City Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah.

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. Welcome. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our afternoon session of today's council meeting at September 15th, 2026. With that, we're going to pass the clementine for roll call and to share announcements of the public.

Council member Barbara president council member Garcia council member rash council member Smith and mayor Williamson here. And 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, including the right to criticize or support city policies or actions. The city encourages your uninhibited and robust feedback on public issues affecting the city. Thank you for participating.

Awesome, thank you, Clementine. And with that, we're gonna start with our presentation for today. Item one on the agenda is to recognize city employees for milestone anniversaries and retirements in 2026. Before I pass it off to Dante, I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank All of our city employees, you all do amazing work every single day that we're so fortunate to be able to live in a city where we have you all on our team. So thank you. And it's a privilege to be able to do this on on a quarterly basis to give some recognition. And I know that this doesn't even touch the surface of all the amazing things that are done in the city. But I just wanted to take a moment to give gratitude to you all. So with that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff presentation.

Thank you, Mayor, and I echo everything that you said. We have two departments that would like to recognize some employees for some milestone anniversaries and retirements for the third quarter. I've said this before, but in meeting with a number of the employees here, it's common that you see employees who've been here 20 years or more. And so I think that says a lot for dedication and just showing ownership in what they do. So with that, I'm going to invite up the departments. First, we'll have our police department present. And then after that, we have some members of our Parks and Rec department to present.

Thank you, Dante. Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council, Assistant Chief Mike Bruno. Chief Hover is actually in Spain, so he couldn't be here today, so I'm in his place. So first, come on up here, Paul. So first, we're going to acknowledge three employees that we've had that reached 20 years of service. And we actually have five employees that will be retiring in the next three months. And so first, we have Officer Paul Elfke. He started at the Monterey Police Department in February of 2006. He served in several key roles, including school resource officer, hostage crisis negotiator with our SWAT team, an active shooter instructor, drone operator, and patrol officer. Paul holds a master's degree in psychology and a bachelor's degree in sociology. He's also one of the nicest guys that you'll ever meet. He's from Minnesota. As they say, Minnesota nice. That's actually true with Paul. He's a very nice guy, very loved by the community. And congratulations on 20 years, Paul. And you'll get a 20-year pin and a letter sent by the city manager. So congratulations. Thank you. All right, next we have Sergeant Greg Gallen. So Greg started with the Monrovia Police Department in September of 2006. Before that, he worked for the Monrovia Police Department for two years. That's in Southern California. He's worked as a patrol officer, a traffic officer, a hostage negotiator, a detective, a school resource officer, a field training officer, and administrative sergeant. He's currently our detective sergeant. He's also a member of our RISE peer support team. Greg holds a master's degree in law enforcement and public safety leadership. And Greg, you'll also get a 20-year pin and a certificate from Missing Imagine. Thank you, sir. Okay, next we have Police Services Assistant Angie Madruga, and she started at the MPD in August of 2006. Her various assignments include FI card or field interview card entries, collision report entries, processing traffic and city code infractions, taxi permits, massage establishment permits, training liaison, life scan coordinator, and subpoena processing. She was also awarded the Professional Employee Award in 2007 and in 2015. And I'll give her her pin and her certificate when I see her. So congratulations to Paul, Greg, and Angie on reaching 20 years of service with the city. Next. All right. So next, we start with our retirements. So first, Officer Luis Mosqueda, badge 103. He started with the MPD in 2012. He's worked as a patrol officer and field training officer. Prior to that, he worked for the Stockton Police Department for approximately 12 years. where he was assigned as a police officer, a field training officer, and a homicide detective. He received Monterey Police Department's Distinguished Service Award and Community Policing Award in 2021, and he was also selected as Officer of the Year in 2018. Like me, Luis is an avid 49er fan, and he is well-respected amongst his peers and the community. His last day working for us is actually tomorrow, and so we wish him a happy and healthy retirement. You have a signed by the city manager and then we also have a certificate signed by the mayor that will give to you tomorrow.

Congratulations.

