City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I want to call the meeting to order for the Oxnard City Council for Tuesday, January 20th, 2026. Madame Clerk, may we have the roll call and posting of the agenda, please? Uh, Council Member Palo, here. Councilwoman Pettis, here. Councilwoman Rodriguez, present. Councilman Star here, Mayor Promptan here. And the agenda for this meeting was posted in the kiosk at the at city hall, the Ener Public Library, the city administrative offices, and on the city's website on Thursday, January 8th. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. And uh those who are watching, you'll see that the mayor is not here tonight and Councilwoman Bassua won't be joining us as well. And so we who you have here is who you have here. We're going to have a good time. All right. Our first item on the agenda this evening is an appointment item at 5:00 PM D1, Cultural and Community Services Departments. Subject: Cultural and Community Services Workshop. Recommendation that the city council receive and file an update report from the cultural and community services department concerning information related to functions, priorities, challenges, and anticipated future needs. We have Mr. Terrell Harrison, cultural and community services director.

Good evening, uh, Mayor Prom, City Council. I am really happy and I'm excited to be here tonight. Um, not only to present the good hard work of our department, um, but I'm excited because my mother told me at least I would be able to say something tonight. So, she's excited that I'm actually making a presentation tonight. Um, there has been a change in our presentation. We consulted with the city attorney's office and there you'll see there is a a slide 28A and a slide 28B. Um we have copies for the public here and then we also um have given you all copies. Um so again my name is Terra Harrison. I'm the culture and community services director. Um and we will move forward with our department slides. Okay. So um yeah great. So I want to bring your attention. That is our mission. That is our our vision. But I also want everybody to pay close attention to our values. Um, our values are respect our customers, compassion for our customers, collaboration with our partners. We celebrate diversity in within the city of Oxnard. And we also deliver services with integrity. And one of the things that I've said um, in the past, I know Councilman Men Pllo remembers this, is that the community trust us with their two most valuable assets. um that is their children and that is their parents, our seniors. Um moving forward, you'll see um um our cultural and community services has

three different divisions. Um the cultural arts division which uh contains um our arts academy and our uh our art in the chambers. I don't want to um I want to go ahead and point your attention to the art that we do have in our chambers. And I know I apologize, Julie, if I know you're going to bring attention to it, but um those three were just hung today and I think they look very very nice for um Black History Month also for next month in February. Um we have our library and um we have our gardening program, our book club, um our homework assistance as as as well as many other programs and a recreation, youth sports, senior services and our afterchool programs. Here you will see some of our our programs and services and they are social, educational and cultural programs to meet the needs of our community and our partnership. And this is where we're really excited because we could not do um a lot of the things that uh and a lot of the programs that actually that we have uh in our community without our partnerships. Um we do have um our friends of the library um that actually they raise money, they operate a gift shop and they do many of other things for us. Um we have our partnership with the USDA, the department of agriculture which we um they provide lunches for our summer lunch program. We have our friends of field workers um that a nonprofit that we have a partnership with where we supply backpacks to kids as well as um help with our Santa's workshops. Um for our seniors programs,

we uh we have Grey Law and they provide legal services for our seniors and a USA boxing um which actually provides officials and a structure so that we can do boxing in our community. So the next person I would like to introduce is our assistant director Renee Rickstra. Good evening Mayor Prom and council members. Renee Raikstra, assistant director. So here we have council priorities and CCS CCS's mission aligns closely with council priorities particularly in advancing quality of life for our residents. The department's focus on providing inclusive cultural, recreational, library, and arts programs that promote wellness, lifelong learning, diversity, civic pride directly supports the city council's emphasis on youth and senior services while also expanding access to arts and cultural opportunities and strengthening community engagement. engagement. Programs that directly align with this priority that you may have attended recently too, the Haunted Library at the South Oxnard Branch Library, South Oxnard Center block party, which was hosted twice this year, the Oxnard Arts Academy, and Senior in Motion for our baby boomers who are still working collectively. This alignment demonstrates that the department's

mission is a key vehicle for achieving the council's broader goals of community well-being, inclusivity, and a vibrant and connected Oxnard. Another priority where CCS mission also aligns is organ organizational effectiveness by investing to advance and support the team ensuring we are equipped to meet the community needs. There's a few positions noted on this slide and these were acquired over the last five years to support Restored and a few new programs such as kicking off the reinvention efforts at the library career technical education which you see some students behind us today and a bridging program. seniors in Motion and programming supporting the arts and special populations. Diving a bit deeper into organizational effectiveness and investment into staff, as I like to see it, is through training and development. CCI CCS's priority is to invest in staff training and professional development by recognizing that highquality equitable community services rely on skilled and knowledgeable workforce. The department is committed to providing the community with a team who is well trained in customer service, program delivery, safety, and cultural responsive programs. in ongoing. Investing in ongoing staff training and professional development strengthens service consistency,

improves operational efficiency, and enhances the department's ability to adapt to the evolving community needs. These professional development opportunities cover topics around safety and security, deescalation, creating positive teams, mental health, cultural responsiveness. These topics, just to name a few, support the team to effectively implement implement the city's vision while ensuring residents receive highquality accessible services to meet their needs while continuing to also uplift the quality of life of our community. Now, we'll dive a bit deeper into each division within CCS, starting with our cultural arts division. Manager Julia Estrada.

Good evening, Mayor Bro, members of city council. Again, my name is Julia Strata. I'm the culture arts programs manager and I get the awesome opportunity to share with you what we have done over the last five years in the culture arts programs. Um the primary thing that we establish is a motto for our division and it is art is for everyone. Um, we believe that art is essential for the human experience and that it has the power of creativity and culture to delight and move us that helps us make sense of the world. This is a quick snapshot um of the impact that the culture arts programs have made in the city. Our educational programs include our artsmies um art incorporated into our afterchool programs. Art is incorporated in our special populations art classes. We also have our seniors in motion which also does painting in the garden to help with senior wellness. Our recreation art includes our drop-in programs like our mini murals program. Uh our youth centers, our senior centers, and our special events include our Dia de Muertos altar, those who visit and contribute photos to our altar every year, as well as us incorporating art into our festivals and our floats, which many aspects of our floats are handmade by our staff. Our many murals program is kind of our star. It began in um 2020 in the height of the p pandemic in a way to bring the community together in a safe space. It was so wellreceived that we um received a general fund allocation to keep it going and we have made a commitment of two events a year. So far since that date we have installed over 140 murals throughout Oxnard, even expanding into South Oxnard recently. The biggest takeaway for this program is we've created basically a large coloring book for the community. So that way everyone from our preschoolers to our seniors can participate regardless of

their skills and abilities. Our DAS Muertos altar was also introduced in the last 5 years. It started in 2021 and it is held on the traditional dates of the holiday every year from November 1st through November 3rd and we hold it right on the steps of the Carnegie. So, it's a very large installment and our art team does an awesome job of handmaking all the elements, keeping everything as culturally traditional as we possibly can while still making it exciting for our community. We have over a thousand visitors annually who go out, whether they're dropping off photos, watching the live um ceremonial performances every year, or just taking a moment to remember those they've lost. We've also started the Oxnard Arts Academy with two different components. We have a visual arts component as well as a music component. Our visual arts program is located in two library branches, uh various afterchool programs as well as an art studio at our Southwinds youth center. Our music program is held at the Colonial Recreation Center and they offer instruction in piano, guitar, ukulele, violin, cello. They've started brass instruments and by request of the students they have started a mariachi ensemble recently. Art and public places is also a portion of our division. Um you see on this building we have two large public art installations that have gone up. We also manage the existing public art and making sure that it is up to quality. We are currently undergoing a restoration of our colonial mural. We also have the art here in council chambers. And so this month, um, on the heels of Martin Luther King Day, we have our Martin Luther King mural that was painted by youth participants at our 2024 community

weekend, as well as prominent figures Angela Davis, Megar Evers, and Nelson Mandela featured on the opposite wall. The culture division faces challenges in funding, facilities, and compliance requirements. But despite these challenges, the division has continued to provide arts programs and has served the community with a very strong impact. For example, before the budget um reduction in 2019, the culture arts division solely composed of the performing arts center and the Carnegie Art Museum. Since then, we still have responsibilities over those facilities, but we've expanded into arts programs directly focused on providing art to all ages and all abilities. Despite these challenges, um, we have continued to excel and continued to grow within our means. But with that growth has brought on its own set of needs. As our division has grown faster than our resources, there are needs surrounding funding. While we have what we need to sustain our offerings, um, we have limited operational funding for the culture arts programs beyond fiscal year 26. There is a lack of a dedicated arts facility and there remains ongoing concerns as the demand for additional programs grow. Um investment in digital art programs is needed. Um as well as art and cultural spaces in our underserved areas. With that growth will then come needs for additional staff investment. Um we are still committed as always to continue to grow as much as we can and serve those demands that continue to grow within our department. We thank you for your continued support support of our cultural arts programs. Um, next I would like to turn it over to Kathleen Ashmore for our library services.

Good evening. My name is Kathleen Ashmore. I am the library um manager for the Oxnar Public Library. Um, the Oxnard Library provides a wide range of resources and services to the community. It houses the collection which has books, audio books, DVDs. Um, we do programming for all ages. We have a library of things. In addition, we offer library outreach services throughout the community, space for social gatherings, meeting rooms, study rooms for public use. In an effort to uplift these services to the current needs of our community, we have been um in the middle of a library reinvention for the last several years in an effort to revitalize each of the library locations and bring the library out into the community. One of the vital projects currently underway for the library reinvention is the library network refresh. The library is currently working with a consultant group to conduct a comprehensive assessment and design for um the library network infrastructure for today and also moving forward into the future. The assessment phase has just recently been completed and the design phase should conclude at the end of May um in May. And from there, it library staff will work together to begin bidding out projects and really starting to work on uplifting that part of the library. Okay. Um this shows a snapshot of our last year. Um, another effort in the library's reinvention has been to restore key staffing positions to make it possible to provide these programs and to expand expand what we offer. Um, these restored program uh positions

have allowed us to um do additional programming and outreach opportunities and we look forward to what we're able to do in the upcoming year. In 2025, we offered over a thousand programs and we had over 22,000 participants. Um, the other thing we've done we've been working on is improving our collection, which we circulated over 218,000 items, and that's a 10% increase over the last year. So, we've been working very hard to make our collection relevant. Okay. The library partners with over 30 organizations. Some of these organizations partner with us inside the libraries and some of these organizations we go out into the community community and partner with them there. Some partnerships um one such collaboration we work with the Oxner special colle um special populations. We work with the group homes with our um cultural arts and our OSP um programs here within the CCS to provide weekly programming called children color and craft as well as a um twice monthly program called puzzles and play for that specific community. We also provide um lunch at the library during the summer. Um we also work with Oxnard adult schools to provide ESL classes among many many other things. Other partners other partnerships we have focus on outreach um bringing the library into the communities. Some examples of that is um we have done library love story times and we have been to many school visits. We also do storytime outreach at the autism learning center.

One important element of library services is our early childhood programming and story times. We provided 276 uh story times for some of our youngest patrons and their families. We serving 3,700 programmings. These programs are especially important because they support early childhood development such as social and emotional learning. And it also builds a strong foundation for literacy and for lifelong learning. STEM and art programs are also something that we provide regularly. We are a site for the art academy at both our main and our south branches. We have STEM programs and art crafting programs for all ages. And we also have like we had a program um a tiny art exhibit where the adults were able to come in and show off their own artistic talents and display them at the library which just ups uplifts them as well as the whole community. Okay. Um 2025 we saw 50 book programs. This can be anything from a book club um author talks um we also have a group for aspiring writers. We had 50 programs um we had 750 participants. We've even had programs with the um open mic night where people can come out and share their work. Gardening programs are also something that is very important to our staff and our patrons. We have an active seed library. We have a teen garden um that teach our students about native plants and sustainable gardening. We bring in master gardener talks and we are in the process of creating a community-based native garden to allow for our residents

to come in learn more about native garden and expand that that concept from the teen garden. We provide we have homework assistance Monday through Thursday at both our main and our south branch. They're there every day with volunteers to help students with their homework. Um part of the network refresh will include ensuring that that homework center has continued and improved technological assistance for the students. Um in 2025 we also restored the literacy librarian position which we're very excited about. we were able to start rebuilding that literacy program. Over the course course of the last year, we've successfully launched that program and are currently recruiting new and additional tutors um to meet the growing demand driven by that program success. Um and then addition to those tutoring services, we offer conversation clubs for ESL learners as well as the class I mentioned earlier. Something we're continually continually looking to provide skills for is sustainability. Within that program, within that program piece, we offer mending programs, um, sewing and mending, fiber arts programs, as well as our gardening programming series. We also have a library of things that um can be circulated such as induction stoves, C3 rank kits, park passes, and hiking passes packs. Um and we are always looking at how we can improve and help with workforce development. We recently had the workforce development fair um in partnership with the Ventura County Workforce Development Board. Um, we've also had resume building programs. We've

had college admission programs. We provide computer literacy appointments for anybody who needs help um increasing any of those skills. Our current challenges in the library um surround technology, accessibility, and policies. So, the library technology is severely outdated and um even with the current status of the library network project, it will take time and funding to be able to bring everything up to par and to a standard that we want to see at the library and for our community. The library also needs upgrades and updating to ensure accessibility to the Oxnar community. This can include everything from um our elevators, getting getting our elevators updated and modernized, um space design to ensure that the space is easy to use for all of our patrons as well as welcoming and functional for the work we want to do within that space. Um and it can also include work outreach services. um making sure we have the ability to reach those people who don't have transportation to our locations, making sure that they're not left out without library services. So, those are some of our challenges um for accessibility. And then lastly, policy updates. Many of our policy updates are as old as the building, which was built in '92 for reference. And so reactivating the library board, getting that up and running so that we can update those policies and have them supporting the work we're doing moving forward.

Kathleen, yes. If I may real quickly, um, even though the library was constructed in 1992, I'll still catch my grandparents sometimes calling it the new library. So,

it's all a matter of perspective, right? Um some of the needs that we see moving forward is um really center around funding, manpower, and just time. Um updating the library, the space, the design, that's going to take take funding and the time to be able to put forward some really large projects. and then the policy update, you know, getting the library board activated and then putting those pol getting those policies written and approved and just in force. Um, we're really excited about what the future holds for Oxnard uh and for the libraries and um we've made some really great steps with the reinvention. Um, next I'm going to introduce Pam and Jesse and they're going to talk about the recreation division.

Before we have um Jesse and Pam come up, uh, Council Member Pllo had a question about if we can ask questions now about the library or if we want to take the presentation first. Um, what's the pleasure of the council here? I Okay. Are you fine with that, council member? I I would agree with that as well. Okay. All right. So, we're going to go ahead and continue with the presentation and we'll call, I think, each uh division head up for our respective questions. So, make sure you make note of that. Council member,

good evening, Mayor Prom, council members. Uh my name is Jesse Topia, one of the community services managers. Um so, I'll start off uh with some of our programs. The next page um starts off with a snapshot of of our programming. Our youth engagement is any uh contact that we had with youth 18 and and under which we'll go over some of those programs. Um and then our senior meals include um home delivered meals, congregate meals um that are uh that are received by seniors. Um and our special event engagement include also um any special events. Some of these are culture and community services events that recreation lead. Um so overall the recreation division uh programs focuses on youth development, family engagement, senior services, sports and neighborhood based uh recreation. Uh this slide is the slide that was that was added um from the um from the previous packet. So wanted to focus on a couple of programs. our special populations program. Um it's a program that offers recreation and social activities designed to encourage participation, build confidence, and uh foster social interactions in a supportive environment. Some of our key programs uh or offerings in those activities in that include our monthly fun club, um our day at the park, our art classes, um and some of our special events. Our special events include um Down Syndrome promun parent appreciation and color run annual down syndrome walk dance Santa's workshop with Oxnard pal and our um Oxnard Christmas parade. So these are some of the events that our OSP participants participate um as well as challenger sports um that are offered in various uh sports. Another program that we want to touch on is our uh summer programming. So, our Camp Serendipity, it's an 8week summer day camp um offered from 7:30 a.m. to 6 pm to help families during the summer when schools are are not in session. So, they have weekly

themes as well as field trips um that they participate uh throughout throughout the summer. And lastly, our mobile activity center um which has two uh main sessions, a spring um and a summer in the springtime, whether it's a two week uh or a one week depending on the school uh vacations. We we go to 10 different um 10 events. So either two parks um or uh one in the morning, one in the afternoon, or two weeks. Um and then in the summer is a eight-week uh mobile activity center that uh goes to a park every week. Uh one in the morning, one in the afternoon. Um on Fridays, they also have our um our city core train, our jolly jumps. Um in the last few years, we've actually partnered that with our uh uh movies at the park um in the in the evenings. Um and then uh you'll see the mobile activity center participate also in some special events. They'll be at they'll at the blog parties that we had as well as our community outreach events to provide activities um while while people are in the work sessions or uh the event that we have. Next we'll talk about our city core program. Our city core program just uh celebrated 30 years in existence. Um started in 1995. Um so this is a uh youth development program with the goal to give youth um real experience, job training skills. Um many of our of our participants um in this program have leveraged the skills that they've gotten to permanent positions whether it's here in the city um or in the county or any other industries. Um so it's a it's a program that you'll see around in a lot of our special events. they perform a lot of the logistical um uh uh parts in the events whether it's internally for some of our events as well as external programs. U more recently we helped with the installation of smoke alarms so 525 across 146 homes and a big one in in December was the delivery of sandbags u to 56 households. Um so it was over 730 sandbags that were delivered. Um the program starts we have two youth uh

fifth grade classes one in real Lindo and one at uh Hox that are is our junior citycore program that's an introduction to this program then transitions to a student trainee model which is ages 12 to 18 to 17 before um the opportunity to become a leader trainee at the age of 18. So it's one of the programs that develops a pathway um for programs like I said internally or externally our youth centers and our oxar pow program. Um, so our youth centers, we have five youth centers across the the city. So we have our main uh Oxnard pal on K Street. We have our Colonia uh rec center. We have our Derly Park Center, a south south winds park center and uh South Oxnard Center. So our five youth centers that we have providing a safe place for participants to come after school homework help activities um throughout the year. In addition to that, we have our youth uh youth directors council that offers mentoring um and youth uh leadership and volunteer opportunities for for kids 12 and 12 through 18. So they'll see they'll have many opportunities to participate in in programming and conferences um in in workshops uh to develop their their skills in leadership as well as exposure to programs across the city. Um some of these are partners with our our partners you see you saw in our partner slide with national PAL, California POW. These are some grants that help us u make facilitate these opportunities for our kids. Um at Oxnarp Pal um in in Colonia, we have our sports. Um so I'll talk a little bit about our youth sports program in the in the next slide, but we also offer a boxing, basketball, uh volleyball, flag football through our youth centers. Um and in the summer we have our community cinema, as I mentioned, our summer lunch program. That's another partnership. um our back to school night resource affairs um turkey distributions uh and u Santa's workshop with toys and the past couple of years we've had our international pal boxing tournament um last year we had over 900 boxers participated in this in

this tournament with um countries represented across across the the world. Um and then some of our numbers for special events, we have a little under 5,000 participants across our special events. Our youth sports uh programming um we have our sports camps in the summer. Uh most of our teams are comprised from partnerships with schools in various districts u as well as our youth centers at Colonia and our PAL. Um this last fall, a highlight this last fall was our first year that we offered an all girls flag football division. um was the first in in the city and I believe in the county as well. Um so this is a a a great uh and exciting time for our our youth uh now that they have flag football and as a CIF in high school. So a lot of the junior high teams participated in the league this past season. So look forward to in including those moving forward in that those numbers growing. Um our adult softball we have we offer that year round um spring, summer and fall season. Um and uh our our main sports are uh flag football, volleyball, basketball is our our biggest one. We currently have over 140 teams in our in our season right now. Uh that's in progress. Um and then we finish off with uh slow pitch softball um and soccer uh for the junior highs and boys volleyball. Um our meetup cleanup program. So for the last nine years, so this started nine years ago. It's it's a a beautifification uh program for our parks. um to helps maintain city parks and public spaces clean. It also provides an environment for kids and and community to come together and promote civic pride and and engagement. Um a lot of the interactions that happen is not just the work that happens in the in the uh in the projects, but it's also the interaction between the individuals, the families and the community. Um it takes ownership of of a park of an area. Um so it's really nice to see them even going back after a couple of events and seeing them upkeep that. Um so we we schedule those throughout the year um through our city core program and some of them have

we will partner with um uh environmental resource to have a little bigger cleanups. Um so that's um a huge effort that the meto cleanup program has has evolved and continue to grow try to go to different different parks and different areas that need that we see that need that that support. Um, and lastly, uh, for me, our our recreation classes, um, as we said earlier, it, uh, we like to serve, we say that we serve from toddlers and young kids all the way to seniors. And our recreation classes reflect that. So, we have as early as preschool age classes that are offered. Um, we call them preschool classes. Um, and then we also have some different activities like Lego engineering, baking classes. We also have some art classes, um, some oil painting. Um and then we have our yoga yoga and espanol who just uh and then a couple of our senior programmings um through our sims program that happen at South Oxnar Center as well. Um so these these uh recreation classes we always look forward to um see what the community needs are, see how we can improve and add some classes um through our programming. Now I'm going to have uh Pam Lorson continue the rest. Each year, I truly appreciate the opportunity to share the incredible programs serving our students, families, and seniors throughout the city of Oxnard. For more than 20 years,

the city has partnered with Oxnard School District through what many of you know as the Oxnard Scholars After School Program. A unique and powerful aspect of this program is that many of our current employees, ages 18 through 26, were once scholar students themselves. Today they give back by providing academic support and enrichment activities during the school year as well as spring and summer breaks. In 2023, we expanded our commitment to youth development by beginning a partnership with the Oxnard Union High School District through their apprenticeship program ready, which stands for relevant employment apprenticeships designed for youth. We currently have 12 high school students from various Oxnard high schools employed at scholar program sites across the city. These students are gaining realworld job experience learning with our staff in supporting younger students in our community. At this time, I'd like to recognize our afterchool program analyst, Nancy G Gonzalez, along with the students she supports from the ready program. If you could please stand. THESE Nancy guides all of these students through the full hiring pro uh process. And you know at times that can be daunting from applications and interviews to live scans and on boarding both for the city and for the afterchool program. And she ensures that they are prepared for success. I'd also like to acknowledge our

partners from Oxnard High School District. Christina Baylor if you could please stand. Thank you. who is the career development specialist and she supports all of these students through all the process with us. We are now getting ready to start the second cohort meeting with the parents and them uh applying for this program uh in February. So we look forward to having more of the students from the high schools join us in it. In addition to scholars, the city's cultural and community services department, city core, and the way we school district as program known as shine, which stands for students having innovative and novel enrichment experiences, have built a strong partnership for over 15 years. Our staff currently serves 10i school district sites. Shine goes beyond providing a safe and after-school environment by offering high quality enrichment experiences. During spring break last year, the students participated in a dynamic ninja adventure course that promoted goal setting, perseverance, and physical fitness. Academically, the students were strengthened in their math with problem solving skills through hands-on learning with St. Math. Shine also expanded enrichment by offering swimming lessons, reinforcing water safety, wellness, and lifelong skills. And it was really enjoyed by all those who participated in that.

