City Council - Regular Meeting

You already started it, right? Turn the microphones on it'll be

All right. So, we'll call this meeting to order and ask our deputy city clerk to call the role. If I may just uh real quick. Um, so this meeting is being conducted pursuant to government code 54953.8 and we have council member McAdams appearing by uh Zoom uh pursuant to the just cause provisions of section 549 sorry 54593.8.3 8.3. Uh, Council Member McAdams. All right. Thank you for that update and we'll go for the roll call. Council member McCarthy here. Council member McAdams here.

Council member Biala. Mayor Pretend Fischer here. Mayor Delgado here. And welcome Jenny. We wish you well. Everything you're doing. Uh, seeing no one here for close session, public comment, are we changing anything on the agenda for close session? Yeah, council member McAdams just has a brief statement. Okay, Jenny. Thank you. Go ahead, Jenny. Go ahead, Councilman McAdams. Thank you. If you have any comments, we're ready to hear them.

Jenny, did you have comments you wanted to make at this time? No. No, I don't. Sorry, I thought you were waiting for me to say something. Okay. Sorry. Uh just to clarify, yes, council member McAdams is appearing pursuant to the just cause provision. So 549 593 8.3 uh for medical condition. So she's unable to appear in person. All right. Thank you for joining us, Councilman McAdams. So we'll go to close session now and come back here at 6:30 approximately. And uh Council McDems, will she be with us in close session? See you in close session. Council Mayor Adams. Okay. Thank you. The hoarding stopped.

It is 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 7th, recording in progress. It is 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 7th, 2026. So, we will resume our Marina City Council meeting with our open session. We've come from close session and I'll turn it over to Renee Ortega, our city attorney, to summarize our close session. Thank you, Renee. Yes, thank you, mayor. Um, so council provided direction but took no reportable action. And I just want to remind folks that uh this meeting is being conducted pursuant to government code 54953.8. Uh, and council member McAdams is participating via Zoom.

Thank you, Renee. So let's move to um moment of silence and pledge of allegiance. Paul, after a moment of silence, can you lead us in the pledge of allegiance? So let's stand for a moment of silence and then we'll have the pledge of allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Paul, for being a good sport. We move to council and staff announcements. Starting with staff. I don't think we have any. All right. Next, uh, Council Member McAdams, did you have anything for us today? All right. Uh, council members present, did you have anything? C, Mayor Prom Fischer.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. May. I'll do it by heart because I cannot find it. Uh this coming Saturday uh donations can be dropped off at all the marina schools except for uh Olson school. This is for the bridge community services. So there's a flyer going around on social media and it will tell you uh which donations like clothes, uh shoes, uh household goods, anything in good condition of course. and it can be dropped off of any of the schools except for Olsen this coming Saturday from 9 till 1ish. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. I'll remind everyone something we've mentioned before. April 18th is a big day for Marina. It's our 20th annual Marina Earth Day. Starts at 10:00 a.m. at the Loch Paden Park um outside the Marina Library. And it'll be a great festival. We start out with 2 hours of service uh doing volunteer service and there's about six projects you can choose from when you register at 10:00 a.m. And then from 10:00 to 12:00 there'll be service projects ongoing. At noon we'll stop with the service, begin the festival. There'll be a burrito free lunch for all volunteers. And usually we have enough food for everybody, but it's promised to the volunteers first. and there'll be a band and lots of children activities and fun for everybody. Uh that's uh Saturday, April 18th from 10:00 a.m. to 2 p.m. All right. So, now we're going to move on to uh public comment. We'll start with those that are in the room. This is for anything that's on your mind that's not on our agenda later tonight or anything on our consent calendar. We have several items on our consent agenda. So, please rise and come to the podium if you'd like to speak now for public comment.

Mr. Mayor. Yes. Can I make a quick point of order? Have there been any changes to the agenda which might inform whether people want to speak? I'll turn that over to city manager Lane Long because I wasn't aware. Sorry, mayor. Um, uh, agenda item 13C, which was a presentation by the police department on updating the council on the fireworks impacts for last year. They, uh, presentation is not ready, so we're going to continue that to the April 21st meeting. 13C 13C. Okay.

So, we have two action items instead of three action items. And my understanding is because we I'll be recusing myself from the STR ordinance. Um and so there won't be a quorum on the dis and so I'm just wondering to the attorney if that what that means. Uh yes. So my understanding and I just uh spoke with the city manager will be continuing that item to April 21st. So that is item 11 A. No, sorry. Yeah. Mhm.

So if anybody wanted to speak to that item, would they be able to at any point today? And when would that time be? It it would be now because it's off the agenda. Well, we could also do it when we start with the hearing and say we've pulled something from the agenda, but if anyone would like to speak to that and it's been pulled, you can still talk tonight on it, but we won't be discussing it any further than your public comment. But if you prefer city attorney to do that now, then I have no objection to that. Yeah, I think it would be probably more appropriate to do it now.

So, the the problem that might be is if somebody was saying, "Okay, I'm going to check in the to the meeting an hour from now because they're not going to get it to it, you know, at the beginning." They check in in an hour, we've already done it. There's a potential for someone to be upset. They'd have a further opportunity on April 21st to provide public comment at that.

Okay. Is the council okay with that to fold that into public comment? So, we're in public comment now. And if you'd like to speak to the item that we just designated as being bold, item 11A, we were going to have a public hearing to hear people's thoughts on short-term rentals and the adoption of an ordinance uh regarding the short-term rentals. This would be your chance to talk tonight now, and then also on the 21st of this month, it will be back on the agenda, and you'll have a chance to talk then. If they speak tonight, they will also be able to speak on the 21st. That is correct.

Okay. All right. So, three reasons to talk tonight. Anything that's on your mind or anything that's on the consent agenda or if you have something to say about the short-term rental ordinance that's been pulled from the agenda. Okay. So, anyone here come on up. Yeah. Um actually come speak about rentals. Um and I have a a longer group of comments that I'd like to give on the day that it's voted on. Um, but I do want to make some clarifications and some thoughts um based on some of the conversation I had uh at the last meeting uh regarding short-term rentals. And one of the things that I I know I noticed um is maybe some some misunderstandings on how other jurisdictions in our area uh govern short-term rentals. City of Marina already has one of the most strict rules on short-term rentals. I I know we've had some comparison where there's no cap in in the city of Marina, but there's no cap on owner occupied homes having short-term rentals, whereas the the caps that we see in other cities um such as 90 in in Seaside, those are homes that are not occupied by the homeowner. So, there not really an apples to apples comparison. So, I just wanted to point out sort of that. I'm not necessarily opposed to having a cap on on short-term rentals in the city, but just I wanted to point out how how strict the ordinance already is. Um the other other point I wanted to make is um as I'm aware there are 35 uh permits in the city at the moment um the the the information that I have from the city and and I'd ask the city to to cl continue to clarify is that only nine of those homes that have permits right now actually have the homeowners exemption from the county. Um, which leads me to

believe that potentially the other 26 may not actually be uh owner occupied. In that the change to the ordinance, simply adding that home homeowner exemption requirement that's currently not in the ordinance will do a lot to alleviate the the issues that have been discussed. Um, and we're not going to having a cap of 50s is if you want to have a cap of 50, it's just unlikely that you're going to get to 50 anywhere near 50 if you have that in that in there because that's actually more strictly enforcing what the intent of the ordinance is anyway because that's not in the current ordinance and that makes that that part of the ordinance more strict. So, so I wanted to point that out. Um, I have some more personal comments that I like to give on on the night of of the vote. Um, but thank you for for listening.

Are you Sean? Yes, I'm Sean. Sorry. That's what you don't give your name. I wanted to know it. So, I just wanted to invite you. I didn't understand everything you said. I don't I don't understand the county connection that you just brought up. So, I'd love to talk to you offline to learn a little bit from from you. Sure. Learn a lot from you. Maybe. Appreciate your time today. Not a problem. All right. Thank you.

Okay. Anyone else in the building that has any comment at this time during our public comment period? If not, come on up. Huh? Uh, I know I have three minutes, so I prepare some notes. Maybe too early to talk about it, but I think I just want to bring up the um the U mayor and city council members to let you know my thought about the new city hall and there have been a lot of saying that we want to save the park. We don't want the city hall at the uh Vince de Maju Park. I think the uh when I look at it, I think there's a propos my proposal is we can have both together in the same park. we could save the path and have the new city hall at the same site. How we could do that? Because um I want to maximize the value of a limited public asset or growing city of Marina. I mean 25,000 uh population right now. I came from a city of Vakavville. Uh it started with 25,000 and it grow to 100,000. I've seen the growing of the city of Aavville. And so when come to the uh new city hall, I think we agree we need to have a new city hall because the city hall is basically is uh uh need to be replaced and also we need to have a modern and accessible city hall and improve the public service delivery and also a stronger city uh identity and gathering places. All right, the this is not a proposal to eliminate the park. I just want to be clear. It's not eliminating the park. I agree with saving the park.

I always believe that we should have enough park in the city. But this proposal is to redesign it into a higher performance civic space. That means to have a park and the city hall together and it can be done. And um the reason I'm saying that because Vince de Maju Park is approximate about 4.8 8 acres of land and according to the U National Recreation and Park Association we should have at least 120,000 visit per year for 4.8 8 acres of land. But right now the event we had other than the Christmas tree lighting I think Lin Long and I have been together on that Christmas tree lightings and birthday event and the culture activity it come to about 20,000 estimate or maybe slightly more but so in other words this park is underutilized and it should be able to u have a full capacity and have potential if we have the city hall together I think we can bring the whole parks life and u the against idea against the idea is maybe the loss of green space we are losing it but we are not and uh if it proper design I think we can maintain functional green space while improving the accessibility and to have a city hall there and also the traffic congestion when you have a city hall the traffic is manageable it's not like you're having a big event all of a sudden all crowded you don't have enough parking in space and and my idea is also to save the part because I think

Excuse me, Paul. Yeah, I don't like to do this, but I had to ask you to stop talking because your three minutes is up. Okay. But we do, thanks to you, have your thoughts in writing that you're summarizing for us, and you're welcome to come back next time and give the rest of what you have to say. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Yeah,

I got so engrossed in Paul's talking I missed uh Anita's dirty looks. All right, anybody else here that would like to speak? Then we'll go online to Denise Turley. Welcome, Denise.

Hi, thank you. Um, I'm I'm wondering how uh the second reading of the prohibitive ordinance on STRS, how how you're not being able to do it on the agenda affects any timeline. And that can be a yes or no answer. I'm I'm uh not into uh not into details. Um, I want to thank uh, Miss Viser for her continued um, conversation back and forth with us and I want to stress that our conversation with her and other council members is simply to let them know what really is going on here. I hear a lot of assumptions and I hear a lot of wrong information. So to clarify that I will say that yesterday afternoon noon I was on phone with a resident while they were waiting for their mail and a 20 foot tree fell almost on the mailbox and of course my response was are you calling the office or am I calling the office? Um so um not that you should be burdened with the daytoday but um would that um is there some kind of overarching tree policy where they go out they see that tree maybe the roots are rotten. Is there a process for the removal of that tree because a third of it is now missing. It's vulnerable and it's near the mailboxes. See where we are. Um

uh um anyway, I will call that it for right now. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Denise. We'll talk uh we'll refer to your questions in just a bit. Let's go to Grace Silva Santella. Welcome, Grace. Hi, mayor and city council. I wanted to take the opportunity to announce a special event that will be coming up on May 30th at the Marina Library. It is a joint event between the Friends of the Marina Library, the Japanese American Citizens League of the Monterey Peninsula and the Monterey County Free Libraries. We'll be showing the documentary Enduring Democracy, the Monterey Pet, the Monterey Petition. That's a 2022 documentary. We'll have a panel discussion and a Q&A session following the film with JACCL National President Larry Oda, historian Tim Thomas, and MPUSD board member and Marina resident Jeff Ucha. The event will be on May 30th at 100 p.m. It's open to all. We'll have free refreshments. We'll be posting this on the Friends of the Marine Libraries Facebook and website and on three of the social media sites that residents have available to them here in Marina. This is a tremendous wonderful opportunity. We have two years ago we had with us come to the friends of the marina library a co-sponsored event with ACOM the Asian community of marina Yukio Shimamura who shared the experience of he and his family in the internment

camps. This film speaks to it tells the story of Japanese Americans returning to their Monterey County hometowns after being released from the World War II internment camps. I hope you'll all mark your calendars and I hope you'll share with others to join us on May 30th at 100 p.m. at the Marina Library. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Grace. Anyone else wish to raise their hand online who hasn't yet? We'll give you a moment and then we'll close public comment. Okay, we'll close public comment. Um, can someone get back to Well, I guess it's it's pertinent to tonight. Are we going to miss any timelines on the short-term rentals by um necessarily delaying it to the next time we meet? No.

Okay. And then uh can someone get back to Denise on the process of following up on the fallen tree? Yes, we'll do that. All right. Thank you, Denise. And thank you everyone who spoke during public comment. Okay. So, let's move on to our consent agenda. Uh does any member of city council and council member McAdams is zooming in wish to pull or ask any brief comment question, I'm sorry, or provide brief comment. Council member uh McCarthy, your lights on, is there? Go ahead. Thank you, mayor. Just uh two brief comments on 10 C1 and 10D1. So, the rejection of claim and the um microsurfacing bid uh award.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I would just like to thank Steph. Go ahead, Brian. Just wanted to let you know that um it's possible that Elizabeth's going to be pulling that, but I don't know that the 10C1, sorry, 10D1. I see her shaking her head. No, so I'll just ask my brief question.

Um I'll start with 10C1, which is the claim. And maybe I can take this offline, but just trying to understand, right, we're doing a lot of road work, which leads into the next item as well. What what does the city do to kind of ensure that contractors are doing what they are supposed to do? If this was even a contractor, I don't know, but right. So, we have steel plates, we have um gravel in the road. Does the city play a role in that? Ishmail, can you respond to that, please?

Uh the the short answer is yes, we do. We be before anybody works in the road, they have to pull an encroachment permit in our office. Our engineering uh staff as well as our uh public works inspectors review the uh encroachment permit. Um we approve or deny, reject um traffic control plans. We make sure that they're uh uh in line with the METCD requirements for traffic control plans. Um and then we inspect um the project to make sure it's put back together the to our satisfaction. Um so so yes, we we do watch with this particular uh incident. Um uh there was unique situations. I'm not sure if I can discuss them here, but

yeah, that's okay. I'll just close by saying um as evident by this next award, we're paying good money for these services and I would certainly support that we hold the contractors who we're paying money to uh just to ensure that they're doing the work that keeps our roads, you know, safe. And I'll just I'll leave it at that. Can I move to the next item? Um so just in terms of the street work, I'm thrilled to see that we're awarding this money to get work done that we've talked about for years. I guess I have a question of okay, so this gets us to the end of 26. What's the plan? I mean, maybe I'm taking a little bit of liberty here, but what's the plan when this work is done? Are we Is there is there more road work to Is there a 27 28 plan? We had a threeear this was our third year of our three-year plan that um that was doing all this accelerated work. After that, it'll drop back down to our regular maintenance. But all this really should have gotten us pretty close to our um 70 on our PCI score. Um and then from that point on it'll shift back to our regular normal maintenance schedules.

And does the moratorum still exist when we do this work? Um utilities can't come in and cut it up unless there's certain requirements that are met or is that moratorium expired? Yeah. Is when does that expire? If you know, if you happen to know,

it all depends. Can you say your name, please? Oh, sorry. Scott Shepard, city engineer. Um, it all depends on the type of work. So, I can't remember if it's slurry that requires three years and four reconstruction, a five-year moratorum. Um, and yes, most of the time we don't allow people to do work, but sometimes utilities need to go in for any number of reasons, but we just have additional requirements they have to meet. But the moratorium itself, so I understand what I think you're articulating is that depending on the type of work, there's a time that they can't cut up the road, but that that actual mortorium itself I think expires at some point. Is that am I making sense or is that a permanent part of our code? I believe it's part of the municipal code. Oh, in indefinitely. Awesome. Yeah. Thank you. That's it for me, mayor. All right.

Oh, and sorry, one more thing. We do plan on coming back to council with a presentation on the pavement program because there are there's a phase three. It's happening after phase four, I know, but there's a phase three which handles some overlay and reconstruction elements and then there will be additional work beyond that. Um, but we're planning we're planning to come to council in the next month or two with that information once somebody gets finalized. I get one more thing. I get one more thing too. So, I I have I have several questions that I've just want to follow up. So, let's pull this item. Okay. For further discussion tonight. Sure. Um, thank you very much, Scott.

No problem. Okay. Uh, anyone else with questions or comments? And Council Member McAdams, we're looking for you as well, so we don't forget you're online. Okay, looks like we're good to go. I'll motion except for uh 10D1 that we approve our consent agenda. Second. Council McAdams, any comments? No. Thank you, Mayor. All right. Uh, we'll do a roll call, please. Council member McCarthy. Yes. Council member McAdams. Council member Viser. Yes.

Mayor Dato. Yes. That passed unanimously with the four of us voting. We're going to move to the public hearing starting with 11B regarding the U short-term rental prohibition temporarily. And who's going to lead us through this? Our city attorney, Renee Ortega. Thank you, Renee. Get the presentation.

Uh, next slide. Uh so on March 17th uh council provided direction to bring back a moratorum on new short-term rentals and the reason for this is that uh pending the revisions for a new uh short-term rental ordinance. We thought council thought that it would create confusion uh with a new set of regulations as to which set of regulations would apply to pending applications for new uh STRs. uh and that there'd be a potential for, I guess, an unlimited uh you know, short-term rentals between now and the adoption of a revised STR ordinance. And given that as given this sort of unlimited potential for new STRs, uh these obviously affect housing availability, they impact neighborhood character and potentially impact competition uh for the city's you know hotels and other uh lodging uh businesses. Um an urgency ordinance was uh is bring being brought forward uh based on council direction. So next slide. So what does an emergency ordinance do? It provides a temporary pause that would allow time for adoption of appropriate regulations. Uh and the government code that allows for this is 65858. Uh it does require fourth vote. Uh it is valid for 45 days and can be extended up to a total of two years. Should it be necessary, uh we would bring this back and that first extension would allow uh for this moratorum to uh be extended for up to 10 months and 15 days. Uh next slide. Uh and that is my last slide and uh if there are any questions.

