City Council - Regular Meeting

for our pledge of allegiance. Mr. Link, would you like to lead us? Thank you.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Roll call, please. Council member Ayala, here. Council member Rhodess, here. Council member Judge here. Mayor Prom Litster, here. Mayor Kavanaaugh, here. Are there any items for agenda review? There are not, Madame Mayor. Thank you. I move that all resolutions and ordinances presented tonight be read in title only and all further reading be waved. Second.

Call for the vote. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Madam Clerk. If any member of the city council may have a conflict of interest or any reason why that member must abstain from consideration of any matter on this agenda, he or she should so declare at this time. Seeing none, we can move forward. Madame Mayor and members of the city council, the first item on the agenda is item 1D1, presentation of a proclamation declaring the month of February as Black History Month. And police chief Shorts is here to present this item. And accepting the proclamation is Officer J. King. Good evening, mayor and city council. Whereas the celebration of black history can be traced back to 1926 when writer and scholar Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the father of black history, began the annual observance each February to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglas and Abraham Lincoln to recognize the contributions of black Americans in the nation's history. And whereas since February 1976 when President Gerald Freud proclaimed Black History Month to recognize the important and innumerable uh contributions made to our nation's life and culture by black citizens, all American presidents have designated

February as Black History Month and endorsed a theme. And whereas this year's theme of Black History Month is a century of Black History commemorations, which focuses on the various and profound ways that work of all kinds intersect with the collective experience of black people and how these contributions have shaped our community and our country. And the city council calls attention to the importance of labor movements in fighting discrimination and advocation for equality. And whereas Black History Month is a prompt to the citizens of Seami Valley to reflect on the sacrifices and contributions made by generations of African-Ameans and continue the nation's march toward a day when every person knows the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and to build a better and brighter future. Now therefore, the city council of the city of Semi Valley does hereby proclaim the month of February 2026 as Black History Month in the city of Semi Valley to celebrate the rich contributions that Black Americans have made to the fabric of our society. [applause] Thank you, Chief. And thanks to Officer King here for being here to accept this and for your service on our police department. We appreciate everything you do. Want to speak? I didn't think so. [laughter] Thought I'd offer anyway. Thank you for being here.

We appreciate [applause] in the middle.

You're right. Madame Mayor and members of the city council, next on the agenda is item two, public statements on appointments, special presentations, andformational reports. We have no speakers for this item this evening. Madame Mayor and members of the city council, next on the agenda is item 3C1, update on Mor Park College by President Dr. Julius Sokenu. Good evening, Madame Mayor, city council members, honored guests. I do appreciate the opportunity to present to you uh the state and the uh dynamic work going on in your local community college. Uh this evening I have with me uh from our Mop College Foundation, one of our board members and you the superintendent of semi valley schools uh Dr. Hammy Ysef and I also have members of the Mopak College staff. I have dean uh Robert Cabraw. I have Lent Lamela Cruz who's here with me and Dean Matt Calfing. Um it's always a pleasure to come speak with you and I thank you for the opportunity to do this. Um your local community college is thriving, is doing well, and um I'm going to share some of that with you today. The theme for this presentation is partnership to advance economic success and civic engagement. So we see ourselves in partnership with you. We see ourselves in partnership

with the businesses and industry in the city of Semi Valley working towards advancing economic success and promoting civic engagement. So how do we do that? Well, this is who we serve. So this is the entire college. If you look at our our population, uh 14,267 took students, the breakdown in terms of ethnicity, the breakdown in terms of gender, the breakdown in terms of age. Uh what you will note is that uh not only is our our student population very diverse, but you will also note that they represent the spectrum of individuals who are in our community. Pay attention to the ages of our students. Um one of the things that you will learn is that the city of Semi Valley actually uh sends us the most students. So thank you to the school district, thank you to your adult schools, thank you to uh the members of the community who help keep us engaged. So 23% of our overall student population is from the city of Semi Valley. Uh you see the gender breakdown right there. Um and you see the programs that they're in. So 503 of those students are dual enrolled students. So they are students who are in in the in the local schools who are taking classes. 32 of those students are veterans. If you look at the break the gender breakdown of our students, you see that we have more females than than male students and we have 10 um non-binary students. In terms of ethnicity, it's 1,365 of those students are Hispanic, 1208 are white, non-Hispanic, and then you see the breakdown. Um, 371 Asian, 183 multi-ethnicity, and 60 African-Americans, and the rest there. I share this data with you because for us, we are very proud of the fact that we're able to welcome everyone. Everyone has a place at Mop Park College. The other data point that I want to share with you is that 25% of those students in from semi valley are first generation college

students. They are the first in their families to go to college. So we are building capacity for families in semi valley. It's an incredible thing. This is a breakdown for the entire county and and from LA County. We serve uh the northern part of LA County as well. As you will see, uh the you're the top city uh that sends us students uh to Mop Park College. Enrollment uh our enrollment has grown by 4% uh this semester. We have 456 more students than we did last spring and it is part of an increasing trajectory of enrollment at Mopac College. So you know we are known for being an excellent transfer uh institution to uh uh universities across the nation and to particularly in the state of California. So you'll see here the breakdown in terms of our acceptance rates uh at the CSUs. So 89% of those students uh who accept who applied to a CSU got in the CSU uh the UC's uh 659 students applied 529 got accepted which is a 80% acceptance rate to a UC school. That is phenomenal. That is phenomenal. The other piece is as you know we're an Aspen um finalist and we've been an Aspen finalist twice now. Um the Aspen are the Oscars of for community colleges. It looks at the 1200 best community well the 1200 community colleges in the nation. It picks the top 200 and then within the first top 200 it goes down to 50 25 10 and then they choose the college that is that is considered the best in the nation. Um when you look at our data points and I this is important. So you will see that the dark blue one this is 2021 and 2023. So this is the transfer rates to four-year institutions of students who are participating in institutions that have been identified as Aspen

institutions. So Mo College 45% of our students that's our transfer rate in 2021. In 23 23 was uh 48%. The top 10 community colleges in the nation 36 and 35. So we are about 10 10 to 15 points are higher than the top 10 community colleges in the nation. The same thing with our six years bachelor completion rates. If you look at more college in 2021 is 61% of our students completed in six years. I know it's a two-year college but most individuals don't completed in two years. It's nationwide. And then you see 63% completed um in uh that this is actually the bachelor's completion rate. So this those who go back and transfer to a CSU this is this is their completion time rates. And then look at the finalists. We are doing much better than even the best community colleges in the nation. And the we I'm talking about are our students, members of our community, members of of your community as well. So this is a quick overview of transfer. So uh it's I give you a list of our top 10 transfer institutions, but also one of the reasons why we transfer so many people is that we have something called the associate degrees for transfer. The associate degrees for transfer allows individuals to transfer to a a CSU and get guaranteed admission to the institution not always necessarily to the department but to the institution and that is an incredible thing and when we think about why we we have that many it's because our faculty work with the CSUs to build that pathway from MA college to that institution then you see the articulations that we have as well the other reason why we have that a really stellar transfer uh profile is that we have an honors program that gets students directly into top ranked universities. So you see the data point for for uh for UCLA there. Three out of five people who who apply for Mopark College get into USCLA at

first track. This is first track. Um Aspen transfer uh network. One of the things we realized is that a lot of our students apply locally which is wonderful but we have students who could go anywhere in the country. And so part of what we've done is we've joined this transfer scholars network so that for students who want to go to MIT, they want to go to Harvard, wherever they want to go that is a selective institution. They get mentoring from from that institution before they go and apply. And then there's a process that they are a part of. That process helps prepare them so they're competitive candidates at those institutions. We also do on-site admission and uh on the spot admission days. So um CSUCI, CLU th those institutions listed there, they come on campus and they accept people right on campus on that day. So when you talk about why we have high transfer rates, that's why. And then we also have events like our transfer social and let works in the transfer center and the career center as well. So these are the awards you've you've heard of them, right? Um I want to point your your attention to the fact that we are consistently being recognized for stellar academic uh achievements both statewide and nationally. So we do that work in collaboration with the schools and we do this work in collaboration with our businesses with your businesses. So these are businesses in the city of Semi Valley and organizations in the city of Semi Valley that we work with. Uh we work with them in terms of partnerships. So they take our students for internships. We work with them because in some instances they help us build programs together. Um and in some instances we work with them because we utilize them as uh vendors at our institution. I call attention to this because this theme is how we would work together on economic success. This is an example of that. Okay. So, it's the programs that we offer that lead to student success. So,

full-time employment, I this this is really a an opportunity for us to celebrate the work that we do. We have more and more students who are earning those degrees that you see there. But the important part of it is that when they finish at Mop College, they're getting employed. One of the markers of our success is post-graduation success. So they come to the college and they get the degree. What do they do after that? We follow them. We follow them and we ask them how how relevant is the degree preparation you received at Mo Park College to your life after the institution. Are you still in the same uh program? Are you still in the same discipline? Did you get a job in a discipline for which you were trained? And what we hear from those students is that 93% of them say yes we are still in that same discipline in which we were trained. Um this this data bit this data point also focus on the fact that students are going directly from mobile college into industry directly from mobile college into industry. So biotech game design engineering technology and these are sometimes local companies and sometimes companies across the country who recruit our students to work for them. And then internships, we have 227 students who participated in internships last year. We would like to increase that and grow that. Uh part of that partnership comes from the reason from the fact that we have funds that we can pay employers to take our students which is an incredible thing that we can do. Um some of those are in CNC, computer network systems engineering. Uh we work with a technical theater which is in the city of of Thousand Oaks. We have engineering tech that we work and then we have incredible support from our biotech uh corridor and um they not only hire our students and our students go directly into work for them as interns but 80% of those students who work as interns get employed full-time. It's a fact that we're very proud of. So we asked our students about the internships

and how do they feel about it? What is what is the value of the internship? And those are some feed those are some uh comments the feedback that you get about the value of the internship from our students. Increased confidence and readiness to enter workforce hands-on real world experiences. They get to have a better understanding of what the expectations of employers are and so they build professional culture and can career pathways in support of their work. [snorts] And then this reduced anxiety from transitioning from college to employment which is incredibly important. We have quite a few students who just want to stay at the college. You have to go okay it's time for you to go now. go get a job and we help them do that. Um, now so this is our employment outcomes. I I I point to the entrepreneurship that comes out of certain programs at our college. So our game design program, two of our students have designed games that are now being marketed to big game design companies. Right? So that's those are examples. We at the Navy base of Ventura County, the the largest employer in our county, um 4,000 of those individuals are civilian employees. They have partnered with us so that they can recruit students directly from our institutions so those students can then go work for them and in one instance in a couple of instances they're actually paying those students to come to school at M Park College as they saw them through the internship processes being prospects that they would like to keep. We have the same the same uh kind of partnerships with Teada Pharmaceuticals. Bank of America has been an incredible supporter of Mop Park College through scholarships, but they're also an incredible supporter of Mopar College through employment of our students and they do recruitment on campus. Uh, Wildlife Games is one of the game game design companies that uh that they are now putting together a game that was designed by one of our students at Mop College. So, this is some this is some stats that is important for you to note. 83% of foreign mop college career education students are fully employed full-time or working in a job related to their field