Another vital area of our work is senior services. This program supports older adults by addressing key issues such as food insecurity, transportation, health and wellness, housing, and social isolation. These services are made possible through strong partnerships with organizations such as Dignity Health at St. John's BCAA, Americanore, and G Coast Transit. As the baby boomer generation ages, we are experiencing the silver tsunami. Services are delivered through our four senior centers, Palm Vista, South Oxnard, Colonia, and Wilson. And we have expanded programming to include evening and late afternoon activities for seniors who are still working or seeking additional social engagement. The activities include Tai Chi and yoga, pool tournaments, and cultural activities such as Loia. These programs help seniors remain active, healthy, and connected to their community. As far as the challenges serving seniors, of course, most important is our food insecurities. As we look ahead, our division is working hard at making sure that we are meeting their needs. The senior population requires us sometimes to adapt programs along with addressing the insecurity and secure sustainable

funding to maintain service quality. I'm going to now turn it back over to Jesse to continue the the conversation about challenges. So some of our recreation facilities challenges that we have are some of the aging facilities that we have uh accessibil accessibility to sports fields or access to swimming pools um and a senior center. Uh um as well as the the changing community needs uh we have this the UCLA study with path pathway programming um creating connecting programs um the current immigration situations that we have as well as the growing populations are some of the challenges that we have and the needs um in those same areas the infrastructure investing in in infrastructure recreation facilities um and funding for uh community needs. So, uh providing cu multi-generational programming and maintaining free and lowcost activities for families. Um and then for seniors, uh funding for senior nutrition program and and positioning recreation as a whole uh as a frontline uh mental health and wellness support. So, bringing it back to um Terrell. Thank you, Jesse. Um so, now we're going to go over some of the larger departmental um events. Keep in mind that every departmental event that we have, every single division actually takes uh has a a role to play in it, whether it be arts, the library, or recreation. Um maybe you've heard of this one. Some of you had the opportunity to do a little tasting in this one. Um it is our insect f insect festival. It attracts about 5,000 uh people. And I do have to credit our city manager with the creation of that. Um, we in recreation, I would say, didn't think it would work, but it has been overwhelmingly a success.

Um, who would want to touch and taste bugs, right? A bunch of kids. The other uh the other event and that we just had not too long ago was our 18th annual Tamalei Festival. Um, pointing out to that, we had 75 uh vendors and uh estimated 17,000 attendees. I would say that was the biggest one that we've actually um ever had. Um moving forward um it's our float. Um I have at home some super eight uh film of our float and our uh events. Um, our float is about 50 years old and we do have some elements still left of that which would be our reindeer because we have an upgraded float thanks to ARPA. But one thing that we've done um most recently is expand the float. So now we have a spring float with the spring bunny. Um, everybody's been uh familiar the last uh three or four years, actually maybe five now, with our Halloween float in Jack Skellington. And then of course our Santa Claus uh float. Uh moving forward, I do want to bring attention. These are our block parties, but I really want to bring attention to our third annual haunted library. That is not uh a mistake. 1,300 participants. We've actually program around that event. That event has turned into um our South Oxnard Center block party. Um it's been a tremendous success that our library has uh implemented. Uh moving forward, a lot of you have actually participated in this as participants as well as chaperones. Um and I want to let you all know you're more than welcome to be a chaperon uh this year. It's a uh um something that I

think all council members should do. Um we take uh uh 1,600 children uh to grad night. Um the uh actually it's May 22nd this year. Um and it is something that um um our kids look forward to. It's kind of like the graduation uh um or coming of age that uh when they get to go to this event and then they're off to high school. Um, the last thing that I want to go ahead and bring up to you is something new. Um, uh, Sterling, who we have the contract with at the Performing Arts Center, they're offering three free concerts and we're partnering with them. Um, we're actually, um, we're offering, um, um, artisan booths and vendors at this um, at these concerts to give our artists an opportunity to sell uh, sell their wares. Oh. And before we get into that, what I wanted to do is we do have our managers from our library as well as recreation here. If they could stand up because they do the wonderful work and then before we get into um um questions, we do have uh a 45se second uh video that we wanted to go ahead and show you. So Diego, if you can do your work,

So, thank you very much for your attention. If there's any questions, we'd be more than happy to answer them. Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Harrison. So, I think what we'll do here is um you know, we'll start here on the far left. I know Council Member Pllo had questions, but I'll start just in an orderly fashion and we'll go uh to my right. So, uh Councilwoman Pettis, if we want to start with you, do you have any questions for any of our team members here?

Sure. Just a couple comments. Um, first really wanted to thank the CCS team. I know I have the honor to work on an individual level with many of them and I love that oftent times your team is solutionsoriented. If there's a need in the community, whether it's an alleyway that needs cleanup, um, City Corps is right there to to kind of get out the word and and get folks out there to volunteer. whether it's the meetup cleanups that have happened. I know sometimes they're once a year depending on your district or throughout the entire city, but really appreciate the level of commitment um to get out and in addition to that do bulky item events, the murals that have come up um the mural that came up in South Winds and I know there's another one coming up at the South Oxnard Library. Um there's just so many different um opportunities that you all are a part of in terms of the smoke detectors and all the initiatives that you all highlighted. So really just appreciate the work. I know um there is there was a mention of demand and need for continued funding. Um and just curious wanting to be mindful of of what those funding streams are. Um, just for my knowledge, there was a little bit of a highlight around um, ESL classes and just curious if there is an opportunity um, having talked to many community members out in the Southwinds area. There's a big interest in getting ESL classes at the youth center in that area and just wanted to kind of plant the seed and and hope to see something like that come to that area and if there's a possibility to do that.

Thank you, Council Member PLO.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much all of you for your presentation. I just have some specific questions. Um great presentation. I really appreciated the special population information that was available. Um some questions that I didn't hear. I understand that there's the possibility we're going to have some sort of chess training. Can and you can take note or answer them as we go along. Um the other one is on slide and I'll use the slides because I made my notations on slide 15. There's an abbreviation of NAGP. Can we get somebody to explain what that is and how that impacts our city? On slide 16, there was a discussion about funding. I know from personal experience, the friends of the library were looking to generate X amount of dollars and they just almost reached their quota. But what suggestions have been given out by members of the public that there are, it may not be everybody puts in $5, but there are members of this community, some that live here, some that work here that are willing to make larger donations. And in the process of making larger donations, I think our city should have something where they have some sort of a contact. We have a nonprofit with the friends of the library. the question that was given to me to ask and I appreciate everything that I got from the library. They wanted to know if they could do it with a credit card and apparently we don't have that process. I'd like to, you know, hope we can get that because when there's an opportunity to get six figures, maybe seven figure donations, I don't want to lose that opportunity again. It came about because at the end of the year, people find out in their business they may have made more than they expected and they're looking for a write off in the form of a donation. you have opportunities here to make write offs and accept things. If you don't get it, it's going to go somewhere else. Um, and appreciate the friends. I did have an opportunity to go to the lunch of the

friends of the library. That is something that I hope every council member, and I mean it, council members, every one of you get a chance to do that. Uh, compliment to the library. Miss Atmore, I hope your wrist heals or whatever is wrong, but if you could give us a little bit about the tool program. I thought I was bringing some hot news to you about, you know, I saw it on National Public Radio. There was a library that loans out tools and to my surprise, you were ahead of the game and you already do that. Um, I hope you can add that to the list if we get a response on that. Um, the library on slide 25, the library board, is that something that the positions have been filled or they're not filled or how are we going about trying to get people to be on the library board? What are the criteria that you're looking for? It's not just a position, I understand, to look good and show up for pictures. It's a position where you hope to add something to the board. A little information on that would be appreciated. On slide 28, something that came to mind when I was a kid, uh, you have the large trackho, big big piece of equipment with a lot of kids. When you're a kid and you get to be around city of Oxnard, maybe a garbage truck, a fire truck, a police car, or a track hoe, and you get an opportunity to go inside and there's a qualified operator and he let you work the handles. You spark something in a kid's mind. He can do that. And those jobs, ladies and gentlemen, will allow you to get a house in Oxnard. Those are tremendously good paying jobs. Also along with that line, when we delivered 735 sandbags, were they full or empty? Um, and just just something that I continually get the the questions and I see it myself and I know you do a tremendous job. We have the issue with some soccer organizations and the overflow into parks and stuff, but one

specific area that I always see it once in a while on Sunday, there will be a portable toilet that's dropped off in the median at Southwest Community Park. My understanding is the people that get the use of those parks are supposed to supply those toilets. And I want to see a little more enforcement. if they're going to use our parks, they provide the toilets. Those are my comments and I appreciate the presentation. Hopefully, you can answer some of the questions.

Thank you, Councilman Pllo. I'm going to actually answer a couple of those questions, then I'm going to call up Kathleen, and then we have a list of your questions, so we'll bring up the appropriate staff people. Um, I do have some nonprofit experience, so I could lend some assistance uh to the Friends of the Library on how to get credit cards. Um, so I can help out with with that. Also, you're absolutely correct when it when it comes to soccer, those groups have to bring out their own um uh bathroom facilities. So, we do have monitors that are actually working. um we can actually pull some of the monitors and have them uh go ahead and and check into that and remind our soccer organizations that they're responsible when using um that area that they do bring their own uh bathroom facilities. So, let me go ahead and call up Kathleen so she can talk to you a little bit about the library questions you have and then we'll bring up the appropriate staff members.

Thank you very much. But just for the staff, we've had members that live in C view and C air neighborhood complain about the bathroom thing. So that's why I brought it up.

Okay, Miss Ashmore.

Yes. Okay. Um, starting with the first one I have is Friends of the Library. Um, we are actually working on updating that web page and we do have a PayPal account, but um, as Terara said, we will be working on that. Um, library of things. We do have a library of things. Um so what that is is and it is a trend nationwide where so the way I look at libraries is libraries are access to information right so that may come in books and in the modern day that doesn't necessarily come in the form of books it's also about accessibility so if you have somebody who is let's say they're doing a home renovation project and they need a tool for one project. One of the things that a lot of libraries are doing is they're providing what we call a library of things. So instead of having to go to Home Depot and you buy a $100 tool and you buy a $100 tool and you buy a $100 tool that you're going to use one time, you can come to the library, check out that $100 tool, use it, and then basically bring it back, pass it forward. That's what a library thing is. That's what the induction kit is, the C3 rent kit. We are slowly building that that program. Um, it is something that we feel like would be very beneficial to the city of Oxnard and the residents. Um, does that answer your questions on that? Okay.

Can we don't people can donate tools. Say a craftsman retires, he doesn't have a family to pass it. He can donate them to the library.

He can. Yes. Um, we are still in the process of building policies and safety measures and all those to encompass that program. Um but yes, that is that is the goal. Yeah. Um and then the board status, I have been working with Luly um and the city manager's office um mayor on that. Um and Luly said she had a update on that. Um, Mayor Prom and council members, uh, regarding the library board, we did some, um, outreach and then, um, we got a few applications and then the mayor did some additional outreach and the mayor is in the process of doing those appointments and we hope to bring this back to council by um, for the February 17th city council meeting.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. You're welcome. Okay, go ahead. Um, are there any other questions I missed, Council Member? Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman Rodriguez. Excuse me. I I apologize. There's one more. I'll

I will field the uh question about slide 15. Apologies for the mysterious acronym. N A G P A is NAGRA. That doesn't mean anything either. It stands for um Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Uh and we're actually going to be bringing a uh fresh update about these uh these issues with regard to the Carnegie Art Collection and NAGPRA uh to committee uh most likely at the end of February. So that's what and again apologies for the acronym Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Thank you. Can can you share just a little bit with us why that happened?

No. Well, there there'll be an update at the Can um Councilman Pello, I can answer your question about the chess training. So, we have been um looking at establishing a uh chess with youth to teach uh critical thinking uh and uh in in our after school program. So, we're still in the process of establishing that that training with our staff and and incorporating that into our program. So, we're in the process of finalizing those details to start that chest training program. Okay. Was that all your questions, council member? Okay. Now, councilwoman.

Sure. Thank you very much. I really appreciate um the comprehensive report on all areas. I think uh some of my questions revolve more around the the different numbers that were shared. Um sometimes there's duplicated numbers and then there's unduplicated numbers. I think for me it would be helpful to know even though this is unduplicated use of how many times people attended like just an average of how many folks were serving on a regular basis. So it could be weekly, monthly, daily. Um if we're tracking that already that would be helpful just to to see the impact. I think you all are doing an amazing job. So it's not about um digging into the numbers. It's really about being um I think I'm looking at slide 10. So cultural arts snapshot educational programs there is uh unduplicated 7,765 which is great. And then recreational and special events, it's um duplicated. So it's the same people coming back potentially. Um it would be helpful for me to see um just, you know, is it this is it a team of 10 15 youth playing basketball 20 times, you know, um versus folks coming through. That was page 10, a slide 10 on the PowerPoint presentation. And that's just one example. So I I think that would be helpful,

right? Um I think there was a um a section on the library use here. Give me a sec. I don't know what slide it is. Um, how are we tracking how many folks are coming to the library? Is it when they go through the the detectors? Is that like a count of people coming in and out? Because not all folks would necessarily check things out or slide 18. Oh, thank you very much.

Um, thank you for the question. Yes. So, um, we count that in several different ways. Um the we do have a door count so anybody who comes in the building um we also count the number of people at each of our programs we count our circulation um those are the biggest three we also count um the number of people who use our computers. So, um, the door count though, that's sort of the most basic one where we're not asking, you know, we don't know if they're in the program, just using the space computers. So, that's that's kind of the the main big one. Okay.

I I was I was just wondering because like I know I'm a frequent flyer at the library. I don't always go check in or borrow a room or, you know, use specific things. I just use the space potentially. Um, thank you for for that. And uh you had mentioned um restoring key staffing positions, but I'm not sure I saw that laid out in the report. Did I miss it?

No, I don't know that I laid it out. So, we have um we have restored two supervisor positions. So, when I started, we had no supervisors. Um so, we restored those two positions and we restored the literacy librarian position. We restored a um security monitor for South Oxnard. have security at the main library. We did not have anything at South and so we restored a um a monitor position at the South location and one additional librarian at the South Oxnard pos um location that focuses on adult and intergenerational services for that community. Um and then um the two supervisor positions we have um one that focuses on our internal services, our collection development, security, building things like that helps move with that. The other position is um was is going to do outreach services. So that supervisor going back to you know ESL at Southwinds potentially things like that. we will be um focusing a lot of outreach now that we have that outreach position filled.

Okay, thank you very much. Um I think my last question or comment uh was for the meetup cleanup group. So, thank you very much. Um great job in the meetup cleanup. I recently saw a video of promoting for the Southwinds one. Yay. I would just encourage folks to have like the updated information where we share brochures. I know that I went to one of the meetup cleanups and it wasn't updated. Uh so I think I flagged that. If that has been updated, then I'm I'm excited about that.

Yes. Uh, Council Member Rodriguez, I did hear about that and, uh, we did make sure it was updated. Actually, what the, uh, the staff person did was grab the old information. So, we apologize for that. But, yeah, but it's very important because we rely on people to know what is going on and that's how they come to these these style of events. So, thank you.

So, I appreciate the video. Kudos for that. But um I think if you flagged it for for us uh council members, I would love to attend meetup cleanups in my um district. Not to say that I won't go to others. I'm happy to support you know the entire city of Oxnar. Uh all parks need cleaning, but uh I think that would be very helpful if you put it in our radar. That way we also push it out, especially when I have my office hours. It's helpful to to have this coming down the pipe. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. I'll just point out that Campus Park is right on the border of districts two and four, and they they're always looking for a lot of volunteers for that one. So, Council Member Star,

thank you, Mr. Harrison. I've always been very impressed with you. And one thing that uh I'd like to just make mention, I've mentioned this in the past, is that one thing that one thing that impresses me is how we're working with the school districts. And it's not just that we're providing a service to them. They're actually finding enough value in what we're providing that they're willing to pay us for that. And I I'm always impressed when it's one thing to say, "Yeah, people like this, but it's another thing for people to actually pay for something because then you know you know the reality of does it really have value in the marketplace?" And obviously it does. U I I don't know if it was mentioned in the uh report, but uh how many employees do you have under this department overall? It's a lot. So, I will get the permanent count number, but I do know um temporary labor we do range between about 350 and about 450 um temporary labor folks. And I believe our permanent number right now is

Yeah, about 87 I believe it is right now. Keep in mind, we don't have all of our positions full. Well, you provide a lot of services for such a small headcount. Um, I do have some questions. I I I want to thank uh Council Member Rodriguez for asking the question about the duplicated number question because I had that question myself. Um, I mean, it's just another dimension of looking at it and and there's probably no way we can actually get this information because I'd be really curious to know how many people actually use a service as opposed to how many times it was used because I don't know whether I'm serving, you know, 100 people 100 times each or if I'm 10,000 people one time. Right. Right.

But I I I I have recognized that there's probably it's probably very challenging to even accumulate something like that. Yes, sir. It is. that what we can do and we can go back and we can send it out to council especially some of our key programs such as after school youth centers we can break down those numbers and we can give you those. So you know and what we're trying to do with our numbers is you know and indicating that they're duplicate be as transparent as we can but we're trying to pile a lot into uh uh uh the information with with the numbers. So for some of our key programs, we can uh get that information and then send it out to council.

Okay. Uh one thing I'd like to ask about, you know what, one thing that I really liked was that you have a very dynamic presentation. It was, you know, audio, video, slides, really professional. Is that something that you guys did yourselves or did you was another department in the uh uh city that helps with that? How's that how's that work? So we've we've done it ourselves. That's the great thing about employing young people. Yes. They they really they really know what they're doing. As a matter of fact, um we've had some of our staff actually go on and and do this professionally. They're working for entertainment companies and things like that. But yes, this was all done internally.

Well, I definitely want to recognize them for for that because they did a stellar job on that. I do have some questions about I guess maybe I'll I'll direct the first one to Miss Estrada. Uh when I'm looking at uh slide 15, I notice of course you mentioned the performing arts center in the Carnegie Museum was what we were doing in 2019, but since then we've added arts academy, many murals, recreational arts, world art day, and art galla. And I think those are all great. So I guess what I want to understand is the Carnegie Museum component of it. Do we I I know it's kind of not accessible right now. Uh where would you rank that versus the other program? Would you would you say that the more recent programs bring more value to the community than than the Carnegie Museum does? I I suspect that's the case, but I want to ask you

um thank you uh Councilman Start Julia Stratiff culture arts program manager. Um, I don't know if I can truly quantify that. They're completely different service models. Um, where we haven't had them operating at the same time to really understand that kind of tracking. I do believe that each type of programming and each type of service does

treat a specific clientele. Um, I will say that the enhancement over the last 5 years has exponentially grown the visual um, art in the city and you can see it more now. Um, that is not to devalue anything that was done by prior staff. Um, but it is it's definitely more more out there. I think that the team the department as a whole has really worked to try to keep it alive after those closures. Um but unfortunately I don't have a way of quantifying which one has a better value um as they haven't been operating simultaneously. Um but they do have their own place in

right I mean that is a challenge where we have of course unlimited wants in this world and we have limited resources to try and fulfill those wants and it could be the case that expanding upon the programs that you're currently doing might might be creating more value for the community than let's say reopening the Carnegie does. I don't know. Different people have strong opinions about it one way or the other, but the reality in this life is that you kind of have to pick and choose, right?

Yeah. We we do our best um currently with the resources that we have to expand art into all areas of Oxnard and try to get as many people to use that side of their brain to help with overall uh there's so many benefits in actually doing art. Um as far as with our senior population retaining their motor skills and cognitive skills to youth in developing those. So, I I will say the current mission is definitely to try to reach as many people as possible where they are um to help kind of eliminate those barriers of not being able to travel across town to get to it. So, that is our current model and that is what we are striving to sustain moving forward.

Thank you. And I have a question for uh Miss Ashmore as well. Thank you for all the work you're doing. I remember I had questions a while back that had to do with what our policies were when it came to uh you know age appropriate access to various materials and I thought that you addressed that very well and very much to my satisfaction and I think it relieved a lot of people in the community as far as because some places they're not so good at that but apparently uh we are and that's a good thing.

I have a question about the Ventur County Library System. I'm wondering how does our library interact or collaborate with them? What and and then I'd like let's start off with that and then I'll have another question. But

um so the director and myself have had several conversations uh about that specifically because Ventura County and Oxnard service populations overlap quite a bit. Um there is a really good relationship there that we are working to to build out. Um and there's there's a lot of um willingness and desire to be able to really see where that partnership goes. Um does that answer your question?

I I think so. Um I I guess uh I one question I'd like to ask is if you were to compare our system versus theirs, would you say that theirs are more up to-date as far as technology and that sort of thing and we're kind of behind the curve or they about were they behind us or do you have any evaluation? That is a very good question and it can be a hard one to to answer because the one thing I've learned um in my career is every library is very very different right um their from their funding structure to their staffing structure to you know what they prioritize

um technology we are behind the curve um we know this we're working on that um building that up um so there's a lot of opportunity the way I see it is we have a lot of opportunity there to to see to create what we want. Um but um Ventura County doesn't have that particular challenge. They have different challenges. Um that one is definitely the one in the forefront of of our project list for sure. Yeah. Right. Well, thank you. Those are my questions. Thank you, council member.

Okay. So I just have a couple quick questions and some of them were asked by my colleagues. So thank you all very much. Um first a comment for Mr. Harrison and your team for slide five which was the slide that had culture and community services and all of your partners um in this work. I just appreciate that being visually represented because while it may have been a very busy slide, it was intentionally done so because it's a great example of uh public, private, and community based organization partnerships. This is a type of work that siloed work doesn't really lend itself to being great highquality work. Everybody has a stake in this when it comes to serving our community. So, thank you all very much for the partner work that you do. um looking at our uh library. Um I just have one question that's outstanding. And if Miss Ashmore would like to jump back up for this, everybody's getting their steps in for this item. You had mentioned around the early childhood programs that are available. Um and that was on slide 20. And I'm just curious, is that um our library staff providing those or do we have a partnership with um other organizations such as first five or um how do we implement that?