Okay. Uh let's go to the public. Anyone in the building wish to comment? again Sean McDonald resident. Um so I currently have a short-term rental um permit. Um I wanted to clarify you know the the permits currently end each year uh I believe June 30th. Um and so just clarifying in the 45 days yes you can't get a new permit. Um but then you can extend beyond that. Does that mean after after that 45 days and then if you extend it for an additional two years that means essentially at June 30th everyone that has a permit now can't renew a permit they can't get a permit again because it's a new permit or they can continue renewing under whatever ordinance is in existence at the time. Um so that would be my clarification on that. Um and you know I think there's reason to related to my my previous comments because it relates to this as well. Um, the homeowner's exemption is what you get on your um on your county taxes if it's if it's an owner occupied home. So, um, I can see why there would be some wanting to have some urgency to stop it because there seems to be a large number of the permits now are not owner occupied um because there's no requirement current in the current ordinance for them to be uh have the homeowners exemption. there there's other there's other um evidence that's being presented. Um but the homeowner's exemption is what what is what you're telling the county that this is where you're owner occupied at this home. And that's what the the ordinance of the short-term rental ordinance is supposed to do is that you have to have an owner occupied home to be able to do it in the city of Marina. Um, you can debate whether or not that's what you ought to do. But that but that issue I think is if you are concerned about people

wanting to get ones before the new ordinance comes into play. I can understand why you would want that because it seems that we have we may have quite a few of the the permits out because they're following the rules as they are now are able to show make it look like they are owner occupied when they're not. Um, so that would be, you know, that's my that's that's that's the what I talked about earlier in my earlier comments and it very much relates to um this comment too. I'm happy to take a question about that if if that's not understood too. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Sean. Okay, we will go to online. Go ahead, raise your hand if you're online and wish to comment on this matter. All right, we'll close public comment. What is the effect on permits expiring June 30th 2026?

Uh so this moratorum is only for 45 days. I think the idea is that we would have something in place prior to that but if we did not we could certainly extend that. Um it can be extended up to 10 months but we could take it little by little depending on council's appetite uh for an extension of this moratorum. revisit it before the expiration of this moratorum as to what extension may be necessary at that time.

Okay. So, one possibility is if we're still in transition with our rules that we could send a letter to the 35 approximate permit holders and say your permit expires in 30 days or two weeks. However, we are extending all existing permits such as yours for some length of time, 90 days, whatever it might be. they would get some kind of communication like that. We could do something like that. I mean, yes, we we could look at that. Okay. Absolutely.

But I think Sean brings up a good point that we want to hold their hands through this transition process so they're not stressed unknow not knowing what's going on with their permit expiration. If we have a moratorium on getting new permits, they might be planning to invest more money to fix their places up, stuff like that. Yes. So as the 45day uh as the 45 days comes to an end, we'll look at see what the options are and we'll bring some of those to council including extending the mortorium. Okay. So 45 days would bring us to the end of May and yes the second meeting in May I believe.

Yeah. And then getting out to them within that 30 days they might be starting to put their paperwork together at the start of May and that's before we let them know what's going on. So 45 days does get us close to their expiration of their permits. So I just think we should be cognizant of that so that we communicate with them on the early side rather than letting them feel stress and confusion because they don't know what's going on. All right. Um any other comments? Someone like to make a motion. And Council McAdams, I'm sorry if uh well if you have any comments, this would be a good time. Um, I'm happy to make the motion.

Okay. Are you recommending staff recommendation to adopt the ordinance before us? I move for approval. All right. Is there a second for Councilman McAdams? Motion. Well, second. Seconded by Mayor Pro Tim. Uh, roll call, please. I'm sorry, Brian. That just a brief comment on the motion. you know, um, in some ways I think this is a solution to a problem that may not exist. But either way, I, you know, it doesn't really affect me personally and I I think that, um,

there there's, yeah, I could go either way, but I think that there's a will to pass it, and so I'm going to support it for that reason. Yeah, I'm just trusting that staff's going to have a lot of headache with two sets of rules and there's no purpose for that. Um, okay. So, let's have a roll call vote, please. Council member McAdams, hi. Council member McCarthy, yes. Council member I mean Mayor Prin Viser, yes. Mayor Dado,

yes. That motion passes with the four unanimously with the four of us meeting that four-fifths uh requirement. Thank you everyone. So now we're going to move on to uh 11 C regarding military equipment reporting. Anita, are you going to be presenting this? Please come on up.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tim, and council members. Uh, all right. So, tonight, get my orders here. Were you going to run the Okay, very good. All right. Uh, yeah, I can't. All right. Uh, well, good evening. Uh, so tonight I'm presenting the Marina Police Department's annual military equipment report for calendar year 2025 as required by Assembly Bill 481 along with request for approval for additional equipment for 2026. Next slide. All right. AB481 requires law enforcement agencies to obtain government body approval for the equipment the statute categorizes as military equipment. I want to emphasize that Marilina Police Department does not participate in federal 1033 program. We have not obtained any equipment designated uh for military battlefield use. How however certain tools we use for public safety, drones, patrol rifles, less lethal launchers do fall under statutory definition and require your annual review and approval. The law requires four things. Your approval by ordinance, the annual reporting, public website posting, and a community engagement meeting which we have already held. Next slide. For the calendar year 2025, I can report full compliance with AB481 and policy 707. We made zero new acquisitions. There were zero policy violations. We received zero complaints from the public regarding our military equipment. Our regional special response unit, SRU, which is a collaborative multi- agency SWAT team serving the Monterey Peninsula, was deployed nine times in 2025. Two of those deployed in the city

of Marina. In March, the SRU assisted with an open field search for an attempted murder suspect who had crashed a vehicle near a Marina Green Belt after a pursuit. The suspect was located safely at a nearby hotel. Secondly, in September, SRU served an attempted murder arrest warrant at a residence in Marina. All raw deployments equipment used uh were used in strict accordance with the policy. All incidents involved armed dangerous individuals and no equipment was deployed for protest or demonstrations. Uh next slide. Our current inventory includes four drones used for search, warrant, and rescue and scene assessment. We participate in the regional uh Bearcat armored vehicle through NPR SRU, which is the Monterey Peninsula Regional Special Response Unit. Uh we do not own it, but it is registered to our department. We maint uh we also maintain 23 patrol rifles which are standard issued and exempt under the statute but for full transparency we list it here. We also have been uh we also have seven 40mm less lethal launchers and one bolo wrap restraint device. The total annual maintenance cost across all categories is approximately $5,85. I should note that the thousand annual cost for the Bearcat is funded through prevent which is the Peninsula Regional Violence Narcotics Team. A lot of acronyms here uh not but it's not does not come out of the U city general fund though we include it here because it is a department uh vehicle that we're responsible for. Next slide. Also with this um again as I mentioned we had the two deployments uh those

locations on the March 27th and September the 10th and um let's see here yeah we've already talked about that so you can advance that. Sorry I got ahead of myself in my reading. Um all right so as it relates to equipment for 2026 for 2026 we are requesting approval for five categories of additional equipment. I want to walk you through each of these very quickly. One is the mini drone. Uh the five we have we're requesting five mini drones at a combined cost of $10,000 plus tax. These supplement our aging drones and we feel that they ensure that they we feel that by uh procuring them that they will uh prevent us from having operational uh failure and also give us some operational redundancy. No expansion of surveillance or a third authority has been changed or increased. Advanced large drone uh platform. We are looking at one advanced large drone program recurring operational program including a platform that also includes FIA licensing training maintenance and life cycle replacement. It will also have uh enhanced thermal imaging, extended flight time which is very important as all as well as night operation capabilities. This replaces the need for a helicopter deployment at appro approximate cost of 2,500 to $5,000 per hour and eliminates our reliance on the surrounding agencies for drone support that we constantly receive from other agencies or fire departments. The specific vendor brand and platform type are to be determined pending the funding and vendor vetting. This request is simply to uh seek policy authorization pursuant to AB481 to include this enhanced USA capability within the department's approved equipment inventory. It does not seek

approval for a specific vendor or financial commitment at this time. The department will return with to the city council with all recommended vendor detailed cost information and identifying identified funding sources and uh and any required budget actions for full council review and approval prior to acquisition. This approach reserve or preserves the council fiscal oversight authority while also ensuring AB481 compliance is met. Next item is the multi-shot less lethal launcher. It's a 40mm uh launcher to increase our availability of less lethal force options. Also fourth is our sixth is our six rifle suppressors. So I want to be very clear that this is um what we're seeking here is a suppressor is a hearing protection device. It does not make firearms silent. It reduces the sound from approximately 165 dB to 130 to 35 dB. This is still louder than a jackhammer. However, the purpose is to pro protect the officer's hearing, reduce blast concussions, and improve tactical communications. There is no charge uh no change for use of force policy and no increase in our lethality. Last next to last item here is our patrol rifles. Um, so we're looking at uh patrol rifles begin. We're wanting to begin supplementing our aging inventory. Some of our current rifles are approaching 25 years. This phase modernization uh is not an expansion. Uh we're looking at the same caliber, same training, same policies are applicable across the board. So across all five requests, uh there's no expansion of authority of use, no change to the use of force standards, no change to training

requirements, no change to civil rights safeguards that are in place. Uh next slide. And speaking of safeguards, our oversight framework remains robust. We have a designated military equipment court coordinator. We conduct annual inventory verification. We use uh every use is governed by policy 707 which is adopted by city council. The annual report is posted on our department web page. We hold community engagement meetings which has been completed and um the public can also file complaints through different channels as if they choose. Next slide. In closing, uh my recommendation tonight is twofold. First, that the council receive the 2025 annual military equipment report. And then second, that the council adopt an ordinance approving amendments to the military equipment use policy to authorize additional equipment I have described before for the 2026 report and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much, Chief. Sure. Let's go to public starting with those of you present in person. Seeing no one rise, let's go to the public online. Please raise your hand if you'd wish to speak remotely. We'll give you a moment. Those of you that are zooming in,

Natalie, welcome.

Can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead. Good. I have a quick question. Is this general public comment or are you already on an agenda item? Yes, we are beyond No, it's not public comment. We did that earlier. This is on the annual report for uh 2026 military equipment requests. Okay. I'm sorry. So, I missed public comment. Will there it be available later in the week? Um, well, you know, you can always email us or call us as elected officials or staff, but we have our next council meeting with public comment for things not on the agenda on April 21st. April 21st is the next official public comment.

Okay. I submitted a letter uh for public comment. So, that'll have to suffice for now. Thank you so much. Sorry, I was coming from I think I read your letter. I think everyone has read your letter. So, thank you very much for sending it. Thank you for taking the time everybody. I appreciate the council. Take care.

You too. Okay. Uh we'll go ahead and close public comment. Uh council questions, comments, motion. Let's go to council member McAdams. Make sure you're still there and we don't forget you to say anything if you'd like input. Um, no, no, just um, thank you so much, Chief, for this presentation and, um, I think, you know, right now is the time of year when, uh, all the cities, their public safety are are providing this report. So, I appreciate that we're in compliance and um, and thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. Mayor Prom Viser.

Thank you, Mayor. I just would like to thank the chief for answering all my questions before the meeting. I had a lot of detailed questions as usual, but I really appreciate you saying um uh let me say you always write such beautiful emails. Uh so the primary goal is to responsibly transition our equipment through a phased and incremental replacement approach. And each year we will return to the council with recommendation to continue replacing aging firearms and related equipment in a measured and fiscally responsible manner until the inventory has been fully modernized. We all hope that this will never need to be used, but it needs to be in in good condition. So yes. So thank you.

Thank you, Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you, Chief. Um, I'm going to try to tread carefully. It's interesting to me that drones are considered military equipment, uh, but ALPR, uh, is not. Um, my 10-year-old niece has a drone, but not an ALPR. Um, my understanding is some cities do list ALPR under this military equipment list, but maybe it's the laws ambiguous on whether it's required or not. I know it's very controversial, but I think that we as a council have a duty to be the ones responsible for that. And so I'm just wondering if next year we can consider whether it's appropriate to add that to the list or not.

Whatever the council would prefer, I can look at the statute and get with um the city attorney to see where it falls into that category. I do know that um it it didn't come up under the current research, so others may be doing it. We do have a much more robust um platform of being transparent with our ALPR. On our website, you will see there's a portal that you can go on 24/7 and see how many vehicles and things are being captured through our program. Uh I think that that's a new option and item for us. So we are uh providing that data and that information much more frequently than a one-year coming back with you two in a report would provide. So I think uh if anything the ALPRs are being u reviewed and uh analyzed and assessed much more frequently than the use of our military equipment is in this in this case as it relates to this process.

Okay. So, I'll let my colleagues, you know, articulate if they disagree with my assessment, but for for next year, again, just a considering whether we want to add that or not, I'd probably favor on the side of more transparency than than less. That's that's me. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. And on the automated license plate readers, ALPRs, uh, was there wasn't there an incident in the last seven days where they came in handy on a a serious incident in Marina? Can you can you summarize that incident? I'm trying to think of which one that was. Um having a brain lock right now. I know a a battery using a weapon on an individual and the suspect fled in a vehicle.

I know that there were I've been out of town so I came back. But but I do know that uh since we've had it up since I've been here, there are at least six or seven and a lot of those cases are also for examples of scenarios are also being posted on our website. So you can see what how cases are quickly being uh solved as a result of that. We've we've had a robbery in another jurisdiction that came through our town. We picked it up, made the vehicle stop, uh etc. There's been multiple examples of how that technology works. So I think a lot of us have heard about instances where we're glad we have them because they're they've been very useful

in situations we're glad that they were used and then other around the nation we've heard about some misuse um of flock cameras. Um and so I don't know if it's appropriate for the military equipment but I think your response council McCarthy was there there are ways we can be transparent but it doesn't have to be part of this correct. Okay. Yeah. And I don't disagree with that at all. I we have a report, a policy on that that's posted online, very detailed, uh very informative. In fact, um had some conversations with the city attorney and we're going to enhance that even a little bit more in some some areas to model some of the other cities. But I think it's very robust now and we put a lot of information forward now.

It's controversial enough. I think it'd be good to have it as an agenda item just to discuss it. we don't have to take any votes, you know, just but just to have an open flow discussion because maybe there's things I'm misunderstanding and I'm sure there are. But anyway, I think it'd be great to have that discussion in support of Council Member McCarthy's and everybody else's con uh concern about the potential misuse of automatic license plate readers. Okay. So, uh I'll motion that we receive this 2025 report. We've heard from our chief and that make the require funding uh findings under the government code 7071 um and adopt the ordinance before us amending approving the amendments to our military equipment use policy and direct the policy the annual report updated equipment list be posted on the city marine website as required by government code second. Any final comments before we go to a vote? Okay, Jenny, I don't see your hand, so let's go to a roll call vote, please.

Council member McCarthy, yes. Council member McAdams, I. Mayor Pertim Fischer, yes. Mayor Delgado, yes. Thank you. That motion's passed unanimously, and like to thank you, Chief, and your department. I know there's a lot goes into this besides what we just see here, and all year round, you're keeping track and um taking care of all all the ins and outs of this. Very much appreciate it. Our pleasure. Thanks for your support. You bet.

Okay, so that's it for the hearings. Uh and now we go to action item, Japan. Uh city city friendship going to city sister city an upgrade. Uh city manager is going to take this. I'll handle this. Um we've had a wonderful relationship really with both of our um cities with Naman Korea, South Korea. We have a sister city relationship originally with Izzuni, Japan. We had talked about a sister city relationship and they typically start off with a friendship city and then if it works out good, they move forward with a sister city. There's really not a whole lot of difference between friendship and sister city as follows our our policies and our regulations. The only really difference is a sister city relationship. We kind of have a a third party organization like ACOM that um kind of helps and sponsors it. And then under a sister city, we can potentially use some of our allocated funding to assist with travel and lodging expenses. But other than that, it's pretty much similar with Izuna. Um they really have been uh an amazing uh city to um to interact with our youth with Marina um high school have been having for this is their third year now where they have an exchange program online and so they they meet regularly over Zoom. There's about six to eight students that have been participating in that and it's just been a wonderful cultural exchange on the students level and that has been really important uh to Zinukuni and they want to continue that program. They had a delegation that came over here in 2024

and then we had a delegation that went over to um Japan in 2025 and then this year they're going to have some students that are actually going to come over in August and ACOM will help in in facilitating uh and helping to host with them. And so the proposal is to change our relationship from friendship to sister. Izuna's uh council has already approved that and we have uh April 20th as a signing um ceremony between the two cities and that's the proposal. And if you don't have any questions, we have a about a six or seven minute video that the students of Isuni did for our city. And if you don't have any questions right now, we'll show the video.

A brief question mayor. Um I think it was council member Bialo that pulled this item. Was that the reason she pulled it because she wanted the video showed? I just I definitely want to know what her thoughts were. Um yes, it was the video. It was the video show.

Thank you. How do you go? Okay, this one in two sense like this.

Hi guys. Do you remember what my favorite our last meeting? It's Japanese. My mom made this for me. It's better.

Okay. Is there any reason why we couldn't uh see this on the 20th? Uh yeah, we could definitely put on the 20th. Yeah.

All right. Looks like a good quality production. All right. Just we have our own issues in the building here. Uh does anyone have any Let's go to the public. Does anyone have any uh input? Those of you that are in the building, come forward if you'd like. Not seeing anyone rise. Let's go to those folks online regarding the sister city potential. Okay, we'll close public comment and come back to council. Council McCarthy, do you have anything? I do, mayor. Um, one, uh, would it be appropriate to maybe post this on the uh, city Facebook at some point, too? Either after next week or before.

Uh, yeah, we could actually do that in the next day or two. That'd be great. And then just my other comment is just incredibly thankful for staff and um council members who were able to travel there on on their own dime and you know represent the city and I I know I've said this before but you know another opportunity to say thank you. I'm incredibly jealous that I couldn't make it but maybe maybe another time. Um but I know we were well represented. So that's it mayor. All right. Thank you Brian Mayor Pro Viser.

