City Council - Regular Meeting

those rushes

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

If there's clouds in the sky, you can dry your eyes. If there's rain up above, you can give your love every day. Every day. When you smile at me, I can see you're giving all the love that we share. And it's all I'm living for every day.

Every day is sunshine. And I'm so glad that you're mine.

And the snow and the ice is cold. Deep inside, love is new. And the sun comes shining through every day. Every day.

Every day is so alive.

Have you seen them?

All I ever wanted to be was a fireman.

I'd like to call the meeting of the City Council Public Finance and Authority to order. Madam Clerk, may I have the roll call, please?

Councilman Kennedy.

Here.

Mayor Pretem Twiney.

Here.

Councilman Burns.

Present.

Mayor McKeon.

Here.

Councilman Burns.

Present. Again.

Councilwoman Vandermark. Here. Councilman Williams.

Here. And I believe Councilman Grewal is walking in right now. He should be coming down the steps.

Announcement of supplemental communications. Madam Clerk, do we have any supplemental communications? Yes.

None for this section of the meeting.

Public comments? Madam Clerk, we haven't even signed up to speak on closed session items.

No one signed up to speak on closed session items.

Okay. Included in closed session, Conference with Labor Negotiators, Government Code Section 54957.6, Agency Designated Representatives, Travis Hopkins, City Manager, also in attendance, Marissa Sir, Assistant City Manager Mike Vigliotta, City Attorney, and Zach Zee, Acting Chief Financial Officer. Employee Organizations, the Huntington Beach Police Officers Association, the Police Management Association, the Huntington Beach Firefighters Association, and the Fire Management Association. Council to have a motion and a second to recess the closed session.

Motion. Second.

Recess the closed session.

There's a name written on my door And it's mine, could be yours if you really want it

For security, so have you. Don't you see you could lay all your troubles on me? Me.

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Put all your cares away. Leave them to fade away. Let them go flying.

Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Always been there for you to come and solve your troubles too, too. Put all your cares away. Leave them to fade away. Let them go flying.

Thank you. Thank you. Every day, every day.

When you smile at me, I can see you're giving all the love that we share. And it's all I'm living for every day. Every day. Every day is sunshine. And I'm so glad that you're mine. If the rain and the snow and the ice is cold, deep inside love is new and the sun comes shining through every day. Every day. Every day is sun.

Every day is sun. Shine.

La la la la la, la la la la la la. Thank you. Oh, oh. Thank you. Thank you.

Stay at home, sitting staring at the TV She comes home late, tell me honey where have you been Well if I didn't feel so down I'd be sleeping underneath the moon I got up this morning too late to go to work She told me to get out and she blew me down my shirt Well I ran to the station and I got on the very next train And when I opened up my eyes I was back in bed again I don't want to get a job, cause work is just a waste of time. I'm gonna be an independent person for the rest of my life. But if she catches me at home, she's gonna beat me all about the head. And if you come in shouting, you better get yourself to bed.

I said, come on, please let me stay at home, girl.

Thank you. oh oh Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you you you

Once I had a dream that made me sad. How so many people can be bad? Everybody wants all they can grab. We're all here until we know not when Love has gone and won't come back again I'm gonna take it

I know we'll be together

I don't know. Thank you. . . .

Come ride with the winds that bring you gladness And see if you can see A place that's free from all dismayness

We're wandering thoughts do roam. And ships sailing on the seas sail onward. And low, not well. Find your way every day Looking like a fisherman Dropping a line in the sea Hoping that the green sky i'm sucking

so is . . . . . .

Let's see. Let's see.

Thank you. music music ¶. Thank you. . . . So, Thank you. you you

Thank you.

Thank you.

There's a name written on my door And it's mine, could be yours if you really want it And more, more Uh-huh, uh-huh I'm a man for security So have you, don't you see?

Put all your cares away. Always been there for you to come and tell your troubles too, too. Put all your cares away. Leave them to fade away. Let them go flying.

Thank you. Love, love, love, love, love. Love, love, love, love, love, love. Thank you. Thank you.

Come ride with the winds that bring you gladness And see if you can see A place that's free from all dismayness Come see how the stars can lead you far away.

Where wandering thoughts do roam. And ships sailing on the sea sail onward.

Thank you.

Find your way everyday.

Thank you. . . . Thank you. Thank you.

She comes home late, tell me honey where have you been? Well if I didn't feel so down I'd be sleeping underneath the moon. And if I never came back you know that it would be too soon. I got up this morning too late to go to work She told me to get out and she blew me down my shirt Well I ran to the station and I got on the very next train And when I opened up my eyes I was back in bed again I don't want to get a job because work is just a waste of time. I'm going to be an independent person for the rest of my life. But if she catches me at home, she's going to beat me all about the neck. And if you come in shouting, you better get yourself to bed.

Come on, please let me stay at home. I said come on, please let me stay home, girl.

If there's clouds in the sky, you can dry your eyes. If there's rain up above, you can give your love every day, every day. When you smile at me, I can see you're giving all the love that we share, and it's all I'm living for every day, every day. Every day is sunshine And I'm so glad that you're mine If the rain and the snow and the ice is cold Deep inside love is new And the sun comes shining through Every day Every day Every day a sun Every day a sun Shine La la la, la la la, la la la la la once i had a dream that made me sad how so many people can be bad everybody wants all things You better get your dreams before they fade away. We're all here until we know not when.

You know

Bye. ¶¶ We'll be right back.

See you.

Bye. . . Thank you. Thank you. love oh Thank you.

She comes home late and tells me, honey, where have you been? Well, if I didn't feel so down, I'd be sleeping underneath the I got up this morning too late to go to work She told me to get out and she threw me down my shirt Well I ran to the station and I got on the very next train And when I opened up my eyes I was back in bed again I don't want to get a job because work is just a waste of time. I'm going to be an independent person for the rest of my life. But if she catches me at home, she's going to beat me all about the head. And if you come in shouting, you better get yourself to bed. Come on, please let me stay at home.

I said come on Please let me stay

We'll be right back. you Thank you. you Thank you. Bye. Bye.

I'm stuck in my city

i'm sucking We'll be right back. We'll be right back.

Once I had a dream that made me sad. How so many people can be bad? Everybody wants all things. Don't have much to say. You better get your dreams before they fade away. We're all here until we know not when.

We'll be together. There's a name written on my door And it's mine, could be yours if you really want it And more, more I'm a mind for security So have you, don't you see You could lay all your troubles on me, me There's a way Always been there for you to come and tell your troubles too, too. Put all your cares away. Leave them to fade away. Let them go flying.

Oh We'll be right back. ¶¶ Every day, every day.

when you smile at me i can see you're giving all the love that we share and it's all i'm living for every day every day every day is sunshine and i'm so glad that you're mine If the rain and the snow and the ice is cold, deep inside love is new, and the sun comes shining through every day, every day. Every day a sun shines.

La, la, la, la, la, la.

Come ride with the winds that bring you gladness And see if you can see The place that's free from all dismayness

Where wandering thoughts do roam And ships sailing on the sea sail onward And know not where they go On and on, on and on through the times you march along You'll never notice what tomorrow's gonna bring Find your way every day across the sky . . . . . . . . . .

There's a name written on my door, and it's mine, could be yours if you really want it and more, more.

I'm a mind for security, so have you, don't you see you could lay all your troubles on me.

i don't mind always being there for you

Put all your cares away Leave them to fade away Let them go flying

Sitting staring at the TV She comes home late Tell me honey where have you been But if I didn't feel so down I'd be sleeping underneath the moon And if I never came back You know that it would be too soon I got up this morning too late to go to work She told me to get out and she threw me down my shirt Well I ran to the station and I got on the very next train And when I opened up my eyes I was back in bed again I don't want to get a job because work is just a waste of time. I'm going to be an independent person for the rest of my life. But if she catches me at home, she's going to beat me all about the neck. And if you come in shouting, you better get yourself to bed. Come on, please let me stay at home, girl.

Come on, please let me stay

you Thank you. you you

Council of Public Finance and Authority, Madam Clerk, may I have the roll call, please?

Councilman Grohl.

Here.

Councilman Kennedy.

Here.

Mayor Pro Tem Twiney. Here. Mayor McKeon. Here. Councilman Burns. Present. Councilwoman Vandermark. Here. Councilman Williams.

Here.

All present.

Tonight's invocation will be given by Huntington Beach Police Chaplain, Bob Ewing.

Gracious Father, we come before you with grateful hearts as we gather for this city council meeting. We thank you for the many blessings you have bestowed upon our community and for the privilege of living in this beautiful city. As our summer begins, we're reminded of the joy that this season brings. Families spending time together, children enjoying their break from school, and neighbors gathering to celebrate all that makes Huntington Beach such a special place. We also look forward to our nation's Independence Day celebrations. As we prepare to celebrate the freedoms that have been secured through the sacrifice of so many, may we never take those blessings for granted. Help us to be good stewards of the liberty we enjoy and to work together for the good of our community. We ask for your hand of protection over all of the events and celebrations in the weeks ahead. Watch over every family, every visitor, and especially those who stand ready to serve and protect us. Bless our police officers, our firefighters, our lifeguards. Grant them wisdom, strength, and courage and safety as they faithfully care for our community. Lord, we also ask for your guidance over this meeting. Grant wisdom and discernment to our mayor, city council members, city staff, and everyone participating in tonight's discussions. Help each decision to be guided by integrity, fairness, and a sincere desire to serve the best interests of all who call Huntington Beach home. Finally, we pray for everyone who has come to address the council this evening. May each person be treated with dignity and respect. Help us to listen with open minds, speak with kindness, and disagree with grace when differences arise. May our words build understanding rather than division, always remembering that we are neighbors working toward a stronger community together. We ask all of this in your most holy name, Jesus. Amen.

Thank you, Bob. Tonight, the Pledge of Allegiance will be led by Frank Passarelli.

Frank.

Frank. Being inspired by having five uncles all serving in the Navy in the South Pacific during World War II, Frank joined the Navy in December 1967 while living in Chicago. He attended boot camp in January 1968 at Great Lakes, Illinois. For the remainder of 1968, he was in the Reserve Unit until January 1969. He received his orders to report to Vallejo, California, for river assault training for River Assault Squadron 15, River Assault Division 151, the Republic of Vietnam. After intense training, which included gunnery, small boat, and SEER training, Frank was deployed to Vietnam in May 1969, where he was assigned to an assault troop carrier, Tango Boat. They were a strike group which worked with the 9th Infantry Division, Special Forces Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and the Vietnam Rough Puffs, or the Vietnam Marines, and Cambodian Popular Forces in the Mai Khong Delta and Cambodia. Frank experienced five major firefights, survived four, but on the fifth he was wounded and medevaced to an Army hospital. This was exactly one month before his scheduled flight home. Because of his time served, Frank received the following commendations and medals. the Navy Achievement Medal with Combat Five, Purple Heart, Navy Commendation Medal with Combat Five, Navy Unit Commendation, Combat Action, Presidential Unit Citation, Meritorious Unit Commendation, Navy Unit Commendation, National Defense, Vietnam Service, Republic of Vietnam Cross of Gallantry Medal, Color of Palm, Republic of Vietnam Civil Action Medal, First Class Color with Palm, and Vietnam Campaign. The Mobile River Marine Force is the most decorated unit in Vietnam. After returning to the US, Frank attended Triton Community College in Chicago. He moved to California after graduation, living in the Los Angeles area for several years before moving to Orange County, where he resides with his wife of 43 years. He's a 21-year member of the American Legion, served on the executive board as a second vice commander and service officer. He's co-founder of the Veteran Voice Council at the Long Beach Veteran Hospital. This council focuses on assisting veterans navigate the VA system. They also support the VA hospital in providing food at the various veteran-focused functions throughout the year, as well as the monthly social connections and annual disabled veteran expo. Frank is also a co-founder of the Veterans Resource Center, established in December 2018, located in the Central Library. Thank you for your service, Frank, and all you do for our veterans.

Can you all put your hands over your hearts and join me in to pledge allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Frank. Closed session report. City Attorney, do you have anything to report from closed session?

Nothing tonight, Mayor. Thanks. All right.

City Council Member comments. Would anyone like to make a comment? Don.

You know, I just wanted to make a comment. It's not easy to make some comments, but you know, as elected officials, you know, our words are held to our words. They're scrutinized. And I just wanted to, you know, for the record, during a discussion in the last council meeting, where there was a potential alcohol license to be issued. I was having a discussion back and forth with Councilman Gruhl, and in the conversation, it may be semantics, but I've had people ask me about it. As we went through the calls to service, there was two rape calls. He made a couple of statements that were definitive. He used the word You know, that's where the rape occurred. And later on in my secondary response, he said, no, there was two rapes. So I took a little bit of time, looked into it, spoke to the police department. One rape call did originate at the location. The complaint wasn't there. They reached out to her, tried to you know, take a report. They were never able to, so that didn't happen. And then secondly, the other one that went off site, they did take a report, submit it to the DA. The DA failed to pursue any charges. So all I'm saying is I think it's important that we as officials use words, especially at that level, Potential use of words could have been alleged rapes or rape calls originated there. But when we're speaking about a business and there's a definitive statement of just rapes, I think that's a very polarizing, strong word that I just wanted to set the record straight. I'm sure he didn't mean it, but I had a number of people reach out to me about that saying, did that really happen there? So I did the research and they were alleged, they were rape calls. But there was no substantiation. So I just wanted to send that little point of clarity.

That's all We we I got involved in this because I love this city I Love it. This is my home. I don't plan on moving anywhere and I Everything we do is for everybody. We get yelled at all the time. Oh, we voted you guys in. You're supposed to represent us too. We don't do this for party. We don't do this for agenda. We don't do this for self-service. We do it for community service. I care about the future of this city and everything that we decide, I know that I choose and make my decisions based on is for the betterment of this city. In one way or another, long-term, short-term, I hope it makes this city, our home, better or at least preserve it to be the best it can be. And I just want to assure to the people that nobody's forgotten, nobody's set aside. It might not be your favorite decision on some of these things, But in the totality of the situation and the information we have, it is for the best interest we try for this city and everybody in it. Again, I love this city. I care for its future, and I'm going to keep working for it. And I want everybody to understand it's working for the community. It's not just, like I say, no party, no agenda. It is for us to make our home the best it can be. And I just want everybody to understand that.

Thank you, Pat. Anybody else? Andrew?

Yes, so a lot of times Public Works doesn't get the headlines that many of the other areas and departments of the city do, so I just wanted to make a list. This is just looking over a few of the projects that have been completed or are in completion so that the residents can hear this, and then I further want to implore residents that if they do have issues specifically related to Public Works, that the speed with which they actually turn around many of these projects are very quick, especially if it's something that can be addressed immediately. Just a little list here, and I'll go through a few more in the next meeting, but they are completing the new Heil Pump Station. That's going to provide 100-year storm protection, which we've been talking about, and it's going to also remove a lot of homes from the flood zone. They're installing new tide check valves throughout the harbor area to help prevent tidal flooding. I know that's also really important right now. On the facility side, they've completed the police department locker room renovation, restoring the central library fountains, which I know we've had a few issues with, but they're still working through that, upgrading elevators in the downtown parking structure. I know one of the elevators is done. They're going to be working on the second one. preparing major electrical and HVAC improvements at both the Civic Center and the Central Library. And then across the neighborhoods, they're finishing Zone 3 street sidewalk and tree replacement work, as well as preparing major rehabilitation projects on the Bolsa Chica and residential alleys. There was a lot of questions about Bolsa Chica, so those are getting pushed through. So just a couple highlights. Obviously, there's many, many, many more elements that they're working on, but that's of the more recent list.

Thank you. Any other comments? To my left.

I wasn't planning on making this comment, but I guess just, you know, in regard to what Councilman Kennedy had mentioned about the rape reports. This is on the public record for anyone that wants to look into it, the calls for service at the last city council agenda. So I'll read it precisely as it's reported. 11-12-2020 rape report. Reporting party states the incident occurred on 11-07. She reported consuming only three beers but blacked out, leading her to believe she may have been drugged, roofied. Reporting party is currently at work and will call back when ready to make a report. The other rape report coming up here is 5-1-2023. Rape report. Rape report location. I'm reading it precisely. Incident occurred at distractions bar around 21-30 hours. victim currently at Orange Coast Memorial, investigation at Anaheim Regional and 16761 Viewpoint Apartments. Subject description, suspect possibly named Gabriel, no further description provided. Victim reported that suspect approached from behind and sexually assaulted her with penetration. Case number R23005187 assigned to this incident. So that's exactly how it reads and it's on the agenda from last week.

Gracie, any comments? All right, I'll finish it. Wanna let everyone know, obviously this is the last meeting before Independence Day, and a lot of people have been working very hard for this year's festivities coming up two weeks from Saturday. Molly's gonna come up later and walk everybody through, but really get excited. It's gonna be the biggest celebration ever for America's 250th birthday. And as the mayor, I just employ people to please, let's all come together and remember that we're Americans first, and we should be proud of that fact. We should be very patriotic and proud. of the country we live in that's created the greatest standard of living the world's ever seen. Just remember the events that led to this moment, kicking it off with the Boston Tea Party, the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the sacrifice everyone made in the American Revolution, the soldiers, the draft of the US Constitution. The Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Unfortunately, the Civil War, we lost the most casualties ever of any war. The blood and sacrifice that was spilled because everyone believed in this great country that we live in. The Transcontinental Railroad and Industrial Revolution in the 1860s. The Wright Brothers, Americans, the first flight in 1903. Henry Ford's Model T and the moving assembly line in 1910, that really kicked off, you know, mass manufacturing. Leading the world in victory in World War I. Building the Panama Canal, just an amazing feat of engineering. The roaring 20s. Leading the world again in World War II for victory. Creating the polio vaccine, which changed the health history of the world. The civil rights movements in the 50s. The space race and the Apollo moon landing in 1969, the first country to land on the moon. The computing and internet foundations from the 1940s to the 1990s, that still goes on today. Defeating communism in the Cold War, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the invention of the iPhone, and then most recently SpaceX, just pushing humanity to other planets. And America's always led the charge, and always with the United States of America, that we are united under one flag. So please, I implore everyone to come out and celebrate with us on Saturday. We'll walk you guys through the details because all these are the culmination of America's 250th birthday, and we should all be very proud of that. So thank you. All right. Next up, we have everyone's favorite Adopt-A-Pet of the Month. And we have Jonathan Volsky from OC Animal Care with two animals. We had to do a little variable here because one of the pets got adopted, right? Right before? All right. Which is great. So come on up and tell us about these special animals.

Well, Mayor, I want to thank you. Everything you do up here is important, of course. And I just want to thank you because this is very important to us and our dogs. We've brought nine dogs to the Huntington Beach City Council, and six of them have been placed outside of our shelter. And that luck is so good that one of the dogs we're going to bring tonight was actually adopted a half hour before we left.

Nice.

So the luck of the Huntington Beach is with us. We have tonight, I have Ray with me. She's about two years old, a pit bull boxer mix. And then I'm going to hand over to Alex here, our great volunteer, and let him introduce the puppy.

This is Medina. She's an absolute handful, but just full of love. Super cute. I'm slowly falling in love with her, but I think my wife would kill me if I brought another dog home. 16 months. She looks like a boxer. Sorry, forgive me. Why am I drawing a blank? Lab mix. Thank you. Lots of love, lots of affection. Very patient, surprisingly, through this meeting. Really just looking for a good home.

And then tell the people, always plug, where can they go, how can they adopt a pet?

We appreciate that very much. So you can go online to ocpetinfo.com and you can see all of our adoptable dogs and cats. We have quite a few cats right now. And then you can visit our shelter seven days a week. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and we're at 1630 Victory Road in Tustin. And right now I'd like to say Huntington Beach does such a great job of honoring our history and honoring our veterans that if you have veteran on your driver's license, if it designates you a veteran, you can adopt a dog and our adoption fees are waived. So if it says veteran on your driver's license, adoption fees are waived. And then also, as you spoke so nicely about July 4th, we'd like to remind people, That can be a tough day for dogs, so please try to find a quiet place inside your home for your pet. Maybe turn on a TV or some calming music in the background because as we celebrate with fireworks, our pets don't always enjoy that as much. Oh, sure. We do have fostering programs. Thank you, sir. You can do a foster to adopt program. Ray's ready to go home with somebody right there. Where if you're not quite sure and you want to take the dog home and foster for a while and then decide if it's a good fit for you and your family. And then we are always looking for fosters who can just take a dog out of the shelter, keep it at your home. That helps us. When you come to adopt a dog, you can pick the dog you want. But then our experts and our specialists can match you and a dog better. So the more often we get dogs out of the shelter and into homes and into... Situations like this helps us place them better with families, and we know that can be a lasting fit. So once again, information about fostering is at ocpetinfo.com. And if you really have in your heart to foster little kitties who need bottle feeding and they just need help getting big enough until they can eat and survive on their own, we need some kitten fosters right now as well. So thank you, sir.

