City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, ladies and gentlemen, if you would please go ahead and come to order. Oh, we're missing Oh, where are missing one?

All right, if we could come to order in the chamber. Thank you very much. I don't get to pound that gavvel very often. I only do it at the beginning of the meeting because they told me never never bang that gavvel during the middle of the meeting. Uh we're going to come back to order with a roll call from our city clerk Kathy Valdez. The record should reflect that all members are present with the exception of council member Melindas who we anticipate will be joining us shortly via Zoom.

Very good. And uh I'm advised by council uh we had closed session earlier this evening. I'm advised by council that we have no reportable action on item CS1. I'm advised by council we had no reportable action on item CS2. And now we'll proceed to our pledge of allegiance led by council member Fox. Please rise. Remove your hats.

Ready, begin. 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. And I I think uh make a motion at this time to uh permit council member Melendez to pro to uh participate uh telephonically or by by audio and video uh for uh just cause under the law.

Is there there's a second to that? Okay. Any discussion? Seeing none, please cast your votes. Are we all? Okay, there we go. Uh, that is adopted with four in favor and one absent. Uh, and with that, we'll welcome Council Member Melendez through her remote appearance to the meeting. And uh we're going to convene our meeting this evening in honor of the memory of Alan E. Spike Harvey who passed away on April 3rd. Spike served in the US Army, served as a board member and president of the Vista Historical Society and volunteered at the local American Legion and the San Diego National Football Foundation. He was also active at North Coast Church. Our condolences go out to him and his family and his friends. And now our city clerk, Kathy Valdez, has some procedural items to cover.

Thank you, mayor. In accordance with the Brown Act, I'd like to announce that city council will receive compensation of $147.75 pursuant to Buuna Sanitation District 200-6. Um, I'd like to remind everyone that the um city council um ordinance requires members of the public to observe order and decor at the meeting and to conduct themselves in a courteous manner. Applause is appropriate under uh presentation items only. Students wishing to receive credit for attending this evening's meeting must stay for a minimum of 1 hour. However, we ask that you stay for the completion of item rather than leaving in the ma discussion. When your um time is up, you may ask one of the council me or sorry, not council members, one of the staff members at the back of the room to sign your paper. Thank you.

Thank you very much for approval of the agenda this evening, but our city manager, John Connley. Thank you, mayor. There are no changes to this evening's agenda.

Okay, we have two presentations tonight. I'd like to invite my fellow council members to join me at the podium for the presentations. All right. It's our pleasure to present proclamations tonight recognizing the recipients of the 2025 City of Vista Employee Awards. I'd like to invite to come on down Torres, winner of the Mayor's Excellence in Service Award. John, we're gonna present you with this buddy. Whereas the city of Vista recognizes the outstanding contributions of its employees whose dedication and commitment enhance the quality and service provided to the community. Whereas during the period of March 21, 2025 through August 11, 2025, a time of staffing transition within the community development department, John Torres demonstrated exceptional professionalism by fulfilling the responsibilities of both senior office specialist for building uh and senior office specialist for planning. Whereas during this time, John Torres provided critical support for the planning division, assisted uh with the planning commission meetings, managed the planning division phone line, coordinating project distribution, and ensuring seamless operations within the department. John quickly mastered complex administrative tasks, including the preparation of planning commission

meeting minutes, the coordination of public hearing notices, demonstrating ability and adaptability, initiative, and attention to detail. On September 15th, John Torres was promoted to development services technician 1 where he continued to excel by providing outstanding service at the development services counter. Whereas John Torres demonstrated a strong work ethic and commitment to continuous learning and a willingness to go above and beyond to meet the needs of our community. Now therefore, it be proclaimed by myself as mayor and our city council and the city of Vista, we hereby congratulate John Torres on being selected as the city of Vista's 2025 mayor's excellence and service award and do hereby proclaim Wednesday, April 15th, 2026 as John Torres Day in the city of Vista.

All right. Next, we want to invite Chris Shutgart, manager of the year, to come on down. show that off. Read a little bit of it. All right. Whereas the city of Vista is committed to recognizing individuals whose dedication, leadership, and service excellence significantly contribute to the effectiveness and success of city operations, Chris Shukart has demonstrated outstanding leadership, technical expertise, and a dedicated commitment to excellence and service to the city of Vista. He has played a vital leadership role in the success and upgrade in implementation of the city works and GIS systems transforming them into streamlined user-friendly tools that enhance workflows, improve accuracy, and save valuable time across multiple departments. His contributions have also advanced accessibility and inclusivity in public service through support of translation devices in city council meetings, ensuring effective communication and reliable technology during critical high-profile events. His proactive problem solving, dedication to continuous improvement, and genuine commitment to customer service exemplify the highest standards of public service and leadership. He's a dependable resource, an innovative thinker, and a manager who consistently elevates both systems and people within the city of Vista. Now, therefore, we proclaim by the mayor and the city council, and we hereby congratulate Chris Shukart on his selection as the city of Vista 2025 manager of the a year award. And we name April 16th, 2026 as Chris Shukart Day in the city of Vista.

We love watching Okay. And finally, Shelby Coffron, employee of the year. Come on down. Congratulations. All right. Whereas the city of Vista is committed to excellence in public service, it is fitting to honor individuals who exemplify outstanding leadership, professionalism, and service to our city. Shelby Coffron consistently demonstrates exceptional leadership, teamwork, and a strong commitment to excellence, fostering a collaborative and inclusive work environment. She's a trusted colleague known for her professionalism, calm demeanor, and ability to lead with clarity and confidence in complex and high pressure situations. During the city's inaugural Farmers Cup event in March of 25, Shelby provided critical leadership by organizing priorities, addressing challenges in real time, supporting staff, and strengthening future efforts through a comprehensive afteraction report. Shelby further demonstrated adaptability and innovation as interims operate interim operations manager at the Moonlight Amphitheater, ensuring

continuity while introducing initiatives such as the uh set rental pilot program to generate new revenue. Her ability to build strong relationships with colleagues, partners, and the community enhances the city's reputation as a professional and welcoming organization. Shelby's leadership, integrity, and dedication make her an invaluable asset and a model of public service excellent. Therefore, we proudly proclaim on behalf of myself as mayor in the city council. We congratulate Shelby Coffran being selected as the city of Vista's 2025 employee of the year and hereby proclaim Friday, April 17th, 2026 as Shelby Coffron day in the city of Vista in recognition of her exceptional contributions to steadfast commitment to serving the public. Thank you. Okay, our next proclamation is one declaring April 2026 as Earth Month in the city of Vista. Accepting the proclamation this evening are Edco General Manager Matthew Clary and Vista Field Representative Chris uh

Spielmaker. Please come down and join us.

Oh, thank you. Great to see you.

Nice to see you. that for us. Thank you very much for that. Whereas 2026 marks the 56th anniversary of Earth Day and the movement and serves as an opportunity for individuals and communities to raise awareness and advocate for the health of our planet, air, oceans, soil, ecosystems, wildlife, and human health. Whereas the city of Vista celebrates Earth Day throughout the month of April in recognition of the city's commitment to implementing sustainability, sustainability efforts and environmental stewardship, the theme of Earth Day 2026 is our power, our planet, reflecting the fundamental truth that the environmental progress or environmental progress is sustained through the daily actions and decisions of the community to protect the environment in which they live and work. The city of Vista commemorates Earth Day in conjunction with Arbor Day at the annual Alta Vista Botanical Gardens Earth Day Festival on April 18th, 2026. And we join our community in this celebration of Vista's dedication to the environment and sustainability. The city of Vista is committed with its municipal buildings and operations to 100% renewable energy through the Clean Energy Alliance. And we celebrate that our public works administration building and the Vista Library are certified green business buildings through the California Green Business Network. Whereas the city of Vista has enacted communitydriven programs such as the tree giveaway program and the ebike safety training program to encourage residents to implement sustainable actions in their daily lives. The city of Vista partners with EDCO to provide monthly mulch and compost giveaways while also supporting residents and businesses in properly sorting recycling and organic waste to promote a cleaner, more sustainable community. Whereas the city of Vista Council has committed to a goal of climate and environmental responsibility and a promise to strive for a healthier and safer future for all through improving our environment, protecting our natural resources, and practicing sustainability. Now therefore, I and the members of the

Vista City Council hereby proclaim the month of April 2026 as Earth Month in the city of Vista. All right.

Thank you. We take one step. How about Edco, huh? They do a great job for us here in Vista.

All right, I only have six months left or well, let's see, what do I have? Eight or nine months, but 11 plus years and never anything but a good word about Edco in our community. You guys do a great job. Thank you. What happened? Now, did our employee of the year, Shelby Coffron, leave yet?

She's still here. Hey, uh, rumor has it the city manager is going to grant you a day off on the, uh, day honoring you for being employee of the year. So, enjoy your Friday. All right. The least we can do, literally. And there was a gift certificate, too. Yeah.

Okay. Hey, that's going to bring us to the oral communications opportunity on tonight's agenda to speak on a member of the uh on any item of business of the city that's not on the agenda. Please request to speak during this section. If you're participating via Zoom, you may use the raise your hand feature or press star 9 on your phone if you'd like to speak. The number of speakers heard during this segment will be limited to 10. Any remaining speakers will be heard during the second oral communications item if there are more than 10. With that, I see two oral communications requests here. The first is from Tammy Young. The second is from Scott Guerrero. If you heard your name called, come on down, grab a seat in the front row, and be ready to speak. Tammy Young, you're up first. Is Tammy with us tonight? Mr. Guerrero, I'm going to let you go first since you're uh ready to go. Okay, come on. Grab a seat, uh, Miss Young, and we'll have you go next. Hello. Um, my subject is about the Bringing Terrace pickleball courts. Are there any board members here that use that facility? No. Okay. Um, I guess it was January of 2025. They uh installed eight additional courts. Uh, very nice. Um, and for the players, excellent. I'm I go there often. Um, but when I have called at least two, three times to the city parks person, they have admitted, well, we kind of got the cart before the horse because there are no bathrooms. They said they have some ideas and some works to do. And I said, can you put something temporary? Well, no. I don't know if it's a budget issue or that nobody has actually come up to any planning pro uh idea to fix the problem. It kind of seems like I have talked to

many players, men and women, that just use the bushes away from the courts and it would kind of be a public health issue.

So, I don't know if that's any way going to be resolved or just let it go. So, I don't know if it's coming this year, next year, whatever. Uh if anyone was to go over and look at the Poinsettia Park, they added six new courts. They added a very nice bathroom facility with a drinking fountain. If you want a model after that, it would be fantastic. There's a perfect location in the northwest corner of the courts for something just like that and it would be awesome. Um, another issue and it just I saw it this week there's some new landscaping taken care of and they're putting bushes and uh ice plant and everything and doing a nice job and it kind of seems like oh gee that really looks good but if you look really close it looks like it was purposely meant to cut off any foot traffic from the westside parking lot to get to the west side pickle ball courts. gate and it wasn't easy just up the hill. If you wanted to do something really nice, you could have built maybe some concrete steps just to walk from the parking lot up to the hill and it might have been, you know, like 20 ft. Um, but now they've cut it off with shrubs and plants and I guess they don't want any foot traffic at all. So if unless you have to go way to the front of the building up by the tennis courts or you go way around to the north side, there is an asphalt walk path, but it is not ADU compliant. So there's many issues there. And like I said, when I talk to someone at the city and they, well, we saw that was a problem, but no one seems to want to fix it or it's just it's pushed out quarter after quarter, year after year. Uh, it would be nice if there was some place to use as a bathroom and at least a walkway

from the parking lot. Thank you very much. I think our city manager had a a thought on that. Uh, we are preparing to uh build a trail uh walkway, pardon me, a paved walkway from the pickle ball courts to directly to the bathrooms in the rec center which will be commencing later this year. Okay. Okay, next we'll hear from Tammy Young and then we'll hear from Barbara Gordon on Zoom.

Good evening. Um, I would like to propose this request um for support from the city of Vista to acquire, rehabilitate, and operate a vacant residential property located at 1558 Goodwin Drive as a 24-hour emergency safe haven for youth. Stella's umbrella will serve as a walk-in refuge for children, teens, and young individuals under the age of 18 who are experiencing abuse, neglect, homelessness, or crisis situation such as rape. Things happen after 5:00 p.m. 211 uh give you just referrals, numbers in an immediate crisis. Uh this house has been boarded up. Um, it is severely overgrown and unmaintained. I believe I provided pictures. Um, it's been there for several years. It's a known site for repeated trespassing incidences and uh, uh, people have been getting arrested throughout these years from that property. Um, the community members, including myself, have personally witnessed the decline of this property over several years. The condition of the home has created both a public safety hazard and a missed opportunity for meaningful community use. Uh so Vista, I was born and raised here at Tri City Hospital. I went to Vista school districts, unified school districts my whole life. Um my whole life I'm 48 years old. So, um I love Vista and um at the same time um Vista uh it has a lack of immediate access for safe space. Existing systems, hotlines, referrals, intake processes often delay help when it's most urgently needed. So, children experiencing like I said all that abuse or anything at home. So, uh I would like

to um say that I have the Friendship Church of Oceanside uh uh to uh do whatever I mean they if they have I I'm not sure what the process exactly is, but I know that it's a grant and they have they want to they support this. So, if they have to, I I'm not sure, but I just know that I would like for it to be um uh emergency stabilization for uh support, but um excuse me. Uh so um it the expected outcomes for uh I would like the um immediate intervention, the decrease of trespassing, the increase of community trust and engagement, positive youth development through creative programs, reputable model for other communities. But uh I so I would like to request to support from uh city of Vista to um assistance in determining ownership and legal pathway for use.

Thank you very much. Next we're going to hear from Barbara Gordon on Zoom followed by Becky Rap and then Madison. Barbara Gordon.

Um good evening. Uh I am concerned as a youth advocate that nearly every week a new intoxicating mindaltering product emerges often unnoticed until reports surface of people being harmed and the physical and mental health of our youth is in jeopardy. Products like intoxicating THC hemp andratom are dangerous and addictive. Intoxicating hemp compounds like delta 8 or delta 9 THC and many other of these products are available in convenience stores, vape shops, online without any oversight, and in many places without any age restriction. Potentratom compounds become especially dangerous when it is in concentrated into products like gummies, drinks, powder, capsules. These are also sold in smoke shop, gas stations, convenience stores, or online. Marketed as natural, these products can be just as harmful as synthetic opiates posing serious danger. The FDA warns that products like 70 are not approved or they're not lawful and unsafe with the risks including seizures, depression, anxiety, addiction, and overdose-like symptoms. I am urging the city council to treat intoxicating hemp products as a public health issue, not as a product that is in the gray area. As a community, we need to insist that any mindaltering substances that are manufactured, packaged in, and or marketed should not be allowed to be sold in the marketplace. Public safety is the city's primary responsibility. Thank you for letting me speak this evening. Next is Becky Rap, followed by Madison,

followed by Trina Priest. Becky Rap.

Good evening. Uh, my name is Becky Rap, and I'm here tonight to ask you to please prioritize public health in relation to marijuana consumption. It's more important than ever before that accurate science-based information be presented to this council and to the public you serve. A recent report from the Nationalmies of Sciences, our nation's leading scientific advisory body, is recommending federal action to address the serious health risks associated with marijuana consumption. This is a clear warning from the scientific community that public policy is not in line with serious public health risks. The report highlights several critical concerns. dramatically increased THC potency, the rise of highly concentrated products like vapes and dabs, and the overabundance of unregulated hemp derived intoxicants like delta 8 THC that are being sold in our local tobacco and smoke shops. These products are available all over our city, often poorly labeled and misrepresentative misrepresented to parents and youth. This leaves our community vulnerable as awareness of these risks remains extremely low. Here in our city, emergency departments and pediatric specialists are seeing real impacts. Youth experiencing psychosis, severe anxiety, and cannabonoid hyperemesis syndrome. I urge this council to please invite physicians from Brady Children's Hospital and doctors from our local emergency departments to come and speak directly to you. Let them share what they're seeing firsthand and let this council hear directly from the medical community about how these products are affecting our youth and our families. The National Academyy's report is clear. We need better public education, better data, and policies that are grounded in public health, not just access and revenue. Thank you.

