City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone and welcome to the Carperia City Council meeting. Today is April 13, 2026 and we will we have started the meeting and I'll ask for a roll call please. Council member Nura here, Vice Mayor Sorenson here. Council member Clark here, council member Mayor here and Mayor Alak here. And if you are willing and able, please stand for the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We will now move on to introductions, proclamations, and presentations. And we have a handful of proclamations and presentations to get our meeting started. And the first one is a proclamation designating the month of April 2026 as fair housing month in the city of Carperia. I'd like to open up public comment on this item. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom?

Mayor, we have no raised hands on Zoom. I will close public comment and bring it back to the council for a motion. I move to adopt the proclamation um designating the month of April 2026 as fair housing month in the city of Carpentria. Second. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? I.

Proclamation passes and we will now read the proclamation starting with council member mayor. Whereas April is National Fair Housing Month, which is currently celebrated which is currently celebrating the 58th anniversary of the passage of the Federal Fair Housing Act of April 11th, 1968. The enactment of this act prohibits discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, familial status, and disability. And whereas during the month of April, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and Fair Housing Advocates will participate in a national effort to promote fair housing with the theme faith, freedom, and fair housing. And whereas the city of Carperia is committed to advancing equity in housing by partnering with the city of Santa Barbara's rental housing mediation program for the past 19 years, providing education, eviction prevention, mediation with the successful outofc court resolution of rental housing disputes, thereby assisting in the prevention of homelessness. And

whereas according to the 2025 fair housing trends report, despite the local, state, and federal laws that prohibit discrimination, 24,000 fair housing complaints were filed the prior year alleging discrimination based on one or more of the Fair Housing Acts seven protected classes, including an increase of nearly 8.5% in complaints based on national origin And

where as part of the city's participation in National Fair Housing Month, notice will be placed on the city's website directing residents to inform uh to information about fair housing and the rental housing mediation program and its services. Now therefore, the city council of the city of Carperia hereby proclaims April 2026 as fair housing month in the city of Carperia and urges all local residents to understand and exercise their right to equal housing opportunity. We'd like to present this proclamation to Andrea Buffano. Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor Olrron and city council members for this fair housing proclamation. I'm Andrea Bufffano, rental housing mediation program supervisor. I've been in this position for the past 39 years serving people within within our community and surrounding communities. Um it's an honor for me to accept this proclamation on behalf of the rental mediation program and board. I'd like to invite Raymond Rango and Diana Santiago, rental housing mediation program specialists to come up here as well. Um they are our staff. We also have a board of 15 uh city council appointed mediators who volunteer their time and experience to assist in our mediations. Our officers are Heather Smith, chair Briberto Gutierrez, vice chair and Kathy Mario, secretary. The city of Santa Barbara has been partnering with the city of Carperia for the provision of rental housing mediation program services for the past 19 years, which includes the education of landlord tenant rights and responsibilities at no cost to program participants. It is very important as a community to celebrate and recognize National Fair Housing Month as discrimination is still very prevalent. Only through education and awareness change can occur at every level within our society, beginning with our local community. And that is what we're doing here today. We have brought some rental housing mediation brochures and fair housing flyers with contact information for filing a fair housing complaint to share with the community. We would like to thank the city of Carperia, Nick Babro, community development director, and his team, Mindy Fog and Megan, uh, for their collaboration with the rental housing

mediation program. It is truly a pleasure to serve the residents of the city of Santa Barbara. Thank you. Um, do you have anything you'd like to share? Okay. Thank you so much. Thank you. And before we take a photo, I I'll just say I had the opportunity to be on the board several years ago and I was just really impressed with how well trained the mediators are and how helpful this program is, not only for the tenants, but the landlords as well. So, thank you for your work on the on this for this program. Thank you. And would any of my colleagues like to share anything else?

Okay, I'll invite you to take a photo with us. Okay. Beautiful. Item number two is a proclamation designating the week of April 19th through the 25th, 2026 as National Library Week in the city of Carperia. And I see many with very cool library shirts on. Um, I'd like to open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom?

Mayor, we have no Zoom. No Zoom speakers. I will close public comment and bring it back to the council for a motion. Um, I move to adopt the proclamation designating the week of April 19th to the 25th, 2026 as National Library Week in the city of Carpentria. Second. We have a first and a second. All those in favor?

I I proclamation passes and we will begin reading the proclamation with council member Mayor. Whereas Carperia Community Library adapts to the everchanging needs of its community, continually expanding collections, services, and partnerships. And whereas our librarians work to serve all community members, including people of color, immigrants, people with disabilities, and the most vulnerable in our community, and strive to develop and maintain programs and collections that are as diverse as the populations they serve, and ensure equity of access for all. And whereas the city of Carperia through support of its library provides the opportunity for everyone to pursue their passions and engage in lifelong learning allowing them to live their best life. And whereas the Carpenter Community Library plays an important role in the economic vitality of Carperia and the residents who live here by providing internet and technology access, Wi-Fi hotspots, literacy skills, learning platforms, and support for job seekers. And

whereas the Carpia Community Library is an is an accessible and inclusive place that promotes a sense of local connection, advancing learning and understanding, civic engagement, and shared community goals. Now therefore, the city council of the city of Carperia hereby proclaims the week of April 19th through the 25th, 2026 as National Library Week in the city of Carperia and encourages all local residents to get a library card and explore the wealth of resources available at the Carpenter Community Library. And with that, I'd like to invite our librarian, Eric, and fellow committee members uh to the podium if you'd like to share a few words. It is an honor to receive this proclamation. Um I haven't prepared anything because I every day I witness I am privileged witness of the transformation of our lial library and how we are working to be a space open to everyone. But this is not my work is the work of all the whole community. the friend of the library, the commissioners, the people who comes every day, the parents, the mothers who comes to me and tell me what they would like to see in the library. It's an honor to receive people in from Carpenteria that are asking for help looking for jobs and we are able to work with them and help them and be part of their progress and at work uh progress in the in in society. Every day I am amazed of everybody who visit the library. Today I just left the library. Um I left 14 teenagers playing their first competition uh a program that they create by themselves and I was surprised seeing these teenagers coming and coming and coming and registering

for being a player and being a competition. So for that I'm very grateful to have this opportunity to be a witness of the transformation of this little library who will uh behave as a big library. Thank you so much and I invite all the commissioners and friends of the library to be with me to receive this proclamation. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Glenn Birdwell. I'm one of your library advisory commissioners, also the Karp representative for the county library committee advisory committee, a retired librarian and all-around library supporter. Thank you for this proclamation. It's a wonderful way to celebrate the amazing success of the Carpa Community Library and also highlight its role as essential social infrastructure for the community. The theme of this uh year's National Library Week is find your joy. And I really like this theme because our library really does bring joy to the community of Carperia. In January, the state conducted a survey called Every Story Counts. You heard a report from Eric about that last month. Um a week in the life of a public library. And I'd like to share a few comments from this survey from carpenters that illustrate how our community members find joy at the library. Joy in having a welcoming place to come, a cool place on a hot day, and a dry place on a rainy day. In gathering with other parents and children for a story time. Joy in finding your next great read. in gathering with others who share your interests, discuss a book, knit, write poetry or songs, learn another language, of learning how to download an ebook on that e-reader you got for your birthday. Um, joy that comes from improving your literacy and computer skills to help you find a better job and having a place to go to find reliable information. and the joy that comes from feeling of belonging and inclusion in a space where everyone is welcome regardless of age, income or background. And the really cool thing is how the library, and Eric spoke to this, the library staff feel that joy, too. I still remember the joy I felt the first time I really helped somebody find what

they needed in the library. Uh, the Carperia Community Library staff is there for all of us, helping us find our joy. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any words from the public? Yeah, sure. Yeah, I just want to congratulate the library on everything that that you do. Um, Eric, your staff is as phenomenal as you are. Um, I spend more time in the library now than I did probably five years ago. Um, even though my daughters are are older. um they don't need story time or anything, but I'm going there because there's so much more to be participating in and so much more so many more ways to be part of the community there. So, just thank you and and Tara Holden, Stephanie. Um gosh, I I can't remember everybody, but um but you're you're thank you for being such a a welcoming place for for everybody. Jess, you've done tremendous work there as a team.

Yeah. I'd also like to congratulate the group. Um, you made this quite a hub for the community. Before it wasn't anything, but you guys have done outstanding job. I do have one question. Are we going to include Eric with a shirt? I don't see a man wearing a shirt. So, you know, don't feel left out, Eric. I think you were going to get one.

And I'd like to just say our library really wouldn't be what it is today without our our staff, our committee members, and of course, most importantly, the community. So, thank you all for really believing in our little library. With that, I'll invite you all to come to the front and take a photo. Council members may need to stand in the back is what I'm thinking. Is that your library? You're welcome. We will now move on to item number three in our agenda which is certificates of commendation awarded to Carpenter Emergency Response Team trainees and trainers. I will open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom?

We have no raised hands. Okay, I will. Oh yes, this is public. This is only for certificates of commendation awarded to. Okay, great. So I will close public comment and I will invite Julisa Biones, our staff to share a few words. Recording stopped.

Um, good evening mayor, council members, and members of the community. My name is Julisa Biones and I serve as the emergency manager for the city of Carpia. I'm proud to share that this spring the city of Carpia together with the Boys and Girls Club of Carpia, the Carpentria Summerland Fire Protection District and the Santa Barbara County Caborative graduated 16 new members from our teen community emergency response team or teen program. These dedicated young individuals completed more than eight units of hands-on training from March 31st through April 3rd, culminating in a final drill at the Boys and Girls Club of Carpentria. That exercise brought together over 10 volunteers and demonstrated the teamwork, medical response skills, and emergency preparedness these graduates worked very hard to develop. I also want to emphasize that none of the emergency preparedness courses offered across our um city is done alone. These programs are the result of close and frequent collaboration among emergency managers, community leaders like Diana Ornellas, public safety partners like Carpentry of Summerland Fire Protection District, instructors and volunteers, all working together across uh jurisdictions to bring these trainings to life. This marks the first team course held in Carpentry in over a decade and only the second in the city's history. We're really proud to see this important program return and thrive. Tonight we're pleased to recognize several of our teen circ graduates who are here with us. Um many of them are from Carperia, but we also have others who have joined us from Golita and Santa Barbara as well, reflecting a strong regional commitment to preparedness. We'd also like to recognize and thank our dedicated instructors, um Bob Stroek, Susette Chaffy, and Anthony Rodriguez, who are also with us this evening. Um, congratulations again to our graduates and thank you to our partners, instructors, and volunteers for your continued commitment to building a more prepared and resilient carpentry. And then I have the list of their names if you're ready.

Would Diana Diana like to share a few words or so? My name is Diane Hornellis. I am with United Boys and Girls Club School of Santa Barbara County. Carpenteria Club. And since I'm here, I have a moment. Um, I really do want to thank the city of Carpenteria for collaborating and bringing um this certain I'm like, we need to do this for the kids. This would be great. So, I really want to thank you for doing that. And I really want to highlight Julisa's very modest. Um, she really did everything. So, I really want you to know that she did amazing job and she handled the teenagers. So, thank you. So, I will have Julisa announce the names of the recipients and I will hand them their certificates and then I'll just ask for the participants or those who received the certificates to just stand up front with your certificate and we'll take a photo at the very end. Okay, we have quite a few of us in here, but I think some are hiding in the back. Um, if you hear your name, can you come on up? Alexis Julian. Arlo Neoth. Aruro Cabrera, Brian Soraniano,

Daffany James Drake Kilborn Holland Vega. Sorry, we have a couple folks that aren't here with us. Leah Hines, Lincoln Kilborn, Lucia Careno. Could have sworn she was here. Sorry. Um, Naomi Suarez, Sophia Careno, Summer Ziegler, Vanessa Julian, Ethan Lee and Brandon Lee. And then we have a couple of trainers who are here with us. Um Bob Stroek,

Anthony Rodriguez, And lastly, Diana Ornelas.

Oh, she's not here. Squeeze. No, you go ahead.

Okay. Thank you. Uh before you all leave, I just want to say thank you to all of the teen participants and the trainers and everyone. You know, there's been a lot of talk about Carbonia as being this special place. And I think what we all know is that it's doesn't happen by accident. It happens because we all do our part. We all step up. we find a thing that we we can contribute and uh knowing that there's so many teens in this town that are, you know, going to be able to step up in the event of of an emergency makes me feel really proud. So, thank you. And I just wanted one more time to thank Julisa Piones, our our amazing city staffer who she's she doesn't take a lot of credit for herself, but this I know this program in particular. She's been instrumental in in bringing it back and in just doing so much of the invisible work that uh we don't necessarily see, but um but she's just such a a wonderful wonderful part of our city family. I'd like to just echo what my colleagues have said. I think that this is such an important program and it's really this is something that we've talked about for several years. So, it's really nice to see it coming back to our community and more than anything bringing teens into the mix and of course our partners. So, thank you all. And one one last comment I would like to make. Um working internationally, a lot

of the projects and things we do, including disaster relief, um it's a true fact that those communities that work together stay together. So, thank you very much for all you're doing. We will now move on to the next item on our agenda, which is a presentation by the County of Santa Barbara Public Health Department on the Carperia Healthc Care Center. Come on up, team.

Oh, well, we'll get started. Thank you. Good evening, city council members. Um, my name is Janette Gumber. I'm a nurse and the clinical nurse administrator for the South County Clinics, one of which is our carpentry clinic. And thank you for letting me provide with my team a short presentation. what we do and who we are. So I brought with me Jeff Noli who is our RN supervisor at the clinic, Bao Ortado who is our division chief of primary care and family health for the county of Santa Barbara and Dr. Cara Garcia who is our chief physician and also a working pediatrician at our clinic. So um oh I guess I have to slide next. I have a a slideshow for you. So let's see if I can effectively do that. Whoops. There we go. So, this year marks the county of Santa Barbara Health's 100th anniversary. 100th anniversary. So, we've been celebrating all year as a health department. And we also adopted a new logo. And you can see that our logo is the profile of an animal in the orange, a person or our body there. And on the right is a leaf. and that represents our three divisions of animal services, our public health clinics, and environmental services. Um, oops, wrong way. There we go. Um, we're a really truly a community clinic. We serve um we often see family, our families grow in the community. We see children in our pediatrics department. Well, before that, we take care of we have a a pretty robust um OB clinic and um Those moms deliver and they bring their babies into Dr. Garcia to be cared for. We see them through childhood and adolescence and we often see them through till they're old enough to be to transfer into our primary care to our

primary care docs. Um last year we had almost wrong way. There we go. Uh 8,000 patients or 8,000 visits come through our little clinic. We often call it a small but mighty clinic because no one knows where we are. We're nestled between the library and the fire department. But um we have a lot of services there and Jeff will be talking to you about all that we do. Our patient population is made up of about 65% SenCal patients, patients who have SenCal as a managed care insurance. Um about 23 who have Medicare or a combination of Medicare and a supplemental and about 6% um self-pay. And I'm gonna hand over to Jeff now. talk about our services.

So, the Carpenteria Health uh Center is one of five federally qualified health centers that make up the county of Santa Barbara Health. Uh County Health also operates a clinic out of the um the Good Samaritan shelter uh in north portion of the county and La Pasada Clinic in the south. Um, at our clinic we provide uh primary care. Uh, Dr. Tamas Wii and Dr. Jaclyn Kacharski provide comprehensive outpatient care for adults of all ages. Um, they work with ancillary staff, uh, community partners and specialty care providers to improve health outcomes and manage chronic health issues. Um, working closely and consistently with patients improves the health and well-being of the individual as well as the entire community. Uh, Dr. Cara Garcia, you will hear from momentarily. Um, and Dr. Lyanna Napoulos uh provide pediatric care for Carpa's youngest residents. Um, from sore throats and coughs to broken bones and sprains, comprehensive wellchild checks, our pediatricians utilize the most up-to-date comprehensive testing and vaccine scheduling to ensure our children remain on track to grow up healthy and happy. Uh, women's health is also uh a service that we provide in our clinic. Um, our OBGYn nurse practitioner, Lisa Jacobson, um, has been a well-known and trusted name in her field in Santa Barbara County for decades. We are very very fortunate um to have her one day a week uh here in our carpentry clinic and our patients are very fortunate to have her here in Carperia as well. Um if you don't know her uh chances are your your mother or your sister or your aunt or your wife somebody very well might um behavioral health as well. Dr. Alpith Mills and Dr. Dr. Matthew Metaf, our

carpentry's behavioral health specialists. Um, mental health is so important to our patients well-being. Um, life can be extremely challenging and often patients overlook their mental health for a variety of reasons. Um, our mental health professionals understand and are always ready to meet patients where they are. Um we've recently partnered with a a psychiatric teleahalth services uh one day a week um for our patients who need treatment for mild to moderate psychiatric diagnosis. Um of course none of our providers function in a vacuum. Um Carpondria Healthcare Center has a team of support staff second to none. from our front office staff, Sandra, Patty, Denanisha, Melissa, to our medical assistants, Lisa, Linda, Erica, Stephanie, and Griselda. From our electronic health record specialists, Alvaro, to our leadership team, Janette and Moses. Um, we're more of a family than a healthcare uh team. And our family at Carpondria Health Center is here to help generations of Carpondria families through every stage of life's journey to attain and improve their health and happiness. I'm going to pass this over to uh Dr. Garcia.

Thanks, Jeff. Um so I'm Cara Garcia. I'm a pediatrician and the chief physician at um our health center and I've been in the clinic for about six years. um I've been a pediatrician for almost 20 years and um it's just a really special place to work. So um that we we can't do what we do without a lot of our community partners and we do a lot of things that I haven't been able to do in other jobs that I've had. So, I'm really proud um to work at the clinic um from like working with Eric who provided us with new books in Spanish and English to give to our patients. Um I work with the school and the the counselors to help the kids. Um and we work really closely also with Karp Children's Project. Um, you know, we we we get I get to say that we provide mental health care, like comprehensive reproductive health care, lactation support to our patients. And then we also screen for ACEs or adverse childhood events um with all of our PA all of our pediatric patients, their parents and um we're screening now pregnant moms to try to help um you know just sort of the passage of generational trauma and just um provide support um to our patients and we couldn't do it without Karp Children's Project um through the partnership with their they work with Cottages Pediatric Resiliency Collaborative and um screening for adverse childhood events can be real weighty for providers, but if we know we have someone to to refer them to through Karp Children's Project, it makes it so much easier. So, um working in this community is is just terrific. It's small enough that I can sort of talk to everybody I

need and um we we we really um like being a part of um helping the community. So thanks a lot.

Yeah. And I think uh we hit everything. One thing that we'll mention before we go um is that HERSA or the Health Resources um and services administration is one of our governing bodies. And last just at the end of 2025, we had our um audit which happens every 3 years where they take a deep dive into our services and how we're performing our services. It's a a three-day visit with about five auditors and we received um a certificate of compliance, which sounds mediocre, but it was a lot of work. It's not. It was we were really proud of that. Um and tell everyone about us and where we are. 931 Walnut Avenue. We'd love to continue taking care of the community and thanks for the time to let us present.

Thank you. And I'd like to open it up to the council for any questions. Well, I just want to say it's it's nice to see you guys again. Um I was very appreciative of the tour that that I was able to get um maybe last month or so. Um and I appreciate you coming out here. I I I wanted to see if I could help facilitate this because I think like you're saying, it's so important for the community to know about you as a resource. Um you're right. I think it's something people see, but they don't really know is if that's a place they can go or if it's a place that that is going to um give them guidance if they have to or if they only can go under certain circumstances. So, thank you for explaining more about what you do here. Um and just for reaching out to us on council and uh inviting us into your clinic to see what it's all about. I think it's um it was it was a really eye openening and and positive experience for me. So, thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Uh yeah, the the uh clinic is such a it's it's small but very important part of our community. The services you provide. I I was a patient there once and um I I had incredible ser services and it really really nice, appreciative, compassionate people. Thank you for what you do. Thank you and thank you for your presentation. I'd like to open up public comment on the presentation. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we have no Zoom speakers.

Okay, I will close public comment. We will now move on to public information reports and announcements. And we will first hear from our sheriff's department. Welcome, Chief. Good evening, Madame Mayor, council members, city staff, and members of uh the community of Carperia. I've highlighted a few cases for you this month. Uh at Alisowl School, deputies responded for a report of a man on the railroad tracks behind the school with a handgun. Lockdown protocol was initiated. However, within 10 minutes, deput deputies located a subject who was actually carrying an umbrella and a cell phone, not a firearm. So, the lockdown was released. On the 4,800 block of Carperia, we had a ground theft where the victim reported that his Cadillac converter was taken from his Toyota Prius. No suspect information. That was the only report we had of a Cadillac converter this month. So, it doesn't seem like it was the rash. Usually, we get about five or six of these. So, but we only had one. In the 4,400 block of Carperia Avenue, a suspect was res reported to expose himself on a public sidewalk in the view of several people. They actually recorded it on video. The reporting uh party agreed to sign a private citizens arrest and deputies contacted the suspect nearby and uh as he was partially exposed. At this time, deputies attempted to detain him and the suspect refused commands, pulled away and kicked at uh kicked his legs against the patrol vehicle before being handcuffed. A search of his person revealed a metal knife concealed in his waistband uh that met the definition of a concealed derker dagger. Uh during the

investigation while they were still on scene an adult female and two juveniles came up and reported that the suspect also ex exposed himself to them and followed them causing them to be fear for their safety. Uh the suspect was confirmed to be on probation as was sub subsequently arrested for indecent exposure resisting arrest and uh possession of a weapon at the UPS store. Uh the manager of the UPS store called to report a package exploded. A large amount of some kind of white powder uh went throughout the air. Deputies arrived on scene, determined there were no injuries, and the building was not on fire. A perimeter was established around the store. Um neighboring businesses were evacuated and the bomb squad the bomb squad was notified. Um the bomb squad did come out. deputies were on scene and came out and they made entry into the store and determined that a 20 pound fire extinguisher being shipped had exploded. So, but they took all the necessary precaution getting everybody out of the store, separating them from anybody else and set it just in case it was some contaminant. And then we had a report a complaint received regarding subjects unlawfully selling hot food on the sidewalk near Elcaro Lane and Lynen Avenue. Two subjects were found operating a hot kitchen on the south sidewalk of of the AR Elcaro Lane. Both were cited for not having the proper permits and they packed their belongings and left the area. And uh I've dealt with the public health on this and any popup tent you see where they're like the tents with tacos or whatnot, those are all illegal. Not I'm not I'm not talking about food trucks, but I'm talking the hot food that has popped up on the sidewalks or whatnot. Those are all against the law. just for your information. And then some community outreach we have we had Deputy Daniel Skull was awarded

the Carpentria public safety officer of the year award by the Lions Club for many great cases he was involved with this year. And we did have multiple Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office personnel attend the war ceremony. And then for your chief's message, of course, 911 in case of emergency, non-emergency, please call the non-emergency dispatch number 8056832724. I wanted to talk about shoplifterss and citizens arrest today. Um, deputies cannot make an arrest for a misdemeanor not committed in their presence. I know we discussed this before. There are certain exceptions like a domestic violence, uh, restraining order violation, DUI, elder abuse, and a couple others. But, um, when a person or a business, especially a business, is a victim and they don't want to sign a citizen's arrest form, then often times that perpetrator is often released from the scene and a lot of times victimizing maybe another store or another person. So, just remember that. um a lot of times cuz what we find is we go out to a business and oh we just want them out of here. We don't want to do nothing. That's your right to do but just know that when you let them go then often times they're going somewhere else and maybe shoplifting from another store 20 30 minutes down the road. Recently we had a shoplifter contacted where the business initially wanted nothing done. um we contacted the uh suspect who was on probation under the influence of methamphetamine and in pos possession of a methamphetamine pipe and he subsequently arrested. Deputies went back to the business to speak with him and then they ultimately said, you know, we do want to press charges cuz this same individual was here last week stealing things. So you you know, we we thought about it. We do want to press charges. So just I want to make that uh make you aware of that. Sometimes in this case we were able to do something because we had other stuff. We were there rightfully so and when there was other things that popped up but a lot of

times maybe something might not pop up where he's not UI on myth and he's not you know or at least maybe the investigation doesn't lead us there without a citizen's arrest that kind of limits what we can do. And then a touch again just on ebikes. This last month, deputies towed three illegal ebikes, motorcycles, um- which were on public roadways. Some some of the parents were upset because of the cost of the ebike and the cost of the tow fee. I think if you get a towed one day, you could be looking at $7, $800. And actually, it's going to be a two-day toe on that. So, if you have a ebike, it's minimum a two-day toe for the motorcycles, the straight illegal ones. And it could be you you may not get it back. It depends on what section they tow it for. So, I'll remind everybody, please do your homework before purchasing your uh your kids or whoever you're buying the ebike for and make sure you you let them know that um those are not you can't ride those on a public roadway and they will be towed and it's going to cost a lot of money if you get it back. And that's the end of report.

Any questions? Okay, no questions. Thank you for your report. I will open up public comment. And looks like we do have a speaker slip coming.

Roelio Delgado, welcome.

Uh thank you, Roel Dado, a carpenter resident. Uh first of all I would like to uh thank uh the sheriff for always uh responded responding uh to a 911 call uh within two three minutes to uh send deputies an ambulance fire truck and this has I've been here in the state since 1968 and up to today that's has always been the sheriff's respond within two three minutes Now, what's a protocol for a 911 call? Uh, that dispatcher takes a call. Who decides how many deputies uh respond? The dispatcher or the deputters who are listening to the call. Now on uh routine traffic stops, we have seen uh more than one uh deputy responding. We have seen more than one uh deputy talking to a homeless uh person. I think that's the meaning of uh to protect and to serve. That's the way to protect people and the way to uh protect sheriff's uh deputies as well. That's my opinion. Uh thank you uh police chief.