Thank you. Thank you.

They come as a package.

Thank you, Jonathan, NOC Animal Care. All right, moving on to the business highlight portion of the meeting. For tonight's business highlight, I'm gonna kick it off by recognizing some new businesses that have opened. Shannon, you got the slide? Thank you. So first up, we have Little Sister, which just opened in Pacific City in the old blue gold space, if you remember that. We have Plush and Play at Pacific City, which is a modern Japanese-inspired claw machine experience designed for all ages. Kids love it. Tacos Miranda on Brookhurst Street. It's a local favorite that has expanded from a popular taco stand into its first brick-and-mortar location. Love seeing that. Northern Cafe on Beach Boulevard, a casual restaurant serving authentic northern Chinese cuisine. Sourdough and Company right at Golden West Street, popular sandwich franchise that is now open its second location in Huntington Beach. This is a real name, Yellow Rat Bastard on 300 Pacific Coast Highway. It's a new retail business opening adjacent to the new Brandy Melville location right on PCH. And then recently I had the opportunity to welcome attendees to the Restaurants on the Rise, California's food and beverage scene at the Hyatt Regency in Huntington Beach. And this is hosted by the International Council of Shopping Centers. The event showcased emerging food and beverage concepts that are shaping California's restaurant industry and meeting evolving customer demand. And we're seeing that firsthand in Huntington Beach where outdoor dining, ocean views, walkable districts, and a vibrant coastal atmosphere continue to create destinations people want to visit and return to, driving strong demand for experiential dining and hospitality concepts. It was just a great opportunity to highlight Huntington Beach as a destination for entrepreneurs and a vibrant dining scene. And I walked through the whole convention about how successful our streamline program has been. HOW WE'VE REALLY COMPRESSED THE TIMELINE FOR PERMITS ISSUED. WE'VE LANDED BIG RESTAURANTS LIKE CHAMPAGNE'S. AND EVERY SINGLE RESTAURANT TOUR THERE AFTER AND THE NETWORKING PORTION CAME UP TO ME, ASKED FOR MY CARD, TALKED TO CHRIS CASANOVA, SAID WE WANT TO BE IN HUNTINGTON BEACH. SO IT WAS REALLY COOL TO SEE. AND EVERYONE WAS JUST AMAZED AT HOW BEAUTIFUL OUR CITY IS. AND SO EVENTS LIKE THIS JUST CONTINUE TO STRENGTHEN OUR LOCAL ECONOMY AND REINFORCE OUR CITY AS A HUB FOR BUSINESS INVESTMENT AND COLLABORATION. SO I WAS REALLY PROUD TO REPRESENT THE CITY THAT DAY. Next, I wanna congratulate the participants of the Surf City Small Business Digital Grant Program. So these local business owners partnered with the city of Huntington Beach and the Orange County Inland Empire Small Business Development Center, SBDC, to strengthen their digital marketing skills. If you guys remember that from a few months ago. And so through this program, participants gained tools to enhance their online presence, reach more customers, and support business growth. Each also received a $1,000 grant to invest in digital marketing. So thank you to SBDC for their expertise and partnership in making this program a success. And so please join us in congratulating Benjamin Franklin Plumbing, Bondi Bowls, Day's Donuts and Croissants, Grinders, HB Digital, Huntington Beach Dental Studio, High Performance Products Inc., Lifeline Liquor Market, Masala Waves, Medusa Salon, On The Mend SoCal, Parlor Donuts, SFD Studio, Stoney's Pizza, Tye Harbor Restaurant, And as everyone says, small businesses are essential to Huntington Beach's success and we're just so proud to support that program to help them grow and thrive. And they're all just really appreciative of SBDC and thought it was a great learning experience and they're really excited about it. As we continue with the Minute with the Mayor series, highlighting local businesses and organizations and community leaders making an impact in Huntington Beach, the first video we'll play tonight is from the Boys and Girls Club of Huntington Valley. This week, I sat down with Art Greenwald, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Huntington Valley. Serving more than 5,000 youth annually, the club provides programs that help young people learn, grow, and succeed. In the conversation, I highlighted the club's impact on local families and its ongoing commitment to youth development in Huntington Beach. So just thank you to the Boys and Girls Club of Huntington Valley for their continued support, and we'll watch the video.

What's up Huntington Beach? I'm Mayor Casey McKeon and this episode of Minute with the Mayor takes us to the Boys and Girls Club right off of Delaware and Yorktown. Let's go inside and meet the team.

All right, Art, so tell us about the Boys and Girls Club and your mission. All right, so the Boys and Girls Club, our mission is just to take care of kids, right? So we take care of kids from six weeks, infants. We've got two preschools, all the way to high school. So we see over 1,750 kids a day at all our sites, and we have over 5,000 members. And then what services do you guys provide for the community? So we take kids, school-age kids, to school every day. We provide them meals, and then we pick them up from school every day. We actually have 20 school buses that go to 40 area schools in five school districts and then bring them to our after school. But then we have our preschool. We have sports leagues. You can see behind me dance classes, karate classes, clubhouse theater, performance tonight, 160 kids performing music band. So if there's something a kid needs to do, we're up for it. Oh, you have summer camps as well, right? Oh, yeah, we have summer camps. Summer camps is a big part of our program. And so every day we open our club at 6.30 a.m. and the kids can be here until 6 p.m. But the other thing we do is every day we have a field trip for kids. So they can come for a full day or they can choose that any day they want to go on a field trip. That way we're able to keep our weekly fees low and then parents can choose from a menu of field trips to send their kids. We serve children and we support families.

All right, that's another local gem right here in Huntington Beach. Just remember to support our youth and strengthen our community. See you at the next stop.

Ah!

Woo!

Come on!

Yeah!

What's up, Huntington Beach?

That took two takes, by the way. A lot of head shots. All right, second up, we had Matter of Craft, which is founded by three longtime Huntington Beach residents and soccer dads. The owners opened the Gastropub on Beach Boulevard in Atlanta. as a passion project, creating a welcoming space featuring a rotating craft beer selection and scratch-made artisan pizzas and other delights. So thank you to Jim Pookington, Jim Perkins, and Tom Briggs for being part of our business community. And thank you to Council Member Burns for joining me. So please be sure to stop by to enjoy some of their great food and drinks.

What's up, HB? I'm Mayor Casey McKeon with previous Mayor Pat Burns. Today's episode of Minute with the Mayor takes us down a matter of craft at Beachland Atlanta. Let's go inside and have a drink with the team.

All right, fellas, tell us about Matter of Craft. Matter of Craft is a local gastropub here in Huntington Beach. We just turned six years old and we're a scratch kitchen. We have great craft beer. great craft cocktails and a great wine list.

One inspired three local boys to get together to open.

Our daughters all played soccer together, so we'd go to the soccer games and occasionally Jim or myself would bring a couple beers to try and thought, hey, let's open up a beer place so we can have all the great beer. We don't have to just go to one brewery, we'll have everybody's beer. Six years later, we're still here.

So what would you guys say sets you apart from other restaurants?

We wanted to open up the kind of place that we wanted to hang out at that had a great beer selection, local beers, imports, beers from throughout California and the rest of the country, but also had cocktails, wine and good approachable quality food. We have a great kitchen staff, a great front of house staff. Everybody is in sync here. You know, we feel very, very lucky to be, you know, running our small business here in Surf City.

That's another local gem right here in Huntington Beach. So remember to support local and keep Surf City thriving. See you at the next stop. Cheers, boys.

Thanks, guys, and thank you to the businesses and organizations that continue to invest in Huntington Beach and support our local economy. We really appreciate your partnership, your investment, and your role in helping our community thrive. So thank you. Next up, we have the community events announcement portion of the meeting. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone signed up to speak for community events announcements?

Yes, Mayor, we have two speakers. Deborah Morris from Alzheimer's Association and Jason Schmidt, our city treasurer. Please call them up.

Well, this is very exciting for me because I was born and raised in Huntington Beach, and I can't believe I graduated high school 46 years ago. It's astonishing. And yes, DK, this is the old Rowerdink. I was so excited to come here because I was going to be able to see you because I do follow you guys because my friend, Janet Jacobs, we've been friends forever and she always keeps me updated. And I have to say, I love this town. I may not live here right now. I live in Lake Forest, but thank you guys for all taking such great care of this city. It's my favorite city of all time and I'm so excited to be here. It's just a totally different energy. So thank you for that. Anyway, so my name is Deborah Morris. I'm a gerontologist. I'm also a community outreach advocate and educator here in Orange County. So basically, I work with Alzheimer's Orange County and what we do is provide education, support services, caregiver supports. grief groups, really supporting our community, providing community resources, working with our community partners to bring services to you because guess what? In four years, there's gonna be more people over 65 than under 18. And Orange County is the fastest growing population of older adults. So guess what? You're gonna have a lot more older adults looking for services. And we're here, we're a nonprofit. We've been here for 40 years. We have a 24-hour helpline, enhanced case management. We do everything and anything you could possibly need for your families that have symptoms of cognitive impairment. The good thing is that we are on the ground. We served 137,000 people last year. We have 41 classes a month in this community, and we do a lot in your senior center, which is fantastic. Love your senior center here. So when you have issues that come up for funding... Whoa, keep going. Oh, is that it? I'm done?

No, keep going.

Anyway... If you guys need anything, give us a call. We can help navigate services for you. And I'm here as your trusted advisor for anything that you could possibly need or understand because we are having multi-generational issues with the sandwich generation, young people with kids having to take care of older parents, and seniors, 70-year-olds, taking care of their 100-year-old family members too. So we're here. for all generations we love what we're doing and we want to be very supportive to whatever your needs are can you plug the phone number and the website i have some brochures right here my business card who we are what kind of services that we have a list of all the education that we provide um and give give the phone number for people watching at home Yeah, the phone number is, I was gonna give you mine. Yeah, don't do that. Yeah, go ahead and call me. 949-955-9000.

Thank you.

Yes, I'm also the owner of Aging Angels Life Care. It's a care management company. And I'm basically a family's fixer when it comes to these kind of issues. So along with this, we got you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Nice to see you, DK.

Good to see you too. Take care. Thanks for coming.

Wow.

State your name, please.

Jason Schmidt, City Treasurer. I'm a little nervous that Lisa's going to brick about the hook after that noise. Anyway, good evening, council members. I'm pleased to announce two different announcements tonight. First, I'm pleased to announce that my meter is now fully up and running, which is super exciting for our city residents. That means you now have secure 24-hour access to your utility bill from any device and can track your water usage, receive and pay your bills electronically, and get instant custom alerts for high usage and potential leaks that can help you save money. But to access all that great content, you must sign up. And you can do that with a click of a mouse on our website or the Man Meter app. All you need is the name on your account, your 15-digit account number, and an email address to sign up. For existing users, just click on your Forget password and create a new password for your account. We have posted a nifty video courtesy of our public affairs team for everyone on our make a payment portal on the city website, and it will walk you through step by step how to sign up and use all the awesome new MyMeetYour features. So on a completely different note, I received a highly disturbing call from an unknown number yesterday. that turned out to be the receptionist at a local veterinarian. Someone had dropped off our beloved retriever, Reagan, and he was in so much pain that they were going to have to have a vet tend to his wounds right away, but they needed me to Venmo $500 to the veterinarian immediately, and afterwards, they could release Reagan in my husband's safe care. Unfortunately for our overly helpful veterinarian friends, I had taken Steve Levin's class on family scams and immediately called my husband. As I suspected, Reagan had just come home from the groomer and was happily enjoying his chew toy while watching the waves and listening to children in the background. Our helpful veterinarian receptionist was, of course, an AI scam bot. one of an army of bots calling family members and preying on their emotions before asking for thousands of dollars to free their children from jail or their lost pets from shelters. This is a major issue. Luckily, Steve will be on hand tomorrow night at 6 p.m. in the Talbert Room at Central Library so you can learn about these family scams and how to avoid them. Thank you.

Thank you, Jason. That's a big deal.

announcement of supplemental communications madam clerk do we have any supplemental communications yes mayor we do on the city manager's report item number 11 one email received pertaining to study session zoning code discretionary responsibilities on the consent calendar item number 16 one email received regarding the approval and authorization of six on-call video production and media services, professional services contracts with Dorado Creative Inc., Dynamic Video Communications LLC, MarketWorks, Pegasus Studios, Tripepe Smith & Associates Inc., and Vidiflow LLC. Item number 23, one email received regarding the proposed fiscal year 24 25 infrastructure fund annual report and council member items number 27 three emails were received regarding the pier stairs advertising thank you public comments madam clerk do we have anyone signed up to speak for public comments yes mayor we have 14 signed up to speak please call them up The City Council will now receive public comments for any topic, including items on the open session agenda. When your name is called, please approach, use both podiums, state your name and organization for the record. Mr. Amory Hanson, Janet Jacobs, Ken Inouye, Russ Neal, Danielle Tassa, Shelby, Tim Geddes, Andrew Einhorn, Irene Contreras-Garcia, Robin Brainwaithe.

Come on up.

Two or three minutes.

Three.

Hi. My name is Janet Jacobs and I'm here because I wanted to thank each and every one of the council people for coming out to our neighborhood and seeing for yourself, what? To come out and see for yourself why we are opposing the industrial warehouse in our neighborhood. In the walkthroughs, you listened to each of us, you gave us your feedback and agreed with our concerns. Therefore, I support the vote tonight that apparently you're going to be voting on to take the very first step forward in requesting that the judge add this property to our city housing element. Rest assured, we will continue to push forward with the possibility to get this rezoned eventually with the low to mid residential housing of 15 to 20 units per acre. This type of project would be a win-win for us and for the city because it would create revenue from property taxes, sales taxes, and for the city as we discussed. we're grateful the project is being put on hold and we look forward to moving forward with everything we will continue to stay on top of it after all this is a new development in the proposal taking place because our neighborhood didn't just roll over and accept the industrial project but instead We came forward in strong opposition, and also because we have a city council who hears our concerns and finds a possible solution for us all. It's a good example for others. In addition, you saw the liability at Terry Park, and we're looking forward to resolving this issue also. Improvements in the park could be an attractive asset to the future residential project. We appreciate your long hours, the time away from your family, the hard work that you guys do on different issues and making solutions for the city. Thank you for lowering our crime, our homelessness in our city and the improvements do not go unnoticed and they are very appreciated. All four of you who are running for reelection and the new additions to the team definitely have my vote. As an important side note, you guys all ran as a team. Each of you brings your own expertise to this council. But please remember, you're stronger together. You're better together, not divided. Don't edge God out, be a good example, be a team player. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good evening, my name is Kenny Noe, I'm a 50 year resident of Huntington Beach. The prominent message posted on the political signage for the benefit of the incumbent city council members proudly stated that local control was one of your cornerstones of your accomplishments. In your pursuit of local control, the City Council adopted many policies which were actually in violation of federal and state law. For example, you adopted policies which violated the First Amendment, the California Freedom to Read Act, and the California Constitution. You also proposed the adoption of voting procedures which are in violation of California law. You fought the implementation of the California housing mandate, which will probably cost the city tens of millions of dollars, even though the incumbent members campaigned on the fact and then promised that fighting the housing element would not cost the city a dollar because we had a city attorney that would carry the attorney law costs for this city. And you also failed to file a housing element and other documents which will further require the city to pay fines and penalties. The financial impact of these policies will undoubtedly cost Huntington Beach tens of millions of dollars of unnecessary costs, fines, and penalties. In addition, the city council tainted the very popular and important air show. by adopting and approving a lawsuit settlement about any proof of loss by the plaintiff. You further tainted the air show by adopting a long-term operating agreement with the air show operator without knowing the total cost to the city. Every resident in this room should be concerned about these actions taken by the City Council for local control. It's because of the fact that under the 2026-2027 budget, we show a potential deficit of over $30 million before adjustments, $30 million, some of which was caused by actions taken by the City Council, and you know that to be true. We also published in 2022 an infrastructure report that showed that we almost had $2 billion of deferred maintenance. $2 billion of deferred maintenance without a plan to show how it would be paid for. Given the fact that Huntington Beach is facing unprecedented financial challenges, I respectfully urge the city council to adopt policies and spend the city monies on issues that impact the health, safety, and quality of life for all the residents of Huntington Beach, and not adopt policies which divide our city and add to our current financial deficit. Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Hello, honorable mayor and city council members. On behalf of the Terry Park community, we wanted to thank all of you for coming out and doing walkthroughs with the local residents that surround the 7600 Redondo Circle project. We hope it was helpful in understanding the scale and impact of any redevelopment that will happen in that area. We are aware that the industrial project is currently on hold pending exploration of adding this property to the housing element tonight. However, for the record, this community is not in favor of medium to high density housing and the main entrances need to be off Talbert and or Gothard to help maintain the quality of life around the park. Sequel concerns remain with residential rezoning too. And obviously we're gonna get to that at some point when rezoning happens. we understand there are no current public plans to develop this into residential project but we are continuing to be open to meeting with the landowner as suggested as suggested to find ways to make future projects amenable to all parties as elected city officials you have each been put in a very difficult position by the state housing mandates as you know the orange county grand jury report is also critical of the rhna style housing requirements and builder's remedy These mandates and the new AHFA zone changes are too rigid and unrealistic. This kind of government overreach is worth fighting for to keep Surf City rising above the tide and maintaining course for the inhabitants subject to California state constitution and the supreme law of the land, Article 1. section one all people by nature are free and independent and have inalienable rights among these are enjoying and defending life liberty acquiring possessing and protecting property and pursuing and obtaining safety happiness and privacy by having the planning commission take back some of the zoning oversight the city staff may be able to navigate things better locally and a bit more clarity to control for we the people that are domiciled here in huntington beach in the meantime this community requests that both city staff and lumberyard landowners address our petitions that were submitted weeks ago and in regards to bringing easements landscaping and walls back up to city code we look forward to helping make improvements in and around terry park including reimagining the unsafe non-functioning clubhouse that you all saw during your walkthroughs so thank you again i know you have a lot of really important things to deal with and we appreciate you taking the time to meet with everybody, and I'm sure we'll see you back here at some point in the future. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Daniel Tassa, regarding Redonda Circle. Mayor and council people, good evening. I hope you're all doing well in Butch. I hope you're feeling strong. Come back from your medical ticker adjustments. Got to put down that short board. Got to get a longboard like the rest of us. Okay, I'd like to say I appreciate the experience of meeting each one of you at the Redondo Circle Project site. It was uplifting walking and talking in the actual site and sharing our thoughts and ideas for a prosperous outcome. I think it actually was a fine example of good faith negotiations. Also on a personal level, it was a pleasure to get to know each one of you a little bit. I know tonight is important. I hope the housing element is passed tonight with the Redondo Circle project on it, keeping the entire area residential. A lot of us think it's better than adding manufacturing or a supply warehouse with a 24-hour trucking operation. I think most of you agreed when you saw how close to the houses that the site actually is. It's a humble, quiet, precious neighborhood. I think we can keep it that way with low to medium density residential housing. It would be a little more crowded, congested, and traffic will be a little thicker, but it could remain pleasant and healthy. And our property value will stay stable and we'll be able to share the beautiful sunsets in Terry Park along with our new neighbors. You're probably tired of hearing this, but I say again, all of us want Huntington Beach to generate income. I'm hoping low, medium density residential housing taxes will be enough to justify building them. Thank you for letting me speak. I know we have an uphill battle for our quality of living, but we're not going anywhere, and we're going to shout as loud as we have to for as long as we have to. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Tim Geddes in the house. Can't say I'm pleased with the new format for in-person public comments starting next month, which is solely your interpretation of SB 707.

The take a number requirement is like counter service at a deli.

Oh well. Speaking of baloney, I hope you don't demand ID or papers when the next set of changes rolls around. I strongly oppose agenda item 27, which would promote advertising on the stairs of HB Pier. as if allowing commercial signage on our lifeguard towers, pimping for out-of-town special interests like casinos wasn't bad enough.

See, you heard that.

