City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah. Just what is the two-tone alert signal reception? What is that?

Yeah, I do have a question. I think I know the answer. But, you know, just out of an abundance of caution. I'm assuming this tower is only taking on your government function communications, there isn't going to be any type of a private or, you know, commercial piggybacking on your tower.

And so I also will just... that you could have taken a much more flippant attitude about communications with us because i'm convinced from the reporting we got i did a little bit of my own reading to verify we have nothing to say about your installation of that tower it but it but it certainly is helpful to have the communication for our planning purposes so i i appreciate you uh recognizing and acknowledging that we're gonna be good at communication

I also very much enjoy the relationship with you personally and the fire department and um and also our sheriff so I feel like it's all growing in the right direction thank you for that anything else yeah I'll add one more thing yes please just to piggyback on what everyone else said thank you so much for for coming to talk to us for admitting that there's better communication that could have happened to think that's something that we're all working on as a city And also, I just want to thank you for the great job you're doing to protect our community. Advancements like this, while they might

wildfire safety and risk mitigation. I noticed on the spreadsheet it mentions pursue partner agreements to reduce fuel and hazardous debris, but I didn't see an update about that. And so I was wondering, in your presentation, Norma, and so I was wondering if there is any update on that progress.

yeah absolutely I just wanted to make sure that was happening because when I saw it saying in progress and didn't hear an update about it I was just making sure that didn't fall through the cracks because it's really important thank you that's all yeah a question I have a couple questions so let's just take that issue as an example so if a council person

has ideas either from a community member or from their own thought processes about how to tweak one of our tactics. or even maybe take a new direction, a similar but new direction. What's the right process for doing that? Do we have to come back with a five-person meeting or? I don't know.

So process-wise, have a conversation with you. and then you'll decide how to move forward, if at all.

I also have a question. Let's just take the bike trail agreement. My understanding is that there's kind of two components to that. One is the trail from the western boundary to Whispering Oaks.

And then there's a goal of whispering out to Soul Park.

Here's what you're in for on the long Okay, and then my understanding is on the On the Whispering Oaks to Soul Park end, we're not looking at doing Whispering Oaks out in Portland. We're looking as the most likely solution to go through Soul Park. Well, there have been excuse me, the golf course.

Well, so I mean, and that's part of that's kind of at the heart of my question. So as negotiations are taking place, you know, a, you know, a direction is potentially forming. then how and when does it come back to us to say potentially, well, maybe we shouldn't.

I think maybe we ought to have some There's some items that I think are going to move forward naturally. There's some items that are going to potentially have a lot of variability, and some of those maybe hear more about in your weekly reports. Not saying you do it every week, but because I'm very interested in how some of these things are going. I'm interested in knowing what the negotiation process is.

But as you explained to me, the golf course has – the massive bridge over the river, which is, no, it's great, except for you're potentially running the bike trail through golf balls.

This kind of sounds like discussion to me. It is, it is.

Which I think is fine, because there's a lot of process questions here.

I have a question. Well, I've got, yes. Okay. I have no understanding of what's happening with the big business incubation concept. I'm interested in that. But maybe that's an item for discussion.

And there are some cities that have done innovation programs. That's right. Ventura and so my last question on the bi-monthly town halls I'm assuming that means we're kind of have a general goal of doing about six of these a year

that was what we we started off with I just wanted to make you know so bimonthly I'm always thinking about is that twice a month it's better to say every other month that depends on you know who's on the council and and if they want to do that really so I don't think that there's a required and or you know

Yeah, so there's a lot of these that I don't understand the process or where in the process we actually are. And I think that they're at different phases. So it might be that there's a junction where it's possible to go down one of three paths, or it might be that it's still in the middle of formation. is there a way to get a better sense of that I know that it you know there is in process but I think that they're sort of the different phases so at some point to get a real sense of where in the phase we are would be great we could provide more detailed notes maybe following this like a status

I can very briefly say that the sage on the stage, when asked about the question of venting, he said venting is great, but what you also need to do, you absolutely must clean the vegetation, pine needles, anything with oil. He said otherwise that will, but those two things together are very, very strong. So anyway, we can talk about that. It was very interesting.

No, I bring it up when it's relevant. I had a question about another issue. I wanted to just check in on the economic action plan, and if we had a timeline on that, I guess what I understood was that, I can't remember his name, but he's spoken to all council members, is that correct?

Yeah, so I would – well, I mean, who knows who's going to be back in December, but I'd like to move forward with that. Sure. To try to give them a timeline and to work on that. That would be great. Yeah. And figure out where and if that is part of – and a required part of the general plan, you know, where we are with that and –

Okay, that would be helpful because I forgot. Thank you very much.

I was going to comment on that one also. Sure. My recollection is that I brought this up and asked that we have a general plan element that was actually not, the concept wasn't an economic action plan, the concept was addressing the feasibility or best methods of Making oh, hi more livable for its residents in the face of a onslaught of. And and now, you know, that was my goal and I keep watching the label of the plan. Heading more and more towards it's like we're trying to figure out how to generate business, which goes in a different direction.

