Area Council - Regular Meeting

07 on August 6, 2016. Can we have the roll call, please, Madam Clerk?

Council Member Kramer?

Here.

Council Member Houghton? Here. Council Member Wilson?

Here.

Vice Mayor Downey?

Here.

And Mayor Slotin?

Here. I will stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance 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.

If you please remain standing. Bob, I want to recognize the passing of a moment in silence for Bob Manana, who died past Sunday after a recent illness. Bob was a resident of Lower Lake, and a longtime supporter of our Lake County community. He served for over 15 years as a volunteer firefighter with Lower Lake and Lake County Fire Department. He's also served as a photographer for the Record B and took thousands of photos of local sporting events and other events. He was very active in helping local organizations such as Operation Tango Mike in supporting survivorship. Bob was a friend to many of these people in this county and will be dearly missed. Thank you. Thank you. You may be seated. Meeting procedures. All items on the attend on the agenda will be open for public comment before final action is taken citizens wishing to introduce a written material into the record. At the public meeting on any item or requested to provide a copy of the written material to the administrative service director city clerk prior to the meeting date, so the material may be distributed to the city council prior to the meeting speakers. must restrict comments to the items as it appears on the agenda and stay within the three minute time limit. The mayor has a discretion of limiting the total discussion time for any item. The council cannot answer questions or provide comments when a citizen is giving their public comment. Once your comments are complete, the mayor may refer you to staff for follow-up. If you are on Zoom, please know that only written comments can be taken via Zoom using the Q&A chat feature. Please enter your comments in the Q&A chat. Adoption of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda, Mr. Flora?

I'd like to pull item A for some future revisions.

Okay.

in business? Item 8?

OK. Yes.

Amendment of management benefits plan. OK. All right.

Can we have a motion to accept it?

I'd like to make a motion to accept the agenda as modified without item 8.

I'll second it.

OK. I'll go to our portal and submit our vote.

Motion passes with unanimous vote of the council.

Okay, now it's time for public comment. This is the time for any member of the public to address the city council any matter which is not on the agenda. That is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. The Brown Act, with limited exceptions, does not allow the council or staff to discuss issues brought forth under public comment. The council cannot take action on non-agenda items. Concerns may be referred to staff or placed on a future agenda. Please note that comments from the public will also be taken on each agenda item. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person. Again, the council cannot answer questions or provide comments while a citizen is giving their public comment. Once your comments are complete, the mayor may refer you to staff for follow-up. Is there anybody in the public that wants to make a public comment? Please come to the podium.

Hi, everyone. Margaret Garcia, City of Clear Lake. I just wanted to first off thank City Manager and Adeline for meeting with me a couple of weeks ago, sitting down and discussing the issues that I've got with the road conditions. I appreciated their time so much. Although... I came out of there with even kind of more issues and questions. So I'm just going to say that there is a classification of streets in the city, which I'm sure you're well aware of, either private or public. So I found my street to be private, and I would have been waiting until the second Tuesday of next week to get anything done on my street, because you guys don't touch private roads. So that was enlightening. And so I'm going to figure on... getting things discussed further. But I just want to say that, again, my stretch of road, which is just one little block, is part of a street that was paved 30 years ago or so for emergency vehicles to go up and down from Lakeshore to Olympic. And then all of a sudden it stopped getting maintained. So now I live in a rut in between two or in between paved roads all around me, which again, coming up this October is going to cause a huge flood. My entire family, front yard, my entire backyard, the house is going to be underwater. And it's all circles around this whole pavement, non-pavement thing. So I just want to, again, thank them for their time because it was really helpful. And I appreciate your time. Thank you, guys.

Thank you, Margaret.

Anybody else in the chamber that wants to have a comment, public comment? Please state your name, sir.

Hello, everybody. My name is Jaime Alexander Aldana, and I've never been to a meeting of this kind before, but I just wanted to say a couple of things. I mean, appreciation for those that serve and protect the police department and the firefighters. they're amazing people. And what would we do without these heroes? And second, I live in a sober living environment here down the way and, um, with brighter futures. And I just wanted to say how grateful I am for having the opportunity to be in a different environment. And, um, and just being able to just, you know, change the scene. I found that when you change the way you look at things, the way you look at things change. And I'm just grateful to be here and grateful for the opportunities that this place has for me. I'm from Southern Marin. I've been down here about 10 years. And so it's, it's day and night difference. But, you know, I just want to say thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else in the chamber? If not, is there anybody on zoom?

There are no public comments on the zoom.

Go now to the consent calendar. Is there any, anybody wants to take, say have some comments on the consent calendar? If not, anybody from the public wants to make a comment? If not, we'll bring it back for a motion.

Oh, no, I thought you had a question.

I'll make a motion. Go ahead. Mr. Mayor would like to make a motion to except for consent agenda as presented.

We can go to our...

I'll second it.

Lost my vote.

Oh no, how did that happen?

Motion passes with unanimous vote of the council.

Right. Okay, business. Let's go to new business. Discussion and consideration of a Clear Lake Watershed and Sheep Memorandum of Understanding and Co-Management Agreement. Mr. Flora, please.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members. So we've been working on this agreement with a number of agencies for a while. I'm going to start by the city clerk could adjust the volume over there. We have Geneva Thompson, who's with California Natural Resources Agency, which has been taking the lead on this project. And I'll let her give the council an overview.

