City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

All right.

Welcome everyone to this regular agenda meeting of Marina City Council Tuesday, September 1st, 2026. Roll call, please.

Council Member McCarthy. Council Member McAdams. Here. Council Member Biala. Here. Mayor Portin-Bisher. Here. Mayor Delgado.

Here. All right. We have one item on our closed session. Before we go to closed session, does anyone in the public wish to speak on the closed session matter? And do we have anyone on Zoom? Okay. All right. Before we go to open session, sorry, closed session, we're also going to call roll for a regular, a special meeting. So we have a special city council meeting concurrent with the regular meeting on this day of September 1st, 2026. We have a roll call for that meeting, please.

Council Member McCarthy. Council Member McAdams. Here. Council Member Biala. Here. Mayor Parton-Bisher. Here. Mayor Delgado. Here.

here and so uh on this agenda matter are there any members of the public online yet

Maybe before that, if I can just make some changes or announce some changes to that special closed session agenda. So given some recent, including a recent lawsuit that was filed, the designation in the special closed session agenda item needs to be changed from government code. 54956.92 to 54956.91. That is, it's going from anticipated litigation to existing litigation. And again, suit has been filed, I believe, this afternoon. And so that is the name of the case is DiCarlo versus the city of Marina et al. 26CB004806 in Monterey Superior Court.

All right. Thank you. So is there any public comment? Anyone online that wishes to comment? Okay. Then we're going to go to closed session and we'll be back here at 630.

Recording stopped. that this item comes to us.

So a little bit more information or a lot more information.

Okay. Um, so TJ, would you mind leading us in the pledge of allegiance?

So please rise for a moment of silence and then TJ will lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

Thank you, TJ, for being a good sport.

The first presentation regards a Jacob's Heart proclamation. And I think, Jenny, you're going to present this?

Yes. Thank you so much, Mayor. And is Alyssa here from Jacob's Heart? Yes. Hi. Welcome. So this month, September 2026, we're honoring Jacob's Heart Children's Cancer Support Services and declaring September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in the city of Marina. Whereas the character of our community is revealed in how we treat our most vulnerable. And each year, 19.2 in every 100,000 children in our community will be diagnosed with cancer. Cancer remains the leading cause of death by disease among children, more than asthma, diabetes, cystic fibrosis, congenital anomalies, and AIDS combined. Whereas Jacob's Heart has been keeping medically fragile children and families housed, fed, and emotionally supported by steadfastly adhering to the following commitments. Parents of children with cancer and other serious illnesses will be relieved of financial fears and able to focus attention on their children. No child undergoing intensive treatment in our community will be homeless. Families of seriously ill children will not experience food insecurity during and after the pandemic. And no child seriously ill in our community will ever miss a medical appointment because of lack of transportation. And whereas Jacob's Heart holds the memories and honors legacies of the hundreds of children from our local communities who have been lost to cancer, ensuring that their memories will never be forgotten. Whereas it is important for all Marina City residents to recognize the impact of pediatric cancer on families within our community and honor the children in our community whose lives have been cut short by cancer. Now, therefore, I, Bruce Delgado, Mayor of the City of Marina, Hereby declare September 2026 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in the City of Marina and do hereby honor Jacob's Heart Children's Cancer Support Services for outstanding support to our community and acknowledge the organization's contributions to Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Thank you so much.

You.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Maria Reyes. I am an intern with Jacob's Heart Children's Cancer Support Services. On behalf of Jacob's Heart, the kiddos and families we serve, thank you for recognizing September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. As Jacob's Heart We walk alongside families from the moment of diagnosis and throughout their entire journey. Families navigate so much more than just medical treatment. They may be traveling for hours to receive specialized care, missing work, to be at their child's bedside and trying to adjust to a completely new routine. What I hope you remember tonight is that childhood cancer doesn't just affect one child. It impacts an entire family and an entire community. Speaking from my family experience, Jacob's Heart has provided us immense love and support when our family was facing the difficult journey of a cancer diagnosis. Jacob's Heart was there for us, providing a light in what felt like a very dark tunnel. By issuing this proclamation, the city of Marin is helping us bring a greater visibility to childhood cancer and most importantly, showing local families that their community sees them and stands with them. So once again, thank you so much for recognizing Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and standing with the children and families of Jacobs Heart.

Thank you, Maya. Thanks for all that you and your team do for us. Okay, next, Mayor Pro Tem Visser has volunteered to read a proclamation for National Recovery Month.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And I know we have in the room, Henry, Pam and Katja. So thank you for being here. So whereas September is observed across the nation as National Recovery Month, whereas the impact of mental and substance use disorders and co-occurring disorders is apparent in our local community, and a great number of Marina residents are affected by these conditions. About 2 million Californians met the criteria for substance use disorder. Whereas mental and substance use disorders, including co-occurring disorders, affect all communities nationwide, but with commitment and support, people with these disorders can achieve healthy lifestyles and lead rewarding lives in recovery. By seeking help, people who experience mental and substance use disorders and co-occurring disorders can embark on a new path towards improved health and overall wellness. Sun Street Centers provides the community with the resources to begin and continue their recovery. Whereas through Recovery Month, people become more aware and able to recognize the signs of mental and substance use disorders and co-occurring disorders, and encourages people in need of treatment and recovery services to seek help. Managing the effects of these conditions helps individuals achieve healthy lifestyles, both physically and emotionally. Whereas the Recovery Month observance continues to work to improve the lives of those affected by mental and substance use disorders by raising awareness of these disorders and educating communities about the effective treatments and recovery services that are available. Sun Street Centers also educates youth to prevent substance use disorders from happening. For the above reasons, Sun Street Centers asks the citizens of Marina to join in celebrating this September as National Recovery Month. Therefore, be it proclaimed that I, the honorable Bruce Carlos Delgado, Mayor of the City of Marina, on behalf of the City Council, do hereby proclaim the month of September 2026 as National Recovery Month. In doing so, call upon our community to observe this month with compelling programs and events that support this year's observance. Thank you.

And while you come on up, Henry and Pam and Katya for photos, I wanted to just mention that if 2 million Californians are affected by substance abuse and mental disorders, think about how many people in their families are also affected and other people in our community. So what Sun Street does, Sun Street Center is not just improve the lives of those that are affected by mental and substance use disorders, but also their families and the rest of us in the community. So thank you, Sun Street Center, for all that you do.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, city staff, community partners, and residents of Marina. We're Sun Street Centers. And on behalf of Sun Street Centers and Hope Housing Transitional Housing Program, I want to express our sincere gratitude for the National Recovery Month Proclamation. This recognition honors the courage of people in recovery, the dedication of families and of service providers, and the commitment of the communities that believe healing is possible. Recovery is the process of healing and taking back what has been lost to substance use disorder, severe mental health challenges and homelessness. It is a journey of restoring health, rebuilding trust, reconnecting with family and community and reclaiming dignity, stability and hope. The partnership between the City of Marina and Hope Housing Transitional Housing Program demonstrate what is possible when local government, nonprofit services, and community members work together. Through this collaboration, individuals and families can access supportive housing, case management, recovery support, prevention resources, and pathways towards long-term wellness and independence. Since we started Hope Housing on August 24th, 2024, we have served 183 individuals, including families and children. We have successfully transitioned 46 clients into permanent housing placements. Sun Street Center's mission is clear, preventing alcohol and drug addiction by offering education, prevention, treatment, and recovery to all individuals and families, regardless of income level. That mission guides our work every day and reminds us that recovery services must be accessible, compassionate, and rooted in the respect for every person's worth. National Recovery Month gives us an opportunity to celebrate progress, reduce stigma, and affirm that people can and do recover. It also reminds us that recovery is strengthened when housing, treatment prevention, mental health care, employment support, and community connection come together. Mayor and council members, thank you for standing with individuals and families impacted by substance use disorder, mental health challenges, and homelessness. Thank you. for recognizing recovery as a community priority, and for helping create a marina where healing, stability, and hope are within the reach of everyone.

Sorry, just really quickly, I just want to say that as part of our prevention efforts, we will continue to commit our services to our youth in the Marina High School and elementary schools. We continue to provide our presentations. We continue to provide our education to both youth and families and parents. And anybody that would like to invite us in here in the community, any church group, youth group, anybody, we will be gladly available to have presentations.

Thank you. Thank you, Katya. And can you remind us who your ally is?

That is Renee. She's our new Director of Philanthropy.

Renee. Thanks, Renee, for coming. And thanks, everybody.

Thank you.

Okay. Our Director of Recreation and Cultural Services, Elizabeth, is going to present her certificate of appreciation. Okay. Can I comment? Oh, sure. Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here. I just wanted to say a couple of things. Hope Housing, if you're not familiar with it, is something that I'm really proud of that is here in Marina. It's a lovely program that serves not only single adults, but families that are experiencing homelessness due to substance use disorders and or mental health challenges. And so it's really a special and unique program. And I'm proud that it's here in Marina. Also at the Monterey Salinas Transit Center on Reservation Road, there is a free Narcan and fentanyl test distribution machine. It is anonymous. And I have been in contact with Behavioral Health of the County recently. Our machine does get frequently used. So, you know, some people I know were were scared of it or didn't want it, but but it's being used. And that is the purpose. And, you know, Narcan does save lives when it's needed for for overdosing. And then just this. Coming up on Saturday, September 19th at the Marina VA Clinic, they're doing the 2026 Recovery Run. And that is in partnership with Sun Street Centers and the Bridge Restoration Ministry. There's a 5K run and a two-mile run and fun walk. There's going to be music and food vendors and all kinds of community. So please save the date and come out. Thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. Okay, so now I'll turn it over to Elizabeth.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Council. I'm actually going to call up Recreation Manager Drea Diallo to make this presentation. The donation we received for the all-inclusive playground is really big for us, and that project is near and dear to her heart as she's doing an amazing job on the steering committee. So, Drea, take it away.

Hi, everyone. Welcome, our new city manager.

So tonight, we're honored to recognize the Marina family.

TJ, Kelly, please come up. whose generosity is helping bring our all-inclusive playground project one step closer to becoming a reality. Their incredible $10,000 donation represents much more than financial support. It represents a commitment to creating a place where children and families of all abilities can play, connect, and feel that they belong. This playground is truly a community project and contributions like this remind us of what is possible when our community comes together with a shared vision. On behalf of the City of Marina and the Recreation and Cultural Services Department, we extend our heartfelt appreciation to the Kelly family for believing in this project and investing in the children and families of our community. Thank you for helping us build a playground where everyone has a place to play. Do you have anything that you'd like to say, TJ? Not to put you on the spot or anything.

You want me over there? Sure, sure, sure.

Thank you. I'm really looking forward to the playground and all the other improvements that are going on around that park. My son is seven and a half. He didn't end up coming today, but I'd like for the playground to be done before he's, well, he's still enjoying playgrounds. We're looking forward to it. And it's a very transformative project. I'm very grateful that you all are taking it on.

Thank you, TJ, and to your whole family. We appreciate this very much.

Thank you, TJ. I'm going to have the steering committee come up who's here from the steering committee and take a picture with our council and TJ.

Thank you, everyone. Thank you, TJ. Okay, next we're going to have a Zuno Kuni program presentation.

Councilmember Kathy Biala is going to lead us through this.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I'm just going to give a really brief history of our sister city with Izunokuni, Japan. And it's been a very active one and long one. And so I'm going to show a video of the recent activity. But it started in June 6, 2023, when we became in partnership with the sister city of Izunokuni. And in 2024, the Iznikuni sent us a delegation. So they were here along with their mayor and many of their staff members. And then actually we're on our fourth successful academic year beginning when the kids go to school, September now. But we've had a Zoom session. exchange program with marina high school so six american high schoolers and six japanese high schoolers would meet every year for the last three years and now entering our fourth where they would have a zoom exchange and you think well how close can the kids get when they're just on the zoom but it really cemented relationships so it was just wonderful to to watch and And this video that I'm going to be showing is the first time that we actually had students from Izunokuni who have participated in one of the years of the Zoom exchange program. So actually came to Marina with two, it was five of them and two chaperones. But I want to say that when we had our delegation going to Japan in March of 2025, we were hosted at the middle school and 120 of their students, actually of us here is Lisbeth and myself and Bruce went over there. And some other folks, I think Belinda as well. But there was 120 of their students singing us the song that they had practiced so long and it was called Best Friends. It was just so it was just so touching. But last year, we had a teacher in Japan who teaches English come to Marina, and they explored all of the different levels of our school system. And then this year, again, another Japanese teacher of English in Japan is coming over here in about two and a half weeks. And just from August 22nd to 25th, we had those Japanese students coming here. And so I made a really brief three-minute presentation on that visit. So you want to just show it? Thank you. Just, oh, you want to hit the first? There we go.

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, So,

Okay, so I think you got a flavor of all the things that we did and the kind of wonderful relationships we are creating between a foreign country and America. So it was very wonderful. And we're going to continue to have other activities with the two countries. So we're looking forward to it. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Kathy. Were you going to comment on this?

Thank you, Mayor. I just, I wanted to express gratitude to Council Member Biala because this is so much work, and it's a program that you facilitate throughout the entire year. And even, I think, in a couple of weeks, a teacher is coming, and you're, again, coordinating a dinner and events and accommodations, and so I just... really wanted to express gratitude. And my son Maximilian got to go to the pizza party and he really had a great time. He was the hit star at our party.

Let me tell you, he's so cute. They love him.

Well, thank you so much for this work. And I know we just saw a snippet of what you do. And I just wanted to acknowledge the planning and the work behind the scenes that goes into, you know, this program for the year. So thank you.

And Kathy, I too would like to acknowledge the impressive number of events that you packed into four days.

And the team you assembled, including our city manager, Matt Mogeson, who hosted these children, that takes a lot of planning just to coordinate who's going to live with who. But an amazing amount of work and time behind the scenes. And then the trip goes off like a home run, going to Joby and all the places you visited in such a short period of time. It's an immense workload and you do it with a lot of grace. And it's always successful when you put your heart into it and you put your heart into so many initiatives, this being one. Just want to say thank you. Okay. Okay. So now we're gonna move on to council and staff announcements. And I'd like to make the first announcement and then turn it over to staff. This is our first night with Matt Mogeson, our brand new city manager. He started yesterday. He was assistant city manager here for about four or five years. He went to Pacific Grove to become their city manager. And now he's back here to be our city manager. And we really appreciate what he's already done for our city. And he's gotten to know our city so well. He lives in our city. And we're very lucky to have Matt Mogeson as our city manager. Thank you, Matt, for joining.

your first night.

