City Council - Regular Meeting

Awesome. Hello everybody. Welcome to our afternoon session of today's council meeting. It is March I'm sorry, April 7th, 2026. And let me refresh my screen. Maybe that will help. Go ahead and call the meeting to order and we'll pass it to Clementine to do roll call and share announcements with the public. Council member Barber present. Council member Garcia here. Council member Rash here. Council member Smith here. And Mayor Williamson

here. Public comment and participation information is provided on this meeting's agenda, which is online at monterey.gov/aggendas. In-person attendees, please keep your electronic devices and phones muted to prevent audio interference with our meeting. Consistent with the First Amendment and the Brown Act, individuals have the right to speak at public meetings, which includes the right to criticize or support city policies or actions. The city encourages your uninhibited and robust feedback on public issues affecting the city, and we thank you for participating.

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Clementine. And with that, we will go ahead and start with our presentations. The first item on our agenda is to welcome and introduce Dante Hall as the new city manager for the city of Monterey. Um, so Dante, welcome. uh been a long process and and transition for us and um I mean I would use it as an opportunity to to thank Lou who is I'm assuming is not present with us here today. Um uh he was very excited to end his his tenure. Um we're very thankful for him filling in the gap in between and um just really excited to have you on board Dante. And so I'll just pass it to you to share a few thoughts if you'd like to.

Sure. I would like to uh share a few thoughts. Uh first, I just want to thank you, mayor, and members of the council for um the warm welcome. I've I've been had a chance to meet with staff, have lunch, and walk uh the streets of Monterey, and everyone's been so welcoming. And so that's something that um is really endearing, and I'm just grateful for for showing that gratitude to me. Like I told with the council in my many conversations, I'm really here to do the work of the council and the community. You know, plain and simple. You know, my focus is really to listen, to learn, and to help turn your vision into action. And also, as I said um on a couple of occasions to council, you know, I lead with empathy. And to me, what that means is really understanding the people behind the decisions, um, supporting the staff, and also engaging the community with openness, with honesty, and with respect. And so, um, over the next couple of weeks, I'll be meeting with the departments, engaging with members of the community to really understand the key issues, explore the different sides, and see if there's a way to move forward um, on a lot of the key critical uh, items that the city is facing. So Monterey is a special place. I'm honored to serve and I'm looking forward to partnering with all of you and getting to work.

Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you, Dante. Monterey is a special place and we're lucky to have a special person like you join our team. I know on on behalf of the entire council. Um we're really excited. I will share with the public that I know a lot of folks are anxious to have a conversation with you and get to know you. And so I just ask for folks to give him some grace, give him some patience because there's a lot going on in the city of Monterey and he has a lot of conversations and stakeholders to build relationships with. Um, but we're really excited to have you here and I I'm sure that I speak for everybody in our community that, you know, whatever you need to have us help support you and being successful in your role, um, we're we're here for that. So really excited. Open it up to the council for any questions at this time. comments.

Yeah, I I think uh Mayor, you summed it up well and just uh welcome to Monterey. We're really excited to have you and really excited about the uh background that you bring and and I think it'll be really helpful for a lot of the items that we're trying to address. So, welcome. Welcome very much to you. Um we're all excited and we're very happy you're here and anything we can help with, like the mayor says, just call us. So, welcome in Ditto.

Uh, welcome. Uh, you look great in that seat and uh, thank you. And we know that you'll have patience with us because councils always need that, but we look forward to working with you and for u accomplishing a lot of the things short term and long term. Welcome aboard.

Awesome. All right. And with that, we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment. So for for folks that may not be aware, how this period works is we identify the public commenters at the beginning of the public comment period. After those folks are identified, we close it off and then only those speakers will be able to speak. So this is public comment specifically on the welcome and introduction of Dante Hall as the new city manager of the city of Monterey. So this is not general public comments for items that are not on today's agenda. This is specifically the presentation um on on that we're currently considering. So I'll start with folks on Zoom. If you're on Zoom, you can use raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item? We have one, two. Anybody else? Three. If what I just ask is if you're in the chamber, if you could just stand up to the left of the podium. Um or if you prefer to remain seated, you can identify yourself by raising your hand. And again, this is specifically to do with welcoming Dante as our new city manager. So we have four Anybody else? Okay. So, we'll cut it off to the four and I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to 5 4 3 2 1. We have one on Zoom. We'll go ahead and leave it to two minutes. So, we'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

You always put this so high. I'm short. Still short. You should get somebody to go before you and that way it could kind of tease you up. Well, all right. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes.

Okay. Thank you so much. Good evening, council members and Mayor Williamson. I am Michelle Pierce, director of client and event services with C Monterey. Uh I partner closely with all of our local hotels in the Monterey Conference Center to attract conferences and group business to our destination. Uh on behalf of C Monterey, uh welcome. Uh we look forward to continuing our strong partnership with the city as we advance our shared commitment to sustainable and responsible travel on the Monterey Peninsula. Uh our organization's commitment extends beyond marketing. Uh we actively support visitor safety and stewardship efforts. Uh recently we participated in a beach cleanup with the Porto Hotel and Spa. And we implemented new travel alerts on our website during hazardous conditions such as high surf warnings to keep our visitors safe. And thank you to Council Member Rash for the suggestion and for your leadership and commitment to our visitor safety. Uh, city manager Hall would like to welcome you to one of the most beautiful places to live, work, and visit in the world. Welcome. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Esther Malcin. I'm the president of the Laguna Grande Neighborhood Association and I just wanted to welcome you on behalf of the residents in my neighborhood and I look forward to you coming to our neighborhood especially. Um we have this weekend a neighborhood gathering and next weekend our park is um participating in a celebration of its 50th anniversary of our JPA. So hopefully we'll you'll be able to fit us in. I know you're going to be super busy and I don't want to take up a lot of time here, but just welcome and I look forward to talking to you oneon-one.

Good evening. My name is Diego Cavdo. I'm president of uh All Monterey Business B business association and I'm here to welcome you Dante. Uh we work very closely with the city on the Fourth of July parade, the tree lightning um for the opening up car week and hoping to work very closely with the city and you and hope to uh be able to have a meeting with you soon. Thank you.

Before my timer starts, it is regarding the agenda item 10. Okay. So would that be now or later? Yep. We can't take that now. So that'd be at like the 7:00 part or do you guys vote on that now prior to that? Cuz that's what I did not understand in the agenda. Give me one second here. Yeah, that's in the afternoon. Yeah. So it's on consent. So when we go to consent, um you can request that item be pulled or you can just give public comment at that time. So that's the 7:00 part. It'll be it'll be coming up here shortly, but So there'll be a difference. It'll be this it'll be this afternoon. Okay. in this in this meeting. I wouldn't leave if you want to speak on I won't. Thank you. Yep.

All right. With that, we'll go to our commenters on the one public commenter on Zoom. This is a telephone caller, so you'll need to unmute yourself and then you can go ahead.

Good evening. This is Nina Bey. Um I want to welcome you, Mr. Hall, to the city. I hope that you will be a positive change for the city and the overall community. Um, past administrations have violated the public trust and failed to be transparent, violated the Brown Act, ADA, and other laws, and special interests have often dominated decision-making. Aspects of Montery's history have also been quite unsavory. Monterey in the area has huge challenges ahead, many of which have been kicked down the road, including national and state impacts, the city's structural deficit, impacts to drinking water supplies from the Ford Super Fund site, severe ocean damage and decline. We had the Moss Landing battery fire last year, and we have Ford burns, which are toxic. Cowfire's practices that have increased fire danger and impact nature and the Navy and Pentagon impact to the city and the area with its 5G projects and its expansion plans that all of these have affected the city in many negative ways. So, I look forward to your new insight, your new eyes, your fresh uh approach to all this and and hope that um a new way forward can be happening in for the city of Monterey and all who enjoy its beautiful um benefits. Thank you. All right, that we'll go ahead and close general public comment, bring it back to the council for any last comments. All right, seeing none, again, Dante, welcome aboard. We're so excited to have you here. And with that, we're going to get right to business. So, all right. Next up, we have item two on the agenda, which is to recognize April 2026 as fair housing month. I'm just going to go ahead and read this proclamation that we have. Whereas April 2026 marks the 58th anniversary of the

passage of the title 9 of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, known as the Federal Fair Housing Act. The city of Monterey celebrates April as Fair Housing Month. This act outlines a national policy of fair housing for all individuals who live in the United States. And whereas the federal fair housing act protects individuals from discrimination based on race, color, sex, disability, religion, family status, familial status, and national origin. And whereas discrimination based on race, color, national origin, gender, disability, familial status, religion, marital status, source of income, or any arbitrary reason is illegal in California. And whereas as a community we understand that economic progress is best served by promoting opportunities for all communities with equal access to good jobs, schools, healthcare, transportation, and housing. Whereas the city of Monterey actively supports initiatives that support fair housing through education and partners with organizations such as Eden Council for Hope and Opportunity, Echo Housing to host fair housing workshops for tenants and landlords. And whereas the Eden Council for Hope and Opportunity has assisted more than 434 households, ensuring residents of Monterey have the knowledge and resource resources to secure stable housing and contribute to a thriving inclusive community. Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Tyler Rimson, mayor of the city of Monterey, on behalf of the city council and citizens, thank you, hereby proclaim the month of April 2026 as fair housing month. And so let's give it up for fair housing month. Um council comments, questions on the proclamation. All right, seeing or hearing none, I'll open up for public comment. Same thing. Folks identify themselves at the

beginning of the public comment period. So this is specifically on the fair housing month proclamation. Anybody on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function while you're navigating your way there. I'll check in with folks in the chamber. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item? See one. Anybody else in the chamber? All right. So, go ahead and close it off to the one in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to 5 4 3 2 1. We have one on Zoom. So, we'll go and start in the chamber. Give them three minutes.

Good afternoon again. I'm Esther Malcin. I'm speaking as the founder of Monterey County Renters United. I want to thank the council for passing this resolution. It is important, as we all know, that our housing situation be addressed very seriously. This city is 66% renters who have been um working and maintaining and keeping this city functioning. Yet they've very very they've been strained very much on housing and their commuting has contributed to our climate issue as well as our homelessness problem. And I think it's um important that we know we have made some progress. I'm looking forward to finally something breaking ground behind here so that we can get some more affordable housing on Madison. Um, but we do need to try and speed this up a little bit. Um, because we can't afford to keep losing residents and I hope that with the addition of the new city manager, we can expedite some of the things that have been kind of floundering. And um again, thank you for being the first council to really care enough about this to consider policies that were wouldn't have been considered in the past, especially because the majority of the of the council in the past were rental property owners. So they were not representing the majority of the residents in the city. Thank you. Right. With that, we'll go to our caller on Zoom. Miss Bey, you can go ahead.

Thank you. Uh this is Nina Bey. This is a very timely pro topic for Monterey. It always has been because of Monteray's origin. Um they uh the uh state funding that was initially gotten by the first from the first governor to um for militias to kill Native Americans and more recently racial housing covenants in the city. The Monav Vista Park, now in the Monterey Vista neighborhood, had this requirement by the developer of Monterey Peninsula Associates that um the um premises here undescribed shall not be used or occupied or permitted to be used or occupied by Asiatics or Negroes except that persons of said races may be employed as household servants, and the said grantees agree not to sell, convey, lease, or transfer said premises or any part thereof, or any estate state or interest therein accepting to persons belonging to the Caucasian race. This is a horrible chapter in Monteray's history. I'm not sure that it's over. Um more recently um with the roll out of telecommunications towers um many of us are electromagnetically sensitive um in particular and uh the city has was going to allow cell towers next to a few of us who are very um sensitive disabled by electromagnetic sensitivity. That's a fair housing issue. And also a fair housing issue is that renters get the same rights as property owners. And that has not happened here. uh renters do not get the same notifications for land use projects and that needs to change. Um some of us have been lobbying for that change for years and up to this point the administration has been unwilling to extend those same equal rights to renters and I hope that changes along that's a fair housing issue too. Thank you.

All right. Thank you to both of our public comments. Um, as outlined in the proclamation, really the conversation around fair housing comes up around um, discrimination, making sure that we're creating fair opportunity for everybody in our community that's not based off of a protected class. And um, I I want to give credit where credit is due and and I know that um, at both the state and the national level, there's been a lot of effort in in trying to create protections for um, communities that have historically been discriminated against. Um, but there's still a lot of work to do and so it's great that we can sit here and celebrate the advances that we've made in this space. Um, we just got to keep keep the heat on and keep doing the work to make sure that we're taking care of every resident in the city of Monterey, regardless of their background. So, with that, we will go ahead and move on to general public comments. So, this is for public comments that are not on items not on today's agenda. So, this is non-aggendaized items. For folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. In the meantime, I'll ask folks in the chamber to stand to the left of the podium. And I just want as a heads up as everybody is getting adjusted here, I'm seeing that there's going to be a lot of public commenters. So, just know that your public comments are probably going to be reduced here in time. So, if you want to try to augment your public comments, um, Give folks a moment to get adjusted.

Can you turn the volume up? Can't hear you back here. Thanks. Okay. Um, who's all in line? Where's the line end? That's what I want to know. Okay. If you're in line, you have to be inside the room. So, let's let it keep snaking around here. Okay. So, who's the last person? Just try to be clear. Who Who's the last person in line?

You are. So, you're want You're not wanting to speak. Okay. All right. All right. So, we'll do a count. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 in the chamber. Janine is the last person in line. So, go ahead and cut it off at Janine. Nobody else after Janine. What did I say? 29. I I forgot. 27. 27. There's two sitting. Okay. Can somebody do a count for me again?

One um in the back. Are you planning on speaking? Perfect. Yeah, absolutely. Does the baby want to speak as well? Well, I think I think she will on I get 19. 19. Yep. One, two, three.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18. I have 18. So, cut it off to the 18 in the chamber and I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to 5 4 3 2 1. We have three on Zoom. We're go ahead and leave it to a minute and a half. So, we'll go ahead and start in the chamber. Dan Turner, Mterrey, Fisherman's Flats. This is chapter three of the sidewalk saga. I tried to present the first two segments in somewhat humorous vein, but there's really nothing funny about what's happened. It's disgraceful. This is disgraceful that after two years of talking to the Department of Public Works, all that I have is um a promise from a guy named Billy who works for public works that sometime in April the sidewalk would finally be repaired. Um, the what I'd like to see done is for the council to establish a blue ribbon commission composed of a council member, the assistant city manager, and any relevant heads of departments that have to do with fixing sidewalks. And this commission should come back in 90 days and report to the city council on recommendations what needs to be done, who needs to be hired, who needs to be fired, um what what do you need so that within 6 months, let's say, of uh public works hearing that a sidewalk needs to be repaired, it gets done. And of course, the city council would then have to implement those recommendations or else it would just be a waste of everyone's time. With a minute and a half, that's all I have to say. There's just one more

thing, but you're going to have to wait for two weeks.

Thanks, Mr. Turner. Good afternoon, Mayor Williamson, Vice Mayor Smith, and city council members Barbara, Rash, and Garcia, and new city manager Hall. My name is Kim Ever. Today, a spokesperson for the launch team of St. James Episcopal Church in Monterey. We are here to introduce you to a new program we are building right up the hill on the corner of Franklin and High. That is the location of both our church and McGawan House. Um, our program, Grounded Hope, ESC Monterey, will be one of about seven or eight Episcopal Service Cores in the country and only the second on the West Coast. As you will find in more detail in the brochure that we have available for you, um, the Episcopal Service Corps offers young adults between the ages of 21 and 32 an opportunity to spend 10 months in professional, personal, and spiritual discernment as to the next path on their journey. A major component of the program will also involve spending those 10 months giving um gain community and social serial justice uh experience by working at a nonprofit. McGowan House, which is being renovated, was built in 1918 as a retreat center for the philosophist of Pasadena. For many years, it has served as a home to 12step programs, the Buddhist Zeno for the Monterey Zen Center, a Korean church, the Monterey Friends of Yung, an artist studio, and the image makers photography group. The new program, Grounded Hope, will continue that opportunity for transformation. We're going to be reaching out to the community for donations to build and fund this living space. Um, networking with community services where that might be appropriate for our young people to work in. And we would love to invite you all as a group or individual to V as our program to discuss grounded hope. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. And I'm glad to see that my uh my neighbor church here is is getting this great program going. Thank you for that update. Is it resetting? You're good. You can start.

Oh, is it one one minute three? Uh a minute 30. Is that it? Okay. Hi, I'm Nancy Soule. I'm the secretary of the Oldtown Neighborhood Association. And as such, it's been a really busy week on my on my email box because people are really upset and confused with the parking program that's being implemented. This was a parking program that you city council uh put into action on November 4th with a vote and what came about last night. We had our neighborhood meeting. It was packed like this. Many of the people had already gone home. It was after 9 when I heard something very crucial. People have been asking, well, if you say you need to know if the neighborhood is supportive of the new program, why don't you just keep go ahead and mail the um or start with the license plate reader, add the $25, tell them that the old permits expire on the 30th of April, and see if they register or not. Count it up. Do it that way. Others said, "Why aren't you asking yes or no? Do you support the program?" Instead, the neighborhood is supposed to go doortodoor or or find out from their neighbors if they are supporting and will they register. And there's many problems with that. The big thing is that the city council needs to reagendize this thing. There are so many problems. I've I've put it in the the handout that I hope you passed around. You need to look at it again. It's not fair for the voting process. It should be yes or no. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon. My name is Bradley J. Strawer. I'm a professor over at the Naval Postgraduate School here in Monterey. I'm actually the department chair of the Defense Analysis Department and I teach ethics and I have a group of people. We've developed an ethics program for law enforcement and I'm here today to give some good news. And I'd like to invite Chief Dave Hobber up. We are presenting Monterey Police Department with a recognition of uh adopting this ethics program for law enforcement. It's a researchbacked program uh now adopted by over a 100 police departments across the country. But I'm very proud to say the very first department to adopt the program was Monterey Police Department and this is a little certificate here and I'm going to read it very quickly. So, be it hereby known that the Monterey Police Department, having fully demonstrated its voluntary commitment to law enforcement excellence by pursuing the innovative and researchback ethics initiative, Compass Ethicards, thereby raising ethical awareness and outcome for its officers, building community trust for the citizens it serves, and thus having exemplified the best professional practices to hold itself to the highest standards of moral clarity and service is hereby recognized as a compass leader and the first compass leader in ethical culture. Well done to Monteray. Hi, my name is Sam Shar. Uh, I have a business here in Mor. I have food truck is no meditarian street food and I have a location in lighthouse is named habibi cafe 225 lighthouse and then um done everything in the cafe but somebody from the city here he stopped everything from me for the credit the war credit is not enough in Mor and then uh I'm so sorry for that uh this one it is any small

business you need power to come to the business. Uh I'm not have anybody help me in the city. Uh I'm doing everything myself, work to myself, hard work. But now I have the location but nobody help me for that. I need help. And then um I don't know. It's uh first time I'm talking to that but uh thank you. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much. Thank you.

You can jump right in. Yes.

Uh good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, respected city officials. Uh my name is Ysef. I am also one of the owners of Habibi Cafe that Mr. Sam spoke about before me. I came from the east coast to join him in this business. Put my life in two suitcases and drove from New Jersey all the way out here. As he mentioned, we've been having some challenges uh with some of the individuals in the city in order to get our business up and running. And being in the lighthouse district location wise, I think this business would be very beneficial for the city of Monterey in terms of, you know, students from the DLI, getting to know our town, the tourists, the locals and everything. And I don't know if it's a coincidence or it was deliberate that yesterday our application for a building permit was closed by some individuals here in the city who had knowledge that we would be speaking in front of you today. So I just want to know like if I can leave my contact information with anyone so that we can voice our concerns a little bit more and seek assistance from you know anyone in the city who may be able to help besides those causing us our issues. So because we want to get this business up and running, I think as I mentioned, it would be very beneficial for the city of Monterey, you know, the coffee house in the lighthouse district or for the tourists, for those visiting us here to study, for those going to school here, for those who live here, for those who work here as well, but we have not faced anything but obstacles. So I'm not sure who would how we'll be able to be directed or who can help us navigate these challenges. Thank you. Um, you can find the council's contact information on the city's website. Um, so you can email the council.

Yes, sir. Thanks. Yes, sir.

Hello, Mayor, city council. Mr. Hill, welcome. Uh, my name is Bob Pollace, eight nyear resident of Mterrey. I am the developer of the three and a half acres on Canary Row and now also opening two new restaurants there on Way Street. Um, my comments today are driven by a few things that happen. Even perhaps the last gentleman that just spoke. Our cities and communities are really driven very often by the business that we operate. That's how we have to make money or people are doing a job somewhere that are paying taxes. Things don't magically just get fixed up and repaired. As I was pulling weeds on the three and a half acres as I often have to do, people don't realize that the work that goes behind an opening a business can be quite difficult. But someone walks up and say, "This would be a wonderful place for a park." Well, who's going to pay for it? How do we afford that? Our city can't afford to open another park. The only way things are fixed and repaired are by actually a business that can be viable. And that can often be very difficult for many of us. We have the caboose. I'm really worried about the caboose. I'm trying to step in and figure out is there a way I can assist in not losing the caboose from the uh um trailway. Um there's been issues with it in the past. It's very hard to do. And as a business guy, you look at it and go like, "Wow, how do you generate revenue to save that? It's 20 grand to move it. Probably there'll be another 20 grand if you have to demolish it. If someone wants to buy it, we lose history. I'm very much big about history in Monterey. I think we need to have more than just tourism in general. We need a three-legged stool, a four-legged stool that we can actually have business, tourism, um, history, fishing, other things and ways of generating dollars. But I thank you for your time today and welcome, Mr. Hill.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is uh James McFarland. I'm a resident of Oldtown and I'm here today to speak about the new uh residential parking permit that's affecting Oldtown and New Monterey. Forgive me, I'm going to read from my notes if I don't make eye contact with you. The deadline to re-qualify these neighborhoods is looming and so far many streets have not reached the 51% threshold to continue having the unlimited parking of the limited parking signs. There are several reasons for this, too many to go into now. The core issue, the core issue right now is time. Meeting between the residents and parking staff have been very productive, but we need to buy more time to work out the kinks and given that the deadline is the 20th of this month and the new program is scheduled to take to start at the end of the month. Therefore, we are asking the council to take up the matter of extending the deadline of implementing the new plan before those deadlines expire. Parking staff has bent over backwards to help make this all work, but I don't think they yet grasp that the self-imposed end date proved by the city council of the current parking program is not set in stone. unforeseen circumstances that parking staff did not anticipate uh which the community will explain to council when the matter is on the agenda simply require more time to address. Thank you.

Thanks, sir.

Tom Reeves, I'm speaking on behalf of the new Monterey Neighborhood Association and not as a candidate. And welcome, Mr. Hall. Um the same topic on the residential parking permit program. We sent you a comment letter with I believe it was seven key points in it and I would uh echo the comments from before that we're asking you to place this on a future agenda. Um this is not just a stall tactic. We think that the program needs some serious retooling. I there's a lot of confusion on the part of the public. I personally walked the part of New Monterey because we had gotten word that people weren't registering and that there was some confusion. And as I went door to door knocking on doors talking to people, indeed that's the case. There's a lot of confusion. Just as one example, one of the criteria is they need to have four contiguous blocks register with 51%. So first question that I was asked is four blocks. What do you mean by that? Is that four blocks in a rectangle? Is that four blocks in a straight line? Is that four blocks in a zigzag going through the neighborhood? And I was like, I don't know. So, I asked staff. I was like, well, yeah, we can we can kind of work with you. We can do that. Well, that's that's fine and dandy, but that's not an answer for the public, though. The public's got to have a clear understanding of what they're up against. So, I think you need to put a pause on this. You need to put it on a future agenda. And the reason for that is so that we can discuss making modifications to the program. Thank you.

Thank you. Why didn't the line move on up so you guys get a little bit closer to the podium here? There we go. Hi there.

Hi. Good afternoon, city council. I'm talking about my brother who passed away on the 28th at the Salty Seals. So on March 28th, 2026, our lives changed forever. That is the day that we lost my brother Marcos Ru Sullify. My brother had gone out to the salty sea with my cousin and his friend. While they were while they were there, they were approached by an aggressor who began antagonizing them and asking them what they bang. My brother and my cousin told the aggressor multiple times that they did not bang and that they were just trying to make it home safely. They were not looking for trouble. It is incredibly unfortunate that our family must now go through this tragic loss. The pain of losing my brother is something that will stay with us forever. Our family will never be the same again. And I will never hear my brother's voice again. I will never hear his laugh and I will never be able to hug him again. But I want to make something very clear. My brother was not gang affiliated and he did not believe in suicide. He believed in his children. He believed in his family and the future that he was working to build. Our family is asking for the truth. We are asking for transparency. We respectfully request that the Monterey Police Department release the full unedited video footage from the salty seal in the hotel plaza along with the all the body cam footage related to what happened. My brother deserves justice. He deserves peace. and our family deserves answers. Marcos really solify was more than a name. He was a father, a son, a brother, and a man of faith and a light in this community. His life mattered and his story matters. And to the world, I want you to remember that Marcos may be gone, but his sons will grow up knowing their father was loved, respected, and worth fighting for. And our family will never stop speaking his name until the truth is known.

Thank you, Bruce. What's your name? So, we we apologize for for your loss. our our condolences to you and your family. Thank you for coming to speak to us today and I would just make sure that you connect with the police department to make sure that you get your request submitted to them formally. Okay. Thank you. Awesome.

Hi, I'm here to speak on my son's father that passed away on March 28th, Marcos Ree Salifi. Everyone that knew Marcos knew how much he changed the day he became a father. The face he the way his face would light up when our son would crawl in any room. the tears in his eyes. Every time Elijah would say, "Dad, his smile, every FaceTime call, the way he talk about him so proudly to literally anyone." Marcos was there every checkup, every sick day, every year visit our side by our side, writing everything down that the doctor said, looking up every symptom. Marcos had a sweet, sweet, caring side of him with everyone that got to know him enough. But the sweet caring side he had with his boys, you were lucky if you ever got to experience it. It's something that I'll cherish and hold close to my heart for the rest of my life. Marcos absolutely adored and loved being a father more than he loved being anything else in this world. I truly don't know how to conquer parenthood without him. He was the best father I could ever ask for for our son. And I will never stop reminding our son every day of the great man his father will always be and how much he changed my life in the most special way possible. For the people saying it was suicidal, shame on you. He would never leave his voice sides. And any person that has ever had a conversation with him would know that. This is truly the most heartbreaking and devastating loss me and my son will ever experience. And we'll carry this with us forever because Marcos was our entire world and the light of our lives. We won't stop until we get justice for him and his story until the truth is completely told. His truth. He was not the aggressor and not out looking for a random fight. He did not walk into that bar that night asking to lose his life and never see his son again. You can ask anyone that knew him. He loved to have a good time, but he would never jeopardize his life as a as a father to start some random fight. You guys have a story completely wrong.

Our condolences to you.

Hi council. My name is Chelsea. I'm talking on behalf of Marcos. Um he's the father of my son as well. Uh Marcos was and still is a loving father to our son Noah. He had such a big and caring and loving heart towards his family, friends, to me and our son. We always talked about being a dad and I'm grateful he was able to become one. I'm grateful for all the time and memories we shared up until his last. Our son will be two this year and I know he's so excited for the future plans we had yet to come and now he won't be here to experience it with us. Seeing him as a dad bought a different side out of him and thought that was the best side we all loved to see and got to know. He was well known and involved in his community. He was a local barber. He was also um involved in church. He found God. And I'm sorry this happened to him and I always will wonder why he was taken so soon. And he had so much life to live for himself and with our son. I'll miss you forever, Marcos, more than you'll ever know. And every happy moment and guilt will linger knowing you aren't here to see it. The media, reporters, officers, residents of Monterey County have all his story wrong. No one knows him more than his loved ones surrounded he surrounded himself with. And I wish all the people mentioned above gave us that first opportunity to do so. To justify and clear his name on who he w he was as a human, as a man, as a father, as a brother, a son, a cousin, a grandson, and a friend. For all I wish and pray for, now is for Marcos to have found peace and now have his name and his name cleared and story set straight with all the help of you, city council. I wish for him to watch and guide me and my son in this new path of life. Without him, yes, he's gone, but he'll never be forgotten. We'll love and miss you forever, Marcos. And I promise to always remind our son how great and loving you were. And with everyone you loved, especially me and our and our son. Thank you. you.

Hello.

Hi, my name is Taylor Ruiz. I just want to start my time by saying I'm thankful for be to be giving this opportunity to be able to speak. And to those that are listening, I would like to speak on the death of a the young man who lost his life here in the Monterey, California March 28th, 2026 at the Monterey um Hotel Plaza just 11 days ago. His name is Marcos Antonio Ruiz Solify. He was 26 years old and would have turned 27 in September. That young man was that young man was my baby brother. I'm pretty sure you've seen it on the news and read all it all over social media. Let me clear my brother's name by starting off and saying the altercation that started at the Salt Tilio was not started by my brother. My brother was forced to defend himself after asking the supposed victim multiple times to leave him alone and that he did not gang bang. My brother simply went out for a couple drinks with his cousin and his friend around 1:00 a.m. And around 1:00 a.m. after having a good night out like normal. He was approached and provoked by a 37year-old Mel who is from San Jose, California, and claims he was a gang member. My brother was an incredible man and touched many lives. And it's unfortunate for those of you who didn't know him because you would have truly been able to understand and feel our grief and the pain in our hearts. After my brother being forced to defend himself, police arrived on scene and my brother feared for the misconception and ran away to hide. While trying to hide, my brother slipped and fell into the water in the rocks of the Monterey Beach, the same beach we played at as kids. All the commentary on who my brother is and was is disgraceful and inhumane. I'm asking light and transparency be brought to my brother's name who we still haven't even been able to lay to rest. Justice for Marcos Ruiz Antonio.