Thank you so much, Alan. And good evening, council members, mayor. Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here today to share a little bit more about the Clear Lake Watershed and Chai Memorandum of Understanding, which is an exciting co-management agreement between 23 different government entities, all with the intention and focus on restoring the Clear Lake Watershed, as well as having a focused effort to protect the Clear Lake Hitch, which is a fish species that is critically important to the beautiful lake that you all steward and care for, and a cultural significance to the many tribes in and around the Clear Lake region. And so this is an exciting undertaking. I would say overall, this co-management agreement is institutionalizing the multi-government approach that is already at play. So all of the parties that are working under this or working towards this agreement are already leaning in and partnering with each other to restore the health and well-being of Clear Lake and its surrounding watershed and with an intense focus around the at-risk Clear Lake fish species. As I'm sure the city council is fully aware, a couple of years ago, we were at risk of losing this fish species. And it was an all hands on deck moment to get funding to the region, to get scientists out there to do those fish rescues to avoid that extinction. And we don't ever want to be in that space again. And so the hope is to really institutionalize the state and local and tribal government effort that we've all been engaged on and to make it last beyond all of our administrations. I think every government entity that is reviewing and considering this co-management agreement is fully aware that we'll have changes of leadership at some point, staff turnover, And we don't want to lose momentum that we've been working so hard to build in this space. And so by institutionalizing this work, recording the collaborative efforts that we've been engaging in is a hope and a desire to make sure that that can outlast any changes in leadership and administration. And so I'm very happy to answer any questions that the City Council might have, but it may be just as a high level summary, this agreement really is institutionalizing that core strategic coordination Thinking through strengthening the capacity for funding and grants management across the region. Strengthening collaborative efforts around enforcement and compliance. Thinking through permitting and regulatory efficiencies across all of the different environmental and restoration work that we're all leading. improve local and tribal workforce development, ensuring that people within your communities are getting good jobs that they're excited about, and that will build the health and well-being of the surrounding environment and communities. And then having a detailed process in communication, data sharing, as we have scientists going out there collecting important information. We're sharing that information across government so we can all lean in and do good work together and building in that accountability between our different government agencies. And so we're really excited about it. It should be a helpful tool in our toolbox to ensure that we are strengthening the health and resiliency of the Clear Lake watershed. And so I really appreciate the city's consideration of joining this co-management agreement. And I am very happy to answer any questions that you all might have. Thank you again for the opportunity to be here.

Any questions? No? If not. All right, I'll open it up for public comment. Anybody wants to make a public comment on this item? Come on up, Margaret.

Hi, Margaret Garcia. I'm just, I may sound a little bit ignorant, but what is the Clear Lake Watershed is what my question is. Thank you.

Maybe you can answer that, Mrs. Thompson.

Yes, I'd be very happy to, and thank you for that question. So the Clear Lake watershed not only encompasses the lake itself, which I'm sure everyone is familiar with, but it's also the tributaries that drain into the lake. And so if you think about all of the different... lakes, or excuse me, the streams or creeks that kind of flow into the lake, that is all part of the broader watershed as well. And so our hope was to really kind of think about the whole basin that surrounds the lake, knowing that all of these different bodies of water are interconnected and restoring those different tributary streams and the lake itself, and if itself is going to be a benefit to the environment and

all of the the species that rely on it thank you anybody else from public if not is there anybody on zoom then i'll bring it back to the council go ahead well i just um want to let the council know that um this

Agreement is focused as Ms Thompson said on collaboration. Um, there's not a specific financial commitment on behalf of the city as part of this, um, the agreement outlines that those type of commitments would take, um, subsequent action from each body. But, um. I think there's been over the version in front of you is listed as version number 16, but I think there are actually a few more versions than that. As you can expect, multiple state agencies, the county, both cities, the Watershed Protection District, and we're expecting at the end of the day all seven of the federally recognized tribes in Lake County to sign this agreement. It is somewhat unprecedented to be able to reach an agreement for the purposes of this. And there's expected to be kind of a signing ceremony in September that's organized by the natural resources agencies.

Thank you. Again, anybody from the public wants to make a comment on this? If not, is there anybody on Zoom, Madam Clerk?

There are no comments on the Zoom, Mr. Mayor.

All right, we'll bring it back to the Council for consideration or additional comments. I have a comment. Go ahead.

My question would be, would this be like an additional committee, potentially?

I mean, the way it's set up now is that I'm the responsible person to collaborate But if one of you wanted to do it instead, obviously you're welcome to participate in that. But it would be my responsibility to collaborate and bring anything appropriate back to the council.

Mr. Kramer.

I don't so much have a question as I have a comment. Growing up, In Lake County or like to be specific, I remember when the streams a secret Creek being one we're running so thick with hitch you couldn't walk across it without stepping on a fish or 14. Oh yeah, I I think I see the importance of of protecting the lake protecting those tributaries to to get those kind of resources back. I think it's I'm totally in favor of of our joining that collaboration okay.

Time for some action on our part.

I have something to say. I am pleased with this action. I hope it's the beginning of many other actions where we're acting in collaboration with the other governments in our county. And it's an act of decolonization and this is the way we should be going. So I'm pleased with this one.

Any other comments?

I think I have one question for Ms. Thompson. Do you have any data on, since you started this, you know, with the hitch, how much of an increase you've seen since? Like, you know, yeah.

Yeah, so we are still working on the data, to be honest. And what is at play right now is we were able to get a couple of years of data collection on the hitch populations and are lining up future funding for additional hitch population data collection. I would be very happy to send those resources to Alan and he can get those to the council if you all are interested in that information. I would say that while population numbers are still considerably low, we did not lose the species, which in my mind is an important win because we very much were facing an extinction moment. It was about three years ago now. And I am constantly impressed and appreciative of how many species government entities that came together to avoid that extinction moment. And so while the population numbers are still low, I think that we have a lot of energy and interest behind protecting this fish species. And if we do it right, we won't be facing one of those moments again.

Thank you very much. Any other comments from the council? If not, can I have a motion?

Mr. Mayor, I guess I'll make another motion. Make a motion to approve the agreement and authorize the city manager to execute it.

I'll second it.

Motion passes with unanimous vote of the council. You so much, Mayor and City Council.

