. There are 10 of them. 10 speeds are listed in addition to the weird things that are 15 and 20. Um, are these all enforceable? Like are is something enforceable because it's in an or like given the state law that requires traffic engineers, are these speed limits like grandfathered in because they're older than the state law that require traffic engineers or um how does that sort of all work? Do we know? Yeah, I can I can guess, but I think out of fairness to you, I I believe there's posted there has to be posted speed limits

for it to be enforcable outside of like a 25 mph residential zone. So, if it's not posted, it's assumed it's 25. If if it's a 15 mph zone because it was changed here and not posted properly, then that wouldn't um you could the officer could still site if it was driving too fast for conditions. the other section, but not for 22 350 the basic speed lot. It's different. There's two sections that officers use.

And if we wanted to So if we wanted to reduce the speed like from my house to 20 from 25 or through from Bob's house or Allesandre's house or anywhere in the residential area, we would need to hire a traffic engineer to sort of reduce the speed limit in the residential areas. So, we would have to hire a traffic engineer to prove that 5 miles an hour was necessary for public safety. And then we would have to somehow post.

Yes. That 20 m hour is the speed limit on my street or Hanza Street or in all of the city. We could we can change the speed limit to 15 mph in front of your house, 20 m hour, but it won't be enforcable. If I wrote a ticket and we didn't go through the traffic study showing that the speed needed to be lowered, that um that's what's safe for the driving conditions right there, then the enforcable speed limit would be 25 mph.

So, could we if we wanted to hire a traffic engineer to study the speed in the residential area to make a blanket to to blanketly lower the speed limit from 25 to 20? Is that a possible goal? Like do we have to do it in do we have to do it like street by street like in front of my house in front of Bob's house in front of Allesandre's house or can we do all the residential areas that are outside of the central core sort of as a one as a one I don't want to interrupt you you as one unit.

I um I have a feeling we can do a blanket residential speed limit. I don't know that that's best for our community. I don't know. I'd have Why would you say that? Because an engineer an engineering study could say, "Well, San Carlos is a wider street. It has more visibility. Going 25 miles an hour there makes sense." Where um like your street is narrow, more trees. I think not as narrow as Allesandre's. That's true. So, but uh but that's what I mean is you you probably can do the blanket statement, but I don't know if that's what's best for the community. Kind of like

and by that you mean best for the community like the sort of arterial streets or the whatever those busier streets are called would generally have a higher speed limit than the residential street that I live on or right something like that. Correct. And then the downtown would be kind of different, I believe. So, sir, I think just the downtown has the pedestrian traffic and the collisions to show that we have enough interaction between cars to each other and some pedestrian and the speed limit downtown is also 25. Yes.

Yes. This is fascinating reading this list because it really does look like a list of things that have sort of been picked out um as like I don't I don't understand reading this list why maybe you know why some of the Yeah, never mind. Okay. Okay. Let's take it to the public. I have one question. One question. AB413 was intended to prevent pedestrian situations mostly, not cars. Did do you have any opinion on whether it made us safer for pedestrians or not?

I know there are situations I have with the Mission Truck parked in a yellow zone that makes it much more dangerous. So, and and my general opinion is that it became more dangerous in town than less as a pedestrian. But do you have an opinion on that? I think it I think it is safer for pedestrians the way you have structured the town because of the daylighting. I think it is safer. I think um when the big trucks park in double park which happened even before daylighting um it causes a major safety issue and we're trying to do more enforcement on that but I do think it is safer now.

