City Council - Regular Meeting

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Hello. Hello all and welcome to the Carperia City Council meeting. Today is Monday, January 26th and we will start with a roll call, please. Council member Mayor here, council member Namura here, Vice Mayor Sorsino here, council member Clark here, and Mayor Alakan here.

And if you are able and willing, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

We'll now move on to any agenda modifications. Uh, I have a request. Uh, I would like to request that we add to the agenda that the city of Carpondria make a formal statement standing with the city of Minneapolis and the communities impacted by recent federal immigration enforcement activities and to observe a moment of silence in memory of Renee Good and Alex Prey. This would allow for our city to publicly express solidarity with our fellow communities and affirm the city's commitment to community safety, civil liberties, as well as to acknowledge the tragic loss of life that has been happening during these recent federal ICE operations. Second.

We have a first and a second. Um, all those in favor. I thank you for bringing that up, council member, mayor

and Mayor Alone through the mayor. we just have to make some specific findings um to add something onto the agenda um um after the agenda has been posted. So, if I can do that um I'd appreciate that. So, um there is a process to do this. Um it does require twothirds uh vote of the council to add an agenda item after um the 72 hours has passed. Um we've satisfied that requirement. The second um requirement is that we have to show that there's a um an urgency or a subsequent need um to place this on the agenda. And to make that finding, you have to show that the need for this item came up after the agenda was posted. And here um based on what council member mayor has requested, um the ICE raid in question where there was a a US citizen who was killed um happened occurred on Saturday. And so that was after our agenda was posted. So I think we can satisfy that finding as well.

Thank you. In terms of having the moment of silence, should we have it now or should we What would be your recommendation? Um Mayor Alarone, council members, um now works. It's really up to you and council member mayor who requested the item where that go in the agenda. Um, it probably does make sense at the beginning of a meeting because we have a lot of proclamations, etc. So, it could be um, but it could go anywhere and we'll just remember to want to allow public comment too as we before we introduce. Okay. So, we'll introduce the item, have some public comment. Okay. And then I'm comfortable with adding uh starting our meeting with that moment of silence. [music]

Okay. So, we'll introduce the agenda item. As council member mentioned in her statement, and I will open up any public comment period, I do not have any speaker slips and would invite anyone in the audience to um have any comments or share any comments if you'd like. Seeing none. Oh, yes. Hi, Teresa.

Hi, everybody. um we have just been feeling this really heavy in our hearts and so we just are thankful for you for bringing that up. Um I think we're expected to go about our lives as you know just any other day and um we certainly were feeling the heaviness of it and we appreciate it being acknowledged. Thank you.

Hello council and member. I'm Jessica Ramirez and I just wanted to thank you council member mayor for bringing this to the agenda as well. We have a few comments we want to make later and they are around this current thing that's happening right now. And so it feels very nice that our council is able to really you know have a moment of sin and silence and focus on the travesties that are happening in our community. So thank you. Seeing no other public comments, uh, or speakers in the in the room, do we have anyone on Zoom? Mayor, we have no raised hands for this item.

I will go ahead and close public comment and I'll ask Council Member Mayor if you'd like to kick us off the moment of silence. I think that's fitting.

Thank you. Um, so to stand in solidarity with another community as we have also experienced, you know, this deep impact of the ICE operations, but to truly to recognize the tragic loss of life that is occurring during these raids, would please take a moment of silence. Thank you all. Thank you to the council for having participated in this and for the rest of those in the chamber meeting rooms. Um just as Teresa mentioned, I think this is a very heavy um topic for so many of us in the nation. So thank you. We will now begin uh move on with the agenda with introductions, proclamations, and presentations. And we will um provide a proclamation proclaiming February 2026 as Black

History Month in the city of Carperia. I would like to first open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone um on Zoom? Mayor, we have no raised hands. Okay. I will go ahead and close public comment and bring it back to the council for a motion. I move to adopt the proclamation proclaiming February 2026 as Black History Month in the city of Carpentria. Second. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I I. And we will begin reading the proclamation beginning with Council Member Mayor.

Whereas Black History Month is an annual observance in February dedicated to recognizing and celebrating the invaluable contributions and achievements of African-Americans throughout the history of the United States. And whereas the national theme for Black History Month 2026 is a century of black history commemorations, marking the 100th year of national efforts to recognize black history and culture, focusing on how these commemorations have shaped identity, fostered pride, advanced equality, and transformed the status of black people in America and the world. And whereas 2026 marks a century of national commemorations of black history dating back to the early efforts of Carter G. Woodson and others who institutionalized the teaching, study, dissemination, and commemoration of black history through the founding of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History in 1915. And

whereas as part of the global African diaspora, people of African descent in the United States have viewed their role in history as critical to their own development and that of the world and observed the milestones in their struggle to gain their freedom and equality. And whereas when Carter G. Woodson established Negro History Week in 1926. He sought to turn the commemoration into a far-reaching, organized, and sustained effort to transform how blacks were viewed themselves and how the world viewed them. And whereas in 1976, President Gerald Ford became the first president to issue a message recognizing Black History Month. And in 1986, Congress passed public law 99-244 designating February as Black History Month. And whereas these efforts have made February the month when Black History finds its way into not only schools, but also into cultural heritage sites, public squares, workplaces, houses of worship, and homes across the land and across the oceans. Now therefore, the city council of the city of Carperia does hereby recognize and honor Black History Month 2026, embracing the theme, a century of black history commemorations, and honors the founders of Black History Month and urges all to explore the impact and meaning of black history and life commemorations in transforming the status of black peoples in the modern world. And with that, I'd love to invite up Diane Travis Teague to share a few words and then we will um provide you with a proclamation. Thank you, Mayor Alakon, members of the city council, community members, friends, and neighbors. On behalf of the Black History Celebration Committee, thank you for this meaningful proclamation and for your continued

commitment to honoring Black History, not just as history, but as living, evolving contributions to our shared communities. This year's national theme, a century of Black History commemorations, reminds us that remembrance is an act of care. For generations, communities have gathered to ensure black stories, leadership, creativity, and resilience are seen, valued, and carried forward. We are deeply grateful to Carpenteria for standing with us in that commitment, recognizing that when we honor black history, we strengthen our collective understanding, empathy, and sense of belonging. Thank you for this recognition, for your partnership, and for your help in cultivating a community where history is acknowledged with respect, purpose, and hope. Thank you.

We invite you to take a photo with us front. [applause] over here.

Excuse me. Do you have anything scheduled for events for this week? Thank you, Councilman. He was asking about the schedule of Black History events. They will be published in the Santa Barbara Independent and there will also be broadcast on KETT. So, please feel free to join us. Thank you. [clears throat] We will now move on to the second item on our agenda, which is a mayoral recognition awarded to our very own city clerk, Brian C. Barrett, for achieving the master municipal clerk designation. I would like to first open up the floor to any public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone in the audience? Seeing none, do we have anyone via Zoom?

Uh, we have no raised hands. there. Okay, I'll go ahead and officially close public comment and I will ask for a motion. Um, I move um to adopt the mayoral wait I don't know that we need to actually do we need a motion for mayoral recognition. Um, Mayor Alakon uh council, excuse me, um, Vice Mayor Solarseno through the mayor. We don't necessarily need one, but it doesn't hurt either. So, well, let's just let's do the most. All right. We're we're we're very grateful to have you. So, I move uh to adopt this mayoral recognition to city clerk Brian C. Barrett for achieving the master municipal clerk designation.

Second. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I I'd like to read the what is on the certificate. So, it says the city of Carperia commends and congratulates city clerk Brian C. Barrett on achieving the master municipal clerk designation, the highest professional honor awarded by the International Institute of Municipal Clerks. This accomplishment reflects exceptional dedication to public service, professional excellence, and a steadfast commitment to the principles of effective and ethical municipal government. The city of Carperia is grateful for your leadership and service to our community. Thank you, Brian.

Um, is can I make a few comments? Uh, I just want to make sure that the audience understands that uh, a lot of the work that Brian does as city clerk is invisible to to a lot of people, but it also is fundamental to the city running as well as it does. I've been honored to know Brian since before I was on council, and so I've been able to see him in action in a lot of different ways that serve the city just so well. So, we are so proud of your your dedication to your own professional development to making sure that you're the absolute best city clerk that this city could could have. So, thank you so much for all that you do.

Well, thank you very much, mayor and city council members. I'm very um appreciative of the recognition and I'm very honored and uh this is just one step in the whole process. This isn't the end all. There's still so much to learn uh in the city clerk profession and I look forward to continuing in it with the city of Carperia. Thank you very much. [applause]

And we love if you'd take a photo with us as well. Well done. [applause] We will now move on to our third agenda item which is a presentation by a representative of Chevron USA Inc. about the carpenterial oil and gas facility decommissioning.

Good evening and uh thanks for the opportunity to address city council. My name is Mark Corte Nahabedian and I'm a public affairs adviser at Chevron. Uh we wanted to take time to acknowledge uh that we've reached an important milestone for the decommissioning of the Carperia oil and gas processing facility. We now have the regulatory approvals in hand for the demolition permit that's required to start work uh start the first phase of work for this important project and work is set to begin tomorrow morning. Um these initial work activities are going to include the removal of select trees in the southeast corner of the property uh for and will endure for about the next month or so followed by the demolition of the surface facilities including tanks and vessels thereafter. Um all of our neighbor notifications have been provided um and FAQs have been uh developed in partnership with the city's PIO um to be uploaded to the city's web page to help address community questions about the project. uh we place the highest priority on the health and safety of our workforce and the protection of the environment and the communities in which we operate. This morning, just on the other side of the fence here, we held our safety and awareness training for our personnel who will be involved in this first phase of work um including our staff contractors um and we had representatives from the city of Carperia um all in attendance. All of the plans, mitigation measures, and safeguards associated with this phase of work are approved and ready to be implemented. This collaborative effort in process for more than 5 years has been instrumental in ensuring that the proposed project is implemented in a manner that minimizes and appropriately mitigates potential environmental impacts. We appreciate the time, the expertise and perspective that each interested party has contributed to this significant endeavor and we are grateful for the efforts to strengthen the project, develop effective mitigations and respond to feedback to ensure the work is done responsibly. I want to

acknowledge in particular the efforts of the city as the lead agency in the SQA process and the diligence and care of your staff in making this project a reality. Many people have been instrumental in reaching this milestone and I'd like to recognize a few of them. Nick Bob, Janette Gant, Cody Sergeant, Brian Barrett, everything coming up Brian tonight, Shay Darington, John Alassen, Ryan Kint, Michael Ramirez, Jalisa Bionese, Luis Perez, Randy Gillespie, and their teams for the years of dedication, review, and partnership to ensure the quality of this project. We're proud to have reached this important milestone together and are here available tonight to answer your questions or community questions that uh anyone might have related to the start of work and as the project progresses to decommission and remediate this long-standing site. Thank you.

Thank you. Like to open it up for any questions from the council. No questions. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I will go ahead and open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Uh, I'm going to give anyone in the audience a moment. Okay, seeing none, do we have anyone on Zoom? Uh, mayor, we have no raised hands. I'll go ahead and officially close public comment and I will bring it back to the council for any final questions or comments and a motion, please.

I move to receive and file the presentation on the California oil and gas facility decommissioning. Second. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I I We will now move on to public information reports and announcements. Do we have a representative from our first district supervisor's office? Seeing no one in the audience, I'll look to staff. Do we have any update in terms of whether or not they'll be attending today?

Yeah, mayor. I hadn't uh heard otherwise and so if we could perhaps postpone this in case I run in late and I will do my best to find out here in the next few minutes whether that's what's happening.

Thank you. Just making sure with the rest of the council. Okay, we'll go ahead and postpone this agenda item and we will move on to the city manager report. And mayor, I I did just look down and see a text message that uh Daisy should um be arriving any second. It also sounds like she's listening because she said go ahead and do your city manager report first. So, uh first I'll just say I want to appreciate the council for uh recognizing Brian uh this evening. We are very much a a team. Um, and while not necessarily in a sense of being competitive to outdo one another, uh, we do like awards and certificates, mainly because they help inspire others to to to work hard and strive for bigger and better things. And so, uh, thank you and thank you to to Brian for all the work that he put in there. Uh, as as is been custom, I'll be joined by a few different people and helping me provide different parts of this report. Uh for those listening in at home, just want to let you know that we don't always cover everything in the city manager report. So I encourage people to read that and there's also helpful links in there. And then of course for the council, if there's any item of particular interest, happy to to agendaize that for a future meeting and bring that back. Uh and so with that, I'll start off by uh introducing assistant city manager Ryan Kent to give some city employee updates.

Thank you, Mr. Ramirez. Council. Uh, Mayor, just a brief update on some current recruitments. Uh, we continue to move forward on several part-time positions to support parks, recreation, and aquatics operations. Um, for the aquatic instructor, coach one, two, and three positions. Candidates have been selected and are currently pending some background screening. Um, we also have the lifeguard program coordinator one, two, and three recruitment that remains open at this time. Uh, the deadline to apply for that position is February 4th. We encourage those interested to continue to apply. Um, new employees. I want to note a recent hire. Uh, David Russo joined the city as a parks and facilities attendant. He's part-time and he began work on January 26, 2026. Um, we're really glad to have him on board already providing a great impact to the city. And then I wanted to just provide a quick update on employee leadership and development. And as Michael mentioned, uh we have a great staff here is always seeking uh professional development. Assistant engineer Josephina Archiga uh recently completed the resident engineers academy. This is a 16 module training program provided by the California local technical assistance program. The academy focuses on real real world project delivery and construction contract management including pre-construction planning, scope development, legal requirements, payments, environmental compliance, and labor standards. Completion of this program definitely strengthens Hosaphina's technical capacity and supports the city's ability to effectively manage state and federally funded construction projects. So, congratulations to Hosaphina for achieving this. And that's it for me.

If there are no questions, I will bring up our community development director, Nick Bob, to give us some updates on development applications. Good evening, Mayor Eric, council members. I've got a handful of updates here in this this week's city manager report that I wanted to share with you. Uh right off the top of the list here was just to remind everybody that the draft environmental impact report or EIR for the Surfliner in project has been released uh for a 45day comment period. So that 45day comment period started last week on January 22nd and it will run through March 9th. Uh we'll also be holding a meeting with the city's environmental review committee which will provide an overview of the project and an opportunity for the public to ask questions and provide feedback on the draft EIR. That meeting scheduled for February 18th at 5:30 p.m. here in the council chambers. And the draft EIR and all the attachments and supporting documents are up on our city website where anybody can view them, download them, print them if they want to. We also have paper copies that folks can look at but not take home uh here at Carpenters City Hall and at the Carpenter Library. And if folks have questions, they can email our principal planner, Mindy Fog, at mindf as in Frankfurt.gov. Uh we've also recently seen a number of permits and business license applications for some new businesses that'll be coming online here in the near future in the downtown. And I want to highlight just a couple of those. Uh so building permits have been issued or are ready to issue uh for both the Palms renovation including the um half of the former Waka Fresh Space which will be a

new kind of cafe deli associated with the Palms and then also Arie's rooftop bar which is the second floor space overlooking Lynen Avenue at the new Lynen Square development. Uh so construction will be underway at both of those soon if not already. Uh and ARES will be coming before the city council at an upcoming meeting to request approval of their ABC license for the bar use. Uh we've also been in uh early communications with the new tenant for the former Karp kitchen space at 4945 Carpenter Avenue. Uh it'll be called Coyote's Little Market and it'll be a meat and seafood market along with local dry goods and kitchen essentials. So, they're going through the business licensing process with us currently and they hope to be open later this spring. And then finally, um, at the former Giovanni space there at the corner of Lynen and Carpenter Avenue, we've been working with the new tenant there, which will be Ohhigh Roti Du. Uh, they're working on a cleanup of the property and they've got building permits that are in plan check right now and I expect they're targeting an opening date later this spring as well. I know we've already heard from uh Mark with Chevron, so I don't need to remind you that work will be starting there this week. Uh but I do want to make quick mention of items coming up on a couple of our other public hearing agendas. So later this week on Thursday uh here at in the council chambers at 5:30 p.m. the architecture review board will be completing a final review of the Burgess Burke residence remodel and addition project at 748 Maple Avenue. Uh also looking at the Cypress Apartments renovation which is at 49565th Street for final review and they'll be doing a preliminary review of the Surf Cottages 3-unit condominium project at 47167th Street. Uh that project was formerly

known as the GoDaddy condominium project under a previous owner and it's now been uh purchased and and given a refresh and and so it's coming back through the process again. Uh that ARB meeting again will be at 5:30 here in the council chamber. Agenda and staff reports are up on the city website already. And then next Monday, a week from tonight, uh the planning commission will be holding their first meeting of the new year. And they'll be taking a look at a new proposed single family residence for 333 Lynden Avenue as well as a proposed wireless communications facility at 912 Lynen Avenue. and the agenda and staff reports will be up for that item later this week. And that concludes my items unless you have any questions.

I just have one question and it might just be because I'm new and I don't know the answer, but who is on the city's environmental review committee? uh through the mayor, council member, mayor. The ERC is made up of the community development director, the public works director, the public works environmental programs manager, um blanking on our our city biologist, and we have uh one member of the public at large, which currently is Jenny Slutter. Thank you. Can you actually expand on a little bit of what the public could expect for that meeting?

Sure. You're talking about at the ERC meeting.