of study. Mop college ranks number seven on return on investment by community college futures foundation. Mopar college students increase their salaries by 37% within a year after leaving the college. There are institutions that never recoup the cost of going to college. So within a year, that's incredible. Over 300 local employers are engaged in our partnership with the college. You saw some of those that serve the city. And then the spotlight on our nursing program, 100% 5-year le lure exam rate. So you go to our program, you take the ENLEX, you pass it 100%. The same thing with our radiology technology program, 91% 5-year average uh pass rates. So what's coming up next? I'm up at college, right? Um we just got approved um on January 23rd for a bachelor's degree in cyber defense network operations. So you all know that the criminals who want to steal your data identity, the ones who break into various um uh businesses and and and and defraud them. We need to address it. The people who do that work in local in in law enforcement, the people who do that work in and in private industry hire our students, but they when they hire our students as soon have an associates degree and they've told us they want those students to have bachelor's degree. So they worked with us in building a bachelor's degree. That bachelor's degree is now available to us at M Park College. And we're not only very proud of the fact that it was approved on the 23rd of of January and as of this fall, we will begin to offer that bachelor's degree in uh cyber defense network operations. The additional benefit of this is that we're partnering with California State University, Channel Islands. They're building a management of cyber security

program in their business school and so our students can actually le uh leverage into that transition into that and our goal is that they'll also build a master's program. So then if our students want to get a master's degree they can do that all within miles of their homes. The reason why we pursuing bachelor's degrees is because they are placed by individuals and those placebound individuals often uh cannot leave and often we don't want them to leave. We want them to stay in the community. The other thing that's coming up um is one we're very proud of and I've talked to you about the fact that we're in the pro we were in the process of raising funds to build an amphitheater. $60 million takes a while to get uh to put to get and recruit folks to invest in it. So what we've decided to do is to start off with a temporary amphitheater stage. So we purchased our foundation purchased a temporary amphitheater stage and as of this summer late summer we will begin a a summer fall concert series. We're very excited about that. Um, we're excited about it because we'll be partnering with individuals who can bring high quality entertainment to the area and we're also hoping that we can work with with with the uh with the tourism and uh city uh agencies so as to promote the cities that we serve so that they see us as part of a destination. So that is my presentation. I am very grateful for you giving me the time to share with you what's going on at Mop College. Um, if you do have any questions, I am here to take those questions, but I do appreciate the opportunity to um, speak with you.

I think we do have some questions. Uh, Mayor Prom Litster, thank you, Dr. Sen. I so appreciate what you're doing in our community and for in War College. We are really I know much of the success it stems from your leadership. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just a couple questions. I love your discussion of the internship programs, etc. My curiosity is how I'm going back to my college days. That was something I did as a senior. It was how how does it work as as in a junior college setting at at what how does that get set up? Do they have to find something? Do you have an an office that does that for them?

Yes. So, we have an office that does that and they they actually they have an online uh platform. That online platform allows companies to post jobs on our campus. We vet them and then students have exposure to that platform and then they can apply for positions there. We also have courses that are actually the the students earn credit but they can also then find an employer or we find them an employer and that allows them to have an experience of the workplace environment. Um, our goal is to integrate work-based learning into as many of our courses as possible, particularly the courses that are happening in their second year at the college or this the second second year level courses because we know that students who participate in internships, students who have workbased learning opportunities or who are exposed to industry practice and just the feedback we got, those students are much more successful. And now that we know that they will hire our students and then in some instances pay for them to go get bachelor's degrees while uh while they're working for them, we are leaning more into that.

Beautiful. Wonderful. One more just follow up. This is unrelated. I I was at a presentation recently uh chancellor was talking about some of the plans for housing on some junior on on community colleges is but some of the discussion was that has to be in the pipe for it to ever take advantage of grants. Is there any of that kind of discussion taking place at more park as far as

Yes. So we received I want to say it was about six years ago um was right at the sort of the tail right before COVID we received a planning grant of um I want to say it was $200,000 um to explore the idea of building uh student housing on our campus and we did that. We have a beautiful renditions of what the what the student housing would look like. Um and then uh when we finished the planning grant, we intended to apply for the uh funding for construction and of course no more state funding to do that. And so we've been looking at other opportunities. The reality of this time is that for more college um we're looking at other ways of partnering. So, we've looked at partnering with universities in the area so that our students can uh uh stay in the student housing there and the benefit from the experience of of actually being on that college campus for the students who want that and who need that. Uh but we also have resources that um help support students who are insecure. So, we have grants for that and vouchers and other opportunities to do so. But at this point in time the funds are not there and so we are we even though we've done the the planning

so we've got the plans if the funds miraculously occurred. Yeah. So if we have any public private partnerships who want to do that work we have the place on campus we know where we'll go. So that's an opportunity for us as well. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you council member Ayala. Thank you. Um a comment and then a question. Yes. So I love I was visiting as you know the campus a couple months ago as part of the leadership program and one of the best things I saw was how you guys are so good at breaking down silos and not just saying we're just doing a two-year but what happens after. Yes.

And the professors we were talking to have relationships with employers in our area. Yes. And as you know and this is more for the community benefit is they are learning from those employers what skills the students need to know and then changing the curriculum so that these students actually graduate and are able to be success successful at the next step. It's not just a stagnant curriculum. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Can you comment on that?

Yes. Uh thank you. Thank you so much Council Bayala for raising that point. Yes, we um our career education programs work with local businesses. So each career education program and Robert is the dean of our career education program at the college. Um uh each each program has an advisory committee and that advisory committee consists of members from industry and uh government etc. And these are folks who are working in that area. So they help them build curriculum. So and this is annually there's a meeting where they look at the curriculum and they give input but more importantly there's ongoing dialogue. So as things are happening as as people read about things and also our faculty participate in exterships where they observe th those um industry partners and it gives them insight as to what technology they want to integrate in the classroom or what um behaviors they want to they want to elicit from students so they can be successful. So that's one of the ways in which we continue to do that work and what that work has done is that it's built a pipeline of information

from business to the college and it's built a pipeline from the college to the business industry so that we can match students when they need to. Um but that is one robust aspect of the work that we do with the advisory committee. That's great. And you now have the cyber defense network ops. Is this now the third?

This is the second one. Second one. Yes. So we we are going to take a little break. The f the good thing is that actually I should have shared this. The first cohort of our biio manufacturing students are graduating on May 20th. So we're very excited about that. Uh we started with 15 students. I think 14 of them are graduating and I'm very excited about the fact that those people have gotten jobs in Ventura County and they're staying. So that's great. And then the second core just started last year uh and uh they're continuing. And then the bio manufactur the uh CNC uh the cyber security will be recruiting um really shortly actually so that we can have a class for the fall.

Good great update. We always love to hear all the good stuff and we always it's always good stuff coming out of Mor Park College. Right. So thank you for being here. Thank you so much. Council member Judge. Thank you Madam Mayor. Thank you for that great presentation. It's very exciting the stuff you're doing over there and congratulations on getting that cyber security bachelor program because in this day and age that's going to be a very lucrative career for a lot of people. Thank you again for coming here and telling us all about it. Thank you. I appreciate it. Appreciate you so much. City Manager Argite.

Thank you for coming tonight, Dr. Senu. Uh I also just wanted to let the council know that one of the um initiatives that we've taken on in our recruiting department to increase interest in city careers is reaching out to our local colleges. So, Mor Park College, Sea Sun, Channel Islands, and um we've already done our day with Morark College. We're hoping to do another day this year. Um but our recent day was in October and when we did that, we do a tour of city facilities. We talk about city careers. Um and Dr. Sou was kind enough to join us for that day to show his support of the program and um that partnership with the city. So, thank you for that, Dr. Thank you so much for hosting our students. They still talk about that experience and you were the first who did it and so now the other cities in the area are doing it. So, thank you. We like to be a trends setter. So, that's great.

Council member Rhodess. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, you just touched on one of the questions I wanted to ask and because I got to see the uh opening of the lab, the biotech lab and um so um that had a relationship with Amgen as a partner that how many of the students would stay here in Venture County but also ended up there?

Yes. So um the for the for the biotech program um and for the bachelor's degree program uh we I know that we have about six students who are currently working at at at at Teada and and at Amgen who came out of our program and they are looking at a pipeline and that's why we have the back the balorate degree and then we have a lot more that are in the associates program that associates program in the in the biotech at least has about I want to say about 60 students in So, so a good chunk of those people are working here.

I I think that's one of the most brilliant things is to go, okay, this is what our community needs. This is our hub. Let's offer those classes. That's great. Um, for the um the students that can't make it to campus, what percentage of that 14,000 enrolled are uh rem uh online only? Yes. So, um I'll give you the percentage of our classes that are online and percentage that are on ground. So, you get it. So it's 48% of the classes are online um and then another 43% of the classes are um on ground and then we have something called hybrid so the class meets one day you know that and the rest of those are hybrid. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for the presentation too.

Thank you. Thank you Dr. So canu. I always brag about how great Mor Park College is. So you just proved it and gave me more stuff to brag about. So we appreciate you being here tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. [applause]

Madame Mayor and members of the city council, the next item on the agenda is item 3C2, presentation by Ventura Local Agency Formation Commission, LAFCO, executive uh by Executive Officer Akai Lu.

Good evening. Uh thank you, Madame Mayor, council members. I appreciate the invitation to come and speak and give you some information about LAFCO, especially uh considering that there's some future annexations in your future. So, uh I've been asked to provide an introduction, an overview to LFCO and then also an overview of the city annexation process. And Luis was very clear that I had 15 minutes to do this, so I'm going to go pretty quickly, so I apologize. So part one I'm going to give a LAFCO introduction and overview. I'm going to talk about what is LAFCO, who is LAFCO, what are the purposes of LAFCO, and then how does LFCO achieve those purposes. So what is LAFCO? Well, first of all, what does LFCO stand for? Well, it's an acronym for the local agency formation commission. And that kind of is a misnomer because we very rarely form local agencies. That is one of our duties, but it is rare. We mainly focus on boundary changes to cities and districts and then also doing studies. So there are 58 counties and there's a laugh in each county. So we have 58 LAFOs. They exercise jurisdiction over the cities and districts within each county. LFCOs are an independent quasi legislative agency. So LAFCO decisions are final. They cannot be appealed. There's no body above LAFCO to which the decisions can be appealed. There's no second guessing a LAFCO decision. And we function as a state agency. We do implement state law. We operate under state law. And we do that at the local level, meaning the county. And those authorities uh come from state law, the government code specifically, beginning with section 56,000. And the state court of appeals has referred to LAFCO as the watchdog that was established by the state legislature to achieve the state's legislature specified purposes. And this is Cortisian Oxburg. This is the portion of the government code that

that laughs operate under. I have highlighted one section. I won't read it, but that section essentially says that regardless of the laws that you might be operating under, if you're a city and even a a special district, I mean, or even a city, LAFCO law takes precedent. So, LAFCO has sole authority over all boundary changes to cities and special districts, formations of new uh uh districts, incorporations, etc. And I'll touch on all of that here in a minute. So, who is LFCO? Well, each laughco is different, but about half of the the laughs throughout the state are made up like ventur laughco. And there are two county boards of supervisors on ventur laughco and oneuh supervisor who is an alternate, two city council members and one alternate, two independent special district board members and one alternate and then a member of the public plus one alternate. So for 2026, the commission is comprised of supervisor Jeff Guerrell and supervisor Janice Parvin with supervisor levier as the alternate. For the city council members, we have Jenny Crosswite with the city of Santa Paula and Bert Prello with city of Oxnard with Susan Santangelo with Camaro being the alternate. For independent special districts, we have Raul Aila with the Kaiagus Municipal Water District and Chris Stevens with the Venture Report District and the alternate being Muhammad Hassan with United Water Conservation District. And our public member is Gene Talmage with Joe Pachowski as the alternate. When commissioners are sitting on the commission, they must wear what we commonly refer to as the laugh hat. And this comes straight out of state law. So it says that while serving on the commission all commission members shall exercise their independent judgment on behalf of the interests of the residents, property owners and the public as a whole in furthering the purposes of this division meaning LFCO law. Any member appointed on behalf of local government shall represent the