Hello, my name is Nancy Morales and I'm here today to speak about my cousin Marcos Antonio Ruiz and his true character. It's hard to stand here and put into words about what he meant to us because Marcos was so much more than anything that can be said in just a few minutes. He wasn't just a headline or a story being told. He was our family, our laughter, our memories, and a huge part of our hearts. Marcus was a hardworking barber who took pride in what he did. He had a way of making you feel seen, lifting your mood without even trying. He was the funniest person we knew, and his energy was something you couldn't replace. His clients ranged from just a few months old to the elderly, and that alone speaks to the kind of person he was, and the trust and connection he built with people throughout his community. He was an incredible father. His children were everything to him. He was present, loving, and deeply involved in their lives. the kind of dad who showed up, who cared, and who made sure his kids knew they were there and loved every single day. Marcus was the brother I never had, and a father figure to my children who missed their uncle deeply. Although he was my baby cousin, he always looked out for me and my boys. He made sure we were okay and showed up for us in ways that meant everything. And just like he did for us, I will continue to be there for his children. I will continue to show up for my nephews the way he would have wanted. We're asking again for the immediate release of all the Bodycon footage of the chase as well as the footage from the Salty Seal and the Monterey Police the Monterey Hotel Plaza. We deserve the truth. And now because of one moment, our entire family is left with a lifetime of pain. We miss his voice, his laughter. I will never see my cousin again and I will never be able to hug him again. He deserved to be here. And when you think about my cousin and you think about what happened here in Monterey, try to put yourselves in our shoes. Think about your father. Think about your brother. Think about your son. And think about your loved ones and how you would want this to be

handled. He mattered to us. He still matters. And he always will. Thank you. My name is Christina and Marcos was my cousin but truly he was like a brother to me like he was to many people. He built strong real relationships and he was always there for others always supportive no matter what. Right now our family is grieving a loss that has completely shattered us and the hardest part is we haven't even been given the chance to grieve in peace. We have not been able to see Marcos. His own mother and sister have not been given the chance to see him. We have not been shown the camera footage. We are left with questions. pain at the rate of assumptions that are being spread by the media and online. Instead of being allowed to mourn, we are being forced to defend his name. We are dealing with heartless comments, false narratives, and judgment from people who are not there and do not know the truth. We have not had the time space to process what has happened. Marcos was not the person he is being portrayed to be. He was loving. He was present. He was deeply connected to his family and his community. He had two sons who meant everything to him. He loved them more than anything in this world and would never choose to leave them. He was strong. He had been through hardships in his life and not once did he give up. He believed in God and recently he had been growing even closer in his faith, attending church and writing Bible verses in his journal. And I want to be clear, Marcos did not take his own life. Our family is asking for something very simple. Truth, transparency, and the dignity to grieve. We are asking for the release of the footage, answers, and the chance to see our loved one and to be treated with human basic human compassion. Marcos deserves to rest in peace. And right now, it feels like he can't because we

are still fighting for him. Please allow our family to mourn and help us get the truth so that his name is not defined by assumptions. Was there anybody else that was part of the the your group? Um I I I just I I will say um I mean the fact that you all are here and and speaking his name and sharing the story means a lot. And so I I hope that his children and the family um are proud of of the work that you all are doing and the impact that he's obviously had in your all's lives. Um, so again, I I'd encourage you all to make sure you connect with the the police department, get that report, the request submitted. Um, and we're sending our our deepest condolences to you. Um, people can make assumptions about whatever happened. Um, but every single human life matters and so truly I'm from the bottom of my heart, um, sending sending my condolences and and a lot of love to you and the family. So, Thank you all for being here today.

All righty. Yes, ma'am.

Hi, I'm Heidi Bean. I live on Van Beern Street and I'm here with I think there are a few other people who are also interested in talking about the parking. Um, it just is a a really big big impact to us. Right now, 33% of our block has voted to keep the parking um to to move to this parking um this new it's like a new updated parking that's all technologically savvy, but instead of just updating the parking system, they decided to drop the entire parking system and create a new one, making everyone resign up for this new one as if we're 40 years ago and we haven't already established that we need parking. Um, so if we take away those one-hour parking signs, not only will we get every tourist from the warf on our street, we'll also have everyone who wants 72-hour parking who might come from all over the state because who doesn't want to to live for 72 hours without needing to move your car. So, we really I mean, it's a huge issue that that right now it's basically our street is under threat of losing that parking and losing the ability. A lot of people don't have a driveway. they they don't even have a place to park their car. So, they would basically like like they would have to move away. Like it's a really big threat that they've given to say basically if you don't if you don't uh get if you don't take all of your time to get all your neighbors on board with this then you're going to be totally screwed. Um and so I just I think it's a a big thing. I hope that everybody's paying attention to it and maybe we can potentially have them slow down and um yeah, thank you guys so much

for your public comment today. Your baby's adorable. Thank.

All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Um, I'm Jannine Chard. I'm the managing director of the Portolo Hotel and Spa, and I'm also the board chair for C Monterey. Um, I'm not here to talk about economic development tonight. I'll save that for another day, but I am here to talk about the budget. Um, whenever there's been challenges with the budget throughout the years, the first thing people say is privatize a sports center and privatize a conference center. And I don't know anything about a sports center, but I know a thing or two about the the conference center. And uh the way the budget is done for the city of Monterey, it shows purely the expenses for the conference center, including the $1.7 million that gets paid to see Monteray. So it looks like it is a major deficit when in reality it's your number one economic engine in in the city. it the the toot taxes that it generates is significant when you look at the Marriott ourselves, the the Hotel Pacific, but then all the hotels that benefit from the compression and all the toot that gets spread out throughout the city. Um, beyond that, your parking garages are full anytime there's a conference in downtown Monterey. You've got the restaurants, which even Burkettino said to me, "Hey, the conference center must be doing great because I'm killing it at the sardine factory." So it has this economic impact that doesn't get um shown on the financials and it's very easy for someone from the outside to walk in and and you know res to take a look at that and say oh this is a big money loser get rid of it but in reality it is your your top economic generator for the city of Monterey and um I encourage you not to have a conversation about privatizing the conference center. Um thank you.

Thanks Jade. Okay with that we will go to our callers on Zoom. Yes. And I've noticed that a couple of the callers have lowered their hands. So if that was an accident, please make sure to raise them while the next p person speaks. Um we can take our call from Miss Bey.

Yes, this is Nina Bey. I had planned to talk about something else tonight, but President Trump had threaten threatened the nation of Iran with total destruction. That's genocide by 5:00 p.m. Pacific Daylight Time, which is approximately now. And if the Pentagon obeyed that order, it would most likely be done by the Navy. It now appears that there's a ceasefire, though so many people have already p been killed, and how long the ceasefire would even last is unknown or whether the the government of Israel would abide by it. Every single human life does matter. And this reminds me of another war. The Vietnam War was initiated by the US government by the Gulf of Tonkan hoax with the assistance of the US Navy against a country that was no threat to the US. The US government including the Navy caused enormous loss of life and destruction of land including contamination with Agent Orange and other toxic chemicals leading to terrible health problems and birth defects and children. To this day, Americans, including poisoned Navy personnel and Vietnamese people, had to fight for even a little compensation, but the damage remains. So why is Monterey sponsoring the Larry Freeze Talk on April 15th? It is a private function by MDNA, MBDA. His talk is not a municipal issue. Plus, it is pushing a particular platform and ideology. Mr. Freeze has represented his philosophy in a past talk is anti-communist. This sponsorship also costs money when the city has a structural deficit. I urge the city to represent peace and not directly or indirectly support the ideology misinformation and taxpayer dollars siphoned in the world.

Thank you. Your time is up and Mr. Mayor, there are no further hands raised.

Okay, with that we'll bring it back to the council. Move on to consent agenda. Um, I understand there's been no items being requested be pulled from staff. Council wish to pull anything? All right. 11. Anything else? All right. So, we'll pull 11. Um, with that, we'll go to public comment. So, this is an opportunity for members of the public to either speak on a consent agenda item, including 10, um, or request an item be pulled. So, I'll start with folks on Zoom. You can use the raise hand function. In the meantime, I'll check with folks in the chamber. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on consent agenda? I have two tickers. Anybody else?

All right. Give me one second here. All right. You're good. You're good. You can come up to the mic. You can come up. You're good. You're good. Anybody else in the chamber? We just had the two. All right. So, we'll go ahead and cut off to the two in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to 5 4 3 2 1 and there's nobody on Zoom. We'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Good afternoon. I appreciate your guys' time. My name is Alice. I'm from Monteray. I am asking that you guys hold off on the voting of agenda item number 10 until the public is given clear understanding of where this project stands and the path forward. This item is now asking for a fifth extension of the exclusive negotiating agreement with Midpen. The record shows RFP was done in 2020. Mid pen was like in 2021. ENA was put into a put in in 2022 and now we're waiting for an extension looking for one to 2027. I understand there's been a lot of ground that's been covered. However, during that time, Midpen has not shown us the funding for this whole project. So, we have now put in over about $4 million. And at this point, I'm asking, what funding is fully secured? What funding is still pending? What's the timeline? Is there a timeline to construction start, completion, occupancy? If it's not done by this o April 12th, 2027, what's the contingency plan? I also think it's worth noting that this is being asked of our new city manager to be signed on his first day given he does have a good background. However, has he done the due diligence for the citizens of Monterey and the future citizens of Monterey regarding this whole project? There are we we know our fiscal deficit of 10 million. We know it's 9 million next year. That's all. But really are why hasn't a new RFP been done? There are other contractors. Have we looked at the limiting circumstances that this one has brought? We're halfway into this project structure of 3,000 units and I think we're there's like 36. There was supposed to be 42. So before you guys say yes to this, I'm just asking, is there a contingency plan? Are there other ideas that can be brought to the board for the citizens of Monterey of how this project's going to be completed? So I'm just

asking that you guys will hold off today on that. And that's all I got. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello again. I was actually not going to comment on that project. I just want to say it would be nice to get an update and a timeline on where that project is. I've been asking staff for at least to get a general idea of when we might break ground and how long it's going to take. Just a reminder that the last project that Midpin did was it took them 12 years to build 18 units. I certainly hope we don't have to wait that long. But I actually came up to speak to consent item 11 which I touched on earlier a little bit. Um 11 is pulled so or we're we're likely to pull it so or it is pulled. I'm sorry. So

so I need to come back. Okay. Okay. With that we'll go to our we didn't have anybody on Zoom. Um so we'll bring it back to the council. Um I'm going to go ahead and pull item 10 just based off of the request from the public. Um so is there a motion? I'll make a motion. Go ahead. It's a moved. I'm assuming that motion is um polling 10 and 11. Pulling 10 and 11. Yes. Is there been moved and seconded? Any other discussion? All those in favor?

I. Any oppose? Motion passes unanimously. With that, we'll move to item 10. Authorize city manager to sign an exclusive negotiating agreement extending extension with Midpen Housing for development of affordable housing at 587593 Van Beern Street, 424 and 4550 Madison Street. I don't think we need a whole presentation. I just pulled it because I wanted to be able to respond and it kind of gets to the point that um I heard Esther just say um my understanding is that things are moving forward and if you have a 30 second um updated version that you want to provide I I'll ask that. But what I will say is it might be helpful to have an item come back. Um, as I pass the mic though, um, what is the deadline for the current, um, ENA?

Sure. So, give me just a moment. I can pull that exact date for you. Sorry, I'm looking in the agenda report. You're good. No worries.

So, it would be um later this month. Um looking at the Well, it's Hold on. That's 2024.

Yes. I believe it's later this month. We don't we don't have an exact date. Um it's April 12th. April 12th. So basically, we have to do it today. Otherwise, we'd have to kind of go through the process again. Um Um which I can provide a brief update and that might help kind of Yeah. Yeah. maybe just a 30 second version because we have a lot on the agenda tonight and maybe we can have an item come back at a future council meeting to kind of give more details but

absolutely. Yes. So, uh just to kind of catch everyone up, this would be the fifth uh extension of the ENA, hopefully the final uh extension uh to April 12th, 2027. Just a brief update on the status of the project. Uh the environmental review that was required for the uh acceptance of federal dollars was completed uh in February and staff expects all the necessary land use entitlements to be finalized by the end of the month. If you recall, staff was kind of in a deadlock for about a year with the state historic preservation office to complete that historic evaluation that allowed us to close out the NEPA review for this project and the section 106 review uh midpin. Uh and also I'll add that building permits are currently under review and have been submitted for review. So, we have uh that in progress as well. Midpin's awaiting notice of a CDBG grant that was uh applied for and we're expecting notice of any day. Uh if that is awarded, that's for the construction of the project. If that grant is awarded, it does have a time frame attached to that, the construction construction would commence within 180 days of that award. So, that does place some kind of uh time frame as far as when we can expect construction pending the awarding of that of that grant. Awesome.

Um, so yes, um, that's that's the status of the project. Um, and with that, we're recommending the city council direct the city manager manager to extend the ENA. Perfect. Thank you for that. Any other questions from the council? I have a question, please. Um, Levi, I'm the um, Ambag representative and I talked with Hansler about this. There's a deadline for the the reap money 2.0, the 2.3 million. Are are we on schedule to to utilize all that funding in time? Yes. So that grant uh expenditures for that grant had to be completed by the end of March of this year. So we are preparing that reimbursement request for that final uh reap grant uh to go in April 15th. Great. Thank you.

Of course. So um also if the CDBG grant that they're waiting on for construction does not happen, what's the um alternative? What's the backup plan? So uh midpin would be that would create a a gap in the funding. So there would have to be uh uh either potential other funding sources like a project based vouchers which was the original funding source would have to be uh kind of looking at again but as I understand right now are on hold. So that would be something that maybe would ne necessitate further extensions. Thank you.

Sure. Uh frequently with an applicant, there's um fees that are collected and staff time that's expended is charged against that. Um for what's happening this last year or so, I understand that we did do we do have a city loan and there's some been some financial support. So are you operating under drawdowns from an applicant's payment of the permits for this project? So Midpin has paid all the application fees uh associated with the project like any other development.

Okay. And so our our staff work is coming out of a normal process work workload that comes off of the the payment for those permits. That's correct. Okay. Great. Thank you, Mayor. That's all I have. All right. I think that's all the questions from the council. Thank you for answering those questions. We'll go ahead and open up for public comment for folks on Zoom. You can use a raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item. All right. Seeing none, we'll cut it off in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to 5 4 3 2 1. There's nobody on Zoom. Bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation. I make a motion to authorize the city manager to to make an extension of the agreement.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. With that, we move to item 11, proclamation recognizing the 50th anniversary of the Laguna Grande Regional Joint Powers Agency. Given that um Council Garcia requested this be pulled, I'll pass it to you, sir.

Great. Thank you. And I don't need a presentation. Just wanted to uh uh highlight a couple items here. First, the uh uh Laguna Grande uh 50-year uh joint power agency anniversary event happening Sunday, April 19 from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30. Uh we invite our community to come out and enjoy a series of activities both on the Monterey and the seaside sides. Uh there'll be uh historical information, nature, crafts, bird bingo, uh all kinds of fun stuff just uh celebrating the uh um all the activity that's been going on for um now 50 years. Um and I also wanted to um just provide a little bit broader context in terms of the work that's being done here. Um this this agency um composed of the city of Monterey or representatives from the city of Monterey, city of Seaside and Regional Parks uh has been working over the years to develop a a maintenance plan um to not only address the uh the aesthetics and and just the preservation of this beautiful gem that we have in our community. Um but this is also a piece that uh has had a significant impact on our residents in terms of uh just general safety. So in in doing this work, developing the the maintenance plan, um there's there's uh very intentional um focus on ensuring that our residents and residents from Seaside as well uh enjoy this beautiful open space um in a way where they all feel we all feel safe while doing so. So, um just wanted to

highlight that that piece. Uh we've gone through um tremendous strides to get through all the permitting that's required to uh begin developing a maintenance plan. So, I'm looking forward to that uh real close communication and collaboration with um city of Seaside and Regional Parks to make sure that all our residents get to enjoy this again beautiful gem in in a very safe way. That was it. Thank you. Anybody else in the council have questions, comments on this one? Good.

All righty. Thanks for that update, Gino. It's really helpful. Um with that, we'll open up for public comment. For folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber? See, we have one taker so far. Anybody else in the chamber? All right, we'll cut it off to the one in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to 5 4 3 2 1. There's nobody on Zoom.

Good evening. Again, speaking as the president of the neighborhood association that is adjacent to this park. First, I want to thank Council Member Garcia for representing us on the JPA properly after many, many years of zero representation and the park really going through a deep decline. I also want to thank the police department for making a huge effort to work with our neighborhood over the years to clean up the parks, homelessness encampments, and a variety of other things. Um, I'm going to give a little bit of history just for the benefit of some of the newer council members as well as our new city manager. Um, when I started working on this park issue 13 years ago, it was because the park was in very bad condition and unsafe to our neighborhood. Uh we worked on it diligently with uh the regional parks district who admittedly had not paid attention to this park even though it is the largest park on the peninsula and we had representation that wasn't meeting at all in at the JPA. So luckily with we went into districts we got everything going again and Gino's has it in his district. Um so we've been getting help on that. Um the the thing I want to point out is while we have made some progress, it's been quite slow and we're at the point right now where we're celebrating the JPA and and actually it's also in conjunction with the Earth Day. So we're hoping that and expecting there to be pretty good turnout if the weather holds up hopefully. Um but what I really want to challenge staff with is to start working on funding. you know, we've paid a consultant a boatload of money and they've come back for more money and we've given it to them, but we need to start really making

things happen and we can't do it without without funding. And in the past, staff has really focused more on other parks than on our side of the city. And that's not necessarily in the recent past, but in the past in general. So, I would like to see the same amount of of grant search and other ways that they were able to fund other park projects take root ASAP on our project so that we can continue the momentum that we've gotten. Um, Seaside has gotten grant money. They have more availability to it, but our city park staff has gotten grant money also for other parks. So our park has tradition our side of the city has traditionally not been equally treated in many respects and we expect this to be one of the first ways that we see that change when it comes to the parks. So hopefully we'll see you all at the celebration and we'll have a lot more to celebrate going forward in the future. Thank you.

Thank you Esther. And that was the only public commentary. So, we'll go ahead and bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation. Move to approve. Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor? I. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously.

With that, we'll move to item 12. Our first public hearing item is application AP25236 and use permit application UP250013. Ellent Henry Monkey Wild Runkey Indoor Architects LLP Property Owner WR Mont LLC Industrial Administration and Research Religious Assembly Overlay Emergency Shelter Overlay Multifamily Residential Overlay um zoning district employment general plan designation and the overlay is IR130 R8 MF1 which I expect everybody in the room to know what that means. Um, with that I'll pass it to Dante for staff presentation.

Thank you, mayor. Our planning manager, Levi Hill, will be be presenting this item. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hall. Uh, as you may recall, on January 20th, the city council adopted a resolution declaring its intent to consider overruling the ALC's consistency determination for the daycare use located at 2400 Garden Road. Um at that meeting the council adopted draft uh findings for the overrule and directed staff to transmit those findings to the CALR division of aeronautics and the ALU. Um both of those agencies provided written comments regarding the proposed overrule um which were included in today's packet. In summary, those comments reiterated concerns regarding the introduction of vulnerable occupants to the area. The findings for the overrule have been included in your attached resolution along with the necessary findings to grant the appeal for the use permit. With that, staff recommends the city council adopt the attached resolutions that overrule the ALC consist consistency determination and granting the use permit appeal subject to the recommended conditions of approval. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Awesome. Thank you for the presentation. Any questions? No questions. Um I question for um the city attorney. Do you need us to repeat all the findings at this meeting? Uh unless if you have changes to what's put forth in the in the draft resolution, otherwise you don't need to repeat it. Okay. All right.

Any other questions? All right. Thank you. With that, we'll go ahead and open up for public comment. For folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item? I see two takers. Anybody else? Three, four, five. We have five folks. Six. Anybody else? Anybody else that's still sitting that wants to speak on this item? All right, we'll go ahead and cut it off to the six in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five Esther 4 3 2 1. We have one on Zoom. We're going to leave it to two minutes. Please.

Hi again. Um, I just want to comment. I I'm not sure why there's this question about occupants, you know, not being safe, whether they're adults or kids, but I do want to bring up an item that has been brought up in relation to that area that affects my neighborhood, um, Kona and Villa Delmonte regarding that area and the airport. We have recently had um we're going to have some meetings because residents have been complaining at Kona of soot and smell that's coming from the airport and I've been talking to some state officials that ga that we have some sorry Esther if it's not related to

it is related because this is something that affects kids specifically we're finding out that gas isn't about kids necessarily it's about about the project well the project is because it's a daycare I understand. Okay.

Just one second. I just want to point out that we have all been surprised to find out that lead is allowed in small planes and we are researching what is going on with this extra soot and smell. And the lead concern is very real, especially when we're talking about little kids. So, I just wanted to point it out because I was surprised to hear about it and I didn't want you guys to be caught off guard with it. But it is very important for little kids whose brains are developing and we have a lot of small plane traffic at that airport. That could be a factor. Thank you for that.

Good uh afternoon city council members. My name is Fiona Jensen. I am a principal planner with the county of Monterey Housing and Community Development and I serve as staff leaison to the Monterey County Airport Land Use Commission. Uh my fi following comments are made on behalf of the ALuc. The city's draft findings conclude that the project protects public welfare because it sits parallel to the runway rather than at its end. However, this misinterprets the airport land use compatibility plan. The restricting policy um restricts vulnerable occupants applies to not only areas within 10,000 ft of the runway ends, but also 6,000 ft of sideway sideways of the runways. This site is is just 1,400 ft from the runway side and thus is well within the restricted area. Aircraft incidents are not confined to runway ends and risks um exist along the entire runway. Therefore, simply being parallel to the runway does not meaningful reduce meaningfully reduce safety concerns specifically given the site's proximity to stricter safety zones. The um draft resolution claims that alternative sites must be considered. However, that is not a requirement. Proper analysis should focus on sites outside of the defined risk areas and to my knowledge that has not been done. Importantly, state law prioritize minimize minimizing safety hazards over economic or operational preferences. Um just because the property is currently developed with a church does not justify adding additional vulnerable occupants. That use was occasional and limited whereas the proposed school would bring over a 100 children to the site creating continuous concentration of vulnerable occupants. The city's draft findings argue that benefits of expanded daycare outweigh the risks. While daycare is important, state law is clear providing objective uh the primary objective is hazard minim min minimization and balancing um and not balancing safety against community benefits. Finally, the city's reliance on the general plan and zoning is not sufficient. The city of Monterey is six years overdue for submitting its general

plan to the airport land use cons uh commission for consistency. In short, the project does not meet the standards for minimizing risk and the ALC encourages commission to not overrule the ALC. I'm available for any questions. Thank you.

Good evening, city council and mayor. Um, I'm Meline. I'm the director of the Monasuri School in Scots Valley and I'll be the director of the um hopeful u site in Monterey. I believe so much in Monasuri. It truly gives our children the found foundation that they need to be successful children um and adults in life. Um the whole basis of this is unreasonable fear. the there's a very very small chance that anything would happen to our um school. There's literally right next to it another preschool. It doesn't make any sense to deny our school just because of this irrational fear. Um we currently have 76 families on the waiting list. They're all pushing for the school. They're wanting the school. That's before we've done any advertising. Um, this community is in dire need of child care. Um, we've looked everywhere in the county for somewhere for a school to be put and this is the best place. This is the only place. We've we've done our search and this is the perfect Monasuri school for the children of Monterey. Thank you.

Thank you. Hello, mayor and city council. My name is Aurora. I'm the assistant director of the Monasuri School in Scots Valley. Monterey County is in great need of more child care options, and it is unfair to prevent a highquality preschool from joining the community based on these concerns. Parents should have the right to decide if a school near an airport is the right fit for their family rather than having that choice taken away from them. Without this school, some families may be left with only unsafe or lowquality child care options. I urge you to allow parents to make this decision for themselves. Thank you.

Good afternoon, mayor and city council. Uh my name is Bill Tersy. I'm one of the owners of Monatory Community School. We started this whole process back in November of 2024 and I truly appreciate everyone's work, the city council and the planning department on this um project.

Um I believe that Monterey County at this point in time is is roughly 1,600 um child care slots shy of what they need. In an ideal situation, um our school will bring in 102 of those spots. Uh Monasuri AMI Monasuri is a um a registered um excuse me is a recognized um platform that helps monitories be true monastery schools. Monator is not a copyright name. anyone can call themselves a Monasuri school. We are uh will be AMI recognized which is a well-known and distinguished um um license and registration for Monasuri schools will bring in 16 to 20 well-paying jobs um to the city of Monterey and um within the area 1/8 of a mile I believe there's going to be roughly a thousand new residential homes. Our school will allow the children who are in those residential homes and the parents to not have to travel long distances or any further than an eighth of a mile to get to their school. And um we urge you to pass this uh resolution allow us to start this school in Monterey in the city of Monterey. that'll be very well known to to be a excellent excellent choice for daycare. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the city council. My name is Henry Runkey. I'm with Wald Runkey and Architects. I think I made the initial presentation in November, so we're finally here. Hopefully, we'll have our project move forward. and appreciate all the hard work that staff has done and all the hard work that the council and the other uh committees have done at the city. Just wanted to remind you part of my presentation no in November. I did point out the fact that the staff report uh which was prepared by the county that went to the airport land use commission actually u recommended approval of the project. It was very consistent with the um many of the comments made by council, many of the beliefs that this is uh it's very difficult to find locations within the community to be able to put a school like this and that the need outweighed any of the risks related to the airport. So, I understand uh county staff is here today. They made mention of some of the wishes of the ALU, but the original staff report did support the project and uh I just wanted to point that out. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Did we have any colors on? We had one. Yep. Let's go ahead and take them. Miss Bey, you can go ahead.

This is Nina Bey. I spoke to you the last time about why the airport land use commission and planning commission were correct in their decisions to deny this project. Why would city leaders put children's lives at risk from airplane crashes, airplane pollution, and microwave pollution from the cell towers and transmitters adjacent to the project. I am amazed that the monastery leaders, Mr. Runi and Waldrun and Dost and staff continue to push this location and didn't do their due diligence about environmental factors that could harm children. Monastery is usually more health and environmentally conscious. Children cannot be successful if they are sick. Calling objections irrational fear is unreasonable. Internationally, physicians and research warned about microwave exposure and that children are the most vulnerable due to their developing immune and neurological systems and their thinner, softer bones and craniums and that the radiation goes more deeply into their brains, eyes, and even into their bone marrow. The research continues to pile up on microwave radiation impacts, including DNA damage and fertility impacts. This is an irresponsible project and should be relocated to a place that is safe for children and not surrounded by these antennas or near an airport. The previous rejection of this unsafe project was the correct decision. Will the council stand with children or will you throw them to the pollution that is already known to be at this site? Thank you. Okay,

with that we'll go and close public comment. Bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation. Dr. Barry.

So, first of all, I appreciate everyone's stance on this. Um, the concern for the children. Uh, children are always going to be something that's important for me and I'm sure for all of us, um, here on the council. Um, but I also am looking at what we're it's before us dealing with zoning and what what the specifics are because when you're dealing with any type of whether it's daycare or any type of school related um uh businesses, they're going to be different requirements and processes you have to go through. So, I believe the lead piece that's that's that's going to be addressed in inspections. There's going to be different processes that they're going to have to go through anyway when you deal with child care and daycare. Um I used to actually be a director for a daycare back east. And so there are different inspections and different other things that you go through from the state level as well county level as well as city level. So there are a lot of different processes that are in place to make sure that the children are safe. So I think that will still um proceed. Um, but I believe it's contradictory to have a church that has a daycare and other daycarees that are in the same area and then not but not give um the monastery a chance to have a a a conditional use. And in this case uh they would be in the legal ramification to be able to have uh daycare. So I would be able to support uh going forward because that would be consistent and it would be equitable because you already have something that is similar whether it's consistent of being a longer time or a shorter time. You still have children that are in a daycare situation even in the church.

Who else would like to go? Sure. Please.

Sure. I I could reiterate all the findings in the staff report, but I'll I'll focus on it has already been declared a multif family residential overlay district. So, we have families living there 24/7. So, we have children sleeping through the night in their apartments there during the day. We have the we have the church, we have the daycare center. Um, so it it's already a residential neighborhood and it's going to become more so because we're going to transmute the commercial buildings to residential buildings. um that just like council member Barber says that children are utmost concern and I've thought long and hard about this but in fact the risks of driving far for daycare for your children are more risky than an aircraft crash. So we need to keep that in consideration. In 2023, there were 40,91 deaths for cars. That's the US Department of Transportation. And in aircraft, it was 1,216. Almost all of which were for the occupants in the aircraft, not on the ground. There are few on the ground. So, in this era when we're trying to get smaller vehicle miles traveled, we're trying to get people out of their cars, we're trying to use less gas and even create fewer cars, even if they're electric, it it doesn't make any sense to turn this down when there are actual environmental safeguards and h safe safety considerations to the children in keeping them out of cars and driving them all around. So, um, for that

reason, I continue to be supportive of this project. Please.

Yeah, I I support the project and and I hear the folks that are on both sides of the issue and and recognize that uh everybody's got an opinion. Everybody's got merit. And I just I think that, you know, when I look at the zone 7 map and the position of the airport and the other um nearby housing positions, um I acknowledge that this school would be about 1,400 feet away from the airport, but it's not in um in front of the airport for the approaches. It is parallel. The problem we have is we're a small community and when you start looking around where you are able to build and you factor in the airport with all of its prohibited zones, zone 7 is is one that is permissible. We just happen to have a difference of opinion that was weighed in by the airport land use. Um so I appreciate the factf finding, appreciate the data. Um, my decision still lies with the decision I made before to overrule the um airport u use uh authority and I'm sorry the the airport

land use

land use and their offering of their material and their letters and uh the board chair. But I I disagree. I believe that there's no inherent safety with this location. Um, as other council members have already indicated, uh, there are other uses that are occupying, uh, the position of being neighbors now. Um, and I agree that if this is identified in future years to be an unsafe condition based on environmental conditions or air quality, uh, then that would certainly be either mitigated or would cause the school to have to retreat. And if the school had to retreat, that would likely mean that the residents that would live on Garden Road would have to retreat, that the school at Shoreline School next door would have to retreat, and even some of the conditions of some of the office buildings that may remain there. So, I I stand with the earlier commission, the earlier decision that I made. Uh I I'll keep it brief. I I think we have a an area here that's uh zoned a certain way and there's interest from um folks to establish a daycare. I think ultimately um it will um be left up to the parents to dictate the success of this site. So I don't think it's up to us to really determine where parents should or should not take their children. That will be left up to them. So, I can make the motion to um uh accept uh yeah, staff's recommendation. I need my glasses. Yeah.

All right. So, move and seconded. I just have a quick question and it could be as easy as a yes or a no from staff. Um any concerns as it relates to or changes that you would recommend based off of the feedback from county staff? Um no changes. I think uh the finding that was referenced uh was referenced inaccurately. It does make note of the um side of the runway and that the 6,000 ft uh discouraging of introduction of vulnerable occupants uh is acknowledged in that finding. Um so I think the findings are accurate as is. Perfect. Thank you. Um and I'm not going to belabor the point. My colleague said it all. So I'm going to go ahead and call the question. All those in favor?

I. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. With that, we'll move to public appearance item 13. Receive update from housing authority of the county of Monterey on status of displaced tenants resulting from the fire at 800 Kasanova Avenue and authorize the city manager to donate from the available balance from the FY2526 budget for the rental assistance program to Hackme and or other organizations to continue support of the displaced tenants as needed. With that, pass it to actually, yeah, I I'll pass it to Dante for staff presentation. Thanks, Mayor. And I'll pass it to our assistant city manager, Nat, who will present and provide an overview of this item.

