City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Just want to call the meeting to order for the auction city council for Tuesday, December 16th, 2025. Madam clerk, may we have the roll call and posting of the agenda, please? Um, Councilwoman Palo here. Councilwoman Bettis here. Councilwoman Rodriguez, present. Council member Star, yes. Mayor Prompteran here. Uh, Mayor MacArthur here. The agenda for this meeting was posted in the kiosk at city hall, the Oxnar Public Library, the city administrative offices, and on the city's website on Thursday, December 4th. Thank you.

Thank you. Prior to close session, we will take public comments on the close session agenda. Can the city attorney please provide a statement prior to close session, please?

Thank you, mayor. The city council will recess to a close session pursuant to government code section 54956.9 subdivision D1 to confer with its attorneys. The matter being discussed is City of Oxnard versus Portini Water Agency. The city council will also recess to a close session pursuant to government code section 54957.6 to review the status of labor negotiations and to review its available funds and funding priorities for the purpose of providing instructions to the city's negotiators. Eric Sigard, assistant city manager, and Steve Navo, director of human resources regarding the organization specified in item C3 of the meeting agenda, which is the International Association of Firefighters. And uh just to note, item C1 on the agenda, Clayton versus Oxnard, is being removed from the close session agenda tonight.

Thank you, Mr. Fischer. The city council will now recess to a close session and at 5:00 pm we will begin with an appointment item followed by a regular council meeting. Thank you. And and mayor um sorry mayor and council members just for the record we do not have any public speakers in person or virtually for close session. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you madam. Thank you.

Good evening everyone. City Council just uh emerged from close session and I'm going to ask Mr. Fiser if he has any announcements to make. Thank you, Mayor. The mayor, the council met in close session to consider items C2 and C3, and there are no actions to report out of close session. Thank you, Mr. Fischer. Uh for the next appointment, I'm going to turn it over to our assistant city manager, Mr. Eric Sonsard.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Members of council, uh this evening is going to be the first of two evenings of department workshops on what we um like to refer to as internal services. These are our departments that include human resources, uh finance, uh information technology and others that we kind of look at as the engine behind the scenes that kind of the things that may not be so public facing. And you might and our community might not always see these people, but these are the the inter in integral departments that kind of make our city go and allow our public facing departments like police and fire and community development and public works to do all the great stuff they do. So tonight we're going to hear from both the finance department and the human resources department. And I think we're going to start with the human resources department.

Sounds good. Thank you.

All right. Good evening, mayor and council. Uh Steve Nau, human resources director. Um do we put the I don't know. Do we do the slides? So as they're putting that together, um so I'm going to start the presentation for the human resources department and then I'm going to let the division managers in the department come up and actually speak about what their divisions do. And I have with me tonight uh Megan Ferguson who's an HR manager, Alicia Ecberg, and Lauren Buing, all managers in the department. Um thanks, Lilly. Uh the um uh learning and development manager, Kaylee McCain, wasn't able to make it with us tonight, so she made sure to print out a sheet for me to read so I can be sure to cover that for her. Um, before we go to the divisions though, real quick, I wanted to There we go. Just kind of give a little bit of an overview. So, the human resources department, we have four divisions. Um, we support approximately 1,875 employees and we have 24 staff uh spread out across these four divisions. Um, the department. So, what guides our work? Uh the first and foremost is in the city ordinance you have the Oxnard city code chapter 3 the employer employee relations oftentimes it's called an employer employee relations resolution but um it's an ordinance and that basically is what empowers the human resources department to run recruitments to do contract negotiations with bargaining units um those types of things. So from that we then derive the contracts and policies. So contracts being memorand of understanding with the employee bargaining units. Um the and then the city personnel rules and regulations with which speaks to everything from recruiting to um medical leave. You know everything you can think of that an

employer would have in general policy manual is contained in that. And then what we do is to support that strategic priority organizational effectiveness which is to reinforce, stabilize, improve and strengthen the organization foundation of the city in order to build a modern high functioning city government that effectively and efficiently supports the operating departments in providing highquality services and programs for our residents and businesses. Um so with that I believe the first division we're going to talk about is the recruitment and employee relations division which is going to be Megan Ferguson. And incidentally, um, Megan was so good enough to come back here for 30 minutes because she's actually on maternity leave right now, but I had told her she didn't have to come, but she like actually insisted she wanted to come here. So, let's give it to her. Congratulations.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Prom, Council Members. Megan Ferguson, HR manager. Uh, I am the manager for the recruitment and employee relations division. So my team has three main areas of focus. Recruitment, employee and labor relations, and classification and compensation. Recruitment is probably the area that we are most known for and the way that we bring on the wonderful individuals that help keep this city running. Recruitment involves partnering with our departments and hiring managers to make sure that we are attracting, screening, and ultimately selecting the most qualified individuals. Uh we want to make sure that we put a focus on quality over quantity. And that comes from the very top. It's um pretty easy to fill a seat, but we want to make sure that those seats are filled by the best and the brightest and most qualified individuals so that we are serving our residents the best that we can and representing the city the best that we can. For employee and labor relations, a big part of this division is helping to mitigate risk, liability, litigation when it comes to um personnel matters. And we do that by working with departments and bargaining unit leadership to ensure that we are addressing personnel matters swiftly and uh addressing all personnel rules and collective bargaining unit agreements orus in a fair and consistent manner. Employee relations also involves working with other divisions with the HR team that you'll hear from shortly. Uh one of those for example would be learning and development. So, if we're having a lot of personnel matters in one area, we may partner with learning and development to come up with potential training opportunities for that department or division. And then we would help develop that material and potentially co-f facilitate uh with that as well. And then we also work with risk management a lot when it comes to workplace safety

concerns and addressing those on a personnel and administrative level. Classification and compensation is probably the least known uh division that my team uh has. And basically what classification and compensation is is we are developing, reviewing, and periodically revising the city's classification and salary structure. And that involves kind of analyzing all of our positions, their duties and responsibilities, and then aligning those with the appropriate compensation. Uh classification and compensation also involves analyzing market and data trends to ensure that we are staying competitive with our neighboring agencies and then adjusting compensation uh when appropriate. And of course overall we are ensuring that the city has fair and equitable pay practices that are in adherence with all federal and state laws. And that's all I have. Um I'll take any questions if you have them now or at the end of the presentation works as well. prefer to wait. Okay.

One question, kind of evasive, but point of matter of fact to me. How hard is it to get employees to come to the city of Oxnard? I think actually recently it's become less difficult to find employees. We're having a lot um easier time getting applications through our system. It just kind of goes back to getting the quality over the quantity that we're looking for. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yes, of course. Thank you, Megan. I any other questions, comments? Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Okay, so the next uh division is the learning and development division. Like I said, Kaylee McCain uh is the division manager there and she put together uh some notes for me to go over with you. Um so division focus uh of the learning, hold on. learning and development division is strengthening the city's workforce through comprehensive training, performance management and employee engagement uh initiatives. So under training and development uh they deliver high-quality training programs that promotes the city's core competencies. So the city has 12 uh core competencies we evaluate employees on. They provide workshops on topics such as customer service, public speaking, giving and receiving feedback. Um so a lot of um both hard skill and softskll type training is what they do. They lead the supervisor boot camp program which is a series of 10 courses that are designed to help supervisors succeed. Um in 2025 they they had uh another 21 supervisors completed the boot camp. So we now have 97 overall across the city that have completed this. Um they also track employee participation in the required and elective training courses. So they ensure employees participate in the statemandated anti- um sexual harassment training and that type of thing. In performance management, they administer the annual performance evaluation program for full-time permanent employees. Um and since this team has come into existence, we are finally getting to the point that we're seeing 100% compliance in our employee evaluation uh process, which for a lot of public agencies is always uh a difficult um task even in the private sector. when I was in the private sector, it was a difficult task. Um, they provide training to employees and supervisors on feedback and goal setting. So, as part of the evaluation cycle before we kick it off, they they go out and they train managers and supervisors reminding them on how to set goals, how to give feedback, how to

conduct a successful uh evaluation process. Um, and then employee engagement. So, they develop programs that improve employee retention, engagement, and satisfaction. So, um, one area that they're focusing on right now is the onboarding experience for employees citywide. So, we've been working on a program. It's it's u it's, uh, for for onboarding new supervisors and managers and and, um, having a very focused program to lead them through the onboarding and to circle back with their own employees to ensure that the the team is building cohesion. And that's done through like a six-month type program. So that's something new that we are working on to roll out this upcoming year. Um they also lead citywide communication channels including bi-weekly employee newsletters and monthly meetings that are hosted by the all the internal services departments. So monthly you know it and uh finance and HR we hold a monthly meeting that um all employees can come and listen to and it's for us to give updates you know could be talking about budget dates and deadlines or there could be some HR deadlines. It could be, you know, the evaluation cycle. So, it's a an opportunity for employees to be able to hear about what's coming up and what expectations are. Um, so that in a nutshell covers what the learning and development team does. Uh, any questions on that before I go on to payroll and employee benefits.

Go, Mr. Po. Yes. With respect to the monthly meetings, are these mandatory? The reason I ask, if there's information shared at these monthly meetings and somebody's not there, there could be an opportunity for somebody to say, "You didn't tell me. I didn't know.

Yeah. So, the meetings aren't mandatory. They do put out an agenda so people know what's on the agenda, but and that's only one um way we communicate with employees. There's also a newsletter that goes out that communicates employees and there's other meetings also that could be had. So, if it's if it's something like we're going through um like the budget process because there's multiple milestones there there's an actual meeting on that. There's information that comes out through this monthly meeting. There's also emails. So, it's we have multiple channels that we use to get word out to employees. Um, so if they don't make one meeting, there's others. We also at times will record those meetings so they can always go back and view them. Um, so we have multiple channels that we use.

Thank you. And I appreciate the fact that you record them so they can review it. Thank you. Yep. Sure. All right. So, our next one's Alicia Eert. She's over the payroll and employee benefits division. Director Nova, I know that in the past I've received some of your newsletters and I think they're very informative. I would just like to encourage that we continue getting those newsletters that you send out with like, you know, there's just jobs opportunities and um uh what's happening. So, I really appreciated that. I'm not sure I've seen one recently, so maybe I fell off the wagon, but um Yeah, let me check on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know. I just put one out. I want to say they were very helpful. I don't know if I've seen one recently, but thank you. Okay. Yes. Maybe for the whole council. It was very useful to me. New hires. Yeah, like new hires, spotlights, and all.

Yeah, I don't have new hires, promotions, and and yeah, just some general updates. Thank you. Um, yep.

Good evening, mayor and council members. My name is Alicia Eberg and I work in the HR department and the HR manager that oversees payroll and benefits. Um, payroll and employee benefits administration facilitates the timely and accurate processing payroll and benefits activities, sorry. Labor reporting, compliance, and employee data management for over 1,600 employees. Some payroll activities include timekeeping, including um maintenance and support of electronic timekeeping system. uh in-house bi-weekly payroll of approximately 1,600 employees pay period. Um that number can range depending throughout the year. This division is responsible for tax compliance filing monthly and annual reports to federal and state uh authorities and state and I'm sorry and state and supplemental retirement. This year, the payroll department implemented and successfully rolled out the HCM um payroll in Tyler Munice. Uh this process has streamlined and eliminated a lot of errors that were um due to manual processes within our old payroll system. So, we're very proud to have the successful launch of that. Um my division also administers position position control for the city um employee data management and human resources information systems. Another area of the department is employee benefits for medical, vision, dental and supplemental insurance. Each year uh we process uh open enrollment for the city for all benefit eligible employees and this year we

process over 1,400 transactions through that. Um this about wraps up my presentation for my division. Uh do you have any questions?

Thank you, Lisa. Any questions for any council member? Go ahead. I just want to know if if there are any I guess for lack of a better word pain points that you experience with your job like maybe certain technology not working the way you hope it would or there's manual processes that you wish were automated. Um, now that we've launched the HCM in Tyler Munice, uh, our process has been much more streamlined and, um, it's become easier to use and more, should I say, technical, bringing it up to what we need it to be. Um, at this point, I don't see anything that we need to work on, though I can definitely take it back to my team. Alicia, just real quick, is there an update with the uh payroll system that PD is using and is it working with with your office?

They are using it's a time it it's a scheduling system for them. So, there's a difference between uh our scheduling system which I believe they use is in time. It doesn't feed into Tyler the way um a timekeeping system would. So with that, they have to still use the city's timekeeping system. So um they don't talk to each other. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Go ahead. Follow up on that. The city's timekeeping, does that mean manual entry

for I'm police department? You mentioned that the Tyler and the the different things don't talk to each other. Does that mean they have to manually enter the information? No. uh you still they still enter it into our electronic time and attendance. Um it's just kind of a dual entry. One is a scheduling entry and one is a timekeeping where your source of timekeeping comes from for the city. So it's two separate types of uh software.

Is in your mind from your professional background do you see that there's a potential for errors that we need to improve that somehow? Well, one is a scheduling system and one's a timekeeping system. Uh, the only error would be is if you entered your time incorrectly in the timekeeping system. Okay. Which the rest of the city also enters their time in. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Good evening, mayor and council members. Lauren Being with Risk Management. Um, so risk management, we do our best to safeguard the city's resources while also trying to minimize any losses to the city. This division includes overseeing our workers compensation program to as well as our general liability program. So with both these programs, we have third party administrators to help us manage any claims um that we do receive. We also oversee the insurance coverage, which is a two-sided coin. We not only ensure that the city's assets are properly insured, but we also in verify that all the contractors um vendors and consultants that we do work with are also properly insured. So that way if anything were to happen that we have some protections on that side as well for any services rendered to the city that we have compensated them for. Another group that we have is um employee safety which manages ensures employees receive any mandated safety trainings as appropriate. So with that we do coordinate a lot with the training and development team to ensure any workplace violence bloodborne pathogen trainings or items such as confined space training for some of our public works folks are done and adhered to to ensure that they have all that training and we are compliant. We also work um with that also dovetales a lot with with workers comp to ensure that we have um a robust safety s uh program in place to help minimize any worker comp claims and develop any trainings necessary to try to help minimize if there are any trends developed. Um, we also have to have we also have reporting to different agencies um such as OSHA and our self-insured um insurance program that we work with payroll to receive any data that we may need to help support that

information. Um, one of the highlights that we do do is with employee safety is we do do we have been working on doing an employee safety fair to encourage safety in the workplace and provide additional safety trainings. And our last um safety fair had about 375 attendees that came out to the pack and went through classes such as forklift training, ergonomics, etc. just so we had a wide variety so any employee could really come and get some type of specialized safety training that they may need for their roles. Um that overall summarizes my my divisions. Um if you guys have any questions from for me. Yeah.

Any questions or comments? A question overall I guess maybe. Thank you. Thank you. Yep. I think that wraps it up. So any questions? Yeah. So, can can you tell me a little bit more about how the time card approval system works? It sounds like we don't use like people don't clock in per se with a punch card or anything like that. Sounds like we're there's a real high trust factor that they're writing the time down for the hours they're actually working. Is that a fair statement?

Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, we do not have time cards in the city. Um, so people don't punch in and punch out. there is a it's an electronic sheet that um it has their schedule built into it. So then employees um you know like if you're on a 980 schedule, your time sheet is populated with that schedule and if there happens to be holidays, it's populated with that. Um if you're taking time off, it will then populate the time off once it's been approved. The employee then goes in and reviews that and approves their time. Uh it then goes to the supervisor for them to review. That's the individual who's responsible then for being for basically reviewing that and saying yes, they they took, you know, the uh if they took time off, it's on there. Um, and then they approve it.

And I think it's it's just that one level or is there a level on top of that? Supervisor. There's the I'm sorry. Employee. Employee and supervisor. Yeah. And and what happens if a supervisor doesn't sign off on a time card does get processed anyway? Then later on somebody comes in and approves it. Post it's pushed to the there's a second level uh of supervision. So if that supervisor doesn't approve it, isn't there is is off maybe on vacation themselves, it then goes up to the next level. So is it a fair statement that every single time card ultimately gets approved by somebody before a paycheck is issued?

Yeah. Yes, it would be approved by somebody. Yes. Okay. And uh I guess my next question is any thoughts about putting in a you know a punch card system where somebody punches in their time clocks? It's just it's it's just too tempting for some people. I'm sure it's very few, but it's too tempting for some people to not be working and to have themselves clocked in as if they are.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean we we have not had uh those conversations. Uh well I mean there have been some conversations about that but we have not uh looked at rolling that out. So that would be it would be a dialogue with bargaining groups um because that would be a working condition. So we would have to negotiate that. So we have to negotiate with the union whether we can have information about whether when somebody actually clocks in versus clock out. Yeah. If it affects a working condition, which theoretically that's what they would argue, we would have to negotiate that. We'd be forced to do that. That's why I will tell you a lot of public agencies over time have not

put time cards in, time clocks in because of that issue. It would really bother me if they were opposed to this. It just seems like a question of, you know, trust but verify. Yeah. And we don't have a way to really verify because there's not I mean most businesses today most operations today have time clocks for their hourly employees. Yeah, I know I know we do. Um I'm sure it's it could be implemented. If we can do it, I'm sure the city can do it.

Yeah. I mean there is a certain level I think of trust we have with the supervisors that they are actually watching their employees and ensuring that when they're approving that time card. Um I mean I will tell you we have in my years here we have done investigations on time card um uh fraud we have terminated employees for that. So we do that has happened and it has been caught. Um and employees know that you know you get caught once with that and pretty much you know maybe there's some extenduating circumstance but if it's just you just didn't do it you um won't have a job. Uh we take that pretty seriously.

Okay. Well anyway I hope you'll look into this. I just I'm really uncomfortable with the idea that somebody just attests that these are the hours I worked. People take long lunches. they don't clock back in on a timely basis. It's just human nature. So, let's let's put in some controls that protect the city. Go ahead, Mayor.

Thank you, Mayor MacArthur. I would just again uh having worked here for over 30 years, I would anecdotally tell you that if we had time card clocks like that, it would probably cost the city a lot of money because our employees routinely come in way before their shifts start and routinely leave way after their shifts end. So I I categorically disagree that we would somehow we would we would be like gaining some efficiency. It would actually cost the city a lot of money because our our employees put in a lot of hours that don't show up on their time cards. Thanks Mr. Sard. Go ahead.

And I'll just say uh Mayor and thank you Mr. Nvo for entertaining the uh questions there. Um, I appreciate that the city and other agencies treat their employees like adults and professionals and know that uh you are expected to put in x number of hours. This is the agreement we have and this is the compensation you'll receive and knowing that I believe time card fraud is actually a crime. Is that correct? That could be charged for egregious uh offenses beyond just dismissal from the and termination from the position. Correct. Yeah, it's theft.

Thank you. So, there's that. And I mean, we can speak to human nature in general. Um, people are people. They're going to cross the street in the middle of the street instead of the crosswalk. People are going to uh, you know, do things that they think gives them an edge or gives them an advantage. People are going to uh, evade their taxes. People are going to pay hush money payments. People are going to uh, you know, extort other people. This is just when we're talking about human nature. There are people out there from every sector who would do terrible things to try and get ahead. But in the end, um I personally believe that most people truly are good people until they prove me wrong otherwise. And uh any workplace you look at, you're going to have a uh bell curve of a large percentage of people who are there to do work, do high quality work, feel like they're contributing in a meaningful way. And then you'll have others who will work way beyond above and beyond what's expected. And then you'll have those who would do less than the bare minimum or try and get around and cut corners as was mentioned. So um I've worked in a number of positions. Sometimes you've you're there with it feels like someone's with a stopwatch watching you and other times where I've been given the freedom to uh do what I need to do to get the job done and do it in a very high quality way. And um I appreciate uh being given those opportunities and being treated like an adult and a professional. So I appreciate that we can do that as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member St. Go ahead.

Yeah. Strangely, a situation where someone's working and not clocked in is also a big problem because that's strangely enough under the law, at least for private industry, that's also considered time card fraud. when people are working off the clock sometimes it's because the you know the impression is that maybe management is in you know forcing them to do so without being paid for everything. So I'm I think I don't think that we can just turn a blind eye and just say oh putting people putting in extra hours doesn't cost the city money. No, it's a problem. So I I think that Mr. Mayor look we're not turning a blind eye. As you've heard, we have systems in place. We have approvals and we have supervisors and managers and we have caught people and there have been consequences. What you're trying to get as at is some perfect mousetrap that is actually not possible because I remember working in a retail store with a punch clock and time card. People have many ways to cheat there too. So what mouse trap would you like for that? So then there's a question of what is the cost of the perfect mousetrap that is actually impossible versus the cost of efficiencies and better management. So right now I think we have a good track record. As the HR director stated, people have been caught and have lost their jobs. It's working. If you really want us to invest in a bed mouse trap, if the council wants us to, we'll go look for one.

Good. Any other comments or questions? If not, Madam Clerk, are there any public speakers on this item? Um, yes, Mayor. We have three public speakers. Mayor MacArthur, do do we want to do the finance and then do the public comments or do you think the public comments are related to just HR? Let's do one at a time. One at a time. Are they are they related? Um, Madam Cler, do you want to know? That's for next. Thanks, Mr. S. We'll go to the next presentation because the speakers are speaking on that item.

Okay. Yeah. Good evening, Mayor Prom Council membersho, chief financial officer with the city of Oxna and Diego. Can we please bring the finance presentation? Thank you. Um I'm going to move relatively uh quickly through these slides. Uh I just want to highlight that uh the finance department ensures the the fiscal responsibility and transparency for the city while supporting all the city departments. Uh at the finance department we account for the city resources and the uses of funds and we also disclose the financial condition uh of the city through two key documents. Uh one is the annual budget and the second one is the annual comprehensive financial report. So how do we do all this? So basically the finance department is a structure with uh four divisions and one overarching uh internal control unit. Those divisions are billing and license uh purchasing general accounting and budget. The billing and license division basically represents the uh external customer service uh section of the finance department. In this section basically we provide centralized cost management. We also provide uh all the billing services for the utility and enterprise funds and also the business licensing for the over 11,000 business that operate in in the city.

The purchasing team is almost on the opposite side. It's more like an internal customer service department. Basically helping all the different departments to procure goods and services in compliance with the city procurement ordinance and all the all the rules uh to ensure that they get those uh goods and services that they need to provide services to the city's residents. on the general accounting division. Uh basically we make sure that we account for all the activities that are happening in the city and those activities are basically uh in recorded in compliance with the general asseted accounting principles and are subsequently uh reported in the annual comprehensive financial report that I was mentioning earlier. And everything starts with a plan. So the budget division help us help the city to have a plan on how to use resources and how to apply those resources with a an estimated of revenues and expenses h and also helps to allocate limited those limited resources based on the strategic priorities that the city council uh has established. The budget team also generates the information that is uploaded in the transparency portal. So residents can also track how the city is doing for all the individual funds. So mentioned h at the beginning h in addition to all these divisions the there's a internal control unit that is in charge kind of to overlook and oversee that there's different uh controls in place in compliance with all the city rules and regulations. uh since the implementation of the the CD ERP

that's has definitely helped to automate some of those controls at different level with automatic budget control checks when any department is trying to uh enter an invoice or any financial transactions with the creation of workflows that uh basically sends the transactions to the right level of approval and with the appropriate segregation of duties to record those financial transactions. So over the last uh few months uh the city has uh definitely realized uh incremental progress on the financial positions and that incremental progress is basically being confirmed by the standard and pro sorry in standard and pors with the credit rating upgrades. uh the reserve balances for the general fund balance have been improved and we were able to reach the the target reserve policy ahead of a schedule. Um and as I mentioned earlier the implementation of the ERP and the the new uh tools are like the budget software are helping us to become uh more effective and and continue in in compliance and with all the different roles of the city going forward. uh some we're going to be uh trying to com make sure that we uh generate workful workforce stability. Some positions we are experiencing a almost like a revolving door with we're not able to keep uh staff long enough to basically to get the return on investment that it takes to train and and explain how certain things work. And uh ideally we we want to make sure that we have the proper succession planning for all the different uh divisions and areas for the city. uh there's additional uh phases for the implementation of the ERP with

the next one uh impacting the the billing and license uh division with the the permitting and licensing and after that we'll have the the utility billing part where we basically we need to upgrade a system that is uh basically it's just uh having a dinosaur helping us to generate the those those invoices for our customers. Uh and basically we're going to be focusing on keeping uh track of the compliance record making sure that we maintain compliance with all the accounting rules with all the city uh uh rules that we are also uh need to follow and maintaining u trying to find the balance between maintaining the long-term financial health for the city and and being able to meet the financial needs of the of the community. Um, something that we're going to be looking also in the in the finance department is how can we learn to to live and and work with artificial intelligence? How can we uh use it in ways that can help us to become uh more effective uh to to gather information to be more transparent and uh like always in the back of our our mind is just how to keep compliance with all the rules that we need to abide for and um I'll be happy to to address any questions you may have.

Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Pearl. Are there outside training opportunities that you can have uh the opportunity for your employees to take some outside training? And I would appreciate that. But I also want to make a statement here. I know that there is an elected official that has oftentimes cast disparagement auterate that happens because I believe he puts undue pressure on the people that work there are doing quality job. Um very similar to the previous discussion about overtime and time uh cards. If the managers and the u higherups are not watching the people that are working there to making sure they're doing a good job, they're at fault. But when they are doing a good job and they're continually criticized, in my opinion, picked on and slandered, that is a big deal. And I apologize for that. I've apologized to members of your staff, but is there an opportunity I know sometimes with budgets to get outside training and things? Does that happen here? Thank you for the question, council member PLO. Definitely and and there's a ongoing training through the through the fiscal year. Uh there's a the purchasing team uh are they're members of a a procurement organization that provides training and it's always um a good way to update from best practices on training. the the organization is the acronym is capo for the procurement uh team. On the finance side uh we attend uh to training that is uh provided by the government finance associations uh the California society of municipal finance officers and also training provided by audit companies when it's time to provide updates on new accounting pronouncements that we have to implement. So those trainings are uh recurring and they're happening all the

time just to make sure and this is just those are just examples of training that the finance staff attend in order to make sure that they're occurring and they are just uh um in the on their toes when it comes to be compliance on the on certain rules and in the implementation of best practices in the different areas. Thank you very much. And um as a council member who's been here for a while, this department has done a great job and uh there are always people that will specifically come after me that I'm kissing somebody's backside. You bet has done a great job and when somebody does a great job, they're worth the praise that goes along with that. Thank you for the work. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you, council member. Councilwoman, anything? No. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Javier. We will now go to the public speakers. We will start with Mr. Ray Blattell, followed by Douglas Partell.

