City Council - Regular Meeting

not come back till 28.

Sure, make sure your microphone drop right now. Yeah.

I'm sorry.

I'm all right.

I agree. I'm fixing to open windows. Somebody got the heat running too. You're going to have to sit there.

You have your phone or thing next to you.

So we'll call the meeting to order. You can turn your microphone on now.

Can we call this meeting to order at this time for Tuesday, May 19, 2026? Regular city council meeting and have a roll call, please.

Council Member McCarthy. Here. Council Member McAdams. Here. Council Member Biala. Here. Mayor Fortin-Visher. Mayor Delgado.

Here. All right. Thank you. Any changes to closed session? There are no changes, Mayor. All right. Then we will go to closed session now. Reconvene open session at 630.

Oh, yes.

Public comment. So we have a couple of items on our four items on our closed session. Any public comment, please come to the podium.

Good afternoon, Council. My name is Robert Daniels. I'm a community organizer with Building Healthy Communities. I'm requesting that I be able to give public comment before the opening or the reconvening. Due to graduation, there's some time constraints, so I'm just asking permission to get public comment now.

All right, so when we come back at 6.30, we'll have the Pleasure Allegiance, and then we have special presentations. There's many of them. Then we have council and staff announcements, and then we have public comment. And when would you like to comment?

Now, please.

Oh, you'd like to comment?

Just to get my public comment now, excuse me.

All right. Okay. Please proceed. We'll open public comment for you at this point.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Good afternoon, Mayor, council members, and city staff. My name is Robert Daniels, and I'm here to respectfully request that the City Council agendize a study session on Marina's noise and entertainment regulations, specifically how Chapter 9.24, Title 17, Title 5, and the general plan are being applied to local businesses that host live music, DJs, karaoke, public dances, and community events. I want to be clear, this is not a request to remove noise protections. Residents should be protected from truly unreasonable noise, especially late at night and near residential neighborhoods. But the city's current framework appears unclear and difficult for both residents and businesses to navigate. Recent enforcement documents show why this issue needs public discussion. In one notice of violations involving a local business, the city cited amplified music under Marina's Municipal Code Section 9.24.40, excessive loud noise under Section 9.24.030, and general plan policies 4.106 and 4.111. The notices also require the business to permanently cease amplified speakers and amplified noises. including DJs, karaoke, and live music, and require other events to end by 10 p.m. with all doors and windows closed. That raises an important policy question. If Marina's goal is compliance, what is a clear path for responsible businesses to host entertainment legally? 9.24 uses broad, nuanced language such as excessive, unnecessary, and unusually loud noises. It allows enforcement to consider complaints, volume, duration, proximity to residential areas, zoning recurrences, and time of day. It also restricts outdoor application between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. and applies to indoor-outdoor sounds if it becomes excessive at 200 feet or across residential or commercial property lines. At the same time, the city appears to rely on general plan noise standards and other permit-related rules. So the problem is not that Marina has the rules. The problem is that the rules are scattered and not clearly coordinated for modern entertainment uses. A business should know, can indoor music continue after 10 p.m. if sound is contained? what decibel standards apply, what permit is required, how are complaints verified, when a warning does become a violation, and is the remedy supposed to be mitigation or completing to amplified entertainment? Residents deserve clarity too. They should know what standards the city is applying, how compliance are renewed, and what protections apply near homes. A study session could examine practical solutions, including a live entertainment permit. There are sound standards. coordination between 9.2 and general plan noise policies, rules for indoor entertainment after 10 p.m., reasonable outdoor music standards, complaint verification procedures, and a warning and correction process before penalty escalate. This is concerning violence. Marina can protect public peace while also supporting small businesses, live music, cultural events, and responsible local entertainment. So tonight, I respectfully ask the council to identify the study section and direct staff to review how Marlena's noise zoning general plan and entertainment permits rules and entertainment permit rules can better be coordinated, clarified and modernized. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Robert. We appreciate your comments. And I think you might be referring to those live music businesses such as The General and La La Grill and Brass Tap. We are glad you're here today. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right. Is there anyone else who would like to speak during this public comment session? Anybody online? All right. We'll close public comment, and we can be here at 630. Thank you, everybody.

Recording in progress Recording stopped

Okay, welcome everyone. Thank you for... Recording in progress. Thank you for sharing your Tuesday night with us. We're reconvening at this time, our Tuesday, May 19, 2026, regular Marina City Council meeting. We've come from our 5 p.m. closed session meeting, which ended at 6.30 approximately, and we always ask our City Attorney, Renee Ortega, to summarize closed session. Thank you, Renee.

Yes, thank you, Mayor. So, Council provided direction in closed session, but took no reportable action.

So at this time, Joey Martinez from the American Legion Post 694 is going to lead us in a Pledge of Allegiance after a moment of silence. So please stand for a moment of silence and then the pledge. Thank you, Joey, for your service to our community and for being a good sport. We have several wonderful presentations. The first is to introduce our new community development director, administrative assistant, Martha Cortez and Guido Persicone, our director of that department, will do that for us.

Yeah, we're just welcome to have Martha, if you want to come up and introduce yourself.

Good afternoon. My name is Martha Cortez. I'm the new admin assistant for WIDO in the community department. And I'm excited to join the city of Marina and looking forward to support WIDO on the team. Thank you.

Welcome, Martha. Thanks for joining us.

Now we have the most important proclamation we do every year. This is number one, the Poppy Month Proclamation. And Jenny, Council Member McAdams is going to present that to us.

Thank you, Mayor. May 22nd, 2026, National Poppy Day in Marina. Whereas America is the land of freedom, preserved and protected willingly and freely by citizen soldiers. Whereas millions who have answered the call to arms have died on the field of battle. A nation at peace must be reminded of the price of war and the debt owed to those who have died in war. Whereas the red poppy has been designated as a symbol of sacrifice of lives in all wars. Whereas the American Legion Auxiliary has pledged to remind America annually of this debt through the distribution of the memorial flower. And whereas the American Legion family has the support of Congress to designate the Friday before Memorial Day as National Poppy Day. Therefore, I, Bruce Delgado, Mayor of the City of Marina, County of Monterey, California, do hereby proclaim the month of May 2026 as Poppy Month and May 22nd, 2026 as Poppy Day and ask that all citizens pay tribute to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of freedom by wearing the memorial poppy on this day.

Thank you very much, Jenny. Lupe and Joey, do you want to come up to receive this? And Janet? And Susan?

Thank you, Mayor and City Council. First, I'd like to introduce Janet Wolgamuth. She's our unit president for the auxiliary here in Marina. And then we have our, we're very proud of our Susan Baker. She is the Department of California Auxiliary President and also a member of our unit. And then past Commander Joy Martinez from Post 694. And I'm second vice president this year and also the poppy chair.

Thank you, Mayor, council members. The red poppy stands as a universal symbol of sacrifice, commemorating the brave men and women who have served and perished in defense of our nation, spanning across all conflicts, including the ongoing global war on terror. Its significance resonates deeply as a reminder of the enduring sacrifice made by our veterans and service members. Since 1921, the American Legion Auxiliary has been steadfast in its commitment to honor the memory of those lost in war while extending support to living veterans and their families through our esteemed POPI program. This annual tradition serves as a reminder of the debt owed to those who have served and the ongoing needs of those who have returned home. Each delegate poppy meticulously crafted by the hands of veterans in the auxiliary sponsored poppy shops serves as a dual purpose, not only to those tokens of remembrance paid homage to fallen comrades, but they also provide vital assistance. to hospitalized and disabled veterans, supplementing their physical and psychological therapy. Through the provision of materials and the dedication of volunteers, the auxiliary facilitates this noble endeavor, ensuring that those who have served are not forgotten and are provided with meaningful opportunities, support, and connection.

And it's important to know that the puppies that we distribute are not sold. Rather, we ask that you hold it as a symbol of gratitude and remembrance. However, if you would like to give a donation, the donations that we receive from our puppies go back to our veterans and our veterans programs. So anytime you see anyone, giving out one of these, please do give a donation towards that. And we'd also like to invite all of you, the city mayor, city council members, and the public to our Memorial Day services and ceremony. It's going to be on Monday at 11 o'clock at our post 694 at 694 Legion Way.

And nobody works harder for our community than these four people keeping the American Legion alive. And Susan Baker, who didn't speak tonight, has brought into this world a wonderful human being named Elizabeth. Elizabeth, what's her last name? Chrysante is the daughter of Susan Baker. And Elizabeth Chrysante back in the back table there is our new Recreation and Cultural Services Department Director. So it's all in the family. Thank you, Jenny. All right. It's Public Works Proclamation, Public Works Week Proclamation. And Brian, Councilmember Brian McCarthy is going to present this.

Thank you, Mayor. This proclamation titled National Public Works Week is subtitled Rooted in Service Powered by Community. And I'm going to one up the mayor when I think of. People who don't work harder, you know, people often call us public servants. But when I think of public servants, it's really folks like the Public Works Department who work every day to keep our city running and often do so very unseen and unheard, but always very much appreciated. So I'll read this proclamation, whereas the public works professionals focus on infrastructure, facilities and services that are of vital importance to sustainable and resilient communities and the public health, high quality of life and well-being of the people of the city of Marina. And whereas infrastructure facilities and services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals who are engineers, managers and employees at all levels of government. uh who are responsible for rebuilding improving and protecting our nation's transportation water supply water treatment solid waste systems public buildings and other structures and facilities whereas it is in a public interest for the citizens civic leaders and children in the city of marina to gain knowledge of and maintain an ongoing person understanding the importance of public works and the public works programs in their respective communities The year 2026 marks the 66th annual National Public Works Week sponsored by the American Public Works Association. Now, therefore, it be proclaimed that I, Bruce Delgado, Mayor of the City of Marina, do hereby designate the week of May 17th to the 23rd as National Public Works Week. I urge all citizens to join with representatives of the American Public Works Association and government agencies and activities, events, and ceremonies designed to pay tribute to our public works professionals. And we had such an activity this last weekend at Vince DiMaggio. It was full of Public Works trucks that young people could come and climb on and look at. And it turns out the Public Works Department was, once again, selfishly, selflessly serving the community by barbecuing, something probably we should have been doing for them. But it was a great event, and I'm sure we're all appreciative. So thank you, Mayor.

Come on up, Public Works. Take a photo. Don't we have Public Works? I thought we had them outside. Maybe I got you guys confused. Ishmael. Last one standing.

So Ishmael is our Public Works Director.

And who's with you, Ishmael? This is Nisandro. Nisandro. Assistant Engineer. Thank you for joining us. So, Council Member Biala, Kathy Biala, is going to present a proclamation for the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Thank you, Kathy.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So this is the city's proclamation in recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. Whereas the City of Marina celebrates the rich cultural diversity that strengthens our community and recognizes the vital contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islanders, or AAPI, communities, throughout our nation's history, and whereas Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders represent a wide array of distinct cultures, languages, and histories, and have contributed significantly to the fields of science, arts, education, public service, business, and the military, and whereas despite a legacy of resilience and achievement, AAPI communities have also faced discrimination, exclusion, and hardship, and it is our responsibility as a city to stand in solidarity against hate and bias of any kind. And whereas the City of Marina is home to a growing and vibrant AAPI population that enriches the fabric of our city through entrepreneurship, cultural traditions, civic engagement, and community leadership, and Whereas Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month offers all residents of Marina and the Monterey County the opportunity to reflect on the history, celebrate the diversity, and honor the many contributions of these communities to our shared society. Now, therefore, I, Bruce Delgado, Mayor of the City of Marina, County of Monterey, California, do hereby proclaim the month of May 2025 as Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and urge all residents to recognize, appreciate, and celebrate the important role that AAPI communities play in shaping our city and our nation. Signed by Bruce. So here to accept the proclamation is David Pak, who's a high schooler and his mother and all ACOM people, would you please come up and we can take a picture after we present the proclamation. So can we have the rest of our council and ACOM people to come up, please?

Okay, we're going to return to Councilmember Jenny McAdams to present to us the Housing Resource Center issue with Alexa Johnson.

Yes, and so welcome. We have been fortunate. The last maybe month or so, the Housing Resource Center has been at our farmer's market. And I had been talking with the gentleman, David, who was there. Remind me his title, please.

He's one of our outreach coordinators.

Great. And so he's been telling me about all great outreach and events and education they've been providing to landlords and really promoting... for landlords to be a little more open-minded about people who come with Section 8 housing vouchers and or maybe some bad credit in their past history and having also a pretty interesting incentive program. And so Mr. Jonathan Amati, who also is a director for our Monterey Peninsula Regional Airport, thank you for being here this evening and we look forward to hearing from you.

All right. Well, good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council and staff. My name is Jonathan Amati, and as Councilmember McAdam stated, I do serve on the Monterey Peninsula Airport District Board, but I also serve on the board of the Housing Resource Center, and I'm the chair of our community engagement committee. committee, excuse me. Um, we formed a community engagement committee because I think there is not a lot of awareness about HRC within, uh, Monterey County and we do incredible work and the board wanted to make sure that city councils and communities were aware about the work that we're doing and the resources that are available for, uh, people who are struggling in the community. So, um, HRC's mission is to provide a continuum of, uh, Yep, there we go.

All right.

So our mission, as you can see, is to provide a continuum of resources for homeless prevention and affordable housing opportunities. And as all of you know, when there are challenges with homelessness in our communities, the best way to address that is to prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place, which is where HRC steps in. In terms of our summary of services, we provide payment of evictions and outstanding utility debts to help our clients avoid those collections. We help support them by paying some of their application fees, pro-rented rate, first month's rent, security deposits. We support the CARS assessments, and I'll speak to what that is in just a second. as well as helping to refer our clients to other services and other service providers in the community. We also support HSVP voucher applications, which as Council Member McAdam said, those are the Section 8, the housing vouchers. So we help people in the community who would qualify for them, apply for them. So what is CARS? We used to have a first come, first serve process for serving clients who were trying to get housing resources or other benefits. And that has since been replaced with a assessment process. system where we look at clients based on need. It's a point-based assessment. So if you have a family, if you have members with disabilities, all of those types of things will allocate points towards their assessment. And then the people with the most need are then placed to the front of the line in terms of trying to place them in housing. And this is a required program that we enlist in. It's required by HUD mandates that we are utilizing this system for evaluating our clients in terms of priority for housing resources. We have two types of staff that engage with our clients directly. We have both case managers and housing specialists. The case managers have the first step of supporting our clients. They help with the initial intake of figuring out how many members of the house there are, how they became homeless. They help them to create monthly budgets and housing goals, as well as identify and help eliminate housing barriers like past evictions, pets, and outstanding utility payments. We then hand them off to our housing specialists who do the initial intake of previous rentals, what's affordable for rent, where to house search, and how to apply for a unit, how to speak with landlords, that type of thing. Once our clients are housed, the housing specialist piece closes, but the case manager then changes their focus to help our clients continue to stay housed. If they have challenges with the plan that they put together in terms of the resources that we provide, we can supplement that in other ways to help them to maintain their housing. And then after a client pays their full rental on their own and exhibits no foreseeable hardship, HRC successfully closes that case and that client. There are really four main programs that HRC administers. The housing support program, where we have CalWORKs recipients who are available to receive benefits under that program. The family stabilization program, Prop 47 housing program, which has been really effective in our area. But unfortunately, the funding for that is closing out at the end of June this year. as well as the Bringing Families Home program. So these are all programs where Housing Resource Center applies for grants, gets that grant money, and then administers those programs on behalf of these different programs for clients within Monterey County. And then as Jenny mentioned, we do work directly with landlords. We have a landlord kind of gold standard program where we provide incentives to them for working with HRC and working with our clients for the first time. We have money set aside so that in case there are challenges or issues with some of our clients in their units, we have monies that are set aside for repairs. We also have personal visa gift cards for landlords who join and then refer other landlords to join the program. In terms of partnership opportunities, we are always interested in co-hosting events to help spread awareness about the opportunities that the Housing Resource Center provides. We had a landlord workshop in Soledad last month. And in July, we're going to be hosting a landlord workshop in Monterey. I think we would be interested very much in doing so in the city of Marina as well. And we also, as the Community Engagement Committee, engage with members of the community, community leaders, elected officials, landlords, and invite them to participate in our committee as advising members to help us be aware of other opportunities to spread the word about HRC. And for more information Alexa wasn't able to join us, but she is our executive director. You've got her contact information there, as well as our program manager and program operations assistant. I also just wanted to shout out Frederica Jones, who is with me here tonight. She also serves on the board as vice president, and she's on the community engagement committee with me. So thank you for being here, Frederica. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you, Jonathan. How might HRC pivot with the upcoming reductions in funding?

Yeah. So we only just recently learned about all of the different program cuts that we're going to be experiencing this year. And what we're trying to do is to fundraise directly with other groups as opposed to using funds from grant services to supplement those and ensure that we're able to provide as much support for our clients as we can. The goal is for there to be no cuts to client services and we do have regular fundraisers and participate in the Monterey Gives program to try to supplement the grant monies with individual contributions. we are working through our budget this year right now.

All right. Well, good luck with that. And what's the objective, the goal of the landlord workshops?

Yeah. So the landlord workshops, there's a lot of misinformation about the types of clients that, that we serve. There's a lot of fear, I think from landlords and a lot of concern that, you know, they might take on one of these clients and, and, incur damages to their property or have somebody who's not going to be able to maintain their rent. And so it's an opportunity for landlords to, A, hear about the program, hear about the incentives that we have, but also hear from landlords that we currently work with who are really happy with the clients that we have and the stability, I think, that having HRC as a backfill for them provides them in these housing opportunities. So it's mostly outreach and awareness.

All right. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you so much, Jonathan. I enjoy your presentation and you're doing such fabulous work. Do you have like a statistics, you know, like an annual, how many clients you've served in a year? And I know, no, there's many different programs under your wing, but do you have an estimate of

You know what? I will actually have Alexa share with all of the council members a breakdown, not just of the clients that obviously there's confidentiality that needs to be maintained, but I think we can provide a high level overview of how many clients are served by each program and specifically how many clients within Marina.

Yeah, I would love to hear that. So thank you.

I will have Alexa share that with your city manager to distribute to all of you.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jonathan. And Federico, thank you for being here. Our fire department puts on a wonderful open house every year, and it depends on a lot of volunteers. And we're going to hear about that now with our interim fire chief, Mark Sweeney.

Thank you, Mayor. Mayor, members of the council. Long overdue, I'm going to call a few folks up. Firefighter Athena Such and Division Chief. Anthony Prado, come up and our volunteers, you probably know who you are. Come on up if you're in the room. I don't want to read your names off you. I don't want to wait for the big reveal. So come on up, join us. This is long overdue. These folks have volunteered year after year for our fire prevention open house. You can come stand behind me so you're on the camera. We want you to get full credit for all the work you've put in. Year after year, we have our fire prevention open house. It would not be able to happen without the sustained hard work and effort from our volunteers. Firefighter Such here is kind of the ringleader, the orchestrator of everyone. She makes sure everybody shows up on time and gets all the work done, but they're the ones doing a lot of the work. So like I said, this is long overdue. These folks have been volunteering for years. We have a lot of other volunteers also, but these are the ones that have showed up year after year after year. They are the first to show up and the last to leave after the event is over. And I'll get right into it. So our volunteers that we are recognizing, and we have certificates for each one of them. Athena, I'll let you hand these out. We've got Sophia Murphy, who has volunteered throughout her high school career for four years. Thank you very much, Sophia. Yvonne Tovar has volunteered as a Marina resident and has volunteered for five years. Tonya Jackson has volunteered for 10 years, also a Marina resident. Thank you. And then we've got some real long-term volunteers. Captain Gonzales is in the back of the room. His family has been volunteering for 15 years as long as he's been employed here as a firefighter, worked his way up. His dad, Elmo, mom, Diana and sister Angela have volunteered for 15 years. Thank you, guys. They've been here every year in and out from start to end. So thank you very much. All you do. And I want to read real quickly what their certificate says. Oh, and you know what? I'm sorry. I left one person off who couldn't be here tonight. Chief Prado's wife, Christy, has also volunteered for 15 years. Their duties included serving and restocking refreshments, policing the area and picking up trash. making and handing out popcorn, which is always popular, and hot dogs, setting up, breaking down booths, tables, chairs, all the props, blowing up and handing out balloons, helping kids with the mini firefighter obstacle course, face painting, safety brochure handouts, assisting kids with the activity center, helping with post cleanup, and, I hope no kids are listening, dressing up as Sparky the fire dog. He's real. The certificate says, in recognition of your dedication, contribution, and sincere efforts as a volunteer at the Marina Fire Prevention Open House for 15 and so on years, your support and commitment have made a real impact and inspired positive change in the community. So thank you very much for all of your years volunteering. And please keep coming back. And stick around, we'll get a quick picture. Can we stand up? Would you like to take a picture with the group, Mayor?

Yes, I'm estimating that we have about 56 years of volunteering represented by the folks here that are volunteers. That's a lot of years.

All right.

Thank you.

Chief, from here we get a good view, but we couldn't see some heads behind you. Exactly.

Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Should we go. Hello.

yes one two oh

I used to be able to say the guy with the huge mustache, but now it's kind of, I think, all the guys have huge mustaches.

Okay, we're going to top it off with Elizabeth Crisante's summer recreation programs.

There you go. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, council members, staff. Can you pull up the slideshow? Thank you. So before we dive into recreation programs for summer, there are two that I want to share that are going to be citywide. So the flyer on the left is for Marina PD's Torch Run, which is associated with the Special Olympics kickoff opening ceremony. This is happening on May 20th, which I think is in two days, if I have my dates correct. Tomorrow? It's tomorrow. Well, there we go. It's tomorrow. I'm a day behind. And so it's going to be a run that they are doing starting out near Trader Joe's. And then they are finishing up at the Marina Police Department. So people are encouraged to gather along the route or at the police department to cheer them on. And it's really great that they get to be a part of this kind of bigger, wider range ceremony for Special Olympics. And then the flyer on the left is for our Pride flag raising ceremony that is going to happen on Sunday, May 31st. And I'm happy to turn it over to Council Member McCarthy if you want to say a few words about it.

