City Council - Special Meeting

Well, good evening everyone. It's nice to see you all. Happy New Year. Um, we are going to get started real quickly uh with a quick update that uh Council Member Shoresman is out of the area, so she is participating as noted on the agenda. So, we'll go forward and Vice Mayor, will you lead the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Well, we have a lot on our agenda today. We had a small close session and city attorney Christine Dietrich, can you uh give us the close session report? Thank you, Madame Mayor. The council did meet in close session on one matter of conference with real property negotiators with the uh property ID and negotiators as specified on the agenda. Council provided uh negotiating par parameters, price and terms and no further reportable action was taken. Thank you. Well, as per many times in our meetings, we get to start off today with a couple of proclamations. And usually proclamations are bringing awareness to something. And our first one is the Big Brothers Big Sisters of St. Louis Bispo County Youth Mentoring Program. So after that, uh, Carol Florence from the, uh, Big Brothers Big Sisters board. go ahead and meet me up front for a three-minut uh conversation or with others and um then I'll share the proclamation. So whereas Big Brothers Big Sisters of St. Louis Abyspo County's mission is to create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships to ignite the power and promise of you. Big Brothers Big Sisters of Slow County has provided over 30 years of life-changing mentoring programs that promote education, healthy relationships, positive self-esteem, and lifelong growth. Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring programs are an evidence-based prevention program with statistically significant effectiveness at reducing drug use and violence and improving youth mental health and academic performance. 98% of children in Big Brothers Big Sisters program graduate from high high school and 75% continue their post high school education. The state of California has launched the California Men's Service Challenge, calling on 10,000 men to step

up as mentors, coaches, and leaders to address rising disconnection among young men and boys and to create pathways to purpose, leadership, and belonging. Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Slow County and other local organizations are proud partners in this statewide effort, offering opportunities for men and women alike to serve as mentors and making a lasting difference in the lives of youth. National Mentoring Month is an opportunity to celebrate mentors, recruit new volunteers, and encourage all residents to invest in the future of our community by supporting mentoring programs. So, whereas the county of St. Losabispo formally recognizes the month of January as National Mentoring Month and embraces the vision that all children should achieve their full potential. Now, therefore, I, Erica A. Stewart, mayor of the city of St. Louis Abyispo, on behalf of the entire city council, proclaim January 2026 as National Mentoring Month in the city of St. Los a Bispo and urge all community members to recognize the critical role mentors play in shaping the lives of young people and to consider becoming a mentor or supporting mentoring programs in our county. Take a moment.

Yes. Three minutes. [laughter] Three minutes, Carol. Thank you. Good evening, mayor, members of the council, and happy new year to you all. Um, really appreciate you giving us an opportunity to be here representing Big Brothers Big Sisters of St. Lobispo County. My name is Carol Florence and I have been a board member for over 20 years. They should fire me, but they can't get rid of me. Kayla. Hi. It's a pleasure to be here. My name is Kayla Anderson and I have been a board member for a very short time, but I'm very proud board member. Steve.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Steve Yamichi. I'm a former board member and a big for probably the last six years. Just quickly, my little Manny. We got together when he was in fifth grade and now he's a junior in high school and uh we have had many experiences and I feel very strongly about the mentorship that I'm able to provide him and direction. So uh it does make a difference. Thank you. Sure does. Thank you so much for staying with your little for so long.

Yeah. So um I'm just going to make a few brief comments and I appreciate it. So our mission really is simple but um extremely powerful. to create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and the promise of youth. Um, as you hopefully know, when a young person um has a caring adult in their corner, someone who listens, is encouraging them, and believes in them, their world changes. So research shows that mentoring um as the mayor said uh mentored youth are more likely to graduate, avoid risky behaviors, um pursue higher education in meaningful careers. And while the statistics are important because that's how we um are able to determine our success, if you will. uh the real impact is seen in their confidence um that they gain and the goals that they set and the dreams that they begin to realize are absolutely possible.

All right. And I just want to tell a quick story about a little. So, uh Tate Gunnar, he's ageed 12. He was matched with his big eight months ago as a part of a familywide effort led by his mom to find a positive male role model for her sons. The family had recently weathered a painful divorce. And Gunner often plays the role of a peacemaker in the family. Stoic but incredibly sweet. Since being paired with his big, Gunner has begun opening up, expressing more emotion and feeling seen in new ways, showing increased confidence. He has rejoined in-person schooling and will be joining the soccer team. Gunner is just one example of the over 300 youth that we serve annually. So this January, we celebrate National Mentoring Month, a time to recognize the life-changing power of mentorship and call on our community to step forward. Right now, there are over 40 children and counting in St. Louis Bispo County that are waiting for a big with 74% of those being young boys. Each of them is hoping that someone will say, "I believe in you." Imagine the ripple effect when we change one life. We strengthen families, schools, and neighborhoods. Mentorship doesn't just help kids. It builds healthier, more connected community for all of us. Because when we invest in our youth, we invest in the future of St. Louis Bispo. And that future looks brighter when every child knows that they matter. So this evening, uh, we would like to ask for your continued support. Actually acknowledge your, um, past support. Um, please spread the word this month. if you could encourage your friends and colleagues and your neighbors to volunteer as mentors. Um, if you've ever wondered how to make a lasting difference, aside from being a council member, this is it. Just a few hours a month can change a child's life and in turn change a community's f future. So, from the bottom of my heart, all of our hearts, we want to thank you for your time this evening and for this proclamation.

Thank you. [applause] Mayor, could I just do a PS really quickly?

We really do have something else, too. So, I do, but I I want um I want to acknowledge ES Arrow. ES Arrow is a uh a sponsor of Big Brothers Big Sisters. And as you know, yesterday um there was a potentially catastrophic event at the facility. Um, my firm represents ES0R and I wanted to publicly acknowledge the fire department um, Cal Fire. Um, I have never seen such organization and strengths and compassion um, collaboration um, as I had yesterday for practically 12 hours during the day. So, I wanted to personally thank them and let you know that your team is doing one hell of a great job. Thank you so much. With that, um I do not see Sophie Rose. Do you see her, city clerk?

Okay.

Okay. Well, I will go ahead and read off the prevent um human sorry, national human trafficking prevention month. And we will not we'll just get this over to her at a different time. Um but this is a month of stalking awareness um month and or stalking awareness and action month. This is a month of national human trafficking prevention month. So I think this is really important that we make sure that people hear um how to help. Um I will say that in our community uh throughout the county of course there's Luminina Alliance. Um there is also um safer on the Calpali campus and um I know that they also work with Qua. I just don't know what their uh organization's called on Questa's campus. So if you're ever needing any help um know that there is our uh police department is is willing to help when necessary in those moments as well as um lots of survivor help with Lumin Alliance and Safer. So with that I will read off the prevention month. Okay. Okay, sorry. Just making sure it wasn't my phone. Um, [laughter] human trafficking is a public health issue and crime that harms the health and well-being of individuals, families, and communities, often across generations. So, nearly 25 years after the passing of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, an estimated 27.6 million people are subject subjected to human trafficking globally, with cases reported in every US state. Human trafficking can happen to anyone, but certain populations are at greater risk, including people affected by abuse, violence, poverty, unstable living situation, or social disconnection. Human trafficking is connected to many other forms of violence and exploitation, and often shares common risk and protective factors such as lack of re resources and unsafe environments.

[clears throat]

Um, connecting the dots, I'll say quote because it's an organization. Connecting the dots, strengthening communities and preventing trafficking underscores the need to understand how human trafficking relates to other forms of violence and how we can prevent it by strengthening protective factors at [snorts] the individual, relational, and community levels. Strengthening communities requires collective action to reduce the conditions that contribute to exploitation, build resilience, and create environments where people are protected from human trafficking and other forms of violence. A successful response to human trafficking requires a coordinated communitywide effort that includes collaboration with those who have experienced human trafficking firsthand to ensure that services and programs are effective and meet the needs of all supervisors. I'm sorry, survivors. Whereas every individual, family, community, and organization can help raise awareness, prevent trafficking, and support survivors by learning how to take action at hcf.hhs.gov/endtraicking. So now, therefore, I, Erica A. Stewart, mayor of the city of St. Labispo on behalf of the entire city council proclaim January 26 as human trafficking prevention month committing to increase awareness and improving education on human trafficking to prevent and combat human trafficking. With that, I also want to mention um not to conflate issues, but there was a recent um colleague of mine, elected colleague of mine that was sharing that people were um in the midst of ICE raids, uh taking people and um without any sort of ID, without any sort of um reasoning that they should they were not ICE officers in any way, shape or form. and it was people who were actually involved in

human trafficking. So, in that moment of everyone kind of spreading in a raid, they were able to take advantage of some people who were really um in a in a bad space. So, I just re really want you to remember the see something, say something. It's not trit. It really is. If you see something that's off that shouldn't be happening, please contact our PD, contact our police department. They are here to help with issues like that. So with that, um I will say thank you to Dr. Sophie Rose. Even though she's not here, I will uh get this to her and also um communicate with Luminina Alliance as to what we did today. Thank you so much for listening to the uh the proclamations and uh discussing what we have today. With that, uh we will be passing this over to the city manager report. Um, and I believe that uh, city manager and potentially our interim chief will be sharing just a few moments about the uh, fire that was mentioned earlier.

Sure. Thanks so much. Um, it's happy to be here. Happy New Year to everybody. Good to be back and in session again. Um, I think I don't have a slide specifically on this issue and so I'll take the opportunity to go ahead and ask our interim fire chief Randy Harris to come up and speak a little bit about uh the fire that was mentioned earlier. Um, and I guess while he's coming up, I'll echo the thanks uh that Miss Florence echoed or shared earlier to our entire team and the coordinated effort of not just our fire department but a number of other departments in the county um with the level of support that we received. Uh it was incredibly helpful and um everything went I think as well as it it it could have and I want to thank our entire team for their response and professionalism. So, with that, I'll hand it over to uh Chief Harris.

Thank you, Mayor McDonald. Uh Mayor Stewart, Council, my name is Randy Harris. I'm your interim fire chief. Uh yesterday, we had a structure fire that was dispatched as a commercial structure on the lower end of Hyera Street. Uh first arriving units did find smoke um showing from a large almost 10,000 square foot structure that was used for aerospace manufacturing. Uh with that, we had a upgrade in the assignment. Um the dispatcher did a great job and went to a working fire which for us um lets us get um on call services coming back. So within the first 10 minutes we were even able to have another engine come back um with offduty staffing that was able to um provide coverage for the city um during everything else. So during this fire we had um business as usual. We had multiple other emergencies um came in um anywhere from fire alarms to um additional medical aids. With that said, it was a regional effort. So um a second alarm was called for um the second alarm resources um came from other municipalities as well as CalFire um five cities fire authority, moral bay um CalFire from not only the St. Louis area but also from um all the way up in the Park Hill area. Um this particular fire was a little bit challenging because not only did was it in a commercial structure but it also involved lithium batteries which have their own toxic hazards. Uh with that said um once the fire was contained then it became a hazmat incident and we were able to um take the um hazards not only toxic from the air um but also the the runoff and we were able to evaluate that u make sure that there was no further public hazard. And then we set up a process with um not only the building owner um but ES arrow to slowly be able to figure out, hey, how can we get you back in business? How can we u you know make this less impactful? And so we work with all the departments um not only the

police department but also the building department, water department um to come up with a plan so that way we can get them back in that building. And and we appreciate the collaboration um regionally with all the other departments also internally u among St. city and uh very proud of the the team uh effort that the city fire department did with administration and and working collaboratively with the business owner. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much for that. I really appreciate it and you know I think it really highlights the fact that we were all off recently for holidays and enjoying life but all of us all of you in public safety continue to keep us safe throughout the year every single day. So thank you for that. Thank you.

City manager. We'll pass it on back to you.

Thanks very much. Um I think I don't know I just want to also punctuate that quickly stated part of that response which included um the fact that we had uh units that were deployed in other parts of the city because there were other emergencies happening. We needed to call back staff who were not actually on duty and to that dedication from our team to come back quickly to aid um each other and aid, you know, making this the site safe um is just really a testament to the the amazing team and the support um that you all and the community has provided to make sure that we're able to provide this service. So really also want to thank our staff of course um really hard work out there and I think the really excellent outcome in terms of the way things could have gone and where we're at today. So thanks very much for the opportunity to highlight that a little bit. Um we again were here in January and we have uh kicked off our second annual slow restaurant month. So we are about halfway through. Um, this program is aimed to celebrate our culinary scene and support our local restaurants during what may typically be a slower part of the year. This year's program includes 60 participating businesses with 16 new restaurants participating for the first time. Um, special menus from each restaurant are live at visitslow.comrestmonth. So, that's really where you're going to go check out what all those uh new deals are to, you know, give any, hey, if you're wondering what to do for dinner tonight or any other night, start there. It's an amazing place to start. Uh this year, we've added an incentive to help bring even more diners to participate to our restaurants locally. Each time diners visit a participating restaurant, you can enter to win a $250 gift card um to their your favorite slow restaurant

month eery. There will be four random winners selected each week throughout the month. And dining out in January uh really can make a difference. So what we saw last year from our program was a 4% year-over-year increase in restaurant sales tax revenue uh during that slow restaurant month. Uh and this outpaced both county and state trends. Uh so we really encourage folks to get out, try something new, uh support our local businesses and restaurants and um yeah, try try them out and we'll look forward to another success and reporting out in the future. We're also excited to announce that we are offering our community academy this year. This is a free program that we offer every other year and this is that year for us. provides a behindthescenes look at our city government with opportunities to meet council members, department heads, and a lot of our staff members. Um, as well as to network with your other community members and make great connections. It's a great opportunity if you're interested in becoming more involved in our city government or if you're just kind of curious about what it is that we do and what it's like u behind those scenes and you just want to learn more about how the city works. I really encourage everybody should want to know more about how our city works and there's lots to learn. Um our program includes six sessions held on Monday evenings from 5:30 to 8:00 p.m. This the program runs from March 9th through April 13th and we do provide dinner. Um there are also optional tours scheduled throughout the program to give participants that hands-on behindthe-scenes look at um some of our city facilities and the way things work. Um, it is open to anyone age 18 or older who lives, works, or attends school in St. Louis Bispo. The important thing to note here, and why it's we're highlighting it, we want to make sure everybody's aware now is that applications are filled on a first come, first come basis. We have 35 spots. Um, they open on February 2nd at 5:30 p.m.,

which is the time that your program would be starting. Um, so please uh mark your calendars and if you have any questions, please email slow communityacademys slowcity.org. We also want to highlight a uh our next Lunar New Year celebration event. This will be held on March 19th in Mission Plaza from 6:00 to 8:30 p.m. We're really excited to help support this program um in partnership with Downtown Slow and Farmers Market. Our office of diversity, equity, inclusion has some amazing performances planned with great local food vendors that will be on site and a special guest from Cowpali, I guess. Drum roll. Uh, Chase the Mustang because this year marks the year of the horse, which is often associated with optimism, energy, and opportunity. Feel that. Let it sink in. We got it going. And with Chase the Mustang preparing to retire, lots of opportunity there, too. We wanted to make sure he had a chance to engage with our community in a meaningful way. Um, we're adding new things and new uh new ideas to this event, I think, just about every day. Um, so keep an eye out for our official announcement and our e notifications and mark your calendars to again join us in Mission Plaza on February 19th at 6 p.m. We also want to highlight some uh awards that our parks and recreation department uh was recently honored to receive um from the California Parks and Recreation Society at their annual district 8 fall forum. District 8 is comprised of parks and recreation agencies from San Los Aispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties. And our staff received awards for uh three actually four different areas. Um the first was a creating community award uh be for our really popular September scramble obstacle course program. So hopefully if anybody

doesn't know what that is, check it out. Engage, give it a try. There may be some mud involved, just FYI. Um we also received two awards for excellence in design for improvements at our Laguna Lake Park. Um that included the dog park and our bike park. Um just want to highlight our bike park project was really a a in-house project that our own staff um made with the help of our community partners um designed and got it out there and people using it really quickly. So really great to see that award come in. And of course, our dog park, much beloved, and um bigger, better, you know, all those pieces. Uh and then finally, uh Ranger Megan Hendrickson received a rising professional award for her dedication in the field of recreation and service um from the district 8 board. So, we just want to highlight that amazing work of our department. Uh, and kind of somewhat on theme, um, because our public art program is housed in our parks and recreation department, um, we celebrated something special last week, which was the installation of a new, uh, sculpture in the roundabout uh, at Froom Ranch Road in Heirloom Place um, on January 6th. This sculpture is called shift and it was created in partnership with the San Louis Abispo Museum Art Museum of Art or Sloma uh and the city and uh brought to us by local artist Warren Hamrich. Uh the sculpture again it's entitled Shift carries a message of connection and shared purpose and symbolizes resilience and collective care for the environment and hopefully folks um can check it out. I will say that um it it feels like it has always been there and it belongs exactly there. So if you drive by you might think it's always been there, but it is a brand new piece and we're really excited um to see it in place.

Just wanted to highlight as we usually do some items at our on our next city council meeting. Uh our next meeting is next week. Tonight's meeting is actually a reschedule of our regular uh meeting. And so, uh, we'll be back here on Tuesday night. Um, our business items include our state legislative briefing from last year. Um, we will also be really want to make sure folks are aware that we'll be discussing um whether to join a letter that the county has put together regarding potential extension of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant um license as well as a request for legislation to both extend the license to reinstate the unitary tax um which has created a lot of impacts to our school district um and to address conservation And so we'll be bringing that letter forward for conversation with the council. We really want to hear from the community um about that consideration of whether to join on to that letter. Um and so hopefully folks are aware that that's going to be happening. And then the last is we'll be talking um really led by slow cog but in coordination with our staff. We'll be talking about their local roads first sales tax ballot measure um that will support transportation projects if it is put on the ballot and passed. um we'll be discussing their draft transportation investment plan. And then finally, we wanted to make sure folks were aware that we um had a scheduled uh study session regarding a rental registry um process and program. Uh originally scheduled for February 17th, recognizing the level of uh like likely need for a lot of discussion and conversation about that, we've decided to make it its own standalone special meeting also in February. but later in the month on the 24th. So that will be a dedicated special meeting to discuss this topic beginning at 5:30 p.m. that evening. So

with that and concludes my slides. I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. So much good information. Any questions from my colleagues? Okay, vice mayor. Yeah, thank you, mayor, and uh thank you, city manager. Uh no questions. Just wanted to put in a plug for Community Academy as a previous uh attendee of Community Academy. It was an amazing experience. I hope you all apply and definitely sign up for all of the field trips, especially the one if you get to go out on the lake. It's a pretty cool experience.

Still rubbing it in, huh? Rubbing it in. [laughter] I'm really hoping I can do that sometime. Um I I also was hoping that we could expand the academy, but we're not quite there yet on amount of people. So know that February 2nd's uh very important because there were a lot of people who wished they could have been part of the academy. So if you're interested or know other people who are interested, they're like, "Yeah, I'll apply for it later." No, no, apply for it now. With that, uh we will get moving to our public comment for items not on the agenda. So if you are here for anything else that's on the agenda, um hang tight. We'll get back to you. But otherwise, uh, city clerk, how many people do we have for public comment? We have four.

Okay, great. Thank you. Okay. Um, I'm going to call out all four names. If you'd please, um, line up so that you can be ready to speak when the ne person in front of you is done. Steve Barish, Leslie Halls, Alice Aldra, Aldrana. Close. Okay. And, uh, Jerry Clemens. Not yet. There you go.

Is it on now? Okay. Um I'm here to um give some comments about this mailer that was sent out [snorts] with the water and sewer bills recently. Um it is a well done mailer. Congratulations to the communications and public relations teams. It's clear and concise and it points out some things that kind of disturb me and some other members of the St. Louis Abyispo Property and Business Owners Association when Measure Y first was introduced. And here's one of the graphics. The first year I believe they collected around $1.6 million. Now, in the last 16 years, they've collected over $200 million, which is still less than one year's all city operating funds. The problem that I'm having and other people that around me are having is that these measure Y funds were initially promised for special projects. a new fire station number five, renovation or expansion of the existing police and detention facilities on Santa Rosa. And now when you go through this mailer, you realize that a lot of these projects and enhancements were covered under the old city budgets without this measure G20. So I asked a question 16 years ago. What did we ever do before Measure Y? Nobody could give me an answer on the council then. Nobody. I'll ask it a lot of different ways, but it appears that the G20 funds are funding over 50

full-time positions in the city. That is almost 10% of the city's workforce. And at the same time, the city is advertising for positions that are non-paid, nonbenefits in public journals and advertisements to join the city team. That way, you can meet new people. But I think the uh city manager's presentation would be more interesting. A boat ride [snorts] on the river would be a good team builder. But with 50 full-time positions and over 200 million raised, it brings up the question, what are the special projects that are above and beyond the normal operations of the city that this measure G20 funds are going to be used for? I didn't see any in the uh litany of uh projects that were significant. The city clearly needs new parks.

