City Council - Regular Meeting

I've given pejorative nicknames to various members of the city. The latest one, however, the mayor's lawyer, is inaccurate. There's a better nickname, the wannabe sixth member of the council, or just wannabe. Let me give you two examples. The consent item authorizing that he could sign off on settlements. That item was pulled at the last minute. Who prompted this consent item? Yes, the acting city manager added it to the agenda. But who asked the assistant or acting city manager to do this? And I'm serious. I'm asking you to ask the city manager and then ask why. My second is much more serious, the current city manager circumstance. When was the city attorney ever part of a situation like this? During a quarter million dollar man's investigation, Katie was never there with you. Additionally, did you know he participated with the same insurance entity that provides our city's coverage? This by itself should have kept them out due to a conflict of interest. But more importantly, in a closed door session, it's only the city council, HR, and outside legal counsel. It looks like he's trying to be the sixth member, a wannabe. Don't believe me. Listen to what he's told you during closed sessions. He's supposed to give you answers, not opinions. And Madam Mayor, I am truly, truly sorry because it was not directed towards you. You are a nice person, probably one of the nicest people I ever met. And there are people who take advantage of that niceness. One of them is right there.

Good evening, Mayor, meeting members of city council staff. My name is Pastor George Wardlaw of Four Faith City Church. I want to express first our appreciation to the city of Brentwood for the work you continually do on behalf. half of the community we do recognize that to keep the city going it's more than just fixing streets and roads but listening to residents and responding to concerns and creating resources and developing plans that improve the quality of life for individuals and families we appreciate your time and your effort and commitment to our city. On Saturday, September the 19th, we are hosting our second community health and wellness fair at Brentwood Community Center. We're expecting approximately 250 to 300 people to attend. This event will focus on complete wellness on complete well-being of our community, including physical health, mental health, financial wellness, family resources, access to valuable and community service. Tonight, I just want to formally invite the city of Brentwood to participate by sending a representative to speak briefly during the health fair. We would love for someone from the city to share information Brentwood's plans, programs, resources, particularly those addressing concerns and needs of our community. Thank you again for everything you do. We sincerely hope that we will see one of you on that day.

Good evening, Mayor Meyer, city council members and staff. I just wanted to come tonight and thank you for the amazing 4th of July that our city celebrated. I wanted to publicly thank the downtown coalition, which was my first opportunity to work with them, especially Kristen, and then also the chamber. And of course the veterans, we had an amazing turnout. We appreciated all that we did with your partnership. And I just want to say thank you. I'm proud to live in Vermont. Thank you.

I have no additional speakers in person. I do have two hands raised in Zoom. First hand in Zoom is Cinziana. Cinziana, go ahead. We can come back. I can take the next speaker, Rod. Rod, go ahead.

Thank you, Amanda. Just very briefly, I just wanted to celebrate the fact that Finally, after a very long time of advocating for this, I'm very pleased to see that, once again, we allow public speaking and general comments over Zoom. I think this is an important accomplishment for our city. I know that this is because of a state mandate. It is something that I really appreciate that Mayor Meyer has been pushing for. The rest of the city council was not able to see their way to approve it. There are fears about things that might be blurted out in general public comments. But I guess we're going to have to figure out how to deal with that if it's even a problem. I do still think that the most important thing is that, as citizens, that we support the decision of our Supreme Court, which says that we just have to listen to some things sometimes that we don't like and are extremely offensive. But nonetheless, people have the right to say them. And so I just want to say that I really appreciate the opportunity. I don't speak often at city council meetings because of my position with the city. And I do want to reiterate that I do have a, I am vice chair currently of the planning commission, but I speak on this matter as an individual private citizen and in no way represent the city in this statement. Thank you.

I'll ask if Cinziana is available to speak. Cinziana, go ahead. I'm not getting the speaker to unmute. So at this time, I have no additional public comments.

Thank you, Amanda. Moving into presentations, we have item D1. I would like to welcome Carly Shelby and Niccolo De Luca with Townsend Public Affairs and invite them to the podium.

All right, thank you very much.

You can raise up the podium too with the button right there to your left on the top.

This is fancy. Yes. That's very impressive. Madam Mayor and council members, my name is Niccolo De Luca. Really appreciate your time this evening. We will be brief because we understand you have a full agenda. So I am a vice president at Townsend Public Affairs. And with me today is also my coworker, Karlyn Shelby. She's a deputy director. and we're gonna give a little overview of who we are and also talk about the work that we've been doing on behalf of the City of Brentwood. We're recently new members to the team at the City of Brentwood and we're very grateful. And so we're gonna do an introduction on our team and who we are. We'll do a state legislative update. We'll do a state budget update. We'll talk about our federal advocacy work and then looking ahead. So just briefly, I've been with the team for about 20 years now. Ms. Shelby's been with the team for about a decade. And our firm, we specialize, we're advocates in Sacramento and DC, and we specialize in representing municipalities. We were recently brought on to help the city and we're really excited about the work we're able to do and some of the successes we've had. So quickly, Christopher Townsend founded the firm back in 1998 and our mission is really clear. We're here to support organizations and really help improve their communities. We've represented over 300 clients, and that includes over 250 local public agencies. So in other words, we specialize in representing municipalities. We, just to brag a little bit, we're in the top five based on the California Secretary of State. And then also we are ranked as one of the only top 100 federal lobbying firms. We represent more California public agencies in DC than any other advocacy firm in the nation. We're very proud of that. Both Ms. Shelby and I work in Sacramento. Next slide, please. So we have a tailor-made approach to how we handle advocacy work. I'm going to go over these points quickly, then I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Shelby to do the rest of the presentation. First, what we like to do is conduct a detailed orientation and very grateful to be working with a lot of the agency directors, of course, the city manager's executive team to really put together and develop a customized legislative framework funding and legislative strategy that benefits and fits specifically the city of Brentwood. So it's not cookie cutter, it's exactly what you all care about. Then the third point is implementing the legislative strategy. And then of course, ongoing advocacy and administration. So now Ms. Shelby is gonna get into some of our recent successes and then afterwards, we're happy to answer any questions you all may have. And again, really appreciate the confidence that the city has in us and very grateful to be part of this team, thank you.

Yes, good evening Madam Mayor and Council Members. Carolyn Shelby, I'm a Deputy Director here at the firm. I've been here for over five years. Previous to that I've worked at Cal Cities and it's great to be with you all this evening and I apologize for my tardiness. I thought we had a few more speakers left and I ran to the restroom so apologies for that. One of the preliminary funding successes that I really want to highlight that we really got off the bat with with the City is the Brentwood Agricultural Technology Innovation Center project. I think we were in contract with you all for about a couple of days. Maybe it was even 48 hours at that point. But we worked with Congressman DeSaulnier, who has been an incredible partner with the city, to sponsor a federal earmark which has been included in the appropriations process for $500,000. This has been vetted by the Appropriations Committee and will be stabilized in its funding levels through the process until we hope it is finally adopted at the end of this year. Typically, due to the election cycle will see a lot of these earmarks in the appropriations packages become finalized by the end of the year post election, maybe even into early next year. But we are very hopeful that this will become law and you guys will get this money as soon as possible. We could go to the next slide. So just taking a step back and looking at the state legislative calendar. So we are currently in summer recess right now. It's a month long summer recess. The legislature will reconvene from that on August 3rd. So next Monday, the fiscal committee is August 14th. that means that every single bill that has passed through the process now has already gone through the policy committee process now we just have to wait for the state to assess its fiscal impact on the state and then the final day for the legislative session it's august 31st after that the governor will have 30 days to sign or veto all legislation that moves forward to his desk and then that will conclude the two-year legislative cycle until the next two-year legislative cycle kicks off again next year and we can go to the next slide So in an effort to not exhaust you with so many bills, given that we're just kind of getting started with you all and really looking forward to honing our strategy for next year, I want to hit on a number of key themes from this legislative session. This includes e-bike safety reform. We know that e-bikes have become very popular. They're not necessarily regulated to the extent that some of our mopeds and other quasi-motorized devices are. We have pension reform we've seen a bill i'm sure you all are familiar through your cal cities channels. ab 1383 which would reform some of this pepper rates which we've been very engaged in. We have data Center resource usage that really has to deal with the water, the resources, the noise the Community impacts and ensuring that they're paying their fair share when it comes to. supporting some of our lower income residents when it comes to, you know, supporting some of those programs like the care and fair programs that support their bill cycles. We have illegal dumping mitigation, a lot of focus here this year. And then of course, as you all know, housing streamlining is not new in this legislative cycle. This year, we've seen a number of bills really, dedicated toward adu and town home streamlining and then we have homelessness prevention and then on the state budget level we have a balanced state budget we have an ai boom with a lot of money and revenues coming our way but a rocky future ahead in terms of some ongoing structural deficits, so it's looking like we'll try to remain balanced, but there may not be amazing surpluses coming our way for the next couple years at least if things stay the same. We can move to the next slide. So quickly looking ahead, and I'm happy to answer any questions about any of these items, but the November 2026 ballot was just finalized. There were 14 total initiatives that voters will consider on that ballot, ranging from tax reform to a 11.25 billion dollar housing bond a number of other items we also have the governor's race and a new administration coming in um we assume i mean governor newsom is turning out who's to say who will win the race but i think a lot of us can guess um we have tort reform um which is an issue that has really been um pushed by a number of local agency um initiatives uh and and could become a bill. This is something that we're watching really closely and happy to answer any questions on this. And then we have opportunity zones. And this is really the way in which the governor and the federal government designate which census tracts can capture some of those tax credits. And so they're starting to nominate new census tracts for that purpose. And that will be done at the end of this month, I believe. And then of course, at the federal level, we have midterm elections Seeing which house or which party will rain as the majority and how that will change some of our state and local funding streams as a result. Looking ahead quickly just want to note that we're very grateful for the. Your staff for meeting with us and really kind of kicking off this onboarding process it's been really positive. We plan to have regular check-in meetings with city staff. We plan to develop a legislative and funding advocacy strategy for the next two years. We plan to send you all consistent reports and updates on your priority issues. If you so wish to move forward with something like this, we would love the opportunity to work with you all on the establishment of a legislative platform, even a legislative subcommittee if that's something you all are interested in. Sacramento and DC advocacy trip planning is always something that we're looking forward to and would love to have you all in Sacramento or in DC. And then really relationship development with our delegation and with leadership to ensure that Brentwood's priorities are front of mind for everyone. And with that, that concludes our presentation and we're happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Do we have questions for the presenters?

No questions. Just thank you for coming out and thank you for your partnership.

Thank you for me as well.

All right. We are going to say thank you and we appreciate your drive down here during the traffic and the overview that you gave. Look forward to working with you. Thank you. Moving into item D2, which is a Contra Costa County Fire presentation, I would like to welcome Chief McAllister from the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District and invite him to the podium.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

Good evening.

Really quickly, we do have three public comments for this presentation. Would you like to hear them before or after the presentation? For the Fire Protection District one?

I think after because then we can invite others to ask questions if they have them while they're here. Thank you.

Sorry, the system's slow. I have a different slide than what's up there right now.

Okay.

Let me restart. Give me one moment.

All right. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for your patience. Fire season is upon us, and I just wanted to have an opportunity to speak with you and the community about wildland fire season. We're definitely in the throes of it, what we're seeing statewide. We're also seeing locally. A couple local incidents I'll talk about at the end, but as we dive into that, I want to talk a little bit about our capabilities, both in terms of fire prevention and response as well. um up in front of you is a map of the local fire hazard severity zones as designated by the state fire marshal's office as you can see those zones include some areas within the city limits that are some in the very high and then some in the high and some moderate as well based on the colors and as you would expect those around the outskirts of the city where the wildland environment meets the classic urban interface where the wildland meets the city limits The Measure X wildland-funded related programs are in a couple of different buckets. First of all, fuel mitigation. There's a couple million dollars that's available to us. We are the stewards of those dollars that are included countywide, not just within the confired jurisdiction. But we use those dollars to fund fuel mitigation work, removal of dead trees, shaded fuel break projects. And as you can see towards the bottom, in 2025, we did a project surrounding some homes that are in the Marsh Creek area, on the Marsh Creek State Park, to provide a break behind some structures, really actually helping out the state of California that was not in a position to conduct that work that year. Confire, using Measure X dollars, stepped in and did that project. Next slide. Crew 12, which is based at the Byron Wildland Fire Center, operates out of there as their headquarters. That's a wildland fire center, not just for the crew, but as well as some of our other programs, including our helicopter program, you'll see in a moment, is based out of Byron. But Crew 12 operates year round. In the wintertime, they do mostly fuel work. In the summertime, their primary mission is fire suppression, mop up of fires. what we're finding is that that crew can come in and do the mop up and we're getting our engine companies back in service faster to get them back in the community and able to respond to that next emergency while the hand crew handles really the cleanup of that wildland fire we do make the crew available during the summer since we do have the capability of having two crews seven days a week We can send them out of county on mutual aid deployments. They gain that experience. They bring that home. They just in the last two weeks, two weeks up north in Lassen County. And we had some first year crew members. They're able to bring that experience home and put that to work in our county. Next slide. The bread and butter really of our wildland operations is our engines, and this is a Type 3 engine and the Type 5 engines. Type 3, a little bit bigger chassis, has a larger pump capacity, has a larger water tank, and smaller on those smaller Type 5 units that are a little more maneuverable. They can get in some of the tighter spaces. When station 94 opens downtown Brentwood the larger type three wildland engine will be located there one crew two units to have that capability to respond to wildland fires next slide. Our heavy equipment program, Confire owns now two dozers and a grader that we use in our fire trail program every spring. We go out and hit the fire trails throughout the county and make sure that they're in good condition for us to use during the summer months. The bulldozer helps build line around wildland fires to mitigate those fires, both to stop the fire and then keep the fire within its footprint where it's at. During the summer months, we staff that bulldozer 24 hours a day with a dedicated operator. And then we have the ability to surge in our second bulldozer as we did on 4th of July to make both units available for times of peak activity, which is red flag and anticipated conditions such as 4th of July. Our helicopter program is relatively new. It's a seasonal program. We actually contract with a third party company. Confire spends about $2.7 million on that contract this year. That is not Measure X funded. That's funded general fund by Confire. And then in addition to that, we staff a fire officer in the other front seat of the helicopter. So pilot and fire officer, fire officers talking to us on the ground, pilots dealing with the other firefighting aviation resources, as well as dealing with air traffic control. This has proven to be a phenomenal asset for us. In terms of the wildland fire environment, we are really kind of where the Olympic rings meet for aviation resources from the state. So some come from the north and some come from the south. And what we're finding is that our copter's getting in about 10 drops on a wildland fire before the other aviation resources arrive. It's not a dig, CAL FIRE's an excellent partner and I'm gonna talk about them in a moment. That's just the nature of where those resources are based. I also if we can go back one second man to sorry I want to draw attention to the helo pod so. Those were major X funded we placed five of them in different areas around the county one is at the Byron wildland fire Center one is at the marsh creek detention Center. We have a mobile unit that we can take out and set up during an extended attack incident. Those help shorten the turnaround time for the helicopter and and the water source, so if we can shorten that turnaround time we get more water on the fire faster. Next slide. So bringing this back around to some local incidents, we had the Deer Fire in June of 2026, just last month, that affected the Presidio Drive area, St. Regis Avenue area. um we sent out some aviation resources after the fact and did some drone footage after the fact and i know there's been some discussion from the community in the neighborhood about fuel breaks uh responsibility for fuel breaks there's a little triangle there in between the homes and that's a city-owned parcel and i do want to give the city of Brentwood a lot of credit for maintaining that parcel keeping the fuel low on that parcel as you can see it definitely reduced the impact of that fire on that neighborhood And so the cities do a lot of credit as a property owner for maintaining that the way it has. The debate, if you will, has been about how well that other parcel that is not in the city limits outside the city has been maintained. That has traditionally fallen under the CAL FIRE jurisdiction. It's a state responsibility land, and they maintain primary responsibility for both fire suppression and prevention. However, on the suppression side of the house, we clearly have a lot more assets here than CAL FIRE does. They come from some distance. but we have typically not engaged in a lot of fire prevention activity in the state responsibility area because that's their primary mission. However, I clearly hear the community and see the need to engage at a higher level on prevention matters, how it impacts the city, and not just leave that to CAL FIRE, but really work on that together. Next slide. More recently, just two weeks ago, we experienced the Morgan Fire in Morgan Territory in the Marsh Creek Corridor. And what's really interesting about this incident is it's rare that we have a case study like this where we have a fire in the exact same place, the same location, the same mountain, the same fuel conditions, where we can compare what happened in 2013 to what happened two weeks ago. In 2013, that same fire burned 6,000 acres, burned the better part of a week. And we were able to keep that fire to 50 acres. Now, I don't want to be overconfident. Bad things can happen on any day of the week. but I think a lot of credit is due for what has changed since then. So previously that was the East Contra Costa Fire District that was resource deficient. The on-duty collective strength of CONFIRE is greater. I think CONFIRE had stations closed in 2013. So our on-duty strength was not nearly what it is today. The Byron Wildland Fire Center is relatively close. The helicopter was relatively close and is able to get a lot of drops in before those other aviation resources arrived. In 2013, Confire didn't staff a dozer on a daily basis. The hand crew certainly didn't exist, and our helicopter certainly didn't exist. On the Cal Fire side of the house, they didn't have the C-130s in 2013. Their helicopter fleet has transitioned from the Hueys to the Firehawks, which now hold 1,000 gallons. And they didn't have the on-call aircraft. There's a very large CH-47 with the two rotors on it that is based in Napa. That aircraft was at this fire. So all in all, between CONFIRE and CAL FIRE, we were able to throw a lot more resources at this incident than we were in 2013, much earlier in the game. Lastly, I just want to draw your attention to some of those photos that are on the slide. It's an example of some of the technology and the intelligence that's available to us in the field. Early on Cal OES runs a fixed wing aircraft based out of Sacramento. The top right is a heat image out of that aircraft. The bottom one is a mapping image where we can get real time intelligence on what that fire is doing, where it's going, where it's headed. Next slide. And that's my presentation. Happy to entertain any questions.

Thank you. Before we move to public comments, do we have council comments? Well, I have questions, but should we wait till go ahead with the questions? Yeah.

So we got a couple of emails and I live up in that area near the, um, fire that happened in June. And, um, I think one of the biggest concerns is that fire break, um, the owners of that properties to a really good job is my understanding of making sure that the grasses were all cut really low. And, um, From what you're saying, it's not under your jurisdiction, it's CAL FIRE. And you mentioned about working together. How do we, the city, you and CAL FIRE work to make sure that those fire breaks are happening in a timely manner? Because it doesn't seem like that property owner is actually doing it. Like, is there any consequences to them or is there anything else we can do? How can we all work together to get that done every year?

Yeah, we can all work together, work with the Santa Clara unit, with their prevention staff and make sure that that gets put in place.

Okay, so is that something like if we see that they're not being cut down and we're hearing from residents, do we call you and say, hey, like, I guess I just don't know operationally what the process is because what I'm hearing is they keep calling and nothing is happening.

Yeah, the CAL FIRE Santa Clara unit is based in Morgan Hill. That's their headquarters. And they do have the primary mission of the fire prevention on that land. However, I do agree that CONFIRE should engage at a higher level and work with the Santa Clara unit to make sure that that gets accomplished.

Okay. Another question we had is, why isn't there a way for the public to easily get the results of a fire investigation? Is there a centralized place that after there's a fire, because there's a lot of gossip that happens as to what actually happened. So how can they find out exactly what was the cause of the fire? What was done? Was there any consequences to those who caused the fire, that whole process?

So I want to be very careful here. So that is a CAL FIRE led investigation and I'm not authorized to speak on it. Generally speaking, sometimes those, again, generally speaking, those have the potential to be criminal and that's not a publicly disclosed matter.

Okay. I think that, oh, evacuation texts. Who's ultimately in charge of sending out an evacuation text? Is that CAL FIRE or is that us or you or?