Next is Madison, followed by Trina Priest, followed by the caller ending with 7234. Madison.

Hi. Good evening, Mayor and City Council. I'm here to speak about the public safety risks associated with high THC cannabis and what that means for our roads. A recent federally funded study highlighted something important. We still do not have a reliable, practical way to measure marijuana impairment at the roadside like we do with alcohol. Researchers are now working on a new THC breathalyzer using 3D printed technology, but even they acknowledge it is only a proof of concept and requires significant further validation. Marijuana use has become more normalized and accessible, but our ability to keep impaired drivers off the road has not kept pace. The study itself makes clear that there is a growing need for fast, reliable roadside tools due to increasing cannabis use and that the lack of current such tools raises the risk of accidents and fatalities caused by intoxicated drivers. Even more concerning, federal researchers and agencies have acknowledged that THC levels in the body do not reliably correlate with impairment the way alcohol does. That means law enforcement is left without clear objective standards, making it much harder to identify and prevent impaired driving in real time. We also know that THC affects reaction time, motor coordination, and judgment, which are obviously critical for safe driving. When you combine increased access to high potency products with limited enforcement tools, you create a real and growing public safety gap. This is especially relevant as the city considers expanding marijuana storefronts and retail access means more use and more use inevitably increases the risk of impaired driving on our roads. We should not expand any retail access to an intoxicating substance faster than we can responsibly manage its consequences. I urge a cautious approach to prioritize

road safety and recognize that this is not a solved issue. Our communities, especially our children and families, are depending on you to get this right. Thank you. Next is Trina Priest, followed by the caller ending in 7234, followed by Peggy Walker. Trina Priest, Trina Priest.

Okay, we're Oh, yep. There you go. Go ahead. Okay. Okay. Okay. Uh, good evening, Mayor Franklin and city council. Can you hear me still? You got a bit of an echo. Yeah. I'm not sure why.

Tell you what we're going to do. We're going to hear from uh the next caller. We're going to give you a few minutes to check out your uh equipment there and we'll come back to you. Um, let's hear from the caller with phone number 7234. Good evening, Vice City Council. I'm a My name is Terry Skellyy and I'm a parent of three adult sons and a youth mentor and public health educator. In my work with children and youth, I receive a great deal of public health information regarding environmental issues that affect them. Lately, one of the environmental issues that seems to be in the public health news is the impact of secondhand tobacco and marijuana smoke and vapor and thirdhand smoke and vapor on their health, especially where it occurs for children and youth where they sleep, study, eat, and play. I see that a marijuana, tobacco, smoke and vapor policy for multi-use complexes or apartment buildings has been discussed by the city council. Thank you for that. The value of smokefree and vapefree housing spans health, financial, and legal benefits for both residents and property owners. Prohibiting marijuana and tobacco smoking and vaping is increasingly viewed as a standard marketable amenity rather than just a restriction with surveys showing up to 92% of renters prefer smokefree vapefree environments because the crosscontamination of marijuana and tobacco smoke and vapor in housing affects children and youth, older adults and other vulnerable populations. disproportionately from other homeowners who can afford to

buy a home. Vista could join Carlsbad in adopting just such a policy. Thank you for hearing my concerns this evening. Okay, we're going to go back to Trina Priest now. And Miss Priest, we want to recommend that you turn your uh your volume on your speakers all the way down, which may eliminate that echo. Trina Priest. Okay. Is that any better? Yes, I think it is.

Oh, good. Well, good evening. I'm Trina Priest, a middle school teacher and mother of three teens. I've attended city council meetings many times in person and more recently with teens uh who have expressed their concerns about the city uh and its image. I come today with that issue in mind. My concern is for today's young people. So here in our county, the average age of initiation of alcohol and marijuana use in San Diego County is 12. Uh remember this is the average. So alcohol and marijuana can and does begin earlier. Addiction is a pediatric onset disease. So preventing the initiation of harmful marijuana use cannot be underestimated. Youth lack the information necessary to understand the ramification of drug use in general. When I think of the reason why that is, I notice the messaging around them. the social media of course in our city and then the presence of marijuana storefronts delivery services and their large billboards together they kind of mute the message of drug use and its negative consequences. If children grow up in communities where alcohol and tobacco and marijuana businesses are common their perception of risk of using those drugs will be muted. Youth cannabis use generates decreased cognitive function, impacts on attention, memory, learning, and educational, vocational attainment, and increases adverse effects on mental health for young people. Only pop profiters have benefited from their existence in Vista. Youth, families, teachers, law enforcement have not. Thank you for letting me speak tonight.

Next is Peggy Walker, followed by the caller labeled iPhone. Peggy Walker.

Thank you. Good evening. As you've heard tonight, marijuana is a concern for many families. As a public health professional and youth mentor, I want to follow up on the disturbing message from the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, which was chartered to advise government officials on pressing scientific matters. In a new study just released, the Academy reports that minimal oversight of marijuana legalization has allowed THC content to increase more than 10fold, allowed manufacturers to downplay cannabis harms, and exaggerate so-called medical and or therapeutic uses. Poor regulation of the marijuana industry, the academy states, is inappropriately focused on sales and revenue instead of mitigating public health impacts. It is calling for urgent action to protect the public from adverse effects ranging from lower IQ in youth to increased rates of psychosis, suicidal ideiation, cancer, stroke, heart disease, and cannabis hypermesis syndrome. The Academy is urging lawmakers at every level to protect communities from marijuana's harms with actions that can be taken without creating new laws. Those include potency caps, advertising restrictions, best practices to limit youth access, and establishment of a public health surveillance system to transparently track public health impacts. I simply ask you to consider these actions to protect youth. Thank you.

Next is the caller labeled iPhone and then uh looks like our last speaker is Rafina Carion. Caller labeled iPhone. If you're waiting to speak, go ahead and see if we can hear you. Okay. Do we have our uh visual translation service? Okay. moment. Gracias for continue. Miss the

Yes. when you gracias Rafina was Rafina. Very good. Okay, then we're looking for the last uh caller. Was the caller labeled iPhone? Do we still have one waiting to speak? Oh. Oh, that was sir. We got it reabeled. Very good. Thank you very much. No, there's one more speaker. tobacco marijuana.

Thank you very much. Okay, that's uh the end of our public comment opportunity, the end of our speakers who have requested. So, we'll close the opportunity for oral communications at this meeting of the council and we'll proceed to our consent calendar. The recommendations on the following consent calendar will be enacted in one motion unless an item is removed from the calendar and a member of the public may remove an item by submitting the request to speak card to the clerk secretary, by using the raise their hand feature on Zoom, or by pressing star9. Items removed from the consent calendar will be considered immediately following the adoption of the consent calendar. We have 10 consent items this evening. Uh looks like item uh five has been pulled. Cassie five. Are there uh council member Contrarus?

Um I go ahead and move uh the remainder of the consent item forward. Uh, Council Member Fox second.

Very good. I'm just going to uh comment with regard to C10 uh that we've uh had a property the old uh circle church building in the downtown that has created a lot of difficulty for the community. And I want to uh say thank you to staff for coming up with especially our city manager and uh his office for coming up with a creative agreement uh to make sure that the uh owner of the property could afford to demolish it which is really essential for safety at this point. Uh the city of Vista will have a collateralized agreement to make sure that the taxpayers are 100% guaranteed to be made whole uh for that. But this is very important and by the way our rate of return of interest will be higher than our other investments. So it's actually a good deal for the taxpayers all the way around. Uh but very very important. It's been really impacting the condition of our downtown and surrounding communities. So uh really appreciate our progress on that and look forward to seeing that building raised. Uh with that we have a motion to second. Please cast your votes. Okay. Council member Lindes, how do you vote?

I vote I.

All right, the consent calendar is adopted with five votes in favor. Next is C5. We have three speakers that wish to be heard on C5. We'll start with Mary Codddle and then we'll hear from Arlene Tendic and then from Lisa Sanders. If you heard your name called, would you please come forward, sit in the front row, and wait for your opportunity to speak. Hello.

Hello. Um, I'm Mary Codddle. Um, I would like you not to approve the final mapping of this development yet. Um, I have concerns about the draining on the north side. there's no um call for any type of drainage and that northern slope all faces towards my driveway on lots two and three and actually part of 13. And then the other thing is um I would request that they put a wall all the way across from lot three two and three down the full side of that that hill. They have a wall at the end for the noise, but they don't have a wall all the way down. And the way they have it sitting is the headlights coming up off their streets will be hitting the front of my house and straight in my front window. I would like that taken care of. And the other third thing is um the wires hanging from the power poles out there. They disconnected them, let them fall, and then they hooked up their power line and those wires are still hanging there. I would like that all addressed if possible.

Okay, anybody? We we will uh definitely speak to your concerns uh when the other public commenters have had their opportunity to speak. Okay, thank you. Uh Arlene Tendic, followed by Lisa Sanders.

Good evening everyone. My name is Arlene Tendic. Uh, I presented this project to Vista Council in November of 22. I am still on the project team managing community uh, communications and uh, fielding our neighbor concerns. So, we're here tonight just in case there are any additional um, questions that staff isn't able to answer. Uh, we did host anformational meeting prior to the start of construction in which we had donuts and coffee where uh, and our land development team was on site just to walk through what was planned. Uh, I'm confident that we are um addressing all of Mary's uh concerns. Um, and staff will speak to that in more detail. So, thanks so much. Thank you, Lisa Sanders.

Hi, I'm Lisa Sanders. I work with LAR. I'm here available for questions, but I'll leave it up to staff to answer any of your questions. Very good. Uh, Council Member Contrus. Uh so the uh the issues that were brought up by the public uh speaker, have those been addressed?

We had the drainage issue, the wall. Do you like the staff here that Yeah, whoever can whoever can provide that.

You guys can give us some feedback on the drainage, the uh fencing and wall in the north end as well as the um power wires. Good evening, Mayor Franklin, council members. Paty Chow, I'm the assistant director of community development. Uh, and with me tonight, we have Amy Harrison, the assistant engineer in land development in the engineering department, who actually reviewed the project as far as the construction documents, uh, from an engineering perspective. And Amy actually prepared a short presentation. Uh, if you'd like to forego that, we can actually jump right in into the issues. Or if you like to have the short presentation that might help clarify the issues, we can do that too. So I'll leave it to your decision on that one. Just let

is the presentation directly relevant to these three issues, particularly the drainage. Okay, then please proceed. Yes. So we have a short brief PowerPoint. Okay.

Good evening, Mayor and Vista City Council. My name is Amy Harrison. I'm in land development here at the city of Vista and I'm also your project manager and plan checker for this development. In 2022, the city council had approved a general plan amendment site development plan and tenative subdivision map for the 46 single family homes located at 2123 North Santa Fe Avenue. On your screen, you'll see the key map which is an overlay of this whole development. On the next sheet, you're going to see the final map. And on the western side or on the left side, there's a 6 foot wide SGN utility easement. This easement is going to remain. There is a power pole located directly across from Miss Catrell's property. And behind there, there's a brow ditch that's going to convey all of the drainage that's on the northern side of the development. I'm going to turn back to the key map. So, you'll see on the western edge of the development, directly next to north Santa Fe, there is a basin. We also have one on the northern edge of the develop on the northeastern edge of the development. Um all of the storm water is going to be treated and detained through this area. The brow ditch that's on the west on the northern side across from Miss Catrell's development will pick up the water that's coming from the slopes going down towards her property. As part of the development plans, there are a series of retaining walls that are currently in plan check to get approved for the

development. Um, and there are some located direct where you see this power pole. So on the slide that I have before you, I have boxed walls 101 to 103. This is going to support that power pole that is to remain as part of the part of what you see here. And one of the concerns was about drainage in this area. There shouldn't be any safety concerns here because this brow ditch is offset from where the power poles are to remain. SDG& requires a five-foot separation from their utilities and this semiircle that you see is because of the offset. Um the power the power lines that are directly west of this pole will remain. They're not planned to be underground, but there isn't any conflict with the brow ditch that's below there because we have the vertical clearance from the power lines as well. Okay. Um I think that was all of the concerns and if I could just add uh thank you Amy with regards to the issue of the landscaping and also the fencing. Uh there is as part of the approval that the council did back in 2022, there is a five- foot tubular steel fence uh black tubular steel fence that runs along the northern edge and the eastern edge of the project boundary. Uh and that is going to be part of the project obviously as as it's being constructed. And also in addition to that some comments I think concerns were raised um in the in an email conversations uh from Miss Cotto in terms of landscaping. Obviously the slopes are treated uh slope landscaping grounds uh ground

cover shrubs uh there are 15 gallon trees according to our landscape manual that actually treat the slopes back there. Uh but again as Amy pointed it out uh with respect to all the improvements the retaining wall the brow ditch uh within the utility easement as far as SDG& is concerned uh there have been no concerns raised to our knowledge to staff's knowledge as far as all the improvements that are shown in these uh improvement drawings um in grading plans that have been reviewed by staff thus far. Thank you, Council Member Conturus. I apologize. Uh,

no, I apologize. Uh, our ordinances don't allow it. Uh, everybody gets three. I'm sorry. It's not within my control. Um, I I I'm really sorry, but we have an ordinance adopted by the council. I'm charged as mayor and as chair of the comm the council to enforce it. I apologize. I'm sorry. Um, it's not my not my decision-m. Um, Council Member Conturus.

Well, I have uh always been against this development. It is a a a sprawl development. We went from an A1 zone to uh you know, whatever like medium high density. Uh I voted against it before. I am not satisfied with this final map. Uh I go ahead and um I'll go ahead and move uh that we do not accept this final map. Help me understand on the drainage issue. So is the uh grading plan after the uh the detention basin is it expected uh based on our analysis that there will be a greater quantity of runoff uh towards Miss Cuttle's property than before the grading and the completion of the development.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council Member Contras. To answer your question, Mr. Mayor, no. The purpose of the detention basins and the storm vault facility at the um eastern basin is to detain the water and also to treat it. We want it to be a lot cleaner than it came in. Um there is not expected to be any negative impacts for drainage to any of the surrounding properties including Miss Katrell's.

Okay, very good. What do we know about the wires that are hanging? Is does anybody uh in the planning department know anything about any hanging wires? Is that an STG&E issue or do we not have any knowledge of that? Uh staff does not either uh at this point and I've had conversations with uh Miss Harrison, but we're not aware of any situation on that in this nature at this point. The the uh status of any wires hanging from utility poles would be SDG& or the relevant utility and not the developers or the builder. Is that right? Correct. Okay. Uh, can we follow up with SDG& to find out if there are any power lines that have been left hanging, whether they're energized or not? Yes, certainly we can certainly

I believe you that there are. Uh, and I'm asking staff right now if they'll conduct an investigation as to the status of any uh lines, whether they're electric lines or phone lines or whatever kind of utility line they are. Uh, let's find out. Uh well, if you'd please, I'd like to ask uh Miss Chow if you'd please look at the photographs that Miss Codle has before she departs tonight so that you'd have an awareness maybe she can send those to you and let's uh conduct an investigation to make sure that everything is safe and sightly. Uh that everything looks the way it should. Uh we'll we'll work with SDG& for you on that. uh the power lines wouldn't be the the builder wouldn't they wouldn't be in charge of them, but let's get STG& or the relevant utility to correct that. Okay. Um and with regard to the wall, um what do we uh how do we address that concern? Is is that a concern? Uh do we believe that the trajectory of the traffic on that uh new road uh will shine lights during the evening hours into Miss Cotle's property?

Do we have a way to assess that? We can we can see if this development is a good candidate for shields on the lights. Um and we can ask the developer to implement that if they haven't already planned to do so. You're talking about like a shroud on the street lights? Yeah. to try to block some of the light from coming in. I feel like she's talking about headlamps on on automobiles on automobiles. Yeah, that's I think that's her concern. So, I don't know. Do you have a do you have a thought on that? Uh

so, um it's my understanding that we submitted plans to change the steel tubular to a vinyl fence, which would address uh Miss Codle's um concerns. Okay. Okay. So, we're just waiting on a So, there's uh the the fence is uh what 95% obstructing the the passage of light or what kind of a fence is it going to be?

