City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Good afternoon, everybody. Happy Tuesday. Welcome to our afternoon session of today's council meeting. It's August 18th, 2026. We're gonna call the meeting to order and I will pass it to Clementine to share, to do roll call and share announcements with the public.

Council Member Barber. Present. Council Member Garcia.

Here.

Council Member Rash. Here. And Council Member Smith.

Here.

And Mayor Williamson.

Here.

And my browser decided to restart itself. Public comment and participation information is provided on this meeting's agenda, which is online at monterey.gov slash agendas. In-person attendees, please keep your electronic devices 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.

Thanks, Clementine. With that, we're gonna roll right into general public comments. So this is for items that are not on today's agenda. It's for non-agendized items. If you have general public comments, this is the opportunity to do so. How our public comment period works is we identify those that wanna speak during public comment at the beginning of the public comment period. once we identify those folks we then cut it off and only those folks will be able to speak so everybody has an opportunity to speak during public comment but you have to identify yourself at the beginning of the public comment period so i'll start with folks on zoom if you want to start navigating your way to the raise hand function in the meantime i'll check in the chamber anybody in the chamber wish to speak for general public comment non-agendized items All right, I'm not seeing any takers, so I will go back to folks on Zoom. I'll do a countdown to five, four, three, two, one. Nobody on Zoom. I'm not gonna question it. All right, moving on to consent agenda. There's been no items requested to be pulled. Council, is there a desire to pull anything from consent? No. Please, sir.

I'd like just a brief report on item three, because I think that'll be of an interest for the neighborhood.

Okay. Any other items requested to be pulled? All right, I'm not seeing any, so we'll go ahead and pull three. We'll now open it up for public comment on the consent agenda. So with the exception of three, we're going to pull that and discuss that separately. So for folks on Zoom, you can navigate your way to the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on anything on consent or wish to pull anything from consent? All right, I'm not seeing any takers. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. And there's nobody on Zoom. I'll go ahead and bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation.

Motion to approve the consent agendas, items four through eight.

Second. Is it one, two, four through eight?

Right.

Yeah, minus three.

One, two.

One, two, four through eight. All right, and who seconded it? I did. All right, so it's a moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All right, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion passes unanimously. And with that, we'll move to item three, which is to amend resolution 98-168, a traffic resolution to add stop control on Pine Hill Way at Skyline Drive, add stop control on Upper Ragsdale Drive and Lower Ragsdale Drive at Wilson Road, remove stop control on Ragsdale Drive at Lower Ragsdale Drive, and add yield control on Ragsdale Drive at Lower Ragsdale Drive. Wow.

yeah all right with that i'll pass it to dante for staff introduction thank you now we'll have our uh public works department provide this report

Good afternoon, Mayor, council members. So this item is here before you as an amendment to the traffic resolution. So the traffic resolution is a living document that holds a list of all the stop control exceptions to parking requirements, everything that's outlined in our city code where it asks when we adopt something, it needs to be adopted by resolution. So the traffic resolution is just where that lives. So in this specific instance, we had a project that came before you earlier this year for the citywide curb ramps phase six, I believe. And so as part of that project, when we were evaluating the project, we took a look at the traffic control as we were doing the striping plans for this project. We identified two of these locations during that process as where we could potentially make a change to improve operations and safety at the intersection. Now the third item, so very luckily in parallel CHOMP or Montage reached out to our staff and identified this as a location where they had some concerns. We worked with them. They submitted a study, which you can see as the attachment to of this agenda report in order to support the change in operation at the intersection from a side street stop control to an always stop control. And so luckily it happened in combination and in the same timeline as this project. So we were able to very easily fit this change in when we do that construction project.

Awesome. Thank you for the presentation. I'll pass it to Councilmember Smith for any follow-up questions to that.

Yeah, just I wanted to clarify on Skyline and Pine Hill. So currently, what is the traffic regulation at that intersection?

So there's no control. So that is an option is no intersection control. And so when we identified, we saw the opportunity to do a minor street stop control just to more clearly established right away at the intersection.

okay and it'll be a stop for pine hill coming yes there's no stop on skyline okay great that's the only questions i have all right any other questions from the council all right seeing them thank you again for the presentation open up for public comment for folks on zoom you can use the raise hand function meanwhile i'll check in the chamber anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item All right, I'm seeing none. So I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. There's nobody on Zoom. We'll bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation.

Motion to amend the resolution 98-168. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion? All right, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. With that, we'll move to our public hearing items for the afternoon. Item nine is five, Lower Ragsdale Drive, deny appeal and uphold decision of planning commission to deny one roof sign. Applicant Steven Lyon, owner Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System, Industrial Administration and Research District. It's a IR150D2ES zone, employment general plan, land use designation. With that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff introduction.

Thank you, Mayor. And we'll have Levi Hill, our planning manager, to provide this presentation.

It'll actually be a senior associate planner, Matthew Bucker, who's gonna be presenting.

Hold on one second. Is there an issue? I'm happy to defer.

Yeah, yeah, okay, just one quick second of introductions, yeah. So this is a public hearing, it's an appeal of a land use decision, and so if the city council could disclose if they've had any ex parte communications with anyone on this topic that's not going to come before this board at this time, it just ensures fairness in the process.

Anybody on the council? No. I will say that staff from Salinas Valley Memorial had reached out to me, but I responded back identifying that it was best for me not to engage in discussion with them.

Okay, perfect. Thanks.

Thanks, Chrissy, for that.

Thank you. And yeah, I want to introduce Senior Associate Planner Matthew Bugert, who will be presenting this item.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council members. My name is Matthew Bugert and I'm a Senior Associate Planner with the City's Planning Division. This afternoon we're here to talk about an appeal associated with a sign permit at 5 Lower Ragsdale Drive at today's City Council meeting. The site is In the eastern portion of our city, in the Ryan Ranch area, the general plan designation is employment, and the zoning is IR150D2ES. That is our industrial area of the city with a design and emergency shelter overlay. The site currently has existing signage along the driveway, which is in the lower right image. The proposal is for a one-roof sign that would go on top of the building. The dimensions of it would be 27 by 131 feet for a total of 3,537 square feet, which represents approximately 5.5% of the total roof area. The sign would be non-reflective matte material and non-illuminated with no uplighting. The general location of the sign in relation to the flight path of the Monterey Regional Airport is shown in this image. There is a white line trying to point to it. The city has a collection of citywide sign guidelines and this sign was considered a roof sign and five out of six of the potential guidelines were found to not really be consistent. For instance, the first one is that roof signs in general, the guidelines note that they are generally discouraged. They are to be used when the character of the area supports the use. And in this case, roof signs in the city are rare and there are none in the vicinity in Ryan Ranch. The size maximum from the guidelines is 50 square feet. And this sign is slightly larger at the 3,537 square feet. The location of roof signs are intended to face public entrances. In this case, it faces upwards. And based on the size of the building, there could be a potential for 515 square feet of signage. In this case, this proposed sign exceeds that number. At the April 28th, 2026 Planning Commission meeting, the Planning Commission considered the item and denied the application at a six to zero vote. The commission included skepticism regarding the sign visibility that it wouldn't be visible from the street or from the air. They also noted the inconsistencies with the sign guidelines like I just summarized and concern that the decision may set precedent for other similar signs in the area. There are three findings required for approval for a sign in the city. And two of those findings were not found to be met at the planning commission. And I'm gonna talk about those on the following slides. finding one is that the proposal would achieve the purposes and objectives of the sign ordinance and there were two specific portions of the sign ordinance that could not be met the first one associated with the purpose and that signs are primarily used as a means of identification and communication and that Matthew could you hold there for just say until the jet passes sure

Speaking of a sign that's advertising to... Speaking of airplanes.

So they are meant to identify and communicate information and the sign ordinance is intended to provide equality and equity among sign owners. So in the case of approving one sign that it wouldn't be necessarily be unfair to other sign owners. The second item that the Planning Commission could not find consistency with was the objectives. And part of the objectives state that the primary purpose of signs is to identify an entity from an adjacent street frontage, and that any additional sign area of a sign that goes beyond the sign guidelines is subject to additional scrutiny and or denial, which is why it was reviewed through the Planning Commission and is before you today. Planning Commission determined that this finding could not be made. The sign would serve as advertisement rather than identification and as proposed the signage would be extraneous. Finding 2 is that the proposal must be found consistent with the side guidelines or the Planning Commission has determined that the sign would better achieve the purpose and objectives. So, in this case, the this is the mechanism for signs that don't really fit in the in the box of the sign guidelines a square peg in a round hole for them to be allowed flexibility like I went over before there are a few inconsistencies it exceeds the allowed signage by over 3 000 square feet it exceeds the 50 square foot maximum and that roof signs are generally discouraged running commission determined that this finding could not be made either Today's appeal, the applicant appealed the Planning Commission's denial in August, requesting that City Council reconsider Planning Commission's denial of a proposed logo installation on the flat roof of a medical office building meant to raise awareness of the location's existence for the public welfare. City Code Section 38.211 says that City Council can affirm, reverse, or modify that action, that denial. And it's noted within the section that the City Council is tasked with finding whether, in its opinion, error was made by the Planning Commission. So the recommendation from city staff is that the city council adopt the resolution to deny the appeal and uphold planning commission's denial of the sign permit application for the installation of one group sign at five or drive. That concludes staff's presentation and I am available for any questions and the applicant is also here.

Awesome. Why don't we go to the applicant and I'll ask council to hold questions until after both presentations have been given. I clocked seven minutes for that presentation. So I think it's fair to give the applicant equal amount of time. So why don't we go ahead and set the timer for seven minutes and then we'll allow them to give their presentation. Thanks for being with us today.

Okay, thank you very much. I'm Brad McCoy. I'm the vice president for Salinas Valley Health of Construction, Real Estate and Facilities. And I have with me here, Tiffany DiTullio, and she's our vice president of Community and Partner Relations. And before we kind of get into the what it is part, I wanted to turn it over to Tiffany to talk about why we're trying to do this and what we think it means to the community and just why we're doing it in the first place. So with that, let me start with Tiffany.

Thanks, Brad. Good afternoon, Mayor and council members. Appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. I did want to share with you just a little overview about Salinas Valley Health and the area in which that we serve. And so there is a map that's included in the PowerPoint presentation that shows that while our primary space is located in Salinas, we actually serve throughout Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. And one of those large areas that we serve is in the Ryan Ranch, Monterey area. We're here to request a waiver for the current exterior sign permit code for the rooftop signage associated with our Ryan Ranch location. Our goal is simple, to ensure that residents, visitors, and travelers can easily identify and understand where they can access healthcare. This is not about signage, it's about visibility, access, community health, and ensuring people can find the care that they need when they need it. The Ryan Ranch location brings together a range of multi-specialty outpatient services and providers. And the exterior rooftop signage would allow us to clearly communicate that these services are available in the community and can help residents and visitors understand where they can access care. This is also in alignment with our collaborative community health needs assessment that was done with all of the healthcare partners and the United Way in Monterey County. As a nonprofit healthcare system, we have a responsibility not only to provide healthcare, but also to help address the health needs in our area. The number one health needs assessment in Monterey County is access to healthcare. Ryan Ranch is a highly visible location that serves more than the immediate surrounding neighborhood. It's seen by Monterey County residents, travelers, visitors to the community, and patients and families that come throughout the region. Appropriate exterior rooftop signage provides an opportunity to engage and inform people who may not otherwise know that these health care services are available. Visibility helps people know where they can go to get care. As a nonprofit healthcare system, our relationship with the community extends well beyond the walls of our medical facilities. We invest in community health, we partner with the local organizations, support community initiatives, and work to improve the health outcomes throughout Monterey County. appropriate signage at ryan ranch reinforces that community presence it helps establish clear recognizable points of connection between our organization and the people that we serve it also communicates that health care is a resource that is accessible located and invested in monterey county and i did which include up here a few of the service lines and things that are available there. But I also wanted to show, we also currently partner with the Monterey County Airport. We do advertising with them to make sure that visitors, when they come into the area, know where they can access care. So our presence in Monterey County is significant. We additionally provide all of our services and healthcare access throughout Monterey County through our community outreach programs. I'm gonna go ahead and pass it over to Brad.

yeah and just to kind of conclude our presentation what you see here is an actual illustration if you're flying into the airport of what the sign looks like so context is really important when you're airborne i know you the sign that we're proposing sounds large plus or minus 3 000 square feet but it's on a 64 000 square foot building top so if we were held to you know a 515 or 50 square foot signage you'd see that on the right illustration and it would be no bigger than you know just a piece of equipment sitting on the roof so it wouldn't be seen and not to repeat you know what was in staff's report but we just looked at this and said we don't believe that the signage ordinance really contemplates this sort of sign our sign our roof is flat top it sits behind parapet wall so you can't see it from the street you can see it from one and only one place and that's coming in overhead and we would just point out that we did initially run it by the airport authority who was supportive of the sign Um, I think, you know, 1 other item I wanted to point out is there is some precedence that when it serves the greater good of the public signs do exceed. And can exceed the ordinance and this is a great example. You see, the red box would show what 50 square feet looks like on a sign. And this is a great example where the larger sign as well warranted to help locational identity to what's happening at this location. So just in closing, we respectfully ask the city council to approve the requested waiver and allow appropriate exterior rooftop signage that will help us better connect our services with the community we serve. Thank you for your consideration and your partnership in improving access to healthcare in our community. Awesome.

