City Council - Regular Meeting

I just

know what time it is. Christine, are you ready? Yes, just making sure. The November tw 10th, 2025 regular meeting of the Malibu City Council is now called to order. Inerson participants, if you would like to speak, please submit your request to speak form to the clerk. Remote participants, if you would like to speak, please join the Zoom webinar meeting printed on the agenda and raise your hand in Zoom when the item you wish to speak in is called. Uh, may we please have a roll call. Council member Conrad here. Council member Stewart here. Council member Yuring here. Mayor Prom Silverstein present. Mayor Rigggins here. You have a quorum.

Do we have any remote speakers for the close session item? There are currently no hands raised on Zoom. Do we have any in person? Ann. Okay. I'm gonna guess. Hello, Mayor. Hi, Ann. It was nice to see you the other day at Pavilions. Oh yeah. [sighs] Sell me out. So, uh, real quick, I always noticed that, uh, Candace Bond is never here for your little close session, uh, meetings. The other thing, too, is we She joins us [clears throat] upstairs. What? She joins us upstairs.

Oh, okay. But, you know, you guys are here. So, whatever. The other thing, too, is I understand that we have a new assistant city manager that she took it upon herself to hire and you guys didn't have anything to do with it. So, is that No, this I don't know. Sorry. So, I'll answer that question. We saw the press release this this afternoon. We reported on it yesterday. That's all. Just we knew about it yesterday and we reported it and today the PIO sent it out. That's all. So, continue to do a nice job and uh see you guys later. Thank you. Trevor, do you want to respond that our interim city man assistant city manager? [laughter]

No, I want for all the public that's there. So, uh, yes, this is the first day for the new interim assistant city manager. Um, was very excited to have him on board. He came to us from Santa Monica and I'm sure there's more information coming out from the city about it. Okay. Actually, can other comment? Well, I was just going to say that the city council hires the city manager and the city manager does the hiring for the remainder of the staff. So, that's completely within her purview, just like every other city that has this form of government. Okay. So, if there's no other items, we're going to uh recess to close session and we shall return at 5:30.

The November 10 The November 10th, 2025 regular meeting of the Malibu City Council is now called to order. Inerson participants, if you'd like to speak, please submit your request to speak form to the clerk. Remote participants, if you would like to speak, please join the Zoom webinar meeting printed on the agenda and raise your hand in Zoom when the item you wish to speak on is called. May we please have a roll call. Council member Conrad here. Council member Stewart here. Council member Yuri here. Mayor Prom Silverstein present. Mayor Rigggins here. You have a quorum.

Thank you. Let's do the pledge of allegiance, please. and on your heart. 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. May we please have a close session report? Yes. At 5:00 p.m., the city council met in open session, the recessed to close session for its listed on the posted agenda. All five council members were present and no reportable action was taken. May we please have a report on the posting of the agenda.

Got to come from down there. I know which be patient. Sorry. [laughter] Um the the agenda for this meeting was properly posted on October 31st, 2025 with the first amended agenda posted on November 5th, 2025 and the second amended agenda was posted on November 7th, 2025. Okay. May we please have an approved motion to approve the agenda? I'll second. Okay. Um I have a request staff is uh requesting presentation item 2B for slope failure and landslide to be continued to the next meeting. I'll agree to that. Accept that. Yeah. Okay. All in favor? I.

None opposed. Okay. Um consent calendar. Do we have any um in-person speakers for the consent calendar? No. Do we have any remote speakers for the consent calendar? There are no raised hands on Zoom. Okay. Um there a motion to approve the consent calendar. I'd like to pull uh 1B5 1B9 please. 1B9. Anyone else? [clears throat] Yeah. Let me take a quick I had one other one I wonder is one B7 on the consent. Yes. Yes. I'll take that one, please.

Okay. Yeah. 1B6. I just want to understand what that is. Okay. 1 B5. All right. I have five, six, seven, and nine to be pulled. Yep. Anything else? The motion to approve the consent calendar without 5, six, seven, or nine. I'll make a move. Motion to approve. Second. All in favor? I Okay. Uh 1 B5, do you want a staff report? No, I just have a quick question. Okay.

Rob, I was the disparity between the low bid that we're being that's being recommended, $84,000, and the high bid, $242,000, to me was spectacular. And I was just wondering if you could explain how it is that um these professional groups which I'm you know I'd like to understand why one's three times what the other is and what what what we're not getting by taking the 80 versus the 240 or what we would be getting with the 240 or if they're ident you understand what I'm asking right?

Yeah. So um the the contract specifications are are pretty tight on the material and how to construct this project. I think it was just the contractor just having different unit prices and and his price to kind of do this. I think sometimes you get this contractors that put in prices that are inflated thinking that they would probably if they happen to be the low bidder they would be able to kind of get it and it's that's the kind of the game some contractors play. Um the low bidder was an actual actual number that it seems reasonable. It just happened to be this second bidder was really inflated. Okay. Thank you. I'll move that we approve this one.

Yeah. Just one quick one. Next time they come in and ask for a reduction in rent. Remember, we're paying this money to get the roof fixed. Yep. All right. Thank you. We are the landlords though. We do have to do maintenance. I understand. [laughter] Um is there a second? I'll second. All in favor? I Okay. 1B6. Do you want to start? Okay. Just a quick What are we doing? I'm just trying to understand. We got somebody's going to come in and inspect what what are they inspecting that we don't inspect ourselves or how does that I just don't understand that.

Yeah. Yeah. No problem. It it's um this has come up a couple times on our projects where we needed some material testing. Um a lot of the things we do like the the trench work and some of the asphalt work. We um sometimes require the contractor to do certain compaction of the material to make sure it's at a certain percentage. um these companies will come in and actually perform those tests to make sure contractor is performing. They're just verifying that the work we're getting is according to the contract. That's what they're doing.

Yeah. And then there's another there's [clears throat] another requirement that that we that we really found out um doing these signal projects on PCH. There's uh certification pro u for all the letter material and uh the testing of it that's real specialized that CALR required. So having a consultant and a um on staff that would be able to to kind of do that that will make our project a little done a little quicker. Cool. Thank you very much. I'll make a motion to approve. Do a second. Any more questions? You need a second? Yeah. Second. Oh, I thought you were second. All in favor? I none opposed. Okay. 1 B7. Hi. Would you like the staff report?

No, I just had a few questions. Okay. Um, so it says here parkways and medians for enhanced landscape and I was wondering what which parkways and medians um are our responsibility. Sure. Thank you for the question. Um the uh median along Pacific Coast Highway across from the lumber yard uh that is okay. Our responsibility as well as um John Tyler median. I see. So we pay for those medians. Do we get to design them or?

Yeah. So our um park maintenance staff um regularly looks at those medians and make sure that the plants are wellkept and will replace them if needed. Gotcha. Um also do we so does Malibu City own the roads cross PCH to civic center and civic center way webway to Melbourne Canyon? The right of way. Uh yes, those are maintained by uh city. Thank you. Um does Enhanced Landscape also do sandbags or is that a different service that we because I know people are worried because they're plastic. Uh we do not do sandbags.

Okay, that's my question. I would love to I when I first moved here, I was helping with the Mala Green machine, which was the median. Maybe we could talk about that's a beautiful median. the other ones. Um, I move to approve. I'll second. Okay. All in favor? I I none opposed. Okay. 1B9. Do you want a staff report?

Yeah. I think I just want to make sure we understand what what's going on here. Just the the moving parts. Uh just to clarify uh would you like to for me to present or do you have a specific question we can answer? No, I'd like a presentation on and one of the things I uh want to touch on as you do your presentation. We also have a a study being done by Sunstone I think it is and just like to know how those two uh merge together.

All right, perfect. Thank you very much. [laughter]

So we are proposing to get the first amendment to a professional service agreement with Cosmont and Associates for economic development and public funding advisory services. So a quick little background. So we first hired Cosmon in April 9th uh 2025 to provide some services related to uh recovery activities and operational management. Uh COVID provided support for strategic advisory services focused on post- disaster recovery and operational resilience. Uh they provided a deliverable in July uh shared comprehensive visitation and economic impact analysis. uh their insights helped inform the city's understanding of visitor demographics, spending patterns, and infrastructure needs. And we're hoping to continue their services uh specifically around public funding, advisory services related to recovery and critical uh infrastructure and community investments. So, here is uh the laid out scope of services. So, first we're really hoping for them to dig deep into our own uh real estate to help identify and evaluate opportunities around assets and analyze potential opportunities for sale or lease and um estimation of potential uh sale proceeds or lease revenues. Uh next we hoping that they will help us with our infrastructure funding and financing tools and really just helping us evaluate potential um TIFFs particularly I E IDs and CRDs and they will present their findings in a meeting or workshop with um staff and council and all relevant key stakeholders. So I think at the root of your question um how does Cosmon's services connect or overlap with Sunstone Cities? Uh

Sunstone Cities is primarily focused on long range economic recovery assessing uh sales tax and revenue shortfalls while Cosmon's really focused on um addressing you know our existing agreements, city-owned real estate um you know the our priorities and exploring new financial districts. So these are distinct things but all you know helping us with our economic recovery and uh resilience and growth.

Okay. Thank you. Um that makes it a little bit clearer for me about the the two parts. I I will say and I was just talking to the city manager before we started. Um if so everybody understands on this leasing opportunity. Um [clears throat] if you looked at how to how you do like an an airplane for an airline. If the city had bought this building under a sale lease back where someone got to take advantage of the tax depre tax advantage of depreciation which the city cannot while also using tax uh advantage mun funding. we would be able to own the building at the end of say 50 years for us token payment and we would have had a lower cost to acquire the building. So hopefully that's the kind of things these people are looking at.

Yeah, thank you. Are there any other questions?

Yeah, I I do have a question. The um task one cosmat will identify and evaluate opportunities for real estate assets controlled by the city. Does that include the vacant properties or is this other things only? Yeah, I can address that question for you. Um, the reason that we inquired about this service is that we've been fielding a number of questions about the existing uh lease agreements that we have at the Malibu Lumberyard. What we've lacked is the expertise in house to uh to consider different options such as the one that council member Stewart just outlined which is are there other creative financing options to help us consider adjustments to rents that we've uh required our management company to command of prospective tenants in the interest of uh increasing vacancy. We're hoping that they can help us look at that more closely. Um we're also um on a related item um considering various options for utilizing the the community lands for um development and in order to have an informed discussion about the trade-offs associated with different options that we're considering it would be beneficial to have uh cosmot available to uh serve us as needed. Could you explain that last part of your explanation?

So, um, if for example, we're considering a private development component on public land such as, uh, market rate housing versus say affordable housing. It can be challenging for staff to um, consider proformas that were presented with by different developers. Um and it would be beneficial to have the assistance of Cosmot to help us um review those proposals uh help us negotiate the terms that we receive such that we get uh negotiate the best option available for the city.

Okay. So I I get that explanation of that potential use. They're not going to be doing that though in a vacuum unless and until we decide to use land for that purpose. Right. Correct. That is the first step. We're just trying to be prepared and bundle a collection of services that they're that they're qualified to provide to us in one package so we don't have to keep coming um to the council. But I I will make a note these are all of these services are are on an as needed basis. They will not be charging us a monthly retainer. So we will only be spending against services that we have um clear direction to to utilize. That was my next question to you. Thank you. So, we're just lining them up to be a resource available on an hourly basis if and when needed.

Yes. Okay. Thank you. And

just one quick one other quick one. I mean, I I hope you're going to be able to coordinate these guys with Sandstone. I had an interview with the guys from Sandstone and it seemed to me that some of the stuff he asked me in the interview overlap with some of the stuff you may be talking about. So, long they should just be talking to each other so we make sure we're not doubling up on getting different opinions about the same topic. Yeah, we've been very um working very hard to differentiate the scopes of work that each consultant is providing to us. And the simplistic way of looking at it is Sunstone is doing a macrolevel um outreach and analysis and preparation of uh solutions to address some of our specific economic needs. And then COST will be able to fulfill some of those specifics such as establishing an enhanced infrastructure financing district. They're the prominent or um company in the state that works with number of cities to establish these very specific uh types of districts. And so they have the expertise that has been utilized by um a number of agencies including LA County uh where they bring used currently to assist with the establishment of um resiliency districts in response to the Palisades fire.

Yeah. Sans was talking about trying to bring in businesses to Malibu and whether they get coordes with the districts you're trying to develop. As long as you're they're talking to each other or you know that they're not stepping on each other's toes, that's fine. I just have a quick question. Will we get to see the a report or some um I guess culmination of their findings?

Yes. as it relates to the agreement before you in order to establish a financing district. Well, the first step will be for staff to work with COSMAT to evaluate the potential to establish a financing district. If if we in the process of working with them, we we determine that it would be favorable, we would have to present that request to the city council for for to authorize the creation of the district. And so that's when you would be able to be to consider uh all of their findings and uh either uh adhere to or propose alternative recommendations for implementation. Thank you. Any other questions? I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. All in favor?

I.

None opposed. Okay, that's the consent calendar. Good job. Oh, water district 29. We're seeing a lot of you guys lately. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you, Malibu Council, for um again, you're right. You've been seeing a lot of us for allowing us to come back to you and provide you this presentation. Again, my name is Kolina Hernandez. I'm an assistant deputy director at LA County Public Works and I have our area engineer here with me um Bill Johnson and uh we are happy to be back. We did mention we were here two months ago and provided an update on uh LA County Waterworks District 29 infrastructure and we'd like to uh very briefly give you the most latest information that we took back from you two months ago and give you an update on that but then also talk to you about a water rate study that we conducted. So appreciate you uh allowing for your time today. I want to start very briefly. I know that we went over this um very recently, but just for everybody to uh get us all on the same page, we're about 22 um,000 served here in district 29 and but we have a very diverse system and this kind of gives you a glimpse at our infrastructure. So I think what's really um interesting there is that we have 44 reservoirs and 93 pump stations or regulated stations. So all of you I don't need to say are very familiar with um the topography here that means that we have that kind of robust infrastructure. So moving ahead um I

want to talk to you about our 2025 water rate study and really start from you know what is the need for the water rate study and then what does it lead to which is ultimately a proposed rate increase for district 29 customers. So, starting off quickly, um we as a utility, we go through a financial uh planning process, and I won't go through each one of them, but these are some of the pillars that we address when we're looking at this process and really trying to determine what is uh fair and equitable, but that could still continue to provide the service um that we are committed to providing as a water utility. So the purpose of the rate study specifically for us was to develop a bud budgeting tool to make sure that we had uh transparency and financial planning ahead. Really we needed to also be mindful of the upcoming state and federal regulations and those that already exist, continued cost of operation and maintenance and our commitment to upkeep with that. And then something that I spoke to you about previously and that is the capital uh plan planning and implementing our capital improvement plan. So something that was I found interesting that I I really wanted to share was that you know when we were looking at the need for this we we were surprised well I was surprised I shouldn't say uh to find out that um water and sewer were really um trendy quite quite a bit higher than uh CPI and so you can see here some I just have some examples of other utilities and you'll see even in the form of electricity that um it's below the CPI Uh but really when we start to look at um water and sewer charges, they're considerably higher. And one of the things I know from the experience that I've been having as a water utility is that not only does it have to do with our infrastructure, but it has to do with some of the water quality

regulations that are coming to play um most recently. So what do when we tried to look at this, this is just a graphic to share with you, you know, what do we look at when we're um really looking into our rate study and what comes into it. And so this is just a nice little cut up of a dollar um where we kind of really showing you that we have 35% of the cost is really just straight water supply. We buy as I mentioned before from West Basin and then about 30% is that capital infrastructure we've talked about so many times. uh 4% is customer service, 3% administration cost and actually this was quite surprising but really only 28% was operation and maintenance which is um actually a very significant portion of what we do dayto-day. Um but in terms of cost really that cost of water supply is I don't think something that we instantly think about. So, moving ahead, I did want to be very clear and and try to be as transparent as possible about what the general rate increase is. So, you have probably heard from us previously or um your constituency that we had what we call pass through rate adjustments. And so, those happen annually. Um but I want to make sure that I delineate between that and what I'm here to talk to you about today. And that is a general rate increase. The last time Waterworks District 29 had a general rate increase was in 2012, which um most people find quite surprising. I know that uh many are experiencing rising costs from their utilities, but we have not raised our general rate increase since 2012. That being said, uh some of your customers might have noticed a a more modest increase maybe as in the rate um in the form of a pass through which happens annually. So what is that pass through? it began to we realized it in May and it happens

annually that is when we get um increased purchase costs from water and here it says LWP my apologies it's actually West Basin Municipal Water District um and those costs um change from year to year and so that cost that um I paid to purchase that water on behalf of the district um then goes through in a pass through what we're really talking about today when I talk to you about our rate study is a general rate increase and that's really our investment in operating costs the increase in operating cost since 2012 and our capital investment and then I mentioned before that I really thought those rising costs that are above CPI are really due to some regulatory compliance and some environmental compliance and and really just um costing more to get capital investment through. So what is that going to mean? Uh we finally determined after we did this study uh that yes, we need a general rate increase. Uh that the fact that we have not had one since 2012 um was that we were trying to get the biggest bang for your buck and trying to ensure value. But in order to keep up with what the quality of service that we need and to ensure that we continue to provide um good customer service, we're going to need a general rate increase. And this is something that illustrates what a typical customer might be feeling. Again, it is different for every customer, and I'll talk to you a little bit about how everybody can find out individually, but this is an example of a 1- in meter, which most properties, um, again, this is an average a lot of properties in district 29 have. the current bill um on a monthly basis. So somewhere around $227 with this general rate increase um which is proposed to go before the county board of supervisors on December 16th

would mean that that bill could potentially go up to $36.17. So that's a $7844 increase. So, um, again, that's an average customer, but just to give you some sense of what this increase might look like. So, what does that mean? Like, how are we doing in comparison to others? So, this is just a quick quick graphic showing some other neighboring communities and water agencies. You see Thousand Oaks, you see uh District 29 today there in that greenish color. And then you see other neighboring um entities like Los Virgin, Trevo. And so what I'm looking at here is the district 29's new proposed rates are very much in alignment with those um in our neighboring communities. [clears throat] So I think what's very important, I've mentioned this a couple times for themselves. And so what we've done is we went is determined we'd go into a Prop 218 process. So those um notices were mailed out and people began to receive them on October 25th. But the reason why I have this QR code and made it so big is that anyone who might be listening here, any customers are interested, we created this website here that I think would be very valuable. It has a bill calculator on there and it can walk you through and you can actually go in for your own personal property and find out what your bill might be looking like um should this bill increase uh excuse me, rate increase move forward. There's also a fact sheet which contains a lot of the information that I've already shared with you and then some FAQs. So maybe some questions that are common uh that people might be asking in terms of what we plan to do with that. So one of the things that um you know we do plan to do and that is important in our general rate increase and I showed you that when when I showed you the graphic about the dollar and the

different percentages that we're looking at is our district 29 capital improvement program. And so, um, again, I've talked to you quite a bit about that, so I don't want to go over things too much again and and, um, want to make good use of your time, but I wanted to put this slide up here just to, uh, again reiterate that we are, um, have spent about 28 million in projects over the last uh, 5 years, but we hope to be able to spend, and when I say spend, I mean improve the system to the tune of 190 million over the next 5 years. and that general rate increase along with a potential debt service would be something that would allow for us to get that kind of new infrastructure into this community. Um, so far we have 3.5 million of grant funding and really we're looking towards another 30 million in in pending applications. So doing what we can where we can to make sure that we leverage those funds. So now I think we'll go back into the infrastructure updates. Um, you've seen this slide before, but I thought it was important to put back up again and just to have it for everyone's reference. These are some improvements that I talked to you about a couple months ago. Some of the recent construction and then some of the things that we hope to have starting soon. Really, what I want to highlight is this is a project that I wasn't able to tell you about two months ago when I came forward. And this is Los Flores Mesa Water. The reason why I felt like it was important to share it with you today because this is a community that was impacted uh by the fires in January and we hope to go in um in terms of trying to do what we can to speed recovery and to allow for appropriate recovery. We plan to upgrade about 3500 ft of water man and do some um station pump station improvements and we hope to get this work started um in the fall. So

about a year from now of 2026, which is definitely in a much more accelerated rate. Um, and I was hopeful uh that I'd be able to bring this to you today because I know we heard a lot from you um two months ago. This is also a slide that you saw previously, but again, I thought it was important to show these six projects that are ongoing and have them for you as reference. This is something that we talked about quite a bit in some of the question and answers that we heard from you. Um, and we wanted to make sure that we leaned into that and let you know that we heard uh the importance that you place on uh generators. And so we went back and we looked at some of the plans that we had and we um have already I've mentioned this u previously that we have 10 new generators that were purchased in the last oh excuse me I don't know what I pushed the last I I'll just leave it like that sorry in the last um 10 uh excuse me two years but I also wanted to share that we have um received 1.2 2 million for from FEMA hazard mit mitigation grant. So we've been approved for five more generators and we currently have a grant application right now um for some more. So this was something um that this council communicated to us that was important in terms of the generators and the importance that was felt um most recently in January. And so, um, we have put a focus on that and we're happy to have received this, uh, $1.2 million grant, but are now also looking forward to trying to get additional grant monies and put some of our own district 29 capital funds towards that, something to

the tune of 2.4 million. So, um, very happy to, uh, share that with you. Sorry. I can never get it resized when I do that, too.

Okay. [laughter] Um, so with that, um, I wanted to see if you might have any questions of us and, um, again, encourage you to go to our website if you want to find out more about, um, the proposed general rate increase that is culminating uh, in a public hearing that is scheduled for December 16th um, at the county board of supervisors, Hall of Administration. But I do want to share that in addition, the Prop 218 notices that were mailed to all customers did have a process there and the website can walk you through if there is interest uh of sending a protest letter or if there's any concerns. Again, there's FAQs there and a bill calculator. Thank you. Anybody have any questions?

I have a few. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Um I did have a few questions. Um, so when you said the when you had the graph up, it said water and sewer is highest spikes, but our city isn't really on sewer completely. So, how does that factor in? Because I will say um on Next Door, there's an app where communities, it was overrun with what happened to my water bill. So, there's two-part question. Would your study have been an increase already? Is that what I'm No.

Yeah. So, I'll start with the first one. Thank you for your your question, uh, madam council member. Um, the first one was the graphic where I was showing the increase in terms of the CPI. And really that was just a lot of times when we study these kinds of things, we look at um water and wastewater in the same vein. Uh, so it was just an example of a study, but you're absolutely right. Um in in the case of district 29 and in the case of Malibu, there is no sewer system. So it was just a graphic to show that water costs have been exceedingly higher than even some energy costs. So that was a graphic there. And then I'm sorry you were asking and I want to make sure I understand you were asking about the study.

Have you done an increase already? We have not. So that's just when I hear residents about the past actually let me let me change that. So I think again that was why we spent some time talking about the pass through rate increase which was seen and which is possibly what you've been hearing about and that occurred beginning in May. So we bill uh by monthly. So it's very possible that in May and June there was some surprise there by some of the customers in terms of a a rate increase it was pretty crazy with the spike. There was a lot of people asking and wondering about the increase. So, I guess people paid attention the last two months.

Yeah. And so, that might have just been an accumulation, right? Like maybe they didn't notice up front or maybe it was associated with the summer, which sometimes people do a lot more outdoor irrigation or things like that. So, they may not have noticed it. So, the rate increase did come into effect May 1st. Um, but again, that rate increase is associated with just the cost of water and and and inflation. So, um that cost of water is what we pay. uh directly from West Basin and then we pass on to the customer which is very different from again again the general rate increase that we're proposing

again which has not come before the county board of supervisors that will be before the county board of supervisors on uh December 16th and we are still in that period where people can submit a protest. Um, so those that is going to be considered again in December 16th, but that general rate increase hasn't happened since 2012. So the the pass through costs don't have to go to the board of supervisors, right? You get to do that on your own. Yeah, that's a great question, council member. So we actually only need to go to the board of supervisors every five years.

Okay, gotcha. So if you had to make an estimate of the total amount of pass through increases we've had over the last five years, what do you think that number is? the number of pass through increases. You have one annually. The amount the amount uh sorry council member I I I could probably get that to you but I couldn't you know I have several I'd like to see that number if you get a chance to know what the passing rating I mean you know the election last election whatever it was November 5th the key word was affordability so you know I'm just want to pay attention.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And so, um, I think what we'll show is that we'll provide you with what, um, an average customer would be because again, I think what's very important is that we're not coming to talk to you about percentages of increase. That's not how it works really. How the way it's impacted with different people is that you have a price associated with the cost of the size of your meter and then you have a quantity charge. So that comes with the assumption that if you lose use less water, it's less expensive. The more water you use, the more expensive it is. So we will provide the average. That's fine. I can live with an average. Great. Okay.

Does the water district 29 website also outline the increases and can does it have a historical of those increases that have occurred? You know, it does not contain historical increases. what it does have specifically on the dedicated website um that's associated with um what I put up today that has um the what is proposed for the next 5 years. Okay. And it has the rate the most recent pass through, but I I definitely understand uh the council member wanting to say, "Hey, let's go back a little bit further so we can have an understanding."

Thank you. And um just to finish up, I do I mean I recognize infrastructure costs money and it's always a hassle, right? Um to live through that, but we'll be a better city for it after going to the water tanks. So you're it looks like you're installing some water tanks. Who then takes over the responsibility? Who checks the levels?