Yep. All right, next we have Sergeant Jason Newby. He had to step out. He's a badge 234. He started with the Monterey Police Department in 2003. His assignments at the MPD were patrol officer, canine officer, detective, SWAT operator, field training officer, firearms range instructor, and patrol sergeant. Prior to his time at the MPD, Jason served in the United States Army for seven years as a linguist. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology with an emphasis in law and society. Jason received the Meritorious Service Award and Lifesaving Award in 2023. He was selected as Officer of the Year in 2011 and 2020, which is pretty rare to be selected more than once throughout your career. One quick story about Jason. So when I applied for the Monterey Police Department, he actually took me on my first ever police ride along. His professionalism and kindness was one of the reasons why I chose working at the Monterey Police Department over other agencies that I was in backgrounds with. We appreciate everything Jason has done for the MPD, the community, and we wish him a healthy and happy retirement. Next one is Sergeant Brian Nino. His badge is 896. He started with the MPD in 2013, where he held assignments as patrol officer, field training officer, taser instructor, patrol sergeant, and field training program sergeant. He's also a member of our RISE support team. Prior to working at the MPD, Brian worked for the city of Galt Police Department starting in 2005, where he held positions as patrol officer and canine officer. Brian has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice administration. We thank Brian for his continued support to our department and community, and we wish him a happy and healthy retirement. All right, last and definitely least, we have Lieutenant Castor. Come on up, Gabe.

I think you'll get the chance at the mic.

Yeah, there we go. All right, so Lieutenant Gabe Castor, badge 031. So he's been with the Monterey Police Department since 2005. He started his career at the MPD as a police services technician, which is our records and jails staff, and he became a police officer shortly after that. He's worked as a patrol officer, a community action team officer, field training officer, patrol sergeant, and field training sergeant, administrative sergeant, and he's currently a lieutenant. He oversees one half of our patrol division, our traffic division, and our field training program. He's held additional duties as a member of our RISE peer support team, range master instructor, and taser instructor. Prior to working for the MPD, he started his career with the Los Angeles Police Department, which he's very proud of. He holds a master's degree in organizational leadership and a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. Gabe, as you can tell, is a fan favorite amongst the department personnel and community, and we in command staff affectionately call him Chief Hover's favorite employee. Thank you. That's true. He never gets in trouble, never gets yelled at. So that's Gabe. Yeah. So, Gabe, you'll be very missed. We wish you a happy and healthy retirement. And just as everybody probably knows, Chief Hover announced his retirement. He announced it after the agenda report, so I believe we'll acknowledge him at a later time. But his last day will be November 15th, 2026. Thank you.

And so now we'll call up our Parks and Rec Department to make their presentations.

Hello, Mayor and Council. It is my pleasure to be able to tell you a little bit about Steve Garcia and his 30 years of service with the City of Monterey. Steve began as a park maintenance worker during the course of his career, was promoted to senior park maintenance worker and later to his current position as park supervisor. Steve has long been a leader for the Parks Division, having trained dozens of incoming employees in landscape maintenance, landscape design and irrigation, installation and repair. Steve was one of the first elder statesmen to show me the ropes when I first was hired about 11 years ago. He helped me install my first landscape project over by Airport and Fairgrounds Road, showing me how former park operations manager Teflon Louie Marcuzzo likes things done while also dropping other little nuggets of information about how Louie and former supervisor Rob Robe operated. It was very helpful. I remember some of those notes very clearly, and they were all true. On multiple occasions, Steve has been honored with commendations from the public, city executives, city managers. At the beginning of this year, the California Parks and Recreation Society for District 6 awarded him the Professional Merit Award for his significant contributions to the city and parks and recreation. At one time, the city had the honor of hosting the Bronco World Series for a 20-year stretch, where Steve was one of the main reasons why. He, along with a few other parks employees, maintained the field to a very high standard, worthy of hosting such an event. If you didn't know, that was a worldwide event. We had teams from all over. Under the very watchful eye of very different leagues, coaches, and parents, he made sure the field was prepped to a standard that Monterey truly could be proud of. Steve later took care of some of the most scenic and highly visited parks, making sure that tourists and locals alike could enjoy our area to the fullest. As our park supervisor, he continues to be one of the city's volunteer liaisons, working with multiple groups of all ages and talents. For many years, he's worked directly with our illustrious volunteers and parks group that join us every Tuesday, a lot of you have seen. But Steve is a parks guy through and through. We parks folks can be eccentrically talented bunch of, and he exemplifies that to the fullest. He's not an expert at any one thing, but there's not one thing that he can't do. Steve is one of those guys that enjoys a challenge and enjoys teaching himself how to do something. One example of this was repairing field turf at Solisto Park. This was something we would have typically contracted out, but Steve, enjoying a challenge like he does, he was determined to learn how to do it himself, and he did, and then he teaches our employees to do it just as well. With Steve, you can see the passion he has working for the City of Monterey, and he proudly tells others that he loves what he does. Thank you, Steve, for your continued dedication and service.

