City Council - Regular Meeting

Now, that sounds fine.

Anytime.

Recording in progress.

All right. All call to order. Our regular City Council Marina meeting, Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026, at 5 o'clock. Roll call, please.

Council Member McCarthy. Yes. Council Member McAdams. Here. Council Member Biala. Here. Mayor Pro Tem Fisher. Here. Mayor Delgado. Here.

Thank you, Mayor. No, there are no changes.

Okay.

Recording stopped.

recording in progress

Welcome everyone. We started at five o'clock on this Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026 regular meeting. We went to closed session and we always ask Renee Ortega, our city attorney to summarize closed session.

Yes. Thank you, mayor. With respect to item four B I the city council authorized the city attorney to defend the city in that lawsuit. With respect to the remaining items, council provided direction, but took no reportable action.

Thank you, Renee. Bessie, would you like to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Okay, so please stand for a moment of silence and then the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you for being a good sport, Bessie. So we will start with a LGBTQ plus Pride Month proclamation by our council member, Brian McCarthy. Thank you, Brian.

Thank you, Mayor. So this weekend, we had our Pride Pride raising ceremony. It was a great turnout. All of the council was there and representatives from Jimmy Panetta's office, Congressman Panetta's office and the county supervisor and others. So it's just a really fantastic event. um and with that i am going to read this proclamation for lgbtq it is a tongue twister plus pride month whereas the city of marina has a diverse lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer plus community and is committed to celebrating and supporting visibility dignity and equity for all people in the community whereas many of the residents within the city of marina that contribute to the enrichment of our city are part of the lesbian gay bisexual and transgender community Whereas the city of Marina has a long and proud history of inclusion and civil rights, the city of Marina commends the bravery and courage of all of those in the LGBTQ plus community that face adversity and various forms of violence. Whereas the Supreme Court decision guaranteeing marriage equality in all 50 states was a historic victory for the LGBTQ community, our country still has far to go with respect to the equitable treatment of the LGBTQ plus community. Whereas a continued opposition and oppression against LGBTQ plus peoples make it important for cities to stand up, show solidarity and support for our LGBTQ plus residents and community at large, cities across the U.S. recognize and celebrate June as Pride Month. June has become a symbolic month in which the LGBTQ plus community and allies come together in various celebrations of pride. Now, therefore, the City Council, the City of Marina does hereby declare the month of June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Pride Month, symbolizing the city's celebration of diversity and support for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and plus community. I didn't, but is anybody here from Salinas Valley Pride by chance or Monterey Peninsula Pride? Invited some friends to accept this resolution, but I know they were hopping between different city councils. So in their honor, we will have this resolution. Thank you, Mayor.

And thanks to Brian and Jenny every year for their leadership in organizing the Pride Month celebration we do at the corner of Reservation Road and Del Monte Boulevard. Okay, next we go to CSUMB's wonderful Gateway Hub project done by their SHTM program.

Hello. Hello. Thank you very much.

I'm sorry, Sham. One moment, please. We're going to go back on our prior item for Council Member McAdams to say something.

Thank you so much. I just wanted to say, you know, as we recognize and celebrate the Progress Pride flag this month, I also wanted to just speak to what a difficult time it is for many in our LGBTQ plus community. especially our transgender residents and friends. So we're seeing access to gender affirming health care and bodily autonomy, even for women facing increased attacks at the federal level. And so it really is important more than ever that we stand united in support of dignity, safety, and equal rights for all. And I also wanted to address, you know, in the community, sort of from the keyboard warriors a little bit, I've heard this like, well, what about a straight pride flag? Or, you know, we're superseding the veterans flag or a Christian flag. And so to me, you know, I hope that people really hear that pride, it's not a competition. You know, we're really celebrating, by celebrating one community, we're not diminishing others. And so Pride Month exists because LGBTQ plus individuals have faced a long history of discrimination and continue to fight for basic rights. And so we're talking about the freedom to love, the freedom to marry who you love and to live authentically and freely. in our country. So thank you.

Thank you for those additional comments. Okay. Sean, would you like to take the floor?

Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. My name is Sean Cometh. I am the founding dean emeritus of the College of Business at CSU Monterey Bay and also a founding member of the Monterey Bay Ecotourism and Ecorecreation Working Group. I want to thank the city council for having my colleague, Mr. Giovanni Castello. Giovanni is a graduating senior from the, excuse me, I'll start my video. Doesn't seem to, yeah, there you go. Giovanni Costello is a graduating senior from the wonderful Sustainable Hospitality and Tourism Management Program and a food and beverage team member at the iconic Carmel Valley Ranch and also the star pitcher for the winning CSUMB baseball team. So he's going to present with me and I thank you for allowing us to present a study by him and seven of his team members who couldn't be here today. They've all graduated and scattered all over. This study was done under the supervision of Professor Sergio Silva and myself. It's a 16-week research study that utilizes the work that was done by your city council, the Stanford Research Institute International, the Marina County Board of Supervisors, Monterey Economic Development Department, and of course, CSU, MB, and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. And it looks at the potential of the city of Marina as a gateway city in the Monterey Bay region as an ecotourism and ecorecreation destination to balance sustainable economic development, job growth, and economic vitality with the preservation and responsible use of the environmental, cultural, and historic assets of the region. In particular, it stands on the shoulders of the work done by your council in the City of Marina-Monterey Bay General Plan, adopted by your council on October 31st, 2000, and updated with amendments through May 2020-25, which all of us have examined and read. as well as the downtown visualization specific plan adopted by your council in October 2024 and the specific goals and guidelines contained therein. The study we are presenting today completely conforms to and is inspired by the vision goals and guidelines of these two City of Marina plans and the seminal work done by earlier agencies. It provides a clear path for the development of the strategic elements of the two plans and for the implementation for the vision laid out in the 2024 Downtown Visualization Plan. I quote from the plan here to, Maintain the city of Marina as a place with a unique small coastal town character where people can work, live, and shop in an environment that creates a feeling of cohesiveness, compactness, and individual community identity. A place with a vibrant economy that accommodates a variety of businesses, residences, and civic uses and a place that is aesthetically pleasing and sustainable, achieved through attractive storefronts, eco-friendly design, plentiful landscaping and amenities to encourage people to walk along tree-lined streets and socialize in civic and public spaces. I quote at length because you will see that the work that Giovanni presents completely conforms to this vision and also to the vision of the general plan to provide ample, and I quote again, to provide ample opportunities for outdoor recreation for all residents both within their immediate neighborhoods, elsewhere in the city and the immediate environments and engender development which maintains continuity with the city's history and is responsible to the climate and natural and scenic features of the local and regional setting. And most importantly, I quote, including the city's strategic position as the Monterey Peninsula's scenic entry gateway. So it is this gateway concept that the study has examined to create a cost-effective but a high return plan with large TOT and related revenues in conformance with the City of Marina's residents and their representatives' vision. Next slide, please.

Sean, let me interrupt you just for a moment. We were scheduled for five minutes, so please continue with that in mind.

Of course. So let me just go to the overall objectives of the study. The study was going to take the work done and create a economic development strategy that will ignite the growth of sustainable, attractive, and well-paying jobs while providing sub-objective one, the inventory of the assets that the city of Marina can use to achieve the gateway vision, identify visitor preferences, and market potential for the city, identify the key competitors and the key partners that it can use, and finally provide strategic recommendations. Next slide, please. So we will go over these five elements. I have now the, I've provided you the objectives. I will ask Giovanni to take on the, first piece, which is the asset promise, Giovanni.

Yeah, absolutely. I could totally take over if you guys could move on to the next slide, please. So our first topic is going to be the asset promise of the city of Marina. Next slide, please. So the city of Marina has so many key ecotourism, ecorecreation, educational tourism, agritourism assets that we have in our area. And with these assets like Fort Ord, the National Monument, and the backyard marine sanctuary that we have, we can really focus on this ecotourism and create the gateway into the Monterey Bay region to create that one more night stay that we need. Next slide, please. Our second topic is going to be the market and revenue potential for the city of Marina. Next slide, please. So the large market potential for the city of Marina with conservation rates of capture up to 25 and 50% indicate that there is a large annual TOT potential of between 12 and $20 million that can be captured if the city becomes a gateway hub and regenerational destination for ecotourism, ecorecreation, cultural and EDU tourism, agriculture, and blue economy tourism. So with these capture rates, we can almost close up to $20 million on that 50% capture. Next slide, please. So the unique gateway positioning taps into a $3.1 billion market for the city of Marina. And with 60% to 70% of the addressable market coming from the Bay Area, we really have to focus on that region to create that capture. And if we do, based on serviceable, obtainable market, if the city of Marina were to capture just 25% of that total market, The tax revenues of the city would realistically lie between $6.2 and $9.9 million annually. However, it could be up to $20 million and up to $40 million annually if we were to implement this plan in a perfect way. Next slide, please. For our third topic, we're talking about the competitor and positioning and our partnerships throughout. For the next slide. we're going over our competitor analysis. And basically this slide just shows all of these different competitors that we have across the California coast and including Napa as well. And all of these show that we have so many assets here that our competitors have as well. We just need to like compliment on them and go after what we need to go after because having all these assets in our backyard and not doing anything about it is not doing anything for our city next slide please for the partnership analysis partnership models may vary but the most competitive destination leverages strong tourism improvement districts and diverse stakeholder collaboration while marina relies more heavily on local partnerships with room to expand regional partnerships integration For our fourth topic, next slide, please. We're going to be talking about why and what Marina can do. So next one. This slide shows all of the different things that people are coming to Monterey Bay Region for. So obviously they're coming for the natural beauty and the wildlife of Monterey Bay, but outdoor recreation and events and festivals also hold a very important part around here. And the regenerative traveler, the data confirms that the visitors are coming for that. So if we can build off of those things that we already have, it will be very beneficial to our area. Next slide, please. Visitors don't just want to go to see the Monterey Bay region. They want to feel and experience and connect with it through wellness, sustainability, and respectful immersion. Through that, we want to create a traveler that comes to the area that wants to provide for it and not damage it in any way. Next slide, please. Marina's natural and eco-recreational assets have so many of these gateway and regeneration elements that we can assess and go through. But I want to be quick. The access to significant natural, cultural, and historical assets is super important for this gateway part because coming through Marina, we have all of these different things that people can experience, but they have to come through Marina first to experience them. And with people only staying around 2.4 nights, creating that one more day of stay is so important for us. And using all of these different elements and these different assets that we have in our backyard is all we need to do to bring in more people. For the last topic, next slide, please. How Marina, go to the next one. We're doing Rebranding Marina, the USP, Supernatural Marina Gateway to Monterey Bay. The key USP sea elements, the natural eco recreation and wellness asset, it's quieter and much more spacious than Monterey and other Monterey Bay region cities. It has an eco recreation paradise and it's modern amenities contrast against idyllic nature. And then marinas unique and location of the Monterey Bay region is diverse ecotourism and eco recreational assets and proximities to some of the world's leading natural and event assets creates a unique opportunity to be to become a premier tourism destination on the California Central Coast, a leading supernatural and gateway ecological destination to the Monterey Bay region at a very low incremental cost. Now I will pass it back on to my partner to go over his plan.

And, Shyam, we have to ask you to be very brief, maybe another minute.

I'll do it in a minute. Next slide, please. So please click on the slide. Click and click and click right through. Keep clicking. Keep clicking. So we've got very detailed recommendations in the report that we will be presenting to you, essentially in three stages to meet that vision, which you see at the top. And the first is to launch and stabilize the identity of Marina as a gateway hub. The second is to grow that. First is to reach the 65% to 70% target market. And the second, to begin to expand to new markets, bring on and invest in building a walkable downtown, which you're doing under General Plan 2045 and the other initiatives. And finally, to sustain it by focusing on new markets. Go to the next slide, please. So we have very detailed, keep going, yes, and stop at the end. We have very detailed recommendations, and you can see the first stage implementation stage involves focusing on partnerships, and we have listed the partnership organizations. We've also provided how the tour packages to take care of, to take advantage of the location of Marina as a gateway to both the North Bay, the South Bay, as well as into the Salinas Valley, we have provided a number of packages that will attract more visitors to come and visit and stay in Marina and utilize the wonderful gastronomic and culinary available in the city. Also to create signs and a tagline as you drive down Highway 1 to point out the city as a gateway. Next slide, please.

I'm sorry, Sean. I'm going to have to ask you to wrap it up in 15 seconds if you can.

Okay. So here are three parts to it. Can you go back to the last one, please? There are three parts. Build a walkable downtown in part two, penetrate new markets, expand and strengthen partnerships and alliances, and develop a strong identity as a gateway regenerative destination. And the last slide, please. 10 seconds, Mr. Mayor. Invest in asset enhancement, and you can see these. The total investment we see over a seven-year period is less than $400,000. And that too, if you get partnerships from private, that will become a very small part. So with that, I will end. And thank you very much for the opportunity. And I look forward to engaging with each one of you along with Giovanni to see what we can do to help you to get that vision implemented.

Thank you. And of course, this is wonderful information that no one else has presented to us because I don't think anyone else has taken this kind of a deep dive. Definitely not for a long time. So it's very relevant and updated. We appreciate that. And Giovanni, you are an amazing speaker. example of what California State University of Monterey Bay provides to our local community. Thank you so much for your intellect and your passion and your competency. I saw you give this presentation with your colleagues, your class colleagues on campus. It was great then. I saw a little bit more of it than today because this was an abbreviated version. But thank you, Giovanni, and best wishes to your future. I hope we see you both again, Shyam and Giovanni.

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you. Thank you very much. Very much appreciated. Thank you, council members. Thank you, Mayor.

All right. Ditto right back at you. Okay.

So now we're going to move on to... Mayor, I'd like to make a brief comment about this presentation as well.

I would too. There's no time. Go ahead, Ryan.

um uh mayor council i you know i've talked to sean a few times sounds like the mayor has too um i think he would agree there's nothing new here right this is not anything revelationary but what is important is that the information in here is so incredibly valuable and there's a real missed opportunity cost by not acting on it and we have not acted on as much as we could have in the last however many years um and I really encourage the council to consider reinvigorating the Economic Development Commission. This is your playbook. This is our playbook. This is the city's playbook. Just such great information. And, you know, with the new city manager and kind of some new leadership coming, I just think there's a real opportunity there. And I'll say lastly, I think of CSUMB, and I know I've said to this council many times, we need to claim ownership of that because of the incredible name recognition, the value, We're starting to miss that opportunity. Seaside has already claimed it. Seaside is kind of, you know, saying that the stadium is their premier sports stadium, right? That it's a Seaside institution. And, you know, we've missed this opportunity. Let's not miss anymore. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you very much, Brian. Council Member Viala?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Hello, Sham. And the last time you were here, I remember it was Harvey Dodwald's Hotel. You were talking about that development. Anyway, thank you so much. This is really great. I want to say real briefly, I wish there was another way we could brand ourselves other than a gateway to the peninsula. I feel like we're going to have our own identity and be our own someday. There was a prediction, I think, in Carmel Pine Cone that we're going to be the second largest city in Monterey County at some point from now. And so I don't want to just be always considered a stepping stone to some other location. Having said that, it's very comprehensive. I want to say one of the things that You've talked scattered throughout this document about culture, ethnic and history and diversity and stuff. And I think we are really one of the very rare cities that not only say that we are about diversity, but we also live it in our government. We live it in our population. And so I really want to add more about that. We have. the only MLK statue, and also it looks like we're coming closer to getting an Asian American botanical garden. Those are things that are unique in all of the county. And so we should be promoting things like that as well. And then also, I want us to be known for children. We have incredible playgrounds. We've already done Windy Hill playgrounds. Park. In June next week, I think we're doing a grand opening for the Gloria Jean Tate Park. We're going to have two football field size playgrounds for children coming up. One an interactive playground and the other at the Sea Haven. It's going to be a haven. We have one of the longest pump tracks in in probably California, if not the nation right here. We have a skate park. We have so many things. They have a children's sensory garden coming up in Lockpadden Park. So we have so many things. And I wish we could also somehow brand ourselves as the family location too, because people come to the peninsula. I've been there too with grandchildren and I'm looking for things for them to do. Marina could brand ourselves in that way as well. So thank you very much. And Sham, I'd like to be able to talk with you. Mayor Pro Tem Vischer and I have been interacting with Sea Monterey as well. So we'd love to be able to talk to you again. But thank you for this wonderful report.

Thank you.

Sham, I am reluctant to do this, but let me give you the last word. But please keep it within 15, OK?

Yeah. Kathy and Brian, thank you very much for your comments. Kathy, absolutely. We are not suggesting only gateway branding. We are suggesting gateway and regeneration. And all the points you made are considered in the study. So thank you very much for your comments. Very much appreciated. We'd be delighted, the SH3M program and I and others in the community to work

Thank you, Sean. Okay. So we're going to move on and we'll try to be brief because we know we have a busy agenda. Council and staff announcements next. Staff, do you have any announcements?

Mayor, council members, I wanted to provide you a quick update on a new EMS program we have in the county that launched today. It's important to the public. That's why I wanted to put it out in this forum. I will speed read as fast as I can. This is called 911 Nurse Navigation. It launched today at 9 a.m. The idea behind it is very simple. The right care at the right time in the right place. Monterey County has partnered with AMR, our local EMS and ambulance provider, and Global Medical Responses Nurse Navigation Program. GMR operates the nurse navigation model nationally. It does not replace 911. and it does not replace ambulance response. What it does is add another option for certain lower acuity EMS calls or medical calls. Here's how it works. A 911 dispatcher still answers the call and screens it like normal. If the call appears to be non-life threatening, the caller may be routed to a 911 nurse navigator. This is a specially trained registered nurse. That nurse talks with the patient, asks certain questions about symptoms, and uses physician approved guidelines to help determine the most appropriate care option. Sometimes that may still be an ambulance and an emergency department visit. Other times it may be urgent care, a clinic, telehealth, home care instructions, or other appropriate care settings. Either way, an ambulance and fire response will still be initially dispatched as soon as it is determined to be an EMS incident. If the call is routed to nurse navigation, the ambulance and fire response will be canceled by our dispatch. If it is later determined to need an ambulance response, both will be re-dispatched. One important point for the public is this. If someone has a serious or potentially life-threatening emergency, first responders are still sent. And even if someone is transferred to nurse navigation, the nurse can still determine that an ambulance is needed. The county also makes clear that a patient will not be denied an ambulance if one is requested during the screening process. Program can also help with transportation. If an ambulance is not medically necessary, but the patient still needs to get care, the nurse may be able to help provide navigation to alternate transportation, such as ride-sharing options. From a public safety standpoint, this gives the EMS system another tool. Not every medical call needs the exact same response, and this helps match the patient with the most appropriate care while keeping ambulances, fire crews, and emergency departments available for the most critical calls. This matters in Monterey County where the Emergency Communications Department answers over 1,700 calls a day. So the simple message to the public is still call 911 for emergencies. Chest pain, trouble breathing, major injuries, seizures, fainting, severe allergic reactions, or anything that may be life-threatening should still be treated as a 911 emergency. This program is not about taking services away. It is about helping people get connected to the right level of care and helping preserve emergency resources for the calls where they are most needed. And that is 911 nurse navigation. Like I said, it went live today at 9 a.m. There is additional information available on Monterey County Health's website. They have an FAQ there that answers a lot of questions that I suppose the public will be wondering. And at the end of the day, we will still be there. This is about managing kind of an overtaxed system.

Thank you, Chief. Our calls have quadrupled and our staff at your fire department have not. Will this reduce the number of calls that your department responds to?

It's unlikely to reduce the number of calls that we're dispatched to because the call will go to 911 and an emergency medical dispatcher, who is the person that normally takes an EMS call, will ask quite a few questions to determine if it's a low enough acuity to then pass it off to this nurse navigation. in that time, as soon as it's determined to be an EMS call, we'll be dispatched. So there's a lot of times where we may end up at scene before it even gets to the nurse navigation. The idea of us canceling while we're in route is that if the call has been taken to nurse navigation, and then we walk through the front door, it causes a lot of confusion as to how the call should be handled. So the program would rather us not show up once it's gone that route. It's going to be a rare case that it's sent back to the 911 system. And if it is, it's already been determined to be a very low acuity call.

So your calls may stay the same, but you'll have more U-turns before you get there.

That's fair.

Okay.

That's fair, which will free us up for other higher acuity calls.

Thank you so much. That sounds like a great initiative.

It's long overdue, and it's in place in a lot of other places in the country.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Elizabeth, for all things recreation related. I'm sorry. Question mark is from Council Member McAdams.

Thank you. So I have a question. If somebody calls the non-emergency line, is there opportunity for them to utilize the nurse navigator? Sure.

I'm not certain of the answer to that.

Okay. So I would like for us to find that out because our after hours non-emergency line is not user-friendly. And it tends to be complicated, which is what I hear from residents. It's just really a big runaround. So I don't know if... Public safety just needs to message that to the community if you're calling after hours to call 911, because you're going to end up getting frustrated and rerouted to them anyways, because we utilize the county's dispatch system, correct? Yes. Even for non-emergency?

Correct.

Okay. So I would really encourage that we do better at communicating, especially regarding after hours.