interests of the public as a whole and not solely the interest of the appointing authority. So what does this mean in practicality? Commissioners do not represent the agency upon which they were elected to serve. They do not represent special districts, city, or county. You might be a supervisor, but when you're on the commission, you're acting as a commission, not a supervisor. Commissioners must work on behalf of the interests of residents, property owners, and the public as a whole. And they must work to further the purposes of LAFCO. And what are those purposes? Well, they're laid out specifically in LAFCO law. They are to discourage urban sprawl, preserve open space and prime agricultural lands, encourage the efficient provision of government services, and encourage orderly formation and development of local agencies based upon local conditions and circumstances. How do we achieve those purposes? Well, AFCO has oversight over the 10 cities, the 29 independent independent special districts, and the 19 dependent special districts in the county. And what does that oversight over oversight consist of? Well, we have several primary duties. Uh the primary one is is to coordinate the logical and timely jurisdictional boundary changes for the cities and special districts. We establish what are called spheres of influence for all of the cities and special districts. We conduct special studies recommending ways to simplify and streamline governmental structure. We determine or approve the services that special districts are authorized to provide and we also consider out of agency services requests and I'll touch on each of these briefly. So boundary change types as I mentioned that is what we primarily do is change boundaries for cities and districts and that consists of annexations which is adding area to a city or district and then detachment is just the opposite. It's detaching an area from a city or special district. We have the formation of new uh districts, special districts or the dissolution of

existing special districts or incorporations of new cities or the disinccorporation of an existing city and then mergers which are the combin combining two existing special districts into a new district or consolidating a district with a city. So the the city takes over those uh functions. Spheres of influence. I mentioned that LAFCO is responsible for establishing spheres of influence for each city and district. So what is a sphere of influence? Well, it's defined in LAFCO law as the probable physical boundaries and service area of a local agency as determined by LAFCO. So LAFCO sets these spheres of influence. And basically what it is, it's it's LAFCO telegraphing to the city or district that the commission anticipates the area within that sphere to become part of that city or district at some point in the future. So this is just a map of of all of the cities in gray in the county. The red are the existing spheres of influence. So everything within that red that's not gray, that's unincorporated county area that the commission does anticipate becoming part of that city at some point in the future. And this is the sphere of influence and the city boundaries for Semi Valley. The yellow is the city boundaries and the red outline is the sphere of influence. Again, everything in white is unincorporated county that is anticipated to become part of Semi Valley at some point in the future. I mentioned that we do studies. This is something that we do we every five years we do have to review the sphere of influence for the city or district and when needed we prepare a municipal service review which is a comprehensive study to determine the adequacy of governmental services being provided by the local agency that's subject to LAFCO jurisdiction. We are required to do this whenever we want to update a sphere of influence mean expand it make it larger or to establish a new sphere of influence. So what do we study? What we do in MSR, we do growth in population, adequacy of the current and future public services and infrastructure needs, financial

ability of the agency to provide services, opportunities for shared facilities and accountability, government, governmental structure and operational efficiencies. So we need to do a deep dive into all of this before we expand the future service area of a city or district. That's the intent of the MSRS. other LAFCO duties which I won't go in. As I mentioned, we do determine uh or approve the services that special districts are authorized to provide. A district can't just go out and start providing services. They have to get LAFCO authorization to do that. And then we consider circumstances where it might be necessary for a an agency to extend services outside their boundaries. Okay, that was a really quick overview of LFCO and there's a lot of lot more detail. Uh so if you have any further questions feel free to contact me you know afterward or in the office. So part two this is specific to the annexation process of a city and this is what is the typic the the process that will typically be followed to accommodate uh some type of development and this is nine times out of 10 the process there are some differences but I won't go into those. So I'm going to start with what's the what are the city obligations to initiate an annexation. LFCO doesn't have the authority to initiate an annexation that has to come from a city or or a district. There's a a different process that can be initiated by petition, but that's has never been h never occurred in a Ventura County though it might in the future here soon. Uh so city obligations to initiate an annexation and then we'll talk about the LAFCO annexation process once initiated. So what are the the city obligations to initiate? Well, the first is that the city has to approve any land use or development entitlements, any subdivisions that might be required, anything like that, a specific plan. It's up to the city to approve that uh first. Most likely, it'll have it'll be an action by the city council. So, as part of that, the city would have to conduct SQL review, environmental impact report or what have

you. LFCO, of course, would be involved as a responsible agency. So, LFCO would be part of that process from, you know, the city's process from early on. The city would also uh need to amend the general plan if necessary and also adopt a pre-zone for the affected territory. And what a pre-zone is, it's required under LAFCO law um and it's the zoning that will become effective should the annexation come to fruition. Then the city council must adopt a resolution of application. So this this is specific um the contents are are specific in LFCO law and it basically authorizes the city to submit an application uh to LAFCO and then the city prepares the application for submittal to LAFCO. So you'll notice here that LA the LAFCO process comes at the very end of the development process. all of the approvals, everything, conditions of approval, mitigation measures, all of that has to be done up front before it comes to LAFCO. And then that begins the LFCO process. So there are six steps in this process. There's the application to LAFCO, the LAFCO review, the commission consideration, reconsideration if approved, a protest process if no if no reconsideration's filed, and then there's uh what the final step is the rec recordation of the certificate of completion which finalizes the annexation. So application to LAFCO once we received an application the we have 30 days to deem it complete. So, we have a specific list of of the contents of a complete application. We have 30 days to review it to make sure we have everything. If we don't, we inform the city or the district, well, the city in this case, of what is needed to make it complete, we notify the applicant and then there's they have 90 days to uh provide that information. If we don't get it within 90 days, we stop the whole process and send the application back. If it is complete, we

issue what's called a certificate of filing and that begins the formal review for for LAFCO. So the LAFCO staff review, what what does this entail? Well, we will consult with all of the affected agencies. An affected agency is any agency whose boundary or sphere of influence um incorporates that area that's going to be annexed or any agency that provides a service or any agency that might be affected. And we and we we we do this very broadly. Uh the commission is required to consider any comments that are provided by these agencies. We will review all of the services that are going to be provided by that city to the new area, including the level of service and the method of service delivery. And this is where those MSRs do come in um in handy because we would have done a whole lot of that if the MSRs are up to date. We'll look at the cost for the services and then the funding for the services. And again, this is all information that is going to be submitted by the city and then we will review it for consistency with LACO laws and the applicable local policies. Okay. Following that, uh we're going to schedule it for consideration by the commission at a public hearing. The commission has three options after we've made the presentation and our recommendation. and the commission can continue the matter to another future meeting. The commission can approve with or without amendment wholly, partially, or conditionally. So, the commission actually has the authority to say, "We're only going to approve part of that annexation that you want or we're actually going to approve a larger annexation than what you want uh or as proposed or um as often the case with conditions. And the other option is that the commission can disapprove. And as I said, there's no appeal for either of

these. Now, should the commission approve it, which is usually the case, it goes into what's called reconsideration. So, this is a 30-day period in which anyone can file a request for the commission to reconsider its approval. Now, the bar is really high. It it involves information that wasn't known or knowable at the time the commission made their decision. Um, but if we do get one and it meets that bar, then the entire process stops and now we have to go to the reconsideration process, uh, review that, schedule that for a public hearing. It's really rare that that happens, but we do have to wait that 30 days. And if there was no reconsideration or following the reconsideration process, we go into what's called the protest process. This is usually 30 up to 60 days depending on the size and number of property owner and and registered voters. It's a period where those registered voters and or property owners within the territory that's going to be annexed may file written protests against the commission's approval. Following that 30 or 60 day period, it'll culminate in a public hearing. who we can accept the protests, the written protests up until that the public hearing is closed and then we start counting if we can. If there's too many to count, we continue and uh schedule us another public hearing. So if there is greater than 50% protest, meaning if more than 50% of the voters or property owners meeting specific criteria submit written protest, then the proposal is terminated. It just ceases. It's over. If there's 25 to 50% protest, then the annexation becomes subject to an election of the of the folks within the affected territory. And if there's fewer than 25% protest, then the annexation is ordered. It can move forward, which then um leads to the recordation of the certificate of completion. Once

all of the process has ended, once all of the conditions of approval have been met, then we prepare a certificate of completion. the EO I sign that and then that gets recorded and upon recordation that area officially becomes part of the city. That was under 15 minutes, right? [laughter] So, I'd be happy to answer questions. Thank you. Does council have any questions? Mayor Prom Litster,

thank you for the presentation. Um, as you know, I was hoping to be on your commission and that's end which and so in that process I learned quite a bit. Um, could you speak to the requirement that if we pursue annexation or of something that we would need to also annex the islands within our city and can you speak to the history of how that came about? Yeah. It's not just specific to Seami Valley. Yeah. Surprise. I anticipated that question. [laughter]

So this is the local policy uh that that we're talking about. Um this policy dates back it's it's on two pages here. It's it's a lot. Um this policy date back dates back I think um almost to 2000. LFCO law was completely overhauled in 2000. And so the law that we operate under now is what I was talking about earlier. And part of that was that the legislature really wanted to see these unincorporated islands which had long been neglected. there were service inefficiencies um and for a whole host of reasons. They really wanted to see these these islands annexed. So, the commission or the legislature adopted a a a process that um if the city applies to LAFCO under this process, it it takes away all of the commission's discretion and the commission must approve it and the uh property owners and the registered voters do not have a say. There's no protest process. So if we get an application under that section, it's as good as done. So the intent was there that the legislature wants to see these islands annexed. So because of that, the commission 20 some odd years ago adopted this policy. And what this policy says is in summary that if a city that has unincorporated islands applies to LAFCO for an annexation of more than 40 acres, LFCO will condition its approval on that 40 acre annexation on the subsequent submitt of an application to annex the the uh the the islands. So that 40 acre annexation cannot get recorded until a complete application to annex the islands has been submitted. And the key uh word there is complete because once it's complete, the city can't withdraw it. LAFCO can't do anything but approve it and voters and property owners will

have no say in the matter. It it'll be a done deal. So that's the the where that came from. It's been applied before my time. I believe Oxnard was subject to it. The city of Santa Paula proactively came to LAFCO and annexed all its islands so it wouldn't be subject to it at a later date. And then the city of Ventura was subject to it about seven or eight years ago. So, and then the only other cities that still have islands are Seami Valley and Camaro. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you, Council Member Rhodess.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I surprisingly had questions about the islands as well. Um, [laughter] and you answered my question um of if you said that you uh LFCO can't start the process. I was wondering if we just did one island and you designate that all must come along that sounds like starting the process on all the others and yet that was like solid explanation of you're screwed. Um so um uh in terms of the things that you can um uh oversee um it hadn't occurred to me but when you were giving your presentation about different um things what if a general law city wanted to stop being a general law city and become a charter city. Is that something that Lefco has authority over the dissolution of a city and a start of a new?

No, we would have no authority over that. Okay. [snorts] Um, how is LFCco funded?

Oh, good question. Um, again, prior to 2000, LAFCO was part of the county. County funded it. In 2000, things changed and the intent of the legislature was to make LAFCOs more independent, less less emboldened or less beholden to anyone entity like the county. So, part of that was funding. So, uh, now how it's made up is the overwhelming majority of the budget, one-third of it comes from the county, onethird of it comes from the cities. It's shared among the cities, and then the other third comes from the independent special districts. And the way it's divided up between the cities and the the independent special districts is by revenue. So, the city with the highest revenue pays a larger proportion of that one-third. And the same with independent special districts. And we get minimal funding from application fees and interest, but overwhelmingly it's it's comes from those three groups, those three governmental groups.