Yeah, thank you. This will be our fifth annual ceremony. So we're super excited. We hope you'll join us on Sunday. Come out, enjoy the farmer's market and stop by at noon for the flag raising. So thank you.

Perfect. Thank you. Next slide. So diving into some of the programs that we're going to be offering this summer through the Recreation and Cultural Services Department. For our senior program, we have a number of things happening. Bingo, ukulele, some different games and activities. Lots of ways to stay physical and keep your mind active. And two exciting new kind of informational gathering workshops we're going to have. First one is on June 9th with Alliance on Aging. They are wanting to do a survey with our seniors to get a little bit of a better idea about what our seniors want to see in terms of programming for the community. And then we are going to be doing our own city-sponsored Q&A workshop on July 1st to dive into a little bit more about how we can beef up the senior membership, add some really fun activities, and just give them an opportunity to be heard and get some feedback. So let's go to the next slide. And then for our youth and teen programs, we are offering our youth summer camp, which I'm really proud to announce is actually full and we are taking a waiting list now. So that's really exciting. And then we also have summer afternoons at the teen center, which will be a newer program for us. This will be the first time we're doing it. So we're hoping all the teens that come during the school year will continue to join us throughout the summer. Both programs will offer games, activities, a variety of arts and crafts. They've got field trips planned. And then we have a special group coming in called the Owl Academy at the Teen Center doing STEM activities. So just lots of really good educational and enrichment programs planned for the summer. Next slide. Through our sports camps, we have a number of different opportunities for our community to get involved. We have intro to sports, which is great for the littles who maybe they don't know what they want to do and they want to try out a sport. We kind of give them a smattering of everything. Our youth basketball camp and then the junior high basketball camp are great programs that are solely focused on basketball only. And then we're going to have our skateboard camp and that'll be offered two different sessions for two different age groups. And we're really looking forward to that because we're bringing back the skate jams, which are the Friday skate parties. And we're thinking that that's going to be a big hit for us. Next slide. And then two events that we have coming up that I just want to make sure are on everyone's radar. The reopening of Gloria Jean Tate Park is scheduled for Saturday, June 6th. We're throwing a big ribbon cutting. It's going to be a party out there. We hope everyone will join us. I'll be sending an email out to council and commission if anyone is interested in being a part of that. And then we have our July 4th block party, which is going to be on the actual 4th of July out at the airport. And we are going to be offering a designated area for Safe and Sane Fireworks. And we'll have bands and food vendors and lots of kids activities. So it should be a really good time for folks who are interested in kind of getting that block party style celebration. So I believe that is the last slide. And I am happy to answer any questions if there are any.

Elizabeth, thank you for the great job you're doing. Thank you. The event, the Public Works event was really wonderful. Thank you for organizing.

I can't take credit for that. That was my staff. They're amazing. And Public Works is amazing. And I love that we took an opportunity to celebrate them because they're often behind the scenes doing all the things that as public as recreation is.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. So now we're going to move to council and staff announcements, starting with any other staff announcements we may have.

Unfortunately, Tori Hanna, she is our finance director. She is retiring effective Thursday, May 21st. We are really sad to have Tori leave, but she has served a wonderful 26-year career. career in public sector um finance he's worked for us for a couple years prior to that she was the um the administrative services director in pacific grove also i think this assistant city manager prior to that she was the finance director of capadola prior to that was the finance manager in city of santa cruz prior to that uh worked for the county of monterey so she's had a wonderful career in public sector finance. Tori, if you haven't had a chance to get to know Tori, she is an expert at finances. One of the things that we've consistently have talked about is we're a city of 23,000, but every time we get people to come here, whether it be bond council, various finance people, they look at our finances and the complexity and they go, you have the complexities of a city of a quarter million size. And it's because we have housing authorities. We have a former military base. We have redevelopment agency, which are really only one of two cities in California. San Francisco is the other that really has an active redevelopment agency and So we really have complex finances here. Tori came in from day one, and it's like she understood everything from day one. She has worked so well with mentoring and leading our finance department staff. She has worked on cross-training so that she has left our finances much better than when she started working here. You look at our debt handling, how she's invested our city funds, our two-year budget. This is her, I think, have you done one or two of our two-year budgets?

This is the second. Oh, wait, I've done one full two-year budget. This is my second mid-year cycle.

And so second mid-year cycle, but she elevates everything that she does with our two-year budget that she went through that process. It's a great budget that she's put together. One of the things that are public in the council that we appreciate so much is her presentations. She presents complex finance issues in a manner that is understandable to the council and the public that enables everyone to make good decisions on complex finance issues. And so we are very sad to see Tori move on to retiring with her husband, who's been retired for a while now. But we want to wish her the best in her retirement. She's going to kind of give me some advice on what to do in the next couple months of how to go down that path. But I really wanted to say thank you, Tori, for the wonderful job that you've done here. And we have a little gift, and I'm sure the council may want to say a few remarks here.

Yeah, so Tori, if you could join me up front. So Tori knows that can be controversial and she works really hard to present our budgets in a fact oriented way so that we can make proper financial policy decisions. And we rely on Tori to be able to do that by presenting all the information in a way that we can understand and digest. And we really thank her for that because she takes all the departments and she windows them down into the sense in a way that keeps them whole and healthy. And our whole community depends on her because as you know, your family budget, how important that is for you to function as a family and as a household. And she does that for our community. So she's behind the scenes, but everything she does supports all of us out in the streets, everything that goes on in the city, she's behind it, watching over it. And for that, we appreciate your professionalism and your devotion and dedication, Tori, not just to our city, but all the communities you've served. Thank you very much. And we heard you had about a 15-minute speech, so please proceed.

Well, the bar is raised for the presentation tonight. I don't know if I'll be able to uphold the standards that's been described with the presentation, but I've thoroughly enjoyed working for the city, serving the city, and the community that I actually live in, and it's just been an honor and a pleasure.

All right.

Thank you, Tori. Tori's so beautiful, we had to give her some flowers.

And we'll give her a card that everyone signed. Thank you. And now...

I'll start if I may, Mayor. Just real briefly, a lot of times when we really like someone that's leaving, it's because they're loud and they're just really aggressive and they get things done. Tori, in a sense, is none of those things. She's just really, really, really good at what she does. And Tori, you're going to be tremendously missed. It's going to be really hard to fill your shoes. So thank you for everything you've given to the city.

I have said this before and I'll say it again. I have the honor and privilege to work with Tori in the city of Pacific Grove. And then I remember being just so excited hearing that she was coming here. And, you know, in the several years that she's been here, she's implemented, you know, I mean, just as far as like the reporting, the sales tax report that's in our packet today, the HDL reports, and then really just the thoroughness and the I think council member Biala said it just the way that you're able to, um, put very technical, sometimes boring, high-level budget jargon, but into just real basic layman's terms. And it's so helpful. And so I really appreciate you. And I'm so excited for you for this well-deserved retirement. And we'll see you around town.

Thank you, Jenny. Tori, you could have left us in the middle of the budget cycle, but you stayed longer to give us a completed budget cycle. We appreciate that.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And Tori, you're understated and soft-spoken and dignified and professional. I just love, I mean, it's so nice to have that. And we would like to have had you for a lot longer time, but we understand, you know, you've got to move on and you have a lot of personal things that you want to achieve as well. So We wish you well. And again, the budget materials that we usually are provided are really thick and used to sort of strike fear in my heart. But with you, I can look at it and say, she's going to help us understand this thing. And I can actually understand all of it. So thank you so much. And we wish you so much goodness in the future. Thank you so much for your service. Thank you.

And we'll see Tori's work later today when we take up the budget and you'll see what an organized packet she's presented for us. Thanks for everything, Tori. Okay, any other council announcements? We'll move on then to public comment. Anything on your mind you have up to three minutes or anything you want to say that regards our consent agenda items?

Good evening and hello Mayor Delgado and council members. My name is Colleen Courtney and I'm here to introduce myself as the incoming Director of Community Relations for Sea Monterey. Thank you so much for the public comment opportunity to connect with you. As many of you know, Sea Monterey is the proud partner of the City of Marina as the destination marketing organization in promoting your city as a premier travel, leisure and business destination. And I'd like to take a moment to thank Mayor Pro Tem Fisher, who is not here at the moment, but for her dedicated service on Sea Monterey's Advisory Board. Her leadership is deeply valued. And I'd like to make a shout out to the Sanctuary Beach Resort General Manager, Sylvain Bryans, for representing the marina area on Sea Monterey's Board of Directors. And finally, we're also happy to have Harvey Dadwal, who serves on our NYCTD Oversight Committee, and that stands for the Monterey County Tourism Improvement District. And so the city is clearly well represented with Sea Monterey through all of these levels of collaboration. And my CMonterey team members and I are looking forward to meeting with your city staff in the coming weeks so that we can present our annual business plan with you and your staff. And then you may already know this, but an exciting update is that the inaugural nonstop flight to and from Chicago with United Airlines is debuting this Saturday with Monterey Regional Airport. And Sea Monterey worked hard with the Monterey Regional Airport to make this happen, and we will continue to work hard to make sure that it is a success. And so I'm here tonight to introduce myself, as I mentioned, and also share that I'll be your point of contact. And I left a few business cards with Clerk Anita so that you can get in touch with me. So thank you so much for the opportunity to work with you. I'm really looking forward to building on the strong relationship that see Monterey has with the city of Marina. And thank you so much for your time.

Thanks, Colleen, for your past community service and best wishes in this new chapter.

And I am the owner of the Brass Tap at Marina. I own the Brass Tap with my wife, Regina, and my sister, Cassandra, who's also here. And also just a personal note, all three of us grew up in Fort Ward and Marina. So everything we do in this community is very near and dear to us. We make our decisions definitely with the community's best interest at heart. We opened the Brass Tap in April, 2024. Since that time, we've built the most successful Brass Tap in the history of the franchise. We are proud of this achievement and we hope the city is as well. Our success is rooted in quality food, strong beverage offerings and entertainment. As guests often tell us, the food and drinks are great, but we love the vibe. Music is a central part of our operating model, whether through karaoke, live music, watch parties, or trivia. It helps create the atmosphere our guests value most. We had been open for approximately one year before residents began moving into the promenade rooftops. Within the first few months of their move in, we began receiving noise complaints. On August 15th, we received a notice of violation. In response, we agreed to take steps to reduce noise, including moving our karaoke and DJ indoors. Although these corrective actions significantly reduced the noise, complaints continued. These complaints continued through the weekend of May 1st through May 3rd this past weekend. and to the point where we have now a corrective measure that permanently requires we cease the use of amplified speakers and amplified noise, specifically no DJs, no karaoke, no live music. These actions will cause us to cancel several community events if left in force. For example, for two years in a row, we've held the... a happy hour event for Seaside High School All-Class Reunion. It's an event on Friday. It attracts 125 to 150 former Marina residents or current Marina residents and Seaside grads. That event, unfortunately, if this is held, will have to be canceled. Why? Because they want to have a DJ from 5.30 to 8.30 p.m. We had a very successful karaoke showdown where we held a contest for residents from Santa Cruz. We have participants from residents as far as Santa Cruz. I'm sorry, Carl.

Three minutes is up. I have to ask you to stop. It's my worst part. But someone else can read your comments if there's still more to read.

Hi, Mayor, Council, members and staff. I'm Cassandra Waller. I'll continue the comments from Carl. Marina should continue protecting residents from truly unreasonable noise. However, local businesses also need clear and practical rules so they can operate responsibly, bring in customers, support local jobs and contribute to Marina's culture and economy. Right now, the ordinance can leave businesses uncertain about what is allowed, acceptable sound levels, complaints, and the difference between commercial areas and residential neighborhoods. I'm asking the council to consider business-friendly updates to the noise ordinance, such as a live entertainment permit, clear sound standards, indoor entertainment rules, a warning and corrective process, and different standards for commercial corridors. This is not about eliminating noise protections. It is about creating fair rules that protect the public while also allowing responsible businesses to thrive. I respectfully ask the council to put this issue on the agenda for a future meeting and direct staff to review possible updates to the appropriate Marina municipal codes. Thank you. Lastly, the impact these actions have on the employees and their families can easily be overlooked. We employ nearly 50 employees, a level of responsibility we never anticipated, but to take very seriously. In addition, our third-party hosts for trivia, karaoke, and DJ events rely on this work for income, and we are proud to provide them with a steady source of income.

Thank you, Cassandra, for the joy and hard work that you approach your business here in Marina with.

Okay. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. My name is Renee Young, and I'm the Economic Justice Organizer for the Monterey County Black Caucus. And I'm here tonight because we're deeply concerned about the ongoing enforcement actions being taken against the Brass Tap. This issue impacts local jobs, economic vitality, and raises serious questions about fairness, planning, and accountability. The city of Marina intentionally created this area for the Dunes Promenade as a destination for entertainment, nightlife, dining, and community gathering. The development itself was marketed as a vibrant promenade centered around live music, restaurants, gathering spaces, and a stage pavilion, outdoor seating, fire pits, and public entertainment. The city helped create this environment. There's an amphitheater and entertainment space located within feet of the brass tap. So the question becomes, how can the city promote and encourage musical performances in the same shared environment while simultaneously prohibiting a restaurant from operating with an entertainment that is consistent with the vision the city itself approved? Secondly, the brass top was established before surrounding residential housing was fully built out. Residents moving into the area understood they were moving into an active mixed-use promenade adjacent to entertainment and nightlife and near a college campus. This is not a quiet suburban neighborhood. It is a commercial entertainment district by design. It is fundamentally unfair to allow a business to invest, hire staff, build its customer base, and operate according to the original vision of the development, only to later shift the expectations after expansion occurs around it. My third concern is the lack of objective and measurable enforcement standards. The city's own code references measurable enforcement sound levels at decibel standards, including measurements taken at property lines. However, the violations being issued appear to rely heavily on subjective complaints rather than transparent measurable enforcement. How exactly is noise being measured? Where are measurements being taken from? What equipment is being used? What specific decibel thresholds are supposedly being exceeded? And how can businesses realistically comply if the standards are unclear and inconsistently applied? The community deserves clarity. Without objective measurements, enforcement standards become arbitrary. It's like repeatedly ticketing someone for speeding without posting a speed limit, like without signs being posted and without using a radar gun. We're also deeply concerned by the escalation from mitigation efforts to what is now effectively a ban on amplified entertainment, including DJs, karaoke, and live music. The Brass Tap employs, as you heard, approximately 50 people. So jobs and livelihoods are at risk and the business is already suffering financially. We're respectfully asking Miranda City Council to agendize this matter for broader public discussion and to work collaboratively toward practical solutions and uphold standards that reflect the reality of a mixed-use entertainment district. This must be approached collaboratively... And I'm running out of time. So I just want to say thank you. I tried to talk real fast, but I appreciate it. Hope everything was heard. And thank you. Thank you very much. Just lots of love to Brass Tap.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council members. My name is Lavisha Franklin, and I'm here tonight to encourage the City of Marina to modernize its noise ordinance and create clearer, more business-friendly entertainment rules that still protect residents and neighborhoods. This issue is important because local businesses, including restaurants, lounges, breweries, cafes, and event spaces rely on entertainment to survive and grow. Live music, DJs, karaoke, comedy nights, and cultural events bring people together. Create safe community activity and support workers. and help small businesses generate income in this challenging economy. Right now, Marina's current ordinance may be too broad and unclear for businesses that are genuinely trying to operate responsibly, as Brass Tap is. Many business owners don't fully know whether indoor music after 10 p.m. is allowed, how loud is considered too loud, whether a single complaint can trigger enforcement, or whether commercial corridors are treated differently from residential neighborhoods, and how they can fix a problem before penalties occur. That uncertainty discourages investment, creativity, and community events. This is not about removing noise protections. Residents absolutely deserve peace and quality of life. But businesses also deserve clear, fair, and enforceable standards that give them a real path to comply. I encourage the city to consider creating a live entertainment permit system for DJs, live music, karaoke, comedy, and cultural events. The city could also adopt measurable sound limits at property lines, allow indoor music after 10 p.m. when sound is properly contained, create reasonable standards for outdoor events, and prioritize warnings and correction plans before fines or penalties are imposed. implemented. Most importantly, Marina should recognize that commercial corridors function differently from quiet residential neighborhoods, and our policy should reflect that balance. Marina has an opportunity to support economic growth while still protecting its residents. I respectfully ask the council to agendize a public discussion and direct staff to study potential updates to Chapter 9.24 so the community residents and business owners can work together towards a clear, more balanced solution. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, LaVisha.

Good evening, council members. I initially wasn't coming up here to make any comment, but I don't want to have to drive an hour of good karaoke. Now, I know I can't hit those notes as good as Keisha Cole in love, but it's a part of the culture of this lovely town that we call home. And as a college student who recently walked the stage this past Saturday, I know that the key to keeping an enduring culture that will want to keep students here and also bring in younger families, professionals, and the kind of... things that we need to turn our town to keep our town thriving and I think that Brass Tap is a big part of that culture because when I think of Marina and culture in Marina I think of Brass Tap um Yeah, and especially as a college town as well, I think it's very reasonable, these modifications that are being proposed to the existing ordinances, which I'm in support of, and it's really vital to have a hub for that. I went to Brass Top recently after Capstone to go celebrate with my group mates. And I know that it's very reasonable to ask to have a DJ at 5.30 in the afternoon. I mean, if you're sleeping that early, I don't know. Come out to the dunes. If you live by this wonderful shopping center that we have in Marina in the dunes where I live in, You should come out and socialize with your neighbors and have a good time. And yeah, I just wanted to echo the words of the past three speakers. And I am in favor of black business, grabbing black business in this town, being given a fair shake by the ordinances that we have in place.

So thank you. Thank you very much, Athena.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. My name is Eric Miller. I have been here in this area since 1989, stationed at Fort Ord. So I've watched this area grow tremendously. I watched Marina go from being barracks to CSUMB to the new promenade. I live right actually one block from from the brass tap. Again, the city council and Marina, you guys have done a wonderful job at revitalizing the area and making it more entertaining for a lot of us. Like I said, I was served as a soldier and also as a law enforcement agent here. So I've been here literally almost 37 years, and I've watched the growth of the city. The Brass Tap is, like I said, one block from my house. I get a chance to walk down and enjoy great food, but also listen to great entertainment. I am completely in support of making sure we modernize whatever rules are necessary to make sure that thriving businesses, especially black-owned, because we are a diverse community here in Marina, and I want us to continue to do so and make sure we can support that in any way we can. So I just asked the staff and the city council to make sure whatever we need to do in support of our businesses, especially there in the promenade. Again, I expect we didn't know what was going to be built there when we moved in, but we were glad to see it was entertainment. It's every morning I walk down the exercise actually in that area. right by the brass tap. I do my push-ups and sit-ups over there. So at night, I look forward to, it's not every night, it's on weekends, but I do look forward to listen to a vibrant sound in the area. So I ask for support, but also modernize the rules so that way business can flourish in the area. But thank you for your time.

Thank you, Eric.

Hello, Mayor and City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I have a text message from a family that's in Prunedale and sent to the Brass Tap. It says, regarding the Brass Tap, Sundays are special days for family gatherings. The Brass Tap has been a great experience for food and for entertainment. I was such a positive experience to have a family and friends. It's my heart's breaking not to hear live music on Sundays. It was to my surprise the City Council of Marina canceled the live music due to noise complaints at the Brass Tap. The Brass Tap is a mixed-use community. which is designed so folks can walk and bike from home to entertainment, shopping and other events without needing to drive. During my frequent visits, music was low enough that you could easily converse inside the facility and hardly hear outside for 20 feet. way should the complaint of a few individuals trump the positive experience of many why do did the complaints of individuals move into such a development only to complain about an activity approved by the city an activity that was meant to enhance the ambiance and the positive experience from the whole community If an individual feels compelled to complain about music from the brass tap after moving in such a community, what will they do when the park bandstands located even closer to the residence puts on an event? As the growth continues in Marina, Marina must abide by the permits they passed and or risk having visitors and business going elsewhere. Thanks for, thank you for attention to this matter. And my, I didn't say my name. My name is Terry Ward and that's part of my family, the Waller family. And I can remember when Carl talked about this situation three years ago and how excited he was to bring it to the community because the community was a dead community when it came to entertainment and things that people go to. And the fact of the matter is he sacrificed all his doings to do this for the community. And I don't understand why the community is turning against him and the city council. It just doesn't make sense to me. Well, I appreciate you hearing me.

Thank you, Terry. Anyone else in person?

Much time. Good evening. So Athena Such, I'm wearing two hats right now. I am a Marina firefighter as well as a member of the Marina Firefighter Locals Union 2530. And tonight I want to invite council people and the community of Marina to our first ever MDA fundraiser. So MDA, what's that? Muscular Dystrophy Association. That is a nonprofit that supports those with muscular diseases. There's hundreds of thousands of those that are struggling in the U.S. with this disease. And for many decades, firefighters across the nation have worked closely with MDA to do a fill the boot campaign. Just like it sounds, we're out there with the firefighter boot. And nowadays, we don't just take cash. We have QR codes, thankfully, because nobody really has cash. But we will be out there at Target Saturday, May 30th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. And you'll see perhaps if Donnie Duty Crew is not on a call, they'll be out there as well, just supporting the cause. So you guys can come out. We'll be out there again Saturday, May 30th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. And yeah, that's pretty much it in a nutshell. You guys have any questions? Great. I still have a minute and 30 seconds. Should I say anything? Yeah. I love Brass House. We love it. All right, guys. Thank you.

