City Council - Special Meeting

Good afternoon. It's Monday, August 3rd, 2026, and we're at Carmel-by-the-Sea City Hall. I'd like to call this special meeting of the Carmel-by-the-Sea City Council to order at 3 p.m. City Clerk, would you please call the roll?

Sure. Councilmember Barron?

Here.

Councilmember Booter?

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Delves?

Here.

Councilmember Dramaw? Here. Mayor Byrne?

Here. All are present. Thank you. Before we begin, a reminder to the public that this is a hybrid meeting. You may attend in person via Zoom or watch the live stream on the city's YouTube page now or any time in the future. Nova, would you read the public comment guidelines for special meetings, please?

During special city council meetings, public comments are permitted on items listed on the agenda. After each item on the agenda is introduced, the mayor will invite public comment on that item. Each speaker has three minutes to speak unless otherwise adjusted by the mayor. While stating your name is optional, it helps to identify speakers in the meeting minutes. Remote or in-person participants who do not comply with the requirements of the Brown Act will be muted.

Thank you. First item tonight is a consent agenda. Items on the consent agenda are routine in nature and do not typically require discussion or independent action. Members of the council or the public may ask that any items be considered individually for council discussion and or public comment. Unless that is done, one motion may be used to adopt all recommended actions. Nova, are you going to put them up there? Are they up there? Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to just read through them quickly in case somebody doesn't have hasn't been prepared to pull one. July 6th, 2026, special meeting minutes, and July 7th, 2026, regular meeting minutes. Number two, June 2026 monthly reports, which consist, if you haven't ever looked at it, of a lot of interesting data, and I always encourage people to go look at it. Number three is 2026 June Check Register Summary. Number four, adoption of Resolution 2026-056 authorizing execution of the Monterey Bay Area Regional Climate Project Working Group, that's a mouthful, RCPWG, Memorandum of Understanding. Number five, Resolution 2026-057 authorizing the serving of alcohol on public property for the, I don't know how to say it, Tuddy Tavola Lunch on Sunday, October 11th, 2026. Number six, Resolution 2026058, appointing one member to the Building Code Board of Appeals and one member to the Community Activities Commission. Do any council members wish to pull any of these items for comment or discussion?

Yes, Mayor, number five.

Same. Which one? Number five?

Five.

Okay. Anyone else? I'd like to pull item two just for a quick comment. And...

I move to approve the consent agenda other than items two and five.

All right, so one, three, four, and six. Second. Roll call, please.

Councilmember Barron?

Yes.

Councilmember Booter?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Delves?

Yes.

Councilmember Dramaw? Yes. Mayor Byrne?

Yes.

Motion carries.

Yeah, let me start with number two so that we can... move on to the more detailed item number five, which I'm sure is going to have some discussion. Item two, I'm pulling the report, ambulance report. I like to talk about success stories whenever we can. And you all probably know that we made some changes with our ambulance service. And I'm happy to say that this month there were 82 ambulance calls locally here. And 100% of the code three calls were under the standard of five minutes. And in fact, the average was just over three minutes. And that's pretty incredible. I think that deserves a round of applause even. So another item related to that is we've been having a lot of outside responses. And we negotiated with AMR to be compensated for those. I noticed, and I'm not going to ask for an explanation of this, but we might want to look at it, that the number of outside calls have dropped considerably down to only 14 this month, which I was sort of predicting. So they've probably got an ambulance driver and are taking care of it themselves. But that also could be why our service level was so high. So it's all interrelated. And congratulations again. All right, so let's move on to item number five. We'll hold approval of that till we get through with number five, see how that goes. You want to talk? Sure. OK.

Thank you, Mayor. So the reason I'm pulling this is it seems that lately there's more of these events where we're closing city streets and serving alcohol in the city streets. So I just don't know if we as a council may want to have a future discussion. We want to craft a policy or specific number of times a year that we can do this. Cause I know for example, the visit Carmel has the June, DINING EVENTS WHERE THEY CLOSED DOWN PART OF DELORES STREET AND NOW THIS EVENT IS COMING UP THAT WILL CLOSE PART OF SIXTH AVENUE AND SO IT APPEARS TO BE HAPPENING MORE OFTEN SO IF WE COULD HAVE A FUTURE DISCUSSION ON THAT.

ALL RIGHT, JEFF. THANK YOU. AS YOU ALL KNOW, I'VE MADE COMMENTS A NUMBER OF TIMES ABOUT THE NUMBER OF EVENTS DOWNTOWN AND SPECIFICALLY THE NUMBER OF EVENTS THAT SERVE ALCOHOL. I'VE EXPRESSED CONCERN AND SO I WILL NOT BE SUPPORTING THIS application.

All right. Anybody else have something to say about it, Hans? All right. We'll go out for public comment. Anybody in the public like to talk about this?

Nancy Toomey. There we go. Third time. I did send in a letter on this item as well as the nomination for the Activities Commission, which, again, I am not questioning the decision you make here this evening, but did just want to call out that there is a need to kind of look at the quantity of events, the length of the events, the format of the events. We don't necessarily, in my humble opinion, personally only, we might have too much and we need to decide where parameters need to be set. to pull them into alignment with what works, with not only keeping our city alive and thriving with visitors, we like visitors, we like them to enjoy our town, or at least many of us do. They bring great diversity in all sorts of aspects to the table. And again, I love the energy that comes with the events in town, but we need downtime. as well in the mix of what we do and how we do it. So just want that to be a consideration for the long haul. Thanks.

Thank you, Nancy. Anybody else? Anybody on Zoom? We've got one hand up. Rich Pepe. Go ahead, Rich or Pepe.

Rich, you can unmute yourself.

Hello, everybody. I'm a board member of the Carmel Mission Foundation since about 2012. And we've raised about over $15 million for the preservation and restoration of the Carmel Mission Basilica and campus. And we've been a little bit quiet lately the last few years. And we want to relaunch our building our awareness and our fundraising efforts. And the mission has some very important projects coming up. Lisa, our director at the Mission Foundation, submitted a letter to you. And my involvement in this is to facilitate this lunch. We're going to cater it from the Vesuvio restaurant right next to it, obviously. That's why we chose this location. Jeff, it's not a wine drinking event. It's an Italian family style lunch. And yes, some people might drink some wine. It's not that kind of drinking event. We hope people will come out and support the Mission Foundation. It's going to be quite benign. What can I say? Past formations of councils have supported outdoor events on public property. It's a little bit out of the box, I would say. I don't think it fits in Devondorf Park. It's an event that's just one afternoon, one time. I'm not going to come back and ask you to do it again. I don't think it will encourage other people to do something like this, but I really would hope that you would support this endeavor. The Carmel mission is on your letterhead. It's on probably your business cards. It's a really important mission. asset that we have that needs the preservation. So I really wish you, and if you have any questions for me, please feel free, but I really would appreciate your support on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Rich, for your dedication to the Mission Foundation. So I had Marissa come up to the podium here. It sounds like there are a couple issues that have been brought up. One is just having events with alcohol served, which is why we're here talking about it. And the other thing is just the number of events that we're having that are closing down city streets, given that we already have congestion problems downtown. So it sounds like at least two of us, and I imagine I certainly would go for it, to have a more serious discussion about this. Maybe we take it to the Community Activities Commission, but I'm asking for your advice since you're the Community Activities Director at this point.

Mayor, can you tell me specifically what the question is?

The question is, how do you think this should be handled? We can vote on this particular one, but it sounds like there's a broader issue that's been brought up.

Yeah.

And I'm not sure how much we can discuss that, but I guess I would just suggest that we look at the Community Activities Commission to lead a discussion on this and we can give our comments.

We could put something on the Community Activities Commission agenda to maybe have a conversation about it.

Okay.

And come back to council with a recommendation if that's what you're asking.

Okay, is that what you were looking for, Alessandra?

I think that would be helpful, sure.

Okay, all right, thank you. All right, so thank you, and we'll continue the discussion about this. Anybody have any other further ideas about this in terms of approving or not approving this number five?

I'll make a motion to approve it in a minute. I'm just with Alessandra. I don't even know if there's too many. were not enough, frankly, and I do think it's a good idea for the newly reformed Community Activities Commission to perhaps have a standard for that. For the next two years, while Eureka Plaza is under construction and essentially already impacting our downtown significantly, and there's nothing you can really do about that, I think we should be a little bit more careful about closing streets, especially on that side of Ocean because Dolores in particular is down to one lane and it's shut today. So we should just be careful. I would move to approve consent agenda items two and five. All right. Any other discussion?

Yeah, I would actually prefer, I mean, I don't, I've stated that I'm not going to be voting for a Item number five, and I'll make sort of a side comment that I don't appreciate. I don't appreciate being told by members of the public that my feelings are somehow wrong and my understanding is somehow wrong. I'll say as I sit here at sort of the end of my tenure that that's one of the least favorite parts of this job. But I would really appreciate that we could separate items number two and five so that I would have the opportunity to vote yes on number two.

I withdraw my motion. I'll make a new motion to approve item number two on the consent agenda. Second. Roll call, please. Item number two.

Council Member Barron.

Yes.

Council Member Booter.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Doves. Yes. Council Member Jermall. Yes. Mayor Byrne.

Yes.