Thank you Mayor. Same thing here. I would like to thank everybody from the staff who has worked on this or is working on it and uh the Monoy Peninsula Unified School District, especially the high school and the um middle school here in Marina and Council Member Katy Biala who is now traveling in Japan or in Asia somewhere. And the relationship is so uh good with this with Iuni that although she she is not visiting Izuni she will see the mayor mayor Masa they will meet somewhere in between. So, um, she I'm jealous of that, but I hope that one day more people, council members or city attorney, retired city manager, anybody if you have a chance to go, um, yes, I I hope that more people can go and especially of course also our youth, our students. So, yeah, very positive experience. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, it was it was brought home to me when we were in Japan in Azunokuni. We went to one of their three junior high schools and in the hallway of the high school and in the library of the high school, there were breakrs class uh glass cabinets with letters and art from our Los Arbalus middle school students to their students. And you could tell by the way they were displayed that they were honored to have that communication from our students for their uh for their, you know, uh posting in their hallway and and their library. And it was moving and it was it was a moving experience to see that because we're so far away. And yet here we have home in their high school. And uh since then, Japanese is now being taught in our middle school and our high school. And it is hoped that some of our Japanese marina students learning Japanese will be able to travel to Isunokuni. But that sort of exchange begins this August with them coming here with their high school students. It's a it's a logistical um you know complicated situation to bring miners over in in groups um with housing and everything and expenses, but it's it's a great uh experience to watch them on Zoom talking to each other. You know, our six high school students every year talk to six of their high school students every year on Zoom repeatedly during the school year. You take a train to school, you drive your car to school. you know, they're just opening up to each other about how different their lifestyles are. Uh it's really sweet to see them uh interacting across the ocean. So, it's been a good um program so far. And as Brian mentioned, I think maybe Elizabeth, thanks to Council Member

Kathy Beiel for getting the Naman U sister city in Korea going and the Azuni uh friendship city now turning into a sister city going in uh in Japan. Uh and thanks to uh all the folks that have gone. We had 13 folks go to Korea on their own dime and then we had 10 folks from Marina go to Japan on their own dime. And uh it was it was a good way to do it and I hope that we have some more interactions. Uh it would be nice to take it the next step further and try to engage some exchange of industry or business. Um, but you know that's going to take time and it can't happen if you don't have this kind of relationship trying to make it happen. So, really great uh program so far. Would someone like to make a motion? And I'm sorry, uh, Council Member McAdams, did you have any input?

Thank you, Mayor. Okay, I'd like to move for approval. Second. Okay, so that includes the resolution before us and authorizes city manager and city attorney to perform their roles respectively. Uh, roll call vote, please. Council member McCarthy, yes. Council member McAdams.

Mayor Pertim Fischer, yes. Mayor Delgado, yes. Council member McAdams, did you vote? You might have been muted. Yes, I Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. So that motion passes unanimously with the four of us present. And now we go on to the uh the the densest topic of tonight, which is our uh status of our habitat management plan compliance report including uh incidental take permit for Monterey Gileia, also known as San Gileia. Um, and before Aaron starts, I want to just give a little background on this because hopefully we are coming things to a to a close with this. Um, right now we have with this Artemis 2 program. Uh, it really is an amazing thing that's going on in our in our lifetime right now. And and I've looked at that and I've seen a lot of parallels to what we're what's going on with our habitat management program. You're probably wondering what in the heck. But it's amazing that that this rocket vehicle launches takes uses the Earth gravity to get up there and then it's a fixed amount of fuel that they have and then point in a certain direction and then it uses Earth's gravity to go on this narrow path up to the moon. Grabs hold of the the gravity around the moon. It goes all the way around the moon and it comes back and they have a perfect alignment to get it do this figure eight all the way back to the earth and splash down and and and all these resources and people are all and there's different pressures and forces and everything out there and there's this kind of perfect little path that they have to weave through to be able to have a successful mission and this is kind of what we've been going through this this habitat management program and this ITP P and there's all these different forces that are in play out there. And uh initially when the army was here and they closed

down the you ballpark the big picture was 80% of the of the land went to open space and the national monument and and land conservation and 20% was to go to the cities the underlying land use jurisdictions and it was for um development for job creation for businesses for economic growth to offset the impact of Fort closing. It was large at the time and still is the largest militarybased closure in the United States. And so this 20% this vacant land went to the cities and then uh the forward reuse authority had a role at that point that they were supposed to do this habitat management plan or habitat conservation plan and it was going to mitigate for all the environmental impacts and the endangered species um of this 20% land that was in the cities and it was going to provide all the mitigation for that and four worked on that for 20 25 years and their last two years really worked hard with Fish and Wildlife um California Fish and Wildlife and and National Wildlife um survey and and they weren't able to get it home. It was just so complex and and all the different parties and all these different forces that um that um had their various interest and it didn't work out. And so now it's punted down the road to our city and all the other cities and and right off the bat our city took a a lead role and said, "Okay, we have these habitat management areas that we want to get out in front." The city council approved hiring Denise Duffy Associates and Aaron has been with us for years and and she's an an expert in this and she's done a phenomenal job um for us. And so it started off our habitat management areas. We're going to put together a habitat uh resource

management plan to um to finally um appropriately maintain and monitor um these u important habitat management areas. And so they've been working on that. But going through that process, we said, "Okay, we have this other open land in the city of Marina and we need to get out in front of it because we have all these endangered species and if we want to move forward and do any work or development and a perfect example is um for years our youth leagues have been saying you we need to develop soccer fields and more baseball fields and and guess what? we can't do anything because those are on former fored lands and until we develop an incidental take permit, we're handcuffed. And so, so the city council said in addition to this habitat management plan that DDNA worked on, we also added the responsibilities of an incidental take permit. And so all of our vacant land that was transferred to the city or the remaining that was transferred to us, we've been going through a process. We've met uh many times with the public had some really good uh meetings where we got a lot of public input. We kind of came uh came through with this balanced approach of okay here is here's land that we want to develop and there's a lot of land um that we need to mitigate to be able to develop on this property which means this other land we have put in conservation easements and so essentially we're dividing up the city and this is where the artis 2 comes in. I mean, you're kind of weaving through this little path and it's difficult. It's really challenging. You have a lot of different forces, a lot of different interests here. Um, but we're we're kind of to the end point. We've identified these are the areas um that are important for us to be able

to develop in the future. And Erin's presentation, she's going to highlight those again. and to be able to develop on these properties these other properties we're going to have to um mitigate for these and that's the ITP and those are going to be in a permanent conservation easement and so the end result that we're wanting tonight is to finalize okay these are the areas that we're going to develop and to be able to develop these in the future um we're going to need to put in a permanent conservation these other areas and part of that conservation easement is um then in the future we're going to monitor, we're going to maintain, and we're going to improve um the quality of these endangered species in this land. And so Aaron is going to walk us through where we are at this point. We also have um Frederick with Kimley Horn Engineering because a big part of this is our um we have these roads that are impacted. Initially, we talked about the Delmani Extension Road connecting to Second Avenue. We've kind of pulled that off and then we've um uh uh Dr. Fred Watson's brought up and I think Mayor Delgado had question about putting this little trail instead along through here. And so Frederick is going to address that. We've talked that over with fish and wildlife. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Aaron and Frederick will talk later on. And that is our goal is that we hope to be able to get to a point where um we're comfortable to give us direction to move forward with an application that will actually start that process. If we want to have more meetings, we can certainly do that. There's nothing that is delaying us other than u things like these areas that we want to develop and and really the most pressing is these by the Preston Park these ball fields um that we can't we're at a point now that to be

able to move forward with that plan we need to we need to have this ITP framework moving forward. We've talked with Fish and Wildlife and they're kind of willing if we have a plan and we're kind of moving forward with that. They can kind of work with us to allow us to move forward with development of those ball fields. We're kind of doing that. And then um so with that, we'll turn over to Erin. Thank you, Lane. And good evening, Erin. Yeah, there you go. Um, thank you so much for having me again and I'll see if I can outdo the chief with a number of acronyms in my presentation. Um, last time I was here was November. We brought the um, conceptual mitigation strategy for the incidental take permit before you and a lot of questions came up. There are a lot of complex issues um that we're dealing with and that's what Lane was speaking to and I loved your analogy because it's very um, applicable. Um so tonight we're going to we're coming back to you with with um responses and recommendations on those issues that that were presented um specifically um for Can you start the presentation? It's okay. Um tonight we'll um give you an update on the resource management plan project um for the um forum manage habitat management areas that the city uh owns and specifically address some questions that were um brought up in November about the Selenus River habitat management areas and we'll give you an updated timeline on that. So, we'll start there and then we're going to dive into um the citywide ITP um project and those issues that were brought up um at the November meeting. And then lastly, as as Lane said, we're hoping to come to

resolution on these items so we can actually submit the permit application and um get this ball really rolling with um the resource agencies. Thank you. Okay. Okay. All right. So, just to remind you all of the resource management plan, Lane touched on this already. Um, the city is obligated um by the Ford habitat management plan and the deeds for these properties to manage for habitat and for specific areas on the former Ford within the city limits. Um, as part of our process, we've talked about how we're coordinating with the 2045 general plan update and environmental impact report process. We want to make sure we're consistent and we're fluid and we've got all of our bases covered and we can rely on that SQA document for permit issuance. It's really important. Um we're also making sure that we are consistent between the um con conceptual mitigation strategy for the ITP and the resource management plan. For example, one of the um habitat management areas is also um where we're proposing some development under the ITP. Need to make sure that they're consistent. Takes a while.

Do I have to hold it? Oh, I probably did too far. Okay, here are our four habitat management areas. So starting from the far west, we've got the Marina northwest corner and then going down to the south here. And that's obviously Highway 1 and the boundary with former Fort Worth and City of Marina here. Um so you see this red as you're getting off Delmani Boulevard. Um and then we have the landfill HMA which um southern boundary is um Inter Garrison Road and up on the north side is the airport HMA. And then what came up last time were questions about the Senus River HMA. And I do want to extend the invite. We talked about it last time as well doing a site visit at these four HMAs and also the provo proposed conservation areas and development areas and maybe making a good day of it. Unfortunately, this wacky wonderful weather has not been good for Gileia this year. It's really small and not showing too well, but um we'll have a lot of lovely things to to show you. So, we'll um I'll work with Lane to coordinate on that. Okay. So, see, I went too far. Okay. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it. Okay. Um so the SL uh Selenus River HMA um the public and city council acknowledged at the last meeting that the Selenus River HMA is unique area that warrants evaluation for potential public use under the HMP the Ford HMP the overarching big document for the entire base. This area is designated as a habitat reserve which is a land use category intended to protect biologically important habitat for HMP species. Lands designated as habitat reserves are set aside from development. And the primary management objective for this category is the conservation and enhancement of threatened and endangered

species. With the exception of the Oak Oval HMA, which is owned by the county of Monterey, new development is not allowed within designated habitat reserves under the HMP, including the construction of new roads or trails. However, public access may be permitted within the Selenus River HMA provided that the goals and objectives of the HMP and the resource management plan currently under development continue to be met. Such access would be required to occur on existing roads and trails. So, access is not a problem. Creating new roads and trails would be an issue to work through. Um, so just wanted to go through there. And then in terms of an upate uh so the draft R&P will describe the existing and potential future uses within the Selenus River HMA and identify habitat management and monitoring measures as well as associated costs to ensure activities within the HMA remain consistent with the goals and objectives of the HMP and RMP. The public and council will have the opportunity to review and provide comments on the proposed uses and management measures and associated costs during the public review period for the draft R&P anticipated in the fall 2026. Maybe sooner if we can combine these efforts with a little bit more moment more momentum. So, um but I do want to say we we have heard the council and the public loud and clear that public access is is a is a want within this area. So, we're going to um draft it in that way and and look forward to your comments on that document when when we get it out. Next slide, please. Thank you. All right. Again, um our um meeting in November was pretty beefy. We presented the conceptual mitigation strategy for Monorelia and we um have five different um categories. We've tried to split up the presentation that way as well the staff report to be really clear to address each of those those questions.

um comprehensively. Um there was um a discussion about um Dodd Wall's notice of violation he received from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife for violation of the Endangered Species Act for taking Monterey Gileia during construction of the home to Sweets project. Um he received a violation and um the city um council wanted to understand the fiduciary role of that um in that. So, we'll we'll be addressing that tonight. Council also requested implications of retaining and closing the various equestrian trails and in one of the um proposed conservation areas. Um there was also a request from council about um looking into changing the land use designation in a portion of the northwest corner HMA. Um we talked a lot about Delmani extension and we're going to again tonight. And there's a request for a detailed traffic study for that roadway as well as evaluating the um possibility of a class one trail similar to the four tag the Ford regional trail and greenway um project and seeing um what what that might look like through through that area. Uh let's see. Oh, and then Cypress Nolles. Um we talked about um the potential to allow impacts to the southern area of um Monterey Gileia um identified in our conservation area and explore mitigation lands outside of or not owned by the city to to mitigate for additional take. Okay, next slide, please. Okay. Um this just to remind you where we started and specifically to um remind you about the northwest corner. This was the original footprint. We started working with um the city public works department back in 2018 on this potential um thoroughfare to um the primary project objectives

again were to connect the city and um avoid and reduce the or increase public safety um associated with this on-ramp and off-ramp. It's it's a complicated area as everyone knows. Um so just want to remind you of that original footprint going straight through north south of that that northwest corner. Um we um brought this forward in May of last year and um brought it um again before the public and community um the year before to discuss prioritizing areas. And we heard um that the Delmani Boulevard extension corridor, Cypress Nullles area and the airport were the top priorities for for development for the city. So based on those priorities, we worked on identifying the conservation areas in these remaining areas. And so we got to the next slide, please. We got to this um current conceptual mitigation strategy. This has not changed since we were here in November. Just wanted to be clear. So, since the previous slide and this slide, we worked with the resource agencies, CDFW, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, uh, council, public, um, public works department, engineers to to figure out how to, um, bring this forward to as part of the permit application. Um so just to give you again a rundown, you can see that this northwest corner HMA no longer has that road corridor going north south. Um that was because and we brought this to you in May of last year. It's been a whole year. Um so we were here in May and we wanted um we heard from the ages uh agencies very strongly that the road bisecting that really important blue polygon right here of Monterey Gileia which happens to

overlap with um the obligate host plant for Smith's blue butterfly which is a federally listed um species um would be really difficult to mitigate for and they requested that we look into realigning um or potential realignment of the Delmani extension And I'll get to this in more detail um on following slides. Um so we did that and that's where we are. And uh we were proposing to preserve these two polygons of Monterey Gileia here. Um allow for some additional expansion of the Marina Equestrian Center here while preserving this area which is referred to as the 8th Street area. Um we talked about um preserving this area around here for the landfill. um Preston Park as as um the city manager mentioned, uh public works is working on a proposal to expand athletic facilities there. And so we're looking to conserve the remaining area of this um habitat, which is in pretty good shape. And um one of my favorite spots is the Selenus um reservation road area. Um great Gileia site. Um putting that aside for for conservation. And what is amazing about this um mitigation strategy to me is that the agencies are really willing to allow the city to develop the airport um as shown as long as we can keep this balance and that I know that that's a really important um revenue source or um development opportunity for the city. So um as CDFW has told us we're on the right track and we want to um continue on the right track. Okay, next slide, please. Okay, so we're zooming in now to look at the 8th Street area, which I was just highlighting in terms of the expansion

of the equestrian area and then all the stuff that's going on in this 8th Street area. So, we're going to talk right now about um Dadwall's um Dodwall's sorry um notice of violation. Um what has happened is that CDFW issued that violation and they said you need to get your own ITP. You need to remedy the situation. Hey, by the way, um given the limited availability of mitigation lands for Monterey Gileia, the scale of the impact and the fact that the city is undergoing the citywide ITP process, CDFW recommended that Dodwall coordinate with the city to determine the fe feasibility of including mitigation for the unauthorized take as part of the citywide ITP. Now, if you remember at our November meeting, we talked about that joining mitigation strategies approach with um the transportation agency for Monterey County associated with their four tag project, which is right here going through our 8 street corridor and up the side. This is the California segment that is um um soon to be constructed. Um so, they needed mitigation. So we coordinated with them and they are going to utilize um for the support of council uh about 4.6 acres here in shown in purple um where restoration and enhancement activities will occur and um in partnership with the city. So what we were proposing back in November is that we do something similar with Dodd Wall in that there's about.36 acres over here um selected for its sandy location potential good outplanting area for Gileia. Um as noted in the staff report, I can't do all the numbers off the top of my head, but you'll see the math. It's a bigger area than maybe a 3:1 ratio would require under an individual permit that Dodwall

might get on his own. Um, but it does allow for some flexibility just assigning a space and working with it as we negotiate this process moving forward. And again, we haven't submitted an application. CDFW has not given us official um, uh, thumbs up that this is the appropriate site area type of activity that would be required for Dodwall. But whatever is required for Dodwall, the city could engage in an agreement with them and be reimbursed. Um, so I'll get to that more in a moment. So, because the city is already proposing the conservation of this area as part of the citywide, um, it would not be incorporating mitigation for Dodwall would not can be accomplished without significant additional effort or resource commitment by the city. In addition, incorporating mitigation for the NOV into the citywide would not necessitate an increase in the amount of mitigation land included in the overall conceptual mitigation strategy or reduce the area proposed for future development. So whether the city supports this or not, it's not a big hit on the city if Yeah. Whether the city supports it or not. Is it Did you mean to say it's not a big impact on the city or it's not a big hit on the city?

Big impact on the city. Do you want to clarify?

Yeah. So, what Fish and Wildlife told us is is at least from an area point of view um whether we include dead wall in it or not has zero impact on the area. Um, so if we allow him to mitigate here, um, doesn't increase or de decrease the area that we're going to put in a conservation easement. If we don't include him, same thing. Does it impact it one way or the other? Um, if we do include it, then as Erin talked about, we would um be proposing we go back to Mr. Dadwall. Uh, and Fish and Wildlife wants this. They want to be able to document in the area where that notice of violation where those improvements would be happening to uh to mitigate for those impacts. And and so uh so that's kind of what we're saying from a land point of view doesn't doesn't hurt the state doesn't impact the seed at all if we allow him to mitigate some of that land. But then what we would do is enter into agreement defining that area because fish and wildlife want to know exactly where that area is and what those mitigation um uh improvements are that will offset the notice of violation.