So uh at the ERC meeting, the uh environmental consultant team will provide an overview of what the EIR looks at. So they'll provide a project description uh summary of the proposed or the anticipated impacts and any proposed mitigation measures as well as some discussion of the alternatives that were considered. Uh from there the public will have an opportunity to ask questions or make comments on the EIR. So, it's it's an opportunity both for folks to learn more about the project to help inform maybe their, you know, their ongoing research into the project and um uh and give them, you know, some some additional resources to find out more about the project without having to read the entire, you know, 400 pages themselves if they if they want to. Um, and it's also an opportunity for folks to give verbal, you know, con uh, verbal comments on the adequacy of the ER. So, we take those just the same as we would a written letter. We make notes of them, record them, and then respond to them in the future revisions to the EIR. Um, and then lastly, the ERC members themselves have an opportunity to ask clarifying questions or provide any input or suggestions on on any revisions or refinements to the document. So, it's mostly anformational meeting. It's not meant to be um a meeting where there's any kind of approval or denial. It's they're an advisory board in this case to the planning commission much like the architecture review board is. So, they're going to provide comments and feedback and that's carried on to the planning commission who will ultimately be responsible for deciding whether or not to accept the ER.

Thank you. That was really helpful. Are there any other questions on behalf of council?

Thank you. Uh, mayor, just wanted to um talk about the Prop 218 assessment ballots that went out. Those were uh mailed out on January the 9th and property owners have begun receiving those ballots already. I was just informed that we've received a little over a thousand uh ballots already for the landscape maintenance district and approximately a hundred for the Winter Burn District. uh ballot uh or property owners may return those ballots by mail [snorts] uh at any time. And to be counted, the ballots have to be received by the city clerk no later than the close of the public hearing uh to be held here on March 9th. Uh and staff continues to assist property owners with with questions related to the assessment districts, the ballot procedures, applicable timelines, and so forth. Um so people can go to carperacca.govassessment GVassessment districts or they can email staff directly at assessment districts@carperaca.gov and I can assure folks that that doesn't go to some generic inbox. It actually goes to this gentleman right here, assistant city manager Ryan Kent and also uh Jalisa Biones and they're able to help people in both English and Spanish. And while I can't uh really uh comment on the type of responses we've been receiving, I can say that um overwhelmingly people have felt better about whatever decision they were going to make after talking to staff when they've had questions. So I really encourage people to do that um and to make sure you vote. They're all u pre what do you call that? prepaid postage envelope and uh encourage people to return those. Uh also before I actually hand it off to Brian to talk about a new uh management system that we have, I'll just touch base on a few things. Parks, recreation, and community services. So there's an

Aloha Friday luau uh for AgeWell. It's an annual dance and it will be held on Friday, February 13th at 5:30 p.m. at the Veterans Memorial Hall. It's a free community event with uh food, tropical music, dancing, and great company. RSVP is requested and the number to do that is 8058811279. Again, 8058811279 or by emailing agewell@carperaca.gov. So, hope to see folks out for that. And then the lecture series, uh, they're going to be doing another one. And I believe they've done this one before and it was well attended an advanced care directive workshop in uh collaboration with Hospice of Santa Barbara. So Agewell will host a two-part advanced care directive workshop on February 5th and the 12th uh from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at the Veterans Hall uh meeting room. and it'll guide participants through planning ahead by outlining medical wishes and designating a a health care representative in the event they're unable to communicate for themselves. So, happy to answer uh questions on the assessment or any of the recreation items. And if not, I have um Brian left to make a few comments.

Great. One question about the assessment districts. Um so, the March 9th hearing, that's the deadline for people to send them in. Are there going to be reminders from the city just so that people, you know, if who might not have turned it in yet will be continuously encouraged to do so?

Yeah, Vice Mayor Sorenson, thank you for that question. I was actually uh having a chance to talk with our city attorney just beforehand and of course uh for people who don't know it's the process is very strict and requires the city to maintain a strictly educational stance without being um uh any way or advocacy uh one way or another. So I she uh promised to have a conversation with me after about the most appropriate way to continue to inform people after. So, we look forward to I'll report back to you all at the next meeting. And if there's any other questions,

I will turn it over to uh we'll end with our master uh to talk a little bit about our new agenda management system.

Thank you, Michael. I'm pleased to announce that we've gone our new agenda management system uh Civic Plus has gone live now on our city website. So, uh, if you'd like to look at this screen, I'll go ahead and kind of walk you through what, uh, a city council meetings, uh, and other plan commission, etc., uh, will be posted and what it will [music] look like. So, starting here on our agenda page. So, right now, you still see, um, well, we've got a note here explaining the whole transition process. We still have the regular uh, this is our old agenda management system, Granicus. So right now the architectural re review board meeting of this Thursday will be the last uh public meeting through the Granicus portal. It'll be streamed and posted through Granicus. And then beginning next uh Monday, the February 2nd planning commission will be in the new system uh Civic Plus. So if you scroll down below Granicus on the agenda page, this is the new Civic Plus agenda management system. So, the nice thing with this is you can select meetings by a date range. You can hone in by I like you just want to see city council or one of the other boards and committees just focus on that. Uh you can also it has a very robust search engine. So, not only will it search through the agendas, but all the um meeting materials as well for any particular keywords you're looking for. Uh so as I noted the February 2nd planning commission next Monday will be the very first one that will be streamed and posted through the system. Um I posted the uh January 12th council meeting just so everybody could kind of see what the actual agenda would look like. This is just again just a sample right now. Uh let's see. Okay. Okay. So, here you've got kind of the bones of the agenda, the sections, and then down here you've got item one,

the proclamation. You can click on the link. It'll open up the agenda packet right to that uh proclamation. The internet's unfortunately just a little slow right now. And there's the proclamation. And then the nice thing is all the items in the agenda packet are bookmarked. So, you can just go and click on any one of the items and go right to it. So, right now you're looking at the uh meeting overview. You could also go to the uh meeting media. Right now, of course, there's no video video tied to this meeting, but this is what where you'd go to click to actually watch the live meeting or the recorded meeting after the fact. And then the next one is the meeting files tab. Again, pardon the lag. Oh,

yeah. One more down.

Sorry. All right. And then again, you're back to this page with the bookmarks for each item and the whole agenda packet here. And then um I don't see it here, but there is also Oh, no, here it is. The submit comment. So, this is again similar to our e comment feature in the previous into the previous agenda management system where you could submit an e comment directly for that item. Right now, um this is just set per agenda. So you'd have to just notify what item number you're speaking on. And that's pretty much it. So that's kind of the new layout of the new uh agenda management system for everybody. Are there any questions? Doesn't look like we have any questions. Thank you,

Mayor. That concludes my report.

Okay. Um, so I'd go ahead and I will go ahead and open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. I do have speaker slips. They're on their way. Okay. Thank you. So, I'd like to call up Tristine. Welcome. So I I now have my answer. I was wondering whether the amendment that appears in small print uh was the same as builder's remedy in the uh uh the conditional certification of the coastal uh approval of reszoning uh the uh Bard and Ben Martin. Uh, and just so you know, because I was shocked to see this, but I guess it shouldn't be a surprise. Um, it says that the developer now has something called use by right. And that means this says in this little amendment that was in small print uh that the county's review shall not require a conditional use permit, development plan, environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act, or other discretionary review or approval

pursuant to government code section and then gives the sections. So, um we have lost and and this is now baked in to the approvals for these reasonzonings. It will now create precedent for them going forward. Um it seems that uh we we really have we are going to have very little approval over what they build. And um those of us who live at Bard who are very worried about um the impact uh on our our parking and our escape routes in the case of an emergency. Um we we feel in despair really. So just you know heads up this is where things are. Um, and if the supervisors approve it approve it tomorrow, which they will, it's just going to be a rubber stamp. Um, then this is what we live with. Uh, and there will be more uh reasonzoning and and this will now be the way it is.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Carl S. Sanken. Welcome.

Yes, I uh I'm a neighbor of Tristines and uh I've spoken out before about the uh about the Borard project as now approved by the coastal commission. I'm just hoping that um the city council can go to their private telephones tonight, maybe call some of their friends on the board of supervisors and see what you can do about trying to protect us because this um Baylor development looks now like it is um baked in. Uh so I'm just hoping that the council can work with us or work in our favor. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. like to bring it back to well for I don't see any other speaker slips. Do we have anyone on Zoom? Mayor, we do have one raised hand. Great. We have uh Betty Jeepson. Uh Betty, go ahead.

Yes. Good afternoon, mayor and city council. I urge you to do what you can to oppose this development. There is a very bad precedent by bundling the BORD property with the Van Wingardan properties because they are not contiguous. They are not the same. Van Wingertan was in Sacramento speaking in favor of having his two parcels developed. Bailard is completely opposed, including by yourselves, the city of Carperia. You did a wonderful job. You have fantastic material on your website against the development. It is a death trap trying to have this property with 173 units behind Casita's village which already is 280 units representing 1,400 1,400 residents and the Villa Delmare on the other side trying all to get out on Bert um in Sacramento. The developer for Red Tail said that he had three escape units. I have only seen one. I'm speaking tonight for myself, but I was the president of Cassita's Village when I wrote a letter on March 7th of 2024. And the developer got in my face and said, "If Cassita's Village doesn't give us your back alley for our second escape route, which the city of Carperia requires, we're going to take it by eminent domain using a housing authority to do so." And that is what I think their if they have one their second exit route is that alley belongs to Cassita's village. It's private property. Cassita's village pays taxes on it and it is the only way for everyone on Birch

Street to leave. It is where their garages back out onto. And finally, um, we are already Cassidas Village in Villa Delmare providing housing for workers and most people have cars. They have a very difficult time parking as it is. The Cassidas village is constantly having hearings on fines for people who park in the fire lanes. Um, it is extremely dangerous. It is not just a matter of providing housing, but it's also a matter of what you have so wonderfully done in the past and continue to do is provide safety and health benefits for those people who already reside in Carpondura. So, I really applaud you for what you've done, but please don't give up. Please continue to do the work opposing this project. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. And mayor, that concludes Zoom uh comment. We'll go ahead and officially close public comment. I'll bring it back to the council if there's any final questions or comments. Okay. Thank you for the city manager's report. We will now move on to we're going to back up a little and hear from Daisy who will provide a public information report andor announcement from our first district supervisor's office. Welcome.

Hello. So, good evening, Mayor Aleron and the rest of the council. Um, apologies for the tardiness. Thanks for being understanding. I was listening. Um, congratulations, Brian. You really are totally awesome, so thanks. I like working with you. Um, okay. I have a bunch of updates because I wasn't here in December, so bear with me. Um the first thing I wanted to update everyone on was tomorrow the um board of supervisors has um an item on the reszones the LCP reszones uh that went to the coastal commission and what's coming back. So what's coming back before the board is an acceptance of the modifications that were pro proposed by the coastal commission. The board unanimously accepted the reszones um with the modifications of at least 32% of the units that are built have to be affordable and those affordable units have to last the lifetime of the project. So those are that's the scope of what the supervisors are voting on tomorrow. Um we are going to that item is A20. Um and our our office has pulled it because we have questions about it. Um we would like to get some clarity on the withdrawal of the builder remedy project specifically at Borard and what that means for a new project. Um, and we're asking about SQUA and EIR requirements um, as it pertains to the fine print actually that is in the reszones. So, we did pull that item. It's administrative item 20. Um, if anybody wants to make

public comment, there's the availability to do it on Zoom um, just like here. Okay. Um, moving on. Uh, the Bailored project is probably the number one thing we get questions about um at from Carpondria residents. Well, there's two items. I'll get to the other one later. Um, I just want to preface this with there's a lot of unanswered questions about Baylor. There's a lot of um info out there that is old info because we just haven't seen a project yet. The last project that we have seen was under builder's remedy. It's from 2024. It is the project that the coastal commission poked holes in and got a a a verbal recognition that they were going to redo the project. I'm sure they worked on it with the coastal commission, but no one has seen an updated plan. So when folks say that this is a project that has been approved, this project has not been approved because we haven't seen the project. No one has seen the project. We're waiting on that. Um so I want to give you a bit of a status update. So um back in December, we had a meeting. We host our office hosted a meeting here actually. So we co-hosted I guess uh with the city managers. Um, city manager Ramirez was there and assistant city manager Kint was there. Um, and director Bob Roth was there. The housing authority reps were there. The red tail reps were there. Um, our county planning and development reps were there. And our office was there. This is very uncommon. This is not how things typically go. And our goal is to um get more collaboration

and more transparency and more answers. So, um, the the result of that meeting was an agreement to move forward with more transparency, an agreement to move forward with more collaboration, um, and an agreement from Red Tale and the housing authority to co-host info sessions on the project itself, um, and the different ways that, um, the community can apply for housing. Um, so that was how that meeting ended. Um the next status is that um we're waiting on the builder's remedy to be withdrawn and a new project to be submit. Um I don't think it's controversial to say that we do not want a builder's remedy project. We would like to see more um we would like to see it move through the process so that there is more input from community members and the county. Um [gasps] I just want to reflect that we I've met with a lot of the folks behind us. I've we've met with them in person. We've talked to them on the phone. I appreciate all the questions here. And so we are very aware of the concerns of more development, meaning um an impact to parking, an impact to traffic flow, major safety concerns, especially for the folks that lived through the Thomas fire evacuations. Um safety around the park and pedestrians and access. So, as I said, it's uncommon that um our office would be so involved. it's uncommon that the city would be involved. Um, but we're trying to do something uncommon to try and get more answers and more transparency. Um, so where we are is we

are waiting on the new project. We are waiting on um the BORD team to withdraw the builder's remedy and apply for a new one through the Santa Barbara County application process. And once that happens, we're going to try and set a meeting with Red Tail City and County um engineers and fire marshal Le Monaco to consider the ingress egress um options. Um, again, very uncommon, but trying to figure out uh if there is a solution and um what is best for the community. So, that's my update on Ballard. I'll pause there and ask if there's any questions.

Um, just a quick comment. I really appreciate that update a lot. I think that's a lot of information that I I know I wasn't aware of and that the community wasn't either. So, thank you so much. Um, it sounds like you're going to be following up as as some of these um these next steps are met. So, I'm sure we'll be hearing more from you in future updates and presentations. You can expect a monthly update on this and always feel free to email us with any questions. Like I said, there's a lot of unanswered questions right now, but um so bear with us on the timing of it all, but we will always try and answer the question. Thank you.

Yeah, of course. Um yes, I have a few questions for you. First of all, you did talk about um concerns about the ingress, egress, traffic flows, things like that, but you have not addressed and that I could hear um the impacts to infrastructure um inclusive to that one. It's going to be a substantial amount of load that the city's going to be um taking on with these um new housing units only because there's no other basically no other infrastructures or municipalities that's even close to that. There also there's no um access coming in the backside. So everything that's going to be going into these housing units are going to be coming in from the city. So, um I would like um to maybe have the board of supervisors consider taking a look at how we could coordinate support within that uh jurisdictions within the two jurisdictions to make sure that we have adequate supplies, services and um fulfill the needs that's going to happen with the successive themselves. That's one point. The second point we talked about transparencies. Uh transparencies are good. Reports like this are very helpful. But I think one of the most important parts is to reach out to the residents, make sure that they are also involved. For example, that one there is in district 4 within the city. We also have the other one coming in on Baylor. That's district two. Those two I think would be very specific to actually have some neighborhood input on those also prior to the actual hearing of those uh projects. So we know what's going on. We could address our concerns at that one. The other you're talking about the Van Wigan projects. Again, uh Craraven's Lane is not improved. Anything beyond the city limits, it barely has two lanes available to it. Has no walkways, nothing else. We have power lines literally right next to the road. So, I think that's going to be another major concern that we'll have even though that does have um access in from the county side. Most of the people will be coming

into the city, probably not following the foothill road. Council member Namura through the chair. Thank you for all of those points. Um I will specifically look into Cravens and make sure that's an update next time. Um as for the outreach to the communities and neighbors that is very much on the agenda of things we're trying to do, we are waiting to get a project in hand. I don't think it's really worth scrutinizing a project that doesn't exist yet. We have the old one, but it's it's moot at this point. There's things that we know aren't even on that anymore. So, um I will I would love to reach out to all of you. Um every time there's a development proposed in your district, I

I would say regardless of the developer, we still are going to have the same or similar impacts. Regardless if it's reduced or not, it's still going to happen. So, we still should be moving forward with how the city and the county could work together, getting support from the county because again, that money that's coming from county taxes should be actually supporting and helping us out also. We'll work on it. Thank you.

Um, and I'll just I appreciate that update. I appreciate Council Member Namura's comments as well. Um, and just even your clarification in terms of like there isn't an updated project as of yet. And although um this crosscoordination collaboration may be uncommon, it's likely that that property will be annexed to the city. So my hope is that Carpenter will continue to not only advocate for itself, but see some real impacts or or changes to the project itself. Um, and so with that, and I appreciate your perspective in terms of how the meeting went, but I will look to staff just to hear from them in terms of their perspective on how that meeting went and how you all walked away and and potential next steps.

Yeah, Mayor. Um, thank you for that question. So, I think Daisy, you know, really touched on it. The city was involved. Um, you know, council member mayor and I went up to that coastal commission meeting and there was some comments made that suggested that the city was less than cooperative in the past. And so I was very interested in meeting and hopefully establishing you know a new level of cooperation understanding that when the city was first approached uh there was no approval for the project and understanding that this is an approved project now wanting to um uh start these conversations so that we can advocate for the best of the city. We didn't get very far other than please be more transparent. wait until there's a project for us to actually talk about. You know, we've we expressed many of the concerns that council member uh Neore had shared. And so, really, it was just some of those first initial steps and we were happy that uh Supervisor Lee helped orchestrate that. Um there's some other steps that I'm just in an information gathering uh phase right now and speaking with the county on potentially expanding the city's sphere of influence which is sort of a prerequisite to to consideration of annexation and potential um like a tax sharing agreement for monies to to offset some of the uh impacts to our infrastructure. But I'm still very much in an information gathering phase there. Uh, and when I have more information and a project and various things, look forward to bringing that back to your council.

Thank you. Thank you, Daisy, for entertaining all those questions as well.