Thank you, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tim, council members, city staff. Before I make my comments which are related to the U finance, I'd uh like to make a statement to the Mr. City Attorney. If you are to compel the public to follow the city council procedures manual and you have every right to do so, then you must also hold accountable the staff the staff and the members of the council also as I have a copy of that manual and I've read it and I can point out instance where you're violating that manual. Thank you. Reviewing the FY202526 annual budget, it appears that the total expenses for all departments combined exceeds the total revenues for all departments combined. This confuses me and I must be missing something. How can this be? Perhaps someone in finance could explain this to me sometimes when it's convenient. And you might think, uh, where do I get this data? It's from the actual document itself. I put all the numbers in a spreadsheet and that's where I get it. the uh for 2025 the um expenditures are $640,000 more than revenues. I just I must be missing something. So, also it appears to be that in this annual budget document only labor costs are included. I could be wrong, but this is how I read the document. That's how I read it. I'm sorry. When I search monthly revenues and expenses on the city's website, all that I find is a bar chart showing monthly expenses and only for 2021 22 and 2022 and 23. Where are 23 24 and 20 242 exploring and expanding the data for the 2022 23 monthly expenses? I see data entitled FY 2023 current monthly revenues and expenses. However, I do see expenses charted by accounts, but I do not see any data

relative to revenues. Then, although this was also supposed to be FY2023 data per the title, the bar graphs are clearly marked by month from July through October of this year, but it says 202526 actuals for each month. So, is this 202526 data or FY 2023 as reflected in title? It's very confusing. So, which is it? Uh is this the attention to detail that we can expect in the monthly financial reporting? It's very very confusing. And where is the November of this year? Additionally, the data is uh comprised of the following salaries and wages, employee benefits, supplies, services, utilities and energy, maintenance, capital expenditures, financing, insurance, and transfers out. Are all of these elements reflected in the 202526 annual budget document or is this budget document labor only as mentioned earlier? If so, this is not much of a budget document, but if they are included, where might one find them in the document? Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Patel. Thank you.

Hi, Mr. Bau.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Um, I also object to the fact that I couldn't give over my minutes to Ry and we've had many other examples of folks have been allowed to give their minutes. So, I think that's an inappropriate uh restriction that's been uh put on uh a member of the public. And if I read the data correctly from the expanded data from the fiscal year 22 23 monthly expenses which actually appears in reality to be 20 2526 data the revised budget for the month of October for building maintenance and repair was $228,53. The actual expenditures for November were $30,514. As a matter of fact, the total actual expenditures for building maintenance and repair for this fiscal year as of October is only 40,618. Have we learned nothing from the past deferred maintenance of city-owned structures? Regarding the salaries and wages element, are overtime for police and fire personnel included in the monthly allocation expenditures? How is this accounted for in the fiscal year 2025 2026 budget document? Also, body cameras for OPD as mentioned later in this meeting, radios, command vehicles, etc. for police and fire department. How are these accounted for in the annual budget document? I have more important questions, but I'm out of time. I am hoping that someone in finance can help me understand the city's budget process and inconsistencies found in the current monthly expense reports just mentioned. There is most certainly an answer, but I don't have one myself. Now, I would like to respond to a comment from Councilman Pillo that says that a certain elected

official has made disparaging comments or statements about staff. But we've also seen the same thing come from the dis for that very same elected official. And we've seen a lot of other actions that caused the public to lose faith and trust in our elected officials. Phil Molina, the city treasurer, was elected by the voters. Okay? He was elected by the voters. And I think you all up there need to respect that and you need to treat him with respect which I have seen too many times being called a liar being called all these disparaging names. You know the city manager made a whole presentation to try to embarrass the elected city treasur. There's a lot of other things have gone on. Our city treasurer had to go to the court system to seek relief twice. Once as a CFO and he won that case. and the taxpayers had to pay $875,000 and he went again because the judge himself said that the elected city treasurer can't be unelected through ledger main that means trickery. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Partello. And we will go to virtual caller ending in 4716 4716. Um virtual speaker ending in 4716, please press star six to unmute. Um, and you have three minutes starting now.

Hi, this is Eric Andress at the Henry Levy House. Thank you for revealing the last four of my telephone number. Uh, it sounds like an audit of the HR department is in order since Alex Newu assoc associates this discussion with a mousetrap and thinks the department is perfect. If he thinks it's working, we better investigate. Thank you, Aaron Star, for trying to keep them on the straight and narrow. It's hard to take SSA guard seriously when he got in trouble at his last job. And Nuin has never had experience as a full city manager before coming here. And yes, Bert, you do kiss a lot of asses now when you used to be an advocate for the people. Makes us all wonder why. Since we moved here five years ago, my roommate, a veteran and a really good guy and a great worker, has applied for positions at the city at least twice and never received any kind of a reply from the HR department. I'm wondering if that's normal procedure with Oxnard or if it's the city being retaliatory against anyone who lives at my address. Does the city council ever ask to see any complaints that are lodged against any of the city departments, if any, or do you all just sit there on your hands and think that the staff is going to take care of everything for you? Also want to announce that I just released my latest video and people can check it out on YouTube. It's called Newin Leaves Oxnard in the rubble. Thank you.

Thank you for your call, madam clerk. Are there any other speakers virtual or here in person? And mayor and council members, that concludes our speakers in person and virtually for the appointment item. Thank you. Thank you very much. This is only a receiving file item. And Ashley, thank you for your for your patience. Thank you and family members. Thank you, Mayor. Yes. The air conditioning is really on over overdrive here. I I don't know if anyone else is cold in here. I'm looking I'm looking at others with gloves on. It's just I'll uh Thank you.

I'll let I'll let Diego know. Well, actually, I think Diego's hearing me. I'm very comfortable myself. Yeah. Don't let this start you. I got to call the meeting order. Yes. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Council. Yes.

Um, I do agree with Aaron Star asking questions about time cards, but having worked in an area where there were time cards. You showed up at work and you waited for your time card to click. But in other areas where I've worked, you were supposed to show up at a job. There was no time card at the job. So, if they expected you to show up at work and put a time card punch in, they did not pay you for the travel time when you punched in to when your job started. That is another problem with time cards. The other thing with time cards has been mentioned here. You can have a friend punch a time card. Unless you put a camera on the time card 247, you don't know what's going on.

The other part that goes along with this is with respect to when we have people that come to work early and they leave late. There is a history in private sector and I believe in public sector where people have turned around and sued their employer that they claimed that they worked off the clock and they were required to no matter if they win or lose there's litigation costs to the employer. Just want to share that. Thank you council member Pllo. Good everyone. Just want to call the meeting to order for the Auctioner City Council, Auctioner Community Development Commission, Successor Agency, and Auction Housing Authority for Tuesday, December 16th, 2025. Madame Clerk, may we have the roll call and posting of the agenda, please?

Uh, Councilwoman Commissioner Basua here, Council Member, Commissioner Peralo, here. Councilwoman Commissioner Perez here, Councilwoman Commissioner Rodriguez, present. Councilman Commissioner Star here. Mayor Prom Vice Chair Theran here. Mayor Chair MacArthur here. The agenda for this meeting was posted in the kiosk at city hall, the Oxner public library, the city administrative offices, and on the city's website on Thursday, December the 4th. Thank you. Thank you so much. The uh the next item is the pledge of allegiance. Sorry, mayor. Go ahead. I do have an announcement to make. Sorry. Go ahead.

My apologies. Um, pursuant to government code section 54952.3, each member of the Oxnard Housing Board of Commissioners present will receive $50 pay for convening this meeting with the exception of Commissioner Star, who has declined to receive compensation. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. The next item of the agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence. And for this, I will turn it over to Councilwoman Perez. Before we start the pledge of allegiance, I wanted to welcome our Oxnard Union High School District student trustee, Ashley Flores Reyes. As a product of the Oxnard Union High School District, myself, I truly believe in ensuring that the next generation of leaders um have a place here at city hall and really excited for you to lead our pledge of allegiance. We're also going to take a moment of silence after the pledge of allegiance for the shooting um that unfortunately took place in Australia as well as Brown University. Thank you.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you everyone. Thank you.

Go ahead, Ashley. Good evening, mayor, council members, community members, and family. Thank you for this opportunity to be here and be present. My name is Ashley Flores Reyes, and I am a senior at Rio Mesa. I'm honored to stand here tonight as student trustee, but more so as a daughter of immigrant parents who worked tirelessly to give that her the opportunities they did. As student trustee, I am the voice for 16,000 students. I have been allowed the privilege through my role to travel to Sacramento to speak on how comprehensive sexed prevents students from sexual assault. Through navigating my own experiences of sexual assault, I raised over $10,000 in donations for survivors while sharing my story. I began a project that pushes policy on how schools should deal with sexual assault and has been exhibited at the California State Board Association. A major component of my project is reading books to children on consent with language that they understand. I have also had the tremendous blessing of lobbying on Capitol Hill for TrioBound, a program I was a part of. I have been a part of for four years. I on the on the OHSD dis I get an advisory vote on proposals I feel would have the largest impacts on students. I have also facilitated partnerships with real guppies and nutrition services to create the best environment for the students of the UHSD. I learned English in the public schools, the same schools I now have the privilege of representing. My earliest memories come from a garage my family and I called home. In that garage, my parents never allowed me to believe I was any less deserving or any less intelligent than any other child for not knowing the language. And for that I owe them an immeasurable debt of gratitude.

Everything I do, every policy I advocate for, every meeting I show up to, and every voice I try to amplify is my way of honoring them. I thank my parents for leaving behind their home, their family, and their sense of security so I could have a chance of building my own future. I hope to one day become a teacher and have been accepted to San Francisco State and Monterey Bay under teaching programs. one to work with special needs students and the other to work with children in deal in dual im language immersion programs. I am also exploring a career in politics as I have been offered an internship with the Normandy group to lobby in Washington DC and my short-term goal is to achieve my IB diploma. But standing here tonight, I am also deeply aware of something else. I am extremely fortunate and all of us in this room are extremely fortunate. As student trustee, I am at the forefront of seeing how changes in our communities affect students learning and their safety. So, while I have your attention and time, I urge this council to continue standing up for our immigrant families and to allow Oxnard to continue living to its commitment as a sanctuary city. I have the responsibility not only as a count as a community member student but as a representative to implore you to continue fighting for the undocumented peers in our schools. The students of today are the future of our city and with your support we will be able to continue building a great future for it. Next year will be my first year voting and for many of my peers it will be theirs as well. Please know that young people are watching. Not only what you say, but what you vote. How you vote for us, for our neighbors, for our undocumented community will be

remembered when we cast our ballots. You hold the power to ensure that the sacrifices families make to be here come to fruition. I speak tonight with gratitude, but I lead with obligation to my parents, to my community, and to the future we are actively shaping. Thank you to Councilwoman Perez and Council and Councilman Terron for allowing me to be here and for giving youth a voice, the voice to stand here and the voice to fight for what we believe is right. Thank you for this honor truly. I promise to keep using my voice for as long as I have it. Thank you. Thank you Ashley. That was very inspirational. I we have a a certificate for you. Um extending our sincere congratulations to you for your dedications and your perseverance and your unwavering commitment working towards your goals uh despite the obstacles that you faced along the way. It's really commendable and praiseworthy to recognize you here tonight. So, if you want to come up with your with your family and parents. I also see Dr. McCoy is here. Um here.

Yeah, Dr. McCoyy's here. Uh and yeah, and and actually if you want other administrator, anybody who wants to come up here and support you and take photos with you is welcome to come up here. Yes. Would you please? I just wanted a picture.

I want to see

Thank you so much. Thank you. Are you the brother? Pleasure to meet you. Pleasure to meet you. Thanks for coming. Thank you, sir. All right. My pleasure. All right. All right. Let's see.

It's hard not to look at ourselves, huh? certificate. Oh, there you go. Okay. One, two, three. Four, five, six. You see how they treat me? Thank you. Dr. McCory, is there anything you want to say? You're good.

Thank you guys.

Thank you. You Thank you.

Do I feel comfortable to make somebody sweat? Thank you for coming. Call me when you come. I'd

like to acknowledge Eric Sigar for having the most festive tie among staff here today. Yeah, he does. Yeah. Oh, and socks. Oh, and festive socks as well. If there's more, I don't want to know about it. Okay, we're going to be continuing on with our agenda. This is the time for public comments for items not on the agenda and we have it looks like a total eight here in person. Madam clerk, are there any virtual speakers? Um, mayor, yes, we do have a virtual speaker. Would you like to take that person first? Yes, ma'am. Yeah.

Okay. um virtual um caller ending in 1622. Please press star six to unmute and you have three minutes starting now.

Thank you. It's uh Larry Barbarin. uh a merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah to everybody and in these times particularly to our Jewish friends uh non-Jews like myself um we are with you and we are praying for your happiness and protection everywhere including here in Oxnard and uh I want to make note to thank the Santa float for being around the city here including tomorrow in this area park northwest Oxnard uh tomorrow or 4:30 8:30 I believe that's Thursday actually Thursday 4:30 8:30 but they've been you can see their schedule there throughout the city uh last council meeting um the mayor prom with all due respect uh wrongly uh said that I was insinuating um that um people were being detained by ICE for uh uh not coming over illegal but or uh uh drug crimes or have anything to do with drugs. I neither insinuated, hinted, implied or said that at all. uh he was conflating where I talked about doing the police and fire uh presentation that uh the best way to deter the uh um OD ODS that we've had in the city and elsewhere uh is through people getting back to God through spiritual revival and that's this is all demand side like you mentioned the demand side and uh it's been shown for years that faith-based organizations are the best ones to keep people off drug and alcohol

uh to free them up from that. Thank God. Uh you got places like our own rescue mission here in town, rescue mission alliance and teen challenge that have done that for years and but I didn't mention also you have to go after supply and the this administ federal administration's gone after China on the producing the fentanyl and has gone been reported many times it gone through the border. Of course, you see the controversial uh but hopefully it will work and and it will be constitutional uh it be done constitutionally uh stop Venezuela uh with their drug actions because Pent you know killed million you know huge amount of people um and uh separately from that so they were trying to end this this administration has stopped the border crossing both of people and drugs they've caught six or they've freed up 62,000 kids unattended uh who are human traffked doing this little boy that they showed on Fox News with a pickpack and a note

telling by himself saying that he should be sent to uh he did with family in Louisiana. Thank you. Your time your time is up. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll next go to Mr. Ray Ablatel followed by Miss Angela White. Thank you, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tim, council members, city staff. At the two December city council meeting following the OPD workshop presentation, I made some comments based on data file received on 17 November in response to a P that I submitted. The file was uh the CBC citations issued between 1 January 2025 to 31 October 2025 and the data was in chronological order date and time. My comments were based on this source data file and incorrectly assumed that the second iteration that I was promised to receive would be for November 25 in the continuation of the first iteration. And we all know what happens when you assume and I screwed up. But the second iteration received was actually two data files with one additional file being purely parking citations. Thus, my comments on two December were definitely premature and incorrect. The truth is from the data filed from on January 25 to date, 24,44 citations were issued for CBC 22500N violations. As a matter of fact, 52% of all parking violations issued thus far were for those violations. Therefore, my statement regarding this point on two December was definitely an error and I profusely apologize to police chief. Is he here? To the police chief, OPD and the city council. That being said, there still remains the issue of the large decline in parking citations in 2025 compared to 2024. That is in 2024 per the workshop presentation on two December 27,344 parking citations were issued and per

the data received from the city via the P response. Just 4,697 parking citations were issued thus far in 2025 which is a decline of about 82%. Additionally, traffic citations issued in 2025 also dropped compared to 20 24 but only by 33%. I'm sure OPD goals do not include setting records relative to how many citations can be issued in any given year for any given infraction. However, given the increase in traffic congestion and the increase in the number of vehicles on the road and parking today, 82% is a big drop. I'm sure there is a rational answer, but it escapes me at this time. Perhaps Chief Bonitz can respond uh at this at his convenience. He has my email address. But again, my main purpose for appearing tonight was to apologize. So again, I sincerely apologize to the chief boned, OPD, and the city council for making erroneous statements on two December. Thank you very much.

Mr. Martell, it takes a very big man to say I made a mistake. I appreciate that. Thanks, Ry. Miss Angela Wome and Angela, you'll be followed by Sarah Wilchki. You don't need to do it.

No. Good evening everybody. Happy holidays. It's been a busy season this year. I just wanted to give you a quick update on what's going on downtown. We have our Holly Trolleys coming starting tonight through Thursday. And I hope that you can if you have the opportunity to hop on the double ducker bus. You take that option and maybe find a couple familiar faces there on on the tour. So, we're really excited about that with the gingerbread display in um the church. I also came up because I was really concerned about the um the announcement that you did about artificial turf being put and it's been brought to my attention that that was um incorrect. And not that I'm here to slam you, but I've just wanted to let you know that I'm really excited about all the native plants and the habitat that we're building and the demonstration that we're showing our communities on what we can do in our parkways and how we are supporting local habitat with drought tolerant plants and California natives. It's really really important that we we continue to have a a diverse um public spaces and that are that are accessible and educational. So, I look forward to our landscape plans uh being brought forth to the city council to be approved so that we get this done throughout downtown because we've too many brown patches. And so, thank you for your time and have an excellent season.

Thank you. Thank you, Angela. Uh Sarah and Sarah uh you'll be followed by Claudia G.

Okay. Good evening, Mayor MacArthur, city council, and city staff. Happy holidays. And once again, my name is Sarah Wesky. I'm a volunteer with 805 Indakupund and a resident of Oxnard. Today was a rough day. My day started at 3:45 a.m. patrolling uh making sure that residents got to work safely and all morning we were getting reports of ICE sightings and had several confirmed kidnappings. 805 Indoccupant has helped at least 1,166 families who have had a family member taken by ICE across the central coast so far this year. That number includes 144 Oxnard residents, not including the 300 Oxnard residents that were taken at Glass House. We have helped 14 in December. So far, 12 families have across the three counties we've served reached out to us in the past two days. Despite this being a rough day, I am proud of the work we are doing and proud to be a resident of Oxnard. You have taken some wonderful steps to help with this crisis. Taking swift action to join Vasquez Perdom Vnome and Newsome v Trump. starting an immigration stakeholders meeting to allow community leaders to dialogue with uh city officials on how we can help with this crisis and proposing an MOU with the public defenders office dedicating $600,000 over three years to create a new position. Oxnard has been a leader in the county demonstrating how cities can help immigrants during this crisis. So, thank you. Thank you for all you've done and I look forward to the work continuing next year. Happy holidays and thank you.

That was very kind. Thank you, sir. Claudia G and Cla, you'll be followed by Yokio Okano.

Good evening, mayor and city council. Um, I want to start by saying thank you for your leadership this year and leading the way alongside Santa Paula at a time when courageous, people- centered governments truly matters. I want to thank you for creating an immigration stakeholders meeting that brings together the mayor, city council, city staff, chief of police, Oxnard Fire, and community leaders. That kind of collaboration builds trust and ensures that decisions are informed by both public safety professionals and the lived experience of our residents. I also appreciate the city council's commitment to the 600,000 in matching funds for over three years to support an additional Ventura County public defender position. This is a meaningful investment in justice and act and access to legal representation for our community. Thank you for also allowing continuing to allow community members to speak their full three minutes even on complex issues that require more time and for truly listening to the feedback shared by volunteers and residents. Keeping the dialogue open and not dismissing concerns makes people feel seen and heard. Since the last date I provided the number of Oxnard residents taken, there have been additional reported kidnappings, including and these are all numbers in December. The first there was two people. The second there was one person. The third there was three people. The fifth there was one person. The eighth there was another person. The 11th there was six people. And I want to say that was like all H street. H Street. Um, I appreciate that you continue to take this information seriously and remain open to ongoing updates as we work together to keep our community safe. That willingness to listen and engage stands in contrast to other cities like Camaro where similar concerns have too often been brushed aside. Thank you for your leadership, your integrity, and your commitment to inclusive and accountable governance. Your actions, your willingness to listen set a powerful example of what

responsive local government should look like. I look forward to seeing how you make an effort to keep your most vulnerable community safe. Thank you.

Thank you, Clario. Thank you, Mr. Okano. Mr. Okano, you'll be followed by uh Joseph Jr. Good evening, uh, Mayor MacArthur, uh, Mayor Proam Turan, city council members, and city staff. My name is Hilio Okano. Uh, I'm a former member and chair of the Osnar Commission on Homelessness. I'm here to invite you to attend the Longest Night memorial service to honor our homeless neighbors who have died during the past year. This event will take place this coming Sunday afternoon, December 21st at 3:30 at Plaza Park. I brought flyers uh to provide information and it hopefully you have a copy of it. Sadly, we know of at least 116 people who have died homeless in Ventura County this past year. There may be more. Those who died range in age from 18 to 93. There were 25 women and 91 men. 35 died in Oxnard, 41 in Ventura. At least 40 died from drugs or alcohol. At least two died by suicide. These numbers do not tell us about the humanity of each person. Every homeless person that died was someone's son or daughter, possibly a sister or brother, husband or wife. Some were parents or grandparents. The longest night is a nationwide event that started in 1990 to recognize the tragedy of unhoused people dying on the streets. It symbolizes the hardship of being homeless during the harshest and coldest time of the year. Hence, the

longest night. I'm proud to say that Oxnard's longest night memorial service started in 2020 as an initiative of the Oxnard Commission on Homelessness. We modeled our service after the event that's been held since 2007 in the city of Ventura. The Oxnard Longest Night is a collaboration involving the Oxnard Housing Department, Ventura County government, faith groups, community agencies, and people who are or have been unhoused. As city officials, please consider honoring the humanity of community members who have died this year and come to the Longest Night memorial service this Sunday. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Okano. Joseph and Joseph, you'll be followed by Mr. Douglas Partell.

Uh, good evening. My name is Joseph Dzinski Jr. I'm a resident of Camaro. I also spend my mornings outside the ICE field office tracking ICE activity. Uh, one thing I want to start with is the statistics from the year. Uh since January, we have tracked at a minimum 1,166 families who've been abducted in all three of the counties that 805 undocu uh follows um and supports. Um out of that, Vincent County has about 691 of those abductions at roughly 59.3% and Oxnard has had 444ish, uh which is about 38.1% of the total of residents who've been picked up. Strangely enough, only 106 of those people have been picked up inside Oxnard city limits and the surrounding areas of what's considered Oxnard. Uh the rest were at Glass House or they're picked up at 321 Cortez Circle in Camaro when they come in for their appointments. That's in no small part to the community organizations like VC Defensea and 805 Undocu that have been out there helping the community and being uh told by the community when things are happening. So, uh, if anybody does see ICE activity, you can call 805 undocu at 8058708855 or VC defens at 8052961119. Now, the second part's going to be hard for me because I'm also known for being a kmogen at the Camrio City Council. And that's because uh Camrio has the highest total of abductions within their postal zip codes, but has done absolutely nothing to deal with the immigrant community. And it makes me angry. Uh, similarly with the county. Uh the county has done next to nothing so far uh to help the immigrant community specifically and that and that has made me angry. But I have to say, oh man, thank thank you. Oh, oh god, my heart just grew three sizes. Um uh and that's because you guys are actually listening and you guys have uh done amazing things. Immigration Stakeholders Committee is a wonderful committee despite the tensions that have

been there, the few times that I've been there. Um, and uh, you guys have pushed legal funding. You guys have signed on to lawsuits. I'm particularly impressed with Gabe Terron's work on uh, reporting all the complaints that are rightfully happening. Now, I still have some concerns about OPD, and uh, we'll be hashing those out in the committee, but uh, I did want to say that uh, uh, you know, we saw OPD kind of chatting it up uh, with one of the ICE folks this week, and I'm curious to hear why that was. That being said, uh, there's still more to be done and more battles to be fought. I would like to see one of the committees that you all have started in Oxnard in every city to look at immigration stakeholders and if the city councils don't want to do it, we're probably going to do an end run around them and do roundts because supporting the immigrant community cannot wait. Um, we also want to see all the cities join the lawsuits in the defense of our constitutional rights. And if the Oxnard City Council could please lobby your fellow city councils to do that, that would be wonderful. And I just want to say thank you for leading the way in civic action on this. And uh I don't know what I'm going to do with all this extra heart space. Have a good one.

Thank you, Joseph. That was very kind. Thank you, Douglas Partell. And Mr. Partell, you'll be followed by Larry Stein.

Uh good evening again, mayor and city council, staff, and the public. Um, now it's starting to get cold and uh I used to do a mission to Nicaragua and we shared a guest house with uh volunteers from Maine and we uh told them made the mistake of telling them that you know our cold weather shelter opened when it got 50°. Well, that's t-shirt weather for them. But it's getting cold. Maybe a lot of us will go home to the comfort of our homes and maybe the most uncomfortable part is when the air conditions turn on too high. But there's a lot of folks that are out there in the cold, you know, without shelter and they're hungry and they're tired and they're not well bathed. So that doesn't feel good. And we've got a lot of homeless here in Oxnard, you know, and I think the Oxnard is doing some things to help the homeless. What I am concerned about is the way we spend money on homelessness and the accountability for that. I think we spend a lot of money on homelessness. We really do. And the city of Oxnard spends a lot of money on homelessness, but I think there needs to be measures of metrics of success. And I I think we're lacking that part of the equation that we're actually showing that those tax dollars that are coming out of household budgets are having meaningful change for those that are ready to accept help. And I know there's a lot of folks out there and they say homeless resistance, you know, resistance to help. Well, there's a lot of reasons for that, right? You know, a lot of homeless people aren't treated very nicely, and I think that they have a lot of resistance to human contact because it just hasn't been very nice for them. And I think we have to just recognize that they're a part of our community. Just because they are without a home doesn't mean that's not a human being that deserves dignity and respect and

our efforts as a society to do more. And what I'm concerned about is when the state of California can't account for $64 billion that was spent on homelessness. You know, that's a problem because not only for us taxpayers that are struggling with our own household budgets, but just for the help that's not reaching our homeless population. You know, now we have homeless people that are eligible to get permanent housing. But do you know that four out of five of those that are eligible, they're not getting it. They're not receiving it. Only one gets it. And they have to wait sometimes 10 years. I was helping a gentleman that I found in a tent in a homeless encampment at Harbor and Fifth and he was literally dying before my eyes and now he's in permanent housing over on Sixth Street and the central terrace. And so that's a blessing. about just keeping our hearts in this time of the season especially that you know they're part of our society and our responsibility to do more for them and be more compassionate. Thank you.

Thank you very much Mr. Portello, Mr. Larry Stein and Mr. Stein, you'll be followed by a virtual speaker ending uh 8310. Good evening, members of city council, city manager, people in the audience, and Oxnar at large. I've been discussing the elevator situation for a while, year and a half, possible, a year, definitely. And I was told that the elevators going to be working at Somali festival. At 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I drove the parking structure and had drive the second floor because the first floor was not available. I'm not handicapped. I don't have a handicap sticker, but I do have a walking disability. And when I got to the second floor, there's sign on the elevator shaft or elevator area for second elevator not working. Now, I was told the Wednesday before that the elevators were going to be working for the Tamalei Festival. Steve H called me saying the elevators were going to be working on Festival. At 2:00 in the afternoon, I tried using the elevator. I could not use the elevator. I had to walk down the stairs with my footsteps in the way that walks. and coming back into my festival. I guess what I had to walk up uh with things I had taken down with me. It was not easy. I was told by city staff that would be going to people assisting people uh for the parking structure and there's nobody assisting anybody. So what does this speak of the morality of

our city manager who said that there's not going to be any problems at parking parking structure at tomorrow festival. We got signs at the parking structure saying that the park that the elevators were going to be working for special occasions. The festival was special occasion. Lo and behold the elevators were working. The elevators were working at 11:00. They stopped working. So when they put the signs up saying elevators were not working, how come city staff were not available to help people who have issues walking to get up and down the stairs? The staff was not willing to do that. When the city manager says that people have access to the elevators, people would expect the elevators to be working. When the public works director says the public work will have the elevators working. when the person responsible for maintenance Steve Hel said the other is going to be working and they're not. What's that speak of? How much truth can be trusted when people say something's going to happen? We have a large public event and the elevators weren't working. Now, I'm not the only one who has a walking issue, but there may be others, but who cares? This is one person. So, the city doesn't care about one person. citizen care the fact that thousands of people came to the festival on that Saturday and could not walk. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Stein. We'll take virtual caller ending 8310.