Yeah. And if I can just make two two quick points. Um should should uh CDFW require something different than what's in the conceptual strategy, then at that point we would seek uh further council feedback at that time. I mean if we we needed to uh come back with that we would uh and again for any you know costs related to that mitigation in terms of documentation and preservation uh for that mitigation going forward uh we'd come back with an agreement for that as well. Uh depending again once we have those numbers we don't know what those numbers are at the moment. So, uh, but we'd come back to council, uh, for that agreement as well once we have that information.

Thank you both for that. I got a little off script, so I appreciate the clarifications. Um so on the on the flip side uh if the city chooses not to incorporate the mitigation from Dodwall's uh NOV he will be required um per the violation to uh obtain his own ITP on his own individually um and um find land and hire a consultant and do all that which is obviously very costly but um that would be his responsibility. Okay. Um, again, I'm sure we'll have a lot of questions. So, um, I'm going to move on to the equestrian trails. Um, so there was a question about what are the implications of retaining or um, closing some of these equestrian trails. Those are shown here in yellow. Um, they would um, under this um, conservation easement with CDFW access would continue to be allowed um, as well as the forag access through this area. um it would probably need to be um fenced um symbolic fences or otherwise. We haven't seen the ITP from um the four tag permit yet, so we're not exactly sure what um the fencing uh will exactly look like. Um but it's important to note as as Lane Lane mentioned that CDFW is evaluating the conceptual mitigation strategy at a regional scale. It's not um it's considering overall habitat quality rather than prescribing a specific mitigation ratio like 3 to one as it typically is done at at a project level. Um as a result, the retaining retaining the 1.1 acres of uh equestrian trails shown here in yellow and allowing access to the 8th street area would not necessitate an increase in the amount of um mitigation land included in the overall mitigation strategy. So retaining or closing would require and retaining or closing would require similar management activities under the long-term management plan. As a result,

we're anticipating the cost of keeping them open or closed about uh about the same. They'd be similar in magnitude um under the citywide ITP. Okay, next slide, please. Before that map goes away, can you go go back? Yes,

just to make very clear. So all those the blue area around the equestrian center and and the former Los Animus that would all end up in conservation easements. And so uh we'd never be able to access uh Imun Road through there. Uh but if you'll see out on the question center that red up above that um that is area that is still in National Park Service property and that will give us the ability in the future to expand and and the council as we uh gave us direction to look at our um concessionary agreement and going out going out again and this would give us the ability to expand the use of that equestrian area and that's an important part of this whole tradeoff.

Thank you, Lane. Okay, so um there is there was a question from council about this red area down here that we're proposing as being developed under the citywide ITP with the rest of this blue area being preserved. And the request from council um involved evaluating the change of the land use designation for the southwest portion of the corner northwest corner HMA to a conservation designation rather than retaining the existing designation of habitat preserve and other open space or the proposed regional retail designation identified in the draft land use plan. Prepare for the city's 2045 general plan update. As you know, the city is currently preparing the 2045 general plan update. And in January 9th of last year, city council identified its preferred land use alternative for the general plan. The alternative is currently being analyzed in the draft environmental impact report, which is anticipated to be released in summer 2026. Modifying this this designation at this stage would represent a significant and costly change and would delay the release of the draft EIR. As such, we're recommending that modifying the land use designation um be a a planning and policy decision considered through the established planning environmental review process associated with the 2020 2045 general plan update. Um, one, um, one option I talked to Guido about was, um, changing that to conservation could be in a an alternative evaluated in the, uh, that chapter of the EIR section rather than changing the fundamental project description at this time. So, um, that's our recommendation there.

Excuse me, Erin. Are you saying that the project description could call this the former designation, but there could be an alternative project description or alternative to that that would call it conservation? Sure. So that the the impacts of the alternative and the main project description could be um analyzed. Yes.

Okay. Thank you. But for the purpose of our conceptual mitigation strategy, we'd like to keep it as is because it represents maybe a worst case scenario. If it does get put in conservation later, it's just a different it's not increasing impacts, for example. Okay. Okay. All right. Del money extension. Okay. Here we are. So, as I mentioned last year, Kenley Horn um per request per the request of the agencies evaluated um a realignment alternative um shifting the um original alignment of Delmmani Boulevard to the east along the western boundary of Cypress Nolles. Um, as you can see, this um retains uh a proposed future connection uh for CALR for ramps. And Frederick's going to speak to this a little bit later. Um but for our purposes I wanted to just I think acknowledge that you know from public works from a planning perspective from the connectivity of public safety issues the original alignment through uh this this um parcel was the best for to meet project objectives but it's too impactful and it's not going to work from a mitigation standpoint to be quite honest. So instead of having a direct connection, it is left less optimal that it's a little, you know, go out of your way and then you got to go back down to Delmani. So you know, we can continue to work with um the engineers on on that proposed alternative um or alignment and all of that, but um right now this is the least environmental damaging alternative for for that um connection. Okay, next slide, please.

Okay. So when Kimley Horn um did that evaluation of the the shifting of of Delmmani, they also looked at the feasibility um of placing um that class one um for taglike trail along the western boundary and along the eastern boundary. See what those alignments might look like. This is very conceptual and Frederick will will speak to this in a moment. um these alignments would avoid obviously bisecting that important population of of Gileia shown here. Um so that's the main goal is to avoid the buckwheat here, the Smith butterfly habitat and Gileia and keeping the trail to the side. So you'll see in the the staff report that the west um Kimhorn determined that the west side was um highly constrained and not the most feasible option um to meet resource agency's requests. It requires significant amount of grading. Um and we can visit this when we you know go do a site visit. Um, so it would actually you could squeeze it there and it looks good on paper, but when you finish engineering, construction, all of that, you're actually going to have um impacts to the species. Uh, you're going to have encroachment into the CALR right ofway and also the coastal zone. Um, and since Horn looked at this east side, um, we talked to MPUSD, they're not willing to give us an easement, so that would push it over more. and I think they've just constructed their their field uh renovation. So, I'm not sure how far over this would go, but that's not the most feasible option anymore. So, that was all outlined in our staff report um from from last month. And we got some questions from Dr. Fred Watson that evening um and some recommendations of how to maybe this could work. Um

again, showing something on paper is different than actual on the ground engineering. Um, and I'm not the engineer. Um, so I will leave that to Frederick. But I think the I'm going to finish my presentation, hand it over to Frederick, so we're not doing a little bit too much back and forth. But I do want to um give the permitting implications of of what these trails would look like or if we wanted to include these trails, what that permitting implications look like. So, while it's possible to minimize impacts and you're not bicting these um this important area down the middle, um CDFW and Fish and Wildife Service are um very concerned, strongly concerned about um impacts to Gileia habitat and the seed bankank and also any edge effects that might occur. Uh, edge effects for those that aren't in the know are um when you place development next to an open space area, there's, you know, some some effect that that kind of encroaches into the conservation area or protected open space. For example, if you put a trail um along this boundary and you don't um you'll need to accommodate for drainage, storm water runoff, um monitor for erosion, make sure that um people aren't um going off off the um developed area into the preserved area. So um that those are big concerns of the agencies and they are not excited about um either option on the west or the east or anything that goes to um our proposed conservation easement as part of the mitigation strategy. They are concerned that we cannot fully mitigate for this trail. So not only would we need to mitigate for the acreage lost for the footprint um but

also um for any edge effects and um also we would need to account for the um reduced conservation value associated with the CE now that it's um or conservation area now that it abuts development. Um so we had to subtract the trail acreage and reduce the value of our conserved area and we had to make that up somewhere. That's a lot of acreage. It's not just um um this area here or an area there. It's a significant amount of acreage. Um they resource agencies highly value this area. Um so with that I think I will close with Cypress Nolles and then um hand this over to Frederick. So next slide please. Okay. So lastly, um I think one of the council members had a question about, hey, can we this is kind of complicated. Do you think maybe we can impact this um area propo proposed for conservation and find mitigation elsewhere? And um as we mentioned earlier, CDFW is evaluating the conceptual mitigation strategy at a regional scale considering overall habitat quality. So we're not going plant by plant. Um so at this early stage in the permitting process again not having submitted an application to date it's not yet known whether impacts to southern polygon would require additional mitigation and so requesting um oh and in addition Dr. Fred Watson of CSMB has expressed that the two large polygons containing these gileia are represent historically important populations. So, we want to keep these as proposed and go um submit um the conservation strategy as shown here um in our application and see what the agencies say. Um if if there's an

opportunity to develop that and we don't need more land, we can have these conversations. Again, as Lane mentioned at the beginning, um we really just want to get to the point where we can submit an application and have these um areas be supported by by the council and also um start those negotiations. Once you submit a permit, it's it's a while before we get it issued and we can actually um get a lands package complete. So, really great to um further this along. I think my last slide is just some information about um acreages. And I think with that I'll turn it over to Fred and his um presentation. He's got a few slides. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Council members, good to see you. Frederick Vent with Kimyhorn. Um, we have a couple of slides here um to talk through the specifically the the proposed interchange and then we're going to talk also through the trail alignments and u more so the one that's adjacent to the cal plans by the way. Next slide, please. So, I don't know um this is a fairly old graphic and I see has anybody seen this graphic before? It's probably from 2009 2010. So it's a little bit historic. Okay.

But there was an idea to um help fix up Mjen Park the Mjen um interchange and provide a new interchange in between Delmani as shown here. And um you know through this we would have closed the offramps uh the sorry I'm going to go the southbound offramp to Mjen and the northbound onramp to Mjun and then the new interchange would be a full interchange and we would remove Delmonti um and that would have helped establish that connection from the downtown uh to um the south marina and also then provide additional capacity Um, in the meantime, things have now a little bit changed. This was way before we knew about the Sangalia and Habitat and all that. So, I think from a transportation perspective, a great idea. Patton Parkway was in, the Second Avenue connection was in and this interchange would have provided some additional capacity needed. Um, next slide. So we reached out to Calrans a little bit because this interchange is going to be a new feature on Highway 1 and you know right now coastal commission and with VMT impacts um coastal commission and even the local agencies are just not approving them easily. We actually find that if you need to mitigate VMT you need to pay for it and the cost of your VMT mitigation is usually as much as your project itself. So very difficult to build roads, widen roads that cause VMT impacts. Galpran standards is about a onem spacing between interchanges in urban conditions. And um on this map you can see from light fire to MGEN we have about 1.6 miles from engine to delonte we only have about4 miles and then from the almani to reservation about another mile. Now I think the point4 miles is obviously substandard and it may just be

that was grandfathered in. You know Delmani was the old highway one. Um and of course we only have the southbound on and off ramps on Delmani and it's really free flow and lots of auxiliary lanes. So you know maybe when approved that you know the consideration of one mile spacing was not adhered to but they needed to provide the access. Um, now I need you to keep thinking about the onem spacing because the FHWA currently approves new interchanges and if it's less than one mile, you have absolutely zero chance. I have not seen an interchange make it if it's less than one mile spacing. Next slide please. So if we put the new interchange um in between Mjen and Delmani basically to meet the Kalpan standards we would have to then remove and money then you would have spacing light fighter and new interchange reservation but then you lose two interchanges and you add one so there's absolutely zero benefit from a capacity perspective um and it would cost you quite a bit of money to to demolish the two interchanges. is next slide please. So that's the inter so that was the interchange is it like so so I think what we're saying is the the feasibility of that interchange alternative that it's been floating around has really gone down a lot and also um Erin showed you that the interchange actually would encroach in the sandalia area. We can probably flip it up and down, but you know, I've seen CALR when they build interchanges, they don't just stay in the right away. And there it's a hillside terrain there. Um, so you're going to your excavations and your retaining walls and your cuts and your fills is probably, you know, to to not get into the Sangalia or sensitive habitat areas is going to be extremely difficult. Um, this slide shows Darren showed you this one as well. Showed the uh shows

the two alternatives for the trail. Um um and then also the the freeway connection. Um I included there in the bottom orange a quote from CALR District 5 that we got yesterday about feasibility and if it would work. And so there's three things they say is number one, yes, spacing wouldn't work. Number two, um there would be a new freeway management plan uh established that. So basically it's a new corridor plan that goes along Highway One. There's one. And typically when you do something like this, you change the interchanges. They also require you to update the entire freeway plan. Um then there's also the um I can't read all of that. There was some spacing ramps closure. Um oh and then it's highly likely that district 5 local staff will not recommend it. Um it will also have to go to CTC. Um and you know and then of course you need TAM's backing um as the regional transportation planning agency to do this. And we know also TAM is also not really currently very keen on building new interchanges again because of the VMT impacts. Um so they says this will be an extremely long process right if we do want to go with it but highly likely that will never happen. Next slide. So we took the trail right that runs along Highway One. So here we move east west. So south is on the left side, north's on the right side. And um what we overlaid here was an orange. So so so when we did the feasibility we said the trail runs inside city right away. So it would touch Calrans right away but then it would get very close or touch the Sangal as well. Um we have a 20 foot wide strip. Um then um you know after talking more with Erin, Erin said the the the conservancy agencies want a 20ft gap between whatever you build and

the sens sensitive habitat area. So that means we move need to move the trail into the calrance right away which are the sort of two orange blobs at the top that you see and we would encroach somewhere between 10 and 15 ft. Um if you drive on the freeway there you'll see they actually dips down. So from the freeway there's a slope downhill towards the rightway line. Um so immediately the retaining walls. Um I also included some text at the bottom from Calrans again um about this um the possibility if to move this trail into their rightway. They said they would prefer relinquishment of the property, which means that the city probably need to don't think they need to purchase it, but there's going to be a an agreement that takes place. It goes to CTC. Um it's also a very long process, but they um they more keen on not having the trail in their right of way. Um I also showed at the bottom of this, so at the top has the aerial photo, the bottom shows a profile of what the terrain looks like, right? And you will see immediately there's grades of 7% and 4% which is actually quite steep. Again, lots of grading required. So the by the time you built the trail, it's probably not just going to be the 20 ft that you need. It's going to be a little wider. Um ADA could be challenging. We may need to do meandering. Um if we don't if it's in feasible to do ADA, then you can do go with the grace, but it's it's it's not going to be the best trail because of the steepness of it. Next slide please. Um I guess Erin talked about the school um alignment um which was deemed not feasible. We did need to stay within there right away and needed an easement. They said no. Next slide please. So the engineering constraints of the new interchange would be you know it will cost be a very cost prohibitive and

it will a very long time process working with Calrans. All of this is in the coastal commission zone. Um all I can say is good luck. Um you know coastal zone is just the coastal commission is just very very hard getting anything done now for um you know anything that you going to build infrastructure. We know with MST the bus that was a great solution. There was also coastal commission issues. Um tons of regulator permits that you would require. Um District 5 may not support a new interchange on the local level. um which is sort of a fundamental unless they support it you cannot move forward to talk to any of the agencies above them or go to headquarters CCC or FHWA and then if you have any VMT impact so that mitigation cost is extremely high um you know we didn't look at any other options um for the interchange um but this is sort of a constraints analysis very high level of the interchange next slide please so for Um for the trail itself definitely the geography is a challenging the hillside that's there is is not probably the most hills in Marina that I know of and the steepest ones the ADA requirements how to get past that that protection um for the sensitive habitat that you got to ensure um and you know Erin talked about fencing already that's required probably something like that um we potentially see a lot of retaining walls which will push up the cost. Um since it is such a challenging terrain and you have all these habitat issues that you got to deal with, it will be cost prohibitive and then of course the calrans right away requirements are there. We do have we did have one other option in that alignment studies that we did and that is actually to have this class one trail adjacent to the second avenue extension and that was how it was originally designed when the extension

would have run from second avenue and connect directly to Delmani. So that option is still available to us to do so we can have that bicycle connection. It's not the ideal shortest connection from second to connect to Delmani, but it takes you to patent parkway. It takes you into the central area of Marina and it with patent park you can still go down to Delmonte Boulevard. That's my presentation. Matter of fact, just may add one thing while Fred Frederick is up here in the region. We went back to show that original picture of of the interchange because um the decisions that we make as we move forward with this um ITP all those pictures that Frederick showed the interchange goes away permanently. So, we've been talking for um a long time about that interchange and the issue was we wanted to open up Delmani Boulevard. If you're coming down um from the north, you cannot access our downtown and so we're trying to improve the access to our downtown. We're trying to relieve some of the congestion off of Im. We're trying to provide a connection between Central Marina to Southern Marina. That's why I went through all we had like eight different iterations and and that's why we came up with that one preferred plan. Um but that all goes away with this ITP working with fish and wildlife that as they as Erin and Frederick have said that is really important um protection area and then as Frederick point out that one little we're trying to do alternate plan there again those all go away um cost impacts with um with uh CALR um with coastal commission we just don't think they're feasible

But we want to make that very clear for the future that that that road connection as we planned um will never happen again. The connection is what Frederick talked about is we'll bring it down Patent Parkway, weave it through Patton Parkway through the Cypress Nullles area and then eventually connected to Second Avenue and that's the best that we can do. Okay, let's go to public comment starting with folks in the room.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members. Um, I might need to at some point ask for a second bit of time. Um, but I'll see how I go. Uh, my name is Fred Watson. I'm speaking with two hats here. Uh, one is as a co-founder of the Fortag Trail and Greenway. The other is as a rare plant advocate and expert who has advised the city on sand Gillia ecology and conservation. I emailed you some written written comments on this item when it was previously agendaized three weeks ago. In that email, I sought a re-evaluation of the feasibility of the Fortag Trail segment connecting from Second Avenue to Do90 Boulevard through the the Northwest parcel generally adjacent to the fence. Uh the packet stated that this alignment was considered infeasible from an accessibility standpoint and I believe this is incorrect. I followed up with an email to staff that modified the consultant's calculations to show how an accessibly graded alignment is possible um with some cut and some fill um accounting for the lateral toe slopes that would be um involved there. And I the city manager graciously met me on site with the mayor yesterday to uh clarify our shared understanding of the of the the local geography. Um my understanding coming into tonight was that we might have a shared view that an accessibly graded trail is physically possible without interfering with any known sandgillia locations and limiting the impact on sensitive habitat to just a few tens of square feet. Uh Frederick just painted a different picture I think with a very broad brush quite dismissive of what can be accomplished if you really put your mind to a very detailed examination of the landscape the habitat and how you can construct these trails. We've got brilliant examples of this

done by state parks at Aylar and at Spanish Bay where you can walk along these boardwalks right over the sensitive habitat that looks better than it ever did well before there were used trails there. You can do trails right above habitat. We're not proposing that. We're just trying to put the trail right next to the habitat. You can do it in a way where the habitat is pristine and the trail is accessible and the the they benefit each each other. You can see the habitat from the trail, embrace it, become stewards of it as community members. Um and because of that, the habitat benefits because we have a city full of stewards who appreciate the habitat. Um and not holds some kind of disdain for it as a thing that gets fenced off blocking their their way to access the the city. Um, just slip my computer.

