City Council - Regular Meeting

There's no parking. Good afternoon. Today is Good afternoon. Today is Tuesday, December 16, 2025. This is the regular meeting of the city council of the city of Marina.

There's no parking. That's funny. Okay. Oh, can please get a roll call. Council member McCarthy here. Council member McAdams here. Council member Viala here. Mayor Prom Bisher here. Mayor Delgato. Thank you. We have a quorum. City attorney. Are there any changes to the closed session agenda? Uh yes. Thank you, Mayor Prom. There are no changes to the uh close session agenda. Thank you. We will go into close session and we will public comment.

Oh, thank you. We'll open public comment. Do we have anybody on Zoom? And nobody in the room. Okay, we'll close public comment. Thank you so very much. We will uh go into close session. We will we will readjourn here at 6:30 and we will be here at 6 for the reception. Oh, that's an official. We'll be back at 6 and the open session will start at 6:30. Yeah. Yes.

behind the scenes on your own time. you're playing a critical role in shaping our policy, guiding development, supporting the goals and values of our community and shaping those goals, the future goals because uh with your contributions, we have a new general plan coming up. It has its own goals and that is our vision, our our roadmap, constitution, however you see it for the next 20 years till 2045. So your ability to to affect have an impact on our community will always be there for you however it's best for you to be participatory. So um I'd like to invite the fellow council members to share a few words. Um and appreciate Jenny again for bringing us together tonight. And thanks to staff um Assyra and Anita Lane and other staff who Belinda Thank you. Belinda is our hospitality committee uh chair on the staff side. That's Belinda over there. She's also known as our human resources department director. So, let's turn it over to our city council people.

Sure. I'll bite. Um thank you, mayor. Uh so, I was a planning commissioner for four years before running for office. Um, and so I very much appreciate the work especially the planning commission does, but all of the boards and commissions. Um, uh, you know, it's it's it's really important work and quite frankly, I I tell people all the time that if I decide not to run for a second term or I don't get elected, I'm coming for your jobs because I because I love the work. It's it's it's meaningful. It's um it has a tremendous impact and um uh you know so just thank you very much for the the time that you spend away from your families and and um doing the hard work of reading agenda packets and and all of those things. So uh thank you for being here and thank you for serving the city.

Thank you, Brian. I'll go next. Um thank you everybody for being here. uh you know, as a council member, you really ease the work for us and package it up and do that research. And so when we receive a recommendation that's already been through planning commission and those sorts of steps, you know, I I'm at ease and and I feel confident that what is coming before us um is correct and has been reviewed and suggested and edited by a group of our peers. And so I really appreciate the work and happy holidays.

Thank you. And it's so great to see all your faces because Marina has always been sort of known for its volunteerism and you're proof of that. And I also started off in the planning commission. Actually, we we we overlap, Brian and I. and I know the hard work and so I really appreciate all of you for doing that and all of the other things. I remember the wreck and cultural services was responsible for our MLK junior statue. Um you know we we have all these important general plan committees. Uh we have the citizens advisory committee too. I mean these are major things happening in our city and we depend on our volunteers and our constituents and uh residents of Marina. So, thank you very much because we can't do it alone. There's only five of us here and so the whole community is involved and it's really wonderful. So, thank you all for volunteering. Thank you. And best no, I would like to um second all the things that were said. Thank you all. It's And I've never been on a commission before. I I went straight for election for city council just to tell you there are elections coming up. So Brian McCarthy, the mayor and I, our term is ending. So this is your chance.

So um anyway, but um and it's it's it's so exciting to see what's happening in our city. There's so much happening and our staff works very hard and the commissioners and committee members work so hard and of course I I need to uh name the public works commission because I was the leazison for that. I just got promoted or demoted I don't know but I'm not I'll now be uh the leazison for the um uh recreation department. So just to see something else and and I'm looking forward to that but I'll miss the public works commission. But thanks to all of you and happy holidays.

All right. Thank you, Elizabeth, Brian, Kathy, and Jenny. Now, we're going to call up each commission uh as a body and distribute certificates to the individuals who are present, and Melissa will be helping us out. Thanks, Melissa. Melissa, what's your title? So, are you an administrative exe executive administrator? Uh, executive assistant. Executive administrative assistance. All right. You all had that before I did. How long you been at the airport? Are you lonely out there or is it pretty busy?

All right. Okay. And we as we go through each group, we want to take a moment to acknowledge that those of you who are completing your terms and not re-uping in February, thank you for years of commitment at least two. Those who are completing those who are newly appointed uh this past February, we're grateful that you've chosen to serve and do it one more year at least. And a special shout out to a few individuals uh will be naming them uh who serve on two or more commissions. your dedication and flexibility are much appreciated. We know that everyone's not here tonight that we'd like to recognize, but we'll still like to recognize them. So, we'll mention their names and we'll give them their certificates after tonight. So, with that, we'll begin with our first group, the planning commission. Uh Glenn, come on up. Glenn Woodson, Audra, Walton, Galia Baron, Paul Chang, Vic Jacobson, Surrender, Rana, and Richard St. John. Audrey, how long have you been on the planning commission?

A very long time. And what's what's one important uh thing you've learned? How important land use uh discussions and uh I've learned too much. So look, no, I don't have I don't have anything. No, I didn't learn anything the whole time. The whole time. nothing at all. Uh Audra definitely brings her a a a perspective, you know, of diversity to our planning commission. It's been appreciated.

All right, so let's give them a round of applause for representing our planning commission. And how do you want to do uh photos, Belinda? Sure. And with the full council, come on down, council. We'll be busy. I guess put me on the spot.

I don't want to be I got them off. Okay, everyone say go planning. Thank you.

Next up, uh, Public Works Commission. Stephen Hunt, Juicy Choy, Jim Felton, Steve Rowand Ruland, and Jamie Shrabeck. Public Works Commission. Come on up. All right. Juic and Jamie. All right. Uh, what's one thing you learned? uh learn to how to, you know, listen to what the people going to say and how to can help them. How about you, J? I wish more people would show up to tell us what they think. So, where are all these people when you guys are meeting?

Handing out certificates. Thank you for being with us as part of the commission. Okay, let's take that photo once we get the shirts. Thank you. Excellent. Thank you. I'm gonna show you our names correctly. Awesome. Yeah, it's awesome. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Jamie.

Next up, recreation and cultural services commission. Lisa Reich, the chair, Mia Wyn, the vice chair, Tina Rosa, Janice Singh, Rob Weisskir, Daness, did I say your name right? Wait, are you here? I'm trying to talk. Put Jay here. Why you put me in here? Put Jay here. All right, Janice. What's one thing you learned? The committee members are really committed to providing their input and giving us some direction.

You've had a lot to do with all the parks coming online and the aquatic center and Yeah, that's great. All right, we'll take that photo. Are you ready? Everybody say recreation.

Thank you. I'll never get tired of the memory of uh Lisa and her husband Darius back around 2014 wanting to put in a $20,000 uh dollar volunteer built dirt mounded pump track next to the teen center and that didn't work out. It went through the normal bureaucracy. It grinded to a halt and then city staff came up with the pump track idea with Lisa and Darius. It turned into a $ 1.5 million not volunteer run project. That's really probably one of the best things, one of the most popular things that's ever happened in our city. And 1.5 million nowadays is not a lot of money compared to everything else we're doing. But that 1.5 million was probably some of the best that we've ever spent. And it never would have happened without Lisa and her family. So I'll always remember that. Thank you, Lisa. All right, next up is the tree committee. Jackie Gardner, Jeff, Markham, Joey, Greg, Richard St. John, and looks like Greg might be our representative tonight.

He was here a minute ago. Well, while we're waiting to see if Jeff might be in calling distance, how long you been on the tree committee? I think this is my third term. So, that's six years. Six, five, six. Sort of co got in the way in there somehow. What's one of the more important things that you've learned?

You know, recently just like kind of work with staff and the other committee members and even uh with uh kind of um curated discussions with the developers at our meetings, we've been able to get some changes in it, we've saved some more trees. And I think because we've been able to do that and try to get away from thumbs up or thumbs down, you know, like on a removal, it's like, is there other ways to work it out so we can have more trees in ring. All right, Mike Owen is up there somewhere giving a thumbs up. Mike Mike is the one whoounded me to join the tree committee. He even brought the forms and left them on my door. And the only thing he didn't fill out was your signature.

That's right. Yeah. Mike would handr write whatever he wanted you to do and he bring it to your door. All these handwritten documents you could hardly read because it was in his own handwriting, but uh he made sure you got the gist verbally. So, if you didn't understand the writing, you still got the

life's great. Okay, let's get that photo with Greg. Awesome. Thank you.

Okay. General Plan Advisory Committee. They're going to be on that committee until 2045, I think. Sheila Baker, Cindy Burnham, Baruk Clearary, Mjet, Hey, he's here. You know, Met used to own the Chevron gas station, University Chevron, Wesley Haye, Mia Wyn, Grace Silva Sintella, Mia and Grace are doing double duty. They're al also in other committees. Kina Smith, and Richard Sang. Oh, great. So, Grace, what's your favorite commission? Oh,

I'd have to say the recreation commission. Actually, I think you guys are doing some really awesome stuff right now. I mean, seriously, I honestly say, which commission was your favorite has been your favorite to serve on? I only served on the planning commission and the tree committee. time now. Uh, and now in the general plan update committee and the citizens facilities committee, which I think maybe was my favorite because in three committee meetings with one Zoom left, we're done. Maji, what's one thing you've learned in the commission?

Uh, in the GPAC uh, group that we had, we made major accomplishments. There was a lot of good communication. There was a lot of infighting, too, which was very good. you know, it was it taught us all how to, you know, work with each other. And then, uh, the presentations were very good and, uh, I think we did an excellent, excellent job. So, you should all clap for us.

Someone I didn't call, Galia. Oh, that's because we uh, only asked him up once. Well, come on up, Galia. Your name was Yeah. Did I not call your name? Yeah, your name wasn't on here, Dolly. She's not easy to overlook or forget. So, I don't know what happened. Uh, a fun fact of mit fun fact. How many miles a week do you bicycle? Well, uh, currently my goal is about 40 miles. Week? Yes. Is that an electric bike? No. All right. So, let's take that photo. Thanks, though. It's It's supposed to be

And then you'll drive. You'll find there, right? Yeah. Like the four-door loop. Yeah. Thank you. 2045 masters. General Plan Masters.

All right. Thank you, GPAC. All right. Now's for the suak community facilities citizen advisory committee. I know this is well attended tonight. Really glad. Yuri Anderson, Andrea Balsiger, Carolyn Carroll, Patricia Clark Gay, May Holland Dungo. I don't think she's here. Joel Johnson, is she great? Arvana Kelvinfar, Steven Lee, our man of the year, Mike Mohler, Grace Silva until backup for more. Michael Simmons, Jason Smith, and Anttowal. So this is your C facilities citizens advisory committee

volunteer on Sunday after you can close recording in progress while for passing those out. May, what's one thing you learned on the sifak? What I learned? Oh, amazing group and they all agree and it's very fun and peaceful and we got a solution to the issue. So, I'm really grateful.

Great fun. See, that's fun. Is this fun? What was one thing you learned? There's a lot of information. I mean, just down to the minute stuff. And I've never done anything like this before, but it was fun and really informative. So, thank you. Thank you for uh Thank you. That's great. Thanks for being part of it. Grace, did you learn anything? We were all really good listeners. Yeah, that's what I learned. Now Pat's Clark Gray has been around a while and her former husband Ken Gay Gray was on city council. Pat, what's one thing you learned?

Well, I appreciate the fact that the staff really works hard and I feel they deserve a a new police fire station, new city hall, and I'd like to see new teen center. I'd just like to see a great great expansion, but we'll start small first.

All right. Thank you. Okay, let's get that photo. All right. Well, that concludes one piece of fun tonight. The second piece is going to be the rest of the city council meeting, which you're all welcome to stay and enjoy. More food to eat and drink. But we uh just want to say thank you for making Marina a better place. We hope you have a good rest of your evening. you get home safe to those you love and have a wonderful holiday season and next year it's going to be rocking again. Um there's so much going on and many of you know that. So we'll see you next week here and have a great holiday until then.

perfect time of year to do that. Thanks again, Council Member McAdams, for being the the visionary there. We came out of uh close session after starting there at uh 5:00 and as as our practice, our city attorney Renee Otega is going to report out. Uh yes, thank you, mayor. So, uh city city council provided direction but took no reportable action. That concludes my report.

Okay. Thank you. And now, um let's uh have the pledge of allegiance. Council member Miller, can you stop hiding and lead us in the pledge of allegiance? Let's stand and after a moment of silence, Council Member Miller from City of Seaside will lead us in the pledge. for being a good sport. Okay. Um so council and staff announcements. Here we go. Hi, I'm Dre. So, I just wanted to let everyone know that we have our 50th anniversary promotion now extending till December 31st. So, you can see there's a flyer in the back here, and I've included a flyer for each of you where if you scan this, it leads you to the storefront. And if you type in anniversary all caps 50 at the checkout um point, then you can get 50% off of three or more items in a single purchase. and that is unlimited for any email or um specific individual. Okay, so that's that. And then we have our Winterfest coming up. That's this coming Sunday, December 21st from 1 to 4:00 p.m. at the Rocky Han Community Center. We're going to have delicious food uh presented by Kona Jerry's Barbecue. Also have bounce houses and uh meals, crafts, prize

drawings, games. So please bring your families. Please come and it's free at beautiful holiday meal. And then we have a save the date flyer for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration Monday, January 19th. The event will be 11:30 to 3:30 and we will celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. featuring live performances by Leon Joyce Trio presented by the Just Jazz Foundation, the Smoky Ruffin Quartet, and the Monterey County Pops Orchestra. We're partnering with Monterey County Pops Orchestra and um we'll also have guest speakers and we'll have more information coming soon after the new year. Okay, thank you.

Thank you Drea for being a a powerhouse, a strong point of light for our city. She's our sort of acting director of recreation cultural services commission because her boss uh uh retired and so without having a number one in that position she takes on a lot of the face of the department and she's doing a fantastic job. Thank you for everything Drea and everyone else in the recreation cultural service department because you're all having to step up. I know. And we'll go down to our city manager Lane Long. Just want to mention our citizens advisory committee. Uh we had three meetings. They concluded their last meeting um last night. Our facilitator will be preparing a draft report that is going to go out to all the committee members hopefully by Friday. Then we'll have a zoom meeting on Monday with the committee and that will be the final um um that'll be the final meeting of the committee and the end result will be a report uh and a recommendation from the committee to the city council. has been, as you've heard, it's been a extremely productive um meeting and it's been uh it's it was a great idea decision of city council to form that. They've had a good time. Um once um after that Zoom meeting on Monday, the facilitator is going to be compiling a final report and we'll uh we'll get that final report to the city council, make our final stuff and then uh uh the intent is on January 21st, our next city council meeting, we'll be uh presenting that report to the public and we'll be inviting the committee uh uh to come to the city council and we'll take a deep dive into everything they did. And I personally want to give my my thanks to

the the committee. They really did um an amazing job. Uh the second thing I want to mention is with the holidays, uh city offices uh will be closed December 24th through January 1st. So if you want any in-person city business, have that done by next Tuesday. police and fire services are will still be here through the holidays, but uh anything with our city offices will be closed the 24th through January 1st. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Any other staff comments? Okay, let's go to Council Member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. And being that this is our final council meeting of 2025, I just wanted to take a moment to thank our incredible city staff and my council colleagues. Um, I've been reflecting um over the weekend I was reflecting on all the things that we accomplished together this year and it's just incredible. So celebrate those wins uh and I'm really proud of the work that we've done uh and appreciative to to serve alongside with with all of you. So happy holidays and and cheers to 2026.

All right. Thank you. Uh, wanted to mention December 24th, Christmas Eve, is our third year in a row having a community cleanup in downtown. So, we meet at Jack in the Box at 10:00. Uh, we clean up usually up Reservation Road. Maybe this time we'll do Delmani as well. Um, but that's 10:00 a.m. Jack in the Box, outside Jack in the Box on December Christmas Eve, uh, for a couple hours and then we'll have, uh, lunch also outside Jack in the Box. Um, every Thursday, rain or shine, year round from 2:30 till 400 p.m., volunteers are welcome to join other volunteers at Hilltop Park, a new park in town on Ford that's uh full of locally native plants that are being maintained, watered, planted, weeded, that kind of a thing. That's every Thursday, rain or shine, year round from 2:30 to 4 p.m. at Hilltop Park on the corner of 9inth Street and 4th Avenue. I want to give a shout out to the volunteers at Loch Paden Community Wetland Park who walk all around the park uh going places they didn't want to go because that's often times where you find accumulations of garbage and they picked up u three or four bags of garbage um all scattered out throughout the park. Um but it's such a big park it's still pretty clean even with two or three bags of garbage spread out like that. So there are hot spots where there's often um abandoned camps that um that have tarps and things like that. But anyway, it's great that volunteers like Jeff Markham, Brian McCarthy, Council Member McCarthy, and Sustainable Marina volunteers, they go there on a regular basis and get into places that most of us don't see. But in going to those places, you see how beautiful the willow forest is on the south side of the lake. It's a it's a mature willow forest and you can walk through it kind of like a shaded fairy land. It's just a beautiful place to be. Uh now there are some trash and that's why we're there to look, but overall it's a it's um very remarkable place. There's not a lot of willow forests that

you can walk through and it's just a a beautiful place. Uh there's uh usually hard to find graffiti in Marina. Even if you're in the most hidden places like trash cans in an alley and that kind of thing, there still isn't a lot of graffiti. Part of that's because of volunteers like uh Bob Nolan and Sustainable Marina uh and others who clean up the graffiti as fast as they can with the support of the police, public works, kind of a team effort. If you think of all the light posts and walls and places where there could be tagging or graffiti uh and you don't see much of it, that's largely because volunteers and staff are going after it. So, if you do see graffiti, like recently there was a spike at um at Preston Park and volunteer uh Bob Nolan got on it once we found out from social media that it had occurred. U so if you do see graffiti, tell somebody. Call city hall, call the police, call somebody. And uh the word will get out that it needs to be covered up. And the bet the quicker you do it, the more it discourages future because people want to see their their work. Uh and if if it's covered up all the time, they you know they might not do that. They might go somewhere else. But anyway, uh thanks to everyone who's keeping the graffiti well under control within our community. Okay. So, any other comments, my council members? Then we will move on to public comments. Anyone here in person? And then we'll go to those folks online. You have up to three minutes. Comment on the consent agenda or comment on other things that are not on later tonight's action items. Hello, mayor and city council. Thank you for this evening. It was really a pleasant a very pleasant moment. So, I'm speaking to you tonight because in the past weeks, there have been several

social media posts about the noxious odors Marina residents are living with, especially in North Marina, which with each of these posts, I respond and I urge people to call Monterey Bay Area Resources District and register a complaint. I tell them to give their name, their address, and a description of the odor. I myself have registered some complaints lately and I always receive a call back. A few times an embar investigator has come by my house. One recent odor problem was so extreme and noxious it triggered headaches. This was a large load of rotting Brussels sprouts delivered to the landfill composting operation. A few days ago to help marina residents understand the history of the odor problems, I created a new post. In that post, I provided a link to the December 5th, 2023 city council meeting when the council received a presentation on a completed odor study that was funded by Regen and Monterey One Water. I also provided residents with a link to the staff report that included the odor study. I've lived here a long enough I've lived here long enough to know that the odor problems in Marina have occurred for many years and that there are multiple sources for the odors. The landfill Keith Day landscape composting operations Monterey one water sledge ponds from agriculture irrigation water and top dressing of egg fields. Given the large volume of complaints Marina residents have made in the past months, I believe it is time that the city council schedule an update on the 2023 odor study. I ask that the meeting not be a special presentation, but be structured to allow residents to ask questions and express concerns. I ask that repres representatives from Embard,

Monterey One Water, Regen, and Keith Day Landscaping be present. Marino residents need to be updated on plans to implement recommendations from the 2023 study and actions taken to resolve odor issues. In add in addition, we need to be informed of any new expansion plans at the Marina Landfill and Marina One Water. Marina Water One Water will soon be receiving 51,000 tons of organic waste annually for its co-igestion program. Thank you very much.