Thank you, Athena. You had three hats on.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, City Council, Lyndon Tarver, President of the Monterey County Branch NAACP. I come forward to support generalizing the city ordinance for Norris complaints. I'm a resident of Marina. I've been out of here 14 years. And before the Brass Tap was here, and I agree with everyone said previous about supporting the Brass Tap. If you look at your mission statement and vision statement 20 years ago, you said you could support growing businesses. This is one of the growing businesses. It's time to update that ordinance. and have Brass Tap function as a fully black business in the city of Marina. I think Brass Tap is only a black business in Marina. So by handcuffing the Brass Tap, you're telling the residents of Marina that they should go elsewhere for entertainment and food. When you built the Promenade, We knew it was a mixed-use facility the whole time. So why are you handicapping them now? Please update your ordinance and allow the brass tap to operate with karaoke, DJs, and whatever they want to do, especially on Sundays. At the church, people want something to do at the church rather than go home. And the brass tap is a great stone throw away from everywhere. The city of Monterey started the same thing when they closed their facilities on Alvarado. If Monterey is a tourist city, so is Marina. Marina is the fastest growing city on the peninsula. Please update the ordinances to make sure that we can come and enjoy the city of Marina that I know you can. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Lyndon. Thanks for all your service to community. Anyone else in person want to speak? Come on up.

Okay.

Then we're going to go online to Denise Turley. Welcome, Denise. Good evening.

Good evening. I'm going to do things a little differently tonight and ask my questions first and then give a little bit of comment. So my questions are, it sounds like everyone's talking about maybe there was a code violation and they're thinking the city council did it, which, of course, they didn't do it. Code enforcement is not on the city council. It's in yet another department. Has the business been offered the opportunity to soundproof its facilities so that it can be noisier inside and not as noisy outside? Or is this venue outside? It might be a real easy thing to do to post. So, of course, sound is measured in something called SOAMs, and there is such a thing as a SOAMs meter. So if you could post what the allowable SOAMs were to prevent hearing loss and damage so people could monitor when they're at the venue, if things are dangerous, they would step back or the music would be turned down. Bizarrely enough, this has happened here twice at the Preston Sports Park, where vendors are telling the neighbors that they are allowed to produce amplified music in a residential area until 10 p.m. And kudos to Elizabeth. Hope her mom's listening. Yay, mom. She has, I contacted her about this issue not even 15 minutes before the meeting started, and I have already received a response from her to look into the issue. So, Brass Chap, you aren't the only folks. There are noise issues all over the country. City of Marina, and we haven't even gotten to 4th of July, the noisiest, creepiest day of the year. I will also add that I'm hoping that the City Council actually received the training from HRC, because I despair every year when we do our budget and the other budget The questions that come from some people should have been covered by somebody else. And maybe HRC is the people to do that for you. And it sounded like it was free training. Hope that helps you as potentially before the end of the year, you'll have new people on the city of the council. And a good night so far.

Thank you, Denise. Let's go to Malaika Velasquez.

Yes. OK. Can you hear me loud and clear? Welcome.

Thank you. So though I hold a few titles tonight, I'm speaking as a Monterey County resident that frequent the city of Marina and someone that grew up on what is now the Marina side of Fort Ord. I was very happy to hear Ms. Biala read the city's resolution for the AAPI Heritage Month. The city did one similar not too long ago for the Black American freedmen community back in February. Both cited the importance of the contributions of the diverse communities within the city of Marina. So it was very disappointing that one of the very few Black American freedmen businesses left in Monterey County is now under attack, under attack for noise ordinance. this something that has far too often been used to financially impact and often close black businesses within the state of california i implore both the mayor and the city council and i should also say community members to do the historical research on the use of this tactic going back to bruce's beach but just mentioning some businesses more recently Though they're still standing, they constantly have to deal with noise ordinances. So I could say Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, all the locations in California have dealt with noise ordinance issues. The Marathon Shop in Southern California, Marathon Burger that they have now opened now also deals with that. We have a bunch of businesses in the Bay Area that actually closed that were historical businesses that have also dealt with that. But again, going back to Bruce's Beach in the early 1900s, this was a tactic continually used against Black American freedmen-owned businesses to close them down. The Brass Tap is an important business to our local community and something of which the Black American freedman community is especially proud. We want the issue of the noise ordinance final impacting this business's operations. to be agendized by the City Council. The current noise ordinance is unclear and it needs to be updated. We are requesting the City to create a live music entertainment permit for DJs, live music, karaoke, and comedy and cultural events, to adopt clear sound limits within property lines, to allow indoor music after 10 p.m. when the sound is contained, to set reasonable rules for outdoor music and special events, to use warning and correction plans before fines and penalties, and to treat the commercial corridor differently from quiet residential neighborhoods because unlike the previous speaker just said this is not a residential area this was a commercial area ergo why you have a full shopping center meaning that they have normally would have a different noise ordinance than, say, the sports area that she was talking about in Preston Park, where I used to also live. So, again, we want this issue agendized, and we want them to have a fair shake like all the other businesses in the city of Marina and just within Monterey County in general. Thank you.

Thanks, Malaika. Let's go to Adam Venturitis.

good evening mayor city council members and my fellow marina residents my name is adam pinteritz i do serve on behalf of the monterey county association of realtors but i'm speaking currently as a private resident i've lived in the city of marina since 2007. i first moved here to attend CSUMB. And I clearly remember when I was at CSUMB, we all left the Marina area every single weekend, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights. We all went down to Alvarado. We'd go down to the Bull and Bear, back then the Mucky Duck, or to the Brit, or to some other venue down there. And that's where our money was spent, pretty much all students. I know we've got the Otter's Den now. And so, you know, we've diversified our local economy here in Marina a little bit. Uh, but really in terms of a, of an actual venue, the, that would, could really draw live music and, and have enough parking, uh, to support it. And, uh, you know, all the things we need to, to generate a healthier business community and better tax revenues for the city of Marina. Uh, It strikes me as odd that we would want to do anything to reverse course. As I'm sure you're aware, the bull and bear and the brick are now gone. And ironically, the city of Marina went through some very similar things. controversy regarding the bull and bear in particular and the decibels of noise that they created. But as so many other speakers have stated, this is a mixed-use district. And drawing briefly on my experience working with real estate professionals, every single homeowner, when they purchase a property, they sign... dozens if not hundreds of pages worth of disclosures and and whether or not they they read them it doesn't change the fact that they signed a disclosure acknowledging where they live and what's surrounding them and and the consequences of that which include hey a bit of noise you're living in a lively part of town so i i would urge the council to consider as you re-examine this ordinance possibly to really consider the fairness to the businesses, right? The brass tap is, to the best of my knowledge, did all the right things, went through all the steps, and got a use permit, right? So check out what does their use permit allow them to do, and let's not go back on that. In fact, if anything, let's make sure and support our business community while also respecting the property rights of residents and business owners alike. So I think we can come together on this and find a solution that works for everyone. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Adam. Let's go to Alistair Rod. Welcome, Alistair.

Hi. Good evening. I'm a Delgado and council member. My name is Alistair Rod. I'm a 25-year resident of Marina. I am also a big fan of football. I think you guys call it soccer. And you may be aware that the World Cup is coming up in under 50 days. I'm very much looking forward to cheering very loudly outside at a local business. I'm hoping I'm going to be able to do that at the heart of the students area. Um, and, uh, so what I'm just asking you this evening is to consider having a discussion, a public discussion on, uh, the noise ordinances for this city. Uh, so if you can agendize it and allow us to have a conversation about what needs to change in chapter nine 24, to allow me to celebrate the upcoming victory, uh, of, uh, of the teams that I support in a loud manner here in Marina. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Alistair. Let's go to Francine Rod. Welcome, Francine.

Yes. Good evening, council members. I almost want to apologize for my husband there, but I will not. It's lovely to see you all and thank you so much for everything that you do for this amazing city of Marina. As you know, I'm a long-term... resident here and appreciate the fact that one of the things I love about Marina is how we figure out together how to solve challenges. And so I am here to support the request for the council to agendize a public discussion and a study session and some options and study some options for updating the Marina Municipal Code that addresses noise. I agree with the previous comments about the need to both protect residents from unreasonable noise and to support local businesses who need clear rules so that they can operate responsibly within those guidelines and we can support a thriving and vibrant community. I know that the noise ordinance has also impacted Trader Joe's because they were not able to open at 8 a.m. like they had wanted and do in other communities because they weren't able to bring their trucks in. So this is a situation that impacts definitely the Blast Tap, which we definitely need to look at, and other businesses in the community as well. And we want to continue to have a thriving and vibrant community where our students at CSUMB can enjoy the evenings. And to a degree, I go to bed early myself. Obviously, there still needs to be some, again, some constraints. However, we definitely need to look at this and be reasonable about the constraints that we're putting on our local businesses in our community. So thank you so much for considering this request.

Thank you very much, Fran. If anyone else wants to comment online, please raise your hand before we close public comment. Okay. We'll close public comment.

Mayor, I have a parliamentary inquiry. I'm I'm wondering through the mayor, can we provide a 30-day extension to allow amplified music and allow this business to continue operating as business as usual while the city reviews the situation and considers a potential ordinance amendment?

Let's ask our city manager or city attorney to respond.

I'll default that to our city attorney.

Sure, we can work with staff to figure out sort of next steps. And so we can bring an item to council.

Excellent. And then that's my second request for future agenda item. I just wanted to put on record that we would like, I would like to request this matter be brought back within 30 days for discussion and possible action.

actually um we have a meeting already set up with um with carl next week and okay and we are um all the comments is exactly what we're going to work on with staff with them and we'll bring back great as soon as possible okay solution to the council thank you thank you mayor just a point of order i don't know that was really a parliamentary question i mean we're not taking any action or voting or give you haven't received any direction just now correct or

City attorney.

Yeah. So, so it's something that's already, uh, staff is aware of it and we'll work with staff. Yeah. So that's in progress.

All right. Um, I'll get to the questions the public asks. We always, well, I guess we don't do that here. So can someone respond to Denise Turley, who asked whether there was the soundproofing flexibility offered to BrassTap? And to her question, if it's an outside sound, used to be some outside sound, but now it's inside sound. But if staff could get a hold of Denise to talk about her soundproofing question. and we'll go to uh kathy be all councilmember just a moment i just wanted to give a shout out to our staff our code enforcement staff work really hard to protect the city in all sorts of ways safety and quality of life aspects and it's the responsibility of our city council to establish policies such as a norse ordinance Staff just works really hard to implement what we tell them our policy is. So thank you to staff. We don't want to throw you under the bus, but I think we know up here that we have a bit of a discussion and, and, deliberation to do around the noise or noise ordinance especially in the dunes brass tap the general and la la grill area uh we have our own performance stage that we put up there outside the brass tap that that the city and the developer put together so we know we have some uh address that we need to do here and i thank uh councilman mcadams for um picking up the urgency a little bit and i think the staff was already working in that direction but it means a lot to hear from everybody that we heard from tonight. So thank you for being here and providing your input. Let's go now to Council Member Biala.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I know that the city manager just said we have a conversation plan with Carl Waller this week or next week, but that doesn't ensure that it moves to agendized for revision of the ordinance. So how do we do that?

Everything we do in our code enforcement is to come up with solutions, and so we hear very clearly, we know the problem and so we're going to work with with Carl and and the brass tap on solutions, so they can keep operating, and so we can still meet the needs for our Community so.

But not necessarily changing the agenda of the the ordinance.

Well, that's what we're going to do. We're going to figure out a solution. I can't say whether that's modifications to the ordinance or what at this point, but I'm sure we can come up with a solution.

Okay. And will we know about that?

We will absolutely keep the council updated. Okay.

All right. Thank you. And I think everyone understands the urgency because there are traditional events that have already become a tradition. And should those events be impacted, we're all going to lose not just the business. So I know the staff's aware of the urgency. Okay. So let's go to our consent agenda. If anyone has any brief questions, comments or wishes to pull an item for a deeper dive. For now, I'll motion approval of our consent agenda.

I second. I'll abstain from the second reading of the ordinance.

Okay. So I'll amend the motion to... So I'll amend the motion to delete item... 10L1.

And I should clarify that's because I have a conflict of interest.

Regarding our short-term rentals. So the motion applies to the consent agenda minus the short-term rental second reading. Okay, second holds. All in favor of that? Or if there's any discussion, Council Member McAdams?

Oh, no, sorry.

All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. All right. We think, well, we expect an abstention here, but now we're going to go to 10-L-1. I move approval. Second. All right. This regards the short-term rentals. Any comments before we go to vote? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. Any abstentions? Abstain. All right, thank you. So that motion passes four to zero to one with Council Member McCarthy abstaining. And we move on to our public hearings, the first of which is a short-term rental urgency ordinance hearing. And Guido Persicone, our community development director, We'll present this?

Yeah, I think I might. If you can pull up the presentation.

City Attorney Rene Ortega?

Yes. So next slide. So the city passed an urgency ordinance on April 7th, 2026, which was effective for 45 days and it expires on May 22nd, 2026. Currently there are pending revisions to the short-term rental ordinance, which become effective June 18th, 2026. So there is a gap between June, I guess, May 22nd, 2026 and June 17th, 2026. So in order to, eliminate confusion as to which set of regulations apply to pending applications for short-term rentals we recommend that Council extend the urgency ordinance for an additional change the next slide from May 22, 2026 through June 17, 2026. And as a reminder, there is a four-fifths vote required to pass in urgency ordinance. Next slide. And that is the recommended motion.

Questions or comments from the public? Seeing no one in person, anyone online wish to comment on this matter? Okay, Adam Pinterest, welcome back.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. I'll keep it brief. I understand that the Council is, of course, already moving forward with its policy. But I would just urge the consideration that from a property rights standpoint, some people who would run a short-term rental policy would not rent it out on a more permanent basis, whether that's for safety reasons or whether they need it for their own family members part time. There's a variety of reasons why someone may opt to rent on a short term basis rather than on a permanent basis. Not the least of which is to say, candidly, California's tenants rights laws, while obviously well intentioned and helping to protect many people, also create a lot of obligations and burdens for someone taking on a long term tenant. so i would just urge the council to keep in mind that strs are not strictly a competition for our permanent resident housing but rather something that complements our tot and visitor serving economy and so i would really urge the council to be as forward-thinking and progressive as possible in considering our ongoing enforcement of str policies thank you for your time

Thank you, Adam. Anyone else online wishing to comment? Please raise your hand. Okay, we'll close public comment. Council, any questions or comments starting with the Councilmember Biala?

Sorry, I was just going to make a motion that we see up here on the screen. I'd like to move to adopt the word or urgency ordinance number 2026 and to be set there on the screen and even so I don't want to read it again and move.

Second that.

Okay, is it okay to read that. All right. Roll call please.

Councilmember McCarthy?

Yes.

Councilmember McAdams? Aye. Councilmember Biala?

Yes.

Mayor Delgado?

Yes. Thank you. That motion passes unanimously with the four of us present. And we'll move on to another hearing regarding a tree removal permit in relation to the Village Specific, University Village Specific Plan, EIR. IN SUPPORT OF A NEW CAR DEALERSHIP. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT MERCEDES. CAR DEALERSHIP.

CAR DEALERSHIP.

AND GUIDO PERSECON OUR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT DIRECTOR WILL LEAD US THROUGH THIS. THANKS, GUIDO.

NEW SPEAKER SO WE'LL WAIT FOR THE SLIDE PRESENTATION. SO GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL AND MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL. I'LL BE THE PROJECT PLANNER PRESENTING THIS ITEM. Tonight I'll be presenting the design review permit for the proposed project at 2101 First Avenue. Next slide, please. First, a little clicker. So the purpose of it, so some of these slides are going to be introductory. A lot of these permits are done at the planning commission level. So some of these slides are just more to introduce the council to the concept. So the purpose of a design review permit is to ensure new development is consistent with the city's adopted design standards while promoting high quality architecture, site planning, and neighborhood compatibility.

And the clicker's not working.

Next slide. So these are some locational side slides. You'll see basically in the southwesterly most parcel of the property at the corner of 1st and Duvarte is the location. Next slide. And this just also is just another locational map to show the council where the property is in relationship to the other faces of the dunes. So next slide. So the front elevation is characterized by a prominent glazed showroom. The showroom volume is defined by a defined fascia band with the top of about 31 feet above grade and the bottom fascia about 28 feet above grade. This creates a horizontal datum line that emphasizes the building's primary frontage. The building elevations exhibit a clean, minimalist design language utilizing a combination of exterior wall panels, metal cladding, and extensive glazing. The facade composition emphasizes horizontal and vertical alignment with large window expanses framed by metal panel systems to create a sleek, high-quality appearance. All elevations which are in the packet maintain consistent architectural treatments with variations in glazing, solid wall areas responding to functional interior uses. The overall design conveys a contemporary aesthetic with emphasis on transparency, precision detailing, and brand identity. The project has been designed by Gensler and associate and reflects current trends in commercial and automotive retail architecture. The proposed project has been carefully reviewed by staff and evaluated for consistency with the general plan, the university village specific plan and applicable design guidelines. The design incorporates architectural elements, landscaping, building articulation intended to complement the surrounding area and create an attractive streetscape. Throughout the review process, staff work with the applicant to address comments and refine the project where appropriate. Based on that review, staff believes the project meets the required findings for approval and represents a balanced approach between development objectives and community design expectations. Next slide. So the project does meet all of the height, setback, lot coverage, parking requirements as identified in the UVSP. Next slide. There are some design considerations, which I'll go into later in the presentation. Next slide. And I can't see that far, so I need to follow with my slide. Sorry. THE PROJECT IS CONSISTENT WITH THE GENERAL PLAN. THOSE ARE THE TWO IDENTIFIED SORRY, I CAN'T SEE THAT FAR.

NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. SORRY.

THE PROJECT IS CONSISTENT WITH THE GENERAL PLAN. THOSE ARE THE TWO POLICIES IDENTIFIED ON THE SLIDE. and now we'll move on to the design the tree permit part of the application next slide so as shown in the original locational map the southwest corner is opportunity area 3.2 The purpose of the city's tree preservation regulations is to balance protection of community tree resources with reasonable properties and public safety considerations. Next slide. And next slide. So one question that came up during the prep for this meeting was why are all the trees or most of the trees being removed? And the real gist of the answer is that based on the grading of the site, it's really unlikely that the trees are going to survive. And I would point out that when we started working on this project about 18 months ago, there was a significant amount of grade and fill brought in from other parts of the dunes development. And that the middle point of this site to the beginning of First Avenue and anywhere between a 7 to 11 foot grade elevation change. to the middle of First Avenue. So the amount of grade change alone and the additional dirt being added to the site makes survivability of the trees unlikely. Next slide. So in total there are 44 trees that are going to be removed. Three are dead, 17 are in poor health, two will be retained. So there will be 22 trees that need to be replaced on a two to one ratio. So it'll be approximately 44 trees. I will point out the applicant is putting in 67 trees, which is a significant increase from the bare minimum. Next slide. So there was an ask of like what kind of trees for replacement. That is buried a little bit into the packet. So I just wanted to highlight that those are the trees on the draft landscaping plan that will be replanted. So next slide. So during the production of the staff report, during the planning commission deliberation, there were some modifications made to the conditions of approval. Next slide. And so I'll be going over some of those changes. And then also, as we're getting into discussing conditions of approval, there are two really key court cases that planners have to follow, the Nolan and Dolan cases. So if the council adopts a condition for the Nolan nexus, there must be a logical, direct connection between a legitimate state interest the issue that is being ameliorated and for the dolan court case there must be an impact that's proportional to the project so next slide please next slide So condition of approval 25, there's been some comments. This is in relationship to the lighting plan. A lighting plan will be submitted. There will be dark sky principles incorporated into the final design. and have added some verbiage for council consideration that additional lighting requirements to the extent feasible can be incorporated into the final lighting plan based on comments we've received from the council within the last week next slide There has been some discussion related to how do we address the parking situation around the site in relationship to the rest of the dunes. So there has been a modified condition requesting that a year after opening, there will be a parking study that's prepared. And then the applicants ask for some language at the bottom, just asking that they be consulted with as part of that process, which is a reasonable request. Next slide. The hours of operation have been modified based on what the actual business will be running. Next slide. There was a paragraph inserted back into the conditions from the original council resolution. Next slide.

We've already covered that. Next slide.

And the landscaping plans, there was just a identification that the landscaping plans have been resubmitted and they do not affect existing utilities. And the applicant just wanted to be clear about that. Next slide. on the night of the planning commission meeting mst did provide comments asking that the applicant and the city be reminded of the bike lane that will be constructed along first avenue and so condition of approval 53 has been added to the permit next slide And the applicant just requested that there be a clear demarcation between what she homes is responsible for the bike lane and the parts that the applicant is responsible for. Next slide. I've received some comments regarding the signage, which I'll show on the next slide. I understand from other council hearings that the council wants to maintain jurisdiction over the monument sign that will be installed in the westerly boundary of the property. So there has been verbiage added to the conditions of approval. Next slide. There were questions about the signage. These are excerpts from when the incentive package went to council on two separate occasions. And there will be a master sign program submitted by the applicant for the overall building signage. Next slide. And this is the monument sign along the westerly boundary. Next slide. This is the general location of the monument sign. Next slide. And this is our CEQA determination, which I can read if the council wants. But next slide. So there are two separate motions, one for the design review permit and one for the tree removal permit. And that concludes my initial presentation.

