City Council - Regular Meeting

Daniel, are we ready?

Yeah, we're ready. Okay. Good afternoon. It's Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. It's Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. We're at Carmel by the Sea City Hall. And I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Carmel by the Sea City Council to order at 4:30 p.m. City Clerk, would 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.

Thank you. Would everyone please rise for the pledge of allegiance? And Alisandre, could you please lead us? I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We'll begin today with our extraordinary business section where we recognize and hear from important members of our community. First, we're going to have the Carmel High School report out. Drew's here. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. All good.

Yeah. Yeah. All good. All right. Yeah. Hi, I'm Drew Galley, as you all know. Um, so this is the February update. The week of February 9th, we had kindness week, which is a big deal here at Carmel. Um, we had kindness grams and roses on sale all week, which were passed out on Friday. A big hit always. Um, and kindness themed games and dressup days were running all week. We had a Padre parents giveaway, which I love. Um, and they had Valentine's Day treats for everyone and another senior minute party. which I also love. Um, that is not the right date. That should say February 16th, but I did this in a rush last night, 11:00. Um, we had February break, but our mock trial, boys and girls basketball, baseball, and traditional competitive cheerleading still got business done. Um the week of the 23rd we had pink shirt day which was raising awareness on bullying prevention. We had a challenge success survey which was pulling the student body to better our school. We had a band show which was awesome. And ongoing we have an STN convention where our film and video crew is in Tampa Bay competing against other schools to sharpen their film and video skills. Um, and I think they have won three awards already. So, go team. Um, and coming up we have the Battle of the Grades Rally, which is also super fun. Uh, super competitive. I We're going to win. Seniors are on top. Um, we have spring sports coming up, a robotics competition, a model UN competition, and

not on there, but hopefully student government day in the next month to come. So, yeah. Thank you all. Have a good afternoon. Drew, did you go to the concert that happened last Friday? The Is that like teachers and students playing like rock songs? The band show? Yeah. I didn't make it unfortunately, but I did see some videos. too. They sounded great. They look like a lot of fun. We have a lot of talented. I wanted to go, but I had another thing going. All right. Good. I have a question. Yeah. Go ahead. Go back a couple slides. Yeah. My god, I've never had a question. One more. What is Padre parents giveaway?

We just have our Well, we have a Padre parents president present. Um, but we have parents of uh school students who are kind enough to give away treats and drinks um whenever we have a certain amount of days that they come. Um, but they are just kind enough and sweet enough to give us random treats whenever and it's always a pleasure and always a surprise even though I know it's coming. Um, okay. They don't give away the kids. They They don't give away the kids, though. No. Okay. No, not the kids. Treats. Treats to the kids.

But that's a thought. Thank you. I'll make sure to be more specific next time. All good. All good. Thank you all. Thank you very much.

See you later. So, next we're going to have the volunteer and nonprofit spotlight, and I'm happy to introduce Terry Dah, who's going to represent Power over Parkinson's. I learned about this nonprofit from Terry, who with her late husband, Roger, were some of the original and most amazing Carmel Cares volunteers. I have to say, they were non-stop. Uh, she invited me to visit their offices a couple weeks ago and I went and attended one of their classes. I was very impressed and it was a great time and I' I'd love to go back. Can I go back? I think anybody can actually go there, right?

Absolutely. We would welcome anybody to come to the studio and see what we do. So, tell us all about it.

Um, first I'll tell you a little bit about me. Uh, but also I'm going to point out the chair of our board, Don McDougall. Um, I am also on the board. um neighbor to Jeff Baron. Jeff's a good neighbor. Jeff has uh uh rescued me a couple of times with my dog. Um I've lived in the same house in Carmel for 50 years. Um I'm on the corner of Camino Royale and Jane P Walkway. Uh Roger and I moved there in 1976, so this is our my 50th year there. Roger passed in 2022. He had Parkinson's. You don't pass away of Parkinson's, you pass with Parkinson's. That's why I'm involved with Power over Parkinson's. It's um my way of giving back to the community for my husband who was um a warrior with Parkinson's uh for a very long time. uh Parkinson's disease now outpaces Alzheimer's as the fastest growing neurological disease in the world. It is estimated that by 2040 cases may may exceed 12 million. Extrapolating from that, we have uh guessed that that within our community of Monterey, Pacific Grove, Carmel, Selenus, uh Marina, Seaside, there are probably 1500 to 2,000 people who have a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. Um, as you know, there is no cure. Um, but research research shows that regular exercise and specific movement programs along with opportunities for social

connection can help manage symptoms and improve the quality of life for people on the Parkinson's journey. Um, I can attest to all of that. POP, which is what we call ourselves, power over Parkinson's, was established in 2017 to provide such a program for people with Parkinson's and their care partners and families living on the Monterey Peninsula and in Selenus. At our studio, we offer 21 exercise classes every week specifically targeted for people with Parkinson's disease. high, medium, and low intensity circuit training with a boxing element. Yoga, I don't know what you did. You get to box.

They were doing everything. Okay. It was a circuit that they were doing.

Yes. Circuit training is is the basis for all of our exercise classes. Uh we offer yoga, mat pilates, balance and stretch, tai chichi, speech training, dance for PD, which is a national program developed by the Mark Morris Dance Studio of New York specifically for people with Parkinson's. And please don't think it's ballroom dancing. It's uh it's mindful movement uh specifically targeted for people with Parkinson's. And through a partnership with Sanctuary Climbing and Fitness, we offer once a month rock climbing. As you can see, that's Mary Lee. Um, POP also conducts twice monthly knowledge is power workshops which focus on greater Parkinson's disease awareness, understanding, and education. We have guest speakers and professionals in their specific fields of expertise who provide valuable information, support and resources resources. Just this Saturday we have uh Dr. Nema Paheshi who is a a movement disorder specialist out of Selenus Valley Health who is coming to give a presentation to our members and to anybody in the public. These workshops are open to anybody in the public. uh specific specifically on deep brain stimulation. Um along with all of the above, we host regular social events that include game days, singalong gatherings, and other opportunities designed to foster a sense of connection, fun, and support. Um as you can imagine, Parkinson's is a very isolating disease. people with Parkinson's don't necessarily get out and enjoy

uh being in the community. Um we are offering them a safe space where they can come. They don't have to explain why they have a tremor or why their gate is awkward. Um it's a safe, welcoming social community. Uh it's probably the the reason that I think POP is the most uh important because Parkinson's disease affects not only the individual with the disease, but it also affects his or her spouse or care partner and other members of the family. POP conducts two care partner support groups through a partnership with the Delmare Caregiver Resource Center. Um, so the three things that I think are most important about POP are they offer uh classes for people to continue being active in their lives, helping them with their balance, with their ability to hold on to things, their ability to walk, their ability to enjoy life. uh we offer them uh education on things that are important or could be potentially important to them and we offer a place for them to come and be with other people. Um so Don is there anything else?

CSU. Oh, we have a partnership with CSUMB kinesiology. Uh, kinesiology students are volunteers, interns, and um doing community service at POP helping us to maintain safety for all of our members. I I don't know if you could tell if there were any there, Dale, when you were there, but we generally have two or three uh really fantastic young people helping in each class. So, I'd like to invite anybody to come to the pop studio, especially this this uh Saturday. We're at 255 Garden Road. Um, we've actually not been in our studio for a year and a half because there was a battery fire in the space next to us. So, we've been we've been doing quite well in an alternate space on the same property. U, but we're very close to moving back into our new space. So, anyway, please come. Uh, and if you if you want, one of us can give you a tour, explain everything that's going on.

Thank you. And you have brochures down here. And I have brochures here and and they're always looking for donations support. They can use your donor advice funds 501c3. So yeah. And thank you Don and Terry for the great work you do. It's very valuable to our community. Have you ever worked talked about working with the community the the Carmel Foundation? Um it seems like that might be a partnership as well. Well, I know that that a couple of our board members have been on the community foundation board. The Carmemell Foundation. The Carmemell Foundation. Yes. Uhhuh. All right. Seems like that would be a good referral kind of thing. All right. Good. Thank you. EXCELLENT.

OKAY. We're now going to have a presentation by Montage Health and we're going to have the fairly new CEO, Dr. Michael McDermott, who's also an MBA, I believe. I saw that by your name. uh he officially assumed the role on March 21st, 2025. He succeeded Dr. Steven Packer who retired after 26 years. Uh clearly Community Hospital Monterey Peninsula and Montage is a critical part of our health system and we look forward to hearing about their health.

Well, good afternoon uh Mayor Burn and members of the council. I want to thank you for the opportunity to spend a few minutes with you uh today. While I'm here as my role as the president and chief executive officer of Montage Health, I'm also a resident of Carmel by the Sea. So, I'd like to begin by thanking all of you personally for your service to the community that I'm grateful to call home. Uh, as you said, this month marks my one-year anniversary uh with Montage Health and in this community, and I've spent much of that year listening uh listening to caregivers, uh to patients, and to community leaders. And so today, I'd like to just formally introduce myself, uh, share a short update on your local health care system and reinforce that Montage Health is committed to being a community partner and not just a healthc care provider. So, uh, before I coming here, I led a notfor-profit healthc care system in Fredericksburg, Virginia called Mary Washington Healthcare. And like Montage Health, uh, it was an independent, locally governed, uh, and deeply rooted in its region for more than a century. And that matters to me because being a community-based, not for-profit health care system means that decisions are made locally. Uh it means that our resources and our successes are reinvested here in our community and it means that we're accountable first and foremost to the people we serve, not to outside shareholders or to distant corporate interests. Um that model is something that I deeply believe in and it's one of the reasons that I chose to come here to Montage Health. And so today I want to focus on three issues that I believe matter to all of us. uh access to health care uh ensuring that this remains a thriving place uh for people to live and work and also working together to benefit our community. So

first uh access to care. Montage Health now operates more than in more than 20 locations across Monterey County and the peninsula. And of course that includes Community Hospital, the Monterey Peninsula just up the hill. But we also continue to expand our services here in Carmel. Our Montage Medical Group office in Carmel provided more than 20,000 primary and specialty care uh visits last year, meaning thousands of local residents were able to receive care close to home. Our Carmel Mogo Urgent Care Center saw nearly 12,000 patient visits in 2025. And so that allows residents to receive timely care for minor injuries and illnesses at a significantly lower cost than they would have with an emergency department visit. And most recently, we opened the Carmel location of Montage Orthopedics and Sports Medicine at the formula at the former uh Peninsula Sport Physical Therapy site. Uh when that practice was preparing to close, uh we stepped in to keep those services available here locally. And so all of the staff there were offered and accepted positions with the new center and that ensured continuity for patients receiving care there and stability for those providers who who uh provided the care at that location. And we know access to care remains a challenge not just here locally, but it's a challenge across the country and there's more work to do and we're committed to doing that work uh to continue to expand access to highquality care uh closer to home. I also wanted to briefly highlight a new advancement in care that we're bringing to Monterey County for the first time and that's our new throbectomy program for stroke care. So when someone is having a severe stroke, the most severe type of stroke, minutes matter. That's called a large vessel occlusion. And there is new

technology if you have the specialized training of the providers and the technology where they can go up inside of the blood vessels and retrieve those blood clots and get significantly better patient outcomes from those strokes. Um, historically, patients here in this community would need to be transferred out of the area to receive that type of care, wasting precious time and putting their outcomes at risk. But through a partnership with the University of California, San Francisco, we're now able to provide that life-saving treatment here locally at community hospitals so patients can get the right care at the right time close to home. We're the only hospital in Monterey County to offer that level of care. This is not something that you typically see in smaller communities and we're proud to be able to bring this to our local community. This picture here is a picture of our biplane hybrid operating room where our specialized trained neurosurgeons uh perform those procedures. The second issue that I wanted to talk about is workforce and economic vitality. one of the large we're largest one of the largest employers here on the Monterey Peninsula and we understand the realities and the difficulties in recruiting and retaining professionals in our high cost of living region and that's why we're focused on building talent from within our own community. So we have our grow our own programs where we provide high school and college students pathways into healthcare careers and in 2025 alone we provided more than $1 million in scholarships to local students pursuing healthc care careers. Uh we also partner with both MPC and CSUMB to train the next generation of nurses. And in 2024, we launched our clinical careers program that allows select employees of Montage Health to return to school full-time

while retaining their full-time pay and benefits when they're training to fill hard to fill clinical roles that we need right here in our health care system. And of course, uh I know we all care about affordable housing. And so to address some of the housing pressures, we've implemented a home loan assistance program for our staff. And so that helps make home ownership more attainable and uh supports long-term workforce stability. And pictured here is one of our team members with her family celebrating their home purchase in the Carmel Valley with the hope of this program. I will say Meg's daughter doesn't look too thrilled at the moment this picture was snapped, but I assure you she's very, very happy. And then community benefit. Finally, through our community benefit program, we invest in efforts to keep people healthy before they ever walk through our doors. And so here in Carmel, that includes a decadel long grant partnership with the Carmel Foundation to support senior health and wellness programs. And most recently, it includes supporting the renovation of the former Red Cross building to create a wellness and fitness uh studio for local seniors. And so I'll close with this. Uh, Montage Health is here for the long term. We are locally governed. We are nonprofit and we are deeply invested in the well-being of this community. And if there are opportunities for us to collaborate, whether that's around access to care, workforce development, senior services, uh, emergency preparedness, or emerging needs that you see, I want you to know that my door is open and we view our role as a partner in the overall health here in Carmel. and I look forward to building strong working relationships uh with each one of you. And so, thank you again for your time and I'm hap happy to answer any questions that you may have for me.

Thank you. Anybody have questions? Guess you did a good job. All right. Thank you guys very much. Thank you very much for coming by. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Now, we're going to move on to item D. We're going to introduce the new library director, Heather Cousin. I had the pleasure of meeting her this morning at a library, Harrison Library planning meeting, and Marissa is going to introduce her.

Good afternoon, Mayor Council. I am very happy to introduce our new library director, Heather Cousin. She comes to us uh with over 20 years of experience in education and libraries. Uh she most recently served as the library director for the city of Torrance where she oversaw six different locations. She's also had the privilege of opening uh two new libraries. So, it's really this combination of experience of hers that made her such an ideal and attractive candidate for us, especially in light of our upcoming renovation of Harrison Memorial. So, uh we're very very happy to have her and uh as part of our as part of our team. So, Heather, would you like to say a couple things? Yes. Thank you.

Thank you, Marissa. And thank you all for welcoming. Such a warm welcome today. And I really appreciate the opportunity to be here with you all in such an amazing and unique location as Carmel. I couldn't be happier and I look forward to getting to work with all of you and getting to work on this incredible project. So, thank you and look forward to having more more opportunity to talk with all of you and and meet more of the incredible community here. So, thank you. Thank you. ALL RIGHT, we're now going to open the floor up for public appearances.

Nova, would you like to read the public appearance notice? Sure. Members of the public are entitled to speak on matters of municipal concern not on the agenda during public appearances. Each person's comments shall be limited to three minutes or as otherwise established by the mayor. While stating your name is optional, it helps to identify speakers in the meeting minutes. Under the Brown Act, public comment for matters on the agenda must relate to that agenda item, and public comments for matters not on the agenda must relate to the subject matter jurisdiction of this legislative body. Remote or in-person participants who do not comply with the Brown Act will be muted.

All right. At this time, members of the public may speak on matters of municipal concern that are not on tonight's agenda. Good evening.

Hello, mayor and council people. Um, I'm mostly here. My name is Jeffrey Beckham and I'm one of the artists with the Carmel Art Association. and I've spoken to you before and um I just want to thank the mayor in particular and the council people for helping us move forward on an idea that was brought brought out uh a month or so ago about possibly declaring the pit which we've been dealing with for seven years to be a public nuisance. I can't think of any place in town or around anywhere that is more of a public nuisance than the pit. Um anyway, um we were uh able to meet with Brandon Swanson uh last week and we had a very positive meeting and it's really not a matter of holding anybody to account. Exactly. It's more a matter of um getting access to uh insurance funds because simply we as the Carmel Art Association do not have the clout to force uh anyone to uh to talk to us and they've been able to delay talking to us in reality for the last seven years. But with something like the uh public nuisance law that's uh that's a possible uh possibly going to occur, it will mean that um we have a little more power to get people to take action. And so we're really hoping that that continues. We've already had two uh we've had like three stages of going through the the idea of this and uh we're not looking to come down on uh anyone in particular. We're mostly looking to get the process started and seeing where it leads us and see if we can't get uh get our building repaired. Thank you.

Thank you, Jeff. Good afternoon or I guess it's good evening. My name is John Cromwell of Carmel Modern Art Gallery. My comments have to do with the parking situation. This was a topic that came up in the state of the city breakfast just this week. I'm not an expert on this issue. Don't have any specific recommendations as to how to resolve the problem. I know a lot of topics or or approaches have been discussed. I view this as an opportunity to help make you aware of the frustrations of running a small business in Carmel and the challenges with the lack the lack of parking presents. Some of you are familiar with my gallery which I opened just this past April called Carmel Modern. We're on 6th Avenue next door to the infamous Little Swiss Cafe. I opened my gallery to present the work of contemporary artists of the area, including my own work. The response of the community and collectors has been extremely encouraging, but I'm still in the early stages of building the business and creating a good resource for some of the local artists to sell their work. We are open five days a week and I'm contemplating expanding to six, possibly seven. However, I have to consider my operating costs and the pace of art sales dictates what I can do. My single employee, we're a big business. My single employee would frequently spend half an hour or more looking for parking. She would head up to the Vista Lobo lot. If that was filled up early in the morning, you should be driving all the streets. It was very frustrating. I ultimately ended up buying a parking space from the city near the post office for her use. Fortunately, I can walk to the gallery and I'm still able to walk. So, uh, I'm not, you know, occupying a parking space in that regard. However, I've had countless complaints from gallery visitors about the lack of

parking. And I've heard from more than a dozen people who have let me know they drove around for 30 minutes or more trying to find a space before giving up and going home. Each of those are prospective buyers. People get frustrated and influences their attitude about coming back to the gallery and possibly even Carmel. It also does not put them in a relaxed state of mind if they do finally find a space to actually consider buying a piece of art. I pay my sales taxes and believe the city wants me to be successful. Insufficient or unavailable parking is a major challenge. By the way, I'm also a member of the Carmel Art Association board and know that they have the exact same issues that I do and my fellow gallery owners also express similar frustration. What can I do to help? I volunteer for other nonprofit organizations and know that getting people together to help find solutions is usually a productive activity. Is the city working on solutions and can I volunteer to be part of a working group of citizens exploring solutions to this problem or do you have other recommendations for me? That's all.

Thank you. Appreciate you coming. Very good. We're not going to have a conversation here, but I think you made your point. Thank you. You got a story to tell us, Ken?

Good evening. I'm speaking a little bit for myself but a lot for this Carmel Red Association board. I can go back to 1960 with Gunnar Nerberg, the mayor, the work with all of them except one. Um, through the years and um my whole feeling about and our boards is the seats on your commission and boards represent us directly and there they go between us and you. the boards and commissions solves a lot of problems and they don't have to go to you. So, they save some time for you. But there's a reason that they're there. So, we're thinking about yesterday and I'm thinking I think you set a record and it probably will go down a in history is probably not broken and that's the length of time filling a chair in the library board. Um, my representation on that board should be five people and we got four. The reason you have an odd, as you know, is because you could have a a split vote. You could have a two two vote and that's why you have odd numbers. But it seems awfully odd that a quality board as this council is would allow that to happen. It does not do us all proud. um because a short board means one of our representatives who might have very good ideas isn't there and so we are disappointed in seeing that record and I hope we can forget about it after tonight if we can solve that problem let's get the full representation it would be that we

deserve as a community thank youing incident over the weekend I am too. It'll probably be on the pine cone.