Well, thank you, Mr. Mayor. And nice to see so many new faces and old faces I've seen before. But thank you to the council and to the mayor for the trust and everything you put in me to offer me this position. It comes with a lot of responsibility and I don't take it lightly. So I plan on putting my heart into it as well. So I guess just a bit about me, if it's relevant here. I grew up for the most part more in the San Luis Obispo area. I went to Rio Grande High School and spent most of my growing up years there. In my early 20s, I went to Southern California to finish my education and kind of start a career. And I kind of got stuck for a little while until I had this great opportunity in 2018 to get back up this direction when I came up here to be the assistant city manager. So, you know, my background is kind of a mix of planning and city management type stuff. And this is where I've wanted to, you know, land at the end of the day was a great city manager job like this. Now, Marina is a thriving community, and I'm really excited to be back. And the council and Lane put you on a great trajectory, you know, to go good places. And I think one of Lane's great things that he left behind is a really good executive staff that is very experienced and ready to lead and more dedicated staff as well. So looking forward to, you know, being part of the team here and doing great things and getting to meet a lot more people and be part of the community. I do see my role as, you know, I need to be out there and invested and get to know you and understand your thoughts and everything so that I can better do my job and serve the council. So thank you.

Thank you very much, Matt. Okay. Let's go to staff for announcements and we'll come to council for announcements.

Okay. Council. Council.

I'll make the announcement that the Marina Grange reorganized. I'm sorry, Guido.

I'm sorry. On September 17th, I'm hosting an ADU summit at CSUMB from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. We have about seven cities participating. HCD is coming. We're bringing ADU property owners, builders, together and really just asking the question of what can we as cities do better to help streamline the development of ADUs. So council, you're more than welcome to come. I do have a flyer I can give the council and just reminded me that I don't know if I'd sent the flyer to the council yet. So I'll send it out after this meeting. So thank you.

Okay, I guess I'd like to put our fire chief a little bit on the spot. Can you give an early announcement about the fire department open house in October? I think it is.

So you have five weeks advance notice.

And it's from 3.30 to 6.30 at the main station here on Palm Avenue. October is fire prevention month. And so the theme this year is lithium ion batteries and safety of those, such as storing them in your house and that type of stuff. So they'll focus on that. But lots of fun events for kids and families. And we hope to see you all there.

All right, so that's Tuesday, October 9th? Yes, I believe it's Tuesday.

It's Thursday, October 8th.

That was my mistake. Thursday, October 8th, just down the hill from here. There'll be a street blocked off on Palm Avenue for a street fair festival, and it's a lot of fun. So come on out to the Fire Department's open house. It's an annual event. It's great. Thanks, Kristen. Thanks for bringing that up. Sure.

Good evening. We have one other event and it is going to conflict with the one that sounds so fun that you just announced on the 19th. But we do have our girls in aviation event at the airport. It's from 10 to 1. It's all inclusive, of course, but the focus is to get girls exposed to the world of aviation, understand jobs and careers that could be. For them. So if you know of any girls that are interested or any girl groups, please feel free to send them my way. I'm happy to share the information and make sure they know all the logistics.

Thanks, Courtney. So that's 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. So in the morning, we have that event. And then later that afternoon, we have the Fired Open House. And that's the Girls in Aviation event. And I'd like to thank Courtney. She was the interim city manager between our former city manager, Lane Long, and Matt Mogeson, who just started yesterday. Courtney stepped in and did a great job. Thank you, Courtney. It was great to see you in that leadership role that you did so well. Okay. Any more announcements from staff? All right. Now we'll go to... public comment. And this is anything that's on the consent agenda. Please provide comment that you'd like. And anything that's on your mind that's not otherwise later in the agenda. So this is your time for public comment. And we'll start with those in the room in person. And then we'll move to those folks online.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Good evening. City Council staff, Matt, welcome. Thank you. Mike Muller, Marina resident and candidate for mayor. I wanted to quickly announce the next Repair Cafe Marina will be September 19th at 11 a.m. at the Rocky Hawn Community Center. I started the Repair Cafe Marina in 2025 because I like the idea of bringing people together and and fixing things that might otherwise end up being thrown away. Bring a broken household item in and our volunteers will see if they can help you repair it. It's been great to see the program continue to grow and I want to recognize the City of Marina for their support. When I first approached the city about starting Repair Cafe, they supported us by providing a space at the community center and they continue to support us today and I appreciate that. I also want to thank the Rotary Club of Marina for sponsoring Repair Cafe through insurance coverage, which is very important. um i am proud to be part of the club that puts service above self into practice and repair cafe is a good example of that people volunteering their time and skills to help other people in the community oh that's a lot of time A repair cafe also promotes something that's important to me, which is sustainability. If we can repair something instead of replacing it, we're keeping it out of the landfill, saving someone's money, and maybe teaching others something along the way. So if you have something sitting around the house that you've been meaning to fix or don't know how to fix it, don't throw it away on September 19th. Bring it in and we'll see what we can do for you. Again, September 19th, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Rocky Hunt Community Center. Thank you.

Thank you, Mike, for doing that. Great.

And best wishes on your candidacy. Okay. Anyone else here in person wish to comment?

Good evening, Mayor, Council, and staff. Ron Cheshire. It's been a long time. A long time since I've been in here. It's almost... I worked with the city of Marina on a lot of things over time during the confusion that basically came about when the BRAC was announced and the horror when it was announced that Fort Ord was going to be closed. I got to work in many roles along with the city because I believe in this city. I believe in the working people in this city. I'm the son of a retired military man and a housewife that came out from Texas. I was born in Los Angeles in 1951, came to Monterey in March of 1956. I've been here over 70 years and I've seen a lot. We worked hard to be sure that Marina had equal representation or When FORA was formed, they only wanted to give you one vote. We stood the line, two votes for Marina and Seaside. And we made Senator Mello back down on that. We wanted the workers to have a chance here in this community. We worked hard and developed the prevailing wage ordinance that FORA uses, because we knew what was going to happen. You're building homes that cost over a million dollars. And we saw people that just wanted to pay $20 or less to workers to build them. And we wouldn't have it. I'd like to see the city work a little closer with the building trades and labor in regards to these issues. Also in regards to water, I know it's a touchy subject. I called a meeting of the assembly speaker and the head of the Senate sat down so Marina could go ahead, Marina Coast Water District and build a project. Unfortunately, low conflict of interest got in the way on that. The Monterey Peninsula Water Management District won't do their job, basically threw it in the hands of CalAM. Cal-Am basically came to the city. You could have partnered up with them. You could have been a part of it. And now you've spent a lot of money trying to protect 140-foot aquifer that's brackish and saltwater intruded. And you'll never use that water. And I'll never understand that. The working people, again, deserve the best here.

Thank you, Ron. That is three minutes. We appreciate that.

Thank you very much, Mayor.

Please come back. Okay. You bet.

Will do.

Anyone else?

Hi, my name's Alan Farland. I'm a six-year resident of Marina. And I moved up here from Southern California where I spent close to 30 years working for a city down there. So I welcome you, Mr. Bogenson, and I wish you the best of luck. And I want to share something that's been on my mind. I look at all these feeds on Facebook and I see utility tax to pay for facilities and I've come and did the tour of the facilities. Yeah. They're nothing to be proud of. But I know with your leadership, we're counting on you. I think there's a trust deficiency between the city of Marina residents and officials. And for me, and it happens probably more often than not, it is money. And so if I would like to see the money designated in a certain fund, not in the general fund, because the general fund is robbed from Peter to pay Paul, and then it's temporarily happiness for someone, and then other people suffer. So... 50 years or so, however long we've been a city, I'm still learning about the city, but someone, you can't go back and hold people accountable, but someone, and I'm looking at you, Mr. Mogenson, because you're in that role now, needs to manage the city. Okay. in the budget and make sure that everything is maintained properly and that there's money that's in a special fund, designated fund outside of the general fund for this. And so I welcome you. I hope you accept that challenge and good luck.

Thank you, Alan.

Ana Luz Acevedo- Hi, I'm Ana Luz Acevedo-Cabrera and I just wanted to touch base on item on the agenda for adopting resolution approving the call for bids for the Del Monte Boulevard and Reservation Road Intersection Improvement Project. So I wanted to connect that back to a time that I was at TAMC talking about when they were talking about the Highway 68 updates and how they were considering the roundabouts. But they were also considering smart lights that in this case, they incorporate AI. Now, I'm not saying I support AI on every application, but I think in this case, it actually made sense. from the savings improvements that the smart sensors could bring in that could also in place of the roundabouts. So essentially from what I remember at that time, they were looking at considering those smart sensors and if in the scenario that it made sense, and some of those lights could be turned into roundabouts, that was something for consideration. But as a first step, they were looking at doing the sensors. So in regards to that specific part, I would ask if that is part of the consideration, not just the roundabouts. because those are very expensive. It also has an impact on people and all the delays. And I also want to connect that to every application has different solutions. So in the case of Imgen, it made sense to do the roundabouts in that scenario. You have to look at traffic flow. In some cases, the traffic flow lends itself so that it makes sense to have roundabout. Even in parts of reservation prior to getting to that intersection, there's roundabouts and it makes sense just based on the traffic flow. But at that specific intersection, the one in question that you guys are looking at, something to think about is how that traffic flow just based on all directions, how that's going to be impacting a lot of interactions with the cars. And if that's an alternative, you could look at smart sensors specifically like the AI powered ones that they were looking at for Highway 68. So that's what I wanted to bring to the attention. I don't know if that's part of the discussion during that time, but just in case there wasn't a public comment, I wanted to make sure that that was touched on. And thank you for your time and your effort on this. And also I'm running for mayor. So keep an eye on that. Thank you.

Thank you, Ana Luz. And best wishes on your candidacy. Anyone else in the room? Okay, let's go to online. We have a couple people. Grace Silva-Santella. Good evening, Grace.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. You can hear me okay?

You're a little low, but I think we can hear you pretty good.

Okay. So I'll just try to speak a little louder. First off, welcome back, Matt. I always appreciated you when you were here in the past with us as assistant city manager. I look forward to you working with us residents and the council and future councils. Secondly, I sent out this afternoon an email with a number of questions and concerns about the Marina Library roof item. I hope all four of you have had an opportunity to read it. I think we especially need to be concerned given the that this is a government contract that you, though an attempt was made to get a third bid, I think you need to work. There needs to be a better effort to get a third bid to be sure that all the I dotted and T's have been crossed, but I also have a number of other questions and concerns I have with the library roof. But most importantly, I have questions about how the city is managing questions that come up relative to measure Q. I've put in a couple of phone calls with the Monterey County Elections Office. Monterey County Elections Office has informed me that the city clerk is our election official. Thank you, Anita, very much for all that you've done to help me. However, I was unable to answer a couple of my questions. I sent two weeks ago on August 18th an email that Anita forwarded to the city's legal counsel. That was 14 days ago, no response. On August 21st, 11 days ago, I sent another email with a different issue that was raised. And that one went to an email address that Anita gave me for the legal counsel, along with the assistant city manager, Matt's email address from a long time ago. and to Anita, and that one I also have not the response to. If somebody could please contact me, I would appreciate it. So I can understand given that the city clerk is considered the election official for Marina's a general election on November 3, I would greatly appreciate some kind of response from the city, other than Anita reminding me that she had forwarded things. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Grace. Thanks a lot. Okay, let's go to Nancy Amadeo. Welcome, Nancy. Trying to unmute. There you go.

There.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

It's Dan, Mr. Mayor.

Good evening, Dan.

Welcome back, Matt. You're going to have your hands full. I tried to research some information, reference the UUT and Measure Q. And quite frankly, I'm pretty good at getting through these websites, but I can't find what I'm looking for. So I'm going to ask those questions directly to the council. You can choose to answer them tonight or not choose to answer them. I guess that's your prerogative. Doesn't sound like a good idea if you don't answer any of them. I talked to you and offered advice about timing of this measure. trust in the council and then perception. So here are my questions. How much money have we spent pursuing the UUT? Let's just say since the inception of the Citizens Advisory Committee. Second part of that question is where did that money come from? Did it come out of the general fund? If it did, what account out of the general fund is it coming out of? The third question and the one that's most important to me, because that's money that's already gone, can't recover it, is I keep hearing about all these alternatives that you guys said you explored and decided that the answer was the UUT and please don't blame the advisory committee. Those are not the people who made that decision. They made a recommendation. So what other alternative sources did you explore and exclude to every one of them, whatever they are, for financing some of these facilities upgrades or new construction. I cannot believe for one second that every single alternative was discarded. I would tell you, I could think of three off the top of my head, may not eliminate a UUT, but it would make it not a 7% UUT, might make it a 3% UUT, which is easier to sell. last thing because you guys put so much and those are my questions the last thing's a comment um if you put all that stock in fm3's presentation if you look right under the rankings of the various departments underneath the fire department i think you're going to find it's small business have you guys considered the impact on small businesses in this town where they're already paying a chunk of money in taxes for all other kinds of things. Now you want to hit them with 7% UUT. And if you're unlucky enough to be a small business owner who lives in a marina, you're going to hit them for another three and a half to 7% on their home. So what are you guys doing? Have you even thought about the impact you're having on mom and pop businesses in this town? Thank you.

I'd like to speak.

Thank you very much, Dan.

I would like to speak now, Mr. Mayor.

Good evening, Nancy.

Thank you. I just have a very quick comment regarding small businesses in Marina. indirectly, it will immediately affect people who frequent those small businesses because they're going to have to raise their prices, something they've already had to do because of the tariffs that the federal government has instituted. It is making it very difficult for people to just go get a hamburger and some French fries. The prices have gone up astronomically, and now that 7% will be passed on to the consumer, making it less likely for them to frequent our small businesses and more likely for small businesses to fail. That is something that this council needs to consider. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Nancy. Anyone else online wish to comment? Just raise your hand. Okay, Brian, welcome.