Great summary. Thank you, Grace, for your attention and sharing online and here. Okay, anyone else? Come on up, Alex.

Good afternoon, uh, Marina City Council. Great to see all of you. And, uh, my name is Alex Miller. I am a city council member in Seaside. Thank you, uh, Mr. Mayor, for the pledge of allegiance. I was never never one to follow directions and you clearly said, moment of silence, pledge of allegiance. I went straight into the pledge of allegiance like the rebel that I am. I hope you will forgive me for my clerical mistake there. I wasn't prepared for that. I'm here today to wish all of you a merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy Hanukkah, and from the city of Seaside on behalf of the city of Seaside. We look forward to working with all of you guys coming into 2026. We want to build this we want to build the stronger relationship with the city and work together. And as you know, uh, by, um, by CSUMB, the the our property lines are right next to each other. We're building, you're building. So, why are we why why should we not be working together? Why should we not be working together for our kids, for our for our residents, and uh, that's something that I'm going to personally be uh, looking forward to in 2026. So, again, from the city of Seaside, thank you very much. The commission ceremony was fabulous. I started on a commission on the neighborhood improvement commission. It's a great way, a pathway to being an elected official. It gives you the the foresight, the insight, and the knowledge that you need to be a council member. So, it was really wonderful to see that today. I'm going to take that back to my council and say, "Why aren't we doing something like that for our commissioners?" Cuz they deserve it. They really truly do. And uh thanks again for the snacks.

Thank you, Alex. Yeah. Have a good even campus town. Thank you, sir. And this is Jenny's second city, city council. So, maybe she'll go to Seaside and do the same thing. Well, we'll we'll wait for that. Thank you. Where wherever she goes, hospitality follows. Thank you, Alex. Anyone else in person? Come on up, Craig.

I want to um say thank you, too. That was really nice. We had another one of those last uh last year, I think, and this one was bigger and better. So, great work. Um, I'm going to echo some of Grace's uh Grace Grace Silva Santa's um uh issues. Uh this time of year when we have the inversions, when it's colder on upper atmosphere and um warmer, sorry, warmer above, colder below, we have odors that stick to the ground and they don't disperse. The winds change. And so in our neighborhood in Northern Marina, we experience a lot of odors. This year has been an up uptick in a lot of those odors. Um for a while we were getting odors from the sledge pounds in um in Selena. So that was part of it. But I um I'd like to echo and ask the council, could we schedule another public meeting where we could discuss the issues. There's been a lot of um concern I know and a lot of people don't know what's going on. And um we know what the major sources are and I think we should try to get away from saying well we don't know what it is. It's this or this or that. the sources are pretty well known. The ordered study um showed what they are. Um that doesn't mean that's all the problems, but we should address the ones that we know about. Um and um I think that in our we sort of had a an informal citizens group where we made a number of recommendations and one of the recommendations and we sat down with Philipe Melur at um at region general manager. We had some meetings with him and they said they were going to do some more outreach. I know he's come to our meetings, but I think that would go a long ways to helping some of these problems so people know what's going on. And I've sent this out to council members a couple times, but just an example in this the area where I'm from in Seattle, Washington, the sewer district has a big outreach campaign and

they say, "We don't think you're going to smell us, but if you do, we want to hear about it." and they're very public-f facing and they're just really proactive and I think we have an opportunity to get away from oh it couldn't be us it couldn't be them that was what we experienced in the past and it really was not that was the most frustrating thing was the odor but just no one willing to take any responsibility so I think the city has a chance to be a leader and we we have been leading let's keep doing that and see we um can keep working on it and I think that creates some pressure to make things sure things happen. So, I hope we can um schedule a meeting like uh Grace suggests. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Greg. Anyone else in the building would like to speak tonight? Come on up. Not seeing anyone. Come on up, Erica. Hi, I'm Erica Graham and I am just here um to just mention um the fields uh in Marina. I'm hoping to see some more ideas and concepts come to into um fruition that we have discussed for many many years like 20 20 years. Um and I'm hoping to see more of that and flyers of excitement over that like we're seeing for all the new parks and all the other things. Um I'm I'm hoping that by discussing this that we can kind of move towards seeing some of those things come about for the city because we do need it. Um, I've talked to the council before about it, so I won't go into full details. Um, but we're the last ones to not have it in our area. So, I hope that we see it really soon and even more importantly before some of these other parks go into um the city of Marina because we have lots of parks and we don't see as many people at them that we do at the fields that we pass all the time that are completely full. So, I hope that we take that in consideration and that we start putting those onto um some of the agendas and the uh the ideas that we have put into play right now for the city of Marina.

Erica, can you specify so everybody knows what you're referring to? Um I am referring to um baseball fields and soccer fields or flat fields um and diamond shaped fields um because there's just the two different ones that need to um be built for for not just the children of Marina but all ages. Um our teenagers need them. Our adults need them. Um and our youth definitely needs them and they bring all of the age groups together. Um so they're really really important to the city. They're important to the community aspect. I've been a part of this city for a really long time and that's where I grew up and that's where I learned um to be a good community member. It taught me how to volunteer. It taught me all of the things that I currently do now as an adult. I learned it as a kid and now my children are doing it. Um so it is very generational and um it definitely builds on community and I've seen it all happen right there. Um and it kind of floods out into the city. So, it's really, really important, probably more important than some of the other things on the list that we continue to push for. Um, so hopefully we can get some flat fields so we can have not only just sports, they are really great for having city events um and other things, school events. Um, they're they're just great for everything. So, I really hope that we start seeing more of them soon. Thank you.

Thanks, Erica. And thanks for pushing for the aquatic center as well. Hello, CJ Johnson, a longtime resident Marina. Um, I was here about six, seven months ago with a group of young ladies who uh are now n or state champions in softball. Um, we just opened up signups for our youth league for Marina Pony baseball or Marina softball and baseball. They have 190 kids and my fears are going to have to shut down the signups because we don't have enough fields. Um, I see Haven Project. I see the dunes. I see Gloria Gene Tay Park. I see Windy Hill Park. And I still don't see anything done at Preston Park. Um it's very discouraging. It's very I I hear Seaside's doing a lot of good things. Maybe that's where we have to go because we don't have the facilities. They have a casino park that they use for flag football, soccer, baseball, softball, and we don't have those accessible to our kids. Um and I think we've we've asked, Miss Graham has asked for a long time. Um our kids need them. They need them very bad to otherwise they are going to go to different cities and I don't want to see that. I mean we we're building a lot of good things around the city. The parks are phenomenal. However, we're lacking in one area and we're seeing everything else get done first. Thank you.

Thank you CJ. Anyone else before we go online? All right, let's go to Brad Imamura. Hello, Brad.

Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Good evening, Brad. Maybe speak up a little bit. Okay. Good evening and uh season's greetings to uh everyone in attendance and those online. So, uh again, seasons greetings, seasons greetings to you. Uh, Mayor Delgado, I don't know if I should refer to you as maybe Santa Delgado. You look like Santa sitting up there with your I'm an elf, Brad.

But anyway, uh, again, seasons greetings to the uh, city council, uh, those two elected city council members and also to the to the two unelected city council members. And thank you uh, council member Viser for mentioning that there is an election coming up. Hopefully, we'll get some new blood in there. and um really people who are dedicated to do that and and in the in the spirit of the season uh Mr. Mayor and you're wearing the Santa hat. So, you know, Santa uh actually gave gifts to people to to deserving children and to other people. But you know, you and the city council actually took gifts from the taxpayers and the residents of Marina in the form of money to line your pockets ear at the earlier part of this year. As you recall, you voted to give yourselves a gigantic over $2,000 raise per month. So in the spirit of the season, I would hope that you would have a conscience, city council collectively would have a conscience to give that money or that those gifts that you gave yourselves to give them back to the people of Marina to give put it back into the general fund so we could use it for the for the betterment of the people of Marina. And stop being a Grinch. Stop being a Grinch. have a conscience and again it's merry Christmas, not happy holidays. Merry Christmas and everyone have a happy, safe, and healthy new year. Thank you. Thank you, Brad. And happy holidays and merry Christmas to you and your family as well. Okay, let's go to Denise Turley. I'm assuming that's who's next. Welcome.

Hi, thanks. So listen quickly because Oh, so my screen cat crashed. Can you still hear me? Yes, we can hear you loud and clear.

Great. Okay, so I won't worry about the other. Uh so anyway, listen quickly because uh I'm not going to take up a lot of time. Um there's two items about the Sea Haven Park. I don't know which one this belongs to, but one's on a consent agenda. So, here we go. There is a missing pedestian pedestrian throughway in Sea Haven. And I hope that that is part of the discussion on one of the two. And the other thing is I was at the um recreation and culture services meeting um where the former speaker spoke and we were schooled by a fifth grader, a 10year-old on what the playing field should look like. and I hope that you uh acknowledge her and take her comments into account because she had it just about right.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Denise. And happy holidays. Let's go to Lesie Asher. Welcome, Lesie.

Hello. Thank you. U hi. Regarding the uh Dunes Park on a diagram, there are four courts all identified as number five. And so perhaps when the Dunes Park item uh agenda item uh is up for discussion, uh perhaps the council could identify what those four different ball courts are. And thank you, Leslie. We we'll be talking about that later tonight. So, you have anything to talk about that's not that item or others on the action agenda? No, that's my one question.

Okay. Uh I hope you can stick around, but we understand there's other things to be doing. Thank you, Leslie. Let's go to David. Welcome, David. How about now? Yes, loud and clear. Thank you.

Okay. Uh, this is Dave Shablonsky. I'd just like to have the odor situation put on the agenda for public discussion. And a couple things that I I just know. When the composting operation was on the other side of the landfill, we didn't have the odors to the extent that we have now and we didn't have the volume, but the volume is directly related to the population. And now that we have uh more houses, my gosh, thousands of houses being built and Marina somehow keeps I won't say getting dumped on, but we have the compost towers on the south uh say southwest side of the landfill. We get the odors. I drive that road in the morning and at night. I commute and we're in Moss Landing and uh it's pretty obvious when the odors are there and where they're coming from. As far as the studies, that's wonderful. But all people would have to do is just take a ride in the morning when the wind's coming offshore and we'd know or they would know. So the public, what is going to be done about this? I know you mentioned uh something on the marina neighborhood, but are these piles going to be completely covered? And you know, there's a lot of things going on that I don't think are going to get better. So you have this whole new

development going there. And uh oh boy, I mean those people are going to be right on the front line of it. So it it should probably go to uh the council on the agenda for public discussion. Thank you. Thank you very much, David. And happy holidays to your family. You too, Bruce. Bye now.

All right. Take care. Anyone else online that haven't raised your hand? If you want to speak, we'll give you a moment before we close public comment to raise your hand. And Alex, a moment is a different length to each person. Your moment could have been like a nancond. I heard somewhere it was 7 seconds. So, I try to wait 7 seconds. All right. So, we'll close public comment. And city manager, is there anything that you want to uh mention that you're going to reach out to anybody or is you just taking everything under advisement tonight?

Um yeah, on the the odor study, um we'll we'll talk that over a staff. If if council um is interested, we'll we'll probably schedule that uh either a special meeting or put that on the agenda. We won't we'll be able to January, but maybe target February if that works.

And supervisor Wendy Brute Ascu and I are going to have a similar discussion with the general manager at Regen Monteray and their their chairperson Kimberly Shirley to get uh kind of a town hall meeting with different representatives of different agencies. It's hard to get egg. It's not easy to get some agencies and uh it's easy to get regen. Uh, but I'm sure we want a fuller discussion. When I'm hearing from the public, it makes sense. All right. Then to the consent agenda. Do any council members have questions, brief, comments, brief, or wish to pull something for a deeper dive? Good night, Grace. All right. Uh I'll motion we approve the consent agenda.

Second. Any discussion before uh we do that? Then all in favor, please say I. I. I. Okay. Thank you for all the work on staff's part that went into those consent items. Uh we're going to move on now to the uh joint powers multifamily housing revenue bonds um related to Preston Park. And I guess our director of finance department, Tori Hannah, is going to lead us through this. Thank you, Tori.

Good evening. On October 21st, 2025, we brought an item to council to discuss options for refinancing the $36 million uh Preston Park loan that was an interestonly loan with a full principal due on February 1 of 2026. Council provided direction to pair documents using $6.5 million of the reserves to help pay down the loan. And in doing so, uh, tonight we have our finance team here to provide a presentation. Karen Tedman, who is our special counsel, will be presenting. We also have as our finance team, Vanessa Legbrandt, our bond counsel, Jim Fabian, our municipal adviser, and Vince Lazaldi, our underwriter. And with that, I'll turn it over to Karen. Hi, good evening. Karen Tedman with Goldbar and Litman. It's very nice to see you all again. So, as Troy said, we're here tonight to talk about Preston Park and the refinancing. Um, we are holding a public hearing on the refinancing. There we go. Um, so I'm going to go over this. um you have a very extensive packet and I'm going to try to distill what I think is approximately about 250 pages into a very brief presentation and then your finance team is here to answer any questions. So hopefully as you all know the city of Marina acquired the Preston Park property in 2015. It was acquired as a result of a settlement agreement with the Ford Reuse Authority. Um, and so as part of that settlement agreement, there was a purchase price on the property of about $35 million. Uh, the project consists of 354 residential units. Two of those units

are not used for residential purposes. You have a management office and a community center. So, there are 352 residential units. Um, when you purchased the property, you formed the Preston Parks Preston Park Sustainable Community Nonprofit Corporation. Um, this is an independent entity. Uh, the city council does serve as the board of that entity. And we formed that for a couple reasons. One, um, it eases some of the financing issues, but also it insulates the city from liability for ownership. So in 2015, the city leased the property and all the improvements on the property to the corporation and the lease payment at that time was the purchase price that uh was needed to pay the Ford Reuse Authority. So, um, as part of that lease, it also requires that the Preston Park Sustainable Communities nonprofit pay to the city all of the available cash after they pay all of their operating expenses and debt service. So, in 2015, the corporation obtained a loan from what was then Berkeley Point Capital or the 35 almost 36 million of the purchase price. That loan was structured as a 10-year intereston loan. So that is coming due on February 1st of next year, which is why we're here. So, as Tori mentioned, you met on October 21st, 2025. Um, at that time you authorize staff to refund the outstanding Preston Park loan, um, which still has a 35.95 balance because it was interest only.

Um, and that loan, as I said, matures on February 1st. At the time, you directed staff to use 6.5 million of the funds that are in the Preston Park Reserve Fund to pay down the loan principal. So that leaves us with about $29.5 million that we have to finance um to pay off this loan. So the loan that has been selected has a 10-year term. Um it it does amortize over 30 years. So you will be paying principal on that amount unlike the prior loan. Um but there will also be a balloon payment required in 10 years. So someone probably not me will be back here in 10 years. Just just saying all good things have to come to an end at some point. So um we have selected BCadia Commercial Mortgage as the lender. So BCadia will be making a loan to the Preston Park Nonprofit Corporation. Um, but this is a little bit of a a two-step financing transaction. Um, because the Marina Joint Powers Financing Authority will be issuing bonds as part of the financing transaction. So, tonight you are wearing three hats um as the city council, as the board of the financing authority, and as the board of the nonprofit. And each of those entities has a role in this financing structure. So the joint powers financing authority will be issuing the bonds um and they will be entering into a trust indenture with US bank related to the bonds. So the bonds are going to be secured by payments to be made by the nonprofit um through a financing agreement and then they're further secured by a Fanny May mortgage

back security enhancement. So, that's what's called the MBS. Um, and that requires that the mortgage loan be made to the corporation. So, tonight, as I mentioned, you're conducting a public hearing regarding the proposed issuance of the bonds by the financing authority. Um, you have resolutions of the city, the corporation, and the authority approving the issuance. The issuance is in a principal amount not to exceed 33.5 million. Um that is to refund the existing loan to pay the cost of issuance and any other ancillary costs. Um that amount may change but it won't exceed that amount. As I said the bonds will be secured by the MBS and then there will be a mortgage loan on the property on the leasehold estate. So that is the Bcadia loan. They will be making a loan to the corporation. It will be secured by a deed of trust on the property. Um and they will also require that the city um sign a joiner on that deed of trust similar to the current financing arrangement where the city's interest in the land is also part of the security. Um the city is also guaranteeing certain obligations of the corporation. These are essentially indemnification obligations related to environmental covenants um and some other indemnifications that should those indemnifications ever be called on and the corporation couldn't pay them, the city would be obligated to pay them. So you have a lot of documents that were in your packet. We are not going to go through them in detail, but I'm sure you've all read them. Um, so you have

the trust indenture, the financing agreement. As part of the financing, we are um proposing a new regulatory agreement. As some of you may recall, we have a regulatory agreement on Preston Park that regulates uh some of the units to be affordable. There are, I think, 19 units that are required to be very low income and another 32, I think, that are required to be low income. That was required to meet some redevelopment law requirements with regard to the property and to conform with your inclusionary housing ordinance. Um, for purpose of the financing to make this financing work, we need to regulate 20% of the units at 80% of median income. So that's low income. We have 20% of the units currently that meet that requirement. Some of those units are units where the household living in the unit receives a section 8 voucher which helps us qualify. So we currently meet the requirement and going forward we will be required to meet that requirement. Um you also have the preliminary official statement in your packet and the continuing um disclosure agreement. We are still awaiting the mortgage documents. So we are requesting authority for staff to negotiate the terms of those documents within the parameters um that are in the resolution. So um this is also in your staff report. This is just a brief sources and uses. Um this is how we expect this uh to play out. You'll see your 6.5 million contribution. 35.9 of that will go to pay off the existing loan. Then there are costs of issuance and some other deposits. So these numbers hopefully won't change

too much. And then we also provided you with a debt service schedule in case you're interested. Um, as you'll see in that debt service schedule, this does pay off some of the principal of the loan in the 10 years. Um, but there will still be about a $25 million balloon payment. Um, the payment schedule is pretty similar to your existing loan, but of course it's paying off principal, so it is um bringing down that balance. So, as I mentioned, the existing loan uh matures on February 1st, 2026. So, we have a um somewhat rapid timeline for this transaction. So, we're here before you tonight to receive the approvals we need. We expect to get the commitment from Fanny May later this month. The bonds will be priced in 2020 in January 2026 and then we will close all of this uh at the end of January and pay off the loan. And then Tori introduced the team. Um Vanessa, Jim, and Vince are here and they can certainly answer more questions about the numbers than I can. So we're happy to answer any questions.

All right. We have a lot of new detail. We've discussed this general issue with different details to get to tonight. Are there any questions or comments from council members? Council member McCarthy. Oh, I'm sorry, Brian. Uh, city attorney reminds me we're going to open a public hearing. And so, anyone the uh public hearing is now open. Anyone wishing to comment in person, let's hear from you first. All right. Seeing no one rise, let's go online and we have Denise Turley. I'm assuming that's who there. Go ahead, Denise. Can someone help me unmute her? I'm having technical issues. So, uh, my only question so far is that Karen said that, um, the new requirement of, uh, 20% of of existing housing at 80% low income has already been met and I just need a yeah, that's what she said or no, that's not what she said. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Denise. We'll answer that question in just a moment when public hearing is closed. Anyone else online wish to raise their hand to speak? Please do so. All right, we'll give you another moment. All right, we'll close public comment. And Karen, can you reconfirm what you mentioned in regards to the 2080 split that Denise refers to?