The Community warning system that lives within the office of emergency services that lives within the office of the sheriff Okay, is the agency responsible for sending Community warning messages, however. Ultimately evacuation warnings and orders are under the authority of law enforcement, but we make that decision together in a unified fashion so. Fire may be the subject matter expert where this fires headed where it's going where we think it's going to be but that's that's ultimately law enforcement decision. The California Department of Forestry, CAL FIRE, also has similar authority specific to CAL FIRE that actually CONFIRE does not. So CAL FIRE has the ability to call for that evacuation, whereas CONFIRE is gonna do that in collaboration with law enforcement.

Okay, and I think that's it for right now. I think we have some residents that might have a couple more questions.

And I have a couple as well. First of all, can you spend a few minutes talking about the community, the CWS, just so we can make sure everyone here is signed up for it, for the alert system?

yeah on the cws website, you can sign up for that, but there are other tools available to the Community warning system so that's kind of an opt in system to get some messages. But in the event there's an immediate hazard to life safety situation we're going to use some other tools and that's the federal tools. Kind of the reverse cell phone pinging off of any cell phones that are connected to certain cell phone sites within that area, whether you're opt in or not, because there's certainly members of the community that are traveling through or visitors that haven't opted into a local system. So there's a few tiers of the community warning system that we have available to us.

Thank you. And my next question is because I live in that same general area as well. We had a very similar situation, I think it was last year. And I remember the foam, the pink foam was like right at the back fence of someone's residence. And so we've seen this as a trend. And I hear what you're saying about working collaboratively with CAL FIRE. I would like to know a timeline of when residents could expect that there might be a fire break if we're able to get that done prior to when the fire season gets to be at its worst. And also more information about who someone should contact if they're experiencing fear in this area, if they're seeing like the weeds are building up or it's looking like there's more fuel, as you called it.

I'm sorry to be repetitive but cal fire is the primary agency with responsibility for that, but we will get with them and do a better job next year, the preseason so when.

When we do find out about this collaboration, when you are able to make some motion here, can you alert our staff, so that we can put something out for residents certainly Thank you and customer.

Thank you for your presentation. I did have a question just going back to the LA fires that happened a few years ago. Do you need any type of collaboration with our city to kind of go over the water shutoff systems and things like that so that way we don't have a catastrophe, God forbid, if something like that is to happen?

Not necessarily. We do have a collaboration with all of our water purveyors. As you can imagine, in the Confire jurisdiction, we have over half a dozen, maybe it's more, different water purveyors, and we communicate with them all regularly. We recently underwent an ISO evaluation and had to work with our water purveyors, and I'll say some are better than others, and Brentwood did a great job providing that information that was needed. One of the biggest things we're seeing locally in terms of fallout from the Los Angeles fires in January where there was such destruction is there's an evaluation happening at the county level of the community warning system. And the Office of Emergency Services. And I think they're trying to study and evaluate what's the right size of that agency, how many people should it staff. That's what we're seeing in Los Angeles. They were very understaffed. They weren't necessarily a 24-hour operation. And that's some of the things that are being looked at here in Contra Costa County.

Thank you. Any other questions before we move into the public comments? Your mic's on.

Okay, thank you. At this time, members of the public are permitted to address the City Council on this agenda item. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're in person, please file a speaker card. Your microphone will be muted if you speak on items that do not pertain to this agenda item or after the timer has expired. We did receive two written public comments prior to tonight's meeting. First speaker I have is Tracy.

Hi. I don't want to be disrespectful. I love firemen. My son was a fireman and EMT. And so I'm not here to disparage firemen and this is off topic, but it still bothers me. And I talked to you, I think a bit ago, I think it was fire station 90. And I had talked to you and I remember at a Council a Contra Costa county meeting where you had indicated that Brentwood has been difficult, I think you remember that and it bugs me because i'd asked him what is Brentwood doing for him to say that to the county and he referred to some issues box checking. How Brentwood was being difficult in the sense of staff and what have you so. I'm a little concerned about that interpretation about this city, because I believe the city is doing a good job. And for you to tell the county that we're being difficult for some reason that they're administratively following the rules. I have a problem with that, but I love firemen. My son was one it's dangerous. I think your presentation was great, but I have a problem with that. Thank you.

Next speaker is Praveen.

Thank you Mayor and thank you members of the City Council. And I would love to thank you, say thank you to the fire department for doing a tremendous job with the fire the other day. I lived there and it was very concerning. Although all my points have already been spoken by everybody but I still wanted to raise this concern that I would like the investigation to get complete and we would like to know why that happened. uh because it seems uh like i'm not sure i don't want to guess uh but uh it seems that there would have been uh some kind of four wheeling behind somebody was allowed to enter that area uh maybe it was a catalytic converter that because of which the fire happened so we don't really know so there are lots of questions uh and to which we would like to know the answers to um and uh My daughter was alone in the home. I was not around, so I was pretty scared for her. We all had to evacuate and all that. So it was very scary and just need to see answers. That's all. Thank you.

Next speaker I have is Dipenra.

Hello everybody, thank you very much to the firefighters and the first responders and obviously all our city staff. I love the job you guys are doing and thank you very much for that. So I just want to add one more question is how are you going to evacuate the Adam Middle School and Heritage High School, if the hill on that side is on fire, especially if there is a high wind, high smoke scenario. So there are thousands of kids. So I want to know how they are gonna get evacuated.

I have no additional speaker cards in person. I do have one hand raised in Zoom. Cinziana, would you like to speak on the fire station or the fire department presentation? You may go ahead now.

hello um thank you for the opportunity to speak i cannot see my timer for some reason or somebody needs to go to the zoom school again all i want to say is that it is a little disturbing to see that we allow a person who considers our city to be difficult to deal with, to speak more than what a resident and paid taxpayer is allowed to speak on issues concerning the city. I'm going to go straight and please don't stop me. It's over 150 days since our District 2 representative, and thank you for showing up finally, promised that a report for Lone Oak Road traffic will be presented to the residents.

Cindy Anna I realized that you did not get to speak during public comments so i'm going to allow for the last minute to be this because you tried several times to speak and the MIC didn't work so i'm going to allow it your your timing was paused and you have 53 seconds.

So am I am neutral now or.

You are we can hear you.

I can see my screen.

We can hear you and you have 53 seconds.

Okay. Thank you. I apologize if I'm upset and emotional. But the point is, my street, we're trying to have a national night out on my street. We have several new neighbors. We cannot organize it here because of the traffic that's going on in our street. Our kids cannot be safe gathering with their parents for national night out, riding their bikes and doing the usual thing that our neighborhood does. So our district representative and city staff who promised that we will have a report in 90 days, they should be ashamed. And on top of that, I hope you captured the fact that we allow a person who thinks that our city is difficult to deal with to speak more than a taxpayer in the city.

I do have one additional card in person, Oksana.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, council members. I don't know because I came in at the tail end of the downtown fire station conversation and I got to see that. So maybe the difficulty came with that controversy. But as a constituent, I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who works hard to get fire stations into our city as quick as possible. I know locations are very controversial and there's a lot of heated debate around where to put them. I came from Southern California and so fires were a real thing for me and my family. And so when I heard that we're trying to get more fire stations in as quick as possible, I wanted to thank every city council member who works on getting those in. working past the controversy and trying to get them in quicker that has always been my priority i vote for safety and infrastructure and so when we have council members that are coming alongside to get these resources and season seasons like this tell me even more so how quickly we need to get fire stations in so just wanted to say thank you thank you so much for everything that you guys do thank you for the council members who get them in quickly who vote for these things and we will continue to keep an eye on the ones that come for safety and infrastructure. So just wanted to say, maybe that was the difficult thing that you guys faced, but that comes with locations, but I vote for timeliness. Thank you.

We have no additional speakers.

Thank you, Chief. If you would like to answer the questions of the residents that were impacted by the latest fire, that would be helpful. Thank you.

I'm happy to address the evacuation question. Evacuation rounds is always a tricky conversation, because a lot of times it depends on the nature of the emergency and we've had a couple of hazards materials responses here in Brentwood lately. And so you have to kind of think all risks so where's that has matt cloud going where which direction is the wind going wildland fires are very, very similar. So one day, the preferred evacuation route might be X, the next day it's why. uh where it's very clear there's only one evacuation route that's that's that's clear and we're going to work to help maintain those evacuation routes that's less of a problem in a developed city such as brentwood there are circumstances where time may not allow An evacuation that's particularly true in circumstances where there's a high school or a hospital or a care facility where there's just not time. So we may choose to put resources in there directly to provide structural protection protect those resources and protect those people. and shelter in place if we're just waiting for a fire front to pass that might be the best option, so we do consider all of those options when we're making those decisions in the field.

Any further questions from council?

I just have one. I attended the presentation at Trilogy when they came up with the fire maps and I thought it was very informative just about how to protect your home and insurance and how all of these things work and what you can do and the checklist of things. Is that something like if we did a special, I mean town hall is kind of a sensitive word around here, If we did a town hall, because I think a lot of residents would kind of like to learn more about how to protect their home. Is that something you'd be willing to do? Because I know Trilogy really, really appreciate it. But I think there's, you know, Deer Ridge and Shadow Lakes and Brentwood Hills. I think they would really appreciate something like that. So maybe it's something you can think about.

yeah we're certainly willing to do that we have some amazing staff fire marshal chris bachman very very involved in this conversation um and then all of the work that we have done to do these fuel projects around the county brentwood included has been put into a portal um i'm forgetting the technical name but it exists at the state at the state fire marshal's office that makes that information available publicly so not just the community can use it not just firefighters but hopefully the insurance industry where they can actually recognize where real work has been done to protect communities and hopefully take that into account we're trying to do our part

Yeah, because I think that area lives in that orange-yellow area, and I think it's a little different for people who live in orange, yellow, and red. So just understanding what those differences are also just on paper might be good also.

Yeah, happy to put together a town hall, bring in our technical experts, and deliver that information to the community.

Great, thank you. And we have one more comment from Council Member Maloney.

I just wanted to express my gratitude to all your teams that have actually fought the fires in our city and in the region. If you could please express our gratitude to them, that would be amazing.

Thank you. Hundreds of men and women have caught fire and they appreciate that. Thanks.

Thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Moving into the consent calendar.

I would like to pull E5 just to understand the financials a little bit more on the SROs.

Okay. Anything else? Do we have a motion to approve the consent signer minus E5? I second. All in favor? Aye. Would you like to take that one?

I had called Terrence about this item, Carrie, so I don't know if you're ready or not, but I just want to understand the total expense because it says one SRO, but then we do half of it. So what is the total expense and what budgets are like, where is it coming from exactly?

Good evening and thank you for the question. So the city, this goes way back. So a little bit of history on this. The city started funding one half of the salary cost of the SROs for Liberty and Heritage back in 2006. And it's been under the same financial arrangement since that time. So currently one site has two SROs, the other has one. So they're picking up at the one, they're picking up for one out of the two. So the city essentially is paying the other one. And so what we're receiving back is I believe around, let's call it about 140,000. It may say an exact number in there, but it should be somewhere 125 to 140. is what we're receiving back from the one. It would be half at the other one because they're paying half of the one. So the city then is responsible to pick up the benefits costs and then all the overhead costs. So that would be the cost of maintaining the patrol car or the uniform, all those sorts of operational costs the city's picking up as well. So that's the you know where it's come from where it's going now the budget for this. This is just funded straight out of the salaries out of the police department. So they're allocated a certain number of officers by the city council, and then the deployment of those officers is done by the police chief. And part of that deployment is to deploy the school resource officers to those sites under the direction of of the police chief. So. You didn't ask this, but I'll just say if this weren't in existence, for example, what would happen is we would not receive the money, so we're receiving a couple hundred thousand dollars. Instead, you would have two additional officers who would, in theory, be deployed elsewhere within the city.

Okay. And so the total expense, do you know, for a regular, like the next fiscal year? So it's $140,000, but that doesn't include the benefits and everything else, right?

Yeah. If you give me...

It's okay. We can talk about it offline. I was just curious because, yeah.

Yeah. I could give you an estimate, but not exact. So an estimate is probably on the order, if you say salaries and benefits, it's going to be on the order of a little over 200,000. So for, you know, if what's being picked up is half of the salary, which I said is about 135,000, it's somewhat less than half, obviously, of the total cost of the position. So...

yeah we're we're we're picking up a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in cost to the schools combined total for liberty and yeah okay 200 000 okay thank you very much that that was my only question i just want to understand the fully loaded expense just for the sake of clarity in case anyone is not aware sro means school resource officer any other discussion on this okay I'll make a motion to accept the school resource officer program agreement with Liberty union and Brentwood union school district.

Second all in favor. Thank you. Moving into public hearings, Ken Murphy, chief building office official will present the next item regarding an amendment to the Brentwood municipal code as it relates to cannabis facilities and cultivation.

Good evening, Mayor, council members. Before you tonight, we have a repeal and replacement of chapters 9.50 and 17.780 of the Brentwood Municipal Code Cannabis Facilities and Cultivation. Commercial cannabis facilities have been prohibited in Brentwood since 2006. Some unlicensed cannabis cultivation activities still occur, however, and require enforcement activities on the part of the city. Unlicensed cannabis activities often present health and safety risks to the public as well as people, the people that are engaged in the activities. At these cannabis growth sites, staff routinely encounter numerous violations, not only of the municipal code, but also of other applicable codes and regulations, such as the building code, the electrical code, and the California Health and Safety Code. So we're here tonight to update our ordinance to stay in step with state regulations on cannabis while maintaining the city's prohibition on commercial cannabis activities to the extent possible by state law. A couple of notable changes in state law that necessitated these updates are SB 1186 and AB 1684. SB 1186 does not allow jurisdictions to prohibit medicinal cannabis deliveries to medicinal cannabis patients. As you may remember, an item came before the City Council in 2023, and subsequently the Brentwood Municipal Code was amended to reflect these requirements. AB 1684 changed the allowed fine structure for unlicensed cannabis related violations. It allows for immediate fines at an increased amount per violation, but caps the total amount of immediate fines that can be levied by a jurisdiction per day. It further specifies that other types of code violations when related to illegal cannabis cultivation of cannabis can be subject to the larger fines, but also subject to the same daily cap. It clarifies all parties related to illegal cannabis cultivation can be subject to the fines, be they property owners or resident business owners. The draft ordinance is consistent with the current ban on commercial cannabis activities and is consistent with state law. Staff recommends the City Council waive the first reading and introduce the two ordinances repealing and replacing chapters 9.50 and 17.780 of the Brentwood Municipal Code. Thank you for your time and consideration and staff is available for any questions.

Thank you, Ken. Any questions? Okay, moving into public comments.

At this time, the public is permitted to address the City Council on this agenda item. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're in person, please file a speaker card. Your microphone will be muted if you speak on items that do not pertain to this agenda item or after the timer has expired. We received zero written public comments in advance of tonight's meeting. I have no speaker cards in person, and I have no hands raised in Zoom. Thank you. Can I have a motion to close the public hearing, please?

I make a motion to close the public hearing. I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Public hearing is closed. Is there any council discussion? Okay, do we have a motion?

I can make a motion. All three of them, right, Amanda? Yes, please. Yes. Motion number one, as detailed in the staff report, I move to introduce and waive the first reading of an ordinance repealing and replacing Brentwood Municipal Code Chapter 9.50 in its entirety.

And this is an ordinance of the City Council of the City of Brentwood repealing Brentwood Municipal Code Chapter 9.50 Cannabis Facilities and Cultivation and replacing it in its entirety with a new Brentwood Municipal Code Chapter 9.50 Cannabis Facilities and Cultivation.

motion two out of three as detailed in the staff report i moved to introduce and wave the first i'm sorry i think we need to vote after each one right so we need a second on that one second first if we can do them all as a full i'm sorry i jumped it before i got a second so we can okay so we have a first and a second all in favor aye so then motion number two is detailed in the staff report i moved to introduce and wave the first reading of an ordinance repealing and replacing brentwood municipal code chapter 17.780 in its entirety

I'll second.

Sorry.

No, you're on cue. No, you're good. You're good. An ordinance of the City Council of the City of Brentwood repealing Chapter 17.780 Cannabis Facilities and Cultivation and replacing it in its entirety with a new Chapter 17.780 Cannabis Facilities and Cultivation of the Brentwood Municipal Code to regulate cannabis activities within the City of Brentwood. All in favor?

Aye. Motion passes. And the last motion, as detailed in the staff report, I move to adopt a resolution establishing an administrative citation fine for violations of Chapter 9.50 and 17.780 of the Brentwood Municipal Code.

I'll second that. And that one's a resolution. You may vote without me.

All in favor? Aye. And that passes. Thank you, everyone. Moving into item F2, Eric Nothinius, planning manager, will present the next item regarding an amendment to the downtown specific plan as it relates to tattoo parlors as a permitted use.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, and council members. This particular item has a bit of history, so I'm gonna try to walk everyone through it, but as efficiently as possible. And I'm gonna start with a little bit of a history of this specific plan itself, just to get us oriented. So it was originally adopted by the council in November of 2005, a little over 20 years ago. The adopted land use map was divided into seven what we call district zones and each of those zones has a list of uses and development standards. The specific plan has been amended four times over the years. Initially it was in 2008 to accommodate the Civic Center project where we're sitting right now. Most recently in September of 2017 to address parking fees and parking requirements for non-residential projects. Since that last amendment almost 10 years ago, questions have periodically been asked by the public or commissioner council about whether it should be amended and how. One of those questions relates, of course, to whether tattoo parlors, which are currently prohibited, should be allowed. Before I go to the next slide I wanted to make sure everyone knows that tattoo parlors are actually defined in our municipal code. As quote any establishment that places an indelible mark or figure upon the body by insertion or pigment on or under the skin or by the production of scars. This slide, it's a little bit distorted, I apologize, but this basically shows the adopted land use map for the downtown specific plan. Each of the colored parcels represent the different district zones. And just for reference, that fairly square green shape in the top middle is the city park. And then the blue areas around it are the community center and city hall. So back to the more recent history of this particular issue or project, in January of last year, an item was brought forward as a future agenda item request by both Vice Mayor Pearson and Council Member Orlemans to address the tattoo issue. Before that meeting, there were a total of 43 written comments, then led to a lengthy discussion by the council. And I would characterize that as, at the time, generally supporting allowing tattoo parlors, but there were also several questions that were asked. And I won't read through all of those, but they're listed on the screen there. Ultimately, at the end of that item in January of last year, the Council unanimously directed staff to spend time and resources on the item and then bring it back for additional consideration. That motion did include direction for staff to provide background information on the pros and cons of allowing tattoo parlors, specifically as it relates to both economic development impacts and then also potential legal implications. So about four months later, at the end of May, staff brought the item back for council consideration. Again, before that meeting, there were a total of 20 written comments that were submitted before the meeting in support. And then during the public comment portion, there were a total of 16 speakers, all of which were in support of allowing tattoo parlors. Again, lengthy discussion amongst the council afterwards. including the merits of the economic development impacts and legal implications. Ultimately, the council did vote three to two to direct staff to amend the specific plan to allow tattoo parlors subject to what we call an administrative design review application. And I won't go through these in detail either because they're we've already considered them last year, but this slide basically shows the economic development impacts that were presented to the Council at that time. And then this slide talks about some of the legal implications I would just summarize this one is saying that courts have held that tattooing is an expressive activity that's protected by the first amendment. And it's not that the city can't regulate these uses, but we need to be careful that when we do we consider what are called time place and manner restrictions. So the changes that are, in fact, proposed do reflect the direction from the May 27th meeting of last year. I'll summarize those as follows. Clarifications to the administrative approval process and including tattoo parlors as uses that qualify. Some minor non-substantive technical changes to section numbers, punctuation, et cetera. Also recommend removing similar uses subject to the approval of the zoning administrator throughout the list of uses. And that just further limits the discretion of staff so it's clear what's allowed and what's not. And then adding tattoo parlors as permitted uses in several of the district zones, the Downtown Core, the Downtown General, the Downtown Boulevard and the Western Gateway neighborhood, and then removing those correspondingly as prohibited uses. And then, leaving them prohibited in the remaining district zones, and that would be like the city park and civic Center because it just didn't make sense to allow them in there. We did include a red line version, so that the Council could see how those changes would actually look that's included as attachment three to the staff report. And then, if approved these changes would result in a downtown area being the only area in the city where tattoo parlors are in fact permitted by right. This slide just lists some of the bullet points that would relate to how it would impact potentially existing businesses in the downtown. So again, the regulations that are proposed in Redline are consistent not only with relevant case law, but also with those appropriate time, place and manner restrictions I referenced earlier. There are, however, existing businesses downtown that provide services such as cosmetic tattoos, microblading and similar services that would fall under that broad definition I also referenced earlier. I also wanted to point out, and I didn't mention this, that when the specific plan was originally adopted in November of 2005, there was not a list of prohibited uses. Those uses were added in the amendment from 2014. I also wanted to note that staff has not issued any formal approval to allow tattooing in the downtown since that 2014 update when they were identified as prohibited. And if this amendment is not approved by the Council tattoo tattoo parlors would of course remain prohibited within the downtown specific plan area. And then any compliance or enforcement determination involving an existing business would of course be evaluated based on the applicable law and facts related to that specific business. So the planning commission did consider this. They're required to in terms of amendments to the specific plan. This was way back in August of last year, following that council direction in May. There weren't as many public comments at that time, either in writing or at the meeting itself. And it was kind of more split in terms of support and opposition. The commission also had a lengthy discussion. I want to say that meeting ran about three hours. So a lot of the time was spent with the commission deliberating amongst itself. And the Commission voted 3-2 to actually recommend that the Council not adopt the draft ordinance. So the recommendation is in fact from the Commission, contrary to the direction provided by the Council. And again, if it's accepted by the Council, that would basically maintain the status quo. In other words, tattoo parlors would remain prohibited. So the recommendation put forward by staff at this time is to introduce the first reading of the ordinance approving the text amendment, again, consistent with that council direction from last May. There are of course other options that are available to the council. One of those is to adopt an ordinance that's modified in one or more ways. I will point out that if the modifications are significant enough and we'd have to kind of see how that plays out tonight, we'd recommend that it be brought back to the council at a future date and not done from the dais. And then the other option is to accept the planning commission's recommendation and in fact, not adopt the ordinance at all and just maintain the status quo. So thank you for sticking with me through that presentation. Be happy to answer questions the council has. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Eric. Do we have questions from council members? Okay, moving into the public hearing, I believe, right? And public comments.