Okay. Comments from the public please. My name is Fred Kern and um a couple things that the chief said that I think are important to focus on in the daylighting law. I've never worked in a city that didn't have a 45 degree angle for any building, anything in any corner of an intersection. I'm going to use an example like 8th in San Carlos. You have cars on the souththeast corner that are literally parked right up to the crosswalk. So if you're coming north on San Carlos and you have to turn on ETH, you have to go out into the oncoming traffic to make that turn. And the purpose of the daylight law was to make it safer. So daylight means so you can see. You can't see. And there's three things in the daylight law that didn't make any sense to me at all. that only the 20 foot distance from a crosswalk was only in the incoming right-hand lane, which at that same corner, it doesn't have it on the San Carlos side, but it the San Carlos head north side, but it does have it on San Carlos head and south side. But it also says it can be used for loading. So, I'm really confused how a car parked there or a truck parked there makes it any safer. You still can't see. And another part of it, this is in the local ordinance, that the driveways, you're supposed to have five to six feet, I can't remember the number, from a parking space to a driveway. Again, you're forced if you're coming out lots of these driveways, a

car is parked right there. You got to go out into the oncoming traffic to get in the lane. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. And we you say we lost 40 spaces. I went around and counted where the unsafe situations exist like that in town, you would lose almost 200. And again, here we are. We're trying to not follow the spirit of the law to make it safe. We want to figure a way to have parking without building parking. And I think that that is just makes no sense to me. Why don't we follow the spirit of the law, the daylight law, fix these situations that are unsafe? And again, like a broken record, I keep saying do an unground parking garage. The study, Walker Parking did a study. We paid a lot of money for that study, but then we don't listen to the study. So why are we doing another study? If we're not going to listen to the studies, what are we paying money for? Another study. Go back

and Walker will give you a times up. Probably give you quite a discount. You can you can summarize. I think you should go back to Walker. I think you should say we want to take that study, update it, give us a discount, and look at the unsafe situations and maybe a blanket decrease in the speed would be a great idea. Okay. So, you're you're saying that Walker is a traffic engineer. Yeah. Okay. They're one of the best. Okay. And and they also do parking and all kinds of things. Okay. Thank you, Fred. You're welcome.

Good afternoon. You know, um, we have more than a, uh, parking problem in town. And I find it interesting that when all the street sheds were out on the street, the businesses weren't complaining as much about losing parking spaces as they are now. But in April of 2022, I went to Mayor Potter and I asked for his support, which I did not get, for um a downtown master plan that would be a roadmap for the future of the commercial center because the council can either continue to discuss little fixes or we can conscientiously confront the issues pending and prepare a future forward guide that our planning commission could do if they weren't always reacting to uh building plans, they could actually do planning. Um, and the city council could start to plan for the next 30 years, three decades ahead. We have parking, visitor management, outdoor dining venues, possibly in the future, park public spaces, the accommodation of bicycles, enhanced pedestrianism, affordable housing, and impacts from climate change. Yet comprehensive planning is actually minimal in this town. A thoughtful downtown master plan process could be inclusive of residents and business owners and provide an opportunity to develop a shared vision for the future. Looking to the past and reimagining the village. What works in our village? What doesn't works? What we can do about it? How we can do about it? If we move ahead on just a singular issue, and I am a proponent of AB413 because we have a pedestrian town and we need to keep it safe. We've been lucky

so far. But to focus on just one component would be to the detriment of many things that affect how our downtown is used and if it's enjoyable or not. The downtown master plan effort I proposed would be linked to a study of traffic patterns and so on, but it would also look at some of our future needs. We are going to have to build more affordable housing downtown eventually. We do need underground parking and we need the opportunity to use the parking lots in the future for that um for parking. And I think to be prepared, we need to go ahead now and look at the community, the downtown in particular as a whole, and not separate out what we think is a culprit AB14 and blame that for what's going on. There are far more things to look at downtown. Thank you.

Thank you, Karen. Anybody else? Shirley.