Thank you, Guido. Are there any clarifying questions by council before we go to the public? Okay. All right, Jenny, can you wait? We're going to next hear from the applicant. You have, I believe, up to 10 minutes.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Doug Yount with my hat on relative to representation of the car dealership tonight and not Shea Holmes. I just want to say this is an exciting time for the city. Clearly, this project and the Mercedes project is a significant economic development opportunity for the city, not just from job creation, but it could very well be in time that it ramps up to full operation to be the city's largest sales tax producer. So it's very important to move forward with this quickly, obviously, given the needs of the city. for additional revenue for a variety of reasons and important to move this forward so the applicant can go forward then with the construction documents and then move forward with construction itself. So the applicant has assembled a very impressive team and there's development of these documents and the development of the project. Online is Abby Teeters with Gensler who will be presenting the architecture in a moment. You have Andy Hunter with Whitson Associate here in Chambers, as well as Patrick Kaybacher, who's the arborist with DDNA. Also online is Byron Williams with VTA, the landscape architect. And also online is Ken Roycroft with the Unstoppable Group, the Mercedes dealership owner and developer, and possibly Garth Blumenthal as well. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Abby to show the video that the council specifically requested. Previously illustrates a flyby and particularly illustrates the view from the Highway 1 when you go around the project. Abby, are you ready to go?

Yes, I am back. I had a little technical difficulty, but we are back. So on the screen is the video we showed previously. So I'm going to let it run. It shows the project from the highway side and swings around to First Avenue. And I'll just let it run for a moment. And we also have stills from this video that we're going to share as well during this presentation.

Let me add, Abby, that those are actual trees that are depictions of the trees, not just a representation.

Yes, these are the actual trees on the Caltrans side of the line that we obtained through a LIDAR survey. Now we're swinging back around to the property side. And what you're seeing right now is a portion of the service shop and the sprinter service outbuilding and swinging up to see the service shop itself and coming up onto the showroom portion of the building. The total building square feet is around 55,000 square feet. So that gives you a little bit of size of scale. This building also has planned outdoor spaces for community involvement and community engagement. And you see some of our program signage from Mercedes on the building, as well as all the open windows to see inside the building to show the jewel box that it is. Let's swing around to the front again. more trees, and another balcony space on the highway side. So I'm going to stop the video there. And do we want to look at the stills

Yes, please. Quickly, if you can, Abby.

Yes. So we have here are just still images that show different signages or signage elements. And this was the one piece that will be actually discussed with the city on how it's going to design. It's just a representation for us. And the different signage for Mercedes. This is all programmed signage by Mercedes. The dealer doesn't really get a choice on what these are because Mercedes business North America decides what they say. and what they look like, but we do get to illuminate them and put them on the building. And then we have the original package that shows the size and scale of the said signage on the building as well for the elevations. And Doug, I can go straight into the concept itself okay so this is a mercedes-benz showroom the showroom portion is this part of the building it's it's divided by a service drive for the customers drop off their cars and then the service is in the back um the showroom itself is roughly uh 20 000 square feet it's two-story space it is as you can see from the video it's mostly glass and um aluminum panels The service shop is a tilt-up or a concrete wall construction, so we'll have very good sound deadening for any neighbors that are across the street on the highway, on the highway on the dune side. We do have a car wash. We have... position the car away from any public area. So it's facing the highway side and it's away from the public street. Um, and the service shop itself is a, I'll call a self-contained service shop. Everything stays inside the service. There will be no activities outside this building that will interfere with anything from the disturbing the pedestrians or disturbing the outside, um, neighbors. Um, there is a, parts department with it and there's delivery areas that we have assigned throughout the site and it's a self-contained site so all deliveries will happen on the site. There will be no deliveries made on any public ways. And what else do we have? We've already talked about the pre-ordinance with the different civil packages. Andy, I didn't know if you wanted to bring up anything on this or

No, I think that's fine, Abby. I think if we can, and if we can switch to the landscape plan. And Byron, if you can, Williams with VTA, if you can just cover a few things, please.

Sure. So the overall landscape plan addresses the tree mitigation requirements. 44 trees have to be mitigated, and we're proposing 65 trees. And the plant material that we're using, the shrubs, ground cover, per the tree committee's request, we're using native plants, majority of the native plants that was requested. um the front we had to the placement of the trees the street trees um along first avenue we have a lot of utilities we have to avoid there's um gas easements gas lines um storm drain so uh those been um those have been avoided by placing them outside um conflict zones uh within the uh the parking lot itself uh the trees are shown they be shifted primarily relocated possibly once we get the lighting plan for the parking lot. But for the most part, the 65 trees are what we're looking at proposing to mitigate for the 44 that's required.

All right. Thank you. Andy Hunter with Whitson Engineering.

We want to show the grading plan, please. Good evening just to speak briefly on the grading to help clarify the design intent. This portion of the dunes development has a lot of fall from 2nd Avenue on the east towards highway 1 on the West. And specifically this site continues that trend access on 1st Avenue bottom of the screen there. The building itself is actually lower than First Avenue. Some of our goals here were to try and follow the trend of the site and keep the site accessible from First Avenue, still accommodate the building, which is obviously flat and the parking around, but at the same time, keep things down so that the conforms on the west side by the highway could be minimized and grading and tree preservation at the property line and beyond could be preserved. uh the for reference here the parcels at the bottom of your screen it's kind of south um or to the east north and east are about eight feet higher from this parcel itself the drainage will be maintained on the property utilizing systems that have been used throughout the dunes community so all the drainage will be kept underground under large chambers mitigating the 100-year design storm runoff it'll be independent of the perimeter street systems put in by the dunes property and so all water will be kept on site As been mentioned earlier, this area was planned with the recently constructed First Avenue. So sewer and water were stubbed out along with the PG&E utilities. There was this existing gas main that we have worked around right along the frontage. You'll see some slides here in a second. Abby, maybe you can move to them about circulation.

Let me interrupt you just for a moment. So our policy is 10 minutes for the proponent of the project. It's at our discretion if we'd like to give any particular project proponent more time. Council, what's your prerogative here? Ryan?

Yeah, same, and I'd rather they stick around for questions.

Okay, a couple more minutes.

I will just briefly brief to circulation. This, along with an exhibit after this, just speaks to how the fire trucks were checked all around the parking lot for being able to make the turns in and out and delivery trucks as well. So there's plenty of access for fire and life safety.

Also have Patrick Kraybecker here with Denise Dusty and Associates. If you want to just mention a couple of things for, you've got about a minute.

I'll be brief. So due to the amount of cut and fill on the site, all these trees had to be proposed for removal. Luckily, we were able to save two of them, and then one large tree was able to be transplanted. However, that being said, all the trees were assessed for transplanting. but you can't transplant a tree from a contiguous forest because all the trees work together cohesively. It's called mass damping. And if you take a tree out of a forest like that, one, its roots are already connected with all the other trees, so you're impacting the tree significantly. And then that tree doesn't have reaction wood, so it would just essentially break or fall over. So that was brief. It was quick.

And just here in closing, I believe Ken Roycroft or Garth Blumenthal, who's online, would like to speak, I think, in behalf of, as a developer owner of the site. Ken or Garth? Okay, maybe they're not able to connect on. I thought I saw Ken on there.

I think Garth's trying now, actually. Let's see who's popped up. Ken has raised his hand.

He's raised his hand, so. Can you hear me?

Go ahead, Ken.

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, go ahead, Kenny.

Perfect. Hi, everyone. Nice to I guess you can't see me, but I can see you and I've been paying attention as is Garth. He's trying to get on as well. Not the easiest thing to do sometimes. So I apologize for technical difficulties. so as i'm sure you're aware at this point we've been going down this path together for quite a bit here we're very excited to move forward um we're very excited to start working with the city of marina and really bring this to bring to market and in fruition and bring this dream to a reality it's really turning into a beautiful facility it's embracing the love that the city of marina has for the environment the trees and the image that would like to be portrayed as we embrace the future of the dunes and marina as it grows and continues to flourish. And so I'm- Excuse me, Ken.

Let me interrupt you. I'm sorry to do that. Council, we gave them two more minutes. Do you want them to continue?

And two minutes, not yet, or another two minutes?

It's up to you. Brian?

Two minutes. I'd like to hear from Garth if he's going to speak too.

Okay, I'll give you two more minutes. Please continue, Ken.

Garth, are you able to get on so you can take the dais? If not, I can continue. Raise your hand.

Yeah, we're trying to move Garth over to panelists, but he might have to push a button himself.

Okay. He's texting me. Just give me one moment, guys. I'm sorry to burn your time. Carry on. Okay, so obviously he's having a tough time. So I guess at this moment, is there any questions I can answer for you folks? You know, we're excited. Now, is there anything that I can answer personally?

Yeah, Ken, our questions won't take up your time for those 10 minutes that we extended. So we'll ask you some questions, I'm sure, before the night's over. But this is for you to make a presentation to us.

super so just you know we've we continue to grow and work closely particularly with guido and the team the team we've assembled as well to try to match and work well with the city of marina to get this to really become the dream we all have or they bring the reality this business to really start to be developed in the way we've seen it and discussed so many different visits here at this point um our vision is to be able to be a long-term resident of Marina, to bring tax dollars to the city, to really make sure we do something spectacular that allows us to add value in a way that only we can envision because we've done it before for another town or two. And so we see what we're bringing to the table. That's why we're so committed to making sure we see this through. I'm not sure if that it adds any value to what was presented because our team did a spectacular job. There's really nothing I could add. They've done a fantastic job tonight. Just want to make sure from our perspective, We remain bullish on Marina and where we're going with this project and can't wait to really get this started so we can meet the deadlines ahead of us and be able to actually open the doors to help, you know, make this a success for all involved, including the city.

Thank you, Ken.

My pleasure.

Okay. Let's go to public comment now. Anyone in the house that would like to speak in person, please come up to the podium.

Mayor, before we go to public comment, can I disclose some ex parte? I think it's important to disclose before we go to public. Sure. I just wanted to share that there's a letter that everyone has that I sent to city staff, and I also shared it with Doug Young Monday that just expresses some general concerns, which I'm sure we'll get into during the hearing today. That's it.

Thank you, Brian. And, Jenny, did you have clarifying questions that you wanted to ask before the public comment?

I do, but I have a lot. So maybe we just...

The clarifying question is just like procedure, process, not your overall comments.

Sure. So one clarifying question, Guido, can you explain exactly what we would be approving before us this evening? So it's the trees and then the design review, meaning we are approving the project. Is that correct?

That's correct.

And so would this come back to us for changes or modifications or we're done tonight?

The condition of approval regarding the monument sign would come back. And then I know there's some comments about other parts of the project, but that's really up to the council. Okay.

So this is our, this is it.

I mean, if there's major modifications, it would come back. Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. Anyone in person, come on up to the podium. If you'd like to comment on this. Not seeing anyone. We'll go to online folks. Adam Pinteritis, welcome back.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. I'll keep this really brief at the risk of sounding selfish. I wish it was.

And then he cut off.

Hello, city council members. Sorry about that. I'll keep it very brief. At the risk of sounding selfish, I wish it was housing with that beautiful view it's going to have. But in all seriousness, I just wanted to congratulate the applicants on a well put together package and seeming to work well together with the city and what it needs in terms of housing. diverse economic development. And I will just use this opportunistically as to say, if we can so readily examine our tree ordinance, you all should be aware that other cities would be envious of this, right? Other cities have to agonize over anything involving their tree ordinance. And for us to just address it this readily, I think serves as a great example, not just for this development, but for all developments and not just for the sake of development, But as you're, of course, aware, for the sake of insurance, which affects everyone from commercial to residential. So I would just encourage you to feel blessed with being able to address your tree ordinance so readily. And again, congratulations on what seems to be a very well put together project. Thank you.

Thank you, Adam. Anyone else online, please raise your hand. All right, we'll close public comment.

councilmember mccarthy let's start with you please yeah i'll be brief um just a question on the nexus nolan test that was in the presentation can staff tell me where that came from was that a something that the applicant had mentioned to staff i've never heard this in any of our my many years on planning commission um uh the council typically doesn't look at design review permits so this is training i've given the planning commission probably

Two or three times since I've been here. So it's just a reminder that if there's a condition the council puts on it, it has to be proportional to the impact. And there has to be a reasonable nexus to the project. Those are Nolan and Dolan. Those are court cases that go back over 50 years.

And it wasn't something that the applicant had asked.

No.

Okay. And then just on that, so given this unique circumstance where we've kind of conditioned, and I don't expect that you'd be prepared to give a legal opinion today, but can you say anything about whether that would still apply or not?

Yes. The design review permit, the tree permit, each of those would be subject to the same standards, whether this was before the planning commission or before the city council. Same standards would apply.

But there's nothing in the conditions that staff is suggesting that we're trying to unfairly extract from the applicant?

No, I think it was just to make sure that the council understood because it doesn't regularly sit as a planning commission.

Okay. Very helpful. Thank you. I'll stop there for now and come back.

All right. Thank you, Patrick and team staff and project proponent team for assessing the tree's viability for being pulled out and replaced after the grading, et cetera. I appreciate that. We had a prior project that didn't go to that extent, and I'm glad this one did. The monument sign seems inadequate, but I could be wrong. I'm wondering if the developer knows the square footage of your Temecula monument sign versus the square footage of this proposed sign that we've seen in that presentation.

Mr. Mayor, through the Mayor, can online, I don't know if they know the square footage of that or not. He might. I think it's important to note with the monument sign that it's very much preliminary at this point. It was presented as the general location and the general size and component of it. But it's clear that the city hasn't as well finished their development of the concept either. And the developer was waiting for that. So they had to put a placeholder in there for it. So we can get that information, Mr. Mayor, if you wish.

Garth, do you have any rough approximation?

That is correct, if you can hear me. I'm not sure if Garth can speak. If he can, I can definitely step back. That is definitely not to scale. It was the best we could do with what we were given. I know Marina has a signed plan and some guidelines. We have not provided those to any proportionate way to show you, okay, this is exactly what you've given us and this is what we came up with. It was more conceptual and to embrace the vision of we want to make sure that the city of Marina has a place on that first part of the property where actually right where the car sits. So when the eyeballs go down Route 1, what do they see? City of Marina, right above it, they see the Mercedes-Benz sign and beautiful cars right all in the same zone.

All right. Thank you, Ken. If I can, just real quickly, and Guido can correct me, but the monument sign will be brought back to council. I think that was just a conceptual... That's correct.

That's fine. It was in the staff report, and so I want to catch it early. I think it's important that we as a city... careful here that we don't be obnoxious with too large of a sign but we don't be diminutive so that it doesn't do what we want so i think we need to be clear on what we want from that monument sign it goes in it's there for many decades it's seen by you know thousands of vehicles every day uh the temecula sign at mercedes-benz city temecula It's much larger than what we see, what we saw here. So, you know, it caught my attention. Garth and Ken and I walked the Temecula sign. It was taller than any of us. But I don't know if that's what we want. I don't know if we want a huge sign that says, welcome to City of Marina. So I just want to be clear that since it's coming back to us that We don't waste anyone's time providing a sign that doesn't get what we want. And we need to be clear as policy folks here that we give some direction at some point and what kind of a sign we want. I'm feeling disappointed that we don't have a computer simulation It was probably a year ago, I don't know, it was a long time ago when we heard this project and I urged a computer simulation and I was told, no problem, we'll have a computer simulation. The computer simulation I asked for is when you're driving north and south on Highway 1, what will you see? The effect that this project potentially could have on the viewshed for everyone traveling Highway 1, we need to be careful about that. And what I saw today was a computer simulation with some still photos of sort of cartoon mocked up views right next to the lot. Nothing that would tell me what it's going to look like. And I know what Temecula looked like. It was done pretty well. But I don't know what this is going to look like from Highway 1, but I'm disappointed because I asked for that and was told no problem. Because sometimes you get agreement early on, but then I didn't see that tonight. And I think that all of us will be responsible for what we approve this project to look like from Highway 1, which is a kind of an iconic view shed, right? the Monterey Bay area. So I don't want to mess it up. And I trust staff and developers that they've thought really well about this. But I question why we don't have a computer simulation. It's a pretty modern practice now where important projects have computer simulations that nail it as far as what something's going to look like, whether it's a roundabout or a development. But what I saw tonight was basically really standard simulations that we see on smaller projects. And I think that we have some discretion, especially with this project, because there's a financial agreement that we're making that refunds this project $5 million of sales tax. And so we need to, I think, take more responsibility for this project than the standard project, because we have a lot of money on the line in this financial partnership. The car wash noise, I kind of hate to bring it up because it is probably so de minimis. I think what I understood is it's facing Highway 1. I don't think there's any residential around it. But we got burned with the car wash near our library where we were told, don't worry about noise. And it has a strong impact. It's a degrading impact on the sense of park that's near it. A different situation than this. But I just want to make sure that we don't get fooled twice on this. So who can address what's within hearing range of any noise car wash wise?

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I think it'd be helpful for either Ken Roycroft or Abby Teeters with the Gensler Architect to talk about that because we did talk about in the the development team talked about the issues that were brought up with the quick quack and all of that and other car or car washes that are that large and so forth but i think it's helpful for abby maybe you can explain the operation that will be happening and the orientation of the car wash particularly in its location on the site plan uh relative to land uses around it because that is a you know obviously a very valid concern about any noise

Yes. And if I can share my screen again, I'm going to do that right now to show you. So as I pointed out before, the car wash is on, I'll call it the backside of the property. First Avenue is down here. And our next neighbor is over here. I actually had a program open, but it crashed on me. I'm not going to try to open the end. I ran dimensions. So the dimension from the end of the car wash, you enter here and run this way through it. From this point to our property line is 175 feet. And then from this point to the car wash to First Avenue is nearly 300 feet. And I'm just giving you that just for round numbers of the distance away from things this is. Because currently, you know, there's not a development here, so there's nothing here now, but that doesn't mean there won't be something eventually. So I want to just give some context for that. The noise itself is pretty self-contained. This car wash is not like what you would have, I guess, in a tighter site where everything's a little more close together, because this is very spread out from your next neighbor. And the doors will most likely be down when in use, so it's going to

open the doors when they exit situation.

So the doors will be pretty contained. We can do a decibel study on it to find out for sure about that, just to ease everyone's concerns. But that's just information about the car wash and how it's going to function. Are there any questions about that?

Yeah. Abby, thank you. I don't know what's going to go to the north of that. I think you said that, you know, we're not sure who your next door neighbor is going to be, but you can hear the carwash that Doug told you about easily 300, 400 feet away in a park. And so the distance of 175 feet to 300 feet that you mentioned is Doesn't mean to me that the next door neighbors aren't going to hear car wash noise. And it might happen, you know, during hours of every day of the week. And so it might be an issue. Doug, do you have any idea who's going north?

It is a commercial or an office use that's to the north. And north of that is MST. To the east is Kaiser and the West. county building right now and one parcel for Kaiser another parcel that's a Business Park parcel up to the corner on Third Street there would be residential up in that corner um and one of the things that um I put my Shea hat on is that uh I can assure you that Jay Holmes was working with the developer very carefully and about all of the concerns about the proximity to the view proximity to where the street would be in the residential right there so you have a lot of strong interests about you know everything that would happen on this site adjacent to not too far from residential like like I believe it is in Temecula I believe their dealership is surrounded maybe even on three sides by residential this is a little different because you got the highway but I believe also the car wash if I can Mr Mayor on the car wash itself, I believe it's nowhere near the size or dimensions of a larger 20 bay car wash or the big longer one that would happen at normal commercial type car washes. All right.

Thank you. That's true. I would say that's a very good point. This car wash is, I want to say it's an 80 foot long car wash, which is not what you'd normally do for a quick turnaround public car wash so it functions a little differently but like i said we can get exact sound readings and things like that from the vendor to give quantifiable data about it as well

All right. Thank you, Abby. Guido, how do we as a city get data and confirm that that data renders this, you know, not a noise impact to surrounding neighbors?

I mean, we could certainly look at other existing dealerships or... could put a condition in terms of, uh, noise impacts that we would look at during the building permit process. I mean, there's a lot of different ways. Yeah.

All right. Is it easy Guido to give, uh,

decibel limitations that that you'd be comfortable wouldn't be heard from nearby neighbors so that they i mean not sitting here today i don't i don't claim to be a noise expert but i mean if the condition is reasonable that As long as it's within reasonable industry standards for a general car wash, that would be an appropriate condition.

But I wouldn't be able to tell you today what's the exact decibel level for a car wash. Would it be unreasonable to condition the project that the car wash could not be heard off the property?

Once again, I wouldn't be able to answer that question right now. Yeah. I mean, as long as it's not violating the noise ordinance in terms of from the property line, then that would seem reasonable.

I'm worried about it because it's possible the quick quack's not violating it either. And it's not something we would have allowed had we known. So what Jenny asked, Council Member McAdams asked for is just kind of our last bite of the apple. And in general, this is our last bite of the apple. Right? That's correct. Okay. All right. Let's go to... Council Member McAdams? Thank you, Mayor. I'm sorry, Jenny. Let's go to our city attorney first. I made my call. Okay, Jenny.

Thank you. And so just sort of adding on to potential noise, right? We heard, we're hearing complaints, right, about the brass tap. We closed down Los Animas because of truck noise. And so it really is our job tonight to, to make sure that we're putting clear direction and policy in place. So future councils and staff don't have to deal with these unintended consequences. So piggybacking on the noise, as far as like car delivery, parts delivery, idling, what are the hours of delivery? I didn't see that in here. Can you just sort of,

I would have to defer to the customer on that. They can provide those specific details about the delivery of their trucks.

Well, shouldn't, I mean, would that be a condition, though, that the city puts on that we don't allow deliveries just like we don't allow amplified music between, you know, 9 a.m. and 7 p.m.?

That could potentially be a reasonable condition.

Okay. So that's something I would like to see very clear because I do not want to hear from a resident if there's cars being delivered and taken off a truck at three and four in the morning. So I bring that up and I have lots of other... they are specific, but they're important, right? Like this is important. Or these will be like the, oh, oops, we forgot to add that. Or there's a lot of staff discretionary approvals in what is before us. And that's great if Guido's here to approve them, but what if he's not? And maybe that staff at the time who is doing these discretionary approvals might not have the historical knowledge or know what the council you know the sort of concerns that we have um set forth and so with the car wash because when i asked my questions nobody really knew about it but it's not a hand wash is that correct it's a it's a That's correct.