Thank you for your comment. I do not have any other speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we have no Zoom speakers. Okay, I will close public comment. Thank you. We will now hear from Oh, yes. Um Chief, if you would mind, I have do have a couple questions for you. First question has to do with um the potential, I would say, um kidnapping cases that we've seen, people missing, things like that. Do you report those or do we get any report incidences of that happening in our community? The potential kidnapping cases? Yeah. Yeah, things like that. Um abductions, things like that of that nature. I haven't heard of any kidnapping cases. if that would definitely be on our report, but um I haven't heard any of those.

Okay. Thank you. Um the other question had to do with the um body that was found. I don't know if um I know you don't want to give any um issues or points details of the case itself, but would you consider the area itself still being safe, secured, or is there any issues that we should we? I would I would say there was a deceased body found in the area and there's no um sense of any uh danger. So I wouldn't worry about that. Great. That was it. Thank you. Thank you. We will now hear from our first district supervisor's office. Welcome Daisy.

Good evening, Mayor Aleron and council. Nice to see you. I'm out of the order. I usually come on the fourth Monday, so it's nice to see you all on the second one. Um, okay. So, some updates on uh housing in the unincorporated area. Van Wingeran 1 and two, still no um project application submitted. The Craraven's Lane project there, there's no update. The applicant is still addressing feedback uh that they've received from planners. Um the Borlard project um we had a joint meeting that was held on March 26th with teams from the city uh Karp Summerland Fire um the county, the applicant Red Tale. Um and the discussion was continuing these um in progress evacuation studies that the um fire department had given some guidance on some proposed changes to Bored um Avenue and uh some proposed changes to Pandanis. Um I think most importantly the applicant met with the Cassidus Villages HOA um some of the board members not the not the whole HOA um and the HOA's attorney they also met on March 26th to discuss the applicant's proposals proposed changes to Pandanis Alley. So that will be a continuation of conversations. Um the next steps are the applicant is going to continue to meet with city and fire to address a lot of the ingress egress points, go over the evacuation study once that comes back. Um and continue to have discussions about utilities and emergency access with the city. Um, so these are all preliminary steps to apply for the applicant to

apply for coastal development permits and encroachment permits that they're going to have to get from the city. So the city is really involved here. I know that there's been a lot of discussion over what what the city's involvement is in this since it's being built on the county, but because so much has to happen on the city's streets and in the city's utilities, the city is the one that will be um asked to provide coastal development permits and encroachment permits um and that sort of thing. uh the builder's remedy application remains open and I had somebody recently ask if SQUA was necessary and the answer to that is it depends on which application the applicant moves forward with. So if they move forward with the builder's remedy application, SQA would be required. And if they move forward with um the an application without builder's remedy, so via the reszones um that just happened with the coastal commission, then SQA would not necessarily be required. So, we still don't know which application will be moving forward and they currently have both in, if that makes sense. And our county uh planning and development office has been clear that they cannot process two applications. So, at a certain point, the applicant's going to have to pick. So, that's my update on the unincorporated housing projects. Alrighty. Um unless you have some questions though.

Actually I do have questions if that's okay. Sure. Wait. Go ahead. Um questions I have. You talked about um the permitting process coastal development plans actually falling at some of the responsibility for review. Is it going to fall on the shoulders of the city? Um has there been any consideration about any revenue sources for that? And also um again looking back at the infrastructure um maintenance, deferred maintenance, things like that that's going to occur because of the increased traffic flow of these specific building sites.

I'm going to defer to the city on that. Do you know anything about the deferred maintenance and the fees that would be incurred by the applicant for any coastal development permits, etc. on the city side? Yeah, Council Member Neore through the mayor. Um, haven't quite got around to any of those types of conversations as of yet. As as she mentioned, they haven't even submitted an application yet. And so, more most of the stuff is feedback from the fire department and others so that they can submit u an application and then at that point, I think more those items will be discussed.

Sounds good. Uh my my hopes are that we could eventually create dialogue between the city and the county for I would say some of the revenue sources or costs that we are going to incur because of these developments that are happening just outside the city property or city limits. And again, I think that's something that we're going to have to deal with. If it doesn't get handled right now, it's going to end up falling on the shoulders of the city residents. Yeah. And you mean just generally speaking? I'm talking Yeah. everything from uh the permit process all the way through to maintenance ongoing maintenance once it's or if it's constructed.

Yeah, I can chat with staff, city staff, and see if that's a possibility and when and who would be involved in kind of opening that dialogue up. And I'm sure there's been examples of this. I'm thinking probably in Galita. So, um I'll I'll see what we can do about just generally speaking how to navigate that. Right. Thank you. And I'll just interject. Um I I'll look to city staff just to ensure that is is council member Namura's request. Um if you'll keep us up to date when those opportunities become available.

Yes, Mayor. Sorry. We we were just discussing the various ways that that might even occur. So, the there's the development impact fees, which is is one way, which is that one-time payment that I believe is going to be kept by the um by the county, although I guess that's to to be discussed. There's other things that come as conditions of approval for a project. And so if there's going to be impact to uh traffic, uh there's a for example, there's a a street light that ends up being required, that kind of stuff, there uh the developer would have to pay for all that to be done as part of a condition of approval. And then uh separately uh for ongoing maintenance and things, that's probably where there's a I think bit more of a a question mark and conversations to happen with the county. But yes, definitely we'll uh keep the council updated when we get to that that point.

Great. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. Moving forward. Um a lot's going on um when it comes to cannabis. So, I wanted to share a brief update on the county's recent actions um and where we are. So, um, as you know, about a year ago, the board required operators who'd not yet installed multi-carbon technology or what we call scrubbers, um, to be in by March 31st, 2026. So, under that updated code, operators who were denied extensions um past that 31st uh and then failed to comply by the 31st deadline are now subject to their cannabis business license revocation or a flatout denial of their business license. So, county staff conducted uh site visits on April 1st and 2nd to verify whether the required equipment had been installed and was operational. Uh following those inspections, the cannabis licensing team coordinated with planning and development to issue revocation letters to the offending operators. Um and those were anticipated to go out on April 3rd, and I believe they did. Um and there were nine operators that received um revocation or denial um uh letters. So those operators um have a right to appeal. So the process now would be of those nine operators, they have um 10 days after the receipt of the letter to request an appeal. That appeal hearing has to be held within 60 days of that request and the administration hearing officer has 30 days to issue a determination. So uh we're looking at about 3 months I guess

if everything was a extended timeline. Um, if the revocation is upheld, then the operator must discontinue operating unless and until a new license is obtained. So, uh, that would be effective. So, as of today, we don't know who's filed for appeals. Um, but we I should know by the next update, and I can also keep you guys updated as we know. Um, for added context, uh, county staff has advised that other cannabis operators in the valley who are not listed, um, do not have, um, odor technology. Um, they they excuse me, they have their odor technology in and it's operating. So, um, we'll continue to follow it closely. We'll continue to update you. Uh we we know that it is still um there's a lot of odors in the valley. We get calls about this a lot. So uh I this is a big step forward in the right direction and um we're really grateful for everyone's patience as we keep working on this and we will keep working on it until um there is a solution. Okie dokie. Um the next update is uh I just wanted to remind you that budget workshops are happening currently at the county level. So uh folks can tune in on YouTube um or the county website um and public comment is uh also going on. It's the way that the budget hearings are set up is uh they're happening Monday, Wednesday, Friday and there's there's groupings of developments. So there excuse me groupings of departments. So there's 23 departments in the county um and they're being kind of grouped by services. So today we heard from health and human services departments uh today

and we also heard from community resources and public facilities. Wednesday we're going to hear from public safety. So that'll be the DA, probation, a public defender, fire, sheriff. Um that's one group. Then we're going to be hearing from government, general government and support services. So, um, treasurer, tax department, HR, IT, general services, auditor, controller, those kind of folks. Um, as well, I think that's it. Um, and then Friday, we're hearing about special issues. So, the pension fund and the jail expansion. So, I anticipate Friday to be a half day. today. They really went from 9 until I this started at 5:30 and they were still going. So, um I would say tune in on YouTube and make public comments. Um it's fascinating to see where the budget cuts are being proposed and as I mentioned last week, they're mostly being proposed in the um health and human services department, excuse me, health and social services departments because of the impacts from the federal HR1 bill. So, the county is trying to do their best to retain um vital services. So, but it is interesting. Um, okie dokie. Moving on. Uh, a couple updates for you. Um, at the last board of supervisors meeting on the 7th of April, the board provided direction for establishing um a Santa Barbara County film commissioner. This is something that the county had in partnership before with um visit Santa Barbara um and for various reasons, budget cuts mostly that um that commission was shut

down um I want to say in the mid 2010s. So, uh, our office has proposed bringing a version of that back, um, and collaborating with cities to see how we can bring more economic development to cities, to the county, um, by bringing in more production. So, um, I'm happy to provide more details on the report that we gave. Um, but our presentation was to get direction from the board to bring back a more robust plan. So, we will be bringing that forward in June. It is a tight budget year, so it's hard to ask for a budget for um a film commissioner, but we are going to try and hopefully um it's a it's an all ships rise situation. So, um we'll be reaching out to um manager Ramirez to see how Carperia feels about it. Um, we've gotten some early interest from Buen and Santa Barbara City. So, we are excited to see what we can do collectively. Um, the last thing I want to mention is that the county has released free pre-approved ADUs for use in the unincorporated area. This is old news to Carperia. You guys have been doing this for a while, but it's very exciting for the county. So, these detached ADUs comply with county building codes and basic zoning standards. They come in five different sizes. They come in a bunch of different styles. Um, and these ADUs are really meant these pre-approved ADUs are still subject to zoning standards and especially in the coastal zone. Um, and they'll require sight specific site plans, etc., etc. But the idea is that it really um brings down the permit fees. It speeds up the

process. It's something we've heard a lot about how frustrating it is for people to just add an ADU into their backyard. So hopefully this route will make it um a little bit easier for folks. Um, so, uh, anybody interested, um, they can visit the county's ADU website and they can contact, uh, the South Coast Permit Resource Center at 805-5683030 or P Abuild at county of sb.org and staff are available to assist property owners with questions, feasibility, walk them through what the process looks like. So, um, we're just trying to be as cool as you guys. All righty. That those are all my updates.

I do have a question. Uh, this is regarding the film commission that you're planning on bringing forward. Um, even though it sounds great, I would like to see if in fact you can cover give us some information. um the benefits, uh the potential revenue sources of that one, but also um more importantly the liabilities, exemptions, permits, things like that, which may affect day-to-day living here in Carperia.

Yeah, there's there's a lot to work through in terms of the costs associated with it. So, that's something that we'll be bringing forward in June and fire and all that stuff. There's also, by the way, a lot of places you cannot film in Santa Barbara County. There's a lot of private um roads. There's a lot of beaches that are owned by the state, stuff like that. So, there's Yes, there's a lot of impacts that have to be considered. Any other questions from the council? Okay, no questions. Thank you.

Thank you. And I would like to say just as a citizen, quick shout out to the library. It is the best library and I did just recently join as a friend of the library and it's incredibly easy to do online. So, if anybody has some spare pocket change and they want to be part of a cool membership, I can't recommend it enough. Great. Thank you. Thank you. I'd like to open up public comment on the first district supervisor's report. I do not have any speaker slips. Oh, yes. Come on up, Fred.

Quick question, Daisy. And that is the uh nine uh cannabis um producers that are currently losing their license or potentially losing their license. Are they allowed to continue production while they're waiting for the appeal to go through? Um let let me go through public comment first and then I'll I'll have you come back up. Do we have any other speakers in the room? Okay. Do we have anyone online? We do, mayor. We have two Zoom speakers. Our first one is Betty Jeepson. Uh, Betty, go ahead.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Betty Jeepon. I would like to speak to item 61c, the BORD issue. Um, I am I was at the 26th of March meeting as a board member of the Kiscetas Village HOA board and I wanted to make a correction that there were in fact no representatives from Carponderea or Summerland Fire. Fire Chief Lmon Monaco was supposed to be there but he was called away so he was not present. There were no members of the city of Carponderea present. only the proposed developer and their staff, Daisy Weber and Wade Kalper of Supervisor Roy Lee's office and the Cassid Village board president Kyle Kimberlin, myself from the Cassidas Village HOA board and our attorney Robert Gibson. We would appreciate very much having representatives from the fire department present for any future meetings and also members from the city at future meetings. Uh what is listed as a in the report as Pandanais Alley is really not Pandanais Alley. It is the driveway for all the residents on Birch Street and Cassidas Village. This is private property that belongs to Cassidus Village HOA and is the only way for Birch residents to enter and exit from their homes. If anything, it should be called Birch Alley, but it is not a public street. It is a private driveway. and uh Cassita's Village did not propose any changes to that driveway. I just wanted to clarify those things. Thank you very much.

Thank you for your comments.

Then, mayor, uh let's see. Our next uh Oh, my hand's gone. So, that's it for Zoom comment. Mayor Oh, it's back. Okay, great. Uh our next uh Zoom speaker is on the Birch Alley. And I just wanted to to second what Betty just said about it is an alley that people use to get into their garages and into their homes. So there is no other way for them to get in there besides that alley. And it is a private alley and I want to make that clear. and it would really really hamper people from getting in and out of there if there were any kind of um exit from that other Borard red tail complex that it would really make it difficult. Um so I just wanted to say that. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments and mayor that concludes Zoom comment. I will close public comment and I'll invite Daisy up to answer um have a response for some of those questions.

Yes. So um the nine operators that um have been sent the um revocation letter, they do they are allowed to operate until the um until it is officially denied. So that is that. Um I can read out who they are if that's of interest. Um Blue Whale Agriculture Inc. Bossom 1628 Management Company LLC, Bronco Management LLC, CKC Farms, Inc., G&K Produce LLC, G&G Flowers LLC, Life Remedy Farms Inc., New Generation Farms, Inc., and Pacific Grow Organics LLC. And I did also want to concur with what Betty said. Uh Miss Jefferson said um that there uh there was no city or fire representative at that meeting. I may not have made that clear, but they have indicated that in the future, as she mentioned, they would like somebody from the city and fire as well.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Um Daisy, actually, can I ask a really quick follow-up question? So, um this was an HOA meeting. Is that what it was? It it wasn't the entire HOA. It was the Cassidus Villages HOA met uh with the applicant uh the the red tail applicant um about the the the alleyway. Okay. And was the city invited to go to that? Uh I don't I think I I think we were in touch. It was it was a bit last minute. Okay. Um

cuz I just I wanted to be to understand from city staff if if this sounds like this was like you're saying part of the HOA group about this very specific issue and I I um wanted to see if it was something that staff had even been invited to.

I believe staff was invited. I do believe it was a bit last minute and um as uh Miss Jefferson said um Fire Marshall Le Monaco was supposed to be there and got called off um a bit last minute. So he was not able to make it. It was from my understanding a preliminary meeting. Uh I don't think that the um the HOA folks had met with the applicant in many years. So it was um to give an updated presentation on what they were proposing. So similar to the things that the city has already seen. In fact, that meeting was two hours after the meeting with the city. So, um the and and like Miss Jefferson said, it was a meeting between um a couple members of the HOA board, the president, uh the HOA's lawyer, um their general manager, um and then myself and our chief of staff was there as well.

Okay, great. And I I believe that the there will be follow-up meetings and we're um I'm happy to help coordinate with the HOA as well to make sure that they get how however much information they want and to the whole village uh to all the the property owners and I think I've made that clear to them as well. And if the city would like to be present, we'll make sure that there's at least an invite. Great. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Um, okay. So, we will move on to the next item on our on our agenda, which is the temporary adjournment for the purpose of holding the monthly meeting of the Carpenter Library Board of Trustees. And we will start with item number seven, which is the library board of trustees agenda packet. And I'd like to call to order uh call the meeting to order and request for a roll call, please. Thank you, President Alakan. Uh all board members are present and accounted for. Great. And then confirmation of legal noticing and procedural requirements of meeting. Uh yes, all legal noticing and pro procedural requirements have been met.

Excellent. Um I'll move on to item number three. So this is public comment. This is uh this is the time for public comments on matters not otherwise on the agenda but within the subject matter of the Carpet Library Board of Trustees only. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we have no Zoom speakers. I will close public comment. I'll move on to agenda item number four, which is the approval of minutes of the regular meeting held March 9th, 2026. I move to approve the minutes of the regular meeting held March 9th, 2026. Second. Thank you. We have a first and a second. All those in favor?

Any opposed? Seeing none, item passes. We will move on to item number five which is the carpenter community library monthly report for the month of April 2026. Mayor city u council members city staff uh community of carpentry. It's my pleasure to present once again my staff report for the library. Um I would like to highlight or start with the programmings the library programs. Um starting with the Santa Barbara City College computer class, the basic computers class are scheduled to end on May 18 and we have decide to uh to continue the class for the next steps which is going to be Microsoft Excel fundamentals bilingual class with the registration currently open through the Santa Barbara City College um system for summer 2026. The coming session will run from 10 weeks beginning June 1st. So the and the idea is to give the opportunity of the original group to continue and grow in computers. Um especially because we still have full attendance. Um we don't see the necessity to start again with and try with another group. uh as today uh on March 10 we had our wild things stop Santa Barbara wildlife care network present on their services and educate uh people attendees about the wildlife and the issues that they are having in I mean the found in the central coast. Uh our next presentation will take place on April 22nd at 5:00 pm at the veterans hall and we'll focus on the Bandenberg mission including space launch operations and sonic booms. So everybody

is uh in by and ask questions concerns uh be curious about what is going on about these sonic booms. um Cornell from the mission is coming and speak directly to everyone and he is comfortable answering any question or concerns. So I invite everybody to attend this meeting. Our book club James is still our book club is having a very successful meetings. uh we start very small like a four five people right now we are around 13 or 14 people attending the book club our next meeting is going to be on April 20th um our team advisory board I'm very proud to as I mentioned before that they designed by themselves a program uh it is a geometry uh competition geometric game competition um they has start registering and attending. They create the rules, they create the social media and they already I they send me an uh message telling me what are the three uh winners of the competition. So we are expecting to have more idea of this uh group um sharing with everybody and invite every teenager in Carpentria to participate. Uh it's very important to know that the games that we are providing are irate. Um so it's everyone is able to uh work I mean uh play with these games. They are especially uh designed for cogni cognitive development. So we take care of about no having violence or things related to war or things related that are uh could impact negatively.

uh our movie night on March 27, we uh present Hugh based on the Brian Celic book, The Invention of Hugh Cabaret and we are going to have an our next movie night on April 24 at 6 PM and we are going to uh feature the Wild Robot. So everybody is invited. Um I would like to highlight that we also have ongoing programs and please visit our website to see what other programs we have. For example, our English conversation group, our preschool story time, our carpenteria writers group uh meetings, our song writers workshop, babies are the best, the homeschoolers history class, the carpentia knitters group, uh the mention caregiver support group, the carpentia with beer watchers group, the DND playtime and Friday fun sessions. Um again, please visit our website because we have a lot of things to offer to everyone. In regards of partnerships and grants, the Carpentia Community Library was selected as one of the five libraries nationwide for the American Library Association reform deos grant. Uh this is not a grant that give us too much money but it's very competitive because it's they choose just five u libraries in the whole country. Um the reason I apply is because I would like to be competitive and see if we are in the trends of librarianship and how we are doing and every time that we win a grant is something that uh let us know that we are going to the right direction. Um so the reformat loss nños grant uh is going to give us the opportunity to present uh uh community engagement related to books

and the celebration of reading especially from the Latino community and it's going to be on April 25th from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and it's going to be an art related to art. Also, the Carpentia Community Library has been awarded with the empowering access project grant which consists of a spectrum light lab table and it's going to be for the library children's section in its value um $2400. So, it's something else that um we got to the library. we are able to buy this table but it's better if we uh get it from uh institutions that support the librarianship and also uh are very well established in the country. Uh in regards of the staff updates, I would like to say that the part-time literacy coordinator um hiring process, we are in the last steps. We have identified a person and we are going to be ready to offer a job offer pretty soon. Um that's it for me. You have any questions?

Questions? Um it sounds like the the grants that you got um that that's those are some really good funding opportunities. Are they grants you guys have applied for before or are these new grant opportunities? I I it's so you're such a small staff and yet it sounds like you're getting u more grant funding lately which is really impressive.

Yes. Um actually there are several grants opportunities. They are very competitive. We are uh there are thousands of public libraries in the country. Um and thousands of them apply. Uh for example, we are in the midst of getting the literacy grant from the California State Library. I'm able to say that we are uh receiving this grant because uh the state budget have to be approved by July. Mhm.

So after the state budget is uh approved, we are going to get the news about this big grant and it's going to be a grant for around $25,000 just for that literacy program and we have worked a lot in this application. We have been presented a budget and I I'm actually able to say that we are invited uh myself and the literacy coordinator to San Diego to spend a couple of days with other library director who received these grants from the California State Library and that's an indication that we are in a very good position to receive the grant. Um and we are going to be there in June and

that's great. No, thank you for for sharing that and thank you for applying being so tenacious with these grants. Yeah, thank you. Uh, real quick question if you wouldn't mind. Um, deos um, some people may not know what that is. So, if you wouldn't mind explaining that and the significance of that within the community.

Sure. Deos uh, start in Mexico. It's a Mexican celebration. Then then uh, move to Central America too. Um the celebration is to encourage people and also parents to teach their children in in reading and enjoy the books because it's called diia lios. So a day of the children a day of the books. Um the idea is surrounding that we also celebrate the culture. um the importance of start reading because that's going to be an positively impact in the future of a child. A child who reads um around 5,000 books at by the age of five years old is the research has demonstrated that these children have a better opportunity in the future. uh better economic uh opportunities, better educational uh opportunities, better uh communication and it's very good and is proven and that's the idea of the diños because as we know public libraries were funded not having in mind everybody. So this is a opportunity to include everybody else or every other kind of groups.

Mhm. Yeah, great. Thank you for that one. Um, just as informational, um, the Asian culture has had that for two, three thousand years, maybe more. But, um, it's it's similar. It's called Children's Day. We have boys day, girls day also. But, uh, it's interesting because the premise of the day um, children's day actually is to pass on legends and stories from the past. So, it's very similar. Thank you. Thanks.

Additional questions? I have a um more of a comment. I'm really happy to see that Vandenberg will be doing a workshop here in Carponia. I think that the sonic booms have just continued in frequency and not too long ago I mistook um an earthquake for a sonic boom and so I'm happy that they're going to be here in our community because um I think we have the community probably has a lot to say and to share and to learn as well. Yeah, they offer uh to be here in Carpenteria and we took the advantage that we have this wild thing talks and this is kind of wild. So uh and we are partnering to present this uh conversation, right? And it's going to be in the uh again it's going to be in the veterans hall on let's see on April 22nd at 5:00 pm.

Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. If we don't have any other questions, I will open up public comment for the library monthly report. And I do have a speaker slip for Fred Shaw. Oh, not yet. No. Item number seven. Okay, just kidding. Do we have any other members who would like to make public comment? Seeing none, do we have anyone via Zoom? Uh, mayor, we have no Zoom speakers. Yeah, we'll close public comment and bring it back to the council for a motion. Um, I move to receive and file the Carpentry Community Library report. Second. Okay, we have a first and a second. All those in favor?

I. We will now move on to item number six, which is new business and discussion. Seeing no items, we will move on to item number seven, which is the adjournment of the Carpentry and Library Board of Trustees. And we will now move reconvene the regular meeting of the city council and we will move on to the city manager's report. Thank you, mayor. I think I'm going to have to take Eric from being our librarian and put him in charge of pavement grant writing. Uh, all our roads will be paved by next year. Well, uh, so council, community members, just a little bit from our city manager report as always, just letting everyone know that we don't touch on every item in detail. encourage people to read this entire report. There's also helpful links there. And this uh report is only meant for short updates. Uh and if there's any item that piques the council's uh interest, we could of course always bring that back for to have it agendaized and full discussion. Uh and also as always, I'm joined by several people to help me with these different items. I'm going to start off with the assistant city manager Ryan Kint to give us some city employee updates. Thank you, city manager. Good evening, mayor, council members. Um, so yeah, just some updates on some of our recruitments. Um, and I just like to emphasize that these are replacing full-time positions. Um, we're not adding any new positions. We haven't added any new positions in several years. So, just for clarity on that, um, we uh completed the accounting specialist accounting technician interview process and we made a selection. We're really excited to bring this new person on board. um that is

pending background. So at our next council meeting, we'll be able to announce that position and we'll bring the individual to the council for introduction. Also um we have the beach lifeguard position is still open um until April 30th. So we're currently accepting applications for that. We also did recruitments for the library technician positions. That's the literacy coordinator. Um we did make a final selection on that. Um, and so we're going to be pending backgrounds and stuff. We should be announcing that soon. So, I know Eric is really excited about that position. We also have several lifeguard program coordinator positions open. Um, those are, sorry, they're closed and we're now going through interviews for those positions and getting ready for the summer. Same with the pool lifeguard. We do have a position. They're open uh until April 30th. And then finally, um, maintenance worker one, that is a full-time position. Again, it's replacing a position that left. It's not a new position. Um, and we're going to be pending we're going to be um interviewing pending screening of applications. We got a lot of applicants for that one. So, really excited. Got a lot of interest. Um, and then the Carpenter Aquatics team is currently training 14 beach uh lifeguard rookies with sessions running from midappril through midmay. Um, and this is a big increase from last summer's five rookies. So, an an addition of uh nine rookies there. Um, so this will greatly enhance beach staffing for the upcoming season. And at the pool, we have 11 pool lifeguard rookies are also in training with their final session scheduled for April 12th. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Ryan. Um, now I'm going to bring up our community development director, Nick Babro, to give us some updates on development applications. Thank you, Michael. Uh, good evening, Mayor Aleron and council members. I've got just a couple of housing related updates for you on a couple of our larger housing projects. Um, maybe just to start out, I was going to mention that city staff has created a new uh page on the city's housing web page uh related to frequently asked questions for h relating to housing laws. Um the intention of this is to provide the public with an introductory understanding to the city's regional housing needs assessment allocation, our certified housing element and key statewide housing laws and how these different uh requirements and laws sort of intersect and and relate to one another. Um, the FAQ responses provide an introductory explanation of the various laws and then there's also links embedded in the answers to where reader can go and do a deeper dive into the actual details and background of of each of those laws. And probably the easiest way for folks to get there is from the city homepage. Scroll down to the bottom under hot topics. Click on the housing button and then down on the lefth hand side you'll see there's a new uh section here housing law FAQs. Click on that and it'll pull up the FAQs that we've developed so far. If you click on the little button next to each question you'll get a more detailed response with you know various links to yet more detail. Uh so this will be kind

of a living breathing web page. We'll continue to update it as new issues crop up or if we're getting uh repeat questions from the community relating to housing laws, but we thought this was a way to kind of build on some of the other educational work that we do uh such as the annual report on the housing element or the annual update to your council and the planning commission and ARB on changes to state housing laws. And again, this is an effort to kind of help better educate uh the community about um you know, some of these housing laws that apply to the city and how those will relate to development projects that come before your decision-making bodies. Um moving on to the 5885 Carpenter Avenue residential project, otherwise known as the farm. Uh the applicant team held a well- attended community openhouse event this last Thursday at the Carpenter Community Church. Uh the intent of the open house was for the development team to share information about the proposed project with the community and for the applicant team to solicit feedback from the community on uh what they might like to see there. Um I understand it was a well attended event. We had a couple folks from city staff there and I understand some of the uh council was there as well. I think Michael might have a couple of impressions to share and and we'd be welcome or be interested to hear what the council thought too if any of your council members happen to attend.