And to that point, my message to the public would always be, if you feel as though you need help and it's an emergency, call 911, right? We would rather go through that process with our EMDs and with nurse navigation to determine if it's a lower acuity call. If it's important enough to concern you, just call. Don't go through the phone tree of the non-emergency number if you feel as though it's important enough that you need us.

Perfect.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Good question. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't see your line. Welcome back, Elizabeth.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members. Council Member Biala alluded to this earlier, but I just wanted to send out a reminder that we do have our Gloria Jean Tate reopening this weekend. I think it is on everyone's radar. I do want to send a friendly request also out to the public. I know they are very excited about playing at this park, and we have had some activities activity after hours happening a little bit prematurely so we're asking everyone to wait until the park is officially open this weekend and we're so excited and I know I've been coordinating with some of you that you'll be there and so we'll be there at 11 a.m to 1 p.m Gloria Jean Tate thank you thank you it's going to be quite the celebration any other staff announcements Council

Okay, let's just put it out there that the big celebration is this Saturday, June 6th at 11 a.m. at Gloria Jean Park, which is the park next to Highway 1 across the street from Denny's Restaurant on Cardoza and Abdey Roads. So please come out. There'll be food trucks, music, a very big celebration with a lot of children and families. It's going to be a big deal, so I hope everyone can make it this Saturday to Gloria Jean Tate Park. okay thanks everybody for your brevity we're going to move on to the public comment anything on consent agenda you want to talk about or anything else that's not on the rest of our night's agenda this is the time anyone in this audience that's in person please come up now that wants to speak seeing none we'll go online denise turley welcome

Hi. So we've had a rather interesting couple of weeks with garbage and garbage truck failures and things like that. And the comment that I just want to make, because there's two different items on the agenda, is that We need clear direction from the city as to what exactly we do on a holiday weekend when they forget our trash. And no one's open until Tuesday. So that being said, I will go on to and thank our dear Elizabeth that just spoke and let her know that the problem that I had in one of the parks was cleared up and she was very quick getting back to me. Thank you. Oh, the request to talk about the garbage came from our new assistant city manager, Courtney. And then thirdly for this meeting, I'm just wondering anywhere if we are going to have and update now that school's out on any issues, anything that will change because school is out, school services, food banks, that kind of thing. Thank you.

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

Hi, Mayor and City Council. I live very close to the roundabout at Beach and Del Monte Avenue. I am a walker. I walk often around Marina. Ray and I just took a really nice long walk this afternoon. I am not one of the individuals who have problems crossing roundabouts as a pedestrian. I feel most of the time the drivers are very cognizant of us getting ready to cross the crosswalk. But I'm speaking tonight because I'm sure you've all become aware of the a real dangerous accident that happened just a few days ago. This one looks like the car went, was probably driving northbound, flew through not just the roundabout but drove over the island and almost went into the lower patio of the apartment dweller. Reason I'm talking tonight is because I remember many months ago, there was an agenda item that the council voted on for a contract to evaluate that specific roundabout and to see what could be done to slow down the traffic as they approach that roundabout. I wish I could remember the specific details. I do know that it was clarified to me that what you were voting on was strictly the contract, not for the improvements. I also had had somebody, a former employee with the planning department, talk to me about some changes that were being discussed for the northbound stretch that drives in front of Vince DiMaggio Park and pick up speed and approach that roundabout much, much too quickly. I think that you need to get back on a council agenda, ASAP, what is happening relative to that roundabout. There's been a number of accidents. And again, I will reiterate, I feel comfortable walking that roundabout myself as a pedestrian in Marina. But there needs to be something done. And I hope that you'll place on the agenda an update on what's being done. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Grace. And we are accepting comments such as yours for consent agenda items. And so we'll pull the consent agenda item on tonight's agenda regarding the Beach Road roundabout, just to give a few sentences as to what that's all about. And it's addressing your concerns. Let's go to Welcome, 9902.

Good evening. My name is Nina Beattie. AT&T is threatening to discontinue local landline telephone service immediately and also end lifeline service and other obligations they have. And I would like the city to take action to stop this. Copper Line landlines are essential infrastructure. The system is built to work even in extended power outages and in most disasters. The lines are powered, including making your phone ring. So you can reach 911 and your doctor, receive evacuation notices, stay connected to elderly and ill loved ones, and so others can connect to you. You don't need batteries. This service provides pinpoint location data to emergency responders when seconds count. There's a fire when someone is choking, has a heart attack or stroke. The voice quality is superior, the system is secure, and it doesn't drop calls. The lines also provide DSL internet. AT&T's carrier of last resort status, or COLER, requires AT&T to provide basic phone service to everyone who requests it without discrimination. The alternatives, voice over internet protocol and wireless, are notoriously unreliable and unavailable in many areas. They require batteries, and when the battery dies, there's no connection, no phone service. Disasters routinely knock them out. And thousands of people testified to the CPUC about how landlines saved their lives during Northern California fires around their homes after PG&E turned off the area's electricity. AT&T has not been maintaining its lines and equipment, and its rates keep increasing, making it unaffordable for many. AT&T has launched multiple simultaneous efforts to deregulate themselves at the FCC, the CPUC, the California legislature, and in the courts to get out of Kohler, lifeline obligations, and landlines. After a recent FCC ruling, AT&T filed multiple petitions May 20th to the FCC to eliminate landlines and lifelines in areas of California, including the Monterey Peninsula and Salinas. These petitions will be automatically granted by the FCC if there is no opposition. Comments are due June 22nd. MontereyBayMatters.org has instructions and an overview of the situation. AT&T is also suing the state of California and the CPUC to stop its regulating. In addition, State Bill ACA 9 would amend the state constitution to remove telecom companies' designation as a public utility, remove CPUC oversight for telecom companies like AT&T, and limit oversight for all public utilities. Senate hearings are this month, and there's more. Details are on my website, montereybaymatters.org. This is an urgent public safety matter, literally life and death for many people, particularly those in rural and fire-prone areas and the vulnerable. Please protect this vital infrastructure and advocate for reforms to make it affordable for all. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Nina. Anyone else wish to speak online, please raise your hand. All right, we'll close public comment. Denise, we have several green waste recovery officials here in the building. So please call green waste for your holiday call needs. And then we'll ask our recreation department to get any updates that they have on food bank changes or other programs that we offer due to the school being out. And we appreciate all that Nina gave us and the information about the AT&T services reductions. All right. Let us continue on with our consent agenda. I'd like to pull for very brief discussion the roundabout because we did have an accident there that's not the first time. So there's some discomfort in the community. So I think it'd be good to give that a shout out. Other than that, I'll go ahead and motion approval and then we'll take comments.

10-E-1. I second the consent agenda.

All right. Let's go to Council Member McAdams.

Thank you. Just two quick comments on 10E2, which is the bathroom at Windy Hill Park. I just wanted to thank staff for kind of hobbling this along and keeping it on track. And I look forward to the bathrooms being delivered and installed in August of 2026. So a couple months, we're almost there. And then 10G1, which is the Marina Kai project. I just, I wanted to thank staff for my colleagues and the community to continue to be supportive of the plethora of transitional and affordable housing opportunities that we have in our city. Thank you.

Thanks for calling those out. Council Member Biala?

No, that was too.

Council Member McCarthy?

Thank you, Mayor. A couple quick comments, questions on 1st 10G2, which is the organics SB 1383 program. Contract, you know, I've said this before, but, you know, food is food. And I think we should be really prioritizing getting food out of the waste hauling system and into the mouths of people and animals. You know, I have a device in my house where all my organics go, turns it into chicken feed, never enters into you guys never have to haul it away because it's it's still food. Right. And so. would hope that and i think mayor you're a representative on the on the waste management district that we could really encourage that district to think of some out-of-the-box ideas um to get that organics out of the waste hauling system the other thing i will say is many other organization regional cities have free compost days i think it's a missed opportunity for marina to kind of uh pair what organics can turn into with the opportunity to distribute pre-compost to marina residents so that's another thing i'd like to see if we could take back Moving on from that, 10F2, which is the logo item, I just kind of wanted to point out, I know the staff report says that there was no real fiscal impact to that, but presumably we use attorney time, you know, and I think this is something that the council gave direction for staff to work on, but it is at expense to our residents, and I'm glad that we did work on it, but I hope that whatever comes out of this is something we don't have to revisit. And a question for the attorney, which you probably aren't prepared to answer, and that's fine, but in the logo, our existing logo, there's Marina with a stylized R there. Is that something that folks can use? Just the word Marina with a stylized R, it has a little swoop at the... That is a good question.

I don't know, but I guess that could be part of the trademark, my position that I would take. so maybe we could do some research and just have that come back to us because i do see that being used uh throughout the community in certain places so yes and there will be um and and thank you for that comment uh we will be bringing an item forward uh regarding an ordinance that will address uh use of the logo and we could take that issue up at that time thank you thank you mayor

Okay. Regarding the logo, the proponents of the use of that logo, Fogtown Family Car Club, I don't think this is 100% no to your request, but there are definitely some red flags, pink flags, whatever color you want to call them, in the staff report. So if you want to continue to partner with the city, I hope that you continue to discuss with staff how you can benefit the city in mutually agreeable ways. Okay, so all in favor of the consent approval minus that item that was pulled, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. Okay, so that passes. Let's go right to the Del Monte roundabout. You want to say what that money is going to be spent on and what its results will be?

Yeah, actually, Grace Silva-Santella's comment was timely. The biggest issue with that roundabout is northbound traffic going too fast. And there's a couple of things. One is that there isn't enough of a S-shape curvature as you enter the roundabout. A modern roundabout is built with that S curve to force people to slow down as they enter there. The other thing is that there's no vegetation or anything in the middle of that roundabout. So if you're driving north, you can see clear through. And since you can see clear through that there are no other vehicles, people are just speeding because they have nobody else to slow down for. This project is going to change the striping for people going northbound. It's going to merge the lanes sooner because right now you also have people trying to hurry up and get in and merge closer to the roundabout. The other thing is we're planning a lot of vegetation in the center of that so that you can no longer see traffic around you, which forces you to slow down because you don't know what's coming around the corner, which these are components of a roundabout that make them safe. And any questions beyond that, we've got Frederick here who can give detail if anybody wants more detail on that.

Council Member Adams.

Thank you, Mayor. So This is very timely because a couple of weeks ago I emailed MST because they have stopped service on the two bus stops on DeForest and they're like covered with plastic bags. So since we're doing this work and going down this journey, I want to make sure that we're not doing double work. Are you collaborating with MST to maybe get whatever their needs are so they can reopen the bus stops there? I think what I heard or what the reply was is that It's too wobble. Yes, the buses have to drive over the roundabout, but it's not safe for their passengers inside the bus. It whips them around too much.

Is that deforest?

Yes. Well, that's, I mean, yes.

It's a different roundabout. The item on the agenda is beach and down money. Oh, this is the one right by... Yeah, Beach in the Forest is up at Windy Hill Park. And that one, we are working with MST on a permanent solution for them.

Okay, okay, thanks. But this other one is the same, the sort of like drive over all gray cement with nothing in the middle, right? Like...

No, Beach has a, there was at one time landscaping there. Now it's very minimal. But Beach is right by the car wash.

Right, by the Walmart.

Yeah, so there won't be concrete there. It'll be vegetation in the middle of that roundabout. Nobody will be driving over it. The dimensions already work for MST. Fire and ambulance and even big rigs can negotiate that.

Okay, great. Thank you. So I'll move that we adopt a resolution regarding the advertising and call for bids for that location's roundabout improvements.

I'll second.

Any final comment before we go to vote? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any oppositions? That motion passes 5-0. Thank you, everyone. So now we revisit the Mercedes-Benz issue, and who will lead us through that?

I'm the project planner for this. Thank you, Guido. Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. As the Council is aware, on May 19th, City staff were asked a series of questions related to the Mercedes-Benz car dealership to research and report out to the full Council. The staff report does lay out the entire answers, but I will attempt to answer the questions and summarize them in the presentation. And the applicant is here. We have the applicant's project manager, Doug Gaunt, the architect, and others. So the first question was related to special events. Well, sorry, I'll wait for Bowen data.

Yeah, yeah.

So the applicant did indicate there will be a series of special events related to the grand opening, charity events, chamber of commerce mixer, client appreciation events, and new model openings. I did add a condition of approval that just said if there's additional events, they will have to file for a special event permit. We are taking that special event permit ordinance to council later this summer. So next slide, please. So there were questions related to the truck route for the car dealership. So working with our public works team, it would generally be down Highway 1, exiting Light Fighter, going up 2nd Avenue, and then making a left on Duvarte into the dealership. Next slide, please. There was a request to do the photo simulation. I can show those now to the council or wait for the applicant to explain them. That's up to the mayor and the council. Okay. So Belinda, if you click on the, if you go back to the photo simulation slide and click, there's two separate videos there. does not have sound so you just have to like right click and then open the link or noise considerations oh okay all right mayor so we'll have to wait till the applicant so i apologize about that Next slide. So there were questions related to the signage. Just basically what can the city do to ensure that there's not unsightly balloons, inflatable signs, and other unsightly signage. So that verbiage was added to condition of approval number 27. Next slide, please. There was a request to get the size of the Temecula sign, which I reached out to the city of Temecula staff. It's approximately 10 feet tall and 75 feet wide. And just by way of context for Marina, for a normal just commercial development, we allow about a seven foot tall signage, but up to 200 square feet. So next slide, next slide. uh there was a request that really the focus of the last meeting was bolstering the noise and light standards and just doing some additional research so noise standards come from a variety of sources from the city from the general plan the noise ordinance the uvsp specific plan and the actual eir allowable average noise standards are identified in table 4.1 and 4.2 of the general plan next slide please According to the general plan, 70 decibels during the day and 65 decibels at night are allowed for residential zones. These are 24 average noise standards, not single event noise standards. Next slide, please. Next slide. Next slide. So to bolster the noise standards and conditions, so condition of approval 55 has been mitigated, asking that the service bay doors be closed during operations, to continue to require the silent paging system for the property, that the rooftop HVAC system will be acoustically rated and screened. You'll see on the screen that there are some highlights in yellow that the applicant is requesting related to potentially allowing the delivery of parts on Sundays, requesting using portable hand vacuums on service bays. And the highlights in red were the edits requested by Council Member Vischer in terms of ensuring that the noise times are consistent within the actual condition of approval. So next slide, please. We've also added a condition of approval 56 that prior to issuance of building permits, the applicant will hire an acoustic analyst to look at noise compliance throughout the site. And that condition of approval carries forward that prior to occupancy, the applicant shall provide verification from a qualified acoustic consultant confirming that all required noise mitigation measures have been installed and that operational noise levels comply with applicable city standards. Next slide, please. Next, there was a request once again to look at the lighting standards. So the University Village specific plan environmental impact mitigation monitoring and reporting program has requirements that lighting levels in the commercial area be kept as low as feasible. That's the language within the EIR. The UVSP also has lighting guidelines. They're not as detailed as in the EIR. Condition of approval 25 has been modified. significantly, and I will just try to summarize as best I can. Photometric studies will be required for light outputs at 10 p.m. and after 10 p.m. There will be full cutoff fixtures. The original condition asks for 3,000 kelvins on the temperature. Next slide, please. Next slide, please. Can't see that far, but yes, sorry. The applicant is asking for 4,000 Kelvins for the color temperature, and I would defer those questions to them. Light poles shall be kept at 22 feet. Also during the buildup to the first meeting, there was a request from the council to look at the Calabasas light standards. We do have indications that those are achievable for this project. And we do have Andrew Cummings on the Zoom call. He has been the lighting consultant that's done all the lighting for the dunes development. And I would direct the council to ask him those specific lighting questions. So next slide, please. So there are, so staff is continuing to recommend approval, incorporating the comments we've received from the May 19th and this meeting tonight. There are two separate motions, one related to the tree removal permit and the second, the next slide is the motion for the actual design review permit. So that concludes my initial presentation.

Okay. Thank you, Guido. Lane, should we proceed with the project applicant? Okay. Would the Unstoppable Group want to come up and spend up to 10 minutes with us? Whatever it is you might want to say. Garth is deferring to Ken. Ken is deferring to Garth. And we appreciate you coming all this way.

City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers.

Audi dealership. It helps to have, but I'm pretty loud anyway. Anyway, we're very happy to be here. Sorry, we couldn't make it last time. Kenwood just got out of emergency surgery, so he wasn't really able to do much. And we wanted to be here today, not only to talk about the project, but to answer questions, because I think at the last meeting, There were a lot of questions that were raised regarding lighting, noise abatement, and we wanted to put that in the context of what we've done in Temecula. And the reason for that is that Temecula has similar conditions that we work with and have worked with now for more than 12 years on our project there, very successfully with the community and with the city itself, one of which is the dark skies. that Temecula has in place because of the observatory at Palomar Mountain. It's close by and so it impacts how we deal with lighting and step down lighting in the evenings. We absolutely are committed to that here too because it makes total sense and it's the right thing to do in terms of neighbors and just respecting the environment and the beauty that we have up here in Marina. So that's important to understand. Light fixtures themselves have, essentially are cut off in a sense that the light is forced downward as opposed to allowing for pollution to occur with lighting. In other words, dissipation of lighting in towards the ground as opposed to out towards the sky. That's important to know. We also wanted to talk about the paging. We don't page. We've never paged intermacular. It's not something that I believe in. All of our communication is typically within the building itself. The one exception would be if there was a security issue at night with NetWatch, who is our company that takes care of making sure the property is safe. Anybody that happens to be there is safe. And also the cars are not damaged in some way for insurance reasons. That's the only time there's ever a voice down situation day or night. So that's important to understand, I think. In terms of the car wash that came up as well last time, car wash is very much a contained area. It's nothing like what was described, that I believe you have a commercial type car wash, which has multiple different car washes running at once. quite loud, I believe. That's not our situation. In fact, it's brushless car wash, which is important because we don't want the cars to get scratched or damaged during the car wash process. And so then the cars, in terms of drying them and finishing them for the clients, will be done inside of a building. So there will not be any noise issue there. Um, the request for the hand or the portable vacuums are for the service drive as needed. If someone had an issue with a car on pickup, uh, rather than taking the car all the way back to the detail area, we'd like to address it for the guests. It should never happen in the first place, but if it does, we want to be immediately responsive. And essentially as you would do in a, in a restaurant or something, respond to their, their let's call it unhappiness for some reason. So that's why we'd like to have the hand vacuum cleaners, if you will, included. Let's see what other questions came up.

4,000 Kelvins, that's a Mercedes-Benz standard. That's not a pushback we've had. There are standards for Mercedes-Benz dealerships. Sorry, guys and ladies. It's a 4,000 Kelvin requirement, not a 3,000. And so it just transferred to that document for that purpose.

And I should probably mention that while we all have the best intentions in the world, I know that the city does. I know that our group does in terms of building a beautiful dealership that hopefully will be something that the whole city of Marina can be proud of. We also have to understand that we have a business partner, Mercedes-Benz USA, that their architects get involved with every single project across the United States with the new standards that are required that are global now. They have to also approve the project. So whatever we all work out and agree on, we still have to submit it to Mercedes-Benz USA. And they have incredibly high standards for what they expect from us as a franchise dealer and also from the cities that they partner with. So I just want to mention that. I think it's important to understand that. It's not purely just on us. We will do everything in our power to get them to work with us in a positive way and have a happy outcome for all concerned. And then of course, the most important thing, we wanna make sure we are great neighbors to everyone in the community. It would not serve us well if we end up doing things that would not be reflective of what people would anticipate in a city like this. And it's also important to understand that in terms of marketing and advertising, I've never had gorillas on the roof. I've never done anything like that. That's just not our style of, let's say, marketing and representation, reputation, branding, and so on.

So another issue that came up, we've dealt with it before, but although you won't be called Mercedes and Marina, can you describe what you did in an earlier meeting about how a lot of your branding will include Marina because your business model depends on people knowing where we are?

Yes, absolutely, Mayor, without a doubt. First of all, I think it's really important to us that the sign, you know, the city of Marina sign is on our property. That's what we'd prefer. We would like to emulate something similar to Temecula, maybe on a slightly smaller scale, because I hear the limit is seven feet versus 10. The city of Temecula actually came to us when we were developing that project and asked to have that sign placed where it is, because it is the first entry point to the city of Temecula when you're on the 15 going south. So we'd like to do something similar. We also know that all of the public areas that we have upstairs on the top level are places where we've had community events, charity events, city events. And that's been an ongoing situation with the city of Temecula for as long as we've been there. so you know we don't really use it that much except for our own internal meetings during the day but in the evenings and as as requested we'd rather have people come there and host the events so that we can let everybody know what we're all about in terms of the level of guest service and the experience that we try to deliver every single day

And I was thinking of your advertisements, your mailers, your TV commercials. Right. They need to let people know this is a location for them to find you. Can you talk about that?

Yes, absolutely. We talked about the fact that we would be advertising, even though it's Mercedes-Benz of Monterey at the city of Marina. We talked about that. And that's exactly what we have to do because we don't want to confuse people. We want to make sure that they understand the reflection of Monterey is the county and not the city. We are very proud to be here. We hope that you'll approve us tonight and that we can move this forward and that it will always be, everything will be reflected back to the city of Marina.