And how often does LFCO meet? We have 10 scheduled meetings a year. We're dark in well, it's soon to be July and December. And uh depending on on workload or or the need for a meeting, we'll usually cancel one or two um throughout the year. Um Oh. end of my questions. Thank you for being Thank you very much for being here and giving us a great presentation on LFCO. We appreciate it. Thank you. [applause]

Madame Mayor and members of the city council, next on the agenda uh is item four, public statements. Since there are no public hearings under agenda item five, agenda items four and six are combined and the city council will hear all public statements under this agenda item four. Agenda items four and six are times allotted for public statements on all items other than public hearings, appointments, andformational reports. Speakers will be called on in the order which car was submitted to speak for this public statements item four for a period of no more than three minutes each. Persons addressing the city council are requested to state their name and community of residence for the record. Madame Mayor, unless you have any comments, we can begin public statements. Okay. I will call three names at a time so you know who you follow. First speakers, Patty Baraga, Pat Lewis, and Lee Sun. Thank you. Um, hello Mayor Kavanaaugh, city council members. My name is Patty Braa and I have the pleasure of serving as the executive director of Ventura County Leadership Academy. BCLA's mission is to connect people and issues to strengthen our county. We do that by bringing together a diverse network of leaders from the business, education, nonprofit, and public sectors. Over our nine-month program, we hear from subject matter experts on the complex issues impacting our community. We build relationships and understanding between the cohorts and throughout our vast alumni network so that we can all work together in all areas, in all industries throughout our county to make our community the best it can be. We are now in our 31st year with over 890 alumni. I wanted to take a moment and share with

you our 23rd annual journey to leadership award honores for 2026. This year's honores include our business leader of the year, Nick Dich, principal architect with RRM design group. Our educational leader of the year is Dr. Cynthia Herrera, vice chancellor of institutional effectiveness with the Ventura County Community College District. Our nonprofit leader of the year is Robin Britt, the executive director of Community Conscience located in Thousand Oaks. Our public sector leader of the year is Mark Stadler. He's the senior program administrator for the crisis intervention training program with the Ventura County Sheriff's Office. And our alumni of the year is Danielle Boura, president and CEO of the Greater Kaneo Valley Chamber of Commerce. This is your formal invitation to attend the lunchon on Thursday, April 30th, beginning at 11:30 a.m. hosted in Camaro. You can learn more by visiting our website or please feel free to reach out to me with any questions. Thank you,

Pat Lewis. Good evening. I am here to talk to you about the CV Valley Public Library Foundation. I hope you've seen this. If not, you're seeing it now. Um, we were tasked about a year ago um to raise funds for the library. I personally think the library is the heart of any city and our city frank our library frankly needed some bypass surgery. Uh so we're that's what we're attempting to do. We had a fundraiser last year where it was a casino night and this year we are doing love and laughs a comedy night at the cultural arts center priced at $60 a ticket. The good news is we've sold about a hundred tickets. We're hoping to sell about 20 more because that would be a full house. Um, it's amazing. When when I moved here in ' 84, the library does not look much different than it than it did then. There's been some improvements, but it's it's in a pretty sad state of affairs. And the the big eyesore to me is the community room. As soon as you walk in and and you see that big community room on the left, it's just this big sort of cavern. So, we have been working on the teen room. We've done some uh some updates there. We've got new carpet. It's amazing what new carpet will do to a room to lift it up. And our next focus is the community room. So, I hope that we will see you all there. We will have uh some desserts and some entertainment, clubs and laughs, and u look forward to seeing you all there. Hopefully, you may come. It's on the 12th, so it's this Thursday. If you haven't got your ticket, you need to get it now. [laughter]

Thank you very much. Thank you, Pat. [applause]

Lisa, good evening everyone. Nice to meet you for Miss Mir and everybody. Uh I'm the my name is Lean. I'm the acupuncture doctors. I live in Semi Valley almost 30 years. I'm good citizen here. I do the business on 2355 Tabo Street number eight before on their five years of almost six years. Another time I sell my business for some person but that person is a liar. They catching my space. Then they didn't pay me money. Then I sue them. They despair. Then still to right now still got my space. They didn't give me back. They not pay me money. So I sue them to the court but she he shoe for and police office send report to them. So the December 28 that the the policeman and M Miller come to my office we're talking about this one he tell me for they want to take me back for permit so I contact for this liar person I say because I will contact to them they despair not contact to me not contact me each other so Even you buy my some something you have to see my stuff right so you pay me money I give you stuff face by face but this guy not contact to me despair so I feeling this guy they don't want to pay pay me money

so I tell the mailer Mr. mailer I say just hold it I don't want to return the permit but this guy this payer not pay me money so I want to wear together come to your face by face we I return my permit then they give me signing that Mr. Miller tell okay I give you two days come to my office then I contact that another guy but this guy not contact to me so later on we to the to the court they mean Mr. the police office give to them report say I'm not return for me that's why he had a right so they got a different person got a plan for the permit December 28 Mr. Miller show me application and the picture it name is Lily Tu. I really really detail remember.

I'm sorry your time is up. The red light means your speaking time is up. But is there somebody he can speak with? Can um actually please Chief Schwarz can you speak with him? Sounds simple. I just want to say that that's fine. Just can you get some more information? Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The next three speakers, Alen Een, James McGillis, and Anthony Een. Hello, my name is Alen Een and I reside in Seami Valley. At the city council meeting on December 15th, there was a discussion about bringing the short-term rentals issue to the neighborhood councils. The city's attorney, the city attorney's interpretation was that a motion would first ask whether STRs were even wanted in the city. And if wanted, neighborhood councils were to review the draft ordinance and either allow or deny it. if allowed, recommend any additional changes. The city manager reiterated the city attorney's clarification, which at least three of the council members were in agreement with. The city manager later recommended a motion that didn't include whether STRs were wanted or not, only to allow or deny the ordinance. Councilman Rhodess immediately declared so moved without the entire motion restated to clarify what the motion was. This past motion did not reflect the city attorney's comments which three council members agreed with. All recommended motions made by the city manager should be restated by the person allowed to make the motion before a second is made and the vote occurs. This would prevent any confusion or misunderstanding as to what the motion actually is. I would like to thank all four neighborhood councils for denying city council's proposed draft ordinance to regulate STRs. It only took the city

council 14 months to bring the issue to them. The vote at the councils was council one nine to deny, one to approve, one to abstain. Public vote 14 to deny, two to approve. Council two, five to deny, two to approve, three to abstain. Public vote, four to deny, zero to approve. Council three, 10 to deny, including a recommendation to ban STRs. Two to approve. Public vote, four to deny, zero to approve. Council four, nine to approve an outright ban of all STRs, zero opposing. Public votes six to approve the ban, two to oppose. City Council, it's time to listen to everyone you represent and create an ordinance to ban short-term rentals. Thank you, Madame Mayor, City Council, and staff. I'm James McGillis, 18-year resident of Semi Valley. On December 15th, 2025, based on a motion by council member roads, semime valley headed headlong toward legalization and regulation of short-term rentals or STRs. That night, city manager Argabbrite made a suggested motion which furthered the idea of legalizing and regulating STRs. As the city manager made her recommendation, her eyes were on the dis and I sitting in the front row with my hearing aids on could hear almost nothing she said. Upon completion of her suggested motion, council member Rhodess declared so moved. There was no further discussion or public reading of the council what the council agreed to. As a result, I had only a hint as to what would go before the neighborhood councils for their review. At neighborhood council one, it was completely unclear what was up for consideration. Was it a code change? Was it a ban on STRs? Either

way, the executive board and public voted to deny. the council neighborhood council number two. The chair allowed only two minutes for public comments from each of the public, demanding a vote on the proposed code change only. Pandemon pandemonium broke out. City staff stepped forward and said that indeed the neighborhood council could also vote to recommend a ban on STRs. Both the board and the public voted to deny code changes. At neighborhood council 3, the motion to deny was deny the code changes and to ban STRs. Both the board and the public voted to deny changes and to ban STRs. At neighborhood council number four, the executive board board voted unanimously to deny the code changes. The public voted likewise. Neighborhood council number four coincides with council member roads district. At January 26 city council meeting, we heard nothing regarding the neighborhood council votes. In opposition to the expressed will of the residents of Seami Valley, in my opinion, council member Rhodess and city manager Argabbrite agreed that further revision to the code changes would be ready for planning commission review within six weeks. Twice now, the city council has asked for a draft revision to the city code, but has not allowed a public review prior to sending it to either the neighborhood councils or the planning commission. In times past, we would call that a backroom deal. Today, we call it regular order. Council member Rhodess has declared his candidacy for the state assembly. Will his legacy be to open Semi Valley to LLC's and corporate ownership of residents throughout Semi Valley now a possible future in Sacramento uh awaiting and he can continue to advocate for the money class or will he stand with the people and vote to ban short-term rentals throughout the city? Thank you.

My name is Anthony Een. I'm a 41 and soon to be 42 year resident of Simeia Valley. I have been called and labeled a detractor by one of you on the city council. I think there are at least 430 people that differ with that and consider me an advocate for a ban of short-term rentals. In fact, maybe that very council member who is attempting to label me and my fellow advocates could just as easily be labeled a detractor of the will of the people. This council person proclaims, "We are proceeding as speedily as we can to do it right." Is it doing it right when someone decides to change camera angles at a city council meeting because someone has decided they don't like the messaging on t-shirts or a sign? And then after those people with the t-shirts and signs leave, return the camera angle back to show how it has always been done in past meetings. Is it doing it right when someone doesn't forward submitted petitions to members of the city council until it is questioned as to why not? Is it doing it right when the city council has never requested staff to draft an ordinance to ban STRs for comparison? Is it doing it right when the city manager recommends a motion which excludes items which were brought up earlier in the meeting by the city attorney which were then reiterated by the same city manager and agreed to by at least three of the city council members. Is it doing it right when then that motion is accepted by a simple comment of so moved and then not restated by the person who is actually allowed to make the motion so that there is no confusion as to what the motion actually is prior to a second. Any discussion and then a vote of the

council. Is it doing it right then for staff to change the draft ordinance and then present it to the neighborhood councils prior to the city council reviewing those changes in a public meeting? Is it doing it right to ignore the decisions of the neighborhood councils whose members were appointed by the city council? Is it doing it right to then have staff change the draft again after the neighborhood councils rejected the ordinance? Is it doing it right to then present that amended draft to the planning commission without the city council reviewing it in a public meeting? Is it doing it right for a council person to complain about the public wanting and expecting transparency in their local government? You need to do better. The public deserves more out of you. Do what is actually the right thing and have staff draw up an ordinance to ban STRs. You were elected to serve your constituents, not your own personal agendas. It's time that you actually listen to all the people you represent and who entrusted you with your time is now up. Thank you.

Thank you. [applause] The next three speakers, Justin Link, Eddie Yamamoto, and Rob Herur.