Motion carries.

I move to approve item number five on the consent agenda. Second. No call, please.

Council Member Barron?

No.

Council Member Booter?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Delves?

Yes.

Council Member Dramoff? Yes. Mayor Byrne?

Yes.

Motion carries 4-1.

Thank you. And thank you, Jeff, for clarifying that, how we're going to vote there. Appreciate that. All right. Moving on to orders of business. And we have four of them today. Number seven is a report out, Carmel-by-the-Sea evacuation drill after action report. I'm going to turn this over to Brandon initially, and then it's going to go to the Chief, I believe.

Thank you, Mayor. We are excited for a report out from Chief Trayer on the fabulous evacuation we drilled that we did a few months ago. But before that happens, he doesn't know about this. But I'm going to invite Evan Snyder from District 5 Supervisor Kate Daniels' office up to present the chief with a proclamation from the supervisor's office. So, Chief, if you would come up to the podium, please, and get embarrassed. I would appreciate that. Hello. Thank you. Nice to meet you.

Yeah, so I just wanted to say some words from the supervisor here. My name is Evan. I'm Kate's assistant. Very lucky to be working with her. She's a great boss. Just want to say that. Just wanted to say a few words for Chief Traer here. On behalf of Kate Daniels, it's my privilege to present this proclamation honoring Chief Todd Traer for his outstanding leadership and dedication to public safety. Chief Treyer's leadership during Carmel by the Sea's recent evacuation exercise demonstrated the importance of preparation, collaboration, and community partnership. His commitment to keeping residents safe is deeply appreciated and serves as an example for all of Monterey County. Chief Treyer, thank you for your service and congratulations on this well-deserved recognition. On behalf of Supervisor Daniels, we are honored to present you with this proclamation.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, Evan. All right, Chief, now you can give your presentation. OK, thank you.

I think we can just end on that note. I'd be all right with that. I'm kidding. Well, good afternoon, Mayor Byrne and council and the community. Thank you all for being here. I'm Chief Traer, if you didn't hear. And I'll quickly go over the evacuation drill after action report. And there should be some slides. There's a slide deck.

There's a slide deck and a video? Do you want to do the video while I?

Yeah, we can do that. Is that all right, Brandon? You all right? It'll take some of the sting out of it, but I think you'll appreciate it. So we created a video. My friend Amir created a few-minute video that kind of memorializes what happened. And maybe it's a great way to start this presentation, because if you didn't get to participate, you'll kind of get to see the group and who helped make this happen in Carmel. So we'll start with that.

After nearly eight months of planning, training, and collaboration, the City of Carmel-by-the-Sea accomplished something truly remarkable. We voluntarily evacuated our Carmel-by-the-Sea community. Welcome. I'm Todd Traer. I'm the chief of police for the city of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Now this exercise was more than just a test or a drill. It was a demonstration of our preparedness, our partnerships, and our shared commitment as a city to protect the people who live, work, and visit our community. We created a video, and what you're going to see in that video represents the dedication of our staff, volunteers, our partner agencies, and residents who came together to ensure that should a real emergency occur in Carmel-by-the-Sea, we will be ready. Now, I know preparedness isn't built in a day. It's built through planning, through practice, and true community connections. So on May 30th, Carmel-by-the-Sea proved that we can come together and meet those type of challenges, and I look forward to continuing our preparedness conversations and meetings in the future. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the video.

so so So, Thank you. Thank you. so so Thank you.

Oh I'm really glad we did it. Did you remember to bring your emergency bag? We did not, as a matter of fact.

Well, no, but now you know.

Now we know for next time. That's why it's good we did this, because we realized, oh, we've got to think better, think faster. We're really excited that you did this. We're really glad that you came.

We really appreciate the effort.

Thank you so much for helping.

I do want to take a moment to send a special thank you to our city council members, which includes today Mayor Byrne, Councilmember Booter, Barron, Dramoff, and Delves. Thank you for your support. I know you sat and listened to me kind of go through what this would be like. Without your support, this wouldn't have been the same evacuation drill. And a special thank you to City Administrator Brandon Swanson and Assistant City Administrator Marissa Bermudez, because not only did you attend so many of the meetings related to the planning for this event, but you supported it both financially and you were by my side during the actual evacuation drill. And I always appreciate the support I get from the two of you. Thank you.

All right. Well, thanks for sitting through that. That's pretty good for a cop making a video, you know. Well, as you saw on May 30th, while the slides get pulled up, our police department in partnership with 22 different law enforcement, fire and safety allied community stakeholders participated in a large scale evacuation drill. Thank you, Nova.

simulating a fast-moving wildfire.

This drill tested our department's volunteers, our department, our technology, and our community's preparedness. Today I'm going to cover the event in brief and some lessons learned from the planning that went into this exercise. Ultimately, this is a report out from my end and our opportunity to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and anything the community has to add as well. Okay, why'd we do it? Well, before I think we had a good relationship with collaborating agencies and now I think they're great. We had built strong volunteerism, many of them are here today, but now it's strengthened. And we did not know if the community would show up and participate and they did. So that was the first real key things that stood out to me as we went into this endeavor. At the same time as this community event, we had three major events in town, a dance recital at the Sunset Center, a sleepover at River School, and a surf event, the surf and sand event at the beach. So there were quite a few people in town at that time. But we also learned that our technology that had been recently moved from the Emergency Operations Center to Vista Lobos had not been tested prior to this event. So it was a powerful way to learn the pros and cons of that. And we also learned that we are OK at guiding and directing under a unified command. And that is something that a lot of cities don't get to practice until it's a big day. So this is the right way to do it. We did find some real ways to make our response during the emergency stronger. And I will tell you that Chief Moore and Division Chief Cooper were both at the Emergency Operations Center during this exercise, and we have learned a lot from each other during that day. Who showed up? For participants, the community made it happen. It was a beautiful Saturday morning, but they gave us the grace to guide, direct, and make decisions that I think left Carmel stronger. Our volunteers and allied agencies were there very early, as you saw at Vista Lobos, to make this happen. Some people showed up at 530, which I don't know why, but that's okay. They're really, they were excited for the volunteers. Our VIPs came early and set up the signs and directed traffic at the collection point for vehicles. And our CERT volunteers, many of them are here. They came from Carmel, Monterey, Big Sur, and I'm probably from Pacific Grove. I don't have that, but I know they showed up too. And thank you for your volunteerism that day. I will tell you that the fire department was there and again giving me real insight about what would happen play-by-play per minute from their perspective and it was very helpful for me and my team. Our city administrator and assistant city administrator were there. They got to see the technologies that we adopted from that day and borrowed from outside agencies in order to make this work. It gave us situational awareness. The numbers at a glance, of course we saw genuine caring and enthusiastic responses from those who volunteered as well as our allied agencies. I did forget to get enough coffee, and I will own that mistake probably for the rest of my career. But I learned from my mistakes. In the control egress, we saw that it took about eight minutes in a controlled convoy to leave our city and go to the safe zone, which might sound like a lot, But that shows you what it looks like under complete controlled conditions. If you were to add fear, flames, smoke, and little control, you would see how important this muscle memory comes to making good practice for a big day that could happen in town. This simulation gave us the optimal environment and trained us to be better in case this scenario goes a different direction. It took an hour and 15 minutes to complete the whole evacuation drill. And I think the benefits from that are going to benefit our town for years to come. I consider it a success. We contacted 7,308 people through the reverse 911 system. Those are through alerts one through three. Almost 900 of those were message failures, which are important because it allowed us to look and see why some were undelivered, meaning they were replicated. Somebody put their number in more than once, it wouldn't send it twice. And then secondly, there are other redundant factors and landline limitations. People put their landline phone number in the system and it won't call the same way that it would with the text messaging that is supposed to be used. We identified I don't have the number in front of me, but I believe it was 18 different individuals that had their phone numbers wrong. And we were able to contact each one of them and correct those numbers. And everyone cooperated with that. 112 people opted in when the first message came out. A bunch of people, even some of my team, didn't opt in, which would have given us a higher number. But they were participating in the drill, so they didn't opt in. They have that option. It's OK. This is a great benchmark for our community. You take the number of people who are currently registered and it ensured that our community is adding more and more people to the alert system, which I will get into in a minute. Every single person that works at Carmel Police Department worked that day and I appreciate them. I haven't said that enough to them, but I know that the feedback has been very positive from our community and from our surrounding agencies and cities. Okay, what we learned. We learned that we adapted well with the use of a drone. We had two drones. We had one from CAL FIRE and one from Monterey Police Department and they gave us that situational awareness, which you may have seen in some of the pictures, but you could see that we were able to see where the traffic was and when things were starting to break down we could address things on the fly and make it happen. I promise you in the future I will respectfully be asking for funding for our first drone program. We have already started on working on the regulations, and we're going to work with you in the community to make sure everyone understands where the data goes and how protective it is, and only the videos will be used for cases that involve crime, not just flying over the training missions and things like that.