In writing.

In writing, in marketing, in everything that we do. Just like when I was at Fletcher Jones and ran that for 25 years, it was Fletcher Jones on Jamboree at the 73. So people could pinpoint and understand in their heads, not just hear it, but visually understand in terms of the actual marketing where we are and where we will be.

Okay. Were we going to see video simulations today?

I know they were prepared. Abby, the applicant has that available.

Okay. Let's see that and then we'll turn it over to Councilman McAdams for her questions first.

Thank you.

I have the video ready if you would like me to play it.

Yes, go ahead. We're ready.

Okay. I am sharing the screen. Thank you, Abby. You're welcome. And starting the video. And this is the video northbound. And now we're swinging around the property, as you see.

Is that Highway 1 in the foreground?

No, that is the adjacent property because that's the north side of the lot.

The First Avenue?

This is First Avenue, yeah. We sped up the speed a little bit on this one just so it would not be so laggy.

They'd be never driving that fast on property, by the way.

No, they wouldn't. I also have, I'm going to stop sharing for one moment. I have a southbound video as well, if you'd like me to play it. Yeah, that was a request, I think.

We were looking for a video from Highway 1.

The northbound is from Highway 1. They both are, actually. One moment, this thing is playing without a help.

To be clear, Mayor, that was from Highway 1 coming from south to north. Now this is coming from north to south. Correct.

Yeah, so the street in the foreground was Highway 1 in this video and the current video.

Heading south toward Monterey. Can you indulge me and move to the first one and show the start of it, knowing that it's on Highway 1, northbound from Monterey going toward Marina? That first video you showed. Yes. Show that again, please.

Sorry, I have to switch between videos. It won't let me have both open at the same time for some reason.

For some reason, it just didn't look real to me.

There it is. There we go. So in the foreground, that is Highway 1 going north.

All right. Garth and Ken, are a lot of those trees going to be removed or not?

I mean, are you referring to the trees that belong to Caltrans?

The trees in this simulation, the cypress trees that line the highway there.

Those are the trees that are blown to Caltrans, Garth.

The trees that you're seeing primarily are Caltrans trees. Any trees that have been removed, as you probably have read, we're replacing them with even more trees. So it's a question of healthy trees and hopefully in a situation which is more helpful, let's say, to be candid, to be able to see the dealership. Because if we don't see the dealership, it's very easy to drive by and completely miss it. In which case, we could stay where we are, frankly.

Okay, so the veil of trees that we saw in that simulation on Highway 1, is that how it might look five years in? Because those are Caltrans trees, and so they're not going to be removed?

Today, those are Caltrans.

Well, those will remain.

As far as we have not talked to Caltrans in any way, there's no way to...

So you'll be seen for a window coming north, and then you'll be blocked for a segment from those trees. And then people will be north of you. They won't look back. So you'll be depending on that southerly window as people head north to see you.

That is correct. And that is also why I think it's so important to have a very beautifully done city and marina sign on the property, because that's going to draw people's attention first. And then they're going to look past that to the building, hopefully.

Okay. Anything more you want to say as your presentation, Ann? Sure.

One of the things we've envisioned, and I've talked to a lot of us because I've come to a lot of these meetings as well and dealt with all the consultants, excuse me, is that what we visualize is they come around the corner coming from the south to the north. They literally come around and here we see City Marina, Mercedes-Benz, nice building. And they're also introduced to the dunes as a community, not just the City Marina. So what do people do if they're not from the area? Oh, maybe there's a restaurant there. I've got to have something. Or maybe we can stop and get something. Oh, there's a target. And so it pulls people off the freeway. And it's predicated by this entry point. And no different than when you came down to Temecula. You know you're entering Temecula the second you see it. And there's a flag up in the sky. There's a Mercedes symbol in the sky. It's really about City of Temecula when you approach our dealership. It's not about Mercedes-Benz. But that process really invites people in. They know they're there. They've heard of Temecula. Maybe they'll go to a winery. Maybe they'll go and visit the city. Go to Old Town. And so it's always been a very symbiotic relationship with the city of Temecula. It's been very, very friendly. And it's because it's really, we're bracing the city as a whole, not just selling cars in a city. And it's been that way since day one. It's that way today. You can call them, they'll pick up the phone and speak on our behalf, almost all heads of departments. And so we do that on purpose. It's being good neighbors. It's good being participants and really bringing something of value to a town or a city.

All right. Thank you very much, Ken, Garth, and Gary. Is Adi coming next? Is that why you're here?

No. I'm a fixed-off director for all the stores he has.

That means service and parts. Gary's responsible for service and parts. started off with Audi, but we've expanded his responsibilities. So we were in meetings today at our Mercedes dealership here with some of our team members and managers. So we invited Gary.

Thank you. Welcome, Gary.

Plus it's good for him to see what's going on. Do you want us to wait or?

Yeah, we're going to have some questions, perhaps. I'm not sure. We'll wait and see. Thank you for standing by. Council Member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. So kind of going back to the video, I mean, I, I recall the mayor and our ask was very specific that we wanted to see what it, like you had a great, uh, narrative of like, no, one's going to stand five feet from the trees and drive by the trees. So I was sort of expecting like a, a view from, you know, 30 or 40 feet. So that's not provided.

It's it's not at the moment. I think the only way that I could, uh, I think a good way possibly to do that would be with a drone. But we haven't done that yet. We wanted to try and address how it would look from being inside of a car as much as possible.

OK. So in the packet, you're asking to remove 44 trees. So the trees that are currently in your video are not any of the 44 trees that you're removing for the project?

That's a good question for Guido to confirm as well.

Yes, the trees are on the property, not the Caltrans trees in question.

So the trees in the video remain as long as they're healthy, etc.

That is.

Yes, the Caltrans. Those are Caltrans trees. Authority.

Okay. And since Guido, since you're sort of answering, I know you mentioned that the lighting is to be as low as feasible but then there's also some measurables can you sort of explain that a little bit versus like the obscure language versus the actual number such as 4 000 kelvins would you see it from monterey's ferrante hotel room you know would they have all the special events in the monterey marriott yeah let me uh let me find the exact language and the conditions of approval And then also I'm curious what the noise decibel level, I just want, so if a resident complains, like we've had complaints from Los Animas, you know, the brass tap, just so how is staff going to be able to say, yes, this is, this decibel is too high or whatever. I just am wanting that, those measurements.

Yeah, so I would refer the council to the condition of approval 25, which I did print off for that council. in terms of the specific requirements i mean i can go i mean i can we're asking for lighting zone two for our car dealership we're asking for having the step downing of the lightings we're asking for the photometric study be done we're asking for full cut off fixtures the calvin issue has been brought up we're specifically to your point council member McAdams we're specifically referencing mitigation measure AE 3.1 and 7.1 of the EIR and we are asking for specific foot candles at the property line so as not to affect the residents and there are automatic controls and so we significantly have beefed up this condition of approval based on the council direction at the last meeting

Perfect. Thank you. And then as far as the noise goes, can you just review and put on record what improvements you have done? Sure.

So I would refer the council to condition of approval 55 and 56. which there are some slight edits which are shown on the original presentation tonight in terms of delivery of cars at certain hours. We've talked about having the silent paging system. We've provided more detail in terms of when detailing of cars can occur. We've added a condition of approval related to having the HVAC system be rated and then we've added additional requirements related to having an acoustic engineer during the plan check process identify what are all the ways to mitigate the noise that will be on the plans and then we will not give occupancy until that same consultant verifies that everything's been installed

Excellent, thank you. Thank you so much.

And then to answer your other question, Councilmember, the applicant did provide a response packet and it does show from a little bit more of a bird's eye view that was in the applicant's response in terms of what the signage would look like, more from like a drone view, which Garth mentioned.

Okay, thank you. I was really pleased to hear the comment about Mercedes having incredibly high standards because I share those high standards when I'm representing my community and my residents and my constituents. For me, after seeing the logo with Bixby Bridge and then the name of Mercedes of Monterey, I do remain disappointed that the city of Marina is missing all opportunities to be included in branding. And for me, like what an honor and an opportunity to be associated with a global, you know, a global brand. Right. And so while I understand the decision has been made, I want to put on record again and reiterate my tenacious support for having Marina in something besides the address. Right. I also want to be clear that my questions and requests for clarification are not intended to burden the applicant. You know, as we continue to address these issues with the brass tap, Los Animas, quick quack, it's our responsibility to establish clear and measurable and equitable standards and sort of learn from these mistakes and oversights, right? And so I appreciate you coming back and providing the extra information. And I just want to be certain that in the future, when and if there are neighbors that are living next to the dealership that when they are upset with noise or deliveries, because it's going to happen that, you know, staff, you know, I'm probably not going to be here. Guido might not be here, you know, but just that there's very clear direction, because I think that that's something that we haven't really been good at. And so we end up being very reactive to these instances and to these hard lessons and situations that, we have been experiencing. I appreciate you coming back and I am very grateful. The tax revenue will be an exceptional benefit to our city and I get that and that is really some legacy work that people aren't necessarily going to understand now, but they will in the future. And, you know, so again, thank you for your patience. I am a little disappointed about the video because I am concern that we're going to be shining bright like a diamond from across the bay. And I don't feel confident that that's not what it's going to look like. But I just, you know, will trust Guido. And I do really appreciate your very quick turnaround and implementing these extra conditions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Jenny. Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. I think to staff, this is definitely very solid, above average work for a car dealership on this report. So thank you very much for bringing that to us. I think to both staff and the applicant, maybe a little bit of inside baseball that you might not be aware of is that several years ago when it was kind of being socialized that maybe we could attract a car dealer, I have to tell you that me and most I think a majority of my colleagues kind of said, you know, don't don't think so. And and, you know, I think we came to the conclusion that, you know, there's some real benefit here, but we want to try to extract the highest standards possible. for a car dealer that we possibly can. And I think that's what you've seen play out in previous meetings and probably tonight. And it's just a journey that we've all been on. So I hope that we can come to some conclusion today, but I just kind of wanted to share that with you. I also feel a strong responsibility to call out a few kind of what I view as inconsistencies. The trees in particular, let's be real. I see that parcel today with all of the trees intact. So you're talking about removing 50% of them. You're going to see the parcel. It's going to be very visible from the highway. Great for Mercedes, arguably not so great for the optics of passerbys when we think about the identity of the city, or maybe it is, but that's a reality. So I just want to kind of call that out for the record that no, it's not going to look quite like that video. And that's kind of not really what I had hoped for. but I'm willing to work with my colleagues to get something passed tonight, hopefully. There are a few weaknesses in the conditions, just in my opinion. There's still some subjective enforcement language that I just really struggle with. I think that there's this vague security lighting exception. I would like to see that defined. Maybe that's two foot candles or whatever it is but we just really get ourselves in trouble when we have all of this subjective uh enforcement language and and so right because if you ask me what i need for security it's going to be as much as i can possibly have right um so i'm still struggling with that i'm not prepared to craft any changes on the dais Full disclosure, I think I was the one that mentioned the Calabasas ordinance at the last meeting. It wasn't that I was necessarily saying we should mirror that, but rather that it was some great standards to kind of take a look at to move us in the right direction. I think I'm going to leave it at that for now because I want to hear what my colleagues have to say. But I am really hopeful that we can continue this partnership with Mercedes-Benz. I think it could be fantastic for the city, despite the news article that I know you've seen that apparently Congress is going to ban the sale of Mercedes in the United States. Congress has said they're going to do a lot of things. I'm sure that's not going to happen. But I am optimistic about the partnership. And so thank you for being here. Thank you, Mary.

Thank you, Brian. Council Member Viola?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, one, I want to say I see Glenn Woodson in the audience, and I have to say that their diligence in reviewing this very large application, I want to thank the Planning Commission. When they have 55 conditions, I mean, you worked very hard, so thank you very much. Appreciate that sincerely. Just want to ask on the exhibit B, all the highlights that Guido, you have as new kinds of things. So all of these things essentially with two exceptions on the letter from Mercedes-Benz has been approved and agreed to by the applicant at this point.

That's correct.

Okay, great. And I appreciate the flexibility and the accommodations that Mercedes-Benz has afforded because this is, you know, very, very detailed. And for Guido, I just want to ask, and it's the same question with both the lighting and the noise. to me, because I'm a lay person when it comes to these kinds of issues, it seems to be very detailed. And, you know, I know that we can use other standards from other projects, but do we have an ordinance for the lighting, dark sky lighting, and also for the noise that would come to this level of detail? I mean, I'm pretty impressed that we have really define so many of the details of both of these topics.

We don't necessarily have an ordinance, but our authority derives from multiple sources, one of them being the original EIR for the overall DUNE-specific plan. We're bound to implement those. And so, for example, the light standard says as low as feasible. So from that, we can then derive our authority to impose these conditions.

Right. Well, I see these and I could be mistaken, but it seems like these are really high standards and we want those kinds of standards. But if we're deriving a lot of these from specific plans, you know, Marina had all kinds of specific plans, which was really a terrible thing for developers because it cost a lot of money to do a specific plan. So back when preceding you. you know, we were trying to say, let's get away from specific plans. And so now we have things like objective design standards, those kinds of things. So developers won't have to now go into a specific plan that might be different from the next applicant that is right next door to them. So I'm hoping that if this is is something that we can codify and put into a standard so that the next applicant, we don't have to be asking the same questions again. That is going to be like objective design standards. This is what is achievable, what they have agreed to, and let's use it in a productive way so that we don't have to come back to council to deliberate on these details. I would really, really like that. So there were only two things, it seems like, that they had said in the letter that they could not comply with. And that was the 4000 Kelvin versus the 3000 Kelvin. And so is that something that can be really distinguishable from a distance? Because I don't know what that means, 4000 versus 3000.

I would have to defer to the applicant. Andrew Cummings is the lighting guy on the phone. He can answer that. I understood in speaking with Abby today that it is a corporate standard of Mercedes-Benz. And I understood from her that it's important for them because I guess how a customer perceives the car is impacted by the Calvin rating that the 4,000, I guess, is a more natural viewing of the car. But I, once again, I'd have to defer to the applicant in terms of the details.

There's a photo.

And then I also believe Doug Younce on the call and he has a picture. He has a picture showing 3000 versus 4000. I missed that then. So right here, 3000, 4000. Okay. It's not in your packet. Doug Yount has a picture that he can show. Okay.

Okay. I'm just curious. Do you want to see that picture now? It's okay, because I'll look at it next time. But I just wanted to know, because I think they have been so accommodating for so many things. This is not a game changer for me. I just want to make that clear. Also, the letter from Mercedes-Benz on special events, I'm not sure what the original intent was to ask that question. However, I hope that your intent is, is to have a lot of community events and meetings. We have a few large infrastructure developments that they have been so welcome to the community, and it's been really different. Then we have some large hotels that we never know even who is the owner of it. So we have that model already in place, and it would be wonderful if Mercedes-Benz could repeat that kind of involvement with our community. So thank you so much for that. And I'll go to the next round. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Cathy. Mayor Pro Tem Visser.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you all for being here. And Guido for your presentation. And I would like to thank my co-council members for having asked all those questions when I was out. And for staff and consultants to have answered all those questions in two weeks. And I probably only need one round, Mr. Mayor, I hope. I had just one question about the vehicle delivery path. It shows a truck also going north of the entrance on Highway 1, sorry, on First Avenue. Is that only to indicate that the curve can be made if a truck gets lost and accidentally comes from the other side? Because you're only, you're planning to only come from Daivari. Yeah.

I mean, I got this from Public Works, but I'm showing them going Highway 1 southbound, exiting Lightfighter.

It's on this one, Guido, on the other one. I just noticed a little truck on First Avenue. And just to prevent any issues or any questions, I can just ask, you're not planning to come from the north on First Avenue? Only from south?

Mayor Mrakas, Okay, yes, you're paying our way with this.

And you go out that way. Yes.

Can you please come up and repeat that if you would? Yeah. So the question, can you restate the question?

Yeah, so the question is on the exhibit B vehicle delivery path, it shows a truck also on First Avenue on the north-south side of the entrance to the Mercedes.

We literally copied what we provided, you know, the plan that was provided by Guido. And just wanted to state that we have, it was designed because of the way it's, you know, it's, it's a mixed use. So, you know, doing is mixed use. There's rose medical office, there's residential at the whole time. We wanted to make sure we have a self contained not only fire lane. but we'll also be able to have it to drop off vehicles within our campus. So therefore, it disturbs the community as minimal as possible. And the way it's designed, it comes right into the street, right into a dealership, circle around, drop off their cars, come back out the other side, same way it came in. Never enters the dunes from any further.

OK, so for me, it was just confusing to see a truck there.

Yeah, it's just it's the process to get there and then it comes back out the same way and just creases its path.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Thank you. About the noise, it's good that it's spelled out. And just like Council Member Biala, I thought this can be a new standard for our city for other projects as well. So we don't have to reinvent the wheel. I personally am not concerned about the noise because the biggest or the most important neighbor of the car wars is the Mercedes dealership. And you want to sell your cars and you don't want to have noise when your customers are walking around. I've never been to a car dealership. where there's noise from. And they all have their car washes and their maintenance. And it's always in the back. You can only see what they're doing. So I'm not concerned. So same for the lights. I looked it up. Internet is so nice. So 3,000 Kelvin is a warm white light, similar to traditional incandescent bulbs. It creates a cozy and inviting atmosphere, making it ideal for living rooms, bedrooms and dining areas where relaxation is desired. We're not building a home with bedrooms here. We're building a business. And yes, so the 4000 Kelvin is a neutral white light, which you can find in bathrooms and kitchens and workspaces. This is a workspace. They will have workspaces. They want to sell cars so people can see the cars. in good light, good lighting. So I'm not concerned. This is just standard. So no problem for me there. And also for the trees, I, on purpose, now and then, I usually exit Lightfighter. But now and then, on purpose, I will drive. I'll continue on Highway 1 so I can see the site. You can see trees. We don't know exactly what you will be able to see from the building. But again, we want people to know that we have a car dealership in our town. And we want people to visit. to preferably buy a Mercedes because we need the money. But also, like was said today, if they see it, they might say, hey, we'll exit on Imgen and turn around, go to the dunes, or we stay and we'll exit on Del Monte and we'll find a great downtown. so um thank you all for having answered all those questions and i would like to i hope we can approve this and get you in as soon as possible and welcome you to our city so thank you thank you elizabeth i aired and not going to public first let's go to public now and then we'll finish council comments after public comment anyone in the room that wishes to comment please come on up

Evening Mayor, evening council members. I am speaking as myself as a resident of the Monterey Peninsula for 20 years. When I think about Mercedes right now, I literally am thinking of a tale of two cities. And I'm thinking specifically of Charles Dickens. If we go back and we look at this just today, there are two city council meetings today, City of Marina, City of Monterey. In the City of Monterey today, coming out of that meeting was a significant set of comments from the public of the $10 million in debt that that city is facing and that it may be larger. In addition to that, as a sidebar, there were a number of comments today about the loss of Mercedes to Marina. Tale of two cities. Marina, on the other hand, we do not have a large debt and we want to keep it that way as we continue to expand. The Mercedes dealer is going to provide us a tax revenue. When I think of what we have and what I have living in Marina is I have a personal legacy that I want to have for my family, for what I've achieved, for what I believe in, for the comments and things that I do. As the city council, you have to look at the legacy of the organization. The organizational legacy of the city of Marina is about the lasting influence on the culture and the business environment that we have. You have to look at that of what are we, what is Mercedes going to be bringing to our environment? They are looking at bringing $2 million potentially in tax revenue every year. That's a sustainable growth pattern. Nobody else on the peninsula has any business right now that is looking at bringing that in. When you think of a tale of two cities and you look at Monterey and where they are right now, where they are looking at moving towards and where we have the possibility to move towards, they are diametrically opposed. We should not be sitting here and worrying about multiple different things. To address a couple of small things, on the trees, A challenge of the trees is not the depth of the trees. They're four widths wide right now. We're going to move them out. They're going to be two widths less than Caltrans. The real issue you should be asking is what is the corporate agreement that you, the city of Marina, with Mercedes can make with Caltrans to maintain those trees because they look, they're a disaster. Caltrans does not maintain any of the trees along that entire stretch from seaside out to Marina. We should be looking at how can we partner to improve what the trees look like, not worrying about whether we're going to have 80 trees or 40 trees. We don't want 40 trees that look like crap. That's not going to look good for the city of Marina. So as a whole, when you're thinking about the decisions here, look at what is the legacy that you all are going to be providing to the city of Marina overall. Thank you.

Thank you, Glenn, and thank you for all your leadership at the Planning Commission. Anyone else wishing to comment, please step forward. Not seeing anyone rise, let's go online. Anybody remotely, please raise your hand. We'll get to you ASAP. Okay, not seeing anyone. We'll close public comment. Doug, do you have a couple of photos to show us?

Mr. Mayor, thank you. If you wish, I can show a photo on the lighting if you care to see that. Yes. Let me share that. Hopefully that works. You can hear me fine, Mr. Mayor?

Yes, loud and clear.