That is um thank you for the question. That's a good one. Um we do it in a combination thereof. So we have our staff um our staff plan the majority um a lot of them. Uh we have three children's librarian librarians and I think we have story time every day of the week. Almost every day of the week.

Every day of the week. Um we do those ourselves and we also do those in partnership with um first five. We also do them in partnership with family place. Um and then we have we have sporadic performers and different people who come in and also supplement those as well.

Okay. Thank you. And it's timely. I know um Mr. Restraw may recall this that just I think last week uh the county office of education has their early childhood um programs uh division and they had reached out around um having uh messaging in our catalog and I know that they provide uh professional development training for those who are looking to go into the field um and work in early childhood education and um perhaps there's uh some overlap there as well because if you have if we have staff or partners who provide these services who look to go into that professionally um there may be some stepping stones there and even some um

uh practicum hours they can get in doing that work so wonderful I will definitely connected dots on that and Mr. for a city manager. Do you have something? Yeah, if if that's if you're done with the questions, I just want to make one highlight. Just with that one question, I'm done. If you have something additional. No, go ahead. I'll wait. That's right. Okay. And um before I move on to my next question, councilwoman reminded me she had one more point.

I forgot I forgot one more point to share. Um I know not all many of the services are free, but I believe not all are free. I think that that would be helpful in the future reports just to let us know which services are free to the community open at large and which folks or families would have to pay for their kids to be involved. I think like the serendipity uh program I believe there's a cost to it and there may be a sliding scale or not but that would be helpful like moving forward for anybody who's watching this. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And if I can can I elaborate a little bit on that question? I think you're correct. We do need to emphasize that and and it a lot of times that comes within our classes. But the other thing is a lot of our youth sports programs that do cost money are either through um our PAL program which covers the cost of uniforms and our youth centers that do the same as well as through our afterchool program. So those costs uh the families do not pay directly but again there are some programs that do uh it costs money and we can make that clarification.

Thank you. That's wonderful. And I think that just to like both get the word out and also um just to showcase like what is available at large. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. And excuse me. One last point on the library and just a comment is I I noticed one of the challenges was on accessibility and accessibility in the um realm of folks uh having a barrier of transportation physically getting to our branches. And um I just want to throw out there as well, similar to my previous point, that uh I I'd imagine dialogue is already open with Gold Coast Transit or even the Ventura County Transportation Commission and what programming they already have in place to offer for seniors or uh folks with mobility challenges in getting to uh public facilities. and not to give them more work, but I know Councilwoman Rodriguez sits on Gold Coast Transit Board and the mayor sits on as a commissioner on the, uh, VCTC. And so, um, I'm sure if there's overlapping, uh, goals there and what we have and what they're offering, we can certainly connect those dots. And my last points here, and then, uh, that's all for me on this. Um to Council Member Pllo's point, I did see sandbags being delivered to one of my neighbors who was a senior and that was just great to see that they rolled up in the city core truck with the trailer in the back and they unloaded it and um I was very pleased to see that and I appreciate that uh being put together and I appreciate our fire departments for hosting the sand and the sandbags as well. For uh slide 32, it was mentioned by Mr. tapia about um the mentorship that happens with some of our existing staff and our uh high school students who are looking to get some job experience and there's just some incredibly rich research around mentorship and the benefits of it especially in communities like Oxnard and so I just uh commend all of you for having that foresight to look at that and uh implement something like that because it truly goes a long way especially for young people who are

exploring what types of work they would like to do, if they have even an inkling of going into the realm of education or public service, this is a great first taste for them to do that. So, thank you for that. And then on slide 35 for our senior services, I'll just say, as I've said many times, that when it comes to our um aging population, there's again a wealth of research around the importance of social connection and of remaining physically active in their later years. And I just thank you all for providing that and in in multiple diverse opportunities for them. And I think there's another connection there in our transportation if that's a barrier how we can ensure that we're um meeting that for folks as well. And my last point here is regarding um a conversation that council star just brought up regarding the value around the Carnegie versus other programs. And I appreciate that we will be having the Carnegie as a comprehensive update coming later in February. Um something that occurred to me in in that discussion was looking at the value of those. I made a note that a hammer is only as valuable as the amount of nails that are around that need to be driven. Right? When it comes to social programs, a diversity of tools and approaches are the better way to address the types of challenges that are posed, especially the diversity and of needs and challenges that communities like Oxnard have. So, these are different programs with different missions and they have their own place and purpose in how they approach that. And when we have um deeper conversations about the Carnegie and what's that what that looks like, I appreciate the folks from the Carnegie who've had candid conversations with me and I've told them my thoughts on what the Carnegie U may look like with their input uh in 2026 and beyond. So, so those are my comments. Mr. City Manager, I think you had something else.

Yes. Uh let me try to be brief. Um I it so you all see the extraordinary amount of work produced by a small uh yet mighty department. So first I want to acknowledge Mr. Harrison's leadership. Uh when you look at the range of those programs it's just imagine hurting cats. It it it is so um wide the range. And to to reemphasize something he stated, which is this department provides um not only positive but much needed services to a lot of the youth of our community. and the trust that uh their families and their parents and their guardians place in us um cannot be underestimated uh in terms of the value of that for for them as individual families and for us as a community. Now having said that I would like to highlight uh one program out of the hundreds and no it's not the insect festival. I want to highlight the arts academy. Um it is something that we started recently and there have been growing pains. But here's why I am so proud of this effort. It it it is premised upon um a um international program called Elsyma comes from Venezuela. They're they're probably their most famous graduate Gustavo Dudl who for quite some time has been the musical director of the LA Phil. Uh this year I understand he's transitioning to New York. So that that's a great um gain for

the East Coast and a great loss for the West Coast. But here's why this program matters so much. Because it's it's already been researched and evidence that any young person who has the opportunity to learn music, they always do better in all other areas academically at school. for whatever happens, it unlocks something in the brain. And this program is serious. This is not just, hey, come hang out. We'll have a jam session and have fun. The kids learn how to read music. They learn how to play individually. They progress as they grow and their interest um changes and as their hands get larger. And they play ensemble, which is key. So, we wanted to provide this again not just for fun because we know through the evidence that it really helps them with all the other things they do at school. And there's also evidence because nationally over several decades, this country has divevested so much from um genuine music instruction in public schools. It's so important that we provide this uh in our programs. I also believe uh while right now it's called the Oxnard Arts Academy that someday uh I I don't believe this will happen soon but someday a community of this size in this population really deserves to have a full-fledged public school arts program uh like many other great cities in this country have had for many years and that is the dream. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. I'll just close this. Oh, actually we're uh gonna see. Do we have any uh public comments, Madam Clerk, for this item?

Um, Mayor Prom and council members, we do not have any public speakers in person or virtually for this item. Thank you. Thank you very much. In closing this item, oh, we did have a public card submitted.

Okay. All right. They're going to make their way up to the podium. Thank you. Hello, my name is Karina Giller. I am very grateful for the service of my tutor of at the of the Osnar public libraries literacy program. At first, uh, I was very nervous and like guidance. My tutor was very kind and professional. She gave me the confidence I need to prepare for my citizenship exam. With my tutor's help, I was able to pass the exam and become an American citizen. I hope this service continue in our community.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We do have the public comment card here and we typically won't do applause for public comments, but that was certainly one that struck everybody's heart here. So, thank you for sharing that. Okay. Are there any additional uh comments, madam clerk? Um, vice um, Mayor Prom, that concludes our speakers on item on the appointment item. Thank you.

Thank you very much. So, now I'll close the item by just thanking all of the staff. I know that we couldn't fit all of the 450 of you in this room, but uh, you all do um, very important work and I always say I don't pick favorites, but I really like culture and community services. But uh really from a um even from a numbers standpoint uh the research does show when we invest in prevention work, preventative work, upstream work, uh we save between 7 to$13 later in downstream efforts. Those are things like health care costs or the juvenile justice system or our mental health system or whatever the metric you would like to use. even fall prevention for our seniors. Anything you look at when we invest in our ability to prevent and instill uh resiliency in our communities, we spend less later on in cleaning up the issues that come from not doing that. So when we underinvest, we see um unfortunate outcomes. So thank you all very much. Much appreciated. Okay. All right. So, at 6:31, we're going to go ahead and um call to order the regular meeting. So, this is a calling to order the Oxnard City Council and Oxnard Housing Authority for Tuesday, January 20th, 2026. Madame Clerk, may we have the roll call and posting of the agenda, please?

Um council member um Commissioner Palo here. Councilwoman Commissioner Perez here. Councilwoman Commissioner Rodriguez present. Councilman Commissioner Star here. Mayor Prom Vice Chair Theran here.

Uh the agenda for this meeting was posted at the kiosk at city hall, the Oxar public library, the city administrative offices, and on the city's website on Thursday, January the 8th. I also have an announcement. Pursuant to government code section 54952.3, each member of the housing board of commissioners present will receive $50 pay convene for convening this meeting with the exception of Commissioner Star who has declined to receive compensation. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We're now going to move to the pledge of allegiance which will be conducted tonight by Rita Chavez from the EMS Corps. And thank you to councelor Pllo for recommending an EMS core participant for this. Before we proceed, Miss Chavez, um, Council Pillo would like to request a moment of silence after our pledge of allegiance. Did you want to say something about that, Council Member?

This community lost a gentleman, William Bill Terry, recently, very recently. And um, he's one of the old guard. We're losing the old guard, the people that have been around. um for decades. And Mr. Terry, in my opinion, my opinion is not just a loss to this community. He's a loss to mankind. I never knew Bill Terry to ask for anything for himself. He was there as a witness. He was there as an advocate. He was there as a worker. And he was mostly there as a giver. That man gave probably from the day he was born till the day he passed. And it's a tremendous loss. I hope that our condolences go out to his wife and his family and um it's a loss. I can still see Bill sitting in the front row always attending, always being involved

and um thank you. Thank you, council member. So, Miss Chavez, after the pledge of allegiance, we'll take a moment of silence and then we'll turn it over to Mayor Mayor Patton, if I may. One one other person I think that we should recognize is Commander Scott Erin who died uh is member of our police force died at a training uh uh down in Orange County I think it was. So I'd like to have a moment to recognize him as well. Thank you Council Member Star. So after the Pledge of Allegiance uh we will recognize a moment of silence for Mr. Terry and Commander Aaron and um then we will turn it over to Miss Chavez. So everybody um after the pledge, please remain standing for a moment of silence. Go ahead.

I pledge allegiance to the flag in 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 everybody.

Okay, you have the floor.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Prodom Tran, city council members, EMS Corps leadership, and members of the community. My name is Rita Chavez, and I'm deeply honored to stand here before you tonight as a graduate of Oxnard EDMS Corp. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my story and to recognize this incredible program and the people who made it possible. To understand what EMS Corps means to me, I need to share a bit about who I was before this program. I was raised primarily by my grandmother while my mother served in the military. My mom was only 20 years old, 21 years old and preparing to go to war when she was faced and forced with the decision of whether or not to have me. She chose to keep me, a lifealtering decision that reshaped her entire future. When she returned home, we struggled to connect, and for a long time, I didn't understand her sacrifices. But now at 22 years old myself, I look back with deep gratitude and say thank you for her strength, her service, and for giving me the opportunity to live. Despite that sacrifice, life was not easy. At a very young age, I was harmed by people I should have been able to trust and later betrayed by those I believe to be friends. For a long time, I believed survival meant silence. If I didn't speak about it, if I pretended they never happened, then I could keep moving forward. But silence created deep struggles and unhealthy ways of coping. The choices I made led me further into abuse, pain, and eventually hurting myself. Without searching for guidance or support, I often felt lost, invisible, and just really alone. My teenage years were tough, full of challenges that shook my sense of faith and made me question myself. But even in all that, I started learning something important. How to be resilient, how to keep going, and how to rely on my own strength. By 18, I was no longer living at home and ended up living in my car until I turned 21. Those years taught me how to adapt, persevere, and find hope in the little things. I may have felt alone, but I also discovered

independence, inner strength, and a belief that things could get better. And they did eventually. A medical surgery ended up bringing me home, but instead of feeling grounded, I struggled again with my future and selfworth. Then one day, I was sent a link to the EMS Corp by none other than my mom. I didn't know what to expect, but taking that chance changed my life. For the first time, I experienced real structure, belief, and support. The MSCore didn't teach me emergency medical skills. It taught me that I mattered, that I could trust others, and that I had purpose. The instructors here became more than teachers. They became my support system. Melissa was my anchor. She was the one I could turn to when old feelings of doubt and loneliness resurfaced. On the hardest days, she was an ear to listen, a shoulder to cry on, and a source of steady encouragement. She constantly reminded me that I wasn't alone and that I could overcome the challenges I carried. Her support taught me to believe in myself even when I didn't know how. Alejandro showed me the strongest example of what leadership can be. Firm, consistent, and compassionate. He challenged me, pushed me to grow, and modeled strength in a way I will carry with me for the rest of my life. And Lupe was the heart of this program. She took the time to hear our stories, understand us, and remind each of us that we mattered. Her kindness and patience made us feel seen and supported in ways many of us had never experienced. My classmates, my peers, and my friends. Together, we face challenges, grew stronger, and learn not just technical skills, but how to support each other and rely on one another. EMS Core is more than just a classroom. It's a family, and its lessons will stay with us far beyond this room. This program is vital for the students who come after us. It builds not only skilled professionals but resilient individuals who are prepared to serve their communities with character, compassion, and commitment. I am proud to be one story among the many that EMS

course continues to shape. Today, with my certification, I choose to continue building my career in the medical field. My goal is to help others who feel lost or alone, to provide the support I once longed for, and to serve my community with integrity and purpose. EMS Corps gave me the foundation, the tools, and the belief in myself to take this next step. And I'm committed to making a difference. Tonight, as EMS Corpor is recognized, I want to thank everyone who made this program possible. The leadership, the instructors, the staff, and my fellow graduates. You didn't just train us for careers, you changed our lives. To the instructors and staff, thank you for believing in me when I struggled to believe in myself. To my classmates, thank you for walking this journey with me. And to EMS course, thank you for giving me an opportunity and a future I once could only dream of. I am proud to be a graduate, proud to carry this training forward, and proud to be part of the legacy EMS course continues to build. Thank you. Thank you so much, Rita, for being willing to be here and not only open our meeting, but share your personal journey with us. And uh I hope that you are as proud of yourself as it seems like everybody in this room is of you. So, thank you so much. Would you like to introduce folks who came with you? I see we have EMS chief here as well.

Yes, we have Chief Via Savannah Gascoll and my instructor Melissa Cornney. Okay, can we give them a round of applause? Also noting also that last year Savannah was uh at the podium sharing her story. So following big footsteps here. Absolutely. So uh we have a certificate here for you if you'd like to come up here with your guests and we'll take a quick picture. And um councelor Prello. Yes.

May I say something first? Um, I want to thank Mayor Prom for helping to get this tonight for you to be here. I want to thank our fire chief. I want to thank our fire chief for bringing this program to our city. I want to share with you that I over the period of time I've been in the council, you go to a lot of things that there's an expectation you need to have an elected official there. He's got to look good. He's got to be there. He's got to show that he's got pride in the city. I went to the recent EMS graduation Um, it was and Mayor Prommo also showed up. I got to tell you when I heard Chief Via speak and I I think this would be good if somebody did film that if this went out to the citizens of Oxnard and he talked and he talked about his family and he talked about I think there was 19 graduates. I think 19 graduates and they were all sitting there and he's at the podium and he's looking right at him and he says, "The best thing that I can tell you is that if it was my family that needed help, I'd be grateful of any one of you." And I got to tell you, from being somewhere where your family is laying on the ground and they need help and there's an EMS person emergency trying to take care of them and you can't do a damn thing except hope. His words were the most important word I've heard come out of a city official since I've been in Oxnard. I took it very personally. I want to thank you, Chief. But um what he said was very important not just to me but to the residents in Oxnard. They see the people in uniform around here. They say, you know, various things. Oh, you know, the guy never has sweat rings under his

armpits. I don't see them working. I see donuts. I see this. They're having a good time. But ladies and gentlemen, when something goes wrong in your life and you see everything laying on the ground possibly going away, you pray to God somebody like you and your 18 other classmates and the ones previous are there. Thank you very much for what you did and I really appreciate it and thank you chief. Thank you. Thank you, council member.

Okay, come on up. Okay. Hey, so we have a certificate achievement here for Rita Chavez for graduating from the EMS Corps program and you heard all the great stuff about it. And in just a we're going to take a photo and then I'm going to invite Chief Hamilton um or uh Chief Via if you'd like to tell a little bit about the program just briefly so folks who are interested can uh find out about the next cohorts. So let's uh go ahead and do this. Just thank you.

You're very welcome. My story. Great. I'll turn it over to our folks here if they'd like to share a few words.

Uh before I talk a little bit more about the EMS program, I just wanted to recognize uh the the people that are up here. Uh Himer, this program couldn't we couldn't have got this program off the ground without Himer and then Melissa who's in the trenches with these young adults every day and providing the guidance uh and leadership that that helps them get to where they are. and then uh Savannah who you you recognize from uh our our first cohort uh that just graduated. Um and it doesn't uh not without irony that today is the day that cohort number three actually went through their HR orientation this afternoon. So we have our third cohort just starting. But uh the program is open to young adults between the age of 17 and a half and 26. There you go. some of the details. Um there uh there is an application uh that can be found online. I'll have to pass down the uh microphone to tell you where that uh is, but uh it is a 5-month program where these young adults will get paid a stipen um and learn and ultimately become EMTs by the end of the program. Who's got the website?

Uh yeah, so um oxenardmscore.org is the website to sign up. There's also a QR code on there. Um, we are currently recruiting for the fourth cohort already. So, um, those recruitment periods tend to end about 3 months ahead of the next class. So, um, we do expect this one to end, uh, about May roughly when we should start doing interviews. Um, just for context and what I would encourage people to do is get an application sooner rather than later. We already have 620 um applicants in the hopper right now for 22 spots essentially. Um so if you want to be part of the program, absolutely get that application in and uh there's a link there to ask questions. So that would be the only other thing.

Uh oxnard emmescore.org. One more time. Oxinard emmescore.org. help. Uh, one last thing I just wanted to add is the uh, the program is actually generously funded by the California uh, Employment Development Department and um, another grant program known as Koya or the California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship Program. So, that's what's funding all of these uh, all these graduates uh, to get through the program.

Thank you very much. Can we give them our appreciation one more time? Good to see you again. Thank you. Thank you so much. Oh, we got a item.

All right. Next on our agenda is our ceremonial items. So, I'll invite my colleagues here to stay positioned and stay ready. We have a very important ceremonial item right here. Subject presentation of a resolution commending Andrea Torres for over 43 years of exemplary service to the city of Oxnard. And this is a resolution. So we have an action attached to it. Recommendation that the city the city council adopt a resolution commending Andrea Torres for over 43 years of exemplary service. So can we have Andrea Torres come forward please? And as she makes her way up here, we have a resolution, an official one here that we're going to adopt in just a moment. So, and go ahead and say hi to these folks, too.

Resolution of the city council of the city of Oxnard commending Andrea Torres for over 43 years of exemplary service to the city of Oxnard. Whereas Andrea Torres has devoted over 43 years of exemplary service to the city of Oxnard, demonstrating unwavering commitment to public service and operational excellence and commencing her distinguished career with the city of Oxnard on June 9th, 1982 as a student trainee in the public works department environmental resources division. She has sub subsequently employed as a temporary office clerk and two months later appointed to a full-time office clerk position where she played a critical role in the city's transition from residential hand pickup services to automated slip container collection. And whereas Andrea was instrumental in supporting the municipal bonding process and the successful opening of the Delorte Regional Recycling and Transfer Center and contributed significantly to the installation and implementation of the solid waste management program work order system which generates more than 100,000 customer service requests annually. And whereas Andrea has promoted to compliance specialist within the public works department resources division where she has collaborated closely with code compliance staff to address illegal dumping throughout the community. And whereas Andrea played a key role in the implementation of the automated threecart collection system. I remember when we changed over to that from the two carts that were split in the middle. All right. personally conducting manual inventory of residential and commercial containers and ensuring accurate data entry into the solid waste system for long-term electronic recordkeeping. And whereas Andrea was promoted to environmental resources supervisor assuming responsibility for commercial collections and continuing to demonstrate exceptional leadership and dedication. And whereas she was honored as employee of the year on two separate occasions in recognition of her outstanding performance and contributions to the public works department environmental resource division and was appointed

interim chief of collections, a role she fulfilled with distinction until the position was permanently filled while actively participating in satellite city hall events, neighborhood council meetings, and neighborhood cleanup efforts. And there's a lot of ants here. And throughout her career, Andrea supported numerous city sponsored events, including the Earth Day Festival, Strawberry Festival, and Coastal Cleanups, and maintains strong working relationships with the Dallas Cowboys training camp and the New Orleans Saints training camp. And whereas Andrea Torres exemplifies commitment to public service and will be truly missed by her colleagues and customers for her dedication, positive, and uplifting spirit. Therefore, the city council of the city of Oxnard does hereby commend, recognize, and extend its gratitude to you, Andrea Torres, for over 43 years of exemplary service to city of Oxnard. Extends best wishes, best wishes for a fun and fulfilling retirement and well-earned retirement with family and friends. Congratulations to you. Thank you.

Yes. Thank you very much. So, she's uh a few words. She says, "Thank you." I offered. So, we're going to do a quick photo and then we'll have to do a u motion in a second to um adopt the resolution. Request that we bring Mr. Brian. Absolutely. Would you like to invite folks up here? We have Mr. Jiannis on his way up. It's up to you. Oh, that's okay. We'll we'll find a way to fit. We're inviting family up. So, come on up, family. You You're out here. You only get to do this once every 43 years. So, my wild

That is true. Oh yeah.

Come on in. You are proud of her, right? Mommy, what? Where's grandma?

Thank you. Okay, we have to actually make it official. So before Yes, we have a we have a motion by Council Member Pillo and a second by Councilwoman Rodriguez. Madame Clerk, may we get the vote on this resolution? Council member Palo, yes. Councilwoman Perez, Councilwoman Rodriguez, yes. Councilman Star, yes. Mayor Prompteran. Yes. And this motion carries 5 to zero. Thank you. So now it's official officials. Congratulations.