Um, thank you, Mayor. Um, virtual caller ending in 8310. If you can press star six to unmute and you have three minutes starting now. Okay. Um, can we get an interpreter, please? Thank you.

Okay. Vanessa. Good afternoon. My name is Blanka Valdez and I am a Latin attorney from Oxner. My name is Vanessa.

I am so sorry. Vanessa, I apologize. Her name is Vanessa Nablanca. Before I begin, I would like to say a truth. Uh, you live in Oxnard and what was said here was not precise. First of all, the Trump administration has denied to expose the numbers

from the detained people. That is part of the problem that we don't know. Please do not share this amount, these numbers without having a um a waiver for responsibilities. I'm sorry. Could you Second of all, the the stakeholder meeting that the mayor mentioned,

it was disappointing. So the $600,000 for legal help was not a collective decision.

Saying the truth is not attack somebody. Saying the truth is an act of love to our community.

Today in front the Superior Court of Ventura, our community was attacked. A lot of people were kidnapped by the Nazis during the daylight.

This is not an exaggeration. This is a reality that we are living today. And this is not about the press and for press conferences or anything like that.

This is for real action. And again, as I say it again, this has been disappointing to the immigrant community. be saved criminal

and almost 70% of the detainees have no criminal records. This is not a political decision. This is because who deserves the protection. This is about who deserves the protection.

This year you have made very clear what your priorities are and those are not our priorities. After today, this council meeting is going to be approving about $5 million for the department of police and not to the community. Nothing. Thank you so much for your

Thank you. You're I think we're out of time. Was she given six minutes, Madam Madam? Okay. Yes, sure. Thank you so much. We will now move to May. Mayor, perhaps you'd like a motion from the council to extend time on this because we've had 30 minutes already on this. Sure. I Thank you. Well, I'll make a motion to go beyond the 30 minutes for public comment. Is there a second? Thank you. Um of the vote, Madam Clerk. Um, Council Member Palo, yes. Councilwoman Bettis, yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, yes. Council member Star, yes. Mayor Prompteran, yes. Councilwoman Basua, yes. Mayor MacArthur, yes.

And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Start. Mayor, how many more speakers we have? Four more. So, can we limit to just those four? Four more. Yeah. Okay. We will now go to Bev Drenfeld. And Bev, you're gonna be followed by Miss Shannon Anderson. And then we have one virtual speaker and then uh Pastor Greg Renan. Go ahead, Beth.

Good evening, Mayor MacArthur, Mayor Brom, uh Terron, and council members. Um as many other people are here tonight to express their thanks. I know sometimes it's shocking especially when so many people are up here um yelling and uh making demands and also demanding accountability um to the city and or for the community really. Um but I'm here to express gratitude. Um I've done it before, but um I think at the end of the year it's important to remember just as Sarah lift listed off um some of the things that the city has done. I've mentioned it to the city manager. Um, it's difficult. You guys make very difficult decisions. You're often the ones leading the way. But as I told Alex, that makes it that much easier for me to go to my city council to say, look, Oxnner did this. We can, too. So, thank you for your leadership on that. I also really want to um commend Mayor Prom Terron and I hope that he stays as mayor prom because everywhere you look he was there for the county board of supervisors. He was there at Glass House. He was there at um a street. I mean probably another A Street incident. I think there's been two now. Um but everywhere he is he's reporting. He's speaking up. He's getting, you know, he gets heat for it, but he still does it. He still does it because it's what's right. I've had interactions with other council members um that I respect greatly because of the way that they've stepped up, the way that they've come into this. Uh so many of you have also said, you know, when you were elected, who would have imagined this would be the position that you'd come into? I mean, council member Star, I believe that that's something that you've said from the dis and and it's not fair and um so many of you have risen to the occasion um and exceeded it. And then Mayor MacArthur, I've said this to you as well, but how

symbolic it is to have you as mayor and the strength in that because you come from law enforcement. So you deal with this delicate balance of being in this position, being a voice for the community and um also being in your elected position and you are also Latino and representation matters and you see that here on this council and it gives people hope. It gives them a connection. So again, um just thank you for all that you do. Please, um I hope that this continues and the many years to come. Uh and uh have happy holiday. Thank you, Bev.

We will now move to Shannon Anderson. Miss Anderson, followed by the virtual caller. Hi, good evening. Good evening.

Um I'm a volunteer with 805 Undocu and I'm a resident of Thousand Oaks. Um, I have many friends in Oxnard and I enjoy the beaches, shopping, and great restaurants here. So, I come here a lot. Uh, my heart breaks to know this city has been the most heavily targeted by ICE in the most heavily targeted uh, county on a per capita basis. As a resident of Thousand Oaks, I was proud of my city for giving $100,000 to VCCF to support my undocumented neighbors. But then this city council stepped up. You signed on to lawsuits. You started stakeholders meetings on immigration. And you committed $600,000 over three years to fund another immigration attorney position in the public defenders office. You have become the vanguard city in supporting the undocumented community in Ventura County. You have become a leader among Ventura County cities. I thank you for that and for setting the pace for my own city. In the coming year, I will be at Thousand Oak City Council meetings advocating for my undocumented neighbors, and I look forward to challenging my own city to keep up with Oxnard. I commend the council for taking action, for your concern for the community, and for your leadership among Ventura County cities. Thank you and happy holidays.

Thank you, Miss Anderson. Thank you. We'll go to is there one virtual speaker? Madam clerk, ending uh one six

um virtual caller um ending in 461 4716. Please press star six to unmute. And you have um you have three minutes starting again. Thank you, Lillly, for revealing my private phone number again. If the city manager says that the elevator is going to be fixed and hasn't been, it's likely because he hasn't found a way to pad his resume with a deal that he can take credit for. It's ironic that parking citations are down when OPD came out and towed my veteran roommate's car for having no tags on it. They had just done the same thing to my neighbor across the street, but in a handshake deal, let him drive away to the DMV to take care of it. Ironically, my roommates were paid for. He just hadn't received them. My neighbor hadn't even paid for his. When my roommate asked if he could do that or put the car in the garage, OPD towed the car away, costing him hundreds of dollars he doesn't have. I told the council about it and heard from none of you. The retaliation by this city is truly remarkable and so blatant, and my security cameras caught it all on on on camera, including the handshake. Also, my building permit for an ADU is now 803 days delayed from the time I turned in the the application. In part from my own contractors, but also in part due to the building department, who is known for their ridiculous delays, and the city council seems to do nothing about it. I've lost thousands of dollars in rental income for the ADU I need because of these city's participation in these delays. I recently asked Jeff Pingilly for some information and he told me to contact my contractors. When Gabe and Aaron intervene on my behalf, he responds, but I guess if I ask him directly, I get dismissed. I'm trying to live on a tiny pension here. I assume all of you have decent incomes and live comfortably. I live monthto month wondering if I'll be able to keep my

house without this ADU income I keep hoping for. Keep it up. I'll do the same. I'm documenting everything and I'm getting pretty darn good at revealing the corruption in my videos. Stay tuned next year for the expose I'm writing on Oxnard corruption which I've started revealing in YouTube videos and discussions on Next Door website. I've gotten a lot of really positive and thankful comments from my fellow Oxnard residents. You've all been made aware of the rampant problems with the city's public record system and its administrator Wendy Carlton and so far the only one that's taken an interest in it is Aaron Star. So thank you Erin again. You seem to be the only one willing to take the hard issues. All Gabby Bassoua can do is stare at her computer. Lastly, I'd like to invite everyone out to visit the Santa Claus at the Henry Levy House on Christmas Tree Lane with its unnecessary temporary use permit this weekend, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. We had over 800 people take pictures with him this last weekend. The pictures are free and we're having a great time doing this with our community. I asked the mayor and my councilwoman Gabriella Rodriguez to post about it, but they didn't. But clearly, people are coming out anyway. I'm grateful to many of my wonderful neighbors. I wish I could be grateful to those that lead the city as well. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now go to Pastor Renan. Pastor,

good evening. I'm going to continue with the warm fuzzy feelings from our last caller. Uh I wasn't going to talk about this, but now I will. Gratitude is a attitude and a choice and it's not reflected based on how other people treat me. It's a choice in how I treat them. And you know the Bible says to love your enemies, to pray for those who persecute you. So to be very blunt, we need to practice what we preach, all of us. And no matter what your faith is, um there comes a time where you should be grateful. What a wonderful place to live. a a city that is as diverse as this one. And yet we're being stretched and we're being torn a little bit. But the one thing we're losing, so I'm going to say it again. Everybody's got so caught up in defending people who look like me, think like me, talk like me, that we're forgetting what made made America great is you fought for the people who disagreed with you. The Revolutionary War was wasn't about everybody wanted this. There were a lot of people that sided with the British. The Civil War was about people killing their cousins and their brothers and yet finding a way to reunite. By now, we should have learned that we need to come together instead of tear apart. So, you know, I'm glad for all these groups that meet, but the ranker that exist. That's more like animal house than it is a meeting. You guys should be talking about solutions. So, I really think we're going to try to put a group together that's focused on helping people. You guys can solve problems. Our job is to help people whether they look like me, whether they believe what I believe. If they're hungry, you feed

them. if they're naked, you clothe them. That's what we're supposed to do. And so this Christmas season, having said that, um this Saturday uh from about 11:30 to 3 at 8:31 West 7th Street, that's Gold Coast Fellowship. It's right across from the uh Performing Arts Center on 7th Street. There's going to be a toy giveaway. Um last year uh Dayby Day gave away over 800 toys. This year there's hoping to give away about nine. So, if any of you can come, Berth, there might Santa might be there. So, if you're naughty, not I mean, if you're nice, not naughty. Pardon me. You might get something this year. Um, actually, Santa won't be there. The Grinch is from what I heard. So, and it's already filled. It's already filled birds, so don't ask. All right. Um, we're going to have a lot of fun. We're going to have a good time. And just would invite you to come if you could stop in and say hi. Last year there was over about 400 people there. a lot of kids, a lot of things. So, 11:30 to 3831 West 7th Street. If you have time, just pop in. It'd be great to see you all. Thank you.

Thank you, pastor. Madam clerk, that concludes the speakers. Mayor and council members, that concludes our speakers on the items not on the agenda um in person and virtually. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Clerk. We will now move to the next item on the agenda. This is item H. This is the report um of our city manager, Mr. One.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So, I don't have anything formal um for this meeting this week, but since it's the end of the year, I wanted to share a few comments about um the year. I think 2025 will certainly fill the history books uh for things happening um mostly in this country, but also around the world. And unfortunately, there haven't been uh very many rainbows this year. And of course, internally here, just inside the boundaries of our own city, we have our own share of problems. Uh so, here's hoping for a a somewhat realistically somewhat better 2026. Uh now with that I would like to take this opportunity to share a a festive uh story about gratitude. So Diego, can you pull up the the photo for me?

Eric, can you get me the uh give me think?

So some of you know I actually live here and when I go around town most of the time I run into the people who talk to me. It's usually very very pleasant. And on this day at the grocery store, it's very pleasant because this is of course Pastor Greg Munan. And by the way, for the three people at home watching, he's still here in the room. Um over the nearly the last eight years, I've had the the pleasure and the privilege of receiving uh many many sermons from Pastor Renan. And of course, uh, it happens even in the produce section at the grocery store. Now, take a look at this photo and tell me if you see something odd. We are in the grocery store at the produce section. So, through the magic of 20th century AI, look at this. Okay. So, now I had finally the tables turned and I had the opportunity to give him a a sermon about health food. So, let's see here. Corn dogs.

No, no, no, no, no. Pretzel dogs. Pretzel dogs. High sugar fructose Gatorades. All kinds of fancy lace potato chips. And in case you thought these were oatmeal raisin cookies, nope. chocolate, double, triple, quadruple chunk. Those are for my wife.

So, it's really great running into people out and about. Um, this was certainly a a pleasant surprise. And then when I looked down in the shopping cart, quite shocking. So, there's a great 2025. Pastor Renan, thank you. Thank you. We will now move to the next item on the agenda. This is item I. This is the report from our council members. If it's okay, we'll start with Councilwoman Perez.

Thank you, Mayor. I too wanted to um start my report off by just sharing so much gratitude for all the organizations, nonprofits. Um I know the month of December and November are usually the busiest every weekend with every event that's happening. Um obviously there's a clear need in our community and really appreciate every single person who has stepped up, who has volunteered their time, who are organizing distributions all throughout the city. Um it's just great to see despite all of the the horrific things that have happened within this year, all of the amazing um events that have brought people together to ensure that we're meeting um people's needs um in this time. I know that um I had the opportunity to participate in a toy distribution in my district at Blackstock last Saturday. Um there are a ton of distributions that are happening this weekend from padas to masa distributions um toy distributions. Um and really just again really proud of the community for stepping up. Um I also wanted to share um just to kind of recap some of the work that I've been doing. I um Mayor Prom and I have continued to lead a lot of youth academy youthled efforts and we actually just solidified our 17 candidates for the first of its kind, the voices of Oxnard youth. Um we'll be having that launch coming in the new year and really wanted to congratulate all 17 candidates. We had a ton of applicants. um and just showcases all of the amazing talent in our community. And when I say that I truly believe in the next generation, I mean it because I know that there's going to come a time and place where I may not be on the DAS, but knowing that the future is bright and that we have the next generation to kind of take on that torch

is something that I I really look forward to. Um, as well in in my position in in the city council, I've also had the opportunity to attend um the decarbonization roundt discussion that brought together environmental and labor leaders from our community. And I thought it really was important to be there because there is this interest in how do we engage both our environment as well as our workers and our employees in the community for this transition um that we're going to be seeing into green energy and and really looking at how to ensure that the community is aware of what transition looks like, what community benefits are and really providing that education. So really want to applaud um the efforts. I know that was led by the port as well as um the AFL and other um local leaders. I also had the time to um participate in the Christmas parade. So really want to thank all of the folks that put the Christmas parade together. It was great to see that transition from the Christmas parade to the Tamale festival. Um just a great turnout there for the community. I also had the privilege to attend um the United Farmworker Gala and really I was blown away because as I was sitting in the audience um there was people from all throughout the country that came to Los Angeles to recognize the work of of our farmworker community and one of the statements that was made and I think we've heard it in public comments as well is there was a point in time where farm workers were considered essential especially during COVID as everything was shutting down. Farm workers were still out there picking whether it was COVID, whether it was during times of fires, different mudslides and and flooding that was happening in the area and really wanted to acknowledge the speakers that really highlighted kind of where we are now and and and where we've where our country has moved. Um and so as a part of that,

it was really great to see um Southwinds, our Southwinds community, and as the representative for District 6, I was really proud to see our community highlighted in a video for our smoke alarm, sound the alarm event that we did there. So really wanted to give credit um to Chief Hamilton and his staff for making that possible and to be able to showcase to the nation um really what what our community is about in South Winds and really the community that came behind um that effort including the Red Cross. So really want to commend and and give a shout out there. Um this Friday the Santa Float tour will also be visiting the South Oxnard area. Really excited to be a part of that. And as we've um kind of shared some sediment as we close out the year for um you know this 2025 year, I really wanted to as I mark my first year on the councils, tomorrow will be the my first year anniversary on the council. I really wanted to just spend a little bit of time showcasing that I was really proud to have co-launched the first summer 2025 youth academy have co-led as well as um with my counterpart council member Bassua the anti-harassment ordinance to strengthen tenant protections leading the smoke alarm um event in South Oxnard a resolution to push forward towards green energy my involvement throughout the district co-launching the voices of Oxnard youth continuing to report um dumping and cleanups for three on 311 uh my participation on the air pollution control district um and many issues that we see right now facing our community around immigration. I know as we enter the 2026 year, there is um a lot of concerns, especially with the expansion of the of the budget to um detain our community members and really want to continue to be at the table with our communities who is impacted to hear from

them um how we can continue to best serve them. And thank you um to my colleagues for the long report and I'll hand it back over to you, Mayor. Thank you, Councilwoman. We'll go to Council Member Pereella. Go ahead, Mr. PLO.

Thank you, Mayor. First off, I'd like to wish happy holidays to everybody that's here and everyone that's not here, the entire city, almost a quarter of a million people. There's a lot of good people in this city. Um, there's a lot of good people that work for this city. And recently attended the Ventura Regional Sanitation District Board meeting, Fox Canyon board meeting, went to the River Park neighborhood council. Excellent presentation. Uh, went to a bicep meeting. went to the parade, had the opportunity to carry Bill and Gloria, Bill Terry and Gloria Roman in my car. Um, there's a lot of you that may not know who these two individuals are. When I first got involved, they sat in the first or second row, right on the corner, right on the aisle. And I can tell you about this, Mr. Cherry and Miss Gloria Ron. I have never known them to advocate for anything anything that would have benefited them personally. Nothing. And they've always advocated for the entire community. Whether it be north, souththeast, or west, no matter what the color of your skin, how much you made, they advocated for what was right. And it was a pleasure to carry them and their daughter in the car. A lot of people along the way recognized him. and Bill laughed about that because we've all gotten older. We all had dark hair at the time. Um, I was very fortunate and uh I think as as we go forward, uh, some of these people that have been around, this gentleman has been around, I first met him during the Kuwait incident when there was protests, but there was Savers Road Design Team, there was his neighborhood, there was all the food things. The gentleman still is involved in collecting food with farms that are going to have discarded food because too much has been produced and they can't market it. He distributes

it and he Mr. Bill Terry and Gloran support food share with food, not the other way around. They supply a lot of small organizations that may not come under the umbrella of the bigger organizations. I wish we could highlight that in the city. I think there's an opportunity for not just these two individuals and a lot of we could say old-timers that have been doing this for decades. The last um uh had the opportunity to attend the Harbor Food toy drive and I would been given the results and I'd like to share them. The Harbor and Beach Community Alliance is involved with the people putting this toy drive on. They raised $35,200 including a $13,000 match in cash. They re they collected 3,335 pounds of food, 1615 toys, five bicycles, and one drone. It was a very successful event. This material will be distributed through the city. Um, and as a final statement, um, I am interested in hearing a proposal for this u challenging the offshore gas coming forward. I think that is worth getting on the agenda so that we can discuss it back and forth. And again, wish you the best in the holidays. Um, the violence that has happened recently, I know we had a moment of silence for two specific groups, but I can guarantee you there's a lot of people that we don't know who they are, were murdered. Their lives were taken. And guns usually are a big part of that. Somehow, I don't have a solution, but somehow something has to change. Thank you very much.

Thank you all. Mayor Proton, you want to go next?

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Uh, first I want to thank all of the speakers who came tonight and used their uh constitutional rights to speak to their local government and share uh their agreements or disagreements with us. I think that's the system we have and I I'm glad we have it because not everybody does and I just it is nice to get compliments once in a while. So, thank you for that too. Um, but I I I very much appreciate it and thank you for the work that many of you do for our community as well. Uh, just some quick recaps for me. I attended the tree lighting as well with my colleagues. Um, and then right after that went to the EMS core graduation and congratulations to all of them. I saw Chief Hamilton was here earlier. I don't know if he's still here. Oh, there he is right in the front. And uh there just some amazing work happening within that program and um I encourage folks to find out more about it and you may know someone who uh maybe qualifies for it and has an interest in entering that field. So, thank you chief to you and your team. Immediately after the EMS corps graduation, I went to the Orchard Park Neighborhood Council and um thank you to Mr. Howlet for facilitating discussion with them about their park and playground replacement. But I'm going to come back to that as my last point. Uh I also attended a youth entrepreneurship uh expo that happened at Oxford High School this past weekend. And these were young people who uh participate in programming for um entrepreneurship and development of uh you know hands-on things. We have young people doing 3D printing, doing screen printing of shirts and sweaters, uh making labels that uh get put onto water bottles and cups, metal work, uh ceramics. It was just great to see it all. And I spoke with uh Dr. Tiffany Morse who works for the Rio school district while I was there and she had shared how a really insightful um piece to this that many folks who uh have been out of school for

some time question the absence of wood shop and metal shop and auto shop and those technical programs that have uh not been able to be continued in many schools. And this is really the 21st century version of that of these hands-on things for tactile uh focused young people who can get these skills not only in making these things but also how to run a business in making these things and be sustainable and be able to take value in what you do not just uh value for self-esteem but value like monetary value. So it was great to see. Then River Park Neighborhood Council. I didn't get to attend, but the city manager attended and did a presentation. Thank you for that. Carriage Square. I just want to give them a shout out for having a large turnout for their last meeting. I believe it was 40 or 50 people last I heard. And then a quick advertisement for the Rose Park Badas that are going to be tomorrow at 6 PM at the um uh Rose uh Rose Avenue Elementary School in their cafeteria. And I want to promote that because I was hoping to go, but I won't be able to because of my next item. Uh the Holly Charlie tour, as Miss Whiteman mentioned, is starting tonight and will continue the next two nights after tonight. And uh my wife and I have agreed to uh be tour guides on that one as a duel. So, uh, if you want to go and check that out, you may get us, you may get someone else, but just know that we've ridden the Jungle Cruise a lot of times and so we can, uh, definitely, uh, add some flavor to that. Last two notes here. Uh the uh I attended the Lulu no de Posadas and I saw the mayor and councilwoman Rodriguez were there as well and uh it was um I just appreciate all the work that went into that and recognizing the folks who were part of that including uh Monserat Sanchez who was our first student who did the pledge of allegiance when we started that uh initiative. So okay so

my last comment here I said I'd come back to Orchard Park neighborhood council. This is something that I just want to put out there for the public. Um, at this neighborhood council meeting, uh, we were discussing their park and their playground for the Orchard Park neighborhood and one of the, um, residents raised her hand and said, "Well, but why did the council uh, make the our park a lower priority?" And Mr. Howlet and I were kind of befuddled saying, "What do you mean lower priority?" And she had said, "No, the council voted to lower our park as a priority. it was at a council meeting and that didn't happen. I mean, I I would I was there. I would have known. And um we were just confused by that. And she said, "I read it in a news article." And Diego, if you can ceue up the the picture here. This is not a picture of the actual article, but when she showed me, she couldn't find the article anymore, but she had a screenshot she had texted to her sister. When she showed it to me, I said, "Oh, that's an AI website. That website actually crawls all of the like videos and things from local government and creates news articles." all AI generated, no human involvement. And she showed me the screenshot and it did say that was wrong. That was misinformation saying that we had done that. But it looked like a regular website to her, a regular news website.

So, I just wanted to bring that up to remind the uh public. Um, please be mindful of the source of information and where you're finding things. I've been aware of this website for some time. To my recollection, that's a recent addition. the highlight that I added there, the disclosure that this article was created by AI. Um, so I just want folks to know that uh it's bad enough having to fight against misinformation from humans, but when robots are getting it wrong and or maybe purposely doing it, who knows? That's going to be a whole other discussion we're going to have. So, I just wanted to throw that out there and have folks be aware of that. Those are my comments. Thank you for the extra time, Mayor. And thank you. Thank you, Diego, for showing the visual.

Yeah, absolutely. Mayor Porter. Thank you. Uh, Councilwoman Pul,

thank you. I um I just want to take this opportunity. I'm going to I'm going to say it in Spanish. Um, Um, She didn't appreciate the diet coke on the diet. So, um I am eternally grateful for every single one of you that have been um part of this community and continue to um fight for what is right. Um I see you, I hear you, I feel what you feel. And hopefully next year will be better and we can continue to support each other. Um, I want to wish everybody merry Christmas, happy new year, happy Hanukkah. Um, and I'm looking forward to a great 2026.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Council member, first of all, I do want to wish everybody a merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah. Um, I did attend the Christmas tree lighting at Plaza Park along with my my colleagues and it was just so wonderful to see people that were just so enthusiastic and warm towards each other. People genuinely happy there. Uh, I saw two little girls. They were chanting, "We want snow. We want snow." And as if maybe that would actually work. But but but it was just so sweet. And uh I'm so glad that we can have an event like that where people can come together. Uh on other items, I attended the L Colonian Neighborhood Council meeting uh this last Saturday. Uh they're doing really well as far as increasing their attendance. They had 20 people uh at that and this is one of their first one of their first meetings. Uh we heard from Corporal Romero and Officer Hartman who discussed you know issues involving crime in that neighborhood. Uh and particularly it seemed like there was a lot of focus on uh crime involving uh homeless persons. And I was I was actually surprised to learn that one of the residents there said that there are homeless people that are emerging out uh from out of manholes. And it would have never occurred to me that a homeless person would be underground under a manhole, but apparently they witnessed them actually coming out of a manhole, which is just really odd. Uh I did later attend the uh Lac Colonia holiday potluck and I must say that uh you know I have never had it was a and I'm sure somebody else here knows the name of it but it was a like a Mexican hot chocolate where it had rice as part of the constituency and cinnamon.

It was it was delicious. I've never had that before. So uh whoever brought that there I'm I'm very grateful for that experience. Uh I also attended uh Councilwoman Rodriguez's office hours and um you know she is uh she is great and she works so well with people and people I can really tell that she listens and I think she's a real asset to our community and to our district and I'm glad she's she's doing that.

Thank you. Um, upcoming on uh December 17th, I'll be attending the uh a toy giveaway that's put on by the city, I believe, uh, and also the Rose Park neighborhood potluck. I do want to take this opportunity to say to give my thanks to to uh the mayor uh for approaching uh Pacific High School and asking them if uh we could honor the Titans at uh at this meeting, but they said, "No, please hold off. We were in the middle of the games and uh I think what I last heard is that uh they they lost at the championship level, but they had an amazing season and it sounds like we're going to have them back in a in a few weeks to actually honor them uh both coach Moon and and the rest and and the team. So, I'm I'm looking forward to that. They they really deserve uh the acknowledgement. It was a great achievement.

Tritons.

Trit did I say Tritons? I'm sorry, Tritons. Uh thank you. Uh I I do have a request for an upcoming item. Uh the at a previous meeting, I was told that uh the first reading of the ordinance to eliminate the unlawful IUF charge on solid waste rates. I brought up at the time that I think that we should have a vote to refund the money that we uh didn't have a right to take. And I was told at the time that well that's not on the agenda for tonight. That's not the order of business. So I understand that objection. It's well taken. But I'd like to at this time ask for us to place this on the agenda. We're being sued over this anyway. I'm convinced we're going to lose. I'd rather us just do the right thing rather than just losing court to do it.

So, Council Member Star, uh, city attorney's office advises against an open session discussion regarding the refund of the IUF fees. As you said, that's a subject of ongoing litigation and it would be against the city's interests for council members to provide opinions that may contradict applicable law. To the extent that there is discussion in open session, notwithstanding this advice, that discussion would subvert the city's litigation interests. I don't think our interests are in keeping money that we were never entitled to. And I hope that this will come onto a future agenda.

Thank you, Council Member Star. Um, we'll now move to Council One Rodriguez. Go ahead.