Thank you. Introduction and first reading of the ordinance of 288-2026, amending section 1819-280, vacation rentals of the Clear Lake Municipal Code. If I turn it over to Mr. Allen, I believe Councilman Wooden has a statement to make.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Before we take up this item, I would like to briefly address questions that have been raised in the community about my participation, given that I work in real estate. I take questions of public integrity seriously, so I want to explain why no conflict of interest exists. California's conflict of interest law, the Political Reform Act, sets out a specific legal standard. A council member must step aside from a decision only when it would have a material financial effect on her or on a recent source of her income in a way that is distinguishable from its effect on the public generally. That standard is not met here. The ordinance applies uniformly to every property, every owner, and every neighborhood in Clear Lake. I do not own or operate a short-term rental inside the city of Clear Lake. I hold no permit, have no application on file, and have no transaction or client matter pending before the council. My occupation alone does not create a conflict. The law recognizes that council members have careers, and it requires recusal only when a decision affects our finances in a particular and personal way. Mine does not. I have reviewed the question with our city attorney, and my financial disclosures are filed and available to any public member. The residents of the city elected me knowing my profession and my familiarity with our housing market is part of this perspective that I bring to the council. Where the law does not require recusal, I have a duty to the voters to participate. I will be taking part in the discussion and I will be voting. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Flora.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members. So we've talked about this a couple of times, and most recently on June 4th, we had a version of some amendments to the existing ordinance that was discussed at the time. And at that time, the council directed staff to make some amendments to that for future consideration. And that's what's coming back for you to discuss tonight. So just as a sort of reminder, The changes directed were kind of focused on sort of four categories. First was to more closely align the ordinance with what had been adopted in South Lake Tahoe. to make sure that there was strict enforcement of any violations of the ordinance, to institute a good neighbor policy and agreement to be signed by tenants, and to eliminate the 51% residency threshold, which is in the current ordinance. Rather than go in extreme detail, I thought I'd just hit some of the highlights. I mean, if you've reviewed the changes, some of the new provisions over what's currently in the ordinance, there's some additional things related to some of the common problems associated with vacation rentals, which is requirements related to trash enclosures, the additional limitations on hot tubs and spas, specifically quiet hours, which impact a number of things, additional parking and lighting requirements, and largely speaking, the occupancy numbers that are allowed. are really the same as the current ordinance, but it's based on, um, the number of bedrooms that that specific house has. You're allowed to have two, um, two tenants per room and then an additional, um, two for like a common area or whatever. And then, um, an additional six guests during daytime hours. So I guess with that kind of quick overview, I'd be happy to address any questions that council has.

Do you have any questions? Go ahead, Councilor Cramer.

Clarification on that six additional, which would add up to a potential total of how many again?

The ordinance says a maximum of 18.

That includes those six?

Yes.

And those sticks are during just daytime hours?

Let me just put my eyes over here.

You see it? I'm missing it right now. Yeah, during the daytime. So it's 12.

Overnight, yes. Yes.

Well, that's the maximum, yeah. But it's still, I mean, if you have a three-bedroom, the number of folks that can stay there would be a maximum of eight.

Okay. Any other questions from staff on this?

Not at the moment.

Not at the moment. All right.

No? Not right this morning.

All right. We open it up to the public. Come on, please state your name.

My name is Henry Bornstein. I'm a resident of the city of Clear Lake. I apologize for my voice being a little hoarse today. I'm here to talk about the 51% rule mainly right now. I'd like to start with something we all can agree on. If someone walked up to you and said, okay, here's my proposal for an ordinance. I want to have a If you satisfy conditions A, B, C, D, you get a vacation rental permit. And there's no limit to the number you can apply for. And there's no limit to the number that the city can have. And I want this statute, this ordinance to say that we can go up to 60% of all the housing stock can be converted. And if we said that, we'd say, wait a minute. Now, we don't want 60% of the housing stock to be converted. Well, that's the problem. This thing right now would allow that because there's no there's nothing, no limitation. So you move the 51 percent rule, which is a residency requirement. You really need to add something else back in to deal with this issue. People say, well, that's not going to happen. We're going to have all that stuff. But that sort of misses the point. Every. ordinance says what you allow and what you don't allow. What this ordinance says is do A, B, C, D, E, you get a permit and there's no limitation at all. We can convert as much as our housing as we want to short-term rental. And I don't think it's a good idea. i looked at i did i looked at a uh survey i did a survey i gave it to you in june i think i sent it again today but apologize it was so late uh uh of all the laws and this would make clear lake a real outlier in the state because i didn't find one law that didn't have some requirement to deal with this either was 51 or some more residency requirements or it was that you can only have one per host, or it was a lot of jurisdictions said, well, let's eliminate all of them. We're having too many problems. No revocatory metals. Some said a certain percentage of the properties in a certain area, they all dealt with it in some way to deal with this issue. So this is a complicated issue. I think that each of these other jurisdictions are different because they thought their area has specific issues like we do. I'd like to suggest something. I would like to propose that the city set up an ad hoc committee to deal with this. If we can get the cannabis people together, certainly we can do it here. We get all the stakeholders. You get sort of, okay, so you need someone who lives there who's being bothered by their vacation rentals. You need someone with a vacation rental or someone who wants to have a vacation rental. You need someone from the staff to explain what's hard and what doesn't work and what doesn't work. And at least one person from the city council to... sort of represent the interests of the city, which I hope will include protecting the housing stock from being overwhelmed by this by some sort of standard in the statute. So thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Henry.

Hi, I'm also horse. My name is Cisa Harris. I'm faster than Carolyn. I live in the city of Clear Lake. And first, I'd like to thank the city, Allen in particular, for taking the time and writing this ordinance and meeting with so many of the people from the Highlands Harbor community to listen to the issues that we've had with short-term vacation rentals. And the ordinance before you tonight addresses a lot of our concerns. You're going to hear some repetitive stuff with what Henry just said. The ordinance here has some really clear enforcement penalties. I really liked what I read there. I do still have concerns with eliminating the 51% residency requirement. I can understand why you did that. It's really a tough one to enforce unless you have cameras on the house and seeing who's coming and going all the time. However, without replacing that with any other kind of restrictions, it's conceivable that somebody could come up here with a ton of Bay Area money and buy up every house for sale in my neighborhood or your neighborhood and convert them to short-term vacation rentals. And how many short-term vacation rentals in a neighborhood are too many? I've stayed in one in Pismo Beach. I can tell you, you hit a point where there's too many. It just turns into animal house. For every home in the city of Clear Lake that's converted to a short-term vacation rental, that's one home that's unavailable as a month-to-month rental for a resident in Clear Lake. That's one home that's unavailable to be sold to a resident of Clear Lake that wants that home for their own family to live in. It drives up the cost of housing in the area. And a lot of people in this community are already complaining that housing is too expensive. My home in Highlands Harbor, I bought 28 years ago for $89,500. And, you know, I don't know what it would sell for today, but certainly not $89,500. And... So the housing stock in areas with a lot of vacation rentals is depleted really fast. And so if you look around, you just do a new search, you know, issues with short-term vacation rentals, you will find that around our state, around our country and around the world, cities are trying to get these under control and they've really become a problem. So most of the communities are trying to figure out ways to restrict the percentage of these that can be within a community. You know, if you ask me, like I know everything, I don't know everything, but I'd suggest you start with 3%. You can always raise it. And if you want to know more, I'll send you the rest of my thoughts in an email.