Thank you so much. We do need new parks. Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Lesie Halls. I'm a longtime resident of St. Louis Abyispo. Um I'm here tonight just to say a few things about the city's finances. Um, the city currently owes over $180 million to the California Public Employees Retirement Union. That's about $3,500 per person in St. Louis Abyspo. But we are presently just paying the interest on this while we continue to hire people. Um, under the guise of uh the state is making us, we have built houses upon houses upon houses everywhere. Um, city staffing has nearly doubled and uh, like I say, the city was on a real roll for a while. It costs over $100,000 to get a building permit in St. Louis Abyspo. So, when you look at all the hundreds, if not thousands of buildings that have been built in the last five or six years, the city got a lot of money out of that. Unfortunately, that's a one-time income. You can't build things on one-time incomes. and uh the expenses start to hit after a bit too in terms of additional uh road maintenance, fire and police and other public services. It's uh another problem is the matching funds where we build bike lanes or we build roundabouts because the state gives us matching funds so we get it for maybe 50% of what it would normally cost. But then you also have the maintenance issues and other things. It's like the woman who goes to Neiman Marcus and she gets $2,000 worth of clothes for only $1,000 and she says, "Hey, I saved $1,000 and I got a brand new unfit, new uniforms, everything." Then the dry cleaning bills come in and she doesn't have the money to pay them. Uh, I'm not really criticizing everything. I think you've done a good job on accomplishing many of the goals you had, but now it's time to solve these fiscal problems once and for all and not just continue to kick them down the can. You inherited a mess. It hasn't been changed and now you guys can

be the heroes. You've accomplished a lot of the things that you set out to do. I think the first thing you need to do is looking at cutting staffing and cut it at the top. It's not fair to take it out on the rank and file that are actually out there doing the work when you got guys sitting behind a desk. You need to start at the top if you're going to make any kind of impression that you're serious about this. So, I would say maybe it's time to look at all the new positions that were created in the last five years back when Heidi Harmon was mayor. Cut some of those. Ask them to take a a pay cut or just say, "Okay, you know, we're going to limit a lot of this stuff." The other thing you may want to do, let me put my glasses on so I can actually see. Uh, you know, the unions control pretty much all the rank and file, and I again would not ask them to quit when there are other people that need to. Perhaps you could give golden handshakes to some of these people. And lastly, perhaps in the next three years, you could put a limit on city retirements of maybe $104,000 a year. Now, that's $2,000 a week in retirement. I think you can do that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay. Um, good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Alice Aldana, and as a concerned customer, I'm here to oppose Southern California Gas Company's plan to close their San Louis Abyispo branch office located at 2240 Emily Street, suite number 140 along with its 42 branch offices. These closures prioritize corporate cost savings over serving the community. The branch office provides direct access for customers with disabilities, seniors, non-English speakers, and for people who do not want to contact a call center or have difficulties with online services. I ask for the public support to contact the CPU opposing SoCal Gas's plan. The docket number is A25005001. There will be a total of six public forum hearings before a decision is made. I ask for your support and the public to pay their gas bill in person at their local office. Um, please make your voices heard. Um, I want to state that the branch office only takes cash, check, or money order as a form of payment. And I have copies of the upcoming public forum hearings. And there is one that you are able to attend virtually on February 6. Thank you.

Thank you. May I leave these somewhere? Yes. If you want to give that to the city clerk, then we can have that in our email. Our final speaker is um Geraldine Clemens.

Hi, Mayor Council. My name is Jerry Clemens and I'm a citizen citizen of St. Louis Abyispo. I live in St. Louis Abyispo. Anyway, on February 11th or 12th, 2026, the California Fish and Game Commission will vote on a proposal to list the Central Coast and Southern California mountain lion populations and their critical ad habitat as threatened under [clears throat] California law. That includes our San Louis Bismo County distinct sub uh suboper. It's very it's a it's an important uh mountain lion population that um [clears throat] excuse me. Anyway, this this project has been work been worked on since 2019 with the Mountain Lion Foundation and the Center for P Biological Diversity. U anyway, mountains mountain lines, I'm sorry. I'm just nervous. You know, I always get nervous. These mountain lions face increasing threats from habitat loss, fragmentation, and isolation. And science clearly shows that stronger protections are urgently needed. We do have a decent population here in this county, but we aren't dealing with the climate crisis. We have no idea uh yet as to the ramifications if you know that will absolutely influence this population as well as other wildlife and habitats. And then with the way that we're building, you know, that's the other thing. [clears throat and cough] It's really important that we pay

attention to where we're building because that affects the the uh the um the dispersal of the dispersal of the mountain lion population. Anyway, what I'm asking you to do is submit a comment to to support this because we need to keep these guys around. Anyway, F like Frank GC at fgc.ca.gov under uh the subject reference agenda item mountain lion central coast in Southern California deadline before February 11th, 2026. Or you can write a letter anyway support the listing of the Central Coast and Southern California mountain lions as threatened. emphasize the importance of protecting critical habitat and wildlife connectivity, urged the commission to follow the best available science and CDFW's recommendation. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much. One of the hardest things the public comment is it's items that are not on our agenda, so we can't often respond. Um, but there are so much that I wish I could. Um I will say that in February we'll be having our um midyear look at our uh financial plan and uh last year's budget as well as today we'll be talking about our audited budget. Um so if you are interested in hearing more about where where measure G funds are going or our additional payments that we're making towards KPERS um or many of the other things that were mentioned parks etc. today. I would encourage you to check out those agenda items. Also, um for um the SoCal Gas, I actually just had emailed uh back and um hoping that we can find out some information about that. I just met our new SoCal Gas rep. Um Tim Mahoney of many years has retired and we have a new representative. So, I'll reach back to our utilities um and city manager and see if there's anything more that we can do. One of the things that is really hard is when large corporations change the way that they're doing business that often affects us locally and figure out how do we help um be able to make sure we still have access um for our community members and that's concerning. With that being said, um city manager or any department heads, any messages you would like to share based on the comments that were mentioned today?

City manager,

thank you. Just in terms of the um upcoming conversations regarding our budget, um as mayor, as you mentioned, we have our annual audited results on the agenda tonight, we have our second quarter midyear budget conversation um coming up on our second meeting in February. And then on March 3, we will be dedicating the majority of our meeting to a discussion of potential expenditure reduction options that will help us address an identified future deficit in future outer years of our uh forecast. So there will be a number of different opportunities and discussions coming up over the next couple of months. Um really taking a deep dive on a few items in our budget. So, just wanted to make sure folks were aware, especially of that March 3rd conversation.

Thank you. And I don't have um off the top of my head when the revenue enhancement oversight committee will next meet, but um can we look at that on the city um sorry, the city calendar? Is that on there already as far as the next time they meet? Okay, we'll find that out so that way the community members can kind of reference what they've seen in their utility bill to the next meeting and be able to uh communicate with the members on the revenue and enhancement over oversight committee. We call it RIO. So, sorry. It's like trying to remember what all those letters stand for at this point. So, excuse me. [clears throat] Thank you for your patience on that. With that, okay. Um, city council member Marks.

Uh, yes. Just uh along uh the topic of mountain lions, uh there was an a notice that went out uh today [clears throat] uh first from Freddy Aotti, our city biologist, and then from our uh publicist Whitney Kazinski. Anyway, Whitney, um that uh mountain lions have been uh cited in the Ocean Air uh area and uh south of um uh south of LOVR um in residential areas recently. So, uh going along with what the mayor had said, if you see something, say something. Definitely, um contact um I'd say the police, right, as a first step. they can route it to the uh fish and wildlife people. Uh so uh it's uh something to just be aware of.

Thank you. Um Council Member Shoresman. Yeah, thank you. So, I just wanted to clarify because you mentioned the RIO mayor, the revenue enhancement oversight committee. And just for that speaker and others who may be interested in that mailer that they got in their utilities um bill that was about measure G, the revenue enhancement oversight council specifically looks at the Measure G funds and how those are spent and make sure that they're spent according to the way that they were originally supposed to based on the measure language. So that's specifically about measure G for those who are interested. Just wanted to throw that in there.

Thank you for the clarification. I appreciate that. All right. Next, we will head over to the consent agenda. Um we do have one item that we need to pull uh the council liaison submittee subcommittee assignments for 2026. Just a a minor update we have to uh state in there. With the rest, are there anything else you'd like to pull? Vice Mayor. Yes. Thank you. I'd love to pull 6H for a very brief discussion. Great. 6H. And if no other items, then um is there any public comment for items other than 6 C or 6H? Yes, we have two for 6G.

Okay, great. Uh Steve Barish and then uh John Ashbaw. Um, I was going to comment on the U agenda item dealing with the second reading of the historic preservation update. Um, the city owns a number of properties. Historically speaking, which John can attest to, um, a lot of these properties have sat dormant for years because there hasn't been enough budget to renovate, modernize, seismically upgrade, whatever. So, you put a fence around it and you call it a historic building, but you don't do anything with it. Um, that has been the case on the property on Dana Street, the adobe there. There's another adobe that's been fenced above the high school. It's one of the oldest adobies in the city. Again, it just sits there. Um, and as you know, Adobe block disintegrates over time. I happen to be an architect of 52 years and it needs more enhancing, more strengthening, uh more protection the longer it sits. So I urge the city to look at all of its inventory of buildings and allocate a reasonable amount to keep these old buildings stable. Uh as you know, we've had 4,200 earthquakes in the state of California this year. Earthquake and seismic coverage is not getting any cheaper, nor is flood insurance. It all goes up exponentially right now. The markets are in turmoil. So, you have a lot of properties in your inventory that really need attention. You can't just let them sit there anymore. And I want to make sure that the historic ordinance

has an asterisk for those buildings that have not had the proper attention. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Madame Mayor, members of the council. Michelle on Zoom. Uh the um uh historic preservation ordinance is u uh main subject I'd like to speak about. And just very briefly, I want to compliment our staff and the team of consultants that you uh enabled us to hire to work with the cultural heritage commission uh that I sit on. Um the results of that are before you this evening. Uh the ordinance will uh trigger I I hope a lot more interest as we've just heard in the city's um attention and and u uh commitment to the uh preservation of of our uh vast legacy of physical historic resources in this city. Um I know back in you know 40 years ago for 1984 85 there was a significant volunteer output for the city to identify historic resources that uh analog system is still in place and u I have suggested to our our uh staff and I know they're considering this just again launching a new volunteer effort to help us u identify all those historic resources and help sort out as a result of this ordinance. But I want to just point out that the consensus that was achieved with this ordinance is so different from the time and council member Marks, you remember um 200910 when I had just joined the council and the new historic preservation ordinance was being presented. It was terribly controversial and um a lot of um a lot of disputes about that. This time that didn't happen. We had uh really a good result overall with us. So, uh, thank you to, uh, uh, your staff, Brian Lavell, has been very good with, uh, working with us, your consultants, and, uh, my colleagues on the cultural heritage committee. And we are working

on the, uh, Adobe, the the Burton, um, uh, Waterman village project very hard. I'm on that advisory team. We're also, we have an active group working on the Loma Adobe. And um volunteers are always welcome to those uh both those groups to help uh move those along and get those adobies uh um improved and uh ready for public uh um benefit. Um if I might, Madame Mayor, I I also just wanted to acknowledge that uh you I I did send an email to each of you. I spoke to each of you as well this morning about the the item on the regular agenda. I will not be able to be here for that item. If I might be able to just say a couple of words about that. I've got another minute 30 seconds.

Well, never mind. I uh I will not be able to attend, but you've got my views on that and we've talked about it and I I wish we could do something different. Maybe we can. Maybe we will. Thank you. Thank you. Byebye. All right. Without any public any more public comment, I'll bring it back to the council for items other than 6 C and 6H. Um any comments? Council

Marks comment on the historical um ordinance. And I just want to point out that um addressing all of the listed properties is very important. However, um as testimony has brought out, uh there are unlisted um uh structures in town that are also historically important and uh several times in the past when various developers have wanted to destroy um I'm thinking of the uh Paneo cottage on Marsh Street [clears throat] or the um Norcross building also on Marsh Street which is across from the new Luminina um thrift. Those two um structures uh were never listed, but uh when it came to council uh and the developer wanted to destroy them, the public and council said no, we have to save them. And they're it turned out they were very historically important. So, I'm just hoping that we're not with the ordinance that we're not wedded only to what is already listed because we also need to consider what may be really important but hasn't made it to the list yet. So, that that's all I have on that one. I appreciate that. I know that there's been so much work um on some of the um addresses that are on our properties that are on our list, but there are always more and we always find out more information. Um and I I so am thankful for the volunteers who are helping out with the Waterman village and with the Loma Adobe as mentioned earlier. um it's been a just a joy to tour those and get an understanding of how we can help um support and bring that history forward to more people. So, um this was this not so much I mean the ordinance, yes, but

the list was a huge undertaking and something that um I remember from the seven years I've been on here kept being something was being pushed and and andy peas I remember council member Peas kept saying we have to finish this. We have to finish this. So, I'm glad we are at the state we're at now and that we have so much more to do. It's not just because we have a new list doesn't mean we're done. Um, so I think that's the important thing to remember. Um, but I think updating this ordinance really helps us to be able to move forward because we have a plan and a and a road map. Um, so with that, I will uh take a motion for the consent items items outside of 6 C and 6H. Vice Mayor.

Yeah, I'll move approval of all the items except for 6 and 6H. Thank you, Council Member Boswell. Second. Thank you. Can we have roll call? Vice Mayor Francis? Yes. Council member Boswell? Yes. Council member Marks? Yes. Council member Shoresman? Yes. Mayor Stewart?

Yes. The motion passes 5-0. Thank you for that. Um the council liaison subcommittee assignments. uh we just have a little bit of timing that's happening with IWMA and uh thank you and the transitioning of the different subcommittee members. So, uh Council Member Marks, would you like to present suggested changes? Uh yes, it's a pretty minor change, but backing [clears throat] up our appointments to the various regional boards, [clears throat] excuse me, including the Integrated Waste Management Authority. Um if we voted in vote them in tonight, and I I'm supportive of all of them. Um except uh the problem is that tomorrow um Wednesday the 14th uh there is an IWMA board meeting and um council member Shoresman and Boswell haven't had a chance yet to really be onboarded or gotten up to speed. So, um, my suggestion is that we, uh, make the IWMA appointment transition effective on the 15th, which is the day after the 14th, which means that as the uh, representative on the board, I could continue and uh, and be able to vote in that meeting tomorrow.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Oh, sorry. Uh, Michelle has her hands up as well ahead of me. Council member Shoresman.

Uh, yeah. I just wanted to even say more importantly, obviously, I'm not present at this meeting because I'm out of town on um on work business for my other job. And so, I am not present to attend the meeting tomorrow. uh and thinking that it would be a good idea for council member Marks to just continue for one more meeting. I asked her if she could attend tomorrow um to uh to kind of create a little bit more continuity until I'm back in town and we'll be able to attend the February meeting. So, I'm in a I'm in support of having our uh council member Boswell's and my appointments begin on the 15th. uh that way she will attend, council member Marks will attend the meeting on the 14th and then we will be instated on the 15th is how uh we were talking about doing it.

Thank thank you and I see a nodding of the head of council Boswell uh vice mayor. Thank you. Yeah, in the spirit of accuracy here, uh Capslo is also intending to have one additional meeting this coming Thursday with me as the member. Uh so we can also alter uh council member Boswell's appointment to that seat until the end of the week. Perfect. Thank you. Um and then at that point the transition of positions would be effective January 17th. Sorry, can you press the button again? Thank you.

I think the 16th would be accurate. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. 2016. Okay. So, at this point, uh we would make the uh make the new dates for purposes of onboarding and just getting caught up to speed um for the IW IWMA board to move to uh January 15th and for the CAPS slow board to move to January 16th. Um that sounds good as well. I see shaking of heads for Council Member Boswell. Thumbs up for Shoresman. Um without any other comments, I will pass it over to public comment.

No public comment. All right. So, with that, um this sounds like a logical uh transition and plan for these two boards along with keeping the rest of the subcommittee assignments for 2026. So, I'm happy um to move the item 6 C with the changes we mentioned. Council member Marks, I'll second it. Great. Thank you. City clerk, can we have roll call? Mayor Stewart, yes. Council member Marks, yes. Council member Boswell, yes. Council member Shoresman, yes. Vice Mayor Francis,

yes. And the motion passes 5-0. Thank you for helping with the details. Um, and unfortunately when we make these decisions, we don't always know when the next board meeting is going to make some uh changes or the committee has some new things that need to be included. So sometimes this has to happen. Um, just depends on what's happening. So with that, moving on to 6H. Vice Mayor.

Yes, thank you. I'll start by saying so this is the item the uh south and king crossing uh which I am very much uh supportive of. Um I have a kiddo who used to attend Hawthorne Elementary and it's in a really important intersection here for for safety. I did receive quite a bit of community uh inquiry around the idea of red light enforcement cameras. Um, and after speaking to staff, uh, realized that that was a really significant work item that would likely take, um, more resources than we have at this time. But there was a side discussion about potentially using uh, the LPR cameras that we have uh, deployed in the city in some places, the license plate readers. And while that wouldn't be a uh a way of capturing uh violations in the moment, if there was an incident at this crossing, at this pedestrian crossing, then we would potentially then have the data to be able to figure out um you know, who was at fault in those situations. Uh, and so I wanted just to kind of throw out there, they were going to do a little bit, staff was thinking about doing a little bit of exploration around the pole capacity and uh, conduit and all of that and make sure that that would be an easy install, but also wanted to make sure I brought it back to the council uh, after that discussion.

Thank you. Um, with that, are you looking to have that discussion a little bit later when additional costs would be known? um and not halt the actions of 6H or are you hoping to include that in this motion without any additional data? I'd like to uh include that in the motion without additional data so that we can move forward with this project um keep the timeline in place but just curious about um the ease of implementing that as an additional uh feature of the project itself.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor and council members. Aaron Floyd, public works and utilities director, obviously joined by our subject matter expert on this, uh, Luke Schwarz. I think it would be appropriate to ask Luke to give us a little more um, background and the technical side on what other appliances and impertinances have been um, hung on different around town. And then we might also um in addition to that need to ask a little bit of assistance from our police chief uh Chief Scott to tell us a little bit about how that might be utilized a little bit. So this might be a two-part answer. So thank you. Thank you.

Thanks Aarin. Uh in terms of could the traffic signal system support the addition of future things like camera license plate reading cameras and things? I don't see a concern with that. Um, we've worked with Slope PD with other LPR cameras installed on street light poles and other things around the city. Um, it's a pretty straightforward process. I don't think it would involve any redesign of the traffic signal or costly modifications. Um, in terms of like what those potential costs or funding mechanism for funding, uh, things like that, um, I would invite Chief Scott up to see if he has more thoughts to share. Usually, we're involved with just the technical specs. Can it work here? Yeah. Okay. You guys do your thing. make sure we have an encouragement permit for your contractor. Um it's not something I think that we build into our construction contract. It'd be another vendor that they work with. Um but again, if there's other questions on that and again um looking ahead when we come back with our vision zero action plan, we do have some recommendations and thoughts on potential for automated red light and potentially speed enforcement down the road and we're happy to get into the weeds on those logistics at that time. I guess my point is is do we need to have that license plate LPR camera discussion today? Um do you need that direction today in this items um movement?

I don't need that specific direction at this time. If I think so. Okay. Slow PD is looking for um council approval at this time in terms of funding authorization to use, you know, potential remaining project contingency funds or other funding sources and they're looking for that action at this time. That could be something that there may be value in discussing, but I we don't need to know when or how that's happening at this time to move forward with the with the crossing.