It's an automatic login. I would have to defer to the applicant on that.

Because you don't know or because why? I'm talking to Guido. Thank you, Doug. Apologies. Is that because you don't know or is it because they are answering the questions? Because I think that's really important.

It's important that they answer that question because I don't know the operation of their business inside and out.

I can answer from Abby or Doug.

Yes, I would. And then in addition to if it is a hand wash or an automatic drive-through facility, is it open to the public?

I don't believe so. But once again, I would have to ask the applicant that question.

All right. Abby or Doug, which of you would like to answer those two questions?

I can answer. Yeah. So the car wash is an automatic car wash. It is not open to the public. It is only used by the business for the business's customers. So that means it also has a fixed time it is used, which is their hours of operation time. And to also answer a question that was brought up about delivery hours, they do have a delivery hour schedule. It does say varies, but it's from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., but it's not going to be 3 a.m. That won't happen. It will have a cutoff, according to the owner. Okay.

Okay, thank you. And by customers, do you mean specific people that have purchased Mercedes from this lot or anyone who owns a Mercedes?

Anyone who's having their car serviced in the service shop for Mercedes and or people who have bought their car from Mercedes from this dealership.

Okay. And then Guido, what's in front of us this evening? Could that change if they wanted to sell memberships and allow the public to?

Uh, I mean, that could be a major modification of the permit. So potentially that could have to be reviewed by myself or planning commission or council. I mean that.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Um, So will this approval, if we approve as is, will it allow typical sort of auto dealership marketing items like inflatable tube dancers, oversized balloons, banners, flags?

No, when we develop the master sign program for the site that we will incorporate the Dune specific plan master sign program and those are already prohibited.

Okay. And what about like events, barbecues, jump houses, things of that nature?

Yeah, I mean, we're actually working on a special event permit right now. We'd have to potentially that would be a special event permit for them. So that was separate from this permit.

Okay. So as far as the, I didn't see this in the packet either, like the specific truck traffic routes.

deliveries yeah so actually i have a if uh belinda can pull up the site plan i do have some reference slides i work with public works to get that this week because i know you'd ask that question so i'm just curious will the treks be going through residential areas to access the it's in the body of the presentation under reference slides It would primarily just go down Highway 1, up DeVarte, exit Lightfighter, go up Second Avenue and down DeVarte. But I have a graphic that I have from the Public Works team, which I can share.

Right.

If you go down to the reference slides, you'll see a slide, Belinda, that shows, yeah, there you go. No, that's, yeah. So that just generally going down Duvarte, going up First Street and down Duvarte to get to the site. That would be the general truck route. And this is all preliminary. This all just got worked out in the last couple of days with public works, so.

Okay, great.

And it would get finalized as part of their traffic control plan. So this is not like the official route. We would work with the applicant to identify as part of their traffic control plan when they submit for their permits.

And then, Belinda, would you mind going back to the rendering that sort of shows the lot with the sign? Sorry, oops. It's like the picture one. Sorry. I think you maybe go forward a couple. One more. So how tall are those light poles or where's the lighting plan?

The lighting plan has not been submitted. That'll be part of the building permit process.

Okay. So that will come to the planning commission or that will be a staff level approval. Okay.

It's not typical to bring a lighting plan to a public hearing. Those are pretty involving technical documents.

Okay, I understand that. I just, for me, I don't want to be like shining bright like a diamond from across the bay. And I also have concerns about birds and bats potentially like crashing into the glass. Right. In the staff report, in the packet, it does mention lighting used for security. So is that on 24-7? You know, I mean, I think that there's some reasonable... Like, no, I don't necessarily want to like approve the lighting plan, but I would like to know, are the lights dimmable? Are they, you know?

Right. Right. I would refer the council to condition of approval 25, which talks about the dark sky principles that I know have been brought up for, um, and ensuring that there's no light pollution and ensuring the light fixtures are adequately shield so there there is some pretty strong language to ensure that there's not the light pollution that you're expressing so great but in the end the overall approval is at staff's discretion right under the guidance of the council with this condition of approval okay i don't want to take up more time but

I do have additional stuff we want to round off.

Yeah, we'll come back to you. And I'd like to apologize for everyone for taking 12 minutes when I should have taken five and no more. Let's go to Council Member Biala.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I get excited when I see the presentation. I feel like, wow, Marina is really growing up here. And I'm excited to see these kinds of developments happening here that obviously adds significant revenues to our city. And we have great needs, of course. So my first thought is going back to the sentence that was in our packet. that these kinds of projects don't usually come back to the City Council. I was on the Planning Commission myself for almost four years, I think, and I don't want to be having our City Council become a Planning Commission. So I just want to caution us that it sounds like this project has had two bites of the apples with Planning Commission, of course, and the City Council. planning department has reviewed it significantly with the developer i'm sure but that's correct and that the tree committee also did and i do know um all of save one um the tree committee and i i see all of them as being highly motivated to save trees whenever they can so when they give their stamp of approval based on um you know some accommodations and stuff that i trust that um i i i do want to to say that when i see all of the issues that have come up with to council people i want to know first were these issues addressed maybe not the car wash it sounds like but all of the other issues they were they were brought to the planning commission you the staff also reviewed them and the tree committee correct most of the issues that are being brought up to consider have these all been before the planning commission

or the staff yeah and then just to further note the tree committee looked at this a year ago and then the planning commission looked at the original grading and tree permit and then the planning commission looked at it again last month and then this actual project has been before the council on three separate occasions okay and there were actually three separate resolutions adopted by the council

Okay, so I know when there's big projects like this, because we're always going to miss something. Perfection isn't what we can do, certainly not from the dais. So I just want to say that. And I want to know whether all of the issues that are on these two documents from the two council members, have they been addressed? I mean, if they have been addressed and then we don't need to go over them again unless they're really not having been covered before or not answered. I need to know that. Otherwise, we're going to sit up here and we'll go through each one of these and it'll be two hours from now.

I mean, to answer your question, yes, we've looked at the permit. We've attempted to craft conditions of approval to address issues. But the council is the final approving body, and I'm here to answer any questions the council has. So, yeah.

Okay. Well, I'm just saying that, yes, we have sort of made a condition, so we want to see it. And I'm glad that we can see it because otherwise it would have not come to us immediately. in this format so i'm glad for that but i i don't feel that i can second guess all of the other details that have been covered by all of our other processes so i want to you know just say that i i hope that these have been addressed and it doesn't have to come to council for us to rehash these if they've already been covered and there has been some resolution that's acceptable that is not you know, is not a game changer for the whole project. You know, for example, like the video for the view shed. Yes, it's important, but we do have a VA DOD site and how they mitigate for it is landscaping. So landscaping does not seem to me to be a game changer. I don't think we're asking for infrastructure changes at this late date. So when we say that we need to have a video for ViewShed, I'm thinking, okay, so can that not be handled by staff or the developer in terms of landscaping i mean i think that's what we did with the dod va side which is a huge almost hospital like from the from the uh the view shed from from uh you know the um uh street so i don't know if i'm over five minutes but to answer your question councilmember biela the actual resolution adopted by the city council says that the dealership produce an accurate computer simulation video

Prior to Planning Commission review, in my eyes, the video that was presented today does meet that requirement, and that is the adopted resolution by the council.

I agree. I felt like even though it's a still run, I felt like I was traveling along the freeway. And what I saw was maybe we need to enhance the landscaping with more trees. I don't know. But to me, that meant the criteria. And was the car wash presented to the planning commission and everyone? Have you talked about noise before? Yes. Okay. So in your opinion, was that resolved?

I don't think the car wash issue came to light until within the last 48 hours. But that's not something that we can't address.

Yeah. And that seems reasonable if it wasn't really addressed until the last 48 hours. Because we did have the quick quack car wash that is significant. The noise levels are significant. So things like that, I just want to make sure that we're not... We're not undermining all of the city's processes and the number of reviews because the details could be endless that we're trying to, I don't know if it's proper to say micromanage, but I just want to focus on the things that may have been missed as opposed to rehashing the things that have already been covered.

If I can add, I just want to clarify a couple of things. Our staff hasn't reviewed all the details that were in some of these letters, and that's simply because those are things like the lighting details that would be looked at at the building permit time. And so at that point, our staff will get into the weeds. However, if there is policy direction the council wants to give with that, That certainly is the appropriate time. Like with the car wash, council can give direction to require a noise study be completed on the car wash and submitted to staff so we can review it and clearly understand what those noise impacts are.

Right. And the sign, you know, that hasn't even gone through our regular review sign ordinance through the planning commission or separate but different. So there are things like that that we still need to do. and following our own processes. So yes, if we can just kind of say the things that we're missing and give direction as opposed to going through the same issues again. Thank you, Mr. Moore.

Thank you. Let's go to Council Member McCarthy. Thank you, Mayor.

So I want to start by kind of taking a deep breath and just expressing my gratitude to going down this path with Unstoppable and the Mercedes Group. I do want perfection and I know I'm not going to get it, but I'm going to work really hard to get as close to that as we can. And I still do truly believe that this is a partnership that will long-term benefit Marina in ways that we don't even fully understand yet. uh and also this is the biggest project of its kind that we've ever gone through and i think it deserves you know some attention and getting it right um i think i want to start by reading on the first page of the the staff report where it says project will not be unsightly undesirable obnoxious in appearance it won't impair the desirability of residents what does that mean You know, we heard from somebody in the public today that talked about music that some people found obnoxious and other people thought it was a celebration and it was a reason to really thrive. So who's right? We play a role in deciding that and we play a role in deciding that in an objective standard type of way. And in this staff report, unfortunately, I'm just not seeing those objective measurements. i was on the planning commission and was excited to approve the car wash the quick quiet car wash and was told that um it wouldn't be noisy and was told that it was going to go through these processes and it did get a noise study and it went through all of these things and yet here we are right we we we didn't hit the mark on that we're getting complaints and i think it's louder certainly for me than i ever thought it would be um And I don't think that we really had those objective measurements in there. You know, the car wash is one thing. Have you ever heard an impact wrench? Have you ever heard a tire inflator? I mean, this is an inherently noisy use that... deserves some attention on the impacts to neighboring residential areas that it is going to create. You know, as just kind of a point of order, I want to mention that, you know, we've got an audience full of people that are some who have been here for two different times waiting to get to their item. I'm going to cut to the chase a little bit and just say, I don't think that I'm a yes today based off everything I've heard in this public hearing. I will mention that we have four people on the dais. So if only one other of my colleagues agrees with me, I don't think this gets approved tonight. I have a list of items that I would like to discuss and that I do want some measurable objective measurements on. And honestly, it would take a couple hours to get through them. You know, unfortunately, the way our current system works, we only get these agendas on Friday. And so we have a very limited time to kind of provide feedback. But there's a lot here. And I think unfortunately for me, I mean, I'm happy to go through some of these. I mean, lighting. Let me back up. I do have a question and I'll ask this very delicately. And it's a sequel related question. So we're relying on the University of Villages sequel document for the approval of this project. You've heard the diocese heard me mentioned before that there's some recent studies out of UCLA, for example, that talk about lighting and the impact that it has on the plover population. And the amount of lighting that it has a measurable impact on plover population turns out to be half of a full moon, let alone a car lot's worth full of impact. So my question to the attorney is, And I ask this question not just for this project, but for my own understanding of future projects. At what point do we have new information that would require some kind of secret review?

That's a good question, which would merit a little bit of research, but typically it's, you know, change condition, new information, you know, the staff's determination based on what was submitted by the applicant, reviewed against the environmental determination that was made previously, is that this essentially is covered by that. So that is staff's determination. We can probably come back to or send you information as far as what are the change conditions or what is the new information that will trigger that, but at least based on the information that was submitted, it would qualify under the existing EIR. Okay.

So I think I'll just summarize everything that I've said that I just don't see, you know, and I feel awful for the applicant because I know how excited they are as well to be partnering with us, or I hope that they're excited. The people that are going to go to the ballot box in November want me to get as close to perfect as possible. And I don't think we're anywhere near there tonight based off of what I've heard. And so for that reason, I mean, I would like to send this back to staff, have them put a little bit more effort into some of our questions and have it come back to us. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. Let's go to Council Member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. And, you know, sorry to sound like a broken record, but I do want to put on record how disappointed I am that the name is going to be, you know, Mercedes of Monterey. I've really had have had an issue with that since this project started. And, you know, for me. The city of Marina, we deserve businesses that reflect and represent and are proud of being in our community, not ones that benefit from our city while branding themselves elsewhere. And so just as we advocate for the best outcomes in housing and development, for me, I also will continue to advocate for Marina's identity and pride. You know, it's hard for me to... be able to be excited about this project the way that it is. And council member McCarthy is right. We get an 800 page agenda packet on Friday and good luck with that. It's very difficult and I'm not prepared and I'm not certain about what I would be approving this evening. I think that You know, it does. It needs more time. It needs more thought. I appreciate Guido for, you know, helping me this week. And I think that he heard me loud and clear of the discrepancies and the information that I saw was missing. And maybe I'm reading it wrong. Or maybe, you know, I'm not... hearing Guido's responses correctly but I'm just very uncomfortable and have a lot of concerns as the mayor said like this is the last bite of the apple and we will be the council that every time people drive by thousands of trips a day and they go why is Mercedes of Monterey in Marina That's our legacy. That's what we're looking at. As soon as all of those trees start to get cut down and removed, residents will come to us upset about that. And so we have to be so certain and so confident of what we are approving. And I'm not there. I'm not even like halfway there. So unless my colleagues can sway me otherwise or maybe have other information, I do think that this needs to just be a little more developed. Thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. Council Member Villala?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Now, I want to say that one of our biggest problems is our meetings go on too long. And we're going to be hopefully able to discuss that as the agenda item since we had to reschedule from last time. So we look at our council rules. And I think it's in that vein that I'm saying that if two, and it sounds like two council members today, and possibly three, I know I would vote for this. But if we don't have um elizabeth uh the mayor pro tem here then why don't we just call this topic ended and table till the next time when she is available because otherwise we're going to have to essentially cover the same kinds of issues And it's a waste of time, frankly. So why don't we do that to make sure all your issues are addressed and that somehow that you work to find those answers. And if out of that comes some potential conditions that you can name the next one, then we can go on rather than you know rehashing it a second time so that's that's my thought tonight is that we still have uh two more agenda items and why don't we do that since since we're going to be stymied anyway by vote i mean we will either have you know a tabling by three to one, or we'll have two and two, and it's time meeting, so we have to table it anyway. So why don't we do that? And then, you know, have you guys get your answers met as far as, you know, you want, but we don't have to do that from the dais, I don't think. And this is the issue with perfection, not to say that I don't disagree with you, Council Member McCarthy, but when you talk about dark skies and its impact to Western snowy plovers and CEQA, I mean, that is getting to a place where it's beyond perfection. It's bringing in details that I don't think it's not within our purview to discuss and to consider when you're talking about this project. I know a lot about Western snowy plovers in terms of one of the projects that was happening on our coasts. And believe me, it's not going to be because of lighting from Mercedes, that there's greater impacts to the health of Western snowy plovers on our coast. So that's just an example that we might be using up our time and expecting the developers things that, you know, on the surface, we kind of know that it's probably not going to be a project-changing issue that we need to bring up. So I'm just saying that I'm trying to keep us focused at this point. So I really would like, and the sign, I'm sorry, we did vote for that. I know you expressed your passion for this, and it was heard loud and clear. And I think that all of us at one time were very much behind the issue of we need to have marinas. mercedes-benz but it didn't pan out and we did vote for it so whether you were in the minority on that vote the the majority spoke and the people who are dissented on that vote you still have to accept that the city made that decision you know we vote for the city whether it's whether we we lose or we win on a particular issue so i just urge you to say we voted that was our decision the majority on the council about the signs. So that still has to go through all of our process anyway. I mean, we're not going to be the ones to do what the sign committee does. We're not going to do that. So it has to go through its normal process. So in summary, I would like us to just kind of table this or reschedule it. I don't know what the technical word for it, because we're going to have a split vote or we're going to end up tabling it. So rather than rehashing more on this issue, I think we just need to table it. Can we do that, legal counsel?

Yes, you can. All right, so I'm not in favor of tabling this because then we just waste time. If we don't give clear direction tonight, you're right. We'll come back and we'll rehash all of this and then we'll give them clear direction and not to go back a second time. I think three of us up here have serious concerns. So if we give them direction tonight to address those serious concerns, then when we come back with Elizabeth here and we have five people, we're going to make more progress on that night than if we just table it at this juncture. Briefly, I want to say that I support banners and signs and whatever marketing special events Mercedes wants to do a few times a year so that they can celebrate and get the attention and visibility. We don't want all that jazz every day, seven days a week, but we don't want to prohibit it so they can't have special events. We do want special public events too. So I hope that When we're done with this, public events can make a visible splash from the highway or wherever, and their marketing private events can do the same thing within a reasonable quantity of events so that they're not there all the time. The lighting is super important. I don't want Marina to put football stadium lights that are so visible. You see them all over the peninsula when you look toward Marina. Right now, when you look toward Marina, we're the most responsible dark skies on the Bay Line. and having a prominent auto dealership that deteriorates the lighting condition, you're going to look toward Marina in the daytime and say, oh, there's Marina Auto Zone. Then you're going to drive by Marina, if we don't do this right, during the day, and you're going to say, oh, there's Marina's auto establishment. So I think lighting is really important. I think the view from... The highway is very important. And Guido read what we said before when we talked about requiring a computer simulation. And the reason that we wanted it was for the view shed from Highway 1, not the view shed from a frontage road right there on the site. What we saw was not a modern computer simulation from Highway 1. And I'm not worried about what it looks like when you're standing next to the trees on the edge of the property line because no one will ever be standing next to the trees on the property line. I'm worried about what you see from Highway 1. And we went into detail when we brought this to us in the past. And that's when it came out that we wanted this computer simulation. So if we don't give direction tonight for a computer simulation, we're never going to know a priori what it's going to look like from Highway 1. And then either we like it or we don't like it. But if we punt, then we leave it up to essentially chance and administrative consideration. Like Brian said, to one, it's OK. And to someone else, it's really bad. And I think we need to be careful as policymakers. You bring up, Kathy, Council Member Viola, the DOD and the VA building. I don't know that you have the same optics from Highway 1 to that location as to this location. I just don't know. And we don't have a lot of data tonight. But I know that this site was chosen because of its high visibility from Highway 1. VA was not chosen for its high visibility from Highway 1. So I don't know the grade construct. I don't know how much landscaping trees you mentioned. VA is blocked pretty well. But I don't know that this is going to be blocked pretty well because we haven't seen a computer simulation of it from Highway 1. So how do we anyone know? I think the branding issue that Jenny brought up is behind us. Mercedes-Benz of Monterey, that's done. We didn't want it, but we got it. I'm willing to punt on that. I'd like to make a motion that this comes back to us with... some definition of what special events, public and private can happen, you know, quantity and visibility. Number two, a more specific lighting plan that addresses all the comments that council member McCarthy brings up about dark skies and many others regarding lights. So number three, we get some detail on the sign monument, particularly square footage compared to what's in Temecula. And number four, that we have a real computer simulation of the type that TAMC does for transportation project where you know exactly what it's going to look like. So that would be my motion, and I could go over it if it was too wordy, if there's a second.

I second. And may I say something?

Yeah. Now I'm open to friendly amendments, public comment.

And that all questions from the council on these two documents be answered. to the satisfaction of the question maker.

Okay. Let's go to Council Member McCarthy. Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, I mean, I should clarify, these aren't questions. These are standards. I just wanted objective standards. And so staff didn't provide them, so I did. So I would want these objective standards to be included in the project that comes back to us. we could always change them um if we did we had time to to research and and we disagreed with them but i think it's a good starting point i don't even know that i necessarily agree with all these objective standards but they're based off of other what other cities have done their due diligence and felt like were appropriate they seem reasonable they don't seem art uh onerous to the to the project applicant um you know if they have issues with them it gives them time to come back and say hey you know this is this is too tough like we want to talk about it

And that would fit in with the lighting plan and the car wash, right? Because you're basically talking about the noise and lighting plan. So we can say that in addition to the lighting plan that recommendations by council have been incorporated as much as feasible. Okay.

Yeah, I think with the motion there, that would be our intent is to take those documents and whatever additional feedback that we get from the council, we'll sit down, we'll address those standards, we'll review them with the applicant. We'll look at best practices. And when we come back to the council, we'll be more fully prepared. And so I agree with Mary that the more, this is great direction. If there's other things on there, let's put it on there. That will help us to go back, work with the staff and the applicant and then come back.

um and answer these issues and so i think i have a friendly amendment that the the lighting plan and the noise plan includes measurables not annoying or a nuisance or if the neighbor hears it from 200 feet no like like measurables would be like it's pretty standard um and then that way for me that's more clear than just interpretive language If that's yes. Okay. Thank you.

So to the mayor, can I just ask a clarifying question? Typically a lighting plan takes a little bit of time to prepare. Is it possible to ask the council to amend the motion to show that some type of conceptual plan because usually the you have to do a lighting study you have to lay out the foot candles it's a it's a pretty involving sheet of the construction drawing so okay i don't want to have an unrealistic expectation of what gotcha all right how about this i amend the motion where any regards lighting compared to what i said earlier forget that and this motion now the friendly amendment would be that

staff comes back with objective lighting and noise standards.

That's fine. And in terms of a noise study that will not be able to be produced in two weeks.

Yeah, I'm not asking for a noise study.

Yeah, I'm just asking for clarification, Mayor, and also providing input that... You know, if there's a way to modify the motion to say, like, for example, the car wash that, you know, we'll look at, you know, what's the general noise objective standard for a car wash. But in two weeks, the applicant will not be able to produce a noise study. I just want to just be clear about that.

But we could provide measurables, correct? So they at least have an idea of what our goal is. Is that correct? Yes.