Yes. So, currently there are 20% of the units that um are occupied by households with incomes below 80% of median income and paying rents that meet the affordability requirement. Okay. U kind of a a little bit of a side question. Will that go up as more homes are built at Sea Haven?

Not this regulatory agreement. Um this is just um explicitly tied to the financing that 20% of the Preston Park units have to be at that affordability level. Um your other regulatory agreement that we entered into when you acquired the property from Aura um I think that the maximum we are already meeting. So, I don't think that will change either. So, I think at 80% is going to be your maximum. All right. Thank you. All right. So, now we'll go back to Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. My question u Miss Teterman is actually kind of in line with that. So, I'm a little confused. So, the the the loan is more attractive to the lender because we have the affordability requirement even though that makes the property less valuable or um I believe it's a Fanny May requirement for the financing. Okay. it it's part of making the financing to get more credit enhancement. Yeah, it needs to meet that criteria. That's right.

Okay. And then, as you know, we have this um affordable housing project later on the agenda. And so, this question kind of goes hand in hand with that. So, the affordability units that we have on the property now were deed presumably 25 years ago for 55 years. Was that sound right? Um, that regulatory agreement was originally done and now you're testing my memory. Um, we amended it in 2015. Um, I think we originally entered into it when Forest still owned the property and it might have been 2010 somewhere around there. So, it's not 25 years. We might have 15 years in on that regulatory agreement. Yeah. No, 15 years of a 55-year term has passed. So, we would have another 40 years.

Okay. And at that time, it's up to the then city council to decide whether they want to extend or make those market rate units. Is that Yes. Although the new regulatory agreement is another 55 years starting in 2026 because of this loan process. Yes. So, we're going to have overlapping regulatory agreements on this property. Okay. Thank you. All right. Um the our our debt ratios as as an entity of the city or any other agency, we need to we need to stay something like around 1.25

not just this loan but cumulatively. Yeah. And then the yeah th this would not impact your credit rating or your credit um the amount of debt of the city of Marina. This is separate from that. Okay. And then how about the Preston Park Sustainable Community Nonprofit Corporation? Is it under uh any any law that says we have to have a certain debt ratio? We can't go above a certain debt ratio.

Not that I'm aware of. We do have certain ratios that we would need to meet with the the rents from the Preston Park project which we're well under for the regulatory perspective for Fanny May's commitment to us. Okay. All right. Can you explain what the word par means? It's so a 10 million par amount of bonds would mean that the issuance is for 10 million. Okay. So our issuance is for 30 million.8 eight. That's correct. And everything else are other fees and expenses.

Correct. Now, and that and just mayor, just to say that that's an estimate based upon what we know as of this date. We we think that's a good number based upon where the market is, but we won't know that precise number until we price the bonds in January.

Okay. And then my last question, um, kind of 30,000 foot level, uh, if we approve this tonight, we're going to pay, including the payout at year 10, 41 million, uh, and we've already paid a similar amount. So industry standard is it considered financially prudent to go the path we've gone and are proposing to go tonight because uh it's the best uh financial arrangement we could get rather than trying to find money to pay this off so we don't spend more money on loan service.

Well looking back in 2015 there weren't a lot of options available to the city at that point in time. So the intereston loan at that point in time was the best option available to the city. Now you know based upon the discussion we had in October we we had you know the full array of different options of spending more of the the reserves. We reached a compromise at the 6.5 million. So we're applying that to pay down the loan. We're we're now advertising principle for the next 10 years. uh 10 years from now uh a new council will have a new decision to make about whether to use resources at that point in time to pay it off or to re-amortize it for another 20 years or 10 years. Uh so I mean based upon the circumstances of the development the the revenues received from the development I think it was a a prudent approach to take.

Okay. Uh, any other questions? Thank you very much for guiding us through this process. All right. So, I'll make the first motion and then there's two other unique motions to be made. We've already had the public hearing. So, I'll motion that we Oh, I'm so sorry. Let's go. Any more comment or question before we go to motions? Council member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. And I just I wanted to to thank you for this robust robust report and work. I mean especially the timeline that we were on um for us to be able to meet it and to my colleagues you know we collaborated and and here we are. So, I also wanted to put on record um that the current interestonly payment, the annual payment is 1.5 million per year and the new payment will be $1.7 million per year. So, um I didn't necessarily see that in the packet and that was something that I was interested in and we are paying down the 6.5 million. So my question is I have two questions regarding the 6.5 million remaining in Preston reserves. Are we going to discuss if we want to spend that? If we're going to save it, what are we doing with that? I feel like that's a missing component. I understand we won't figure that out tonight, but will that be forthcoming?

Yes. Okay. We'll be bringing that to council in a future meeting for

Okay, great. And then has staff had um the time and or capacity to sort of figure out with the new 1.7 million over time what reserves we'll be able to to build up and including like the improvements and the higher cost for labor and all of that. Have you guys been able to sort of forecast that? We are still working through the forecast model, but what we can see is that we're clearly having sufficient uh amount left to be able to fund the new um capital improvement levels that we cited in the new uh facility management plan for Preston Park.

Excellent. Thank you, Miss Hannah. And I and I would appreciate to have that information um at an upcoming um council meeting as well, especially, you know, when we're discussing the rent. Um I for me I and for all of us and the community, I want to be as transparent and accurate as possible when we're um when we're having those conversations. So again, thank you to the consultants, thank you to staff. I'm so um grateful and um pleased that we're meeting this timeline. um and that you know you've seen you know we've had that foresight to have these reserves of $13 million. What an opportunity and to be able to you know reinvest that money and and get away from the interestonly loan which years ago was the popular you know it was like a 8020 loan and you know you can refinance the other 10% or whatever and so obviously we're not in that market anymore. Um, and so I'm very proud of our city to be able to to be, you know, a good um, payee and and and be able to to get financed in this capacity. So, thank you.

All right. Thank you. I wanted to take the time to mention a couple of points. Um, it's a wonderful place we've arrived at tonight. It had a very painful history when border closed. Half of Preston Park on title uh came essentially to the city but actually Ford Reese Authority held the title but it was understood that we owned half and they owned half. At some point this external agency called Ford Reese Authority threatened to sell Preston Park on Craigslist if necessary any upcoming Friday that they wished. And that's when the city knew that this we as a city had to take some action so that they couldn't do that. And we were negotiating for a couple of years. Uh it was a lot of confrontation during those negotiations. They resulted in uh city buying out the other 50%. So we were then 100% owners of Preston Park. But to do that, we had to get a $37 million loan to pay $35 million to Ford Orbius Authority to buy out their 50%. And uh that was not a very friendly uh requirement that we had to undergo. Um but despite that and despite that, my second point is despite that we'll be paying $16 million um over the next 10 years, um the property still has enough money to pay capital improvements, pay for maintenance, and surplus approximately $2 million a year into our general fund. So, whatever I think about the finances and I lament the fact that we're spending so much money on interest, uh we still have 554 uh very affordable units unofficially and then 20% of those are

technically affordable and very low priced. And that's one of the two reasons we did this was to have that opportunity for 554 families to live with a kind landlord and have relatively affordable uh rents. Second reason was to do something for our financial portfolio that wasn't connected to the state so the state couldn't claw back or or or pull any of that surplus funds that goes into our general fund. It was it always has been financially wise and it's all always been a very um a very humane uh way for a city to own property because most cities don't own these kinds of residential properties. 554 units is a lot, especially for a small city. And it's it's management is often complicated. And we've had staff now and staff before them that have worked very hard uh maintaining uh everything that goes into the administration of these 554 units. So, it's it's been a huge team effort since approximately 1995. And uh and it will continue into the future. And tonight we're seeing, you know, that we're going to be paying $41 million in the next 10 years, uh, just to keep this going. But just know that even though we pay $41 million, uh, there's other huge benefits, including financially, that we're receiving. So, special thanks to Karen. I hope she might be here in 10 years, but if she's not, she's been here through thick and thin since the mid 90s or when did you start with us, Karen? 94. Uh, and going strong. So, thank you very much, Karen. And to your current team, thank you. You'll be the ancestors of the next team that'll be standing on your your proverb proverbial shoulders. All right. So, I would like to uh go to Mayor Pro Viser. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just one remark. Um page 232. I didn't read them all, but I just called my eyes when I was

flipping through the packet. Um, I just wanted to repeat that staff has um committed to reviewing all the rental procedures and that will include income certification that like like council member McAdam said, we just need to be transparent about how we are running these rental homes. So that's all and and thank you for this report. Yes. Uh, Mayor Pam, I didn't understand your point. Oh, it's on. So the uh appendix E.

Yeah, I'm looking at 233. It's a summary of certain provisions of the regulatory agreement and one of the issue one of the uh paragraphs in there is about income certification. Yes. Know to because of the requirement of the 20% of the 80%. So this was just for me a reminder for all of us that staff will review our total all the procedures for our rental um all our rental procedures for the homes that the city owns that we're renting out. So it's it won't affect the decision to go ahead with the the refinance. Just a reminder that by the end of May.

Okay. We'll have more clarification about how staff um verifies income, etc. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, it talks about uh obtaining tax returns for the most recent year, credit agencies and other transit searches to verify that they qualify for the affordable technically affordable units.

Okay. Um, so I'll make the motion that we adopt a resolution um of the city marina approving the issuance of the Marina Joint Powers Financing Authority of Multifamily Housing Revenue Bonds to refinance the cost of acquisition of the Preston Park Apartments complex. Authorizing the issuance of bonds in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed 33,500 and authorizing the execution of necessary documents and certificates and related actions. amending our fiscal year 2526 Preston Park Fund budget authorizing our finance director Tory Hannah to make the necessary accounting and budgetary entries and making certain findings in connection therewith. Number two, that we authorize city manager, finance director, and their design take all actions necessary to implement the purpose of that resolution. And last um thirdly to amend the fiscal year 2526 Preston Park Fund budget by appropriating 6.5 million to pay down a portion of the existing loan principal and pay cost of issuance. Lastly to authorize the finance director uh to make necessary accounting and budget entries.

I'll second. All right. Any comments before we go to a vote? All in favor then please say I. I. All oppose please say no. Any abstensions? All right. So, uh, that motion passes unanimously. And would someone like to make the second motion? I'll move for approval. Okay, let's read it out just because it's a it's an it's a large motion or a large issue.

I don't really want to read. Okay, I'll read out that we want to adopt a resolution before us of the board of directors who we second hat wear. Preston Park Sustainable Community Nonprofit Corporation authorizing the execution and delivery by the Preston Park Sustainable Community Nonprofit Corporation of a financing agreement, regulatory agreement, multif family loan and security agreement, promisary note due to trust, environmental indemnity agreement, and bond purchase agreement in connection with the issuance by the Marina joint powers financing authority of multif family housing revenue bonds to refinance the cost of acquisition of the present park apartments approving the issuance of such bonds in the aggregate principal amount not to exceed $33.5 million. Authorizing the distribution of an official statement in connection with the offering and sale of such bonds, amending the fiscal year 2526 Preston Park Fund budget, authorizing the chief financial officer to make the necessary accounting and budgetary entries and authorizing the execution and delivery of necessary documents and certificates and related actions. Secondly, authorize the executive director and chief financial officer of the corporation and their designates to take all necessary actions to implement the purpose of this resolution. Amend the fiscal year 2526 Press and Park fund budget by appropriating $6.5 million partially pay down the existing loan balance and pay cost of issuance. Lastly, authorize chief financial officer to make a necessary accounting and budgetary entries. So, similar to the first motion, a little bit different, uh, but this regards not the city council, but the Preston Park Sustainable Community Nonprofit Corporation Board of Directors.

Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Any comments, questions before we go to a vote? Then, all in favor, please say I. I. I.

Okay. Any abstensions? All right. We have a third slightly shorter uh motion to make. Would someone like to take that? Okay. I'll I'll I'll say that a motion to adopt a resolution of the governing board of the Marina Joint Powers Financing Authority authorizing the execution delivery by the authority of an indenture financing agreement and bond purchase agreement in connection with the issuance of Marina Joint Powers Financing Authority multifamily housing revenue bonds to refinance the cost of acquisition of the Preston Park Apartments complex authorizing the issuance of such bonds in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed 33.5 million authorizing also the distribution of an official statement in connection with the offering and sale of such bonds and authoring the execution and delivery of necessary documents and certificates and related actions. Lastly, to authorize the executive director and treasury treasurer of the authority and their design to take all actions necessary implement to implement the purpose of such resolution. Is there a second?

Second. Okay. All in favor, please say I. I. I.

Any nos or abstensions? All right. So, that passed unanimously. The five of us present. Thank you to the yman's uh work involved in all this. We have a great team and your work we know continues even though we've done our cheerleading simple part. Uh but it took us a little bit of work to get here and I thank Tori and Lane and our consultants to help us along and teach us what we needed to know each step of the way. And uh it's a great project uh to see the all the homes that families live in and the families turn over through time and uh it's a wonderful place. Abrams Park, Preston Park. Tonight we're talking about Preston, but uh everything you do supports all those 550 families who appreciate living in Preston Park. Um they get a really good deal. It's a really well-run uh neighborhood. Not perfect. No one is. Uh and special thanks to our city manager. He moved there with his four uh underage daughters and wife. When they moved here in 2014, he's been living in Abrams Park. and he did that in part to have eyes and ears and understanding of what folks needs are there and to be able to better work with staff. Sometimes he took the lead and other times he delegated that and we thank you Lane for that uh uh huge contribution you made to administration of the of the parks over there, Preston and Abrams. All right, so I'm just an elf, but thanks to all you Santa for delivering this to us today. Happy holidays if you're going to leave and safe travels home. Thank you.

Okay. Now, we have an urgency ordinance related to the operation of new firearms and ammunition sales.

Yes. I think the mayor has a second career as doing the voice over for those drug commercials where you talk really fast. So, So, in the interest of time, we'll just make this really brief. So, the council adopted an urgency ordinance. Uh, I do have a presentation, Doug, if you're able to pull it up. um that only had the urgency ordinance last for 45 days. And then Renee wrote a staff report just giving a kind of formal update at the last meeting. And today is really just extending the moratorum for 10 months and 15 days till November 3rd of next year. But I understand from the city attorney, he's got somebody from his firm already working on it. So, we really just need this extension and we'll probably come back in the first quarter of 2026 to actually look at the ordinance. So, uh I have a draft motion up once Doug's able to pull it up. Maybe we can get the mayor to say it really fast again. So, so have to get a pump coming

and I'm out of breath, so I'd appreciate someone else. Um, so since it's not popping up, it's really uh the motion is actually in your packet. It's just extending the urgency ordinance uh 10 months and 15 days. Um, I understand from Renee that that does require a four fifth vote from the council similar to when we brought this the first time. So that's really it. And then you do have to determine you do have to determine that the ordinance is exempt from SQA. So, that is it. All right, let's go to our hospitality chair, Jenny McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I I just I wanted to to commend us on this work and especially with the the gun violence is just continuing, right? And and we're seeing this um in other countries locally. We've had some instances um and then at Brown University and and other school mass shootings. And so um there's a couple of um of documentaries that I'd like to suggest. One is called All the Empty Rooms on Netflix. Um it's uh it's 35 minutes. It's very quick. It's it's very well done and impactful. Um, and about 5 minutes in, I had to pause it. Um, and just it it's um it's a team and they're going into all the empty bedrooms of children that have been murdered in schools. Um, and as a mom, that's unfortunately something that I think about when I drop my kid off to school now, you know, and and he does all of these trainings and mass shooting uh drills and that our ch that's what our children are doing in school. I mean, I used to hide under the desk for an earthquake, you know, like that was the and like a fire drill, you would walk outside and now they're teaching the kids how to fight and bury bar uh barricade the doors and um so I I appreciate this work and and it it might not do a lot, but it does say to our community that that we're not supporting, you know, gun violence. We want our kids to be safe. Um I when I drive on Delmani Boulevard and I see the 831 shooter sign, it really bothers me, you know. I I I don't

think that's the community that we want to be um be developing. So um so I'm happy to make this motion. Let's open up a public hearing and then we'll get back to council McAdams. And I should have gone there first, Jenny. I'm sorry. So, public hearing. Uh, we'll open that up starting with folks that are in the room that want to speak in person. Come on up. And then we'll go to Nanette online. Seeing no one rising. Nanette, uh, you're up. Welcome. And good evening.

Um, hi. We can hear you.

Okay, perfect. So, um I have concerns with this ordinance in regards to gun stores and ammo shops because those are the ones who are putting firearms and ammunition and protection mechanisms into the hands of people who are doing things legally. I think where the concern needs to be is stopping the people who are making firearms in their homes, getting ghost guns and things like that because those are typically the ones that you need to worry about, not the people who are jumping through all the hoops that California already implements for people to own firearms in our city. Um, people who go into gun stores are doing things the right way and they're doing it for protection of their family for their children. They are not the ones that are going into schools and doing mass shootings and causing our children to have to learn how to barricade a door and hide under a desk. They are the ones who are there to protect and stop the criminals from breaking into their homes and potentially hurting their family members. And so I don't think that this ordinance really is going to stop or even slow down the illegal shootings and the illegal gun making that is happening in our community, which is really unfortunate. And I really think that's where our efforts and our money and our time needs to be spent.

All right. Thank you very much, Nette. Anyone else online wishing to speak? We'll give you a moment to raise your hand. Not seeing any hands coming up. We'll close the public hearing and uh I I'll be uh saying some comments in regard to the net's comments unless anyone else u goes ahead of me on that. I think council member Biala you will start with you. Just a question. And so we've done the 10 months, 15 days and now extend it for a year. And then after that, what what do we do or what can we do?

Yeah. So I can answer that. So um we will be bringing an ordinance probably as uh Guido mentioned in the first quarter of 2026 sort of addressing some of the parameters that the city might have in place for what you where a firearm sales business can be located in the city and under what circumstances. So, this just puts a pause right now for new businesses to locate to Marina and uh but the intent is for you to adopt an ordinance that would regulate where these businesses are located and under what circumstances.

Okay. So, so basically um putting in more details of restrictions, but we can't can we eliminate it? Is there any possibility for that? We can discuss that when we bring the item forward, but in general, I I I don't know for sure if we can eliminate it. That there certainly can be restrictions and parameters or where those businesses can be located. Okay. Thank you. All right. Uh, Council Member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, I'll start with a question, the same one that I asked at the last hearing. Um, and I think this is important because what we're doing is basically putting a hold on new permits, right? We're not closing down any stores. Um and so the question is is has anybody submitted any an application for a new store or any interest in a new store? Not at this time.

Okay. So essentially right kind of no harm no foul is is my perspective at this point. We're not stopping anybody from from moving forward. I do think right like guns may not be my most passionate issue. For me it happens to be tobacco and other vices that also kill people. Um, but I do very much respect the city's police powers to kind of regulate where different uses are cited, um, what kind of signage is allowed. And I think that stuff is really important and it really does create an identity for a city and it speaks to the city's values and, um, you know, the image of the city. And so I appreciate council member McAdams bringing this forward. Um, you know, certainly there's some questions about public safety and, you know, what these different uses kind of have an impact. And I think those are hopefully the discussions that we're going to have down the road. And I for me, I just invite folks like uh I think it her name was Nanette to continue to show up and and provide, you know, the comments and that are respectful and um, you know, will help help guide us in making the the ultimate um uh kind of guidance on on an ordinance. uh to end the moratorum uh towards the end of the year. So I think I'll leave it at that. Um you know I I have a deep respect for this the second amendment whether I agree with it or not. It's I mean we know right that we're not if you if you don't like the law change it right but the law the constitution allows this use in a pretty broad manner. Um and you know so to the extent we can regulate it I think we're going to look at that but certainly it's not illegal. Right. So yeah, thank you uh mayor.