Of course. Well, buckle up. There's more things to talk about. Okay. Um so also at tomorrow's meeting um the board is hearing departmental item number five and this is coming from the planning and development office and it's regarding ordinance streamlining and housing accommodation amendments. Um this is a big package um that is supposed to uh create faster approvals for low impact projects by shifting them to streamline level reviews. Um limiting what can be appealed, standardizing procedures to make rules easier to understand and apply. um clearer zoning code to remove outdated provisions. Um reduce dis uh redundancy and clearer explanations of how regulations apply. Um there's proposals on how to modernize commercial zones to allow mixeduse development and um adjusting standards to multifamily zones such as height and setbacks and open space. Um this is a big big project um that will likely have very big impacts to um communities. So um this was brought to the board in December um as anformational item and tomorrow is the first hearing on this. Um, our office has a lot of questions um about how these changes will particularly benefit single family homeowners um local business owners. So um we have a lot of questions um and would expect

this to get continued. Um we did pass it along to um some uh city staff for their thoughts on it. We asked planning development the last time this came to the board if they had reached out to cities and they had said no. So we are hoping that we get a clearer answer on that tomorrow. Um this is a big package. So we are expect this to come back a few times be and change. Um especially somebody brought up earlier the use by right which is a a statemandated housing term. Um we we want to understand how these changes in uh county planning and development process um inter interplay with how the statemandated uh um housing elements how they all play together. Sorry, I'm kind of losing track of my words, but um we want to make sure that the community character and public safety are top of mind when these changes go through, what goes through. So, um it's a really big item tomorrow. Um and I'm sorry this is coming a little bit last minute. Um but I would expect it to can carry on through another hearing. Again, that was um department item five for anybody that's interested in looking at it.

Um all righty. Could we make comment on that one also? Are you moving forward or Oh, yeah. Yeah, please.

Okay. Um on that one there, my question would be or request would be actually is to um request the board of dire uh supervisors to actually take a look at uh the perspective from the municipality sides too. Uh that was one thing that was basically omitted during the state hearing uh by the coastal commission. So it would be nice to know that our supervisors are actually looking at it from the adjacent properties looking from the um outside in and from the inside out. I think that would make a big difference for us. Again, it seemed to be missing completely from the U coastal commission hearing. Yes, we definitely want the city's perspective on this, especially as it pertains to um height and setbacks and green space and open space and landscaping. Um those are the things that make a community have character. So, we're interested in retaining that as much as possible.

Thank you. And I think it's clear that the city has acted in that same interest for a long time. The chair, um, what's the first district's, uh, feelings about the limitation of appeals? Uh, that it needs to be relooked at. Um, okay, that's a good start. [laughter]

Yeah. Um, I think the question we have to ask ourselves is what do we lose when appeals are off the table? There's a there's a lot that happens in the appeal process. So, um, you know, if that's being taken off the table, why? And to whose benefit? Um, any more questions on this? Okay, this will be an interesting um item tomorrow, I'm sure, with a lot of other um questions from the other supervisors. I This is a big deal to all five supervisors and they all come uh with their own perspectives and opinions in different communities. So, um it's been we're Brown acted, I believe, with um Chair Nelson on this and um we've had some interesting conversations about it already. So, I I look forward to seeing what happens tomorrow. Okay. Um the cannabis update. So, um there was uh the timeline to file for an extension for the odor abatement plan was um mid December and eight operators filed for extensions um for the uh carbon scrubber installation and nine operators have submitted updated odor abatement plans and they have installed their technology and are tinkering with it. So as a reminder, March 18th is the compliance deadline. So what happens between now and then? Um on March 3rd, there is a board of supervisors hearing about the extensions. So um planning and development will make a presentation for

each of the operators that have asked for an extension and the supervisors will decide to grant an extension or not to and the parameters of that extension um to each operator. So this will be case by case. There will not be a blanket um extension approval or denial to all eight. it will be by operator and um different parameters uh will apply to different operators. So that is the hearing on the third. The idea is that the the third um if there's something that has to be changed um if there's an issue determining the extension or the parameters, there can be a continuence to the March 17th deadline uh to the March 17th board of supervisors meeting, excuse me, um one day before the compliance deadline on the 18th. So um in addition to planning and development bringing a presentation on each of the extensions um and the requests by the operators they will also bring um information about um enforcement procedures. So what happens when operators are out of compliance? Um what is the process for violation? What is the process for fees? And what is the process for ultimately revoking a business license? Um just to give you a little clarity as a reminder um the planning and development department handles compliance whereas the CEO's office at the county handles business licenses and uh the assessor's office handles taxes. So it is very uh interdep departmental. Um and so that is all being hashed out right now and will be presented on the third as to how to

handle enforcement. Um and that is my cannabis update. Any questions on that before I move on? I do a real quick one on that one. I was under the assumption I was told that there was actually a penalty process already in place prior to the um the cannabis um deadline so conformance.

Yes. Um council member Namura through the chair um there is there is already um um enforcement going out for violations. There's notice of violations going out for the um odor that um that's those nasal rangers. Um folks are getting um um letters from the planning and development department that they you know odor has been detected. Um but the the enforcement part of it is what I believe has been uh kind of a sticky question and an unsolvable problem and that's what's being presented on the third is the uh the not the enforcement the um uh you know the yeah the enforcement. Thanks.

Yeah. from what we were told if they weren't in conformance by uh March 18th that they would be having their licenses revoked.

So that's what is that's what we'll we'll find out how that happens. How many notices of violations does one get? How many uh what is the fee penalty? That sort of thing. All righty, moving right along. Okay. So, um I just wanted to now for a fun thing. Um thank you for approving the um $800,000 funding agreement between the county and um the city of Carperia. Um shout out to Janette Gant for really doing the heavy lifting on the city's side. um that is going to the board on uh February 3rd for approval. So, uh that's really exciting. $200,000 um sorry, $800,000 for the um carpentry bluffs and the uh maintenance and preservation for the future. So, thanks everyone.

All righty. by real quick. Yeah. Since I've been beating you up so much, I did want to acknowledge a thank you to the supervisors for that contribution. Very generous and it's very much appreciated within our city.

Happy to do it. And also we really have to thank the first district under Supervisor Williams for starting this. So, um it's nice to have a big collaboration on it. Okay. Um, speaking of it was a big Brian night and it's a big Chevron night. Um, there is a hearing coming before the state lands commission on the 9th of February to um handle the Chevron shell mounds. Um, from my understanding the Chevron um platforms, they're called the 4H. They're Hazel, Heidi, Hilda, and Hope. Um they were decommissioned in the 90s and part of that decommissioning um was there were some remnants of some shells that had um built up around the the platform bottoms. So um there was some contention between the fishermen and the trwers about the removal of those mounds. Um, and in 2013, uh, Chevron and the state lands commission and, uh, the trwley the trwers all agreed on a, uh, plan to, uh, uh, let let Chevron kind of off the hook. Probably shouldn't say it like that, but that's how I'm going to say it. Um, so fast forward to now. Um the state lands commission is meeting to determine the lease termination agreement. So um they are proposing to uh terminate the oil and gas leases of Chevron oil in order uh and they'll have to monitor the mounds for seisment seismic activity for

30 years. The alternative is forcing them to remove the mounds altogether. There's been um some white papers about uh the removal process and whether or not that is um harm more harmful to remove them or not. Um but this is happening right off of the coast of Carperia. So um our office plans on making a comment. We have written letters to the state lands commission um advocating for full removal. we have met with the state lands commission um and we will see what happens but I wanted you all to know that that's what's happening just right off our waters. Okay. And the very last thing I wanted to mention was um we went to the uh county public health carpia care center recently. We took a tour um with the incredible staff over there and they said, "We would love to give a tour to the city council members and staff um and offer up a anformational presentation for the council on what it is exactly that they are doing over at your carpriia community clinic and offer you up um some stats on the community that they're serving and what they do." I I think the thing I really loved about when I went there was their um their sliding scale for payment. So they do not want to turn people away um regardless of payment. So I think that's really admirable. And so I put in my notes um that are in the agenda uh you can email Janette uh Gummer. She's the healthcare administrator there. um and you can email her to set up a tour and she would love to have you and have anformational meeting as well if you're interested in

that. Those are all of my updates. Thank you for being patient with me. Um if there's any questions, I can take them. Like there aren't any questions, but I will open up public comment. Uh I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone in the public who would like to make any comment based on the report we just received? Yes, ma'am. Please feel free to come to the podium. Um so um the amendment that I read to you that uh eliminates so many agencies from being able to review the development and and our concern particularly is the Bored one. That amendment is up for vote tomorrow. In other words, we could by objecting to that amendment and getting the supervisors to delete that amendment. We were told at the Coastal Commission meeting and and please correct me. You were there, Daisy, right?

Oh, you were not. Well, nothing about this amendment came up or it it was we it was presented that, oh, this is so great. They're adding additional affordable units. Isn't that wonderful? That was the change that we have been told consistently is being voted on tomorrow to be approved for the final reasonzoning. this little fine print this user what's the term by right

by user by right the issue I is evidently from what I understand from our city attorney uh they don't need builder's remedy because everything they wanted is given to them by this user by right and that is being voted on tomorrow. So I, you know, to talk about waiting for their, you know, their other draft. Uh, no, it's they don't need builder's remedy anymore. They have everything they need. And I don't know what commissions are going to do any reviews because they they it's so open. The way the wording is is it said almost any review is eliminated in the in the wording and I I can show it to you or send you a copy of it, but it is this is quite alarming that it's being slipped under the rug like this and and I hope you will address that. Um because nothing that the coastal commission said included that at the meeting.

Ma'am, I'll just ask that you address the council. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, so that's, you know, does anybody have any questions for me? Because, um, I've just, you know, was surprised when I looked into the little thing and said amendments and then buried way way down there was this alarming permissions that eliminates review. So we can talk about review or what we want them or cooperating with them, but nobody has any teeth anymore.

Thank you for your comments. Do we have anyone else in the public? Seeing none, I will look to Brian. Do we have anyone via Zoom? We do have a speaker, uh, Betty Jeepson. Uh, Betty, go ahead.

Thank you. Based on these comments, I would say um that the city council please do whatever they can to get a delay on that vote tomorrow if there is any chance that this property will be annexed back to the city. Shouldn't the city be allowed its objection that it originally stated? I can tell you that the plans call for threestory buildings for all of those buildings behind Cassidas Village on Ballard and they only have very limited parking. They said that housing is going to limit each unit to having one car. I challenge them to be able to do that and that's why there's going to be so much overflow of parking onto the streets and I agree with Mr. Namura that it's going to be a financial impact on the city of Carperia. Uh, I can't stress enough how many good points were made in the material that's on your website and in the 75page report that was sent to the Coastal Commission, which was ignored. I also wonder how much are the units going to cost that are not the 32% affordable housing and what is affordable housing? No one has clarified or specified money, dollars. What are those costs? All they were talking about was they remembered when they were little being able to live close to where their mom and dad worked and that's why they voted in favor of this project. So I'm very concerned about this moving forward and I really appreciate anything at all that you can do to get a delay for us. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. And mayor, that concludes Zoom comment. We'll go ahead and close or sir, do you have another comment? I was just wondering. Oh, please stand up to the podium. Okay, thank you. Since uh Daisy works for the supervisor, is there any way that uh he could get this pulled from the agenda tomorrow? I mean, is there any way at all? Oh, sir, I'll just ask that you address the council. Um please let us know when you're done with your your minutes and then That's okay. That's it.

Okay. Thank you. So, seeing no other speakers in the room, uh, no one else on Zoom, Brian, I'll go ahead and officially close public comment and then I'll just um look to Daisy. And again, thank you for your report and my hope is that you'll be able to speak with some of the speakers tonight because it sounds as though they may still have some questions um for you and of course our our supervisor. Thank you. Okay, we will now move on to public comment on matters not on the agenda and we will hear from Brian Mootz followed by Terresa Alvarez. Good evening. First, I want to s congratulate Brian for for your honor and I just want to say he is indicative of the city workers not only in this building but out in the field too. Uh he's he's dedicated. He's very patient with me and I really appreciate it. So again, congratulations. Number two, I won't take much longer. I want to thank you and I agree with your stance with Minneapolis with the citizens of Min Minneapolis. These words and events are not empty. They look at other communities and hoping they have allies and they do have allies. I was here to um because it'll be coming up soon where with Carpenter Beautiful and um Janette Gent has has these plans. Uh I was hoping we'd have uh members come in. Elias Brag has brought up a program called the Shore Saver program. It's a simple program. It's going to be effective program. my I'm here just to let you know that Company of Beautiful is fully behind it. I'm fully behind in some of the funding, fully behind in some of the maintenance of this program. Um, if there's any questions about it, I know she's not busy, but Janette Gant has been kept in the loop completely. So, shore saver really quickly is basically stations in port on busy parts of the ocean beach with Lynon and Ash. And what it is is that it's these baskets that the public take. And what

my hope is these baskets will be they'll put their trash in it and then and um um to take care of it properly. Started off on the east coast and it's been very successful. Uh we've had some great feedback. Everybody's in favor of it. And again, Carbon Beautiful is going to be fully behind it. It's simple. It's effective. And if there's any questions, I can answer some of them right now, but I don't want to take up too much time, but Janette Gant has been in the loop and you'll be hearing more of it. Is there any questions about it? There's nothing. Okay, I won't take up any more of your time. Again, we're behind it 100% and thank you for everything and Brian, congratulations. All right, have a good evening.

Thank you for your comments. Teresa Alvarez and Jessica Ramirez, welcome. Followed by Fred Shaw. Good evening, mayor and city council members. I'm Teresa Alvarez, executive director of the Carponia Children's Project, and I'm also a Carponia resident and mom. I'm here with Jessica Ramirez, director of family services at CCP. We're here to thank the Carponia City Council for investing in our work to support our immigrant residents and to provide an update on the impacts of immigration on Carpenteria community. As many of you know, CCP created the Helping Hands Fund in July after the raid with overwhelming support of the from the community. We worked with Girls Inc. and Boys and Girls Club to identify families in need of support. You will hear an update from Jessica on how that's all been going. You'll hear that the need has not gone away. Families continue to say, "I'm afraid to leave my house. My children are afraid to leave the house. My husband was detained and now I'm the sole provider."

[snorts]

Jessica and her team have been at the front lines of this work, so I'll pass it on to her. Good evening, mayor and council members. At CCP's Family Resource Center, we had had to shift and redirect our work to meet the critical needs in our community right now. So for the past 13 months, even before July, um back in November, actually, when the election first happened, we started receiving an outpouring amount of calls, messages, and just, you know, community members walking into CCP and letting us know how fearful they were um for this coming year. And now that we're in this coming year, their fear was rightfully so. Um parents are afraid to leave their homes. children are afraid to go to school carrying an immense fear that not only their parents may be taken away while they're at school, but that they themselves could be taken as well. This is not something that is happening in another city or another state. This is happening right here in Carperia. ICE was present in our community on January 14th, just a week and a half ago, when a man was taken on his way to work. During that incident, a volunteer from the local grassroots group Carperia Simonas was pepper-sprayed simply for alerting the community to ISIS presence. While only one person was taken that day, the ripple effects it leaves in our community have been devastating. Parents are living in fear and are unable to go to work. Children are refusing to go to school. Families are missing doctor's appointments. The crisis is still here and it's ongoing. This means lost wages, housing insecurity, food insecurity, and lack of adequate medical care. In response, here's what we've been doing at CCP to support our community. Through generous donations from community members, foundations, and the city, we have provided grocery essentials deliveries to 53 families with some families

receiving up to six deliveries straight to their home. We have distributed 12 grants for rent and utility assistant through our helping hands fund. We have connected four families who were directly impacted by immigration enforcement to therapy and counseling services and they are actually receiving ongoing case management support from our team. We have also partnered with a local clinician-led grassroots organization clinicians for change to host community mental health events focused on healing from the trauma caused by all this crisis. We plan to continue offering these events monthly for those directly impacted and for those community members who have been impacted with secondary trauma. At the same time, many families have lost access to health care, further deepening the harm. Here are a few ways the city can take action to support our community. Number one, fund immigrant serving organizations such as the 805 and fund, the Santa Barbara immigrant legal defense center, and Carperia Children's Project. Continue to bring visibility to this issue and actively look for ways to support affected families. So again, thank you, Council Member Meyer, for addressing and bringing a moment of silence for Minne Minneapolis community members murdered by ICE. demand transparency and communication from the sheriff's department regarding when ICE will be present in Carpia. They're aware of this before we are. Um so it's important for us to ask for that accountability and transparency and communication. Volunteers from the grassroots group Carbintas Sronas are out every morning as early as 4:00 a.m. patrolling the city to protect our community. The city the city should be doing everything it can to protect those volunteers, especially with those recent murders of responders in Minneapolis. We cannot normalize this. Our community deserves safety, dignity, and the ability to live without fear. Thank you.

Thank you,

Bradshaw. Good evening, mayor, council, staff, and people uh listening in. I'm Fred Shaw, and I'm here uh for uh our carpentry, a community u hopenet, our community suicide prevention group. And the following remarks are from the county department of behavioral wellness. As we step into 2026, the Santa Barbara County Department of Behavioral Wellness is reminding the community of the importance of prior prioritizing mental health and well-being. A new year offers an opportunity to reflect, reset, and adopt habits that support a balanced and fulfilling life. Taking care of our mental health is just as important as caring for our physical health. With the new year, behavioral wellness encourages everyone to focus on simple, intentional steps to nurture their emotional and mental well-being. Here are several self-care steps that can support that emotional well-being. Uh, practice mindful goal setting. Many of us feel overwhelmed with the focus on resolutions. Instead, choose small, attainable goals that align with your values. Celebrate your progress, no matter how small. Prioritize rest and relaxation. Getting enough sleep is essential for emotional resilience. Aim for 7 to n hours of sleep each night. And consider making simple relaxation techniques such as meditation or breathing exercises a part of your evening routine. Move your body. Regular physical activity improves mood and reduces stress. Whether it's a quick

brisk walk, walking on the beach, gardening, or dancing, find an activity you enjoy and stick with it. Cultivate connection. Reach out to friends, family, faith-based, or community groups. Building and maintaining positive relationships is a key part of mental well-being. Limit your screen time. Take breaks from those digital devices to focus on activities that bring joy and help you recharge, such as reading or painting or just spending time outdoors. Reach out for support when needed. If feelings of stress, anxiety, or depression persists, reach out for support. Behavioral Wellness offers a variety of resources and services to support individuals and their families. For assistance, please call the 247 access line at 8888681649. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments. We do not have any other speaker slips. Do we have anyone on Zoom? Brian. Uh, mayor, we have no raised hands. I'll go ahead and close public comment. And we will move on to the consent calendar. Now, we'll open up public comment for the consent calendar. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone on Zoom? Mayor, once again, we have no raised hands.