Mr. Giannis. Thank you, Mayor Prom. Good evening, city council members, Andrea's family. Um, I was it was a privilege to get to know Andrea for the last five, six years working for Environmental Resources. Um, I've been around doing municipal government for 31 years and you don't come around people that have a heart, dedication, loyalty. They don't come around too often. And then to work 43 years, Andrea, so that is just amazing. I will miss going to her. I'd knock on her door. Andrea, what happened 30 years ago? She knew we did this back in this day. That didn't work. Oh, well, we won't do it again. We ain't going to make the same mistake twice. But she was a wealth of knowledge. She had so much institutional knowledge and she just really cared about the customers, this community, and like I said, it it it was a privilege to know her, to work beside her, and I don't know, it's going to be tough to fill her shoes. It really is. And I'm proud of you. I'm so glad that you took this step and going to enjoy your family. Yes. Um, and the the whole group of the people she oversaw and commercial drivers, all the positions she held, we had a little couple of little gettogethers in the office, but obviously we we got work to do, but somehow we found time and the people that just showed up to just show that the respect for her, the love for her, it was it was really overwhelming. I was I was glad to be a part of it and I'm so excited for your next chapter. I just hope you come see us every once in a

while. But uh born and raised in Oxnard, graduated from Oxnard High and and spent your life and career here. It's it's just it's just amazing and this community is grateful to have you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I do want to say thank you, of course, to my family, my extended family, my grandkids, my nieces, my son. Um, but to my work family, I I miss you. It was hard. It was a hard decision, but I couldn't have done it by myself. My neighbors sitting back there. Um, I want to thank you guys, um, for putting up with me, for helping me, making me better. Brian, thank you. Um, yeah, we had several conversations. Um, he would call me in and then said, "Come here, see me after the meeting and then he'd ask me, what was that face for?" So, we had a discussion. But, um, thank you. Thank you for everything. Thank you, council. I appreciate everything. It's been great, but now it's time to enjoy.

Thank you again and wishing you the best in retirement. Madam clerk, do we have any uh speakers for this item? Mayor Prom and council members, we do not have any public speakers for the ceremonial item in person or virtually. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. I'll invite my colleagues to take their seats. Okay, looking at our agenda, uh we are moving on now to public comments for items not on the agenda. Anyone who wishes to speak, we have speaker cards up here with the clerk or if you are on Zoom, you could push star 9 to raise your hand. Person may address the legislative body only on matters not appearing on the agenda and within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body. Speakers speaker requests shall be submitted and set forth on the first page of this agenda. Speakers are limited to three minutes. After 30 minutes, if all speakers have not had the opportunity to speak, the remaining speakers will be given an opportunity to speak prior to the adjournment of this meeting. The legislative body cannot enter into a detailed discussion or take action on any items presented during public comments at this time. Such items may only be referred to the city manager of for administrative action or scheduled on a subsequent agenda for discussion. Persons persons wishing to speak on uh public hearing items should do so at the time of that hearing at the time of that agenda item. And again, anyone wishing to speak for items on the agenda can submit a card to the clerk or raise your hand on Zoom using star 9. We have a couple of speakers here. So we are going to start with uh Carla Alejandra followed by Eric Andrew.

On Tuesday, January 13, ICE forcibly took a kid from the Lemonwood neighborhood. This is a reprehensible action that further evidences the violence, the violent brutality of ICE and the fear they continue to purposely spread in our communities. ICE needs to leave Oxnard immediately and needs to cease to exist at a national level. And using this platform to state those three sentences, I have done more than any of you sitting up there. I have certainly done more than Gabriela Basua, the district 5 council member of which the Lemon Wood neighborhood is a part of. Basua, the same council member who in November made a deal with the devil Jenon to supposedly ensure that South Oxnard receives resources. The same council member who two years ago didn't want to hear anything about Oxnard signing a ceasefire resolution in support of Palestine because she wanted to focus on Oxnard. Yet, it took almost a decade for a restroom to be installed in one of the parks in her district. The same city council member that actually isn't here right now. She has probably done more for the city of Port Wanimi since she has been the housing authority and facilities maintenance director over there than she probably has done for Oxnard. But honestly, the smoke isn't just for her. None of you sitting up there are actually any better. even though you pretend to be. It took you all a year to pass one item that may help people. The matching funds for a Ventura County public defender. What's the update on that? How long is that actually going to take to happen? Um 10 years if Bus was in charge of it, right? Oxnard continues to get terrorized. People continue to get taken as political leaders for this city. Either you're in the streets

patrolling for your districts or you're facilitating the opening of the city's wallet to funnel money directly to the people impacted. Anything less than that is short of doing nothing at all. And honestly, before coming to this meeting, I saw yesterday that some of you were at the MLK event and y'all let Fryhoff speak. Really? Fryhoff. Fryhoff. Sheriff Fryhoff, who has been instrumental in allowing ICE to terrorize this community. And y'all just woo up there with your big smiles and the photo ops. You have Angela Davis's portrait hanging in these chambers. Are you not ashamed? Do you not know who these people are? Have you never heard him speak? Like, you parade and hide behind these symbols to actually pretend that you're doing something where you're doing nothing. MLK would have been disgusted with you. Angela Davis certainly would have never set foot in this chamber to speak to you. And she and if she would have, OPD would have probably gunned her down. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Mr. Eric Andress to be followed by Greg Renan. Everybody's like, "Oh my god, what is he gonna say?"

Eric Andrew from the Henry Levy House. I want to make two points tonight for the record. First, I need to correct the city attorney's office for the record, specifically Steven Fischer and Kenneth Roselle, regarding public participation rules after my Brown Act rights were violated under the city's own published agenda procedures. If you look at the bottom of the first page of tonight's agenda, just above the ADA disclaimer, it states, "You may participate in the meeting in the following ways and lists three methods: attending in person, signing up to speak remotely, or submitting written comments by email. That language is unambiguous. Email and video submissions are independent methods of participation. It is not conditioned on physical presence or live phone participation. At a prior meeting, I submitted a pre-recorded comment in advance consistent with that language that Luly Lopez decided not to play and it was rejected solely because I was not present in person or on the phone. That requirement appears nowhere in the agenda. It was imposed after the fact. I am noting for the record that the city enforced a rule that does not exist in its own instructions. Either the agenda is misleading or it is being selectively reinterpreted. Either way, when written rules do not match practice, the public record is compromised. Public participation rules are not optional. Members of the public rely on the agenda as written. And Kenneth Roselle didn't stop there. For the record, he recently publicly mocked me by selectively omitting key facts from an apology that I submitted, then labeled my recollection as revisionist. selective quotation that removes material context is not a good faith representation. He has engaged in similar conduct regarding his ongoing vendetta against our duly elected treasurer Phil Molina, including efforts to thwart court orders requiring

reinstatement of his duties. When a city official edits facts to change the narrative, it raises legitimate questions about the reliability of their interpretations of facts, policy, and law. And because of that, I plan to file a California Bar Association complaint against Kenneth Roselle. Secondly, I want to flag an issue I will be watching closely. I would like a member of this council to ask city attorney Steven Fiser on the record for a clear explanation of what expenditures are permitted and prohibited under California PEG fee law and how compliance is insured. Pub public explanations of PEG usage create an official record and accountability. The video the city attorney's office refused to play concerned possible PEG fee misappropriation. Refusing to play it over a technicality heightens the concern. I am not making further allegations, at least not tonight. Accuracy matters both in public participation procedures and financial explanations. Bert Pllo loves to regurgitate. Facts and evidence matter. That quote Oh, am I done?

Yes, your time is expired, Mr. Andrew. Thank you very much. If there are any additional speakers who wish to submit a card, they're down here by the clerk. And uh if you are online, you can hit star nine to raise your hand. At this time, it looks that our last inerson speaker will be Mr. Greg Renan.

Uh good evening, mayor and uh council members. Um, I uh I was at the MLK celebration and and and I want to be careful because I I really wanted to get up here and and talk a little bit about how alarming it was to see our constitutionally protected rights to protest infringe upon a constitutionally protected right of people to have religious services. Um, and I think it's important for all of us to begin to start to learn, you know, Dr. King, obviously I'm old, but I'm not that old. I never met the guy. Um, he died in 1968 at the at in Memphis, Tennessee, was assassinated. U, many of you know the I have a dream speech. It was in 1963 and it's famous, right? The dream was that he had a dream where one day all men were seen as equal regardless of the color of your skin, regardless of your gender. But the night before he died, he preached at a church in Memphis. And he preached a sermon that was 13 minutes long. And basically what it did, he talked about how he was ready to go, that he had lived his life and that he didn't have anything left. And when he was done, you would have thought that he almost had a heart attack. But what he preached upon was the idea that your life is a sacrifice, but that it's lived in the idea that you do things that if you resist, you resist in a way that is honorable. That if you protest, you do it honorably. He believed not in direct confrontation, but in nonviolent. And I

heard some of you at the event encouraging a resistance that sounded very much like push the envelope. That's not Dr. King. That's not what he said. He said push the envelope when it comes to how we treat one another. If someone treats you bad, treat them better. If someone looks down on you, lift them up. We're not going to help anyone if we get in a society that says, "I don't like you. I'm going to take you out. And speech matters. The words we use matter. Young people. Oh, it's just words. Oh, it ain't. It ain't. And we need to learn that. You know what? I believe with all my heart, love is more powerful than hate. But right now, what we're teaching people is hate. Someone hates you, hate them back more. Dr. King said, "If someone hates you, love them. And I'll leave you with that. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. Do we have any additional speakers? Um, Mayor Prom and council members, that concludes our speakers in person and virtually for items not on the agenda. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next item on the agenda is item H, report of city manager, uh, executive director, secretary. Mr. City Manager, do you have a report for us?

Pass. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next item on the agenda is item I, City Council, Housing Authority, Successor Agency, Financing Authority, Business Committee reports. At this time, a member of the legislative body may make a brief announcement or make a brief report on his or her activities. Further, members of the legislative body may request to schedule consideration of whether to place an item on a future agenda. The legislative body cannot enter into detailed discussion or take action on any item presented during this report. The members report shall not exceed three minutes unless additional time is granted by the presiding officers. Uh we started with Councilwoman uh Perez last time. I'm going to start on my right with Council Member Star and then we'll make work our way left if that's all right. So uh we'll start first with Council Member Star.

Thank you. I'm not used to being first. Uh several things. Uh I attended a Ventur Council of Governments meeting uh earlier this month. We saw a presentation from Dr. Rick uh Mlennon who's the chancellor for Ventura County Community College District. There's a lot that this district does and was particularly impressed with how they're working with the Navy and trying to create workforce jobs by doing so. So heads up my hats off to him. I had a meeting with representatives of the proposed housing development that's going to be just north of the Dul High School. I I think it's called the Mhart Styles Ranch project. Uh I'm told that we should expect that a draft EIR will be made available for public review in the next 30 to 60 days. So those who are interested will certainly have an opportunity to review it. uh also attended a East Valley East Village neighborhood council meeting and upcoming is meetings with the Riolindo neighborhood council uh which is be this Thursday night and Saturday morning there'll be a a meeting of the L Colonia neighborhood council meeting. I I do want to take a moment to acknowledge a couple people that uh from city hall that did really really well recently. Uh, one of them who who's not here is Brenda Lopez. I've had several incidents where uh some folks were very distressed about their housing situation. I I mentioned one of them uh at the last meeting, but since then there's been two more incidents and she is really on top of things and I really appreciate that when somebody is going through a crisis situation that she steps up to the plate and she she she responds quickly and and

that's something that I really appreciate. She takes her job very seriously. Uh the other person I want to recognize and I think he is here in the audience right now is assistant police chief Rocky Marquez. And we had a couple of instances uh where I one lady that was very concerned about uh fireworks and uh wasn't sure that we were doing enough and I think he was able to provide a lot of information as far as well here's what we are trying to do and of course it's a big problem and it's hard to combat all the lawlessness that happens in this city by folks that decide to set fireworks but she but he g he gave a really good explanation of what we're doing and is trying to work with her to find out well where where are the problems that she's seeing so that we can kind of monitor that. Uh in addition uh I had a gentleman who is in a trailer park situation who had a criminal uh encounter uh that he was not real satisfied with uh the report that came out of from from the uh police station on that. And um I'm very happy to say that uh uh Assistant Police Chief Rocky Marquez is immediately trying to address that. So, thank you very much for just being so speedy and and on top of it. I think you were even responding uh when when the city was actually closed. So, just hats off to you. Couple things. I would like to see a better understanding of how Assembly Bill 253 impacts us. So, as Senate Bill 253 is the California Residential Private Permitting Review Act, and looking at the Legislative Council's digest, uh I I'll read some of what was written here, which is it says until January 1, 2036, the bill would upon application for residential building permit being deemed complete as

provided, require the city to provide the applicant with an estimated time frame in which the city or county will determine uh if the complete application is complete. comp with permit standards. Uh the bill would authorize an applicant to retain a private professional provider as defined to perform the plan check if the estimated time frame exceeds 30 business days or the city has not determined the completeness application is compliant within 30 days of the applicant being deemed complete. The bill would require an applicant who retains a private professional provider to notify the city of their intent to retain the private professional provider within a prescribed time frame. This is going to be it's I understand the sentiment behind it, what the state is trying to do. They're trying to speed up the process and uh allow outside plan checkers if necessary to step in when we're overburdened. So, uh, it was passed as an emergency, uh, statute. Uh, so it went into effect immediately back in October, and I would like to see a report as far as what is the community development department doing to implement this in a way that works best for those who are trying to get their projects through. I would also um, let's see. I guess we I have one one member of the public here who was inquiring about the uh spending of PEG funds. I'm not sure uh what the limitations are or if if we've misspent something and I'm sure it wouldn't have been intentional. But uh in any event, if if there has been any sort of misspending, maybe we should understand that and you know correct that to make sure that the money's coming out of the right buckets because there's certain restrictions on how monies can be spent. So I I hope that

staff can come back with a report on how we've spent PGH fund PEG funds and uh whether we need to make any adjustments in our accounting. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member. Councilwoman,

thank you. I appreciate that clarification in terms of the PEG fee law and the PEG funding. So, um, if that would be an update, then I' I'd also like to hear about that. And if there wasn't any misspending, then I'd also like that clarification. Um, I just wanted to share my Gold Coast Transit District meeting got cancelceled this month for January. So, our next one will be on the 4th of February. I will be resuming my office hours the first Saturday of every month at the library. And I did attend the MLK um celebration and uh I thought it was a a great event uh similar to last year. It doesn't um cease to amaze uh when community comes together. So I thought it was a very powerful event 40th anniversary and uh I just want to thank all the people behind the scenes making that happen because I did take the 7:30 a.m. shuttle and everybody was all set and ready to go. So thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Council Member Pillo. Thank you. Thank you to the public speakers. Um, I did have the opportunity to go to the Martin Luther King event at the park. I appreciate the fact that there were a lot of people there. I will tell you, in my opinion, it was a smaller crowd than I expected. I don't know, you know, the rationale, but um, Mr. King fought for a lot of things.

Dr. King, Reverend King, fought for a lot of things for people of all colors, all economic backgrounds. In the current state of events, I hope that we all remember that and nonviolence was a big part of his preaching. Attended the VRSD board meeting recently. It came to the attention of the board and they had to act on it, that the new general manager had forgotten to indicate that he was on two boards and he possibly could be perceived as working for some other entities. It was clarified, brought to our attention. We acted on it, approved one of them and did not approve the second. Um the Ventur regional the U Clean Power Alliance met Clean Power Alliance's fees for their power were lower than expected beneficial of the residents of Oxnard. Neighborhood council meetings coming up. Blackstock South tomorrow night 6:15 South Oxnard Center the South Bank neighborhood part meeting coming up Thursday night 6:30 at the Real Darte School. The Rio Lindo neighborhood meeting coming up Thursday 22nd at 7 o'clock. It sounds like that's going to be a very hot meeting. The Lalonia neighborhood council meeting coming up at 9:00 Saturday at the community soul community garden and the Wilson neighborhood meeting coming up at the um DOMA offices and the election election meeting Monday the 26th at 6 o'clock. If you get a chance to go to these meetings, they're open to the public. One other meeting coming up is Camala 6 o'clock at the Camala school. Camala's a neighborhood council getting up and running. They got some good people involved. Some support for that neighborhood would be greatly appreciated, not just by the residents

of that neighborhood, by this council member and I'm sure the rest of the council members up here with respect to the U claims that were made and Mr. Pello. That's me, Bert Pollo. Facts and evidence matter. Facts and evidence matter. And when there's not facts and evidence, that's also very significant. Those are my comments. Mayor, thank you, Council Member. Counciloman Pettis.

Thank you, Mayor Prom. I too wanted to thank um all of the MLK committee um who continuously um goes above and beyond to ensure that that event is successful. I know we have a lot to of work to do still as a society at a human consciousness level. Um I'd like to say that there's just more work to do. Um although MLK fought for a lot of different issues, um we still are facing u many civil rights issues today. many people are having their rights violated. Um, in terms of some of the neighborhood council meetings, um, as council member Palo shared, Blackstock will be having their meeting tomorrow at 6. Unfortunately, I've shared with them that I will not be there. I will be joining Mayor Prom for the first Voices of Oxnard Youth meeting. Um, I know Redwood Neighborhood Council also um has several meetings as well. I have been unable to attend those meetings because they typically fall on the same night as city council. Um I've also had the opportunity to participate in Blackstock Junior High's community school site meeting. This was a really good opportunity to both bridge what's happening at the family level, parents, um, community overall, and really providing feedback on some of what the community needs are. And really, um, was excited to learn more about their community closet program and some of the partnerships that they'll be expanding to bring more resources um, to the community. as I shared in my last report earlier this month um is that I'm committed to meeting with all of our school representatives, principles, administrators, all the school sites that fall within my district. Um, so I've had the opportunity to attend Blackstock so far. Looking forward to attending Sun-Kissed um at the beginning

of February and also had the chance to meet the principal of Hayox Elementary um to really bridge the work um during the last South Winds um neighborhood council meeting on Thursday. Um so more to come on that. Um hoping to share some some updates at that South Winds meeting. We got a lot of input about one of the um events that we're going to be holding in February. There's going to be some improvements that are coming to South Winds Park really to gather feedback from the community. And so really excited to finalize the the time frame for that and once the notification is out um happy to share that um so that we can get some community engagement on on what folks would like to see in that area. um as a part of some of the discussions that I've had with school representatives um there's been a need for um looking at the process for crossing guards um and so really wanted to thank our um corporal and our sergeant um in our department who met with me this morning to talk about what the process is and um really connecting with our school administrators um to see what that if that possibility is there. Um, next week I will also be joining the county point in time event here in Oxnard um to really, you know, support our homelessness population. And then just wanted to report that um, Coastal Keepers is also going to be holding their world wetlands beach cleanup coming up soon at the end of Perkins Road. So that is my report and back to you, Mayor Prom.

Thank you, Councilwoman. I just have a couple quick updates here. As Councilwoman Pettis mentioned, uh we um have started our meetings with the Voices of Oxnard Youth Group and appreciate the young people who applied for it and uh we had our orientation uh just a week before last and looking forward to our first uh meeting session with them uh this week and we'll start getting down to work to see what issues uh rise as priorities for them and how we'd like to tackle them as well as some other things that I hope that the community will see come from that group here in the next couple of months. Uh I attended with councelor Pllo the airport authority meeting um last or week before last as well and I just wanted to take an opportunity to thank or to congratulate Miss Barbara Filkins who was appointed as the public member for the Oxnard airport authority or reappointed but I also wanted to take opportunity to thank all of those who applied especially Mr. Doug Tobber who um is also a neighborhood council chair within the city of Oxnard and really had a number of people who um really sent in comments and uh came out to speak on his behalf. And I was happy to hear that there may be another opportunity that he will be um looking at with the with county supervisor Vienna Lopez even though he wasn't appointed to the authority as a public member at this time. I also attended the East Village Neighborhood Council meeting and um coincidentally I see that we have the neighborhood council chair uh here for that community in the back there and I just want to give congratulations for her election and uh that actually deserves uh some praise on a number of reasons because um typically neighborhood council uh you'll have a chair who will be there and everybody thinks they're doing a great job and nobody wants to do it or wants to step up and so that person stays in that role. um or you sometimes have people who hang on to that role with every ounce that

they have. And um I've seen both happen in neighborhood councils over the years. Uh but this is a great example of a chair who um had a vice chair and they worked well together. The vice chair was able to uh be given a number of projects that she was able to carry out, especially n um national night out which was done uh excellently within that neighborhood. and when he was ready to uh step away from the chair role, that succession plan was there. She was the um she was voted in unanimously by her neighbors and uh just congratulations. I think that's a great way and a great model for neighborhood councils and how they should be working. So, great job to Miss Alexis Schmidt who's there in the back. And I also attended a carriage square neighborhood council. Thank you to uh Mr. Howlet and his team. And I see uh Morgan is here as well, Mr. Kesler. Um, we had a there was a great turnout for them and they looked at their playground that is moving into the next phase of being replaced. Uh, Council Pello already mentioned the South Bank meeting January 22nd at well, not at 6:39 p.m. at 6:30 p.m. That's a typo on my part here. And I appreciated joining my colleagues for the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Walk as well. It was a um always a poignant event and always a reminder of the work that was done to allow many of us in this room here tonight to be able to have opportunities that others prior to us did not have. And it's incumbent on us to continue the work that needs to happen to ensure those who come after us are still afforded these types of opportunities to be leaders in their community or even to um have rights that were not afforded to people in the past like voting or sitting with certain people or in certain areas. So just throwing that out there for folks. I'll also be participating the point in time count next week. And last two items here, uh River Park fountain update. I appreciate

Mr. Miller giving me a quick update on that. It looks like things are going to start moving uh rounding third base as he said um in his response to me and uh we're hoping that by the end of this calendar month we should see um that fountain operational and ready to go. And I'll echo what my colleagues have set up here. I would like to request maybe an appointment item on our um PEG funds and how they've been spent in the past, whether it be recent or some of the um milestone uh things that they've supported. And there have been other members of the community who have inquired about that. So, I think it's probably going to be a worthwhile uh appointment item to give a historical perspective and where we are now and what we're looking forward to with those funds. Okay. All right. Thank you all. We also have here a um item through the city attorney department. And this is item I1, adoption of a resolution protecting the California coast and public lands from oil and gas drilling and exploration. Recommendation that the city council adopt a resolution opposing new leases for oil and gas activities in public lands and off the coast of California. And um I'll turn it over to Councilwoman Perez if you'd like to give us a brief introduction for this and then if Mr. Fischer would like to add anything to that or excuse me, I think we have Mr. Roselle here for that. Is that correct? Okay. Go ahead, Councilwoman.