Hello, this is Maria Roose and this is as the chair of the community activities commission that I'm speaking to you today because I have three things to announce. Nothing in March. Okay, so relax March. Nothing is happening this month, but because I will not be able to come forward to you to tell you about the big events that we have in April, I want to share today. So, the first one is the Carmel host Lion's Breakfast with the Bunny. That's the most important one, and that's before your council meeting. That's on Saturday, April 4th at 8 from 8:30 a.m. to noon. So, I hope everybody can go. supposedly. I've heard from some residents that that's their favorite event in the city for them through the year. So, I will have to see. I'll be there. Um the third Thursday, Farmers Market. We're going to start on Thursday, April 16th from 4 to 7:00. Last year, we had some really great bands and last year we ended it with the best band ever. I hope they come back from Selenas. It was amazing. Uh, and the other event will be Earth and Arbor Day on Saturday, April 18th from 10 to 2:00 p.m. And I hope everybody checks the Community Activities Commission's website because we have our schedule in there and you will see what's coming up. And so rest in March, join us for the breakfast with the bunnies on first day week of April. Thank you.

Thank you. And the chamber has a nonprofit event coming up too, right? Yes. When is when is she going to talk about that? Come on, chamber. It's your turn. I do. I do. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon. Katie and Neo with the chamber. Yes. Wednesday, March 11th, um from 5:00 to 7:00, we have a nonprofit mixer with uh at the Kreml Women's Club. Uh and we'll be hosting nonprofits that are part of our membership and we encourage people to come learn about them and find ways to support them in our community. And then um I don't think that I've seen you all since Putts for Paws, but I just want to thank you all for the part that you the role that you played in it. It was a successful day. It was very fun, community oriented, and um a great kickoff to AT&T ProAm week. So that's all I have. Thank you. Thank you for for the uh state of the city last Friday. That was really good.

Yes. Sorry, I forgot I had that, too. Uh state of the city on Friday. Yes. Thank you. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Brandon. Thank you, chief, for coming. Um we had great response from it. Uh it went out today. Um, we recorded that and posted it live today out of our newsletter. So, check it out if you couldn't join us. Thank you. Did I miss anything? I don't think so. I think you're good. Thanks. Anybody else? One more. Hi. Hi.

Good. Good evening, Mayor Burn, members of the city council, and residents of Carmel by the Sea. My name is Bourja Musa and I'm speaking tonight to simply introduce myself to the community as a candidate for Monterey County Auditor Controller in the upcoming June primary. I'm a certified public accountant with over 16 years of experience specializing in governmental accounting, auditing, and financial reporting. I have dedicated the core of my career to serving this county. First as your chief deputy auditor controller and until most recently as the assistant auditor controller. I'm running for this office because I believe deeply in the power of transparent and accurate and highly accountable financial management. A thriving county relies on an auditor controllers's office that operates with absolute professional independence and integrity. My goal is to ensure that our county's financial data is rock solid so that vibrant local municipalities like Carmel by the sea have a reliable collaborative partner at the county level. Thank you for your time and your ongoing service to this to this beautiful city and the opportunity to say hello this evening. I look forward to connecting with many of you in the community over the coming months.

What was your name again? Bourju Bourju Musa. How do you spell that? uh spelling is B u r cu but c is pronounced with a j sound. Okay, thank you. Thanks to everybody. Anybody online? We have Vince Coler. It looks like Vince, go ahead. Vince, you can unmute yourself on Zoom.

Sorry, I had a hard time finding the unmute button. Hello everyone. Uh Vince Kohler, a long-term resident, and I just wanted to add my thanks uh to what Jeff had mentioned earlier uh for the to the mayor and also to Brand Brandon Swanson for the meeting that Jeff already uh described. I just wanted to add one more element to that meeting. This was about the CIA getting help with their with the subsidance at the pit. uh what I thought came out of that meeting was a real win-win uh solution and and and what I think of as kind of a Carmel solution where uh all the property owners uh are made whole uh by using the the nuisance pro process which is exactly designed for that purpose and especially because it allows the property owners that need to to go to their insurance companies and have those uh damages just that wherever they came from uh recovered. That's only possible if the nuisance process is exercised. Otherwise, insurance companies will say, "Well, it's not I'm not responsible here." And so, that's why it's so helpful. And I in the end, I think this is the one way to get everyone uh made whole and the community uh to uh collectively protect the cherished institutions uh in especially the the CAA in this case. So again, thanks uh to uh Brandon for meeting with us and I'm I'm hoping for positive news after the review by uh the city attorney. Thanks all.

Thank you. Anybody else in the chamber like to say something? All right, we're going to close public comment. We're going to move on to announcements. Uh city administrator, do you have any announcements?

Yeah, thank you, mayor. I just have one. Uh it's more of a plug. Um, I want to just let everyone know that Chief Treyer has been working for a couple months now on uh planning a citywide evacuation drill which will be March 30th. Uh, the last few months have been spent working with stakeholders and the chief has done an exceptional job of leaving no no stone unturned. talking uh CHP, county office of emergency services, CALR, sheriff, all of our surrounding cities, our our VIPs, our cert uh our public works team, everybody's been involved creating a plan so that in early April we can start doing open houses to get everyone as prepared. I know that when you do a drill, it's supposed to be somewhat of a surprise, but this will be a big enough thing in our city. We want to make sure that everyone's aware of it. Uh so keep your eyes open, keep your ears peeled for uh early April, town halls will begin. Um, this is sort of unprecedented in our region. I think the chief will be the first to tell you that when he started this plan, uh, some of our surrounding jurisdictions were like, "You guys are nuts. This is a terrible idea." But now that we've actually been working on the plan, they're all pretty interested and want to come and see and experience it, and we'll probably see some some uh some folks try it right after us. So, I'm excited. Keep your eyes out for the early April town halls on that, please.

Thank you. I remember when we were down in Long Beach and we saw that Malibu session and uh I came out of that like we need to do something like this. So, it's pretty amazing how you pulled this together. Thank you so much. All right, city attorney. Do you have any announcements? Uh, no announcements tonight. No surprise with that. All right, that's good. Mayor, I just want to make sure I didn't scare anybody. The chief said I said March 30th. I meant May 30th. Thank you. May 30th. All right. You got a couple more months. Yeah, a couple more months than you thought. All right, good. That's going to come soon enough. Uh, council member announcements. Hans, you want to start?

Uh, yeah. Um, so I've been working with a group of residents on a variety of fire related um items. And one thing that um I'm working on with some volunteers is standing up what's called a Firewise group. A fire essentially making Carmel a Firewise community. Um and what we would do is educate residents about home hardening and defensible space and um things that they can do to make themselves and their neighbors safer. Um, and it has some ancillary benefits which could include um potentially some discounted uh homeowners insurance policies for folks living in town. Um, and so if you are interested in that um we are having our third meeting tomorrow, but even if you couldn't make that, feel free to send me an email and uh we'd love to have you involved.

Thank you, Bob. Um, I just wanted to uh remind our regular attendees and hopefully some non-regular attendees that on March 24th we will have a special city council meeting uh to be talking about the beginnings of the budget um season. And as you know, I always implore um our citizens to pay attention to the budget process because uh we spend your money and I really would like you to understand how we spend it so that you can hold us accountable so that we can hold our city employees accountable. So please come out. Um Hans and I have been working uh again for the last month on the financial stewardship group um and uh have put some challenges to um Brandon and um city staff that uh we'll be talking more about on the 24th. So look forward to that. Thanks.

I'm looking forward to that too. Thank you, Alisandra.

Thank you, Mayor. Uh I've got two items. The first is the uh beach bluff erosion north of 11th Avenue. Um, I recently met with our public works director, Ken, uh, and the city is well aware of the situation, uh, and has engineers working on it, not only to repair it, but to also understand what's causing it and how we can, uh, help prevent this sort of, um, damage from occurring on our beach. uh and uh the meeting that uh Bob just mentioned, the city council budget meeting um on the 24th uh March, we will be able to hear a little bit more about that plan and and be able to uh find out more about what the city's doing. So, it's it's really important that they are on on top of it and uh are working on that. And then the second item is that uh council member Baron and I and staff have been um meeting for the public uh works and police department architect selection committee in March and we're having a meeting tomorrow as well and we'll continue to meet in March and as long as it takes to go through everything um very carefully and um we will keep you updated on that with our uh future plans to come to council with our decision.

Thank you Jeff. Nothing for me. Thanks.

All right. I just like to say a couple things. U I don't know how many people attended the Sunset Center concert last Friday with Natalyia Aapova. Anybody? It was amazing. And I just want to thank Lily and and Grant Barbado who who uh had to go. It was had to be a huge amount amount of work to get people to come all from all over Europe to get together and do that one show. And I'd like to thank Sunset Center for giving them a Friday date. That was a big deal. and it was sold out, expensive tickets, very successful and I and I look forward to more of those kinds of shows. I also went by the uh Carmel Foundation Red old Red Cross building on Saturday. Carmel Cares had 10 people cleaning up the gardens. They're partnering with them now. And I went by and got my hands dirty a little bit. And I I've been keeping track of it and going inside and watching it. But it's if you haven't been there lately and you're a member of the Carmel Foundation and even if you're not, go take a look at it. It's unbelievable what they've done there. And I'm going to start working out there cuz it's free and it's really good. They have classes, yoga classes, Pilates classes, which I guess are pretty much sold out. I don't even know if they charge, but go by and check it out. I'm really proud of what they've done there. It's fantastic. And that's it for me. Anybody else have anything to say before we move on? All right. Uh we're now going to go to the consent agenda. Hopefully, this will go quickly, but we'll see. Uh the consent agenda items are routine in nature and do not require discussion or independent action. Council members or members of the public may request that any item be pulled for individual consideration. Are you going to put them up, Nova? Okay. Tonight, I'll just start reading. Tonight, we have nine consent agenda items. The first is is two special meeting minutes and a February 3rd regular meeting minutes. Uh January 2026 monthly reports. Number three is January 2026 check register summary.

Number four is resolution 202615 authorizing the serving of alcohol and public property for the Carmel Public Library Foundation's donor salute event. Five is resolution 2026 016 adopting a policy on the distribution of tickets and passes to city employees. Number six is resolution 202617 approving loan of city art to the Monterey Museum of Art. Seven is resolution 202618 authorizing one free day use of the Sunset Center Theater and Lobby for the AIM awareness art and design challenge exhibit and reception which is scheduled for April 21st, 2026. And number eight, resolution 20262, recognizing and honoring Robin McCrae for her 33 years of leadership and service as chief executive officer of community human services on the occasion of her retirement. Number nine is resolution 202621 approving the current salary schedule for Carmel Police Officers Association temporarily hourly in compliance with California public employees retirement law and California code of regulations. Title two, section 570.5. Would any council member like to pull an item?

Uh, number nine, just very briefly. Okay. Yeah, I just like to speak to number eight. Okay, good. I was going to pull that one, too. That's really good thing. Any others that you'd like to pull? I'd move to approve u the consent ag consent agenda items number one through seven. Okay. Is there anybody from the public that'd like to pull an item before we move on? Thanks. Okay. Good. So, let's let's Okay. 1 through seven. We've got a a motion and a second. Okay. Roll call. Council member Baron. Yes. Council member Bter. Yes. Mayor Prom Delves? Yes. Council member Dram. Yes. Mayor Burn. Yes.

Motion carries. So, let's start with nine to give Jeff some more time. Okay. Um, so I also met with uh the chief very recently. Um, and so just wanted to touch upon under the new um, agreement, we are going to have nine sworn officers. Um, we had seven, so we're adding two. And I just wanted to confirm what the chief said to me is that we have seven officers currently. One is in training. That's a new hire, and we're still looking for one more officer. Is that correct, Chief? Thank you, council member. We have one that starts the police academy in April. Okay, that's great. So, there's just that one position left to fill. Yes. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. He's building a really good team. It's pretty exciting. All right, Jeeoff, let's talk about Robin.

Thank you. Um, I would just like to call everybody's attention to uh Oh, it disappeared off the screen. Um, item number A, which honors Robin McCrae for her services as uh the head of community human services. Um, community human services for uh for everybody's benefit is a JPA. So, it's an organization that um is composed of all of the Peninsula cities as well as Selenus and all of the Peninsula school districts as well as some of the Selenus school districts that uh sort of face the peninsula. Um so there's one repres I'm the Carmel representative. There's one representative from every city and every school district. So there are about 16 of us um that meet once a month at the San City Hall. Um and CHS provides a valuable a valuable set of services to the community including um uh drug avoidance services for um for students um homeless services for um uh people that are unhoused and drug avoidance homeless services and and one other which I'll remember in a minute. and Robin. Um, Robin has led the organization for 33 years. She's been, you know, a guiding force behind the organization. She has done a great job and I just wanted to thank her for her leadership.

Thank you. And Jeff put together a really nice um um proclamation. Resolution. Yeah, resolution. Yeah, it was a resolution. And you're going to be providing that to her? Yeah. Okay, good. We're going to have a have a nice printed copy with your signature on it. Very good. Thank you for all the time you put into that organization, too. It's it's a really amazing Yeah. service that they provide to the community. So, thank you. All right. So, we need a a motion to approve items eight and nine. I'll make a motion to approve items eight and nine on our consent agenda. Okay. On second. And roll call, please. Council member Baron, yes. Council member Bter, yes. Mayor Promos, yes. Council member Dram,

yes. Mayor Burn, yes. Motion carries. All right, we'll move on. Next is orders of business, and we're going to start with item 10. It's resolution 202619 to accept the general plan and housing element annual progress reports for calendar year 2025. Marne, all of a sudden, she appeared.

Marne's really busy, so we appreciate you spending time with us tonight. Well, good evening, mayor and members of the council. Uh, this evening I am going to uh present the 2025 annual progress reports for both the general plan and our housing element. So, by way of a little background, um, the city is required to prepare and submit annual reports on the activities undertaken to implement the general plan on an annual basis. The reports are submitted to the office of planning and research historically. Um they have renamed themselves the office of land use and climate innovation. Uh and the other uh state department is the department of housing and community development. Uh both reports are due annually by April 1st. Um and they are reviewed by both the planning commission and the city council before they are submitted to the state. Uh the planning commission did review uh both reports in February. Uh so the general plan um is composed of a number of elements. Uh sometimes we just refer to these as chapters or topics. Uh they are listed here uh just for reference um along with the year that they were most recently um adopted or updated. Just some general highlights um on the general plan report, which is where I'm going to start this evening. Um there were no general plan amendments during calendar year 2025. Uh we did have two amendments to our local coastal program uh which are listed there. Um going to go really kind of quickly uh through um some of the highlights of our different um different elements. So for land use and community character, the planning commission considered 40

applications for residential design studies in 2025. Uh with regards to our circulation element, the traffic safety committee met three times, recommended installation of additional stop signs to enhance uh pedestrian safety. Um all which uh implement policies uh within our circulation element. Um, on the housing front, um, I am going to go into more detail on that, but just generally, uh, the city council allocated 14 acre feet of water to different land use categories. Um, entered into a professional services agreement with Optic Coast Design for the preparation of our objective design and development standards. Council also updated our reasonable accommodation policy and procedures. Um and then you also accepted the 2024 annual reports uh for coastal access and recreation. Um the city continued uh our active uh short-term rental enforcement. Um and all of these activities again are implementing policies that are in our general plan. Uh right now under coastal resource management um there was an assessment of the 4th Avenue outfall seaw wall repair shoreline infrastructure repair as well as the beach access stairs. Uh there was discussion on the impacts of architectural copper and then the council also adopted a ban on artificial turf for public facilities and services. Uh there was quite a bit of um activity in 2025. lot of discussion around the Carmel Police and Public Works uh building facility upgrades. Uh the council um also um the chambers got the audiovisisual upgrades completed, the fire station upgrades to accommodate the new uh fire engine. Um and then getting started on the Harrison Memorial Library restoration project.

Uh so lots of activity implementing the general plan, some electrical vehicle charging stations at Vista Lobos. um as well as the purchase of two electric vehicles um implement policies in our open space and conservation element under environmental safety. Uh there were some Carmel prepares workshops that were hosted. Um an emergency preparedness workg group that was formed. Our fire hazard severity zone maps were updated in 2025. Um as well as our emergency operations plan. And then with respect to our noise element, uh the ban on pickle ball at Forest Hill Park um is actually consistent with policies in that element. Um and then the continued enforcement of gas powered leaf blowers. So those are some highlights on implementing policies of the general plan. Uh moving over to the housing element. Um as you're all familiar at this point, our housing element is updated every um eight years. We're currently on the sixth cycle which covers the planning period of 2023 to 2031. Um we have posted at this point our annual reports on our city's website. So they were not up there previously. Um but they're now all listed uh side by side if anyone wants to go back and take a look at them. Um we are required to track all new housing construction during our planning period and report it to the state on an annual basis. And this is only net new housing construction. So this is not demo rebuilds. These are just new housing units. So we provide these annual updates to the state um on our net new housing production as well as how we're implementing each of the programs that are in our adopted housing element. the state provides uh a standard form uh that has uh it's an Excel file that has

multiple tabs and tables that we have to use for the reporting. It's a little bit cumbersome um but we're getting used to it. Uh so the first uh table I'll mention in the the housing element report um reflects the number of housing development applications submitted for new housing units. So they want to know on this table just how many applications came through the door. So for 2025 we had 23 new applications for new housing units. Um and those were all accessory dwelling units. Table A2 reflects the number of building permit applications approved, issued and final. um they use the term certificates of occupancy. Locally we say final. Um so in 2025 we issued or we approved 20 building permit applications. There can be a gap between when we approve it and when the the homeowner comes in and actually pulls the permit. So we approved 20. 23 applications were actually issued, meaning the homeowner came in and pulled the permit. Um, and then there were 15 permits that were finaled. Again, net new. Just want to re-emphasize that. Table B um is the summary of the city's progress and meeting its regional housing needs. Um so this is a table that's going to kind of track through our sixth cycle um through all eight years um how we're doing on achieving our regional housing needs allocation um which is 349 units. So you can see in 2023 um there was a little bit of an overlap.

We got credit for six units, three in the very low income category and then three market rate or above moderate. Um and then in 2024 we had 22 net new housing units and then in 2025 we have 23 net new housing units. And then you can see on the right hand side um what our total arena is um and then what's like what's remaining what we need to to achieve. Table D um is a real meaty table in the h on the progress report because this is where we list all of our programs and everything that we're doing to implement them throughout the year. So it's really textheavy. it's really cumbersome. Additional columns uh were added this past year. So, there's some additional uh data inputs um for us to include. And the emphasis this year for 2025 is really on quantifiable outcomes. Whereas in the past it was just tell us what you're doing, now they want us to quantify what we're doing. So, how many units did you produce? How many households did you assist? How many meetings did you hold? So, it doesn't always translate very easily the way our programs are written, but we did the best we could to try to communicate that um through the table. They also are asking for links to supporting documents. So, a lot of lot of information on this table D in the report. There are a lot of tables that are not applicable to Carmel. Um, and so you see those uh listed there. Um, so

that's great. Um, table L is a new table. Um, but not a lot of work. Um, the state does now want to know how many properties we are adding to our historic inventory. Um, we had one, so we listed it. It's a single family home. So with that, um that is the report on the general plan and the housing element. Uh staff's recommendation is that you adopt a resolution accepting the reports uh and then staff will uh submit them to the state by the April 1st deadline. Thank you. Good job. Any questions from the council?

Alisandra, go ahead. Thanks, Mayor. Thank you, Marty, for your presentation. I just have a quick question going back to the beginning for the general plan report. the item um about the council allocated 14 acre feet of water to um different land use categories. I believe I read in the pine cone that the commercial um allocation has already been used up. Is that correct? It has been uh reserved. Yes. Okay. So my next question is when is that coming back to the council for an update and then perhaps if we choose to give more or just to go over you know how things are going and what's been used and not used or not used up. do know

um I don't have any plans right now to bring that back to you. So right now it is um it is reserved for projects and those projects have to go through a process and once they complete that process that water will be allocated. If they don't complete the process then the water will remain available. So, it's not really spent yet, but it is reserved for projects that are in the process. Okay.

