City - Special Meeting

Yeah, recording in progress.

Good evening, everyone. This is the special closed session meeting of the Pacific Grove City Council. It's Wednesday, August 5th, 2026 at 5 p.m. here in Council Chambers and 300 Course Avenue in Pacific Grove, California. I call this meeting to order.

This is the special closed session meeting.

We have an agenda, a closed session agenda with two items, A and B. Can I get a motion to approve? Council Chambers and 300 Course Avenue in Pacific Grove, California. At this time, I'm gonna ask if there's any members online who wish to comment on item A or B.

If so, let us know now. Okay, so we only have no members of the public online for the record. We have no members of the public in chamber for the record. therefore we will adjourn to closed session to come back at 6 pm for the regular meeting or the special meeting again thank you very much so we don't have no members of the public online for the record we have no members of the public in chambers for the record and therefore we

Recording stopped. Need that skill. Recording in progress. Alright. Bring it together here.

OK.

Cheers. Alright.

Are we recording? Ready to go?

Ready to go.

Okay. Good evening, everyone. Welcome to the special meeting of the Pacific Grove City Council. It's Wednesday, August 5th, 2026 at 6 p.m. 601 p.m. Council Chambers, 304th Avenue, Pacific Grove, California. I'm calling the meeting to order. And I'll ask Council Member McDonald to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please. Thank you very much move on to approval of the tonight's agenda fairly brief agenda tonight, so you have a motion to. Have a motion by Rao second by yeah second Thank you. yeah thanks so. We got a motion in the second we'll take a voice for all in favor say aye aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously. We'll move on to item three, council and staff announcements. Is there any council announcements tonight? Council Member Garfield?

Thank you. I recently came across something that people may know about. But in August 1 a new a new law came into effect called drop DROP. But what it does is allows you to at require data miners to remove your name from their lists and the way to get it as you go to privacy.ca.gov and go through identifying yourself and within 90 days data miners are required to drop you from the list that they sell so it's sort of like the do not call list but for other things as well there you go that's interesting yeah all right thank you for sharing anyone else on the council wish to make an announcement okay we'll go ahead and go to staff announcements start with 3a report on closed session by the city attorney

Thank you, Mayor. With respect to both items, in closed session, an update was provided to council and direction was provided to staff, but no reportable action was taken.

Thank you very much, Mr. Lorca.

Mr. Mogenson, any staff reports?

No announcements tonight. Okay, thank you very much. We'll go ahead and move on to the consent agenda tonight. Yes, yes.

Are we gonna have a general public comment tonight?

It's not on the agenda. Is that because it's a special meeting?

Okay, good.

All right, and so just for the public's edification, there will be comment on each of the items if it is so desired by the public. So we'll go on to consent agenda, dealing with routine and non-controversial matters. However, I think there's only one item, 5A on the consent agenda, and I believe one or more of our council members would like to poll that out.

I'd like to poll 5A.

And I think I will share that. So we'll go ahead and pull 5A. Thank you very much, Council Member Rao. We're gonna hear 5A, we'll hear it first. There is no vote necessary on consent. There are no other items. So we'll go ahead and move on to item 5A now. And I will recognize Sandra Kandel, our city clerk, to give a brief overview on item 5A.

Thank you, Mayor. So this item is before you because the Elections Department requested a clarification as to whether the entire text of the ordinance is printed in the voter information pamphlet or not. And it wasn't clear in the resolution. And so that's why this item is before you tonight. Staff is just requesting direction from the council, clarification as to whether the council would like the entire ordinance printed or alternatively, with the filing of the attorney's impartial analysis, there's language on the bottom of his impartial analysis that directs the public where to get copies of that. So that's just a brief report of what is before you tonight. That concludes my report.

Okay, thank you. We'll go ahead and take public comment on item 5A. This is regarding entire text of ordinance on the ballot measure. So if there's any people online that wish to comment on this item, please do so. Please raise your hand now.

Thank you, Mayor. I do not see any hands currently raised.

Okay, and I don't see anybody jumping up and down into chambers either to come forward on this. So I'll go ahead and close public comment on item five a bring it back to the Council for questions and action and I'll recognize Council member route this time.

thank you i did have a couple of questions that i want to thank the city clerk for getting those answers one was could we print a qr code to direct people to that website and the answer from the county was no you cannot and I am going over the history. It looks like, on average, it's about $963.50 a page to print. And we are required to print English and Spanish. When you look at that, $1,000 a page and 18 pages is almost $18,000. So I don't... particularly think that it's something that we should do i think um even the people in our town i think are very adept at finding information we have super high uh high proficiency voters in our town, they're very well informed. And I also think that maybe on here, what we could add is that we will print and mail, but maybe we also print a copy and have it in a binder out in front of the council chambers. And then maybe also print a copy at the library if anyone would rather go there to read it. But even if we print it off, you know, 30, it would still be significantly cheaper than $18,000. So that's my feeling is that I'm not sure that we need anything other than the attorney summary, as well as the As well as the text of the forum again. So that's just my thoughts on it. It, it seems to be An expensive way of doing things. And I think, you know, I'm not sure that a lot of people Actually go out and read it. So There's my, my thoughts.

Thank you, thank you. And Ms. Candela, do you have a question? So currently what is being done and how is it different than what the full text would be? Currently it's just referenced?

Yes, currently it is the question, the impartial analysis, the arguments, the rebuttals, and that's it.

And then the full text of the ordinance does not appear?

not not unless we requested correct okay but it's it's referenced they can get it okay it's referenced in the in some terms and partial analysis um to code um with the language that states it can be it's made available on the website and also contacting the city clerk and uh and that we would mail it at the city's cost okay and well i i tend to agree with councilman brown on this one as well on councilmember mcdonald

What the standard practices regarding this. So would you and I don't know if you do, but that the question is, is it more standard practice to include ballot measures or is it more common in general from your experience to To do this kind of reference type format. So the voter pamphlet isn't so large. I'm not sure what the

the cities and in general, I don't know if I could answer the county wide and as to other cities, but I know that the practice here has been with the research that was done that the full ordinance has been published in the past.