We also learned that our Emergency Operations Center Dispatch Center

needed to be built up more. It did work for the nuts and bolts answering 911 type calls, but there were some gaps that we are still continuing to work through with our IT department. Finally, a couple things. The communications with our CHP didn't work well. We used a text stream backup, and that's how we were able to communicate with our CHP partners. And I found out when I spoke to Mill Valley that they had the same issue. And the only way around that is to give them a physical radio from our police department, which we don't have extra radios. We have just enough for the amount of officers at work there. So for work here. So that is something that I will be looking for in the future to get additional radios in case of a big emergency in our town. Okay. I'm skipping the video, unless you guys want to watch it again. But I will tell you that my goal is to ensure that our dispatch center is fully functional at the Emergency Operations Center. I'm going to request from you radios and a drone at some point, hopefully next month, if we put that on the agenda. And then additional training, I think, is really the key point why I'm standing in front of you today, which is I need to ensure that the training goes out to council, goes out to all of our city staff, that we learn how to use these incident command systems in case of an emergency, and everybody in town gets to participate, all the employees get to participate in the safety of our community. Now is when I show the six-minute video, which I'm not going to do to you all again. But I will tell you that the feedback was very positive. I put some of the feedback in the after action report. It was positive. There were some people that wanted me to use the siren, because that's what their expectation was. And some people thought that we would use what are called LRAD systems, which are long-range acoustic device systems that either sit on top of a vehicle or they're handheld. They're really big speakers, and they focus sound for miles long. And I'm just not comfortable with that technology here, and I don't think we need to adopt that technology in Carmel today. So I didn't use it. Some cities use that, but we're not there yet. That's kind of the nuts and bolts of the after action drill. And I'd love to hear your feedback and get your, I know that some of you were able to participate, get your feedback as well. Thank you. Thank you. Great job. Any questions from the council?

Yes, sir.

Yeah. So on the 896 failures out of, I guess, 7,000, It sounds like some of them were landlines. It sounds like you said there were 18 that you guys followed up with, and it was the wrong number, I guess. But the ones where somebody has a landline in there, maybe you've already done this, but is there any plan to try to follow up with those people to say, hey, you think you're in the system, but you're actually not. You need to put a cell phone in.

Yeah, there is a methodology to that. I haven't had the time to do that with them through DEM, Department of Emergency Management, but it's important to me. I was able to follow up on the cell phones because most people use our cell phones, but not everyone in town does. They do have, a lot of people have landlines still here in town. So that is part of the plan is to follow up on that. I don't think that's captured in my report, but it is on my focus plan. Great, thank you.

Go ahead. Chief, great job. So again, how many, I assume the most important thing for you is that if you could get to 100% of our residents, that you can communicate in real time with them. How far are we in that? What percentage and how can we get to 100 and how can we help you?

Thank you. Yeah, I think part of my after action report is the endeavor to have an annual communication with our community, which we don't do now, but to use the reverse 911 system every year, whether we do it in April, right before fire season, or September, which is safety awareness month, I believe is what they call it. One of those two timeframes, would be a great time for us to continue with the outreach. We continue to do our outreach through Carmel Prepares, but to really test it and make that really part of our culture in Carmel to where it's not annoying, where you're getting a million texts from the city all the time, just for the important things and one time to make sure that your alert is working. So that percentage-wise, like when I look at the FEMA numbers of what a successful evacuation drill is, we are in a top tier for just the amount of people that responded, which surprised me. I thought it would be 20% of a community, but it's not. It's a very small number compared to what we have in our town of people who actually live here. So I'm okay with that number. I'd love to see it increase for the next one when we do it in five years. But I would like to change how we do the evacuation drill in five years, which is a little tangent from what you're saying, sir. But I think I don't have a perfect number of how to get that number up other than we have our baseline number of... I always round up to 2,000 people who are living here, and maybe I'm off on that, but somewhere close to that, and then just continue to work toward that number. If I could get 100%, like you said, that would be beautiful and great, and then have a way to test that every year with our alert system. Thanks.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Chief, for your presentation. I've got two questions that just came about through the discussion that we're having right now. So one is just to clarify, because we do have some seniors that do not use cell phone technology. So is there still a way that we can contact them in the case of an emergency?

Yeah, I have my Carmel Safety Alliance program, which still has people on that list. And those people have been contacted who are still in town. The number... The number is not as many people. It used to be about eight, and now it's down to about five, four people, four and a half, because one is moving. But those folks, I still have regular contact in with them. They only have landlines, and one of them has cell phone. So it is a cell phone. The landlines are still relevant. They're still a relevant way to contact people. We have to do it by, literally, the police department has to call them, though.

Okay. Thank you. And then my second question that I just thought of is what about second homeowners? Have you also made outreach to them to have their cell phones in just in case they are here that week or weekend or whenever something might happen?

Yeah, I haven't. And if, if it were a real emergency, like this was actually happening, there would be a secondary contact, which would be through like a GPS location. That one is a little sloppier and we didn't use that at the request of the department of emergency management, but that would, likely contact every cell phone in the geofence area, and that we would only use under a real emergency situation. So a secondary owner coming to town, if they have a cell phone, would be contacted. And that would also involve the police, let's say it's a tsunami alert, driving down scenic, knocking on doors with our CERT and our VIPS team, and notifying people in person with loudspeakers and things like that, if we have the time.

Okay, that's good to know. Thank you. Sure.

I have a question. Jeff, do you have one first? Radios, like how much are you talking?

I would like to get four additional radios. So they are about 17,000 each, which I know sounds crazy, but these are multi-band radios that work with everyone in the peninsula. That's what we use right now.

So you probably have to come to us to get that approval. Yeah. And also the drone, do you plan on buying a drone or do you have to do more research before you do that?

Yeah, I think we're going to buy a drone, but that's what I'm going to come to you with the why. We have five different options, but the one that I think is effective for the community and what we're going to be using a drone for, it's cheaper just to purchase it and pay a couple thousand dollars a month or a couple thousand dollars a year for the technology. It shows the street names and things like that.

And the chief and I have talked a lot about the drone program because we learned lessons from the flock camera issue. And so nothing's going to be purchased. I know he said it, but it's worth saying again. Nothing's going to be purchased. No programs are going to be set up until we come and have a conversation with the council and the community and talk about putting policies in place regarding how drones would be used in the city.

The radios might come first. I was in my car on Ocean Avenue heading east in a convoy. And I don't know what happened, but somehow everything got log jammed there. And a couple of us were like ready to get out of our cars and run to the ocean.

Yeah.

If it was a real fire.

Yeah.

So I'm sure that you learned something from that.

Yeah, I think I kind of made that happen, to be honest with you. I think I purposefully had things happen like that because evacuations are frustrating, and they aren't always comfortable. Maybe I would have done it for a minute less if I knew you were in the line, but the reality is I saw it happening with the drone. I was able to see that happening, and we waited a little bit to see if it self-corrected through the team that was out there, and it didn't, and then we moved some people around and made that, like you said, the log jam start moving.

All right, great, great job. Let's open it for public comment. I'm sure some people want to say something. If nothing else, thanks.

Nancy Toomey definitely was in the caravan that went out to middle school. And it was just exceptional. And I know there were hiccups and learnings. But thanks to everyone that participated. I know it just wasn't Chief Togg, but a cast of thousands. And it was a good learning experience. And then the Togg I didn't think did mention is the gathering that happened. at Devendorf afterwards also allowed the community to interact and to talk more with the different emergency service providers, which was exceptional. I mean, you didn't need to do that because we were already, those of us in the caravan or the bus were already mingling at middle school. But I think that activity at Devendorf afterwards was a real icing on the cake and worth every effort that was put into making that happen as well. So thank you.

Thank you, Nancy. Anyone else? How many more people are going to speak, just so I have an idea? That's it.

Hello, everyone. I'm Lee Whitney. I'm used to speaking in City Council in Monterey. I'm formerly retired from Carmel PD Volunteer Group, and I'm from Monterey Certain. I participated in this. Yeah, there's some stuff that went wrong, and there's a lot of stuff that did good. Sounds like communication is the first thing. You guys fork up some bucks. Guy needs some help here. And then you've got to change the ordinance for getting a drone over the residential area. You need to celebrate as a city of what happened and what you did and what you accomplished. and all the agencies that came together to make it happen because that's what it is. It's teamwork. Pat yourself on the back that this is the first city to do this. I've only been in this area this time since 97. the president of my neighborhood and the HOA and the NCIP committee in Monterey. So I've run a lot of stuff, plus I'm a nonprofit president. You celebrate the good stuff. Things happen, but if things didn't happen, you wouldn't learn from it. So pat yourself on the back. And the next time something comes up, volunteer. Get out of your chair and volunteer. Everyone has value. And you can do something. Participate and help the next one.

Because I don't know about you guys.

I parked in New Jersey and took the shuttle in. The tourists are out there like ants on a chocolate cake. And can you imagine? That's just my description. Can you imagine a disaster? and panic that will occur out there with all those people, we have a drill. We know where to go. Now keep going forward. And get in there and volunteer yourself.

You've got time coming up.

You'd be a great leader and a great volunteer. Thank you.

You need to come every month to our meetings. Forget Monterey. That was a great talk. Thank you so much. And thank you for you volunteering. Yeah, Monterey's lucky to have you. I don't see any other hands up. I didn't see any other hands up here either. So we'll bring it back.

Somebody just raised their hand.

That was quick. It's Maria.

Maria, go ahead.