Thank you both for the presentation. Are there questions from the council for the applicant or staff? Please. From staff. Okay. Does anybody have questions for the applicant while they're there? Okay, all right. You all can take a seat for a second and then we'll call you back up here in a second after public comment.

Yeah, thank you. Matthew, as I understand it in your presentation, the request is for a 3,537 square foot roof sign visible only from the air, not visible from the street, the ground. Is that your impression that the sign would not be visible?

Yes, that is correct, unless you're in a hang glider.

Yeah, unless you're up the top or you're in a plane or you're on a mountaintop. Okay. You indicate and the facts show that the current ordinance limits it to 50 square feet. Is that correct?

Or a single roof sign that is the citywide sign guidelines. Yes.

Okay. And then there's some references to an alternative of 515 square feet of a sign. So could you explain the differences here? 50 is under one condition and 515 as an alternative would be a different condition.

Yes. So the maximum sign area for a building is usually calculated based on the linear building frontage. So if your building frontage is 100 feet long for this zone district, it's one half square foot for each linear foot of building frontage. So if it's 100 feet long, they would be allowed 50 square feet of signage that would be divided between wall signs, fin signs, street signs. All signage proposed for the building would have to fit in that 50 square feet. For this building, it's approximately 1,030 feet of total building frontage. So we were just saying, even if you allowed the total maximum of building frontage on this property cut in half, that's 515 square feet. that of signage that could be allowed divided between a roof sign, a wall sign, a freestanding sign at the front, any number of different signs could all add up to 515 square feet. But any individual sign would have a maximum of 50 square feet.

Okay. And are there other applications for the same property for signs that are entryway, on the walls, on the driveway? Has that been processed? And what's the square footage of those other signs?

There is indeed approved signage. Those two that were mentioned in the presentation at the beginning of their driveway. And those have been previously permitted and approved for the site.

Okay, so I'm trying to understand if the limitation would be based on the square footage and you're saying the total that could be as an alternative that's if we were to consider all 4 of the sides of the building. I'm sorry could you rephrase that so so how would you get to 515 square feet if 50 is the limit.

you could have multiple 50 square foot signs.

I think the question is, what are you counting as the frontage in order to come up with the figure? How do you get to 515 as an alternate?

So I think if I understand your question, you're noting in the consistency table, there's two different limitations, the 50 square feet and then 550. So 50 is for a single sign. So 515 would be the total signage allowed for the site based on that building lineal footage. So for this site, that's 515, all signs combined with no single sign exceeding the 50 square feet.

Okay, got it. So in other words, if they had other signs that were 115 square feet,

Which they do as Matthew pointed out, they have two existing freestanding signs. So that five hundred and fifteen is the total you would typically remove those existing signs to develop what would be remaining.

Right? So the remaining would be four hundred three seventy five three fifty or whatever. Exactly. Okay. Thank you. That's the only question I have right now.

So. Kind of staying in that same vein. So currently my understanding is there two freestanding signs that are there. Is that the only signage that is on the property or around the property?

That is correct.

Okay, so there are no other directional signs or advertisement signs or anything that's around or near the property?

For identifying the business, no. There is some parking lot directional

Okay, but for identifying a business, just those two correct. Okay. Um, and then I'm not sure whether you have any information on the lighthouse canary row signage. Um, that was placed on the side of the building. It's not on the top of the building. Do you do you have any approximation of when that would have been implemented?

I don't have the information on those signs or the architectural review permits that may be associated with signs across the city that sometimes exceed 50 square feet.

Okay. Levi, would you have any idea?

i don't know the exact date of those approvals um as matthew mentioned it's not uncommon for the planning commission to approve signage that exceeds those hard guidelines those numerical limitations like the 50 square feet when they find that it better achieves the purposes or the objectives of the signed ordinance so we see for instance the canary row garage signage is larger it's a large structure the planning commission or the arc at that point made a determination that while it exceeds those limitations it better achieves the purpose of identifying the parking garage for those who are using the parking garage in this case the planning commission looked at that same uh you know bar and found that no matter how large this sign is it's not going to actually achieve the purposes of identifying the business from a street frontage because it's simply not visible.

Okay, so basically it's visible at the entrance. That's one of the, I think, consistencies that was compared as far as from the entrance? Correct.

It's on a public entranceway.

All right, thank you. That's all. Any questions on this side?

Matthew, is it easy to bring up the very last slide of the proponent, the arguments for? It went by pretty quickly for me. of the proponents, of the appellants. I think it was the very last one. How about the one right before that? Thank you.

Is there another slide before this?

Okay, thank you, thank you.

Jean, was this the one you wanted to see?

Yes, I think it was, yeah.

Anything else from Eugene? No. Could you leave it up there for a second? Did you want to ask another question? No, I just want to finish reading it.

Okay, all right, all right. Well, while you're taking a look at that, we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment. So for folks on Zoom, you can navigate your way to the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item?

No.

All right, I see one taker. Anybody else? You can come on up. I'll call on you in one second here. So we'll cut it off to the one in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. Alrighty. And are you sure you want to make a public comment outside of your, because you'll have an opportunity to make additional comments after a public comment as the applicant. You're good? Okay, okay. All right, well, with that, I'm sorry, we didn't have anybody. Okay, so with that, we'll go ahead and close general public comment, and I'll offer you an opportunity to step back up and make a closing statement here.

Thank you. I would just like to reiterate that when you look at the policy and at least from what the interpretation is from a reasonable interpretation, that guideline with restriction to size is specific to visible from the street. so that kind of a parameter is established so that you know a 500 square foot building doesn't have a huge sign on the outside that's visible from the street the differentiator here is that this is a rooftop sign that is not visible from the street so i would ask that you take that into consideration when evaluating the request awesome thank you so much all righty with that we are going to bring it to the council for motion and deliberation who would like to take us off

please council rush well i love that you want us to know about your health care delivery system and i learned a lot and you get an a for creativity um but i totally believe that we should um not encourage rooftop signs and I would not want to set a precedent by making an exception. I do think they're extraneous advertising and it doesn't help with identifying the building. I studied this. I can't find the error on the part of the Planning Commission, so I would uphold the staff's recommendation.

Is that a motion?

Sure I will make a motion that we deny the appeal and uphold the decision of the planning commission.

There's a motion or a second that can talk Robert you want to jump in at this point since you seconded the motion.

Yeah, I just really concur with my colleague as far as talking about the consist the inconsistencies that is showing and it is again showing more advertisement more so than identification and it's I don't think for what it's even trying to achieve according to the applicant that for it to be more I think it was Awareness, I think the awareness could come from even more signs that are even down below, or even directional, or even more promotional pieces and marketing pieces as opposed to the sign that would be, as you even said, not even visible to people who are coming around. Because I think a lot of times if you're coming into the area through airport, i mean you don't some may be coming specifically for medical attention but a lot of people are not coming for that but if they need it they're not going to find extra awareness from the air they're going to find extra awareness from either promotional um more promotional vehicles uh such as social media or other signs or other other places so i think more marketing and uh pr needs to be done there but i don't think this would be inconsistent with our ordinance anybody else want to jump in please

Yeah, I think I'm also in agreement here in that I appreciate the intent and I appreciate the effort to share the message of the health care system. But I think our planning commission took a look at this and I can see the effort there of trying to figure out if it does apply to our ordinance. And it seems like at multiple levels, it just doesn't. Does the ordinance require maybe a little bit more clear language perhaps, but at this point as it stands, yeah, I think I'm gonna also support the denial of the appeal. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. It's kind of a classic case of if nobody's in the woods and the tree falls, does anybody hear it? Does anybody see this? Because unless you're in a plane, you're not gonna see it. However, our standard is that we have to look and see, did the planning commission error and did they appropriately apply our ordinances to the signed ordinance? And I think they did. I think they got it right and I have to support it. To me, it looks like there's an alternative and maybe not as large as the applicant was looking for, But if it's a rooftop, to me, The actual branding is the lines and the logo and and to me that that could be incorporated and redesigned and maybe. Be in the 250 to 300 square feet area. With something other than the complete spelling out of Salinas Valley health, it could be something modified with the logo that you're trying to use. That sounds like if it was applied. With such a large building that maybe there is square footage that could be allowed for a modification, but not 3500 square feet to me. That is too large. Um. I'm sympathetic and I agree council member rash got it right is that it does appear to be pretty creative. But it just doesn't fit within our ordinance and I think our planning commission. Properly weighed the considerations and the content of our ordinance and appropriately applied the ordinance. So I have to concur with it. I can't find any way to make another alternative other than what's already been presented. by city staff.

Okay. And just to close this out here, I disagree that it's too large. I don't have a problem with the size. I think it's just a matter of if it's appropriate or not. And I think I agree with my colleagues that it's a slippery slope. I think if there was a space for us to establish a policy that specifically outlined standards as it relates to rooftop signs, I think it would be more palatable. This is consistent with the decision that I made as it relates to an appeal that we did a few years back WHERE THERE WAS A PROPERTY THAT HAD A FENCE THAT WAS HIGHER THAN THE STANDARD RIGHT NEXT TO THE EXIT OF HIGHWAY ONE. ALTHOUGH THE COUNCIL SUPPORTED THE APPEAL IN THAT INSTANCE, I DID NOT SUPPORT IT BECAUSE IT WAS OUTSIDE OF THE STANDARD. AND IF WE WANTED TO UPDATE THE STANDARD IN ORDER TO MAKE IT CONSISTENT, then I would be willing to support that. And it made sense why the, I understand why the council made the decision at the time to do that, but I'm all about making sure that we set the standard and make sure that it's fair and equitable to everybody. And if somebody else were to come to us, I wanna make sure that that's consistent. So for that reason, I will also support the denial. So with that, we'll go ahead and call the question. All those in favor? aye any opposed motion passes unanimously apologies for the sad news for you all today but appreciate you all making the effort um and hopefully we can find other opportunities to partner so with that we're going to move on to item 10 which is amend the del monte center sc plan and approve application arp 26 0068 and art 260107 for changes to the landscaping outdoor amenities and lighting with that i'll pass to dante for staff introduction

Thank you, and I'll pass it to Fernanda from planning to provide the report.

Thank you, Dante. Hello, city council. How do I, okay, got it. All right. Welcome to the Del Monte Center, a shopping mall designed and constructed in the 1960s on approximately 46 acres of land. This site is zoned with a shopping center planned commercial overlay. This zoning overlay gave the original developers the flexibility to master plan the shopping center as a single architectural unit. This is the only site in the entire city with this overlay, which is the reason you may not be familiar with it. The original shopping center plan was created in 1963 and amended multiple times thereafter to allow for its expansion. The application in front of you today is for an amendment to this plan. The applicant is proposing a landscape and outdoor amenity improvement program to existing outdoor common areas, pedestrian corridors, planters and landscape areas throughout the property. The City Code requires that amendments to the shopping center plan be reviewed by the Planning Commission and City Council. This is the reason you are reviewing this today. And that's overview of the proposed improvement program. The areas that are in green surrounding the buildings in the periphery would receive additional plantings and the areas that are in color in the middle pedestrian corridor would receive additional amenities. So the principal improvements include refreshed pedestrian gathering areas, new seating and movable furniture, new and relocated pottery, landscape infill and enhanced planters, a new play area, dog relief areas with artificial turf and waste bags, landscape lighting and hanging lights in select areas. This is one example of the landscape package from your exhibit. that shows just a refreshed fountain area. The fountain would be staying, but it would be resurfaced and cleaned up. And this is just to show that most of the improvements are to existing areas. There would be no new impervious surfaces. The furniture would be movable. It would include umbrellas, benches, tables, chairs, et cetera. And these are all included in packet pages 103 to 228. And this is another example of one of the proposed improvements, a new play area for children. with a rubberized clay surface and natural wood elements such as an upside down tree, a tree tunnel, tree stumps and a horizontal tree trunk surrounded by enhanced landscaping. The proposed project also includes the replacement of 18 trees and these are all located in the interior pedestrian corridor and they're shown in red. These trees are severely manicured and have been pruned over the years and the applicant would like to return the area to a more natural wooded look. So these 18 trees that are proposed to be removed are not natives to the area, but they would be replaced with species like the coast live oak, Monterey pine, and other trees adaptable to the area such as Arbutus marina. These 18 trees would be replaced with 72 trees for a replacement ratio of four to one. However, as I showed you earlier, the entire area would receive additional tree plantings for a grand total of 205 trees. So adding all of those up results in an 11 to 1 replacement ratio. The city forester reviewed the landscaping plan, the tree list and the shrub list in front of you and found them appropriate for the site. As mentioned earlier, the planning commission and city council are required to review the shopping center plan amendments on July fourteenth. The planning commission adopted a resolution recommending that the city council approved the applicants request as conditioned as shown in the attached resolution. I'm available for questions and the applicant is online and has a presentation available.

Awesome. Thank you for the presentation. Fernanda opening up to the council questions. No questions. Please.

Sure. Is there any artificial turf that's not the canine product?

Not for the canines? Oh, okay. So... Most of the artificial turf areas are on the southern part, immediately south of the southern line of buildings, and they are identified as dog relief areas, but I'll let the applicant speak more about other areas because the plan is to replace any live turf with artificial turf to reduce water usage. But the applicant has an answer prepared.