Right. Thank you, Dante. And good afternoon, mayor and city council. The item before you this afternoon is to receive an update from the housing authority of the county of Monterey on the status of displaced tenants resulting from the fire at 800 Casanova Avenue and also authorize the city manager to donate from the available balance that we have from the already designated fisc year 2526 rental assistance program to either the housing authority and or other organizations to continue support of the displaced tenants. I'd like to provide just a very brief overview. As many of you know, on March 9th, there was the three alarm fire that started at 800 Kasanova Avenue. And this is a property that's owned by HDC, which is uh a development arm for the housing authority of the county of Monterey. The fire started very early in the morning, 3:51 a.m., and ultimately extinguished by the fire department with mutual aid support. And uh it was a significant fire, as many of you may have heard. We heard from veteran city fire department officials that uh in their decadesl long career with the fire department, it was one of the largest fires they've experienced in the city of Monterey. And both the Monterey Police Department as well as the fire department saved a lot of lives that morning. And um six residents were transported to Chomp for burns and smoke inhilation. Two transferred over to the burn unit at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center. And very sadly, one resident passed away. And in the days after the fire, the housing authority uh provided temporary housing and shelter to displaced residents at Piatt Regency Monterey. And uh due to the cost and logistics, they needed to find a more shorter term location for residents to be relocated to. And uh they uh were relocated to a hotel in Marina. And the housing authority has been actively identifying permanent housing for displaced residents. and you'll hear a brief update from Zelica Brein, who is

the executive director of the housing authority today as well. Um, since the tragic fire, we know there have been a number of needs that have been identified. It was uh it was clear in the first few days those needs included mobility challenges, included medical needs, some with inhome support services, some with other needs as well. And many of the organizations throughout our county came together to provide support to those displaced residents. the housing authority for C County Monterey, all in Mterrey County, which is a nonprofit organization, the American Red Cross, Montage Health, the county, as well as uh local restaurants and businesses as well. So, where we are today is there are a number of needs for those displaced residents. The first is permanent housing. Hackam is the the name kind of the nickname for the housing authority. Uh they've served as lead and Zelica. Again, we'll share more information on where where they are on that. The other is case management. Uh some uh we believe there is a need for case management that uh involves identifying what the needs are of those who are displaced. Some of them need mental health, counseling, support services, uh transportation, other types of needs. There's also needs for the fire victims. uh while the housing authorities been able to identify permanent housing for a number of the displaced residents, they go into the apartments or their new homes, but they have no belongings because many of the belongings have either were destroyed in the fire or weren't able to recover. So, those are some three categories of the needs um that we see. So, there's an opportunity for reappropriating the rental assistance program funding that council allocated. And this current fiscal year, council allocated $250,000 in funding using general fund dollars for the rental assistance program. Over the span of uh the program since it launched in April of 2024, it's funded over $370,000

in funding and has assisted 115 individuals and families. And the types of programs that the rental assistance program typically funds includes deposit assistance, housing relocation, short-term rental assistance, covering rent increases, delinquent rents, financial assistant application fees, utility assistance, and the like. Now, recent updates to the program were implemented in August of last year. Council approved that to better prioritize applicants with more more urgent needs. And in the current fiscal year, the city's provided $65,000, roughly $66,000 in uh rental assistance and helped 17 individuals and families. So the demand for the rental assistance program we've seen has reduced a bit since we launched the program a few years ago. We think that for the remainder of the fiscal year, we'll have anywhere between 30,000 to $40,000 in assistance that will be issued before the fiscal year concludes. And that is based on an average amount of assistance between $2,500 to $13,000 per month of rental assistance that the city provides. So that leaves based on our calculation and balance that we think will be unspent in this category of $125,000. And it's important to note that uh because these are general fund dollars, typically any unspent rental assistance program dollars at the end of the year would typically be part of the general fund balance and then available for other general fund purposes. But if council would like to uh you're you have the option of allocating $125,000 to organizations and that could include based on the resolution before you this afternoon. It could include Hackom. It could include Allin Monterey County, which is a nonprofit. We have a few requests that have uh come before us in the last few days. The Allin Monterey County, and I believe Tanya is here uh and she'll she'll speak during public

comment. Um she submitted a request for $20,000 in funding. They've provided a lot of assistance directly to the victims of the fire over the last several weeks. and um and her request uh it's it's an urgent one is a $20,000 funding request and that funding request letter is in your electronic agenda packet uh that was added uh to the packet yesterday. Uh there's also a funding request from Zelica and her organization the housing authority and she'll talk about that as well. So the options before you this afternoon council is a this draft resolution gives flexibility. It allows the city manager to make donation payments up to $125,000 in total. It gives the greatest flexibility as uh the city as we further identify needs and potential service delivery providers. Other options for council is to allocate some but not all of that funding now and council may also provide other direction to us. So uh without further ado uh we'll allow Zelica to provide her update to uh to us and to the community.

Okay. Um good afternoon mayor and council members. I had this long speech but Nette kind of talked about some of it. So, I'm going just jump into it. Um, the housing authority has been working on this since day one. We were there the day of the fire, escorting people to the Hyatt. Uh, the Hyatt was a it was 7 miles away. We had an employee that used to work there. We were able to get a discount, so it was the easiest place for us to get all of the tenants at one time so that they weren't to be displaced at the fire themselves. That's why they were only there for a week. They stayed there from the 9th to around the 12th. And then we um moved them out to the country end in Marina. So once we got them to the country end, we were really able to start focusing on trying to get them out of permanent housing. While we've been doing that, the housing authority has made several um policy changes to accommodate them and partnerships. So one thing we did first, we secured all the hotel accommodations. All of that has been paid by the housing authority at both uh hotels. And we also paid for food at the Hyatt for the first week because of course they going in there, they didn't have um their monies, things like that. So we paid for the food as well. Each resident has got a case worker that works with them uh going over their needs or what they're at, what they need to do, contacting family, things like that. Uh then we provided housing choice vouchers for all of the residents that previously didn't have one. So, if they stayed at Casanova, but they did not have a section 8 voucher and they were eligible, we gave them one because we wanted them to be able to find affordable housing. Um, we also made a local preference so that any of the residents would be able to go to the top of our waiting list if they were interested in any of our other properties to expedite them getting housing. Then after that, we issued vouchers to everyone that was impacted. And once we did that, we have a um partnership that we created with Cecil,

the Central Coast Center for Independence. They're doing housing navigation services, their services for free. The people that they don't do housing navigation with, we do it as a housing authority to try to make sure that everybody has uh special attention so that we can try to expedite getting them out of the hotel. We also are in a partnership with Allin Monteray. They handle all of the donations. uh they come on site, meals on wheels, prepare some of the meals, they are there, they issue out the meals three times a day. They help them with laundry services and the most important factor is once the person is moved into a new unit. We coordinate with them and they give them furnishings for the unit. So they have like a starter pack that they give them. So when they go into the apartment, it's not just empty. They do have like a bed with a platform bed or air mattress, towels, things of that nature. And we work really good together on that. Uh the other thing that we've did is we've partnered with MST. MST has been u providing all of the transportation. So when one of the residents needs to go to a doctor's appointment or they need to go see a house or we were taking them to some of our sites, we would coordinate with MST to come and pick them up and then have people on site from the housing authority to assist them. It was 82 displaced residents. the number has been changing a lot. Uh because people were counting the number of units. All of the units was not occupied. It was 86. And then as they were moving from hotel to hotel, they would ask individuals and they would give them the numbers based on the number of people at the hotel. But we did have some people that was in the hospital and some people staying with family. So the official number is 82. As of today, we have housed 35 families. So that left us with a remainder of 45 um families that we have to work with. Of the 45, two of them are staying with families. So currently we have 43 people

occupying the hotel that still need services at the hotel. Now whether they're at the hotel or not, they're getting all of the services that everybody else is getting. But the ones at the hotel are more impacted because we have to continue paying for their lodging. We've been working with them to locate, review, and obtain housing as well as whatever their needs are every day at the hotel. On March 16th, we provided the residents with a list of 45 available units. Then we gave them another list of 68 available units. On March 26, we reached out to a lot of our landlords in the section 8 program and work with them to quickly process the paperwork and approvals so that the residents will be able to move in. Some of the residents have declined uh available units because they're hoping to remain in Monterey County or they have other personal considerations to make them want to decline the unit that's been presented to them. While we respect that each household much make must make its own decision. Those choices are extending the transition timelines and increasing the hotel cost. So, it's going to come a point where we're going to have to cut off the hotel service, especially when we're offering units and they're not being accepted. Um, as of again, April 6, we have 35 that have been placed in permanent housing. 22 have went to Carmel. Seven are in Monteray and six are in Selenas. We have another 12 that we're currently working with. Four of them should be housed this week. That'll leave eight that are pending move in dates and we expect to have them housed by the end of next week, which is going to leave us a total of 31 displaced uh residents that need our services by the end of next week. Of those 36, we have five that are non-elderly, six that are disabled, and 21 that are elderly.

It is also important to note that Kasanova is not a public housing site. I think a lot of people see the housing authority and they think that it's a public housing site and therefore it has certain federal regulations attached to it. It does not. It's owned by our development corporation. the housing authority was the property manager and all of the things that we're doing is as the property manager because we have some leeway in our section 8 program even um you know with the limitations we still been providing support beyond what a traditional property management company would do and because of the seriousness and the needs of our residents in the community to date the housing authority has spent $277,244 to assist these residents, we have limited funding. So along with giving an update here, I'm also here today to ask that you consider assisting us with funding so that we can continue to work with the 31 that we think will be remaining by the end of next week. We pay approximately $80 a night for the hotel. And my original request that I sent in, it was for $227,820. But I really uh need $16,320 to continue the hotel lodging. The other uh funds was $40,500 to assist with security deposits. The reason I asked for money for security deposit because a lot of the residents been staying at Castle Nova for a long time. When they moved in, they deposit was maybe like $1,000 or $800. and we all know they cannot pay that for a security deposit. Now, moving forward is this new rental market. So, that would assist them in with paying the uh security deposit for the new location. And we're still having the building tested. We

don't know if they're going to be able to get their items or not. Um if they can, they don't have monies to move the items. And we are pretty much exhausting our funds with the hotel lodging. So, I was asking for $8 and $1,000 so that each one of them could get $1,000 to help them move their items from the hotel to their new permanent home, but with hearing what Nat said with the funds that's available and with all the work that Allian has been uh doing cuz they've been helping us a lot, I would ask that you would consider to grant us the $106,320 and consider the rest if at some point you have other funding that's available because the main thing that I need to do right now is extend the hotel stay because of the 31 people that are left it's really difficult to house them um because one again they really want to stay in Monterey which we're trying to accommodate that two they have other considerations uh doctor's appointments things like that that they have to look at as far as transport uh transportation and things of that nature if they move to like Solar Dad or King City or somewhere like that but we do still have a lot of available units. And then again too, the housing authority is doing a lot of the housing navigation. We've really just, you know, jumped in and are doing everything to have wraparound services for everybody that's at the site. We're there seven days a week to assist them with whatever is needed. And um we just we need some help. We've been doing the best that we can. I think we've actually done a very good job to have moved this many people in such a short period of time into permanent housing. But if we want to keep that going, we need assistance with the funding because our hands will be tied. We the funding that is provided is through the section 8 program and they have regulations based on the 24 CFR. So when that funding runs out, we will have no choice but to remove them from the

hotel. And a lot of them do not have anywhere to go. Uh the only people that did not need hotel services, we had five residents that had renters's insurance. So five of 82. And then again, of the remaining 31, 21 are going to be elderly. They 62 or over, five are non-elderly, and six are disabled. So, I would like you to consider my entire request, but for the immediate needs, if I could get the 106 320 uh dollars, that would really help to keep them in a hotel and allow us to continue providing the services that we've been providing. And let's see what else. I kind of skipped over some stuff because, you know, Ned took a little of my thunder. But, um, I think it's just important to note because it's been so much miscommunication that the lead organization has been the housing authority. We have sought out help and asked for other nonprofits but primarily only uh services that the residents are getting is from the housing authority of the city of Monterey and all in Monteray and that's it. Uh some people have help doing things along the way but to push this forward those are the boots on the ground every day and we have a really good system of how we work with them. We find the housing, we assist with the needs, they pro uh provide the furnishings and also on site assist with other things like the meals and the laundry. So, do you have any question? That was my a bridge diversions. Uh but yes,

no, thank you for joining us today and providing presentation and thank you Nat for for providing some background as well for us. Um I'm going to go ahead and kick us off on on this one if if you will indulge me council. Um, I I requested this item be um agendaized um because I just want to make sure that we're all working together to continue in the partnership um and making sure that we take care of our residents. I mean, this is that's what this is is is about at the end of the day. So, I I want to start the conversation off by just being clear in the expectation of what today should look like. Um this no, we're not here to cast blame. We don't have time for that right now. We're we're here to to work together on making sure that these residents have the care and the services that they need in order to get rehoused as soon as possible and whatever is needed in the in the interim. Um I recognize that the housing authority can't do this by themselves and so appreciate the efforts by the housing authority um to to act swiftly. Um, and just a a a special shout out to All-In because I know that All-In has has jumped in um and has helped out beyond what their what their mission is in order to make sure that the residents um have the care that they need. Um so, a few questions. Um, and this might be this this this this first question might be a little bit rhetorical, but I I'm interested in in in any thoughts that you have. Um, I guess I'm wondering how do we handle those who have pro who are provided a unit but deny it? Um, what what is the what does that game plan look like? In our regular property

management, we'll give a person three chances to take a unit. After they decline the third one, we take them off the list and they're no longer offered housing. Okay?

So, we're talking with our attorneys about implementing something like that. And again, it's not to make they're getting housing choice vouchers. It's up to them where they stay. We can only show them the options. But they have to know that we cannot maintain the hotel while the unit that they really you know really want may be unavailable. And I have also expressed to them take the unit that you qualify for it now and if there's a unit at Monteray or Carmel that you're interested in apply for it and once that application is approved then you can just do a lease there and move from the unit that you would be currently occupying. But this will keep you from being displaced and allow you to leave a hotel and have permanent housing.

Is there I'm I'm g give a little bit background before I ask my next question. So, Council Garcia and I had a chance to to visit um uh the the displaced tenants and one of the things that we heard from a lot of them was that they wanted to stay in Monterey and a lot of them were being offered units in Selenus and um I can understand the the dynamics that ex exist with that. Um, so I guess as a followup, is there a way that they could take those units and maybe have some level of prioritization if units become available in the city of Monterey?

We're working with private landlords for that. We offered them 21 units that were solely in Monteray, but none of them uh applied for those units. I don't know why. That was the first 21 that we offered because we knew they wanted to stay in Monteray. And then after that, we gave them a more comprehensive list that had about 68 units on it. I think we gave them that on March 26. And the units that the housing authority have, well, county housing authority, so we offered them units, you know, throughout the county that they would be eligible for that would still allow them to have affordable housing. And now um with the like I said with the property management we normally offer three units but really with this coming from Kasanova which is not a public housing site after we offer the first unit we're not obligated to offer them anymore. But we're trying to work with them and get them to understand the severity of the situation so that they will go ahead and choose from the many units that are available so they can get permanent housing and later on they can always apply. they still can get housing navigation to assist them to come back to the city of Monterey if it's not in Monterey or whatever you know their personal choice is but it'll keep them from being displaced right now

100%. Um I I I guess I'm still wondering if there's a way that

they uh I'm sorry I don't trying to cut you off but they are a priority on a lot of landlord list. That's why we also tell them to work with us and we work side by side with their housing navigator to let them know that this person was a victim of the fire because again a lot of them don't even have their documents. So the housing authority is going above and beyond to assist because we're going into their last reertifications providing documents, copies of driver's license, birth certificates, you know, things that they don't have because of the fire. We're signing papers that this is who this person is attesting to their identity. all of these types of things to help them get uh into a unit. And a lot of the landlords have agreed to give them a preference uh to get in just like the housing authority did, but they still it's just a shortage of it's only so many units in Monterey and some of them have mobility issues. So, for instance, there were a couple of units, but they were upstairs and there wasn't an elevator at the site. So, of course, they couldn't take that unit. So, it's just, you know, it's just a pin. But the landlord is all working with us very well.

Is um are all the remaining residents that are needing housing, do they still qualify for the program? Do all that do all the remaining ones still qualify?

We um made sure that everyone that was previously on section 8 that their reertifications were verified. So they did get those section 8 vouchers. We had 15 people that were not on section 8. We did interviews with them to determine their eligibility and all of them were able to get a voucher. And then we had another 10 that were staying at Kasanova that was unsubsidized. They had nothing, no section 8, no PBV, anything. And we worked with them to also get them a voucher. So we made sure that every resident over there can get affordable housing because again Castle Nova was not a public housing site, but we did had affordability layer. the residents just got to take advantage of it and take up the offers that of these units.

Um what is the alternative if the funding request isn't provided by the city? We're going to have to determine what the cut off date is going to be for the funds that we have because again we've already spent $277,000 and people the one thing that I want to make clear is I'm not spending any of this money or providing the services as the landlord as HDC. We're doing this strictly under the section 8 program and as the housing authority that's why it was so important for us to make sure that the re residents would be eligible so everybody would be covered by a section 8 contract because it's within the 24 CFR that lets us use two months of monies to help and assist them. Well, that money is running, you know, it's running low and then we won't be able to contain them at the um hotel any longer. Um,

I I can give you a date. I don't have it in front of me now because I wanted to see how, you know, this was going to work out. Yeah. But it definitely won't go to the end of May. It probably just be the end of April because by law, I wouldn't be able to spend any of the other funds to keep them housed. Okay. Yeah. And and we maybe discuss it more when we after we do public comment, but I'm I'm thinking that it might be good to have all that information before the council makes a decision. So, we'll we'll loop back around to that part. Um, some of these questions are coming up again from my experience in in Oh,

having a conversation with the with the um displaced um tenants. Um, a lot of them spoke about how they made their March payment, but they were displaced for the majority of the month. And so how does that work in regards to their payment be getting their rent back for March or being prrated? How does that work?

They've already received their reimbursements. So what happened when they vacated on March 9th, the first week, we had to find other lodgings for them. So issuing a refund check was not the number one priority. It was making sure we had funds to get them to another location. Once we got them there, we gave all of them what we call a vacate form that they had to sign until we got their signature. We could not process their check legally cuz that would turn into an eviction instead of them moving out because of the fire. Once we got all the sheets, we ran the checks and every tenant that had a security deposit has received their security deposit back and everybody got their rental u portion back that covered from March the 9th to the end of the month. So, they only got charged for the first eight days in March.

Okay? And they have those checks they've signed for them now uh now to assist them. And that's another reason why it's really urgent that we work with them to get housing because I don't know about everybody else, but if I get a big check, sometimes I spend it on stuff I don't supposed to even though I know I need it. So, we want to try to work with them to make sure that didn't happen.

Okay, perfect. And then you spoke to the security deposit, which was question. So, I appreciate that. Um, I know one of the other big questions from them was um their inability to be able to get some of their personal belongings outside of the apartment complex. And so what does the time frame look like for that? I know that and I just give I'll give one story that was shared with me. Um there is a tenant who um has hearing aids and um her hearing aids have been left um on site cuz she left in the emergency um and she's been unable to get back to get in. I know that Allin has been trying to assist in working with the insurance company on ordering new hearing aids, but um last I heard they hadn't arrived yet and then it was creating some social problems with interacting with folks because she can't hear people. Now people are yelling at her and getting frustrated. So it's creating all this kind of

extra tension on top of the already uncomfortable situation. So, what what does that look like for us to be able to allow some of the tenants in or having somebody go in to get some maybe more urgent things that that that could help create some relief?

Okay. When they were at the Hyatt, we asked everybody of their urgent needs and went back to Kasanova and got uh I thought if it's the same lady that we got her hearing aids and gave them to her. Maybe it's somebody different, but we went back for urgent medical needs. the maintenance guy went in and got it and delivered it to them. Once we got to the country um in suites if somebody had an urgent need then that first week we got there that we didn't attend to at the high we asked them and we got it for them but after that we told them we could not go back in the building. The building is not safe structurally it's not safe and there are several tests being done for smoke, water, mold, things like that that have caused damage. And what I explained to the residents, and we did issue them a letter explaining this as well, some of the units, it's a three-story building. So some of the units on the bottom floor, if you go in there now, you will look, some of them look just like it looks in here now because the water's dried up. You know, that one might not have had as much smoke. But the water ran behind the drywall, so moisture tests, things like that have got to be done because even though to the naked eye it seems like it's safe, it's really not. our insurance company has gotten proposals. We're trying to get the electricity to work. It's um the building is three buildings in together and so all of the utilities are connected. So we're working with somebody now to see if we can isolate utilities to just the two ends that didn't suffer as badly. So that way they can go ahead and complete all of the testing that they have to do. They're working with a hygienist after they do that. They told me it'll be about another two weeks and then we'll know if people can or cannot get their uh items. But as far as emergency medical items and things of that nature, uh to my understanding, everyone had received everything that they requested. So, this is my first time hearing about somebody else still needing something.

Is it is it possible if there is a lingering thing out there that we could get that emergency request in? So, it just depend on what it is and where it's at in the unit cuz really we not supposed to go in there. This is also an active crime scene because somebody did pass away from this fire. So every time we enter the building or somebody enters the building without our attorney in without the insurance people and the proper notices, they start over. And so it just prolongs people being able to get the test done to make sure that everything is safe and you know their belongings can come out.

Okay. And then my last question is um just regarding case management. Um I know that when Lou was still here, he had has stressed to me the critical need at this point was case management. And I think it's partially due to the fact that um we have folks kind of in this in between phase and not really getting the care that they need. Um and and it's it seems like it's almost a space that Allin has filled in. Again, that's not their subject matter expertise. So, I'm just wondering what that looks like to make sure that we um kind of provide the full dignity and respect that all all these residents need in the interim before as we're waiting for them to get housed.

I asked the same question about the case management because it was brought to me that we need a case management on site. So, I asked what would that company do? What would that look like? Cuz again, we have staff people out there every day that assist the uh displaced residents with all of their needs. They ask them questions about their appointments. They doing the housing navigation, stuff like that. And a lot of them already had caregivers or people from IHS that was coming to see them. So they work with them to try to make sure those people come on site and you know do um what they were doing when they were at Kasanova. It's just a little more inconvenient for them to do that at the hotel than it was when they had a unit. So, the response that I received was that the case management was more so of a coordination type uh team. And if that's the case management that they're seeking funding for, I don't think that that's needed because the coordination between the housing authority and all in is really encompassing everything that the residents are doing. Now, it was um 20 residents out of the 82 were out of the 80, we won't talk about the two that were hospitalized that had medical um issues. Eight of those were people that really like they needed a wheelchair or like the lady who maybe she left her hearing aids, things like that. And the other 12 were medical issues that predated the fire. And so, they were already having services come in for that. A lot of them there may have been one of two that never had any um body to do it because a lot of they have to initiate the self. So when it come to medical items, if you want to have a case manager to come and um you know do that part of it, but I just haven't seen personally I haven't seen where the case management is overriding the other needs of the residents. I um last comment on the case management piece and I'm I'm open to to more discussion but um I think I think my only concern is is that

that's not um yeah that's not a function at all expertise on them and and and I know that there's people that that's their craft that's their skill set and I think to have all hands on deck to try to make sure that again we're providing whatever is needed and providing some relief to your team so that you all can focus on the piece that you all do best.

I wholeheartedly agree. I just the let me okay the response that I got I've never gotten a clear understanding of what the case management entails when it was asked of me like we need somebody to do case management. So I asked what would that look like? What functions would they do? You know how are they going to interact with the residents so that I could relieve my team and so that people like all in who are volunteering could come away from the site. But I just I really can't speak on it because I've never gotten a clear understanding of of what that looks like. Nobody's never really explained it to me. And so that's why we just moved ahead with the housing pieces that we're familiar with. But if it's an opportunity and they're going to fill in a gap that's needed or relieve the volunteers, I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying that I've never really been informed, you know, like what are their true responsibilities because the only thing that I don't want to happen if you do fund case management, I uh want to know exactly what they're doing so that we not duplicating the services and so that my people can get a break and the people at all in can get a break as well.

100%. Thank you for answering those questions. I'll open it up to my colleagues, please. Yeah. Um, so you mentioned insurance, uh, that you're working through your insurance carrier for your facility that only five had insurance on the apartment sides. Um but that's a little confusing to me that why um the apartments that they're occupied that they would not have current fire insurance or be required to because that's typically what a property manager would do in the private sector.

A lot of them been staying in those apartments for a long time. Uh before that um apartment complex had a bond on it and it was an affordable housing and I'm sorry had a what on it? It had a bond on it that had affordable housing restrictions, but those restrictions were lifted. And I think the management uh previous management at Heckham just never implemented that policy, but that's something we're looking at doing now because all all the tenants should have renters insurance, but it was only five that had it. Yeah. Okay. Um and and in terms of your fire coverage, is any of your coverage It's just you funding for anything other than the build? No, it's only for the building. It doesn't cover any of their uh contents.

Okay. Um and I think you you said that the numbers that are needing placement, was it 31? You said it will be by the end of next week. It's 43 today. Okay. So, you're working on the placement for those? Yeah, we have uh four that are supposed to move out this week. Okay. And then the other eight should move out next week and that'll bring us down to 31. 31. Okay. And of the folks that have already been placed, do you have an estimate of how many are still waiting for a side table, a chair, a lamp, a bed? Uh, as far as the furnishings that they get, all in provides that. Yeah. And to my knowledge, they've given everybody a bed, a table, towels, you know, things of that nature. Okay.

Uh, because they completed the same day that the people move in the new residence. Okay. Okay. So, maybe the ones that are still waiting to be to be placed would need something. Yeah. It's just the ones that's waiting to be placed somewhere somewhere around 31. Yeah. Well, it'll be 43 because they have everything set for the four that's moving in this week. Yeah. The other uh eight have not got a move in date yet, but we are anticipating it being next week. So, what happens is once they get a movein date, we fill out a form letting them know the date that they moving. Okay?

We give it to them and we give it to Allin. in uh has a referral form that we get them to fill out and then the housing authority signs it and then that's when they go get their furnishings. So, um it'll be it's 43 right now, but the four that'll be moving in that'll leave us 39. So, it's 39 people that don't have any furnishings or anything at this point. Okay. Because they're already prepared for the four that are moving uh this week. Okay, good. I'll pass it on for time. I got a few more questions to follow up, but it can wait.

Um, thank you, Miss Boyin, for being here today and sharing some information. Uh, I live about a block away from the building. Um, and uh, Mayor and I have been um in in constant communication about this. Um and and I I guess I I I'll preface my questions also by uh saying that uh or acknowledge that this event is is a is a pretty significant event, a large event unlike any that I think we've seen in recent times here in our city. To have 82 folks displaced, that's that's a big number. Um so could certain things have been done differently pro probably maybe right I mean it's it's something that uh I think we all try to prepare for but really can't um dive into those details until something like this happens. So uh I also share the um the view that it's it's not an opportunity for fingerpointing. how do we move forward from here? Um, but something I would like to elevate uh first is and this is also coming from uh conversations that I had with some of the residents is that um you know they they have been they had been living in this building for 10, 15, 20 years very long time. folks had really uh spent a good chunk of their lives in this location, right? So now having to in in a traumatic way

um also come to terms with having to relocate to another community that's different that maybe not far but far enough to make it feel different and potentially be separated from some of uh their neighbors who they had built, you you know, really strong uh bonds to. I think that's something that for me um has has really stuck. So, I I want to make sure that uh we also are are supporting any efforts that would keep those residents who have expressed those strong interest to to be together, right? remain together or at least in in close proximity to each other in terms of uh the the their ultimate uh places of residence. I'd like to support that in in however we can. Um, so I'd be curious if if maybe there's opportunity um because you had mentioned that there were there was an original list of 21 units in the city of Monterey that nobody applied to. I'd be curious to to see if maybe there's opportunity to learn why, right? And if there's uh maybe additional support that be can be provided there. Is it a a cost issue? Is it communication? I is it process like what what could those barriers be where maybe even uh we could support you know through the various uh options. Um also I I wanted to touch a little bit on on a point that Mr. Mayor here shared

earlier about uh service gaps, right? and and I also spoke with Lou and my request to him was uh in the communication that was happening um to try to identify what was the best way for us to support right and and try to try to also come up with the plan for that. So um I for me um what also hasn't been clear is where what what are those opportunities like where can we support sure financially uh that's an ask uh but throughout the process where where can we fill those gaps and I know that you shared that you uh still don't really understand what the proposals were to to support. But I think um for me it would have and and would be more beneficial if we flipped that script and ask you what are those gaps where you really need support, right? where organizations that are supporting, right, with like where could we fill those gaps and and I think that would be helpful for me as we talk about the uh potential offering of financial support uh before perhaps allocating the 106, right? understanding on our end. Um, are there other gaps that we might be able to fill with those funds that might have greater impact? So, so I would leave that to you as as well. Um, and and I I also wanted to acknowledge that um I understand that it's a it's a large number of residents that you're still trying to house. Um, and

like I mentioned before, different needs, different preferences, that kind of thing.

Um, but let's say that moving forward, every resident uh would accept the the next unit available. If that was the case, do you have a sense as to how long it would take to house the remaining residents? Okay. So, um, couple of things. One, we do have some residents that are moving in groups. Uh, some people that have, you know, communicated they want to stay in the same buildings and we've made that happen. We had two people that want to stay together, they moved to Pacific Meadows. We had two that want to stay together, move to one park side. So, we have been kind of moving them in groups when they asked for it based on our availability. uh as far as how long it would take if they if they were qualified and accepted the units that we had now, we probably could move everybody before the end of the month because they had a security deposit refund. They probably need a little assistance on some of that. But the other um property managers and landlords are really expediting the process. So, if we could get them to fill out the applications and everything, no longer than maybe the first week in May. And that's for somebody who start the process late because most people are expediting to try to get them in. Um, as far as the case management, as we've sat here and talked about it, and you made an excellent point. I was um given a proposal. It was $250,000 to um pay for case management. And the case management, it kept changing like what they really were going to do, what was it going to accomplish, things like that. Plus, I did not have the funding for that. And me and Lou actually talked about that. But what I would like to see for case management, we're housing providers and we're very limited in what we can do. Uh we can't necessarily violate Well, we can't violate HIPPA when it comes to some of their medical things. We can't tell them what unit they have to take. We have to strictly

work from them from a housing standpoint. And that's the housing authority. We have afforded each one of them a section 8 voucher which ensures they'll have affordability in the next unit that they going to. We have uh gotten Cecil on board to do housing navigation which means they have somebody to help them look for a site you know fill out all the necessary paperwork and try to get other resources. So if we could get a case management group to come in, I think if they really take over the duties of the residents at the hotel, then the housing authority in all in could step away from the hotel and let the case managers fill that gap cuz that's the gap. It's the checking on them every day. It's the asking them what happened with your navigator. It's checking with the navigators. Hey, did she call you? you know, all of that type of stuff while at the same time uh for some of them that have medical needs trying to reach out. So, if the case management would come in and take over that, then the housing authority employees could leave the site cuz we've given them the vouchers. They know the process. So, we would only be contacted when they actually find a unit and expedite the housing. And then again, uh a lot of that stuff, as people have mentioned, our men does a lot of that, too. So that would alleviate uh them from having to do a lot of things uh with the people at on the site. It's just that the case management that I got it was never really clear and it was um you know $250,000 and I didn't have a budget for that and pay for lodging. Now, as the housing authority, I will say that we can pay for them to stay to the end of April, and that's going to require me to take funding from some other sources to fill in the gap and maybe some our non-federalized money, but that's as far as we'll be able to go. So, if you do get case managers over there, um I'm welcome, you know, for them to come and that's the step away because again, as the agency, we've done everything. But I'm just curious as to

how, you know, how are you going to continue to pay for them to be large there or maybe they can assist them in reaching to their family members because we haven't been very successful with doing that part so that they could actually go stay with a family member and still get the case management services and that way the lodging would go away and that person would still have time to seek housing with their voucher. You know, it's a lot of different scenarios. It just depend on how it's worked. So, um it would depend on which way you guys would want to go. I just personally do not want to um open up the newspaper and this housing authority kicks everybody out of the hotel and cut services and it's not like that. So, if you did decide to do something like that, maybe we could do some type of press release, you know, explaining what's happening. But we're uh doing things now that it's really above and out of the direction of a housing authority, but we doing it because it's needed and we really want to try to get the people housed. But if the case management can come in and do that, then that'll be wonderful for us because we can, hey, we don't never want to be a barrier. We can step back and get out the way. It's just that it'll be a need to pay that cost as well as the lodging cost.

Thank you. And you have a lot lot more clients than just Kazanova Plaza. Oh, yes, ma'am. Yeah. So, you would you would pay attention to all these other clients?