Okay. I'll go ahead and officially close public comment and bring it back to the council for a motion. I move to approve the minutes of the regular meeting held January 12th, 2026 to receive and file the warrant register for the period of January 3rd through January 16, 2026 pursuant to the Carpenturia Municipal Code section 2.08.150F to receive and file the report of contracts executed by the city manager for the period of December 2nd, 2025 through January 5th, 2026. to receive and file the monthly treasurer's report on compliance with statement of safekeeping and investment of public funds for J December 2025 to receive and file the quarterly review of the pension stabilization trust to adopt resolution number 6432 ratifying Carpentry Summer Fireland Carpentry of Summerland Fire Protection District's ordinance number 2025-02 pursuant to health and safety code 138. 869.7C which adopts the 2025 California fire code and wildland urban interface code with amendments.

Second. Good job. Thank you. [laughter] We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I.

We will now move on to administrative matters. Item number 10, which is approve and adopt resolution number 6433, rescending resolution number 6384 and updating the parks, recreation, and community services department program and facility fee schedule. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council. Uh tonight I have with me Lexi Pursoon, our one of our aquatics program coordinators, and together we will be presenting to you a few proposed modifications to the parks, recreation, and community services department program and facility fee schedule. This evening, we are asking you all to approve and adopt resolution number 6433, rescending resolution number 6384 and updating the parks, recreation, and community services department program and facility fee schedule. In April 2025, your council adopted resolution number 6384, updating the PRCS program and facility fee schedule. In October of 2025, Lexi presented some feedback from the junior lifeguard parent and guardian s survey. And in fall of 2025, aquatic staff also analyzed the re the revenue generation at the boat house. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. It is wonderful to see you all again. Over last the last two summers, we have received parent feedback regarding the junior lifeguard program. The feedback

was largely positive about the program. However, there were several families who shared that the historic seven-week session of JG's was difficult to manage and some families wanted their children to participate in other summer camps and other families wanted time off for other summer trips. Additionally, many families requested more JG program time. Just click sorry. Okay. Uh this last summer Oh, thank you. This last summer, we solicited feedback via a formal survey which we presented to you in October of last year. Based on this feedback, we are proposing some modifications to the program. We are proposing an earlier start time. Instead of starting the program at 9:30 a.m., we are proposing to start at 9:00 a.m. Additionally, we are proposing a two session program model and an optional beach afternoon recreation camp. For junior lifeguards, families will have the option to ch for their child to either participate in one of the two four-week sessions or they can register for the full 8week session. The beach afternoon camp will be a more fun recreational camp and optional for JG participants to participate in. This camp will run from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. and would provide additional supervised camp time for working families or those who are not able to pick up their junior guard at 12:30 p.m. each day. Similar to the proposed session model for JG's, participants can sign up for one of the two four-week sessions or can register for the full eightweek session. We would also like to pilot some new additional beach recreation programming. We would like to do kayak, surfing, and stand up paddle board lessons. Additionally, we would like to propose a schedule a regularly scheduled beach event called Karp Beach Nights. Karp Beach Nights would be an early evening programming and our goal with this

proposed event would be to create a place of community building through ocean recreation. Our beach lifeguard team would supervise and organize an open water swim and beach run for our community members of all ages to join. The proposed fees for your consideration are listed here. Cart beach nights would be $15 per participant. The private lessons for ocean recreation programming would be $75 per participant. Semi-private lessons would be $50 per participant and group lessons would be $25 per participant. For school and nonprofit organizations, group lessons would be $15 per participant. The proposed junior lifeguard program fees, as can be seen on the screen, the current fee for the seven-week session model of JGS is $675 per participant. We are proposing $450 for a four-week session and $900 for an 8week session. The afternoon camp is proposed to be $200 per four-week session. Oh, getting the hang of this. Sorry. Uh, as you will see here, the cost per hour for the junior lifeguard programming is the same as it was intended to be for the 7-week session this summer. The 4-we and 8week camps start 30 minutes earlier, which adds to the total time of the program. What we can also see is the afternoon beach camp is at a lower per hour cost, which reflects its recreational focus and emphasis on fun supervised by beach with supervised beach play and at group activities. This evening, we are also asking for your approval on a couple of fee cleanup items, if you will. Uh during the PRCS fee uh updates in April, two of our Carpentria Aquatics Club fees were inadvertently removed, and the nonprofit rental rate for special event space at the community garden was not included. If approved, the revised PRCS program and facility fee schedule would become effective on March 1st, 2026.

This concludes our staff report and we are happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Any questions? Yeah, thank you so much for the joint presentation. That was that was very very nicely done. Um, in terms of the ocean recreation lessons, is this the first time the city is offering those? I don't recall uh hearing about them before through the mayor. Thank you, uh, vice mayor. Uh, from my understanding, at one point I think they did, but I think it's been quite a while. Um, I think all of us here have ne haven't been in that position since that's happened. So, uh, I do remember at one point because the Ocean Recreation Boat House over at Ash Avenue, uh, was used in that capacity at at some point, but right now it's just been used for rentals.

That that sounds like exciting programming ideas between that and then the the beach nights. That sounds great. Um, in terms of the the change for the JG um uh sessions, what what kind of um changes are you hoping to see by implementing those? Is it are you trying to get um more uh more numbers of participants, more more diversity, more uh retention? What what are some of the goals with having these other uh models

through the mayor, vice mayor? I think our goal is to always get more people, but more than anything, we're just trying to create more accessibility. Uh we understand that not everybody wants to do seven weeks of junior guards. I did. I know many other kids will be so excited to have eight weeks happen, but I know that there are many families that like to go on trips and want more flexibility. So I think more of our goal is to create more adaptable programming. But if we get more kids, then that's also a great resol, you know, a byproduct of this. Great. Thank you. And then um are there still scholarships or fee waiverss or sliding scale for these new models too for the the junior guard program

through the mayor vice mayor? I think our uh we're in the phase right now of creating a scholarship program. We're still a ways out from getting that finalized but hopefully our goal is to have that in place. Um but right now I don't have a firm date on when it would be completed. Okay, great. Thank you very much and thank you again for the presentation. Thank you.

Um, thank you for your presentation. I look forward to being participant in carp beach nights. Sign me up. Um, with regards to the program having it be eight weeks into four-week sessions. Is there a threshold of kids who need to sign up? Um, or is there any concern that you won't fill the whole eight weeks

through the mayor? Council member, mayor, I I think that our the way that the numbers are looking right now is we'll be able to meet what we the the max that we usually meet is at 200. Last year we had 180. We're hoping for more. Um but staffing is looking like we'll be able to fulfill that. If there is a reason for any kid that can't get into the program, hopefully the two sessions will kind of help make up for that. Based on parent survey feedback, we've been able to determine that maybe half of our current participants would maybe do eight weeks, but of course, we can't see that until it actually comes to fruition. And then the other half would be I'm going to do four weeks here. I'm going to do the other four weeks. So, we're hoping to keep it at that 200, but if we need to make changes, we'll see what staffing will allow for that.

So, even with half in one session, that would still be a viable option. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah. Any other questions? Yes. U quick question. Um it looks like it's not going to be included, but my question would be um we had Jazz size group come in here and they talked about looking at re-evaluating their structure for time that they want to use the facilities for. I I don't see it in here. I was just wondering if there are plans to re relook at that see if in fact there's other solutions.

Yeah, council member Neora uh tonight's u report is just limited to these new programming. Uh so still happy to to look into that u and bring that back if if the council desires to hear that again. But not yet it is just limited to the new programs. No, no, that's fine. Um, according to the agenda, it was pretty broad as far as the scope of the program. Thank you. And I I would be in support in terms of hearing an update. Is would you need some additional support from additional council members or is that sufficient?

Uh, I can bring that back as part of our uh city manager report. Great. You know, one of the things that I've had a chance to share with with some of you is uh Janette walked into my office last week with a a blown um socket. And we thankfully, you know, one of the things that we did when we one of the things that's increased the cost for some of the renters is having a staff person on site. And there's always that limit or that low but possibility of of issues with water or various things. And so actually a fire started in one of the the sockets and thankfully one of our facility attendants was able to catch that in time and stop that from being any more damage. Uh and so I'd still say we're we're pretty committed to wanting to keep that staffed. U but can, you know, gather more information and kind of look at uh the overall picture and bring something back as part of the city manager report.

Great. Thank you. Um I have a few questions. Thank you for your report. Super helpful. Well, it's really exciting to for me to hear how um your department is surveying parents and making some changes based on that feedback. And so, just to confirm, are the afternoon camps that's new? That's not something that we've done in the past. Yes. Um Mayor, this is a new piloted option. We considered making the hours longer uh but to try to help all families, the families that have older children that don't need to be there until 2:30 that can leave on their own, we're giving them that option and we'll see how it goes this year and pilot it and go from there.

Great. Thank you. Um and then my other question, I appreciate how you have um the cost per hour and the session length all laid out here. This is really easy to understand, but I do have a question. When was the last time we've updated our fees for JG's?

Mayor Alakon, the fees were updated uh last fiscal year. So July 1st um last July they it was increased to 650 for the 7-week program. It was set to be 675 um for this summer. Um if that makes I apologize. So last summer was 650. This summer it was set to be 675. So, we're keeping that same per hour rate, but made this adjustment. Right. So, it's been um annually for the last couple years. I believe the JG fees have increased um incrementally. Yes. So, mayor, uh we do plan on incorporating these fees. Did you mention that already? I'm sorry. I don't want to repeat in the staff report, but not

u So, it's included in the staff report as part of the master fee schedule. So, the master fee schedule will will likely come back here in um I think in March and that's part of just the annual CPI increases. This will not receive an increase being so new. Um the reason why we had to bring it back sooner than that is for registration that occurs prior to summer.

Excellent. Great. Thank you. Um and then just I have similar questions in terms of enrollment and staff and and what that would cost us, but it's clear that we just don't have enough information right now. know this is such a popular program that I just asked for an update as we get closer to the launch. Um and then of course you all will be recruiting for for those positions. So yes, Mayor Alakon, of course, we would be happy to provide an update. And just to um additional clarification, similar to how we piloted the Sunday swim lessons and and really truly run recreational programming, if the registration numbers aren't up there, we don't staff as much. So, it's really as we see registration coming through, Lexi is pulling off of her roster of staff who have she's already been in touch with who want to return or are interested in this. And we um move, you know, staff over per participants based on the ratio. So, if um we aren't getting high registration numbers, which I don't expect, um then we would just use those staff either at the beach towers running these other programs or some um for other purposes. we wouldn't necessarily have that expense if we're not having that revenue. Um, and yes, Lexi will keep an eye on registration. Um, has already talked to staff and we'll provide an update. Absolutely.

Great. Thank you. U, any other final questions? Uh, I just want to say thank you one more time. Um, it's really exciting when you're so reactive or I guess proactive is the better word to what uh the community needs. That's really what Wreck is supposed to be and I love to see it. So, I'll go ahead and open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone on Zoom? Mayor, we have no raised hands. Okay. I'll go ahead and officially close public comment and bring it back to the council. Any final questions? And I will ask for a motion. Um, I'll move to approve and adopt resolution number 6433 as read by title only. Second. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? Hi. Hi.

Thank you. And I will just ask for a quick 10m minute break, a recess before we come back. Thank you. [music]

Hello all and welcome back to the Carpenter City Council meeting. Today is January 26, 2026 and we will begin with item number 11, which is the authorization to issue the notice inviting bids for the Carpenter Avenue bridge replacement project.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. Good evening, council members. So, what is before you, I'm actually proud to uh announce that we're finally getting to uh the process or the phase in building the project, but not not just yet. Uh what is before you is more of a routine process of city staff uh to bring before you authorization to ask for or request for an authorization to issue the notice inviting bids for the Carpet Avenue bridge replacement project. Like all capital projects, uh this is a practice or best practice that city staff goes to your council to request for authorization just inviting or um to issue the notice inviting bids. There is no cost for the council to uh authorize this notice inviting bids. Uh it's all um procedural nature. Uh what will come before the city council is when the bids are received. This is it will be at that time the uh city staff will be recommending uh will make a recommendation whether to award the project um toss out the bids or um or readvertise. So at this time uh what is being requested of city council is to just authorize the public works director to issue the notice inviting bids. Uh just as a refresher I put um on screen here the actual capital improvement program worksheet of the carbon jamu bridge. just to show you um pictorially where this particular bridge is. Is this part of Carpentry Avenue bridge over Carpa Creek that is of the subject matter? Uh the general scope of

work of the project is to remove and replace the bridge. If you recall, uh, your council actually approved, uh, a small part of the construction phase, um, last year to clear and grub the vegetation in order for utility relocation to commence. So, uh, I remember there was a question from, uh, or clarification from council member Clark said, what does clearing grub means? basically is just um clearing or removing certain vegetation that um has been identified through environmental documents that's only allowed to be removed and uh in this particular case or this project uh certain vegetation was removed that includes um the trees along the creek and some trimming as well. So that particular phase of the project the clearing and grubbing phase is now complete. So this particular part of the phase is the big u part of the project is replacement of the bridge. So in your staff report uh there's a general timeline of when this is will go out to bid because right now uh we're still working with utility companies to relocate their facilities. Uh mainly Southern California Edison Cox Communication and Frontier Communications with their overhead utility lines. So, as soon as they're finished or at least we get a schedule of anticipation of completion of those utility relocations, then we'll have a more narrow date of when we will advertise to bid. Right now, though, your staff report says early 2026 2026. Uh, I like to call that a typographical error and it might have been during the review process of city staff, but it is not early 2026. this notice in inviting bids um should have

said 2026. We again I don't know when but this is procedural in nature and the notice inviting bids should your council authorize the public Rex director I would be able to uh have that flexibility uh tu is notice inviting bids uh basically at any time during the year uh to go out. Uh another just a reminder this is a federal aid project meaning that uh the uh highway bridge program funds are involved that is through the federal highway administration and and and um the keeper of the money so to say is CALR California Department of Transportation. So they enforce the rules of federal highway administration and they are so the keepers of the money and it's through CALR that we would submit our reimbursement and we have been submitting reimbursement um in the preliminary engineering phase or the design phase the right of way phase if you recall those phases as well as our environmental document. So we have been reimbursed 88.53% to be exact of federal aid funds and the remaining portion of that 11.47 47 is city funded. So that's the background again on the funding. And with that, that concludes my presentation pending. Any questions? Yeah. Um, quick question. So if if bids come in significantly higher than the engineers estimate, which I know we've seen recently several times, does that put the federal funds into any kind of jeopardy in terms of the timeline of the project or anything like that? Uh, Vice Mayor Soloron through the mayor. That's always a question I get asked. What if a project or the bids come in higher than engineers estimate which you've pointed out we've seen already? In this particular project, I

anticipate bids to come in a little higher from the uh time when the initial estimate was made back in 2010. So, this project has been around for

since 2010 and we're we're barely just getting into the construction phase. So, to your question, um, no, it will not jeopardize the federal aid funding because this is a reimbursement program. And what that means is as long as this project project sees activity, the federal improvement uh the federal transportation improvement program, the FTIP, federal transportation improvement program, that's basically the federal government's CIP uh list. As long as it is programmed, the FTIP, this project will continue uh will continue on. Not indefinitely, but it will continue on. And should the bid do come in higher or the apparent low bid comes in higher than what was estimated, it's typical of agencies and we're no different to request for additional funding for the federal. We just have to show that we received a apparent low bid and this is what's coming and we request for additional funds from the federal highway administration.

Got it. And then by just by requesting those funds then that counts as activity on the project. So you know would that be accurate to say? Okay. Yes. Got it. Yes. Um just uh vice mayor and council mayor just by doing paperwork. Okay. That consider that is considered activ paperwork as in preliminary engineering the the as you see utility relocations are still in process. So that is considered activities that are still eligible for funding. Got it. Thank you very much.

Thanks. Um on that same note, um you know it's been 16 years. What if the what if the bids come in twice as much as 2010? You know, sure that maybe the federal people are still there, but you know, that's just that much more money we have to pay also. We've got to at that point we'd be kicking in $2.5 million for this. So, are we prepared for that situation?

Yes, good question, Council Member Clark, through the mayor. Uh, that's always that's actually on my mind. um about this project and and like all our other projects, does it come in twice, three times, four times, six times higher? All we could do right now is ask for that additional funding. And yes, you actually alluded to that, we we request additional funding from the feds. So, also that 11.47% um participation I just mentioned in in the staff report, we have to also kick into um um fill in that gap. I don't know what that means until we receive the bid and provide your recommendation. Yep. Thank you.

Uh, Council Member Clark, also I'd like to just add that in March, we do intend on doing our uh, capital improvement project workshop that we've started a couple years ago. And we'll have a chance to relook at all of our various projects and prioritize them by, you know, essential and critical infrastructure. And um there certainly will be some prioritization that would need to occur in terms of available resources and the various projects that we have. So we'll have another opportunity to look at this again. Any additional questions?