So, it would be a vinyl fence which would I mean the home pads or I'm sorry the home sites and Miss Codle's uh property the pad elevations are pretty similar. I believe it's about a two two foot difference. Correct me if I'm wrong on that, but they're fairly even. So, a five- foot fence right there would I believe address that, but we can definitely look into it if that's Paty. Am I did I misspeak?

Uh, Mayor Franklin, uh, if I could address, uh, also in addition to what was just mentioned, uh, we are in the process of reviewing the retaining wall. Obviously, some of these plans as in construction mode. Uh I have not personally seen the fencing planned, but if that is the case that it's supposed to be substituted with a solid fence, uh we'll be working together with the developer to address that. However, what I mentioned earlier as far as the five foot tubular steel fence, uh that is what got approved by city council back in 2022. Uh so can I can only reflect based on what got approved as exhibit B. uh as I have not seen the actual construction documents at this time. So I cannot expand on that but certainly I can address that with the developer if that is the wish of the council to have that addressed in terms of uh a solid fans to minimize the the lighting spill uh spillage onto neighboring properties.

So that seems like the builder is willing to accept that potentially. Sounds like you've already made that plan to build a fence that would significantly block the passage of light. Okay. So, any objection to us making that a condition of the approval? Okay. Well, yeah. Okay. You staff understands uh what my uh suggestion is. So, uh I would offer a motion that we approve uh item C5. Uh it sounds like I'm not an engineer. Uh I don't I don't pretend to be one, but uh I have to trust our engineers cuz I don't have the expertise and none of us on the council do. So, with regard to the drainage, I I just I'm trying to answer your question. Uh, we've got our engineering staff here, and I don't believe that they're partial to to you or to the builder. Uh, they they do a an analysis of the runoff and they're telling me that and they're educated in these matters that they don't believe it's the drainage the drainage is going to negatively affect you. Now, I I you know, I because I don't have a degree in that or any

Well, I they're uh they're telling me and I I see that they've built a detention basin that's going to hold the water that runs off the property. I I apologize. I I'm Yeah, I'm I'm sorry. Uh I want to share my thoughts with you. You asked for my feedback. Sometimes I very much wish that this was a back and forth. Uh but they it's not allowed and I'm if I I'm I'm not allowed to do it for one if I don't do it for everybody. So I I'm I'm required to enforce the the uh decorum consistently. Um I

Yeah, I I'm I apologize. I uh they've been willing to make a concession uh with regard to the wall to keep the lights out of your property so that the headlights don't shine. That seems reasonable. we can take care of the hanging wires. Um, so with that, uh, I would offer that motion to adopt C5 with the condition of the vinyl fence as stipulated by the builder. Council member Fox, in the case that there is a inordinate amount of runoff that ends up happening, uh, where does the liability fall for that?

The liability falls on the development. So as part of their application, they have subdivision agreements that they have to enter into with the city of Vista and there's a CCNRs that will get approved concurrently with the final map and will get recorded with the final map at the county. And this document spells out the maintenance responsibilities for the basins and the other drainage features that are part of the development.

Okay. Um, well, I think that was I mean I think the other two concerns are in process. Um, so I'll second the mayor's uh motion. Deputy mayor Donald. Uh, this project came before the council prior to my being elected as as my understanding is and I as that's that's a fact. It's not my understanding. Um, we are four years into this project. Uh, I guess this is more of a question for our city manager or city attorney. uh at this point do we have any legal reason to deny a project like this or what recourse or action could come if we were to deny this project?

So under the California subdivision map act if the final map conforms to the tenative map and the developer has met all conditions attached to the tenative map it's a ministerial duty of the council to approve the final map. So in other words you lack discretion. So at this time it satisfies all of those. As far as staff has reported, I do believe it has. Okay, those are all my questions. Okay, very good. Seeing no other request to speak, we have a motion to second. Please cast your votes.

Council member Melendez, how do you vote? I She voted I. Yes. Okay, that uh item motion to approve C5 is approved with four in favor and one opposed.

Okay, we have uh four discussion items, five discussion items this evening. Our first item is regarding an agreement for concession services at the Moonlight Amphitheater. If any members of the public wish to speak on this item, they may indicate so by using the raise their hand feature by pressing star9 or by submitting request to speak card. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our recreation and community services director, Margaret Hamr, will introduce the item. We must have speakers. Good evening, Mayor Franklin and Deputy Mayor O'Donnell and council members. We're grateful to be here this evening to review the Moonlight Amphitheater concession services agreement. I'll pass it over to my colleague Sydney Roth. Thank you and good evening council. So to provide a little background and context, there have been four different vendors who have provided concession services at the Moonlight Amphitheater since construction of the concessions building. and staff knew that an agreement with Bread and Cheese Eery was going to expire on April 1st of this year. In anticipation of that, staff issued a request for proposals on November 13th of last year. Due to community feedback, that RFP was cancelled. However, a new RFP, a new and expedited RFP I should say, was issued on March 30th. Before delving into the details and the results of the RFP, I do want to take this opportunity to note that there are many advantages of the request for proposals process and we just have a few tonight. It does promote fair and open competition, giving all qualified biders the opportunity to do business with the city. It also allows vendors the um to propose creative ideas that the city

staff may have never even considered. And it allows the city to engage in best value procurement and take multiple criteria into consideration in accordance with Vista municipal code. And it allows the city to negotiate the contract terms getting the best possible value for our taxpayers. So with that in mind, uh there were six proposals received following the issuance of the March 30th request for proposals and they are listed in alphabetical order. The RFP had a two v two-phased evaluation approach. The first phase consisted of evaluating the written proposals by five different city staff from various departments and the proposals were evaluated on weighted criteria in accordance with Vista municipal code but specifically included project description and clarity, the ability of the firm to meet deadlines, facility equipment, proposed sales method, organizational capacity, program experience, their proposed menu, financial resources and their uh revenue sharing structure. And so firms had to obtain an an average of 105 points or more out of 150 possible points on all those criteria in order to advance to the second phase. And it is worth noting that all six firms who applied did advance to phase two. The second phase of the evaluation was a tasting of proposed menu items and an interview. This lasted about 45 minutes for each firm and it allowed the panel to engage directly with each firm. The panelists consisted of two season ticket holders to represent our patron base as well as three city staff from various departments. And it was clearly stated in the request for proposals that

contract award would be based solely on the points from phase 2 and at this point phase one points would not be considered. So with that in mind, the rankings from phase 2 are as follows. Uh DLS Events LLC did emerge as the top ranked proposer through the evaluation process, which is why staff recommends that council award this contract to DLS events. And it is worth noting also that staff recently uh conducted a customer experience survey um confirming uh these results and I'm going to pass the presentation over to Margaret to talk about those details. So it was brought to our attention we knew that everybody had a lot of different opinions and they had ideas of which direction this should go. So, uh, with some guidance, we decided, let's take this question straight to our season ticket holders. Currently, there are over 7,300 season ticket holders. These are people who purchase the whole package of the theater experience. That is five summer Broadway productions May through September. We asked 10 basic and simple questions that we had everybody review, including our city attorney. They were multiplechoice, check all that apply, rating, open-ended questions. I just wanted to share three of the top ones that we felt were most relevant to the evaluation. So, when attending a performance at the Moonlight, do you typically purchase food on site? We did find that the majority was rarely. Um, and that was concerning. We know that the concession stand at Moonlight is an important revenue generator for our services and business. And so the rarely and never were higher ranked. Um, and we did have some that were always, but again not as high. Another question we had was what

would enhance your food and beverage experience at the Moonlight? We gave them many options, but the top most popular one with over 50% was expanded menu selection. So we knew our season ticket holders were looking for more options. Another question was looking ahead. Which of the following going back there was price or any other consideration was was price given us one of I'm just curious yes it was where does that show up on there how oh how improved value improved improved value pricing and that was at 37%. Okay

so yes that was an option. The last one was looking ahead. Which of the following best reflects your perspective on future food and beverage service at the moonlight? And by the way, how many respondents did you have to the survey? Uh we had 282. Very good. Thank you.

Um on this item, uh the response was explore proposals from alternative vendors and that was close to 50%. So again the the survey reflected that people were looking for expansion um more choices and exploring. So again, we felt this validated the need for opening it up, you know, having those six vendors share what they had to offer. And again, coming to the conclusion, at this point, we do conclude that staff recommends approval and execution of a contract with DLS Events LLC, the top ranked proposer, to provide concession services at the Moonlight Amphitheater.

Bless you. Uh, okay. We do have several members of the public that wishes to be heard on this item. So we'll first from Rachel Beld and then from Casey looks like Swinford.

Hi. Good evening, mayor, members of the city council. My name is Rachel Beld. I'm the president CEO of the Vista Chamber of Commerce. Uh thank you for um the opportunity to speak tonight. Um, I want to start by saying that my comments this evening are not about any specific vendor. Uh, the chamber, um, we respect the work of city staff and the experience of the recommended vendor. Absolutely. Our focus is on the process. While the RFP what was reissued after community feedback, it did not include criteria related to local economic impact. Things like local hiring, partnerships with Vista- based businesses, or reinvestment in our community, and these are real measurable benefits that matter to our local economy. The city already applies local bidder preferences in certain low bid contracts and we believe there's an opportunity to explore how similar considerations should could be incorporated into RFPbased procurements as well. As we look ahead, there may also be an opportunity to incorporate industry expertise into future evaluation panels, particularly for specialized services like food and beverage. And there may also be opportunities to better incorporate community and patron input into the future procurement processes like regular surveys with continual feedback to existing vendors so they have an understanding of the community's preferences. We would respectfully ask that the council work with the chamber and the city uh city staff to explore a local bidder preference and pure procurement framework for future contracts. Many cities have found ways to do this while maintaining fair and competitive processes. And we want to be clear, we stand ready to support any vendor that's selected to serve the Moonlight or any other city facility. We welcome the opportunity to help them connect with local suppliers, local breweries, and other Vista businesses so

that more of the economic benefit stays right here in our community. And speaking personally, as a Moonlight Season ticket holder for over a decade, I also care deeply about the patron experience, including having quality and affordable options for families who attend our performances. The Moonlight is a treasured community asset, and decisions like this have both economic and community impact. So, we appreciate your consideration and look forward to working together on strengthening this process moving forward. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next is Casey Swinford.

Good evening and thank you all for your time. Um I'm really looking forward to taking a couple minutes to just tell you a little bit about DLS Events and why we're very excited about this opportunity. Um we are a food and beverage company that has over 14 years of experience in our industry. Our roots are based right here in Southern California. Um, two of the venues, we operate, um, six to eight venues in the Southern California region. Two of those venues are actually in San Diego County. Um, one of those venues is owned by a city and we work very closely with them, collaborate with them, um, to make sure that we are supporting them, highlighting their venue and, you know, definitely supporting them through any community efforts that they have. Um we being a local community, we completely understand, you know, the impact that bringing a new concessionaire into these kinds of um properties can have. And I just want to assure you that we are very committed with working locally to make sure that we are giving your fan base the best experience that we can. We're committed to working with local breweries, local farmers markets, restaurants, um you know, things like that to get our products to make sure that we're offering, you know, fresh, amazing, local products at the fairest prices. We do want to make sure that, you know, the community is excited to come back and that they want to bring friends and family, um, you know, for years and years to come. So, thank you again for the opportunity to speak on DLS and like I said, we are very excited for the potential opportunity to help grow your community. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next, we'll hear from Council Member Contrarus.

Yeah. Thank you to staff and everybody who um participated in reviewing uh the different vendors. Yeah. For me, I really um and I've I've discussed this with city manager uh want to see an agenda item come forward uh before the council for discussion about procurement and this process. I always believe that it's it's critically important to have uh in the formula something that designates uh a local preference. Um and my understanding is that this process does not include that. Uh but I think it would be really good in the future just to have that. Not to say that that would have changed the outcome of anything. Um but I do think that it's very very important that we always look uh locally and then we could also maybe define what local means as well uh in that discussion. So um th those are that's that's all I have um on the matter. Thank you,

Council Member Melendez. Yes, thank you uh everyone hear me? Okay. Yes, we can.

Thanks for the discussion. Uh thank you staff for being responsive to the uh concerns from our uh vendors and those who participated. Um it's an exciting opportunity to be able to put forward your best and you know not just um you know for the city to pick any random vendor but for there to be um a more of a competitive process. So I'm glad we were able to have that. Um, I do believe that local matters and I appreciate uh DSL events commitment to um local procurement, potentially local hiring. I'm looking to work with the council to see what can we do to enhance the contract and ensure that there is um that type of opportunity ensured in this agreement moving forward. And at the same time, um really great work from city staff on survey surveying our customers. we're in a unique position unlike many other cities to own this type of venue. Um, so we have to make really thoughtful business decisions. Um, and in my personal business dealings, I really do believe local matters. So I want to inject that into this process as much as possible and I appreciate the discussion.

Deputy Mayor O'Donnell.

Yeah, staff, great job. I know this was a very quick turnaround that we had to make and I appreciate the chamber and everything that they did as well as input from the public. Uh and and it was just a tremendous amount of hard work that I know that went into this in a very short window of time. Um I like the idea of continuous and ongoing surveys. Uh the reality is also that many people may not fill them out if they just did one a month ago. So, making sure that we stagger them maybe yearly or every at the beginning and end of each season just to get an idea, I think would be a good opportunity for that. Um, I'm very open to the discussion about what a future RFP looks like as far as uh local preference, but I want to be very clear before we get into that. I'm not trying to create a point system outside of the city of Vista. Um, to go from Vista to collar cities to the county, I think would be way too much. And correct me if I'm wrong. I don't believe we have that in any of our other RFP processes, right? Um, so that would just be my thought on that. Beyond that, uh, you said it was 282 patrons and it was sent out to all 7,300 and change. Okay, that's actually a good response rate for a very short window to work in. Um, yeah, that's it. I mean, I appreciate the hard work on this. you know, I the whole situation uh that took place prior, I understand the concern that was there, but I feel like the best decision moving forward was made. So, I congratulate DS on that. Um, and I look forward to seeing you in the moonlight this upcoming season and uh I will be happy to support this, but I do look forward to that future discussion on on RFPs.

Council member Fox. Um, thank you. Yeah, I want to echo the gratitude to the to staff for such a quick turnaround and um I'm sure that was not easy to do. um and to the chamber for all their advocacy for local vista businesses. That was, you know, very impressive. You also had a lot of responses very quickly and stuff to us. So, really appreciate that. Um my uh questions are, you know, what is the duration of the contract? I'm sure it's in there. I just don't recall.

Sure. So, the contract is um designed to uh be in effect through December 31st of this year with options to renew for up to four additional one-year terms. So, for a maximum term of almost 5 years.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. And then um and I think that was one thing that we we you know I think everyone kind of was on the same page of it would be nice to have local local bidder preference on some of these kinds of things but I'm also under the impression that um changing those criteria mid RFP between the two would have also been maybe legally troublesome right so um you know but I also heard that may not have um affected the outcome very much in this case um because u the number one bidder did was was so far ahead. So, um, great job on that one. Um, and I also want to echo that, you know, the the, um, excitement to be able to, uh, work with you and to potentially get to try some this summer. And so, um, with that, do we do we have a motion on the floor yet?

I don't think so. Okay. Well, then, um, I'd like to make a motion to accept staff recommendations on item D1. Deputy mayor, I will second it. And I forgot to ask this. I don't believe there were Were there any Vista businesses that applied for this RFP? Yes, there were two. Um, Bread and Cheese Eery and then Stave and Nail Brewing. They're commonly um, uh, associated with prey brewing. Is bread and cheese local to Vista? They have a Vista business license. Um, could you clarify by exactly what you mean by local? Is there brick and mortar in Vista? It is not.

So, so we only had one brick and mortar located in Vista apply. That is correct. Okay, I will still second.