Well, we have a special team that's over there working that's been pulled to help them. It's about five people. And then along with the executive staff, so we have meetings every day, but the our other property managers and case workers, they're still doing their regular work. But by the directors being involved, if we get a RTA for somebody to move, we pull it so that they can go ahead and do the inspection because as soon as you do the inspection, you can do a lease in a HAP contract. That way, that person can move, you know, as soon as that's completed. So, we just taking special precautions like that uh to make sure that they can get hauled as quickly as possible, but we still servicing our other people. But I know it would be I don't want to say it to be relief because they love helping the residents, but they're not that type of case manager. They don't do any medical related things. We're not allowed to do that. So, if a group wants to come in and take that over uh that specializes in that and can get them another level of care, I don't have any objections to it.

And who is the owner of the building? HDC. was uh the housing development corporation is an entity of the housing authority and um you mentioned families and u there's been little little to no um responses from the families. I don't want to discredit the families who have actively been working with uh their relatives but it hasn't been an overwhelming u outpour for families engaging in this. Okay. And you mentioned that of these 31 remaining clients, some had been on housing choice voucher, but you got them all on housing choice.

Yeah, we had about 25 that never had a voucher. And so we did a local preference and we made some exceptions. The board approved it at our last board meeting. Okay. so that we could determine their eligibility and get them a voucher because what I didn't want to happen Kasanova again is not a public housing site but it did allow affordable housing. M so I didn't want somebody who was used to affordable housing to have to go out on a private market without any resources

and so we passed those resolutions so they were able to get a voucher so that they that way it could be more affordable where they were moving to and um I don't think I answered this but the 21 units that we initially found in Monoray were all at our payment standard so it wasn't a factor of the cost and they were with mango properties and do these clients have enough income to meet the one-third requirement for the housing choice meet. Oh yes, ma'am. We've already done that. Yeah. So, they they meet the qualifications to be able to get a voucher.

They've already been issued. Everybody over there was issued a voucher. Well, I imagine you're exhausted and I really want to commend you for staying with it and hauling that water and and doing this really important and hard hard job. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Well, again, you know, we just trying to do our best, but I definitely don't want to be in the way of hinder process. We just been trying to move as fast as we could. But if it's somebody else that can come in and they can do the the holistic case management approach so that you don't have to have the housing authority, you don't have to have a allin or doing that type of stuff. I don't have any issues with it. I just want to make sure that it's understood that the housing authority only had a limited amount of funding to pay for the hotel. And really, my hotel contract was going to be up on April the 12th, but I think maybe I have a way to extend it for the remainder of the month, but I wouldn't be able to go past that because I just don't have the monies to do it. We've already spent $277,000 on these families. Slick concerns me too because uh hiring case managers that are doing areas where you legally can't go into is going to be even more money. So is 106,000 going to do it? No.

But the 106 was for us to keep them at the hotel, right? We do everything except for the medical.

We ask general medical questions. Um but you know, we don't go to their doctor visits and stuff. we're coordinated, but we don't um get them signed up for IHS and stuff like that. And that's where that person would come in. Uh out of the people there, again, it was 20 people that was identified at first. Eight of them, it was just medical equipment like walkers, hearing aids, things like that that they already had that they needed to retrieve. And the other 12 were pre-existing medical issues. And some of them already had case workers and had services, but the services just needed to come to the hotel instead of, you know, trying to continue at Kasanova and they were having a time trying to get that connected. But I know they would love the assistance. I just, you know, again, I'm I'm not against it. I want to make sure everybody understand. I'm all for it. I just don't want to duplicate any services. And then we could leave and go back to doing the housing. We can do that from our site. We don't have to be at the country end to do that. I just want to make sure that, you know, I keep hearing like funding is limited. So, if you're going to pay for case management, how is the lodging going to be uh paid for? And I'm sure you have way more money uh than the housing authority and um opportunities to network. But I just want to, you know, be clear on that per uh because again, I don't want to be seen as somebody just kicking everybody out the hotel.

Thank you. Um, just real quick on that last point, I um I I worked with Lou, reached out to a couple of of nonprofit organizations. I'm not sure if he communicated to you, but seems like we secured the funding in order to pay for the um case management piece of it. So, I it's I I have some initial funds for that. So, I think I think we'll be good there. Okay.

Um and and I guess I would just ask a follow-up question to it. Would it be helpful if the city assisted in in obtaining the contract for for that and worked in partnership with the housing authority to make sure that we're working in partnership on that piece of it? the first case management contract that they uh showed me. I don't know if this is the same one. Um it was basically centered around their medical needs and I informed Lou that I could not execute that contract because as a housing authority I do not have the authority and cannot take on the responsibility of their medical needs. So, uh, I let him know at that time that the city of Monterey would have to execute that contract and work with that provider, especially, uh, under this fire investigation. If I take on the responsibility for the medical needs, then when I go to litigation,

that's going to be another barrier from us having a successful litigation as HDC. And you know, one thing we um tend to forget, the housing authority is also a victim of this fire. So, we have to do some things to protect ourselves. So, again, I'm if you want to, you know, go that way, I'm all for it. Let us know what we got to do, when we need to move, but I cannot execute that contract under the uh housing authority or HDC.

Okay, Dr. Barber. So, first of all, thank you um in your team and all in of everything that you all have done and MST and the coordination um because it was a devastating uh situation and so to be able to coordinate all of that is is definitely uh something that's very commendable and so I understand being able to have boundaries and and outside of your perimeter uh in your wheelhouse. So, um and you're clear about that, but you've been you you and all in have been actually doing what you can um in those areas. So you you're welcoming is my understanding the case management piece, but just trying to get an understanding of what that looks like. And just from what you just asked, mayor, um it it sounds like that's something that we need to have more conversation about with this case management um contract or whatever because I've never seen anything or heard anything about it. So that this is my first time hearing that. So I would need to know more about that uh to be able to weigh in on that. But um if if the if the case management is available to go in um and you said that if they were to the the 31 that are left were to say yes to the next uh housing units that are offered to them, it would take approximately by the first week of May to be able to have this to move move forward. So, would it be feasible to look at a 30-day type of uh amount, which would be the like the 31 at the $80 a night per the the hotel uh for 30 days, which would be about 74,400, would that seem feasible if case management is like a a side contract that we we'd be looking at? Well, if the case management is the one that um they showed me before for the amount of money that they are charging and the amount of personnel that they said they're going to have, I think it needs to be a holistic approach, which means the housing authority nor all in would need

to be there because when you're talking to the residents, you're asking them about their appointments with property managers, you're asking them about the housing navigation, and then sometimes they are asking them about their medical issues. If you bring in another case management group in the housing authority in all in is still at the property, it's only going to confuse the residents because then they're going to come to us. It's like what property you going to you talk to a property manager did this and that. Then another person going to get them. Did you go to your dot appointment? Did you do it's going to become cumbersome and it's not going to be effective. It's actually going to probably make the process go slower. And that's why, and I hate to be speaking for Tanya, but we've been working on this a lot together. And I just really believe that if you have the funds for the case management, I think it's a great idea, but I think they should take on the whole process.

Okay. So, I guess what? And they said it was going to be um for 6 months and it was um it was two prices. It was one that was for 6 months. So, it was after they got placed, they still was on the system. I think it was likeund and something thousand. It was close to two butund and something. And then it was another one that would extend it depending on the amount of people and it was $250,000. So it was two different time frames. Okay. And it had all the personnel and stuff. But when I looked at the uh sheet that they sent, all of the things that were listed on there were things that were already taking place.

And so they were going to come in, but somebody was already doing that. And not just the volunteers, the housing authority was doing it as well and they weren't necessarily taking over. So I just believe if you hire a professional case management provider, they need to come in and they need to take over the process because our residents, they love familiarity. And if you start doing too much with too many people, they're going to get confused. They going to start complaining and it's just going to create barriers to them being able to be housed. Sure. So, I understand that part, but I guess my question was for this the 74,400 because that was specifically for the housing part. That's just for lodging for another 30 days.

Wouldn't that be helpful because that's 30 days. So, if if that if that would be enough time because you were saying basically you could if they said yes because I know it's on the res if they said yes but it could happen by the Okay, let me let me uh put it like this. If the if the 31 remaining because next week we should be at 31. Mhm. I don't have I I have no doubts the other eight are going to be placed. They should be out of there by next Friday. So the other 31 if uh they said yes to all of the housing that's still available and they took the housing navigators and went and did the applications on time, they could be housed by the first week of May.

Now is this going to happen? That's a perfect scenario. I doubt it. That's why when I was putting in a request, I was asking for something that extended like, you know, 45 days, almost 60 days got because you got to call MST to get them transportation. You got to coordinate with the new property management group to be able to do the applications and the viewing. They don't have documentation, a lot of them. So, we've been making their documentation, which we could get that to them and they could get to their case management person, but it is a couple of little hurdles. So, I just don't want you to go into it thinking like 30 days we're done. I would estimate for 60 and hope to be dead in 45. Okay. Because it sounds like the one 106 that you're

Yeah, that was for the 30. Sounds Sounds more like the 30 40. Okay. Sorry. All right. Thank you.

Okay. I think that's all of the questions from the council for now. So, thank you again for coming and presenting. We're going to open it up for public comment at this time. Um, so for folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber, if you wouldn't mind sitting to the left of the podium, and then we'll take those speakers. I was like, Chrissy, you're going to go stand in line. Okay, this is a All right, so we have three in the chamber. Anybody else? Last minute chance. Anybody else for the chamber? All right, so we're going to cut off to the three in the chamber. We'll go ahead and do a countdown for folks on Zoom to 5 4 3 2 1. We have one on Zoom. We'll go ahead and start in the chamber. Hi Tanya.

Hello everyone. U my name is Tanya Costa and I am with All in Monterey County. Um I don't know where to start because a lot of the questions that you asked Lua I have several answers for that could probably clarify with you, but I only have 2 minutes and 49 seconds. So, I don't know if um you want to hear the answers because it may be able to help you make the decisions. Yeah. And if if anything, we can call you back up after Kate asked question.

So, I'm just going to start real quick. Um you talked about the people who are applying. Um I was on the phone last night with a lady at 8:45 because a English- speakaking resident called me with her. She speaks Bisian. I was able to find somebody who speaks Bosean. She had not applied for a single property because she goes to the meeting. She sees a paper. She didn't have a cell phone. She didn't have an email. So, she was crying because she was never going to apply for a place. I don't know who the housing navigators were, but they never connected with her. So, last night at 8:45, I had my friend who spoke to can with this lady. They're on the phone for over an hour and we applied for a place today. Um, so I think that we need to really take the residents, find out who and why they didn't apply because this is one sweet lady who's 87 years old who called me crying at 8:45. So I think those are things that we need to look. Um, I also want you to know I know every single resident there by name. I care about them. Every single person there has a member of Allin that um that is attached to them. So, if I see one um resident who was in the hospital for the past 6 days, he returned today before lunch. We met him there and that person's friend, you know, made sure he had everything he needed. Um he does need a few things. He was injured in the fire, was back, he's been in and out of the hospital. Um so, there are a few things. He's um former military, so there's a lot of pride with him. So when you talk about caseworking, it's going to be really hard to bring somebody there

to deal with this gentleman. I'm

going sorry, I have so much to say. Um, but we've been dealing with him. And when you talk about case management, he literally called me two days ago and said, "I should be home tomorrow. There was delays. I got the phone call today. He's coming home today. That person met him and we're we're meeting his needs." Um there's um what you asked. Every time someone moves into an apartment, we give them a basic set which is um to eat, sleep, and shower. And that basic set is um between $770 to $900 because we're buying them a mattress, a platform, a lamp, pots and pans, shower curtains, toilet paper, paper towels, everything they need to eat, sleep, and um shower. Um and that's round one. And then we go back for round two, which is some of them need recliners because there's a lot of people that are um mobile. I didn't say anything I really wanted to say.

We can we can loop back around if there's additional questions here. Okay. I just everything that Zulica had mentioned I have responses for and you know it's it will help you determine how it's spent. Thanks Tanya.

Hello council mayor. Um again my name is Bob Face. Um, I'm involved with We Pray Monteray and uh National Day of Prayer. We've worked with about 23 different area churches and I've had a number of people come up and ask me and say what's going on with those residents, how we can help. I've done a lot of I've done a good bit of work with those that are transitioning from being homeless. It's not an easy task. Um, sometimes you can make it too easy for them and it's hard for them to make the move. And particularly we have someone that's been under such a traumatic situation, there's a recovery time that takes to really handle and deal with those problems. But what it really takes is that one-on-one person that cares for their individual needs. Each person, as she stated, is a different reason why they're not doing it. We really need to identify that on a basis. And there's certain places you can go here in the area. Um the bridge has got a lot of experience how to help people. Reach out to organizations like that. Um, R3 is another guy that Rich Watson does an amazing job in helping that. Greater Victory Church, there are people that really know how to do that. And there are volunteers that can come from area churches that are retired, have nothing to do, want to help, and they can come in and do this and, you know, just on their own heart and they develop a good relationship. It might be a good way to take a look at doing that. Saves a lot of money because they do it as a charity and it's just showing God's love. Thank you. Okay. Wow. That was a real eyeopener I would imagine for everybody in this room. Um, we need to be really learning a lot of lessons from this event that's happened in many ways. Um, I'm glad that the council members have been actively going out and looking at the site and speaking to people. Um, couple of

points. If there was ever a perfect example of why we need a renter assistance program, while there are many in the community, including on this council, that keep saying we don't need it, this is a perfect example of why we need it. Another example of what we need that this shows clearly is the inventory, the rental inventory program. staff was able to look on that list as soon as it happened to see what was available in our city because of that. That wouldn't have been happening as quickly as it did if we didn't have that program. So there this is demonstrating clear value in some in an unexpected event. So it should be considered heavily when we have people come up on a budget discussion to remove these programs that are not that expensive but play a huge role in helping our residents. Many of those residents would become homeless if we didn't have these things in place and these services coming from the c the county because a huge population of the homelessness uh that's increasing right now are seniors. So we really need to learn from this experience in a variety of ways. I think it's important that properties be inspected. Make sure that, you know, wherever seniors in particular, the ones that are disabled are living, that they have ways of understanding what to do during an emergency, you know, our fire department and police department were there like on the spot and performed wonderfully. Cert did a lot. Everybody did what they could, but now we need to look back and learn on how we can improve this because it's not a matter of if it'll happen again. It will happen again. something similar will happen, an

earthquake, uh all kinds of things that could that could happen. Going back to the um rental assistance program, I think Matt mentioned that they had a reduced need this year from the previous year. I want to remind you all that there the parameters were reduced from what the original intention of this ren assistance program was. the the original intent was for people who did not qualify for existing programs to be able to have somewhere to go for assistance and that was reduced significantly. So that's where that reduced need came from. It's not because there are less renters or less people applying. We have people that are applying, they just aren't qualifying as much as they were before. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. And with that, we will go to our caller on Zoom. Lori, you can unmute and go ahead.

Good evening all. Um, uh, the woman who gave the presentation and and housing authority is to be commended for all the work they're doing and also Tanya and allin. Uh, I'm just going to run through a few points and just throw some maybe thinking out of the box ideas of how maybe we can help and we're not thinking about it. Um, number one, at the at the current levels, 125,000 isn't that much. And that the current methodology you know this m maybe giving people three chances uh we can all understand this is traumatic this is hard there older people for any of us who had to just up and move and lose everything in our lives suddenly would be hard but this is a point where we can't I'm just a a practical realist you have to just get in there they maybe get one chance looking at the fact that there were 21 units in Monterey That's a quarter of the units that would have housed a quarter of those people. And so if we have 39 people left and there's 21 units, provided they're still available, that would make this number only 18 if we can get those 21 filled. So I think that's should be a number one priority, and it probably is. And people don't get three chances. If the housing authority has gone through all this trouble and gotten everybody housing vouchers and you're bringing choices to them, we need to get them where we can get them and then worry about moving them later. Um, and the other couple things uh I know really helped. I I have a friend who has a grandmother in there. I think Tanya was getting to this where some of them I was offering her a bed and she said, "Oh no, my grandma can't have a bed because she's got mobility issues and she has to go from her chair

and get in a chair that's a recliner and that's how she sleeps." So there are definitely some special needs there and I know Cert helped a lot in the very beginning going and getting hearing aids and medicines and a bunch of that. I and a lot of those are good. Dennis Duke was one of them. Can they help at all with the medical aspect? Uh maybe not, but maybe so because they're certified. Maybe that would bridge that gap that um uh the presenter was talking about not being able to execute because they're the housing authority and they can't really delve into the medical aspects. So that's one thing. and whether I don't know if we're using them or not, but our um current PD homeless navigators because technically these people are homeless right now. So maybe we could be filling a gap with our um homeless navigator folks in the city if we're not already. Okay, that's all I have.

Thank you, Lori. I think that was it. Um okay, we'll go ahead and close general public comment. um bring it back to the council. Um um just to respond on a few things, Zelica, do we know I think you said something earlier, but do you are those um units still with Mangold? Are they still on the table at all? Could Could you do me a favor just jump to just so that folks online could hear you? We actually refreshed the list uh today and of the 21 that were available before, I think that it was about 10 that were still available right right now, but they did have some other units that were coming up towards the beginning of May, but I I think it was 10 that are still available at this time. Okay.

And then other units have been identified too. It was another list of 68 units uh that was provided and a number of those were in Monterey as well. Interesting. Yeah. So that was the list from the 26. So the list that was on the six was the 21 of which I think 10 are still left. And then we did a list on the 26 with 68 units and those 10 were probably on there plus some more additional. It did have a whole county but Monterey was separated so they could see it.

Okay. Okay. Um, and then just to respond to a few other things, the volunteers, I don't think the issue is having enough bodies to help. I think that's we're good there. Um, so I appreciate the the suggestion idea. I think it's just making sure that we have all the pieces working together in the way that we need them to. And then and and so in the homeless navigator, I think it goes to that prior point around uh volunteers. Um, I don't even my understanding is that we don't even have that position filled right now for the navigators. Um, that's Oh, it's a position within the city of Monterey. Um, so just wanted to pro provide a response to those public comments.

Um, we're a little tight on time because we're supposed to be starting our evening session here at 7 and council has not had a chance to eat dinner. So, I apologize council, but I appreciate you bearing with us and and discussing this important stuff. Um, may I have one idea? Please. You you can hire nurse navigators. I mean, we we could do that. People like Shirley Kata. Is your mic on? Who? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Um, you can hire nurse navigators and keep keep you in place and supplement with a nurse navigator to do the medical stuff.

Um, um, I'm just going to ask Tanya a few questions because I know She has a couple thoughts. I'm gonna throw these all out and then you want me to go sit down? Yeah, you can. You can. Look, I might have a comment on something she f to say, too. Cuz I asked for 106 so she can get her to win. There you go. Zulie and I do work well together. I'm going to applaud her because I called her at 10 o'clock at night on a Saturday and she actually answered.

So, I think that she and I are pretty much on the same page right now. and um you know, she's doing the back end of it, making sure everybody's housed and I'm doing the well, she's doing the front end, I'm doing the back end, making sure that all of these humans um have the dignity and feel the support that we offer. I appreciate it. Appreciate it. Next to me, friend. Appreciate the team effort. Yeah. Um so, just a few questions. What are the types of needs you have in the near term for the 20K um funding request? Are they medical equipment, dental, clothing?

Yeah. So, um, like I said, we know every single person. We know their name. We know their story. We know if they have family. We know what they're going to have. And we don't even know what they're not going to have because we don't know if they can get into their apartments or if, you know, Zelica gave me a list of the total losses, but they're going to be some people where the textiles in their home are not going to be able um are not going to be safe without the remediation. I know lots of people have told us if I can get one or two things out of my apartment, what would it be? Ashes. They have the loved ones ashes in there. Some people have lost their children and they have like their child's baptism dress. So, I've asked every single person, if you can go in there and get one or two things, what would it be? And these are really important things because they're not they're important to this group of people who are already fragile mentally, physically, and having these things will mean the world to them. And as you both saw, they're not just people to me. You know, I know every single one of them. My team is there 12 hours a day. We have a minimum of three volunteers there, and we're all volunteers. None of us get paid. Um, so the complete money that you would give us would go straight back to them. We don't have um we don't have an overhead at all. Um I'm getting emotional because we've been there every single day since the morning of the fire and so many of them um need, you know, they're worried to get into place because right now we have a shift that is get all the people who can't get out of bed by themselves into the wheelchair or the office chair that's located in their room. So that's one of the reasons people are hesitating to leave because they know there they have support. They know at Kasanova their next door neighbor would come and help them get out of bed.

We don't, you know, they're they're losing their community. Um, so those are the things that we help them with. We're buying bars. Um, there's a lady whose right side, she doesn't look like she's handicapped, but her right side is all metal because she served in the military. So, she has specific needs where when you get into the shower, the shower has to be on the left side and she needs two different bars because she has to move around. she needs a different shower head. So, we know that she spent a lot of money on those things that's not going to be covered by her insurance. So, we know that when she finds a place with the shower with the right side wall, we're going to help her with that. So, it's hard to say like I can't say we're going to buy, you know, 87 mattresses. We're going to buy what they need to be whole. We're going to And my team already knows that once they're housed, that doesn't mean we say goodbye. That means that we check on them in their homes. You know, we've already moved 20 people and we've already did follow-up visits, follow-up phone calls, finding out what else they need. As we get donations from the community of furniture, we're giving it to them. What's hard for me is I really want to give everybody everything. But like I said, their basic their basic packet to move into their house, which is just a shower curtain, a bed, the basic things cost us 700 and $70 per person or 900 if they need specialized equipment because they're all

So the 20,000 is going to be helpful. And I don't want to sound ungrateful, but it's going to be a drop in the bucket of what we continue to want to do for these people. So, and how long do you think that funding would last for? 20,000 would help us get the rest of the basic needs and rest the residents.

Yes. And um like I said, there's going to be people who need specialized medical equipment and this this will cover some of it, not all of it. I'll find a way. I swear to goodness, if you know anything about allin, we'll find a way to support these people. And just like and this is an example. In 2023, we served in the same capacity for the Paharo floods and we still go out there every other week and we say hello and we bring them Christmas presents and we make sure that they're still being supported and they know us. So when we talk about another organization coming in to do the caseworking, I think it's great, but it almost breaks my heart because we know all this now. And I think that like today we had a move to Solidad. I had one person go because she has um had a you know the guy with the cat and the Xboxes. He moved to Soladad today and when they got there

they weren't going to let him move in cuz the house had not been inspected yet. So he's um kind of got frazzled, kind of got really upset and my all-in person called me and I said take him to lunch. Show him the neighborhood. Give him an opportunity. Housing authority went, they inspected the place. They allowed him to move in. But those are the things that I worry about. What if he had gone there with MST by himself?

You know, like that's why I want Allin to continue to be involved because these are the things that happen, you know. So, every single penny will be used towards them. Every single penny will be used wisely. Um, it's not going to be like a blanket. Let's I don't know what to say like let's buy everybody blankets. It's really going to be what the individual person needs. And again, we sp we speak to every single human every day. Um, so last question. Um, it sounds like All-In is um in many ways serving as the case manager tracking um the needs of each resident. Also, you are an allv volunteer organization with nobody on payroll.

Nope. Um, is that sustainable or would you be able to work with a reputable nonprofit and hackme to work on case management if it could be funded by other organizations?

You know, I think some volunteers behind me, I can feel I can feel them saying don't say yes. I would say I would say yes, but we're there like breakfast, lunch, dinner, and nighttime checks and morning checks. I would love to have someone at a paid capacity come in, but I would also um so I have 10 regular volunteers that show up daily and we have a number of spontaneous volunteers, meaning volunteers that come and help us. I would love and I guarantee you every single person that's doing this, if they knew that the work they're doing would go back into allin, they would do it. I I have no doubt that they personally may not want to be paid maybe gas. I mean, we're we're burning up our gas, but I guarantee you if I said, "Hey, the city of Monterey instead of I I'm not suggesting this, but if I said the city of Monterey is going to pay us instead of a case worker since we've been with them every single day, we even had an Easter dinner for them." Um, they would do it. They would be there. I think right now they're getting tired because they feel like not when is this going to end, but when are we going to get a break? they see like how much how much we need to give and how much the people need and what we don't have.

Okay. All right. Thank you, T. I appreciate You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Please. Please. Yep. Uh I know y'all got something to do, so this is going to be uh quick.

U first off, id like to say that uh I didn't share this with anybody, but I actually had a fire at one of my apartments uh one time. I was the only one home with a bunch of kids, two years old, 5 years old, and six years old. And I had to make two trips in a burning apartment to get them out of there. My uh daddy, he died, and he was just my everything. And the little piece that come with the casket was in there, and I couldn't get it for 3 weeks. So, I really sympathize with these people, and I know what they going through. But for us to get to the finish line on letting them know about their things, we got to just put a hard stop so the test can be done because every time we don't do it, it gets prolonged and it gets prolonged. And right now we looking at two weeks and um we made a lot of, you know, runs back and forth. So we going to have to just put a hard stop to that so that we can just go make that final determination based on the test results. Uh the other thing as Tanya was talking about the person that moved today, he was also one of the ones that I paid special attention to. He was initially supposed to move on Wednesday, but then um he said he wanted to go ahead and move on Tuesday. So that's probably where that confusion came in because each person over there have a housing authority person that's assigned to them as a case worker and we have a meeting twice a day, 9:30 and 3:30 to talk about what's happening. And so if you do case management services, the part that we're doing, um, we do housing navigation, like I said, with assist them with that, even though we really not supposed to be doing that, but you got to stay in constant contact. So you got to call the apartment complex, you got to call the section 8 department, you got to call the person, make sure they pay the fees. Sometime you got to take the check. It's a lot that the housing navigators do from Cecil, but it still have to be that person to check on all of that and monitor all of that. And you got to talk to these people at least twice a day, but make sure that it's done. You know, even

going around like their doctor's appointments and things like that for it to stay on track. So, the case management piece is necessary. Uh I don't want Tane to think I'm trying to kick all in out cuz I'm not. They've been doing a great job out there, her and her volunteers. Um, and I see where they service is needed and it's worked great in con, you know, conjunction with us. We've really been tag teaming this. But as from a business side, which I love all the residents, but from as a business side, if you have the funds to hire professional case workers that could take it from A to Z to get it done, and you can pay for another 30 days or so at the hotel. And this would allow them to do all the medical things that we can't do. and some of the medical things that all in can't do. Well, I assume they can't do it. Maybe they can get an authorization. So, I'm not gonna speak on that. But if you have somebody that can do all of that and there are really going to care for these people cuz we care for these people. We check on them with empathy and with resilience to get them housed, then I don't think that's a bad plan. But you just got to be really careful who you're bringing in to replace these people that they have known, you know, started growing and loving to know in us who have a really personal relationship with them as well as assisting them. I'm not saying we can't be replaced. I believe we can, but just somebody from your organization would need to, you know, check on it and make sure they're doing all that. So again, we've housed 35 people in about what, three weeks. That should continue when you bring in this new company. it shouldn't decrease. And so that's all that I really want.

I appreciate you. I appreciate you and Tanya for both of you for jumping in and providing all this information. I think it's been helpful for the council, but also the public to kind of get a better understanding of what's going on behind the scenes. So, thank you both so much. No, thank you.

Um, I'm going to go and try to make a a motion here. Um, so I I would um direct staff to move forward with um working a contract for case management um and I would say up to 200,000 um contingent on getting the funding support that's been committed um the 20,000 to um that's been requested by allin and then to work with the housing authority on on their request um contingent on the additional information being provided. That's my motion.

Second. Any discussion on the motion? Yes. I I want to I want to open it up. And so the part I'm confused about was staff to work with housing authority. Housing authority, but that's separate from the 200,000. That's correct. So work with them means what in your in your motion? Um I think well what what does staff think of of what that looks like to you all?

I I think and there's two pieces. Um the first on the funding side was just to provide some clarification. The remaining balance uh we believe this fiscal year for rental assistance is $125,000. So, if council would like to allocate more funding, we would have to uh amend that and take money out of general fund, non-allocated funding for to increase that. In terms of uh being able to work with nonprofits, we've identified some that have case management options, but I I think we do need to refine it based on uh the various organizations. I think it's worth exploring. uh one proposal that has been received that we received and housing authority received a nonprofit organization that's based here in Monterey County and has worked with the county of Monterey before. Um we also know there are other the the county may have other funding sources uh available or other nonprofit organizations. So giving us some flexibility and maybe more broader uh direction on uh where you like to see the city staff's role is is helpful and will allow us to uh move forward. And I guess I would clarify my motion and I would just say whatever the city's contribution is to the three elements that identifi are identified in the motion is up to the 125,000. If we can get additional funding support to augment these other pieces, then that gives the authorization up to that amount. So that's why I was saying 200,000 for the the case management and then I would guess I would say up to 125,000. So, I guess it would be up to 100,000 for Hackme, but conditioned on working with staff in regards to some of the logistics details and making sure that everything is tight there from what we need from them,

please.

Okay, thank you for indulging just a few comments. Um, so the way this item was drafted, it was to have the city um donate funds um that could be utilized for these purposes such as case management um and supplies, beds, furniture, rent, deposits, very broad. And the way the resolution is drafted is it said it's to be um interpreted extremely broadly to encompass whatever these needs may be. um as opposed to the city entering into a contract and hiring a case manager to work for the city to help these residents. Um I I think it may be preferable um to have it be a donation say to Montage or to some organization an ear market for case management services as opposed to the city hiring um case workers or nurses or I I I'm not really sure how that would work. um with the medical information and the and the supervision and that type of thing. Um

I'm so we could donate in other words we can donate money to like Montage or to whatever organization can provide case management services in this situation. The city can be a donation only for that purpose. um as opposed to the city hiring and having a contract with and being the boss of um social workers getting medical data which maybe is is a bit more complicated than we're prepared to indulge.

So is the medical data piece where cuz I thought we talked about this and I'm a little bit confused in regards to what's changed. Is it the medical piece that's different for you? what we talked about and what's in the agenda report is a donation being made for broad purposes which could also include case management services um as opposed to a contract with the city hiring. It's it's a distinction. Um I guess I'm I'm a little bit confused because that was what the conversation was was the city moving forward with the contract. So I'm just I'm trying to understand where the difference was. No. Uh could I make a friendly amendment? Just if you could give me one sec. I just want to try to clarify.

I believe the agenda report reflects actually 100% um the request um which was to facilitate the easiest way to fund and to give the most flexibility and not be locked in. And so the resolution includes language that says um it's to be broadly construed without limitation and it includes but is not limited to case management services. all of these items that these um displaced tenants might need and it gives the city manager the authority to allocate those funds as needed to whatever entity can provide that needed service. So, if it's determined a case manager is needed and Montage provides case management services, this action would authorize the city manager to donate money to Montage earmarked for that specific purpose as opposed to the city entering into a contractual relationship where we have supervisory obligations and medical stuff. It's just a very different relationship in my view.

Okay. Um Gino and then and then and then I'll go to you. I just because I second the motion, I just wanted to clarify because I I think I what I understood was uh based on uh what you had mentioned earlier um uh about there being organizations interested in supporting and potentially uh them um contributing in terms of the cost, right? That would be on them, not us. the the only uh I guess donation that I see coming from us would be the 125,000 is what I understood. That's correct. Okay, that's correct. Pres,

I I would offer a friendly amendment that we fund 20,000 to allin and 105 to the housing authority to continue the support for the residents still at the hotel hotel and that we try to bring in community foundation to give them more support. They just they need more support. But but I I totally agree with the city attorney. We aren't going to make those contracts. We can help them through this trouble right now. Help these people that are doing such good and then maybe round up more support in the community forum, but that that's about it.