Hi, I'm actually here to comment about the STR ordinance. Great. Okay. My name is Brian Nagishi. Thank you for hearing me out in advance.

I'm sorry, Brian. I'm sorry to interrupt you. I neglected to realize this is already on the agenda later.

Okay. It's not on the consent agenda. It's a public hearing. So if you could wait just a little bit longer, we'll get to it and we'll call on you first. Will do. Thank you.

Okay. All right. We'll go ahead and close public comment.

Dan, thank you. We wrote down your questions. Our council format is that we answer your questions offline with staff, and so staff will get back to you. Actually, you had four questions, I think, but for sure you had those three. So we'll get back to you, okay, Dan? You might be the first to get a call from our new city manager. Okay, so we'll move on now and get to that consent agenda. And I'd like to pull 10E3. Oops, sorry, 10G. I was going to pull 10E3, but that's been tabled. That was the roundabout. I'm going to pull the library item, which is 10G1. because uh primarily because grace sent in um about 11 questions today i just want to make sure that we have those covered because they're pretty detailed uh does anyone else wish to pull anything okay i don't want to pull but i have comments though okay yeah let's do the go ahead uh councilmember mcadams sure and then also when you're um when staff is uh

Answering questions from the public, will someone get back to Ms. Santilla, to Grace? She had mentioned that she'd been trying to email and call a few times.

Sorry, thanks for bringing that up.

Will I include her as well? Thank you. So 10E2, Ishmael, thank you so much for the quick turnaround, for the... RFP for the on-call janitorial services. I appreciate that. And then 10G2, I would encourage staff, if we could get an update regarding the grant services, even just the annual update, what they've gone out for, what has been secured. I don't think I've ever seen information on that. And so I'm just, I love that we're having this service and I'm just sort of curious to if we could get some sort of annual update. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

And along those lines of quick comments, kudos to Guido, who's, I'm so sorry, Guido's to Ishmael. And I think in coordination with Guido, Ishmael is our public works director. He's putting together a $300,000 grant. for cypress knolls and if that planning grant for a planning document uh is successful that plan that we come up with using that 300 000 to plan how to redevelop cypress knolls which is 188 acres of city property that's a lot of land it still has a couple hundred um abandoned army duplexes falling apart on it so it's a it's definitely blight waiting to be redeveloped but anyway uh He's hoping that if we get this planning grant, the same organization that gives the money for the planning grant is known to give tens of millions of dollars to communities like ours to actually build the project. So first you get a grant to pay to plan. Then if you're lucky, you get a grant from the same donor to build. And if we can get $30,000, $80 million to build, we can actually build that dream project of affordable housing, environmental friendly. If we don't get that kind of money, we have to turn it over to third party developers and they're, they're very focused on profit. And so if we have a dream project, compared to selling the land to a developer to make a lot of money that we can use in our community. It's a really hard choice to go with the environmental friendly, affordable design that's very expensive. It doesn't bring us in any money when we have so many needs for capital. So anyway, good luck, Ishmael. Thank you for doing this project. And thanks to the Citizens for Santa Marina for being a partner on that project. Hopefully that'll be a success. And I want to say that all the times we have these consent agendas, we put them on one list and we don't talk about them individually because they're kind of no brainers. But every one of these consent items makes progress and took a lot of work to put it together to the point of being a no-brainer. And so thanks tonight, as always, for all these consent agenda items, staff reports. We really appreciate it. It's a lot of work that goes unnoticed sometimes. But thank you for that. I'd like to motion that we approve the consent agenda minus that library issue or item that was 10G1.

I will second, I would like to make a quick remark as well. Can I do that? For 10E1, since we're thanking Ismael, I would like to thank him for taking care of those trees at the future Dunes City Park. He knows I've been asking. Please make sure that they are being trimmed before the project starts so they don't have to be careful. And thank you for having mentioned that those three trees, you listed them. They will not be removed at this moment. Thank you.

There's a backstory there that Elizabeth's being a little humble. There was a pending tree permit to cut down three trees. And Elizabeth noticed that there might not be a need to cut them down for many years. So if there's not a need to cut them down, let's keep them there. And maybe they can be saved at a later date. Even though one of them was a eucalyptus tree, that's okay. We love all trees. And those three trees, thanks to the diligence of one of our council members, Elizabeth, are going to be saved for now and maybe forever. We'll see. But thank you, Elizabeth, for jumping in there at that level. Okay.

So I'm happy to second on the consent, and I just want to confirm that we're also pulling the roundabout, right?

Yeah, that was tabled. Right. Correct. Does not include the roundabout item.

And tabled to another meeting? Yes. Postponed to a future meeting. Okay. Perfect. Great. Happy to second that.

All right. Any final comments before we go to a vote? All right. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Aye.

All opposed? All right. That motion passed unanimously. And we'll move on to our hearing on our housing element. Oh, sorry. On our STRs. Is that right? I'm sorry, everyone. California Building Standards Code.

And then we'll get to the short-term rentals. Bill is our chief building official. He'll be giving the presentation about the building code update.

Thank you, Dylan. Thanks, Guido. Thanks, Guido.

Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers. Did you all receive a red line copy of my document? Great. So that really outlines what we're doing is making administrative and clerical corrections to the ordinance that were recommended and identified by the California Building Standards Commission. We take the ordinance that was originally passed last year and submit that to building standards they review it they did find some inconsistencies and things that required correction we're mostly talking about code cycle references section numbering and appendix adoption languages things that had been sort of passed down through multiple copies and versions and building officials and so uh they've gotten very particular about this recently and so i went through it with a fine tooth comb and have come up with a version that you have before you these are clerical in nature, and this will be then considered again in a couple of weeks and published for the public. Any questions? Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you.

Let's go to Councilman Rick Adams.

Thank you, Mayor. And I just wanted to say at the National Night Out, you had the funnest little giveaways and he brought like a city council game and, you know, all kinds of fun things. So I'm sorry to interrupt.

It's not your fault. I called on your comment. Let's go to public comment. This is a hearing. So we'll open that public hearing. Anyone here in person like to comment on this matter? All right, let's go online. Not seeing anyone. We'll give you a moment if you'd like to raise your hand. Okay, we'll close the public hearing and turn it back over to Council Member McAdams.

Sure, thanks so much. And I just... No.

That was earlier tonight. No, just kidding.

And just something this is we do every year as far as the building code go. And so just thank you for this work. I know it's not an easy task, especially when I looked at the big old stack that you had. So we appreciate that. And that's all. I'm happy to move for approval.

Seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Vischer. Any comments before we go to a vote? Thank you for the concise and well done presentation. All right. All in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Oh, roll call. I'm so sorry.

Yeah.

Council Member McAdams. Aye. Council Member Biala. Yes. Mayor Pretend Fisher. Yes. Mayor Delgado.

Anonymous with the four of us present. And we'll go to the short-term rental item. We'll have a brief presentation and we'll open a public hearing.

Brian, our assistant planner, will give the initial presentation and we're both here to answer questions. So pass it off to Brian.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor and Council and members of the public. My name is Brian Kim. I'm the Assistant Planner. And tonight I will be presenting on the Short-Term Rental Ordinance Amendments.

Next slide, please.

So back in May, City Council adopted Ordinance 202605. Some of the key changes at the time were putting a cap of 50 permits citywide, maximum of 100 rental nights per calendar year. and a provision of parcels with adus and jdus with an exception of those built prior to 2020 and a 50-foot zone of exclusion and another provision that defers enforcement of that giving existing permit holders a transition period until june 30th of 2027 and a primary residence requirement of homeowner exemption included in one of the required documents and another required document of a nuisance plan next slide please So the reason we're back today is because there was a recent ruling for a case of Monterey County Vacation and Rental Alliance versus County of Monterey that impacts the ordinance amendments we made back in May. And a subject case concern a moderate county ordinance whose home state category required to be titled property owners personal residence with no comparable pathway available for non owner occupied properties. So next slide please. So as a measure of precaution, in July 23rd, 2026, we took this item back to Planning Commission where we revised two definitions with the help of the legal team, the STR owner definition and primary residence. In addition, the Planning Commission added two motions in the recommendation deferring enforcement of the ADU JADU provision and the ordinance as a whole. Next slide, please. So taking a deeper look at that deferring enforcement of ADU and JADU provision, following the adoption of the ordinance back in May, we've received many inquiries from former SDR permit holders who are concerned about that provision. And as a method to kind of help those permit holders, the Planning Commission recommended retaining the prohibition, but deferring the enforcement to June 30th, 2027, similar to how we did for the 55-foot zone of exclusion. Next slide, please. And because the prior ordinance was adopted on May 19th, with the renewals being due up on June 30th, we've also received many inquiries from permit holders saying that there was an adequate time to comply with the new required standards. So as to provide some additional time and transition period, the Planning Commission recommended deferring enforcement of the final ordinance of this newly, if we were to get adopted today, to January 31st following final approval of City Council. Next slide, please. So here is the recommended motion for council. And I think we should have one more slide. And we've received correspondence from a member of the public today to kind of consider that 109 rental cap. Here is a list of nearby cities and their maximum rental days. Because the homeowner's exemption rule, we're changing the requirement to remove it. The staff believes that the 100-night limitation, removing that 100-night cap would allow a year-round STR operation if people kind of basically hear the... rent out the house here year round. But the intention of this ordinance was to support owner-occupied STR. So staff supports keeping this 100-night limitation. And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you, Brian, and to your team for all the work you've been putting into this for a couple of years now. Anything more, Guido?

No.

When you step up there, I just want to Okay.

So let's open a public hearing, and then we'll come back to City Council for a City Council discussion. So starting with those of you here in the room, come on up one at a time, and you have up to three minutes.

And why don't we let Sean go? Those are fake crutches. I mean, there's a really... I mean, they're real crutches, but...

Thank you, Council, Mayor, staff. I apologize for the slow movement. I've torn my calf pretty badly playing baseball recently. Mainly, I wanted to thank the staff and the council and the Planning Commission for all of the work that's been put into this over the last eight, nine years, really. In particular, recently, Guido and Brian and Marisa, all of the work from the staff. I understand why this is coming back to council even after a lengthy process recently. My only thought here is that I appreciate and understand why it's coming back and I wanna thank council for considering it. And I think all the time that has already been put in to considering this previously and know that there is a legal consideration as to why this is coming back and that otherwise that the ordinance be left as is even though in our particular instance some of it has been more challenging and uh it's cut into some of our income but uh we understand and we're working with the current uh ordinance and appreciate the work and understand why why it is where it is um so that's that's my thoughts that's about as far as as much as i can stand so thank you sean thanks for being a part of this process

good okay anyone else here now it's a free-for-all

um good evening mayor and city council member um i have to again appreciate all the work that you do and all the time and i will i'll have to side with brian for that but without the clutches um first uh thanks to give me the time i have an opportunity to speak tonight um i'm just trying respectfully ask the council if that we can reconsider the ordinance and MOST IMPORTANT TO BRING IF WE CAN BRING THIS ISSUE BACK TO THE AGENDA FOR THE FURTHER DISCUSSION. I UNDERSTAND THAT THE CITY RESPECTS THE RESPONSIBILITY TO REGULATE THE NEW DEVELOPMENT AND PROTECT OUR COMMUNITY. HOWEVER, I BELIEVE THAT THERE IS NEED TO BE A CLEAR DISTINCTION BETWEEN NEW CONSTRUCTED AND THE STRUCTURE THAT HAVE ALREADY EXIST FOR YEARS. If I'm talking about in my situation that structure in my property has existed before 2020, just legalize and do the paperwork for a good faith to just make it right. And I think I was here on the commission and I already emailed them all the document and all the city permit to get everything. It was just named differently. I'm just asking to just if we can, the city wants to prevent a new building, a new constructed ADU from being used as a SCR. I understand that approach, but I respectfully ask if the same restriction not automatically be applied for existing structure. It can be for anyone who want to do a new ADU. It can be the dysregulation and whether you have the option to spend the money and invest on that or not. But after putting lots of money investment, which is the SOR can help on them, like paying the mortgage and just keep the life going. I would very much appreciate that. uh for them i i think for um so i'm just asking if we can um the one that the grandfather that is only hands full i think when on the commission um the last meeting on july it was about 10 that it has an edu um i think it was about 10 units that it will really affect by having um the main house cannot be str if anyone that has an edu um so if um this hands full maybe not hurt the city but it will hurt those few families um that it's relying on those as their income so i'll just um if you can um if the the city affects only and that's a handful again it's property and but those families it can affect their mortgage their finance their security and their ability to keep their homes So I just respectfully ask if we can bring this issue back to the agenda or reconsider the language of the ordinance that if it's limiting the new construction on new permit ADUs. Thank you for listening and for considering the family who are directly affected by this decision. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else? Okay, we'll go online then. We have a Zoom user, so let's just go to Zoom user.

Hello, good evening. Can you folks hear me?

Yes, if you could speak a little louder, that would help, but we can hear you.

Yes, hi. This is Mina Bakum, and I apologize for not being able to be in person due to work, but I wanted to thank you again for bringing that up, and I wanted to thank everybody for putting in all the work. I double up on what the previous person that talked about the ordinances and I would like to bring that to the attention of the council if they would kindly consider just basically looking back into just The main point that we're talking about, which is the ADU, I understand it's being done because we want to prevent the bad actors and the violators from abusing the system. And I'm definitely supporting that. I'm all for it. But I think there are other ways that we could basically just kind of regulate that without hurting others that did not really abuse the system, did not do anything wrong and they acted in good faith. They got all the permits required and they have not been in any troubles. or in any fines, for example, by short-term renting the EDUs. That has never been the case in my case and it will never be. I suggest that we do instead of hurting those people that didn't really do anything wrong, that we do just a bit of enforcement, a bit of maybe inspection, some sort of inspection to make sure that they're continuing to basically abiding with all the rules. Otherwise, I support the city in the effort of making sure that nobody abuses the system. There are only also a few. It's not really going to hurt or oppose the direction of the city because everything else we agree on and we support. But however, that would basically hurt those families that are actually not abusing the system really bad. Just in my case, for example, I got the permit early on and my debt is extremely, extremely high. And I know it's supposed to be really basically helping, but I've put in the debt on myself because of the previous ordinances and regulations. So I would really, really appreciate if you guys just consider that part. Maybe grandfather in the few, I think it was 10 or 13, And then everything else, we would be happy to support the cities. And from now on, we could say whoever builds an EGO, for example, will not be able to get an STR permit moving forward. So I would really appreciate you guys just kindly look into that. Thank you. Yes, you're welcome. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yeah, when they're done with the lineup.