Uh I just want to thank the chamber because the chamber reached out and advocated on behalf of one of its members. Uh did a good job. We heard from a lot of chamber members and because of the chamber's advocacy, we did go back to the drawing board uh redesign the RFP. Um it meant a lot to me and I'm sure it did the other members of the council to hear from other small business owners. As a small business owner in the city myself, uh I also want to make sure that we're always giving local business owners a preference. Um I did hear from our local owner representative of Chick-fil-A and they were interested. I guess we're they're going to be our interim operator for a few weeks or months and uh they're actually interested in if there's a future RFP and we're pretty excited about it. And uh there's not a lot of um variety at Chick-fil-A, but the food's really good and I don't mind eating there several times a week. So, uh definitely would want to consider them even though they're a national brand. Uh

defin they do Sunday shows though.

Uh well, the deputy mayor asking a question about Sunday shows. I don't have the answer to that one. Um at any rate uh you know I am moved by the survey of the season ticket holders and you know ideally we would have a meal uh offering there that uh people would buy you know I there's a lot of families that price is going to be probably the central barrier but we don't want a lack of selection or the menu to be the barrier. uh Bread and Cheese has done a good job and they've been a good member of the business community and we've appreciated the partnership. But uh I was most moved by seeing the number of customers uh season ticket holders who said they wish that there was more variety and they might uh purchase a meal there more frequently. Not it's not a revenue issue to me to the city of Vista. Um I'm not sure if the revenue is going to be tremendously different. Uh hopefully it will be and that'll be a sign of your success and that this is the right decision. But to me uh whether or not we have a vibrant program and we're growing and we have been at the Moonlight and thank you to all of our Moonlight family that's here. Um it is very important for the future of the arts that they're self- sustaining. And so um just like with our Wave Water Park, the Moonlight really needs to stand on its own. And lately it's been doing that. Congratulations. It's amazing. uh any year that the Moonlight can generate 100% of its operating uh and not need too much of a subsidy. Did we have a subsidy last year from the Moonlight uh Cultural Foundation or did they bring it all?

Yes, the Moonlight Cultural Foundation did make a substantial donation last year.

Well, uh the fact that we can cover it between contributions and operating revenues is a big deal. uh the fact that it's there's no net cost to the city of Vista ultimately is a long-term responsibility for the council to create a situation and a scenario where uh it's can endure for the next 30 and 50 years because it didn't require a subsidy from the taxpayers. So uh it's a I I I lament that we uh can't keep bread and cheese. I know that uh this has been a significant part of their business model and I just want to give voice to that. Um that that's disappointment, but uh I didn't get to taste the DLS food. Uh but uh I was told it's very very good and I think the bread and cheese product is good too, but maybe there's not enough variety in it. So we thank uh the bread and cheese operators for their years of service to the city and we wish them well. Um Council Member Melendez, did you have one more thought? Yes, thank you. I support the motion. Um, and I really do appreciate the vendor being here today and expressing a commitment uh to providing local opportunities. Um, in looking at the agreement, um, there isn't anything specifically outlined that would assure that commitment. Um but I do see under management there's a number of items related to the concessionaire uh services um and how they should be managed, priced and other details. Um, I'm wondering if the council would be willing to include a friendly amendment um to, you know, include in this contract that the management of this uh concessionire

service will include local purveyors um or collaboration with Vista businesses and to include that commitment explicitly in the contract. Do um the the options whose options are they? Are they our option to renew for one year at a time or is it the operator's option? In other words, do we have the ability to end the agreement after the end of at the end of this year? Yes, we have that ability.

Okay. Uh Deputy Mayor Donald, um as that was not part of the RFP process, can we do that? Add that into the contract? In the RFP, we gave a sample contract and that's what we're using. It's possible. I mean, the vendors here, it's a it's a voluntary, but I don't if the vendor decides not to uh agree to that. I don't think we can force it

and we'd have to bring it back on a future council evening to uh adopt the final language. So, um may I suggest to my colleagues that perhaps we're going to give that direction to you and we don't have to renew. So, we want you to pursue a relationship with our Vista. It's very, very important. Please connect with Rachel behind you. Become a member of the chamber. Uh, become a, you know, a member of the business community here. Um, you know, hire locally, buy locally. That means a lot to us. We know you will. Uh, you'll want to prove that to us. So, thank you for that. Yeah.

To to Council Member Melendez's point, um, one year from now, when is it one year we can we review this? It'll expire December 31st and we can bring it back with an amendment to the contract to extend it and include these provisions. I am open and willing to have the discussion at that time. Okay. Okay. We have a motion, a second. Seeing no other discussion, please cast your votes. Council member Melendez, how do you vote? I

that item is is uh pass approved unanimously. I can find my word there. All right. Uh that'll bring us to item D2. Thank you very much our parks and recck team. It's not parks and wreck anymore. What do we call it? Community, recreation. They took parks out of it. Recreation and community services. There we go. That's right. Recreation, community services, and parks. I'm gonna add parks back in. Okay. Uh, our next item is regarding an amendment to the public employees retirement system contract. If any members of the public wish to speak on this item, they may indicate so be using the raise hand feature, pressing star 9, or submitting a request to speak card. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our human resources director, Natalie Jacobs, will introduce the item. Thank you, mayor. Good evening to you, deputy mayor, mayor, and members of the city council. The item before you tonight requests an adoption of a resolution of intention uh to approve an amendment to the city's safety Kalpers contract. That's the California Public Employees Retirement System. The amendment uh implements a provision of the labor agreement with the association, the firefighters association as well as the Vista Chief Officers Association approved by council on June, excuse me, June 24th, 2025 and will designate eligible fire prevention staff as local firefighters pursing their retirement classification with the duties they perform. The city has worked with Kalpers to uh prepare draft contract amendment language which is included in your agenda packet. Um therefore tonight's action is the first of two steps in the process required by Kalpers to amend the contract. Adoption of the resolution of intention

um will formally formally declare council's intent to approve the amendment and will set a public hearing um which is the second step of the process which is uh not to occur less than 20 days following tonight's action. The public that public hearing is scheduled for May 12th, 2026 and at that meeting the city council will have the opportunity to receive public input um and consider adoption of the ordinance approving the contract amendment. Uh staff's recommendation tonight would be to um for council to approve the adoption of this resolution of intention. And that does conclude my report this evening. And staff is available for any questions you may have.

Very good. And I want to uh welcome our Vista firefighters uh and their association. And Michael Sana is here to say a few words. Come on down. By the way, you have beautiful handwriting. the best I've seen in a while. My mother would be proud.

Uh good evening, mayor, deputy mayor, and me uh members of the city council, both here and in the cloud. Uh I'm here tonight on behalf of the Vista Firefighters Association, IFFF, local 4107. And I want to take a moment uh before this item is acted upon to offer our sincere thanks both both to this council and to city staff. The VFA members that are a part of the uh city's fire prevention bureau do critical work. They are credentialed sworn public safety professionals and for too long the classification structure they worked under did not fully reflect that reality. The safety designation that was memorialized through our latest agreement uh I'm sorry through our uh latest agreed upon is a meaningful acknowledgement of who these members are, what they do, and the unseen risks as well as exposures that they are confronted with throughout the course of their work that is done to keep the residents of Vista safe. So to this council, thank you for seeing the need and for being willing to act on it. Your willingness to work collaborative collaboratively with the VFA to get this right reflects the kind of labor management relationship that makes the department stronger and our brothers and sisters safer. I also want to uh acknowledge specifically Natalie Jacobs as well as her team. I am certain that the work required to bring a Kalpers's uh contract amendment before this body is not simple. Uh I'm sure it involves uh as you know coordinating between the city state retirement system and our association navigating layers upon layers of very specific procedural steps uh that require a lot of attention to detail and a whole lot of patience. Uh once again Natalie and her team tackled the contract change thoroughly and professionally. On behalf of the entire membership of the local of local 4107 we see that work. We appreciate it and we

want the record to reflect our gratitude. We rise in support of this item and urge the council's approval tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much. And we uh appreciate the VFA bringing to our attention that our fire inspectors face uh exposure to cancer-causing agents during their work and other hazards that uh had not been previously considered and are leading causes of death for firefighters. So, we thank uh thank you for that and I appreciate the council recognizing uh the urgency of uh classifying those firefighters uh as public safety and uh I would also join you in encouraging adoption of this council member Contrarus. Uh was that a motion, Mayor?

Yes. Okay. I'll go ahead and second your motion. And I just want to say uh thank you to my colleagues uh for taking up this discussion and for VFA uh and um our fire and rescue uh letting us know uh you know some of the gaps that we have and just thank you to staff for making sure and city manager um that we're able to move forward with this. So it's a long time coming and I I will gladly second the motion. Thank you,

Deputy Mayor Donald. I echo all the same sentiments. Uh VFA, our firefighters, paramedics, our inspectors, the entire team and our fire department and first responders. You all do incredible work and I it is incumbent upon all of us to thank you every day for the service that you provide keeping our city safe. Um Natalie, excellent job. Uh if there's anything I know about the VFA, they probably made this a very easy, smooth, and seamless process. Uh if anybody doesn't know that, it's a joke. But uh no, I appreciate the work that's gone into this because it's it is a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to make things like this happen. It's the right thing to do. So, thank you for all of that. I will happily provide a third although it's not necessary. And uh turn the mic over. Council member Fox,

thank you. I just wanted to, you know, echo the gratitude. Thank you for being a great partner to our city and we're happy to keep working with you on this and um of course it's a you know, it's a commitment we made to you. So, of course, we're going to support it. So, thank you, Council Member Mendes.

Uh, thank you uh to staff for executing this agreement and ensuring that we have positive relationships with all of our labor groups. Um, and in particularly to VFA, thank you for um fighting not only for um public health and safety, but for your own members. Um, we wouldn't be able to do what we do without you. So, we appreciate you. Very good. Thank you. We have a motion, a second. Please cast your votes. I vote I. Thank you.

That motion is adopted unanimously. That'll bring us to item D3, our third item regarding pension funding strategies to address unfunded actual actuarial liabilities. Here to introduce the item is our finance director, Mike Sylvia.

Thank you, mayor, and good evening, council. This item is actually an update from uh February 2022 pension workshop and it's consistent with our current city council goals which is to revisit this topic at least every 5 years. We are a little bit ahead of the game at this point and that is by design because we've had significant uh market appreciation in the 115 trust but also uh to no one's surprise a lot of uh near-term volatility given the heightened geopolitical situation right now. But really this is a discussion on pension funding strategies. Uh and we're going to present a couple of scenarios focusing on uh how the city can more proactively manage uh its unfunded pension liabilities which now are the city's single largest liability as well as the long-term costs associated with it. And of course the city has been consistent with funding its uh current required calipers contributions. However, um the presentation we'll show is um going to go well beyond the status quo and show these scenarios that will uh at least the plan is to reduce volatility and the escalation of pension expenses over the next 10 years during which we expect the unfunded pension liabilities uh to hit their apex. So with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Mike Meyer. He's the vice president of NHA adviserss and NHA is our municipal adviser and their firm worked with us last year uh in our successful uh refunding of the lease revenue bonds last spring. So Mike, go ahead and take it away.

Thank you, Mike, and good evening, Mayor Franklin, honorable council members. Nice to uh be with you all. As Mike mentioned, we did work uh with the city last year on the bond issuance and the credit rating upgrade. We also have eight practice groups uh that we do consulting work for. uh pension and fiscal sustainability is a group that I manage down here in our San Diego office. So we've worked with um over a 100 Kalpers members across the state helping to implement strategies and policy. Um overall the architecture of the presentation we have a few slides on uh how Kalpers works. we get into some his uh historical trends, look at some projections, and then we're going to get into some of the strategies that Mike mentioned earlier, as well as some final observations before opening up to questions. So, in terms of the executive summary, the city right now has a $90 million unfunded liability with Kalpers. So, this is your debt that you have with Kalpers. We'll get into how that UAL is defined in a couple of slides. There is some good news. Kalpers has beat their uh investment target the last couple of years. So when the new actuarial reports get released this fall, we do expect that UL to go down by at least 10 million or so. The city's been extremely proactive in building uh up a trust and the section 115 trust that currently stands at 25 million. So, we do have some analysis in this presentation that will hopefully depict how the city can look to use that trust to better uh derive savings as well as enhanced budget predictability while still maintaining the reserve policy guidelines. The city makes two payments to Kalpers each year. Uh the normal cost, which is the cost to keep up with current employees, and in a perfect world, that's the only cost you'd ever pay. The

challenge is that Kalpers often does not meet their assumptions and their expectations and so namely their investment target. And so over time what happens is there's a unfunded gap that develops. And so that is visually depicted here in the chart to the right. The acred liability that 357 million that's how much you would need in your retirement account to be fully funded. The actual value of the assets you have in that account is 267 million. So that difference there is shown in the light gray. That's your debt. With Kalpers, they charge you a 6.8% interest rate on that debt. It's a large number. It's a large number for most agencies across the state. They don't force you to pay it back all at once. They do amortize it like a a loan or a mortgage. The challenge is is that it's not just one mortgage with one level payment over 30 years. It's actually a combination of 60 different mortgages. Some have three-year terms, some have 20, some are positive, some are negative. And when you stack them all together, you get this really irregular payment shape. And that's really the biggest financial challenge right now facing most agencies is the way that's amvertised. And we'll get into how that looks in a few slides. So 25 years ago, 20 25 years ago, we UALs didn't exist. the stock market was earning double-digit returns. I think in 2004, we'll look at it on the next slide, Kalpers was fully funded. The challenge is that over uh the past two decades, they haven't met their investment targets. So, they assumed they would earn over 8% back in the early 2000s. Their 20-year average is 6.7%. In addition to not meeting those investment targets, they've also changed their assumptions a number of times. So namely their their discount rate which is their assumed rate of return

inflation is going up mortality rate changes. So lots of different actuarial assumption changes that have a direct impact on the UAL. This chart here on 8 goes back about 22 years and in light blue there shows the annual returns for Kalpers. And the big takeaway here is that it's very volatile. So while they expect to earn about 6.8 8 7% or so depending on the year their actual returns are um quite volatile and anytime they beat their expectation you're going to see a direct decrease to the city's U and anytime they missed their mark you'll see an increase you can see there the great recession in 2008 and 2009 they had a year where they were close to negative 24% and on the flip side if you look at 2021 they had a year where they were over 21%. In addition to having to react to their actual returns, they're also they've also changed their assumption uh several times throughout the last 20 years. And that's shown in orange there. If you look way to the left, the discount rate was above 8% in the early 2000s. And if you fast forward to right now, it's down to 6.8%. And anytime they change that assumption, it means they expect that they're going to earn less on their investments and it means that employers have to pick up the difference. Last slide in this first section. You may have heard that Kalpers went through their asset liability management study last fall. This is something they do every four years and they basically look at all their different assumptions that go into their calculations. Not any huge earthshattering news that came out of it. I know a lot of folks were worried they would ratchet down the discount rate. They did not do that. So really big takeaway, just slight increases to inflation and wage growth

assumptions. And the impacts really won't be known until this fall. So the new reports come out this fall that'll really quantify how all these changes to the assumptions trickle through. Slide 11 is a 7-year history of the city's UAL balance as well as the funded ratio. And so in the gray bars that shows your UAL balance, you can see see it's directly tied to Kalper's return. So if you look at 2021, you see a big drop in the UAL, down from 77 to 53 million. If you look below that, it's it's due to the fact they earned over 22% that that year. The very next year, the UL shoots up to 89 million and that's due to the fact that they lost 7.5%. Us hovered around 90 million the last few years and then we do project it to drop when those new reports come out this fall. And then in orange there you can see the funded ratio that you have with Kalpers. And then above that in teal is the effective funded ratio when we include the city's 115 trust which is quite strong uh in our opinion. I'd say statewide the average for funded ratio right now is around in the mid70s to high7s. So the fact that you're at 80% and then in the mid 80s with the 115 trust bodess quite well. Slide 12. Quick comparison to some of your neighbors. I think the it's it's tough to compare apples to apples because cities are different sizes. The UL is different size and nominal terms. So the best way to compare is really on funded ratio. City of Vista is at the top here. As you can see on the right side, this does include the 115 trust assets. Also below that in the line, we wanted to compare how large that balance is in