Perfect. First, I wanted to just share with the council and the public the timeliness um of this item. the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management um is going to be making um is is opening up their or they've actually had their um period for submitting comments, but it closes January 23rd, 2026. And just a little bit of historical background, um, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management recently released a draft proposed program for the 11th National Outer Continental Shelf Oil and Gas Leing lease leasing program which includes six leases off the coast of California. Um, this proposed program echoes similar attempts to expand offshore oil and gas drilling during the previous administration. Um and this is something that has been rebuked by many local government bodies including Venture County. Um a resolution was issued in Ohio um city council in 2017 and here within the city of Oxnard in 2019. Um just some kind of overview high points. Similarly, in December 2025, the Ventura County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to pass a resolution opposing new offshore gas leases. Um, the state of California has also prohibited new fracking activities, implemented a safe set safety setback, and is committed to phasing out oil and gas drilling onshore in California offshore um no later than 2045 due to the high risk of damage and disruption to the environment, climate, and public health. Um, just some kind of over, you know, arching comments here. California is already headed into the direction of a green transition and the state has been clear that continued expansion of fossil fuel extractions comes with real

risk. Um risk that I think we could all um agree on in terms of climate um the impacts on public health, our environment. Um being that my district is one of the most um impacted by environmental hazards, um we know that fossil fuel pollution is linked to higher rates of asthma, heart disease, and other health issues, especially for communities closest to drilling in industrial sites. Um, as I mentioned, we're already into we've already moved into that direction as the state and um, there's already a commitment to phasing out um, you know, gas drilling by 20 2045 as mentioned. And so opening new public lands and offshore areas to drilling moves us into the opposite direction. It keeps us dependent on fossil fuels and undermines our progress towards cutting greenhouse gas emissions and transitioning to renewable energy. This is also a moment for transition for workers and communities. The good news is that green energy pathways we know offer higher paying, safer and more stable jobs. But um we need to continue to uplift um you know skills training which is already happening in our community to ensure both our younger and older workers are prepared to transition. And I know we have such great partners in the community already doing that work. And so this resolution is really um you know to to join our county and to join our partners in the state of California to oppose um any any efforts of um new leases for oil and gas activities um off the coast of California.

Okay. Thank you, Councilwoman. Mr. Roselle, are there any opening remarks you'd like before we go to questions? So, no, Councilwoman Perez has laid out uh the the reasons she is proposing that this resolution be adopted by the city council. Thank you very much. Okay. So, do we have questions for our um staff here, which would be Mr. Rosselle? And we we'll start with council PLO and then we'll go around here. So, council member, I don't have a question of staff other than the one point. We don't list the Channel Islands National Park as off the coast. I don't know if that needs to be added or not, but that's the only question that I would have. Other than that, I'd like to weigh in on the subject.

That is not necessary. The language is broad enough to include offshore.

Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Brazil. The the reason I support this. Um, some of you may know I grew up in agriculture. When I was younger in the 60s, 70s and early 80s, Oxnard used to be known not as the big salad bowl of California, which was Selenus, but it was known as a salad bowl. And they grew very tender lettuce in the springtime. Green leaf, bib, enzy, very not iceberg, not romaine, but they grew much more tender lettuce. When the smog and the inversion layers would hit LA and push it out to the ocean and the winds would shift in the spring, one shift of the wind would send the smog into the Oxnard Plains and turn all the tips of those lettuce plants black. and people would disc up the crop. Eventually, they don't grow that here anymore. But along with that came eventually, we have smog equipment on cars. We have fuel mixture blends different. But the thing that I know that I experienced and I'm hoping some of you are old enough to have experienced it, going to a Dodger Stadium baseball game and not seeing the mountains used to be a red cloud, kind of a pinkish cloud, little angel air. And also having a friend that liked to go to Sanonita for opening day of the horse race. We'd always laugh. You could actually see the mountains and the snow on top because the smog hadn't hit now. I don't want to go back to the way it was with everything that's going on in the world right now. I don't think we need to open up the coast. With the accidents that have happened, I don't see a reason to take more chances. That's why I'm supporting this.

Thank you, Council Member. Um, Councilwoman, questions for Mr. Roelle? I don't currently have any questions. Thank you, Councilor Star. I don't have any questions. I just like to hear from the public.

Okay. And any questions, Councilwoman? Okay. I don't have any questions either. So, uh with that, we will go ahead and take public comments. Uh those who wish to make a public comment, we have cards up here with the uh clerk. If you are online, you can push star 9 to raise your hand. We currently have six comments cards submitted. Our first speaker will be um is it Alex Montana? Uh followed by Abra Stewart. My apologies if I um didn't get your last name right there.

It's okay. That's my entire life. So it's Manona. It's a Chammoral last name from Guam. Um yeah. So my name is Alex Mantinona. I'm a policy advocate with Cause and I'm out here to come out in support of this. So, uh, last time we were here, it turned into a very late night. So, I'm hoping it doesn't go that way as well. Um, again tonight, I just want to point out like the connection that we're seeing with current events, right? So, we're seeing resource expansion wars and a lot of rhetoric and saber rattling. this type of rhetoric and this type of expansionist, imperialistic, whatever, you know, word we actually want to throw at it, it's just greed. And this the same type of actions and you know thought processes that is leading to trying to you know go after our coast. So in this time of you know fascism, in this time of imperialism, in this time of civil rights being eroded and it being fueled by the dark money of oil. Is it our time to step up as leaders in the community, as public uh offices, as just everywhere? The the the moments are bigger than any individual person. And so we need to be taking every small action, every big action and rising up against this. Now there's a lot of discontentment in the public and you know there's always going to be decisions that we disagree with and inactions or actions that we disagree with and you know we I just want to point out that these types of things help these types of things help build our trust. These types of things will bring us together and saying this is our line. These are the things that we do

not want to cross and these are the things that we need to protect because um you know I'm glad Bert Pllo you brought up the comment of how Oxnard was early in the 50s and 60s. I've been reading this uh book. It's called uh growing up in Laconia. Has this quote by Cesar Chavez about how when he was growing up here um Oxnard was this very cold and you know damp city uh had a lot of fog and there was a lot of cold days that that that's what he remembered mostly. And earlier this week and last week, I was walking outside my apartment and I noticed uh flowers blooming on the trees and I was like, "Oh, what a lovely day. What a lovely day." And then I thought about I'm like, "It's it's January." Like, this is not normal. This is something that future generations are going to have to deal with because the planet is heating up very quickly. and the quicker we do a just transition and a green transition is the way we deal with this. So again, thank you for this resolution. Thank you for your leadership. We appreciate it. Thank you for your comment. Our next speaker is Abra Stewart to be followed by Molly McCoy.

Good evening, honorable council members. My name is Abra Stewart. I am a former resident of Oxnard and I'm the program manager at Climate First, replacing oil and gas or Seafrog. Seafrog is a local nonprofit organization dedicated to a just transition away from fossil fuels to protect our health, economy, and climate. And I'm here tonight to urge you to adopt the proposed resolution opposing the attempts by the federal government to expand offshore drilling and drilling on our public lands. And I just want to share, you know, growing up in Ventura County, I spent most of my time swimming in the ocean or hiking in the Sespie and Los Padres forest and enjoying all of the beauty that our wonderful county has to offer. But I was also a sophomore in high school when the refugeio oil spill hit in 2015. I was on the surf team, so that kind of ruined our our season. Um, and I was a freshman in college when the the Thomas fire came and I had to call my parents at 2:00 in the morning to wake them up and tell them that they needed to evacuate our home. And just last uh November, our team at Seabrock was fielding calls from community members in Ohhigh who saw hundreds of gallons of oil spilling into the Seesar Creek and into our county's watershed from an oil spill that happened. And I think that everyone who lives in Ventura County has stories like this. Um, you know, we all know the impacts of local environmental degradation and have lived with the consequences and many of us take our time to, you know, try to fight these issues. But these efforts are not without challenges or setbacks. Um, you know, the the last time the federal government tried to expand drilling off of our coastlines, the city of Oxnard stood up and said no. And while it might seem a little repetitive, we need to stand up tonight and to say again, no, we are not letting this happen in our community. these proposed uh expansion, you know, on our on our outer continental shelf as well as on our

public lands includes over 800,000 acres across the central uh coast and valleys and then six leases off the coast of California. Um like I said, we've already dealt with the really devastating impacts of oil spills, whether it's happening up north in Santa Barbara County. Um oil doesn't know county lines. It'll come to us wherever we are and we saw that last time and we will see that again. But we're also looking at this drilling on public lands. There's threats to, you know, poor air quality, increased um seismic irregular seismic activity due to proposed hydraulic fracturing, um groundwater contamination, which is particularly relevant for us here with how much we rely on our agriculture. And there's just so much um at stake and I think you all know this and you know that we don't need more drilling. We know that we don't need this pollution. What we do need is to stand up to what the federal government is trying to do here in California. And we might be one small town in a large state, but Oxnard has the opportunity to demonstrate continued leadership, and I'd really love to see that continued under this council with a vote to adopt the resolution. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Molly McCoy, followed by Melissa Good evening, council. My name is Molly McCoy. I'm a alum an alumni from Ventura County Community College District and I'm here to speak on this item and strongly support you all to adopt this resolution in opposition to increased oil and gas drilling on public lands and in the outer continental shelf. Aside from the adverse public health impacts and the just no need to extend our reliance on fossil fuel infrastructure as the peak of oil and gas um return on investment is uh quickly looming. Uh and as Ventura County is the fastest warming county in the lower 48 uh we really don't need extra drilling. But I really want to point out the two other devastating impacts. Uh, number one, oil offshore drilling can siphon the marine space and resources needed for offshore wind development, which as council member Perez pointed out, we really need to address transition to uplift our communities and put in more economic value and bring generations into the climate crisis and make sure that we have employment opportunities. Uh, with the refugeio oil spill, Ventura County has already suffered enough. We lost over 140,000 recreational days as April was saying with her surf team. We uh we lost almost $3.9 million in that as well as economic damages to local businesses, fisheries. The cleanup was $257 million, hundred million of which US taxpayers paid for. Uh over 1500 acres of shoreline habitat habitat were impacted costing $5.5

million. 2,000 acres of fish habitat 6.1 million 550 plus birds 2.2 million and over 200 mammals 2.3 million. This devastation to our uh shoreline uh directly impacts our ability to deal with sea level rise and habitat restoration. all of which are just as devastating and expensive to deal with. We really don't need extra drilling on our offshore areas or in our public lands. Thank you so much for your consideration. Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Melissa, followed by Eric Bersinger. Um, good evening, Mayor and Council members. My name is Melissa Munoz. I am a community member of Oxnard. I'm here to express my strong support for the resolution under agenda item I1 strongly opposing expanded federal oil and gas drilling on public lands and off the California coast. This issue matters deeply to me because our community is already living with the impacts of climate change and poor air quality. Ventura County is warming faster than any other county in the continental United States and expanding drilling will only accelerate those trends. We're also a region that knows the consequences of fossil fuel development. all too well. From devastating wildfires to the lingering effects of the past oil spills along our coastline, some of the proposed federal drilling parcels are near schools on the central coast. Children breathe more air per pound of body weight than adults, which means that they absorb more pollution. Opening land near schools to drilling puts our youth at disproportionate risk, and that is simply unacceptable. We also cannot ignore the threat of offshore drilling. We've seen the recent oil spills and in 2015 as previously mentioned the Rafuho spill which devastated marine life, local fisheries and coastal recreation.

Oxford has a long history of environmental leadership. Passing this resolution continues that legacy and sends a clear message that our community will not stand by while federal agencies attempt to open more than 850,000 acres of public land and multiple offshores areas to new drilling. The federal government has caused enough pain to our communities. Let's not allow them to bring on more in this matter. I strongly urge the council to adopt this resolution tonight to protect the health, safety, and future of Oxnard residents. Thank you for your time and your continued commitment. Thank you very much. Our next me speaker is Eric Bersinger, followed by Caesar.

Good evening, council. My name is Eric Bersinger. I'm a Ventura County resident and I strongly support the adoption of this resolution in opposition to the federal government's proposal to increase drilling on and off the coast of California. I'd like to highlight that Oxnard in particular is no stranger to taking on the federal government when it comes to fossil fuel projects. Like back in 2006 when the when the Bush administration attempted to build an offshore liqufied natural gas terminal near our coast, it would have been the single largest source of pollution in the county. or in 2014 when the energy uh energy uh proposed yet another gas station plant nearby. Both times the people of Oxnard with the help of the city council and people like Carmen Ramirez fought back and won. This time is no different. The federal government is attempting to sacrifice our health our health and local economy so billionaire oil oil executives can pad their pockets even further. Offshore drilling has a long history of doing serious harm to coastal communities. It took some communities on the Gulf Coast over a decade to recover from the Deep Water Horizon spill. Many of them still are not the same. We don't even need to go all the way to the Gulf for examples. How about San the Santa Barbara spill in 1969 or Galita in 2015 or Huntington Beach in 2021. And by the way, these spills were not surprises. They were not accidents. Oil companies actually calculate spills into the cost of doing business. They're not accidents. their features and they're inevitable. Local economies put on hold, thousands of animals and marine life killed, and communities left behind while big oil runs off with billions in profit. I urge you to please vote yes on this resolution. Thank you. Thank you very much. If there are any folks who wish to speak, you can submit a card with the clerk up here or if you're online, you can hit star 9 to raise your hand. Otherwise, our last inerson speaker will

be Caesar. Hello. Um, hi council members, um, staff. My name is CER. I'm an Oxner resident at and a Oxner College student and a job fellow with Seafrock. And I'm here today to express my strong support for the proposed resolution in opposition to new oil and gas drilling both offshore in Ventura County waters and in the Los Palades National Forest. I actually spoke uh in the Ventura County um board of supervisors meeting where they were considering it considering um and finally passed a similar resolution and I thought that it was a big success success but the federal government government is trying to push it push this project that puts all natural and recreational spaces at risk. Expanding oil and gas drilling can create conflicts with with existing land uses such as farming, ranching, outdoor recreation and it also creates more pollution like methane may particulate matter and more risk of leaks and spills that poison or spaces that people love to walk, hike or just enjoy. Um, this proposal also threat strengthens wildlife habitat for 13 federally endangered species in including the California condor. And in the Los Padres's National Forest, drilling will disturb land that is sacred to the Chumash people, land that holds deep cultural, spiritual, and historical meaning. um regarding open our waters for drilling which is one of the main attractions to Bentria County um tourism industry and that brings around like $2 billion in 2024.

Uh and a single spill could devastate that. I know that my um we have mentioned many times about the Santa Barbara oil spill um and we won't get tired of it and which harm we which harm wildlife, beaches and the local businesses with which also taxpayers carried much of that burden. Family also families who depend on fishing including my own will also be directly affected. It is it is important to be honest that drilling here in Ventura County will not lower the gas prices or make our count county energy independent. I urge you to pose any new new offshore or inland drilling projects. Our community deserves clean clean air, clean water and untouch and uh and untouched nature and for the future to protect our environment, our economy and our culture heritage. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you very much, Madame Clerk. Do we have any additional speakers on this item?

Um, Mayor Prom and Council members, um, that concludes our speakers both in person and virtually for this item. Thank you. Thank you very much. Council members, do we have any uh comments on this item? Counc.

Sure. I'm just not clear what this accomplishes. I doubt that the federal government cares about any resolution that we adopt. So while I see this as aspirational, I don't see why it's in any way practical. And I can't imagine a world without oil. I look at around me, I see plastics, the the clothes I'm wearing, the gas stove I use at home, the fuel I put in my car. You would not want the nightmare scenario where if we could if you could snap your fingers and have all oil and gas just disappear tomorrow. Believe me, you'd be really really unhappy. Lives would be lost. You wouldn't be able to keep people's homes. It would be a disaster. Now, we have no say over the control of federal lands. We have no say over the federal government waters which started I think at three miles out and goes out as much as I think 200 miles. Anything we do here today has zero impact on that. Now if you want something practical where you can do something is some control over the at least when it comes to offshore all the onshore infrastructure the the pipelines the terminals. I sincerely doubt that California is going to approve any of these. So, I suspect that even if the federal government does leasing of new oil leases, I think most of these projects are going to be dead on arrival anyway

because I don't think California will ever approve the infrastructure to make it possible to have the oil come on shore.

Is that the end of your comment? I think so. I was just I had one more thought in there, but probably not worth mentioning. Um I I'm hoping somebody council PL, do you have a comment? I have a comment. You want to make a motion? I'd like to make the motion, but second. Thank you. And just to just to kind of go into discussion there before we uh if I can interrupt for just a moment here. I did receive a um notice here that uh just as we ended the public comment period we did have somebody raise their hand. Okay. Um I'm going to go ahead and just allow because it's the additional person. Um so madame clerk uh can we go ahead and take the speaker?

Um yes. Um caller um ending in 1622 if you can press star six to mute and you have three minutes starting now. Okay, I apologize by the way. It just that took a little while right there. Uh but I apologize. I I did click in late there for the star9. Um this is Larry Barbarine. Um I not going to speak to every development that they would the feds would want to do. Um I just look at this as I'm wonder if this is ideological and paint brushes every kind of development. Maybe there might be worthwhile for instance on public land not I think there'd be less support for off the coast of course I think things are being done a lot my understanding is that things are being done a lot more clean uh being done more clean uh oil and gas and and the energy department few just a few years ago mentioned that we are stated that we're going to be dependent on whatever your ideology or whatever report you're looking at uh we're going to be dependent on oil and gas on fossil fuels was 75 to 80% until like 20 at least till 2050 2050 uh and uh wind and solar and things like that just aren't stable enough um as Texas saw a few years ago um for our energy um it's it's a benefit to develop enough here in the states so we are not dependent on other countries uh the last Trump administration they had the uh we were a exporter of of uh energy which is great and also it you know it would help helps the gas prices uh when there's more development as we've seen already in the the first year of this administration I know we can't say anything good about this administration

right we got to be all good or all bad but uh and that's not right to do um and I I like what uh an international expert Bjorn Lomborg loom bg has said that climate is a problem. Climate change is a problem. It is human, partially human uh cause, but it's not apocalyptic like a lot of people, not saying you guys say to us, but it's not apocalyptic like a lot of experts say it is a problem, but it with good government and private sector action. Uh it can it can be uh helped. And I just point out too when uh uh blessed be her name uh uh her memory uh uh Councilman and Supervisor Ramirez, she brought up a proposal like this to to X out you know oil and gas coming up. Remember we had a lot of those workers come to the meeting and uh her her proposition lost because it was imbalanced. I think it was too much to that to that side and not protecting workers and uh you know got to think of the consumer uh consumer's energy as well. So, thank you especially taking this uh my late star nine. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much. Uh to my council colleagues, I know I said that that was going to be the last speaker. Without objection, we do have one more. I would like to error on allowing the public to participate. Uh but without objection, we'll take the last comment. Okay, madame clerk. Thank you. Thank you. Um, caller ending in 4018, please press star six to unmute. And you have three minutes starting now. Hi, can you hear me? Yes.

Oh, hi. Good evening. Uh, my name is Doug Portello. I'm a 39year resident of Oxnard, and I really appreciate a lot of the concerns about the environment. I'm one that shares in that, but I'm also one that puts gas in my car and I heat my house. And most of what we have in this modern world is produced by petroleum products and I don't think we can not balance out our immediate needs. Uh, this economy in California is extremely dependent on the petroleum industry and we only produce about 25% of our oil that we need for all of the various products and to gas our cars and trucks and 75% comes from Alaska and foreign sources. So, we can't sustain our economy as it is today. And I'm all for alternative energy. I think it's wonderful. I think that's definitely the way we need to go. But I think we also have to balance it out. We've got to have a balanced approach that understands the need that we have for balanced energy sources. And petroleum is one of those that's critical to our modern living. And I think that this is a nice kind of ceremonial, you know, gesture. Uh I agree with Councilman Star that I think it really has very little influence on the people that pull the levers of power. Now, our governor Gavin Newsome, who's a Democrat, actually worked with the petroleum industry because right now they're a critical threshold for their refineries in terms of the current production for keeping those refineries going. So those

refineries that make our g refine our gas, it's not just for California. It's for our neighbor states and we export uh petroleum and we need those refineries running. We need to continue to at least have oil production to meet that critical low threshold to maintain our oil refineries. So I think it's good to look at both sides of the equation and look at the fuller picture. Uh the environment is extremely important and I consider myself a very environmentally uh conscious person but we live in a modern world unless we're going to start living like the Amish and going back to horse and buggy while we develop these alternate sources like Oxnard's now considering uh storage bank a battery storage bank. Okay, that's terrific. that stabilizes the grid. That does a lot of things. But they're looking at the battery storage. What about the solar panels? You know, why aren't we investing? And

Mr. Bartell, your Mr. Partella, your time is up. Batteries. Okay. Thank you. Just Okay. Thank you to all the speakers. Okay. I believe uh we had a first by um a motion by Councilwoman Perez. And did you second that, Councelor Prello? Yes. And then we had discussion. Correct.

Yes. I wanted to address a couple of of concerns that have come up. Um I want to just highlight to the public and for those on the dis that a transition to green energy is not a new concept. This is a concept that has been researched um scaled in other places as models for us to look into. Um there's partnerships as I mentioned um as one of the speakers mentioned. Um there's a big concern around workers and um there are many roundtable discussions that exist um that seek input to provide feedback on um what that transition to green jobs looks like whether it's skills development training. Um again this isn't a new concept. These are um conversations that happen across partnerships. So when we want to look at what the impact and influence is on this resolution, it really holds firm on the need to continue providing input. Um, we as elected officials are are elected to represent and to provide input, to work with our partners, whether that be at the state or federal level, to share our opinions, to share our concerns, and to discuss how our neighborhoods and communities are impacted by decisions that oftentimes fall out of um our government and rely heavily on having those working relationships with our our um representatives. um this will provide a tangible result tonight. It allows us to um ensure that we provide that public input by the January 23rd deadline. And this uh will also be sent over to the various um offices whether it be the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, the Bureau of Land Management, Senator Padilla, Shift, Representatives Brownley and other relevant elected officials who serve um

these specific spaces. And so um just wanted to really highlight some highlevel issues that um have been raised tonight. But I think u many community leaders and experts um people that are in the field have have long um stated um the need to to move towards a green energy and um we're going to be mandated to do so um just by the state that we live in and and really the environmental needs and and data around that. Thank you. Council councelor Pllo.