Oh, absolutely. Great question. So that would be Waterworks District 29. We maintain and operate all of our infrastructure. And that's really why Bill is here with me today. Bill is our area engineer. He's right down the street from you. And uh this is his bread and butter. This is what he does day in is out, his crews are there and and that's why he's in community. So we are the ones that after um the infrastructure is either improved or new Mhm. we maintain it. You test it and you check for the water levels. Absolutely. So we do the water quality testing. We do um you know all of the operation maintenance, the valve turning. Uh we have customer service representatives here at this office as well.

And that would lead me to the generators. So do you and I great thank you for listening to us about the generators. Um who is responsible for that? That would be us as well.

So we ensure that those generators are um maintained. We also um Bill most recently I think within the last month had a we do emergency drills to make sure that we have the appropriate preparedness whether it's a wind event whether it's a fire event or an earthquake you know we have several different uh drills that we run and that his team goes through and when I say drills it's we do it so that you know it feels real world we do and then we come back and then we say okay what worked what didn't work it's true emergency response. And just to remind me, who checks on the hydrants? Water district or fire department? We check on hydrants.

And do we get a report of that? How how often water levels does the city you guys are in communication with public works, I'm sure? Um there's no report um madame council member, um that we provide associated with our on&m. Um but we do communicate quite a bit with uh your public works department. Okay. How often are those tests done? Are they like annually, by annually? Yeah, I'll let Bill t I'm sorry. Were you asking about the emergency drills that we do? No, I was asking about how often how frequent are your hydrant testing.

Oh, um it's [clears throat] a good question. It kind of varies um based on the situations, but we aim to go around every um one to three years. Oh, one to three years. Okay. And then you coordinate with public works and communicate that there's Okay. Water in those hydrants. Oh, yes. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Yeah. If I might add to that, I think that's a really good question and something that people often wonder. So, we follow the American Waterworks Association guidelines. So these are established guidelines throughout the country that we continue to use those as guideposts. Some things we do more frequently because they're unique to us. Uh but we try to follow those guidelines in terms of how we quickly we or how often we exercise our valves for example and do some of the things that you asked about. Thank you. Absolutely.

If I recall the the generators are not staged on site. You bring them out as needed, right? That they're correct. Um, you know, each each event is different. Um, if we have a PSPS coming, we'll look to see what circuits are going to be impacted and we may deploy generators. Um, but you stage them, but you have to bring them out. They're not staged all the time in a single location. You bring them out. No. No. Can you give us a list of which water tanks are going to have generators this year? I think that people would like to know if they're, you know, dealing with particular water tank that there's a generator attached to it. Make them feel warm. Yeah. We have a mobile fleet that we keep at our our yard down the street here. So again, it varies on event um where we will take the generator.

And it say last piece again. It it would vary by the event on where we would take the So you put generators at different tanks at different times. Yes, depending on the event. So if there was a PSPS, it was going to impact Western Malibu. Well, that's where we would deploy our generators in advance of that PSPS. Um, let me think about that. Okay. If there was a larger event, you know, we would we have a really strong rental contracts which we use and we would get generators to cover all the pump stations in the city. That last piece again, if you had a bigger event, you'd have you'd have generators at all the tanks,

all the pump stations. Like if we were to have a PSP like Thanksgiving 2021, we had a massive PSPS. Um, So, we had generators everywhere. All right. Yeah. Thank you, Doug. Yeah. The turkey disaster of 2021. Yes, we know that. Uh, by the way, thank you very much for coming. Um, just a quick comment. I thought the fire department checked the hydrants. Don't they do the testing? I believe they test them as well, but but we do our own inspections.

Okay. All right. Um, got a few questions for you. As I said, thank you for coming. Here comes the fun part. Um, PF and I never get this right. PFAS, the forever chemicals. How does that figure into the cost of water and what are you doing about it?

Thank you, Council Member Stewart. So, what you're referring to is what we call POS, right? And those those are forever chemicals. Um since uh district 29 receives all of its water from West Basin Municipal Water District and Met um I will tell you that um most of their water that we're getting are either from the state water project or the Colorado River project. So there is not as much of concern um regarding POS. That being said, um I am not completely familiar with the source water as they take it on and it can change from time to time. What I will tell you is that any water qu any uh constituent of concern whether it be POS or anything else is going to increase the cost of water delivered to district 29. So as um any agency or any wholesaler like West Basin and Met begin to um mitigate for some of those uh constituents of concern like POS um that is going to be an additional cost for them to mitigate and so they will pass that cost on to us the retailer.

Okay. All right. Um I know I think the state just put out some new uh uh trigger points for reporting and action. Um I assume that would be advised to us if you hit the trigger points on any of those. Correct.

Yes, council member. As a matter of fact, I have um other districts besides district 29 that I oversee that use groundwater in some instances. And so for those there are different triggers like for example chrome and u arsenic and um there is there are requirements just to um that we have to notify our customer when a constituent of concern is over the maximum load. Um so right now I don't foresee that for district 29 again because most of our water um comes through um West Basin Municipal Water District and has already provided to us with the appropriate treatment. Um that being said um we still are required to provide our water quality data um um annually and to tell all of our customers um how we're doing. Um, so we call that a CCR, but it comes out every um June I believe. It reaches the customer and it shares all of the information about the water quality testing and what we have found.

Okay. Thank you. Um, it's good to good to know that we don't have to worry about the uh forever chemicals at least at the moment. Um, on your rate increases, is that uniform across all uh uh clients? I'm asking, do businesses, multif family, and residential all share the same rate structure?

Yes. Let me um try to maybe reframe how I um say that the the rate increase will be subject to all of our customers. So, I'll start by saying it that way, whether that be a single family resident or multif family residential or business. Um when we talk about how it's applied, it's applied by the size of the meter. So if there is a business for example that has larger than a one I used a 1 in meter as an example. If they have larger than a 1 in meter um they're going to have a different cost but it is proportionate right to the cost of same price per gallon in effect. Yes. And that is essentially kind of one of the difficult not difficulties but that's one of the things that we found is very important um in this Prop 218 process and specifically for utilities like ours is that we have to pass on the true cost of writers. So there is no ability to subsidize one customer from another customer.

Okay. Yeah.

All right. Um you you brought back an old memory when you said 2012. I didn't think it had been that long since you did your rate increase, but let me challenge you a little bit. I remember correctly, you guys said in 2012, that was the date, we're going to raise the rate 5% per year, and you were very, very slick to say it was 25% increase. Well, if you do the math, it's actually 30% because it compounds. And you're looking now for a 35% roughly 35% increase as I'm looking at this. So, my question to you is, what do we get for that increase? because it was supposed to go to capital items. I looked at your board. You've got a small amount, relatively small amount of money for now 13 years of rate increases being spent on capital improvements. Our water system has been going out right and left for things that I sit there and go, you got to be kidding me. You get a pressure pressure rise and you blow the water lines. I mean, what what is being done to take and I I know these are old pipes. I know some of this goes back 70 years. you guys use steel exclusively. You don't use PVC. Um, so why are we experiencing these kind of problems and we need this more additional money when we haven't spent a lot of money so far and now you're talking about I think it was 190 million. I'm I'm flabbergasted that for all the money we've contributed to this, we're not seeing more in capital spend for us. So help me out here.

Yeah. No, absolutely fair question, council member. Um so let me see if I can start back with 2012 and maybe what has happened since then. So at that time again when I showed the the dollar um that is with the way that our um our financial model is working right now in terms of percentages going to O andM and percentages going to capital percentages going to customer service and things like that. So um I would say that on the capital side you'll see that the percentage is pretty high right and um since 2012 there was a significant investment in um the development of our capital plan and I know that we worked very closely with your staff and the community to to approve that. um that culminated in adoption of the plan and a programmatic ER. Um that programmatic EIR um took some time to uh come forward and to be approved. And so once it was finally approved, it set the groundwork for us to begin to continue. So I believe two months ago when I came and I'm I'm sorry I don't have the graphic with me right now. I showed that we had a considerable uh fund balance that we had acrewed over time strictly for capital. So we are we can we can have um our capital needs to stay in our capital. We have two funds. We have a general fund and then we have a capital outlay fund. And so our general fund continued to decrease because obviously the costs of labor and all of the things associated with um operation and maintenance continue to rise and we hadn't come forward with the rate increase. But our capital fund continued to grow and to your point we hadn't put as many projects in the ground. We have now programmed them all out. So that is

why you see so many capital projects coming before you in the list that I provided two months ago and the one that I provided today is because we are now spending down the capital fund that we accumulated since 20 2012. You know I can apologize for it taking so long. Um, but I think what we can do is just try to ask uh try to mention that we're going to do better moving forward now that we have this plan in front of us and we're going to try to use the money faster. Um, but that being said, your next question was what are we going to get for this one? So, we still have a considerable amount of capital um still to do. So, that 190 million is not only what we're going to spend, but what we think we still need to spend and at least in the next 5 years. And what I'm hoping to do is to offset it with some grants. Um, but we might need to look at other options to borrow against those monies. And so ideally at some point in time, you have a great running system and you no longer have to have the significant investments in capital that you've been see. You're always going to have to invest, as you well know, in in the capital infrastructure. But we're hoping that it should once we get um a significant amount of these projects done that uh you have a good system and we're running well.

Let me ask you one final question. Real quick, how much of 190 million do you currently have in the bank? How much of 190 million do you have in your back pocket already?

Not very much of it, sir. So, I would say um we have already programmed out. So, if we can look at some of the things that we provided so far, um it shows a amount of the projects that we have planned and I could add those up for you and I apologize I don't have it in front of me. Um but so what we're doing is that a lot of that is spent. So we might have, you know, I might have like a hundred uh in the in the bank, but it's already programmed out. So that's the projects that are moving forward in carbon. Those are the tanks that we're seeing done. So, when I say that I don't have that much in the bank, it really means that I've already encumbered it. The money is we've decided, the project's already been awarded, and we're ready to build.

Okay. Sorry. Sorry, Doug. Okay. That's all right. One final question here. [snorts] Um, you guys have shown us the bright and shiny things, the tanks and so forth. Yeah. But your infrastructure is your pipes. It is. And those pipes, and I can see the look on your face. It's like, oh god, don't ask me this question. Those pipes are 50 to 60 to 70 years old. I think in a lot of cases, correct? They are. How much longer are they going to last? And what's it going to cost us to to take care of those?

So, you'll see a lot of these projects, thank you for the question. A lot of these projects, um, it's it's not just the age of the pipes, it's the size. Um, and so when we go back through, not only will we'll be replacing, but we have some places, for example, where we have a 4-in pipe, and that's just not what we're looking for to maintain, um, the kind of, uh, fire suppression that we believe we need to have now. And so, um, but to get more to your question, we think they can last longer because we are continuing to do operation and maintenance on those. So, what we do is and and not to bore you too much, but we have a very robust capital plan and we have um in the sense that we also have how do I um we have assessments that we've done. So we know where a leak has happened for example. We look at to see what the age of that infrastructure is. We look at to see how many times we've seen a leak there recently. And we make assessments based on okay this how we prioritize our capital infrastructure. So um that's the way we prioritize um moving forward. And so when we did that, I looked at a lot of our infrastructure and um it we do have a good amount that needs to be replaced. Um but what I'm going to do, what I hope to do is um move forward with the infrastructure that is the of the highest priority and then try to maintain and that's why bill comes uh into play here is to do everything we can to make sure we're exercising the valves that we know what the infrastructure of of those pipes are. We'll you know look through them, we maintain them and that's really what we need to do to ensure that we have longevity moving forward.

Yeah. But isn't it, and I won't put words in your mouth, but isn't the useful life for a steel pipe just about now on most of these? Yes, theoretically. Yeah. Um, but we've been able to continue to move forward with them. One of these days you're going to run out of clock. Okay. All right. That's all I have. Thank you. Anyone else? I just want to thank you for coming and giving us this information and I really appreciate the fact that you actually answer the question straight straightforwardly. we get a lot of people that come in before us and dissemble and give us double talk and I appreciate the straightforward manner in which you presented the information. Thank you. Thank you, council member.

Yeah, thank you for presenting and being here. We appreciate um the update and uh hopefully everybody out there in TV land will go to the website and learn more about this so they're not shocked um if and when this gets approved. But we look forward to more projects. Thank you, Madame Mayor. And I do feel that you giving us this opportunity to be there helps in uh uh us being able to provide this transparency and get to as many people as we can. Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay, so we have uh Scott Dietrich for a commission update. You have one more item. No, to be they asked to to be

Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, that that's correct. Thank you. I paid attention. Hi, Scott. Thank you, Mary. And madame mayor and council,

Maryanne's fine. uh as we all struggle. The reason I'm coming before you guys tonight is there was an issue where we had at the public works commission um a presentation by Calrans and we considered what they had to say. We had questions. We were able to spend a lot of time. That issue then came before the planning commission. They did not have anything from us, the report, the discussion. Um, and that seems to be wrong that they had even asked for at planning commission. Well, how come we didn't get this? So, I think we have a disconnect. I'm not sure how we should handle it. I spoke to uh Brandy about trying to get a report because of all the e extra work she's had to do with fire rebuilds. She's not going to have those available in a timely manner and she's actually going to get to take some time off deservedly. Um but it's a problem that uh I'll give you an example. Um at our last um public works commission meeting um we spent over an hour discussing these one lane roundabouts. Um there was a by every commissioner I had never seen such uh objections to a plan presented by staff. Usually we're we ask questions but we agree. um that is going to get lost and I think that that's a travesty. That's why we have commissions to come back and with

staff make recommendations. Um and I know this is going to come up to um the planning commission. So I'm just bringing this up to you guys. Let you try to work through figure out how we can do it better. Thank you. Thank you, Scott. Scott, just so you're aware, the topic you just brought up was one of the comments I want to make in my commissioner comments, and I think you're you're correct. Uh, and it's for We have a planning commission, we have a public safety commission, and they study this stuff, but we never hear about it. So, and there's got to be a better way. So, we'll see what we can do. I agree with you. Thank you,

Councilman. Just a word of caution, that item may end up coming to the council on appeal. So, um, please don't discuss any project specifics on that particular item. Thank you. May I ask a question? This is I just noticed it when Scott was talking and I meant to raise this the last meeting. We're seeing the backs of the heads of the speakers rather than their face on the on the television screen. And I recall at least at one point historically we would see the speakers or the public would see the speakers. Is there a reason why we're seeing only their backs of their head? I think when we where the public is seeing it, I should say we see them because we're s they're standing in front of us. But the public doesn't Didn't we discuss that when we talked about the I don't recall. Thanks. I thought we did. I thought we did. I know Andy Lion mentioned it in one of his comments.

That's That's our protocol. [clears throat] No. No. I think we used to be able to see people's faces. All of a sudden, it's changed to see the back of their Did we Did we make a protocol to not see them anymore? Because I don't recall that. No, I think it's just technical. Seems like maybe a camera's out. So I mean I don't know if it takes a council request all of us but I I would like to start see I think the public ought to be able to get to see the speakers. The camera is right there. Do we have to agendaize that? I know it is but watch the screen not being shown. We can't take any actions tonight but we get a report about I would support an effort to get that done. Oh, me too.

So, it sounds like a future item we'd like to have a discussion about who and how can be seen during public comment. Okay. City manager about the commissioners. I did have another question about the commissioner reports. I just wonder if there is a protocol because this has been coming up a lot. Do we have where commissioners come or if we can film those meetings or get those minutes? The minutes are available and they are going to start filming them so that they'll be available. Oh, great. Digit on YouTube. That would be after the fact. Not not live, but they'll be available. The minutes from that public works commission are not available. They won't be ready till January or something. Just for board.

Okay. Madam, city manager. All right. Good evening, Malibu. Uh, I'd like to start this evening to by first introducing Christopher Smith. He's our new interim assistant city manager. Stand up, Christopher. Thank you. Yeah, [applause] I know. Can I get a amen?

Uh Christopher comes to Malibu with over 22 years of experience in the public sector. Most recently, he served as deputy city manager in the city manager's office for the city of Santa Monica. While at the city of Santa Monica, he also held the position of acting chief information officer and chief of staff as well as principal administrative analyst in the office of sustainability and information services offices. We are excited to welcome him to the city of Malibu. Welcome Christopher. Um, last week, Mayor Rigggins, Deputy Rojos, and myself along with our representatives from Calstrat had the opportunity to make a visit to Sacramento to thank key elected officials and multi- agency principles for their support from the Palisades and Franklin Fires and to make strong appeals for continued resource assistance. We had the opportunity to visit Governor Nuome's office, and we had long meetings with Lieutenant Governor Elani Kunalakis, Senator Ben Allen's office, Jackie Irwin's office, the California State Transportation Agency, and the director of California Governor's Office of Emergency Services to discuss the multiple rebuild and recovery issues that we are facing here in Malibu and secure their assistance and cooperation. All in all, these were very productive meetings and we look forward to continued engagement from uh Malibu's new businesses. We continue our recovery trajectory by celebrating the opening of a number of new businesses. Most recently, Mayor Rigggins and Council members Steuart and Conrad along with the Malibu Palisades Chamber of Commerce were able to highlight the openings of Buzzwacks, Automotive Hygiene, Leninia Kantina, and Malibu Colony Pilates. So, as part of our continued commitment to supporting um economic recovery for our local businesses, Malibu City Council has

agreed to ease the rules for events and sign permits. And through May 31st, 2026, businesses can access streamlined temporary use permits to host events and promote services with less paperwork and shorter timelines. For all Malibu businesses, please contact us at businessup supportalcity.org for more information on how the city can support your business moving forward. Um, thanks to everyone who participated in the urban tides walk at Point Doom State Beach this past Thursday. This event in collaboration with USC Seagrant offered ways to learn about projected sea level rise impacts in our community. Um, there will also in terms of fire escaping, there'll be a fire escaping workshop this Wednesday, November 12th, here at Malibu City Hall from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Join the West Basin Municipal Water District. You're going to come back and the city of Malibu for an interactive workshop on fireresistant landscaping and native plants. Dinner is included with a special prize for the first 25 guests and a free rain barrel giveaway. And there will be another rain barrel giveaway on Saturday, November the 22nd from 9 to 11:00 a.m. here at Malibu City Hall in the upper parking lot. So you can receive up to two free 50 gallon rain barrels to help save water and reduce storm water runoff. from public safety. The city's homeless outreach team, which consists of three outreach workers from the people's concern, reported that in September 2025, it engaged with 64 people experiencing homelessness in Malibu. Three were placed in interim housing or reunited with their families. Um, you can now register to volunteer for LA Homeless Authorities 2025 Greater Los

Angeles homeless count in Malibu on January 22nd, 2026. I've done this with a buddy for years and each year thousands of volunteers help conduct this annual sens cons census of people experiencing homelessness and the results actually do help inform policy decisions and better direct resources to address the homelessness crisis. In October, community services installed new signage throughout Legacy Park that includes additional sections of the Malu Municipal Code to assist the LA County Sheriff's Department with enforcements of illegal activities. The updated signs are part of an ongoing effort to address homelessness throughout the city and mitigate potential encampment fires. The local emergency declared by city council on September 29th remains in effect, allowing the city to more quickly remove encampments during fire fire season while offering compassionate outreach and shelter options. So, please report any emergencies uh by calling 911 and please report any illegal activity to the sheriff's department. For more information, please contact our senior management analyst, Luis Flores at l floresalibcity.org on any issues of homelessness. Um, I wanted to make sure that we had a clarification on what zone zero means. We've noticed it is being said that zone zero prohibits trees within 30 ft of structures and this is inaccurate. Zone zero implementation as written would prohibit flammable plant materials within 5 ft of a structure. Administrative guidelines are still being developed and no enforcement is currently in place. Um for fire wise communities, thanks to the dedication of our community members and support of our

fire safety liaison, we now have 13 fire certified firewise communities. Uh we in addition we have seven more neighborhoods working to become certified. So please I encourage all communities within Malibu to become Firewise communities. Um we've gotten a lot of emails about brush clearance. If you're concerned about a property that appears to be out of compliance with brush clearance requirements, please contact the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioners website where you can submit a complaint online and that's at um www.acwm.lacount.gov, but if you can put in Google all about weed abatement, you'll you'll get the website. Um we have a storm coming up. We are monitoring this storm. It should bring rain to Malibu on Thursday. And while we don't anticipate any major flooding issues at this time, you know, things can change quite quickly around here. Um, therefore, staff will continue to monitor the situation and provide pertinent information to the community as we did with the last storm. from public works. The PCH signal synchronization project, the city's most significant measure to date to improve traffic safety and mobility on PCH, is complete. The use Yes. Woohoo. That's right. Um, the use of state-of-the-art technology and synchronization of traffic signals centrally controlled by a Calrance traffic control center will make PCH a smart corridor that will improve traffic flow and safety. and we're all grateful to you all for working so hard on that. Michelle, I see you back there. Uh on October 27, the city council approved installing additional safety measures to the system, speed feedback signs and automatic enforcement cameras, speed enforcement camera power source connections at four different locations

and radar cameras and associated safety adaptive systems have been adopted. from community services. Tomorrow is Veterans Day. City Hall, the Rebuild Center, and Community Swimming Pool at Malibu High will be closed. City parks, and the Michael Landon Community Center will be open for regular hours, 8:00 a.m. to sunset. There will be a wellness workshop, manif manifestation meditation instructed by the Mindre, on Thursday, November the 13th at Malu Bluffs Park from 4:30 to 6. You can register online for that. at the city of Malibu website. Also, this Thursday at 6:30 p.m., there'll be a virtual Zoom meeting at 6:30 p.m. to learn about tree removal and replacing of two ailing non-native trees that overhang a heavily trafficked sidewalk on Cross Creek Road that's directly across from that Starbucks where you don't park your car for fear of getting bombed. Um field experts will discuss um potential new nesting uh areas for the birds. Um and there will be a timeline to reduce the impacts on wildlife. Alternative nesting locations. Uh tree replacement and replanting and other long-term measures will create alternative nesting sites. So don't worry about the birds. They'll be okay. So please go to the city website to find um the dial in information for that call. Um, join po Malibu poet laurate Charlotte Ward and Dana Joya, California poet laurate. Saturday, November the 15th at 11:00 a.m. at the Malibu Library. On Sunday, November the 16th at 12:00 p.m., the Melbour Arts Commission will host the opening art reception for Richard Reiner, including a Q&A with the artist, music and refreshments uh right here at at Malibu City Hall. Visit the Malibu Arts Commission website for additional information. and

Thursday, November 20th from 6:30 to 7:30 here at city hall in the multi-purpose room. Join us for the Malibu Monarch project lecture series presented by a lead scientist uh with the resource conservation district. Participants will ultimately take a tour of the coastline and discuss opportunities and challenges at each of our lagoons. For uh information, please visit the Malibu City website. And we also have updates from our community development department. Uh let me get those for you right here. Um we are pleased to announce that CALR staff will soon be soon be joining us at the rebuild center to assist with encroachment permits and support property owners along PCH affected by the recent fires. Their presence will help streamline the permit process, address questions and concerns, and ensure that reconstruction proceeds smoothly and efficiently. This collaboration reflects our ongoing commitment to working closely with all stakeholders, responding to community concerns, and supporting the safe and timely restoration of affected properties. So, we appreciate CALR's partnership and the council's continued guidance as we move forward with this. Um, and Bert, if you're out here, this is for you. Streamline generator permitting processes. Our community development department is pleased to announce a new streamline process for the review and permitting of generators, something our community has been requesting for quite a long time. Uh under this new procedure, applicants submitting generatoronly projects may bypass the planning division review by completing a streamline form for generators which confirms that the proposed installation meets all applicable planning division requirements. Once the completed form required plans and manufacturer

specifications are submitted, applicants can proceed directly to the building safety division for plan review. Standard review turnaround for generator only submittals is 10 business days. This new process reflects the city's commitment to efficiency, transparency, and improved customer service in development review. We hope this will make permitting of generators simpler, faster, and more predictable for our residents. For more information or assistance with the new generator permitting process, please contact the community development department. And now we'd like to hear about our rebuild updates from our uh director um director Bundy.