Yes, at this time the public is permitted to address the City Council on this agenda item. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand to speak. If you're in person, please file a speaker card. Your microphone will be muted if you speak on items that do not pertain to this agenda item or after the timer has expired. We received 34 written public comments prior to this evening's meeting, and we've received six since the 3 p.m. cutoff this afternoon. I have... handful of speakers in person. First speaker I have is Paul, followed by Laura, followed by Vanessa.

Good evening, mayor, city council, city staff. Tattoo is an archaic word in regards to body art. We're talking about artists we're talking about family oriented business, if you get to know me understand it for some of us. Are the artistry in our body is very personal the wolf on my left arm represents my heritage from Ireland and Scotland, the temple night on my on my right arm represents my belief in God and as a soldier of God. I find it. quite odd that the city council is as wise and amazing as they are in so many things are so backward in allowing this. Let's be honest, right? If we're talking about what's good for the downtown area, We within 300 yards of a high school, we have a smoke shop that sells glass pipes that people use smoke marijuana and crack with over by Safeway. We have 13 businesses that sell alcohol within the downtown everybody know alcohol causes heart damage cirrhosis of the liver kills people every year drunk driving accidents, but that makes money. you know, it's a family-owned business. If you know Estrella and Juarez, you know, they're beautiful and wonderful people. I've heard comments about them saying, oh, it's a tattoo parlor. There's none of that. If you take the time to go visit their business, it's family-oriented. It's amazing. They're some of the most beautiful people I've met. Don't judge a book by what an old archaic mindset is look at who and what they are they're beautiful and wonderful people they render art on a body rather than on a canvas and in all honesty the city council here can't approve that if they wish to so please keep in mind we sell alcohol all over the place that kills people body art represents people we just seem to want to put it away

Oh, this is too high. Oh, well, it's not going anywhere. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm not opposed to tattoos at all, nor am I opposed to the of the talented artists who do provide that service. But I am fundamentally opposed to amending the DSP for the benefit of one business calculated puncture that has actively lobbied the city to change the ordinance, even while operating downtown, while out of compliance with the current plan. Supporters argued that denying this change would violate the First Amendment. I'm not a constitutional scholar, and most, if not all of us, aren't either. The issue is not about the prohibition of tattoos, studios, or anyone from practicing this art or receiving it in Brentwood. The issue lies in where a business may or may not be located under an adopted land use plan. Those are two distinctly different issues that have become conflated. Describing the current regulations as over-regulation ignores the purpose of the DSP. Planning documents exist to provide consistency, preserve character of an area, and guide orderly development. Should you make an exception, the fundamental purpose of having a plan in the first place is undermined. Be careful about ratifying this amendment. It does open a Pandora's box. It will not stop there. Everybody else will be lining up behind that, and you'll have a lot of fallout. Think carefully before you make the decision. for you will set a precedent, one that'll be referenced for years. The question before you is not whether Tattoo Parlors should be a Brentwood. It is whether the city should amend a longstanding planning document to accommodate a single business. I urge you to consider the long-term consequences before making that decision, as it won't just affect downtown. It will lead to irreversible consequences affecting all of Brentwood's specific plans. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good evening. My name is Vanessa Vincent. I am the owner of Studio V Beauty Salon. First of all, this is my first time speaking here. So thank you for allowing me to represent my small business. The main reason that I'm here is to represent people in the beauty industry and in permanent cosmetics and to not forget about that aspect of this. The main part I want to concentrate on is the definition of tattooing, which is inserting pigment into the skin. It's very broad. And so I'm here concerned about that part. What I did in about 2019 when I started my business before I opened my salon is I did my due diligence as a business owner before I signed my lease to make sure that I was approved in this zoning. I do have an email as I was going back and forth with the city of Brentwood approving and confirming that I was okay to go ahead and open up business as permanent cosmetics inside of a salon, which is what I have, is considered a beauty service. So in this consideration of amending, making an amendment on item F2, I do ask that you consider that part of things and how it will affect me and how I help provide for my family and how other people in the beauty industry who have also have done their research and made sure they did it right and how it's gonna affect us as well. So I thank you for your time and for listening to me speak.

The next speakers are Ian, followed by Kristen, followed by Sadie.

Hey, how's it going? I'm here in support of the amendment that will allow tattoo parlors in downtown Brentwood. As an ongoing customer and participant in downtown Brentwood, seeing the community here has made a positive impact for me. I love getting to meet new people and supporting small businesses. I feel that Brentwood gives a chance to those small local businesses. So why not a tattoo shop? Tattoos bring something new to the downtown area for a young person like me. We don't have any available due to the zoning restrictions that have still not been amended. So I'm here in support of the tattoo parlors becoming a part of the small businesses that downtown Brentwood has to offer.

Thank you.

good evening madam mayor council members city staff and members of the community my name is krista mingus downtown brentwood coalition executive director as you consider whether to amend the downtown specific plan to allow tattoo studios we simply encourage that decision be made through a thoughtful transparent process that considers the long-term vision for downtown economic vitality business diversity and the goals of the downtown specific plan as a whole in the downtown brentwood coalition We respect the downtown specific plan because it represents the community's adopted vision for historic downtown Brentwood. Our organization does not create zoning policies, nor do we enforce it. Our role is to support our downtown businesses and promote the vision established through the city's public planning process. Whatever decision is ultimately made by the city, the Downtown Brentwood Coalition will continue supporting our downtown businesses and helping implement the adopted vision for our historic downtown. Thank you.

Hello. I'm here tonight in support of tattoo shops in downtown Brentwood. Having registered tattoo shops be a part of the downtown area would not only increase the economic value of our area, but also the diversity of our downtown area. Being young and living locally, me and my friends are always looking for something new to do. Instead of adding another food spot or another bar, it would be nice to see a creative outlet that reaches many diverse groups of people. Tattoo shops are a destination location that would bring in lots of people from outside of our area. Art comes in all shapes and sizes and mediums. Allowing tattoo shops would be allowing a service that everybody can enjoy and come to downtown Brentwood for.

In order to grow, it's important to diversify.

With this ban amended, the options are limitless for what the art of tattooing has to offer to your downtown Brentwood area. Thank you guys.

The next speakers are Tracy, followed by Elliot, followed by Estrella.

Hi. I didn't write anything to read. I'm just thinking about downtown. And with the fiasco over Vinnie's, I know that was- I'm sorry, can you get a little closer to the mic, please? Thank you. I'm thinking about Brentwood downtown. And I'm thinking about what it's going to turn into be. I know I'm old and I've slowed down. So a lot of this stuff I don't need, but there's people who like it. I'm a little worried because Vinny's wanted to come in and I'm not saying tattoos are bad. I have like a thousand dollars or more worth of tattoos on my body. I think they're beautiful. I think they are creative and the artists are fabulous. However, I am worried about downtown. I think it's so quaint and so perfect that I have to agree. If we start changing it, like the lady said, it's just gonna be one thing after another and another. And I was grateful that Vinny didn't come here, grateful. And I'm not saying they are lovely couple back there and art is wonderful, but I'm just thinking about the quaintness of downtown And I know everybody's like, oh, you know, get into the times, the times are changing. You know, I just say, be careful.

Hi. Oh, it's been a while. Last time I was here, I was from Patta. I am on the amend of having tattoo parlors in downtown because tattoos tell stories that people don't want to say or don't want to, yeah, don't want to say. I have tattoos that have stories behind it. I think tattoos are a form of art. and you guys love art and just having it downtown makes inclusion even more because it includes people to like express themselves and I think expressing yourself is very good. I just believe that tattoos or form a self-expression and makes people boost, sorry, have confident boosts, because I struggle with having less confidence, and so I think tattoos boost confidence. It boosts mine. Now I feel more confident, I feel happier, and it just, Yeah, I think tattoos should be here because it's closer. So, hey, let's drive. Let's get some money. Thank you.

Okay, so I'm still not good at this, so bear with me. I am here obviously in support of amending the ban on tattoo shops downtown. I'm just going to try to keep this very factual based here. Over the past 18 months, support for the amendment has continued to grow with more than 30 downtown Brentwood businesses signing in support and almost 1,200 residents also signing in support of the amendment. At the January 2025 meeting, the city acknowledged that tattooing was already taking place in the downtown area That same point was discussed again at the May 2025 meeting. The city's definition of a tattoo parlor is any establishment that places an indelible mark or figure upon the body by insertion of pigment on or under the skin or by the production of scars. I do permanent cosmetics. That is exactly what I do. There is almost no difference. I do believe that those services should be allowed and those businesses should be allowed to operate. and I support them, but it's difficult to understand why those tattoo services are allowed while tattoo studios continue to be prohibited. Sorry guys, I'm really bad at this. One final point I would like to raise is that despite the strong support over the past year and a half, there has also been some disappointment. As a small business owner myself, it has been disheartening to hear from fellow business owners who support this change that they do not feel comfortable publicly expressing their support because they fear of backlash against them or their business. That's in a concerning environment. And I believe the city should work toward fostering a space where residents and business owners can share their views without that concern. I respectfully ask the council to approve this amendment to allow tattoo shops downtown. Thank you.

Next, I have Chris followed by Tom.

Good evening, mayor, city council members. members and staff. 18 months ago when this originally brought up, there was two main questions asked. How did the downtown business owners feel? And how do the Brentwood residents feel about lifting the ban on tattoo studios in the downtown area? In response, we'd gathered support from more than 30 downtown business owners in favor of allowing tattoo studios, along with approximately 1,200 resident signatures supporting the change. We have shared this information several times throughout this process. We all want to preserve the integrity of Downtown's specific plan, allowing Tattoo Studios supports that vision by adding to the diversity of businesses that make up Downtown a vibrant destination while providing another form of entertainment. Tattoo Studios are a destination business. They bring people downtown who also support nearby restaurants, coffee shops, dessert shops, and other local businesses. Clients often eat, drink, and shop before and after appointments, increasing foot traffic and benefiting the entire downtown. If you look at the businesses that are prohibited in the downtown specific plan, tattoo doesn't fit. Tattooing, body piercing, and permanent cosmetics are highly regulated industries. Practitioners must register with the county, maintain annual bloodborne pathogen certificate, and comply with strict health and safety standards. Studios are inspected annually and must stay current on all city, county, and state requirements in a clean and safe environment. We are simply asking an equal opportunity to provide a well-regulated professional service in downtown Brentwood, something that is already a part of everyday life and widely accepted across all communities. Tattoo shops like ours create an inviting, artful, and friendly atmosphere for anyone. We just want to add to the wide variety of unique shops, cuisines, services, and entertainment. We respectfully ask for you to consider the strong support from both residents and business owners and vote to amend to downtown specific plan to allow tattoo studios in downtown Broadway. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hello, good evening, everybody. I just wanted to point out two things that I'm seeing on this. So one, by making this amendment, we're not amending for one business. We're not amending one building. And by allowing this, you're allowing all the other tattoo people that are downtown to continue their wonderful business. Second off, a lot of people don't want to change or make an amendment, right? Make a change to the master plan. If we didn't make a change, this building wouldn't be here. If we didn't make a change, the library wouldn't be there. If we didn't make a change, Manny Vieira wouldn't have built the building that Sticky Chicken and Ribs and the beautiful little plant gift boutique store next door, forgive me, I don't remember the name, they wouldn't be there. He wouldn't have built that building if he would have been required to put in parking. I'm looking at building a new building in downtown. The reason, I don't have to put in parking. I mean, cut and dry absolutely changes the math when you're building a commercial building and you don't have to add parking. I can't talk about, I think we need more parking. I guess I could say that. But again, I think that it's been amended for good cause and good reason in the past and it's created beautiful things. And I think if we amend it again now, it creates another beautiful thing. Thank you.

I have no additional speakers in person, but I do have two hands raised in Zoom. First speaker is Cinziana. Cinziana, go ahead.

Good evening. All I want to know is that or let me just say this. This change is specifically for Mr. Tom Gregory so he can rent his building downtown. real estate investment i get it i will probably do the same thing however i would really participate and be involved in discussing the brentwood downtown specific plan i was there he was not when the down brentwood downtown specific plan was discussed several years ago He could have been there and say, let's talk about tattoo shops. But he wasn't. Just one thing to consider. Another thing, 34 written public comments in support of the tattoo parlor shop. Were they? at the revision of the Brentwood downtown specific plan? No. Another item, Patricia Pearson needs to abstain from this vote because she represented Mr. Tom Gregory in several cases as his lawyer. So I want to hear that publicly. And another thing, there's no ban on tattoo parlors. It's simply the voice of residents who voted for Brentwood downtown specific plan to say, we do not want that type of business downtown because it's not conducive to revenue generation. And ditto to everything that Laura and Kirsten said,

The speaker's timer has expired. The next speaker I have is Rod. Rod, go ahead.

thank you Amanda um I'm speaking as for myself tonight I am a member of the planning commission but I am not speaking on behalf of the city tonight I'm speaking for myself looking at this the way it was brought forward um it's painfully obvious to anyone looking at this was not brought forward because some city council members said oh we need tattoo parlors downtown it's because Tom Gregory came and asked for a favor and is getting one there are three council members who will vote for this tonight and it just reeks of a Brown Act violation. These are things that are very difficult to prove. But if you care about your reputations, you should probably rethink what you're doing tonight. This is not the way to do things. This is not how things are supposed to happen. we are not supposed to make backroom deals with people and then come forward and then make a bunch of excuses publicly about oh how it's for this or it's for that as a matter of fact there's been no discussion really you know on the council of how this is beneficial to the downtown specific plan we have procedures to modify the downtown specific plan and this is just not the way to go about it. It's disgusting to watch. I really have lost respect for three members of the City Council, and you know which three you are, and you'll be voting yes tonight, and the other two who have principles will likely be voting no. So it's not really hard to see what's going on here. Yeah, Pat and Nisha should recuse herself because Tom, who this is being done for, let's be very frank about that. is a client of hers and she should very much so recuse herself if if we have a planning commissioner recuse himself because he works for a banking company who just happens to have one little um branch sitting across the street from a project then this really rises at least to the level of that thank you

The next speaker is JB. JB, go ahead. We'll come back and I'll try Kayla. Kayla, go ahead. Last call for Kayla. And last call for JB. Mayor, I have no additional hands raised or speaker cards in person.

Thank you, Amanda. Can I get a motion to close the public hearing? So moved.

I'll second.

All in favor? Aye. Public hearing is closed and we're going to take a very short break. We will be back in about four minutes. We'd like to get started, please.

Ready?

Thank you, everyone. We are coming back into session and moving into council discussion on this item. Who would like to start?

Council Member Orlemans. I'm one of the original council members that brought this forward. And I don't normally do this, but I'm gonna do it anyway. I'd like to address some of the speakers that gave comments tonight. No backdoor deals. Nobody's paid me anything. Nobody will ever pay me anything. They don't have enough money to pay me, to get me to change a vote or to make my vote in any particular way. There is a way to change the downtown specific plan or any other planning district within the city of Brentwood. And it looks just like what we just did. you bring a future agenda item, you bring it before the public, you allow them to speak on it, we have discussions over it, and then we vote and we decide. I don't understand one of our planning commissioners trying to explain to me that this is not the way it's done, and we still continue to put him on the planning commission. I'm just not sure how that works. And it's a little frustrating to me because my integrity and my honesty and what I've lived my entire life doing is not gonna be torn down by a group of people that simply just don't like an idea that I have. It's my thought, it's my right sitting on this dais to bring a future agenda item. If you don't like it, get me off this dais. So, Let's move on to the downtown specific plan. The reason this was brought forward was, yes, a person mentioned to me, the owners of Cow Punk that, There wasn't, I didn't know it was a ban. There was a ban on tattoo parlors in the downtown specific plan. They brought it to my attention. I brought this agenda item forward, not for them because I don't believe it's fair, not for that business, not for Tom Gregory, not for that building, none of that. I don't think it's fair to ban a particular practice of applying art to other people's bodies and say it's okay in the entire rest of the city except for our downtown specific plan i didn't think it was fair so i asked to change it that's the discussion we're having not whether i got paid off not whether we've been uh scammed into trying to make a a particular item or change our downtown I think a lot of the speakers that spoke tonight talked about tattoo parlors being a destination business. We have an agenda item later on that talks about bringing business into the downtown, promoting business within Brentwood. If I can bring, or if a tattoo parlor, tattoo shop can bring 20 more people into the downtown who now discover how wonderful our downtown truly is, and they begin patronizing our businesses in our downtown. It's the exact same thing. We limit the amount of people, the people we expose to the downtown, and we're limiting the people that are gonna create business for our downtown businesses. Open it up, let's move it forward. The one question that has bothered me since this initially started is I can't figure out the difference between a tattoo shop, a barber shop, a beauty shop, or a nail shop. I don't know what the difference is. You go in, You have a service provided to you to make you more beautiful, make your nails look pretty, apply art to your body, whatever that might be, and you leave. We have those downtown, right? We have nail shops. We have beauty shops. We have barber shops, I know. So I don't know why this particular business was singled out. That's all I'm trying to change. That's all this intent was, was I don't see the difference. And unless somebody can explain it to me, that makes it really clear that I understand. I have a hard time figuring out why we're even sitting here and why this took us 18 months to move forward. That's it.