All right, Fred, just one moment, please. Fred, so council, our standard is three minutes. Uh, Fred has done an inordinate amount of work on this project over the years. Is there any objection to giving him another three minutes? Just in in all fairness, if you would if you do that, you'd have to give that to every other member of the public. Okay. All right, council. I don't detect a large interest in commenting on this because it is so complicated, but please proceed, Fred, for another three minutes.

So, if we can Thank you very much. If if we can agree that it's physically possible. Um, and keep in mind I just finished designing an underpass under a highway in Dory Oaks next to a very sensitive wetland, assuring the public at the outset that the existing loop trail around Frock Pond would not be touched in any way by the construction and we got it funded for $1 million and we built it. So I I had a little bit of experience in a vision for what can be done and realizing that vision. So if we can put that behind us and say, "Yeah, we can do this." The question then becomes to an administrative one. Can we modify the ITP plan without disrupting all the necessary timelines of existing funded projects? I don't know the answer. That's a question. Um I really hope we can make this allowance especially if we remove the allowance for the freeway interchange which is a pretty substantial allowance. Um, if we can't do that, can we at least write down now in writing and in maps that we anticipate wanting to do that as a future modification to the ITP so that when current electeds and staff are gone, it won't be a surprise that we want to do, we always wanted to do that. What's at stake here is our only chance to have a direct active transportation correction connection between Second Avenue and Delmi Boulevard. Cars can use the existing freeway. Bikes and pedestrians can't. This alignment is the good option for bikes and pedestrians. That's the end of that part of my comment. Then I've got two brief other ones with regards to the Selenus River habitat management area. Can for tag representatives such as myself be involved in the discussions because it's a very tricky spot fitting in the city's need for a road around the airport for the existing uh agreed alignment of for

tag and the requirement that Erin just outlined that we use existing uh trails. So I would just appreciate some involvement in the details on that. Um, and then second, what happens to the the bit of the Gileia patch that the Dudw project did not impact? There's a there's a polygon there. The hotel went through half of it. The other half is still there. Um, is there some plan to look after it or is it being abandoned? It's now been kind of reduced in size and there's a hotel overshadowing it. Um, I would just like to think somehow we've accounted for the fact that it um it may be anticipated to continue to exist or we may have abandoned it. I'm not really sure. Thank you.

Thank Thank you very much, Fred. Anyone else in the building that wants to comment on this? Let's go online and you each have uh up to six minutes. We'll start with Denise Turley. I I can make mine uh fairly quick. So my concern is that um if the do wall is connected with uh with the city and gets to manage a plan or make a plan or the city's going to help them. I'm hoping that the resources city are there because um many of our people working for the city are newer people and they didn't live the nightmare that was the building of the first hotel. I will I will stop at that for that item. I will also say that um happy 30 years ago when we started all of this and please let's keep it moving. Hello to Fred. Hello to Aaron. And um let's keep our chin chins up and keep going on this. Thank you.

Thank you, Denise. Let's go to Grace Silva Santella. Welcome.

Hi, Mayor and City Council. Uh first, thank you very much for having given Fred uh Dr. Fred Watson additional time to speak. I will not need that additional time myself. I served on the planning commission in the general plan update of 2000. And at that time, the planning commission was super excited about a Second Avenue extension connecting South Marina. And I remember staying up in one of your very late night meetings. I believe I may have been the only person in the Zoom audience when Fred, it was really probably my first uh real indepth hearing Fred speak about San Gileia informed the council of this beautiful large undisturbed area in Cypress Nolles in the area of the Second Avenue extension. And I remember being quite shocked. I remember feeling shocked that we had not been informed of that back in uh 2000 and I believe that most of the plan that most of the city council members were quite surprised to learn about this. As I've become more better educated about how critical native habitats are, especially as I've become quite involved in the a desire to see the Lock Padden Park wetlands restoration become a priority down at Loaden Park. I now understand and appreciate how critical some of this endangered native habitat is and I am willing being a very longterm resident of Marina and having worked on that 2000 general plan update I'm willing to accept the fact that we will not have a second avenue road extension

but I very much look forward to what Dr. Watson spoke about and that is a uh access for pedestrians and bicyclists similar to what the Syllamar State Beach has in this fantastic boardwalk development. And I actually see that that could be a tremendous draw for visitors and tourists coming to our side of the peninsula. So, I hope that you will do everything you can to protect this uh critical habitat, not just of the San Gileia, but of this uh dwarf coastal prairie. I'm sorry, using the wrong phrase to describe it. But I hope that we'll do everything to not only protect this land, but to somehow incorporate it into promoting our city and the stewardship that Dr. Watson spoke about. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Grace. Let's go to Jeffrey Markham. Welcome, Jeffrey.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, city council. Uh, I would like to speak um in support of what Dr. Watson was saying about the Arail alternatives to be thinking more out of the box on how that can be done. Uh, I went down and took a look at it, too, and it it is a a challenging grade. However, I think with some of the things that uh Dr. Watson is talking about. I think it can be accomplished if we just think a little bit more about uh how we can incorporate that uh Sangelia area the protection area along with uh providing public access trails for biking and hiking and walking. Um uh and similar to what uh Miss Antillo was saying u I think you know the more you learn about things like u sangelia it's a very interesting species a very um uh a kind of species where you know if it isn't growing there it probably won't and that's one of the things we've learned is almost all of the mitigation areas for sangelia have failed. uh and there's a lot of complexities in the way the plant grows, the conditions it want, sunshine and and the sand composition and everything that make it uh challenging to mitigate. And so anything that the council can do to preserve and protect the existing uh Gileia populations that we have is something that uh I strongly encourage them to do and and not rely on mitigation because it's uh it simply does not work. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Fred. Let's go to Mike Mohler. Welcome, Mike. Yeah, good evening, mayor, council, and staff. Um, you know, I thought we were a a walkable, bikable, visionary town, and to u to hear the the the solemn uh squash of any trail um by, you know, Kimly Horn is pretty disappointing. Um but to hear Dr. Watson um who has proven he's the utmost expert I think that that we know on San Gileia and um and the and the master of planning trails if if Dr. Watson says he thinks it can happen. I I certainly would not dismiss him one bit. Um, so I I I do hope that you uh seriously consider uh his recommendation and look closer at it because you know my my concern is we do have you know this trail being redone here on the west side. Uh but that forces any bicyclists or pedestrians to cross over to the west side um to get to the the dunes area and then cross over again which would take you uh down to 8th Avenue which is you know could be quite a trek for people. So I think it would be a real missed opportunity um to ad omit any sort of trail even one that's narrowed um u along Highway One there on the east side. Um, you know, I'm I'm sorry that we don't get the um, you know, the long planned and anticipated Second Avenue uh, connection. Um, but Habitat is Habitat and that is important. Um, but

that's all I have to say. Thank you. Thank you, Mike. Anyone else wishing to speak, please raise your hand before we close public comment. We'll give you a moment. Okay, let's uh close public plug comment and I'm going to start with a question that was posed by uh Dr. Fred Watson. Kind of an easy one maybe. Uh what happens to the rest of the Dodd Wall Gileia parcel that wasn't destroyed by the hotel construction?

Hello. I can take a stab at that. um that could be part of the remedy of his ITP violation that it gets um preserved or enhanced in some way in perpetuity and protected. Would that at all reduce the 3 036 habitat that's needed? I don't know at this time. Okay. Uh looking at other questions that that people asked. Council, if you know any that I didn't write down, please let me know at this time. Okay. Now, let's just go to our comments and questions. Uh, starting with Council Member McAdams. If you want to weigh in now or later, just let us know so we don't forget that you're with us.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I I don't really have any comments. I mean, I just um, you know, this has been a long process and comes back and keeps coming back and I, you know, am just, um, eager and, uh, to wrap this up and move this forward as staff recommended. All right. Thank you. And we'll check in with you uh before too long. Um okay, I'll start with the trail that we're we've spent a lot of time talking about. There's a several issues here, but that trail issue. So, you have Highway One and then east of Highway One, you have Calrans right ofway continuing to a chain link fence. And on the other side of that fence, you have a long line of very mature cypress trees and about 30 ft of ice plant underneath those cypress trees. So freeway, riderway has nothing to do with us. Then a chainlink fence and then us. And the first 30t of us is cypress trees and ice plant. On the east side of that ice plant, you have a well-defined 10 to 12 foot dirt road that's been used by vehicles and people for decades. It is that dirt road primarily that's being uh recommended ded by by Fred Watson as a trail. It's already there. But if you moved it a little bit toward the freeway, you'd be under the Cyprus and into the ice plant, which nobody would say had any value to San Gillia. So this trail alignment being discussed has zero impact on occupied Gileia where there's actually been plants uh documented and it has a smidgen if any well it has a smidgen it does have some impact to low quality

gileia habitat because there are uh certain mzanas um a mustard wallflower and other things that indicate that gileia could grow there and so what's considered kind of low to medium quality habitat. There's army impact, there's gravel, there's areas that have been flattened. And as Jeff Markham, I think, was referring to, once you change the composition of the of the soil surface, you're not going to get Gileia to grow there unless you put a whole lot of money into trying to reconvert it back to something natural, which is very difficult because we don't fully understand what it is soil texture- wise that lets Gia hang on where it's hanging on. but it's hanging on to soil areas that are different than developed soil areas. So, uh then we come to the grade. Um there are other forte trails that have been made accessible and planned and somewhat constructed depending on which segment you're talking about that are just as steep as this. And the areas that are steep are so short in the linear feet that as Fred said, a little 5-ft cut at the top of one hill and you place that as fill somewhere else to modify the grade somewhere else. There's a fairly minimal amount of earth movement needed to get this within grade. Understanding that you have to slopes going both directions or maybe one direction or you need something a 3 to one slope and that would be impacted as well. Just getting to the final point and I'll come back with other comments that when Fred said if you get people on the ground and look at this uh with any sort of desire for creativity you wouldn't throw it in the trash can as being totally infeasible and I'm wondering uh do you did you were you able to Belinda to put the photo up so to show you the you know today or yesterday this is what it looks like one at a time and then you know in

sequence they show pretty It's the same thing. So, we have a slide up on there with a former road that's turned into trail going through the middle of the photo. And to the right, you're moving toward the freeway. You have about 20 to 30 ft of ice plant with cypress trees and a chain link fence. That chain link fence then begins the Calran rightway. But on our side of the chain link fence, nobody would call that that that is zero value Gileia habitat. And that's that could be the predominant place where this trail goes. Then you have the trail. Nobody would say that that trail is very very good habitat for Gileia. But if you look to the left of the trail, you start getting some native plants mixed in with the ice plant. And some of those native plants such as manzanas indicate that there is some value there to Gileia even though it's never been mapped to be there. It has some value as potential habitat. And when you look up the middle of that, that's the grade we're talking about. That doesn't really look like a super steep grade, but it is somewhere between 8 and 12% something like that. And so at the very top of that, you would have to cut uh about 5 ft down. And then with that material, you have to put it somewhere else. And you'd put it somewhere where it would be useful uh to fill to to moderate the grade somewhere else along this gradient or this this alignment. But it's not a no it's not a uh a it's not a no-brainer, but it's also not so complicated that you couldn't put a trail here with extremely low impact when we're talking about putting large roads elsewhere. And here we're talking about a road in some ice plant under some cyprress where there's already a a walking trail that gets a lot of use by bikes and pedestrians over the last few decades. Um so one question I have for you and then I'll I'll uh I'll I'll stop talking for the moment.

Um if this was turned into a conservation area, no trail, what happens to all that ice plant and cypress habitat? Is that considered conservation area? Does that get credit as being a conservation area of value for Gileia? We don't know at this time because we haven't developed the long um term management plan for this conservation area. Okay. So if it's if the resource management plan is written as it needs to be, might the city be required to remove the ice plant and some of the trees so they can be Gileia habitat or could this be conservation area and leave it as is?

There's two two processes. the resource management plan. Uh we wouldn't propose removal of the ice plant or cypress trees at this at this stage as part of the habitat management activities that occur under that that plan. Um the the goals objectives of the HMP are to maintain habitat values as is. So they're it's not actually saying you need to go restore everything regilia. So but separate um is the ITP. um it might come down to play that certain areas are needed for restoration to lift any um mitigation uh to to give us extra mitigation credits. Um I did want to add one thing that um Edri mentioned is that um this is also the PG& access uh road for their it's their easement for um overhead lines or something like that.

Okay. So, it'll forever be used potentially by trucks, right? And we're talking about using it for foot and bikes. Okay. And that would be allowed into the conservation ement, but a trail wouldn't. Okay. So, this could be considered a conservation area. And because it's a conservation area, it would prohibit the use of a trail going through here. Correct. And it could remain with this ice plant and cypress trees. But because it's a conservation area, we couldn't put a trail in. But we we might be leaving the ice plant and the cypress trees potentially. Okay. All right. So, uh we'll go to anyone else that would like to speak on city council. Council member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. Um I'm a little tear in the headlights. Uh but I I I do have a couple things I want to say and you know, I feel as sensitive as topic is pretty sensitive, no pun intended. Um, but I think I want to say a couple things that I wouldn't normally say. And that is, um, one, I think if many of the people that I represent understood the massive amount of public resources that are going into this kind of compliance um, and and protection of these species, there would be a lot of questions about priorities and trade-offs that we don't hear tonight. Um, and I think it's because people don't understand. It's very complicated, right? It's very confusing. Um, and not necessarily opposition, but a a broader desire kind of for transparency and and an understanding of what we're spending and why and what the protection of the species means for amenities, for land use, um, for development and kind of those trade-offs that are occurring. And quite frankly, I think a lot of people I represent could care less about Sangelia. Um it's uh you know it's a species that most couldn't identify if they had to. They don't see or interact with it on a normal basis. And not everybody is um opposed to extinction of species, right? I mean, I think of CO 19. If I could get rid of that tomorrow, I I probably would. I think of the dinosaurs. Thank god they're not still alive because guess what? We wouldn't look like we look like today if they were. Um, I say that to say this is a super nuanced issue. Um, and it's easy to kind of get lost in some of the details of the of the the trade-offs that we're likely going to give direction for tonight. Um, and yet I recognize that we have a legal obligation to protect these species and I appreciate that and that's what I'm

here to do. I think that the law is very clear that that that that is our mission. Um and I think we should look through this with that lens, right? What what can we do to help follow the law, which is protect the species. Um, I think I'm going to leave it at that for now, but I I I just want to make that recognition that for me, the people that I represent, if they understood that what we're doing tonight is actually going to prevent them from having the road that they need to get to the services that they want to get to, that prevents them from having the trail that, you know, they want to ride on with their kids, like, um, you know, they they'd probably have a a different view from the views that you've heard tonight. Um I I want to continue to hear more. My understanding is we're not making any firm decisions tonight either way, right? We're giving general direction.

Um we're kind of where we we kind of want that. Go ahead.

Yeah, I just wanted to I I appreciate your comments. Thank you. Um, Council Member McCarthy, um, I think that is that's a really good point and it it's disappointing to to hear public comments sounding like we're trail haters or something. We um have been on the receiving end of emails and um meetings with CDFW who don't see this trail as being permittable. They don't see how it can be fully mitigated even as it is. And so the city needs to decide hopefully tonight whether this trail is a priority. And yeah, we you can design a trail. You can build a trail, but you need to get the permits for it and you need to have the funding for it. So how how does the city want to move that forward?

Do you want to authorize an engineer to do 30% plans and a new topo survey? Because that's what we heard from Kimley Horn needs to be done to look at how we can thread the needle through this area. And if the council wants to prioritize that, we will we will obviously do it. Um, and just know that you're putting resources in where we've heard a really strong no from the agencies.

One more question before I move on and that is I suspect my colleagues are going to talk more about the trail and so I want to hear what they have to say, but the the mitigation for the Dodwell property. um at the last meeting I had asked I for I think the words that I used were a um you know a sense of what that land would use and I I'll just say I disagree with um the statement that it doesn't have an impact to the city. I think that, you know, and I said this at the last meeting and I'll repeat it this time. That's land that we could use for other mitigation, right? What happens when um the existing Gileia populations that exist are are somehow destroyed, right? Is that additional mitigation that we might have to account for?

No. To clarify, um we're already conserving the land that Doddwall wants to um that Doddwell could use for for mitigation. what CDFW is suggesting might be a good remedy is to actually plant Gileia there, which wouldn't be required under your permit, but would be required to remedy his, and he would um provide that funding to do that work to the city. But it's not impossible or implausible that some other entity might and I'm sorry I'm not using the right words take Gileia and requiring additional mitigation that if we use all of ours up for let's say Dodwell and others we would no longer have any that we could offer to someone else. Is that a correct understanding or

I think so. I think what my my brain because I'm in my head and in this process so much the conservation we str have strategy we have in front of us is about the balance we're going to get there's not other land out there that we see available and we've identified the priorities and so right now um if someone else has a project somewhere and they need to find Gileia land um they could potentially do um an agreement with with the city but more than likely they'll have to find their own land which is very difficult to do.

I think this is a a very unique situation where uh and the CDFW is sort of in agreement with the approach that has been offered here where it's land that is already being conserved and mitigated, right? and it's just being designated as part of the land that will be mitigated for the notice of violation uh for Dodd Wall's notice of violation and there's an extra step which again whatever the cost will be for that approach in terms of documentation and the extra effort we will enter into an agreement with Mr. wall to pay for that.

And I want to talk a little more about those agreements, but I don't know, mayor, if you want to come back to me or you want me to dive into those. Now, once we have those numbers, we can discuss, you know, what what that will be. Nothing that we do tonight is directing staff, regardless of what we say, to either move down that path of an agreement or not, or is it? No, it's just to submit this conservation strategy or mitigation strategy as part of the permit application which easily choose in the future. Oh yeah, totally. Completely.