Sure. Um, and I recognize it's 750, so I'll try to be brief. Um, I had a lot of fun at the holiday par at the holiday parade. Thank you all so much for um for that. Just the people coming out, people very excited just cheering and and then good cheer. I know it was a long parade and I thank people for like just, you know, standing by. But um I just think it's beautiful to see community come together. So, thank you to all the organizers who put that together and for the tree lighting ceremony. It was amazing. So, um thank you all for for that. I held office hours and um I know that Mr. Mr. Maga at our last um transportation commission or or committee brought up the concern about um at Kamala Elementary School folks double parking and dropping off their kids and it's a safety concern. So um he came out and raised the issue again at my uh council hours. I know that OPD has been sending more patrol and so we're grateful for that. But um we are concerned about parents double parking. please uh just be safe because we don't want to regret any any child getting hurt as people are in a hurry or in a rush to drop off and pick up before and after school. So, I hope that we can work closely with the school district to just problem solve. Um I will be volunteering and I invite folks uh I'm a kid who can does our annual toy drive and and kick that off the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Um last year I know Councilwoman Pettis joined me. Um, we celebrate and and just try to bring some holiday cheer to over 300 families and it's a drive-thru toy distribution at the Elks Club put together by I'm a kid who can and Extreme Entertainment. Um, basically December 20th, 21st, 22nd, anytime between 1:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. If folks want to go gift wrap and join us, um, it's it's fun. It's a lot of cheer and you know, we'll probably share some free tamales or something, but um, it's a good time. So, come on over or email I'm a kid who can@gmail.com to get that information. I just want to remind folks, I know that during the holidays a lot of folks like to gift animals, consider adopting from the animal shelter. I saw a really cool video from

the city of Oxnard resharing um the adoption numbers and um just the community effort. So, just consider adopting if if you're able to and are interested in a pet and not just for the holiday season, but a commitment to be a forever home. Um and thank you so much. Oh, the other thing I saw that the library put a really cool event together where they were providing free gift wrapping um supplies for the community just come at large. Maybe next year in December when I have my office hours, I'm going to cap it at three gifts per family, but I will gift wrap your toys or your gifts or whatever it may be. Uh it it was a great idea and I saw maybe four or five people drop by after my office hours. I just hung out there for a bit. Uh but it'd be great just to uh have more people use that because uh staff put a lot of work and thought into this and it's free supplies for people to come and do their own gift wrapping. Um so next year councilwoman will gift wrap your toys. Well, three max because I'm sure people will show up with a lot and we got to pace ourselves. All right folks, thank you so much. Happy holidays, merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, Quanza or whatever else you all celebrate. So looking forward to next year making it a better year.

And I will uh I will just conclude. I participated in many of the functions that my colleagues highlighted already was beautiful to to come to the tree lighting uh event and and seeing just the unprecedented number of people that showed up and the same for the the parade. I know I personally took it upon myself to invite many organizations to come out that have never participated in the parade and they and they did. So to showcase our unity and just how beautiful we are as a city and as a people um also participated in the in the Guadalupe novena that they had. Um and then Hanukkah yesterday over at the collection and and also thanks thanks police. I want to thank the the officers here um for providing the enhanced protection to the Hanukkah event and also for the other uh religious events and that just showcases the beautiful country that we live in where you can have the freedom of pray and um in religion without government interference you could have Hanukkah and that celebration happening the lighting of the monora at the collection right across you've got Santa Claus and here I came from Guadalupe church u it just show showcases you can express your freedom or not in in our country and in our city without any worry that government is going to interfere just the opposite um the number of officers that were there protecting that right that we have and enjoy in this country. So, it's it's to to be celebrated and I thank um uh the speakers that came out and um and the kind words because you're right, we often don't get that. Um but I think you see that we sincerely and very genuinely with a lot of authenticity we're trying to help, right? That's why I put together the stakeholders meeting to bring people together uh from our

civic leaders to our key members of our community with different points of views, different perspectives to inform the decisions that we make up here on the DAS and um and so I thank you for acknowledging that the hard work that many of us are just really doing just from our hearts. So it it's very meaningful and significant that you came out here and and shared that with with us. So it's very important to me. Uh and with that I'll I'll I'll conclude. So thank you everybody. Yes. Go ahead council member.

Thank you mayor. I made an error in omitting one. I had the opportunity to attend a lunchon for the friends of the library and lunchon bingo. Very eventful. My city manager was there. I hope next time more of our council. It was an extremely enlightening. I did not understand exactly what all these volunteers do and it was extremely impressive and I was very impressed with the staff and how it was run. It was a tremendous event. I also did attend and agree with Mayor Prom. The firefighter medic training is something tremendous in the city. Thank you, mayor.

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, council member. Madam clerk, were there any speakers on on this item at all? Mayor and council members, we do have a total of six speakers for um the selection of the mayor prom.

The next one coming up. Okay. Uh we will now move to that item. Uh this is from the city uh clerk. That's a selection of the mayor prom and and we have various speakers for this item. We will u if it's okay with there's no um opposition to it. We'll go to the public speakers first. Um we will start with Miss Angela White and next to Ron Ronald and Pastor Renan. Any virtual speakers? Madam clerk? Two.

Yes, we have two. Hi, Angel. Go ahead. Good evening. I just I'll keep it brief. I just want to extend my support for um Mr. Tran to continue in the role as mayor prom. I think he's done a phenomenal job and if it's not fit if it's not broke, why fix it? So I just want to say if you could extend his responsibilities, I think our community would benefit. Thank you. Thank you, Angela. Uh, Ron Arjo.

Good evening, Mayor MacArthur, Mayor Prom, Teran, and council members. My name is Ronald Orjo, and I'm voicing and urging your support for council member Gabe Tran to continue serving as mayor prom. The mayor prom should be able to stand in place of the mayor if required. And it has been seen time and time again, whether during a council or committee meeting, events throughout the city, or away as a representative of that he has been able to do so with the self-confidence, knowledge, and professionalism demanded of the situation. When I and probably many others think of someone to vote for, we want someone who is one able to build relationships with each other, the community, and the staff with a record of their time on the council. Two, approachable in listening carefully to others with a desire to understand concerns, ideas, and perspectives, and accessible not just through in-person events, but also through social media and electronic communication. And finally, prepared to do the work not just in meetings that are being recorded, but behind the scenes in doing the research by participating in a wide variety of groups. I can think of no one better for that position than Councilman Gabe Terron on the DAS. He has previously or currently served as an INCO vice chair, a parks and recreation commissioner on the finance and governance and now on the public works and transportation city council committees and as part of the city council for almost 5 years. It is apparent that he has been able to bring forth his wellthoughtout positions critically questioned without being a critic and champion not just his own thinking but that of the body that he sits on. His communication skills are legendary being so accessible on social media where most people are now getting their news that many come to expect that he will answer their questions or comments when they are not able to get or find an answer from anywhere else. He has and continues to conduct himself with both fortitude and grace that

portrays both confidence and understanding qualities ideal of a mayor prom. Moreover, his record of accomplishment should easily convince the council to not only vote for him for mayor prom, but in also removing the one-year term limit so that he can serve until such time that the position becomes vacant. I greatly recommend and encourage you all to vote for Gabe Tron as Oxner's mayor prom. Thank you.

Thank you, Ronald. Um, we'll go to pastor Renan and from there we'll go to the virtual speakers. Mayor and council. Um, I think whoever you pick, I just think it's important. We have kind of a set understanding that this is what we're going to do. I remember back in the day it would rotate and that can create problems in and of itself. But if if you're going to do something to where um it's not a your appointment, I think you guys ought to put something forth so that there's a declaration of understanding because the one concern I have um councils get divided. They do. and and I can tell you from sitting in there almost every week, it is incredibly imperent what happens on the dis in terms of people fighting for position amongst council members. Um we see too often where a city attorney will give his advice, somebody says, "Well, I don't agree." And then they do what they want. We see where a councilman's talking, another one interrupts them, and they interrupt him because you interrupted me. I think as a council you all need to set a policy and stick to it and and do that. And so if Mayor you feel like Gabe's done a good job and this is what you want to do, I support you in picking who you want and and I do think Gab's done a really good job. I really do. But I think to go every year and just say, "Okay, let's let Gabe, you easily could decide to do it an appointment, a

two-year appointment or a four-year appointment and and be clear about it because what is so pardon me for using this and I probably had too much Gatorade, Alex, so I'm a little fired up right now. Not enough bananas. My muscles hurt." Um the the challenge is that I think sometimes we get juvenile. We really do. And we start bartering for position. Um I got 50 seconds left. I just want you to go back a couple years where we spent three and a half hours talking about seating position. And now we're going to end up, I'm fairly confident, debating a a mayor prom, you know, mayor, make a choice, stick to it, and as a council have the courage to say, you know what? Okay. And Gabe, you've done a good job. If you pick Gabe, I'm absolutely fine with that. So, thank you.

Thank you, pastor. We'll take the two virtual callers. Madam Cler, please. Um Nicole um please press star six to unmute and you have three minutes starting now. Okay, mayor. I'm having some problems with Nicole. Um, we will move on to the next virtual caller ending in 6377. Please press star six to unmute and you have three minutes starting now.

Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. Oops. Hello. Yes, go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Uh, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council, my name is Manuel Herrera. Manuel Eera, creator of Citizens for Better Oxnard.

Mr. Mayor, last year you announced that the mayor prom position would be changed to a one-year term. Although I respect your reasoning at the time and with all due respect, I would like to ask that you allow the council as a whole to nominate and pick the next mayor prom. Per California code sections 34905 and 36801. It does not specify a fixed term of office for the mayor prom. Instead, the individual serves at the pleasure of the council by allowing the majority of the council to pick to pick the next mayor prom. It allows them to I'm sorry. It allows them the respect of picking the right person who they feel comfortable working with and who they feel the public will approve of. I also wanted to mention that according to a comment posted today on citizens for a better Oxnard by Heather Smith. She noted that an overwhelming member uh an overwhelming number of people that responded to their survey regarding the city council claimed that Councilman Gabe Tran was doing and I quote a phenomenal job as mayor prom. I also wanted to remind all of you last year that when you were going to nominate a mayor prom, many people in the audience spoke up in favor of Councilman Gabe Tran. That will attest to the respect and support that Councilman Tran has by the general public. I also wanted to echo what a couple of the speakers said um right before me. One said, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." And I also agree with Ronald Rujo to eliminate the one-year term. Um I think it's pretty obvious that uh although I feel there are other members on the council who I think would do a great job. Uh I'm very

pleased and happy with Mayor Peram gave Tran, he's doing an amazing job and the public uh obviously agrees. So I'm sure you all make the right decision. Thank you. Thank you, Emanuel, for calling in. Um, is there another virtual speaker before we go to the inerson list? Um, yes, mayor. Virtual speaker ending in 4716. Please press star six to unmute. And you have three minutes starting now.

Can you hear me? Yes. Please start. I wasn't called on in the last agenda item, so I'm going to speak quickly on that as well. I don't vote for Gabe for prom since he can't seem to give up his vendetta against Aaron Star. Ronaldo Rejo didn't seem to mention that. It was nice seeing Gabriella Rodriguez and Luis MacArthur at the parade having a good time. I don't think she's ever come to my house for an event. I'd love to show her around. Can you hear me? I'm sorry there was some spillover, but um we're getting double people here. Yeah, we're we're trying to correct that. Um, go ahead, but we will go additional time. Go ahead, Mr. Andress. Around.

Okay. I don't think Gabrielle has ever come to my house for an event or tour, but I'd love to show her around. Maybe she can host her meetings with the public here once. I keep hoping she'll come to life and start working for her constituents. Bert Pllo, on the other hand, looked like his usual Scrooge self in the parade and just kept talking to the people in his car and not engaging with the crowd. I heard he had an altercation before the parade and told someone to f off when asked if they had seen my video on Alex Nuin, ever the proud spokesman for Oxnard. This is an FYI on the trolley tour through downtown and Christmas Tree Lane. that is run by a nonprofit that has nothing to do with Christmas Tree Lane and they sell over 700 tickets at $20 a piece for over $14,000. The public needs to know that none of that money gets funneled back into Christmas Tree Lane. I repeat, none of it gets funneled back into Christmas Tree Lane. There are seniors and poor people here who can't decorate their homes and that money could go to help them. We also have to pick up trash from our front yards every night that people won't do for us. I've also heard parts of the tour on the YouTube and they get information about the historic houses wrong. The information that they've said about my house in the past was wrong. So, a number of people on Christmas Tree Lane are now taking to turning their lights off when the trolley comes by since they keep all the money for themselves, which I just did. Petty, maybe, but I don't condone this city not trying to help people on Christmas tree lane that need help. I tried to get Mayor MacArthur to help with this and he thought it was a great idea, but apparently he was shot down for being so-called friends with me, which were not. This was by uh city manager Alex Newin. This wouldn't promote his career. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Is there um Nicole, is she back on? Can you hear me? Okay, this time please start. Okay, and I'm sorry I it was not necessarily the prom that I wanted to speak on. It was in the general comments. So, please advise if you'd like me to hold that to a different time. I'll ask our city attorney for clarification. Right. She was intending to speak on general comment. I'm not sure which general comment she's speaking of. So, the item is not on the agenda is my understanding. Is that correct, Nicole? That ended quite a while ago. Yeah. I apologize, Nicole. that that item ended a while ago.

If you'll recall, the mayor Councilman Starr asked for some more time. Then he asked how many specific I know it said four speakers and that's all we limited. If you would like to take her at the end of the meeting, that's how the agenda is set up. Yeah, Nicole, no problem. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, ma'am.

We will now go to Miss Barbara Mer Ortiz. Thank you. Um, Mayor MacArthur, council members, um, Barbara Makri Ortiz here and thinking about, you know, Mayor Prom, it may be considered a title, but what it is is it's an assignment and it's work. Um, and one thing I think that we're lucky with, uh, Mayor Pro Tim, um, Terran is that he has a flexible schedule. And so I think that's real real valuable. Uh, because you don't really know when you're going to need to help this community. You know, I I would like to be as optimistic as uh council member um you know, Basua, but personally, I think what's going to happen this next year is really the rubber is really going to hit the road in terms of we're going to see a lot of stuff coming out of the federal uh government, you know, in advance of midterms. And uh we have to be prepared for it because our community is under attack. And I think we've heard a fair amount today about that. So I think with this position we really experience is very valuable. It is very valuable. And I think one thing about Mayor Proen Terran is he has the ability to diffuse issues and I don't know how to describe it other than his manner or his way but that's really a valuable um feature or a valuable skill to have. And at this time, I think it's going to be very hard. This next year is going to

be very hard for our immigrant community. Um, we need the council to have our communities back and I think that we've seen it very well this year. In fact, I heard, you know, while I was still at home watching, uh, people complimenting the council in terms of the support. People really appreciate the support you have given on this issue and it's, you know, it's not going to disappear. It's probably going to get a little worse. And so, uh, I think that's one thing that you need to factor in. Now, I also was kind of surprised in terms of the year. I hadn't followed at the beginning but uh I remember you know in the past we've had like a team with the mayor and and the mayor prom. I think that's a good rhythm to get into because um it expands our ability to serve our community and again I think we need to really recognize you know mayor prom it's a job it's an assignment it's hard work just like it's hard work being the mayor and being a council member and I'm just grateful that he has the time to give that to our community. Thank you. Thank you, Barbara.

Um, mayor, if we can take um the next virtual speaker and that is virtual speaker ending in 4978. Um, Larry Stein. Um, if you can press star six to unmute and you have three minutes. I three minutes starting now.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, city council staff and some I'm concerned about the fact you want to deviate from what you approved on last year. You agreed to have a one-year term limit for the mayor for 10. This concept allows rotation of city council members. I'd like to recommend councilman Rodriguez for this position. a tendency of keeping open hours at least once a month. I've not seen this obviously as council members is well established with techniques and handling with government. I think she like to be a good person to be both as an example to others who want to go up and expand their viewpoints. She listens well. He meets with people on regular scheduled meeting one one Saturday a month. I don't know of any council member who's advertised this opportunity. I'd like you to take uh look into yourselves and reflect upon the fact that you agreed to have a one-year term. So you I think our memb has termed out and that speak take as a serious consideration in your decision-making process. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you Mr. Stein. M we'll move now to an inperson speaker. This is I'm sorry. I think we already called on her. Nicole um mayor I believe yes Sarah would be our last speaker. Wowki. Thank you Sarah.

Hi. I just wanted to come up and say that um I think there are plenty of fabulous um potential mayor proms on the dis and I but gave and doing a great job and I'm proud to be a resident in his district. Thank you. Thank you Sarah. Madam clerk, any other virtual callers or inerson speakers? U mayor and council members that concludes our speakers for this item um in person and virtually. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'm going to move to um select mayor or council member Tran for an additional uh one-year term to be the mayor prom. Um I move that item. I don't know if there's a second for for that. Okay, we have a first and a second. You don't need a second. How many people are nominated then? Sure. City attorney can clarify. Sure. Uh the city attorney and I had some discussion about it. Um on this process,

the state law and your procedures manual did not provide an an um a method of selection and Robert's rules of order has sort of a hodgepodge of selection methods including nomination from the chair. Yeah, we can have a discussion. Go ahead, council member star. Sure. Roberts does allow u somebody to just be appointed if this committee wants to do that or if this council wants to do that. I think we should have an election. Um I'm very thankful for Gabe Toron for his service, but we did say a year ago that this would be a one-year term.

Yeah. uh we're not prohibited from appointing the same person twice, but I think the intention was to rotate it and have other people have the experience of actually presiding over a meeting or representing the city as a whole. And it's u if we are to have an election, uh my my intention is to uh nominate Gabriela Rodri Rodriguez. I've watched her uh in action. She does a good job. I was we were recently had a committee meeting where uh the mayor wasn't able to attend and uh she ran the meeting and did a really good job

and I confident that she could do the job if she if she's willing to and I will concur with that. um Councilwoman Rodriguez would be an excellent um selection and I certainly believe in shared leadership and having um that rotation to allow other uh council members to have that opportunity. So um hence my um my selection for council member start to continue as a mayor prom for an additional for year. No sorry you promoted something. I I I I I I appreciate it, but I'm I'm going to decline.

Sorry, I misspoke. Um, any other um any other comments or I mean that's your amend amendment. Yeah. So, I I would just like to open up nominations. And so, Mayor, uh that I believe would be an amendment motion to amend the motion that is currently before you to appoint. If if it if it was seconded, you'd be right. Mr. Chair, she did second. Did you? She did. She did second. Um No, she she second my my move. Um

Yeah. So, so what I heard was the mayor made the motion and Councilwoman Perez made a second. Correct. I know we have an amendment to his. Is there a second uh to his amendment? So, is Councilman Councilman Star making a motion to amend correct motion? I'm I'm making a motion that we have an election and we nominate people and Gabe Tron be one of the nominees and candidates and uh Ms. Rodriguez as well and anyone else who wants to be nominated I guess. Yeah,

I just have a a technical question. I'm not sure if the mayor or the city attorney can provide some insight if there's multiple nominations on the floor. Um, is there an opportunity for the person who's been nominated to state out loud whether they're accepting the nomination or they would like to decline the nomination before moving into a vote? I believe in my research on this what I saw was the person who is chosen in order to assume the role has to accept it. So my recollection was it was phrased as an after the fact. Uh but if somebody wishes to decline now I I think we still need to get to the there's a motion and a second and anything any ancillary motion beyond that uh for one thing needs a second. So if there's no second then that resolves that issue.

You're asking for a second for Mr. Star's motion about that we have an election so that everybody puts their cards on. saying if there is no second to that Mr. Star's motion correct I'll second his motion for discussion in for a vote. Okay. Okay. Well great. So council member Pllo not every motion requires a second. So my point this one just just to be clear if if there is no second then you can move on to the vote. Okay. May I ask a question

on the motion the the original motion? The mayor has put a name and nomination. Another individual on this council put a second name and nomination. The second name doesn't count as much as the mayor's motion. I I think I can clear I can clear it up. Correct. That's in other words, the second name does not count as much.

Correct. because that so if the council does not want to go with the nomination from the chair then if there's not a majority for that nomination to be selected as mayor prom then you can have addition you can move to the next uh method of selecting putting out more nominees. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. If I if I can help at this time, assuming there's no debate on this,

uh, basically, you'd be asked in question of whether you want uh the STAR motion become the primary motion. Uh, we vote either in favor or in opposed. If it if it prevails, then we would have another vote to confirm that we're okay with this process and then we'd have nominations. Alternatively, uh if the STAR motion were to fail, uh then at that point, uh the uh your your motion would be on the table and we could vote on the appointment as opposed to having election. Thank you, council member. Well, without a without a second, um just for clarity, your motion dies.

I have a second from Mr. Perau. Oh, you did a second. Okay. For debate. For debate. Okay. Is there any we'll open it up for discussion with with the second that council PLA provided. Any any comments? If not, we'll I I'm just a big believer in elections in general. Okay.

And hopefully since we were all elected to be here, if we'd all share that opinion, you might wind up with the same person anyway, and that's fine. Um but why not go through an election? Okay, city chair. Just for clarification at this point, council member Pllo second. Council member Star's u motion for an election. Would would it suffice to just make a vote on So, so let's make a So, let's have a vote at this point in time of do we want the star motion to be the main motion? That's that that's the motion on the table. Can officially can we have the city clerk read the motion?

Yes. Um, okay. So, there was a motion by um Council Member Star um to open the nominations and that was second by Council Member Palo. So, that is the motion right now on the on the floor on the table. Okay. Well, Madam Cler, call for the vote. Uh, Council Member Palo, yes. Councilwoman Pettis, no. Councilwoman Rodriguez, yes. Council member Star, yes. Councilwoman Basua, yes. Mayor Promptan, yes. Mayor MacArthur, yes. And this motion carries um 6 to one. Thank you.

At that point, this is now the main motion on the floor. So, it's possible to have other amendments, but it would be appropriate at this point in time to have a mo a vote on this main motion, and if it prevails, then we go to election. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Stark. I'll open up for discussion on the on the motion that's on the table now to appoint um council member Terron to serve as the mayor prom for an additional one year. No, that no the main motion right now is to have an election. Okay. So, unless somebody could amend it, I suppose in theory.

Uh but otherwise, I would just suggest that you take another vote on this main motion. probably the same outcome and then we'll go to nominations. So that that'd be my recommendation at this time just to call for the vote on that. Mr. City attorney, can you help us out here? Where are we standing right now? My understanding is two people have been nominated. No, not yet. City attorney

if Okay. So what is before you now is to open and take nominations so that an election among those nominees can occur. So if you vote the majority votes for this then nominations will be taken and then the election will occur. Thank you very much clerk. I call for the vote. Uh Councilwoman Bettis. Yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, yes. Council member Star, yes. Councilwoman Basua, yes. Mayor Protemptan, yes. Um, Council Member Palo, yes. U, Mayor MacArthur, yes.

And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you. Okay, we're now working. So, at this point, you at this point, you would open up nominations. So, if you request nominations from the council, we can make nominations. Thank you, Council Member Stark. I'd nominate Mr. on. Okay. And seconds aren't aren't required for nominations. I we're just we're opening up for nominations. Council Basua, what is your nomination? Well, he's he's already nominated. Yeah. So, I'd like to I'd like to additional nominations. Yes. Any other any other from this council? Any other nominations of any other council member? Go ahead.

Yes. I I'd like to nominate Gabriella Rodriguez. Okay. Um any other nominations? Okay, just for clarification, city attorney, at this point we've got two nominees, uh, Council Member Tran and Councilwoman Rodriguez. Can we call for just a voice vote with with the with Madam Clerk? Yes, you may. Okay, Madam Clerk. So, so at this point, you'd announce that nominations are closed. If there's no objection, we'll come to a vote.

Thank you. the number. Thank you for for the clarification. At this point, the nominations are closed. Um, without objection, we're going to call for the vote on the nominee, Councilwoman Rodriguez. So, M. So, so, Mr. Mayor, at this point, what will happen is that the seven of us will be called one at a time, and we'll simply state out loud who it is we're voting for. So that's what calls. Yeah. So show ma'am madam clerk will call out each name and we'll we'll just So there are two options that you could take. You could take that method which would be a voice vote,

right? And another method would be and the stated method in Robert's rules is to have a paper ballot which given the Brown Act rules that there's no allowance for a secret ballot. Each council member would have to identify themselves on their vote. It would be tallied by the city clerk and then the city clerk would read the results as well as who voted for for whom. But it does take some of the uh other uh issues that come with just having a sequential voice vote. There's no objection. I I'm okay with doing a voice vote. There's no objection to that. Voice vote is fine.

Okay. Madam clerk, uh council member Star. Um Miss Rodriguez, please. Councilwoman Ro. Um, Councilwoman Basua Teran. Um, Mayor Prompan. Council member Palo Tran. Councilwoman Perez. Councilwoman Rodriguez. I think he's doing an amazing job. Um, I I I will still vote for Rodriguez. I'm ready, willing, and able to serve, but I definitely is it's you're doing an amazing job. So, um thank you, U Mayor MacArthur.

Yeah, thank you, Councilwoman, for not voting against yourself. Um Council Member, uh Tran. Um thank you. Um so the so um mayor um council member Tran or Mayor Prom Tran got the most votes. Um five um five votes for um Tran to votes for um Councilwoman Rodriguez.

So congratulations to Mayor Pro Tim Tran for another year. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you, mayor, and thank you for giving me just a quick moment here. Um, thank you to the members of the public who um, show shared their support and said sent written comments as well. It's just very humbling to have that support from everybody. Um, I I appreciate every one of my colleagues and even if it's apparent or the the perception is that um, you know, there's vendettas up here, I can assure you there are not. I think council member Star and I have had a number of u good conversations, spirited conversations offline and even prior to his swearing in. We had a nice sit down at dinner where we actually found items we agreed on and had great debate about things that we didn't meet on. And so, uh, if that shows up here, that's the democratic process. Uh, but I just want to share that, um, if I can be just a little vulnerable for a moment here. Um, I have been open about, uh, something that's very important to me, which is, uh, mental health. And I left this off on my comments, and I thought maybe if I got the chance, I'd say it now. And this is a time of year when many people are experiencing joy and thinking about the things they're grateful for. Um, including family, friends, job, home, possessions, whatever it may be. Uh, I just always want to remind folks that there are many who may still have those things but don't feel they have anything or anyone. And as someone who has always lived with depression and dealt with low self-esteem and low self-worth and in a number of ways since I was a kid, uh my way of fulfillment and validation has been giving back and serving others and doing a good job and which is why I'm really great at my job. But um

to do this kind of work means a lot to me because um I feel that I'm giving back to the community that's done so much for me and I find it to be a privilege to work with every single person up here, every person who's in the audience in the community and all the staff as well. And from a very personal standpoint, the um for anyone who has similar uh feelings as I do about themselves, to me, it feels like another person standing behind me or in the same room as me giving me this self-doubt or these thoughts of it's not going to be good enough or I'm not going to do it right or someone's not going to be okay with it or I'm not going to serve everybody. and to hear comments in support of everything that I've tried to do and worked with each of the council members on and members of the community on and our staff on that helps me in an individual way that many of you probably have no clue about um just how deep it goes for me. So, thank you to all of you for the uh support and um I'm happy to support this council and the mayor moving forward for this year again. Uh and we'll continue to uh continue to improve this city and keep doing what we do to serve our residents well. So, thank you. Thank you, mayor, for that time.

Thank you, Mayor Prom, and uh Council Member Star. Thank you um for guiding us along this process. I appreciate it very much. You're doing a great job, Mayor. Thank

Thank you. Um we are now going to move to the next item on the agenda. Um uh and this is the info consent agenda for that. Um I'm being told by staff that we are going to pull items L4, L6, and L14 uh for discussion. There's some minor clarifications. Um yeah, this is L4, L6, and L14 that are being pulled for discussion um at the request of of staff for minor clarifications that they want to provide on these particular items. Are there any other Yeah, L4, L6, and L14. Any other items?

Uh yes. Uh you said right now it's L4, L6, and L14. Okay. Yes. Um, I'd like to also hear from on 8, 9, 10, and 11. Okay. Any other items? Um, this council wants to pull. He pulled 11. Yes, sir. Yeah. Okay. So, if I understand correct at this point, what's pulled is L4, L6, L8, L9, L10, L11, and L14. That's correct. Okay.