Good afternoon, everybody. I could not in any way make a better statement than the prior one done, but I just want to thank everyone who participated. I think in general what we learned was a lot. We all learned how unprepared many of us are, But what it did, it definitely pulled the community together. And I appreciate Chief Traylor and everybody else who did the work because we were at least all learning as we went along. So I would encourage actual different plan of action, which is can we do this on a more ongoing basis instead of having it only once and maybe forget about it. Maybe we do it on a more repetitive basis so that we can all be aware of the possible risks that we may have and maybe be all prepared for when they come. So thank you everybody and thank you for the kind words earlier said because there really is a community coming all together. Thank you.

Thank you, Maria. Seeing no other hands, we'll bring it back to the council. I'd like to make one comment. For those of you who aren't prepared, And that's probably a lot of people still. Wanda Vollmer, I used her service, peace of mind, preparedness. And it really helped Margaret and me get prepared. And we're prepared. And once in a while, we go down there and check everything out. We have our food. We have our go-to, our go bag. And we've got pet food. We've got the whole thing. And we wouldn't have done that without Wanda's help. So highly recommended if you want a sales pitch for Wanda. Anybody else have a comment before we wrap this up?

I do.

Go ahead.

I would just like to thank, again, the Chief and Wanda and Scott for all the efforts. I know it was a huge effort getting all these disparate organizations around, getting all these disparate organizations to play well in the same sandbox. And I certainly feel better about living here.

Really appreciate all of your efforts.

So thank you. Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor. Certainly want to thank our chief and the volunteer groups for amazing work and teamwork, as we just heard. My only area of concern is rushing a little bit into the drones just because there's been so much public feedback and attention now with the flock cameras that we really want to make sure that we are addressing people's concerns with civil liberties and privacy and that we have a policy as to the specific parameters of when they will be used and what is off limits for their use. So that would be my only suggestion. And maybe we can get the community involved in that so that they're aware that this is coming and it's not like, wait, one minute, we have a drone kind of reaction. So thank you.

Got some support there. Hans, any wrap up?

Yeah, no, I, again, just to echo the other council members, I just wanted to thank everyone who made it a success. Um, the police department, you know, Sergeant Bruno played a leading role actually in a lot of the logistics. Um, Our public works crews actually created signs just for the event. The CERT teams, not just our CERT team, but again, CERT teams from all over the region, the 22 local agencies and partners that participated. You know, I remember pitching you on this concept of a citywide evacuation drill in the bunker with the wildfire group. And I just saw like all the color drain from your face. And I think there was like a thought bubble. It would have had like bad words in it. But to your credit, two days later, you send me and chip an email and we're like, I just saw something, a video clip of mill Valley. And it was clear you were all in. And, um, it's one thing to be all in, but then it's another to pretty much flawlessly execute this thing. Um, there's so many different ways that we could have gotten an egg on our face and you being in your first year in, in the role. Um, and that's, you know, another reason I wanted to give some credit to, to chip and subsequently Brandon, because similarly, uh, there's a lot of downside doing something like this, closing Highway 1. And it was just executed really well. No panicked 911 calls. So thank you so much. I think it was really a testament to what the city can do. And I think we should all be proud of what you accomplished. So thank you.

Well said, Hans.

Bob? My only participation in this thing, Cherie and I just sat in the back of the room at the command center But that was fascinating because there were just so many different groups that were there and it was working and I think if not that may be the single biggest. We have a lot of alphabet soup of entities on the peninsula and in the county that may or may not communicate well and if you force them to communicate it makes a big deal. Chief, the only thing I would suggest is I think we can help you get the word out about having more people sign up for communication. I might suggest maybe you just give each of us a stack of maybe even business-sized cards with a QR code or something that we can hand out. Some of my colleagues have to run for re-election in the coming months, and I know they'll be out there as much as usual. A big part of our job is just walking around and talking And it's easy to hand those out. And you'd be surprised how many we would hand out over the course of a week or two. But thank you. Awesome. Really well done.

Thank you, everyone. I think that the CRA could probably hand those out at the farmer's market. We've got a lot of folks that you can contact, so... Everybody's going to help. Thank you, Chief. That was a wonderful presentation. Thank you, everybody that participated. And looking forward to it in five years. We've got to wait five years before that happens. I'm going to be old then. All right. Thank you, everybody. We're going to move on. to an exciting number eight item, request from Pacific Repertory Theater for waiver of $196,648.71 in building permit fees associated with the Golden Bough Theater renovation project. We've got a staff report from Brandon. Are you ready for this?

Yeah, I'll just do it. I don't have a PowerPoint for you, just a brief chat, and then I'm sure that... the applicant wishes to come up and say a few words. As you mentioned, Mayor, we received a request for a roughly $200,000 waiver of fees related to a building permit. This building permit goes back all the way to 2018. It was 18-297. And there were subsequent building permits after that leading up to the final permit in 2020, I believe it was. So eventually there was four building permits that were all consolidated into one. The entirety of the process lasted about six years. There were seven planning applications, which created various modifications to the originally approved project. four separate building permits, as I mentioned, which are all consolidated, and three building permit revisions. So those are revisions to the actual set of building plans that were changed. This project has received some waivers in the past from the council. There was a $1,000 waiver in planning permit fees, and then there was a $13,000 waiver in building permit fees as well over time. Just as sort of an educational piece, we do what's considered a valuation approach. to our building permit fees. Those fees, that structure have been in place since 2019. They have not changed. They have not increased since 2019. The way that the building permit review fees are calculated is based on a percentage of the value of a project. And that was attached to the staff report as a table. When that was adopted, there was a fee study that was conducted prior to that. The concept, the notion behind this valuation approach, which many, many agencies do, this is not unique to Carmel-by-the-Sea. It's actually one of the recommended approaches by the International Code Council, or ICC. The concept behind it is that a $50 million commercial project is going to take more staff time, more resources, more review than a $50,000 kitchen renovation. So the idea is as the value of the project goes up, it becomes more complicated to review. You have more systems and things like that. For this project specifically, over the course of it, we had over 100 individual inspections that took place. Those are logged inspections within our I-Work system. Those do not take account for all the consultations and site visits we did as courtesies. I know I myself have been out there several times. Other staff members who spent time out there were Sullivan, who's in the audience today, myself, as I mentioned, Evan, the planner, Dwayne, obviously, is our building inspector, and Jermell. So there was quite a number of staff hours put into this. Roughly $18,000 also in outside plan review over the time. These are our outside agencies that review plans for us that are too technical for us to do. And hundreds of documents that were reviewed by staff, those are all in iWork as well. ranging from very simple documents to technical documents about rebar installations, shoring, all those kind of things. I do recognize, I just want to recognize also that this is a large sum. I don't want to take that away from the request at all. $200,000 is nothing to sneeze at. However, it is worth noting that the project when initially proposed was about a 2.6, $2.5 million valuation. And by the time it was all done, after all those iterations that I mentioned at the top of my discussion, it ended up being about a $14 million project. So we do believe that the fees are fair and don't probably even fully capture all the time that was spent by this. However, The fees were applied per how they were adopted per the code. So we've done our part. Now it's up to council. This is a legislative decision. As I said in the staff report, you have legislative discretion because the fees are adopted by resolution. So you as the council have the policy option to waive any or all of these fees that you wish. And that is the end of my presentation, but I'm happy to answer any questions if you'd like before you hear from the applicant.

Anybody have any questions? Would you like to hear from the applicant first? But you can ask questions now if you'd like.

Brandon, I think you may have just alluded to it, but do you believe that the cost to the city in terms of staff time plus any third parties, do you believe that that wound up being less than $196,000, roughly equal to, or greater? I think it was greater. And then another question was, is this 196,000, when we think about service fee revenue for budget purposes, as I recall, we basically take last year and we do like an inflation factor. So is it fair to say that this 196,000, this specific 196,000 is not like sort of specifically budgeted? That's right. It was, it was, um,

Let me think about that. The budget number is a projection. And so the year, the year that we would have received this, you know, we would have, we would have projected based knowing on the fact that we had a large project going on. Yeah. So we would have, we would have included it in our budget at some level. We don't know what the, so the issue is we don't know what the actual fees are until the very end of the project because it's based on valuation. So, You know, the project started out, they thought it was going to be a $2.5 million project. Six years go by, and we end up with a $14 million project. So you can see how it would be difficult to peg down exactly how much revenue we would project from it. But we know it's a large project, so we do factor that in from year to year. If we know large projects are coming, for example, Eureka Plaza, JV Pass Store, things like that, we take that into our calculation when we project future years building permit fees.

Brandon, in reading the applicant's letter, and I'm sure we're going to hear from the applicant, so I'll ask the same question, but there was a suggestion that assurances were made by the city as to future waiving of fees. Do you have any knowledge of that, or is there any evidence in the documents?

I don't have any personal knowledge of that. I didn't find any evidence of that, but certainly the applicant should speak to that. Okay, thanks.

Jeff? Alessandra, I just have one question. Brandon, you mentioned an $18,000 plan review fee or plan review fees. Those weren't paid as you went, so we're still out of pocket, those $18,000 in fees or whatever they are?