Um, we can come back to you at any time um if you want to get an update on where we're at. It's it sounds like it might be premature. I appreciate your explanation because like you said, it's it's reserved, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to get used. The project may change or not. They may decide not to do it. So, um, it might be premature, but maybe somehow to just keep us updated on how it's going 6 months from now. I don't remember exactly which date we we first made that decision. And I apologize because I don't recall either if um you had asked for did you ask for quarterly updates on the water allocation or was it was it every six months?

Maybe it was six. I don't remember either. I'll I'll go back and double check that and we'll make sure we come back with uh with a report on on how that's going. Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you. Didn't mean to put you on the spot on any of that. I'm glad she did cuz I was going to. Okay. Um I think there's what 2 left in commercial and we talked about that the other day with Brandon. So what happens right now if somebody comes in and needs more than that? Do they just say sorry we're out? Right. We yeah we would not be able to accept their application at this time. So is that something Well, we should talk about it. We should agendaize this. When's the six months up, Brandon? Do you know

to put you on the spot? When would we get an update? It's It's probably pretty close. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, we'll talk about that on Tuesday when we set the agenda. All right. Very good. Anybody else have a question? You do. Yeah. Go ahead. I have a question. Do we maintain a list of the ADUs that we've permitted over the course of not just this year but previous years? Do we have like a master list like a spreadsheet? Not as complicated as this one, but maybe one with like six columns.

We we can pull the information we have before. We've put them on maps. So, we don't have like a a master ADU list, but the way that our permit system works, we can go through and create a report of ADUs. So, our permit system goes back to 2015. Um, that would be good enough for me, but I'll talk about this after. That was a question, but then I'll make some comments. Okay. I'll make some comments after. Anything else, Jeff? Not Go ahead.

Martney, can you go back to the slide on the housing element update that has That's the one right there. Um so so one myth about ADUs in relation to the housing element is that um they have to be deed restricted in order to qualify for low, very low or moderate income status. Um and one of the things that we've learned throughout our AHA adventure is that that's not true. Um, you know, interestingly, in the housing element, which is sort of a projection exercise, right? You're trying to say, what do we think we're going to do over the next eight years? Um the state allowed us to use this 30 3010 um breakdown um where you say okay 30% of the units we're going to say are going to be very low income 30% are going to be low income 30% are moderate and 10% are above moderate. Above moderate basically just means market rate. And um the interesting thing about this spreadsheet is that um it's showing that over the past 2 years, so in 2024 and 2025, we produced 45 net new ADUs, right? 45 new housing units. And it's claiming that they are all above moderate. So that they were all 45 are um market rate. And one of the other interesting things, you know, as you know, Marty, because you were in these conversations with HCD, is that HCD um informed us that the, you know, the typical way that communities uh try to gauge affordability um because again, it's not a deed restriction. the the way they try to

gauge affordability for the purposes of these APR reports is they have a set of questions appended to the building permit. So you apply for an ADU and you ask people how do you intend to use the ADU? Do you intend to rent your ADU? Are family members going to occupy it? Um how big is it? What what are you going to um you know what are you going to rent for rent it for? And so, um, you know, I think if you just look back at, um, what we did in some prior years, you know, our consultant that we hired, um, edited some of the past APRs from from prior years. Um, so one of the things that we're missing for these two years um is that data, right? like we don't have that data. We haven't been asking people these questions, which is obviously a pretty significant missed opportunity. And so my question is, do we have a where is that on the work plan for us to be able to to get that done?

So it is in progress. Um we've crafted some information to put on our building permit form. Um, I would like to see some examples from some other jurisdictions that have used this approach that HCD has accepted. Um, just to kind of follow their lead, but we do have some draft language that we could put on our building permit form um, and start collecting that data. I I want to do it right the first time. So, I don't want to put the information on the form and then go back later and change it. So, I just want to be thoughtful about what we put on there the first time. And that's why I'd like to see some examples, but we are working on it.

Have you gotten any examples yet? I have not.

Okay. Um, and then the other I guess the other thing is um so this thing I guess goes final like April 1. I understand we can go back and um update them after the fact, but um could we could we go back and ask these people retroactively? Obviously, it's not going to be appended to the building permit because they've already been granted building permits. But what's our ability to go back and do a do a survey for these 45 homeowners and just ask the questions that you're eventually going to append to the building permit so that we can, you know, get credit for what we should be getting credit for.

Yeah, we can absolutely do that. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right. I have no questions. Thank you very much, Marty. And we're going to need a motion. Oh. Oh, public comment. Anybody Anybody in the public have a question? A comment? Go ahead, Nancy. Sorry about that.

Nancy Tumi, I will definitely research and try to find forms that have this question. And I think I probably already have some. So, uh, thanks Marne for the nudge on that one. Um, since I wear an IDU ADU hat in the housing element work. And then the other question that I have I would love to have an answer on is when are we going to get the 7-day review? That's the next step in our housing uh, a housing amendment approval process. Thank you.

Thank you. Maria Bruce. Um, I just, this is one of those things that I don't know, but it it just brings my my blood up a little bit and I just have to kind of bring myself down because I have to admit table B gives us a a requirement very low income, low income, moderate, and above moderate. And out of that, basically out of the totals that we have there, we've only achieved 48 above moderate. And ADUs, in my opinion, are not applicable to a housing solution unless we have to require the rental the owners to rent them and make them available to the public. So, we keep on doing that. My second piece to this is we talk about the progress that we've been doing. And I go back and I know I show you this. This is the original list of the 50 items and out of that the amendment presented different items. We've completed one. Okay, that is not acceptable. We're preparing a report that says we've been doing great. But I'm sorry, no we haven't. And my last item to this is I want to have as a resident of Carmel and somebody who lives here full-time ability to meet when or know when the AHA group or the the city is meeting with that group to discuss elements of of the response that we're preparing to the to give to the government because at this point we're not invited. We don't know when those meetings are happening and at this point we are only going to be given 7 days to review our response. So I have to tell you this raises my blood because in some ways I feel we're being disingenuous. We're saying we're

doing work. We have an amendment that was a a housing element that was approved two years ago and we have completed one item and we all we have to show is our adus. I don't think that's acceptable. I think we got to do much better than that. Thank you. Thank you, Maria.

Hi. This is actually just to address Maria. Maria, you're cordially invited to every single meeting we have. I'll put you on the list. You wanted to give me your email. We're meeting this Thursday at 9:00 a.m. We meet almost every Thursday at 9:00 a.m. We've been meeting a little bit less lately as we're in this sort of lull. We would love to have your input and many of the things you raise, believe me, we've been talking about it and our blood is boiling too and some of it is state related. So anyway, happy to have you. Thank you. I would move to uh I I've Go ahead. Sorry. Sorry. Are we done with public comment? Yes. So let's check. I I can't see online.

There's no hands raised on No hands on. Anybody else here? Nope. Okay. Go ahead, Jeeoff.

So, I have some comments. Um, I'll include without going into the details, uh, most of Maria's com Miss Ruse's comments by, uh, by, uh, reference. Um, I'm also disappointed in the city's housing production. Um, uh, ADUs. Um, I would really like to see, you know, especially since we're going to be approving, uh, uh, seems like we're going to be approving a housing element um, modification. I would really like to see some version of that spreadsheet with the 45 ADUs that we approved in 2024 and 2025. Um, you know, at that point, um, the things that I would like to see are, you know, a list of them. Um, whether or not they're occupied, if we have information, like if we don't have information, um, if we don't have information whether they're occupied, um, that would be fine. um that would be fine, but we should make make an effort to do that. Um Hans mentioned I didn't know this or Hans mentioned I think uh there's a form on the building. Is there really a check a box? How do you intend to use the ADU? Is that something we ask for now? I didn't I didn't follow. No,

no, it's not something we asked for right now. The the comment was if we can start collecting that data then that's we can prove to the state that it's affordable if if we ask the right questions. And that's what Marney's working on is finding other jurisdictions that do that.

Okay, let's not the, you know, Marne always wants to do everything right. And my comment to staff would be, let's not polish a cannonball. Let's just ask a question. um if that's a possibility. Uh the other things I would be interested in uh as you're collecting that data and I know you have this are the size of the ADUs like how big were the 45 that were approved if we have that data and um uh especially um what the relationship was between the the total size of the ADU and the original house to the to the legally requ legally allowed maximum limit. So, in Carmel, we have a 16 or 1,800 foot limit on a 4,000 foot lot. And I would like to understand, especially as we get to the ADU ordinance, um, so we could just maybe two birds with one stone, um, what what amount of the size of the ADUs, put it above the legal lot limit size. So if we if we had a 500 foot ADU that was attached to a 1500 foot house, then it would be 400 square f feet above the the legal lot size that they that they use. So I would like I would like to see that um I would like to see that information um you know at the sort of next time this subject comes up. I don't I think mostly it's just data. So hopefully you can do that. Um, regarding the water allocation, you know, um, I also saw the article about the uh, sort of almost used up nature of the commercial allocation. There was a discussion at the council about what the water was going to be used for when it came to, you know, when it came to the commercial allocation, however many acre feet it was. You know, we had a discussion about um, whether it was all going to be gvided up by restaurants or whatever it was. And um two things. Uh first I would like to see you know when this comes back to the council. There's obviously nothing to do until then. Um I would like to know what the what the

water was used for. So obviously that's a pretty easy there can't be that many permits. So you know how was the water used? You know was it used for restaurant seats? Was it used for bathrooms? Well I guess restrooms aren't included in the in the commercial district for water allocation. Like what was it used for? Um, and then I would I would point out that um, you know, I don't think it's been that many months since we had that discussion, but um, you know, the water district made clear that there was more water. And so if we've used up commercial water and the council thinks that we should have more commercial water, I think all we need to do is ask. Like I don't think it's I don't think like like Mr. Mr. told told us that, you know, when he was up there that we could just ask for more water, that there was, you know, thousands and thousands of acre feet of water. And so if we're out of commercial water and, you know, that's a decision the council wants to make, we should move that process along um and and not wait 6 months. we should just do this next month or when I don't mean to usurp your authority at the agenda but we should do this sooner rather than later so that we can make that request like there's no reason to wait you know but there's no reason to wait according to some schedule we said before so we should we should get on that

yeah and we're going to talk about it on Tuesday but the the question is do we have to use up all of our allocated water like do you have to come back to us and we have to take some from the money that we've squirreled away for the can we do we have to use everything first by reallocating it to categories or can we go by category and get more it's a great question we actually if you recall we we we kind of tried to get that answer out of Mr. stole when he came and it was sort of a nebulous like just there's a lot of water just don't hold back giving out water give out water and we'll be here when you need more. So I think we have to put that to the test a little bit. It could sort of get complicated if we have to use up every every acre foot we have before we go back.

Yeah. I have a question and it's probably Marne or Hans, either one's fine. The 30 3010, if that's how you allocate it, why aren't we doing that? And how do we how do we do that other than the surveys that you're doing? I mean, I think we know how it's going to turn out if we do a survey. So, as council member Berter um explained, the 303010 is a projection. So, once we get to production, we have to demonstrate that it's actually affordable. Um and we can do that through the collection of data on the building permit form. Um we can do that through other, you know, means of of data collection, but we actually have to demonstrate affordability. So the 30 30 10 at some point turns into the real world. You have to adjust it.

It's not just you just do it and Right. That's interesting. Yeah. Can I ask a follow-up question to your question? Go ahead.

So you say we have to collect some data. So, if we went to the 45, maybe this is a Pandora's box, but if we went to the 45 homeowners and to try and figure out and just send them a letter and ask them if they're renting or ask them what they're doing with the units, um, is that uh would HCD HD accept that as sort of proof that some of the units were rented like so we haven't So, so I understand that we can sort of solve the fix the problem moving forward by asking the question on the form or some complicated version of that. Can we fix the problem in retrospect by by reaching out to the homeowners to the extent that they'll talk to us and figure out what they're doing? Like will the would that be valid to you know for the purp for some version of the purposes that we're talking about here? So there is a space on the table where you list the

the table that was that was here. Mhm. Where you list when you when you list it as an affordable unit. Then further off to the right you have to explain why it's affordable when it's not deed restricted. And that's where you put in your reasoning that it's affordable. the homeowner said they're renting it at this amount and it's this size. Like you have you just have to put that data in in the in the form when you submit it to HC. But to your question, council member, yes, we can go back retrospectively. We actually did that if you recall last year um when we were doing the housing, we updated um our previous allocation and count of ADUs for the fifth cycle

for the fifth cycle. So you can you can always update your APR. Uh if we have that the proof that Marie's talking about, if we can prove that a certain number of them were affordable through the information we collect, absolutely we can retroactively. So the information that you provide to HCD on that form would presumably guide the questions that you would ask both in hindsight to the people that have already built or have a permit built whatever that is for the ADUs as well as the questions moving forward as well as the sort of cannonball questions. That's right.

Moving forward we done. I'm done. You have a question? I well comments on I was ready to do a resolution but I got ahead of myself. Um yeah the conversation on ADUs is interesting. I'm I'm kind of with Maria that I just feel like we're spending an enormous amount of energy analyzing failure um in this regard. I mean the ADUs are getting built because people want to have a extra bedroom and or two um and you I hear you asking for a lot more analysis of it. I I'm I would find all that interest all that information interesting, but I have absolutely no idea what we do with it. I

and so just it's a lot. Let me finish. You you should respond. Um and I'm I would suggest that instead of re you know we've got those 40 is it 46 47 some of those are single family but it's generally that

yeah those there's an opportunity there to actually get some people living in them. I mean I think we should look at it as an opportunity that perhaps we can actually do our own plan our own you know initiative and um instead of you know following this mindn numbing spreadsheet that this the state government you know keeps asking us to fill out which I don't even know if they look at honestly um you know we keep jumping through their hoops which use up all the time and energy that we have so we actually don't get anything done um so I instead of maybe a letter to all of those owners of what do you intend to do? Maybe it's an offer, it's an olive branch, say would you be interested in um learning about how to place a teacher or a um city worker or a firefighter um or a first responder blah blah blah um into your ADU. And you we've talked about providing some sort of matchmaking service and I don't that's slippery slope. I get it. Um but you know if you can just we we've had you know situations recently where we've been looking for housing for employees. Um, and our employees get fingerprinted and have to take tests. And um, same with the teachers. And, you know, you might just get, even if you just get five people that would respond and say, "I'm interested." That could begin a conversation that might, you know, might help them. And that be much better use of, you know, Marne's precious time. Um, so just a thought um to try and make this an opportunity instead of a chore. Um, on the water, Jeeoff, yeah, I Yeah, we're meeting next Tuesday on the agenda. How about we get something on the April agenda? Yeah, because I think you're right. Let's let's not let's not in the theme

we had last night of let's not put up roadblocks that just prevent people from advancing what they want to advance. You know, let's again continue to have processes and documents that get help people get to yes. And when the water's out there, we shouldn't have to be saying no. We we want to be able to say yes, right? So, thanks. Go ahead, Senator.

Just wanted to add something on the ADUs. Um, I was just thought of it while Bob was speaking. Um, some of them though might be for a caregiver or a family member and and it would be considered low income because you're not really charging them rent, but they're still living there. So, if we can find a way to ask or get information for how that is being used, because that is part of um the ADU use, not just renting it out to um potential city employees, which is a great idea, by the way, just um to widen it to other um individuals who might be living in it for different reasons than that. Okay. Anything else?

Yeah, I would just res respond to Bob. Um yeah, I think I'll do it in reverse order. Um, yes, I think that your idea about uh the positive parts of the letter are that's a great idea and you know, we I know we've lost at least one one or two future employees to not being able to to not being able to find housing. So, I think that that's I think that's a f that would be a great use. Um I do you know as as I've spoken to you before as I've spoken here before I do agree on this do postulate on that sort of nonuse of ADUs for housing but I think we all sit up here and we sort of talk about it and I think I personally think it's worthwhile to try and collect some statistics to at least you know have some idea of whether we're whether we're right or wrong. Like I I think we're I think most of them are empty. It sounds like you think most of them are empty. Um I you know I do think it's worth some staff effort to sort of guide our house guide our housing policy in the future to to prove out whether that's right or wrong. So yeah.

All right. So we had a motion before, right? I didn't get there. You didn't get there. Okay. Were we done? Let's start over then. Okay. Um hold on. I got it right here. I did. Um, I would move to approve resolution number 2026-3-PC um regarding the acceptance of the general plan and housing element annual progress reports for the calendar year 2025. I'll second it. Roll call, please. Council member Baron, yes. Council member Berter, yes. Mayor Prom Delves, yes. Council member Dermal, yes. Mayor Burn, yes.

Motion carries. All right, we're going to move on to item number 11, 2026 car week discussion and direction from Chief Treyer.

Good evening, Mayor Burn and Council and the community. Thank you for being here. Today, I'm going to talk about Am I going to flip this little thing? There we go. I'm going to talk about 2025 Car Week's listening session and input from the community, share with you what their feedback and concerns were, and then seek your direction on uh this year's car week. First, I want to thank the community for showing up. It doesn't surprise me two people RSVPd for the listening sessions. Over a hundred showed up at the two different sessions. So, um luckily I had made enough cookies and we were all right. But the um thank you again for that and for the dozens of emails and in-person uh visits from so many people who couldn't make it to the listening sessions just telling me what they loved and don't love about car week. Um I found that everyone was very genuine, thoughtful and collaborative and we had a very robust discussion and I was very educated on what car week used to be and what it has become now in Carmel. Uh, one of the, well, really four things they brought up that I think is key is how we're in the middle of car week and we're anchored by worldclass events like Pebble Beaches, Concord, Elegance, Quail Lodge, and how owners when they bring in cars to the community, not just Carmel. They drive around throughout different communities at the peninsula and Carmel becomes just another place to showcase the fancy cars. Now, with social media, it amplifies spontaneous gatherings that aren't necessarily um those high-end cars, but it brings a lot of pedestrians and vehicles to our town. And the backdrop of Carmel is still attractive for that prestigious factor uh when people do decide to bring their cars here. Um, I did talk a lot about the uh at the second listening session about the word classic and the community um from all generations that are living here in our town talked about

what classic meant to them and it is very different what people see as being classic cars. But this was a very solutionoriented group and thank you for those of you um city administrator and the assistant city administrator Marissa Kaine, the mayor, some others. Um I just appreciate you taking the time to listen. Um, so when I think about the his hours of conversation we had about how the community felt, the businesses felt, many of the shops that did show up. We didn't have a tremendous um number of businesses show up, but I went out to them and they uh didn't feel super positive about how it was impacting their business. Some said the last 15 years of car week have affected their day-to-day operations during that week. I did uh Katie and Nia invited me or Amy Herszog invited me to a hotel event and I was able to meet so many hotel owners and managers. They do just fine on car week. That was the overall sentiment because they rent their rooms out for 3, four days at a time and it's a pretty good week for the hotels. But other businesses just don't always do great. But the businesses and the residents both complained both complained about noise, traffic, the influx of people in vehicles and how that um leads to things like near misses, a aggressive driving and just overall pedestrian safety. As you know, this was my first car week. You all warned me about it, what it was going to be like, and you were right. It was busy. But I uh I left car week thinking I see how we are doing things but now I understand why we can do things better and I that's what I'm going to bring to you tonight some options. The uh the cost for overtime last year someone asked at one of the meetings recently it was 36,000 for this past year which is pretty in line with all of the years in the past. The reoccurring themes from the listening sessions and meetings I had

were that businesses wanted more help. They wanted to reduce noise. Even the hotels said that that the noise was affecting the ambiance for their customers. They wanted to impact speeds and they wanted to create it. They want to create a safer evening in Carmel. They were asking for change. They're asking for real visible steps to cut noise and reckless driving. Uh especially between 9:00 p.m. and 11 at night. They suggested speed humps all over the city. Um like dozens of them. Uh they supported additional enforcement tools which I spoke about. Um we're going to have more officers but also some tools that would help us with sound enforcement. I did look into the idea of almost like uh the speed cameras or red light cameras. If they have those for sound, they they do not exist. And any town in our country that says they have them, I have spoken to their chiefs or their administrators and they they really don't have them. They just don't exist. But maybe we could start a company. The uh route changes that I did go over with the community. Um I I'm not real specific on what we're going to do, but I want you to know that I've developed a plan to make uh route changes at night safer for our community, whichever way we go tonight, whichever decision you make. And the community did bring up economic benefit. They said they um you know like the $36,000 is a lot of money. Is there a way to recoup that money without um causing community burnout? So there's some options. The daytime events are in process right now. Leslie is working very hard with with their team to uh bring back all or similar events um from last year to this year. And my experience was that the daytime events weren't major issues for this community. Uh we are increasing police enforcement. We have more officers. We have more vehicles. We are increasing safety

measures which includes visibility in town. And I think already um the team is just doing more enforcement. Uh so we're already seeing an improvement. It's we're not even at car week yet. We are implementing technologies to help increase enforcement which this sound technologies I talked about. We are um I have reached out to the car club community and invited them to meet with me. There are certain groups that come up to our town, our our peninsula regularly and I have reached out to them. I haven't met with them yet, but I have reached out to open my door up to hear where they're coming from and let them know what this year is going to look like in Carmel. Um and the route changes I spoke to you about already. I'm going to jump to the next slide on the managed pilot parking programs. I think it fits better. Okay, there's a managed parking pilot program that was brought up during the listening session from four different people and they said they were looking for something different to control what's happening in the evening. So, uh, Good Roots, which, um, Ashley is here in the back. Ashley and Nile came were the only two people that took my challenge, which was to come up with some way to manage the nighttime traffic and they did that based on community feedback. They have worked very hard. They met with me privately. They met with um, some of the administrative team and they came up with a parking program. It's not intended to be anything else, but an opportunity to allow people to park downtown with their vehicles. And I'll explain it. Downtown area would stay closed after 6:00 p.m. Right now, it opens up for traffic. And then we do a traffic diversion every year between Thursday and Saturday. Um when it between on now between Thursday and Saturday from 6:00 to 10:00

p.m. the downtown area would remain closed to through traffic. that would allow the organizers like Goodroots 250 spaces to use for this pilot parking program. It they would control the entry and exits and there is a map that I'll jump to that this uh I'll make sure I show you what I mean by that. And it creates predict predictability and orderly flow. They are proposing high staffing and that frees up police police officers for the area. And when I say high staffing, I mean four 40 people working each night. Those civilian controls would be working with PD. There would be associated fees. Um right now they're proposing $200 for people to park on Ocean during that time each day and $100 on the side street. Um that coincides with the current daytime parking during car week. And the residential fees um if there are any we could talk about tonight. Uh, one thing that I didn't put in my slides, and I wish I would have, was that they agreed to light up the intersections with lighting during during that time, the the pilot parking program. And that uh to me is probably the most key thing that can happen when you have that many pedestrians walking around downtown. All right. The uh pilot program, like I said, had controlled perimeters, and I'm going to switch to the map so you can see what they're proposing. Um that's a lot going on there, but it it does make sense to me somehow. I see where they're going with it. Um it has uh the control parameters. You'd enter in at the bottom which is seventh 7th and then you would be guided in each vehicle would be guided in by the employees of the good roots and they would be parked on ocean.