Yes. Thank you, Nick. So, um I thought it was pretty well attended. Uh there was it was a small space and there were people coming and going and so I guess it's can debate these numbers, but I say maybe between 100 and 150. Um I'll let you all decide. I know some of you were there on maybe maybe there are more or less. Um the there were uh workstations there and so uh they did begin the meeting with um a single presentation to the entire group about the meeting and then after that people broke up into into stations where they were able to go and talk to um people self-help housing about the affordable component and and so forth. Um they um had a comment section up on the stage where people could go up and give their input. I um there was also uh citizens for the bless was very active in being there and they had a large contingent of folks there amongst just uh general people but it all I think um went relatively smooth and they were able to give their feedback uh about the project and uh looking forward to receiving that synthesized uh comments from the developers so that we can share them with your council. And then again, I know that uh several of you were there and likely have comments of your own and you can check me on my 100 to 150 on what you feel about that followup any updates? No, I feel like there were there were probably more than 100 and 150. It was so it was so the space was so small and it seemed like there were people coming and going. But yeah, it was definitely a good crowd that attended. So that was great to see.

Yeah, I will add that I know that there was um discussion about the the tradeoffs was sort of the focus of the meeting, you know, if the community would like to see if they if there were a project to be there, would they like to see more ownership product or rental product? Would they like to see uh more open space? If so, would it be activated recreation or would it be more natural or would it connect to uh existing trails? Um would the affordable be onsite or offsite? Um would it be uh all together which is I know I think people self-help is use that model to manage or would it be dispersed throughout the community and those sorts of things. Um you know unfortunately I think they talked a lot about those trade-offs at the beginning of the meeting. So, I think there's probably a number of people who might have showed up after that initial um speech was given and maybe not got the full um introduction on on the various uh trade-offs. I know that cuz I was having conversations about them and and people were saying, "Oh, okay, wait. What can we talk about?" And I know some several people after I spoke with them went up and added to their to their comment sections. Um but uh you know overall again thought it went relatively well and looking forward to getting hearing back from what they received.

Yeah. Um I appreciate you sharing that because I attended after so I didn't receive that speech component. So I can imagine a lot of people other people didn't as well. Um but I do have a question. Do we expect to receive the comments or how can the council receive the comments from that meeting or would the developers do they even intend to pass along that information?

Uh Mayor Aleron, I based on the conversations we've had with the applicant team, we do expect that we will receive some form of the comments from the applicant team. Not sure if we're going to just get, you know, copies of of each written statement or if we're going to get some kind of summary that that hasn't really been um fully nailed down, but I do expect we will see some kind of at least synthesis of of what feedback was received at the meeting. Great. Thank you. And I just want to reiterate to the public that that was not a city-hosted event. that was hosted by the developers um as an open house with the community.

That's correct.

And and then um finally, I just wanted to provide a brief update on the 5115 Ogan Road residential project. This is the the builder's remedy project that's proposed on the Frontier Communications property. Um, back in late February on the 24th, the applicant group for that project, Carpa Group LLC, filed litigation against the city of Carperia and Santa Barbara Superior Court, alleging violations of state housing laws, non-compliance with the public records act requirements, and deficiencies in the city's housing element. In response to the pending litigation, the city released a statement explaining that it believes it has complied with all applicable laws related to this project and that the lawsuit is without merit as it misstates the law and the facts. I don't anticipate that we'll be updating our website on the litigation uh as it's pending, but you know, I do think once there is resolution to the litigation that we would update the website with that sort of information. Um, if folks are interested in trying to follow along with the lawsuit, uh, they can look at the public filings that are posted on the county superior court website.

And I just want to confirm that this is in relation to the 18story proposed project. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. If there's no more questions on that, I'd like to bring up our parks and uh recreation and community services uh director, Janette Gant, just to give you a couple updates on those types of projects and programs.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council. A few updates from Parks, Recreation, and Community Services for you this evening. Um, first off, the junior lifeguard program registration opened and is going very well. We have 100 170 enrollments in session 1 with 24 participants registered for session one after camp. We have 139 enrollments in session two with 16 participants registered for after camp. What's the most exciting to me at least about this registration is that we have 217 what we would call unique individuals registered for junior lifeguards compared to the 180 that um we had last season. Um so this leads us to believe that the two session model has been received well and we have more total participants overall. And then as of press time of the city manager's report, all of the sessions with the exception of one B group had openings. However, I checked this morning and it appears that all sessions and all levels have just a few spots left. Um, so to register, all participants must have passed the swim test and you can register online at carpentia.rectesk.com/ community/program. or you can simply call the Carpentria pool, come in person or email karpool@carpriacca.gov and one of our team members will help you out from there. The community garden hosted a seedball making workshop which was led by our program manager Tori Cutbirth and 15 participants learned how to make California native seedballs and painted rocks to decorate the garden. The garden will be taking this seed ball making on the road and will be tableabling at the arts center inaugural Carpentria Earth Day this coming Saturday, April 18th from 12:00 to 4 p.m. And Agewell hosted its first mini kite festival which welcomed 23 guests on Lynen Field this uh on Saturday,

April 4th. And all are welcome to join AgeWell on Thursday, April 16th from 1 to 2 pm in the Veterans Memorial meeting room for our lecture series. And this week's topic will be led by Omar Flores, the owner of CARP physio. And Omar will share practical strategies for caring for your joints, maintaining mobility, and reducing everyday aches and pains to help participants stay active and healthy. And that's all I have for you this evening. Happy to answer any questions.

I just have a a question. Um, well, one, I'm really happy to see those numbers for Junior Lifeguards. It's one of our most popular programs, which is nice to see. Um, and I'm just curious if the council can receive an invite if there's either like the opening day of junior guards or if there's more an appropriate time if they have competitions from what I've gathered for the council to attend and just participate and celebrate their hard work. Um, yes, Mayor Alakon, absolutely. I'd be happy to send you all some key dates which could be the first day of each session, but also um the Karp Comp is kind of really the gem. So, it's a competition that we host here. And I can tell you, uh when I first saw it two summers ago now, I was just absolutely floored by all that our staff do and put on to host so many people on our beach and facilitating the competitions, um coordinating with our fire department to have um their crews out in the water. It's definitely a site to see if you guys are available. I will email you all those dates. No problem.

Thank you.

Thank you, Janette. Can also give you the day we have to push the platforms out into the ocean if you guys want to just bring some sweats and a hoodie. You should be okay. Um, so just a couple things. The Rinkcon Trail project has been selected by Congressman Salude Carbajal to advance for consideration under the 2027 federal appropriation process. The $2 million community project uh funding request will now move on to the subcommittee on transportation, housing, and urban development for further review. The selection of the project by Congressman Carbajal is an important step and a highly competitive process and reflects the strength of the project and its regional benefit. Uh that was uh put together for us by our partners SB KAG and if the monies were received it would be uh simply for the design uh phase of the project. Uh also uh on this past Friday, our city participated in the annual state of the city event that's hosted by the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce. Uh attendees included our mayor, our vice mayor, our administrative services director, Lette Maldonado, our public works director, Janna Lawson, and our emergency management communications program manager Jalisa Briones, assistant city manager, Ryan Kent, and myself. um mayor delivered some wonderful remarks about key accomplishments and priorities. We also had a wonderful video put on by TVSB who's um here making sure this also gets aired. That video people want to see is available on the city's YouTube channel. Um simply you can Google our city and YouTube and I'm sure that video will pop up. And then I also participated in a panel discussion along with the city manager from Galita and city admin uh administrator from Santa Barbara just about uh general issues going on in the region. And so it was another successful event and uh that is all for me. Happy to

answer any questions. Not a question just a comment but um having attended the state of the cities I can attest to the fact that our mayor did a great job and our city manager did a really great job too. you were talking about some complicated financial issues and I thought out of the three city managers that you did the best by far. So, thank you for being there. Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, no questions. Thank you. We will now open up public comment and I have a speaker slip for Susan Allen.

Good evening, Susan Allen. Um, I understand that there have been no new positions added um to uh city staff, but I'm wondering about a position that seems to have disappeared, and that's the third member of code enforcement. Code enforcement is really a face in the community. That's who you see out. I mean, you see you see other people out, but that's who a lot of people interface with. And that third position has just seemed to have disappeared. And um right now you're expecting two people to cover um 9 to5 7 days a week and that's a really big ask for just two people. And uh regarding Thursday evening um I can say that citizens for the Carporia Bluffs passed out between 125 and 150 no stickers. So we know there we're at least 125 people there. Thank you. I do not have any additional speaker slips for the city manager's report. Do we have anyone via Zoom?

Uh, mayor, we have no Zoom speakers.

I will close public comment and we will move on to the next item on our agenda, which is the planning commission actions. Thank you, mayor. At the April 6th planning commission hearing, uh the commission had one item on their agenda, which was a continued hearing from February of the pending Verizon Wireless uh communications facility application for 912 Lynen Avenue, which is the building where Sushi Terry and Pacific Health Foods are located. Uh prior to the hearing, we did receive a request from the applicant asking for a continuence of the item to the June 1st planning commission hearing, and the planning commission vote unanimously to grant that two-month continuence. uh with the understanding that that additional time would allow Verizon to complete their due diligence review of the alternative site that's being considered for the wireless facility at the county owned Veterans Memorial Building at 914 Walnut. And so, um, we will we'll circle back to that item in June, uh, and see where Verizon is at and if they, uh, you know, want to move forward with an alternative site or if they will be, uh, refocusing their their energies on the current pending application there on Lynen. Uh the only other item there on last Monday's hearing was the planning commission appointed Commissioner Moyer as their chair and Commissioner Benfield as their vice chair. And the commission also reappointed Commissioners Benfield and Van Anwerp to the city's general plan update committee. And that concludes my planning commission action memo unless you have any questions for me.

No questions. Thank you. I will now open up public comment. And we have one speaker slip from Roelo Delgado. That's on the public comment, not on the agenda. Oh, for general. Okay. Sorry, it looked like a nine. Okay, that's a G. Okay. Uh, do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we have no Zoom speakers. I will close public comment. And we will now move on to public comment on matters not on the agenda. And we will start with Roelo Deo. Welcome.

Uh thank you, Rogado. Uh uh two issues. Uh number one, uh that Santa Barbara County uh uh is making a $7 million cut on their budget and uh social services will be impacted all over uh meaning uh people benefits will be impacted, personnel will be impacted. State and federal aid will be impacted. Medical will be impacted. Dental benefits will be impacted. uh the bento program uh Taylor Mills will be impacted as of not only social services uh uh people jobs will be impacted. I I think that it would be a good idea to invite someone uh from the county uh to the uh to a city uh council meeting to uh uh advise uh the community how to prepare for those cuts. Uh to inform people the alternatives available. Number two, uh the builder's remedy is affecting the carrier community. What's the remedy

to this? The developers have the remedy on the farm on the 18 story building. 20% will be affordable units and that's a clear path uh for the uh developing these projects. That's the way I understand it. There's no way to stop this because taking advantage of this uh build this remedy and what about the community uh what's a way to stop uh this developments uh unless I'm mistaken there's no way to stop this and at first I thought that this uh affordable uh units would help our carrier community but but uh they're not available who is going to be believe on these units probably people from other places so what's the remedy to this thank you

thank you for your comments next we have Nathan Pratt welcome

hello am I on okay um this is just off the cuff comment uh I heard you talking about the meeting about the farm development. I too was a late aror to that meeting so I didn't see the presentation they gave but I did speak to uh the architect for the project the low-income housing component people there and the owner of the of the land and um I would say that you know if you're counting on on the comments on the paper comments I didn't even write one down because I figured these were going to the developer and they would go in a trash can. So, uh, if they actually do have the the documents, if you could request a Xerox copy of the actual written documents, not a summary. You want the actual original form notes if people wrote little notes. I recommend that if you could ask for it at least and see if you get it. Um, and just so you know, the architect said he just did a very general plan. His concept was he was told that the low-inccome housing was going to be sprinkled around the development. Um, beyond that, he kind of just did a general layout of a housing track. I talked to the low-inccome housing people. They said they really didn't quite know anything yet, but it was just in conceptual phase, which means nothing's happened yet. And, uh, I talked to the owner about some things. So, um, that was all. I would just say if you could actually get those notes, it'd be interesting to see what people wrote down just to see what the general, you know, true number was, and you can analyze it for yourself and come up with your own conclusions. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Kathleen Readington, welcome. Hello.

Oh, first of all, thank you very much and it's nice to be here. Always feels familiar and somehow nervous like I used to when I was up there. But anyway, um I am here to request that two of the council members move together to investigate the idea of development, new development, especially housing development in our city. Uh look at the idea of putting underground utilities. I recently attended uh a meeting um and a documentary film about I think it's called and you can help me out here Wade Lai in in in Hawaii that was destroyed. I spoke to the fire chief and then also the assistant fire chief of Santa Barbara after the meeting and I said what can we do about this? We have a lot of proposed development coming into our city and a lot of it is in areas which are fireprone or dangerous to fires. Now we all know names like the Woolsey, Altadena, Pasadena. I have friends who have lost homes. It happens quick. It happens fast and a lot of it happens because of those utility lines in the wind. I am requesting that the council, at least two of you, recommend to development or the department of development that we look into an ordinance that requires all new construction, especially that construction that is a laidout track or more than one home to how can we say stipulate legisl flee and I'm going to use the strong word demand that if they're going to build in

Carpentria, put your utilities underground. We have too many areas and all of California has too many areas. But I'd hate to see this wonderful town that now I can announce that I've lived in almost 30 years happily and enjoyed it um go up and smoke because those underground utilities and a big wind on a dry, you know, fall evening or summer night or now we're getting them in May and June, April. It's there's no they're saying now that as you know I'm sure that the fire season is year round. I'm looking over there for 30 seconds. I want to thank the people at and that's a very good idea by the way. Um and I hope you will seriously consider this. I think it's a big deal and I think it's something that will how can I say legislate development in this city if it's going to be here don't cause a fire. Okay. Um 8 seconds. The pool's doing a great job. I hadn't sp uh swam there for years and I started swimming again. I love it. Janet, uh Lexi, everybody who works there is just amazing. And also, I did attend the farm meeting. I think there were more than 150. And um yeah, thank you very much. I hope you will seriously consider I know it takes two of you to ask the city manager to look into underground utilities in new development. I think it's important. I think it's something that we really should do. And as I said, the fire chief of Lai, that was his recommendation. Okay.

Thank you for your Thank you very much. I appreciate you. Thank you. I do not have any other speakers. Do we have anyone via Zoom? We do have one speaker, uh, Mayor, uh, Sandy Islesworth. Sandy, go ahead.

Hi. Hey, good evening city council members and mayor Alakan. My name is Sandy Ellsworth and I'm with the Natural Resources Defense Council and I wanted to share some information about a proposal for a new marine protected area kind of like an underwater park in waters offshore of Carperia. The proposal is being co-sponsored by the Santi NEZ Band of Chumash Indians, the Environmental Defense Center and NRDC. For context, just to help understand why this is being considered right now, California is considering changes to its own network of 124 marine protected areas to improve it for the first time in 10 years. The state has also committed itself to new ocean protections through the 30 by30 initiative. And there are some opportunities to improve the MPA network, that's marine protected area network, and expand access to marine protected areas. um and visitors or for California residents and visitors especially in the south coast region. This proposal called Mishopno would conserve habitat essential to kelp bass, rockfish, leopard sharks, octopus, spiny lobster, uh egrets, harbor seals, etc. Um as well as an important aggregation area for juvenile great white sharks. It would also fill a 60-mi spacing gap between Campus Point and Point Doom marine protected areas, which would promote network connectivity. What this means is that the older, highly fertile female fish would be protected and therefore able to lay exponentially more fish eggs. And it would also advance a tribal co-management approach which would honor the Santa Enz's deep connection to the area. We've made significant amendments to the proposal following over well over I would say a hundred beatings within the community. We cut the size of the

proposal in half from 18 square miles to 9 square miles and we also left open to all fishing about 25% of Carperia Reef which is one of the features that the proposal would protect. Um so that that portion of the reef would still be fishable. We also to address recreational fishing concerns, we removed the offshore portion of the proposal, Armpit Reef. And then we are proposing to allow fishing from shore using hook and line gear, which is still um very low impact gear. So you'd still get the conservation benefit. Um, in terms of um, conflict with fishers, we just wanted to say as co-sponsors, we are strongly supportive of healthy and sustainable California fisheries. And we anticipate that closing this area to commercial and recreational fishing would have negligible material impact on overall commercial fisheries landings for the Santa Barbara Port area. Overall regional and statewide fishery landings and values have not been negatively impacted by California marine protected areas and the commercial spiny lobster fishery in the Santa Barbara region has seen significant benefits from marine protected areas. Finally, we believe that this proposal would enhance the quality of life for carpentry residents and visitors and help ensure that this very small special area continues to thrive into the future. The co-sponsors of this proposal hope that the city council will support it and we're very happy to take meetings to further discuss it with um anyone on the city council, members of the public or the mayor. Thank you so much for the opportunity to comment.

Thank you for your comments. Poss question. Um yeah, go ahead. Um Sandy, are you still there? I am. Um, I was wondering what are the uh um precise boundaries of the new proposed MPA. Yeah, I can send you a map, but the western boundary is directly south of Caspia Lane and then the eastern boundary goes to the um the Santa Monica Creek at Salt Point and the shoreline distance is about 3.6 miles.

Thank you. Great. Thank you for your comment. Do we have anyone else via Zoom? We do have one other uh speaker, mayor. Uh we have Eva Paggling. Eva, go ahead.

Good evening, council members and mayor. Um my name is Eva Paggling and I am a community member of the Santinez Band of Chumash Indians. Um, and I'm here tonight just to share a little bit more about the MPA and our cultural connection to the area. Um, and I'm just going to share a couple stories to kind of help draw that um, historical and cultural tie to Mishop Chino itself, the MPA. Um, happy to talk more, you know, another time if we can share some contact information about, you know, all the things that we have going on and our plans for co-management in the area as well. But um just to again talk about the the cultural significance um our Chimash people all originated from the Channel Islands just 20 m 21 miles off the shore and uh our creation story is actually directly tied to Mishop Chino. So, uh, for us as Chumash people when we, you know, started to overpop populate the islands, um, Chumash people prayed to creator to help us be able to get over to the mainland so that our people can continue to sustain life throughout the coast. And when creator uh, heard our prayers, he said he would help us get over to the mainland. And he uh would build a rainbow bridge for us. And the only rule that he had was for us to not look down while we were crossing that bridge. And as families started crossing over that bridge and and making it to the mainland, some folks looked down and they fell into the water. And when they fell into the water, um the families that were left standing on the bridge were praying to creator asking for help and said to please help their family members. And when they got over to the mainland, creator heard their please and he said, you know, I can't bring them back, but I will save your people. And he said that um instead of bringing them back, he would turn them into dolphins. And that's that's you know part of our connection to the ocean is that our our families and our ancestors are in the ocean. And um when our people landed over here on the mainland, our landing

site was Mishopno was this MPA. That was the first coastal village that we established ourselves as um you know as the coastal village system was there in Carperia. And I think, you know, I really just wanted to be able to to make a comment to help um again ground folks to where too much people are coming from and why it's such a significant area. You just heard Sandy talk about all the, you know, the diverse species that are so special to that area. I mean, it's I think it's one of the only great white shark nurseries that I've I've ever heard of in our territory. And um a lot of people just the qu we get that question a lot, you know, as co-sponsors, why is this area significant? Why is it so special? Um, and I think you know a lot of you already know you know our toml have come through carpia because it was a toml building hub and I actually grew up in our canoe family and my dad is the canoe builder for the Santine Band of Chumash Indians. So, I have spent uh over half my life paddling from the um Channel Islands Harbor over to Limu, which is Santa Cruz Island in our tomals. And uh it's just been a really a great honor for me to be able to continue to share our our cultural histories and our oral stories and help people understand why our sacred sites are being fiercely protected and supported, you know, by way of MPAs and other initiatives from the tribe. So, thank you so much for giving me this time and um yes, thank you.

Thank you for your comments. And mayor, that concludes Zoom comment. I'll go ahead and close public comment and bring it back to the council if there's any additional questions. Yes.

Um I do have one quick question um that is um pointed towards staff has to do with Kathleen Reington's comments about um utilities going underground. Um we did have that policy put in place for developed areas, newly developed areas, but in other areas that have been long time um uninccorporated to become part of city city limits, some of those have not yet been converted. That's one question is whether or not we plan on moving that forward. The second question um is kind of out of our jurisdiction but something I think is even more important that is is that u most of the overhead utilities specifically electric all fall within the county uh areas specifically and they're the ones surrounding all of Carperia. So I don't know if there's anything we could do to leverage that now that they're using some of the u well developing areas that used to be agriculture and now becoming residential multi-use. that may be something we want to take a look at. So,

Mayor Aleron, Council Member Namura, I can try to answer some of your question. Uh, a bit of this kind of falls in my shop and some of it falls in our public works department's shop. Um, you know, maybe by way of background, right, we do typically require on new development or major redevelopment in the city that the utility laterals, so that's the the lines that come from the power poles or from the power lines to a new building be placed underground. Uh, that's a standard requirement for for any new construction. And on a larger project that does trigger uh like a subdivision map. So when we're doing multiple new homes or a larger development, we do whenever we can try to work with the developer and Edison to get the transmission lines and the actual power poles along the street frontages placed underground. Um sometimes there's some some cost constraints with that. If there's uh major high voltage lines or other types of major utility equipment involved, it can quickly uh you know become a major major undertaking that might price out some of the smaller types of projects we typically see in the city from being able to to do that kind of work. Um, in terms of your question about, you know, working with some of the larger projects that are proposed or that we expect to be proposed along our borders in the county, I think we'd have to work with the county here to see what their requirements are. I would expect that they probably have a similar requirement for for new kind of urban type development within their jurisdiction, but we could we could chase that down and and circle back and let you know. Um and then as far as you know the like the major high voltage lines that are up in the hills right up the big towers. Yeah. Those are definitely in the county's jurisdiction or in some cases even in the national forest. And um those would be a major major undertaking to try to get to get underground and are probably something that's bigger than what even the county can accomplish on their own.

That might be like a you know a state or national level effort at that point. Yeah, that would be national level. Um but thank you for that one. I would like to commend the city though and making sure that we have the laterals all cross over the freeway. You did a great job on those making sure that those all stayed underground. So at least we have the infrastructure set in place for the downtown area and a lot of the developments from the 60s and 70s. So thank you. Great. Any additional questions? Okay, seeing none. Thank you. We will now move on to the consent calendar and I will open up public comment for those items. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we have no Zoom speakers. I will close public comment and bring it back to the council for a motion.

Uh I move to approve the minutes of the regular meeting held March 23rd, 2026 and the special meeting held March 30th, 2026 to receive and file the warrant register for the period of March 16th through April 3rd, 2026 pursuant to Carpenter Municipal Code section 2.08.150F 08.150F and to receive and file the monthly TR city treasures report on compliance with statement of safekeeping and investment of public funds for February 2026. Second. We have a first and a second. All those in favor? Any opposed? Motion passes. And before we move on to administrative matters, I'll just ask for a 10-minute recess.

Hello all and welcome back to the Carpenter City Council regular meeting. Today is April 13, 2026, and we will resume with administrative matters beginning at item number 13, which is a consultant services agreement between the city of Carponeria and Environmental Science Associates, ESA, to oversee and prepare environmental review documents for the residential farm project at 5885 Carpenter Avenue in an amount not to exceed $563,518. Good evening, mayor and council. Uh, yes. Item 13 is the proposed agreement for the consultant services to prepare SQA environmental impact report for the farm project 5885 Carpia Avenue. So we circulated a request for proposals in January of this year and we received very uh five very strong uh proposals from firms who specialize in this type of work. Um after our internal rating process and some follow-up interviews, we are recommending Environmental Science Associates or ESA as the selected consultant for an agreement such as this. The city will contract directly with the consulting firm, but the project applicant for the farm project will pay the city for those costs. And the contract is set up for $563,518 to cover those estimated costs. With that, staff is available for questions. And I'll also note that applicant representatives uh Spencer Kick and Amavir Bra are on the Zoom. and Brian Ali who is the deputy uh project manager with ESA is also available on Zoom if you have any questions of them

questions. Yeah, couple questions for this one. Uh can you walk us through um the how the city ensures that even though the applicant is funding the the EIR that the basically that the city is is receiving the information that is most helpful to us.