I have a question. I didn't read it in the staff report, but you did say it verbally, so I I just want to back up to make sure I I fully understand. So you [clears throat and music] mentioned this of course is to provide authorization for the notice to bid but we even though we pass it tonight you wouldn't be able to do it until certain utility companies what do they need to clear out or what do they need to do?

Yes madame mayor. So utility relocation uh that involves Southern California Edison uh Frontier Communications and Communication to O to relocate their overhead lines to basically get out of the way when the bridge is is about to construct. So these um preconstruction activities I call it um uh we have to wait until that is finished. Once Edison and the two utility companies I just mentioned are out of the way so to say u that will give me the prompt so to issue the notice adving bids and by that time uh uh I like to I'm just going to guess uh we're hoping that um after the end of summertime as well. Um I do for did forget that um there's also our consulting project manager Gerald Kamadi who's online. If you have any uh Gerald, do you have any um more input to provide to our council regarding time frame?

Yes, good evening. Um no, I think John, you uh you captured it well. It it's we we still need um a fair amount of time for the relocations to occur. They're they're underway, which is good news, but but they do move slowly and uh and there other bits and pieces that we need to kind of get in order before we can actually go out to bid. Um so John's timeline, I think, is accurate, it would be after the summer. Okay. And so just to confirm, is this best practice to wait or is it something that we absolutely have to do to wait to do the notice of bidding until um the utility relocation occurs? out of curiosity. I'm

sure Madame Mayor so and council uh Gerald and I were we're were thinking about how we um on the time frame of the notice inviting bids. Uh but it would help us as far as the project team goes is to basically get this staff procedure um out of the way. um because that gives us now the flexibility to um at that our discretion to advertise a bit when we believe it's ready as a as opposed to okay when the utility relocations are finished go to the city council then I I think uh we are anticipating the project to be bid out this year and after the summer uh coming to you early in the process um that's what Gerald and I have determined that we should do just to get this procedural part out of the way.

Yeah. And I asked that question only um just because in the past we've had some like we've gone out to bid and then we received the bids and it's not either enough people bidding or we've had to go out back out to bid again. So I'm just trying to better understand the the timing of it all and um yeah. Mayor, if I could just just add one comment. One of the issues we would have with going out too early is if we got a a good bid, they're only good for what is it? 60 days. 60 calendar days. And so the issue would be is that it would expire and then it wouldn't be any good. Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. Quick question I have. Um was a utilities company actually working out there? I saw a large crane over by the Edison. Was that Edison? Is that part of the um the work there that's going on, the relocation? Uh yes, Council Mayor Namura, that is okay. Sounds good. And so um given the 60-day um time notice for or I'd say um the application for projects, when do you anticipate we will actually put those things out to bid? I mentioned this after this summer. After the summer

after this summer, that's what Gerald and I have estimated to for this project to go out to bid. Oh, we're some somewhat under the mercy of the utility companies. So, they go by their own pace. So, this item here is uh actually just to start start the process. Is that what you're saying? Yes, sir. Any other questions? I will go ahead and open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone on Zoom? Mayor, we have no raised hands. Okay. I'll go ahead and close public comment and bring it back to the council for any final questions or comments. And of course, a motion.

I'll move to authorize the public works director to advertise the notice inviting bids for the Carpentry Avenue bridge replacement project number 15016. Second. We have a first and a second. All of those in favor? Hi. I I We move on to item number 12, which is the introduction and first reading of ordinance number 795, repealing and replacing chapter 10.60 bicycles of the Carperia Municipal Code entitled bicycles and electric mobility devices.

Yes. Thank you, uh, mayor, council members, Ryan Kins, assistant city manager. Pleasure to, uh, present this item to you all tonight. Um, so tonight, staff is presenting the first reading of the bicycles and electric mobility devices ordinance. This item reflects several months of uh work uh following council direction last year, including input from several of our community members, the sheriff's office, the school district, um and other members of our ad hoc economy committee. So, uh tonight, um I'm going to just provide a brief overview of why this ordinance is before us tonight. Uh talk about the process and the committee direction that was received. I'll provide a brief overview of the ordinance including some of the key policy frameworks such as sidewalk writing, the youth diversion program enforcement and empoundment and then additional key provisions of the ordinance. I'll also talk about our implementation and education approach, some of the fiscal impacts and then finally we'll end with the council action tonight. So why is this ordinance before us? Um, so over the past three years, Carperia has seen a significant increase in the use of electric bicycles and other electric mobility devices throughout our city, both for transportation and recreation. With that increase, the city has also received growing safety concerns, particularly related to excessive speeds, sidewalk riding, and high pedestrian areas, and other uh incidents and accidents that have happened in our community. While the state law does regulate these devices broadly, the city's existing municipal code did not fully address electric mobility devices or provide locally enforceable tools. So, this ordinance is really intended to fill that gap by establishing some clear

locally enforceable rules that really supplement but do not replace state law. So in March of last year, council held a special meeting right here in this room focused on ebike safety which included participation from local stakeholders and enforcement partners. Following that discussion, council established the ad hoc econveyance committee in April to help guide staff in developing the policy recommendations. The committee included council member uh Julia Mayer and our uh mayor um mayor Alakarn um along with representatives from the sheriff's office as I mentioned carpenter unified school district move Santa Barbara which is a bicycle and transport uh bicycle advocacy group in town and then also city staff um as well as other members of the community who did attend several of those meetings. The committee really did focus on safety education was the primary focus enforcement feasibility as well as best practices from other jurisdictions and also talked about implementation considerations. So the ordinance that you see before you tonight follows the direction from that committee. So at a high level, the ordinance what it does is it repeals and replaces the existing city's bicycle chapter and creates a new consolidated chapter that combines the bicycle components and the electric mobility device components into one ordinance. It applies consistently to bicycles class one through three ebikes, scooters, skateboards, and similar devices. And the ordinance establishes local operating rules and administrative citation authority to address some of these unsafe behaviors that we've seen while remaining fully aligned with state law as I mentioned. Um so moving on to some key policy

frameworks that were part of the main discussion of our committee. So one of the those is sidewalk riding. Um, under existing law, city's law, bicycles are already prohibited from riding on sidewalks within our central traffic district. So, this new ordinance retains that existing prohibition and it extends it also to electric mobility devices within that same area. So, the central traffic district includes the downtown core, adjacent streets, and public parking facilities. These are really the areas within the highest pedestrian activities uh of the city. And the ordinance does not propose a city-wide sidewalk ban. That was a big discussion amongst the committee. Um instead, it reflects the committee's recommendation for a targeted location-based approach. [snorts] So this slide shows the boundaries of the central traffic district. As defined in the municipal code, the area includes the downtown core, adjacent streets, and public parking facilities. These are locations within the city that really do have the highest pedestrian activity, and they really do have the greatest potential for conflicts between riders and pedestrians. The ordinance applies the sidewalk riding prohibition, as I mentioned, for bicycles and electric mobility devices within this defined area only, consistent with the existing bicycle regulations. So, no sidewalk riding um on bicycles or ebikes within this central traffic district. And I will mention that the municipal code does define the central traffic district using uh street names and um ends and beginnings of those streets. Um so this map that you see before you was created by our in-house GIS team. We looked at that that description of the streets and and made this map. So this map doesn't exist in this form in our in our municipal code, but the definition of

the streets does. So the intent really here is to provide clarity and consistency focusing restrictions where pedestrian safety concerns are most pronounced. So why a targeted approach? So the the committee really spent a significant amount of time discussing whether a city-wide sideback sidewalk ban was appropriate. Ultimately, the committee concluded that some areas of the city lack safe or practical on street alternatives. A blanketwide city ban would and could um unintentionally push riders into high higher speed traffic areas and would likely require additional enforcement resources. The ordinance instead allows for a flexibil flexible uh high conf uh focus on high cons high conflict pedestrian as areas as I mentioned which is in that central traffic district. So this does preserve council's abil ability to revisit sidewalk rules in the future as conditions or infrastructure change. For example, if the council in the future um wants to redefine the boundaries of that central traffic district, that's something that we can certainly do. who the committee did give us guidance on in that matter actually to relook at the central traffic district, make sure that it's in alignment with the reality of where the bike paths actually are. Um, so that is something that staff is going to do. Um, if we were to redefine that central traffic district, that does take council action. So, we can certainly come back to the council if staff deems it appropriate to update that central traffic district. And that would automatically apply to the bicycle and ebike ordinance because we reference the central traffic district in this ordinance here tonight. Another uh important component and really the focus of the ordinance is on education and part of that education is this youth diversion program. So for

minors under 18, the ordinance establishes an education first approach for firsttime violations. So eligible youth may complete a safety education course in lie of paying a fine. So, if they are issued an administrative citation, um staff will educate the the student and uh the the parents through some of our outreach and education materials, including some pamphlets that we're planning to create with um to educate them that this is an opportunity. So, you don't have to pay the fine. You don't have an admin site on your record with the city. Um and then with successful completion, um it would dismiss the fine. It would dismiss the citation. Really the goal here is not enforcement. The really the goal is education. Um I will cite something from the grand jury report on ebikes for the city of Santa Barbara. They that that report did show that education with enforcement is key. Just education or just enforcement doesn't really get the point across. So that's where that focus is coming from because there is some some defined um statistics out there that show that enforcement with education does actually lead to great results. So, um, staff is proposing a pilot partnership with, uh, Move Santa Barbara to deliver this youth diversion program. Um, re repeat or egregious violations would still remain subject to enforcement under those fines, which I'll discuss here shortly. Um, and then we are working with Move Santa Barbara to fine-tune that proposal and that plan. Um, this expense for this pilot program for this first initial uh, youth diversion program would be around 1,500 bucks. So, another policy framework is enforcement and empoundment. So, the ordinance does establish an administrative citation structure of $100 for the first violation, $200 for the second, and 500 for subsequent violations. This follows our standard

admin site uh process that's listed in our MUN code. Administr administrative citations may be issued by both the sheriff's office and under this ordinance. Now, our code enforcement staff can also issue um administrative citations. Empowment authority, however, is limited under state law and is subject only to sworn law enforcement personnel and and that may be used when necessary to provide a uh protect public safety in the event there's a egregious um offender and that that bicycle or ebike needs to be impounded. These provisions are, you know, we really looked across the board at other cities. Um we also looked at the city of Santa Barbara. So these provisions are are really modeled after after these ordinances that we looked across the board including city of Santa Barbara's and they really are some of the best practices that a lot of jurisdictions are using. Some additional [clears throat] key provisions um including to those merger policy areas that I just mentioned. Uh these include do care requirements. [clears throat] So a maximum operating speed of about 28 mph. um yielding and right-of-way rules and helmet requirements for riders under 18. It also establishes lighting and equipment standards, prohibits unsafe behaviors such as stunt riding or carrying passengers where it's not designed, and cl and clarifies where riding is allowed or prohibited, including allowing riding on the Carpentry Bluffs, which was also um a distinction that the committee wanted to make sure was there while continuing prohibitions of bicycle and ebike riding in the salt marsh and also on our athletic facilities. So just um a a draft implementation sorry draft implementation timeline. We will go back to the committee once this ordinance is effect in effect uh present this draft uh implementation with timeline to the whole committee including the school district uh the

sheriff's department um and we'll be focusing in um on education first. So tonight um if if the council uh votes the the first reading will be um completed. Then the second reading takes place on February 9th. March 9th the ordinance becomes effective 30 days following the second reading. Post adoption in the spring. The plan is phase one to really push forward the public awareness and the outreach. Here's what our the city has done. They've adopted this ordinance. This is the rules. This is what could happen if you break the rules. Really focusing in on the education. Then phase two, uh, we would provide additional warnings and education to the public. Our staff, including code enforcement and sheriffs, would be in the field providing those warnings. Um, and then finally, phase three, we would do something similar to like a DUI checkpoint where we would provide targeted enforcement. We would say, hey, this where sheriffs and code enforcement will be somewhere in the city at this time. If you are violating the rules, you will get a citation. And then finally, phase four would be that youth diversion program pilot course available to those firsttime minor offenders. Um, again, this will be fine-tuned with the committee, but I wanted to present to the council tonight just the next steps in in terms of what our draft next steps would be. Um, so in terms of fiscal impacts, the youth diversion program is funded currently in our budget. So there's no appropriation needed by the council tonight. Citation revenue is not really expected to be significant. Again, we're not in the business of trying to make money from this. We're just trying to make sure our city is safe and their writers are safe. So, that's going to be the focuses on the education. If there are enhanced enforcement costs incurred um by the use of the sheriff's department to provide that um enforcement, we would return to the city council if needed for those appropriations. And then finally, uh, staff's recommendation tonight is to approve the ordinance on first reading and then continue the second reading and adoption

to the city council meeting, uh, for February 9th. And we are here to answer any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Any questions? Um, yeah. Uh, if you could let me know, um, what specific behaviors is the ordinance most designed to impact and how will we know six months from now, a year from now, um, that we're successful in that? because I I hear and I like that a lot of it is educationbased which which I think is is what it should be but then can you tell me a little bit about yeah what what behaviors we're trying to change and how we'll know if they've been changed.

Absolutely council member Solarzono excellent question through the mayor. So the ordinance is really primarily intended to reduce those observable high-risk behaviors that we see um that have generated the greatest safety concerns for the public including riding at unsafe speeds um in pedestrianoriented areas. So, you know, we have heard here at this council meeting public commenters talking about ebikes on sidewalks. That's one example. Riding bicycles or electric mobility uh devices in other areas that are just primarily focused for uh pedestrians, again, sidewalk riding, failure to yield to pedestrians. We have heard some complaints about that. um or those just completely not obeying some traffic laws just either because they don't know what they are, the younger riders or because they're, you know, just trying to get to where they're going and they they know that they're um not obeying those traffic rules. Stunt riding can cause some some issues. Um riding against traffic is a big one. Um and then also youth riding behaviors that create conflicts near schools or in the downtown area. for example, riding bikes that they're not permitted to be ridden on in public spaces. So, electric motorcycles as an example, you know, those aren't really ebikes. Those that don't have pedals, those are electric motorcycles. They're not permitted on public uh roads. Um and then to evaluate whether the ordinance is working. Staff anticipates, you know, returning to the council at some point in the future after this first phase. We'd love to come back with a report to the council. We want to provide some trendbased data. Um, so we want to provide uh the number and type of administrative citations and warnings that were issued. Um, the sheriff's will be issuing those, but they will be turning over those admin citations to staff. So, we'll have those in hand and we'll be tracking those. Um, we'll also get some some sense of the location-based enforcement trends. So, the sheriff's office will also tell us

where and when um those citations were being issued. Um, we'll also keep an eye out for the reported complaints and service calls that are coming in for unsafe writing. And then, um, also the youth diversion program participation and completion rates. Those those will also be a key, um, data point for us that we'll bring back to the council. And then also just any reports that we get about um, any incidents that are occurring or injuries that are occurring that are either reported from the community or from our sheriff's office, that'll also um, be documented. And really that's what we want. We want safe riding. We want people to be safe. Really the measurement is going to be are we getting less incidents. That's going to be the main uh reporting data that we're going to want to see in the community.

Got it. That Thank you. Um and then I I really like the idea of the um the youth ed the youth diversion program. Diversion program. Where does that take place? Is that in Santa Barbara? Is that here?

Yes, it'll take place here in Santa Barbara. We will be working with the school district. Um, we do have Miss Persoon here this evening, too. If you the council has any questions for the school district, I will add that we also have the sheriff's uh here tonight, our chief of police, and then also um Martinez uh from Move Santa Barbara is also here. I also want to thank them for participating in our ad hoc committee. This was a lot of work. Um, and I also want to thank our council member, mayor, and and the mayor, Alar Kone, for for your guys' participation. Uh, this was a lot of work. It was a long time coming and people really put a lot of thought into this what you see here tonight. Um so they're also here if you guys have any questions for them. Great. Thank you very much.

Any other questions? Uh quick question u Ryan that would be um on the um verbiage uh that you're going to have on these signs. Have we affirmed that they are ADA compliant as far as warnings? Sounds like you didn't have a specification for um say electric wheelchairs, things like that.

Yeah, we'll be ensuring that we're following all the ADA compliance uh requirements for signage. We'll we'll ensure we do that. And then I apologize um Council Member Solzano, the the courses will take place here in Carperia. Um we're going to be working with the school district. will either have it on site at the school district or maybe even here at city hall depending on uh the necessary needs of of that cohort of of individuals that'll be in the training. Looks like there's no additional questions. Um I'll go ahead and open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone on Zoom? Mayor, we have no raised hands.

I'll go ahead and close public comment. bring it back to the council for any final um thoughts, comments, questions, uh and of course a motion being on this uh committee. I just wanted to say thank you to the city and to move Santa Barbara and to Dr. Persoon and the sheriff's office. Uh, I think the big focus in how we got here was that this is a really excellent community to ride a bike in and this is a really excellent way that we're getting kids out into the community and we don't want to necessarily stop that from happening. Um it was very important to all of us that what we're doing is teaching kids how to be teaching kids and adults who are riding ebikes incorrectly how to ride them properly and to be in harmony with our community. Uh, and I think that we took a lot of good cues from Move Santa Barbara and I'm really appreciative to them and I so I just wanted to really also just extend my thanks to them and also to just make sure that the community hears us that you know this is a great place to ride a bike and we want people to ride bikes here.

I would say the committee did an excellent job. Um, very well done. One question or concern I would have possibly is with the um many out of town tourists that we have coming into the state park. That may be one place we would have to focus on literature things like that. Making sure they have that available because that would be hard to enforce then other than just the the money portion.

Good point. Um, and I'd like to just say I echo what council member Mayor said. I think and and thank staff for bringing um a lot of people with a lot of different opinions and thoughts about where we should start and where we should go and I think you were able to do that really excellently with um all the different voices and we've really been able to create something that I think the community can be really proud of. So thank you. So, with that, I will, if there aren't any other questions from council, I'll go ahead and um provide a motion, which is I move to approve ordinance number 795 as read by title only and continue the second reading and adoption to the city council meeting of February 9th, 2026.