Uh one thing that I asked them to change and it's not on that map is that the traffic would not be exiting ever in front of the fire department which is those little red dots there on sixth. And that's easy to do because we already block off six right there. And we'd make sure there'd be a lane open for the fire department. But this increases uh PD availability outside of the main area. There still would be officers there for sure, but we would be able to do more for our community for noise enforcement, speed controls, and just overall safety. Here's the rules that they proposed that we work together on. First of all, uh, vehicles cannot exit without an escort from Good Roots. And part of the agreement is that they would not be able, you know, if they rev their engine or anything like that, they've signed waivers saying they weren't going to do they would not do that. If they did it, then they would um, they'd be held accountable for that and my officers would be able to do enforcement. Secondly, the vehicles remain off when they're parked. So, if they're there from 6:00 to 10, they're not going to be on. They can't rev the engines. They can't do all the burnouts or anything like that. Uh next the uh pedestrian safety would be increased. The employees would ensure that the the uh pedestrians are on the sidewalk while all these cars are parking or moving to make sure that they're safe when they're doing um when they're parking the vehicles. All right. The um 40 40 employees is what they're what they've offered and it is a pilot program. But what is key is that they are good with the idea that if Thursday evening this isn't going well that they will pull the plug and they know that I can change the traffic flow and it would be over in the middle of Thursday night. Um or and then Friday and Saturday it just wouldn't happen. And that's the uh I guess the risk of this pilot program

that if it's not safe um we might have to do something. The other um thing is that they were they're uh willing to make and put up signage on Hunipro and guide people down Seventh. So if you just drive in because you're used to having a it a certain way in Carmel and you want to park and go to a restaurant, you can drive in and either pay the 200 bucks if you want to be on Ocean or the $100 or you can go to Larsson Field assuming you approve um the shuttle having extended hours and us uh re-uping Larson Field. so people can go back and forth for the evening. We are going to have more parking compliance by August. Uh we're going to have a few more hopefully at least two. And that will also give us um an opportunity to do more enforcement for parking which was was really tricky last year. Okay. And I promised Maria I'd talk about the community's activities committee. I um I presented kind of the the beginning rendition of this to them and uh they were very helpful. So this is what they came up with. They asked that um I present this to you of course that's what part of the reason why I'm here and that the this type of parking pilot program which is hard to say would allow some control to the chaos is how they put it that it would increase preparedness for our community. It would allow us to be proactive in addressing the night sound pollution and it creates new routes for the traffic control if I need it. They did request that I consider more speed humps in certain areas and that I engage with the car clubs which I have already started to do. My recommendation tonight is that uh first of all I'll take any any changes or recommendations for you about car week. Luckily we have this forum to do

that. Um even the daytime events which I know I haven't spoken a lot about but I was there every day and they were not issues. they were well staffed with our VIPs and and officers. And then secondly, um consider the Larsson Field um shuttle and later hours if you do implement this pilot program. And that's the last thing is if you're interested in even doing the managed parking pilot program for 2026 car week. Thank you. All right. All right. Um my question is, what do you think we should do? I mean, you're going to have to make this work, right?

Yeah. Um, I have more officers, better cars, and lighting, that alone would make it a huge a lot safer than last year. Um, but to have controlled parking, um, I think it'll give an opportunity for business businesses to get more traction during those evening hours cuz right now it's just a cruise. Nobody stops. Um, I'm not thinking too much about the money. It's not that it's not important to me, but I'm thinking about just the safety. There are so many people that come downtown at night. I think it's going to change behavior and I think in a good way um is what I'm predicting and that it's going to just uh set an example for what we're our expectations are. We're going to change things like lighting, which means people are more accountable. And third, it gives um a safer environment for pedestrians. Uh my experience that I talked about the after action report where you know people were lying down in front of fancy cars getting their pictures taken so they could put it on the internet and this would have a lot more people to help control 40 people versus eight and those eight were your officers. Now you'll have 40 people plus your eight who can work the perimeters, work the side streets, um really address the issues that a lot of the community was bringing up. I do think we need to put some speed humps in. I do have some ideas on where to put that, but I just need to work with fire, make sure they're okay with with my ideas on that.

Okay, I'll open it up to the rest the council. Bob, go ahead.

Um thanks, Chief. Um yeah, controlling the chaos. I mean, it's I I appreciate that you're taking lemons and trying to make lemonade, trying to find an opportunity where there wasn't one before. Um, so I have a very open mind on it. Um my my biggest questions are about what about the rest of town and what will be the impact on yeah anything outside of the of this of this zone because I'm I'm very concerned that it's just whack-a-ole and we're going to end up with a bunch of um yahoos in the that you all those people downtown last year are going to be in our neighborhoods and that's a concern.

Thank you. I can give you my opinion. Um, people go to where the cars are. So, um, although I know where all of you live, I don't imagine those cars are going to be set up in your neighborhoods. I don't, um, and I'm just genuinely saying I don't think that will happen. People are going to go to where the cars are uh, because that's what they've always done in this town. So, I think you could get some collateral um, driving because there's going to be no crews. So, I think what will happen is it's going to take away a lot of the fun, if you will, from that cruise. That cruise was thousands of vehicles every night, Thursday through Saturday. And it's not going to be much of a cruise if it's um not around the spectators and the the people with the car spotting mentality. So, I I'm not naive to the fact that there are going to be popup things just like there were last year. And I don't talk a lot about him, but usually um 10 people would go down to Delmare, for example, and then start their own little party. And we will handle that. We'll have the we'll have more officers to be able to do that.

I guess it's um I don't understand all of the uh dynam dynamics of it, but you know, there's a lot of people that bring their cars, but then there's another universe of people that just come to watch. Right. Right. And it's that group that I'm more, you know, and quite frankly, I don't know. Last year, I don't know. I assume they all arrived by their own cars and park somewhere, right? Um and maybe it's just the same answer. They parked in our neighborhoods. They did already.

They did park because um you couldn't park downtown because the cruise was going and we had managed the traffic that way. So, I I imagine that's going to happen as well. But if um if the organizer has signs that say, you know, $200, $100 parking downtown or free parking this way at the lot. Maybe maybe it'll get people to go to that lot, but there are still going to be people who park downtown for sure.

Go ahead, Ellis. My question, Chief, and thank you for your presentation, is um these 40 staff people, like who are they? Are you talking about private security? Are they just employees? Like, how do we know they're going to be up to being able to manage this if that's not their regular job or I just asking who these people are?

Great question. I asked the same thing. They're not security, which is I would love to have that be security, but that's a whole different level of funding, I think, for this, you know, this pilot program. So, that being said, it's um employees that work with um with Good Roots and they will be in contact. They will have uh their ambassador, whether it's uh Nile or whomever he chooses. Well, usually Nile's there and he will be the ambassador that is in contact with the police department. Thank you,

Jeff. Go ahead. So, why um what would the goal like why are we doing this? What's the goal of the program? Like why and and I'm not going to ask this question, but why should we not just close downtown? Like um why should we not just say no cars? You know, we have a parking lot. You know, there's a diagram of a parking lot here. Why would we not just close downtown? Yeah, I I don't think we can. I don't think we can just close our downtown area. In this case, it is a uh it's a parking program, so it's almost

Why Why can we not? Why can we not? Like, we close downtown for car shows. Like, you know, yeah, people come to get a permit for like five blocks of closure. Like, why can't we do that? I and I'm not I'm not suggesting that that is or isn't a is or isn't the thing that we should do. Just I'm trying to figure out what why like I'm trying to figure out like what the goals are. Right. Thank you for the question because I've thought that that was my initial reaction. Let's close

maybe and to cut you off again. Maybe Mr. Delves has maybe if we close downtown the cars are going to come out to where we all where a lot of us live. Like maybe that's the reason we don't just close downtown. But I don't I'm still asking the question.

Couple things. Um like last year there was a delay in cleaning up on I think it was Wednesday or Tuesday, one of the Tuesday. Thank you. And um there was no traffic downtown, no one cruising, no one parking, and I I received a lot of complaints from the businesses, from the restaurants. There was nothing happening for them. It was it was ghost town, so it was effective at closing the town down, but it did impact the businesses. So, I think this plan gives you as a council an opportunity to keep some type of flow coming into town versus closing it. Maybe we can close it. Um, it didn't seem like that was the direction in speaking to most people to close it completely. And I I I remember I I talked to Brian a little bit about it about closing basically the rightway. These are community streets. it has to be something happening just instead of just closing it. Uh maybe that's just my ethical look at it, but the um I'm not I'm not against that as long as it's legal. Um here you have an opportunity to have some type of uh traffic and more people to be able to attend to the businesses. So, I'm surprised. I'm um Let me read something to you from this presentation that I just got like a couple minutes ago

that says businesses shops don't feel the positive impact of the large influx in the evenings.

Yeah. So on one hand you're saying and I'm I'm not on one hand you're sort of saying that businesses do want people downtown and the other hand you say that businesses uh don't feel the positive impact of the large influx and on the on slide number eight it says downtown business access and I'm wondering whether access is the right I'm wondering whether like access is the right word like what is it that we're trying like we should accommodate the businesses like but what does that mean that people can get to restaurants? Does it mean that people can get to uh you know a memorabilia shop? Like, but I my impression is people don't go to memorabilia shops, you know,

right? The people that come at night don't don't buy t-shirts or or fancy clothes or whatever. They probably eat, but yeah, thank you. the there there were businesses that showed up at the listening session and they said um the example was that coffee and cookies are what is selling during the evening hours um foot traffic I'm sorry foot traffic

foot traffic but the these businesses are not on the the main ocean um area even so I think when I'm representing the businesses saying that there were plenty saying nothing is happening It's more of the businesses that are not based on food, number one, and number two, they're uh a little bit away from the ocean traffic, the foot traffic. So, this would give an opportunity for people to park and go to businesses. I don't know if they will. I guess um the a lot of the restaurants think they will, but we are giving that opportunity to them. You know, like the surf shop, when I spoke to the owner of the surf shop, he uh he's like, "Nobody's coming here from, you know, at 7 o'clock at night on car week

to buy surf stuff." To buy surf stuff. Yeah. Okay. Thank you,

Hans. Yeah. First of all, thank you. Um and thank you to Ashley and Nile. I think it's uh very creative. Um it really is. And uh it's almost like uh it's like a mini paid parking pilot, right? So um you know I I my thoughts were actually kind of similar to Jeff's. So, I I'd have to go back and look at the tape and you probably have, but my recollection, my sort of like feeling from that conversation that we had was um that there was some excitement around this notion of, hey, what if we sort of just shut down downtown at least to cars and made it sort of a pedestrian, you know, location in the in the evenings? Um, that's kind of what I remember. The thing that I'm a little bit worried about is that it sort of feels like this basically is creating three city sanctioned evening events. You know, they used to be sort of organic gatherings, but now they're just going to be sort of city sanctioned. We're sort of adding events. Um, and I appreciate what you're saying about how it would change the behavior. I think that that's I think that that's right. Um, the question I have for you is if we if we took that section of town or some version of that and just shut it off and made it a pedestrian zone um, for those evenings. How do you like do that thought experiment with me for a second like how do you think that that would play out compared to this? Presumably we'd have

what are our goals? Our goal is to have fewer of the less desirable element, right? I mean, generally we have younger risk-seeking male, right? Um, not spending money on businesses and kind of causing chaos.

In this scenario, there's less of that behavior like you said, but um it still would seem to attract that demographic because the cars are what attract them. Now the the risky behavior with the cars attracts them even more. But that's we're basically creating an event for these kinds of cars in the evening. Um now then imagine a scenario where that is just a blank slate and it's a pedestrian mall. You know if our goals are to not have that um that element that's causing issues and I'm just sort of positing this and then I want to get your take on whether you think it's right. feels to me like we'd have less of those types of folks. And then if our other goal is to, you know, at least keep it viable for businesses, what you've said is that the current situation actually is not good for businesses because they're not, you know, these folks are not going to Anton and Michelle, right? Right. Um, but you know, in this scenario where it's just sort of a pedestrian mall, maybe that makes like more normal Carmel visitors feel comfortable to be able to say, "Oh, that's a safe space. I can go and I can go out to dinner and it's going to be okay." Um, so just compare those two scenarios for me relative to our goals and like just the thought experiment like how do you think it would go if we just shut that whole space and made it a pedestrian mall for those evenings? I think the cars are still going to come. I think you are going to have a thousands of vehicles driving down Fifth and 8th and San Carlos and going through all of the neighborhoods because they are used to coming here and there are going to this year there will be thousands of people showing up and you're right, they'll be safe walking downtown. Um, they might not stay long

because the show won't happen. What they're used to seeing here, but I um without lighting, I don't think it's as safe. Without 40 people walking around, I don't think it's as safe. And then my officers will be the ones with the eyes and ears in that area. There will be no one else but our team. And we can do it. I'm not saying we can't do it, but I'm saying that's the tradeoff. It won't be perfect either way. There's no doubt there's going to be learning whichever direction we go, but um I know that I will have to change completely the traffic routine when things start to get really really impacted here in town. And I can do that. I can do that if you don't if you don't uh choose the Good Roots plan or um or what you just said, council member. I can do it. I can make it work. But I do I I did want to bring back to you what the community said and um and the option that was given to me.

This was just questions, right? Yeah. Yeah. Any other questions? So I just roughly calculated that this if it sold out all three nights, it's like 100 grand based on X being at 200 and the rest being at 100. I I agree. I think it is. Yeah. So, what happens with that money?

Well, um this is the one I promised uh assistant city attorney or administrator. Let her answer. So, um, with Good Roots running this pilot program and throwing 40 of their staff members and equipment and lighting, um, there's going to be costs associated with that. Sure. And it's cost that we're not paying for.

Um, so that's what the parking fees are intended to to do, basically for them to recover their costs. Uh what we get out of this um again is is um hopefully addressing the community's concerns, right? Containing the vehicles, the influx of people in one area which frees up our police department to do enforcement outside of it. Um the other thing is that uh this would also bring some revenue based on fees because there are fees associated with closing the streets and uh a permit processing for this about almost 20 $22,000. You know, if we just close it and do nothing, um we we this revenue wouldn't be there. The permitting fees wouldn't be there. Um, and it would be solely staffed by the police department, maybe not our public works, which increased our costs and and and again, as the chief stated, all those people might still be coming and it's just going to mean they're outside this perimeter spread out over town doing whatever they do looking for parking um while the police department is concentrated in the middle. So, this this plan creates the opposite effect. And again, it's a pilot program. um that we hope addresses the community's concerns and and uh you know if it doesn't work it doesn't work but it also has the potential as you stated mayor uh to create some revenue and we won't find out unless we try it.

So what what I heard you say is Good Roots is going to pay 20 grand for the Yes. parking permits to tie up all those spots. Yes. And then they keep everything that comes in. Yeah. I mean, it could be a gain, a revenue gain for them or could be a loss. We're guaranteed 20 grand. They could That's right. Okay. And and this could potentially mean a loss for them. We don't know. They don't know. And they're willing to take that risk.

I don't know if this is an Ashley question or you has Has has anybody done any test marketing to talk to people other than us whether they would come and use it? Yeah, this went to the this was brought up during the listening sessions, the chief's listening sessions, uh not in this much detail and it was presented at the community activities commission and and it was recommended. So that's that's why I mean I mean with people that would actually pay $200 to park. Yeah. Can I can you ask your question? Can you There was a question and then there was some murmuring one.

Yeah, I was surprised that too. So, you're going to charge people $200 to park on Ocean Avenue for several hours Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Have we talked to any of the people that you think would pay $200 to see if they would do it? I haven't, but I uh that is the outreach that I've done just to let them know what could happen. Um, but I know Nile has because he has come back to me. I think I'm they're really good marketers. So, yeah, I would think so.

That was my question, too. Like, who's going to do it? $200 is nothing for a large that large group that comes in with their fancy cars. It's nothing for them. But the um the question is whether they'll do it or not. And I don't 100 I can't 100% tell you they will. But I feel like the sentiment is yes. Okay. So sorry mayor if I can add this. I mean this is pretty close to what people pay when they go to a large event football game or up in the city. I mean that's how much you pay to park. It's pretty It's pretty high in thousands of people pay for it.

To sort of add on to the mayor's question, are do people come and to what you said, Marissa, people will still be coming? They're going to do what they do. Um, sorry. It just means they're they're just going to come, right?

Do people come to see the cars or do people come to see people Do people come see cars or do people come see cars that are driving? That's hard to say because we haven't I mean during the day people come to see cars that are parked right in the evenings people come into town. I think I think there's a mix of of of of visitors that are looking generally looking for parking to have dinner and they're just not going to find it. I mean they don't find it right because of of the arrangement that's happened over the last few years. And again, the hope with this arrangement or this plan is that those that do come to town and have dinner, they'll find a parking spot with

a non $200 parking spot. Well, $200 or $100 on the on the uh if they're eating at Shenoir, right?