Certainly. Thank you, Vice Mayor Sarsstone, through the mayor. Um well, first of all, uh some jurisdictions allow applicants to hire their own EIR consultants, but the city of Carpentia uh makes sure that we conduct that process and that we hire firms that we uh believe are qualified and that will work with us because uh the city recognizes that as lead agency ultimately it is our document. It's our environmental analysis. it's not the applicants or the consultants. So, we work closely with the consultant team to review all of the deliverables, all of the work products, the scope of work to direct the consultant to make sure that they're following our local laws and policies in and that that is reflected in all of the work. And then uh the legal team with our city attorney's office also reviews everything before it is released.

And so I guess a little bit along those lines, it sounds like from the staff report that there's this is like a multi-step process in terms of um technical review, looking at costs, interviews. Um can you share more about what ultimately made ESA stand out as the choice this time and if there were any concerns with the fact that I know they're also doing the EIR for um the the Surfliner as well. So, is that something that's that could be a a strength, a weakness, or can you speak to that a little bit?

Sure. Thank you. Um, yes, we did our normal internal process where we rated all of the proposals. We actually came down to two of our top favorites and um we then held interviews with those two and ESA really stood out because they are very experienced with complex coastal development projects and they really shined in the interview when it came to those kinds of questions. Even the applicant agreed with that that they were very qualified. um they have been doing a great job with the Surfliner um analysis. They've been working with us. They've uh been addressing all of our our comments and now addressing all of the public comments. And I think uh their understanding of Carpentria is is strong with that. But I'll also note that uh they added depth to their bench for this project knowing that it's bigger project, more complex. They added Mike Harden who's the project manager uh in the proposal and he has over 25 years experience with very complex um coastal projects with high visibility and big public concerns. So, um, he's so with him and Ruda Thomas and Brian Ali, uh, that's like over 70 years of combined experience of doing these kinds of documents. And so, this might be more a question for them, but so for a project like this where there's a lot of strong public interest, um, how does the consultant team approach making sure that the public feels heard and do they have like what plans do they have in place for for gathering feedback from the community?

Um the yeah we are keenly aware that there's a lot of public concern with this project um and that we'll need to work collaboratively also with ESA to make sure that we're capturing all of the public input as that is big part of the SQA process. Um, I'll also just note that at its heart, SQUA is a disclosure document. And so what ESA really needs to focus on is doing as objectively as possible environmental analysis based on facts, based on um, substantial evidence. Um, but that said, they take the response to comments process very seriously and they I I'm seeing that in action right now with the Surfliner Inn project. They are um working with me to make sure that the city is responding where needed and that um and and that nothing gets missed that that all of the comments are being addressed. And just add if I can uh to Mindy's excellent answer, right, that SQA is a statuto has a statutory process and there's certain, you know, mandated steps along the way that uh are all open to the public to participate in. And so, you know, part of what we do on any of these projects, right, is just follow through these steps, starting with the scoping exercise of uh engaging the public from step one to find out, you know, what issue areas they think we should be looking at in the environmental document, what potential uh impacts we need to be looking at or potential mitigation measures we need to consider or project alternatives and so on. So, you know, in some ways the the process is kind of spelled out for for whatever consultant is hired ultimately. Um, but nevertheless, the consultant can still work with city staff to make sure we're getting word out there and giving the public notice of these opportunities to participate.

Great. No, thank you. And just one more question. I know one of the in the staff report, one of the goals with the ER is to have um what's a defensible EIR. And so in your experience, like what what are the most common vulnerabilities with ERS for projects like this one? and what kind of might make it fall into that indefensible category.

Great. Um, yeah, and and Jenna may have uh some thoughts on this too, but I think the biggest vulnerabilities would be incomplete technical analysis, um, lack of clarity when it comes to the, uh, impact conclusions and then insufficient response to comments. And so, uh, what ESA is proposing in their scope of work is addressing those things and really minimizing the risks to the city by preparing a very thorough um, detailed analysis, including um, additional studies that have been commissioned and peer reviews also. Did you want to add anything, Jenna?

Mindy, great response. Um, uh, Vice Mayor Solaro through the mayor. Just to reiterate also that the city attorney's office, as Mindy says, does review everything before it goes out. So, we will have a team there reviewing all of the drafts that the consultant puts together. And that's it's just helpful. And thank you for that that background. I know that the community is going to really want to know that the group that's doing this is going to be as thorough, meticulous, and responsive as possible. And and so it sounds like that is one of their u priority areas. Um so, thank you. Those are my questions. additional questions.

Just sort of a few questions to that add to the vice mayor. Um you mentioned that in other jurisdictions it's actually the applicant who hires the firm to do the EIR but here we don't do that which is great. Um but how much did the applicant participate in this process? Yes, thank you uh council member mayor through the mayor. Um first we reviewed all the proposals ourselves before we shared them with the applicant and then um we did our own internal rating sheets and then we did share all the proposals with the applicant but let them know who the top two were um based on our review uh and asked them if they had any concerns about that. They said, "No, that sounds great." And then we invited one of the applicant representatives to sit in on the interviews with the top two. Um, I'll just note that at that point, both of the top two candidates were really good and we didn't have a preference um at at at that point. But at the interviews, ESA really shined when it came to addressing coastal in particular coastal act and coastal LCP issues. And so after the interviews when I talked with the applicant's representative, that's what he pointed out to me which I immediately said that's what I got from it too. So um so that helped us decide. So they helped, you know, they did help decide that in the end, but we already knew that either one of the top two was going to be great. And so,

thank you. And then just one more question. Uh, in the staff report, I think that the the they came back if ranging like from the mid 200,000s to almost 600,000. Uh, this is pretty close to the top. Did cost come factor in at all or was it just qualifications based?

It was mainly qualifications based. I will say uh with the one that was the lowest, it factored in the sense that it it felt like they did not understand the scope of work. So for the ones that were in the 300 to 600, we knew that those ones understood that this was going to be a heavy lift. So to that extent, but really it's more about going in and reviewing that they understood the project that they were proposing depth of experience and that those were the primary factors and then of course the coastal considerations.

That's helpful. Thank you. And then I really appreciate those questions and just to piggy back off that a little bit if you can share because it sounds like there was some sort of a rubric used um if you can share a little bit more about that just so that we can get a better sense of how um the top contenders were chosen. And I know you've shared a little bit about like the the experience and depth and complex coastal projects, but are there any other factors that you all took into account when you scored the applicants?

Yes. Um, I actually have one of my checklists here so I can don't have to try and remember. Um, and these are weighted scores. So, um, so I don't Yeah, actually I can I can tell you the weight. So, in looking at the technical proposals, 20% is given to understanding the scope of work and what is being requested. 15% to the method methodological approach and the timeline proposed. 15% to the ability to present technical material in a precise manner. 15% ex uh regarding experience and references for similar projects. uh 15% for professional skills and credentials um for the people that are responsible for preparing the document and 10% regarding the general quality of the proposal which is subjectivity involved. And that is why our panel of three we met and went over what our scores were and why and made sure that we were all in agreement. And in this case, our scores were all very close. So, we were in in clear agreement.

Very helpful. Thank you. I appreciate that. And just one other question. Um, have we with any um ERS in the past, have we worked with other consultants other than ESA or just maybe in the past year or two? I'm not sure how many. Yes, we have. We worked with MRS on the Chevron EIR and we've been working with WSP on the general plan update EIR. Great. Thank you. I appreciate that. Any other questions from council? None. Okay. I will open up public comment and we will start with Susan Allen.

Good evening again. And I've got some scribbled notes here, so hope I can figure out what they say. Um, I want to take thank um council and city staff for taking on the responsibility of um conducting the EIR process. Having the developer does never sits well with at least to me the general public. So, I I know that puts an extra burden, but um I think as far as making everybody feel like they're heard, it's the right thing to do. Um the other thing I haven't heard tonight is a timeline, and I just am addressing this as far as public education because people come up and say, "Oh, the project's approved." And going, "No, not yet." Um because we have the EIR process and I know it can take a really long time. So maybe that can somehow be spelled out. um tonight to and and I think we just I feel we just have to keep educating the public on what's going on and and how it all transpires and their ability to comment and educate themselves to me is really super important. Um and then given what we've heard from previous speakers, I really think that part of the um I'll put my two cents in early that um the connection to the village of Michopno is maybe more important than even I realized. Um so hopefully that can be looked at. Um and then just a general question um because I was a little bit taken aback when looking at the 5885 project um at city hall. When I went in, I had to have Mindy stand with me and put my phone away. Um, because the developer considered the documents proprietary, which doesn't I've never seen that with any other project in the city. So, I'm wondering now if those

documents are kind of free to the public to look at and not have to have Mindy take valuable time away from her business while we look at documents and ask a lot of questions. Thank you. Thank you for your comment. Uh Emrida S, welcome.

Good evening. Um I already wrote uh a comment earlier today that I sent on. I'm concerned about the continual use of the same consultants and apparently not knowing uh as a resident whether there's a policy or plan to increase the number of consulting firms to respond to RFPs. It's very glad to hear from Mindy that there were actually five people who did respond. Um, at the present time, the Surfliner EIR is being done by the same consulting firm that uh the contract the city council is to approve tonight for the farm project. Um, many people in the community feel that the draft EIR for the Surfliner was not wellreceived either by the ERC committee or the public. If you look at appendix A of the draft EIR, you will see hundreds and hundreds of suggestions on what should be done. I mean, the biologist on the environmental review committee had to tell them they had to do some biological studies. I mean, why wouldn't they have thought of that doing that at night? Um, so I was concerned that you're not only hiring the same consulting firm, but a consulting firm that in the opinion of many of the people in the community did not do excellent work. And my second question um about the contract is what is the normal time that a contract for an EIR is made? Is it before a project goes to the ARB? I've never heard of that happening. After the ARB meeting or does it go after the their first meeting with the planning commission or when the planning commissioner said now we can move forward if that could be explained.

I just thought it was a little unusual. I've never heard of a contract for an EIR being signed before it even goes to an ARB meeting. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Uh Nathan Pratt, I am one of those community members that uh took a look over at the EIR that this firm did for the Surfliner in and um the quality of work just isn't good enough. That was a poor quality job. The fact that city staff recommends it makes me question their judgment. And I would highly say that if you have not been involved in choosing the firms, you should as a city council be interviewing all these firms yourself. I would not sub that work out to staff. You guys are making the decision. You should talk to these firms and see who who you are comfortable with. But the the initial EI that I did read that they put out had numerous flaws, gigantic omissions, really just a breeze by everything. So, uh I would say if I was a developer, I'd want to have that firm picked absolutely because they're going to give me a good EIR. But, uh as far as, you know, really doing a good quality job, I I cannot recommend it. And uh as far as timing, it does seem I don't know how you guys do all these kinds of things, but it seems like if a project isn't approved, why even go through the work of doing an EIR, you know, if you don't haven't got all your preliminary approvals done, why even spend the money either on the developer side or the city side? So, uh I would recommend pushing this decision back until this project is more fully, you know, consummated as a project that will move forward or not as the case may be. So, just uh couple quick comments. That was it.

Thank you for your comments. I do not have any other speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we have no Zoom speakers. Great. I will close public comment and bring it back to the council for additional questions or and actually I I can start. I have two follow-up questions from our public speakers for our staff. One is if you can share the timeline and two if you can share um just the EIR kind of process. And the question was about if it's before ARB or after or just where it is in the process typically.

Certainly. Thank you, mayor. Um the timeline that's in the scope of work, uh it shows about 13 months from when the EIR gets kicked off. We do not yet know when the kickoff will be. And so, uh, as you know, they just had some community input last week and we're waiting to hear some of the results of that. and if it will um maybe get folded any of it get folded into the project description before we begin the EIR process. And regarding the timing versus an ARB hearing, um this is a housing project and under the housing accountability act, we only get five uh um review hearings or even from an advisory body like the architectural review board. And so we do not want to rush into any of those hearings if we're not ready. And so we right now uh believe that doing in getting the project description stabilized, doing some environmental analysis would be um very helpful and very beneficial to informing the process before we begin um approval hearings or advisory body hearings. Jenna, anything to add to that?

Yeah, thank thank you Mindy. Um through the mayor, just a little bit of clarification as well on the process. So, under state law, under the California Environmental Quality Act, a public agency is um prohibited from taking any action or making any discretionary decisions on a project unless and until it goes through um the SQUA process. So, in this pro in this situation, our SQA process um is, you know, going to be uh likely going to be an EIR. And so the city can't make any of those decisions about approving or preliminaryly approving um projects until they see all of that environmental analysis. And so that's one of the reasons we would not go to the planning commission or you know further until that document is finalized. So just a follow-up question then is um is this typical then for us to move forward with the EIR in right now currently and then is the 13 months in terms of the how long it could take also typical on the second question. Yes, the 13 months is a very typical estimate for um trying to calculate how long an EI will take from the kickoff point until the final EIR point, not counting approval hearings. And that's what they're showing. Of course, we can't always tell what kinds of changes might occur and it could be soon, it could actually be more streamlined, it could be a faster process, or it could take longer. But that is a good estimate. Um, and then typical process. Nick, did you want to address that?

Sure. Thanks, Mindy. So, some of this is at the discretion of staff and it would depend on the projects. Um, you know, the city's standard practice as it's outlined in in the uh environmental guidelines manual and in the applicants guide that we have on our city website uh suggests that typically SQL review would go first. the EI review in this case would go first before you go to architecture review board or on the planning commission. Um that being said, you know, in past circumstances, there have been instances where it made sense to do an architecture review board meeting early on to help pin down a project description or help in in Mindy's parlance, you know, stabilize the project description and then take that through the environmental review process. So, we've done it both ways and it just depends on the project. But I think as Mindy pointed out earlier, given some of the limitations that are placed on local agencies now for housing projects in particular in terms of the number of hearings we have, it makes sense to frontload the environmental impact report work and get that done first before we utilize any of those five hearings that we have at our at our disposal. And then my other question um which a commenter asked was about whether or not the plans are available to the public without having staff present to review it with them. Is that available or have the developers made that available?

Uh thank you Mayor Alakon. Not yet. Um we are going to follow up with them this week now that they clearly were showing the plans at a public uh open house last week. Um, of course, one of my follow-up questions, uh, for the applicant team also is there's still some things in our letters that we recently sent out that we've been asking be addressed in the plans. And so, it could be that they uh need to provide us the a more updated set of plans. And I would prefer that be the case before we put it on our website so that we have the latest and greatest. Is there um could we request that information before I mean I don't want to complicate things but if we did not approve this could we request that information before we approve this e if there isn't um if it's not being if we're not on a time constraint out of curiosity

I think that uh is a question both for Jenna as well as maybe the applicant team who's here on Zoom and they might be able to tell you. Great. I'll look to to you, Jenna. Sure. Mayor Alakon, I'm not sure if you could uh restate your question. What is um Well, I'm I'm just curious if we have to is is this do we need to because it sounds like there's still some things that we don't have from the developer. For example, if the plans aren't necessarily made available to the public, is there any reason why we have to approve this now? Are we on a time constraint to approve um what we're currently looking at for the EIR?

Great. So, I'll I'll um try to take these in two different parts. So, the first question, there is a it's a provision of state law that requires um cities get consent before um making public architectural drawing. So, it's very specific to one type of document. That said, those documents are available for public inspection um in at city hall for someone to come look at, right? They just can't actually be copied until there's the consent of the of the architect. So, as Mindy said, we do expect that that will be coming and it's something that we'll follow up on. Um your council does have full discretion to um you know, not approve um this uh contract this evening. I'm I'm not sure of the benefits of that or how that would benefit the uh the city or the council. We've been working directly um with the applicant to um you know understand if there may be some different changes to the proposal and that's something that um although maybe not our ideal something that Mindy and I and and Mac and Nick have all talked about that we could incorporate as the SQA process goes on we've addressed those kind of concerns to the applicant team as well and they've and also let them know that that may increase their costs um in the SQA process and they've acknowledged that. Any other questions from council?

Okay, I'm going to try to see if I can get this question out. Um so, as one of the public commenters suggested, uh we should not hire this firm today because of concerns. Does that is that count as making a decision about the project? Because there was like a lot of talk about that. I just want to make sure that I've got that right. That's not the same thing as making a decision. Correct. Great question, council member, mayor. And I was through the mayor and I was uh I was not parsing my words correctly, but yes, this is a decision, but it's a decision to undertake SQA. So, you're not making any sort of entitlement decision or approving the project, right? There's no preliminary approval to the project. There's no final approval to the project. All you're saying is we're investigating. We're exploring this project, which you're required to do, right? An application has been submitted to the city. You are required by law to take that application through the development review process. And this is part of the development review process undertaking SQUA

and the EIR that that I've just got their name wrong. I have it. The EI that ESA is going to prepare for us is based on the set of plans that the public is not allowed to see unless they're with Mindy, right? Or is it or is it just any building on that parcel? Council member, mayor, we do not yet have a working project project description for the EIR. Okay.

We intend to work with the applicant on the project description and work closely with ESA on the description that is needed in order to begin scoping and begin an analysis. Okay, that that was my question. Thank you.

And if I can jump in really quick, Mindy, um, and council member mayor through the mayor. I think this is where two different things are getting conflated, right? This is not a decision tonight about whether or not the council staff, anyone agrees with the proposed project description, right? That's a later discussion and a later discretionary decision. Tonight, it's simply here is the EIR. you know, we don't get necessarily a say in the project description or the you know, that that's presented to us by an applicant. And so it's they will provide a project description as long as it goes through our normal process internally. That's the project description, right? And so our job is to move this application through our process. We get to apply our rules, but we have to comply with law. And part of the law requires that we comply with SQA. So this is the first step in complying with SQA is getting a SQA consultant on board.

Thank you, Jenna. Any additional questions? Yeah.

Yeah. One real quick. Um J, I understand the scope of this one, but my question would be regarding the um the requested changes that the um city staff put forward. Would that affect at all the uh plans? Um is this going to be something that would potentially have to be changed at a later time? And if they don't make the changes, are these change recommendations that the city put forward something that we think is relevant or essential to the project itself? Uh can I clarify real quick? And by requested changes you mean um when I was saying earlier that our letters have asked so for instance a good example is we've asked them to show a secondary access for fire uh fire safety. And so um those things are still pending but once we receive them it will not substantially change the scope of work that is attached to this contract. the contract is um or I should say the scope of work and the contract are um kind of what's the word I'm looking for? They're malleable enough such that yeah that we can still make changes. We can add uh different aspects to the project or other studies. Um so that can all still be done um within the scope of the contract and the set forth timeline and everything.

So the recommendations will become contradictory to what they have currently put forward. I'm not and don't understand in in other words um the recommendations you made um are based not on anything specific as far as qualifying the project. These are just going to be basically minor tweaks. Correct.

So, as an example, if you have um units that need to be well, if you have to have accesses done, uh access ingress, things like that, that may limit the number of um actual units you have on that property. If we move forward with this one, find out later on that there's not enough access or egress um into these areas, is that going to be um a changing number or something that would change completely the scope of this project?

Uh I will say council member Namora through the mayor um we don't expect something like the unit count to change. we could see something where um the buildings themselves get modified or the some of the buildings could be smaller or closer together. Um and that's all within the ability to do. We are also going to have uh reduced alternatives prepared as part of the EIR. And so we believe that um the one thing that is probably pretty stable is the number of units that are proposed, but other design changes can be made without um without it really affecting this contract or scope.

Thank you. That answers my question. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Then I'll ask for a motion from the council. I move to authorize the city manager to execute an agreement for consultant services with environmental science associates to oversee and prepare environmental review documents for the farm project in an amount not to exceed $563,518. I'll second that. We have a first and a second. Roll call vote, please. Council, Council Member Namura. Hi, Vice Mayor Sarso. Hi, Council Member Clark. Hi, Council Member Mayor. I, and Mayor Alakon, I.

We will now move on to item number 14, which is the Harbor Seal and Tarpets Park interpretive signage. All right. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council. Tonight, I'm bringing bringing forward uh for your review and approval two interpretive signs and one warning sign for the beach ends of the harbor seal rrookery. On August 26, 2024, your council previously reviewed and approved beach closure signs for the rrookery, which are currently up while the beach is closed. At that meeting, it was requested that staff return to your council for review and approval of any future signs related to harbor seals. On February 3rd, 2025, your council received and filed the final ad hoc harbor seal advisory committee recommendations. The committee had multiple recommendations, one of which was the implementation of a signage program, including the development of interpretive signs. Separately, since early 2023, the Carpentria Open Space Management Advisory Board, or COSMAB, has been discussing the need for interpretive signage related to the natural tarep and tar pits located along the Carpentria Bluffs and within Tarpits Park. The draft language, which is in attachment A of your staff report, and design cont.

Staff completed review of the proposed tarpet sign language um oh excuse me staff had um the review of proposed tarpit sign language done by a member of the shoe mash community to ensure cultural accuracy. The harbor seal interpretive sign proposed language was workshopped multiple times at COSMAB meetings and a small and informal ad hoc working group was formed with two members of the public and two members of COSMAB to finalize what is presented to you all this evening. A significant amount of the discussion was focused on the interpretive signs for the harbor seal rrookery as well as the beach end signs which would be up at either end of the harbor seal rrookery from June 1st to November 30th each year. Another topic of discussion by Cosmab and members of the public was the implementation of a QR code on the harbor seal interpretive sign. COSMAB voted to support the inclusion of a QR code which is presented here for you this evening. One member of the public worked with a producer to produce an approximately 3inut video on harbor seals which the producer has offered to give to the city for us to host on our website and this would ensure that the city could control and monitor the link to the video. Here for you are the approximate locations of the two signs. Please note these are approximate locations um which were discussed and agreed upon by COSMAB. You can see the Harbor Seal Rookery sign over on the the right and then the Tarpit sign within Tarpits Park. Zooming in a little more, the Tarits Park sign will be near the entrance of Tarpit's Tarpits Park if you are entering from the west or or you're entering from the state parks. And this sign will be placed along the trail likely overlooking Jelly Bowl Beach. Again, right here, the Harbor Seal interpretive sign will replace the existing sign, which is along the main trail connecting Tarpits

Park to the Bluffs near the parking lot before one would head to the overlook to view the seals. And it's kind of right before you turn that corner to head towards the overlook. The beach end signs would be installed where the posts currently are and where the beach closure signs are currently up in place on either end of the hall out and rrookery. Again, approximate locations shown here. As you can see here and in the attachment of the staff report, the warning signs have bright and bold colors to hopefully catch people's attention. Here's the design concept of the harbor seal interpretive sign shown here without the QR code and here with the QR code um enlarged here at the bottom of your screen as an example. Um and that is the website or the link it will go to. Then finally um here is a design concept for the tarpits park sign. One note I want to make uh that is that we will be removing this watermark of the city seal here. Uh that was an accidental carryover from a past design concept. We started this project uh well before we had our current um city logo which will be shown on these panels. And that concludes my brief staff report. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Sure. Um I hadn't realized that the tarpit signage was also part of this uh project. I thought it was just about the harbor seals. So, can you talk a little bit about how you decided to um or how and how Cosmab weighed in on the content of the tarpit sign and the location and all of that?

Yes, absolutely. Um, Vice Mayor Soreno through the mayor. The discussion about the signs related to the tarip tar seeps and tarpits actually began prior to my time here with the city. Um, it was discussed and brought up at COSMAB. Um, one of the city interns at the time, Brian Kuang, took it on as a project, um, where he researched a lot of what you see here today and a COSMAB member, um, Jamie, also joined. And at the time, Aayita Tao was working with the city and helped, um, on this project. And so, they I can't take any credit at all for these signs um, or the content of it. They really started the pro the project. Brian worked uh with the local museum, the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum, even the Labraa Tar Pits to re really research um the information that you see presented for you this evening.

Thank you. That's that's really interesting. I'm glad also that the intern checked in with different agencies too to make sure that it was um looking the way it should. Um, and then, um, you I think you you kind of mentioned this, but for the QR code, so that links to the video, but that's hosted on the city website. Is that right?

Correct. If your council supports the use of the QR code, it would link to our existing website, which has information about Harbor Seals. It's under the Parks and Recreation Community Services um, umbrella website, if you will. We have a tile um, that will lead you to Harbor Seal information specifically. So we could um host the video on the website and that would help us just ensure that you know the link doesn't break that the content of the video is as it's intended to be and then if it needs to be updated you know it's within the city's control. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Any additional questions? Nope. Okay. I will open up public comment and I do have a speaker slip for David Allen. Good evening, Mayor Alicorn and members of the council. Uh, I'm here to answer any questions if you have any. uh but uh primarily to uh to note and uh uh acknowledge the work of the members of the public who uh assisted in drafting the harbor seal uh uh sign uh staff and then uh at COMMAB. This was a result of multiple iterations and bits of of word smithing and and trying to uh fit multiple topics that people felt were important into 250 words. So this is the result and so hopefully uh it meets your approval.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Uh Ted Rhodess.