So in the past, it has been published.

It has been published in the past, yeah.

Okay. And I know we only received one comment letter about it, but in reading that, it was interesting because my thought was, it is true, we have a community that tends to be very engaged and online. So just some things to throw into the conversation before we make a decision is, is it better for, is the more conservative way to do it to have it there so people can more easily read it in case they have difficulty reading. I find a lot of people in the population I work with at work, the only device they maybe have is a phone, for example, and it's a little hard to read an ordinance on your phone if you have to type in a link and go to it. So I would not be opposed to adding the full Yes, there is an additional cost, but it's an important thing that we want the citizens to have the opportunity to fully consider whether they want to include the tax. So it could potentially be beneficial to have it in there. I like the idea of saving the cost, obviously, but there may be a benefit to the public to have it in an easily accessible place for them to have the full context of the measure when they're doing their voting. So thank you.

Thank you.

I think we've discussed this further. I would like to make a motion to direct the staff to submit a letter to the Monterey County Elections Office requesting the full text of the ordinance not included in the ballot. Okay, we have a motion on one.

Do I have a second? Motion is rec one. Do I have a second? Okay, thank you. We have a motion and a second. Discussion on the motion. Council Member Paduri.

Thank you. I had a couple of questions or comments. The first thing was just from my edification here, and this is probably directed to council. In the June 20, like the measure C that we had in June, the elections code number that was cited there was 9280. And this agenda item we're citing 9160. Does that play a role at all in any of this. And if it can be it has to be researched or something we can take it separately okay. And I wanted to know if that code like went into the resolution or not, the other thing is the when we say like part of this will be part of the information ballot, the other half or whatever the rest can be pulled online. What is the part that is actually on the information ballot for the for the partial how will I, how will anybody here know that. So whatever is there in the agenda item is going to be on the ballot is that what it is right so that. it's only like five lines. Okay. My view is that. Somebody who's voting for a transaction use tax increase is only going to see these five lines on the ballot. and the link and go somewhere?

And the question. And the question itself. The question itself will be there.

Then there will be these comments and there'll be an impartial analysis. But the detail behind that tax measure will be part of that link.

Yes, that will link to the measure.

I think this is an important tax measure for the city. I mean, part of me says, why waste the money? But part of me also thinks that this is an important measure for the city. And I think it is beneficial, in my opinion, for the public to actually see what we're proposing. So I'm in support of what Ms. Councilwoman McDonald is saying is, I think we should publish the whole argument, rather than getting into the links etc, I know it is a extra cost, but I think, noting that this is an important measure for the city, I think we should not leave any stone unturned here okay.

All right, thank you. So at this point, we have a motion by Emilio, second by Rao to just go with the recommended action on one, and that would be not to print the entirety of the ordinance, keeping in mind that other things are printed that like the question is really what people look at when they're voting. But Council Member Garfield.

Yeah, quick question. This gender report says that our historical practice has been to not completely and i'm hearing you say something different correct correct after some research my.

The there. there's not enough of research to be able to do this, but there were circumstances when it was not printed and my recollection for recent ones obviously was not there. And so it's sort of half and half. And when, as I went back to do more research, yes, the most recent practices has been to print the entire ordinance, the entire text. Early on in my tenure, it wasn't. And so again, it's yeah. So I did, you know, I did receive the email as well.

I did go back, did some research, and I truly appreciate you double checking and giving us the most complete information. My point would be that if we have a history in recent past, maybe not just one, but multiple things of printing the whole thing, is this when we want to change our practices? And I would say no.

Okay, go ahead and take a look since we have some dissension here. There is a motion on the floor, so without any... Absolutely, go ahead.

Thank you, I just wanted to point out that this is an incredibly long website. So for somebody with underlines and underscores to get this in there to be able to find the measure would be challenging, I would guess. So to make somebody have to go and type in over a full line of text for a URL, I personally wouldn't encourage that, thank you.

Okay, we're gonna go ahead and take a roll call vote. I mean they can do that if they want i'm not going to entertain i'm not going to enter you know interjected someone wants to make motion, they can but. let's go ahead and take the vote if no one's making motion.

No. No. No. No. Yes. Okay.

So then photos from that is we're going to print it. Okay. All right.

Very good.

Next item. George Washington park force management plan draft review and I will. Asked Mr first to kick us off.

there's no Council members, please give me a moment to share my screen here. I'm happy to be here tonight to present the first draft of the George Washington Park Forest Management Plan. I'm joined by our urban forester, John Kenny, to my right here. He just hit his one year anniversary as the city's urban forester and his experience and knowledge base from years as an arborist in other small towns, small municipal governments has been invaluable to the public works and to the city and to the formation of this plan tonight. So I'm really happy to have him by my side tonight. The management plan we're discussing tonight is for George Washington park a 20 acre urban forest in the heart of Pacific growth. Home to the largest contiguous stand of Monterey behind in the city and of note Monterey pine is IUCN listed as endangered with native stands at only five locations worldwide.

The park has a dual role, ecological resource and active community park.