Second. We have a first and a second. Roll call vote, please. And mayor, before I get to the roll call, let me read the ordinance title into the record. Ordinance number 795, an ordinance of the city council of the city of Carpondria amending and replacing chapter 10.60 of the municipal code pertaining to bicycles and electric mobility devices. And now for the roll call. Council member Mayor I. Council member Namura. Hi. Vice Mayor Sarso. Hi. Council member Clark. Hi. And mayor Alakon.

I. We will now move on to item number 13 which is period one department reports for the fiscal year 2025 2026 budget. Mayor, council, community members, while we pull up our our PowerPoint, this is going to be a department shared presentation. I'll start just by giving a little bit of background on this. So, uh, the item before you this evening is our period one um, uh, reports for this current fiscal year 2526 budget. On just a little background, on March 24th, 2025, the city council adopted u some primary goals and priorities for the next two fiscal years uh 2526 and 2627. Those uh those primary goals included to enhance public outreach, education, and transparency, maintain a small uh beachside town, enhance quality of life for residents, and maintain the fiscal sustainability of the city. That served as the the basis for city staff development of strategic uh program goals and objectives. And some other uh important considerations were things like funding, staff capacity, technology and resources, uh regulatory and um legal constraints. I'd like to note that the items that that we're reporting on are not the dayto-day. These are additional things that are have a start and an end time and they don't include things that come up randomly uh because

they weren't obviously programmed into our uh goals at the beginning. So these are just uh items that were thought of at the beginning uh and the ones that we tend to share the ones that closely relate to city council's goals andor just notable activities that occurred during the period. uh there is a bit of a a change in cadence. So last year we had just a single uh year budget and we came and we did four reports. So we did one every three months. Uh now that we went to a two-year budget, we still intend to come four times. Uh but now it's going to include two different quarters. Uh one and two is what we're covering this quarter. I should also mention that's on the fiscal year. So that includes July 1 uh to December 31st this time. And uh it it allows us to show more meaningful progress over 6 months. It balances uh staff capacity and also continues that we provide regular updates uh for the council. And the fact that also it's aligned with the city with the city's fiscal year budget allows us to be flexible and if we need to to do anything that involves uh some budget uh amendments, we can align those as well. Uh the next time we come back will be period two. That will be quarters uh three and four and will include January 1st to June 30th. Uh so the purpose of uh the item before you tonight is to present you all with these reports and then to receive any feedback or direction from the city council uh as deemed appropriate. The components of the uh report this evening are uh is a department overview and that's a summary of all the highle or the most notable activities from the period. Uh ideally someone could just read that summary and have a really good idea on everything that happened over

the last two quarters. Uh to make it even easier, we have a bulleted list of key department highlights that goes into even more detail. And then we have our upcoming department priorities, things that you can expect to see over the next two uh quarters. And then we finish with a department financial summary which includes a table of of any amendments or changes to the department budget. Um and then any things you know uh variances to the budget or challenges that were worth noting. Uh, one of the changes from the last time we presented this report is that it include included in addition to a department summary, individual program summaries. Some of the feedback that we got from that is that it was somewhat repetitive because all of the highlights were in the department summary and then uh the program summaries uh highlighted many of the same things. What was absent was maybe some more of the granular data things that people might be interested in which is like what's the progress on this one very specific goal that we were interested in. So one of the things that we'll be adding online in the next uh two to four weeks is a um an online resource that covers [clears throat] all activity for every single goal and every single objective uh that occurred over the period. So people will be able to go online that'll be rather extensive. we're talking potentially hundreds of pages. So, uh, online is is where it will be solely because you're going to need sorting and you're going to need to be able to filter and research that. Otherwise, you're just digging through a lot of different pages, but if somebody has a particular interest in any goal, they'll be able to go online and do that. Um, we look forward to getting that up on hot topics and coming back and letting you know as soon as it's available. Um, one other thing that I I did note uh at

the end of the report is uh one of the things that was noticed last year is that the city's commitment to to public you know education outreach transparency uh you know obviously adds a lot more time to each item that you cover. So um you know if before we did five projects at low outreach, we found that doing three projects at a medium to high outreach was about as much as you know staff could could cover. And so some of the the number of projects that staff have been able to take on has has lessened while the quality of those that we've presented has um I think uh risen. So you might find that that's a theme that you'll see throughout the the various reports this evening. Uh so with that I will go on to general government and start us off. So uh we started uh the year strong with the celebrating the 60 years of Carperia. that was a week's worth of events um and coordination with TVSB to ensure that that event was streamed. And so we had our first local state of the city event in a long time. I know we've had them before uh but uh actually held by the city. Uh so it was a great event. We also uh executed a contract that Brian mentioned this evening for Civic Plus Agenda Management System. And believe me when I say Brian only really covered the surface of these things. that there's a lot of internal efficiencies that are going to be created and stuff I look forward to you all seeing. And then uh along with your council, we helped uh administer uh $136,500 in um grants to 10 local nonprofits and then an additional $10,000 for immigration uh support efforts. Uh we

did not anticipate the second half of that I think when we started but uh the committee did anticipate having some additional monies available for that. So uh happy to be able to take that on. Um we also um conducted a pre-analysis for the release of a classification and composation study uh for staff. That's something that happens um every few years and the city's last time uh we did this was in 2021. And so we just want to ensure and see where the city compares with the market. Um we completed an audit um for comprehensive accurate property insurance coverage. None of that's we don't always get to do the exciting stuff but it's the tedious riskmanagement items that uh the team has taken on and that's just one of many items. And then of course as mentioned earlier our proposition 218 process with the assessment districts has taken up a substantial uh amount of time. Uh in addition to that, we've had a lot of focus on staff training, including train the trainers so that our staff can actually continue this these training items. Uh and then also um a citywide uh training tracker to make sure that we're meeting all of our legal requirements. So again, not necessarily the fun stuff, but really beneficial for staff. uh some of the major events as mentioned the 60th anniversary week we uh worked with our our sheriff's department and I think the city got more involved than we had in the past and uh I think it really worked out that strong partnership for a successful national night out event. Um, we worked with your council to do five assessment district uh presentations and uh at those if you would happen to attend one of those there was much more talk about other items beyond assessment districts and things that people were interested in discussing. Uh so those

were fruitful. Um we also uh hosted two separate ones um in addition to the five assessment district presentations. I did one at age well and then we also did a town hall here at the chamber. And then we also uh did a voter survey to gauge uh community support on potential revenue measures as one of the items that we discussed um and back when we were starting this budget is the trajectory of the city's revenues to expenses. And so um tackling that is part of one of the city council goals of the financial sustainability of the city. So gauging that um and h conducting that uh survey and then inclusive outreach. So conducted fully Spanish language presentations and uh distributed bilingual ready SBC materials and our new program manager Jalisa Biones was very instrumental in ensuring those occurred. Some of the upcoming priorities is our agenda management software launch uh that we're looking to debut here this coming month. the um to issue an RFP for that class and comp study to continue with some finalization of personnel rules and regulations. Uh again, just a lot of policy uh infrastructure for the city. Uh we'll come back to your council with the econ mini code amendment and our education plan as as uh Ryan Kins just mentioned earlier. Uh we're looking to launch a teen basic training course and then also uh we've been working with uh the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority or CJPIA on our loss control action plan findings which again is very exciting risk management stuff. Um and then we'll be looking to come back to your council with uh voter survey results to inform next steps on

potential revenue measures for the city. So financial overview um we uh utilize soul source procurement for civic plus to expedite uh that modernization and we continue to close insurance gaps through analysis basically by really going through with a uh fine tooth comb. We've been able to find uh savings for the city andor find items that weren't appropriately insured. So handling that and then um also laid the groundwork for fiscal sustainability through the assessment district voter surveys and polling analysis. So with that that that concludes the overall summary for general government department. Happy to answer any questions about anything from the report um before passing it on to our next department.

Yeah. Um I saw in general government and then some of the other reports too. Um it's mentioned that uh there are some challenges with staff uh capacity. Um that seems to be something that goes across other departments too. Can you talk a little bit just maybe especially for the public to understand what that ends up um what impacts that ends up happen on things like priorities and and some ongoing projects?

Yes, absolutely. Um thank you uh Vice Mayor Soloros. So, one of the things is is we're we're very lean and because when you're a smaller city, you tend to have individuals that wear multiple hats. You know, animal control and code compliance are the same individual. So, if that one person happens to be sick, both divisions are out. Um, and so, uh, we have one person that handles, uh, emergency management and communications for the city. And so anytime we have vacancies or uh life things that occur um it puts a lot of those things on hold whereas a larger city might have the second or third person to carry that work on. Um and so you know there's various reasons throughout each of the departments but that's one of the primary reasons.

I think that's it's important for people to just be aware of that being such a small staff that you guys are doing a lot of work at the same time across the board. And so, um, just want to kind of acknowledge that. Uh, and then you mentioned that in with general government that some of the outreach improvements had unintended capacity impacts. How what were how what were some of those impacts or where were some of those impacts? Yeah, Vice Mayor Solos knows as you know somewhat alluded to earlier when when you take a program uh that before uh or actually you know and I can act it would be really great to let Nick Bob get to this as he starts talking about some of his development projects. many of these items uh the public wouldn't be involved until maybe the first ARB meeting and we've had so many you know controversial projects that uh even when you don't have a completed application there's lots of involvement there's um frequently asked question pages uh there's several emails that have to go back and oftent times coordination with the city attorney's office and so again things that might have taken you know I don't know 20 hours are now taking 80 to 90 hours uh for similar projects. And so in addition, you you add to that all of the social media uh our commitment to making sure things are translated English and Spanish and all of those things. Uh again, I think they're great in that they make the overall product so much better. Uh but when you have a small team, it just means that uh just the amount of work that you're able to take on is less and it's just that much more important that we're prioritizing the work that we do.

Thank you very much. Any other questions? Thank you for your report. Thank you.

And good evening again, mayor, vice mayor, and council. I'm happy to report on some of the great work the parks, recreation, and community services team has accomplished during this first reporting period. During this period, the library's three-year strategic and operating plan was adopted by the library board of trustees, and the library team has already begun working on several goals outlined in the document. There were approximately 4,900 participants in library programming during this reporting period. The community garden has been working hard to grow partnerships with local schools and organizations. And one example of a new partnership is with the Santa Barbara City College, which hosted its master gardener course at the garden. The Sunday swim lessons pilot program met its cost recovery goal with 135 of 162 available lessons lesson spaces filled which resulted resulted in an 83.33% fill rate and age well continues to expand partnerships and collaborations. One example is the partnership with the carpentria children's project where the abuelos meetup group has grown from a monthly meeting to weekly gatherings. Agewells also partnered with the legal aid foundation to provide a presentation on accessible legal education during one of those Abuel's meetups. Considering that community is literally in the name of our department, it's no surprise that the team has actively participated in and led a number of community engagement initiatives. The entire department participated in National Night Out in August. Agewell program coordinator Jenna Jenkins was a guest speaker at the annual HopeNet candlelight vigil. Agewell and the aquatics team participated in the CCP health fair. The community garden co-hosted the annual pumpkin smash in collaborations with public works. The library hosted the Mexican consulate conducted multiple school visits

throughout the year and participated in the Carpentria High School winter concert. Additionally, additionally, our program manager Tori Cutbirth presented to Noon Ro Rotary on some of the exciting programs her team is bringing forward. Looking ahead, the team will continue working on developing a fundraising plan for the community pool renovation project along with a youth aquatic scholarship program and accompanying policy. We hope to bring a draft fundraising sponsorship and donation policy to your council in the coming months as well. The team is also finalizing Spanish translations of community garden and agewell applications and forms, creating bilingual signage for the garden, and continuing progress on the library strategic and operating plan. For the financial overview, we have nothing to report outside of what was budgeted for and planned during this time. This does include the purchase of new furniture and fixtures for the Veterans Memorial Hall meeting room and reception room. And the community pool has already purchased most if not all of the necessary supplies and equipment for the upcoming spring and busy spring and summer season. And this concludes the update for my department. I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Any questions? Sure. Just one quick question. Um, so it sounds like there's a lot of participation growth along amongst the parks and wreck programs. Just even anecdotally, can you share your impression of maybe what types of groups are are participating more whether it's younger people or you know older folks or different demographics?

Yes. Uh through the mayor vice mayor solo. That's a great question. Um unfortunately, yeah, my answer would have to just be anecdotally based on observations and telling from my staff. I think Eric and the library team has done just a fantastic job of really expanding and growing our Spanish speaking programs and offerings. Um same with Jenna and the Agewell group. Um expanding the Abuelos group. Uh just the need for it to go from a monthly meeting to weekly just I think speaks volumes about more participation and engaged participants. um age well I think since I've started here since the program began before my time has had great participation and that is of course um exclusively um older adults 55 and over um and I think they're doing a great job of maintaining if not growing those programs

thank you I know those are some of our priority areas for for communities that we wanted to engage more so it's really great to hear that that's that's happening um with your programming absolutely thank you

any other questions Thank you for your report. Thank you. Um, good evening, mayor and members of the council and the public. Uh, my name is Lisette Maldonado and I will be providing the strategic plan update for administrative services department. Um some of our department highlights um during the reporting period the department focused on strengthening staff capacity improve improving internal processes and preparing for future technology needs. A targeted investment was made in professional development across core operational areas utilizing a combination of in-person and virtual training formats and leveraging partial and full scholarship to maximize value. In July 2025, a formal procurement procedures and a city credit card policy were implemented to strengthen internal controls, improve consistency, and enhance enhance uh accountability. Beginning in November 2025, efforts were initiated to streamline the business license compliance process through improved coordination and the development of a fiscal year compliance timeline. Additionally, a standardized citation and collection system was launched in October of 2025 to improve tracking, documentation, and revenue recovery. The department also advanced preliminary planning for the Microsoft Office 365 migration, positioning the project to begin in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year. community um for community engagement. The department supported community community engagement efforts by contributing to the development of the

budget and brief in providing clear and accessible information on the city's budget priority priorities and the use of public funds. Uh staff also assisted with the state of the city helping communicate key financial information and departmental initiatives to the community and residents. Um over the upcoming period, the department will focus on advancing several key priorities. Uh work will begin on drafting a comprehensive grant management policy in preparation for council adoption by the fourth quarter of the fiscal year. The department will also finalize and implement streamline business license compliance procedures in coordination with HDL and code enforcement. Um, planning for the Office 365 migration will be completed the the citywide migration initiated by the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, including staff training and system transition. Ongoing priorities will include continued staff training and knowledge sharing to strengthen technical capacity as well as the development and implementation of a capital asset policy to improve inventory tracking, accountability, and financial reporting. Overall, there are no major expenditures to report and spending remains within normal operating levels for the department. All expend expenditures are within the adopted budget and no items exceeded budgeted appropriations. This concludes my presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions? No. No questions. Thank you, Lette. Good evening, Mayor Erican, council members. I'm going to walk you through what the community development department's been up to for the last 6 months. Um, I think I'd start by just saying that somewhat unexpectedly for us, we had to devote a lot more of our staff time and resources to working on development review projects than we had anticipated. We've we've um experienced a little bit of an influx of large complex projects that are either proposed and are going through the preliminary steps of the planning process or projects that were previously entitled that are now coming into fruition of either going through uh building plan check or starting work in the case of Chevron. And and so it's really caused us to have to reallocate staff time from our long-range planning or advanced planning division as well as a lot of my time towards current planning. And that has had some impact on our ability to make as much progress on some of our other departmental goals and objectives um that we had identified to to get working on here this first reporting period. Nevertheless, we have managed to to make some progress on a few key uh objectives that are highlighted here on the screen. These include releasing the public draft of the general plan update, the long-awaited general plan update back in summer of last year and holding a public workshop and two general plan update committee meetings to solicit feedback on that public draft. And since that time, we've been working to incorporate some of that feedback into a revised draft that we hope to publish here later this month or next. Uh we've also made some great headway on

process improvements and some of this dovetales with what Lette was just reporting through the administrative services department. Uh so as of December of last year we were able to become fully operational with data ticket which is a a vendor that we're now using to help us in collecting fines and citations. And so, um, since making that change, we've seen a market increase in our ability to actually get repayment on those fines and and citations, as well as the ability to go after folks who continue to not pay them. So, that that's improved our compliance efforts there u significantly. Um, and we're also making some efforts to improve the permitting and business licensing processes. Again, Lette's touched on some of this and some of what we've been working on in our department is to improve the clarity of the applications and making sure that we're steering people in the right way from the get-go so that we have all the information that we need to expeditiously review and process their applications. And then the big one for us is just also in December of last year, your council authorized the city to enter into an agreement with Govwell Technologies. and that'll be um the vendor that we will use along with public works for the intake, processing, and issuance of all community development and public works permits once that becomes operational. So, that's a a huge improvement over the process we're using currently. And it will not only make those processes more transparent for the public, but it should also make it simpler that now you can take care of all these steps from at home or from their office rather than needing to come in to apply for or pay for or pick up a permit. Uh we also just recently in December with assistance from your council took an important step towards uh helping direct our affordable housing strategies with the formation of the affordable housing subcommittee. And and that