Hi, Shirley Moon. First of all, I want to thank Bob and Jeff for leaning forward and speaking into your microphones. It's very nice. Um, I'm very confused about this uh 413 because um I did a little research before I came here because I wasn't sure I understood it at all. And what I understand now is that it is specifically to excuse me um protect pedestrians. So, uh, to quote car crashes between two cars doesn't seem to make any sense to me. Uh, I would be more interested in knowing how many uh, pedestrians have been hit in the past or had an intimate uh, encounter with a car. My understanding was that we have like a 40-year history of pedestrian safety and uh so it's confusing to me why we're talking about this. The other thing is I was researching whether lowering a speed limit impacts our uh requirements and it does not. Uh we have to do this no matter what the speed limit is in town. But it does leave the city open to customizing the distance that we set back from uh the intersection. It can be based on the radius of a curb. It can be um another safety feature. It would be to consider the bumpouts on some some of our streets. And uh so they're looking at the safety standards and because our

community is so pedestrian controlled, it seems like we have this uh perfect setup that we could argue that we already have, excuse me, uh things in place that create this safety. Uh, I think you if you look at Bill Bates's uh cartoon with the skeleton hand hanging out of the window, it pretty much summarizes how we go through our village. Uh, it is all dictated by the pedestrians. So, I'm thinking it would be a good idea to consider customizing our implementation of this. It's quite a serious impact to take away that many green spaces because they were also used by the handicapped people. And I'm confused about the yellow. If it's commercial loading, why are we allowing people to park in it at all? That's what the green space was for.

So, I thank you. Thanks, Shirley. Anybody else in here? Nobody's online with their hand up. No. All right, we'll come back for discussion. Chief, maybe you want to come up so we can have a back and forth. You want to start on the right or the left? You can. Yeah, go ahead and start.

Thank you, mayor. Um, scoot over a bit here. So, I was part of the previous council when we adopted this. Jeff and I were the two remaining members here. Um, and I remember specifically requesting that Chief Tamasi come back to us um, after a certain time period, like at least a year or so, um, to see how the program was going and if we needed to make any adjustments. But my understanding is those would be minor adjustments. Like he never discussed traffic engineer. This was I don't remember it at all being brought up into the discussion. Um, and I clearly agree with you that we do need more time to see how this is working. and I would certainly support giving another year and then getting that data and then coming back to the council. Um just a couple items I want to bring up. So um the breakdown of the parking spaces altogether in town we have 810 spaces. Um we've lost the total of 40 and the way that comes about is we lost 60 green but we got 31 yellow and they're comparable because it's a 20 to 30 minute uh time period. And then we lost nine of the 2-hour spaces. So that's 38 divided by 810 and it's less than 5% is 4.69% of actual parking spaces that we lost. Um so I think it's premature to be talking about a consultant. I I think it would be a waste of money actually. Um and it just almost feels like a a gimmick. Um the yellow zones have been helpful. Uh for one, there's been a noticeable decrease in double parking. A lot of times people would double park to get a coffee or to get their prescription from Carmel drugstore. I I have not seen that as much since we've um enacted this. So that is a good thing. Um and that also increases and helps with pedestrian safety and safety risks in general. Um and then the red zones um as as we've learned, you know, we are a walkable town and those increase pedestrian safety. So why would you do want to do anything that would not keep us as safe?

So, um I think another uh key though is to increase enforcement because I am starting to notice and others have too that people are spending all day or multiple hours in the yellow zones because I think they think that nobody's going to check. So, that would be important. Um and once again, um you know, I know we hear that some of the business people are upset about the loss of those spaces, but we've got ordinance 96 here that we are a residential community primarily. um and the safety and the well-being of the residents come first, frankly, um over some of the complaints that the business community may have. So, in summary, um let's give it more time and then have the chief come back to us with more data, more information, like let's say a year from now.

Okay, go ahead, Bob. Yeah, I mean kind of the agenda topic was AB14. Is it AB14? Is that right? Um

and we're talking about multiple things here. Um, and so I'll try to take them in order. Um, first off, um, so on the, uh, the daylighting law itself, um, what I'm hearing is we implemented it. We were told to implement it. Um, and we did appropriately implement it. Although, Chief, I would ask you to take a look. Um, because I I assume it's meant to be citywide and apply to all crosswalks. um marked or was it marked or unmarked? But I'll start with marked. Yeah.