Yes. Um, I drove a car to work to council meeting tonight and I'm going to drive it home and it took gasoline. But I know that when I'm getting my fuel, the fuel's cheaper now than it was several months ago. And I know that when people exaggerate that we're cutting our, you know, they didn't say it, but this is what they're saying in my mind. We're cutting our nose off despite our face by doing this. When we have the amount of petroleum that this country is producing that we are shipping it overseas, the people that spoken against this, I don't know where they're getting the numbers. I I I really wonder where they're getting the numbers. I've said in the past, facts and evidence matter. And when we can produce gasoline, including the gasoline sales tax and everything, and it's less now than it was, and the impact that this could have on this nation, is a big deal because who cleans up the coast if there's a spill. And someone much might wiser than me told me when our nation I beg your pardon. When the leadership of this nation stole the largest reserves of oil in the world by going into Venezuela, what are we doing opening up the coast of California? I mean, I'd like to hopefully I can get the only one that's up here that addressed the issue is Mr. Star. I hope you'll engage in that question because um I don't see the need for this. I sat through the meetings where these other items, the LNG coast. I wasn't on the council. I was a member of the public. But um there have been a lot of situations that they've tried to dump on the Oxnard coast. This is not focused on the Oxnard coast, but this is focused on the coast that you and I both live on

and would impact those that when we're dead and buried would be here if this type of thing is not attempted to be prevented. This is an attempt to prevent taking advantage of people in the future, including those right now. So, I use plastic. Let's see. When did I last use the plastic? I stirred this cup with a plastic spoon. But I don't think that if we don't approve this, I'll never be able to get a plastic spoon. Thank you, Council Counciloman Rodriguez.

I have no additional comments. Um, I appreciate all the speakers who are here. I think that this as a council is us just taking a stand on our core values and at least our intent to protect.

Thank you, Council Gar. I can imagine a future where maybe fusion might be so well developed that we'd have clean energy almost limitless and that could reduce other sources. But until it happens doesn't really mean much to me. I think that this is just symbolic what's being attempted. I think it's overreach. If you wanted to say, "Hey, we shouldn't have oil lease is so close to the co so close to the coast. Okay, I can understand that. But if it's 50 miles out or 100 miles out, I don't see how that would impact us. I think trying to ban oil leases on public lands is given how much public land the federal government owns, I just don't see that ever happening. I think they're going to continue to do that. And if we're really sincere about this idea of transitioning, consider a different resolution. Let's consider banning our use, the city's use of any oil related product. Let's ban the use of gasoline for our vehicles. Let's ban the use of fuel that operates the wastewater treatment plant. Let's ban anything with plastic that we use here. If you're really, really sincere and you're willing to go that far, do that because at least that's something we can control. I think it'd be a horrible decision, but at least it's something within our scope that we could do. I cannot support this resolution as currently stated. And I appreciate all of you for I think I think what you want

is intended to be a good thing for all of us. I don't fault you for having a position different from mine. But I just don't see how this is going to create anything of value when it's all said and done. Thank you. Thank you. Council member, may I address something, Mayor Pim? Yes, briefly. Go ahead. Mr. star. Um, I do hope that the future involves nuclear infusion, but I would suggest if you feel strongly make a motion, get it on the agenda, see if we can do something. See if we can make a suggestion to the higher powers. I'm sorry. Suggest suggest what? That we influence nuclear fusion.

Well, I mean, you spoke of it first. I would hope that you could possibly make an emotion or a suggestion or try to get it on a committee. Let's let let's let council member Pearllo finish his comment. Okay. Are you done? Okay. I I can I can respond to that. I mean, we don't have any control over the development of nuclear fusion.

We have no control over this. This is a technological problem. Scientists are working on it and eventually maybe they'll solve it or maybe they won't. You know, I think there's been some very promising breakthroughs, but I don't see how this is any of this is within the scope of what we do as a city. are passing resolutions to make some folks feel good about doing something when it doesn't actually do anything. I I don't see how that creates value. I think it's just, you know, placating people. Okay.

It struck me. It struck me with your sound bite. Excuse me, Mayor Pertim. It struck me with your sound bite that we do away with gasoline. We do away. The most conservative guy I think on the council aside from me is you. And I don't think you'd go for the extra expense of those equipments. But you can say sound bites that may go good with your supporters. But make a motion, Mr. Star. Get it on a committee. If you feel strongly that that's a better idea than what this young lady, this council woman suggested, I suggest they the old country put up her shut up.

Okay. I think I'm gonna go ahead and stop the back and forth on that. I appreciate both of your perspectives on that. Mr. City Manager, before I make some comments, did you have anything additional? Mayor Pertim, did did you want a motion to close debate? Is that what you want to do at this time? Well, before we formally do that, let's because because a chair can't just dictate that the conversation's over. A chair doesn't have that pro that power. Well, I am currently speaking, so that's fine. I'll come back to you. Debate is not a decision. called the previous question. We have a motion to call a question. Okay, we have a second by Councilwoman Perez. Madame Clerk, can we get a vote on call a question? Um, Councilwoman Bettis, yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, I.

Council member Star, abstain. It was star. Council member Palo, yes. Uh, Mayor Promptan, yes. And this carries four to um zero with council member star abstaining.

Okay. Well, we have formally ended debate. So with that then um prior to going to this would prior to going to the roll call as the presiding officer I would just like to thank uh this for being brought forward and for the perspectives on this to thank the speakers in just a sentence or two or less. This feels to me like saying it's not going to do anything but do it. People could say my candidate didn't win. Why should I vote? So, excuse me. She's done.

Couple sentences. Thank you. Can we have the vote, Madam Clerk? Um, Councilwoman Rodriguez, I. Council member Star, no. Council member Palo, yes. Um, Councilwoman Bettis, yes. Uh, Mayor Promptan, yes.

And this motion carries 4 to one. Thank you. Thank you, madam clerk. Okay, so uh we next have item I2, city clerk department, appointments of members to serve on the city citizen advisory groups, the CAGS recommendation that the mayor prom with the approval of the city council make the following appointments. One to community relations commission Alejandro Moes Castro at large. Two to cultural arts commission Jennifer Andrea Alvarez at large. and three to senior services commission Lupin Rees district 4. This item did not originate in committee. Do we have any questions or comments on this from council members? Council member Star.

So, uh, Mayor Partam, just just for the record, uh, though it's the mayor that would normally make a motion in this case to appoint and we would, uh, then approve that. in his absence. It's the belief of the city attorney's office that you're able to act in thatstead. So, we're going forward with that today based on that. Mayor Prom, that is what state law states. Thank you, Mr. Fischer. Thank you, Council Member Star. Madam Cler, do we have any comments uh public comments on this item?

Um, Mayor Prom and Council members, yes, we have um two virtual speakers. We'll take the first caller. Caller ending in 1622, please press star six to unmute. And you have three minutes starting now.

Hi, uh, Larry Barbarine. I uh just read this today on the agenda and uh I want to uh tout I believe that was uh that's Councilman Rodriguez's uh uh nomination for Lupe Rees on the Senior Services Commission. I want to I'm commending her for that. uh if I'm correct in in uh in that uh detail uh I know uh Lupe from I used to go to church with her in Santa Paula Santa Paula Vineyard back in the day before it went defunct uh and uh just as a character reference uh I could say that she's fantastic and blessed and pleased to see her uh name nominated for that and for the son of a 94 year old and a 91year-old. Praise the Lord. Uh including uh one in Councilwoman Perez's uh district, my dad and my mom's in Councilman Pillo's district. Uh appreciate you, Councilman Rodriguez nominating her. And uh I expected you well. We'll watch how she does like any person who's appointed or elected. But uh looks like a good one there and I appreciate it and and uh God bless all these people on the KAGs and and their work. And tonight I say especially Lupe there. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And we have an additional speaker. Madame clerk. Um yes, Mayor Prom. So caller ending in 2591. Please press star six to unmute and you have three minutes starting now. Good evening. Good evening madam curler. Can you hear me? Uh yes, please continue.

Hi. Good evening everybody. Mayor Proman City Council and guest. My name is uh Adam Lopez, former commissioner for the city of Oxnard and the community relations commission. I just want to take a minute to number one commend everybody who is going to be assigned to a CAG. I I think it's something great specifically especially for my nephew Alejandro Castro who has been selected to serve on the community relations commission. I'm very proud he's following my steps. I served on the commission since 2016 and went on all the way to 2023. Uh and I think it's very uh admirable, commendable that we have young uh individuals having the passion, desire to serve our our beautiful city. Uh I think we need to embrace that. We need to welcome that. And for all of you in the DAS, please please a reminder these young folks are watching all of you. Your your attitude, your personalities, your characters, your behavior. And I just say that with all due respect, we got to be an influence to these young young individuals coming up. Uh I served for for many years. I was appointed by Mayor Flynn. I was then appointed by council member Oscar Madrial. I've served and worked under Chief Scott Whitney, now under Chief Bonitez. I served as chair. So I I know what it takes and I did it because I love our city and all of you sitting there in the DIA know my heart where it's at with the community, what I do. I do it all because I really want to make a difference and I commend all of you who are being appointed and I wish you luck. Congratulations and whatever it is that you all need. We're all here to help you and guide you and one day soon I may be back in another uh keg and a city council one day. But anyways, have a good evening and congratulations to everybody.

Thank you very much madam clerk. Do we have any other speakers in person or online? Um, Mayor Prom and council members, that actually concludes our speakers um in person and virtually for this item. Thank you. Okay, if there are no additional speakers, we have any comments from council members?

I I will um just say a few remarks. I am making a nomination for Lupes. She's a retired educator from um OHSD who has given a lifetime of service um in different capacities within the school district and I'm just excited that she'd be willing to serve. So I look forward to that especially right now with a lot of changes happening with um uh agencies Ventura County and supports that we would have for our elderly folks. Um I do think we need strong advocates who are going to go up to bat. Thanks.

Thank you very much. A legendary educator at that. Absolutely. Thank you. If there are no other comments um on uh as the mayor prom and presiding over this meeting as was mentioned by the city attorney, I'm going to go ahead and um move that we appoint these three individuals. Alejandro Moes Castro to the community relations commission, Jennifer Andrea Alvarez to the culture arts commission and Lupe Cervine Rees to the Senior Services Commission. That is my motion. Second. Have a second by council member Star. If there are no comments, madam clerk, may we have the vote. Councilwoman Rodriguez, I. Councilman Starr, yes. Council member Palo, yes. Councilwoman Pettis, yes. Uh, Mayor Prompteran,

yes. And this motion carries 5 to zero. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And congratulations and thank you to our newest CAG members. Okay. Next item on the agenda is a review of the information consent agenda. Members of the legislative body will consider whether to remove information consent agenda items for discussion later during the meeting. Uh do any council members have any consent items they wish to discuss prior to that? Um I did speak with staff earlier today who have items on the consent agenda. They let me know that they had not had any outreach prior with any um questions ahead of time. So after hearing that, do we have any uh request to pull items from the consent agenda? Yes, council star. L4.

L4. Okay. Any additional? Okay. So, we have L4, which is ratification of authorization to be the subreient of the ED employment and training pathways program. I'm sorry, I meant to say L3. I apologize for that. Okay, L3. Not a problem. Which is the monthly report and accounting for all receipts, dispersements, and fund balances. So with that, um, madame clerk, we have items 1, 2, 4, five, 6, 7, 8, and I believe we have receive and file for, uh, is that the one you pulled, council member? Yes. Okay.

Plus L5, I think, as well, right? The investment report. Okay. So, uh, hearing that, do we have a motion to approve the balance of those items that need action? So, moved. I'll second. We have a motion by Councilwoman Rodriguez and a second by Councilwoman Perez. May we have the vote on those items? Before you take the vote, I think you have to go through the public comment. Excuse me. Thank you. Do we have any comments, Madam Clerk?

Um, Mayor Prom and Council members, we do not have any public speakers um for the information and consent agenda. Um some of these items do um include the um housing authority. So this will be a joint um vote. Roll call if that's okay. Yes, without objection. We can do that. And prior to that, I just want to make one quick announcement. Uh we have request we have had a request to pull item L3. If anyone would like to make a comment about L3, now is the time to do so. Okay, Madame Clerk, let's go ahead and move forward with the vote. Um, thank you, Council Member Commissioner Palo. Yes.

Uh, Councilwoman Commissioner Bettis, yes. Councilwoman Commissioner Rodriguez, I. Councilman Commissioner Star, yes. Mayor Pro10, Vice Chair Theran, yes. And this motion carries 5 to zero. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay, so let's circle back to item L3, uh, monthly report and accounting of all receipts, dispersements, and fund balances. Let me bring up the agenda item real quickly here. Recommendation that city council receive and file this report and accounting of all receipts, dispersements, and fund balances for the month of November 2025. This item did not originate in committee. We have Mr. Javier Czecho Lasso and uh, Council Member Star. I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you. I'd like to uh draw my colleagues attention to uh page n PDF page 90 where it says general fund-revenues expenditure by category. And if you can just kind of let me know when you're at that page. Okay, everybody. Okay. So, here's the sort of thing that I look at. It kind of draws my attention and I'm saying I can't possibly explain it. So what we have here is we have a comparison of the five months through November 2025 compared with November of 2024. Same five months. Scroll down to where just under expenditures, the very first line says employment. And notice there that in the current year during five months, we've spent $60 million for employment costs. But one year ago, we spent only $45 million. So you have a $15 million swing to the upside. And this is one of the reasons why I'm pushing for financial analysis. I think that these this is at least to me this is a glaring obvious question that I I if someone were to ask me why did we spend $15 million more so far this year versus last year I'd have to say I have no clue. There's nothing in the report that tells me why. So mostly I'm just bringing this up to say we need financial analysis to review these variances because otherwise we're kind of left in the dark. Thank you, council member. Uh Mr. Chago Lasso, do you have any um additional uh statements from that?

Good evening, Mayor Paten, city council members. Um without preview notice, uh I will come back to the council and explain the difference. Thank you very much. Anything additional, council member? Yeah. So, so my point is ideally what should happen is that the analysis is done ahead of the time before the reports actually arrive to us and if there are any strange variances that are worthy of explanation, it should be in the report itself. And that way we're not just in the dark. We're not in the dark. The public's not in the dark. So that's all I have to say. Thank you. So I can actually just

Mr. You can you can see the third column uh on the line item that council member Star is referring to that we're at about 39.1% of our budget and we're about 41% through the year. So it basically what has happened is that our budgeted amount went up for the year. So those questions and your questions about employment and employment costs were in the budget process. So if if that 39% was a 29% or a 59% and it was a skew from the fact that we are 41.7% through the through the uh fiscal year, I would be a little more alarmed. But I think council member Star knows the answer. The answer is that we there was more employment expenses budgeted for FY2526 than there were for FY2425. But we will we will bring that analysis back and we can even get it to you to the council before the next meeting so you you have that information. Thank you. And council member um I I appreciate you uh bringing this up and then Mr. Sagard having a brief discussion on it. Um, you know, the reason I check in with staff ahead of this is this could have been a, um, probably a discussion that we got an answer on tonight or at least some, uh, additional information that would have helped what was brought here. But now, um, having had that presented to our CFO at this point and then a brief response by Mr. Sonstagard, uh, we now have to have it either emailed to us prior to the next meeting and then brought to the next meeting or the public will have to wait until this comes back. So, appreciate you bringing it up, but this is um it would have been helpful in my opinion to bring this up when it caught

your attention prior to this meeting.

So, uh thank you for the downdressing. My point is this. I mean, sure, you can look at this and say, "Yeah, we're at 40% of budget for the year." That's not what I look at. I'm interested in how are we spending this year versus last year? Why are we up by a third? I think that's a lot more than whatever the pay increases that we approved. So I just believe that we shouldn't have to ask for an advance. This is something that is just the natural expectation of any management team should be to be able to look at the numbers and understand them. And if it's not obvious on its face, then there needs to be uh details provided in the report. That is just a normal requirement of other of other entities and it's what my expectation is and maybe other folks on the council have a different expectation but that's that's my expectation. I don't want us to have to divine what possible questions have so they can answer them in advance. No, just do simple financial analysis. Look at the obvious variances. just report on them.

So, just as a reminder, Mayor Prom and the council, uh, section 4104 of the government code requires a written report and accounting of all receipts, dispersements, and fund balances. Period. So that's the guidance that the legislature gave us back in oh whenever area of statehood uh era of statehood that this statute originated from. So there's not a lot of guidance statutoily on this. We didn't get a terrible amount of guidance from the court either on what to uh uh bring to the council on this. So uh I think it is a matter of preferences of individual council members and there is no solid requirement for the depth of analysis required and I don't know if uh the request is for a mini ACFR every month but uh that may be beyond the capacity of the finance department to provide if they are doing other things that the finance department is expected to do for the city.

Thank you, Mr. Fisher. Mr. Chago,

thank you. I think I may have figured out the what the issue is. I appreciate the concern from council member star and uh and as uh the city attorneys mentioning this, this report goes well beyond of the requirements of the California government code. uh if you look at a p in page 89 uh the overall expense expenditures for the government uh for the general fund are 72.7 million versus in page 90 uh is 53.9 I think what happens here is that like happened in the previous report the the link of the report to the previous month was not properly updated that's why we see that significant variance on the between when we compare last year November versus uh this year November. So the column that this council member star was referring to is still looking back at the month of October 24. That's why we see such a big difference between the actuals for fiscal year for November 26, sorry, for November 25 and the November 24th. So that's an oversight and I and I take the full responsibility for that uh oversight and we'll definitely will be able to provide an updated uh report with the actual that represents the the same dollar value that is in preview 89 for the fiscal for November 24.

So just so just so I'm clear because I wasn't completely are you saying that the column that says November 2024 has October 2024 numbers? Is that what it is? That's my guess because in in the previous page the total the total the total expenditures are 72.7.

All right. Good to know. And and regarding the comment about what the statute requires. Sure, the statute has minimum requirements for this type of report, but we as council members, we get reports all the time that are not even required by statute because they provide us with information that we're seeking. And this is the type of information that I am seeking at least as a council member and people can either support that or not support that. But I can just tell you what the standard is for how I like to look at things. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you again Mr. Czech and Lasso. Council Star or excuse me, Council Member Pllo, you have one last comment.

Mayor Prom, I served on this council under two previous mayors. the current mayor um is not up to their snuff yet. But I do find in the past and and I'm directing this to Councilman Star that we had some very good comments from our city attorney, from our finance director, but I do appreciate the comments Mayor Prom made. If you have a question, the simple common courtesy, give it to the staff member. waiting in the weeds to, in my opinion, try to ambush somebody. That doesn't serve the council. It puts them in a hell of a spot. It puts them in a spot where somebody could say they don't know what they're doing. But when we put them in that spot, we seldom have the integrity to say they don't know what they're doing. But you put these questions out there and you ask good questions. I do not challenge you for asking the question. I do challenge you for not giving them a heads up and making the evening, although this is an extremely early evening go along much more smoothly. And as your council woman sitting next to you, she might attest it'll make for a smoother meeting. That's the only suggestion, the comment that I have, but I appreciate the comments that were made by staff and by you and Mayor Prom.

Thank you very much. This is a receive and file item, so uh we are going to move forward. Madame clerk, we've already completed our requirements for the housing authority items. Is that correct? That is correct, Mayor Prom.

Okay. Thank you very much. Our next item on the agenda is item N1, public works department. Subject grant application for the 2026 US Department of Transportation better utilizing investments to leverage development build grant program. Recommendation that the city council approve and authorize the one submission of a grant application for the better utilizing investments and leverage development for $12 million with a $3 million or 20% match requirement from the traffic circulation development impact fee fund 350 sub fund 8040 for a total amount of $15 million. If awarded, staff will return to city the city council to recommend re, excuse me, recognizing and appropriating the grant and 20% match requirement. Two, city manager or designate to execute the grant agreements. Three, CFO or designate to submit financial reports, grant claims, and the use of grant funds. And four, public works director or designate to submit non-financial reports. This item did not originate in committee as it is for a capital improvement project specifically listed in the city's capital improvement program budget which was previously approved by the city council. Our contact is Mr. Wolf and I see we have Mr. Kesler here as well. I'll turn over to you Mr. Wolf for any uh introductory comments he'd like to make.

Uh good evening Mayor Pro Tim Council members Michael Wolf, director of public works. Um the the one thing that I would add to what's not in the staff report is the importance of our interchanges uh that we interact with on a on a day-to-day basis just from our traffic circulation standpoint. Um so we always make it a point when we have opportunities to go after grant funding uh for the multiple phases that we typically have to do for interchanges with CALR. This is a good opportunity for us to get those funds to to move forward those kinds of projects. Thank you very much. Do any council members have questions of staff at this time? Sure. Uh, Mr. Star or excuse me, Council Star.

Thank you. Um, so this is for the US 101 and Del Norte Boulevard interchange. Uh, I guess my my question is this $15 million estimate. Do how solid do you think that number is? And the follow-up question would be what happens if we are significantly under or over budget at when it's all said and done? What hap how's the money work at that point?

So the first part of your question I want to make sure everybody's clear about what we're what we're seeking here and it's really just the document phases. This has nothing to do with actual construction. And so um Calrans has a multiple phase process uh for um these types of improvements. And the what we have is a pretty decent um um estimate or example from the rice fifth grade separation project. We just went through a plans and specs for that. Um so our estimate is that an estimate. Um and this would be for the um upgrades to some existing documents. There is a lot of, you know, I just say a couple documents. Everybody thinks $15 million is is kind of a a wow statement there. There's a significant amount of work and a significant amount of um technical reports and an uh field um analysis that has to go into those documents and a lot of professional engineer professional engineering architectural um planners and and the like go into this the development of these these documents. Uh it takes multiple years for the production of these documents. Um so it is an estimate based on what we know today again based on a couple examples which is rice fifth we also can uh we also seek input from um different agencies like VCTC the CALR about what what it's costing for these kinds of documents going forward. Second part of your question is what happens if we underestimated or overestimated. Um so the the the easier part of that is the if if we ask for 12 million of grant funds and 3 million to match because there's a 20% match. Um if it cost us less than that then we get less than reimbursement from from the grant and then we would have less for for our match. So that's the easy part. The more

difficult part is the other side of that. Um and so sometimes we're able to go after additional grant monies. Um especially if we start seeing um the different phases come in a little higher than we estimated or higher than uh what the grant is, we can uh go after additional funding and that could be through VCTC or CALR. Um the other opportunity is for us to add more match money. Um, typically, uh, some of these larger grant opportunities like build don't usually have extra capacity. Um, but we may go after other other grants that provide similar types of fundings for similar types of activities and projects. Um I'm not sure if if uh council member Star on council at the time when we brought back um to council some additional funding that we got for Rice Fifth and there's just other sort of buckets and pockets of money out there that sometimes become available over time that we can utilize if it does go on the other side which is over the cost. Then the the alternate that is for us to to just add more match money.