terms of how it relates to the overall UI. You can see there the city has about a quarter of its UAL in its 115 trust which is quite a bit higher than some of your neighbors that are under 10%. Slide 13 is probably, I think, one of the most uh eye-catching charts in the presentation because it really depicts how big this challenge has been over the last decade and how challenging it will be over the next five or 6 years for most agencies. In orange, there is the normal cost that the city's been making as well as the projections. You can see that grows in a pretty linear and regular fashion. And then on top of that, that's the light blue. That's the combination of all these mortgages that I mentioned earlier. It's how that UAL gets amortized. And from a budget impact standpoint, if you look at 2018, the city's paying about $6 million. Fast forward to this fiscal year, you're paying 12 million. So it's doubled in the matter of 8 years. And then it's going to continue to rise to over to close to 15 million by the end of the decade. And we highlighted there in the the red triangle how much in cumulative cost that is above the current levels and it's about $25 million. So when we looked at um optimizing some of our analysis, we're really targeting that triangle and seeing how much of those those costs can we bring down by using the city's 115 trust. So before we get into the analysis, just a little bit of history on the 115 trust. This was created in fiscal year 1718. There were contributions made in 18 as well as fiscal year 22. You can see that down in the the orange at the bottom. And then it's had uh a lot of good years

of investment returns. I think since inception it's been above 7% and it's grown to 25.4 million. As you can see on the right side of that chart, the city has a very strong policy. Um, this was noted by the credit rating agency that looked at the bond last year. There's some quotes there uh talking about the limited near-term risk tied to pensions. I will say looking having looked at a lot of rating reports, this is pretty rare. I would say most cities uh have negative or weak marks related to pensions, but they did look at that policy and it was very helpful for the the credit rating upgrade. And just to remind the council, that policy um basically has a goal of maintaining 100 to 150% of your annual pension cost in that trust. So right now that uh equates to about $12 million would be 100% and $18 or so million would be 150%. So the the two scenarios we wanted to look at was how the city could could use some of those trust resources to eliminate that that mountain peak in payments that we looked at a couple slides before but not withdrawing all the money. So making sure to maintain money in the trust so that you're still meeting the policy. And so what we wanted to do was look at a scenario where we brought it all the way down to the minimum policy target. So essentially using half of the trust assets to offset that peak and alleviate the burden on the general fund. And then scenario two is using a little bit less of the trust. So use about 25% of the trust and making sure that about 18 million remains after the end of the withdrawal period. In terms of the assumption we use for investment

earnings, we use 6% to be conservative. But as I mentioned earlier, the um historical average has been over 7%. Again, scenario one is using about half of the trust. And this bar chart here is the exact same chart we looked at earlier, but it does not include normal cost. So, this is just the U amortization. And those blue bars are the way that Kalpers would will force the the city to pay back the debt. Everything above the blue dotted line would be paid for by the 115 trust asset. So really allows the city to maintain payments at that level around $6 million which will enhance budget predictability. The benefit of that each year is about $2.2 million on average of cost avoidance. The second scenario is using less of the trust. But even with using about a quarter of the trust, you're still able to bring those payments down quite a bit. As you can see in the purple line, that smoothing level is a little bit above 7 million. And the average annual cost reduction is about 1.8 million. Slide 19 compares both scenarios. So again, the concept of smoothing the peak is is a quite common uh strategy being used by other agencies. Really a way to address that that peak in payments that's upcoming and allow you to maintain the general fund expenditures at a fairly flat level versus 2026. Overall, the the cumulative cost reduction is close to that $25 million uh target that we talked about earlier under both of these options. Excuse me. So, you know, to to wrap up some of our

observations, the city has been extremely proactive in getting ahead of these rising costs. The current balance in the trust is one of the highest we've seen uh amongst the clients we work with. I know the city does take advantage of another option that Kalpers offers in terms of prepaying the UA every July as opposed to going monthly. So that's about a4 million of extra savings that you take advantage of each year. Again, just to reiterate, your your current policy is strong. It was part of um why you received the credit rating upgrade last year. I think from our standpoint using some of the trust resources is justified. Uh you are above policy right now and I think what the analysis shows is that you can achieve quite a bit of benefit there while still maintaining those strong balances. So, um, while the analysis did show withdrawals in fiscal year 27, I think from our standpoint, if you do have resources to address those costs already, it could be um worthwhile to to pause making a decision, kind of see how things play out with the current volatility in the world. Um, Kalper's returns have been all over the place this year. Right now, they are beating their mark, which is good news. But a few weeks ago, they were well under the mark. Um, in addition to that unknown, the results of the ALM impacts won't be known until this fall. So, in talking with staff, we thought it would be a good time later this fall to kind of reassess and just see if these numbers are how close they are to to actuals. Um, we won't know that. So, um, again, cal the way Kalpers works as as you saw earlier, you are reacting to their returns. So, just to give you an idea on on how that UAL could change, even if they have a flat year where they're at

0%, that would drive the UL up by about 15 million. So, it's it's uh you're in a good place with a very healthy balance, but the the challenge isn't going away anytime soon. And it's always good to be prepared for for that continued volatility. And then just very lastly, NHA is not an actuary. We're and we also are not an investment advisor. So, you do have an investment advisor that is part of the 115 trust. We encourage staff that, you know, once you have a uh conceptually a strategy of how you might start to withdraw funds from the trust, it's we would highly encourage you to communicate that with your investment advisor because it might change how they recommend investing uh the 115 trust. So, with that, I will turn it back to Mike. Yeah. So, uh, I mean, Mike obviously detailed a couple of the scenarios that are possible. There are many other ones, but we wanted to provide a couple of samples to council, get your feedback on a policy level, and then, uh, as I said, uh, staff would move forward with actual appropriation of section 115 trust funds at a at a future date uh, per council direction. So my math says that um Kalpers had a rate of return of 9.35% over the last 7 years where we had 7.2%. So they're more aggressive in their investment strategy. Their 20-year rate of return has been 6.7%. But uh they've they've kicked our butts in the last seven years. So, uh they are able to be even more aggressive in their fund than we are in our 115 trust, right?

We could certainly be more aggressive at this point. Uh the 115 trust is a 50/50 split between equities and fixed income. Uh that is more on the aggressive side than less aggressive side for agencies 115 trust, but certainly there are some agencies that might go 6040 or 7030 might be the most extreme uh more heavily weighted equities. If we moved our whole uh 115 trust into Calers, we'd make a half million dollars more a year than we're making right now if those numbers over the last seven years held up. But it would also hamstring our cash flow because once we move it over, this is what I'm trying to understand. Once we move it over, uh we can't use it for current, uh payments.

Correct? Think of it this way. uh if you had a a mortgage and you had a $20,000 savings account, you wanted to pay down your mortgage, obviously those payments are going to affect the back end. Well, if the next year or two years down the road, you didn't replenish your savings right account and you lost your job, that would obviously create a liquidity issue. Yeah. That doesn't stop the monthly payment from coming due even though you prepaid it.

Yeah, that's that's the issue. Uh I'm inclined to be more aggressive in uh what did you say 50% or 75% or did you say 25% or 50%. Currently it's 5050 and of the 50% equity uh one-third of that is uh domest I'm sorry twothirds is domestic equity and one-third is international

and I'm I'm actually not referring to the investment strategy but I'm referring to the amount that uh that we want to move out of the 115 and into the Kalpers fund because we have significant reserves now I don't think it's as important for us to hold those reserves uh to make our current obligations obviously we need to maintain uh our current emergency reserves so that if we have a downturn we can meet obligations but half million dollars a year is a pretty good number to pick up if we can. So did you I think you presented us two options was either 25 or 50 or is 50 and 75 for how much to use out of the 115 to take care of the U.

That's right. Yeah. So the two options we provided was uh basically using 115 trust balance to bring down the amount to within policy. So the 150% or the 100%. But the mech mechanically the way it would work is that you'd be you'd be maintaining the balance in the 115 and then as you hit those peak years you would be pulling money out so that the general fund isn't making up that whole payment. Um, I guess one clarification question when you say move the money to Kalpers, you can there's two things that come to mind because Kalpers does offer 115 trusts. Um, they're both much more conservatively invested than their normal portfolio where they try to earn 6.8%. So, one fund targets 5.4 and the other targets 4.9. And they've actually significantly underperformed other 115 trust providers. The 6.8 is their target. So, if you were to do that, you would be doing an ADP, which is an additional discretionary payment. That money would go out the door. You would, you know, you you could basically choose which of those mortgages to pay off and you get credit at 6.8%. That's not guaranteeing that they're going to earn 6.8, but that's how it works. The one downside is that that money is gone, so it's not in the trust. Um, I would say the one benefit of the 115 trust is you do have control over how that's invested. So I if you are looking to invest more aggressively, I know you're uh provider does have options that are even more risky than Kalpers. Um, if you want to go let's say above 50% equity, I mean you could go, you know, 100% stocks, right? If you if you wanted to do that. So, I just wanted to make that clear that the local control and the investment flexibility in addition to kind of the having that rainy day fund to deal with the future whatifs is one of the benefits of the

115, but you you can do the ADP as well. Uh it would just look a little different when you send it to Kalpers.

Yeah, I I still think Kalpers is being pretty conservative though. Obviously, they're managing all of our state employees pension funds. So, I I just like to see us get as close as possible to what Kalpers is earning. And, you know, I don't I don't think their strategy is overly risky. They're not they're not uh earning, you know, what the S&P is, you know, they're they're still uh well, what are they 7/10 of a point below the S&P's return for the same period of time. So, you know, they're doing pretty good, but the closer we could get to that, you know, average market performance would be really good. So, I I'd like to see us get closer. I mean we have now this this is the this is the upside of building uh a a reserve fund is you know we can do better with our investments. Uh and you know I hope you guys see the incredible potential if we if we ever could build like a hund00 million fund in our 115 which we're at 25 right now. It's not an unreasonable thing. We could actually make our our pension funds on our our gains every year. You know, we could over the long run, we could fund it in perpetuity just on the gains. That's the power of saving and investing. And it's something that government doesn't do. But, you know, it's like we look at all these governments in other parts of the world. They have these sovereign wealth funds and they are making money for their citizens, solving problems that taxpayers have by investment gains. There's other ways other than taxation to make money for government. Uh, and we're we're seeing that with our 115 trust funds. So, kudos to staff. I mean, I I think Were were you here when we created the 115? Was that

No, it was a good idea. Uh, I'm glad we did it. Um, Council Member Contrarus.

Yeah, I'm really thankful. Well, you know, I bringing more alignment and transparency to our reserves and ensuring that we got a return on investment was a huge priority of mine. So, I'm thankful that the council um when I you know was advocating for these recommendations that uh you know, we were able to move in that direction and thank you uh Mike for for shephering this. Um, you know, I I I do believe that I would rather have full control over um section 115 trust rather than hand it over to Kalpers. But I think in in this conversation, we're we're just talking about um paying down this peak in in our UAL. Uh and um so do I have this correct? Um what you're looking for from council today is some direction and um that direction uh would be reviewed with our investment advisor that has the section 115 trust and then that would come back to council uh for further review or can can you just explain that a little bit more?

Sure. We we've already had some preliminary discussions with the uh investment advisor with the idea being we can almost bifurcate the the current single trust fund amount of 25 million. And if it were council's pleasure to um be more aggressive with a piece of it and less aggressive with another kind, you know, kind of have a a core reserve and another one that that could be invested a bit more aggressively. That's one strategy. Um, and then specific to the scenarios though, they're they're just samples for how we could flatten out those unusually, you know, large growing UAL amounts to not create a crowding out factor in in the annual bianual budget process. And obviously, if those appropriations were needed, those specific appropriations for the affected years would be part of uh the budget review process and council approval. Did did I answer your question? Yes. Um, but I'm just I'm wondering so the direction that we provide provide today. I mean I for me I I just really need to get more information from our investment advisors regarding the strategy that we might uh recommend to you today to follow. Uh, and so, you know, it's almost like providing direction and then receiving information back on that direction and then having it come back to council for a final decision. I would not be okay with providing any kind of finalized decision at this point with having a gap in uh the uh review of that uh beyond this preliminary review, right? an indepth review from our investment um advisors. So, you know, I I um I do want to pay down and flatten out

that that steep peak on the UAL. Um so I I just don't know at this point between you know having uh these two different options of of 100% you know maintaining 100% of annual costs for the minimum policy target versus 150 annual costs for the maximum policy target. You know this this difference between 50 and 25% usage of of the 115 trust. I have no idea, you know, which one of those is is better or where on the sliding scale. So, you know, the direction that I would want to provide is that we look at this um both these scenarios as one part of the spectrum of 50% and the other uh 25% and just have some more information from our investment advisor. come back to us with that information and then we could at that time finalize the direction that we want to go. I have a lot of concern about the instability um uh of the the domestic and global market at this point and um I am concerned that the market fundamentals are not making sense uh as compared to the reality of the situation that we are all experiencing. Uh, and you know, I'm I'm really concerned, and you know, I've heard I I've brought this up um many times where, you know, I I'm just severely concerned that the numbers that we're getting from the federal government are completely unreliable. Uh, and I don't know what that does to the market mechanics. um and the projections of what our fund looks like um to see how much uh wiggle

room we really have to to tackle that UA. So um so yes so just to summarize again my personal direction would be that we get some more information from our investment advisors with the section 115 trust looking at between 50% and 25% of the trust and just getting more information as to what they think about that. Um, and I think with the timeline that we have set forth, um, I'm just really concerned about 2026. I think, you know, maybe in 2027, 2028 there might be some more, but I hope there's more stability. Um, but that's that's where I'm at. Hopefully that makes sense. It it does. I would um one other item I was going to offer to the council too is there there are uh other cities uh reserve policies will outright commit um portions of their year-end fund balance to their 115 trust. Historically the city of Vista hasn't done that. I mean the 5 million or so that initially established it in in 2017 was sort of the seed money and then when we did this the analysis that we did I mentioned in 2022 that was the impetus in the beginning of consolidating reserve funds and moving that large $12 million over a couple of payments to the 115 trust which as it turned out you know ended up being opportune timing because obviously the market appreciation since since then has been solid but um to address part of your concern, council member. Part of how that could be addressed is if council were interested in modifying the reserve policy to outwardly commit either a nominal dollar amount or a percentage of the year fund balance to be sent, you know, once we have the unodudited numbers that we present with the fourth quarter report, we can immediately send

that to the 115 trust for investment. I don't know if that's something that would soothe some of your concern, but it would it would uh certainly increase the trust size and offset when we had funding um the utilization in future years. Yeah, because right now our our policy we just look at um at the G like the just the general reserve and not the 115 for the 30 to 35% reserve, right?

Well, there's two measures. So yeah, the general reserves the 30 to 35 and and with a with a a target of around 32 and a half council council had the additional allocations last fall. So we're at 32.7 or something like that. But there is the second measure of the 115 trust which is one one year to one and a half years total cost. So both the normal cost and the UAL obviously you know we can see in the presentation with uh those peaks coming from the UAL that 100 to 150% of the total cost that that range is shifting from a nominal dollar standpoint. And so this utilizing uh this would would help us sort of control the the top end of that range.

Yeah. Um, I I think it it would be really fruitful for council to have a discussion about some kind of a sliding scale with the 115 trust in putting some more funding towards that. Um, so let me ask you this just again. I am just so concerned about market fundamentals being unrealistic right now. Um if we were if we were to delay um covering the smoothing out the UA peak, uh do you have any concerns that we would have potentially less funding, less dollars to to smooth that out if we were to wait to make that decision? Well, first I'd have to dust off my crystal ball, but uh we

So after you do that,

our uh our preliminary numbers that we're still working on for fiscal 26 27, year two of our current operating budget, uh they are showing us so far um that that we wouldn't need that first year's contribution. The the 26 27 resources, we'd be able to cover that payment. And um you know as Mike was saying that will give us a little more time to see how the new ALM process that Kalpers does once every four years how it shakes out in the actuarial reports that we get in late summer um to to provide a little bit more of u of a runway to to plan especially going into uh the next two-year budget next uh next winter and early spring.