Why don't we finish asking staff questions and then we can go back to that. Okay.

You want me to keep going? Okay. So I do want to know what products the artificial turf are. When I read it and I watched the planning commission, my understanding from the literature is that it's all canine by Forever Lawn. So I want to know Is that accurate or is that only the dog area? Is there artificial turf that's not canine by Forever Lawn? I'd like that addressed. And then I understand the desire to save water, although we've had it for 60 plus years. And right now we have a lot of ability to do subsurface cisterns, retaining all the water that we're getting in our atmospheric river pour downs. And it seems to me that it would be manageable to retrieve all that water and keep a more living environment. So I would like the applicant to please address that a little bit more. And is that doable? And I have questions then about the infrastructure of the playground. And my understanding is that is the spectre poor is in the plans. and that that's a styrene butadiene rubber, and that that has some chemicals that are of concern for our groundwater, our marine sanctuary. And are there alternatives to that? I know I was talking with the director of Parks and Recs, and she thought maybe on a general discussion, cork is coming into vogue. and some products that might be less toxic over time to our environment. So if the landscape people would talk about alternatives to that SBR product that has some environmental concerns, I would really appreciate that.

Okay, and just to clarify the APP the the shopping Center this isn't an appeal, like the last item so they won't get a separate presentation, but they will have the opportunity to speak during public comment. So i'm just announcing this to the applicant now that if they want to prepare their remarks around some of the questions that are coming up from Council, then just offer them to do so, and i've just to capture. maybe a recap of what I heard you say, Council Member Barash, artificial turf, the water capture, and then the concerns around the playground material. Okay.

The crumb rubber.

Yep, okay. Are there any other questions from the council at this time? All right, so seeing none, thank you again for the presentation. We'll go ahead and open it 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, I'm seeing none. So I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, I'm sorry.

Yes. They are expecting to do a presentation.

Okay.

Yeah.

okay online yeah okay um why don't we have the applicant hold off let's do public comment and then we'll come back um and uh do their presentation so let me do a countdown for everybody else other than the applicant that it's on zoom i'll do a countdown to five four three two one and there's nobody else on zoom so let's go ahead and just navigate our way over to the applicant

So I've just promoted the applicants to a panelist, so they should be able to unmute and share slides if they would like to.

Can you hear me? This is Mike with Livescapes.

Yep, Mike, and then similarly, I'm just trying to make sure that we're tracking for the rest of our agenda. If we can try to keep the presentation to about seven minutes, if that seems reasonable for you. Absolutely. Sounds good. Take it away, sir.

Yeah, let me give you just a quick overall vision, and then if it's appropriate, I can address some of those questions.

Sounds good.

Perfect. Well, thank you for the time. My name is Mike Meyer.

Is there a way that you can full screen your slide there?

Is that better?

Slightly. Yeah. Let's go with it. We'll do what we can do.

Okay. All right. My name is Mike Myers. I'm a principal partner here and the lead designer for the project. Our overall goal was with this landscape refresh was to kind of keep the design integrity and kind of the community expectation, but just give it a refresh, a more natural look, You know kind of create a garden Destination for the community and for shoppers So what we did is we we kind of broke the area Focusing more on the internal core into several different areas. So, you know users would have kind of different experiences like Fernandez said we we were proposing some of the existing trees that have been neglected over time be replaced with more natural native material and the planters that they're in be treated in a more natural but still lush manner. We are proposing to remove the living turf throughout the project in an effort really to maximize the water savings. We focused the artificial turf, the K9 Forever Lawn, to really these outlying areas. And really removed it from the internal core. We are looking to really just kind of create and continue to create a vibrant community center where people can go in a garden setting, spend more time, enjoy the facilities, create really a destination. Like Fernanda showed, this is a section going through the fountain area, you know, using or keeping the existing trees, refreshing the existing fountain with the dancing dolphin and seal. And then creating, moving the existing play area down by the theater more towards the central core. And this would be sort of a unique play experience where it's more based on creative, explorative play. And yes, this would, we're proposing that it would just to meet the safety standards for equipment. Here's some renderings looking at that play area and kind of a general idea of what the planting and landscape areas would look like. The existing areas right now have bands of turf and boxwood hedges. The plant pallet kind of we feel captures a mixture of evergreen and deciduous material. A lot of stuff that works very well in the area and that sort of sings to the climate. Likewise, with the shrubs and understory planting, kind of focusing on creating a texture, a tapestry of colors and textures. Even in some of the areas along the south, creating a butterfly garden, a pollinator garden, and also sort of a dry weather succulent garden. The trees Fernanda talked about, you know, 11 to 1 is really, we think, a very good ratio. And here you can kind of see some of the trees that are existing, how they're misshaped and just have been neglected over time. Kind of showing some of the areas that have the existing turf within the central core. These are the areas that would be, you know, this area here, here and here is where we would be using the artificial turf inside the main core. We would not be using any artificial or real turf. We're looking to use the forever long fusion prism or the K9, which is, you know, it's an all nylon structure. With the prism, it would be because we like the porosity of it and also the durability that that was why it was our recommendation. Although one use, one thing we could explore would be doing a lawn substitute. which would still require supplemental water. The question was brought up about cisterns or underground irrigation, which sometimes is a challenge with lawns, real turf or turf substitutes, just to get the distribution of water effectively over it. Unfortunately, overhead spray tends to be the best way to keep these products alive over time. But, you know, we could explore that.

And Mike, can I just jump in here as well? My name is Justin Leininger. I'm the development manager with Federal Realty as well. And I wanted to touch on the council member's question a little bit further here in terms of the product itself, Mike. So again, you noted Fusion Prism is what we are proposing to use here. As Mike noted, it is a nylon product and it's a little bit different than sort of the lower grade polyurethane products typically used in a lot of cheaper turf products as well. with a three layer backing as well. Our intent is to use, and Mike correct me if I'm wrong, a sand only infill. And I think that's a little bit different than kind of your tire crumb infill that is used in other places. And typically that is most commonly associated with kind of the chemical leaching concerns in a lot of these applications. Again, I think Mike covered it. The majority of what we wanted to do here was replace the natural turf with this synthetic turf, not only to save on irrigation, but also a lot of these areas are high foot traffic. And when you have high foot traffic, typically you need to have more water, fertilizer, pesticides, to support that amount of traffic on actual turf. So, you know, I think at the end of the day, we're not saying that it's not impact. It is a plastic product. But, you know, we have maintenance plans in place so that we can typically monitor the duration and degradation of this product over time and make sure we replace it in an appropriate manner. as well as kind of, you know, making sure that we do our best to reduce our water usage on site. So when you include sort of the increased fertilizer and pesticides that we might need, we thought this was a good product to go with.

Right. And along with, of course, the maintenance required with the real turf with mowing and removing cuttings, et cetera.

And additionally, I wanted to touch on the play area really quick. And apologies, Councilmember, I don't have the exact type of product and the chemical type that it is. But I know, generally speaking, because it's a play area, the port in place rubber provides, it's a little bit more of a safety factor than anything. And Mike, you can speak to that as well. But I just wanted to point that out.

Yeah, the reason for the rubber is to meet the requirement for the fall safety. So somebody climbing, because these are climbable objects, that if someone, if a child were to climb up and fall, the rubber would be resilient enough to meet the requirements.

And I believe there was the question around the water capture as well.

We don't have any nor is there any existing water capture methods. We are going to be utilizing state-of-the-art irrigation for all the planters and that would be using a combination of drip or subsurface irrigation. You know our goal in this project as it's designed now is to eliminate the overhead spray which really is you know one of the the biggest ways of inefficient watering. So we do have, going through a lot of these planters, in the middle of the planters I do have a cobble, call it a swale. So any water that falls within the planter that would be directed towards this swale to be, to collect it and then distribute it slowly over time to that planter. But aside from those changes throughout the planters, we do not have a cistern or recollection method or we haven't found a real efficient way of reusing rainwater for irrigation.

Okay. All right. So I'll pack it back, pass it back to you, Council Member Rashin, so you ask those questions. So if you want to kick us off or ask additional questions, feel free to do so.

Sure. What about the idea of the cork under bedding instead of the SBR crumb rubber product? Did you discover any options that would be less toxic?

Now, I'm not aware of any cork products that would have the durability as the rubber, unfortunately. With the constant traffic and wear, the cork, I would be very worried that it would degrade much quicker. And it would require some sort of binder to hold that all together and still be resilient enough to have the fall protection. but that could warrant some further exploration.

Well, in my research, it says, although data is limited, studies suggest it's TPE and EPDM infills have lower levels than the crumb rubber. And did you run into those options or that data?

We did not. This product was selected because honestly over time the durability and reliability of it to meet the requirements for fall and safety and also be a viable alternative for an owner. This was the most efficient surface.

Agree council member, you noted with limited data, I think we would be slightly hesitant to employ something that's meant for fall protection for children with something with limited data. But, you know, obviously we're open to explore it as we go through the design of the project.

Did you have anything else this time? All right opening up to the rest of the council for motion and deliberation.

that we approve the recommendation from Planning and Zoning?

uh second with a comment all right it's been moved in second please consumer smith yeah uh thank you gentlemen um your overall plan looks great um i'm looking at one of the things that highlights which is more native um trees and plantings uh good luck keeping the deer out of there at night also uh the removal of over uh 2 000 square feet of existing concrete in uh You know, getting it back to a natural wooded, comfortable habitat. I'm excited about that. So congratulations on the design and the company's investment to our 1 and only large shopping center. It's exciting to see this. morph into something that will be an attraction for people to come and feel like they're actually right in the middle of their forest in their neighborhood. So it's a good looking plan. Thank you.

Agreed. Thank you. Awesome.

Any other comments?

Please.

Sure. It's Jean again. I love that you did the Arbutus marina trees. It's a great choice. And I thank you for investing in the community. To the degree that you could keep my ideas in mind, I think this location is unique. It's surrounded by Don Davi park. Which is going to be a perpetual open space deeded property. It's surrounded by the old capital 128 acres. Um, which is forever deeded open space as well. Um, it's a unique location that to the degree that you could keep it natural and I so agree with with council member. Smith about removing some of the concrete. If you can keep it as natural as possible, look for products that. Will not be toxic to our precious aquifers and our marine sanctuary. This is maybe a different location than you might be used to. And if you would handle it with. Kid gloves that would be very appreciated. I know when I talk about nature and relaxing. I want it as natural as possible. I, I don't enjoy. Artificial turf and and artificial products. So. you might just keep that in mind about the population that is down here and the values that have grown around this marine sanctuary and everything that we treasure. So I would appreciate that. Thank you.

Noted. Thank you. A question for staff.

Is there flexibility in them if we approve this as is today in changing some of the the material that's being used to kind of be consistent with the concerns that were expressed by Councilman Barash? Or would we need to include that in the motion?

In the conditions, I believe there is a, one of the conditions says that minor modifications can be approved at the staff level.

Okay.

So we could easily exchange it for similar or more environmentally friendly material.

awesome awesome well i echo thank you for that i echo the comments that my colleagues shared um thank you for doing business here in the city of monterey and helping to beautify um pretty central space not just for monterey residents but for visitors both FAR AND NEARBY. FOLKS ACROSS THE PENINSULA, ACROSS THE REGION USED DEL MANI SHOPPING CENTER. SO TO SEE IT GET A LITTLE BIT OF A JEUGE IS SOMETHING EXCITING TO SEE. SO THANK YOU FOR THE WORK THAT YOU PUT INTO THIS. MAYOR, CAN I MAKE ONE MORE COMMENT? THANK YOU. TWO SECONDS.

REAL QUICK. THE ARBITROUS MARINA THAT well known as the strawberry tree. I have one in my front yard and for some reason the deer love the first two feet of it. So trim the bottom part so you can keep the deer from attacking the fruit. But they love the bottom two feet for the fruit. And I live pretty close to where you are so my deer are going to be your deer. Oh dear. Yeah.

All righty. Ruined from two feet down, understood. Yeah. All righty, with that, I'll go ahead and call the question. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Congratulations. Best of luck with the work from that. Thank you, gentlemen. All righty. With that, we will move to our public appearance item for the afternoon, which is item 11, receive presentation on upcoming Winter Storm Ready Town Hall. With that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff presentation.

Thank you, Mayor and our assistant city manager is going to lead this presentation, but it's timely because we've gotten a number of requests from the public asking them to remind them about our emergency processes and procedures. We know that El Nino is fastly approaching and we'll want to be ready. And so Nat has done some work and I'd like him to explain the next town hall meeting for safety stormwater safety.