$200 parking spot. I think Council Member Baron to answer your question of what people at night maybe are looking for. You know, for the five years I've been here, I've come every Friday, Saturday night. And it seems to me that in the evening times, what people are coming for, the rolling cars that are making a lot of noise and maybe getting a little bit rowdy. Um you because that that's kind of the show. Like during the day, you know, we have right down the street from us at Le Pair. She parked two cars down there and it turns into a show of people just wanting to see a car that's sitting there. I don't think that's the draw in the evening. I think that that's kind of the reason for this idea is we're recognizing that the rolling car is up and down ocean putting on a show revving their engines and we've all seen the you know the Tik Tok videos or whatever of it. I mean that's that's what the draw is is the rolling car at night.

But this does this plan allow rolling cars? No. No. No. And and to be fair to the question earlier about what if we just shut down the downtown that wouldn't either. Now, both of those plans would stop the rolling cars through up and down ocean. But that's the point. That was my question about why do people come? Yeah. Go ahead. So, what would again the hours of this would be what? 6 to 10:00 6 in the evening to 10 p.m.

Yeah. Only concern being what do I call them before Yahoo's? Um that before we're showing up at 9 until midnight. now are they just going to wait until 10 and show up? Um just you don't I can't answer it but it's just part of what I think we'd have to figure out. I mean because I what I'm hearing is a replacement. It's we we're sort of becoming the you know the more upscale bougie classic car $200 a spot, $100 a spot. Um not for you Yahoo. um and your exotic cars. Um you know, I think we're kind of we might just be creating a different event than what we than what has evolved here.

I mean, it's it's it's not a car show. It's not an event. I mean, cars would just park next to each other however they come, right? whoever can pay $200, whether it's a Tesla or Toyota or a McLaren, you know, no brands, but um so it's it not intended to to do to be a show or for pedestrians to walk between cars because cars are parking and moving, coming and going, but there are cars that are interesting. Right.

Right. I don't know the whole, you know, you're basically taking the entire downtown and making it a pedestrian only zone. Um, that's more interesting to me as a local to walk up and experience that we have a thousand hotel rooms. If they're full, that's, you know, 1,800 people that all of whom might just stay in in town because that's interesting. Um, because leaving town is difficult. Um, I don't know. I guess I'm into comments, not questions. So, they could just leave their car on Ocean Avenue after they've paid their 200 bucks all night long. That's the goal. Okay. So, what what's it going to take if we want to approve this? What are you going to bring a resolution to us that describes all this? Do we have to approve anything?

Recommendation. It's a recommendation. So, we're seeking for council's, you know, approval if this is of interest to council. And if it is, then uh we would formalize uh an agreement with um Good Roots. Yeah. Which, uh

that that that's correct. Um we've done some research on this. It would be a revocable license agreement um with Good Roots. Um the city already has a license agreement with Good Roots to operate the farmers market as I'm sure you all know. So this would be a separate agreement. Um it' be a re revocable license agreement. It would um set forth all the terms that you've been hearing tonight as well as some others. Uh it would include insurance requirements, indemnification, um a a potential profit sharing um arrangement depending upon um how u much the fees are that are collected over a certain amount that we can do a formula there. Um so um we've done the research. Um this is consistent with the law and uh if it's your direction, we could return to you. Uh certainly once the agreement gets drafted, send it to Good Roots, let them look at it and review it and then bring it back to the council if that's your direction.

So we would be approving a contract with Good Roots for this to be executed. Yes, it would be a contract agreement, same, you know, okay, synonymous terms and uh would include the terms I've described. Okay. If no other questions from from council, we'll take public comment. Hopefully we've got a few people.

Hi, my name is Donna Jet. I have lots of public comments. I've been taking notes. It's sort of the same idea as the home crafters. You get everybody in, keep them in, and then you let them all out. If you can look at that concept and the other item business that feel the impact most shops are not open at night during the pandemic the only one open was the t-shirt shop most shops Heidi Paloo they close so they're not impacted during the day all the businesses are impacted good or bad and the residents if this plan is adopted Ed can walk safely. I can walk safely to town. I don't have to worry about where my car goes. And I think the sales tax and the toot tax that we get that 10 days more than offsets the 36,000 that goes to the police department. I mean, they're they're doing us a bargain favor for 36,000. But talk to the toot tax. Look at that time and see how much comes in. And my other question, I like all of it. Uh, as far as the cars, if you close the town down, then you're going to have to be somebody at all the way to get in for the businesses to get to work for the residents who park downtown and live downtown. And you have to give them all passes. Quail shuts down. You guys know that Quail shuts their entrances down. It's easy for them. All the residents have to get a pass. I can't go into Quail during their event. So, you'd have to figure out a way to accommodate all the people that are coming in legally or

for because they live or work here. So, I think that idea is not feasible. And my other question is, you know, everything's done online and we kind of do that with the home crafters. If there's spaces that are on a map, just like our address map, and I can go online and buy my space ahead of time with a credit card, and bring it on my phone like Apple or a print out, there's a space for me. Now, that might not work because we're just going to let them come in as they want to or as they arrive. But home crafters, they have to come in at kind of a certain time when they have a space. So, this idea is brilliant and there might be details you'd have to work out. And I would ex uh definitely encourage you to accept it. And everybody who comes here with a low income are not all yahoos. We have people and they come here you guys social media they want to like and

they want to see keep just keep going.

They want to see and be seen. They want to photograph and they could be teenagers from Watsonville. They could be grandmas from who know Fresno. So everybody, yes, there are people who are not well behaved and we see it on the news all the time, but that's still a small percent. But if you give them an opportunity to see and be seen in front of whatever car they choose. Now I can walk down and stand in front of a McLaren and I can eat dinner. And the restaurants, I think, would love love love this. And try it on a Thursday. as you said, you can shut it down. Thursday is not going to be as busy. And if you've got kinks and glitches, this is a good time to look at all of them and see this entrance is too busy, this one's too slow, you know? I mean, I think it's a brilliant opportunity for us to try and we can use it other times if that's appropriate.

Okay, my three minutes up. It is four minutes is actually I take that as a yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

Good evening. Um, I do not understand this program at all. I don't understand, you know, is one lane going to be left open. Are the going to do nose in parking? Is this just parallel parking? I I'd like to see a more granular picture of what one block on one side looks like with this implemented. I just I can't envision based upon the visualizations that we have right now. So I'm missing a lot of context. Um I also shifting off of that I am concerned that if our objective is to prevent the well let me restate. I believe that all the people come to this town to not only look but they come to dine and even in the evening hours. So if this downtown area is now mapped off for parking, which I'm not conceptually disagreeing with the possibility of this, I just believe that it will turn into an event. um that people will look at the cars. People who pay for $200 parking spots or $100 parking spots uh will bring their nice bright and shiny sparkling vehicles that are lookable and even if they are also coming here to dine. Uh which we welcome. Uh, but I think to say that we're just going to minimize the driving around and the noise by this is not realistic from where I see uh the experience for car week during the evenings. So, my opinions for your consideration. Thank you.

Somewhere between skeptical and I need more information. Would you say that summarizes your feelings? Okay. Yes.

That's good. Thank you. Jared Denucci. Um, and I thought the best thing about the listening sessions with the with the chief was his cookies, but it turns out he's come up with a really, really good plan. I think it's a radically improved concept of what those evenings will be like compared to what they've become. Radically improved. And I believe that um there's a fair chance these spots will sell out in advance. I really like um Donna's suggestion that people reserve them with a credit card. Uh refundable should things get cancelled on Friday or Saturday. But I think that's really really smart. I think we know Nile is a very serious fellow, very responsible, and he's backed up with a man named Roman Barnes who knows more about car events than everybody else in the county combined. And he's really committed to this. Um, I think the $200 is a really good idea. I'm not I'm was a little bit surprised that the plan includes also selling spots on the side streets. Um, I thought the original idea was just it was gives me Ocean Avenue. Um, and I think that might be worth considering as an corollary alternative that we just do it for Karma for Ocean Avenue. Um, I think it will solve the crush that we've been suffering the last few years. I've been coming to Car Week since Car week started and I'm old enough to be older than Car Week. So, you can imagine I've been here many, many times and it really has gotten obnoxious in the last few years. And I think this problem does solve that because the people that that were clustering and cruising and what trying to do what they do and making all the noise, they will find somewhere else to be. It won't be here. It's not going to be south of 7th or north of six. That just isn't where they're going to go. It's not bright enough. They'd rather be in the parking lot at Home Depot.

Um, I don't think we're adding any events. I think these cars are parked and static. I think the de the cruisers will decamp. I like the grid routes people myself a lot. I think I don't I don't think residents should have these parking spots for free either. I think I'm a resident. I'd consider it, but if I didn't wasn't willing to put up the 200 bucks, I wouldn't do it. I am not for more speed bumps personally. Um, but I really really thank the chief for for the listening that he's done, the hard work that he's done, and the creativity and the and the responsibility for safety above all that. That's number one. Um, I just think um this is a very very exciting proposal and I hope the city council will consider it.

Okay. I take that as a yes and I agree with you. comments about Chief Trayer and I think all of us would go ahead.

Well, I'm Kevin Roose. I want to also thank Chief Trayer. I went to these sessions and he's been very responsive and very creative in his approach to this. Um, I do want to defend the those people and the Yahoos. I've told the story before. I'm not sure if I've told it to this council. Um, I my first car week was 1976. I borrowed my dad's also mobilebile and came up a couple weeks after I got my driver's license with my friends and we slept on somebody's floor. We snuck into both the Pebble Beach Concourse and uh the Lagona Seca historic races because we didn't have any money. I can assure you we did not spend a nickel in Carmel and now I live here. So I think some of these people that we're complaining about maybe the same people who are going to be buying houses here 20 30 years from now. Um I don't think we should shut them out. Um, car week is a very big thing on the peninsula here. It is part of what Carmemell is, even if it wasn't what Carmemell originally was. Um, so anyway, I this strikes me as a plan that's worth trying. Um, I think a lot of work has gone into it and if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. You know, let's give it a shot. So, I guess chalk me up as a yes. I I think some of the questions have have been very good questions. It some things maybe need to be thought through a little bit more, but you know, I mean, I the only thing I find annoying about car week really is the noise. The people don't bother me that much. I think the public safety is a very legitimate concern. Um, and I think it's one of the places where people who can't afford to go to Pebble Beach or to the Quail can actually see a lot of cars in a nice setting. And you know, some of them won't be able to afford the restaurants here and they're going to buy coffee and cookies. You know, that's those people are also welcome here. This is a these are public spaces and just as the belie as the beach belongs to everybody I think um

that you know carw week belongs to everybody in some way and Carmel needs to be part of that. Thank you. Thank you.

I was hoping you'd get up, Linda. I'd love to hear what you have to say. I I'm just a little confused because you know when you talk about the goal when we say come to Carmel on Thursday night to see what and to do what I I I don't understand what the program I know we don't want to use the event word. I hide in my house during car week. I'm perfectly happy. I don't have any complaints about it. Um, but but if I was going to invite someone on Thursday or Friday night, what am I inviting them for? I mean, who's paying the $200? Fancy cars? Is that like is that implied? Because I I'm not understanding that. So, is it come to see expensive cars? Is is I I don't understand what it is. Thank you.

Thank you. So, you're confused. This is Maria Ruse as a resident. Okay. Um, I see a lot of merit into this pilot solution. I see the merit in the sense that I'm like Kevin Ruth. I believe that all should be welcome to car week. Everyone should be expected to be accepted in our town. I think we have an issue with noise and we heard it from the chief very well in the listening sessions. That was one of the key concerns. But the element of having everything parked and it's basically bringing cars. Those are a very interesting uh expensive cars as well as anybody. So the Nucci can bring his little red car as well and park it on the avenue for the 6 to 10:00. You know what I mean? Or I can bring my Mazda convertible and park it there just for fun. So, it's it's allowing everybody to come to town, have a parking, park your car. Some of the fancy ones will get people wandering around them and looking at them. There will be no no disruption, no noise. And the the chief is very diligent thinking about how he's going to move these people out. And the fact that Nile has experience in doing this and he's done it in many instances, I think is is worth trying. And I'll give you the example. For example, now we're being asked for the shuttle which was a pilot last year to bring the shuttle again. And by the way in today a bit two business people were saying can we have the shuttle other times of the year because there may be a need for maybe moving cars because they're saying their businesses people complain that they don't have a place to park. So could we have a shuttle? You mean so I'm not saying it is but what I'm saying is this merits us to look into. I would love

Brian for you to consider a con a very good agreement and the liability, the insurance, all those elements, but also a profit sharing. I think we ought to consider in addition to the parking this time we can say and I know Ashley's sitting in the back, but I I would say can we do a little more profit sharing? If there's any of that more than the $200 charge that they're they're going to get that revenue, we'll charge them for using the avenue. But I would recommend that you are open-minded to a solution that I think addresses a lot of the issues that the chief was able to hear and listen to and also brings us a sense of calmness to see if we can bring that. And if it doesn't work, okay, you tried it, okay, don't do it again. I don't see there's a there's an I I don't see the bad of that. Thank you.

I take that as a yes. I'd like to get this wrapped up by seven if we could so we can take our dinner break. Um, is that good for everybody? Council, you you wanted break for dinner still, right? Okay, good. Just checking. Um, time got away for the I'd like to hear before we close this uh from Nile and Ashley. Even if it's a minute or two, I think I think it'd be good to hear your enthusiasm because I'm sure you are enthusiastic about this given you're spending a lot of time on it.

Yeah, you know I am. So Nyall is on Zoom. He's um doing father duty this evening. So I'm here in person. Um thank you for letting me speak this evening, mayor and council. Um we are excited about this. um as a person who lived car week, breathes car week as part of the community activities commission and saw it change in a big way in 2018 um with a new contingent of car owners coming to town and and changing the vibe big time, amping up those that noise um the traffic, the dangerous driving. Um, this has been a fun thing to work on, to look at solutions to something that that Carmemell's been grappling with for eight years now is what do we do about this? This is and it's getting worse and worse. So, this um pilot program is intended to, you know, work as traffic calming um provide people a space to come and park, to go to restaurants, to go out to dinner. I know. I know. When I worked at the library, I had people go, "Hey, can I can you save me a spot in the Bark Branch parking lot or whatever." Like, everybody's looking for a parking spot. It's a great time for the car community to get together and have these um dinners that they have annually. Um the car community really comes together during car week. So, you know, we've got that community that's always been doing this, always coming to our village to celebrate being together, to celebrate cars. and it's kind of shifted in terms of their ability to be able to gather like that. Um whether it's our resident locals meeting up with friends from Florida or whoever it is who have come to town. Um because we have groups of people that are coming to watch this cruise element. It's a very different type of thing. So if somebody with a fancy car who normally cruises wants to come and park and be here for two hours and go out to dinner, that's great. Um but this will provide slight

bit of normaly. Um that's what it's intended to do and to lessen that noise level from the cruising, lessen some of the chaos. Um we like chief said we've been working on this since gosh I think December January after the first listening session. Um so there's been many many different iterations of us looking like what if they come in on this side and what if they come in on this side. So, there's lots of flexibility, there's lots of ideas. We're willing to refine it and come back to council with more detail if that's the direction that council wants to move this evening. Um, it is a pilot, so I won't have all the answers and neither will Nile because we haven't done anything quite like this before. But he and his team do have extensive experience um, parking cars for large scale farmers events, um, large scale Silicon Valley events where if there's, you know, 40,000 people coming, which is far more than hopefully you would see here in the village in one evening. Um, but happy to answer any questions and so is Nile who's online. Thank you again, council, for entertaining this idea.

Sounds like you are enthusiastic. I am. I love I love solutions. You think the risk factor on this is low given that you know this town better than anybody? The risk factor for things going south, things getting out of control or

um well, Nile will tell you um as we have worked on this that I have played devil's advocate for every angle of this. Um, when I worked here, you probably saw maybe 10% of the work I did when I presented it to you, but I was at up at three o'clock in the morning thinking of every single thing. And Nile is that level of detail oriented as well. So, will it be perfect if you decide to move forward with this, especially for that first year? Probably not. But that's what afteractions are for. Um, and that's where we continue to improve upon things. All right. Great. Yeah. Anybody have a question?

Okay. All right. Thank you. All right, I'll bring it back for discussion and then we have to give chief direction. Somebody want to kick off? Yeah, I'll give it a shot. Um, go ahead.

So, first of all, I think Good Roots does a great job with the farmers market. Um, I have a ton of respect for for this man. Um, Chief Trayer does an outstanding job. I'm just seeing what he's done preparing for the um communitywide evacuation drill. Very detailed. So, if anybody could pull it off, I think you could. Um I think it's creative, but that being said, um I do have some real concerns with this proposal. Um you know, I I do see how it can tame the evenings. So, you you mentioned, you know, it could change behavior. It sort of changes the the vibe. um you know, it sort of becomes a a chaperowned party rather than a rager where the parents aren't home, right? Um but it's still a party. And so I worry that this creates three kind of city sanctioned evening events, right? Like three more events. And I feel like we had this council meeting the last time and we sort of said, "Hey, we sort of said enough. Enough is enough." and you know, so now you actually have a, as much as I love them, you have a private business that's going to have an incentive to actually market this event, right? Um, so I I see it a bit as a slippery slope. Um, I'm interested in options that that address our concern that don't involve the creation of another car week event. Um, you know, I think the bottom line is just I think most residents, particularly for the evenings, I think they just want their town back. Um, I think the people that live here are just kind of a little exhausted by what what goes on in the evenings. And if people could have those evenings be sort of a normal week night in Carmel, like if you were able to present that option to them, I think that that's what they'd want. um you can never of course fully achieve

that given just what's happening on the peninsula that week but you know let's come up with a plan that tries to lean in that direction um so when I hear about like flood lighting you know downtown and all these people floating around um you know I just I think we need to step back and think about what are our goals um I just don't think that this is what most residents want even folks that are um you know supportive of of car week. I feel like we saw a poll on this um you did your survey um and you know there's a subset of folks that are really anti-car week and then there's a subset that are kind of like you know like Linda I just hide in my house. Um but I think even that middle group probably would prefer that it's more like a normal night in Carmel. Um, so again, like I don't think residents want three more events in the evening. I think they want their town back. Um, so I would prefer us look into an option where we just turn downtown into a pedestrian mall on those evenings. Try that for a year and just not not turn it into a a hosted event.

So what does that mean? Just no parking downtown. Yeah. No cars downtown. just close it down like Jeff was saying, I think it's more compatible with what businesses what businesses are going to have in terms of um you know, their clientele. So, all right, Bob.

Yeah. Um I'm I'm supportive of this. I um I hear everything Hans is saying. Um the fact is we've lost our city um on these evenings and um I don't think you can just say no and shut it down. I I mean the idea of pedestrian only for those three nights, the outcome is awesome, but um if there's no place to park, it doesn't work, right? Um, so we need the downtown parking spaces in order to we need them because people would the this isn't just about um the the the residents and hotel guests um walking in that you know we always have drive-in business. Um, so that I think this achieves the pedestrian zone um while taking advantage of our parking spaces while eliminating um and to be clear, I'm not trying to eliminate anyone based on a socioeconomic policy. I'm more interested in attracting and encouraging certain behaviors. Um, yeah. um and um discouraging others, but more I'll leave it where I was encouraging certain behaviors. Um and um I think that um the Good Roots people are the right people to do it. I think they know us. Um and they've demonstrated that they can do a lot of these things elsewhere. Um, I have a lot of faith in Ashley, um, and Nile and that, um, this is that it is the devil in the details. There's I I have 50 questions and, you know, I but I don't want to design the event for you at all.

Um, I want to learn more about it. So, I could go on, but I I think it's clever. I think it could work. I think it probably will work. Um, you know, Linda, I'm still a little bit with you. I'm not quite sure what it is. Um, but that's the marketing angle to it. Um, you know, and I when when you pointed out that, you know, $100 or $200 is really not a lot of money. Um, you know, compared to going to a you a Lakers game. Um, sorry, we go we go to Warriors games. Um it that that rings true that actually this um this is a rel relatively affordable um option uh as compared to some of the other things that take place on on the peninsula. Um and and yet it's you know way better than the Home Depot parking lot. So um I'm inclined to say let's try it.