Yeah. All that we're trying to convey is from fish and wildlife's point of view whether or not we included the dad walls area in our mitigation area has zero impact. Um doesn't increase the value or the actual acreage doesn't de decrease it. They they said it doesn't have any impact other than the actual mitigation um for the actual Gile,

right? But we have to officially submit something so they can provide feedback and tell us what they want us to do with that remedy for the violation and then we can move that forward. Talk to Dodd Wall talked about agreements and bring we'll bring that it's in the staff report bring it back to you for for review and input and approval. But I heard a question I that you brought up. What what about if someone else has you taking up someone else's mitigation? So once we don't have any anyone else right now that um is looking to build in any this area, but let's say once we have a conservation easement in place, somebody comes down the road 5 years and say, "Hey, I got a little patch of Gileia. Can I mitigate that within our existing conservation easement area? Is that feasible or or once that's locked up

potentially conser once the conservation easement is recorded um it's got its associated uh long-term management plan that goes along with it that talks about all the management that happens and funding in perpetuity. Um those can be revised fairly easily to incorporate some additional activities but the conservation easement itself can't really be changed but the attachments can which is part of the strategy. So Erin, are you saying that you hope tonight we leave here saying area X and area Y and area Q will be preserved and that includes the potential Doddwall piece whether we ever have an agreement with Dodwall or not. But if in the future we want to make an agreement with Doddwall or anybody else in perpetuity, we might be able to do some enhancement activities inside these set aside areas. And right now, Doddwall is on the table as maybe doing some enhancement to an area that we're about to set aside tonight. And if he never does an enhancement to that area, that area is still part of the set aside.

Yes. Okay. Can we go to exhibit D? Um, it shows the equestrian center, but I think I'm color blind. Looks like a red kind of square area above it and it looks like blue area to the east. It's in the slideshow, too. I don't know which is easier. And I'll start out talking about it. It looks to me like the northern part of the equestrian center, which has no horse use and never has, is a pretty big area and it's being identified here for potential development. Is that right, Lane? Uh, yes. Okay, that's correct.

And it looks like it's about 2 acres. I don't know how big it is, but it's not too big. Maybe bigger than two acres, maybe five acres. Um, but we don't have any plans for that. We don't want to build a Taco Bell. We don't want apartments or anything like that. Has to be a park. Has to be a park. Why is it has to be um because the equestrian center wanted to expand activities like uh jumping and things like that. I don't know. That was and and that that's part of NPS property. And so that was based on direction from council that um future um area uses of that could be future ropes courses, future and most specifically open for public access.

Yeah. So that that was based on direction from county public use. That's all the NPS area that we wanted to be sure that we had the ability to to use that. Okay. Can you go to a map that shows the areas we want to develop? Maybe it's exhibit B. Maybe it's C. Exhibit C. It looks like exhibit C. The slide before right there. I think that's it. So the to the to the northeast, the upper right is kind of a square area. That's the airport. And all of that is potential development here and a lot of Gileia will be taken there. Correct. And so that Gileia that's taken has to be uh compensated for somewhere else. The blue areas.

The blue areas. Um and so the area to the now we're moving over to the coast. Uh the northwest parcel it has some red area at the southwest corner. A big block of red area and that I think we're saying would be set would be for development tonight. Correct. Correct. And that would require some mitigation too because it has some Gileia habitat. No Gileia. It looks like it does. The red blob is Oh, the red rod is. So, it's got some occupied Gileia and it's got some potential Gileia habitat. And so, if that were developed, that would have to be mitigated for, right?

Correct. Now, if that were reduced in size, there would be less mitigation needed for developing it potentially. Okay. So potentially if we put a trail in along the cypress trees ice plant and it had some kind of Gileia compensation requirement that might equal or be less than the savings if we reduce this this red block that I just mentioned on the southeast corner of the northwest HMA. Right.

Potentially. I do want to reiterate CDFW staff and the director Craig Bailey have said in email they don't see how putting a trail in or anything northwest could be fully mitigated right under but if in a site visit we saw that that red area has really good habitat value and that the part where we want to put the trail under the trees and the ice plant has almost zero habitat area that maybe one for one or some some kind of negoti ation. We could put the trail in, reduce the size of that red area, and sort of mitigate for the impacts the trail would make by lowering the impacts we're going to make in this more valuable piece of land

potentially. Potentially, but CDFA, you know, the state fish and wild service haven't been out on the site. Maybe they have. They have. Yes. And they know exactly where the trail is going to go. They've seen the ice plant and they don't want the trail to go where the ice plant is because it would have too much impact on Gileia. That is their opinion at this point. Yes, that they have physically walked the site, walked them walked that trail. They're familiar with it.

All right. And one thing you mentioned earlier is that it's not just putting in the trail impacting Gileia, but it's offsite use that's going to come off that trail and potentially harm Gileia and harm habitat. So now when you move over in that map to the Cypress Nulls area where in between a housing development you have these two polygons that Fred said are really important to maintain and I think everyone kind of agrees. What about the offsite impact into those areas by plopping them in the middle of a huge residential area? We haven't addressed that yet because we haven't submitted our application and addressed what um CDFW would want to do um to protect those in perpetuity. Um,

right. Well, I remember through the 20 years of Habitat conservation planning, there was always a big deal made about you can't burn it. You can't stop cats and dogs necessarily. You can't stop kids from putting in motocross, you know, stuff like that. It's in the middle of an urban development. So, I really understand when you say and Fish and Wildlife says there's off-site impact potential on the trail, but then I look at that and I think, "Oh my gosh, that's a lot more potential impact because people are living there 24/7 and recreating when they walk out their doors." Whereas this trail, it's kind of in a remote location. And as Fred said there, and I think Grace said, there are examples elsewhere where there's plenty of protection off site from well-used routes as this has been for a long time and would be if we kept it. So I guess the final conclusion is, is there a way we can go ahead tonight largely with what staff is recommending as far as getting an incidental take permit, an ITP, uh, for the whole of all these areas? but leave enough room to have a separate ITP in the future evaluate this trail we're talking about for which we have no funding and um don't know when it's going to happen but we just want to leave it on the books as a potential uh just like we still have on this map a large road going from um the highway to the Delmani extension which is never going to happen but it's here uh so I guess it could happen if you know everything the stars lined up. But can we do both? Can we get an ITP moving through the moving ahead progressing tonight on everything but somehow modify this so that a future ITP could consider this trail? And I know that that would require CDFW uh you know opining and visiting this

area one more time with us because it just doesn't make any sense that they're considering ice plant uh habitat and that taking away better habitat just to the south so that is not impacted that has higher value they wouldn't somehow balance each other.

I I hear you. Um I've been frustrated with other projects with um the definition of of of impact with CDFW. Um I think a good example is um the forag California segment. They did not TAMY the Forte Trail doesn't impact any occupied Gilead. It doesn't directly impact their mitigating for for habitat and they see um areas as habitat and potential seed bankank. Um, I I hear your request and I actually talked to CDFW about that and I the only way I can see how to how to do that and it's just only because my brain's just starting to get there is that we would need some sort of design level to be able to understand. We can't just put a 20ft buffer along the fence. um that won't that won't give you the engineering or future need that you want and then we miss out on having that as our mitigation area. So, we'd have to actually figure out how to put a footprint for a trail in there that's going to work in the future that would benefit both parties because we're going to we're going to lose we can't have that as part of the conservation easement. It's not going to get amended to put a trail through there. So, we've got to figure out how to do like what we did with that red overpass, which it sounds like I thought we were going to take out. Um, but any so cuz I'm I'm hearing two things and and we pushed um CDFW really tried to understand that trail and they really pushed back hard and they said the impacts are are too significant. Um, but if the interest of the council is you really want us to go and try to look at there's a path forward for that trail along there, then we would have to bring in Kimly Horn as Eron is talking about so we can really

understand the engineering because there's more than just cutting off 5T from the top. We have ADA responsibilities. we have a lot of things that that they'd have to look at for the whole path um and see what the impact of that would be and then go back to fish and wildlife would would let them know that we're trying to look at um carving that out and and just get a sense from them what what that would do um because we would not be able to move forward with the other application um right now there there's not a way that I think you'd said can we just put kind of hold for a second. ITP uh we can't um either we have to go back and analyze that trail footprint um and then work with fish and wildlife and see what those impacts would be. Um, if you want we can I don't know. I'm trying to think of

we've talked with him so much. I just don't know how. Okay. Let's go to Mayor Rich Elizabeth and then we'll come back.

Thank you. I think we should send fish and wildlife with Dr. Fred Watson to that location because I agree it's and I I am so sorry that this might be held up because I know people will not be happy if it gets held up even more. But I agree that a thrill is so important because yes, you know, to get from South Marina to Central Marina or the other way, you have to cross Highway One twice or you have to take California Avenue with soon hopefully the Fortex will. Still a direct path will make the connection so much better. It will save vehicle miles traveled which we cannot even imagine now how how many there will be with people with ebikes now which makes um grades less important than it was. But of course there's always people who don't have the motor. But um so I as I although I know that people will not like it, I would rather pause and spend some more time some more money on researching if it's really not possible to get a a thrill there. So to see if we can have a a path or a thrill to move forward with that and um also a a trail or a bike path, whatever we want to call it, a multi-use, it doesn't have to have the same width over the whole length. It can be wherever it needs to be narrow can be narrow and then I

Yes. And um fences, we don't know, we're not sure yet what the fences will look like. This will be so important. Will be ugly fences maybe or hopefully a little bit more beautiful. And I agree with the um remarks about those S Gia patches in Cypress Nles when we had that cheret two years ago or so. Time does fly when we're having fun. Um, we spoke or I said if there's an HOA there, you need to have probably fences around it and explanations like no, this is barren 10 months out of the 12 months or longer and no, don't plant anything else there because we have a beautiful flower there. You cannot see it now, but come back in March and it and it is beautiful. I used to laugh about it. Sorry. But now that I've seen it, it's really a very pretty flower. You need magnifying glasses, but it is pretty and it's so special. I'm Yeah. Anyway, so this doesn't really help.

I'm already Thank you very much for your comments and I just um might make a suggestion. Mayor already started. Uh do you want to put some development areas on the chopping block? um reducing the airport uh boundary, getting rid of the equestrian area. Um where might you want to find additional mitigation land and prioritize because that's what's going to happen. I mean, we've got to if we're taking we got to we got to have something to offer for me question center that red area that's that's not a given yet that that will be developed. I like it the way it is with the amateur radio

and I'm not positive that the NPS I don't think we can put a conservation over it way. So never mind that help. Okay. The low hanging fruit looked good. That's the little triangle there. Is that the MSD owned site? Mhm. Correct. So that's still an option to buy and use um for mitigation. Um yeah, we we've not explored that buying that from state. I think I don't think that was very expensive and they did their surplus research. So that might be might be totally worth it putting money in that if it can help getting a trail from north to south. So

okay, let's uh ask Brian that question and give him a chance to say the other things he was thinking of saying. Thank you. I don't know what question you're asking me, but um if there's areas you'd like to take out of development to help compensate for this trail connection or not. Yeah, I don't know if I have an opinion on that. Um I do have a couple questions just for clarity. You mentioned council member Vincent mentioned vehicle miles travel, but that's not there's no I think she was using that to articulate, but that that's not really the thing that like there's no vehicles on this path, right?

No. You know, I just wanted to say if there's a good connection then people will be using their bikes or their legs, you know, walking or biking and that will save in a more direct way in it will help us to use the cars less. So yeah, um I guess I'm a little confused. So there's this population near the highway that I think everybody agrees is significant and CDFW you and don't let me put words in your mouth but I think the consultant and staff is saying that it should be protected but the proponent of the trail Dr. Watson is saying that it it's not as significant. Help me help me understand that

trail proposed doesn't cross occupied Gileia. It crosses primarily poor value to zero value Gileia that may not be shared by Fish and Wildlife Service, but when you've got the Cyprus and the ice plant, you don't have Gileia value. It'll never grow there. Okay. Thank you. Um, so there's just currently there's a CDFW and and proponents of the trail are just at odds at the value of of having that trail there is what I'm hearing. And do you think and it's okay if you don't have an opinion but having giving more time will change their mind. Um I mean I think you've already said but maybe you can say it in a different way.

I don't know if it can be designed in a way that it can be fully mitigated and you'd have to go through that process and bring it to them and do the evaluation

because one of the things I'm struggling with right is the city deserves some predictability in what's going to happen here. We've talked about this for a long time and in the stock market, right? There's this concept of predictability actually makes the market go up even when the news is bad, right? Like people just want to know like what's going on, right? And right now we don't have that and that's it's frustrating for me as a a land use fanatic and I'm sure it's frustrating for staff and developers and everybody else. Um so I'm hoping that you know we can really start to make some progress here. I do want to go back to the Selenus River area for a little bit um just because it's an area that I'm super interested in. I think you mentioned that no new roads or trails can be created in those areas.

Correct. And there's no roads there currently. So basically no roads can be created, right? I don't I mean there's roads just outside of that area, I think. Or maybe I don't understand it. Right. I haven't been out there in a while. Okay. But and trails trails are there. Okay. but not heavily used. So, it's is it you can do maintenance. Okay. Um I thought I had some questions there and they they've just escaped me. They might come back come back to me. Um yeah, that's I guess that's it for me for now, but I I'd really like to see us move forward with a little bit of direction.

Okay. And we're going to go to our city manager in a moment. The question that Aaron posed five minutes ago was what could be on the chopping block to allow for some take along this proposed trail. And I would say that southwest corner of the northwest habitat management area is definitely something that could be reduced for development so that there wouldn't be as much development allowed. It's a beautiful piece of maritime chaparel. And then when you go to the norththeastern area of Cypress Nolles along Patton Parkway where there's a bunch of red blobs north of the existing you know blighted duplexes that is some beautiful maritime chaperel and it's got quite a bit of gilead it looks like. And so if we weren't going to develop that and we were going to develop this trail through the ice plant it seems like there's got to be some kind of give and take there. potentially. I do know that um the agencies were interested in the um far eastern edge of the airport where you see the large um if you imagine taking that little chunk out. I can't a pointer.

Yeah. This guy putting that in conservation.

Right. So these three areas, the one that you just mentioned at the airport, the one that I mentioned at Cypress Nolles that have apparently really good habitat value because the Gilead is growing in fairly large botches and then that third southeastern or southwestern portion of the H of the Northwest HMA. Those three areas combined have so much more value to Gileia. It seems pretty obvious. And then one thing that CDFW probably doesn't care about, but Brian's constituents and everyone's constituents do, we hear so often that a connection between Central Marina and South Marina is really important. And Fred impressed upon me in our field visit this earlier this week that if you call this Northwest area a conservation easement, we forever forego the potential for a connection between these two areas of our city for pedestrians and bicycles that is convenient. And that is a large loss in perpetuity for this whole thing to become a conser conservation easement, especially when you look at the ice plant that we're talking about being part of that conservation easement. So, you know, anyone on city council that agrees how important it is to have a connection between Central and South America, that's not what I meant to say. you know, going circuitously in a car to the east and coming back. It might work in a car, but more people are going still going to want to do the 13 seconds straight from Rain Dollar along Delmani Boulevard to the Immigen Parkway bridge. That's a 13-second ride. I think people in motor in cars are going to want to do that still. Not the new proposed Delmani extension alternative alignment, but the people on foot and on bicycle. If you told them that you want to get from the Shell gas station on Delmani Boulevard

to Second Avenue and the way to do it is to go up Patent Parkway and curve around, they're going to think you're you're nuts. And right now it's kind of nutty because you got to go all the way down the A Street and come all the way back north if you want to go to Target. That's just that's just blown away the desires for people to get on a car, get on a bike or or or foot foot to get to, you know, between these two areas. And I think when Cypress Nullles develops, there's going to be some cutthroughs that allow people in cars to go from north to south Marina. And you don't necessarily need this new alignment. But this new alignment, I would suppose, is going to have a lot of impact on Gileia. If you're telling me if if if we're being told that that ice plant corridor has impacted Gileia, think what this other corridor has when you're building the construction of a large new road. So, it just seems like there's got to be some take and give here. And it doesn't make good logic that Fish and Wildlife Service is so unwilling to consider tradeoffs here, better habitat for worser habitat, that this trail provides the worer habitat. Okay. Uh Mayor Prom But I can always ask question. I'm sorry. Lane, did you have input because I

Yeah, I want to ask.

Brian, he's talking about the the um the Selenus habitat management area. I just want a clarification. Um and Fred took us years ago on a little path trail down there. And so when we put that in a habitat management area, if an existing trail goes through there, are we still able to use that existing trail? And I think that's an important thing. I think the council, I think Brian had brought it up that have an interest in going down there and I'd put out to Fred if he's willing to lead us on a tour down there. I think that would be really helpful for all of us to do a tour on that walking path. And you really do get a totally different feel of that area, especially um as it goes down to the Selenus River. All along Sel Selenus River, it's privately owned. You can't at least down in this whole area. You can access it. This is a only really public access point. And so I just uh as you brought that up, I think that's an important thing to clarify that we can keep that path. And if so, we'll coordinate um a walking tour down through there.

Yeah, I I think you and Brian are totally on the right track because downstream from King City, I think this is the only place and what's that, you know, 50 miles. It's the only place where there's public access on the Selenus River. And so I think if we said two things, this connection between north and south for peds and bikes is really important. And having access to the Selenus River is really important. That's like our vision, right? And then we work toward making that happen. I think that's more important than the the Delmani Extension Alternative Alignment. Who do you know that's urging us to have a ciruitous way to drive from Rain Dollar or Patton Parkway to Second Avenue because they're unhappy with the on-ramp to the Immun Ridge, the the on-ramp and the off-ramp which take a matter of seconds. I think that's why we don't hear very much about wanting to drive an alternative route. And if you think about the impact of that alignment to Gileia habitat compared to an ice plant dominated corridor, it just doesn't make a lot of sense. Uh let's go back to Brian.