Good evening, Mayor Kavanagh, members of council. Justin Link, principal engineer traffic and president of the Seami Valley Engineers Association. Uh we are at 791 days without a contract and 9 days away from our mediation meeting with the public employment relations board mediator. Again, we don't need to get that far, but uh it it seems that we are heading in that direction. In anticipation of that meeting, I think it's worth discussing how we compare with our proposal to the city and to the other units. Uh, starting with SEIU, which has a three-year contract, the city staff report shows that the cost is 5,911,766. The management contract is $2,478,933. Again, this comes from city staff reports. The management confidential uh excuse me, uh, agreement is $143,979. The costing that we have determined for our proposal, which includes PERS and all other ancillaries, amounts to $362,000 over the next two years. And again, we are 6 months through what should have been a two-year contract. So, uh, we're we're not looking at a full two years here. That equates based on current employment numbers, uh, for SEIU to $9,167 per employee per year. For management, $9,250 per employee per year and management confidential, $10,280 per employee per year. For SVEA, that amounts to $9,50. So, we are comparable. We are average. What we're asking for again is not monumental. Council member L Road Rhodess, I'd like to respond to one of your comments from the last meeting. Uh, you had asked or mused out loud, how are

we going to pay for this? uh I we have done that work as well. More than 50% of our membership again sitting in the front row this evening are paid for using enterprise funds. So rate payers and the rate studies that are done every 5 years include salaries and include escalation for salaries. So these cost increases have been anticipated and again have not necessarily been paid even though the rate studies have done as much or accounted for as much. So again, not hitting the general fund, coming from rate payers from from the city, fees that are already being paid. Now, building and safety, traffic, and our development services group are all paid for uh in whole or in part by engineering fees. We are currently updating our engineering fee study. Now is the time to incorporate these increases so that these pass or these costs are passed on to developers. And again I reiterate by supporting your engineers you are supporting the city. Thank you. [applause]

Good evening Mayor Kavanagh and council members. I am Eddie Yamoto, vice president of Semi Valley Engineers Association, principal engineer for building and safety and a longtime resident of Semi Valley. Here we are, another two weeks with no progress in our contract negotiations. The city may consider agreeing to a couple of minor non-economic terms as progress, but we are still far from coming together on the most crucial item, the engineer salary and compensation to make us competitive again within the region. [clears throat]

As we enter into mediation with the city, which is scheduled to take place on February 18, we need to keep in mind that one of the priority focus areas identified on the city council goals of fiscal year 2025 to 2026, which shows up on the pillars of excellence posters that are prominently displayed throughout the city, is to quote ensure competitive compensation and succession planning for police department and city staff end quote. That is what we've been striving for all throughout our negotiations. And to get a counter proposal given to us in writing through the unfair practice charge dated January 6, 2026 was just uncalled for. Similar terms of the contract was discussed verbally, but nothing in writing was given to us until it showed up as part of the unfair practice charge. This counter proposal for a three-year contract, which we never discussed. It was always a two-year term. And to have salaries brought up to within 5% of the median salary in the compensation study which included jurisdictions that are well outside our area does not help what our association is trying to achieve which is to make us average and competitive again within our region. I don't think this would align with council's goals as identified in the pillars of excellence either. So please keep this in mind throughout the mediation process. [snorts] Lastly, we may be negotiating for a semi valley engineers association which is 20 members strong, but the concerns and issues we are bringing to the forefront are a shared sentiment with members of other bargaining groups and we greatly appreciate all the support and encouragement that we've been getting from them all throughout the city. Thank you for the time. [applause] Good evening, esteemed mayor and

distinguished members of the city council. My name is Rob her and I serve you and those are water districts service area as an assistant engineer. Your goals are our goals. Our goals are your goals. Ensure competitive compensation and succession planning for police department and city staff. to answer council members comment from two weeks ago when it was stated that the other bargaining units have already signed their contracts. Yes, we could have signed a contract by now. However, the offers presented by the city's negotiating team fall well short of the stated goal of achieving comp competitive compensation. The city council has public stated publicly stated that its objective is to have competitive pay. Yet, the negotiating team has continued to stall and present low offers. A 3% and 3% proposal does not begin to address the nearly 22% pay gap that exists today. If the city council's direction is truly to achieve competitive compensation, then the city council should direct its negotiating team to bring forward meaningful proposals that support that goal rather than allowing the negotiating team to continue to delay progress. While the two other bargaining units have uh signed agreements, those contracts don't totally resolve the underlying problem of uncompetitive pay for all the employees. After signing contracts are in hand, achieving competitive compensation will require a formal classification and compensation study to still be implemented at some point. Um, this is a band-aid that we're asking for for this this two-year contract, but we need a lot more than this and we uh hope that you'll see that. Thank you. [applause]

Next three speakers, Ken Hurst, Kevin Williams, and Ashley. Good evening. My name is Ken Hurst. I live in Semi Valley over off Yusede. [clears throat] First, I need to report that as of today, February 9th, there have been 33 abductions by ICE in Seami Valley. That's up from 22 last time I talked to you. I want to shift gears a little bit. I want to talk a little bit about DEI tonight. DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. I want to share a piece of my story. I am retired from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, a NASA center run by Caltech. We put up the deep space probes. In the late 1990s through the early 2000s, I was a group supervisor at JPL. Most of the technical hiring decisions at JPL are made at this level. One day, several of us supervisors had a conversation about why we didn't have more diversity in the staff. One supervisor remarked that when he advertised the position, all his applicants were white males. We left that conversation thinking that we would have to wait until the pipeline provided a more diverse applicant pool. JPL at the time recruited heavily from a few select schools, meaning they sent recruitment teams to those schools in the spring, sent them flyers, asked professors who the next who the best students were, etc. They certainly would hire from otheru schools. I am an example of that, but they only actively recruited from a few schools. Fast forward a couple decades and JPL decided to send recruitment teams to some historically black colleges and universities, sometimes referred to as H.B.CU. CUS

and they found some excellent candidates who met all the criteria and they hired a few of them. They have worked out very well. That is what DEI is about. Leveling the playing field so more people have an equal opportunity. The white supremacist wing of the Republican party has cleverly tried to falsely recast DEI as about lowering standards. witnessed Charlie Kirk's 2024 statement that quote, "If I see a black pilot, I'm going to be like, boy, I hope he's qualified." And unfortunately, they have in large measure succeeded at recasting DEI in the popular discourse. All this recent anti-Dei sound and fury sounds to me like Nepo cryb babies who can't bear the thought of competing on a level playing field. If we don't want diversity, equity, inclusion, what do we want? Thank you. [applause] Hello, my name is Kevin Williams. Um, I had a few comments about how things are going. I see it. You got a bunch of people that are working without a contract. I don't see how you can appreciate someone like that and still not figure out how to get them a contract. Makes no sense to me. It's pretty easy. Their labor, your management, you have to work something out. Obviously, you don't want to work anything out because they been almost 800 days without a contract. as far as dealing with our city when members of what they talk about ICE taking people out. You plan for something going on here because you have

an armed officer in this room. Where's your plan for having armed federal officers in our city? Also too, it's not a good idea to spray sewer water on your constituency. It's a bad thing to do. It really is a very bad thing to do in that. And as members of the council, you should not approve of any of your members saying that. It's not good to say because you represent all of our citizens, not just the ones you like, but even the ones you don't like. And it's kind of sad because I like living in Seami Valley. I've lived here for more than 30 years. I want to continue to live here. So again, you need to to be a little bit more proactive with some of the things that are there. And just let me remind you, there's a parable where a man goes to his rabbi and says, "Hey, look, rabbi, I have been talking bad about my neighbors. It's gotten back to me. What do I do about it?" Rabbi says, "There is something you could do about it. I want you to take a feather pillow, open that pillow up outside, shake all the feathers out. Then I want you to go and collect all those feathers you shook out and put them back into the pillow. The man says, "Rabbi, that's impossible." There you go. Once it's been said, it's been said. Once it's been done, it's been done. There's very little you can do to apologize or make things better in that. Keep that in mind when you negotiate with people or you say things about people in that. Thank you [applause]

Ashley. Good evening, city council. I want nothing more than to come up here and sing praise for the great strides you've all taken to create a safe and inclusive space for your residents. Some of you have put forth some effort more recently, and for that we are exceptionally grateful. Others [snorts] have done nothing. As an update, a minimum of 840 Ventura County residents have been kidnapped and at least 10 of them were Seami Valley residents taken last month in a 2-week period. Again, that's 10 Seami Valley residents ripped from their loved ones and their lives in a 2-w weekek period. No warrants, no reason other than the color of their skin or the language they were speaking. Those without awareness can do nothing to protect themselves from the terror and cruelty of this administration. And there is no denying ICE is on our streets. And they are often there daily cruising by our schools, our churches, favorite restaurants, our neighborhoods, etc. They are literally snatching people while they're doing their jobs, out for walks, dropping their kids off, or fueling up their cars, which isn't uncommon, but is something we've recently seen an uptick in. I wish I were lying, but these are the hard truths that most of the people you serve don't even know about. How can you protect them if you aren't taking steps to at least raise awareness? Your residents are volunteering to pick up the slack. There are organizations

within Ventura County working tirelessly to help the people. They are door knocking, doing outreach to businesses, working and to sorry, working and building food pantries, clothing and toy drives, delivering diapers, collecting donations, connecting families with missing loved ones, watching over community events and your streets, and so much more. And all within the confines of the law. you want to volunteer or you know someone that needs help, tell them to call 805-8708855 or 8052961119. And if you won't listen to the cries or please of the people, at least listen to your students. The community is so proud. They are standing up and speaking out. They are successfully organizing and walking out. They're an inspiration, our future, and they are demanding change. Please listen to them. Please push harder to protect our friends, loved ones, and neighbors. Thank you. [applause] And the last speaker, Jamie Sanchez. Oh, okay. Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that we are gathered on land historically stewarded by the Chumash people. I share this not as a as a formality, but as a reminder that care for community, protection of the young, and collective responsibility have always mattered here. I keep this brief because respect is not a statement, it's a practice. Good evening, council members. My name is Jamie Sanchez and I am here tonight in recognition of teen dating rel relationship violence awareness month. Not just as an advocate, but as a mother. One in three

teens will experience an unhealthy or toxic relationship before reaching adulthood. My son might hate me for saying this publicly, but I am the mother of an 18-year-old who had witnessed domestic violence for much of his childhood. Because of that, our family has faced many learning curves. Being a survivor and parenting one is not easy. We've had to unlearn destructive behaviors, confront painful truths, and intentionally break patterns that were never healthy to begin with. That work is never easy and but it's necessary. Healing from trauma is a lifelong process. I am not a perfect parent and I've made my share of mistakes. But growth teaches us what truly matters for me. My children have always been that motivation. I am proud of my son and the young man he is becoming. someone who has made a conscious decision not to continue the cycle of violence. His growth didn't come from silence. It came from accountability, support, and honest conversations. He may be 18, but he knows I'll always be his mother and sometimes even a mother figure to his friends. Through the good times and the hard times, I keep it real and I stay honest with the youth I encounter. I'm not ashamed of where I've come from. Our stories are how connections happen. Guidance begins and cycles get broken. and I always be there for those who have shared their stories with me. Support is a consistent thing. That is why this work matters deeply to me. Too many young people are navigating manipulation, control, emotional abuse, coercion, and fear, all while being expected to show up at school and pretend everything is fine. These situations don't always leave visible bruises, but they leave lasting scars, shaping how teens see themselves, relationships, and conflict. For some students, the silence runs even deeper. Also, young well, when I spoke with a school representative, I was told that students are expected to report anything anonymous anonymously. While anonymity may be intended to protect them, we ask

we have to ask an honest question. How does that help young people feel supported enough to actually speak out? So tonight, I'm asking this council to take one concrete step and direct staff to publicly review and report back on how teen dating violence is currently handled in our schools, including reporting processes, followup protection for LGBTQ students, and gaps where students fall through the cracks with youth input included. I taught my kids that silence only breaks only break when someone is brave enough to face them. Our youth are being brave. Sorry, Miss Sanchez, your time is up. Thank you, [applause]

Madame Mayor, members of the city council. Next on the agenda is item 4A, city council comments regarding public statements.