GO AHEAD. THANK YOU, TONI, FOR YOUR OPENING. I'LL OPEN, TOO. I'VE TRIED TO KEEP A VERY GOOD DEMEANOR WHILE I'VE BEEN SITTING HERE. I'M GOING TO TRY TO GO OUT THAT WAY ON COUNSEL. I WILL SAY THAT IT'S BEEN RATHER DISGUSTING THAT A PERSON WHO HAS NEVER GOTTEN OVER THAT SHE LOST TO ME KEEPS MY NAME IN HER MOUTH. And I live rent free in her head, her brain. And I feel like I should start giving her money because she constantly calls here and has to have conversations about me and make defamatory statements about me, my former job that I used to do as an attorney. Now I'm sitting as a judge with the state of California. One, I did not go to Tom Gregory. I did not represent him. My husband represented him and I walled myself off. So my husband has not represented Tom Gregory in multiple cases as our person who says he can separate himself in his personal capacity from his ability to be unbiased on the planning commission. Um, yeah, right. Um, So he didn't represent them in multiple cases. I don't know where they get their facts from, but it's straight up defamation that's protected by the amendments to the Constitution. So I'll go back to that in a quick second, but Tom Gregory never came to me. I didn't even know Tom Gregory owned the Pink Lady until these disgusting people decided to not only just go to FPPC, but to go to the state bar to try to take away my livelihood that I worked my entire life for, from the time I was five, wanting to be a lawyer, eventually a judge, and tried to report me to the State Bar and affect my household and my family, the State Bar found their claims baseless. And the FPPC, over three times that they reported me to the FPPC, which is in your agenda, found their claims baseless. So again, I agree with Councilmember Orland's to look at what the facts are here tonight. And this is not about a business. I don't even know the people from Calculated Puncture. I've seen them in this dais and I've seen them one other time, two other times. One time when Darren Gill was here and he did Neighborhood Night Out, he put them on my line of places to stop at. I did not know. He drove me to there and I said, oh my goodness, are these the people that are in the chambers? Why wouldn't you tell me? because all of a sudden the people who keep making baseless claims will begin to say that I am colluding with them. I met them there. I met their lovely mother who can kick her behind off when she had food in the neighborhood, neighborhood night out. And I stayed there and I also went to my haters house or somewhere near there and ate with them and talked to them in the same neighborhood. The only other time that I've seen them besides in this chamber was when I came downstairs after going from closed session and I saw the, I think you are his wife, you are co-owners, in the hallway. That was it. I don't know these people. How did I come to find out about this? Council Member Ehrlichman's told me about something that may be a violation to the First Amendment of the Constitution. That was it. There's no Brown Act. There wasn't a third party in the room. I wasn't colluding or making backdoor deals. And let's talk about that. I am a freaking judge. I was a lawyer who made $500 per hour. I don't know how much Tom Gregory rents his space for, but what backdoor deals in the city of Brentwood am I getting paid for to let whatever is happening, his agreement with them, be done. That is disgusting. It is ridiculous. It is senseless. And let's come here with common sense. And let's talk common sense in this dais. If you're going to speak about something, first, be bold enough to come say it to my face. Don't be on Zoom being a coward. Come say it in my face. But anyway, back to what we're here to talk about. Number one, some of the people have said, oh, let's not amend the downtown specific plan. because people put their time into it. Let's not amend it. We shouldn't amend documents. Guess what? We sit under a United States government that amendments changed many of our lives. Let's talk about it. The 13th Amendment ended slavery. The 19th Amendment gave women who are in this dais the right to vote. The 15th Amendment gave people of color, people based on who were other race and previous enslavement the right to vote because we looked at something that was not inclusive and we made amendments to it. And so tonight, the decision is not about a business. I don't care about a specific business. God bless that business. God bless all these businesses. What I care about is, are we violating the Constitution by not providing under the First Amendment the freedom of speech? Last time I was here, I talked about freedom of speech. I talked about a specific case, Anderson versus Hermosa beach in the Anderson case. Very similarly was an ordinance banning tattoo parlors. The ninth circuit court of appeals determined in Anderson versus Hermosa beach that the ordinance was violative of the first amendment because tattooing is that the actual tattooing, having tattoo, the process or operating a business are all protected expressive activities under the First Amendment. So I ask you all, what distinguishes our ordinance from that in Hermosa Beach in the Anderson case. What distinguishes that? I don't see anywhere where we're distinguished from that. People are talking about let's change it or let's keep it the way it was. It sounds like the real let's make America great again kind of language to me coming up to the dais. Restrictions on time, place, or manner or protected speech are only permissible if it is, one, content neutral. So we passed the test there. Tattoo parlors are content neutral. It's not talking about a specific thing. So yes, can the ban be based on that one? Yes. But it doesn't pass the rest of the test. It is not narrowly tailored. Saying you can be in the city of Brentwood but not in the downtown area is too narrow, and it fails that test. And then the last one is it leaves ample alternative channels for communication of the information. Banning them from downtown restricts a business's access to particular audiences and economic opportunities. I am here and I have consistently been here saying I am only here to follow the law. I believe that we are not, we are violating the freedom of speech, the protected speech by banning a specific type of a tattoo bar parlor. There are businesses that can be banned, but this is specifically to the arts for art of tattooing. Um, the then then i looked at legislative intention of what does our downtown specific plan say well policy ed 4-2 of the plan says it wants to prioritize the diversity of retail and resident oriented services used to facilitate pedestrian storefront shopping we've had several people Several of them, several here, several times before say that they would like to shop and see this. Policy ED 4-4 of the plan says, encourage development and activities that include components promoting a sense of place through community art. The current prohibition of the tattoo parlors in downtown without providing a factual or evidentiary basis and no evidence that such a restriction is necessary to achieve a significant government interest, what is the governmental interest on the ban? What is our interest on a ban? I'd love for one of my council members to tell me what the governmental interest is on us banning it. Because I think if we articulate that out loud, it would seem very discriminatory.

So we've approved tattoo parlors here before. It's not something we haven't done. We've done it before. I don't know if you guys were here when we did it. So we have no problems with tattoo parlors. I do understand what Rod talks about the process because we have always, when it comes to specific plans, we've always been very welcome to the public and the process for getting their voices heard. So what I feel is happening is that we want to cut off the voices of the people. Like if we want to redo the downtown specific plan, let's redo the downtown specific plan. If we want to allow for something like a Vinnie's or something like a tattoo parlor, then then put it in the rules because it's not allowed. We actually had a downtown specific plan and a Brentwood Boulevard specific plan working sessions. I can't remember how many years ago it was. I'm trying to remember. And the residents said they didn't want to change it. They did not want to change it. They wanted to keep it as is. So that's why we did hands off. And I think Alexis worked on that. We were like, hands off. We're not going to change it because the residents didn't want to change it. And everyone was invited to join these working groups. So I think that's what we mean when this isn't the way you do specific plans. Yes, we do make amendments. Yes, we do make tweaks here and there. But specific plans have always been a very different process. And we talk about things do change. And I'm gonna tell you the one thing I didn't like about the downtown specific plan that we changed is this building. This building was supposed to not even be here. This was supposed to be open space forever when it was donated to the city. This is where we had the corn fest. So if people are not happy that the Cornfest is not happening, it's because Bob Taylor and the council at the time said, hey, yes, it is true. They took this and they built City Hall. So this is where the Cornfest used to be. So changes sometimes do have negative ramifications. And I mean, I can't tell you how many people are upset that we don't have the Cornfest anymore because this is where it was. And then it moved to the dirt lot and people were not happy about it. So that is this. I gotta vote on this. I gotta vote on this. And they asked a lot of questions. So I'm gonna go over a couple of questions. If a tattoo studios were permitted downtown, which location would you prefer? And these are owners of businesses downtown. 41.2% upstairs or second floor spaces only. 11.8% side streets or alley facing locations. And then 29.4, I do not support tattoo studios downtown. And then 17.6% said main street ground floor storefronts. So the businesses in downtown Brentwood do not want it. And they specifically told me they were afraid to speak up because they're afraid that the bloggers will come after them if they do speak up. So it is true that people are afraid to speak up. And then do you believe that studios increase foot traffic downtown? So our agenda said it was five to 10 people a day. That is not much traffic. Like I actually don't want to fund the expo because that's only 400 people for an event, right? I think that's very low and we're asking for our events to bring in a lot of people. We are going to fund it, but I think we need to work on that bringing up that foot traffic. So do you think they're going to increase foot traffic? 41.4%. 47.1% said no, because they don't. And I did call a mall manager and I said, would you ever put a tattoo parlor in any of your malls? And they said, no. And I said, why not? They said, because they bring in no sales tax revenue. So that's why they would not do it. It's just from an economic standpoint, it is not the thing you want to do to an area that you expect to be hustling, bustling like our downtown. Let's see what other questions were asked. So if one tattoo studio is allowed downtown, the city cannot legally limit the total number of future, would that affect your opinion? So people 47.1 only want one. That's all they want. They don't want more than that. And then looking ahead five to 10 years, do tattoo studios help move downtown Brentwood towards the vision you would like to see? 53% said no. So These are the people who have invested their life savings that, you know, people say, oh, Brightwood's not business friendly. This is not business friendly. When you go against the will of the majority of the downtown businesses to a low volume business that's not going to bring in foot traffic, that's not business friendly. So I just, it's not something that I can support.

When this item came on, I took the legal analysis that was presented to me as freedom of expressive art, freedom of speech, and I took the legal analysis of it. When I did my own research and I spoke to council, I learned that Hermosa Beach had actually banned the tattoo parlor for the whole city as a whole. which basically the courts ended up striking down. You can have zoning, you can have certain areas that permit tattoo parlors, and you can have certain areas that do not to benefit the economic development of your community, of your downtown, whatever district it is that you have. So since then, I've done quite a few research with other cities just to see how they navigate tattoo parlors, beauty shops, nail salons, et cetera. One of the cities that I ended up meeting with was Livermore. I learned that they, just like we do, but we only have two cores here. We have the downtown core and the civic core. They had multiple, they had, I think three, maybe four zones in Livermore and they allowed certain businesses on the very core of downtown, but then upstairs or on the outer zones of downtown, they allowed those service areas. So that way they can have the entertainment, the restaurants, whatever the bars in that area, and if anything was there beforehand, they grandfathered. Same thing in Walnut Creek. Walnut Creek is very particular on the, they have it in their zoning plan, in their downtown specific plan, and what they allow in their core, on the outskirts, upstairs, it's very much outlined. i am okay with having tattoo parlors downtown but not in a specific core it has to be outlined it has to be limited to a certain number um and also the other thing that i do not agree with if we have other tattoo parlors in the rest of the city of Brentwood that have that have to apply for a cup i don't think it's okay for us to allow a different tattoo parlor within downtown not to apply and go through a cup process and that's something that was discussed the last time so i do agree in fairness um and i do agree in zoning and i do not I don't think that it would be economically beneficial if we had, for example, five tattoo parlors on First and Oak. I don't think that would be economically and financially sound for me as a city representative representing 66,000 people. So I do believe that there is some sort of compromise, but I do believe that it needs to be calculated and it needs to be thought out where it's actually benefiting the city of Brentwood.

This is a very hot topic for sure. I voted against the amendment last year, having nothing to do with thinking tattoo parlors are inappropriate. I happen to be comfortable in them. I've been to them. I've got tattoos. I mean, you've heard us say that before. What I will say is that this discussion around people being concerned about speaking up, I have heard that. I'm hearing from you that the people that are... within the community are afraid to speak up for fear of being, for retribution. There's also fear from similar tattoo businesses that I've heard from, from commercial developers that I've heard from, from other downtown businesses that I've heard from that have said, I don't think this is the right thing, but I'm afraid to speak up. The tattoo community is a very tight-knit community, which says some really wonderful things about it. There are a lot of business owners that support each other, small business owners that support each other. There are a lot of families that go and get tattoos together. I did it with my son when he went away to college. There's some really beautiful things about it. That does not change the fact that the process in order to make an amendment to the downtown specific plan should be a very specific, well thought out and community engaged process. When this first was built, when it was first written, the downtown specific plan, it had stakeholders and community members, and it was a very long process to get the approvals at the time for what it would look like and what they didn't want in the downtown. But I was looking at some of the businesses that are still not, they're still restricted, and they are very different. They're a wide range. They're from check cashing stores to thrift stores to internet cafes, drive ups and drive throughs, adult oriented businesses, rental vehicle storage. It's all over the place. When the 2014 amendment was made to to add tattoo parlors to that restriction, there was an engagement process. I'm hearing there was an ad hoc committee from the council that gathered information, did the research, and then it went through the process of engagement. It went to planning commission again, that sort of thing. I I don't believe that we're going to come to a decision here that's going to make everybody happy. I do think that we could potentially compromise and find a way to make some people happy and some people. And what I don't want is for businesses that are existing in our downtown area to lose their business based on Permanent makeup, for example, and I and I'm not clear on whether that could be a grandfathered situation. Um, I would also say that if we had to find a compromise. I, the upper level, I think is appropriate, I think, based on what I'm hearing from council member Maloney and some of the other downtowns and what they've been able to do. I also think, um, if we are able to put a cap. because a commercial developer that I spoke with said that they were afraid as soon as one came in that there would be an influx. And it has been acknowledged. It is true that there is not a lot of tax revenue that comes from tattoo parlors, nor is there a lot that comes from salons, nail salons, video salons, whatever. I would be okay with a cap on any new businesses like that downtown. If we're trying to promote downtown as a revenue generating kind of like we said, like a buzzing population of businesses and where residents can go and spend money, all of those businesses kind of tamper that a bit. So I would be okay with that, too. This is again, this is incredibly emotional for a lot of people. I do think the reports that we've had about the business operating at night I don't know where that's gone. I've had several people that reached out to me to say that there was business happening in the existing building right now before it's been completely approved. And again, I don't know if there's been an investigation on that. I have no idea. But I don't think we're going to get to like a 100% making everyone happy today. I think what we're going to have to do is really look at ways to potentially find the best fit for what we can do. And looking at the future, I don't want to turn downtown into something that isn't tax revenue generating. And again, I am okay with putting caps on future nail salons and future salons. hair salons i do not want to risk the businesses of people that are doing this permanent makeup or other types of tattoo art currently um those are not the ones we're hearing complaints about. So I think there's more to this discussion. I don't believe this is a First Amendment issue. Again, we've been approving tattoo parlors across the city. I remember there was a gentleman that came in a few years ago to do that. He was concerned about it. We were happy to give him his permit to do his business. It was a very actually uplifting meeting. But if you look at recent decisions around vinnie's around some changes to the grove these were decisions that were made based on specifics and the language of the downtown specific plan if we were to change it now so close to when those decisions were made there might be some concerns from those business owners as well i mean again we're not going to make everybody happy what i will say is i think there is some room for figuring out how to move forward in a way that is protective of downtown, protective of our economic development, specifically to downtown, and takes a lot of these concerns into account. So what I'm going to ask, because I mean, I can say no again. I don't know if it would get me anywhere, but it isn't the business itself I'm against. It's the idea of this is, again, it's not the right process and I don't think it's the right fit for downtown. So if we can figure something out that takes these things into account, that takes the grandfathering of existing businesses into account, I would be willing to look at a compromise. Do we have any thoughts on that?

I have a question. Thank you. I really appreciate everybody's viewpoint. I think all of the comments, I appreciate them, especially the tax revenue comment is a good comment. But you said an interesting point. You said you got a legal analysis from our city attorney. I called to ask for it and wasn't given it verbally. Give me the agenda. So yeah, I saw the agenda point and I actually brought that up to him. Can he go over it further? And I didn't get that. So is there Thomas? Yeah, today we talked and I asked you and I had to end the call because I don't feel like I got anything from that. So I'm being truthful. I did call you about it. And I asked you about the legal analysis in the agenda and you said you need to look it up. So I'm wondering what they got legal analysis that I may not have gotten. In addition, my other question to you is, The on top of that second point is the recommendations. I'm open to creative thought. What I don't want to do is do anything because there are comments inside of the agenda as to time, place, manner discussions. If we say only a second floor or we restrict something, I'm OK with capping a number. We've capped gas stations. We've done it. I'm fine with a cap. But how does that impact us? And this is primarily where I was going with my question. Legal analysis. What are the legal ramifications for everything that stated in that legally in that in the legal section of our agenda? And I don't feel like I got that back.

So a couple of things. So you are correct, our conversation was interrupted. We did talk about time, place, and manner. And we did talk about what was in the agenda. And we also talked about some other things. I think that what you've heard today is, I think you've heard some very accurate things about the case that you referenced in the city of Hermosa. That was a citywide ban. There's no citywide ban here in our city. We know that that's a difference. We know that when we talk about time, place and manner restrictions, we're operating, as we said in the conversation that we had previously, that is a framework that we use for First Amendment. And when you are in a situation where you're considering the things that we've just put up there, those things such as caps, the things such as location, that's place, some of the other factors, those are all pieces of the puzzle that can be put into an overall policy for these types of things. We did have that discussion, but it didn't go to that extent. We talked time, place, and manner, we did. And you ran out of time. Yes, you ran out of time.

Can we let Thomas finish his sentence, please? Okay, but your mic's not on, so it's one-sided to the public.

Well, to that point, because I'm not going to let you tell something that's not true. I ran out of time because I waited for you to look through the agenda. And I sat there and waited for you for a while, and you didn't have the answer for me. And then I said I'm out of time because I sat there for over five minutes waiting for you.

Okay, well... So we've heard a number of things today that can be a part of a policy. And I think one of the things that the city council needs to look at is which one of those factors are acceptable and how would they come together in a policy?

I'm sorry, can we finish discussion before you start telling us how we're supposed to vote and what we're supposed to vote on? Can we finish the discussion here?

Yes, it's the legal, this I'm putting into the legal framework. We've heard a number of, what I'm saying is we've heard a number of things today that could be a part of a policy. And in terms of whether or not those things are legal, yes, you can consider caps. that you can consider that. You can consider location. That's time, place, and manner. And so these additional factors that you may be looking at are all options that you could consider for a policy that you might be interested in structuring today that's different from the one that's in front of you.

Thank you, Thomas.

with that with some of those guidelines in place would you like to have a discussion about where we can go from here can we have on the screen a map of the different zones of downtown please

And while we wait for that, I just want to clarify, the legal analysis I'm talking to is on page 320. We didn't talk, just I read the agenda.

I read it too.

Can I ask a quick question while we're waiting for this to come up? When I very first came on council three and a half years ago, the city of Brentwood had hired a consultant to redo the downtown specific plan. And if I remember right, we voted to fire them because They didn't have the vision we were looking for or something like that. I'm not 100% sure, but we keep talking about this isn't the right process. The process was tried and we fired the consultant and never followed through on redoing the downtown specific plan. This building was built with an amendment to the specific plan. They didn't rewrite the whole downtown specific plan. They made an amendment and changed it. So as Tom Gregory brought up, the library wouldn't be here without this exact process taking place to amend the downtown specific plan. Yet our mayor and one of our council members keeps talking about this isn't the right process. we're asking our citizens what they want to do. And we're gonna talk about a survey that was done. And I don't know how many people answered the survey. And I don't trust surveys because you can skew statistics any way you want them in any survey you want. But since we have been talking about tattoo parlors or tattoo shops in the downtown specific area, We have received, let's see, today, 34 written comments and over the past two other council meetings, 84 written comments in support of tattoo shops in the downtown. In that same time, we have received Eight, either public comments or written comments opposing tattoo shops in the downtown. I'm not a genius, but that seems like way more people want it than don't want it. And we're gonna sit up here and talk about processes. We're gonna sit up here and talk about this isn't the way it should have been done. And we have to do what the citizens want. That's what I'm talking about doing is what the citizens are asking us to do. It just, I think a healthy discussion of options for what we could do with this downtown specific plan in regards to tattoo shops would be amazing. But let's have a discussion about that as opposed to picking apart everybody else. Well, you didn't follow the right process. Well, we're here. Let's get it done and let's move on.

Real quick to that, I do believe in the process. And when we stopped the process that time is because the residents didn't wanna change it. And I actually looked up all of the emails we got today. A lot of those don't even live in Brentwood. And the process is supposed to be Brentwood residents, not out of city residents. So I did look them all up because I was curious as to who lived in Brentwood and who didn't. So I do believe in a process. They said they didn't want to change the downtown specific plan or the Brentwood Boulevard specific plan. That was the biggest thing is they're like, then why did we hire a consultant? Because staff wanted to look into it if it was an option to do that. And then the residents, I was on those calls. They got on the call.

That's not why we fired the consultant. It was because some of us did not like the opinion of the consultant.

OK, I was on the calls. The residents didn't like what they didn't want to change it. So, I mean, you and I are going to have a different opinion. What I heard is the residents like their downtown, the hallmark downtown. They didn't want to change it.