Um and this is just a pitch for um O the intersections of Ocean and Casanova Camino Rial and um Carmelo. Um those are all marked intersections running on the east west part of it. And on any busy day um we will often have cars, they're almost parked in the crosswalk. Um, so I would encourage you to go take a look at those really six intersections in particular, um, because they're those are more dangerous in my opinion than anything we have downtown um, just because the, uh, cars coming especially downhill on Ocean, they they get going pretty quick, pretty fast. and if they decide to make especially a right turn um you know going north on one of those streets I I've seen it more than two or three times where there's kids in there and there's cars and it's just pretty nasty. So um not looking to lose more parking spaces but those aren't good ones. Um on speed limits um uh I did actually Alisandre you and I were talking about this just yesterday. So I when I I did did started paying attention we do have more signage than I thought. Um if you come in on Rio um there's a 25 mph one sign and painted I think um at the city limit. Um same as if you come off of Rio and turn on to Hunipo there's a sign there. Um same if you come through the gauntlet there and turn right on uh San Carlos there's a sign there. um coming in from the Carmel Gate um that is 15 um in that stretch there after the gate and that's on the pavement. I don't remember if it's a sign. Um it would seem to make sense that whatever we decide on our speed limit that it should be posted um at least on the entrances to town. I've

seen many towns that most towns do that. Um and I mean I'm not I'm not a huge signage proponent. Other people are. I just think the more signs you have the more they get ignored. Um, but nonetheless, I think people should know what the speed limit is. Most of our cars that are less than 10 years old, they they tell you what the speed limit is. My Hyundai tells me that the speed limit on the residential streets is 25. It doesn't tell me what any what it it it it has no opinion on what the speed speed limits are in the central business district. Um um I have an opinion that our speed limits are too high. Uh that I think we should be at 15 in the central business district. I think you're somebody said it I think you did um chief that it's hard to go more than 15 miles an hour when you're only going a block at a time. Um, and I I lived in a town where uh they took it from 20 to 15 and then they actually took it to 14

because it gets people's attention. Um, and they enforced it and it wasn't just enforcement from the sheriff. It was or the marshall, it was enforcement, the blinking light enforcement, the reminding cuz that's you get you get it that low, it does get people's attention. Um, and it would seem to me that 20 is adequate for the residential neighborhoods. um even on like San Antonio and maybe especially on San Antonio because people just use that as a freeway um cutting across town and we we're we don't have sidewalks. We're out there walking. Um, but all that said, um, if if there's an appetite for lower speed limits, um, what I heard you say in your exchange with Jeff was we could just decide that, um, that, um, for it to be enforcable, uh, for you to build the right tickets, we would need to have a traffic engineer. Um, and I, as much as I would like to say we should just change them, we I I'm I'm also deferring to your recommendation that don't change them without studying it because they may give you a very I'm concerned they will give us a very different answer, but they'll give us an answer that's based on 10 other cities that have nothing to do with ours and they, you know, they start using averages and when I I think we're a fairly unique um situation. So all that said, uh I don't see any need to have a traffic engineer to come and study AB, you know, to the daylighting law right now because I think you need more data. Um and I don't think you're going to learn much even with more data that would lead us to getting a lot of parking spaces back. Um um but I I I think another year of data would make sense there. And I leave it to my colleagues on if if there's any more

appetite any additional appetite for lowering speed limits. Um I would be okay with that.