Thank you, Dante and good afternoon, Mayor and Council. We, as many of, you know, over the past several years during the winter months, especially we've experienced these heavy rains and wind storms and we saw this this last winter, both in December and in January. In past years, we've had these atmospheric rivers that have brought wind gusts over 60, 70 miles per hour. Back in March 2023, as I mentioned in the agenda report, we had a several week period where there were a total of 151 downed trees and 82 road closures, mudslides, over 450 fire department calls for service just with just that one three week period alone. And it used to be a cause for concern, especially as it relates to electricity reliability. So we heard from members of the community, as Dante mentioned, but also from all of you who recently talked about the need for outreach and engagement on the topic of winter storm preparedness. Last back in 2025 in February, we held the wildfire ready town hall meeting and that brought over 500 residents to the Monterey Conference Center. We spent time talking about wildfire preparedness. We had a panel of experts and we plan to do something similar on September 30th at the conference center. At this event, the focus will be on winter storm preparedness. It's not only education on what we're doing as a city and how we respond to the winter storms, but also the role of residents and how they can prepare for the winter storms. As we know, this season we're going to have what's called a very strong El Nino. Our friends at the National Weather Service, they make it very clear, don't call it a super El Nino because that's not a scientific term. It's a very strong El Nino. And that very strong El Nino will bring rainfall, likely heavy rainfall, erosion, and also localized flooding. And with the unusually warm waters, it will also cause sea level rise and swells along our coastline. We plan to have a town hall meeting from 6 to 7 30 p.m. on the 30th of September. I'll be moderating the event. We'll have a introduction from Dante as our City Manager. We'll provide an overview of the EOC operations, have a presentation from Andrea Rennie, our Public Works Director, as well as Tice Norton, our Parks Operations Manager. And a presentation from our fire chief as well to talk about the role of fire, the role of police, the role of the community emergency response team. What we're also looking forward to is hearing from the National Weather Service. So they've agreed to be part of the panel, which is exciting. And their science and operations officer for the Monterey office, which covers Northern California, most of Northern California. California, Lamont Bain, he'll be on the panel and then we'll hear from PG&E. So we've actually dedicated more time for National Weather Service and PG&E because a lot of folks have questions about the electricity reliability. How does the what does it mean when PG&E comes up and presents the e-tour? They call it the estimated time of restoration when there's an outage. So Jeremy Howard, who's the regional manager for our region here on the Central Coast for PG&E. He'll be there and talk about preparedness, coordination, and the restoration process. They've made a number of upgrades PG&E has with regard to the substations, both the one in Del Monte Grove neighborhood, as well as the one next to the Sports Center, and that will help improve reliability. But we all know that with downed trees, that affects power lines and getting power back up and running in our community. We'll also have a presentation briefly from the Monterey County Department of Emergency Management. And so Laura Emmons, who's the Emergency Preparedness Manager, Emergency Services Manager for the county, she'll present also on various topics that include alerting and evacuations and how residents and businesses can be prepared this winter season.

And then also we'll, of course, share how folks can sign up and stay updated by the City of Monterey.

We have information about the Storm Ready Town Hall on our website at monterey.gov forward slash storm center, which is the URL that we always use to direct people to learn the most updated information on what happens during a winter storm. And we're looking forward to having the conversation and sharing that information with the public. There's already been a lot of interest and looking forward to having folks attend from the community. This will be recorded and so folks who can attend can also watch and learn online and we're going to keep this to to those 90 minutes. Happy to answer any questions that you might have. Awesome. Thank you for the presentation that opening up to the council for questions.

Yeah, did you say if it'll be here or the conference?

It'll be at the conference center. So we'll be upstairs in the Steinbeck ballroom. The rest of the facility will be occupied with other activities, but we've got the Steinbeck that can hold several hundred. And what's the time schedule? It's from 6 to 7.30 p.m. Thank you. Council Member Garcia.

Thank you, Nat. I just wanted to check. I recall an item that comes up during winter storms is folks trying to figure out when the power goes out, for example, where can I go to charge my phone? It's multiple days. Where can I go take a shower? You know, that kind of thing. I'm just curious if there's a plan in place that then gets activated when these events happen, or is it something that... is kind of decided on when these events happen. If you could just share.

There are various triggers. What we do is when there's a large winter storm event, any type of storm event, we typically activate our Emergency Operations Center. And at that time, with the intelligence and planning that we hear from PG&E, we identify is this power outage as an example going to be only a few hours or is this going to last into the night what are the impacts depending on the day of the week whether it's a weekend we'll begin to uh to activate the what we call the community resilience center or the crc it's a common term where folks can go and charge their phones and and other devices we often provide a refrigeration also for those who have medical needs and prescriptions that need refrigeration. And so we have the Monterey Public Library as a site, as well as El Estero Park Center. And in the past, we've also activated our CRCs at Hilltop Park Center and also Schultz Park Center. And also, of course, So, those are all sites that we have identified. Depending on the resources that we have, we, of course, bring in staff from library and recreation to help bring those CRCs in place. And we've got charging stations and others. In past years, when we've had multi-day outages, we opened them up until five or six o'clock at night, and then also worked with PG&E in the past. They've actually brought shipments of flashlights, blankets, and other types of needs. And then we do a blast to the entire community, let folks know, stop by El Estero, pick up your blankets and other resources for the multi-day events.

Thank you. And that's where I was headed with the question. During the town hall, there'll be an opportunity to share this information with the public in terms of

the day of uh an event this is how you could find out where you can go in that kind of information that's right absolutely we're gonna we'll share that information and share a little bit not too much detail but behind the scenes of how do we when we activate the eoc what happens this is really a true testament to collaboration and how the city works together throughout all departments from the public works team in the streets to the police department fire department uh our parks team with all the the trees and library everyone really does come together very effectively to respond to events like these and other emergencies like tsunamis uh fires and what have you i would just offer that it may be helpful to have something in place that's

Kind of a policy that we follow and not to say that we have to stay so rigid to it, but at least it kind of as a guiding star to kind of. Help us use lessons learned so that if it's 2 or 3 days, what does that trigger that allows us to open the sports center for people to make sure? I think it was a good question because these have been experiences that we've dealt with in the past and instead of having to. think about how to make all those decisions in the moment if we just use that past experience it might make it easier to facilitate that experience for our residents um dr barbara and then i'll go to dr rush first of all um kudos to you and the staff um for doing this and the timely timeliness of this

But one of the questions I'm hoping that you will address during this workshop is elderly and evacuation. I've had a lot of questions from some elderly members of community about them having a lot of anxiety about evacuations and the mobility. Some people have neighbors that kind of help them and look out, but a lot of them do not have neighbors that are looking out. So the mobility or the shots, the immobility of some of not only elderly, but other people, but specifically the elderly and evacuation. I'd like to hear them talk about a little bit more during the workshop.

We'll do. Thank you.

And a great tag on on to Dr. Barber. What I'm hearing from the community is evacuation concerns, certainly for storm. But, you know, we always have fire on our mind, it seems around the clock and integration with our military campuses, how they would be able to open up campus roads, Fort Ord, you know, how we could really have more exiting going on and And a bit of an overview as to how that happens, you know, who says what, you know, what does the fire chief do? What does the police chief do? What do the military installations do? Who's coordinating it? Just for a bit of an overview, even more than an overview, people are really anxious about this and that's what they're asking me for. So.

Yeah, I think my colleagues have said it all. I think there's a lot of opportunity and I missed the tail beginning while I stepped in the back. But I think this is a really big opportunity to really help individuals find out how they can help themselves and be prepared for it as opposed to the actions that the city takes, which I think should be and is a part of it as well. But I think the biggest thing that I hear from folks when there is a power outage from the impacts of these storms is, well, if the power's out, I don't have an ability, and my phone's dead, I don't have an ability to get connected. I know that there's these resources here, but if they're not the people that are paying attention that are gonna hear about the town hall, how do we get that information out there to folks? I'll throw out another piece too, which is Carmel Cares. And I think that I'm announcing this now so that folks that are paying attention to the meeting step up and offer their support in this area. But also I would ask staff to share this during the town hall as well. Carmel has done really great work. They have Carmel Cares. It's a nonprofit group that they've formed this together. And it's kind of exactly what you're, offering as part of this town hall. They host this event in Carmel on a regular basis and they pull together the same stakeholders. I've been to one of their events and it's spectacular. The amount of information that they share as it relates to just general preparedness, but also the specificity around what is the outlook and the forecast look like going into the winter storm season, just so that you can be as well informed as possible. was more than i would get in probably any other venue so it was really nice for community members to be able to organize bring those different stakeholders together and help provide that information to the community and i'm offering this as an opportunity for folks that are residents in monterey to help organize around this to be a partner with the city of monterey as everybody realizes we're a little bit strapped in any way that we can get support and help and collaborative effort from folks in the community that want to help in this area i think it may alleviate staff here a little bit to focus on some of the other pressing matters that exist we're still going to do it it's great i appreciate staff taking the time i just offer that as an opportunity for for folks to step up and have a leadership opportunity within the city so All righty, with that, we will go to public comment. For folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. Anybody on, I'm sorry, anybody in person? We have one taker. Anybody else in the chamber wish to speak on this item? All right, why don't you come on up, and then while you're making your way up, we have just the one in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. We have one on Zoom. We'll go ahead and start it with our caller in person.

Hello, everybody. I'm Lee Whitney from the Glenwood neighborhood. You can't predict, but you can prepare. The wildfire town hall meeting we had was absolutely fabulous. It was the best. And I'm sure this next Storm Ready is going to be just like that. They're still talking about how great the wildfire thing was. Okay, here's the situation with getting storm ready. I'm the president of a nonprofit which is involved in emergency preparedness, and it's called SERV, C-E-R-V. The biggest situation we face is, yeah, here's a list of what you need for your shelter-in-place bag, or here's a list of what you need with your kids and stuff, and the food and the can openers. But people don't do it. They take the list, and I've seen it happen again and again. And that's our biggest obstacle is getting these people prepared, having their shelter in place bag prepared. The last thing I want to be is evacuated, depending on the circumstance, because I'll be stuck in a parking lot on Highway 1. We already experienced the fun traffic during car week, everybody. By the way, Chief, great job. So prepare for this like your life depends on it.

because it does thank you thank you all right with that we'll go to our caller on zoom esther you esther you can go ahead yes thanks good afternoon everybody i'm i'm really happy to see that we're going to do something this informative um i think it's really important for us to to get ahead of this there's been a lot of national media coverage on this coming el nino caller on zoom hello can you hear me we can hear you keep going go ahead oh okay good afternoon everybody i'm i'm really happy do you have do you have your do you have your tv i don't have anything no i don't have anything else on it's okay it's not a big deal i just wanted to say thanks and

i've i know how important it is to prepare i've lived through hurricanes in florida so i'm glad to see that we're getting ahead of this thank you thanks um esther with that we'll go ahead and close public comment bring it back to the council for discussion any last minute comments before we close this one up councilmember smith yeah ned i'm sure you've got cert that'll be you know part of the

Um, operation on September 30th, and thank you Lee for also highlighting. Uh, Mary, you called out for any help and I want to highlight that serve. Is the nonprofit foundation that can raise money and donations that can come in can go to serve that then turns around and helps. our community emergency response team and by the way um cert monterey is what helped train carmel and i'm so glad that all of the peninsulas have chapters of cert so we just need to continue to build that continue the awareness and also drive home what lee said was the preparedness before the emergency happens to have the Mentality that folks don't procrastinate and wait until the water is at their front door. So. The education piece is a phenomenally important and thank you. Cert and serve appreciate it. Awesome.

Well, said anybody else. I think that was a great way of wrapping us up and look at that. We're done before 530. we're going to go ahead and take public comment on closed session agenda items. Um. item twelve is public employee performance evaluation city attorney Item 13 is conference of labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54957, tax six, unrepresented employee city attorney. Item seven, CS14 is public employee performance evaluation city manager. CS15 is closed session conference of real property negotiators regarding six fishermen's flat suite C. Open it up for public comment on those closed session agenda items. For folks on Zoom, you can navigate your way to the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item? Or any of these items? All right, seeing none in the chamber, I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. Nobody on Zoom. With that, we're gonna go ahead and adjourn to closed session. We'll start promptly at seven o'clock. Thank you, everybody. Get started here. Welcome everybody to our evening session of today's council meeting. It is August 18th, 2026. I'm gonna go ahead and reconvene the council meeting here. And I'm gonna ask Council Member Garcia to kick us off with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Ready? Begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, to the Republic for which it stands, Liberty and justice strong.