And it's home to our baseball field, play structures, trails, and picnic areas. And you can see some vintage iterations of the welcome sign there. In the middle, before it was George Washington Park, it was just Pacific Grove Municipal Campgrounds where tent camping was encouraged and very popular. The park was purchased in 1925 for $10 and later in the 40s, it was declared by ordinance that it was for recreational purposes. I think both of those things kind of show that there's been pendulum shifts through time of what the priorities of the park have been, whether it's conservation of nature or recreational uses. And there were times where camping was encouraged and then there was times where people didn't welcome the campers as much. some historic photos of pine stands around the park. I think most of these pictures predate the park itself, so I can't say that they're 100% at the site of George Washington Park, but they're in the general vicinity. And you can see at the turn of the century when these pictures were taken, this was a recreational area where people would come to picnic. And in the photo on the bottom left, you can see that before the introduction of European invasive grasses, the forest floor looked a lot different. And then you can see on the right there that management of the park is something that's been going on for decades and decades, centuries. That's a photo around the turn of the century where people were going in there and limbing up the trees and making space for new growth. Also that document there is the deed when the park was purchased for $10.

Why this plan, why now?

In the general plan George Washington Park is designated as both natural resource and a community park. We have a current master plan for George Washington Park, which was written by former Forrester Frank Ono adopted in 1999 and that plan is now over 25 years old. It doesn't reflect current ecological conditions regulatory requirements or best practices. And in recent years in the last six or seven years conflicting stakeholder input has periodically stalled consistent maintenance and there's parts of the park that have been neglected quite a bit. And the graphic there is just showing some of the kind of overlapping plans that impact the park so we have the 1999 george washington park master plan the 2022 george washington park forest management plan written by dudek and associates that was not adopted a 2024 biological resources report and the 2024 community wild life wildfire protection plan A little timeline on how we got here in 2021 Council directed staff to seek a consultant and draft a new force management plan that plan as presented to the NRC and presented to Council was ultimately rejected. with the community and council requesting a more thorough biological assessment. So that kicked off an effort to do an exhaustive 12-month study, and maybe exhaustive is not the right word, but a really thorough 12-month study by a local biological group, Denise Duffy and Associates, and it resulted in the 2024 Biological Resources Report. that really goes into detail about the flora and fauna present at the park and different options to preserve wildlife and nature in the park. And now in 2026, staff, including our new forester, John Kenny, and myself, consolidated the 99 master plan, the 24 bio report and related documents into a single draft forest management plan. We brought it to the BNRC in June of 2026. The BNRC reviewed and commented on that draft plan and the BNRC George Washington Park subcommittee formalized their comments and recommendations and submitted that to staff. staff responded to those comments and recommendations in a matrix which is attached to this agenda item and was brought back to the BNRC and further discussed at the July 2026 BNRC meeting. And the BNRC had some really, really great comments, some minor corrections and some big ideas. And of their recommendations in the staff response were sorted into three main buckets. some of their comments really were already incorporated into the plan um and it was staff's opinion that you know no further action needed to be taken because what they're suggesting or commenting on is already in the plan some of their ideas staff totally agrees with and would like the opportunity to add those to this plan and what we have tonight is still the first version of the draft that was originally brought to the nrc And then there are some ideas that they brought forward that staff either doesn't think are practical at George Washington Park, but more so of those ideas that are not recommended. We just don't think that they're appropriate for a forest management plan. They're ideas that might be better suited as a ordinance change or to be something that's enforceable and in the actual municipal code or things to do with the recreational uses for the park or traffic control around the park. And while staff isn't kind of neutral on those ideas or might be in support of them, don't necessarily think they belong in this forest management plan, which is really a guideline for how staff and volunteers will manage the forest of the park. The three priorities of the draft plan are ecological integrity, public safety, long-term sustainability. And with the BNRC's input, we've fine-tuned this language from the parts of the draft plan, but the way it sits now, it's our intention that this forest management plan will supersede the forest management components of the 99 master plan. But we're not trying to supersede the entire master plan. We're not trying to overwrite the four zone structure of the park or some of the recreational uses or rewrite the history of the park as in the 99 plan. We're trying to rewrite the forest management component of the plan. And there's a picture of the new entrance sign at Senex and Alder that was installed a year and a half ago or so ago.

The ecological conditions and fire risks in the park.