To the staff, do we know how many other, because we keep talking about one business, but we had someone else say that she does cosmetic. Do we know how many cosmetic businesses that we do that may do microblading, tiny tacks, or anything that, because per the definition, even making a dot on somebody is a tattoo parlor. So we have a lot more tattoo parlors than we think.

Yes, good evening, Mayor and Council. We don't have the exact count. We know there's more than we think because they have to be licensed by the county in the same, whether you're doing microblading or permanent makeup or tattoos, you receive the same type of license from the Contra Costa County Environmental Health. So we don't have the latest count, but it is maybe half a dozen that we're aware of, but we would have to go to the county and get a list of all their licenses. Of course, there could always be people doing this that aren't licensed, but that's not very common. But yes, there are people downtown doing this. The other thing we don't know is if they... So from 2005 to 2014, tattoos were... not explicitly permitted, but they weren't prohibited in this specific plan. So there could be people who in that timeframe were doing tattoos or permanent makeup and it was permitted. Things changed in 2014. So it's not an easy question to answer because we also have to look at times that these licenses were established. So short answer is yes, there are people doing tattoos downtown, probably half a dozen, but I don't have an exact count.

I asked that because I was patronizing a business in anticipation for a big party I just threw and the business owner actually told me that they knew that there is someone doing the cosmetics out of a business but now hiding and taking clients in certain spaces out of fear that they'll be found out because now they're defined as like a tattoo artist. So now I'm starting to be concerned about safety and hygiene and regulations if we have businesses that are operating and now hiding people who were already here prior to this conversation happening. That is concerning to me. So a workaround, if we could come to some type of consensus, I think we all make valid viewpoints. And I think, you know, I would, I would actually make a motion to cap the number of tattoo parlors. That's why I also wanted to know how many we have right now. And it would be an arbitrary number because I don't have an idea. I don't want to lose businesses that we already have. I also don't want to restrict a few more business coming in, but I agree with council member Maloney. I also don't want to see a whole street of a particular type of business. I think the beauty is in the diversity of having different types of businesses in downtown. It is a very nice and quaint downtown. And I think the diversity is nice, but coming up with a cap number, as the mayor said, I don't, I don't know what that number would look like, but I would entertain a motion that allows the modification or the amendment to it to allow tattoo parlors with a cap.

I have a question real quick. When we looked at the definition that Eric read, it says... indelible, which is permanent. My understanding is that cosmetic is not permanent, right? Like it fades and it's a different box you check on your license. So they are very, it's a different box that you check because of the needles are different. So is there a way that we can actually find the licenses who are actually just doing cosmetic per the county versus tattoos? And OK, so we have one business that got a letter from staff that they could do it like she says she does. So when we talk about who we allow, I mean, I don't want to allow anyone that's been. breaking the law without permission. She has, I mean, she had as a letter, so she wasn't breaking the law without permission. She has a letter from staff. But if you were going to break the law, I don't have any desire to give you permission to do anything that you knew you shouldn't be doing. And that's just how I feel about it. It's just, you were breaking the law, you should be fined, and you shouldn't be given a present because you broke the law under the table.

Unless these are people that were operating their business between 2005 and 2014. Unless you got a letter or you were doing it before it became the law.

I do have a question.

You were going to say something?

I saw your line about to go.

Yeah, I thought there was a question for me about whether you would regulate permanent makeup different than tattoo. But if you don't have a question for me, I don't know.

I'd like to know the answer. Yes, please.

Well, right now, no, based on our definition that we have in the municipal code. My understanding, and I'm not an employee of the Contra Costa Environmental Health, but my understanding is they license the practitioners and the facilities the same way. I could be wrong, but my understanding is it's the same type of license, whether it's makeup or permanent makeup or tattoos. Right, but it's the same license that's issued. Yeah, but it's the same type of license. So like a alcohol license, you have a type 21 or a type 44. The Contra Costa Environmental Health, my understanding, issues one body or type of license. So it's not easy. There are boxes, but from a land use perspective and an impact perspective and not wanting to be discriminatory, I don't know that we could delineate the difference between permanent eyeliner and permanent makeup and a tattoo successfully. But certainly we are open to council's direction, but I think it'd be difficult to differentiate the two and not be accused potentially of discriminatory practices.

I do have a question. For a person that wants to open a beauty salon that has like microblading, micro shading, is their process the same as a tattoo parlor?

Their licensing process, yes.

But what about their licensing through the city and applying for business permitting and whatnot?

So yes, if they're putting ink under the skin, per our definition, we would consider them. So that's why our definition is a tattoo parlor. And I think that's a little bit misleading and a little bit of a misnomer. It's the tattoo practice. right so that may be ancillary to your business as a beauty salon but in our definition if you're putting ink under the skin then that is meets the definition of a tattoo parlor even though that might not be your primary business right you're a salon that provides permanent makeup so the definition they're always you know as precise as we can get them, there could be room for improvement in terms of the definition. But I would be careful about crafting something that discriminates very similar activity against very similar activities.

I think for me, I have both makeup and I have tattoos. And for me with the makeup, I have to go get it redone every year, year and a half. With my actual tattoos, I don't have to. So I have a hard time just grasping the idea that it's permanent because I have to keep getting it redone.

Yeah, some things fade, but the process of getting it is very similar. So how do you, so again, we do our best with land use category definitions. You can name a number of things that, you know, it's hard to capture it, but the process of getting it is the same, very similar, right? Hygiene wise, everything. Right. And making an appointment and there's a needle and there's ink. The fact that it fades isn't necessarily the issue in the definition. It could be, but again, what is materially different about that activity from the other one in terms of the land use regulation. And that's what we would look to council's direction on.

So I guess what I'm hearing is from an operations perspective, it would be hard for you to go in and differentiate. And that's why it's like all or none kind of thing from just a monitoring perspective.

Yes, from a fairness, equity and monitoring perspective, if I go into a shop and there's a needle and there's ink and there's a health department certificate, what is different to me from a land use perspective? What am I enforcing on? What is different for the eyebrow tattoo, the microblading and the body art? It is very difficult to distinguish between the two. And there may be businesses that do both, all. And so I'm not saying it can't be done, but it would be very difficult. You can just get the tattoos and tell us if it's the same. I'm sorry? I'm joking with you. And so if council wanted to achieve something like a cap, right? Again, it would probably be our recommendation from staff's perspective that it encompasses all those businesses that operate similarly, right? So a personal service business. Because again, if you need an appointment, if you show up for your appointment, you're there for an hour to two to three hours, you pay and you leave, what is materially different about those types of businesses? Right. And so we try and advise council the best we can to be content neutral when we're doing land use regulations, right. And regulate related to impact. So if we can say that there's a materially different impact between that body art business and a hair salon, that's fine. We make the findings and we move forward. Um, but if you want to do a cap again, we would look to council's direction on what's materially different about a body art business versus a salon in relationship to that cap. You can also maybe achieve a cap by just limiting the amount of districts that are downtown. So the market would essentially create the cap, right? You can grandfather existing businesses. And if you limit the amount of zones that this is allowed in the downtown specific plan, eventually it's the market that creates the cap because there's limited vacancies and all that.

Thank you. Thomas, would it be, how would it look legally if we wanted to distinguish between beauty salons that offer permanent makeup and tattoo parlors? This obviously the downtown specific plan occurred in 2005 before the permanent makeup came through as it is now. How does that look like?

Yeah, so I think, and just sort of tying what you've heard from Alexis to what I'm saying now, I think what we're saying is for that, it's looking to the definition in the municipal code. And so then it may be looking to, okay, well, how do we redefine that definition so that it actually can distinguish between these different businesses? Because otherwise, under the current definition, they look very much the same when they're performing those activities.

Is there a way for us to, like, redefine the municipal code?

Yes, you can do that. That would be an amendment to the municipal code through an ordinance.

To like redefine basically permanent makeup within the beauty industry versus tattoo parlors because they're two different types of businesses?

I guess from a... from are you looking to do it in a specific area because i think for them it's going to be hard to come in and say you're tattooing but you're doing permanent makeup that's like the tools are the same so when you walk in how do you differentiate i think that's the hardest part so then that goes back to i say no but you you're okay with a place right you were saying second floor or whatever so i think it have to be tattooing and makeup in the place you define.

I think that we'd create those two different categories and put a cap on both.

But she can't, the thing is our staff, when they walk in, they can't tell the difference. But they know it's a beauty salon versus a tattoo parlor. But you don't know if they're tattooing in the beauty salon. But they actually have their certificates on the wall and they have to show that. I'm going to ask Vanessa, do the certificates that you guys get look the same? So even the certificates are the same.

But, I mean, it's a beauty salon with that service. Like, you would have to register it, right, with the city? Alexis, am I wrong? The beauty salon?

Yes. In most zoning districts, they're permitted by right. So you just have your business tax certificate. If they perform permanent makeup, they need a contra costa health permit. So, you know, there's different layers of regulation. So they don't need... they're not permitted to do it. So if you're just opening a beauty salon, all you need is a BTC. So we do have beauty salons that are doing permanent makeup that have a contra costa health permit, but we haven't technically permitted it as a city. But we permitted the business as a whole because it's a beauty salon. Correct. But they don't go through planning. They just get a BTC.

But under that theory, what would stop a tattoo parlor for just saying I'm a beauty salon and then I'm going to tattoo in there like what's going on. So I think when you said personal services, what would be inclusive of a personal services? Would that be like real estate companies as well because you make an appointment and go in there or would it be?

So there are ways to do this where you can come up with different definitions. So day spas, personal services, including hair salons, tattoo, permanent makeup, you have financial services, which aren't the same as personal service, right? So you can get definitions that are pretty precise. So finance, so you could say a real estate office is a real estate is similar to financial services, not a, not a personal service. service on a hygiene level, right? So, you know, and there's also ways to craft definitions where you can say something is a permitted use and something is only permitted if it's ancillary to the main use. That is a little more difficult to enforce, but that is common in zoning, right? So the primary purpose of the business isn't necessarily permanent makeup or tattoos. It could be ancillary. That's somewhat hard to enforce at times if people want to push some boundaries um but that can be done um but personal services can be defined in a way that it's just about things like salons day spas massage establishments um not massage that's licensed by the state but um you know permanent makeup tattoos all those are personal services it's not the same as a financial service or a legal service then i would i would want to go down that road of just

Like to kind of wrap up discussion, if we can is to say to make a municipal code definition of what personal services is the way Alexis defined it that includes a day spas. Cosmetic whatever and even tattoo parlors with a ban of the number of them in the downtown area of no more than let's say. I'm just throwing a number out there out of the deepest crevice of my gut or whatever number I'm throwing a number out. You guys can amend that, but that would be my motion.

So I will say as the, as the recommendation is currently written in the staff report, I would, I would be a no, but looking at some of these other discussions, I'm a, I'm a, maybe we can get somewhere, but I would want to have the cap be on new businesses, not on existing. I think that's a little bit better.

control especially if we're looking at um permanent makeup that is operating legally i would i would prefer putting a cap on new businesses so then i would reduce that number down grandfather them in and then no more than like three new businesses i don't i i think we need to figure out how many there is before we make a vote on grandfathering in and then i thought so i guess the question goes back to tattoo shops do you want them on the first floor or the second floor

Well, there was some recommendation in the staff report that I read that we should not. So I don't know why the staff report is inconsistent with something else. But I wanted to know that we shouldn't say anything about upstairs versus downstairs.

But other cities have it, so we can do it. That don't mean they're doing it right. Then they can sue us so we can go from there.

It's not right. But what I'm saying is, I don't know if we can distinguish that, just like it was a discussion about CUPs.

I think we can, because other cities do it. So I think, I mean... I think, you know, because Faye brought it up, if she wants to do second floor, I think we can talk about second floor. Or, you know, you brought up the map, right? Were you looking at certain areas of the map? What areas would you want tattooing allowed?

Like, I wouldn't want any facing shops on Oak and First.

Do you want to say the red section? Because I think that's, like...

But you have Second, and you have also part of Brentwood Boulevard, like, that's facing out. I'm okay with those, but... And like, I would just say our main thorough would be like first and oak.

I would say that I would like the whole red area if we can on second stories.

I don't know, I wouldn't have any issues with limiting or what Fay had said about the, I'm sorry, Council Member Maloney had said about businesses facing First Street and Oak Street. But when we go, oh, let's just, the whole red area,

But that's how our plan is written right now. They do it by colored areas.

I got it. But so I think I'm ready to make a motion.

And last time when I said something after somebody started making a motion, I was stopped and said somebody had already started one. So if that's a friendly amendment that not on first and oak facing first and oak, then I'm happy to entertain that friendly amendment. But I think that I started off with a motion I'd like to see it through. Are we all done with discussion?

Well, I guess my question is, are we going to allow them on the street or just second floor? And can we make that distinction?

Hold on. I'm asking about an amendment. Because I don't want to say no, so I'm asking about an amendment. She made a motion and we're continuing.

I think the discussion continued after the motion and there wasn't an official yes, that's my motion.

I'm sorry, I wasn't done talking, so.

go ahead finish your question i'll finish after i was just asking she's saying legally we can't say second floor but i don't know your mic's not on so so for any of these distinguished points such as the floor i mean i what i've heard before is i heard this economic driver argument but one of the things you've heard from staff also is the idea that when you put all these ideas together it would be good for staff to be able to bring them back and package them. And part of that is because the underlying rationale matters for what you do in terms of these floors. So one of the drivers for businesses being on the second floor might be what I heard before in terms of the volume of economics that are generated by business and the way that that fits into your plan. So it's the underlying support for all of these ideas that matters, and that may be why you're seeing certain cities where you're seeing they say, second floor, but the real discussion is what was it that was underlying that decision and how does that tie to what the objectives of the city were downtown or whatever area they're in. How does that align with the overall public purpose? And so if you can find the right support for it, then you end up in a space where you can do something like saying that a location which is time, manner, and place can be designated by the city.

So for me, the way that I'm looking at the map right now, the way that it's looking, the whole Oak Street and also the whole First Street, I wouldn't want anything facing those streets on there. And I don't want to just restrict it to the red area, Council Member Mendoza, because First Street goes also into the blue. So you never know what changes into the blue, and that's still First Street up north, or I guess that's east, sorry, on Oak. So I would want Oak Street and First Street, nothing facing. And if there is second stories in those areas that want to permit it, it could be a part of our cap.

So you're okay with first and second story?

First only on the non-Oak and First.

Okay, so for example, I don't think we should have them on Second Street, right across from the park. I don't think we should have them there at all. And there's no second story. So you want them on Second Street?

I'm okay with Second Street and I'm okay with Brentwood Boulevard because they both have red.

I'm okay with Brentwood Boulevard and Walnut. I'm not okay with anywhere around the park.

And then I would want a CUP because it's not fair to not have a CUP when everybody else in the city has one.

Yeah.

Every tattoo parlor. Can you clarify that, Thomas?

Or Alexis? Yeah, either one. So as far as the CUP, that is the common requirement in the other zoning districts and planned developments in the city. So if the council wanted a CUP, the follow-up questions for clarification I would have is that just for new businesses or those businesses that we discussed who may already be licensed and doing tattoos downtown, Is that for all personal services or just for tattoos? Because that matters as well as what Thomas was saying. What is the basis for that decision? What is the connection that we're making to potential impacts and other city policies? So CUP is what we do in other districts, but if we introduce it here, I would just have those implementation questions and things to be mindful of is who it applies to and when.

I would want current businesses to be grandfathered and anybody new applying for it, so that way it doesn't impact current businesses.

Are you talking about all tattoo parlors right now, even if they're doing it illegally? I'm talking about the beauty shops. So we're only talking about... Due to the permanent makeup. Okay, I'm confused. So you want tattoo parlors everywhere except for Oak and First, and you want permanent makeup everywhere? Everywhere?

So the way that I'm understanding that I can't differentiate between beauty shops and tattoo parlors. So when we put that cap number until we change that municipal code or the language and differentiate it into personal service, we're not going to be able to differentiate that.

Okay, so what's the cap number that you were looking at? I wouldn't want more than like two or three. No more than two. I think no more than two. And then here's my other question. So if someone already has a letter saying they're fine to do it, do they get the one?

They're grandfathered.

But that would be one? no they're two plus them like whether it's a beauty that does makeup or a test for parlor and here's my other question so we approve this today and a new council comes on board they can reverse it and then do the same thing we did with tobacco right that applies to any land use decision council made it thank you makes

Okay, so we've had a lot of discussion. I think there's potentially a motion and maybe some friendly amendments to it. Would you like to repeat your motion?

Mayor I apologize I was waiting to jump in just a question of clarification so because what I think I heard is multiple kind of steps here in terms of the work that we need to do to bring something back or if if there's additional analysis that needs to happen so one of the things I heard early on in this or mid conversation was around this definition of these personal services so is that and maybe this will be part of the motion I apologize if I'm stepping on that but is there still a desire for us to look at the municipal code and make some distinguishing, distinguish between these various types of businesses? So whether it is the cosmetic uh versus what we would consider more of an artistic tattoo and if that's the case i wanted to raise that before we start talking about locations and caps because i think that's going to be necessary for us to make sure that we're very clear in terms of how we go forward and implement the policy that you want so i don't know if it's necessarily a prerequisite but it's really important for me to understand is that going to be something that is going to be a part of what your motion will entail

And if I may clarify if that is in the motion, I would want to clarify with the city attorney if it's best to have that definition changed and only exist in the specific plan versus the entire municipal code. We have so many planned development districts in the city and we have so many sub areas with different commercial uses it might be best to introduce that those definitions to just a specific plan but i'll defer the city attorney if that becomes part of the motion it would matter whether the motion is to amend the musical code or the specific plan

so the definition we talked about before was the municipal code definition and if that's the definition that we're seeking to change then that's an ordinance right and so now we're sort of moving outside the scope of what we're doing now but uh that also is probably good cause to say okay well maybe we should continue what we're doing here with the direction that we get from you and make the adjustments so that we can make them simultaneously. So we get the direction in terms of what we're supposed to do now with the specific plan, but then also actually for a separate ordinance, I guess you would do that during the future agenda items if you're gonna make a separate ordinance request that's not related to this.

Thank you. So with that, do we have a motion?

Okay, I make a motion to modify the definition of personal services to include cosmetic services and tattoo parlors. And if staff can look back at the way that Alexis was adding on the businesses not to include I don't think like hair salons unless they provide cosmetic services and approve amendment to the downtown specific plan to grandfather in current personal service vendors vendors as the change definition will be and cap any additional service providers to no more than two additional businesses not to to be forward facing on first and oak street can i ask a question real quick how are we going to just like are we going to have a day where we accept applications and decide between because i heard there's a bunch of people that want tattoo parlors how are we going to decide because

Right now, we don't have any tattoo parlors that are legit.

Can we add a friendly amendment to have a CUP?

Yeah, but to answer your question, Alexis, would that be on like a first-come, first-served?

Unless council directs otherwise, yes. It would just be first-come, first-served.

And when do you think you'd open getting... When is that application going to be ready and when can people apply? So...

to back up for a second are they being required to get a cup yes okay so um is the cup going to apply to everyone downtown or just the new businesses

Well, I haven't put in my motion yet because I had a question to ask you. Are all tattoo parlors right now, is that accurate that every single tattoo parlor in the city of Brentwood has done a CUP? And even the ones that we now know are tattoo parlors, but under the guise of beauty salons, they've done a CUP?

No. not downtown okay and maybe not in other districts in the city either okay because folks have applied for licenses for the health department and have not necessarily come to the city asking whether that's permitted or not so the that's why i'm asking the question about the cup because and how we change the definition whether it's just supplies to specific plan or the whole city because there's this there's going to be ripple effects to these changes right um and so the cup requirement if it's only applying to new businesses downtown i'm not sure if that again what is the what is the basis for the differentiation between the new and the existing businesses right so we'd have to make findings why only a couple new businesses required the cp and nobody else was required to get one right and then um elsewhere in the city they're already getting the cup and that's not going to change unless you change the municipal code and those individual plan development districts

So for the two businesses that we're saying you want a CEP for those two businesses. So what is the, you said we need to make a compelling argument why we're doing that not to the existing ones. Can you give a compelling argument for me to amend? I'm okay with an amendment, but I think we have to cover our behinds. What is your compelling argument?