Thank you. Anybody else wants to comment on this?

I'm shorter. My name is Carolyn Jarrett. I'm a resident of Clear Lake. Vacation rentals are a problem. And what do we do about problems? 20 years ago, Oak Hill Middle School was a mess. Brian Sumter of the Record Bee called it the Shawshank of South County, and he wasn't far off. I was on the conduct I school board at that time and as a retired teacher I had the time and the privilege of often visiting our schools and programs and I could see for myself what was going on something had to be done. I suggested to our board that we have a series of meetings, each one at each of the elementary school sites, to gather input from parents, community members, and teachers about their concerns and ideas before the board made any decision about Oak Hill. And that's what we did. I think that this council needs to solicit more input about a decision regarding vacation rentals, which will impact our whole community. At this point, we do not have a shared vision about our whole future. Will we be primarily a vacation destination with rentals in every neighborhood owned by outside developers? A community which has empty houses in the off-season but no homes for its own residents? Or, like most cities facing housing shortages in California, will we limit the number of vacation rentals? Will we be a family-oriented community first and foremost? I urge the council to create an ad hoc committee to gather more information from the community before making a decision which will impact the lives and well-being of citizens throughout our community. We are at a crossroads and the choices are clear. What is not clear is what vision of our future will prevail.

Thank you. Anybody else in the public wants to make a comment?

Good evening, Mayor and Council, esteemed staff members, public, Supervisor Sabatier, appreciate you all being here. My name's Greg Folsom. I did send you my comments in advance. I'm a resident of Clear Lake. My wife and I live in the same neighborhood as Mayor Sluton. We're not from Highlands Harbor. A quick search of Airbnb and VRBO shows there are at least seven vacation rentals in our neighborhood alone. I'm also the former city manager that Mayor Slotin referenced during the June 4th meeting. I care deeply about this issue, not because of theory, but because of lived experience. When we temporarily moved away for another work opportunity, we kept our home in Clear Lake because we intended to return, as we have. During that time, the home next door was sold and became a vacation rental. On Memorial Day weekend of 2022, it was rented for the first time. There was a large party, cars lined the street, loud music, and complete disruption of the neighborhood. It was bad enough that my wife and I seriously discussed not coming back to Clear Lake. To the owner's credit, they acknowledged the problem and have made improvements. Most guests today are respectful, but the underlying issues have not gone away. The property is rented almost every weekend, except during the no more than four months that the owner is actually there. And during the summer, it can be one renter after the next. So we continue to experience recurring impacts and disruptions. Those impacts include late night and early morning noise from guests arriving and departing, cigarette butts, beer, and other things thrown into the lake, people feeding wildlife inappropriately, speeding through our neighborhood, and vehicles parked illegally on narrow streets where emergency vehicles may not be able to pass, and creating safety issues in the event of evacuation. I appreciate the effort the staff has put into strengthening the ordinance. However, I believe these amendments do not go far enough. Rather than adopting incremental changes tonight, I ask that the council create an ad hoc committee, as has been mentioned before, with residents, property owners, and stakeholders to develop a more comprehensive ordinance. I would be happy to volunteer. I have prepared a detailed red line version of the ordinance. As staff understands, I like to red line things, but three minutes simply isn't enough to go over that in depth here. However, there are several areas that I believe deserve serious consideration. First, occupancy, I better read fast. Allowing up to 18 people in a vacation rental is simply too much for a residential neighborhood. Based on four years of experience living next door to one, I believe there should be a hard cap of eight occupants, regardless of age. In our experience, one or two couples typically create very few problems. As the number of guests increases, so does the noise, traffic, and disruptions. At some point, it stops being a vacation rental and starts functioning as a party venue. Second, parking. Every vehicle, including boats and trailers, should fit on the property. If a home has room for only two vehicles, then only two vehicles should be allowed. I'm going to skip down. I also recommend changing quiet hours to go from 10 p.m. until 8 a.m. rather than 7 a.m., requiring vacation rentals to be the owner's primary residence rather than relying on a seemingly unenforceable 51%. It can easily be verified by the owner's federal tax return, driver's license, or voter's registration, if it's actually their residence. You have the rest of my comments. I won't take up more than my time, but thank you all very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Craig. Anybody else in the public?

I'm Dr. Mark Cooper. I'm an over 50-year resident of Clear Lake and I live out in the Burns Valley area. And one thing that occurred to me, you had redevelopment land. I know you had to turn that back over by the aid branch. And during that 50 years, we've had to fight for zoning more than anything else. But I just wondered if you would have went ahead or if you could have gone ahead with what you were going to build there, which was nice housing on, I believe it was an acre and a quarter for each house. What would happen is once you finish that and everybody came in and did it all in short-term rentals, what would we have gained by that? As this is written now, I don't see anything that would stop a developer from doing that.

All right, anybody else from public?

Hi, my name is Dean Clark. I'm relatively new to Clear Lake and I appreciated the woman's comment about buying a house for 89,000. I wish I would have bought years ago. I just paid 245,000. for a house. And so listening to the comments here and listening to what you guys are proposing coming from Burlingame area, I want you guys to really think about this. And I really would like to see a feasibility study regarding this. In Burlingame, they had vacation rentals, Airbnbs, and there was a violent party where people ripped out the house and three people were murdered. I'm a little disturbed by 18 people in a household for a vacation rental. So I'm thinking of, you know, one of the houses with a 50 by a hundred lot, you got 18 people, other couples, maybe nine cars, maybe a few RVs. I quite frankly don't want that next to my house or even a block away from me, you know? If this is for properties with like two acres or three acres where these cars can park, they don't have to block the streets. Emergency vehicles can get through. Sorry, my voice is kind of going out. But the main thing is I don't know a whole lot about this only from what I've heard tonight. And I'm actually shocked. I moved up here to Clear Lake because Clear Lake is a beautiful, beautiful area. Why ruin it? And so I just would like to know, is there a feasibility study available for somebody to review this and what's been done so far as far as research and the thought that's been put behind this? Because in my eyes, I never would have bought up here if I would have knew that this was going to be like expanding. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else? The Chamber, everyone's still making comment on this.