We have aging pine stands with limited regeneration. At the turn of the century that the park was more or less clear cut and used as cattle grazing. So all of those the pine trees in there at most are you know 120 years or you know, plus or minus 10 or 20 years and that is about the lifespan of pine tree. We have invasive species encroachment, French broom, Cape Ivy, Sydney golden wattle, non-native grasses. And then the big thing that I think is drawing the most public input is the elevated fuel loads near residential structures. While it is not in CAL FIRE's fire hazard severity zone, It has been flagged as a significant fire risk in the 2023 community wildfire protection plan. And it's also in the urban, I don't know if I referenced John here, but the urban, the wildland urban interface. So while it's not a high hazard severity zone, it's noted as an area of concern in other parts of the plan. What we're proposing in the plan is a seasonal work schedule. And we're kind of pinned in by various constraints. The primary work window, Is September 1 October 1 and that's when we won't need to do any bird surveys and we won't need to worry about the monarch butterflies. The main things kind of pinching us into that window are the monarch overwintering season from October 1 to April 30. And that is a that is in the municipal code that absolutely no tree work can happen within 300 feet of the central area of the park, along with the monarch sanctuary. So that's very much a no go zone unless if that part of the code were to be changed later on, which is not out of, you know, out of the world, you know, an unreasonable thing to think might happen. We haven't had monarchs cluster in any number in the park since 2006. Since then, anytime they've clustered in Pacific Grove, it's been at the monarch sanctuary, not at George Washington Park. And then on the other end of that work schedule we have bird nesting season from February 1 to August 31 and bat maternity season from May to August. So the main main window for tree work is September 1 to October 1 a pretty small window and then we have a secondary spring window from March to May for invasive grass mowing. And of course, emergency work may be authorized by the urban forester or public works danger or public works director. So if any trees are threatening life and limb or property, it would be reasonable for an emergency work order to be permitted. And down there we have monarchs on pine trees and a white crowned sparrow, which is a local ground nesting bird in the park. strategic actions vegetation and fuel management annual fuel reduction dead tree removal canopy lifting invasive removal forest habitat restoration native shrub and seedling planting to occur year round wildlife protection pre work biological surveys, including fencing of the eight ons Korea. and other wildlife protection approaches um and then for labor we want to call on some local volunteer groups including the um that are community volunteer groups but then also there's local uh government related groups that are available to us including the green cadre which i believe is a a youth um a juvenile correction youth group that does um conservation work and then the cal fire gabalon prison crew and then of course public works staff and the clipping down there is a 1978 article about the lions club doing their share in the cleanup of george washington park so i think that community involvement and volunteer work in the park has existed for as long as the park has been there then those other two pictures are examples of the endangered uh yadon's peperia orchid have you know it's it's spends most of its life cycle underground where you can't see it it only exists on southwest facing slopes it's extremely localized to this area um our pine forest here and then some down in the carmel highlands i think nowhere else in the world And every few years, it pops up out of the ground, has those leaves on the left, and then it shoots up stocks with these little kind of fingernail-sized orchids that you see there on the right. So that's one of the really special species of flora that we're hoping to protect with this plant. There are some practices that we're not recommending in this plan. We're not recommending grazing. It's viable if property managed, but we're not recommending it mostly based on prior BNRC discussion. And also if we are going to work into enhancing the native plants on the forest floor, we don't want to counteract that with grazing, which is sort of a kind of a shotgun approach to clearing the debris and the vegetation. We'll have no live tree removal except confirmed hazard trees, no pesticide use outside of city IPM guidelines, no heavy machinery for routine maintenance. And we do have an exception there, exemption there for zone one, which is the rec zone, because the maintenance of the ball field and the playgrounds and the bathroom oftentimes do require boom trucks or different machinery. We don't wanna prevent ourselves from properly managing that section of the park. After the 2022 due deck plan was written, we also engaged with the due deck consultant group to write a memo and the memo made a very defensible argument that routine defensible space, fuel reduction and vegetation management activities qualify for a class four categorical exemption. So we're not trying to start a project here in the park. We're trying to do routine annual maintenance that we think this memo defends as CEQA exempt. The financial impact of this, we hope it will be minimal. The maintenance and management activities are part of routine public works operations. The contract services are previously budgeted for in the general fund. It'll mostly be with our tree service provider, TOPS, and then small amounts to the other groups I mentioned, the fire crew possibly, and some of the youth organizations that have small fees associated with them. but i do want to point out we we're going to be constrained by time on the amount of time we have to work between the um protected the wildlife protect the protections for wildlife that we have a small window there we're also going to be limited by budget budget will put constraints on the amount of work possible in each annual cycle the park has been neglected for a handful of years now, and we're not gonna be able to do it all in one year under our current budget, and that's not the plan. We hope to make big strides this year, big strides next year, and eventually get to a maintenance level, but we have quite a bit of catching up to do, and we are aware that with the time window we have and the amount we have currently budgeted, it's not gonna be all at once. and then a kind of cool photo. This is the public works yard on the corner of Melrose and 17 Mile Drive below the ball field. So before we were at 2100 Sunset, that was where public works existed on that weird little triangle down there. So the options for council tonight. One, approve the draft plan as presented. Authorize staff to commence work in September. Two, direct staff to incorporate the BNRC recommendation matrix and return with a revised draft. Three, provide specific direction on deviations from the recommendation matrix for staff to incorporate. Or four, which is what we're recommending, authorize staff to commence work based on the current draft while concurrently incorporating updates and returning a revised draft to council for final adoption. In this option number four, Let's time sensitive field work begin in the September window without delay. It keeps refinement of the plan moving in parallel rather than sequentially. It brings a finalized adopted plan back to Council once revisions are complete. That I'll open it up to any questions or discussion.

Thank you.

Hands raised, Mayor.

Okay, and I don't see anyone in chambers coming forward, so anyone, no? Okay, go ahead and bring it back to the council for, oh. Yes, sir. You gotta come to the podium, sir. Are we on?

Good. Maybe I missed something, but what concretely are you talking about when you say maintenance? I didn't get the idea that what is the maintenance really what's the plan what's the factual plan what is the repair and bringing it to standards and so forth over two three years over two three seasons two three septembers okay I don't understand exactly what are you going to do and what is the plan providing for citizens to walk through and for to be using the park as a walking through situation. It is almost impossible to go ahead and walk to the park. And there was one person that had a lawnmower, whatever, handheld, and she started it, apparently she stopped doing it. But I do not see what exactly is the plan. To remove the stuff for the fire to go ahead and make a path in the middle. So people can walk six foot path would be easy to maintain very inexpensive. Without cutting any trees without getting any branches without doing anything without compacting the soil without in into in interrupting So I don't see what, I don't understand after this, what is the concrete plan for that? That's all I have to say.

Thank you. All right, we'll go ahead and let's put a comment, bring it back to the council. And I'll just go ahead and ask, is there a maintenance, I guess, what is it that you wanna do between 9-1 and 10-1, I guess, is the question.

The actual plan, the PDF document, which is 17 pages long, is quite a bit more detailed than the presentation. So it talks about dead tree removal, it talks about fuel reduction, it talks about establishing footpaths, it talks about outlining those paths with trunks, it talks about snag creation. So there's, I could go all day, I could read the plan, I could go into detail about the plan, but it's all there attached to the agenda.

It's in the recommended activity schedule.

Correct.

Okay, yeah, so it is all there, sir. So if you look at the agenda, it's all there, all the plans there. So I'll go ahead and recognize other council members. Great job on the presentation to staff. It's very easy to read. And I like that you have these comments, the matrix and everything. It's kind of like teed up for us for option four. So thank you very much for making it simple and a focused exercise tonight. Appreciate that, Councilor McGrath.