All right. So generally yes. you'd like to see another level of detail perhaps before we make the final decision. The only other thing I would say is if we do this, I think the community's activities commission should be on point for it. Um I I would, you know, welcome one other check-in maybe with city council, but we cannot distract this group with trying to manage this event. I mean that it this we just cannot do that. And we've we recreated the community's activities commission. We have great people on it. Um, and I have a lot of confidence in in your ability to work with the uh the private sector people to get it done and with the chief. Thanks. Thank you very much, Alisandra.

Thank you, mayor. Um, I'm trying to keep an open mind on this, but I really have a lot of hesitations and concerns and I think I basically uh am falling on the camp with with Hans everything that you described. I know when we um first spoke about uh car week as a council, we really um were concerned about the nighttime activities and we were going in a direction where we were going to try to do less. And so this to me it it really shocked me. I mean it the the description of a parking management felt a bit misleading because it honestly feels like three events that we're creating and without a doubt those people are going to bring their exotic cars and the other fancy cars and all the rest of that and it's going to turn into a nighttime event with the big crowds gathered around the cars. And I think that that's the opposite direction that we as a council um gave for direction and and heard from um a significant portion of the community that just felt um this is too much for our town to handle and and we've gotten away without an incident, but it's just we're pushing our luck. Um, so I I just feel yes, this is great for the company that's doing it and they're going to make a profit, but I think we as a city and the residents are not going to necessarily benefit from it. Uh, I have other concerns. For example, it we're just getting 40 people as staff to be patrolling. And I'm not saying they're going to be acting as police officers, but that's an awful lot of responsibility and it's an awful lot of whatifs. It's like too big of a trial to do with everything that's at stake that night. So, I have concerns with that. Um, and just it just feels like we're not going in the right direction in choosing this and I certainly appreciate the effort that everyone put in it and and it's creative, but it just it once again it just feels like we're creating a

nighttime event. Um, so I'd rather have us find a way, and I know it's it's a lot of work for the chief and working with the city attorney of how we can, you know, maybe legally try to shut some things down, but just to um kind of restore some of the sanity and regain our town because it's really turned into a situation where things are very easily likely to get out of control and then there's a lot of repercussions to something like that happening. Um and and another concern I have is also is um you know potentially these people could then that wanted speed and stuff like that could go to other parts of town like you said to Delmare or they could congregate along scenic and start doing it or around the sunset center or it just we need to be able to get our town back. Um so I know that's a lot of responsibility for you chief but um we have faith in you being able to figure out some way that we can do this and I just don't think that this feels right. I just still have too many concerns with a plan like this.

All right. Thank you, Jeff. Um, I have a before I start, uh, Chief or Ashley have a question. Um, or Nile, who are the four who are the 40 people that are going to be doing the parking management. And I see that Nile's hand just went up. So, it sounds like he's the parking guy. So, um, are they people that we put an ad in the paper like before before you start? Are they people that we just put an ad in the paper and recruit 40 people? Are they what's the background of the 40 people?

Uh, yeah, thank you for the question. Thank you, council, for um all the great comments and feedback and the ideas from the public. I really appreciate it. Uh, there has been a lot of time and effort put into this. Um, I hold Carmemell by the Sea in a very special light in my my heart growing up here. And so, uh, so things like this mean a lot to me. Um, not only making it a successful, um, for the city, but also, you know, this is my reputation on the line and I want you to know that this is in no regards trying to be an event. That is not our our goal. And um, we would be bringing our staff down. So, I have a company, Good Roots, um that we manage a variety of different uh events and productions up in the Bay Area. Uh I have about 20 full-time and up to 40 people who are part-time, but all are professional. They all go to campuses such as Meta and Google and a variety of other campuses that we do large um large scale events and festivals. One of the largest being uh the Facebook County Fair where we had 40,000 people come and we worked directly with the city of Menllo Park on that um event. Um obviously this won't be like that but um we're really looking to provide you know topscale um individuals who have background in management. Um so yeah.

Okay. Thank you. So, um, my remarks, um, when I started, you know, as you might be able to tell from my questions, um, I was a little bit of a skeptic, and now I'm a lot less of a skeptic. Um, I, um, generally with Bob, um, and, and the way I sort of view, know, let's just say Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, um, is that, you know, we sort of have three there are sort of three outcomes. you know, it's it's March. This happens in August. So, we have three possibilities of what could happen on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night. We could do nothing and we would end up with what we have now, some version plus or minus what we have now. We could close um close ocean all together, close these streets. sort of talk about these streets. We could close all these streets um uh for three nights, you know, as as I originally thought that as was sort of my crash test dummy at the beginning and and what Hans is talking about. Um, so we could do that or we can try this. And you know, since we're already in March, April, May, June, July, August, five months away, I honestly don't think we have enough time to go down the close the street route. Um, I think if we had started I think if we had done the investigation um back uh in like October or November and we had more public outreach um and more conversations with car people or the businesses, we could have we could have entertained the idea of closing the streets this coming August for the nights. And I think we're too late. So I I don't think like my my uh sense of planning doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling that um we could actually pull

that off in a sort of a public participatory way to to make that happen this year. Um so I do think that I do think that while while I'm still sort of a skeptic about the the plan, you know, I always talk about I always talk about trying things out. Um and and I do think that um this is a plan that if not all the way in the right direction of I think what Hans and Alisandre are talking about and I do think that's absolutely the right direction to go to towards I do think this goes somewhat in the right direction. Like I do think that you know if you know I do think that Carmel with this plan is better than Carmel without this plan. Um so so so um am I in favor of doing nothing or this plan? I'm in favor of doing this plan. Um I I'll respond to I'll respond to something uh you know the comments the comment that this feels like a city sponsored event. Um you know Nile when he was talking just a minute ago talked about the parking professionals you know when I asked about who's going to come do this to me it feels like a parking management program like it doesn't feel like a city sponsored event. It feels like it feels like we are trying to manage um it feels like we're trying to manage a situation and you know if we're going to hire Nile if we're going to hire Good Roots to to do this sure we can put we can try and I'll talk about that in a second. We can put restrictions on, you know, I'm a little bit more of a stick my hand in the pot than than Bob Delves is who would just let them do what they want. But I think we can have a conversation with good roots about how the marketing is going to go, how the sales are going

to go, and sort of bend the program a little bit towards something that might feel um might feel a little bit about might feel a little bit uh make it more like a caramel. Um so I'm generally in favor um I'm generally in favor of of giving this a try. my uh my wants. Um you know, if we presumably we're going to sign a contract. I'm looking at you. Um presumably we're going to sign a contract and you we're going to sign a contract to do this. So, it would be important to me um the the you know the the two important things to me are one that we have people that have experience with parking in big rowdy events that we haven't you know that that Nile and Ashley haven't put an ad in the Monterey County Weekly to hire people off the street. So, I would like to make sure that we somehow vet the organization that they're capable of handling especially rowdy events like events with rowdy people. Um, you know, because that's my guess is ask what it's going to turn into. And second, um I would like to make sure that we can pull the plug like if if something happens on Thursday and you know if or you know let's say Thursday goes okay and then Friday is a disaster um I would like to make sure that the city has the op the option to uh to pull the plug and say okay we're just not going to do this and now I'm looking at you um that we're just not going to do this on Saturday. Um, I heard some comments, you know, and that obviously costs some money. So, if we're going to have an option, if we're going to buy an option to pull the plug, that's going to cost some money with Good Roots. So, I personally, you know, since this is a right now, this is a one-time event. Um,

I'd be on the side of sort of foregoing some of that profit sharing that other people that other people talked about if we had the option to uh to sort of pull the plug like money is less of an interest to me here. Like this amount of money is less of an interest to me here than the than maintaining our sort of our ability to be nimble on this and sort of craft the event or or cancel the event or get what we want or whatever. Um, especially if it turns out that, you know, Nile and Ashley or sorry, Good Roots decides that $200 is too much. Like, I don't I don't know. I don't know how that will work. Presumably, they'll figure that stuff out. So, I would So, so I'm generally a generally an okay to proceed guy.

Okay. Thank you, Jeff. I'm somewhere between Jeff and Bob, but I share almost all of the concerns that Aleandre and and uh Hans brought up. I'm I'm going to say that I'm in favor, but it's mostly because I believe in Chief Trer and I have seen his enthusiasm for this and and Barissa for that matter. I I trust their opinions and I know they've dug into this more than we have and he knows the risk factors on those nights and he feels this is a better solution and he's also going to have to make sure that it goes well and he's got the team that's going to be patrolling out there to make sure it happens. I also trust Ashley because I don't think anybody knows more about this town than she does and I also trust Nile because I have seen more of what they do. I've gone out to Hosienda and I I see what they do and I had the idea while we were talking like can you guys can we use your lot for parking

cuz you know how to do shuttles. Anyway, we'll talk about that later. Um if you haven't been out to Hosi, go out and check it out. It's really an amazing place. All right, so I'm a yes. We've got three yeses. I heard that Hans probably is a little more towards yes than than Aleandre, but I share their skepticism, so I can't argue with you. But I guess we're going to come

we're going to we're going to come back with a more detailed plan and a and a contract general terms at least before it comes back to us. But in the meantime, I think we just got an assignment for CAC to handle this so we can be free to work on other things. It's not more important things, but other things. So, uh, I think we've got three yeses. So, I think Chief and and Ashley, I think you've got some marching orders to take it to the next step and bring it back and make Nancy happy and Linda happy with more. How long will it take to like will we be able to see this like in May? Like, we're in March already. So, like April's probably

Ashley's Ashley's nodding her head in the back of the room. I see the chief nodding his head. I think May we'll pull something together for the April community activities and then we'll come back to the council in May. All right. Okay. So when you like what I would ask is that when you pull something together for the community activities commission, can you send it to the five of us so that we can sort of have the ability to sort of comment to you sort of offline just just to you not to each other? Yes, sir. Um about what we think about that and and I would include Hans and Alisandre in that too. Yeah, of course. Yeah. I do like I do like you didn't have to say that, sir.

I I say that because the I say that because I'm not like I don't think we should give up on getting those two votes. Like I think I think that I tried to say that in a different like I think that I think that you know sometimes when you sometimes when we say no, we just remove ourselves from the conversation. Like I've done that. Like I'm not interested in having this conversation anymore. I'm just going to be a no and I don't want to I don't want to um give up give up on they're going to be involved whether you like it or not. Yeah, that's a little So, uh, mayor, mayor, I had a question. You can ask the question.

Um, in terms of the details that, you know, in terms of how the parking all is going to work, you know, um, we certainly want to have good roots and give their input. But in terms of the revocable license agreement and what the legal requirements are going to be in that, um, uh, I think that's something our office should prepare. We can submit it to Good Roots, of course, to review. I see Ashley's, um, nodding her head. So, um, and then we can get this together definitely in time for it to go to the April, uh, community activities commission and then hopefully onto the council in May. That's great. Probably one of the more fun projects you've worked on in a while.

He almost smiled. All right. I want to thank everybody that participated in this. It was a great discussion. Thank you, council, for being so honest and forthcoming and Ashley and Nile for your creativity and coming to coming to us with this this idea. And Chief Treyer, of course, you're on the hook now. Thank you very What do you guys think? How long do you want? 10. 10 minutes to 8. 7:50. And thank you everybody again.

Are you ready? All right, we're we're back in session. Thank you for letting us have dinner and thanks for the brownies, Donna. All right, we're we're to item 12, which is the last item other than future agenda item discussion tonight. It's the design traditions 1.5 discussion and direction staff report. Yes, sir. Thank you. It's you. It's me. Okay, go ahead.

And I will make this very brief because I just want to get to hearing from you. So, uh, purpose tonight, I'm going to give you a presentation of those apples to apples updated design guidelines that the planning commission just saw. Um, going to give you their recommendation on their preference for which version to use and then going to be looking for final direction from this council on which version to complete work on uh, including the process and how we get there and who's involved in it. I'm going to go quickly through these. You don't need to know all that. The project's been going on for a while. The most important thing is that most recently from January 2026 to February 2026, there was a work group that was convened that created an applesto apples uh version of the steering committee version which would allow the planning commission to make a fair comparison. That was at the direction of council. Obviously February 18th there was a special planning commission meeting. Their recommendation at 4:1 was to use the steering committee version. One member did abstain. Uh there was some additional feedback received from the planning commission. um use they they um they said when you when we get to finalizing the language, make sure that we're looking at recent PC issues, hot topic issues to inform the guidelines, make sure we have guidelines in there to answer those to rely on existing city documents whenever possible, the building code, the historic context, etc. documents that are already adopted. Uh certainly they requested much more planning commission and planning staff involvement for the remainder of the work. uh a need to create a formal red line for the adoption process. Regardless of whether that was planning commission feedback, we're going to need to do that for the coastal commission. So, we know that um and then to move forward expeditiously, uh complete them in a way with a process that moves them forward as efficiently as efficiently as possible. Uh so, you already know this um how how the guidelines uh were restructured um through the steering committee process. Covered that already. Um, but what I will go through is what what did that apples to apples work look like. Uh, there was formatting that was done to make it more intuitive. We we

pulled in some visual cues from the original guidelines with the pine cones and the little frilly whatnotss. Uh, navigability. There's a new table of contents. Uh, we had keys to talk about certain symbols and shapes. There's an index that was created and hyperlinks. Uh, narratives. Uh there was narratives added to the beginning of each core principle section to explain the principle in greater detail so that as someone was working through that section they understood what the principle was. And there were some items added uh to make the process better. Uh most notably was a narrative application form that will require applicants uh for certain types of projects to fill out uh a form that explains how their project meets all of the six uh key principles of the guidelines. And then of course a flowchart. We also had new photographs thanks to some of our wonderful volunteers who helped us with that. So I'm going to run through just some of some of the things that I talked about right now so you can see them even though they were in the attachments that you all saw. Uh as I mentioned the look and feel. There's some callbacks to the original guidelines, the pine cones and some of the text the way that the font lays out. Uh we did add some keys. Uh one of the most notable new key items is that minus mark or the the the um sort of neutral mark. uh and we'll get to that in a minute. Um but we also and all of the linking because we did create hyperlinks, we tried to explain also where you were going in the hyperlinks. So we we have some abbreviations uh general plan, historic context statement, etc. like that. This is what I mentioned earlier that the core principles were explained at the top at the beginning of each chapter each uh core principle section. Uh there's been a section a narrative section created to give the background of what the the principle means. and then how the principal rates relates in the process because remember uh one of one of the things we heard from both planning commission and the city council was uh make sure that someone understands where they're at in the process and how this

relates to the development process. So those were added. Um a big change, a big addition uh this was in response to an earlier planning commission comment. There's a fire alert section at the very beginning that makes the entire document be fire aware. Uh there was a conversation back and forth a couple of times about whether or not this should be its own core principle, but ultimately uh what we did is we stuck it in as a as a awareness statement at the very beginning so that the entire guidelines are meant to be fire aware. Um we did we did have some yellow uh text in the version you saw. What this was meant to to call out. We did not we did not remove anything. We didn't change anything, but this was meant to just draw an awareness to the fact that when we go back through and and polish up the the language. Some of this we believe may actually be better served um outside of the guidelines, some of these are more in the um the the municipal code or building code uh or even process documents. They're not design related. So, this was just a call out that we did we did recognize some of this was there as well. Um, I mentioned the neutral sign here, the yellow uh minus mark. What this was meant to call out was we have our red X's for a hard no. We have our green checks for a hard yes. And the neutral sign is meant to say that if you can't do the green yes, there are some conditional things that could be approved. Uh, so for example, in this one, uh, we want people to avoid abrupt changes in the grade uh, within a site. But if that's unavoidable, then use a a stepped area to do that. Uh so that's what the the minus mark means. And there's a there's a few of those. When you talk about like say fences, the the guidelines actually say the preference is to have no fence on a site. Um but if you have to have a fence, then make it an open work fence. So that that's where this third mark came from. Um I mentioned the process documents. We

added uh one section for each of the six core principles so that an applicant can explain to us how the project addresses those principles. Of course encouraging and leaving room for visual cues as well and then uh including a process flowchart which needs to be further refined but uh just so it could be an apples to apples comparison with the nor version we did put that in there. Um as I mentioned the new uh tool for navigating is an index. Uh here at the end of the document, you can see where uh windows and we talked about that over and over again. So I made sure that that was the slide we looked at. You can see which pages windows are referenced on if you're trying to get some information on how to treat windows in your project. Um I also mentioned we included hyperlinks. I don't need to demonstrate this. We all know how hyperlinks work. Um but they're they're spotted throughout the document. Um and we have more work to do on that when we go to finalizing these documents. But there are several examples in the drafts that you had attached to your staff reports. You could see how they work. Um, before I wrap up here, I just want to make sure that I give my thank yous out to our steering committee members, a number of whom are here. Nope, one of whom is here. Uh, we had one here earlier. Um, but I do want to thank all of them. Um, I want to thank the community who's been involved uh all the way through in this process, the planning staff, of course, you city council who are the sponsors of this project, and our planning commissioners um who have been uh somewhat involved and will be much more involved moving forward from here. Um, so with that, I'm going to just restate the purpose because I think that's important. We just showed you the apples to apples version as we were asked to do uh so that the planning commission could give you their recommendation of which version they preferred either the Nory winter first draft or the steering committee draft. As I mentioned the planning commission's recommendation 4 to one was to use the steering committee draft. So we are here tonight council to get that final direction from you on which version to complete. Uh and we

would also appreciate feedback on the process and the participants. Um, you know, I talked about before we don't typically or I don't typically ask for uh feedback on how to play the songs or how to accomplish the goals as we've been using the the symphony reference, but in this case uh this the design traditions project was set off with a city council appointed steering committee. Um so I do need council's direction on how to proceed forward from here. Uh with that um I do want to make just a quick space uh for our one steering committee member if she wishes to say anything. um now would be the time. I think it's important to make sure that that they have a a space as part of the staff presentation because they've been involved in this thing the whole way through.

Uh thank you Brandon and thank you for that really good overview. Um I just want to say that I think we stumbled on something really wonderful in the last month. Thank you. Thanks to the council. Thank you to the pressure from the council of putting that strict deadline. And I want to say more please. We really felt as though what that forced us to do is figure out a way to create a team that could be in production mode so that we can get out information to the public. and without a team that's not required. And thank you to the city attorney for uh researching this and and determining that it was okay to have a production committee so that we could have a quick feedback loop between uh how about this is this look good and then bring it out to the public. It is very hard to make decisions without something in front of you. This is a designer's mind. You have to draw it, look at it. Do I like it or do I not like it? Same thing with this type of guideline. It's very complex to make, you know, a document like this. So, what do we think of this? What's working? What's not working? Without a production team that's not Brown Act, uh, subject to the Brown Act, it's hard to get that stuff out. So, I would ask you all to continue to keep the pressure on, keep that production team alive. Um, we had representation from the planning commission, from the steering committee. be open to other bodies who might want to send a if that's okay with the attorney send a still Brown Act um exempt members from council from whomever Forest Beach whatever makes sense to you but really to keep that iterative process going and also I would recommend from this experience that we um have the planning commission we have we need more planning commission input and have the the future. And Brandon and I already talked about this. I don't

want to put words in your mouth, but he seemed he seemed open to it. Um have the planning commission be the host or the location for all future public meetings so that we actually I think we're ready for that. I think there's enough of a first draft that we can actually go ahead and find out. Like one of the one of the planning commission comments was like, I don't see anything about hot tubs in here. Well, there's never been anything about hot tubs in the planning in this in this design guideline. It would be good to have something about hot tubs if that's something that keeps coming up, but we never got to that stage until we got this first draft out. So, we really need that input. What are the current issues? How do we get that threaded through this document? So, anyway, please I I just want to thank you for getting us to this point and um hopefully we've learned a lot about the process and what will keep this thing going quickly and finishing quickly. Thank you.