Margaret Garcia. I really don't have a very strong opinion either way, as far as it goes. But I know you guys were talking about vacation rentals and the tax that you guys charge for The fee, you know, vacation fee. And I'm wondering, I know you guys were talking really small numbers last year, like we have 47 vacation rentals in Clear Lake. I don't remember exact numbers, but it seemed to be very small. And I'm wondering, with all the people that are commenting, and one comment, there are seven vacation rentals in that person's neighborhood. Do you feel that... With all this going on, are you getting the revenue that should be coming to the city for all this trouble people are going through? I'm wondering what the count, what you guys are now counting as vacation rentals. um, in this city because, um, yeah, I think you guys need to be more proactive as far as that goes, but yeah, 18 people in one household is pretty crazy with the streets, um, small and the, there would be like nine cars probably there. Um, and a couple of boats and trailers, you know, a couple boat trailers. So you guys, I think maybe need to take a few more, um, days, weeks, just to make sure you're covering all the what ifs, you know. So thank you.

Thank you, Margaret. Anybody else in the public? If not, is there anybody on Zoom, Madam?

There are no comments on the Zoom, Mr. Mayor.

OK, we'll bring it back to the council for consideration. Anybody want some additional comments?

I have something. After talking to a couple of residents, I did some research on what would be housing health benchmarks. And what I mean is what... percentage of your city could be in short-term rentals and still have a healthy city. And urban planners and city guidelines suggest that under 1% is a low impact baseline. One to 2% is where you start noticing pressures on neighborhoods and local housing prices. So I think somebody said 3%, that may be actually a little too high for the city to be healthy. And other factors like Mr. Folsom said, that there are seven houses in their neighborhood. You have to look at not just the city as a whole, but at certain neighborhoods. If you get a 3% rate in a neighborhood, that's less harmful than a 40% of a single neighborhood. So I think we have to look at... at having at something that is considered by urban planners to be healthy for a community. And I happen to agree with the comments about 18 people in one house, we don't have the streets to handle all that parking that would have to happen and with the boats and and the cars.

Okay. Yeah. This was pretty much. I'm sorry. Didn't recognize me. Reading over the number, your four, the four reasons that you gave, and I'm just going to get two of them. The other on June 4th, when we talked about this, I was not in favor of the 51% simply because I didn't think it was enforceable. not because I didn't want something that could be enforced. So that one was one. And then the South Lake Tahoe reference, I don't know that I wanted us to use that as a model necessarily. It was brought up in our discussion, and it was the only one that was brought up at that time that I knew about. Since that time, I've talked to a lot of people. I read Mr. Borenstein's letter several times. There are many other cities that have dealt with this and dealt with it with different things, some of them that included a 51%, many that didn't. I look at Lake Tahoe, quite frankly, there's five different jurisdictions in Lake Tahoe, so I don't know which one we did look at, or did we look at all five of them? Were they all the same? And the big one, both Lake Tahoe and Clear Lake have One thing in common, they've got a big body of water outside them that does lead to tourism. Other than that, our demographics of the city are much different than South Lake Tahoe. I would have liked to have seen us look at some of those other cities. I can't support this as it's presented. I've heard or probably have mentioned, I think, several of them, in fact, almost all of them. I've mentioned the idea of having an ad hoc committee go over this. I'm very much in favor of that happening. And put this aside and let's come back after we've had this ad hoc committee and had input from our council members, from maybe staff, and certainly from our public, from our community. I've heard several of you have volunteered to be on that committee, and I think that would be just great. So, I would like to see this pulled back or vote a no on tonight. But what I would like to see is an ad hoc committee formed, talk about it, come back with something that the community and staff and our council can agree is good for everybody and will help the city. Those are my comments.

I don't know where to begin because my mind's going in all different directions right now. But the one that kind of stood out to me the most was just, it's not necessarily fear. It's more of like frustration and irritation amongst the people who live in Highlands Harbor. And I could tell you, I have had short-term rental people one house over from me for two years straight. Never had an issue. But I've also had renters in a double-stacked, two-story house where they trashed the place completely. I had another long-term rental across the street from me. Decided to get a fight at two in the morning and shoot off some guns and Even a bolt hole went into a vehicle at one of my neighbors. There's a house down the street when you walk by and it reeks of urine, cat urine. So it's like, to me, where's the real problem? Is it the short-term rentals, which the houses are immaculate? They're beautiful. Yeah, we're going to have issues with people being loud or, you know, whatever it is. And at that point we use our resources and that's our police department. We have a noise ordinance. Whereas the people who are renting for more than month to month, I have more issues with those people than the actual rent, the homeowners who are temporarily renting their houses out. So It raises a question of where we go with this because I am in favor of this rental agreement. I know the number 18 people raises a really big red flag because that's really scary. 18 people in one house. But then I also look back at that's during the day. It's not 18 people staying overnight. I rented a house in Shasta. And it was a seven-bedroom house. And my family can be big at some times. Depends on where we're going. We had 25 people in there. There was multiple beds in each bedroom. But we were all under one house. We were there as a family. We were there having fun. That was the purpose. That was the purpose of a short-term rental. And I think of Clear Lake and people coming here from other places, they're choosing this place to come and visit. They're choosing Clear Lake to come and visit. You don't hear that often. Like, I'm going to go vacation in Clear Lake. Like, whoa, where is that place? So anyways, besides that, but it's just like these people are choosing to come here. Let's be a good neighbor and let's Let's accommodate that. We need to somehow include these tourists and these short-term rentals as well. The 51% rule, honestly, I just... Like I said, that's hard to enforce. Not only that, like... I know I have a lot of people who do have short-term rentals, and they often visit their short-term rentals throughout the year. They go and check on them. They go and stay there with other family members. So it's not like the owners are never going to be there, which they do. They check on them very frequently. I don't even know where I'm going with this. I'm kind of rambling, but All I'm saying is that I live in Highlands Harbor. I've never once had an issue with any short-term rental. I live right on the corner. Everyone's always driving by my house. I get people speeding down the road. That's more of something to complain about than the short-term rentals, I feel like. But what I'm saying is that I'm in agreeance with this rental agreement because this is something that we need to help out our people that are coming here and creating these beautiful homes and this beautiful environment for people to come and live and stay here and vacation here and bring families and bring tourism and you know the city is also benefit benefiting from it like everyone loves our beautiful park and all these new exciting things that we're constantly bringing to the city well that all stems from you know this tot tax i mean they're so in sales tax and them shopping here so it's this huge pyramid effect that We just need to be able to find a medium where we're all comfortable with it. And I believe in the... good neighbor contracts. And I feel like that is a great stepping stone because it's going to hold the homeowners accountable so that they have all these rules and regulations that are applied and the people who are renting it are in agreements with it. They have to agree to it. They have to follow the rules. If they don't follow the rules, then guess what? Those people are not going to be rented to again. We're going to have our police department showing up because they're too loud or whatever it is. So I think... This is a good contract. I think that we should be able to move forward with this, and I'm in agreeance with it, and that's where I stand.