Is this photo coming up? Yes. Yeah, this should show, and I pulled this off the internet like everybody else with some AI as well. And it illustrates, and this is from a website, I believe, that's a manufacturer of lighting and distributor. And it kind of shows you the gradation in Kelvin and what's called the color temperature gradation there. Um, and I have to be careful cause I'm not a lighting expert, obviously. Um, but if you can see going from 3000 Kelvin on the left, all the way to 5,700 Kelvin, uh, the, the, as council member Vischer described, uh, you have a warmer lighting on the left and then the 4,000 Kelvin, which is the Mercedes required standard, uh, is a little bit brighter. Uh, not like a stadium you'd see on the right or a very, very bright commercial. It's a little bit warm, a little whiter, a little more natural white light, as it says in the below, but not significantly where it's overwhelming. So I think it shows well, I think, and obviously for security, for viewing vehicles, coupled with all of the dark sky requirements, it'll be a very good use and complement the Dunes project as well as

allow folks to to at nighttime operations there thank you very much doug okay uh thanks for the public comment glenn excellent comments my thoughts are first uh i applaud staff and unstoppable group i think in the last couple of weeks you've done you put a lot of time into this to bring it back and there's a lot of changes that you made. Um, I'm sorry for any aggravation we may have caused where we were expected. We were expected not to have, uh, as many objections as we voiced and maybe our comments were more, um, aggressive than, than, than, than were appreciated. And I think that's because, um, We're trying to take it seriously and we're really concerned that we don't have heartburn or buyer's remorse because we overlook something that's important to us. Glenn talked about legacy, and we don't want to be the ones that messed up the night skies. We don't want to be the ones that put football stadium-like lights that you can see for miles, whereas right now when you look to Marina, it's the dark sky, natural, non-commercialized piece of the coast if you were to look here from Monterey. And when we drive the freeway, we don't want to be looking as much like um the sand city shopping center we prefer to look like in my opinion the del monte center where it's not very obvious you're next to a huge big box and a smaller you know shopping mega shopping center but you can't see from the highway they did a great job they were lucky to have the contours that allowed them to not be seen from highway one very much and this is opposite we have mercedes-benz up high not down low like the uh the del monte shopping center but i think those of us up here that are speaking concerns are wanting this to be as muted as possible that still allow the commercial business to thrive so we're trying to find that best combination And the noise and the lighting, the size of the signs, all that is just our concerns that we get it as right as we can. And I think the opportunity to update over the last couple of weeks also gave the Unstoppable Group a few changes that they asked for minor changes but still you know they got a few changes that they hadn't asked for before and and that's good so both of us both both the the the proponent and the city were able to update some some language here that will get us closer to what what we want as far as assurance that these issues of noise lighting etc i have a question to guido the temecula sign makes a statement that the ordinance we have in our city wouldn't allow if we didn't change or have a variance or whatever you call it, if we were limited to the square footage and the height of signage in Marina that was quoted, I mean, this is not a business sign, City of Marina. This is a gateway sign. And so my question to you is, in the next few months, can you find that sweet spot where we don't have an obnoxiously large sign and we don't have such a small sign that it doesn't make a statement that we want to make, even if that statement we want to make is a little bit larger than our current ordinance square footage allows?

Yeah, so there will be a master sign program for this property. And as part of the incentive package, the council is going to retain jurisdiction over that monument sign. So it could be significantly bigger than what the sign ordinance allows because of kind of a special case. And so we will be working with the applicant. We do have to bring that back that is written into the conditions of approval.

Great. Just like visibility from Highway 1 and visibility from Monterey at night, I think the visibility of that sign hopefully is tactful and bold at the same time. It's the best we can reach that balance. And that sign will have the opportunity to also have some uh graphics if we if if the city chooses to you know like seaside has as a seahorse but you know we're not restricted to just letters it's we're restricted to what the city wants working with the Unstoppable Group to make a sign that maybe has more character than just letters. But that kind of design is to the future to decide. Is that correct? The near future?

That's correct. But we do have the condition written that it has to be done prior to occupancy. So we would want to start those conversations later.

sooner rather than later because they need to hire a sign company they need to give us some specs that we can look at we need to bring it to council get some thoughts right so that'll take a little while i mean i almost think of bianca she does such a good work with signs that i'd like to get this sign right and if text is all we want great but if there's some other symbology that we want great and i just don't know when we're going to do that but it sounds like that might be a possibility

We've been working on our gateway signs right now so we have people engaged. And so we definitely have the resources to work with the council. And we are definitely looking at more than just letters. We're looking at a sign that makes the statement of what Marina is. They will recognize not only the name of our city, but our character and our values.

That's great. The last thing, Spring Hill Suites. Thank you, Harvey and Indy and your whole family. It does an incredible job. It's a Marriott brand hotel that, um, provides events all the time, all kinds of civic events, all kinds of community events. It's an incredible example, and someone mentioned that earlier, of having special events. And the view shed from Mercedes-Benz is going to be, you know, it's going to be bar none great. And so I really look forward to the extent that we can have special events. All right. So let's go back to Councilmember McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. As my colleague Jenny McAdams often says, I can count to three, meaning there's a clear desire of a majority of this board to get this passed tonight from where I sit, that's what I'm seeing. So now I think we get into some of the details of the conditions and Mayor, I think you articulated a few that were important to you. And I'm just gonna articulate a few that I think about. The first is lighting. In terms of temperature, I agree that's a little bit of a non-issue for me. In fact, I think the VA uses something like 2700 and it's actually a little too low. It's not attractive at all. But I promise you that on day one, we will receive a lot of compliments about the dealer and we will receive a lot of complaints about the lighting. And so I'm wondering if maybe as a condition, you know, I think that we, the council, are ultimately responsible for whatever happens, both the compliments and the complaints. And so I'm just wondering if... there's room to put a condition that there needs to be a field verification report prepared by a qualified lighting professional demonstrating compliance with the standards that we this council and staff have helped create because i don't want any ambiguity that the council says on day one oh well that's not really what we said and the dealer says you know so anyway i want to put that on the record to see if there's an appetite for that um i want to make it clear that the lighting standards run with the life of the project and i to me that's pretty straightforward but to have it in writing is a step in the right direction right because lighting technology changes as we all know 10 years ago we would have never imagined um biting could exist like it does today um This one's a little bit tricky, and I would look to the city attorney, but if we wanted to make a condition that the applicant would not request Caltrans remove any additional trees or oppose the planting of additional trees on Caltrans property, is that something you think we could even do, or is there some legal challenges with that?

I think you can request that and put it in the conditions of approval whether, you know, Caltrans of its own volition goes and removes those trees for whatever reason that's on them.

Specifically that the applicant would not oppose if the city proposed replanting or caring for the existing trees that are there. I don't see any issues with that. I've got three more, Mayor. Little concerned about not having a strong complaint-driven provision to address any concerns over lighting and noise in the long term. You know, I think the step-down security is probably really great for the dealer, but I think if I live next door and I hear at 2 a.m., you know, warning, warning, get off, you know, like, as someone who served in Iraq for two years, right? Like my PTSD is already like going off, just thinking about that, right? Like, so I just want to make sure that I encourage the use of these tools that help protect your inventory, but not to the extent that we get dirty complaints down the road or whatever it is. I just want to make sure that there's a balance there, that if there's a complaint, we have some leverage to come back to the project and say, not sure that this is working how we intended or how we thought it would on day one on the dais. And the last two is just defining the security lighting language. I mean, to me, that's super ambiguous and kind of I'm struggling with that. I don't know how we do that. I don't know if we say, oh, that's two foot candles or whatever it is. And it doesn't exceed 20 or 30 percent of the project. But. I mean, if I'm the applicant, right, I just say, well, I'm a car dealer. My whole dealership needs security lighting and it's 30 foot camp, whatever it is. Right. Like, so I don't know where that gets us. And the last one that I wrote down is actually it's in line with that, eliminating some of the ambiguous and subjective language. You know, I think we use feasible and undue public nuisance. Again, this is the language that gets us in trouble all the time. Right. I was like, I feel like we don't learn our lesson, but. The least I can do is put it on the record. There you go. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Brian. And before we go to Jenny, I want to jump in and point to condition number 25 that has a lot of that yellow highlighted change language.

And on pages four and five of exhibit B,

it talks in few different paragraphs, three paragraphs, about such things as after installation, the community development director shall retain the right to require reduction in the intensity of illumination if the lighting creates any undue public nuisance. And so I think that the future city council We'll be able to talk to the community development director and say, hey, you know, this is too much. We don't want this. This is a nuisance. And the public will have the same opportunity. So if you look at that condition 25, I think to the best of staff's ability, they've added language to try to address your dark sky concerns, which I share. And so I don't know that there's any more. You know, if you look at 25, there's subparagraphs A through L, you know, that's like 10 paragraphs meant to address the night sky concerns that this council, especially you, Brian, to some extent, others have commented. I'll turn it back to Council Member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. And, you know, I understand the the request of wanting to do the voice down announcements. But then I immediately go to like the bird cannons. Right. When they're going off in the ag fields and we get a lot of of complaints or what is that noise? It's disruptive. It's waking up the neighbors. So, you know, I don't know what that looks like.

But but what is a bird cannon?

So it's in the ag fields right off of Blanco and reservation. It's just a big, loud noise that keeps the birds away. It typically happens between three and six in the morning. So when like the strawberries are there that they use, it sounds like a gun. It sounds like a cannon and it scares the birds away from eating the produce. but it wakes up neighbors and, and it's, it's very loud. And so, you know, I want to be mindful. This isn't like taps playing at 10 o'clock at night when the sun is going down, right? This is like a, you need to get off the property, whatever. So can I ask the applicant a question? I mean, how in Temecula would you mind how often or how frequently is that something that's even used? Thank you.

So it's a great question and I can understand the concern that was raised by other council members. I can tell you that I get the reports. You know, if anything goes on, I get the reports. Most nights there's absolutely nothing. We use a company called NetWatch. You're more than happy to talk to them. And we've had one report in three months in Temecula of someone at 2.30 in the morning wandering around. They still didn't do a voice down until he started going towards the parts department where there's tires that are, you know, pre-owned tires that are normally picked up and collected during the day. And at that point, they felt that he might have an interest other than just looking at cars. And so they then did the voice down. But keep in mind that the noise level is very brief. I actually use them at my personal residence too, to give you an idea, because it's such a good system. And I can tell you that the concern about the noise is definitely taken very seriously. But there's also some noise that I can hear right now from the freeway. And we're going to be even closer to the freeway from cars going by. I'd just like everybody to keep that in mind in fairness to what we're discussing and debating tonight. Thank you.

Thank you for that. So, you know, and I appreciate that. So if it's once a quarter, then that's reasonable. If it was something where it's like an integrated part of the security system, you know, I would sort of feel differently about that. You know, I am. So I am curious, though, what staff thinks, because I think, Guido, that actually came from you was to not have an over like an over silent pager. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on the on the this component?

I hear them saying that the silent pager system is still going to be carried forward and that this is really going to be used in very rare exceptions. And I think... If we get approval tonight, we can work with our police department in terms to further refine their safety and security plan in terms of whatever PD needs and the applicant needs to keep it a safe and site for the customer and for residents.

Great. Okay, thank you. And then my other concern is the Sunday deliveries. So citywide, and we do have a construction ordinance, do we allow any business or anyone else to have deliveries on Sunday and or holidays?

I've never been asked that question. I'm assuming they have deliveries on Saturday and Sunday. I've never been told otherwise.

Yeah, I have seen deliveries around on those days. So I haven't read the ordinance, but I have definitely seen deliveries all days of the week.

Okay. So, I mean, for me, I'm comfortable with, you know, including the Sundays as long as, I mean, if you wouldn't mind just making sure that, you know, we don't have an ordinance that doesn't allow that. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. Council Member Biala.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First, I want to reiterate that our city council duly approved and accepted the branding name. So I want you to feel secure about that. That's a decision of our city to accept that. I also want to say that in 55 conditions, barring any additional ones, you have agreed to all of them except three. And I just want for the public to understand what you have requested as a variance from that. The first one is, of course, we'd already talked about the 4,000 versus the 3,000 Kelvin. And B was to remove the three minute idle time of your cars on your property. I find that a little bit stringent beyond my wildest imagination. So it doesn't bother me that you ask for removal of that. And then also the security voice down announcements after hours, you've explained it exceptionally well. You're entitled to have some security other than calling 911. And something that is an emergency situation, it alerts the criminal activity that they've been noticed and that doesn't happen by silent pagers. So I have no problems with that. Also, some of the additional conditions, I'm not... in favor of adding any more to tell you the truth, because I think that you have a complaint system. And I know Mercedes-Benz has a standard of excellence, not only for their customers, but also the community you're putting your facility in. And so that's going to drive you more than anything we could be up here suggesting that we track you in some way or we see your complaints or whatever it is. I think that you run a business that has been successful and has very high standards. So I'm not really in favor of adding more. So thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Kathy. Guido, talking about security lights, this might be a question for the Unstoppable Group. is it already the case or can it be made the case that these security and not security lights, but security speakers during criminal activity or potential that they, they, they project inward toward the project, not outward where the neighborhood and the project both here, is that already the, I'd have to defer it on that.

So the, I think, speakers are on the situated on light poles and they are directed inward to where the activity is going on as opposed to towards the street there'd be no reason to address anybody out on the street because we're not parking our cars our inventory cars out on the street so we just want to make sure that The inventory is protected so we can actually also get insurance. It's kind of important to have insurance on these vehicles, typically provided by Mercedes-Benz Finance, who floor the cars, provide the flooring or they loan us the money essentially to buy the cars directly from Mercedes-Benz. It's a requirement to have insurance. It's a requirement to have security. We're very sensitive to noise and to affecting or impacting our neighbors because we're hoping that someday there's a Mercedes-Benz in everyone's driveway. That's not just a commercial. That's a reality. That's what we're here for.

So I was thinking speakers on your buildings projecting east and north, which could be heard offsite, versus speakers on your perimeter projecting west and south, which would be less obstructing to the neighbors. Right.

There should not be any speakers on the building per se. The speakers will be on the light poles. And so we don't have speakers that are projecting outward that way at all from our buildings because it wouldn't look very good on that beautiful building that we're going to spend a little bit of money on.

All right. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, so I'd like to take a shot at a motion, having held a public hearing, that we adopt our resolution before us for the approval of the tree removal, 44 trees, and of the design review permit in support of the new car dealership at First Avenue. and that we find environmental impacts from the recommended action have been previously reviewed. And thirdly, I'd like to put in my motion that all of the changes we've seen that are listed in Exhibit B be approved for tonight. That's the end of my motion. Is there a second?

Mr. Mayor, can we use the motions that... Guido provided for us two separate motions, one for the tree removals.

Linda can pull up the draft motions.

Might make it easier.

One's for the tree removal permit. One is for the design review permit. And it incorporates by reference some of the conversations we've had tonight.

Okay. I'll just modify my motion to incorporate by reference the slides we had that itemize the recommended motion.

I second, and I'd like to just, because I'm reading this for the first time, is there something about accepting the 4,000 Kelvin in this motion?

I have.

Nope, go back. That was in Exhibit B. Actually, it's right there. it's it's in the if you look at uh number i'm blind so number five i just said incorporated by reference the staff report and the uh recommended edits made by the council tonight so okay so that includes that so i second the motion all right uh any final comments anyone

Can I make a friendly amendment? Sure. So I'd like to amend to your motion that we use motion one and numbers one through six, and that would be on slide 16, or this slide here, and then for motion number two, items one through seven. How's that? Just to be a little more specific.

That's great. That clarifies the motion. Thank you. I'll accept that. Second hold, Kathy?

Yes.

All right. Council Member McCarthy?

Thank you, Mayor. So what I'm hearing from maybe some commentary, but what I'm hearing from the dais is that we aren't worried about this definition of security lighting. And where's the camera? I should look into this because I know there's going to be an issue right in a couple of years. So I just want to make sure I'm on the record. But we're not worried about this issue of security lighting or being overly bright because we've kind of manipulated what security lighting is. Is it the whole project? Is it 10%? Is it 20%? Okay. I'm hearing we're not worried about the Caltrans right away trees, whether they're cut, whether they go, or whether more planted, whether less are planted. And we're not worried about some of the ambiguous language about extent feasible, undue public nuisance, things like that, right? So my suggestion would be to address those three things in the motion. But if a majority of the dais is saying that they're not worried about it, it doesn't really matter what it is, right? So... um i'll go ahead and make the suggestion that we add uh language that we allow staff to define security lighting um to any whatever level they think is is reasonably appropriate right i'm thinking somewhere between 20 and 35 percent of the project um that we request as part of this project that the applicant not oppose any caltrans removal um of trees and that they don't sorry that they I don't think I said that right but they would not oppose any planting of trees on Caltrans property and that they would not oppose or initiate any removal of additional trees and I'll leave the piece about public nuisance and ambiguous language out of it but I would I would ask those two things

Okay. Uh, I'd like to accept their friendly amendment that the way I'll wrote it is that the, uh, the city work with Caltrans to maintain the abundance and cover of trees in as healthy a condition as possible and not to reduce tree coverage, if at all possible. Does the second hold?

I'm sorry, no, I don't think that we we we have any, any relevance to the Mercedes project. And it's not something that they are responsible for. I don't think we should combine that in this motion. Sorry, Mr. Mayor, but I, I wouldn't second window.

Okay. So the second doesn't hold on that. We might be able to work with that in a few minutes. Brian, can you – I didn't – the 20% to 35%, I didn't understand.

Yeah, so there's this language, right, and staff correct me if I'm wrong, that there's these lighting standards, but the lighting standards don't apply to security lighting. What does that mean, right? So my – ask is that we define security lighting so there's no ambiguity because otherwise the lighting standards are mute because if i'm the applicant i'm a car dealership my whole project is security lighting so i can light everything as much as i want right but i think in some uh ordinances they say well the security lighting is you know 15 of the project where the cars are out kind of out in front of the dealer right um

Okay. Can I can I get I'm what what part of condition 25? Are you saying that? Let's see. I'm not because a condition of approval 25 subsection J. Page six says All exterior lighting will be controlled by automatic timers or photo cells. It says non-security lighting, including vehicle display lighting, shall be reduced or turned off after hours, except for minimal lighting standards for site safety and security.

So that's his point. What is non-security and what is security lighting?

Okay. And without designing from the dais to help out the council, you could add a sentence that says security lighting to the extent minimally needed for safety and security in consultation with the chief of police or some, I mean, they know their business better, better than I do. And the applicant knows their bits. That could be some language for the council. Because the police will implement their SEPTED principles, community design principles to keep the property safe. And they know that better than I do. So that's a suggestion for the council.

Okay. So Brian, what are you thinking?

Yeah, I mean, I'm just, again, the ambiguity is just where I'm struggling with. And I understand that gives staff the most flexibility, and I can appreciate that. But I think as policymakers, we have a responsibility to give staff clear direction about what we're looking for. And there's a huge disconnect, I think, between maybe what I'm thinking and what I don't know the future holds, right? And so...

So, Brian, you would just like staff to work out with Unstoppable Group the definition of security and non-security lighting.

That's right. And I think the model ordinance that I had previously mentioned does that, right, in some way, I think. And don't quote me on it, but I think it says, like, 20 or 30 percent of the frontage or something.

This is the Calabasas example? Okay. So, Kathy, you're not amendable to that definition.

Well, I think the language that Guido just said, I could accept. And you're saying that you have to depend on the police chief to understand some of the security issues, which is fine. I think that's good. Randy. Okay. So I'll accept. I think you can do that.

I'll accept that friendly amendment. Kathy, can you, is your second hold?

Yes, it does.

Thank you. And Guido, can you read that one more time or put it up on the screen or come back in a few minutes? If you want some time to put it together.

uh yeah i would just say subsection j of condition of approval 25 would be rewritten just to say except for the minimal lighting standard necessary for site and safety and security per input from the applicant and the chief of police okay

um regarding their tree friendly amendment that wasn't uh accepted i i'm sorry to do this but that's not my friendly amendment so i don't i just want to my friendly and then what is the minimum i guess like what's the minimal amount if it's that much of a right like a science like just tell me what it is i'm sorry what is your question what's the minimal amount

don't know council member that's why i'm saying i need to consult with the chief of police and the applicant in terms of what's their business model is the 4 000 calvins appropriate does the chief of police agree with the septet principles in terms of where is the lighting standard in terms of to keep their product safe without having a bunch of break-ins from potential vandals i i can't answer that question for you i'm not i'm not a lighting i'm not a law enforcement expert

Excuse me, Guido. Let's go to city manager for input.

I don't think we'll be able to get the objective that you want. I think as they design it and work with their consultants and our staff, they're going to identify the dark areas where they need the light, where they can step it down. So I don't think you can do that until it's actually built and working with our staff, working with the police chief, and working with their team on it.

Okay. And so I guess to the mayor, I would just say, I mean, I don't think that's enough to get me to a yes vote. You know, if others want to drink that Kool-Aid and think that there's not a reasonable amount of lighting, I mean, we're not the first dealer in a country of 50 states that has kind of tried to tackle this issue. You know, it is what it is. But to me, it's pretty simple. I mean, we do lighting standards and housing developments. We do lighting standards and business developments. And there's there's minimum amounts that we can define. And that's where I'm at.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Brian. And what you just read, would we have a definition of security and non-security?