My leg's gone to sleep. My leg's already at home. Ted Rhodess. I'm also a member of COSMAB. Um echo what what David said. We put a lot of thought into this for a number of years. Uh, as you know, trying to write something with a committee can be dangerous, but I think we have some good language there. I want to thank Janette for uh her patience. Uh, this took, I think, far longer than she imagined, and it wasn't even her project to start with. So, hats off to her. And, um, a lot we got a lot of input from the Seal Watch folks, too, and some of the members that were in that on that committee. I do want to say something about QR codes because if this if this works on the these signs, we might want to do this at the bluffs because you know the conservation easement says very few signs at the bluffs. We really don't want signs in a preserve. But a lot of visitors, the seal watch volunteers will tell you that we have so many international volunteers, international visitors, excuse me, uh or people from California at State Beach and they come to look at the seals and sometimes there are no seals there. But if there was a QR code, so many people now are used to that in parks and and and public places and they they've have their phones with them and they can see this little uh brief film. It, you know, it was brought to us as a longer film uh like 10 or 12 minute film and we said, "No, it's got to be down to like 3 minutes. people don't have time for longer films, but if we can make this work for this, I think it it gives us an exciting opportunity to do this at the bluffs and not and on the existing signage there without additional signs. Um, and so I I I hope you will approve this uh signage. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Susan Milhu. Good evening, city council members, staff. Um, first of all, I would like to thank Janette Gaunt for her patience and for bringing these signs to you. It's critical. Um, your staff report said to expect members of COSMAP and expect members of Seal Watch. Well, I'm definitely a member of Seal Watch, very active member, but I am also a member of SOS. I want to talk to you more about that. We have um history from two iterations of the Harbor Seal Advisory Committee in this room tonight. We know the history of the science took up a great deal of staff time and the members time because it's a difficult topic. We had the president of the um friends of the elephant seal as a guest and um speaking of how difficult signs are and I want you to know it's difficult because people don't read signs. Now that brings me to the QR code. The QR code was created by SOS and that was two members of SOS that donated their time and skills and it was SEO society at the University of Davis um patterning it after the best understood harbor seal colony on the

west coast and that's up in Seattle and the the importance of the QR code is that it's engaging, but people don't read signs. The interpretive sign positioned here is going to be at a bottleneck, and people are especially not going to read the signs. So, after all of that work, I would hate for people to not benefit. But if they walk by and just flash their phone and create the image, it's an adorable film of a baby elephant, a a baby harbor seal underwater. We do not have access to that footage and it was through SOS that we provided it. So, please vote to uh the QR code. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. I do not have any other speaker subs. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Uh, mayor, we have no raised hands. I will close public comment and bring it back to the council for any questions and or a motion. Well, I'll just say that um along with Mayor Alakon, I was on the second iteration of the uh HSAC committee. And so, it's it's really great to see these signs uh come come to fruition and be ready to go. So, thanks so much to Cosmab for taking this on and always as always to city staff for for marshalling it through. Um, and then uh I'll move to approve the two interpretive signs as presented, including the QR code. I'll second that. Um, did have some comments, but this could happen afterwards.

Yeah, I've got comments. You can make comments after the motion. Would you like to first and second, but if you go for discussion, we could do that now. Okay. Can we do discussion first? Is there anything I need to do for them?

Sure. I'd be happy to start first. Um, one of the questions I have, um, great idea, great signage. I like the idea of the QR code. I think that'll get you a long way. But, um, in talking to some members of your group, I thought that the community itself, even Karp Maria, lacks, um, education on the appreciation of what you see itself. Seals, um, they're a passion for you, and I could see why they are, but the community doesn't share quite that same passion. And I think the reason for that is just the lack of education, not being aware of that one. When you talk to some members of the community and say, you know, what do you think about, you know, the Seal Watch group? They they think it's more um I would say disciplinary than it is actually an appreciation of that. So, I'm bringing this up because I think it's going to be important for you as a group if to expand basically um what you're doing. and I think it's a very very um great cause is to actually create a public outreach program and that would be able to then talk about the seals, talk about why they're such a a rare commodity that we are one of the few areas that would have this in in our area. Um basing it that way, um the signage is just a reminder. It's not going to be the deterrent. Um, I think the the the way you're going to go about it or should go about it is to actually create that and make sure that you have it um in the schools in in public areas and include this in programs, things that you do and actually have um programs specific to the public where they could see this, not even have to go out there, but talk about why the Harbor Seal is so important to you as a group and organization. I think that's going to be the farthest part, but the signage is a good start. Thank you. Um I think the uh interpretive signage signs are great. Um I I have some comments on the warning sign

and I find I find it uh potentially confusing and it it doesn't I mean it doesn't say on on anywhere on the sign where the sign comes from. it just like here's a sign all of a sudden and it it mentions the Marine Mal Protection Act. So maybe it's a Noah sign. I don't know. Um but it but I think that the the um the use of the Marine Mammal Protection Act in this context is also confusing. I mean, I it's it's very worthwhile to have a sign there on the off season when, you know, people need to know what other laws might protect the seals. I mean, that's that's a good thing, but it's potentially confusing with the um with the difference between the city ordinance and um the the city the city ordinance having a distance of 750 ft clearance to the seals and and the Marine M Protection Act has a a distance of 300 ft. One of the one of the problems here that I mean this is geography. You know our our site even though the coastal commission recommends that we see what San Diego Dave will San Diego is a very different geography than than we do as one example. But in in this case we have um three recognized hallouts in Carpandria. One of them is 750 ft west of the rrookery. Uh which the the rrookery being one of the recognized hallouts. But the but the rocks 750 ft

west of the rrookery are are also a haul out. Uh generally only at low tide. Uh and the same with rocks at the state campground are also a haul out, but that's generally at low tide. But you have the potential situation where you have somebody coming up to read this sign and they're within 300 feet of seals that that are out on the rocks. And um and then and then you have a potential where the all the the tourists and the and the campers are at the at the um rocks in the campground and they're within the 300 ft. And then you also have the potential, the real potential that the the overlook where people come to see the seals are within 300 feet of the seals. And so you basically have 30,000 visitors a year. That's just the one seal watch counts out of five months that are potentially violating the Marine Mammal Protection Act. So, you know, I think I I don't know what to do. I I think that um you know I don't I don't know what else to do because we do want to let people know that that there is a law that protects the seals during the off season. But but I would like to see um this sign amended to include some language like um uh on top or somewhere the the the city of Carperia closes the beach from such such a time. It's December 1st to May 31st per ordinance number. And then so you've got you've got the agency, you've got you've got the the city council is the agency behind this

sign and it's it's got the more agency with with the uh uh citation and then and then you can just go on and and have and have the regular sign. I'd like to have the city of Carbonia as the maker of the sign on there and also reference the code that does close the ceil around so people aren't confused when when they just see this. Um and and I again realize that um that that this sign is only up when the when the beach is open, but people could take pictures and share it. And so there's potential for confusion of of you know what what the laws are year round. I I think it would just help to to add that to this sign. That's just my opinion.

Um so just to be clear because there is a motion on the floor. Does it sounds like you might want to see if it would be amended. The motion would be amended if if they want to. I mean Okay. That's their it's their motion. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I think my my I appreciate what you're saying and I I understand that. Um and I also understand that it's taken how many years to get to the point of of having the signs that we have and so to go back to the drawing board or even a little bit but we had good signs before

and that the fact that these are being recommended by Cosmab by the current or the current iteration of COSMAB and they showed up today to show to talk about their process in getting here and how they got to this. for my from in my opinion, I I would want to take trust in their judgment on this one. Um and and adopt these signs.

And can I ask a question to to staff? Can you um talk about your reasoning about removing the closed beach sign or um potentially not having the city of Carperia the the seal on there? Is that a point of conversation that came up? Um, Mayor Alakon, that that was not a point of conversation that I recall. We So, you your council approved the signs that are currently up right now for the beach closure. Um, not too long ago, it was a topic of discussion with the ad hoc harbor seal um committee to revise the signs for that would be up for the remainder of the year. So, that was kind of the direction of why we are proposing new signs. Uh then to be honest, the logo was not originally put on the sign by the designer. It was just more of a I'm going to say kind of like an enforcement looking sign. It can be added. Um it was not originally on the first or any of the iterations of the design and and I cannot recall specific so I apologize. I know that past signs had dates. Um there was some feedback from the ad hoc harbor seal committee about those dates and maybe the sign being up um citing dates that not at the same time. I don't know u mayor vice mayor if you recall any of these conversations from the ad hoc harbor seal committee. Um but cosmab did not discuss specific dates on these specific um signs. So if that's the direction of your council, um I'm happy to follow it and work with the designer to add that in.

Are the closed sign the the signs with the closed beaches, those still go up along with the warning sign? Uh no, Mayor Alakon, what we have switched to is uh the beach closed signs are the only signs up during the closure to avoid any confusion and then those will come down and then these will be replaced. I believe at some point there there was a time, yes, where there were two signs. I think there was a time where there was a sign and a stop sign. So, I know there's just definitely been many iterations of the signs and a lot of um you know, input about what works and doesn't. So, the sign going up when the beach is closed will continue to happen.

Correct.

Okay, great. Thank you. Um, I would just want my my comments don't really have to do with this sign, but I do still feel that they're valuable. Um, if you go on Google Maps, it shows that the SE seal sanctuary is the parking lot at the bluffs. And I think that what Ted Rhodess had to say is very helpful and very I think we should definitely consider adding the QR code to that sign. um the amount of times that I've explained where you have to go to see the seals, but also I have been lucky enough to see the video and it is very magical and it is really I think it would be something that the people who are pulling off the freeway and parking and wanting to see the seals, it would just it would be really some it would be a real benefit. So that's my two cents. The other thing is that uh I'm excited to see us have signage about the tarpits park because it is the second largest tar natural tar seepage in North America and uh next week we um take all the third graders in in carpria out to the bluffs and one of the things that we do there is educate them on the natural tar seepage and I think that that is a very big misconception in our community people think that it's an oil spill people don't understand what it is when it is really something that is very exciting and special to where we live. So, I'm excited about that sign going there. Just as an aside, that's all.

Okay. Um, so just circle back. We have a first and a second. It sounded to do with it, but it sounded as though you won't be amending the motion. So, yeah. I mean, unless my colleagues all want me to to consider it, but it doesn't sound like that's the case. So, I would my second would stand the way it is.

Okay. The only um I think it would be helpful to have the city seal on here. Um but that's that's the only thing I would see to add on only because if we're removing the um the closed beach with our city seal on there when the beach is not closed, I think it could be helpful to have our city seal on there. But that's the only suggestion I I have. And Mayor Alakon, may I ask for just one point of clarification? Would you be all right if we added the city logo instead of the seal? Oh, yeah. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, that's a that just to identify that it's an official city of Carperia sign. I'm pretty sure with all of our signage, we have the Carpenter Sealer logo on it. So, just so that it's

um comparable to all of our other signage. Understood. That's not a problem. Those are my comments, but that's the only Yeah. If we were going to add that, could I just would it be appropriate to ask if the members of cosmab who are here would consider that to be a a favorable update to the signs? Obviously speaking just for myself. Does he want to come to the podium? Yeah.

My apologies, mayor and members of council. I thought maybe you just note the acknowledgement from from the rear there. Uh, speaking only for myself, obviously I I doubt very much that members Well, I doubt that members would have any uh serious objection to having a logo, the city logo on the sign. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, Ted Rhodess. Again, I as as our parks director said, I don't think we we talked about it. So, it was we it was a a miss that we should have included.

Great. That's that's very helpful to hear. Thank you. And the only reason I just wanted to double check is I know how detail oriented the discussions about signage are and sometimes even a little change would maybe make the recommendation be different. So I really appreciate hearing from the COSMAB folks here today that that they agree with that addition. So with that, I would modify my second to include that. Yes. Yes. So I I I'll modify them. Yeah. The motion to now include addition of the city logo.

Yeah. I just wanted to extra point of clarification. So, and this has actually more to do with how we use the logo versus the seal. So, if we were to site, you know, the MUN code and this to be more of an official capacity, then the seal would be appropriate. If it was an interpretive sign like the ones the other ones that we showed, then the city logo would be more appropriate. And so seeing that there's, you know, warning and things like that on there, it's kind of striking me more as something that would be more munic. And so, but I'm also hearing that we're talking about not necessarily citing the MUN code, but just adding, um, the logo. So, um, if you guys agree, the council agrees that this is more of, uh, although it doesn't have wouldn't have the MUN code on there, that it's more of that type of sign, we could, um, use the seal. We could also consult with Jalisa later and you can give us leeway to use either or as appropriate that is in line with our usage of the seal and logo.

Yes. And uh thank and if I could just add Michael um I am referencing our branding guidelines and it does explicitly state that interpretive signage uh the logo is permissible which we have here and then anything that's code enforcement related uh the seal is what would be required. Great. Excellent. Okay, we have a first and a second. One more. Could we also add the QR code then in because we we get a lot of people at Seal Watch that are coming on the beach and they're coming on the beach because they want to see the seals and they're very disappointed that they can't see the seals because they get turned back. That was in the original motion was to include the QR code. It did. Oh, it is. Yes, it was. Okay.

If if I may and the seal is that did we all but we all got that? to make sure um if you wouldn't mind mayor um just to make sure I'm understanding my the original intention um from Cosb and myself was the QR code would be on the interpretive sign only um to link to the city website. What I think I'm hearing um from council member clerk is that you would like the QR code on the warning signs as well. Am I understanding? No problem. No problem at all. I'm I'm sure our designer could um assist in adding the QR code and the city seal/logo as um following our branding guidelines.

Um so I just I want to make sure I understand. So then because the interpretive signs, those are the ones that are further away, right? So if they're looking at the warning sign, we want the QR code that links to the video of It makes more sense for me that to link it before they get there. No, but so a a lot of people just come on the beach. They don't go on the trail. They're never going to see the QR code ex except if they see it on the beach. Okay. If if everyone agrees with that. Okay. Yeah. All right. So, I would include it. Okay. So, I'll amend the motion then to include the QR code both in the interpretive signs and also in the sign on the beach. And I'll modify the second and the and the and the and the city

right seal or logo. Yeah, I already made that addition. So, yeah, what whatever it is. Great. Okay, we have a first and a second. Um, it sounds like staff has the exact direction needed. So, um, I'll ask for a voice vote. All those in favor?

I. Any opposed? None. Motion passes. And thank you, Council Member Clark, for catching the the need for the seal or logo on on this signage. We will move on to item number 15, which is the authorization for the city manager to execute an agreement with 196 architects to provide consulting, architecture, and engineering design services for the Carpenter community pool improvements project. Uh, yes. So this evening we are asking for your approval to authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with 196 architects to provide consulting architecture and engineering design services for the Carpentria community pool improvements project in an amount not to exceed $275,000. As you may recall last May your council received and filed the community pool facility condition assessment which outlined a number of maintenance and capital improvement needs at the community pool. On November 14th, 2025, the city issued a request for proposal or an RFP seeking qualified firms to provide architectural and engineering design services for the project. The RFP was directly emailed to 23 potential proposers and posted on the city's website. The project specific link received 43 total visits. This number represents the total times the link was accessed either by users clicking on it directly or by manually typing the URL into a web browser. This metric reflects total visits and does not distinguish between unique users, meaning repeat visits by the same individual are included in that total. To promote the RFP, a social media post was published on November 17th on the city's Facebook and Instagram account. Social media views indicate that the number of times this post was displayed to users in their feed, regardless of whether they interacted with it. The post received 2,387 views and 18 users clicked on the embedded link to access additional information about the project. Link clicks uh represent a higher level of

engagement as they indicate users took action to learn more uh more beyond simply just viewing the post. The city received three proposals and following the evaluation it was determined that 196 Architects was the most qualified and responsive firm demonstrating a high level of relevant experience and technical expertise. If approved, the agreement will authorize 196 to complete the design and permitting phase of the project and provide construction support services including oversight to ensure the project is constructed in accordance with the approved plans and specifications. The city has allocated $70,000 in its current budget for the community pool improvements project, 59,000 from the aquatics development impact fee, and 11,000 from donations. The city has also been awarded two grants via the community access and recreation projects fund, which is a fund established with the Santa Barbara Foundation for this project. To date, the city has been awarded $250,000 from the Lentra Summerland Foundation and $50,000 from the Alice Tweed TUI Foundation. This concludes my brief staff report. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. We also have representatives from 196 and their subcontractor, Councilman Hunacher, available via Zoom if you should have any questions for them.

Questions from council? Um, yes. So the total identified needs um look like it's about 1.2 million and then this contract starts us off in the design phase. So how ultimately will decisions be made as we go through the process about what gets built and what gets deferred depending on you know if costs go up or or um whatever whatever might affect that.

Yes, Vice Mayor Solo through the mayor. That's a great question and I think one the consultant had as well as this um project doesn't have you know a dedicated budget at this point in time. Um realistically what will happen is the 196 if approved will design the project and give us a better estimate of the total cost for the project. From there, based on funding, whether it's city funds, grants, or fundraising, we'll have to start making decisions on what can be done on phase one or phase two, or if we are um able to secure fully funding, doing the entire project at once, of course, would be the preferred option. We'd really look to um the audit and the community pool needs assessment which identified the higher priority items, the things that are more likely to fail in the near future and start from the top and work our way down. We'd also work with the consultants um you know who are experts in their field for them to give advice on what makes the most sense financially um if there are items that can be done together by similar subcontractors um things of that nature. So, it will definitely be uh you know living process as we go and and work on funding um and just we'll really be looking to the pool needs assessment and the contractors and the subcontractors and their expertise to identify what's most important top priority and take care of those things first. Great. Um and then it looks like the proposed schedule includes a pool closure around January 2027 to April 2027. Um can you talk about how that timing was was selected and then what it means for community programming that happens at the pool during that period?

Yeah. Yes. Um Vice Mayor Soren through the mayor that uh schedule was a hope of mine in the RFP. Um closing around wintertime is just the most natural for outdoor aquatics facilities. That's when city recreation programming is generally at its lowest. Um, the community is also used to a brief closure around the holidays for maintenance. U, we are behind where I'd hoped we would be. So, that schedule is already um, to be frank, not going to happen. We're a few months behind where I thought we would be. Um, but for city programming wise, closing during the winters makes the most sense. However, the high school has boys water polo in fall, girls in winter, and swim in spring. And then, as you all know, summer recreation programming is is huge. So, there's not ever going to be a a perfect time to close the pool. But because this will be planned out and communicated well in advance, hopefully some of our user groups and stakeholders can find alternative locations for the closure um for hopefully a brief closure or whatever length it may be. Um but any when an entire community and school district uses just one pool there there's never going to be a good time to close.

Yeah. And then can you last question is can you just share a little bit more about what makes the 196 architects the right fit for for this particular project?

Yes. So uh yes vice mayor solo through the mayor. What really stood out to the group of city staff that ranked these proposals was their experience in projects just so similar to ours. City projects and school projects alike. um projects that are on school grounds are subject to the division of state architects or DSA review and approval. So that's an added layer of review and approval like I said which can complicate things especially for firms who may not have experience. Um 196 had multiple schools that they've worked on aquatic centers with. Um they you know AO Grande High School, San Leo San Leispo High School, they worked in Ventura at the Ventura Community Park and Bath House, the city of Lamppoke Aquatic Center. And the list just kind of goes on and on about pool experience, city experience, and school district experience. Um and we need that level of expertise to guide us through this project.

That's helpful. Thank you. Uh, I'm glad the school district came up because most of my questions have to do with them. Um, is there a point that we're concerned about where the pool could fall out of user standards for schools before it's for like the general public? Um, I I'm I'm just recognizing because it is swim team season and there are other school districts visiting our pool and using our facilities and I'm thinking about but the general public uses it every day. So, you know, at what point are we pushing this project along when it should be just dealt with, I guess, is my question.

Um, council member, mayor, through the mayor. I'll tried my best to answer the question. So to my knowledge, there's no regulations on pool operations that differentiate between schools and public. So it's all the same county um health code standards that we have to abide by. Um but to your point about, you know, swim team, one of the, you know, it's minor, but one of the items called out in the assessment was our dive blocks, our starting blocks, which only competitive swimmers use in competitions, which is the high school, the deck. Um and the candle levered gutter that's you know you attach the water polo goals in that area if it's chipping away um there it may cause future problems and then just in general over time although the equipment is fine right now we are not at the emergency state it it's going to slowly start shutting down and so we definitely in my opinion um need to address this sooner rather than later and then as you guys have heard um with John and the CIP projects costs will continue to rise. And so it's kind of that game of how much can we get taken care of now um for a potentially lower price than if we space it out over years, which was also outlined in the um needs assessment. So I hope that kind of answered your question, council member mayor.

Thank you. Any other questions? Okay, no questions. I will open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we have no raised hands. I will close public comment and bring it back to the council for any other um comments, questions, and of course a motion. I'll move to authorize the city manager to execute an agreement with 196 Architects to provide consulting architecture and engineering design services for the Carpentria Community Pool improvements project in an amount not to exceed $275,000. We have a first and a second. Roll call vote, please. Council member Namura. Hi. Vice Mayor Solino.

Hi. Council member Clark. Hi. Council member Mayor. Hi. And Mayor Alakon. I.

We will now move on to item number 16, which is the resolution number 6448 approving the road maintenance and rehabilitation account fiscal year 2026 2027 project list. No name plate for me, but I understand you know me already. Good evening, Madame Mayor, council members. What is before you is a routine item that I like to call. It is the road maintenance rehabilitation account for fiscal year 2627. and a little history about this particular road road maintenance rehabilitation account and from this point I'll be calling it RM just to shorten that up. So in back in April 2017 the governor signed Senate Bill one uh which is known as the road repair and accountability act of 2017. So that Senate Bill one, also called SB1, increase fuel excise taxes, diesel fuel sales taxes, and vehicle registration street to address basic road maintenance, rehabilitation, and critical safety needs for state highways and local streets and roads. of the same year, November, the state controller began depositing various portions of SP1 funding into the RMR and a port a percentage of the RMR funding is a portion by formula. Uh what that means it's it's a formula proportion to the local agency's population. Hence population formula fund. So it is deposited in an RMR account by the state controller uh um or a portion into this RMR

and not on a reimbursement basis. So in other words, we get this automatically subject to certain requirements of the RMR. And in your staff report, you'll see a project list and what is before you in order for us to obtain or uh to receive, excuse me, the RMR funding, there is a project list every year that is required for every local agency receiving RMR funds to be passed by the governing board or the local board, in this case, the city council. So, the project list, I'm going to put it up on screen for the benefit of the public. So, this is the list that's in your staff report as exactly as shown. There are two proposed projects for the RMR funds, namely Carry Avenue bridge replacement project and the 2023 pavement maintenance and rehabilitation project. So these two projects uh have been on the the CIP books for a a while and the RMR MRM funds uh will not fund the entirety of these projects. However, it goes into the rest of the pot of these particular project uh funding sources. So, for example, RMR um and measure A and development impact fees would go uh into the or are sourced in the Carpenter Avenue bridge replacement project. In your staff report, it shows the particular dollar amount that is going to be aortioned or estimated to be a

portion to the city and that dollar amount is $368,000 717. Uh so that particular doesn't sound much, but it is a source of funding from the state, not federal aid, not federal funding, but this is state money that's going to go into these two projects. Uh, also part of your sty report is the proposed city council resolution in order to adopt this particular project list and be sent over or submitted to the state controller, excuse me, to the California Transportation Commission or CTC. And with that, that concludes my presentation pending. Any questions? Thank you.

Thank you. Questions from council. Just one quick question. In the report, there was a mention of requirements um for receiving the funding requirements around workforce development and pre-apprenticeship programs. How does that factor into is that something that the city identifies or is that something that the the um the project uh recipients are due? How does that work?

Uh yes, Vice Mayor Solar through the mayor. Um I didn't mention those particular those particular requirements. I think I just went to the project list. So, uh, let's go back to the staff report. Those there's four requirements, uh, to implement by the city in order to receive this RMR funds. And just like you mentioned, Vice Mayor, one of those are implementing a new or ex a new or existing apprenticeship training program. The other three is the project list that what we're discussing now as well as reporting requirements. So going back to your question, the pre-apprenticeship training program is a state uh requirement and that program is specified in all our capital projects. So any project that basically goes up to bid, those contract documents or the bid documents specify the apprenticeship program of the state. So we are in compliance. Got it. Okay.

In that regard. Yes. Okay. Thank you. I just wasn't quite sure how how that fit in, but that that Thank you for the context. Yes. Question. Thank you. Yes. So um I'm I'm looking at the list of uh streets in the 2023 pavement maintenance and um and then there's the the name up here 20 oh that's FY2627. So we we don't have enough money to do the 2023 payment maintenance program right now. Is that correct?

Uh council member Clark through the mayor. So, one of the items that's going to be uh coming to you, your city council, is a special city council meeting, the CIP workshop. This is where staff is going to um provide you information about capital projects that are going into the fiscal cycle 2627. So I don't have a definitive answer in terms of what funding are going to go into the this pavement project. So this CIP workshop, we're going the city staff is going to inform you all of all the capital projects which is which includes this project that are going to the next fiscal cycle and identify those projects that are s insufficient in funding. And this is one of them. And this is where we're we're city staff is going to be asking for guidance on how are we going to fund this uh during the CIP workshop. At this time, what's before you is basically just approving this project list. So that way we receive the RM funds.

Okay. So we're we're going to approve the project list, but there there may or may not be enough money to fund it. Uh yes, sir. Is that right? Yes, sir. All right. Thank you. Um yeah, John, I got a couple of questions too on the same list. Um the list that you have here, these are basically all the failing ones, correct? Streets that are failing within the city. These are the worst of the worst. Is that correct? Says fiveyear lifespan currently.

Yes. So I pulled up the list of streets that are in their actually on proposed in the project plans. So if you recall this project combines two projects. One's a m one is the maintenance portion which is the slurry ceiling and one is the rehabilitation which is the heavy duty type of work. So the rehabilitation streets are basically the poor to failed condition streets and then there's some streets here that are in fair condition but require attention before it goes into poor condition. So these are a combination then. Yes sir. Okay good enough.

For example, Arbell Verde Street Fair condition that's going to be proposed for slurry seal your viaceto um streets viato place viaceto road via court and the reason I ask you that John uh for public awareness they're wondering some people are going to wonder how come their street were passed over for streets that are in good shape. Uh, I think it'd be important if we actually categorize or um rate each of the streets that you're working with and then give an explanation that yes, this is the stretch our dollar the farthest. I think it's going to be an important part because you're going to get we're going to get calls from everybody that have a street that's in bad shape, not on this list.