Council member Rhodess.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um Patty and the leadership academy, thank you for all the uh great work that you see here. Um um the I am not an alumni of the leadership academy, but I know many and it is a great service and um I'll do my best to make it to the April 30th lunch. Um Pat Lewis and the library foundation love and laughs. Um I am not going to be able to make it to the event, but I really really want to. And please get some of those 20 tickets that are left. Um it's going to be a great thing and supporting our library. Um, uh, Jamie, where's Jamie? Hi, Jamie. Um, uh, we share a story and you sharing that, um, is huge. And um uh we're a f I'm a family with a daughter and a son and um and we've had to learn lessons uh the hard way and teach um teach the right way as well. So thank you for sharing that. It's an important topic. The schools, however, are not under the purview of the city. Um and so I'm I'm I'm going to talk with staff to see if there's a way we can coordinate an answer to that question. Um, but it's not under our direct purview, but we'll see. Thank you for bringing it forward. Those are my comments.

Any other comments by council? Council member Ayella. Yeah, just the three things. The love and laugh is very important because it does go to support one of our buildings that doesn't have a lot of financial support in it. And so, um, I did put that in my newsletter, my February newsletter. So, hopefully people get that those done. To the city manager, quick question. Um, just in terms of timing for the STR, do you have any update on that? Just so everybody knows,

it is scheduled to go to planning commission in March and then it would come back to city council following that. Okay. How much do we know the difference between planning commission and us? Is it a two-month, one month? I would say stratus after planning commission to city council probably about a month because we have a noticing period that we have to hit. No. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, probably May then for us.

And then for Miss Sanchez, thank you for bringing this up. And I uh just wanted to in anticipation of knowing about this or that it might come up today. Um and you may already know, but for the public to know, there's a great website loveisrespect.org. Right. Loveises.org. and it is specifically targeting teen dating violence, but also an educational site that has personal safety, talks about what a healthy relationship is, how you support your friends who might be in this situation specifically during your teen years. And so as we not celebrate the month, but as we recognize that this is that month um that we should be aware of teen teen dating violence, a resource for everyone is love is respect.org which can uh which has content that is specific to this group of individuals. So thank you for bringing bringing that to our attention. Um I think all of us up here have I think all of us do have kids um either who have been that age. My daughter is only 11. So that's something I get to worry about in the near future. So having resources like this, having people like you as advocates is very important to us. Thank you. Any other comments? All right. [clears throat] I do have my ticket Pat for Love and Life. And you know what though? I made the mistake. I chose a front row seat. I think I'm going to get heckled. Right. If you're in the front row, don't you usually get I wasn't thinking. I just said, "Well, I want a good view, but [clears throat] so I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to that." So, it should be fun. Um, thank you for the eins and migillas for for coming here. Um, we'll continue to work on things in that area. Um, engineers, we've got to get something done. So, we'll we'll see what we can do. The

council understands that and um we're working on it. So, thank you. And uh Ken, thank you for being here, too. And um as well as uh Ashley and then Miss Sanchez, you always have a good speech. I really enjoy when you speak up here. You you bring thought processes to mind whenever you do. No, that's a good thing. It's a good thing. So, I really respect you. Yeah, I really respect you when you come here. So, thank you. Thank you um for everyone else for being here for public speaking tonight. We can move on now. Madame Mayor and members of the city council, next on the agenda is item seven, the consent calendar. And there are no resolutions for your consideration this evening.

Madame Mayor, if you'd like, I'd make a motion to move consent. Oh, have a second. Then we'll discuss. Will someone second? Second. Okay. Thank you. And then now council or Mayor Pro Tim Litzer. I'm sorry I wasn't fast enough. I just had a quick question on item two. I guess I need to pull it just for that quick question, but um or do you want to just answer the question then vote? It's not going to change the vote. I just Sure. Do you a quick question?

Okay. Just a quick question is um this this has to do with manhole um servicing. There's um 26 manholes that are to be refurbished, which is wonderful. The report did not indicate whether that included the replacing the manhole covers which I know has been a discussion in previous. So that my question is does this bid mean that manhole covers are yes all brand new replaced? They'll be replaced. Yes. Okay. I just wanted to be sure Mr. Fuiwaki is in the back going uhhuh. Where is he? Okay. Back there. Okay. So we get new on those 26 we get new memo. Okay. Perfect. That was it.

Thank you. Council member Rhodess. Yeah, on that topic of manhole, since you pulled the item, um I did ask a question. Um on First Street, there was a manhole cover that uh had an odor coming from it. And I asked if this work would deal with that. And I got a a excellent satisfactory answer back which is um it doesn't change the fact that there's smell underneath but by covering it then sealing it and putting a carbon filter underneath it which would be uh in addition to this work that it's going to work on that. So if you were uh if you're out there listening and that was one of your issues um it's being addressed.

Thank you. We have a first and a second. Call for the vote please. Council member Rhodess. Thank you. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you,

Madame Mayor and members of the city council. Next item on the agenda is item 9A, adoption of a resolution of the Semi Valley Semi Valley Library Board of Trustees revising the city of Semi Valley administrative policies and procedures for the Semi Valley Public Library and adoption of an additional policy related to the governance of the Semi Valley Public Library. Deputy Community Services Director Anna Medina is here to present this item. Good evening, Mayor Kavanaaugh and members of the city council. On June 3rd, 2013, the Seami Valley Library Board of Trustees adopted administrative policies establishing a policy for library circulation and material selection. Since that time, library staff have identified the need to revise or update portions of these policies to reflect current practices and to continue providing highquality service to patrons. The proposed revisions are largely minor and include class clarifications related to auto renewals, handling of damaged materials due to natural disasters, waving charges for returned lost items in good condition, and updated language within the collection development policy to ensure compliance with California state law AB1825. In addition, staff is recommending adopting adoption of a new privacy policy to ensure compliance with Federal Communications Commission regulations related to SMS and test text messaging services, including the library's use of message B for patron notifications and newsletters. The proposed privacy policy establishes clear standards for the collection, use, protection, and

retention of patron personal information, strengthens transparency, safeguards patron privacy, and aligns library practices with regulatory requirements and industry best practices. Staff recommends adopting resolution number PL-38, revising the administrative policies and procedures for the Seami Valley Public Library and adopting the proposed privacy policy. This concludes the report and Stephanie Rona, library director, and I are available to answer questions at this time. Madame Mayor, um I'll need to read the resolution. Yes, please.

Thank you. Um, resolution number PL-38, a resolution of the Semi Valley Library Board of Trustees adopting revisions to the administrative policies and procedures for the city of Semi Valley pertaining to the library to the Vimei Valley Library. Thank you. Mayor Pro Tim Litzer, do you have questions? I do. That's all right. Mhm.

Um, first of all, I want to commend the library for making the editorial section all about how fabulous and important our library is. And then as you go to page um 15, it lists all the wonderful activities the library. So, I just thought I just wanted to send kudos out to our library for all they're doing. And since I thought how timely that that would be in this week's acorn, I don't know if you scheduled that, planned that, but I well done. Um I also think um the new newer policies of automatically renewing materials in most cases up to three times very positive. Um one who has paid a lot of fines finds that very very refreshing and I I love that policy. Um and the removal of fines for Okay. Um and I I think it's very fair it's it's only fair that a charge is assessed when items are lost or not returned. Um, and anyway, so I guess my question ultimately comes from all of that, and this is in the procedure section five. It states that if fines total over $50 and are not paid within a certain amount of days, the account will be turned over to a collection agency. And I had no idea that the library works with a collections agency, but that would I I understand it would be might be necessary. Just curious what our history of doing this has been. um do we have a lot of scoffers who are taking advantage of the library and disappearing with with um materials and anyway I just a curiosity is it what are our losses do we know [laughter] um so I don't have a number for you right off the top um but I do know that um we do have it automated through Polaris our ILS system and that it so it automatically sends out to patrons when they owe an item and we usually have like a really big influx of books coming

in at that time. Um, and people do come in to pay. Um, but I can double check and get back to you. It was a cur. [laughter] You don't have to give me those figures and I didn't give you a heads up. It's okay. It's my fault. It's it's just a curiosity. I do wonder though, it talks about the inland library network is listed as the member network providing materials that are not locally available. Um what are the other libraries that actually comprise this network? Are they is it regional to Ventura County? Is it statewide? What is that group?

So it um is made up of all of the libraries part of LSNS. So More Park, all of the different branches under Riverside, Palmdale. So it's it's very spread out. Um, and this is just since we could talk about the library and there's not lots, this is fun to ask the mechanics. Um, how frequently do we receive and send out requests? And I guess if once we someone makes a request of us and we send the material out, do we get it back or does it just become the property of the next of the other place?

Yeah. So, we actually have a really active transit system. So up to three times a week we're getting transits from all of the different libraries. So um when we do a request from another library we tell people um to give it about a week but oftentimes it's just a few days um and the items are just constantly going back and forth.

Wonderful. Wonderful. So in this um policy I learned a new term in local parents. It's not one that I've been using before. I don't um but I'm going to try to implement it into my vocabulary but it means in the place of a parent and so it's clear that the library does not act as parents. parents need to still be parents and but they anyway but [snorts] this leads into my actual my final question and this has to do the new element basically we've got the policy but the new element is the privacy element that we're adding to this um and um page 18 it talks about um basically um if we want to go to that in the report it talks about what h happens if a parent wants to find just basically be aware of what their child is checking out, etc. And we discussed this a little bit, but I'd like to maybe have it fleshed out more. Um, if I understand that privacy records, if a parent who has to sign for for a minor, basically they they're on the library, correct? The library um card to begin with, they're listed, etc. as the responsible party for the minor. Yes. Um, and if they want came to the library and wanted to ask, what has my son or daughter been checking out? um they need to present identification which is appropriate so they we know that they're legitimate but it also states that they have to then pro provide the li their child's library card and so I'm I guess I'm trying to understand why that is necessary. I I think we since it's clear that the parents are to be parents and that the library is not going to be the parents um why we wouldn't maybe make sure that if if they show ID that that's enough to to give them that information. Is there a way that we can maybe discuss whether we should strike that or is that something that's you feel is strongly necessary?

Um Samantha, did you want to

So there's a couple things um here. So actually when the city adopted the library policy, specifically the registration policy, um state law was and still remains that library staff must maintain the confidentiality of terms checked out, including those to students from their parents. So um this actually kind of expands access for parents. Um additionally though um AB1825 which uh Miss Rona addressed uh the California Freedom to Read Act states that um that the governing board or body of a public library. So this board and body here um shall not prescribe or prohibit the circulation or procurement or access to any library materials in a public library.

So which is not what you're proposing. No. And I 100 believe% believe in freedom of of a a vast collection of and and I'm not questioning material. I'm just questioning parents. I'm just wondering I I want parents to to be basically if you go to the section I'm reading calls privacy and minors. This is page 18. It says, "A parent or legal guardian who presents valid identification and is identified on the minor's account may access a minor's borrowing records only if they provide the minor's library card or account credentials." And so I'm just under I'm just trying to understand why they have to also show the library card why the ID is not adequate

to show that they actually have access to that child. So the there's one thing I would this would be my take on this. So, it's one thing to be able to show ID as you're the parent, but if you don't necessarily have access to the child on a regular basis, you may not necessarily have access to their library card. Does that make sense? So, they set up but they establish the account with them. They're listed on the account to begin with. Correct. I mean, that that that they have to be could be the other, right? Or it could be that that parent is no longer actively involved in that child's life. There could be legal issues. So to show it's to show that that parent should still have access to that child's information

so that we're not releasing something and kind of creating an issue. I'm hearing you but I I Okay. I also, if I may, am not not convinced um of that that stance because if the parent is there to sign up for the library card in the beginning, the parent is on the file. It's and if we're not being the parent of the child, then it's the parents responsibility to change who has access on the library card. So, if I come with my ID and I want to know what my daughter has been checking out and I'm listed on her account because we set it up, I would like to that should be enough to have access and not have to present the credentials of my daughter's library card.