Thank you. And with that, we're going to do a continuation general public comments. So this is the opportunity for folks to speak on non agenda items. So, if you want to say something to the council for some. This is an opportunity to speak to the council for non-agendized items. So if you have something that's not on today's agenda that you would like to share with the council and the public, this is your opportunity to do so. How the public comment period works is we identify public commenters at the beginning of the public comment period. Once those folks are identified, only those folks will be able to speak. So you have to identify yourself at the beginning. If you try to identify yourself after the cutoff, Unfortunately, you won't be able to speak. Everybody has an opportunity to do so, but you have to do it before the cutoff. So I'm gonna start with folks on Zoom. If you're on Zoom, you can navigate your way to the raise hand function. While they're navigating their way there, I will check in the chamber. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak for general public comments? I'm just gonna ask that you stand up to the left of the podium. Unless you wanna remain seated, and I'll ask for hands here in a second. we have five takers anybody else that's still seating that would like to speak for general public comment all right so we're gonna cut it off to the five i'll do a countdown for folks on zoom to five four three two one we have two on zoom we're gonna go ahead and leave it to two minutes so we'll go ahead and start in the chamber ma'am if you'd like to step up to the mic there you can jump on in

Hi, everyone. I met Mayor Tyler Williamson yesterday and Mr. Hall, and I had three problems in 10 days. I came here for 10 days for the classic car races. My ex-husband was born and raised in Pacific Grove, and we were married in 76, and we lived two years, 76, 77. And then again in 84, 86, we had a professional IMSA race team out of Salinas, and so local guy. But he was born and raised, he's 83, and I'm 75, but... Friday night, just on the street, two tickets to the Sotheby's auction. Somebody had extra. And it was a young fellow that came from Arizona. I helped him find a room because they canceled his room on him. And so I helped him on Facebook, Monterey Car Week, get a room. And so he drove all, he flew here to Orange County. Picked up a Porsche and drove all the way up here, took him 10 hours, because there was a fire and the grapevine was closed. And so we had, I felt all these long things happen. Well, Friday night, he went straight there, didn't let me know he was going there. And so he called like 5.30, ready to start at 6 o'clock, the auction had started. And so he called, so I had to get in the shower. I was running, I wanted to get there as much as I could. I had these flip-flops on, jeans, because I'm a racer, I have everything. This is all I had. Anyway, so So I parked right the one handicapped I could have been in the pink gift building at the wharf as I parked up there and it's fairly dark but the cobblestone streets I have neuropathy I'm 75 and I have injuries from years born and raised on a dairy being pushed off a horse and that but with these they're really Uh, really good grip and I just barely caught it coming. I, I face plan. I got this big old thing. It was twice as big. I mean, you saw it yesterday. It was all, you know, the, um. Scab and finally came off last night. It's twice as big, but, um.

i hit and so anyway i i talked to but the fireman came but the buzzard going off is the end of your time unfortunately okay just one minute ma'am i'm sorry if i give you more time i have to give everybody else more time too so i have to keep it consistent that's the end of your public comment i apologize just one minute about the time no last last night i told you my tire was flat my entire was flat i have two tires with nails ma'am Okay, yeah. I understand, but your opportunity for public comment is over. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. I'm going to ask the next person to come up and give their public comment.

I didn't want to confuse them.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you.

Apologies for that, ma'am. I just want to make sure that we're treating everybody fairly.

Oh, no. I have to meet friends for dinner.

Okay. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Ian Santa Cruz. I'm the local F-166 Presidio Firefighters Union President. I just wanted to let you guys know that there has been negotiations between the Army Garrison Commander and the City of Monterey to contract out firefighting services. They're using a lack of staffing as a justification to shut down the Presidio Fire Station, Station 2, and they're going to use that lack of staffing once they shut down the station. There was a proposed memorandum to have the City of Monterey cover for fire services. That's in violation of Title 10, USC Code 2465, which prohibits the contracting of fire services on federal installations. Also USC code 2679 forbids intergovernmental support agreements. So even in lieu of money, they're gonna probably try to use some equipment or services that is also illegal. and so uh we wanted to let you guys know that the iff plans on fighting that and um we've already uh entered into general counsel and i believe that you guys got the memorandum from the general counsel for the iff to to stop this from moving forward so thank you for your efforts yeah thanks

Hello, Council. Bill Bazuska here, president of the City of Monterey Firefighters, Local 3707. Just want to express solidarity with our brothers and sisters of Presidio of Monterey, F166. We'll always respond to service when needed, but MFFA has no interest in taking over DLI fire service or reducing the fire engines available in Monterey by removing the federal engine from the DLI. We understand this decision is far above our level, but we appreciate your consideration. I'd like to take a moment to recognize our members, your Monterey firefighters, who have been battling wildfires across the western U.S. We have one fire engine that was sent to the 370,000-acre Rogue Creek Complex wildfire in the state of Oregon, and they're currently battling the Grasshopper Fire in the Mount Hood National Forest. Another engine company was sent to Southern California but returned to the area to fight the timber fire in Big Sur. These strike team assignments can last up to 21 days. That's three weeks away from our families, but also three weeks that the rest of our members have to pick up extra shifts at the stations here at home. It's a team effort every summer and we are proud to help the state as well as maintain full staffing for our local community. Given our current state of affairs, I know you might be considering the impacts to overtime and the city budget. I'm happy to share that these deployments and the overtime backfill at home are all reimbursed by the state of California. The city has even paid a 16% admin fee above and beyond the personnel hours and vehicle reimbursement. So your firefighters are not only battling wildfires, but also providing revenue for the city. Thanks. Bill.

Okay, hello. My name is Jing Wu. I'm a Monterey resident, runner, healthcare and public health professional and GIS consultant. On July 30th, 2026, I was struck by an e-biker going too quickly on an e-bike while running on the paved path in front of Santa Catalina School. The rider left the scene after I asked her name, resulting in a police investigation and ongoing medical treatment for a knee injury that has prevented me from running and participating in many of the activities that I define in my lifestyle. The e-biker was identified by a photo that I was able to take And she's an army staff sergeant who responded to the police interview that she left the scene because she was weirded out and didn't think I was hurt, even though she was in the midst of pulling out a wipe to help me with the blood that was dripping from my elbow. So all that to say, while working through the reporting process, I was told the incident could not be processed as a hit and run because the path was not classified appropriately within the city's GIS data. In other words, even though I was clearly hit, I was hurt. and the e-biker left and even stated on record in a police report that a technicality about a not updated city GIS and unclear path labeling that it could not be processed as a hit and run. So my ask is actually pretty straightforward. It's that I would like the City of Monterey and local stakeholders to join in a Monterey Safe Streets Coalition to meet within the next several weeks because I have a proposal to help update the city GIS to ensure that victims of collisions can receive systemic support and justice on public grounds. I am aware that there was a Vision Zero report that was adopted in 2025. I think now it just has to be taken into action. And I even chatted with Dante on Friday that my specialty, I'm able to help save money on like data systems and that could be an opportunity for funding. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Jing. We're glad that you're here in the flesh, wishing you a speedy recovery.

Hi, Council. So I hope everyone had a safe Car Week. My name is Gabriel Kramer, and I think I'm the only resident who actually enjoys Car Week. While I do understand its criticisms, and it has many, I hope the city continues to see its benefit. We really do have something unique here. We're known as the crown jewel event of the motorsports world, and we're on the upper class's world calendar, alongside automotive event giants like Monaco, Vegas F1, and SEMA. And the world's top 1% are almost guaranteed to at least stop here if not stay. So why are we not acting like it? Why are we not price gouging them as much as possible? They'll pay for it anyway. If you give them $100 million car pass for parking for the week, they'll pay it. Somebody spent 40 million on the worst car in the world and they paid for it because it went to a nondescript charity. So some ideas in my final minute here. One, we need an official app. The event scheduling is really disorganized. We should utilize automated congestion pricing for tax revenue. Downtown, currently there's nothing to do after Sotheby's is finished. And then further along that, Alvarado shouldn't even be open during car week. On Friday night, it got shut down and it accidentally fixed the entire problem of congestion downtown. Within Monterey, we have the capacity for more free events, and Pacific Grove absolutely has us beat on that. I have a set of ideas regarding the Presidio, including a Goodwood Hill climb-style event down Corporal Ewing Road, and we can charge at least $1,000 per run for that, and we should also utilize that as parking. And then we should lean into the younger crowd, as they're the ones who are spending money on food, drinks, and sales. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right, with that, we'll go to our callers on zoom.

All right, 1st, caller is area code 831 last 3 digits 902.

Good evening. This is Nina BD is considering what to do with surplus properties due to declining enrollment, children's safety and staff safety must be the most important criteria. The former Monta Vista Elementary School on Soledad Drive is a safe school, and PUSD has closed it while leaving other schools open that are toxic sites, including Marshall and Delray Woods Elementary Schools. Last year, when Chardwell School applied to expand the campus on the former Fort Ord to the Seaside Planning Commission, they found out about a 2022 Army report that a large PFAS dump existed next to the school, which is also near an uphill from Marshall Elementary on Normandy Road. The website militarypoisons.org investigates contamination from military bases and reported on this. I hope the city will advocate for moving children from Marshall to safer schools like Monta Vista. Another investigation just reported in militarypoisons.org has found a cancer cluster at CSUMB that appears to be connected to the promontory student housing. Leukemia, lymphoma, breast cancer, and ovarian cancer. That location is near a very toxic Fort Ord site. Council Member Barber, were you told when you were hired that you would be working on a national priorities list superfund site with contamination from PFAS? Military personnel, they were already warning of toxins. This contamination affects everyone in this community, and investigations are ongoing about the extent with long-term health consequences for many. This is the legacy of the military in Monterey County, and it's very appalling. Thank you.

Sorry for the feedback. Thank you, Ms. Beattie. Our next hand raised is Mr. James B. Johnson with IAFF. You're welcome to speak.

Thank you very much for your time. It's James Johnson. I'm a district vice president for the International Association of Firefighters. I represent federal firefighters in 32 states across the country and the territory of Guam. I'll try to be short. I think my attorneys sent counsel and the mayor a letter today via email regarding I think what Ian Cruz addressed earlier when he was speaking, the possibility of The city entering into an agreement with the army garrison for fire protection services. And I'm sure you've if you've read the letter federal law prohibits the garrison from using funds. For the purpose of entering into a contract for the performance of firefighting or security functions. at military installations or facilities. And, you know, all that's laid out in the correspondence that you received today from our attorneys. And I hope you give that consideration as you go through this process. I realize that there's also Public Law 108, I think 136, that provides permanent authority for the garrison to purchase community services from government agencies located in Monterey County. However, that law does not provide authority to the garrison to purchase firefighting or security guard services. I just want to make sure that you're aware of that and give that letter from our council due consideration as you go through this process. That's all I have. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. And that concludes public comment. There is one hand raised, but it was after the cutoff period. All right. Thank you, Nat. Thanks. All right. With that,

We will look at announcements from closed session, please. I believe that's you, Nat.

Sorry, you're multitasking over there. I apologize. Playing a couple different roles today. So we did have a few closed session items. Item CS12, public employee performance evaluation, city attorney, pursuant to government code section 54957B1. And there is no reportable action taken. On item CS13, conference with labor negotiator, pursuant to government code section 54957.6, unrepresented employees, city attorney, agency negotiator, Chalene Bennett. And no reportable action taken. Item CS14 was a public employee performance evaluation regarding city manager pursuant to government code section 54957B1. Also, no reportable action taken. Item CS15 was closed session conference with real property negotiators. And that was regarding 6 Fisherman's Wharf Suite C. Agency negotiators were Kimberly Cole and Janet Aldretti with the negotiating party Salvatore Tedesco. And regarding the price in terms of payment for assignment of lease and lease extension and on a unanimous roll call vote confidential direction was given to legal counsel. Awesome, thank you for that, Nat.

All right, with that, we'll roll right into our public appearance item for the evening. 16 is to receive presentation on the Roadmap to Resilience, Six Concurrent Navigation Points to Strengthen the City of Monterey's Financial Future. With that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff presentation.

Thank you, Mayor. Tonight, we're going to talk a little bit about our roadmap to resilience, which is our plan to tackle our structural deficit and get Monterey on a stable financial path. So tonight we're going to ask Council just to receive the update on the process so that we can start moving forward with community engagement and the long term planning of the plan. There's a lot of information in the agenda packet for you and I'll briefly. give an overview of some of the major elements and we'll be happy to answer questions. I have my team here along with my finance director here as well to answer some questions. So part of one of the first navigation points on this roadmap is really understanding the fiscal gap. And again, it's really about creating the shared understanding with that everybody's operating under the same list of facts, same numbers, essentially, so that we can together work on how we work our way out of the structural deficit and really secure our financial stability. And also, it's important that people understand the drivers of what caused it so we can look specifically at those things. to see if we can correct them for the future or shore them up. I do want to say that the city has a balanced budget for this fiscal year that ends in June 30, 2027. And I've reiterated that a number of times at public meetings and engagement and formally. There is a lot of angst over that, but I want to just reiterate that we have a balanced budget. The offset was funded by one-time money, and we'll discuss that a little bit more next. But the focus now is really on next year and five years and beyond. That's what we're trying to solve for. It's not this year of 26-27 that we're trying to solve for. We have a structural deficit, and a structural deficit happens obviously when the costs are higher than the revenues year after year. And it means the budget doesn't naturally balance by itself, even under normal circumstances. And the gap keeps returning year after year. That's what we're trying to solve for, essentially. Let's go to our next slide. We have a couple of slides that we're going to be talking through, but some of the reasons for our rising costs are identified in the staff report and they've just risen and some of them we don't have a lot of control over. Since 2020, we've had about a 30%, everybody's experienced this, and the city is no different. The inflation has increased since 2020 by 30%. So without any other drivers, we're dealing with that. On top of that, insurance premiums have increased by 260%. We're paying now over $3 million in just general liability insurance. Workers' comp has increased by 38%. Utilities have increased by almost 80%. And so even if we kept everything the same, we kept our expenditures the same, there are these specific categories that are really pushing up the cost significantly. We wanted to clear up some of the misconceptions that we've heard as I'm going out and talking and meeting with people, even during some of the town halls that we had when I first came to talk a little bit about us about sales tax. We kept getting the. why can't essentially, why does the city need taxes and fees? Why can't the taxes that I pay essentially just solve the gap? And it's a little bit nuanced for cities. We have limited ways of generating revenue. In some areas, we can only generate revenue to pay for the cost that we encumber. And I'm sorry, my computer is, let me just do something really quick. that we encumber. And so what that slide is showing, essentially, is that even if we did nothing, and I'm sorry, my computer is really acting up here. Let's do this. We will go to a manual. Always be prepared, right, Chrissy?