Okay. So if for example if it was 16 million instead of 15 million we'd still have the 12 million coming in. We would just have to match with 4 million instead of three. Is that right? Correct. Or we could go after other grand after the grants. Correct. Which may also have a match as well.

Okay. And since this is just the first phase of I don't know how many phases it'll take to actually get to the point where this is built. Do do you have uh any sort of uh I guess you're trying to predict the future here, right? Uh any sense on whether the other money is going to be available to ultimately build this thing or are we just going to be kind of like we paid for a bunch of plans and this thank you very much, have a nice day and we're we're left with just nothing but a report. So yeah, I don't have a crystal ball, but but it's an it's a legitimate question because um this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of cost,

right? Um I will also say that it's actually going to be uh technically three phases of the CALR process. So it'll be as listed in here. We'll get the um project report, the P&D and the which is the um project approvals and environmental documents which is sort of the second phase and the third phase is actually the plan specs and estimates. So we'll actually with this if we get this we'll actually get to uh through three phases of of CALR's process. Um so the second or the part of the question that that is you know how do we get the other funding? Um, typically these kinds of grant opportunities are for shovel ready projects and so

uh we think this is pretty competitive when it's even though it's not a shovel ready process. So the idea here is to try to get these documents to a a position such that we can then go after additional grant monies for shovel ready projects. We got I don't know close to 80 $90 million for Rice Fifth um through TEP which is the transportation quarter enhancement program and other um transit oriented and logistics oriented um grant funding. And so because those because we were ready to actually deliver that project, we were able to go after those funds. Uh and so I believe just seeing how this process has worked for the you know two decades that I've been doing this um is we got we need to get projects to a phase to a phase such they're ready for construction and then go after those big grants go after the multiple million dollars of grants that come through the feds or the state.

Um and so sometimes the projects have to get sort of um you have to dust them off just a little bit. Um, but the alternative that is is a little more difficult. Like if we're not even ready and there's a huge um federal infrastructure program that comes out and we're still stuck in the project report phase, we'll never be able to go after those those monies because we're not um shovel ready. So there's there's a fine line there of getting stuff ready and hoping that and and knowing not hoping knowing that there's a cyclical process for some of those grants that come out. Um, so it really is just making sure we're ready to go after those grants. And then we also have our own um development impact fees that we can typically utilize for a portion of that construction as well. And then you can actually do it depending on how we set up the documents uh in this phase, we can do the construction over in phases. So we have smaller projects where we maybe do the the north side of the of the interchange and then the south side separately from that. So, I've done it in other agencies where I've gone after, you know, sort of different quadrants of the improvements and and got after and received grant funding for for smaller sub subsets of the project. And so, but you have to have project ready documents. You have to have shovel ready documents to go typically to go after that kind of stuff. Would that get to your question?

It it does. And and I do think this is this is worthwhile doing. Uh, I mean that interchange needs to be, you know, made better than what it is today. Especially now that we have Amazon there is probably using it a lot. There's a lot more truck traffic I assume that's using Del Norte and the 101 interchange. Um, but I guess let me ask you this based on your experience. Does it ever happen or how often does it happen where a city will put in the funds to get to this early phase but then it's it never happens for the rest of it? Is that is that 10% of the time, 20% of the time, 5%? Any any

inkling? I I don't really have a good answer to that only because it just is every project is different, right? Um I will say it's 0% of the chance that we get those funds if we don't have project ready documents right and so the idea of making sure that we have have project ready documents and trouble ready documents is important for that um

also we make sure we work with um our representatives on VCTC and and and those kinds of transportation agencies such that we start to push the priorities of those projects up. So, I often see that sometimes you're waiting in line for other projects, but eventually you'll get there. Um, and to have those project ready documents and shovel shovel ready documents is going to be allowing us as staff and allowing some of the your colleagues and yourself who sit on those boards to push towards prioritizing um our project um and to the point where you know sometimes it's a safety issue. Sometimes it's you know the the bridge height is not no longer sufficient in terms of what Calrans standard is. It's not just necessarily that the the sort of the traffic uh issues. It could be safety issues like that where where the geometry is no longer acceptable from a Calran standpoint. The height difference between the main line and the underside of the bridge is no longer acceptable. Um and so those things start to push projects to a higher priority as well. So it's hard to answer the question because every project's different. Um

you only get to build a few of these in your career. I've been lucky enough to do a couple of them. Um and so, you know, you sometimes you wait. Okay. Well, um if everything just goes perfectly in in your in accordance to what you think should happen, do you think that it's five years, seven years, 10 years before the interchange would finally be built or what what what's what's your

It'll be 10 years before. So this phase here will be multiple years right where we're doing these just document phases getting um the planning documents approved getting the environmental documents approved um I think rise fifth the the design phase uh was a couple years right that was just the design phase let alone the project report phase and the project approvals and environmental document phase um and so these are usually 10 to 15 year 20 year projects when you really start to get from when you go from start to finish. You can notice in our staff report that the older reports were from 2007208, right? Um and so they do get stale. Um but um we haven't seen depending on who's in the White House, you typically see certain types of of of funding that comes out, right?

Um and so an opportunity for us to be available for those funds is as important as is as is as anything that I can think of. And and just last question once this is all said and done and it's completed and it's 10 years from now or whenever it is is that the responsibility of Calrans to then maintain it if there's any maintenance required or or is it is it us?

So we have a maintenance agreement with CALR for all of our uh interchanges. Um and so it depends on what part of the of of the improvements you're talking about. So typically the the local agencies responsible for like the the where the where the so I'm talking about on the on the overpass itself not the main line right so so um in this scenario del norte as as as its own street we would be responsible for most of the street improvements the the any safety improvements that are on the bridge the lights those are typically the local agency responsibility plus any enhanced landscaping that may be involved in the in the interchange The bridge structure itself typically falls under Calrans from a bridge inventory standpoint. Um we as an authorized agency may be responsible for actually doing any you know 20 or 30 years from now maintenance projects. So there is actually a maintenance agreement

and each intersection has its own map. Each interchange has its own map and says CALR is responsible for this city's responsible for that and it's a pretty standard template. I've seen um in the four agencies I work for pretty standard template and it's a lot of it's um the same through throughout that uh in terms of what CALR will be responsible for what the agency will be responsible for but that would come back typically what CALR requires in these phases and is an update uh maintenance document uh maintenance agreement and we took one of those to the city council as part of rice fifth I want to say a couple years ago so it'll come to the come to the council good well thank you very much you did a very good job of answering my questions.

Thank you very much. Any additional questions? Madam, just a comment. Mr. Kler, thank you for the report. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Madam clerk, do we have speakers on this item? Mayor Prom and council members, we do not have any public speakers for report um and one in person or virtually. Thank you. Thank you very much. If there are no speakers, do we have any comments or what's the pleasure of the council? Move the recommended action. I will second. We have a motion by council Pillo and a second by Councilwoman Rodriguez. Seeing and hearing, no comments or discussion. Madame clerk, may we have the vote? Uh, Councilwoman Pettis, yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, I.

Councilman Star, yes. Council member Palo, yes. Mayor Prompteran, yes.

And this motion carries 5 to zero. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Wolf and Mr. Kesler. Next item on the agenda is item N2. This will be our last item on this evening's agenda. N2, public works department subject initiation of proceedings to establish landscape maintenance district 43A, green belt lighting overlay and appropriation from general, excuse me, from general reserve to fund proceedings. Recommendation that the city council one approve and authorize an appropriation of $40,000 from the general fund reserve to pay expenses including expenses of conducting a Proposition 218 property owner mail ballot proceeding associated with establishing a new overlay assessment district with the same boundaries as LMD43 to fund the green belt lighting replacement project C2407 and two authorize approve and authorize the mayor prom to approve a Resolution initiating proceedings to establish landscape maintenance district number 43A, green belt lighting overlay. This item did not originate in committee as this is in relation to a capital improvement project specifically listed in the city's capital improvement program budget which is previously approved by the city council. And we have Mr. Wolf here. And Mr. Wolf, any uh initial comments to make on this? I see we have uh council here as well and Mr. Miller. Um anything additional? That's what I was going to say, Mayor Pro Tim. We have uh some of the experts here, so Anthony Miller here and also uh online we have our outside legal counsel available.

Okay. Thank you very much. Do you have questions by council members to staff? Yeah, council star. And then we will go down the line here.

I just want to understand what the the timeline of this. Would this be a vote that takes place in November? Is it a special mail ballot that goes out a its own timing or how does that work? Yeah. So, this is not does not need to be as part of a an actual like um November election. These these will go out if approved. These will go out as the process dictates. So, we have to do an engineers report. Uh we have to take the engineers report back to the city council. So, it's a multi-step process before we even let the ballots out. Um but the ballots is a mail ballot process. It's a majority protest mail ballot process. Um and then we have certain number of days that we have to give notice requirements in order to return the ballots. So that all happens through the local process and it's not part of the like November election.

Okay. And as far as how the majority measure the vote of the measurement of a majority, my understanding is it's based on it's weighted based on the assessment. Is that right? Correct. Okay. And the threshold is 50%. Well, it's a majority protest, so 50% plus one has to say no. All right. So, are you saying that it's not based on the votes cast? It's based on all potential votes. No, it's the votes cast. Okay. So, it's So, if a majority says of those voting as weighted uh votes in favor, it becomes a new tax. If they vote in opposition, it doesn't go into effect.

That's correct. Unless I missed something, Mark, if you want to add to that. Um, no, basically, uh, what just says correct, but a tie vote go to you, the council is able to impose the assessment. Got it. If there are more no votes than yes votes, it dies. If there are more yes votes than no votes, it u the council can move forward. The final decision is with the council. Great. Okay. Thank you. Uh, any additional questions? Counciloman Rodriguez, Council Member Prello, Council Oh, go ahead, Council Member.

Um, we received a detailed public comment letter from Mr. Garcia and there were some questions that he's asking um for the attorney or for staff. We did this according to legal legal correct how we did this to this point. Get to this item on the agenda. Well, the only legal requirements is the agenda posting. Right now, we haven't really actually done any of the proceedings. This will be the requ the request is the initiation of proceedings and so uh I'm not sure I can answer your question other than the agenda was posted as required um by our statutes. Fair enough. I didn't

I didn't address that well enough. The complaint is that there were two public meetings. So very few people showed up, but the public meetings were noticed.

Yeah, we sent out notifications. I'll bring Anthony Miller up and I think maybe Mark wanted to add something as well. Go ahead, Mark. Sure. Yeah. Uh those public meetings are a local option. So um what you're doing on top of what's legally required. So there actually is no um specific notice requirement for those public meetings. Um though of course the city can and you know would be well advised if it's going to hold a advisory meeting to give some notice of it. Um and the step that you're being asked to take today is basically to authorize staff to have the engineer uh prepare an engineer's report and then be coming back to the council to um approve the engineers report. adopt what's called resolution of intention which is what sets the public hearing and authorizes the city to uh send the ballots out. Um so there is no formal notice requirement for your action that you are taking today because all you're doing today is voting on whether you want to uh start the process and authorize money to begin preparation of the engineers report.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member. Councilwoman Pettis. Yeah, I just wanted to get clarity um regarding the um the point that indicates that um basically this would increase rent. Um it says if it passes, I'm certain the apartment complexes would pass it on the increase to the tenants, which would be an increase in rent for the working class that's already struggling. So, if you can address that concern there.

Well, I believe that's a supposition. That's somebody's guess at what's going to happen. I mean, I think as costs go up as a landlord, um, you pass those costs on to the renters. Um, as you see necessary. Um, so I I think the point of the comment being made in that that comment letter is they disagree with the statute that who's allowed to vote. um because it's the property it's the property owners that get to vote, not not necessarily the renters that get to vote and that's that's just u the streets and highway code section um in the state code that that dictates um who's authorized to vote. So I think their their concern is that as a renter um I don't have any say in that process. I would say as a renter you have to say where you lease property and where you rent property. You know most folks have an opportunity to make that choice. Um whether or not an increase in the property owner's assessment then gets passed on to the renter, I think is just part of the process of how a property owner assesses the cost of them doing business. Um and so if let's say for example gas and electricity were included um as part of your your your rent and the cost of those are going up then then typically you would see rent rent increase for those kinds of things. If the cost of landscape maintenance is going up if the cost of um now's the time to replace the roof on the building. I mean those costs get they get get passed on to to whoever is renting those properties because it's a rental property. Um, and I think there's some I think the housing director would be be able to speak terms a lot better than I can, but there's some restrictions about what um how much percentage can be changed over time. Um, and so there's limitations to those kinds of things um based on some some state laws and actually our local laws as well. Um, so I really think the

concern is that they don't have a voice in the in in the uh in the process is how I read that comment. But um I don't we can't assume that every property owner is going to pass that cost on to the rent. You can make some some estimates just based on how property owners have to address their costs. And additional

and I I think there's a fairly um strong argument that when landlords are setting their rents, they're really setting them at what the market will bear, not based on um on their specific costs. Um so you know some argument is that if you increase a cost to the landlord for uh uh you know the the exterior landscaping um the uh the landlord can't necessarily pass that on in increased rents because they're already charging the competitive rent. And if they are able to pass it on that's an indication that they're getting value from uh that landscaping. Okay. Any additional questions, Councilwoman? Okay. Councilwoman Rodriguez.

No additional questions. Oh, okay. Council Star.

Yeah, I'm looking at page 336 in the staff report and in the very first partial paragraph there. It says, "Staff has performed outreach within this community to gauge their interest in the project and discuss the funding methods. the community's desire to move forward with this project was made clear during this outreach. Now, I had a conversation on the phone with Joe Garcia. He reached out to me. He attended both meetings and he was telling me that there wasn't any support for for this. So, I'm trying to understand I'm trying to understand these these two or three sentences here. Uh good evening, council. Uh Anthony Miller, special districts manager with the city of Oxnire uh public works department. Uh so specifically in relation to that question and uh council member Star, I believe you actually may have been in attendance of one of those meetings as well. Um

actually no, I was not, but my wife was.

Oh, okay. Um I apologize. So uh he is correct. There there were not many people attending that meeting despite what efforts we did make to get people attend in attendance. Um, we I say we, my staff and I actually went out and canvased that neighborhood by foot and placed flyers on every single doorstep within the single family homes uh announcing the meeting dates, the times uh the opportunity to to speak at those meetings and also hand delivered bills to the apartment complexes uh and attempted to get um responses from the renters within the apartment complex as well. So, I can't say that it wasn't due to a lack of effort, uh, that we didn't see more people attend. Um, but I also I'd like to to point out that while even though there weren't too many people specifically in attendance at those calls, uh, we did receive um, specific feedback during those calls that there was a desire to continue with the project. And that's something that is, uh, is really at the heart of that comment is that the individual residents within this neighborhoods, they want to see this project done. And while initially the outreach was done under the a faulty assumption that we'd be able to per uh to pursue a an option um that isn't ultimately not being uh presented tonight. Um after further review with our legal council and and uh examination of the funding mechanisms available for the city here, uh it was determined that this was a more not only a more transparent way of approaching the project, but also a uh a a clearer way to establish what those co what the costs of the district would be eventually as well. Um, I will also further add that the the specific um outreach that has been done not only includes those two meetings as well, but over the years we've collected as many uh so specifically within this community, we've had 36 reports specifically on these lights. We've had continual reports of people wanting to see these things fixed. uh since about

201617 we've had I think 36 or 38 reports of or requests of service this particular uh uh improvement. So this is definitely something that we know has been established as a need of or a want for the community to get done. I think there's a distinction between wanting a project because sure everyone wants nice lights and the distinction between that and paying a tax to get that and once once that gets into the the mix then support not surprisingly might be lower after that and the sense I got from the conversation with Mr. Garcia was that there isn't the appetite for paying an assessment for something that sure it's it's a worthwhile thing to do but for them it's not worth the money. So, it it just kind of it kind of struck me as strange when the report said that the community's desire to move forward with the project was made clear when in my mind if if it involves an extra tax, I I don't think it's so clear,

right? So, I mean, this is opportunity for them to express their their actual desire on a on a ballot. I think some folks at the dis have mentioned that that would be a good approach is making sure the community gets to vote for it. Thank you. And any additional council member? No. If there's any public comments, I'd like to hear them though.

Thank you. So, those are questions. Uh madame clerk, I believe we have uh two speakers on this, one in person, one virtual. If anyone wishes to speak on this, please submit a card to the clerk or if you're on Zoom, press star 9 to raise your hand. We'll start with the uh in-person comment. We have Alicia Purcell, followed by the virtual comment. Tonight, your staff is asking the city council to waste $40,000. I think the staff presentation was misleading as well. Um I I don't understand the claim that LMD43's assessments, the existing one were increased because staff thought they could do it for 150,000 when for years city documents have have put this project at at way more than that. Um as recently as fiscal year 223, the engineers report estimated at 300,000. And now suddenly we're talking about 700,000. Uh in other words, the existing assess assessments that have been collected for this project to date were improper because you know the city knew that the project cost was higher than this LMD can fund. So those amounts already collected are sitting in a fund balance. They need to be fully applied against the future assessments of LMD43 to to reduce future assessments. Also, uh, the staff presentation claims, quote, "Residents confirmed their desire to fund the project." End quote. And on a later slide, quote, "Staff has received clear indication of the community's desire to move forward with this project through outreach and consistent 311 reporting." End quote. I was at the first outreach

meeting. The only other LMD resident there besides me was Mr. Garcia. Uh, I told staff I strongly opposed this idea. I think at the time Mr. Garcia wanted more time to think about it. Um, but he did attend the second meeting and as you can see from the written comments he submitted, he doesn't support it. And I don't believe the other residents at the other meetings supported it. So given that residents at the meetings didn't actually support it, the city is left with a facially silly argument that consistent 311 reporting translates to residents supporting this project at this absurd cost. But you know, as was already discussed, that doesn't translate. Uh I I think it's misleading to tell the council that residents support it merely because they got some maintenance requests um and that those somehow outweigh the direct statements of opposition that have been received from from residents. Uh, not only is the cost of this project way too high, u, no doubt the LMD would be saddled with two portions of administrative costs for two LMDs and those type of fees already eat up way too much of LMD budgets. Uh, I don't believe this will pass if you put it to a vote. So, the general fund will be stuck with the cost. Um, this is not what the LMD residents want. It is what city staff wants. And there's a big difference. Um, and if you adopt any camping ordinance, we'd have fewer vagrants damaging and stealing the wires out of the lights.

Madam clerk, we have the virtual caller.

Um, Mr. Partello, um, please press star six to unmute and you have three minutes starting now. Yes, good evening. Um, I have a few questions and I have a few comments. In some of my research on that LMD, it shows for the fiscal year 2526 budget that there's actually $45,000 uh for this project. It's project C2407, but I don't see any mention of that 45,000 that's actually been allocated in the budget for this CIP project. So, that's one question. The other question I have is at the very bottom it says that the average LMD uh cost assessment is between two and $300. My research shows between $2 and $400, though. It depends on whether it's an apartment or single family residence, but it says that this increase will be less than that amount. Okay, one penny would be less $199.99 increase would be less than $200. So, what's a better ballpark figure for what this uh would increase their assessment? I think if when he went knocking doortodoor and asking if you want better lights, everybody's gonna say, "Yeah, sure. I want better lights." Oh, but it might almost double your LMD. I think he's going to get a lot of doors slammed in his face. And particularly with a history of the management of our L &Ds right up until the current day

today, they are so poorly mismanaged and the administrative costs are ridiculous. If anybody wants to know how our LMDs are managed and the LMD cost, then go on YouTube or go to Moving Ouxnard forward and look at the video, the ugly truth about LMDs. So that is clearly documented that the administrative costs are up to 75% of the total. Well, little wonder you can get any maintenance done in an L & D when 75 cents out of every dollar is going to administrative cost. And now you're doubling administrative cost by producing this very creative overlay. So, you're putting a tax on a tax with its own administrative costs. And then you're going to have a contractor come in and bid and do that. And they're going to have their own administrative costs. They're going to be baked into the cost of this. Now, it says for a certain number of years, so the total is 719,880 of a $600,000 RFP. uh that was submitted that they're accepting that lowest bid. Okay. How many years at what interest? And what is the administration?

Mr. Partella, your time is up. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Did you have additional uh items, Mr. Wolf? Nope. Just here to answer any questions.

Okay. Do we have additional questions from C council members? I have I have one, but Council Member Pllo, if you have one, go ahead. Well, I um I appreciate the folks who wrote in. They are active members of that neighborhood. Uh I've had a number of conversations with Mr. Garcia um on this and he gave me the full background as he gave us in his uh written comment. And when um I read the staff report and I see that there's a desire to continue with the project, I don't interpret that as there's a desire by the community to move forward with the LMD overlay. I read that as they would like their lighting fixed. They would like to have lights on their green belt as they um originally had when the neighborhood was developed. And so looking at this and I was the other person in attendance um at the uh meeting that Miss Purcell and Mr. Garcia were at and I will state that uh the information that was presented there. I wish that there had been more people. I appreciate staff's effort in going doortodoor to make this happen. Um, and so my question is, uh, knowing that this is going to be a ballot process that follows Proposition 218 and is specific to this neighborhood, it doesn't have to follow, uh, the general election or the, um, November election or the primary. Um, the timeline on this, uh, if we were to, uh, look at, hey, can we go back to the community, try and have another go at this to present now that we know more? I know they could have come here. I know that they wrote into this, but if we had a community specific meeting for that LMD for them to hear all of the information, have all their questions answered, have that conversation, is that something we're able to do or we

pass a certain mile point on this?

So, the the timeline is is set by us um in terms of the go forward process. Um having another community outreach meeting is is possible. I would say that um from a construction bidding standpoint, I'm not sure we're going to see any cheaper prices uh on certain things um especially electrical um items and steel items. So, it's one of of potentially increasing in costs the longer we wait um for that. But, uh there's nothing that's pushing the timeline from a statutory requirement. Um, so if the council does not want to authorize this and provide alternate direction, that's fine. I would I would recognize that the council has approved policy. Um, while this is um tangental to the policy that we believe that that it was pretty clear about the process that that the council wanted in terms of of certain items and so we're trying to be consistent with that policy, at least from a from a um um process standpoint. Um, so but another outreach meeting with uh with the community is not stopping us from doing anything from a true timeline standpoint. It's really just our own timeline.