Not at this time, Mayor. Okay. But so just to provide some context, because coming from another city that had a lot of crime issues that I worked in for 12 years, I worked really closely with the police department there. They had very rigorous standards for septet principles. You know, bushes had to be kept a certain height. Light had to be a certain brightness. I mean, there's a whole area of, and the chief can speak to this more than I can in terms of what police departments can do to keep communities and commercial development safe and I I can't speak to all of it but I mean that we can certainly work through some exacting standards to keep it safe for the customer and for the uh for the community okay well let's move on so we have a motion on the floor with one amendment to it that was uh

prompted by Councilman McCarthy, but it was really crafted by staff and accepted by myself and Councilmember Villala. Now let's go to other folks. Councilmember McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm looking at the Calabasas guidelines or standards, and they have a lighting curfew that speaks to minimum security lighting. All display lighting shall be extinguished by 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday by 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. And after curfew, lighting shall be reduced to security only levels not exceeding two foot candles average across the site. So clearly they have addressed it. And again, like we're not the first car lot in the world. So, I mean, I don't think that it would be a burden to get this defined.

Excuse me, Jenny, the exact language you just read is in paragraph A on page five under condition 25.

Okay.

It's been added in the last couple of weeks.

Including the two foot candle average? Yep.

If you look at page five of exhibit B, number 25, paragraph A.

But doesn't define security lighting, right?

No, but it's a quote of what Jenny just read.

And you did provide this, right? So, I mean, staff took exactly what you.

He referred to Calabasas, and I think they probably pulled this from there.

Okay, so it is addressed then.

I didn't pull exactly from the calendar. I mean, I pulled from several, you know, you asked me to do research. I did quite a bit of research. So these are lighting standards from a lot of different sources. But to answer your question, Councilmember McAdams, there are specific flood candle requirements. That's the subsection G. Okay.

And in A, it says no more than a two light candle average for the property. And then G that he just referenced, I haven't looked at it. It talks about an average foot candle of 0.5 and a maximum of 1.0 foot candles. So there's a different couple of different metrics there, paragraph A and paragraph G.

I mean, I think for me, I really want this to be a unanimous yes. And I know that sometimes we have to hold our nose and vote. And I just, you know, I until we see it, nobody's going to know. Right. We can say whatever and put whatever on. I mean, but until we really see it, we're not going to know. And I think at that time and I would be hopeful with hearing how you are going to be good partners. If there is a problem, we will figure it out collaboratively, you know, and I just I really want to encourage that. This be a unanimous vote from the dais.

Thank you. Any more input, Brian or Jenny? No, Mayor. Mayor Pro Tem Fisher?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for trying to get all the details spelled out, Council Member McCarthy. But I think we also need to trust when the applicants say they will be a good neighbor. And if there are issues, it's not good for their business if there are complaints that are not being resolved. And this is a building that will be built. We don't have any building like that in our city yet. And other applicants like Audi or others might be interested in the neighboring lots and they see what we're doing, what we are requiring. So let's say move forward with the 55 conditions. We're almost like the Coastal Commission here. And let's get it built and welcome them. And if there are any issues, I trust that we can get that resolved. And let's start selling Mercedes cars to everybody. So thank you.

Do they have electric bikes? No, just kidding. Council Member Villala?

Yes, we do. Other than calling for the question.

Okay. I think we're pretty much there. So the only thing we're not getting is... Tree language, additional, such as Brian. And I think that that's a planning commission tree committee issue, maintaining Caltrans trees, what to do with Caltrans trees. I don't think Caltrans trees has to be part of tonight because it's not part of the project. It has to do with trusting the city and Caltrans to work together to keep Iowa 1 looking as good as it can and better than it probably does now, as Glenn described. So I think we're almost there. Even if we don't have unanimous vote, I think we've done a pretty good job of trying to make this as good as we can. Brian McCarthy, you're going to have the last word. Maybe Council Member Riala.

I'm sorry, if I call for the question, there's no discussion.

Okay, so if you call for the question, we have to vote on whether we want to end discussion. So all in favor of ending discussion and going to a vote, please say aye.

Was there a second for the call for question? All second.

Please say aye.

Aye.

Whether to call the question or not, if you want to call the question, please say aye.

Aye.

All opposed? Aye. Okay. All opposed, please say no.

No.

No. I'm almost never in favor because I want to hear people's thoughts. All right. Let's go to Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. A couple quick things and I'll keep it short, but I do want to just for the edification of people on the dice that may not know that there's a long history of residents of Marina planting trees in the Caltrans right away, particularly the Monterey Cypress, the Marina Tree and Garden Club. It's a big part of, I believe, who Marina is. And so for those who may be newer to the city might not understand all that history, I just wanted to kind of put that out there to both the diocese and the applicant. I'll be voting no on this, and really this is less about the partnership with Mercedes. I am incredibly excited, and you've got the vote, so it doesn't matter what I think. I think that as I articulated at the beginning of this hearing, this particular project was an opportunity for the city of Marina to really think about how we had objective standards, how that when we get noise complaints from a different business, let's not even talk about Mercedes for a second. And by the way, you missed it at our last meeting, we had a room full of folks that were complaining about a different business and noise standards. And we struggled with it, right? Because our language is super subjective. We say, you know, If it's jazz, we don't say this, right? But if it's jazz music, maybe it's not offensive. But if it's R&B, you know, who knows, right? But like, how do we craft something that makes sense? And for me, this doesn't quite get us there as I was hoped. So I'll be a no, but I really appreciate the work that my colleagues on the dais have done to get us where we are. And I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mary.

You're welcome. Thank you. All right. All in favor of the motion, please say aye.

Aye.

All opposed, please say no. No. All right. Thank you, everyone. That motion passes 4-1. Councilman McCarthy voting no. To staff, to the unstoppable group, Gary, Garth, and Ken, thank you so much for being here in person. Really appreciate it. Good job, everyone. It's a big project. I'm glad we're there.

I've got one more item after that. Yeah.

Okay. Bringing up the planning commission's denial of a conditional use permit for Del Monte Boulevard engine parkway drive-through lane. And who's going to lead us through that? Is that Guido? No.

That would be me. I'll be leading it. I'm Brad Evanson with Regional Government Services. And with everyone's permission, I'll go ahead and share my screen.

Just to introduce Brad. Brad is from RGS. The whole time I've been with the city, RGS has been providing staff support for the Dunes. He's been instrumental in helping get a lot of projects through. He provides me additional capacity. So he had capacitated his schedule to take on Harvey's gas station. And so just wanted to extend that welcome to him and to the council. I don't believe it's met Brad.

Welcome, Brad. Good evening.

Good evening. Okay. So we are here for the appeal of the Planning Commission's denial for the Conditional Use Permit 26-00002 for the proposed drive-thru lane associated with the gas station car wash and convenience store at the northwest corner of Del Monte slash 2nd Avenue and Imgen Parkway. And There we go, now it's working. The project site here at the corner, as you can see, now it's working. It's a little bit over an acre of site consisting of a couple of different parcels within the larger 13-acre development site that will ultimately consist of some hotel space, restaurants, and other commercial entertainment as potential proposed uses. General plan, it's multiple use. The zoning, it's within the University Village's specific plan for multiple use MU. The site and architectural design review was approved by the Planning Commission in December 2023 for the 12-pump gas station, 5,000 square foot convenience store, and the car wash. There was a lot line adjustment done in 2024 to revise the property line between the gas station site and the hotel site. um to uh accommodate a shift of the building to uh improve the site circulation and uh this is the site plan that was approved in 2023 um by and large things are the same as for tonight's proposal with the exception of everything is shifted a little bit further west to accommodate the drive-through lane and there's a few fewer ev charging station parking spots The developer has determined.

Excuse me, Evan. Brad, sorry. Can you go back one slide?

Sure.

What are those approximately eight rectangular dark squares? Down here?

Yeah. These are vacuum stations for the car wash.

Thank you.

OK, so again, the developer and if Harvey's here, I'm sure he will explain some of the rationale. He has stated that he thinks that a fast food drive through restaurant operation would be a good complement to the site to help with fluctuating revenues, as we all see what has happened with demand and pricing for gasoline and the rise of EVs. So that is something that the applicant has decided would be something that would be a benefit to the overall site. The drive-through lane would start at the north elevation of the building and then wrap around to the west side of the building. There's approximately nine or ten stacking spaces for cars. Vehicles would exit at the southwest corner of the building and would either proceed through to the driveway exit onto Imgen, where then they can go north or southbound on Highway 1, or they would turn left out of the drive-through lane and go back towards the gas car wash parking area where they can then exit onto breakwater and proceed to out ultimately to eastbound Imgen or down Second Avenue. The convenience store has been reconfigured internally to create a restaurant space within an area that had been previously designated as office and storage space. exterior modifications to the building are minor they include minor reconfiguration of the east elevation doors to the restaurant space and the addition of a drive-through window on the west elevation the drive-through lane will result in the loss of six parking stalls but it still provides more than the required amount of parking per the uh uvsp and the marina municipal code and what was proposed to the planning commission is this uh as you can see the the basic configuration is very similar to what was uh approved by the planning commission in 2023 with the obvious addition of the drive-through lane and reduction of a couple of parking spaces there on the western edge everything has shifted or would shift with all of this and uh one of the conditions that we are looking at is because the property lines are now out of out of alignment again we would have a condition that the applicant process another lot line adjustment to bring things back into appropriate alignment here's a closer detail of the drive-through you can see the convenience store building you can see how it wraps around here this box right here for anyone's curiosity is transformer box serving the EV charging stations down here and You can see the exit down here for the drive-through. This is a pedestrian walkway that comes from the parking area over here into the covered patio area outside the restaurant. And there's an access door to the restaurant from the patio. And then there's one around here on the east elevation of the building. Here are the elevations. They're very similar to what was approved back in 2023. The materials and colors and finishes are all the same. The legend boards are the legend keys on the plans are still the same same material sets and everything. Slate deviations from Where exactly where the coverage goes based on changing of windows and that sort of thing but by and large The look and the feel of the building should still be very similar to what the Planning Commission approved in 2023 At the Planning Commission meeting MST did express concerns that riders at the bus stop on Imgen needed to have a clear path to the convenience store and uh there were concerns expressed regarding just site circulation in general nighttime noise from the drive-through and the drive-through capacity the planning commission did vote 5-2 to deny the conditional use permit and the applicant has appealed it in accordance with marina municipal code section 17.70.040 and that authorizes the city council to conduct a de novo public hearing which is effectively a new public hearing uh in addition to the specifics of the appeal the city council may consider any addition any additional issue related to the subject of the appeal And the council has the ability to affirm, affirm in part or reverse the action of the Planning Commission that is the subject of the appeal based on their findings of fact about the case. Council may adopt additional conditions of approval that may address other issues or concerns than just the subject of the appeal. And since the Planning Commission's approval of the design review, the applicant has made several minor revisions to the project. This project is actively under construction. uh these minor revisions include uh at first there was a reconfiguration of the interior to consolidate office storage space at the southern end of the convenience store building originally it had been a couple of individual office spaces located throughout the interior of the building but mainly it was a wide open convenience store they consolidated the office space down at one end via the lot line adjustment the building was shifted approximately five feet to the west and five feet to the south to facilitate better on-site circulations prior to the inclusion of the drive-through lane and landscape and hardscape along the northern elevation uh adjacent to breakwater avenue breakwater street thank you breakwater street um that has been revised several times to accommodate a retaining wall to deal with the grade difference from the street surface down to the parking lot surface In 2023, several project configurations were considered for traffic and circulation assessment, ultimately arriving at a overall project area for that whole site cluster of 300 hotel rooms, 29 single-family residences, 12 gas pumps, nearly 5,000-square-foot convenience store with no drive-through, and a single-tunnel car wash. And approving the site design review in 2023, the Planning Commission imposed the following two specific requirements. First, they requested that direct access from the future hotel parking area to the Imgen Parkway driveway was to be eliminated. They didn't want to have all of the hotel traffic slogging up that particular access and bypassing the lights to get onto Imgen. So the Planning Commission requested that that be added as a requirement to eliminate that access And then also within one year of operations commencing on site, a traffic and circulation impact assessment will be conducted specifically to be determined or specifically to determine whether the engine driveway should remain, be altered or be eliminated. And in preparation for the appeal, the applicants traffic engineer has prepared a supplemental traffic and circulation assessment of the site dated May 4th, 2026. It is attached to the staff report packet. And this was peer-reviewed by the city's on-call traffic engineer, Kimley Horn, whose report dated May 27, 2026, identified the following additional measures to improve circulation on-site. First was to add a condition restricting potential drive-through operators to be, quote, low-demand operations, such as a Taco Bell or a Subway, as opposed to the monster demand of a Chick-fil-A or an In-N-Out or a Starbucks or a Dutch Brothers. They also, the traffic engineer's peer review also requested that a mountable curb or a BOTS dot island should be added to the Imgen Parkway driveway, and this will be shown on the next slide, to better manage traffic on and off of Imgen while allowing drive-through traffic the flexibility to return to the parking lot to exit back onto Breakwater and then ultimately onto eastbound Imgen. And as you can see from the blue line there, that's what it was requested. The mountable curb is to provide a little bit of flexibility for larger truck traffic that may need to turn tight to bounce over the island a little bit. But generally, it's to provide visual and Braille guidance, for lack of a better term, to drivers entering and exiting to make sure they stay in their own lane. While it's still, because of where it cuts off, it still provides the ability for drive-through traffic to turn left coming out of the drive-through lane and then re-enter the gas station site so they can access the exit at breakwater. uh the city's on-call traffic engineer also expressed concerns about eastbound traffic on breakwater not being able to make a u-turn tight enough to enter the drive-through lane their suggestion was to post a no right turn or no right u-turn sign by the driveway from breakwater with the idea that vehicles looking to enter the drive-through under those circumstances such as coming from the future hotels could circulate through the gas station site to align themselves more properly under the drive-through lane, such as like driving down the parking lot, wrapping around the gas pumps and then crossing back in that way. And as you can see here, The turning movements, as described by Kimley Horn, unless the car is probably something tiny like a Mini Cooper that can make a really tight U-turn, probably would not be able to make that U-turn. And hence, to post on just before the entrance to the driveway, the no right U-turn with the idea that then traffic would proceed into the parking lot. wrap around the gas canopy and then come in around the east side of the gas canopy and then the north to line up to the drive-through lane and enter that way in addition to the conditions imposed by the planning commission in 2023 additional conditions of approval have been proposed should the council overturn the denial and approve the conditional use permit some of these include The required traffic and circulation study of the Imogen Parkway driveway within one year of operations would be broadened to include assessment of circulation on the entire site, including the drive-through operations, a traffic study acceptable to the city and the Marina Police Department about Imgen Parkway in the vicinity of the gas station and whether the Imgen Parkway driveway should remain or not. This would be kind of an expansion of it that we would also bring police, Marina police in to give some input on the actual traffic they observe in terms of accidents and conflicts and things like that. So those are some additional conditions. um the applicant uh shall also prepare a comprehensive signage and striping plan for the site including directional signage directing traffic to engine parkway highway one and directing traffic to the breakwater second avenue exit so that they can access eastbound engine as well as paths that travel from the sidewalk and the bus stop on engine parkway Bollards are being required between the drive-through and the western parking area. There is a provision for a rolled curb there for utility service trucks to access the transformer that serves the EV parking, the EV charging stations. They need to have access with that and to prevent random weirdos from driving over the road curb and trying to like game the system in the morning and just shoot the line to get out without having to sit through the traffic at the lighted engine. We would put bollards there to prevent people from driving over the road curb and using the drive through as an early exit or early exit point. The applicant shall also submit confirmation of turning movement functionality in and out of all the on-site service areas. This is something Public Works suggested through the National Association of Transportation Officials, their industry standards for that. And the applicant shall submit an updated lot line adjustment application package for the site to ensure that all operations for this particular project for this particular operation are located entirely within their parcel and not within the hotel parcels. uh we did receive some some questions from council uh one one question and this is something that i've wondered about as well is it second avenue or del monte boulevard and um generally i've tried to do a second avenue slash del monte uh be consistent through that uh if the consent if the city's consensus uh from the leadership uh is the uh second avenue is the street that we're going to use then uh all future project references would note that um question was asked if the restaurant tenant has been identified the tenant has not yet been identified but as noted earlier we are requiring a condition of approval that the tenant be a quote low demand operation such as a taco bell or a subway in earlier conversations with the applicant they did say that the low demand operators such as taco bell or subway They can operate with 10 or fewer stacking spaces in the drive-thru, but the larger, more intensive ones, such as a Chick-fil-A or an In-N-Out, they need 20 plus stacking spaces in their drive-thrus, and that's why you see a lot of them that have the double lane stack, and there's just no way to make that work here. So functionally, from what the applicant has said, they are unlikely to get interest from a high demand operator because the space isn't sufficient to what their needs would be. But we still have the condition of approval as a requirement. A question was also asked. What happens if the restaurant operator, the restaurant tenant changes? And as is the case with California planning law, the conditional use permit and its conditions do run with the land. So if a tenant, if one restaurant goes out and another one comes in, they will still be subject to all of the conditions, all the requirements, all of the limitations and regulations. So there should be no concerns from that sense. The on-site signage and striping plan will require directional signage for westbound Imgen Highway 1 and access eastbound Imgen Parkway. That was a question of can we make sure? That was actually a brilliant question that no one should have ever thought of as we were going through this to have directional signage to point people to the different ways to get back on Imgen knowing that westbound Imgen gives you no option but to be emptied onto highway one so uh this is something that we have included as a requirement in the signage and striping plan and that um question was asked if there was going to be proper uh bicycle and pedestrian pathways uh to the convenience store and yes we would have included that requirement in the uh signage and striking plan detail and in accordance with marina municipal code section 17.58.040 With the conditions of approval in Exhibit B, the proposed drive-through lane at a previously approved gas station convenience store and car wash will not be detrimental to the health, safety, peace, morals, comfort, and general welfare of persons residing or working in the neighborhood of the proposed drive-through lane, nor will it be detrimental or injurious to the property and improvements in the neighborhood or to the general welfare of the city. These are the findings. This is the finding of fact that must be made to approve a conditional use permit. And then for CEQA, on May 31st, the city certified the EIR for the University Village's specific plan, including making all the required findings and determinations and adopting the mitigation monitoring and reporting program. Drive-through lanes are not referenced in the UVSP. As such, the UVSP defers specifically to the zoning ordinance, which finds that drive-through lanes are conditionally permitted within the commercial districts of the city, hence why we have on ahead and uh process this as a conditional use permit it's the it's not a case of the uvsp list them as prohibited uses where the uvsp is silent on something then we defer back to the zoning ordinance and that's what we've done here And the planning department has thus determined that as condition, the project will not result in new significant environmental impacts or effects or a substantial increase in the severity of significant impacts and effects previously identified in the UBSP EIR. And excuse me, there are two courses of action the council can consider. After I take a drink of water. The first would be a motion to approve the appeal of the Planning Commission's denial of CUP 260002 to establish a drive-through lane at the previously approved gas station convenience store and car wash located at the northwest corner of Indian Parkway and 2nd Avenue. Subject to the presented findings and conditions of approval and defined this action was adequately addressed in EIR number 2004-091167 certified for the University Villages specific plan. The other course of action would be a motion to deny the appeal and uphold the Planning Commission's denial of conditional use permit CUP 26-00002 to establish the drive-through lane at the previously approved gas station convenience store in Carwash, located in the northwest corner of Injun Parkway and 2nd Avenue. And with that, staff is available if you have any questions.