Hans, well I think like Bob said, this is one of those topics where uh it starts to just bring up other topics and this this speed limit discussion is I think an example of that. like that's not really what we're here to talk about per se, but because it came up, um I agree with Bob wholeheartedly. If if it was just up to me, I would go to 15 miles an hour downtown and I would go from 25 to 20 in the residential areas because um people do really fly on a lot of those residential streets, especially if they have one of those where it's missing a stop sign and you can go two or three blocks and just kind of keep trucking. Um, that being said, again, this that's not really what this is about, right? This was about AB413 and there's this provision in the statute that potentially allows you to um go with a lower distance than 20 ft if you do a traffic state. So, that's really why this came up. Um, so first I would I would stipulate that like we we did lose a significant number of spaces um mostly green spaces. We only lost nine two-hour spaces. That's what Chief Tamasi was really striving to do. I think with an effort to try to help the business community with with the notion that a lot of those are folks that are parked to to patronize businesses downtown. I think one of the unintended consequences is we lost we sort of have now realized the benefits of those green spaces. So, we lost 60 green spaces, you know, um we got 31 new yellow spaces, but to some of the points that were made, I don't think anybody really knows what the point of those spaces is. Um although apparently some locals are getting smart, but the green spaces did disproportionately, I think, impact locals. Um, and I think

that, you know, even though sales tax is up year-over-year in the first four months of the fiscal year, there are certain kinds of businesses, you think about the drugstore, where I could totally see that having a a disproportionate impact on those kinds of businesses. So, I don't want to poo poo that. I do think that those are, you know, are real impacts. Um, you know, my wife was talking about trying to go to the toy store. um you know because we're invariably late trying to get like birthday presents for five-year-olds and so we try to go to the toy store like the morning of the birthday party. So she was going in at like 10:30 or 11:00 in the morning and just trying to find a place to park and you know she used to be able to do it and and now no luck. So it's a real thing on the other side of the ledger. Um, you know, I do feel like it's just safer um and more pedestrian friendly as you mentioned um with with the new setup. I actually completely agree with Fred Kern. I don't understand what the drafters of this law were going for when they added the the yellow spaces as an option because a car is a car. whether it's a car in a two-hour spot or a car in a yellow spot, you still have a car on the corner.

And so that's sort of a strange feature to me, honestly. Um, so it seems like we're being a little bit logically inconsistent there. Um, so yeah, I think more data would be helpful. I just keep coming back to the question that I asked you to begin with, which was I guess before I spent money on a traffic study, I would want to know generically in a 15 mph zone, what what are best practices for um for daylighting?

And you know, some of the research that I found online was like, you know, 15 to 20 feet, right? So, I'm I guess I'm just questioning I'm questioning sort of like what the endg game here is. And I I'm sort of I think this was an annual check-in. Sounds like Alisandre had asked for this a year ago, but I know Dale, you had also looked into this at one point. So, I'm just I guess I'm just curious like is the goal what is the endgame for folks that are interested in it? Is it to reduce the amount of space on the corners and then somehow cannibalize space from the rest of the spaces to maybe like get a space back on a block? Is that is that kind of the Is that the goal? Maybe.

You asking me? Yeah, I was curious.

Well, that would be nice. But uh but losing 40 spaces, whatever spaces they were, made things worse. There's no doubt. If you know businesses and you go downtown and you spend a lot of time, it got worse. People making illegal U-turns in the middle of blocks all the time. They're frenzy trying to find a parking space. And some of that just is our town. But it got worse. If you don't think it got worse, you aren't going downtown and you aren't talking to businesses. You aren't You're out there. You talk to them. There are businesses that are going to go out of business because they lost their green spaces. I mean, there's somebody that calls me every week and he's frantic at this point because we took three green spaces in front of his optical store. And people just call him and say, "I can't find a parking space. I'm going to the mall. See you later." And and we were talking about somebody that was going to spend $1,000 on some eyeglasses of which we were going to get our sales tax. You know, we we proved that we lost a million dollars in sales tax because of parking problems. And I I agree with Fred, like there's other parts of this law that we just didn't follow. And there are there are driveways where it's right up to the driveway. That's not safe. So if we actually followed the law to the letter, we would probably lose how many? 200 spots.

200 drive.