Just doing the research and listening to the other cities and how they've actually went forward with having those CUPs for each business is just, I feel like it's good practice and it's equitable with the rest of the city of Brentwood businesses and ours just to make sure that we're not being, I don't know, discriminatory, but biased.

No, I get that point. I'm saying what her question was, how do we differentiate between not requiring a CUP to existing businesses? How do we make a, am I saying this right? How do we make the compelling argument that we're not forcing the current businesses versus the new business? And then we're good, but I need somebody to articulate that.

I would turn to Thomas for that.

I just left my light on, I didn't turn it on. So I think there may be a way to accomplish that. I would want to consult with the city attorney and maybe bring back that idea to council and how that might be accomplished if that was council's direction, maybe to look into whether we can require CUP just for some businesses and not all. Because again, I'm coming back to it as a planner and a land use practitioner. If you amend the land use table or the requirements of specific plans, say these businesses need CUPs, but the exact same business does not, that's difficult to, you know, to enforce and differentiate, right? So we would have to come at it from a different way. So there's ways to do deemed approved land uses where you can entitle existing businesses who aren't entitled today and then require everybody going forward needs a CUP? I like that.

That's good.

I'm looking at the Contra Costa County Health and I looked up all of Brentwood. There is only one license for tattoos in downtown Brentwood. That is yours. That's it. There is no one else listed. So there is no other question of anyone else doing it because if they're doing it, they're doing it illegally. And I don't think we should be looking at that. There's only one.

So I think what you just said was great. Could you repeat that? I thought that was really good because it would be...

I'm sorry, do you remember what you just said?

Probably not, but... That was basically what I heard you saying was by right of way.

Yeah, so what I was saying is maybe it would be helpful if council's motion and vote broaden the CUP direction a little bit for staff. So if council's desire is for new businesses only to get a CUP rather than directing us to implement that immediately, maybe directing us to look into whether that's legally defensible or whether there's other steps that we would need to take such as there are sort of what I said is deemed approved CUPs where you have a category of existing uses that weren't required to get CUPs and a city changes its mind about those uses and then you retroactively give those land uses a cup okay so it's often done for like liquor stores and tobacco stores and things evolve but we i would want to talk to city he's giving me a look so i'd want to discuss that with the city attorney. So if you just direct us to do a CUP for just two businesses, my concern is that might be problematic. And if you let us expand that, we can bring back to you a more thorough analysis of whether that's allowed or not.

Okay, so my amendment, I mean, my... that stands with the friendly additional amendment to give staff the flexibility to look into the legality of a CUP as presented for new businesses. And yes, that's my motion.

Before we get a second or amendments or anything.

No, no, no. I was talking about.

She's talking about me. I do not understand. I was trying to understand. And my question is, are we amending, so per this motion, what I'm hearing is Alexis saying, we need to report back to you. So I wanna make sure that it's clear if that's what you're accepting, and we have a public hearing to amend the downtown specific plan, that's where things aren't congruent. I'm running into a little bit of issues with that, and just want to make sure I understand exactly what direction, because I think you're agreeing that it would be important for Alexis to return, so I just want to clarify that.

Part of that question would be, can we continue the first reading so that we can sort all these details out and then come back to you?

I would ask that we do it as soon as possible considering the comment that was just made about the turnover of a new council. So I would ask that this happen sooner than later. So I would not do a time uncertain. I would do a time like you guys giving us a date.

With all of that though, is staff clear on what the motion intent is so that you can move forward?

I don't think it's been finalized yet, so I'm not 100% clear, but I think we could bring back an item with a new definition, if this is what the council's motion is, with a proposed new definition and where that would be housed, whether it's in the municipal code or the specific plan or both. with some analysis of whether a CUP it's appropriate to apply CUP only to future uses and with an amended map showing where tattoos would be permitted if that's part of the motion if it's limited to certain streets and locations and then what the cap might look like in the specific plan that language we could bring that back and maybe not crafted as a new ordinance because we would need council direction on whether or not they're okay with the cup proposal so we could probably bring a package like that back on was it september 8th is was that the date

Yeah, I think if we were going to continue this to a date certain, that would be the date. However, I think from what we're hearing, there's enough substantive change that this may require renoticing. And so that date may be a little bit different. I still think we can probably do. We're looking at it.

So I'm not going to provide council direction. My bright idea would be to bring back a discussion item with all of these direction that's in your motion fleshed out so you can actually see what it looks like. And then if you're okay, we could bring back an actual ordinance to adopt. That was my suggestion. But if council wants an actual ordinance, then we might need to push it to one more meeting so we can have time for legal and all that to review all this and to craft the final.

One more meeting date. I heard September 8th will be the meeting after that.

The September 22nd would be the next meeting. So if you're able to flesh out and have the ordinance at, have all the discussion so that we could bring back an ordinance that would fit what you're asking for, then it would be either the September 22nd or October 13th, depending on noticing requirements to, because we'd have to re-notice as a new first introduction and first reading of an ordinance.

Well, she said, and so is the motion clear enough to staff or can you go back and listen to the

The first step is to determine if we want to bring it back as a discussion item on the 8th to confirm that everybody is in agreement with the direction that's been given tonight and then follow that with the following meeting or the soonest meeting thereafter for an introduction and first reading of the revised ordinance.

Okay, so I'll make a motion to model for staff time and attention to bring back by September 8, a modification up to give us language for a modification of, of the definition of personal services. In the municipal code and for the approval of an amendment to the downtown specific plan that would grandfather in personal service vendors as defined by that newly defined ordinance and place a cap on new service providers, professional service, personal service providers at two not to be facing on oak street and first and to also give us language about the legality of requiring new vendors, new personal service vendors to have a CUP.

We're clear.

With the addition of, then we would have the first reading at the immediately following, meaning if the council saw moves in that direction or the public hearing.

Alexis, your light is on.

I think this is, we're in line with your idea, Alexis. Come back with suggestions, discussion, and then follow that with a new introduction and first read.

Okay, so if the motion is clear to everyone, now do we have a second? I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposition? No. Okay. It's going to be an interesting conversation. So the discussion will happen. I'd like to ask staff if there are any of our items that can be pushed out. We've got quite a few items still.

Well, there's people here for the econ, so we'll do that. And we've got to do the winter market before that one.

Yeah. Sorry, Madam Mayor. Yes. There are a couple items. I know our item, let me get back to it here. I think item G5 can be pushed out, correct? And then G4 as well.

Okay, of course, they're probably ones that are very short, but it will help a bit. Okay, and we can also push out for timing, I think we do. Yeah. Okay, so moving into business items, item G1, Tianyuan Recreation Manager will present the next item regarding a 2026 winter market.

Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, City Council. Tonight, staff is requesting direction from City Council in regards to the 2026 Winter Market as an economic development priority project. So my presentation tonight intends to provide some background information to this item. briefly touch on funding of this project through the economic development grant funds knowing there's another related item to grant funds on tonight's agenda i present the ad hoc and staff recommendations for 2026 winter market including a la carte options and present alternative options related to the winter market for city council's consideration So I'll go through some background about this item. Winter markets, also known as holiday markets, are festive open-air street markets set up in town squares during the November, December season. These markets typically feature artisanal crafts, local delicacies, and hot drinks to help locals and visitors during the cold months. So this item was brought forward as a future agenda item requested by Mayor Meyer and Council Member Mendoza. Following discussion of this item, an ad hoc committee was formed consisting of Council Member Mendoza and Council Member Maloney. The scope of that ad hoc was to form plans, budgets, timelines, and possible partnerships for a 2026 winter market using current and future economic development grants City staff met with that ad hoc on March 23rd, 2026. We shared some research about existing winter markets and operations. That's attachment two in the staff report. And we met again with the ad hoc June 9th, 2026. um so a lot of information on this slide so i'll try to break it down effectively and efficiently so when we talked at that june 9th meeting staff to present a number of options the staff recommendation that the ad hoc is also recommending tonight consisted of a two-day market um the budget for this item would be sixty thousand dollars um and we believe we could accomplish this this calendar year in 2026. The market will consist of holiday vendor marketplace, seasonal decor and lighting, live entertainment and performances, holiday music and scene groups, food vendors and downtown dining participation, craft stations and children activities, family games and interactive activities, photo opportunities, community gathering spaces, and downtown business participation and promotions. To unify the market, staff intended to create facades similar to the one you see on this screen, on this picture. They'd be freestanding and potentially added to vendor pop-up tents or set-ups in the market. The facade would bring together the appearance of the vendors to match the city's winter theme, as well as allow city staff to modify with possible decorations, lights, and or other attachments. The cost that we estimated for the two days would include staffing supplies, decorations, marketing, advertising, and other additional expenses for the city to host this event of this size. Currently, the recommended dates of the winter market would be December 5th and December 6th in downtown Brentwood. At the time, we didn't share specifically with the ad hoc, but we envisioned this at the second street city leased parking lot. At the time, we hadn't executed that agreement yet. So those were things that we talked about for that two-day market with using economic development grant funds as a priority project. We also presented some a la carte options to the ad hoc to consider. When we presented this to the ad hoc, we didn't have estimates at the time. We included in tonight's staff report. I wanted to go over them real quickly. But we mentioned that we can add additional components to the winter market in addition to that $60,000 that we're estimating it to be. That would include a family fun zone, Snow Hill, tree lighting integration would be integrating an existing event that the city would host that cost would be in addition to the funds that are already set aside for that event and then integrating the existing deck the park program again that's a city existing program we would integrate that into that two-day market and this would be the additional estimate to do that over that two days I did want to add a couple more pictures here. Again, we're imagining these facades being able to be added to vendors that come to the winter market, again, to unify the theme, but also to provide a space for us staff to decorate because we wouldn't want to be in the business of poking holes or you know, adding things to personal property for the vendors. So I'll lightly touch on the fiscal impact. And as I mentioned, there is another agenda item for tonight for city council's consideration. So the available fund balances for fiscal year 2020 26 and 2027 for economic development grant funds is roughly 277 hundred thousand dollars um city council has already approved a list of priority projects um back in april so that's going to be 72 512 listed there we placed a placeholder for the 60 000 that we're proposing for the winter market as another priority project um the other agenda item that y'all will be considering tonight um is awarding competitive grant funds um that's the 124 000 $900 mark placed there, and then an ending balance of roughly $19,963. I did want to note the draft resolution in the staff report tonight mentions the $60,000 for a two-day market. If city council wants to consider or look at some a la carte options, that's not included in that $60,000. You potentially can make a motion or have that included to have that resolution updated tonight as well. Some other items that I thought was relevant and we included in the staff report were some of the options and proposals we presented to the ad hoc committee. One of them was the original kind of concept proposal that was presented to council as a future agenda item and we kind of flushed out with that ad hoc. That would be an 18 day winter market, including daily operations, holiday vendor marketplace, seasonal entertainment, family activities, downtown business integration. expanded decor and lighting, snow play features, attractions, food and beverages, offerings and entertainment. City staff looked at this and did our best analysis and what we would kind of estimate that to cost out if we were to do that in-house and with all those components and features ranging between 100,000 to $338,000. That's something that city staff wouldn't feasibly able to do this year in 2026, but can be something considered for future years. The other option that we looked at with the ad hoc was potentially utilizing consultants to look at some pieces of this. The first one would be to looking at a study and feasibility of what a winter market would look like in downtown Brentwood with similar parameters, 18-day market, all those other features. Two consultants we reached out, gave us estimates between 12,500 25,000 dollars for just a study and feasibility plan that potentially can be done this year in 2026, but it does not include the actual execution and expenses actually. performer or host, if you will, an event like that so just specifically the study and feasibility of a winter market. So with that, we do have a staff recommendation for tonight to consider adopting a resolution to approve $60,000 in priority project category, in the priority projects category from economic development grant funds for the 2026 winter market. There are some alternatives that staff went over as well in the staff report. One of them being not approving the ad hoc committee or staff's recommendation and possibly pursuing utilizing consultants. As mentioned, if city chooses to utilize consultants, the scope of service would be to conduct a feasibility study, develop a plan for winter market. This potentially can be done this calendar year in 2026, but not to actually execute the plan itself in 2026. Another alternative option would be to modify staff recommendation by adding or subtracting components within the recommendations, such as the a la carte options. Items such as the family fun zone and snow play area will have additional costs. associated with integration of as well as the integration of existing city events this path also can be considered with the change to tonight's resolution for approval funds again depending on direction from city council tonight The last option that we kind of laid out as an alternative would be to continue this item with direction from staff to return with additional information. Due to the timing of tonight's staff report and how quickly the end of the calendar year is coming, this would impact staff's ability to accomplish something this 2026 year. That's where our staff would strongly recommend that we don't change the annual programming for this year and we don't make any changes and we move forward with the existing program as it exists. With that, that concludes my staff report, and I'm available for questions.

Thank you, Dean. Any questions? I actually have one, and this is around the budget and the structures, basically. These would be city-owned structures?

So the facade is kind of what I'm referring to, and that's why I wanted to use those visuals. Those would be city-owned. What we would do is we would build them, create them, and then store them. when not in use so that for future years we can pull them out and use. We want to make sure that we, part of the idea was to make that uniform look for a lot of the winter markets we've seen, but also to make the modifications to add the decorations, the lighting, the components to really make it a more festival environment without tampering or changing personal property from the vendors.

And I definitely support that. My question was just going to lead to, does that mean in future years there would be slightly less of a budget ask because that part's already done?

Yeah, yeah. So I appreciate that question, Mayor. I think we wanted to be intentional. We talked a little bit with the ad hoc of, you know, this is kind of potentially a pilot year. We don't want to just... put all of our funds in a one year kind of a one off, we want to be intentional that the items and equipment we're purchasing would be able to use for future winter markets or for other events or other uses. Okay, thank you. So we're trying to be sustainable in that, if that makes sense. Yes, it does.

Thank you. I did have a question. I just want to clarify the a la carte options included in the estimate, but as it included in the 60,000 estimate, are these in addition in over the 60,000?

Yes, so thank you, Vice Mayor, so I did want to clarify, so the 60,000 is the two day market, the Allah Allah card options would be in addition to that $60,000 and and I apologize, because it is a little confusing when I try to write it, you know the snow play option, the families funds on options, those are. Um, additional costs, the 2 existing events deck the park and, um, the tree lighting, we have separate funding for that. So we host that on an annual basis, but to integrate it into this 2 day market, there's a little bit of additional cost, um, that we wanted to be transparent about.

Okay, and then sure would have been nice if one of those services was an ice skating rink. But anyway, I'll also add, is it possible to how we go? How would the committee talk about regulating the applicants for who are going to provide services? and like how we make sure like there's diversity and continuity and like different, like, is it on a first come first serve basis or what would be the criteria?

Yeah, no, thank you for that, Vice-President. Some of the conversations we had with the ad hoc was we wanted to be really intentional of casting a wide net, but having some kind of specific regulations. One of the big things that we heard was we wanted to have um activation with the downtown businesses we wanted to make sure that they had um for lack of better terms kind of first shot or kind of first first um you know first ability to do it um so we wanted to make that as a criteria we also wanted to make sure that we weren't just duplicating the vendors so you know what kind of limitations we would so that we wouldn't have all food or you know all all drinks or you know all vendors doing the same crafts we wanted to be specific in that call but we wanted to cast it out wide so that we were not only activating the downtown businesses but also providing a diverse group of offerings for people to want to come and visit that market I think the other piece with that was not just the market, but having those activations as well. So again, we kind of go back to having activations with the two days that you can bring the whole family down for, whether someone wants to shop or the kids want to play or people want to go venture downtown and spend their money at the businesses. We wanted it to be a bigger footprint for the winter market vision.

That's my last question. I'm assuming because it's a more family focus, we wouldn't like the typical European winter markets, we wouldn't have the addition of the alcohol in the public spaces, like how they have Glühwein and other mulled wines and spiced wines during the European winter markets.

Yeah, so I know we had some conversations about that. One of the things that we talked about with the integration of the downtown businesses that they do already have the ability to serve alcohol and those type of beverages. So that's why again, expanding that footprint past that second street parking lot and really integrating that downtown. I think it hits a lot of those notes. I do know that, you know, one of the things we saw was, you know, hot drinks, whether that's, and the implication being that, you know, non-alcoholic ones included in that, we did want to have a diverse offering with our food and beverages for people to come downtown. So hopefully that answered your question, Vice Mayor, but if not, please let me know.

one one other thing that um Faye and I mentioned is we wanted quality items so like you know you go to these things and you see like tumblers but like we don't want to we don't want to see that we just want to see high quality items um we wanted to really differentiate from other things that you've seen in town okay there's no other questions we can move into public comments

At this time, members of the public are permitted to address the city council on this agenda item. If you'd like to speak, please raise your hand in Zoom or file a speaker card. I do have one speaker card in person, actually two, I'm sorry. First speaker I have is Lena.

Good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you for the opportunity to speak for me to speak to you tonight. My name is Lennon Blachy and I'm a small business owner in our downtown area, or as I like to call it, the true heart of Brentwood. I would like to encourage the city and support the creation of a holiday market and to host it in our downtown area. Events like this do much more than celebrate the holiday season. They bring people together, create a sense of community and provide a significant boost to local businesses. A holiday market encourages residents and visitors to spend the time downtown to shop locally to dine in our downtown restaurants. and discover businesses, they may not have visited before increase foot traffic benefits, not only the retailers, but also coffee shops restaurants service businesses and the many people they employ beyond the economic impact. A HOLIDAY MARKET CREATES LASTING MEMORIES FOR FAMILIES. IT GIVES OUR COMMUNITY A FESTIVE GATHERING PLACE AND HELPS ESTABLISH OUR DOWNTOWN AS A DESTINATION DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASON. THESE KINDS OF TRADITIONS ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO RETURN YEAR AFTER YEAR AND STRENGTHEN COMMUNITY PRIDE. INVESTING IN A DOWNTOWN HOLIDAY MARKET IS AN INVESTMENT IN OUR LOCAL ECONOMY, OUR SMALL BUSINESSES AND THE VITALITY OF OUR CITY. I hope you will consider supporting this opportunity and helping make our downtown the heart of the holiday season. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Next speaker I have is Tom.

Good evening, everybody. So I think the Christmas market's a good idea. I think utilizing that parking lot for some festive activity during the holidays and throughout the rest of the year is a good idea. The parking lot, the city's renting it. I don't understand why it's not available all year for the businesses downtown to benefit from excess parking, being the tax dollars are paying for the rent, I believe. I know it's expensive for the city to do anything compared to a normal person. So $60,000 to me seems crazy for what I think is going to end up being for the amount of equipment and stuff that's going to be built for it. What if it rains that weekend? So there's no tent. I've been in the event business in downtown Brentwood for 28 years. Guaranteed, I've been in more events than anybody in the building. So you need to think about coverage, because the whole thing could go south if it rains on you. High winds, too. You can actually put walls on the tent. I'm not saying get it from me. I may not be in business by then. Hopefully it's sold. But I'm just suggesting this, that it's a good idea to put a big tent up. And you can still do the pop-ups inside, right? You can still delineate the spaces and make it cute. But I recommend a big tent. It's a little bit of competition during the best shopping season of the year for some of these local businesses, but if they're good with it, it's a draw. It's another draw, so I think it's good. Again, I think that in the whole scope of the things, I'd love to see the city open up that parking lot so that the community could use it for the rest of the year, not just these four or five events. And when we think about the prolonging this Christmas event, hopefully it's great. Something to think about is the lease on that lot, I believe it's two years. And at the end of two years, that lot's, my understanding, they're going to try and build on it. So you're looking at that piece of real estate maybe for two years. So whatever you build in store, you may have to find somewhere else to do it after that. Just hindsight, something to think about. Okay. Thank you.

Next speaker is Stephanie.