This kind of caught me off guard, but it's been a pleasure working here 30 years. I was just mentioning to Nicole about 30 years ago, my wife had a clip of the newspaper and she goes, you should apply. And that's, you know, this was way before internet and all that stuff. And who knows who knew I would be here now standing here 30 years later. So thank you. Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor, Council. Miss Michelle couldn't be here tonight. She's probably online watching with her family. I'd like to take a moment to recognize Michelle Pruitt, our lead preschool instructor who recently retired after an incredible 23 years and 11 months of service with the City of Monterey Parks and Recreation Department. She was with us from August 2002 to July 30th of 2026. For nearly 24 years, Michelle dedicated herself to helping our youngest residents working with children ages three to five years old and supporting their early learning and development. She served families at both the Casanova Oak Knoll Park Center and the Hilltop Park Center by creating welcoming, caring, and inclusive environments where children could learn, grow, and build confidence. Just imagine the impact Michelle has had on young children over nearly 24 years. The countless children she welcomed into her classroom, the skills and confidence she helped them develop, and the positive memories she created during such an important time in their lives. Her patience, compassion, and dedication have touched generations of Monterey families. Michelle has been a valued member of the recreation division and will be greatly missed by her coworkers, families, and the many children she has helped throughout the years. We had some parents supply some comments And they all said kind of the same thing. Miss Michelle holds such a special place in the hearts of our family. She taught both of our children, giving them a strong foundation and preparing them for a successful transition into TK. What meant the most to us was knowing our children were cared for, encouraged, and truly seen by someone who genuinely loved what she did. She was so much more than a teacher to our family. She became someone who we will always cherish and remember. We are incredibly grateful for the love, patience, and confidence she gave our children. Thank you, Miss Michelle, for making such a lasting difference. You will always be very special to our family, the Davises." But we got comments from many other families. So on behalf of the City of Monterey Parks and Recreation Department, thank you, Michelle, for nearly 24 years of dedicated service and for the lasting difference you have made in the lives of so many children and families. We wish you a very happy and well-deserved retirement.

So those stories just kind of exemplify exactly the point that I was making at the beginning. Those are just a small sample of the amazing work that you all do, that our city staff do. So truly on behalf of the entire city, we thank you for your service and your commitment to the city. I'll open up to the council.

Yes, I echo the mayor. I mean, every time I sit here and listen to the stories each time, each quarter, it just amazes me and confirms the dedication and commitment that our staff have. The different things that you do every day, the sacrifices you make, you know, even with your family, you know, you sacrifice different things, even with your family being there and spending time. Know that we appreciate it and that we see you. Thank you so much for all that you do for the city of Monterey.

Yeah, additional comments. Yes, thank you very much for all of your work. And those that aren't here, hopefully they'll play back the meeting because they want to see what was said about them. But those that couldn't be here, congratulations on your recognition and or, in some cases, retirements. And for those that are here in the room, I think it's Luis, is that correct? And then this guy over here, Gabe, whatever his name is, as you guys retire, I'm really disappointed that Gabe didn't announce that I was the reason he came to Monterey PD to work. But he's always overlooked those little details. um you know i had the privilege of being able to be here for 26 years and and i did pay attention to more than just the public safety so police and fire was always uh where where i was because it was the nighttime work that we all do but also the public works folks the park recreation you know you you saw the folks that were out there doing all kinds of work that the public may not even realize they were doing. As an example, I was on a bike ride this morning at about 8.15 in the morning and I'm going through the Custom House Plaza and there's like five city trucks and they are prepping to clean sewers. and with the big machines. And they were there for a while, and I waved at them on the way, on the way back. And that dirty work sometimes doesn't get noticed a lot. So thank you for your dirty works. Thank you for your outstanding careers. In all regard, whatever it was that you did for the city, you served your community, and thank you very much.