Okay. So it's I and I personally believe we made the city less safe because of those mission landscaping trucks and other things. Margaret and I tried to cross on ETH, the very intersection Fred was talking about and you are halfway across the intersection before anybody even knows you're there. Those trucks are huge and they're parking there. So I and we did not hire a traffic engineer and we did what we did. Chief Tomasi did the best he could and I think he did a pretty good job giving all the constraints. But I think when you're starting to change things like this, you should have a professional looking at it and telling you the best thing to do. It's complicated by taking all those green spaces away. We we ruined a lot of things for even handicapped people don't have places to park.

I think the the question I have is just like so for me I'm not I'm not particularly interested in going back to a world where we have cars parked right on the corner. So, like if somebody could show to me, show demonstrate to me that there's like it is an established best practice or safety standard that you could have like maybe it's 15 feet or something like maybe okay, but you know, I'm not I'm not interested in going to zero or five. Um, and so then the question becomes like to what end? So, I guess you're sort of um at that point you're trying to, you know, free up space throughout the whole block. So, um I mean one it was interesting one of the things at first I was like well okay fine maybe you can get a space on the corner and a space on the other corner of the same block. And then I think Fred mentioned this you know I started to realize oh it's only one corner on a block right like it's not when you're entering the block it's only when you're exiting the block

so you're only getting one space. So say you took it from 20 ft to 15 ft. You got five five extra feet. You know for a parking space you need 18 to 20 ft. So now you need another 13 to 15 ft somewhere else on the block. And then you realize another thing which is a lot of these blocks are not uninterrupted curb like there's often curb cuts or there's a bumpout or there's a mini park there's a tree and so and so the challenge is you know I just I just don't know. There are there are certainly places where you could probably, you know, restripe and and get a get a space back. Um, I don't I don't love that idea just because I see a lot of people really struggling to parallel park, you know, just as it is. Um, egg cars keep getting bigger. I my understanding I can't verify this but my understanding is some of these spaces were spaced so that people aren't opening their door into street trees. I don't know the truth about that but um anyway I just I think I wonder if it's sort of like a little bit oversold you know this solution. I just wonder sort of how many spaces we would get back. Obviously any spaces that we would get back would be helpful and like I said it is you know it is a challenge it is a real problem people do um miss those spaces uh but we are I think it's a little bit more complicated than than we think um and I guess before before spending the money on it I would really want to understand what is what are the best practices generically obviously You can look at any given intersection and look at the precise geometry, but a lot of these are very simple four corner intersections with a 15 mph speed limit. Like what does it what what would somebody tell us

is an established traffic safety standard at 15 miles an hour for daylighting there. So, um, sounds like you'd like to have more data before you make a decision. I think I'd like to have more data. Um, yeah, and I'm specifically interested in that point because, um, we could save ourselves some money if if somebody told us, hey, it's actually X and we look around town and find that that's not really going to help us very much. So, Jeff,

thank you. Um, I'll start by saying I agree with Alessandre's comments about pedestrian safety downtown. Um, and also I agree with I believe it was Alessandro that made the comment about the enforcement of 20 minutes in the yellow spaces. And if uh you know Dale's comment that mission uh landscaping trucks are parking in the yellow spaces, it's laundry trucks. What? Laundry

mission laundry trucks are parking yellow spaces. like I don't know if they're there for 20 minutes or two hours, but um stuff like that really, you know, their loading zones and and we should be policing that probably more than we're policing uh parking tickets would be my view. And if I'm not mistaken, uh to the mayor's comment, um people with handicapped blackards are allowed to park in the yellow and the red spaces. Isn't that correct? We had this discussion. Do you remember this? Nobody can park. Not red. uh yellow spaces unlimited. Yeah.