Thank you. That was great, Brad. Really appreciate that thorough presentation. Let's go to public here. No, I'm sorry. Let's go to the project proponent. Should you wish to give up to 10 minutes of comment?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council members. As I have said many times that I never planned to do a gas station here. It does not look, it does not go with the result, eco result. Eco and gas station does not complement each other. But according to the general plan, and I was forced by Shea Homes as well, because that was the condition I have to have built a gas station. So now there's one thing I never like to do it because I'm building a, I knew that from day one, my plan was to build a eco resort and then the gas station does not make any sense. But now I was kind of forced to do that. It's a big investment I made and I'm trying to do the best whatever I can to make it feasible. And at the same time, also providing car chargers so that it still looks like it's just not a gas. There's something else as well. As you know, the gas is a dying business. It's going every day, slow and slow. I do have a gas station in Mohandere, and that I see about 30% decline in the gas. So I know that, so that we will keep thinking what work can we do. So I have a lender who financed this project. They put a condition that Now I'm proposing fast food. Anything can be done like a fast food or bring a healthy option or whatever. So far, I have not seen any interaction that somebody really likes to come down there. Usually, people don't like to eat at gas station. unless it's on the highway, kind of highway 5, just quick grab and go. But as gas is shrinking, so I see adding something in a small space is only 1,664 square feet. There won't be any big franchisor. It will be very small. Like me, if nobody come, I will put a subway there. Or like a Taco Bell is already there. All the options, I mean, in downtown area, Marina. And on the other side, we have a lot of food already in the dunes area. So that's why I have not seen anyone who's looking for to come down there. And when we talk about Chick-fil-A or something bigger, no, they just like to have two, at least couple acre, much bigger and bigger drive-through and much lot more parking. But anyway, that's... So now, because as a gas is shrinking, so I'm thinking that to offset that, I can have something. Right now, I don't have anybody, like I said, but if somebody come, it will kind of offset that revenue. And I think overall, there will be balance out and the city will also make revenue, I mean, on the sales tax. So this is not only me. From my end, my kind of how to survive, how to make bank payments. On the other hand, the city will make whatever they lose from the gas. They have some sale tax coming from this side. So when I had this traffic engineer, that's what he said that convenience store Because the convenience store, it was kind of, I think, by 4,200 or 4,300 square feet before that. Now it's 3,000. So convenience store, the offering we were going to make, now there will be a lot less offering. So now we are bringing the food on the other side. So kind of, I don't see there will be any traffic increase. So it pretty much balances out whatever we have. We will be in the beginning, or we'll be at the end. And also, same time, there is a lot of conditions already on the gas stations, on the engine. So I see, because if there will be any issue, I'm a partner with the city. I'm a good citizen, as everybody knows that. If there's any issue, I voluntarily close that exit. That's what I'm saying publicly here because I know that police will monitor if there's an accident or anything else happens. I understand that. Then I will see, okay, that's not because my families also drive from there. They also use that. So that's all I like to see. If any question, I'm available to answer.

Okay, let's ask any questions at this time of the project on it. Harvey Dodwell and Councilmember McCarthy, you have any questions or you want to hold off?

Don't think I have my light on, but I do have a quick question more for staff. The applicant mentioned, and I think it's just probably good for the public and the record to understand that they didn't even really want to build these facilities on that site, but they were forced into it. Could you add some, if you're in a position to help explain what that means for us?

I don't have the details of their purchase agreement between them and Shea, so I really can't comment on that.

Okay. So it wasn't a city, maybe then to the applicant, I don't know. I don't want to put you in an awkward position if you're not comfortable talking about it, that's fine. But I think the public would be curious and kind of better understanding the secret sauce that, you know, had kind of led you down this path of building this particular use.

When I bought this land, it was in the condition that I have to have built gas station, car wash, convenience store.

And you bought the land from the developer, Shay. So I guess I'll just, in my words, you know, this is a situation where it sounds like the developer wanted a certain look and feel, a certain development to occur.

And that's why that is happening.

Yeah, I can comment that the specific plan did call for a gas station, and they were planning for it. Initially, it was Kitty Corner where Montage went in, and so I do know the developer was planning in alignment with the specific plan, and it was Kitty Corner across on the property we're talking about right now. Thank you. Thank you.

Harvey, we saw some questions. It's my understanding that you wanted to put a sit down restaurant that was nice as a compliment to a very nice hotel. But in order to control the property and buy the property, you had to agree in writing You could not put a sit-down restaurant. You had to put a gas station instead. Is that true? That's correct. So if we were to be privy to the agreement language with which you purchased the property, it would show that you were not allowed to put a sit-down restaurant. You had to put a gas station. That's correct. Okay. Harvey, this is the first time I've looked at the designs since Friday. I mean, I haven't looked at the designs of this project until this agenda packet came out.

Does this project work at all if there's no egress, ingress from...

It definitely will be a lot less business. uh that's what i'm sorry harvey business wise it's better to have a ingress egress from imaging it's a convenience because when you see all is called convenience store so convenience per customer likes to have a convenience so they can have a both both side ingress and egress from the stop light and from the imaging so what happens actually you know i believe helpful because now the traffic not everybody has to go through the stop line. They use the breakwater because the traffic is, people are going to use highway one, north or south. They will use, they can use easily. They can make a right turn. So there won't be that much like stacking on the breakwater or on the second avenue. So I think it will be much helpful in reality.

All right. Thank you, Harvey. The rest of my questions are for staff. Thank you. But to staff, because I worked for many years at that intersection of Del Monte, I'm so sorry, Imogen Parkway and Second Avenue, I've always had trouble turning from Second Avenue onto Imogen Parkway between Highway 1 and Second Avenue. to go north or south, especially if I want to go south, because then I've got to weave to the left-hand lane from the right-hand lane. You have to be really careful. Couldn't imagine today's circumstance if you added two driveways between Second Avenue and Highway 1, because those cars coming in and out, especially the cars coming out, you have to make a right-hand turn across two lanes really fast to go south on that on-ramp southbound to Monterey. It's right now kind of a mess, and I don't look forward ever to navigating it. When there's a lot of traffic, it's worse. Adding two driveways is not, in my opinion, going to maintain or increase safety.

what is your thought and the police chief's thought on the safety aspect of adding those two driveways well through the chair well brad just real quick um we do have frederick who did the peer review of the traffic study he probably would be better apt to answer some of those great questions um and then we can take it from there mayor thank you very much yes fred i'm sorry i forgot you were here you're definitely the one i'd want to hear from the most here

Thank you. Good evening, Council. So it's a great question. So it will be one driveway, so right in, right out. They will not be allowed to get another driveway further down. There's access control from Caltrans on that adjacent parcel where the hotel would be. So the right in, right out was proposed on the very first site plan. It is is not ideal because an additional driveway causes more friction. But for the feasibility of the gas station, I think that driveway is very important.

So, Frederick, my question was, will safety be maintained or increased or will it be decreased with the addition of what looks like two driveways? They have a bollard between them, but you can be turning right, go in. You can be turning right to come out. That's right. So people navigating that segment have to watch out for both. If you make it past the right hand in, you've got to be looking for the right hand out.

Yes.

So what happens to safety on the engine parkway? Does it go up, down, or stay the same with the addition of this two-way driveway?

You're introducing additional conflict points, right, because vehicles slow down to get in, and then you have vehicles coming out. I cannot say that it's going to be less safe, but you are introducing more conflict points for vehicles.

So safety up, down, or the same?

If there were more crashes, right, it would be worse.

Okay. And I'm sorry I asked this question before going to public comment, so I'll end there. Do you mind if we go to public comment? Because I blew it again. Yeah, go ahead.

I thought on the agenda we were only looking at the drive-through lane. It's a de novo deal. But I think only for the drive-through, not for the driveway. For the driveway, yeah.

okay yeah all right thank you because it kind of relates to the drive-through if we're going to add more cars coming in now let's go to public comment starting with people that are here and i'm sorry i jumped the gun coming back to the dice anyone present want to speak to this comment please come forward not seeing anyone let's yeah come on up then again i i'm going to speak i'm not going to speak to many things but i'm going to speak to the traffic pattern security

when we, as a planning commission, made a decision without getting into discussions or speaking on my own, what went through our heads was the concept of what is safety and what does it mean? And that was why we asked for a condition to be put on the development to have a traffic survey done after the first year. And I think I'll leave that as my comment. But that explains why we actually put that into it as a condition. And that still holds.

Thank you much. Thank you, Glenn. Anyone else in person before we turn it over to online? All right, let's turn it over to online and go to Christina Medina-Dirksen. Welcome, Christina.

Thank you, council members and mayor and staff. I want to speak in support of the applicant for a number of reasons. I've been watching that corner unfold and I am looking forward to having more options out there in the sense of he's not asking for too much but when you think about what's happening there you've already have cars that are driving through in and out for the car for the car wash and you also have them there for the gas station and as we know gas you know gas uses where i've got an electric car so adding a drive through there would be very convenient for people traversing that area, people wanting to grab something quick and, you know, hearing the full story that he really didn't want to have to put a gas station there. It speaks to, you know, his willingness to, you know, put something there that could contribute to our tax base. Aside from his, maybe it's a little off topic, but I do have a question about whether that intersection at any point Caltrans will be improving. I remember there was talk that it's on them to improve that bridge and the traffic flow. And I do know that traffic projections had been uh figured uh for as the area grew so i guess a couple questions might i say is are there future improvements and secondly um if there were traffic um provisions would a drive-through really add that much more uh traffic to it so that's all i have to say thank you staff and everybody who is there thank you thank you very much christina let's go to grace silva santella welcome back grace

Hello, Mayor and City Council. Listening to Mr. Dahl speak tonight, I'm sorry for the predicament he's in, but I strongly want to urge you to remember the presentation you had earlier this evening about from the CSUMB student and professor about what kind of community we want to be. Many years ago when I served on the Marina Planning Commission, I had a long conversation with a former planner we had, Jim Felton, and I lamented that Marina, Central Marina at that time, we had yet to develop the former Fort Ord land, had so many drive-throughs. We were about to go through the public hearings for the Jack in the Box at Delmonian Reservation Road, and what could we do to stop, that we didn't need any more drive-throughs, that that's not the community we needed to be for our food establishments. And what Jim Felton and I talked about is that the place we could restrict drive-throughs would be in South Marina on the former Fort Ord area. I hope you will be very, very careful here in how you decide to define this space, this really important, crucial, critical, highly visible space. And then I just want to speak to what all five of you are aware of. Every one of us who travels from Central Marina to South Marina and then travels back home to Central Marina and what Mayor Delgado spoke to, and that is that really tight, difficult, challenging part of Imgen Road, The two lanes, people are sneaking into the lane furthest south to get onto Highway 1 and head south, while there are those of us who live in Central Marina who are wanting to get into a lane that's going to be the closest to this development area. Again, I'm sorry for Mr. Dahlwald, but please, I really urge you to think about how we want that corner to develop out. And I don't think a drive-through restaurant, whether it's a Chick-fil-A or whatever you call that restaurant or a Taco Bell or whatever it is, I don't think that is serving the community of Marina in the way that The presentation you received earlier this evening would be suggesting that you move in the direction of. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Grace. Anyone else online wish to speak? Please raise your hand. Surrender Rana, welcome. Trying to unmute you surrender. I think it might be on your end.

OK, can you hear me? Yes, thank you. OK, thank you, Mayor. I speak as a citizen on this subject, although I discuss issue this issue in Planning Commission also. So my point is that this project was approved in 2023 with the condition that there will be a traffic circulations assessment. And even if the drive-through restaurant does not come up, the exit on Imjin is there that is associated with the approved project for the gas station. So There's a speculation that with the drive-through restaurant, food place, the traffic is going to be impacted, that there will be more traffic. That is just a speculation. And since it is already a condition, that there will be this traffic and circulation assessment within, for one year. And if there is some impact, the developer is saying that, yes, it is, that he will be, he would be very happy to kind of close it. And another thing is that drive through, it conforms to all regulations and all regulations other conditions. So I don't see any reason why you can't be agree to this because whatever is happening on the in in the structure that is creating is it is happening inside except for the right through. And that's not going to make then the city benefits the individual benefits. So I say that I support that the council approves the appeal of the developer and let this food place come up. Thank you.

Thank you very much surrender. Anyone else online wishing to raise their hand if you haven't yet? Okay, we'll close public comment. Didn't see any questions, so we'll move to council. Council member McAdams?

Thank you, Mayor. I do have an ex parte communication. I met with Mr. Dodd while in person on May 24th. And during our conversation, he shared information regarding the gas station industry and the challenges facing the fuel retailers. No commitments were made and my participation in that discussion will not affect my ability to consider the matter this evening.

Thank you. And I want to get back to questions because I did note a question from Denise. I think it was, I'm sorry, I forgot who it was from. But anyway, the question, Grace, the question, I'm not sure who it was from, but the question is to staff, is it the city's responsibility or Caltrans' responsibility to enlarge the bridge as necessary to provide a better level of service for traffic that's westbound or eastbound across the bridge between 2nd Avenue and Highway 1? frederick can probably ask answer that question best and frederick uh before you answer let's look ahead here three minutes a few minutes our witching hour is 10 p.m i uh motion that we continue tonight to hear the two uh green waste items second all in favor please say aye aye okay please proceed

It's a bit of a catch-22 question because mitigation for university villages or the dunes was to work with the city and widen the bridge. the city did pursue that route, Caltrans did not approve some of the options that were available. So the options that are available currently are exorbitantly expensive because you have the Coastal Commission side, you have the rail tracks, and so there hasn't really been an easy solution, right? The forecasting of volumes from university villages is much higher than what we see there right now. We're very close to build out of university villages or the dunes. It is something that we also brought up in the general plan, which is draft right now. But the challenge is not just the bridge. I do believe that the challenge is actually the freeway backing up because everything flows until the freeway backs up and then the vehicles stop on the on the on ramp. So the problem just sort of expands onto the freeway itself. I believe that if only the freeway was there and the freeway would operate acceptably, that probably we wouldn't have the backup on Imgen.

Can you tell us whose responsibility it is? Does Caltrans have any responsibility to spend a dollar on that project?

They do not.

So it's 100% on the city of Marina?

Correct.

Okay, that's very clear now. Thank you. Okay, now a little bit of housework here. Anyone else have any ex parte announcement they want to make?

I do, Mr Mayor, so I met with the applicant on May 25 and used maps to try to explain to me what what was the proposed. Traffic flow I and then also not related to this, but he showed pictures of the hotel that is going to be following later, but that's pretty much it, thank you.

OK, thank you anyone else Councilmember McCarthy.

I don't know that I would consider this ex parte, but I did see the applicant at a luncheon and I think I shared with him that I'm a value meal enthusiast. I love fast food as kind of a joke, but that was about it.

Did you buy him any beer?

I don't think I bought him a beer.

Anyone else? Okay. Let's go to Council Member Biala for comment on the issue.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I am needing clarification in a big way here. The mayor brought up the issue of the traffic flow on Imgim from the exits and the entry. It's already looking like it's being built. So I'm assuming that we have gotten approval for that flow of traffic and that is not the subject of today. Is that correct?

Yeah. So in December of 2023, the Planning Commission approved the 12 gas station pumps and then the convenience store. The only item before the council tonight is a hearing appeal of the Planning Commission denial of should the drive-through go in. That's it.

Okay, so clearly we're not talking about the entryway to MGM.

That's correct.

Okay. So I think we need to be really focused on this because I'm really confused about why we're talking about that when I see it already being built. And presumably he's not building it without approval. So, okay. So that's very clear to me. So it looks like the planning commission denied the applicant on five to two. And so it sounds like they had some concerns with the internal flow of traffic. And that was maybe the major thing in terms of how I'm hearing it.

That's correct. And then there was concerns about kind of the changing nature of the project.

Okay. All right. Well, one.

Excuse me, Kathy. Lane wants to provide some input.

Also, to the hearing, there's concerns about traffic flow, but there's also concerns they just didn't want the drive-through not related to the traffic flow. They just didn't want the drive-through also.

Okay. So at the time, it sounds like they requested a an internal traffic study. So the planning commission, when they made that denial, they did not have that study. They asked for it. Is that correct? At the time when the planning commission denied the project, it was because of concerns with the internal traffic, which they then asked to have a traffic study done, correct?

um later after their after their yeah so well so in april of 20 in december of 2023 when the original gas station was approved there was a long discussion at planning commission about traffic and circulation so they put a condition of approval which the applicant has agreed to that one year after opening of the gas station that there will be a traffic analysis done. And there was specific language from the commission directing staff to work with the police department to assess, you know, if, you know, the impacts and if there need to be changes. So that's the one tranche of traffic analysis. And then after the denial by the commission on April 23rd, uh of this year of this year rv's traffic engineer submitted an updated traffic report and then frederick did a peer review of that okay and in the peer review he identified three or four uh things that could be done to uh to improve the overall circulation to hopefully address the planning commission's concerns And so all of those have been incorporated into the conditions of approval. And it appears as if, you know, we've addressed the commission's concerns. So in a kind of a weird way, the denial actually made the project better because it gave us a second bite at the apple as staff to really kind of do a deeper dive into the circulation.

Right. And it looks like with some minor adjustments that it would not be a problem in the most recent study.

That's correct.

Okay. And then on the issue of whether people like a drive-through or not, I know I was on the downtown specific plan committee for ad hoc committee for a year and a half. And I know that we did not appreciate drive-thrus. We wanted to curtail those. And so there is a ban on drive-thrus on the reservation road, but on the transition part, it was conditional, correct?

That's correct.

And I'm glad the consultant asked about whether we should call this It's not a road yet, but whether we should say Del Monte or we should say Second Avenue. I feel like we should say Second Avenue because Del Monte brings us to the downtown specific plan. I mean, if you say it's Del Monte, I'm thinking, oh, it's in downtown. Whereas when you're standing by the REI, that is not Del Monte. And we don't have a road there. And maybe we might not for a decade or more, if ever. So if we're going to refer to that, we should say it as Second Avenue. But it's not a question to me at this point about whether I like drive-thrus or not. I could probably get a lot of people that say, oh, I love drive-thrus because I don't have time. My kids are needing something to eat and blah, blah, blah. And then I could also find people the other way. The question for me isn't whether we like it or not. Is it allowed? and um i think that i saw a memo i don't know it's in this this packet but you wrote a subsequent memo about that right that clearly stated that drive-throughs on that particular location is allowed by conditions is that not correct the drive-through is allowed in that zone with the conditional use permit that's what's before the council tonight the conditional use permit Okay. All right. But it is allowed. And I think that's really important for people to understand. Whether we like drive-thrus or not, it is allowed. That's correct. Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Kathy. Let's go to Mayor Pro Tem Fisher.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And thank you for the presentation. And thank you for having answered my questions in the presentation. And we recently had a discussion about drive-thrus at the Walmart area. And that's when somebody mentioned, which I had never thought about, I must admit, that for people who have trouble getting out of their car, it's very convenient going to a drive-thru. And in South Marina, the only drive-thru there is, is at Starbucks. And there, so for people, do you know another drive-thru, Mr. Mayor? Possibility. No, in South Marina. Oh, South Marina. South Marina. So for people in South Marina who want to get food at a drive-thru, they now need to go to Central Marina or out of town. Shocking. So this will be the first one in South Marina, the only one. So I think it will be used by quite a lot of people. And I'm all for a walkable city, but this is a gas station with cars. And I was happy to read that there will be striping for pedestrians and bicyclists. So I don't see any issue not to approve this. It's an approved use of that zone or that area. And just this is not on the agenda, but talking about striping, I saw striping going in on 2nd Avenue and Indian just when I drove here. So thank you, Ismael. That's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks for getting your questions in in advance. Council Member McAdams?

Thank you, Mayor. You know, I think for me, what I think about is there's already a drive-through there, which is the car wash. You know, and so it's not... increasing the impact, you know, sort of like what, and I appreciate council member Biala getting that information out that, that it is an approved, I mean, you know, based off of conditions and that's what we're hearing this evening. So, and also, you know, if they did address the concerns of the traffic, you know, for me, honestly, I think going through the drive-through getting the food will be an afterthought. You're going to the, you're getting gas, you're going to the car wash and then you might grab something. I don't think that that's going to be the destination draw. So, you know, so I'm comfortable with approving this. I, unlike my colleague, don't like fast food. You know, I would like to see other options. However, in that, you know, area of Marina, there are quite a lot of lovely restaurants. you know, healthy alternatives. So even though I, I personally don't care for fast food, that is something that, you know, even though there are a lot of quick service meals, there's not, you know, a fast food place, I guess. So I'm, you know, I'm, I'm okay with, with approving this. And I, I too drive, drive an electric vehicle and, And so I think we also, for economic development and to be supportive of our entrepreneurs and business community, we have to be open to being flexible at times. So thank you.

Thank you very much, Jenny. Council Member McCarthy?

Thank you, Mayor. I think I support the intent of my colleagues today. opinions. You know, I think if I got to design the site and put anything there that I wanted, it wouldn't quite frankly be a gas station at all, but I don't get that choice. It's not my property, right? I mean, we do have some land use police powers, right? But we've already gotten to a certain point down that path. It's interesting. I mean, again, I'm a believer in the bean burrito, but the reality is that Taco Bell is not a low use. I'm surprised to see this. So the statement in the staff report says a low demand operation such as Taco Bell. I go to Taco Bell a lot. Let me tell you, it's not low demand. So I'm just a little confused by that language. And it kind of gets to the objective standards, right? Like I would have rather have seen a restaurant with 10 cars per hour, whatever it is, right? Like, but we don't have that. I don't know that it's really that important. I don't know that a medium use fast food restaurant would be all that detrimental on that site anyway. So I'm not going to fight or advocate for that, but I do feel the need to kind of put that on the record. um so yeah i mean i i i don't really have an issue with it i you know again if i could redesign the whole thing and go back 20 years you know we are going to be putting a hotel hopefully on that site right that um it's hopefully going to be towards the higher end and what they are looking at is going to matter i think to not only what brands go there but um you know the attractiveness of the the hotel site so I'm a little concerned about that, but overall, no major concerns. So thank you, Mayor.