Yeah, the slide is back up. Okay, all right. Okay, so...

Yeah, it's my computer that's having a bug. We'll go ahead and we'll fix that. But let me just continue. So, I'll just continue as we're moving forward. So, We're hearing from residents, you know, why can't taxes cover? And we just cannot, we have limited ways, like I said, taxes and fees and other kind of ventures, revenue generating ventures are really the only ways that we have to generate money. Thank you, appreciate it. Teamwork makes the dream work. Um, next slide please. We also get, um. You know, the residents who who say the same things that, um, my taxes should really be enough to pay for city services. And so just as a reminder, the city only gets about 6% of a property tax 6% per dollar of property taxes. What you're looking at here is what we get. on the left hand side and what a typical city would get in terms of how taxes and revenue is distributed. One of the most stable sources for many cities are property taxes. and ours is very low, and it's compounded by the fact that we have a lot of nonprofit properties throughout the city that don't pay property taxes, but obviously we're obligated to provide services to those properties. The next slide, please. And so it means that 94 cents of every property tax dollar really goes somewhere else to support other agencies like special districts and schools, but not the city. And so we really don't have a lot of ways to change the mechanism. And so we're left with finding other ways to reduce which means that we have to adjust service levels or try to do cost recovery through fees or be inventive and be enterprising by generating revenues in other ways. So it really kind of limits what we can do. The next slide is one of the other questions that we're getting a lot, and this is on staffing costs and labor. There's perception, I think, that staffing costs are unusually high. What the city does is periodically we do salary surveys to just see where we are and how far in line we are with some of our comparable agencies. And this is a typical practice because we want to attract the best talent that we can afford. And our practice is really keeping pay within 5% of median of comparable cities. And it's not above, it's not below, but it's within that median range essentially to make sure that we're trying to get the best talent. And that's really the goal. And a cost of living adjustment is what this next chart is showing essentially does not really even keep pace with the cost of inflation. So that's somewhat of a little bit of a misconception, but it leaves us with having to essentially make it work with the staffing resources that we need and the job that we need to get done. Next slide. I wanna talk a little bit about some of the things that we've already done, just to reiterate. Repetition is the key here, I think, in making sure that people are hearing the same things over and over again. So this is the way that we balance the budget. for 26, 27, we defunded about 29, well, we defunded 29.5, approximately 30 positions, and we saved $3.5 million of general fund, and then another million dollars approximately of other special funds by defunding those positions for this year. Since 2019, we've had some department reductions in staffing resources and reductions. And I need to let you know that some departments have been impacted hugely. I mean, they've had some pretty big impacts. So since 2009, just to give you an idea, recreation is down in staffing about 72%. that's running, sports center is down about 67%, library is down 25% and custodial services, the people that keep our environments clean and keep our restrooms clean and do the things to make us comfortable, we're down since 2019, 16%. On top of that, citywide operations and budgets have really been cut about 17% over the last two years. And we were able to get an infusion from NCIP of 3.5 million to help with our central operations. And that's how we close the gap for this year. We also pursued several revenue measures and some were successful. Some were rejected by the voters. And we also have something that's coming up in November for Measure S that we will put it out to a vote to see what the community tells us on that one. But that's essentially how we were able to close the gap. I want to talk a little bit about the second step in this roadmap, which is to evaluate our service levels and really try to understand the community priorities And that's something that we're currently working on now with the executive team and departments. We've had some discussions and we'll be getting to work in earnest. But from September to December, we'll be engaging not only our staff, but the community for input. um to talk a little bit about the services that mean the most to them um not everything can be fully funded with the revenue that we receive so we also want to talk a little bit about trade-offs what does it mean essentially to have less resources and only enough money to provide services to the things that we can we can afford so we'll be talking to residents along with that like I said we'll be going through our exercises with staff reviewing staffing levels adjusting service delivery models where appropriate really to match really to match our actual funding availability with our resources ultimately all of that feedback from the community from the staff recommendations and everything, we'll present it to City Council for consideration. And we'll talk a little bit later about that timeline of when City Council will receive that. But we definitely want to cast a wide net. So anybody who has anything to comment on or provide input on will have that opportunity at one point or another through this process to talk to us about about our budget. That next step is really about reducing the long term cost. And we put in, we're going to definitely take a look at technological and operational efficiencies. Over the last couple of years, even before, prior to me, the city has taken steps to really try to modernize their systems. They've moved to renewable energy in certain circumstances. They've streamlined processes, optimized contracts. really looking at how do we save time and save money. We've come to the point essentially that there's not a whole lot more there, but we're gonna continue to do that. We're gonna continue to look for recommendations for efficiency, but the data is really clear that efficiency alone can't solve this problem. It is a portion of it, but it won't alone solve the problem. I'm sorry, we can go to not to the next slide yet. I didn't provide a slide for everyone. These are just major slides. This was just action taken to solve to address the budget deficit. We only have a couple more slides and we'll bring those up as we go to talk about those. The next element is revenue responsible spending, really exploring and implementing revenue opportunities. We've done some things to talk about cost recovery and updating things. We also want to focus on partnerships. You know, is there volunteerism? Are there opportunities to partner with other agencies to provide services to us? whether there be programming for youth or seniors or what have you, are there opportunities to partner with them at a lower rate, at a lower cost, but still provide that service to the community? And then the long-term economic sustainability, Um, in your report, you also have several of the revenue strategies that are underway that the city council has discussed in in the past. And we're working on those and we'll provide a report, um, early next year on where we are with those, those elements that are listed in your report. And some of the future options are gonna require city council direction and also community dialogue. And so we'll be presenting those to the city council and they're listed in your report. Some of them are listed in your report for direction, but we're looking also for strategies internally, program pauses, service level adjustments, And things to really try to streamline some of our core functions like maintenance. You know, maintenance is something that is costly, but it's necessary. Are there ways to essentially streamline some of the costs within the maintenance function? And we can go to the next slide, Nat. Part of throughout this entire plan and all of the navigation points, it's really about using community engagement as the glue. We really want to share, like I said, this clear information about the budget. We really want to cast a wide net for people who really want to talk to us about the budget, have their opportunities. we'll bring that to City Council along with our recommendations to put this puzzle together essentially. And transparency is really the key. This is a list of engagement opportunities and it's included also in your agenda report. And among them, we're gonna be hosting four evening workshops, budget workshops to talk about the budget, to answer questions, to talk about trade-offs, to talk about ideas essentially with the community. We'll also have what I'm calling budget brews. We'll have in coffee house drop-ins to provide information, but also provide that information, that informal kind of drop-in conversations at our local coffee shops around Monterey to get that kind of approach of meeting people where they are. In those meetings, the town hall meetings especially, we're gonna be using various engagement tools, survey tools, interactive tools for the community to provide feedback on city services. Like I said before earlier, weighing trade-offs, reacting to revenue ideas that the city has talked about, and then also sharing anything that we may have missed What other things do we need to need to think about? And so there will be ample opportunity for people in either the four town hall meetings that are in person and the one virtual one for people that are not able to join us in person. And then all of the budget brews same message. with the goal of soliciting feedback and weighing in on our budget issues and also strategies that we've been talking about. The next step, essentially, and we can take that, yeah, we can leave that slide up. It's really to ensuring that we're delivering the sustainable budget We're not just, again, solving just next year's problem. Really, the goal is designing a long-time financial plan so that we're not here again in seven, 10 years, essentially. And obviously, that is going to mean living within our means. You know, there are strategies we've been talking about just in identifying resources for proactive maintenance. everybody knows that it's more expensive to fix stuff when it breaks as opposed to maintaining it. And the city has done a good job and utilized funding where available to do some of that proactive maintenance. There's just not enough of it. And so we're going to look at a strategy to try to fund some of that proactive maintenance and also just the economic development, monitoring economic indicators closely, you know, really understanding where are we sliding, where are we getting kind of the market drip, or are people Instead of visiting and spending their money in Monterey, are they going to surrounding cities? And how do we attract some of that back? There's an economic term in economic development. We call it leakage. certain market, certain city, and most people know this, but if you have a big box, they don't look at jurisdictional boundaries, they look at a market area, right? And are there things that we can do and strategize about keeping our market share, keeping what comes to the city that would provide us revenue to provide services for the community. So we're gonna keep an eye on that and essentially just be very stringent about our expenditures. Let's really scrutinize some of the nice to haves to keep us on track. And that's gonna be a task that I'm really committed to, to keeping us on track once we get there, We're going to have to be really firm about keeping us there so that we don't revisit this in the next five to seven years. Next steps, just in a nutshell, the community engagement period, like I said, all of the things we said we're going to do, casting a wide net, is going to run from September through December. Staff is developing right now some of our recommendations for City Council to consider to close the gap. And we're going to be doing that through January. We're going to come to Council to talk about priorities, some of the recommendations, February and March. That will feed into our normal budgeting process, which begins in April. We'll have discussions about that so we can align that next year's budget and our five-year projection based on those budget workshops, the decisions that council will make after we've had feedback from the community about priorities, after our executive team has had a chance to really evaluate what can we really do and make sure we're taking care of our responsibilities, our core responsibilities for the city. And then the goal is to have an adopted budget, a 2027 28 budget in June of 2027. So that takes us takes us through the process and. Just in closing, you know, this is really to provide some clarity to the roadmap and a process to really and also bring the community into the conversation so that we're not talking in an echo chamber. We're getting some feedback from the community. You're getting your best work from staff, looking at the organization and what we have to do You know, uh, legally, you know, there's some things we're mandated to do. There are some things we know are important to the community based on what we can afford. Wrap that up and bring those as recommendations to city council. Um, and we believe that this is a path forward to stability. Again, not for just next year, but for the future. And we're confident with the council's leadership with with staffs analysis and community partnership that we can bridge this gap. And so that's the end of my presentation. I'll be happy to answer any questions. And like I said, I have the support of my departments with me.

Awesome. Thank you for the presentation. Dante opening up to the council for questions. We'll save it for discussion? Yeah, save it for, you know, later. I did have one question that I was hoping that you could provide a little bit more information on. You were highlighting earlier some of the percentage decreases in staffing levels. There was one in particular I wanted to call out, which is the custodial cuts of 16%. Could you share a little bit about what staff has done in the interim to try to help address some of those issues and the

potential for having to pay for overtime for our the leftover custodial staff well i mean that that is an impact right um and i think you have a really dedicated staff i've only been a part of the team for four months but something that's been impressed in me just how dedicated people are and how long they stay and i think staff is just doing what it takes to make it work but it's not sustainable. And so over time, yes, people have, we've had to use overtime for some of the employees, but there are gonna be real impacts. And some of the real impacts are, Well, we can no longer service some restrooms right? Um, you know, and and let's look at some of the restrooms where we have low traffic or what have you and maybe those are only open certain times a day that saves significant time for our custodial staff. Um, but. To your point, Mayor, I think your staff has been trying to do what it takes with limited resources, but again, it's not sustainable. And so the goal is really to look at what would it take to make that sustainable within what we can afford.

And I was hoping maybe for a little bit more for a public service announcement in regards to some of the action that's been taken regarding those bathrooms, just so that if people haven't seen it, they can have some awareness of it.

Yes. Yes. And so we've, we've closed some, some, some of our restrooms, um, um, from the custodial and, um, If we can have Chris, Chris Dwight come up and give us a little bit of a report on some of the restrooms that were closed because of budget issues and staffing issues.

Yeah. So, so Chris Dwight, general service superintendent, so oversee facilities maintenance, both in the city and on the Presidio, as well as custodial staff in the city. So. um through we have had reduced staff and so we have closed three restrooms um san carlos beach restroom um that one was chosen particularly because uh 300 yards away coast guard pier has a restroom that is also full service and and great hours and so what we're trying to do is direct the public who's used to using those bathrooms to the other ones so the custodians don't have to maintain both facilities when they're in such close proximity the second one is larkin park that one has extremely low usage especially during the week so we've closed that one monday through friday we also understand though that kids birthday parties and events and things happen on the weekend so we are maintaining those on saturdays and sundays as well as behind first base at Lake El Estero, there's a bathroom. Not a lot of people know about that one. Not the one at Dennis the Menace. I'm a father, so I would not advocate to close that one. But the one behind the first base at that ball field behind a gate has also very low usage. and unfortunately it also has the highest level of vandalism and other things that happen in that restroom so that one is why that one was selected for us so those three restrooms um are the ones that we have closing for closed for now with receipts oh and i'm we'll mention the one at the baseball field is also still open saturdays and sundays because there's a lot of events and ball games and such so we're trying to recognize the impact to the public and do what we can thank you for that thank you um

Yeah, that was the only question I had. So with that, we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment. So for folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. In the meantime, I will check in the chamber. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item? I just ask that you stand up to the left of the podium for me here. I only see one taker, two takers. Anybody else in the chamber? All right, so we'll cut it off to the two. I'll do a countdown for five, four, three. I'm sorry, for folks on Zoom, I'll do a countdown to five, four, three, two, one. We have three on Zoom. Are you doing public comment or did you want to come up and say something else?

You're putting your... No, comment on...