Go ahead, Brian. Welcome back. Hi, my name is Brian. Hello. In 2022, My family made a major financial decision and we built an ADU on our property. And we did not build it despite the city's STR rules. We built it because of them. And at the time, Marine only allowed an STR permit on the owner's primary residence. We had a straightforward plan to live in the ADU and rent out the main house as our permitted STR. The city issued our ADU permit. The city issued our STR permit. We were fully compliant.

Excuse me, Brian. We can hear you, but we could hear you better if you spoke a little louder.

Okay. Is this better? I think so. Okay. I'm going to yell into my computer. We did exactly what the city's framework asked of us. Now the new ordinance uses the existence of an ADU as grounds to deny our renewal, but that ADU exists solely because of the city's own rules. The city's primary residence requirement is what caused us to build it. One exists because of the other, and the city created that link, not us. It is fundamentally unfair for the government body to induce a citizen to make an irreversible financial investment in reliance on its own rules and then use that investment against them. We cannot unbuild our ADU. That capital is gone and the harm is permanent. What I am asking for tonight is simple. The extension, like you've heard, for those properties where an ADU was built Indocumented reliance on the city's primary STR requirement and where a valid STR permit was held at the time of this ordinance was adopted. We acted in good faith. We followed every city rule the city put in front of us. Our ADU is proof of that. It should not now be the reason our permit is taken away. I respectfully ask this body to grant that exception for those that are in similar situations as us. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. We really appreciate hearing your input.

Anyone else online before we move on? Okay, Council, we have a speaker in person. Our protocol is we go in person, then we go online, then we close public comment. I don't mind hearing this public comment, but if it's our practice to go back and forth, I think that's why we had our procedure. So it's up to the Council if we want to reopen public comment for those that are here in person. Council, what's your prerogative? I'm sorry, Jenny. It's fine.

Yeah, open it up for everybody then, of course.

All right.

So we'll go back to in-person public comment. Anyone wishing to comment? Come on up, Annalise.

I just want to advocate on behalf of all the homeowners that have really high mortgages and how this is a big component of the mortgages that they have to pay. So we're being so hard on junior ADUs and ADUs and all that stuff when there is plenty of houses in Marina and the new communities that are sitting empty to this day. They're not occupied. They're taking up a lot of space. Yeah, we're being really hard on junior ADUs and ADUs in people's homes where they are currently living. They're part of this community. They're contributing taxes to this community. They're active participants in supporting small businesses. yet we're being really hard on them. So I just want to keep that. I'm cognizant of the impact of STRs, but at the same time, we have to weigh that against the empty homes that are sitting where maybe investors come and purchase homes and they're not planning on living in them. They just want to put their money there because it's safer than putting it on the stock market. So we can't be hard on Junior ADUs and ADUs, if we're not being hard on just the empty homes that are sitting, taking up space, taking up water credits, and not contributing much to the local economy. So I just want to put that in perspective. It needs to be looked at holistically. And I just want that consideration. I, myself, a homeowner in Marina, I am in process of getting a junior ADU. I don't plan on putting it as a showroom to rental. I actually plan on moving there myself. But it is something to think about that you want to give homeowners the flexibility to potentially, if they're going to go on vacation, can they have it open up for an SDR and things like that. And so you're making more hurdles putting it on the homeowners. Again, that a lot of them are dealing with mortgages that are really high. A lot of them are dealing with high interest. Yet, again, a lot of homes are sitting empty in other parts of Marina, and that's not fair. So thank you for that consideration.

Thank you, Annalise. Anyone else wishing to speak? Come on up. Okay. We'll close public comment. And I'd like to ask a question of staff.

Someone mentioned renewal denials. If starting July 1st of this year, anyone that has an ADU apply for a short-term rental permit, would they have been denied? Because I know we have a grace period that's been extended. As of July 1st this year? Yes. Yes. So they would be denied starting July 1st a couple months ago if they would have applied for renewal. Right. So the grace period we're giving them is... that parts of this ordinance won't be enforced until July 1st, 2027, right?

Right.

But that part of it that is going to be enforced is that you won't approve any renewals for STRs if they have an ADU or JDU.

That's how the ordinance is currently written.

So I don't understand the grace period because how am I benefited if I have... ADU and I want to do an Airbnb if I can't have a permit to do that?

That part of the ordinance is being deferred until June 30th of next year.

Which part of the ordinance? The application renewals?

The thing that if you have an ADU under your property, you're not allowed to have an STR. That's the recommendation from staff today. To forestall that till June 30th of next year.

Okay, so then my application would be considered?

Yes.

Oh, okay.

I thought it was going to be denied. As a way to help out the current permit holders in terms of... Okay.

Yeah. So current permit holders can have their applications approved Up until June 30th of next year. Okay. Thank you. That's kind of my only question. My comment is that I have met in person with several of these families to learn more and hear their circumstances. And I think Brian, who commented earlier as the public when he was online on Zoom, I think he was a good example that He bought property, built an ADU according to city rules that sort of encouraged it by allowing it. And so if I were to have spent millions or several hundred thousands of dollars to invest in a property and had my financial plan include short-term rentals, because as Annalise said, it's hard to pay your mortgage. So if you indebt yourself, due to a financial plan that includes revenue from short-term rentals because they're legal and allowed, and you spend all that money, and then the city says, basically, sorry, you can't do that business anymore. Their financial plan is ruined at no fault of their own. And so at the very least, I hope what happens tonight is that after tonight, all those folks affected who want to come forward, we can document all of their details, circumstances. And so that at a future city council meeting of this council or the next council after December, that their details and circumstances can be known because if what we're doing is unfair to the common listener, to us, then we probably shouldn't do it. And when I heard those families, it really rang as the city being unfair to them. And the city has good intent, and that intent is to encourage housing that's affordable for people who live here. So we get people out of the bushes, we get people off the couches, we get more affordable housing. So the state has streamlined ADU production, and we don't want to take that long-term housing away to benefit short-term rental profiteering or profiting. But for those that have already invested and spent the money, it might be very unfair. And I think Brian, like I said, is a really good example. I think Mina is as well. Our first speaker, I can't remember all the details when I met with her family, but she had a pretty good case. So, um, I'll be trying tonight to approve a motion that has a relook, but I guess that my council colleagues have had enough of this and at this time they're not ready to relook. And if tonight we don't pass a motion that gives a relook to those 10 units, families in Marina that have spent so much investment, it's still not over in my opinion. I think we can still bring back to a future council in writing the situations and let the future council meeting decide if that sounds fair. And if it doesn't sound fair, I trust that that future council will make amenities. And to those folks that are affected, I'm really happy that it looks like you're going to have a grace period until June 30th next year so we can get your story on paper and give it a real good look of fairness before the finality hits next June 30th. and you're really irreversibly impacted, harmed financially. Okay, let's go to Council Member Piala.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We're going to be talking about rules and procedures, and I just want to say that STRs and ADUs and junior ADUs has been on our agenda quite a number of times. I think one of the things that we're going to be talking about is focusing on the motion that is presented. I think, Brian, you did a great job of showing what the recommended motion is. I think we have talked about those 10 exceptions before, and we can't always include every case in a general ordinance like this. When I look at the recommended motion, it seems reasonable that we are giving longer periods of time for compliance. And so that makes sense from my standpoint. I think the issue of opening up the exceptions again is something that one, doesn't fall under today's agenda. And we're strictly looking at the deadlines and the enforcement of certain things that we've already decided. I think that we're gonna be talking later about how council people can bring up new agenda items. I think that would be appropriate. But in terms of me, I feel like we've exhausted our discussion about this topic. And I truly want to focus on what is before us in this motion. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you, Kathy. Council Member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. And I definitely echo Council Member Biala. We've been down this path and I appreciate staff and the owners, you know, who have collaborated. We have listened. You know, for me, when we talk about an investment, I mean, I'm a renter. I don't own a home in Marina, but how nice for you to, you know, purchase a home and then build an ADU so you could short-term rental it and And for somehow to say that that's the city's fault, if you make that investment and now you're going to lose money, well, you can still rent it long term. And from a public policy perspective, especially with us being a California HCD designated pro-housing jurisdiction, Marina, the intent of California ADU law is to create, and I'm quoting, additional permanent housing for residents, not for tourists, not for short-term rental accommodation. So I think we've streamlined the ADU process. We have over-the-counter plans, and it's not for hotels. It's for permanent housing. It's so your adult children can come and live with you. So rent it out to a student. There's traveling nurses. We have... a ton of homeless college students that would probably love a studio for, you know, $2,000 a month that are living in their cars or doubling up or living in a garage. So I appreciate the investments that have been made, but in no way is the city obligated to, you know, be somebody's like investment loss downfall. I mean, that's just absurd. So, you know, for me, I, I think that there's always risk involved and, you know, if you buy a house and you want to short-term rental it out and the laws change, well, that has happened in every city in Monterey County. Yeah. Like if you look at the table that was in front of us, we're very, very flexible as far as other cities that have just straight banned them. So I think it's reasonable to say that an ADU or a JADU should not be used for short-term rentaling because it really is the spirit, taking away the spirit of the laws in the state of California. So I, thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. Mayor Bertrand Fisher.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I agree with both my fellow council members. So I won't repeat everything, but yes, I also wrote down there are several cities and the county who have really restricted or banned short-term rentals. So what we are trying to do is still allow it, but without jeopardizing the character of our city. and um so that's the plan and i was one of the people i've probably everybody here who asked our previous city manager to postpone the enforcement to give people more time to get um to comply with these new rules and yes you can you're allowed to to rent it out long term longer than 30 days or up, you can do that. And students usually love to rent it from mid-August to mid-May, end of May. You will have it for the rest of the summer. You can have it available for three-month rentals or for yourself. It's pretty flexible. So another remark that was made about houses sitting empty. Yes, that hurts me as well. I mean, I don't like seeing empty houses in our city. We have a housing problem. It is still legal to do that. So people do that. They have the right to do that. So that's a different case that we could work on as a city if we would choose to do that. But we have a housing crisis still, and especially in our coastal town. So long-term rentals will help with this. Thank you.

Thank you. Guido, I think it was Council Member McGowan brought up a point that I thought was something I want to ask further. When these other cities that have banned completely STRs, were there, you might not know the answer, but were there property owners who were basically shut down after investing in

serious money so that they could STR?

I'd have to look in that more, Mayor. I think the council's being extremely gracious, pushing out the enforcement of that for a year. I think that's being most cities when they ban something, it takes effect 30 days later. So I think the council's being extremely trying to help out the current for at least a little bit of time. um so that that's my own and in other cities i've worked it's typically not done if something gets banned or the rules change they take effect within 30 days so i think the council's trying to balance things out okay thank you i want to make a point that came up in a couple of council members i think councilmember mcadams and i'm not sure who else someone else that they can long-term rental

Well, their financial plan, they know it best. They know the indebtedness they have due to buying and constructing the main home plus the ADU. And they know how much revenue they need to pay their mortgage. And that revenue makes a lot more sense when they short-term rental. That's why that's in their financial plan. To tell an investor... in our city, how they can make a lot less money long-term renting, and they should do that, they may well lose their property. So it's not an option to them because we all know that short-term rentals make a lot more than long-term rentals. And that's why they invested so much money and they need so much money to come back. So I think that we're not, we're not being very understanding to recommend long-term rental. Of course they know that they know their property in and out better than we do, but to tell them, sorry, you can't do the short term. You can do long-term though. And maybe you can make enough money doing that. So I think that's not, that's not a very good, um, it's not a very true statement. Um, I'll just say that. Okay. Let's go back to Catherine McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. I'm happy to make a motion. And also, you know, I'm up here to represent the residents, not investors in our neighborhoods. So I move that we, one, open a public hearing and introduce Ordinance 2026, amending Marine Emissible Code. Section 17.42.170, short-term rentals, STR, and retain the ordinance provision prohibiting a short-term rental in any property with an ADU or JADU, approved after January 1, 2020, and further recommend that enforcement begin on June 30, 2027, to maintain consistency with the 55-foot exclusion zone provision and defer enforcement of the final ordinance to January 31, 2027, following final approval by the City Council, and find that adoption of an ordinance is exempt from environmental review pursuant to Section 15061 of the CEQA guidelines. I second. Okay.

Normally, I'd call it a friendly amendment. It might be heard as an unfriendly amendment, but I'd like to make a friendly amendment that we direct staff to go back to those 10 property owners who are affected and do a little documentation of their circumstances so that we can come back and hear that at a future date for possible reconsideration.

We've already done that, so no. Okay.

All right. Before we go to vote, I just want to say that I am sorry that there are 10 families or I'm not sure the number exactly if let's say approximately 10 that have put a lot of money into their property and they're having to make some really unfortunate decisions. even though they may have followed every city rule and procedure when they did their investment, they trusted in us. And it's unfortunate for those 10 families or more or less that this is happening to you. And I still wouldn't give up if I were you. You have a year where your applications are not going to be denied. I'd like to call for the question, please. So best wishes. So any more comments or do you want to call for the question? Jenny, I'm done.

Okay, great. Let's vote.

Okay. All in favor. What was this ordinance? Roll call, please.

Council member Rick Adams. Aye. Council member Biala.

Yes.

Mayor Persim Fisher. Yes. Mayor Delgado.

No. Thank you, everyone. That motion passes three to one with myself dissenting. And we'll move on. To our only other action item, our city council rules on how we conduct our meetings here. And who will be leading us through that? Rene?

I will, Mayor. Thank you, Rene. So can we get the presentation?