Thank you, Your Honor. And thank you. This has been, I know, a very long time coming, and I appreciate all the work you've put in on this. We've seen over and over again studies, plans, they don't get funded. And so you had a lot to work with. But a couple of questions every single plan has said preserve and restore the park to something but and and I think every single one of us has in our brain and a mental image of what we think the park should look like. When you've done what you're supposed to do. Is it possible to get a photograph of someplace you could use as an example. So we can all see what you're aiming for.

Councilmember go through the mayor, I don't think that exists, I think that's the beauty of this park, it has several different zones, it has several different almost ecosystems or you know. unique circumstances in each zone that. And like you said, everyone has their own ideal. There is no restore to pristine state. Pretty historically, the forest management would have been through wildfires, burning down pine trees and then regenerating. So ever since kind of humans took over and started putting out the wildfires, this market hasn't been natural, it's been managed. and you know i think if people you know remember back to the 80s or early 90s they could remember uh seeing through the park where the underbrush was kept at bay i think in the 70s and 80s people were encouraged to drive their pickup trucks through the park and gather firewood So there's so many versions of what it would be restored to that our first draft, we tried to avoid language that said a specific thing that we're aiming for. And that was a discussion point at the BNRC, because there is no perfect pristine version of the park. So what we want is we want a safe park for our residents. We want a usable park for people there to recreate. And we also want a park that's a habitat for our wildlife and for our flora and fauna. So it's trying to balance all those things.

I still think we're gonna run into a lot of eye of the beholder as to when you're done, are you done? What else needs to be done? So it's gonna be a constant dialogue, I think.

absolutely and to add to that you're not just balancing all those different interests but you're also balancing you know short-term gains and long-term gains anytime that we go into the park and we cut trees or we chip or we masticate it's ugly and i think a lot of people see that and the immediate results are this scar across the park and it doesn't look good but if you go back six months later or a year later and you see all the pine volunteers coming up or you see the the new growth it's it's it's beautiful so i think you have to balance those long-term goals with some short-term habitat loss and some short-term ugliness in the park well i think it's really important that we as a city are a good neighbor and

I think in zone four where we're close to the houses, it's really important that we set a standard for how that park interfaces with our community that does not endanger them with fire reduction. And I know we've talked about clearing up six to 10 feet, pulling up the trees, getting the ladders out. So I would like to keep that in mind. I'm not done yet. Just one more thing. And in this plan and in the 1999 plan, no one talks about poison oak. The poison oak is huge, dominant in there, and it's not mentioned as one of the invasive species or something that crowds it out. What would you say about the prevalence of poison oak in the park?

First of all, let me address the fire fuel load in zone four. Because I actually think you answered your own question. I think that's the closest we have to a target. And that's outlined in the plan is the Cal Fire clearance requirements for near structures. And that is in the plan for, I think it's 100 feet from structures. So as far as like a clear target, that area in zone four near residences and structures does have clear targets for, limbs being treated up and just spacing. And then to touch on the poison oak, the reason why it's not listed as an invasive species is because it's a native plant. So we've had public comments saying we should control hikers by planting poison oak in the park. Not that we would ever want to do that, but I think there's never been a goal to remove poison oak entirely from the park. I do think it's always been a goal to keep it away from the established paths. And I think that's what the goal will be moving forward. It's a native plant, so we don't want to eliminate it entirely. It's part of the ecosystem, but we don't want it threatening people staying on the path.

It really does inhibit people's use of the park. From what I hear from a lot of people is, I don't go there, there's too much poison oak. Or I went there, my dog picked it up, I got poison oak. You may not be hearing about it, but there are a lot of people who are very concerned about the... The encroachment of many of those plants, including poison oak, so I was. it's not mentioned, and so I think it should be something that is that is placed in the plan with keeping it clear from the trails.

Understood, and I think it's also worth being noted that a lot of times the poison oak flourishes most in the debris piles. So where you have dead plant matter, kind of in a bird's nest, that's where we get the biggest accumulation and the highest growth of poison oak.

So hopefully that will be somewhat remediated by the work?

Yes, and oftentimes when we're pulling out fewer loads, with that we're pulling out poison oak.

Okay, thank you, I appreciate that.

Anyone else have any comments? Okay, Council Member McDonald.

Thank you. And I really appreciate the work that's been done and the teamwork being RC is it feels like it's really fleshed out the plan in a way that that really does address the multiple different needs of the city. So it's great. Thank you, Mr. Kenny for for kind of coming on board and bringing that expertise and kind of having that overall picture. We still have the recreation. we still have the natural areas because so many people in the city really do appreciate that quiet space to regenerate, walk through the park and really appreciate that. So it was really helpful to have the matrix. Thank you for that. And I would definitely recommend that the majority of them, the city did recommend keeping, and I had written down those numbers, but I think that your number four includes making all the recommendations that council, staff suggested adopting correct correct okay and i just had questions about a couple more just so we know what direction to take on those um and so thank you for covering the part about superseding because um being liaison to the bnrc we had talked about that it just supersedes and i think that's less work than trying to incorporate those other parts into this plan so i think that works really well to to just supersede the force management part um Number 10 was prohibit parking in the grasses and i'm only bringing this up, I know it. So it's not so parking I understand is a different issue. But it might be something we do want to bring back to counsel, because while the forest management might be mowing the grasses where people are inclined to park. As the grass grows, there is concern of catalytic converters catching the weeds. So I'm just proposing not that it go in this plan per se, but that it's something we may want to have staff look at to see if there are some other recommendations to how to better mitigate that potential risk. And the... There was another important one. Okay, so that the social media. I really love the idea of that. And I know Joyce has been doing a great job of social media outreach. And so I think that might have gotten to the question from the public about how will the public get updates. I did ask Joyce about this and it sounds like the intention is as we're about to do the work. And when we're done with the work that the public will be made aware of that. So I really appreciate that. That is part of the plan of the city to incorporate that. And I'm trying to think, was there anything else? Oh, so the other really important thing, and I know that came up in some of the letters too, I understand that the bikes, isn't part of the force management plan aspect. But I think it's another really important thing that as council, it would be important for us to direct staff to look into how to update the ordinance for that. It's already been potentially incorporated in the 1999 plan because the 1999 plan has always stated there shouldn't be bikes in the park. The challenge is people are using it as pump tracks to go over the route. So we get a lot of soil compaction and people going off trail. And now the e-bikes are a lot heavier, which could, exacerbate that problem. So I think it's important that we may be as part of an addition to the motion if need be, just advise staff to look into potentially changing the ordinance for the bicycles in the park or making an ordinance. I think most people didn't realize it wasn't already part of our ordinance because it was in that plan. So there was kind of a disconnect. And so it's not enforceable, apparently currently, but it's also not good for the park. So that and if we want them to look at the potential grasses for the people, especially on Short Street, I think people tend to park in the grass area, and that was a concern.