You now want to deface one of our prized public assets for a few shekels in a pathetic attempt to raise a puny amount to offset your squandering millions in taxpayer funds with your culture war escapades. the dire budget situation our city finds itself in is is you know one of your own making and the damage is not done yet with further possible fines restrictions and punishments for in the offing for your continued continuing battles with state and county authorities we already have your scandals like the pacific air show settlement which will be dragging us down for years to come and costing the city plenty And let's not forget your ideological idiocy, which helped cost us Olympic events and surfing and volleyball, which would have brought millions of dollars to our local economy. Council incumbents should be ashamed of their fiscal flubs since 2022, engineered by departed godfather Tony Strickland and his consigliere Michael Gates, but involving you as decision makers, and all of this in addition to your brazen antagonism to the community, especially involving treasured assets like our library system, which has alienated many of our residents. Fortunately, there is a remedy for the incompetence looming in November with the election of a new slate of council candidates bringing change we need in HB, the Surf City Four featuring Taryn Palumbo, Ben Davis, Erin Spivey, and Brenda Glimm. They are intelligent, invested, and incorruptible. They are committed to restoring our civic reputation and will represent everybody in the city fairly and equally. Tim out.

next speaker please thank you mr mayor my name is mr amory hansen i'm speaking tonight in support of im18 the renewal of the lease agreements for dwight's and jack's restaurants i am proud to support mr clapp and these restaurants continuing to provide concessions for beachgoers let's continue to support local restaurants on the shores of huntington beach once again irj yes vote on im18 thank you thank you next speaker please uh russell neal huntington beach

At the last two council meetings, I spoke about a stack of three ideas which make America special and great. At the top of the stack, we have our economic system of private property and free enterprise. This is supported by our constitutional system of equal justice under law. Tonight I conclude by discussing the foundational idea of the biblical faith and morals of our Christian founders. Basic to all systems of thought are certain presuppositions which are the starting point for all subsequent thinking. These presuppositions are seldom examined and are mostly taken for granted. They are held religiously. It is a fact that our political founders were Protestant Christians from Great Britain who held a set of biblical presuppositions. I submit that this system of faith and morals are the necessary intellectual foundation for the superstructure of limited government, equal justice under law, private property, and free enterprise, which together we call liberty. If a biblical God who is creator, lawgiver, and judge, and who has made his truth and will known exists, then government must be ministerial and limited. No man has a right to rule absolutely over other men, and all men and nations must acknowledge him, fear him, and obey him. If not, then anything goes and all that remains is a struggle of all against all until a pre-American oppressive hierarchy emerges as seen in ancient kings or modern dictatorships. Therefore, the rededication of this country to God and the continuing practice of acknowledgement, confession, repentance, faith, and supplication is necessary for the preservation and continuance of the America we know and love. Thank you, and God bless and preserve America. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good evening, Mayor McKeon and Huntington Beach City Council. I'm Jenny Braithwaite again, repeating the same message as the last meeting with a slightly different tone. It was really encouraging at the last meeting to see so many people arguing for the need to pass a housing element. I can't argue with you for wanting to read those 1,000 plus pages filled with detail, For getting those details correct, that could bring us those sorely needed SB2 dollars back to help balance our city's huge $15.6 million deficit. After our last meeting, I learned that our city lost $1.7 million of frozen SB2 funds due to noncompliance with the housing element. Oh, don't let me get started on that seven million spent on the air show settlement. Oh no, we need to stay focused tonight and avoid the partisan and political bickering so that we can pass a housing element which prevents our having to pay 50,000, possibly even 100 or $150,000 per month. As I understand it, future penalties and when to stop the ticking penalty clock will be determined by the courts on July 17th. Regardless of our political persuasions, we need to stop the fines, pay the back penalties, and move forward. So when I may sound like a scratch repetitive record playing the same message, I want to point out the clear connection between the housing element and our city's budget. While we disagree on what constitutes a proper source of revenue, we should not turn down the huge donation offered by Friends of the Library, revenue which could reduce that deficit. The amount of $825,000 could help a lot. yes we need to not only increase revenue but cut costs to our city we can cut the wasteful spending on unproductive lawsuits but please carefully consider the consequences of cutting our infrastructure from 29 million dollars to 4 million remember that that investment provides for our future a city without investment is a future we can't afford Most of us here tonight urge you, please, end the losing lawsuits, pass the housing element, and plan smart to fund our future. Don't let our beaches and our future erode.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good evening. My name is Irene Contreras-Garcia, fourth generation local of Huntington Beach. I love Huntington Beach as you all do. I want to thank the mayor and all the council members for coming out to the Terry Park community regarding the Redondo Beach project. We really appreciate you coming out and seeing what our neighborhood is facing. and our community wants to express our gratitude for the time and the consideration For the project, we would like it, of course, our M or lower or medium housing. And we would like the access to be on Talbert and Gothard, if at all possible, to keep the noise level down for our community. And we also want to thank you for taking into consideration the health issues with this project and our future value of our property. and also we would like an a noise level um uh ire and and um we look forward to working with the council and working with the owner of the of the lumberyard so that we can all have a safe and and good quality community thank you so very much thank you next speaker please

Andy Einhorn, this council is destroying Huntington Beach financially, legally, and reputationally. My comments are not personal attacks. Instead, they are factual indictments. This council will hand $30 million in taxpayer money to a political donor over years for an air show settlement caused by an oil company. In addition, taxpayers will pay for the undisclosed costs of police, fire, marine safety, utilities, and cleanup. A resident took legal action for us to see the air show deal. Then a judge ordered this council to pay $182,000 in legal fees. This council could face $170,000 in housing compliance penalties, climbing $50,000 every month until the council decides to follow the law. This council was ordered to pay $960,000 in legal fees after losing a lawsuit over its own library book restriction policy. This council stripped $15,000 from local after-school and at-risk youth programs and handed it to a Temecula nonprofit, defunding local kids. Five of the seven Members of this council awarded a single bid $722,000 rebranding contract stopped only by public outrage. The question is what gets approved when no one is watching? This council recently paid $300,000 to settle voter ID fight They were warned they would lose three courts, three defeats, our money gone. And worse yet, total litigation costs still undisclosed. In closing, when we work together, we are far more powerful than we are divided. This council has never understood that and shows it. You must go. Next speaker, please.

Good evening. I'm Elaine Keeley, again, from the Friends of the Library, and I've been here at the last two meetings to ask that you work with us to accept our generous donation to the city's collection. We have written an MOU. It's been on the desks of Casey McKeon and Travis for over eight weeks. I was told it was shared with every council member, and I'm very disheartened that two meetings Someone has asked for it to be on the agenda and it has been blocked from being on the agenda. And so I just came to express how disheartened I am that expert negotiators and people who really care about the city don't seem to be able to make an appointment with me even though I've called numerous times. I'm embarrassed to say how many times I called and got very much just a little bless your heart response back. Now, I want to take you back to 1991 where city council had the idea of leadership because they wanted to expand the library. So they put together a library patrons group that put together both the Friends of the Library, the Friends of the Children's Library, and the Huntington Beach Playhouse to build the remodel that happened in 1991 that added a children's section of the library and a theater. That was leadership that didn't have the friends of the library or friends of the children going against their mission. They all banded together to work for the patrons to do something special. So if you need money for the library, we're glad to help. We would jump into any fundraising organization, some other nonprofit that wanted to move forward on fountains. on roofs, on HVAC, on the electrical panels of the Huntington Beach Library. We're here to help all of those things. Our mission and our charitable mission is about the books and the collection, and we can't change that. But boy, do we know how to raise money, and we could do that. And that takes a city council that knows how to put together leaderships and blue ribbon committees to do what needs to get done. So work with us, please.

next speaker please City Council members you know it's really funny that we're always talking about the library I mean lately of late and it's and it's all because of somebody bright bringing it up because it has to be brought up to City Council and the only people that can bring it up about you know selling the library or privatizing it is you guys or the city manager and the city manager that did it is was Eric Perra, his intern, that was the first thing he did. I mean, the guy that was working for, I mean, it's really unfair that he's not here. I mean, even Mini-Me isn't here. I mean, seriously, this is totally wrong. I mean, the guy makes $500,000 a year, the chief of police, makes over $500,000 a year we pay, and one of the mandatory things he has to be is here. okay so that way he confront and answer all your questions but he it's like a spit in the face and you guys let him do this it's insane when he came in two other i'm not sure if it was three or just two two other heads of the of departments quit and they went over to newport i don't know if a lot of people know that or not i mean and then the city council then automatically picks eric perry the newest guy that works over here, the newest head of a department, the police department, with a $100 million budget that they get every year, $100 million. And the first thing he does is that he gives you a proposal for being more efficient with the library that only takes $6 million for the whole year. I mean, seriously, he's not even here to ask. It's insane. And you guys cut me off two weeks ago or whatever when I was talking about the budget for the DA. The DA, $5 million, and that's the only department that is not allowed to be dropped if you guys have a budget cut. I mean, seriously, well, they made the law or the rules. But this is insane. And also, we don't need to give them any more money. Nobody, okay, the money that we give now, it's over eight times as much as you guys say on the annual financial report. Yes, it is. It's more than eight times. You know what it is? You got to look for the comprehensive annual financial report. That's the one that shows all the money. That's the reason you guys aren't allowed to say we don't have the money for it. You guys have to say we don't have the budget for it. which is different. Seriously, I really think that you guys should stop doing anything and look at the comprehensive financial report. Because every single city, every single county is supposed to be breaking even. And if they have a surplus, they're supposed to give it back as a tax... as a tax surplus or a rebate, a tax rebate. But instead, well, let's put it into this private fund, a rainy day fund, a rainy two-day fund, a Chewbacca fund, a Han Solo fund. Seriously, it's insane. And then a lot of it is taken and then it's put into funds for the pension just in case that they might need it for later. And then the pension plan.

Thank you. Good to see you over there, Chief Parra. I see you over there. Next speaker, please.

A couple weeks ago, and basically I'm just trying to get a hold of somebody, Mr. Grohl and Mr. Williams. remember you never unfortunately lost it i i left my email and phone with the people upstairs or where your office is and i sent telex to that email on your card and i never got a response but i need to go over some information with you two gentlemen when you have a convenience to discuss about the uh you know the mobile home park situation for SOME SENIORS OVER HERE AT SURF CITY BEACH COLLEGE. SO I DON'T KNOW HOW I CAN DO IT. I GUESS THEY TOLD ME YOU'RE NOT GOING TO BE BREAKING UNTIL 930 AND I'M KIND OF HUNGRY. SO SOME WAY I CAN GET YOUR PHONE. YOU GAVE ME YOUR PHONE, IF YOU REMEMBER, AND MR. WILLIAMS CAN JOIN ME IF YOU CHOOSE TO, SIR.

JUST FILL OUT A BLUE CARD AND THEN I'LL HAVE YOUR INFORMATION.

What's that again, sir?

Fill out a blue card over here.

Yeah. All right. And you're invited too, Mr. Williams. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir.

Is that it? No. Okay. Ann Palmer, Brian Theanis, Paula Schaefer, Robert Mancini, Catherine Goddard, please use both podiums. Three minutes.

Good evening, City Council members, Paula Schaffer. Let's talk about shoulda, woulda, coulda, and City Council decisions. The City Council had multiple decision-making opportunities in the last 18 months regarding the library that it shoulda made differently but did not. It should have stopped the Citizen Review Committee, which was designed to prohibit books the committee didn't approve of from inclusion in the children's library collection. It should have listened to the hundreds of speakers and read the hundreds of resident communications against the committee. it could have rejected the proposed privatization of library staffing. When the petition backers obtained thousands more than the necessary number of signatures, the council should have adopted the resolution stated in the ballot measures, but it didn't do any of these. The council should have selected a general election. However, it decided to have a special election last June. These decisions cost the city about $1.3 million for signature verification and special election fees. That expense is purely as a result of this city council's reliance on its culture wars agenda. Now let's talk about the reputational loss due to the porn signs that were promoted by the city council as part of the city council's campaign against the ballot measures. the local national and international reputational damage cannot be calculated in dollars and cents these signs should have never been printed and placed but wait there's more the city council did not comply promptly with the language in the ballot measure a and the california freedom to read act and as a result was sued the city council lost of course as it often does it voted to appeal Again, the City Council votes on its ideology and ignores the residents interest. The likely result will be more payment of the successful plaintiffs legal fees. But the city council just hasn't been wasting money. It refuses to accept money. For nearly the last year, the city has been attempting to get Friends of the Library to sign an MOU. The city is again ignoring that the Friends, over 20 plus years, has donated $4.8 million to the city library meeting materials collection. Months ago, the Friends offered to increase its annual donation to $825,000 over a three-year period. These donations all go to the library purely for its reading material collection. This was not accepted by the City Council. When the city's budget is facing significant shortfalls, every person in this city should be asking you, why aren't you taking the money? The City Council not only wastes money, it also refuses to accept donations. What decisions should have been made? What would have happened or would have been avoided, like the porn signs? What could have happened if different decisions had been made?

Next speaker, please.

hello Catherine Goddard and I'm here to speak about the budget but I've chosen to speak about item 16 in order to put it in perspective I've read the backup material for the item 16 on your agenda about hiring what apparently are videographers. That's the way I can put it the most succinctly. There are six different companies involved from what I read, and they're involved for a total amount of money, half a million, really $550,000 you're proposing to spend on six companies, which apparently are doing videos for Channel 3. I know you're anxious to do something about the perceived you know, picture of this city. You would like to do some work to have the city have a different image. But I'd suggest that paying more attention to the budget would be a better image. This looks to me as if, and I think it's spread over a period of three years, but it still looks to me as if we're spending half a million more dollars just for videographers, where we have our own public relations office, run by the very competent Julie Toledo. And I would think with a much smaller portion of that, you could hire at least two good videographers for that same time period. So I'm asking, because the budget is not transparent to most of us, how can we understand what you're doing with the budget when you don't give us comparison figures like is this something that's been done for the past you know couple of decades or something every three years there's nothing to compare with we have not had an open session as far as i know about the budget and how do we understand the budget we get presentations but in terms of understanding what you're doing with our money it's very weak It's difficult to understand from my perspective, and I'm sure some others have much more sophisticated understanding of the budget than I. But when I look at figures ranging from $15 to $30 million deficit for the budget, this seems a very unusual way to go about watching our finances. So as we drive on streets that badly need to be repaired and we discuss what's going on, why we can't get the fountains working properly, not unlike the great big blue fountain in Washington these days, but let's see if we can get it repaired. somehow reallocating this money in a way that actually serves the infrastructure of the city. Now we're starting to sell advertising on all the lifeguard stations and stairs. Instead of the beautiful views of the coastline that people come here to see and we all want to enjoy, we're going to get to see ads all over the lifeguard towers. Just destroy the sunset. It's too bad we're doing this kind of thing rather than taking a look at what this cost is.

Thank you. Next speaker.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR MCKEON, MAYOR PROTAM-TWINING, COUNCIL MEMBERS. BRIAN THENIS HERE, 38-YEAR RESIDENT OF HUNTINGTON BEACH, PLANNING COMMISSIONER AND CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE. AND I'M NOW ENDORSED BY THE ORANGE COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY. SO ANYWAY. I just want to thank this city council for everything that you do. I know there's a few naysayers up here that like to spread some information that may not be completely accurate, but you've done a great job reducing crime in our city, reducing the homelessness, helping clean up downtown. You guys have done a really great job. I think people are sending some... INACCURATE INFORMATION ABOUT THE AIR SHOW. THE AIR SHOW WAS CANCELED BY THE PRIOR CITY COUNCIL CAR. SHE CANCELED THE AIR SHOW WITHOUT ANY AUTHORIZATION OR WITHOUT A PUBLIC HEARING. AND THIS COUNCIL IN MY OPINION SAVED THE AIR SHOW AND THE COST OF SAVING THE AIR SHOW WAS OFFSET BY THE SETTLEMENT FROM THE OIL COMPANY And any of the additional revenue wouldn't have been seen anyway because the parking at the beach in October, I mean, nobody, that's a low attendance time anyway. And the air show could be done anywhere. He could have moved it to Long Beach and you just don't, DEVELOP AN AIR SHOW. YOU HAVE TO HAVE THAT EXPERTISE AND YOU HAVE TO HAVE THAT PLAN. AND THIS COUNCIL DID A GREAT JOB SAVING THE AIR SHOW AND I APPRECIATE THAT. YOU GUYS MAKE A LOT OF GOOD DECISIONS. WE HAD THAT DECISION ABOUT THE TRASH RATE INCREASE AND THE COUNCIL APPROPRIATELY APPROVED THE RATE INCREASE. because otherwise it would have come out of the general fund and the general fund would have taken money away from the police and fire. And to say that you're in favor of police, public safety, that is in the move of public safety because that rate increase may not get passed on to all the renters. So I think that was a great decision made. This distraction lounge thing that I've seen some inaccurate information on the website about, it is 700 feet away. The police said that there's no additional calls made than any other establishment similar to that nature. You have to make a finding of facts. It has to be based on evidence that's substantial and that's proven. and there wasn't anything i don't like those bars either but there was nothing that you could act on that would have given you justification to deny it that's called abuse of discretion you we need to learn about that i understand how that works uh and we we they were going to stay in business anyway and now we've got conditions of approval that we can shut their business down anytime we want if they don't act appropriately so you guys made another great decision thank you

Thank you, next speaker.

Good evening, mayor and city council. Sometimes I wonder if I live in the same city as other people who speak here. This council has in 50 years brought this city to a cleaner, safer, more amenable place than it has ever been. So I thank you for each and everything you've done. I came here to speak about a few things because this agenda is packed. The first thing I wanted to address was the Navigation Center, item number 20, and the partnership with Newport Beach. uh i was skeptical i thought well are they going to be dumping uh what is going on with this read through the whole thing it is brilliant it is a limited number of beds it is contained at the end it is contractual and anything that we can do to make our neighboring cities also adhere to the same kind of programs that we have that keep our streets safer and our city's cleaner is a good thing. Plus, that's revenue. What is it, half a million dollars I believe we're gonna get from them? So that's a very good decision. Agenda item number 10, that's the housing element, and I've been here for many years opposing the housing element, and I wanna thank you all for delaying all the super development that would have occurred. I do agree now it's time to pass the housing element. I think you're doing it the right way, looking at the coding and taking every step according to the courts and what we need to do and hopefully we can fight over density population in the future. the final thing that i want to talk about was the budget and unlike other people here i mean i don't think budget and finance is very sexy for for review but i do think that we have a very excellent financial management plan i think the budget is clear and understandable i think we're in very good financial shape and we're rated very well We've got a lot of challenges. We've got a ton of challenges. So I think what we are doing is appropriate. And as we move forward, looking at every piece of that budget and how we can handle it and reinvest, I think is good. And finally, I want to thank you all for working with the Cherry Park Neighborhood Group. I see them here. They seem to be happy. They're looking for solutions. And as we move forward, I hope every neighborhood feels the same way and understands that our council is here to make this city the best city in Southern California. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Robert Maniaci, I live here in Huntington Beach and love every minute of it. I'd like to pay my respects to our honorable mayor and the very, very successful city council members. I need a helping hand. I live on Somerset Lane, which is one of the islands here, Gilbert Island. about five years ago, six years ago, the home 200 feet away from me was demolished. During that demolishing, the equifaction or the mud that these homes are built on was shaking so badly My house was just rocking and tweaking and twisting and turning. It broke, believe it or not, it broke my glass dance floor on the third floor with the glass was one and three quarters inch thick and it shattered it. All my cabinets no longer closed. The doors had to be all refit. Now we have a home that's going to be torn down right next door to me, two feet away, not 200 feet, two feet away from my residence. And I'm deeply concerned because there's a storm drain pipe that runs through that lot. made out of concrete that's going to get shattered, so I think that the city council's could could help me come up with some kind of a way to protect ourselves. Not allowing them to use caterpillar tractors or or or bobcats or or the other equipment that causes all this vibration if they broke up the slab with the jackhammer. and removed it by hand. It might cost them a couple more dollars, but we wouldn't experience the $180,000 worth of damage my home suffered. So I'm looking here asking for some help from my friends here on the council. Please tell me how to do this.

Yeah, Robert, I'll get with Gracie because I believe she has her number, correct? Gracie has your phone number, correct? Yes, I'll get with Gracie and we'll call you and we'll schedule a meeting.

That's great. Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. Any more speakers?

That concludes the public speaking.