That is a good idea, Council Member Namura. So in the CI I I'll make a note of this in our CIP workshop, I will put when we get to that this project, the pavement project, I will note those particular streets of uh the categories of what's what is this street in terms of um condition. I'll even uh explain how we got to the that condition. So uh good notes and I will make sure we put that in our CIP workshop. And then the other points I have also um as an example, some of these streets are failing due to um poor grading and poor drainage. So will those be addressed also if they're they're going to be replaced or if we do um say a slurry seal on something that actually has a subsoil failure to it? Are those going to be noted in there? Are we just going to slurry seal those?

Yes. Uh very good question. And what constitute a lot also the cost of construction is not just the pavement. There's also addressing like you mentioned um storm drainage uh deficiencies or subgrade deficiencies. So yes uh for example a slurry seal project we will dig out those areas that are failing like for example an alligator crack uh cracking we're going to dig those out and in rehabilitation that's basically in the entire street is going to be repaved and at the same time with the rehabilitation project we're going to address those drainage issues subgrade issues

oh I forgot to mention there's also concrete work which is the sidewalk I actually have that on my notes So I um I'm also looking at tree removal. Some of these areas that streets are failing because of trees along with curb gutter and sidewalk repairs specifically for those same areas for doing those cuz uh some of them may have curbs and gutters that are substandard to the say regrading the streets. So you have to try to replace them all. Uh yes sir. And there's also streets that um your council already observed that don't have gutters and we're going to put gutters not for the sake of putting gutters. to provide for drainage improvement.

And so, um, with that being said and those those questions that I have posed forward, we also have a column specific for what is going to be addressed, including, uh, potential improvements like these or what's going to be omitted. In other words, if a street that has no curbing currently is going to get just uh, sealed, uh, I think people should probably be aware that yes, we are not at this time including curb, gutter, and sidewalk. Thank you for the input. I'll definitely put these um and I'll make sure I have this information uh when we get to our CIP workshop. Great. Thank you.

I have a sort of a followup or clarifying question to council member Namura. Uh I was curious because I know this is list is not the entirety of the 2023 pavement project. Um how were these streets specifically chosen? Um it because from what I'm hearing it wasn't because they're the worst or the or the least worst. Um was it like a calculation based on this specific amount of funding that we could get or can you explain that to me?

Sure. Council me council member mayor. So it it's I wouldn't say a long history but it was before the this body of council uh was here and I would like to say it was gosh probably u precoid and that's how kind of far away it was. So we I mentioned we had two separate projects 2023 pavement maintenance pavement uh rehabilitation at that time. I think we started in 2019. Uh the guidance from council at the time was to do maintenance one year rehabilitation the next. We came to a point where after the uh the sheriff's department uh contract where we had to reook at the funding source sources and the balances and then relook at our capital projects. And this one in particular, uh, long story short, basically is this project that you see now, the 2023 maintenance and rehabilitate is a combination in those projects, not because of particular preferences um or uh favorite type of streets. It's it's really uh was looking at the costs and balances at the time and what we could afford when we estimated the project and the guidance from the public facility site acquisition development committee uh advised staff that we should do some streets from maintenance and some streets uh from the rehabilitation. Yes, we did cut streets. I don't have a list in list in top of my head but yes we basically cut streets for from maintenance and then from the rehabilitation and got to the systematic approach was get to those particular streets that are failed poor or unfair but in the brink of going into a poor

condition. So that was the logic at the time. It was a systematic approach of logically trying to find uh um trying to balance cost or the the what the invaluable funding source at the time and cost. So that was a long story short. But by the way, John Al and I have been around for 10 years before that. I was look actually Yes. I was actually looking at these three. Exactly.

If I can add on to that too. Yeah. because we we discussed this a little bit on the tours that we got to do um and because we will speak about this during the CIP workshop, but there might be people watching today that aren't going to be a part of of that uh meeting then. And so the thought is if we have a a lesser street that's maybe in fair condition, why not trade that out for one that's in a more poor condition? And one of the things is is a street that needs a full rehab can cost 5 to 10 times more than a street in fair condition. So, you would have to take out say 10 fair streets to do one major rehab. And then if you do the math on that, you know, let's say, I'm just making this up, but if a major rehab street cost 250,000, which is 10 times as much, maybe a fair one is 25,000. Well, if you have to pull 10 fair ones out and then to do the to do the rehab, and then those 10 fair fall out. Um, now you take that 10 times 10 and the number can add up really quickly. So, it's the reason why cities have to have do that uh tough juggling act and us more than most because of our financial position to to alternate between maintenance and rehab. It's a money thing. It's a math thing. Um and I think as John mentioned when we first started the thought was is we were going to go from zone to zone to zone. Uh we just had all the money from Measure X. We didn't realize it was going to all be eaten up and that was a different strategy at that time. uh getting out of this 2023 pavement project. Uh what we're going to discuss at that CIP workshop is a whole new strategy to approach in this at this time. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for the money and stuff that's been invested into this design and project to try to pull things out and then pay for additional design, delay the project even further as costs go up. But I would just want to assure the public that we're going to have to take a whole new approach to this um moving forward based on our financial uh

situation and we'll discuss that more at the CIP workshop. Um I'm sorry I have a quick question. Um only because we're looking at every single street and I don't know that we've done this in quite some time. Do I need to recuse myself because I live on one of these streets? No, I'm fine. Okay. Sorry to interrupt for that question. I just want clarification.

Better safe than sorry. Um my question actually has to do with potential of uh including on this list um project sites that may potentially affect street surfaces. As an example, we have the um injection wells going in with the infrastructure for new piping. If those streets get torn out, we're going to be trenching into those and having to research and patch in. Wouldn't it be better at that point in time to include those as potential streets for repair for getting part of it done already? That would be a question, John, for you. Uh yes, I I believe I I am thinking about that answer. Uh council member,

we do have we do have the uh potential map uh already laid out of the direction and the routes of those specific pipelines.

Yes. uh so uh that those streets that the pipeline for the Cumber Cumber uh advanced purification project have been are identified and those streets are going to be opened up for the pipelines. So, I will be um working with the Carpenter Valley Water District in terms of how we're going to see if we could try to resurface the roadway after the trenching is complete. Right now, we don't have uh I don't recall in our conditions of approval to resurface the roads for the cap.

That That is correct. But we're going to have a lot of patchwork. We wouldn't want to do one of these streets and end up having it patched again. Same thing if we could save some money on the street. If they're doing say onethird of it, a quarter of it, we may be able to save some money by doing the whole street. I do know that the streets that are part or that's or the pipeline that's going into the those particular streets have been intentionally left off any city paving because we know that it's going to be the this pipeline's going to be going in. So rather than pave a road and then a new road and then have the trench go in, uh that would look bad as well. So right now I'm

saying is we may want to include that as part of the project planning just to make a modification if that happens.

Yeah. And I can say, you know, council member Nemore, I think I don't think any of these streets are included in those, but when we when we get around to those, that's going to be part of that workshop. I imagine it's going to be pretty intense exercise as we go through selecting those those next round of streets and those are going to be part of the the inputs that we're looking into. Where is there else is there work being done around the city um where there could be some cost savings because of other work and you know a number of things will be considered by your council prior to selecting the next list. The the reason I was looking at that part one of the streets come um pipelines come in from the east to the west right before it goes over the bridge. Um that would be um Lynon. If that were to come in on Sawyer we where we going to replace the whole street that would give us an advantage something to look at. We may want to coordinate that with the um water district.

Yeah absolutely. And again the full council will be a part of that uh process. So we'll have another chance to have this conversation for sure. Any other questions? Okay, no questions. Um I just want to there was a lot of conversation or discussion. So I just want to sh make sure there's consensus among the council in terms of at least request for direction. Um so maybe John if you can clarify. I think there was just a request for when the workshop comes around to rate the streets individually and then have a column for potential emissions such as the curb gutter. Is that what you understood as well? Yes, madame mayor. I made those notes of what we're going to be presenting in the CIP workshop.

Great. I just want to ensure the rest of the council is is agrees to that. Okay, perfect. Um, seeing no other questions, I'll go ahead and open up public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we have no raised hands. Okay. I will close public comment, bring it back to the council for other any other comments, questions, and of course the motion. I move to adopt resolution number 6448 as read by title only. Second. First and a second. All those in favor? I. Any opposed?

Motion passes. And we will now move on to other business which is item number 17 which is the land transfer agreement for the RCON gateway property from the land trust of Santa Barbara County to the city deed of conservation easement for the Ringcon gateway property by the city in favor of the land trust and amended and restated Ringcon bluffs preserve endowment agreement. Good evening again, mayor, vice mayor, and councel. I will do my best to make this one brief. This evening, we're asking council to adopt resolution number 6449, approving the RCON gateway baseline conditions report and authorizing the mayor to execute the following documents. The land transfer agreement for the RCON gateway property from the land trust of Santa Barbara County to the city. the deed of conservation easement for the Rencon gateway property granted by the city in favor of the land trust and the amended and reinstated Rencon Bluffs preserve endowment agreement. In January 2025, the land trust purchased a property referred to as the Rencon gateway which consists of approximately 2.4 acres adj adjacent on the to the RCON bluffs. The land trust has offered to transfer this property to the city and the city will ensure its long-term conservation and ongoing maintenance. The resolution before you this evening approves the baseline conditions report which documents the current condition of the property and authorizes the mayor to accept and execute the land transfer agreement, the deed of conservation easement and the amended and reinstate restated endowment agreement. This property will be incorporated into the existing Rencon Bluffs preserve endowment agreement and will continue to be managed by the Carpentia and that endowment agreement will be continue to be managed by the Carpentia Bluffs

Endowment Fund Committee which is a subcommittee of the land trust that also oversees the Carpentia Bluffs Endowment. I have a few images to provide context for the property being discussed this evening in relationship to the Carpia Bluffs and Rencon Bluffs. Please note that these are not technical maps outlining exact boundaries but are just intended to give a general sense of location. So first you could see here uh the Carpentria Bluffs Nature Preserve which includes Viola Fields commonly also referred to as the Bluffs. Here you can see Rencon Bluffs also known as Bluffs 3. And this shows I apologize that red line is much more faint than I thought. uh the approximate location of the property being discussed this evening which is Rencon Gateway. This one is a better image of all three properties. Um this can be found on your baseline conditions report from the land trust on page 10 which is one of the many attachments in your staff report. Here at the top is a Carpentria Bluffs nature preserve, the RCON bluff preserve and down here in the yellow is the uh Rcon gateway. That concludes my very brief staff report. I'm happy to answer any questions and I believe we also have Devin Rothman, director of land conservation with the Land Trust of Santa Barbara County, available via Zoom this evening should you have any questions for him.

Thank you. Questions? Yeah. Um, how how does the endowment work? Yes. So, there are two currently two endowments. This will be this property will be folded into the Rencon um Bluffs endowment fund. So there's the Carpentry of Bluffs Nature Cruiser. The the new property doesn't have a separate endowment fund.

That is correct. Uh Council Member Clark through the mayor. As this property was purchased outright um and not as a result of a fundraising campaign, which the other properties were, there were leftover funds for those properties. This was a direct purchase um covered all the costs and closing costs. And so the there is no additional endowment for this piece of property. It will be folded into the existing one. So then do we do we think we have a adequate endowment to maintain all these properties?

Council member clerk through the mayor. I feel confident that we do. Um this is a small addition to a larger area of you know uh the 2.4 acres. Um, and the endowment fund committee, the land trust of Santa Barbara County has been extremely supportive. Um, and the endowment payouts each year, um, definitely helped the city cover the help with the maintenance costs. Thank you.

Um, this may be like way too in the weeds, so I don't worry if you don't know the answer. Um, the endowment fund is managed by the Carpandria Bluffs Endowment Fund Committee, who's the subcommittee for the land trust. Do we know who those people are? Yes, council member, mayor through the mayor. I do. Um, I will pre-apologize though I don't have all their names memorized, but I know Ted Rhodess, who is here with us this evening, is a member. um John Tilton, um Christy Boyd Christy Boyd and Scott Vandar Scott Vandar and Magguire and Mory Magcguire

and I I am a non- voting member of the committee as well as a city representative. Thank you so much. Um just a couple quick questions. So once the city takes ownership of that parcel like what are the long-term stewardship um uh approach going to be is it something where it's passive recreation? Is it are there um plans to have trails or what what will that look like?

Yes. Uh Vice Mayor Soro through the mayor a little bit of of what you just mentioned. So the responsibilities will be the sim similar to what we have for the carpentry of bless nature preserve in bluff 3 which is to preserve it in open space. Um we will plan on folding this property into the larger bluff 3 project which will um hopefully define some ADA compliant trails uh parking lot for access to that section of the bluffs perhaps a restroom. There's also a few um items that we need to fulfill as part of our agreement with the land trust for the initial improvements fund. You know, some donor markers, whatnot. So, our our job is really to be stewards of the land to maintain it um but you know, maintain it as open space. So, not manicure the um coastal sha sage scrub, but rather make sure the trails are open and accessible. Um, for those trails that are decomposed granite and um, accessible, we want to make sure that they're smooth and there's no big, you know, divots in them after a large rain. Um, if a limb falls and blocks the pathway, we would move it. But if a limb falls in, you know, the eucalyptus grove, we could leave it um, as it and keep it natural as long as it's not hindering anyone's access or ability or any um, safety issues.

Great. Okay, that that was my one question. Any additional questions? Real quick there, Jenna. Why would you leave a eucalyptus branch? Well, Council Member Neora through the mayor, that's um a question I don't know that I'm personally qualified to just curious because it's not an indigenous plant and those things always shed.

So, what my understanding is, and I could turn to um two of our COSMAB members here, is really um to keep the natural state of the park. So if if it's not endangering anyone or in the way um we are to leave things as they've naturally come about. I could defer um to uh Ted or Chair Allen if they have any more eloquent ways to the question was um that the plans are to remove any branches that fall off a eucalyptus tree rather than removing them. Are you talking about the Blust Preserve? Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. This is what, you know, we've gotten in a little bit of trouble with some of the native plant folks, but uh the artists, the Oak Group, Arturo Teao and a number of artists, Meredith and and Whitney Abbott and so many uh wanted to, you know, love had painted out there for years and loved that window. So, it was kind of a political uh move to put that into the conservation easement. And we have to explain ourselves quite often to the native plant folks. But I explain it by saying uh a lot of us live here and we blew in from other places. And those trees were brought in uh they're now kind of historical. They were brought in as you know at the turn of the century to make railroad ties and proved to be a very bad decision. But I grew up uh I can live with eucalyptus being out there. But they are protected by the conservation easement and that

okay went through a very thorough process back in interesting and and and but how long ago was that that they did that that that we approved it? Yeah.

Well, we did it before we turned the property over to the city. So, you inherited it. Uh but um I do want to point out the city should be really excited about this concept of conservation easements. When when we brought this to the city back in 1998, um the city attorney uh you know, this wasn't done in very many places. It was cutting edge for a private nonprofit to hold a conservation easement on public land. Now it's done quite often, but Carpa was there once again uh out ahead on the trail and finally everyone was convinced that this could work and it has been working. So, um, you know, as as long as I'm up here, would would it be helpful to give you a little more detail on the endowment committee or is that you want to save that for another time?

I'm good with that. Your choice. Um, sure. If I mean I can make it very brief, but one interesting thing that happened when

along I mean that was part of the deal of the conservation easement is there was be an endowment fund which we raised money for and there would be a management plan. You know, I serve on COSMAB and it's and it's different than other city committees because we required that committee to exist. It was originally the Bluffs Advisory Board. We required that city to exist in the conservation easement. And the we we decided the land trust, which is a great partner with us, has much longer history than our new group, the citizens group. We raised uh $500,000 for the first endowment, but we felt it would be better to have the land trust hold that. So, we gifted that money to the land trust on the condition that as long as the citizens for the carpentry of Bluff still existed that we would hold the majority membership on that committee to out of respect for our donors to make sure that money was being spent well. So, three of us are from the citizens board and two from the land trust. And then the land trust trusted us actually to take on their second endowment, another million dollar that actually grew to a million dollars. We have a second uh endowment of now a million dollars that the land trust raised for the the um Rencon Bluffs and that we that Janette was speaking about. So there's two separate um endowments there. But anyway, I thought a that would help a little bit to and feel free to call me because this is we're all, you know, anyone that's here this late at a meeting is is not normal. So, none of you are normal. Thank you for your service.

No, that that was my question only because eucalyptus they have a lifespan 150 to 200 years. We're almost hitting that point right now. um first of all and then next um the eucalyptus oils that actually come out are toxic to seeds to germinate. That's another thing that's going to affect the native plant growth. Well, we didn't predict this drought and you know we used to the Katie Roberts Bluffs Day, you know, Katie Roberts was the wife of Matt Roberts who started this thing. Um we used to have the kids all under the trees there and about four or five years ago we had to stop doing that because these trees were falling over and it wasn't safe. So we are cognizant of that. that aspect.

Yeah. And I appreciate you clarifying about the endowment board. The reason I asked that question was to just understand who is stewarding that endowment and if they are local or and like plugged in. But it even makes way more sense understanding that it's the stewardship of money that was raised by that. And uh you know there's nothing quite like going out to the bluffs and seeing that fallen eucalyptus tree with all the kids underneath it and just you know it may not be native but it is certainly part of these kids landscapes. So thank you. And to the mayor, if I may, um, you know, if you don't if if you're going to if you're going to leave leave the fallen eucalyptus limb and it's not a safety hazard, it's not blocking anything. You're saving money from the endowment. The money would take to cut it up and and move it away.

You can make railroad ties out of it.

Um, okay. Any other questions from council? Seeing none, I will open up public comment and we will first hear from Susan Allen. Welcome. Thank you again for hanging out here with us. Um, yippy yippy yippy yippy. Um, I have the privilege of doing Seal Watch and have since it started and I can't tell you the number of times, um, whether they're locals, semi-locals, or visitors from many foreign countries, how grateful people are that the bluffs, Rcon Bluffs, and now Rinkcon gate gateway have been preserved. And it's after two hours you go home and feel pretty good about yourself and just go, "Oh, wow. I was involved in that." Um, and it truly is just a I want to say a miracle, but um, offers so much in carpriia. And then look what happened in my Facebook feed while I was sitting here getting a little bored. Um, trust for public land, parks, and open space do more than give us a place to unwind. They're a foundation for healthier, happier communities. Access to nature improves physical and mental health, brings people together, and creates more resilient neighborhoods. Yet, one in three people in the US don't have a park close to home. Let's make sure everyone has the chance to feel happiest outside. um walking the bluffs on a regular basis, we see people and I don't even know their names. Um but there's that smile. There's um someone I talk to regularly just needs to talk. Um and I, you know, I'd never expected that. um

and that's locals, but I also never expected to run into people from all across the world and thank me profusely for um my part and other people's part in preserving the land. So, um it's it's a true gift not just to our community, but to anyone who comes out there and gets to enjoy it. So, yippee. Thank you. Thank you for your comments, Ted Rhodess. I'll

try to be brief, but you know who I am. Ted Rhodess, Madame Mayor and Council. Um, I think I may be repeating what I said out there on Valentine's Day last year. I think a lot of you were out there. It was a it was a great kind of surprise event, but um I think I speak for not only the board of the citizens for the Carpentry Bluffs, I am the past president of that um but for several thousand of our donors that were involved in the in the in the original acquisition. It's this belief that that this kind of nature is essential not only for our children but for us as adults to to really be fully human beings and um kind of uh paraphrase a book a quote from a book that Katie Roberts gave me called the geography of childhood but it inspires us for our Katie Roberts days but uh providing wilderness experiences within the urban boundaries it's as important as as as schools playing fields, art centers, um you know, synagogues, libraries, it's really essential. And and if you come out, I invite you all to come out on our Katie Roberts Bluffs Day, which is actually next Tuesday if it doesn't rain. Um and for a long time, our mission, as you know, at at Citizens for the Carpenter Bluffs has has been to save the entire open, you know, the entire bluffs as coastal open space. And with this wonderful transfer, the Rencon gateway bluffs to the city of Carpondria for permanent stewardship, we are so close to realizing this goal. Um, so I fully support the land transfer agreement of the Rencon Gateway project from the land trust for Santa Barbara County to the city with the accompanying conservation easement. Um, thank you city, thank you Land Trust and everyone that was involved in this.

Thank you for your comments. David Allen,

Mayor Alon, members of the council. Um, yes, it is a moment to to to celebrate and uh as I listen to Susan speaking. Um, I was reminded of something I've heard her say more than once. uh that is which is that we have a responsibility uh here as stewards of these really unique lands on the coast uh to that child from Kansas who comes out here and who's never seen the ocean and uh and can experience these magical places and u you know natural open space on the bluffs which are so rare in um you know from here south to ago. Uh and it's uh it's it's both a wonderful treasure and a responsibility that we have. Um to another subject uh uh just as an aside bit of history. uh both Sus and I were on the uh the same committee that Ted and others Arturo and many others were on uh when the conservation easement was was drafted and uh um we worked on and had the vote on whether or not to retain the eucalyptus trees. So, here's a bit of history. As I recall, Dad, you can correct me if I'm wrong, the eucalyptus trees were saved by one vote. It was a it was a a uh that much. And I was on the opposite side. I voted to remove them. So, being more of a native species advocate uh for the bluffs. Uh but I understand the rationale. They're a bit of California history. I remember when I was a child driving down the grade and seeing Camaro below and going through that uh wonderful way. Do you remember uh row of eucalyptus trees that you drove down through for about two or three miles before you entered what was then my

hometown of Karo? And then finally uh Rencon Gateway itself, small acreage but huge in what it does to preserve that eastern edge of the bluffs. That's that's like the cornerstone without which we would have lost so much without that acquisition. What it does is protects not just that 2.4 acres but it now you know with it you have not just that open space but the open space that will always be there that is the CALR on the bluff and the railroad property on the other side. So the effective preservation with that in terms of protection of views and and of the natural open space is is is more than the uh than the the bit within the hole. So something to celebrate. Thank you.

Quick comment on that one if you wouldn't mind. Um by the way on that one there Ted and Dave you might want to consider this as one of the arguments for keeping the eucalyptus trees. That's one of the few stops of the monarch butterfly coming down the coast right now. and we are running out a lot of those spots. We do not have any more speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we do have two Zoom speakers. Our first one is Aruro Tego. Aruro, go ahead.

Good evening, city council. Yeah, this is Aruro. You see my picture there if you can't see it. That's when I was a young man painting the Carpenteria Bluffs. Been doing it for over 40 years. And uh if Aruro, are you still there? Let's unmute you, Artoro. There you go. Yeah. Okay. I've been speaking. Have you heard anything that I've said? No.

No, we haven't. If you can please start over. Thank you.

Yes, I will. So, um I wanted to say congratulate everybody on the wonderful Valentine's gift that we got in uh the on February 14th of 2025. And uh I want to propose that we celebrate that day each time uh at the place and have a picnic over there at the Gateway. And I I celebrate also the the name Gateway Bluffs because it is a true gateway from the south to this county and uh in many other ways it's also a gateway. Um, you know, when I paint, I have a feelings of um, transcendence. And I think that when people look out to the channel from this place, it's a moment that really connects you with your soul. And I think that it's very fitting that it'll be the gateway not only to our county, but the gateway to the bluffs, the gateway to your spirit. And um the other thing I said is uh if in fact I was the one vote to save those eucalyptus, then I'm very proud of that because they are absolutely beautiful. They provide a lot of uh beauty to this open space and uh that's it. Just congratulations and thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Then our next Zoom speaker is Devin Rothman with the Land Trust. Uh Devin, go ahead.

Yeah. Hello, Madame Mayor, members of the city council. Um, I just wanted to say thank you to uh to you all and to all the city staff and the citizens for all the partnership over the years. Um, you know, this is coming up on it's going to be pretty soon now here, 30 years of uh of partnership. um since the original uh Bluff's acquisition and now this this third one and uh you know those decades of partnership um and the knowledge that we've had such a good relationship um being able to work on the conservation of the bluffs with the city and with the citizens over those years allowed us to move quickly um and efficiently when the opportunity to to purchase this property uh came up. Um and so we're looking forward to u more uh partnership. you know, conservation easements are uh about partnership, that long-term uh partnership, and we've got a really great relationship working with um city staff on the two existing uh conservation easements. Um and we're excited to continue that partnership and just wanted to thank you on behalf of um all the people at the land trust and our board and our donors as well.

Thank you for your comments. And mayor, that concludes Zoom comment. I will close public comment and bring it back to the council for any um final comments, questions, and a motion. Uh I'll move to adopt resolution number 6449 approving the Ringcon gateway baseline conditions report and authorizing the mayor to execute the following documents. Uh the land transfer agreement for the Ringcon Gateway property from the land trust of Santa Barbara County to the city. The deed of conservation easement for the Ringcon gateway property by the city in favor of the land trust. and the amended and restated Rinkcon Bluffs preserve endowment agreement. Second. We have a first and a second. Roll call vote, please. Council member Namura. I. Vice Mayor Sorenson.

I. Council member Clark. Hi. Council member Mayor. I. And Mayor Alakan. I. And I'd like to just say um it is late so my energy is a little low, but this is a really exciting milestone for the city. Um, and I it's just so great to hear um how many community members have been invested in this space for so long and it's really because of you that has gotten us this far. Um, so thank you and this is really the celebration for everyone. Big win

definitely and um I included in that the conservation of the eucalyptus tree. So you got that going for you even though I am an environmental scientist but thank you anyways. It's a great idea. Um, we will now move on to item number 18, which is receive and file the revenue enhancement opportunities report completed by HDL and consider providing direction to staff on preferred revenue strategies strategies to address the city's fiscal and infrastructure needs, including consideration of initiating community engagement and public education activities related to potential revenue measures.