Okay. And just to address real quickly the um concern about uh the passing on of the cost of an overlay to renters, um I would pose that if McKenzie Scott flew in here and said, "Hey, I'm going to buy all new light poles just like Mr. Miller proposed, um no cost to the taxpayers at all." I would imagine if I were a property owner out there and I rented to people, I have these beautiful new lights, LED, this safe pathway, uh, well, that's certainly attractive and the market may bear a little bit more of this beautiful walkway that we now have. Um, and that was absent any LMD overlay on there. So, these, uh, market forces work in different ways. Um, so certainly I understand the idea of um and the concerns around costs, but uh if any of these buildings um qualify for our rent stabilization ordinance, that would be um limited to what that that ordinance is as well as Mr. Wolf alluded to. So anyhow, um Council Member Pillar, did you have an additional question?

Just a comment. I did say earlier that I'd read Mr. Garcia, the one person that lived it. Um, I need to give the credit to Miss Hez Schmidt. Um, she apparently can do some detective work. She's given examples of that via the circulation on the internet. But it states in her first line, I am writing today in my capacity as the neighborhood watch organizer for East Village and a resident of LMD43. So, there apparently are some people from this district that have stood up and she's expressed her opinion, although it did come today at 12:50 p.m. Um, some of the questions that have been given and some of the comments that have been made by the speakers, there was one comment with respect to tremendous amount of money, it's going to go to administrative costs. I'd like to have somebody address that. The second is that the um, how did he say it? As you see necessary was a comment that they used in quotations. As you see necessary, are we putting, and I'm not asking this, I'm assuming from the way the comment was given to the council, it would imply that we're stacking costs on that we don't need to in these residents or we have any examples of that.

Yeah, I'm not sure I follow that that question. Miss Purcell made a comment as as you see necessary to go right of the staff report, but the way the comment was phrased, in my opinion, it sounds as if we're going to stack extra costs onto something. Do we do that if they are not needed? Well, we'll have an engineers report that the council has to review and evaluate. I mean, this is a this is a phased process. We This is We have a pretty good system here. either you guys want to do this or you don't want to do this. Right. Right. Uh we're here to present the information um with the with the knowledge that we have. And so um

whether or not those costs are too high because some of those have to be estimates, right? So again, we we don't have a crystal ball. Uh we don't know exactly how much this is going to going to cost, but we have to have an engineers report. And if you read the streets and highway code section, it talks about estimates and um u things like that. So, uh the idea here is that somehow the administrative costs are unnecessary or potentially um higher than normal. I think maybe that was part of the comment and they can address the administrative costs of some of our districts. Um so, I'm not sure I have an answer to the question like would we add things that aren't supposed to be added? The answer to that is no. the engineer is going to do an engineer's report and say this is what he or she thinks the costs are. Uh this is a recommended in terms of we talk to the the CFO about whether or not there is any borrowing uh interest associated with that. Um and then you put in all the other processes which is really an evaluation of EBUS is equivalent billing uh equivalent benefit units. Thank you Anthony. Um and and it really becomes a math problem at that standpoint, right? you're dividing the total cost by the number of equivalent benefit units. Um, and so I'm not sure I can address the cost like we would throw in extra costs. The report's going to have to come to council. So you guys would be able to evaluate that report and say, well, why is this in there? Why is that in there? So

um, the other the other comment with respect to the Colin um, the administrative costs, tremendous amount of these costs are going to be simply administrative costs. So, um, good evening and thank you for the question. So, I think the the and number first off, I apologize that I didn't send these to you earlier.

No, no apology necessary. The the administrative component I I believe that um is is being brought up here is actually in my opinion is separate and apart from the administrative component of actually managing a capital improvement project. Uh the the capital improvement project in and of itself would effectively be just like any other project within the city and that it has a project manager who would manage that project through construction and that time would be dedicated to that project and thus billable to that project which is what portion of every capital improvement project the city authorizes contains a portion of costs associated with that time. Um, in any case, since this particular project is within an LMD, that time would be specifically spent servicing that LMD. And in this particular case, it would be the overlay district that's proposed to fund that project and thus would be build to both the project and specifically to that LMD. Now, when it comes to the broader administrative costs for the the LMDs in general, um, now I know that there was a comment that was thrown out saying 75% of the costs of any NLMD's budget is attributable to, you know, administration. I personally have not seen that to be the case in any of the L &Des during my time managing the districts here at city. Um, and I can't specifically speak to it because I don't believe that that exists. Um, now with that said, the uh actual overlay district would likely obviously it doesn't exist at this point so I cannot say for sure, but it would likely be managed in a way slightly different than our rest of our LMDs and that it is not an ongoing concern. It is a district formed specifically for the purpose of funding this particular project and at a later date would eventually lapse and go away entirely. Uh so the administrative function of managing that district would likely be less than any other ongoing maintenance LMD. Uh and we may include administrative costs differently in that

case.

Thank you. And um the last is a comment. Mr. Partello, I believe, is totally an error when he wants the public to go look at some video and he wants to use that as an example of how poorly the LMDs are managed. Having been on this council for a number of years, I don't recall Mr. Partello making any noise when the manage of those LMDs and CFDs was wrong. The current team that has been brought in with the new management by previous council has done a terrific job of bringing these things in line through a lot of hard work on your part and others in your capacity working for the city of Oxnard. So leaving that I believe falsehood up in the air is a disservice to the residents of Oxnard. I think you guys are doing a great job with what you have to work with. And quite a few districts, including the one that I live in, there are people that are demanding much more services than they want to pay for. And there comes a time there's no free lunch. Things have to be paid for. Past uh past discrepancies of how these things were managed have surfaced. They've been addressed. There's still been the process of being worked out and conditions such as the things that were not taken care of in this I think fall on previous administrations. I'm not looking to hide from this, but facts and evidence matter. Thank you. Thank you for your work on this.

And Mr. Wolf, did you have a response?

Well, I just want to go over the the the comment about um administrative costs and I I pulled up an old report. I have a 20 23 2024 engineers report. Again, the good news is these are reports that are approved by council. So in those reports are many many tables and you can see the different breakdown of costs in those tables and so you can do your own math of whether or not 75% actually is a legitimate number. It's not it's not I I I don't want to spoil anybody's nighttime reading, but it's not. Um you can see the breakdown of costs for for utilities versus uh uh third party contractor work. And so all this information is actually in a report that the council approves. Um and so this idea that that there's somehow this heavy burden administrative cost. Again, I'm would like for somebody to to point to a different part of the report that council approved that shows that and I don't think they can. Um so I want to make sure it's clear that none of these things are hidden. None of these things are are are are uh everything is available to the public including a report that was approved by city council.

Thank you, Mr. Wolf. Before we go to council star, uh Mr. Newen, did you have something to add to this item here?

I would just say at this point I I wouldn't recommend another community meeting and the reason is our staff went doortodoor to get people to come to two meetings and I'm sure people have a range of reasons why they chose to do something else. It's fine. We certainly have enough um requests from some of those residents to address the problem, which is fine. That's valid. Now, this would give them the opportunity to vote on whether they want to fund it or not. So, there's a distinction between wanting something fixed and whether when it comes down to it, if you think you'd like to pay for that. So, it gets put to a vote. But I I I now I'm not opposed to another community meeting if that's what everybody wants. I just don't think it'll help.

Thank you, Council

Star. So, I agree with the city manager that having an additional meeting was probably not fruitful. Uh, regarding the administrative costs, it's been a while since I've looked at the engineers report and how it's allocated. Are are the administrative costs allocated based on the revenues received in or is there some other basis that it's spread? So the administrative spread um is spread basically on a proportion of that particular district's overall expense budget. So and that expense but excuse me and I would say the general expense budget is actually spread specifically ac across um professional services and maintenance and operations. So, in this particular case, like I mentioned in in my response to Council Member Pllo, the the administrative expense for this particular proposed district may be calculated differently simply because it's a different function of the district. We haven't gone down that road yet because the district engineers report hasn't been put together. We have no idea how we're going to approach that just yet.

Okay. And my next question is, is this project this uh lighting project is this is this come under public works um prevailing wage costs or is it something or is it something? No, he's got that. Yes, this would be a public work. Okay.

So I assume it would be a lot less money if it wasn't. Um, let me ask a question. Make just I think that the main beneficiary of this lighting are the apartments there and that's where the walking trail is much more so than the houses are nearby because I mean these are like behind the houses. You have to go out of your way to get to this trail. The apartments I've I've walked them you know it's really it's this open air feeling but people kind of enjoy and able to walk it. My question is this is Is there a way where we could vacate the ownership of this walking path and the lighting? Give it to the uh uh give it to the apartment uh buildings there that own own the property there and let them decide whether it's worth the money or not to do uh an improvement. It's it's going to benefit them the most. We can actually put market forces uh I guess at work here. Uh well, it wouldn't affect any existing renters. I mean, future renters might be willing to pay more uh for that extra benefit. U and maybe they can do this for a cost that's a lot less than what we can do. They might be people do. I've I've typically heard that prevailing wage costs increase it to the point where I mean without prevailing wage it might cost a third less or a fourth less is is the numbers I've typically heard batted around. That's a lot of money when you're talking about a 700 $800,000 project. So I guess I'd just like to open up the idea. Is this something worthy of consideration by a future council uh meeting uh to do something like that? Can we can we legally do something like that?

Um, I can I will before I defer to uh Mr. Mandel, uh the the the first portion of your of your question in terms of prevailing wage on prevailing wage, I couldn't necessarily speak to the delta between what you would see in a private versus public setting. Um I can tell you now right now that you know capital improvement projects across the board, especially like what Mr. Wolf said in regards to electrical steel prices are extraordinarily expensive. So those things are going to fall outside of the scope of wage discussions. Now in regards to the the maintenance and the the concept for the private versus public maintenance and property ownership, I'd have to defer to Mr. Mandel for some of the technicalities there.

Yeah. And I I I think that's something that your city attorney's office would have to look at to give you an answer to. Um cuz it sounds like what you're uh what you're brainstorming about would be uh taking some public property and uh giving it to um to a private property owner. Um and there there are always complexities about doing that. Um

I mean we we could establish certain standards for how they have to upkeep it and that could be part of the vacating process. So, it's something I think it's I think it's worthy of consideration because I don't I don't think this tax is going to be passed in any event or this assessment is going to be passed in any event.

I'd like to address please. Um, Mr. Sar, I just want to point this out. I'm a council member for the city of Oxenarch, but I'm elected from district 1. And if I am aware that certain public properties are going to be gifted to someone, specifically at the recommendation of the council member that represents that district, yourself, you can bet I'm going to make noise. I don't think anybody else in this council would feel differently because they would feel that wherever they represented and whoever got a free gift, they should be at the table getting the same thing. I do understand your view on on um public streets and private streets, I understand that. But when you said the word gift, I got a problem. uh the same I would think you would look at it the same as when the Dallas Cowboys were going to give us a t-shirt. You know, that's a gift. So, how are you going to handle gifting the residents in your district where you live? not may ne necessarily in this particular district but the council district you live in that you're suggesting gifting them something at the expense of every other component in the city of Oxnard. I don't understand that

it's and I promise you that if if it goes further I will dam oppose that. I just wanted to share that with you Mr. Star. I I I can respond to that.

That's a star. So um this isn't a gift that is a personally to anybody. I mean we have done vacating of property in this city before. We've vacated some property I think on the peninsula uh where we and it basically basically gave up our ownership of a public street. This is very doable. All we're doing is we're really just pushing the maintenance costs to another party. That's the gift we're giving them. I mean, they still have access today to this property. To them, there's no upside in terms of access if they're now responsible for it. So, why not? Why not simply say you guys own it, you're responsible for it, let's not have it be the city's headache anymore because this is a lot of money. It's a lot of money when you're asking people to pay in an assessment. Uh which they probably don't want to pay. But maybe, and I'm not sure that the apartment owners would even want it, but maybe they would. Maybe they'd want to take that on their own and say, "You know what? We don't want to wait for the city to fix the lights. We can fix the lights ourselves and we can do it for less money and it's worth it to us because it improves future rents on future tenants. So, I just see it as a win-win for everybody. It's not a gift gift gift in the sense that you're you're you're describing it. It is simply a transfer of, you know, obligations in effect from us to them. To them, it's a gift to us because we no longer have to have that burden of maintaining the costs.

Did you have something additional, Mr. Wolf? I I just wanted to add maybe just some context to that because I have done this process before uh in other agencies and typically what happens is it it's a result of a no vote. So, um, these types of improvements, whether they're, you know, landscaped, uh, slopes adjacent to properties, whether they're they're poos or condition of approval for the project, right? Um, those improvements wouldn't be there except for the development of those projects. And so, you know, with that being the premise, uh, when when LMDs fall into this process where they can't pay for the the cost of those improvements, whether it's operational or or capital projects, the normal process would be to solicit the 218 to get the community to say yes or no, do you want to pay for this or not? Right? It's part of what you bought into. It's part of your improvements. Uh the engineers report lays out the special versus general benefit about who gets that special versus general benefit. Um but the process typically starts with a 218 process. Uh other agencies where they voted no then we would go with then the next step would be a vacation process as you explained uh where you basically are saying okay well community has spoken they don't want to have these improvements necessarily through the LMD uh and so the vacation process can happen. Now, I would be cautious with some of that because we'd have to look at what the conditions of approval of the development were. We'd have to make sure that so so in these scenarios what the unintended consequences is sometimes what happens is okay now the now the apartment let's plan this out the apartment uh sort of now has that property they're going to close it off and nobody else can use it. So you start coming having access issues things like that. So, there's a lot of things that come with that, but the process typically starts with a 218 ballot process and then okay, we heard you to say no, let's start the vacation process

um of those properties if we are the easement owner of that. So, I I I agree with you with the exception of one thing, which is I don't think we have to go down this Prop 218 process in order to do a vacation of the of the property. I think that we could save $40,000 by not actually going through this process and then just go through the natural next step. I I expect there's going to be a no vote anyway and based on because I talked to my neighbors and I So deny the vote. Yeah. Wow. Absolutely. Why not just go for something that's cheaper? You want to you want to spend money on something that you don't have to

flexible. Okay. So, thank you council member. U I need to post something here just out of fairness and consistency. We had a previous item where we took all the public comments but then someone raised their hand after the fact. We have one additional hand raised. Um we are at 9:37 p.m. I think we've probably had uh our course of discussion. Does the council without objection wish to take the final speaker here on this? No objection. Okay. No objection. Madame clerk, just out of fairness, um because I did this earlier this evening. Let's go ahead and take the speaker, please. Um Mr. Andress, if you can press star six to unmute and you have three minutes starting now.

Hi, it's Eric. Uh you're not supposed to give my name, Luly. Uh, I've talked to a lot of people since I moved to this corrupt city in 2021, and the common theme I get from my friends and neighbors is that they've stopped believing that going to meetings with the city and talking to council members will do any good. They've been told for far too long that their voices don't matter, so why bother going to a meeting? I've stopped going to my neighborhood meeting because Matt and Angela Whitecom run them like they own the neighborhood. She puts out a request for agenda items and then tells people she's not going to put it on the agenda. So why go? She called for a meeting of everyone on Christmas Tree Lane coming up next week. That's 144 houses. If two from each house went to the meeting, that's a lot of people. She scheduled the meeting for a tiny storefront office on Sea Street. I got a member of the current council to come to my house in January to talk to my neighbors. Everyone felt it was a great meeting and left energized. Not one item this person said they'd help us with get fixed has been addressed. And I've since learned that Alex Nuin basically told this person that they only want to fix things in the historic district because they're friends with me. Nuin thwarts everything good for this city that isn't going to boost his resume when it's time for him to flee the coupe, which won't be too soon in my mind. And he can take facts and evidence Bert Pereella with him. Bert who can't make a recommendation to Aaron privately after the meeting. He has to try and humiliate him while the city watches publicly. He's shameful. Until the council takes back the power from the faux king Nuin, the people just aren't going to waste their time trying to fight back to get their city back. By the way, I didn't get to say this in my prior comments. I love the remodel job on the council chamber. Everyone look around yourselves when when and if Steven Fischer is brave enough to and truthful with you about peg fees or andor the hero fees. Mr. Wolf, I look forward to getting that parcel map from you. Thank you.

Thank you. At this point, um I appreciate the discussion and what we've had on this. I alluded to this earlier in my comment. Uh we have uh two recommendations on here. One is to approve $40,000 from the general fund reserve to pay for expenses to initiate the Prop 218 process and then to approve the mayor or mayor prom resolution initiating proceedings. Um, I'm actually uh going to uh move and if I get a second grade, if not, we'll move on. But I'm going to move that we um postpone this item to a future date and that we go back to the community for another public meeting. I am committing here to assist with that whether it be delivering flyers or speaking to people individually and uh filling a room so that we can um have some really good robust discussion and people can get some really good factual information and weigh out as residents of the LMD if this is something they'd like to move forward with or pursue if it means fixing their lights and then hearing what the other options are with one of the options being we just won't fix the lights I guess. Um, again, I will commit to that, but that's my motion is to um postpone this to a later date and to um have staff go back out for another public meeting. Do I have a second?

I think you're really making two motions, right? One one is to postpone an item indefinitely and another, I guess, is to have another agenda item to consider this other path that you want to go down. City attorney, can you clarify? We got one motion, two motions. Who's right or wrong? The mayor prom my understanding he made a motion. Is that on the table or not? Hold on. He made a motion. We're still waiting for a second. Council members. Yes. Right. So I was clear on what the mayor prom was proposing in his motion. If there's confusion then people can raise that and to clarify. If there's a second if there's not a second then there is no motion.

Okay. Is there additional clarification needed on my motion? here. My motion is to postpone this item to a later date and have staff go back to the community for another community meeting. Okay, there's no if there's no second then that motion dies. I'll second. Oh, okay. Councilwoman Pettis has seconded. Any discussion on this? Yeah,

I I am interested in having the community input, but if I if our staff has gone door to door and they they have held community meetings, I think having an actual vote and letting folks tell us what they would want would, you know, move things along. I I know there's a second and and we're talking about this extension. My only request would be if you do extend it, are you trying to extend three more months? Are you trying to extend? You know, I wouldn't want this to be indefinite and then still not have an answer. So, right now there's been several attempts. I just don't know what would be different if we if we approved an extension. If you say bring this back in the next two months, in the next nine months or three years, what does that look like? Personally, I I was leaning towards supporting letting the voters tell us what they want. Even though 40,000 seems like a lot of money in the scope of life, this is an investment in our community. It's really our job. So, they can say no. Many times when folks oppose something, they will show up in herds, right? We've seen it with OPAC. seen it with a lot of the very, you know, important issues. So, folks are more likely to take action when they strongly disagree versus when somebody gets excellent service at a restaurant and they rarely leave a great comment for excellent service. Just saying.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Council member Star. Yeah, I I I think I'm agreeing with the city manager. I don't think it's worthwhile to have any more meetings. I I don't think you'll get any more attendees than you have already. So, I don't want to really I really don't want to waste staff's time, but I'm happy to have a motion to postpone indefinitely and be done. I will I can I will pull my second then.

Well, before we move on with that, I'll just share just to respond to that. I think the $40,000 I understand the thoughts on that on both sides of the um discussion here. Uh I'm not saying let's not do this as recommended here. I'm saying hey, let's bring this back. Let's go back to the community. I would point out that in the 2024 election, we filled a couple rooms for gyms as it pertained to the um item that was on the ballot for the CFD5 residents and I think with the right amount of attention and with u effort we can get folks there and actually we did three public we did two inerson meetings and one virtual meeting all very well attended and we got good discussion on it and um I think that again I'm committing to helping staff with this. I'm not just giving them direction. I'm actually going to hit the streets with them and talk with people to recoup. We could also work with the neighborhood council who was here earlier this evening. So

So anyhow, that's my Mr. Mayor Mayor Bertton. So um assuming there was no objection to uh Councilwoman Perez withdrawing her second, I'd like to make a motion that we postpone this item indefinitely and just be done with it. So, that'll be my motion. Do we have a second? Seeing and hearing no second. Um, do you uh did you pull your um second for sure, council member? Just so I can be clear. Do we want to get any clarity from staff first? Can you turn on your mic? Any clarity from staff first?

Um, the only thing I would say again having another outreach meeting is is totally something we can do. It's now becomes just kind of a pushing the timeline down a little bit. I was just because Anony's going to have to do it more more than I do and I was just asking him uh you know when could he be ready. I think early March probably is the you a good opportunity from a workload standpoint. I recognize that that means that the results of that would have to be put in a staff report. So we're not talking about it coming back to council in March. We're probably talking about coming back to council in April. So Okay. Thank you for that. And just for clarity, um, Director Wolf, you'd mentioned that, um, costs could go up. Is that is that still a concern or

Well, I will say that for every capital project that we have, which is like 140, that's my concern. Um, I I would say that we are seeing a little bit of dip in concrete costs. Uh, we'll be bringing forward a city council agenda for award of a sidewalk project. Um, which is a little less than our estimate. Um but steel prices, electrical prices, you know, which is probably the the the major drive of this project. Um we're not seeing that come down and I'm not seeing that coming down anytime soon. Um and so it's always I always as the public works director hesitate to delay projects um for the fear of what that could from a standpoint of um consumer price index increases.

Okay. Just for uh clarity, councilwoman, and no hard feelings. Did you officially withdraw your second to my motion? I think community input is important, so I'll sustain my second. Okay. Okay. Well, we've had discussion on that. Madame clerk, may we have the vote? Um, councilwoman Rodriguez, I. Council member Star, no. Council member Palo, no. Councilwoman Bettis, yes. Mayor Prompan, yes. And this motion carries um 3 to two. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you to staff. I look forward to working with you. I hope the feeling is mutual. We'll help always.

Okay, that was the last item on the agenda. Just very quickly, I just want to thank the staff for being here and the work for this evening's meeting. something that was stated earlier with this being uh Martin Luther King Day on Monday. I just want to recognize that um a lot of thoughts and feelings are uh in this community and communities across this nation. Uh it was within people's lifetime who are probably some in this room but certainly people who still live in this community in this country where the school my kids go to right now it wasn't that long ago they wouldn't have been allowed to go to that school or even people who look like some of us in this room by property in that neighborhood. And so I just want to recognize that and thank those who um worked diligently and fought for the ability to have those rights. So thank you. Those are my comments. Without objection, we will adjourn the meeting at 9:48 p.m. Thank you everybody.