So, I have a question. So, um, in terms of being able to access account information, can you look it up by someone by like a parents information or do you need to scan the library card in order to get access to the account? Yeah, that's a good question, especially because a while ago, um, we used to collect, um, the driver's license information. We no longer collect that. So that would make it a lot more difficult to look them up without a library card number because we no longer store driver's license in our system. Yeah. So like for a minor it would make it essentially I don't want to say easier but really that facilitates the ability to look up the information.

H interesting. Okay. So what ID would they have to pro? So you don't collect their ID to start with but they have to provide it to show who they are. Yeah, it proves that they are um like their proof of address. Got Yeah. Okay. Okay. Council member Rhodess, did you want to add to anything?

Um yeah, I had questions on the exact same spot, so thank you for bringing it up. Uh, Councilman, the um um I also happened to highlight the Latin in there um when I was looking at it because I also did not know um what that term meant. I came up with my my own uh Latin uh compuentum with the parents permission. Um, and I want to I want to we had this discussion prior to this meeting and so I already know where this is going to end up, but um I was surprised that of all the things that have come before council, this is the one that uh the constituents have actually come to me on and said we have a concern. And so um I'll tell you what the concern is and um and I think it's a valid concern. There are subject matter out there and we would all agree that we won't don't want pornography in the hands of our children. There are subject matters out there that many parents would like to be involved in the um presentation of that material to their kids. And uh the question to me was since since the library won't act as the parent meaning explaining or trying to go through the subject matter we should have absolutely have all that material in our library system I believe in the freedom of being able to get it but why isn't there um certain topics or certain uh material that is in a restricted area that cannot be accessed by um certain age groups like a rating on a movie or something else. So that the parent would need to be brought into the conversation to check that material out.

So that goes back to AB1825, the California Freedom to Read Act, um which I alluded to earlier that um we can't prohibit circulation or procurement or access to library materials in a public library. Um, additionally, a person's right to use public library and resources shall not be denied or bridged solely because of personal characteristics such as age. Um, and all people regardless of personal characteristics, age, background, views, etc. possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in materials they borrow from the libraries. Now, there's uh many other sections with this code, but those are the highlights of this. And I'm happy to share this with the entire council if you'd like.

And I appreciated that that answer when I got it. I was a little bit actually disappointed in the answer when I got it. Um but um I get that it's outside of our purview to be able to create that restricted um section. And that's when I went on the can the parents at least see what their children are checking out and if we're making it um we're giving them access now with the the new privacy but um I think putting that that barrier of the extra piece of uh identification or the that being specifically the library card um could could cause challenges for parents to understand what their their children are looking at. Um,

I want to comment on that because it did say the card or their sign on information and if you have a child that young, you should have that sign on information anyway as the parent. So, I would think that would be helpful. That sign on would be the credentials because I didn't understand their credentials other than the card their credentials. And actually it just dawns on me is that when you at least when I received library cards for children they would get a like a credit card and even a like twofur like also a key tag is that still done where they so basically if my child has their card I have I could have the key tag for instance. So in essence I do have their card. Okay.

If I'm an active so I it just dawned on me. So I I also wanted to share that we don't track um what people are reading unless they opt in. So you're automatically not tracking reading. So I did want to clarify that as well. We try to keep as little information as we can. [laughter] So what you're saying if I walked in to ask you you maybe couldn't tell me what their borrowing history had been. Is that unless you opted into that? Yeah.

So parents, if you're listening, opt in [laughter] for that. Um, I also I I I question the uh validity that if you're making the parents responsible for the materials, the damage to the materials or whatever, they should know what those materials are. Or they can say, "Nope, my kid never checked that out. Sorry, you don't have any evidence of it, so uh it wasn't me." And then we're stuck with the uh with the bill.

Any further discussion on this item? I am open for a motion. Madame Mayor, I'll motion I'll move that Semi Valley Library Board of Trustees adopt resolution number PL-38 revising the city of Semi Valley's administrative policies and procedures for the Semi Valley Public Library and adopt the proposed privacy policy. Second. Thank you. Call for the vote. The motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Madame Mayor and members of the city council. Next on the agenda is item 10A, city council member reports.

All right, council member Ayella, you are up first.

Thank you. On uh the 28th of January, I participated in the point in time homeless count. That was my first time doing it. I got back to the office, city manager said, "How was it?" And I said, "It wasn't fun." Right. I'm glad I did it. Um, it was educational for me. It was sad and it uh when you have an opportunity to actually talk to them, it kind of really changes your perspective a bit. So, I'm glad that I did it. I'll do it again next year. Um, and that was a good experience for me to have. On the 30th, I attended the film Semi Valley uh subcommittee and some good information came out of that. The best thing I think is that the Reagan Library has now been approved as a filming location. They have been trying for years to get filming up there. They've had a lot of requests to film up film up there, but the board of directors and so forth up to this point have been cautious about doing it and they now approved it. So that is another filming location that we have here in the city. Also that day I attended the Arener family dental 30th anniversary. It was surprising how many people including in in our audience actually are patients there. Yeah, we have a lot of people there. So, it's great. Uh February 2nd, I attended the funeral service for uh John Tolson's wife Stephanie. Um so, we still think of John and keep his family in our thoughts. Also, that day I attended the 4th of July subcommittee meeting, our 250th um birthday for America. And um I told you I would keep you updated. One thing we did um come up with and solidify is it's going to be a two-day event on the 3rd and the 4th. And so keep those dates

there. We're going to have more details as to what's going to come out, but we are looking at a lot of events for both days. And also uh cme250.com sim250.com is our logo contest and you will you can win $250 if your logo gets picked. So you I think you have until the end of the month to do that. On February 3rd I attended the youth council meeting. They are preparing for the youth impact forum planning which you all got. We all got invitations for that today. We had it up at the Reagan Library because they were showing us where the different subgroup groups were going to meet throughout the day. So, it was great to actually we kind of had the the whole library to ourselves, which was kind of neat to to do. On February 4th, I met with Commander Freddy's. He told us about the the update on the homeless encampment. Got some good information there. Also that evening, I had the great privilege of being invited to be the speaker at the Santa Susanna High School um National Honor Society Leadership Symposium. They asked me to speak there on um their topic was inspire and so I did a a presentation which I entitled leadership is a verb and it was great to be with them and to be able to have that opportunity. On the 5th, I attended the RDP meeting, regional defense partnership. And the great thing that came out of that is the breaking down of some red tape. There is the military base, as you know, has um in case of wildfires, they they do the retardant. They don't actually fight the fires. They do the retardant. Up until to th this point, it would take two to three days for the them to get permission after the incident commander asked for support and they would be

sitting there with airplanes ready to go and they couldn't do anything. They've now have streamlined that process where they can do it same day. And so they uh wanted everyone to know that if the incident commander on the ground requests that service that they are able to now go up and fly and and start doing that right away. I also on the same day uh attended the Hispanic Business Alliance and then that evening attended the Samaritan Center volunteer appreciation dinner which um was very well attended. It was great. The best part, and I want to publicly thank all of the uh sponsors for the evening who did all of the food and everything was just donated by I think maybe four or five different restaurants that night. So, thank you to all of you. I'm not going to I I I'll forget who they all are, but um I just want to give a blanket thank you for that. And today, I attended the Council on Aging uh meeting um at the senior center. And that's my report. Thank you, Council Member Rhodess.

Thank you, Madame Mayor. On Tuesday, January 27th, um I was uh invited to speak to the Thousand Oaks City Council to give the Skagg uh Regional Council District 46 update to them, and they were all dutifully impressed and asked no questions. Um on Wednesday, the most of them woke up. Um on Wednesday the 28th, um I also participated in the point in time count. Um uh this was not my first time doing it and um my reaction this time was not of sadness. was actually um impressed and I was impressed because um I participated with one of our re neighborhood resource officers, the resource officers that work with that population and um we went deep into canyons and under bridges and they were all known by name, their backstory, what their dogs names were, where they lived before, maybe where they're going next. And that's a credit to how much we actually know and understand uh the population. That way you can offer the services and they can still refuse the services but we know what services to offer. So I was completely impressed uh by our PD and and how we work with that population. So congratulations to them. Um, I had to, um, skip a meeting the afternoon because I was getting a presentation, uh, up at Hummingbird Nest Ranch on a green energy project. And, um, I will be, uh, I've been passing that information along to the Clean Power Alliance uh, to see if there's anything there. Um

on Monday uh February 22nd um I also attended the celebration of life um for the Tlson's and um beautiful touching ceremony. I learned more about her in that couple of hours than I knew um from all the time. Um uh that afternoon uh officer Freddy's g I got my uh homeless encampment update and um I I learned why the place was called dice and u there's a backstory on that if you're all interested ask me after um the February the 23rd um I did have a short briefing meeting for the community economic and human development uh committee which I'm vice chair and um more on that for the fifth. On Wednesday, February 4th, travel downtown for the SKAG uh executive administration committee and uh we had our meeting. Then on f Thursday, February 5th, we had the SKAG CED meeting, the regional council meeting. Um at the CD meeting, we had presentation items u that I've already had um some possible actionable stuff come back for the city. Um, there was a presentation on brownfields, areas within the city that may or may not have some contamination that makes them hard to develop, and there's some interesting uh ways to to look at funding for how to to clean up those areas and get them. And then there was another presentation on community development and using different funding strategies. And uh if you ever want your head to spin on the different ways that government can make money work, uh one of these presentations will do it. Um and and I was actually encouraged because I thought of some different ways we could

use those funding devices here in the city. Um that afternoon I had um uh a meeting at the Clean Power Alliance. Um since the CEO was out of town, it was a very very brief uh meeting moreformational on what their marketing is. I just want to point out that in Seami Valley, you're still paying less than Edison and all the other cities are paying more. Um, and then uh then I rushed from that meeting to get back to the Samaritan Center um so that we could uh help celebrate their donors and volunteers. And to all the donors and volunteers, thank you. You make the uh Samaritan Center work for us. On Friday, February 6th, I had an outstanding opportunity to represent the city at Ronald Reagan's 115th birthday celebration. And up at the library, you think, well, that's, you know, are we just He's 115. He's not It was pomp and circumstance. It was fantastic. There was flyover. There were um uh the um Marine Band was there, laying of the wreath, the 21 gun salute. Um and speaker Kevin McCarthy was the uh keynote and um it was it was a great showcase for Seami Valley because it couldn't have been a more beautiful day with the backdrop being um uh out there towards Moore Park in the ocean. Um and then on Sunday, February 8th, go Seahawks. That was a happy day.