And I'm just going to ask you to bear with me. I prepared for this presentation a few times. I didn't prepare too much this time. I was like, I think I have my notes. I think I have this handled. I think I can walk through this, but we'll see. So just bear with me. So next slide. Okay, so tonight's request is to receive a presentation on past amendments to the council rules, consider further amendments and refinements to these rules, and then also then finally to direct the city attorney and staff to bring back those refinements and adjustments that you would like to see. So next slide. Okay, just to give you some background, the council rules, I believe, were adopted, first adopted in 1980. But over the period of August, between August, sorry, 2022 and June, of 2023. This came back to council four times for refinement of the rules. I expect that there will be sort of a similar process here, but we'll do what we can to get these right. But beginning in 2022, the overarching goals then were really to increase public engagement, but also to improve meeting efficiency. So next slide, please. So I'm going to present to you five sort of proposed refinements. And then I know there's been, I've received some comments. I try to include them in an additional slide, but then I think there've been some further comments that have been made since then. So, but before I touch on those, I just do want to say also, That I understand as part of the 22 and 23 amendments, there was some direction for there to be a for a rule describing a two step process to come back to council. I think between when I took over in 2024. Somehow, that sort of didn't make its way to me until I started to dig into the rules and I saw that there was direction to bring this back. So one of those rules I'm presenting tonight, which is the two-step process, which I understand there's an informal process. process that exists. I believe it hasn't always been adhered to, but I've tried to use that informal rule to craft a formal rule. Next, I'm going to talk a little bit about the rest of them are really Two and three are really clarifications. Sorry, number two is a clarification. Number three and number four deal with remote participation. And then number five is just for the council to consider some sort of optional refinements that may increase meeting efficiency. So next slide. Okay, so this is how the two-step process was described to me. So really it's two steps. One of them really is for there to be a short staff report that is prepared by a council member or two, and that is presented to the city manager for placement on the agenda. And that really is to bring the item to the full council's attention. And the idea is for there to be a sort of three-minute introduction of the item, maybe some limited council discussion, maybe some questions. And really the goal of that process is for there to be direction given to staff to come back with a full council item. At that time, council, sorry, the city staff may have some you know, additional information they may want to provide for council to consider as it moves forward as to whether or not to direct staff to come back with the full item. There are some deadlines, suggested deadlines here, but those may change. But right now, for example, what I proposed is that the written request be presented to the city manager by 12 noon on the Wednesday prior to the meeting. And I know there's maybe some efforts to change those timelines overall for meeting agendas and when those get finalized. So maybe that gets pushed even further back to the Monday of the week before the meeting. So anyway, so that is the two-step council initiated agenda rule. And we can go on to the next slide. Okay. So there is in the agenda template a description that comment, general public comment is also for comment on consent agenda items. And there have been circumstances where an item is pulled and put at the end of the agenda and we have gotten comments from the public that, hey, you need to go to public comment again. and we've referred to our agenda template which says it's been covered. Now, Council has at times listened and given members of the public additional opportunity to comment once an agenda item has been pulled, but this just provides clarity and provides a rule that says that when comment is given on an item that is on the consent agenda and then is later pulled, there will be no further public comment unless there's a vote of the council to reopen public comment on that. So again, this is just clarifying that process. Next, next slide. Okay, so the next two really are not rule changes, but they are changes to the template. Now the template has been considered by council as part of its rules changes. So that's why I have brought it here. So SB 707 made wholesale changes to the Brown Act. The fortunate part for the City of Marina is that many of those requirements don't apply to the City of Marina because it does not meet the population thresholds either at the city level or at the county level. So that said, there is one requirement that does apply. Actually, two. One is a just cause requirement where essentially if you have a reason that qualifies as a just cause, you can appear remotely. Now, there isn't a place on the agenda where that is considered. And usually, you know, I have to remind folks. uh the mayor have to make sure that the minutes reflect that uh so here this would just amend the agenda template to provide that there is a category it'll just say just cause you know appearances and therefore if somebody is appearing you know under just cause that'll sort of trigger the chair to call you know that person to uh basically explain why they are appearing uh remotely So, and the other one is to just also allow for a disability accommodation, and that place on the agenda will just reference that somebody who has a disability can appear remotely, and there's no cap on the number of times that such an individual council member can appear remotely. Next slide. Okay, this one is really for clarification. So SB 707 did impose some mandatory remote access rules, but because it doesn't apply to the city of Marina, when we provide Zoom access, that is really as a courtesy. Now, this happened a few months ago where we were having troubles with Zoom, and we were sort of scrambling around. I was asked the question, can we continue to you know, are meeting. And my response was, yes, we can. However, there's obviously a question of fairness for those that plan to appear remotely. This would just be on the front of the agenda that says that if all members of the council are here appearing in person, that remote access is just a courtesy. If any one of the council members is appearing remotely, however, then at that time Zoom access would be required. Next slide. And then this last slide really talks about some of the suggestions for possible meeting efficiency. So one of the rules that is suggested by Rosenberg's Rules of Order, which I think is like a seven-page pamphlet. And if those who don't know, I have up here the Roberts Rules of Order. which when I get questions, I'm like, there's no way I have an opportunity to consult a 700-page book and give you an answer on the spot. So Rosenberg's Rules of Order are really meant for bodies such as this five-member council. And some of what is suggested in there is that a motion be made before a council discussion. And that really is to focus the discussion and deliberation on the motion that is on the floor. The second one is limiting the motions on the floor. And this, I mean, currently under Rosenberg's rules, it caps the number of motions to three. But we have sometimes, and there probably not have been more than three, but even when there are three, it gets pretty complicated. So especially when we split the question and it kind of gets a little bit cumbersome, I guess, to deal with. The third thing is that under Rosenberg's rules, which is referred to in paragraph 24 of the council rules, there really is not a method for friendly amendments. You really have to go through the full process to amend a rule. And so really this would just say that, yes, friendly amendments are okay if you refer to Robert's rules as opposed to, I'm sorry, Rosenberg's rules as opposed to Robert's rules. And then the fourth one, there's been this discussion about motions to limit debate or calling the question. Our rules provide that for any motion, all you need is a majority of the quorum present. under Rosenberg's rules and Robert's rules, you need two thirds vote to end discussion. So there's a little bit of inconsistency. There's been, I've gotten the question after the fact, and I've said, our rules provide that a majority for any motion that is on the floor. So it doesn't incorporate either Robert's rules or Rosenberg's rules in this respect. So next slide. So that is my presentation, and I'm happy to take questions after public comment.

Okay.

Thank you, Renee. Let's start with folks present in person. Come on up if you have any comments. Scott, we really want to hear from you. Okay.

Very good. Not sure about the technicality of this one, but... Why is it not okay for somebody to speak in person after it's been already discussed online? And the reason I say that is because public comment is public comment, whether it comes, you know, some people online, some people in person, it's still public comment. It flows. And so I think it limits people. I don't know what rule this is. I think it limits people from participating that are still formulating what they're going to say. while others are going just because they happen to be online or in person, I think it's still public comment. So I think, I don't know if there's any consideration for that, but I would opt for it. Thank you.

Thank you, Annaluz. Anyone else in person? Let's go to online then. Zoom user. Maybe this is Brian. I'm not sure. Go ahead. We're trying to unmute you. All right. We'll go ahead and move on.

Let's discuss Anna Luce's point first. It's not something we covered in the staff report, but it's a question that's probably worth discussing. So normally we go in person, then we go online, and then we close public comment. Tonight we decided that we would reopen public comment in person. And then if someone would have put their hand up online, then I would have thought, well, let's go back online. And then if someone said, oh, I want to talk in person, we would say, well, let's go back in person. But. But what's the downside of that? If you go back and forth until you have exhausted everyone's desire to speak, since it's still during public comment, if you get that seesaw back and forth, what is the downside? There's some talking about, okay, there's a little bit of time lost, but I don't think a lot. So I don't know that we can make that decision tonight, but we could ask council to bring it back. Because it wasn't on the agenda, so nobody's commenting on it. But, Council, what do you think about maybe going back and forth? Council Member Biala?

One of the reasons why I'm so glad this has come before us is that making it more streamlined and efficient, our agendas, I think we have been mocked in other areas about us going till 12 midnight and beyond. And so I'm seriously giving a lot of thought to how we streamline our processes today. and so that would be something that falls into it i don't think we've codified it actually i mean we've just had a practice where we first go to in person and then go online but i i recommend that we stop it there and if we need to put it into our somewhere in you know in um you know the um appendix a i think we need to do that but i am not in favor of going back and forth um know we are already having a time management issue with this council so that is not one of the places that i want to expand the time mayor all right thank you that's remember mcadams thank you mayor um you know i agree to that and also mayor you're very gracious and

you know, if people come in late, I think that you do quite well how we sort of manage it on a case-by-case basis, or, you know, we see a hand up on Zoom, you're good at catching that, but I agree, I don't want to be like, and you have to be equitable in that way, right? And just like most other public meetings, you're offered to public comment in the room and then on Zoom and then public comments closed. So I think that unless there's a problem, which I don't foresee because I think that how you handle it if people are coming in late or changing their mind or wanting to talk, I think that you handle that well. And then if we want to go down this rabbit hole, well, then what if someone wants to talk two and three times? You know, well, why don't we allow that? You know what I mean? Like, we have to have some sort of way to keep the meetings efficient and going. And so I don't think we need to, like, codify this.

Thank you, Jenny. Mayor Bertrand Fisher?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I agree. We're trying to be better at finishing at a reasonable time. Otherwise, we get... And rightly so, the people telling us, you cannot expect me to be up at 11 p.m. to still give public comments. So I know it can be hard, but to be clear and just give people a clear deadline and just some background information. Before I was on the council, Mr. Mayor, once I was waiting for a neighbor to speak before I would speak on Zoom. And you usually say, anybody else here on Zoom? And you just said, okay, close, close. And I missed it. And I was so mad at myself. So anyway, but I accepted it because it's a deadline. It was done. So yeah, but I've never forgotten that one. Thank you.

And I'm so sorry, I forgot to say one thing. I think we're all so accessible via email. People call and text you all the time. I mean, I get numerous text messages. So I do hope that, you know, when and if the public, like, because I've had that happen too, where I'm like, oh, I wanted to save something, you know, or, you know, you don't, build up that courage or whatever i think that there's other ways um and especially with this council how accessible and available we are to the community you know that's just a another um way to get to us so and everyone just text messages bruce anyway so all right thank you uh mayor protema i'm sorry for the trauma i caused you

When I was a newbie in 2000 on city council, I didn't know about our procedure. Meetings often went till 11 or midnight when we were discussing the dunes, we were discussing Marina Heights, we were discussing mobile home rent control, the urban growth boundary. You know, we had a lot of long meetings and they would end late and then we would mop up the next day on Wednesday and for anything we just couldn't get to. And the whole time, you know, there's been like 11 or 12 councils that I've sat on here in Marina. One of the biggest time wasters has been me and other council members asking questions for the first time during a meeting that could have been asked before the meeting, but it's very difficult for humans to get this information on a Friday and always be ready to go, having read it, sent your questions into staff, and be ready to go by Tuesday night. You're gone for the weekend or whatever. Sometimes you just don't have time. That's usually I don't think why the questions aren't asked. But if you wanted to shave off 30 to 45 minutes every single night, it would be if all five of us were prepared by having asked questions. staff the questions that could have been asked ahead of time. You'll always come up with new information that prompts questions during a meeting. But if you listen over the next few meetings to the questions that are asked, and say to yourself, could that have been brought to staff ahead of time? The answer is almost always yes. Um, and I'm, I'm, I'm biggest culprit. Um, but if you ever really want to get serious about making these meetings end sooner. Okay. Um, I have, um, a point on the rule clarification for public comment on consent agenda. Uh, If we were to pull a consent agenda item and allow speakers to speak, as sometimes we do, we need to make it clear in writing that no speaker can speak twice on the same issue. So if we have – if they have person A talk about a consent item – before it's pulled and then we pull it like tonight we're going to end with talking about the library we pulled it if anyone had talked about the library before it was pulled and then we pull it and we open it up to public comment i think it should be clear in writing that if you've already spoken once you don't get two bites of the apple because if you get two bites of the apple then everyone should get two bites of the apple And now everyone's getting six minutes, you know, potentially six minutes. And if you're trying to get these meetings to be more efficient, I think we want to be clear on that. It's really interesting on the motion before discussion. So we used to have it where council would talk, public would talk, council would make a motion, talk some more and then vote. We changed that so that now public talks, council doesn't talk first, public talks, then council talks, then council makes a motion and council talks and then council votes. So we've always done it this way where in neither case have we ever made a motion before council talked. So if you want to try something different and see how it works out, There's pros and cons. So if you want to try something different, let's make those motions before the discussion. And as they said here, the theory is that if you have a motion on the floor before you start talking, council members, then your discussion will be more focused. The flip side is if you already have a motion on the floor, it's harder to undo it and get to a better decision than Then if you don't have a motion on the floor and you hear everyone talking, now you kind of know collectively where's the best place to go. So there's pros and cons, but we've always done it the other way. So if you want to try the motion first before council talks, it would look like public talks, council motions, council talks once. And then they go to a vote and see how that works. I mean, we could try it in the next two or three months. And then when there's a new council, they can review how it's worked and they can change it or keep it. Anyway, that's my only other comment. Let's go to council member McAdams.

Thank you, mayor. And I've served on councils that have done both ways. Right. And for me, I, with this council you know we make concessions in real time from our conversations we don't walk into the meeting and i'm like okay they have three votes like i it doesn't work that way here and so i think that if you are serving with a group though where you can count the votes walking into the meeting then that is an effective way but We are not that council. And I think that, I mean, I see us in real time making concessions and trying to collaborate and working together. So I don't know that that would necessarily fit. And also, we just have a ton of dialogue. you know and so but i do like the focused part of it and i do my best to be like okay what's the task at hand i i try to let staff tell us or um how guido is is giving us the motions that is so helpful um so i'm just gonna kind of quickly go through the five things um So I agree with the mayor on the public comment, like the pulled consent agenda. That's yes, we have to be clear with that. And if you spoke at the top of the meeting and the item gets pulled, you don't get to speak later. The remote attendance is great. Does this also pass down to staff? I'm curious.