Um, mayor and council members, um, just a, um, correction for the record. The minutes um, for the December 2nd on page 54 of your packet, the margin has been corrected. So that is for item L1, the approval of the minutes for December 2nd. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the the other items that are now being pulled? I'll move the balance of the other a invocet items. And I'll second.

So So just so we're we're clear. Uh I guess we're not voting on L3, L5, and L7 because those are no action required items, right? They're just receiving file. Correct. So, does that mean we're voting on L1, L2, um, L12, and L13? Did I get that all? Five.

Repeat that one more time. Council member s1 L2. So L L1 I'm going write this down as I do it. L2 uh L 12 12 13 and 13. Yeah. The others are just and Mary before we continue if we can take public comments on the information and consent agenda please. I'm sorry matter. Um we have one speaker for the information um and that would be Larry Stein. Okay. Well, I see it here, Mr. Stein. Welcome back.

I know. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Good evening,

city council, staff, and the public. Item 13 has to do with scattera. That's a monitoring system for water systems or scatter is actually monitoring a general monitoring system. This particular item has to do with the monitoring system on scatter. Uh I'd like to know which system will this be monitoring? Will this be monitoring the recycle water system which being subsidized by water use of $10 million a year or will this be a monitoring system for the people using potable water? It's my opinion that the system is being you the system is being used to monitor the recycled water program. That money should be coming from the general fund, not from the water fund. The people who are paying in the water fund right now are subsidizing the recycled water program to 10 to the tune of $10 million a year. I think that's too much for the public to subsidize five private users of the recycled water program. So if this money is going to be used, the money should be come from it's my opinion and I state council have this for discuss to discuss this item as to the funding source of the funding for this pro program. I think that's be open up for discussion for the city council member to discuss how it's going to be paid for because not really clear in here. If the money is being paid for by the general fund that's great but I suspect it's going to be paid for the water fund. It's going to be paid for the water funds, not be paid from the the portion in the water fund allocated to the potable water, but the allocation allocated to the recyclable water. Unfortunately, recycle water is being subsidized already by $210 million. So, I like to have this item up for discussion for comment and how the funding source for the scatter programs be is going to proceed. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Madam Cler. That was confirming that was the only speaker for the uh mayor and council members correct that is the last speaker for the information and consent in person and virtually. Thank you mayor. It's okay. My I I wouldn't mind hearing from the public works director. My understanding is the SCADA system is not is used for multiple areas of the water system not just recycled water. Yeah. But I could be I could be wrong. Mayor, I'd also like to know if I can on the same item, we're throwing a figure of $10 million around how close to accurac.

Uh, good evening, Mayor, mayor Potim, council members, Michael Wolf, director of public works. Um, we do use the SCADA system for multiple um systems in our underneath public works. So, that can include water, waste water, recycled water. Um, this specific project um actually all the person has to do is read the fiscal impact section to tell where the funds are coming from. So the funds are very clear in the fiscal impact section. Water capital funds funded from the water operations funds. So that's very clear. I think that was part of the question. Um I'm not sure that the the other part of the public comment is gerine to this item. So I'm not sure I'm going to provide a response unless city attorney's office thinks differently, but it's not related to this item. So um I'm not sure that's germanine for the conversation.

I just wanted to clear up any misconception. I'm I'm happy for you to do that. Yeah. in terms of what I just said or I think you did I think what you did is you basically stated that this is used for multiple systems not just for uh recycled water. So I think that the the objection uh is is is in my opinion is not founded. So but this specific project is specific for bottled water system. It's not for the sewer or the recycled water. Thank you. Go ahead.

And before we move on to our pulled agenda items, I just want to thank the speaker or I want to commend the speaker, Mr. Stein. On a side note, I am impressed that he can leave the meeting and call in and connect over Zoom and then come back and be in person. That's truly a compliment because there are a number of people who struggle with just joining on Zoom alone. but you've found a way to go between uh both of them. So, commendation to you, Mr. Stein, on that. That's that's a actually a pretty good accomplishment. So, thank you. So, we have a motion, right? Do we get a second on

So, mayor, to clarify, the item L2 is a successor agency item. And then item L7 is a housing authority item. And but there's no there's no vote. There's no vote on all seven.

The other ones that are on here, well, we want to recognize which bodies are receiving and filing things and there's no prohibition against taking a motion to receive and file. It creates a good record for the minutes that the job was actually done, especially when there's been litigation by people that no, you didn't do that right. You didn't do that sufficiently. So now we've got it in the record that everything is done that the law says is done. So city chair, you're recommending on the receive and file items we take a motion on that as well. Well, that's the general purpose of the consent agenda is that one vote is taken to clear off these items. Good.

Mayor, having made the motion, I'm fine including those as well. Okay. And I still second. Okay. But we still have items that are among them that we have we're bringing up for questions though. So I guess at this point, do you want to have a vote on L1, L2, L12, L13, and I guess now L7 as well? That that's that was my motion. Yes. Okay. Three and five. Yeah. But also, yes, there's three. I thought do them all the whole balance.

Yeah. So we'll uh we'll take a vote on on the items not pulled from the consent agenda. Excuse me. Um, so, mayor, this motion will be for um, city council. It'll be for the Oxnard Community Development Commission Successor Agency and the Housing Authority. Okay. Correct. Uh, Councilwoman Commissioner Basua is not present. Council member, um, Commissioner Peralum, yes. Thank you. Um, Councilwoman Commissioner Pettis, yes. Um, Councilwoman Commissioner Rodriguez, hi. Councilman Commissioner Star, yes. Uh, Mayor Prom, Vice Chair Theran,

yes. Uh, Mayor Chair MacArthur, yes. And this motion carry six to zero. Thank you. Thank you. We will start with uh item L4. This is an item pulled by staff to provide some clarification.

Yeah. Thank you, Mayor MacArthur. Uh I provided you revised copies of the monthly financial reports. I also put a stack out here for the public. When we were reviewing it after it went to publication, we realized um for this year's monthly financial data that is included everything was correct. The on two of the reports you're going to see a highlighted section um the link this month didn't go from September to October for to capture last year's data. So you're going to see on the column um that captures and compares fiscal year 24 25 to 2526 those the data that was in the published reports was one month old and so what we've provided for you there is just updating it for some reason it just it usually automatically does it but it stuck with September 30th instead of being October 31st. So, um, if you have any questions on that, but we wanted to provide a clarification on that. And then if there aren't any questions on that, um, I would like to move to L6. Mayor MacArthur,

I I have questions. Okay. Go ahead. Thank you. Go ahead.

So, there's just one part of this report that I didn't really quite get on on page 75, the bullet point involving interest income. The first sentence I think I'm fine with, which says interest income of pulled investments is recorded initially in the general fund and allocated quarterly to all the other funds based on the daily average cash balance for each fund is recorded in the city's accounting system. The last sentence kind of perplexes me. October 2025 interest income reflects the reversal of interest acrruel for fiscal year 20242. I haven't heard of that before. So I'm just wondering if you could. Good evening Javier Chago chief financial officer city of Vner. Um basically the during the fiscal year process the city receives in after uh the fiscal year in the subsequent fiscal year the city receive interest uh from some of the investments that are um uh the pull investment from the city. uh for example la they report uh investment on a quarterly basis and the cash is received in fiscal in the subsequent fiscal year. The same with the ventura county pool uh and some other investments that are so the process of rec we have to but we have to recognize that interest in the fiscal year where that interest has been earned. All right. So as part of the year process we basically we are have to um reverse the posting of the interest when the cash has been received that belongs to the prior year and that make it look like uh

it's been uh received less uh interest in the previous year. at the end of the fiscal year is there's a process where we have to recognize the interest that has been earned but not received yet. All right? And we have to reverse that entry in the subsequent year. And that's basically because the closing of the books takes a certain amount of uh time. It didn't occur until this reporting period. So I guess I guess my I just so I'm clear uh are we on cash for this report? We're on cash basis for both the comparative year and the current year.

No, this report is basically just taking the information from a financial system and is on an acral basis. So it's a cruel system cruel basis for both both years. So we don't we don't have an apples versus the method is consistent between fiscal years. Okay. All right. I I think we can have a conversation offline about this just so I can go over some more those details. Thank you. Thank you. Any other any other questions?

Yeah. One other um so at the November 18 meeting I stated that I would like to see more analysis on the year-to- date figures for this year versus the comparable year-to- date figures for last year. And if also if we could expand the number of funds that are included in the report at that time. you mentions that you mentioned that you would attempt to incorporate these in the next report which is being presented here tonight. However, I'm not seeing that here. So, I'm wondering what the the plan is to accomplish that. So, to be clear, this is a what we are highlighting in this report is a summary of the key funds for uh the city general fund enterprise and everything else. there's a report that has all those details already in in the in the report that is basically just the the report that is coming from from the system. Uh trying to expand that uh that reporting uh will require probably extensive amount of work from from a staff. We can definitely can evaluate but uh the the data is already incorporated in the report if you we can definitely talk outside and and point out to the line item the details that have been included in the report.

But that doesn't stop you from doing the year-over-year comparisons. Even with the at least the existing funds, you'd have the ability to say why this year is running at a different pace than the previous year. Well, you also have to keep in mind that the main focus of these reports is to compare with the actual budget, not necessarily with the prior year report. The the the focus of these report is just to show how we're doing compared to the budget in in usually in local government. The main focus of the report is how are we doing with the level of appropriation that the governing body has provided to the to the management of the city to execute the that that budget. That's the main focus of these reports.

Okay, I understand that. So, um I know that government code 410004 it is I believe it does for this report uh does require that we report on all the funds. I'm not asking you to do that today but at some point I think we need to get there. So, so to be to be clear, we're reporting all reporting all the funds as part of the attachment on the report and what we're doing is just just providing a summary of the major financial information to to simplify the report. Well, let's let's have a conversation offline about that. I I'm I'm confident that more can be done and I'm confident that you're able to do that, too. Mayor.

Yes. Go ahead. Um, Mr. star. Um, I I appreciate that you're asking the gentleman, chief financial officer, and it always kind of feels like maybe your question if he's doing it right. These conversations you're going to have offline, I'd like to be included. That's fine. I'd hope some other council member if they want to hear also because sometimes your questions go I have a tremendous amount of faith in this gentleman and you're asking questions that I believe are designed to plant seeds of doubt in a lot of people and I resent it. That's why I want to be included. I think you're going and if you don't want me included, please say so now.

I don't have any objection to you being there, but I I think you're going I think you're going uh a step too far to make the insinuations you're making. All I'm saying is that last month uh we were told that these ideas would be incorporated into next report and it's not there yet. He gave you an answer as to why. Well, he's giving me a different answer today than what he gave me a month ago. Are you questioning his integrity and his honesty? Why not? If you are, say so.

Why? Why are you interjecting this? And all I'm simply saying is that last month he said he would put this into the report. I don't see it there. I simply ask what's what's the game plan to accomplish that? Why why is that a problem?

So, I I can just offer a little maybe a little perspective on it. So, We heard um what you said at the last meeting. We said we would take it under consideration. It doesn't mean that we're just going to um categorically change the way we we do the reports. As the CFO commented already um that information is available. It's available to you in attachment. It might not be in the form of this summary, but the information is there if somebody wants to have it. as far as year-to-date comparisons from last year. Again, the CFO already commented on the purpose of these summary reports. Um, but I think you would you you obviously know this that doing a year-to-ate uh comparison line by line in the first month, the second month, the third month of a fiscal year, there are so many variables and so many things and particularly the seasonalities of our income and expenses that I'm not other than you you just wanting us to do it, I I don't understand like the what we what we gain from it. I I see as we get farther into the fiscal year, you have a a more a bigger picture and you're able to make some determinations about maybe some patterns and comparisons of last year, but doing year-to- date comparisons after one month or two month of a fiscal year,

right? But but we're already four months into the year. And I did mention earlier, I understood that this is wasn't really going to be helpful for the first month or two, but as we get progress into the year, there's no there's no seasonality. If you're comparing six months, let's say this year versus six month the first six months of last year, we're in the same city. I I disagree, but I I resp I respect where you're coming from. Councilwoman, were you going to say something?

Um, thank thank you. No, I just um I just want to clarify that. Um I believe um our finance director said the information is available. We heard it again from our assistant city manager. um if there is a need um for some training on how to read these reports, I I would go ahead and you know encourage you. I I think I can read a financial report. I promise you. Well, I I just maybe it's not in the form that you want it obviously. So, I mean definitely, you know, okay, speak to our director if you know if the information is not if you're not seeing it, you know, but but we were told,

you know, that it's there. I think if I heard the council member say that you're going to meet it offline with with the CFO and offline happy to meet with you. If any other council member wants to attend, that's fine. Madam clerk, are there any uh public speakers on L4 on this item? Um, mayor and council members, we do not have any public speakers for the information and consent agenda. Thank you. Yeah. Six.

Okay. Any other uh any other questions in L4? Is a receive a file item? Okay. We'll go to uh L6. This is an item also pulled by Mr. Sigard for clarification.

Thank you, Mayor MacArthur. Yeah, L6 was uh the AB1600 file uh receive and file report that the finance and governance committee heard last Tuesday and uh because we had to publish it on this uh council agenda and it had published prior to that committee uh the committee actually asked a couple of questions uh during our discussion and that I wanted to provide some quick clarification on. So just be three quick questions. Um, so there was a question about whether um there's ever a time or a time limit on these uh development impact fees and whether uh we would ever like need to give the money back to the neighborhoods. And um the the mitigation fee act doesn't provide for that solely if a pro project is delayed. There's really two ways in which we might get to a point where we would have to give some of this money back and that is the they call them trigger points. The first one would be the failure to make findings basically showing ongoing need funding plan estimated completion date. And so one of the purposes of this this annual report is to to be able to show that progress. if there was if we came to the point where we were not showing that progress um then that might be a trigger point for having to to refund some of this money. The second one is an affirmative finding that the remaining funds will never be sufficient to complete the project. So if we if we do an an internal analysis and we determine that u money in a particular account um are just not going to be able to fund a project we might uh we might entertain the idea of refunding money. So somebody asked about that we wanted to provide a little clarification on that. There was a question about um throughout the AB600 report there are a a whole host of fees

and a lot of them whether they're affordable housing and l fees there are uh traffic circulation fees and um a question was asked about well where do these how do we arrive at these figures and like who determines that a low-rise multifamily might be more than a high-rise multifamily? um how do we determine that the affordable housing in ley for a multifamily house for sale is different from a multi- family house for rent and so there are a lot of industrybased metrics that are built into coming up with those fees but the point I wanted to make tonight is those fees are all captured in these nexus studies that come before the council every 5 years and are approved by city council so the last time that was was 2020 20. I assume that will be happening uh soon. But there was an affordable housing inlue fee nexus study approved in 2020. There was also a traffic impact and circulation fee study approved in 2020. So that that just addressed that question of like where do these fees come from and how can we review them? If you want to review them, we have those studies available. Then the third one was just a point and um it's going to be I believe it's page 34 on the PDF. I'm sorry. I have a clarification for that piece because I was in that meeting and I know we

there was a sideby-side comparison between the single family home and when it was low-inccome that it would cost x amount of dollars and it was more than a single family home that was not low income. And so I think that was the distinction like when they're side by side and it seems like it's the same year, same standard or whatnot, why is there is there like a like an incentive or a grant or something that subsidizes the cost? I we weren't sure on that. Um, okay. Um, I'd have to I went back and watched the meeting again. Um, there was like a page number and a chart that had two side by side, you know, single family home housing and then it was when it's um low-inccome housing to build it or or and and when it wasn't, but we didn't understand why the difference.

I I guess Oh, here. Oh, wow. Fantastic. There she is. Okay.

Harrison Associates. How can you help? Um, if I could weigh in just briefly on that, for the two fees, it's multif family, one is for sale and one is for rent. And those are the two different fees. And they're based on um an inclusionary requirement and affordability level in the um study that was adopted in 2020. The inclusionary requirement for sale is 10% and the inclusionary requirement for rent is 5% and that's based on ordinance 2721 which was adopted by the city previously. And then it's also based on the affordability level where for sale is based on 80% AMI or below where the affordability level for rent is based on um 50% AMI or below. So those are the differences in how those fees are calculated. The exact calculation and um how those fees are um they get to those levels and everything in the nexus for the fees is um located in the nexus study. But that's why there is a difference between the fee calculation and the amount for multif family for sale and for rent. It's based on the inclusionary requirement as well as the affordability level that goes into those calculations. It's just the difference of the assumptions based on the difference between for rent and for sale.

Okay. Thank you. Just to be clear, that was on page 275 of your staff report was the table that drew our interest. Yeah. And just for for a general knowledge, AMI stands for average medium income. Thank you very much. Yeah. Sorry about that.

Thank you very much. So, there was one other uh quick area. I think it's going to be page 34 on the PDF and I believe page 260 of the council packet. Um, and this it was table 20 and it had to do with public art program fee projects. And this question arose because there were some different terminologies that are required by the diff regulations and they don't particularly

they don't particularly relate well to public art projects because there isn't construction per se and I I think we I think we worked through it at the committee but I I just wanted to bring that to everyone's attention if there are there any questions on that. Basically the there's a column where you you talk about when uh the the construction project was begun and then there's a second one about about progress and um public art in progress begins when the site's been approved and the staff is drafting required qualifications. Um and it just doesn't fit really real well into the cookie cutter terminology of construction. So, um I hopefully the two committee members got the clarification they needed on that, but we're gonna the next time we pro provide that report, we're gonna at least put some some a little information in there to make it a little clearer for you next time.

Yeah. Ju just just to clarify what what we were observing on that page was that it looked like at least from the headings that we had construction progress during year one and then the following year it was no longer in progress. it was for some future year and it didn't make sense to us that something could be in progress one year and then not started the next year. So, so basic I'm sorry, what? So, so, so basically it it just turns out that it's probably just the naming convention that we're using here and the report just simply needs to uh uh describe a little differently or have a footnote or something. Thank you. Any other

Thank you, Mor. Yeah. Any other comments? There's no action on this side, just the receive file.

I I I do and I'd like to ask because I thought you did such a good job of explaining it at at the committee meeting. I'd like to have Director Wolf address. Um, one of the questions I asked during the committee meeting was involved the storm drain facility projects that are 100% funded. That's on page 238. And my question at the time was why were we waiting until 2028 to build the projects? And I thought that the public should know why sometimes there's delays even though we're 100% funded. And I thought that uh Director Wolf uh gave a good explanation. I'm just hoping that he could repeat that here for everybody for a wider audience's benefit. Thank you.

Good evening again. Michael Wolf, public works director. I'll have to remember if what I said uh last week I can remember that. Uh, so yeah, it's a it's a good question because it um I think there's a lot of mystery around capital projects and and and some folks think they're done on a fiscal year standpoint like you would an operating budget and certainly not. Um, and so capital projects of in and of itself are very complex uh processes even for something very small. Um and so the the planning side of the house, the environmental clearance side of the house, the the design, the the the bidding and construction could take multiple multiple years. And when we're talking about um integral systems like a storm drain system, it even becomes additionally complex for that. And they're very large, usually they're are very large projects. We're not talking about a couple hundred thousand dollars. could be talking about multiple millions of dollars for different seg for what would seem like to the to somebody that that may not be doing this uh day-to-day uh relatively small area but the construction component of that is very very large um and so the answer was that they're very complex they take a long time to do um but we also try to do them and and I didn't say this last time um and I thought about the answer I gave is we also do them in segments as well so there are an opportunity for us to do some of them in segments. Um, and when we can do that, uh, we certainly do because that allows us to address some localized areas rather than a larger area. So,

so, so to boil it down, I think the public should understand that just because projects are 100% funded, it doesn't mean that we have this shovel ready project where we can just get right to work tomorrow. there's a lot of planning and that is involved in order to and just log logistics uh in order to complete these projects and they take years

and I'll add to that because I think uh one of the things we're going to do this coming uh calendar year next calendar year is when we bring the capital projects project to the council we are going to display the information a little bit differently so it provides a little better detail about what the phases are of a project so it doesn't look like it's all stuck in one phase And I think that will help in that conversation when somebody asks you the question. Uh you can break out the book. I know you guys have the book on your desk. Um you can break out the CIP book and say, "Hey, these are the different phases and this is how the funding goes in in that in in that sequence of events." I want to thank you for your explan your excellent explanations. Thank you.

I actually do have the page saved and I share with a lot of people ask me all the time.

Thank you. Any other uh any other comments? If not, this is only receive and file item and we'll move to the next item. The next item is L8 and this was pulled by council member Star. L8 is from the housing authority and this is the window restoration project at 2011 South D Street. The recommendation is that the Aux Housing Authority Board of Commissioners approve and authorize the execution of a 411 uh 06293 firm fixed price contract with KC Restoration for the window restoration project at 2011 South D Street. And just as a reminder, this item did not originate in in committee. And I see that we have director Brenda Lopez here to answer any any questions. You pulled this item, Council Member Star. Will we will start with you?

And I apologize. I didn't write down the actual page where it is on the report, but I I'll I'll read I'll read the language I had. So it said restoration of 101 double hung and casement wind wood windows, replacement of four vinyl windows with historically accurate wood windows, replacement of deteriorated wood French doors, and leadbased paint remediation repainting. I I'm just wondering when we're looking at I guess what really is about $4,000 a window, would it be cheaper to have new windows? Uh, I guess I I I've seen where I mean I don't buy windows every day, but I know other folks that do. Is is it because of is there is it because the requirements? Is it is it the historical aspect of it you're trying that we're trying to match and that's what drives up the cost dramatically?

Good evening, Brenda Lopez, director for the housing department. Thank you for the question. Council member Star, you're absolutely correct. Um the the challenge here is the historic landmark um that this property has assigned. So all of the work that we do, we must make sure that it complies with all the historic preservation requirements. Um, so definitely all of the rehabilitation work that we're going to be completing um is going to come in at a higher cost and even as our former director right now mentioned about the timeliness. It also will take us longer because we have to make sure we procure contractors who specialize in this work. And I guess that kind of begs the question. I don't know how one does this, but it just seems to me that if we own if we own a historical building that we're going to use for, you know, subsidized housing that we're really signing up for a huge cost. And I guess I'm wondering uh is there ever is it have you has it ever been done where let's say a home is taken off of the um recognized um landmark standing so that this can be done for less money and we can perhaps house more people.

I do not know the question to that. Um I just know that when we acquired the property, we did assume and agreed um that we would move forward with the rehabilitation work outlined in the matrix um mills matrix that came with the property when it was purchased. Understood. Okay. May maybe in the future we can think about when we acquire property if we have a choice between one that's a historical property versus one that's not it might make sense to go for the one that's not if we're going to be spending the money to upgrade it so that we can house additional people otherwise we're spending a lot of money for and and not housing nearly as many people as we could otherwise.

Council member Pllo, do you uh you were here on council when when that item was procured. Do you remember the discussion behind procuring an item like that in the in our historic district? And there was there was a discussion, but there was also a situation with funds available. Can we have staff explain how that worked out, please?

I know that there were been an expendit more than likely an expenditure issue with the source of funding, the community development block grant. It is my understanding that the housing department has had a little bit of challenges because of additional funding that was received uh through measure O through ARPA um when the CO 19 happened. So my understanding is that there was an expenditure challenge and so it's one of those projects where you need to be able to close uh quickly enough to then preserve your funding for that year and the following year. Um, so that would have more than likely been why they picked the next property that made sense and that could be closed. Escro could be closed fast enough.

And in plain English, if we didn't do this, we would have lost fun. We would have lost funds. That's what you're jeopardizing that the um state takes the funding back not just for that program, but also for your um home and then your ESG. And Mr. Star, in my personal opinion, after leading this, it's like um you know, I would never have bought it. And when you look, there's things you haven't brought up, but if you look a little closer, you'll see things that um are issues. I did have an opportunity to speak with Brenda, Miss um housing director, and she responded and explained it. Um this is one that you would say um Monday morning you might do different things.

Okay. Well, I guess a lesson learned for the future. Thank you, Council Member Pearl, for shedding light. Wait a minute. This is no boat. I I I get the metaphor. There was a timing issue. There was an appropriateness issue. There was what was available on the market. There were the number of units. There was the the fact that it was for affordable housing and the funding source. This is I I we all made this decision knowing that it was one of these historical properties and that it would cost a little bit more. But it's I understand the metaphor, but it's it's not a boat and

and it's providing good decent housing. Now, would I prefer to put in triple pane windows at at perhaps less of a cost? I don't know. If that were an option, we could do that. If you want to put in an application to delist it from the historical preservation, whoever those folks are in the county, I think it's possible. I don't know what they would say, but we could we could I don't know if that's been done in this county. We could do that.

But this is very good housing for residents who deserve decent housing. It it's is it a little bit more expensive because of the historical aspects? Yes, it is. But we made that decision understanding that and it was a it was an opportunity not to pass by that money and to have it go to a public good. Yeah. So not all public housing needs to be cheap.

I stand corrected on that mayor. There was limited opportunities to do something few options available. Um the mayor the city manager is correct. Thank you, uh, Council Member Pel for sharing some history on on that item. Any other comments on on this item? What's the What's the pleasure of council on this item? Is there a second? Um, madam cler call for the vote. Um, just for the record, mayor, who was the the maker of the motion was um, council commissioner Bassoua and second BU. Second by councilwoman Perez. Okay. Thank you. Um, Commissioner Peral. Yes. Commissioner Bettis, yes. Commissioner Rodriguez, I. Commissioner Star,

yes. Vice Chair Theran, yes. Um, Commissioner Basua, yes. Chair MacArthur, yes. And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you. Um, mayor, before we continue, um, may we just take a motion to, uh, because it we have quite a few items on the agenda and it's now 9:15. So to um I'll move mayor that we uh go past 10 if need be. Yeah. Is there a second? We have a moved by Mayor Prom and then Councilwoman Bassu second. Um thank you. Um Councilman Star, yes. Uh Councilwoman Basua, yes. Council member Palo, yes. Councilwoman Pettis,

yes. Mayor Prompteran, yes. Um Councilwoman Rodriguez, hi. and Mayor MacArthur. Yes. And this motion carries seven to zero to go past 10. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. We've been going straight since 4:30. Would it be possible to have a fivem minute recess? Sure. Mayor, before we do that, um I note that we have, excuse me, let me bring up my notes. We are on L 9 and then we have L 10, 11,14. um agenda

and then uh three public hearings and three report items after that. I'm just looking at the number of staff we also have here for um just a consent items. So perhaps if we're asking for a recess that it be a brief one uh just so people can stretch, take care of their personal needs, and then we can get right back to it. Yep. And mayor, just for the record, um so officially as of right now, the housing authority um commissioner business has concluded for just for the record. Okay. Thank you. We finished something. Uh we'll take a fivem minute recess and reconvene after that. Thank you.

Diego. All right. Thanks everyone uh for that a brief uh recess and we'll go back on the on the record. I'm sorry. We're going to wait a little bit for um the city clerk to come back. Didn't realize she was she was out of her chair. Hi.

Yeah.

Well, that timer gets down. All right.

Thank you. No, that's okay. Um, okay. We're going to we're going to resume. We're going to go back on the record after a brief recess. And we left off on we're still on the consent agenda consent agenda item and we're going to item L9. This is from the police department. I see our police chief is here and this is uh the subject entails federal uh asset forfeite funds. The recommended action is that the city council recognize 1,717,379 in federal asset forfeite funds and approve a budget appropriation in the same amount 1,717379 for the use of federal asset forfeite funds uh allocated to the auction police department. Just a reminder, this item did not originate in committee and this item was pulled by by council members Erin Star. So, we'll start with you. Any any clarifying question you you have police chief?