Thank you. I think Chief Scott's right behind you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I just want to thank Luke for suggesting to pay for PD's projects. We're very supportive, 100%. Uh, no, just real quick, obviously with LPRs, we fully support the use of our LPRs. We're continuing to build that system out. Any one-time dollars with this project to invest in that technology would certainly be a benefit for uh the police department and the community. Uh there are ongoing uh costs with LPR technology. So there is a a bill that comes in uh once a month or once a year to support that technology uh in perpetuity. Uh with regarding LPR use for traffic, it's a little bit more complicated. It's obviously a tool that we can have to uh look at incidents after the fact because the way LPR technology works, it captures uh plates all the time, whereas red light cameras are triggered by an incident or an infraction. That's how those operate. So it certainly would and could provide very useful evidence if there is a another tragic incident at that intersection which we hope to avoid. But we'd want to talk a little bit more about policy issues and the use of LPR for traffic.

Thank you. I think of the um doorbell cameras that many people register with the police departments to be helpful in those moments um kind of give it that same feel. Extremely valuable and we've solved so many uh crimes in the use of LPR technology. It's really really been a benefit for our community. Uh so we're very supportive. We know the we do uh the installations a lot of the times after the projects are complete. So uh including it on the front end is is a benefit to uh the department for sure. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Um Council Member Marks. Yeah, I think we should um uh just offer some direction to staff to explore that uh option as part of this so that it's not ever lost in the shuffle because I I think it's important to make that uh crossing as safe as as possible. There's so much traffic there and people are uh usually in a hurry and u you know there's also problems with the bike path there with the um near the doughnut shop uh trucks parking there. I mean the whole area is congested and difficult. So anything we can do to help I think we should.

Thank you. Uh Council Member Shoresman. Yeah. I just I think I need a little bit of clarification because I thought that this item and I'm kind of trying to scroll through it quickly, but I thought it included already some additions above and beyond just building the enhanced crossing. I thought it included some additions for LPR equipment. And so I'm confused about what we're asking for in addition. or maybe I just misunderstood what we were being uh recommended to to uh to do right now.

Thank you. That's a great those are great questions. I believe Luke and then the city manager will have some hopefully some answers.

Yes, as as you see before you, the project does include additional funding to upgrade some vehicle equipment for both slow fire and slow PD. Um it's emergency vehicle preeemption equipment. is basically equipment that goes on the traffic signal and then their vehicles that they can tell the signal upstream that they're approaching during an event and it turns it gives a green light to give them priority and get traffic out of the way. So slow PD currently has no preemption equipment on any of their vehicles. So it's a huge upgrade citywide to get that installed as part of this project. And then for Slowfire particularly, we're looking to get additional GPS capabilities which lets them talk to the signal much further downstream. So coming out of fire station one going down south street they can talk to that signal at this crossing to say don't start the crossing or you know flush traffic out as we're approaching. So yes there is a component in the project already as funded that would be adding those upgrades. I think the specific discussion topic here is if there's interest in looking for opportunities to fund something like a license plate reading camera at this crossing either as part of or and shortly thereafter this project and if there's actions as part of this that make that easier to do or more streamlined. So, we've we've got, if if I'm not mistaken, and we've talked about this crossing many times because this has been a long time in the process, but I think um we have other hybrid beacon crossings in the community now that this is going to upgrade. The existing crossing is to a much lower level of equipment than, for example, the Woodbridge crossing or the Fini crossing. And I believe that this project right now is going to get the South King crossing to be uh more similar to Woodbridge or Finy. Is that correct?

Yes. The crossing would be very similar to what you see at Woodbridge or Freeny. Um the upgrades we're talking about is right now if Slow PD has an emergency, they're not able to communicate to those crossings where the vehicle equipment upgrades will add those benefits. This will be the first intersection in town where at the signal, we're also adding that GPS capability where an emergency vehicle with GPS can tell that signal much further ahead that it's approaching.

Right. But we're already in the recommendation right now. That's what we're looking at. What we're um what we're talking about now is adding a I guess a an amendment maybe to the motion to add additional equipment so that we can do license plate reading at this crossing. But that is not present at the other crossings that I mentioned. Right? I would just want to treat this crossing similarly to how we've treated other crossings unless we're going to go back to those crossings and add the same license plate reading technology that we're talking about adding here. That's my concern is consistency with the way that we're doing this.

Those intersections that we wood bridge and don't have the the capability that we're talking about adding to this one. Is that correct?

That that's correct. And in my understanding of the benefits of the license plate readers are not necessarily specific to like a crossing or a intersection, but more to understand who's passing through different points in the city where slow PD can pull up information of if there was a stolen stolen vehicle, did they go through this intersection around this time of day or if there's a child abduction or things like that. It's not necessarily going to give you information on if someone's running a red light or having traffic infractions at this crossing. So, I don't know strategically from Slope PD standpoint if this crossing is a spot that makes sense. I know they have an LPR camera already on South Street closer to fire station one. So, this might not even be a location where there's a huge benefit in getting that technology right here. Um, I'm not confident on that, but we don't have those at other hybrid beacon crossings or other pedestrian crossings, per se.

Okay. City manager, were you gonna Yep, she's she's next. I would just wait until you finished. City manager.

Thank you. I actually don't have much to add. Just that license plate readers we've, as mentioned by our chief, have been incredibly helpful and effective in helping us address um crime that's occurring or may be occurring. And so in the discussion earlier today about uh a red light camera, that type of technology um and enforcement approach is a is a brand new world or it would be for us. We you know there aren't any currently in the in the county and it would be a big undertaking. Not to say it's not a thing we won't do. It's just not currently in our work plans or uh in the project specifically at this intersection. the license plate reader was kind of discussed as an as an option to help in the event of there being an incident at that intersection. It could help with that looking at what vehicle was involved. Um I we have a few license plate readers that we do deploy. Sometimes we move them depending on where we think they might be needed. They're I think fairly small and easily uh attached without too much trouble. Um, of course we're always we are looking at trying to continue building out that network because again it really has been very helpful. Um, I wish we could say, you know, every intersection had some ability with a camera or to be able to track what happens there. We don't yet have that full, you know, CSI enhance enhance into the picture of what happened. But the license plate reader would be obviously a few steps down from a full red light camera. Um, and it in and of itself isn't a full surveillance camera of everything happening there. It really does help with that license plate reading. They're mostly concentrated downtown in our main thoroughares, but again, it is one of those things we are looking at expanding if we could. I would recommend if it's important for this particular project and as a way of

potentially using funding that if it is left over at the end of the project we could if you wanted to include in the motion direction that if there's funds remaining we go ahead and purchase and install the LPR at the site. I think that would work pretty well. It wouldn't create issues for timelines. It wouldn't be difficult for us to deploy. Yeah, I guess I'm still a little bit confused as to what maybe Council Member Francis is is asking that we do differently from the current recommendation. Are we are we just asking staff to look into the additional cost um or are we asking them to implement something um without knowing the the what the cost would be? Um, Council Member Boswell is next, but um, the initial with with your question, I think Vice Mayor, it would make sense for you to um, answer those questions.

Yeah, thank you, Council Member Shoresman, uh, for the question. So, to be really clear, uh, as part of the conversation earlier, uh, we discussed kind of ballpark cost of, uh, installing an LPR. We didn't get into the ongoing cost of that that technology, but it was discussed as about a $4,000 investment, which um we were talking about being fairly minor and that there was a desire to have more of these in in the city. And so there potentially was maybe funding either out there or that would be coming on that this might make sense as a a place for installing one of those types of cameras. And and just to be really clear about the spirit of um why I was inquiring about this. So this particular crossing at South and King is a safe routes to school. It um is a corridor between kind of a highdensity residential area and Hawthorne Elementary. So we have dozens uh of crossing by very small children every single day in this spot. Uh and tragically it was a site of a uh fatality of one of these elementary school uh children in the past. And as somebody who uses this crossing quite a bit, uh we have a lot of struggles getting drivers to respond to to the uh traffic signal. Um I know we had a bicyclist hit in there fairly recently. And so uh really we would just like to have as many safety measures in place to ensure that in the event of an incident we can identify, you know, who is at fault and have that information and data.

Thank you, Council Member Boswell. Um, thank you, Vice Mayor Francis, for raising this issue. Um, it seems like from what we've heard, we uh uh we could direct staff to include the LPR if it can be covered in the existing allocated funds. Um, if it could not, maybe come back to us and report that it could not and give us some options for what else we might do. Um, I'd also suggest that um, as uh, Council Member Shoresman was asking about some of the other uh, PED crossings that we have in the city that this be um, added to some of our discussion on the vision zero plan uh, later this year um, as to not just with LPR but how can we do enhanced enforcement around some of these uh, head crossings that we know um, have been problematic. Um, I would also, um, uh, it's my understanding that this year the legislature changed the law around how red light cameras work, making it much more financially and logistically feasible for cities uh, to move forward with this, which my understanding is it's been very challenging uh, to do this under existing California law. So, that's something I would like to hear more about at at some point, whether that's in vision zero or maybe it's just a memo from staff updating us on what the new law says and allows. Uh, but I I think we it is a big issue. It would probably take us some, you know, a little bit of time to get around to uh doing anything if we wanted to do anything. So, maybe if we can sort of get that conversation started and get some initial information out to council, uh, I think that'd be really helpful. So, um, I'd like to support the motion, include this idea of including the LPR under the existing budget, um, and then providing some direction to staff to come back to us with information about,

uh, other potential safety enhancements and, um, ultimately some evaluation or some information on red light cameras. I'll let you make the motion. Thank you. Well, hold on. We have public comment um, before we get there. [laughter] Well, thank you. I think one other question that I would have and you may not have the answer for this, but both of you and Chief Scott mentioned additional maintenance uh costs. So, I don't know if it's monthly or yearly or what that looks like. Um, is this a large subscription we're fee that we're looking at or is it a pretty nominal fee?

Thank you for the follow-up question. So the uh depending on which vendor that we utilize, it's about 3500 to 5,000 annually per device. Um as long as the location has power and data there, the installation is is not expensive at all, if any, if we do it ourselves. So annual cost about $5,000. Thank you. So more per year than to purchase it. Okay. Thank you. All right. Public comment, please. We have none.

Thank you so much. All right. So, with that, um, you know, I, um, I appreciate this being brought forward, uh, Vice Mayor, because I I have seen many of our emails that come through around, you know, how what can you do, council, to get people to stop. Um, people aren't stopping even with the current uh, flashing crossing. We have, not the beacon, just the current smaller flashing. And, um, you know, going on my um, mini bike ride to uh, from Meadow Park with the kids over to Hawthorne. definitely thought I do not want to cross this on a regular basis. So I I I am so thankful for um the beacon that's coming in and um I support in concept the license plate reading um camera and if this is not going to be a large cost addition to our current um budget, I am comfortable with that. I do also think that because the mention of there's already another LPR camera on South Street, um that brings down some of my other anxiety that I had, but I am aware that this is also a pretty lower income community and we start just popping up cameras all over to watch the lower inome communities. That doesn't really feel good to me. So, I want to make sure that we are pointing this um in a way that it's very much focusing towards the crossing and what our goals are versus just we feel like watching people who have low income. That doesn't that doesn't seem great to me. So, um there's just a lot more conversation I would have around it if this was our only topic. But, um I think we all would like to move on and make sure that we have this um um crossing done today. So, with that, Vice I'm sorry, Council Member Shoresman, you have your hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to um say thank you for the discussion. I wasn't expecting and didn't understand. So, sorry, Council Member Francis for all my questions. I was just trying to figure

out exactly what you were looking for um for us to do. But agree that this is a a a pretty high priority. It has been a high priority intersection for a long time. All of the places where we've put beacons in have been um places where people have been hurt. um and sometimes significantly we had a a death at the Woodbridge crossing area as well. So these are uh high highly um important and dangerous uh crossing areas and we need to do what we can to um make them feel as safe as we can. And I think the just the addition of the hybrid the expanded hybrid beacon that's going in will will will go a long ways to making this particular crossing much safer as well. Um, and so, but I also hear what the mayor is saying about the increasing cost. You know, it's $4,000 here, $4,000 there. But, um, it it all adds up eventually. But I think that that if there is room in the budget for this, which I think is the way the motion is probably going along the lines of what the city manager suggested that we uh include this if there is money left in the budget um to install the camera, then I think we should do it and we and we should go back and talk about the other locations as well at a future time.

Thank you. I I agree as we continue as council member Bos council member Boswell said to um focus on with the vision zero that we talk about this and the other uh beacons and or potential other uh locations we'll be looking at making upgraded modifications for safety for multimmoal uh transportation in our community. So with that, Council Member Boswell, Vice Mayor, who's making the uh motion? I think it's Vice Mayor.

Yeah, thank you. I'd like to go ahead and move to approve uh item 6H with the addition that if there's room in the budget, we would like to have the uh license plate reader um added in as part of the project installation. Um and if we don't have the budget for it for that item to come back to us with additional funding options. Thank you, Council Member Boswell. Second. Second. Thank you, city clerk. Can we have roll call? Vice Mayor Francis, yes. Council member Boswell, yes. Council member Marks, yes. Council member Shoresman, yes. Mayor Stewart,

yes. And that's a 50-0 vote. Thank you very much, Vice Mayor, for bringing this to us. and um the robust conversation over such a small budget item, but yet it's really about safety and it's about how do we continue to um keep everyone accountable that's trans uh moving around our different roads, whether you're rolling or strolling. And with that, we're just going to take a 10-minute break and then we'll come back and get into our public hearing items. All right. Well, welcome back to the city council meeting. uh we will be discussing our public hearing and business items and the first item is the uh to receive the annual comprehensive financial report. Sometimes you'll hear it known as the ACER and this is our audit of the 202425 year and I will pass it off to our financial director Emily Jackson.

Good evening madame mayor, members of the city council. Um tonight we're going to go in the wayback machine a little bit um back to a couple months ago. Um Debbie and Tavi um are going to present the report this evening, but um I wanted to just sort of kick it off by um letting the public know what an important part of what the finance um does on a daily basis this audit is. Um, this is a really great way to get a third-party outsers's perspective um on how we manage our finances and excuse [clears throat] me um also helps to ensure transparency of the city's finances on an ongoing basis. Um the audit is a months and months and monthsl long process and our accounting team under the leadership of our deputy director Debbie Malakote and our senior accountant Tavi Garcia um do a tremendous job of preparing for this process every year. Um we have a good partner in Bedawi and Associates. You'll hear from them this evening as well. Um, and I just want to thank um Debbie and Tavi, the accounting team, finance department, and all city employees who um willingly comply with our um financial policies and procedures on a daily basis because that's what makes a clean audit possible. So, um, with that, I will kick it over to Debbie and Tavi to, um, present the report this evening. Thank you. Thank you, Emily. Um, I'll kick things off uh by taking a moment to walk the council through the city's various audits. In a nutshell, a successful independent audit provides reasonable assurance that the city's financial statements fairly present the city's financial position and results of operations in accordance with the generally accepted accounting principles, which we commonly refer to

as GAP for short. Meanwhile, the city also prepares a transportation development act report or TDA report which focuses specifically on how certain transportation related revenues were spent, including grant revenues. Finally, the single audit covers how the city spent funds received from the federal government, ensuring proper use of grants and assessing compliance with federal regulations. And for the current fiscal year, as Emily mentioned, all three of these audits were performed by Badawiian Associates. Uh this slide summarizes the key results of the city's annual audit and I am pleased to report that the city received another unqualified or clean audit opinion which means that the auditors found that the financial statements uh are presented fairly in all material respects. Um the audit also reflects positive financial results with increases in the fund balances for the general fund as well as the four enterprise funds. And as far as findings go, uh we do have some good news to report, which I will let Debbie explain, uh shortly. Um this slide here, uh highlights the major sources of revenues and expenditures for the city's governmental funds. As we can see here, the city generated over $144 million with the s largest sources coming from sales tax, local revenue measure, and property taxes. On the expenditure side, total governmental fund spending was just over $122 million with the largest portions directed towards public safety, community development, and general government functions. In addition to the governmental funds, as I mentioned, the city has four enterprise funds, which we can see here. These uh these funds operate more like a business in a sense that they are funded through the charges for the services

they provide. However, in the case of transit, grant funding is also a major contributor. As we can see, for all the enterprise funds, revenues exceeded expenses for the year and thereby resulted in overall increases to the net positions. Local revenue measure. Here we show the results of the voter-approved local revenue measure. This 1.5% local sales tax is a key revenue source for the city and helps protect and maintain important services and public infrastructure identified by the community such as community safety, creek protection, addressing homelessness, economic development, and public recreation facilities among other vital services. and it brought in nearly $31 million for the fiscal year 202425. And with that, I'll hand it over to Debbie. Thanks, Toby. Just a quick reminder on our transportation development act. Uh that is a restricted revenue that we get from the state of California and can only be spent on certain transit or transportation related activities. We during the fiscal year we brought in a little over 60 almost $67,000 that was dedicated to bicycle and pedestrian projects and the transit fund enjoyed about $2.6 million of TDA funding. As a condition of this funding, we have to maintain a certain fairbox ratio, meaning that we bring in a certain amount through our fairbox or local sources as compared to the TDA funding. Once again, we get a little benefit of counting some of our federal grant sources towards this for the next couple of years, one more year, I think. Uh we have to maintain a ratio of 20%. We're currently at 228% for the year. And even if we didn't have that federal funding, we would still be about 23%. So, we would still be within our our fair ratios. A single audit, as Toby mentioned, u

reports on how we spent federal funding during the fiscal year. And once again, there were no question costs or significant deficiencies for our federal awards. We continued to have two findings or areas of improvement that we've seen for the past couple of years related to our Oracle ERP uh in original configuration. Uh we now believe both of those have been resolved and we will not see these findings show up again. One was related to posting journal entries and manual adjustments that we that we make. And the other it was a major lift for our payroll team this year with an upgraded configuration related to how we calculate overtime. There's no longer the manual intervention. That is an absolutely automated process. We push the button. It's amazing and fantastic. Very excited about it and a huge lift for our payroll team. So kudos to them for getting that through along with our consultant in October. We have once again produced the popular annual financial report or the paffer. This is uh has a lot of the same information that's in the aer but in a perhaps more digestible uh readable format for the average user. Um you'll find this on the city's website. It has a lot of graphs and charts and um more visual aids to understanding the information. uh the auditor's report uh Mitesh Day is our um audit partner this year. I know many of you have met um Ahmed Badawi. He rotated out this year as being our audit partner and Matesh has taken his place very aly this year and I will turn it over to him to provide his auditor's report.

Thank you Debbie. Um I have a few items uh to go over. Um just I'll cover the deliverables and I think Debbie already mentioned that and the scope of the audit uh the auditor's results uh financial audit I have few slides on the financial statements and then lastly I'll have some required communications I need to make to the council if you go to the next slide uh the deliverables here won't necessarily reiterate everything but essentially we do an an opinion on the financial statements an opinion on internal controls we do a single audit which is the audit of federal awards report on TDA compliance. We'd also do agreed upon procedures on your GAN limit or appropriations limit and we also issue a letter with the required communications that I'll be going over. Uh moving on to the next slide. Sorry, I think for some reason there's a glitch in the presentation that it's we're still working on, but hopefully it doesn't cause any problems. But uh in as far as our auditors report we follow a set of rules that are set by different u organizations. So we follow generally accepted auditing standards that are the rules set by the AICPA as to how we conduct our audits as far as how do we sample, how do we do our reporting, what type of procedures do we need to apply. Uh we also perform the audit in accordance with government auditing standards since this is a government uh which are supplemental to the generally accepted auditing standards and because the city does need to have a single audit we also follow rules uh set in the uniform guidance which essentially tells us which federal programs do we audit how should we audit them and and so forth. Uh we've issued an unmodified opinion. Uh so what that means is your financial statements are fairly stated in all material respects. The accounting policies have been consistently applied. Any estimates that are in the financial

statements that would include your pension, compensated absences, capital assets we believe are reasonable and also the very lengthy amount of disclosures that accompany those statements are accurate and complete. If you move on to the next slide, uh this is a slide presenting the governmentwide financial statements. So the act is a quite complicated uh document. There are two sets of financial statements. The governmentwide financial statements which are consolidated uh financial statements that includes long-term items and also the fund statements that follow. Um this is looking at the government rights statements and looking only at the assets. Uh you can see as far as the significant assets, you did have increases in your capital assets from capital acquisitions and and capital projects. Um otherwise there weren't many other significant changes. Move on to the next slide, Debbie. And this is uh your liabilities and deferred inflows of resources. Uh you did have an increase in long-term debt this year, which was which is relating to some loan uh proceeds that were received. Um however other than that there weren't any significant changes and uh this is a a slide or analysis on the city's general fund. So this is looking at the fund financial statements. So it excludes any long-term assets or long-term liabilities. And what we're looking at here is the unrestricted fund balance. So this would also include any monies that are set aside by council, but as long as they're still in council's control. They they are considered to be unrestricted. And looking at that over the past 3 years and comparing that to your total annual expenditures in the general fund. Uh the government finance officers association, the GFO recommend that you have at least two months of uh fund balance available.