Thank you. We fought really hard against drive-thrus and against Anywhere USA fast foods for years at the Dunes when Scott Negri was the project proponent of those building pads that were not the big box but across the street. So that's why we got Blaze and Smashburger, etc., And Chipotle was like needed to be an anchor, well-known fast food place. The design initially was two driveways, two drive-throughs. We fought like heck. We ended up with one drive-through. This side of the highway to the north we're talking about tonight is not pedestrian friendly as much as Elizabeth said. but there is going to be an eco-friendly hotel and i would hope that that eco-friendly hotel had the best pedestrian accesses to get to and from the other side of the street where there's better pedestrian access than downtown marina a taco bell after all we worked To have no Taco Bells, Wendy's, Burger Kings, McDonald's in that area front and center as a flagship when you come in is to me contrary to where we spent all that effort to make it a more modern, nice development that didn't repeat the mistake of having every fast food joint that we have in Central Marina. We let drive through lanes go in where they're required, like in the transition zone. If someone's putting in possibility and they want to drive through and it already has a drive through, we're not saying, you know, we don't have the right to, I don't believe, but we're not trying to turn back the clock where there are rights to drive throughs. Here, there's no rights. It's a new thing. The planning commission voted against the drive through lane. If I was to wave a wand, as Brian was imagining him waving a wand, all that eco hotel gas station, Convenience store traffic would go in and out of Imgen, sorry, 2nd Avenue. There'd be no connection to Imgen until it gets remodeled so it's safe without any new driveways. So tonight, Kathy is right. It's not about stopping the traffic going on to Imgen Parkway from this development. It's about adding more cars from a fast food joint. So A, I don't want fast food there. B, I don't want Taco Bell or Wendy's or McDonald's. C, I don't want to add more traffic of coming in and coming out because they want to eat some food because it's so unsafe already. Such a difficult place to drive. I'm really glad there's going to be a one-year traffic survey for the convenience store. I'm really glad that Planning Commission put that in. I'm really concerned about having U-turn signs and no right-hand U-turn signs to control people because when they're in a herd, looking around they're not going to pay attention to signs they pay attention to physical barricades can i get to where i want to go the way i want to do it or can i not physically we're not going to have cops in the parking lot monitoring whether people are doing left-hand turns or u-turns that's all private property it's just it's to get adding a headache to the police to say patrol whether people are navigating inside this parking lot properly according to the signs if we're having to put up all those signs it's probably not a good design we should design it so that people are guided where we want them to go so i have a lot of problems with this um we heard from the expert safety goes down Why are we doing something that reduces safety in a stretch that's already unsafe? So adding a low volume intensity, medium intensity, doesn't matter. We're adding something to an already unsafe stretch that was never part of the plan until the planning commission denied it.

And I think they made the right decision.

We have a much bigger decision coming up. with a hotel of a few hundred rooms that might need the bigger investment we've ever made as an incentive to any project. That's to me, trying to keep our eye on the prize. It's not, burglaring that up with a Taco Bell and a drive-through lane that dumps them onto Imgen Parkway where we have no, I'm sorry, the planning commission approved that. We have no right dumping traffic in and out of Imgen Parkway on that segment. We have Second Avenue. It's meant to receive all that new business, not Imgen Parkway. So I wasn't aware of the 2003, but I don't think that was a very good idea. And neither did they. to the extent that they required a one-year review. We've never asked for a one-year review to close a driveway that we've approved de novo to put in a new driveway. That's backward planning. Put it in and we'll see if we want to take it out in a year. I don't remember ever doing that. And that's what we did in 2003. So I will not vote to allow a drive-through for this. The weaving you've got to do already coming in and out of that segment, the merging and the weaving, when you have cars coming in and out, it's going to make that weaving and merging more difficult. And that's why the expert poll is tonight. This makes it less safe, not maintain safety, not more safety, less safe. So I'm definitely a no, and I will support the planning commission tonight on their point. Last point, Kathy said, if it's allowed, it's allowed. Well, it was allowed to have drive-throughs on Scott Negri's project, and we said no to as much as we could. It's allowed or not. So we can go either way to the best of our value judgment. My value judgment is definitely to say no tonight to this drive-through link. Okay, let's go to Council Member Villala.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So when we were talking about no drive-throughs on the downtown vitalization specific plan, we were trying to curb all of the driveways that these drive-throughs entailed by walking down the street. I mean, you had to kind of keep weaving around cars coming out of these things. So we were trying to promote a pedestrian-friendly atmosphere and safety issues, right? But this is... Mr. Dodwell had to start with a gas station. I think in any of our conception, we wouldn't do it because to me, that doesn't make sense. So he does have some EV chargers, but that's already four autos. Then we have a car wash. It's four autos. Then we have a drive-through. It's four autos. So to my mind, this is a different property. I wouldn't want to do. I fought also to get the Starbucks to not have an extra long drive-through. And then there was another one that we said no to. That was my position. This property with the kinds of things that are on it is not for pedestrians. In fact, I do have concerns if people are going to the convenience store. It looks like it's been... modified so that there is pedestrian access. I don't quite understand. I couldn't really see how that's arranged on these maps. But I see that property as really being auto-centric. So the drive-through is just part of that. The other thing that I would say is that I don't try to second-guess If we do a traffic study and we pay people to do this for us, the applicant already paid for a study. We had another one peer review it whom we know and trust. And they're saying that there isn't a problem that can't be mitigated. So I'm not going to second guess them and say, but I know that that flow of traffic is just not going to be adequate. I have to go with the data. I have to go with the studies that we have paid for. And so I'm very conflicted about saying, then we should ignore that because our gut is telling us that it's not going to work. I have to say that I don't think I can go against that. We ask for study and it says that there's some mitigation, small ones it looks like. I don't think that I can deny that. So anyway, thank you, Mr. Mitt.

Thank you. Two quick points. I'm not going by my gut. I asked the expert a question. Will this make it less safe? He said, yes, there'll be more conflict points, therefore more crashes, less safe. That's based on his report and his opinion as an expert for many decades. And we do value Frederick's opinion on every project we ask him to do. But he's also suggested mitigation for that. So even with the mitigation, it's less safe. If we approve the appeal tonight, it's less safe.

I would like to get more clarification when you ask him that kind of question. Frederick, can you come back up? And the question is, even with the mitigation, do you feel like to have this kind of flow of traffic is not recommended by your study?

That's not the question. The question I ask them is, if we approve the appeal and allow the drive-through, is safety reduced, increased, or maintained?

So it's reduced because of the additional conflicts.

And that's what I asked you earlier.

Yep. But to get back to Councillor Viala's question, the site plan in front of us had a drive-through. And the analysis looked at what about this drive-through is causing issues on the site? The driveway was already there. So we looked at how do cars get in and out of the driveway?

Thank you. So to continue, It was the expert's opinion that we're making it less safe. We shouldn't be making an already dangerous stretch less safe. That is unwise. Second of all, putting a gas station there is bad enough. Harvey didn't want it. I wouldn't have wanted it. Primarily because it's one less reason to go downtown. Why go downtown in two minutes drive when you can get gas right there? So all that Salinas Monterey traffic has one less reason with a gas station at Imgen 2nd to stop in downtown Marina. You put a Taco Bell there, one more less reason to go downtown into Marina. And I don't want to cannibalize Central Marina. I'm already worried that South Marina is cannibalizing Central Marina. We've heard from Terry Talents, who's for 20 years been trying to get some interest in the Walmart parking area where he has five acres of dirt and he can't get other businesses. They always say, we're not going to make money here in Central Marina. All the pizzazz, all the business is in South Marina. So we're already cannibalizing, but what we're doing on south in Fort Ord from our central marina, adding a gas station, we don't have any choice. We couldn't say no. Harvey couldn't say no. He needed it for the control of the site to make his hotel nice. Taco Bell gives us one more reason to not go downtown, and that's one more reason that we should say no tonight to this. Okay, I understand that there's four people probably going to vote against me, but... I think it's important that we all speak our mind. That's why we're here tonight. So would someone like to entertain a motion?

To the mayor to help out the council, we do have a draft motion. Belinda can pull it up.

Thanks, Guido. Thanks, Belinda.

Yeah, it's, yeah. Brad presented two options to basically overturn the planning commission decision. That's the first one and allow the drive-through or the second one is to deny the appeal and uphold the commission's denial. So that's the action before the council tonight.

I'll go ahead and motion the second motion to deny the appeal. Is there a second or it dies for a lack of seconds? Okay, that motion dies for lack of second. Let's go to Council Member Biala.

I can make a motion to approve the appeal of the Planning Commission's denial of the conditional use permit CUP 260002 to establish a drive-through lane at the previously approved gas station convenience store and car wash located at the northwest corner of Imjin Parkway and 2nd Avenue subject to the presented findings and conditions of approval and to find this action was adequately addressed in EIR number 2004091167 certified for the University Villages specific plan. I'd like to second.

all right any let's go to councilmember mccarthy uh i just want to say i really appreciate your articulation of of your concerns it's it's really kind of given me reason to pause and really try to think this through i don't know that it matters i mean whether i vote in solidarity solidarity with your thinking or not um it would be solely on principle but um It's a lot to think about. And I mean, we really are being such a new city. This is land, right, that belonged to the military 30 years ago, right? And so it's like this clean slate that most cities don't have an opportunity to address. And so we do have this great opportunity to really think about what the future of Marina looks like in all areas. And yet I still appreciate Council Member Vischer's you know, willingness not to fight these uses that are traditionally kind of frowned upon, right? In an area that doesn't have many of them. And so kind of still struggling, still don't know how I'm going to vote, but I just wanted to say to the mayor, I appreciate that articulation. It really got me thinking. Thank you.

All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. No. All right. Thank you. That motion passes 4 to 1 with the mayor dissenting. And we move on to a couple of green waste items, 13A and 13B. Who will lead us through 13A? Ishmael?

THANK YOU, MAYOR. OUR ASSISTANT ENGINEER WILL BE PRESENTING BOTH OF THESE ITEMS.

NEW SPEAKER HELLO, MAYOR AND CITY COUNCIL. WE ARE PRESENTING THE ADOPTION OF RESOLUTION FOR APPROVING THE RECOMMENDATION FOR REGEN MONTEREY TECHNICAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE SUBGROUP TO INITIATE A COMPETITIVE REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL. a process for the future solid waste recycling and organics collection services and approving the process of integrity policy governing the proceedment procedure.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Good evening, Mayor Delgado, members of council. Good to be with you. Last time I was with you was to present the green waste franchise back in about 2014 for approval to move forward. So we are now approaching the end of that natural term of that contract and starting to think about the next procurement process. By way of introduction, sorry, my name is Rob Hilton. I'm with HF&H Consultants. We've been retained by Marina along with the other six agencies that use green waste recovery and cooperated in the procurement process 10 years ago. Next slide. So we're going to, a little bit more quickly than we had planned given the hour, walk you through the results of the process that the franchise agreement subgroup of the TAC went through to evaluate this question of whether to do an RFP or negotiate, share with you their considerations and their rationale, and walk you through the process that we have going forward. Next slide. So to start with, we did a bunch of public engagement to really understand the state of the current system and the public's impression of the current system. Next slide. One more. And the first thing that we did was to perform a statistically valid polling survey of the public. It was done on a proportional basis across the seven agencies. So across all seven agencies, we got statistically valid results. In general, the headline is, folks are pretty satisfied with the service that they received from Green Waste Recovery. Got about a 93% satisfaction rating, which is pretty good. Garbage companies typically achieve satisfaction ratings in the 90% range. So this is what we would expect. Next slide. Of those that are dissatisfied or of those that are satisfied, 66% are very satisfied and only about 28% of those that are unsatisfied are very unsatisfied. So the intensity rating is very strong in the positive. That's a good thing. Next slide. For those that gave us feedback about being unsatisfied, high cost was the primary issue that was flagged. Other issues included their containers not being serviced correctly or being broken or things like that. Again, this is a small portion of the respondents, but of them, that cost issue was significant.

Next slide.

Only about 47% of people think that their garbage and recycling bill is about right. And about 27%, 28% think it's too high. And so that's consistent with some of the other fact pattern that we saw in the survey. Price is a sensitive factor for folks. Next slide. And following that, 99% say affordability matters. is a major priority for them. Again, this tracks with a lot of national level stuff. When we did this 10 years ago, diversion, environmental protection was right at the top of the list. Quality of service was right at the top of the list. Affordability was further back years ago. And so this has risen to the top as a key issue. Next slide. They also say quality of service is important. Next. Convenience, and then last, environmental impact was the lowest rating in this survey. Not unimportant, but as you rank them against each other, not as high as it was 10 years ago. Next slide. In addition to the polling that was done, we held some community meetings to get public input. Next slide. And that included three virtual meetings. We'd held some at night, some during the day, offered them in both English and Spanish. And through that, got to talk to about 17 community participants. And this allowed us to get a little bit deeper on some of the issues that they were having and hear it in their voice as opposed to how we had programmed the survey, right? Next slide. So what they told us was they would like more education and outreach to understand what can be recycled and what can't be recycled. It's one of the most common things that you hear is, where do I put this thing? Which bin does it go in? They want to have a wider breadth of customization available to them. But interestingly, they didn't want things where they were paying in their base rate for a service that they may infrequently use. They wanted some options, but they wanted people to sort of pay as they went with those options so that they weren't burdened by them. They also talked about some modernization features, things like having a phone app and being able to do more self-service in the system. Next slide. We also engaged multifamily properties. And in this case, we engaged the property managers to understand their particular issues. Next slide. So we did outreach to 46 different multifamily properties throughout the service area, connected with seven of those folks who really wanted to share their perspectives with us that ranged from eight units to 106 units. So pretty good diversity of housing types and situations. Next slide. Again, overall pretty satisfied with green waste, but when you get into these multifamily property situations, they're very price sensitive, and particularly price sensitive around the adjustment of rates because they want to be able to anticipate when rates are going to go up and program that into their rents. And so that was an issue. They also wanted to see more consistent education and outreach to help their tenants, particularly with things like overloaded containers, illegally dumped items, and then contamination across the streams. Next slide. Lastly, we reached out to the business sector. Similar to the multifamily sector, we wanted to really engage directly with those businesses. Next slide. And so we did outreach to 34 different folks, and 15 of them wanted to chat with us. Next slide. Their issues were very similar to the multifamily situation. Businesses are very attuned to their costs, and so they were very sensitive to rates and rate adjustments over time. Really need reliable, consistent, high-quality service, and businesses sometimes have very particular requirements for that, and so we heard a bit about that. Doesn't affect Marina as much, but particularly in Pacific Grove and Carmel, there are some issues around the cardboard collection program, certainly an opportunity going forward to adjust services. And then a noted education and outreach is a real priority. They've got customers and tenants and employees that need to be trained and would appreciate some help on that.

Thanks.

Lastly, we did some outreach to the potential industry participants, folks that might respond to an RFP if we were to issue one. Next. So for that, we met with five different service providers, most of whom responded to the RFP process 10 years ago. All of them expressed interest in future partnership. All of them noted that the facilities that you have out at Regen, the fact that all of the post collection waste handling happens there, the truck parking happens there, the fueling happens there, it makes it a very ideal turnkey site that allows really anybody that does this work to come in and compete for this service. Next slide. Here's a quick map. I won't go into too much detail given our time, but what it effectively says is you are surrounded by a number of service providers who could fairly easily come in and perform this work. And you're in a unique competitive position in that regard.

Next.

We also met with GreenWaste Recovery during the process, obviously as the incumbent. They expressed enthusiasm in continuing to provide the service, desire for sole source negotiations to continue the relationship. They did share with us that their projected cost increase to continue for another 10 years was going to be greater than a CPI type of increase. And we also inquired with them about uh in 2021 you approved an assignment of their contract when green waste was sold from a locally held family company to a private equity firm who purchased them when that happened they said that their typical hold time for an asset like this is seven to ten years which puts us at 2028 to 2030 when green waste may be sold to somebody else. We asked them about that acquisition risk, and they acknowledged that is still present, that that could still happen, but also acknowledged that a lot of small haulers get bought up in the industry and consolidation is a thing, which is true. So next slide. Next, the group's considerations really landed primarily on the issue of good governance. With affordability being the primary issue that we were hearing as a concern from the public, we felt like the best way to be able to go back to the public and say, we shopped and we got the best thing for you is to go and test the marketplace and be able to definitively say this was the best offer available. Next slide. Affordability obviously was a big issue. The sole source discussions that we had with them, and again, this wasn't a negotiation, it was a single meeting, but those sole source discussions did indicate that the cost would go up more than typical inflation. And so having a competitive process to point to, to say, we looked at it and this is what you could get, was valued by the committee. Next slide. It was acknowledged that there's a high level of satisfaction with green waste service. It was also acknowledged that there was a high level of satisfaction with the service that waste management provided before green waste was here. And a lot of that is attributable to the frontline employees, the drivers and the customer service staff who do the day-to-day work in this. The drivers that are here today serving you mostly came over from waste management. And part of that was that the contract included a requirement that they make an offer to any displaced employee. And in fact, many of those employees wanted to come over and keep running the same routes they had been running. That would still be the case if we did an RFP going forward. You'd have that labor protection included. Next slide. That issue of assignment risk was discussed. It wasn't an overriding concern, but it's something that through an RFP process, we may be able to gain some better terms around assignment review and consideration. And so that was a consideration of the group, but a minor one. Next slide. Next. So primarily because of that region infrastructure, we believe that we're in a position, you are in a position to get a pretty competitive process. And in fact, you have two other companies besides GreenWaste in the room today because other companies are interested in providing the service. That facility out at Regen is available at least through one more contract cycle. It was built on a potential future landfill cell, but that won't be needed during this next contract term cycle. So that infrastructure is still available to support this project.

Next.

All right, timeline next steps. So should you approve the RFP, next slide, We will spend the remainder of this year working through the subgroup, which includes a representative from each of the participating agencies and engages with your city attorney at a couple of important places along the process to develop the RFP documents and the contract documents that would be used going forward. In 2027, we would review the proposals that come back from that, conduct those interviews and evaluate those proposals and do a preliminary determination of the selected party or the recommended party. We then go around to each of the member agencies and ask if you agree. One feature of the last process that would be consistent in this process is that each agency has its own franchise agreement and would have off ramps along the way. So if one proposer was cheaper for you and another proposer was cheaper for Seaside, you would get to look at that and decide, how does this make sense to us and how do we want to proceed? So your council will still have the autonomy over your agreement. That said, there are values to economies of scale in the regional cooperation we've had. And so that is certainly one of the things that will be considered in the process. And proposers will be allowed to discount their proposal for award of multiple cities as they were the last time around. We want to wrap up those negotiations in early 2028 in part because we want each of the member agencies to have a bite at the apple for any individualized negotiations that you want to have. So the group will work through sort of major contract terms and the things that we would keep the same. But in the last process, we then spent three or four negotiation sessions with each member agency working through particular services that you wanted for your community and business terms that you may want. that are distinct from other agencies. So we want to allow a little bit of time for that to happen. And then really, we want to make sure that there's a time for an orderly transition of the agreement should there be a new provider and we need to order equipment and have that delivered and change out bins and things like that. We want to make sure that that's an orderly process that's well communicated to the public. We are also putting before you today a recommended process integrity policy that governs communications between potential proposers and the council, city staff, and consultants working on this project. And basically just says, there's one point of contact that will be identified in the RFP. That's the source of truth. And if you start talking to council members and other city staff that aren't involved, you might get bad information. So please don't do that. Next slide. so last our final recommendation is to adopt the resolution approving the recommendation from the subgroup to initiate a competitive rfp process and to approve the process integrity policy i'll note here tonight is nick becker who was the chair of the subgroup and is the general manager from pebble beach and he's available for any questions that you may have this was the subgroup's recommendation not our recommendation as your consultant we served as a technical resource. This was something that the local group came up with. So we're available for any questions you may have.

All right. Thank you very much. Let's go to the public, starting with those in person. Anyone here in the room want to come up and speak? Please do so. You have up to three minutes.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and City Council. I had a question. How did you pick the apartments that you talked to? We'll take all questions at the end, but that's good. How did he pick? I never was contacted. I never knew there were surveys. I would have loved to participate. Thank you.

Thank you, Eileen.

Anyone else?

Good evening, Mayor Delgado and members of the council. My name is Liz Hall. I'm a public sector manager for waste management here in Monterey County. And I just wanted to speak tonight in support of the council moving forward with an RFP process for the city of Marina. Waste management currently services the unincorporated areas of Monterey County, King City, the state parks, and several school districts here in Monterey County, including MPUSD in your community. As Rob's map showed, we are well positioned to also service your community, which we did over a decade ago. And history tells us that your city and the others are not scared to test the market. And we hope that you'll take that opportunity to do that again in this transparent process so i appreciate the thoughtful work that's gone into this i hope that we're able to um you know two minutes at 11 o'clock at night is not enough time for me to tell you the benefits of partnering with wm but i hope we're able to do that through the rfp and um just as a sidebar as a resident who utilizes the city of marina love that a plus water is getting a transformation into the hydration hut so if you haven't been check it out i got ice cream in my water today so um thank you guys for your time i think i'm getting a little loopy i need to go put my ugg slippers on so i'll leave it at that thank you liz

good evening mr mayor mayor pro tem members of the council my name is emily hansen i like rob was here back in 2014. i previously worked for green waste recovery helped with the proposal process the negotiations for the greater seven peninsula cities and also the ones that were unique to the city of marina and i'm actually here tonight representing republic services so i departed green waste in 2022 shortly after the private equity acquisition And I'm really excited to be working with Republic Services. Republic is currently the provider in the city of Salinas. And as was presented tonight, Regen has really positioned itself well and very strategically incorporated all of the public ownership of the facilities. And so you were really in a good position to have the most apples to apples comparison of proposers. It's really unique, actually, in the state of California to have such a strong suite of publicly owned services where you aren't relying on any other hauler to come in and provide you with a capacity guarantee or form their own operations yard. So you're really providing like for like services. So I won't take up more of your time. Thank you guys for staying late tonight. I have a long drive home. A couple of us have a long drive home. And thank you again for staying. Appreciate it. Look forward to being back here sometime soon.