All right. Before we move on, I just want to invite everyone to the Central Library this Saturday at 1030. We're celebrating the repairment of the library fountains after several years of being broken and disrepair. So please come out to the Central Library Saturday at 1030. Moving on to council committee appointment announcements. Council members, do you have any council committee appointment announcements?

Yes, thank you, Mayor. I'd like to appoint Debbie Iorio to the City Celebration Committee. Thank you.

All right. AB 123 reporting. Does anyone have anything to report? Openness in negotiation disclosures. Does anyone have anything to disclose?

Spoke with the POA this week. Thank you.

Likewise.

Spoke with the POA as well.

Okay. Anybody else? All right. Now we're moving on to the public hearing to adopt the budget. Madam Clerk, do we have any supplemental communications for this item?

Yes. For public hearing item number nine, we have one email received and fiscal year 2026 proposed budget for adoption, memorandum and PowerPoint presentation received from Acting Chief Financial Officer Zach Zee regarding the consideration of adoption of the city budget for fiscal year 2026-27.

Yes, Zach and Robert. Please provide the presentation.

Good evening, Mayor and Mayor Pro Tem, members of the City Council and residents of Huntington Beach. We are proud to present the fiscal year 26-27 budget for adoption tonight. Before we dive into the details, I want to take a moment to express my sincere gratitude to everyone who's made this possible. Thank you all for all of our city departments. This budget would not exist without your hard work and dedication. I also want to thank the incredible budget team for organizing and assembling the comprehensive budget book, the capital improvement book, and the presentation before you tonight. To City Manager Travis Hopkins and Assistant City Manager Marissa Sir, thank you for the countless meetings, invaluable direction, and unwavering support throughout this process. With that, let's move on to the specific items included in tonight's public hearing presentation. To give you an overview of tonight's agenda, the item before the city council includes a fiscal year 26-27 proposed budget for both all funds and general funds, as well as the budget crosswalk identifying adjustments made since our study sessions. We will also be presenting on professional services listing, the master fee and charge schedule, key revisions of the city's financial policy, THE ANNUAL GAN APPROPRIATION LIMIT AND EMPLOYEE TAX OVERRIDE AND FINALLY A FORMAL CLASSIFICATION OF HUMAN PERFORMANCE AND WELLNESS COORDINATOR AND TOGETHER THESE ITEMS REPRESENTS THE CITY'S COMPREHENSIVE FINANCIAL AND OPERATIONAL PLAN FOR THE UPCOMING FISCAL YEAR NOW ROBERT WILL PRESENT THE FISCAL YEAR 2637 PROPOSED BUDGET FOR ADOPTION GOOD EVENING EVERYONE I'M GOING TO START WITH PRESENTING THE CITY'S TOTAL BUDGET ACROSS ALL FUNDS

THE FISCAL YEAR 2627 ALL FUNDS BUDGET TOTALS APPROXIMATELY $592.4 MILLION IN BOTH REVENUES AND EXPENDITURES RESULTING IN A BALANCED FINANCIAL PLAN. On the revenue side, the city's largest funding source continues to be charges for current services, property tax, and non-operating revenues. On the expenditure side, Public Works remains the city's largest department at approximately $188 million, reflecting the significant investments made in water, sewer, refuse, infrastructure, and capital improvement projects. Public safety also remains a major priority, with police and fire representing a substantial portion of the total expenditures. This balanced budget ensures continued delivery of essential services while supporting long-term infrastructure and operational needs. Next, let's focus on the general fund. The general fund serves as the city's primary operating fund and supports core municipal services, including police, fire, parks, libraries, planning, finance, and administrative operations. The fiscal year 2026-27 general fund totals approximately $328.3 million in both revenues and expenditures. Property tax continues to be the city's largest revenue source, followed by sales tax, then utility users tax. Public safety remains the city's largest investment, with police and fire accounting for more than half of the total general fund expenditures. Non-departmental expenditures include citywide obligations such as insurance, pension related costs, debt service, and other centrally managed expenses. The proposed general fund budget remains balanced while continuing to support services residents expect. Since the study sessions, several adjustments have been made and incorporated into the budget, which are summarized on the next slide. This crosswalk identifies changes made between the study session presentation and the proposed budget before you for adoption. The additions include funding for the navigation center operated by Mercy House, enhanced street maintenance efforts, two additional personnel positions supporting public works operations. and we've also incorporated parallel funding for batting cage improvements, additional public safety helicopter maintenance, and the development of an irrigation master plan. Offsetting a portion of these expenditures is an anticipated revenue coming from the City of Newport related to our partnership on the Navigation Center. Collectively, when you balance these additions against our offsets, these revised results in a net variance of approximately $1.85 million in the all funds budget and a minor adjustment of approximately $458,000 in the general fund budget. Now let's look at the master fee and charges schedule, highlighting what the city is doing to increase revenues.

Next slide.

Staff has evaluated fees and charge fees charged for the city programs and services to ensure they remain aligned with the actual costs of providing those services. This annual review helps promote fiscal responsibility, reduces pressure on the general fund and ensures that users of specific contribution and appropriate shares of those costs. With that, the proposed update to the master fee and schedule charges, there are several new fees. They are proposed to recover costs associated with services currently provided by the city, including a new passport photograph package, police records requests, firearm processing, training facilities, and various safety services. In addition, certain fees are being adjusted to reflect inflationary impacts and recommendations identified through the city's fee study. Some fees remain unchanged because they're established through resolutions, court orders, or previous fee study determinations. Regular fee evaluations help ensure that the service costs are appropriately recovered while minimizing impacts on the general fund. The next comprehensive fee study update is anticipated during the fiscal year 2028-29.

If we could go back please.

So now let's look at the purpose of providing a professional service listing. As part of the annual budget process, departments review and identify professional service needs required to support city operations. The professional service listing provides transparency regarding consulting services, technical expertise, legal services, engineering support, and other contracted services budgeted throughout the organization. Each department, by order of the municipal code, is required to submit a general description of the services needed, the estimated cost, and the budget account where the expenditure is planned. This listing helps ensure accountability and visibility into contract services across the city. With that, I'll turn the presentation back to Zach to go over the benefits of the revisions and repeal of the financial and pension funding policies.

All right.

So turning out to our fiscal governance, staff is recommending updates to the city's financial policy, which includes what staff is supposed to do with that unassigned fund balance and when we have surpluses at the end of the year. It also includes a formal repeal of our existing pension funding policy. TO BE CLEAR, REPEALING RESOLUTION 2021-19 DOES NOT ELIMINATE THE CITY'S OBLIGATION TO FUND PENSIONS. THE CITY WILL CONTINUE TO MAKE ALL REQUIRED CALPERS CONTRIBUTION. BEYOND THAT, STAFF CAN EVALUATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADDITIONAL DISCRETIONARY PAYMENTS AS PART OF THE ANNUAL BUDGET PROCESS WHEN RESOURCES ARE AVAILABLE AND DOING SO INCONSISTENT WITH THE CITY'S OVERALL FISCAL CONDITION. THE RESOLUTION WOULD DISCONTINUE THE CITY'S POLICY OF MAKING DISCRETIONARY ACCELERATED PENSION PAYMENTS DURING A PERIOD OF STRUCTURAL BUDGET IMBALANCE. WHILE ADDITIONAL PENSION PAYMENTS CAN REDUCE LONG-TERM COSTS, THEY MUST BE BALANCED AGAINST OUR FISCAL PRIORITIES INCLUDING INFRASTRUCTURE, RESERVES AND CORE SERVICES. OUR RECOMMENDED APPROACH FOCUSES ON FIVE KEY OBJECTIVES. FIRST WE WANT TO DIRECTLY MATCH AVAILABLE REVENUES TO OUR ACTUAL OPERATIONAL NEEDS. Second, we are increasing our day-to-day flexibility by removing allocation requirements that don't account for changing economic realities. Third, we want to preserve the city's liquidity by discontinuing voluntary pension prepayments, though I want to emphasize that we will absolutely continue to meet all of our required obligations. And fourth, this protects our reserves and keeps us safe from needing short-term borrowings. And finally, it creates a practical framework that allows future surpluses to help stabilize and smooth out projected budget deficits down the road. And ultimately, these changes are designed to strengthen the city's ability to pivot and respond to evolving financial conditions while protecting our long-term fiscal sustainability. Having discussed the proposed financial policy updates, we will now move to the annual compliance items required as part of the budget adoption process. The California Constitution requires local governments to establish an annual GAN appropriation limit, which serves as a spending cap on tax dollars and tax supported expenditures. So the purpose of this requirement is to ensure fiscal accountability by limiting the growth of government spending based on inflation and population changes. For fiscal year 26-27, the city's calculated Gantt limit is approximately $1.36 billion. The proposed budget of approximately $592 million remains well below this threshold, demonstrating the full compliance to the city with the state requirement. Now the employee retirement, excuse me, the employee retirement override tax is a voter approved property tax levy dedicated to funding eligible employee retirements and pension obligations. This funding source provides a dedicated revenue streams to help offset retirement related costs and reduce pressures on the general funds resources used to support core city services. Council's action tonight is an annual administrative requirement and does not establish a new tax. The employee retirement override tax was previously approved by the voters in 1978, and in 2012, the city council permanently capped the rate at 0.015 per $100 of assessed valuation. This resolution continues the existing levy at the rate and authorizes the city to place the assessment property on the tax rule for fiscal year 26-27. And lastly, staff is also requesting the approval to add the human performance and wellness coordinator classification to the city salary schedule. The coordinator position will support employees wellness initiative within the police department, helping coordinate programs and resources that promotes physical and mental wellbeing of safety personnel. THIS POSITION REFLECTS THE CITY'S ONGOING COMMITMENT TO SUPPORTING ITS WORKFORCE AND ENHANCING EMPLOYEE WELLNESS EFFORTS WITHIN PUBLIC SAFETY OPERATIONS. AN APPROVAL OF THIS ITEM WILL ESTABLISH THE CLASSIFICATION AND CORRESPONDING SALARY RANGES WITHIN THE CITY'S PERSONNEL STRUCTURE. THAT CONCLUDES OUR PRESENTATION FOR THE FISCAL YEAR 26-27 BUDGET FOR ADOPTION. WE WOULD BE HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS THAT COUNCILOR MAY HAVE BEFORE CONSIDERING THE FINAL ADOPTION.

Thank you both. Council members, do you have any questions on the report itself?

I've got a couple. The CalPERS, you touched on that. What's the difference between 2526 and 2627?

So the cost for CalPERS, the difference between 2526 to 2627, the increase is approximately, including safety and miscellaneous and normal costs, the increase is approximately $8.8 million.

And how tough is that going to be to adjust to that increase?

So that's something that we continually have to evaluate as we go on. A couple of factors that contributes to the increase in CalPERS costs typically has to do with increasing in FTE. So the more you increase, the higher the CalPERS costs.

Full-time employees.

Full-time employees, yes. You're also looking at investment returns. That has a big contributing factor as well. Payroll growth will also have a big contributing factor to the increase in CalPERS costs as well.

What are the biggest factors that we can control when it comes down to that stuff?

Yes, so when you look at investment costs, so to give you an example, investment is heavily dependent on the market conditions, so that's something that's outside of our control. When you're looking at FTE count, that's something that's within the city's control, full-time employee position. And then also payroll growth. Increases in payroll will, again, like I said, it will ultimately increase CalPERS costs. That's something that's also within the city's control. All right, thank you.

Any other questions? Don.

Thanks for the report. Can you go back to the one slide, the public works, where it showed we have $188 million, which is one of the first slides? Yeah, right there. So historically, if you were, you know, one of our residents was asking about comparatives. When you look back, do you have any historical data on what the expenditures were for Public Works as it is a big expenditure and it shows that we're making a commitment to the city? Looking back over the last decade, are we increasing our spend, decreasing, static? Do you know that off the top of your head?

Yeah, so it's made up of several components. So you have the water division, which is $80 million, And then you have the refuse division, which is $20 million. The sewer division is $15 million. And then the capital improvements projects is $46 million. And then the only piece of actual public works that's just general fund is only $26 million. So we know historically that water, refuse, and sewer are all, the valuations are dedicated through the Prop 218. SO THOSE ARE INCREASING COSTS THAT ARE ASSOCIATED DIRECTLY WITH ENGINEERING STUDY REVENUES, SO THEY ARE INCREASING OVER TIME. AND THEN OUR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS OF 46 MILLION, THAT INCREASES EVERY YEAR BECAUSE WE'RE HELD BY CITY CHARTER TO INCREASE THE AMOUNT THAT WE SPEND ON OUR INFRASTRUCTURE ACCORDING TO THE FIVE YEARS OF ACTUALS AVERAGE. SO THAT IS ALWAYS GOING TO OBVIOUSLY IS INCREASING BECAUSE REVENUE EVEN THOUGH IT'S HELD STAGNANT IN SOME AREAS, OVERALL IT'S BEEN INCREASING, SO THAT NUMBER HAS TO INCREASE. AND THIS YEAR, THE GENERAL FUND PORTION ONLY INCREASED AT THE SAME RATE AS ALL THE OTHER DEPARTMENTS. THE INFLATIONARY COST THAT WAS PROVIDED FOR THEM TO ALLOW THEM TO 3%. NEW SPEAKER Okay.

IN OUR BRIEFING THE OTHER DAY, I HAD A COUNCILMAN TWINING WITH ME, AND WE ASKED ZACH, OVERALL, are we as a council delivering good guidance, good results, physical responsibility, and doing everything within our control to maintain the best possible budget outlook? And what was your answer, Zach?

I would say yes. I mean, I think so in the past couple of years, we've been looking at various cost measures to to expenditure reduction. We're looking at operational reduction. We're also this year we're looking at reductions in a full time equivalent employee count and vacant positions. Right. And we're also and as we continue our discussions, I always hear about how do we generate additional revenues? And so more revenue ideas do come up. And so that's I I appreciate the proactiveness of council and your attention to our fiscal condition.

Thanks for that. One last thing. In the meeting yesterday, the term crosswalk came up, if you recall. So I know we all love the batting cages. We had this discussion two weeks ago. And I see that it's landed on the budget, which is fine because one way or another, we're going to get batting cages. With that allocation that's new, In the last meeting, we're waiting, and I think Ms. Mazzocchi could tell us, we're close to getting a presentation from the current sports complex operators. In their general plan, they have bigger plans than just the batting cage. So I want to make sure, are we going to give them, I heard you call it the parallels. So does that mean that we're gonna have an opportunity to see what the lessee's gonna bring forward with the sports complex? Because I know the batting cage component is bigger and is part of their presentation before we decide, before we spend the other 335.

Yes, in parallel meaning that I believe what was directed by council or implied by council was that we are going to put in the budget for the batting cages and then also at the same time hear what the proposal is going to be. Although we don't know what the proposal, when it is coming, I imagine they are gearing up at this point to come and to study session in the next couple of meetings. We would take a look and see what their proposals are and what their timeline looks like.

And if they made a proposal that was accepted, voted on, and approved, would you remove that 335 out of the budget or put it back in the general fund? Or what would you do with that if it's no longer necessary?

That would be at the direction of the city manager. Just because we budget something doesn't technically mean that we have to spend it. If some sort of a deal is worked out with the vendor that they are able to provide the batting cages, we technically wouldn't spend it unless there's some other conditions that's associated with the agreement.

In my last comment, because I think there's some credit due, the relationship with the navigation center in Newport Beach, we talked about that yesterday, it's a net positive 525,010 beds. When somebody checks out from Newport, one of those beds, Newport's required to come get that person, take them back to their city. And I asked how that relationship came about. And I think it was the city manager said, basically, our mayor reached out to Newport Beach's mayor and started conversations. And that led to this symbiotic relationship, which is good for both cities, good for our revenue. Is that the case? And if that's the case, I'd say good work on that.

No, thank you, Don. Yes, for sure. I reached out to Lauren, and we'll get to that later on the agenda. But it's a great relationship with the Navigation Center. Jessica's going to talk about it later. And, you know, Newport has Newport money, so I told them to open up the Brinks truck, and they did. So it's a good service amongst both cities, great partnership, and we'll talk about that more later. But, yeah.

Thank you, though. Thanks for the report. Great.

Thank you, gentlemen. I just have one simple question. Each year you present a budget. This year it's $550 million, thereabouts. In previous years, previous budget years, how many years have we ended up with a surplus at the end of the fiscal year? I'm just curious.

I'VE BEEN HERE ABOUT FIVE YEARS NOW, AND SO EVERY YEAR HAS BEEN A SURPLUS. I CAN'T SPEAK FOR THE YEARS THAT HAS BEEN PREVIOUS TO MY POSITION HERE, BUT IN THE PAST FIVE YEARS, IT HAS BEEN A SURPLUS.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU.

NEW SPEAKER I GUESS TO PIGGYBACK ON THAT, I'M KIND OF CURIOUS NOW. HOW MANY OF THOSE FIVE YEARS WERE WE FACING A DEFICIT WHERE WE ENDED UP COMING OUT WITH A SURPLUS?

NEW SPEAKER I BELIEVE IT WAS ONE. yeah so i i apologize i was more my role at that time i was more of an accounting manager and so this has been a little bit different as on the budgets end but i believe it was one um fiscal year that we're facing on the deficit projected going forward um and then this 26-27 to be the second year correct me if i'm wrong travis yeah i think the last at least the last three years we were working and um on

efficiencies within our departments we looked at operational costs three years ago and so we've been juggling that for at least the last three years zach just want to clarify yacht club docks the repaired amount is is budgeted correct still in there yes yeah do you guys mind is that easy to put up on a slide just so people can see on the screen or no no we don't have that as part of the just want to confirm yes but dock repair at the yacht club is budgeted yeah thank you Any other questions? All right. Open the public hearing. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone signed up to speak?

We have one person signed up to speak, Pat Goodman.

Please come on up.

The City Council will now receive public comments for the public hearing item only. Each speaker is allotted three minutes. When your name is called, Pat Goodman, please approach, use the podium, state your name and organization for the record.

Good evening, Mayor McKeon and Council Members, Pat Goodman, and I still have serious concerns about the 2026-27 budget strategy and residents deserve a frank conversation about what it actually is and what it isn't. I recommend that the council reinstate the budget town halls you held last year. That kind of public engagement matters. The plan to reduce transfers to the infrastructure, equipment, and pension liability, I believe that that's still part of the strategy. combined with drawing down the general fund balance by $15.6 million is not a structural fix. In accounting terms, at least the $15.6 million is a plug, a one-year patch that defers the problem rather than solving it. Using reserves to cover an operating deficit is a big flag, and this community deserves to hear that clearly. For agenda item 17, you'll hear a proposal for the 10 beds. And I think we all agree that this is a smart decision and a very proactive solution to funding the navigation center because for this year and last year, I believe the funding has come from the general fund because we did not have the housing element in place. That's a meaningful revenue stream, and if the council makes a prudent decision to approve the housing element tonight, the reinstatement of the SB2 funds would come into the city and go a long way toward funding the navigation center's ongoing operations. These two steps together will have a meaningful reduction in the deficit, so I'd ask the council to consider three things. First, acknowledge that this budget outside of personnel cuts does not close the structural gap. Residents need to understand that. Second, commit to a transparent multi-year plan. One year patches compound into crises. Third, approve the housing element. It's not just a legal obligation, it's also a fiscal one. The SB2 funds alone make a real difference in the operations of the Navigation Center. There are other revenue generating schemes that the council could consider. And I think I'll submit an email with some of them and some of them have been brought up. But I think Huntington Beach residents are watching how this council manages our money. They deserve honesty about the challenge and leadership on the path forward. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, I'm gonna close the public hearing and now open it up to council discussion. Any comments, questions?

Yeah, I got a real quick one. this the citizens have to know that council's doing whatever we can and every year we've been here it's been more and more difficult to balance this budget and to make things go and we're really trying to employee costs are a major part and uh we're trying to trim those trying to some of the uh vacant positions that have kind of um haven't been missed and so we're cutting that out of the budget which is a big savings and we're trying to do these things without being It being a detriment to public services. We're trying to maintain all the public services to the best of our ability and in the best interest of serving the people. And people have to understand that just it gets more difficult. And sometimes with all the mandates that get jammed down our throat, like with the navigation centers, things like that. It adds up and it starts adding and there's a lot of other things that puts strains on our budget. And again, we're just trying to do the best we can and serve the people the best we can. That's it.