Great. Thank you, mayor. Good evening, mayor, council members. Ryan Kint, assistant city manager here to present this item. So, just in terms of logistics for our presentation, just want to let you know I'm going to give a verbal. Then we do have uh Ken Duran from HDL who's going to give a PowerPoint presentation going over the revenue analysis itself. I'll come back to me for a little more to say and then I'll turn it over to the council for questions. So, uh, tonight's item is part of the city's ongoing work, uh, to address long-term fiscal sustainability and to evaluate potential revenue strategies available to the city. So, the purpose of this report is not to ask the council to make a final decision tonight, but rather to present the analysis that HDL's completed um, and to receive direction on how you would like staff to proceed with that information. So, consistent with the purpose, uh staff is recommending that the city council receive the the revenue enhancement report tonight, which Ken will provide. Um provide direction to staff on a pref preferred revenue strategy or strategies to address the city's fiscal and infrastructure needs. Direct staff to initiate some community engagement and public uh education related to said potential revenue measure. um and then approve and authorize the city manager to execute an amendment with the agreement with Clifford Moss in the amount of uh 30,000 in to increase the contract by 30,000 for a new total ex not to exceed of 130,000 and then finally to approve a budget appropriation of 84,000 for the current fiscal year from the measure X fund for professional services. And I'd like to mention as part of that last recommendation, this appropriation uh reflects previously programmed funding for this effort. It was actually uh programmed for fiscal year 27. So it's being advanced to meet the project timelines into this fiscal year. So over our 2-year fiscal budget, that uh

appropriation is revenue or sorry, is budget neutral. So it's not a new budget appropriation over our two-year budget. So, as as outlined in our staff report tonight, this work is a direct implementation of the city council's adopted fiscal year 2026 27 strategic plan, specifically goal number four to maintain the fiscal sustainability of the city. So, over the past year, staff has completed several items as part of the GE general government department structured work program. Um, and the council has been along for the ride on all those. So, we conducted a voter uh survey research. We advanced the assessment districts through the Prop 218 process. And then finally, we had HDL prepare this revenue enhancement opportunities report that's before you tonight. So, together, these efforts uh were intended to evaluate both cost recovery strategies and broader revenue options that are available to the city. So, what's what's changed? Um, so in March, the city completed the Prop 218 process for the landscape maintenance district and the Winter Berm district. As the council and the community know, uh, these measures did not pass. As a result, uh, there's approximately 1.2 million in annual funding that would have supported ongoing maintenance and infrastructure related services that is now not available. Importantly though, the services related to those assessment districts, they don't go away. we still have to do a lot of those services. So they must continue to be funded through existing and limited city resources including the general fund and measure X. While these are separate funding sources there they are still constrained resources as the council knows and using them to fund these ongoing maintenance reduces the city's ability to allocate funding toward other priorities for example streets facilities and infrastructure improvements.

So, uh, the outcome is a key factor in the decision before you tonight, the outcome of that Prop 218 process. In addition to these considerations, um, the city does face broader financial pressures, as I outlined in the staff report tonight, it's combined with our stagnating revenues and our rising costs. That's that's really our biggest issue, but there's other issues as well. So, we have the escalation in costs associated with the city's agreement with the Santa Barbara County uh sheriff's office that continues to present a substantial and growing financial obligation. So, for example, the cost for law enforcement services um in this fiscal year is 6.6 million. That's slated to go up to 6.9 million in next fiscal year. And these increases place continued pressure on the general fund as I mentioned earlier and reduces the city's ability to allocate resources toward other priorities like streets, roads, and infrastructure improvements. At the same time, the city is experiencing these rising operational uh needs and costs across all our departments. For example, we have expanded service levels such as the the library, senior services, parks maintenance. Um and these all are continuing to compete for an increasingly limited pool of discretionary funding both our um measure X and general fund. And this is all compounded by inflationary pressures across all city operations. Um and that's compounded now also by increasing gas prices. So the just the costs just continue to rise for us. So in addition, the city's primary revenue sources as I mentioned have not kept pace with the increasing cost of providing those services. So that's that rising costs, stagnating uh revenues. We're just not able to match our costs with our revenues. And then capital costs have also significantly increased. As we've noted, CIP capital improvement program projects

consistently exceed historical estimates due to increases in labor costs, material costs, and regulatory requirements. On the infrastructure side, the staff uh staff does estimate that the city currently has approximately 8.5 million in deferred street and pavement maintenance and approximately 6.3 million in deferred facility and asset maintenance. So this is a total of approximately and this is a staff estimate of 44.8 million in deferred maintenance. In addition, as part of our five-year CIP plan, the city has approximately 134 million in unfunded improvement needs. So, taken together, these factors really do reflect an ongoing structural imbalance between the city's obligations, our long-term obligations, our deferred maintenance, and our available resources. So, that's why we're working on item number four in our strategic plan, maintain fiscal sustainability. So, as I mentioned, we have HDL here with us tonight. So, to help evaluate those potential options that are before you tonight, um HDL was hired by city to uh analyze the range of those revenue tools. Those are the transaction use tax as you saw in the report, a utility users tax, a parcel tax, and potential business license reforms. So, at this point, I'll turn it over to Ken um from HDL to walk through the analysis and the key findings, and I'll pull up the presentation. Okay, Ken, take it away.

Is the presentation up? It is.

Oh, okay. I can't see it. So, oh, there we go. Now I got it. Um, good evening, um, madame mayor and and city council. Uh, my name is Ken Duran. with HDL companies. Uh we're a company that's been around for over 40 years and we assist cities with revenue and um and tax analysis. And so we were charged, as Ryan had mentioned, to take a look at um four specific revenue opportunity options that the city may have before you. One of them is the transaction and use tax. Um if you can go to the next slide. Yeah. The transaction and use tax which we refer to as a TU. Uh utility users tax which is the we refer to as a UUT. Parcel tax and business license tax. Um all of these taxes go to the next one too. Um, all of these taxes require city council authorization to put a ballot measure uh before the voters of Carperia and then they require uh a voter approval for each one of these taxes. So, we I'll I'll get into the specifics if you go to the next slide of the specific taxes. Um, now the the city does have a 1.25% 25% TUT which was adopted in 2018 and there is a cap on the ability to um you know add a a TUT. So the city has a capacity of another quarter cent um to reach the 2% cap. So if the city was to

look at um adding an additional uh 0.25% 25% uh TUT. We estimate that that could generate approximately 694,000 uh dollars. Um uh one of the one of the key notes is that we did a we do a a resident versus non-resident um study and we estimate that 18% of your transit u util or transaction and use tax um is paid by non-residents. So that's a uh that's a a consideration that your residents aren't paying the full burden of that increased utility tax. Um so you know we indicate that there are a number of cities in Santa Barbara County that that have um a TUT ranging from 8.75 to 9.25. So um you know so you would be within that range if you increased yours by another quarter percent. So that is one option that's available to you. The next option um is a utility users tax. Um and this is a tax on utilities that your residents pay um either residents or businesses. Um, and there's a variety of different um, utilities that can be charged, whether it be electricity, gas, water, sewer, telecommunications, or cable television. Um, the city has the ability to determine whether they want to charge this tax on residents only, commercial businesses only, and what types of utilities that they can charge them on. Um, currently you do not

have a, you know, UUT, but there are 157 cities within California that do have those. And again, because there's such a variation of, you know, what utilities you can charge and whether it's residential or commercial, we estimate uh that you could generate between 597,000 to uh six or 1.6 six or 1.7 million annually depending on how you structure that tax. Um it's a fairly stable source of revenue. Um however because of the changes in utility rates um that could change. It is a it it is somewhat regressive because um single family households that are lower of lower income a higher percentage of their uh annual income goes to um utilities. So it's a little bit more aggressive for them because they're paying a higher disproportionate amount u based upon their revenue. So but that is an option for you. Uh the next is a partial tax. Uh this is a tax that's based upon um a tax on a specific parcel. It's not property tax based. It would be a fixed tax that would be based upon um a specific purpose that would be used for this tax. Um and it it was it would be set on the parcel itself. Um and again you have uh just over 5,100 parcels in the city and it would be a fixed amount. Again it's not it's not property tax base so it's not based upon value. So,

you could set your amount at $75, you know, hundred, $200, and you could um, you know, you could actually say how much you want to um establish that tax for. And again, the variation of the amount that you could generate is based upon the amount of money that you're going to tax on the specific parcels. So, that's a partial tax. And then uh uh the fourth one we looked at was you have a um business license tax which probably can be um increased based upon uh different standards. You've got over 1,900 businesses u that are licensed within your community. um you can generate more revenue if you want to increase that business license based upon different models that are um much more equitable than the model that you currently have. You've got a you've kind of got a flat rate um business tax. Uh if you increase that to something that's more comparable to your peers, which would be more of a gross receipts revenue, you could probably increase your sales tax or excuse me, your business license tax um significantly if that's something that you wanted to look at. And then lastly, just to kind of highlight, I talked about that resident versus non-resident report. um as as I demonstrated um you have on the TUT side, you have over 18% of your um TUT that is being paid for by non-residents. And you can look at your your Bradley Burns, which is the 1% sales tax. You've got over 39%

which is based upon the Bradley Burns uh portion of your sales tax. So, uh, we're not making a recommendation. We're giving you four options, and this is something that, uh, you want to talk to your staff about if there's one of those options that you want to pursue. Um, you know, here's the kind of the pros and cons of each one of those. So, uh, with that, I will, um, stop and answer any questions that you might have. Yeah, sure.

Thank you, Ken. And then if you wouldn't mind, mayor, council members, I just have a bit more to say and then we'll turn it over to cast uh questions for the rest of us. Thank you so much, Ken, for that. That's really helpful. So So based on this analysis uh presented tonight and the information provided in the staff report, as I mentioned, staff is seeking uh direction from the city council um consistent with the five recommendation actions uh before you tonight on the staff report. So specifically, staff is seeking direction on whether the council would like to pursue a revenue measure. Um, and if so, which type of measure or potentially combination of measures should be further developed, as well as whether to initiate some of that community engagement and public outreach efforts that I mentioned earlier. If the council does choose to move forward, uh, staff has outlined some tentative timeline for next steps in the staff report. I'll just go over the big ones real quick. So tonight's discussion would provide direction on strategy and whether to begin that community engagement. We would then return in May with a with more detailed options um including some draft ballot language framework for the council to review. Um and then if the council chooses to proceed, then we come back to council again for a third time. So, it's kind of a three-step process, including tonight, um, with an ordinance to place a measure on the November 2026 ballot if the council uh, decides to proceed. So, there are several tools available as you can see. Um but staff in in our analysis and looking at this we we do suggest that a TUT a sales tax transaction use tax does provide a strong balance of revenue potential feasibility um and administrative simplicity as well as a a reduced burden on our taxpayers with that 18% of outside u visitors paying for it. Um however staff is we really are just looking for direction from the council on how you all would like to proceed. So, uh, like I mentioned, we

would proceed in May if the council, uh, gives us direction with any one of those items tonight. And that's it, and we're available for questions. Uh, for the TUT option, um, given the amount of percentage they're recommending increasing, what would some real um real life examples look like for for those costs?

That's a great example. So, there are a lot of exempted items. I do want to mention that. So, including uh a lot of stuff that you buy at the grocery store, feminine products, etc. So, the it it's not your typical everything you purchase, but let's say you you go to the store and you buy $100 worth of toys. Um that would come out to about 25 cents extra that you're paying. So, an extra quarter you're paying um towards this for this sales tax. Again, if you're spending $10, that's 2.5 cents. So, about two pennies and a half. Um, so it's it that's that's the actual increase that our residents and visitors would see on their bills.

I I um I appreciate that information because I my next question is about um you know, we just went through the the whole assessment district outreach process and I think maybe one thing we could have um tried to emphasize more was the small amount of the increases. So I think it's really good that we're I mean relatively small amount of the increases especially proportionally. So I think it's good that we're that with this particular option, it seems like it's a very very minuscule amount per not even every transaction but some specific transactions.

Um so but given that we did do a lot of outreach around the assessment districts a lot we tried to do a lot of community engagement and um ultimately we were not successful. What what um what is what is different about this this time around? Because I know residents or property owners in the case of the assessment districts, they just received a request for increased, you know, um contributions and they voted it down. So, how is it how is our outreach going to be different this time?

That's a really good question, Vice Mayor, through the mayor. So the biggest difference is that the the assessment districts were through the Prop 218 process and that process is really legally prescribed process with very specific noticing and balance ballot requirements whereas a potential transactioning use tax measure allows for a broader and more proactive community education efforts. So the Prop 218 process was really restricted on what we can and can't say. That's that's a big issue. Um, and then also with Proposition 218, the city is required to send formal notices and ballots and the process is structured around property owners voting, not your voter electorate. So, it's only sent to property owners and only property owners can vote. So, that's a big difference as well. And there's really that again had a lot of limited restrictions as well on what we can share in both that notice and on the ballot itself um as part of the Prop 218 requirements. So um the focus is primarily on explaining the assessment and the methodology in those documents as opposed to the transaction transaction and use tax or a sales tax. Um the city has more flexibility to conduct community engagement and public education. Uh for example, we can include clearer information about the city's financial condition, our infrastructure needs as I mentioned tonight, and the services that would be supported if this does pass. It is a it is a it would be a general tax uh if the council wants to go in that direction. So as as um Ken uh inclined earlier that would require a 2/3 vote of the city council. So four out of the five. Um and then it does require a 50 plus one vote from the electorate. Um so that's also a a big difference is it's just the electorate voting on it, not the property um owners. Um and and this process for the um potential transaction and use tax also would include a lot of

community meetings. We would do a ton of stakeholder outreach umformational materials that are sent out um and ongoing communication with residents. The process doesn't start and stop. This is a continuation of our outreach to the community to to share with them our financial needs and our financial status and what programs and and services are potentially not going to be funded. uh looking at fiscal 28 and and what this measure would go towards specifically. Um

that's no that's helpful to know and I have another TUT related one in the staff uh staff report or what the attachment it um there was a mention that the county can also increase the TUT and that would take away our ability to do it. Is that am I getting that right or can you explain that? That's correct. And I can Jenna can also help answer this, but um and so can Ken, but um so there is a a district maximum of 9.25. Um so if the county were to increase their property or sorry, a sales tax and they were to add a 0.25 sales tax that would include the city's jurisdiction that would take that 0.25 away from the city. So we would not be able to do an additional transaction and use tax unless we go to the legislature and ask the legislature to increase our maximum for the district as a whole. Um but that is a huge effort and it's it's rarely done and from what I've seen only a couple cities have done it. Um, so that's the biggest difference with this one too is if if we don't do this now, there is a potential that the county could do it in the future and then that would remove our ability to do it.

And in that in that case Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. Can I just do a quick follow up really quick? Yes, please, Ken. Um, uh, sorry. Really really quickly. So, um, then residents would be paying that additional tax anyway. It just it would go to the county and not to the city. That's correct. Sorry. Sorry. I just wanted to to add that on to clarify.

Yeah. And I just wanted to clarify that that point too. So, you know, you know, one of the uh advantages of a TUT is you already have a 1.25% TUT. So, all you're adding is another quarter percent. So, it's the, you know, your residents are already paying that or in the in the case of the non-residents, the 18% they're already paying for that. So, um, at some point the county may, you know, reach that cap and they'll use it for whatever purposes they want to. So, it's a it's a an easier sell to your community for that actual additional quarter percent because it's going to go to benefiting the, you know, your your local jurisdiction as opposed to the county in general. So, um, I think it's, you know, it's since they're already paying for it, it's, you know, they're already paying the 1.25, another quarter percent, it's a little bit easier for them to adjust rather than a UUT um or parcel tax or some a new tax. It's just kind of increasing incremental the tax that you already have on the books um and then um and not allowing for the county or or a transportation district or somebody else to be able to to meet that that gap.

So that you from an education standpoint, it it makes a lot of sense for you to take advantage of that opportunity. Okay. Thank you. No, I appreciate that. Um and then just one more uh question right now. So, when when we're going to be communicating this to to um the public, uh what are what should they know is going to be able to be funded by this increase like what where will where will that money I know you kind of said it a little bit, but can you just reiterate it?

Yeah, I can you can expand on that. So, it is um a general tax. So, it does go into our general fund. Um Measure X is also a general tax. So, technically our general fund and measure X is still just one big general fund. So this would go into that general fund and then it would be at the full discretion to assign those funds. It's a fully discretionary source. Um but you could assign that to whatever needs the city has. So for example, uh you could take some of those funds or all of those funds and appropriate them towards streets and infrastructure or other needs that the city has. um be but because it is a discretionary source, it's a it's considered a general tax and we can't pre-allocate it towards something that would be a special tax and then that we would have those special tax requirements which requires the twothirds vote of the electorate. Um yeah,

got it. Okay. Thank you very much. Can I um we can we we we can't allocate it for something, but we can say in the ballot measure this will be used for things like the library, police, roads, blah blah blah, you know, but we're not saying we're doing it specifically, but it's going to be which it is, you know. No, thank you for clarifying that. That's correct. Yeah. So questions. Um is it time to go home? No. Well, I I have a question or

I I don't know. I'm trying to trying to put words around it. Um a CIP backlog of 133 million, 14.8 million in deferred maintenance, including pavement and a 0.25% increase. I mean, that's it's only going to fill a bit, but it is not going to get us to where we need to go. Um, so I don't know. I don't know. I don't actually know what I'm asking. More just this is like the first of many things that we're going to need to do. I guess um that's uh and I don't like I said

council member mayor that is that is you're absolutely right. This isn't the solve all for the city but it does provide us some additional tools that the council can explore. For example, um in the staff report I did uh staff mentioned um some potential funding opportunities, lines of credit. Um and what this potential uh TUT can do for us is provide that dedicated ongoing funding that could be then used to leverage additional funding to do some big of some of our big projects including you know streets, roads, and infrastructure improvements that the city desperately needs. So even though it does look like a small amount, it can be leveraged to bring in additional funds that we would then uh use to pay down the that that debt service.

Thank you for framing it that way.

Yeah. Um I think for me some of the things that are well one is um with the district assessment districts failing um would we just are we putting taking it off the table completely? I almost think in comparison to these options that still makes the most sense, dedicated funding source for the trees and like I feel like I can just I can continue to justify that a lot more than another that we did back in 2018 because my fear is that we're going to, you know, continue to tax the residents and there's going to be fatigue, you know, and so I'm just thinking it thinking of it as a perspective on strategy and if you know redoing those assessment districts maybe it is a crazy idea and we're it's gonna potentially fail anyways but I'm curious to know what you all think.

Yeah, I'll let Michael and and Jenna chime in. I think that you know the the the what the assessment districts taught us is that Prop 218 processes are really tough. The messaging around Prop 218 is super restricted. There's high risk if we try to go beyond that that messaging. Um and then the pro the property owner process voting process is also really challenging um because you have people that are on fixed budgets and they're they're really looking at you know their property taxes and they don't want that to increase. So the assessment district's process is actually really challenging for those reasons. Um but there's other avenues that we talked about tonight that I think the council can explore in the future that could address those specific special funding needs that the city has. Um, for example, the parcel tax is an option. The UUT is an option that this council can can use to address those special revenue needs that would cover the landscape maintenance district expenditures. And we could frame the messaging and the ballot measure around that um versus going through the assessment district process and the Prop 218 process because of those challenges. That there's just no doubt that the Prop 218 is tough. every jurisdiction that goes through that has told us that um that we've pulled and um I we I don't from a staff perspective, we definitely don't recommend doing that next year. If that's something the council wants to uh pursue in the future, like as we've mentioned before, you know, the the BERM one is probably the most likely one that we would recommend proceeding with. Um, but there, like I said, there's other other avenues of generating revenue that will cover those special revenue needs that just require that voter threshold and just goes to the voter. And there's more messaging flexibility. There's more options to communicate the need to the to the community versus that restrictive assessment district process, Prop 28 process.

And the I'm going to shift to a different kind of question, so I don't know if you want to add anything more to that. I think just the I I'll just reiterate one of Ryan's earlier comments in terms of you know how to justify these or why is one going to be easier than the other or more worthwhile. Um going back to the assessment districts as as Ryan mentioned they're only paid by or voted on right by the property owner and a lot of property owners don't live locally. So they're you're asking people who don't live locally to spend more money that's going to go to our community, not necessarily the community where they live locally and they see those benefits every day versus something like a tax measure. It's the local voters who are voting on that. So it's the voters who live here who are voting to um you know be taxed so that that money goes back to their community that they live on. There's also a benefit that visitors coming into our community as was in the presentation that they're going to be paying this additional tax as well and that will benefit our community. So I think that's a good kind of justification there as well.

And then um so in terms of the TUT if we if the county could potentially come in and do the 0.25 25, but that would also have to go to the electrical electoral electoral vote, right? It would still have to go to a vote. Okay, that's correct. And then my other question in terms of the business um license because that's also something that business license tax is incredibly outdated, at least for our community. Um there it doesn't look like there's a unless I missed it, um like a potential amount of of revenue. Not a big pot of gold. Not do we think it's a not a big

I can I can just share some general numbers, but as Ken mentioned in his report too, we would have to really do an in-depth analysis on how we structure the business license tax. That's why we can't give you a a specific R or number. The range is anywhere from 500,000 to 1.8 8 million really depending on how you structure the business license tax like whether it's gross receipts or or employee based or however you structure it is really how we can determine how much it'll generate and how much money um out of curiosity do we think if the city were to pursue a TUT how much money would it cost the city to prepare

that to to get that going so the the outreach staff would be about the 84,000 that I mentioned. Um, and then the the rest of the work is staff time and um, working with the county to consolidate the elections and get it on the November ballot. So, Brian, I don't know if there's a cost on your end that you could share. It would just be staff time and then I believe also if we were to have a measure uh placed on the November ballot, it would be approximately $15,000 from the county. Okay. So, we're talking probably over $100,000 for the Toot. Would you say that that's approximate um amount for any of these potential measures?

Yes, approximately. I we would have to dive into those to get a little bit more information specifically from the county on what their costs are, but in terms of outreach and education, we would use that same approach and it would be that same cost. And then the staff time is already part of what we do dayto-day. So that's really not any added cost. It's just that's where staff time is going for some of these efforts. Okay, those are all my questions.

Um, this is a really tough time. You know, we're just, you know, licking our wounds from the assessment district and and you know, it's it we may have left a bad taste in some voters and given the national political situation, the economy is so uncertain. And then we got we got three city council seats up this year. So I don't I think the utility user tax is a very regressive tax, not just a somewhat regressive tax. I think people didn't people didn't elect me to vote a utility user tax on them for sure. I I think that's that's out. Um I mean I don't you know parcel tax I I would go for the uh sales tax or what they call it here TUT. I think that's the kind of the lowhanging fruit and it's a it's an easy lift for the for the voters. I would say um based on all of them, the toot would be the one I would go with. Um again, the business license one, they did show the um the cons on that one as um the price of um the service is going to go up. So eventually we're going to pay for that. Anyways, um the TU with 18% of that coming in from outside area, outside resources and uh the small amount of it, it's a good start.

I think at least I'll just interject really quick just to remind you we haven't listened to public comment yet in case you you want to refrain from making any No, no, I'm good with that. Um so anyways, that would be the the one question that's the reason why I think that would be probably the most favorable to us. It also puts us on a positive track with the community. Can I ask a quick question about the business tax, license tax? So, my quick armchair math is that if the city gets approximately $63,000 now from 1,431 businesses, that's $44. Is that true,

Council Member? Mayor, um on average, that's true. Yes. But um it it is based off of the employee count. So it's a little different. Some people are 250, some people are 50, but on average that that is correct. Um and and I'll just note that for that particular one, that 66,000 is barely even covering the cost of running that program, staff time, staff resources, the contract with HDL to maintain those business license tax. So it's it's really not really even paying for itself. That was my next followup was, does that even break even to get those taxes? So, you answered it. Thank you.

Yeah. And if I could just add really quickly, I I I don't think that that's necessarily not a good thing for the council to consider for future years with the November ballot coming up and the amount of time we'd probably want to invest talking to our business community. I think I think it makes sense too because uh a lot of the things that I hear and maybe you all hear out there is that we don't invest enough in supporting some of the economic vitality efforts and so that's something like um council member Clark mentioned earlier it wouldn't be a dedicated source but something that we could say hey this would be reinvested back in and then to council member Mayor's point is a lot of these um numbers right they come in and they help for a little bit but we know that we have that structural gap that's continuing to grow. And so the business tax and potentially reinvesting in the economic vitality of the committee is something that can have like um it's it's an investment that could come back with a stronger return because if we're able to activate the downtown more the amount of uh we're not just adding a percentage on top of a flat number that stays the same, but potentially we're increasing the amount of money that's coming through the downtown. So you have you actually have more activity and the percentage in those are the types of I think uh ideas and things we're going to have to put into play to keep up with this these rising costs moving forward. And so I really think it's a good thing. I mentioned it at state of the city. I just don't think that we have enough runway uh to consider that uh this time around. But I think it's a very good thing for us to consider uh maybe 28 Any additional comments? Okay, I'll go ahead and open up public comment. And uh Nathan Pratt, welcome.