Thanks, Victoria. Um and Maryanne Shikatans was here earlier. She had to go. Um but she did ask me to share with you that she also supports the steering committee version as you might uh might expect. Um she did want me to just make mention that there you know she believes there is still uh some work to do some fine-tuning in her words. Um looking at some of the graphics again um not all of them but and then also fine-tuning some fine-tuning some of the words that have been around for a long time like human scale uh one that we always struggle with. So Maryanne just suggested that uh the steering committee version is really good. Um, but there's just still just a little bit of fine tuning left to do. With that,

turn my own microphone off. And with that, I'm available for questions. Okay, questions. Anybody? I've got one. Go ahead. Um, so my question is I remember when when we last met as a council and I I was worried because I didn't know that they would choose the steering committee version and I asked like what happens is will it still be used? So my question now is totally turned around. Is anything going to happen with the Nory winter version and will staff or anyone use that or what happens to it considering we spent a considerable amount putting it together?

I can't I mean if this if the city council follows the planning commission direction I can't see a reason to spend any time on the new winter draft although it would be you know unfortunate that we spend money on that. Um we can we can certainly look through it and see if there's some little nuggets that are different. Um, but yeah, I don't I don't think we'll do a lot with it unless unless directed otherwise by council or when the group starts meeting and talking again if we find some reason to do it. But you know, that was sort of the decision point. Okay. Just wanted to clarify. Thank you. Thanks. Go ahead.

Um, I'm going to ask Victoria a question. Victoria, so in your mind, what is left to do to finish the residential design guidelines and you know, you talked about a production team. How long would it take that production team uh if we sort of kept the band together to to finish that?

Thanks for that good question. Um in doing this draft we have completed or nearly completed what we have over the years been talking about as the sandwich. So we have three patties in the sandwich. the residential meet, the eventual commercial meet, we hope, and then we have, of course, as you know, um the the public and the steering committee are hoping for a municipal patty. Um and all the condiments and the buns are now done as of this first draft. And by done, I mean they're in first draft format. So what's left to do now is to work on what has already been mentioned here which is word examining the words things that Maryanne said things that the planning commission said about where the hot tubs um a little bit of work on that flowchart I would argue in order to get it past very first draft. Um, and I given the pace at which we went to get it to from really not even close to this to where it came in a month, I would argue we could do that again. And Brandon,

well, the council member asked you, I guess, how long take it

in a month. In a month or two. I mean, this is because what we need now is planning commission input on the meat of that wording. what are the issues, if any, that besides hot tubs that we're missing? Um, just a chance for them to roll up their sleeves and if we have the production team in effect, we can just send them iterations. We can ask them, would you like to meet monthly on this? Would you like to to it to be part of your normal meeting? Would you like to have special meetings? Different planning commissioners have expressed different thoughts on that to me. Would would you be willing to do semionthly if you wanted to roll it? So, I think it just depends on that. So, I I don't anticipate that it would take much longer than what we just did, although we were very nervous when you gave us that tight rope originally. Does that cover it? Okay,

Jeff, questions. Do you have any? I'm done. Okay. She had You had no more questions. Um, I think my mine are not really questions, so I'll go to the public. Not one. Maybe there's someone online. Is there anybody online? Let's hope so. There's one person online and their hand is not raised. Oh, now it is. Okay. Need a little nudge.

Tim me. Go ahead. All right. Okay. This is not Tim. This is Nancy. Well, thank you.

All righty. Great. Um, you know, I obviously support fully support uh the buildout of the um steering committee baseline and u completing it. I think Victoria's uh sense of timing for the other parts over a couple of months is a little zealous. I I would add a little bit to that, but it depends on kind of what commitment uh can be provided by both the planning commission as well as city staff. Um, and it would be um I'm looking for an opportunity to, you know, what's the way to provide comments? Uh, because I do have comments on the current baseline. Um, even though I was at the table for a whole lot of of what preceded this kind of surge of resource. Um, and and they're not dramatic at all. I just have a bunch of suggestions and comments and want to know uh if and how the community or otherwise can be efficient and keyword efficient in providing comments before um you know at at the appropriate juncture before things are are considered polished by the working team. So that's my request and uh endorsement for going forward. Thanks.

Thank you Nancy. Hands down. So Tim doesn't want to talk. Okay. Nobody else. Last chance. I know. I know. But I was He's interested in this too. Maybe he wanted to talk.

I know. I just have a quick one. Not three minutes. Um I I just want to assure maybe you Alisandre and others that the Nory winter content has been brought over and in this last blitz as we called it. We went through again the Nory thing and all that narrative that people were missing. We got that feedback and we had never had a chance to incorporate that feedback but through this production team effort um it was not just council it was planning commission and other people members of the public who said we would like the a little more context that's narrative like the old document and that's what Brandon showed you at every chapter every subchapter of the residential chapter. So we did actually do we can do it again. It's no problem to just comb through that and see how we can bring over everything that matters from that document. Um so we did we did just do it. We're willing to do it have just in it. So don't feel too bad about missing that.

Right. Thanks. Who wants to start discussion? Jeff. Do you want to kick it this way? I went first class. Okay. Oh no.

Bob's gonna go. Um, so, uh, I want to thank my, uh, first off, thank you to the committee for sticking with us for so long. Um, and it's, it's a lot. Um, and I want to thank my colleagues for, you know, pushing this forward, the surge. Um, I was shaking my head when we left, uh, two months ago that I did not think that was going to be productive. um I was wrong and um I'm happy to be wrong uh because I think that what I've seen of the new version um from the steering committee um it now that it's more it's more complete. Um I'm I get it. I like it a lot more uh than I did before. Um and you know there's always a debate in my head is what was the previous um organizational structure better than this one? It doesn't matter. I think it's it it's organized right. Um the you know my ongoing quest for documents that um are intuitive and navigable and help um our citizens and applicants and various things find the path to yes. Um I'm not sure we made progress there. Um uh because this document it it it's it's still fairly dense. Um and you know it is organized by principles and you really have to it's more of a textbook in that regard as opposed to a how-to um u manual. And that's kind of where I my preference is still on the how-to manual um side. But I'm not I'm not going there. Um, I think we just need part of the work that needs to be done is to is to figure out

if there are shortcuts, guides, whatever um to make it more navigable and and yield more predictable outcomes. Um, I I listened to the steering committee, no, sorry, the planning commission. Um, and I thought the comments were very thoughtful. Um, I know Commissioner Allen in particular was um very very happy with what what she saw and saying this this p this as opposed to the really the previous version um gave her more about the how and the why. And I think that's true. A textbook will do that. Um and you know it it gives you a little bit more background. Um so anyway, I've I've dug into every version including this last one. Um uh and Alisandre I agree with um Victoria that um I don't think the money was wasted on Nory winter because I think he advanced that advance that group advanced the content um mostly by adding um content and um a lot of the effort that these people put in just reorganized that um in many ways. So um I my my biggest concerns going forward are content. So, it's the meat of the sandwich. And I have uh the fact that the document is not a red line is a big problem. And we've got to figure that one out because this is a technical document and I do not know and I have no way of knowing other than just reading myself. Um what one document that was organized one way to a new document that's not that's organized a very different way. What changes have been made? and I don't know what's been deleted and I don't know what's been added and I have a lot of concern about that. Um because I you know again after four years of using the design guidelines you learn what's in there and I'll give an example. Um, and

I just picked one. But one of the things that is everywhere in the and I'm I'm really speaking about the 20 that was it 2001 um nor Nory winter the original Nory winter but um the the concepts of uh different words were used but architectural um eclect I so struggle with thing eclectic architecture eclecticism architectural eclecticism um is used a few times in the guidelines um diversity, encouragement of innovation, don't feel constrainers should not feel constrained by the uh designs of the past but should feel free um to innovate and advance. Um those were concepts that are kind of riddled throughout the old version. I I don't find them anywhere nearly as strong um in the committee's version. And so I just I'm concerned that something that I know is very important to me and I think important to a lot of the architect community um has kind of disappeared and I don't know what the other examples are cuz I don't know. Um so we're going to have to figure out and I I'm I'm sure technology can help us in this in this regard, but we've we've got to start and create a red line which I suspect the the uh coastal commission uh would demand anyway. And then it's it is it's what Maryanne said. It's that there's just a lot of content that um I think needs to be scrubbed. Um another another one for me and I I had this trouble with the previous version too is um that I think the to the extent possible the design guidelines should actually reflect the built environment the existing built environment as eclectic as it can be at times um as opposed to someone's opinion of what the built

environment should be or what they wish it was. Right. Um, and that's that's perhaps my biggest concern. Um, that this project went on for so long and you know, I'm not saying it was behind closed doors. It wasn't. Um, it just it it it it didn't have a lot of public attention for a long time. Um, and I'm I'm concerned um that it just needs more oxygen. Um, to put it that way. Um, but I'm I'm supportive of going forward. But I I I as as to how to advance it, I'd kind of like to hear what some others um say. Um but I think we got to move fairly quickly. I do think that the planning commission should be the center. I thought the planning commission always should have been the center of gravity for this thing. Um and definitely should be going forward. Um I I I I would welcome a conversation about is this a candidate for some um from city sort of city council cover if you will whether that's an ad hoc or a sponsorship group whatever you want to call it. Um, and the analogy I have is what happened with the address group or just by, you know, having it sponsored by a a planning, sorry, I'm the city councelor. Um, I don't know, it gave it some cover. Um, and and it kept it visible, elevated to to a level. And I don't mean that we're elevated. I'm just, you know, they think it's just a matter of is it getting the right attention and the right resource. So, I I'm not sure what that means, but I I throw that out there for my colleagues. Thank you,

Hans.

So, I'd like to thank um everyone who is involved. Um I mean, uh three years, right? It's just incredible level of commitment for, you know, sort of unpaid volunteers. Um and, uh Brandon, you were there for from the beginning. So, thank you to the staff. Um, uh, so I think that there's a lot I think like like Bob said, it really felt like it started to come together. Seems obvious, but the pictures make a huge difference. Um, I think they're actually really well done, most of them. um the diagrams. I think Ian Martin did a great job going out and actually find he was I think they were really looking for the perfect picture in a lot of instances and and I think came pretty close. Um I think the addition of the narratives was actually really helpful um as opposed to just this set of bullet points. Um it kind of creates a um you know sort of a mood uh and gives some additional context. It you know it is it is a decent amount to get through but actually I think it goes pretty quick and they in their defense they can the biggest thing they did here was condense like that was really what they did. So I think it is condensed a lot. Um, and I think the benefit of the way it's set up with these little narratives, with the narrative topper at the beginning, um, with the principles as the underlying architecture, I think you come away with like a basic understanding of this quirky little place that it it takes you a while to to get Carmel. And I think that this document advances that process for people um because the typical pattern is you're sort of moving here from somewhere else and the first step

is you're going to go and renovate your house or build your house and I think this becomes a very helpful document in that regard. Um you know I'm in my comments going to abstract like Bob said I've like anyone reading this document I'm sure we all have reactions to specific elements of it. So, I'm going to abstract from some of those specifics. Um, I would say that I agree with Bob that uh having it have more oxygen for like bonafide public input uh is good. I think that the steering committee members would completely agree with that. I also agree with the notion of a red line so that we can actually compare. Now the challenge is it's a completely different it's not completely different but there's enough changes that the red line becomes really challenging. Um so I'm wondering what we could do with AI to identify specific sections. Um you'd almost have to create a document of things that have been added and things that have been taken away. Almost two documents. Um and I think that I think that we have the technology to do that. Um, but a true red line I don't think would be feasible. For me, one of the biggest things is still the fire piece. And um, I want to know more about the thought process on the fire alert piece. And I I I kind of get it. Um, but for me, I think that the biggest thing that needs to happen from a fire awareness perspective is uh some actual grappling with some things within the body of the document. And those are things that the public's going to have to weigh in on. And that's fine. You know, I'm just I guess my point is I don't think that just that one page, you know, cuts it. I think there's some harder work that needs to be done. And then lastly on sort of where do we go

from here on the process? Um I think that what we set up last time worked pretty well. uh having checked in with a lot of the folks that were involved this sort of you know 4 to 6 week sprint that we did um so I think the key what were the key aspects of that one a hard deadline right I actually don't even know that we need a council member if we give a hard deadline I honestly think that that's going to solve 90% of our problems um this novel production group concept that allowed them to actually create content without having to do it in the context of like a Brown Act meeting all the time. I think that that uh was helpful. And so what did they have? They had steering committee members, uh resident volunteers, staff, um and then they had two embedded planning commissioners. And so that was I think a really great model um to to continue. And then I I agree with this concept of making the planning commission the venue for these. I think we all would probably agree it just needs some more generalized public oxygen. And we all agree that we want more planning commission involvement. And so just making the planning commission the venue for those meetings um I think I think makes a lot of sense. Um, and so yeah, that would be my preferred option. Um, and I, you know, I tend to think I tend to think there's a little bit more work to be done, um, particular around some of the fire stuff, but, you know, if we set a deadline of a couple months, um, and see where they get and if they come back and say, "Hey, we need one more month," you know, I think that's fine. But that's

that's I think the direction of travel for me. Thank you. Go ahead.

Thanks. Um first a great big thank you to everyone who's been involved um with this and the tremendous amount of of work that it's been. Um it's just a very professional document and it really feels like a local labor of love was part of you know putting this together. Um the photography is excellent and it significantly adds to it. Um, just overall I like the look and feel. Um, the formatting, it's intuitive. Um, things such as the table of contents and index and hyperlinks and those sort of things are very helpful. Um, Hans, I do agree perhaps the wildfire section could be increased a little bit. Um, the glossery also um is very helpful. Um, and even just little things such as the dedication and the acknowledgement to Don Good Hugh I thought was um just a really nice thing to have in there. Um, I do agree that uh having the red line um is not not only important, but it looks like it's a requirement as well. Um, and Hans, you brought up the good idea of maybe having AI help with that, so it's a little less labor intensive. Um, and definitely um like the idea of how it's working right now um with the group and and then members of the planning commission, but certainly moving forward and keep going back to the planning commission, having them be the the focus and the center um of this. And I mean I appreciate the amount of work that was done in that short time frame. I don't want to put more pressure uh to have you guys feel that you know it needs to be done quickly but um on the other hand it was a tremendous amount that you did get done and um if you're able to do it I mean I'd say definitely go for it. So thank you again for the um tremendous tremendous effort and it's like moving along really well. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Dale. Um I have a I have a bunch of comments, I think. Um so, thank you, Victoria, and for uh everybody for all the work. It's a It's a nice uh this this version of this of the of the design guidelines is significantly better than um the one that was seen at the planning commission a couple months ago. And however it was that we got there, I'm I'm very delighted that the the council put his foot down and and we got, you know, this, as Brandon calls it, this apples to apples comparison. Um, my uh sort of focus my sort of focus is on on deadlines. Um, I you know, there's an election coming up in November. Um, and I don't know what I don't know what my plans are. I don't certainly don't know what Alessandre's plans are, but it's important to me that we get through. So, I start with that and it's important to me that we get through this project before that happens. Um, you know, I think, you know, I spoke about this at some length ago, some length um, a couple months ago. I think the project at this point um I'm the only one on the current council that appointed a steering committee member and my steering committee member of was Don Good Hugh and so um you know to it's the the project to me the project is in danger I I still believe uh the current effort notwithstanding that the project is just in danger of dying because it just drags on and on and on and I think it's really important that um whatever we decide whatever we as a council decide to do that it starts with a date and works its way back and and so you know Hans I know you think that too and

I'll I'll I'll pick on you for a second you said you know just a minute ago you said um we'll give them a couple months and if it's if it sags a couple months that's okay and to me that's not okay Like I'm thinking about a I'm thinking about sort of, you know, a schedule that sort of ends with our adoption in September with two possible months of extension. Um, and I'm I'm having trouble sort of fitting, and I'll talk about all these things in a minute. having trouble fitting all these things into a project plan, you know, given, you know, given what I'm going to say in a minute, like how do we get um how do we get to um September or October or heaven forbid November? Um with with a project that at a council meeting is going to be approved. Um that's the thing that uh sort of keeps me up at night. um you know and and so I wrote down um as I've been listening I wrote down uh budget comments which I'll talk about scope project plan project group time with the planning commission and of course time with the public and each of these things you know each of these things affects the project plan you know affects the deadline in one form or another. We've heard a lot of um we've heard a lot so even even in the 10 minutes we've been talking about it, we've heard a lot of different ideas about what the scope of the project is. You know, Victoria talked about the residential, commercial, and municipal design guidelines. Like we haven't seen the commercial design guidelines, so maybe that's a couple more months off. Um we haven't seen anything about the municipal design guidelines, so I assume that's probably not going to happen. A couple of years ago, we were talking about landscaping design guidelines. Um, and and that was, you know, we had a long conversation at the council about hiring a landscape architect and that didn't happen. So, that's that's

missing. Um, you know, a number of people have number of council members especially have talked about the fire and I kind of agree with them like I think that one page isn't adequate, but I don't know what is adequate. So, we need to make some modifications for the fire for the fire protection piece. Um, everybody's talking about a red line. Um, I agree with sort of Bob's comments that the documents are so different. I don't even know how to do that. You know, my experience with AI is it's much better at doing repetitive tasks than it is doing these one-time tasks. I think we're going to set, you know, we've set AI off on two different two different versions of kind of the same thing. I don't know what is going to turn up. Why would we not just uh have, you know, Evan just I'll just pick on Evan for a second. Why would we not just have Evan go through the two documents and write, you know, write up a sort of a manual Redline version? Like, I don't know what the answer to that question is. Um Bob makes a really good point when he talks about the how-to manual. Um how do we how do we use it? Um how do we how do we how do how is someone supposed to use this manual? Um the things a couple other things that haven't been spoken of. You know, we have always talked about accompanying municipal code changes to accompany the design guidelines. Those are nowhere. Like those still have to be constructed out of whole cloth. There are some things that have to be in the municipal code and some things that can't be in the municipal code or we don't want in the municipal code. And who's going to make those decisions? Um who's going to make who's going to decide how all that's going to work? Um that's just a mystery. Um, and so I've talked about all these things and so far I've only talked about the scope. Um, there's the project plan. Um, getting to that September getting to that September council meeting which is kind of the first drop dead date. I've talked about all the deliverables you know that I've you know some of these deliverables are scope. Some of these

deliverables are sort of reflected in scope. Um, other deliverables are Brandon has talked about um a hyperlink version. So, I have the design guidelines here. There are no hyperlinks inside this notebook. Um, this is just a piece of paper. This is just a bunch of pieces of paper. So, I don't really understand like what a hyperlink version is. I think it's a version that gets posted on the internet. Um, but it's different than what's in here. So, that's a task to be done. That's a deliverable that needs to get done. Someone needs to decide whether or not that's going to get done by the by the September date. Um um you know so those are things in the project plan. um the my my comments about the project group, you know, I come sort of you know, past life from a project management world where we organize projects around sponsors um people that work on the project and I'll just for the sake of this discussion I call those people staff um users um and that would be like the planning comm that would be the planning commission and the architect the ar the architect community or the or the community here and a project manager that sort runs those things like that's the environment that I'm used to you know when we you know a professional sounding environment that has that has a set of people with really defined really defined roles and responsibilities. Everybody knows what everybody else is supposed to be doing. Like sponsors give direction to the project manager. The project manager is vested in bossing people around. um you know from the sponsors. The sponsors give the project manager in public the authority to boss people around. Um staff is the are the people that are bossed around by the project manager because they've been vest because he or she's been vested with that authority by the sponsors and

the users who count. Um you know there is so the users you know uh brings up a whole different whole different issue time with the time with the planning commission. You know, we all talk about uh spending a lot of time with the planning commission, but the planning commission meets once a month. And the problem the problem with with and I agree that the planning commission, don't get me wrong, I agree that the planning commission is is the right place to do is the right venue for this because uh those people are both the deciders and the and part of the users commu users community. But if you miss a planning commission meeting, you're a whole month behind. and and and I don't I don't without without some real sponsorship from this group from from the city council um I don't see how the project manager is going to be vested in the vested in sort of getting in getting things done. Um, and then of course time with the public. You know, another thing like we haven't just been we haven't just you know to to everybody's point you know we've been talking about um you know the project should have been should have been more centered on the planning commission to start. Whether or not they're the body that's writing the document or not um we don't we don't need to talk about that but they are certainly the primary user community. So this pro this project should have been in front of the planning commission a lot. Um and and in fact right now it hasn't been in front of the planning commission basically at all except for the last meeting. Um and then of course time with the public and and you know the public is really fickle and sometimes you try you know I say this with experience. Sometimes you tried out a design sometimes you tried

out a police station plan or an address plan and you do it in the wrong way and it cost you like two years and you still you end up in the same place. Like I'll I'll point out, you know, that we are basically in the same place now with both the addresses and the police station where we should have been two years ago. And and th that is basically my fault. Like that's all of our that's the council's fault for mismanaging the roll out or whatever. Um mismanaging the roll out or the unveiling or whatever of the project. Um and so the public can be very very fickle in terms of rolling these things out especially you know we we had a whole dust up here um that cost us a couple months about whether we were going to use the Nory winter version or the the steering committee version and what's going to happen if we have that same dust up with the public. Like how are we going to prevent that? How are we going to prevent that from happening so we don't have the first planning commission meeting where we trop this out and and you know uh to pick to pick on someone Adam Jezeleneck uh who who I don't know have any idea how involved Adam Jezeleneck or or you know or Claudia Ortiz comes and they say I don't like this document because it doesn't look like the other one like how are we going to manage that like these are all really difficult problems and I think that I think that the the sum and not to mention the coastal commission. And so I think that the sum of all this is that what I would like to see is this uh this document move forward with a target date of September. um a target date of September with a couple months of slack and someone, you know, some project manager or someone put together a plan for, you know, a detailed plan, spend a week doing this and get input from the five of us or who whoever that is and figure out how to get staff or

the steering committee or whatever to, you know, how to get staff to do it with the help from the the public, including the steering committee to um produce this stuff according to this plan. Otherwise, we're just going to run out of time. And if we run out of time now, we're going to be we're going to be, you know, you're going to be in the next council and that's going to cost another year and we're just going to be sort of uh you know, basically dead in the water. So, what I would like to see is a you know, to to Bob's point, I would like to see some oversight uh from the from the city council into the city. I view the city council as the sponsors of the project and a project manager um you know either someone from staff or someone hired um that puts all this stuff together, meets with the planning commission every month, comes back, you know, does work on the side, meets with the planning commission every month, um schedules meetings with the public, um schedules schedules updates with the council and gets it done in that sort of format. like I would like to see a rigid format that will result in us meeting a September October date.