Thank you, Emily, for your longstanding service in the industry.

My feet are asleep. My legs moving after four hours. So I'm Kelly Johanson. I appreciate the opportunity to address the mayor and the council members. I'm the vice president of collections for green waste. And, you know, as we've talked about, we've serviced your cities and peninsular cities for since 2015. and we acknowledge and respect the fact that you guys are potentially looking to go RFP. I did want to remind everybody that we have four years obviously left on the contract, and then the contract also allows for a five-year extension, so if you just so desired. Alternative to the RFP, we're requesting that you consider the option of extending the contract because We have such high survey rates and have also not requested anything above the CPI rates in the past. So we've kept our costs as low as possible without triggering any other kind of rate increases as well. So reiterating some of the things that have already been reiterated, you know, we have got a 93% satisfactory rate with a 66% very satisfied, which as much as people say it's easy to get in the industry, I find it difficult to get in the industry just because it is a very technical situation that we have to do and takes a lot of training and leadership from all sides. points to have our drivers come out and do the services we do every day. Along those points, affordability was another thing that was brought up quite a bit. We didn't see a rate study today to compare us against other cities and other haulers in the area, But from what we can see, we have three of the lowest residential rates and three of the lowest commercial rates within the other cities that are being serviced outside the peninsulas. So much so that our average monthly rate in the region agencies that we service is $8.89 less than the average rate of the regional competitors. The same with the commercial rates. It's about $77.12 less than our regional competitors. So we didn't see a rate study tonight, but I would encourage you to look at that as well. And I guess overall, we're just asking for the consideration of extending our current contract for another five years. So thank you for your time.

Thank you very much, Kelly.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council members. As Rob mentioned, my name is Nick Becker. I'm the general manager for the Pele Beach Community Service District, but also had the pleasure of serving as the chair of the Technical Advisory Committee subgroup. And I just wanted to mention a couple of things about the subgroup. We were formed about a year ago to tackle this problem. We have representation from seven of the member agencies that are collaboratively working on this together. And I just want to mention that it's not a decision that was taken lightly by this group. We were really tasked with going out to gather the data and the information for you as council members to make an informed decision. And we took our time to do that. We hired some of the best consultants in the industry to do that and had support from the Regen staff, which are highly regarded throughout the state of California. And we feel like we put a good process in front of the public. We did a pretty extensive public engagement. We also did an industry engagement, which really revealed that you've got a very competitive market out there. We feel like it's ample time to test that market and really to get the best rates for the constituents. We feel like the RFP process is the way that we can assure that we're getting the best rates for our constituents. So again, not a decision taken lightly. I just wanted to mention, very happy with Greenways. They've been a great incumbent for the last 10 years. But again, to do best, good governance and public service, we do support the recommendation for RFP. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good evening, Mayor, Council Members. It's great to see you this evening. My name is Kris Nohira. I'm the Communications Manager at REJA in Monterey, and I'm here to clarify our role in the process and how we all work together. We are simply the coordinator of all of the staff from the Peninsula. jurisdiction. So your staff participates in our technical advisory committee. We gather the brightest minds together and essentially look at all the benefits of going this direction or that direction. As Nick mentioned, we've been working on this for the last year and a half. And our TAC doesn't make decisions. We only make recommendations. So I want to thank Bruce because you've seen this presentation before at our board. So thank you. I also want to thank HF&H for your expertise in the industry. You probably have one of the best consultants in solid waste in California here tonight. So thank you for staying late. for the presentation. I also want to thank Nick for his leadership in leading our talk. I've worked personally with all of the haulers in this room, and I can say that they're all very capable, wonderful people, and if you choose to go out to RFP, you're going to be in really great hands no matter what. I love working with all of them, and I I know it's a difficult decision, but I truly value each of their contributions to the industry and their forward thinking in all of our diversion initiatives. And lastly, I'm here if you have any questions about our operations, our public agency just up the road. We see City of Marina as a wonderful partner. So thank you so much. And yeah, open to questions.

All right. Thank you, Kristen, especially for sharing your time with us in this room yesterday morning. Of course. Thank you so much. Okay. Let's move online. Denise Turley, welcome back.

Thank you. And for giving me the gem of information that there would be several different potential that would bid on the RFP in the room. So let me tell you what residents want. So over the holiday weekend, I don't know whether Trek broke down. I don't know what happened. I just know that on Friday, our garbage didn't get picked up. And so I called by three o'clock and said, hey, you know, we haven't seen a truck. And they had a truck at my house at five minutes to seven the next morning to pick up that garbage, which we were very appreciative of. And we're talking about an area of 10 acres of There are 350 homes and less than half of the garbage cans that have been picked up. That's a lot of garbage and garbage cans. So we expect on-time service. We expect a truck to come out if service is interrupted for whatsoever reason. We expect that when you tip the can, that the can be completely empty when it is returned to us. We have had trouble, the arm over the top one that actually shakes the can, yeah, that empties at 100%. The assisted tipper at the back that doesn't tip the can very far. No, that doesn't get all the garbage out. And so I have coined a phrase for you guys, returned garbage. Returned garbage to the customer is unacceptable. The can needs to be completely tipped each time. So those are my two comments on that. And our experience, of course, many years ago, having had both waste management and green waste, we did not like waste management. We did, and we do like green waste. Maybe waste management is a different company than it was then, but it was bumpy, very bumpy. So, hey, you get 30 seconds back. Bye.

Thank you, Denise. Let's go to Don Hofer. Welcome, Don. Don, please put down your balloon and try again.

Don, do you want to try again?

Okay, Don, you might be having technical difficulties. We can't hear you. All right. Sorry about that. We'll go ahead and close public comment. Didn't have any questions I wrote down. Anyone else note questions I may have missed? Yeah, Eileen asked, Rob, how did the survey pick account holders for interviewing?

Yeah, so we requested of each of the member agency staff to identify several multi-families and several businesses within their jurisdiction, and we pulled from that list. Again, we called a lot more folks and tried to make contact, and many folks said, I don't have time for the survey. So there was a lot larger group called that actually participated.

Were there solicitations online or other ways for everyone who wanted to join in?

No, the pollster survey was done on a random stratified basis in order to preserve the integrity of that and make sure that it was statistically valid. The direct outreach to businesses and multifamilies was done to specific property managers and specific business owners.

By the process you outreached?

Yeah.

So there was no third process where it was announced on websites that people could fill out a survey?

No, though one of the things that we've talked about is there are some other points during this process where public engagement is going to be really valuable. And so having some more kind of open format survey monkey style, if you like, things on city websites that we can direct people to to gather certain information that way. But for what we needed statistical validity for, we wanted to be careful not to pollute the pool.

Right. But I think I remember in your presentation tonight that you had at least three public meetings in Marina where everyone was welcome to come and give their input.

Yeah, we had public meetings. They were all virtual. We held one of them at noon, the other two at like 530 to 630 so that we could get different populations with different working schedules. We offered them in English and Spanish.

again only 17 people participated but right we didn't publicize those so you you publicly publicize three opportunities for input to the general public yep all right thank you okay so now let's go to uh council member mccarthy and then mcadams

Thank you, Mayor. I think the next item is dealing more with pricing, right? And so maybe I'll save some of the questions there. But I will say that, you know, it really strikes me that we've gotten a lot of letters from folks that are struggling to pay their trash bill. And yet I buy the biggest can and I put a little thing about this big in there, right? And that's my priority. That's my choice to do. And I have no problem. It just really speaks to the disparity that exists in our community.

I'm just really kind of struck by that. I wanted to share that first right off the bat.

I guess a question for either the presenter or the TAC. When we think about putting this RFP out, Are we looking at changing or more progressive ways of trash collection? So I'm thinking of things like weight-based pricing. I'm assuming none of the potential applicants have trucks that are capable of that. Thinking about using AI, right, to help determine contamination or even... weight itself, thinking of things like reduced service incentives. So if somebody only puts their trash can out once every other week, is there ability to build that into the RFP? Can you speak to any of those kind of ideas or any other ideas that may be the tech considered?

Yeah, so specifically that is the next phase in the process is thinking through how we're going to scope going forward and what changes we'd like to see. So there was not a huge amount of discussion along those lines. Some of the things that you're bringing up, the cameras on the trucks, the AI object recognition for what's going into the truck, things like that are very much available in the industry now and all the companies kind of have their own version of it that we'll probably hear about. Weight based pricing is something that I've been in the industry 25 years now, and we've had that as a fantasy for getting to zero waste. The problem is that the scales on the trucks go out of calibration because it's a heavy duty truck and it's in kind of a weird operating environment. They go out of calibration. And so you can't charge people based on those weights because they're not reliable enough. But there are a number of companies that are really working on how do we do that? in terms of reduced frequency of collection that's certainly the case with businesses state health code doesn't let us collect less frequently than every seven days at least on an official basis you can choose not to put out but we have to have a program that serves you every seven days per the state health code so there are a number of things that we are going to look at i love your mill idea in fact one of the proposers will probably include that in their proposal um

so there are a lot of really cool solutions out there that we'll be working through with the technical advisory committee over the next three to four months to talk about you know what services do we want what do we want this to look like thank you uh and then i'll just close by saying it and we've had this discussion before but i think the city plays a role and i i believe our ordinance says that every residential customer has to have trash service right and yet i know that many customers many residents don't um and then we end up with things like trash out on lapis road or or folks regularly taking their trash to the hotels. And so I just think that the city plays a role in partnership with the waste haulers to ensure that every residential address has service at their house. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you very much, Brian. Council Member McAdams?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you for the presentation, and thank you to the Technical Advisory Committee subgroup for this work and time. I appreciate the transparency, the process, and the integrity. It's very much appreciated. Are we going to be able to, are we going to do the next item also? Okay. Okay. I have some comments about pricing as well, but I definitely support continuing this process and moving forward with the RFP.

Thank you. Council Member Biala?

Thank you, Mr Mayor, so I just have one real quick question on the survey, what is the sample number is in percentages I couldn't find anything that was.

The end value of the sample size, I think, was 405 or something like that was just about 400.

Thank you. um i just happened to um pull together a small tour of some folks um of regen and it was unbelievably fascinating um they had a little model at our earth day and so that was the the key to say wow this is amazing and i want to see it in in in real life so when you say about education it really is so much about education I learned things there that, you know, one, there's a saying, if you have any doubt, trash it. So I thought, oh God, that's great for me. Because I, you know, I sit there and look at all the bins and I'm wondering which one does this go to? And things like a hose, a garden hose, I thought that goes in recycling. No, that goes in trash. And I think, wow, I didn't realize that. But there's so many nuances to this, keeping the caps on the plastic milk bottles and things like that. So that educational piece just demystifies stuff. Even those of us who are really trying, it's just a challenge all the time. So the more that we can educate the public, I think it'll be better for you and for us as well. So thank you all of you for being here because it's really nice to to meet in a sort of a transparent competitive process that, you know, we're just not, you know, focused into one, one vendor. So thank you all for staying and showing up here. Thank you.

Thanks, Kathy. Mayor Pertanvishan.

you smear yeah and thank you all for being here so late we are used to it but you might not be so but um so i heard there will be one point of contacts and not to for council members to tell what we would like. This is our chance or how does it work if we have suggestions? I'm looking at the city manager.

I think this is the opportunity.

This is the chance. Okay, let me go. Smaller green bins. That's been for people who don't have a yard. Anyway, you know what I mean.

This is really our chance to say Do we want to sole source with green waste another period of time? Or do we want to go out to bid basically?

Yeah, I want to go.

But when do we have a chance to? What Rob said is that.

You'll be back. Okay. We'll have another chance because like starting at 7 instead of 6 a.m. I've been waiting for this for years as a resident. So this will be another time.

Yeah, so we intend to come back to your council. I would like to see you five times before I ask you to make the big decision to award a new contract. And so we have several intervals that will come back. One of them is when we're about to issue the RFP and we'll come to you and say, here's kind of the services that we're looking at. Is there anything else that you'd like us to add? I would also encourage you. anything that you have on your wish list if it comes to you i call them shower thoughts if it comes to you in the middle of the night or in the shower send them to city staff and they'll route them to us and we will keep a master list so yeah any of those ideas to do that thank you

And just as a remark, I know I'm from the Netherlands. There are cities there that do charts by weight. So I don't know what trucks they use and whether it's accurate or not, but they do it. So anyway, so then I'll just stop. I support this. You have to go out. Thank you.

All right. I guess we could ask Nick or Kristen or Rob. I think we're the last city on your tour, right? So what did all the other cities say for the choice of sole source versus go out with a new RFP?

We've been very deliberate not to cede that because we wanted each of you to make your own decisions, but you are the last. All of the other councils have authorized going forward with the RFP.

Okay, good. So we have a chance to be out-of-the-box thinkers. So Rob, this was the green, Kelly Johnson brought up something I didn't know. So there is the option that the city of Marina could go it alone if necessary. And as Kelly said, no matter what, we'll have a green waste recovery for four more years. And then after that, there's a five-year option in Marina's contract with green waste. It's a two-way contract with us and green waste. So we could go it alone. We could think out of the box. So four years plus five year option equals nine years. So theoretically, the next nine years, we could be with green waste. And my question is, and green waste could answer this just as well. Let me start with you. What are the built in.

maximum cost increases during those nine years the next four and then the next five option years there's no cap on them they're formulaic and then there is an opportunity for either the city or the company to trigger what's called a cost-based rate adjustment um can we do that every year right uh no you don't you can trigger it i think two times during the terms of the agreement When Marina last triggered that provision, it resulted in a credit that you enjoyed for a number of years and sort of helped buffer rates for a period of time. It's entirely possible that that could swing the other direction when that cost-based review is done. So there are no caps percentage-wise on the adjustments, and it's influenced by the CPI, which is a little high right now, a fuel index, which is really high right now, and then a labor index that looks at the employment cost index, and then all of the costs out at the district for the tipping fees that you approve out there.

Okay. I thought I was talking to Herman of Greenways Recovery yesterday in this room, and he mentioned there was a 7% maximum that they could increase with the City of Marina every year. Maybe I got it wrong. And they're only really coming in with

cpi around two four percent every year but they could go as high as seven percent whether we liked it or not no that's not true um i may be getting contracts confused but i believe that green waste contract that has the seven percent cap is in santa cruz county what okay so the green waste contract a confirmation over here yeah let me ask a green waste and so it is a formula they can't just choose to charge you seven percent or twelve percent or two percent there's a formula that uses these third party indices.

Okay. So their contract with us might be different than their contract with someone else. And their contract with us has a process by which we decide on the rate increase each year.

Yeah. It's a defined formula. You can't vary from it.

Okay. So my line of thought that I'm trying to get at is if we stay with green waste for nine more years, are we likely to pay less for,

their services then we would pay with it with them or a new hauler under a new contract until i get the proposals i can't give you the answer to that but what i can tell you is you don't lose your five-year extension option with green waste so we could get to the end of this you could see something that you really don't like and you could reject all bids and trigger that five-year option

Okay, so if there is an RFP process, which looks like it's coming, at the end of that process, each city picks which of the bidders they want. And if they pick the same bidder that the other cities are, they probably get a bulk discount. If they pick just one who the other cities don't want, they may or may not get a lower price. Depends on what that would work out to be. So maybe with Marina being closest to the landfill, maybe hauler B gives Marina a better price one-on-one. than the rest of the communities would get with hauler A. So we still might be better off with hauler B because we're a marina, proximal to the landfill. So we'll look at that. So we'll have a chance after the RFP is done. Do we want to stick with green waste, even though the rest of the cities are going to go with a new hauler?

Yep. And that will be your decision, independent of what any of the other agencies do.

All right. Yeah, I'm really interested because I didn't know before, Kelly, that there was a five-year option. Great. Okay. Well, given that, I don't see any downside to going with an RFP except that all of the communities have to pay your agency, I don't know, 500 grand, a million, something like that, half a million, to go through an RFP. It would be much less if we weren't going to go through an RFP. If we were just going to do a scope of work with green waste, it would be a lot less. So there is the downside to spending more money on RFP than sole sourcing it.

I'm Selena Galindo Luna with Greenways and the director of municipal franchise. And I just want to say, we're going to support you no matter what over the next four years. And if I were in your position, what I would look at is if I have this window of time where I can work with Greenways on some of the things that you brought up tonight and give us an opportunity to work through some of those things and vet out some of the issues that you have with maybe the bulkies and things like that. Those are things that we have four years that we can be working on and discussing.

Okay, Selena, let me interrupt you.

I'm sorry.

I think I get your gist, but I can't let public comment happen now.

Well, thank you. I appreciate it.

Whatever you're going to say, you can email all of us through Lane or me or the city clerk, Anita. We do want to hear whatever anyone has to say to make us a little smarter and aware of what we're doing. Okay, let's go back to Councilmember McAdams.

I'm happy to move for approval.

Okay, so you're approving the resolution before us. Oops. Let's make sure what we're approving.

Adopting Resolution Number 2026, approving the recommendation from Region Monterey's Technical Advisory Committee subgroup to initiate an RFP process for future solid waste recycling and organics collection services and improving the process integrity policy governing the procurement process. Second notes.

Okay. And then that includes the three and four here, city manager, finance director doing their duties, right?

Yes.

Okay. So those four steps that are in the agenda. Okay. Second, I just want to say that I agree with the motion because I don't see a downside to the city of Marina. other than paying a portion of that 500K that we'd pay a smaller amount if we were to sole source it with green waste. But we did this in 2014 when waste management had it. It's the same rationale this time. And waste management made good arguments about sole sourcing. And I think in the end, we were happy that we went with RFP because we thought we had a better deal than we would have gotten sole source. So we're expecting it to be that way again. But if it's not, we heard from Kelly Johnson. Is that your last name, Kelly? That we can continue with sole sourcing with green waste without... going through the new contract, but we would probably negotiate a new contract with them anyway, because the terms probably allow for that, our existing contract with them. Should we go with the option five years? Okay.

Just a quick comment for me. You know, I'm among the 90 some percent of customers that's extremely satisfied with Greenway. So thank you for your service to the community.

Yeah, I was happy with waste management. I might be happier with green waste. It's just I think with the modern times, everyone's probably getting better. It's really good what we have right now. All right. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. All right. Thank you, everyone. That motion passes. And thanks to everyone here and anyone that had anything to do with tonight's work that we went over. Really appreciate it. Thank you, everyone. Okay, the next green waste issue is basically the next 12 months of rates going up 3.84% or so sorry. 3.86%. Okay, and Sandro.

Mayor and City Council, thank you. Yes, we are looking for, well, we're presenting a 3.84% increase of the green waste recovery rates for the fiscal year 25-26. That was covered in the meeting on June 24th, 2025. So.

Just to be clear, Lissandra, is it 3.84 or 3.86% increase to residential rates?

so from the analysis the rate adjustment review from hfnh included a 3.86 increase two residential rates for a period of 12 months the increase in dollar amount equates to 93 cents per month for residents with a 64 gallon container and 74 cents per month for residents with a 32 gallon container

Thank you for your brevity. Anything else you wanted to? We love that concise of a report.

If we could look at the Exhibit A, the summary of the HF&H review for Greenways. Did we have that one?

We have it in our packet.

Okay.

Sure.

You can just go with your computer and we can see it in our hands, hard copy.

From the final review for the green recovery, sorry, from the review from the green waste recovery 2026-27 rate request, just for the final report, HFNH has determined a 3.86 increase. 3.5 inflammatory increase for labor rates. 2.3 inflammatory increase of vehicle related costs, excluding fuel, sorry. Fuel rates held high or held flat, as said by Regen. A 2.3% inflammatory increase on other costs. Depreciation held flat per the agreement. 6.89% overall increase in the net proceeding cost due to increase in per ton rates, which is slightly offset by decrease in recyclables and organic tonnages. Lastly, a 7.9% increase in disposable costs due to an increase in per tonne disposal rates and tonnage. And that's about it. On my end, there's a few more tables that HFNH included in that report.

We also have...

And we also have Exhibit B, which covers the... Some of the same figures. Yeah, some of the same figures.

All right. Great, Lissandro. Thank you very much. Ishmael, do you have anything you want to... He was stalking you, Lissandro.

I felt the presence.

He was doing the Donald Trump-Hillary debate.

Donald Trump is the last person on earth I'd ever try to emulate. No, I was actually just going to come up here and say this is the standard annual increase that Greenways is proposing. HFNH has reviewed their increased proposal and deemed it to be accurate and valid. So that's the item before you.

All right. Thank you, Ismael. Thank you very much, Lissandro. Good job. Let's go to public comment. Anyone here in the room? Come on up if you'd like to comment.