Anybody else want some comment? You go first.

Okay, so I would like to say thank you for everybody for showing up and sharing your public comment. with the tone that it was, I think these kinds of discussions go a lot farther than targeting an individual for their point of view, whether it's in public or private. I think that the ordinance as presented does address a lot of these issues that everyone has concerns with. While I believe that there's always room for improvement, we haven't tried the new ordinance and we haven't put into place the good neighbor contract to see if putting these rules in front of the guests before they even get in town, if that makes a difference in the way that they treat the neighbors and they treat the neighborhood and the way that they consider parking and the way that they consider their noise and how many, if they're going to have a birthday party, are they going to have screaming kids? So I would like to see at minimum, if we do agree to do an ad hoc, which it almost feels as though that's the way it might go. I would like to see if there's a possibility that we can enable the good neighbor contract sooner. I would like staff to look into that if that's a possibility, what the process is. Because if that starts to immediately come into play and it starts to make improvements and The Highlands Harbor isn't bothered anymore, I think, and maybe out, you know, Oakmont or wherever everyone else is at. If we see an improvement, then I think that would prove a lot that, you know, putting accountability on the guests is a big part of getting the results that we expect and that we desire to see in our neighborhoods. So, yeah, I mean, I just, I appreciate the conversation.

Do you have anything else?

Well, I did make one comment, but I like the idea of putting the good neighbor policy in place and still possibly having an ad hoc committee to address the rest of the issues. Definitely.

I'm in agreeance with that, especially the ad hoc committee. It'd be nice to proceed with this contract and develop that committee and we could always come back and reconfigure if that's possible. I'm not sure. That's something.

I am not in favor of voting on this particular point. I believe that the audience has stated several points that if we can agree on dealing with cannabis years ago, that we can certainly deal, figure this one out. So I'm all in favor of creating an ACOC committee. I like the good neighbor policy. I like the real estate disclosures. They're all good, but I think we need to come together first and create this ad hoc committee with both sides, people that have short-term rentals and neighbors that have issues with it. I've had issues with it. There's neighbors of mine that have short-term rentals, and I have short-term rentals right near me. And so it's a complicated issue. And I think an ad hoc committee that can maybe come together and create some of these other problem areas, like how many people can stay there, the percentage of of how much an owner has to be there i mean those are all difficult things to to to figure out but i think it's possible so my question to staff is this now can we separate out the good neighbor policy and the real estate disclosure and hold off on the ordinance itself well the real estate disclosure item is a completely separate item so that's not an issue um the

City Attorney and I talked earlier about the good neighbor policy. I mean, you could just, you know, direct me to institute that. So, you know, that's an option without moving forward with anything. I mean, obviously, you know, this isn't a new issue. We have ordinance in place right now. the direction that you gave me before was to do all these things to focus on the negative behaviors. I think that we've done that here, but if you want to take more time, I kind of wish we would have made the decision to do the committee before staff put all the time into craft the ordinance that you asked us to do, but here we are. So I guess one other number that I want to share for everyone one's perspective is we have over 7,000 residences in the city of Clear Lake and we have 45 permitted vacation rooms.

So do we have to proceed by the motion or can we table that?

Well, if there's consensus,

yeah i was just gonna say i think there's two there's two issues it would be the direction on the good name or contract and then the the form of the ad hoc committee um because that has implications under the brown act so so would we ask table the rest of the resolution yes i mean the council can just not doesn't have to take a vote on it okay yeah i mean so um if you if you

Like the city attorney said, if you want to do the committee, which it sounds like there may be a majority, what I would ask is that up to two of you volunteer to participate if you would like, and then I will work with those people to develop a representative group. And then I would just like for you to give me direction, a majority of you give me direction to implement the good neighbor policy is that the consensus of the council okay yes all right so do we need to vote on that i don't think you do but someone needs to volunteer to participate i would volunteer i'll volunteer as well okay i'll volunteer well we have three oh wait yeah i thought we were volunteering on the directions

Are we giving consensus?

I think we have.

Well, we have the direction. We're volunteering for the ANHA committee.

Yes, you too.

Go for it. I mean, I'm too close to both sides of the issue.

Yeah.

All right. We'll go to item number seven. Mr. Flora.

Did I interrupt? Did you state what just happened? Because it's not clear.

Yeah. The introduction of the ordinance has been tabled. The good neighbor policy will be put in place. Those are the two items. And there will be an ad hoc committee. Two of the council people will be involved. Mr. Kramer and Mrs. Hooten will be part of that committee. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome. All right. We'll move on to item number seven.

Mr. Flora. Yeah, Mr. Mayor, council members. So this is, um, an ordinance that requires, would require a number of real estate disclosures during a property transfer for, um, anyone who's purchased a piece of property. You understand that there are already a number of them, but this was discussed previously, um, about adding some additional ones specific to properties within the city of Clear Lake. Um, And the three things that have been raised up to this point that are included in the draft in front of you are the city's mandatory garbage service. We often get complaints about new buyers not knowing about that. The short-term rental ordinance that we've just been discussing, and then number three, the existence of private roads not maintained by the city. So, I guess we'll just give that brief overview of the city attorney and I are happy to address any questions.