That's right. So the way that it typically works, so if we, there was a point in time when we used to send more projects to a third party reviewer. For a while, it was a company called CSG and then we switched to a company called Four Leaf. The agreements with those companies are a certain percentage of the building plan check fees is what they get as a fee. So like 60%, 70% and then the city keeps the rest as a fee. So one of the reasons we tried to not use those companies as much because we're essentially giving away revenue. So on this project, there were a couple elements of it that 18,000 actually represents because this project spans six years. This project actually represents $16,000 for CSG when they were our third party and about $2,000 for Fortleaf when they became our. So it's over the whole period of time when there was technical aspects that we don't have the internal capabilities of doing, reviewing plans.

Are those the only hard costs that were out of pocket in terms of this project other than salaries? Yes. All right. That's good to know.

All right, Stephen. Can I ask a quick follow-up on that? Go ahead. Did you get a tally of like city attorney costs or attorney fees?

I did not get any tally of that, sorry. Yeah, so I just can, in my head, those are part of the staff costs, but obviously we're paying an outside invoice for those, so you're right. But there are those costs. There are certainly attorney costs.

And I've seen the invoices, so it's not insignificant. Okay. Stephen, you want to come up now? Stephen's the applicant from PACREP. Absolutely.

I'm Stephen Moore, executive director and founder of Pacific Repertory Theater. Thank you for allowing me to speak today. Members of the city council, Mr. Mayor and city administration that's here, First I'd like to thank city staff for the incredible amount of work they invested in the project over those six years. I sincerely appreciate the professionalism they brought to the entire experience. So thank you. I also appreciate the staff report before you today and in many respects I agree with it. Staff has accurately explained how permit fees are calculated. We're not suggesting otherwise. The question before you tonight is not whether the fees were calculated correctly. The question before you is whether applying that formula without adjustment produces a fair result under extraordinary circumstances. When the project began, the Golden Bough renovation, as you heard, was valued at under $3 million. By the time it was completed, the valuation had grown fourfold. But we didn't build a larger playhouse. We didn't add another auditorium. We didn't add another wing. In every meaningful respect, The playhouse approved in our initial application is the playhouse we built today. The staff report notes that the project involved numerous permit applications and revisions. I don't disagree at all. In fact, the renovation was approved by staff as a multi-permit project with deferred submittals. And a renovation of this size would naturally involve revisions as the construction progressed. But those procedural steps did not fundamentally change the project. What changed wasn't the renovation. What changed was the world. There was a worldwide pandemic, then five years of unprecedented inflation, which dramatically increased the cost of labor, materials, insurance, fuel, equipment, virtually every aspect of project construction. The project didn't become four times more complicated or larger. It simply became four times more expensive. Staff has explained that the permit fees are based on a construction valuation chart. We understand this. But your decision today is not about a mathematical formula. It's about whether or not that formula should be applied without exception when massive inflation, not expansion, resulted in a massive cost. The staff report notes that the city incurred $14,700 in outside consultant costs. but that PACREP has already paid more than $50,000 in permit and planning fees and toward those outside costs. So we're not asking the city to subsidize the project. We're simply asking the council to exercise the discretion that it has exercised before and grant a full waiver of these remaining inflation-driven permit fees. I'd like to finish by sharing a brief story, because I think it says a great deal about the relationship between PACREF and the city of Carmel throughout this project. During pre-construction, as we were waiting for permits, I was invited to City Hall for a meeting with the Planning Department. I assumed the meeting would be about the project, more questions. Instead, the planner explained that the purpose of the meeting was to apologize. They acknowledged that our permit processing had taken much longer than anyone had anticipated because of a backlog of projects, staffing shortages within the department, not because of anything PACREP had done. And then they said, and this is a quote, you're taking this remarkably well. And it's true. I think that says something really important about our relationship. Throughout this six-year project, there was never an us versus them. There was simply people on both sides just trying to navigate a crazy situation. COVID affected everyone. Construction inflation affected everyone. Staff shortages affected everyone. But in the end, PACREP absorbed thousands of dollars in additional carrying costs without complaint because we understood those challenges faced by all of us. And we believe, and we still believe, that we're partners in this. We're partners. So with respect, we ask the council to recognize these extraordinary circumstances and bring this wonderful project across the finish line. Thank you. And I'm available for questions if you have any of me at this time or later. Thank you.

We might want to wait. I think you've got some other speakers. Do you want to just do those as public comments? I was going to give you 10 minutes. You've got about four and a half minutes, five minutes left. Can I withhold them until the end? Okay. All right. We'll give you that time later. All right. Thanks. Do you have any, I guess we could ask him questions now. I'll just cut off his time at five minutes here. Do you want to ask him any questions now? You want to wait for public comment and then ask? I'll leave it up to you guys. Okay, let's take public comment. All right, public comments. How many people are going to talk? All right, got a handful. Go ahead. Who wants to go first? Carol in bubbles.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Council, staff. My name is Carol Hall. This is Bubbles. Carmel is blessed to have three historic performing arts venues, the Sunset Center, the Forest Theater, and the historic Golden Bath Playhouse. Two are owned by the city. The third is owned and operated by a nonprofit organization, us, that has served this community for more than 40 years. I personally have volunteered for 28 of those 40 years, hard to believe, at PACREP. The Golden Vow Playhouse is the only performing arts venue that faces city fees, fees driven almost entirely by unprecedented construction inflation. For decades, PACREP has accepted the responsibility of preserving and operating one of Carmel's most treasured historic landmarks on behalf of the community. We have maintained the building. We have restored the building. We have expanded arts education. We have welcomed hundreds of thousands of patrons through its doors, and we've done so without asking the taxpayers of Carmel to fund that work. In many ways, PACREP has served as a steward of one of the city's most important cultural assets, an asset that does not cost the city, but the opposite. It brings in regular ongoing revenue to the city. That stewardship benefits everyone. It brings visitors to Carmel, maybe too many. It supports our hotels, restaurants, and local businesses. It provides arts education for thousands of children. It creates opportunities for local artists. And it enriches the quality of life that makes Carmel such a remarkable place to live and visit. This isn't a request for special treatment. It's a request for equitable treatment. If the Golden Vow Playhouse were owned and operated by the city, these inflation-driven permit fees would not be an issue before you tonight. Previous councils recognized that the Golden Vow Playhouse deserved to be given dispensation because of the public benefit it provides. I respectfully ask this council to continue that tradition. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Carol. Bill?

Mayor Burns and members of the council, my name is Bill Doolittle. I happen to be on the board of PACREP, but I'm here simply to reaffirm some thoughts that Stephen Moore had regarding the project. This was certainly an example of unfortunate circumstances all coming together in a relatively short period of time. Over six years, The project itself didn't change that much, but the price of the project, construction costs and everything went way up. The city's charges are based more or less on the high end of those figures. And I'm simply here to say, asking the council to reconsider the charges in some fashion. And that would be appreciated consideration of that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Judy Profeta, council, mayor. I basically just kind of want to reaffirm what Carol said about just trying to see if we can ask for an equitable consideration as the other buildings that are historical buildings that provide so much for our city that we are just treated the same. I'm not a very good speaker. I get very choked up. Sorry. But PACREP has done so much for this community on their own without asking for any help from the city or the members of the community. And all we were asking is just want to reiterate what Carol said is just give us the same consideration that the Sunset Center has and They have a forest theater. You know, we do all this on our own. And the previous council felt that we didn't need to pay all these extra fees. And we just would like to have that same consideration that the previous council gave them. Do you have any questions? Sorry.

No questions yet. No questions now.

Thank you, Judy. Anyway, thank you very much. We really would appreciate your taking that into consideration.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Lee? We've got one hand up of Jeffrey Jackson, I think, after you. Is there somebody else on the phone? No, it's your turn. It's your turn now. Well, I was going to... There's one person, Jeffrey Jackson, who's got his hand up. I don't know who he is. Okay, he's on our board. He'll speak after you.

I was going to conclude.

Okay, would you like him to go first? That would be wonderful if you could allow that to happen. Absolutely can do that.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Jeffrey Jackson on Zoom. Go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mayor, members of the council. I'm Jeffrey Jackson. I'm a PACREP board member also and a member of this community. I want to thank you for your consideration today, and I apologize in advance for reemphasizing many of the points the other speakers have already brought up. But what I would like to speak to is one principle that I may believe is important to your decision today, and that's precedent. This request is not asking the council to create a new policy. It's asking you to follow precedents that previous city councils have already established. When PACREP completed phase one of the restoration of the historic Golden Bell Playhouse, the city waived 100% of the building permit fees. Later, the city established a fee waiver program to encourage investment in projects that benefited the community. And for this very PACREP project, the Council approved a partial fee waiver recognizing the historic significance and public value of the Golden Bough Theater. Those actions tell us something important. They demonstrate that previous Councils understood the importance of treating the non-profit Golden Bowl Playhouse in a manner consistent with the city's own historic performing arts venues. They also recognize that the PACREP contributes far more than the production of theatrical performances. During previous council discussions, the Mayor specifically spoke about the marketing, tourism, and economic value that PACREP brings to Carmel. For instance, after a 10 o'clock curtain Most of our audiences from out of town don't drive home. They stay overnight in our hotels. They dine in our restaurants and shop at our stores, all of which contributes to Carmel's economy. These are exactly the kind of visitors Carmel has always sought to attract. And if anything, those benefits have only grown. Today's presence, one of those moments when not only fairness, but precedent is important and matters. No one anticipated the global pandemic. No one anticipated five years of historic inflation. No one anticipated construction delays and soaring costs, which increased fourfold during our project. And I emphasize, without changing the project itself. Previous councils exercised their discretion approving fee waiver programs because they understood that fairness sometimes requires looking beyond a formula. This council has that same authority. You're not being asked to establish a new precedent. You're simply being asked to continue one. So I really thank you today for this opportunity.