So those spaces are still available for people with uh with handicap placards. Um Bob made the comment about crosswalks across ocean and and you know Brandon and Allesandre will smile because I've been you know when we've been talking about uh repaving Ocean Avenue and having the whole concrete versus asphalt. I've consistently asked for those intersections uh the speeds to be made safer as people come down Ocean and make a right turn onto the north side of town. Um they whip around the corners and and to Bob's to Bob's credit um he noticed something he pointed out something that I've also kind of noticed that with the increase in um it seems like there are more people parking further up from the beach now and they are encroaching into the crosswalks. um they are encroaching into the crosswalks that make those intersections. It's mostly again the people that are driving down and down to ocean, but they do make crossing ocean significantly more difficult um for those of us that are trying to get from one side of town to the other. Um, I've talked about that before and I'm still hoping that uh when we get around to repaving ocean, which I know is somewhere on the list, that we'll have some work done on making making those uh three or four cross streets safer for those of us that cross that street all the time. Um uh you know we've talked a lot about reducing speeds and I I especially talked about reducing speeds in the residential areas and it seems like we're uh working against ourselves because we used to have a lot of things that reduced the speeds in the residential areas. We used to have trees in the middle of streets and we used to have um narrower streets. And just as important, and Brandon and I were talking about this last week, um my sort of uh my sort of um hatred of seeing

these uh asphalt curbms park up. I think that these curb burns, which we're seeing on just the strangest streets now that ostensibly channel water, give people the license to travel faster down the street. You know, I think it's the rough edge and cars parking on the side of the street that have always acted as sort of a natural uh speed deterrent and we've given up that opportunity by having all these BMS on the side of streets. And that uh gives I think the sort of illusion to people that are driving that this is a firm street with a firm edge and I can drive a little bit faster um than I could. Um so I think uh there are things that we could do to reduce the speed and in the residential area and for for that matter in the downtown area without resorting to sort of speed limits and we should we should be always be thinking about those things. Um and finally um you know we we've been talking about uh traffic engineers and we've been talking about um retain you know officially retaining a traffic engineer to to conduct a traffic study. Well, I bet there's a thousand bucks in in in the in the city administrator's budget to um have an informal conversation with the traffic engineer about what the possibilities are uh both with respect to sort of downtown and the residential area. like, you know, if if the five of us agreed and and we're certainly not there, but if the five of us agreed that we wanted to lower the residential speed limit uh to 20 or we wanted to lower the the downtown speed limit to 15, you know, I bet we could for a,000 bucks, we could, you know, get a couple of hours of consulting time. you get a couple hours of consulting time and and have a have a nice lunch with the traffic engineer, you know, you know, some busy Wednesday summer afternoon and ask what they

thought um you know, what their experiences for dealing with sort of moderately congested downtowns and see what the traffic engineers sort of thought off the record and and I think that that would be helpful um for us as we sort of move forward. you know, there's a lot of reluctance to spend money on uh studies that we're not going to that we're not going to use or may not pan out, but that would be a way of at least addressing the um addressing the not pan out aspect of that before we got to the point of, you know, while we're sort of deciding whether or not that's a road we're going to go down or not. So, thank you.

Okay. Um to your point, Hans, Andrew, remember Andrew and I made a presentation several months ago about 45 minutes that talked about a lot of the things that came up tonight. And uh he did inventory every single parking space in town and looked at how what the optimization of that could look like and it was a lot of spaces we could get back. So I don't think there's any doubt that we could get a lot of spaces back. Um, we did have coffee and it was free with the traffic engineer who lives in the valley and he did tell us very clearly that given the situation that we he could come up with he believes he could come up with ways to incrementally improve the parking situation in town in terms of getting spaces back and so on. I didn't hire him but and I passed that information on to the chief and other people. Um, and he's only in the valley, so he don't have to pay travel expenses, and he would be willing to work with us. Um, it doesn't sound like there's an appetite to hire anybody, so I'm not going to I'm not going to try to talk you into it tonight. I'm very disappointed that no business people showed up. That's their problem. If you want to convince us that it's a problem, you should be here. And you're not here. And you didn't show up at the strategic planning meeting. So, all I can say is I'm trying to represent you as best I can, but if you don't show up, um, I'm listening to what's being said here and and we've got a five smart people who are looking at this problem and and I listen to them very closely. Um, on the other hand, I think there are I'd like to understand from from city administrator what we can do to try to make some even minor adjustments to some of the green spaces because chief, you you're getting calls with the same people that I am and you're going to talk to them and you see the pain that this is causing and to do