The bathrooms? Yeah. You're doing separate. As a staff or personal? Personal. labor got it perfect, I just wanted to make sure I was going to let you make your comment now, thank you all right all right, so we have three in the Chamber, we have how many online to now, I mean we have three online so we'll go ahead and start in the Chamber. Three.

Good evening, Mayor and Council, and thank you for doing such a good job. I'm looking forward to those brews out there, okay? And I'm running for City Council, so I just want to give you a little feedback is what I want to do. I've been out there talking to folks, and they are talking about the budget, and I think the way that you laid it out It's a way to be able to communicate to the people and tell them about these brews that are coming up. I have a concern about our revenue. We've got Stahl Motor Company moving out next year. Sorry to remind us, but that's a lot of money in sales tax. so i'm just looking at the transition that we're in financially in the city how we're going to build up that revenue looking at downtown you know we we have the amazon coming in and a lot of people shopping online so i'm just thinking about okay we want to cut i want a revenue Let's build it up. But I am concerned about that. I think they're talking a little bit about possibly putting in retail below and then building housing and so forth up above, which I think is a wonderful idea. I like that mixed use. So I just wanted to give you a little feedback that people some some big pushback on the tax and even measure as so I'm trying to talk about that in a sensible way of moving forward that it doesn't add an additional cost it's already there we're just extending it so i just want to say thank you to the council for everything that you're doing and to just give you some feedback um people are it's just that time where everything is there's a lot of inflation so anyhow vicki norton thank you so much thank you

So three items that were obviously not mentioned here were the vacancy parking and admissions taxes. Especially the vacancy taxes I feel should be revisited here because these are the residents that literally aren't here. They're not here to make a boat, to make a stay. and they're clogging up the housing a bit, and parking and admissions both go towards tourism the most. And then also, as I mentioned earlier, with congestion pricing, especially targeting car week, and then also commenting on the bathroom, the one at the skate park in Lake El Estero behind the baseball field, The local community members were very, very mad. They were very, very mad that they had to go all the way across to Dennis the Menace Park, especially that area, well, houses, but keeps a lot of our homeless population there. So that would mean that that population is now also entering into Dennis the Menace Park, and that is something that should be considered. Yes, it did have the highest amount of vandalism, but it was kept to that bathroom. And then beyond that, I have nothing else. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening again. So now I'm here to speak on behalf of the MEA. Just a reminder, I'm the MEA president. Just want to first say that we're in full support of the roadmap resiliency, as well as Mr. Hall's plan. You'll find with MEA members that, you know, we're ready. We're ready there to rise to the occasion, rise to the challenge. One thing we are concerned with, though, is that we do, we still, and I said this at the last time I spoke On behalf of MEA, we are shouldering a larger majority of the frozen positions. So I just want to continue to remind you all of that. And also that just because they were vacant doesn't mean they weren't necessary. A lot of those were very hard to fill. And so as we look going into the future, hope to maybe spread that out, understand why positions were vacant, which ones we can bring back from the frozen list and really push forward. And then last thing, thank you for addressing head on the perception that staff wages were the driving force for this. As you heard, 5% to median is a challenging number to hear. Obviously, we would like to see that higher as we expect top tier performance and career professionals. But we understand the budget and the things that we are facing at this time. So just want to continue to remind council of those things. And we look forward to helping solve this together. Thanks.

All right, with that, we'll put our callers on Zoom.

All right, first hand raised. Tom, if you would, you have three minutes.

Thank you. Great conversation, good presentation. I have a question, kind of a request for clarification for Dante. You had a slide that said achieve full cost recovery through fees. And that causes me to question, because in a previous meeting, I think Nat, you said that the sports center is only paying, I forget the exact number, 65% of its way. So that would seem to kind of contradict that statement. And then of course the library, it doesn't collect enough fees to pay for itself. And then we've also had discussions about things like the EMS fee. And I understand all the difficulties with any of these fees, but I just wanted to make sure that I was understanding that statement. And if I'm misunderstanding it, could you clarify that? Or if I am understanding it, maybe you could clarify it so that other people understand what you mean by that. Um, another general statement kind of springboarding off of what Vicki just said, and that is to me, our number 1 asset in Monterey is our environment. And I mean that in a multiplicity of ways. It's the natural environment. It's our historical environment. It's our nightlife environment. It's everything that people think of when they think of Monterey. and our downtown alvarado street um is is is pretty threadbare i think it was last uh revitalized in the 1970s if memory serves me right so i understand it's a super expensive proposition to be looking at but i think to keep our our place in the in the market uh of attracting visitors we need to be looking at that and figuring out how are we competing with our neighboring cities and seeing if we can't develop or redevelop our downtown and revitalize that. So it's a good place for businesses and people to spend their money and of course the tax revenue. And one last thought, the more I've been diving into the local economy issues, I'm struck by how dominant healthcare is in our region. Healthcare has the largest payroll of any industry in our area. They bring in the most in terms of economic, whatever you want to call it, like the gross national product, but it's the city's gross city product, if you will. And I don't know that there's any ways that the city can, the city as a government can benefit by that. We've all heard that actually it's the opposite. They don't pay property tax, but it seems like we ought to be looking at ways to partner with them so that we could get a little bit of the benefit of that economically too. Thank you very much. Have a good evening.

All right, thank you. We'll go on to the next caller, and that is Esther. Please go ahead.

Good evening, everybody. That was a really good presentation. I wish that staff had had the time to do something like that before the primaries so that we would have been able to get that information into residents hands and probably measure D would have passed. First and foremost, you know, we've got great staff across the board in every department and the fact that they've been operating the way that they have even as far back as COVID and since COVID, and we really haven't felt a change in the level of service is something to be commended and something to remind residents of when there is talk about cuts. And when this, you know, Monterey doesn't have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem. You know, the people that are saying that are not following these council meetings as closely as some of us are. So this kind of information has to be put out more and more. but i want to i want to caution the people who are running for council because they also have to be really sure on how they're presenting this because there is a significant amount of distortion and misinformation that i'm hearing about and from from people who have been approached by candidates that are running and they're they're just These are facts and by making it seem like this council and this staff isn't doing their jobs in a way that. That is causing this is not a fact when you get into these details. That those are the facts I myself have had to explain to people who have made. These general comments that have no basis in reality because they don't watch these council meetings. Those are the people that are going to be swallowing the false falsehoods that are put out there. So it's really important for staff and everybody who who does know the facts to repeat the facts accurately. I also want to say, you know, again, Alvarado keeps talking about you know, people keep talking about revitalizing Alvarado. Guess what? Revitalizing means it's already been vitalized in the past. north fremont has never been vitalized let alone revitalized so this is an asset over here the fairgrounds brings in a ton of money and that's all we have to offer on north fremont at this point so that absolutely needs to be a priority when we go forward and that will bring in more revenue so i would like to see the conversations go in that direction a little bit more

and not just stick into stay to the silos of canary road downtown the wharf and whatnot thank you all right with that we'll go ahead and close public comment thank you for all those that provided some public comment here i'm going to pass it to dante real quick there was the oh i apologize yes and we did also have uh the caller 902 i think uh miss beattie uh go ahead and please provide your public comment for three minutes thank you this is nina beattie

Thank you, Mr. Hall, for the presentation. One issue that Monterey County is pursuing is seeking reapportionment of property tax. Monterey and other cities should be getting far more than $0.06 out of every tax dollar. This is where we live. Property is where we live. So the city should be getting it. And since Monterey County is seeking reapportionment, Monterey should join them. The problem of non-profit properties that don't pay taxes, it's really nice. It looks good on the city's resume, but it doesn't pay the bills. And so these properties, these organizations, it shouldn't be something the city should be seeking out because it doesn't work for us. The tax was rejected in part because both taxes in part because of trust. I talked with people. And I said, I have issues with what the city has done, but the city has to be able to pay its bills. We don't want the city selling properties. And so despite problems in the past, trust problems in the past, you need to support the sales tax. You need to support this other tax. But this is an issue. For instance, Measure P&S. Cass Street still remains unpaved after years and years. People have been complaining about that for years. And people notice what the city doesn't do. So, I mean, I really think the city should bring both these taxes back to the voters. And some of us even should be doing a better job of getting the word out of, look, the city needs to show up and we need to show up. What happened with the lease agreement with the aquarium? I haven't heard anything about this. Admissions taxes, vacancy taxes, those are both important. These second and third homes are exacerbating our housing shortage and housing prices. There needs to be some sort of tax on the situation. I noticed the city did a new website recently. That cost money and staff time was totally unnecessary and it's difficult to find things now. Also, you have a glossy quarterly focus magazine. Again, lots of staff time and probably money going into producing it. It's unnecessary. The custodial jobs are essential. These are community members and they are, this is important to retain. A shop local campaign would be great with coupons. And there's a really good case for boycotting Amazon. Monterey could take some sort of step in that direction. We need the sales tax here, and it's being siphoned off by that company. Programming. There used to be programs at the art museum. There used to be art classes and workshops. Where do those go? If they're happening, they're certainly not being advertised very clearly. I took a great line of cut workshop there years ago with a well-known local artist. It was a win-win in so many different ways. And the residents need to step up and make this community vibrant. Why does it have to be the city's responsibility to always do the programming? Monterey's Trojan horse is the military, especially the Navy. It is not Monterey's future. The Monterey Bay Defense Alliance figures aren't credible. They're biased and they lack the huge cost to this community. It is not Monterey's future. The Navy has been causing poor health, sleep problems, serious illnesses, including cancer and death, and that's increasing.

Your time is up, Ms. Beattie, and thank you for your comments. That ends public comment for this item.

Okay, all right, and apologies, Ms. Beattie. I got ahead of myself there. I didn't intend to cut you off, so I'm glad that you were able to jump in with public comment there. Thank you to all those that provided public comment. I'm gonna pass it to Dante here in a second. I think there was one question that came up for staff regarding the ability to achieve full cost recovery through fees, and the example came up of the sports center. I think there are certain instances, obviously, don't make sense for full cost recovery, but my assumption is that your comment was related to where possible that the full cost recovery is achieved through increases.

Right, it's where possible and it's not unique to Monterey in every city that I've been in. There are certain kind of community building kind of well, community wellness. You know, operational things like parks and recreation and facilities that. don't support themselves, and that's not unusual. You know, whenever you have a city that has a performing arts, I bet you that it's not self-supporting. What it would do if we were to go for full-cost recovery, it would take us out of the market for things like the Sports Center. People just wouldn't pay for the Sports Center, and they'd just go to Goals. or some other place. So that's a factor when we're adjusting fees that we need to keep into consideration.

Thank you for that, Dante. I'm going to go ahead and kick us off on this one. And it kind of, I think, transitions well. I think there's an opportunity for us to create a space, maybe it's an FAQs or something on the website that allows us to be able to answer some of these questions that frequently come up and that way we can have we can reference people to it and i think the sports center is a good example of that i get that question all the time from folks they don't understand why we don't do full cost recovery um i'm that's how it passed um that's how it was sold when it was passed was 75 cost recovery but also the point that you just made dante which is if we do full cost recovery then we'll be out of market right so how do we stay competitive so that we can retain the level of revenue so i think having some kind of faqs for these types of vexing questions that continue to come up i think would be really useful um just to kind of be a point of reference for folks that may be asking the question themselves or that they're their advocates of the city trying to help support us in this messaging and just need the resources I wanted to touch on property tax. You brought that up in your presentation, Dante, and I think it's important to know what those nonprofits are just to kind of contextualize that for folks. And I think a few individuals brought this up during public comment as far as. Montage largest employer in the city of Monterey owns a lot of property right none of their properties we retain property tax for the aquarium owns a lot of property in the city of Monterey and also the military installations so I just thought it was important to to call that out I think there's this other thing related to property tax, and Ms. Beatty was kind of getting to it in her comments earlier. Is there an appetite or a space for us to do advocacy around us getting a larger percentage? That seems like an uphill battle to climb. I don't know how far we would get in that, but I do think that there has been efforts and an opportunity for us to maybe do some advocacy around Prop 13. I know that's another big, scary thing, but I think that's a big part of our problem and not just for cities and municipalities, but also for school districts. And so how are we funding local agencies at the levels that we need to? Prop 13, I think is a big barrier to that. So I think having that conversation is important. I wanted to get to the conversation around COLA. So I think, yes, our goal has been plus or minus 5% of median. But to Chris's point, and it's funny that you brought it up because I had it in my notes, we should be thinking higher, right? If we want to stay competitive with recruitment and retention, that's essential. Now, obviously, that's a rub with... I'm watching staff here make eye contact with each other. It's obviously a rub when we're having these really difficult conversations around balancing our budget. The concern that I have is if we don't address this in the right way, we're kicking the can down the road and we're only pushing the problem further down the field. The unfortunate thing about being in moments like this is it takes investment to make sure that we come up with these sustainable solutions. So just wanted to throw that out. It's a long-term investment, and it creates efficiency, right? So if we're seeing people leave the city because they're getting recruited to go somewhere else, or we keep recruiting for positions and nobody's filling it, we're taxing HR, we're taxing our management team to have to do these recruitments, and we're losing that talent, that long-term talent that is beneficial for us in the city of Monterey. So investing in our people is essential. I wanted to lean into the conversation around community feedback. I've had some conversations with the city manager about this. One of the things that I really wanna make sure that we're focused on as we're engaging in this effort of community engagement is not just doing a traditional communication methodology where we're having an event that we push information out and we expect people to arrive and that's how we receive feedback because we're going to only receive feedback from the same people that we always hear from. We're gonna hear feedback from them anyways. And this isn't to say that I wanna hear from others at the expense of these people it's just making sure that we listen to them on top of how do we open that aperture up from those folks that we tend not to hear from right so how are we being intentional around reaching out to groups and organizations in the community that represent those underrepresented groups so i'm thinking things like renter community communities of color the disabled community the lgbtq community how are we reaching out to these communities to make sure that their voice is somehow included in this feedback I want to speak to the downtown revitalization effort. Absolutely. This is in our draft economic development plan. I've been pushing it. Obviously, there's a lot going on in the city of Monterey. We can only do so much at one time. So I will continue to push that because I'm a big advocate for us doing something there. In fact, at our... strategic planning discussion that the council had last year a majority of the council had supported the idea of doing a pedestrian only alvarado street i don't know if pedestrian only is the solution but doing something in downtown to create some vibrancy we're seeing things happening in pg we're seeing what's happening in seaside we're seeing what's happening in marina when i first moved here 16 years ago gosh has it been no hasn't been that long yes it has it's been that long yeah 16 years ago um when my friends and i would like hit each other up to go hang out we would say let's meet in downtown everybody knew that that was downtown monterey regardless of where out in the peninsula that you lived it's not the same anymore as it is today I know that, anyways, there's a whole conversation to be had there, but I think that we need to create that space, particularly for younger generations to feel like they belong and it's part of their community as well. There was a couple other things brought up and I'm not gonna go into them all, but I'm just gonna say, i hear you and um let's continue to make it part of the conversation and i also encourage the same folks to show up to these community engagement discussions so that there can be a deeper discussion around what the barriers might be to some of these and maybe how can we learn more about your thoughts on them so that we can look at how we might be able to implement them so what i'm hearing is vacancy tax parking fee admissions fee congestion pricing um those are the ones that i captured i might have missed some but i'm just saying folks stay engaged so with that i'll go ahead and open up to the rest of the council dr oh