Okay. Uh is that's a friendly amendment. So you need a second to that. Well, the motion maker needs to accept the friendly amendment. So yeah. So, you're not doing a substitute motion, but a friendly amendment is your request.

I um I'm I I guess I'm just trying to figure out walking away from here what this looks like because there's a little bit of ambiguity in regards to what does that mean? Now, um uh so we give we're not giving funding at this point. So, we have nothing to do with case management. So, I'm I'm conf I'm I'm a little confused from our conversation because it it did seem clear that we could take that on to make sure that the job got done. So, now it's we're we don't we don't have any involvement in it. Um so,

maybe I need to better understand your objective. Um what what level of intervention and oversight are you looking It was exactly what you're saying that we shouldn't be doing now, which I I I guess I acknowledge to supervise social work. get the contract in place so that we can get the social worker in place and we can the case manager in place so that we can work with um the housing authority on providing the assistance that's needed for these residents.

Well, I I I'm not sure. I mean, I I know Nat you were at that conversation. Um yeah, I thought that was one idea, but that at the end and that's what this agenda item was crafted to achieve was the donation direction. Um so if I misunderstood that,

that's what that's what I recall as well was the idea of the city of Monterey serving as uh the donor to other organizations. If if we can try to explore that, it would um that would be I think a preference and then if we need to serve as intermediary, then we can certainly explore that. It would require though more contractual and discussion of legal risks and other aspects right in in the future. But I one of the things that was really interesting to me and just sharing my my candid um thoughts here having been there at the fire on day one and working with the housing authority during that first week and allin it's intriguing to hear that allin could potentially be a case manager and I wonder if that's something worth exploring or if that's something council wants to explore um as well because of that level of expertise. Could could there be uh maybe an additional contribution to them or in addition to their needs? It's what what's challenging is we have a uh a proposal from an organization that we still have to vet uh as that third party that has done some work with the Paharro fire, but uh we've also heard uh uh we we need to have some further discussion with them. And we just received some information this afternoon from the county of Monterey about potential funding opportunities uh within the county and with other organizations too. So having the flexibility based on the resolution that we provided will give us some flexibility and if we want to uh uh if if we need to serve as an intermediary with the pass through then that's something we can certainly bring back forward in two weeks if something for council to consider. I mean, maybe um there's a disconnect with terminology. So, um what in your mind is a case worker or case manager? What does that look like? Cuz we're hearing different versions of what that might be. Is it someone who's obtaining medical information and taking them to doctor's appointments and dealing with their medical necessities? Or is it someone acting more in the capacity as um All-In has been acting? So, maybe that's where the disconnect is and the

understanding of what we're trying to achieve. And so I'm not saying we can't do either of those things or either of those things. It's just maybe more clarity on what what does the council want.

I think it's a little bit of all the above. And and again, I don't think it's about replacing allin. It's about having somebody come in that's professional in this skill set that's getting paid a salary to to do the work and working in conjun conjunction with our community partners to get the job done. So, so and and I'll get you I see your hand up. I just want to clarify something. So, it I guess is it a problem with this moving forward? It sounds like it might be and I'm I guess I if I can get better clarity in regards to where the problem or concern exists. Um, I think if you're looking to expedite and facilitate this as easily and with less red tape as possible, the city has broad financial authority to donate money to achieve whatever objective you're looking to do. It doesn't require a contract. You can donate funds to organizations for specific purposes. Um, if there's more oversight and um, supervision required of the people performing that work, that's a different kind of a deal. We could do that too, I think, potentially. Um, and I would need to figure out how we hire medical providers. And I'm I'm not saying we can't. I just, you know, the medical records would need to be separate. Um, so

Okay. Okay. Um, Counc.

Yeah. I'm I think the solution for me is the $125,000 is allocated because it's money that we can quickly allocate and then not try and create something else. It's an outside of that which impacts the general fund with indebtedness to pay for a professional contract or to donate additional money of 200 or 250,000 in addition to the 120. I think the 120 is the easiest, fastest within our authority to divide it between the immediate needs. But what I think is missing here is that social work is typically provided by the coun by the county and we talked about that earlier this week. Uh, but I think that there is an opportunity to give our staff the the chance to take the $125,000 authorization, contact the county, contact the foundation, contact other non-governmental organizations that are aware of this problem. And with our $125,000, it may stimulate additional funding that provides the housing continuation that provides the all-in that's giving the touch that the residents need and the connections. I mean, my gosh, they went to Solidad. They've got a military person that they just need time to get connected with Veterans Transition Center. So, it seems like allin is kind of in a good position. I think the city has a a good point. We need to vet before we donate. That gives the city time to be able to do that. I authorize I would authorize $125,000, give it back to staff and ask them to come up with the the best format to proceed to get $125,000

to the immediiacy of the need for allin and the housing authority. and at the same time they're able to then communicate to with county and the nonprofits and the foundation. I think this is one of those that staff needs some creativity and they have an opportunity to do that if we authorize 125,000. What I can't live with is creating an additional impact to the general fund. Dr. did you want to jump in?

Uh yes. So for me, it's definitely the 125,000. I feel that the the e the quickest way to be able to have this more directly moved to be able to help uh these residents that have been unhoused uh by this devastation is to get that 125,000 to the housing authority which would be in all in. Sound like 5,000 to the housing authority so that immediately we know that they are going to be having money funds to be able to be housed at the hotel until they get their permanent housing and then the other 20,000 to all in who's already kind of doing a case management type of situation

and have the direction of our staff to be able to work with those people that you were talking about um as far as other county pieces and and and components of agency to see if there's other funding that they have that can add into the medical pieces. But I think right now getting that money there instead of having another step, another step, another step to come back and say, "Okay, now this is what we're going to do with the 125,000." No, I say you already, we already see what what's going to be most effective and most quickly done is get this 105,000 to housing authority. So, we know that they have housing for the next 30 days, 20,000 to all in because of what they're already doing to get furnishing and all of the um starter kit to the residents and then after that work with the medical agencies that are in the county to be able to get those other funding. That's that's where I see it. Um, so I'm going to try to um alter my motion here a little bit. Um, because I I see some willingness and potential from staff to be able to work this out with the contract potentially, but I don't to me the piece about the contract isn't what the important part is. The important part is that we get the funding to whatever organization is needed to help provide the case management services to support our partners. So I think to to alter the motion to provide that flexibility to staff to work with our partner organizations to help facilitate a case manager being put into place. So it's not we don't have to do a contract for it whether it's us helping to receive the funds and collecting them and then giving them to whatever you giving that contribution whatever that looks like. So that's hopefully that provides some clarity in regards to or gives some flexibility to staff in regards to what next steps look

like. What's the dollar amount that you're envisioning? Um the dollar amount I said was up to 200,000 but we don't have the authorization to do that. We have 125,000 in the rental contingent on getting the contributions from the nonprofits. It's separate and it's separate and then you have the additional 75,000. 200,000, right? But it's 125 you're saying from us and then the additional 75,000 which would make it up to the 200,000.

No, no, no. The 200,000 is separate because that's how much is being has been committed to by nonprofits to help support the case management work. So that's all separate. So you're doing 125 per month and then 200 additional 200 is what they're supposed to be raising fundraising on. That's that's what's been committed by nonprofits. Okay. So you're not your motion is not intending that we are expending 200,000 fund. That's correct. Okay. So that that's a hope because that's somebody else's money. That's correct. Okay. So your your motion is staff is going to work and try and get additional funding beyond the 125. That's correct.

And if they come in a little short that that's up to the whoever is donating money. It's up to 200,000. So if it doesn't come in, it's only up to that amount. Okay. Okay. So why does the 200,000 need to be in there? I'm fine taking it out, but if we need a dollar figure just for staff to move forward, that's the only reason why I put that in there. I think we're back to the friendly amendment. Yeah, I I I think we are. I think the 125 is a friendly amendment. Give me one second. I think Chrissy wants to jump in at thought.

I I I think what you're articulating is the staff recommendation and it's in the resolution, although you made it a bit more narrow limiting it to case management services. So, if that's the intention, that's completely fine. If it's to cover a broader range of needs, uh, then the staff recommendation is broader in what's in the language that's before you. So, can I ask the the mayor a question? Um, give me on your motion. Give me one second.

And I think that's where the case management terminology is maybe hanging us up a bit. Does that Chrissy, does that preclude um Yay! Come on up. Does that Does that preclude um the city in entering into a contract for the case management services? It it uh the resolution contemplates donations to any organization that can provide case management services at the discretion of the city manager.

Okay. I'm sorry. I just in listening to uh your talking, I've heard two things that I think might um be of interest. We do, you know, provide a whole case management for the people. And in doing that, I've been searching for other ways for them to get different services. So for the veterans association, we did contact them. We had 18 veterans on site. We've already housed 10. It's only eight left. And they said they cannot provide any other services for them. They call nation finest and they can do housing u navigation for them for free. But they said that it's a little tricky because technically they're not homeless because they staying at the hotel. So the VTC is really not able to do anything for the other eight veterans that are there. But they were able to help the first part.

No, we we housed them. The housing authority, we did it. So VTC was not able to provide anything.

They came out and did an assessment and put them on their waiting list for transitional housing. But because we had them at the hotel, they said they technically not homeless. So then that tied their hands as far as providing services. And then they contacted Nation's Finest and Nation's Finest came out. They started helping two with housing navigation. They say they can come back and help the other six, but they got to do a D form for that because technically in under their category, the people are not homeless because they at the hotel. So, it's very limited what you can get from them. I just wanted to let you know that. And then I don't know if any of you thought of this when I was trying to uh think of other ways to help with the case management. I called the Cal AIM uh group. I talked with them. I got a spreadsheet. They asked me what's the people Medicaid, which mean they got medical and Medicare. Most of them do. So, we got their medical numbers. We got to turn it in to them. When they get that, they said they might be able to assist with some types of case management. Now, I'm not as familiar with it cuz I'm not from California. This is something I was just working on for the group over there. But when you're looking at the case management, you want you might want to reach out to them because it might be some things that they can do as far as the medical can and it's already covered because the people under Medicare. So, I just want to kind of bring that to y'all attention.

Okay. Um, uh, thank you. Thank you. Just jumping back to Chrissy real quick. Um, so I think it does cover what I'm trying to say, but I would just add an additional element to direct staff to help facilitate the process as it relates to the case management. So, whatever that includes, whatever that entails, the coordination, I think just allowing that flexibility to staff to to to do that coordination coordinating effort. Mhm. Does that work? Yes. Okay. And I'll just highlight um

in the resolution it it says this action authorizes the city manager to donate funds to the housing authority at the county of Monterey andor to other organizations to address the unmet needs of fire victims including but not limited to case management, furnishings, clothing, toiletries, food and other necessities. And then it also says that um the type of assistance that is approved by this resolution is to be broadly construed to effectuate its purpose and such assistance includes but is not limited to case management services, food, clothing, toiletries, etc. because we want it we want to be able to put the money where it helps, right? And then yes, I think what you're adding to that is staff needs to work with whoever the city manager donates this money to, unless if you earmark it for specific agencies

um to follow through to um coordinate um yes. So I think that's exact that yes. Okay. Okay. So that's what I'm clarifying my motion to. So it's basically staff's recommendation but also the to direct staff to help with the coordination efforts. All right. Are you good with that as a second? All right. Any other comments on the motion? All right. All those in favor? I. Any oppose? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for engaging in that robust discussion. Let's take a Monterey 5. Where are the snacks? I think we I think we don't.

I know. I know. I know.

Or do you want to go to the police stuff first? Um, yeah, let's just power forward. Let's just go in order. Say one more time. Let's just go in order. Let's just go for the public. We're serving the public. They look at the agenda. They want it in order. I'm sorry. Too many people are talking to me at one time. Say again. Do you mind waiting for a second? I need to get a hearing for that. No worries. No worries. I'm sorry, Jeene. What were you saying? We serve the public. The public looks at the agenda and they determine their pacing and their night based on the order of the agenda. Yeah. So, I will always encourage us to follow the agenda.

Yeah. The only point that I'm making is the 14 and 15 were supposed to be heard in the afternoon, right? And so if anybody was coming for the evening session, they're kind of expecting to have the police stuff. They could be expecting the police stuff first. So it's just an open question to kind of get a sense of what how everybody feels, right? Except people stayed until 7:00 and the audience is online and people do expect to go in order. So I'm just asking for preference. So your preference is to do your stuff first. I hear it. No, my preference is to follow the order of the agenda. So, which is to do your stuff first. Okay, that's what that's what I'm asking. All right.

Do you either have a preference, Dr. Barber? Um, all right. So, we will do 145 first. But before we do those, because we didn't really recess, well, we kind of had a recess. We're going to reconvene and go into our evening session for Oh, supposed to be waiting. Apologize. Clementine asked me to wait for a second. No, you're good.

Oh, the same. You can do the pledge. Yeah,

either you do the pledge. Are you are you able to um are you good to go? Perfect. Perfect. Okay. Uh oh, I just unplugged something. Um okay, so we're going to go ahead and reconvene uh start our evening session. um for this council meeting April 7th, 2026. Just for everybody's um clarity, what we're going to do is go back to 14 and 15 before we go into 16, 17, and 18. But before we get into those items, we're going to go ahead and start with the Pledge of Allegiance. And I'll ask Council Member Smith to lead us off.

Please join us. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thanks, Ed.

And with that, we'll do a continuation of our general public comments for this is for items that are not on today's agenda. Opportunity for for folks to provide public comment. We'll start with folks on Zoom. You can use the raise hand function while you're navigating your way there. I'll check in the chamber. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak for general public comment. Okay. If you wouldn't mind just coming up to the podium. Anybody else in the chamber wish to speak for general public comment in the chamber? All right. So, go ahead and close it off in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to 5 4 3 2 1. And there's three on Zoom. We'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Good evening, Mayor Williamson, council members, and warm welcome to Mr. Hall. My name is Paul Hireling, resident of Larkin Street, and some of you name may know me from my transportation planning work. Uh, in midFebruary, the city of Monterey parking division sent out a notice that if 51% of residents on four continuous blocks did not register to vote to retain the residential parking zone, their preferential residential parking zones would be eliminated. Many residents did not receive this notice, including myself. Um, and if it's not clear, I'm here to speak on the residential parking program and the elimination of the preferential parking permits in Oldtown and New Monterey. On March 18th, the parking division sent a second notice with a deadline to respond to March 30th by request of the neighborhood associations deadline was extended by the parking division to April 20th. For those residents who did not receive the first notice, that gave them 30 days to respond uh that they wanted to retain their residential parking preferential areas. 30 days is not long enough to respond, especially since this notice came right before all elementary schools began spring break and many left the area on vacation. So, uh we know a lot of families and folks in the area that were gone for 2 weeks. As it stands, by April 20th, 51% of, uh 51% of residents do not register, uh the parking zone will be eliminated. In Oldtown, we're at about 50% right now. So, about half of the existing residential parking program would be eliminated. Um, eliminating these parking zones would mean that tourists and adjacent uses such as tourist districts, business districts, and schools would be able to use our neighborhoods uh for parking with no time restrictions beyond a 72-hour limit, which would impact our parking on our streets. Oldtown, in particular, is bordered by Monterey High School, downtown Monterey, Bayiew Academy, and DLI. All which would impact parking on our neighborhoods without preserving the residential permit permit areas. I'm going to wrap it up here pretty soon. Existing residential parking zones in the oldtown and new Monterey areas allow residents to park with a reasonable distance of where they live. As historic neighborhoods, many residents do not

have on-site parking or garages that accommodate modern vehicles. For those living next to high schools especially, they won't have a place to park. It's important to uh preserve these parking areas for the disabled, the elderly, mobility limited, and those who may have difficulty walking long distances to get to and from their vehicles. These neighbors will have a particularly hard time making multiple long trips to and from their vehicles to get groceries and run errands in impacted areas. I joined other voices from Oldtown and New Monterey neighborhood associations uh who I've been coordinating with to ask the council to ex assist with extending this deadline uh either working with the uh city manager or uh through the agenda to help protect our residential apartment permit areas. Um, and really what we're asking for is just an extension uh beyond the April 20th deadline to organize. We are organizing our neighborhood associations. We're knocking on doors. We're walking the streets. We're shooting out the email blasts. We're getting hundreds of neighbors involved. We're going through the city process, but at the same time, um, we'd like an extension. We'd like some time to deliberate. There's uh part of this program doesn't allow uh it doesn't allow the neighbors to it doesn't give them the timeline. So there's two parts to this program. The new part doesn't give a timeline. Uh and then they're they're eliminating ours with a strict timeline. So just keep that in mind. Thank you. That concludes my comments.

Okay. We'll go to our commenters on Zoom. Lori, you can go first. Good evening, Mayor and Council, and welcome aboard, Mr. Hall. Uh, we appreciate you joining the city of Monterey. It's good to see you're still sitting there this afternoon after after all the earlier session.

So, I'd like to briefly address an issue from the March 17th council meeting that remains unresolved. Uh, this is now the second time in recent months that the mayor has publicly identified me by name during a council meeting, mischaracterized my comments, and then criticized them after the public comment had closed with no opportunity to respond. At the March 17th meeting, I did not say that the rental registry caused rent increases. I described a situation and raised questions about the software system. That was reframed into something I did not say and then I was criticized for it. The same thing occurred during the November 5th meeting where the mayor again identified me by name after public comment had closed and inaccurately characterized my remarks as spreading mistruths. This is not about disagreement. It's about accuracy and the use of the diets to publicly attribute statements to a resident that were not made and then discredit that resident without any ability to clarify. Public comment is a one-way process. Residents have two minutes to speak and no opportunity to respond once that time is over. That makes it especially important that comments are not reframed or misdated from the dis. When that happens, it discourages participation and undermines trust in the process. It also undermines the statement read at the beginning of each meeting encouraging public participation. I've submitted written letters to the council following both the November and March incidents outlining these concerns and requesting that this issue be addressed through a governance and code of conduct policy with some kind of enforcement mechanism and I'm raising it again tonight. I expect this matter to be addressed on an upcoming agenda so that this does not continue. Thank you. And I'll apologize for the little

dog in the background. She's very mad because she doesn't get her walks because these meetings don't follow an agenda. Maybe one day they will. Thank you. All right. Our next speaker is Tom.

Uh thank you. Uh I had to leave the afternoon session a little bit early. Um, and I was thinking, well, I'll I'll tune back in again on Zoom and to my amazement and somewhat shock at 7:45, uh, the meeting hadn't even started. And then I figured out, well, you haven't even gotten to items 14 and 15 that were on the afternoon agenda. So, my public comment is that, and I'm sure all of you, I'm not stating anything you don't already realize, but something's got to be done to get the agendas to uh to be a little more reasonable so that they can move along on time. because without that the public loses faith in the public process uh because they expect things to be heard within a reasonable period of time of what the agenda says on it and it was I think maybe two meetings ago or one meeting ago was supposed to be an afternoon only agenda and you all worked through your dinner time you didn't get out of there I think till like 9:30 and I'm thinking My god, how it's it's inhumane for the five of you and staff. And it again, it it really uh shakes the public's faith in the process. And I hope Mr. Hall isn't discouraged by the uh the length of these meetings.

Hopefully, he can uh work with you to help bring these uh back into control. Thank you. And our last speaker is Chelsea.

Okay, thank you. Um, lower my hand. Uh, good evening, mayor and council members. Thank you guys so much for your time. Uh, this is Chelsea Lenovka and tonight I'm calling on behalf of the Casanova Okonol Neighborhood Association. Um, our neighborshood association has been active and has been very busy and uh, we recently held a meeting at the end of March and thought it would be a good idea to use the opportunity to brief out to council and the community on what we've been working on. So, first off, we wanted to thank all the first responders and our search team for their very quick response to the Kasanova fire in our neighborhood. It's devastating to know that so many of members of our community have been impacted and based on the presentation we all heard earlier um, will likely continue to be impacted for time to come. Um, our association with this kind of thought in mind of how we can support CERT voted unanimously to donate all the extra equipment that we've acquired over the years through our own neighborhood association dollars um and are stored in our neighborhood shed directly to CERT so that it can help serve all of our communities across Monterey. We also made a decision out of that meeting to submit a letter to both the county health department and the air resources district board regarding air quality concerns that we have near the airport. We received consistent feedback from our residents about suit and other materials that have recently been piling up on their windows, their cars, and even their solar panels. There's also been increased concerns about foul o odors and questions about possible heightened lead exposure with the presence of the small planes at the airport, which are allowed under CA law to have um lead in their fuel. So, while we all recognize that living near an airport, right, comes with a certain amount of like environmental concerns that that we we get. we're neighbors of the airport. We also would like to know if there's anything specific impacting our neighborhood. And so we really hope that the air quality check can provide helpful data. Um you all should have actually received a copy of this letter earlier this evening. It would have been sent to you via email from our neighborhood association president. If you haven't, please feel free to reach out to us. We are more than happy to

share that and to work with y'all on on what we're thinking. Um, many of our neighbors also wanted to just clear up some questions that they weren't sure where to get redress from on the new apartment development on North Fremont. Everybody's really encouraged actually about the positive activity and progress that we're seeing on North Fremont. You know, an investment in this street in this area, as you guys all know, is very critical and crucial, and we're excited for that prospect. Um, at the same time though, there are some neighbors that are just concerned about maybe the impacts of the traffic flow, especially because Bruce Lane is a one-way street and it looks like the entrance to the garage will be there. just curious what that's going to look like in the future and they weren't sure where to go. So, for council's awareness. And then finally, I know this is a long report, but we were super excited to welcome our new city manager, Mr. Hall. Um, we look forward to working with you, sir, in the future and sharing more about our neighborhood in our area, District 4. Um, so we'll see you soon and and see how we can continue being a constructive partner with the city. Um, thank you guys all for your time. Have a good night.

Thanks, Chelsea. All right, with that, we'll go ahead and close general public comment. And we will move to the request from council members to agendaize new matters. Um just as a reminder, council discussion is limited to whether the issue warrants being heard at a future date. So our best practice here is for council to ask staff questions regarding capacity to provide information for future discussions and time frame. Item 14 is council member Rash's request to agendaize a discussion regarding council expenses and benefits. And with that, I'll pass it to Council Member Rash for her presentation. Thank you. It's pretty straightforward and would be honoring the value drivers of transparent and inclusive government and fiscal stewardship. And that's the question of whether we could look at the expenses of council and um demarcate what is going where and why and for how long? When did when did we begin covering health insurance? When did we begin the pension program? I don't know the answers to these questions. and where could we perhaps lead as a role model in cost savings given that we have so far now um looked at the AMPs the contract with AMP and eliminated it after 30-year uh contract with them for and we saved $80,000 and we looked at all the nonprofits and um froze those program programs of 50,000. So, every dollar is mattering and I'm wondering if anyone else is interested in analyzing city council budget.

Okay. Any questions from the council? No questions, just comments. All right. Hearing none. Oh, please go ahead. Yep, you're good. Uh I I think I'm just uh a little bit more interested in in uh learning uh from Council Member Rash. Uh what what are the uh the the concerns or or what what specifically about council expenses?

Sure. Um everything that I bring for potential agenda comes from the public. These aren't particularly I mean I am concerned about this and I'm concerned about what I bring but they all stem from the public and and the what I hear is that the public wants to understand what our expenses are in our costs and um they want us to be part of budget anticipation. um they don't they're surprised if ever they even knew the extent of benefits and I think it would be transparent to have a public disclosure of that and then to reflect on is that the way we want it to stay? Could are there some savings? Are there not some savings? Are we are we happy with it?

Yeah. Any other questions? All right. With that open up for public comment for folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item? All right, seeing none in the chamber, we'll go ahead and close it off in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. There's two on Zoom. Go ahead and take those callers. Lori, you can unmute and go ahead.

Uh, okay. Good evening again. Um, all right. Uh thank you Jean for um bringing this um because it it is in line with um just in general trying to understand the budget and the new website and the navigation. So I'll start there. Um, and I had a long conversation with Raphaela just trying to understand just myself as a as a resident wanting to see, well, if I were if this were my budget, what I want to just dive deep into it and what what do things cost? Where might we be able to cut out things? So, I started in just a couple of areas and I couldn't find any of the answers. And so she gave me a tutorial Raphaela did to show me and it was not easy how to get to certain things because it isn't like the budget book where you could flip through before. So um and and I thought well I'll just start with the council and housing. That's why some of those questions I had last week came from housing was just because things don't line up in the budget. And same thing here, like for instance, um just looking at the timeline on the budget page when you finally navigate your way there, um that the council expenses have more than doubled as we can see from 119,000 in 2022 to 240,000. Um and a major driver of that appears to be these fringe benefits. And now that's at 140,000. And that may be well justified and understandable, but you can't even click on that in there to go look at how it's broken down and look at to see well what council members are getting what of the fringe benefits. And you could go to transparent California but they're a couple years behind so it's not giving you an accurate assessment. And so that no public breakdown is not great. Um so when I asked council members what are those French benefits? council members

couldn't even answer. So, I think it's just good to be transparent and find out what are they. And, you know, here we are facing this $10 million deficit and cost cutting programs and possibly defunding NCIP projects and now coming after residents for more taxes. So, yeah, what are those French benefits? Um, were those benefits added or expanded? Why have the council expenses more than doubled in a few years? And on travel, I know that was brought back a couple of times and kind of pushed down and now that's over 11,000, but it looks like it might be in more than one category. It's just not clear. There's all these different line items for travel and meetings, but how did it go from 3500 to 7500 and now 11,300 I think is what it was. So, because the public can't actually understand just by going to the website, I would just love a tutorial for maybe Raphael of how to do that and how can we get these breakdown so that people can see them. So, I'm interested. I'd love to see this on an agenda in the future.

And our other speaker is Tom.

Hello again. Uh just really briefly, thank you Jean for uh bringing this forth. I I think it is high time that a discussion be had in the public arena about the uh the council's uh expenses and benefits. Uh I mean traditionally this council has been a more or less volunteer organization. Um, and the credibility of the city is somewhat at stake if you're going to be asking uh the residents to raise taxes on themselves. And uh there's been a constant kind of a aounding of the NCIP to fund more and more in terms of what most people consider to be general fund related expenses. So anyhow, I endorse this and I I hope you do agendaize it. Thank you.

Okay. Okay, with that, we'll go ahead and close public comment, bring it back to the council, please. Yeah, I concur and appreciate the thoughts from the uh speakers as well. Um I support it. I think uh I'm looking at the operating budget spreadsheet um that has several questions on it. 22, 23, 24, 25ear budget, and now in 26 as we move forward. So, several questions. I'd like to drill down a little bit further. So, I'd like a staff presentation. So, I'd like this to come back.

Okay. And Chrissy, just a a clarification on this. So, it only requires two council members. So, is that sufficient? The fact that Jean brought it forward and Ed supports it. So, we're good to go to move forward on this. Okay. So, there we go. We should also Don't you want to have comments from other people? Unless Don't we vote? Don't we vote? It can It can be done by consensus or by vote. Either Either way. Sounds like there's consensus. Okay. I just didn't want to cut somebody else off if they want. Does anybody else have anything to add? Okay. With that, we'll move on to item 15. Council member Rash's request to agenda is a discussion regarding ADA parking and public lots.

So, um, pending public comment either way on this one, I'm very I'm I will pull this and I'll tell you why. Obviously, um the staff time and council time on parking issues needs to go to the residential parking program. So, this this has shifted in the last five, 7, 10 days. Uh where the residential parking program has accelerated. I'm not pretending we can do this tonight. it would have to be agendaized, but I would rather staff time go to um helping the public with the massive confusion at best and maybe a mistake. And I was I was one that passed that residential parking program. So, I'm I'm willing to say maybe maybe I made a mistake uh or council made a mistake and and hurried this through without full understanding. So anyway, I think that our time might best be going to the residential parking program. The other thing is I I did a lot of research at the public parking uh garages and it's real clear when you pull in to a a um ADA spot in the public parking lot that you have to pay. I mean, the signage is great. And I was wondering, well, maybe the signage isn't great. Signage is perfect. Staff has done a great job. Then I thought, well, maybe disabled PE people who are challenged to disabled have a difficult time going into a parking lot and managing the apps and the payments. And then I realized they're capable of either driving a car or having a friend drive a car and managing the apps and the payments. So, I talked myself out of what had been a a concern brought to me by the public and also um an online a

public comment at a meeting. So, um unless the public has something to say to inspire me to continue this, I I would like to focus on the residential parking program. Okay. Any questions from the council? So just to be clear, she would just be pulling this since that's the only since that item is agendaized as is. Well, okay. Yeah. Thank you. Right. What's agenda as is? I'm confused. The ADA, right? I can only pull this. I can't. Right. Make it anything else. Right. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yes.

All right. Any other questions? All right. Let's take it up for public comment. U any folks on Zoom can use the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item? All right, seeing none, go ahead and close it in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five 4 3 2 1. And there's one on Zoom. Esther, you can feel free to go. Go ahead.

Yes. Hi. Thanks. Just real quick, um I was um at the meeting where um one of the people in the public comments brought up the the ADA parking and I believe his one of his main concerns was that most other locations um don't charge disabled parking um people. I don't know that it was maybe maybe he I don't recall the confusing of the signage. It was more about the lack of consistency with other jurisdictions and locations that don't charge for um disabled parking. So, you might I mean, I'm not saying we should agendaize. Just wanted to throw that in there because that that is confusing and I have had it happen to me and I know a few others that when you're used to going somewhere with that with a parking placard that's you know you park in a disabled spot and you've been to them you automatically leave thinking that that it's that's how the process is. But that's neither here nor there. I just wanted to bring that up and clarify. Thanks.

Okay. With that we'll go ahead and close public comment bring it back to the council. Well, I I agree with Esther's um interpretation of what happened. Um that that was the comment and um the vehicle code. I'm giving kudos to the city attorney who helped me understand this. The vehicle code says you can park for free on the street. Um but if you go into a public lot, then it's a different different kind of jurisdictional matter. Um, and sure it would it would be nice if it were the same, but right now I'm not sure we want the fiscal loss of the parking. It's probably minimal. So, I'm I'm fine dropping it un unless somebody else thinks we ought to go go forward with it.

I mean, I Oh, please go ahead, C. Yeah, I I think the best uh way forward is and I appreciate your your sympathy to what's going on with the neighborhood parking program and this is really I don't think enough to justify coming back with something but it could be we could ask the city manager that when there's an opportunity in the future that this comes into the education piece

that is from our communications director that they could craft and explain to the public with a couple of uh specific strategic communication pieces so that the rest of the public understands the differences and where it is that they're going to have to pay because it is a municipal lot versus uh maybe street u handicap. So I think there's an education opportunity without having to come back for a staff report, right? I think that's an excellent idea. Anybody else? So is your desire just to pull this one at this point? Yeah. Okay. All right. It's education. Absolutely. Great.

Okay. Well, thank you again. And I I I echo council member Smith's comments. I I I've heard concerns, questions about this in the past and and um it's a tough thing because you recognize that there are folks um that do have the disabled placard that can be low income and and the cost of parking. Al albe it might be a minimal thing um for for many it's it's it's significant for for others who may want to frequent um public spaces. So um but more to come I'm sure. All right with that we'll move to our public appearance. Item 16 on the agenda is to receive police department annual report 2025. With that I'll pass it to Dante for staff presentation.