nothing I don't think is a good example of of trying to at least assist our businesses and being having successful businesses so they don't go out of business because there'll be empty storefronts. So what do we need to do to empower the chief or Rob Culver or Ken to to take a look at some of those situations that might be easy to adjust putting a green space here or there to to stop that pain. I mean, because it sounds like it it doesn't sound like there's an appetite to hire a traffic engineer. So, we can keep coming back with more data at a future time maybe to look at that. I don't think it's a bad idea to have somebody come in here and take a look at what's going on in our town and tell us professionally what we might be able to do, but at least have a relationship. Walker did some great studies, two of them. They were great. And yet, in 20 years, I don't a long time we haven't updated those. It's always good to update, but what do we need to do to get a few green spots back if nothing else?

I I'm going to say the word enforcement. I think enforcement is key. And um we're we are on a path to increase enforcement. That's going to make a 20-minut zone a 20-minut zone with exception to those with the Okay. But on on Lincoln in front of Optique America, which is one of the few situations I'm talking about, right? We took all of their green spaces away and made them all gray spaces and cars parked there for eight hours a day. And I know you could enforce it, but that's still two hours. And that person that wants to just come in and pick up their glasses or drop off their glasses can't do it.

Well, I think what the chief's suggesting is that, you know, give us a give us a chance. you know, the chief and I and Marissa have been working on a plan to to get some more support in doing parking enforcement. So, I think that without putting new spaces, new striping on the ground, I think that additional enforcement will open those spaces up. So, effectively creating those spaces as functional again. So, they're not 2 hour, three hour, 4 hour parking spaces. Can we One thing I'm thinking is the traffic safety commission. We bring up that specific complaint and then um weigh it and figure out what we can do to answer the community member the business owner's predicament.

Okay. I'd like you to do that. And and obviously we're going to have a discussion about paid parking shortly. So this whole subject's going to probably be reopened when we get to that point. Soon probably I would guess. I mean based on the strategic planning meeting that we had. So uh I would suggest that maybe we collect some more data table this subject until we get to paid parking and maybe we can reopen this as part of that discussion. Can I make one more? Yes.

Um just one thought is the yellow spaces are an opportunity. Um I don't think we understand them and perhaps if we can some do something so that the residents understand there's an opportunity to park in them for 20 minutes. Um, and perhaps just instead of declaring them commercial loading zones 30 minutes only, it could be commercial and residential permit loading zones 30 minutes. Um, that might encourage more people to get the local permit in the first place because you get something for it. Just a thought. Um, but I mean I now park in them all the time and use them like I did the 20-minute spots, but it took me six months before I started figuring that out.

Yeah, I believe I believe Chief Tamasi did what he needed to do to follow the spirit of the law for the yellow zone. Yeah, I I think you're absolutely right. I think they are commercial parking zones and they're limited to 20 minutes. They're specifically for that, but how the enforcement has been with residents might be different. All right, Chief, I don't I don't see any reason to to take a vote on this because I don't think we have votes to to do this. Um, do you do you need any more feedback from us before we end this? No, thank you. I think I have everything. Okay. Did you find it productive?

Okay. Thank you. All right. Thanks. I'll close that off. Do we need to do anything on that? City attorney Are we done with that? No, you had your discussion. Um, and if you've got no direction, um, then I think you're done. Okay. All right. Thank you everyone who participated today, both in person and remotely, for your continued engagement in our city governance, and I hope to see you and a lot more people tomorrow night at 4:30 for our regular meeting.

We're adjourned. He's my old