Thank you, city manager Bon and thank you city council. Um just wanted to provide you a um an update on where we are with our fire rebels. Saturday, November 8th, we remember our woolie families at the 7-year anniversary. In 2019, we lost 465 uh properties uh main residents. Since then, uh 375 has been submitted um for our review. Out of them, 364 have received planning approval and 37 permits have been issued by building. There's 210 pro homeowners that receive certificate of occupancy and 97 that continue um building on they're under construction. I want to highlight that out of those 465 having 375 uh parcels being uh rebuilt constitute 81% of our total efforts of rebuilding. Next slides. This was the uh scene in 2019. This is where we're seeing now. Uh most resilient, safer properties. Uh 307 are like I mentioned with building permits and um many families already back home. I want to also share with you that the city council fee waiverss total so far we have for wooly fires is $6.3 million that our we'll see families were able to get benefit from and with me I have Farah Stacks Farah

lost her home in the um Wy fire in 2019 and September of 2022 to um she and her family were able to go back home and I think for me it's a testimony of what is great in Malibu after losing her home and she continued went to school got her masters in environmental science and now she's she's a sign she's playing a significant role helping us rebuild with other families but also uh being the lead for the environmental operations. Thank you. Fire. [applause] As far as Franklin fire, there were 27 parcels affected. Two we lost out of those two main homes were destroyed and 11 accessory uh structures. So far we have issued um 18 permits. Next slides. Just wanted to share this because I know there has been a lot of comparison. This is the LA County Incorporated area dashboard. As of today, November 10th, there's 10 new single family residents that have been issued. Um the numbers for the incorporated LA County um are important because they share similar geographical and terrain features as Malibu. So where are we? We lost 597 single family residents on Palisades. Currently we have 174 planning uh uh applications that have been submitted that constitute 29% of the total rebuilds. Out of those uh 16 families have received their permits for

construction and uh we have 18 under plan check review. wanted to spend a little time on um the dashboard for the planning breakdown. Out of those 100 planning applications that have been approved, 98 um of them are uh like for like plus 10%. Those are the families that decided to rebuild exactly what they had before. We have two families that decided uh to us for um an administrative plan review which is for a little bit more hype but also got an approval uh very quickly. We have 74 applications on planning under review and now we're seeing a little bit more of the families wanted either to expand a little bit more. We have two applications for a uh coastal development permit and 67 of the 74 are are going for the like for like plus 10%. This picture just show you all the happiness of the families getting their permits. Uh so it's a great testament also that we are moving forward. also want to report to council and to the community that so far uh we have waved uh close to uh uh $500,000 and just want to give you a brief update of what are we seeing on construction uh a couple uh photos from the parcels that have obtained permits. Uh we have one in Carver Mesa. Next slide. Another one. Carbon Messa, Inland Lane,

PCH, Roach Chica, Rock Point, Seymour Drive, Las Flores Canyon, Eagle Pass, Pedra Chica, and then the five that we uh issued this morning. Um um uh they are in Big Rock. Uh so Big Rock uh also continue working together to move um to move forward with the rebuilds. Also want to give a brief update on the case manager. The case manager um that we incorporated at the rebuild center about three weeks ago has uh reached out to 82 families. Um, and this is I'm just going to read what I got from the case manager. The majority of the applicants have provided positive feedback expressing gratitude for the dedicated support they have received throughout their plan check and permitting stages. They have been um they have been also grateful for the attention to monitor their progress and for guiding them through every step. However, there is some applicants that are still feel expressing frustration with the past experience. And that concludes my uh the presentation. If council has any questions,

one quick question. Is it 16 with the five today? Is that the the number? Yes, 16. And we're working with two more hopefully by the end of the week. Good deal. Thank you. Yolanda, the uh WY fire dashboard, is that on this website? Yes, we do have down there also. And you mentioned how many the amount of fee wavers you had for Wy 6.3 million. 6.3 million. I can thank you. Is that I'm sorry for clarification. Is the Woolsey on the main city website or is it on the Malibu Rebuilds website? On the main city way. Thank you. Excellent.

Um thanks for that report. We really appreciate it. Um the fasttrack. So the generator fasttrack. I just had a few questions cuz that is something I'm really passionate about. Um, is that only for rebuilds or is that for the citywide? It's actually for citywide. Fantastic. And then will that expand one day hopefully soon to pool solar and water tanks, hot water heaters? We actually are are coming out with new things um and we want to um bring that to you weekly. Uh so you are going to see a lot more updates on that.

That's terrific. Thank you. And then um the last part is you ended with the case manager saying that there's frustration with past experience. Was does that mean like past experience after palisades or past experience building in Malibu? After palisades. Okay. Um and that goes into my next next question which is what happens if families just stop putting in permits? We hit like a threshold. So, we have made uh we're we're trying to call every family. Uh some of them are not um are going through financial decisions and I think that's what we're hearing the most. Yeah.

I've been at the rebuild center every Friday and I can tell you um the conversations continue being open on what what is needed. Yeah. And the most that I hear is financial. Uh some other homeowners are asking me how long is it going to take for me to get my home. Yeah. So it's complex.

Uh yeah. And so we're trying to be there for the families. Uh but but throughout the week the Rebel Center is open uh Monday through Fridays 8 to 4. We have staff there all the time. Uh we are also meeting with the Sun Capitans weekly and um um one section of the beach uh property owners Las Flores continue coming every week

specifics on their 39 parcels that they're rebuilding. Uh this week uh they were able to submit their projects, three of them that were waiting to see if they move forward or if they didn't move forward. Uh we're talking about homeowners that are elderly and they're really thinking about their decision and their future for their families. So I mean it it varies. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And the the last Flores beach meetings are those separate from the rebuild task force meetings?

Yes. The last floor is um community have decided that they either um make want to make their own appointments. Sometimes they come in on a Wednesday, sometimes they come in on a Thursday, uh, and sometimes that we have seen them on a on on Monday afternoon. Okay. Thank you so much. Great work. Appreciate it. Thank you, Chris.

So, first of all, I want to echo the appreciation for the um generator expedition. That's that's phenomenal and and look forward to the other ones that you're going to roll out. Um, I have a question about the Woolseie fire um information. When you say under construction, does that mean that you know shovels actually hit dirt or does that mean that they have approval to move forward? Does that include homes for which there's approval but they've not yet begun to do anything? No, the ones that are under construction, actually those are under construction. They have a permit. Um they are currently building their home.

Okay, great. Um on the Palisades rebuilds, you said there were recently two CDP applications. Um first question is are they being handled through the rebuild center or are they going through the normal process? Right now we're handling everything through the rebuild center. The applications are getting there but this is something that is going to go through normal uh um uh uh operations. It'll move over to the to city hall. Okay. And do you know whether those are clean sheet pro projects or require some kind of discretionary approval? You know, I don't have all the information, but I can provide that to you.

Okay. Thank you. It's all all it's all very encouraging. I mean, I I know there's a lot more left to do, but it's encouraging to hear. I just want to tell my families that we're going to get this done and um there's hope that the the efforts are going to be continue be putting in to help out in as as much as we can. Thank you.

Thank you. So, I would just say um thank you for all the streamlining efforts and everything else and and getting these permits approved and and getting construction going on these project. I think it's absolutely fabulous. Um with regards to generators and other things, I just want to remind homeowners, talk to the people you are hiring and making sure that they are actually providing the information to staff that's requested and required. That's the fastest way to get through the process is to make sure that they have all the information and that they have provided all the um code compliant um information necessary that helps staff get these things processed quicker. So,

thank you, mayor. And yes, uh um on that same topic, um when we met with staff on what was the best way that we can implement this new uh process, it's creating a checklist and so it's easier for the community on what is expectations and also for staff to keep consistent on what we asking for. So that is the intent as we move forward. uh continue looking at the duplicated efforts that we're doing. Um council member Stewart always says that we have two cities so we're trying to not forget about our normal operations and tell all of those families we are here for everybody.

Your generator decision is going to be a huge hit. I mean I how many times I get caught you. No, I'm serious. Especially with the anticipation the PSPS shut offs we're going to have this year and you know Southern California has made no has not been been sad at all or you know safe at all and tell us how how bad they're going to be, how long they're going to take place. So this is a big deal. I mean and we should be telling everybody about and it went live today. So, uh, we're hoping to see a lot of applications and we will, uh, definitely put it on our city manager, uh, updates and we will publicize this. Tell them over and over and over again because there's a whole bunch of people that be happy to hear that. So, thank you very much.

Until they hear all the generators turn on. Well, [laughter] look, you know, just they shut off my electricity Sunday during the football games. You think? I mean, we got to have we got to do better than this. I've never solar and battery backup. I've never been in a city. great options for the quiet. I understand. I've never had We have to uh remember the peace and quiet of our community. I understand. We also got to remember that I want to watch football. So, but those Hey, you know what? The new restaurants, they have excellent screens and then you can have a camaraderie of the community and those will be a part of maybe the streamlining the battery backups like a resiliency streamlining track.

To your point, if you want those options, the quieter option there, they could be there. Again, it it all takes is just your the expert that you're hiring understanding the electrical code and talking to the homeowner of exactly if you just want your TV and your refrigerator to be plugged in or if you want your whole house. And um those make differences on the information that's required for uh staff to review. Very exciting. Thank you. Good. Thank you. We have other items on the agenda, so we'll Hi. We'd like to introduce uh Mikey if you want to come up and introduce our new Palibu director. Thanks.

Good even good good evening, city council Trevor Candace. Um nice to be back here. I love my solar. It's I don't even know the power's gone off a lot of times. It's like I get a text saying your power just went back on. I'm like oh really. So, anyhow, it's my pleasure to introduce you all tonight to the new CEO of the Palibu, the Palisades Malibu Chamber of Commerce, Miriam Zar, who I um lobbied for extensively. I'm going to take a little bit of credit here. And um Miriam, introduce yourself.

Thank you. Hello, council members. Thank you for having me. And look at that. It's not my back. Um yeah, thank you for having me. It is this has actually been super interesting for me because almost everything you've talked about is something that's either familiar to me or touches our recovery too. Um I am from Pacific Palisades. I didn't know how interesting it would be for you all for me to go over um you know how it is that I've gotten here but I'm happy to. And I also don't see a timer. I'm used to LA city, so I don't know how long you're going to give me, but um I can do this semi informally or I can do it formally, but I'm happy to be here. Happy to meet you.

Close to three minutes and then everybody can schedule time with you to meet you. That'd be great.

Sounds great. Um city manager, almost everything you talked about, I had something to to add to or to compliment on or to give perspective. So, I'd love to meet with you and go over some of the things that you talked about. So just quickly um I wanted to let you know where I come from and how I ended up being here. Um I have had uh over 10 years of civic leadership in Pacific Palisades. So I started out as the president of the Pacific Palisades Community Council a little more than 10 years ago. Um at the time I was asked um I started out as the education rep and then I became the vice president and I was asked to be the founding chair for what became the Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness. Um the task force turned out to be a very successful local response to the homeless crisis the way that at least we could identify it in Pacific Palisades at the time. Um you in Malibu also had I assume you still have uh a homeless problem that was not dissimilar to ours. So we came out here to Malibu and we spoke to uh I think Malibu city council members and others who were trying to mimic something of a task force on homelessness. So that was my first um foray into Malibu. Um, I then served as the chair of the Pacific Palisades t I then served as the chair of the Pacific Palisades Community Council. Um, we have term limits, so that was a two-year term limit. Um, when I cycled out, I was uh appointed by Mayor Garcetti to sit on a city commission. I was asked by the YMCA to come and join the YMCA board. The reason why that's significant is because our YMCA, similar to our chamber, is a joint YMCA. It's the Pacific Palisades Malibu YMCA. Um, I joined that board. I pretty quickly became the chair of that board. While I was chair of that board, uh, I advocated with Senator, State Senator Ben Allen's office and we got a million-doll grant to develop what is what is called Simon Meadow, which is in Pacific Palades. Through the years, I have nurtured a lot of relationships with local agencies and lawmakers and elected officials. Um, you guys don't

interface with LAPD. You have the sheriff. We have LAPD. So I've also made sure that my relationships are warm and cordial with every successive LAPD captain. So I bring all of those relationships to every role that I take on and I bring it to this one too. Um in the last few months um let me see what I'm missing. So I also sat on the design review board. I was appointed by the city attorney to sit on the design review board. I was the co-chair for a few years. I was then asked by the senior park director to join the park advisory board which I did. I served as the secretary for a couple of years. Um, my love is bylaws. So, I read those bylaws and helped amend them. Um, and then, um, I was asked to come back and chair the Pacific Palisades Community Council, which I did. I think in 20 I want to say 22 uh to 24. Again, we have two-year term limits. And just as I moved off, the year that I moved off, uh, we had the Palisades fire. So, since the fire, I have endeavored to be useful. Uh soon after the fire, I convened a group of people um ostensibly because uh the mayor, LA mayor appointed a recovery ZAR, which was Steve Soberof. I knew Steve from the year from the days of our task force on homelessness because he was an ally in our ability to be able to secure an LAPD beach detail. So I called and I said, "What is it that I can do for you now that you're the rebuildings are?" And he said, "Well, bring me 30 thoughtful people and let's talk about this recovery." And while he cycled away from that role, I continued and so we ended up forming what became the task force. I'm sorry, we ended up forming what became the Palisades Recovery Coalition. So I still chair I'm the founder and the president of the Palisades Recovery Coalition. We do a lot of advocacy. So I speak to yesterday we had the mayor. Friday I spoke to the city council member. Um, I sat down uh with the county supervisor and I want to say Friday afternoon, that was the morning, in the afternoon, we had state senator Ben Allen over at the Palisades

Recovery Coalition talking about legislative priorities. Um, so I bring all of my relationships to this role. I I applied I didn't know that the CEO role was going to be open. When I found out it was, I thought it might be interesting. So, I applied for the CEO role and I am thrilled to be the new CEO uh because I think I bring all of these relationships to this role. And while the chamber has been strong with um networking and ribbon cutting and being present in the community, I think where it has been missing is at the table um for the recovery where those conversations about recovery and policies take place. So, I'm hoping that that's where I can take the chamber and I'd be happy to come back and ask answer questions if you'd like. Thank you for indulging me with that time.

Thank you, Miriam. Um, Miriam and I got introduced early after the Palisades fire and uh you have been amazing in the work that you have done in the Palisades and I'm really looking forward to you taking on this new role and I think it's going to be an exciting time for the Palibu Chamber and um everything exciting happening in Malibu and Palisades. So, thank you so much. Thank you very much for coming. You've been very busy [laughter] and and congratulations. You know, that's that's a heck of a resume that you just presented to us. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. Bye. Thank you all.

Thank you. Anything else, madam? Sure. Okay.

Chris Sergeant Sodelin, please. Good evening. I'll jump right into it. I have the October crime statistics. There were 28 part one crimes reported in the month of October. That brings the total to 229. That compares with 380 from the same time last year. And so the year-over-year change is uh minus 39.7%. So still declining, which is good. Um, [clears throat] this past Friday, uh, there was a collision at PCH and Zirez. Uh, a pedestrian was walking in the crosswalk when they were hit by a vehicle that was turning on to PCH. Uh, the pedestrian was taken to the hospital with moderate injuries. Um, so thankfully it wasn't severe injuries, but it's a good reminder that there are pedestrians on PCH. There are crosswalks, so please just be cognizant of the people walking. Um, yesterday was a busy day. So, in the early morning hours, uh, deputies responded to UCLA Medical Center, uh, where they contacted a victim who had been stabbed prior, uh, near the Malibu Pier. Um, I don't want to give too many details because it's still under investigation. and the suspect still outstanding. But um the victim was with a companion and the suspect approached the the pair and a confr confrontation ensued and the victim was stabbed. The companion took the victim to the hospital and that's where we were called. So, our crime lab rolled out to the scene and processed the scene for evidence and deputies spent all day yesterday uh canvasing the area for witnesses, surveillance video, and anything that could help in the investigation. Um, so I don't want to give any more details on that because it's still ongoing. Um, but then also yesterday, if you were uh

in a traffic jam near Big Rock in the afternoon, uh, where' Parker go? Parker, are you around? No. Let's see if we can pull up this video. That's not

Well, anyways, I'll start narrating it, but uh a carjacking occurred in the city of Santa Monica. Uh suspect stole a truck with a trailer loaded with portaotties and um drove north on PCH and to Malibu. Uh the Santa Monica Police Department was in pursuit of that vehicle. The um How's that video coming? No,

we might not have a video, but uh the suspect crashed in the mountain side at Big Rock and then got out of the vehicle. He was uh completely nude and uh ran out onto the beach and then um swam out to the big rock at Big Rock in the ocean and did his best pelican impression on the rock for a while. Um

I hope you're keeping you got a hell of a book. [laughter] uh our deputies actually uh assisted uh Santa Monica police and they deployed a drone to help uh bring the situation to resolution. The suspect was taken into custody without incident. Um so it was a very interesting day yesterday. Um tomorrow is Veterans Day and we're also doing tip a cop at Paradise Cove from 11 to 3. Uh deputies will be your server and we are raising money for Special Olympics. So again, that's at Paradise Cove tomorrow from 11 to 3. Um there's going to be a rainstorm coming in on looks like Thursday. So we too are monitoring that. Um there's no watches or warnings right now, but we're still uh tracking it and having continuous meetings in case it turns into something bigger. And finally, um my brother told me I had to include this. So I wanted to wish happy birthday to the United States Marine Corps. It's their 250th today. He's a Marine, so now you understand why. So, yes. [applause] So, that is all I have.

Thank you. Yep. Quick question for you. Um, you've been reported, you always report on the year-to-year crime statistics and they've been down. I I believe they're down predominantly because we had a number of months when people just couldn't get here. Um, how does the last month compare to the same month last year? So September yes ver not not the year through September but the month of September or the month I don't I have October's statistics right now I don't have uh okay so October how does this October compare to last October not year to October but the month of October 24 to 25 oh I see what you're saying that's a good question

I do think I can pull up the video if you still want it sure It's uh quite the video. Party's going down the road. We'll see. You got it. The video. Oh, there we go. Oh, he got a sheet. Toga. Animal House. [laughter]

[snorts]

If it's too complicated for this week, just maybe at the next meeting you could you got it. give us. Yeah, it's not on this chart from what what would be great if the next meeting would be to know for the three-month period leading up to whatever next report is what the comparison is for the same three months last year. You got it. Thank you. I think Doug, go ahead. Oh, no. You you're up. All right. Um Zuma Beach, how are we doing in cleaning that up? Is that you guys still going out there and patrolling it? You got any issues there? Not I'm sorry. Surf Rider. I'm sorry. Surf Rider.

Surf. Yes. Uh we're out there um every day. Deputy Espinosa is out there every morning uh to contact anybody's out there. He partners with the lifeguards. He also partners with um the public safety office here at the city. So they're on on top of it. Okay. All right. I will say one thing about the Marine Corps. They have much better publicity than the Air Force. Nobody know even knows when the Air Force had a birthday. I had a quick question. Um are you guys down sheriffs? Like I know for Lost Hills, what's your percentage? We're at about 70% staffing right now. Okay. And I'm curious, CHP is different than Lost Hills. Correct.

Correct. So when residents say, "Why can't we just get more cops on PCH to slow down traffic and to give tickets?" Would that be how would I mean that wouldn't be Lost Hills? maybe a P because then that would cut into our sheriff's working crime. So, we we do traffic enforcement on PCH, but the city also has a contract with the highway patrol for extra patrols on PCH and they're also down in correct.

So, it's safe to say that across the board we're just down people that want to go into law enforcement at the moment. And so it's not like we ma wave a magic wand and get more law enforcement to pull people over, right? So I wish we could, but yeah, me too. Okay. I just want to know what to say to residents when they are like, "Oh, we don't need the PCH safety plan. We'll just get more sheriffs." Not an answer. No, it's a it's a long-term goal. Long-term goal. Yes. Thank you very much. Happy birthday to the Marines. Thank you. Thank

All right. Okay. Does that include everything from that? Okay. Um I am going to request a break. Um [laughter] you don't request it. So, uh 7:35 and then we'll go into public comment.

Okay, we're back. Um, all the slips are in for public speakers 4A. We're closing off in person. How many do we have online? Uh, there's no raised hands.

Okay, let's hold that. Okay, first public speaker, Kevin Keegan. Where'd Kevin go? Okay, an K followed by Paul Garanti, followed by Scott Dietrich. You guys caught me off guard. [laughter] So, uh, Anastasia Comaras, um, you guys discussed a lot of stuff today, but there's one thing that I really want to push forward. And first of all, I want to thank the folk from Pepperdine University. I've never seen so many camera crews. Four of them. One, two, three, four. That's a good number. So, uh, something I've been trying to champion. Oh, by the way, the kids, when you guys shoot, please shoot 16 by9, not this way. Do it this way. In general, everybody try to shoot 16 by9. I really want to push forward the radios. There is so much we're discussing. Um, and I just want to show you, I mean, it really does work. We've tested them. We can talk from the uh the valley all the way to Malibu down to Orange County and Las Vegas and the Central Coast. It's a radio testing one, two, one, two. Just like that. Neighbor talking to neighbor. Keeping everybody informed, preventing disaster, saving of life and or property. That's what these radios do. We can listen to the sheriff's department. We can listen to the fire department. You get the heads up. We knew about the porta potty because KN&X got it off the scanner. So, they knew about it because they were listening to the radio. This coming Thursday, we provide a scanner feed. Just go online and type in Malibu Public

Safety and online on your phone, you'll be able to listen to the scanner in the sheriff's department, Sergeant Sutherland or Ali County Fire. The other thing is um on Friday, is it Friday or Saturday, I received my new license plate. My new California plate is NPP 2026, NPP 2026. I am going to be California's first nonpolitical governor. NP 2026. So look for it. It's on the white suburban. [sighs] It's parked out in front. You'll see it around town. Now, this is not just a California issue. This is a national issue. I'm waiting to see a Texas plate that says MPP 2026. I want to see one in Arizona, you know, Virginia, everywhere can have an MPP 2026, but there will only be one 2026 NP in California, and that's me. So, I appreciate Thank you very much. Appreciate it. We still have a long way to go and I'm hoping that the rest of the country follows suit as well. Thank you,

Parker. Can we get the front-facing video? Yeah, you turned it off. Yeah, we had it working a few minutes ago. Okay, Paul, followed by Scott Dietrich and then is Kevin Keegan gone? Did you leave? Okay, perfect. Okay, you can skip it for Paul's own words. Sorry, you get to listen to Paul.

So, last Monday, a week ago, there was a planning commission meeting and it started off a little rough, but it it they got to the proper they reached consensus. It was a 41 to go ahead with the safety plan. And I know that anybody who's been in Malibu for the last two years knows that it's been safety, safety, safety, safety, safety. For some reason, I'm now seeing on Next Door that there are people who want to appeal that. And I know that you can't discuss it or talk about it because if they appeal it, it's going to come to you. But I can't imagine anybody is going to vote in favor of killing a safety plan. And I really hope that when that appeal happens, if it does, that the hearing is the shortest one that has ever been held in the city of Malibu. Thank you.

Thank you, Paul. Scott Dietrich, followed by Joe Drummond. Good evening again. Um, well, I'm glad I'm following Paul because I was at that planning commission meeting and I completely disagree. I think safety is certainly primary in everything we do, but a lot of that that they put in had nothing to do with safety and it was redundant. It was silly and in some places decreased safety. But what I really wanted to talk about this uh Friday we my wife and I went down to Vista. I hadn't been there for quite a while. I could not believe the amount of development. This one kind of once pristine little community is now just house, business, strip mall, Costco, whatever. We live in Malibu and we want that not to happen here. Constantly we are under assault by all the agencies that own the infrastructure around us, by developers who want to build some giant resort. And a lot of times we squabble over whether a house is too big for neighborhood standards. That's an internal squabble. But we have to we're committed. And all of you said when you were running that you favored our vision statement. We

accept that we're not going to have all the amenities that we might have if we lived in Woodland Hills. That's okay. We don't need everything. We don't need a lot more concrete. Why do people come here? They don't come here for high-rise buildings and spas. They come here because Malibu is unique. And I just urge you with every vote you take that you consider how can I best preserve this for the future generations. At the same time, we have a rebuild issue. And [snorts] fortunately, our city staff under Yolanda has taken the bull by the horns and says, "We're going to get 100 permits by the end of the year and has streamlined things with the help of the rebuild task force." We're in a pretty good place right now, though there's a lot that can be done, but please keep the vision statement in front of you at every decision you make. Thank you.

Thank you, Joe. You have five minutes with Darren and Danny.