Right. That's why I was, if the council's open to the idea, just to amend the motion to say that we will look at what's an objective, reasonable standard for a car wash. That's the request.

Okay. Let me jump in here. What I modified in the motion, we'll wait to see if the second holds, is that where it regards to lighting or noise, the motion states that staff will come back with objective lighting and noise standards.

That's fair.

Okay. That's what I mentioned earlier. Does the second hold? Okay. I want to thank Garth and Ken. I've been excited about your project since I met with you. And that's why I made a special attempt to go down and visit you in Temecula where you were going to copy and paste more or less. And I was really happy with what was being copy and pasted when we came back to this body. I was real concerned about knowing what it's going to look like from Highway 1, and I remain concerned about that until you show me what it's going to look like in a real sense from Highway 1. But I want to thank you, and I want to remind the City Council that this project was supposed to be lickety-split, real quick, approve it come the turn of the year. And it hasn't been that fast. And so if we take the time this month or next month, whatever it takes to get it right, it's not like we're the ones delaying this project. We expected this to be much further along because we were under the gun the last time it came to us saying, if you don't approve it, by January or something like that. Mercedes in Germany is going to pull the rug out. So hurry up and approve this. So we hurried up and approved it to the best that we could. And this is coming to us with some final details that leave us very concerned. and it's not new stuff i mean brian talks about dark skies all the time and brian did a lot of homework to come up with those standards and so i don't want to throw it away and say uh we don't want to be perfect as the enemy of the good so anyway uh does anyone want me to restate the motion or brian and jenny are you ready to make your comments

I'd like a comment. Let's go with Brian first.

I'm basically ready to vote on one clarification. I want staff to take as much time as it requires to get this right. So I don't know if we need to do a date certain or if we can just table it because I don't want staff to feel like they have a two-week deadline.

Yeah, our preference is not a date certain. Let us work on meeting what you have given us direction. As soon as we can, we'll bring it back to you.

And council, you can envision this taking two hours next time. So do you want this to be sandwiched in an agenda or do you want this to be a special night? We just addressed this.

Or at least on the top of the agenda.

And it's going to push everything, you know, how this is, you know, if this takes two hours, it's too long for a normal agenda, unless it's the only thing or do it.

Well, we have, we have meetings every week in June. So I don't know when we, I mean, unless we want to have a meeting on a Saturday, like, I don't know.

So in general, do you want to get this on a regular agenda or do you want this on a special meeting agenda?

When would we have a special?

Let's talk about your preference first.

We don't know the date. Regular agenda. Regular agenda. And are you saying that after all this discussion and stuff that we'll still meet two hours on this? Can we not say to each other that we're going to do this in an hour and a half?

You can't say that to each other, but we can ask if we can put limits on if your general direction is to do this in a regular meeting, then we can give direction to staff to give it a light agenda. So there's not much other meat on that night besides this. But you can't you can't bind a future city council's time if they're anyway. Okay. Any more, Kathy, that you'd like to say?

Just one comment. So the Temecula, their car wash, is that fairly similar? I mean, because I see it as a small car wash. And so, you know, I know the one like that is on Chevron. I mean, you know, at Chevron.

yeah i think i'm hearing very clear direction from the council so based on today you know i'll get with the applicant we'll identify quick quack you know we'll we'll come up with some metric in terms of right you know size and the noise and we'll bring that back and we'll have some quantifiable a number we may have examples within mercedes of the same exactly let's use that because i you know exactly with them yeah But that's the direction being given to council is before potentially approval. The council wants some clear objective measurements for some of these potential negative impacts. And I heard that loud and clear.

So Council Member McAdams, thank you for being patient.

Thank you, Mayor. And I just want to remind everybody that We had the agreement ready and Mercedes did not execute it and sat on it for months. So, I mean, I appreciated your comments. Yes, it's been like, oh, we have to hurry, do this now. And we did it now. And then they just waited for, I think, four or five months. So, yeah. you know, yeah, it takes time. This takes time. I want to get this right. You know, I mean, no, it can't be perfect, but it can't be a hot mess either. And it can't be interpretive language and it can't be based off of our community economic development, you know, director at that time. And they're going to, you know, over the counter approve everything. Whatever. It's our this is our responsibility. This stuff falls back on us, you know. And so this sort of talk of, you know, we're asking too many questions or we're taking too long. I mean, that's why I'm here. That's why I'm here. And that's why the residents voted me here. And that's why we represent our community, because I'm going to ask questions and I'm going to take a long time if I need to. And I feel that it's warranted. So thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. Council Member Biala?

I just want to say that thanks to Council Member McCarthy, we do know about dark skies and our staff knows about dark skies. And if we need to clarify it in an ordinance, then we should do that. I'm not saying that dark skies means that we're not perfect or we're we're anyway so we have that we have the noise stuff it's come up four times already in the last few so we we we codify it we we cement that we don't have to go through this and act like we've never heard of dark skies before that's not what i'm talking about our our city should codify it and we should all know that we want in marina we want dark skies We want noise abatement. There's certain things that we know. That's all I'm saying. We don't have to keep rehashing it on every single project, big or small.

Thank you. Okay. Shall I read the motion? Or is everyone clear?

I have clear direction, Mayor. If I can address Council Member Rick Adams, I don't want you to feel like staff was saying somehow you were asking too many questions. That wasn't any, I'm not anywhere near in that ball field. I think I even answered Council Member Biala's question about I can stay here and ask as many questions as you guys want. So, yeah.

Okay. Don't need to read the motion. Just go to a vote. Everybody ready?

Okay.

All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. All right. Thank you to everyone involved, particularly the unstoppable group and our staff for bringing this to us. Thank you, Doug. So now we move to our first action item. the Aquatic Center.

Thank you, Mayor. Our city engineer, Scott Shepard, will be presenting this. I just wanted to come up here and say this has been a fun process to go through and turned out really well. So Scott will provide you with information.

Thank you, Ishmael, for taking this project on and taking seriously the differences it has as compared to what we've done in the past.

Yes, sorry. Apologies. There's a presentation. Hopefully you all have it now. Actually, there it is. It's going to come around. I wasn't able to get into the packet, but it's pretty short. It's not too crazy. And hopefully we can... Get through it pretty quick. Yeah. Yes. Right. Correct. Scott Shepard. Yes.

Let me take a break to ask Lane Long. Do we have anyone that's waiting for Preston Park? Are we not going to get to something that someone's waiting for that we should tell them? We got the sign ordinance. You got three meaty issues after this. Oh, yeah. Budget.

We don't have anything with Preston Park.

We just have our budget. Okay. So is there anything that we... Council, what are we not going to do tonight? We'll be here till midnight for sure.

Council rules. I would say we definitely aren't going to do. Okay.

So we scratch the rules, risk Jenny's wrath.

I would like to get to the sign ordinance because we've had multiple businesses contact us. So I do think that that is important. I don't necessarily want to move that too.

Okay. How about the budget? I think Corey's last day is today.

I'm open, would maybe switch them if you want to do.

Yeah, let's leave it up to the city manager. What do you recommend? It sounds like we're willing to go without the council rules. And then we have three other items. How do you want to order them?

Yeah, I think in this order, because I think that most of the public is here on the aquatic center.

Let's proceed. Thank you very much, Scott.

All right. To be clear, the clicker's not working, right? Correct. Yeah, you're going to see me when I turn the page, you turn the page. How about that? Okay. So thank you very much. Here to present on the Recreation Aquatic Center, just a quick project update and a request for award of the Construction Manager at Risk Seymour contract. All right, just a quick overview. I don't know who is aware of what, but this is current design of the buildings on the right hand side is a sports center building on the left is the aquatic center building in the middle is the connector building. You can see there's a lap pool, there's a rec pool. In the sports center, there's a track that goes around three basketball courts and a fitness center on the bottom. And then the very bottom of the screen is the city park at the Dunes. And the top of the screen is 9th Street, just to give you some orientation. Just a quick budget outlook overview. So in the CIP, there is roughly $41 million and change, $41.7 million budgeted for this project. 40 of that is for construction, and that comes from the Aura Dissolution Fund and the General Fund. And the construction estimates right now are the opinion of probable construction costs is about $26 million just for the direct cost of the work, that's materials and labor. The CMAR contract is currently estimated about $2.87 million, so that includes the pre-construction services, which is what the award is for tonight. The general conditions for the construction manager and the construction services fee, which is a percentage of the overall contract value of construction. So the total right now comes out to about $30.3 million. That leaves a difference of $10 million, but we're holding that there because things are still up for change in the design. Everything's subject to change. We're at 100% design documents going into 50% construction documents. So we've got two more phases of review. before the design is finalized. And that's also why we want to bring on the construction manager now so that we can go through pre-con to help us get more value engineering, make sure we're doing things the right way. Just a quick overview of the contract process. So in November of last year, November 2025, council approved the construction manager at risk contract method. We released the CMAR RFP in January this year. After the proposal process, we received five proposals on March 12th. Auto Construction, Alsonio, Swinnerton, Trubeck, and Flint. Of those five, we went to interviews with four, and out of that process, Auto Construction was the top-ranked firm. And to be clear, I know part of the process in November of last year was to add some labor standards and other things to the RFP, and Auto Construction met the labor standards requirement and committed to Section 1.6.2 in the RFP, which is a healthcare requirement requirement. So if approved tonight, we can move into the pre-construction services phase to finalize the design. After that, we'll move into 100% construction documents and the construction bid process. And to be clear, we will come back to council for the final GMP and award of the construction contract. Again, this request is just for the pre-construction services. All right, quick overview. This is the team that came to interview with us. It was a great interview. Very genial group. I think two of them are in the room right now. And we're looking forward to working with them. This is just a quick overview of the team's Fort Ord experience, so experience directly in the area. There's the VA. They've done a lot for CSUMB and the Cardinal Stadium. And this is some other past projects they've worked on, very similar to work that we'll be doing at the Recreation and Aquatic Center. You know, gyms, there's a lot of pools, very similar facilities. And with that, just leaving the recommendation up on the screen. I can read it if you want, but okay, yeah, figured it wasn't necessary.

All right, thank you, Scott. All right, so let's go to public comment for people in the building first, then we'll go online.

All right, good evening, City Council and staff. My name is Jesus Vega with the North Coast State Carpenters' Local Union 646. We just would like to thank the City of Marina for potentially awarding the construction manager at risk. Marine Recreation and Product Center project to responsible contract and auto construction, which is committed to delivering quality work with skilled professionals. We also appreciate the city's leadership and including strong labor standards language for this project, ensuring fairness, accountability, and opportunities for skilled carpenters. The North Coast States Carpenters Union looks forward to growing partnership with the city of Marina, and we hope the city continues to view us as a trusted long-term partner as we work together to build projects that benefit the entire community for years to come. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Jesus. Anyone else before we move to online? Okay, let's go online. If anyone wants to speak, please raise your hand. Okay, we'll close public comment. I want to tease Ishmael for a second here. Ishmael, the last public works director would always go for a 10 to 15% contingency. What's with the 5%?

Well, we try to sharpen our pencil a lot more and get right down to it. No. The reason there's only 5% is because with the CMAR process, they are going to give us a guaranteed maximum price. So there's no anticipation of any contingency once they're done. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Another question for you. How did it work out with the labor standards being part of the scoring process? And did we lose or gain competition participation by going this route with the union standards language?

It would just be a guess. We only received proposals from union contractors. And those were five? Was there five or six? Five. So I don't know if non-union contractors would have submitted proposals or if they would have been less at a cost. I will say this. The union's involvement... was definitely beneficial to us. Brian Shields getting involved helped us out a lot. He rounded up and made sure that we got plenty of competitive votes or not votes, but proposals. So I really couldn't answer whether or not a non-union company could be lower. I don't know.

Okay. I was worried that we would not get lower bid prices on the project because maybe if we went with the unions they would cost more than the non-unions uh are you comfortable that we got pretty competitive bids compared to what you were expecting i mean i'm just looking at 30 billion versus 40 billion it looks pretty good news

yeah we we definitely got uh well the 30 million is an opinion uh right now with without full design being done an opinion of probable costs um construction costs uh that could go up as we complete the design um but yeah i'm very happy with the uh with the end result okay thank you i just have one more comment and that is to the the union folks you know you

You really lobbied us hard to try something we've not done before. And you had to move through some opposition to it. And it looks at this point like it's worked out for everybody. And so thank you. You've made a big difference. And maybe all of our projects in the future will go this way. We'll see how it works out. But Danielle and Kim, thank you for representing your team. And it looks like a great team. And we look forward to the next steps. All right, let's go to Council Member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. I, too, wanted to echo the gratitude to the union representatives and for your advocacy and for continuing to elevate the importance of strong labor standards. This was a different direction, right? This was a move in a different direction. know really helped sharing your perspective uh throughout this process and so your input and commitment to protecting workers and supporting fair practices are valued and clearly they were important to this discussion so thank you so much yes remember biala

yes that's been a tremendous experience because i felt really torn between my values for union work which is my history my past history but also worried that we're shooting ourselves in the foot as a representative here for the city of marina so i was kind of worried about it and it's interesting that only union houses applied for the bid So we don't really know what that looks like if obviously they were scared away by those standards that we used for the union. But ultimately we took the risk. We were rewarded as well because we got some very solid quality bidders and the union won and the developers will get hopefully what they want to. And so I think that we did a wonderful thing, all of us together. I mean, because it wasn't like, you know, we were standing up here embracing you wholeheartedly, but we worked and we put in a lot of things that I was going, oh my God, what are we doing to ourselves? So thank you very much. And thank you for the person, for all of you for staying so long, just to say thank you to us. You know, we get so much criticism most of the time. So it's really nice to hear and see your faces that we did something good. So thank you very much too.

Thank you, Kathy. Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. So I think I, like others on the dais, have been excited about this from day one. And I think now more than ever, this feels like it is the right move. And so I'm super excited about that. I love that I heard some of the union guys kind of sign under their breath at how long we were taking, because that tells me they're going to move quickly on this once they're uh once construction breaks ground so i'm just really looking forward to having a sports center marina that is kind of made locally and you know it's kind of like jobi we say made in marina right made in california this feels like it's a project that's going to be made in marina and that's just very exciting for me so thanks uh for being here tonight thank you mayor all right so i have a serious question um i talked to

someone in the moderate building trades union of unions and um they said be careful the subcontractors so how far are we along knowing today who the subcontractors are is that a future phase or has it already begun and let me uh let me say that we'll go till 10 30 uh If we get a second.

Second.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Aye.

So my concern is that we did great so far, but if we get subcontractors who are inadequate when it comes to payroll compliance and all the things, you know, properly paying the benefits and all the things we talked about before now, Now the proof is in the pudding at the subcontractor level. So what do we know about that level?

Well, I'll say a couple things. First of all, when we had a mandatory site walk for anybody that wanted to submit a proposal, and I want to say eight contractors showed up that day, they – They said hi and went and viewed the building. One company, the representatives came over and asked a few questions about our process. But only one contractor, their staff stayed after and just chatted, didn't even talk about work, just talked about sports, talked about restaurants, talked about, you know, just a very nice conversation. And that was auto. Kim was there. And so in my mind, I thought, okay, I hope they get the contract. And once that thought crossed my mind, I thought, okay, now I can't be part of the rating process. So I wasn't. Scott led it and I was completely out of it to the very end. And when they went through the interviews with the various contractors, everybody on our side of that table came back and said, wow, these guys are awesome. So same conclusion that I had based on about a 20-minute conversation with Otto's staff. To answer your question, Otto will be, the general contractor will be responsible for all of that. They'll be responsible for their subs. They'll work with us. We have talked to, Courtney actually talked to the former public works director in Gonzalez. Auto Construction built them a very nice community center. And he could not say enough good about them and their subs. We've heard that from other people as well. So I'm not worried about the subs. We will, though, still be reviewing everything. So, yeah.

So will there be a potential checkpoint where we can check the box that the subs are compliant with all the union standards that we were hoping for?

Since we have a union contractor on board, yes. Very confident that that's going to happen.

Okay. Thank you. Scott, did you have anything to add?

Just to say that as part of the pre-con and final design, the idea is to get subs on as early as possible. Essentially, you go through the pre-con and you figure out what the value engineering is and you start talking to subcontractors about what things cost and stuff like that. And you get them on as early as possible as part of the GMP process. So it's not happening right now, but as we end pre-con and get closer to that GMP is when the subs will be brought into the fold.

Is it appropriate for city council to get a list of subs early on, or is that not appropriate? Okay. All right.

We can do it.

Great. Okay. Thank you, and thanks to everyone. Would someone like to make a motion? Motion. We have Brian and Kathy with your lights on. Is anyone? Brian, have you done yet?

I move to approve the resolution awarding the construction manager at risk contract for the Marina Recreation and Aquatic Center to the highest ranked proposer, auto construction.

I second. Okay. And we'll authorize the finance director to make adjustments. Tori, you have to stick around to make the necessary accounting and budgetary entries. But that's part of your motion as well.

Yes. As presented in the SAF report.

Okay. All right. Any final comments? City Manager Lane Long?

This whole GMP process was a very different process for us, but the discussion that we're having today is exactly why we went through that process. It's given us more control over the contractors, the subcontractors. and it's really going to hit the fan when they compete come before that gmp that guaranteed maximum price and that is when you're really going to find out where the labor standards um where that comes in and and that's good it's putting the pressure on the unions to come uh because we know what the price is um and it's it's taking the pressure off of us because we know what our budget is everyone knows what the budget is their guaranteed maximum price gives the contractor the unions the subs the confidence that that they hit that we're going to be in good shape and if we don't then it's going to come back to the council and then then we'll have the whole issue again okay if we go non-union are we going to get a lower price but at this point we are 100 headstrong going with our process but gmp and and so council i think did a fabulous job through this whole process doing this different um construction manager at risk process but it's putting us in a great position today

all right thanks for that input perspective okay uh all in favor of the motion on the table please say aye aye all opposed please say no thank you to everybody involved staff otto union really appreciate you all thank you very much okay um we'll go to the budget next tori swan song