I would recommend that we add the rental registration ordinance. Onto that as well, because anybody who's. HAB-Juliette Boone, intending to have a long term rental needs to know that they have to come to the city and get their inspection and all of that falling.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, That's yeah I mean that's totally fine with me if that's the consensus of the Council, I eat the city attorney would have to address whether.

HAB-Jacques Juilland, that's something that can be added in now, or we need to bring that part back, it would have to be brought back an amendment amendments, other than small typos and things need to be. HAB-Jacques Juilland, We first reading, could we not.

Well, so you could wait, and we could bring it back later, or you could take action on this, and then we could do a separate ordinance amendment, I guess, for that specific. Yeah, that's procedural.

That's right.

Yeah.

Okay. All right. Any more discussion on item number seven? If not, anybody from the public wants to comment on this item? If not, bring it back. Oh, anybody on Zoom, Madam Clerk?

There are no comments on the Zoom, Mr. Mayor.

All right, Margaret, the last one.

Margaret Garcia, City of Clear Lake. So I was curious. I heard Alan mention the public private streets. And I'm assuming that in this real estate transfer disclosure, you would be disclosing the fact that a particular street that someone's going to buy a house on is private versus public. And that they would have to be ready for, you know, zero maintenance if it's private and that type of thing. And I'm wondering is what about up until now, the people and there are people who have bought properties that have pavement like me in front of their house and it has gradually disappeared. And now they live on a dirt road full of potholes. So what about up until now as far as the disclosure issue? And I'm assuming that's what you're talking about, adding that into the disclosure information that people get when they buy abusive properties. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you.

Isn't that already in disclosure? Is that already in?

Yeah, so there wouldn't be any way to impact. Yeah. folks that have already purchased the property. I mean, the only way we can do that is do our best to try to communicate with people in the community about the issue. This would just be, once the ordinance is effective, we would share this information with title companies, the Realtors Association, and so forth, and let them know that this is now required.

Good. I like that.

Okay.

Another comment.

Another comment. I guess I'll put public comment again.

Dean Clark again. Who tells the homeowner? When I purchased my home here in Clear Lake, nobody told me about garbage collection. I didn't know that there were two. There's the water district and then there's the connective water district or sewage district. There's two of them. My real estate agent didn't tell me anything. I got a red tag on my fence and I thought, oh my God, what did I do? And then I finally called and they told me that it was for like a delinquent water bill. I've been paying my water bill. I didn't know that there was a secondary water bill or sewage district bill. So my question is, who's responsible? to tell the new homeowner about these things and about this ordinance.

Okay, if I might make a comment. So there is at a certain point, you know, you are the one who needs to do your due diligence on buying a piece of property. I know that the city can only do so much. then this is one normally when you have, you figured out what the sewer district is, what the water district is, and what city services provide. So a portion of this is buyer beware and do your diligent when you buy a piece of property. That's all I want to say.

Right. But is there anything on, say, the city website where a new... Is there? Yeah. Yeah, see, I didn't know.

It says, who do you provide it to?

Okay, well, then I guess I'm kind of done with that. Thank you.

Where were we? Anybody on Zoom?

There are no comments on the Zoom, Mr. Mayor.

Okay.

Well, wait, I'm just curious. So you would advise Mr. Allen Flores that we just do this now and then add in later and then bring it back again?

I don't have a strong opinion. I think it's fine to just move forward if you want and we'll

Just one comment. You need to turn your microphone on, Mr. Mayor, please. We did get some comments from a realtor in town, I believe. Madam Clerk, is that something that everybody got?

Yes, those comments went to the council and are available for public review.

All right.

I just wanted to make aware that we received it. Either way. yeah i mean just the decision between passing this now and amending it later if we do it that way you're talking about two more readings public notice because it's an ordinance so i mean probably unless it's urgent it'd be more efficient to just bring it back yeah uh to table this okay bring it back does that everybody agree with that i do i feel like the having the rental registration ordinance included on the transfer disclosure statement would be

Yes.

All in one because people do buy occupied homes with tenants with the intention of keeping tenants. So right now they also need to know that they're going to be expected to go.

Okay. So this one is table two. Move on to item number number eight is deleted and number nine. Consider designation of voting delegates and alternate for the leak of California City's annual conference in Anaheim end of September.

Ms. Swanson will present the staff report.

Honorable Mayor and Council Members, the League of California Cities, or CalCities as it's called, annual conference is scheduled for September 23rd through the 25th, this year in Anaheim. During the conference, designated voting delegates will consider and act on resolutions that establish official CalCities policy. To ensure the city's vote is represented, the City Council must designate one primary voting delegate, and up to two alternates. All council members plan to attend the conference, and staff would provide the resolution packet and voting topics to the council as soon as they're released by CalCities. So it is appropriate now for the council to designate one voting delegate and up to two alternates.

I move to nominate Dirk, our city mayor, as the delegate. primary delegate for the League of Cities, and Jessica Hooten and Mary Wilson as the two delegates. Alternates. Alternates.

Well, thank you. Thanks a lot.

I'll second it. Are we voting?

We do need to have public input.

There was a discussion in the public. Anybody want to make a comment?

Ms. Swanson, can you please get Ms. Margaret a plane ticket to Anaheim?

All right. Anybody on Zoom? Madam Clerk?

There are no comments on the Zoom.

I'll bring it back to the council for designation of the voting delegates. Okay. Can I have a motion?

I think it was me.

I already made that motion.

Do we have a second?

I seconded it. Thank you. I second it.

Seconded it.

Seconded it.

All right. Manager's report.

Wait, we have to wait for Melissa. We can vote now.

I voted it.

Motion passes with the unanimous vote of the council.

City Manager Florian, do you have a report?

I really don't think I have too much to report. We've pushed a lot of information out on this, so I'm sure you're all aware, but the biggest thing happening next week is the starting of the roundabout out by Dam Road, which is going to be a bit disruptive, but we just want everyone to know that all the businesses will remain open and we'll be doing our best to maintain flow through the intersection throughout the project, which will last several months.

That's my report. Okay. Council Member Hooten, do you have anything to report?

Nothing to report, but I want to remind everybody that Saturday is a drone show.