Uh the city seems to be consistently at about six months which is a good good indication but uh just a a brief analysis on the general fund there. Um just moving on to the required communications again if we click one more time Debbie sorry I'm not sure what's going on there. Um but this is a a slide just to clarify our responsibility as the auditors versus management's responsibilities. Uh this is very important especially when we assist management in uh preparing the or assisting compiling the financial statements. Uh I do get often asked when presenting to council or to boards as to well in your audit report you say that revenues are this amount and receivables are this amount and you said that you know the revenues increased because of this reason and I have to clarify that all of that is management's document uh our document is only the audit opinions that are included in the reports and uh so with that our responsibility is to provide an opinion as to whether the financial statements are fairly presented in accordance with the accounting rules. Uh with that we also evaluate internal controls over financial reporting looking at compliance matters that are material to the financial statements and then to communicate the results of the audit. Management are responsible for everything else. So that takes ownership of the financial statement, establishing internal controls, providing us with information to do the audit, uh uh putting in place internal controls to prevent and detect fraud. Um if we did have any findings, it would be management's responsibility to implement corrective action on those findings and not our responsibility. Um we move on to the next slide. Uh Debbie hopefully no more glitches here

but um just one thing to mention also is that our responsibility as the auditors is to maintain our independence. Uh we follow a set of rules set by the AICPA and the state board. Uh to maintain our independence. uh rules would be that we are not able to perform certain duties, act as management to be employed at the city or perform other types of activities such as posting journal entries without management's authorization. Uh so we have maintain our independence when we're issuing our opinion. Uh we didn't have any issues in timing of the audit. Uh there was just one new accounting policy that was adopted this year was Gazsby statement number 102 which did not have an impact on the city's report. Uh moving on to the this last few slides uh no difficulties in performing the audit. Uh we did have um actually some audit adjustments that management have all recorded. Uh out of those audit adjustments, there were some significant adjustments that were material uh which included some corrections to restricted cash and also corrections for grant receivables. Um however, management has recorded those adjustments and uh we still doesn't impact our opinion. Um as far as uh internal control matters, um as Debbie mentioned, we did have one continuing u material weakness for the journal entries and also one continuing significant deficiency uh for incorrect uh payroll module which I'm glad to hear that it's now been addressed and look forward to uh working on that next year and hopefully removing these comments. Uh moving on to the last few slides just wanted to mention where for example where your uh corrections were made. So with the grant receivables uh this impacts the accounts receivable line item in the statement on net position.

And then moving on to the next slide. Um as far as revenues for your grants, they're primarily recorded in the program revenues under operating grants and contributions or under c capital uh grant and contributions. U other revenues which aren't impacted necessarily by um grants are in the the bottom section of the report. Um but with that that concludes u my presentation. Thank you again for allowing us to provide auditing services and I'm happy to answer any questions if needed and we are also available to answer any questions you have.

Thank you very much. Um [clears throat] I also appreciated u Matesh your time with uh vice mayor and I to go through this report. Um I I have to say I am so thankful to see that a couple of these issues that we kept having the frustrations with Oracle were finally able to be changed and it's just really great work. Um, this probably isn't a question for today, but you know, with all of the changes that needed to happen with Oracle and may still need to happen in the future if we'd like any flexibility, um, not everyone necessarily works with Oracle. That's a government agency and, um, if we were to change systems, I know that would be a great amount of work. So, I'm not asking for that kind of guess guesstimate, but in the hundreds of thousands, what are we looking at if we were to change um the system as a whole? [laughter]

That's a great question. We'll have to research that and get back to you. Yes, absolutely. I don't even necessarily expect you have the answer today, but um I'm just I'm just something to think about in the back of your heads that maybe later we may wish to discuss in the future. Thank you. Um any questions so far from this council? Council member Marks.

Uh thank you. Um this is kind of a comment and kind of a question. [clears throat] I'm always concerned about um underutilized buckets of funds that are kind of stuck and um uh they're not being used, but they've been allocated and they're kind of out there little little uh buckets. I'm going to call them buckets. You know what I'm talking about. So there was in the staff um a agenda correspondence mention about the trust fund hundred I believe I believe believe that [clears throat] was about $2 million that's sort of stuck or at least not utilized and so I'm not really asking about that trust fund right now as much as uh just a wish that as part of the this is also for upcoming budget concerns that staff identify any other kind of stranded pockets of funding that we might have out there so that we so that we are utilizing or being prudent, being balanced, all that stuff, but also so that we are utilizing the funding that we do have uh for the benefit of the taxpayers and the residents. So, thank you. Do you want to share how that stuck because I know we have an answer for that.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the comment on that. Um, two things I think kind of an initial response with more detailed conversation to come. But the first is that um as you'll recall in an effort to help us balance the budget for the current financial plan period um staff recommended in your council adopted a um process or a on a you know for the current financial plan period to transfer a million dollars of local revenue measure dollars that would have previously um and normally gone to the capital side of the equation. um and then to put it on the operating side because that's where the need was and that's where we knew the money would get spent. Um, one of the things, um, in addition to balancing the budget, part of the reason that we did that is we recognize that we have an incredibly ambitious capital plan and, um, with the turnover that we've seen in engineering and project manager classifications. Um, you know, we're we were, um, acknowledging the fact that it's unlikely that we were going to be able to accomplish every single little thing in the capital plan. And so instead of letting the million dollars sit in capital and not get spent, lose value, moved it into the operating budget. Um so that's something that we'll continue to be talking to council about on a go forward basis whether or not there's an appetite to continue doing that. Um and then the second thing is I think you were referring to the um 115 trust. Um we uh for a number of years actually had $4 million reserved um for committed or assigned for um pension payown. One was for the additional discretionary payment that we make to Kalpers each year and one is for um the 115 trust which we

established in early 2023 but have not actually funded yet. And so, um, I anticipate that that will be a conversation that we'll be having here, um, in relatively short order in one of our upcoming budget items because we've we've started that conversation due to some questions from council members in prior budget updates. And I think that the time is right to talk about whether or not we move forward with funding of the trust. And I uh if the decision is to not utilize the 115 trust, we could certainly have conversation about how to reallocate that $2 million that's currently sitting there. Um either to, you know, a increased additional discretionary payment to PERS or to some other purpose at council's discretion.

Thank you. It uh being that that topic was brought up earlier, I appreciate you expanding on that a little bit. Um, Council Member Shoresman,

thanks. Yeah, thanks for bringing up the 115 trust. I had sort of a clarifying question about that because not all of us were on council um when we had that initial discussion about the 115 trust and so I just want to make sure that I'm remembering correctly and that everybody um knows that the same thing that I do. um which I I think is that the the point of a 115 trust when we first brought it up was to set aside $2 million to make our regular payment, our regular CalPERS payment, if I'm not mistaken, if we were ever in a position as a city where we didn't have the money that we needed in order to make that regular payment. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Um, the purpose of a 115 trust is for a governing body to hold money for the specific purpose of paying down pension debt. Um, so a lot of other organizations have used it in anticipation of really bad financial times so that there's always some balance of funding available to help make normal payments typically, not the additional discretionary payments. And so, um, that certainly is an option. They there seems to be a lot less conversation about those today. That does not mean that it's not something that we should seriously consider funding, but um they they kind of rose to popularity, I think around the time that Kalpers made a lot of their policy changes back in 2018 and things felt um worse than they do today, I think, as it relates to pensions. So, um certainly an option, but something, you know, for the council to decide, um provide guidance to staff about whether or not there's an interest in doing that. Um like we talked about, I think, in a recent

budget item, the downside of the 115 trust is that you can only spend the money for that purpose. And so if you're, you know, um, just just like there's concerns about being able to make, um, regular pension payments during down financial times, there's also concerns about funding other operations and projects in that same period. And so there's just kind of a costbenefit analysis I think that needs to be done to determine um whether or not we keep the money um uh assigned or committed um for our own purposes or if we put it in the 115 trust and then are only able to spend it on pension payments. So, um, you know, we've been really committed and diligent in making our normal payments as we're required to do, but also our additional discretionary payments. So, I think that we're on a good path. I know it doesn't feel good, but um, we're we're doing what we can reasonably do at this point. Thank you for that because that was the next question that I was going to ask was I believe that if you once you put it in the 115 trust it's tied up whereas we could have another sort of dedicated fund that isn't a 115 that we say we're going to use um for pension if we got to the point where we didn't have the funds to do our regular payments but it wouldn't necessarily have to be a 115. So it gives us a little bit more flexibility. Am I kind of summarizing that correctly? Okay.

Absolutely correct. Yeah. And so that's ma the main reason why we haven't well there's many reasons that you just articulated, but one of the main reasons that we haven't actually deposited the money into that trust is because we wanted to maintain that flexibility a little bit. Correct. Thank you. Appreciate all that. Thank you. Uh Council Member Boswell, do you still have a comment? No, that answered my question. Perfect. Just wanted to make sure. Well, without any other questions, we'll see. Do we have any public comment? No, we do not.

All right. Thank you. Well, this, you know, may seem, if anyone's watching this today or in the future, it may seem like a very simple um quick and easy uh item. And I just want to make sure that we identify or just acknowledge how much work goes into this. um keeping our budget um this detailed and clear and having this clean report, it really says a lot about the amount of work that all of you do in the finance department along with for that matter knowing that you have to get information from all of your colleagues throughout the staff um is is a lot of organizations. So, thank you for that. And Matesh, thank you for going through all of the detail um with yourself and your colleagues. Uh greatly appreciate it. and uh vice mayor.

Thank you very much. Uh no questions at this time. I really appreciate all the time uh that we got one-on-one to to go over this item, but I did want to mention that uh the auditors had uh said to us that the audit finished uh far more quickly than normal due to the organization and responsiveness of city staff. And so I just wanted to give a shout out and a thank you to you guys for your incredible effort on this item this year. So and and every year. Thank you. Thank you. Well, um, this is a receive and file. Do we need to actually do a motion on this? No. Right. No. Okay, great. Well, thank you so much. Uh, Council Member Shoresman, do you still have Okay, there you go.

I'll just I just want I'll just echo uh Vice Mayor Francis's thanks to the team and also wanted to thank you all for uh your answers in agenda correspondence to some of my questions. uh they were very clear and I think you are progressively getting you and our auditors together are progressively getting obviously quicker as the vice mayor said um but also just kind of figuring this out a little bit better and it seems to be going much more smoothly and we're working through um the outstanding issues that we had. So thanks I know it's a lot of work um and maybe an unsung hero kind of task. So thank you. Well said. Well, thank you very much. We will let you get on with your evening and we'll move on to the next topic. Thank you, Matach. [clears throat] All right. So, our next public hearing item is the um introducing an ordinance to establish a citywide single vote for council elections this year, this November in 2026, and subsequent elections. Um, with that conversation, I think uh, City Attorney Dietrich will start the conversation.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. I'm actually quite excited to be back to you with this next step down our long and winding uh, voting rights road, which actually began back in 2019 um, with chapter 1. We are now in chapter 2 and well down that path. Uh, sometimes rocky but making progress, I think. Uh I want to start by uh just letting you know and extending our thanks to our partners from the county clerk recorders office. Uh Elena Kano, our county clerk recorder and elections official who administers typically city elections and has worked with us to ensure that she would be able to support continuing to do so with our transition. and uh mayor, I know you will be glad to see with her her public information officer, Erin Clawson, um because I know that that is a very high priority for us all and a a shared commitment that we all have to make sure that we are educating as many people as we can and getting out and um making sure people know what's happening as we as we proceed with this. Um, and then I also see in the audience are your former colleague, my former boss and current representative of the Latino outreach count council, Andy Peas. Um and that group was uh kind enough to host us in sort of our kickoff in the public education and outreach efforts uh just a a few weeks ago with a presentation candidate um education forum um which this uh featured as a prominent piece of. So, um, we're we're on our way. And with that, uh, a lot of my presentation will be a little bit of a refresher and an opportunity, uh, for folks who haven't been engaged to this point to just sort of get a sense of where we are in the landscape and where we're headed from here. Um, and with that,

uh, this chapter, as I said, is chapter 2. The first one we began, we had a California Voting Rights Act demand uh letter served in 2019 and we were able to resolve that. Um and that process didn't result in any necessary changes to our election system. Uh in February 2023, the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, which I will here and after refer to as SVREP, uh served a demand letter on the city under the California Writing Voting Rights Act, also affectionately known as CVRA. And the assertion in that letter was that the city's current at large method of electing city council members uh violates CRA by diluting the ability of uh particularly Latina voters to elect their preferred candidates. Uh and the demand in that letter was that the city transition to district elections to to address that alleged violation under um the elections code. that that is the only safe harbor is transition to district elections that is recognized. And so uh many many cities across the state have um reluctantly transitioned to district elections even where they didn't maybe feel it was the right fit to accomplish their objectives um because it was viewed as sort of the only alternative. Um, after conducting demographic analysis, which we dived into uh very quickly after the 2019 letter was served and then have updated fairly consistently throughout with the assistance of our outside legal counsel, Margaret Leone and uh demog demographers engaged by her firm to uh assist us. The city reached the conclusion that we disputed that our current system violated CRA. Um, nonetheless, the the

litigation process is difficult. The burdens of proof are difficult to um rebut and the only alternative to implementing district elections under the current structure would have been to reject the civer demand and uh accept litigation risk which probably would have been forthcoming based on our conversations with uh Mr. Shankman who's the legal counsel for SVR. Uh in that context, the city council authorized staff to enter into settlement negotiations which continued for almost two years through throughout 2023 and uh most of 2024. Um and then and the city's objective in the in those negotiations was to reach a mutually beneficial settlement. I commend the council on its open-minded approach to the negotiation and the engagement and the flexibility and the willingness to consider creative alternatives which is what allowed us to arrive here and really have some agency and stake in the decisions that our community was going to make about our electoral process moving forward which as I noted a lot of other communities didn't have the benefit of because there just wasn't that space. So, thank you for creating that space, for um being creative, for approaching all of this with an open mind and getting us to a result that I think really does have potential to advance voter engagement and equity in our community. Um, and of course, another objective of the city was to avoid the uh very significant litigation expenses that can be associated with this kind of litigation. And so just in terms of conveying to the community the deliberation and the thoughtfulness with which this council did approach this process, the council met in closed sessions um because it was

a a litigation threat environment and we were in active um litigation settlement negotiations. Uh so that didn't allow for as transparent a process as we normally would like to undertake in this context. But uh the council did meet in March 7th, 2023, May 16th, August 14th, September 12th, December 6th, February 20th, 2024, May 21st, November 12th, September 16th. All of that time spent exploring alternatives, analyzing data, really taking a close look at what CRA's objectives were, how those objectives aligned with the city's DEI goals and major city goal work programs, and how we could maximize this as an opportunity rather than, you know, view it sort of as a passive victim of something being imposed upon us. Um and so with the guidance of our outside legal counsel in and expert in elections matters and the data analysts um the council considered alternatives that included um rejecting the civ demand outright and undertaking that significant litigation risk, implementing the district elections, which is the current safe harbor under um ZRA, or transitioning to an al to an alternative method of elections and ultimately that's where we've landed. Um, and that was the the package of the settlement package that we were able to negotiate with SVREP and their legal counsel. And having reached that point, the council then met an open session November 19th of 2024 to consider public input on that proposed resolution um which was the recommendation of the

citywide single vote alternative elections method that we will discuss a little in a little more detail. And ultimately uh you did approve unanimously that pre-litigation settlement agreement um which included uh the filing of litigation actually and the agreement the mutual agreement to a stipulated judgment which was approved by the our local superior court in January of 2025. And so just a little bit more of the context for the benefit of the public to help understand the factors that the council was taking into consideration. This is a graphic that highlights um sort of some of the cities throughout the state who have chosen to uh reject civer demands and or litigate those cases or ultim and ultimately settle pending litigation and just sort of the very significant dollar amounts associated with that choice. Um, and I note that in the 20 plus year history of CRV, I'm not aware of a city that has won a uh civ litigation. So, we generally try to not engage in litigation that we do not think we have a solid chance of prevailing in. And you know, I think the most extreme example is the city of Santa Monica and the LA who whose case went all the way up to the Supreme Court where Santa Monica ultimately lost um was had a a lower court case victory reversed. Um and the last uh demand for plaintiff's attorney's fees, and again not including what the city has spent in its own defense, was $22 million. The litigation continues. it was remanded back to the lower court and it is still ongoing

today and so those legal fees are still acrewing today. So that I just for the benefit of the public wanted to you know convey as as the the pretty stacked context in which you're working in this type of environment. Um so with that some of the components of the settlement were uh the agreement to tr to transition to the citywide single vote uh methodology for electing city council members. And that is essentially the transition from the current vote for two to elect two council members every election cycle, every two-year election cycle to a single vote vote for one to elect system. Um and again that that will be called citywide single vote and that will begin with the November 2026 election and um will be implemented in all subsequent elections unless there is a conclusion as we'll talk about through the through the process agreed to that that system is not accomplishing the goals or at some point the council and the andor the community decide that you wish to transition to district elections and then all of the other components. The city will be relieved of the obligations of all of the other components. Um the settlement also provides a process by which the council um will consider a transition to district elections. Ult again ultimately leaving it in the council's hands if that subsequent data analyses which we've agreed to perform following the 2026 and 28 elections shows that the purpose and objectives of civ are not being achieved um or would be more effectively achieved under the hypothetical district election model. But it gives us an opportunity to try something creative that we think is a better fit for the conditions on the ground in our community and give that an

opportunity to work and give us some further data to evaluate and so that the council's in a position to make fully informed decisions going forward. It also provides for a dispute resolution process if the parties can't agree what that data shows. And so there's, you know, there's always that possibility. That's sort of where we were. at the initiation of this process. It's pro it's kind of still where we are as it relates to how we interpret the data. So we felt it important to incorporate that um process into the into the settlement agreement. Uh there's a limitation of costs and pliff's attorneys fees um to be borne by the city related to the agreed upon dispute resolution process. So there's there it it gives us some ability to size what our exposure might be in the event that we want to pursue that dispute resolution process. Um it the agreement does provide that in the event we reach a point where SVREP uh we can't we can't reach agreement through that dispute resolution process and SVREP uh contends that we are compelled to move to district elections and we disagree that they don't have to serve a subsequent demand letter on the city uh prior to uh filing litigation to compel a transition to district elections. Um the city committed to voter education and outreach efforts and programs to enhance diverse candidate and voter education. As I said, the first of that those particular efforts was the um presentation with the Latino outreach council. Um and you know developing candidates and participation engage participation and engagement in local elections. So, uh, you will actually have a standalone separate presentation because I know the council is incredibly interested in what the plan is for that outreach and engaging as many people as

we can. So, that will appear that will be an item on your next agenda on uh, January 20th. Uh, and again, nothing about the settlement agreement precludes the council at any time from making a decision to implement district elections. So, you know, should our demographics change, should circumstances change, should the council change in a manner that um causes the city to want to take a different direction, we're free to do so at any time. Uh we did pay uh attorney's fees of $75,000 to SVR Rep. And I will say obviously in the context of the attorney's fees you were looking at in the prior slide as well as the amount of engagement um and actual work performed in getting to this settlement um and the rates paid to attorneys with this type of expertise. Uh that is a very reasonable sum. Um and then the agreement uh we agreed to limited payments to SVREP uh in the event that we are relying on them to assist us with sort of consulting services in the subsequent implementation or education and outreach outreach efforts. Um but that is not to exceed $10,000 per election cycle going forward. And so one of the considerations that we needed to keep in play in all of the variables that you all were considering, you will recall, is the city's charter. And the city's charter is interesting in this context in that it actually requires uh council members to be elected at large by the all of the voters of the city. And so the ordinance being uh recommended to you tonight is consistent with the city's charter requirement um that council members be elected at

large. Um the uh charter section 301 provides that our elections will be held in accordance with the provisions of the elections code of the state of California unless otherwise provided by an enacted ordinance. So this ordinance otherwise provides because there are some in there in inconsistencies otherwise uh the elections code doesn't contemplate uh the ballot language for instance for this type of election. And so that is one of the things that we're um accomplishing through the adoption of the ordinance. And then our charter and the authority for that is is our charter and the California constitution which also expressly authorizes the city of council to adopt ordinances providing for the conduct of lo local municipal elections. Um so this is a very um traditional local control area where we have as a charter city very broad authority and so we can do we can choose to conduct our elections pursuant to that express constitutional authority in a manner that differs from applicable provisions of the elections code. Um so just again a refresher what is citywide single vote? Um, the mayor will continue to be elected to a 2-year term and council members will continue to be elected to four-year terms. So, nothing changes in that regard. Every two years, uh, there will continue to be the mayor's seat and two council members up for election. So, the rotation of our council member elections does not change. Currently, each resident votes for their top two uh, for mayor and their top two council candidates. preferred council candidates and then the two candidates with the most votes uh win the two open seats. Starting in 2026, each resident will vote for their top candidate for mayor. So everybody continues the the mayor

mayoral elections are unchanged by this process and their top one candidate for council member still with the top two vote getters uh winning the seats. And so that that is the transition um that the single vote that is the reference that the single vote vote uh refers to. So in looking at that um you know we looked at what are the benefits of that and I think it's important to note that the the the relevant comparison is between single vote and district elections not so much single vote and our current system because our current system will always leave us vulnerable to a civra challenge and the significant costs associated with that and the very very high likelihood given the litigation history and landscape that the solution imposed upon us would be district election. So that's really the relevant comparison point that we're looking at here. Um the new system as I mentioned remains consistent with the city's charter because it remains an atlarge uh method of electing city council members. So although we are transitioning our electoral system, we are not transitioning uh into a district system or away from an atlarge system. So that doesn't create a conflict with the language in our with the existing language in our charter. Um it's been our assessment that this is in in reviewing alternative methods cu of cumulative voting of limited voting of rank choice voting that this is the simplest fairest and most effective way given our demographics and our sort of data on the ground to strengthen equitable voting in our community. Um it it allows non-majority groups of voters who vote cohesively and that's a really

important point uh to have an opportunity to elect a preferred candidate by concentrating their voting power behind a chosen candidate uh which mitigates against the risk of illegal vote dilution which is the concern of CVRA. Um, importantly, every voter has a say in every council election. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. Uh, citywide single vote supports coalition building across neighborhoods and areas throughout the city. And so it does not geographically limit the scope uh candidates based that you are that are available for people to vote for based on where they live in the community. Um it's relatively simple and easy for voters to understand which I know our county clerk for reporter places high value on um as as do we obviously because I think the the history we've seen particularly with rank cho choice voting is that there's now a increasing body of data suggesting that it is quite confusing to voters even where it's been successfully implemented. Um the method is legally recognized uh as as a mechanism that has a positive impact on