Okay, this is the City of Marina mid-cycle update. Next slide. And I'll try to move through these rather quickly. There's about 20 slides, but some of them just may be able to review it at a very high level. Just to provide an overview of what we'll be seeing tonight, this is the two-year budget cycle process. The city establishes a two-year budget to facilitate long-term planning, and it also limits the updates to the budget. A budget is only produced every two years. And as such, the city managers have directed the department heads to not put in a lot of requests. These are just for items that need to be changed in order to assist with the next fiscal year. So it's not a full cycle of adding several budget items. It's just things that need to be addressed, as well as an opportunity for us to update some of our revenue estimates so that we can look at providing council with a better fund balance, especially now when we're looking at construction and several big projects. So within this presentation, I'm going to provide a brief financial update, review some of the recommended budget adjustments, and also look at our structurally balanced budget formula where we look to see if ongoing revenues are sufficient to fund ongoing expenses, and then look at some of the key estimated fund balances. Next slide. So just a very high level highlights. Revenues are strong and stable. We are seeing some slowing, but that's been expected given the economy. Interest earnings has continued to provide us with a windfall of funds this year, helping to provide us some extra monies to help with some of the projects. expenditures in fiscal year 25-26 we had several position vacancies that's led to savings however that's been offset by increased groundwater stabilization litigation cost and we'll be looking at that separately in another slide The mid-cycle budgets, as I mentioned earlier, looks at revenue adjustments. Some of the changes to ongoing expenditures is the police department is requesting a reclassification of a position, and the finance department is requesting one additional position. Also, as mentioned earlier, more funds for groundwater stabilization litigation. One-time expenditures, we're going to be looking at an additional 2.2 million coming out of the general fund and some additional funds for capital outlay. Next slide. Just a very high level, the city's main source of revenue is taxes, which is responsible for 80% of the funds. In addition to that, our three highest taxes are sales tax, property tax, and transient occupancy tax, which is over 67% of all of the general fund ongoing revenues. Next slide. This table was included within your packet and it just provides some information on some of the amendments that we'll be requesting and also highlight some of the performance. Within this table is the general fund revenues for fiscal year 25-26. We're seeing a increase of $883,500 over the original amended budget. And this is largely due to performance from property tax, sales tax, and our transient occupancy tax is still strong, but it is coming in a little lower than projected. We also see a $393,000 increase in license and permits. This varies year over year with development activity. And this also may result in some additional cost for some staff augmentation or reimbursement agreements. Use of money and property, $2.6 million higher than projected. And that really includes is the driver of the interest earnings that we're receiving. And overall, this results in an increase of $4 million in additional revenues for the city for this year. Looking at next year, we've made some conservative projections. We looked at performance for 25, 26, and we're increasing our tax revenues by about $509,000. And then we've also increased interest slightly for $270,000 because while we're on a downward trend, it's not nearly going down as quickly as we once thought. Next slide. Just sharing with you just an overview of property tax trends. You can see that within the next couple of years, within this current year and forecast year, we are projecting a modest increase of just over $300,000. And noting that this is the fourth year that we've been receiving a FORA dissolution policy. payment. And this actually added about another $200,000. We have not counted on it historically, but we did go ahead and include it in this year since it seems like this is going to be a reoccurring item. Next slide. So sales tax, we coordinate with HDL, our sales tax consultant on our estimates. We're just seeing very modest increase over the prior year and in fiscal year 26, 27, we're amending by about 167,000 or 1.6%. This relies on what we've currently seen as well as the estimate from our third party tax administrator. Next slide. Transient occupancy tax, you can see that in fiscal year 23-24 and 24-25, a substantial increase. That was a result of the addition of two new hotels. But then in 25-26, we're seeing a slight decline. And 26-27, we're thinking there's going to be a little bit upward mobility. We are working on some concerns with some of the... hotels in tax collection. So we're working through some situations there. Hopefully we'll get those resolved shortly. Next slide. And this is interest, kind of interesting. Previously, you can see 1718 to 2122 were hovering at about $300,000, $400,000 in interest revenue. And in 2223, we start seeing the spike. And then it's going up to 3.6%. 4.1 million in 2425 and now we're seeing as we enter our first quarter of interest earnings we're seeing what's a slight somewhat of a decline we were expecting to go down much lower so that's one of the revision for the forecast we're planning to get 3.4 million and these additional funds are what's contributing to being able to fund some of these additional projects as well Next year, we're taking a conservative estimate in 2627, and we've amended it to be closer to 800,000, which you can kind of see is similar to the 1.2 million when we started going up the yield curve. Next slide. General fund expenditures for twenty six twenty seven are planned to be fifty three point eight million salaries and benefits make up the largest share of the expenses. And that's really because when you think of your police and your firefighters and your public work staff, that a large portion is their staff time that goes into into into the daily activities of the city. service and supplies and other are typically our second largest expenditure category but within fiscal year 26-27 we have an 11.8 million dollar transfer that's going to the aquatics and sports center as an inter-fund loan making that a larger share of the city expenses next slide expenditures um just looking at it in 25-26 The majority of the savings that you see within the departments are due to salary savings. The largest increase in expenditure that you'll see is in the city manager budget for $1.7 million. And that is primarily related to the increased litigation costs associated with groundwater stabilization. In fiscal year 26-27, requesting an additional amendment to the city manager budget what is projected to be additional groundwater litigation stabilization cost as well as an additional position the additional half time not half time it's a full-time position for the accounting tech and the finance department but only funded for half the year the additional police position as well as an overlap and some additional uh cost in public works and and engineering uh what we've seen in this year's budget is some increases due to uh about 150 000 in water cost for irrigation on the mgen widening parkway project that's proposed to continue to be at that high of level for the next two years and gradually decrease over the next but the following three years next slide Regular positions, the position requests that we have in the budget are to convert two half-time senior management analysts to one full-time position. The current two half-time senior analysts may not be present into the next year. They anticipate at least one departure within six to eight months. This position is responsible for training as well as serve as the internal system administrator for some of their technology items and their liaison with vendors and as well as with the technical IT staff. By adjusting this to one full-time position, it's going to increase stability of the position but also attract a stronger pool of candidates. We're also requesting an addition of one accounting technician for the finance department. It would be for half of the year of 26-27 to align with some of the startup associated with the Aquatic and Sports Center. We also see that there's been an increased demand in the finance department for recording grants, financial management that's associated with capital projects. as well as wanting to implement purchase orders fully. We've done it at a partial point, but that also doesn't contribute to us having like a hold on items. So by establishing a fully set up purchase order system, we can encumber or hold funds if there's a significant contract, and then we'll know exactly how much is held for the department. So those are some of the requests that we have, which increases the total position count from 134 to 135. Next slide. This is just an overview of groundwater litigation costs. I believe it's $19.6 million that we will be spending or estimated to be spending through 26-27. It shows a decline in 24-25, and we thought that costs may be going down. But as you can see, in this fiscal year, we're probably at this point close to $2.7 million, and the city manager has said reviewed an estimate for what the remaining year will be, plus we have a related settlement cost included in that. The 2627 was originally projected to be $500,000, which would be something that would be closer to specialized legal services, but now projecting close to 1.3 million. Next slide. Our proposed mid-cycle capital outlay adjustments are primarily related to changes in cost and changes in estimates. Some of them may be that we did not include outfitting costs for some of the vehicles, and others are just general changes and down payments. And an overview is provided within the agenda report. Next slide. The general fund, after all of these changes, is estimated to end this current year with $3.8 million and 26-27 with $2.8 million. There was a suggestion that we reduce reserve levels lower if we needed to fund the dunes project. But however, due to the strong performance and revenues in both the public facility impact fee funds and the general fund, we were able to fund that without having to change reserves. What we're suggesting is to do an additional contribution of $146,053 to bring it up to $7.9 million, which would be in alignment with the 20% reserve policy. Next slide. Also, one of the things the City Council looks at each year is the balanced budget formula. There's a resolution that requires the adoption of a balanced budget when reoccurring annual expenses do not exceed reoccurring annual revenues. When the budget was adopted at the beginning of the year, it was adopted with approximately a $587,000 ongoing deficit rate. When we amended it for the addition of the IT manager and the senior HR analyst and the MOU negotiations for new employee agreements, it was 1.1 million. However, when you look at the proposed revision, when we increase the revenue estimates to better align with projected performance, the deficit changes to 643,000, which is just $56,000 difference than the original amount. And it is anticipated that through continuing economic development, this will be covered by new ongoing revenue sources. And we're also requesting to set aside that $56,000 just to align with the last year of coverage. Next slide. One of the larger projects that we were seeking financing for was a Dunes Park development within your agenda packet. There's an options 2A and options 2B that the council was looking at. Option 2A is the higher option at 19.5 million. To get us to that number, there was $6.5 million available in the Preston Park reserves. And we're suggesting taking 4.4 million as well as 2.7 million in impact fees and 2 million from the general fund unallocated fund balance to support the additional 9.1 million needed to reach that 19.5 million balance. Next slide. Other projects includes at a prior council meeting, there was a discussion of continuing completing the CityWalk sidewalk shaving project. $155,000 can come from the general fund, as well as additional funds needed for the Gloria Jean Tate Park improvements and access for Monterey Park. water district, I'm sorry, Marina water district, and that's at 725,000 coming from the public facility impact fees fund. There are some adjustments proposed for airport capital improvement projects, which includes renaming and reallocating one of the projects for the taxiway construction, as well as using some of the fund balances for additional projects. descriptions of those projects are included in the agenda packet next slide Other fund highlights, we mentioned earlier that there's a $6.5 million transfer from the Preston Park reserves to the city. What we didn't mention is that of that $6.5 million, we had allocated $2.1 million to the public facility building fund. There were some comments that if there was some residual funds, that whether or not we could allocate some for the city facilities such as the council chambers and city hall the public facility building fund after this 2.1 allocation would bring that balance up to 6.2 million also the for dissolution and public facility impact fee fund the revenue performance was strong due to development We're anticipating $2.6 million greater public facility impact fees than intended, which helped us fund the Dunes project as well as the additional Gloria Jean Tate project needs. For dissolution fees, $2.3 million greater than the budget. That could be available to transfer at the close of 26-27 to the project fund for the Aquatic and Sports Center or could be used to begin repayments to the general fund on the $11.8 million loan. We also have new appropriations for Marina Station and also a new grant fund called Permanent Local Housing Allocation. Our community development director has established the fund and it looks like we have close to, I think it's $460,000 coming in and possibly another $200,000 in the next year. And that will be for local housing programs. Next slide. And that really concludes my presentation. Strong but stable revenues. A good, healthy and assigned fund balance at the end of the two-year cycle of $2.8 million. Emergency reserves at $7.9 million. Pension stabilization fund at $5 million. And vehicle equipment fund at $3.3 million should council choose to approve these items. And with that, I conclude my presentation.

Thank you, Tori. Let's go to public comment. People here in person, please step up to the podium, be alleged to comment, and then we'll go online. Seeing no one rise, let's go online. Erica Graham, welcome.

Hi, Council and Mayor.

I just have a question in regards to, um, there was a slide on the Preston park, um, reserve, and I just, um, wanted to make sure that this includes, um, that there's still the funding. Sorry. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you loud and clear.

Sorry. I just wanted to make sure it included the, um, funding for the, um, the maintenance of the fields and also the expansion, um, that was mentioned previously. Um, and if the, um, city has decided on whether it was still gonna continue with that mixed, um, baseball, softball, um, soccer field expansion, or if, um, we have changed it so that we are not, um, wasting funds, um, that it looks like we're currently starting to decrease on.

Okay, thank you, Erica. We'll answer all the questions as soon as public comment's over. Anybody else? Any more input, Erica? I'm sorry to cut you off.

No, I think that was it.

All right, thank you. Anyone else online like to raise their hand if you haven't spoken yet? All right, we'll close public comment. So in this budget, getting to Erica's question, what's the status of funding adequacy for ball fields?

We are in the middle of a feasibility study for the Preston Park ball field expansion project. The costs are, we're gonna bring this back to council with everything that we've found. I would assume July when we would be done with that feasibility study. Right now, if the sports groups want lighting and they've said that they do, I believe we've also heard from council that lighting is preferred, then we are 4 million or so dollars short um it's it's four plus million dollars just for the lighting we have 10 million dollars for the expansion so we're we're doing this feasibility work to answer as many questions as we possibly can we will bring this to council when the feasibility is done which includes environmental uh work and everything else and uh Once we, when we bring it to council, we're going to ask council for direction, lights, no lights, find four more million dollars or build what we can for 10. The next step after that would be to bring on a engineering firm to do full design. One of the tasks that we plan to have that engineering firm do is meet with all of the sports groups, the youth groups anyway, baseball, softball and soccer and football and see what everybody's needs are, because we've been proceeding, assuming that a mixed use field is what's best for Marina. And then when I talked to a couple of the sports groups and We're getting different answers from them. So we want to get everybody in the same room, but that's a question for future. So I know Mrs. Graham asked that. We can't answer today whether we're doing a mixed use field or not. That's a future discussion. It'll include the sports groups first, and then we'll bring it to council for direction.

So for clarification, I think that there's concern if we go to the feasibility that's ongoing now, Do you ask the feasibility of mixed soccer and baseball softball versus the feasibility of baseball here and soccer somewhere else?

No, the feasibility study is to find what we can build. We don't have flat land. So we did a drone survey, which isn't as accurate as having guys out there with which that'll be done later during design. But it was enough for us to know how much flat land we can get out of that. out of that area that let us know how much fields we can put on there. We've been working under the assumption that we just need two more ball fields. And then we have found out from sports groups and I talked to city staff that have kids and they've all said what we need is different size fields. So we have a little league field. We have a softball field. We have nothing for the groups as they grow. So once students get into junior high, they can't use our fields anymore. They're too small for them and there's nowhere for them to play. So everything is just completely changed.

So everything's on the table.

Everything is on the table.

Okay. All right. That was public comment. Any more that you want to say in response to the question that was posed by the public?

Only that for Ms. Graham and other people that are involved in the sports groups, they will get a seat at the table before anything is designed.

All right. Thank you. Mayor, if I can add one other comment related to that. This gets tied back to our habitat management plan that we're working on because it's a year before we can get properties in a conservation easement. And so what we've worked with Fish and Wildlife is to give us an exception for this property. And so if we are far enough, and this is part of our June 9th meeting, if the habitat management plan gets kicked down the road, then it directly affects the ability to do this ball field.

And that's why the June 9th meeting is so important. Okay. Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. I could certainly deep dive into all these areas because they're all super interesting, but I don't think that's the intent of tonight. So I'm going to just talk on one thing that caught my ear and that is the... Excuse me, Brian.

Can you... I'm sorry to interrupt you. We're at 1030. Someone want to make a motion on where we go from here as far as time? We probably should finish this item, which we're almost done, and the sign ordinance. I'll motion 1055. Second.

Actually, I think our rules say that we don't do it by time, but we do it by agenda item. So we finish the sign ordinance and this and this. I think we can go either way. I think that says specifically, but that's okay. I'd like to finish.

The rules say that, but I mean, council can make a motion. That's different from.

Okay. I'll say we finished this item and the next item.

We had a motion a second because I'm this and the next item could take till 2 a.m. And that's not that doesn't work for me.

Okay. The motion's on the table. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. Okay. Please continue, Brian.

So one of the things that caught my ear was just the piece about hotels. And I have two questions about that. The first one is you didn't talk about, well, you kind of did, you touched on it. There's a hotel, which the city has a developer agreement with, hasn't been built yet. It's at least two years behind schedule. My understanding is that every year is an anticipated revenue of about a million dollars. Is that sound about right?

I would need to confirm that with the city manager, but none of those amounts have been incorporated into our budget projections.

Okay. So there's no articulated deficit because they were never incorporated to begin with?

That's correct. Okay.

Had they been, and this is just me speaking, but had they been, and I see the mayor over there raising his hand higher, let's just assume it's a million, million and a half. I mean, we're talking about real money, like four or $5 million of revenue that we don't have. And that's concerning to me. moving on from that um you mentioned that there is some are some issues collecting existing hotel tot taxes is it i think i heard that from you we are looking through some audit items and i would have to defer to the city attorney on how much to elaborate or maybe that's further closed session item before we do that let me just elaborate my comment and that is I've been hearing some of these concerns going back to COVID-19. You know, again, it's real money as, as I think we would all agree, hotel TOT taxes, our biggest source of single source of revenue that from a

It's one of the highest percentages, but our highest revenue source is our property tax. But if you say as a percentage based, it is the highest percentage.

Okay. Yeah, I would just like to really see us prioritize that. And I don't know, city attorney, if you have anything to add to that, but I'm concerned that we're just kicking that count down the road.

So we're just working through that process. And to the extent we... need to move forward with further action it would come to closed session so right now we're at a point where I believe staff is still documenting updating some information and again we'll work with staff where we've reached the

point where we can't do anything further and we'll need to come to council for direction okay and so i'll just leave it at saying from my perspective and i would hope the council would support me on this i mean i think that if there is a situation where there is some concern about businesses not paying their fair share of tax or blatantly refusing to pay tax, I would hope city staff would take a pretty serious approach to that and not delay and utilizing the options that they have to enforce that.

Yeah, so we follow the process that is outlined in the transfer occupancy tax ordinance. So liens have been filed against properties, but then the issue comes with what further steps can we take? And so we're working through those.

Okay. Thank you, City Attorney. Thank you, Tori. Thank you, Mayor.

Go ahead, Brian. I think this is fantastic news. um the whole budget city of monterey has a 10 million dollar structural budget deficit County of Monterey seems like every year they have serious budget problems. And this year is not out of the ordinary where they're freezing all their unfunded positions. Anyone who's not sitting in a seat is not getting hired. And we're not there yet. You can look at our positions are going up to 135. I remember that back around 2000, we had 110 employees. And then around 2004, we went to contractors instead. So our number of employees went down to about 85. Now we're up to 135 employees. So it's just, we're growing and we're not growing as fast in our business. people as we're growing in our uh land so we doubled from five to ten square meters when four door closed we have not doubled our employees by any stress they've gone up maybe maybe 20 30 percent so i think that we somehow we have found this balance where we can afford where we're going we're going far pretty fast uh and we're still a small town and we'll forever be a small town But our budget is really strong. And you said, Tori, that we have strong but stable revenues. I mean, that's all we need to know. I guess we could ask on the flip side, how's our expenses? So let me ask you, you know, if we have strong but stable revenues, what would you call our expense level?

Our expenses are growing, but it's also a controlled growth because when council has chosen to add some of these additional positions to assist with the growing community demands, that has been a trigger for ongoing expenses to assist in outgrowing ongoing revenues. But as you can see, it's not by a million plus. It's about $650,000, and there's a conscious decision to do that. And council also set aside some monies to help for the next year This next fiscal year and the following fiscal year to help cover that from a fiscal sustainability standpoint. Well, it gives the other time for some of these other retailers as well as the car dealership to come online.

All right. Some specifics. Maybe this is Ishmael. The sidewalk shaving issue. I remember that it cost about $250,000. We got 50% done. So I assumed it would cost another $250,000. But I see in this report we're putting $155,000. Is that $155,000 more to what was left or is it $155,000 total?

$155,000 more to what was left.

Okay. So that covers sidewalk shaving. I think I remember... I don't know, $500,000, maybe more for the larger sidewalk fixes that are trip hazards today. In this budget, is there money allocated to the larger sidewalk fixes?

No, it was in the millions.

Do you remember how many millions?

Six.

Okay.

It was significant.

Are there any dollars in this budget tonight going to those larger project fixes?

no we we plan to bring council uh options for a sidewalk maintenance plan uh program and get uh we're looking at other cities and what they do and we plan to bring that to council get your direction put something together um to address that okay and that actually that'll be part of our budget process for the next um two-year budget which actually will really start

january february of next year and so those are the type of big projects that we'll discuss in that budget process okay so theoretically if next year the council wants to put according to your new plan that doesn't exist yet for sidewalk maintenance more money into it theoretically it might come out of that 2.8 million unassigned fund balance

Correct. And, yeah, at that point, we'll be looking at all the revenues, all the expenses, all of our future projections, so you can make an informed decision. So, yeah.

Okay. And then I just want to make sure that the council is comfortable with the decision about what to do with the $6.5 million from the Preston Park Reserve that we thought was going to go to the Dunes Park development. But now I'm finding out that $4.4 million will and $2.1 million of that $6.5 million is being sent to the Public Facility Building Fund, which might be a great place for it. But I don't know that we approved that before tonight. So we were... coveting that preston park money and we released it grudgingly to help out with the dunes park but we didn't ever talk about if we didn't need it all that two million from preston park could go to this public facility building fund so we do have a choice before us to put it into the public building facility building fund or to start that nest egg to pay off preston park the way it was intended a year ago. So if we set that 2.1 million aside to start building up for the next 10 years, in 10 years when we have to do the Preston Park thing again, we already have $2 million earning interest so that we could pay down the principal in 10 years. So I just want to make sure the council is aware that we're approving something that we hadn't thought about before. We're taking that coveted Preston Park reserve money not needed for the dunes park and putting it into a public facility building fund which is a new idea and it may be the best idea but i just want to make sure that we're comfortable doing that instead of starting to build the uh the reserve to take down the principle we owe on crescent park every 10 years we got to do that uh okay and that's all i got council member biala

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So the public building fund would be going to things like the city hall and city chambers. Is that, and that's for the ultimate building of the new facilities or this is like, I mean, so is that for the future?

When it was established, that was the goal of the public building facility fund is to start setting aside monies for new facilities. Specifically, it could go for any facilities, but the discussion kind of was around the Using the funds to help supplement the cost of the UUT measure and to potentially lower the percentage or help fund the costs should they come in higher.

Because we're looking at $50 million that we need, not necessarily just for the city hall and city chambers, but It's a far cry from the $50 million that we need. So I don't know. But I think I want to understand Preston Park reserves. We have $4.4 million. So could you explain that? Is that kind of like our emergency fund, but it's just for the Preston Park?

It really goes back to... um the preston park bond so remember we had we collected that almost 13 million dollars in that preston park bond the council made a decision that when we um refinanced it that we were only going to use six and a half billion from refinance and at that point council said okay they didn't want to go into unallocated fund they said park it right now in the public facilities fund and so that was the direction of the council that's why it's public facilities then we talked about the dunes council said well we can tap into that public facilities to help meet the dunes thing and so the 2.1 is really is what was left over from the original direction from the council

Okay. I understand that. I kind of remember doing all that. So, okay. I think, you know, when we think about we have 2.8 million in unallocated funds, I think Yeah, I feel like we ought to put it more into the Dunes Park because that's what we initially were trying to do. And then we kind of backed out a little bit because of, I think it was Brian, a council member from McCarthy's uncomfortableness without contributing anything. back into the payment of the loan, etc. So I think I feel comfortable if we have unallocated funds that we attempt to do what we initially I think that's what we initially wanted. Did we? No. No, we wanted it into the building fund. That's right. Okay.

Got it.

I'm sorry. It's late. So if that was our original tent, then I would like to put it back, I think, into the public building fund.

Okay.

No, I'd have to look for it again. Sorry. Go ahead.

Okay, we can come back. Council Member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. And I appreciate you bringing up that, you know, sort of like that $2.2 million. Like, what should we do? We haven't talked about it. And we just heard from our Public Works Director that we're probably going to need over $4 million for the ball field. So... you know, when I think about how we have invested in our parks and recreation, you know, I also try to think about it citywide, like from a equitable part right so we've we're investing a ton of money in the dunes we've invested a lot um sort of in my area windy hill park um council member mccarthy we're investing in glory jean tate we haven't really made that investment in preston and abrams and for me this is this is from their rental from their revenues you know and yes it was a great investment from the city um and so i'm sort of leaning or i'd like to hear from my colleagues you know maybe we put this aside into preston abrams so when and if we're we're ready for the ball fields you know we have we have some seed money there um And it doesn't necessarily mean, I mean, and it can just sit there earmarked. It doesn't mean, you know, we're going to use it or spend it. But for me, I think that would be the priority. And that's what I'm just sort of putting on the table.

When you think of Preston Park, you don't just think of paying off the loan. You think of loan and or ball fields at Preston Park. Okay. Anything more?