I see what you're saying, he was talking about parking on the side of it.

Correct, because you don't really just park on the road, you're supposed to pull over into the grass, and that could potentially prevent that.

I want you to save those ideas for a potential additional motion, just secondarily motion. Anyone else? Council Member Rowe? Yes.

Thank you for being with me, because I've got notes on what I believe is every page of this. Going back to the poison oak for just a moment, if some of our citizens have planted poison oak to achieve the purpose for which it's now being used to keep people out of the park, do you see that as a problem? And is that...

I don't know of anybody actually planting poison oak that says that.

Okay, so I don't think the poison oak has been left to its own devices. I think there was a thumb on the scale. So I would like to see something a little bit more specific about people not coming in and planting things without city authorization from either the public works director or the forester taking down trees and we're using wood chips are those wood chips considered flammable So an example. my sister and brother-in-law couldn't close on their house in roseville because they're in a cal fire area and you couldn't put wood chips next to the house it had to be non-combustible they couldn't even close they had to take all the landscaping out and redo it to make sure there was non-combustible so i just want to make sure that that the wood chips and i guess maybe uh we've got a couple of guests in the audience that can add to that but i want to make sure we're not

solving a problem by causing a problem also the wood chips there's no plan to spray wood chips at structures you know that that is in the interior of the park and our approach has always been that by putting organic material whether it's wood chips or tree limbs or sure i should say tree trunks by putting them on the ground you're just you're expediting their decomposition into soil i've never heard a concern about spraying wood chips we're not talking about a pile of wood chips that's going to ferment and create heat we're talking about an even layer of wood chips spread out to decompose into the soil and kind of create that circular ecosystem where the nutrients go back into the park but we would not be smelling chips at structures or near structures

And I don't have a concern about because there's so much poison hook out there. I do have a concern about our people doing that work. I want to make sure that that work is being done by professionals that

for that question i'll reference the work we did this last year contracted with torps and it wasn't done by hand it was done by small tracked ride behind vehicles so not right on vehicles but imagine a small little bobcat where an operator stands behind it and they used a grapple to grab the big because really the poison oak doesn't climb up too high on its own in the park if you go look it's mostly kind of vining its way up existing debris piles So they would use this grapple to grab big chunks of those debris piles and the poison oak that comes with them, and then pulling that out and putting them into dumpsters to haul away. And as far as another thing to say about the wood chipping, if you go to areas where we chipped a few years ago, the amount of volunteer pine trees is incredible. And those pine trees are healthier and more set up for success than anything we've ever planted. So masticating and wood chipping, while it's ugly at first, has great results for new saplings. But there's two things we don't do. We don't chip poison oak as much as we can. We don't want to spray, you know, masticated poison oak bits all over the park for people to, you know, kneel on or step or have their dogs roll around in. And we don't chip infected trees. So if a tree is obviously infected with pitch canker or bark beetles, we'll avoid chipping that and haul out as much as we can.

That's great because I was going to have you say out loud it's been a while it hasn't been maintained and it is going to look stark at first but just to make sure that the public knows this is all being done it's all being supervised and it it will lead us to regeneration absolutely yes let's let's have a motion and then we can add to it but there's otherwise we're just going to keep going around and around I still have answers that we need. So I would make a motion to choose option four, authorize the staff to commence work based on the presented draft plan and simultaneously incorporate any changes and bring back the revised draft plan for final adoption. And I think it's really important that we do not miss that September 1st. And I think it may be a subsequent conversation about the budget to figure out what else we need to make further gains.

I'm gonna second the motion. And then I'm gonna recognize Chaps now. He's the key one to speak.

Sure, thank you, I would say, I just want to at least recount where I was with this like last time and now. And just wanted to mention that, like, thank you to for mentioning walkability here because the last time I this topic came up somebody said I went jogging on the park and. I can tell you, I cannot go jogging in that park I mean that's. I mean, I zone one is really my go to because of the baseball, maybe one up to 1.5 because the baseball field extends into it. But beyond that, it's it's beyond me to actually even walk in the path. So my question really is, are we thinking in terms of like walkability with I know this plan has some elements, but are we really thinking in terms of future walkability in the park in zones outside of zone one? And is that something that we need to consider when we're saying this small light equipment, walk behind equipment we're using to go through the park? Can we actually create trails that the public can use to go from one side of the park to the other? Is that an approach we can take? On a similar note, we were talking about bikes too. I mean, If we do not put some guidelines or parameters around this, people are gonna do what they're gonna do. And we're always gonna encounter the situation about poison oak or whatever. But if we are proactively doing something to enable the public to use it in a certain manner, I think that'll be beneficial. So this is more just an overall thought, but if you have any comments on this, I'll be happy to hear it.