Can I add to this, Councilman Whitman? Because this, you and I, this is partly... Part of the reason why we're doing an economic action plan to begin with is so that our revenue isn't so weighted on tourism. So one of the purposes that I understood that we were bringing this forward and why I am very committed to it is because to see if if we did if we did want to have more balance with tourism if we did want to have more revenue coming in for the residents here then how could we open up those revenue streams and what would that look like so the tourism management plan that you were proposing

So thank you for that. And I'm probably just going to keep Reminding everybody that my goal is that we figure out if we can make Ojai more livable for its residents. I appreciate what you're saying. Makes sense to me. And I'll keep that in mind.

Now, I'm not saying build 10-story anything. And I'll also add that... know maybe 20 years ago the city council decided to create the bryant you know industrial air kit it was kind of the label for it and um what didn't happen after they did that or you know maybe they tried i don't know but you know there there wasn't a lot of uh emphasis put on now we have this area, let's attract the businesses that pay more than service industry rates. And so I support the idea that we figure out how to attract those businesses and those jobs.

Just a suggestion. I think Council Member Whitman, you might have found your particular town hall. Because there are a lot of stakeholders, and there are a lot of ideas. Anyway, that occurred to me that that seems to be a particular interest of yours.

No one wants to hear me talk about this.

Well, you can just have people come up. But I agree. I think that's absolutely the point here, and whether or not it's bringing what it's actually going to bring in. I have a different vision, but it's not about tourism. It's really about a regenerative Ojai and making an economy out of that, kind of like a green economy, only it's a regenerative economy that takes money from TOT and stuff and puts it back into the community workers who do the work that makes Ojai a safer, fire-resilient type of place so that you have a virtual kind of- It could be a multi-subject. So I have a plan for that, w

Yeah, I have lots of ideas. Probably not the time to discuss those, but I think that... You mean today? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, great, great. Yeah, I did, you know... it wasn't completely lost on me that we had scheduled a joint meeting and then the school board announces you know what they're gonna do again without like you know talking to us about what we might be able to do so you're you're i'm taking from you you think they're ready for a conversation i'm almost willing to have a conversation yeah yeah so i think we again we can make more progress with a couple of people and then bring it fo

At least that could I don't think we ever dissolve the 2 plus 2.

And then I had just one other question. I wrote down, jotted down some things, uh, as they were coming across. So, um, you know, one was micro grid and undergrounding. And, um, I wrote down undergrounding because I think I have a general understanding of micro grid issue, but, um, I'm not saying this is the forum but I think I need a better understanding of what's being you know talked about and considered concerning undergrounding and you know basically same comment wrote down TOT nonprofit support which I'm not certain what that item meant so I'm interested you know, where that is. I mean, w

all the way to Texas, and there is so much development of solar. That whole area, you know, you get 300 days of sunshine a year, but there is so much development of that. We get a ton of sunshine here, so I'm interested in what's feasible.

Can I ask a question about that? Sure. Because I think I was under the false impression that I recall bringing Lisa Wise on board. I was kind of you know, very interested in hearing what she would have to say, because I read about her firm. And then, you know, it seemed I was under the impression we shifted gears to this other firm that we've all met with recently.

So I guess I will look at arts, culture, and recreation funding. And I particularly put recreation funding in there to think about parks. And it comes to my attention that we should really be thinking about dog parks, because there aren't any in OHA. I mean, you can go to Seoul, but you have to drive there. And it causes a lot of tension between Folks who don't want dogs off leash at parks and people who know their dogs need to be off leash So there's so many reasons why dog parks in Ojai make perfect sense So I would like to bring forth some sort of I mean, I've got I've got ideas about it Yo

Yeah, it certainly could. And the thing about it is that these dog parks don't need to be permanent. Really, you're talking about a fence. You might have to re-sod and all that kind of stuff, no doubt. But you're basically talking about a fence and a bench. It is something that I've been thinking about. And perhaps some shade, you know, and it would be great for all our elderly folks that walk their little dogs, you know, and they can go sit and talk, which I know they love to do. And there are places all over Ojai that could be little parklets. So I would like to. So I think that one would al

sure yep uh let's just call it oust yeah campus reimagination yes downtown campus yeah i would also like to bring forward uh just uh wildfire safety and risk mitigation with debris clearance and seeing what we can do on city properties to to move forward with an RFP or expedite that process.

And I'll add, this isn't on, it isn't listed as a priority, but I will say that I have gotten, on the issue of wildfire safety, I've gotten large number of calls about people who want to have a very clear plan information strategy for the concept that some people are going to evacuate whether somebody tells you to shelter in place or not and we need to do a better job potentially of communicating with the public that, you know, kind of like, I mean, I grew up in local schools, so they got you kind of conditioned that if there's an earthquake, you jump up and you get in the threshold of the doo

You know, a little bit of angst over, I don't think I know enough about what's going to happen. I agree with that.

move forward and if I if I could interject also this is this is something that actually Randy Coggins spoke about at our last meeting in public comments and and so the I just want to thank the fire safe council and all the the public that our safety can everyone who's working on these efforts because I know that there's a lot that's being done and it's happening so fast that we don't always get updates or we don't always have you know consolidation of all that's happening but I just want to acknowledge that some of this is being done and appreciate the efforts it may be that another communicat

But then I think we explained to them why we can't give them 100% of the details. That's right. But, you know, there are, yeah, so there are like, you know,

I'm not negating anything that the Fire and Safe Council did. No, of course, of course. Town hall after town hall. I'm just saying, now maybe it's time for a city-sponsored one.