I think it has to do, because in terms of equity, I think I agree with you on Preston Park, but I think it has to do with where we're at in the projects. And I would like to see, since we invested so much in the Dunes Park and we still have some shortfalls, I want to see it done, at least one project. We still have to go to CEQA and all of that with the Preston Park. It's still a priority, but in terms of what we've already started and what's already on the track, I would like to see that, you know, and not delayed because we don't have the money for it. I want to finish that because I think, you know, as we go forward in the future, hopefully we'll have some more revenues that we can shift that way when Preston Park is ready to start. But I think we're still a little way, we're still in development phase and we're kind of beyond that on the other ones.

i can add one in your discussion about preston park and the equity part part of that baltimore project it really is the big playground at preston park is part of that whole project and so um some of that money is coming from preston park is going back to the playground that would be for all the residents of the park too

Our finances are so strong that we have these different pots of millions of dollars. We have the 2.8 unassigned fund balance. We have the 2.1 million in the public facilities building fund we just talked about. And Lane yesterday was telling me about some revenue streams that are coming in the next 10 years that are significant, like in the fives and tens of millions. And so I think we can project... without having an international calamity like 2008, that future councils are going to have some discretionary decisions that are in the positive. They're not trying to, how are we going to pay Rob Peter to pay Paul? It's where are we going to put these pots of revenue that haven't been obligated to do what we want? And the ball fields seem to be the last place that we've gotten to. And so if it's a decision between ball fields versus finishing the dunes part, if I was a ball field advocate, I'd say it's my time. So I think that we should try to keep in mind to get those ball fields built as soon as possible. And that's like the last constituency that hasn't gotten what they wanted. And they've kind of been led along the longest. You know, back in 2005, they were going to have Gloria Jean Tate Park remodeled. Then they went to the Dunes. And then they went maybe over to Seahaven. And then they went back to the Dunes. And then they're back to nowhere right now except Preston. So I hope. the next council, because I probably won't be here. I don't know that we're going to fit. It sounds like we're not going to figure out this juggernaut of ball field, where it's going to go and how much it's going to cost until maybe next year. But I hope that we give that constituency something that they're the last in line, kind of, but for good reason that we prioritize everything else, roads, fire, lease, getting rid of all the blight on Fort Ord where the money was coming from, the duplexes around Cypress Knolls so that it was safer for kids to get to the high school. I don't think that we did the priorities wrong, but it seems like it's their time to be on the front burner. All right. The MEC, the Marine Equestrian Center, it's kind of a dilapidated mess. And I think we're out of National Park Service funding of any substantial amount. And so in this budget, is there anything that's going to help us do better at the equestrian center's facility?

nothing specifically but what Courtney is working on with Ishmael is they're going through a walkthrough and we're going to put together a master list of cleanup and repairs to the equestrian center and we'll be bringing that back to the council very shortly. Tori, what is our NPS fund balance? I don't

Just a moment. I have it here, but I'm just trying to find it. It looks like we are projecting to have about $600,000 potentially, or I would say the lowest would be about $518,000, depending if a new tenant moves in in the next year, then it might be closer to $600,000. But I'd say right now, very conservatively, $518,000.

recent walkthrough there, I don't know, eight months ago, six months ago, where that whole dog pound thing, building needs to be removed because it's just a pile of junk and then we talked about the cross street office building of historic you know potential and we didn't even get to fixing up the buildings that are there now but lisbeth often complains that you can't open the windows because they're painted shut we saw some broken windows that's kind of minor stuff but that whole property to be brought into modernity would probably cost three or four million dollars

I don't know it would cost that much, but I definitely think to clean it up out how we're looking at it would probably be definitely simple $100,000 that they're working on that that list of that and they'll be bringing that back to Council probably the next month.

Oh, okay. All right. Sorry for the time I've taken. Anybody else before Councilmember Bialik?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I want to say again about the unallocated funds. You know, we are waiting for the UUT, but the building fund is still important because that could be a dire need. So in terms of parking money somewhere, I'm just... that's a dire need. What are we going to do with these buildings if we don't get the UUT? So I'm still advocating that we park money there because if we need to do more planning, this small amount of money in there will at least allow us to start getting ideas about concept designs or whatever. I think before we actually do anything, it's going to be a year wasted without

some extra fun to even start concept design or architectural design or whatever okay let me interrupt here i'll motion we go to 11 15. second how about 11 25 all right stop i'll emotionally go to 11 25 hard stop thank you all in favor please say aye aye please consider tory please continue to

I just also wanted to add that we're looking at just over $8 million in the public facility impact fees to add to that as well. So it's not just the six that's been set aside. There is this other $8 million plus available too.

Okay. And that's built into this budget specifically. Okay.

what we have not we have it is sitting it because public facility impact fees are dedicated for a source and really there's a special line item and fees for public facility buildings that is it's kind of set aside for that that 8.6 it doesn't need to really be designated because the whole designation of the fee is that but that that is in the separate fund

Great. And just the question for city managers. So how long for the Preston baseball fields will it be before we actually move the money to do so?

On the habitat management study, if we can get that approved quickly and put that application in, that'll give the fish and wildlife the confidence. They will allow us to start the construction work. I think once we get this feasibility study completed, then we meet with the groups, we decide on exactly what we want to build for the site. Then we put an R&P out and it could potentially be ready for construction early next spring. again gets tied back to this habitat management plan. If we don't get that adopted, then we can't start construction on that project till we can get the conservation. That's an incidentally permitted area and that needs to be resolved before we do any construction.

OK, but your estimate in spring of 2027. So yes, so that could be. excuse me imminent so i i kind of am leaning to preston parks sorry would someone like to make a motion i'm happy to move for approval second

Okay, so that would be the resolution, no direction, and authorizing finance director to do her or his duties?

Yes, and then that would include the $2.2 million to be put in the city facilities. I think that's staff recommendation. Or staff's recommendation, yeah.

Just keep it parked there.

Correct. Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. All right. Tori couldn't be leaving on a higher note. Thank you so much. Those flowers are well deserved. Okay, let's get to the sign ordinance issue.

uh due to the lateness of the hour i do have a presentation but i'll just cut my presentation short so when we did the last major rewrite of the sign ordinance it went to planning commission and council and there was a pretty lengthy discussion at the planning commission about window coverings so this provision in the sign code i know relatively well so the sign ordinance got readopted about two years ago and then in the fall we received a complaint that maybe staff was not equitably enforcing this provision of the code so we stepped up enforcement We have about 31 of the 56 people who have complied and then the council received some concerns from local business owners. And so that's why we're here today. So as part of our research and we ended up finding out that the window covering requirement. Probably is about 25% in terms of other cities that we looked at. So that seems like a reasonable request. I would point out that there are pictures in the PowerPoint that show what happens when all of the coverage is filled up. and um i do have an email from the chief of police saying you know if a police officer goes into a building that's fully full of windows there is some additional risk to the line officer so i know the council is trying to be responsive to individual complaints but there are some greater kind of policy issues here and so my recommendation slide is just really trying to encapsulate all this very quickly because of the lateness of the hour so the potential recommendation to council could be to increase the window coverage requirement from 10 to 25 percent To work with the police department on the exact language to address line of sight and visibility issues for public safety issues to conduct additional outreach to business owners to kind of explain the potential new requirement and the rationale and then to bring this back to and I put June when we originally were going to go, but I probably need a little bit more time to bring this to commission and august or you know whatever time frame we come up with today um there's that and then after i prepared the powerpoint about two weeks later i had the staff do a little bit more research way back when the city incorporated the actual original sign provision said no more than 10 of window coverage could be permanently covered but there was actually a provision that said you could do up to 50 temporary that's another policy option to consider that at some point that dropped off of the signed ordinance but that might be a compromise for the business community and the and the council to say all right well maybe 10 of the or 25 whatever that number is for permanent but if you wanted to put up something that said, hey, we've got a mattress sale and maybe half of it. So we could potentially insert that back into the ordinance. I do have several questions from Commissioner Vischer. It's in the memo that I gave you guys several weeks ago. I could go through those or not, but due to the lateness of the hour, I defer to the mayor and the council so I can answer any general questions.

OKAY. LET'S GO TO PUBLIC COMMENT. ANYONE IN THE ROOM, IN PERSON, PLEASE COME TO THE PODIUM.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND COUNCIL MEMBERS. I'M HERE REGARDING THE WINDOW COVERAGE COMMENTS UNDER THE CURRENT SIGNED AUDIENCE. I RESPECTFULLY ASK THE COUNCIL TO CONSIDER REGIONAL EXCEPTIONS BASED ON THE TYPE OF BUSINESS. The grocery stores like mine, the setup is very different from other businesses. We have shelf, products and storage directly behind our window. When those windows are left uncovered, customers are not seeing a clean storefront. They are seeing the back of the shelf, boxes and inventory. It does not look appealing and can actually discourage people from coming in. Recently, city officials made some grocery stores remove their window signage, and now what the public sees from outside is the backside of the shelf and storage areas. What kind of ordinance is this if it makes local businesses look worse instead of better? At the same time, local businesses are the ones paying for all those changes, removal, and new signage costs. Who is going to pay for all these expenses small businesses are forced to bear many small businesses owners are already struggling to with rent utility insurance and other rising costs because of this i propose a practical solutions allowing grocery stores to cover up 200 of the windows where shelves are directly behind them at the same time i fully supportive of keeping the front-facing windows clear and open without signage so the storefront still maintains visibility and openness. I also want to point out that many other cities and counties have similar ordinances on paper, but they are really enforced the way we are seeing in Marina. This creates a disadvantage for local businesses in our city, especially when neighboring areas are not applying the same level of enforcement. I ask council to consider these adjustments and work with businesses to create a balanced and reasonable policy. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you very much, Ash. Okay, let's go online. Welcome back, Denise Turley.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay, great. I just wanted to add to Grocery Outlet. You know, we're by there a couple of times a week at least. And they have all of a sudden taken a lot of the signage out of their window. And we can actually look in the store and see product. Anyway, I was really impressed by that. I also like the idea of the temporary, if they want to put up a special sales sign. And I also stand behind the fact that when the windows are 100% occluded, as a consumer wanting to go into that business, it makes me a little wary. Anyway. many people to feel safe need to be able to see out the window. I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you, Denise. Anyone else online? Please raise your hand. Okay. We'll close public comment. Let's go to Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. So this is interesting to me. I was on Planning Commission when we talked about this sign ordinance, and I can give Council some history of what happened. There was some desire to regulate signs, and I remember I specifically was favoring around the 20 to 25 percent. And actually, it was really shocking, but one of our most subjectively business friendly commissioners and said, oh, that's way too much. It should be 10%. And I remember I made the comment that that's way too little, but if that's what it takes to get there, you know, I go along with it. So the commission approved it and then everyone on this council subsequently approved it. And I know earlier we had this discussion about going through our processes and just sticking with it, you know, because it goes through the process. Sometimes the process is flawed, right? And it needs to be revisited. I think this is an example of that. I think this is something that we should take our time to the extent the council and the city should really think about what its goals are that it's trying to achieve. You know, there's activating the downtown, there's safety issues, there's giving businesses, you know, the ability to compete with not only each other, but folks in other jurisdictions so that, you know, the eye is attracted to their store and that encourages them to get business. little concerned about this issue about temporary signs, just because I think there we go back to this enforcement issue. Staff's going to consistently and constantly be, okay, well, they put this sign up on the first, and it's temporary, and it's a full-time job to determine when stores put up their signs. The concern from the member of the public about seeing shelves resonates with me. That's not something that I want to see. But there's also, I mean, San Francisco has a pretty fantastic and thorough sign ordinance where they address that. They say any shelves have to be four feet behind the window. So I think there's different ways to address all these things. And I just think that we should be really methodical and take our time before going back to it. I will say it's the first time in 15 years that I've lived here that I've seen no signs on Taco Bell and Jack in the Box. So I'm a little saddened that those that immediately complied grocery outlet are now kind of subjectively being punished. And so I don't know how we remedy that if we go back to them and say, okay, well, just kidding. You can put them back up. But that's disturbing to me. And all the more reason why if we readdress this, we need to take our time, do it right, and make sure that we're getting it right. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Brian. Council Member McAdams?

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you to staff for bringing this back promptly. And I also appreciate the business owners who have organized and advocated to make changes to this ordinance. You know, and I think about unintended consequences. Lee's Garden, a Chinese restaurant down the street from my house, they had these like really interesting like art type things. And now they have closed interior curtains. right and so you know i think that um we have to think about the those unintended consequences um i do think that 10 is way too aggressive um especially if the city is going to be enforcing it um And also, you know, to think about a carve out for HIPAA type services, we have dental, you know, orthodontist, medical. So those kinds of businesses, I think shouldn't have to, you know, comply. And also perhaps like beauty services, massage places, stuff like that. So I think that there's... Or I would just be curious and want to explore how would they comply then, right? Because, you know, for me, I wouldn't want to be getting my eyelashes done or my hair done with the glaring window or people looking in, right? Like when I, you know, color my hair, I'm a mess. So I just want to make sure that we're being, you know, mindful about those types of service-based things. I also would advocate just because some businesses have immediately complied. You know, I mean, this is expensive, right? So I would want staff to look at a small grant program. You know, maybe we set aside $15,000 to $25,000 to help with new signage costs, right? Because if I'm a small business owner, I've taken down all of my signs and you know, perhaps I paid fees and now I'm going to order, you know, signs to fit 25%. I mean, it, it, this is a lot of money, you know, especially if you're a small business. So I would like to see the city, you know, explore those options. And, and again, it would just be a very small grant, maybe 500, a thousand, I don't know. But that way for, for the businesses that have immediately complied and then now maybe we'll be, you know, ordering some, some new signage is like, let's help them out. So thank you.

I think the bottom line is the goal of a clear and unobstructed view of the interior of the store from the outside. It doesn't matter if it's a sign on the outside glass or curtains on the inside. If you can't see inside, then we're not meeting our goal. To say that we're going to put any kind of restriction on the glass and zero restriction inside the store is not going to get us to our goal. You can drive around town. We have pictures, thanks to Osh, of all kinds of stores. You can't see anything inside, and they've got nothing on the glass. So if our goal is safety and unobstructed view of the interior of the store from the outside, what we got now, 10%, 20%, 50%, doesn't matter what it is. It has nothing to do with our goal. So somehow we've got to decide on our goal. And it seems like the police chief is safety, so you can see inside. The ABC, which deals with alcohol businesses, if you sell alcohol, you're more likely to get robbed or whatever. You want 33%. So the ABC says 33% for vulnerable businesses. Why are we saying 10% to 25% for businesses that aren't ABCs? If their minimum bar is 33%, we should be that or higher for non-ABC regulated businesses. We have gun stores that are 100%. Well, if alcohol is dangerous, what about a gun store? The gun store on Red Rain Dollar, the gun store here, you couldn't see in them. So how can you have guns with zero visibility, liquor stores with 33% visibility, but a grocery store with 10% visibility? It all gets back to what your goal is. And it seems like we can all agree the goal is safety and a clear and unobstructed view inside. So curtains, shelving, glass signs, they all restrict visibility. And so somehow we've got to come up with an ordinance that deals with that underlying objective. And it's not fair to say take down your grocery outlet signs and put up curtains. That's not helping anybody. So I think the unintended consequences is everyone forgets what they're doing it, and they just comply with the letter of the law. And it's a mess as far as we don't have compliance. And you mentioned beauty supply stores. If you go to the Dunes, there's a nail hair place right next to the Westcom Credit Union. That's kind of fun to look in there and see people getting their stuff done. But if I was them, maybe they don't want to be seen. I just got my hair cut in Sacramento, and it was wide open. I could see across the street what was going on in this barber salon. And I went in there because it looked inviting. It looked clean. It looked professional. I didn't care about people looking in. I'm not sure they really want to look in. But I'm just thinking beauty services and any other business, it's all very arbitrary, right? But if you've got a bunch of ladies getting personal services done, I want to make sure they're safe too. So if you put the curtains up because they want privacy and then something happens that's in their danger, who's going to be able to see that? So there's all kinds of ways of looking at this, but I think we can agree on the underlying – goal and now how do we get there and it doesn't seem like any one percent is going to be the magic bullet without considering what goes on inside the store that will block that visibility like curtains or shelving or whatever. I have a feeling that Elizabeth has some very strong feelings about this. So I think that we should motion to kind of, or not even make a motion, just staff kind of already hears what's going on, but for staff to, hear our discussion and come back to us with this issue but i'm happy for to entertain a motion that anyone wants to make that has some specific direction to staff and kathy hasn't spoken yet so let's go to her next thing before we jump in there i'm still waiting okay so um yeah i understand the safety concerns and visibility but remember

Yeah, I don't, women don't want other people looking when you're getting your hair dyed. I mean, you know, or dental or, you know, doctors, you got it. You have to, you know, use some judgment about all of this too. So, and I agree that it's not just on the outside, but we have to look at the inside as well. And, you know, I was looking around at Lee's Garden and they have the curtains, but they have such a bank of other windows that it's meeting. I mean, enforcement was fine with what they did. So they met the letter of the law. So, you know, we have to understand that as well. And I think any temporary thing is a disaster because the enforcement will never be able to have anything. And along with when we take away a business's ability to advertise, are there other things? I know Lisbeth looks like she asked about A-frames or something. I don't know what other alternatives to suggest to businesses when we sort of strip them away from some of their advertising space. And if we can come up with some suggestions, I think that would be really helpful to them. But on the common challenges, you have listed all these things. They're pretty much things that we've been talking about. So from here, it should be that the planning department craft um the recommendations right um based on our overall i mean we're not going to be crafting the i mean i feel like we're doing the str stuff all over again the nuances that you know the the you know yeah but i also don't want to come back and then it's you know not exactly what the council wanted so i'm hoping to get further i know it's late but Well, I think what we just talked that you could cover, because I think the enforcement has already been started and I'm sure Marissa is it. I'm sure she has a lot to say about, you know, the ordinance as it is now and problems that have been experienced already. So I would, I would like to see the planning department,

go through it we can certainly but I like for example does the full council agree about some type of grant program does the full council agree that HIPAA massage beauty services should there should be some carve out what is that carve out how much is the carve out curtains and cabinets that's a whole other obstruction issue that like that wouldn't even be covered in the signed ordinance to begin with

Let's try to do this from the dais. We'll be here two hours.

But I'm just articulating that we will certainly work on something, but there are some unanswered questions. It's getting late.

I think Lane has some input.

Yeah, I think we've received a lot of good ideas and thoughts from the council. All the direction that we need is to add this to our work program, and we will work on it, and we will bring it back.

I'm not sure. Sorry to interrupt. I know we've got four minutes, six minutes. I'm not sure that you have heard because I know, Mayor, with all due respect, I don't think the number one issue is seeing inside. I think there are broader issues that maybe we need to evaluate. Goals of not overly detracted from the road, that we're activating the downtown. It's just as important to see out as it is to see in, as you mentioned, at the barbershop and ensuring fairness and you know we we get to this point where we've created these sign words right like i've got 10 signs okay well i have to have 11 to be competitive well i've got to have 12 well i've got to have 13 right um enhance curb appeal create an identity you look at carmel that has signs are only allowed to be three colors that creates an identity there do we want that here maybe maybe not right so Sorry to speak so quickly, but I don't think that we've heard everything. I think this is a very comprehensive issue. I think that maybe a workshop is worthy. I think that you should solicit feedback from the council, maybe offline, so that you can incorporate all of these things in. Thank you, Mayor.

Read me a story about the budget, Tori.

All right. This is much more exciting than the budget, don't you think? Okay. Let's go to Councillor McAdams.

Thank you. So I think for me, what my main concern is, is what's happening now to the businesses, right? Apparently the city like sent a letter and some immediately complied, some didn't. So are you going to continue to enforce that? This sort of like archaic, not working policy that not a lot of businesses were following until. So that's, I think, what my main concern is, especially like we're going to have a workshop and blah, blah, blah. I mean, that's. six months, a year. So I want to make sure that we're supporting the businesses that have been impacted. We've heard from a couple of businesses that, you know, now their menu, their beauty services menu is not on the window anymore. And, and she's like, people don't even know what kind of business I am. So what are we doing until this gets rectified?

Could we kind of just agree from the dais now that what we'd like to do is to change the 10% to 25% if that's what we want to do and then figure out the nuances later?

It doesn't make any sense to me that ABC has 33% and we would have 25%. That makes no sense.

I know, but I'm not so sure I want to go to 33% either across the board.

That's a standard state law, 33% if you sell alcohol. Right. Well, that's what you're suggesting. I'm saying as a minimum, 33%. But like Brian said, it is more complicated. It's not just one number that doesn't cover the curtains and everything inside. So like this gentleman just taking down signs and putting up curtains. We just lost. We don't want to encourage something that makes it worse.

But we're kind of struggling with what to do in the interim before. So I'm just making a suggestion.

I'll say we go to 1130. Yeah, I'm going to stick with the hard stop. Second to 1130. Second. Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye.

All opposed, Brian, say no. No.

Okay. Let's try to wrap it up.

And Lane has some insight. So I'll be really quick on that. On our code enforcement, we've always typically focused on voluntary compliance. We haven't been aggressively going out there. Typically when we get complaints is when we go out there. um and so based on that we know we've got a problem we can dial back our code enforcement on it because we know the council's giving us direction got a problem we want to solve it we want to do it right so we'll talk with our code enforcement we'll kind of dial things back if there's a a major safety problem or something critical like that then we'll enforce it but we'll go back we'll go back to the existing owners that got into compliance if there's some things that they want to kind of go back we can just work with them on that if Council is okay with that approach yeah and I think some businesses will help

if they have 100% coverage to help us out and reduce it a little bit, so they don't stand out as a, you know.

And the Dunes has their own master sign program. So now we're talking about some equity issues, because I assume whatever you're doing doesn't apply to the Dunes, unless we're giving direction that it applies to the Dunes equally.

Correct, that's a whole different.

A lot of issues here.

Okay, so does anyone want to make a motion that has any specific direction?

or let Lane and staff come back to us with what they've heard.

So if I could help the council out. So what I've heard is to work with the community development department staff and code enforcement to potentially on a temporary basis not enforce that provision of the code during this study phase and to look at um potentially potentially going to anywhere from 25 to 33 percent and to provide some exceptions for hipaa massage beauty service businesses um and on a separate track because cabinets are not in a side ordinance and then never will be to come up with a separate kind of how would we evaluate that is that a fair summary

Actually, I think there's a lot more issues. And I think the direction we want is just to put on a work program. Council has different ideas and thoughts and suggestions. We'll look at it. We'll look at other things. So I don't want to narrow it down to just three or four because I think there's a much broader that Brian had talked about.

I think 25 to 35 really might not be our goal because, yeah, I'm not sure that that would be our goal. I'm not sure that solves much. Okay. Guido, I don't want you to leave dissatisfied or thinking like we don't have clear direction, but do you think that you and Lane could work this through?

It's 1130. I will say anything. Yes.

Go home. We have our follow-up meeting tomorrow at 3 o'clock that we work out all these issues and get our...

It doesn't seem like we have to recreate the week. This happens in every city in the world. And to that point, Mr. Mayor, to that point, can I ask staff that I'm going to send staff to San Francisco? There's a flyer that actually articulates some of these concepts really well and that they disseminate that to the council to review. We'll get educated.

All right. We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone, for being here, showing up. Best wishes forever. Tori, thank you so much for what you've done for us.