Thank you, Jeffrey. Lee wants to wrap this up, so if any of the rest of you, I know there's some other PACREP people probably on the call. If you want to speak, now is the time to speak because we're going to close off the online speakers. I'll give you about 10 seconds. All right, Lee, come on up.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you, City Council, for allowing us to have this discussion this afternoon. I think as most of you know and was really discussed here by Brandon as well as Stephen, there was outstanding cooperation between the city and the PAC rep organization and all of our contractors and the people that had to work with us. There was a lot of work that went into this project, as you all know, but we are extremely happy with the result. As the chair of the board of directors and president of the organization, It's really my responsibility to ensure that we have appropriate funding in place and we did indeed have a huge capital campaign that was organized for this reconstruction of the theater and I'm very pleased to tell you that we did indeed achieve what we needed, plus during this long period of the construction project, as we saw the additional costs that needed to go into the completion of the theater, we were able to continue our fundraising and actually achieve the ability to pay the total amount that this turned into. Unfortunately, the $200,000 bill was a surprise to us. We as we've talked about had put in 50,000 for this phase of the project as well as funding previously for the first phase of the project and as Brandon pointed out it went back to 2019. But the $200,000 that's being discussed this afternoon is really a different challenge for us. The capital campaign was over. The funds that we raised for construction have been paid as promised. The loans that we've taken out have been paid down. and we have pledges for the rest of the project to complete it as it exists today. But there is no fundraising campaign at the moment waiting to pay for these unexpected permit fees that we are discussing. And if these additional fees are imposed, they're gonna come directly from future operating resources, resources that fund our productions, resources for arts education, resources for scholarships, resources for facility maintenance, and we are going to have to dig deep in order to pay this additional set of fees. So as we've discussed, We have already paid over $50,000 in fees. We would like the council, and we hope that you will consider our request and have an opportunity to work with us and figure out a path forward. We've been waiting now for over a year to get our completed certificate of occupancy and continue to produce all of the major productions that we look forward to as an ongoing project. organization.

Can you wrap up Lee?

Yes.

Thank you.

So as board president it's my responsibility to ensure that every designated donor dollar serve as what the donors had intended and I respectfully ask you to help us keep those dollars focused on serving the community rather than paying the inflation driven permit fees. Thank you all very much. Thank you.

Okay, Donna Jett raised her hand. Donna, can you make it quick?

Donna, go ahead. Hi, can you hear me now? We can. Okay, I'm sorry I got online late. I've been a volunteer at PACREP for 30 years with grandchildren. I myself have been in production, and I also attend the budget meetings. I know the city's budget is very tight. I would just ask that you consider any amount you think that might be realistic for you to reduce some of the fee and that you offer them possibly a payment plan in the future. Thank you so very much. I know you're not a bank, but just ask us to see what you can do to help. Thank you.

Thank you, Donna. All right, we're closing public comment, bringing it back for council deliberation. Anybody want to kick it off? Bob?

Well, I still have my question. And Steven, maybe you can come up and help with this. All of the speakers on behalf of the theater referred to precedent, like historic precedent, of things that had been done by previous city councils. And nobody used the word assurances, but I read that in your letter. But I don't have any evidence of that coming from city staff. TO ANY OF THOSE. COULD YOU ELABORATE ON THAT? SURE.

YEAH. YES, COUNCILMAN. IN THE 2018-2019, Brandon mentioned that we'd started this in 2018 with the concepts meetings, et cetera. And in 2019, we were in the throes of trying to put together the application. That was the last year of the city waiver program that waived all building and planning fees for any commercial business that upgraded their building. I had a meeting with Chip Rehrig at the time in late 2019. And I said, this program's ending. If you want, I can rush this in to make sure we're applicable under that program. And he kind of hummed and hawed and thought about it. And he said, no, I think given the council's past support, you don't need to worry about it. So I took that as an indication not to follow through with an application in December of 2019 and squeak in under that wire. Instead, it was well into 2020 that we ultimately filed, but it was a non-issue at that point. So that's the story.

Okay, so and then what everyone is referring to is that program in 2018 and 2019, which was, it was not just for The theater, it was for all commercial.

All commercial, yeah. I do remember that. Right, hotels, motels, et cetera. And I specifically asked Chip if we should rush our application in at least to get a date on it and was told not to worry.

Thank you, Stephen. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Stay up here. Stay up here. Okay, I'll stay up here. I know I have one, but I'll let the other counselors go first. so there were no other waivers ever given to PACREP previously separate from that program?

Yes, in 2011-12 when we did our first phase renovation, which was another total 2.5 million, all the waivers were waived by that council. That was the council under Mayor Sue McLeod and she was the mayor who justified her vote by all the marketing and revenue and goodwill that the organization brought in. There were other council members on that city council that mentioned the fairness issue between Sunset Forest and Golden Bow.

Do you remember what the vote was on that?

It was unanimous.

Okay. Somehow you paid. Did you think that there wasn't going to be any fees related to it because of Chip's comments?

I thought when we got to council that the council would follow previous councils and give us a full waiver. And instead, the previous council, not this council, decided on $13,000, I think was the amount, based on a percentage, if I recall correctly.

And that was $13,000 off of what?

off of the, at that point, it would have been, well, we ended up paying 50, so it was a total of about 63,000, little over 60,000 at that point, and we paid our 50 plus.

So at that point, you knew you were going to pay fees. It wasn't part of the old program.

Oh, no. We had realized at that point that it wasn't the fee program, and unfortunately, I mean, that was a rough time for the city, admittedly, because it was COVID and there was, you know, there was, you know, city had their own issues and it was revolving staff from every organization in town, including the city. It was a rough time for all of us.

So the fees at that point were 63 and you requested some relief and the council voted $13,000 reduction.

Yes, we had two voters. There were two members of the council who wanted to give a much larger, if not full waiver, but there were three that did not. Okay, but you got 13.

Yeah. And at that point, you're thinking, that's it. We're not going to get any more fees?

Well, at that point, and admittedly, I will admit my own naivety here. I am not a builder. I do not sleep with a valuation chart underneath my pillow. So that was an issue that I did not know was coming.

So this was a surprise. Yeah. Okay. Those are my questions.

All right.

Thank you. Thank you. All right. Anybody want to start a discussion? Starting discussions. Go ahead.

I will, just because I'm sort of the financial conscience sometimes. I don't mean that because we all share that role. I'm struggling, honestly, to get to yes on this. And I could go on about the quality of the building and the quality of the product that you put on and the quality of the contribution to our community and appreciation for really the philanthropic giants that are in the audience. And I mean all those things, and I really could go on for a long time, but I won't. because the job before me is to decide whether to waive some or all the fees that are due. And precedent and equity have been kind of consistently brought up. Those are the exact two things I came into this conversation to listen to and try to understand. And I'm concerned about establishing a precedent going forward. of waiving fees because it's an important piece of the city's revenue to cover costs that are directly incurred for specific projects, whatever those projects are. But also equity is, I was just sitting there thinking about it, you know, in the same timeframe, I can think of six projects you know, within 200 feet, 250 feet of my house. They were all residential projects that went through that same timeframe. Two of them historic. And, you know, I've gotten to know all those people over that period of time. And I think all of them had somewhat similar experiences. I don't know that they had 4X, you know, to spend what they thought they were going to. I know on my own projects in this town, I've underestimated initially what I thought it would cost and have doubled just that, just by my own underestimating. And I think that was the case for a lot of these folks as well. But then it was just also all the things that you encountered through the pandemic, through the inflation that followed. And if I give you relief, Why shouldn't they come back and also ask for relief? And there were many other larger projects that went on during that same time frame. I think of the Stilwell Hotel and some of the other hotel projects that were going on, which also can give an argument. They don't contribute to the arts, but they contribute quite a bit to transient occupancy tax. So I'll just be the kind of the hard-edged start on this and say I'm not in favor of the waiver. I'll listen to my colleagues who may be more compassionate about this and kind of go with the flow, but that's where I'll start.

Jeff? Yeah, Steven talked about the debate. when Steven was talking about the debate in 2020 about this resolution, we have 2020-074, he looked at me and I would hazard a guess that I was the one, I was one of the three that argued in favor of the smaller amount, $13,000 without even having gone back to watch the tape. Bob's looking for a relief from his hard edge and I'm not gonna be that relief. I agree, you know, Bob talked about the thing that resonates with me is Bob talked about the precedent that we set with other permits, other house permits, other commercial permits, and I agree that You know the city has sort of set out a way that we assess building fees in terms of the schedule We do it based on cost Some people have more costs some people have less project costs, but we this is how we assess you know this is the method that we have it we have chosen to assess fees as a percentage of the project and and I think that we you know those results, you know, are audited. And I think that that's what we, I think that that's the plan that we're on. And I think we should stay on the plan. I would comment, I would comment on, I would- Yeah, I would take a little bit of an issue with the $2.5 million to $14 million being driven to inflation, being driven exclusively by inflation. I think, Bob, you had a... I think that's almost a 6x times, not a 4x times in terms of the cost. And I remember when I was building my house, there are lots of opportunities to... upgrade the interior, do extra engineering on the interior to make the house nicer. And those come with increased city costs. And so I struggle with the notion that $2.5 million to $14 million was strictly due to inflation and not to a nicer interior, which required more inspections and more time put on by the city. So I take a little bit of issue with that, but I'm with Bob. Thank you. All right. Alessandra?