Thank you mayor. And I'll have our police chief lead this presentation. Thank you, sir. Good evening, mayor, council members, city manager hall. I'm Dave Hobber, the chief of police. And with me this evening, this is going to provide me an opportunity uh to introduce some of my staff. I have Assistant Chief Mike Bruno. I have Lieutenant Gabe Caster, senior administrative analyst Alma Murphy, and our PA, our MPA president uh came with us tonight, Officer David Vaselich. Tonight, the Monterey Police Department will present item 16, the Monterey Police Department annual report 2025. Item 17, the annual report of the police automated license plate recognition system. and item 18, the annual report and renewal of the military equipment purchase and use ordinance. I will provide the first two presentations and assistant chief Bruno will provide the third. So, moving to item number 16, the Monterey Police Department annual report 2025. Um, I always like to start uh with our mission, vision, and values. Um, but I I'd like to begin with the fact that uh this annual report is attached to your agenda report. It's also been published to our website which can be found through a simple Google search of the Monterey Police Department. Our annual report covers a time period of January 1st, 2025 to December 31st, 2025 and highlights our achievements, initiatives, and performance over the last year. I will briefly provide you with an overview and invite you, the public, and anyone who is interested in the Monterey Police Department to look through the annual report. Starting with our mission, vision, and values. Uh you've heard this before, but

I think it's important that we um talk about these specific things. Our mission is that we're responsive to all, second to none every time. the vision that the Monterey Police Department is a professional, dynamic, and innovative organization with the highest ethical standards. The MPD is committed to serving everyone with honor, dignity, fairness, and respect. Turning to our values, uh we maximize, value, and train our Monterey Police Department workforce. We proactively police the city of Monterey to ensure a low crime rate. And we develop, embrace, and enhance community partnerships. Looking at our org chart, kind of hard to see there, uh, but it relates our structure of 53 sworn and 19 professional staff for a total complement of 72 personnel. We had three divisions, the patrol division, investigations, and administration, and finally, records, jail, and finance. Turning to our Monterey Police Department workforce, looking specifically at demographs, demographics, uh we're close to matching our community, but we have some areas to improve. I like to point out that 68% of our sworn have BA degrees or higher. 28% have master's degrees. 90% of our sworn are male and only 10% female. The national average of female officers in 2023 was 16.5. On the same side, sworn officers, and I I've talked about this before, but I think it's always important to highlight this. We have 53 sworn police officers, but I like to relate this in terms of street ready. And street ready means officers that can be out on the beat by themselves that are not in training in the academy or perhaps are injured or those kinds of things. And that number

always hovers between 15 and 19% below which equates to between 8 or 15% to 12 actual officers or 22% below. Below street ready includes vacancies, disability, military leave, and officers that are in the entry- level training prior to becoming solo beat officers. The next slides will address department activity. And these are just data points related to our activity. You'll see that our calls for service were at about 40,328. And we take pride in the fact that that's the highest of any public safety agency on the peninsula. our total department activity as related in things like reports and arrests. You'll see our traffic stats there. I want to point out that the last time we had a traffic officer was in July June of 2025. We had three officers that are assigned to that. But that officer retired in July of 2025. So for 2025, we had one half of an officer working specifically in traffic. Next, you'll see our community action team. There are six positions there, but only three were filled due to the staffing issues. Those three uh personnel made 113 arrests, 129 29 citations, 453 encampments cleaned up, which is one of the biggest complaints that we get. Uh the two biggest complaints I hear about are encampments and traffic calming. 20 uh persons were housed who are multiddisciplinary outreach team and cat working together and they attended 41 community outreach meetings. Turning next to investigations, three of those six positions were filled in 2025. They had 192 new cases assigned. They

closed 97 cases. They made 62 arrests. They recovered 39 firearms. They served 130 search warrants and they were called out 19 different times throughout the year. Turning next to our multid-disciplinary outreach team, this is something that we're very proud of that really works uh with our quality of life issues and helping those who are unhoused. So, the community action team, which are those officers I I talked about, and Monterey Police Department officers offer services in every contact they make with persons who appear to be unhoused. The Monterey Police Department has collaborated with a myriad of agencies to address homelessness, domestic violence, substance abuse, and other quality of life issues. This collaboration led to the creation of the multi-disiplinary outreach team or what we call MDOT and includes various meetings and personnel and all of the personnel have devoted office space at the Monterey Police Department and work directly alongside Monterey Police Department CAT community action team staff. These are social workers that don't work for the city but that we have uh relationships with and come to our police department and to the city. And these vary sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. And um what I mean by that is we've seen that with social workers it's it's difficult to keep them on staff because they move around to different jobs. And so some of these that I will mention we don't currently have but we're working on getting them. So adult protective services, Montage Health, Monterey County Behavioral Health, Interim, we talked earlier about the Veterans uh transition center. They have all offered social workers that work alongside us, but sometimes they aren't available. Turning next to our Monterey Police Department outreach and navigation center. The Monterey Police Department opened an outreach and navigation center uh located at 401 Camino Elostero. And

that dedicated space provides a collaborative workspace for the Monterey Police Department, NDOT, and other service providers and is in an ideal location in close proximity to those in need of services. And we've talked about this before, but the Monterey Police Department worked with the Central Coast Overdose Prevention Coalition to install free Narcan dispensers at the substation, the police department, and the transit center to increase access to this life-saving medication. We'll turn now to the Monterey Police Department jail records and evidence. We had 12 staff assigned to this uh division. one police uh records and detention supervisor, three senior police service technicians, and eight police service technicians. They booked 844 subjects at Monterey City Jail. I need to make distinction between the Monterey City Jail and Monterey County Jail because the more people we can book at our Monterey City Jail, it saves us a whole lot of time and does not take our staff off the street. So these positions are critical to that functionality of our jail. It saves our officers from having to transport to county jail, which has an average booking time of 3 hours, not counting the drive time, which is 30 minutes each way. So on a good day, if one of our officers is taken off the street to book somebody, it's 4 hours. But if you talk to our officers, they will tell you that usually it takes longer than that. If a medical clearance is needed, it adds hours to the process. And we've had officers that have had to spend 12 and and 14 hours uh going through this whole process. So that creates a lot of issues for us. So having those PSTs to help us book people in our Monterey City Jail um ensures that our officers are now on the street instead of transporting people.

They wrote 424formational reports and booked 3,590 items of property. Moving now to force application. Unfortunately, police officers must use force on occasion to affect arrests or overcome resistance. And the Monterey Police Pro provides an ongoing deescalation training called integration integrating communication assessment and tactics or IAT and mental health awareness training titled crisis intervention team training which 100% of our staff attend and go to. As you'll see um in that schematic which we call our critical decisionmaking model or a CDM when we do need to utilize force we have at the core uh the considerations of sanctity of life, ethics, proportionality and our values. And that CDM really is not just used for force. It could be used for anything where we are dealing with people. And at CDM, um, we train to collect information, assess the situation, look at threats and risks, consider our police powers and agency policy, identify options, and determine best courses of actions, act, review, and reassess. We call that spinning the model because we might have somebody who we're dealing with, who we're trying to get to uh do what we need them to do and the way that we're communicating with them isn't working. So, we utilize a different aspect or maybe somebody else steps in. But if we don't define this through what we call this critical decisionmaking model, then we're not appropriately training our officers in different ways to think around this. So, this is kind of the model for them to think through. And when things are happening in front of them, things happen very fast. But if this is in the back of their mind as a core part of our training, it assists us

in all kinds of ways. Part of our force application includes ensuring that officers have the tools they need to positively address the issues. Um, so an example of that is that we our officers have what we call concave shields. So that if we have the opportunity and we need to use force sometimes with somebody that might have uh a weapon other than a handgun or a firearm, we might be able to use this weird concave uh shield to put body weight on them and push them. We have rope so that if we're in a house and somebody's barricaded in a in a bathroom, we can tie that door off so they can't come out until we've communicated with them and and they come out on our terms. So these are different kinds of tools that we need to utilize and it's important that we have for this aspect that we call IAT and I'm spending a little bit of extra time on this because it's important to understand that this is a very contemporary way to look at how we are utilizing deescalation techniques. IAT was devised by the police executive research forum which is kind of a think tank and they've really refined and redesigned how we do things in police work when it comes to people that are in crisis and are dealing with them. So one of the things they talk about and one of the things we do in policing is that we we have had a culture of speed because when you have a lot of calls pending there's a lot of pressure to go deal with the call and get your officers back into service. So there's always this thought of hurry up so that we can get to the next issue. And I think that sometimes people think in Monterey that we don't have the same issue, but it's all proportionate because we put four police officers and one supervisor out on a regular shift. So any time of the day, there's usually four officers and one sergeant. We had a situation last week

or two weeks ago that was an accident involving two or three cars. And so we have all of our staff dealing with that because there was injuries. In addition to that, somebody had a felony warrant, which means now we have to arrest somebody, which takes that officer out of the situation and we have to book them for the four hours that I just talked about. With that culture of speed, that's always ingrained in the officers. So now, switch that up and we have somebody that has a weapon, but is not a firearm. And we really need to slow that down. And we need to tell our cops, hey, we're saying hurry up and get back out on the street, but we need you to slow down now. And now you need to understand that we support you in taking your time to address this issue. Even though there might be calls pending, take your time to address this critical incident in a way that isn't based on a culture of speed. But that takes staffing. We have to have the staffing enable to to enable us to do that kind of thing. Back to the force application, during 2025, there were 40 Monterey Police Department use of force incidents. Um, most use of force incidents are physical force. So that's like takedowns, control holds, body weight, or pain compliance. We had one taser use, one OC spray, and two less lethal munitions. Those are the tools that I didn't talk about. So, we have at least two less lethal munitions. One is a o OC spray ball that hits somebody that creates issues for them that we can shoot at distance so we don't have to get up close to them. And another is a 40mm uh sponge round that hurts when they get hit, but we also don't have to get right on top of them. we can use distance to uh deal with these issues. Turning next to our internal affairs complaint complaints, we have a specific policy for receiving, investigating, and

responding to citizen complaints. We contract for outside consultants to conduct most citizen complaints. The chief of police, I review all complaints and investigations related to the complaints for final disposition. In 2025, the Monterey Police Department conducted six internal affairs investigations involving sworn and jail staff. The complaints included allegations of procedural concerns, bias-based policing, courtesy, force, and workplace discrimination. Of the six, one was sustained, three were exonerated, and two were unfounded. Turning next to hiring and training. In 2025, we had six officers that left service. One retired, one promot went to the sheriff's department as a sergeant. And I'm going to tell two stories where we've had officers that go to become supervisors in other organizations. Um, and one moved to a lower cost of living. I said six, but that only adds up to three. That's because sometimes in training people decide that they don't want to continue or perhaps they don't make it through the training program. So looking towards 2026 we anticipate 8 to 10 leaving two lateral to lower cost of living areas and six are retiring. Of the six that are retiring, one is a lieutenant, three are sergeants and two are officers. Those are the ones that I know last year. of the six that left service, I probably could have guessed about three. So that's why I write 8 to 10. I never know what's going to happen. The two that lateral to other areas, I I never would have guessed that they they would have lateral somewhere else, but both went somewhere which was lower cost of living. It's hard to see on there, but in the uh annual report, you can see that police officer selection process more clearly. And I put that up because it's very important to understand that for our hiring and training, it takes us 60 to

90 days when from the time somebody applies until we actually hire them. And that's on a good day because if we could hire them in that 90 days, but the academy doesn't start till 3 months later or two months later. We usually use twommies that start about 6 months difference. So if that doesn't line up, it adds time. The academy is six months and the field training program is four months. And I like to use this uh analogy that we can't simply hire substitutes to cover positions. They have to be people that are fully trained and fully street ready to fill those positions where we have holes. And this process is crucial to understand as we move into uh the rest of the year here and we turn to looking at our structural deficit and discuss potential cuts to public safety positions. And so that takes us to our priorities for 2026, which start and I'm going to spend some time on staffing, which is and has always been our top priority. As are related, we're losing eight in 2026 of 35 authorized officer positions in our position control list. Right now, we have five recruits in FTO. So, they are in officer positions. I have what looks like five, eight vacant positions because I have five recruits that we just hired or in an academy that are not filling an actual officer position. I say we have five, but we really have four because we hired uh ones in the academy and we hired four others that started two weeks ago. Of those four, at day five, one of them came to us and decided this is not the job for them. So that's the kind of thing after 90 days of trying to hire them, this person decided that it probably wasn't for

them. I have currently four uh four positions and I have about six in backgrounds uh that I could fill those with. This is the only the second time in the last 11 years that I've had the ability to fill all of the officer positions as up until last year we were not attracting higher numbers of candidates. But over the last year somehow we have been attracting more candidates. I've already talked about the fact the patrol must have minimum staffing to answer the calls for service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. And that minimum staffing is four officers and one sergeant. The detective division must have personnel to conduct investigations. Our community action team, which I just described, is associated with the MDOT team and traffic are nice to have assignments. That's where I start cutting when I have to make sure that minimum staffing is filled. That means that the quality of life and trafficcoming issues are not addressed as readily as we would like to. The less street ready officers we have, the less specialized positions such as cat traffic and detectives we can assign to address what our community demands to address the issues surrounding the unhoused and traffic specifically. Additionally, the less staffing we have, the more strain to our workforce to ensure minimum staffing and importantly to work the 28 to 30 special event stays which are covered by officers who are called back to work on overtime. So that's after they've worked their regular week, they now get called back to uh work those 28 to 30 event days and cover different kinds of minimum staffing. All of these things negatively impact recruiting and retention as the synergistic aspects of forcing officers to work more with less staff takes a toll on them. So, that's the staffing priority and

that's been my number one priority for the 11 years that I've been here and it continues to be an issue. Um, next is replacing our public safety building which was opened in 1959. It's 67 years old and it's one of the only aspects of the Monterey Police Department that is older than me. We continue to build on our success to outreach to the community through our community policing academy which we just graduated last week on Wednesday. Um and a positive story out of that is the community policing academy before that. One of the recruits that I just uh described who's currently in our FTO program came of last year's uh community academy and she's now a recruit with us in the FTO program. We also outreach to the community through the cso intern program, coffee with a cop. Our people came up with this great idea like coffee with a cop at Christmas time when we were out here on the front lawn called cocoa with a cop and they continue to be innovative with these kinds of ideas. We provide active attacker training consistently go to community meetings and so those are just some high points of how we build in outreach to the community. We improve and leverage technology. And on my final slide are our accomplishments in 2025. Just uh highlevel accomplishments. Obviously, all the women and men of the Monterey Police Department do great things every day. But we responded to over 40,000 calls for service, booked over 1,400 arrests, issued over, 1100 citations, booked over 3,500 items of property, conducted over 3,200 foot patrols, administered Narcan eight times, arrested 173 drunk drivers, and worked over 10,100 overtime hours to include 1,400 special event overtime hours. As it related, our MPD detectives

were called out during non-b business hours on 19 occasions and were assigned 192 investigations. And that concludes my annual report. Thanks, Chief. Questions? God bless you. Excuse me. Uh, Council Garcia,

thank you. Uh thank you chief for uh the presentation, the report and um thank you for all the work you do. Thank you for your leadership in the department in um continuing to keep our residents safe. Um I have a few questions uh starting with um an item that's on the report here and you pointed out also as an area that you're working on in terms of uh the low percentage of women in the department. Can you maybe share thoughts or theories as to why that is? I I think that traditionally um policing has not attracted a lot of women and I think that we're working to get better at that. Um I I I don't have a specific explanation of why that would be. I would love to have as many police officers as I possibly can and certainly I'd like to increase that number. Um but I don't know specifically why that would or would not be.

Mhm. And you just shared that you're working towards addressing that. What what are the steps?

So uh as part of our recruiting team, we ensure that women uh our women officers are a part of that team if they want to be. We're not forcing them to do that. Um in our training programs uh if we have female recruits we make sure that if they can be they are have FTO's that at least for one part of that are women so that they can understand those uh aspects that they are facing that men don't understand. Um there is through the Cal Chiefs, California Police Chiefs Association has a whole seminar uh that they just renamed to Rise, but it's women leaders in law enforcement is what that started as. So we send people to that. Um we do everything that we can to outreach to attract more women to the profession.

Uh sorry, that sounds like uh for women who are have have already been recruited. It it's through the California Yes. Yes. for women that are already police officers. Yes. It's like a a training uh mentoring kind of a not just training, it's also um a symposium that is focused on on women in policing.

So what about like recruiting practices? So again we are outreaching to through our different uh technologies through our different apps and those kinds of things and trying to attract more women by using female uh we don't have specific officers that are just for recruiting but we have uh people who are assigned to that um in augmented roles so on overtime or those kinds of things and we have women that are a part of that as well. Okay. I I would I would ask however, are there other ideas related to that that you have?

Not not necessarily. And uh really the question came up for me because I sat in um during a conversation in a different department where recruiting practices were being really looked at. um and and also similar question around um why the low percentage of of women. So kind of feels that maybe it's a profession, right, that doesn't necessarily attract women maybe. But that's that's kind of the piece that I'm also trying to find out. Is that really the case? um or is it, you know, a specific recruiting practice that maybe is not really targeting those areas where women would become more interested in the field. Just out of curiosity for uh for myself. Um and uh the next question I have here is um there's the the figure that you shared uh 40,000 uh calls. Does does that what kind of calls does that include? Like is it 911? Is it non-emergency? Like

it's everything everything. And those are prioritized. And so I think we have six prioritizations um that go from a priority one is an emergency that we have to get to right now and life could be in danger. So obviously those are less than the lower priorities. Um but even a priority or two is still an important call. when we were sitting here in in our meeting, you heard sirens and um so I turn my radio up, but if I hear a police car going to something, I don't know exactly what that is, but when I hear the fire engine going, I assume that's a traffic collision. So, that's I think a priority two or three where people could be injured and we need to get there quickly. Those are things that we respond to with our lights and sirens on. Mhm.

There are a lot of calls where somebody calls us because uh there's a dog off a leash in a park and they want us to come and enforce it. So, they call us about that. Or um I was just at at Mr. Duke's community meeting last two weekends ago. I think Ann and I went to and there were questions about beach fires and those kinds of things. So, those are things that police officers go to all the time that are calls, but they're not going to those with their lights and sirens on. Those are calls for service. Um, and so th those are just different ways that those are prioritized, but it includes anything the police are called for.

And I think earlier you mentioned that the bulk of the calls are traffic and encampments. No, what I said was the bulk of the complaints that I hear, not the calls, but the complaints when I'm in community meetings, the bulk of those complaints or the the majority I hear more about the unhoused and about traffic calming than pretty much anything else. Now, that doesn't mean that's the most calls we're getting. That's just what I am hearing when I'm at community meetings.

Got it. Okay. Thank you for correcting me on that. Um, next question here on uh in the report. Um, it shows a table. Um, let me put on my glasses. Um, packet page 131. I think it's Oh, I can't even see. Oh, uh, page nine of the report. Uh, traffic unit um 0.5 of three authorized motorcycle officers. So there's data for 2025 and 2024. Am I reading this correctly? Where 2025 figures are lower than 2024? Yeah.

Or traffic stops, citations, collision reports. Yes, it's lower. So, and I also noticed that patrol coverage hours is lower. Yes.

So, what's the relationship there? So we had an officer for half the year because he retired in July. The year before that we had one officer, same officer, but we had one officer that worked that whole year. So because they worked the whole year, those numbers are going to be higher for 2024 and 2025. If I had the three officers, if if I had the street ready officers that I could fill that because I don't need those officers in my patrol structure or I had patrol structure filled, then I could assign officers to the three traffic officer positions. Those numbers would be higher because that's all they're doing is traffic calming.

Okay, got it. Um, page 19 of the report, internal affairs. So there were complaints as you had mentioned also in your presentation. Uh one of them was sustained as much as you could share. Uh and as far as you know what was the the action that came out of that specific case was there like a disciplinary action or what? Yeah I I can't get into specifics related to specific cases. Um, so I I Okay. can't publicly disclose that. Okay.

It's it's a personnel issue. Yeah. No, I I I kind of figured, but I figure I also asked the question just in case. Um can you talk a little bit about uh and and it's it's somewhat mentioned in the report but um can you share with us a little bit of the uh uh process for promotion?

So absolutely. So what does that look like for the uh brand new officer, right? And and in terms of like progressing in their career, mentorship or anything like that that eventually and systematically hopefully would lead to promotions and that kind of thing.

So uh that's that's a that's a long answer. Um but Let me see where I want to start with that. The the mentorship part of that. Um the recruits go to an academy for six months and that's kind of where they're taught the basic skills, but mentorship really starts when they're in the FTO program and they have a senior officer with them that is evaluating them and uh training them. So the the first part of that is training and then they we start to transition that. So they're doing things and there's rating going on in 26 different areas uh that that we are training them and evaluating them on, but there's mentorship that's going on there and that doesn't we are a medium-sized organization. So your FTO you remember for the rest of your life, not just the rest of your career as to those people that invested in you and trained you. And in an organization like ours that continues throughout the rest of your career with those people that mentored and trained you. Now that doesn't mean they always love their FTO's but of the FTO's they have there are always going to be people there that they look up to and and the FTO's kind of feel a pride in the people that they have trained and so now are helping and mentoring them. Uh so that would be the first aspect I think of that mentorship. You specifically asked about promotion. what what I do and what our organization does is every year we do an annual evaluation and so that's done by the first line supervisor but I have a meeting with every single employee in the police department after their eval done and I bring them in and I talk to them very uh in a very low-key way and just kind of ask them what's going on but I always ask them about what their five 10 and 30-year plan is and I tell

them that it doesn't have to be the same as mine. It can be anything that they want, but what are those plans so that we're looking at short, mid, and long-term as to if they want to do those things, then I mentor them on what are different ways you can get there. And I talk to them about your work ethic is one of those things because it's good if you've worked different units within the organization. Um, and your work ethic helps with that because it shows people that you want to work hard. um going to different trainings is very important for developing our people. I think that one of the reasons our organization is so good is because we invest a lot of time, energy, and money into training our folks. And so that's part of getting them to if they're thinking about promotion. So, back to my discussion with them. If they say, "Well, I'd like to be a police officer in I mean a sergeant in seven years." Great. Tell me about your professional education. Tell me what unit you want to work. Um, you need to be an FTO because you're training people and that's good supervision. Um, and you need to have a work ethic. And so those are kind of the things we do for that. If they're a sergeant and I ask them what they want to do in the future, some people want to stay sergeants, some people want to stay officers, but if they want to be command officers later on, we talk about that. I always encourage people, I ask them, "What level of education do you have?" They tell me and I say, "Go one more above that." And I think we've been very successful in doing that to uh promote that educational aspect. Now let me focus this right long answer. Now let me focus on just the promotional aspect. Our promotional process we will put out a memorandum that says these are different things that we want you to have expertise in. Some of them are books, our policy manual, different aspects of things that they need to understand. And then um they study these things and then we have a written portion of a test and then we have an

oral panel. That oral panel is very specific. The beginning of that oral panel, it's four parts is that they um have a meeting. They they're having a mock meeting with the people they're supervising. So they have to study to understand how to do that and that's part of us mentoring them for that. The next is having a community meeting where they have to address the people that are rating them like they're the community. The the next is what I call the tactical problem from hell where we stress them out a little bit and tell them about a officer involved shooting that's happened after a robbery where somebody was shot at the robbery and there's a pursuit going on and now there's they have stress and we have input to see how they do under stressful conditions. And the final aspect of our testing process is of that oral panel is we ask them structured questions about leadership and those kinds of things. So that's the actual test. After we're done with that, we have a list that's established and we then as uh command staff look at the different people that we have on that list. We look at their personnel history. We look at their internal affairs complaints. We look at what their peers say about them. and then we make the determination as to whether who's who's going to be promoted of those people. So, it's a very long process, but it's also one that we make sure people understand. And I think if you ask any of our officers that have been here and they're out of the FTO program for a year or two that are interested in being a sergeant or a lieutenant, they understand what that process is. I think that whole system is mentoring and training and letting our people know and and one of my aspects is that everybody is a leader that everybody is a leader and we expect all of these things of everybody no matter whether they have rank or not

and I'm sorry uh I may have missed this. So when you say we decide who gets promoted who's we ultimately it's me.

Okay. But what I do is I bring the whole command staff in to talk about the different people that we have on the list and we have a a round table where we talk about the we look at the personnel file the IAS um we look at all of the letters that they've gotten and the units that they've worked and their seniority um all of that comes into it and then we all and we look at the peer evaluations and from that they recommend to me who they think should be promoted and then I have a process where I go home at night and think about it and uh make the promotion.

Got it. Thank you. That's it. Okay. Rush. My questions are about staffing and um I read the report and it mentions reserve officer Mc Edelyn. So what's a reserve officer? How does that work?

So we have several reserves. were authorized five. I currently have three. One of them is a retired police officer and two of them are another one is an officer that was a Monterey Police officer but then decided to leave the Monterey Police Department to go work for the military but is fully trained as a police officer. And the third is an officer who uh was a reserve officer at another police department where they went through a whole academy and training program, but they were a reserve. So they are an hourly paid police officer that per pers cannot replace duties of other police officers. But what we use them for is a lot of the transports um and on special events. Those are the big things that we use them for. But there's other things that we use them for to help sometimes with our staffing. But those are the primary reasons that we came up with reserves. That was another idea that even though there's reserve police officers and all kinds of police departments, my folks came to me and said, "Hey, we think we should start a reserve program." And so, uh, we started that and they they save our bacon a lot because we can call sometimes we'll just call them the day before or even the day of and say, "Hey, we have to transport somebody. We only have three people. Can you come in to work?" and they'll come in to work and then they're spending their four, five, six hours over at the jail. So, it doesn't take an officer out of the system and with that those officers, we're not paying them benefits and so we're just paying them an hourly rate. So, there's a great savings in doing that.

So, um are they in addition to the 53? Yes. All right. And when it says volunteer of the year, they're they're paid. They're they're not volunteers or is is Mr. Elderman, Officer Elderman also? No, they are paid. But volunteers of the year, I have three um chaplain and Mr. D Dr. Darnell Wit, who you all know very well, has been a volunteer for I I think going on close to 30 years. Okay. So, those are volunteers. Now,

Mick was selected. The way we select our of the year awards is the staff selects that. Usually it's the award winners from the year before that nominate and select people and then I approve those. I've never not approved that. But he's not a full-time police officer. So he it is somewhat a volunteer for that uh award to be available. You call him when you need him and he gets an hourly and he doesn't have to do this. Yes. Yes.

Right. So um when we received um a public comment from the head of um cert um Demetrius Castrris and his suggestion dealing with our budget was to try to utilize more uh retired annuitants. Some of your reserved officers are retired annuitants. I'm asking

I had two reserves that were retired annuitants. incurs in my opinion kills us because they have such strict rules on that that one of my retired annuitants decided he wasn't going to do it anymore because the penalty is that you personally have to pay the money back to PERS if you violate any of the rules. Those rules are very very undefined and create a lot of issues. So a retired annuitant can only work a certain number of hours a year and it is supposed to be a temporary duty. So, for example, the city of Sacramento had all kinds of reserves. I don't know the exact number, but I think it was about 50 and they had to they ended up letting all of them go because PERS was telling them that those people were going to be in trouble if they kept doing that. So, it is a great idea and it would certainly help us if I could use more reserves like that, but it creates all kinds of other issues for the individual.

So, like um Mr. Balman. He he was limited to something like 960 hours, but he was a retired annuitant. I'm just trying to figure out how this works and and where to get you help, but you know more than I do on it, of course. All right. Thank you for explaining that. Um, those are my questions. Thank you, Dr. Barber. Well, thank you and congratulations on your award award uh tonight. Oh, well, I guess it was this afternoon. It's all It's all blending together for me right now.

Um, so I wanted to ask just two questions. Um, I noticed that uh when you you were talking about the calls that Monterey PD gets the most calls on the peninsula. Why? I mean, is it because I mean, why do you think that is? I mean, I know you can't kind of figure out like for each one, but I'm just curious like out of the whole peninsula, basically Monterey PD gets the most calls. Population wise, I think right now we have the most. We have 30,000. Marina might be getting close to that. That's I was curious,

right? I I think that um we I believe we are kind of the attraction of everything on the peninsula. So, you get a lot more people here. We have uh 30 days of special events in the city that the other cities they might have some here or they but they don't have all the special events. We have a lot of tourism that comes here which generates calls for us

and there's just a lot going on in our city and our city is an old city. So the infrastructure with our streets and those kinds of things I believe I I I don't have specific data on this but I think that's why sometimes we have more accidents because we're shoving so many people into our streets. So many people are coming here to recreate and work um that we we have a lot of people here and that generates a lot of calls. We get a so we have a population of 30,000 but we have a whole lot of tourists that come here and you know sometimes tourists are indulging in adult beverages or getting in arguments after they indulge in the adult beverages with those that they love. And that then creates other issues that requires police intervention on a more frequent basis. So it's not just those 30,000. We know in special events we'll get up to a 100,000 people in our town.

Sure. Thank you for that. Um as soon as you said the tourist part and that made sense of why we would get more because all the other cities on the peninsula are not attracting tourism like like we do. And talking about special events, and I may have written this down wrong. You said 10,100 overtime hours for event hours. Yes.

Then on your department activities, that is this broken down in a different way. It says special event overtime hours on pay packet page 130, it says uh for 2025 it was,424 versus the 2024,181. Is that something different? I what page is that on? It's a packet page 130, item page 12.

So I think what it is is one of them is the actual overtime. We work for everything. So for overtime, we have overtime related to filling our minimum staffing. We have overtime for court. We have overtime for late calls. We have overtime for special events. Uh, I have a list of maybe the overtime hours was the total overtime hours and not the 10,00 it was like 10,000 and I think the special event overtime was the 14424. Okay, thank you. That's what I just needed clarification. So basically the 10,100 overtime hours that's for total overtime. Yes. And so that's what that is here. Okay, great. Thank you.

Did you c customer Smith? Well, I'm going to be easy. I I I looked at the photograph of you and Callahan and it's amazing that neither of you seem like you're aging. Well, thank you. Callahan's doing real well. Yeah, maybe maybe I just keep using the same picture over and over.

That's why I was going to suggest that. No, I I really really appreciate the thoroughess of the reports and um when I look at this report and I see the different categories and certainly your staff does a really great job of capturing the data moment to moment every day and and it's going in and collecting and so your staff has done a really good job. I just remember some of my former days of uh when I was a lieutenant, the best we could muster up was maybe a Harvard graphics and and then spreadsheets and cut and paste. And you know, obviously we've come a long way to be able to gather and present this. Um, I'm I'm struck by the percentages of the low percentage of the calls of 40,000. The number of IAS that are so low if you compared that to other cities in California, those numbers I believe would be much higher in other cities. So that's a testament to the dedication, the training, the adherence to the code code of ethics, the the piece of adherence to the policy procedures, the care and the kindness that the all of the officers are delivering to the community and those that visit. So it's a testament and I know those I know those figures nationally and I know them statewide and we're killing it. Uh we're not the Raiders, we're the world champs. Um, so you can be proud of that.

Thank you.