So, thank you, city council. I wanted to start by thanking our city staff, especially those in the community development department for everything they're doing to make our rebuild process easier. I know how hard they're working to fix this broken system and help people move forward. Many of us see it and we're truly grateful. But tonight, I want to talk about fairness, priorities, and leadership, and why the same urgency shown for large developers must also be given to Malibu fire victims. You can play. It's been over 10 months since the Palisades fire destroyed hundreds of homes in Malibu. According to our wonderful Yolanda Bundy, 597 single family homes burned, but in reality, the number is likely closer to 700. it only 16 rebuilds permits have been issued out of more than 200 applications. I had 12 from this morning, but four more this today. So, we're quadruple where we were 3 weeks ago, which is great. By contrast, the city of LA, where the same fire began, 509 rebuild perverts have been already issued, and I confirmed that with Mariam just now. Those families are rebuilding because their city made it a priority. Meanwhile, within one week of that same fire, the wine property at 4,000 Malibu Canyon Road, 28 acres of rolling green hills and designated environmentally sensitive habit habitat was graded completely flat, more at risk than any of our fire rebuilds as it has an earthquake fault running right through it. And every hill and shrub scraped bare in a historic landslide zone. No visible permits, no environmental or geotechnical review, and no public scrutiny. City council had not yet even met to hear the fire victims. The transformation of that lot happened literally overnight. While hundreds of Malibu fire victims rebuilding like for like are still buried in red tape, waiting months and in some cases years just to rebuild the homes that stood safely for decades. The same grading has now brought the developer one step closer to getting his proposed 200,000 square foot resort approved, taking up the very space and resources where residents are fighting simply to come

home. And this isn't the first time this happened. After Woolseie, theCce ESHA lot in the Civic Center was destroyed and still hasn't been restored seven years later. As you saw in the recent civic center wetland presentation, we continue to lose open green space, one lot and one hillside at a time. If the city can at least can act this quickly to bulldoze a developer's lot, surely we can move just as decisively to help our own residents return home. Leadership decisions set the tone. When grading like this is allowed to happen in days, it tells families who've lost everything that developers get priority while the people who built this community are left to struggle. In Big Rock, where 170 homes were lost out of 220, about 80 families, almost half have applied to rebuild. Only 10 permits have been issued. Not one of them are are more than 10% in size increased. These aren't new developments. They're families trying to come home. My own family's rebuild is one of them. It took us four months to complete our geotechnical and engineering reports for our 3600 square foot rebuild, which came back twice as strong as the city's safety factor. And yet, we've waited six more months for approval because of these redundant reviews and minor unnecessary corrections. Our home didn't slide, it burned. Our foundations are solid. We have a mitigated and controlled landslide area that supports our homes that have always been there. And our new homes are designed to the most modern fire resilient standards compliant with the new building codes. So, I'm asking leadership to empower staff to move faster, to trust their expertise, streamline and remove redundant reviews, and apply the same efficiency that somehow existed for the wine tro grading after all the animals and birds that died in the hills above us during the Palisades fire. How could we let one of the last remaining habitats for them to recover and thrive be destroyed? They did not have to die in vain. Their loss can their loss can remind us of what's at stake and guide us to rebuild with greater care, resilience, and urgency. let their memories stand for renewal, for all of us coming home safely, and

for restoring Malibu as a place where both people in Malibu can heal together. Malibu's families are leaving. Our school population is dwindling. Every day without progress sends a message that the city does not have its residents backs. Please give Malibu's fire families the same trust and urgency that developers receive when they took advantage of an emergency. And let's put the city's focus where it belongs, on rebuilding, not destruction for the sake of families and local bill businesses that depend on residents to survive. Malibu's strength has always come from its people. Let's show that by making rebuilding our top priority, not tomorrow, but now. And finally, thank you to Andy Lion for providing this video footage of the wine trough lot, 28 acres destroyed in just 24 hours. His video captures what so many of us felt, heartbreak and disbelief. 10 months later, not one home has even begun framing. After this deep disappointment, please let this be a turning point. Bring that same urgency and decisiveness to helping Malibu's fire victims come home quickly, safely, and with the compassion they deserve. Hopefully, at the next meeting with Halen and Bruce's rebuild item. Thank you very much. And I also wanted to say something about the water. Please write a letter on behalf of Malibu residents opposing the 35% increase. Thank you, Norm. Good evening, uh, city council members. Um, my comments have to do with the most important issue that faces the city of Malibu and has for the past 100 years. That's wildfires. And what happens to homes when the wildfires come through? They burn down. And why do they burn down? They burn

down because there is no water in the municipal water tanks. So yes, you can have a fire hydrant next to your house, but it's not going to have any water in it. That's a fact. Everybody turns on their water, their sprinkler systems before the fire gets there. So when the fire finally gets there, there's no water in the municipal tanks. So what is the solution to that? We haven't heard it yet. Keep in mind, this is the most important issue that faces the city and has faced the city um forever. People have individual water tanks, 15,000 to 20,000 gallons with a draft fire hydrant approved by the fire department. They can hook up to that. They can save that house or they can save the adjacent house or houses that are three lots away. Why? Because they're there. hand because that house that's three houses away is going to eventually threaten the house with the water tank. So if you put it out here, the file will never get to the house. [clears throat] The water department doesn't allow that. They don't like that. They like to extract things out of people in order to allow them uh to put in a private water tank. How do they do that? They have a deal with the fire department. The fire department will not approve a house if the water department tells them not to. So what do they get for that? They get water manes that have nothing to do with the project. They are check valves that are 5 miles away and

have nothing to do with the project. That's how they do it. They extract. Some people might would use the word extort using the fire department. The fire department will approve any house that is outside the pressure zone if they're willing to put in a water tank. What does that signal? That signals that the fire department believes there's enough water available in private water tanks to allow the construction to occur. But when it comes to areas where the water department wants an improvement, the fire department will say no. Thank you, Nor.

Thanks for listening. Okay, that'll conclude public comment. We are now on to councils. Who wants to start? I'll go. Steve. Okay. Thank you all very much. Thank you for all the speakers. I just want to announce that real quick. Madame Mayor, I just want to confirm there are no online speakers on Zoom for public comment. I'm sorry. I thought we clarified that at the very beginning that we weren't going to accept any.

You did good. Thank you. Okay. Uh I met with Christopher Smith today, the new assistant city manager, inter city manager. Um you made good hires. So, thank you [snorts] very very much. I think he's his background is going to be very helpful. I mean, if you look at his resume, he's covered a bunch of things. A lot of those items are going to be important for the future of Malibu as we try and improve our infrastructure. So, that's very good. Uh, everybody talked about Yolanda, she's gone. Uh, you know, just let me change steps here for a second. I sit through the zone the zone captain meetings and I left the last zone captain meeting with the feeling that everybody in there thought that we were doing one hell of a job. All right. I mean Yolanda has has moved more projects forward. She has gotten brought in two new geo firms to help us get stuff done. I mean she has taken us from a position where it was slow and it certainly isn't the speediest thing in the world right now. But it has gotten enormously better and every time we have one of these meetings it gets even better still. So this negative process that says how bad everything is is only hurting you if you know we're trying to get more permits more people to send their their projects in so we can get them permitted. This negative drum beat is just telling these residents that don't do that because look how difficult it's going to be for you to get this done. I just hope the zone captains are are delivering the right message to their zones in terms of the successes we're having and encourage these people to submit more of these permits, more of their projects because we got to keep this thing going. And if everybody's working in the same direction, we're going to have a hell of a lot better chance than if we got some people sitting back and just telling me how bad everything is. And I want to stop for a minute on Wrath property. Richard calls me at least twice a month asking me to get a hold of Yolanda and have her do something so he can get his

project started. His project is dead in the water at the moment and it's been dead in the water for a very long time and he keeps asking me to go to Yolanda to move it forward and I refuse to do that. Okay. So Richard's project was not a process where we sat down and said let's destroy something. We needed a place to refuel all of the trucks that were working for uh the Army Corps of Engineers, all the trucks that were working for Southern California Edison. So, that was an emergency situation set up to help us deal with all the problems we've got coming out of the Wooie Fire. You can't blame the city for doing that and saying that's doing something to slow down the other development. That's not happening. That that is a misstatement and I I just don't think we should be sending that information out to people.

You can do that. Can you make it?

Okay. Uh, I talked about the generary permits. I think that's the greatest thing in the world. Like I said, Yolanda's got we got rid of Cotton Shire, which was a pain in everybody's butt, and we got two new firms coming in. Yeah, talk about that. That's good stuff. That's going to help us get this stuff done. Two firms versus one. And with new people coming in to help us get those projects through us. Uh, again, I hope that the zone captains when you go back to your zones, you you talk to your residents and explain to them that look, it ain't perfect, but boy, it's a hell of a lot better than everybody else was saying was going to be, and we are making progress. I hope you'll start delivering that message. Uh, I just got upset when I read all that. Oh, the other thing is, and the residents, I'll tell you what, as a post, an email came out this weekend and the information in the email was incorrect. It was not accurate. So, I want to encourage everybody who's listening, everybody at home, and if we can get the message to them on the Malibu website, we have a a dashboard and it tells you what the successes are for our uh Palis fire. It tells you what the successes are for the Wsley fire. It tells you what the successes are for the Franklin fire. As opposed to you listening with all the negative stuff that's going on out there, go to that dashboard, take a look what we're doing because I think you'll be impressed. So, I hope I hope that message gets out there someplace. Uh, I got other stuff, but just I got one call today and this is for Trevor. You know, the Malibu wetlands, they violated the law. They got permits against them or Okay. Why isn't that filed against the property?

You're talking about the Smith parcel? Yeah. Yeah. I believe the I believe if it hasn't been done already that the violation will be recorded against the property. It will be okay. That's I mean I'm getting requests. Why isn't that being done? Yeah. Mayor, thank you very much. Mayor, back to you. I'm done. M.

Okay. I want to follow up on uh comment here and I I guess I'm disappointed at the negativism that's out there. That's not to say that, you know, we can't improve things. There aren't things to be done. But this uh presentation was just made about the wine property. I hope the people from Pepperdine uh do critical thinking. And the reason why I say that you saw a before and after picture you have to remember that got that green area you saw was before the Franklin fire. That's how it got cleaned off. It got burned off of the Franklin fire. You know who graded that property? The fire department. And they did it as an emergency action for the Palisades fire. They came in quickly. They don't need our permission to do it. And we've already talked at this city council meeting about the fact that we know the topography before and after and the fire department or Winrob has to return it to that prior uh situation. So let's be honest with this. This is this is not an opportunity for political grandstanding. We've got a city to rebuild here. Let's get the facts on the table. We can fix the facts. We can't fix the rumors and the false statements. All right. Um, one other thing I want to mention. There's been some conversations that uh I want to repeat about MRCA and their 200 foot clearance around their properties. If you have a residential or any property that the MRCA property, they have given you full permission to clear within 200 feet of your property without any permits or any prior approval. You can clear it as much as you want to for that 200 feet. You don't need a permit. State parks, they need a permit. But most of the properties that we're uh dealing with here in Malibu are Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy and MRCA. So if you've got a brush clearance issue within 200 feet and it's MRCA or state property, you can clear it yourself, no questions asked. There was a letter to

that effect earlier this year. I think they sent out a couple of them. Traffic synchronization. Uh those of you that know me, I worked diligently along with uh the rest of the council here, especially the time uh Steve Yuring was the mayor and I was the mayor prom to get the traffic uh uh cameras in place. That was all part of the traffic synchronization program. And our public works staff, Rob Dau, deserves a big applaud for this. It's his fingerprints all over that. And we've got a lot to thank for him. It's it's really a super job and the benefits from that will acrue immediately and there's ability to add features to it to make the PCH even safer. It's a wonderful tool on the rebuilding. Congratulations again to Yolanda and the team and the whole city staff. You know, this is a takes a community and the rebuild center over there is staffed by people out of public works and other places. Everybody's put their uh hands in the uh pot and trying to make things better. So, it's a bunch of people working diligently. I know I was uh criticized for making a comment about uh how responsive our people are here in the city. I'm going to make it again. They are responsive. If you think what government normal speed is, that is not what you're seeing here. The changes have been made like the generator comment today that was done in a few days. You don't need the bureaucracy of a city of Los Angeles or the county of Los Angeles. You got people here that are trying to move this forward as quickly as we can. The results are what counts, not the politics, not the negatism. It's about getting things done. And the quicker we can focus on getting things done and not debating it needlessly and people asking for special privileges, better off we're going to be. Uh, finally on the Palibu Chamber of Commerce, I'll full disclosure, I'm a member of the CH Chamber of Commerce. I

appreciate and applaud the the new CEO coming in. The Chamber of Commerce is going to be critical for the renewal of our city. You go, what what's the business got to do with it? Business has got a lot to do with it. That's where you get your your goods to fix your house. It's where you get the goods to go to the grocery store. It's where you have the tourists and the people that shop in the city that add to our general revenue. We have three places for general revenue. The property tax, which is dead flat this year, we have a 1% increase. This city usually gets a 6 to 8% increase every year in property tax, but because of the reassessments because of the fire, we're at 1%. That's a big divot. Secondly, transit occupancy tax. We lost a number of people that had uh Airbnbs, short-term rentals, plus the hotels that we have in the city. Th revenue is all down. And finally, sales tax. Sales tax comes from not only the stores in the city, but also the people that live in the city that buy a car. Sales tax gets acred to us. We've got a lot of things that depend upon business and the Chamber of Commerce is our business representative and I applaud the the effort that the Chamber is doing to bring in uh new new people to try and stimulate the activity and we're it's the Palibu Chamber of Commerce on purpose. The two have a lot in common and it helps both of us Palisates and Malibu to have this organized response to try and encourage business. As the city manager said, we've done ribbon cutings, opening ceremonies for a number of stores already, number of locations, and more are coming. We're trying to get the city back on its feet. So, be positive, be responsive, tell us what we're not doing right, but don't don't make stories up. Okay. Thank you,

Bruce. Halen. Hen, don't jump at it, Bruce. I'll go. All right. [laughter]

Um, let's see here. Uh, welcome to Malibu. It was great talking to you earlier. I'm excited for our future. Uh, let's see. [snorts] I guess I have more questions than anything, but I I do of course want to understand the radios. I'm going to I'm going to just speak to I guess some of the public comment. Are those radios that Ann brings up? Is that something that's what we're should be looking into? We're looking into radios and communications, right? Okay, great.

Radio's We can talk offline about that. As you know, I'm a ham radio operator, but there are a number of people that in the city that know about this. A VHF radio, everybody can have one. Okay. And it's it's it's not simple as going to Radio Shack, which doesn't exist anymore in buying something.

I used to go there. I didn't mean to put you on the spot. It just kind of keeps coming up. Um I also wanted to mention that somebody made a a statement earlier. Um safety is not an amenity. It is a basic right. And I believe it's your government's job to make sure that it's met. I fully respect the rural nature of our city, but we also have to think about safety. Um, I would like to understand, so if we have a rain event coming up this week, sandbags, I know that we give out sandbags, right? Where is that? Like over by the library. Where? Fire station. Fire stations. Thank you.

Yeah, I don't think we do it. county provides the sand and the and the beaches. Okay,

I'm going to pick some up. Thank you. Um I know that if they're burlap wrapped in plastic, we're going to hear from residents about it. I mean, that was what happened last year. Uh I had a nice meeting at the Point Doom Headlands to try to eradicate some of the euphoria with the residents and we had state parks there. We had Pepperdine there. Um, we had Land IQ and oh, LA Conservation, that was wonderful. So, we're going to get some volunteers out there. Um, I was just wondering about our I know Susan is working on the outdoor sirens. I got a study that they work in Beverly Hills, so I was just hoping that we knew like a timeline for the two outdoor sirens that we got as a gift.

We'll get back to you with a timeline on that. Thank you. any evacuation plan because she's working on that because you directed her to do that. She's doing that. I think she wrote you back about that and so we're going to make sure that that's happening. So I think I saw her response back to you that yes, that's coming. Oh, that's terrific. I just wanted to make it public for the residents so that they know where to evacuate. Thank you. Um there's also some concern about a development that's going in over Kanan. And so that was my question was if that plan is incorporating the new amount of I guess 2,000 units that are going over there. How much is it?

200 units. Okay, good. Because the 2,000 is pretty scary. Um, thank God. That's why let's get it straight instead of the misinformation because the misinformation is what scares people. Sooner that we can get the facts, the better. That's why we That's why we got to battle it. I said, "Yeah, we're dealing with a lot of people with a lot of madeup misinformation, particularly on Next Door, etc." And then even in these halls. So, we're we're we're batting it down as as quickly as it it comes up, but it's it's fast and furious.

Thank you. Um sirens, evacuation plan, Kanan. Oh, okay. Um updates on the undergrounding. We're currently working with senior leadership atCCE um on expeditated an expedited up undergrounding plan particularly for Lato. Um so we'll have more information on that next week. Terrific. And I think that's it. I'm really excited for the resiliency over the counter for the generators and hopefully extending that to the pools, the water tanks, solar and backup batteries. Um that's fantastic news. Very excited. And I think that's it for me, Bruce.

Okay. So, thank everybody for your your your comments, both written and oral today. Um, first item I'd like to do is I'd like to have a consens. Well, let me explain this. It's been brought to all of our attention, and some people may know more about it than others that there's some discrepancy about whether um like for like building re approvals run with the land or are owner specific. We had been told, we the city council had been told from day one that they were they were going to run with the land that they were not owner specific. That if you have a um property that suffered a that was burned in the fire and you sell it to a another person, they're going to be able to go through the expedited lake forlike um rebuild process that excludes coastal and um takes advantage of the municipal code amendments and policies that we've adopted. Um it's been asserted that that's unclear. So, um, if it is in fact unclear, I'd like to have a consensus to bring back an item by which we can interpret the law to the

That should not be unclear. That definitely runs with the the land. It is not unclear. That's that's that's another one of those false rumors. Yeah. I don't Yonder or Tyler are here. They can confirm it. Yeah. Like Well, if if there is any unclear, lack of clarity, I would like to have it brought up here so that we can definitively stamp it on a piece of paper that it is not that it is the case that it runs with the land. But you're saying it is. Yeah, it runs with the land. If there's any issue, any angle that would be confusing about that, I'll speak with Tyler and Yolanda. We can bring an item. Okay. It also is a fact that was the way with Wy.

That was my understanding as well. But I mean, we we got an email and then we got something from the staff that said, "Hold off on doing anything about this. We're still seeking clarification." And I never saw clarification. This is the first I'm hearing it. Um Okay. Um Paul Grassanti came here today in his usual manner and um talked about things not going well at the planning commission and you know call the question Paul. Um we used to have hearings when he was up here and he would always want to just have a vote and not have a discussion. So I don't hope that if there's an appeal it'll be the quickest appeal ever decided. I hope that it'll be done fairly and appropriately. And in with respect to that, um I got an email the other day which I I want to share because um Paul among others have been critical of the way the planning commission operates, but they tend to be critical of John Maza, which I think is inappropriate. Um I got an email from a usually quiet resident who tends to be very open-minded and objective in her assessment of our local government. This is not somebody who I hear from often and it's not somebody who's a um cheerleader for the um slow growth part of the city. Here's what the email said. Quick public input because I'm embarrassed for the city. I'm listening to the planning commission meeting on PCH improvements presented by CALR with a 10-day deadline. I'll be direct. Drew Leonard has been one of the worst meeting chairs I've ever watched. He comes off as a bully, frankly, with an attorney bully helper quick to step up in uninvited in uninvited to support completely unfair restriction on Jon's questioning, chastising him for doing precisely what Drew did minutes before, like asking multiple rapidfire questions of audience speakers, interrupting other commissioners, etc. It was not professional or fair on Drew's part, talking in the background while Jon has the floor, snickering when Jon finally gets to speak. so disrespectful. They went on to compliment um my Elizabeth.

I watched that hearing and I actually had that same impression while I was watching it. So, I was actually glad to receive at least some confirmation bias from a from a resident. But, um I think it is atrocious how those hearings are handled and I hope that they will become more professional going forward. And I think it's particularly inappropriate for the lawyer for the city who's attending those meetings to be interrupting council um commissioners and telling them what they can and cannot talk about and what the proper protocols are, especially when the protocols that are being enforced by the lawyer, I think are wrong. I don't think that they are the the what's being stated to be the protocols are in fact the protocols. So, I'm hoping that that will not continue. Um, Norm stated that there's some kind of deal behind the scenes between the fire department and the water district where if the water district doesn't want somebody to have a water tank, the fire department will then um agree that it shouldn't be there. If there's proof of that deal, I'd like to I'd like to know of it rather than just I mean that's the kind of thing that I that sounds to me like speculation. Um but if there is such a deal, I'd like to understand that. Um, I want to add to the compliments that people have given to Yolanda, one of the reasons that things got off to such a slow start initially and and they they moved faster than in the past, but it was still relatively slow in the grand scheme of things was first of all, it takes some time to get back on your feet after a after a calamity and tragedy like we had. Um but secondly, for a while now, going back at least a year or so, there had been a recommendation to combine the um planning department and the building and safety department and to um appoint one leader for that department. And I think it was pretty obvious from the start that if that occurred, it was going to be Yolanda. There was a lot of internal

politics going on in the city that delayed that from occurring. And it was finally after the fire and after our former city manager left and our former planning director left and our interim city manager courageously decided to move forward with the combining of the two um [snorts] departments and to actually appoint somebody to lead them that Yolanda was put into that position. So it was only a few months ago that she was given the authority to start moving at her pace and at her direction. And since that occurred, things have been moving at a much more rapid pace. And I think that that's a credit to Yolanda being given the authority to take off rather than to be having to follow direction of others. And I and again, I I credit Candace for having the courage to make that decision while sitting here as an interim city manager. So thank you, Candace. Thank you, Yolanda. And I think you're going to see a lot more um increase in the um efficiency and the expedition of what's going on now that we have somebody who's got the power to do what's necessary. Um the last comment I'll make is I just want to um I want to agree with what Doug said about the wine property. I I think that that presentation was unfair. Those pictures of the green property which that startled me when I saw that and thought about oh my god that was destroyed. That's not what happened. And the Franklin fire destroyed all of that green and the fire department then came in and made it a little more flat so that they could house their trucks and and and other things. And I think SC is using it now if I'm not mistaken.

Who is Edison? Edison's Edison SC. Yeah, same thing. Um so, you know, I think that was I think that was misleading. If if the if all that grass had been destroyed, I I guess if in an emergency maybe you need to do that, but if that had been destroyed, that would be one thing. But that's not in fact what happened. and the Franklin Fire did that, not uh not human beings. Okay, those are my comments for tonight.

Okay, I think my fellow council members pretty much wrapped everything up. Um I would just encourage everybody if you hear a claim, do your own investigation. Go find the facts. Um don't always believe what's been presented to you. Um, as uh Doug mentioned, do your critical thinking, do your own research, find out the history of things and how things have come to pass because I think once you do that, you find that um the tale that may be being told to you is not necessarily accurate. So, I would just encourage everybody um [sighs and gasps] look at your sources. Um they tell you when you're doing your research papers, don't look at just any old website, right? you got to actually verify that it's a a valid website and a legitimate source. Um, your professors won't turn that in. So, I would encourage that uh to be to everybody. Make sure you your sources are legitimate and you're getting the facts. Um, and if you have to ask multiple people, ask multiple people. There's been lots of people here who have uh been through a lot of things and they can give you their perspective and then you can do your own determination. So, um I want to say thank you to the staff. Um as the interim city manager, uh the deputy city manager and I, we went to Sacramento. We had a incredibly productive time. It was jammed packed and we we fit a lot in. Um so, uh it was a one-day wonder to get through as many agencies and that we did. Um and I think that it was great to put faces to names and have direct contact. So, I want to thank you for setting that up and Calstrat um our firm up in Sacramento uh for making that happen and their continued um support of us at the Sacramento level um and the work that they do for us up there. And tomorrow's Veterans Day. There's going to be a great celebration in this room

tomorrow um for our veterans at 11:00. Come early so that you are ready to go um when the event starts. and remember the tippop so you can um celebrate our vets and say thank you for all the wonderful work that they have done and the sacrifices that they and their families have made and then we can um h be served by our local sheriff's deputies and uh help them um in their endeavors. So, okay, we're going to go to 5A. Thank you, Madame Mayor. I'll be presenting this item for the council's consideration. What we have before you is a small effort that we've undertaken to help us streamline our procurement process here at the city and I have just a few slides to share with you. So, um, to help get oriented to this item, we wanted to share with you a quick look at some of the other coastal cities and COG region cities and how they align their city manager purchasing authority to their population size and their uh, budgets. And as you can see there, there is a a correlation between size of budget and size of the purchasing manager, the city manager's purchasing authority. Ours has been on the lower end. um due to the fact that it has not been updated in quite some time. This is something this is an undertaking in terms of updating the purchasing ordinance that a lot of cities undertake in the 5 to 10 year range and we have it's been more than that that we've taken a look at our purchasing ordinance. So in order to continue to deliver expeditious services to our community, in order to procure the services of specialized consultants at a quicker pace, we thought it was

time to present this request to you for your consideration. Um, as I just mentioned, we would have greater flexibility in procurement if we were to update and increase the city manager's purchasing authority. it would greatly uh shorten the time frame to bring uh those services on board. We are attempting to align our recommended amount with comparable cities and we are also uh making the adjustment necessary for inflation. So here's a a quick overview of what we're proposing. Uh the current city manager's purchasing authority is $25,000. We're proposing to increase that to $60,000. And for small purchases, it's currently $5,000. We're proposing to increase that to $10,000. We estimate that this would allow us to shorten procurement from about a 60 to 90day process to to less than 30 days if we can secure those uh those proposals that are required to comply with the ordinance. For most purchases, it's a minimum of three proposals. And then um that would greatly allow us to route through all of the necessary approvals in the internal controls in order to asssure that we get um proper authority by um approval authority from the department director, from the finance manager, from the assistant city manager and the city manager. So all of those required checks and balances would remain in place. Uh in terms of amending the ordinance, we had to site some specific sections that need to be amended. We worked closely with the city attorney's office to make sure that we got we we dotted all of our our uh tees and and I'm sorry, dotted all our eyes and crossed our tees. We um we wanted to make sure that uh anything that had a corresponding impact cuz certain sections of our code reference one another. We wanted to make sure we we caught all of those cross references with this amendment that we're proposing.

And in order for this to take effect, we'll have to bring it back to the council for a required second reading and adoption of the ordinance uh at the next meeting in November. So in short, it is staff's recommendation to increase the city manager's purchasing authority from $25,000 to $60,000 and to raise the small purchase open market purchase procedure amount from $5,000 to $10,000. This concludes staff's presentation. We are available for any questions. Okay, thank you. Do we have any clarifying questions? Nope. Uh, do we have any raised hands on Zoom? There are no raised hands on Zoom.

Okay. So, if we can close the raised hands. Um, an K and no other additional slips will be taken.

Hello, this is uh an Kamarask. Just uh quickly, this uncontrolled spending has got to stop. We just hired an assistant city manager because you gave him authority to do it. We don't know what the how much you're paying that kind of stuff. None of that was kind of disclosed. At least we don't know yet. We had to do a P or something. Once again, increasing amount of money that the city manager can spend at her whim is wrong. It should not be allowed. City council has to be the ultimate person people in charge of how much money is spent of taxpayer money. Not one person who is a servant of the community or government. Miss Bond, you just cannot be signing checks at a whim. It's got to stop. City council must stop this now. Thank you.

Thank you. That'll close public comment. You want to start, Bruce? Yeah, sure. Okay, great. So, um this was a no-brainer for the ANF committee. I think our meeting after the staff presentation took about 2 minutes

and that is completely unusual. Um the most important thing to me in addition to the um comparison to other cities was the um penultimate paragraph of the analysis which was the same that was given to us when adjusted for inflation. The original $25,000 city manager purchasing authority established in 1991 equates to approximately 60,000 today. Similarly, the original $5,000 threshold for small purchases open market purchases procedure equates to approximately $10,000 today. That's what's being recommended. So, um, all we're doing is coming up to speed with the times and, um, this is a city manager form of government and it is crazy if the, uh, city council has to approve every in the grand scheme of things, nickel and dime because that's what these that's what these amounts are. So, um, I'll move that we approve this. I understand there'll still be some discussion possibly, but I'm going to move that we approve this.