Thank you, Mayor. I certainly do share Bob and Jeff's concerns about the precedent that it sets, and certainly as far as other homeowners and other commercial owners. I'm willing to... Here's my idea. So the original fees back in 2020 were $52,000, and the council had voted to take about 25% off, which was $13,000. So in the name of just spirit and cooperation, because... Golden Bowl and has been a longtime partner in our community. If we look at the $200,000 and take 25% off, that would be $49,000, which would leave $147,486. And perhaps we could work a payment plan with the city. So just in the spirit of goodwill and compromise and putting that as a possible way that we can resolve this. And then ultimately, it would be up to a council in the future if we want to discuss how we're assessing fees and if somehow there's some unfairness or perceived places we could readjust that. That's certainly a future council discussion if council is interested in doing that. So I'm just going to throw that out there and see if the rest of the members here agree.

Could you repeat the last part of your statement there?

As far as assessing project costs?

The future discussion. Oh, yeah.

That's certainly something that we can bring up tomorrow or at the end of any regular Tuesday council meeting if we want to have a discussion on how we're assessing the fees, especially with the higher valuations. But that does not apply to this instance because we deal with the policy that we have in place when it covers the policy as it was at the time.

So your proposal is basically take $50,000 off

off this amount. Correct, it's about 25% reduction.

All right, thank you. Hans?

Yeah, I think this is, it's a challenging one. I can definitely see both sides of the argument, and I guess I'll try to make both sides of the argument and see where I end up, but I definitely appreciate the comments. You know, Bob, we've been trying to Well, this year we're digging into reserves to pay for CapEx and, you know, the budget is tight. So that's part of it. Um, this has been described to me as kind of like a, a windfall profit for the, for the city, basically that, you know, the work stayed the same and the cost just went up without the work changing. Um, And I have to say, like, after listening to this, I do get the sense that it's more complicated than that. Um, and so it sounds like the city staff at least believes that, um, the city spent more than 196,000 on third parties and staff time. Um, which is something to consider. I do have some concerns about the precedent setting nature. You know, it is a very large request. It's like 15 times the one that was approved previously. And, you know, one of the questions that kind of nags at me, we get into this when we talk about the, like the city council discretionary awards. And we often have this question about, basically, do we want to be in the business of you know, having the, having the city adjudicating which nonprofits qualify for a public subsidy from the, from the city. So I do think that on the one hand, there's a strong argument that like the cleanest policy is just to say, Hey, everybody who applies for a building permit, this is the right, this it's, it's a formula. It's in some ways equitable. Um, on the other hand, um, there is precedent for waiving some of these fees. So I haven't independently verified it. All I have is Steven's comment, but I don't know if you know this, Sue McLeod's council, are you aware that they. I don't know about that one.

I just have what I had in the staff report of the 13,000. Yeah. I don't know about that. I can't. Yeah.

Yeah. But people have been around. So, um, and then of course the last council waived some fees, um, I was also starting to think about what goes on in your mind is, well, if you start waiving fees for some nonprofits, then every nonprofit's going to come out of the woodwork. But then I started thinking, well, how many nonprofits actually own significant real estate here in town? And it's actually kind of a small list. It's the Carmel Foundation, I guess technically like the Catholic Church with the mission, some of the churches, the Carmel Art Association. So it's a little bit... The Women's Club too. The Women's Club, yeah. But it's not like an endless list. And then I was sort of thinking back to the housing element. And in the housing element, we're basically saying we're going to waive all the fees on... you know, projects that have like an affordable component, at least potentially on the inclusionary component. And we would even waive those fees to like a for-profit developer, right? And those are basically what we're saying is that's a public good, right? Affordable housing in our community is a public good. So then I started to think, well, the performing arts in our community is a public good. And there is some precedent going back even before the founding of the city. Like Devendorf, my understanding, is basically gave us a free lease and then eventually the land was given for the Forest Theater. This building that we're sitting in, I think it was 1912, Devendorf gave this site to the Episcopal Church. And so it is sort of there in the history. The other thing that I was thinking about was this notion that there are these three performing arts venues in town. Yes, the city owns the Sunset Center and it owns the Forest Theater. We don't own this building. But we do own the Forest Theater and they operate it for us. We give the Sunset Center, which is like a 501c3 nonprofit, owned by, the building's owned by the city. It's a 501c3 nonprofit. We give them $750,000 a year. The Forest Theater, owned by the city, operated by a 501 nonprofit. And we don't give them anything. So again, I'm kind of like I can see both sides of it. And I think maybe some kind of compromise I think I'd be in favor of.

You just made me think of something about Forest Theater. And the city has put funding into that with the, I don't know what you call it, but the scaffolding. When the transfer of the lease was taking place, the city did make an investment. But PACREP is probably going to invest, I'm guessing, about $250,000 in new lighting projects. which I don't know who owns it. I don't know who owns all that stuff when it happens, but they are making significant investments in Forest Theater to make it a world-class situation, and it's going to make it more difficult to raise that money if they have to pay this $200,000. But there's a lot of unknown things that happened here. I mean, first of all, the Sue McLeod-era council waived all the fees on a $2.5 million project. the comment from Chip, which doesn't hold a lot of weight with me given the fact that PACREP ended up paying fees, so they knew they weren't getting a free ride on that. But if they had turned in the application in 2019, there might not have been any fees. I think the points you made about the housing element is good as well. What's the public benefit? And there's definitely public benefit here. The Golden Bell Theater really goes back to the beginning of Carmel in terms of its original location on Ocean Avenue. And then it moved to its current location, burned down, had to be rebuilt. And they basically rebuilt it again. It would have been easier if there wasn't a building there probably. So I can see both sides of this too, Hans. And I think your analysis was pretty accurate. I really wish we could waive all of it. I have two council people, council persons who have made a really good case against that. We've had an offer on the table for 25%. I think with the investments that PACREP's about to make in a city-owned property, and I think we give Sunset Center more than we give them a grant, but we also are paying down a loan on the property. And then we also do other maintenance, like a fire pump breaking that was 300 and some thousand dollars, and we just have to pay it. So if you look at that, but it is, this is not a city-owned property. I mean, I would feel like we haven't done justice to this if we don't give at least 50% back, really, if you look at all the factors that just got brought up. That's $100,000. So let's go around the table, the dais one more time and see what people think, given all that's come out. You want to start, Jeff? Have you changed your opinion? Go this way. Hans?

Do you remember the, I think it was in the packet, but do you remember the formulation that got to the 13,000? Yeah. Can I answer?

You mind if I answer your question? Sure. The 13,000, so if you look at the resolution, If you look at the resolution in that packet, it says approve waiving 50% of the building permit fees for evaluation for approximately $13,000. So when this came to us in 2020, it was presumed that the value of the fees would be $26,000. So the council thought, and since I'm listed here, the council surely thought that 50% of $26,000 was $13,000, and we settled on that number as a compromise.

For some reason I had it in my mind that the formula was that you would take the total amount and then you would back out the amount that you're spending on third parties and it was just the staff time that was 50%.

I think Stephen, so my recollection is that Stephen is right. There was a discussion like this one on the council about what to do and 50% was in the middle. And that's how we got there. And then the cost of the project apparently, and I didn't know this until now, the cost of the project was apparently $65,000. And so $13,000 was 20%. Instead of being 50% of $26,000, it was 20% of the ballooned $65,000 in permit fees. So to Alessandra's 25% calculation, that really isn't right because the original number was 50% was what we had decided on the dais. But it turned out that $13,000 was 20% of the total cost, which turned out to be apparently $65,000.

But if I'm not mistaken, at that point, no one knew that the project was going to balloon to $14 million.

No, this is a different, this is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they were acting like that was it. Let's take care of these fees. Yeah, I'll let Hans finish. Go ahead.

Yeah, no. So you're talking about like $100,000-ish, right? Half of the 196.

Yeah, but that's not... Sorry.

No, go ahead.

I was going to say, you know, our conversation in 2020 was about a $25,000 bill. There's a big difference between spending 10 minutes on the dais and giving an applicant, a good applicant, a $13,000 break on a project and giving them a $100,000 break. Those are significantly different. And I don't know if the spirit of... compromise would have existed on the dais if it had been a $200,000, if it had been a $200,000 conversation and not a $25,000 conversation.

And if I could just add one thing, I'm so sorry, but that could be the reason that's so much less than 2020. Remember this had multiple iterations. So this was when the scope was smaller. So this is the original project. Yeah.