The other thing is the u the percentages that you're down um and you outlined the dilemma that you have contrasted with the opportunities to recruit and you're anticipating this next year. Um, I'd like to hear your just your comment about the opportunity for overhires because I know it's all about timing and opportunity and when the academy is opening when you asking you've got viable candidates and then you've got to align that with the number of FTOs that you've got when they come out of the academy. It's a lot of moving parts, but I'd like to hear your your commentary about how how that timing could work if you were given something else. And on day one of Mr. Hall's work, he would probably love to hear what you would propose as solutions to to bridge that gap of anticipation of the vacancies due to retirements with them. So we try and use localmies when possible but the matrix in your mind what do you need that gets you closer to saying your percentage of vacancies is not 24 but your vacancy is down to a tolerable level.

So I would say I need three things. One is that I would say that I need 10 more cups. Perfectly sized, we'd be for instead of 53, we'd be 63, maybe 65. And that's because if I'm always down 10 cops, that puts me at 53 street ready, which then means that I can fill all the motorcycles officers, all the CAT officers, all the detectives, and all of patrol. And then I'm able to provide the services of having great contacts with those that we're trying to help and making sure that we are outreaching to them to do the traffic calming and those kinds of things. I need that. That's first thing. I need people that want to be cops and that's the second thing. And that's a hard nut to crack because like I said up until this last year I haven't been able to find those people. But that's not just me. That's policing in general across the nation. But for some reason in the last year we've had a a lot more applicants. Certainly not the number of applicants that when you and I applied there were in the hundreds every time we test. Um but it's more than we've had before. So I have to have that. And part of the problem with Monterey is that I don't have anywhere for people to live west because I got the ocean. I don't have anywhere for people to live south because we have big su. So we have this geographical kind of area that in the Bay Area you can attract from all over the place to those different cities. Um that we just have a real problem with that. And I think that's a lot of times why people are leaving is because they don't have family support. The cost of living here is expensive and it's hard for them because they're young families with kids that need to take care of their kids and if they don't have the family support and can't afford to have child care that creates big issues for them. The other big thing that we're against is if you go to Silicon Valley,

you're going to make 20 or 30 grand more a year. Um I know that Watsonville, I don't want to say this publicly, but I'll say it. Watsonville is offering a $50,000 bonus for officers to go to Watsonville. So that and we've had bonuses and that kinds of things, but those are the kinds of things that when we talk about retention for our police officers, um, we have to be competitive with those things. Um, that's the second thing. The third thing is that I have to have my cops say this is a great place to work because I can be out there recruiting. I can be recruiting all types of different people, but if my cops don't think this is a great place to work, everybody knows that when young people call me and say, "Hey, I want to be a police officer. Where do you think I should work?" And if they don't work, where I know in Northern California, I tell them, "Go on ride alongs at the agency you want to be at in the agencies around there and ask them what are the good police departments to work at?" Because they all know what they are. And so those are the three things uh that I would need to to have the numbers that I think this community wants now so that I don't get in trouble with either one of these two people facing a $10 million deficit, $12 million deficit. I understand that. But if we cut public safety, it it is going to have significant effects on the service delivery that we give. And one of the things I like to talk about is you all know that I worked at San Jose for 25 years. I worked at San Jose State University as a CSO and I worked at Santa Cruz Police Department as a CSO. There's nobody that offers services what we call the Monterey way or what I call the platinum service like we do in this city. We offer a service above anything else I've ever seen. And if we cut those public safety positions, that will

affect that service delivery because of all those synergistic things that I just talked about. And just to put a finer point on it, thank you. Um, exactly what I needed to hear with the positions that get cut, that compounds your overtime and makes it that much harder to live within your budget. Yes. And you're already, what was it? 22% low on your

My street ready officers are usually about 22%. Yeah, I'm about 20. That doesn't mean that those positions aren't filled or that I don't have people hired behind them. It just means they're not street ready. If I had 10 more cops and I could find the cops that wanted to be cops, then I would have that delta to fill the 53 positions that we need street ready cops, right? Yeah. And it's all about timing. Yes. Yeah. Thank you, Chief.

Okay. All right. And I don't have any questions at this time. So with that, we'll go and open it up for public comment. Folks on Zoom, you can use raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item. Right. Anybody else? We have the one. All right. We'll go ahead and close it off to the one. We'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five 4 3 2 1. And there's one on Zoom. So we'll go and start in the chamber.

Good evening. Um I have just three comments. One is get him more support and get the people hired. He's been behind by 10 people for the last 11 years. Um it'd be great to get on more staff. Maybe not all of them, at least some. Um in the um special events, 1,400 or 1,400 hours of overtime. Cert does the traffic for the 4th of July and for the half marathon. and we're ready to help you on any of the specialists that we can be helpful on. The third thing that I wanted to mention is the facilities that they have probably disentracts people if they're getting close and we need to fix that. The women's locker room is kind of a hodge podge. Um, and if we're trying to get ladies, we ought to have places that people want to be in. And to me, that's one of the major things that we need to work on, which we put through a couple of NCIP programs to help with that. But those facilities need to be improved so that we attract people. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Duke. Thanks, Dennis. All right, with that, we'll go to our public comments on Zoom, Esther. You can go ahead.

Good evening again. I want to echo what was just said about the facilities. It's definitely a detriment to recruiting, but you know, in general, it's hard to recruit um officers everywhere, not just here. But we have had um a deficit for quite a long time, which I think should be enough reason to not cut the police department's budget um to accommodate this um city budget that we have a problem with. um because guaranteed, you know, when services go down, especially with safety, you guys are going to never hear the end of it. So, um I don't think that they should really be on the table. I know that they've already cut as much as they can over the years. Um, another point I'd like to make is obviously the cost of living here is a problem to recruit not just police and safety staff but engineers and everybody you know that we need to run a city that is going to be recruited elsewhere if we're not able to provide affordable housing for them. So, you know, a lot of the issues that we have um that don't sound like they're connected to housing are connected to housing. And uh hopefully we can make a difference in that in the near future. Um I mentioned earlier tonight in another item, agenda item, the encampment help that and cooperation that we've gotten from police department PD at the Laguna Grande Park. Um this has been years that we've been working with them on it um in my neighborhood and we've partnered with the Seaside Police Department. They they work well together. They coordinate and it's really made a tremendous difference. While there may be some isolated random

cases, the police department has been wonderful for our neighborhood. We were the first ones to get the CAT team. Um, we have had N M DOT. Um, they've placed people, you know, that were in living in tents behind residents homes here, families, little kids. Um, and so they've definitely um earned their their love for my neighborhood. Um, and lastly, I will again be the champion of the community academy. I was in the the class where this last recruit um that that did come over from the community academy to the police department and it's um Chief Hover will remember I mean I've been positive about that since day one and pretty much every class that has attended since the first one I did in 2013 has had people in it that I have sent over and every single one of them have not only enjoyed the education but really valued the police officers once they've spent the time there. Thank you.

And with that, we'll go ahead and close public comment, bring it back to the council. Any last minute comments?

Um I will um just kind of echo the the issue on staffing. Um and I remember when I first started with the city and I met with the police chief um it was the first thing that he talked about with me and um it continues to today through his presentation. So when he's talking about putting people first um he he practices what he preaches and um we need to be creative around finding ways to to do more to make sure that we're taking care of our officers. I think the example of um police officers being out of duty essentially going to drop folks off from in at the county jail is a good example um of how we can just get officers tied up in a bureaucratic mess. Um, when I did my ride along, um, a good part of the shift, the officers were writing police reports. So, it's not like they're actively out there engaged. And, um, what I continue to hear over and over again is a desire from people in the community to provide greater service. And it's like, how can you provide more with less? We've already I think are stretching our officers to provide a lot of the needs within our community to an extent that I would say is beyond what I think officers should be doing. Um but I give have a lot of respect and appreciation for um their willingness to to stand up and serve. Um, and just to give an example of what more the community is asking for, I know that the planning commission has been talking about um, wanting to have um, a specific plan associated with the rec trail. Um, and what does that look like as far as having some kind of more frequent visits of officers on the rec trail to um, observe bicyclists that are speeding on the rec trail? Well, that's going to cost money. So, um, just an example of of where I think there's a

really deep community need, desire of wanting more out of our police. And I think that's a little bit of a testament to all the great work and the professionalism that comes out of our department. Um, but but also there's just a great need for more public safety in our community. Um, and then the last thing I would speak to is the public safety facility. Um, I I I said this before and and I will say it again. Um, I know that we as a community, but I think even more specifically as a as a as a council, have a lot of tough decisions to make and navigating all the various issues that exist within the city of Monterey. Um, we have an opportunity to um find a way of funding the public safety facility. Um, and staff has done a lot of leg work in to present to the council and the community in regards to what the cost of that looks like, what that looks like moving forward. And a lot of that goes for nothing if we don't take any action towards moving that forward because the longer that we take, it's going to require a whole new assessment again for us to evaluate that. And so, we've invested this money to do nothing with it. And I would just encourage my colleagues to um work together and and try to find a way of just getting it done. And and I know it's not an easy thing right now, especially when we're dealing with the deficit. Um but we're not here to make easy decisions. We're here to make the hard decisions. And I think that our public safety facility is high amongst those decisions that we need to make that um might be uncomfortable, but we got to get the job done. So anyways, thank you police chief for the presentation and um uh thank you to all of our officers for your service to our city and our community. Um with that we will go ahead and jump to the next item on our agenda which is 17 receive annual report of the police automated license plate recognition system. With that I'll pass it to Dante for staff presentation.

Thank you mayor and I'll have Mike Bruno our assistant police chief present this item. Actually, I'm I'll present 17 and he'll present 18. Okay. Sorry. Yeah, I got those mixed up. We'll have our police chief. You're right, though, sir. He He does a much better job than I do.

All right. So, I will turn now to item 17, the annual report of the police automated license plate recognition system. Uh, and next slide, Mike. Uh so we are required by policy and council direction that the annually the chief of police or authorized designate will present an ALPR report to the city council. The report will include changes to the policy and the annual ALPR audit uh report will be provided to the city attorney. to go back and give a quick timeline of how we've progressed. On April 2nd, 2024, council provided direction to implement police ALPR system. On September 17th, 2024, council approved procurement. On December 12th, 2024, the system went live. On April 1st, 2025, we gave our first annual report to council, which only covered the time period of when we went live on December 124 to uh February 28, 25. And that was because I wanted to align that report. I had to give a report within a year and I wanted to align it in April with when we give these other reports really driven by the uh AB481 military report that we already had in place that Mike will give after this. On April 7th, 26 tonight, I present the second annual report to council which will cover the time period of January 1st, 2025 to December 31st, 2025. are uh ALPR cameras. Just to give an overview of what we have, we have 35 active stationary cameras. Six stationary cameras are pending installation on state and private property for a total of 41 cameras at 39 locations. We have 15 mobile AOPR cameras in marked police cars. and we

are currently sharing uh with 11 agencies and we have access to 245 ALPR networks across the state. We do not share out of state or with the federal government. Looking at usage, our cameras capture approximately 12,500 vehicles per day. In 2025, the Monterey Police Department conducted approximately 5,889 searches approx across approximately 800 investigations. And to give an example of that, that would equate to about eight searches each, but some crimes we have more searches. So, we had an armed robbery where there were 151 searches. We had a home invasion robbery where there were 152 searches. And there's a lot of searches going on because over time we might be rechecking it. You might have multiple officers looking for that. So that's why there's going to be more searches related to different kinds of crimes. We have a transparency portal which is found online at the Monterey Police Department webpage and that can be found through a simple Google search. It shows a lot of the information that is a part of this report, including a map um of the Monterey PD ALPR locations and our Monterey PD ALPR policy. Turning now to the ALPR changes that were made. These changes were made uh as council requested some adjustments at the April 1st 25 meeting. So, this is highlighted in your attachment. If you were to go to section 433.7C, you'll see a highlight in yellow there. And that was after discussion about adding uh the need and right to know. That's found in other places, but we uh also added it there. And then in section 433.10, we added more detail related to what the training would include. So, we just detailed that more uh because prior to

that, those items that are in yellow were not in there. And that included proper operation and use of the ALPR system, restrictions of use, alert protocols, authorized data collection and retention, accountability, and a review of the aspects contained in our ALPR policy to include the civil code law sections related to the ALPR systems and other aspects as determined by the ALPR coordinator. I want to point out that training was being done. I just clarified it uh in that section as a result of the discussion of council are in turning to internal audits. So I'm going to talk about two different kinds of audits. The first are internal audits of our own people and how they are how we are auditing what our people are doing with our system. We conducted over 1,000 internal audits. Um most searches were within policy. There were some inquiries that were conducted without including a case or CAD number and some successes were not flagged in the records management system. Um if staff did not include the case or CAD numbers, they were admonished to include those um unless there were extenduating circumstances and that you will recall we didn't originally and the law requires a purpose for the search. The law does not require a case or CAD number. But when we wrote our policy, we our policy is more robust than a lot of other policies. And so we changed it so that now it must include a case or a CAD number. And so um we had some cases where we had to admonish officers to ensure that they um were putting those cases or CAD numbers in there. Turning now to network audits. A network audit is an audit that allows us to see other people pinging our system. In May of 2025, we became aware of and started

conducting what are called network audits, which provide information related to external agencies accessing our network. At that time, we determined that a function known as statewide lookup was activated when the system went live in December of 2024, and it was turned off after we became aware of this and told Flock to turn it off. It was disabled on June 4th of 2024 at our direction. I need to note that in my agenda report on page 4, I listed the wrong dates as being December of 2025 and turned off June 4, 2026. Obviously, that's incorrect. I was a year ahead. It should have been December of 24 was turned on and June 4th of 25 it was turned off. Statewide lookup was a search function wherein an agency was required to put in a full license plate number and that license plate number was searched throughout all of the flock systems statewide that had the feature enabled. Each statewide search registered on our network whether the license plate being searched was located in our system or not. If there was a hit for that specific plate in the system, the requesting agency would have been notified only of the date, time, and location of the hit. While our Monterey system was accessed or pinged while this statewide search was active on our system, we don't know if Monterey PD data was returned as a network audit shows hits for every statewide search performed and not the return. When we spoke to Faulk about the statewide lookup feature, we also asked if there was any other type of similar search. Flock advised if there was what was known as a nationwide lookup pilot that included Homeland Security Investigations and US Customs and Border Protection, but that the nationwide

lookup was not activated on the Monterey network. The Monterey Police Department conducted a network audit of tens of thousands of searches by outside agencies that included the Monterey PD network through the statewide lookup. As described earlier, these searches were not focused on the Monterey Network. They were broad searches that included the Monterey PD network. It does not appear that searches were conducted by out ofstate or federal agencies, and none were found to list immigration or reproductive health as reasons for the search. So, you might ask, how did that get turned on? Um, in talking to Flock, they related that they would not have turned that on if we did not authorize it. I had a meeting in December on December 12th of 2025 with the CEO of Flock and he related that to which I raised my virtual hand and told him that I had issue with that because while we are police officers implementing this technology, the flock system was aware of everything that we were doing and how we were trying to limit what we were doing with our system and only allowing people through that sharing agreement. And so if they had somebody that was assisting with us, they should have pointed out to us that that is not something that we probably want turned on. Um, but nevertheless, it was turned on. Um, and it was active from the time we went live until, uh, June 4th, 2025. In your report, uh, we list investigative assistance. We have found great success with this system. I'm going to go through some of those and I'm going to tell a few stories. We have resolved. We have had stolen vehicle recoveries. We have addressed criminal threats, elder abuse and battery, burglaries, burglarizing ATMs

from two businesses and recover of recovery of an assault rifle, robbery with a firearm, home invasion robbery, criminal threats and child endangerment, an armed robbery at Delmonte Beach, elder abuse and theft, assaults as a result of a fight at the fair, shoplifting, a hit and run with major injuries of a teenage pedestrian, a hit and run with major injuries of a 70-year-old pedestrian, domestic violence investigations, an investigation of a subject filming up underage girl skirts on Canary Row, who was a registered sex offender. One of the stories at the Monterey Bay Half Marathon at 7:11 a.m. uh we received a call of threats to shoot up the half marathon with an assault weapon. Through the ALPRs, we located a vehicle on the numbered streets. The vehicle was out of Sacramento. We located that vehicle within 31 minutes. By 9:00 a.m., the suspect was located in an apartment with a handgun near where the vehicle was located. And the way that that worked out was that we had this call. We had the person's phone number. We were able to identify him from that phone number, but he didn't live in Monterey, so we didn't have a local address. He lived in the Sacramento area. But by using the LPRs, we also had the cars that were registered to him. By seeing the cars that were registered to him, we found the car on the numbered streets. From that, our cops started doing police work and had a picture of him on their phone and they started asking people in the different um in the apartment complex, "Have you seen this guy?" And they said, "Yes, he's up in apartment 3 or 4 or B or C or whatever it was." They went and started knocking on the door. And um when they were knocking on the door, uh somebody else came out of another

apartment and said, "What are you guys doing?" They showed her the picture. They said, "No, he's not in that apartment. He's in the apartment next door." They were able to locate him and find the gun in his house in in the apartment of the woman that he was staying with. We subsequently served search warrants of his residence in Sacramento County in the following days, which resulted in the recovery of three assault weapons. Story number two, uh this was not in 2025, but it's very pertinent to ALPRs. On March 23rd, uh, we were called to a hotel on North Fremont and the call was from multiple callers. Sometimes we get calls and if it's just one call, it it doesn't end up panning out. But when you start getting multiple calls of the same kind of thing going on, you know that this is actually happening. And the calls were that somebody was trying to kidnap a child and we didn't know exactly what the situation was. as we start arriving and after the fact what we find out happens is that the suspect was estranged from his wife. He was from the central valley. The wife uh had come up here to Monterey to uh vacation and somehow he figured out she was here. He followed her up here and when she was in the parking lot he went up to her, pushed her into the car and grabbed the four-year-old. tried to go around to grab the one-year-old, but other uh bystanders came and started intervening. So, he went to his car. When he got in his car, there was a a man who I think was a parole agent that was trying to stop him, but the guy was already in the car. They uh kind of wrestle with the door. The suspect puts car in reverse, backs up, and as he does that, part of the car grazes one person that's standing there and knocks a woman over onto the ground,

and he takes off. Then what happens is the ALPRs start alerting because we have the license plate as to the direction that he's going. But the ALPR system doesn't just give the license number, it also gives a picture of the vehicle. So if I were to tell you that it was a, and I don't remember what kind of car it was, but if I was to tell you that it was a white 2018 Volkswagen Jetta, you might kind of know what a Jetta looks like, but as those models change over time, the body style might be different. And so with that picture, Seaside PD not only has a license plate, but now they can be looking for that specific car and they do. They locate that vehicle, which starts a pursuit. Pursuits are not good, but in a case like this, it's good. We found them. So the pursuit goes north on one. As we go north on one, the bad guy drives on the wrong side of the road. I forgot a very pertinent point. when he was in the parking lot with the bystanders arguing with them, he told one of them that he had a gun. During the pursuit, he was on the phone. And on the phone, he said, "If they don't back off, things are going to go pop." Which indicates to us a gun. What happens is he ends up driving the wrong way on the freeway. Uh CHP and and Seaside are chasing him, so they move over. They they're not going to go on the wrong side of the freeway. He gets off the freeway in Castville and they're able to locate the car parked at the end of a culde-sac next to a field, but it's also close to a residential area. As a result of that, we have a whole bunch of police officers from all the adjoining agencies that go there with us and we have multiple drones from different drone teams throughout the peninsula that go there and they start putting the drones up. What we know about kids that are kidnapped is that we need to start to get the word out through Amber Alerts, um, Ebony alerts,

and those kinds of things. We also need to immediately go to the press, and so we start issuing, uh, critical reach flyers, and we give that to the press, and we start telling the press what's going on because we know that we're only so many eyes. And if the community is looking for this person, they will give us leads on it. because we were able to put the pressure on this guy in the pursuit that he felt he had to abandon the car and now he's in the field or in those areas in the houses and we have the drones up. We start getting calls of people seeing uh men with four-year-old kids walking around. Sometimes those are not going to be accurate because there's going to be men with four-year-old kids walking around. One of them though is the suspect because the caller says, "My husband's going down to follow the guy." so we can tell you where he is. And as soon as the sus suspect saw that, he ran. After he runs, the drones were directed into that area because we had that 911 call coming in. And so the drones are overhead now. And he eventually gives up because he knows that the drones are there. In those kinds of cases, we have to put the pressure on the person so that they will give up um or that we can find them. My greatest concern when I heard this, as you heard, I'm old and I've been doing this a long time. My greatest concern was that that that suspect was going to harm that kid and then he was going to kill himself. And why would he do that? It's his own kid. To punish his aranged wife. So the fact that we were able to recover that kid and be there when the mom gets with that kid was like nothing else. That's the kind of thing that this technology does for us. Um I know that there are a lot of issues surrounding this and we have tried to create a policy procedure and process that ensures that we are doing

everything that we can. our policy and process um is more stringent than most other policies. And in fact, with all of the issues that we have seen surrounding this, with some of the mistakes that admittedly Flock has made, other agencies now are starting to create policies that are more robust like our policy. Um and so with that, uh that concludes my presentation and I'm glad to take questions. Thanks for the presentation, Chief. Open it up for questions from the council, please.

Thank you for that, Chief. Um, I really appreciate all the hard work that your team does. Um, I know you were talking about the um was it state uh statewide lookup that was on and you were able to address that, but during that six months time period, was there any kind of or were you able to tell? you may not even be able to tell inquiries or um impacts during that time, you know, that you know of. So, for the statewide search, all that it shows is if your system was pinged and there were tens of thousands of those pings. Okay.

What it doesn't show because it was any agency that was searching for any license plate, if they did it through statewide search, which most of them did, then it would ping on all of the systems. Mhm. But we can't see if any information was returned. We have searched that. We don't see any federal agency. We don't see any other states that are doing that.

Um but uh like I I told Gino privately when we had a meeting about this um I cannot say for certain that the that there wasn't another agency that pinged our system and gave that information to somebody. I don't think that that happened. It's a possibility. I think the probability is very low, but I can't say for sure that it did not happen.

Okay. Um and and also with meeting with the CEO of Flock, um were you able to ask if there were any other um uh indications or significant um like um statuses that were like the stat statewide lookup that might have been turned on or on oblivious to you like like this one was. Was there any other thing that would be invasive um that would be outside of policy of what our intention was when we approved this?

That that's why I brought up um the nationwide searches. I asked that very question. Is there anything else like this that I don't know about? And he said there was a nationwide lookup, but it was not activated on our system. Um and it was a pilot program that they did. I bring that up just because that's been out there, but it was not I've been told by Flock it was not activated on our system. Okay. And they said there was nothing it was nothing else that would be invasive of what our intention was

as far as nationwide the nationwide lookup. Yes. I I was not happy with this fact that statewide lookup was turned on on our system and I was letting him know that as well of course. Okay. Thank you. Other questions, please rush.

Um, thank you for the report. Um, I'm really glad the audits are working out. I'm really glad that the attorney reviews them. So, I still have some concern. There were several instances among the 11 agencies. That's Seaside and PG and and I think Calire something that you're you're talking the local agencies that share that have a sharing agreement. It's on page 149. Right. right in the middle that those are the the local agencies that share.

So that's a great point of clarification for me. So that we are immediately sharing with yes they have immediate access to our system and it's not just local agencies just to clarify that it's Calire, Cal State Parks, um Carmel Groy Marina, our county sheriff's department, our county DA, Oakland, Pacific Grove, Seaside and Watsonville.

Right. So there were a number in which they did not specify the case or the CAD number and in those instances uh MPD sent emails to the agency and advised that the case numbers were required. So was that sometimes our officers and sometimes the other agency's officers?

That specifically relates to the network audit to outside agencies. There were some of ours in our internal audit that we addressed. Um, but specific to that, that was through the network audit. And what we would do if that happened was we would send them an email and tell them you we notice that you're not putting case numbers or CAD case or CAD numbers in here. And we per our policy, you have to do this. Now, the nuance there is the law says that you have to have the purpose for the search. It doesn't say case or CAD number. I want the case or CAD number.

Right. You require we Yes. We kind of pushed that and you wanted the case number. You assured us. But the other agencies don't require that of their officers in their system. So telling them to do that in our system, I require it. But that's why I've given a little grace of hey if you want to have the immediate access to our system and you already have the sharing agreement signed you have to make sure that you're putting either a case number or a CAD number in and because they don't some of most of them don't require that of their officers that creates training and those kind of Okay. So we're having educational issues.

Yes. Can we also though have you push back and say I now retroactively want that case number and that CAD no for our files because um once that is in there you can't change that data because that data once it's in there needs to stay the same so people can't go change it later on. But the law says purpose and if they had the purpose in there. The reason I want the case or CAD number is because now I can double double check and ensure that it really was for that purpose. Sure. And we we like that. We like that precision and that safety. Thank you.

Any other questions? Please, Council Smith.

Yeah. uh chief at the uh cow chief's level um I'm sure that all the chiefs have talked about it there's probably been you know flock presentations and all that but as it matures and goes forward is there an opportunity that possibly flock will get to the point where they're going to put something in the field where it's case number or purpose but then when they they put purpose and then they try and get to Monterey PD, there is a sliding door that has to be removed only because there's a case number put into the filter. It might be a feature that if there were multiple agencies that sort of grew to that level, we lean into flock and and we specifically ask for the update in the next year or two as the the system matures a bit more. Uh so that might be an opportunity at that at the chief's level.

So in December of 2020 five uh the flux CEO was having consistent online meetings with chiefs and city attorneys and other people and they have adjusted that. So now because the law reads purpose, it's there's a drop down that you have to put in for purpose and they've made other changes. I I'm not clear on what all of those are, but I know that Flock has sent outformational flyers that I have that I can look at that list the different things that they're do doing because they also want to be better because they know if they're not they're going to lose business. So, they're adjusting to this to make sure that these things don't happen.

Yeah. But absolutely, it's an opportunity. I think a lot of us pushed on flock in that December time period to tell them that we were not happy with what was going on and so they adjusted some of those things to make it instead of just a free form now you have to do a pull down for some of their features. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm sure it'll get better because I'm sure Flock wants to uh make sure that all of their clients are happy for the certain levels that you have and and as you said, you've got other agencies that are they want the same standard we've got now and maybe that will grow. Thank you.

Thank you, Chief, for the uh presentation. Um I'll start with um I I can't remember when is the contract up for renewal.

So the contract we have with the first term was for 3 years and the first term uh was it we signed it October 23rd of 24. However, we had written into that contract that it would not actually start until we had our first camera live, which was December 12th, 2024. So, that first term goes until um October 23rd, 27 or per the terms because it didn't go live till December, it would be December 11th, 2027. And then that's automatic, right?

That it was a three-year term. And then there's a renewal that is for 2 years that would start at the expiration of that. Uh-huh. So at renewal, what's uh what would be the amount due? So it's the same every year, which is 126,500 per year. And then, you know, for for the 2-year term, it's double that.

Okay. Thank you. Um maybe a technical question. I'm not sure. I I'm curious. um in the in the data sets that you get, can you identify the data says, let's say the uh the images, right, of the of the license plates. Can you identify from which camera that came from? I don't I'll let you can you can answer from right there. I'll let Mike Bruno answer that. Correct. What camera? So, what camera it specifically came from?

Which specific? Okay. And and I would assume yes, because that's what allows you to basically place the vehicle that you're searching for. That's correct.

Potentially. Okay. Just wanted to confirm that. Um and and I'm wondering if in the way that you categorize data or or present it in the portal um if there's opportunity to see um where the uh the license plates associated with say the list of cases that that you had presented in the report like what what are the areas where these these vehicles are being mostly captured. Does that make sense?

I I think so. Let me repeat so I I make sure that I understand the essence of of the question. Um if we looked at all of the at at the time, well, you specifically related to those cases where those vehicles were located when the camera captured them, could we say that most of them were in this location? Correct. Yeah. Thank you. I don't know if we could show where most of them were. Uh, and I haven't dug into that to do that. I know that just thinking through that, we're going to catch them on different cameras going throughout the city depending on how they came and how they left. Um,

I don't know if I don't know if you could look and see. So to your question, if I saw that a license plate was from camera I I don't know if it's numbered or location number two and if there was more hits on camera number two than camera number 15. Mhm. Uh we might be able to do that. I I will tell you that I would guess that we're going to have a lot more hits at the cameras that are entering the city like on Delmonte or up by the mall. That's where you're going to have most of your hits.

Okay. And and I guess and thank you for for thinking this through with me. Um can you I I and and I would assume it's yes, but I'm going to ask a question. Can you identify uh license plates that are specific to a case that are outside of Monterey, Seaside, PG, right?

When we get that license plate back, then we can run the license plate and see where it's registered to. So, it would be registered to whatever city it's from. But, I mean, that's not just it it doesn't just say this license plate is registered to this. It just takes a picture of the license plate. Then we have to do work to find out where is that license plate registered to.

Mhm. So, so here's what I'm thinking. Um, it you listed 35 cameras, six pending installation, nine on on vehicles. That's that's a lot of cameras. So, and and then thinking about renewals at 125,000, are we getting our our return in that investment? And we don't own own the cameras, correct? We're just renting them basically, right? So, do we need all the cameras? is is and and this this is a rhetorical question, right, that um you know, I I think would be interesting to to look at. Um would it be useful to have cameras in the main corridors, you know, like like you earlier said that you might have the most hits, right, coming into the city or going out, right? just kind of thinking about really strategic placement of these cameras. Um, so so yeah, so these cameras are used in a multitude of ways. It's not just we got the license plate and we found the suspect like in the kidnapping case. And so the the case of the person of the sex offender who was um filming a girl's skirts, that was a circumstantial piece of evidence that we could show that the cameras that are in that area shows his car driving through there. We already knew who he was because we had other video and we've done other police work. But what that helps us with is when we present that case to the district attorney, if he says it wasn't him, we have circumstantial evidence that builds that case that shows he was in that area at that time. So they're used for all

kinds of different things. And and the example of the kidnapping is one where that helps us catch them right now. But the one of the car where the guy threatened the half marathon, that was simply a lead for us because we found that car in that area and then were able to run where he was from, but that was just oldfashioned police worker going and showing people pictures. So, we use this technology for all kinds of different reasons. And if we were to use that technology and just put it on the main quarters where people come in, if we didn't have ones in the numbered streets, because we're just going to capture when they're coming in the city, we wouldn't have found that car in that area that was very close to the apartment complex. So then we could go start showing people those pictures in the apartment complex. What we would have is, well, that wouldn't have worked out. We would have had the plate and we would have seen it coming into the city, but we wouldn't know where in the city it was. Mhm.

And to the question, I I think what you're getting at there is the return on investment for $126,000. And I I know different thoughts on this. My thought is um that that kidnapping it paid for this system 100 times that we found that kid and put the pressure on that guy so that we could reunite the mom with the kid. Absolutely. That return on investment if that's my kid, absolutely worth it. Uh, I guess I'm also thinking about I think there was a case in Sacramento, right? I mean that was in one of our cameras, right? So like um I I guess what I'm thinking or what I'm wondering is to what extent city of Monterey cameras are um aiding in these cases right when also when I hear of you know vehicles being identified in seaside right just to name a neighbor right um that's not one of our cameras so we we live in a in a jurisdiction that's surrounded by other jurisdictions that have these tools. So, um the question then, do we need 3540 cameras, you know, for for that purpose? So, um yeah. So, I'll leave it at that. Um question for our our city attorney. I had I had some thoughts and questions around the worldwide rights clause, but I saw that document. So, to what extent can I bring that up? The the document that you sent to council that was

You can you can bring up questions about the contract terms. Okay.

Sure. So, so I guess for you in general, um there were multiple instances if I read the document correctly, right, that uh referenced the worldwide rights clause and um and and I think in general, right, you um were agreeing that it doesn't necessarily apply um to our policies in the city of Monterey. C could you uh maybe elaborate on that point?