Past my bedtime. Thank you, mayor and council. I appreciate the work that staff and the ad hoc committee have put into developing this recommendation. As previously stated, a winter market has the potential to bring lots of people downtown. It supports our local businesses and helps to create another opportunity for our community to come together and gather. I have one question before the council takes action. The staff report notes that the first year will help inform the market's future. If the council approves the recommendation, how will the city define and measure success? How will the city beyond attendance? Will the evaluation include impacts on existing downtown businesses? We talked about vendor participation. We think about retention. How are we going to get community feedback? We think about performance and some of the things that the previous speaker noted in terms of Weathers and things of that nature from an operation standpoint i'm i'm pretty interested in that as well, and then financial sustainability of this winter market. I feel like establishing these types of measures from the outset will give the Council a clear framework for evaluating the program making essential improvements and determining how it should evolve in future years, so thank you.

I have no additional speakers in chamber. I have one hand raised in Zoom. Rod, go ahead.

Thank you, Amanda. Kind of building on what Stephanie just said, interestingly, when this winter market was first proposed, I looked at a lot of videos and newspaper sources looking at different winter markets that are going on. I appreciated that a couple of council members went to Europe to look at the big, impressive Markets they have there, but I was wanting to see what they, what people are doing around California. And, um, well, that creek has some pretty good. Boost that look very practical. Cambria. in particular has a really excellent Christmas market that I saw in a video by a photographer who goes around and does things that are interesting. And I think what I took from that is that Cambria this is a small town like us and they built it up over a long time. They started small and it was just a community thing and it grew and it grew. And now they've got like trains and all kinds of like a little kids train that small people can ride and all kinds of things. And my suggestion would be to going into this, to look at this as something that will be built up over a multi-year time span and just get the basics, do the little two day thing, get what you need to provide the infrastructure maybe this year. And then next year, start looking at the more ambitious projects, a snow mound, not sure I like that so much, but things like that that would be more expensive, but just add them in over time, make it longer over time, plan for a future where it can grow, but it doesn't have to be big and impressive right away. Thank you.

I have no additional hands raised in Zoom.

Thank you, Amanda. Moving into discussion. Who would like to speak?

I like the idea of the tree lighting and the trees in the park. I think that's a good one. And then we'll see how those goes. And then can we take those additional funds also from the economic development grant monies?

so because there's 19 000 absolutely um i would say that that 19 000 is contingent upon your next item but certainly any unallocated amounts you could um certainly allocate to the priority project okay oh just i'm sorry i just want to clarify so you don't have to do that tonight you can also do that at mid-year so you could do it later as well okay thank you

I just wanted to say that I really appreciated staff's time and effort with doing the ad hoc committee with myself and council member Mendoza. We're really excited about what this will bring to downtown Brentwood and the businesses and our communities. So thank you very much on all your hard work.

I love this, as you know. I was very excited about this idea from the beginning. I will say, we talked a little bit about making sure that we're not competing with the Streets of Brentwood holiday events that are similar in any way. So I think that's still important to do. I actually really loved the idea of the souvenir mug. I know that sounds kind of silly, but I could see it. Like I was talking to staff earlier about after the July 4th event, how many people asked me about buying that T-shirt. They wanted a souvenir of the event and they absolutely loved the idea of buying the T-shirt. So I think if we're able to come up with a souvenir mug, I think that would be really fun and something that would be a collectible, of course, year after year. um also would like to make sure that we're and i think this was already alluded to by councilmember mendoza not duplicating or competing with the makers market and i definitely like the idea of a vetting process to make sure that any vendors that come in really understand the vision um if there is anything that can be done as far as live artisan demonstrations like glass blowing or painting whatever i think that would be beautiful um i guess let's see um the oh i want to i want to make sure we've talked about integrating downtown businesses and i think that um i love the idea about the the any kind of alcohol sales for example coming through that um direction but i also i just want to make sure that as we're looking at how to integrate that we're looking at businesses that are not right near city park that we're looking at businesses that are say over on chestnut or other parts of the city that don't other parts of downtown i should say that don't get as much attention So if there's some way to bring those in as well so that the benefit is more downtown citywide instead of just at that one section. And I think that's it. I totally agree with the idea of the conservative approach in the first year. I don't know if there was any responses to any of the comments that we've heard this evening. But in other words, I fully support this. I don't know if there was anything else that came up, if anything popped up to staff from the public comments.

If I can just add one comment, Mayor. Staff had, during the ad hoc committee, they informed us that They had basically scheduled all of these different events in coordination with streets of Brentwood so that way we're not conflicting. And they're also staggering some of the events that do happen on the holiday parade so that way we're not having so many different compacted events happening in the same weekend, so we can bring a lot more foot traffic to downtown perfect Thank you.

I think when this item initially came up on council, I made a really flippant comment about not being the shopping guy, but it sounds like a good idea. But it's sounding even better now. It's growing. I'm really getting behind this and could support this. And I do agree with the last caller. that starting off small isn't a bad thing and allowing the whole process to grow and can this grow to Chestnut and can it grow outside of the downtown may be a really interesting way of moving this forward in future years. So I can't support it enough, thanks.

I'm ready to make a motion. Hold on.

All right. Thank you. I love the idea of the winter markets. I'm so grateful I had the opportunity to go to see a European. I actually agree with the souvenir mug. For Juneteenth, everybody has for three years wanted the Juneteenth t-shirt. We haven't sold it because it distinguishes staff from the public, but we need to find a way to distinguish because... um people want it and we can monetize it not that that's the intent but i still have my souvenir mugs from different countries and they're one of my favorite things to look at when i come home um or to drink out of them i just remember it takes me back to time so i think that would be a great deal i like this idea and i like that we're calling it a winter market and not specific to like christmas or a specific cultural, I'm sorry, religious connection, even though I have no issues with religious connections, but I think it's more inclusive if we make it more of a winter market for all of our residents. And I like the idea that we're going to see something a little different. That's why I was asking, how do we How do we allow the process, because I know we do other events and concerts and we have vendors. we're like Oh, we got to be careful about how we bring the applicants in and we just gotta let everybody if they want to come, they can come. So I am interested in finding out how we're going to do that process i'm also I really like the question stephanie asked, and I would like to get an answer because. So it'd be nice to see how do we measure our success. I mean, it'd be difficult after the first year because we are planning it small, but I think it would be nice to have a matrix on how we're measuring it to see how successful it is. But to me, this is what in the, you'll see on the next item what Lud talked about was putting our grant money towards things that actually drive economic development. And so I think this is spot on. It'll bring new and diverse businesses. And also what we've seen from events like the 4th of July and Juneteenth is that now we have more people patronizing the storefronts. So I'm excited. I can't wait. I'm going to tell y'all, let's go for it now. I'm ready to see it this year. I don't want to wait, but I'm also impatient.

I thought you just said we're going to start off slow.

This year.

This year, start off slow.

But I'm saying let's go take the training wheels off and start off fast is what I'm saying. Yes, I know we're doing it this year, but I'm like, let's do it different. So anyway, I'm excited, you guys. And thank you for being willing to bring it forward. And also thank you for your willingness to serve on the AHA committee. And thank you to the staff.

Thank you. I'm ready to make a motion. I move to provide the following direction to staff to go with staff's recommendation into the option that goes over the $60,000. And Council Member Mendoza, what were your items that you wanted to add?

The tree lighting and the deck the park integration.

Deck the park integration as well as the tree lighting.

and if we can have that extra money taken out of the economic development fund as well yeah and i will second that all in favor aye aye motion passes with glee real quick when it comes to the metrics i think we can partner with the dbc to get metrics and then you guys also monitor the um the traffic already

Yeah, so I apologize. I believe that's Vice Mayor's question. I was so excited about the motion. So yeah, so we do a couple of things when we have our special events. So maybe I'll speak broadly. We do use Plaster AI to kind of see what our foot traffic looks like. We also work with DBC and we get some information from them, what some of their sales look like, what traffic looks like. The other kind of things that we use specifically for Juneteenth, because that's been a really good community event that we've had in the past, is we also look at what applications look like over the years. Are we getting increased vendors? Are we getting increased community participants? You know, are we getting more inquiries? What do our hits look like online? So what does the traffic or engagement look like for our advertising and postings? So we use a lot of these different data sets to kind of gauge and see where we're at. For more established events, such as Concert in the Parks, we always kind of look and see how many bands or how many entertainers apply on a yearly basis. So we do have different metrics we use to try to identify where our successes are. And it's not just specifically sometimes, you know, number of people who show up or you know, how many dollars are spent. So we do have a kind of a range of those things that we try to look at to help us see what direction we're moving.

Thank you.

Can I ask a question, Terrence? We were talking about skipping G3 and G4, correct? Sorry, G4 and G5.

Correct.

And you wanted to keep G3, right?

Yes.

Okay. Then with that, we're going to take a short break. Just about to get started. Is everyone ready?

What motion do you need to have done?

We are going to need a motion for pushing out items G4 and G5 to when?

Postpone to whatever the date certain is.

I'll make a motion to postpone items G4 and G5. Are we also postponing J1? Are we hearing J1 tonight?

That's up to you guys.

That's your future agenda item.

I think because it's a short, it's not the full discussion.

Yeah, it's not the full discussion. J4, J5 to a date certain. I'm sorry, thank you. I'm so sleepy.

The 11th? August 11th.

Okay, thank you to August 11th.

I'll second. All in favor? Aye. Those items are postponed. Okay, moving into item G2. I am thrilled to announce that Amy Tilley, Senior Management Analyst, will present the next item regarding the 2026-27 Economic Development Grant Program.

Okay, thank you. Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. I am Amy Tilly, as you mentioned. I will be introducing item G2, the proposed funding awards for fiscal year 2026-2027 economic development grant program. Tonight, the City Council is being asked to consider and approve recommended competitive grant funding totaling $124,900 for the upcoming fiscal year. These recommendations come after a full application cycle that ran from April 13th to April 30th, during which staff conducted extensive community outreach and hosted applicant workshops, and they received 19 applications totaling $310,910. dollars in funding requests as outlined in the staff report the economic development grant program it's funded through a voter approved business tax certificate ordinance which sets aside 20 of the business license tax revenue for economic development purposes land use development committee reviewed the applications on july 20th and provided the formal funding recommendations presented to you in this uh this evening these recommendations and sorry real quick yeah you want to change your slide oh sorry you know what I haven't gotten my presentation yet oh I'm just talking too much I'm sorry I'm almost there I'm almost there no you're right it's okay I'm almost there so I'm going to provide you a brief presentation summarizing the program background and application process and I have available for any questions afterwards so we'll just skip on through the slides here okay

There we go.

Okay, so as I mentioned, the business tax certificate ordinance sets this aside. This is just for anyone in the audience who wants to know, since 2004, economic development programs awarded over $3 million. Here is the timeline just for your information on when the window was announced, when staff led the workshop, and then what the deadline was to submit the applications. And then on the 20th, Ludd went ahead and reviewed those and those recommendations are available this evening. As a reminder, we have our priority projects set forth here. And then now in addition, we have some direction that we'll be working on for the winter market. And in your staff report, you guys have the recommendations from Ludd in there. And just to reiterate, there was 19 applications and the recommended funding is $124,900. And I'm definitely available to answer any questions related to any specific grants or applications that you have this evening. And following this meeting, we'll go ahead and notify any applicants of the final grant award amounts. So with that.

Thank you, Amy. Any questions?

Can we just keep the slide on all the grants that were awarded, please?

I was going to say the same thing, that when we get to that discussion, maybe you could expand it to the full screen.

Yes, I have another worksheet too, which is similar to the Ludd one, where it kind of has them all up on one screen. I think, do you mean this screen where there's kind of, they're onto two different slides? Do we have one with like all the grants? Great, thank you. Yes, let me pull.

Okay, if there are no other questions, we can move into public comment.

At this time, the public is permitted to address the city council on this agenda item. If you're on Zoom, please raise your hand to speak. If you're in council chamber, please fill a speaker card. Your timer is limited to two minutes per person. If you speak on items not on this agenda item, your microphone will be muted. First speaker I have is Kristen.

not me again um good evening madam mayor council members staff and city members my name is krista mingus executive director of the downtown brentwood coalition thank you for your time and your consideration of this year's economic grant applications as a non-profit the downtown brentwood coalition host produce produces and supports more than a dozen events each year. Tonight we are only asking for support for two of them, Oktoberfest and Santa in the Park. We are currently in discussions about renaming Santa in the Park to a more inclusive name while also expanding the event to bring even more families into historic downtown Brentwood, giving more support to our local businesses during the holiday season. Last year Santa in the park welcome approximately 800 families over just two nights this year we're hoping to extend it, hopefully, hopefully welcoming more families to shop dine enjoy free holiday activities and create lasting memories in historic downtown Brentwood. October Fest is now in its 16th year and has become one of Brentwood's signature events. It welcomes thousands of attendees, over 200 volunteers and 12 local nonprofits. Downtown businesses reported sales increase of 20 to 50% over a typical Saturday with some doubling or even tripling in their normal sales. It is a proven economic driver for our downtown. Together these events strengthen our local economy, support our nonprofits and youth organizations, and help make historic downtown Brentwood a vibrant destination for our entire community. Thank you for your consideration and your continued investment and support in historic downtown Brentwood. Thank you.

I have no additional speaker cards. I have one additional speaker card. You can fill it after if you'd like.

good evening madam mayor and council city staff i swear every time i come here and i say i'm not going to speak i end up coming up here um my name is adam martinez i'm a brentwood resident i'm a business owner um that's what i came here to the to tonight to uh and um in regards to tonight I haven't seen the amounts. I haven't seen anything. But as past president of the Chamber of Commerce, I know some of you guys know me as just Chamber of Commerce. I'm much more than that. But I just wanna say thank you for allowing the chamber to do what they do and support local businesses. And the grant money goes a long ways in helping for the five events that the chamber does. And we're very grateful for those monies, thank you.

I have no additional speakers at this time. Thank you, Amanda. Moving into discussion, who would like to go first?

Can we get that sheet on, please? Yes. Would you take a look at this one, Council Member Maloney, see if this is the right one that I have up? Is this like the one you're thinking with the list and the recommended funding? Does that one look like the one you're looking for? I believe so.

If we could just make it bigger, I don't know if you can. I will try.

Oh. OK. That might be too big. I see. OK. Oh, I understand. No, that's not good. Oh, OK. Let's try this guy. OK. OK, we can see it all on one screen here. I don't know if that's helpful.

That's fine.

Thank you.

I did have a question about the artisan peacock market. So they asked for 5,000. You guys granted 4,000. I was just kind of wondering about the thought process behind not giving them the whole money, because they're going to have one, two, three, four. They've had, I want to say, in March, June, July, August, and September and 10th, they're having all these events. So I'm kind of curious what the thought process on not giving them the full five, because they're bringing obviously different foot traffic to Streets of Brownwood.

Well, they don't have to pay for the center cow space that's given to them and they're charging $175 a booth. I see. So that was your thought process.

Okay. Thank you.

A couple of questions about, sorry, the hometown heroes event. And that along with, because I think I'm going to try and tie them both together, the turkey trot. looking at all the funding, looking at where a majority of these events occur. I think we have to start, I would like to see, start venturing out, broadening the scope of these events to other areas other than just the downtown. We have several other small malls, however you want to call them, the Starbucks Mall down at the end of Brentwood Boulevard, the streets of Brentwood. We've talked about trying to move them into, or some of the events into Veterans Park. And we always end up right back down in the downtown. And I just, I... I know this sounds weird from a District 4 guy that runs the downtown, that it's my district, but I think we have to start, if the true purpose of these monies are to develop and broaden economic development within the city of Brentwood, I think we should look at all of the city of Brentwood and economic development in all of those areas throughout the city.

I think when we did it at Love, we weren't really focusing on the location. It was on the applicants. And so, like, also going back to Artis and Peacock, I asked the question, are they charging? But also, there's another vendor in that location, Chill, well, at the other location, Chill Coffee and Tea, who's getting $4,000 as well, who bring a lot of vendors. but it was the charging of people, of different vendors. But to your point, I think the Father's Day tournament is in a different location. The Chill Tea and Coffee is in a different location. Asukar is in a different location. The Artesian Peacock is in a different location. And then if you can go down a little bit, I think the I think those were the, and I don't know where the Ventry is going to be, but I think all of those, well, that's an initiative, but all of those are, it's kind of spread out, but it's, we got the applications where they land. So if we have more people who were in different locations, I think we can encourage them. But the reason for you brought up the Turkey Trot and the Hometown Heroes. We discussed the true intention of the grant was for economic development. And we don't know that the Turkey trout really produces real economic development, the way that a lot of these other ones were so we've supported the school district, we talked about we even had a member of the school board here. How much we want to support our schools, but really the whole goal would be economic development so that's why we eliminated for the first time this year. The same with the hometown heroes. When you looked at the actual spell out, a great event, amazing grant that we should try to support. But through this grant process, it just didn't seem like it was. I've seen in going through this process with like two and we've had these organizations that we've just done by way of we did it. So let's keep supporting them. But if we really, truly looked at it, it's not really in the true intent of the grant. So, yeah. I am happy that we did increase to some more, but I think we were also trying to be extremely fair about how we pass the loan funds.

Can I share my screen really, really quick? Is that okay? One of the things that we looked at was the cost of acquisition. Oh, that one's still, when, okay. And like, what do we really, how much are we spending per warm body that we're getting at these events? This is the allocation that we allocated. And then we have attendance from the May 12th meeting that staff gave us all of the attendance at the events. So then what we like based on their ask, based on the recommendation and the final allocation, we figured out what's the cost of acquisition per person that that event is bringing in. And it was really eyeopening. So for example, the best cost of allocation is hometown Halloween. They hit it out of the park. It is $1 per person, followed by the holiday parade, which was $1.30 per person. So awesome events. And then like movies in the park, $1.60, the concert series, So then we were looking at those kinds of things and what is our return on investment? And so that's kind of how we went through at this time because we really needed to kind of, and correct me if I'm not speaking, we wanted to kind of ground it on, is this really an economic development? Is it really bringing in people that are helping our downtown businesses. So that's how we ended up. And so that was that was kind of some of the math that we did on that is the dollars per the per what is bringing in and hometown heroes. We had heard that it's a great event, but there's no economic development at all when it comes to that event from people who attended.

Okay, and I didn't intend to insinuate you were unfair in any way. If I did, I apologize. No, no, no. I just want to understand everything. And I know what Ventry is, but what is the event? What is the...

It's not an event. It's helping them start this app. So we as a city don't announce all of our events. We don't have anywhere where we do that. There's really not a place where people can go and find all of their events. So I think trying it a year, seeing how it goes, seeing what their downloads look like, seeing what their searches look like, is it helping bring warm bodies downtown? And the funny thing is I was at an event on Saturday night in Antioch and a woman came up to me and she's like, you know, we don't have cultural events in Brentwood. She was in Brentwood. I'm like, well, we do. We have Juneteenth. We just had that. We have Multicultural Festival, Lunar New Year, La Gran Fiesta, and Day of the Dead. And she's like, I didn't know about it. And I said, you should download this Venture app. And another woman piped in. She's like, yeah, get the app. It'll tell you everything that's going downtown. So my, and we've tried other apps before. I mean, we've tried stuff. So my prayer on this one is that it helps us drive traffic to Brentwood and there's nothing else to it. There's no political stuff on it. There's no editorial stuff on it. It's simply what is going on in Brentwood and let's get them downtown. So that's kind of like a try and see how it goes for me.

And my understanding is that they also have all of Brentwood businesses. It's not necessarily just focused on downtown and they're going to be adding also like the wineries and the you pick and the farms and adding all that activity as well. So.

I had the one thing that I thought was cool staff was saying in addition, not so that we're not just given an economic development grant. Maybe we can look at how we can partner with Ventry to make them a potential vendor. So I think it's room for growth. But I think for a startup perspective, just because they can drive more traffic, it makes sense for economic development. So but I really like that perspective as a thinking outside of the box because our goal is Well, what I've understood our goal, and I don't want to speak for the council, what I understood our goal with this grant is to, and other grants that we've given, like even the DBC one, was that not the organizations will become dependent on us. And so I think this is great to help Venturi go like this, but then it would be great to figure out how we can partner with them as they continue to climb. But I think the app is great and that's why I put it that way. One of the things that we did have a little disagreement about was I appreciate the math that she calculated, but sometimes I think certain events are worth the higher per head count, for example, I didn't think that the Expo was a bad idea to keep around. So we reduced the funds for the Expo. We increased in other areas where the Chamber does good work at, but we reduced it based on her findings. But I've seen that to me, economic development doesn't just look like dollars that people are making it rain in your city. But also I like that the fact that the Expo helps find jobs and resources. And so that's why that was my vote that we continue to keep some of the resources there to see what happens. I actually, I've actually seen people get jobs at that expo. I actually hired someone from that expo a couple of years back who turned out to be a pretty good staff member for a year. So I'm grateful for it and what it can potentially do for our city.