I'll second. Any other discussion? Haley,

I was gonna I was just going to say that I think that um it would be great to educate some of the residents as I've been educated on how if we hire a city manager, which is our sole duty, we trust that city manager and we believe in that city manager. And I don't I'm not quite sure um how to how to make that clearer. We don't hire the city at the assistant city. We have assistant city deputy executive office but we have three people we hire that guy that seat which is the manager and the treasurer and we other than that we're going to hope to trust the person the CEO of the company. So I would be very happy to approve this. I would add maybe and I don't know if this has anything to do with it but if we could see like a breakdown of the consultants that we pass annually it would be nice for me to see just like a breakdown of all of that in one propo like one report but that doesn't mean that I don't trust you guys it's just good to see that in one place so I would third that motion and approve this

that uh as the uh other member of the ANF committee. I just want to uh echo what Bruce said. And let's uh be factual. We got a $110 million operation here. I talk about this all the time about uh us being punching much bigger than our weight. Uh 10,000 residents, $10 million in expenditures. It's it's shocking to see the uh uh amount of expenditures we have and also the amount of revenue. And the idea here is that uh as Halen so well said, this is our CEO that we're empowering this to and we're like a board of directors. Uh we're we have oversight with the CEO and we see every check that's issued after the fact. So it's not like we are living in limbo here and don't see anything. It's in it's published in the uh consent calendar every week, every time we have a meeting. Um, and regarding the, uh, consultants, uh, Richard and I had a conversation about this this morning. Uh, they're doing some research on the consulting. And one of the one of the things you run into in business all the time is when is it, uh, uh, appropriate to not pay overtime and when is it appropriate not to bring in temps. And I think that's exactly the kind of study they're doing right now. So, city staff's already on that. So, I'll forth the uh resolution here.

So, just to be clear in um the the city has budget meetings. Um we have them annually. We have them there's going to be a mid-year budget coming up and in those documents. It documents everything that the city is spending. We also have our city website which you can find all those documents. You don't have to put in a P for those things. And um it also gives the salary ranges for every position that is authorized in the city. So again, you don't need a P. Just go to our website under the finance department. You can find all that information um right there in um color or black and white, whatever thing that the page is. Um so I think we are ready for a vote. Um do you think we'll just do an all

approved just to uh to read the ordinance? Oh yes. Thank you. Ordinance number 529, an ordinance of the city of Malibu amending Malibu Municipal Code sections 2.56.070, 2.56.110, and 2.56.12 increasing the purchasing authority of the city manager and raising the small purchase/open market purchases procedure. All in favor? I. None opposed. Great. Okay. Item 6A, draft strategic plan. You're up again, Richard.

All right, lucky me. Here we go. Um, thank you for the time. I'm going to jump right into the presentation. Um, for those that might be listening and not as aware of of the importance of the strategic plan. We wanted to open up with a brief explanation that the strategic plan is a really critical document for the organization to follow because it provides a clear shared road map of the city's priorities aligning the council goals with staff actions and resources. Um it is especially during this time uh this important time of transition that we're in following the uh significant disasters that the city incurred and um a strong desire to work on multiple fronts at all times. That is our intent but we do have to prioritize which things we do first which things we do second because we are a small but mighty team with uh finite resources. So in order to ensure that we are transparent about what we're doing when we're doing it so that we can report progress um as well as setbacks cuz it's likely that there will be challenges ahead that we can't foresee completely. We want to be able to have a common map that we can refer to and report progress from. So that the draft plan before you frames the city's needs for the next three years while reaffirming the city's critical mission and core values, which we heard mentioned a couple times tonight. So the the process that was outlined to draft this document was fairly straightforward. We began with an executive team um um workshop where we reviewed the prior year strategic work plan. Um this is something that was developed um in the

last calendar year intended for use um during the fiscal year. Um we then took an assessment of the current needs. Things have changed significantly following the fires in uh December and January. And so that's demanded that we reshuffle the deck to a certain extent and also bring new ideas and new goals and and projects into the fold. We then scheduled time to listen to the city council. We scheduled a half day where the executive team could meet one-on-one with the assistance of a facilitator to speak to the council about um the strengths, weaknesses, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that we were observing at that time. And we wanted to make sure that we were addressing as part of the strategic plan document. The executive team then jumped into drafting the plan and then uh reviewing the plan, trying to refine it, making sure we were identifying the goals that were most appropriate, the projects that made the most sense so that when it came time to present the plan to the council, we had a document that reflected the the best and brightest ideas that everyone has identified. Uh just a quick reference to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. This is a really critical critical part that's laid the important foundation for the city uh executive team as we work through this process. We heard loud and clear from the council that we were very proud of our uh very strong credit rating, our uh secure property tax base and our strong community involvement. That's those are critical things that we want to build upon. We also acknowledged some of the challenges that we had been facing, the difficulty recruiting staff, uh, which I'd like to say we made some really great progress on in the past few months. Uh, key infrastructure that was controlled by outside agencies. Um, in terms of opportunities, we wanted to use the commun our communication

channels to engage the community and enhance the relationship between staff and residents. something we've already engaged in with the abundance of workshops that we've hosted on rebuild as well as um uh you know PSPS events, wildfire preparedness that is definitely part of the culture here in Malibu that we're going to continue to utilize as an important tool to engage the and educate the community and threats. Uh you know, we only have so much control over the pace of rebuilds. We're certainly doing all that we can to expedite the process to streamline where possible to clarify our requirements. It will be essential for for us to continue to iterate and to refine. Um and we know that this the residents will will continue to engage with very closely because they want to uh they want to see progress. They want it they want it to be tangible. They want it to be um available so that they can welcome their residents, their neighbors back to the community as soon as possible. So here's a quick look at the priorities that were identified going through this process. Starting from the top, they include economic recovery, public safety improvements, workplace culture and talent development, followed by infrastructure resilience, modernization and digital transformation, and community services and facilities expansion. To help illustrate some of the details that are encompassed within these goals, we've uh outlined in this strategic plan document a series of object of objectives and pro and projects. Under the goal, the first goal of support community rebuilding and long-term recovery. We've the projects include long-term recovery plan. This is something that administration has been leading and will continue to lead until it is completed. Um it's our intent to align our recovery plan with the best practices advocated by our federal and state partners from Callowas and FEMA. This will ensure that the city qualifies

for as much uh federal and state assistance as possible. Uh this is something that was uh has not been um um initiated in the past, but we want to make sure that um whether it's recovering from this disaster or anything else that may come our way in the future, we have a roadmap that we can follow. uh for the next project f focus code amendments. We've already undertaken some of those. We know that many more are possible and will be necessary to support rebuilding. So, we want to leave that on here. And then um we know that fire rebuild waiverss are a critical part of demonstrating to the community that we support rebuilding and we want to ensure that that remains a priority in terms of helping to modernize the development policies and procedures. you know, uh, the presentation that Yolanda provided earlier tonight really demonstrates what's possible in a short amount of time with focused energy and effort. And so, um, we know that Yolanda is going to uncover more opportunities for, uh, modernization and and improvement, uh, in the next couple years. In terms of economic development, we're really focused on recovering what was lost. uh not surpassing it, not uh growing beyond what the established limits are, but recovering what we've what we've lost. And we're focusing mostly on loss sales tax, hotel occupancy tax, and transaction tax revenue. We want to be able to get to a point where we're back to the predesaster levels. So, in order to get there, we're focused on a couple of projects, initiatives. One is the economic recovery plan. We've already engaged with um Sunstone to help us do some additional outreach that will be followed by analysis as as well as recommendations on how to achieve these this objective. Uh following that, we anticipate the need to do engagement with the business community. We're preparing to do that now with some of the personnel decisions that we're

making. And then though we've uh provided a first round of recovery grants, we think it's important to leave that on the table. there may be subsequent waves of of challenges of sub of of uh financial support that's needed. So, we wanted to leave that there as an option for us to address infrastructure resilience. There are many things underway. Rob and his team will be responsible for many of these items. Um coastal sewer plan, water tanks, and fireflow upgrades. We're going to continue to work with LA County Public Works to implement those overdue upgrades. Coastal resiliency infrastructure. This is something that Yolanda touched on at the last city council meeting and it will we'll continue to bring uh before you to address micro grid. That's going to be an important part of ensuring our energy resilience. Um comprehensive EIFD um that's what I presented earlier this evening. We want to explore that fun important financing option with the assistance of COSMOT and telecommunications plan. This is something that we've been working on at um a steady pace engaging each of the telecommunications companies to explore what do they need from the city in order to provide a more resilient wireless communication network for public safety. This is always one of the the top priorities of the city. I want to make it clear that this is the goals here are not in an absolute numerical priority. um this is just kind of the way they fell in terms of the organization of the document we we prepared. We know that public safety is of course always paramount and to ensure that that improving safety on PCH remains a priority. We've called it out here as an objective. We want to continue to find ways to support enforcement, education, and policy improvements that will result in positive impacts and reductions in uh injuries and fatalities on PCH. We also

have a significant focus on wildfire resiliency to address the risk in wildland urban interface. We we've explored and will continue to partner with our peer agencies in the region to figure out how we can do better uh to not only identify risk but address the risk through uh coordinated um prevention efforts. And um we also of course want to work closely with our regional partners to improve alert, warning and evacuation capabilities. We know this is top of mind given the experience that was uh we had earlier this year and we um have been hearing some promising results from of our from our state and federal partners that we that we believe there's some important improvements coming soon. And uh to address homelessness, we do think it's an importance to continue to reduce homeless encampments. We will work with our partners to expand outreach and enforcement to reduce encampments and their presence here in Malibu. For goal five, this is more of an internal operations focused priority, but it is something that is sorely needed. Um in order to to take our streamlining efforts to the next level, we do need to address some of our systems. they need uh many of them need to go through upgrades. It will be important for administration to work with each of the individual departments that offer systems that that um provide service to our residents to address and uh implement solutions. You can see a couple of ideas that we have on the table now. Um but we want to make sure that we're wherever possible making efforts to leapfrog rather than just migrate to the next um you know generation. We we want to make sure that we're making significant cost-effective meaningful uh investments in modernization options to strengthen our workplace workplace

culture. We do think it's important to to keep this as a priority. Um we know that the um impact of continuing to serve at such a high level can have a negative impact on morale if we don't do more to address some of what we've been hearing as um potential liabilities for us in terms of you know uh until we can offer specific training to address the high potential of our employees. until we can come up with consistent recognition pro recognition programs and more robust training and development programs um you know some of our highest performers could could go elsewhere. So we want to do everything on our power to keep them here keep them motivated keep them focused and um know that they're not only going to grow in an organization that needs them but one where they can make a lasting impact. And then finally, goal seven, we do um recognize the importance of establishing new educational, cultural, and recreational establishments. Many are well underway, and some are are right on the horizon. Those include the completion of the snack shack, the skate park, um some initiatives that we'll be presenting to you very soon regarding community lands, uh the continued support for the Malifi Malibu Unified School District, and consideration of improvements at the Malibu Equestrian Equestrian Center. So, following um council adoption of this plan, you'll you'll see this plan in action through several initiatives. Um, you know, we'll we'll make this integrated into our communications plans. We'll reference the the strategic plan in our staff reports, but we're going to also be developing specific scopes, budgets, and timelines for the individual projects that were referenced here because we know that there's going to be a series of engagement uh initiatives that are going to be

required for many of these uh projects to be successfully implemented, including coordination with our commissions and our ad hoc committees. Um and of course we will report regularly to council. Uh we've been talking internally about quarterly reports so that we can ensure that progress is occurring and we can be transparent with the results that we're achieving. At this at this time, there is no fiscal impact associated with the recommendation to support the adoption of the strategic plan and is it is our recommendation to approve the plan before you. That concludes staff's presentation. We're available for any questions.

Any clarifying questions? I do. I have some. Um, thank you, Richard. That was I've been looking forward to this. Um clarifying question is are you looking for voting on nuance or just approving the strategic plan? We're not looking at like small details like a beautifification or small business own budsman or a parking app. It's more about high level broadstroke.

Yeah. At this time before you, we've attempted to integrate all of the ideas that we've been that we've received into the document before you. If there's something missing, now is the time to add that so that we can ensure that it does become incorporated into, you know, action plans that will follow the adoption of the strategic plan. Okay. I guess I was curious about um the Tyler program that I think before I came on board was approved from the Baker Tilly report. I'm trying to because that would fall under number goal five. Right. Right. Tyler Tyler is

Tyler Technologies. It's the the when we were looking to upgrade the software, the land development software, they were looking at Tyler technology. Technology. We've covered technology. It's in there. I just wasn't sure if that meant like specifically if because Tyler I and this might be a rumor that I would love to know if it's true. Did we approve Tyler Technologies? There was never an agreement that was that led to procurement. Gotcha. There may have been a decision before the fires disrupted things to uh pursue the preparation of agreement but was never executed.

And so now that we have a different leadership team, um we have Christopher with his expertise in a variety of uh systems integrations and updates, that's something we want to take a close look at. Um, Christopher actually has experience implementing Tyler technology solutions in other organizations and so we want to bring this new expertise that we have to the table to ensure that we select the best option available for Malibu. Terrific. That is my those are my questions. Thank you, Bruce. No. Okay. All right. We'll go to public comment. I have two speaker slips. No more speaker slips ex accepted. Any online?

There are no hands raised on Zoom. Okay. So, no more online. So, Joe Drummond and an K. Um, I did send you all an email because I think you misunderstood my presentation. But anyway, um, I'm speaking on behalf of Kevin Keegan um, for item 6A. I want to thank the city staff for the strategic plan. Assuming we have sufficient resources and job assignments to implement the proposed projects and strategies, this strategic plan should help our city. He wants to share some of what he believes is missing from the strategic plan. I'm just going to be Kevin. In my opinion, it would benefit the city if the strategic plan also included these nine items. One, new revenue sources. The strategic plan should include a project to at least explore possible new city revenue sources to complement the traditional revenue sources. Two, neighborhood beautifification. The strategic plan should have a neighborhood beautifification pilot test, especially in western Malibu. This is an opportunity to create beautiful native plant and landscaping for fire breaks in communities. We have an area in Big Rock already designated for this. We just need it implemented. Three, new library. An omission from the strategic plan is a new library project. The library project to reimagine what this community resource can become is important partially because it's well funded for international events. The strategic plan should include a project or ad hoc committee to help the community prepare for the upcoming international events, especially World Cup 2026 and the LA Olympics 28, including helping residents prepare to host and ensuring transportation and public safety coordination are properly surged. Five, public health. There is one mention of public health in the strategic plan as it relates to a sewer plan. This is inadequate. The strategic plan should at the very le least include

a gap analysis of the cities and key partners existing public health resources available to residents and tech neighbors. Six, technology. The strategic plans technology goal with the digital ecosystem number five is a start, but it does not mention artificial intelligence, cyber security or data protection. In an era of sophisticated cyber crime and ransomware threats, these are baseline technology issues, the city of Malibu should be serious about. Seven, water. Working with regional and state partners, the city can develop a new water infrastructure strategy that meets each property owners and neighborhoods safe, clean water needs, improves the city's fire resilience, and addresses ongoing changes like droughts. Teamwork is not mentioned in the strategic plan. If we are going to become a best place to work, we need to foster teamwork in our city's culture, including a mention of teamwork in the strategic plan would be a good start. And I'll add work with the new and long overdue Malibu Fire Defense Council, which is collaborating with Drew, Chief Drew Smith, and Joey Alers from the National Park Service to protect our borders from wildfire in the most ecologically friendly way, incorporating fire brakes with the proper native seating and planting in vulnerable areas. The reality is the city of Malibu has talent. Candace, Yolanda, Rob, Tyler, Susan, Richard, Trevor, [clears throat] Kelsey, Brandy, Tatiana, Travis, Nadia, Renee, Tracy, Gail, etc., etc. By fine-tuning this strategic plan and ensuring the staff has the resources and leadership in place to support the projects and strategies, we should make we should be able to make noticeable progress in 2026.

Can I ask what number one was? Sorry, what was number one? New revenue. Thank you. Ma'am.

Hello. Um, I'm glad the staff has a grand strategic plan. The only thing that should be number one thing should be to prevent us from they say not to play with the fire. We must prevent all fires. What's the point of building a library or building an art center when you can't protect the land, can't protect the community from fire? Number one, we use the staff wants proposes using encrypted radios that we can't listen to. The community cannot listen to the communications and help prevent the fires. Crime, the sheriff's department, we can listen to them. The county fire, we can. The city staff wants to keep things secret. Encryption. How is that going to protect the land? Why should we support building libraries, building an art center when you cannot even do the basics of protecting the land from fire? That's the number one priority, communication. Protect what's most important, people's homes. And that's what this does. Look, I push this button and I Hello neighbor. How you doing back there? Just like that, I can communicate. Somebody else who had Halen, if I gave you this radio, tomorrow I'll be in Beverly Hills. You and I can communicate. You can give me the heads up or I can give you the heads up. That's the way it works. Is giving everybody the heads up that fire's coming. Stop it. You know, rally the troop. It's great having a fire brigade and and all the communications for the brigades. one thing, but what's the bigger message? They also need to tune in on the radio and know what's going on.

That's it. It's easier to support the grand plan, but it's you need to first take care of the fire plan, fire prevention, crime prevention, everything else. All you keep doing is taxing us and giving us less. Our community, our I mean, the population keeps decreasing. I've covered several wildfires here in Malibu in the '9s. Recently, we just had the uh Whizzley fire. That was just what a couple days ago, the anniversary yesterday. It's a terrible thing to call it an anniversary, but that was like seven years ago. [sighs and gasps] I am tired of covering wildfires in Malibu. It must stop. Honestly, it can be done. I lived in another community. They've never burned. You know what? They have radios. Everybody has a radio. Not everybody, but just about everybody had one. I think we ran out of numbers. So, I don't see why we can't bring that to Malibu.

Obviously, we have enough. Thank you, ma'am. Okay. The close public comment. Who wants to start? Steve, I'll go first.

Okay. Uh, one, I want to thank Candace and the staff for doing the work to put this together. This these are, you know, I've I've been in the business world for a reasonably long time prior to coming in here and these strategic plans, having a road map of what you want to get done and how to do it is extremely important. You know, if you don't know where you're going, any path will take you there. This gives us a chance to really do accomplish the things that are important for the city. I listen to what Kevin Keegan or what you presented in one way or another. A lot of those things are already incorporated. They're not specific to this thing, but the plans covers sort of the details that are that are uh you're talking about. And you know, you could this is this is not like a bible. I mean, as we look at something, if something pops up, we can always adjust a little bit and pick that up and make some of those things work. You know, we've talked today about, you know, he wanted more revenue. Well, we've got Sandstone looking at that. We've got this other group looking at that. I mean, the things that you're talking about are already underway. I also want to thank Candace. I mean, the two the the hires that she's given us. I mean, I spoke to Christopher today about technology and that's his background. Take a look at his resume. All right. So, and we we've identified it as a critical thing in our strategic plan and we now have people in place that can actually help us accomplish that. uh I you know communication we you know we got people in place now that can help us deal with the communication issue. So I you know I am look I'm a I'm a fan of this. I think we start here we can always you know none of this is cement. We can always tweak it if we have to but this starts us off on a path to so we know what we're doing. We've got some initiatives we can, you know, work on. Uh, and if we follow this stuff and, you know, keep close to our goal here, uh, we'll be able to get a lot of stuff done and make sure when we get to the end of two years or three years, we really have made some improvements to the city which are extremely important for everybody. So, that's it. Thank you

very much. I'm in favor of this thing big time. Okay, who's next? Doug,

I'll take a bite. Um, you know, to echo what what Steve said, every major corporation, every major enterprise has a business plan, has a strategic plan. And one of the things you learn real quick with these is you got to stay committed to them. Uh, you can't just put them in a box and throw them away. And it's easy to have mission creep and objective creep. You got to bite off what you could chew and digest that, then move on to the next thing. And I'm a I think this is a really excellent plan. You guys have done a wonderful job putting it together. You've already started bringing the staff together for it and you all have heard me to add nauseium and make the comment every strategic plan has three steps. Cash, resources, and focus and resources. So, this is exactly what you're doing here. I couldn't couldn't see a better use of your time and efforts. Nobody's going to get everything they want in this pass. But you got to take what you can eat. And the the resource issue, even if you had all the money in the world, you can't make time out of out of whole cloth. You can't bring people in that can address issues all at one time. You've got to take it in pieces. So I think this is the right approach. And one of the things you also hear in strategic planning is the difference between strategic and tactical. and this is your strategic plan. The tactical aspects are the the the tools in the toolbox that make it work. So you guys are on the right path. I think this is an excellent presentation and I think we need to we need to make sure that you've got the resources to pull this off and in counter to that we need to hold your feet to the fire to make sure it comes in. But we got the right people here to do that. So I don't think there's much of a fire to have to worry about. So I'm in favor of this and I definitely will support it. I'll even make a motion to approve it.

Bruce.

Okay. So, I want to echo the um appreciation to Candace and the staff for putting this together. Um I know it wasn't an easy job and um I think it's a it's a nice presentation. I want to reiterate what Richard said about the relative priority of the various initiatives that are in here. They're not hierarchical. Um they're all important. Um, some are more important or most important to some and others are more important or most important to others. Uh, but they're all it's diffic you can't really assign weight to them. They're all of equal importance. It may have been better even if you could just put them on a line as opposed to on a ladder. Um, and so that's one thing actually I'd like to suggest. I think I suggested that when I saw the draft is maybe there could be a paragraph added that makes clear that they're not hierarchical or prior or listed in order of priority. Um, they're all important. um objectives and um you can't you can't present multiple things in anything but an order. So there's an order but it's not a deliberate order. Um so that's the only reason actually I didn't second um the motion was because I actually have that that one qualification that I'd like to add. And the other is I mean Halen asked is this the time to add specifics? I mean, actually, if there are any specifics that you think are sufficiently important to go in here, this is the time to do it because it's going to be approved when we're well, by the time we're done. So, um, by all means, if you think there's something sufficiently important that it ought to be added, say so.

And now's the time for you to say so. Of course, I left my B my folder for it at home. But I did want to say this is amazing and I appreciate this. being a new council member, we're kind of like sometimes I feel like I'm winging it, but this is a nice road map. And when I go through it, I see that a lot of it's actually either in process or been done in this short period of time like uh the information speed safety system pilot program. I mean a lot of this stuff adopt temporary fix flexibilities for rebuilds engage technical advisory groups ensure you know everything is a work in progress and I do believe that joining the community development and putting Yolanda at the head really helped and it's pretty amazing um to to watch all of this go down but if there is so I was looking through for okay so for the Kevin Keegan comments public health is in there I looked um I don't so that's the nuance where I'm not sure if people are so it's under goal three sewer plan public health protect public health I don't know what public health really means besides you know stuff like that international events I think that's going into your the sunstone and the cosmot so I think that we're already working on a lot of finding international events and new revenue sources so check Check. Um, AI data protection, Chris, maybe check. Okay. Water ongoing. I know that residents have talked about beautifification projects. I personally would love that. I think that could be somewhere in here. I don't know what that would look like. Maybe that's the parks or public works. If we wanted to talk about neighborhoods or some of the streets that Malibu City owns, like I asked earlier, where we can plant medians or kind of continue on that would be great.

Um the library project, we work on that all the time. We have a subcommittee meeting coming up. So check um fire defense council. I think that's a great idea. I think residents have taken it upon themselves to make this sort of decision to do a lot of the grunt work with chief. I think that's kind of happening on the side of the strategic. I think the city's doing a great job in also coordinating fire defense stuff. Um so I mean I think it checks all the boxes. Um, we have the separate community lands which we're going to talk about. So, that I'm not going to get into here.

It's included.

It's included in here, but I think that has to be that's what we've uh hired the consultants for and we're designing and so that's moving forward. I think what I had maybe you can point me to the and I'm a little obsessed so forgive me. Targeted undergrounding um coordinating that. I don't know what page that might be on. Resiliency, infrastructure, resilience, micro grid, love the idea, water tanks, but I didn't see undergrounding, which is top of my mind all the time because we have opportunities here with Calr hopefully, you know, maybe coordinating is our undergrounding in this. Well, I think because it's underway um and byce already, we we're looking at things like micro grids and other resilient um ways to provide power to the city.

Southern California, right? Southern California is moving forward with undergrounding. We're just we're really focused on expediting. Okay. I think I think it's actually goal three. The very last point on the left [snorts] column says telecommunications plan. develop a plan to upgrade the reliability of telecommunications infrastructure across the city. I guess that's telecommunications, not electricity, but it's upgrading the reliability. I think I think that's what we're talking about. What you're talking about.

Yeah. Um, great. I mean, I hope it's not too ambitious. I know we have an ambitious team. Um, I'm super in favor of all this. Of course, as long as we get to talk about, I guess, the community spaces separately, we we'll have a meeting about that. So, um, oh, and under teamwork, I would love to suggest a staff surf lessons or staff horse ride trails through Mala Riders. I'd love to see that. Maybe a kickball game once we have a field. That feels like team work.