Sure. I I think if I'm understanding the question correctly, there was a question of whether some of the legal ease in the contract, which isn't always user friendly, um if that was opening up the city um to oversharing or improperly sharing information on a much broader basis than we signed up for. And really those clauses were just pertaining to Flock's intellectual property, meaning they developed this um hardware software, this, you know, technology. And it's just saying that they own that technology and they're granting, in this case, the city of Monterey permission to use this technology. Um, and that they can also share the same technology with other people. like it's not an exclusive contract just for us, just for the city of Monterey. It's it's a worldwide they can distribute their intellectual property worldwide and um and that's what that meant is that the the technology is what's getting distributed, not the data part. Um does that answer

Okay. Yeah. No, that that helps. Thank you. and and um I I guess I I'll open it up to the broader points here that um as you know, Chief, I I haven't supported this technology and and thank you for meeting with me and and trying to talk this this through because for me uh this is um the system is full of red flags and and I have various concerns all all uh throughout it. Um I and and I it's important also for me to make the distinction and I want to be crystal clear that this is no reflection on MPD. This is not about our police department. You actually have shared these stories that show the incredible work that you and your department does uh in in the the more real work. Right. this is a tool your officers are doing that great work and so it's not a reflection on MPD. It's strictly a concern that I have with this specific company Flock and especially since we started hearing from Santa Cruz Capola and then the information just keeps coming. I mean, there's an an article in the Weekly that just got published where our own sheriff admits to the the fact that the the practices of this company have been illegal and even though corrected, the county is still using it. Right now, I'm not saying that that's what has happened in the county is what's happening here. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Um, but just knowing that it's the same company that's doing those

practices, that to me is is very alarming. Um, and I just I I really I think would urge the council and the public to be more informed about this company and to really dig deep into what what it is that the company is doing. And that's one of the reasons why I brought up the uh worldwide clause because as it has been shared with me it it relates more to a practice that the company is doing. Now I don't have that confirmation. I don't have the access to uh confirm or deny. But the way that it's been communicated to me is that Flock uses this clause to then be able to get data from jurisdictions that they're they're in contract with and process or or analyze data in other countries, right? And that itself is a violation of SB34 and that kind of thing. So, uh again, I don't have that information to confirm or deny. I just want to share it so that we're aware and that I mean we can continue to be vig vigilant not only for our residents but everybody else who's contracted with this company and that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you.

Um my only question how did we determine which agencies we share the data with? So the way that uh we implemented was and the way that it was working with Flock was once you went live you would get requests from all of the other cities and that was a simple uh computer request. So we get requests from all the cities all all over the place. Um we did not if we got those that were within our county then we would send them our agreement. um the the agreement for them to sign. If they signed that, then we would turn on that system for that one of those 11 entities. Um so that that's how we went through that. The Oakland Police Department is on there because they had asked and we sent them the the agreement and they also do things that are very similar to what we do. They had an agreement as well. they signed our agreement and we know that a lot of our retail theft comes out of some of the bigger cities and the East Bay cities and so that was something that we wanted to be able to have access.

Okay. Um that's the only question for me at this time. Um with that we'll go ahead open up for public comment. Thank you chief for the presentation. Thank you.

Um for the council I'm sorry. Wow my brain is starting to For those on Zoom I don't know how I ended up with that. Um, you can use the raise hand function. Um, folks in the chamber, I see two takers so far. Anybody else? All right. So, we'll cut it off to the two and then we'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five 4 3 2 1. And we have three on Zoom. We'll go ahead and start in the chamber. Hi, my name is Chris Richardson. I'm the treasurer of the Monterey Police Association. I am also an employee of the Monterey Police Department. I am currently not on duty or being compensated in any way by the city. I'm here to talk about ALPR uh and mainly clarify one big point for people who don't aren't are not aware of this. But when I when we get a license plate and you run the license plate, it tells me three things. It tells me your name. It tells me the year of the vehicle and like say for instance the Honda. It tells me that it's a Honda and that it's a four-door. It will not tell me if it's a a cord. It will not tell me what color it is. It will not tell me anything other identifying information with that. ALPR allows us to get a real-time picture of the exact vehicle that we're looking for. Uh, if you've ever talked to our traffic engineer, we have over a 100 miles of roadway in a 9mm city. Okay? We have four officers on duty. It's like finding a needle in a stack of needles inside of a hay stack. This allows us to not only find the vehicle more quickly, it also lets us uh get people that are being uh potentially the wrong vehicle. So, for instance, when people want to go commit theft, they will generally go take a license plate from a vehicle similar to theirs and they will put it on their car or they'll cover up their license plate in some way. we are able to search vehicles and look and go, "Okay, well that's got this plate on it, but that's not the correct

plate for that car." So, we can then eliminate the person who actually owns that plate. Because if the plate comes back to a Honda four-door and we run the camera and it shows it's on a Ford F-150, we know, okay, well, someone must have stolen that person's license plate and put it on a different car. So, now we know we don't need to deal with that. And more importantly, that's happened recently where someone actually took a license plate off of a car, got into pursuit with with police that was the same type of car, but because we were able to look at the picture, we were able to say this car is not the same car because you can see body damage, you can see stickers, it's like this is not the same car, and we're able to exonerate an innocent person that potentially would have been arrested. Um, just like chief mentioned, obviously one big fear is losing a child that we could have potentially saved, but another big fear would be arresting someone who did not deserve to be arrested. And this system helps us in both ways. Uh, so I urge the council to continue your support of of ALPR because it keeps moderates safe. Uh, and it's a tool that does something that no other tool we have is able to do. Uh, and just a caveat with the cameras. Yes, we have 15 cameras on cars. We only drive five of them at a time. So, twothirds of those aren't even being used. And the aquarium has way more cameras when you walk in than anything that we actually have. So, privacy, I don't think, is a huge concern when you voluntarily walk by more cameras on any given day. Thank you. Do I have to? Okay. Hello, U Dennis Duke again. Um, I support the AOPRs. I think the chief is doing a great job of implementing a new technology and as any new technology, you're going to learn things about it and roll with the punches to make it work. Uh, this is a

very important tool for finding the bad guys. Um without the cameras in many places, they would not have found this person who was the potential shooter at the uh half marathon. Um I was the deputy incident commander from the C side. We were doing traffic under police department. We did the first time in 28 years I've been involved with C. We did a mission abort and pulled all of our people out of the field to make sure they were safe. But if that guy went off and started shooting at that crowd, you'd have a lot more injuries than $126,000 worth of evidentiary that caught this guy. It was definitely worth it. Uh when they ultimately went to his place in Sacramento, he had an armory that could have killed thousands. So, it's good to have these kinds of tools and I appreciate and support as the citizen the chief in doing this for us. Right. And with that, we'll go to our callers on Zoom.

Esther, you can go ahead.

Hello again. Um, you guys are very familiar with how I feel about the police department. I've been a strong supporter. I supported these cameras. Um, and clearly it's been demonstrated tonight that they are working as we had hoped to protect our city. But I will say that in 2024, we never could have imagined that we were going to be in the climate that we are facing right now with the federal government basically taking data from anywhere it wants using military applications and other various ways. I mean, I'm going to say it. The whole ICE thing is very, very disconcerting. I don't know if there's another company besides Flock that does this. If there isn't, there should be because they should be pegged against each other to see who's got the better product and who's going to have the better security. But I don't trust whatever the CEO is telling you. He's going to he's in this to make money. And I mean, he's not telling you the full picture any more than we're hearing the full picture on stat sticks coming from our government right now on, you know, labor and and other economic numbers. We don't know at this point. We never could have imagined that we would be in the in the climate that we're in right now. And unfortunately, I mean, in my in my case, it hasn't eroded my trust in in our police department, but I definitely don't trust the feds the way that I used to to be able to be assured that whatever data that we think and we're doing our due diligence to keep safe is actually being kept safe. Um, I may have missed it, but I'm I'm

not sure if if it was covered that if somehow Seaside gets breached or another company, another city that we're sharing with, if that's a backdoor to whoever breached them to get into our data. Um, I don't know if there are legal options that if something happens that we would go after this flock or whoever it is that that is running this camera system and either intentionally or not intentionally telling us what we want to hear so that they get business but knowing that it's not necessarily fact. And you know, lastly, I'll say one of the other frustrations with not necessarily the cameras, but with the police department in general is once you catch these guys, I mean, on my street, we have a felon that had an armor an armory of of all kinds of uh things and guns and stuff. And a year later, he hasn't even been to court. He was led out on a super low uh bond bail. So, I think there's a lot that is unfortunate we're in right now.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Miss Bey.

Yes, this is Nina Bey. I don't support these cameras and I warned about potential abuses last year. I'm glad to hear Council Member Garcia's cautions and he made a distinction of Monterey PD versus the plot company. Are these Falcon or Condor cameras? Do the cameras have voice or sound detection technology? Are they pan, tilt, zoom cameras, PTZ cameras? Um, Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2025, their investigation uncovered abuses and said, quote, "It is a system designed to enable mass surveillance and susceptible to grave abuses. Our research sparked state and federal investigations, drove landmark litigation and exposed dangerous expansion into always listening voice techn detection technology. Investigator Ben Jordan documented the camera's accessibility and said that the leak in flock cameras is like Netflix for stalkers and that there have been 60 published vulnerabilities. When he offered to research further, Block refused to give him permission to do so. and that doesn't include intelligence agency access through back doors that wouldn't show up in audits. Then Jordan said, "Using a commercial search engine, I easily found the administration interfaces for dozens of lock safety cameras. None of the data or video footage was encrypted. There was no username or password required. These were all completely public facing for the world to see, and some of them still are. You don't have to be an expert to find and gain access to this. You don't even have to type anything in to see every single person, vehicle, and activity that took place in these locations in the last 31 days. Whether you wanted to watch this footage live in real time or look at footage from a month ago, you could just point and click your way to it like you were watching Netflix. And he said that one example, a couple arguing at a street market in Atlanta. So what? They're still anonymous, right? No, they're not. Within two minutes of open- source intelligence using a commercial facial

recognition engine, I found out that one of them just finished medical school and the other's dealing with chronic irritable bowel syndrome. The couple also just had a baby last year and they have a pretty concerning debt to income ratio. These are the types of things he said. And it gets worse. There's an exposed flock c safety camera permanently pointing at a playground near the Bay Area in California, openly and publicly broadcasting both live and archive video footage of young children playing unattended. This is the type of thing that's so scary about the system. It's if your city or county or place of business feels satisfied by the company's reassurances, show them that many of the feeds that you've seen in the video were relatively easy to find and completely accessible at the time. safe. Flock safety was telling cities that the devices are secure after they're deployed. This is a very dangerous system. I'm glad to see that there have been positive uses of it by the Monterey Police Department, but it's so the potential for abuses in this system, in this society are too much for this for the safety of the community. Thank you.

And our next speaker is Mickey Mickey, if you could unmute, then you'll be able to go ahead and speak. Sorry, it's Michelle Welsh, known as Mickey. I am a member of the board of the American Civil Liberties Union, Monterey County Chapter. And as council may recall, and Chief Hobber will no doubt recall, the ACLU opposed the flock contract initially that the city entered into uh way back in 2024 and for the same reasons and especially now under the current climate of abuses by the federal government and other agencies receiving information. Uh we continue to oppose the use of the flock system. Uh, Chief Hobber is to be commended for the policy and the correction of the policy once discovered, but the fact is that the report itself indicates and acknowledges that 12,500 vehicles are videotaped and data recorded about those vehicles and people every single day. Also, the indication of some of the data in the report shows that the cameras also capture people and people's behavior, not just the vehicles. And so, the collection of the data in the first place uh should be limited or eliminated because the misuse and breaches of the data present a significant risk. Uh, as a previous caller just pointed out, the report acknowledges that errors have been made. The report acknowledges that the statewide hookup through the flock system that was operative for several

months unknown to the agency. What else is unknown to the agency? The data that's been accumulated in recent months about the block system being accessed improperly and being accessed by federal agencies and other states is very convincing that some of the fears that we expressed back when the flock system was first implemented in Monterey have indeed come to pass. Our concerns are still the right of privacy. Surveilling everyone at all times is not allowed under our constitution when there is no reasonable suspicion or probable cause that the people being surveyed have ever committed any crime at all. the data breaches and errors that seem to be inevitable with a system like this and especially because of the the involvement of the flock agency and the violations of California law SB34 that prohibits the release of information to federal and agencies in other states. So, our demands are that the city immediately suspend the FL ALPR system and also do an audit to ensure compliance with California law and constitutions. Thank you.

All right, with that, we'll bring back to the council for a motion and deliberation. Thanks for those that provided public comment. Um, opening up to the council. That's correct. Any last minute comments on this one? Please.

So, I can appreciate definitely um the concern um because of some of the other different reports. I was looking some of them up as well online. Um so, I can I can appreciate some of the the concerns uh for possibilities that could happen. Um, I also think that the audits that we have set up are good because we are constantly checking it to make sure and I know it took a few months for um, chief to to look and see about the statewide piece, but he is constantly looking just like the rest of the team um, to make sure that everything is very stringent. And as it was pointed out before, I believe our policies are a lot more stringent than anybody else's. Anyway, I think we have to continue to do that and doubling down and making sure that those things are are monitored on a um not only on a yearly basis but just every day monthly as as everything is going forth because I think the um the concerns of safety and invasion of of privacy are important but I also think that um everything that was used how the these block was use to be able to um have the the child be able to get back to the parent and and some of these other um situations uh even with the marathon and home invasions and some of the other pieces. I think that that has to be looked at as well because safety is an issue both ways you know in your privacy but also in safety as well. So I think we have to look at it as a balance. But I think the audit that we have set up that we said that we would do as we go forth with this would be important to continue to do that. But

but now to continue to to maybe Chrissy um to pay to to continue to look at the legal pieces that are coming out of this because that's what I was looking up and that I had questions about for later. But um that's that's kind of what my my feelings are at this point. Yeah. Well, thank you, Chief, and and staff. You you did an excellent job uh preparing for this. Um yeah, I I think it's a very very valuable tool. And I think back I I wished I had this, you know, way back when I was, you know, pounding the streets and trying to to follow up on the leads. Um, I think the strength of this system is not so much just the capturing the the vehicles as they go by and catching the license plates on a daily basis, but it's the the ability to be able to have that added tool to be able to to get the the history of that vehicle was placed close in proximity to the scene of the crime. And also when you have an outside out of town, you know, visitor and we're trying to find it's a who done it. uh it's a just such a tremendous valuable uh tool. Um I also am satisfied that we do have a system that we are demanding a higher level that involves uh this level of audit. I think that's important. Um I trust that the chief and staff are going to continue to follow um the trends and the changes monitoring uh Flock's performance and um as long as it's adhering to a high standard that we expect and that we're not abusing it. I would be encouraged to see the increase in the next year on the number of auditing audit trails that it's uh going beyond the purpose but also we're we're capturing the the case numbers that are related to it. So I think that will be

something that will increase in time. Um, but but I see that and I remember knowing that it was a strategic plan about where all of the cameras went. And I know that without having those additional six, we don't necessarily have the complete coverage for the primary areas that a suspect could flee and get out of the city uncaptured. So, I think that it's important that we continue driving towards the fulfillment of the number of cameras that we identified or that the uh the police department identified uh that are essential. Um right now we have the majority. I think it's important that we continue to fulfill the other six that are needed. And I think um Sergeant Richardson pointed out an excellent point. one of the speakers tonight was that the car cameras, the flock cameras in the the motors or the the patrol cars are only as effective unless the the uh the patrol car is rolling and in any given day shift a sergeant in you know three or four uh it's operating but the rest of them are the vehicles are waiting and then that's night shift that comes in. So 15 means that all of the vehicles are outfitted and all 15 are available to go. But 15 cars that are in service all at the same time would be a rare special event. So I think it's important we continue to cover the the strategic piece uh to get the entire 100 miles of our city roads where we have adequate coverage. And it doesn't mean we have to have a camera on every intersection or every street, but it's um completely covering our city with a

focus on public safety, keeping the tool available for the officers to be able to do the follow-up and it ensures that we have a higher level of safety in our community that some other cities that don't have cameras like this don't have the same level of societ of of safety. So, I want to maintain safety in the community. So, it's important to continue with this program and we'll continue to monitor it.

Well, I'm glad we have the um constraints that we have um on our on our management of the um license plate readers. We've been tough on Chief and he's he's uh provided the protections that we demanded. Um there there is no doubt that um Attorney Walsh is is right. We have a governance government surveillance system. Um and it only takes a few people to go rogue and and we are going to regret it. And and so what I'm so thankful that you have your ethical standards and that you hold each other accountable because it can all go down and we're trusting you to uphold our civil rights and our Bill of Rights. Um and and we trust you with that and um I hope you hold our trust dear and that you always will. Thank you for your service. Oh, you're good. Um, so I think it's um it's obvious where I stand with this as well. I I wasn't in support of moving this forward um when we initially were considering this. Um, and I think the examples that Council Garcia has raised, um, I think just further explain why there's concern there. Um and and it's what's what's interesting is um like on a hope in a prayer kind of

feeling and I I don't think as as council Garcia articulated I don't think it's a concern with our police department and how professional they are. I think there is a concern around who has access to this data. Um how other agencies are utilizing the data. It's was reported tonight that we're not getting other agencies necessarily um inputting the case or CAD number in um and so not even being compliant with the standards that we have um and how we handle this data. Um, I think this is a a question that comes down to um what makes us Americans and and looking at our Constitution um when we're talking about the Fourth Amendment and um the concern around unreasonable search and seizure. And I I appreciate um um Michelle Welsh calling in and and sharing her concern um and um and how that is further explained by um the behaviors that we've seen handled um by flock. Um, one of the things that I think about is, well, I guess first what I would say is this isn't a for versus against public safety issue. Um the the problem that exists here is can can be considered conflicting public safety perspectives. And um one of the things that I think about

is if if folks remember the the ethical dilemma for the the trolley problem where you have a train coming with five passengers on it and there's a individual on the track and if you push a button you can save the five people but you kill the one Um, it's a it's a true ethical dilemma and and and and how you appropriately um handle that. It's it's not there's no silver bullet. There's no easy way of being able to address it. Um, and I guess what I would just offer is that it's not a problem until it happens to you. And and the fact of the matter is is that right now the issue seems to be focused on a certain demographic within the community um which happens to make up a a reasonable amount of our population in the city of Monterey that I don't think we should just easily ignore. I think it's something worth looking at more. Um, and so I think it's worth having this come back and having a deeper discussion and and seeing if the chief can provide us a little bit more information in regards to what are we seeing in in across the country as it relates to some concerns. Um, I think it'd be great to hear from our city attorney in regards to some of the legal issues that have been presented as it relates to um, flock. Um, I can't remember who brought it up. It might have been Esther um, around looking at um, other service providers as an option. I I don't know what the solution is here moving forward, but I think it's worth looking at more. And so we just ask for some for the council to reconsider this

And so with that, we will move on to the next agenda item. 18 on our agenda is to receive annual report and renew the military equipment purchase and use ordinance Monterey city code chapters 27 article 3 section 27-10. With that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff presentation. Okay. And now we'll have our assistant chief uh Bruno uh provide this report.

Thank you, Dante. Welcome to the city of Monterey. Mayor, council members, good evening. Uh we'll be somewhat quick. I know it's late. So, we're here tonight for the uh annual military report, the AB41. So, we're looking tonight for the approval and uh requirements of the um of our policy. So, that's Mon Police Department policy 706. This was approved by the city council back in 2022 by way of ordinance and it's been renewed by the city council each subsequent year. Uh this policy is publicly available on our website and the uh police department is required to compose an annual military report each year. Uh the city council is required also to review this military uh equipment purchase and use ordinance and vote to renew it at a regular meeting. So currently the Monterey Police Department, so we have 61 rifles. They're issued to each sworn member. I know we have 53 officers. Uh last uh time around the council approved for us to purchase new rifles to replace uh some of our aging rifles. Uh we just recently received those within the last I don't know two months or so and they're being put together. So uh by the next round those rifles should be back down to 53 as we dispose of those other rifles that we have. Uh we have two shotguns that are utilized as less lethal platforms that's assigned to the Monterey Peninsula Regional Special Response Unit. That's the Peninsula SWAT team that we have uh that we're part of. Uh the shotguns that we utilize as breaching shotguns, the 40 mm, that's what Chief talked about earlier. Those are those uh less lethal sponge rounds, the 37 mm OC launchers, uh specialized rifles that are used by the SWAT team. Uh we have unmanned seven unmanned uh aircraft systems or drones. Uh two pepper ball launchers and a crisis negotiation team command vehicle that's

assigned to the uh Peninsula SWAT team. All right. So the Peninsula SWAT team in order for them to use their equipment within the city of Monterey, we have to list what they have and and what they're using. So they have a Bearcat, which is an armored vehicle. Uh they also have a command and control vehicle. Uh they also have ground and aerial drones that they use. 37 millimeter and 40 millimeter launchers, breaching shotguns, flashbang diversionary devices and explosive breaching tools such and also tear gas and pepper balls. So we did not receive any complaints from the community in this past year. We did hold a town hall meeting on March 9th, 2026. Uh one person did attend. Uh we had uh one question that I received which was through a phone call was will officers wear um they were concerned that our officers were going to be wearing military uh uniforms and not have name tags and I explained to them that that's not what this is about and uh they had no other issues with the military equipment. Uh all military equipment that we have was accounted for. We found no violations of our military equipment or use policy and all of our funding from the military equipment came from our existing Monterey Police Department budget. So what do we use our equipment for? So the UAS or the drones, we deploy deployed them 24 times throughout the year. They assisted the SWAT team at six deployments. And the various uses that we saw them used for was to uh search buildings, uh look for suspects, missing persons or victims. And they also assisted with parade setup. So making sure that uh rooftops are clear, the um barricades are set up and and those type of things. the annual uh the annual report. So the um pepper ball launcher. So we have the pepper balls uh in March 27th, 2025. Uh they were used during a search for a wanted attempted murder suspect. Uh crashed his vehicle in the city of

Marina and fled into a field. Uh they used that to try to uh he wasn't located in the field, but they use that because they thought he was hiding out there and they were trying to get him out. And then in May 2nd of 2025, uh we had an officer that I'm sorry, we had a suspect that fled from officers. Uh he refued to refused to show his hands, pretending like he had a weapon, and so they used the pepper ball to um get him to comply with us. So we had one use our SWAT team uh was used one time in the city of Monterey. That was on May 17th, 2025. Uh we had an arm wanted domestic violence suspect. Oops, sorry. and he was believed to have been uh barricaded inside a residence. Uh we used or the SWAT team used drones. They had a command post and a Bearcat was used. The suspect actually was not inside the house and so uh that ended safely. So, uh anytime that we're asking for military equipment, we're required to ask the city council to approve that request. Um, so what we're looking at in this next round is two police supervisor command vehicles. Um, and so command vehicles within AB41 are considered military equipment. Doesn't necessarily mean that they're actual military vehicles. Um, so our fire department actually has a Ford F250 that they use as a command vehicle. So anytime there's a fire, it's a larger vehicle that has equipment that they need where they can manage a scene. We don't have anything like that. Um, in fact, our supervisor vehicles have so much uh less lethal and and other equipment that they're they're over stuffed with everything. We're using these small boards to try to manage scenes and it's it's it's not very professional and it's hard to keep track of things. And so we're asking is for um for the council to approve the Ford F-150 type command vehicle so that we can request that at our um at our vehicle committee. Uh again, this is not an approve. you guys are not approving

that we get this vehicle. It's just that it be added to the military equipment so that we can request that that vehicle. Um and with that, our recommendation is that uh the council approve the uh the military equipment, the report, and the addition of the Ford vehicle as a as a command vehicle for military equipment. Okay, Mr. Bruno. Um open up to the council for questions. Just uh one quick question. I noticed the list of the shotguns. Um so there is not a shotgun that's outfitted in each one of the patrol cars any longer or did I miss that? That's correct. We don't we don't issue shotguns anymore, just rifles.

Okay. So it's just the rifle is there and then the does the watch commander have shotgun available? So we don't have any any lethal shotgun anymore? It's it's the less lethal 40 mm. Um and then everybody has a rifle. Okay. Yeah. Um, so when was that uh put into place where the shotguns disappeared? It had pro probably 10 plus years ago, maybe somewhere around there. We got rid of the the shotguns. That's kind of been the standard of getting rid of shotguns and going with the rifles. Yeah. Yeah. I've been asleep for 11 years. Thanks, Mike. You're welcome.

So, thank you so much. Um, I just had a point of clarification. So you were saying that it's not the item is not to to say to give you authority to purchase this F150 but to put it into the military um equipment um category. Can you explain that a little bit?

Correct. So, uh, because a it's it's def, uh, a command vehicle within AB41, it just says a command vehicle. And so, and it talks about controlling controlling units. And so, as a supervisory vehicle, if we have a critical incident, that vehicle would be used to control where the where the officers are going and those type of things. And so by our our view, the F-150, if we were to make it a command vehicle for our supervisors, we would have to have city council approval because it's considered military equipment, even though it's just a regular vehicle. So in order for us to even purchase it, we would have to have that approved by the city council as military equipment. And then we can ask the city at our vehicle um committee that we have every year when our vehicles are up, we can say, "Hey, we would like to or you know, one Ford F-150 command vehicle." The city can say, "We don't have the money for that or no, you can't have that." And then we don't have it, but it's considered military equipment. So, we have the approval that we can ask for it.

Okay. And so, I see that the cost is 150,000 for each fully outfitted vehicle. Is that what this particular F-150 would cost um as far as to be outfitted as this particular outfitted vehicle for the command center? That's correct. So, uh you know, you're you're looking so the police rated vehicles are usually a little bit more expensive. Um then you're talking about cages, you're going to have a box in the back, you're going to have an extra radio in the back. Um so it all those costs add up. And so we looked at what it would cost what it roughly cost the fire department and and figured it'd be around that that price. Okay. And it says it's two correct on pickup. So that would be 300,000.

Correct. And so that's in the budget. It said it's actually in the is it in the current budget now? So we were asked for the for the the budget um the vehicle committee is coming up. We were asked what vehicles that we would like to replace the vehicles that are aging out. And so we made the request to have the the well we told them that if it's approved by the council, we would like to have these two command vehicles. Again, we we meet with I believe Rafella will be there. Um now I'm sure Dante will be there. Uh they could easily say, you know, no, we don't have the money for that. And then so we we don't have it, but it's you guys are authorizing us to at least make that request.

Okay. cuz I'm just noticing where it says requested through existing funds. So that's why I was just trying to get clarification that it's funds that are already existing in your approve in the approved budget for your department. Correct. So yes. So the we're not within our department. So the the the vehicles are um there's money put in every every month into the vehicle fund and so when a vehicle is ready to get replaced that money comes from that fund. So that's where that so we wouldn't be asking for additional money. So, if there's if there's money there and and the city um says yes, you can have it, then we would be able to purchase it. But if we don't have the money or it's not the right time, the city can say no and then we won't have it.

So, it's more for the approval of being able to do this, putting it in the right category and then having approval to be able to to purchase it if it's in the existing fund. Correct. And this is no no means by you guys voting yes on it doesn't give the city doesn't tell Nat or or Dante like yes, go purchase it. It just means that we're allowed to to ask for it. Thank you so much for the clarification. Yes. Any other questions? All right. Thank you for the presentation. With that, we'll open up for public comment. For folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber? We have one ticker.

Anybody else? We'll go ahead and close it off to the one speaker in the chamber and I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to 5 4 3 2 1. There's nobody on Zoom. I'm just going to ask a simple question. Is this the same thing as a division chief's truck that they have on the fire side, which we have, I think, six. So, this is very similar to what a division chief who's running an incident would have on the fire side. Makes sense to me. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we'll go and close public comment, bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation. Uh there's is it just a receive receive the annual report request for action? Oh, okay. Let me go back. Um so let me read let me read it again. Anybody could jump in. I just want to get the the phrase right. Uh I'll make the motion uh to accept the staff's recommendation. Okay. Is there a second? Second. All right. Is moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor? I

I. Any oppose? Motion passes unanimously. With that, we'll go to council comments. Thank you, Chief and team. Thank you all. Any council comments? Uh yeah, I've got

Please go ahead. One. Yeah, I think we heard sufficiently tonight from several members of the public. I was uh already going to bring this up and it's the residents parking program. significant um communications in the community, a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls. Uh you heard from five or six folks tonight. I I think um that I mean it's we know that staff is working hard, but there seems to be a disconnect between what the staff technology is being pushed and the time for the community to respond. And so the window is closing April 20th for registration. Uh the new program is supposed to go live April 30th. I think that there's significant community uh questions. There's willingness for the community to cooperate and do this, but I think generally we need more time. So I don't know the mechanics to be able to do this. Maybe day three, you know, Mr. Hall will be able to kind of get get his hands around.

Yeah. But this this is the residential parking program that is almost ready to launch and go live. And we have a real big disconnect between the neighborhoods that are going to be most impacted. And you heard from five of them tonight. And I I've heard from many of them. So I I think we need to uh figure this out at the staff level. And if the staff can't figure this out and and it gets to the point, then I'll bring it back as a request to uh agendaize it in the future. But I think this is a staff a staff opportunity uh to look at this and see where where a pause might be an an appropriate thing and then see if we can't fine-tune the launch so that we can get our our neighbors well represented with a new program.

Awesome. Any other council comments? Can't we uh agree to agenda within council comments? Isn't that part of uh No, I think we have to bring it back as a suggestion. Sorry, Chrissy. And it's okay. Um, so, uh, Mr. Hall might decide to put this on the agenda and if not, then we could go through the agendaizing process. And then I will point out that this is because we have a governance policy that requires it to be done this way. If we wanted to just follow the government code, then you could ask for something to be agendaized and it would be agendaized. So, that's the distinction there.

Okay. Any other Paul and I will meet at some point next week and I'll I'll bring my notes with me. Any other council comments?

Um, for whatever it's worth, I second uh and I'm not supposed to do that, but I I I second the idea of that coming back forward. Obviously, I think there's enough concern in the community and um it would be good for council to have some skin in the game in regards to how how this resolves itself. Um, couple other things. Um, my understanding is that at our next council meeting, um, Paul Shudo will be coming to give a presentation on the, um, wastewater rate study that we're looking at with Monterey Onewater. And then the last thing I'll end with is we were going to try to squeeze in something tonight um, to do a little bit of a welcome um, for Dante, but obviously um, our council meeting is going bitterly to the last moment here. So, um, we do plan on having a more of a welcome event, um, at the Monterey Conference Center on April 28th from 6:00 to 7:30. So, I just encourage folks to mark their calendars. More information will be coming out about that. Um, and then I I will actually share one more thing that it's unfortunate I'm sharing this now. I meant to share it earlier when we were discussing um the the displaced um, Kasanova residents. um allin Monterey could could use some additional support. When I was with them um last weekend they shared to me that they um not have not only spent all the money that they uh contributed to uh that people have contributed to um but they actually use some of their own funds to help cover some of the cost. And so the $20,000 that I think the council um contributed is going to go a long way towards helping get the job done. Um but any additional support that our residents can get from from volunteers. So all in Monteray um you can make direct contributions there. With that I will pass it to Dante for city manager

reports. Thank you mayor. Um I have no reports tonight. I'm sure at the next time I'll have quite a views but thank you. Thank you. All right. And with that, we're going to adjourn. Thank you everybody. Thank you.