Any other comments? I'll just dovetail on that, Pat. Balancing the budget of a city of the size of Huntington Beach is extremely challenging and there's a lot of factors that go into that. Pat touched on it. About 70 to 75% of our budget is for labor, so personnel costs. CalPERS, the California Public Employees Retirement System, in order to achieve their pension obligations, they need to achieve a 6.7% return on their fund In California, they tend to not invest in things that make money like gas and cigarettes and oil and whatnot. They're more green investing. So oftentimes, they don't hit that number. When they don't hit that number, the city has to plug that hole to match those pension obligations. Several years ago, CalPERS received a negative 7% return on their fund balance, which means the city had to plug a 13% hole. That of our deficit structurally, about 60% of that 65 is the pension debt. So there's a lot of talent up here on council from the private sector, and we pursue many opportunities to bring in more revenue, to create efficiencies. We look at all of our leases. Council Member Kennedy put together a great lease tracking system of our 100 leases. We're looking at each one to see to make sure that we're getting market rental rates, that we don't have any leakage in rent and expenses to bring in our private sector practices. There's ideas we bring forward, whether it's the merchandising, film commission, the lifeguard tower wraps, what's up on the agenda later on the pier stairs. Those are either temporary or virtual systems that aren't permanent. Council Member Kennedy touched on it tonight, working with neighboring cities like Newport Beach. We've been so successful with our homelessness reduction numbers. Every the last four years, we've achieved the greatest homelessness reduction numbers in our city's history. Orange County Point and Time Count just came out a couple weeks ago. Us and Newport Beach were the only cities that reduced their homeless population. We were number one. 70% decrease from the previous Point and Time Count. That success has allowed us to now have more beds available in our navigation center to then go out to neighbors like Newport and go, can you guys use some of our beds? And they can, and they are. If it gets voted on tonight and they're going to pay substantially over half a million dollars to do so. So when ideas come forward, just understand that we're tackling this growing problem of structural deficit with pension liability and trying to find ways to solve it without impacting services. So like I said before, if you don't like our ideas for revenue generating ideas, that's okay. You don't need to attack the people that bring those forward. Oftentimes they're from the private sector. They're just trying to help. But at the same time, bring forward your idea. But just know that we are laser focused on it. As mayor this year, it's my number one goal. I've said it many times. That's why there's a whole section of the meeting to our business highlight and business presentations because I want to spotlight all our businesses to make sure everyone knows these businesses exist. They know they're here. They've been here for a long time. They're opening up soon. So you realize, oh, I didn't realize that restaurant was there or that manufacturing company was here or that plumbing company was here. And I've gotten lots of text people saying, hey, I didn't know about that company. And the goal is so that we keep our dollars in Huntington Beach and we don't bleed sales tax dollars to our neighboring cities. So just know that it's not easy. We're on it. We hear you. And we're focused on it. And we will always continue to find efficiencies, optimize our assets, and bring in more revenue. Thank you. Go ahead, Butch.

I just want to piggyback on what Mayor McKeon just said. I've said it before that I'm going to dedicate my time on City Council to helping people and finding revenues for the city to help plug the the gap that we have in our budget, you know, revenues versus expenses. And just in the last two weeks, with two simple initiatives, one that was brought forward by myself and Councilman Kennedy and the other one that was brought forth by Mayor McCann, yielded about $1.5 million per year directly to our general fund. As Mayor McCann said, Some people don't agree with our methods, maybe, or our initiatives, what we're looking for to help balance our budget and bring more revenues into our general fund here in the city. So like him, I invite you, if you have any great ideas, please let us know. I appreciate it. I got a good one a couple days ago from a citizen, and I plan on looking into it. So if you have any great ideas, fine. But just in the last, like I say, in the last two weeks, we bought about a million five in just for this budget year. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Anybody else? All right. I'd like to make a motion to move the recommended action items A through H. Second. Second by Mayor Pro Tem Twiney. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilman Grohl? Yes. Councilman Kennedy?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Twiney?

Yes.

Mayor McKeon? Yes. Councilman Burns?

Aye.

Councilwoman Vandermark? Abstain. Councilman Williams?

Yes.

The budget passes 6-0-1.

Perfect. Before we move on, I want to correct my statement about the library fountains. The celebration is actually not this Saturday. We will report back to the community when it is, which will be upcoming. Thank you. Moving on to item number 10, the adopt resolution 2026-2025, the housing element. As a reminder, this item was continued from the June 2nd city council meeting. Does anyone have any ex parte communications to disclose on this item? Madam Clerk, do we have any supplemental communications for this item?

Yes, Mayor, we do have supplemental. We have two emails received regarding the adoption of resolution number 2026-25 to approve the general plan amendment number 21-003, 2021 through 2029 housing element update.

Thank you. Staff, is there an updated report?

Thank you, Mayor and council members. I don't have an additional presentation, but I would like to let the council know that since the last public hearing on the housing element update on June 2nd, staff made additional revisions to the housing element update specifically to address the June 2nd Kennedy Commission letter, as well as their previous letters that were incorporated by reference in their June 2nd letter, as well as further address HCD's March 6th comment letter. This included one additional map, a couple of map revisions, a new program, and some clarifying language in Appendix B and Section 3. That's it for staff. We do have Nicole Obey, our contract planner, as well as Anthony Taylor, the city's legal counsel, here to address any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Council members, do you have any questions? All right. Madam Clerk, do we have anyone sign up to speak?

Yes, Mayor. We have two people signed up to speak.

All right. I'm going to open the public hearing. Please call them up.

Daniel Sasse and Brian Theanis, the city council will now receive public comments for the public hearing. Each speaker is allotted three minutes. Please approach, use both podiums and state your name and organization for the record.

My name is Daniel Sasse. In addition to being a long time resident of Huntington Beach, I'm also a lawyer representing the nonprofit organization, the Kennedy Commission. The Commission is a broad-based coalition of residents and community organizations that advocates for the production of affordable homes in Orange County. Let me start by noting that the commission firmly believes that the right to affordable housing is a nonpartisan issue. At the last city council meeting on June 2nd, both council members Williams and Gruhl talked about being guided by what was best for the people of Huntington Beach. Affordability and accountability is what is best for the people of Huntington Beach and building affordable housing so that children can grow up where their parents live, and people can live where they work should be a bipartisan issue. The Kennedy Commission opposes the current draft of the draft housing element, not because we oppose the element itself, of course this commission knows, we've been litigating with you for 10 years trying to get you to adopt this, but because unfortunately you are not yet substantially compliant with state law. First, as is well known, the City Council has opposed adopting a housing element for over 10 years. Mayor McKeon publicly claimed at the last meeting that this has not cost the city over a million dollars. May 11th, 2023, the California Court of Appeal unanimously affirmed a $3.5 million attorney's fee award against the city. Kennedy Commission versus Huntington Beach. This City Council, not mentioned earlier tonight when we were going through all the litany of cases for this City Council. The citation for that case, just in case you need it, and we'll make sure we're on the same page, is case number 30, 2015, 801, 1675. This commission also, I'm sorry, this City Council also conducted a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the California state housing law. It also had to hire outside counsel for that. It lost. It hired outside counsel for the appeal at the Ninth Circuit. It lost. It took this case up to the Supreme Court. It lost. It was taxed costs and it had to pay outside counsel for all of that. Clearly hundreds of thousands of dollars the city council can release the records and show likely millions of dollars. In this round of adopting the city housing element, you now know from your planning commission that you've been fined over $160,000 by the court. You've had three years to come into compliance. You've not come into compliance over those three years. You're paying Mr. Taylor, outside council, hundreds of thousands of dollars, perhaps millions of dollars. Again, you can publicize those records if you'd like to, but clearly these are costs that the city is paying in a losing battle. As you heard earlier tonight, it may be over $10 million now that the city has spent on this losing battle. We want the city to adopt a compliant housing policy, but it has not done that yet. In three minutes, I cannot go through all of the problems with the current draft housing element.

Thank you. That 3.5 million was from the 2015 lawsuit. This is 2026. Next speaker, please.

three minutes has expired sir next speaker please uh resident planning commissioner and uh city council candidate um boy i'd sure like to say uh how much i would love to say please do not pass this housing element do not amend the general plan But I do believe that this council has done a great job holding off these ridiculous housing mandates for as long as you have. Over three years, you bought us time. I think that, you know, we've got other issues that are, you get the, we have the Orange County Grand Jury just issued a report a couple of weeks ago. THAT ARE BASICALLY SAYING THAT THESE HOUSING ELEMENTS, THESE RENA NUMBERS ARE NOT BASED ON ACCURATE CENSUS DATA THAT CAME FROM THE STATE AUDITOR TO THE HOUSING GUYS.

WHAT DO YOU CALL THOSE GUYS AGAIN?

anyway the department of community housing that those are inaccurate numbers and there was a lot of flaws stated in this report and we actually have 90 days in which we have to reply and hopefully our reply is hey let's all band together orange county cities and do something about unraveling some of these ridiculous laws but i think WE'VE GOT TO PASS THE HOUSING ELEMENT I I THINK WE'VE GOT TO WE'VE GOT TO APPROVE THIS GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT UM YOU KNOW WE'VE GOT TO SATISFY THE KENNEDY COMMISSION WHO UM YOU KNOW THESE GUYS ARE I GUESS THEY WANT TO BUILD AFFORDABLE HOUSING BUT I JUST LOOKED AT THIS PROJECT IN LONG BEACH AND UH ASKED A BUDDY OF MINE I GO HOW MUCH HOW MUCH WOULD IT COST TO BUILD THESE UNITS APARTMENT BUILDER AND HE SAYS WELL THEY'RE ABOUT $200,000 A UNIT AND WE LOOKED INTO IT A LITTLE MORE AND HE SAYS WOW THEY REALLY CUT BACK YOU KNOW MAYBE MORE LIKE $180,000 A UNIT BUT THIS THIS AFFORDABLE HOUSING UNIT PROJECT IN LONG BEACH THEY'RE SPENDING OVER $900,000 A UNIT FOR WHICH THEY'LL GET INCOME TAX CREDIT THEY'LL GET RELIEF ON THEIR PROPERTY TAXES, AND IN FACT, THE PEOPLE THAT LOAN THE MONEY FOR THE PROJECT, THOSE ARE COMMUNITY FACILITIES, BONDS, AND THOSE ARE ALSO TAX-FREE. SO ALL OF THIS MONEY COMES OUT OF OUR TAX COFFERS, FEDERAL, STATE, LOCAL. all of which if you added it all up for this particular project we did some quick calculations we could just give everybody who wants to an apartment we give them a check for five thousand eight hundred dollars and we'd be even steven so i don't know about these affordable housing i'm not sure who they're affordable for thank you thank you all right close the public hearing the public hearing is now closed council discussion anyone want to have anything to say

What, you want to go? Go for it.

I can't see.

I'll just say I'll lead her off. I mean, Grace and I were talking about this. We've been fighting for this since 19 to 2019, trying to defend our local control. Well documented, signed a contract that we'll always fight for local control. I was on record when we got sworn in saying, you know, we're not going to win every fight, but we're going to, we're going to, go down that path to its conclusion and if we lose that that path we'll find another path to fight to protect our local control uh there's still a couple moves on the chessboard on on this one and tonight's not the final step uh this vote and if it was affirmative would be to submit it to the judge per the court order and then see uh what happens from there but again uh fighting for local control is is is you know imminent it's imperative um like I've said many times in public on the campaign trail, they gave Huntington Beach the highest amount of units per acre of any city in California. Of the 13,386 units they gave us, 8,000 are one of the three affordable levels, very low, low, and moderate. Most projects are at most 20% of the units are affordable because it doesn't make financial sense as a gentleman just spoke about to build these projects. So those 80% of the units have to achieve above market rents to subsidize those 20% of the units. So take those 8,000 units divided by 20%. It would take 40,000 units to deliver those 8,000 units. We have 80,000 housing units in Huntington Beach right now. We'd have to increase our housing stock by 50% in a city that's 95% built out. 40,000 units equates to the high density poster child at beach analysis, Elon 40,000 units equates to 145 more of those billions in our city. So just understand that we fight every single day with whatever we can to protect our local control, to zone our city the way our residents elect us to zone it. Every city is unique. We all have different environmental elements, topography, finite resources. These are very carefully planned through their general plan. To accommodate all these elements to zone and plan for our suburban Beach community And as you can see, you know, we're fighting fighting the state in a state court was state judge under the state seal of California and so just understand that we will always continue to fight for you and if this path ends and we'll pick up a new path there's a great ballot initiative that people are working on called our neighborhood voices and just akin to voter id right we were the only city the first city in california our voters voted for voter id the state same thing rushed up and passed a law to make it illegal but what that did was create a conversation and energy from the voters of California to put enough signatures to get that voter ID initiative on the ballot to codify in the California state constitution. Based on what I'm seeing, I think the only way to really protect our local control is to do the same thing and our neighborhood voices initiative is really strong and I'm hopeful other cities will join us in pushing that. And to get that on the ballot, to then codify that into the California state constitution, that local zoning is a local city right and a local city right only. So just understand we're always continuing to fight. And this is not the final step. It's just the most prudent step.

Go ahead, Bush.

I'll be supporting this agenda item tonight somewhat reluctantly because a lot of people up there shake their heads and throw their arms up in the air when Mayor McCann says that we have to build 40,000 new units to get 8,000. You're still shaking your head no. Get your calculator out. because there's not a developer that's gonna come in this town other than one that I know of that is going to build 100% affordable units. But what comes with that 100% affordable units is ZERO PARKING. THEY'RE GOING TO BUILD THIS DEVELOPMENT OVER ON THE CORNER OF YORKTOWN AND BEACH WITH ZERO PARKING. OKAY?

COUNCILMEMBER, LET'S NOT STICK TO INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS.

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. OKAY. WHEN I LOOK AT WHERE ARE WE GOING TO BUILD 40,000 UNITS OR 8,000 UNITS, I LOOK AROUND THIS TOWN AND IT'S 90 TO 95% BUILT OUT. The next step for us after we submit the housing element is to do the zoning. And so we're gonna have to go around and we're gonna have to pick areas in this town that are already developed that have apartment complexes that are 100% occupied. We're gonna have to go to the mom and pops shops and businesses along the Gothard Business Corridor and the Graham Business Corridor and tell those people, hey look, We're ordered by the state to rezone. And this is like the only place around, you know, the older apartment complexes, our business corridors, our industrial corridors. And we're gonna have to, I think we're gonna have to rezone those. I don't know where else we're gonna put them. We got an ocean to the west of us. We've got, you know, several hundred, if not thousands of acres of environmentally sensitive, like Bolsa Chica Conservancy, you know, Bolsa Chica area, the wetlands down at Magnolia and PCH, Brookhurst and PCH. We can't build on those places. Where we can build, where we can build is where maybe you live or you live or you live and we're gonna have to zone that, all right? Or where you work or you work. you're gonna be gone because we're gonna be forced to rezone areas that are already developed. So keep that in mind when we get to the phase where we have to start rezoning. And I hope I hear none of this, I hope I hear no nimbyism, not in my backyard because it's gonna be in some people's backyards and it's gonna be in some people's homes, it's gonna be in some people's businesses that we're gonna have to rezone. But reluctantly, I'm going to have to support this because I feel like we're close to the end of the runway here. We're going to have to do something. And I'm not for paying fines, whether it's $10,000 or $150,000 a month. It's your money. And I want to stop the fines. I want to comply. And we'll just see where the chips fall, where they may. But you just remember I said this on June, whatever, what's the 16th? 2026. It could be your business. It could be your house. It could be your neighborhood. Because that's where we're going to have to rezone. Thank you.

Don. I just wanted to touch on one or two things. As Mayor McKean said, the vision of affordable housing sounds great on paper. There's a lot of studies that show when you deploy affordable housing at scale, the real losers are not the 20% of the people that get to take advantage of the affordable housing. That's a win for them. it's the 80% of the people in the rental market because as Mayor McKeon said, and it's a building fact, when you have to raise your rents because you're commanding lower rent on your apartment building, those new market rates, what they do is there's a ripple effect that cause all the outlying comp sets to go up. So if I have an apartment that I rent for 2,000 and it's 15, 20 years old and brand new product comes in and it's 2,500, 2,700, 2,800, I can't take my apartment and put it at $2,700, but what I can do is I can take my $1,800 apartment and I can say, you know what, I'm going to be a cheaper option. I'm going to put it at $2,300. So there's plenty of studies out there, and I would welcome anybody to do the research, where affordable housing has an adverse effect on the majority of renters because, as I said, The developers aren't going to take it in the wallet, so they raise their rents. The outlying product says, hey, he's getting this much, so I'm going to get this much minus this a bit and still keep my property rented.

So there are consequences to affordable housing. And the bottom line is this. We all want to live where we work, work where we live, have our kids live here. You know, that's the American dream, and it's really possible in almost every flyover zone in the country. The problem here is our land cost is at a premium. You can't change the cost of land. As they used to say in the building business, the sticks and bricks, they cost the same across the country. It's not about that. It's about the cost of the land. So when you have land at a premium on the coast, people that own that land want their full market value. So when you start with that basis, You can't really build affordable housing at scale unless you want to subsidize everyone. But there is a lot of consequences. I'm prepared to vote on this, but it's almost beaten into submission. So I hope the people that have that hammer and the supermajority feel like it's job well done. But we'll look back on this and people will be like, hey, my rent went up, my rent went up, my rent went up. There's going to be a lot of consequences.

Any comments? Gracie?

I'll just be really brief. We've been in this fight for, I don't know, seven, eight years. I lost track, and we're still in the fight. MIGHT HAVE TO MAKE SOME CONCESSIONS, THINK OF DIFFERENT WAYS TO PROTECT OUR CITY, BUT WE REMAIN JUST AS COMMITTED TODAY AS WE DID PRIOR TO US EVEN CAMPAIGNING, BECAUSE ONE OF THE REASONS THAT WE EVEN RAN FOR COUNCIL WAS BECAUSE WE WOULD STAND AT THOSE PODIUMS AND SPEAK AGAINST THIS VERY, VERY THING. WE'RE STILL COMMITTED TO PROTECTING OUR CITY, TO MAINTAINING the quality of life that Huntington Beach has that is very unique to us. I've lived in Riverside, San Bernardino, LA County. Nothing has felt like home as much as Huntington Beach has. This city has literally saved three generations in my family. If I hadn't moved here, I wouldn't have the life I have. My daughter wouldn't have the education she has. And my grandkids, who are the third generation, wouldn't have the opportunity to live in this beautiful city and have the opportunities that we've been blessed with. So I just want everyone to know that regardless of how this goes, I remain 100% committed to protecting the city that gave my family an opportunity that no other city did.

Thank you, any other comments?