All right. Thank you.

Just ask Jeff a quick question. Are you talking about a staff member or someone from council or like what's your idea of who this person is going to be? Uh my idea is that um there would be someone my idea is that we would be the sponsors and and that could either be um that could either be one of us or two of us or five of us. I don't think the five of us want to do it. who would invest power in you invest power in a project manager that would have the authority to sort of boss around staff and and hold people's feet to the fire so that work gets done according to a time frame and so the project manager would be responsible to the council and everybody else will be responsible to the project manager

does that assume that a project manager is a member of the staff or a member of the public or I'm just trying to follow my So, I'm I'm looking for the my idea would be either the project manager would be a member of staff or someone that staff hires on a part-time basis like a a real bonafide gant chart working project manager who can tell you who can tell us that if you miss if the planning commission you know box you know at you know on you know at the July meeting that the whole project is going to the whole project is going to is going to um be pushed back by another month. Like someone that has the sort of innate project management ability to make to do stuff like that. And I don't know, you know, I don't know whether that's our current project manager, Shi. Um and I don't I have no idea um I don't see uh I don't see Ken out here. So I can't

she's double triple booked. So I don't have any idea about her workload. Um, I don't know if she I don't have any idea whether she's the right person. Um, it could be uh Tom Ford um who we're having good experiences with. You know, you and I have good experiences with on the police station project. I don't know if he has Gant chart experience or project management experience or whether he could pick that up. I don't know. But that's a sort of tried and test tried and tested way of sort of getting complicated projects done, you know, with a sort of set a set timeline.

Okay. I I just had some reactions to that, but if you want a chance to go into just your general comments first. All right, I'll do that. I totally agree with everything Bob said. I totally agree with everything that Jeff said. So that in terms of project management time frames, Bob's feelings about the document are probably identical to mine. I use the other one a lot. We we covered this all last time. I use the other one a lot. I liked it. I still like it. I'm still confused at how we got here after 3 to four years. We can't do this again. We just can't do this again. We have how many documents that we have to up to date? 20 30 Brandon. So this is one and we have the other one that we're still sort of halfway through the forest forest plan. So we just can't do this. Um I agree with Mel Albborne's comments at the meeting. I've watched it like three times. Um she was the one that didn't vote yes the last time at the planning commission. Um, I'm surprised why she wasn't picked to be on the committee because she is the only person out of all of us that has professional experience in document management and doing things like this. She was a professional at doing this, but she sort of got chased out of a meeting and she talked about that. So, I'm not going to go back in time. But we're just now getting to the point after three to four years that we're actually going back to the users of the document, the planning department, the planning commission and architects like Claudio. I agree that he's a good one to talk to. That's not good after three to four years because we could go back to them and they could say we don't get it and then then where are we? But I'm not going to get about what document I like because it if I was a user it wouldn't matter to me because we have AI now. So

after 3 to four years I just took the last document and I said here's what I need because I'm going to go build a house. I need a homeowner's guide to design in Carmemell. I put the PDF in. In three minutes, it produced a 30page. I told it 30 pages. It to beautifully formatted 30-page document with callout boxes, everything. I told it not to do pictures. And so, I have my own document. I mean, that's what you can do nowadays. I can just make my own version with exactly the pieces from that document that I need to make my decisions. Obviously, if you're the city itself, you have to have some standardized documents and have to have controls over it. But, we really need to back up. I'm This thing needs to get done. I agree with you, Jeeoff, but we need to back up and come up with a professional way to create, manage, document control for doing these things because we have 30 of them we need to do and we just can't keep doing this. And it's so easy. I mean, Google Docs is a powerful platform. I said this last time and it's wonderful. It does document, it does track changes, it does everything. and Brandon, we just need to hire a professional to teach us how to manage documents and to do this because we have 30 of them to do. I'm not even concerned about this one anymore. I'm concerned about the other 29. And uh this has been a really expensive process and we basically had a consultant that we hired to do a 1.5 release and we did a 2.x release somehow at the everything just got off track, but let's just get this done. Um, it's really important to get the planning department, the planning commissioners to give some serious feedback to this fast because I feel badly for the people on the committee because I know how much time and effort you put into it. I've done that kind of stuff before, but we we have to get this project on track and it's going to get on track when we have those users bless

this. And I don't know what it looks like to go to the planning to the coastal commission because I've never done it. But I would hate to get all this done and you give it to them with all the nice headings on the side and everything and then they go they just throw up on it because they could like you said it was going to be a 1.5 release and it's a 3.0 release. We didn't expect that and again I don't I can't comment on that. But uh personally I'm not into all the flowery the pine cones and all that. I just I'm a I'm business person. I want to get my job done. I don't need all that flowery stuff. There are a lot of blank pages. Uh, all that can be fixed very easily. I thought the text was way too small. Margaret couldn't even read it. Um, the formatting is questionable. All that can be fixed though in five minutes. I can't I mean the world has changed fortunately for us. So summarizing, I agree with Jeff. Let's get some tight time frames on this and let's just keep going and get this done whether it's before the election or not. I think we should get it done long before that and get on with the other documents. Um, I don't care what format you use, Nory Winters, whatever, because when you get it to the users, they're going to tell you what you need. All right, so good progress. Let's keep our pedal the metal and get this done. But Brandon, we really need to look at the higher level managing all this and hire a professional to do. I think we even have some money left on this project, right? We didn't spend all of Nory Winter's money. Uh, no. No, sir.

So, we have like 30 grand left. We don't have any money left. Oh, so you spend it all now. Okay. Yeah.

Well, I say less budgets a professional. Maybe it could be a person that can teach us how to do document management, document control, formatting, but also has some project management skills and that would be wonderful. Personally exists. Go ahead. Um, well, first of all, I I agree with your point that we need, you know, we sort of dealt with this with the aha situation. We need a model that can take resident volunteers, staff, and a consultant and have it be brownout compliant and make sure that we do it on, you know, again, with document management so that we have red lines. All of those things are things I completely

project management control. Um I I I wanted to touch on on Jeff's comments because as you know um you you you refer to it as polishing cannonballs. I mean I I will always try to go for the optimal solution. Like I am the world's biggest perfectionist and get it my own way uh a lot. Um, so like my heart is with you, but I just worry that what I heard was like a little bit like a maybe a little bit overengineered. Like we just had we just had a a a situation where it seemed like we had it it worked, right? Like it took six weeks and they got this thing done. And my my what I would submit to the group here is like if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Like I think it was broke. I think we fixed it. It's a strange alchemy about how it worked, but but it worked. And so I completely agree with you on having a hard deadline. My my only point was there are some unknowns like you know the the planning commission could look at it and say, "Hey, like we need to we just want to dig into this more." And again, they're only going to meet monthly or maybe semionthly. So, I'm I'm okay having a a hard deadline, but um I do think we need to be able to respond to events if the people that we're counting on to give us the feedback tell us something that's material. Um but I actually, you know, September, like I actually think we could probably shoot for a faster deadline. I, you know, I think what I've been hearing is they can do it faster. I think what I've seen is things tend to move at the pace that you allow them to move. And so if we say, "Hey staff, surge support and residents, get your act together. Get this done." I think it's just much more likely. So I'm I'm actually in favor of a tighter deadline.

Um so I, you know, again, I I agree with you on that point. And um I the whole like project manager like you know behind the scenes like Victoria and Brandon came up with a project plan and it was a detailed project plan and they got it done for us and I I trust them to do it again. So that's that's kind of where I'm at on them. Yeah. Can I just add that I I agree with everything you said. Like Jeff, I I respect everything you're saying, but I just think Hans, you're more realistic about that these two individuals, Brandon and Victoria, got it together. And I can't imagine adding a staff member, Tom or or sorry, anyone to get into the mix.

Maybe in the future, like I think that actually could be a fantastic, you know, idea in the future to have like a project manager on one of these things who's just, you know, cracking the whip. But I think just on this one based on where we're at and what we just saw over the past six weeks. Yeah. You know, I agree and and I I like that they're moving quickly. But let's also keep in mind they're volunteers who also have a life outside of city activities. So I don't want to put too much pressure on them, but certainly they they realize, you know, that we're trying to get this done quickly. So I I would be in favor of keeping this model right now that we have because it has worked. Um so that's just my I disagree. It has not worked. three to four years. The recent

I wanted to disband this committee in January when we disbanded everything else, but I was told no, no, no, don't do it. We've only got a month or two left and we'll be done. And here we are a long time after that. And I think it's time to turn this back over to staff. And I think Brandon might agree with me. At some point, we just have to and it's partly because it's time consuming for all the volunteers as well. I think it's time to take this and turn it back to staff. Hire a professional project manager, document control person, document formatting person because we're just taking a lot of time on something that just shouldn't take a lot of time, especially nowadays with AI. I disagree. I think it's to and if we need to pick a time when this committee is going to end, they just can't go on forever. It's not fair to the volunteers. It's not fair to staff. It's not fair to anybody. We just have to realize that this has just gotten off the rails for too long and we need to get it back on track and then we need to do the forest and beach one and then we need to do 25 other ones. I mean seriously, we're supposed to do these things every 5 years. Some of them are 20ome years old. So that's how I feel. And Brandon, I don't know if you want to say anything, but at some point this has to become a staff project again.

I I'll stick up before you speak. Um I'll stick up for Brandon. There's no um there's no planet. Yeah, my mic's on. There's no planet that I know of where I'm gonna assign this job to Brandon. Like Brandon, he shouldn't be doing what he's doing right now.

Brandon shouldn't be doing this. Brandon has a completely different role, completely different responsibility now than you know he this has been a ball and chain for Brandon for you know the project suffered a year because of Brand because of Brandon's pull. Um Brandon's Brandon's doing two jobs. There's not there does not exist a universe where I will support a project that involves a substantial use of Brandon's time. I am not saying turn it over to Brandon. I'm saying turn it over to St. Jake's a smart guy.

I'll be so I agree with you. Um I agree with you. Like I do not agree that the team of Brand of Brandon and Victoria can continue. I agree. Like that like that's a that's a no. That's a hard no for me.

I agree 100%. I'll I'll I'll try here. Um I think what happened in the last 6 weeks was um something that has occurred in the software world over the last 20 years and some of you may be experts in it is what's called agile development. Um and agile development just basically took back when I was developing it was what was more called a waterfall development thing where you kind of it was sort of like Frankenstein's monster. you built the whole bloody thing and then put it up there and get the lightning and hope it comes to life. And what agile development does is it says, you know, it's sort of like start it as a baby and then let it grow. I'm not sure if that analogy is working for you, but um but but it's also more about it's not Frankenstein's monster. Um but it's also the way you attack work and the way you organize things. um and that you um develop small teams. Um they use a lot of rugby anal um an analogies. So the small team is a scrum. Um the person that runs the scrum is a scrum manager. Um and you work in very precise um short durations to produce very specific products called sprints. Um you use the word sprint um uh before. Um I suspect that that may have been what happened. um over the last six weeks that that's what your production team did. Um they just assigned small things and ran them down. Um and um so you may have already stumbled into that model. It probably is the model and I'm not an expert in in um agile development. I've just read about it really. Um, but I I think

I I'm not comfortable just saying do it again. And I'm I'm cons I think I share Jeff's concerns. It's I feel like we're making hope a strategy a little bit. Um, and let's, you know, it worked so far. It it got us something um that was better than what we had 6 weeks ago. Hallelujah. But um I'm not sure that's a disciplined enough strategy to really address a lot of the things you were concerned about. And I I just I do think we need a more disciplined approach um to make sure that we get it done. Um cuz I think we you the election is it's it's only interesting in that if I think you're right if we get two or three more people in here um and the priorities change and this thing may just die again. So, um I I I think perhaps the biggest change that is needed I do think that um going forward it needs sponsorship um from the city council. Um and I I'm not going to sit here and tell you who needs to be the scrum manager. Um but I think it does need to be someone that is on the payroll um at this point. And whether that's an internal payroll or or an external, I I think the assignment of resources is up to Brandon. That's his job. Um and um I'm I'd be willing to, you know, fill one of those sponsor roles. I don't want to do it alone. I really don't want to do it at all. Um but I think I have enough content background that I' I'd be willing. So, uh Jeeoff, what do you what are your thoughts on that?

I agree with that. I'd be willing to do that as well. All right. What if we just Yeah. I mean, I don't know. What if we sub sub You don't want Brandon on it because obviously Brandon's capacity constrained. I mean, what if you just subbed out Bob for Brandon or Jeff for Brandon and you guys come up with a project plan, you know, work with Victoria and come up with a project plan. Um, I mean, I left I left that life a while ago. Yeah. I'm not sure you want to trust I mean, I know what one looks like. I'm not going to No, no,

no. We need We can guide it. We can direct it. Staff needs to own it. We're sponsors. We're oversight. All right. Well, I think we've got two volunteers for what? Yeah, I'm sponsor that means basically it'd be an ad hoc committee to uh just I think it should be help guide the process. I mean you described you described

I think it should be okay I'll use that for a second an ad hoc committee next month we will come back to you with um maybe a project manager and a scope of what we think is appropriate what we think is a deadline and a scope for you know proposed deadline and a proposed scope for all of us to vet say this is what we're going to do we'll we'll do our best to come back to the council and say this is what we're going to try to do this is what we're going to try to have as a deadline. This is how we're going to do it. This is who's going to do it. So, we need I feel like if Bob and I are going to be sponsor like I feel like the council's the sponsor and Bob and I are the council's representatives, we are not the sponsor. Okay?

And we will come back to you. We will come back to you with a plan. You know, or as much of a plan as we can put together. we could put our heads together with uh with uh Anna and and and Jake um and Brandon and see what we see what we think is possible. It's a very short-term project as we've discussed. Okay.

Yeah. I'm not sure. Obviously, we're inventing this as we go. My inclination is well, you know, how do you start? I would start by sitting in with scrum and understanding how it works because if I I don't want to throw that away. I acknowledge that it worked. Um and I don't necessarily even see a need to change it. I'd like to just understand it so that if it really is working, we can observe that and then bring it back to you and give it again give it the cover and give it the exposure it needs. Um, so I'm not I'm not proposing that anything needs to be blown up at all, but I I think it's just

it's just responsible for us to understand get closer to it. I think is we could do that. Everybody agree soon. Hans, I'm so sorry. Go ahead. Now, we have it's pretty open meeting here.

I think September is way too much time. Um I think what happened here is and maybe Bob you said this and maybe you said it Hans the the time pressure is a focal mechanism. We didn't have time pressure before ever. And so every time something that was important to the city and the city council came up this project got back burnered. That's what happened. It wasn't for lack of process. the fears you expressed, Jeff, about um what's going to happen if it blows up and some new fickle thing happens. I will tell you I don't think that's going to happen. The reason I don't think that's going to happen is we've had a very open process. We've had architects, the planning commission has been involved the entire time, just not in this formalized way. They have seen it step step by step. They've always encouraged the direction we were going. We never got them to actively participate. That's what was missing. That's where the stage we're at now. Um I I think if you put the pressure on the production team, um you ask how the thing got managed, we came up with a management plan, we came up with a timeline, we assigned tasks. It's exactly the job description you're asking for. I don't I don't want to put Brandon on the spot to to say that he should do it, but I think to to try to train a new person right now to get involved in this process, I'm I'm sitting here thinking you guys are just delaying it right now. I I know you don't intend to, but that layer of of let's do this. Maybe we'll find a person. Maybe we'll hire them. Maybe you guys will I just can I can guarantee you that we can do this faster than than we ever have before. We just had proof of concept. I if you you have to make it a

hard deadline and it has to be much shorter than September. I'm talking about early summer at the latest and um incorporating you all would be lovely. I suggested at the beginning of this, the more people who want to, you know, get oxygen, help understand what to do, maybe um help find a staff person that's the right person so that Brandon doesn't get caught up in this. I I know he loves the project. That's the problem. But um you know if that he has expressed to me the willingness to and desire to step aside and find a staff person who could do that role. I just I fear what you all are doing is you're headed down a more bureaucratic path. You do you are you are making the the problem you are you are correctly identifying is going to worsen with this direction.

Okay. I think I think Thank you. I think we've decided we're going to have two person ad hoc committee that's going to dig into this quickly and evaluate what's going on and give them as much support as you can. Find some missing pieces, free up Brandon to some extent so he can focus on other things and come back and report to us soon.

Yeah, I don't think we can get any more definitive than that because I don't think we kind of jump in. We're putting more help to try to make sure that timelines are hit, plus setting the timelines. I agree. Timelines are good. All right. And I think we've sort of agreed that we're going to stick with the steering committee version. Sounds like there's support for that. So, I'll go along with that. Anything else that you need? I don't think so. That was clear. Perfectly clear. Clear. No, I think we got it. Thank you.

All right. Trying to give you some help. All right. Thank you again for everybody for all the work that you're doing. This is going to be a fantastic document when it's finished well before the election and uh we'll move on to the next document. All right. I think uh we have future agenda items. Anybody want to add something to that before our agenda setting meeting next Tuesday? Of course, you can always send us an email anytime. Mayor, I'm just my now my brain's just catching up. I just want to be totally sure. So the two council members are going to join the production team that we had. So that the production team Nick brought the most recent version plus bring their project skills to play over time. Why don't we just talk to you? Okay.

Later in the week. Okay. Let's start there. Yeah. Got it. I'm going to be with the ad hoc community. We're leaving it loose. Let's just start there. We're leaving it loose. You have two really talented resources to help out. Thank you. All right. No future agenda items. Anybody from the audience any from the chamber want to add something? Nope. Send it anytime you want. All right. So, that concludes tonight's agenda. Thanks everybody for being here and sticking it out and uh we'll see you soon.