All right, thank you Brian. Let's go to Mayor Pertam Viser.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. Yes, I agree and but I want to repeat what I mentioned the last the previous time we discussed this. There are many people who do this as a sports and they know how to handle their firearms. Um the country I I'm from, you have to have them stored in a safe. Ammunition needs to be stored in a separate safe. Police can come any time of the year, any day to check how you every firearm is registered. And unfortunately, that's not the case in this country. I know California is stricter than most count uh states, but it's um definitely not what the public commentor who by the way I think is the owner of the the store on Del Monte uh what she mentioned those people have it for sports for target shooting they don't have the firearms in their homes to protect their family really they're there they're there's they're put away there's no way that they if somebody would break in the that you would have time to go open your safe and get your gun. So, I just wanted to mention that there's an a whole group of sports uh target shooters. So, thank you.

All right.

Thank you. And this is partially uh in response to Nanette's u comments, but I wanted to let let it be known that the reason we're doing this is because retail gun sales uh currently may not be able to be treated any differently than buying ho, you know, um clothes or flores or flowers or food stores because it's unclear if uh guns and ammunition are are of a similar character as other retail products. And so without doing this moratorum tonight, um gun and ammunition businesses could potentially be opened anywhere in the city where there's a commercial zone and we don't have uh any restriction on how many. Uh so all that we're doing tonight is allowing the city I'm reading from the staff report staff time to conduct research and provide analysis on regulations and standards that could be appropriately applied to future gun and uh arms and uh ammunition businesses. Um so I think it's prudent to do this. It's really not that different than uh dispensaries or other such special use businesses that we or liquor stores that we probably don't want to have on every corner. We do want to have uh some kind of uh additional regulation on things like marijuana dispensaries, liquor stores, etc. And I know that there's a uh uh a permit that wants to open a new hard liquor establishment. I mean a mini mart that sells hard liquor and and that's running into some some interference uh by the city for the same

kinds of u concerns u whether you're near a church or near a school or you're in a busy shopping center you know maybe that's not the best place to do certain businesses u so I think giving the city more time to conduct the research is a good thing all right uh would someone like to make a motion Council member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, and I just I thank you for your comments. I mean, right now, the way that the ordinance is, we could have a hundred store. I mean, we don't have any sort of um we don't have any city level um language in our policy and nor just like with dispensaries um tobacco shops, alcohol shops, we also don't have proximity. So, they could be right next to a school or right next to a playground or a church. And so I think that um you know it is important to um to get this um ordinance you know to current date um and and to to just be a little bit more thoughtful instead of having this big hole in and potential gray area. So, um, so I move that we extend the time frame for 10 months and 15 days for urgency ordinance number 2025-17 adopted by the city council on November 4th, 2025 to temporarily prohibit the establishment and operation of new firearm and ammunition sales businesses pursuant to government code section 65858A and determine that the adoption of the emergency ordinance is not subject to environmental review pursuant to the SQA guidelines 15061B3 because the proposed procedural changes would not result in a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment.

Second. Okay. Any questions or comments from council before we go to a vote? All right, then. Um we're going to have a roll call vote to extend this ordinance. Council member McCarthy, yes. Council member McAdams, hi. Council member Biala, yes. Mayor Prom Fischer, yes. Mayor Delgado, yes. So, that required a four-fifths. It got a majority. Uh, thank you, Guido, for you and your staff to be working with this. And we'll move on now to receiving a a virtual tour and update on the city park at the dunes.

Okay. Okay. So, we're going to see a receive a virtual tour and presentation by Matt Wilkins with um the Wallace group on the City Park of the Dunes project, the entire park. Um but first, I wanted to show you a video of the all-inclusive playground. It's 34,450 square ft. It's um an all-inclusive playground that's going to be built by the community volunteers. and um we showed the design and everything uh unveiled it at the November 8th reveal day. Um since April, our entire steering committee has been working hard on this project. Um this is a component to the city park of the dunes entire project. So I hope you enjoy the video. Um these are the designs of the playground and you also have them printed for you. Okay. not allow me to pick the sound. So,

Oh, it has to. Wait a minute. Pause it because the sound is so cool. You'll get to see the beautiful pictures but without the fun music. I'm so sorry

you can't sing the There we go. So, that is your presentation of the playground itself. And now I'm going to

hand it off to Matt Wilkins with the Wallace Group. Thank you.

Right. Thank you, Drea. Good evening, Mayor Delgato and staff and um city council members. We're really honored to be working on this park. It is such an amazing opportunity as you can see with the video. Really a a a focus area there is the playground. Um so we're helping to set the stage for that. We know that there's other areas there within the park that are going to be cherished and uh used by the community. So, we're uh going to go through a few of the um different images and the video to share with you, but just wanted to bring you up to speed on some of the latest uh updates. I know we had the honor to talk to a few of you during the reveal day. That was really great to see the community really come together and celebrate this great space that will be, you know, loved for uh decades to come. um some of the big updates that we did as a team. We've been hard at work and I want to just um take a moment to pause and thank all the city staff um especially Ismail and Drea for all the hard work, Lane for all the hard work as well. You know, we couldn't do it without everyone. Um and my team as well, they've been really, you know, instrumental in where we're at today. Um but some of the big things we did so uh when we inherited this park there was really a big emphasis in making the design connect to the the space that's next to it um the sports and aquatic center that is a a major um you know attribute to this park that it's a neighbor to that as well as the community. So we pulled from the entrance of that into the park and aligned the um main prominade so that it's looking down this pathway and with it have these two shade structures that are almost indicative of a A-frame that speaks to the Ford or heritage. That is something that um again we felt was uh a missing link. um it helps to bring together those two sites and bring

together the the heritage of that site as well which um we feel very strongly of. There are some other areas that we're paying homage to the Fort or um the you know um history and and all the elements that are there today. We're looking to take actually some of the walls to the best of our ability, reconstruct them in a in a smaller manner, but have really some celebratory elements there. Um, in the southeast corner, once we have the the image up here, we can see that as well. But in the southeast corner, we have some um smaller um actually uh very contemplative spaces that really again are are for folks to come, you know, maybe walk around, understand the history of the site, and you know, have more of a peaceful um you know, area that's a little bit less uh busy than maybe the playground and some of the active sports areas, which we know will be well loved and uh may have some sound to it as well. Um, but we're looking to to really help, you know, balance the site. And that was another big feature was taking an an approach to make the use to use elements there um become a little bit more organized. Before there was a volleyball court that was a little bit, you know, um, off to the side. We figured we'd bring that over, make it into more of a sports area. um that way you have all that ability to have some more synergy with those that work again with the sports and aquatic center. On top of that, we looked at um really taking the shape and form of the overall park and giving it a little bit more of a modern twist. Um that's another thing that really nods to the um sports and aquatic center. So, we worked closely with that team to build together uh more synergy between the two sites there. Um, in addition to that, the phase 2 area, the amphitheater, uh, we really looked at that and and again worked closely with staff to make sure that that space is functioning to the needs of the city.

Um, again, looking at revenue generation, um, some uh, ability to bring back some of the monies that are spent to that. So, you have some ROI on that. Um the space is really organized to allow for some core um focal areas of gathering with overflow gathering spaces. So we really worked hard to make sure that is um again a very useful space. Uh and then there's all the additives that I think we might get some graphics here. All right. That's okay. You know it's I know it's in you know the back of my mind here. Obviously been looking at it for a while. Um so again you could see it here. I think uh you may have had it on screen there by way of the council package. So um but for for folks online as well as in the room there's the plan. Um so again kind of big picture I was talking about the south uh east corner that's really on the bottom left of this screen. Again more contemplative space. Uh we did take again the active amenities pushed them to the north side which you can see on the right side there. the playground that we saw the the great images to are on the uh northwest side on the top right and then the amphitheater on the top left uh which is the southwest uh north is obviously oriented to the right of this um the great lawn was um preserved in its location and another big thing we did was we really looked functionally at the space how do we minimize some of the sight walls some of the grading um try to bring down the the cost of earth works and site walls and things like that. So much more balanced site now. Um certainly has more I believe uh function and flow and um less ADA paths of um you know ramps and things like that. We're able to keep those um at a lower grade so you have

generous walkways and it's it's more of a usable space. you may be able to flip through some of the images and I think it's um possibly the next image or there you go. So, here's a few of the furnishings that we're envisioning for this space. Um we are working with staff to help hone in on some of those. But again, this is really where, you know, we wanted to to bring to life some of these spaces here. You can see on the left hand side some of the um inspiration for the amphitheater. Again, looking at some of the forms and shapes. On the bottom there, you see some of the furnishings and materials that we're thinking about. And then we can probably go through a couple of the images and we'll end on the fly through through the park. So, this is an image looking out. And for those who were there on reveal day, you saw this image. Um, but this is really looking at that main corridor. Um, you can't quite see it as well, but on the lefth hand side is where those shade structures are. In the foreground, we have an uh art element that is really to help kind of punctuate and create this node within the park that we feel could be a really nice uh celebratory space to um, you know, either just have a nice art piece or uh, again another historical element to the site. Next image, please. So this is looking into the family activity area. There is a national fitness court that is placed in in this area here. So we are looking at how to activate this a little bit more. Bringing in some family activity spaces. Uh so something that you can have again some revenue generation by having some picnic areas that can be reserved and flow out into the space having um either some cornhole, pingpong, you know, other things that could be utilized. Next image, please.

Uh, this is looking from the great lawn back to that space to those two picnic shelters again that are meant to mimic this A-frame with the opening really to be kind of this punctuating statement. Um, kind of this expansive statement that it it really opens up to the park. And next image, please. And then here we are at the amphitheater. Again, another really lovely space that you can envision, you know, groups getting together, celebrating, and you know, having the ability to have plays and and different concerts and things of that nature. So, again, I'll leave it on that note. I think we have a fun video to share. This one has music, too, but it's okay if we don't hear it. I think the the value is seeing the space as if you're walking through it. I will say again, we're um moving really quickly to get to 100% um working with Mr. Long um with the staff to really make sure that this can be a space that gets celebrated um making it work with the the budget in hand and um bringing together a lot of the input that we've heard today. So with that, I'll turn it over to the video. Thank you. Sounds scary.

Fantastic. Thank you so much, Matt and Teen. Anything else as far as presentation? Okay. Fantastic. Go ahead, Matt. Someone right? Sorry. Um I guess if there's any questions, happy to answer those. And we do have some folks online that could chime in as well.

All right. Well, we might have questions, comments, let's go to the public. Anyone here in person that would like to come up and speak for up to three minutes? Seeing no one standing, let's go to Amanda Whitmer. Hello, Amanda. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, city council, and staff. Thank you so much for this item. Um, my family moved to Marina over the summer and we moved from Monterey to Marina for a better quality of life and your investment in city parks and sidewalks and bike trails and all those things are really um the reason that we moved here. So, I just wanted to express gratitude for what you're doing and the attention you're putting to parks and the investment you're making because it really makes it a wonderful place to live. I uh encourage you to not have perfect be the enemy of progress. Um, I know there's a budget shortfall on this project. Um, I'm looking forward to hearing some recommendations from staff about where we can cut so we can move forward and get this park rolling because we are so excited to to see it finished and to be able to help out with the inclusive playground and to get our kids over there playing. So, thank you so much. Looking forward to see next steps. Have a good night.

Great comments. Thank you, Amanda. Let's go to Lesie Asher. I'm so sorry. Lesie Asher. Welcome back, Leslie.

Thank you. Uh to repeat uh my request at the opening of public comments, uh I would welcome uh clarification on the four the nature of the four sport courts that are identified as number five on the diagram of the park. Thanks. Thank you very much, Leslie. Let's go to Grace Silva Santella. Welcome, Grace. Hi, Mayor. Um, Delgado and Council, you can hear me?

Yes, loud and clear. I just have a question regarding the amphitheater, the seating, what is the capacity and how it compares to the only other outdoor uh performance theater that I'm aware of that we have here on the peninsula and that's the forest theater which is extremely popular. Uh, so if we could just get a answer on that question so that we can make sure this is going to be a viable outdoor performing art location that really can produce revenue for the city and produce entertainment for our side of the peninsula. Thank you.

Great question, Grace. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to comment, please raise your hand. We'll give you a moment to do that. All right, we'll close public comment. Uh the the the fundability of this the options Lane or somebody do you want to briefly summarize that?

Sure. And actually Ishel can help with that too. Um currently, um we will have the dunes has their final contribution. When we do, we'll have about uh 10.4 million budgeted for the project. Um they've just done an updated um uh estimate of the project. And this is just phase one. It doesn't include um phase two, which is the amphitheater. And we're close to 19.5. Is that correct, Matt? So, so we definitely have a shortfall here. And so, um, we're going to go back with Matt, his staff, and our staff and and look at, um, potential ways that we can value engineer it, look at ways that we can, uh, I think as as Amanda mentioned, um, get the project moving forward. And so, maybe there's some components that we can do in a subphase, um, as we get additional funding, um, will move forward. The key part of the funding is the key infrastructure we're going to have in place. We're going to have the parking in place. We're going to have the all-inclusive um park and then the key elements so at least that you can use the park and and we'll be coming back to the council at a future date once we kind of brainstorm and and we um one of the things that Ishmail is working on right now with Tori is they're going through all of our existing capital projects um and seeing where we are on those which projects are completed that we have extra funds and so we're looking at different pots and we'll be coming back to the council with some ideas and suggestions. Ishmail, anything else to add with that?

Uh, just that um we weren't planning to talk about finances today because we haven't had the meeting with Matt and his team to discuss where we can reduce the scope. Matt's been working on that and has some information for us, but we haven't met. Um, as Lane mentioned, we're looking at all capital projects where we have buckets of money uh allocated for different things. And we're looking at whether those projects are going to happen in the next 2 years, four years, 5 years. And if they're not going to happen for a few years, then part of the budget for this uh pro park is um uh in the budget document says that we have additional monies in in the out years and that was never defined. So what we're going to look at doing is uh and this is really a premature budget discussion. Um, we're going to be looking at taking money from other projects, potentially using that for Dunes Park, and then the money that we're going to use for the outears for Dunes Park, um, repaying back those other projects because they're not going to happen in the next few years anyway. So, we'll bring all that to council with um a package when we come to you for the award or the for authorization to put this project out to bid. We'll come that same meeting with um budget options and have some discussion and and uh uh options for council to consider.

Okay. Um Amanda asked and that's why I starting I'm going through the comments from public. She asked about the financing. Um and I hear some different fingers figures than I saw in the staff report. So 22.6 is the current total estimate. Is that is that up to date? That that is the uh I believe what you're looking at is the total that's in the uh budget. Yes. Yeah. That's including whatever uh funding sources in the out years we're going to. So the total cost of the project right now that's the estimate 22.6 and then it says phase one is approximately 17.5. Is that correct?

So right now phase one is about 19.5. Okay. Okay. It says in the staff report phase one is approximately 17.5. That that's Yeah, that's with some reductions from what you've seen in the in the video. Okay. So, so which number is accurate or phase one? It depends on the it depends on the scope of of the project. Um all the bells and whistles 19.5 million. Uh some reductions 17.5 and we're looking at further reductions without losing amenities.

Okay. So staying with the lower number of 17.5 since we have 10.4 in hand the shortfall is 7.1 million right 17.5 minus 10.4 7.1 so the staff report says 6.9 is it just an approximation or is which one is correct? Yeah I think it's just approximation. Yeah. All right. Just want to get clear to the anyone who's following this. All right. Uh the other questions we had from uh Lesie was what are the number of uh sports courts and what do they serve? What sport do they serve?

So there there's two pickle ball courts, one tennis court, one multi-port court which would be basketball, football, um there is beach volleyball and different court. Okay. Yes. And beach volleyball. Correct. Yeah. So those are the four two beach volleyball courts. Okay. So how many courts are there total? Three, four, five, six. Six courts total. Two pickle, one tennis, one multi-port, two volleyball. Correct.

246. Okay, that was Leslie's question. And then Grace's uh capacity of the amphitheater seating capacity. Uh so so the the yeah the formal seating is one number and then we've got some uh areas lawn seating which would add to that capacity. So okay as far as formal what would be that number?

Thank you m um so the formal seating is roughly around 500 and that is if you look at that site plan again the area that is really um the kind of prominent area within that amphitheater. We wanted to design it so, you know, that the um majority of the use felt like it wasn't too expensive and, you know, overly sized, but have some overflow um capacity, which gets you to about 700. So, that's um really kind of a target number that we were working with staff on. Um and we felt that would be fitting, you know, to have some flexible space that could be overflow essentially for larger events.

Grace referred to Forest Theater. Do you know what the capacity there is? I do not. Okay. Do you know Drea? My children I should know. How many of your children could have fit in that? Depends on how hyper they were. Oh wow. Okay. Maybe we'll get that in the future so people can compare in their mind because a lot of us have been. It's probably about 200 max. But I can I can

Yeah. Well, if that's anywhere close, this being uh up to 700 max, including 500 formal, that's great because I was concerned about that too when I saw it. Looks small on the map like like it's for like a a birthday party or something, but it's much much bigger than that. I think those are all the questions I noted. Did anyone else know questions that I didn't I'm so sorry. I stand corrected big time. forest theater and forest amphitheater with a capacity of around four 540 to 500 to 540 seats. That's great. So, we're talking apples to apples here. That's great. Okay. Uh if no one else noticed something, let's start with our uh council comments. Council member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. Um so, I attended a seminar on Friday with a brain um scientist that said compliment sandwiches are BS and don't don't do them, but I'm I'm going to try anyway. Uh, absolutely beautiful renders. Um, really cool park. I'm more excited about the park than ever before. Um, but I cannot mention how disappointed I am with how long this process has taken. How much money and time the city has spent on drafts and finals and final finals. And I can't help but wonder uh a few things such as how much budget surplus we would have if we did this on time. If we wouldn't have had to fade, we wouldn't have to value engineer. And I think about the kids that could be playing in that park today um if we constructed five years ago. Um and I think it's been a little bit of a failure of the city um overall how long this project has taken and that it hasn't been conducted on time and on budget. I remember so vividly the last time we discussed this looking at the council in the eye and saying I just want to confirm that what we're voting on tonight is the final final final. and I saw shaking heads and I think I said something like I'm going to lose my mind if this comes back to us and here we are. Um so let's try to learn from that mistake. Um that's just my ask of the council. Um couple questions. Um sports courts question was answered. The bio retention area is something new. Um it stands out to me for a few reasons. It seems like it could potentially be the perfect site for an Asian garden. Should um some of the other uh choices fall through. Is was that ever discussed by staff at all for that or No,

not at this point. Um I'd like love to have that discussion um at some point to see if we can engineer it in a way where it's a a a fallback if if you know with the council where they want to go because if not I mean there's some other concerns too, right? Is it a mosquito concern? And um I don't So we currently have a ponding basin at the corner of uh I don't know what that is. The roundabout by the veterans uh building and we are we are getting rid of that ponding basin. So that water has to go somewhere. Okay.

Um now in in Marina because we've got such sandy soil the the percolation rates here are unbelievable. So even in a 100redyear storm, you're not going to have maybe 2, three inches of water holding there and within a few hours it's gone. Okay?