Just a couple questions. They they'll be simple. So, I'm looking at page 364 of our uh packet, very last sentence where it says it extends into page 365 says, "The police department intends to fund the following categories of purchases." So when I read intends I wonder does that mean it's subject to change or that's just kind of a way of speaking actually on the staff report could you clarify which page of the staff report it actually is I don't have the full packet with page twoage okay second page of the staff report

second yeah sorry at the very very bottom of the second page that very last sentence and then extends on to the listing on the next page. So I I just want to be clear that it's just a police department intends to fund that. That's just a a manner of speaking or is it really subject to change?

It is subject to change. We usually like to provide the council with a preview of what we intend to do with that money. And so in this particular report, we wanted to be as explicitly clear with as much as we could at the time. I believe last time I mentioned this at the October 21st meeting, I wanted to come back with some more precise figures. uh we do keep some money in reserve in in the event of a contingency for example if a piece of equipment breaks or say an unplanned training event comes open we want to have some uh latitude to to uh be flexible.

Okay. So um in the event that uh you and management decides that this should be spent differently does it come back to us at all or we just move forward with whatever changes you make? It depends. Uh, for example, we would come back to the council in the event that we were to say um purchase or request authorization to purchase equipment that would be considered to be the military equipment under AB481. That would, for example, automatically trigger us to return to the council. However, say for example, if a training class were to come open, that's usually something that does not require council approval to purchase or attend.

Right? So, but right now what we're doing is if for example we have a million2 and change for hardware and software related to body body warn cameras and you got 100,000 for this drone first responder program. Would you be able to if you wanted to move from one category to another and you don't come back to us or would would it be your expectation you'd come back to us if you made a change? I'd say if it uh meets anything that our business office would need to handle from finance that they would handle that and Delia Campbell is our financial manager. She can speak to that if if necessary depending um good evening mayor mayor prom members of city council. My name is Dia Campbell. I'm the uh police finance manager. We are also taking into consideration materiality um just like Chief Bonitas had mentioned that if it is additional training that we need that we can um have the discretion to um send our people our professional staff or um specific training that we can do so um in an event um for the big ticket items such as the 1.2 2 million for the body warn camera depending on the needs of um exceeding the contract that we would have to come back to council.

Okay. And my my other question for Chief Bonita is uh I was wondering if you can just tell us more about the u benefits of the drone first responder program, how it's helped out the police department and how spending this extra money will be provide better service. How much time do we have? Uh just just just a few minutes, but I I know I know there's a lot of good things to say about it. No, feel free to drone on. Yeah, in a nutshell. We've talked about this uh in some of our prior presentations. There's a slide that talks about some of the benefits and that actually the first biggest one

applies to in response time uh improvements. The drones are typically the first uh police resource on scene. Uh city down south Chula Vista did this and over the course of six years and 20,000 flights. U they found that the drone was the first it had about a 92 second response time when it was deployed. It was there before police other police units about as much as 2/3 to 3/4 of the time. So when you're talking response times, huge benefit there. they're able to actually get on top of calls enough where you can actually clear calls even before a patrol officer gets there. So that also frees up the other officers. Um but one of the biggest things that this program provides and this is going to be something you're going to see in law enforcement um everywhere at some point is that it's a safety tool. It's their first on scene. It's providing overwatch. It's providing real-time information back to the responding units. And that actually is a hum a tremendous asset, tremendous benefit. And there are many many instances that where that has actually deescalated a situation. I think uh in in prior presentations I gave the taco stand uh incident in Chula Vista where the person had a gun that turned out to be a lighter, but the drone immediately picked that up right away and they were able to deescalate. So um those are three very very fundamental benefits of of DFR. Do do you envision that you'll want to expand upon this uh greatly in the future? I would think there'd be some benefit.

Our plan is this. We want to start with where we are at. Um I do envision that based upon the successes of this program that we consider doing that in in future years. But however, you know, we need to establish a very good baseline of solid performance and solid results. And then after that, I think we can have that conversation because it it does require u you know funding to to take care of. So we have to evaluate that later. Thank you very much. Thank you. Go ahead, Councilwoman.

Yeah, I just thank you, Chief, for the presentation. Really wanted to get clarification. Um there might have just been an understanding that this this would be coming from um having a financial impact on the general fund. And as stated here on 365, this has no impact on the general fund. Do you mind just sharing for the public, especially for the I think there might have been a comment that was saying that we're approving funds tonight for this and so wanting to just have you kind of share more about that.

Yeah, thank you uh Councilwoman Perez. Uh very good point to make here is that this is money that is not coming from the general fund. This is an outside funding source that was based on what I will tell you is that this particular allocation that we are asking for is based on one investigation from 2019. This is something unlike I something that is unlike what I have seen before. And in this case, this was a case where uh large quantities of fentinil and oxycodone were being sold. Um and there was a huge seizure that went with this that dismantled this operation. defendants plead guilty. And so as part of this process, the ill gotten gains from that operation were seized. And after going through a six-year process through the federal government, through the marshall's office, we were given this money. So we look at this as this is a very um unique opportunity. And to your point, what this does is this does give us the capacity to relieve the burden off of the general fund for a very important item which you will have in front of you. I believe it's under N1. So this does not this is a this is actually a very good supplement for us.

Yeah, it's a good opportunity. Absolutely. Yeah. Go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. And along those lines, uh, Chief, just so we have it on the record, even though it's stated in the staff report, um, the use of asset fortune for funds, are those restricted to very specific, uh, activities or I should say to, uh, the police department and, um, for purposes within law enforcement. Is that what this is?

Correct. And generally speaking, they're they're used for a wide range of law enforcement purposes and that can be primarily in the realm of training for equipment, those types of things. And that's that's how they are used. Thank you. And as stated elsewhere or just after that in the staff report when it outlines as council star said some of the intended uh purchases using these asset forfeite funds uh the majority of it is going toward hardware um from Axon again as you mentioned is a later agenda item but um with body warn cameras, dash cameras, anything that adds to um transparency and in some cases accountability uh for everybody on either side of the camera. I think that that's if that's if they have to be used for law enforcement purposes, I appreciate that we're utilizing them in that way in addition to the other um uh supplemental items we have like training and the drone first responder program. So, thank you, Chief.

Thank you. I I think you'll hear a little bit more about transparency and u not just officer safety, but community safety when we get to N1. that's deals with specifically with with the body warn cameras, the taser 10 and the dash cams that we're we're seeking to authorize for purchase. Yeah, I'm certainly a a proponent of this for all the values highlighted here today u and the money going back to PD um 100% to continue to suppress crime because without without crime suppression, we don't have a thriving social and economic u culture here in our city. So, I I move the the recommended uh uh action. I move the recommended action.

Yeah, I move it. You second it. I second it. Okay, Madam Clerk, we have a first and a second. Um and just for the record, um we have a virtual speaker, but the public um comment portion of the information and consent agenda has been closed um virtually and in person. Um and with that, I'll move on to the vote. Just one second, Madam Clerk. Is that correct? Um, Mr. City Attorney, we announced public speakers at the item on your agenda that is titled review or the after review of information consent comes public comments on information consent agenda and that period passed long ago.

Thank you, Madam Cler. Call for the vote. Uh, thank you. Uh, Councilwoman Rodriguez, hi. Council member Star, yes. Councilwoman Basua, yes. Mayor Promptan, yes. Council member Palo, Councilwoman Bettis, yes. Mayor MacArthur, yes. And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now move to uh item L10, also from the police department. This is the Phoenix Group information systems agreement amendment. The recommended actions that the city council approve and authorize the mayor to execute a first amendment to an agreement with Phoenix Group uh information systems, extending the agreement one additional year, and amending the total agreement amount to a not to exceed amount of 1,466277 for parking citation processing, administrative citation processing, and alarm management services. And just as a reminder, this item did not originate in committee since this is a continuation of a previous item approved by city council back on November 22nd, 2022. And we'll start with with you, council member Star, you pull this item.

Yeah. Thank you. So, uh, these were some questions I provided to the chief in advance because I figured that some of it's going to require some research. So my first question is, do some of these citations also include a portion that goes to the state or other agencies? And if so, does the 15% service fee apply to the entire fine or just the city's portion?

Yes, thank you, mayor, mayor prom, and council members. Dale McAlpine, commander of the Oxnar Police Patrol Support Division. And I appreciate you saying those questions because I did do have to do some research and learn some things myself. Um, to answer your first part of the question, yes, the 15% applies to the whole violation collected amount. So, Phoenix will collect their portion of the fee, but there is additional portions, the second part of your question, that go to other entities in the state and county. um it equates to every citation is about $12.50 that gets divvied up of various things like court services, state, county general fund. Um but then the DMV on equipment and restoration violation citations collect 50% of the violation amount because it's also much larger like a a restoration fee is like $150. So they take a a good portion of that um out of that for those specific violations. So, so really what ends up happening is that even though on the face nomally we see 15% is what it's we're being charged the reality is that for the portion that we receive the charge is really a much higher percentage and that's just kind of the life but I wanted us to better understand that situation.

Yeah. And those those fees are collected based upon vehicle codes and stuff that establishes the laws as we have to give out not the the vendor's fees but the actual fees the state and county are prescribed by law. Okay. So my next question is uh for the citations do we have an estimate as to what percentage of these fines are ultimately collected because this a this entity actually gets involved with some of the collection processes. I'm just curious how successful is that?

Yes. Uh with parking violations are actually very successful and uh from year to year it does vary. Um so I just looked at year to date for 2025 and then I looked at 2024 as a comparison. In 2024, we issued 27 over 27,000 parking tickets. Um, Phoenix was able through collections process, DMV attachments, and so on so forth, able to collect 72% of those fines. Okay. Um, in 2025, we're doing much better. Um, we're just under 27,000 already for the year. Um, as the end of our report of November and they're at 82% collection rate for the year. So for the part that's just uncollectible, it's just written off or do you

It just sits there and for to till either either collected down the road when someone finally decides to register their car or or somebody gets arrested or something. Federal tax board catches up to them and or franchise tax catches up to them and collects it for us. Right. And and my last question has to do with fireworks citations because I know that's a been a big issue for many folks and I just want to know do we know the number of citations that were processed and how much has been collected related to fireworks this year?

Uh yes. So that one's a little bit harder to to collect. So first I'll start out with our numbers. Um, in 2024 we issued 46 violations of civil citations and in uh 2025 we issued 57 knowing that we still have New Year's coming up here uh which usually generates a few more fireworks calls. Um in 24 50% of those fines have been collected and in 20 five we're at 43% currently. Okay. And those fees, as you know, can range anywhere from $250 for a violation for safe and sane to up to $1,000 for the dangerous ones. So, those are usually harder to collect. And um they're not attached to like a vehicle or

usually it's a house and then we got to rely on be able to locate a social security number, but if there's not on one file, then it makes it difficult to attach it to the franchise tax board and do collections on it. I was hoping it'd be a bigger number because I want to be able to get information out to the public that we're very serious about this issue and that there's big consequences to, you know, using illegal fireworks. So, um I I guess I guess I'm I'm not not getting what I was hoping for, but that's that's kind of life, I guess. All right. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Any other questions? Go ahead, Councilwoman. Thank you for sharing um the data around citations. I know AB413, which is the daylighting law that prohibits parking within 20 ft of of a sidewalk or marked or unwock unmarked crosswalks, has been something that has impacted my district, whether it's with the issues around parking, but also I've seen the benefit of this law as well because I had see witnessed a teenage boy get hit um on a bicycle down my street because of the blockage of cars. And I'm curious, I know with the amount of citations that have gone out and understanding the outreach that has also been done, there's also been some questions from community on whether, for example, to kind of reduce the number of citations, painting red, painting sidewalks red. I know I've gotten some insight from from the city on that, but if you don't mind kind of sharing publicly on why um what the rationale is behind the red adding red um crosswalks to the community.

Uh good evening again, Michael Wolf, public works director. So, there's a couple components to painting uh the curbs red. uh one is just a economic conversation about can you imagine how many places we'd have to go paint red curb um and not only once but we have to continuously do that so we're building in this um financial burden for the city over multiple decades um and that is something that I would um not recommend because of the other two things I'll say uh the other two things that I will point out is that it is the And so people are supposed to know that they're not supposed to park there. Now, I know PD did a really good job in the last year when they did the sort of educational component. I think it was last year. Um, and so that idea is to spread that word out about this is what you're supposed to know when you take your driver's license test and you sign up to drive a car, right? You're supposed to know these things. You're supposed to know to stop at a stop sign. supposed to know to to you yield to pedestrians in certain situations. You're supposed to know those things. Um and the the third thing I'll add is that and I asked this question to PD, they still write citations for people parking in red. So red curb does not guarantee no parking. And so there's a lot of citations that PD writes that are for red curb violation. So just because we put a red curb there doesn't mean we're going to get compliance. So for those three things, we don't recommend red curb.

Thank you. That's helpful. And hopefully the public is also um hearing that insight as well. Well, so with the council para, go ahead, Mr. Wolf, just in a ballpark thing, just shooting from your hip, if they were to go out and paint red, can you just tell us because there's a lot of public that's go, it's not painted red in my neighborhood and it's painted red in your neighborhood. Roughly how much do you think it would cost to take care of that? Not just the paint, the labor, the time, cleaning the curb. I I I'm not even sure I can guess at that. It It It's more than $100,000. Oh, it's way more than that. Way more than that.

Yeah. And the the other thing I'll add to that is that we have red curb in certain situations and that's usually for other components that are not necessarily dealing just solely with the daylighting law. It may be that there is a vertical or horizontal curve that's immediately adjacent to that intersection that that provides a much more uh unsafe condition or a much more safety uh enhancement condition that requires clearing the the line of sight for for vehicles approaching different intersections. So we do red curb for those kinds of reasons. Um but that analysis is done on a case-by case basis based on engineer traffic engineering.

Thank you. Go ahead, Mayor Porto.

Thank you. And mayor, I'll say for council member PLO, I seem to recall when we were having the ARPA discussion a few years ago, one of the items was about painting the curbs red in front of every fire hydrant in the city. And just off the top of my head, I want to say it was maybe half a million dollars was the estimate for that. And that's for the fire hydrants. I think we have, you know, many times more corners or curbs next to a crosswalk than we do fire hydrants. So, I mean, just multiply that by many times as well. Um, but and as was mentioned by Mr. Wolf, um, you just know that whether the curb's red or not, you can't park in front of a fire hydrant. You're not allowed to do that. And so, uh, I hope that as the daylighting law gets more and more, um, embedded within folks minds that that's a issue that will, um, seep into th those who truly uh, understand the reasoning behind it and also want to avoid a citation. But along those lines as well, something that occurred to me in a conversation with someone about this is what if in five years a state says, you know what, we kind of messed up on this in a couple of cities and now why don't we make it in the state of California? You can you can't park there during the day, but overnight you can. And now we have all these red curbs that are only red sometimes. And so anyways, that's just certainly hypothetical thing, but I appreciate the conversation on it because it isn't a consistent um question that comes up about this issue. Thank you. Thank you, Commander.

Thank you, Mayor Pro. Any other questions? What's the pleasure of council on this item? I'll move the recommended action. Madam Cler, call for the vote. Um, Councilman Star, yes. Councilwoman Basua, yes. Mayor Prompteran, yes. Council member Paralo, yes. Councilwoman Bettis, yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, I. Mayor MacArthur, yes. And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll move to L11 also from PD second amendment to the counseling team international agreement. The recommended action is that the city council approve and authorize the mayor to execute a second amendment to agreement with the counseling team international for the provision of psychological counseling services increasing the value of the agreement from uh 220,000 for a total agreement amount not to exceed 340,000 and extending the agreement through June 30th 2027. This item did not originate in committee and both council member Star and and council member Bereella pulled this item. What's up with you, Council Member PLO?

Thank you, mayor. I really appreciate this and having had the opportunity to talk to individual police officers who at the time didn't know I was a council member, the feedback was tremendous on this program. My question is this. On page 392, right underneath the chart, there's a line and it says, um, beginning in fiscal year 2022 23, the police department began mandatory one-on-one counseling sessions for all first responder personnel. My question is this, does that include 911 dispatchers or other professional persons? And if it does not, um, I'm going to be a little graphic. I would think that that should be included. Um the individuals that go out and on the street have to deal with certain situations. Um they may have to touch, feel, smell something, but when somebody calls in and 911 and they describe it, the person sitting in that booth is dealing with something very similar. And I don't believe it leaves their head. And I think this could definitely help the police department. If it's already provided, it's no use for me pushing it. But if it's not, I think we need to suggest or think about providing this. Those are my only questions and I'm pretty grateful for this.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mayor, mayor prot city council and city staff. My name is Edgar Fernandez. I'm the commander of the at the auction police department currently overseeing the professional standards division. And thank you very much for that question. Yes, absolutely. Our dispatchers are considered first responders. All dispatchers are. But this program also extends to our professional staff as well. We value the need for everyone to get this service within our department and our organization. Thank you very much. Great to hear. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Star.

Yeah, a couple questions which I I also submitted in advance. So, regarding the pre-employment psychological testing, when during the hiring process does that take place? Would that take place during a before a new recruit enters the academy? And roughly what percentage fail the psychological testing? Thank you for the question. Yes, actually it takes place right after the background process at which point the applicant will be provided a conditional job offer. Okay.

Once they're given that conditional job offer, they're now available to do a medical and a physical evaluation. Uh it's at that time that they have to pass those in order to enter the academy. Good. Uh, and in terms of failure rate, uh, based on our three-year average, we look at we're looking at about a 10% failure rate in that process. Actually, 10% is not bad. Yeah. Um, regarding the one-on-one employment counseling, how often is this used by our officers?

Well, I can tell you that it's used in multiple ways. We do do one-on-one counseling with a clinician for all our staff. So it is used under that context where everyone gets to see the clinician. It's also used during the course of any critical inc incident or traumatic event where we need clinician to come out and de debrief the incident and help our staff normalize after that particular incident which then can lead to additional one-on-one opportunities. When it comes to the requests to use the clinician, we get somewhere between five and 15 per year of people requesting to use a clinician.

And just kind as a followup, uh I I hope we're not discouraging people from taking advantage of this. I would think that uh we want our officers to you know talk to whoever they need to talk to to feel comfortable about what they're doing and dealing with whatever personal or business or workrelated issues that they may be facing.

Absolutely. Thank you for that. Yes, our wellness initiative within our department is one of our primary goals and objectives for every year moving forward. our chiefs has made it clear that that is something that we need to take care of is that our personnel and the people that provide service to this community. So, it is something that we encourage and it's something that we hope to continue to build upon and build a more robust wellness program within our department. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Any other questions? Yeah. Oh, go ahead, Councilwoman. Yeah.

Um just as a followup, curious if the employee counseling services is mandated. I know that with HIPPA in place, there's a lot of protections around that, but if I also recognize that there could be a lot of stigma when asking for help or support and just curious if it's mandated for folks to receive um counseling services.

Yeah, thank you very much. There is a lot of stigma involved. But in order to try and normalize this particular effort that we're undertaking that everyone in our industry should be undertaking, we do mandate uh once a year clinical visit from all our staff to a clinician in order to help them become familiar, help them become comfortable and learn to trust the clinicians that we provide for them. So yes,

my only question, Commander, is is I noticed when we I think the first extension uh for 6 months the cost was $20,000 to increase it and then now we're asking for an additional 18 months at a total cost of 120,000. That's about $40,000 per six months. So it's almost doubling what what they initially asked for back in to go from June 5th, 2025 through December 31st, 2025. So about 6 months for 20,000 and now 18 months at 120,000. Why why the significant increase?

No, the increase in terms if you look at it basically on the methodology we used to come up with that particular figure was that we are at about 220,000 for 3 years.

So if you look at half of that um you would be at um 110,000 uh dollars. there is a 5% increase uh which would put us at about 116,000 and we needed a small room for some additional critical incidents that may occur or something of that nature. So it's consistent with what uh the cost was prior to that. And we also looked at it from another method as well as just trying to uh forecast to some degree what could possibly come up. But it's very difficult to forecast critical incidents and responses in that regard. So, we had to leave some buffer. Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead.

Thank you, mayor, and thank you, Commander, for the information on this. Um, just to echo, uh, what Councilwoman Perez has mentioned as well. Um, and Council Member Pllo, looking at these services, um, and taking a step back from the the cost increase, which thank you for explaining, you know, the the pieces behind that. Um, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I suspect that within law enforcement and possibly fire as well. Historically, it was um, you had to be tough and you're going to encounter all these things, but you have to run towards things when people are running away from it. And the things that people encountered in this job, you just kind of internalized it. And um just based on my uh day job and line of work, I see that first responders tend to have higher rates or or risk of substance use issues, um issues with uh within family, um issues with mental health and even thoughts of suicide and not having any kind of um basic outlet for that historically. I mean that that shows in those rates. So, I'm hoping that by having this available to our staff um to to all this team that they know that as you mentioned, normalizing it makes it okay to just say like, "Hey, that call I had last week, I wasn't okay from that." Um or, you know, I had I've been having a hard time with it and having the availability to talk to someone about it. So, um yeah, I appreciate that and you can correct me if I was wrong on any of those uh statements there.

Not at all. I really appreciate you bringing that up and recognizing that because the truth of the matter is is our industry needs to continue to change and understand that those things are occurring. There's been a lot of empirical research done over the last 20 to 25 years in regards to the effects uh the mental wellness of our uh personnel and the impact that continuous trauma has on our staff. Um, and having said that, um, it's important for us to continue to build upon our wellness program to provide opportunity and normalize the need and the willingness to go in and seek help. Um, and that should be something that shouldn't be stigmatized. So, we do appreciate um, you're allowing us to continue with the program.

Great. Thank you. Those are my questions, Mayor. Yeah. and I I praise your office and chief, thank you for having all officers and first responders have mandatory check-ins with the psychologist having that mandate. So, it's actually very progressive. Um, any other comments before we move this item? I just wanted to thank the chief and the team because I know that when I was in the chief's advisory council in 2020, these were conversations of a possibility. So, it's nice to be able to fast forward five years and see it be a reality. Thank you. Thank you, Councilwoman. I move the recommended action. Um, thank you, madam cler. Call for the vote. Thank you. Uh, excuse me. Councilwoman Basilv, yes. Mayor Prompteran, yes. Council member Palo, yes. Councilwoman Pettis,

yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, hi. Councilman Star, yes. Mayor MacArthur, yes. And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now move to item L4. This is from public works. This item was pulled by uh Mr. Sonstagard. Uh the subject is the eth amendment to agreement uh 7167-15 cm with Ventur Regional Sanitation District. Uh the recommendation is that the city council approve and authorize the mayor to execute an eighth amendment to the agreement with Veter Regional Sanitation District in the amount of 150,000 for a new total uh not to exceed amount of 1,300,000 and to extend the term to June 30th, 2026 with one optional one-year term extension ending June 30th, 2027 for monitoring and reporting the uh closed Santa Clara landfield. This item is a continuation of an item previously approved by council back on May 17, 2022. Um, and I think there was some clarifying information. Is that right, Mr. Sigard, on this item or are you going to provide it?

I'm sorry, Wolf. Go ahead. I'll provide it. The request to pull Hold on one second. Yes, go ahead. I serve as the city representative of Ventura Regional Sanitation District Board. There is a stipen involved. I spoke with the city attorney and I can sit on this meeting, correct? and vote on this. That's correct. And you've stated that interest for the record. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, council member. Go ahead, director.

So, yeah, the public works staff did request to pull this item off the consent to just make a couple clarifying marks. It's just a couple typos. We want to make sure it's clear what the council is approving. The staff report is very clear that we're talking about the eth amendment, but if you actually go to page 474 of the agenda package um and you go to the footer of that page, it says the first amendment, so it should be the eth amendment. Just a typo there.

And then again, the the staff report is very clear that this is an agreement with VRSD. Uh so if you go to the top of the page, um the first sentence says CRSD. So that should be V RSD in the parenthesis at the end of first sentence. And then continuing down that same paragraph, the end of the second sentence, beginning of the third sentence currently reads related to landfill gas monitoring and reporting. And the staff reports very clear that it's landfill gas and groundwater monitoring and reporting. So we'll be uh adding and groundwater to the version if it gets approved for the mayor signature. Those are the clarifications.

Thank you. Any question of this item? Go ahead. Anything? Mayor, I move staff's recommendation as modified. I'll second. Madam Cler, call for the vote. Um, Mayor Prompteran, yes. Councilwoman um Perez, yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, I. Council member Star, yes. Councilwoman Basua, Councilman um Palo, yes. Uh Mayor MacArthur, yes. And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you.

Thank you. This time this is the time and place set for a public hearing on item M1 from the housing department. The subject terra hearing casarment apartments. The recommendation is that the city council one conduct a tax equity and fiscal responsibility act TERA hearing regarding the issuance of taxexempt bond financing not to exceed 32 million by the California Statewide Communities Development Authority, otherwise known as CS CDA for the benefit of community development partners to provide financing for the acquisition and development of a multifamily rental housing project located at 241 West 2nd Street, otherwise known as Castle Dearman Apartments Bonds and two adopt a resolution approving the issuance of bonds by uh CSCDA. This item did not originate in committee and our housing director Brenda Lopez is here. We start with the city clerk certification of publication and writt communications if any. Madam city clerk.

Um thank you mayor and council members. There was a legal notice for this public hearing published in va newspaper on December the 4th and the city clerk's office has received no written communications on this item. Thank you.

Thank you madam clerk. Do any council members have any exparte communications or other disclosures regarding this matter to state for the record? Thank you. Members of the public were invited to sign up to speak on this item on the city's website. And a person who did not sign up may do so now by submitting a speaker card or by following the instructions posted on the agenda for this meeting and at the city's website. Elsa Brown, housing uh development manager, posted a video presentation regarding this item and is available to answer any brief clarifying questions council members may have before we take public testimony in this item. The council will deliberate after the public hearing has been closed. Do any council members have any questions at this time?

Uh council member Pllo, go ahead. Just one question. Your mic. One question. Thank you very much. Councilman on page 707 there is one line because I know there's issues with respect to bonds. It's 1 2 3 4 5 6 sentence down from the top of page 707. It says the city bears no liability with respect to the issuance of the bonds. Can you cl It's pretty blunt and clear, but can you clarify that anymore? Sure.

Good evening. Brenda Lopez, director for the housing department. That is correct. The city of Oxnard is not a party on this transaction. Um, the responsible party here is Community Development Partners and we do have their attorney on the line, Steven Strain, joining us virtually in case you guys have any questions since we're not a party to to the

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll now open up the uh the public testimony portion of the public hearing. Speakers have three minutes to speak on this item. Madam clerk, do we have any speakers for this item? Um, mayor, yes, we have Barbara Mriertis who would like to speak on this item. Mortis, go ahead.

Thank you. And uh since the uh attorney is on the the line, I actually have a question for him or her and it's unusual because everybody's already moved in. Why is the uh terra why is the financing now? It seems a little late in the game and I'd like an explanation of what's going on. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Tis. Yes. Hi, my name is Stephen Strain with uh Sable House and Strain. I'm If now's an appropriate time I can respond to that. Yeah, this is this would be the time. Go ahead.