Yeah. So, I guess I'm just wondering what's the path forward um that we can kind of craft something that gives staff enough direction that will allow them to not have to come back to us. Um preferably like can we say, "Okay, you've got a month or two to go meet with CDFW." And if they say no, don't come back to us because we're giving you a step two, right? Like we're gonna we're gonna stick with plan A or whatever. Um, unfortunately we do have to come back for an amendment because we're not and they say no. They say no. Oh,

right. Cuz we're not approving anything tonight. So why would you have to come back to us to not approve something again? We've already gone this route with the agencies. So we can try again. Well, you had offered them Cypress Nullles Airport Southwest of the Northwest, correct? And said, does that more than compensate for this ice plant corridor?

This is true. And they won't be able to provide an opinion until they actually see the plans and can do an impact analysis. So, we'd actually have to de put this in the application and put a footprint and do the have the information there for them to evaluate. So again, as as uh city council um said, this unique situation where we've gone years without even submitting an application and a lot of work on the on the front end to get to a place where we have a balanced approach for a mitigation strategy and now we're going backwards and we're going to need to do the work to get a definitive answer. And I think that the city really needs to understand those those costs and time um associated with that. I know that this trail is important. I hear that and we're willing to to do what we can. I we've just heard the conversation. We've we've been in the meetings with CDFW and it's um we'll see what they say. I I'm not sure if the council wants wants us to do that. I'm not sure we want we'd want to come back and talk about um what we've worked out with fish and wildlife. um you've given some potential areas and and so if the direction is let's go back talk one last time um what it would take if we put that trail would have to involve Frederick um uh from the engineering aspect even give a sense of that and and then we come back and see let you know if there is a path forward but talk about potential other areas um including ones that had gillie habitat and and see um they they were pretty strong. I think that's partly it's based on um uh Fred initially talking about the importance of that gilly population in that north that northwest area and that was really critical to them and so I think that's part of that whole discussion that trail is that was really important but we can we're certainly

willing to go back and have that conversation one more time with them. Why haven't the discussions between the Gileia scientist and CDFW already happened or have it? Is it because Fred Watson didn't know that they weren't that they were going to suggest not allowing that or I don't understand what

I think Bridgeline and Fred knows more I think there's Fred has done a lot of study on the historic areas and the Gilead populations I know he's worked with them on on providing that information. Um it really not been until recently that the suggestion of the trail through there. Um and and so that had we known that two years ago, even a year ago, we could have been having that discussion. We just something that has just come up here at the very end.

And I think that's partly because last November is when we were told, even though Fred warned us a couple years ago where we were going was a dead end. It was November that we were told 2025 that we absolutely can't do the road connection we wanted. We have a new circuitous route to the east. So it's since November that this discussion could have happened and I think that it first came to our agenda a few weeks ago and that's where Fred provided extensive comments because that's part of the process. Um, what I wonder is council's opinion about ditching the circuitous Delmani extension or does this council think that that extension is really important as we have here in exhibit C on our monitors the conceptual Delmani extension alternative alignment. We already know that the western uh oriented portion, we heard today from Frederick and I've heard from Lane, that ain't going to happen. That that interchange is not going to happen. So, you can kind of just take that out of your mind and you're left with an S-shaped uh road connecting Patton Parkway to uh Second Avenue. So, how important is that road in relation to everything else we're talking about tonight, Lane? One little part of that um that road there is really for the development of of of the whole Cypress Nulls area. It's just one little we just put a little segment out connecting to Patton Parkway. But so the rest that segment that is vital, okay, for the development of Cypress Nolles, it's falling the existing road. We cannot develop Cypress Nles without

that. The reason I ask is the first time I saw it was when we were we were in November. You know, it just it just came up for the first time. So, I didn't know it was so vital if we didn't even consider it until November. Yeah. We just hadn't really put the roadways through through um Cypress Nolles. But once we we did that, we said, "Okay, here's the roadways. This is how that would go through Cypress Nles." Okay. Mayor Pam, did you have input?

Yes. Thank you. because um and it's also offset from Crescent to because otherwise it's concerning for that because this is Marina. We have neighborhoods that do not have access. We have all these culde-sacs and then a wall and only Crescent is the only street that does connect. So it could become quite a lot of traffic. Now that we know the overpass will not happen, it will not be as bad as as if the overpass will be there. And by the way, of course, now that we know the over will not overpass will not happen, staff will be busy seeing what can needs to be done with Indian because that traffic is backing up. So, um

Frederick is already working on that. Yes, I'm not surprised. It's never ending. So, um I think I think I can just Yeah, I like to um I already said what I wanted to say that I think it's so important because what if we need to put a dollar amount on having a trail connecting, you know, it's it might be totally worth it having to buy some property or or giving up some what Aaron suggested. Do you want to give up a little bit of the airport there? There's a lot of red there.

Yeah. Man, if you were to ask the public, what's more important to you, a north south trail or that eastern portion of the airport or that north eastern portion of Cypress Nolles along Patton Parkway or that brushy area on the southwest corner of the northwest habitat management area?

Yeah, it seems to me like you'd have a resounding consensus that the trail is much more important than any or all of those three areas, which they've never even thought about. as the members of the public who gave comments and thank you always for people who are still online with us. They were all asking you know protect or or look at the the path the trail protect the habitat but also look at having at least a pathway for pedestrians and

bicyclists. Now, as Brian Bryan brings this up often, you know, folks like those who commented are very involved. And if you look at the other 22,000 residents, I think they would be mostly in agreement that

they might not care about endangered species or extinction or anything like that. They don't even may not even know really what that stuff is, but they do care about a connection between the two parts of our city. and they probably don't care about that little piece of Cypress Nulls on the Northwest or that little piece of the Eastern Airport or or the other third piece as much as they care about connecting the two halves of our city. I I just think that in this case, Jeff and and Grace and Mike and whoever else spoke to this and probably uh Denise too would probably agree with the majority of Marina that that north to south connection is really important. And I think if they looked at that proposed alternative alignment, they'd say that's not what we were thinking. We were thinking of a direct connection, not a secuitous one. But

I did have another question probably for Aaron or Lane. Um, would it be helpful in the ne negotiations because this is what it is with fish and wildlife if in the areas where there's so much gileia and if the thrill is there if we do fence it off there have a a fence that's might not even be beautiful but but to really protect the gileia by by a fence make the trail as narrow as possible there with a fence have explanations on the fence why the fence is there photos of the beautiful flower I don't know that be helpful that would probably be required.

Okay. Um and I did want to just comment a couple things because it uh brought to mind. Um Craig Bailey from CDFW did offer to come to council and talk to you all if that's ever um uh something that you guys would be interested and it sounds like I think we are coming to that that point where that interaction would be important. So a daytime field trip and a nighttime meeting.

Yes. Um, and I know it's I know it's nuanced, um, but I want to be sensitive to, uh, Council Member McCarthy's comment about resources. We have this issue with the Ford HDP. The more mitigation land you put in um, conservation, the more expensive it is, and you're taking land out of development that is not putting in that revenue. So, you're increasing costs um, for a very expensive trail. So, I just want to be blunt and upfront with all of you and where this is going.

Yeah. And I think I think this council needs to have a discussion with the public. How many dollars is a connection worth? If they say it's a h 100red bucks, then we don't need this trail. If they say it's 10 to 20 million, then we need this trail. And I I remember what state senator Lair, John Lair did for the surf project. He got in between CCC, the California coastal commission and um and MST, the minor transit, and he made he made it happen. And if John Leard or Don Addis took this walk with us with fish and wildlife representatives and members of the community, look at that ice plant. Look at the high value of Cypress Nles the airport and that southwest corner of the HMA the northwest. It just doesn't make sense. And I think Craig and and Ruby are our primary contacts at California Department Fish and Wildlife Service. I just would like to have that conversation on site with them because we're trying to improve Gileia and and this would this swap would give far better future to Gileia than that ice plant corridor.

Sounds good. I'll coordinate with Lane to get that set up.

So I think I mean for me I'm kind of coming full circle to my initial comments and that is regardless of how I feel about Sangelia I think we're obligated to do something under the law and that is to protect the species whether we like it or not. Um and I'm just I'm kind of amazed that we kind of pick and choose about what we want to protect is what it's feeling like. Well, all of a sudden we're going to protect this by the highway because we want this trail is what I'm feeling. Those are my words. Um but maybe not protect other species as much. And so yes, I think that a connection trail is important. Yes, I also think that there's other options. Um what what happens to these areas when s when san becomes extinct? Not if, but when. Right. 99% of all the species on our planet have become extinct. It may not happen in my lifetime. Um

I don't have a crystal ball for that list. Um so we don't know if this area becomes now then available for development or um you know like um I mentioned all of these blue areas or whatever becomes blue u will have a conservation easement that runs with the land and it won't be able to be developed in perpetuity even if the species they were intended to protect disappeared or you're not sure

I don't know council what do you one example you have is lock pad park mitigation area set aside side for San Gillian and Monterey Spineflower and it never took and MPRPD is being told by the same fish and wildlife service that okay you can forget about uh San Gileia and spineflower but don't mess with that mitigation area leave that natural at least but we won't hold you to the Gileia spineflower requirements that were originally in the permit to build a hotel over there on top of those plants and set this lock patent mitigation area aside Is is that what you've seen more often than not? Is it

So, it's changed dramatically, especially uh specifically with Monterey Gileia over the past um 25 years I've been doing this. I've seen the loosest permits uh issued in the early 2000s for for that project and others where CES conservation easements were never recorded. Now, um conservation easements have to be recorded and your lands package completely uh completed before uh you are allowed to impact that plant. so that those protections and the security and endowment are all in place um ahead of time so that they can fix any remedy um in the future with that endowment.

Okay. And I'll ask a question that I asked at the last meeting too. I mean I've had some great conversations with um Fred Watson um and I appreciate that he has become an expert in something that many people are not and that's great for you. It's a problem for us, right? um how do we try to diversify our pool of expert information um so that it's not from one person, one source or even two sources or three sources like are there any strategies to do that?

Well, the resource agencies are a good resource um to discuss um protection and perpetuity and species. A lot of them are not as specifically honed in on one species. Um, but they are experienced in in resource protection. And just to remind you all, we've got other species now involved in this permit. So, we are diversifying our our species. This is just the conservation strategy for for one of our species um that we're working on.

And it seems like we've spent relative to the other species, right? an inordinate amount of time. And I I struggle with that, but I I also struggle with just the diversity of expert opinion, right? I mean, I think it's self-explanatory, right? But we have, right, RFK Junior in office right now that's the expert, right? And yet he's the one person, right? But his advice is dramatically different than the last guy who was also an expert, right? And so I don't I don't feel like we're all sometimes we're getting science-based um information, but it can be interpreted differently by a different expert. And so I'm I'm struggling with that. But I'm I'm ready to move forward. You know, if there's a motion to be had that can get us going, I'm likely to support it.

Okay. Uh my understanding what Fred's been doing volunteering is he shares all of his information with the world online and directly with Denise Stuffing Associates. Denise Stuffing Associates have their own experts that are verifying all of Fred's field information and adding to it and telling Fred what they see and then he goes out into the field and sees what they have seen that he didn't see and vice versa. So Fred is in constant contact with California Department of Fish and Wildlife experts, Denise Duffy and Associates experts such as Aaron and her her colleagues. So Fred is added value. Fred is not uh a monopoly on anything. Sometimes he gives the best information and sometimes he gets information that he adds to his information. So a lot of this mapped information that we're using for critical decisions is coming from his volunteer effort. So, I think it'd be great if there were 10 more Freds, but we're blessed to have one Fred, a lot more than if we had zero Freds. But to avoid the no good deed goes unpunished, we have Forte because of Fred and Scott because they became experts on transportation planning, rare species, trail design, construction standards, etc. Thank the heavens that we have Fred and Scott Waltz who took the initiative to become experts. And thank heavens we have Fred Waltz uh sorry uh Fred Watson who's become such an advocate for Lock Patent Park that he's gotten all of his students to help us with the expertise that saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars by most people's u you know opinion and so thank the heavens that Fred's so you know he's talking about Gileia now but he could talk to you about vernal pools and other species that no one else knows as much as Fred does but we're not talking about all those species we're talking about Gilead in large part tonight because

California Park Fish and Wild Service has such a huge emphasis on Gileia. They think it's so important that by law and by their direction, we have to think it's important, too, or we're not going to get any of these uh developments that our community wants to benefit from. So, I just want to say thank you to Fred and anyone else that's taken the initiative to help us out on these these data that we're using to make our planning decisions. My motion would be that having received the presentation tonight, um that we provide direction to staff to a take a 30 to 60day uh time to connect with uh fish and wildlife service and meet with Craig Bailey and his staff including Ruby or whoever he designates. So we have a field we have a field workshop visit. Uh and then that night we have a uh a city council meeting. And then thirdly that we ask staff to reach out to the ball field proponents so that they're totally in the loop about what's going on. Um and that we move ahead with the uh direction we're going with the dodwall. uh funding cooperation to enhance Gileia habitat that's already going to be conserved near 8th Street near the equestrian center and that we lastly uh proceed with uh protecting as much as we can get CDFW to agree uh with pedestrian access down to the Selenus River parcel and have another uh site visit there maybe with Craig uh Uh, so that's what I'll I'll end there. That's my motion. We can build on it, but if we have to

second or it'll die. I'd like to second that motion.

Uh, on the Selenas River parcel, obviously that's a second kind of a piece to a field trip. But I think if we had Craig Bailey and other staff from CDFW, we go to the trail on Highway 1. We go to the Cypress Nullles piece. That's seems a lot more valuable. We go to the airport piece so that they see the three pieces that we're willing to put on the on the chopping block of set of development and we see the trail piece and we see the Selenus River piece. So, it's kind of a a four or five stop tour to get Fish and Live Service perspective. And one question I have to staff and maybe to Erin, is it best that we consider inviting uh Don Addis or John Leair to that meeting or is it best we have the meeting first and then ask for their input should we should we still want it later?

Uh I don't think we need to involve them at this point. Fish and Wildlife really has been very good working with this. I think we've got enough direction that that I think we can go back and and do these field trips and talk with them and explore some of these other options that you've talked about and uh yeah I I haven't seen them to where they're putting a roadblock. They're very willing to work with this. Um okay so keep that. All right later. Um Jenny, we haven't talked to you in a while. We have lights on for Brian and Elizabeth. Jenny, can we check in with you? see if you have input at this time.

Sure. No, I don't. I mean, I just um again like this I understand this is a long process and also like what is the endgame and and when does that happen, right? Um, and so for me, I mean, I I am sorry to say this, I don't see the value in San Gileia, but I understand that it's important to others. Um, and I just, you know, I concur with Council Member McCarthy when we talk about how many millions of dollars are we going to put into this plant that I don't know. I just uh it is what it is, but I just I think that um there's just been way too much time um and effort put into this and it's time to just wrap it up and and move on. Whatever that is. I mean, you could block off half the city. I don't I don't know. But like what what's the endgame? Um I think that would be my question. Yeah, Jenny, I think the endgame is to develop those ball fields, develop other things like Cypress Nles and by law be compliant with setting aside as much Gileia as we are required to by state agencies.

Great. And so how do we get there? So the motion is to get there by taking a 30 to 60 day time period to get Fish and Wildlife Service and the community on the ground to try to make final changes by deleting one or two or three little pieces of development in order to add this connection corridor to the development side of the house. But how is that any different from I just I I think for me I think this is like the fourth or fifth time I've talked about this being on council and it tends to be like the same thing is we don't make a decision. We have more meetings. I think we've like had a subcommittee before and then we just don't really get anywhere. Um so what do we have to do to wrap this up? And that's fine. we could take a tour and invite people and um have more meetings or whatever, but ultimately like what is the want? What is the delay? What is the barrier? Like there's something that someone is not getting for us to not move forward. And so that's just what I would like to to better understand. I mean I I don't I this map is not complicated. Um, we have experts. What else do we have to do? So, let's turn your question to the city manager. Um, I think the issue really here is is the trail and and we really haven't we've talked with them about the trail and they pushed back. they said it's not going to

work. We haven't gone with them and said, "Okay, we're willing to give up all these other areas potentially. Is this an option or possibility?" And so, we can certainly do that. Um, I don't think that would take very long to have that discussion. Um, and I think Ruby, we already have a a site visit planned with her out here and so we may be able to expand that and and include other people. I don't know if she wants to meet just privately. So, we are already doing that and we can probably roll that in anyway. But I think Craig is he's Ruby's supervisor. Craig offered to meet with us and I think the higher up the chain you go, the more progress can be made in the same amount of time. And I think he wouldn't come here without Ruby.

Ruby's local so it's easy for her. She wanted to spot check Cypress Nles on a couple things and have some conversations. So that's kind of separate, but we'll keep at it the plan of inviting Craig and Ruby and doing the field visit and the council meeting. And I think maybe at that council meeting, we can get firm direction on including the trail or not. Right.

So maybe one internal meeting could be just Ruby and visiting these sites to so she get she can meet with Craig, then Craig could come out. We'd probably move much further ahead. Does any city council member want to add or delete to the motion? And uh if you want the motion reread, we could do that. We're going to have to do that anyway. I just had a remark for I'm not mistaken that this was the first time that we heard that the two potential thrills were not possible. Which two? The two thrills that um Kimy Horn

I don't recall the second one. We This was the first time that as a council member that I heard those thrills cannot be constructed. Truly that's true. Oh, the the the interchange the one A and the one B the two options. This was news for me. Yeah. Okay. And that's just to explain why we take so long to discuss because what we decide will be in perpetuity. This is why it's so important what we decide tonight. It's not like, oh, we we don't we cannot do a thrill now, but we can come back in 10 or 20 years. No, it will be blocked forever. And I take that pretty seriously. So, just to explain why we spend so much time here,

mayor, I just I have one more thought. Like all of this sort of speculation and talking on behalf of 22,000 people, that's really really hard for me to wrap my head around. And I I think I appreciate the spirit in that. Um, but for me it's like unless I have a survey, I'm like very black and white. Unless I have a survey or I've received I mean I get we get emails from the same people which is lovely but like unless I have a data point or have a survey or or have you know real information I just I think that we need to be careful when we're just like generally talking about you know the majority of marina would want this or would want this trail or wouldn't want to go drive this way. I don't know that, you know, and so for me, um, I I just think that we need to be careful when we're just generally talking about thousands of of our residents unless we, you know, really have that information um or have heard that for certainty. Thanks.