I think we're very capable of creating walkable paths through the park. And I think the small section of work that we did probably in 2024 before having work halted by concerned council members and interested parties shows that. And that section specifically was coming from the middle of the Pine intersection of the park towards the baseball field. And you can go now and see what about 200 feet of that work looks like where the path is at least four to six feet wide at all points. It's lined by trunks and it's covered in chips and that section is very walkable. And that was the intention to do that throughout the park. There's kind of, and it's not universal, but there's generally two paths that cut through the park north to south that intersect at different points. And the intention is to restore all those paths and to keep them completely rockable without any issues with poison oak. And I think we can very much do that without using heavy machinery.

Can I also, sorry, were you going to say something else?

then i was hoping to address the bicycle issue yeah go ahead and then as far as bicycles go uh yes it was mentioned in the 1999 master plan that i think i forget the exact words but it says something like bicycles should be banned in zones two through four that doesn't make it a code that doesn't make it enforceable and i think it maybe even made it on some signs in little texts that nobody reads um and i i think by the number of people complaining about people bicycling in the park, it shows how futile that was to put that in a plan to ban bikes when there's no teeth behind it. So I did not want to put that into this, one, because it's not force management, but two, because if it's not gonna live in the code, why put it in a plan and dilute the whole plan with something you can't enforce? So I think that the whole issue, and I think there are people that would say, oh, we should allow bikes, and there's gonna be people that say, no, we shouldn't allow bikes at all. And that's a conversation that should happen, but it doesn't need to happen as part of the forest management component of this. And we do have a code that bans bikes in parks, and it specifically allows bikes in certain parks. So it would be easy to change chapter 14, the bikes, bicycle and e-bike restrictions to either, certain bikes or ban all bikes or whatever council's discretion was.

Okay, thank you, that is very helpful. So my only comment there is that In addition to, so I'm glad that we're taking steps to make this walkable, but I would also say that if there were some signs or something to say, these are where you can actually walk and safely walk in the path, I think that would be, perhaps it's already there, but in the future, if we're trying to build more elements, I suggest also adding that in. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council member Amelia. Thank you, Mr. First and Forrester, who stayed by forgotten already. Josh. Okay. Thank you very much for the work you've done. I want to talk a couple of things. And I pretty much daily go through Del Monte Park and Topes went ahead and cleared a huge path and used a tremendous amount of wood chips. And those wood chips are slowly deteriorating and it's cleared up. Now we're talking about Del Monte Park. Now let me talk about what's best for the city of Pacific Grove. First of all, Mr. Goh, at one point, I went on a tour with him. I don't know who anybody else was with me. But there was a lot of dead trees and a lot of stuff that needed to be cleared out. And I trust the staff to go through the park and do what you need to do. We are not experts on George Washington Park. I know a couple. well a couple times two or three times during the past seven years or so i've been through that park there's me there's not a lot of people going through the park and that might have been the time i was through there i do remember labor day weekend one year i was through and there was only a couple of picnic tables going but i trust the staff to do the right thing clearing out the paths. And the main thing is about the, we've talked about it in the past several years about making sure those houses are all cleared away from the stuff. But I thank you very much for what you've done for George Washington.

Thank you. Thank you for trusting us.

All right. Go ahead and take a vote on option for the motion. Second by me. Motion by Rao. Second by me.

City Council Chambers, sure okay. City Council Chambers, let's move around. City Council Chambers, Yes. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers.

Yeah, thank you very much. And as it pertains to coming back to the kind of some notes about parking and biking, I'm kind of thinking that that might require a separate analysis as to whether it would be a possibly a subordinate body that would bring it forward or something like that. So I think maybe that discussion should be had offline. So we have some staff has time to kind of consider how to best package that. What do you think, Mr. Robinson? I think generally we like to use our BCCs where we can. So if he has some general direction that they could take back, unless, you know, I'll ask Mr. First, because he's been at these meetings recently, if he thinks that would be beneficial.

I think it's really up to the council and what your priorities are. If you want to give the direction to explore banning bicycles in the park, that's something the BNRC could do. If you wanted to give direction to change the recreational uses of the park, that's something that the BNRC could explore.

then that's why i was saying we should have this discussion offline where um perhaps councilman mcdonald would like to have a discussion with the staff and kind of figure out where best to track this rather than make a motion at this time and there's a lot of overlap with the traffic commission the the rec board the beautification and natural resources you have to go to two boards but i don't think we can have that discussion now it's not agendized so okay let's go ahead and close it for tonight and

uh if anyone wants to give in to staff or get involved then i guess lori will talk to you talk to lori as well uh go ahead could somebody please clarify what our next steps are for this exactly we've gotten four we're gonna hit the window the september to october window and when and what's coming back so um

Councilmember Garfield, the plan is to complete the actions as outlined in the staff matrix. So all the recommendations that the BNRC made that we agree with. And then we've also gotten some public comment just on some small little spelling errors and plant name errors. So anything that staff agrees with the public comment or on those BNRC recommendations as outlined in the matrix will be incorporated into a version two of the plan. And that'll be back to council for approval.

One of the things I particularly was very appreciative on the matrix is that we could see in parallel what the recommendations were in the draft plan and what BNRC's recommendations were in that. If you put all the recommendations into the plan, we will no longer be able to see what the original plan was and what the recommendations are. Can you envision a way to do that so that if you do incorporate them in the plan, we can see underlined, red, italics, whatever, so we can have those still in parallel? Because we haven't gone over this matrix yet, and I still want us to be able to do that.

Yeah, we can definitely explore the options of doing a red line version or just having the two subsequent versions both attached, or I think depending on how exhaustive the changes are, we'll have to see what's the most efficient path forward, but I think we can accomplish what you're after.

Okay, a red line sounds very good. Having two separate versions means you have to one eyeball on one of them and one eye on the other one. It's very hard to do.