I think staff remain very open to all of these possibilities and see wet suits out there. It would be super fun if we had a coach that could guide us on some of these possibilities that might accelerate implementation. But okay, I would love Yeah, I mean I'm still down with senior Zumba. Oh, well let's I'll meet you. I love it. Okay, thank you. We have a motion to speak. Can I speak? Oh, yes. Sorry. I apologize. [laughter] I'm very sorry. I'm trying to be very different to everybody else having the opportunity, but you know,

I'm going to echo a lot of the same stuff. You know, I can see a lot of hard work by the staff in here, and I really appreciate this. This has come along through the years. Um, when I started on council, we had the 100 item spreadsheet that we were looking 200 items on the spreadsheet. Okay. And then that got in integrated into uh the 1A strategic plan and this has just um really up the game and brought it to the next level. So thank you very much. Um I think it's a great presentation, a lot of work. Um, with that I think my question is for clarifying is this how do we not just have um items added? So when we went to that interrum we had 20 items that was on that list and if it wasn't on that list then it didn't get added for that year and we had to wait for the next round for it to come along. So, I think that's my um the operations of this. When are we going to add things to it as things change? One of the things, you know, Halen mentioned was the the parking app. That's something I'm really in favor of also is um being able to have and maybe that's something we can do with technology where we're looking at what's available on the marketplace or in so that we can identify where people can park and so you know we don't have a thing. So I think it's just the implementation. How do things get added? When do things get taken off? Some things are multi-year, some things are single-year projects.

Yeah. I think as Steve said, this is not a bible. This is not in stone, but it provides a roadmap. And I think that what you're talking about is part of a modernization agenda. Um, you know, and really upgrading. And there's no reason that, you know, as most council members do, when they have an idea, we're like, "Okay, we'll take a look at it. We'll evaluate it. We'll see, you know, if it's something that we can do, and we bring it back." So there's, you know, as long as it fits into kind of these tenants, um, there's no reason why we can't go ahead and move forward with that. One of the rules I learned about strategic plans is you got to have discipline.

I mean, you know, No, I mean it because you're right. I mean, we sat here all the time. We're always adding something to something to something to something. And you do that, you no longer have a strategic plan. Now you got the same thing, another version of the 150 ones we had before. So, it's, you know, we just got to be it's it look the fact that we've done this at least demonstrates to me that we're smarter than we thought we were. Yeah, we are. Good stuff.

Yeah. [laughter] This is good stuff. This this, you know, there are a lot of people that struggle over this kind of stuff. like getting it done this far is I think is an excellent idea. It's now up to us to figure out how to execute it and to make sure we sort of keep on track. I mean, because you're right, we're going to have suggestions coming in from all over the place. Some are going to be good, some are going to be bad, some, you know, we got to just be I got to be smart and pick the ones that work. Okay. So, I'd like to second Doug's motion subject to the friendly amendment that um we direct staff to discount with some language at the at the preamble to say state that this is not a priority or hierarchical call. They're all important priorities. I'm in favor of that.

Yeah, I got no problem with that. Um, may I ask a clarif clarifying question to what Marian was saying? Because when I first came on council, I would have the the ideas and then the the Joe Tony would say you have to wait for the 20 project priority project list. I just want to clarify that this is not taking place of that or this is that um because there was a list that was like the Cloverfield storm drain, the retaining wall in Lato and it was these kind of ongoing. So when one project would come off I was we I'd have to wait and then put a project on and then we'd have to vote on it. So I think that's where my confusion comes from. No, you see all of the we took all of the projects that were on the project list provided by Joe Tony, previous um city manager, and we implemented we integrated them into this strategic plan so that all of those projects that were listed are included here. As I said just said before, it's not a Bible, but you know, we do need discipline and I know there's a lot of ideas all the time, but it doesn't mean that we have the capability or even the resources at the moment to execute those. I mean, because we really are focused on rebuilding in our recovery efforts. that's really important to get our city back on track and that I think that that's the focus and then we can you know bring on new projects but the biggest thing is to get our city back on track and that's what this roadmap is really meant to do and so you know we'll we'll do that provide a strong foundation and then get to those new ideas you know in the future but I mean this is a roadmap for the city and for staff And this really takes the vision of the council um and the

community so that we're, you know, basically acting together to to achieve these things. Thank you. And I think some of the the public works department is still going to have their capital improvement projects that are independent of this. So this is just the overall goal, but they're going to have things and our commissions are going to this is a larger macro, you know, kind of view of how to get the city back on track and obviously their public works is going to have their capital improvement projects. That's never going to stop. [clears throat]

Okay. So we have a motion and a second with a friendly amendment. Um, any clarific clarification? Christina, you good? All right. All in favor? I. Any opposed? Okay. All right. All right. Item 7A, Malibu Education Foundation holiday tree lot waiver. Do you want another break? Well, do we need a staff report? No, I've got Do we have any public speakers? Yeah. No more public speakers.

Do you have it? Okay. Karen's first.

Do they have anyone online? have anyone online? There are no hands uh raised on Zoom. Okay, so let's hold that. No more accepted.

Hi Karen. Hello. Hello. Um good evening, Mayor Rigggins, council members, and thank you again for your continued support of the Malibu Education Foundation and the programs we fund for our public schools. The annual Malibu Education Foundation holiday tree lot has become one of Malibu's most loved traditions where families, students, and community members come together to celebrate the season and raise funds that go directly back into our schools. Those funds support staff and staff programs from classroom aids and arts education to tutoring and athletics, the people in programming that make a daily difference for our students. This year, we're especially excited to expand the event into a true student-led communitypowered experience. We've hired two Malibu High School students, a manager and assistant manager who will help run daily operations, coordinate volunteers, and mentor younger students. It's a chance for them to gain hands-on experience in leadership, business, and service. We're also involving all four Malibu schools so students of every age can participate, perform, and help. On December 12th, we'll host our community night and holiday marketplace open to the entire community with student performances, local artisans, and holiday cheer. And on December 13th, we'll celebrate Dick Van Dyke's 100th birthday at the Tree Lot with cake, music, and community spirit, raising funds for the endowment in his name that he and his family helped to create for Malibu Arts Education. We truly appreciate the city's partnership in making this possible, especially your continued support of the fee waiver,

which allows more proceeds to go directly to our students and schools. We also welcome local businesses and residents to get involved through sponsorships, donations, or simply by buying your tree at the tree lot. Every purchase and every act of participation helps keep this Malibu tradition growing for our schools, for our students, and for our community. Thank you for helping us continue this tradition of giving and learning and for being part of what makes Malibu so special. I'm going to ask a question of Karen.

Okay, Karen, one question, possibly two depending on the answer to the first. Does the athletic booster club still exist? It absolutely does and and they are a partner. Um the president of the athletic booster club is a chair. So for the tree it's an agreement with them that MEF is substituting for them. Yes, we work hand in hand. Thank you. No follow-ups. That was the followup. You anticipated it. Thank you. And

hello. Uh, so I'm 100% in support of the whole Christmas thing. So, one thing is it's going to be a grand December. My prediction is I feel it that's going to be a beautiful December here in Malibu. And, uh, it's outstanding. Um, the only thing that I'd like to see happen is that we extend the lot that once we're done with the Christmas tree, if we buy a real Christmas tree, that we recycle it and we put it back on the land so it doesn't go to the landfill. We can use the chippings to cover the grounds around stuff. So, that's what we used to do. We used to throw our, sorry to say this, throw our Christmas tree through the chipper uh in January and we'd cover the land the ground next to our trees. So that's a sometimes it would include the tinsel. We used tinsel back then. So that's the only thing I say if there's a way to recycle the trees after we sell them. but 100% support uh Karen Karen and the school foundation. So um it's also part of school separation. Thank you.

Okay. Um so that'll close public comment. Um I'm going to make a motion to approve this. I know I don't usually

second. And I just wanted to say um as someone who used to run for athletic booster club the tree lot, I appreciate and I'm really excited about the expansion into all the other schools. So I think it's a great and I love the idea of having adding the students be that because I think it's just really good business experience and I I encourage any way we can do that. So thank you for that addition on that. And um regarding the recycling, in past years, the city has always offered recycling for the trees. And we usually have a couple places um in Malibu where dumpsters, large 40 yard rolloffs are provided so that people can recycle their trees in the community. So the city of Malibu um already does that and has been doing that for decades. So um we have a motion and a second. All in favor?

I did. Anybody want to say anything? I kind of checked the floor. Okay, we're going to take a break. Uh 9:25, please.

Okay, we're back. Um, 7B. Who's presenting 7B?

[laughter]

Hello again. If you're going to make public comment, get your slip in now. I won't be accepting any late work. You got a lot of job security there, Richard.

Yeah, it's been a busy past couple months. [laughter] So, what we have before you is an idea that we've received to try to activate some of the potential that we've explored at the Heathercliffe lot. This is part of the community lands initiative. And so, I'm going to walk you through some slides to better explain and address some of the questions that I've received in the consideration of this proposal. So, uh, as I just mentioned, through the community lands public engagement process, several properties have been identified, um, priorities, I'm sorry, have been identified for the Heathercliffe lot. Th those include sports fields and a community center. In October of last year, the council authorized staff to begin a phased approach for development. Much of that was put on hold because of the disaster and and recovery response. At this point, we're prepared to move forward, but to better help us to uh understand our design options, it's our recommendation to secure the services of an architect. Um we think it would be very beneficial to utilize an architect one because uh we don't have those uh resources in house that the expertise the experience the education uh the awareness of how to design uh really critical public facilities in the context of what is a very difficult uh regulatory uh environment to develop here in the coastal zone in Malibu. Uh but what we want is to turn our ideas into and needs into safe usable design. Uh to balance beauty, function, and budget to coordinate with all of the variety of subject matter experts that will be needed, including engineers, landscapers, and builders. And to make sure that our conceptual design meets

codes and safety standards. Um the property, the Heathercliffe lot, has some hidden challenges there. uh we observe uneven ground, drainage challenges, soil issues. We need to balance the needs for parking, for roads, for utilities as well as environmental factors such as fire prevention, flooding potential and uh vegetation that exist on site. So we want we believe an architect can help us plan around these so that we can avoid expensive surprises later. Uh architects are used to designing spaces for uh people to use. Um we intend to hire a firm that has experience designing for families, seniors, kids can clearly distinguish uh paths between fields, buildings, and parking to provide safe spots for people to gather, rest, and move around. And this will ensure that our design feels welcoming and practical. Um, our architect we envision as a as a project conductor. They will guide all of the experts that I mentioned previously to address specific issues. So civil engineers that are needed for expertise on grading and drainage. Structural engineers for their knowledge of building safety and how to design to for compliance. Landscape designers because there's um experience needed to design sports fields and walkways and planters um and all of the associated irrigation facilities and compatible uh placement of of uh vegetation as well as contractors to consider construction issues. Without an architect, it's like everyone is playing a different tune. So, in our selection process, we uh targeted a couple of firms. We weren't quite sure what the cost was going to be. So, we uh kept our request brief. We

only provided two weeks for the turnaround. We left the budget open-ended because we weren't sure what this expertise would cost. Um but we were surprised to see that the proposals came in at roughly the same uh budget amount ranging from 140,000 to 165,000. Uh upon our review it staff's recommendation to select Frederick Fischer and partners based largely upon their experience and qualifications. In particular, what stood out with us was their extensive experience designing small community facilities. The other firms have a wide array of experiences mostly designing larger community facilities, but we thought it was important to secure uh the uh experience of a firm diving designing small facilities. They're also very familiar with local conditions, having designed a couple of recent projects that they mention in their proposal to us um in the the u the near nearby coastal communities including Santa Monica and Topanga. Um, I'll highlight some of the the examples they shared with us on the next slide. And they also have a a remarkable track record for abil for delivering highquality conceptual and schematic design services. As a preview, here were some of the examples that were shared with us in their proposal. Uh, as you can see, these are all uh for the most part local uh Southern California, including coastal California examples, recent success stories that we could easily see um being highly compatible with Malibu. Uh they have experience designing interiors as well as exteriors, pool facilities, park facilities, um designing for natural landscapes and integrating um sustainable features for their scope of work. Um they're going to deliver a few things that we're focused on within a very finite 90-day

timeline. We heard loud and clear from the ad hoc. They were very interested in in formulating a uh process that would give us tangible outcomes in short order so that we could then conduct larger public outreach and solicit uh stakeholder support including funding support. So they will deliver for us as part of this proposal a site analysis facility program for uses, master plan and site design, cost estimates as well as uh uh conceptual site plans, elevations and renderings that will be essential for the uh steps that will follow for these services. Uh they we will be charged $164,800. We have this amount budgeted in our current fiscal year budget under the account number referenced on the slide to address vacant properties and professional services. Therefore, it is staff's recommendation to authorize the mayor to execute a professional services agreement with Frederick Fischer and partners for a master plan concept design for the a recreation center and sports facilities at the Heathercliffe property. Um available for any questions or comments. Okay. Do we have any clarifying questions?

I have questions for Okay. Anyone else? Okay. So, I have um public speakers. Do we have anyone online? There are no raised hands.

Okay. So, um let's hold that. No additional hands. Scott Dietrich followed by Howard. Howard, you only get three minutes. My Michelle left. So, and then Joe Drummond. Good evening again. Um, and I apologize to Richard that uh I didn't send anything in written because this idea only came up this afternoon at the fire rebuild uh task force meeting. at that meeting and I want to assure everybody here that we are trying to encourage everyone in the fire zone who's lost their home to go into the rebuild center. We're arguing that now is the time to do it. Um, so we're not disparaging people, but at that meeting, Lewis Tenya, who you all know, who is an architect, came up with what I think is a brilliant idea. Malibu has an international reputation and we're often criticized sometimes, those of us active and you guys, we're not capitalized on it. I think we can now. We have this worldwide reputation. Let's use it. Let's throw this out for an international competition. We can get our own architect at some point if that's what required. But get international. People will come up with ideas we never thought of, that this firm never thought of. And perhaps we'll

come up with something brilliant that no one here thought of. And if it doesn't work, okay, we've lost a month or two. I don't know how long these things take, but that seems to me like a brilliant way of possibly saving the money and possibly not. Maybe we'll have our own architect supervise whatever plan someone comes up with. But just maybe, who knows, it's a guy in Slovenia or Greece comes up with something that none of us ever thought of. So, I'd like you to consider that. Thank you.

Thanks, Howard. And then, Joe. Good evening. I I haven't been here for a while and been out of the country for over a month and a half. Wow. You guys have a lot on your plate and there's a lot of new people, a lot of learning curves. Heather Cliff's got a number of challenges and I think a lot of local people know what those challenges are. You know, I I had, you know, a meeting with Richard on the phone this morning and he was very generous with his time and explain the process. Um I think Frederick, um told a few stories. Um, the park they're talking about is the one in Santa Monica, which has just got a couple benches and some big modern sculptures. The thing in Tanga, it's not on their website, so I don't know what it is. And when I called them, they didn't know what it was either. And the West Hollywood Rec Center, they didn't do that. They say they did, but then when you call LPA, I believe the studios, they actually designed it and built it. So, this company has never built ball fields or a rec center. Ball fields and a rec center for I think all of us here that have kids and stuff, you know what ballfields, they're they're intricate. You've got to have built them. You've got to have built a rec center. You've got to done it. Ginsler has done 67 of them. So, I'm going to change I emailed a lot of you guys, but I'm going to change what I'm going to say. I think that you guys are elected. It's your responsibility.

You're smart enough. You can pick a good firm. I think you should take that firm and you should have them design something and bring it back and get some community feedback. And once there's community feedback and buy in on exactly what you want and what's acceptable, there's a number of us that were listening on Zoom and I'm here. We're more than willing to put a plan together where there can be some kind of a public private partnership where we can help with quite a bit of the funding. We can help with the merchandising, the branding, the partnerships, those kind of things. But I think we need you guys need to get a consensus, a solid idea of what you want based on who you pick to give you that. And I think that, you know, Richard is a little hemrung because of the rules the city has. You know, he can't investigate this company. He can't ask more questions. He's limited to sending out a piece of paper. They interpret the piece of paper whatever way they want. They send back whatever they want. He has to make a decision from what they're telling him, which isn't fair to us. It isn't fair to him. I don't know a business that would not before they hired a company have intimate discussions with them about what they want, how they want it.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Good evening. I just want to echo what Scott said. We did have our meeting this afternoon and I thought that was a brilliant idea to have architects from all around the world for free. Give give their designs. You can each pick an architect, a local architect to be the judges or something and you can give them a a like a sheet for each lot. Like for Heather Cliff, maybe you need sports fields and then maybe a smaller rec center. I don't think we need a 50 meter pool anymore because we have one coming. So maybe just a kiddie pool where they can learn how to swim. But just put what you want down in writing. Maybe this company can come up with something and uh make an international contest. And it's Malibu is iconic. Everybody would want to participate, I think. And it I think it's something that we should explore because we'd save I think it's at least a h 100,000 to 300,000 just to have an architect design our home. So for a whole lot I can imagine it'd be at least half a million dollars. And we apparently are tight on our money. So we could save money by having this international contest. And you know if we need a local architect to execute it that's fine but it would be a very prestigious honor for any architect in the world. So, thanks.

Okay, that'll close public public comment. We're back up here. Bruce. Okay, let's go first.

Um, so, uh, I went back and looked at the meeting, the minutes of the meeting, as well as watched it from October 28, 2024. And what I found was here, here's what the city council resolved, hold on, at that meeting. develop plans prioritizing ball fields and grass sports fields at the lot, Heather Cliff lot, and Bluffs Park. I I I get that the fire got in the way and that there some of that space is being used for other things, but some of it's not. um and issue a request for proposals for the architectural and engineering design of a multi-generational community center preferably cited on the Heathercliffe lot or on the OK lot if the development is in feasible on the Heather Heathercliffe lot. So, if we're going to approve anything, to me, it ought to be what we re what we already debated and moved to do, which is um to get an architectural and engineering design of a multi-generational community center, preferably cited on the Heathercliffe lot or on the OK lot if the development is infeasible on the Heathercliffe lot. I don't know why. I mean maybe the words are intended to mean the same thing but I don't know why this proposal is for um what's what's exactly say

recreation

recreation center yeah recreation center and a multigenerational community center to me are two different concepts so I have a problem with this from that standpoint I love the idea of a contest absolutely think that that's phenomenal I think you need to have a reward of some sort though an award of some sort other than we're going to use your plan. I I don't think the best architects in the world are going to just devote their time and energy to proposing something for the sake of having it done by someone else and they get nothing in return for it other than possibly recognition that they did it. Maybe maybe it would be enough, maybe it wouldn't. But I I love that idea, but I also think that that's something that's probably going to take 6 months to a year bare minimum to generate the types of responses that you would want to see and make a decision on any of them. And we're ultimately going to need a consultant in any event to review them. Uh so I'm I'm kind of on the fence as to what to do. But but the one thing I'm I'm confident of is I don't want to hire somebody to develop a um recreation center when what we want is a multigenerational community center. Uh and if they're intended to mean the same thing, fine. Let's let's use the words we approve, not some other words, but because I think they are different. Um, Howard, I I very much appreciate your comments because when you came a year ago and spoke about this, I I thought it was much too general to appreciate, but I I like the idea that we should pick something. And by the way, community feedback is a given. There's we're not asking that something be designed and then we're just going to instantly decide what we want to do up here on our own. We're going to we're going to secure community feedback on what is proposed. And I love the idea of them once the community decides what it wants, once we decide what we think the community wants, um we see if there's a private public partnership that can fund

it, build it, um etc. So I think that I don't think that's foreclosed by any of this, but again, I think this is the wrong orientation. Um so those are my comments. Can I follow up? Oh, one last thing. And and on the pool, I mean, the the the high school having a pool is not um a substitute for us having a pool. So, they can have their I mean, just because we're get they're they've now agreed to do an Olympic size pool. Okay, that's great. That's a that's a small thing that we can use from time to time, but we still need our own pool.

Yeah. Oh. Um I do think that because I watched that same meeting Bruce um that when we say recreation center that we might I mean I think it's a multi-gen that's how I being on the ad hoc how I envisioned it. So if that's a word if that's confusing I think that's what we intended. Um sports fields is what I heard from that meeting. I watched the same one. Um, I did have some questions about if I don't understand Richard feeling hamstrung. I don't want to put you on the spot, but I don't want this firm to be feeling from being feeling hamstrung. Um, I like the idea of an international outreach. I was on that call as well and I thought it was a great idea, but maybe not for this project because that will take a lot of staff time and it's a really creative endeavor. So maybe if we were to do like a new city hall, it feels more civic related, whereas this is more like community, you know, this is just kind of we're trying to do something in 90 days and give kids sports fields. I wasn't sure if the private partnership was something with like YMCA or, you know, if that's involved in this because the YMCA is is an option. Um, but the biggest thing first is to get some type of renderings and we can YMCA could either, you know, help with that or you could they can do programming. Um, but the the biggest, you know, I think Howard also talked about the willingness of the community to help pull together funding for public private partnership for for these types of of of buildings on these community lands. But YMCA is is an option.

Yeah, I think a private partner public that would be great. Um, Council Member Conrad, if I could just clarify one of the points that you requested um in my conversation with Howard earlier today, what I um shared is that in our evaluation of the proposals, we're limited to what we receive in those proposals. Mhm.

And Howard was sharing that he had broader knowledge of their um experience, expertise, accomplishments from his own personal research. And I said, "That's that's informative for me, but that's not something that I can consider because unless it was articulated in their proposal, we're not supposed to consider it." And so based on compare the comparison of the proposals and what was emphasized that that's how we came to our conclusion on which firm had had the best experience align with our needs. Thank you. Yep.

Yeah. And I mean I think it's pretty straightforward to find out if they did these properties that they're saying that they did in Santa Monica and Tanga because I mean they wouldn't lie about that, right? How I guess you're saying that they didn't do it. They didn't they didn't lie. They didn't lie about this. I've I've I know Fred Fiser. He's he's actually worked on buildings for Princeton University, the campus there, and then the building named after Eric Schmidt, as well as the the soccer the field that's there for the sports teams.

He's worked on a number of important um projects for the city of LA, the county of LA, Ohio. Um, [clears throat] and you know, so I'm just I'm just saying he's very legitimate. So I I don't I don't want you to think that he's not legitimate. I mean, from a phone call that maybe some staff weren't aware, but No, he's a very legitimate firm. We're not going to have any back and forth between the things up here at the table.

Thank you. And thank you, city manager Bond, for that clarification. I definitely trust your judgment. Um, so I mean what I'm hearing from the community is maybe an international contest for maybe I would say a different building I think it's a great idea, but maybe for a more civic centered building where um some international architect wants to put their name on our Malibu City Hall [snorts] type of thing. I can see that being um so it's a 90-day timeline. Is there a penalty for them going above 90 days or is that not something sometimes with architects they get creative and um we might go over the 90 days and I you know strict timelines. Do we have anything built into the cake to make sure that they stay on track? I didn't really read it thoroughly.

The best way for us to ensure that they meet that deadline is to be as responsive as we can to their requests. Right. So if they need to schedule meetings to engage with us, if they request information, we need to provide that promptly. Um, but they're prepared to mobilize a a very experienced team to assist us with this request. It's a little bit unusual that we want something so quickly, but we're trying to fulfill the request of the ad hoc. Thank you. Before you, Doug.

Okay. Um, but let's make sure we know what we're asking for. The second page of the request here has a bullet point. Says, "Heather Cliff and the Aayoki chili cookoff lots. City will explore." This is what's supposed to be the uh recommendation and approval for next step. The city will explore options for new soccer, baseball, soccer fields, as well as a multi-generational community center, including a pool, gymnasium, senior center, and expanded library services. I think from my reading of the proposal, this is an open-ended uh request to see what can go on the property that meets these criteria. And having worked with uh in banking with people who have visions of what they're going to put on the site, until you actually look at at what the site can bear, whether it's street access or zoning or foundational issues or so forth, you don't know what you can put on the place. We may find out that the highest story building we can put on this place is a backs stop. U and I think there's uh indications that there are uh land issues, soil issues here. So we need somebody to first off decide what can be built there and then design what what they think will fit in that. Um I think somebody [snorts] doing this for $164,000 is a bargain. Um, I I think the comment about what it costs to build a get an architect to build a house to supervise it all the way through is is is uh definitely more expensive than this, but I think for the general planning that you're proposing, this is probably a fair price in terms of somebody doing on an international study. Let's be careful what we ask for because if you got somebody in Croatia or uh in Australia who says, "I'm going to put this on your property." They don't even know what the property looks like. They don't have any local knowledge. They're going to spend time and effort and money trying to figure out what fits. Anybody can draw a

conceptual drawing. But what we're asking for is we need to know what can be built on this site and what meets our requirements. And that's going to take somebody that's got local knowledge, local presence, and can do the research for it. And we're not going to get drilling. You're not getting core samples and all that kind of stuff, but you're going to at least know that you're going to need them. And if that's what's required. So I I think the idea, and I go along with Halen on this, I think if we're going to do something that is fantastic and it's going to be a statement, yeah, then you want the international group. But in this case, and I don't mean to demean the Landon Center, but you're looking at something that's going to be a functional operational building that's going to be for a park. Um, and I thought the one at uh uh the Annenburgg facility, I didn't realize that was Fischers, but that to me speaks a lot about what we're trying to get something that is, I don't want to say inexpensive to build, but is practical to build with our budget that we're going to have for this because at the end of the day, it's a park and that's what it's going to be. Um, lastly, Howard, I think you're on the right track. We have got to have funding for this. Uh, I don't know what how much anybody thinks this is going to cost, but when you realize what it costs to build a high school, you begin to realize that we're not talking about a million or$2 million to put a property in. We're talking about 20 or $30 million. And we're going to need everybody's help we can get. And if it means that we're going to have to call it the Bruce Silverstein Pavilion, Bruce will just have to put his fortune on it. And uh, that's what I was going to say. But the the point of all this is I think this is a great start. We need this to get started. Your comment from the city manager about the YMCA going along with us. That's how you're going to have to have the support from the people that are [snorts] going to invest in this. They have got to believe that we know what we're doing. And you can't put a drawing up that doesn't represent anything that can be built there. So, we need to have what we're trying to sell,

get funding for it. and Howard, I think we'll be back to see you uh soon with this uh public private partnership and we're going to need that for the city. Uh the USC uh coliseum has got I think United Airlines at the at the at the field. Whoever it takes, we're going to have to be able to do that in order to get the facilities the city wants. So, I'm in favor of doing this. I think this is a great start. I agree with Bruce. maybe out of uh if there's any question about what we're asking them to do, but honestly, we need to know what can go there. We know what we want there, but we need to know what can go there, and then we need to have a design that we can sell to others on what we're going to do. So, I'm in favor of this.