Yeah, I'll go. And Steph, can we pull up the housing draft, the 1,100 pages? While we're pulling that up, just for, I guess, a visual for everybody, this is the housing draft that we're all voting on tonight. That's just a portion of it. Sorry, it goes on. And some more. And I guess for starters, just sincerely, I'd like to ask my fellow council members, have any of us, I mean, can we say in good faith that we have read every page that we're gonna be voting on tonight? Yeah, all right. So Council Member Mayor Pro Tem Twanin, yes, you have. Any other fellow council members? Every page without fail? There's a lot to it. And so if we have the sales element draft pulled up, I believe if you're going by slide, it would probably be about page 106. If you're looking at the bottom of the pages, it would be page 3.53 that I'd like to draw the council's attention to and the public's attention to. So if we could roll down, yep, in the red letters there. And I don't know if you have a way to kind of expand that. And so just to kind of open things up, you know, I was going to address the mayor's not here before this vote. I need to put something on the record and offer a substitute motion. And so I just want to be clear. I'm not opposing compliance with state housing law tonight. I am raising my concern over the way we are considering to comply. because this city council is considering to do something I wholeheartedly believe we do not have the authority to do based upon the voter passed charter provision measure U. I will make this argument in three short pieces. Then I'll offer a substitute motion that I believe respects the voters and the court and does not ask this council to overstep its authority. So first, the text from measure U. As you see before you, page 3.53 of the housing draft The voters passed it in November of 2024. And I'll read part of what it says there in red. It says, no city initiated general plan amendment, and I want to emphasize, or zoning change may be approved by the city where the related environmental review finds the same proposed general plan update, trying to emphasize these words, or finds update or zoning change presents significant and unavoidable negative impacts to the environment without first receiving approval by the affirmative vote of at least a majority of the electorates. That's the majority of the community that can vote. So three words, remember, I wanna emphasize in there, or, update and fines. both a general plan amendment which is what we're looking at doing tonight we're not talking about rezoning tonight but we're looking at doing a general plan amendment but it also provides and zoning change that's what triggers measure u the voters wrote update in that measure why did they write update because that is the term used for housing element revision And they wrote fines because the trigger fires when the environmental review has already identified the impact. So tonight is a general plan update. Second, the record. The city has answered the question of whether the trigger has fired three separate times. THE CITY'S 2022 SUBSEQUENT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT THAT I HAVE BEFORE ME RIGHT HERE FOUND SIGNIFICANT AND UNAVOIDABLE IMPACTS IN FIVE CATEGORIES. CATEGORY NUMBER ONE, AIR QUALITY. TWO, GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS. THREE, HYDROLOGY AND WATER QUALITY. FOUR, NOISE AND FIVE, UTILITIES AND SERVICES. THAT FINDING WAS POSTED BY THE ORANGE COUNTY CLERK RECORDER ON JUNE 29, 2022. It is in the City of Huntington Beach 2012 through 2029 Housing Element Update Implementation Program. What I have right here in front of me. The city prepared a statement of overriding considerations on that basis. Under California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines Section 15093, a statement of overriding considerations is only legally appropriate when significant and unavoidable impacts have been found. The city prepared one because of the impacts that exist, namely the five that I just read to you. And the director of the community development told this council at the March 21st, 2023 meeting on the record, I quote, because there were conclusions THAT THERE WAS SIGNIFICANT AND UNAVOIDABLE IMPACTS, THE CITY COUNCIL IN ORDER TO ADOPT THE HOUSING ELEMENT UPDATE MUST ADOPT A STATEMENT OF OVERRIDING CONSIDERATIONS. SO THE TRIGGER OF MEASURE U, WHICH IS SECTION 807 IN OUR CHARTER, IS NOT THEORETICAL. IT IS MET FIVE TIMES OVER BY THE CITY'S OWN HAND. the legal framework, because I want to address upfront any claim that I am refusing to follow state law, I want to make it unequivocally clear tonight, I am not. Under the principle of Lockyer v. City and County of San Francisco, this council has no authority to declare a law in the books unenforceable. Only a court can do that. No court, now listen, no court has held Measure U preempted. No court has made that call. And state law itself in Government Code Section 65583, Section A5 requires the housing element to analyze governmental constraints, including voter approval requirements like Measure U. So it is my view that compliance with state law requires honoring Measure U, not ignoring it. The court's December 19, 2025 order tells us to substantially comply with the housing element law within 120 days. The court did not address Measure U. The court did not order us to ignore Measure U. The court did not erase the 2022 findings. It did not repeal Measure U and it does not authorize this council to declare our charter unenforceable. So we are on an apparent collision course between the court's mandate and our city charter. That collision is not something this council has authority to resolve. It is something I believe the court needs to resolve, which is why I'm offering this council a substitute motion. So I move, one, that this council direct the city attorney in consultation with outside council of this council's choosing to file an emergency petition with the San Diego Superior Court within seven days seeking FIRST, JUDICIAL CLARIFICATION. THIS IS WHAT WE NEED. JUDICIAL CLARIFICATION ON WHETHER CHARTER SECTION 807 APPLIES TO THE ADOPTION OF THE 2021-2029 HOUSING ELEMENT UPDATE GIVEN THE SUBSEQUENT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT FINDINGS OF FIVE SIGNIFICANT AND UNAVOIDABLE IMPACTS. NUMBER TWO, IF THE COURT FINDS SECTION 807 APPLIES IN ORDER SPECIFYING HOW THE CITY MAY SIMULTANEOUSLY COMPLY WITH THE COURT'S DECEMBER 19, 2025 MANDATE AND Charter Section 807. And three, an interim stay of penalties accrual pending the court's ruling on Section 807. Measure U, the question at hand. That consideration of Resolution 2026 to 2025 be continued until the court issues guidance on Section 807 question or until 60 days from tonight, whichever comes first. So this motion does three things at once. It respects the court's authority to resolve the conflict that this council cannot resolve. It respects the voters who passed Measure U, and it gives us a defensible record either way the court rules. If the court rules Measure U is preempted, we have judicial cover to adopt without voter ratification. If the court rules Measure U applies, we have clear guidance on what to do next. OTHER OUTCOME IS BETTER THAN WHAT IS IN FRONT OF US TONIGHT WHICH IS BEING ASKED TO DECIDE A QUESTION WE HAVE NO AUTHORITY TO ASK. THE FALLBACK THAT I WOULD PRESENT TO YOU IF THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION DOES NOT CARRY I WILL OFFER TWO AMENDMENTS TO THE RESOLUTION. STRIKE SECTION 16 WHICH I SEE AS A BLANK CHECK DELEGATION TO THE CITY MANAGER AND REPLACE SECTION 11 WITH LANGUAGE PRESERVING MEASURE U ON A PROJECT BY PROJECT BASIS. SO IN CLOSING THE VOTERS PASSED MEASURE U IN NOVEMBER 2024 KNOWING The state had sued us. They chose the charter knowing the cost. We do not have the authority to vote their decision out from under them by citing the price tag tonight. The court has the authority to resolve the conflict. The voters have the authority to repeal measure U. This council has neither. So let the court decide what only a court can decide. And so Mr. Mayor, I respectfully request a second on the substitute motion that I presented.

Second.

Can I ask an opinion from the lawyers on these issues that he has brought up about Measure U?

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and members of the City Council. There are definitely important issues to address involving Measure U, and they have been addressed in the resolution that's before you this evening. Let me start with Section 2, which is the CEQA findings. The last sentence of that says the City Council finds that the actions taken herein are necessary to comply with the court's orders and are being taken to fully comply with the court orders. The CEQA findings do not override in any way the EIR and the analysis that was presented to the city council in 2023. They simply comply with what the court has ordered us to do. So that's what's before you in terms of the resolution. The second part, which is section 11 of the resolution, this deals with measure U, which is an issue that we have discussed and raised with the judge. And what we have done here in section 11 is referred to the constraints analysis which is a required part of the housing element analysis with a finding that the the council has done this constraints analysis however it's also taking into account the constraints under the california constitution and applicable law given that measure U was approved by the voters and can only be changed by a vote of the people as a matter of law. So there's nothing that's before the council this evening that in any way is counter to what the intent of the voters is. The CEQA issue is an issue that is just following the court's orders. There is no overriding any prior analysis done by the city or by the council. And for those reasons, we recommend that the council approve the housing element with the finding that we're just complying with the court's order and adopt the resolution. And if you have any questions, please let me know.

I have a follow-up question to that. So you said that Measure U is not before us tonight? Is that correct?

It's correct in that Section 11 makes very clear that everything we're doing here tonight that's before the council in this resolution is consistent with the voter's intent in Measure U. The council is not overriding Measure U in any way by adopting this resolution.

So tonight, Are we looking at voting on a city-initiated general plan amendment?

Correct.

And has there been an EIR done that finds significant unavoidable impacts in 2022 on this housing element?

Well, that's the part that's different. So what you're talking about is the CEQA finding in 2023. That's different than what's before the council today, which is a different document. It's an updated document. It is also based on a different situation. So we've had the court of appeal in this case issue a ruling that the trial court has followed in the judge's December order from last year that requires that this city council adopt a housing element. And the CEQA finding that's before the council today is simply to comply with the judge's order. That is all it does.

But isn't it the case that even in the resolution before us tonight and the recitals, it acknowledges that the subsequent EIR was for the project that is before us tonight. In other words, it's already on the record, even though we're not being asked to do an EIR or even CEQA moving forward, it doesn't erase the fact that in a subsequent environmental impact research was already done before on this plan if we could pull up the resolution that we're voting on tonight if we can get staff to do that so I mean what I'm what I'm looking at is you know I think it's recital number seven if we scroll down it's not going to go by numbers there it's going to have to count down so I'll start at the Planning Commission. It says whereas the Planning Commission found pursuant to CEQA that general plan amendment number 21-003 may have significant adverse effects on the environment and recommended approval of a statement of overriding consideration and whereas a subsequent environmental impact report number 2022-002 mitigation monitoring and reporting program and statement of overriding considerations were prepared for the project, not a project in the past, they were prepared for the project in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Environmental Quality Act guidelines. And then if we scroll all the way to the top and look at what is the title of this resolution, it's a resolution for the City Council of the City of Huntington Beach approving general plan amendment number 21-03 And section B of what we're considering to approve in terms of actions, it says approve general plan amendment number 21-003 housing element update and adopt city council resolution number 2026-25. And so that's part of what we're voting on section B tonight and that recital in number seven it literally spells out whereas the planning commission after giving notice is prescribed by law held at least one public hearing to consider the general plan amendment 21-003. And so it's the same 2021 through 2029 housing element update implementation program, the final subsequent environmental impact report. And so they found there's going to be significant unavoidable impacts. We don't have to do that as a go forward basis, but it just turns out, it so happens to be that the city has a record of it, that this plan is a plan baked into it with significant unavoidable environmental impacts. And I listed five of them that don't come from me. Again, it comes from the report, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, hydrology and water quality, noise, and utilities and service systems. And so certainly prong number one, what are we considering to do tonight is we are considering an amendment to the plan. I guess prong number two, the question is, is there going to be significant unavoidable impacts? We probably wouldn't know that going forward considering that we wouldn't need to do an EIR going forward, but it just so happens to be we have a record where an EIR was done and it did find these significant unavoidable impacts. And that's where I see the collision course we're headed for with Measure U, which is a conflict with what the voters voted for. And I just don't think we as a council have the authority to preempt it but the court can make that determination. And so that's why my substitute motion would be to go to the court and ask the court to please make a decision on this and give us clarification.

Anthony, you did a great job clarifying that it doesn't apply. Can you just repeat that again? Just to kind of clarify the statements that were just made.

CERTAINLY, HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL, SO THE TWO KEY FACTS HERE, I MEAN, THE ANALYSIS THAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT THAT WENT TO THE PLANNING COMMISSION, THAT WAS IN 2023. OBVIOUSLY, A LOT HAS CHANGED IN THE LAST THREE YEARS, INCLUDING A COURT OF APPEAL DECISION, INCLUDING A DRAW COURT ORDER BASED ON THAT COURT OF APPEAL DECISION. AND THE SECTION 2 CEQA FINDINGS AND THE RESOLUTION THAT'S BEFORE YOU what the council is doing only, you're not overriding what was done in 2023. What you're doing is just finding that the actions you're taking tonight are necessary to comply with the court's orders and are being taken to fully comply with the court's orders. The court is ordering the city to adopt a housing element and making clear that at this juncture we cannot say based on a variety of factors that the council is not going to adopt a housing element tonight because of something that was done in the past the court has ordered the city to do so and the resolution is worded that way as i mentioned this is not the final step but can you update the community on what that court order said in terms of fines etc Certainly, so in terms of the fines, at the present time, the court ordered based on a new statute that came into play after the litigation began, that the city has to pay 10,000 a month retroactive to January 1st, 2025. That's when the new statute came into effect. There's at this point, since we're beyond the May 28th deadline that the court set for the city to adopt a housing element, there's also 50,000 a month going forward. And then there's a hearing on July 1st where the attorney general, is likely to request that the court impose an additional $100,000 a month in penalties against the city based on a different statute. So what the Attorney General is seeking and has sought is the 50,000 plus the 100,000. So essentially 150,000 per month, and then multipliers and additional penalties as that goes on. So Mayor, hopefully that answers your question about the fines and what that looks like going forward.

No, I appreciate that in addressing the statements made about the applicability. As I said, this is not the final step, but in my opinion, the most prudent step to at least submit this housing element to the judge. and hope she weighs in our favor essentially by just satisfyingly submitting it, and then we'll see what happens from there.

Thank you, Mayor. Notwithstanding Councilman Williams' most excellent analysis, which I sincerely mean it was very good, none of us on this dais have ever gone to law school, much less pass a bar exam. We spent a good hour, maybe an hour and a half, hashing this issue over during our closed session. I think I can say that. Let's not talk about closed session. I'm still going to support this item because I have to put my trust in Anthony, who has been in front of this judge. He's been in front of the judges at the at the appeals court level. I have to believe our council. Our city attorney agrees with our outside council, and so I'm going to agree with them too, and I'm gonna support this.

Any comments?

I have a quick comment. Yeah. First off, I'd like to second what Butch has said about Councilman Williams. Fantastic delivery. Hard to refute. But I think, unfortunately, piecemeal, it's probably defendable. Holistically, the entire document, the climate, the new judicial orders and things like that. I think, let's take for example, our voters approved voter ID and we got nowhere with it because the state decided to pass a law immediately after our election and say it's illegal. I think in the state that we're in right now, we're in a very minority position when it comes to trying to execute on our charter we've seen that local control and everything that we were on the campaign trail is was given zero regard after many legal fights i think right now that we're in a position where we're taking one step as my head of household i'll make my financial decisions no matter what the ramification Sitting in this chair at this point, I believe the probability of taking the path of non-compliance will lead to much more financial pain than I'm willing to put on the citizens. Like I said, it's almost beaten into submission with the judicial hammer as the mechanism for enforcement. Unfortunately, I love your passion, I love your position. At this point though, I'm gonna have to vote no on your motion, although I'd love to vote yes and reluctantly at this point support the movement of this one component of the housing element and we'll deal with the rest of it down the way.

I appreciate your point about the voter ID and the voters had passed it and Here's the difference though, and this is what I'm hoping I really wanna highlight with you guys is that we didn't overturn it. It was a court that made that decision. And so what I'm asking for is for the court to make this decision for us. And so the motion, like I had mentioned, it accomplishes three things. It's not like we're not going to comply. It respects the court's authority. to resolve the conflict that the city council cannot resolve, and it respects the voters who pass Measure U, and it gives us, the council, a defensible record. Either way, the court rules.

And you did make, that is a direct difference in how it's been changed to overturn. If I thought when you said a seven-day emergency motion, if I thought we could get resolution out of the court system in seven days, and then make a final decision. But I don't believe, attorney, that we are gonna get the attention of the court under the timelines that we're looking for. And I believe in the end, unfortunately, I don't believe we would win. And now we're suffering penalties along the way. I may be wrong, I wish I was wrong. Right now, this is a probability bet almost. And as much as I know there's merit in what Councilman Williams said, How fast could we get a court to look at an emergency motion, review Measure U for its validity in the context of what's required here, how fast?

Just to clarify, honorable mayor, members of the city council, I mean, the Measure U issue's been before the court. We did ask early on for an extension for the court to analyze a variety of different issues. including measure u we requested up to a 240 day extension which was permissible under the law at the time the judge issued the order last year when the court of appeal issued its decision unfortunately the state legislature changed that statute and it went into effect this year, eliminating the 240-day extension. We argued that issue vigorously before the court for more time so that the judge could analyze Measure U, some new case law that came out, many different issues. and the judge did grant a brief extension, but didn't grant any more extensions. So we have done our best to have the court analyze every issue of importance to the city in light of the Court of Appeals decision. I will say just briefly, It is important to note, and we did put this in the resolution, the Court of Appeals decision is published. It says on its face that it involves issues of first impression. Certainly the issues that the city litigated were issues that had not been litigated before. They were very complicated issues. That's why the decision was published. It was precedent setting. These were new issues that hadn't been litigated before. But after that decision came out, we have done everything we can to extend the time for the judge to look at every possible remaining issue. The judge has looked at everything she's looked at. And now we're up against a deadline because not only was there the May 20th compliance deadline, there's this hearing on July 1st for additional penalties. And to answer the question, I do not see any way that the court will likely give a ruling on Measure U before that hearing on the penalties. And that's where the penalties can go up another 100,000 a month at that point.

To the attorney, Mr. Taylor, but is it not correct in stating that both the Kennedy Commission and the state have stated that they feel as if with Measure U in place, the housing element could be out of compliance by virtue of Measure U?

Well, I will say this, it's not just that. I mean, certainly the Attorney General and the Kennedy Commission in court have taken many positions that various aspects of the housing element are out of compliance. The court's order, ultimately it's up to the court to find that the city has come into substantial compliance with the housing element law. CERTAINLY WE VIEW SUBSTANTIAL AS NOT MEANING THAT EVERYBODY IS SATISFIED THAT'S OPPOSING THE CITY'S HOUSING ELEMENT. SUBSTANTIAL MEANS THAT THERE IS ROOM FOR SOME COMPROMISE THERE. SO YES, I MEAN, THERE'S BEEN LOTS OF ARGUMENTS ABOUT MEASURE U AND MANY DIFFERENT THINGS. The recommendation is before you, given the procedural status of the case and the amount of work that has gone into developing this very extensive and detailed housing element that's before you this evening.

But so it is correct in stating now that it has been recognized between the court, the Kennedy Commission, and the state that Measure U is an issue that needs to be addressed?

Well, I would phrase it this way. It's an issue that's already been argued in court. The issue that you're talking about that needs to be addressed is after the city council approves the housing element, if that's what the council does this evening, then there is likely to be further court proceedings over whether or not the housing element is in substantial compliance with state housing law. So that's a different procedural step than what the motion is this evening.

And at that point, Measure U would be taken into consideration as one of the elements that could be leading us out of substantial compliance?

Yeah, it would be after. So when I see the court taking up that issue again is after the council approves the housing element if that occurs this evening.

Why then and not now when there's two prongs to it, right? It's an amendment to the housing element or rezoning. And so this is the amendment to the housing element. This is that prong. So why not now? Why then?

These have been issues that were ultimately decided by the courts. I mean, in terms of the court of appeal and how the trial court has ruled in the court proceeding so far, the only thing that would make a change so the court would look at things differently procedurally would be if the council adopts the housing element this evening.

So the court hasn't said, I'm just waiting on you to approve an updated element and then we'll take into consideration. I understand Measure U has been all over the court documents, not only from us, from Kennedy Commission, from the state, but what has the judge actually said about it? Number one. Number two, what I'm trying to offer you right now is something on the record where you can go back to the judge and say, judge, look, this city council discussed this on the record it does appear to be the case that they are in a collision course with their own measure. So what we're asking you to do is just rule whether or not it's preempted or give them some type of go ahead.

Yeah, I don't see the judge likely to do that. There is a concept in law called advisory opinions. Judges don't typically give an advisory opinion to a party in litigation. They look at things another way. They look at things as when something's happened, then they make their decision, and that's something that would happen that the judge could make its decision on would be the council approving the housing element this evening.

And do the fines, if we approve this tonight, does that, I mean, I hear you say like likely and unlikely. I mean, I'll take an unlikely shot all day long if that's all I've got. So that's why I'm asking this council to consider it's worth a shot. It's worth going to the judge and simply asking, can you make a decision on this? Otherwise I see this collision course that we're on as a city council versus what the voters had voted on and initiated. That's one thing. And then, yeah, the question, I mean, can you guarantee that the fines are going to stop if we approve a plan tonight? Can you guarantee it?

There is the expression, there are no guarantees in life. So I think that's not just about this. That's true about anything. Certainly the way the law is structured, if the city council approves the housing element this evening as we're recommending, There are various legal defenses we can assert in court. There are solid grounds to argue in court that there shouldn't be any more penalties awarded against the city. So the city council puts the city in the best position possible to avoid any further fines in the future by adopting the housing element this evening.

Thank you, Anthony. Really appreciate it. Just echoed what I had said. This is not the final step, the most prudent step, next step to give us the best options moving forward to finality. Madam Clerk, there's a motion on the floor and a second. Please call the roll.

Motion on the floor. Articulated on video for transcription purposes.

Perfect. By Council Member Williams, second by Council Member Grewal.

Correct. Council Member Grewal.

Yes.

Councilman Kennedy.

That's a very reluctant no, and I'm sorry for the vote.

Mayor Pro Tem Twyney.

I'm not willing to gamble our taxpayers money on a coin flip at the court, so I'm a no.

Mayor McKeon.

No.

Councilman Burns.

No.

Councilwoman Vandermark. No. Councilman Williams. Yes. Motion fails.

All right, I'll make a motion. Go ahead, sir.

5-2.

Thank you. I'll make a motion to adopt the resolution as recommended. Again, reiterating, this is not the final step, but the next most prudent step that gives us the most options moving forward.

Second. Can I make a substitute motion? To amend the resolution to strike section 16, the blank check delegation to the city manager and replace section 11 with a language preserving measure U on a project by project basis.

SECOND.