Hello again. I came down here 6:21. I got an email and I zoomed on down here and here we are. Okay. Um, I would say, well, I know there's a couple patterns. You are using kind of premium national consulting firms. You're paying a premium for that service. Just FYI in case you haven't been in the consulting firm business very much. Um, on your tax, obviously your sales tax, your low hanging fruit. You should do a gross sales business license tax. uh anything to do with uh real estate or parcels is not going to pass as you already found out even though I did vote for the tax myself to pay. Um and I think the the point I want to make across to you guys is you need to create an ongoing conversation with the citizens of this community to get them to support you and to support this city economically. Right now I say there's probably a crisis of confidence in the city and I think that that's going to be coming, you know, became aware obviously with his last vote and it's something that will take years to overcome. So coming up coming to this point now for a tax increase in April for November election, you're late to the party. This should have been happening a year ago. So if you can get squeezed through the quarter percent sales tax, that'd be a win, right? But you guys need to start this stuff early and really keep it ongoing. Like it's in real estate, it's called farming. You know, you farm a neighborhood and you get to know everybody and everybody knows you and you grow your business that way. You need to farm the taxpayers of this city. And also, you need to look at your budgeting like why are we paying for a sandm in front of the property on the beach? Those property parcels should pay for all of it 100%. There should be no subsidation. I mean, that's private property. they're getting the benefit otherwise they can put in their own seaw wall and not get washed away things like that you know and also all these um

different assessment districts that don't have increases for 10 20 years you guys need to build in automatic increasing mechanisms into all this legis I don't know how you write it up but so they automatically just creep up a little bit every year people will pay a little bit of increases you know they'd rather get a 2% increase a year than getting a 25% increase every 10 years so you know there's just psychological ways to approach this um that would be beneficial for you and I think that are not being used. These are easy tools, very tried and true, and just takes a little bit of more long-term planning. So, I mean, you're looking at the fiscal health of the city. Obviously, you want to drive the downtown tea as a an engine of economic success hopefully here. And uh I think that looking over I mean you paid you're paying a a firm $120,000 to tell you to raise your income tax to your sales tax a quarter percent. I could have told you that in 5 seconds. You know, I mean, I'm watching some of these consulting studies you guys are paying for and you're paying top dollar for these consulting services and a lot of the stuff is common sense and there's actually people in the community that could give you this information for free and you guys, you know, and every little bit, you know, he has to live in this town and pay because it's a rule that city manager has to live in the city carpenter or something that costs $40,000 a year for that little item. you multiply that over 10-15 years, that's half a million dollars. So, you know, there's lots of ways we can kind of save your pennies and and it will add up and it will help. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Alan Cotch.

That really says a quarter to 11. Wow. Um, good evening, council. almost going to say good morning in another hour and 15 minutes. And staff, um, what I like to try to do with my three minutes here is to talk talk a little bit about uh I hear about fiscal sustainability, but that means managing both the revenue and the expense side. Um, just going just going to the public with a with another option that we're seeing here, the four different options. Um uh it just it just it's going to be fail just fail again uh in the sense of the putting it on the shoulders of the residents. I have I have some figures here that uh I don't know where this came from but I'm sure it came from the city here of this this graph of of general fund and measure X fund. So for six six fiscal years from 2019 2020 fiscal year to the budget of 25 26 revenues grew 36%. But your expenses grew 59%. So that's that's where the the red line crossed and now we're somewhere in an estimate of a half a million dollars to a million dollar hole every year. So the statement about a 25 basis point increase in the sales tax is not incremental. It's incremental revenues, but it's going to just close the gap. That's a structural problem.

And part of outreach, you have to I'll follow up on on what Nathan said. You have to enroll the public. What What drove all those expenses? Break it out by department. Break it out by library. Break it out by sheriffs. Break it out by legal expenses. Break it out by the hard work that public service is doing, public works are doing, parks and wrecks. How do those expenses grow and what were the drivers? Because from our perspective, you're not managing expenses. You're just going to go out and try to do the least painful. But, um, I believe the county was thinking about a sales tax increase or maybe it was the city, but they they backed away from that. So, again, I I don't know the answers to to to this, but I think we owe this the residents, how did these expenses grow? That's all. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Went Hollis. Welcome.

Good evening, mayor, councilman, council members. Sorry, it's been a long night. Um, I want to start with a quote quote by vice mayor. Bottom line is we need to do more. We need to find more revenue sources. So, as I understand it, the city over a decade ago started looking into that and I've been working on a project for almost nine years that can bring some additional revenue. In the near future, we will release a a economic analysis by UCSB's economic forecast that studied the con the cost and the revenue or the impact to the economy of the construction and then the operation of the first few years of the hotel. You will re if we if it we receive what we think we're going to receive and other business people have agreed to and banks are ready to invest, you will receive approximately $1.8 million a year from the operation at a hotel from a combination of sales tax, toot tax, and the lease operation that that we're committed to under our development agreement together. In addition, your community will receive 46.6 6 million of general revenue that comes through payment of salaries and that money being spent here and then being spent here being been spent there. So our project is going to be before a planning commission we hope soon and then probably be before your council. just let you know that you have a project that will give you significant amount of money that won't have the hurdles that you're talking about right now. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Do not have any other speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we have no raised hands. Patrick, would you like to welcome?

Thank you, Mayor. Forgive me. I'll fill out a form. Um, and I'll keep this brief and it is free to the point earlier. Um, so free advice is always good. Um, I wanted to pick on a point that came up several times in the discussion about the the various tax opportunities. Um, and that is non-resident property owners. Um, it's a category that's pretty significant in carpia. And if there's a way to target some of this these opportunities either through the property tax approach or the parcel tax approach or even sort of the inverse of the utility use um approach is to put a little burden on the people that are taking advantage of you know the value of their properties but not contributing through presence if nothing else. There's also another nuance that I would challenge to think about too is is vacant and underused properties. There's a number of commercial properties up and down Karp Avenue, even on Lynen, that are either vacant or certainly underutilized and not contributing through what would be normal sort of a reasonable threshold of some sort of tax generation, either sales tax through a retail operation or some sort of viable use of the property. And what they're really doing is just sitting on the value going up and looking for a you know a transaction or a you know a liquidation event at some point in the future that's not contributing to the to the community. So again think about you know a little bit nuanced approach leaning on the non-resident property owners and considering about vacant unused properties. Thanks.

Thank you for your comments. Um, and I'll just double check. Uh, do we have anyone on Zoom? I know you mentioned no, but that might have changed. Uh, no. Still no raised hands.

Okay. I'll go ahead and close public comment and bring it back to the council for any further discussion. One thing I do want to speak to is I'm glad what's a really big part of this agenda item is this idea of outreach and the type of outreach that we do because I think it's important that that the the public also I I understand that sometimes it can be hard to receive information the way that they expect to. But it's also really important to understand we the city staff and the council are putting information out constantly about our budget. the budget broken down by department, by category, by staff is it's it's public information available on the website. We talk about it at meetings, you know, we we post about we we I think that it's I I would hope that because this is something I too hear when I do my meet and greets. People will say this this there's no transparency around the budget. The city just you know why where are the expenses coming from? And the reality is all that information is available and we try to share it as much as we can. But I know that it's you know it's it's it's dry information. It's not always um it's not always simple to get through. But I just think part of the breakdown in in in public uh if there is a crisis of confidence or a breakdown in public trust is I think it it has to go both ways. you know, the public has to I would hope that they trust that their elected leaders and that the staff who are working for the city are truly doing our best and are doing their best to help support the city. And I I appreciate getting the the concerns and and the the complaints and everything because it people should be able to say what it is that that they the city should do better, but I also think it's so important for the public to try to under to see what is being done to try to help them and to try to be as accountable and transparent as possible. So, I'm just I I I I really want to say that because it's it's something that I think doesn't get said enough that the

city and we are working really hard to get information out to to the the public, but we're a small team. We're we're a small city staff and there's not a lot of resources to do that. So, I'm glad that that's an integral part of this discussion today. Um and so, I just wanted to lead off by saying that those are my first first comments. Um and then I would just say in terms of the discussion about a specific measure uh or a specific approach u the 2 sounds like that is uh in line with um with our our um time and effort and all of our um the our approach the the resources that we have to to use to move forward. I like that it's it's not just born by residents unlike the other options we have are seem like they're mostly going to be born by by residents. I like um the idea of us pursuing this before the county were to pursue pursue something similar that would then take away that option for us. Um and um so I that that those would be my kind of my general comments about this.

You going to put that in a motion? No. No, please. Wow. Except for a little bit longer. All right. I'll do that one then. I move to um receive and file the revenue enhancement opportunities report. Receive the presentation provide direction to staff regarding preferred revenue strategies which includes or which will be um the TUT including initiating community engagement and approving amendment number one to the agreement with Clifford Moss of outreach and public engagement services.

I'll second. And I'd like to just uh clarify. So by us approving this, this means we're moving forward with this tax measure or does this mean we're just moving on to the next step? I just want clarification on that. I'm sorry. I apologize, mayor. I didn't hear that because we were making sure the the recommendation was okay. Yes. With this motion, I just want to confirm that if we are approving, we're absolutely moving forward with TUT. Or is this just saying we're going to move on to the second step to discuss more about the strategy and um you know, you said that there was three steps, so I just

Yeah. Yeah, I can answer that. Thank you, mayor. Um so, this would definitely set us up to proceed with the TUT. Um but the second step is to come back with the ballot language so that the council can review and approve. Um and then that would then be the official uh motion of the council to then develop the ordinance which is then the next council action to place the measure on the November ballot. So this this is way got it right. That's providing our us the direction to proceed with the TUT to come back in May with the additional information so that the council can provide input on the next step which is uh eventually placing the measure on the November ballot. So that's correct. So just to um

in in other words um this is not the formal motion. No, the formal motion to move forward with the TUT will be when as Ryan said it comes back um you approve the ballot language and request that the county put it on the ballot. So when's the when is the formal motion to hire the consultant? When does that happen? That's right now. That was part of the motion. Yeah.

Um I don't know if I'm gonna I'm just gonna ask this question uh because this has been on top of mind for me is this idea of vacant property tax and unused property. Second home tax things that sort of hit two birds with one stone really because we're in this housing crisis. So, homes that are sitting vacant. Um, is this a good time for us to put that on the table? Um, that's my question.

Happy to answer that. Uh, mayor, uh, council mayor through the mayor, excuse me. Um, great question. This is something that we've had a lot of questions about previously and we have done some, um, research into it. One of the reasons it's not on the list, um, for consideration this evening, well, there there are a couple reasons. um one it's not proven to be we've looked at some other similarly situated cities that have actually gone through the analysis. So something like this, HDL putting together an analysis, right, um to see how much money it would actually get a city and um that similarly situated city did not end up moving forward with it because the amount um that would be brought in under that tax that tax and the uh higher level of administrative um burden that it puts on staff just didn't really make a lot of sense. Secondly, and and more importantly for me um as an attorney is that this this vacancy tax is what it's called generally is being challenged in other areas of the state. And so it's not something that I would recommend at this point because I wouldn't want to recommend something that could be challenged and while we want to use it as a revenue measure end up being a um revenue pitfall. I don't even know where I'm going with that, but I think you get my point.

Yeah, thank you. But great question and I think that's something that a lot of people have questions about. I mean it sounds like this is a a great, you know, a great thing. May maybe one day it will be as the case law kind of works itself out, but currently there's just too many bugs. I see this as being more of just a starting point for us. Yeah, for sure. I just All these things are going to be coming up. I mean,

this isn't going to solve our our issues or problems, but it'll start it at least get us going. Um, I think for me as I appreciate the motion that's on the table, but um I I think there's just and I don't know if staff can speak more towards strategy. My concern is that we're going to invest a lot of money into this and have it fail. And I think that'll set us back more than where we're at now. And I think that there's a lot of merit to creating um a strategy with with a lot of community input because because I do think we have put out a lot of information, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's getting to the people that matter that are going to go to the ballots and vote. So I don't I that does not take away from the fact that I do think the city has been transparent. I do think we have put we have talked about the budget multiple times. So I don't want that to take away from being a small team and doing the best that we can, but I also think there's still a disconnect with the voters and where we're at. Um because it's a it's an ongoing question. It's it's not coming from just particular people. It's coming from a from you know multiple people that I've spoken with. And so there's still a disconnect. So, I wonder if there's still I think for me I need more about strategy um before we kind of just jump in and vote and say we're going to

start the next time this comes across. We're going to be talking about what the language on the ballot. Yeah, that's where that's where I'm landing.

That's a really really good um input and feedback. Uh mayor, thank you so much for that. Um I'll just take a step back. you know, the council and the finance committee has been at this for a while now as as as the council has foreseen um maintaining the fiscal responsibility of the city is a big issue and you guys asked us to do that over a year ago and so there's been a lot of work that's done to get to this point as you know mayor being on the finance committee. Um the second part to that answer that I wanted to mention that's in the staff report is we're not uh as as council's given us direction and the committee has given us direction. We're we're not making uninformed decisions here either. Um the finance committee did give us direction to do a voter survey and we did enlist FM3 to do that. Um that voter survey did show about a 75% um yes vote for this. So that does show us that the vote that the voters do already as as of October 2025, they do have support for this and that's extremely high for for a ballot measure. Um likely that that is going to go down with the state of the economy and with inflation, gas prices, war in Iran, the national stuff. But um we still feel confident that we'll reach that 50 plus one threshold. But the risk is there. The risk is always there that it may not pass. Um

could I make a point on Yes, go ahead. Yeah, thanks Ryan to move this forward. Um, in the motion it did include initiating community engagement and the report also pointed out the fact that we have a lot more latitude on working with this than we did with the last one. Correct. The last one we did not have the voters making the voting decision. It was actually the property owners. This is completely different. Yeah. And I think the the FM3 assessment and survey stuff because yes, I am on the finance committee um was before the assessment district failed. That's correct. Yeah. So I think that it could potentially change the landscape of what voters think.

Yeah. And mayor, if I may, you guys still get another crack at the apple here, bite at the apple in May. So, I think what we can do as as part of that next staff report is including with the ballot language, we can really outline a really clear strategy um that is included with our efforts with the uh Clifford Moss outreach consultant. We can outline that specific we can actually also ask council to provide input on that strategy and maybe you guys can come forward with some of your your ideas. That way, we can really map out at that time because that's really you guys making that formal decision to proceed. uh you can map out that strategy, help staff map out that strategy, include pieces that you guys think would be valuable to to really get to that place of a win. Um and then that can be as part of the next staff report.

I mean to echo what the mayor just said, I feel strongly that the community wants to support specific measurable things that they feel invested in. And that's why Measure X was so successful. And it's because it was communitydriven and it was community focused. It wasn't, you know, just to fill a gap. I mean, and I think when I think about this, it's even the people that are in this room that are willing to be here at 11 p.m. have forgotten that the sheriff contract went up by $1.28 million. And that's when that red line jumped. And it wasn't just because of the city's discretionary funding spending going wild. And you know, these these contracts are actual dollars that take from everything else. And I think if if as a city we can present that the what the money is for in a very specific way, even if it is going to the general fund, it's to pay for the police. like the police costs this much and it keeps going up and we want the police here so we have to pay for it. Um I think that that's the way we're going to both what was it that you said a crisis of confidence. I mean none of us are here because it's super fun times on a Monday night to talk about this but it's because we really care about this place and we want it to be successful. And in order to be successful, we have to do all the things including this decision to find more revenue. So, and I I agreed like okay, cut expenses, but what like do we cut the sheriff? I mean, how do we do that? That's not even an option, right? So, it's a balance of

all the things at the same time, but I think that it has to be communitydriven and messaged. truly from the community.

Council mayor, if I can just speak to that through the mayor. So, I I agree with you in the programming thing with the Prop 218 assessment districts. There was a terrible disconnect between what folks were receiving, right? There are a lot of folks who are like, "Oh, well, uh, I don't have I live in a mobile home park and the tree isn't in front of my house or those sorts of things." Whereas like when Measure X passed in the library or how people feel about the senior programming and we knew that the uh because the discretionary monies were going to subsidize the assessment districts that it would have freed up money to pay for those programs. And we weren't allowed to to say that. We weren't allowed to tell people that hey by voting for that you're voting for your streets, you're voting for your programs. And that's just the unfortunate part of that. And that and that goes to some of the criticism that we've received or constructive criticism from folks that you have to get out in front of these things because there's lines on when we're allowed to say certain things and then after certain dates you're not allowed to. And so I I definitely take what's what's being said and and I've already started scheduling meetings myself with people out in the community that I I see they're active in social media and there's uh folks that are here tonight that I'd love to circle back with and help to to provide information because you know that I felt like that's really what we needed were some ambassadors out there that were helping to correct misinformation and things like that. And I know that in my one-on-one meetings with this council that you all have have committed on some level to doing that this time around, not just because of these tax measures, but just in more general as as feedback that we received when we were doing the assessment districts. And everybody showed up um not knowing it was about the assessment district, but thought it was about the OGN 18story building and said, "Hey, we'd really love to just come back and talk about these things." And so I know even back then the council was was talking about getting out and

having more of these meetings. And so I've taken that personally myself and have started doing that. Um the uh in terms of like some of the the polling stuff that was mentioned. So it has a lot has changed since we first did those. Um I think we knew that it was going to be a tough road for the assessment districts. They were barely polling at like 50 or 51. And I think, you know, they came in obviously under that. Um but even if the polling on the um sales tax dropped by the same percentage, it would still pass by over 12%. Um and so it would have to dramatically drop from where it um was before. And so it just to give any more confidence in how high that those were and where they fell relative to what the assessment districts fell. And then of course the again back to the connection of the programs. I've had several folks that were part of the measure X library effort and have offered their blueprint um to anybody in the community that wants to take up that mantel. Kind of to your your point about like hey this can't just be us and it has to be people from the community. Measure X is a perfect example of that. that was done by folks that were supporting the library because the city at some point is not allowed to act as advocates for it and just have to become informational. And so when you talk to the um folks that were involved in Measure X, they gave me printouts of their door hangers and how they went around to um all the doors and put those on there, how they but this is again this is community members advocating on behalf of the programs that they wanted to have. And so, you know, they I I guess I'll put that out there for them. The friends of the library folks are have the blueprint and are willing to pass that torch on to the next group of residents that are willing to take on

that that effort. Well, yeah. So, what's different about Measure X is where's that where's that next group? You know, sure they've got the blueprint, but who's gonna who's going to be what's what's the group that has a burning cause like like buy our own library so we can save the library? I mean, that was a a burning cause and that those people were motivated to go out and campaign for measure X and one. And so, you know, I think it's I it's a lot easier lift for voters than a lot of things, but it's we still we still can't identify, you know, a a positive thing that it's going to do.

Yeah. And Council Member Clark, they they asked the same question. They asked me where's that where's the next group? And earlier, Council Member Neora mentioned uh how long you two have been kind of doing this. And then I look to the left of you and I see, you know, three of our newer council members that somebody took time to encourage them to run and and we've had these conversations during our meetings about just finding those those sparks in the community. Uh, you know, most recently, council member mayor was the skate park and a number of other things that um got her involved. And these are things again for the future. We've talked about leadmies and things in the future where we hope to really get our community informed about what's going on behind the scenes and in the meantime we're doing more of a of a a lighter variation of that. Um but no, the question is is where yeah where is that next group and um and then just but they're they're out there because I see them up there on the deis and just connecting with them about what's going on.

Could I could I make one last comment here? Um I heard comment about um cutting expenses, things like that. Um what I've seen is uh the one point we had an extremely conservative government previous to this. They saved a lot of money. They put a lot of money aside to a point of being a detriment. Now we're looking at deferred maintenance. Uh things that weren't paid for. We're looking at a deficit now because we did not keep up with the cost of living in this community. That's why I think it's important we take a look at this at least as a starting point. And my last point I would like to bring up is this. We won't solve this tonight. We're going to keep going. We can go till tomorrow till next week and not come up with a solution. I have in front of you right now. We have a motion and a second on the floor. It's a starting point. I think awareness has already been reached. And again, like I said, we probably won't come up with all of the potential options we have, but at least it's a starting point. So, with that, I'd like to call for a vote.

Mayor, before we get to the roll call, I'm sorry, I missed who seconded the motion. Thank you. All right. Um, we have a first and a second, so we'll do a roll call vote. Council member Namura, I. Vice Mayor Soreno, I. Council member Clark, hi. Council member Mayor, I. and Mayor Alicon.

Um I I don't know that I can vote I at this point in time. I think I I one of the things I was really missing in this conversation was more strategy and um I think that this is the starting point. Um and so no for me. Okay. Um, next we have a legislative update. Great. Thank you, Mayor Alicon, council members. So, uh, there are a couple of things on tonight's legislative update. Um the first is SB866 which as currently drafted would add um very extensive and arguably burdensome burdensome homelessness reporting requirements to housing elements. Um, one example is that the bill would require, as it's currently drafted, um, that cities report estimated numbers of unhoused individuals, length of time people remain unhoused, rates of transition to permanent housing, and then provide the disagregated data by age, race, and ethnicity. Um, League of California Cities recommends opposing the bill unless it's amended and also recommends sending a letter um, accordingly. We would agree with that recommendation. So, um, please let us know if you'd like us if you'd like to take no action or you'd like to send a letter uh consistent with the recommendation.

Yeah, I when I was reading that the summary of it, I thought that that seemed like a a pretty clear clear um answer in terms of sending a letter and like like you're recommending. I agree. I agree. Yep.

Great. It sounds like there's consensus there. And then um another one that came up uh recently and is not in the packet. So generally just what's in the packet is what is sent over by League of California Cities. And so if something else does come up, we try to um include that as well for um your council's information and education. So this one is um a proposed rule um on the uh housing and community development act of 1980. So, this act currently requires individuals receiving certain federal housing assistance um that they verify they're eligible for those benefits and it applies to programs funded by um US Department of Housing and Urban Development or otherwise known as HUD as an acronym. So, under this requirement, applicants have to provide documentation to confirm their US citizenship or eligible immigration status. Um and then housing providers such as public housing agencies or property managers are responsible for collecting and verifying this information. Um the law currently allows households with both eligible and ineligible members. It's known as it's called mixed uh mixed status families to receive pr-rated assistance which means that the aid is just reduced based on who is eligible. So the eligible individual um would receive the aid would receive the aid even if that eligible individual is married to an ineligible individual or someone whose um uh US citizenship is not confirmed. Um so this this rule that was proposed uh this past February um and it it's titled verification of eligible status rule. And so it would really significantly change these current practices. Um and the proposal would require all household members to verify their status. Um and if all household members were not able to

verify uh their status as um either eligible um having eligible immigration status or being US citizens, then those households would be at risk of losing all funding. So in a great number of cases um the mixed status houses would not receive any funding through this program anymore. So the reason this is being brought to you is because um the um housing authority of the city of Santa Barbara recently penned a letter in opposition to this rule as it's uh currently written. Um and there's been a request to bring it before your council um if there's interest in having a similar letter uh written um in opposition to this rule. So this

Absolutely.

Yeah. And I can uh give you a little more context because we found out about it in my housing and homelessness committee meeting on Friday and they brought it to our attention and um it's such a burden on these people. But just some very quick stats is of the 148 mixed status households in just the city of Santa Barbara, it's 252 children and of that 56 of those don't have any eligible adults but have 136 children. So it's really shocking and it's very it's it's not good. So they brought it up Friday and we were able to bring it today. So,

so happy there is there's a a a template letter that can be used um from the housing um authority of the city of Santa Barbara. So, great. Great. Looks like there's consensus. Yes. Yes. Um perfect. And then it looks like I'll have to take some public comment. I do not have any speaker slips. Do we have anyone via Zoom? Mayor, we have anor hands.

Okay, I'll close public comment. We'll move on to committee reports, inquiries, and other matters presented by council members. Um, I had my housing housing and homelessness committee and uh I presented uh on our housing element and our updates and it was a great meeting. This is where I learned about this from the housing authority and uh the meeting's actually very productive. Um so I look forward to the next one. Any other updates?

Um, yeah, the um from SB KAG that the the new train is definitely happening. The first day is May 4th and it's going all the way to St. Louis Abyispo and down to San Diego. Um, but it's coming through here. you know, I I can't remember the times, but it's it's better times that the ESPG is also uh spending $600,000 to provide like first mile transit. So, you know, you you you arrive in Santa Barbara, how do you get to where you work? You know, so they're going to they're going to be funding that. And um so see how it works. It's a pilot for a year. We'll see if it if it works. Um, one other thing I've been asked by a couple members of COSMAB to change the name of a Bluffs parcel that's now called the farmer parcel and they want to change it to um something commemorating Vera Benson who was instrumental in working on the bluffs blah blah blah in history And so, um, I don't I don't know what we want to do. I mean, there's other staff people that we have that would might be more like Nick more familiar with how that how that um which parcel that is and everything, but it's it's something that they they would like us to put on the ballot. I don't know if um if if we want to do that. If there's somebody else that would want to join me on having the staff look into that,

I would join you. Um it the farmer parcel is an interesting piece. It's like a triangle if I'm not mistaken. But what it does is it protects the view corridor and it's called the farmer parcel now which is like but we own it. We're not we're not we're not saving it. We're just renaming it. But it but it was a it's very um how do we say this? It's not like a great big thing, but it's a small but mighty piece of the whole thing, which I think is who Vera Benson was. And I think it would be very meaningful. Um she's still with us and that's my

my only concern would be it's controversial. So, I don't know if you want to label her with something that she may have not been for a housing project. Oh, no. It's a Oh, wait. It's not a housing project. Okay. It's like a tiny piece of land that it's it's it's a basically what do they call? There's a term for it. It's land left over when when you build an on-ramp. Whatever land's left over when you build an on. Okay. So, it's an ement. just a it's yeah it's a it's a utility easement basically. I'd be fine with that.

That's not really used for anything or or will it or will it be you know but we we actually bought it or it was given to us. I'm not sure how that worked but at one point it was owned by farmer. Okay, Mr. Farmer. It was in 2009 that it happened. This is a fun fact that I know that. Any other updates? Do we need to Was that a a a request? I just want to make sure we Yeah. Well, I was looking for another council member that would join me in in getting on the agenda someday. You got one there. Okay. Yeah.

Looks like Do you guys have what you need to put it on the agenda with your council members? Okay, great. Any other updates? Okay, seeing none, um, attendance of council members for future meetings. Yes. Looks like Yes. and we will officially adjourn the meeting at 11:22 p.m. Sick.