Thank you. Well, well said, Council Member McCarthy. Thank you, Mayor. So, I think I'm ready to support your motion. Couple things for clarity. Um, to council member Viser, nothing we're doing tonight is is obligating us into perpetuity. I think I understand the spirit of what you're saying. We're going we're going down a path, right? But nothing tonight is an obligation. We can we could totally blow this plan up next week if we wanted to, right? Um, the field trip that we mentioned, that's for all council members. Is that it's a public meeting? Is that what I'm understanding? Yeah, if we did a field trip with all council members, we'd have to open up to the public.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, I I'd like to attend any meeting that occurs with with the experts. I'd like to learn more about this for sure. Um and then lastly, do we need to reference in in our motion Doddwell at all? I mean, can we just say that we're allocating enough space for I think the mayor did include that. But do we need to can can we not can we say that we're just allocating enough space for for for something for violations or

right if we wanted to go down that path because I'm worried that just by putting it in there we're inferring we're giving an applicant or a a violator I guess is that the right word um you know some sense of that that we're going we're going to definitely do that and I think that you know there's a lot that has to be ironed out before we go down that So, I would support the motion if we remove the dodgeball reference. Yeah, the dogwell reference was because staff needs to know the direction we want to go with that violation if it's going to be part of our conservation area. Him planting. I don't think they do need to. He needs to know. I have a question. You don't need to know that now, right?

Not for 30 or 60 days. Yeah. Well, we you don't need to know. I mean ultimately is it is it our problem? I mean it's it's not your problem. It's it's see it's on the map in terms of our proposed strategy. So that's what would be submitted to um CDFW as part of our application. And in official response they would say we like that, we don't like that. We need it revised XYZ. Maybe it needs to be moved to a different area. Here's what he needs to do. And we'd incorporate that into the permit negotiations. So we do need to know at some point because we need to go right.

Yeah. So the point at which the conceptual strategy is finalized, you would just say we authorize you to submit this conceptual strategy. Period.

That's just so problematic for me. I mean, we're we're kind of insinuating that we're going to provide this obligation and yet we haven't even discussed the terms and of of that or negotiated that. And even if we did, we haven't received the money, right? Or the or the whatever it is we're going to receive for that. Um, we we don't know what those terms are yet or whether CDFW will accept it. So once we know those terms and what it's going to cost, then we'll be able to approach Mr. Dodwall and say, "Hey, here's your portion of it. Here's what you want."

Okay. So, how do we make it clear that what we're doing is exploring these options, but we're not, you know, definitively going to do that. We may choose not to, right? Um, how do we make that clear in our motion? I I think what what they're stated here is the council is willing to use some of the area for the potential mitigation, but but an agreement still has to be has to happen down the road. and there isn't if there's no agreement down the road between the council and dad doesn't make a difference whether or not we've um this just allows us to move forward with that next step and said okay some of our area that has zero impact on the city whether or not we mitigate for it

but there's no agreement we just have a little extra area no the area is going to be there anyway the question is is a violator going to plant some plants on it or just leave it as is and if he is he's going to pay for If he's not, it still gets set aside, but he doesn't plant anything. Yeah. And I guess that's what I'm saying. A little extra area available for any other violator. Enhancement. Is that the right word? Yeah. So, right. And if we don't enter into an agreement, then there wouldn't be any documentation that gets prepared. There wouldn't be any other, you know, uh, funding that gets put aside for that mitigated area. So, potentially, he's not in compliance either. So, no agreement. there's no compliance with this.

And I still back my earlier comment believe that there will be future violations. So why not throw a little bit more area in there for when that happens because there no other area to add. There's no other area to add. There's no square foot to add. But in the future, if another violator comes forward and they say, "Can we plant over here?" Then we go to Fish and Wildlife Service and we say, "Can they enhance this other area?" Like we enhanced the dodwell area. When you say there's no other area to add, we couldn't add what's in Cypress Nles. We couldn't add a little bit more acreage or square feet. No, once it's in conservation easement, it's under conservation easement. Okay. I'll motion we go to uh 10:15. Can we have a I'll roll call, please.

Council member McGary. Yes. Council member McAdams. Mayor Pretend Visure. Yes. Mayor, yes. Go ahead, Brian. I think you were.

Yeah. I mean, I clearly don't understand, but you're saying there is no potential area in the entire city that we could ever add. I mean, this is it. Yeah. Fish and um it is very difficult for anyone to find additional gile areas um to mitigate and they they said they're not even sure anywhere in the area um if there is. So yeah, I think what you're looking on the screen and up there that is the totality of Gileia occupied habitat and go Gileia potential habitat within the city limits. The staff report talks about city staff looking outside of the city for additional mitigation area and that's what any violator would have to do in the future as well. But staff I I don't know that staff ever made a lot of progress outside the city limits finding additional areas. There's some potential.

Yeah. I mean, what's the conclusion of um still in progress? Um we're trying to avoid having to do that and sticking within city owned properties on the former Ford or because that simplifies things and since we got the thumbs up that we're on the right track from CDFW, we haven't um needed to advance those conversations. Um, and since I have the mic right now, could we um just do um including the motion whether you want to retain or close the equestrian trails that was discussed and I want to make sure we hit on all of our little follow-up items. I want to add to my motion

that we progress along the conceptual mitigation strategy for the equestrian jails uh the 1.1 acres to to stay open and allow access through the 8 street area. Does that cover what you just Thank you. Yes.

Yeah. Okay. Can anyone repeat the motion? If not, I'll do it over again, but I'd rather have someone who took good notes when I was mentioning it.

I can run my my notes. So, we're essentially positive for 36 days so we can connect again with uh fish and wildlife. um setting up field visits um uh with the council and we would uh reach out to the ballfield users group and let them know update them where we are um the dead wall property um it's allowing us to move forward um and at least letting them know that um he can mitigate we have land for him to mitigate but there's no agreement um at all with them until further down the process. Um that um that we also do a walk down to the Sonus River um and involve again fish and wildlife with that. Um, also look at other parts of the city to potentially mitigate for the potential pathway connecting Delmani to Second Avenue and also keep the equestrian trails open.

The one thing I'd add to that is a detail that that site visit you talk about with CDFW include these five stops. the Selenus River, the trail, and the three potential chopping block development areas. Okay. Okay. Any friendly amendments?

Okay. I was going to add that we remove all the cypress and ice plant. I don't think we did. No, those are beautiful landmark trees. Because like the city manager already said, there's no agreement yet with that. That will come back later. So that's why we don't we can leave all that out now. My mom thinks the flowers on ice plant are absolutely beautiful. Well, apparently make a really good jelly. Yep. And the squirrels love them. Love to eat the fruits. Okay, do we have a roll call vote, please? Council member McAdams. Yes.

Council member McCarthy. Can we mic on, please? Council Mayor Pro Tim Fischer. I'll be more enthusiastic. Yes.

Yes. All right. Thank you everyone. Um, thanks to Fred, thanks to Erin, thanks to Frederick for all your contributions. I think we're going to need you in the future. So, thank you to all the staff. Uh, that motion passes unanimously with the four of us voting. We'll go to 10D1 and be the last item. I pulled it from the a consent agenda. It's about all the street work that we're doing uh proposing a 2.03 million uh authorization to do a a bunch more street work. And uh Ishmael, I pulled it because of a few questions that I thought went beyond what we're supposed to do by not pulling it. So I wanted to pull it. Can we be very clear on the website of the city what we've done in the first two of the three years and what we propose doing here? So anyone can look on and see three maps, you know, year one, year two, year three. Here are the streets that were done. Here are the streets that are going to be done. and maybe highlight those couple streets like Michelle Court and Bungalow Drive that are going to be retreated, revisited.

Yes. Okay. Now, on the Michelle Court and the Bungalow Drive, uh who's going to pay for that retreatment?

So, so that that's a difficult question. Um well, it's not a difficult question. It's actually straightforward, just might not be easy to receive. Um, Calrans has standards on applying slurry seal or microsurfing surfacing or whatever. The contractor did everything he was supposed to. Uh, he followed um that protocol to the letter. Um, construction management consultant um also ma made no mistakes. So, we can't ask them e either one of them to come back and pay for it. So Michelle uh court will be um is going to have to be paid for by um u regular street funds and the small area in the dunes is going to have to be paid for by the dunes CFD.

CFD uh you want to jump in on that point and then I had a couple other questions.

Um what I observed this last goround was it seemed to take like maybe six to nine months to actually finish the job. And the last four or five months were just drainages left with sandbags. Just like the the last actions, the last tasks seemed to take months after the majority of the construction was done. And it just looked bad. And some streets they had the cones and the yellow flagging the you know caution tape up for maybe a couple of months like the corner of u each road and Michael Drive. It looked ugly for a long time and it just seemed like if you're going to start finish I mean that's what I was thinking about the contractors. So in this next contract uh is it already written to be a little bit tighter instead of leaving things uh ugly and somewhat unsafe for so long as this last goround. I I don't know what happened last time. So so I I couldn't tell you. Um I've I've managed several of these types of projects and um never had issues like that. The one issue that you had here with the last project that I've dealt with on every single one I've done, people move barricades and they drive through when they're not supposed to and sometimes that leaves tire marks. Um, which again, when that happens, we can't ask the contractor to pay for it. We can't. So, it is city funds that'll uh cover that. Um, so we we will work with the contractor. We've already talked to him. VSSs, by the way, is um this is what they do all day, every day. Um, I don't know who did the last project, uh, but I I wouldn't anticipate those issues again. Um, we're also making changes to the inspections. We're trying to do inspections with in-house staff, uh, which is CSG staff. Uh, they they

have inspectors that are, uh, very good at what they do. Um, and they're in the office every day. So, we, you know, they're reporting to us every day. They're letting us know every little thing they see out there. So, uh, a lot of things will be different. I just I I really can't answer to why things happened the way they did with the last project. All right. What's in our staff report doesn't get into that level of detail, right? So, it's hard for us to see what is in the details of the contract. When it comes to start time, end time. You start on a street, how long do you have before you got to end the street? Is it the end of the contract

or is it within a reasonable time frame like 30 to 60 days? is if you open up the street, you close it up and take away everything. Yeah. You know, within So, I I would need to see those details to see if it's written to avoid what I observed this last go round.

Uh yeah, I I like I said, I I couldn't tell you what happened this last go around. I can tell you that that's not normal practice. Um but but again, I I I didn't see it. So, uh the storm drain stuff that blocks storm drain grades, that is often tied to the overall storm storm water permit. So we um the contractor will file a permit with the state and the state doesn't allow those to be removed until the entire project's done. So uh the only way to avoid that would be to do a separate permit with every single road so that we could remove those storm water BMPs as soon as that road is complete. Um so those might remain. Um but but we're just talking about the sandbags around the grates. not uh uh caution tape and um cones and delineators and those kinds of things.

Okay. All right. I'll turn it over to Elizabeth. I know. Thank you, Elizabeth, for answering asking all your questions in advance on this. Yes. And thank you for staff for having answered most of my questions. Uh so about uh um Okay. So, what went wrong at Michelle Court and at Bungalow Drive and a few more streets at the dunes? You say the contractor did nothing wrong. The management company did nothing wrong. Well, the homeowners didn't do anything wrong, did they? That's That's correct. Your Why do the homeowners have to pay twice? I tell tell me who else can pay for it and we'll have that person

the city. This is a principal case. Really? This is so to just to explain CFD homeowners pay into a CFD. Mhm. And just full disclosure, I might have to recuse myself because this is the street that I live on. Uh the work was not finished until like 400 p.m. Yeah. About 2 hours later, they removed the barricades. Yeah. Can anybody think uh that is actually Calr standard? That is the correct protocol. 2 hours for slurry seal to 1 hour. I can see my photos. I mean, it was way too short. It was still soft. Yeah. So um and and even if it's scal train standards, we as a city can have our own standard. Like we leave it closed during the night. People already had to move their cars anyway.

Yeah. And of course on top of that, the next morning the the three different garbage trucks came and have to turn back and in and back and then turn around to get in the dead end. Yeah. Anyway, so it was the perfect storm. But so I probably need to ask city manager, why do homeowners have to pay twice for a job that the city did not do correctly? Uh so either way, homeowners are going to pay for it. So either the homeowners that pay for those roads in the CFD pay for it or the homeowners outside that will pay for it. Yes. The entire every everybody in the city will pay for it.

Correct. because as a city we didn't do the job correctly. Somebody made a mistake. So So C council could direct us to um uh to use general fund or other street funds um for that small section that that that's council's prerogative I believe. Correct. L correct. Yeah. I would like that, but since I live there, I probably have to recuse myself from this decision. But it's a that within the scope of this project. It's within the scope of this project. Yes. And I don't think it's a major cost impact, is it? No, it's it's actually really minimal. Yeah. But it's a principle for me. It's it's very important for me because now it was just a few streets,

but it can be a whole can be way bigger. It's just the principle that homeowners should not have to pay double for a job. So just to explain the the roads were the street was less than 10 years old. We had a good street was in almost perfect condition. So then we get a slurry seal like you great. And now for a year and a half you can all look at the street. I mean it's horrible. It's it's not like it's a little bit damaged. It's it's bad. Yeah. You can see the power marks. You can and the slurry seal is gone for some of the parts. It's bad. It's really bad. So principle. Yeah. So what do we do to make a decision or how does it work? I

just get direction from council that. So I I would propose that when we do 30 streets, there's going to be a couple of segments of a couple of the streets every goround that are going to be problematic. Mhm. And so maybe our policy is we accept some imperfection, you know, some low percent of imperfection and it comes out of the general fund, no matter where that imperfection is. If it's the city that has to pay for it. Yes. And then the homeowners that didn't do anything wrong are not specifically on the hook. Yes.

Any more than the Michelle Court people who are not in a CFD would be expected to contribute to fix their street, but they were just living there. They weren't well some but the whole city contributes to that. Yeah, because it could be if you have a small H2A like you only have one or two streets. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, so Okay. I'll propose we go five more minutes just to make sure. Second. Roll call vote, please. Council member McCarthy. Yes. Council member McAdams. Mayor Pertim Fischer. Yes. Mayor Delado.

Yes. All right. That passes three to zero to one. Um, so would someone like to make a I'll make a motion that we adopt the res resolution before us awarding the con. Are you going to take first? I'm about to address that. Okay. Otherwise,

let me make my motion consider. Okay. I uh we my motion is that we adopt the resolence before us to award the construction contract for the 2025 citywide street repair uh to VSS International Inc. for the total bid amount of 2 million $30,000$120 2 million30,000$120 I can't say that number uh anyway 2 million $30,000 and $120 uh and authorize city manager and city attorney to do their respective roles and as low and the finance director to make necessary accounting and budgetary entries and finally that uh uh any streets that require retreatment from the past cycle uh uh use city fund city general fund uh funding for those fixes now. Well, is there a second? I'll be better if you said best of you.

Well, I'll second it for discussion. Sure. But but I'm having trouble wanting to support it just because I mean it's it's one of those last minute changes I don't think I fully understand. I mean the CFD was created to manage the streets in that area and I understand that it's not the fault of the homeowners there and I totally can relate to that. Um but also you want my constituents to pay for it twice and that doesn't resonate for the people I represent either, right? Like

um so I'm just kind of struggling with that a little bit. I but I understand I'm more interested in solutions. Let's get together and figure out ways that we can be absolutely sure this doesn't happen in the future. And yes, I think that there's going to be a small percentage of streets that are always going to have some imperfections. But I do see sloppy work throughout the city, right? Like and I've seen it recently within the last couple months. And I think there are strategies that the city can employ to kind of alleviate some of that hold up. But when we do that, know that it's going to cost the taxpayer more in the end anyway because the bids are going to come in higher. You know, if the contractor knows they're going to have to keep the street closed for four hours instead of two, my guess is it's going to be more expensive. Um, so there's a cost either way, I think. Um,

okay. Okay. But I don't think I'm likely to support without better understanding the implications having it come from the general fund over the CFD that was designated to take care of these streets. Okay. So, you could make a substitute motion. We have about three minutes to hear from the city attorney Scott Shepard and the sub substitute motion. Yeah. So, I I don't know if there's an actual conflict. I don't know the specifics of it. I can't make a recommendation on recusal. So, yeah. My motion is that citywide our policy is that where there are imperfections, the city is on the hook for that we charge the city and no CFD instead of the city. And is that clear enough for for staff as to how you would move forward with this specific agreement?

Yes.

Scott, did you have input or is Okay. So my substitute motion would be that we approve it as is, but that we ask the public works committee and maybe the traffic committee to evaluate some options that would prevent these things from happening in the future, whether it's stronger, stricter city standards. Um so so I I have a um hunch that the reason some things have been missed is just because there there wasn't uh sufficient staffing. Um, Edri is one of the best engineers I've worked with, but he has been incredibly overloaded with with his workload. Um, now we have Scott, we have Landro, uh, we have another, we have three full-time public works inspectors. So, uh, I'm very confident that we'll catch anything um, before we issue the contractor's last payment. Do we also employ third party companies to kind of check the work?

So, we have in the past and we have a budget to do it again with this project. Um, but in addition, we're going to have our our our CSG inspectors to check things recently and I only happen to notice I know some of the players that that third party contractor used to be the boss for the company that was doing the work and they stopped, you know, so it's kind of like awfully tricky there. I mean, how what's the saying that hen guarding the hen house or the rooster or whatever? It's late at night. But anyway, okay. Is there a second for the substitute motion?

No. Can I explain why not? Because this I'm I'm confident that everything you suggested is already will be done by staff now that they have they're tripled their workforce, I think. Okay. Substitute dies for lack of second. I'm looking at the 20 minutes. Roll call, please.

Council member McAdams. Council member Mc uh Coffee. Because I don't want people to think I like you. No. Mayor Pat Fischer. Yes. Mayor Delado.

Yes. Thank you everyone. That motion passes two to one to zero with the three of us. Can I give one more comment that when when council member McCarti said that your constituents will be paying twice now for the streets at the dunes that need to be repaired. That's incorrect because the homeowners pay into the CFD. So the first the first time was paid for by homeowners. The city doesn't pay anything. And that's why I request that if anything needs to be repaired, it wouldn't be for wouldn't be fair to charge the homeowners double. the constituents only will have to share in paying for the repairs. So,

all right. So, we're past that issue, but we're at the time of a journey. Thank you everyone, especially staff for sticking it out. Scott, good to see you always. Aandro, thank you for being here. Thank you Sean.