Which remote attendance rule?

As far as the participation or if they're caregiving, not having to say I'm healing from a surgery or whatever.

I mean, does staff need to state why they're appearing remotely? Is that what you're saying? I'm sorry.

I guess I'm just, does this flexibility sort of pass over to staff if they are wanting? Because it breaks my heart when it's 1030 and I'm seeing everybody fall asleep.

So that, that, the rules don't touch on that at all. Okay.

So maybe that's coming back. Okay.

More operational thing.

Okay. The notice on the agenda. Thank you. As far as the zoom goes. And I think that maybe we have that conversation on the dice where I'm like, after 15 minutes of trying to like troubleshoot, like we can technically still go on with the meeting. And so, but again, at that time, this notification wasn't on the agenda. So if it is clear, especially with our commissions, you know, and committees, I would like to see this also on there, you know, because if and when the public gets upset and people are at home and there's whatever issues happening, I think it is important. Like, we still need to conduct our business. So With the two-step process, I want to make sure that however this is codified is it's equitable, right? Because maybe I'm going to bring 500 two-step processes to the dais, but then Council Member Biala is going to bring three. So how do we not let council members sort of like hijack this process. Like it would be great if we could all self-regulate and be, you know, disciplined, but I can't speak for future councils. And for me, I appreciate the two-step process. It was just like, It's totally willy-nilly, but I also want to be mindful of staff time. So do we get an hour of staff time or do we get 20 hours? So I think we need to be really clear in that. And I don't know what that looks like because I want current and future policymakers to have that autonomy of if something is important to them to bring it to council. And I also don't want to have five-hour meetings of two-step processes either, right? So how do we, what is that like sweet spot?

This is where I turn it over to you and say it is totally up to this council to decide if there are certain number that can be brought in any one month or in any year, for example. you can certainly impose that limitation on yourself.

Sure. Thank you. And I mean, I think as we go down this too, part of this is, and with our new city manager that compliments, this is the agenda setting process. Right. And so do you want to be the, the keeper of the, you know, policing the two-step process? I just, that's what I sort of worry about. Right. And I, I, I just want to be mindful of that because this is time and money, right? Like this is staff time. And I don't want somebody coming in with, you know, Jenny has 10 two-step processes. Ishmael, come on, we're hanging out for four hours to talk about them, right? So that's where I'm concerned about this. And I'm so happy that we're talking about it.

City Manager?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I feel like you're kind of asking me as well. So one of the things that we talked about today a little bit to help with this would be perhaps that we come up with like a form for what the report would look like. So if a council member wanted to introduce an item, we would have kind of a format laid out. So you'd have like a very simple one paragraph It describes the issue, why it's timely, why it should be done now. And then maybe we add another paragraph where staff can say, how does this fit in with the overall work plan and how does it compete with other items? And I think then in terms of like the regulation of how many council members or how many items each council member is getting, it's a little bit of a self-regulation. I think, you know, if somebody is bringing multiple items all the time and other people are like, well, my items are important too. um it would take the first step takes a vote of the council to come back for the second step so we just end at the first step or you table it until later the one thing it does help us with is getting more of a direction for at a staff level of what the council's will is for us to work on um so i i don't know all the details that you feel comfortable with but i think this process is something that would be very beneficial to us um and if we could come up with some way to make it simple for you and for everybody to follow it, I think it's a good thing.

Thank you for that. And then something that wasn't necessarily in your, in your list, but something that I think about is I would really like clear definition of when we have a special meeting because our special meetings, like I think for two or three months in a row, we were having a meeting every week, which is fine. Probably not fine for staff, but we were having these sort of like slop up meetings, right? Like what the, what the mayor was, was talking about how they did it before. So for me, calling a special meeting is, something is happening or there's an emergency. I mean, I think we need to have definitions of special meeting. That would be helpful because then everything is a special meeting, right? So, you know, if we're calling meetings and maybe the city attorney could, you know.

Yeah, so our rule really just mirrors what is in the statute under the Brown Act. And really a special meeting can be called at least as special. defined by statute and under our rules, either by the mayor or a majority of the council members. So that I don't know what the process was in the past, but certainly that should, if that you can modify that, you can go beyond, I think, the Brown Act. We have to be careful to make sure somebody doesn't claim that we should stick to the Brown Act. But I don't see, at least immediately, an impediment with putting, you know, maybe a few more hurdles on that to get a special meeting.

Great. I think that that would be important. Not that I don't want to meet with you all once a week, but you know, I think we need to, a special meeting is a special meeting. Like it should be a special something, not just because we ran out of time or somebody cares about this or whatever. So that would just sort of be my addition to your list. Thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. Council Member Viola. Thank you. So the motion says that we're going to be looking at potential further amendments and refinements to such rules. So I'm not going to confine myself to the five that is listed here because I think it's much more broader than that. But I'm just going to run down and we're not actually following the five minute rules. you know, kind of a restriction. So that's one of my things I want to talk about, but I'm just going to go down. Some of these things are on here. Okay. But I don't know how to organize it and I don't want to restrict myself to just the five. So the first one is I think we're, we were going to adopt the Rosenberg's rules and, And I would like it to be said that we're omitting the Roberts rules because then it's your seven pages as opposed to a tome of 800 pages. So I'd like to see that. On the two-step process, I'm glad we finally have it in writing somewhere. But I will tell you that when we say it's a three-minute intro, that was the problem. When we had this before, people would go on and on. And of course, then it stimulates questions. And then we're talking about it as though it's an agendized item. So when we say three minutes, then it's three minutes. And the discussion, it says brief. We don't know how to do it. The people on this dais, we don't know how to confine a very limited discussion. But I think what our city manager just said, you know, that if we have a form, then that expedites things. And I think we need to stick with it. um and remember i would like to see that the the two-step there's two council member uh you know agenda items per year through the two-step because remember we can we can go to city manager and say you know we really need to handle this the noise ordinance we don't necessarily have to go through two-step if he and the mayor think this is a good thing then it gets on there so i think two is fine that means 10 a year of things that are not on the agenda to begin with so we have other options of getting things on the agenda that doesn't necessarily always mean we have two-step process. But anyway, so I would like to recommend, because I think I'm agreeing with Council Member McAdams, that we have to have a limit. I mean, we could have tons of things just popping up all the time with people putting agendas on that are beyond the scope of what we usually have. Also, the motion to limit debate, I know we have it on here, but I would like to say our five minutes, one, we have been sorely noncompliant to five minutes. And I think that I'd like to put a cap of two rounds of it, because that means that that's an hour of our staff, of our council time. uh doing public comment and i think that it if we if we know we've got five minutes and then we get another round we're going to be very judicious we're not going to have to repeat what somebody else said and um the agenda item if we go to the full extent means an hour of our comments from the dais. And I think that I am sorely wanting us to get more organized and we need a timekeeper. We say five minutes and one of us starts counting it, but we've transgressed that every time almost. And I would like to see that we have some better controls or better efficient use of our time. And so that's what I'm recommending. Let's see. I would like to try the Rosenberg's, you know, I'm putting the motion in the second based on the staff report, because this council really needs to limit, you know, it was real clear, let's say, on the STRs, what we're supposed to be handling, but we We transgress and we now start talking about things that we've talked about before. So I'm very eager to see to try that because this council also is great at building emotion. And so even if we start with emotion, it will tell us what the limits are. And then if we need to add on to it, we're great on doing that. We can do that all day long. So I would like to see some sort of guardrails on that. Also, under the topic of agenda on our current ordinance, I think I would like to see that the city manager or designee and mayor plan for the meeting agenda. One of the things that always happens is you look at the agenda and you're going, how We're not going to get through this in four hours, five hours. I mean, so who is responsible for it? And I would like to see that codified that the city manager or the assistant city manager, so a delegate and the mayor form that. So you're looking at it. You can't pack everything in the agenda because we know we can't. miss you we can't do it i want to point out that this discussion is this agenda item it's the fifth time that we we had it on the agenda my my thing is a huge manual because i've had five times now to see the same agenda kicked down because we we build it in and we know we don't have time So we've had five now dates and I can list them for you. So this is just a lesson, a real lesson that this is what happens to us. And that's why we never get finished. And we have to find a way to be able to get through the agenda that is placed before us. So there was a topic 28, addressing counsel. Okay, so it says that limit the public's remarks to three minutes. And I would like to add, because I never could figure out, like, are we allowing it or not allowing it, but to say no seating of time to other speakers who use less than three minutes. It's a very hard thing to keep track of. And, you know, I just think we need to add that because it has happened when we've had lots of speakers and they're starting to say, well, I see it to this person. I'm going, OK, and that this person seating this to two minutes to this person. I mean, I think we need to say clearly. So everybody's allowed three minutes. And if you don't use your three minutes, that's fine. But you don't have to now put it on somebody else to figure out who's seating which time. and then uh the uh the group public comments with one spokesperson i think it worked very well at the coastal commission worked very well at the state lands commission so i hope that um we can use it as a as a council but i want to add one thing if if you're part of a group we just assume that the other people who are supporting them don't get any recognition at all. And I think that's not right. I would like to see if for our time's sake that you are saying, I support this person, they're speaking for me, I want all of their names in the public record because their voice shouldn't be discounted just because they're trying to save us time on public comment. So I'd like to see something like that added in there. So the other ones that I'm talking about, I agree with some of the things that both my colleagues here have said, so I'm not going to go over them again. And I probably used more than my five minutes, but I think everyone else has done more than that. So anyway, thank you.

Thank you. Lisbeth, to make up for Cathy, you get three minutes.

I want to say, I might cede some of my time to Council Member Biala. I'll try to be fast. So a couple of questions. So definitions for a special meeting, yes, please. But also for the, and it's not on the agenda, but also for commissions and committees, because the famous three committee meeting, the three threes, there was a special meeting. I only had like... 24 or 48 hours to read and act. So yes, keep it for special occasions. And my question is about, you know, council may by majority vote allow further comment if it would materially assist deliberation for the pooled consent agenda items. How can the public let us know that they would like to give comments? So if a pooled consent agenda item, the chair can or by the majority of the council can allow public comments. How does the public let us know that they would like to speak? If they're on Zoom, they can do that little hand here in the room. Can they?

Yes.

So it's the practical.

When we announce public communications from the floor, this is your time to talk about consent items, whether you're Zoom or in person. If they are like tonight, if they were interested in the library, they could have talked about the library. Later on when we pulled it, in about 20 minutes when we get to that, if we want to let people talk about the library, it wouldn't be Grace Silva-Santella. She could have already spoken once.

So my question is, we can allow it, but how do we know that people do want to speak on a pulled item?

Because they raise their hand or stand up when we talk.

Okay, so we do ask them to, and then we vote whether we will allow it. Okay, it was just a practical question. How do they know that they can show us that they would like to speak? I'm using more than my three minutes now, by the way. We can, I don't know, does the city manager have an example of this or other cities might have already solved this?

Thanks, Councilmember. I think that perhaps the beginning of the answer there that I missed a little bit at the end was that so when somebody during their general public comment will speak to the item in those comments section, and then if later on the council hears that and a councilmember wants to pull the item, it goes to the end of the agenda that person's already said their comments in the beginning of the item but if your question is you know how do we if they if all they say is i i want to request the council pull the item and don't say anything else i guess we would have maybe asked them to tell us more at that point you know okay but but how do we know if there are other people that would like to speak about It seems like when you do pull the item and it comes back, then all those other people who wanted to speak will get that opportunity then. Okay.

Maybe we should just try it out and see how it goes.

So thank you. I was just going to maybe add, and again, this is not a legal question, but just thinking about it, I guess if there's many hands that get raised when the item comes back, or you see kind of people leaving in the back of the room.

So that's what I meant. So on Zoom... Thank you. On Zoom, people can do their Zoom hand, and in the room, people can do their real hand, and we'll just book for it. Okay, thank you. So, yes, and new city manager, great to get the meeting agenda sooner, earlier than Friday night. We got it Friday morning. Of course, it didn't help me because I was out of town the whole weekend, but no, it is really good. Any time that we can get it sooner, I have more opportunity to get our questions in and answered by staff. will help and then um okay um oh yeah and i'm also a candidate for mayor but and one of my main issues is the agenda setting you know to get us agendas that are doable because i agree sometimes we get the agenda like do you think we have three meetings tonight yes so and then um Oh, yeah, I would like to end with the fifth time might be the charm. So thank you.