Yeah. So again, we're, how much are we, basically borrowing from reserves this year in the budget. It's like two point something million. About two and a half. Yeah. Now granted that money is money that, like some of it's money that was supposed to be spent on capital projects in the past that wasn't spent and we're just going to spend it now. So I've always sort of a little bit disagreed with the, what's out there in the water in the public that we're like, massively going into reserves, but it's fair enough. And so that definitely is in the back of my mind. When I think about the actual budget, I'm actually fairly confident that we're not sitting here being like, we're expecting this $196,000 to come in. I think we're just taking last year and then saying we'll put 2% on top of that. So I don't think it's like a budget buster in that sense, which is good. So yeah, I could go with, I could potentially go with the 50. I think it's the, to me, the difference, I think Bob's point is right about, he's got neighbors that have, there's six neighbors around him. They were all going through the inflationary period as well. I think that In my mind, I think the difference is the fact that it's a public good. It's like the affordable housing. It's the performing arts in Carmel. It's sort of a pillar of the community. And so to me, that's kind of what I'm hanging my hat on is why it's different than that. And so I could go up to 50 if there was appetite, but I could also be fine at 25.

Alessandra? Let's just go around.

I think I pretty much echo what Hans said. Could go up to 50. I'd rather that we do keep it at 25, but if it looks like the rest of the council would rather increase the amount. And it is, you know, looking at performing arts versus if it just had been a resident, as Hans mentioned.

Bob? Yeah, I started by saying it's my job to create the hard edge so that others can soften it. Well, it's not exactly what I said, but that's kind of how this process works for me. What has come out in the subsequent conversation is that there is a precedent for some discount, and that precedent could be argued was 25%, or it could be argued it was 50%, and that's fine, but there is precedent for a discount. So I'm OK with that. Hans's argument on public benefit is real, and particularly his comments on the housing element. Now, yes, we agreed to waive fees for affordable housing because the state kind of had a weapon at our head. But nonetheless, we did. And that's just my opinion, probably not shared. So I can get to a 50% discount on this, which would probably get us over the line.

Jeff? Yeah, I can get to 20% or 25%, but I can't get to 50%.

All right. Well, I've seen a precedent for 100% back in the early 2000s. So I think it's pretty easy to get to 50%, actually. So if we have any appetite for going to 50%, I sort of sense that we do. Does somebody want to make a motion for that? So Mayor, I'm just going to jump in procedurally before our attorney does.

Just so you know, you're not adopting a resolution tonight. We don't have one in front of you. We brought the conversation for you. You will need to adopt this via resolution because fees are tied to resolutions. So we'll take away whatever direction you have tonight. and we'll bring it back to you at the next meeting. So can we make a vote? Please give us your direction, give us your findings, the reasons you're granting a waiver, all of that we can weave into the resolution, which we'll bring back at the next meeting. And you need us to do an official vote? Yes, please.

Okay. Mayor, my recommendation would be you can do a motion. The motion should be to bring back a resolution. So someone could make a motion. whatever it is you feel you want to include in the resolution, vote on that, and then it'll be brought back to you in the form of a resolution. The reason for that is that the fees were set by resolution, so if you're going to waive part of them, you need to do that by resolution.

All right. Anybody want to make that resolution?

Yeah. My motion, it's not a resolution, I move to waive $100,000 from this amount due and instruct staff to come back with a resolution to that effect. I would also instruct, as part of this motion, staff to have a conversation with the applicant on any interest in a payment plan That's it. Okay. That's a good motion.

I'll second it.

I just speak to it. Go ahead. Thank you. You know, I'm still... I'm still troubled, you know, I'm reading this text, approve waiving 50% of the building firm fees for evaluation of approximately $13,000. And I appreciate that we, you know, I think it's good that we reach back for precedent and we look at what, you know, the thinking that has gone through previous sort of threads of this process. But I can't stop thinking about the fact that when we pass this in 2020, the amount of the fee was $26,000. And for me, you know, the conversation about waiving 50% of $26,000 is significantly different than the conversation about waiving 50% of $200,000, especially with respect when the $200,000 has already been incurred by the city. You know, this is sort of a, you know, this is a... do what you want and ask forgiveness later sort of question. And I think that the context in which this is coming up matters. And I think that the validity of the precedent, both via the context in which this is coming up and the amount of the precedent matters. And I think that we are, so what I'll say is, I think that we are going down a path that we should not be going down.

All right, we have a motion, we have a second. Any other discussion? Roll call, please.

Council Member Barron?

No.

Council Member Booter?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Delves?

Yes.

Council Member Drammel? Yes. Mayor Byrne?

Yes.

Motion carries 4-1.

All right, thank you everybody for that difficult discussion. Appreciate everybody's efforts to get to a decision.

Mr. Mayor, before we start our next item, I was wondering, would you be willing to change the order and do the Mills Act first because I'm going to need to recuse myself on the last item?

I would definitely be willing to do that.

Thank you.

The rest of the council okay with that? We're just going to reverse the last two items.

Jeff?

We're going to do Mills Act first and then the Verizon settlement last because Councilperson Draymoff has to recuse herself from the last one. I would love to do that. We're going to take a bio break. We'll come back at 5 o'clock, please. Thank you, everybody.

I wasn't expecting you to have a video. I was thinking of our time. Thank you. Yeah.

I think if that ever happens, you can send it to me and I can make it available.

All right. So we've got fancy chairs, so put them on. They're more specific. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I think she came this way to the hotel thinking, like, this is the parking lot, nobody can hear us.

And in fact, it was the bathroom. Yeah. They've got to be more.

That's okay. I don't remember.

I did it one time when I was, like, while I've been sitting here. The mayor had to come and get me.

Could I get some? Could I get some? Okay, we're back in session at exactly 5 o'clock as we said. And we've reversed the order of our last two items and the council agreed with that. So we're going to do item 10 on the agenda. Provide direction to staff regarding the issuance of notices of non-renewal for all existing Mills Act contracts within the city of Carmel by the sea. And I have a very short presentation for you. Okay, Brandon has a very short presentation.

No PowerPoint again. So we are coming back to council for discussion on non-renewal of the 19 existing Mills Act contracts within the city. If you recall, October 6th, 2025, the council had a meeting. At that meeting, you discussed the Mills Act policy. Coming out of that conversation and in that meeting, council actually tried to take an action that day to direct staff to go ahead and begin with non-renewals of all the contracts. However, because of how the item was agendized, you couldn't actually take that action that day. Council then said, okay, we'll come back at a future date. We're obviously not going to make it in time because all of the contracts renewed January 1st, and that's tied to the renewal date. So we're back now this year to seek that direction. Council direct us to come back and agendize it in such a way at a future meeting that you could give us explicit direction to begin non-renewals of these contracts. Just a little bit of mechanics, how it works. Essentially what happens is if you direct us, we will then initiate the process of non-renewal.

In order to do the renovations, we had to kind of walk a very fine line between making something that was not, you know, we could have gotten less, we could have gotten more.

To me, that's the- Not reflect, like it doesn't, in plain English, it does not reflect the declining scale of the tax break. It doesn't say anything about, you know, paragraph five, which, you know, the effect of notice of non-renewal does not talk about the step down of the tax abatement. And so clearly that is found somewhere else. Now you say, Brandon, that that is found in, you say that that is found in the individual contract. I believe it's in their specific contracts, yeah.

And I don't have that in front of me.

Okay.

Jeff, what's your thinking?

I mean, we're here to... Well, so Mr. Room brings up a good point about contracts. So I've sort of, I have this spreadsheet in front of me. So he brings up a good point about contracts 12, 13, 14, and 15, which are all within the realm. And for that matter, and actually for that matter, contracts... 8, 9, 10, 11, 2, which all expire in the next 10 years, give or take. So I'm not sure that I necessarily have the will. Will is not the right word. Desire is not the right word. Somewhere in there, I'm not sure I have the... And I only speak for myself. Those contracts, since we're close to the end, I kind of think we should just leave them. I don't bounce this idea off of anybody. You're looking at me with a scrunched up face. And then the other ones, I'm much less inclined to leave. You know, Ms. Strom, you know, we had a conversation a year ago about the sort of economic impacts on the city, the school district, and the county. And Ms. Strom's contract is $186,000, $182,000. And that's less of an impact than, you know, than the sundown lodge above it, which is $850,000. Or, you know, or some of the others, like I would call them the top five. So I have a... Yeah, I'll stop talking.

Can I just try to clarify something with Brandon?

Yeah, go ahead.

So Brandon, when it says contract term... That column envisions inclusive of all these potential renewal years? That's like the 20-year horizon. So you don't have a column on here that's just like when the base contract ends?

I do. Oh, in the base contract, yes. So if you look at the columns, there's a column that says date of council agreement. That's when it started. So let's take line item number one. This will be really illustrative. So number one, the Esperanza Carmel commercial. So the date of council agreement was 2023.

Can I make a request that Nova maybe puts this on the screen for people who are watching? The update list? Yeah, the update list, the attachment that's in the packet, please. Page 169, Nova. Yeah, page 169.

Great. Thank you. What Bob would prefer to do, which is just let the contract ride out for 10 years. Renew it every year. No.

So at some point it doesn't get. We can't hear you yet, Paul. Can you unmute yourself?

I call that my new four letter word mute. Yes. Yes.