Okay. Um yeah, actually this is all the financing is already in place. What's happened is we've constructed the project has been constructed. We're we're now at the end of our cons our construction financing period and we're converting our construction financing to long the long-term um the the long-term financing for the project and you know the original schedule there was some delays during construction so we're a little late in doing this so this is actually just necessary to extend the term out until we can make that conversion and I believe we're scheduled for April or May our our current um you know our our our original date was intended to be the end of this year. Um so because we're making changes to the to the maturity date of the loan, we have to do this technical reissuance of the bonds. But it's true these bonds have already been issued. The financing has already been done. The project's already been constructed. This is just a technical matter to extend the the outside date uh a few months to to finish up the conversion. Thank you, Barbara. Does that answer your question?

Yes, it does. Thank you, Council Member Start. Go ahead.

Yeah. So, I guess in theory, we don't have to vote for this because the financing is already in place. So, I'm curious, what benefit does the city get by voting in favor? And what what do we lose out on if we vote against it? So this is a TERA hearing and it's required under the Internal Revenue Code. Uh it's required to be held in the jurisdiction where the pro the project is located. So if the council doesn't want to entertain this then it can go to another entity in this jurisdiction that covers the same territory. But that would be something you know again if there's a second to follow Mr. stars lead then you can vote on that otherwise

I'm not making a motion I'm just trying to understand what the consequences are of yeah this is a process that the federal laws require and even though the city is not issuing the bonds we're required or we've been requested to hold the hearing and the hearing is required to occur so if we don't adopt a resolution approving the issuance of bonds by the CSCDA A what happens? Well, that's a hypothetical I guess we'll have to confront when we get there. But one of the options would be they take it to another entity. That's who it is.

And why would that matter? We already have the It's already constructed. It's already in place. I'm not advocating for not passing this, by the way. I'm just You're just trying to get some clarity. I'm just trying I'm just trying to understand. So, their attorney just explained, the bond council just explained why they're bringing this forward at this time. So, he can repeat that, I guess, if if you require that. So, if if I may, I would just said the consequence of not doing this would be that we would not be able to to convert to our permanent financing and our construction financing would foreclose on the project. Thank you. Yeah,

I would move the recommended action. I don't want to mess around with this and finish it up and get it clean. I will second. Okay. Madam, I just want to confirm there other public speakers on this item. Uh, mayor and council members, we do not have any additional speakers um in person or virtually for this item. Thank you. Thank you. The public hearing is now closed for this item. We have a first and a second. First moved by Council Member Pllos. Uh second by uh Councilwoman Basua. And without any go ahead.

Just because it's a public hearing, I want to check in with the city attorney. Um prior to the closing of the public testimony portion, we had a motion in a second. Are we still okay to move forward or would it be um more appropriate to ask for the motion and second to be restated at this point? If you're unclear on the status of the motion, you can remake it. I just want to make sure I think everybody's clear what's going on here. Okay. Just make sure the order that we did it in is I leave it up to the presiding officer to call for a new motion if he feels it's necessary. I think we are we're all we have some clarity on there. So there's no further discussion. I will call for the vote. Um

I'll tell you what, just just to make it absolutely just like going to the bathroom everything counts. I'll remake the motion. I hope council member Bassu will second the motion. I will get the motion. Okay. And then it's everything's okay. Okay. Okay. Madam Cler, call for the vote. Uh, Councilwoman Bettis, yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, I. Councilman Star, yes. Mayor Prompter, yes. Councilwoman Basua, yes. Council member Palo, yes. Mayor MacArthur, yes. And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh this is a time and place set for public hearing. On item M2 from the community development department, subject entails request to designate a property as a historical landmark and enter a millac contract with the city located at 119 through 127 South D Street. Planning and zoning permits numbers 25 hyphen 680-01 Mills Act agreement and 25-681-02 landmark designation APN 2020044020. The recommended action is that the city council one conduct a public hearing and two find the project to be categorically exempt from environmental review pursuant to California Environmental Quality Act SQUA guideline sections 15331 historical resource restoration rehabilitation and three adopt a resolution upholding the city of Oxnar Cultural Heritage Board's recommendation to designate property known is Shustster Court located at 119 through 127th South D Street as Ventura County Historical Landmark number 184. and four, approve and authorize the mayor to execute a meals act contract agreement number A8605 with Southern California 2022 properties LLC property owner to maintain and preserve a historic property located at 119 through 127th South D Street landmark number 184 for the benefit of reduction in property taxes and the contact is Jeff Bengilly community development director. We start with the city clerk

certification of publication of writt communications if any. Madame city clerk. Uh thank you mayor u mayor and council members. There was a legal notice published in va newspaper on December 14th and the city clerk's office has received no written communications on this item. Thank you. Thank you madam clerk. Do any council members have any expporte communications or other disclosures regarding this matter to state for the record? No.

Thank you. Members of the public were invited to sign up to speak on this item on the city's website and a person who did not sign up may do so now by submitting a speaker card or following the instructions posted on the agenda for this meeting and at the city's website. Uh Daniel Hook, associate planner, posted a video presentation regarding this item and is available to answer any brief clarifying questions council members may have before we tape public testimony on this item. The council will deliberate after the public hearing has been closed. Do any council members have any questions at this at this time? Go ahead, Mayor Port.

Thank you, Mayor. And I see Mr. Pingelli's come up to the podium here. Uh just with this item here, I know it's stated in the staff report, but perhaps we could state it for the benefit of the public. Uh can we share why a property owner might seek this out and what some of the benefits are? um but also what some of the uh concessions or considerations they have to have as well might be.

Yeah, thank you for the question, Jeff Bengali, community development director. Um so this property is qualified to be designated. It meets certain criteria. Um and the benefit is they get they get a property tax break, but the the trade-off is that they prepare essentially a 10-year rehabilitation plan. And in the first few years of that plan, uh they have to uh upgrade certain things in in the historic character that it was intended. Those very expensive windows are on the list, of course. Um and so the trade-off is that they maintain the the the integrity of the historic nature of the property. They rehabilitate it um to a certain extent and it's laid out on a schedule and they maintain it in that state. And for doing that, they get a uh property tax break and that's determined by the county assessor's office.

Thank you. And these are rental properties. Is this a rental property? Yes, this is a rental property. Okay. All right. Those are my questions. Thank you, mayor. And thank you, Mr. Pingilly. Thank you. Any other comments or questions?

I guess I guess my question is I mean, it does seem like there's some some disadvantages to the owner at least with the higher renovation costs and that sort of thing. My assumption is that all these higher costs are less than what the tax savings must be. Otherwise, why do it, right? Thank you for the question, council member Star. You know, I I presume that the property owner has run a proforma on that tradeoff um and it's in their favor and or they have a desire to maintain the the cultural significance of the property and it and it's a wash and they're willing to do that. Okay. And as far as the process of so on page 717 it says either the property owner or the city of Oxner may end the contract by filing a notice of non-renewal which would allow the contract to stop its annual renewal and wind down the tax savings over the following years. I was wondering if you could elaborate on that because it appears that the annual extension is at the end of each year, not at the end of 10 years. So, in effect, there's always a 10-year time horizon and appears that the owner could appeal that decision to the county, at least if if we wanted to remove this notice somehow or file this notice.

I'd like to ask associate planner Daniel Hul to address that question. Thank you.

Hello, Daniel Hul, associate planner. So um after the 10 years which is automatic um unless the city c uh cancels the property owner can uh file an a non-renewal notice at any point to end the contract. um and the city can as well that um if neither party files that and it's not recorded then the contract just automatically renews every year in those years after the first 10 years which obviously has the 10-year rehabilitation list. There's still inspections that take place. there's still um items that might be noticed that um the county and I as the historic leaison on behalf of the city um will bring up to the property owner and to keep the contract in good standing they would um fulfill those things that are pointed out. Cool.

So, if I'm understanding you, what you're saying is that these are one-year extensions as opposed to a one-year extension that's 10 years out. Right. Correct. So, the first period is just 10 years and then it's just one year that automatically renews every time. So, at the end of 10 years, if they wanted to get out one year, they can get out within a year basically at that point. Is that what you're saying? or or is there still 10 year horizon at the end of 10 years? So the 10 years they can't get out um and then once that 11th year happens or once the tenure concludes and the 11th year starts they can file a non-renewal

which would mean that at the end of the next year it's over or does it mean that

correct? So the contract ends and then um the assessor we down the tax savings over the my understanding is the next couple years or so. Okay. All right. I read that completely differently. So on page 717 to 718, it says if the terms of the contract are violated by the property owner and the city cancels the contract, the owner must pay a cancellation fee of 12 a.5% of the current fair market value of the property at the time of cancellation. But when I look at page 754 where it shows a sample agreement, it appears that this cancellation fee is only imposed if the county cancels the agreement. And it also appears that this cancellation fee goes to the county and that we would only net about 17% of that. In contrast, it appears that the actual contract does allow for the city to cancel. That's on page 769. So, I'm just trying to grasp the incon you figure out the inconsistencies here. And maybe that's just a sample agreement that was designed for the county for their work as opposed to if maybe the county was the agency involved.

Um, I'm sorry. Now that I have the page numbers, could you Yeah, hold on. It does say sample agreement. Yeah, it does say sample agreement. I guess it's really a sample agreement that was intended for the county and just basically the way we end up writing it, we're saying that it's the city that gets to cancel. Can you repeat?

Sure. Hold on. So 754. Okay. So 754, this is a a sample uh contract with the county because when it went to CHB, the Cultural Heritage Board, we didn't have the contract drawn up yet. So the county um as our as our cultural heritage board and and staff, they brought just their um draft contract for the board members to see what that looks like.

Right. And by the way, I guess in my print out it's 752, but on my PDF it's 754. So if you're looking at 754, I guess if you go look at the printed version, it's 752 where I was mentioning the sample. Um but um where else? Hold on, please. And I can note for you that it is a little bit confusing just because the county does act as our uh historical staff and cultural board. So there's some documents in here that are the counties specifically that we've adopted. So that maybe some of the the confusion um if if that helps.

It does. It does. How often do these cancellations occur? Have they ever occurred in our to my knowledge? No. Um we've never cancelled a contract and the county has also told me they've never canled one.

And if if we ever wanted to, let's say, for example, in the case of the one where we're paying for $4,000 windows, u if we ever wanted to do that, does the county have veto power over that or is that something that we can just do? Um, we would have to, um, potentially look at that further because I know that in the county ordinance there's something that talks about, um, Ventura County landmarks. Um, but I do know that that would have to come to city council. um because we have explored that before and um that's what we kind of outlined is for the process is that we we would bring that cancellation to uh I believe a hearing.

Okay. So so my understanding is that the earlier decision we made on the windows that there's more work that still needs to be done on that particular property. I think it'd be at least worth looking into whether having this historical landmark designation is increasing our future cost. Maybe we can reduce our future cost by not having that designation.

Sorry. Um and I want to be clear that cancel is different than non-renewing. So, by canceling the contract, that incurs the penalty, which I don't know how that works out if the city is the owner. But, um, if the contract ever wants to be a as a property owner to remove the Mills Act contract, the city could choose to not renew. Um, but the landmark would have to be removed as well for some of those historic stipulations to to be removed. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Love the outfit, by the way. That's fine. All right. Yes. Um, did you notice the matching binder clip? I

Nothing gets by an old investigator here. Yeah, detective. You got to let up your glasses. Council member Pllo, so nice to know that we have fashion coordinated people here. I um I will now open up the public testimony portion of the public hearing. Speakers have three minutes to speak on this item. Madam clerk, do we have any speakers for this item? Um mayor and council members, yes, we have one virtual speaker. Um caller ending in 4716. Please press star six to unmute. And you have three minutes starting now.

Yes. Thank you again for exposing my private telephone number. The house you're talking about is the A Levy house from the Bank of Levy. It's now been turned into apartments. It's not in the historic district. My house, the Henry Levy House, was his brother-in-law and bank partner is intact and only one of two historic landmarks within the historic district. All other 142 houses in the historic district are not national landmarks. We have over 70 windows in our house that are rotten and I can't afford to get them fixed because there's literally no help, no support from the city of Oxnard with their own historic district here in place. Under the Mills Act, the estimate I got was for over $500,000 to replace the windows in my house. And I could get normal windows without the Mills Act, but still very expensive due to the number of windows that we have here. I've asked about replacing the windows from the cultural heritage board and they told me they don't really care what the windows are as long as they look comparable to what's already there. But if but I've refused having the Mills Act because it's way too restrictive. Even though people in the city and the Cultural Heritage Board have tried to talk me into it. They just want to keep their fingers all over everything. They're way too controlling. The Mills Act is much more stringent, which is why only five houses out of the 144 in the historic district have the Mills Act. But leave it to this city to put money into this property while letting the historic district itself rot. Have you driven down FNG Street? Have you seen how these houses are rotting here because the Cultural Heritage Board is far too restrictive in what they expect of us here and that people can't afford it? I can't afford it. So, this house, the beautiful Henry Levy house, is going to sit here and rot. And you guys are

going to sit there and try to put money into that beautiful house on D Street that is a sister to this house by replacing windows in a place that's been torn up and turned into apartments. It's ridiculous. People who have lived here for decades still don't understand the ins and outs of living in a historic district. And clearly you're totally unaware of how the program works with a historic landmark district right in your city that you're letting rock. No wonder it looks like crap here. Shame on you all. Thank you.

Thank you for calling in. Um, anyone wishing to speak on this uh public hearing, uh, please come forward and fill out a speaker card or you are if you're joining us virtually, you can press star nine to to raise your hand. Uh, madam clerk, do we have any additional speakers for this item and mayor and council members, that concludes our speakers in person and virtually for this item. Thank you. If there are no additional speakers, uh, then we will close the public hearing. The public hearing is now closed. Does any councilor wish to comment?

I guess my sense is that if the owner really wants this, it doesn't really cost the city very much. I mean, a little there's a little bit reduction in taxes that we receive. But if if he's willing to do this and pay for all these upgrades that are I would think more expensive than they otherwise normally would be, then I say we vote yes and allow them to do it. Okay. Is that uh is that a motion you're making? I I could make that motion right now. So, I guess I'll move to adopt staff's recommendation. Thank you. Is there a second? I will second. Uh if there's no further comment, um madam clerk, um call for the vote. Um councilwoman Rodriguez, I.

Councilman Star, yes. Mayor Prompteran, yes. Councilwoman Basua, um Council Member Palo, yes. Councilwoman Bettis. Yes. Mayor MacArthur. Yes. And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you.

Thank you. This is the time and place set for a public hearing on item M3 from the community development department. Subject entails accessory dwelling unit ordinance and zone text amendment. The recommendation is that the city council one conduct a public hearing. Two, find the project to be categorically exempt from environmental review pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act, SQA guidelines sections 15061 B3, general rule. Three, approve the first reading by title only and wave further reading of the proposed ordinance titled an ordinance of the city council of the city of Oxern amending chapter 16 zoning of the Oxnard city code 16 hyphen 465 accessory dwelling units filed by the city of Oxnard Community Development Department at 214 South Sea Street Oxnard California 93030 and4 approve the first reading by title only in way further reading of the of the proposed ordinance titled an ordinance of the city council of the city of auction amending chapter 16 zoning of the auxar city code 16- 20 through 16- 24 and development design review permit 16- 525 uh to streamline development of single family dwelling units and consolidate permit procedures for residential zones to Oxnard city code article V2 uh permit procedures filed by city of Ouxner Community Development Department uh 214 South Sea Street Auction California 93030 and5

approve the first reading by title only and weigh further reading of the propos the proposed earnings ordinance titled an ordinance of the city council of the city of auction Auction many chapters 16 zoning of the auction city code 16 through 10 definitions 16 uh hyphen 622 schedule off street parking requirements and 16 hyphen 560 through 16 u hyphen 561.1 modifications to special use permits filed by city of Oxnard Community Development Department located 214 South Sea Street, Auction, California 930, and Jeff Bengilly, community development director, and his staff are here to answer any questions. We start with the city clerk certification of publication or written communications if any. Madame clerk,

um, mayor, there was a legal notice published in Viv the newspaper on November 27th, and the city clerk's office has received no written communications on this item. Thank you. Thank you, madam clerk. Do any council members have any exparte communications or other disclosures regarding this matter to state for the record? No.

Thank you. Members of the public were invited to sign up to speak on this item on the city's website. And a person who did not sign up may do so now by submitting a speaker card or following the instructions posted on the agenda for this meeting and at the city's website. Uh Jamie Peltier, planning supervisor, um posted a video presentation regarding this item and is available to answer any brief clarifying questions. Council members may have before we take public testimony on this item. The council will deliberate after the public hearing has been closed. Do any council members have any questions at this time? Council member Star and we'll go to Mayor Prom.

Thank you. So, I'm I'm looking at page 826 where that very first paragraph says, "Earlier this year, on May 12th, 2025, the city was contacted by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, HCD, who request that the city either update its current ordinance to comply with a state with state law or repeal its ordinance, which by default would make the city subject to the base requirements of state law. As a result, city staff have been working to update the state's ordinance per the request of the HCD. And my question is, at least as far as this piece goes, what would be the consequence of simply repealing the current ordinance and using the state law requirements as the default? And what does adopting this new ordinance accomplished that isn't accomplished simply by repealing the existing ordinance, or at least this piece of it? Jeff Miguel, community development director. I can touch on that and I can give some more. Ask Jamie Peltier, our planning supervisor, to provide more detail. Uh, as you're aware, it feels like a new state law every week regarding housing. Um, and it's a challenge to keep up, but the state laws are not well organized. Uh, they come out through a variety of legislation. Various ABS and SBS keep coming out. So to try to defer back to state law yields complete control that we have in blending what was existing of our our zoning code and how we handled ADUs as it's evolved with the state laws. And I guess some cities could do that but we've chosen to retain the structure of our zoning code while adopting adjusting it to meet state laws. And you know I haven't done an analysis to say what exactly would be the consequence because there's a lot of pieces and parts to the state laws. Um if there are any you know specific uh ramifications um other than you know further yielding our integrity

back to the state. Um but I I don't have a specific answer for each and every point that would be different. So I I guess my my thought process is that, you know, if you've got some architect who wants to do drawings for an ADU, a lot simpler if he just has a standard that's used statewide. In our case, if we have a specific ordinance that addresses it, then we put that architect in the position where they have to compare what they thought was uh you know, the ground rules versus what we have here, which might which might be different. And then plus we're also stuck with constantly updating this because it seems like every year state law is changing. So we're ending up changing our ordinances to be compatible. So I just that that's my thought process. Is it is it just unfounded or

Well, first uh I would say there's the complication of just you know even if we just yielded to state laws completely there's there's they're not again as clear and well written as uh some members of the public might think. Okay. Um and there's it's subject to interpretation in some areas where it's not well written. we clarify them and put them in in better language and a better context with the rest of our zoning code. Uh but there's still I think a problem with just uh yielding to state law where we would we need to continually update that because we have we can't just say defer to state law as a part of our zoning code. We have to be more specific and articulate in my opinion. Yeah. Um Jamie, did you have any further

and I would just offer comment council member S. I mean, I hear what you're saying, but um I mean, I'd be opposed to just outright yielding. Um we want to maintain some level of control, even if it's a little bit uh for our to serve our interests here as a city. But Jamie, go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. Jamie Peltier, planning supervisor. Uh with the city passing its own ordinance, we do have more control over certain types of ADUs. we would be able to impose some development standards beyond what the state law allows and design standards. Um, if we were to just go with what state law says, you can have an ADU that looks like anything and it doesn't have to have um character that matches the residence. it wouldn't have to have um you know a a standard that matches the residence essentially. So there there's more flexibility for us to be able to um create those standards if we were to pass our own ordinance. So um but that's really dependent on the type of ADU that they're proposing. There are many types. So yes, the state does have um some say over certain types of ADUs, but if we ask for say a 1,000 square foot ADU, we have the ability to say that you need to have certain type of roof um certain type of material um that it has to be um you know matching the residence in the character of the neighborhood. So, I think that that's the benefit of having an ordinance that we pass rather than defaulting to state law. And

in your your thinking, would it increase the cost dramatically for the the builder given the these requirements?

Potentially. Yeah. Um, I think though the the cost um when proposing an ADU that's under a certain square footage, um, 750 square feet seems to be the magic number because there are no impact fees that would be um, applied to those types of units, but it's incrementally um, not as large of a jump when you're doing square footage beyond that. So if someone's proposing 850 900, asking them to paint it the same color as your residence isn't exactly a design standard that would impose an additional cost necessarily. So if they're doing a smaller ADU, they could just do whatever they want um in terms of color and design, but the larger it is, the more that they're end up going to have to pay because they will also have to pay those impact fees. And obviously the cost per square footage is going to increase anyway.

So is is my understanding correct that ADUs are typically or maybe they're even required to be like away from the street like on the backyard for example or can somebody literally put it in the front yard if they wanted I'm talking about like a separate structure,

right? Um there there are requirements to have um setbacks. Um, however, there are certain types of ADUs that could potentially be in the front yard. Um, now we we don't have a lot of say on that, but I think it has been practiced to encourage putting it in a location um towards the rear or um the rear uh sides to lessen the visibility. And that's more just as a request. Um, however, there are the statemandated ADUs um technically do not have a front yard setback. I

I can kind of understand having design requirements for something that's visible from the street. I guess I don't really understand having special design requirements for something that's in the backyard that people wouldn't see. So, I'm I'm I guess my my concern my concern is that if the whole point of ADUs is to create less expensive housing for people, I I don't want to do anything that unnecessarily drives up the costs. I don't want to cause blight either, but in the backyard, I'm not sure if that's really a big risk.

Yeah. And and just to elaborate, I think the intent of ADUs and ADU state law isn't to create affordable housing. It's to create housing. Um most of the language um actually addresses it as middle housing. So for for not necessarily affordability, but to provide more units. I I would expect they would be more affordable just because they typically have a smaller footprint though. It's not like a large house. If it isn't cheaper, then that's a different problem. Well, except that you have to have the property to begin with. That's why it's not a good match for affordable housing. Yeah,

thank you, council member. Any other comments? Yes, go ahead, Mayor Porta.

Thank you. Um, I had just some simple questions just so we could have them on the record, but I uh would also mention that um when it comes to design in the rear of a property u in district two and actually in district three, I know there are at least two neighborhoods that have uh alleys with the um entrance from the uh rear of the property. uh somebody will see it. But um Council Pllo made an important comment that even in properties that do not have uh rear alleys uh the rear neighbors will see it. And I think that there is certainly some uh desire for consistency and aesthetics that uh would carry over in a neighborhood um where if your fence adjoins your neighbor's property and you're looking at the ADU, it'd be interesting to have all of the houses on the block one style and just this random uh building in the back that doesn't match anything else. So I appreciate the uh conversation on that. Uh question on this that I had just in general. It was alluded to just now with the state and all the legislation around ADUs, but um this is a common topic that has come up for me in um district 2 and I've uh you know in in touring each of the neighborhoods within the district, I see ADUs coming up more and more and more. So, just so we can have it, can you just refresh us briefly on how we got to where we are today with ADUs and how the um state has um positioned all of the cities and counties when it comes to construction of them?

Yes, thank you for that question. I can give a very general uh answer and I'll let Miss Peltier give more detail. Um the state has decided that the uh solution one of the solutions to the housing problem is to um uh encourage housing in any and every way possible and their solution to that aspect of it in terms of ADUs was to remove local control. Uh there were a few bad apple cities that were trying to thwart certain types of development and then they made the entire state pay the price and put us all in one box. So removing local control has been the overarching theme and I I I agree that ADUs are a more affordable option and they do serve a a role in the development of housing. Um uh but I I you know having no standards whatsoever and I'm not saying that's where we're at today. Uh the the cargo container in the front yard next to the front sidewalk uh is the fear. So some some degree of control uh seems reasonable in terms of not driving up the cost but just saying hey match the color and finish of the existing home and you know trying to prevent them from being in the front yard next to the sidewalk. The state continues to remove some of those controls as Miss Peltier stated that uh certain types of ADUs um can be placed in other locations. uh the larger ADUs, we have a little more say in just saying, "Hey, have it match the existing structure and it can't be in certain locations, uh particularly in the front yard if it's over a certain size." Um and so, you know, this this has been a steady increase in um uh getting more and more control over and encouraging ADUs. So, I don't want to sound like I'm against ADUs, but as you might gather, I'm a little more against the state pulling all the control back to itself as opposed to the local cities. So, starting around uh 2018, 2017, a little bit 2018, we first started seeing ADUs being submitted for

per permit applications, and there's just been an ongoing sequence of changing state laws, making it uh uh encouraging it. And um in all cases, it's not just removing local control, it's clarifying the requirements and and and honing the requirements, making it easier for people to build them. It does put burdens on local cities and and uh there's we could do a whole study session on all the different assembly bills and senate bills and how they've impacted local cities. It's not just the standards, it's even how we process them, even to the point of requiring us to have a digital plan check process in place unless we came to council and got an exemption like a lot of cities had to do. So, um, starting around, you know, 2020, we started to see an uptick and then it escalated exponentially. So, um, we have, you know, since that time period when we first started seeing them, we have about a little under 1,400 permits, um, applied for for ADUs. And as of September, I had the stats here, so I just wanted to, uh, add that to my answer. We have about eight over 800 uh, building permits issued for ADUs, and most of those were in the last 3 to four years, and about uh, 430 or so have been completed. Thank you. And my last two questions, um, can you speak to briefly junior ADUs and how they differ? And then the last question, can you speak to parking requirements that local jurisdictions uh are allowed to have uh when it comes to both of those uh ADUs and junior ADUs?

Sure. Thank you for the question. Um, junior ADUs uh essentially are within the single family home um under 500 square ft. So, your Jedu typically looks like an attached garage that's around 400 square f feet and they convert it to um what we would call a junior ADU. Um ADUs can also be of that size, but they are just um considered a little bit differently under state law, whereas they're fully contained housing units with eating, sleeping, living quarters, whereas JDUs don't necessarily have to have those requirements. So if they wanted to have a shared facility, they could. So those are kind of the main differences between between a Jedu and an ADU. Um for parking requirements, uh we can ask for one parking space if they are going beyond a certain size limit. So as I mentioned before that we have statemandated ADUs where we cannot ask for parking. If they are building a larger ADU, we can ask for one parking space. However, there are exemptions to to the parking requirement. So, one of those exemptions is you do not have to pro provide parking if you're within a half mile of a bus stop, which is essentially most of the city. So, there are very few places where we would be able to um enforce the one parking space for the ADU. Um there are little pockets within the city, but beyond that, the parking uh for an ADU specifically is not necessarily required.

Okay. Thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. And I believe we have a a newly constructed residence in district 2 that has uh an ADU and a junior ADU in the new construction. And so they were ready to go right off the bat. So thank you for the responses. Thank you, mayor. Thank you, absolutely. Any other questions be? Go ahead, council member.

I appreciate the presentation both everyone. Can you tell me the smallest and the largest side of the ADUs that are built in Oxnard? Um, couple of questions. I'll give them to you all right now. Have any of these ADUs ended up in litigation with the city because they're doing something that they're not supposed to do? And the final one, are the owners of the property that build the ADU, are they able to cleave the ADU off and sell it separate? So, I'll take the last question first. Uh, they cannot sell it. Uh, currently, there was an op an option that we took to council where there was a state law that said cities could opt into having the ability to convert ADUs to condos. We made the case why that was not a good idea and most likely wouldn't be a desired uh feature. Anyways, we had another uh Senate bill SB9 which was a simplified lot split to try to encourage um um additional construction and we didn't see any any desire or or request for it. Maybe one person asked about it but it didn't just take off like maybe in some other jurisdictions it would. So there's a lot of um currently no they cannot do that and there was a lot of reasons not to encourage that. Um the smallest ADU allowed um I would have to ask Miss Peltier to help me out on that and the largest and then the third question sorry could you repeat that

are any is there any litigation of the people building them against the city of Austin because it's not the way they expected it. Uh there's no litigation that I'm aware of and I'll ask Miss Peltier to answer the size question. There is no litigation at this time. Okay. Thank you.