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

Thank you, Mayor. I, you know, something that I think about is do we move the meetings to Wednesday? Because it is. It's just it's insane to get a 500 to 800 page agenda packet and. I read them. I read the consent agenda. And in addition to reading, you're looking up stuff. You're looking up other cities. You're Googling and doing research. And so it's just... And I recognize like some people go, well, that comes with the job. OK, well, yes. And also, you know, it's my job to be fully prepared. So have we ever talked about or thought about moving the meetings to Wednesday? Because I think about staff, too. I do my best to send my questions. And also, if I'm going to be making comments online, You know, I want staff to be prepared. I don't ever want to put staff on the spot or do a gotcha moment or whatever. Right. And especially if some of my comments are challenging. Right. I want staff to be able to be prepared. So a thought is, do we move to Wednesday? And then another thought is maybe we have a timer. Maybe Anita puts up a timer for us. You know, this sort of round robin, which I think is great. I mean, I have never experienced a council that has that freedom and autonomy to speak as much as we do. And I appreciate that. And I also recognize that in some cases it's a double edged sword. So perhaps having Anita, you know, maybe we don't take five minutes. I don't want to hear myself speak for five minutes, right? So maybe we have three minutes. And if the mayor, you know, if it's a thorough, good discussion, then we have two times. But the sort of like unlimited round robin and then five minutes turning into 15 minutes and I'm like doing a point of order and interrupting, you know, like that's not... I think that that might help us self-regulate more. So just two ideas to sort of put on the table. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. So I'd like to start to build a motion. Number one, that the two-step council initiated agenda item process is adopted as rule 36 describes in the staff report. That's number one. Number two, that public comment on pulled consent agenda items is be approved as the proposed addition to Rule 8 is described in the staff report. Number three, that remote attendance, according to title and form, be adopted as described in the staff report. And I'm just going through them as they're listed in the staff report. Number four, that the remote participation notice be adopted as described in the staff report. Number five, and here's where I'm going to ask you for play later, that we trial the, we approve the motion before discussion of council. That would be after public, but before council discussion to give it a trial. And I'm willing for the friendly amendments to scratch that. Similarly, well, not similarly, that we approve what we always have done, that we have a three motion max as described in the staff report. That's something we do anyway, but this would be codified. Similarly, that the friendly amendments are processed as described in the staff report. I don't think there's any change, but to codify it. That we motion to limit debate as described in the staff report. And that the following items that are not in our agenda, but have been proposed by council tonight, be considered by staff and brought back at a convenient date. that includes omitting Robert's Rules of Order and adopting Rosenberg's, that we group public, we allow or consider allowing group public comments with one speaker as we did at the State Lands Commission recently, that we provide definitions for special meetings and that those apply to commissions as well as us. That we try to get the agenda out before Friday at 5 p.m. as soon as possible. And a friendly amendment to clarify that. Maybe you want Thursdays. That we strive to set a doable agenda. Maybe a friendly amendment could give some flesh to that bone. That we consider moving meetings to Wednesdays. That we have a five minute timer or a three minute timer so council can watch. And it's not up to me as a mayor to be remembering that while I'm engaged listening. Anyway, that we consider a five minute timer or a three minute timer. And lastly, that we have the number of round robin go rounds limited to a specific number. So that's my motion. And we're probably going to read it again, but this is a complicated issue, right? It has a lot of pieces to it. So if there's a motion, then we'll continue discussion.

If there's a second, I'm happy to second that just to continue the discussion.

So very briefly in discussion, I don't think it's appropriate that we make changes tonight. We approve changes to what we do without having it listed. So moving to Robert's, from Roberts to Rosenberg's and grouping public comment. You know, those are things that I mentioned at the end, we had five pieces on here and that fifth piece had three sub pieces. So those are on the agenda. And I think it's appropriate to make a decision on those. The other second list that I listed through were suggestions that But they were de novo. They're not in this report. So public could not have understood to comment. And that's not wrong. And that's why we have the friendly amendments. So that's a motion to be built upon or make a substitute motion. But let's go to Council Member Renee Ortega.

So just to clarify, so we would bring back a resolution with those items when we do come back with some of the suggestions you provide so that, you know, the resolution that would adopt the two-step process as described, you know, that same resolution could also amend 8C. You know, direct the template be revised as you know, three and four of your motion and then also number five will make those changes to the rules so that there will be one resolution with all those changes that would just come back and then we would bring those further refinements if that is your motion yeah.

Okay, let's go to Council Member Vialla.

Yeah, so you're saying that we can add in all of the things that we've discussed and they would be coming back on the second one? Because, I mean, the motion as it is here, not just in the staff packet, is pretty much saying that we're going to look at Exhibit A and anything in Exhibit A is up for any kinds of amendments and refinements to such rules. So that's what I'm thinking. I don't want to omit some of the information that we've already covered here to say we're going to need another go at this again. I feel like this meeting and the next one has to be where we make some decisions. It's going to be kicked back again, and we'll never get to this. We've already shown we don't get to it. So I don't understand why we're confining it just to the ones on here because the five things that were listed here, when really there are so many other things that I've said and other people have put forth. And I think that those need to be added on so that we can make a decision the next meeting. If you're going to restrict it to only what's on this presentation, when the motion says it's much broader than that and anything in our rules and regulations right now could be amended, then I would like to see it added.

Is that directed to me?

Yeah, I guess so.

So yes, I think there would be sort of two, when we bring it back, there would be one resolution that adopts exactly what you directed tonight. And then there will be a second item under that same, or a second item, I guess a sub item, would be to bring back some of these other ones. Now, the ones that are clear, for example, omitting Robert's rules and substituting, that I can handle. It'll be part of the resolution that gets adopted. The rule around groups, I don't know exactly how that's going to be phrased. I would want to bring you language and present that to you. But that's not something that I've drafted yet. It's not that it requires a second reading. It's just I want to make sure to present the rule as you've discussed. The ones that are clear that I can make those changes, it would be one resolution that says we adopt these resolutions. These changes make it into the rules. If you don't go any further than that, you've made those changes that night. Now, if there's something that hasn't been described here, only because some of them, I'll have to think about how I prepare that language and then present it to you. And if there are no further tweaks, that will come back in a subsequent resolution, just making sure that we captured that.

Okay, for example, you know, we're talking about the motion to limit debate, and the mayor just said, you know, to limit the number of rounds. So I'm suggesting two, because that's already 55 minutes with just two rounds, and I don't want to see that omitted. So something like that. He's putting in a general, but I want to see that we consider two rounds at a max. It could be one round if things are shorter, but I don't want it to go beyond two because then we're essentially saying any of these agenda items could be more than an hour of our public debate from the dais. I'm just saying something like that. If we talk about it, we put it in tonight's other recommendations, then if it comes back again and then we can vote on it, then that's our decision. Is that correct to say? Yeah.

Yes. I mean, if it's clear enough and I can make the change and bring that back in a single resolution and then those that require sort of me to draft new language, those will be the ones that I will present to you for the first time. I don't think that there's one that's specific to the number of

round robin no he made a general one so i'll have to put some language together bring that back you could take a look at it at that time if it gets tweaked further then it'll just come back in a subsequent reason to me it's already said in a round robin fashion and we can just say two i don't know that you don't have to celebrate too much on that in building a motion now would be the time to make friendly amendments okay that round robin one if you say

Two, and we agree, we'll put it in two. If you wanted a five minute timer or a three minute timer and you wanted to specify now, I thought there would be a workload on staff to work through all these new items that have been suggested. And I thought you would appreciate getting these five that are in the agenda already, because it has taken quite a while, to get those off the books approved and let staff come back when they're ready with these other ones. But we're building a motion. That was my thought. But let's change it as you wish to make friendly amendments.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't, if that, if that was the only thing we were discussing, then I, I, you know, I think that that's very limited for having. We welcome friendly amendments. Okay. So that there's a table. Okay.

If you have friendly amendments, this would be a good time.

So you, you made a whole list and I couldn't listen as, as well as trying to figure out where the ones that I had don't.

I'll go over the new ones. the ones that are not in the staff report. There's five in the staff report, and the fifth one had three sub-pieces. Okay. So you want me to go through the new ones that I was suggesting we get back later to?

Well, it's easier for me to say, was this covered? Was this covered? Was this covered? I have a list, and then I have to say, well, did I? It's very hard.

Yes, I tried to get through this one through five as listed.

Right.

And so anyway, any questions you have, this is the time.

Well, the five, I'm, you know, there, there are other things besides the five is what I'm stressing.

Yeah. So we're, I'm happy to go through the new items.

Then you're going to have to go slowly so I can cut and take it out of this, of my list and see if it's, they're all covered. Okay.

So besides the five that are listed in here in order, the ones that I heard tonight verbally discussed, the first one is swapping Roberts for Rosenberg's. Right. So if you want to make a friendly amendment, just say do it, then we'll hear that friendly amendment.

No, that's fine.

Okay. The second one was using group public comments with one speaker.

Okay.

And if you want to say just do it, then we can consider adding that to tonight's motion.

No, what I'd like to add in there is that the people who are supporters not speaking, that their names get in the public record.

So do you want to do that tonight?

Yes.

Okay. So there's a friendly amendment to allow groups to be represented by one speaker and that whoever's in that group, we get their, what, their name?

Their names, as though they were speaking. We always have their name and it gets into the minutes. Okay.

So one issue with that is that we do not require a speaker tonight or any night to say their name. And this would be saying the primary speaker doesn't have to say their name, but the backup non-speakers have to give their names, like the State Lands Commission.

Right. Yeah. So we could say that if there are any who support, who would like their name in it, we could have them give it to the clerk, for example. OK, so it's a benefit to us to have people speak as groups. And I don't want them to now say that it's like I didn't really speak because there's no documentation that I was here.

Right. So that is why I thought that this item and the other new items could use some staff digesting them and coming back to us. They're not so easy. There's secondary considerations that we have a hard time on the fly. Right. Considering there might be unintended consequences that staff could.

Right. But if I don't say it in this time, when am I going to say it?

Well, you have said it.

Yes. So that's.

And it's either dictate staff to do this.

No, no.

It's just staff to come back. Digest this and come back.

Yes. Unintended consequences. That's what I'm saying. I just want all these comments to be on the record today.

Okay. So. The motion is that staff look at these new items and digest them and bring them back to us just like they did these five. Yes, I understand that. So if you want something different than that, let me know now.

No, and you're going to go through your list, so then I'll be able to tell what hasn't got on there.

And what I didn't mention is because I didn't finish what you had said, but you had said something about specifying three minutes for something, and I didn't catch that.

Oh, on the addressing council, no seating of time to other speakers who use less than three minutes.

Okay. So I think that that is an example of something we can do tonight if it's within the realm of the agenda, that we just codify what we already practiced for decades, that there's no seating of time. So, city attorney, if we added that to agenda, do you see any Brown Act problem? Having not discussed that, just codifying our practice.

So, there won't be a Brown Act problem because this will come back in a single resolution.

All right. So, I'll accept that friendly amendment that we specify no seating of time. Everyone gets up to three minutes.

Mm-hmm.

The next one, Kathy, was I think Jenny wanted the staff to look into defining special meetings and applying that as well to commissions as our own body.

Yeah, I didn't address that, so that's fine.

The next one was the timing of the agenda. And staff needs to think a lot about when they can get the agenda out, given their two-week schedule. And then... Having our meetings potentially move to Wednesday or some other day. I thought that's going to take a lot of time. So I thought, let them at their convenience bring that back to us.

Yes. Okay. That's fine. Making agendas more doable.

That's really nebulous, but I think they get the drift. Having a five-minute timer versus a three-minute timer. Do you want to dictate where you want to go on that, or do you want them to digest that concept and come back to us?

I'd like to stick to five because that's what we're supposed to do. We always go over it, but I'd like to do five. And the timer not be the kind that that's all you see on the screen is the timer. That's true.

Yeah, we have round robin sessions and we're supposed to stick to council members talking five minutes. Yes. You're just saying we got to get those timed and not be so big as a timer.

It can be just at your desk, for example. So there's some way that you can notify us when we're, you know. Yeah, like 30 seconds. Because otherwise, if Fred does it, for example, then all you see is a big timer.

Okay. So I'll add to the motion that we dictate tonight. We get a, we get a timer for our five minute round Robin times.

The last one. Oh, I'm sorry. And then limiting it to two rounds. That's the last one. Okay.

Is that the number of round Robin rounds be maximized, limited to two. And that's something we can do tonight. If we all are in agreement, it sounds like we are. So that was it. Um, And I'm happy to read the motion, which is lengthy, before we make a vote. But let's go to, did you have something more?

We'll go to City Manager Matt Movison. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. This is not, I think, anything of consequentialness, but I just want to be, if we're going to this many changes, there's quite a few things, I think, in reading the document, things that are just outdated and we could update and would be simple to do now instead of come back in a future time. things like you know just the order the agendas the numbers are off and um says something in here about we can give out staff reports on Mondays and which doesn't make any sense with state laws we'll just fix things like that yeah so I think just emotions to say that staff fixes no-brainers and brings that back to us the next time okay and I'm sure that we're not going to have an issue with no-brainers okay yes

So I also said about the two-step that we would limit it to two two-step processes a year per council member.

Okay.

I do want to say that We haven't had a problem that we need to fix, but that would help ensure that we don't have a problem that show up. I mean, when have the last time you heard of a two step process? We just don't do it that often. So to think that it's going to become a problem is thinking about something new developing that hasn't developed in the past. So we might be fixing a problem doesn't exist, but it doesn't hurt to nip it in the bud. So it'll never happen by saying two per year, two step processes per council member. Can we do that tonight?

Uh, yes, I think that's, that's probably let's hear from councilman McAdams and then we'll see if we want to do that.

Thank you, mayor. Um, and so I appreciate your comment and like, there's not, that's not a problem, but in my experience, it is a problem because the times where I would, I have been to prior city manager, like, Hey, I'd like to do this. It's like, Oh, we have this two-step process. And then I got blown off. So that's sort of why I, you know, want to see this codified and for future councils, you know, to make sure that we are treated equitably and that, you know, future councils have a process instead of like just a verbal whatever.

The first point in the motion that we're about to approve is that we have a two-step council need agenda item process as described in the staff report.

No, I understand that. But where I'm... If the number, because there's a motion on the floor, is a friendly amendment, I'm not able to accept that because I want staff to come back and really think about it. And maybe the number's five. I don't know. Maybe there's a different process. But for me to just pop out a number is too rigid. And I don't have enough information to be able to agree on a specific number right now.

So you would probably recommend that. Staff, consider a few numbers and come back.

Yes.

And now we're going to do this friendly amendment. Let's hear from Kathy and then maybe Elizabeth before I know whether I should accept it.

Yeah. And putting things on the agenda, because I know what you're talking about, that if you feel blown off and you've suggested it, but we do have still that informal way to communicate to a city manager and say, I really want the noise ordinance on. But he may already have that in his mind. So it's not like we have to do this. I see the two-step as something pretty extraordinary that you've used the chains, I mean, the processes that we have already because the agenda comes out of these two people's heads, you know, and then it gets on there. But beyond that, we should not be having to have this be a lot of times because it's basically saying something that they didn't consider, two, not just one person, two people considered it. is is is is beyond that it's an exception that that we're allowing something else to to be part of the normal process so i think that you know i don't i don't want to see sort of now the the the because now one person feels that they can still and you know it's not just for us it could be a future council that somebody keeps saying because they're not talking to him So they got six things they want to now put out. Now we're going to listen to five proposals that we could have already had, not through that process, just by talking to the city manager or the mayor about it and getting that agenda item. That's why I'd like to limit it. It's not for building the agenda. These two people do the agenda. And if we trust what they do, then if they're not responding to us, then we use the two-step.