Cool. Steve,

this is going to have Bruce's picture on it. I I want to rethink this whole process. [laughter] Uh I, you know, I agree with pretty much everybody said. I do think, you know, trying to do the same thing with an international contest will take us forever. I mean, we'll we'll never get anything done. Uh, and I I don't think this project is big enough to really encourage that much that kind of participation. Maybe somewhere down the line we're building something bigger. I think we make it it's something we want to keep on the planet or on our radar screen. I I agree with Doug. I mean, and just, you know, back in 2000, whatever the heck it was, 2001, uh, that property was owned by the Malibu Bay Company, and they they tried to trade us some development agreement for building some ball fields up there. And what happened was when we took a look at the ball fields, there are blue line streams up there. There's a whole bunch of stuff on that property that that could cause you some stuff to think about, right? So, I agree with Doug. I mean, I think one of the steps we got to make sure we go through is to understand what is available to I mean to build up the I mean, we had there were traffic issues. How do you get people in and out of there? So, so there's a bunch of things we got to work. I don't think any of them are unachievable, but um just be aware there's going to be some and I don't know how you ident you know how much work we have to do on the front end to identify that the capabilities of the land before we have these guys start going out and trying to build something. But that's I think it's going to be a key component of this project. But other than that, it look, let's get something going, see what the hell we come up with. Okay. Um, thank you for this. I think it's really great. Um, I would say that yeah, I think having an international contest, I think it's it's going to delay it. Agreed. they're they're looking at a flat map and

they're not really going to have the opportunity to um really see the the plan. So, I think it's good we've got somebody who has got a lot of experience um in this field here to give us some ideas um and create some excitement within our community of what actually can be done out there. And I think until we have those renderings, um we're going to kind of be um short in creating the the community excitement that we need to to to move this along. Um the going on Steve's point, going back to the Malibu Bay Company, I'd recommend um I would think that maybe in the historical records there's some ideas of what they did,

right? Back then. Exactly. Right. I know. I tried to do a a cursory look for that stuff. Um so maybe dig that out and agreed. I think there are between the land and our also our zoning and our development um we have some um parameters and restrictions that um I think anybody just wanting to look at this site um is not going to be aware of. So, um I think getting this uh group on board and getting this done and let's move this down the road so that we can get to the next phase of um hopefully creating some excitement in the community and generating some money and getting something built here. So,

yes, Bruce.

Okay. So I I I still feel that this this needs to be refined and I don't know how you go about doing that when it's been put out for a RFP. But the the scope of what is being done it's it's it's twofold difference here. One is the description of what it is we want designed, but the other is this does not discuss the backup of possibly needing to put it whatever it is at IO for all the reasons that everyone else has just been discussing the challenges of Heathercliffe which I think are less challenging at Aayoki. I think that's why we resolved what we resolved which was let's explore putting this type of a facility at Heathercliffe but if that doesn't work putting it on Ioki and just hiring somebody to single-mindedly try to put it on Heathercliffe and maybe design something that would be inferior than something that would go somewhere else is not what not what I had in mind when I voted last year to proceed with what we voted to proceed with Doug's comments about um you can't really design something until you understand the challenges. You made the exact same comments a year ago so you're consistent and um you know that is part of what has to be done but they have to they have to look at challenges at at Heathercliffe. They have to look at the challenges at IO they got to figure out a recommendation to us as to which of those two properties is better suited to accomplish the objective we want to accomplish here. Um not just again myopically look at one property and do the best you can there.

[snorts]

Um, I I I like the the international idea because [snorts] I I think it denigrates the people that would compete in that kind of thing to say, "Well, they need to understand the property." Of course, they need to understand the property. Any legitimate, worldrenowned architect is going to have to understand the property. They're not just going to take out a piece of paper and draw something. They're going to do it responsibly. So, um, they would have to get the information, same information anyone else is going to get. The fact that this Frederick Fiser group um is is local doesn't mean they have any more local knowledge as they sit here today than anyone else would have. They're going to have to develop it. Um so I I I I like that idea. It doesn't have to be limited to one thing we do. I mean there's no reason why it couldn't be an approach we could use with other things. Maybe that's too pie in the sky right now. The fact that the ad hoc directed that they wanted to get this done in 90 days doesn't does I don't feel compelled to satisfy that timeline. We've been waiting years to get this done and while we want to get it done sooner than later, my approach is I want to get it done right, not get it done fast. And I I think we might be moving too fast right now. Um given the comments that have been made tonight. Um, coming back to the the contest thing is the other thing is I I suspect that you would get greater excitement by people within the community, maybe even by people outside the community for um contributions if you had something that was grander design than the kind of thing that well this is a park. All we're talking about is some kind of a building at a park. And the last thing I'll say is I'm I'm very impressed with the facility they have in Tio. Um I don't know who everyone else if they've gone out there and seen that facility but they've got a um they had a senior facility which actually could easily be a multigenerational facility which is very impressive. Um and it's actually disturbs me that they have something so

impressive and we have nothing. Um but those are my comments. I I I just think that this agreement it's premature to agree to this agreement. So I don't know how we deal with that. I don't think we can renegotiate a contract as we're sitting up here. I got one quick. I don't I don't support entering into this contract approving this contract as I sit here.

Richie, do we look from what I've heard so far, if if I were trying to set this up, it seems that step one has got to be someone's got to go out and do a study of the land, right? Someone's got to sit down and say, you know, I I've looked at the land. I've got some idea of what we can build on that. Well, if they can do that and then come back to us with that information before we go to the next step, that may be able to sol, you know, satisfy Bruce's concern that says if I can't build it on Heather Cliff, maybe they do have to look at Iok or look someplace else. But we're, you know, we're not just sending someone out to go blindly to build something and whatever the hell you can do with the land. We're saying, let's make sure we understand what the foundation is going to look like and then we can decide the next piece. You got to decide how you want to do that. But that would I would make them come back after the first study of of, you know, the environment there and then decide where we want to go from there. That's one step. Yeah, I I'm concurring with Steve on this. I as I read our bullet point here, I'm surprised we're limiting ourselves just to Heather Cliff. I would think we'd want to do the Iokei lot and that uh and as it says triangle and tranquus, we don't have a direction for that and leaz has this point. So, I'm I'm surprised we don't have the the two properties linked together, but I do like the idea. Let's go do a first phase and check uh uh Heathercliffe and see if it works or works to what we're trying to put in and then a go or no-go decision about what we do after that. Uh I'm assuming we could probably do that within this contract because you know they have to deliver things in various timelines. I'm trying to trying to remember where I saw that. I thought we have a time. Yeah, we have a timeline on this. Um

what do you think? Doesn't bullet bullet point one mean Heather Cliff and Ike that we're exploring options for both of them. That's what I'm reading. Both Heather Cliff and Ike lots city will explore options for new soccer, baseball, and softball fields as well as multigenerational community center including a pool, gymnasium, senior center, and expanded library services. That's not that's both lots. That's second page two of two. It's not saying Ioke or Heathercliffe. and Heather Cliff and I am you know if we could break it out into feasibility which I would have expected we would have had by now we don't have a feasibility study of what can be put there.

Nobody's tried to build anything. Um well maybe the first process is just doing an I don't want to say an EIR because those sound like they take forever but just a feasibility study of the lots and let's do Heather quick. So if if we could do anything in Heather equip if it works we go. If not we send them over took. Yeah. And other words we're going to be spending just a long time doing land studies.

Yeah. Don't mean to interrupt but uh to Halen's point and I think Steve's if you look at the flowchart that's on it has a page number. I guess it's 13. Uh there's a first client meeting at the end of three weeks and after that they've got uh planning parameters and site understanding that could be the go or no-go point right there.

And you know I think staff is well qualified to be able to go uh this ain't going to make it or this is going to make it and continue on because you've got so that starts the process from there. Uh, I would be in favor of authorizing a full contract with the idea that you'll do the sanity checks at these these points and report back to us. Let us know what's going on. Are you okay with that, Richard? I mean, it's a little bit different than what we originally thought about, but but seems to be a plan that gives us a chance to really understand what the hell we're doing and make sure we don't go off half to try and build something, you know, it's not going to work when we get to the end. So, is that the thing that says do the land steady, come back, let's talk, and then we'll go to the next step. Does that work? Do you want to come back to the full council or to the ad hoc? Who's on the ad hoc?

Yeah, myself and Halen. Go back to the ad hoc. I don't I the ad hoc. Yeah, I'm around the ad hoc. Let's just make sure we know what that the land will cover so you guys can help make a decision because we're going to have to go to the residents anyway. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I I got no problem dealing with the ad hoc. We we had this exact conversation a year ago and it was a much and it was it was based on we're going to decide tonight what process we want to pursue not where we're being presented with a contract and being asked to approve it. We we we had substantial community comment that night. We had extensive deliberation that night and what we concluded not on an ad hoc basis all of a sudden was that we were going to solicit um an architectural and engineering design of a multigenerational community center preferably cited on the Heathercliffe lot or on the OK lot if the development is infeasible on the Heathercliff lot. We talked about ball fields and other things, but that was a separate item. We talked about that should occur actually as soon as possible on mo in multiple places because ball fields are pretty easy just to get them on the in the ground and let people start using them. Not the ones that you would want eventually, but but just to get get going. Again, the fire got in the way. But this this staff report is mixing and matching everything we did we decided. We did not say um soccer, baseball, softball fields, and multigenerational community center including a pool, gymnasium, senior center, and expanded library services at Heathercliffe. We never said that. And that's that's what this suggests here. It says Heather Cliff. Um I mean I I think

I have a different remembering of that. Well, I'm reading the notion that was unanimously approved. I'm not making this up. This isn't from memory. These are the words that the city council approved after deliberation. Um, and and I'm also not going by memory of what we discussed. I watched the recording this morning. Um, but I think this is misfocused and I think the city council now is beginning to just go off in a tangent from what we previously decided.

What would you but I'm reading the staff report. It says here on October 28, 2024, STA city council received and filed community lands outreach engagement report. What I don't understand, Bruce, is correct me. It says Heather Cliff and Ike. We're not making you know this is to explore. It says that Heather Cliff can land. So just Heather Cliff is your bone that it's just Heather Cliff. No, we what we decided was we need ball fields, soccer fields, baseball fields. I we all agree

and we should be separate and apart from anything we build. We should be getting them laid down ASAP and we've got three different places we can put them. Ike [snorts] was identified as one that could be done pretty quickly. Obviously, that's now out of the picture because it's being used still by the postfire reconstruction crew. Um the second the separate item we discussed was simply a building, a multigenerational community center. If other things could fit, great. but they weren't part of the pro are the program and it was preferable they go to Heathercliffe but if Heather Cliff doesn't work because of the challenges that people are talking about tonight then look at Ioki as well that's not what I'm seeing in this proposed contract that's not what I'm hearing discussed and all of a sudden we're now talking about other things altogether so

what other things are are we talking about we're talking about fields we are talking about a building and a pool like a phased process right of programming and So, we get the fields in first. Hopefully, we have to do a schematic to make sure that things can fit. And we have to hire a professional in order to do that.

That's the purpose of this contract is actually get a professional to do the measurements of those different elements and see what could possibly fit. You know, maybe a building can be one thing and we can't have hardcourt things, but we get the soccer fields or the multi-purpose fields. So they have to lay all these things out to even see what's possible within that acreage. That's why we need the professional. And I think we need to get started on this because we would have done this earlier in the year had it not been for the palace fire.

Okay. I don't materially disagree with what you just said. The the one place we come apart was towards the end when you said and the ball fields and all the other things need to be laid out with the building. I disagree with that. I thought what we agreed was with respect to the building piece, we were going to hire somebody to look at Heathercliffe and see what kind of a facility, a building facility, not sports fields on top of that with that made sense for that for that lot. If there's additional room and space for ball fields at the same place as the community center, great. But that wasn't the predominant idea. And if a building is better suited for IIO than Ike, this proposal is limited to Heathercliffe and it's not the same facility. It's a recreational facility which I don't take to be the same thing as a multigenerational community center. I think that they are two different ideas. I think a YMCA is a recreational facility and I think if you go look at to by way of example, you'll see a multigenerational or you'll see you'll see a community center. They have two two buildings actually. One is for multigenerational.

I've been there a bunch of times. You can call it what you want, but the programming is a is we can program what we would like within that. And if it's multigenerational with um recreation, that's sort of what to does. It has a pool. It has senior center. It's got like a crazy They've got an amazing giant space. I know. I know. They have indoor basketball courts, but we're with a finite piece of land. I do think we can look into as well if that's um interesting to you, but I do think that this is if you were stuck on multigenerational, which I see versus recreational. No, no, I'm I'm focusing also on community center versus recreational facility. I think those are two different things.

So, are you concerned with the language in the contract? Because I think there was some consensus that said, let's go out and see what you can build on the land first, right? Let's make sure we understand that that can def define whether we build you know whatever how we built there. So if we get that information then the next step says you know but we're going to go out and talk to the residents and they may tell us here's what their their vision what a multi- you know multi- thing is and they come up with a different we just got to get something started and I you know and I I think

is the language of the contract is conf that you're having a problem with or how do we get something going? Look, maybe the city council wants to go in a different direction now, but what I'm focusing on is the type of facil the purposes of the facility, the type of facility. In my view, maybe I'm I'm alone in this, a community center is a place for gatherings where you have um events for the community, where you've got an auditorium where you may have meals served, you know, in a party type atmosphere where people can gather for meetings. there there could be rooms where you can go and play cards or or or games um which is a form of recreation but a recreational facility like it's a YMCA it's got a gym it's got a pool it has um it has recreational activities ideally you can combine them all but I think what we had decided was that was biting off more than we could chew at first and we we voted on a community center so you know if we're now hire hiring somebody to develop a recreational facility. I just want to make the point that that's not what we voted to go forward with for this initial stage.

Well, I wasn't a part of that vote. Let's do a new vote. Can do that. Can I make a motion that we move forward with this contract because I think that we need to get something started and well bring it back to the ad hoc at the first timeline. I second that.

Yeah, Marian, let me let me be supportive of your comment. Um, first off, if you look at the proposal from the company from the architects on the second page, um, and they've got some bullet points on there. It basically outlines the steps that match the u timeline that they proposed. And in about three weeks, you've got the uh site plan and the capability of the uh site to accommodate. And they say uh a clearly defined project um serves as a road map to the entire process. We understand that the project will include soccer fields, swimming pool, volleyball, pickle ball, classrooms, meeting rooms, a gymnasium, a climbing wall. They've got a a broad list of things here. And I think the uh staff and the ad hoc can come back at three weeks and whatever six weeks or whatever the next point is and and see if we're on track to get what we want.

And I [snorts] fully agree with uh the comments that we need to see what this is going to accommodate and if it doesn't accommodate it then we move on to some something else. So let's get it started. And by the way, it's an hourly contract. They char they they've got 850 hours uh estimated on this to do it for the price that they've quoted.

If we cut it off early on, we're not going to be out that much money. I mean, it's not going to take 850 hours to get get the first three weeks done. So, we'll know real quick. We'll know by ne by the end of next month or even early next month where we're at on this. So, let's let's get it started and see what we can put there. I'd be in favor of that motion. I'll accept that as long as we're sure that we get some some level of confidence that they will do the land study first, come back and talk to us before we go to step two. Yeah. Talk to Dr. Adhog. And basically to follow the basically to follow the outline that they've got on the last page of the proposal. Okay. So, we got a motion and a second.

I'll make that motion. Well, I motion. Oh, then I'll second. Okay. You accepted all of Doug's. Okay. All in favor? Could we Could I just hear the motion? Yeah. I' [clears throat] say I'd like to hear it, too.

The direction was to approve the agreement. Um, my notes were a little messed up. uh to pro approve the agreement but to bring it back to the ad hoc and then it returns after the ad hoc has begun the work to confirm if what they have done is still is correct or if they if it's um feasible at Heathercliffe or does it need to go to Iayoki if whatever they want to do if anything is even feasible there. Okay. Um, so it's to approve the agreement, but then to have the ad hoc to report back on the have the agreement work in steps. Step one, go up and do the

it works in steps. Step one says go do the study of of Heather CL take a look what the land can absorb back there and then come back to the ad hoc committee and say guys here's what we think we can do. Ad hoc can say keep going hoc can say let's go someplace else but we're doing it in steps. Got it. So approve approve the agreement and then have the ad I think where Maryanne that's what I'm so so is it correct it's to approve the agreement and then to have the ad hoc report back after the uh study's been done that the study of Heather Cliff has been done it okay with you this is this is the okay with you cool phase phase one microphone please

this is the plan we've got phase one at three basically three weeks uh client meeting number one. Then there's a client meeting number two at about 5 and 1/2 weeks. Certainly in the first first three weeks, you'll have an idea of what the property can accommodate and you'll know for sure of the second meeting and we will not be that far into this contract at that point. Right. Okay. So, we have a motion and a second. All in favor? I I Oh, I just want to make sure for clarity though, you do you want the ad hoc to return back to the body in the three weeks?

Well, I my understanding of what I'm hearing is they want us to look at it. Okay. So, clarification. Do if we feel that it's still going well and everything else, we continue on. Yes. Okay. And no no reason to come back and check in. Are we good with that? because I I want to make sure maybe we should just check in because everybody's passionate about it. Give us a two minute check in. I mean at a council meeting I would like to do that just to make sure we're on the we don't get too far down the rabbit hole and people are like well why' you do that? I would like that. We got three got three months worth of I think that was the motion to approve it and then have the ad hoc report back after the initial analysis of the Heathercliffe property has been conducted.

Okay. I'm just looking at the calendar in this timeline. So, we've got the first meeting in December, then we're not going to have a meeting till January. So, that's going to be outside the the time parameters that you're talking about. So, well, there are they working during those holidays? Well, that's something we're going to have to figure out. So, there might be this might be longer than 12 weeks based upon the holidays and everything else. So, Okay. Okay. Perfect. So, Bruce, are you opposing or are you I'm opposed. Okay. Well, good. Yeah. Okay. I'd like to make a motion that we reorder items 7 C and 8A. Um, well, I mean, the same staff's going to be here for both. So, does it

really matter? It matters if the council possibly won't vote to go on past 8:30. So, I I'm 10:30. I'm sorry. I'm I'm moving that we reorder the two. Maybe there'll be a second. Maybe through 7C. I don't think 7c is going to take that long. Is there a second by anybody? What's 7C? I'm missing it. It's a policy fee waver. It's a It's a facility waiver policy. Policy. Okay. Um I would second that he wants to put

I want to move a day next and then we'll see what time it is and whether we want to go forward with 7C or not. That's my proposal. I think we'll second that. Okay. All in favor? I I was opposed. I'm opposed. I'm opposed. It's okay to be opposed. Steve, where are you? You know, I'd like to do seven. I You know, look, it's okay. 7 C should be relatively easy. Okay. And let's get one done and then because I think the last one was going to take some time. I would agree. Okay. So, 32. Do we need motion failed? Motion failed. So you're continuing with the agendas approved to 7C.

Do we need a staff report? Is there any public comment? I have questions about this. Do you want staff? Do we have any public comment? No more speaker. I have one hand raised on Zoom. Okay, you keep that one hand raised on Zoom. No more speaker slips in person. Do we want a staff report? Make it fast. Okay. I do have a presentation. Um, but if you want me to do you want me to go through the presentation or you just want me to breeze through the highlights? Highlights, please.

Okay. All right. So, um, tonight we are asking council to review this draft policy number 53 and provide feedback to staff. Um the policy is in reference to the facility fee waiver policy. Um so I'm not coming to you every meeting uh requesting uh fee waivers. So um based on tonight um and council's feedback, we'll bring back this policy for final approval from you. So in 2018 we did have guidelines and um that allowed the city manager to approve fee waivers and the frequency of free fee waivers was coming quite rapidly and the uh comfort level that management had approving these uh was was a little uncomfortable. So therefore we are bringing we decided to bring all these fee waiverss in front of council. That's why you see them uh frequently. So this policy will streamline that process and we will move to a quarterly system uh where people can um provide information related to their request and it requires um some eligibility uh application process. Um people must meet a fee waiver criteria criteria and acknowledge the city of Malibu. And then as I mentioned before, there will be a schedule quarterly. So that is my condensed version of uh my staff update regarding this. Happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Um can we have our question? You have a clarifying question. It's a clarifying question. Perfect. Uh Kristen, what's what's the relationship between the fee waiver guidelines for facility use permits and event permits that takes up three pages of this report and the proposed policy that is the balance of the report? So the guidelines were um from 2018. So the guidelines will be dismissed um and so we'll have a policy in place to follow. So guidelines were just a reference point to what the city did practice and kind of throughout the window because the fee waiverss were increasing in amount.

Okay. So so that you are what you what the staff's proposing is that we disregard everything in here that precedes the pol the proposed policy. Correct. And just adopt the policy itself. Okay. Correct. That makes even more complicated for me because I thought we were doing both. Okay. Thank you. That's the clarifying question I had. Okay. Our online speaker and

what no if you're in the Okay, perfect. Okay, speaker's not eligible. So, uh public comments closed. So, we're back up. um who wants to write uh in-depth questions.

So the pol the the guidelines that are in place today and the proposed policy differ in a couple material respects. One of which is the guidelines do have the potential for a fee waiver for a um private community benefit. And this is excluded. There were there were there were good restraints on that. So that it made it was a private matter that nonetheless benefited Malibu. Why is that being proposed to be taken out with respect to the policy?

Um in my memory I cannot recall a private community benefits that this council has approved. Um, the new policy just includes nonprofit governmental agencies and then city co-sponsored events. The council does want to bring that back in. Uh, happy to add it. Okay. um on ineligibility on the second page. Um one of the toward I guess a little past halfway down programs or events that provide no community benefit. I think that's a little too narrow. I would say little or no. Um the reason being that um someone can get around that one by providing some kind of minuscule community benefit and saying it's not one that provides no community benefit. Um, same thing with one of these says pro the third second bullet point pro ineligible programs primarily of a fundraising or charitable nature unless the funds directly benefit the city of Malibu. I don't know what that means.

Um, this just we just wanted to make sure that um there is a public benefit. So maybe instead of city of Malibu, unless there's a public benefit, that would be fine with me. I don't know about others, but that would be fine with me.

Um I thought there were some good things in the guidelines that don't seem to be in here. So that's why I thought we were doing both. Um the other thing is on the last page, application renewal and approval, I have a question mark for item number two. Um, oh yeah, the council will have to approve these each quarter. See, I like the guidelines had that the city manager would have approval so long as these guidelines were satisfied, whereas the policy requires this to constantly come to the city council. I thought it was a great concept that we're taking it off the city council's plate if these are relatively minor and hit these touch all these bases. So, I don't know what others think, but I I I don't see the need for like the Christmas tree lot. We approve it year after year. It's the kind of thing that in my view the city manager ought to be able to approve. We It's a wellestablished concept. It meets it touches all the bases.

Same thing with the art walk and there's probably three or four others that come here over and over again and they ought to be something that by now they're sufficiently well entrenched that the city manager ought to be able to approve them. So, I don't think this should always have to come up to city council. I think it takes up too much of our time and the public's time. Do we want to put a um I I like what you're proposing. I think that's great. I'm just also thinking about having some parameters um for a city manager. You know, if it's a new group that's starting that they don't have an established history. Um if the expense to the city is going to be over a certain threshold. Um, like the tree lot's a very expensive fee waiver, but it's a multi- I mean multi-week event and I think that's what causes it to be such an expensive event or some of the other ones. So, just putting the question out there and looking for

why don't we just say look, if it's an event that's taking place in the past, the city manager can approve it. We don't need you to see it. If it's something new, bring it back. We'll take a look. If we approve it, it can it can then go on the list for the city manager in future if it's occurred in the past. and and gotten a waiver. Yeah. I mean, you know, then we can put it on the list for an automatic approval the next year. So, a one-off event or something newly established. We take a look at it. The stuff that's been going on that the city manager sign off on. So, you might I like the idea of putting a financial limit on it unless it's a annual event that's been approved in the past by the city city council. So, that would not make the tree lot have to come back,

right? But it would make any new thing that exceeds a certain threshold. What would the threshold be? Christian, you have a suggestion based upon um average fees. Yeah. Something like the chili cook off, right? Multi-day um is approximately a little bit under $100,000 to of waved fees versus, you know, Veterans Day that's about 5,500. So, [clears throat] is the cookoff nonprofit? I guess. Why don't we Let me suggest this 10,000 unless it's a recurring event that has been approved for a waiver, in which case it'll still have to come back if it's over 50,000. That work again.