So can we bring that slide back up, please? Did you have other comments?

I'm sorry, when I initially read or looked over the item and I was looking at all the funding and I was like, yeah, I didn't know what Ventri was. I didn't know what event they were putting on. I have the app and I use the app. I know exactly who they are. I know exactly what they do. My initial response was I thought this was to put on events and bring people into town for events. And then I actually went back and read the entire guidelines of proposed of the city manager. I'm trying to find where it exactly reads for advertisement for the city of Brentwood organizations, including the city of Brentwood. So it's all about advertising for the city of Brentwood. And it kind of made a lot more sense to me If we pile that on top of, we pay for ads at the Brentwood Press and we pay for ads in other spaces, should that also be coming out of this fund? Is it possible that we set aside I don't know, $5,000 out of this fund that we're not gonna use anyway to pay for ads that are advertising events and businesses in the city of Brentwood, rather than taking it out of general fund money.

I don't think that's a bad idea. However, when you look to the press, we also have legal notices we have to use from them. So I think that will come out of a different bucket that we would have to utilize. But I mean, we also use, what is it? Better and Brentwood? Right. Yeah. So I don't think that's a bad question to ask considering that I don't think we all knew that you could do it this way. So good question. But I would say when you look at the process, other things that nuances that we spend in addition to marketing or for some other papers that we made, I don't want to specifically talk about that one, but other places we market maybe for like legal notices or other required notices that we have. So that would be a little bit different than marketing.

Absolutely. um i i are you finished okay um i wanted to mention too that this is not the first time we've uh funded something that wasn't specifically an event we did a when i was on years ago if i remember right we did a um it was a chamber directory and then decided that that wasn't worth the money of investment for the purpose of economic development so it's not the first time that we've kind of looked into something like this and i don't see it as being the same as advertising um Because this is not us advertising whatever it is, like an event for Brentwood. This is helping a business that's helping businesses. a little late for me to be making sense i don't know if that makes sense or not um so yeah so i i loved the the idea of venture getting some support here i will say i watched the meeting and i having served on really appreciated how hard it was to hone in on the things that even though they're very special for the city that didn't quite fit the criteria so i i know that had to have been hard and i appreciate that The other thing I wanted to say, though, is I really would like to look at the Santa thing, given what Kristen was talking about with the impacts of it, the economic impacts of it. I'm wondering if we can increase that a little bit because I didn't agree with it being a religious focus. I think most people, and this is either fortunate or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it, don't see Santa as a religious figure at all. They see a holiday figure or just a fun person to bring presents. So I wondered if we could open up that discussion a little bit to see if we can increase that amount a bit, considering the reach that it's got.

I am. It's funny because I understand what people say about Santa. I just don't see Santa and I'm Catholic. I celebrate Christmas. I equate it to when I went to Ireland with a girlfriend and we're walking around St Patrick's Cathedral and she looks at me and she goes, oh my God, this is St. Patrick, like St. Patrick's Day. And I said, yes, right? Like, so we have St. Patrick's Day, we have Valentine's Day, we have Santa Claus. Those are all saints, but we don't think of them as saints. So I don't mind the Santa in the park. Because I think even, and someone could correct me if I'm wrong. I believe that non-Christians talk about Santa as well, but maybe I'm wrong. But if you don't call it Santa in the park, but you only have Santa there to take pictures, then what, I just think that's, I don't know, that's a little weird. So I don't know. I'm fine with Santa in the park. I don't mind it.

I don't think I was Santa. I wasn't fine with Santa in the park. I was just trying to make sure we're inclusive. And there are religions that don't do Santa. And don't do Christmas and don't do those other holidays. That being said, the reason for the $7,000 was just not for that. It's also we and this is no jab at the DVC because I'm supporting all the things we fund their executive director. We also have funding here that for we do the 44,000 and we went to the full amount. Love recommended 39 with 44,000 that I agree with. But we are looking for organizations to be self-sustaining, which is what we've said before. And we also have our own, I think Council Member Mendoza just said, can we use the additional money towards our own winter markets? And so while I'm supportive of it, I don't think that We are need to fully fund everything, and I say that gingerly because I appreciate everything that they do the same way I appreciate what the what the Chamber does the lions does with. What rotarians do I appreciate you all, but i'm also being realistic about us becoming having organizations that become self sustaining and. So that's my piece.

Yeah, I mean, I totally get that. I think it's had one year and I know that there were, if I'm remembering right from the presentation, there were people that were turned away because there weren't enough slots available. So they were trying to expand it to increase both economic development for that particular timeframe in December and also for the sake of making sure that families were served. um and i wasn't thinking of the entire full amount i was just more looking at like the staff recommendation um and i don't i don't know if it can be looking at the cost for two evenings which was 7 600 um and i don't know what other costs are outside of that i just wanted to make sure it was going to be feasible for them to do that if they could still do two nights with just that with what was funded did they do it last year with no funding doesn't matter i'm just asking you why did they do it last year I don't know. That's not a question for me.

Cause I don't, I don't see it. We gave anything, but I'm okay with, if you want to go with the staff recommendation of $8,000, that's fine. We will be left with eight 18 after we fund, we've already agreed to the 60,000.

So, um, Does anyone else have any other comments about Santa in the park? Any feedback? Whatever you guys decide.

I'm recommending eight, yeah. Is there any other discussion on this item in general? Any other questions about any other funding amounts or vendors?

I'm ready to make a motion when everyone's ready. As detailed in the staff report, I move to adopt a resolution approving the competitive grants from the fiscal year 26-27 economic development grants in the amount of $125,900 with the only change being an incremental $1,000 to downtown Brentwood Coalition for Santa in the Park.

I second that.

All in favor? Aye. The motion passes. Thank you. okay thanks amy um moving into item g3 alan bacalar director of engineering will present the next item regarding the purchase and sale of real property for the lone treeway roadway improvement cip project

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and members of City Council. For your consideration is a purchase and sale agreement with Jose and Lorena Velez in the amount of $198,000 for the acquisition of approximately 8,175 square feet of property, which is necessary for the phase two of the Loan Freeway Widening Improvements Capital Improvement Project. The property is adjacent to the Muslim Community Center on Lone Tree Way and is needed to accommodate the build out of Lone Tree Way to a four lane arterial roadway, including a new sidewalk and bike lanes. Property owners have agreed to the purchase price, which is based on the appraised fair market value of the property, as well as compensation for the removal and replacement of existing improvements affected by the roadway widening, including the removal of a number of mature Italian cypress trees that you may have seen along the entryway. So that's included in the agreed to purchase price. With that, approval of this agreement will allow the city to continue advancing this important roadway improvement project with construction anticipated to begin later this summer. This concludes my staff report and I am available for questions.

Thank you, Alan. Any questions? I actually have one and that is how are we managing any impact on the Muslim Community Center? Are we working with them actively to make sure they understand what's to come?

Yes, we'll definitely be working through our contract documents to make sure that there's minimal impacts to Lone Tree Way, particularly when this project ultimately moves forward. Fortunately, I think where it's located, I think we should be able to manage it, but we'll keep an eye on that for sure.

And are we in regular communication or do we plan to be with them?

We will be, yes.

Great, thank you. If there's no other questions, we can move into public comment.

At this time, the public is permitted to address the city council on this agenda item. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're in person, please file a speaker card. Your microphone will be muted if you speak on items that do not pertain to this agenda item or after the timer has expired. I have no public comment cards in person and I have no hands raised in Zoom.

Thank you. Any council discussion or barring that, a motion?

I can make a motion if nobody wants to talk. As detailed in the staff report, I move to adopt a resolution approving an agreement in the amount of $198,000 for the purchases and sale of real property with Jose and Lorena Velez for a portion of APN 018-100-008 and authorizing the city manager to execute the agreement and other documents as necessary to complete the sale of right-of-way transaction.

Before we take a vote, I have a question. I'm so sorry. Am I legally allowed to vote on this? I think this is, I don't know how much proximity this is to my home. But I know we normally measure. What is the distance requirement?

500 feet.

Okay, then we should, I think we should be fine. Okay, thank you.

Can I ask one question too?

The parcel next door, do we have the right of way there? The one to the east?

To the east.

On Tilton?

On Tilton, I believe we do. Yeah, that's oddly enough, I think, school property. And I think the right-of-way is there. The Muslim Community Center, along their frontage, they've actually dedicated their necessary right-of-way for a while back now. And then late last year or early last year, we worked on getting the right-of-way from the property at the corner of Smith and Lone Tree. This is along Lone Tree Way and this particular segment, this is the last item.

Okay. Thank you. Sorry. So did we have a second? Okay. Thank you. All in favor? Aye. Motion passes. Thank you, Alan. All right. Moving into item H, I believe, right? Which would be informationals. Let's start with you, Council Member Orlemans.

The last council meeting was like five weeks ago, but I'll make it kind of short. The town hall meeting with Contra Costa County Fire Station for Station 90 on Lone Tree Way. Meeting with Kristen Mingus from the DBC. The 4th of July parade. Hometown Heroes Safety Event Expo. By the way, it was an amazing expo. They did a great job of demonstrating. Kids were loving it. My grandkids were all over the fire trucks and they were not at all interested in the police cars, which I didn't get. The... Brentwood PD had a SWAT training exercise out at Tri Delta Transit. And I went out as the former chair for Tri Delta Transit and welcomed them in and talked about the valuable information they could get by understanding how the buses can be disabled or worked on or dealt with from a law enforcement perspective. Meeting with the CEO of Tri Delta Transit along with the acting city manager at the time that I wasn't invited to, I just accidentally walked in the door and hung out for the meeting. Chief O'Grodnick's swearing in as chief of police and the promotion of Captain Peart and Lieutenant Alvarez. There are other ones, but we can move on.

Council Member Maloney.

I met with the, on June 25th, I met with the management of Streets of Brentwood and several businesses at Streets of Brentwood. I also had a meeting with members of the DVC and Council Member Orlemans and our police chief regarding parking issues downtown Brentwood. I had a meeting with members at the police department as well regarding the social nuisance ordinance and applying it. I visited with several downtown businesses. I attended the 4th of July parade. That was an amazing event celebrating our country's 250th birthday. Major thank you to our parks and rec staff for everything that you guys have done on that event and to all of our community partners and community members that attended i also visited poke house on jeffrey way congratulations on opening their business i met with their owner and i'm excited to have them here i again met in july with the management of streets of brentwood i also spoke with the makatonga nonprofit association about their future events I also spoke to some of our businesses in the industrial area that are experiencing some hardships. I also, since it was our recess time, I enjoyed 12 days away with my family. I hope everyone here enjoyed their summer. And congratulations to Chief O'Grodnick on your promotion ceremony and everybody at the PD. I'm sorry I missed it, but I was gone. So congratulations.

Council Member Mendoza.

since the last time we met i attended the fourth of july parade the fire meeting for station 90 the desagne town hall the opening of the well which is also in downtown i had a latino caucus round table i attended a dbc a dbc like open house that they had for everyone i went to the cal cities latino caucus uh retreat and it was interesting because one of their speakers was um a refinery and i have my opinions about refineries and they actually owned the marathon one up here so my questions were all about when they're going to phase out You know, on oil and gas. Attended our Ludd meeting. Attended the Cal City's legislative update. There is a YouTube on that, so I will post that on social media. Attended the Teach Barbecue at Trilogy, and they raised funds for Los Medanos students who need financial help, and they gave them a check that night for $15,000. Attended the Liberty Union High School District Convocation, and I think that's it.

I attended the 4th of July parade, the age-friendly disability community meeting, the LUD meeting, and not in my capacity as vice mayor, but just in my independent role as a human being, I worked to throw a district-wide baby shower where mothers from Brentwood, Oakley, Antioch, and Pittsburgh received free diapers, strollers. We worked with First Five, and that was an amazing experience to witness all of these families come in and get free items in our community.

Since we met last, I filmed a promo video about Brentwood with the local real estate office for American Dream TV. Attended two 100th birthday celebrations for residents at Merrill Gardens. Meeting with Lil Pierce with Brentwood Regional Community Trust regarding their annual holiday food and toy drive. meeting with leadership at Tri Delta Transit, meeting with Fork to Farms to discuss models for addressing food insecurity, Mayor's Conference, which included a presentation from CCTA, Brentwood's 4th of July, welcomed Congressman DeSaunier for his Brentwood Town Hall, Filmed a video for Contra Costa Legal Services, Senior Legal Services, excuse me, 50th anniversary event in September honoring Bretwood Senior Phil Arnold for a lifetime of service. Two others are going to be honored as well, but they asked me for recommendation and they chose him as one of the top three. DBC Open House, swearing in ceremony for Chief O'Grodnick. Again, congratulations, Chief. That was incredibly moving and inspirational to see your family there and just fantastic ceremony. Watched the Ludd meeting and the Planning Commission meeting. Just had conversations with DBC ED Kristin Mingus to discuss downtown business follow-up survey to gauge patterns of business during downtown events. Teneda Cal City's webinar, The Capital Countdown, Top Remaining Bills for Cities. The TEACH fundraiser held at Trilogy to benefit Los Bonanos students. It took a tour of the Garden at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church. It feeds 60 to 100 families each week in partnership with St. Vincent de Paul. Liberty Union High School District Convocation. Best of luck to all the new students for next year. Aging and Disabilities Committee meeting with the Vice Mayor and then met with Townsend Public Affairs to discuss legislative priorities.

I did, yes.

Okay, so the next is any new agenda item requests? Oh, sorry, Terrence and Thomas, do either of you have updates?

I attended many of the events that you just said, and so for the sake of time, I won't say anything else.

Ditto.

Okay, any future agenda items?

Yes. Okay. I received a letter from a group of citizens and I'm just gonna read a portion of the letter and this is my request that city council consider displaying our national motto and God we trust within the city council chambers. It was passed by Congress in 1956, has been the national motto ever since. Neighboring cities such as Oakley has had it proudly displayed since 2007. 149 cities, counties across California have already also done this along with 764 throughout the nation. Placing the motto here would serve as a meaningful way to honor America's 250th anniversary.

Okay, I have one as well. It's something I've been thinking about a while, but actually came up in the discussion today with Townsend. I would like to, I'm adding this as a future agenda item now with the understanding that it won't be up for discussion until January, but I'd like to bring up the idea of forming a legislative committee for council, um, to look at state and federal platform building, whether it's an ad hoc or an ongoing, depending on if we just limit it to the legislative season, whatever that looks like. I want to be able to talk about that. And, um, I'm mentioning it now so we can have it in ready for January.

I have one thought about it. Um, I mean, maybe this doesn't need to be a future agenda item request, but I've never heard an update on when we're going to have a municipal code amendment meeting. or anything. So I would like some type of update if we can get something when that's going to happen and when we're going to move forward. We've had one meeting in two and a half years.

Amanda, did you want to say something? No, I was just side conversation, but that's a committee that with the transition and turnover in administration in general, it's been one that led by the city manager's office. So we're we're working on getting that back to the committee.

And then our final item is A requested future agenda item from Council Member Maloney and Council Member Mendoza to evaluate a prohibition on data center projects.

So our initial request for future agenda item was basically for staff to look into preparing an ordinance prohibiting the establishment construction expansion or operation of new data center facilities within our city limits and return to us with the findings. um just kind of going into this whole like i ended up learning a lot so one of the things that i would like um staff if you all agree to this to maybe when they look at a policy like this to classify data centers by measurable land uses um land use impact instead of identifying them by like whatever they're called whether ai or cloud-based data centers because there's so many different kinds And defining electrical, I would like to define the electrical demand using a project's maximum planned or contracted electrical capacity, not just the simple consumption as well as the water usage for a data center. So what I ended up learning is that you do have certain server rooms that support like hospitals and whatever that, you know, like small different businesses that is necessary that For me, I don't have an issue with those types of server rooms. Sorry, I'm tired and sick. But if you're talking about those large-scale AI centers, cloud-based centers that's taking a lot of our electricity and a lot of our water, causing all the harm to our surrounding community, I do have an issue with that. And basically, I also... we have like we've expressed interest in preserving land for uses that provide greater community benefits that's why we're doing it or i would like to i would like it to be done including housing parks retail office space light industrial uses and i would also like staff to address commercial um along with the commercial or large scale AI computing server operations, but also server operations within homes, garages and other residential properties while distinguishing these uses from normal residential computer use kind of similar to the telephone pole 30 or the phone towers that people basically rent on other people's properties and pay homeowners. There is that kind of operation going like within data centers as well like if certain neighborhoods are allowed to have certain data um data centers within like their garages or sheds or whatever so if we could look at that as well

Yeah, I think you've covered all of everything. The other thing is when we talk about data, I mean, when we talk about energy, are we also talking about battery storage? Because Tracy just turned down a massive battery storage because of the demand on water and electricity just to manage it. So I think we should include because we're worried about our resources include the big battery storage. And this isn't like a battery in your house, like your Tesla wall battery. That's fine. This is where you walk in and it's like battery after battery after battery after battery. And those can be very dangerous as well. But the home ones is interesting because they are paying people a pretty penny to put data centers. And if they could put a data center in every house, then they don't need a data thing. Then they don't need a big data center and they can kind of get away with it. So I think that's important. and something when we're done. Go ahead, that's it.

Okay, any questions regarding this item? Okay, let's move into public comment.

At this time, the public is permitted to address the City Council on this agenda item. If you're participating via Zoom, please raise your hand. If you're in person, please file a speaker card. Your microphone will be muted if you speak on items that do not pertain to this agenda item or after the timer has expired. I have no requests in person. and I have no hands raised in Zoom.

Thank you, Amanda.

Council discussion.

I will say I'm very happy to have this conversation come forward. It's such a really, again, another hot topic item that people are really concerned about. I think it needs to have a public and transparent discussion around it. So I'm very happy to see this move forward into the next stage.

I can make a motion. Okay. I make a motion to direct staff to develop a policy regulating data centers and high density AI computing within the city. The policy should establish appropriate classifications zoning permitting requirements and restrictions based on facility size electrical demand. Water use noise public safety and impacts on surrounding properties and infrastructure friendly amendment to also add battery storage. Staff should also address prohibition of commercial or large scale Ai computing data centers, as well as address solicited server operations within homes garages. and other residential properties while distinguishing these uses from normal residential computer use. And if staff could return to the city with their recommended definitions, thresholds, regulations, prohibitions, and if there is any other policies in surrounding cities, if they could also be reviewed.

And I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. The motion passes.

Mayor, if we could go back to future agenda items. I did forget something.

Okay.

I don't know if people are aware, but the HOA of Shadow Lakes put up four flock cameras. And they said the city gave them the permit. So I kind of want to talk about what that process is. Flock worked with the city and got the permits and they installed these four cameras. The problem is, is that anyone on their board can review the data. Which is very, very concerning that anyone that is on the Shadow Lakes HOA and I called the HOA, I spoke to someone. And they're like, yeah, anyone on the board can review all of the flocked camera data, which is very concerning. And they say they didn't do the permitting, that flock did it on their behalf. So I just wanna understand how that happens. And if anyone wants to put a flocked camera, are we gonna allow it? Because now there's four in Shadow Lakes that are not through the police department. So that's my future agenda item would be that we discuss that and come up with a proper process. for vetting that and vetting who is going to have access to that information.

Can I ask if you would be willing to include whether there's anything that can be done about the Shadow Lakes flood cameras?

If we find that we don't want regular residents having them, can we retroactively remove them?

Any questions for that item? Okay, so the final motion

I'll make a motion to adjourn.

Second. All in favor? Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you, everyone.