committee will help guide housing policy and strategies going forward here over the rest of this budget cycle and into the future ones, I'm sure. [snorts] In terms of community engagement, uh beyond the general plan workshop, we had staff attend and also participate in the coastal housing conference. This is a um a conference that takes place with the different south coast jurisdictions and and a panel discussion on the state of affairs with regards to uh helping address the housing crisis here in the Santa Barbara South Coast. Our code compliance team was also uh engaged in a couple of different activities over this last reporting period. Um perhaps most significantly following the July 1st affffectuation of the multif family smoking ordinance, our code compliance supervisor, David Hernandez, has been out to several of the larger multif family complexes at their invitation to help do an audit of sorts and help them make sure that they're in compliance with these regulations in terms of posted signage and those sorts of things. And at least on the case of of one site visit, uh our code compliance staff and our planning staff have been assisting with helping to not only ensure compliance, but see if there's a way that they can still provide a compliant smokers outpost for some of their residents who do still want a place to to smoke uh tobacco products. And then our code compliance staff also uh had a booth at the national night out event there in July. going forward here into this next reporting period. Um we're looking to restart the interdep departmental advisory group meetings. That's a a mouthful. We call it IDAG. Um it doesn't sound like much, but it's really important in terms of facilitating inter agency coordination on pending projects and also active building permits. So this is uh a monthly coordination meeting with city staff, water district staff, sanitary district staff and fire

district staff where we can get together, we can talk about new projects that came that are coming in. We can also talk about projects that are either getting ready for building permit issuance or wrapping up the permit uh process and construction process to make sure that all of our eyes are dotted and tees are crossed and we're all working together and pulling in the same direction. Um those meetings went on a hiatus during COVID and and they hadn't ever come back. So I'm looking forward to getting those started. Uh we'll also be building out the kind of behind the scenes workflows for the Govwell permit platform with the hope of having building permits up and running before the end of the next reporting cycle. And then I'm hoping as well to uh get our long range planning staff back working on long-range planning projects and and make some more headway on some of these initiatives that we've been uh chipping away at for quite some time. So on the general plan update, the next big step there will be to initiate the SQA process and start in on the environmental impact report. I anticipate that'll start here in the next couple months. And then also get back to making some headway on uh updating our accessory dwelling unit regulations, density bonus, and some of these other housing laws that were uh needing to um update to reflect current state law. In terms of financial overview, I I don't have any bad news to share. Um, you know, we we were able to award a couple of contracts that were budgeted for and that have been a long time in in the making. And then also just on a positive note, I wanted to to note that we're actually well ahead of budget projections in terms of revenue. And again, that reflects how busy we've been on planning cases in particular where we're at 120% already of our annual budget projections. And then I would also just note there that the um you know little ahead of the curve bump up on fines and citations I think we can attribute in part to the success of data

ticket and helping us collect those payments and fines. And that wraps up my presentation unless you have any questions for me. Questions? Just one quick question. So, you're talked about the fact that some of these large projects have been pulling staff time um away from other smaller projects and you mentioned what some of those not smaller or just not as urgent projects are. What are some that might be people might be that people should know about that are maybe not getting as much momentum right now as they could where they're not all these big project complicated projects that you mentioned

through the [clears throat] through the mayor vice mayor Sarseno I think where we're seeing the biggest impact is in the progress that we're um making on some of the long range planning initiatives. Right? So, we are making progress, but I'm not as far along as I'd hoped to be on, for example, getting the accessory dwelling unit ordinance updated. Uh, I'd hope to have that done in this last 6-month period and and have it into coastal commission by now. And instead, I still need to take it to planning commission and city council. Uh, you know, so in some cases, I'm I'm several months behind where I'd like to be. So, it's not so much that work isn't getting done, it's just that we're not able to devote as much time to it. And because of that, everything's taking longer.

Yeah. No, I appreciate you highlighting that because I think the community is aware of a lot of these really big complicated projects that have come on board. And it's important to to I think even just to remind ourselves that the the energy that goes towards dealing with those takes away some some um some energy from other places too.

Yeah. The one of the challenges with these development review projects is that they often have um kind of legal timelines to them, right? So when an application comes in, we have to respond within so many days and so forth. And so that sort of pushes these projects along at a different pace or a different cadence than, you know, say working on ordinance that can kind of plug along at whatever pace we choose to to put it at. And and so what often happens then is is those long range planning projects get put on the back burner because they don't have those same kind of, you know, legal repercussions as these development review cases do.

Thank you. Any other questions? Seeing none, thank you. Appreciate all the work that you've been doing. Thank you, Mayor. That that um concludes our report. And I' I'd like to say too is, you know, there was a we have public works. Oh, sorry. I he because he wasn't in his suit. I didn't. I'm just kidding. [laughter] That's a Sorry for that joke, John.

I believe I'm pretty well represented in my brand uh sweater. Okay. Uh, [clears throat] council member, oh, excuse me, madame mayor, council members, public works department, uh, department highlights. Uh, one of the strategic goals, I think it was goal number two in [clears throat] enhancing our workforce in public works department. We uh completed workforce training and development and it's not necessarily a uh addressing capacity even though we are short in terms of capacity. This is more capabilities we want to have or I had envisioned our maintenance division staff in particular to be more capable being a lean group they are to be have more skill sets capable of crossing over from one particular um uh skill or particular uh work to another. Like for example, parks and facilities. Uh you'll have a maintenance worker who's capable of doing parks and facility type of work and at the and if needed be can be uh transferred or reassigned to a streets uh type of work and that was the vision of our um maintenance division staff. It's not to say the administration part administration personnel of our department is lesser because uh our administrative staff as well is um um training in their particular skill set to be more capable. Uh you meant uh you heard at the beginning of this uh council meeting in the city manager report of uh our assistant engineer Josephina Archiga uh earning or obtaining a resident engineer academy uh uh certificate and that was for construction management and that's one of the reasons why we have an assistant

engineer engineering tech so we have more in-house capability for construction management. Um uh the particular checks I uh put here in front of you uh we have uh pretty good certifications. I mean they're very specialized special uh certifications like traffic control and flagger safety certification. uh the Center for Organizational Effectiveness and Management Academy, one of our our ma our management analysts, Stefan DS, which by the way, I do want to recognize him in helping prepare these presentation slides as well as preparing help the strategic goal templates that you have in your staff report. Um he um has completed two out of the three modules or the uhmies to earn um the public public management certificate

certified

the certified public matter. Thank you uh Michael. Uh we also have certified pool operator certifications uh backflow prevention device certification that's basically for uh irrigation uh CPR first aid fire safety and haz whopper reertifications I apologize council member Nura Hazer I know the acronyms is uh we need to spell that out whopper the hazardous waste operations and response certifications that is what is whopper. Uh moving on to uh the next goal of um breaking down barriers of accessibility, our gov multil- language translation. So our gov platform is our service request platform that you that the community general public could access either through our city website or the city's mobile application that you could download on your favorite mobile device, Apple and Google Play Store. And this GoGo multilanguage translation is it does if English is a second language to you, you'll have the capability or Yes. Capability of selecting particular language and how we've done that we've embedded the Google translation engine to the service request or the gov of so if English is a second language you can select your u your preferred language to submit a service request. So we are breaking down that barrier of u not necessarily physical uh accessibility but language accessibility. So it's divers it's a more of a diversified equitable way of submitting a service request. Uh solid waste education uh we've partnered with explore ecology

delivering waste reduction and composting education to over 300 students. uh this past summer and through the school year program uh we uh we've exe executed a memoranduming of understanding MAU with Pomarus network um to be to to lead the city in training uh training schedule and community outreach uh planned for October 2026. all those particular highlights uh deals with educating folks on recycling practices and believe it or not there's some some people still put recycled into the trash and and vice versa. So this is um more reinforcing the education on solid waste community engagement. I believe that's what public works is about community engagement. I like to say community engagement major events. Uh you you heard about certain uh events uh from my colleagues about um uh uh especially our recreation part of the community engagement in in partnership with our parks, recreation, and community service department. Pumpkin Smash is an annual event that was successful. Creek Week, it's always been a success. Those are people who are contribut I don't know exactly what year but I believe it's next last year of the the the valuable volunteers that help clean up the creek. Uh one of the uh community engagements that's not necessarily shown here is in in our capital projects. uh in our capital projects uh we make it a point to reach out to members of the public especially if it affects uh their street like a pavement project and you'll I'll talk about a

little bit about um capital improvement projects in in one of the slides here but I I like to recognize also our staff for putting out mailers and reaching out to community members about our capital projects like for example the Dulan shoreline management plan that now that has been um morphed into the carpeted living shoreline project that has been a continuing engagement. It still um still is uh Lynen Avenue permits project and I'll get to the upcoming department parties on capital improvements. We've notified we notify people especially those who are affected by that project. So our projects just don't come all of a sudden and just snatches [snorts] or surprises the people. We actually go out and pull out mailers and in our contract documents in construction projects, we require the contractor to um distribute public notices for construction. Uh speaking of capital improvements, I'll just go out of order. Uh our priorities to complete that Lynen Avenue improvements project as well as the Carpenter High School crosswalk safety improvements project. uh implement the construction phase of the Frank Creek trail improvement project. Uh complete the community engagement strategy for the Carney Living Shoreline project. Complete the design phase of the 2023 pavement maintenance rehabilitation project. I'm going to digress a little bit u from this uh because um I do get certain our department our city does get a lot of service requests a lot of complaints about pavement about sidewalk about street trees this particular project is in this design phase and like our city manager has mentioned there's going to be an upcoming CIP study session this is where I will

um asking for uh or recommending for certain amount of funding for pavement projects because it's not all good news. We are having an issue with pavement and you could always see me to see all these service requests that come to me through gov service requests. My street needs to be paved. Allah Sterling Avenue, Allah Arbal Verde Street. I'm just naming those streets because those are the streets that pop po pop po pop po pop po pop po pop po pop po pop po pop po pop po pop in my head um sidewalks street trees we don't have money for that and I am digressing but I wanted to show you not everything is good news right now that from for the public works department part uh receiving those type of good news uh and I I try to write these particular responses to these service requests I really do about pavement we don't and people are and impatient with that. So, we'll talk about it more in our CIP study session. So, going back, we're trying to continue monitoring, pursuing the grant funding opportunities. Uh we are still um we found some but not a lot for pavement. Um because every city needs pavement money. Um and uh though not mentioned here we are looking at our uh cities that are our neighboring cities to perhaps there's a concept of a pavement coalition with this uh neighboring city of city of Santa Barbara and Golita and I believe there's other cities as well but I know those two we are looking into that concept of a pavement coalition and that's uh that's a topic at another time and more than likely it might be a CIP study session. topic. Uh moving uh up here on administration, uh continue to develop and implement standardized feedback and evaluation framework for community events to assess

outcomes, capture public input, and inform continuous improvement of future program. What does that mean? We're trying to create um um kind of like a survey of of um I don't know what that framework is, but that is a priority. We're trying we have it in the gov it's like okay here's survey and what particular feedback we get from them but we want to have more of a standardized feedback platform other than the gov system sustaining environment uh as I mentioned um priority is to execute anou uh with the community hazards waste collection center so that is by that is administered by the county of Santa Barbara we're now we're not part of that so folks here in the community just goes to our ABOP and then there's only so much we could take in and then of course there's the annual household hazardous waste but once we are enrolled in the community hazardous waste collection we have to pay into that by the way uh our residents if they miss ABOP if they miss the annual household hazardous waste day on April they could go there at any time with um a lot more uh materials to bring as opposed to our ABOP center which is very limited launch promator solid waste education community outreach. So those are priorities. Uh financial overview, no significant department deviations or concerns to report. Overall, our budget is within the adopted budget. There are line items that we do budget allocation for, but that's only within the fund. We don't take it from Peter to pay Paul. We don't do take general fund to pay for measure X and whatever. It's basically within that fund. So when we do those budget allocations, it's always only within those funds and that's policed by administrative service department. I can't just take money from here and

there. So just let you know that that's what we do as as common practice uh financial practice. Uh and public works department we make use of on call services um contract services to staff augment our capacity and we'll continue to do that for efficiency reasons. Um but for the most part we're trying to do things in house as well. Uh that concludes my presentation. Uh pending questions

questions from council. Just one really quick question. It's the roll out of the multi- language uh translation on gov. That seems like a really big step um to have that. Is there something that the city or public works is doing to advertise that more to the Spanish speaking community since it sounds like that's going to make it easier much easier for them to potentially submit uh service requests? Yes, Vice Mayor Solarseno. uh uh that will I'm going to work with uh Julisa Biones and Leah Boyd on putting out that particular small little feature. Yes, it's something small but it it does make a difference

and uh I haven't put it out as far as a uh public engagement uh piece of what we supposed to be doing. Thank you. I think that's a great great step. Any other questions? No questions. Thank you for your report.

So, mayor, that that concludes our our department reports. As mentioned, I'll come back to your council and let you know as soon as every single item is up and and we can go through and go through some of the search functions. You know, one of the things that I I will mention is is as I was seeing items up there in various departments, um I could see that I I know that multiple departments were involved in those. You might have just saw the Microsoft transition under administrative services, but multiple departments are involved in that. And I think just for, you know, not wanting to duplicate uh wasn't included in everyone, but really proud of the fact that, you know, we don't have silos here. We all work together as a team. probably helps that all of our offices are made of glass and you can see into them. But um we all work together very well. I'm really just um proud of everyone. I look forward to coming back to you soon.

Um I will go ahead and open up public comment and I have two speaker slips. Susan Milw followed by Kate Stewart. Thank you. City council members, mayor, and um city manager, can you hear me? I always have this address. Is this good enough? Thank you. Okay. So, I'm here to comment on item 13. Now, you're here to receive reports um for the fiscal year 2025 2026. I request that you add an urgent priority. Please update the Carpa Municipal Code to help the harbor seals. Their numbers are greatly declining.

[snorts]

Every year throughout summer and fall when the harbor seal sanctuary is not closed, people come through the seal rrookery violating the federal marine mammal protection act. I am with the former harbor seal advisory committee and now with SOS committee with CVA. We have told you that disturbances caused by violators of the marine mammal protection act is a major factor in the harbor seal decline. A solution identified by the Harbor Seal Advisory Committee is to incorporate the protections of the Marine Mammal Protection Act into the Carpa Municipal Code to allow the city um enforcement of these protections. Reducing disturbances during the non-closed period is one action that the city could take to have a measurable effect on the declining seal population. Please incorporate the protections of the Marine Memo Protection Act into municipal code. Tell those who selfishly choose to violate this law that carpenteria cares about its seals. It would greatly benefit our struggling population if it's not too late. [snorts] We stand to lose what many people consider to be the crown jewel of carpia. and I'm speaking for many people

that would not ever come here tonight. So, please consider that. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your comments, Kate Stewart, followed by Valerie Bent. Madame Mayor, Deputy Mayor, council members, can you hear me? Okay. Okay. I am addressing you on the same topic to ask you to consider and act upon putting the Marine Mammal Protection Act language into Carpondria Municipal Code. To give you my perspective, I have worked one year as a Seal Watch volunteer. I'm in my second year and I spent the summer and fall with Save Our Seals. I've often worked low tide watch where I interact with people who would like to go on into the seal sanctuary. During the summer, I ask them if they are aware of the seal sanctuary and offer them the opportunity to not disturb the seals that particular day that we're speaking. Many people think it might be a difficulty to have to go up to the Coastal Vista Trail and around the area. I can tell you the story quickly of one man, I'll call him the cameraman. He walks every day. And during the summer and fall, he told me, "The city's not serious, so I'm going through." And I could see him with my binoculars from the west. Go under the bridge. go right to the water where the seals would be. That's like in their bed. So, they can't even come out of the water because he's there. Many people are like this. But just recently, I saw him walking briskly just like he did on the beach on the Coastal Vista

Trail and right down on the the ramp on the east side. Easy as peasy. He was not inconvenienced at all because it's not allowed then. So, I want to let you know that I think a lot of people would be more amunable to going around if there was code, carpentry municipal code that said we care. That's what I've got to say. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Mike Wandelowski, followed by Elias Sprog. I'm Mike Wondowski speaking for Carbon Valley Association. Uh same topic as the previous couple speakers. Uh we asked the direct staff to add one additional project to their overflowing to-do list uh to incorporate the MMPA protections into the municipal code. And again, just the framework here. During the seasonal beach closure, when there's a disturbance, the city has enforcement authority because the municipal code says you can't be on the beach causing a disturbance or doing anything else. In the summer, when there is a disturbance, the city has zero enforcement capability because even though the Marine Mal Protection Act, MMPA, is being violated, that's not the city's authority to enforce. So the city is powerless and US Fish and Wildlife has no local presence to enforce that. So um adding those protections would be a big benefit and would give the city the enforcement it needs to educate the public and publicize these issues. Um, we refer you to the three-page document that we submitted last week, uh, that had more detail on this specific request and also to our recently published report by CVA save our seals committee uh, that has, um, a summary of the challenges facing the colony, a extensive academic research summary on the effects of disturbances, and detailed data, seal counts, and sample videos of disturbances during the summer and fall showing how egregious the behavior of some people is that even if they intentionally go up and disturb the seals and get them all to flush into the ocean, there's nothing the city can do about presently. And that's really not an acceptable situation. And the solution is relatively simple and pretty

cheap. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Elias or Elias, welcome. [clears throat]

Hello, my name is Eliasprag and today I'm asking for the council support to add the Carperia Shores Saver project to the city's strate strategic plan. What is Shores Saver? A beach cleanup station program that make that makes beach cleanups more of an everyday thing that all people can participate in. Why does Carponia need Shore Saver? Have you ever thought that normal beach cleanups don't get enough trash off the beach? Well, so do I. Most of the time, beach cleanups are pretty simple. You bring a group to the beach. You pick up as much trash as you can that day. This is a flawed system on its own because trash comes onto the beach every day with the with the tides. And this is why we need to set up a shore saver program right here in Carperia. It will get more trash off the beach through daily cleanup, improve trash management on our beaches, and engage more people in the environmental stewardship of our beaches. This especially resonates with me because as a person, young person with a lot with a busy life, it was hard for me to get involved in helping the environment in my world. But this would be an easy and effective way for all people to help out. Who started shaver and who's working on it? The coastal collaborative was founded by brothers Aiden and Alex Kravitz in 2023 on Long Island in New York State. They now have over 100 cleanup stations. The first beach cleanup station on West Coast was created in Delmare, California by Jang Grove in 2020. Here at Carperia, we have put together a team that that includes myself, Carperia Beautiful, and the wonderful employees in parks and recreation department of Carperia. We are getting guidance from both Coastal Collaboratives and Delmare Shore Saver programs. They have offered to design our sign for free as well as

give us our first docking station for free. We've also began up. We also begun lining up donors. When can we get our first beach cleanup station? We are hoping to get the first station up over spring break. Where we want to place the first beach cleanup station at the end of 11 Avenue. I have one more thing to add. This is not necessarily in the topic range that I'm talking about now, but it relates to a lot of things there. I'd like to say that though I care deeply about the shorts program, there are some times when it seems insignificant compared all to the big topics, sad topics going on in the world, especi realized that these small topics are even more important during that time because they are what allow us to get hope and realize that we can figure out these problems. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Great job. I do not Oh, yes. Another speaker in the audience. Would you like to

call my name earlier? Should I go? Yes, come on up. Who can

Thank you so much, mayor and council and others. I'm with the Save Our Seals Committee of the Carpentria Valley Association. My name is Valerie Bence. I've lived in Carperia for some time and for some time I've been concerned about the decline in the numbers of our precious harbor seal colony and the lack of understanding that people have that these wonderful creatures need to rest off out of the water every day to sustain themselves. And I see the numbers plummeting for the the city had two year-long advisory committees. And Matt Roberts, who was the prior head of the parks and recreation department, made a recommendation two years ago from the first committee asking that the city develop a a law parallel to the Marine Animal Protection Act. We're coming to you now two years later and asking you to make this simple measure that won't cost anything and even very much staff time because we realize how much the staff [music] has to do. But to put this law in place would give give us a vehicle to save the lives of many of our darling SEALs. the numbers have gone down from maybe 200 that that are counted a couple of years ago to in just this last week an average count of 40 to 50. So we have this dramatic decline. We are one of only two visible seal colonies of harbor seals left all the way south from San Louis Abyspo. It's a treasured resource. I wanted to point out from the our paper, our CVN does such [music]

wonderful job with the seal counts. In just one week, there were people visiting from 23 states to our seal colony and 11 countries in just one week. So, we have this treasure. It goes way back. The Chumash realized it. The seal colony was here way back when they were. So, please do this one small measure to allow us what we can do to help our precious colony. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments. Yes. Would you like to make public comment? Come on up. And if you could fill out a speaker slip when you're done. Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hi, [music] Mayor. Alakan. Aler.