CAN WE GET CLARITY ON THAT, PLEASE?

ANTHONY, CAN YOU CLARIFY WHY THAT WAS IN THE RESOLUTION AND WHY YOU FEEL IT'S PRUDENT TO KEEP?

IT MIGHT BE HELPFUL TO READ IT, TOO, IF WE COULD JUST PULL IT UP.

I CAN READ IT. SECTION 16 AT THE END OF THE RESOLUTION, IT SAYS THE CITY COUNCIL HEREBY AUTHORIZES THE CITY MANAGER, HIS DESIGNEE, and hereby delegates its authority to the city manager as designated to make all necessary technical changes or clerical revisions to the housing element update as may be necessary for the city to obtain a finding of substantial compliance from HCD, which is the state housing agency, of course, and without, having further action being required by the city council to approve the same. Where this language is taken from, it's actually taken from a published court of appeal decision involving the city of La Habra that was published recently within about the last six months where the court of appeal upheld essentially the same exact language and this delegation. What this allows is for technical changes to be made by the city manager and his designee without having to keep coming back to the city council for public hearings, more public noticing, which is really a critical issue here because you're up against a deadline set by the court. There's not a lot of time here. Time is of the essence. And so that's why we put this language in, which is consistent with the City of La Habra Court of Appeal decision. Section 11 is the section I referred to previously about the constraints analysis and Measure U. It says here, the language says that the city takes into account the constraints of the California Constitution and applicable law in the constraints analysis given that measure U can only be changed by vote of the people. I also want to reference to section 15 of the resolution that's before you this evening. It is also a reservation of the city's rights to get to the point raised by Council Member Williams about sort of a case by case analysis or determination of measure U. There is a reservation of the city's legal rights for specific matters. in the resolution and therefore we recommend just adopting the resolution as is without any changes Thank you.

All right. Good. I can I get an example of a technical change or a clerical revision? Dealing with this is a complex topic What what what would the city manager have a

autonomy to do like what kind of a clerical change revision or technical change could he do without approval of anybody if you could i'm just i am very curious just to piggyback on that especially the technical change aspect you know i understand clerical change you can you can pontificate on that that's you know clerical but technical is kind of scary here

Yeah. So the part that I've weighed in on is the legal side, which is the city of La Habra case, which upheld this language for the day-to-day kind of interaction with HCD. That's been your community development director. So I'm going to turn it over to her because she's the one who's been speaking directly with HCD about what they've been asking for.

And Jennifer, if I could just ask, like, what's the, What's the biggest version of a technical change? How big are we going? Like the biggest technical change that could potentially take place between you and HCD when you guys are going back and forth?

So a technical change would be, for instance, we might use some verbiage that we use daily when we write our housing element. So we might have some analysis in the document that says this type of project would require an administrative permit. And HCD would say, well, what does that mean, administrative permit? Can you add another sentence that says what that process is? So we would add a sentence that says this is a staff level review of this project. And so that would be an example of a technical change. We're not making anything that is substantive, meaning we're not changing any programs, any sites, any of the housing goals that are adopted by the council. So to answer the question of what's the biggest technical change or I guess what would be considered a substantial change would be if we changed any of the housing goals or were asked to change any of the housing goals that are adopted by the city council, any policies, any programs, any of the sites, or any of the constraints analysis where it resulted in a different conclusion. That would be where we would say that needs to go back to council for approval.

Thank you. I guess one concern that I would like to highlight is I imagine that authority was granted to us as a city council for a reason and so I'm a little concerned No offense to you, Travis, at all, but when we're delegating authority of ours as a city council over to the city manager to make all necessary technical changes or clerical revisions of the housing element update, it doesn't sit right with me.

Well, I believe, I would be hopeful his designee, as in parentheses, would be Jennifer. So whether city manager or his designee can make changes I think the attorney or city manager said, we want to avoid making changes coming back to council for approval. Well, if somebody can make a change that's not substantive and doesn't need approval, then can't they meet with us independently and say, here's what we've been asked to change? I don't care about it, put a comma here, changes from a one to a two, but technical, anything of substance, it doesn't sound like anything they do, whether city manager or the designee, is gonna need council approval currently in the way this resolution's written, so why would whoever's gonna make those changes not have the ability to talk to us

and make sure that we don't blow a gasket and say, no way. IS THAT POSSIBLE?

SO, COUNCILMEMBER, WE WOULD HAVE TO AVOID A BROWN. THEY COULD TELL YOU THE CHANGES, BUT YOU COULDN'T EXPRESS YOUR APPROVAL OR DENIAL TO AVOID A SERIAL MEETING AT THAT POINT.

SO, COUNCILMEMBER, WE'VE DONE THAT IN THE PAST, ACTUALLY. SO NOT GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENTS, BUT WHEN WE'VE HAD ENTITLEMENTS, RIGHT, WHERE WE'VE HAD had some changes in fact a recent one is the Warner Bolsa Chica senior living project where the project changed after the approvals were done based on some I think some some court cases right some some lawsuits and the project was changed by the applicant we had to do a review which is allowed by the city's zoning code to say whether or not it's in substantial conformance with the approvals and then The way we convey that is through a memo to the council. And if any council members had any questions, we could speak directly on those issues.

Okay, so can we look forward to, hopefully there's not any substantive changes or technical revisions, but if there was, are we going to follow that format?

Yes, so that would be our typical process. We would relay a memo to the council outlining any changes that were done, any technical changes that were done.

And city manager, would she be the designee? I mean, she, to me, seems to be the subject matter.

Yeah, definitely we would rely on Jennifer Villasenor for the expertise as well as our attorneys.

On a change, though, would there be, if somehow we just detested, just did not like that technical change? Via memo. Would that be reversible?

I mean, we could probably set it for a council hearing. It would have to go back to council, and the council would have to act on the housing element update again, or actually a housing element amendment, but that would be set for a public hearing.

So in other words, if you were communicating via memo and something came across that seemed to be way beyond the scope of what we were comfortable with, we could agendize it and bring it back for council. And I would say this would hopefully be much more of a one-off and not a recurring thing, I would imagine that's a pretty fair statement. Is that true? If at all.

We hope to not make many, if any, technical changes.

Just for example. Go ahead.

No, go ahead.

uh the measure you constraint analysis itself i know that hcd has been requesting that we revise or delete on that that page uh page 3.53 measure you analysis as a condition of certification and so based off of this recital it would seem to be the case the city manager would have the authority to do that once delegated with that authority he could delete that under section 16 as a technical change and that single edit would functioning functionally repeal measure you

No, that would not be considered technical change. JV, correct me if I'm wrong.

Well, so a couple of things. One is that everything under Charter Section 807 in the housing element was added as a result of the HCD comment. So they would have to let us know that they were not satisfied with that information before they saw Before they saw the previous housing element, there was no discussion of Measure U or Charter Section 807. Their comment to the city was to analyze it in the constraints section, which we did in that section that was brought up earlier. So that's one, and then number two, if there were changes to that section, then we would make a determination whether or not it was technical or substantial, and then bring it, if it was substantial, we would bring it forward to the City Council.

And so we're learning here. There's some terminology, substantial change, technical changes. Is there actually like a legal definition for these things that break down the scope of what a technical change is? Because I'm trying to figure out what the outer limits is, what kind of authority we're delegating or giving up. Technical change versus substantial change, or is this kind of in the eye of the beholder?

I wouldn't say it's in the eye of the beholder. I would say the good news is there's a published case, the City of La Habra case, addressing this issue, and the Court of Appeal here in Orange County has given some solid guidance on that, and that's why we're comfortable with Section 16 as drafted, and we recommend the Council approve the resolution as is.

It would seem to be the case that whatever technical changes right now, the way that it is written, it is something that you would have to go before the council, right? To get approval of the way it's written right now. So it's something of that magnitude. And what we're saying is we'll delegate that to the city manager to streamline the process, to hurry up and get all of this going. That's the magnitude I see that we're delegating over. It's something that as it is right now, he doesn't have that authority or whoever it is that he, um,

appoints for that it's something of a magnitude it would have to come before the council will actually get approved i i mean i didn't take that at all it was just technical changes she gave examples of it she said substantial changes have to come back before council with technical changes they would issue a memo if we see that and i'm alarmed with it we can then say let's agendize and bring it back to the public to vote on so I mean, that was my takeaway, am I wrong?

Mayor, if I could just add, the reason for this, I think we're losing the reason. The reason for delegating that authority is to move the process along quickly because we have these fines that are building up.

For sure. That's understood, but in light of speed, we don't want to give up resources what we've all fought for for many years i think jennifer if she was the designee she knows the the belief system of the council so you know as councilman williams say you know there's a felony there's a misdemeanor and there's an infraction So is there delineations, technical revision, material revision, substantial, where it just, kind of like on the zoning administrator, there's the green ones ministerial, there's the reds going straight to planning, and then in the middle of the yellows where one person's making a decision. So we just want to make sure that you know, we look back at a document or an ask that somebody, the designee or the city manager made these changes and we're like, wow, but you're gonna be keeping us in the loop via memo on everything, is that correct? Yes, so if there's a change, the council will receive a notice of it, right, a memo of it and- Or the change or in the contemplation period or you just, they make a request, you do it and then you tell us it was done?

Well, it would probably be a little bit more of a back and forth. So it depends on what the changes are, right? We would have to determine what those changes are going to look like. We would probably draft it up. We would show it to our attorneys. And at that point, it's going to be pretty clear if it's something that's going to be a substantial change, then we would know we have to take it back to council. If it's something minor and technical that we can just clarify for HCD, we would do that, we would show it to them. They might say, this looks good, or no, we want something more. And then at that point we would say, okay, this is now becoming a substantial change, we gotta bring this back to council.

Me personally working with you for two years, I trust your judgment. And if that's your model for communicating and the jumping off point, I would trust your judgment. I would hope she is our designee. She's the perfect fit for it, smart.

He said she is.

Yeah, okay. I mean, that answer, you know, that gives me a level of comfort. My last question, I'll stop beating this horse. Do you foresee a lot of technical revisions? Are we splitting hairs on something that's going to happen once or twice? Or is this going to be like a litany of changes along the way?

I mean, I would say, I hope that there's not. We believe that this is a substantially compliant housing element. We've addressed every single comment from HCD. And so, and the starting point, as I mentioned last hearing, our starting point was a substantially compliant housing element as determined by HCD. So there isn't a lot of revisions that needed to happen in the scope of the entire housing element to begin with.

Thank you.

All right, there's a motion on the floor by Council Member Williams. Substitute motion, second by Council Member Grohl. Madam Clerk, please call the roll.

Councilman Grohl?

Yes.

Councilman Kennedy?

No.

Mayor Pro Tem Twiney?

No.

Mayor McKeon? No. Councilman Burns? No. Councilwoman Vandermark? No. Councilman Williams?

Yes.

Second motion fails, two, five.

All right, my original motion's on the floor.

You got it.

Has it been seconded?

Yes. Pat's second. I have McKeon and Burns. Okay. Councilman Gural?

No.

Councilman Kennedy?

Yes, when you look at the arena numbers, the fairness for Huntington Beach is not, that is not mutually the same. I believe that trending down this path at this point, I need to be a yes vote for the sake of our taxpayers, which we all are as well.

Mayor Pro Tem Twiney?

Yes.

Mayor McKeon?

Yes.

Councilman Burns?

Aye.

Councilwoman Vandermark? Yes. Councilman Williams?

No.

original motion passes five two thank you moving on to the city manager's report city manager please introduce uh your report we have a molly come first um yes i do have a um i wanted to um have molly uramura to provide um some upcoming events um for the fourth of july and this summer and then we will move on to the study session after that what's up molly

Hello. honorable mayor and city council members thank you so much for the opportunity to share a little bit about what we have to look forward to for the 2026 Independence Day events this is obviously the semi-quincentennial anniversary of our country and as such we're really excited to share what we have in store for our community so I'd just like to take a few moments tonight to share with you what we can look forward to over the weekend it's going to be a three-day event which is super exciting and also a little bit about what else we have to look forward to this summer in terms of events in Huntington Beach so we've had an amazing start i'd like to thank our city celebration committee we started things with a bang literally with our banner unveiling event and as well as thanking our public works department they've gotten main street painted the parking stalls red white and blue in celebration of this event that we have coming up here So starting on Friday, July 3rd, you can look forward to Pier Plaza vendors and live entertainment on the City Showmobile that will go from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. And something we're really excited about is the America 250 Carnival. We heard feedback from our community the last several years that they were missing that experience that was in the 6th Street parking lot. And so for this year, we're excited to bring it back. The giant Ferris wheel will be back, which I think would be the perfect spot to view the fireworks, just as a kind of tip. as well as other games and family-friendly activities, and that will run from 12 to 9 p.m. on Friday, July 3rd, and tickets are available for pre-purchase on the 4th of July website, which is right here, www.hb4thofjuly.org. Now for the Big Kahuna Independence Day, we have just a couple of things that you can participate in. So to start off your morning, you can pick one of two options. You can run or you can eat, or if you really want to go for it, you can do both. So we have the Surf City 5K Run, which kicks off at Worthy Park at 7 a.m. You'll run down Main Street. down our beautiful pacific coast highway and come back up to worthy park at the finish line or you can join the kiwanis pancake breakfast at our lake park that runs from 7am to 10am so like i said there is an opportunity to do both if you'd like to support our local huntington beach kiwanis club Then we have the 122nd Annual 4th of July Parade, which will kick off at 10 a.m. at the intersection of Main and PCH. It runs for about two hours in that location, and by the time it reaches City Hall, it will be about 2 o'clock. I don't want to give away too much about the exciting things that we have planned for the parade this year. Flyovers. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I know. Okay, I'm sorry. But one thing I do kind of quickly want to highlight is the USA Round canopy parachuting team. They took a Huntington Beach flag to Normandy. They parachuted out of a plane and that flag is now going to be coming back to Huntington Beach and presented during the 4th of July parade and it will make its way down the parade route and back to Huntington Beach. So that's really kind of an amazing way that we're able to honor the 250th through this year's 4th of July parade. The Pier Plaza vendors and carnival will continue on the 4th of July from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. Something we're also excited about this year is the Main Street Block Party, which has kind of varied where it's gone from year to year. It's been the day before, the day after, the week before. But what we're looking to do this year is bridge the gap in between the fireworks and the parade so that people are encouraged to stay downtown, patronize our local businesses, enjoy a full day of activities here in Huntington Beach, and enjoy some live entertainment. So you can look forward to Danny Maka kind of kicking things off at 3 o'clock, the Ramsey Brothers. Is it really an event in Huntington Beach if the Ramsey Brothers don't play? And our headliner, which is our traditional redneck rodeo. They will play until 8 o'clock, and that gives you time to kind of mosey on over for the fireworks. Something else that's new this year that we are excited to share is the AK and Friends Car Show. Again, this is another way of creating another activation in that afternoon space. We have Aaron Kaufman who you may know from Gas Monkey on TV. He will actually be present on site. I've heard he's bringing some truly one-of-a-kind vehicles, and he'll be signing autographs as part of this car show that you can enjoy on Main Street from 1-4.30 PM on the 4th of July. And we'll be capping it off as if that wasn't enough. We'll be capping it off with the fireworks over the ocean, which is generously presented by the Mayer Family Foundation at nine o'clock. Typically, this is about a 20 minute show. But for this year, for the 250th, we've gone bigger and you can expect a 28 minute show with a great grand finale.

Nice.

On Sunday, July 5th, the fireworks, like I said, they end around 9.30, so that gives you time to get out of downtown, go home, get some rest, and be back and ready to go by 11.30 to join in the community bike parade. This is something that kind of grew out of COVID and has grown so big. As you can see by this picture, this picture was actually two years ago. And look at the crowd. We anticipate 20,000 to 25,000 community members on bikes joining this community parade. We start at city hall and then make your way down main street and end downtown. Again, the timing of this 1130, you will end, um, at main and PCH around 12 through 12, 1230. And the goal is for you to stay downtown, to patronize our local businesses, have some lunch, enjoy some time with your family, and also enjoy the pier Plaza vendors, the live entertainment from 12 to 6 PM. just a couple other summer special events that i would like to highlight that you can look forward to as many of you are aware the fifa world cup is currently going on in la but we're excited here in huntington beach that we have a couple of watch parties that you the community can join these are all free to the public so if anyone like would like to take note these are exciting things you can participate in We have a watch party at the sports complex this coming weekend, the 19th through the 21st. We'll have the 7-11 soccer celebration, which is another watch party event where we'll have some screens. This is actually going to be on the north side of the pier and is in collaboration with 7-11 because they're launching a new Slurpee flavor in honor of the World Cup. You can also sample this new Slurpee flavor before it hits stores here on our beach. We also here in Huntington Beach are lucky enough to host one of the largest girls softball tournaments in the country, the PGF National Championships. They will arrive at the sports complex on July 18th and the tournament will run through August 2nd. They also have an amazing opening ceremony that will be July 27th, which is a Monday in Central Park where they have live entertainment. I don't know if any of you have had the chance to be there, but there are over 5,000 girls in their softball uniforms having the time of their lives. It's a great event to support. Also, we have the US Open of Surfing, which is returning to the south side of the pier, July 25th through August 2nd. With that, I can take any questions.

I just want to thank Molly and the celebration committee and the team working so hard. It's been almost over a year I've been working on it. I think I talk to Molly almost daily with all crazy ideas, and she always entertains me with trying to pull them off. Still a couple Hail Marys we're working on, so I appreciate it. I hope everyone's excited. It's going to be so much fun. I'm pretty sure my voice will be gone by Monday. So thank you, Molly.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yep. All right. Thank you. Travis, study session.

Yes. Jennifer Villasenor will provide the zoning administrator update.

Thank you, Mayor. Jill Boss, our Deputy Director, will give the presentation. And we're hoping today to get some feedback and input from the City Council on some of the zoning administrator responsibilities. And with that feedback, we intend to prepare a zoning text amendment and bring that back forward through the Planning Commission and City Council later this year. So with that, I'll turn it over to Jill Boss, Deputy Director.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor McKeon and council members. Tonight's session will cover the zoning code action items requested by council from a previous council meeting. In March, Mayor McKeon and Councilman Burns brought an H item sharing concerns regarding the zoning administrator authority over conditional use permits and variances. The council's action was for staff to return with three things. One, list of conditional use permits that this VA has authority over. Two, recommendations to update the zoning code. And three, provide a fee schedule and timeline to update the code. To begin, I'll briefly go over the basics of zoning. There are seven types of base districts as shown by our zoning map on the left. Residential, commercial, industrial, public, open space, and so forth. These base districts coincide or WITH OUR ZONING CODE, CHAPTER 210 RESIDENTIAL, CHAPTER 211 COMMERCIAL, CHAPTER 212 INDUSTRIAL AND SO FORTH. WITHIN THESE CHAPTERS ARE LAND USE CONTROL TABLES WHICH FURTHER SPECIFIES EACH ZONE WHICH ARE INDICATED BY THE COLUMNS, THE USE CLASSIFICATIONS WHICH ARE INDICATED BY THE ROWS AND THE DESIGNATED AUTHORITY WHERE THE ROWS AND COLUMNS INTERSECT. SO IF IT'S P, IT'S FOR PERMITTED, ZA SAYS ZONING ADMINISTRATOR, PC FOR PLANNING COMMISSION AND OTHER RESPECTIVE CRITERIA. In response to the action item of providing the list of ZA conditional use permits, a copy of these tables are provided in attachment three of the agenda item number 11 and may primarily be found within our online zoning code, which is also known as title 20 of the municipal code. The next few slides summarize a bit of the information gathering that was completed to address a second action item, which is to provide recommendations to update the code. In April, the Chamber of Commerce held a listening session to discuss the city's permitting and entitlement process. There were approximately 60 business and community members in attendance, including Mayor McKeon, who provided feedback. A summary of the recommendations are to establish an administrative approval process for special uses, publish a straightforward process for the public, launch a concierge service for businesses, and conduct a comprehensive code analysis and modernize the code. I've highlighted the bullet points in red that would be directly associated to updating the code, while the other items could be implemented as part of our award-winning Streamline Surf City program. To also inform code update recommendations, staff reviewed recent history of ZAA-associated applications that have been submitted. With regards to conditional use permits, the primary requests are three-story homes or those that exceed 30 feet in height, establishments with alcohol, and walls and fences. In consideration of recent activity, staff reviewed the code and associated base districts and have prepared a list of recommended changes that would require a text amendment to the zoning code. This list is found in attachment four of agenda item number 11. These changes would align with the Chamber of Commerce recommendations to streamline and primarily downgrade these uses from a public hearing conditional use permit process to administrative permit process or permitted. Provided the projects meet certain development standards and provisions the code amendment will allow these uses to go into plan check and permitting Now there are some uses or project types that staff is needing further clarification and input from the council the items shown on this slide are also found in attachment number four and they stem primarily from recent appeals and concerns that have been shared with staff and Um, these items currently require action by the ZA and, uh, you know, we're looking for confirmation that council would like to elevate these to the planning commission or streamline in the cases of development within 300 feet of residential. They include fences and walls. three-story or 30 feet and above residential homes, variances regardless of percent deviation, alcohol uses with onsite consumption, industrial or commercial development within 300 feet of residential, and maintenance and operations buildings. Within the past year and a half, several projects have been appealed by commissioner or council member. This slide provides a glimpse of the projects where staff costs and time are unrecovered. As shown, there were a handful of appeals of the ZAs action to planning commission and others of planning commission's action to city council. And finally, to address the last action item, changes to the zoning code require a zoning text amendment and public hearings before the planning commission and city council. with an estimated target for the end of this year. These changes can be accomplished within the city's existing fee schedule. However, any adjustment to adopted fees would add more time to the process. If more extensive changes to the code are requested to modernize and reevaluate more sections of the code, the estimated timeline may be impacted. In the meantime, staff is working through streamlined Surf City initiatives and ways of enhancing our resources and services to the general public and our customers. This concludes staff's presentation. Staff is available to answer any questions from the council. I can go back to the slide if you'd like to provide more input on those particular items. Thank you.