So So it's a bio retention area because we have to put that storm water somewhere. Um but it's not going to retain water for long periods of time. We're not going to have to worry about fencing it off so that a toddler doesn't walk in there and um uh we're not have to worry about any of that kind of thing. Uh, I'm not sure that that would be suitable for an Asian garden, but I I suppose uh Matt Matt might be able to answer that whether it could or not. Well, I I'll just say that I I did meet with the mosquito abatement district um general manager and he did talk about how they visit some of the ponding basins in Marina and they are problematic. Um and so even if they hold water, even just moisture for some short period of time and so maybe it's a good idea and I know council member McAdams is our new representative on that board, but just to ask some questions. I mean if we're in an area where children are playing or adults are playing. I know mosquitoes love me. one of the few things that loves me apparently. But um you know, it's something we need to be cognizant of and and um kind of take a look at that. So, I'll leave my comments at that. I really am excited about the park. Beautiful work. Um I can't wait to to play. I don't have kids, so I'll be playing on it myself, but um thank you for the work.

Thank you. All right. Thank you, Brian. Let's go to Council Member Biala. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So um this the playground is going to be built by volunteers in the community. Correct. That is correct. Yes.

Okay. Now it is gorgeous beyond words. Um there are so many structures. I mean a lot of you know playgrounds might have one or two with roofs but there's a lot of structures here that look like houses or you know lighthouse. I mean they're enclosed. there. You know, even at at Windy Hill, we have an enclosed sort of one one enclosure. It's in an owl, but this one has a lot. And so, are we really expecting our volunteers to build I mean, these are structures. They're not just little, you know, roofs over some play area. Go for it, please.

I just wanted to speak to the playground portion. So, the playground is actually designed by Letters and Associates based in Florida and um they've done an incredible job with this design. They took all of the drawings, the inspiration from the children and the families of Marina and yes, it will be an all volunteer community build that I will be executing with my team and it will happen be great.

Okay. So other ones that leathers has been has had this many enclosed structures and heavy duty structures they we so this will be um one of California's largest all-inclusive playgrounds. So this will definitely be an incredible challenge but um our volunteer and community me community members will come out.

Okay. Yeah. And and so just just to think about the amazing I mean it's not just a little little stuff. I mean there are scaffolds and and height involved in these major structures. So we want people to obviously participate but to be safe. I mean this is feels like carpentry work here. Yes. And our public works department will be involved. Also levers and associates will be on site um to help guide the project.

Okay. And since we're talking about money, um, when we build things like this, if if this had not been dependent on the community volunteers, can I assume that the cost then of this would have been four times as high? So that is a a way in which we can get something beautiful and and amazing like this because we're using volunteers. Of course, they need to be overseen, of course, very very carefully. Yes, I'm sure the project would be much more expensive if we were not having a volunteer community build. Um, but not just speaking to the financial savings of that. It's bring the community together.

It's like when you have when you're purchasing a picket with your child's name on there, that's going to always be on that playground. I'm purchasing five for a whole Jalo family. Very excited. But, um, you know, it's bringing the community together. It's it's all ages being able to come and have a a piece in this. Um and there's going to be levels of skill levels that are involved in in certain aspects of this community build. So all of that will be taken. Sure. And I and I understand that's the main draw for that. But you know, even if they were all adults, it seems like some of this is pretty sophisticated. Um would work.

Absolutely. and we'll have um we'll have skilled guidance. Okay, great. Yeah.

Um just a little um comment about one of these beautiful pictures. Um the first thing that this is um I don't know if you can see this, the one with the art in the middle. Uh look, and and it has all this beautiful foliage and stuff. Um two questions. one. Um, are we are we talking about the the plant um, you know, landscaping stuff now or is that because it almost seems so plush that I think of, you know, a jungle and I know we're not going to have a jungle in the middle of, you know, Marina, but is there some talk about um, how how you're going to choose the plants because this this really does not seem at all like Marina's foliage. Yeah, that's a result of some of the artistic licensing, you know, comes with that software and some of the plants that they have. Fortunately, we have done a lot of work with the city and we have been in forums such as these hearing from you and learning from you. I think with that experience, with that knowledge, uh we're taking that forward into this park. We know what has worked well on some of the parks and corridors that we've worked on. So, our team is really focusing on that and working again very closely with staff to make sure that it's the right pallet for this.

Great. Yes. And we're not well, at least I I I'm not promoting necessarily 100% um native plants, but certainly, you know, you need to include that kind of palette as well. And also, some of them have the cypress trees and stuff. Refresh my memory. Did we save a lot of those trees on that property? Yes, we did. Yes, we did. Yeah, that was one of our main goals is really to try to save every tree that we can. Yeah, on this large property, we saved almost every everyone. Almost every one of them. Okay. Great.

Yeah, that was a a major feat by our engineering team really to incorporate the grading to, you know, make sure it works with all the existing trees. But we're working very closely with the city again and the arborist um to which is very affiliate with the site. He's you know worked on it from the barracks removal knows the condition of the trees really helped to um you know inform us as to what could be done to help preserve those trees. So we had multiple meetings with him to understand how to plant around them, how to you know treat the area around them to really make sure that they have additional success beyond this. Okay, great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Kathy. Council member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, do we know what the cost of building only the inclusive playground and nothing else would will be? You want to take? Sure. Um, so it's about 2 million and that includes So Ishmael saying three, right? Okay. Um, Ishmail says it's closer closer to three. That has it. It's two. Yeah. Okay. Sorry.

That's like prepping the ground and all of that. Not not just the actual like how much would it cost just to have the inclusive playground with parking. That's what I'm like obviously we have $10 million, right? And so for me I I want to make sure like we're realistic and we're living within our means, right? So how much would about that cost

if I were to approximate? Um, really that's the scope that we're taking on is the site prep, parking, and some of those other items. But I would probably say it's another million to a million and a half just to get site prep and parking. Um, you know, I I use that with caution because really when you look at isolating some things, you're talking mobilization and other factors that really there's any economies of scale that is at play. Um, and that goes into account with phasing and things like that. But, you know, really that's that's probably around what you'd look at. Um the parking would really need to be dialed in for the amount of folks that are coming. And what we're looking at is something that is um threading the needle between the really the playground and the other amenities. Really studying the parking globally as a park site.

Okay. Thank you. I mean I think for me it's we have $10 million and so when staff comes back I would really like to see a $10 million option. um like a a $7 million shortfall is just way beyond the cost ahead of us. And so I hope that staff can identify um where the process fell short so we don't have to do this because it's going to be really hard for me like we have to pull 7 million potentially from a service or another project to allocate it to here and I'm not going to be able to do that. That's just too much money. That's half of a fire department or fire station. Um, so I hope that we and I feel like I've said this before, but I hope we can do better and and find a way to prevent projects getting away from us because this gap is going to get so much more away from us that it's going to potentially be uh not a viable project and I know that we don't want that. So the longer we wait, the more it costs. So, um, and it's a it's a beautiful park. We just don't have the money anymore. Um, and that's really unfortunate. And so when the options are brought back, um, I hope that there's an option that's within our budget. I hope that we know what the numbers are because like what the mayor was pointing out, I'm hearing different numbers. So, that would probably be like the starting point. Um, and I just uh I really hope that we can do this and we have our community invested in this. We um have the kids invested in this. Um

and so how disappointing. Um so I hope that we can figure something out quickly and I'm tired of hearing about pickle ball. I don't want to hear about, you know, any more courts and this and that. No, like we just have to get it done. We just have to get it done. That's it. Um, and so I'm sorry that I am frustrated. Um, I think I share the frustrations that Council Member McCarthy has and you know, I love the video. I love the pictures and on and on and on. But realistically, if we don't have the money, what are we doing? So, please please um we have to figure this out in a in a timely manner because the longer we we wait, the more it's going to cost. So, bring back maybe a $9 million option with a million dollars just in case because it's it is a construction project. So, thank you.

Thank you, Jenny. Let's go to Mayor Prom Fischer. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for this presentation. Thank you.

Um, yeah, I would like to start with Mike Owen. He's the one who helped us save those trees. And what a difference with the original design. I don't know if people remember the original design with only ball fields. No, not looking at just pretending that there was nothing there, forgetting that there's like a 43 foot elevation. It was not even possible to build that original design. So um what a difference and it did take time but sometime it just takes time to to change designs and so so completely uh change it but I think it's so much for the better. So, I would like to thank Mike Owen and um let me see. Oh, about the all-inclusive playground. I have good news for council member Ba the some members at least one member of the carpenters union signed up to volunteer. I thought it might be good to have some people who know what they're doing. But for the rest, I think it will be like the homes that Shay and Trumark are building. I always say it's IKEA on steroids. It just comes on the truck. It tells you what to do where and it will be done. It's it's I yes if you can assemble IKEA I think you can do this I hope um yeah and the parking lot of course will be needed only for the volunteers we're expecting like a thousand volunteers most people come by car it's um there will parking will be needed I I already said I'm concerned about the number of parking spaces people tell me oh it's plenty it's so many we don't know how many people will come to that gigantic think all-inclusive playground and if we build pickle ball courts anyway. So um so parking first I assume that I'm looking at isma or um yeah the I also had the questions about the bio retention area mosquitoes also came to my mind because they love me as

well and um as a reminder um we made the decision a long time ago that uh the second phase will not be constructed until Preston Park ball fields have been repaired and expanded. Remember, I just keep repeating that and I I'm sorry that Erica is not here anymore, but because I can understand you think this took long people at Preston Park or people using the ball fields at Preston Park have been waiting forever. So, I wish we had more money, but we need to I agree with Council Member McAdams. We need to stay within budget. So I assume when it goes out to bid, it will go out to bid for everything and then ask the um ask separate prices for what will we save if we forget about this for now if we postpone this. And I assume that will be one of the methods or the method that will be used and we're all um anxious to see the bits. I agree with that. But I think it's such a beautiful design and we might need to be a little bit more patient to see it all constructed, but definitely move forward ASAP and I'll not mention more tennis courts. Well, so I don't want to hold anything up. So,

thank you. I'm excited about it. So, thank you. Thank you.

Okay. I didn't go to the conference that Brian went to, so I didn't hear compliment sandwiches disparaged. Uh so I'll start my compliment sandwich by asking uh to appreciate all that you've done uh the time that it's taken, the money has taken. This is a big project while staff is working with other consultant teams on other big projects and everything takes longer than we wish. But consider if we would have not done this project in order to get other projects done sooner, then this project would have stayed would have waited longer to get started and longer to get finished. The city's always been ambitious because everybody wants everything as soon as possible. And so the city is working really hard in different directions trying to get everything done in a relatively short amount of time. So what's going on in the city east, west, north, and south is crazy. and we're experiencing immense growing pains with a relatively small staff uh that's doing really great work and I think that many people in the county uh look at Marina as a place that's really changing for the better and that's due to a lot of work and a lot of money and none of it's been on time because we're doing so much and there's so many things that happen out of our control. We're imperfect human beings. So, some things within our control uh are not done perfectly, but overall, I think that uh it's just amazing what's going on with our streets and our parks and our housing, etc. Uh the trails that are going in at Marina Station are are already looking really great, but those won't be operational until, you know, a little while in the future. But right now, we're here to talk about this. Um, I agree with uh those who spoke about the Preston Park ball fields. When we move money around and we come up with a financial plan to see how we're going to afford this phase

one and phase two, um, let's make sure that we consider the other parks, the Preston Park Ball Fields number one, but any other park that uh is up in the air because it's not unusual for cost to go up. And so that plan we council should be seeing before we uh finalize the price or the the way we're how much we're going to pay for this to make sure that all the balls in the air are being considered in a way that city council listening to the public thinks is an appropriate way not to uh orphan anyone anyone park. Um the the kelp forest has so much detail in the computer simulation or in the illustration if that's anything close to the real life that is a beautiful children's play structure that I've never seen before growing up and it was monkey bars and swings. Uh it's so intricate and so ornate and other parts of the park are too. I want to ask um cleaning surfaces, ground level um maintenance, you know, whether it be concrete or grass or astroturf or plastic material or composite material. if I was a really bad tagger and I just went all over the place throughout all the nooks and crannies of that kelp forest and everywhere else. Uh cost and and practicality. Can we clean all of that on occasion, whether it be urgency or just regular maintenance?

Might turn to staff on um our staff can definitely work on that. Um, we have already had examples of when public works has had to clear up graffiti on other playground services um, at other parks and so I have faith that we'll be able to execute anything that needs to happen to support.

All right. Well, I don't want to micromanage too much, but it would be nice if we were told, you know, how we're going to clean that. We we've got this machine and this piece of equipment and this piece of equipment and these these playgrounds are using these surfaces which these equipment should clean. Um cuz just it's just such a beautiful thing when you start with it. I I just want to know going in that we're going to keep it we'll be able to keep it that way due to technology. Um can we get an update on the community build 3-week time? Is it late fall, early fall? So, it's early fall, probably around Septemberish, and we are going to have um I would I would say like a 20 to 30-day build essentially. And there's going to be three shifts per day, 7 days a week, where we have volunteers coming in and out and working on this project.

And those are four shifts. Four shifts. You said seven days a week. Seven days a week. Okay. The reason I say that is because we want to start now reaching out to carpenters and aspiring carpenters so we get as high as skill level um and they can bring their families and friends and just keeping that drum beat going September September because it used to be February February next September

our steering all-inclusive playground steering committee uh meets on a monthly basis and we also have been uh launching our sponsorship uh through our software and also through our website and social media. And um they will continue to do that and start start promoting also at like the farmers market once a month um if not more and reaching out to businesses and Okay, great. And someone mentioned that parking spaces we we may not know how many we need,

but tell me how you determine how many you need for this park and that it is industry standard uh estimate so that we can't legally build anything without appropriate parking. Can you go into the parking thinking?

Absolutely. So there really isn't a a building code that stipulates how much parking for park spaces, but we have done a lot of parks as a team. Uh there are some other cities that do have some general guidelines. Uh what we look at um from a standpoint of you know this space is really the square footage and how much occupancy load is anticipated. So that that's kind of one of the best ways to approximate. Um when we look at sports fields we do a similar thing when we're looking at amount of players on a team, how many cars may be approximated um based on that. So, we're taking all that really, you know, and um trying to endeavor to um make sure that the parking is met on site. Now, we do know that there's parking in the adjacent sports and aquatic center that could be used potentially for overflow parking. Know there's some thoughts of, you know, expansion there as well. So, you know, that's taken into consideration as well. Um the overall parking in the area that could be used. Have you included parking on nearby streets?

Yes, that would be included as well. So, is there a document somewhere that says Second Avenue, 30 cars, 7th Street X adds up to X adds up to Z number of spaces? Does that does that paper exist? We have some on our plans just for the park, but we can do a study and look at the adjacent parking spaces as well um to present to council. I think that would be helpful just to see and a parking plan just a a a matrix or so or a table a figure that shows like you have a lot of simulations here just shows parking absolutely

here there and everywhere last question you have overall uh exhibit A and you have phase two exhibit B there's no exhibit that I see that's phase one can we get a phase one exhibit sometime in the near future absolutely so when we share it with people we say here's what's going to be built first if we have the money yes yes we can easily do that and take that essentially the second piece to it, but make a line gray it out for that phase one area just like you did. Yeah. For the phase two illustration. All right, let's go to council member Biala.

And just following um up with the parking um so maximum might be 700 for the amphitheater. Do we have 700 uh parking spaces or some variation of that? 500 is do we have that? not to that level but there are um in these type of spaces where there's potential for you know Uber and other mass transit that is taken into consideration um highly encouraged obviously in those kind of situations where there may be some car pooling and other things. So there there are some parking studies that we can do that are more specific to California building code as it relates to assembly spaces and we can take that into consideration as well just to make sure it's accommodated and you know there's uh not a concern moving forward.

Yeah, I I I would be concerned that if we use the amphitheater and we we don't even have near that capacity, why would we have an event there, you know? So okay, thank you. Thank you, Mayor Jan Fisher.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, about parking. Um I I think you know the the events might be at night when the when there won't be as many kids playing in the all-inclusive that will all be taken into consideration, I'm sure. But I can tell you there is no parking available in the side streets. That's already used by people living in the apartment complexes close by. So that was why I was always concerned about the number of parking spaces, but people will learn, you know, if if if there's no space, you have to go park farther and walk

or and also the um MST regularly every 5 years or so, we've used all their bus lines and connections and of course with the surf busway coming up in 2028, in the beginning of 2028, there will be good timing to make sure that we have good connections, good regular um bus service to this park for people. Of course, if you can walk from the future fifth street station, that's not so far. If you if you can walk that then you can people can reach it every 15 minutes. So that will or from either way, so 7 and a half minutes. So that will all help. But I I share the concerns and um I do have a question about Oh, I thought maybe we should call it a phase a half the instead of phase one. And um I would like to know if or ask staff to really look into any options for subsidies, grants like I mentioned, one of my neighbors gave me the information more than a year ago I think about tennis courts. the the USA, they offer up to 35 or $40,000 if you construct a new tennis court. I mean, every little bit will help. And also, TMC offers has money for bicycle racks and I think you can design your own or you know, they will they might not they might do more the basics, but they might want to contribute to something more fancy or or maybe basics are good for our wallet. So, look into all that. And for the uh fence pickets, yeah, they are available for $35. I still have not ordered mine, but I would like to ask probably Drea, our staff, um make sure it's on the website, easy to find for people that you you want to spend $35 or you want to buy several tickets, you just click on this link.

I'm noticing it's uh easily available on the website and also social media. um our marketing specialist Don is very good at um promoting it through our department and also Pepe Smith for the entire city. Um I've seen it u but I can also work on if you haven't seen. Yeah, I do have a question that I'm not technically uh up to date with it. If if I'm on my phone and I see QR code, I cannot get to that link. So, and I see the same on social media. it will say um the link is in the blah blah blah but I cannot get to the blah blah blah. So I make it for people like me. Just

one click. This is it. We we don't want people like me really. I tried several times and then I get distracted. We want to make it as easy as people easy as possible for people to donate. Yes. Yes. And if um anyone has any issues or you hear of any issues, you can reach out to me personally and I'll walk you through the process. I'm happy to walk anyone through that process. I might need to help. Oh, I know. I know. I did find it at one point, but and just to explain to people, you can you can put a name on there. It's it's cool. And then if you want a paw print, it's an extra $5. See, and and it's and again, every little bit extra $2 for a special character that is an icon. Okay. See, extra $2.

I promise I will do it, but I I will do it before the uh anytime. There's no limit.

Construction starts. So the one amazing thing about the picket purchase is you can do it anytime. You can even do it once the playground is built because we can always add to a picket. Um I wanted to speak a little bit just to the parking situation for the park alto together. Um staff will be you know implementing programs and services at the dunes at the city park at the dunes. Um different events that will bring in certain amount of attendees. we can phase that. So it won't be like we open the park and all of a sudden we have 700 people who need to park. If we have our first amphitheater concert, it could be for let's say 200 tickets that we sell. So we can control the parking scenario. Um you know in conjunction with these different programs that we will launch eventually. So, we'll we'll phase that, too. Like, it's um we'll make sure that our staff are following up on supporting what the community needs to be able to come and enjoy an event.

And of course, we can encourage people to bike by making sure that we have a lot of bicycle parking available. Yes. And I think a lot of our attendees, even though I hear your concern for the parking, a lot of our attendees will be the local residents that live all around the city of Marina. And um we can also, you know, get shuttles and shuttle them from the airport just like we had over 3,000 attendees at the 4th of July and they all parked near the airport. So there's there's options that we can work with our staff and and um supporting the parking structure.

Yeah, it's just to touch on a little uh kind of factoid about that space that's adjacent to it too. I know there's a massive um area of concrete that's just to the east. I would imagine that there may be some solutions there. I know that there's some things that could be maybe worked out, but I don't know if maybe it's outside of our city park, right? It's not city of Marina.