[clears throat]

uh mitigating against voter dilution. And so obviously that's really um important. It hasn't, to my knowledge, been implemented in California, but there are nationwide a lot of other um versions of limited voting uh that have been demonstrated to address that concern. Um, it's low cost to implement uh and compatible with the county administration of the city elections, which is one of the reasons that it's lower cost to implement because we continue to pay the county to administer our elections, but there's not the rank choice option uh was considered and ultimately abandoned as a possible alternative in part because it could not be implemented. through our current arrangement with the county. That would have required us to run our own elections, um hire consultants, perhaps uh obtain our own equipment. Um not to mention probably getting some certifications from the Secretary of State and some really pretty ownorous uh procedural requirements that we may have had to go through and may not have been successful in. And then uh it aligns with the council's goals to increase access to local government and create a greater sense of belonging and representation. And so very much aligned with um the city's DEI major city goal. Um and again the relevant comparison being to district elections which is the most highly likely available alternative is the is that lack of geographic barriers to selecting a candidate of choice and citywide coalition building. So every voter gets to choose among all candidates running for council versus being limited in districts to only

choosing among candidates who live in the particular district. Um our current practices, our our city clerk's analysis of our our population's current voting behavior suggests that there are already significant numbers of voters in the city of St. Louis Abyspo who have been implementing uh single voting or limited voting um as a strategy to elevate their preferred candidates. And really importantly here and I think this is kind of the biggest consideration that uh our city clerk and I talked about is every voter in the city continues to get to vote for a council member in every election. Um, so they would even under district elections, everyone would continue to vote for the mayor every year or every two years, sorry, every election. Um, if we were to go to districts, not only would you be geographically limited in the candidate for whom you could vote, but you would only do that every four years because council member terms are four years. And so you would only you would only be voting for the for the candidates for the seats that are in your district. Um so that I I think is a pretty big upside the the continuous engagement of our community that we don't that we don't sacrifice in the way that we would with district elections. And so in summary, the rec the recommended ordinance former formerly establishes the citywide single vote. So the ordinance establishes the structure consistent with the settlement commitments that we made as the method of electing city council members in 2026 and going forward unless some of those other conditions are met. The ordinance codifies the local structure for the

city to move from vote for two to vote for one. Um, the ordinance provides ballot instructions to ensure clear direction to voters and adds the clarity for the elections official administering our city council elections as to what that ballot language looks like specifically is the is the most pointed conflict between the elections code and what would be necessary for instructions um to administer this new process. Um and so essentially the that ballot instruction will be vote for only one like very clear, very succinct hopefully uh very calculated to avoid any errors or over votes. Um and so that that resolves clarifies and resolves the inconsistencies between the otherwise applicable elections code ballot language um and the specific language necessary to implement our new system. Um you know primarily we are recommending this or this ordinance be adopted because that is what we committed to do was to implement this new system and so that it fulfills the obligations of our settlement agreement and the stipulated judgment. So both a settlement agreement and a court order which directs that we will uh affect this transition. And so that ensures our contractual and legal compliance. Uh it also ensures that the county registar voters will be able to administer the new elections. Yay. As part of a consolidated election uh which is consistent with the city's historical process and I think the expectations of the voters in the community. Um, and again, uh, Elena and county council have reviewed this draft and provided um, some input, including catching a a very significant consequential typo, a dropping of a zero from elections code provision

that really did change meaning. Um, and and then we we think the adoption of the ordinance further advances public transparency and provides clarity for voters who may not again have been engaged to this point. um as well as to any elections official or staff that will be involved in administering our elections um and just sets forth clear regulations for how this will be admin administered and again consistent with um major city goals. Uh I wanted to note because there's a lot of uh national news affecting a whole variety of things these days but certainly uh people are watching the Supreme Court closely and the Supreme Court has been quite active in the voting rights arena and so there is a uh case currently pending Louisiana versus Ka and I've gotten some inquiry as to whether and how that would affect uh either CRA or the or the city's current course of action. Um, that is a redistricting case out of Louisiana that has been argued and could be decided at any time now. Um, probably at June at the latest, but possibly before then. Uh, it raises a lot of really complex issues that I'm not going to take the time to go in to here, but in general, the propriety of any consideration of race and drawing electoral districts. And so under the federal voting rights act and under CVRA, uh majority minority district creation is a remedy for voter dilution. Um under both of those statutes, although they apply, you know, differently. Um and the proper interpretation of threshold criteria set forth in a case called Thornberg versus uh Gingles for determining violation of

section two of the Federal Voting Rights Act. and uh perhaps the constitutionality of section 2 itself. The council will recall that section five has already been um significantly diminished if not rendered moot uh by a prior Supreme Court decision that that was the uh pre-clarance provisions of the federal voting rights act. And um so these are the essentially the uh anti-discrimination and remedy provisions of the voting rights act and it is the uh race conscious remedy that is at issue in CA. So the case doesn't concern an atlarge system like the one we're proceeding with. So you know just on that on that fact alone not terribly impactful for the course we're taking. Um, and but the case could have so it's not it's not likely to impact our settlement regardless of what the outcome is or the implementation or cause any concerns with the implementation of the recommended ordinance. Um, but the case could have a subsequent impact on the interpretation of CIRA. So this is like I said federal voting rights act litigation and so it's not going to directly impact CRA which is a state statute. Um but there depending on the the outcome of the decision and whether or not the constitutionality of the provision of the racebased remedy provisions um are determined to be unconstitutional on the whole. I would suspect that there will be subsequent rounds of litigation addressing similarities in CRA and challenging the constitutional constitutionality there. But again, that is likely to be many years down the

road, if at all. And it's kind of pure speculation at this point. Um, so the next steps really are all about education and outreach after we assuming that the council proceeds with the adoption of this ordinance and city staff have been working to develop a robust public outreach, education, and engagement plan. Again, that will be presented to the council in full on January 20th. And you'll have an opportunity to give uh our public information staff and all of us who will be engaged in this effort direction as to what we're missing, what additional components you'd like to see and how we can best go about uh really reaching people and making sure that we're um doing our best to ensure people have the resources to understand how to proceed. Um, again, we've already had the the kickoff forum, and as the 2026 election approaches, voter education efforts will significantly expand through a threephased multimedia bilingual strategy, and all of us will be ambassadors to that effort. And so, um, we also want to make sure that we are all as educated as possible and able to answer any questions that, uh, you all are hearing. This is a really great opportunity for us to hear from you about what you're hearing out there and what we can do to ensure that people are able to access the information that they need. And with that, questions for me, for uh deputy city or deputy city manager Greg Herman, or for our county uh partners are welcome.

Thank you so much. That is a lot to go through. uh as you said started in 2019 and many meetings since and um as you can see with room it feels a little anticlimactic but it's huge and I know that the next steps will be vital in really engaging um our whole entire community and I think that when I think about um the questions people have asked me um this is not a a a new law but I think there's new attention to the law as far as uh all the claims that started coming through. From my colleagues, I know I'm I'm sure you all experienced the same thing. Um talking to other city electeds, they were saying this is coming, school board, this is coming, county, this is coming. And county already was in district, so really a little bit different. But it's just the point was this was a new um form of let's all change. And um there's all different reasons behind it in different communities, so I won't go into that. But um I really appreciate the dedication of figuring out how do we provide the best as possible um access to um voting. And in the past, this was not a possibility. I mean, this was based on race. and all throughout all of uh the nation, people couldn't vote and were voted and were kept out of being able to vote just because of the color of their skin. And so I think, you know, remembering that this is this is a lot of history that's brought into this. But boiling it down to the basics, um what happens if a um member of the community votes, they vote for two people. Um when even no matter how much uh education we provide and what is said

on the ballot with instructions, in the end that gets thrown out, right? That would be considered an overvote and as I understand it that would be an invalid ballot and I will look to my colleagues who know better than I I'm seeing shaking heads of head nodding so yes

thank you and so I think that's where um there's so much uh appreciation for the ambassadors to make sure that we are giving out as much information as possible and I truly believe that if anyone is interested in this conversation that they um come and get the information, ask us to come to you, whatever it may be. Um, so then the other part is when we talk about districts, um, based on the demographics of our community, we don't have an X race I'm just putting X as like the blank spot. Um, X race neighborhood in our community, which is where this came from as a as a concern from our council, which was how are we going to provide the kind of district that is being requested. So um with that, can you share a little bit about how that was part of the demand or the claim?

So So under CRA, you you don't have to be able to establish that you can create a minority majority district. there is there are you can demonstrate um an alternative that addresses alleged vote dilution also through the creation of a minority influence district and that's really what we would be uh talking about here. So, in order for in order for a cohesively voting um minority group to ensure election of their preferred candidate, they would need to hit about a 30% threshold in a district. I think the proposed district uh that Mr. Shankman put forth that is incorporated in our um in our settlement agreement is right about the 20% mark. And in general, our population at last census was about 14% although clearly growing. Our uh that's our lat Latina population. Um so yes, we do we don't have I think I congratulations largely as a result of the success of our housing policies and general plan and um you know just co community cohesion um and integration. we we don't have discrete racial groups in concentrated in particular areas of our of our um city and so it doesn't necessarily lend itself to districtricting easily and just neatly in that way as it does in sometimes bigger cities where you have really defined neighborhoods and where you have really cohesive group voting patterns. So I that's another thing that our data analysis didn't suggest happens

as um obviously in our community. Again, you know, there are demographers on both sides of this issue and I haven't ever seen a contested case where you cannot find an expert who will agree with your position. uh what we we tried to approach this again uh with a very open mind and asking questions rather than asking someone to validate a con a predisposed conclusion. Um and that data analysis was uh inconclusive at best largely because of a small sample size. So, it's very difficult to determine um who who the Latina preferred candidate is and to demonstrate polarization based on race. Um you know, in other words, polarization between how white voters vote in a block versus how Latin voters vote in a block and whether or not there's that cohesion. So the the data is uh to use a legal term messy and inconclusive.

Messy and inclus inconclusive. Thank you so much. And it is and to be clear it is SVR's position that their data analysis establishes that there is both polarization and dilution happening in our atlarge system. So that that would be their position in the event that we went forward to litigation. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. All right. Right. I've got Vice Mayor Francis, Council Member Marks, and then Council Member Shoresman. Vice Mayor.

Yeah. Thank you, City Attorney. I wanted to follow up on uh the mayor's question about uh overvote um and and ask if there would be in the event of an overvote if there would be an opportunity for ballot curing or if the overvote stands as is. Do I push? Is this on? It's on. Good. Good evening. It's so nice to be back. I think it's been probably about 15 years since I've been back in this council chamber. So, uh, nice to be here and thank you for your question. As far as um any over votes, uh we wouldn't have any type of mechanism to be able to cure an overvote because we don't know whose ballot that actually is. So if if it's a vote for one, which what we will be having on that ballot to instruct the voters, and they vote for two, um it gets it's an overvote. It goes through the adjudication board. If we can't make that determination what the voter's intent is, the vote stands and and really it gets pushed out.

Thank you for the clarification. Can I ask one more follow-up question with that? If the voter realizes like, you know, they turned in their absentee vote early and then went, "Oh my goodness, I didn't realize this had changed." Can they come in and make a correction? Unfortunately, no. Okay. Once it's once they have returned their ballot, it's considered in the ballot box. And at that point, again, uh we can't pull it out. We don't know which one is theirs out of 182,000 ballots. Perfect. Thank you. You're welcome, Council Member Marks. Hi. Um glad to [clears throat] see you again.

Thank you. Um so is it possible in the um in the poll in the um places where go to people go to actually cast their ballots you know the polls to have a sign that says in the St. Louis Abyispo city remember only vote for one city council member. Sure. I mean,

and we can like, you know, have a big bright green sign or something so that if for so that um many of the people who really really want to go to the polls are senior citizens or people who have lived here a long time and then I'm thinking if there's something that right before they cast their ballot that would catch their attention or is is that legal? Is that okay?

Oh, it's absolutely okay. And it's um something that we have also considered because we we put instructions inside each voting booth as it is. And so to add a green sheet of paper or something to catch their eye that is only going to be deployed out to the precincts here in the city of San Los Aispo that says please be mindful or whatever language. I'll rely on Aaron for that to what are we going to put in there to instruct the voters that for the city council contest it is just a vote for one and I think that is going to be the biggest challenge for those that have voted for decades in St. for city council, it's always two. So, I think um getting that message out as much as you possibly can that it is only a vote for one and a vote for two will really uh toss out your v your vote um is going to be the key message there.

Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Uh council memberman.

Yeah, this kind of piggybacks on that. I think my my biggest concern about all of this is is people just doing what they've always done and voting for two even though uh a ballot might say uh only vote for one. I I'm wondering I I'm I'm guessing [clears throat] that in the in the instruction book there will be a lot more space to put verbiage explaining that an overvote what an overvote is and that if you vote for two your vote doesn't count. But on the ballot itself I it sounds like the language is going to be vote for only one or something like that that's just a short phrase. Is there the ability to say if you vote for two your vote won't count?

Thank you for your question. On the ballot itself, we can only the law requires us to just add uh vote for one. Um, in the actual voter information guide is where we do plan on uh putting additional information as far as what an overvote is, the new method of voting uh should you adopt the ordinance. Um, you know, what does that mean if you vote for two? Um, and and you know, I'll work with uh the city staff on any additional pertinent language that they would like for us to put in to the city's the city voters guide. Um, just to just to try to make it, you know, hit home as much as possible. But, you know, it's it's it's not an easy task to get the word out. Thank you so much for even being willing to take this on and work with us on doing this the best way we can. We're really trying to make lemonade out of lemons, I think, with this. So,

you're welcome. Thank you, Council Member Marks.

Um, yeah, I'm I have a question for the city attorney. I'm not sure you'll be able to answer it because I'm concerned I have a question about how CRA actually would do the analysis. Um, so we're talking about non-majority groups of voters who vote cohesently cohesively. The goal is that they would have a chance to elect a preferred candidate by concentrating voting power behind their candidate. So, does Silver look at the surname of a candidate um or so that you know, let's just say that um they're interested in in having a Latina um person elected to our council. So, do they just look at the surname like we had Aaron Gomez, we had Dave Romero, those are both Latin A surnames. Um, or do they look at the ethnic identity or the race of the voters themselves? And um and my concern about that is that many people who identify as Latina don't have Hispanic sounding or Spanish sounding last names because that depends on the male. Um the way our uh society is structured, it's usually the the male who will carry the surname. Whereas um it's possible that the female in a in a married situation is actually the one who's got the Latin background and that's how the child who's then a voter is going to identify. So how do they even how do they know? And I don't know if you know how they're going to actually do this

when when they assess. Let's just imagine the the election is over and now they're trying to figure out whether we were successful or not, whether our our one vote method works. How are they going to do that?

There is an accepted methodology in the CRA context and it is largely tied on from on the candidate side to the surname list. Um, so if you were to litigate, you know, there there's a breadth of evidence that you could introduce that would expand upon or deepen that initial cut. But generally, when you get a demand letter, that is how they've done the analysis is is from the Spanish surname um listing. So I I have a follow

and in terms of voter cohesion analysis I I may ask I may phone a friend here from for some help but this is this is largely why we uh have to engage experts in this field because it it is a very specialized methodology that is accepted by the by the courts in this context. But I'll I'll turn to Elena or Teresa if you if you have some specialized knowledge in that regard. Please feel free to weigh in. Um, so just listening to this and not really diving into what we could do, but there are voter data um, reports that we would be able to run um, that just gives the history of the voters in uh, St. Louis Bispo city um, and those that have voted and those that have not. So, if all they're looking at are their last names, they're not going to get any information in regards to a race, but they would um be able to see the voters's name and whether or not they participated in that particular election. And that would be a voter data uh file that we would then provide to the city or to whoever to be able to anal, you know, analyze who who actually voted, how they voted that you won't never know. Um but if they voted, yes, we we have the ability to show who has voted in what election, just not how.

Okay. So there's no way that you would be able to identify who a preferred candidate may be. I mean it's it's possible. I would not. No. No. I mean your office not No. Are No. That's that's the whole purpose of a secret ballot. [laughter] I mean theoretically it would be possible for a a Latin block of voters to prefer a candidate who is not also Latin but is their preferred candidate. It's possible. So, how are they supposed to know that? I mean, it seems

that that is um above my [laughter] knowledge thresholds as as to this how this methodology is applied. Um I I could get you some further information from our outside legal counsel or probably her demographer. Right. Well, we don't need to do that right now, but it's just um it just concerns me that uh u we may be held to a standard that's actually vague and somewhat arbitrary and capriccious as they say. though

I I think that's that concern is precisely what makes it so hard for cities to prevail in this context and why there have been um again zero that I'm aware of prevailing cities in in zra challenges thank you

thank you for the great questions and um similar to the questions we've been having for a couple of years of how do we make the best access and the best decision in this process. And um there were, you know, there were comments from the uh the other sorry, I'm trying to think of the best way to say it's the other attorney um as to how that works, but they didn't really give us great detail. And so we weren't able to make those decisions even in closed sessions um other than to realize that there is a process that is accepted that we don't get to know and that is very frustrating. [laughter] Um, and and I I think that is a really good point to make sure that everyone knows is is the preferred candidate does not have to be the same minority race as the main minority that is in the community. So in our community, it's it's Latin, but doesn't mean that the Latin candidate has to be the preferred candidate. Right.

So, it's it's just, you know, keeping that in mind is that's not necess even though people are a little bit concerned around race and how is this working, it's not actually creating um an A equals A or a B equals B. It could be A equals D. So, it's kind of interesting. Uh, city attorney. Yeah, I was I was just going to note mayor that to the extent that you trust the data in our particular community which as I said because of sample size and you know difficulty with determining whether there's polarization or cohesive voting. Um the the Latina preferred candidates often in the elections that we sampled were not Latina candidates even where there was one um when there was a Latin candidate running that wasn't necessarily the voter preferred candidate. So difference between you know whether Latin candidates get elected and whether the Latina voter preferred candidates get elected and and that's where it get it becomes a pretty complicated analysis which is one of the reasons that you this analysis applies essentially only in the litigation context and it's a good reason to not want to be in the litigation context. Lastly, can you remind us um what percentage of people already single vote? And I don't know if that's a question for election, city clerk, city attorney. In my mind, I remembered a 40% number, but I don't know if there was a reason for that.