All right. Lot to unpack there. So I'm just trying to understand next steps what you guys recommend maybe we have council briefings get input come back i mean this is a big undertaking where i was coming from um to bring this forward is in my private sector professional commercial real estate career, I've never had a conditional use permit be approved by a zoning administrator level. It's usually always a public hearing with a commissioner that's connected to an elected official who's obviously connected to the voters that elect them. So what I would just like to see is currently the list of CUPs that the ZEA zoning administrator has authority over. That would probably be for me the first step. And if I had that comprehensive list, and we don't have to do it tonight, had that comprehensive list, then analyze each one and probably meet with staff and go, okay, why... Why does this CUP, why is it with the ZA? Should it be at the Planning Commission? And then get some feedback. Jennifer, you had mentioned, correct me if I'm wrong, but like any vacant land or I guess if you demolish a building and then build, even if it's built to code, it requires a CUP.

Yeah, so maybe you might want to go back, Jill, to the slide with needing input. What's one of the items that we've put on the list that we would like to get some feedback from council tonight? So what it is is if you have vacant land, which would also be new construction where you demolish a building and rebuild on that land or redevelop.

Okay, so real quick. So obviously vacant dirt that's never been improved or a complete demo scraped to the foundation also then falls in the category.

right or additions or what do you mean additions uh additions to a building within 300 feet of residential okay all of those fall under this one umbrella that requires a conditional use permit um so it's not necessarily based on an actual use like um okay like a restaurant with alcohol, but it's more about the construction. So one of the questions we have for the council tonight is there's either an opportunity to say it doesn't need a conditional use permit, that it's really more relevant to process a site plan review. And that could eat that site plan review. Let's say if everything meets the code could be approved as a permitted by staff Or it could go to the zoning administrator or Planning Commission and then the other question is or you could take it the other way and remove that zoning administrator requirement and bump it up to the Planning Commission and

Yeah, again, there's a lot to unpack there. So in the first example, I think it makes sense if it's raw land or demolish a building and to remove those from that umbrella with the 300 feet of residential, I think that makes sense to require CUP because now obviously you're impacting neighborhoods and residential areas, et cetera. So if you're outside of sensitive areas and you're just building raw land and or demolishing a building and building up or add an addition and it's outside that radius of sensitive areas like residential, in my opinion, that shouldn't require a conditional use permit.

So what I'm hearing is bifurcating that provision and essentially if any of those things, whether it's developing additions or new are within 300 feet, that would be a conditional use permit. And let's say that goes to the planning commission. And then if it's not within 300 feet and it meets one of those criteria and it meets code, it's just a site plan review at the staff level. Got it. Does that seem to be, I guess what I would also be looking for is, is there any, is that consensus amongst the rest of the council?

But are we going to go over some of these like in some of our meetings to really kind of narrow some of this stuff down more?

Well, we've essentially narrowed it down to these uses right here. And so if the council would like during this study session, we can go down the list of each one and get input from the city council.

Yeah, might as well. I mean, let's just knock it out. Okay.

Okay.

Okay. So, so fences and walls. So all districts goes to the Z a right.

Right, so right now the code allows certain height for fences. If you propose to deviate from those allowances, it's a conditional use permit to the zoning administrator. Our question for the council is, should that be a conditional use permit to the planning commission?

Okay, so give an example, like a wall, it's what, now it's eight feet, right?

Yes.

So if you want to come and I want a bigger wall than eight feet.

Or within the front yard setback if it's 42 inches. So an example of a previous wall that went to the zoning administrator that was appealed was on Main Street. There was actually a couple on Main Street where there was in the front yard setback, the maximum height is 42. request at 42 inches, the request was to go taller than that, I think in one case, six feet. And so that went as a CUP to the zoning administrator.

So in my opinion, and again, others jump in after me, let's just use the eight foot example. Code says eight feet. If you wanna go bigger, okay. Is there like a cap on how much bigger they can go or is it?

No, it would be whatever they're requesting.

Yeah, so in that situation, if they go above code, That should be a CUP that goes to Planning Commission. Because that's a big decision, in my opinion, for a non-elected official or a connected commissioner to an elected official. Because you have the code. So the code's eight feet. Well, you want to come in and do 10? All right, well, it's a CUP, and he has to go to Planning Commission. Yeah? Yeah?

Everything up here right now already requires a CUP, but who approves it is what we're talking about, ZA. So we're not telling them, everything we're looking at is already a CUP, either approved by the ZA or potentially Planning Commission or City Council, right?

Everything up here right now, the code requires a CUP from the ZA. And the question for all of these is should they be moved up to the Planning Commission except for the last one on the list, which we'll talk about.

Okay. what was that front yard example that you'd use because i mean i guess it just kind of varies based off of like what type of wall where it's at right like that that front yard one was how many feet uh it was 42 inches and the request was to go to six feet so 42 inches is about three and a half feet so let us suppose they're 42 inches that's what the zone is right and they let's suppose they want to add six inches If we change it right now, does that mean they have to go to Planning Commission for the extra six inches instead of the zoning administrator's discretion?

Yes.

And then just out of curiosity, so we totally know what the cost would be to an applicant, if they go to the zoning administrator to get that CUP for let's say another six inches on the wall versus now they can't go to the ZA, they have to go to Planning Commission, what might the cost difference look like for the resident that's trying to get that change for six inches on a wall?

For fences, as it turns out, we actually have a separate fee for fence CUPs in the front yard. This was established, I can't remember when, but it was kind of to address that scenario because in downtown, It comes in waves, but we would tend to get a lot of requests for people to go from 42 inches to a four or five foot tall wall because in the downtown area, a lot of people use their front yards as their yard areas because the streets are alley loaded with the garages in the back, so that becomes their primary outdoor open space so we have a separate uh fence fee for a cup we could carry that over to the planning commission so it's effectively the same fee as the za right now and that's specific for because it's already established as a fence cup fee i could support something like that okay okay ready for the next one

To that point, can I ask, just generally speaking, zoning administrator versus planning commission, is it a significant cost increase?

It can be, depending on the use.

Okay, so then for each one, we should probably also take that into consideration, because that, at least for me, would weigh into the decision.

Okay.

and we talked about that jennifer like the big up charge you know on one it's kind of in the middle and you said we we might even have the ability to designate an interim fee between the two didn't you say something like that you could so there's there's one way there's two ways to do it one is we we already know the the fees that are set

on the fee schedule for both a zoning administrator, CUP or any of the items for the planning commission, they're based on fee studies that are conducted and they're based on basically time, right? That's the cost recovery for the amount of time and the amount of staff that it takes to process those. So one, we could do a new fee study, but that might turn out that that the fees go higher.

Yeah, that's fine. And you don't have to elaborate on that. Right now, if it was going to the zoning administrator for a fee, what more work does staff have to do if you just said go to planning commission? Because planning commission basically is volunteers, small stipend. Would you have to create a bunch of new information to bring it before planning that you wouldn't have to have from the ZA standpoint?

Generally we do, we don't prepare staff reports for the zoning administrator agendas. So a planning commission gets a full staff report. We also have to provide information to appointed officials that are not necessarily professional planners. So generally it requires more information. And then there's also additional noticing requirements that may have to occur depending on the type of item that goes to the planning commission. But there but I will put it this way Enter in the code. There are a list of probably a hundred different Conditional use permits a lot of what we're proposing that was on the previous slide We're recommending a downgrade that where there currently is a conditional use permit that's required that now we're saying for one reason or the other that Generally, when we've done these, an example would be a pet vet. Right now, people that come in for a pet vet, they have to get a conditional use permit from the zoning administrator. Over the years, really the issue that's analyzed is potential noise. Generally, the only time that becomes an issue if it's a 24-hour operation. So the list that we're recommending to downgrade is a regular veterinary office that's open let's say eight to five or that's generally around their hours. That would just be permitted by right and only a 24 hour operation would still need the conditional use permit so we can look at the potential noise impacts. And so there are many uses like that that we're recommending. In the previous slide, that would be downgraded from a conditional use permit to a zoning administrator. And many of these uses are the business related uses, veterinary offices, tattoo establishments, common businesses that you might see that now that they would have to go through a process that costs time and money would be downgraded to a permitted use. Of those, we're looking at a handful that we're asking the council if they want to upgrade it to the Planning Commission just based on some of the issues and concerns that have been raised in the public over the last several years. that would result in additional time and costs from the cities and to bring those forward, which results in higher fees for those applications.

On a staff report for a fence, zoning administrator or planning commission, let's say we said whatever category, we took it out of the hands of the zoning administrator, went to planning commission. Wouldn't the staff report over time be basically the same written material interchange with the address and a couple specifics. I mean, couldn't there become a time where the staff reports are almost searchable by planning commission? Like they get the agenda, we have something coming down range and instead of you having to write a specific staff report, Isn't it pretty repetitive if it's a height or soil import-export? Right now that zoning administrator, if you had to take it to planning, every time somebody's looking for a soil import-export, isn't the context of your staff report going to be basically the same other than the load amount or the type of dirt? And couldn't they seek that information on a menu and learn it themselves?

Well, some staff reports can be, and those are the ones that we're recommending the downgrade to permitted because we already know what we're looking for, parking, a personal enrichment. These uses that would require a conditional use permit from the zoning administrator, we've come to find that really the only issue that ever we have to really look at is parking, which is already a code requirement. So we're recommending a downgrade there because it's going to either meet parking or it's not. And so these ones, they're very project specific. Soil import export is gonna be wholly based on the project location, the site characteristics, what's being proposed to build there. Generally when you have the amount of soil import export that triggers this requirement, the project itself is going to require probably planning commission anyway.

Okay. Your answer is no, there's not like boilerplate seek and find staff reports that line up where you could just move it along. What I was trying to do is move as much as possible to Planning Commission without the fee going up. Because I see Planning Commission meetings getting canceled all the time. We have seven able-bodied people that would love to be deliberating every other week. That's part of the fun of being on the Planning Commission. So every time I see a cancellation, I'm like, let's give them more work. If we give more work without charging the customer more, but I guess you're saying there is time, staff time, that we can't remediate out of the equation, so that's the fee escalation.

Yes, exactly.

Okay.

Okay, let's keep it moving here.

Yeah, so the next one is, the third story 35 foot height limits for single family. Those currently, if you're doing third story habitable area or going up to 35 feet, between 30 and 35 feet, both of those trigger a conditional use permit. It's to the zoning administrator. Many of these in the last couple of years have been appealed to the planning commission. So our question for the council is do you wanna escalate this to the planning commission?

So for me, two-pronged yes. Planning Commission, however, I would like to look at the code. I think Commissioner Atenas had a good idea of changing the pitch height and then decide what our maximum is. Let's just do 30 feet or 35 feet. Like pick one or the other. I'd rather do it that way so that it just is what it is. You go 30 feet or you go 35 feet. That's the code. Nothing higher and no CUP. That's me personally, but what others want, it's fine. I just think let's just set the limit and be done with it. And I think updating the code with pitch out of the roof and all that stuff and get rid of that whole three-story conflict that keeps coming up and space and balcony and setback balcony that came before us last year. So I think for me, I would just like to update the code that This doesn't even require a CEP.

The five by 12 setback on the third story. Right. And if it was set back by the 512.

I think Commissioner Theanis had a really good. Go up 35 feet. And I would reach out to him.

And it's all around too. Wasn't it all around that he was the five by 12 pitch?

Yeah, that's what I would prefer. Just attack it that way. And then there's just, that's the maximum height. That's it. And update the code. And then there's no CEP.

Yeah, nothing above it.

Right. Yeah, we can talk about that. I mean, it'll come back to us, but that's the goal is like, you know, maybe it's the pitch height, the third story, and then we decide, hey, do we want 30 to be the maximum? Do we want 35? And whatever we decide as a body, that's the maximum. That's it. Nothing goes above it. No CUP. That's it.

Why would we have a deviation in there to begin with? Is that something that's required in any way, or is that just kind of arbitrarily in there?

Which part?

Like, why 30 or 35? Yeah.

I think this stems back from, and Jill, you can jump in, but this stems back, I want to say 30, 35 years ago or so. It used to be that you could do 35 feet, but there wasn't any criteria. At that time, there were people that didn't like that. They wanted to keep more of a pitched roof look. They wanted it to look more like a two-story. So back then, the city council established this committee. They came up with these regulations and said, okay, 30 feet, you don't have to have a pitch requirement or conceal the third story volume. But once you go up to 35 feet, so that area between 30 and 35 feet, all of these additional requirements get triggered. And that was to address the concerns at that time OF WHAT THE COMMUNITY WAS CONCERNED ABOUT AND WHAT THE COUNCIL WAS CONCERNED ABOUT. OVER TIME, THERE'S BEEN, I WANT TO SAY, DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS OF HOW COMPLIANCE IS ACHIEVED, ESPECIALLY AS PEOPLE ARE COMING UP WITH DIFFERENT WAYS TO GET THERE. AND SO WE WOULD BE HAPPY TO COME UP WITH A NEW CODE SECTION, AMEND THAT CODE SECTION. IT'S BEEN 30 YEARS OR SO.

So if we amended it in such a way to where there is no deviation on variances, we just have a very precise height on roofs, it would seem to be the case that there would be no scenario then where they would have to come before a zoning administrator or a planning commission just because they're just either following the code or they're not. If they're not following the code, is there some avenue for them to somehow

Yeah, so then if they aren't following the code, they would be, the process would be a variance. So a variance is sort of a catch-all if you don't want to follow the code. The findings for variances are very difficult to make. That's why we don't have a lot of applications, but there is a process. There is an option.

Well, so that's the next one. So just going to that, right? So variance, if it's under 20% deviation, it goes to zoning administrator, right? If it's over, it goes to planning commission.

Yes. Yeah.

Okay. So if we were to fix the code on the residential three story, and then they still want to push the limit, then it goes to the variance category. Me personally, I think if it's over 10% goes to the planning commission, I would have to see what other cities do.

I feel like 20% deviations kind of a lot, but if they want to go 36 feet, that's less than a 10%, but yet I don't think the zoning administrator ought to be able to

That's a good point.

It's they're going above it. Anything above on a height wise residential, I would say just not allowed period.

So kind of to your point is that if you set a height limit, that's what the limit is and there's no deviation. Pretty much.

Yeah, that's what I would. Are there any examples in which outside of the 30, 35 foot residential, et cetera, in which a variance would be required that you feel is outside of the scope of what we're discussing right now? Are we missing anything here?

As it relates to just the third story residential piece?

No, no, outside of that.

Yeah, you go to commercial projects and everything else, they're gonna want variances, setbacks, stuff like that. And then that's where that catch-all bucket. So maybe we need to attack it per, I guess, sector.

For variances? Yeah. So right now, pretty much, unless the code specifically says that a deviation can be done through a conditional use permit, which is only for things such as fences and these third stories. Everything else requires a variance. If it's under 20% variance, it goes to the zoning administrator. Over 20% goes to the planning commission. We do also have an administrative, what's called a waiver of development standards. Those are certain development standards that if you have a waiver under 10%, that is an administrative process. And as I mentioned, we do not get a lot of variance requests because the findings are very difficult to make. A variance, unlike a conditional use permit, a variance is related to some sort of hardship that exists with the property that makes it otherwise undevelopable when compared to the surrounding areas. So one very obvious example would be if I had a very big slope let's say in my backyard which cut my property in half and I couldn't meet the setback that everybody else on my block let's say could then I would apply for a variance and those findings we could make because there's a significant topographical hardship issue that doesn't allow somebody to do what everybody else in their same zone and their same vicinity can do. That's the finding you have to make for a variance. It's very difficult, which is why a lot of people don't apply.

I would recommend then any variance go to the planning commission. That'd be my recommendation.

Okay.

So rare. I mean, and that's such a, you know, big threshold to hurdle then. Yeah. I mean, to Pat's point, they might as well just go to the planning commission. All right, height, grade differential, I mean, that's all.

Yeah, those two, the grade differential height is how we measure height. So right now you need a CUP if you have a site with a grade differential that's greater than three feet. Usually, again, like soil import export, it's going to be with a project that probably already has some sort of entitlement process anyway. And so- So you just kick it to Planning Commission is what you're saying? Right, so the questions on height for both of those would be the exceptions to height and then the grade differential. Right now it's a ZA, CUP, does the city council- Yeah, just go to Planning. And just so, this is just input for us, this would come back through the Planning Commission and City Council at full public hearings and the Council can make their decisions.

Yeah, and we could also do the Council briefings. Can you give me an example of grade, like a grade differential? I mean, I know what you're saying, but just like, what are you saying?

So let's say you have a big site, right? And from one end to the other, there's probably a gradual slope. And if that gradual slope is greater than three feet, it triggers a conditional use permit because you usually have to take into consideration the adjacent properties, right? And how the development on that property is going to look height-wise compared to surrounding properties. if you have a three foot grade differential and let's say you wanna even it out and an applicant say, let's say proposes to raise the site, that's gonna impact the height as compared to, let's say lowering the site. So those are the reasons why it requires a CUP.

That's a big change, retaining walls, stuff like that.

So that is a great example of going to the planning commission. For sure.

Okay.

Yep. All right, so import export, same thing, right guys? I mean, please.

What's NN again? Down at the bottom.

It's neighborhood notification, so there would be mailings out to the... Yeah, that's when it gets, you know, the cost and... No.

Did she say needs notification? Neighbor.

Neighborhood notification.

Neighborhood notification, okay.

All right, outdoor facilities, Jen?

So parking is also a conditional use permit depending on the request. So if they do joint use parking in a commercial center, Those would typically go through a conditional use permit, reduced parking for certain uses. Would you want to also elevate that to the planning commission?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I know we skipped outdoor facilities, but let's just stick on this one. So joint use parking, reduced parking. You got to use your neighbor's parking to park, all that stuff. I mean, that's planning commission to me. Yeah. That's a big deal.

Let's touch on that real quick. Weren't we trying to reduce some of the parking requirements to make it more feasible by code, more feasible for different uses that typically in the old days required a higher parking ratio? Yep. Did you do that? Were you contemplating that? Because that was going to make it more feasible for some of these strip centers with shared parking or even single use that might have an old four to one per thousand and really only needs two to one, things like that.

Yeah, we discussed that at the business development community. We started to discuss it, but we're happy to wrap that into when we bring this zoning text amendment forward and the council as a body can look at that.

Don I was at that convention last week got a lot of retail brokers come up to me and say they're struggling because they have like little mini fitness guys, jiu-jitsu guys, or they have some wellness places, and the parking code is too onerous, so there's a way, I think we just need to do a refresh, and maybe it's not four spaces per thousand square feet, maybe it's two, maybe it's three. Look at these restaurants, some are dying in where they're occupying a lot of parking, so they need to move closer to 10 spaces per thousand like normal, but yeah, I think we should just do separately an updated parking code analysis.

Okay.

For sure.