Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Welcome everyone to the September 16th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting. I would like to call this meeting to order and lead you in the Pledge of Allegiance. Zoom webinar participation is available for members of the public. The Zoom webinar ID and link are available on the posted agenda on the city website. Can I ask for a roll call?

Public comments generally are limited to two minutes per speaker. The chair may further limit the time for public comments depending on the agenda schedule. Are there any comments from the public regarding today's item, or today's agenda? All right, Zoom participants, please use the raise hand feature if you'd like to provide a public comment. Are there any comments on Zoom? Okay, as we don't have a quorum, Right. We are just going into, we will just be doing the study?

Okay, thank you. All right, so ID 26425, the Williams Road, oh, no, is this what we're on? It's the wrong one. Better report. Brenda Newton, is that... Okay, ID 26441, the HUD Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report for Fiscal Year 2526.

Okay, thank you. Are there any questions from the commissioners to the members of city staff regarding this presentation? Okay, let's see, Commissioner Mora?

I was just, sorry. I just had a very serious snack here, a sour skittle, and it got down my throat. I think, while I appreciated the presentation, I'm curious about the timing. We did have a meeting during the September 2nd, which would have been during the window. Was there an advantage to presenting now after, or...

Thank you for clarifying. And then more broadly, I know we talked about the first slide, the minimum requirements for noticing but i'm wondering whether there's an opportunity in the last meeting we talked a lot about the importance of public outreach right and and unfortunately around the the realm of housing and uh supporting people who are unhoused there's this perception of the cities and this is not unique to salinas it's all of us right that are perceived to be uh inactive and then there's some really wonderful outcomes here that i'm wondering whether there's an opportunity to do somethi

And that was it for me. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Yeah, I do. I do. Thank you. Thank you for your report today. I appreciate it. I would like some hyperlinks and the website. I went to the website. I saw something that said, you know, take a look at this. I went to the website. I could not find it. I spent 15 minutes. I could not find it. When you say you can find X, Y, and Z on the website, X, Y, and Z should be a hyperlink, so it takes you right to it. So people don't have to dig, and I think that's part of public outreach. Don't make people dig through the website for something. Give them a hyperlink, take them right there. Thank you for t

OK, thank you. I think I think you may have answered this other question, but excuse me in the beginning, the very first slide, if you can go back to that for a second, if you wouldn't mind. Oh, way back there, yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, oh. No, I'm sorry, where the numbers started. Go back to where the, right, right, right, right. Okay, so there are a lot of expenditures, but not everything's been expanded, and that's because things are ongoing. I think you answered that in another slide. I just wanted to make sure about that. Okay, that really is all my questions and comments. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, and I apologize for my tardiness. I do have a question about the SORT team. I think it was one of the second to last slides. The funding that's allocated to SORT from this pool, what does that cover the cost of? I imagine SORT is an expensive endeavor. So what is that?

And is this funding dedicated towards staffing and benefits or what is it?

And then my last question, kind of in alignment with Commissioner Ruck. I know CHS does amazing work in the community, but do we measure, like, the sustainability and efficacy? So we have 177 folks served. Do we know and monitor, kind of, does their placement find them permanent housing in there, or do we track? what that 177 leads to, or is that just sort of ticking the box that we've served that many? And in terms of follow-up, what does it look like?

And do we keep demographics on those 177? So do we know who?

And do we see a disproportionality in terms of access? Do we see our Latino-Spanish speakers accessing the same as non-English speakers? Or is it an equitable distribution of those 177?

Thank you. Most of the commissioners already answered most of my questions. I just want to echo like we do with the past meetings on community outreach on what you guys put out there, more accessibility, easier accessibility. As you know, there's a lot of stuff going out there in social media already about the city. They talk about the city not being transparent and You know, I think there has to be a website or a link where we could go and see everything that, you know, the average person could see everything that we're seeing. That way they could see, you know, talk about numbers and they se

So are we working on something like that for accessibility? Yes.

Yeah, because like I say, there's a lot of people on Facebook, on Instagram, you know, just giving links to this, you know, what we did. And you just have to press on to it and it brings up everything there. You know, that way, like I said, there's no false narratives going out there. You know, and that's what's going on now. And we need to stop that. And that way we could get the people to back, you know, to support the city of Salinas. There's too much stuff going on right now.

You need to move forward and start getting better on that, better communications with the residents so they don't hear it from someone else instead of hearing it from the city themselves. Okay, thank you. Okay, we will now open for public comment on this item. Are there any comments from the public regarding this item? Yes, we have none. Zoom participants, please use the raise hand feature if you'd like to provide any comments. None? Okay, we will now close this public comment on this item. Are there any additional questions from the commissioners? Commissioner Mora?

I have no further questions. I want to say thank you very much for your presentation and hyperlinks, hyperlinks, hyperlinks. Any Commissioner Pernell?

Okay, thank you. I don't have any additional comments. All right, so moving on to the next, okay.

Go back to the minutes, okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay, ID 26443, minutes of September 2nd, 2026. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes of September 2nd?

I'll make a motion to approve the minutes.

Got a motion from Commissioner Mora and a second from Commissioner Ruck. Okay, can we have a roll call vote?

Thank you everyone. All right. All right, Commissioner comments and reports. Commissioner Mora.

Just very briefly to anyone who may be watching the California Youth Empowerment I hope I got that right. It's a statewide commission. We'll be here in Salinas on Friday. They're gonna be at the epicenter hosting a Youth Voices for Change event. So again, that's gonna happen this Friday. It's not every day that we have a state commission here in Salinas. So just any youth who may be listening or any adults who know youth, please help us spread the word. The event's going to take place Friday, September 18th from 3.30 to 5.30 at the Epicenter here in South Salinas. And then second comment, ther

I just wanted to acknowledge, I know city staff and an amazing cohort of volunteers managed to pull El Grito within less than a month, and it was a really special event. So just to acknowledge, I don't know the intricacies of who planned it, but I know there were thousands of people out there, and it was really, the city had to do some magic, I'm sure, on their end to get the streets closed and do it. So acknowledge the city staff and the volunteers who put it together. And I think much like Commissioner Mora, I don't know if it can be a future agenda items, but social media being what it is.

Thank you, Commissioner Pernell. And that's a good point that you have there. And I know as a business owner too, it's good to know instead of people talking out there, everybody has their own. It's even getting more so because we are in election year. So you're getting a lot more people giving false narratives out there. So, you know, the city, I believe, should be... putting it out there and just uh... letting them know like uh... commissioner pernell said you know how the system works because people uh... make up their own narrative of how it works and then that's what divides city of salin

Mr. Chair, may I? Yes. Piggyback on your comment there. Does the city have a PIO?

Okay, well, on that note, too much is lacking, okay? I'm just going to say it. I'm just going to be blunt. Too much is lacking. There's just way too much lacking. And I don't know what's actually being put out there by PIO, but there's too much information lacking.

Thank you. Okay. Do we have any future agenda items?

Great. Great. Okay. So the next regular planning commission meeting is scheduled for October 7. Who will be able to attend that meeting?

Thank you. All right. So at this time, the meeting's adjourned. Thank you, everyone.