It's more than that. I believe it's it is over half. Okay. The number that I saw was higher. Yeah. Um and we looked at several year over a several year period. it has been increasingly more voting for a single candidate.

Great. Thank you. Um, so I think just to kind of when we brought this out of the close session and and suggested our city attorney to look into this, um, seeing that so many people were already single voting under under voting, um, that was already a process that people used, it helped a little bit to feel that this might not be as wild because people, well, whatever their intention was behind only voting for one, it's already been happening, which hopefully will help a little bit in the um mistake area of oh I didn't realize this changed. So hopefully that um is a little bit more helpful. So with that um I don't see any more comments. I don't see any more questions. We have any public comment? Yes, we do. We have two. Um Andy Peas and then Garrett Olsen. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, Andy Peas. Uh, super glad to be here. Uh, first, just as an individual and a former council member, I do support this ordinance. Um, it's a practical solution to a really difficult situation. And I do uh just want to give some uh specific gratitude for our city attorney for uh her expert guidance uh along very long and uh difficult process to what I think is successful an outcome as we could have. Uh I'm also on the board of the Latino Outreach Council and on behalf of the council I would like to thank the city for the ongoing partnership that we've had and in um uh and and um gratitude for the city for embracing this as an opportunity to really have robust outreach. The um I and I look forward to hearing about the plan um at

the at the next session. uh the the importance of reaching um new eligible voters uh for folks who are infrequent. Um it's it's so important to communicate to this um community not only that we want them to participate but we need them to participate in this system even more than ever. And so to um have them understand um that our community fabric is so much stronger with that broad participation. So I um I trust that the communication is going to include that as a as a baseline. Interestingly, I think it's also going to require um the creativity. It's, you know, we know about media and and uh emails, etc. Um presentations, but we had at Latino Outreach Council Town Hall the um Kalpali students who had done a special um uh project for outreach to Latin communities. um working with the um county clerk reporters office um and their stories were of um very small conversations, right? Um debunking myths, helping people to um uh not be um um scared uh and intimidated by this process. So un uh overcoming kind of old narratives. So, there's going to be a lot of um one-on-one and small meetings, and that's going to require resources. So, I'm glad that um that funding has been committed as well. And um and so um again, our our main um point here is that we applaud the city's effort to um have um such inclusive uh engagement as part of this work. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor and council and staff. Um Garrett Olsen, uh city of St. Louis Abyspo representing the slow chamber of commerce. Um just wanted to say thank you for your intentionality um and for your care for voting rights for all. Uh and to reiterate a conversation that I had with Greg this morning uh that the slow chamber is interested in being your thoughtful partner and helping get the message out. So I'll be brief. Thank you so much.

Thank you. And I just want to give a a huge thanks to uh the Latino Latino Outreach Council and and everyone was who was involved in our small groups uh from the Latin communities and helping us kind of understand is this even a good idea? What should we do? Um and I very much appreciate from the Solo Chamber as well as other thought partners who have said we're willing to collaborate and uh be here. So that's really helpful. Vice Mayor, yeah. Would this be an appropriate time to begin deliberations? Yes, please.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. Um, just want to start by saying thank you so much to the county clerk for for being here today and particularly excited to see Erin out in the audience who's been doing an amazing job on the slow Reddit and uh you did a great uh ask me anything the other day uh Clerk Kano and so thank you both for the outreach you're already doing. Looking forward to working with you on on much much more coming up. Um, just to back up here, you know, we had the list at the very beginning. We had nine long meetings over a couple of years really hashing through this and coming to this innovative settlement. And um, you know, I I think we really took this incredibly seriously when we received the letter um that, you know, said we need to do better to be more representative of our community. And so we spent those nine meetings, you know, not coming up with a defense, but doing an incredibly deep dive into demographic data, academic research, election results, and you know, ultimately our our council just didn't see that moving to districts would make us a more representative council. So that brought us to this solution, which I'm really really proud of. This is a huge change and I I know there's a lot of concern from folks that having a big change particularly in this moment. I think we have to acknowledge that there's a lot of fear around elections. There's a lot of misinformation and any change in this time feels really scary. Um particularly in a community that's used to voting in one particular way. Um, I, as you heard up here, I think all of us have some concerns about making sure that every vote gets counted, every ballot gets counted, and I know that we're probably going to run into some challenges with that, and that's that's something we've

got to work really hard to prevent. Um, but what I'm really hopeful for is that this has the effect of bringing us a little closer to our goal of being a more representative community. Um, and having our election process, you know, work towards that. And, you know, I we heard from uh, Council Member Peas, former council member Peas back there, uh, you know, a an applause for our city attorney. This took I I really hope the community understands. We are the only city doing this this particular solution and it took such hard work from our city attorney and incredible smarts and uh really just so proud to have you on our team and grateful that we uh were able to come up with uh you know this innovative solution. So thank you.

Thank you council member Boswell. Yeah, thank you. I'll be uh I'll be supporting uh the ordinance uh tonight. I do also want to thank uh staff and the various organizations that uh have been assisting with this and will assist with this because we've got a nine months 10 months of work to do u on this. Um also want to uh you know mention you know for me this is you know this is uh really the culmination of the settlement um agreement. I know there's been some correspondence recommending different courses of action. Um but you know the settlement agreement not only is legally binding but we negotiated that in good faith and presented this you know different alternative uh and we're successful in negotiating that and you know um I believe when you negotiate something in good faith you need to carry through with it. So this is uh us carrying through uh with the culmination of that uh settlement agreement. Um I'm also um you know I'm very confident that this community can uh implement this uh this new way of voting and that we can get everybody up to speed. As as we said we you know we already have some evidence that a lot of members in the community whether by choice or by accident are already voting essentially as single voters. And so, um, you know, I'm I'm sort of hopeful that this fall after we conclude, uh, uh, the election, uh, we feel that we've got a better system in some ways, one that, uh, is fair, um, effective, and that everybody can participate in, uh, in a well-informed way. So, um, you know, the proof will be in the pudding, uh, this fall, and of course, I'm sure we'll evaluate after to see how things went. Um, and perhaps we'll learn a few things, but I'm encouraged uh with this direction and look forward to

implementing it. Thank you, Council Member Shoresman.

Yeah, thank you, Vice Mayor Francis and Council Member Boswell. you both um made some of the points that I was going to make and and made them very succinctly and well and I guess I'll just focus on the one issue that I think we're, you know, most all interested in is how we're going to do this. We've gotten to where we are through a lot of work and determination and uh our city attorney and our consultants that have helped us get to this point. This was really a true negotiation in a situation uh in other jurisdictions where there hasn't been much negotiating. There's been a lot of cities that have just gone to districts to uh because they had to. they uh didn't have the ability to kind of push back for a a more well-rounded, more thoughtful solution. And the team that we had working on this really helped us do that. And so I'm appreciative to the for the work that's um that's gone into it so far. But but really, we're at the beginning of this. I know, Council Member Boswell, you just said we have we have 10 months. Well, that's we have 10 months before the first election where this goes into place, but we're going to have work even beyond that because this is going to continue to be a long process to teach people who have been used to doing, you know, some of our residents have been used to doing this voting the same way for a very long time and not everybody is tuned into all the different sources of getting information. And so the people that are in this room here today, the people that have spoke at public comment, former council member Peace, uh Garrett Olsen, uh some of our other partners are really, as as our city attorney said, are really going to have to help us be advocates. And we're going to need each and every one of the people

that are already actively engaged in this community to help us spread the word in those tiny conversations here and there with community members that they know and friends and family member to remind them hey remember you can only vote for one and uh don't vote for two because then your vote won't count like I was saying earlier is my biggest concern. So, I I am looking forward to the outreach component of this and looking forward to the next meeting where we get to hear more and I know I've had plenty of brainstorming conversations already with staff about groups that we should talk to uh and that we should partner with and I hope they will all be willing to help us take up the call on this. So, uh I I will be supporting this as well. um recognizing that I know I've already had lots of conversations and I'm sure you all have too with community members who are not happy about this, but um I think it's it's the best solution that we could have come up with under the circumstances. So, thank you everybody.

Thank you, Council Member Marks.

Thank you. Well, I I'm just going to echo gratitude [clears throat] to our city attorney and also our city manager, the whole team, and thank you, Elena Conno, for being here uh tonight. And I know you had a long day already, and now you're sitting here. Um, but I think an important message we need to get out is that there's no turning back the clock. And I've had a number of people saying to me, "Well, gosh, we've always done it this way with two uh voting for two. Why can't we just keep doing it?" And then, you know, I had to restrain myself to say, "Do you want want to sit there for an hour and hear me tell you why or you know, but basically there's no turning back the clock. We uh I agree [clears throat] with what council member Boswell said that we have we have entered into the settlement agreement in good faith. [clears throat] If if we did just abandon this this effort and say, "Well, we're going to keep it the same old way," then we would end up in a world of hurt in terms of litigation and uh just draining resources. and uh it it it's so it's not possible to go back. We have to go forward. I think this is a creative um innovative uh approach to a very difficult um question. And so I will be supporting the ordinance and uh the staff recommendation. And one little thought that I just had is that perhaps we can make some lawn signs. You know how people put signs out for the different candidate? We could maybe do some lawn signs that just say just vote for one candidate or something like that and I'll put one on my lawn. [laughter] I mean I I won't be I would put that lawn that lawn sign out rather than a

sign advocating for one candidate or another, you know. So we'll have to think about kind of out of the box ways of approaching stuff. So thank you. Thanks again for all the hard work. Thank you. And um yeah, [clears throat] again, I look forward to our next conversations around what the outreach will be. And I know we'll be talking about that here. And I know we'll be talking about it in every um committee and nonprofit organization we can think of, every service club. And just know that um we are here to help as well as far as council um whatever we can do because like like everyone said so far this is where we're at and so let's do it well and let's make sure we help everyone have access to vote because that's what we're really talking about. So with that um I will move the um staff recommendation. Is there a second? Council member Shoresman,

I'll second it. Thank you. Um, city attorney, one second. Go ahead.

Madame Mayor, I just want to make sure that everyone uh did receive the agenda correspondence which has had a couple of um minor wording changes, typographical errors, and that the motion includes um those modifications. uh and also highlight that we will be uh introducing and doing a subsequent adoption of this ordinance rather than uh doing it in a single step. Um so sometimes is the case with elections ordinances because this has a mixture of sort of policy and procedure, ministerial and discretionary uh components. To be on the safe side, we're doing the traditional introduction and adoption.

Yes. So as far as um as we typically as we did today, we had the second reading of an ordinance and so is what are what you is am I reading you correctly or hearing you correctly that the community should know that we have today's ordinance but then we have an additional ordinance to complete the process. It it will be today's the introduction. We will do the standard um notification, publication uh of the ordinance summary and then we will have a consent item come back to the council for final adoption and then the ordinance will go into effect 30 days thereafter.

Perfect. Thank you so much. Um so with that staff recommendation including the uh additional changes from the agenda correspondents which are not substantial. Well, they are substantial, but they're um grammatical, not necessarily um a change in the one, two, three in the um agenda report. Does that make sense? Thank you. My second includes that amendment. Thank you so much, Council Member Shoresman. City Clerk, can we have roll call? Mayor Stewart, yes. Council member Shoresman, yes. Council member Boswell, yes. Council member Marks, yes. Vice Mayor Francis. Yes.

Again, thank you. This motion passes 5-0. Thank you um um city clerk for sorry, county clerk corder for coming as well as Aaron Clawson for being here to hear the conversation today. Um thank you for all of the staff, all of the community members, all of our partners who are helping us through with this. And um as mentioned before, city attorney and city manager, thank you for the guidance to help us get through this very complicated process. With that,

mayor, if I if I can just take a moment because this has been such a long road and a heavy lift and I I do really want to just um highlight for the community that uh clerks are the most valuable people in the world and [laughter] should be valued and respected. As such, I want to extend my thanks to our city clerk, Teresa, who has been just such a support and partner throughout this whole process, as well as uh Alina and her staff for um being so willing to accommodate this. Uh our DEI staff, Matthew Melendra's, Nester, and our current uh staff, Matt and Sam, have been also incredibly supportive, as well as um Greg and my department head team partners and the council. And I also want to acknowledge that this settlement is unique and would not have been possible had Kevin Shankman and SVREP not been open to something creative and um engaging with us in this conversation. And I I really want to extend my sincere thanks for that. It was a tough process, but it was a really productive process and it was one that I think I and we learned a lot from. And I I really am hopeful that this is going to be a really positive thing for our community going forward. So, thank you for that point of

Thank you. Absolutely understand and agree. And with that, let's just take a quick five minutes and then we'll finish our last um item. All right. Thank you for the break. And it is so wonderful to see um Miss Carrie How in front of us as one of the council compensation committee members. Um so our next [clears throat] and hopefully final No, I'm just kidding. Final um sorry um item, business item of the night is our council compensation committee and the recommendations and conversations. So I will pass it over to Deputy City Manager Greg Herman.

Thank you, Mayor and Council members. We're really happy to be here tonight. Uh before we get into the item, I do just want to take an opportunity as well to say thank you to the council compensation committee members. We're lucky to have two in attendance tonight, Andy Peas and Carrie How, who is also our chair. I'll be covering some background for the first part of the presentation and then we'll actually be able to hand it over to Carrie who can walk you through a little bit of the thought process um from the committee's perspective in terms of developing the recommendations tonight. Uh I also want to acknowledge the partnership and assistance of our human resources department and finance department who are also here to help assist. And then of course um our city clerk and clerk's office who acted as lealays on to this group and supported in a lot of information uh being prepared and presented to the committee. Uh we've got a lot of detailed recommendations for the council to consider this evening. Each one of these is going to be walked through as a part of the presentation, but just to cover it at a really high level. Um, the first recommendation is increase the compensation for the mayor from $2,923 to $4,169 per month and council members from 2,319 to 2,780 per month. There's also a recommendation which is new this year for an additional stipen uh to compensate those who are appointed to a statewide board or policy committee. The second recommendation is an increase to the amount available for reimbursement both for professional expenses and for travel associated with a statewide board or policy committee role. And then the final recommendation, also a new recommendation for the council to consider, is an opt-in program for advisory body members who are currently not compensated of $25 per meeting to offset some of those costs associated with participation and then to continue the current stipen for the architectural review and planning commission members. In terms of the policy background uh that both the committee considered and as a part of the council's role as well,

um a review of council compensation is actually called for as a part of our city's charter. Um and is further elaborated in our council policies and procedures document. But in short, the council may appoint a committee in evenumbered years to consider changes, but those changes importantly would not go into effect until the following January. So the oddnumbered year with the intention of an election occurring in the interim. In addition, in 2001, council added a resolution which states that at any time that we are um looking at council compensation that we also include in that review the planning commission and architectural review commission as well. Uh we last had a council compensation committee in 2020 and there was a number of different changes that were made at that time. One of them uh was a reset to sort of the methodology that was used to count calculate compensation. In addition, there is the ability for the council to approve a CPI increase during years in which a committee is not formed. Uh the culminating effect of all of that is our current compensation uh which again is set at 2923 for the mayor and 2319 for council members. There's also a number of different benefits both on the medical side and the professional expenses that we spoke about. All of that is listed in our staff report and all of that of course was provided to the committee for their review. And just as a reminder, we've historically only provided compensation to two of our advisory bodies. In terms of how we got here today, on May 20th, the council discussed creating a council compensation committee uh and later followed the procedures outlined in council policies and procedures in making those appointments on July 15th. and that included Andy Peas uh representing a previously elected official, Jill Lemieux as a personnel board member, Aaron Footut, Trent Johnson, Carrie How, Barry Price, and Joyce Sen as our citizens at large. The council also provided direction at that time for the uh committee to not just

look at the currently compensated advisory body uh advisory bodies, but also all advisory bodies determine if additional compensation was required at that time. All of our committees happened between September and December of last year. All the meetings were of course available and open for the public to be able to attend and all the information that we put together uh was available for uh the public to review on the city's website as well. In terms of that information and what it included, uh we put together all of the information that we typically do when we have a council compensation committee. One of those is a pretty detailed spreadsheet that looks at comparable cities. Those are the cities that we typically look at with respect to our different bargaining groups as a part of labor negotiations and are comparable due to a number of different similar characteristics. As a reminder, those cities are Chico, Davis, Monterey, Napa, Paso, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Maria, and Ventura. All that information again available in the packet was also produced for the committee. It included a look at general cities and charter cities where there's different uh legal guidance with respect to council compensation. Uh we also uh have a really cool spreadsheet which looked at the all of the different meetings uh the number of meetings the meeting length average meeting length for all of our advisory body members. of course with the idea of understanding what is the time commitment that has been put in by our advisory bodies especially as we've made different changes to advisory bodies roles uh and perview over the last several of years and of course that was all taken under consideration by the committee in terms of making their determination. Another item that we continued on from a previous previous work of council compensation committees was a fair amount of surveys. Uh those surveys both went to current and previous council members, current and previous advisory body members, and importantly a survey that was out and available to the general public. And we were really happy to see the response of over 300 folks that participated in that. There's a

wide range of questions that were asked to understand um folks interest in um participating either as a council member or advisory body member, how compensation might influence that uh role and what is the level of commitment and or the impacts in their personal and professional life associated with that participation. All of the themes are summarized in the report along with a link to the full list of all the different detailed responses that we received. And with that, to learn more about how our committee was able to distill all of that into the recommendations before you tonight, I'm happy to introduce Carrie How, the chair of the Council Compensation Committee.

Uh, hi folks. Hi everyone. Thank you very much for having me. Good evening. And, um, I'm Carrie Howell. I use she her pronouns. I was the chair of the council compensation committee. So, thank you very much for the appointment. And then thank you also to my fellow commissioners who were there, including um, former counselor Andy Peace, who's here today. Um so this slide here shows the methodology. So when we met as the committee uh we were focused on not just coming up with figures but we wanted sustainable methodology to share with you um the a comparable commitment to the work that not just that you do but also what's asked of you. And so um uh we focused on the median household income from the current census. Um, we thought that was incredibly important to um compare the um the current compensation with um the the income of the community members whom you represent. Um we also uh looked at average numbers of hours and um there was discussion on the committee regarding whether or not we want these um we want these amounts to uh reflect um hours worked um average hours worked or hours worked by the um hardest working individual who shared on the survey. Um ultimately we thought it was important to remain with the uh current expectation of the council and to um uh reward work uh reward work already done. Um next slide please. Um here we see the recommendations themselves. So the proposed monthly amount by council member mayor and then we have also offered an alternative to the mayor. Um we see the established weekly hours. Again, we kept them with what was originally shared with us and what was um I believe is currently the expectation. Um, next slide, please. Um we also uh discussed the professional

development funding expenses and uh we thought a nomenclature improvement would lead to um the opportunity to use those funds in a more robust way in a in a way where you um where uh counselors and mayors feel empowered to seek opportunity. um that would help uh develop them personally uh which ultimately helps the representation of the city and the and your constituents. Um so we were excited about the title change that was overwhelming agreement from everyone on the committee um and uh folks were very interested in structural changes. So um not just improving amounts and methodologies but how can we build sustainable processes and structures that also reflect what's asked of you. And so allowing for funds to be rolled over in the second year was almost the first thing that everyone on the commission really agreed about. Um we wanted to make sure that folks um had opportunities to uh save up quote unquote um to think critically and not just about what you might do this year but what could you possibly do um after that as well. Next slide please. Um, we also thought critically about the opportunity for additional stipens and allowances um that are specific to appointments. Again, this is reflected in uh what we saw in the survey. Um, I liked uh Greg mentioning the spreadsheets. There was no shortage of spreadsheets and uh you somehow managed to appoint an entire commission of people who love spreadsheets. And so, uh, I think we all had [laughter] a a pretty good time and, um, it was, uh, we were committed to how do we reward good work and how do we incentivize more good work? Um, kind of acknowledging that, um, as you, uh, seek additional employment appointments as council member or mayors, um, that that skill development ultimately um,

benefits the city and it benefits the constituents. Um so we were proud of an additional stipend and um offered uh thought critically about this methodology as well. So that stipend equal to 5 hours a month for the duration of the appointment and then that thousand annual travel reimbursement allowance. Next slide please. Uh there was robust discussion from the commission as to how we could pursue an optin stipen. Um I think to quote an early management uh lesson I learned uh before you ask how you say wow. So I [laughter] think I think what we were really committed to is overwhelmingly we agreed that um compensation and the opportunity for compensation are important. So when we looked at surveys um we also acknowledged that we may not have the data for the communities that were hoping to reach. And so, um, we really wanted to, we would like to, uh, recommend that staff pursue, um, to evaluate the feasibility, administrative, and budget impacts, um, to the city and, um, and advisory body members with this opportunity for an optin stipend. Um, so the spreadsheets that were mentioned earlier, we saw similar models across similar cities. And um I think ultimately what the commission felt comfortable doing is how can we choose the uh elements of other cities that they have done to success and then reflect that into um our current model um and build something sustainable. So, um, we ultimately thought, um, an optin [clears throat] stipend would be sustainable, but that more importantly, um, we would want the staff to look into that feasibility. And I think that might be it for me.