But I do want to touch on um the sponsorship opportunity because there are some really great opportunities within the park as well and we can look into that. I think there are some abilities to leverage maybe some sponsors to look at helping to pay for the park and certainly hear the concerns of cost and and you know we're moving as fast as we can but those are some of the things that we're looking at um as well as some bidding strategies maybe some reductions so we're really working very hard to make sure all that's accommodated

thank you and one more remark about the parking this is an example what I mentioned the other day when we discussed the parking restrictions and that people said, "Oh, parks already are taken care of." This definitely needs to be no parking overnight because it will be taken over by people living in the area. So, we need to have the restrictions here. Yes. Thank you. Good point. Before we go to council McAdams, do you have an update on this is more for Drea, the number of pickets maximum and the number of tickets you hoping you're hoping for and how many have been sold to date approximate?

We have about 57 sold to date. Um, and we are promoting that more across our social media and website. Um I don't have a final number of what what can go into the playground. Um when I've asked that question to others um they said you know people can continue to purchase. There's no deadline. Are there thousands or hundreds? Um you know that's a good question. I think I think that definitely hundreds. Hundreds. Okay. Definitely hundreds. Yeah. Um, but obviously I'm working on my numbers tonight, so it could it could be closer to the thousands.

Okay. I'll have information. All right. The playground looks humongous in the ill in the um diagrams, the illustrations. How big is the playground? 34,450 ft. The not the playground, the lawn. The great lawn. The great lawn. Okay. Believe it's about an acre and a half. So, it's twice as big as the playground. It's Yeah, it's twice as big as a football field. All right. It's a regularly shaped, but really the emphasis is it's a great lawn, so we're, you know, trying to make sure it's spaced accordingly to have ability to flow into from other events and things that could occur. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Council Member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. um when the project goes out to bid, will it be um bidded out in phase one and phase two or how is staff going to uh so like I said earlier when I first started talking that this conversation is way premature. We don't have a lot of the uh answers to the questions you're asking. When we come to you um we're going to do two things. We're going to uh show you bring to you the budget uh after we've nailed it down for phase one. We're going to tell you how we can reduce that and ask you uh do we get rid of the football court, the the multiport court, uh a pickleball court? You going to help us make those decisions. Um and then we're going to ask you what do you want as the base bid? If the base bid, uh, I will say for $10 million, what what you're going to get is, um, a little bit of parking, grading, and the all-inclusive playground, and that's it. Um, existing trees, no walkways, no lighting, um, nothing.

So, in the agenda report, it says scheduled to go out to bid in late January 2026. So, was that not Yes. So, so, uh, we're going to come to you with the award to go to bid in late January. Uh, that's our hope. Um, that's a schedule we're trying to trying to stick to. It could be the first meeting in February. Um, and once you give us direction, then we'll put it out to bid. So, so yes, the staff report is correct. Uh, if um, if council's direction on January 20th is something that we can do right away. Yeah.

Okay. So when you when you come back to council before you go out to bid you will have an idea of we want like something for 10 million, we want something for 15 million and then Okay, got it. So it's not going to just go out to bid and

correct. We're also looking at some grant opportunities. the the is the issue with um if we were to decide collectively that we want to um you know just do $10 million right now and then go out to uh grants for the rest of it. It it could be four or five years before we get a grant and at that point the prices are doubled. Um, I was telling staff today, and this is something that I'll bring back when we talk about money, but um, uh, I I took $10 million in, uh, on December 31st, 2019, and just just using the construction cost index, uh, compounding that year after year, today, that $10 million project is 14 million uh, and just under $500,000. So 4 and a half, that's 45% increase in 5 years. Um, and yeah, so we we we want to try really hard to find a way to fund it now because it's going to be twice as much if we wait 3, four, five years.

And fund it, you mean phase one? Phase one. Yes. Phase one. Okay. And then phase two would be 10 years. We we don't know. Yeah. Depends on council's priorities. Okay. Okay. Great. Thank you so much. uh dogs, bicycles, scooters, uh are they going to be encouraged or discouraged inside the uh inclusive playground? I would say discouraged inside the inclusive playground, but that's a council decision. Um uh yeah. All right. Council decision. Would staff recommendation be prohibited?

That would that would be staff proh recommendation. Yes. Okay. Um, did you say earlier the number of parking spaces that will be available by design so far inside the park, not counting the sports center aquatic parking? You know, I don't know. I don't have that immediately, but there's maybe some support staff that's online that could answer it.

That's okay. I can wait until you have a parking plan to show us. If you said it earlier, I just didn't write it down. That's why I was just asking. Um, okay. Um, you've done such a good job answering our questions and wowed us with the with the information. Great work all around. I hope the center of those two sandwiches wasn't too hard to take.

Not at all. And, you know, thank you. It really is an honor. We do wish everyone happy holidays. you know, we're going to be working to get to this point in January, February to um make this a reality and really looking and and working hard to make sure that this is coming forward. So, all right. And Kathy has some input, but when will it go to bid that estimate time frame? Um to quote is we we are shooting for end of January. I think it is really dependent on some of these decisions that we really want to make sure we make. um you know to caveat some of the costs that really depends on the bidding and the bidding strategy is a big one. So we really want to make sure that's locked in.

Since we only have one meeting in January, will we see this again? The plan is to come back January 20th. Yes, January 20th. Yeah,

21st. Okay. Thank you. Let's go to Council Member Viala. I just want to say that the minute uh this this park is open, especially the playground, uh Mayor Proam and I have been fairly active in Mon C Monteray, which is the old bure visitors bureau and convention center uh bureau. And the minute that this is open, this is going to be a major tourist attraction on our Mon C Monterey site. So, just know how important that this is our first step in really having a bonafide attraction. Yeah, it's going to be a beautiful part.

Yes, it is. So, thank you very much. So, we're going to BMR's below market rate home ownership next. Thanks, Wido. Good evening. I do have a presentation, Doug. In the interest of time, I will make my presentation very brief. Um, with the big three development projects, we're going to be bringing 622 BMR units online in the next 8 to 10 years. Um, we've made a significant amount of progress in the big three projects, Marina Station, Dunes, and the Sea Haven. And along the way, we've identified some policy changes that need to be made to our BMR policies and procedures that were adopted by the council. And I have the date uh from resolution 2021-010. Uh I am not a BMR expert. We were very fortunate to have Karen Tedman, our special legal counsel who is uh we've worked in concert with her to make some uh surgical edits to the BMR policies based on issues that have come up and also to grant the city manager some additional discretion to wave certain requirements to ensure that we can get people into those BMR units, which is a goal for the council and the community. So, I do have the surgical edits, the the minor edits we're making. Um, so these are the two edits we're recommending to our um policies and procedures.

And uh this really is the recommended motion just that the council will update the BMR program administrative policies and procedures. That concludes my initial presentation. If you have technical questions, I would refer them to Karen. Let's go to public. Anyone here in the room wishing to speak? Hi council. Um I'm Joseph Lard. I work for Trumark Homes. I've kind of um headed up the BMR efforts from that side of things. And so um I really appreciate Guido taking on uh this extra work and and Lane for working with us. I know when we uh met originally, we talked about um a number of adjustments that could kind of broaden the guidelines and um help more people into these homes. And um I appreciate the conclusion that you guys came to in terms of giving you some discretion to do that. Um I guess I would just hope in the future that um those recommendations or suggestions that we made to you uh that we could revisit those. Um, I I understand the discretion allows you to kind of um make those exceptions on a case- by case basis, but um it sounds like uh Karen, you're involved in some BMR programs um in the Bay Area, and I I did uh dig into those at uh Widow's recommendation and found that there are a lot of uh other cities whose guid whose guidelines offer uh more in terms of um the down payment maximums that they allow. uh and uh also the gift funds. Um so there's a number of different cities uh up in the Bay Area and then uh where I live in San Los a Bispo that um allow for a higher amount of gift funds uh as well as a

higher down payment. So um I again I do appreciate uh the recommendation that that staff is making uh to council and I think it's a good step in the right direction. Um, I just hope that uh maybe at the beginning of the year we can take another look at the suggestions that um our preferred lender and uh and true market have made to um help get people into these homes uh more people into these homes uh quicker. Um and so yeah, that's that's all I have for you. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Joseph. Anyone else in the room wishing to speak to this? Then let's go online. folks online, I'll give you a moment to raise your hand if you'd like to speak to this. Okay, we'll close public comment and uh start with Council Member McAdams. Thank you. Um I'm just curious who manages the um annual certification of the owner occupancy.

That would be our housing manager. when we when we get them hired. Right now, Shep um those come through Shep like we just recently had um a unit that they wanted to sell and so we went through that process working with Karen making sure it was transferred appropriately went out to another new affordable unit. Okay. So, in the ownership and occupancy requirements, there's an annual form that is distributed from the city. So you do that chef microphone please. Sorry. Thank you. Thank you.

They're required each year to file um I think it's form one of the forms back here that's uh they have to show that they have lived there um for more than 10 months out of the year and they still qualify. Great. Okay. So that is something that is consistently done. Yes. Perfect. And then one moment please city manager has some input and I say a lot of these are are just really new in the first year. They've been really knocking them out

really. So right now it's really all Sea Haven. I think right now we have about 113 um homes that we've sold out of 210 and we just closed five I think five or six this week. Um, they have another 18 that are under construction. I think Joseph told me they're going to have another 50. They're going to start on construction this year. So, they're actually way ahead of their schedule. So, I think most of these are under the year, but yeah, those documents are there and we will definitely be monitoring those.

Great. So, I just want to make sure that we're setting ourselves up for success because we don't have a housing programs manager and that um even though it's funded, we're not recruiting for it. So, who is managing this and keeping track and um entering everything and putting everyone in a database and all that kind of stuff? Shep's doing all that.

Okay. Okay. Um, and then for the end of the BMR terms, how what does that look like? So, when when it gets when it gets recorded, is the city putting the date in something or we we don't pay attention to that? Yeah, ship keeps a running log of all of the BMRs that are entered into, how many are bridge homes, how many are forced. So, yeah, she keeps that that log.

Okay, perfect. Um, I just really really I I know I sound like a like a broken record, but I just really like want to advocate for having a housing programs manager person. Like, chef's plate is full. Um, everybody is busy and at capacity. And this is really important. I don't want to look back in 10 or 15 years and fail as a council because we didn't have oversight and you know we're reactive and trying to clean up whatever mess. So just please like let's launch this correctly and um you know make sure that we're careful and we're whatever's in the procedures. So that's something too like it's super robust. There's a ton of forms. Let's make sure like they're all getting filled out and and all of that. So,

we are it's a very robust review process. Okay, great. Karen Tedman is involved extensively in these these little the minor tweaks that we've had made. It's because we get these little um where they don't quite fit in the guidelines. We're running all that by by Karen and so she's sure and then just for view is is extremely robust.

Yeah. And I mean just for our community, like what a a special program. I mean this is no one else has this on the peninsula, you know? I mean what an opportunity for our residents. And I and I just think that um you know, it's one of it's it's just another program. It's another housing opportunity that really stands out our city from other cities. you know, in addition to Preston and Abrams, like having this um home ownership um opportunity with the number of units that it is, you know, I mean, sure, other cities might have 10 or or 15 units. I mean, we're potentially going to have hundreds of units and that's really really exciting. So, um thank you so much.

Thank you, Jenny. Council member Viala,

thank you. just to thank you mayor. Uh just to frame um this whole topic um um actually mayor prom and I attended um an opening of a a mental health clinic that is in Marina and one of the speakers who was on the board of supervisors said that uh that Marina has more affordable units than all the other cities put together. and she announced that and I just recently got confirmed that that's so um having said that um I want to know if it's true and I'd like to see the information um kind of uh uh collated uh from all these forms that show us how much we do have as a city and it would be nice to compare it to other cities but we I don't really have I hear well we have this in this development we have in this but I don't have a sense overall and if we could have that I mean if Anita you're collecting all this data you know we should be able to have that for the council

our housing element identifies quite a few of the affordable units and it's a pretty thick document if you go in there it'll list all the transitional supportive the BMR units that are being built so it actually shows um and that that's some of the push back that we've been given to other cities to advocate for you know it's a regional housing crisis that Marina shouldn't shoulder it by herself and that's how we're able to articulate because we have that those numbers in our housing element. So, okay, but that number does change. It increases hopefully um as time goes by.

It it does, but um what the housing element identified was that um there's, you know, 20 affordable units here and 30 transitional units here. And so that's how we were able to compile some of that data. So, okay. Well, if we could have kind of, you know, a report every so often because, you know, for me to go back to the housing element and, you know, we don't necessarily update that on a regular basis. I would like to have a a handle on that as a council. So,

um, so that's nice to know and I wish, you know, everybody in Marina knew this, you know, about um, our status in affordable housing. Um, I know we're always dissatisfied. We could do more. we should do more. But, you know, I I want us to have a realistic um perspective on that. Um I wanted to talk about um the one paragraph where we say the city manager may in his or her discretion wave the purchase ready requirements for home buyers under section B provided that the home buyer has qualified for an adequate financing for the BMR home from an institutional lender upon a showing of good cause. Well, um, so I looked up the purchase ready, um, qualifications and what I get from this, there's four. That you have a mortgage qualification. So that's already spelled out. That's sort of the minimum thing. And the second is down payment. That you have to have sufficient funds uh, savings available for down payment. Um, at least 3% of the home price. And three was a credit score history, credit score of 620 or higher. And the four is an interesting one. Home buyer education. Primary applicant must take have taken a an H HUD certified home buyer course. Now what I get from this is that we are trying to build in a successful purchase probably it sounds like firsttime home buyers when we're we're using our um you know below market rate housing. So this on the surface seems really good good to me. we're we're sort of um you know we're sort of protecting them and sort of making um new home buyers aware of the responsibilities or their financial capacity to continue to live in those

homes. Um, but we're gonna we're going to wave that. And I, you know, so I had asked our city manager yesterday, um, is this hard to get? You know, these four qualifications, is this a hard thing for people to get who are considering? And, um, and what, uh, he said was that Oh, okay. you're gonna so let me just hold off then. Yeah. Um so I think the main issue we're trying to address there has to do with credit scores

and we have gotten a lot of requests to be more lenient in the credit score because there are some um underwriting guidelines from Fanny May and Freddy Mack and various underwriters but they're very complicated formulas. Um and it's really not um the city doesn't underwrite these loans. We don't go through the underwriting process. So the point of that was to give flexibility with regard primarily to the credit score if the home buyer meets some of the other criteria in maybe the Fanny May credit underwriting that allows a lower credit score because there are other factors.

Okay. So that's the flexibility that we're really looking at. Okay. So why don't we say that instead of saying that we're going to adequate financing? That's what this paragraph says. Why don't we say has flexibility in terms of the credit scores? Well, because part of it is the flexibility is tied to a lot of other things when you look at the Fanny May and the Freddy Mack underwriting guidelines. Okay. So we're restricted because of that. So we at least we can say something and make a discretion. Presumably, if there's a lender that has underwritten the home buyer for a loan,

then they have met all of those other criteria um that go into that matrix of underwriting that. Okay. And and I guess um although I trust our current city manager, um we we're allowing the discretion to be based on the city manager. And I can see that you know all I mean you know you do this because it's your brother or your brother's friend's friend and then now we've made a discretion based upon one person's authority.

Well that was the point of saying that as long as the home buyer has a lender that has provided a loan because once again we are really relying on those lenders to look at the underwriting. You know our goal is to make sure the home buyer is successful that they buy the home they can afford it. they can pay the maintenance, they can pay the mortgage, right? Um, if a conventional lender has made that decision, then that would allow the city manager to wave the criteria. Okay. And is that an acceptable way to do this? So, there's just one person that can make the exception on a a big issue really. It has to do with the purchase of a

I think part of this is these move very fast and there's quite a bit of pressure to get them closed. um you know because the financing commitments are only for so long. So it has to be a relatively simple process. Okay. And actually um the city manager gave me some um examples two examples in which I could I could understand what you're trying to do here but it's also you know not quite so clear. So I understand why we have to be not clear on this but okay I understand it. Thank you. Mhm. Thank you, Kathy. Council member McCarthy.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, so first, as a military family, thank you for writing in the language about um the VA loan. I think that's one of the major changes, right? I mean, um, one of the things I know about VA loans is that unlike conventional loans are often assumable with permission of the lender, um, do we allow that in this scenario? if if another person wanted to assume an existing VA loan or have we thought about that?

Um our our documents do allow transfers. We have to approve a transfer of the home. And so if the loan was assumable presumably and was assumed by somebody, it would be a transfer of the home. So the city has to approve a transfer of the home. the the person acquiring the home has to meet the affordability criteria. So that's the primary requirements. There are some transfers that are allowed um without approval for instance um between spouses if there's a divorce decree those kind of transfers where the loan might be assumed by the spouse something. And just to be clear, so like when I refer to assuming, you're kind of assuming the existing terms of that loan, the low interest rate that perhaps they got. And so in some cases, right, someone might have to get two loans, one loan to pay off the equity the first person's already got and then

um assume the second loan, but we in theory we could allow that. We can allow that. Um we require approval of any refinancing. So that second loan would have to be approved by the city. Our main criteria on approval is just we don't want people to overfinance the home um beyond our restricted resale price. Okay.

And then just a couple other quick comments about the program in general. One is about the 55-year restriction. I don't think that's really what we're talking about tonight, but it's something that every time this comes up, we kind of mention it. Um, and I know that's a standard across the state and maybe that's what we stay with, but I hear from the public a lot like I I would love to see a longer time period on these deed restrictions. I'm just going to leave that as a comment. Um, the second one is this prohibition of, you know, having only certain people live in the house and uh prohibition of renting a room and things like that. You know, this is something that everybody does. Um, and I am frustrated when we support rules that are kind of uninforced. Um, you know, I really would have to weigh kind of what the pros and cons of or just continuing to turn kind of a blind eye, if you will, and and and or changing the rules. U, but I do think it's a valuable discussion. I think that a lot of people that qualify for these affordable units would benefit from being able to rent a room. Um, I can do it. Why don't we offer that privilege to someone who probably needs it more than me, right? Um so just kind of some highle thoughts to think about when these kind of programs come back to us. Um not asking for any change today, but it's it's something that I hear from uh constituents and it's something that I see myself happen a lot. So thank you, mayor.

You Brian, let's go to Mayor Prom Fischer.

Yes, thank you. And I agree and I've spoken with the city manager in during previous one-on ones that it will be good to review this whole program because I would also like to look into how much the buyers are allowed to keep once they sell because they will need to be able to buy another property. So I would really like to review that in the upcoming year sometime maybe. Um and um because yes, we do want to make it we do want to support people who are probably going to buy their first home ever and can leave the rental market which is brutal in this country where rents can just be raised unexpectedly with unless if there's a the few exceptions where there is a um a rental cap. But most renters are scared you know they they don't know what will happen. So um but it seems um that staff has made this report without discussing with the true mark sales reps or

we have

Yeah. Yeah. Because it would be good to uh hear from they they're the ones selling the homes. they hear the the the issues that people have and when I hear that other cities allow an higher gift amount that that's important because so many young people they need help and sometimes they can get the help but it's not allowed so and the waiting lists are gone and I hear and the developer is also the the the builder developer is offering some incentives so people need to know the these are good options I've been emailing uh people about it. And just to clarify, when it was mentioned the annual uh owner occupancy certification, it's only to prove that you've lived there at least 10 months out of the 12. You don't have to qualify. Again, you you only need to qualify when you purchase. And hopefully, especially young people will get uh promoted at work. You know, the income will go up. We all know once when you buy your first home, you have to tighten your belt. It's scary and it's but you do it because you know you will own your home and then it gets easier over time unlike with rents that get raised. If you have a a linear mortgage, you know exactly what you'll have to pay for the next 30 years and there are no surprises and it gets easier and easier. So I I would wish to I would like to review the entire program. I the list that they submitted, we reviewed that in detail with Karen and she deals again with this all around the Bay Area and these are the changes that she felt um comfortable at this point.