Okay. So it seems like there is not necessarily a rush to do this now. This is just being presented to council so that we get it in our brains because it's a very difficult topic to um dissect, digest and and then provide feedback on. Uh but okay. Well then I my my direction that I personally give stands and that I would want it sounds like we have some additional time to review this. Um, it's a big decision. Uh, and I think it's it would be prudent for the council to get some more information from our investment uh, advisor for a section 115 trust. So, I'll leave it to the rest of my council to see what they have to say, but that's my personal direction at this point.

Okay. And, uh, Mr. Jim Kelly wanted to be heard on this item, too. Mr. Kelly, apologize. Uh, I didn't see your card sitting here. I would have called on you earlier. forgive me. Okay. Did not have the benefit of this report. But one thing I would like to say is that the S&P return over the last five years is 13%. Almost double what they're doing.

And they have 50 you have 50% of your money in treasuries basically, which is doesn't even keep up with inflation for the most part. So that was my this this was my first few seconds here, but basically the underfunding of pension plans is nothing new. Corporations have decided that this pension program didn't work. And so most of them have gone to 401ks. And you can see that the state of California hasn't done you any good for the most part. They're the ones your problem is their is is because of them, not because of you. uh their management of the of the funds and I'm I'm recommending that the city council establish advisory board to help the city members council decide on such a board. I was on a board for the Palomar College 20 years ago and u you know I think there should be some some kind of a board to do that. I know there's a board. I talked to John about the investments of the city, but I think there should be some kind of a board that maybe is responsible for helping you understand pension responsibility since it's the s largest, like they said, the largest problem you have. Um, I think we you would might want to consider moving to a 401k kind of program. I work for this. I work for the Palomar I mean for Marosta College and they have a plan that's a 401k like plan. um that can that could allow for employees to move their money over there and and you control your problem with regards to the the state of California. Um you have the responsibility for all of the past, present, and future employees that their pension will be there for them. And if the state continues to, I believe, mismanage their investments to the point where it continues to impact the city locally,

they don't care. It's the state of California. They don't care what the city happens. I'm You have a You have an excellent city manager. I've spoken to him before. And I think that I believe that management of financial matters should be more local and not at some state level who doesn't really care about what your budget has to say. So, thank you. Very good. Thank you very much. I will point out we do have an investment advisory uh committee and it's made up of several prominent uh local investment adviserss and they uh they do uh meet regularly and uh we could well they haven't done you much good.

Well, and I and I would I would point out to and I you you make a good point. Uh, so I'll I'll I want to point out for the benefit of the public uh that California's public agency investment laws uh don't allow us to invest in the same way that uh I invest my retirement portfolio and that you do too. Uh, you know, for me, I put a lot of my money in the S&P 500 index and leave it alone. And if I don't sell it, uh, and panic when the market's uh, in trouble, I'm doing pretty good uh, when it recovers uh, as it is right now uh, at least for the short time being. But, um, we would love to we would love to see the ability to to for the long run. Um, unfortunately, we've had agencies like Orange County that went bankrupt uh, by being too aggressive. uh and that's never what we want to be on the wrong end of. So, you know, we have a duty uh to preserve capital that is much greater than the apology I'd have to make to my wife if I uh lost all of our retirement funds. Um so, it's uh you know, you have to weigh and why do we have money in treasuries? I hate that too. Uh but you have to weigh uh capital preservation with uh you know in in the public agency. I don't like it either, but these let's I found that out 14 years ago uh that the the public law after Orange County doesn't allow us much flexibility with how we invest. One of the only places we get more flexibility is in this 115 trust fund, which is exactly why I wanted to create it. And I tell you what, getting to 7% when a lot of our investments are sub 2% will look like a pretty good deal. So, uh, Council Member, uh, Deputy Mayor Donald, you all want to invest in crypto?

No, it's about as aggressive as you can get. I know we're not allowed to legally, so I was just joking. Um, okay. So, I we're kind of all over on this one because, uh, I would have in the beginning of this conversation leaned toward option two. Uh but I guess my question is so our our the gap in funding is comes out of the general fund.

Yeah. I mean at this point there's not a true gap. It's just it it's increasing you know at at an exponential rate. And when we presented the two scenarios they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. They could be an operating range similar to what we have with you know our our two components of of reserve policies. So I I guess the information I I would want to know and if we don't need to make a decision tonight, I'm fine getting more information on this because the value of the dollar is down 40 cents since 2015, 26 cents just since 2020. And so would it behoove us to spend more upfront knowing that we're going to have larger uh or less obligation on on our reserves and on our general fund in the future because the spending the power of the dollar will go down, right? Right. And so is it better to have more at that point? I know you don't have a crystal ball.

Well, no, no, no. I I It's funny because Mike and I were actually talking about this earlier today. It's when when interest rates were much much lower and agencies could issue pension obligation bonds, many people would or many agencies would issue bonds for their entire UAL. That works great if the market timing works out well. But you've got to remember you then have debt service on that POB issue and if CalPERS misses all of a sudden, you know, if a 2022 happens and they have a negative 7% return where you were 100% funded, you don't control that. You now have debt service and a UL payment. And so in a smaller scale, sure it council could give us direction to say, "Hey, take take 15 of the 25 million and send it to Kalpers and do an ADP." And if the timing works out well, that'll be great. If it doesn't, it won't be as great. And and what we lose there is the liquidity if things aren't so great going forward. And we and and what we saw on the chart is what we know today. I should probably emphasize uh all of the numbers that you saw over that 10-year period, they will not be accurate. They're accurate today, but um we're what we're the the course we're proposing to chart is a more moderate approach rather than doing the like the example that I mentioned to the mayor about taking your savings account and and paying down your mortgage because you lose the liquidity.

Yeah, it also seems like these are structured very similar to student loan debt. uh in in the different type of payments all across the spectrum on the different loan balances you might have. Um I if if you can get more information with more time and it's not urgent that we make a decision tonight, I am fine holding off. I'd rather be armed with more information than less. Uh if it's not again an urgent issue. So I I don't even think we need to take action then if that's the case. We would just need to give direction to bring this back and that's where I stand at the moment. Um, but if it if it is something where it benefits us to be more aggressive with what we have right now because it'll benefit us on the back end because I share the same concerns. I've been saying it for four years though and for whatever anomaly this is with this economy, it just hasn't dipped the way I think any of us anticipated it might. Uh, it doesn't mean it won't. I mean, I know you had referenced geopolitical uh, issues and you we have all the gas and oil and all the other commodities that are impacted at the moment. um CPI came in way lower than I think a lot of people thought it would earlier uh this year. So there's just too much instability and so with more information I think it'd benefit all of us as well as the public especially on making a decision I feel will be this large and impact us long term in the future. So uh those are all my comments. I will say good job. I don't think that you've been a failure uh because you've only met half of the S&P 500. uh when you're working with public funds, you need to be uh fiscally responsible and I think that you have you have done your fiduciary duty with all of those things. So um those are my comments. Thank you. Thank you for this presentation and I will look forward to information in the future.

Council member Fox,

thank you. Yeah. So, uh, thank you very much for putting this together and for doing all this, uh, digging for us and and trying to give us the best course of action and, uh, thanks to our previous councils for getting getting ahead of this and and putting us in pretty good shape. It's a good problem to have where you have multiple options and our and and having options is always better than not having options. So, um, I'm pretty grateful for that. Um, so the current recommendation if if we're to follow this plan is basically just when those years we get to those years allowing staff to use this fund to pay the balances. It's not actually moving any money immediately.

Correct. Yeah. that what we envision right now the the first year if if council gave us that direction the first year we think we would probably bring it forward for council consideration would be year one of the the next bianial budget which would be 2728 and so that also means that technically every year if like if there's a huge upturn or downturn in the market we could potentially change that policy based off of new information so absolutely

okay well I mean that sounds like you know it's it's good that we get to you know because we have the the money in our hands that means we can we can keep adjusting based off current circumstances and stuff. So, that sounds like a pretty good thing. The um other question I had was I at one point I heard that you know it almost made it sound like we we actually were paying interest on the unfunded liabilities in some way like a lot of different mortgages and so technically paying them off you know if we're paying you know a mixed rate of 6.8% or so. Is that what I kind of was under? Okay. So basically if we did pay that debt off if wait do we have debt on that? Is that what you were saying?

Yeah. The 90 million of uh unfunded actuarial liability is essentially simple terms of the pension debt. So paying it off is almost like getting ourselves a 6.8% rate on the you know if we're not paying it. It's almost like keeping it in account and getting 6.8% would would kind of even out. Yeah. And I mean that's worth mentioning Council Member Fox. the the benchmark for the 115 truss at a 50/50 split is about 6.3%. So it's about a half a percent less. Its actual performance uh as Mike mentioned has been up over 7%. So right, we have beat the cowars's discount rate.

And with the idea of it having multiple different you said like amalgamation of a bunch of different mortgages are some of those at different rates than others? No.

Okay. So there's no like, oh, we can target some of the higher interest, you know, and Okay. Well, there goes that idea. Um, okay. Well, no, I think that that sounds like we're we're in a pretty good spot. So, I mean, I also I'd love to learn more about this as well, you know, and um I know this is that's a it's a big chunk of money, you know, when it comes to pension liabilities. And so, um, as council members, I think it's important that we learn as much as we can about it and make sure that we're doing a good job up here. So, I appreciate all the information that for for both of you and uh for the both mics and uh we'll uh and I'll let the rest of my count. Thanks. What's our blended uh return on our emergency funds that are not in the 115?

We that is shown in on a monthly basis in each treasur's cash report. Uh we're probably around three and a half right now. And what's our balance in the emergency fund? uh just over I want to say 40 40.5 something like that. I

I think the real issue that we need to be focused on is we need to be moving money out of our emergency fund and into the 115 trust because we would dramatically increase our earnings while in a a real uh downturn situation. Uh it it limits what we can do. Um, but we're never going to be, you know, we're probably not going to need $40 million at once. And if you look at this slide, you know, our our ordinary pension obligation has been $12 million for the year. So, what can you do with money that's in the 115 pension trust fund? You can make your normal payments and you can make your UAL additional payments. So effectively, you can access in any given year between 12 and $15 million of uh pension money that you would have had to come up with out of your general fund. So you can reduce your general fund obligations by call it $15 million for these number of years. So it li it would limit the amount that you could access in any one down year. But, you know, I I I think if we were to move I mean I I would probably I'd probably want to see us move like $20 million out of the emergency reserve fund, move it into uh the 115 the earnings on that additional $20 million would well pay cuz you've got basically $2.5 to $3 million. We're earning $1.8 million a year right now in the 115 fund at the current earnings. If you put that extra $20 million in there, you're going to be earned $45 million a year at the current, you know, seven-year rate, which would easily pay well more. And then you could start to reduce the demand of the normal cost payments in the future once we get past this uh the classic employees. You know, we've got I don't I don't know if I heard you talk about this, but we have,

you know, we we swallowed the the the antlers uh of the deer, you know, is going moving through the anaconda right now. when we get to the end of the classic employees and we start uh seeing the the retirement curve for the pepper employees, then our our UA starts to go back down. Uh hopefully you're right about those are pretty hard numbers. So we

there's I mean there'll be a generational cohort shift for sure to your point, Mayor, but it's also worth mentioning um you're talking about shifting funds from the general reserve to the 115 uh trust fund reserve. Um, the other component of five-year reviews is to because this was another thing that we did in in 2022 and we will we will do this secondary review in 2027 which is to to do another riskbased analysis of what the city's reserve should be. And we're going to do that again with the GFOA. You know, we asked the initial question and um came up with the the 30 to 35% range. Well, the that data is five years old. For example, one of the risks that we uh assessed five years ago was wildfire risk. I think we can all probably agree the the risk basis of of that based on what happened up in LA is probably going to shift for the worst. Some of the others may be better to where staff can come to council and recommend a lower range, but until we do that analysis, we won't know. And we'll we'll know that uh probably in early 2027. Well, we I mean the money in our 115 is very much available for an emergency in that we can short pay our pension obligations from our uh from our general fund and simply pay the present obligations out of the 115. So, we can access it. But the problem is it only gives us that 12 to $15 million a year, which is still a lot of money, you know. So, we wouldn't want to get rid of all of the $40 million out of the emergency. But if we could if we could go from if we could increase our rate of return by four or 5% on $20 million,

I don't disagree with you. I but but keep in mind every dollar in that 115 trust can only be used for pension expenses. So right if if but every dollar we don't have to spend out of the general fund this year on pension either in current costs or U is dollars we can spend to pay current salaries, buy new fire trucks, build parks, any other obligation to the city money is fungeable. But if true, but if if there were a near-term extreme event where

if we needed all $40 million at once, we wouldn't have it. If we moved $20 million over, then we'd be locking up, you know, all but 12 to 15 million of that that we could spend in the current year to offset what we would pay out of the general fund. So, yes, it it reduces liquidity to some degree. I don't know that we're ever going to have an incident where we're going to need $40 million all at once. If we did and it was because of wildfire that we would expect the state and the federal government to step in and help us. They have every other time. I mean, these, you know, natural disasters are limited uh in the scope of time and geography. What we're really saving for is not a wildfire. What we're really saving for is a long-term downturn in the economy like we had 07 that we had seven years of deficit spending for. We really should focus on improving our rates of return as Mr. Kelly said, but the the log in our eye, this is the splinter, the log in our eye is the 3 to 4% rate of return on our emergency reserves. The law allows us better investment tools. Still very conservative, but much better investment tools with this 115 trust fund. It's one of the reasons I really wanted to put more money into it when we had the opportunity. When we reduce because our our, you know, our annual gains at 7% in the 115 fund, they could fund $5 million a year. That frees up $5 million a year that we can spend on anything we want. We could be funding. I mean, government, we're now we're now 63 years old as a government. we should have significant resources generating significant annual gains. Instead, we have, you know, we have debt holdings, you know, uh

we really got to think about that. We really do. Uh Deputy Mayor, I don't disagree with anything you've just said. What I would want to and I don't this isn't the appropriate time to talk about it but what I want to do is add this discussion to the year- end fund balance discussion because I have no problem with uh creating a percentage of the year end fund balance that would go into the 115 right just I mean we do the same thing for the reserve every year we could even set a certain portion or percentage depending upon what the number is I mean we're not going to have $10 million every year it's just the reality of of what it is but um I would be open to trying to make sure that we're starting to allocate those funds to build up our reserves to make sure that we're healthy financially in multiple facets because this the pension obligation is not going anywhere anytime soon and it's just going to continue going up and uh so I'm I'm okay with all of that. So, so long as then we could take percentages and replenish the emergency fund, keep the year or keep the um the reserve where it needs to be and then add in additional this. I mean to this, it may cost us in some uh some projects that we want to do, but uh so long as they aren't, uh urgent needs of the city, you know, I'd be fine with it. I I want to make sure we leave it up to discretion of the council so it's not always locked in, but um I would be very open to that. So I appreciate the comments, mayor. I just wanted to add that in there.

Council member Fox. Perfect. Yeah. Um when we do that reserve risk analysis type thing, is that going to take into account things like that we have this 115 trust and some of that? like would having money in other accounts make it so we that that analysis might say we don't need as much in in the the general fund account. Sure. Uh one of the risk factors obviously was uh exponential pension price spikes. So um and and that was to your point it was the uh the reason why we made the recommendation to council back in 2022 to super fund uh the 115 trust.

Yeah. Well, it sounds like that was a good idea at the time. So, um, with that, you know, the fact that we could potentially pay up to $12 million a year out of that account, would that like like the mayor was saying, would that come into would that be part of that analysis? You know, would that be taken into consideration? I guess I should say.

Sure. Well, to the mayor's plan, I mean, it's you you can create budgetary capacity. Uh, if council were to direct staff, we want normal cost and UAL in any given year. Current year, it's around $12 million. Sure. It's that immediately creates capacity budgetarily um for for any type of spending for an emergency or something if the you know that's Sure. Well, I mean it could be done during an emergency or or not during an emergency. It's it's set up for an emergency, but um it is super funded right now, which is, you know, it's why we're having the discussion.

