City Council - Regular Meeting

Greetings. This is city manager Alex Newuen and this is the video presentation for the city council meeting of Thursday, April 30, 2026, at which time staff will be asking the city council to select the next round of priorities for the city of Oxnard, also known as the city council's five-year priorities to cover the period 2026 through 2030. Setting the priorities of course should align public policy with the community's overall priorities. It informs budgeting and gives the city administration the five-year roadmap for Oxnard. framework is pretty straightforward. We want the priorities to focus on just the five-year window. Always want to make the best um choices possible. Uh that is um the responsibility of the city council. The priorities of course have to be matched uh during um the ensuing budgets. I'll state this again later but setting priorities is not about uh the very next budget nor is it about any single budget. It just provides guidance as a policy document uh each year when we proceed with the next budget. the outcomes of the priorities should be clear because that will provide this administration, what the roadmap is for this community over the next five years.

And obviously the more clear the priorities, the better the guard rails are to keep everyone um on track and on task. And then um they should obviously also be feasible and realistic. And again uh every time we do budgeting thereafter it should be um a reflection of this policy document. So we have been engaged in an ongoing uh conversation with our community. Um, this goes all the way back to uh 2019 in having surveys and going to community meetings, having various uh formal public meetings, whether at it's at city council um uh committee or at city council meeting uh various workshops. you know, throughout the years there there's a there's a theme that runs through these years, which is having as much um touch points with the community as possible and then relaying uh from the staff perspective, relaying the information back to the city council. Uh also understanding that council members also have um their own touch points uh with various members of the community whether it be individuals, neighborhood groups or other kinds of associations. So it all kind of melts together and informs each of the council members and the mayor as they work to formulate what the priorities should be for this community as a whole, which of course is quite a balancing act. um and a pretty large responsibility for the council as a whole.

Now, the topics are pretty consistent. Um people don't deviate too far uh from these these primary categories. And the good news, of course, is these are the things that uh we as a city uh do uh which is also what most municipalities in California also do. And um when we ask people to rank their priorities um this is the outcome that we have currently um and this is based on surveys we've received as of uh April 15th of this year 2026. So, so far um just over 1,600 survey responses and if we uh we we do expect to get more between now and April 30 and so whatever we we collect between now and then we will also provide at the meeting um however many more there are. And then in terms of um areas uh where people add their own comments um this is the the results so far and you can see um the kinds of things that people write in uh in addition to what the survey questions were. So those are uh the items. Okay. Um progress uh has been steady. We are stable. We are continuing to make progress. Um so here is just an a very very

visible snapshot of um just the last five years. We are I think anyone that um notices anything in the community when they're uh traversing around town uh uh would notice um the not just um significant improvement, but also the consistent improvement. Um I'm sure it's not fast enough for everyone, but I think we can all agree that it is occurring. with regard to um this is something I talked about when I first got here and you could see on the left hand side this was sort of the summation of the decade before um I got here and we've certainly made uh significant improvement in terms of stabilizing the executive management team. We are very fortunate right now to have the collection of executives that we have. Um just among all of them the the dedication to public service, the combined amounts of formal education, the experience, the knowledge, um their judgment, the the um collective wisdom and most importantly the aspect that uh everybody works together very very well. This is something that I know is rare uh in any organization. It's very rare uh in local government to have such good um chemistry among your executive leaders uh who are open to working across departments and not remaining in silos. So right now uh we are very fortunate. Um no no great team stays together forever. So I certainly hope this will continue

um as long as it is uh possible but very very proud to be working with the team that we have today. Okay. Uh as you can see we as a city like all other cities and communities we have a lot of plans. So this is also something where as the city council is thinking about our priorities, um they should also rest on and and rely upon the many plans that we have that are that already serve as guard rails and road maps uh for these specific um areas of of topics and interest uh for this community. So again, um there's not a lot of um reinventing the wheel here that we need to do. Some of these plans are current. Some of these plans are recent. A few might be a little bit outdated, but they'll get back around to being updated eventually. Uh but just understand that there are a series of um plans that already guide uh how we do what we do. um what the parameters are, what the goals are, what the timelines could be. Um and it's just all a question of what is feasible when how much how much financial resources do we have to put behind any of these of these goals and plans. Uh again, a big big balancing act. So we have the current priorities which um are expiring which is why we're going through this

exercise now uh to refresh or reset them for the next 5 years. There are um significant issues going forward and while we have done a very good job of stabilizing the organization, getting our finances in order um having financial stability, having much much much better financial management. There are still um exter mostly external some internal of always but mostly external forces at play that are um causing us a lot of anxiety. You can see here uh so we've known about the measure o sunset and over the last 5 years we planned for it I think very well. However, there are other things happening that um we were not uh aware of back then and not therefore did not plan on but here they are. And that is of course there's a new Costco opening uh not far south of us off the 101 in Camaro. uh this um effort uh statewide for all the cities who do not have an Amazon uh facility uh are are um making an effort to get um are part are a part of our uh for those communities like Oxnard that have um a warehouse such as Amazon um the other communities want to to um get up to half of the sales tax generated from our Amazon warehouse that we currently get. And uh that is coming to a head and at some point it will un it will unfold and play itself out and we just don't know