Uh the average size for for the ADUs we have seen as small as 230 square ft. Um that is the anomaly though. I think uh based on asking staff that that's only happened a few scenarios. Um, and then the largest we've seen is a conversion of half of the residents to a,400 square foot ADU. So, they do range, but I think the standard and the the average is around 800 square ft. Thank you. And the total completed ADUs, I think it's four something. Just shy of 500, I think, is what he said.

Oh, yes. 433. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Other mayor, I would add those numbers are valid through September. So, there's been a few more added. Thank you. There are no further questions. I'll open up the public testimony portion of this public hearing. Speakers have three minutes to speak on this item. Madam clerk, do we have any speakers for this item? Um, mayor and council members, yes, we do have a virtual speaker. Um, speaker ending in 4716, please press star six to unmute and you have three minutes starting now.

Yes, thank you again for revealing my private phone number. Have y'all heard that I'm trying to get an ADU at the Henry Levy House? Guess when I put my application in for a permit? October of 2023. My application for an ADU hit 803 days today. Yes, in part from it's partly my draftsman's fault, but it's also the city's fault. Mayor MacArthur told me months ago when he tried to intervene on my behalf that if I can get my plans back to the city, they would expedite getting the permit. That never happened. No one at the city has tried to be helpful at any point at and at no time has the city tried to help me expedite this so that I could stop hemorrhaging money. And my ADU is an existing building about 275 square ft. It's just a conversion. And it's ridiculous that this has taken 2.2 years and I still don't have a permit. I still can't rent it and make any money so that I don't hemorrhage money here. One neighbor has been waiting more than a year just to get her kitchen remodeled. Now the state is forcing the city to expedite things. There should be no forcing. The city should be doing this anyway. Our sister cities aren't having the delay problems that Oxnard has. Jeff Pingilly has an excuse for everything. He blames the state for everything. He can't accept blame for anything. It's everybody else's fault. So, if you pass this, I guess it's too late for me at 803 days. Let's see if they pass this. If they actually can expedite any permits, I don't believe they even can, even though Bert Pllo thinks the city can do no wrong. Thank you.

Thank you for calling in, madam clerk. Any other speakers on this item? Um, sorry, mayor. Um, mayor and council members, this concludes our speakers in person and virtually for this item. Thank you. Thank you. If there are no additional speakers, then we will close the public hearing. The public hearing is now closed. Does any council member wish to to comment? Go ahead, council member Pearl. Appreciate the speaker. Microphone.

Thank you. Thank you all. I appreciate the speaker taking the time to call in and uh I can somewhat sympathize with the situation, but um and I do appreciate his frankness in saying that it's part of the contractors because the individual that I have been aware of that I've known for a long time that's had a problem. It was all the contractor and and uh they sheepishly had to admit it wasn't the city of Oxnard. They were getting jerked around jerked around by their contractor. Is there any explanation without getting into the details and put us in litigation for the individual taking his amount of days that it did? Because I have no shame in saying I'm very impressed with Mr. Pengali. I don't know that he has every excuse in the book. I think he's doing a good job. And the reason I say that is I've seen his work, but I'm also aware the management of this city would not keep him here if he wasn't doing a good job. Unfortunately, some individuals such as the caller can't understand that. Is there anything that they can address without getting this in and maybe you want to talk with the attorney or something, but um these kind of accusations, they just rile me.

I would be happy to address this. Um I've had the opportunity to work with Mr. Andress for about four and a half years. He can be quite challenging at times, but what I think is really important to state for the record after Mr. Andrew just made a lot of allegations against Mr. Mr. Peneli. He actually sent first time I've ever seen him, he sent an apology email to Mr. Pengelli because he was blaming the city for the problems, but he said it was his contractor that caused the problems. So that was for the vast majority of those alleged 830 some odd days that the project uh has been languishing. He that's in writing. He indicated that. So he is uh to say it kindly is having revisionist history after he he he sent his first apology on record. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anything else? I would just add I we have all the data and records. We provided a lot of information in response to PAS and we can provide that to anyone on this council that's interested and the speaker's on. I I don't want to throw the mayor under the bus, but when the gentleman says that he got the mayor to come in and he was going to expedite it, there's a implication there that some strings are going to get pulled if I were to take something and bring it to you, Mr. Pinelli. Could I get strings pulled to get somebody a special deal?

No, we don't give people cuts in line because that's unfair to our other customers. But, you know, if if somebody's had an issue, we look at it carefully to make sure we haven't made a mistake. if we've dropped the ball, we we'll we'll do whatever we can to make up that time, but um in no case um do we give cuts in line or or this and that. We look at the situation and if somebody even if no fault of their own, let's say a commercial building is being built and they've got a a loan closing or some grand opening date, um you know, we we pull all the all staff and and do whatever we can to help businesses and residents. Um, but we we we don't put people in in in line because they call me or ask me to read their corrections to them or whatever they do. Um, we try to treat everybody fairly no matter what their status in the in business or in the community. They're a customer and they're treated with respect and we've tried to do that with with the customer that called in and um we will continue to do that um through the rest of his project.

Thank you very much. Thank I appreciate the answer. Thank you, Mayor. I I wanted to say thank you. And go ahead, Council Member Stone.

One of the concerns that people talk to me about, which is something that is caused by the state, not by us, is just the complete lack of parking in many of these neighborhoods where these ADUs are are being proposed or have been built. And I just wanted to kind of say for just uh the council's consideration or just part of the thought process is that I'm in a interesting situation where I live uh on a private street in West Village, Patada Drive and or East Village rather. And what's interesting about having a private street is that we're able to assign spots in front of people's houses to the owners. And as a result, it's far less likely that someone's going to want to build an ADU on our street because they're not going to have a parking spot for the person that they're hoping to rent to. So, I know there's a process where a city could vacate a street in theory to a neighborhood association, I suppose, if they ever wanted to have more control over their parking and kind of counter the, you know, the uh consequence, if you will, of having ADUs just popping up and just making it impossible to park for the people that live there uh on on near near their house. So, just something to think about. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead, Mayor Port. Thank you. Um, willing to move the recommended action. Um, second. Okay. So, I have a second. Just a quick comment here. Um, I would imagine that anyone who wants to build an ADU, um, if someone lives in a gated community, for example, and it's completely controlled by an HOA, are they still, uh, uh, able to build ADU if they they wish to do so, or are there other factors that come into consideration? Mr. Pengilly,

the short answer is yes. Uh, they can still build an ADU. Um, I believe those ADU uh, laws supersede um, HOA requirements. Okay. So on a private street, I would imagine it would standard reason if somebody truly wanted to build an ADU, regardless of availability of parking, parking permit program on that street, whatever the case is, that they could still do so. Correct. That's my understanding. I from from what I from what I understand, HOAs may have a little more authority to talk about the architectural style matching the rest of the community and things like that. But um a thumbs up or thumbs down on whether or not they can build an ADU is not within the purview of an HOA.

Okay. And I would imagine in the scenarios we have here that someone who truly wants to build one, there's very little to stop them from doing so. And you know, there's certainly design elements and other things to for consideration, but the physical structure could still be built. And even the absence of parking, I have found that uh I believe that someone who owns a property uh whether they live there or they rent it, uh if they build an ADU, the availability of parking is something the state says is really not a consideration, especially if they're within a half hour, a half mile of a bus station or a bus stop. Therefore, all that's going to do if the control of the street belongs to the association, if they're going to build, they're going to build and those cars will just be pushed off to the closest street that does not have that control. And um I can't think of u many neighborhoods in the city of Oxnard that have complete control over all of the neighborhoods in the entire all the streets in the entire neighborhood. Uh so really uh I I would counter that an unintended consequence would be the impact on the neighboring streets that do not have permit permit uh parking permit programs. So anyhow that's just my comment. So I did make the motion and council member second. So thank you mayor.

Thank you madam clerk. There's no further discussion. Uh I call off for the vote. Um councilman star. Yes. Mayor promptteran. Yes. Councilman Basula. Yes. Council member Palo, yes. Councilwoman Perez, yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, hi. Mayor MacArthur, yes. And this motion carry seven to zero. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. The next item on the agenda is item N1 from the police department. The subject entails agreement with Axon International, Inc. The recommended action is that the city council approve and authorize the mayor to execute a 5-year contract with X Exxon International, Inc., otherwise known as Exxon, not to exceed 3,741,71647 cents over 5 years for bodywn cameras, less lethal force equipment and related services and subscriptions. Chief of Police Jason Bonitz is here as so as u the commanders here to speak on this this item. Any council members have any questions of of staff before we uh open it for public comment? U Mayor Prom, do you have a question?

Yes. Um good evening, Commander. Thank you for the um information for this evening. So, I had a a conversation with the police chief on a couple of questions I had, and I just wanted to bring those forward for um the public's benefit this evening. looking at this um this agenda item we have here, this agreement with Axon International. Um first question is can you speak to uh the different items or different materials we're looking at uh purchasing as well as the software agreements I guess that we'd have with them as well or those software services.

Yes. Thank you. Good evening, mayor, mayor promp, city council, city staff, commander Cody Colette. Um, with me representing Axon is uh Anthony Valentino and uh Lauren Gower um to help assist in any technical questions that you guys may have that may be beyond my scope. Um the uh specifics are uh bodywn cameras um and that includes the subscription base for the evidence.com um redaction assistant and other subscriptions um related to the bodywn camera and the video um including uh being able officers able to utilize their department issued cellular telephone to take photographs of evidence video and stuff like that on the scene. Um, another item is the Taser 10 CEW, which stands for conducted energy device, which is our less lethal option. Um, with that is also the subscription base um uh for the Taser CEW. Um, included in there is the um we have six interview rooms that have um that are equipped with uh audio and video of those interview rooms. would be refreshers of those interview rooms uh equipped by Axon itself um so that we can record uh lengthy interviews and directly upload those into evidence. Um they can also with that subscription they can also be remotely viewed in real time. Um so that detectives district attorneys uh members of the district attorney's office uh can view those in real time uh so that we conduct thorough uh interviews um with victims, witnesses and suspects. included with all those I'm sorry with the getting back to the uh the body warn camera that includes the docks the the docking system where the body warn camera is actually docked to charge and to download and offload into the evidence.com system um with the uh additional hardware is the um the Axon

fleet which is the incar dash camera uh for 55 uh marked police vehicles. Um along with those are the subscription base for uh the Axon air which are the drones and the it's price per subscription base per um uh craft type. So what type of drone we utilize it's it's um it is subscription base per that that type. So we have 10 drones uh that we would use so that they're able to um upload into evidence.com. we can remotely view. Um, and it has the capabilities like the chief had had talked about with our DFR that the drones that we have in there, um, we can utilize for, uh, scene security, scene safety, situational awareness. Um, and then the add-ons, I'm sorry, the the Allocart software includes the um translation, which is a great um feature that uh we're able to get that um allows officers at the push of a button um whether the officer uh so English speaking officer comes into contact with a non-English-speaking citizen um if they don't know what language it is, they're able to activate one of the buttons on their bodywn camera and the uh the device automatically recognizes what language is being spoken. It re relays that to the officer in real time and then as that citizen is talking to the officer, it's automatically translating for them. The officer is then able to speak in English back to this person and then the body cam is able to in real time translate that back into whatever uh language that person speaks. It does support up to 50 languages. Spanish uh uh Arabic, Spanish, French, uh Dutch um are among some of the languages that it that it supports. Um so that is another uh service that we will do that that is being um requested in this agreement. Additionally is um Axon's auto redaction and auto tagging uh auto redaction and

included in there is not only auto redaction um um auto tagging but also transcription. So auto redaction is um when our bodywn camera person is redacting per um the law for records requests it they're able to use this AI feature and it automatically redacts what they what parameters they set. So faces of uh citizens non-involved citizens that type of stuff that saves a significant amount of time and manpower for that person. uh transcription uh automatically transcribes the entire video into a transcription on the side of the screen, which is not only a great tool for utilizing an investigations, but it's also searchable. So, if we needed to search for a word or phrase that was uttered during that video, we can type that into the search bar. It'll take us directly to that minute and second that that word was uttered, and we can review our tape from there with that transcription uh on the side. So, it cuts out time for lengthy uh interviews, um uh uh refreshing our recollection when we go to report writing. It's just a great tool that's included in there. Um and then the rest is for warranties, um the install services that come with the uh with the fleet cameras as well as the install services that come with the um um interview rooms at the station. So, that's just a summary of what's included in there

with the transcription. Are we at uh Commander Coleta, are we at the point where it's actually replacing a a report that an officer does? That is not uh replacing the report. That is a different service called draft one that Axon um offers. We have not included that uh AI report generated system in this contract. Go ahead. Still have a few more. I just had a clarifying question because as a followup to what you mentioned of the 50 languages, do you happen to know if you also translate um Mistco and Sapot?

So that is a question that we had asked Axon that we we were told we were not the first agency to ask. The good thing about Axon is that they're always trying to improve their technologies and their services. So that that is something that the fact that we have asked for it and other agencies have asked for it, that's something that they can see if they can utilize that technology. Thank you. That would be very important. Thank you. Checked that one off my list here.

Oh, perfect. Um, thank you for the uh overview on those items, Commander. So, just uh last couple quick items here on that. Um, I spoke with the chief a little bit at length on this um this one regarding the interview room service and I was unaware that it's already a service we have in place now. Is that correct? That is correct.

Okay. And um I was just you know my initial uh questions around it were well you know uh this is something that's now going to be included in this but not knowing we already had it. But my main concern really was for the public to know that maybe a question might come up of well why are we going to pay you know this uh six figures over five years for interview rooms uh when we could just do that in house. we get out of the recording, have it saved to uh a server or to a computer, um etc., etc., and uh not maybe just general public realizing the many many terabytes worth of data that that would take and what's our retention requirements on that and um if we had to move it to the district attorney or take it to court, you know, just the the logistics involved in that. So, this seems to me that uh looking at um the $22,000 per year to just maintain to have redundancy to store all of the the data that would take just for those interview rooms. You can't get an IT person at $22,000 a year. And so, um I just that that conversation helped me to come to a little bit better understanding of this. And I hope the public sees that too if they get a little sticker shock at why are we paying that much for six rooms to have cameras in them. But they serve an important purpose. So I appreciate that. And my last question is regarding the um dash cams for the uh police vehicles. Uh it does have a mention of the automatic license plate recognition technology being built into the cameras and um perhaps you can share a little bit about how that would be utilized in a dash cam like what would how does that technology factor into a patrol vehicles work or uh these dash cams we have in the vehicles?

Yes, thank you for the question. Um it increases officer safety and officer awareness. Uh, it's constantly reading license plates as it goes by and and um querying the system. Um, it is full SP54 compliant. It is compliant with all California state laws um within the realm of those for the system. But it also allows the officer to get further information based on the um vehicle that they're stopping who could be related to that vehicle if there's any um um law enforcement hits on that vehicle for subject armed and dangerous wanted for violent crimes. uh stolen vehicle. That's uh important situational awareness so that the officers can craft their response uh do a better job at making sure that we have an appropriate response, gather the resources and respond appropriately based on uh the vehicle that they're contacting.

Okay. And maybe this might be for you, Commander, or the chief, but when it comes to using the the technology in practice, um, is there a certain level or threshold of offenses that would might be a hit that we'd look for versus someone who has, you know, unpaid parking tickets or something like that or someone who's in a a plate that comes back as a stolen vehicle or someone who has a warrant for a violent uh, you know, offense, something like that. Is there some discretion in that or uh how does that work within?

There is some discretion. Uh some of it is uh input into the into the into the law enforcement uh telecommunication system. Um so that's input from other agencies that we get hits to. Um we it is an in-house system. So, there's other um in-house information that we can um flag on vehicles for specific Oxnard Police Department officer safety, wanted vehicles to be looking out for, those types of things to provide additional information and add additional intelligence for our officers working the streets. Okay, thank you very much for the questions there and thank you, Mayor. Absolutely, Councilwoman.

Thank you. My question is pretty brief. I know you reference SB54, which limits state and local law enforcement's role in federal immigration, and I know with an increase in fear right now between um just the impacts of of raids in our community. Um just curious. I know that there's been a lot of concern around fear. Um and wondering if this kind of these what we're approving tonight, any of the devices um or just content and information is going to be utilized to aid um the federal administration with ICE enforcement. It will not be uh it is fully SP54 compliant and we will comply with every uh state law um and standard operating procedure that we have in place already um both department policy and uh state law.

Thanks Cody. Um, council members, just to clarify, when you say it's SP54 compliant, what is it no longer able to do in order to in what way what way is the software adjusted so that that compliance is possible? What what what feature are we holding back?

Any sharing of ALPR information for outside of the state of California and federal agencies. Um, so it it allow it provides us safeguards to where we can um monitor who we're sharing, who we're allowing into that system so that we are making sure that we are in compliance with that SB54. So it has those safeguards in place. So if it's a non-immigration matter, I assume we're sharing data with the other governmental agencies and the federal government. I don't chief, do you know what the SB54? Well, earlier you mentioned the DA's office, for example, that' be county. The DA's office would be county, correct? Or any criminal. Okay.

So, non non-immigration, meaning a criminal case, you would share that information, but you get to restrict that or not. Correct.

Okay. And I I I I have to say that when I first read about this and was kind of looking online doing my own research, I was really very impressed with the features uh of this system. Uh just just the synchronized translation services is fascinating. I mean, I I' I've used a handheld device to try and translate, but I have to know the language I need to translate to. I have to push a button for me to talk. I have to push a button for to receive. And this seems like it's all hands-free and it's just working. And that's just an amazing uh that's an amazing bit of technology there. And the other thing that kind of amazes me is I I I I can see the savings when it comes to P requests when people want to see, you know, the the videos. Having a system that automatically redacts like license plate numbers or what have you that we wouldn't normally want to release. Just the time savings has got to be immense. Uh, so I'm very happy with just the direction that that this is going.

I I I I just I I wish that I had this translation device for me personally, but it sounds like it's only uh law enforcement that gets to to use this. Unless Unless Exxon's going to be expanding their clientele to non-law enforcement officers. They're hiring council member. Sorry, what? They're hiring.

They're hiring. Well, I just love the direction we're going with the drones and then now with the um advent of of Axon that just it's cutting edge every day. I'm glad that we as an agency are that progressive. Just one one question that was asked um with regard with the utilization of Axon. Is this something that I don't know if if we're even there yet, maybe that's for Mr. Antino for Lauren for our traffic uh units are that go out there and enforce street sweeping parking ordinances. Um I mean we're still getting out of the car and putting tickets on the windshields. Are we there yet to where uh Exxon with an LDR can just drive down recognize those obvious violators that are against a regulation sign and just generate tickets opposed to an actual cadet getting out and putting a ticket on the windshield. Is that's is that a direction we're going in,

Chief? I mean, for for I mean for time savings, that's what we're just to uh put it out there. It's something we looked at about a year ago and there's some legal issues with that that prelude us from pre proceeding further at this point in time. But um it's something we are very interested in doing if that should be available to us because as you know our TSAs spend a lot of time doing this. If you could cut that down to about, you know, onethird of what or one a fraction of what they're doing, we can task them to doing the daylighting enforcement. We can task them to handicap enforcement and other things. But right now, um, our city attorney's office had weighed in on it that it it was problematic at this point.

I appreciate, chief, because that's ultimately the benefit of Axon. One of the components, right, is is the amount of time it's safe so that we can get more officers on the street doing police work as opposed to being tied up typing away a report or everything else. We're just that much more efficient. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. And ideally um maybe there's a world where the street sweeper vehicle itself has a license plate reader that can automatically generate citations. And um anyways, that that would free up our TSAs to go do those other things as the chief had mentioned. Yep. Go ahead.

Just out of curiosity, is does the dash cam have the capability of measuring the speed of other vehicles versus uh I mean it it be kind of an interesting feature and especially I assume that maybe there's some sort of magnification that would automatically figure out the license plate that's far away that normally you have to drive up fast. I mean, when they're up in the they're hundreds of yards away, it's really hard to make uh to identify and read a license plate, but I would think that with these cameras that you'd be in a better position to do that. Um, you want to talk about that at all?

Just to clarify, are you asking if the camera has like radar or LAR capabilities where they're going to tell the speed of the of the vehicle in front of them? I mean, yeah, you're looking at like Whimo technology, for example. They're able to figure out where like a radar a radar gun or something. It may not even have to be because I I think with some of the vehicles that are coming out there that automatically drive, they're basically able to do it based on just cameras

and not have anything equivalent to a LAR system. So, it's it'd be interesting to see if this technology would allow you to go so far as to be able to measure the speed of of a speeder. And you know, right now you're kind of using your experience and your your judgment, but it's just interesting if the camera itself can say, "Nope, it was going 47 miles per hour." I don't know if Yes, you don't mind. It's beyond my capability, so the expert.

Good evening. Um, yeah, great question. Overall, at this point, no, it does not have that capability, but I think that is something that obviously we are happy to take back to product. I think there have been a couple of comments as far as just like innovation at Axon and one of those things is, you know, feedback from community, feedback from our agencies that we've partnered with across the nation, across the world. So would love to take that back to our product team and I'm sure it's not that far-fetched and they're probably already thinking about this in the back of their minds. Yep. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

Yeah. And just lastly, one last comment. Um um just for the benefit of the of council and also for the public, have you seen since the introduction of of wearable body cam, a reduction in officer uses of force and also when there are allegations of of ill conduct by by an officer? How many of those cases just anecdotally are we able to dispel because we've got tangible evidence that shows that something as simple as an officer not being, you know, rude or discourteous, things of that nature. How many of those cases are just anecdotally we able to discount because we've got tangible evidence support u the actions or not?

Yeah, there's a lot of uh comments about that. It's it's shown itself across the industry as an effective tool to actually govern both the behavior of the officer as well as the person that knows that they're being recorded. Therefore, with those behaviors change that the probability of some type of use of force incident occurring is reduced. Uh to your question about studies, uh the city of Royalto actually was a pioneer on body worn camera usage and use of force and they correlated during their bodywn camera uh study which was about five or six years ago that showed just that. So they had a significant reduction in uses of force.

Wonderful. And then the latter part of the question, chief, about when a member of our community comes in and alleges certain misconduct of an officer uh of those cases having when presented with uh the wearable u video that that the officer captured during the interaction being able to clear those those uh those incidents or those allegations.

Yes. oftentimes that can be done that the uh complaint can be actually uh either ruled that it did occur or didn't occur right off the bat, saving a lot of professional time. But to be honest, we don't really seem to get those so much anymore. Actually, the are those types of complaints have really kind of gone by the wayside over the years. I think it's possibly because the prevalence of these body worn cameras. Um, so it's it is that tool, but it does afford transparency both to the public, but it also is a tool that our officers now are very very attached to and it protects them just as much.

Yeah. Thanks, Chief. I just wanted this me members of council and also the public to hear that added benefit. Yes, Mayor Port.

Thank you, Mayor. Um, just a quick thing and then I'm willing to make the motion on this. Um, to council member Star's question about the cameras and ability to judge speed or estimate it, uh, I mean, I've been in vehicles that have highly advanced adaptive cruise control where you can set it and you can tell it the distance you want to follow the vehicle in front of you and it can sense when that vehicle slows down in speed or when it hits brakes and then your vehicle automatically adjusts using uh, radar and cameras and things. So, the technology certainly exists even in my car. I just bought a new dash cam for it to replace a pre a previous one. And built into it are some functions like that where it recognizes lane departure. Um, gives me a warning if vehicles are stopping ahead of me and when vehicles leave if it thinks I'm not looking or I don't leave right at quickly enough. And it has a a pedestrian collision warning as well. So, I mean, that's just a little unit all by itself. So, I I know there's probably innovative technology that we'll see here very shortly that would probably do similar, if not exactly what the council member was asking about. So,

um I'm willing to make the motion on this, but I would like to add to it um to what councilwoman Rodriguez had mentioned. Uh uh I'll make the motion, but I would like to add as soon as we have developments in the mix and sapoteco languages um if we could um open that dialogue uh so to speak with the uh vendor to ensure that we get that as soon as we can in this jurisdiction as well. Yeah. Thank you. I'll second I'll second that motion. Madam clerk, I don't know if I've already called. Are there any speakers on on this item? Um, mayor and council members, we do not have any public speakers in person or virtually for this item. Sounds good.

Uh, if there's no more discussion, I'll call for the vote. Madam clerk, uh, Mayor Prompteran, yes. Councilwoman Basilla, yes. Council member Palo, yes. Councilwoman Pettis, yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, I. Councilman Star, yes. Mayor MacArthur, yes. And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Commander. Thanks, Chief. And thank thank you both for Maxon for being here and for your time. Thank you very much. Look into integrating with the vehicles because that that's what you probably have to do to make that that work. Very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

The next item on the agenda is item N2. This is from public works. subject uh ratifying an emergency order and approve the public uh project agreement with Toro Enterprises for emergency repairs on a water mane on Oxnard Boulevard in Date Street in an amount not to exceed $130,000. The recommendation is that the city council review and ratify the following. One, the director of public works emergency order to dispense with public bidding requirements pursuant to public contract code section 22050 to make emergency repairs to the city's water distribution system. to authorize the city manager manager to execute emergency public project agreement with Toro Enterprises for a total amount not to exceed uh 13,000 emergency repairs on a water mane on Oxnar Boulevard and date street in three the director of public works declaration of the termination of the emergency order to dispense with public bidding requirements pursuant to public contract code section 22050 to make emergency repairs to the city's water distribution system. This item did not originate in committee and our director of public works, Michael Wolf, is here to answer any questions uh council members may have. We'll proceed with the questions. Um any questions at all?

If there are no questions on might want to have speakers first if there are any though. Madam Clerk, any speakers? Mayor and council members, we do not have any public speakers for this item. And then um the motion was made by council member Parallo and it was second by uh Perez. Thank you. Councilwoman Perez. Thank you. Call for the vote. Councilwoman Basua. Yes. Council member Palo. Yes. Councilwoman Perez. Yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez. Hi. Councilman Star. Yes. Mayor Prompteran. Yes. Mayor MacArthur. Yes. And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you.

Yeah. Got to get that fixed. Thank you. Thank you so much. Uh the next item is N3 from public works. Uh subject adoption of ordinance number 3071 amending the solid waste rates uh fees ordinance to change single family residential rates. Recommendation that the city council adopt ordinance 3071 entitled an ordinance of the city council of the city of Oxnner amending sections 19 through 19 hyphen 203A1 of chapter 19 article 2 division 7 of the aux city code pertaining to the single family residential seller west rates. This item did not originate in committee as it is a continuation of an item previously approved by the city council November 18th, 2025. Uh Michael Wolf, public works director, is here to answer any questions uh council members may have on this item. We'll proceed with any questions. No any public uh speakers on this item. Madam clerk,

uh mayor and council members, we do not have any public speakers in person or virtually for this item. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Council member Pllo second. Councilwoman Sue will second the motion. Uh, Council Member Palo, yes. Councilwoman Pettis, yes. Councilwoman Rodriguez, yes. Councilman Star, yes. Mayor Prompteran, yes. Councilwoman Basua, Mayor MacArthur, yes. And this motion carries seven to zero. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, there being no further items on the agenda and there's no objection, we are journ. Thank you. That woke everybody up. Yeah. Merry Christmas. See you next year.