Yeah. 10. The city manager would have the would have the sign off ability for up to $10,000 for any project. For for any project. Okay. No, no, no. I'm sorry. up to $10,000 so long as it has been previously approved for a waiver by the city council, but not but not if it exceeds 50,000. I think we're microman. I'm saying that wrong. I I said it better the first time and I don't I said it better. Was it Was it 10,000 for any waiver as long as it meets the criteria? Any waiver. Any waiver that meets the criteria and up to 50,000 for one that's previously been approved for a waiver? Well, the Christmas tree lot's 55,000. So yeah, I think we want to do is if it's been a pri it's been a previously approved

want to specifically just identify that

cuz I I can see a potential in the future for the city council not approving the chili cookoff. I there's some there's every year there's more and more people complaining about it. I'm not saying that we're anywhere near there yet, but I can see where that could happen. But I can't imagine that we're not going to continue to approve the Christmas tree lot. So could we just identify a specific one that's eligible for a waiver over and over by the city? the art they just had the arts association for instance they just had their art of Palooa in Malibu Lake and I don't want to blame anybody but I asked why not in Malibu you're the Malibu Art Association and they just said it was just too hard to get you know a permit and they just I think if this helps stuff like that I would totally be in favor without nitpicking too much um because I do think we lose some community events to just I we we wave the fees but then we also have a ownorous and cumbersome process which I would love to look into how to streamline those processes as wellconomic. I think can we so we can get a consensus on city manager will have authority for up to $10,000 waiverss unless it was a prior event in which case the limit is 50 and we can also expressly identify the the um Christmas tree

lot event as an example I just wanted to feedback from Kristen does that is that going to cover I mean I think it needs to be better 50,000 if it's a new event, but if it's a reoccurring no 10,000 up to 10,000 for a new event, up to 50,000 for a recurring event. And if the Christmas tree lot goes above over it goes a little over 50, we should actually specifically identify it. How much does the um the event tomorrow? What's the waiver for that? Um it's approximately 5,500. Yeah. So 10,000 would cover that. Yes.

How how many traditionally ones that we do come up above 10,000? um you will have little league uh fields that's probably in the $30,000 range and same way ao so it's not over 50 correct I like the not micromanaging thing and empowering the city manager and um if it's been done before we're mo like don't bring it to council because we're going to most likely just wave it if it's a new thing I think we could help we should be involved in that if it's a new big The only one I I I mean maybe I'll be in the minority, but I don't want to give a blanket forever on the chili

chili cookoff. Why don't you do an amendment or whatever it's called for just the chili cook off because it's a huge event. Well, but I think his dollar amount is doing that. Okay. But I would say let's let's raise it to 60,000. Keep it keep it at 50. Let's try it. If it if it burps, we can Well, it sounds like the chili cookoff's always 100,000 plus. It's it's about 90 80 to 90. So if we go 75, we we definitely cover the the tree lot and everything else that's ever been waved and we and we carve out the chili cook off a lot of the chili cook off. All right. 75,000 10 up to 10,000 for any event that touches these bases and up to 75 if it's already been previously waved by the city council. That's my suggestion.

Sounds like a auction, but I'll go for it. Okay. So that's a motion and a second. Yeah. Can I ask a clarifying question? Yes, ma'am. So get we want to eliminate the quarterly. Yes. Okay. Yeah. You can you can you can report it but it's not for an approval. It's just piece of paper. Receive and file. Okay. Okay. Are we clear? Yeah. I'm excited. All in favor? I. So this is to be brought this to be brought back on consent and is it final form is the direction? Yes. Okay. Okay. Do we have a motion to hear item AA? I'll move to hear AA. Me too. Okay. All in favor? I. Any opposed?

Okay. Who's giving us a day? Richard.

Hello. For the final time this evening, [sighs] we do not have a presentation for this item. But I am here to present a brief introduction to this request that we received. As is the practice here in Malibu, we have prepared a very brief staff report that um addresses the request that we received um to consider the dedication of the full multi-purpose room of city hall as a senior center. And we received this request from a a joint submission from Mayor Prom Silverstein and Council Member Conrad. And from there, we'll hand it off to our esteemed council members to further address and explain their request.

Do you want to go for it? You rock paper scissors.

No, [laughter] just go for it. Prom, you're coming. Thank you. Uh well, look, as as we said in this report that we actually prepared the text of, um during the campaign season, both Halen and I separately um committed to the seniors that we were going to make this proposal if we were if I was reelected and if Halen was elected, actually if either occurred. And the proposal was um that they would get back the use of the multi-purpose room, which they used to have. In fact, they used to have more than that. Um there are many seniors and the senior population in Malibu is growing. They have a use for and a need for a community center. Um as it is, they don't have enough events that they are able to have. And um we'd like to see them have the space to do it and not be pushed out by staff events and other things. So um we're honoring our commitment to them by making this proposal. We had, you know, we would have made this the very first real meeting of the year, which would have been the first meeting of January, but we we all know we were all sidetracked by something. And now we're trying to get our feet back under us and move forward with normal city matters. And this is a normal city matter that we had hoped to do. We actually had also hoped to further propose that we create an ad hoc to study converting this room back into a community theater. Um, and maybe even reorganize other parts of city hall to make it more communityfriendly as opposed to simply businessfriendly. Um, but we are not overburdening the staff by making that proposal at this time. We hope to be able to bring that back to bring that forward sometime in the next year, but for now we're limiting our proposal to the community center. Um, we've received maybe six or seven public comments on this proposal. Every single one of them has been by someone who identifies as a member of the senior community who uses the senior room that

they currently have or the half room that they currently have and every one of them supports this proposal. We've not seen a single dissenting comment. I I've not received any privately as well as not seen any publicly. And um and I'll add Go ahead.

I frequent the senior center uh Mondays and Fridays and I think it's great to have the multi-purpose room for staff, but a lot of sometimes it's not being used and it's and the seniors are still being kind of asked to leave prematurely when they don't really want to leave. Today, for instance, they really didn't want to leave knitting, but they had to for chair yoga. But really honestly they could people could use this room because during the day I came over and it was dark and of course I don't want we don't want to overburden staff and we want to work together on this and I would love to agendaize or talk about a beautiful new city hall that where you guys could have your own you know um place and facility with a dog park or child care or whatever it is that's modern but right now we have to share the space with the seniors which was it was originally intended for as I did more research and it is a bit heartbreaking when all they need is that second room and I do know like voting takes place in there and you were generous enough to put the hours but there are other facilities in the city like other rooms like this one being open and available for say voting or um a welcoming party to whomever or a staff meeting I think it's a very generous room but for the seniors I think it would be they have you have the collapsible wall and it's a perfect divide Today they were asked to go outside but it was too cold. So I would very much um appreciate support for this because I've just seen it now too many times where they're like they get an hour or an hour and a half of programming and then they have to kind of rearrange everything. I think the solution is just the two rooms dedicated for them and we use this room more often. Yeah. The other thing I'll add is first of all, there's another part of this which is that they also be permitted to have food and beverages because I've been told by them that they're not allowed to. I know that when the staff is in there, we have food. Uh

when we have cake, we have Well, I'd like to make it institutionalized that that they're permitted to do that. And [snorts] um you know, the things we do recognize, I recognize that the staff does use that room from time to time. Um but necessity is the mother of invention. I mean, it's easy to use a room when you know have the right to just go use it, but there's also other rooms in city hall that could be used if that room's off limits. So, I don't think that this is going to be depriving the staff of the ability to have meetings or other matters within city hall. They just won't be able to just grab onto that room to do it. They'll have to go somewhere else in the building.

Yes. Um, and again, if I can go further, I would love the city to see a brand new se uh city hall. That's when we can do the international outreach and things like that. That being said, this building, its intended use originally was, I believe, a community center, movie, a theater, church, well, that was a church and then the second iteration might have been a community center, but I it was whatever, I'll pay the bills,

right? Um, and so it would be really really nice to keep staff here while we're building a new city hall. Of course, that's a very ambitious thought with everything else going on, but then moving the staff into a a separate building so that there's not you guys don't need to coexist or co-ingle. This stays a movie theater and it goes back to its intended use. Um, so I see that you have the hours here and I can go through it if you need any. You know, we have special counsel meetings in here. Certs, I think after hours, so that doesn't matter about that second room. So during operation hours, you have staff and community meetings. I feel like this is a very nice meeting room. Um, staff training, operating hours 16. you got a total of that could be in this room.

So everything that occurs non senior you're proposing all those activities take place in this room. No, we're proposing that they take place wherever the city manager and city staff decide they should take place, but they're not allowed to take place in the community in the senior center. Correct. Okay. Well, they don't take place in the senior center. They take place in the multi-purpose room. What will be designated if this passes the senior center? Okay. So, that only leaves this room. No, we have we have the ANF meeting in a room upstairs. I don't know what it's called, but it the surf rider room. Yeah, there's there's there's other room. That's room for like 15 people.

15 people. And and be able to uh assemble them in so you can have a have a commission meeting. Is it are this would be a great commission meeting room. Commission meetings can come can be in here. Well, could we get Ann's comment before we deliver? Ann, do we have anyone online? Still at one. No, there's no raised hands. Okay, perfect.

I raised my hand. So, so it's [clears throat] Ann Kamaroski. So, listen, uh, real quick. It sounds like you want, it's like dja vu for me. You want to build a new city hall. It's first I've heard of it. Yeah. So, campaign promises are made. Okay. So, you know, we're still trying to recover from the fire. So, some things aren't have to be put on hold until possibly you can build a new city hall that includes a senior center. So, it's kind of like me saying like no new taxes. I see. And then in four years they get to say if I get to stay or go. So same thing there. But I promise to cut taxes. That's the way it works on that campaign. Promise. But in terms of your city hall plan, your senior center, there's no problem with you made attempt at you intend to do that. It's just not the right time because we're in a an emergency still under the fires. We're still under emergency orders. you guys issued a resolution to that. So, there's no need to worry about building a senior center because the city staff is maxed out the way it is. And if there indeed is a a need for a new city hall at that time, a senior center should be considered. Also, let's not forget the NPR room is often used at the exact same times this room is used as well. There's meetings that have to go between Halen, right? you have to go between this room and the NPR room because the city's having meetings in both at the same time. Not only that, that NPR room is also the EOC, emergency operations center. We keep forgetting that we keep having incidents in this town, fires, threats of water, you know, flooding and

stuff. We have to keep an EOC. So, there has to be a balance. Um, and I don't know what it is. It's first I've heard about building a new city hall, but it's feels to me like I've done this before and they ended up staying where they're at. So, but this time around, this is Malibu. Anything could happen. So, just don't worry about your campaign promises. They will happen. The seniors will get their place. We'll all get our place cuz I'm a senior, too. So, a balance. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, does that close public comment?

Yes. All right. So, um this has nothing to do with building a new city hall. That's those are those are just comments about something that's a that's a wish list like 20 years from now. Um and it's it's not about simply we promised it so we're doing it because we wouldn't have promised it if we didn't think it made sense in the first place. I don't I don't I don't offer things just for political gain. I offer things that make sense and that's why I promised it that so that was just to lead off to that. Yeah.

Um and there's never going to be a right time if it's not done at some time because there's always going to be something else in the way. What I did anticipate we would we would have a discussion [snorts] of up here tonight and I'm still prepared to have it is what kinds of carveouts might there be and Ann's comment about the EOC is absolutely well taken. um never was intended that this that if there were an emergency that that wouldn't take precedence over this. Seniors are not knitting in an emergency,

but this was this was this is so you know if the city council would feel more comfortable expressly articulating that as an exception that's fine. I think H and I may disagree on this one. I thought the voting is another possible exception because we have the voting there. I think the voting could occur elsewhere. It could probably occur at the um community college. It could probably occur at the Landon Center. There are probably many other places the voting could occur, but I get that people want to have the voting at city hall. Uh, but as far as just willy-nilly, we want to have a meeting today, it seems to me that our seniors are sufficiently important that if you want to have a meeting, you should have the meeting somewhere else. And this would institutionalize the requirement that they not be displaced. So, those are my comments.

That's it. Yeah. I mean, definitely not trying to build anything tomorrow. What we can do is control what we can today. And I know for a fact that the seniors of all of the group of all Zumba, chair yoga, they would like both rooms. And I think that we can accommodate that. Um this is nothing to do about campaign promises or political baloney. This is actually what's right in my opinion to treat seniors with the respect that they deserve. and um giving them a place that they can call they can feel safe in and that they can hang out in and not feel like they're getting tossed out.

Okay. Um [clears throat] and the EOC can operate. Well, no. I I think what my question is are we are we trying to what is the problem we're trying to solve that the seniors need a place to meet when their program is over they need more room they just need more room I know they need more room they can only have one program at a time in the half a room that they have or quarter of a room that they have and they could have multiple programs if they had more space and sometimes they sometimes I understand they get kicked out even of the small room the small room well we were Not. I don't know. What's the small room? Be specific. Is that the multi? It's the same the other half of the the other part of the room when it's closed off. Yes. They're

When do they ever get closed kicked out of the senior center? This morning for chair yoga. That's their program. That's their program, right? But if they did it in the other room, the other program can go simultaneously. Okay. But what was going on in the other room when chair yoga was going on? Knitting. They didn't want to end the knitting and they had to because chair yoga chair yoga doesn't want to end and that impacts on there's two rooms they can go simultaneously they don't have to leave so abruptly.

Yeah. No what I'm yeah clearly the point is they could have multiple events at the same time which is you know which I think the seniors deserve the ability to do. Um I had been under the impression and perhaps I was wrong that from time to time they've even that the entire multi-purpose room has been used by the city for other purposes not EI not EOC and not voting but for other purposes as well. It's been expanded and at those times seniors don't even have the half of the room. So, one, this preserves their ability to always have at least half the room, and it actually gives them the ability to haul up the whole rooms. They can close the divider and have two events at the same time, which they have a need for and desire for. And it gives them the ability to use the whole room for things if they want to use the whole room for a larger event. So, that's the purpose for it.

So, I just want to make myself clear. I'm all for expanding senior programming 100%. I know how important it is. I don't want anybody to take my questioning that I don't think that they deserve every moment of time. But with that reality, we have limited facilities right now. Hence why the Heathercliffe lot and other lots are so important that we actually start looking to um create those spaces on this land that we've finally been able to acquire. Um and I also believe in the community services department. So perhaps they need to be looking at their scheduling of times and events and maybe there is a way to better utilize both spaces because I think that the multi-purpose room is named a multi-purpose room because it is for multiple different purposes. So my question is, is this a scheduling thing that we need to take a new look at or because the fact is we just have to and I agree. If we could get the Zuma room back to them, if we could somehow move that um that part of the staff that has taken over the Zuma room and find incorporating space in there someplace else so we can get that room back for them or use that for um other things. then I think that's something to explore. Um but I think this is something that that needs a little bit more time to work the quirks out um in order to find a solution.

What is in the Zoomer room? It's the geology from the Walsy fire that was that room was taken over after Walsie fire for additional staff. So the staff's in doing geology. Yeah. Well, fire rebuild stuff really. And there's no room in fire rebuild center. We're No, I don't think so.

Well, let's let me put my two cents in this. I appreciate you guys brought this forward. Um, but I think you're trying to solve the wrong problem. And there and I'm like Maryanne. First off, I'm a senior too. And yeah, one of these days I'll be be using that to do chair yoga. I guess I'm not sure. But the the problem is two parts. One is uh we don't have enough space in this building.

I mean, you go up to the uh city manager's office. I mean, they're they're cutting up rooms now to get everybody in. And we're talking about adding more people. For instance, if we start doing what the consultants are doing and we bring that in house, where are they going to sit? Office space in this building is tight. And part of the reason why it's tight is because we have open spaces like this. This is a I looked up this is a 37,000 square foot office building. This used to be a sound studio, church, whatever you whatever it might have been. Building is 25 years old. And we're trying to cram uh all our staff in here and have open spaces for meetings that don't have anything to do with the staff. And the uh senior room or uh the multi-purpose room in the senior center, I just went down and measured it. um took my tape and it's about 1,250 square ft on each one of those two rooms. Now the problem we have is not shortage of space. It probably sounds like it's a scheduling issue as Maryanne said and I am disappointed that instead of having this being addressed by the city manager staff, we're taking it on as a city council to bring it forward. I mean, this should rest with the staff to figure out how to make this work because the only times I've ever seen both rooms being used is for the election potentially EOC and whenever the staff has a ice cream social or a staff lunch. Most of the time I've seen it taken over, it's been the entire senior group, whether it's the Christmas party or the belly dancing or whatever night or whatever they've had in there. So, it's really a question of just like a hotel scheduling a ballroom for whoever's got to use it. Some of these things are best fit in the monthly purpose room, the commission meetings,

for example. Uh, you know, you talk about it being in here. Well, this is too big and you can't put it in one of the conference rooms and the conference rooms are all in use, by the way, too. You look around, it's quite often everybody's in the conference rooms. So, we have a shortage of space. It probably needs to be scheduled better. And I think that's where the city manager needs to do it. So, before we come in and say we're going to rope off a room because the campaign promises were made, I think we need to understand how to best utilize what we got. If this was go back to corporate world and if I were to walk into the board of directors and say we need to we need to buy we need to buy another building or get more office space. Go, wait a minute. Are you sure you're using all the space you got now? So, if we had better scheduling for the open room, I don't think you'd have much of a problem. And just what you mentioned today about knitting, chair yoga, and whatever else it was. Yeah, they were d This is the dance floor in here. We already do that. That's what all the mirrors I thought were for. So, let's figure out how to do better scheduling. And I think this needs to rest with the city manager and staff. And if they still have a problem, if they can't get it worked out, then we need to bring it back to council. But the seniors definitely need to have the space that they need. But I don't think it's appropriate for us to rope off an area and say, "You can't do it. Use it for anything else." I mean, I won't vote for this until I get some response back from city staff saying, "What can [clears throat] we do?" I mean, I, you know, I don't know who I'm kicking out, who I'm not kicking out. And I don't I'm as I sit here right now I can't tell you the best way to do that. All right. I mean I don't know if there's other rooms a look and I we're out of space. That's you know that's the world we live in. Uh you know maybe we ought to go out and take a look at is there you know can we move the senior

center over to the to the college? I don't know. I mean are there other opportunities to do that to give them the room they need? So because we do have to do city business. I mean, you know, that's got to go on. And if we're if we start cutting out of the the opportunities for for us to get that done here, we got another problem. So, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to solve one problem and create another one someplace else. So, I just don't I don't have enough information. If we do this, what would be the impact on all the other stuff they have to do in that room? Is there other places we could do it? Where are those other places? Do they really work? I can't answer any of those questions right now.

Okay. So, I it's it sounds like we're probably going to have a 3-2 vote. I guess we'll find out specifically when we have one, but I'll say um I don't think there's such a thing as this room is too big for a for a commission meeting or or or any kind of meeting. We we have we've had ANF meetings in here where we've set up tables on the floor. I think we've had we've had workshops in here. There are other meetings that are in here. We have meetings that are in the Zoom, whatever the room is that's called upstairs when it's a smaller group. As I said, necessity is the mother of invention. um the argument that we should just leave this to the city manager and the city's staff to work out, it hasn't happened. That's that's exactly why we came forward with this proposal because the seniors have complained to us that they are constantly being relegated to whatever space the staff decides they can have as opposed to having a space which the staff would have to come to them and seek permission to take from them if there were an important reason for it. Um, if it if there's space elsewhere in the city that the seniors could have a senior center, great. We wouldn't be making this proposal and there is nothing to foreclose us from getting other space for them if it turns out that this giving them this space is too much for the staff. But I think the seniors deserve the space. I think that the staff will work around it and find places. you know it's it's like I forget the saying about um a vacuum gets filled but you know if if we have this dedicated to them I am confident that all the other matters I think even the EOC could be elsewhere but the EOC would be an exception but all the other matters will find space to be had maybe there are things that don't even need to occur that that spa space has been taken for I'm in favor of this again it's it's not simply because I committed to it. That was an a preamble to why we did it in the first place. Um,

yeah, I'll move that I'll move that we approve this. I'll second that.

And, you know, if if the other three want to vote no, then it won't happen. Well, I I don't like the premise that it's a yes or no binary choice on this because I think that um we can all agree that providing things for our residents are the paramount reason that we have a city hall period or have a city government period. I think we need some additional information. I would rather allow um the community services department and the city manager's office an opportunity to maybe come up with some suggestions on how to facilitate um the programming and the um need for shoulder time on some of the activities in the in the senior programming. And you know, when the the multi-purpose room is empty and doesn't have something on the calendar or to make sure that there's time scheduled on the calendar for a spillover thing for when the knitts aren't ready to be finished with um I'm, you know, I'm sensing it's more social than it is actual knitting programming. um that there's a social area available for them provided that there's not some other um need for that room and to be as um cognizant and aware um to try and provide as much programming as possible. So that would be my suggestion that we just we allow staff to do a little bit of research, bring this back, give us offer some suggestions or come up with some own solutions. I think they've heard from us. We all feel that this is important that we do find a solution for this. But the reality is is that they're the

experts of the building. They're are the experts of the programming that goes on in here and allow them some time to actually come up with um proposed solutions. I agree with Maryanne on this. Uh look, if you guys want to make this a vote, a binary vote, then we'll put a secondary motion in to postpone this decision for six months or however long, four months to let the staff see what they could do. But honestly, the best thing to do is you've made your you made your uh story here. It's a compelling argument for trying to do something better for the senior operation, but we've got constraints. let the s let the staff take care of it and not have the city uh council try and micromanage it.

You if it fails that the city staff can't make it work, then we should talk about it. And honestly, if you want if if we feel this strongly about it is it's 2500 square feet. If we go out and rent office space and there's a lot of vacant space here in town, $2 a square foot uh gets you that. So for $50,000, pardon me, uh, get my numbers right, for $5,000 a month, you could rent space somewhere else. So you'd have 50 or $60,000 spent for a senior center somewhere. But this gives this affords the opportunity for everybody to be together. You've got a kitchen area there for the meals. You've got dedicated office space, computers, and support staff here. So it's better to have it parked in here. and let's see if the city staff can't make it work. I equate this to a hotel ballroom.

So, you're saying, Doug, that you'd be open to renting a senior center somewhere else? Hey, look, this is the only micro microphone microphone. That's the only solution we have. That's like saying we got to get a new city get a new uh city hall. Look, right now it's just problem solving. It's a problem and you know, we're here to solve it. Yeah. would lumber yard has been in be open for a senior centered. We can't use it for a city function. It's dee restricted unfortunately. Okay. Look, it the motion has been made and seconded. If you want to put a substitute motion in to defer a decision until some time that you want to specify, that's your business.

But I'm sticking with the motion. I'll put forward a substitute motion to allow staff um 90 days to come forward with um possible programming solutions um that can be done. You know, I'm closer to the senior center than anybody up here. Hey, my mom's name's on the wall. So, let's

No, I'm just saying, you know, uh and I look, I I agree. I don't think I'm not smart enough right now to make a decision one way or another. That's my problem. If I knew what the options were and how they might play out, I I'd feel much better. is to just close down one thing without really understanding how it's going to impact everybody else. I just don't think that's the right way to make a decision. So, I'm saying I agree with Maryanne. Let it go out. Give us 60 days, 90 days, whatever it is. Let somebody think about it. See if there is another option and let's see where that takes us. I mean, you know, this is like Doug's there's a lot of empty space in the city. All right? So, it may be something we get a hold of. Who knows, but but let's make sure we know what the heck we're doing versus just doing something. What's the Robert's rules protocol? How's that work?

Yeah. So, to confirm, we have a we have a a substitute motion and the second to direct staff to return with a report within 90 days um analyzing the options for expanding the um senior programming or the senior use of the facilities. I believe that's the motion. So, the first that one doesn't have a second currently. That motion I thought because we're Steve did. I thought Council Member Yearing seconded that. Okay. So, yeah. So, the motion. So, the first is a vote on whether to substitute the substitute motion for the motion on the floor. Uh,

so if you want to call the the the the for the vote on that. So, we're it's like the at the county committee for the the school district. So, I want to make sure we do it right. Yes. I know what to do. So we just vote on whether we're substituting the motion first and then if the motion is voted to substitute, we will vote a second time on the motion itself. This is just whether to substitute the motion made by the mayor for the motion that was made by the mayor program unless the first motion wants to be withdrawn. No. Okay. So all in favor to substitute the second motion for the first motion say I. I. I. All in opposed. Opposed. Opposed. Okay. Okay. Did council member Stewart vote in favor? I was in favor.

Okay. So, now the the motion on the floor is the mayor's motion to bring back have staff bring back a report in 90 days um detailing options for expanding um senior use and and programming at city hall. Is that correct?

Yes. So, by way of discussion for the new motion, um it's it half a loaf is better than no loaf, but I still I think it's a copout. I think it's a facious argument for everyone up here to be saying, "I'm a senior, so this affects me when they don't ever use the senior center." Um, there are many seniors in town that will that never use the senior center and never will use the senior center and they're not relevant to the question of whether you should or shouldn't have a dedicated senior center for the other seniors that do want one. So to say I'm a senior and I don't support this is a it's facious. I didn't say that. We didn't say that. Maybe we didn't say it.

Good, good, good to be clear. So, so the fact that we're that the people up here are seniors is an irrelevant fact. Um, so I still think that we shouldn't be deferring this. The staff can always come up with another idea within 90 days, then bring it back here and say now there's no need to continue to have this as a dedicated senior center. We have another idea. Although I have to say it's been this long already, so another 90 days is not huge. But if I'm 92 years old, which some of the seniors that use it are, maybe 90 days is significant to me. Oh, come on. We're not Okay. So, um, the motion on the floor is to have staff look at this and bring it back in 90 days. Yes. All in favor? I I. Those opposed? Me? No.

Okay. Are we done? I think it's all Trevor. Right. Okay. Motion. Um, so I just want to make sure that we all acknowledge that yes, it has been seven years since the Woosey fire. It's also been seven years since the borderline shooting and we need to remember our neighbors in Thousand Oaks on the the tragedy that they um had and the loss of their um officer. So um adjourn the meeting in memory once again of Pulsey Fire and Borderline shooting. Cool. Thanks guys.