No, no, I get it. I agree to limiting it, but I'm not ready to throw a number out into the world. Okay, good. So I would like to put it on the list of things to come back. Great. Staff can think about it. I mean, I absolutely want to put a number on it. I just don't know what that number is. Great.

I understand now. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem Fisher?

Just to throw out another number, it could be one per quarter for council member to spread it over the year to avoid having, at the end of the year, people saying, oh, no, I still need to put in all my... So one per quarter would be four per year? For staff to consider.

So staff hears that we'd like to have considered one per quarter or two per year. Okay. But we don't need to put that in the motion. I think they've heard it. And there might be other ideas they have. Okay. Don't see any more comments. Would you like me to read through the agenda one more time or the motion one more time? I know you've asked me to email to you and I'm happy to do that. But as far as voting tonight, would anyone like me to read through this one more time?

No, but I...

Do you have a friendly amendment?

No, I just have a discussion point because there is so many things that we have in our current practices that we just don't abide by. And so I just want to say that even the new things that we're doing, I just hope that we on the dais hold each other accountable and say point of order or whatever if we're if we're not complying with the very things that we've now attempted to codify. And so I'm just wanting us to be in that spirit once we get things going, that we hold each other accountable and see how the time works out and how effective we are. Yeah. Thank you.

All in favor, please say aye.

Aye. Aye. All opposed, please say no. So that motion passes unanimously with the four of us present. We have one more item. And I pulled it because Grace had a lot of good questions. And I just wanted to make sure that staff is confident that these questions have been addressed either before or after you saw these comments or that they could be addressed. So our practice is something is pulled is that we have a staff report prior to making a vote, but that staff report could be very brief and then get to the point of whether these questions were answered or incorporated or have been addressed.

Thank you, Mayor. We thought it might be some questions before we receive Grace Silva-Santella's email. So we put together a PowerPoint presentation knowing this would come. Juan Perez, our Public Works Superintendent, is going to give the presentation. He's at that stage in his career when he wants to get his feet wet and do some presentations.

He told me he's after your job.

Well, I'm a lot older than he is, so he can have it at some point. One thing that I do want to say, we should have been a little more clear in the staff report. We are asking council to make a determination that this needs to move forward on as an emergency expense. You'll see the pictures of the roof and how bad it is, and Juan can give you a little bit more detail. We reached out to several roofers, only received two estimates. We have at least two local roofing companies that are well known. One of them sees commercials all the time. We couldn't even get a response, not even an email back saying we'll look into this, nothing at all. so so we did try but here's one to give you a presentation sorry buddy

It'll be really quick. As you can see in the first slide here, and I apologize, it was supposed to be a little video there so that you can see, because we did a drone shot there. So it was going to really bring the picture together. But as you can see on that first image there, there's a lot of broken tiles on that roof. And that's just one snapshot. But as we go through the slides, you'll be able to see that. And Chip, if you have the... Oh. Thank you. So this is a video, but I'm not sure if we can play that by any chance. Apologies on that. But as you can see, like, a zoomed out image there that throughout the roof, there's several damage. Partly it was from our own staff going up there to try to fix other things on the roof. That tile that's there, it's a really lightweight tile. So anybody that steps on that roof is going to cause damage.

Could you point out, I'm sorry, where are you talking about? Is it the black thing here?

There's some gray tile that's there. Oh, thanks for the critical. Thank you. Yeah, so this area here, there's several areas that we already patched. And then probably last year, we did this area here. But we still had some leaks. With that exposure, the felt paper under there was already damaged. So even when we get rains, we're getting water inside the building. So we've had staff in the county there, let us know that they've been having water protrude in there. So it's really important for us to replace that roof at this time. And if you go to the next slide. Thank you um we did get to actually here's another slide here with some of the other broken title like you can really see the openings here in this roof, and this is throughout the roof or you'll see there's several titles broken here um. The two options that we received are for roof tiles. And the second option, which is the one that we're recommending is, if you go to the next slide, is the asphalt shingles, which holds the same warranty life as the tile, which is 50-year shingles. And we really recommend the asphalt shingles just because we can get on the roof and we can perform other repairs without damaging the roof that's there so i think it would be really beneficial for the city to consider basketball shingles so that um we can preserve the roof be able to perform maintenance on the roof if needed to um just many more benefits to that that's that's my presentation and i'll take any questions if you have any thank you you did much better than ishmael does

You're both great.

Okay.

So the questions that let's just go through the questions that we have from the public. I don't know how much we want to diverge from the roof. So let me know if we're off topic. Is the library in need of paint maintenance? Is that something you want to talk about tonight or later?

I would say later, once we get Withers Ravenel to come back with their facilities condition assessment, we plan to take that to the Public Works Commission in October and then council right after. So that'll give more detail on all of our buildings.

Rusting hinges and cranks. We'll do that later, right?

That's also part of the condition assessment. Okay. And she is correct. Those are things that we've noticed.

Okay. What was the original warranty for the roof? Do we know?

Well, since it's tile, we would assume it's 50 years. But the tile's broken because people have walked on it improperly. And one issue I think is worth pointing out, Mayor, is that we have, which is why we really want to go to the asphalt shingle roof. Our city staff goes up there. We call an air conditioning repairman. They walk up the roof and back. And when we flew our drone over it, and we were really hoping that video would show, you can see broken tiles where air conditioning repairmen have gone up and down, where there's some windows that open. Same thing.

Thank you. Are we required to have three bids? And we have how many? And why is that?

We have two bids. Our procurement policy requires two or three up to a certain threshold. This threshold exceeds that. So we would normally do an RFP, which is why we're asking council to make a determination that this needs to be done as an emergency repair. And under that policy, we can forego the RFP process. If we were to try doing an RFP now, well, I mean, the biggest thing is time.

Okay, so the policy is two or three bids. We have two. So you recommend moving ahead?

The policy is two or three bids up to a certain threshold. This project exceeds that threshold. So normally we are required to do an RFP under the emergency provision, which is what we used last year when we put the HVAC system on the public safety building. We can forego that and just do informal bids, which is what we did.

Okay. And I imagine that an RFP would take us into the rainy season.

It would take us in the rainy season for sure.

Okay. Is there a resale value to the existing tiles that warrants the labor to remove, protect, store, sell?

No. After seeing that in Grace's email, I did a little bit of research, about 10 minutes of research. Typically, when those projects are done, somebody else comes in, is willing to remove the tile so that they can have them. But for us to pay somebody prevailing wage to remove tile and sell them at 25 cents a piece wouldn't make a whole lot of sense.

Okay. Protecting the copper flashing and gutters?

Absolutely.

Okay. 15% contingency, is that sufficient to cover the cost of moisture damage that you might not know about yet?

We believe so. Based on the areas that have leaked, we do believe that is sufficient.

Okay. All right. Have you pursued grants for solar on any facilities? Yes. Okay. Go ahead. Sorry.

So the answer to the question is yes. We have Lissandro heading that, and he's part of the RCPWG group or something like that, which is a bunch of peninsula cities that are working on energy efficiency.

So when it regards to the library, you will be considering solar panels when you install a new roof?

Not with this project, but yes, at some point.

Okay, not with this project.

Correct. Okay.

So this project, is it a wholesale new asphalt roof?

New asphalt roof.

Wouldn't this be the time to consider solar or is it better? I mean, or does it delay the time it's going to take to repair this?

It'll delay the time. They are also two different projects. So when I first came here, I had in my last two cities, I'm in the Valley. They're in the, they're in a hundred degrees right now still. And yeah, Energy efficiency companies were after me like crazy. I come here and I called a few to see if they wanted to come and do some evaluations. They're very reluctant to come here because we don't get enough sun.

We've had two evaluations done by a Chevron related company and another related company. It was both like, nah.

Yeah.

Doesn't mean that we can't do it, but they weren't interested when they evaluated all the energy we use and what solar would bring us due to our weather. The Friends of the Marine Library and the Marine Training Garden Club and the Marine Foundation have done a great job landscaping next to the building. There are measures you'll take to ensure that those aren't trampled or damaged.

Yes, our standard agreement requires that if they damage anything else, they've got to make good on it. Both of these roofing companies are reputable companies. I'm not too worried about that happening. We will have a pre-construction meeting with them, and I'll make sure that we go over Grace's concerns.

So similarly, a three-tiered synthetic roof?

Same thing, yeah.

and there's a planter right there just next to where the flag pole. Okay. Uh, thank you very much. Let's go to council member Biala.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I have just two questions, uh, Schmaller one, but whichever. So I, why are there only two bids? Like it, when I redid my roof, it seems like everybody was willing to come and, you know, charge you whatever and do a roof.

You know, uh, Only thing I can think of is that this year is a busy year and they have tons of work and didn't call. One of the companies that I mentioned, I see their television commercials frequently, is Scudder Roofing. Wouldn't even call back. And we found that shocking because of the size of the company. We also talked to Pueblo, which we have a, or Pueblo is the one that would give us the other quote, correct? Yeah, we have all the documentation for everybody else that we contacted.

Wow. Okay. Economy must be thriving then. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. And then this condition of this roof, is it not on any kind of your public works maintenance plan that we somehow missed addressing this before it got to be a little concerning?

So my first... The knowledge that the roof was in the condition as it's in is when we all saw the blue tarp on it this past. I think it got put on there in December and stayed on there for months. And once the rain stopped and we got in there and had a couple of companies look at it. Yeah, I'm not sure how it got that bad. Yeah. Like I said, there was broken tile. You can see where people walked all over that roof to do various maintenance activities. Some of the maintenance people could have been from the county. The county's responsible for some portions of maintenance. Yeah, I'm not sure how it got that bad, but there's no way that we could wait.

But going forward, let's say, you know, do we have it on the plan to say that we check the roof every so often? I don't know. You know, it's a 50-year warranty, but still, you know, in between, you know, do we check the condition of the tiles?

Yeah, that'll be part of the facilities condition index that we're going to bring to council and put a plan together to get all those inspections done in the future.

Great. Thank you very much. Mayor Tim Fisher, thank you, Cathy.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for the presentation, Juan. So it has been a while since I saw a handwritten proposal. Is this all you have, or do you have more spelled out? What color will the shingles be? Will they clean up their job every day, things like that?

That we will put into the agreement, into the construction agreement.

Okay, because this is very limited. And also, I hope that they still honor the proposal from May 10th, I always have to think, because we don't do this within seven days. And for the rest, I'm just sad to see a tile roof not last more than, not even two decades. I mean, coming from a country where we have tile roofs that are hundreds of years old, really, and people do walk on them. Not for air conditioning, although nowadays maybe yes, but it's just disappointing. It's really sad.

Yeah, on some roofs, one of the roofers that looked at it did talk to me, and he and his son walked up and down it, and his son is a heavyset guy, and they're able to walk around without breaking them, but they're roofers, so... there's they have there's one inch that you can put your foot on you have to stand a certain way um if your weight shifts even a little bit i i walked on tile real seat when i was young and thin and every step i just heard crunch crunch crunch crunch crunch uh so yeah it's very hard

I've even laid them. Is that what you call it? Yeah. Anyway, it's fun. So I love tile roofs. But in this case, I agree that your recommendation is a good one. But yeah, about the color, I don't know who's involved with choosing the color because that's... Yeah, we're going to try to get as close to what's there as possible.

So it'll be a charcoal gray. They don't have colors in asphalt like... The tile that's there has a purplish tint to it.

We're not going to be able to find that in a... Yeah, but I don't know who will be involved with this because I know people are rightly so very proud of this building.

Sure.

And so I don't know how this can be

made sure that they have an input or if there are options for colors uh if tell me who you want to be part of that decision and we'll bring yeah some color samples well i assume like uh gray silver centella she she had all the questions i'm pretty sure that she would like yeah to be involved in this choice if that counsels yeah if that's council's uh direction i can contact grace uh she's helped us with a couple other projects where she had some really good feedback so we'd love to work with her yes thank you

Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Thank you. Rick, you were about to witness us end at a decent hour, but if you're leaving, you can't see that. Okay. All right.

Not seeing any further comment, I'll adopt a measure that we adopt resolution awarding the contract to 3R construction.

For $286,674, we authorize city manager to execute the contract documents and all change orders subject to final review and approval by the city attorney.

We authorize the finance director or her or his designee to make necessary accounting and budgetary entries.

I'm happy to second that.

Any final comments before we? Let's hurry before Rick gets back.

Yeah, I just want to say thank you to Grace. You know, when I when I first saw that, I felt like totally overwhelmed. But I am so glad that she's a fighter like that for for her causes. So thank you very much, Grace.

All right. All in favor of the motion, please say aye. Aye. All right, that motion passes unanimously with the four of us present.

And we go to housekeeping items.

Monterey County Mayor's Association. The Monterey County Mayor's Association meeting will be in Greenfield this Friday, and we'll have the Restorative Justice Commission presenting some asks, presenting some proposals for the mayors to endorse as an association and also perhaps take back to their councils. And in November, we'll have a proclamation for the Restorative Justice Month. It's a really powerful group. doing great things in our jails, trying to actually rehab inmates, incarcerated persons, and also connect incarcerated persons who are offenders with their victims or connect them with victims who are willing to come forward that were victims of other crimes. And boy, it's a really powerful atmosphere when you hear victims describe how they were abused and describe how they're working with the offenders who caused the abuse to them it's um it's really heavy and encourages abounds in that room where the victims are working with offended offenders who are now incarcerated and they're actually trying to get them out of jail under horrendous crime circumstance where you would think they'd be arguing for them to be hung and shot. And instead, they're arguing for them to get released if they say they did it, if they say they're sorry, if they take all these classes and they rehab themselves so that when they get out, there won't be more victims. That's what the victims want is there not to be more victims. And so it's an amazing process. And anyway, that's what we're hearing about at the Mayor's Association. Any council reports on meetings or conferences attended recently? Okay. All right. Then we are adjourned.

Thank you, Matt. Thank you.

Thank you to all the directors for being here. Kristen, Belinda, Courtney, Elizabeth, Randy.

You didn't fall asleep tonight. It's good.

Recording stopped.