how severe that's going to be. But we do have to understand that it's it's it's very likely going to happen uh sooner than later. And then of course um we've already experienced some federal and state funding cuts and we certainly have heard about more on the horizon. Um so all this mixed in with an extremely turbulent economy right now given the state of uh both national and world affairs. Uh there is a lot I I think at this point um saying economic uncertainty has become you know almost a vanilla saying. So we just have to deal with the world as it is. Uh so these items plus the turbulence of national and world affairs uh will be very challenging for us going forward. And from that perspective, um we certainly recommend that the council keep all of these issues in mind so that our priorities when they are set are uh realistic and feasible and understand that with the challenges uh some of them may not be achievable in the next five-year uh window. So hypothetically um we can have you know currently we have five categories and in each of them we have five priorities. So again, hypothetically, um, with the the the future reduction of revenue on the horizon, we could potentially manage, you know, four in each or some variation. Again, this is where it's it's a going

to be a um substantive deliberation among the council members about, you know, it's one thing to have a set of priorities um that where we do our best to reflect the entirety of this community which has uh very very different and differing and at times diverging needs depending on where you are in the city. It's difficult enough to to establish priorities to reflect the community as a whole, but it's also then difficult to then have have to choose even among your priorities which you know which ones rise to the top. So that is a uh a a difficult job for our elected officials to process. So again, um we strongly recommend uh that we stay within the five categories and five priorities each. Uh having a much longer list uh really is a it's not prioritizing if if the list gets too long and b it's not feasible or even achievable. So um so you have where we've left off. Some of these obviously uh did not happen and some are in progress and so on. So we have all that information. So uh take your time to look through here for each of the categories. You can see uh where we believe we stand and what some of the challenges may be going forward. So uh take your time to look at these. So quality of life, economic development priorities, we can certainly discuss these more uh during the council meeting. Public safety priorities, the progress we've made, the challenges we have. Again, this is the the format for each

of these um major category groups, uh infrastructure and natural resources and organizational effectiveness. Okay. So, given where we are going forward, um again, the community surveys, the public is still um focused on these main issues. Again, makes sense. We're a city. Uh the staff report discusses that, you know, there are many things um that are part of a civic community, civic society that cities do not do. I I outlined uh many of them in the staff report such as public education, health care, mental health care, social work, airport services, transit services, commercial harbor services, or highway maintenance because all of those are examples of things and services that are provided by other and separate government entities, not cities. um municipalities do what municipalities do in California which is reflected in our five categories. So again we don't do everything that is part of um uh civic society and we're not responsible for many of the other things that are significant when it comes to providing the overall well-being for a community as a whole. we only do the uh municipal city services. So having said that uh our recommendation as a starting point for um uh discussing the next five years is just simply picking up where we are leaving off with the current priorities. So you can see here uh we've taken the current

priorities as they're expiring and we've updated them as best as we believe and so there are some that basically have gone from where we were back then to have an effort to restore and enhance services. Now we've achieved much of that and we just obviously believe it's important to continue as best we can to maintain those services. So you'll see that there's some things that we don't believe are appropriate anymore or realistic or feasible during this period. Uh so we've we have uh proposed deleting those and that opens up some room for other things that the council would want to discuss. So again this is simply the recommendation of where um to start the deliberations. Um so between looking at the survey results and looking at the the individual comments and then keeping the framework of what is our responsibility as a municip municipal government and then keeping in mind all the plans and master plans and this plan and that plan that we have in place that already shape a a direction and a framework. Uh with all of that, what actually um during this next fiveyear window, what does the city council collectively think of all of these uh should be the priorities that are the best reflection for this community? And as it is stated uh somewhere in the staff reports, um we know and we appreciate and and we strive our best to work through that there are many urgent needs that um our city has. There are many important issues that our city has

to confront and there are many many many many wants and desires from the public. So uh as the city council you are the policy makers uh it is your responsibility to weigh all of those. uh you and and part of doing that obviously you have to balance competing interests and do the best you can to make rational and fair deliberations so that you can as a body come together and agree on uh what this would become the policy roadmap for the city uh for the next 5 years. So um we are obviously publishing this information and uh between now and April 30 uh we ask that everyone just reviews the information looks at the surveys um look at you know where we're recommending as a starting place for the deliberations. um synthesize all this information so that you can have a good discussion, deliberation, perhaps a little debate, um take public comment, hear any uh particular opinions on April 30, and then of course get down to the business of deliberating and hopefully we can uh come to an agreement on what the priorities look like for the next 5 years. Now, having said all of this, I just want to remind everyone that um not everything goes as planned. The last time we did this process, nobody nobody planned for the COVID pandemic and we had to manage through that for the better part of two years. uh and

that was an a a period of drastic uncertainty uh anxiety, frustration, fear and so on. Um and during that time we managed uh basically just to keep the trains going and keep the um programs and services uh up and running as best as we could. But that certainly um derailed and or postponed a lot of the goals and priorities during that period. So it's just a reminder that um even when you come to an agreement about what the priorities should be for the next 5 years that anything um especially um external or um natural disaster type thing can always cause a a wrinkle in the in the road map. So just keep that in mind um as best as we can do. It'll never ever be perfect and um on time and on schedule as everybody would would wish.