Thank you, Dante and team for the presentation. Very good. Good details. And I agree with what. Our mayor has just shared all good points. I think what I will also add is. As we were thinking about commercial corridors also thinking about North Fremont. I think there's an opportunity here to, of course, not only focus on North Fremont, but all our business corridors, and not only for the purpose of inviting more commerce for visitors, but also for our residents, our communities that, and especially for North Fremont, who look for spaces where they can interact, where they can you know, visit with each other and create that cohesion in our neighborhood. So I think those corridors play a very specific role in our community and it's worth exploring how, you know, as we develop this strategy, how can we also put some attention on those corridors? And the last thing I'll also share is that I, I really enjoy the detail in the presentation, and I think it's a good foundation, a good roadmap. I'll be curious to learn more about the various things that were covered, but specifically the efficiencies, and I think even more specifically, how they relate to the variety of programming that we have in our city. It is important to create those efficiencies, but we also need to make sure that we're paying attention to the impact, right, that those efficiencies Many times with good intentions might have a negative impact on our residents and I have full confidence that our staff, our team is paying attention to that. So I'm curious to see as they come before council what those efficiencies are. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Yes, real quick. I did hear about the vacancy that was a vacancy tax that was mentioned. I know it's some legal, I guess, pieces that we're waiting to hear back from to see what that looks like as far as how that may impact us. That's one of the things we had talked about and one of the things that was on the cards that we had done that Nat had done a while back. And I believe Dante has that down. It's potential future actions. I know that was something that you had asked about. Also, the roadmap to resilience. Great job. I know you have 1 through 6, and then you have September basically through July 2027. Is that basically what the roadmap and then about 6 we would be in July. I just want them to be clear on that. I think all of that is great. I think the feedback, just like the mayor was talking about is real important of getting all voices, different diverse voices to make sure that everybody's voice is being heard. because you have a lot of working families that I know and talking to a lot of people who are working families, they don't have time to get to some of these. So maybe have it other avenues other than just the website where somebody has to actually physically go to the website, maybe even social media pieces that get pushed out where they can be able to click a button and then it gets them into some other feedback piece where they could push in a feedback and it gets to your office somehow. maybe another thing because of time for a lot of working families. And then I think for our more seasoned and elderly population, this works because a lot of times they like to go to the different gatherings anyway. But I think for young people and for a lot of working families, I think maybe something similar to not just a website type of piece, but something where they can be able to get on there, click, and then be able to put their feedback in as well. But other than that, I think this is going to be great. I love how you've taken time to look at the infrastructure fully and engage everyone. And how you're looking at the gaps and being able to look at it from different diverse directions and not just 1 and I do appreciate the staff and what they've been doing and being able to hang in there with us. So don't give up on the staff hanging with us.

Who wants to go next? Please.

I really appreciated something Vicki Nordren mentioned, two things, that publicizing the report you gave and getting it out to more people is critical. They really need to know what we've done and it's nice and concise and it's one, two, three, four, and they need to hear that more. And I agree with something Vicki said, great to keep going out to various arenas and venues. And you had a list of 10 that I'd never even thought of. And that's because we do need various opinions. But the trouble I'm having that the more you go out, I hope we can cure this, is I will hear one opinion, oh, keep the Coast Guard bathroom open. And then I'll hear one opinion, oh, you got to keep the conference center open. And then I'll have one opinion, you got to expand the library. And I never hear five people saying the same thing. So somehow we have to broaden that spectrum of outreach like you're suggesting and you're suggesting and get... to the numbers that we need where we're really hearing where a lot of our people want us to go rather than just one or two. And the young man in the back, I think we ought to nominate him for economic development director.

All right, thank you.

Um, so a couple of things and, uh, great report. Thank you, Mr Hall that you've given the community, um, you know, some things to ponder and some things to get educated about. And I think that's already been touched on that. This needs to go out. high, low and everywhere to the community so that they see that you are working, you are gonna give us options. They are gonna be difficult decisions, but there are a lot of commonality things here that I believe that people are looking for. I want to answer a couple things on sales tax. I heard a lot about this last week after the enormously successful car sales when folks are watching the show friday night had a 17 million dollar car 14 million dollar car eight million dollar car saturday night again 17 million 15 million and it goes on and i haven't heard the total but um i probably answered this question 15 times because a lot of folks said well gee that solves our the city of monterey's problem so one more time The sales tax on a car purchase, if I go to Gilroy and buy a car in Gilroy, I pay the sales tax on that car and I register it. The sales tax comes to the county of Monterey and to the city of Monterey because of where I purchased my car. Where the car is registered is where the sales tax goes. So somebody who came up here from Los Angeles and paid $17 million for a car, That sales tax and registration does not land and benefit the city of Monterey. Unfortunately, that is the rules of the state of California and the vehicle code and the DMV. Now we benefit by the fact that they go out to dinner. they go to our retail locations and buy all the things that they forgot to bring and then they go out to find dining and they stay in a hotel and they pay a tremendous rate for the the nightly fee and the tot and they also pay for our advertising through our c monterey and they also pay for our conference center because we are taxing every room in the city of Monterey to pay for the $60 million bond that helped us remodel our city conference center. So the public doesn't put all of that together frequently. So we have to do a better job of explaining that it's all very much connected and hospitality does exceptionally carry us through and is important. Now, once upon a time, we had fishing and military, a little bit of education and some tourism. So what are we now? So we're military. We're education with CHOMP. Hospital and CSUMB and MIIS. We are service oriented. We have the hospitality. Do we have an office supply store in Monterey? No. Do we have a hardware store? No. We're going to have one back at MS Hardware. Soon, but right now we are limited with the locations to purchase certain things. Now, the question of Amazon. If you purchase something with Amazon and I buy office supplies with Amazon and it's delivered to my home, I'm paying a sales tax on that product and we get a portion of that sales tax in the city of Monterey. So buy local, yes, but don't hate on purchases that you pay sales tax because we get some of that sales tax as well. So it's a complex economic piece. I'll go down memory lane. Many, many years ago when I worked as a flat foot downtown going to all the bars and nightclubs, we had nine nightclubs within walking distance of Alvarado. It was known as the entertainment center and that was also a North Fremont, that was Cannery Row and that was Lighthouse. Well, we got educated and people stopped going out late and stopped drinking as much and we are not that society anymore. But that doesn't mean that we can't have fun opportunities to do in Monterey. It just happens to be that they're not always gonna be around getting drunk at two o'clock at night. and hooking up with your friends and staying out way, way too late. We have a different town now, so we don't have the nightclub kind of town that we had before. The auto lot that is going to vacate is for sale, and my hope that that will be purchased by another auto dealership. And good luck with Mercedes being in Marina. I'm disappointed in the decision, but we still have a beautiful property that is well situated to be some new auto dealer who will be selling cars. And every time a Monterey resident buys a car there, we get the sales tax. So I am hopeful that that will recover quickly. Enough of that. I've got a couple suggestions. I'm wondering Is there a way that we should be looking at our business licensing that every nonprofit has to purchase? Now, some nonprofits sell things And are we capturing the right amount in the business license if they sell a lot of things? So I don't know if there's something that we could do about adjusting the business license for nonprofits, but I'd like to drill down on that a little bit and look for some opportunities. I think that we should be discussing at some point a special district that is able to additionally fund their own projects for district improvements for downtown and North Fremont. I know our former city manager talked about trying to get something started there. I've heard some folks in the OMBA Old Monterey Business Association, downtown Alvarado Quarter, express some strong interest in having some type of a special district where we get focused on some kind of plans for revitalization. So I'd like to look at that in the future. I look forward to hearing from the public more at the times where we'll meet. I think that there's some solutions in the room. There's no lying about it. We have some challenges and while I'm at it, you're going to have an opportunity to hear about another campaign that's very vital and that's Measure S. Vicki, I know you mentioned it and I'm talking to a lot of people and I know the council is committed to go out to the public to educate our community so that the community learns how important it is to maintain and keep on the drive to keep our roads in great shape, not to go backwards, and not to go back to the time before we had Measure P when our road was given a score A report card of the low fifties. We're now at 79%, close to 80%. And we need to maintain our roads to be an attractive location to come. And I think the public expects it. So if anybody's hearing me tonight. If you're hearing me out there, I know we've got public works folks. I know you know how important it is. So my top priority is going to be measure us in the next couple of months. So I hope everybody else will. Open. Open the material and read and understand why it's so important that we have a renewal of measure S because personally I don't want to drive down Pacific Street like I used to drive down Pacific Street before we were at a 51% report card. So we deserve better. We deserve good roads. We deserve healthy storm system. We deserve the appropriate. Access to our handicap sidewalks, curbs and gutters, and it starts with being able to have the funding through measures.

So we have to be a little bit careful. We're not advocating for. I'm not.

Yep. Yep. But I'm, I'm saying, call me if you I'm saying, call me, call me if you're interested. That's all I have, Mayor.

Awesome. You started off by talking about the sales, and I just wanted to throw this out because it's interesting. From Car Week, the Monterey County Now, their daily news, e-newsletter. Wait, let me guess. $700 million. Wow, that's pretty impressive. So in 2022, the companies, the auction companies totaled $471 million in sales combined. This year, the five houses racked up almost $748 million in sales. Good and Christie's at Pebble Beach set a company record tallying $159 million. um and the lot that topped the list was 1964 shelby cobra daytona coupe that banged at gooding christie's for 42.9 million dollars a record mark for an american car at auction so and again maybe not necessarily coming to the city of monterey but i did talk to um uh Rob O'Keefe from Sea Monterey. And we don't have a final number yet, but it looks like we might. I think the estimate for previous year was 120 million. They were estimating that we're probably somewhere close to 200 million in total economic value in car week. So just throwing that out there as some figures. Nice to have. I'm going to wrap this conversation up by saying, and I think it was when Gene was talking, it kind of. highlighted this point um that often happens in this space is like people can easily come and say don't touch my cherished system don't touch this cherished program um so the problem here is that it's easy to point the finger and expect somebody else to solve the problem um What really is gonna be the solution here and the methodology that we're taking here in the city of Monterey is that we need to do this together. It's all of us coming together, doing the hard work. So please, please join us in the discussion. Please provide your feedback. Don't tell us not just what you want, but tell us where you think we might be able to create some of these efficiencies. And that also requires to be educated a little bit about some of the limitations that people naturally assume might be easy things to be the solutions. So thank you all for engaging in this session. Thank you, Dante, for the work and Nat for the work that's being done behind the scenes and the work yet to come. All righty. And with that, we're gonna go to 17 on the agenda. And I'm gonna ask that no action be taken on this. So 17 is Mayor Williamson's request to agenda as a discussion regarding proposed council support for Prop 37, California Middle Class Home Ownership and Family Home Construction Act of 2026. So I'm gonna ask for no action. So if council's okay with that, I'm just gonna go out to public comment on this. All right, we'll open up for public comment. Folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item? All right, seeing none, I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. Nope, okay. All right, with that, we will move on to council comments. I'm gonna pass. Okay. And with that, we'll go to city manager reports. No comments. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. It was just like too much. It was too much of passing going on. So I'm going to extend it out for a few minutes because it's not natural with that. We'll go ahead and adjourn. Have a good night, everybody.

Good night.