I thought it was Friday.

It's Friday in Lakeport.

It's Saturday. It's going to be epic. That's good to know.

It is it is quite good actually they created a video rendering of what the show look like and that's. Better than I expected so okay.

Council Wilson did anything to report, yes, I have a couple things to report, but 1st, I want to say I went to Shakespeare on the lake it was awesome Thank you to the city and to the actors and on Tuesday I attended the ribbon cutting ceremony. at barbecue by via Saudi, it was a nice celebration of a city supporter. I attended the pig TV meeting on Monday night, and we spent considerable time going over policies about about how they will present the city, I mean, present the programs that they have, that they're presenting, because they had a lot of complaints from people in the community on Facebook, and they wanted to make sure that they didn't have issues over copyrights, over presenting clearly more positively than anywhere else, or... Just to be even policies. There were some more financial reports, but nothing that anybody needs to actually know about. They have moved forward with the youth videography project, and I guess it's the students at Lower Lake have already produced two videos. And then I attended the... Containment of cares meeting this afternoon. Scott Abbott has retired, so there's been a shifting of roles within the Continuum of Care. Melissa Comf is going to take over most of his duties. We have a new secretary, et cetera. The PIT count, which is the point in time count, which is done in January, those figures were released today. You're going to be able to see a report on the Continuum of Care's website. um pastor shannon went through a very extensive and excellent um report we had 414 for our final count which is up a bit from last year but actually down from um 2024 um but uh anna santana pointed out that it's um It's interesting that it only says 414 for that count when the school districts are reporting between 700 and 900 students who are unsheltered at any given time. The thing that is most disturbing about these figures is the amount of elderly that are being represented. There were 88 that were between the ages of 55 and 64 and 50 that are over 65. That's a concern to me because I can't imagine me or one of my council members that I know are over 55 having to go out and lay down our heads in the street. The hub is where they record all the people that they're serving. Those numbers are actually up. And 146 people have been housed since the beginning of the year. We continue to move forward on the safe parking. We're still waiting for, I believe it's approval from the Planning Commission. There is a, in case anybody's out there who is listening, there is an RFP out there for a dignity bus. What that is, is the county will buy a bus that'll have 20 slots for people who don't have cars, who can sleep in them overnight. And they're looking for somebody to run it. And that is all I got.

Okay.

Councilman Kramer. I can't follow that act. You are awesome.

Thanks.

I really have nothing to report. Okay.

Um, I have a few things. Um, I did attend Shakespeare at the lake. Uh, it was great here in the park. Um, I also did something really fun. I did a ride along with, with clearly PD. I got to hang out with, um, Sergeant Flores and Officer Perez and I you know I was like okay two hours that's that's good that's all I need so I start at six and I was like okay I'll be done by nine and then I was like nope it's starting to get good so I was like I'll hang out a little bit longer and um All I have to say is what I found out was that, you know, I think I already knew this, but just seeing it in real life. There's only two officers at night shift and they really worked together. So it was really interesting and really cool to see how. They just partner up and just answering the calls and response time. Like they're really proactive and just, you know, going around town and just, you know, monitoring and surveilling or, or I don't know. Yeah. you know, doing that kind of stuff. So it was really cool to see. I think I made Officer Perez a little nervous because I asked a lot of questions, but he didn't show it. So I think he's good. But it was really interesting. I didn't know that both of his cousins also work in the department so i thought that was really cool how there's also family with and family within the department so i thought that was really cool and yeah i really really enjoyed it and i encourage anyone to do it because it's a really cool experience so did you see an arrest or anything like that yes i went to jail too oh cool i did not stay there but i went to jail My first time ever. No, but that was a little nerve wracking. Like, I'm just an overthinker. And so I'm like, and there's someone in the backseat. And I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, what if they touch me? And Officer Perez is like, oh, no, they're handcuffed. I'm like, OK, that's right. That's right. I'm like, what if they stick their fingers through the hole? But yeah, they can't do that.

I had an experience that quite some time ago, and we made an arrest. But a couple, they were in one of the houses.

right on the lake and they ran off the lady gave up no the guy gave up and then the lady crawled underneath a car and had the dog pull her out oh my gosh pretty exciting well my my experience with the ride-along was several years ago and uh chief white and uh we were out look looking at some and chief white got out said oh wait i gotta take a look at this guy and I was towing. I had a pickup towing a car. And I'm sitting in the car. Fortunately, I didn't get out. But the next thing I know, Chief White has his firearm out, ordering this guy to stick his arms out the window. And I swear, within three minutes, these three gentlemen, well, two of them have left now, plus a big part of the force, and And folks from neighboring departments were all there, all with their thistles out. I'm sliding underneath that dashboard at that point, but it was exciting.

All right. I don't have anything else to report, but I do want to mention something that I found out just recently at a Rotary meeting and also at a foundation meeting that the attendance at Woodland College and specifically Lake County campus is up like over 20%, which is just amazing. It's good. Amazing.

If I might add one more thing. You can have a go over. Speaking of participant observation, I was asked by Tribal Eco-Restoration Alliance when I was going to go on a controlled burn. So if anybody wants to participate in a controlled burn, I can arrange that. I would love to. Okay, I thought you might. Okay.

As long as it's not 100 degrees out.

All right. I think that's it. Anybody wants to bring up any new agenda item?

I have one.

Okay.

So one item that I kind of want to bring to attention and potentially put on the agenda for the future, I've been hearing some complaints regarding our senior center. And I know it's been a long time since we've had a request, an RFP for that for operations and management. So I would like to possibly look into that and reopen an RFP for our senior center.

Anybody else wants to second that one?

I would second that.

Well, I mean, you can't really take a vote on it.

No, but it's a consensus.

Yeah. I mean, and, you know, if there's consensus to do that, I mean, staff can prepare and issue an RFP and then bring the proposals back to the council. Yes. I think so. Right.

I think what the vice mayor is talking about is,

Yeah, it's a city-owned facility, and we lease the facility to the nonprofit that operates that. And what she's suggesting is that we do an RFP for those services to see if there's other providers. Okay.

For senior services? Correct. Yes. Yes.

Okay. Okay.

Anybody else? If not, we adjourn to closed session.

I know, I heard. I saw a moving truck. Oh.