I'll hand it back to Yeah,

it's back to me for or to me for the fiscal impacts that these recommendations um that come with these recommendations. So, um, because they do not go into effect until January 1 of 2027, um, in the first six months of the I'm sorry, the last six months of the next fiscal year. Um, we prated them. Uh, so that's why they're the lower it's a lower amount for those um months. And so it is I have to get my notes. Sorry. For the first six months, it's to implement them. And we did do the I did do the calculations at the highest amount for you so that you would know worst case scenario um for lack of a better way of putting it. Um and so the first six months is 20 $28,690 um for that six-month period. And then ongoing costs. So the full year amount for the um funding is $57,381. And again, those do not include the advisory body because that is a pilot pro. We did not know if what council's direction would be. And um we need to look at a lot of different other variables that could change not just the stipen amount but any other costs associated with that. Um, and so with that, we're back at our recommendation. And again, it is to adopt new compensations for council and mayor um monthly amounts and then inc increasing the professional development expenses, including a new additional thousand per council member or mayor um for travel expenses related to attendance in

statewide meetings. and then direct staff to explore the feasibility of the opt-in pilot program. And that concludes our report. Thank you. Thank you for analyzing the multiple spreadsheets and um going through all of this. I know that when the um last minute not last minute but last request ad of looking at all the advisory bodies, it was like oh that's going to be a big thing. Um but in having kind of a new baseline, it seems like that's really helpful. Um as you were looking at um future years, how did you potentially I know you're you're looking at this as a future conversation in a way, but how would you analyze the people that are missing in a sense? How do we get the How did you all have a conversation about the people who were missing that couldn't even really answer the question of did $25 help for the advisory bodies? Um so for the ask slow survey um we did ask publicly uh would you be interested in the advisory body or I don't remember the exact language excuse me but that's what was essentially offered and overwhelmingly I think folks um said uh that they would that it would be nice but um not that it's a determining factor. Um, also when we looked at the survey responses for current advisory body members, um, they said the same thing. And I think that's where the commission thought that the pilot would be the best bet. Um, because I think as we try new things, we're not always going to have the data to support that. And sometimes not having data is data in itself. And so I would really encourage us to think about that. that in the optin model gives us the opportunity to

try something new, be innovative to advance economic equity in a way that this city perhaps has not centered just yet. Um, and I think it could be really exciting um to try something new. I think when we think about building new things, uh, we don't always have the data to support it except to say we haven't done this yet. Let's see what happens. um we talked to folks about what a barrier would be. That was a question on the survey. It was what barriers have you experienced? And so that's why we turned we were um uh the commission was having that robust discussion and what would that monthly amount be um that could support it. Um there was discussion about maybe this is a maybe this is an amount that you apply for, right? And then what we wanted to avoid would be anyone's need being validated outside of themselves. So that is the benefit of having an opt-in program that you decide for yourself what you need. I also think that's the benefit of it being a um one figure $25 and then that's advertised in itself. Um, if you had additional funds where you say, "Okay, we have a discretionary fund. We want to apply for it." Then that's what we're talking about where then you have somebody else validating your need. And so that's not equity, right? That's exposing vulnerability and then asking someone else to validate that for you. So we're really looking for um what what will happen if we make this opportunity there. We already know what happens when you don't pay them. We already know that you get engaged folks um in your community that you see folks kind of join a commission um maybe move through the pipeline to council or whatever that is for you, right? I think that's information we already know.

Thank you so much. One other question I think probably for either city uh deputy city deputy city manager Herman or for the city clerk. Um, I saw a couple responses that were thinking the $25 would be helpful for parking and my understanding is our advisory body members already have free parking during their meetings. Is that correct?

Thank you for the question. So, we offer uh free parking is available in the back lot and so folks are able to access that. If people need to park in one of our parking structures, then we offer the 1 hour of validation that's available to them. that may not offset all of their parking costs if they're end up in one of the structures, but those are the two programs that we have available. Really encouraging people to park in the back lot is the primary purpose. Thank you. And is that just part of the onboarding as they are a new advisory body member to learn about that parking ability? Correct. And we work with our staff leaison who support the various advisory bodies to make sure that they have that information.

One other piece as it related to the last question as well. I think part of what we would anticipate, should we be directed to explore the feasibility of a program or what are the metrics that we would then use to judge whether or not it's been a successful pilot program where we could explore some of those questions further. Great. Thank you, Council Member Shoresman.

Thank you. Yeah, that was kind of where I was going to go next actually. um is what would you answered this a little bit in the agenda correspondence, but what would the pilot program look like for the advisory bodies? What would be the next steps and how would we make decisions about whether or not it should go forward and how? Sure. Thank you for the question. So, the next steps would be getting direction tonight from the council to effectively explore the feasibility of it. uh we would look at um what the again the metrics would be for success. I think we would look at what and a a term would be that would be reasonable for the pilot program for us to be able to collect the amount of data needed to be able to report back to council on that. I think we would also look at what the impact is administratively for administering this. The current process that we have that we use for architectural review commission and planning commission is that effectively these individuals become employees of the city at that time that triggers a number of different reporting and training requirements. It trigger triggers additional payroll processing that needs to happen. Um it triggers WTS that we would need to issue to people as a part of that compensation. And so I think we want a complete picture of what the impacts would be at the city and also want to make sure that we're clear from the advisory body members. Again, I think the benefit being an opt-in program, someone doesn't necessarily want to opt into all of that, that they have the ability to say that they don't want to participate in it because it would not be an insignificant effort on our part to be able to do that. So, uh, I've consulted with our colleagues in human resources and finance. We feel like we would be able to come back to you uh as a part of the supplemental budget adoption with our sort of initial take of what the um administrative impacts would be for that, what our recommended time frame would be for implementing a pilot program along with what the expected budget impact would be so that that could be incorporated into next year's budget should the council

wish to do so.

Great. Thank you. And then my second question is about you all did a a great job of explaining the methodology behind all the numbers. I think the one that I'm still not not totally clear on is the $1,000 reimbursement allowance for council and mayor to be um how did the how did the thousand number um get arrived at? So part of the exercise for um the professional development funds and how we looked at them was I went back and took a sampling of all of the different things that council has spent their money on. And so I do have data from the last two year three years, I'm sorry. um for those who have been appointed to um state advisory state policy board meetings and the average for an overnight stay travel and everything has been about $300. And so it was the thought of normally I think this year there's three out of out of town meetings that you're um asked to go to. So multiplying the 300 times and then allowing for a little bit of extra just in case depending on because the location obviously the location of the training does um kind of change how much a hotel room will cost.

So that $1,000 is theoretically to support the costs of going to the required meetings for that policy committee or that board for the year basically. Yeah. Yeah, mostly for the policy because a lot of the board expenses are reimbursed by Cal Cities, but there are still some that are not. Okay. Okay. Thank you so much. Appreciate that clarification. Thank you, Council Member Boswell.

Uh uh thank you. Um thanks to the work of the committee. Appreciate it. the uh I just have a question about um so the recommendation is to basically continue uh current practice on compensating uh the ARC and the planning commission and I'm curious is that based on workload or level of responsibility or what was the thinking there? that um we thought it was important that the city remained true to their word and that the people who had already signed up and um uh for these commissions um that it remained that way. Um so when we were discussing advisory body improvement um and compensation uh we typically focused on um the remaining advisory bodies and uh there was some discussion on the commission about whether or not we would use this same methodology or the same opt-in for those particular advisory bodies. And then like you said, um, council member Boswell, um, we thought because of the requirements of those committees, the administrative requests already of them, um, that we would keep with what's currently advertised and then we didn't want to change what's already been processed or promised. Excuse me.

Thank you. Um, I think [clears throat] that's all the questions I see based on colleagues. Any public comment? No, there's not. Okay. [laughter] Um, well, the only I I did want to go back to the alternate on the alternative for the mayor for the 35. I just want to make sure I'm reading that correctly. The that is only if the mayor is on a regional committee, otherwise it would be 30, right? Okay, perfect. Just making sure. All right. Um,

no. Yeah, I I believe the recommendation from the committee was the 35 was recognizing sort of a baseline level of service of the mayor at 35 hours per week. And that was in response, I think, to some of the survey feedback that they received. At that level, they would still be eligible, the mayor would still be eligible for the additional five hours per month for participation on the statewide border policy committee. Got it. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Um, all right. Well, I guess we go into deliberation. Council member Marks.

Thank you. Well, I joked I joked [clears throat] to Nicole that I wanted minimum wage. I'd be a cazillionaire. You know, we all um so I just want to say that um and starting with the mayor's compensation. Um, I think this is a really uh important I I support staff recommendations for the whole thing, [cough and clears throat] but especially for the mayor. Um, I was the mayor for six years and I can tell you um uh I didn't do it for the money. However, the thing about being mayor is that you can't work harder. you can't um get up earlier or stay up later or become more efficient uh and still do your duties because there these irreducible chunks of time where people just want the mayor to be there and and so it a lot of it's ceremonial. So it's really hard. I I admire our present mayor and [clears throat] I have to say when I got elected mayor, that's when I wound down my uh solo practice because I realized I couldn't really do a good job for my clients and at the same time do a good job as mayor. Um and so I think 35 hours is is a an underestimate of what it actually takes. And I'm amazed that um uh well different mayors have been able to work mostly for Calpali actually. Ellen Settle worked for Calpali for and was uh on the council for 30 years who managed to do it. But I do think the compensation is is important. And I think also it um opens up the possibility for um uh

people uh who may be on a really tight budget to think, well, I think I could swing it, you know, somehow. It it I think it's a plus. Um I'm glad that the cola only would uh kick in for years when there was no compensation committee, you know. Um and in terms of the professional development, I think it's everything is very well um thought out. uh in terms of the optin pilot program. Um I just I'm glad the visibility will be explored but also I'm just not sure um how valuable that would be uh you know to the actual members of the advisory bodies. I mean, basically, you might have to, [sighs] if you're working and the meeting starts at 5:30, you may need to pack an extra sandwich or maybe grab a burrito or something so you get some dinner before the meeting. But, um, you know, basically, you have to be a city resident to serve on an advisory committee. They're not making, um, long commutes. And um uh so I'm I'm somewhat lukewarm on that, but I do think it should be explored. Uh so I think that's just about all I have to say right now, except that um I think it makes I think it makes sense and I really appreciate the professionalism and the thoroughess of the uh compensation committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Boswell. Yeah. Uh thank you. Uh first just a clarification I believe so the recommendation for the mayors is based on the 30 hour not the 35 hour right? Is that correct? Correct.

Okay. So that's kind of one decision we'd have to make is whether if we take staff recommendation uh as presented it's the 30 hour uh basis. I'm I'm open to both by the way. Um uh I'm going to be supporting this. I mean, it's always weird to talk about your own salary. I mean, it's probably one of the most uncomfortable things to do. Um, and you kind of my inclination coming in was thinking like, well, either, you know, either let's just do the COLA, that's kind of an easy default, um, which I would support if if we couldn't move forward with this motion. Um, or to basically take what the committee gives us, barring some judgment that it was, you know, really out of bounds or something. uh respect the respect the citizens who had served on the committee and spent the time to come up with a recommendation uh for us and see them as the voice of the community. Um and I think they did a great job and I think they've done that effectively and I don't see anything particularly out of line here. So uh so I'm happy to to support this resolution. I I agree with council member Marks. I'm a little um not quite sure about the the optin. And I I did seven years on an advisory uh body on planning commission where we did get a small compensation. I I always felt like well at least I because I always went to dinner downtown before I came because we used to start at seven

on planning commission back then which was fun because that made for a lot of midnight meetings. But anyways um so I sort of appreciated that like you know little extra money that I could go out and eat out and not feel guilty about it. So, um I think there is some level of that. But I also was I was just sort of sitting down trying to think about I really appreciate all the data that was gathered because I was trying to think about like where in the work I've done in the past as a volunteer like where do I feel like you go from volunteer to kind of being an employee, [laughter] right? And I there's no magic number, you know, but like four hours a week popped up in my head. You know, if I'm volunteering for an organization less than four hours a week, I could, you know, it's just a volunteer. I don't need any money for that. It's it's fine. And but, you know, more than half a day a week, it starts to feel a little bit like maybe a job and an expectation. So um you know I was looking at a lot of the data kind of from that lens of are do we have advisory bodies where we are asking an extraordinary amount of work from that's sort of above and beyond what you would consider a volunteer duty and we didn't really have that I mean it's been interesting to look at the planning commission the arc data even just in the last five years how much that's changed I went back and compared to uh even a few sample years including years I was on and you know the workload is significant ificantly dropped um largely due to the state essentially limiting the ability of our ARC and planning commissions to do the kind of work they do in the past. Um regardless of what you think about that, but that's kind of the reality that we're facing. And so uh it certainly did feel like feel like um you know we didn't have advisory body members who we were asking an inordinate amount of work from. I do believe the planning commission and the ARC because of the nature of the responsibility that they have uh you know their workload is not necessarily um higher particularly for the ARC than

some of the other committees but the level of responsibility uh in terms of decision- making uh is you know is different for those bodies and so um I appreciate the consideration to continue uh kind of our tradition there. So, I'm willing to support the um you know, staff coming back to us with some more uh information, but I'm also concerned that it becomes, you know, way more work than it's worth. So, um yeah, thank you. Thank you. Well, I'll give him uh Oh, Council Member Shoresman.

Yeah. So, I uh I second your emotion, Council Member Boswell, that this is uh not a fun conversation to have. Uh it's awkward to think about making a decision about uh salary or pay that you might uh get in the future. Um so, I just want to acknowledge that it is um uncomfortable. Uh, I'm generally in favor of the opt-in pilot for the advisory bodies. I think that that's a creative, thoughtful way of going about it and seeing where this goes. I am curious to see how it goes and I hope it doesn't take too much work for staff to implement. So, I'll be curious to see where that goes next. I think it's worth looking into and I appreciate the way that the compensation committee has gone about really thoughtfully thinking about how it will impact the people that are being impacted by it um or having the opportunity to take advantage of that uh optin that haven't had the opportunity to before. I am curious about the data we don't have. Uh I think as Carrie mentioned, we only know what people who answered our survey are thinking and probably there is a large number of people who don't have the energy or time or knowledge in order to answer the survey. And I'm curious how the data would be different if we had a larger pool of people answering our survey and really telling us what the question that keeps coming to my mind is for those people who are not participating and if money is an issue, what is the

number that would make it possible for them to participate? And I don't know how we get that number, but it is a number that I'm that I'm curious about. Uh I appreciate the thoughtfulness that went into council compensation also and uh I have served on a policy committee. I'm on a policy I've been on a policy committee the last few years and I know that that does cost extra money to go to those meetings and I have exhausted my uh my funds in order to go to those meetings. So I think that's a creative solution that the committee came up with for for dealing with that. Uh and I think the approach in general is measured. I thought it was a good idea in 2020 when the comp compensation committee came up with the approach of using the median income last time and I think this is just an basically an update. So, I I appreciate that it's measured and thoughtful and is going to have um less impact than a more drastic uh increase would have on the city's budget as a whole. Um, I do I do have a concern that the salary amount for a council member is still even with this very measured, thoughtful approach and uh increase, it's not enough for the average resident of St. Louis Abyispo to be able to afford to live on. I'm just going to be honest without having another source of income. Uh I would not be able to do this job if I didn't have another full-time job. And I'm not doing it for the money. I don't think any of us are doing it for the money. We do it because we love this city. And it's a it's a labor of love that I am grateful to do every single day. Every time I come to this das, I'm grateful to be here and grateful to be

representing the the people of St. Louis Abyispo in this role. Um, but I do also acknowledge that uh there might be other people out there who would like to do this also if it not for the need to uh focus on their u on on what pays their bills and helps them afford to actually live in this city. So, thank you to the committee for doing all the work that you did. I'm prepared to support this as is. Um, but I couldn't leave this conversation without making that point as well. Thank you so much, Vice Mayor Francis.

Yeah, thank you so much. Um, got to just start by echoing what everybody else has said that I'm just so grateful to the committee and heard from staff that you guys just went so far above and beyond uh their expectations and really surprised them with the data that you guys wanted to get into. And so, uh, council after my own heart that you guys wanted to spend all the time with spreadsheets, so that's awesome. I I'll start with the pilot program. Um, I really liked your your framing on this. I think it is important to We don't know what the magic number is, but we do know there's a lot of people who aren't choosing to join these advisory bodies for whatever reason. And oftentimes those reasons are are financial and not that $25 is necessarily going to make a difference, but but maybe it does. And um I know from discussions with staff today in uh agenda review that there are some concerns with the cost of doing this because of the onboarding and bringing them into the system and then having to do all of the different staff trainings and that obviously wasn't part of your decision-making process, but I know uh they had mentioned that the county is using um $25 gift card or gift card uh program instead of onboarding them as staff. Uh, I thought that was a really creative solution. I'd love to see if maybe we could navigate that so that people can still opt in, get some compensation. Uh, but I would really like to avoid the the burden of creating additional staff work there. Um, but in general in favor of that, would like to see some more analysis there. Um, second, it has been really fascinating over the last three years to have a front row seat to the impossible task of being mayor. Um, I am just constantly in awe of your schedule and your hard work and and everything that you're expected to do. And um, on top of that, you know, trying

to work full-time in different capacities, it's it's a lot. Um, and I don't think you can kind of know that uh in in some way, but actually seeing what it takes and the kind of unexpected schedule, it's super unpredictable and it's variable. And so, how are you going to have a job that has a scheduled around that? So, I'm very much in favor of of looking at uh improving the the mayor's uh compensation. You know, maybe bringing it in line with the 35 hours that uh alternative that was there. that seems, you know, it's still not uh what it takes to live in the city, but it brings us a little bit closer to compensating the mayor for what they're actually doing. Um I feel like, you know, we talk a lot about equity and giving people access to to these seats of power in the city. And of course, as everybody said, we're the ones sitting on them right now, so we're talking about ourselves, which is a weird thing. But this is for future councils. This is for future mayors. this doesn't go into effect during these terms. You know, we really need to put our money where our values are if we want to get people into these seats uh that that wouldn't traditionally come into these seats. You know, personally, I'm I'm literally fulfilling my life's dream by getting to serve my community and and be up here and get deep into the policy weeds. So, I feel incredibly lucky and I think all of us do feel incredibly lucky to be to be serving the community in this way. But um the only people that can take on this these positions are ones that have jobs with some degree of autonomy or with clear blocks of time to schedule their extensive meetings with staff which are often during the day and constituents which have super variable hours. And that's an impossible ask. You know, I personally was a teacher previously and it was not a job where you could like peace out for three hours in the middle of the day. So it, you know, I had made the tough decision to

leave that and very lucky to be able to do that. Um, I think the other thing that's a little bit hard to anticipate is the incredible number of um un unexpected expenses. There's so many cups of coffee and there's the tickets to the charitable events and the suits if you didn't have to wear those previously, you know, and those are things that of of course are part of, you know, any professional uh role, but they're things that cost money and that we're expected to do as part of this job. And so I, you know, looking at a little little additional compensation to kind of help bridge that gap would be really helpful here. So, I am um I'm in favor of the recommendations as presented, but I would like to have a little more discussion about um compensating the mayor at that 35 hours versus at the 30 hours. And I'll leave it there.