And then and then my uh my last question was, is there potentially some third option here where there's a we we know that we have our uh risk mitigation covered through our our emergency fund. We know that we have our pension liabilities covered through this 115. So, we create a third more aggressive fund that is, you know, not in not tied up in pensions, but could be used for anything. Is there, you don't have to answer that now, but is there a like, hey, we already have a fully funded? Off the top of my head, I'm not aware of one. Maybe Mike is, but as the mayor mentioned, thanks to Orange County, we are pretty hemmed in.

Yeah. Well, I think it's very important that we make sure we keep funds in an emergency fund. And if we are smart to have some extra money like left over then what past what that risk analysis shows we need. Yeah. You know that if at year end fund balance we decide we want to put more into a different account or something. Yeah. Was that was mainly the question. So no answer needed now but just if that's a something that we could potentially talk about. The 115 trust is the only type of investment strategy I know of that's outside of the government code restrictions. So, it's really the only way to access stocks, bonds, other types of investments. So,

that's super interesting. Okay. Well, that that was it. Thank you.

Yeah. I mean, effectively there would be uh no way to fund the public employees pension funds in California if you didn't remove the uh public investment restrictions from the funds that they're invested in. uh we we're tremendous reli reliant as as every uh person is who has a retirement invested. We're tremendously, you know, I I have enough money that if I never had to touch it one day, I might be able to afford to retire, but it has to grow for 25 more years. If I touch it between now and then, I'm screwed. Uh only the growth. So, we could be in that scenario. When I came on the council, our reserves were less than 10% of our general uh fund, which is to say we had very little. I I do want to close this conversation by highlighting the fact that we are about 1% uh better funded than the cities in California. So, we're slightly ahead of the curve, which for a city that's 25% below the median income of the county, uh we are not a rich city. We're very much a middle class community. We're really punching above our weight. we're doing really well. Um the fact that we have a 115 trust fund, a lot of our neighbors in San Diego County do not uh and that's on top of our emergency reserves. And uh while it's not 100% accessible in emergency because we only have 12 to$15 million a year of pension costs and we can only spend it on pension costs. It still gives us the ability to defay 10 to 15 million a year of current expenses. uh and it ensures that for the long run uh we're never going to be a situation where we cannot meet our obligations with our pensions. But I don't want to pass on making sure the people of Vista understand that because we're having these conversations, we're in a much better

place than a lot of other cities are. Um, so you know, I we don't need to wait uh to get back through a you know, the the the you know, I was going to say it, the thousand parallel universes uh analysis. We do need to look at what every smart investor would tell you, which is, you know, is $20 million going to be enough to get us 20 million plus the uh you know, the the 15 million. So that's really $35 million. You got 40 million in there now that you could spend on anything this year. If you move 20 of it, you'd still have $35 million that you could spend, but you would have you'd probably have $67 million a year of additional revenue. Well, not additional, you'd have you'd have four and a half uh you know million dollars a year of additional revenue. That more than covers this triangle. And then when we get past this triangle and we start to see the uh the Pepper employees retire now for the first time ever, I don't think it'll really happen, but the city cuz costs are going to are going to continue to grow in other areas, but we would actually have more money available uh under our current, you know, revenue model, which would be amazing. So, and that's what it should be. We should be investors for the long term. We should be building our balance sheet, not building our liabilities. And that's what governments are doing all throughout Southern California. They're building liabilities instead of building assets. If we had a long-term outlook, we would build an amazing book of assets. And it would generate tens of millions of dollars every year, and uh it would be here in perpetuity, and it would do amazing things for, you know, for uh our our children and grandchildren. But you have to think that way. You have to think generationally about these kind of

investments. So, we're a lot better place than we are. But I I think we should model what that would look like for the council. That's the kind of modeling we should be doing is if we just move this money from here to here, how much better off we'd be 10 years from now. It would be crazy how much better off we would be. All right. Thank you for the analysis. Um, I I think, you know, you've you've got a solid pathway to pay all of that triangle from almost just the the the capital gains. I I don't I think we could figure out a way you don't have to you don't have to wind that account down to $12 million balance. I think you could have $25 million left at the end of it. That's my thought. with a short a small additional payment from the uh you know from the year in fund or there's there's ways. So thank you for the good presentation. We'll uh talk to the investment advisors and we should look at some different scenarios how we can improve overall uh return on investment for our uh investments. Council member Contrarus,

I just want to say I appreciate um the line of thought uh Mayor Franklin. I I just I just need to be on record saying that I'm not in favor of raiding the general uh fund reserve uh because there are so many restrictions on the 115 trust that it is critically important that if we go into a downturn that we have the most flexibility to utilize funds especially because I do not want to see this affect the staffing levels that we have and potential uh future uh obligations that we have to our uh residents here in the city of Vista. Uh so I I really do believe in a lot of additional flexibility. I think that the way that we have it structured now uh has produced some really good results and I think it would be very easy for the council to add some more additional funds when we have it at the year-end fund balance if we do have a year-end fund balance. It sounds like we will uh again um that we commit to moving some of that over to the 115 trust. I I just I have a hard time um predicting only good uh in the section 115 trust. Um and and I just think that there's a a cost to having uh less flexibility uh with with the funds um available. So anyways, that's just where I stand. Thank you.

Okay, that's going to be the conclusion of that item. Thank you very much. That's going to bring us to item D4, our street lighting assessment project update. If any members of the public wish to speak on this item, they may indicate so by using the raise your hand feature by pressing star9 or submitting a request to speak card here at the dis. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our assistant to the city manager, Joshua Santa Cruz, will introduce the item.

Good evening, mayor, deputy mayor, and members of the city council. I'm here with Gabe Gury, our capital projects manager, and tonight we'll be providing an update to the street light street lighting assessment project CIP number 8385. So, just a quick overview, the street lighting assessment project is focused on enhancing public safety by improving lighting, particularly in areas where it is scarce or non-existent. This initiative aligns with council's goals, including public safety, fiscal responsibility, and climate and environmental responsibility. The initial pilot program was completed in March 2025. 12 solar lights were installed in the neighborhood west of North Melrose along Cocapa, Tatum, Spires, and Omni. After more than a year of operation, the After more than a year of operation, the lights have proven reliable across all seasons and weather conditions, and the city received positive feedback from the community. Uh we are currently in phase two of construction. Uh this past January, council approved the contract for the installation of 97 additional lights. The project is approximately 65% complete with 55 lights installed and 20 locations in progress. Completion is anticipated in early May. The photos shown here are from recent installations over at Moon Road. Residents on streets scheduled for light installation are notified by the contractor by mail approximately 2 weeks in advance. Project signage is also posted in the area to inform the public and no parking signs related to the construction are posted at least 48 hours prior. During phase two, eight calls were received regarding concerns on the installations. Most were addressed and primarily involved requests to adjust lighting locations.

However, on Selena Court, six out of the 17 households on the street expressed opposition to installing the street lights altogether. Uh for the next construction phase number three, 60 requests shown here in the GIS map were received, reviewed, and recommended by the community safety commission at their meeting this past February. The commission also established a PO point-based prioritization system to guide future installations if requests exceeded available funding. Two points would be awarded for high crime rate and one point each would be awarded for high collision area, no existing lighting, high pedestrian activity, no sidewalks, no crosswalks or stop signs and route to public transportation. Since the commission last met, an additional 28 requests have been received, further emphasizing the need to prioritize installations moving forward. So based on the commission's request uh recommendation, staff can utilize GIS map layers to support prioritization. This slide shows how layers such as crime rates, collision data, pedestrian activity, and existing or missing infrastructure can be overlaid to help identify and evaluate locations. So staff recommends receiving and filing this update on the street lighting assessment project and utilizing the community safety commission's prioritization framework to guide future installations and ensure available funding is directed to the highest priority locations. This concludes staff's presentation. We're available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Okay. And we have uh Jeannie Chick would like to be heard on this item. Hi there.

Yeah, I live on Selena Court and the installation of the lights has gone on all around uh our neighborhood and we have houses. I have visual aids here where I don't know if you can see We have windows that are triangular that are just about impossible to block light out of. And you know, if your bedroom happens to be on that side of the street, uh too bad. And it uh um it's one of the problems that that that confronts us in those homes. lots of uh lots of windows and doors too. Um the other concern I did I did approach my neighbors and said, you know, what do you think about it? None of them had been informed of this project. It was all new. So at last minute, we uh got a petition together to maybe keep our little culde-sac dark. Um, one neighbor loves to get up early in the morning, looks for satellites. That's his that's his thing. Um, another neighbor, uh, middle schooler, she's studying ornithology. She's very concerned about bird migration. Uh, can be is is heavily affected by by the lights. Um, she worries that the owls will disappear appear in her in her yard. Uh, and I I'm aware of the point system that that was uh, you know, to to decide how how uh, who got lights, but you know, we don't have any crime. I've lived there almost 40 years. No crime on

our little culde-sac. Uh, my next door neighbor says, "The best thing for crime prevention is community. Know your neighbors. Look out for each other." And um we're all uh well, I don't know about everybody, but you know, a lot of us just really like to have Ark Street. It's it's just because there's so much ambient light, you feel almost like it's disappearing uh disappearing. There's just no chance to see stars anymore. And I'd like to also include that today, this week is International Dark Sky Week. And I'd like to encourage, you know, us to enjoy the darkness and not be afraid of it. And so we have a temporarily uh Josh has been great. He's gave me a temporary stay that we don't have the lights on our street. And uh so I'm asking basically that.

Thank you very much. And um maybe we can look into whether a shroud over the light would help with the issue in your bedroom. So perhaps we can explore that. I I I know you don't want them at all. I got it. But uh I it sounded like you were saying they're already spilling into your bedroom. So Okay. We're not happy yet. Yeah, I understand. Thank you very much. Council member Contrarus.

Well, you know, I I'm um first of all, thank you to staff and uh to the council for, you know, funding more lights. It's it's something that I hear all the time um in my district. Uh and you know, uh how many lights uh were we going to put on Selena Court? There's what what was that? Two light two lights.

Okay. Um, you know, I I have no problem at this time and seeing that there's um there is a majority that haven't spoken in opposition, 65% or so um that we don't know if they oppose or if not, but 35% are adamantly against putting lights on Selena Court. you know, if the council would be amendable. Um, there's some other areas in my district I, you know, have advocated for a long time that by Salsa Market on East Drive, there's a lot of folks that walk to the Salsa Market. It's incredibly dark. Uh, if the council is okay with it, I would love to move those two lights over to East Drive um by Salsa Market. Uh, and then, you know, other than that, I I'm okay moving forward um with the staff's recommendations and the the recommendations from the safety commission, and I feel like East Drive um fits those recommendations that uh that the safety commission put forward. Uh but one of the things uh moving forward uh would be it would be great to have a petition system um where neighbors could petition for a light uh similar to our traffic calming petition. Uh, and you know what I would do uh at this point is just direct staff um to create that and to bring it back to council meeting so that we can review it and then we can put it up uh as an active petition. Uh so I'll go ahead and make a motion um to accept uh the recommendations to move the two lights from Selena Court to East Drive by Salsa Market and uh for staff

to create a prioritization or a petition process um that fits in with the prioritization framework and bring that to council in the future for discussion. Thank you. Council member, if I could just get clarification, the petition system that you're seeking is to request a street light or to um object to one's planned on your block. Well, uh the traffic calming, uh petition works in reverse as it works in the affirmative. So, I would want this petition system to be able to be utilized in both ways. Okay.

Yeah. if possible. I I think there is a way to do it, but um we've seen the speed hump petition be used uh to say no. Um it doesn't happen too often. Uh but I think that there could be that ability uh built into this uh petition process for for additional lights. Um and then I I just have a a technical question. So, say we install these lights, we move forward, um, and then we hear after the fact that a neighborhood is super opposed to it. Um, is it simple enough to be able to remove because this is technically it's kind of like off the grid. Are you are we able to move that solar light somewhere else? Uh they can be it's um there's a cost associated with that. So it'll be um basically just taking out of the ground and reinstalling somewhere else. So there's the deinstallation cost and reinstallation cost somewhere else.

Are we talking about a cost that um doesn't exceed $3,000 potentially? How about we get some more information and you just bring it back to the council? I'm just curious because hopefully everybody wants their light, but if they really don't, I just want to have a little bit more information as to how much it would cost to move that light. And I think that's where moving forward a petition process would really alleviate um any concerns about removing a light. Uh but just just for council to have that information. Okay. Thank you,

Council Member Fox. Thank you. Um, what is the current plan for if we install one in an area and an entire neighborhood comes out and decides that they don't want them? I mean, we don't really have a current plan. We just receive feedback from the community and then we kind of go off that. Okay. So, it would potentially be on the table to remove them if the if the demand is like unanimous on a street or something like that. Right now, we have been working with individual owners to just move the lights to a location that they're not objecting to. But in this case, like Selena Court, we would move forward with a petition, assuming the council's supportive tonight. Okay.

Yeah. I mean, I was actually going to bring up a petition process as well. I think that, you know, it it um um you know, it makes sense if there's if if it is something that is that seems to be partially contentious, then we at least know which neighbors were in favor of them. So, we can kind of have a a okay, if there's support in a neighborhood in general and we have some houses that said yes, we want them, then we can maybe target th like those areas to potentially put them. And so, you know, maybe that would help a little bit on the placement as well. Uh and if we do it kind of in the same kind of rolling period type thing that we do with everything else and we can prioritize and you know we have this much budget so we can do this many lights go through the scoring list and um come up with our our our construction list. So um other than that um would the east drive lights probably score high enough to be in the next phase of is it nine 90 lights or something? Is it likely that they would probably

I think just from the GIS map layers that probably would be a good candidate. Well, then yeah, then then I'm not going to have any issues with with switching them over to that if that's going to be the next phase anyway. So, um yeah. So, okay. Well, then yeah, I'm going to second the motion and um hope for the rest of council. Deputy Mayor O'Donnell.

Yeah, I definitely support a petition process. Uh my fear with the petition process is going to be that people are going to say yes if they want it. They just don't want it right here in front of their house. Uh right. Yeah. I'm not going to say that into a microphone. Um so I we just need to be cognizant of that. We're not going to be able to please everybody even if they want the street light there. But uh I am fully supportive of not putting them into Selena Court and moving them into the area that Council Member Contreres has asked for. I have I have no issue with that. I don't think that we need to do a petition process for this particular case, but moving forward uh we if we can create one, I think that'd be very ideal for both installation and removal if necessary. Uh hopefully not removal, but it wouldn't obviously anything could happen. So, uh those are all my comments though. I think you guys did a really good job with this. Uh the program itself, I think, is fantastic. It's it provides us an opportunity to provide lighting in areas uh at a very efficient, cost-effective, uh way. And so I look forward to uh seeing what you bring back, but appreciate all your hard work on this and the comments from the council.

Okay, we have a motion, a second. Please cast your votes. Council member Oh, I'm sorry, Council Member Melendez.

Oh, thank you, Mayor. I was hoping to just express my support for the item. Um and my understanding that um our residents who might live in a more secluded area um are comfortable without the lights um in a culdeac in a culde-sac for example. Um and I you know I'm always really pleased to hear that our continued efforts to improve safety are making an impact. Um, we have uh lowered our crime rates in Vista and the community is feeling that and they feel safe and secure and they feel trustworthy of their neighbors um and they feel supported by the city. And so when it comes to the more aesthetic experience of wanting to have a, you know, a nice dim street and a quiet neighborhood, I completely understand that. Um and I do think a petition process um would only support our efforts for safety because a lot of these initial locations for street light installation did come out of a series of surveys. I personally led surveys when we first were initiating this process. Um and then the city um with our consultants, we were able to get some really um good feedback from the community as to specifically where. So, you know, even though we did our due diligence, there can still be um you know, maybe misrepresentations or um areas where we don't know the full details of the the street and the neighborhood and what that experience is like. So, we always welcome feedback and I think that the communication of a petition process is only going to help us uh get better and more valuable information in the future. So, definitely support the item. Thank you.

Very good. We have a motion to second. Please cast your votes. I vote I. Thank you. Okay, that motion is adopted unanimously with no street lights on your street. Okay. All right. Make sure and keep coming to the council meetings and, you know, chiming in whenever this comes back. Are we sending notices out? Yes.