So that's also the question. So the the veterans that's because of the veterans loans we we cannot offer that to other to non-military families 0% down or less than 3% down. Is that something that could be for everybody? um we limit it to veterans because that is the program that allows it that people are receiving financing from. I mean the idea is also we do want the home buyer to have a little skin in the game. Um because that makes a more successful program. I understand that. Yeah. But you also want veterans to have a skin in the game then,

right? But the Veterans Administration has for a long time allowed zero down. So, okay. I I wish that we could do just like veterans have healthc care for life. You know, I I wish everybody would have that. I'm happy that the veterans

we can look at the entire program. This was sort of a focused targeted trying to address some of the questions that have come up. Yes, especially since there are no weight lists anymore and and there are incentives being offered by the the uh the builder like free appliances I think and maybe window coverings and so it's there is a reason that even people who qualify I know several people they qualified but they would still have a hard time paying all their monthly expenses so they they were too scared to do it and um so whatever we can do to help people who do qualify and who who might just need a little bit of extra help in the beginning, especially if it's our own marina residents. We need to get the word out. So, I hope we can review later again. Thank you, Karen.

I just if I can just butt in. Um, I think what Miss Tedman was saying was the VA allows veterans to procure a loan with zero down. So, a traditional person couldn't go to a traditional lender and say, "Hey, I want a loan for zero down in general, right?" And so I think that's why the language was there. Thank you for explaining that.

Um, Guido, I'm wondering and Lane if uh February 26 would give you enough time without any stress to provide a even if it's a single page report listing the number of Marina BMR units. How many of those are for rent? How many of those are for ownership? the number of supportive, the number of traditional and the number of emergency beds in Marina. And I know that some of that can be lifted from the housing element. And I know that every year thereafter it would be easier to do, but the first year you got to kind of go back and get everything down that exists today. And then every year after that, you just add to it what's new in the last 12 months. How much uh how much effort would that take for you to do? There we go. Darby is our county housing policy manager. So, you want to come up? So,

welcome Darby. There you go. There's the answer. So, it sounds like it'd be no stress. Uh, we're heading into the holidays, so February, right? Right. So, uh, we'll aim for February. Okay. Yeah. The reason that's important is because we go to the Monterey County Peninsula or Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce once a year. We go to other places. We hear a lot on social media about affordable housing. And if we're able to provide this information

that sort of toes our own horn, but it also lets people know we are doing what we can as a city, but without that information easily accessible at our fingertips, we can't share it very well. And we don't even know what it is. And we're not about five of us going to independently go to the housing element, bring up our own little report that's going to be out of date, you know, within 12 months. Um, and that's already out of date because it's a static document. We don't go in and update the housing element. Uh, and that was probably out, you probably was written a year or two ago. We will aim for February.

All right. Um, and then this is a question for the city manager and Guido. Um, sometimes we have thin agendas and so I'm thinking in 2026 when we have a thin agenda, not very many things on it. Um, can we prepare uh BMR policy procedure review to be discussed at a thin agenda night in sometime in 2026? Maybe it's Yeah, definitely. If the council wants to add that to our work program, that's something that we'll work with Karen ahead of time and and work with our developers and and so we can have it ready to go kind of on the shelf. Correct.

Okay. All right. Well, uh, I'd like to make a motion we adopt the resolution before us and request that staff come back in February 2026 and annually thereafter with a report listing the number of Marina BMR units, those for rent, those for for ownership, the number of supportive units, the number of transitional units, and the number of mercy beds within Marina. and that uh sometime in 2026 on a thin agenda night that uh staff prepare a uh review to be discussed of BMR policy proced and procedures. I second.

Okay. Any questions, comments before we go to a vote? I just um I mean just in defense of staff I you know I certainly supported adopting the resolution tonight but when we the annually thereafter and I know what the intent is, right? It was something we want to keep up with. Um, I'm reluctant to memorialize something that we are saying on an already busy I mean and I get it sometimes we have quote unquote thin agendas, but I'm just wondering if we can approve the resolution and then give staff general direction that we would like to review this annually rather than kind of put it in a motion.

Yeah, we can do either one. The motion is for a more formal approach because uh sometimes we have to bulldog things to get happen. It's easy to get lost. Even if we try to bulldog it, it can get lost. I think it's a five or 10 minute job the second year and third year and fourth year. It's maybe an hour job or maybe less if it's already on the website this first time around. The BML policy procedure review is not meant to be annual. It's just that I heard from council members that they'd like a a bite at the apple to review it in case things like down payments can be modified. Without clarification, I'm happy to support it, but I know the BMR program is a a thick document. So reviewing that annually is a a big effort. And yeah, no one mentioned that. We're not talking about that just once. Um,

and I think as you said, Mayor, I think the first time around, and it's not not even going to be that difficult first time around, the review or the list the the the the list um um we'll probably have to call a couple just to get it clear clarity on breakdown for sale, transitional units, units. Um, but after we have that, it's just as as we sell the Sea Haven units, the Marina station units, which ones are for sale, which ones are rental. Yeah. So, that that's easy.

Yeah. It would probably actually help us because uh HCD that the state adopted a four-year review of housing elements. That's part of the cycle now. So knowing exactly where all the BMRs are, where all the transitional units then when we eventually have to do the seven cycle Reno review, it actually help us. It'll help us in in the long run. So doing just a one-page memo, not an extensive study session, probably would just be beneficial for the staff anyway. So that's fine. Okay, before we go to vote, let me jump in. I'll motion we go to the till we finish 13 C and 13 D tonight. I'll

second. All right. Uh, all in favor, please say I. I. I. All oppose, please say no. All right. That motion passes. Um, one question, last question. Uh, we have a motion on the floor, but uh, um, how many BMR units are there at Se Haven, Dunes, and Marina Station? If you have that number on the top of your head. If not, we'll wait till the list comes out. So 210, 140 and 272 respectively between those three. Um just ballpark what percent are rent and what percent are for ownership?

So Sea Haven 100% are for sale. Um, Marina Station, it's more like a third. 100% rental. Correct. And uh, Marina Station, 95 of those are ownership and the rest are rental or expected to be rental. And there's a total at the Marina Station of how many? 272. 270. And of that 272. 272. And of that 272, how many are for ownership? 95. 95. Okay. Thank you very much. All right, we have a motion on the floor. All in favor, please say I. I. I. All oppose, please say no.

All right, thank you everyone. That motion passes unanimously. We move on to uh community development block grant. All right. So, making this short again. So, in the spirit of Christmas, Darby is from the county. He's the county policy housing manager, and he's going to be Santa Claus today. He's giving us money that we can spend on CDBG related activities. Um Darby gave a presentation in end of 2024. The city manager asked me to do some outreach related to this. We went to the planning commission. We went to the public works commission. Uh we did a very limited communitybased survey, not a survey, a feedback form. And let me just go to that real quick. And we can go over their criteria. It's all in the staff report. It was it was in Darby's original presentation, but I'm just going to cue this up and if you have technical questions once again, I would refer them to Darby. I'm just going to skip ahead and we can go back to this if the council wants in terms of the funding and whatnot. So, when we went to the public works, the planning commission just trying to get to that slide. So did a little feedback form with them. The top recommendations were some type of economic development activity, infrastructure improvements, planning commission, infield development, infrastructure improvements, and the community feedback form we did was improve community facilities, public infrastructure. So when Lane and I met with Darby about six weeks ago and you know just explained that this was the feedback we were getting from the community and looking through the council priorities and using Darby's expertise in the program, these were the two potential opportunities that uh we could fund with the program.

Um, so purchase potentially of community center appliances as long as there's some tiein to serving low-income folks and seniors and ADA improvements at a park. So those were the two potential recommended um programs that could be funded. Guido, it says ADA Primit Parks, community facilities. Is this a community facility we're sitting in? Uh, I don't That's a good question. Darby can answer that. So, because our we don't have ADA restrooms and sometimes that's a issue.

So, yes, this would be a community facility if you wanted to uh do ADA improvements here. General rule uh with CDBG, you're not allowed to do uh buildings for the general conduct of what local government does. ADA improvements are the one exception. So, we could do that here if it if that was the council's pleasure. And then the uh Thank you very much, Darby, for being Santa Claus this year. I am your elf. Um the the amount of money we're talking about for Marina, is it this 206,000 grant? Is it the 619 three-year? Is it both?

No. Um it was 450 was the original quote but there was a 6% reduction but you were waiting from the state to get that final.

So um so over the over the three-year term of the uh joint power agreement the city gets $450,000. You can take that all at once. You can take it in two years. Um the one caveat is Congress is has uh indicated that they're looking at a 6% cut to CDBG funding. Of course, we don't know what that means yet because they haven't adopted a budget yet. So, we're still on the continuing resolution. So, the plus or minus at 6%.

Okay. Uh why are some cities listed and other cities not? the county's uh uh the urban county consortium. Every three years we have to go out and invite all 12 cities in the county to participate. Um Marina, Gonzalez, Greenfield, and Sand City chose to participate in the urban county consortium. The rest of the cities did not. So that's why you see some cities listed and some not listed. and those who don't they have another alternative funding approach to get CDBG.

So the cities of Monterey, Selenus and Seaside are entitlement communities just like the county and so they get a direct allocation of funding every year from HUD. Uh the other jurisdictions are able to compete at the state level for um the state's program CDBG funding. It's uh very competitive. Um, I can't remember the last time that somebody in the county actually got one. Uh, and I check them every couple years. So, it's they can compete at the state level and they and if they're successful and they have a good project, they can get a lot more than they would get through the urban county uh program.

And our city manager has uh input, but I have another question followup to that. Yeah, if you recall, we tried being in the state pro program for six, seven years. um put in applications for uh senior center and every year they said great great give us input and and our met all the criteria and finally the state our last time they just said um you know realistically derby said you're never going to get a funding so at that point we decided to join the the consortium um so at least we can get more than 150,000 over three years

all right uh so then I guess you wouldn't recommend and we go the seaside Monterey Selenus route. Uh the city doesn't meet the criteria to be an inter an entitlement community on its own. You have to have a minimum population of 100,000 and of that 50% plus one have to be a low mod population. Then how does Seaside in Monterey do that? My understand my understanding is that was uh special legislation way back. You're special, too. I it I don't know the whole history of it. I just know that they they have that designation. All right.

We would love to be an entitlement city. If we can get an entitlement city that gives us a a direct drain to CDBG funds, but we can't. All right. Thank you both very much. So, so that is the request before the council tonight. Uh we mentioned the potential fiscal drop and then based on where that final number would go. Um potential ADA improvements at a local park and it should say Vince not vice the Nagio park. Um smoking going on

or at the community center appliance upgrades. Um, and I do understand from Darby that a decision by the council tonight would be ideal uh because we do need to get back to the county by February in terms of what programs we will fund because there are separate agreements we do need to sign with the county. All right. So, uh, priority staff places it higher at improving Vince Deaggio than improving here. I didn't make that value judgment. Did someone make that valuation? I

I think that was based on direction of the from the council and our facilities that that we aren't going to uh put in those major dollars here. These buildings potentially will be torn down.

Okay. And I think we probably might put improvements here, but ADA might not be the improvements we put here. It might be to fix the roof and do some other things. Okay. All right. Just wanted to check in that direction, but council member Bel, you have something? just wanted to ask the question because ADA compliance there are consequences if we're not uh complying with that and so I know that we we have reasons for not doing it at certain places and so I just want to I I don't know who answers this kind of question but our ADA risk is it higher here or at Vince Deaggio I've I've never used the bathrooms at at Vince Deaggio Park so I don't really you know what we're talking about, but um this is a public space where we have regular meetings, all kinds of commissions and stuff and if our bathrooms are not ADA compliant, I'm just wondering if granted it's going to take a while before we get this, you know, place torn down and so I just need to know like the legal risks or they um

Yeah. So, so I wouldn't necessarily characterize the legal risk here in sort of the open session, but I can certainly uh describe those uh in a memo to council um in confidential manner, but we can certainly think that through um there are ADA improvements that need to be done, you know, Vince Deagio, there are 80 improvements that need to be done here. we can kind of assess if there's any uh legal risk um safety risk or whatever you know however we want to say it but I I would like to make that not not just um you know going to Vince Deaggio when I know that this is you know is not is not good.

I think we heard Darby needs a decision tonight. Yeah. Just to clarify, by February, if if we have to come if we have to come back January 21st, but by February, I I really January 21st uh would be okay. Um that's the very tail end of when I all of our uh public service uh applications are due. So that would get us into sync with the rest of our plan that we have to prepare to to allocate the funds. uh but much much after that and it really starts to put a crunch on on some of the other timelines that I have to follow.

Sure. Well, let's not then think of it from ADA, but but the sites where we know we we need some ADA improvements. I'm sure somebody can make, you know, you know, a general stab at saying which one has should have priority because I've never been in the bathrooms at in Stamagio Park. So is there it doesn't have to be a big thing, but I just want to make sure that we're going for the priority situations. Well, I think this restroom is used far more than I think the Vince demon restroom.

Okay. then then I would go with it with this facility because knowing that it's going to be torn down but we may be in these facility for five years or more or more. Um legal legal uh might have some input here. Yeah. No, I was just going to ask if the city manager how far would the 450 take us because that's I guess another imbalancing. I think we had estimates for the restrooms around 450 and then the uh well I have a question but let's go to council member um let's go to mayor pretend viser.

Yes. Thank you Mr. Mayor. My um thought was to go with the staff recommendation. I mean they they surveyed several people um and if they say Prince Danchio needs it and I did use the bathroom there once. can't remember the ADA or not, but that's also being used by people using the park. So, I don't know how often the bathrooms are being used or not and there are events there. So, I would more say like if I see how seriously this already has been reserved and that let's just go ahead and make sure we get the money. And and just to clarify the the quote that Edri got and I forgot the firm he got it from. It was not just the bathroom, it was trail access as well and it's so that was Yeah.

May I just make one small comment but they the staff only learned today from Darcy that the city hall could be uh could be qualify for this. So that's the what that assessment here was not with the idea that it could pertain to this. That's true. That's a true state. I just want to say that I you know Okay. Thank you. All right. And thank you Darby for being here to advise us as we go. Council member McAdams.

Thank you, Mayor. And um and thank you Santa. Um I I agree with Mayor Prom Fischer to to you know move forward and support staff's recommendations. Um working the last couple of Thanksgivings in the community center in that kitchen. I mean it just it needs so much love. And the senior groups I mean there's food and snacks coming out of that kitchen every day. And so, you know, if we can provide that small improvement for our staff and the residents, I think it would be really, really meaningful. Um, and so, and then as far as the um ADA improvements at Vince Deaggio, I mean, that sounds great, especially knowing that the path is in is incorporated. Um, that path is unstable and a little difficult to walk. So, um, any improvements to that would be, um, would be fantastic for our city. So, um, I'm happy to, uh, whenever ready to to make a motion. Um,

yeah. Okay. Um, I move that we direct the city manager to execute the necessary subreient agreements with the county of Monterey to implement two projects. one ADA improvements at Vince Deaggio Park um between 212 to 225,000 and the community center appliance upgrades uh between 211 and 225,000 and determine that these actions are exempt from SQA pursuant to section 15061 B3 of the SQA guidelines.

Second. All right. Uh Brian, any final comment? There's a couple discussion points actually. Um I so appreciate council member Biala always advocating for this space which is so important. Um I will say that I you know have seen that it been it there does tend to be a lot of a senior population that could benefit from the ADA I think improvements more so than here. I I have not really personally witnessed that uh here for as long as I've been in this building. Um so yeah, I'll just keep my comments there. Okay, any more comments before we go to a vote? I don't think we went to public. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Public. Anyone in the room that wishes to speak to this item?

None. Anyone uh on Zoom that wishes to raise their hand so you can speak to this item? Please raise your hand if you'd like to speak. All right, we'll close public comment. Uh and we'll go to a vote. All in favor, please say I. I. I. I. All opposed, please say no or abstension. All right, that motion passes unanimously. Thank you again, Darby. You're the only Santa I know that will work into February, but not needed this year. All right. So, lastly, we're going to talk about the 2026 general election and who's going to lead us through that.

So, I I will start. It won't be the election. It'll be about ballot measures for the election. So yes, just list the 2026 general election in our staff report.

Okay. So I I will start it and then I'm going to have Pearl who is online uh walk you through the presentation. So just to give you some background. So the city council met uh in a study session in September 23, 2025. It gave uh a series of um uh it gave direction to staff um several points uh one of which we'll cover today which is uh the issue regarding um uh to continue researching the users utility tax a possible bond measure and potential uh exemptions from uh such ballot measures. So today uh that is the presentation you will receive. This is just sort of further information with respect to potential ballot measures for the November 2026 uh general election. So with that, I'll turn it over to Pearl, who you met, I believe, last uh summer uh when we were doing the uh 2024 uh ballot measure. So go ahead.

Welcome, Pearl. Good evening.

Good evening. Can you hear me now, council members? Yes, loud and clear.