Aler. Allercon and vice mayor and the council and staff and listeners all around. Um my name is Chris Elder. I've been up here before. Uh and I'm here about the seal issue. I am one of 27 approximately 27,000 visitors in year 2025 that visited the rrookery. I'm also a member of the Seal Watch um group volunteers and um and also a member of a and hopefully contributing to a group of uh educators in the Seal Watch volunteer group who are going to be greeting schools that come to the Rrookery um to learn about this as we've heard precious resource that Carpenta has. Um, I am so privileged and so grateful to be able to work with this um, volunteer group and to spend time there. I've only lived here about seven years now and I'm a retired teacher and a school director and I get to um participate in educating the public about the these wonderful beings that we have in our city and um and speak to what was mentioned people from not just around our country but around the world that come and delight in spending time there. Um, it's a privilege, it's an honor, it's important. And, um, and I wanted to say that since I've become even more passionate about the seals, um, I was I'm learning more and more each year. And I do I am impressed at the amount of time that they really do need to spend out of the water every day. I used to think it was just for the birthing season, but learning more about especially the molting season, which happens late summer, and for some seals, it's a process that can take two months.

It might range from 2 to four months. And they need to spend more time, you probably have all heard this, but they need to spend more time on land, especially during that time, because they're losing their fur and they can't spend that amount of time in the water anymore, in the cold water anymore. So, it's a year round process. I was kind of shocked with the in the website um section in Marine Mammal Institute Rehabilitation Center in Salelo about harbor seals. The first line they said was that the health of a harbor seal depends upon the duration [clears throat] and the quality of their rest. So, it is super important for them. It's a year round process. And yes, human disturbances matter. Yes, there are other threats that play into this, you know, you know, entanglements and probably food loss, etc. But if we could do this one measure and the volunteers who are so extraordinary can put efforts, you know, throughout the entire year to help educate people from, you know, kindergarten up that come, it would be super helpful. And ecoourism, I mean, people come to Carperia to see these creatures. They really do and they're adding to the economy here, foods, lodging, etc. that you we talk to them every day. So, I'm here to support this initiative that's being proposed tonight. And I thank you for giving me your time.

Thank you for your comments. Yeah. And I'll fill out that slip. Yeah. Anyone else in the audience? Seeing none, I will look to Brian and see if we have anyone via Zoom. Mayor, we have no raised hands. Okay. So, I will go ahead and officially close public comment and bring it back to the council for any um questions, comments, and or motion.

I mean, I would be interested to ask staff to look into what this would look like to change our municipal code. Um, I I think we need to have staff look into it and make sure we're not doing anything unourred, but um I think that this doesn't seem like this seems like a good thing that we should do. And so like as a followup to that, so I think that the request that they're making is for it to be put on a departmental just basically like the priority list. Is that right? I just want to confirm with city staff. That's what the the request sounds like it is from the public commenters.

Yeah, Vice Mayor Solar. Yeah, that was my understanding uh was to have it added to the staff uh priority list. Okay. At least heard that from some. Yes. U so I would support that and I would also support having the shore saver project added. It sounds like that's something that's somewhat in the works already or at least there's been conversations with city staff about that. So, I think uh I could support both of those being added. I'm happy to support both of that as well. Both of those items. Is there any objection from other council members?

Uh no, no objections. Just curious, uh this probably would have been easier if it was handled during the regular public comment time. This one here is supposed to be on budget items. So, I'm just not trying to figure out how the budget portion of this is going to fit. I think on departmental reports which include the priorities for each department. I I think that's the reasoning behind requesting that these be included in the department priority lists.

Good. So I think my question for staff would be um should the well I mean the if the request is to put these items on the priority list I look at the directors to see because you'll still have to go back and and weigh what existing priorities you have and then you'd still have to put it on a on the docket in terms of a reasonable time. Um, so I just want to make sure that that's what that not timeline, but that process would look like, I guess.

Yeah, mayor. So, we have a couple different ways to approach this. So, we we do have an on on deck list we call it or um I think that it's a sports analogy that misses some folks, but just like the uh our second list of of items that staff gets to when time allows. And so I guess it would be a question of whether we'd like to consider uh bumping an existing priority or adding it to our our backup list which is on we add it to the list and it's just as soon as staff has time. Uh and then it could be looked at as we um relook at our next strategic plan on wanting to prioritize it at that time or we would need some direction from the council on rep prioritization of existing ones or again we we add it to our list of um as soon as we can get to it. Uh I know when I know you know one of the the issues um and I'm looking so I know Nick overseeing code compliance you know one of the issues that we've had is just a somewhat compounding. I know that there's efforts um from those in the community are trying to raise money for an an additional staff person is that we found that already the code compliance team is is very very spread thin and so I know not that this has fully what they want is it just to be added to the MUN code but I know one of the issues that was brought up is even then staff's ability to go out and and actually enforce it. Um, and so that's a whole other issue that would need to be addressed via some sort of a a budget priority in the future for additional staffing. Um, again, that's not necessarily what they're they're talking about. They just want to add it to the Munich, but it's it's just one other issue to consider. Can

I just have one quick follow up to that? Um, I think that given that these are requests that are coming in right now and that we have established priorities already within departments, I would support them maybe being on the on deck list. I think that makes sense and that that way that they can get attention when the the opportunity arises but aren't displacing what we already had set up or what that department heads also have identified as ongoing priorities. That would that would just be my my comment. But

thank you. Um I'm not I'm not sure what's actually in the Marine Mammal Protection Action in this regard, but a lot of speakers spoke about the issue of closing the beach, which as we discussed a year ago, and um at that time, uh Coastal Commission approval would would be needed to ratify that ordinance. and uh it seemed like there was some significant budget associated with that that staff brought forward. So, I would like to know what that is before we go further. Council member Clark, that is one of the items because I know um there's distance requirements about how far you have to stay and then there'd be a question of whether uh there's enough distance to do that without closing the beach. And if it did require closure, the beach would take us back to a conversation that we had several months ago and staff's happy to to look into that uh portion of it.

That'd be great. So, it sounds as though instead of putting on a list of priorities right now, we're going to want to hear back from Jenna, um, Janette, I'm sorry, an update on on where that landed and what that would take in terms of moving it forward.

Yeah. Yes, Mayor. And and just to put you on the we will also ask Jenna as well uh for the legal things related to the MPPA and then uh look at how it could potentially practically um be implemented here without it um maybe causing some of the things that Al Council member Clark sorry had mentioned uh earlier from previous conversations. So we can do some of that just initial research and bring that back to your council. [music] Okay. So it sounds like that's it. Well, if there's consensus that that's the direction.

Can I ask a question just to make sure I understand? So because I think I think that it is involved in this budget strategic plan priority that they're having this conversation. However, I do think like it would be helpful and I feel like a a year ago, this was part of the conversation we had was could staff come back and explain to us what how like what adding the MMPA language to our municipal code would do. [music] Does that actually trigger a deacto beach closure? Does that mean coastal commission has to be involved? I think like the more information the better for the community who are trying to fund raise for this project. Um if it's not a big project but at least just aformational update that we can provide back sort of takes it off of like a simmer and it just it allows more of an understanding of what we can do. Um I think that's maybe what I'm asking for.

Uh does that make sense? [laughter] I was just going to ask you to maybe restate bulleted restatement of what we could provide.

Okay. I think what I would like to ask staff with permission of with the consensus is if staff could maybe look into what it would look like, what the MMPA language says and what it would look like if we added it to our CMC and what that what would that impact be. I think just [music] like a fact just a information for us to understand because I think we all have this we all feel that we want to do what we can but what we need to know what we're doing I think is that does that make sense? Am I making that statement clear?

Yes. of council member mayor. So to just you know verify the the MMPA um and if we added it to the CMC what what that impact would be um for our beach specifically.

Yeah. I mean because I do think we have to know if there's like if we say this is year round is that a de facto beach closure does that mean Coastal Commission gets involved? I mean I don't know the answer to that. I'm just guessing. Well, I think a related question I would have though as well is so when we say bring it back though, what what does that mean? Because one thing if we end up making it priority for staff to bring it back, then it skips the priority list and then becomes at the top, which is it sounds like that's not what we're trying to do. We're not trying to displace current priorities. But we're trying to add these so that they can be a consideration when the time is right for that because that so that would be my only concern with asking staff to bring stuff back because then that makes it a priority.

Could could I make a suggestion because it sounds like we were going back and forth on this one.

Um my suggestion would be is that we take a look at the um last action that we had last year that I was talking about. There's some findings that didn't come up. This would give us a starting point. Right now, staff is overloaded. We're adding something else to them that wasn't originally on the agenda. I understand from the seal watch people on Mike Wander also is great at this. He knows all the information based on what happened prior to if we could all come together, come for consensus and take a look at specifically what this is in a hearing specifically to where we could see in fact if we could move this forward what the cost factor would be, what was found from the last report that would have changed to where we could then reverse our decision that we made last time. I think that would help us quite a bit. There's a lot of variables in this one. The changes are there. Um I know justifications there, but I remember one of the the roadblocks we had to deal with was coastal commission very specific and they had to do with um city uh our municipal zone area basically of the beaches, the high tide line. What happens in a low tide? How do we control that? Because now we're on state property. It's a state mandate or state um overseeing area. So that's why I'm thinking if we can bring that document back just do a restudy with ourselves through staff to take a look at those reports and have maybe justification or changes what what occurred that would change that decision that would help us in the long process. I would probably need staff uh Jenna specifically to guide us through this one because it's teeter it's walking on a tight line between that and the Brown Act. Council member Nemore. Um, depending on what the council would like, uh, we could do it in a couple different steps. We could bring back some initial information based on information we already have hopefully again as time

permits, uh, without, uh, creating too much more work because, as you mentioned, some of these conversations have occurred. Remind ourselves of that, bring that back to your council as part of the city manager report before fully agendaizing it. And then um and then based on your council's direction from there, perhaps take it the next step if you all would like to do so. That sounds really good. That sounds like what we're thinking. [laughter] Thank you. I'm glad we were able to talk through that. [laughter]

Okay. So, any other Well, I I'll just say before we receive a motion, I just want to thank the staff for putting together this update. We've gone through a handful of iterations of what our strategic um updates look like. And I think we've at least from my perspective, I feel like we've really landed on something that really resonates to the public, something that's easy to read and really easy for us to understand. So, I know I'm really looking forward to that second part of being able to look at the dashboard and really be able to see the progress that we've made. Um, and then similar to what council member Namura just said is, you know, staff are really overloaded right now. I I don't want that to to take away from the great work that you guys are doing. And I appreciate your time and your energy um with with all the especially the community development department and everything that you you all are are working on right now. So, I just want to thank you all for your hard work and dedication to the community and the [music] city of Korea. So, thank you. Um and then of course I'll leave it open to any other comments from council and then a motion. I would just like to add very specifically the work on the transparency with the budget was so helpful this year um in community conversations and I think I mean it just all all I know that it's a lot of work to be so to make community outreach and transparency a priority but it really matters to the community and so thank you Okay. I move to receive and file the period 1 department reports for the fiscal year 202526 budget.

Second. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I. Great. Thank you. We will now move on to legislative update. Uh no updates this evening. Thank you. Great. Uh committees reports, inquiries, and other matters presented by council members.

Uh yes. So MTD board met earlier this week and uh they confirmed that um the wave microtransit service will be coming to Carpentria this calendar year uh most likely around the summer months because the Golita pilot is uh that's when the Golita pilot's going to wrap up. So summer should be around the time that we'll start seeing the wave. uh MTD staff will be making presentations uh to council as well and other groups around around town like Agewell to and at the library to make sure that everyone understands um all the the ins and outs of how to use it. But I think that's that's very exciting. Um the MTD board also received an update uh also um um updated their contract with Easy Lift and I had asked them if uh if the easylift representative could provide some statistics about how this the service operates here in KARP. Um I thought that might be interesting for the council to know. So, uh, once I get that information, I can I can share that. Um, [snorts] and then, uh, the public engagement committee is going to be meeting, uh, tomorrow, uh, and we're going to be discussing the latest city digital outreach report, um, along with the human trafficking awareness campaign discussion and then a review of the scope of the committee. So, those are my two reports. Um, I'd like to make a report from SP CAG that um they have finally uh figured out a way to add an additional train to the train line and it's going to be a commuter train. I not sure about the timing. I've got it written down somewhere. [laughter] But it's it's a it's a it's a train that will well there's well there's there's two trains. There's one that that's going to go in early and one that's going to come back late. Uh but it's not really late. Uh but it is early. So that's the it it's really adding the early train and um not really sure how they're going to handle the the come back part, but they're they hope to add that soon. They

are they're having a return trip, but it's it's earlier than most people want to come back. So, I don't I don't know how it's how it's going to work, but they're still trying to work on adding. See, every time they add a train, they got to make it go back. And uh so they, you know, they want to time it for the the go back people, too. So, that's that's what we've got so far. So, but they're in the process. They want to do that, but they're that this spring that'll that first trip will be happening.

I have a update from Beacon, which is the beach erosion authority. Um we were received a report and an update on surf the surfers point project in Galita which Galita sorry Ventura which really is absolutely incredible what they've done. It took a lot of years but um it sort of includes removing the dam at Matilah which is still in the process. Uh but then they removed the seaw wall put a bike lane a pedestrian access. But what they really did was in this for last phase that they just finished was they dug this trench that goes all the way around Surfers Point and it filled it with, you know, millions and millions of pounds of cobble to save the beach and then the sand it's it's like an immediately effective and it's absolutely incredible because now Galita sorry I'm going to keep saying that Ventura has this beach that where they've never had it. Um and then it's a real it's a real beacon of hope for our sand saving our sand and our beaches. Um, we also had a presentation on the Chumash Natural NA National Marine Sanctuary, which is incredibly interesting. And, um, there is actually going to be um, a community outreach meeting with the public in March. And, uh, they have yet to give us the exact date, but I will look forward to sharing it because I think our community is really interested in that. Um, and finally, they have a finalized their presentation and I've asked them to come to us before March. Um, I was [snorts] hoping they would come before the big rains, but they are going to come before city council and give us a presentation on exactly what they do. Um, and I think that's important. So, yeah,

a little comment on that. They they did actually did have a beach at one time. Well, it's but then they put dams in the river. That's it. And then we didn't have a beach. They said that in the the process of removing the Matilah dam, they've punctured holes in it and there's like 10 million tons of sand behind the dam. So the dam is almost full of silt. And so they're doing these punctures and it's already just coming down already. It's just incredible. So the things we learn not to do. So mountains are like everybody else. They just want to go to the beach. It's true. [laughter] Any other reports?

Yeah, real quick. Um, again, public engagement committee. Yes. Uh, we are we are meeting uh this week. One request I have, this goes to the public. Since it is public engagement, we love to have feedback. We are looking at new items potentially that we would like to add to the scope of our work. So, if anybody's interested, um, again, we encourage public participation for this since we are public engagement. Um we have one other meeting tomorrow or this week also has to do with the um 3CE uh Central Coast Community Energy Comm Commission. Um I'm on the policy board and we will be having a meeting uh this week Thursday. So if anything new comes up of it, I'll let everybody know, but it's it's scheduled for this week.

Great. Thank you for this updates. Uh we will now move on to attendance of council members for future meetings. Yes. like yes, everyone will be there and I will officially adjourn the meeting at 9:37 p.m. Thank you. Thank you. We We wanted the same over you didn't give up. That's good. [laughter]

We had sent out something saying we had to cancel because So you can got it

who passed away.

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