I had a feeling you enjoyed that. Yeah, I did. Council member Judge.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Uh, since our last council meeting, there's not too much on my agenda because I was severely under the weather starting on Tuesday after our council meeting. I did go out on Saturday and Sunday, which I shouldn't have because people I was out with said now they're sick. So, Monday, I'm sorry I missed the uh celebration of life for the Tulsson's because I wasn't going to get anybody else sick. Wednesday, February 4th, I did get back into the world and I attended the EAC meeting for Skagg downtown Los Angeles. on Thursday, February 5th, I attended the Skagg Regional Council and Transportation Committees. Uh during those meetings, we had a very good um presentation by the CEO of Metroink explaining some of the new stuff going on with Metroink and they're moving right along getting stuff ready for the Olympics. Also, I'm happy to announce that now we have morning service to San Santa Barbara. It's back after the uh co hiatus. Uh but it does start out of the Moore Park train station, but there are three different trains that run to Santa Barbara from Moore Park each morning. On uh February 6, I attended the VCTC, the Ventura County Transportation Committee meeting in Camaro. And again, um we basically spoke about the uh um the budgeting of of the VCTC and some stuff going forward. We are, I'm happy to report that the Sespie Creek Bridge, which really doesn't affect us too much unless you drive that route, it it's getting fixed. Finally, we set up the barriers to protect it from more rain and weather. So, now the bridge construction can actually start in earnest. Um, I hope everybody's team that they wanted to win one. I really didn't care. And today, I attended the uh council on aging. That's the end of my report.

Thank you, Council Member Judge, Mayor Pro Tim Litzer. Thank you. Um I will let's start with January 28th where I too attended the homeless point in time count. Um it was delight to be with officer Holy and and and learn of his tremendous knowledge. It's the second time that I worked was able to do the count with him. I will say that it is clear as council member Jud excuse me Rhodess commented the knowledge of our unhoused population by our and our our officers is just outstanding. um they truly care. They truly know. It was interesting to see um last year we conducted the count in that area that's called the dice and it was interesting to drive that area a year later just after it's been now cleaned out and just see the difference. But then to to go up the canyons and speak with some of the displaced people who had moved up there and and it is true as as council member Ayella commented each has it it it it's um it's a important thing to do just so we get to know the stories and under and understand better the circumstances and it was very clear that of the many that I spoke with all of them have been unhoused or homeless for a minimum of a year most of them for many years I will share um had interesting in conversation with a a lovely woman who I dis discovered was my age and has been homeless for multiple years. I don't know the full extent of it. Um but what the the very gratifying thing that took place in that conversation was really engaging conversation, but Officer Holy offered her services again saying, "Is there a chance you'd like to um go into housing somewhere or or get services?" and she said, "You know, I think I'm ready." And I will say that I followed up because I wanted I just this woman was just very engaging and I followed up and I appreciated when I

spoke the following week with Commander Freddy's when he gave us the homeless encampment update on the 4th that sure enough this woman was assisted um but rather than being placed in a system where they etc. she actually is right now um living in a in a a care environment where she's helping to care for someone. So it might be even a permanent housing situation. So we'll see where that goes. But what a what an experience to anyway to be part of that homeless count and to connect with with our some of of our all of our population. So that was on January the 28th. Also on that day, I attended um the Santa Susanna Field Lab cleanup presentation by the Department of Energy that was held and their update. It was interesting. It's held their headquarters are in up on First Street. They've got a their offices there. But anyway, they explained that they have cleared all of the buildings now that are part of the uh Department of Energy site. And what they're now concentrating on is the basement, which is 30 ft down, and just the logistics of how you implode concrete that's deep and and do it in safe manner without dust causing more problems. Anyway, so that's that is their next task that they're working on. on Friday um January 30th. It was um it was very interesting to step in for Mayor um Kavanaaugh and attend the film Semi Valley meeting and which was it was very informative. I can see why that's a good meeting to be attending. One of the things that I took away in addition to the Reagan announcement, there was a woman there who was actually connected with Santa Clarita and she was there basically to articulate what Semi Valley what she saw happening here that and how we could capitalize and basically saw us becoming what they Santa Clarity has and and just the changes there. And so she was there in kind of an advising capacity. It was it was very fascinating. um weekend I was up in Idaho um with my parents and flew back, [snorts] traveled through the night and flew back um to

attend uh Stephanie Tolson's celebration of life and it really was a lovely gathering. It was it was an honor to be a little part of that. Um and our hearts go out to John. on Wednesday, February 4th, as mentioned, I met with Commander Freddy's and gave us an update on on the on the situation in terms of cleaning out that that dice area and also we talked about funding ongoing to help in other areas that might need cleanup. Um, we also met I also with the mayor met at the Samaritan Center was kind of the the house homeless week for me two weeks met at the Samaritan Center where met with the housing committee for a report and discussion about their desires for their property and what they'd like to do and and that was very informative. The other thing that I did on that day is I met with the owner of Pickle and Play and toured that facility. I can't tell you how excited I am to have that coming. But he had some he had some just some questions and concerns about some of the permitting that was processed. And I just want to commend when I followed up with our with our um building safety. I just want to commend Eddie who was here in our engineering and Ted Drago who and Luis who all met with me the next day. Thank you for dropping things so I could have a conversation with them. And that even after that, Ted hopped on an immediate um Zoom call with the owners and the architects right afterwards. So, I just want to say thank you to the to the city for for um being proactive when there is when they when there's a need and so much appreciated. So, that was my February 4th. On Thursday, February the 5th, I also attended SKAG's energy and environment subcommittee. Um the it was all mostlyformational. One of the most more interesting reports though was LA uh Department of Water and Power talked about their storm water capture program. I know we as um purveyors of of section of of

district eight district eight, aren't we? District eight.

Okay. We we I just want to make sure we have our correct water district here. Um some of the things that DW LWP talked about was even how they are capturing storm water in their um within the the in what do you call the area in the side the the middle of the highways the areas anyway ways to actually captions thank you median and and some of the sidewalks they have things imp that will actually count capture water and put it into their systems maybe something over time we could just reach out and see what they're doing so we can do more with our own storm water capture. Um, also on that evening I attended the Samaritan Center Volunteer Appreciation Dinner and my takeaway and both of these gentlemen spoke, but my takeaway was that it is a room filled with residents who care and desire to make a difference and and I even even to the volunteers. I want to say I just a shout out to the young women who are actually of the LDS church who actually were there volunteered from who were there serving the food and they for hours just stood there serving the food and then clearing the dishes and it anyway it takes a a village and it was very represented. Um that was on Thursday February the 5th and actually it's u no one's talked about the halftime show that was fun to watch. Um, but anyway, at the Super Bowl, it was it was um it was I hope the right right team won, but it was also fun to catch a few minutes of that last night. But that's about all I have in my report. So, thank you. And again, it goes back to much is being done in the community to help those who are less fortunate. So, appreciate those efforts.

All right. Thank you, Mayor Pro Tim Litz, sir. On Thursday, January 29th, I attended the Semi Valley Chamber Tourism Meeting, um, which we meet regularly. And it was very interesting because I know what the next exhibit at the Reagan Library is going to be, and I'm very excited, but I'm not going to say it out loud because I don't know if it's a secret yet, but but I'm very happy about the next upcoming exhibit. Um, I don't, Trisha's told us, but I don't know how much they want to publicize it quite yet. On Saturday, January 31st, I attended an event with Supervisor Parvin. um a preg Grammy party uh in Box Canyon area. Uh Council Member Judge was there for part of the time, too. It was eclectic. It was it was it was very fun to be there. It was fun to see some of the musicians. Um Supervisor Parvin even participated in the drum drum call or whatever. Uh it was a good time. Met a lot of nice people and um visited an area of Box Canon I had never been in. So that was very nice. It was nice of her to invite us. On Monday, February 2nd, my first meeting was with Ken Hurst and a community group uh to assist with our our community members here in Semi Valley. So, we'll be continuing to get together with that. Um then I after that I attended the celebration of life for Stephanie Tullson. It was beautiful. I love how they arranged it, how they spoke. First they had a couple of speakers talked about her when she was younger, then her kids spoke, and then they had a couple of people speak of her as an adult. It was really, really nice. And one of the best things also was Mayor Prom Litzer provided harp music, piano, and organ. It was very beautiful. You did a wonderful job. So, thank you. I had to leave. I wasn't able to stay for lunch and I had a work uh commitment. On Tuesday, February 3rd, I met with Oh, Cresview Elementary School on a Zoom call to go over their school safety plan. That was very interesting. All the elementaryaries are contacting me for that. So, um I'm like, "Okay, I'm

open for a Zoom call. Let's Let's go for it. February 4th on Wednesday. Um Oh, I was able to the county board of education is in in encouraging civic engagement of our young people. So, they had a countywide group going from um I think they started in the county uh office of education. We sent our own bus. We sent a a bus from SEMI, one of our newer transit models. And they communicated. They went around the community, the county and visited different areas and one of the stops was Thousand Oaks City Hall and they invited me to be there also. So, the mayor of Thousand Oaks and myself and then a Thousand Oaks council member spoke with them. That was a lot of fun. Thank you, Ryan. That was a great job. Um, that same day at that evening, I also met with Mayor Promlet serve with the Samaritan Center so they could share their uh future thoughts and wishes with us. On Thursday, February 5th, I had my normal touch base with our city manager and then we met with Supervisor Parvin about a project that we're hoping to get accomplished. Fingers crossed. Won't tell you later when we get a good answer. Um, and then that afternoon I met with Nolles Elementary School for their site council. They're one of the smallest schools in the city. They have 224 students. Yes. But and the principal was Mrs. Spates. What a nice lady. She said she's been there three years and you could tell they all know each other and I said when my daughter went to elementary school it was very small too. It's nice because the families all get to know each other and the kids do and they interact and such. So um it was really a very nice conversation with her and her team her sight school site team. On Friday, February 6th I spoke to the semi valley leadership class first thing in the morning. Thank you Angel. And who else was standing there? There were two city Yes, Ryan and Angel. And I thought there was somebody else, too. But it was a great event. We have a great leadership

class going through. We have I know I saw four or five people that I know. So, that was always encouraging. One of them is council member Ayala. So, thank you for going through that class. Um you it's fun. You learn a lot. I really enjoyed that. And then that evening they had their leadership leadership social which I was able to go by also. Um and then today I met with along with Mayor Prom Litzer, we met with Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District to discuss their motocross um plans for the future. They wanted to share their thought their uh designs and input and see if if the council had any concerns or questions. I think they've got a great thing going. So hopefully that will come to fruition sooner rather than later. Okay, those are my comments. Um, item 10B. Does anyone have any items for future agenda? Mayor Prom Litster.

Yes.

Um, thank you. I've had a constituent who's been reaching out with me regularly about shopping carts that have been abandoned various places in our community. And um, even I even went out on my bicycle to see if they there was accuracy and he there was and I know that we have policies in place that collect them, etc. But I'd like I think it's time to revisit that those policies and see that make sure that we are doing the best by our citizens. Um especially with the passage of SB753 in 2025, which basically empowers cities to immediately retrieve abandoned carts and charge retailers up to $100 per cart to cover costs. Not that I'm advocating that, but I'm saying that's what's in that that um bill that just passed last year. But the laws aims to reduce blight and safety hazards and and you know some of the ADA blockage etc. So I just

I think we react fairly quickly. I contacted city manager a couple months ago about a con a large amount of of uh carts and they were picked up within 24 hours which is which is wonderful. I happen to know that that council member Ayala has been walking carts back on a regular basis because as we Councilwoman I'll second your uh future agenda item. [laughter] So anyway, [laughter] you're not you're not getting the money for walking the car, city manager, right? I thank you for doing your civic duty. [laughter] Just get your business tax certificate and do that. We'll get something back to the council on that. Thank you.

Thank you. Any any other comments or questions or concerns or anything you want to bring up? All right. No, thank you. We had a first and second for it, so we're good with that. So, tonight um we will be adjourning in memory of Kathy Irvin. She was a gold star family here in Semi Valley as well as the former um owner of Penny Pinchers. Long time long time. So, it said yes forever. I used we used to go into Penny Pinchers. You could spend half the day there. So, it was fun. And we're also adjourning in memory of Oxnard Police Department's Commander Scott Erin. So, thank you. And we're adjourned.