Okay. All right. Thanks. And yeah, I said I think I might have been on mute, but I believe it was two summers ago. In any event, if if we can go to the next slide. Um, as Rene suggested, I just wanted to give you kind of a highlevel overview of the process and timeline for putting uh any one of the different options of uh potential revenue generating measures that uh they directed staff to consider to putting them on the ballot for the November 2026 election. Um, and this first slide is just to go over some of the the timing and the process. Uh August 7th of uh 2026 is a deadline to place any tax measure on the November ballot. And we're going to be talking about a couple of different options. One um uh and variations of each. But for a council sponsored measure, meaning a measure that you you direct your staff to prepare and the council puts on the ballot of its own valition that can be finalized at any time up until um August 7th. would recommend obviously that you don't wait until that last date, but either at your regular July meeting or your August 4th regular council meeting, you could put a council sponsored measure on the ballot. Um, that's also the deadline to put a voter sponsored initiative measure on the ballot. We're going to talk briefly about them, but there are a whole series of additional steps that need to be uh undertaken well in advance of the council placing a voter sponsor measure on the ballot. And so the deadline for a voter sponsor measure to get going is quite a the practical deadline is quite a bit earlier and we've got the the final slide in this deck. I'll I'll I'll walk through some of the milestones on that. Um couple of other big picture issues that you may recall from measure U or other ballot measures just general rules governing the city's participation in ballot measures. Um once a measure is is placed becomes a measure um so for a council spons measure this one is placed on the ballot um the council can after that point provide neutral factual

information about the measure but it cannot um engage in campaigning or use any public funds or resources to advocate for or against the measure. That's just a function of of state law. Um the city council itself can endorse a measure officially if if you decide to do that or oppose one for that matter. Um and city council members and city staff retain their first amendment right in their individual capacity to support or oppose a measure but you cannot use uh city resources. You can have not cannot have people um in city uniform or um or from the dis for instance promoting or opposing a ballot meter. kind of I just wanted to remind you of those general um um sort of ground rules for ballot measures. Um and then I want to speak briefly briefly about the um the two basic different kinds of taxes under um tax measures under California law and the vote uh the percentage of voter approval that's required to support each um you know basically all tax measures can be characterized as either a general tax or a special tax. the um the type of utility user tax you've been looking at uh or the staff is looking into will be a general utility user tax. Uh a general tax will take effect if it's approved by a simple majority vote. So 50% plus one of the voters voting on it. But the the defining feature of a general tax is the funding must be available for any municipal purpose. So it can't be dedicated to specific purposes like um like the public facilities you're looking at improving. the council could decide in any year to budget the revenue from that tax for specific purposes. Um but the the you would have the option and each council would have the option on an annual basis how to allocate that um those taxes. Um that said um you can couple a general tax um with on the same

at the same election what's known as an advisory measure who asks the voters for their preference. If this general tax is approved by the voters, how would the voters like to see the funding being spent? This is a common technique. It's called either a measure A and B combination or uh just um an advisory measure um companion measure. It's it's a common technique used with uh utility user taxes in particular to get a sense of the voters. But once again, it that uh that's not binding. Um uh by contrast, a special tax which you you could do a special tax for utility user tax, but one of the options under consideration by staff is doing a special tax to help fund um general obligation bonds. A special tax is dedicated to specific purposes set forth in the ballot measure and can only be used for those purposes. So that uh measure U in 2024 would have been a um a special tax supporting a general uh supporting a general obligation bond and could have only have been used for uh the purposes set forth in that measure. But to take effect, you need a two-thirds vote. And as the council members I believe will recall, even though the voters overwhelmingly supported measure U with a 60% vote, that fell short of the required two-thirds vote, so it didn't um take effect. Uh next slide, please. I wanted to just briefly talk about a key difference about voter sponsored initiatives which are also known as citizen initiatives that qualify for the ballot through the initiative process. Uh under a series of recent court decisions going back just a handful of years uh the courts have now established um that uh what would otherwise be a special tax. So, a voter sponsored initiative petition that dedicates the funding towards specific purposes uh can take effect with a simple majority vote. So, 50% plus one vote. This is a key difference between a special tax that uh

that the council um would put on the ballot and really opens up um uh a new vehicle for potentially raising revenues for specific purposes. um uh for a voter sponsor initial position to qualify the ballot, it needs to be signed by a ballot signature for at least 10% of the registered voters in the city. And I put just um a recommended as a practical matter timeline if if a group were to do a voter sponsored measure with the goal of um getting that placed uh qualifying for placement on the ballot for the November ballot. As a practical matter, I think that would need to be finalized um by the end of February. That February, that's not a hard and fast deadline. Is this a practical deadline in my experience having done many dozens of these in order for the measure um to qualify in time uh before the August 7th deadline to be placed on the November ballot. And this final slide because I know it's late. I'm just going to go through a kind of quickly. I wanted to hit on some of the major additional steps that are required for a voter sponsored measure um which dictate that the or suggest that February deadline. Um these are the basic steps that the the proponents would need to you know prepare the text of a measure um finalize that and submit it to the city clerk with a request for the city attorney. Uh that would be Renee working with me to prepare an official title and summary. Renee would then have uh 15 days or so two weeks to prepare that. At that point, the proponents would then prepare the initiative petitions and begin the process of gathering signatures to qualify the measure for the ballot. Under under state law, um there is they actually would have 180 days to do that. But as a practical matter, given where we are in the calendar, if they wanted

to get it on the November ballot, they'd have to finish uh gathering signatures in in a little under three months, which is um in my experience doable. If a group is highly organized or can afford pay signature gatherers, but uh it's a bit of a tight deadline. They would then submit the signatures to the city. There's a process for the county register of voters to verify whether there are sufficient signatures. the registar voters actually has 30 business days which is about 45 calendar days to do that and all of that would need to take place before August 7th if um if someone were to go this route and try and uh qualify a measure for the November ballot. So I know that was a lot to cover in a short period of time but I'm just mindful of the hour and um and uh that's my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

You did a great job. Thank you Pearl. on the voter sponsored measure February 28 deadline. When you say finalized, do you mean uh the text of the measure?

Yes. And and I want to be clear. So that's not like a statutory deadline. That's just a practical target date is what I would call it. And so yeah, to begin the initiative pro the get process of gathering signatures, the proponents um have to submit to the city clerk the the actual text of the ballot measure um which they would need help from an attorney to draft if they're certainly what I would recommend any group doing that um a request for the title and summary and what's called a notice of their intent to circulate the initiative for um uh for qualification for the ballot. is a series of highly regulated steps under state law. You know,

I suppose that the the text of the ballot measure is more complex to draft than the summary and the intent. Uh did you say the city attorney could help with that text or an attorney?

No. An attorney, not the city attorney. So, um so, so you know, initiative proponents given the complexities of initiative law usually hire attorneys. I I will say that under the case law that has made this 50% plus one vote for special tax uh available. The courts have held that it's okay for city officials to be involved in the drafting of those measures. The precise limits of that are still a little unclear in the law. But if uh for instance, if your staff were to consider at your direction processing a measure either for you to put on the ballot, they could look at what would be involved in a measure that if you decided not to place it on the ballot for whatever reasons that the proponents could then use that language, but ultimately as a practical matter, I I think anyone pursuing proponents pursuing an initiative is going to want to have their own attorney and that could not be the city attorney.

Okay. And do you have a ballpark number of registered voters in Marina so that we could know a ballpark 10% number of signatures needed? I um I can try and get uh that look that up as we're talking because it's on the Secretary of State's website, but I uh while you're looking that up, yeah, Lane and other folks that were present during the Citizen Advisory Committee, um did they uh show favor to citizens initiative? they show opposition to the concept.

Either Tori or Doug can speak to that there or there. I'm also happy to speak to that if someone else can but uh while I'm multitasking here I think that all the options were discussed and I know that it's going to be coming back to the council and a report from writer from trap Smith but I think they were leaning towards more the the general tax and with the advisory measure to go along with it. That would be the user utility tax with an advisory measure. Yes. Did they that was their preference? Did they you know did they were they against the citizens approach or were they for it?

I didn't really hear anything for or against. Nobody said they wanted to organize you know and bring it up. um when they went through all the options that was just the option that seemed to them the best way to go because it would be the most successful or the most most I think there was a little bit of both. I think that there was you know I think as citizen advisory there a lot of work they would have to organize and you know I don't know if they were really had land to really organize and do all that work to but the citizens initiative I don't want to speak for

that's okay I want to ask you did they indicate support did they indicate that they'd be willing to work hard for a city sponsored utility users or they didn't get to that we really didn't get to that part of the discussion. We were they were just going down the options. Um, and Pearl did a really good job of explaining all the different options during the presentation and that's just kind of where they landed at the end of the presentation. City Manager Lane Long,

but in the report that um that the facilitator writer writes up, he will give you um more detail on that. Um and and that was their the UUT was their recommendation and he'll give you more recommend more detail on that. Okay. Will that report cover citizen willingness to campaign for user utility tax sponsored by the city and citizen support to uh campaign for a citizens initiative or will it not address that topic?

No, it can't. No, it won't address that topic. So that means that topic wasn't very thoroughly uh spoken. So for our council consideration, uh it matters because a user utilities tax is very different than uh a bond measure. Um and so uh which one would potentially more likely bring in more money? Well, the presentation we had there was going to be some equal amounts. I think um either one. So, the UUT tax or the bond measure would provide the necessary funds. Yeah. The um it it depends on on the percentage that you do for the utility user tax.

If it's a citizen Oh, I see what you're saying. It's 5% 3%. Did they? Well, we'll wait for the report to see what they recommended as far as that you know and then the other this is what they after the discussion because there was quite a bit of discussion on the between the bond and the EU and you know they felt on the EU because the bond measure could actually be presented the same way as a general tax with an advisory to go with it too and the advisory is non-binding. Neither is the EU tax with advisory when it's presented as a general tax.

Okay. I have a question for Pearl and then I'll turn it over to Council Biala. Pearl. Um, if a citizen sponsored initiative was successful in time, um, would it be advisable for the city to concurrently be going along the same path in case the citizens initiative wasn't able to get the signatures? Yeah. Yeah. And would you is there ever a scenario that you'd recommend having them both the citizens initiative on the same ballot as the city sponsored initiative?

Yeah. So, two separate questions there and they're great questions. I you know I think it could make sense for as you're exploring your options and seeing if a citizen group would materialize that could actually have the wherewithal to carry this measure forward for the council to be considering if it its own measure whether whatever it is so that there is a back stop so you can get something on the ballot for November if that's your desire if a citizen measure were not were not to qualify. Um and you you know you have until August 7th to make that final decision and you can either even if you voted to put your own measure on the ballot or citizens measure put it uh qualify for the ballot. There's a very narrow window in which it can be withdrawn for the measure from the ballot. I would not recommend having both a council sponsored measure and a citizen sponsored measure on the same ballot. I think that would confuse the voters and undermine um the chance of success for either one. That's a very different scenario than what's called the companion measure where you're combining a general tax with an advisory measure. That's an established process. The voters will understand that. But having two is essentially competing measures to do the same thing on the same ballot. I I would not recommend that. But I I want to be clear that that doesn't mean you can't be pursuing both in case one a voter responsive measure doesn't qualify for whatever reason, but I would not go ahead and place both on the ballot.

Great. And thank you. Yeah. And I was able to determine it. It looks like you have uh as of October 13,670 registered voters. So 10% of that is a little over,300 and um um valid signatures. A typical rule of thumb is to try and gather at least 150% of the number of um valid signatures that you think you need because there are all kinds of reasons why signatures are invalidated. So need a little over 2,000 signatures I would say to to be safe. But the thank you council member

just some um questions. Um so uh in the UUT tax the advisory measure is it really clear that it's bound to the UUT tax the yeah great question.

So um uh that will be up to the council whether or not to make that clear. I I would and I imagine your political consultants would to make it clear because that's the best way to achieve your uh I think your your goal which is you you know the the advantage of a general tax is only 50%. The advantage advisory metric gives the voters direction. Some people are going to say well it's advisory only. Why why does it even matter? And then but the people supporting say well it's advisory and it sends a strong signal to the council they know what we want and if they don't do what we want we've got a future remedy at the ballot box. So I I mean that's why it's been an effective technique.

Yeah. And I kind of feel like um you know with the bond measure that we went through, we did so many surveys and that kind of stuff and this is a way in which we wouldn't have to do it cuz it's built in. So that's because it was kind of a lot of money and a lot of effort, you know, to do that kind of thing. So um you know, I can't remember why we didn't go to the UUT tax and we're considering that now. like I I you know I I was very active as a citizen for the bond measure but um you know why didn't we did I I don't remember the discussion why we went to the bond measure which had a much higher you know success um threshold why didn't we considered UUT at the time do you recall

so there was also a companion state measure that would have lowered the threshold uh for this type of tax at on the same ballot and and it wouldn't had the effect of applying to uh a bond measure. So I think it would have lowered and I can't remember it would have lowered the thresh. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. But still that was a risk when now we're considering the UUT tax without that that you know that consideration. So I I now in retrospect I'm going we should have just done the UUT because that's where we're at today. There was a lot of agony you know in the last uh you know year prior to that. Okay. Then you it's very clear you have a lot um Pearl you have a lot of um you know process related to both the bond measure and for the voter sponsored uh initiative but I don't see that for the UUT. Can you tell us what happens there? Sure. Sure. And um and again e

I was trying to simplify this and based on some of the direction from staff. I want to be clear that you could go either the UUT or the general bond the council could place on their own or it could be a voter sponsored initiative. These are just um so but the event you know a council sponsored UUT the process simply is a council has to adopt a resolution um um uh that places it on the ballot that would it would it uh will be an ordinance. to essentially be a separate ordinance establishing utility user tax um in your code. They're commonly done. I believe almost every other city in your county has a UUT. So staff would need to um draft that ordinance is a little bit of ambiguity in the law because whether you need to do a second reading like you're used to with your normal ordinances because you're not actually adopting it. The voters would be adopting it. So we but uh it would be a matter of um getting direction from the council as to the rate things like exemptions what you want to include in it but we'd have time over the spring to adopt that and and you know um and as I said either July or August early August to adopt that. But there's there's nothing like something someone's got to submit something to the city attorney for title and summary or gather signatures. It's just a much more um simplified process. there's still policy and other decisions to be made. So, you know, I wouldn't suggest waiting a long time, but if you decide to do that, I think your staff will come back, ask the key policy directions as to the rate um and um and then we could be draft ordinances um you know, so and as an income some of the choices for you to make.

Okay. So, the timelines are about the same except it's a much simpler process on this on the UT versus right and you don't need to be gathering signatures. because there's three months built into that for gathering because that process doesn't exist at all. Great. And just to to add, there are a few steps after the council votes to place a measure on the ballot, whether it's the tax measure or, you know, bond. Uh so, but that's not covered in this report, but certainly we'll, you know, when we bring it to council, we can outline, you know, sort of the next steps after council votes. Here are the additional steps that, you know, we'll need to take. Is that what some of those don't involve the the council certain

things like for city attorney preparing uh an opinion uh things like that the ballot arguments is is a key one that potentially involves the council if the council wants to be involved in the ballot arguments the what I'm sorry I the ballot arguments there are ballot arguments pro and con rebuttal yes and for a council sponsored measure if you so choose you have the top priority for preparing the ballot arguments um Great. Great. Okay. Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Two very quick questions. Um, did the what kind of sunset what kind of duration is being considered if any so far for a potential UUT or bond measure? Well, for the UUT, I don't know that that that's a policy decision. You can have no sunsets. It can remain in place forever or you can have whatever kind of sunset the council wants. Um, you know, bond measures usually have a a period of time in which the bonds will be paid off, but uh but there's no requirement for you. The ballot question needs to state the rate and duration of the tax, but duration of the tax could be an indel ended by the voters.

Okay. Uh second question, last question. Earlier we talked about uh an advisory vote doesn't bind the council. Um, and my question is, if we were to pass a UUT and then if we were to vote to dedicate the UUT proceeds to a bond measure to to and tie ourselves to a bond, wouldn't could that effectively lock in future councils?

Um, yeah, good question. I want to be careful how I answer that as well. the so um any scenario in which the the the the proceeds from the tax as a result of the vote are are locked in raises the risk that a court would consider that a special tax only to have been approved by a 2/3 that requires a two-thirds vote. So we would want to be very careful in how we present this and it you know and legally how it operates to ensure that it's not effectively a special tax. Um,

you you you mean if we pass a UT that's general and then after it's passed the council decides to build a fire station with the proceeds and to do that we need to bond that that would be potentially risky. Well, that No, no, not that because that would be a subsequent decision. you would do lease revenue bonds and you secure subsequently we dedicate the revenue stream betting on the company

and that's what I'm going to care be be careful about and I am not a bond council I you know I think to issue bonds you would need to guarantee that you would pay out of your general fund uh pay off the proceeds of those bonds right um but that would be from the general fund this this money needs to go into the general fund to be a general tax a city attorney. Yeah. So my my understanding and again I I don't have extensive experience in this but generally I mean if it's an obligation you'd have to every year budget for it from your general fund to pay it right and if it matches the UUT revenue then you've got a match

right but it's not a again that's not an obligation that that money can't be specifically earmarked for that you just got to match that out of your general funds and you might have to cut you know every year you would have to meet that obligation every year they make that decision,

right? Uh if the landfill gets a bond for 30 million for a facility, a material recovery facility, they have to get out of their general fund money every year to match that to to contribute to that 30-year bond. So, it's it's well known that if you're going to commit to a 30-year bond, you've got to for 30 years pay the annual amount. So, I don't understand why that's even a question. We would have UUT coming in at X dollars. We would commit to a bond that requires X dollars annually. We take the UUT money out of the general fund, pay the bond just like a mortgage on a home. So, I don't understand why it's complicated. I think um when you earlier talked about a sunset that that is when it might be complicated because as it went out to your underwriters and and they tried to sell the bonds to people if they saw that um you're trying to do a 30-year loan but you had a 20-year sunset on the UT.

So the sunset needs to match theoretical or or potential uses. Correct. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Piala. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. On the voter sponsored initiative, can uh city council members participate as regular citizens, private citizens? Yes, they can. You know, and the line can get a little blurry. So, if it was if you not to go that route, the city attorney Renee and I would be careful to be advising you what you can and can't do. there were, you know, there's lots of guidance if you're that, but you absolutely retain

your first amendment right um as a private citizen to do that. There was, I should say, just for full disclosure, there were uh there was um amongst the cases upholding the fact that a voter sponsored initiative only needs a 50% plus one vote. There was an open question of whether or not if the uh council members were too closely involved in preparing or sponsoring that measure, if that could turn what was otherwise a voter sponsored measure. Um make it so that it wasn't really a bonafide system measure, it was actually a government sponsored measure. And there was one court that was saying, well, if there's too much government involvement, maybe it really is a government sponsored measure and therefore requires a two-thirds vote. the one court that had held too much government involvement could transform it into requiring government vote uh reversed itself a month and a half ago in a new case and said no if if it's a voter sponsored measure and get qualifies for the ballot through the voter spons the petition process it doesn't matter how much a government officials involved so we've now got clear guidance on that um um so which is again is an important safety measure

does a sponsorship or drafting it. Something just happened to the audio so I didn't I didn't hear that question. Sponsorship say a council member sponsoring the buildings initiative. Yeah. Or does that mean writing it up and getting on the ballot?

Yeah. Yeah. Great question and and I'm happy to answer this in as much detail as you'd like. I I think it might make sense to come back at a later council meeting to dwell dig down to this in more depth, but but there um there are the official proponents of the measure are the people who control, you know, who actually submit it. Okay? And and I would being conscious recommend that a council member not be the official proponent um that someone else could be, but um but council members could be involved um before it becomes a measure. you you can discussing what you'd like to see in a measure and and you could be involved in uh in drafting it under under these court cases. Um and then if it becomes a measure and other proponents put it forth and then I want to be very clear the coun the city cannot spend any public resources in supporting that measure and so council members on their own nickel on their own time not using their city resources can support that. Um, in my view, that's not sponsoring it, but you're you're supporting it. You're walking the streets. You're doing, you know, um, campaigning, whatever else you want to do in your own time, on your own nickel.

Thank you. Great. And and you're saying so gathering signatures falls in that too. Yes. Say campaigning. That's what you're referring to. Well, with both that and then the sub the actual campaign itself, but yeah. Yeah. But you cannot gather signatures, you know, in the city council chambers or other city buildings. Absolutely. Wearing a city shirt that has the logo on it or whatever. Yeah, we were actually well schooled in in the in our responsibilities on the bond measure time too. So we kind of this is the same rules slightly different application in terms of the drafting of but same same basic rules. Okay. So um were we are we doing any action? and we're just receiving a presentation.

So, and and Pearl, I think the one question which is in the staff report but not in your presentation that just the senior exemption I think.

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I don't know that it's agendaized for tonight, but we, you know, staff will need direction at some point. Um, different under state law, different types of tax measures allow the city discretion to include exemptions for different purposes. For a general utility user tax, state law does not limit the exemptions at all. So you could have an exemption for instance for low-income seniors uh senior exemption low-inccome senior exemptions in particular or a common exemption. Um and I believe council members had asked about that. So that is available uh for utility user tax. Um exemptions are not allowed for uh adarm property taxes which is what a general obligation bond would be. So just under state law no matter how desirable it is it prohibits you from creating exemptions in your measure. There are some very very narrow partial exemptions that operate as a under state law, but you would not be able to include any exemptions for general obligation bond. Um, and if you wanted to pursue any other kind of tax measures that we haven't talked about expressly yet, it would depend on what the state law authorization is for that. But for UT, just to recap, you can include with, you know, any exemption unless it's, you know, um, unlawful under some other provision. Okay, everybody satisfied with the information tonight. All right, then I think uh this meeting is adjourned and happy holidays everyone. Thank you staff for being here. Thank you Doug Yan for being here. Enjoy your next couple weeks and have a great new year.