Yeah, I like a red line too. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So let's out this item and go ahead and move on to item 12A. um and this is council member Garfield's going to lead us on 12a so thank you members of the file apologize thank you for coming okay um

Fairly recently, I mean last year, a daylighting law took place that was intended to move cars away from intersections for safer pedestrian work in crosswalks. We have looked at that in our city, but we've not attended to the impact of cars parked in the center of Lighthouse. So as you're driving along Lighthouse, there's a crosswalk in front of you. If there's a low car parked in that last spot close to the tree, maybe you can see over it. Maybe you can see through it. But if it's at all a big car, you're blinded to the person trying to cross the crosswalk and they pop out from the tree, it's not safe for the pedestrians. So rather than just exit out, my proposal is that we look for that as an opportunity to create bike parking downtown. we want to encourage people to use their bikes. When I've talked to some bicyclists, they're tying their bike or latching their bike to a sign rather than having a place to put it that's safe for the bike. So my proposal is we eliminate those places. We ask traffic and safety to look at Lighthouse to identify the specific spots where a removal of a car parking spot would enhance visibility and secondarily and i'm going to talk to uh councilman paduri about it is is there money from tamsea to help us put in really sturdy bike racks that would protect those bikes from an accidental nudge from a car um and that's pretty much it

Great, good idea. Yeah, go ahead and let's get the public comment and then I certainly have a comment or two. Let's get the public comment online.

I do not see any hands raised.

Anyone in chambers wishing to talk about this item? Crosswalks and bike racks? Okay, we're going to close public comment. I'll just say that I think this is a really innovative, creative idea, and I like it. And I think working with our BCC is going to get them to do some important work for us. It'll be great. So we're incorporating all components of the government. and uh i really do think it's a great a good idea and having some bike racks down there because you got all types of bikes now we have yeah road bikes electric bikes you know all the all the fun fun stuff so um and it's it can be hard to see down there so i i like this idea a lot okay

yeah sure um so obviously i'm all into like items like this so so certainly in favor of this uh i just wanted to mention that uh we don't know what the parking spots are right at this point i mean is it the entirety of the corridor or it's not everyone

Right. And I think it requires a concerted effort with staff and to look at where a large car does, in fact, block traffic. If you look at it at Congress, for instance, that's not one of the intersections where it's a problem. And there are most of them.

Okay. Yeah. So I think we should proceed with the research, no doubt. But I think we. We come back with the research to see what those spots are to decide whether bike racks actually make sense or not.

What if it's just one in the middle? I don't know.

So that may not be conducive for bike racks. So I'm just saying I'm all in for bike racks too, by the way. Nothing against it. But I was just wondering if it makes sense to do it as a two prong approach. That's all. Thanks.

Just to comment on that, I don't think we're going to need 20 bike racks. And if there's 20 spots, we need to lose then, then yes, we can pull back on that idea. But, but I think I think traffic and safety can give us a real good idea about which ones they are. And then we can see what that means.

Yeah, I do think it needs to be. I don't want to do too much cross talking here. But I do think it needs to be really good them the project, we let them run with it. And then come back to us, we look at it, see what it looks like at that point. Councilmember Rowe.

This is a great idea. Council member Garfield and I have spoken about this. And as somebody who lives downtown, who drives downtown, who walks downtown, it is really not conducive, especially with the median parking. i know that's like the third rail we don't want to touch it but i do think that there's so many challenges with visibility down there that we need to do something i think also by going to as again as an example to the traffic and safety uh commission maybe they say yes one on each end of the block needs to be eliminated only one bike rack but maybe there's a creative other thing that they think of that can be used for that other spot maybe it's a you know a picnic table or something where people can go to captain stoker and have a coffee you know what kind of barriers would we need outside of that parking rack so that people don't pull in after 30 years of driving and parking in that same space every time and they just plow down a bunch of bikes so i think there's a couple of components that need to be um explored. One thing that Mr. Mogenson and I have talked about is creating a waggle from Del Monte Park down to the aquarium and also down to Lovers Point so that people can safely dry or safely ride their bike without having to take forest, without having to take Congress and staying off of those busy streets. So anything that gets us closer to creating a really an actual blue zone i think is a great idea and i look forward to seeing what they come back with so i would make a a recommendation one and two in a motion when we're ready

Okay. Yeah. Is everyone ready for motion? I think we're ready. Would you like to move one and two? Okay. Councilmember Valle moves one and two. Do we have a second? Second. We have a second by Garfield. Any further discussion?

Any further comment, Joe? Yeah, I have a comment. Well, for this, but Public Works, I need to ask you, do you know how much time it would take to do something like this under, for the staff to evaluate?

Council Member Emilio, it's, I'm hearing without the motion being approved yet that you would be taking this to the traffic safety commission the last traffic safety commission meeting they weren't sure if they were going to have an august meeting so it's something we would have to talk to the chair about um so we would take it to them at the next appropriate meeting and then um discuss it with them and go from there so yeah i know they don't have an august meeting so that was so i yes i think september will be the next one

All right. Thank you very much. We'll go ahead and take the vote. We'll just give us a roll call.

Thank you. Council Member Brown. Council Member Garfield. Aye. Council Member Paduri.

Aye.

Mayor Smith.

Aye.

Mayor Pro Tem Emilio.

Aye.

Council Member McDonough. Aye. And Council Member Moran.

Aye.

Motion carries 7-0.

all right well thank you councilman garfield and appreciate the work on that and i think it's a great idea and it leads to our safe rest of schools or our war to make our city more walkable and smart streets that we've talked about forever now which is important stuff so appreciate all that that brings us to the end of the meeting and thank you very much for coming tonight to our staff police department fire department uh gentlemen in the audience and those online thank you very much have a nice night meetings adjourned