Thank you. Um thank you all for your comments and I agree with so much of it and I hate to repeat some of it, but I I feel it's important that all of you know how much we are appreciating all the work you did. Um, I also want to echo, um, it is it's awkward. I mean, I I remember this conversation. I just was new on the council when we first had this conversation. And, um, I was like, how am I going to do this? Uh, it feels very weird to say yes to something that's going to come back to you. But what I remembered then and what I remember now, and as many have already mentioned, this is not about us. This is about the future. and hoping that we have people that have the opportunity to sit in these seats to make policy decisions. Um I always have a hard time with the word power, but I know what you're saying. Um [laughter] to have that leadership and to have the um policym decisions, excuse me. Um and we are making decisions about rent. We're making decisions about where to put housing. We're making decisions about uh grants that have to do with homelessness and food banks. And I mean, we could just go the whole gamut of all the different decisions make decisions we make. And if people haven't ever been in this in the space of a single parent or ever having to be an EBT or ever being in uh a different uh lower income household, it's just it's different. And until you sit through it, I mean, even as we've had ch I think all of us have have children. Um that moment when you had an infant versus now, you think you remember those days until you have to actually take take care of an infant for a whole overnight and you're like, "Oh, right. That's how tired I am." I I So, I think I think just having those those memories close enough as a council member is important as we're making decisions. So, if finances have never

been a problem for someone, that is fantastic. I'm very happy for them and they may not fully understand what some of the policies decisions are that they're making. So hopefully um we can continue to have a variety of people at the dis um by making these um salary decisions and these um regional or statewide decisions. The other thing I really appreciate is even having this conversation about professional development and uh or professional expense reimbursement and um statewide committees. Um being on a statewide committee has been next level to the innovative information we've been able to bring back. I know that um Council Member Shoresman and Vice Mayor and I are on different committees, so no Brown Act issues. Um have had some really great conversations about what what's happening in other cities that we're able to bring back. And yes, we all read articles, but it's different than when you actually have that conversation. Um and that's another reason I'm really thrilled that we always have I know it's by requirement that we always have a previous council on the council compensation committee. I know [snorts] that uh council member Peas was on so many regional and statewide boards and understood that those differences as well. Um so I I I do want to um come back to the uh conversation around advisory bodies. And so as we are all talking about equity and having different people be able to have access, I really love the concept that we're having this conversation. I also [gasps] have my professional human resources certificate and have been in human resources and know the cost direct and indirect of making someone an employee that's not here very long or very many hours. So I want to be cognizant of that and what that means for us. So um if

it's gift cards that could be great. You know what like the county is doing? What what does that look like? Let's be creative. Let's be innovative. And if it's $25 then great. Um, but I just want to make sure we think about different opportunities for different people because if it's the eating dinner, then maybe we just get some gift cards to restaurants. If it's child care, then that's a different thing. There's not really a great gift card for childare. Um, so I wish there was. [laughter] So that would be a whole different conversation. Um, so as we talk about the ideas to get the data that we don't have, um, I'm I'm sure there'll be many surveys in the future that I'll I don't need to guide. Um, but I do know that similar to what we just talked about with statewide activities, there are so many electives in California and so many cities and counties and school boards and CSDs. What do other people do? I I hope that we're getting some best practices and um if that knowledge is not there, that's also good for us to know. Maybe there's another role for someone. But um getting the additional staff hours it will take to manage approximately of 100 more people on the payroll I think is important to understand. Um there's the additional official hours and there's kind of the indirect hours. So I just want to make sure we're looking at both those um hard costs and soft costs for the budget. Um I know there's additional trainings if someone's an employee versus someone's an a volunteer. And I know there's trainings for volunteer as well, but there's many more to my understanding, especially because we are a public sector that are required. So, I just want to make sure we're looking at that. Um, and there are some committees that we get a lot of applications for and so sometimes people don't get to be on the committees even. And so I wonder at the

same time how do we make sure I know for leadership slow we don't have the scholarship um request attached to the application. So I just want to make sure that we are not not um giving the opportunity for people to make a decision based on money. So um as far as the decision makers at the time. Um so I just want to make sure those are separate entities. I know with optin I would imagine it would be but I just want to make sure that's separate. So, that's just my initial thoughts and it's it's kind of wild to have this much discussion about $25 per meeting, but it's it's something that's new and so I want to make sure we're thinking about these different aspects um of what could work and what could be helpful and also what could be potentially [snorts] overly cumbersome and maybe it's an outreach thing instead. So, I don't know what that looks like. And um I just want to really appreciate the uh committee for bringing this to our attention because it sounded overwhelming, but it actually is a great conversation to have. So, thank you. So, that's my way long-winded sorry um response, but this is just uh new and a little different and um back to the awkward acknowledging um it's not just ourselves, it's for the future. So, I think that is it. I think we're ready to um any other deliberation y'all see. All right, we're ready for a motion if someone would like. Um, Council Member Shoresman,

I just want to thank again the compensation committee and the staff. I know they did a lot of work to generate all those spreadsheets uh for the committee to look at and I'm prepared to move staff's recommendation. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Um and the only thing I realized is we didn't finish the conversation and it's again awkward for me to bring bringing it up but um we didn't finish the conversation of the 30 versus 35 hours. Um, I'm kind of supportive either way. Uh, I I was looking at the, um, that's why I asked the question about the additional board time if that was where that $35 35 hours was coming from versus not. Um, I know that personally I spend a lot of time and I made a I made a conscious decision to step back in my job to take a reduction in [clears throat] time and money each time I took on a new role here at the city council and other mayors may not wish to spend as much time. And so I want to have that respect for the position as well. Um, and so I'm I'm open to 30 or 35. Um, so wanted to get your all of your feedback with that. Are are is this do we feel this community is asking for 35 hours or do we feel this I [laughter] know I feel like the answer is yes in saying it that way. Um, or are we thinking that the committee is cool if maybe we step back a little bit as the mayor? Uh, vice sorry, council member Torsman,

I I mean that question it I think that this community uh this community has very high expectations for all of us. I think they they expect a a high level of uh of attention from the entire council. Um I don't I don't have a good feel on the difference between their expectations around 30 hours for the mayor or 35 hours. I was just um I was gonna say should I withdraw my motion so that we can discuss this more or should we just talk through it and see if the motion should be amended? I'm not sure what the process should be.

Great question. Um I think if you want to withdraw your motion just so we can finish that bit of the conversation that would be great. Okay, I'll withdraw my motion then. Thank you so much. Um, Vice Mayor Francis.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor. Um, you know, our current mayor obviously is is spending 35 hours plus um in in this role and and I hear the concern about future mayors or future council members uh choosing to spend less time uh potentially creating an issue around optics if they're being compensated for more hours than they're actually working. But, you know, we do have a mechanism in place for for dealing with um council members and mayors who aren't putting in the hours that the community expects from them and and that is through the vote. And so, I I feel like the community is is asking for the number of hours that um that you're putting in and that's beyond the 35 at this point. So, uh I would like to see us compensate the mayor's role at that level. Um, and if we want to revisit this conversation in five years or a decade, then we, you know, future councils can do that

or two years, they future councils can do that. So, just making sure. Council member Marks. Um, yeah. Well, [clears throat] I think this community would like 60 hours from the mayor.

Thanks, Mr. Um, if you look at what we just passed uh with the um the new uh leazison uh efforts and I had it somewhere. There are all these committees that the mayor absolutely has to go to. Um oh here we go. So, [clears throat] housing authority, city selection committee, uh, uh, Slowcog Regional, oh, Reach, performing arts, uh, center commission, visit, uh, slow county, whale rock commission, area agency on aging, um, mayor's advisory body chair, student community leazison, city university, um, and on and on and on. I'm not talking about uh statewide or volunteer or other stuff. I'm talking about the expectation of the mayor that's just that we just voted on that not doesn't even count, you know, um all the all the ceremonial stuff which is very important and the community cares about it so much. However, uh so I I do I would support the uh alternative for the mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Boswell. Yeah. Uh uh good discussion. I mean, I I I think the way I like thinking about this is that let's set the salary at the expectation um and ask the mayor to meet the expectation versus the other way around. So, um, like I said at the beginning, I'm fine with either amount. So, I'll, um, sounds like we're leaning towards 35 and I would support basing it on the 35. Sounds good. Thank you so much. I appreciate the conversation. Um, Vice I'm sorry, Council Member Shoresman, would you like to um, make your motion

or do you agree? Yeah, I um you know, I think the the difference I was just kind of pulling up the spreadsheet um the item and the agenda and um trying to kind of it's I mean it's five hours different. So the the difference obviously in your time you you definitely put in you put in a lot of time. I don't you none of us keep time sheets per se, but I would imagine that you work uh work at this job um 40 hours a week. Um probably more on many occasions. So, but I think the the value of that is not that much when you really I'm trying to kind of do the math real quick in my head. The difference between 30 hours and 35. So, in terms of budget terms, it's $700 uh I think um a month. Sorry, I'm really bad at fast math, so I'm trying not to do that, but um so I mean I think I'm rambling a little bit, but I think I think the the value to the budget is not that big a difference and you definitely and that the mayor definitely works that much. So, I would say um I'm happy to just amend my motion and u go with the staff's recommendation on most of the items with the exception of the mayor's salary which would be uh based on the 35h hour a week number.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Um, it feels awkward, but I'm just going to go ahead and second it and we'll go to roll call. Council member Shortsman, yes. Mayor Stewart, yes. Council member Boswell, yes. Council member Marks, yes. Vice Mayor Francis, [clears throat] yes.

The motion passes 5-0. And again, great gratitude to the committee, staff members. Sorry to give more work with the pilot program, but I really appreciate that we'll be looking at this and kind of being able to give the community some um information with data and hopefully increase some access to um people that [snorts] haven't been able to be on these committees before. So, thank you so much. And with that, that is our last business item, which means it's time for liaison and committee reports. And Um, I'm sorry, Vice Mayor Francis.

Thank you. Well, this goes way back because we uh met the first week of uh December. Then we had a special meeting where we didn't talk about these. So, I'll start with our photos with surfer Santa. Um, Parks and Rec put on this really awesome event. I think it was the third year they had done it, but it was our family's first year of going and and taking advantage. And if you haven't done it, I just highly recommend. It's so great. You go into Cramer Pool, you dive underwater, and you get these great um photos with surfer Santa. So, that was really fun. On uh December 6th, uh attended uh the uh rack meeting um for council member Marks. Um and there were a lot of interesting items update on water levels. Uh and in particular, there was a an item where uh the rack committee supported the recommendation of uh a city project, which is a groundwater cleanup project. Um that was uh $57,000 uh for a project that we're we're doing to help with our groundwater quality. Uh and that was recommended to go on to the county supervisors where I believe it's being heard this month. Um and on the 18th uh had a cap slow meeting and it was our end of the year meeting. So we did kind of a lot of of wrap up talked about um on average uh 40 Praau was sheltering 128 people every night uh during the the month of December or since August. Um and that shelter demand is increasing. Uh there was 115 uh new unique accesses uh at St. Stevens which is now a a new uh touch point that um caps is using and these were folks that were not uh utilizing 40 PRA. So that was interesting to see that um we were able to uh get support and

resources to a whole new group of people there which was really fantastic. Um, and as we move into the new year, we have our next caps meeting on on Thursday, and then uh council member Boswell will be taking over uh that board seat, but I'm sure many folks have heard uh concerns around uh the freeze to federal child care funds, which would have a dramatic uh impact on us locally. Just keeping an eye on some of the court cases around that, and I'll come back with an update on that uh at our next meeting. Uh, and then on the 6th, uh, I believe all of us were at the installation of the Shift Public Art in, um, St. Louis Ranch, which was really fantastic. And, uh, I'll leave it there.

Thank you so much, uh, Council Member Boswell.

Yeah, thank you. Um, let's see. I'll start with, uh, this morning. I attended the, uh, downtown slow, uh, board retreat. Um I'm the alternate liaison. Uh council member Shoresman couldn't be there obviously. So um that was great. I was uh enjoyed that. Um let's see what else. There's I know it's been a while, right? Uh I last week I met with I did my my liazison work for the slow county uh or St. Louisispo Climate Coalition. And I just want to note they're having their kickoff party on January 28th from 6:00 to 8:00 PM. So check that out if you're interested. Uh my airport land use commission duties the uh the most recent meeting well we have uh there wasn't a December meeting January 21st we have a meeting coming up but there are no city items. Um my uh liaison work for local air local agency formation commission. Um there was a December 18 meeting but again no city items and a January 15th meeting upcoming where again there are no city items. Um I did the shift uh on December 9th I attended the state of the state discussion with our local California legislative reps. That was uh quite enlightening actually to hear about their um legislative agendas coming up. Uh, and then the last thing I just want to congratulate the CowPoly Rose Parade team for winning the sweep stakes award. It's a really big deal. They've never won like an 80 years of participation. They've never won this award. It's usually won by like professional float companies and stuff and so uh wonderful to bring home the bring home the trophy for that. So, congratulations to Kpali. Thank you, Council Member Marks.

Thank you. Well, I'm going to uh skip all the holiday stuff. Um uh I did uh um I did uh along with most of us here attend the um installation of the ribbon cutting for the public art at uh uh the roundabout on Froom Ranchway. [clears throat] And uh it so far has done fine. A couple of people have said it looks like it's going to fall over. I said, "No, it's not going to fall over. It's just the angle. It's supposed to be that way." So, okay. Um so on um on the 3d of January I attended an event at the history center that was um a talk and opening uh of an exhibit uh about Ethel Culie who was um for many many years the dean of girls at St. Louis Bispo High School and she's also the person who uh founded the uh German student uh youth exchange that has gone on now for 78 years. Uh so every year um it started in order to try to uh reach out to young uh folks in Germany after the fall of Hitler um and uh uh do it sort of on a person-toperson basis. So every year one student from St. Louis Vispo High School goes to Stoutgard, Germany and every year one student comes from this art and music school at Abeloo in Strutgard and uh it was uh beautifully done uh and the exhibit goes on until the beginning of February. So if you uh Ethel Kulie kept all these scrapbooks of all the different things that were going on during the city uh during those years

is fantastic. And then recently um on Sunday [clears throat] I went to the installation of officers at the King David's Lodge um the Masonic Temple of St. Louis Abyispo. I was invited by Robert Saxs whom I've known for many years. I didn't even know he was a Mason, but he is now the master of the lodge. And it was extremely interesting um uh in that the ceremony that they follow has been followed um since the 1700s in Europe and it came over um to the colonies u when people came over from England. Uh anyway, so it was like really living uh living history. It was uh amazing. coming up uh tomorrow. I'm going to go to the integrated waste management authority board meeting due to the good grace of my colleagues and um then the air pollution control district meeting is on the 28th. Uh Heather Heather Moreno is slated to become the new president. I will then be the past president and um but still on the executive committee. So that's all I have.

Thank you. Uh, Council Member Shoresman.

Yes, it's getting late and I'm starting to lose my words, so I'm going to keep this short. Uh, lots of wonderful holiday festivities. Um, so glad to have been able to go to the Manura lighting uh, and several other happenings around the holidays. Uh, I too with council member Boswell attended the state of the state. always uh the chamber always does such a good job of putting on informative discussions. I had my last zone 9 advisory committee meeting in December as I will be passing the torch to I think uh Vice Mayor Francis and Council Member Marks I believe uh as the alternate on that body coming forward here. I had an HSC executive committee meeting on the 15th of December. There's all sorts of interesting things happening with federal grants uh and lawsuits uh the federal level with some really really important uh homelessness funding that comes to the county. So I hope that that will be resolved soon. Um, oh, and probably my favorite holiday uh activity that I don't want to forget to mention was that Council Member Boswell and I rode the trolley from the senior center on its holiday route with a a trolley full of our uh senior center members um back before uh Christmas. So, that was a lot of fun and um would recommend that to anybody who gets the chance in the future. I'll end it there.

Thank you. And yes, there has been quite a bit that's happened. Um I will not go every single day of my calendar because that would be horrific for all of you. [laughter]

Back to that. Um, but I I do want to highlight a couple things because after our last meeting, I left the next morning at 6:15 a.m. on Amtrak um to head down to uh Rancher Mirage um which is quite far from here when you're driving uh and went to the Cal's board meeting. at that board meeting. It was the time where we bring all of the leaders from all of the advisory bodies or all of the policy committees and um all of the caucuses, all of the divisions and our board together and we determine the new advocacy priorities. So if you wish to learn more about that, you can go to calities.org and check on the advis advocacy priorities. I will say that one thing that was a very intense and interesting conversation was public safety had come off of the prior year's um advocacy priorities and seeing that we needed to make sure that Prop 36 is actually now um is now that it's law, how do we execute that in our communities? We saw that with um emergencies and fires um public safety is a conversation that we are all having right now in every single aspect. And so whether it's law enforcement or whether it's fire, public safety was clear it had to come back into our um advocacy priorities. So, um, one of the other things I do want to highlight when it comes to holidays is I know we've had it all on our social medias and so has downtown slow, downtown slow and the city of slow, but my one of my favorite things every year for the holidays is the holiday parade. So, I whisked back and made sure after the Friday morning, left about a couple hours early from the board meeting and got back here in time for the holiday parade because it is so fun. Um it is the it was the 49th anniversary of the parade. So I just

want to say next year will be the 50th you know golden holiday parade and yes it will be on my actual birthday. So pretty excited about that. Um [laughter] then the um C slow cog slow county um count slow county council governments and the regional transit authority board. I have had three of those meetings since then. We had December 10th, January 7th, and today was a workshop. So, I just want to say there is so much going on with Slowco Cog right now. Transportation is um the hot topic and I don't know how it can't be, but um when it comes to our leaders, we said thank you so much to President Pauling. He stepped down as to past president now. And um the incoming or the current president is Mayor Carla Wixom from Mororrow Bay and then county board of supervisor uh Heather Moreno will be the or is the vice president. So that's a change. Um we said thank you so much to um Peter Roger, I'm sorry, Pete Rogers, executive director for 35 years of service and um he is hanging in for a couple more years. We said thank you to Ida Nicholan for 25 years and many more um drivers and um different roles that have really spent a lot of time. So I know that usually I don't go into all of that but that's a lot of years 35 25 10 and more. And um they are though still having driver shortage. So this is not new to many of our communities. Uh we need drivers. So, if you are interested in being a driver, know someone who could be a driver, there's still a bonus and um there's a great job there. If you go to neo gov, you can find that information. Lastly, I will say that um the federal view federal review is starting now. So, as far as funding, they're trying to make sure they finish by the end of February. So, if you see a lot of communication on social media and

on their website about, hey, we need your input, we need your input now, it really is true. whether it's the uh tax we're looking at next week on our agenda or whether it for the ballot initiative or whether it is what's happening with priorities for transportation for the entire county. Um to wrap it up I have just two more things or three more things. Welcome and thank you to our senator president Monnique Leone. I went to the reception on the 15th in December and she has now been officially sworn in and it is amazing that on the central coast the assembly leader and the speaker leader are both in our area. So they understand the nuances of yes arena numbers we need to build housing and you can't build it everywhere and so what do we do with that um tension and how do we manage that and then uh the CMC advisory committee the California men's colony um we our warden just retired they didn't have the new warden officially um announced the person that met with us may be our new warden so we'll find that out later this month um But that's that's a big change. I believe he was there for 20 years. So that's a that's a big deal. And lastly, I just came back this weekend from my last and final trip uh with the Rodell Fellowship. I was given the great opportunity to be um an elected leader that uh they brought together the first class of California. Usually this something they do throughout the US and they bring together people who are typically um conservative, liberal, and even more liberal because that's California. We're red, blue, and bluer versus just red and blue in uh this the the United States. And um we had conversations around the Declaration of Independence, Frederick Douglas, and his Fourth of July um speech, which was really interesting. I

encourage anyone to look at that. Um, we looked at um the Monroe Doctrine. We looked at all of these older but yet founding um uh documents and then many many conversations around what it means to be a leader, what it means to make policy, how do you bring people together and have these conversations? And um so Rodell RDL, if you ever wish to look into their program, it's amazing. And um I will say this was not just city council and mayors. It was um assembly members, senators, DAS, um county supervisors. So, a lot of different variety and uh just an amazing experience. I look forward to sharing more about here um in the future. So, thank you for listening to all of that. It was just a lot that we went through in these last six weeks, I guess. And uh we'll see you all back here next week. So, a lot less to talk about next week. [laughter]

Okay. All right. Well, have a wonderful evening. Thank you for all of you who are here and uh are listening online. Take care.