Okay. We're sending notices out. So, you should get a notice if any of your neighbors have designs on changing that outcome in the future. Okay. All right. All right. Our last item of the evening is a discussion item regarding the circle neighborhood traffic improvements. If any members of the public wish to speak on this item, they may indicate so using the raise their hand feature by pressing star 9 or submitting a request to speak card here at the D. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. We do have at least one speaker. Uh let's see. Council member Contrarus asked for this item to be on the agenda, so we'll ask her to introduce it.

Yes. Thank you so much. Uh the item that we're about to discuss uh is an area of District 1 that I've had concerns about for a very long time. Um as someone who walks, bikes, takes public transit, and drives, uh all modes of transportation are not safe in the circle. Um for folks who have not been there yet, you can simply look at uh the information in the packet. There is no traffic control at this time. Uh, and there's a lot of pedestrians that walk uh in uh an area that doesn't have sidewalk. I mean, even just um the other day I went uh to discuss uh this issue with with some of the residents and in the few seconds that I was walking uh a I saw a lot of folks needing to walk in the middle of the street. Um I had to do that myself. uh and uh folks crossing where there's uh not even a yield or a stop for another vehicle. Uh so you you really are taking kind of your life in your own hands just to make it to the market across the street and back. So um I I look forward uh to staff going through this presentation. I really hope that, you know, we're able to at least provide the minimum amount of safety, uh, which is providing a, um, a high visibility crosswalk at, uh, at Orange in Indiana. Um, and then creating a a full sidewalk because now on North Indiana, there's only one middle section of that block that has sidewalk. Uh and again, this is just critical for circulation. You know, our um just in time for um uh what is it? Just in time for foster youth. The

drop in center is right there on the corner. You have North County Lifeline and then you have a lot of density and a lot of folks that have to park their car kind of far away and have to walk to um the different multifamily homes. So, uh we'll go through it. Um there's a lot of additional improvements that also uh need to happen. Uh but again, the more improvements, the higher the cost. So really focusing in on that missing pedestrian safety circulation of the missing sidewalk. Um the residents are also wanting to put uh two speed humps in the alley um of Indiana. Um uh where the multifamily uh North Santa Fe apartments are. Uh and then um also that alleyway continues across from East Orange. Um and there's a lot of speeding there. So, an additional uh speed hump would be great on that end. Um, and then with the item that we just approved, there are some additional lights that are going to go in. Um, so those are the the improvements that I want to focus on at this time and and these are eligible. This area is eligible for the community block development grant. So, um I know that council had previously approved that just a a meeting or two ago. Um but we didn't approve a project. Um and I think that the approving of a project comes back in May.

It's in here. Okay. Um so I think this is a great candidate for this project. there's and it's also listed as number eight on the overall prioritization um for infrastructure needs. Uh and if you look at you know where it is on the list there's some other uh locations that you know whether it's in downtown on Hannes you know we're looking at a whole downtown strategy. Uh so you really see that this number eight could potentially be moved up even higher because some of the other ones um as although they may be important um I don't believe that they have as much pedestrian activity um as this area does. So that's just to preface this um this discussion uh and I look forward to hearing everybody else's comments. Uh, thank you staff and I'll hand it over to you.

Okay, we have two members of the public that want to be heard on this item. The first is Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I do. Absolutely. We'll hear from our members of the public after staff presents. We have uh our Sam Hassan here to present tonight.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. So, I'll give a quick background on the on the item. So in April 2025, staff completed the townite completes freeze phase 2 physibility study in collaboration with council member Karina Contreras and the community. The plan developed solutions for traffic common and non non-motorized traffic issues for the area bounded by East Vistaway, Vista Village, North Santa Fe Avenue, and East Movier Drive. In October 2025, Council Member Contreras held a follow-up neighborhood meeting focused on the area around the circle to obtain additional resident feedback. So, the results uh from the original town, the the larger town phase 2 study, and the follow-up uh community meeting are going to be summarized in the next few slides, and they're kind of broken down by sort of the scale of implementation. So the first group is the immediate improvements which have already been completed. Uh speed limit signs that we installed in the circle area. Always stop at the intersection of the circle and East Orange Street and always stop at the intersection of East Washington Street and North Indiana Avenue. And the next group is the short-term improvements in the circle area and that speed humps in the alleys uh which the fire department reviewed and approved. Uh, and the cost is approximately $10,000 for two-speed humps in in the alley. A raised crosswalk with um rectangular uh rapid uh rectangular rapid flash and beacon system at the intersection of East Washington Street and North Michigan Avenue, which includes curb ramps and pop outs at an approximate cost of $200,000. This is um a picture of the area that shows on the left is the alley that runs north south and it shows the red lines

are potential locations for two feet humps. And then uh on the bottom of the pictures, East Washington Street at North Michigan that shows the proposed location for a raised crosswalk. The medium-term improvements include uh sidewalks, pop house, and street lighting as proposed in the circle uh area from the original townside phase 2 plan as well as from the subsequent neighborhood meeting. And the approximate cost for these improvements is $3 million. And then finally, we have long-term improvements. And this includes all the improvements from the town phase 2 plan for the larger town area. And that's approximately $8 million. The next two slides are the uh a picture of the improvements. This is just in the circle area and it shows the various things like pop outs uh sidewalks. Most of the most of the cost is probably in the sidewalks and the curb ramps and this is a larger town feast 2 plan which has you know many streets and many improvements. So, in a recent field meeting with council member Contreras, it was determined that the next priority is a sidewalk and crosswalks on Indiana Avenue between East Orange Street and East Washington Street to accommodate high pedestrian activity. The estimated cost for that is $400,000. This is a picture of that um one sidewalk segment on Indiana. So starts at East Orange on the north. It goes down to um East Washington on the south. So just one sidewalk segment on the east side and it would also include high visibility crosswalks at the two intersections and that would complete the route between East Orange um and Vista Village Drive along North Indiana. So, one thing about the priority of the sidewalks and this is based on the sidewalk priority plan that was uh recently approved by the city council.

So what the staff proposes uh for next year's um CIP budget for next fiscal year CIP budget that is coming to council in the near future the top five locations which are uh all happen to be CDBG eligible is uh West Los Angeles Drive, Townside Drive, West California, West Boier Drive, and Eucalyptus Avenue. And the circle area uh that I um just had the picture of with that sidewalk in North Indiana is uh its rank is number eight on the sidewalk priority list. So staff recommendation is to receive information on the circle neighborhood traffic improvements and provide direction to staff. Thank you.

Okay. Now we'll hear from our public speakers. Your members for uh Royal Communications. Chris Fuentes followed by Teresa Delgado on Zoom. Is Chris Fuentes here?

Okay. participant. Fore Medid. Accident. Mascot.

So, Gracias. Okay, next we'll go to Zoom and we'll hear from Teresa Delgado. Terresa Delgado. She's still there.

Teresa Delgado, can you hear us? Orange Washington apartment. Carlos Washington. Speed feedback. Orange

apartment. Mr. Mayor Much gracias. Okay. Uh, Council Member Contraras, did you uh do you have more or do you want to hear from Deputy Mayor Donald?

Um, yeah, please. All right. And just a a clarification, um Sam, uh is there already a proposed uh traffic control like a stop sign at the Circle in East Orange and Indiana in North Indiana and the Circle? So those two um uh lower parts of the circle

east orange and the circle uh that's the one that was approved by the city council recently the always stop and then if I can just go to the okay so east uh yeah so east orange in the circle uh that's the location where the proposed sidewalk would begin right so that's an always stop that was already approved by the city council and as we go further further south to Washington and North Indiana. That's the other location. She was referring to the location at the circle in North Indiana. So, we we do not have a stop proposed there currently.

We do not. Correct. Um are we does it potentially qualify for a stop or is this a a a more of a yield situation? uh based on volumes, it most likely would not meet the quantitative quantitative criteria. Uh plus we uh there's an always thought that we'll be going in just very short block to the north at the circle in orange. Okay. And so um understandable if it doesn't meet any warrants for a stop sign, but there currently is not even a yield sign to my knowledge. Are we talking about a one-way stop or an allway just coming off of the circle?

Coming off of the circle. One of the issues that I've heard from the residents here is that um vehicles aren't exactly sure uh who is supposed to yield and who who is supposed to go and there's a lot of close calls and then with the amount of pedestrian volume that happens even without a sidewalk right now um it is a conflict area. Uh, so you know, and and there isn't any kind of order right now. Um, so if it's I'm sorry. Yeah. No, I I just think it would be good to add some kind of um signage. Yeah. If it's a one-way stop, it will likely meet. Okay.

Especially coming off of the circle coming into a T intersection basically. So, yeah. Okay. Is that something that we can evaluate and then take uh send over to the traffic commission for re or they can review it um to see if it if they want to move forward with it and then it would come back to council. Yeah, it's just something we the staff would do the you know the technical evaluation which I think it would likely meet then we can bring it forward.

Okay, fantastic. So I I would love to see that happen. Um, and then one of the one of the things, uh, is the speed hump. So, I know that there's only one designated for, uh, the North Santa Fe apartments right there in the little alleyway. There is a desire from the residents to have two. Um, is does the length of the street allow for two? I believe it's too short. So, we're talking about just one block at the end, right? Yeah. and it's kind of a low on the lower end of the speeds since it's an alley. So I think one speed hump should should be adequate.

Okay. So let's start with one and if we see that that doesn't work then I certainly will hear from the residents about that um and then I can bring it back as a discussion. Uh so right now um what I would like to move is uh the uh proposed uh sidewalk completion from East Orange Drive to um Washington Street on North Indiana Avenue. Uh the high visibility crosswalks. So everything that you see council in front of you um in this slide um and uh as well as uh having uh staff review a stop or other traffic control uh at the intersection of the circle and north Indiana and uh the two proposed um and and reviewed by the fire department and approved speed humps uh on the alley, one being behind behind the North Santa Fe Apartments and the others uh the other one being behind uh the marketplace uh on the other side. Um and that will complete my motion. Thank you so much. I'm in charge for a moment.

All right, this is fun. Um so I'm going to be up next. Uh so I I will you did I'm sorry I was reading something but you did include the uh the speed homes uh in the alley in your in your motion. Just one. Okay. One on this section and one on the further section up. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. This one these and then the sidewalk improvement. Not that yet. Okay. Um I will support that motion and second it. And council member Fox you are up. Thank you Deputy Mayor. first time you Yeah. acting mayor at the current.

Um would this typically be on our next CIP disc discussion to discuss like the CB uh CDBG funds and and for sidewalk priorities? So that was going to be one of my comments. If the council's supportive of this tonight, then we would move this to the top priority CDBG project and the other four or five would move down. Okay. I think number I think it was number five on the list is that Eucalyptus Avenue Ocean View Park where we're we're talking about 165 Eucalyptus. That is Is that something where it's a good idea to work on that or is it a good idea not to work on it with all the other construction going on right now?

So Sam, do you want to clarify where the Eucalyptus Avenue sidewalk is proposed on the on the Yes. south side of the street. Yeah. So it would be correct because we have a sidewalk on the north side currently which serves you know that connection. So that could be one possibly that could move. I think that it is the one that gets kicked off. So that's why I was curious like is that I know that there's a lot of things going on right there right now. And I wasn't sure if that was a strategic like hey we're already doing construction in the area. Let's just knock it all at once or if it's a hey there's already going to be construction. We should probably wait on this until we see how the development goes. It just happens to be number five.

It just happens to be number five. So that's that's why I was curious about it. I mean, I' I'd be happier kind of talking about this item during the CB CDBG or the CIP conversation just because then I can compare it to the other ones where I don't have necessarily all the other ones in front of me right now. Um, I wouldn't say that I'm not supportive of it. I mean, it's it is highly ranked on the on the list. So, it's it would likely be in next year's round even if it if we didn't get to it right now just with the current pacing. So, uh moving some things around. I know that a lot of these are actually the top ones above it are in your district as well. So, if you're if you're thinking that some of those ones are that this jumps that you know priority to you, you probably know your district best. So, that might that makes sense to me. So, um I'm so I'm kind of torn on it. I think like I'm not not against it in in practice. I think I' I would have rather heard about it during the CDBG CIP just discussion so I could see the other ones with it and you know make that kind of comparison in in my mind but um if the rest of council's amunable to it I'm I'm not again not against it in principle. So thanks.

So my question is are we uh we're not obligating the money tonight? That was the motion by council member Contrarus. What's the dollar amount for these improvements? 400,000 for the sidewalk,$10,000 for the two speed humps, and I don't think the stop sign is going to be uh maybe $800 for the stop sign.

Well, uh it is a relatively small amount of money in total. Um, was this something that uh staff envisioned as being part of the uh CIP? The CIP list for CDBG sidewalks is here. So, this would this would take priority over the sidewalks that we were considering in the next CIP. Okay. And and how does it rank on our we have a list of it's number eight on the list right now. Number eight. Okay. Okay. are how many of those are in uh Council Member Contreras's district? Quite a few, I might imagine.

Majority. Okay. So, if this is if this is where you think it's most important in your district, then I would defer to your judgment on that. So, I'll support it. Uh, Deputy Mayor. You actually asked my question. No. Okay. Very good. Well, it sounds like we have a motion to second. Please cast your votes. So, this is CDBG money, correct? Yeah. That's quite a bit of the I vote I That's quite a bit of the aotment though, huh? It's about 700,000 total. Yeah, more than that. Okay,

that motion is approved unanimously. That'll uh bring us to the end of our meeting and comments. We have any comments from the city clerk's office, city attorney, city manager? No, sir. Oh my gosh. Council member Fox. Thanks. Yeah, not a whole lot of comments from me tonight either. Thanks for everyone for a great discussion tonight and uh for a long day of hard work and so uh love my wife very much. Taco Tuesday. Enjoy some tacos. Thanks, Council Member Melendez. Uh, nothing more from me. Thank you for allowing me to participate virtually. I'll see you next time.

Thanks for being with us remotely. Uh, Council Member Contrarus. Huh? Let's see. Well, as usual, tomorrow is Wednesday, so if you want to join Gerasa Olympio for a volunteer trash pickup, uh, that is available to you tomorrow. Um, and other than that, I hope everybody has a really great night. Thanks, Deputy Mayor.

Try and make this one quick. Um, for anybody that was not paying attention, item C2 on consent were the sidewalks on Sunset going out uh for the approval of that contract. So, uh, you will be getting sidewalks probably sometime this summer, I would imagine. Um, had a meeting with Cal Cities. Uh, the only thing I'm going to take, we talked about the water table and all the other things. Uh but the big thing is with ebikes, there's a lot of legislation at the state level uh regarding ebikes and classification and what authority cities will have moving forward. So in that same vein, I am hosting a town hall this Sunday on April 19th in the Morris Vance community room right across from this chamber at 12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m. Uh we'll have our deputies there, our firefighters there, as well as San Diego Bike Coalition to have a discussion about ebikes, ebike safety, and community safety. So, please come out and join us for that. Uh, we're going to kick around some ideas of what we might be able to do. Um, to my wife Ally, I love you very much for allowing me to serve in this position and, uh, being gone, uh, many nights. And finally, on Thursday, uh, it is my father's 80th birthday. And, uh, yeah, so I just want to wish Jeff O'Donnell a very happy birthday. Uh, some of you may be shocked to learn this, but he and I have very differing political viewpoints and I still love him. So, I uh I just wanted to wish my dad a happy birthday. I hope you all have a great night and I will see you in a couple Tuesdays.

You know, you have too many common sense leanings. I knew it had to come from somewhere. Uh, so happy birthday to Mr. O'Donnell. Um, and to my beautiful wife. Thank you for allowing me to serve. Hope to be home with you soon. Uh this Saturday we celebrate Arbor Day with tree planting at 9:00 a.m. near the Botchi Ball courts at Bringing Terrace Park. Participants can pick up a free tree sapling and then head to Alt Vista Gardens Earth Day Festival starting at 10 a.m. The city's free mulch and compost event is this Friday uh through Sunday at the uh intersection of Veil Terrace Drive and Williamson Street. The storm water division will host a cleanup event at Buena Vista Creek Trail on April 25th as part of the I Love Clean San Diego Creek Bay cleanup. For more details on these events, visit the city's calendar at vista.gov/calendar. Thank you very much everyone.