The more I learn about this job, the more I realize we're united in small clusters of communities and workers and people who learn and support each other. And that's more and more true every time I sit down at the dais, and this exemplifies it. That's what holds us together. And that's the richness of being a community and being a city. It's nothing more than all of us knit together. So congratulations. And I also thought about the retirements. I thought, wow, isn't that great that everybody stayed well and healthy so that they can retire. So those of you on your anniversaries, please stay well, take care of each other, and we'll see you at your retirements. Thank you.

Awesome. And with that, we'll go out for public comments. So don't leave quite yet. We want to make sure that the public has an opportunity to give gratitude to you all. For folks, oh, let me describe how the public comment process works. What we do is we identify those folks at the beginning of the public comment period. Once those folks are identified, only those folks will be able to speak. So we'll do a cutoff. And if you raise your hand after that, I'm sorry, you won't have that opportunity. But everybody has an opportunity to speak. So you have to identify yourself at the beginning of the public comment period. So I'll start with folks on Zoom. For folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. While you're navigating your way there, I'll check in the chamber. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item, I just ask that you stand up to the left of the podium. Anybody? I see one. Anybody else in the chamber wish to speak? Esther, are you wanting to speak on this one? Okay, so there's two. Anybody else in the chamber? I just have the two. All right, so we'll cut it off to the two in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. And there's nobody on Zoom. We'll go ahead and start here in the chamber.

Good afternoon. Esther Malkin. I'm speaking on behalf of the Neighborhood Association for Laguna Grande. And I want to echo what's already been said by many of you, how lucky we are to have such great staff in the city. And it's really all our departments. We're honoring two specific ones, you know, this time around, but we have that same luck. with pretty much everybody that works for the city thankfully and hopefully we won't um anybody who who thinks that they're disposable because we have a budget deficit is sorely mistaken and i hope that that doesn't come to fruition regardless of um whatever cuts have to be made we've all very clearly stated the last people the last effort that we want to see to save the budget is to cut staff um and on that note you know i these two departments parks and mpd have really been um the ones that i've worked very closely with as a neighborhood president and as a resident of the city so i want to personally thank them as a resident and from my neighborhood and this guy over here Gabe has you know been such a such a pleasure to deal with you know every time you see him he's always smiling I've never seen Gabe not smile it is you know I I was he's fun he's funny he's He knows what he's doing. He's always available if you want to ask questions as a resident, if you want to come to the police station, anything that anybody's ever brought up. If Gabe is around, he's going to answer with a smile and offer the help that he can possibly give. And I know a lot of us are going to miss him when he retires. I'm sorely not looking forward to December. So I just wanted to give him a shout out and thank you to everybody.

Thank you, Esther.

Good evening. My name's Kathy Giamonco. I'm here on a different subject, but I'm really...

This is public comment specifically on the anniversaries. It was just for that one item. We'll do general public comment. Okay. So can I comment on this and on my own comment later or just... You can only make comments on the anniversaries, but if you stay up here, we're jumping right into that next. So I'll transition and you can be the first one to go.

So I can public comment twice?

Yes. Yes. Yep. You can give a public comment on any agenda item and for general public comment.

On a non-agenda item.

So for right now, you can only give public comment on the anniversaries. If you want to give public comment for things that aren't related to the anniversaries, you can come back in the next item, which is the non-agendized item. Two different types.

I'm so glad I'm here to hear all this. It was very impressive. I love hearing that they've been here for these 20 year stretches that speak so highly of our city. It's so impressive. And I just wanted to make that comment. It was really impressive. I was really glad to hear that. And city's doing an awfully lot right to be able to keep those men and women here that long and to hear those stories from the parents uh that are taking care of our children that is really something and to hear that our officers on the streets are there for 20 years that means there's a public give and take that they're happy in their jobs and that the public's happy with them so i'm really i'm really proud of our city so Thank you, everyone.

Thank you for it. Don't go too far because I'm going to transition here. All right. So that's the end of public comment. Bringing it back to the council. I don't think there's any other comments here. So with that, we will move into general public comments. This is for non-agendized items. So if the item that you want to speak to today is on the agenda, this is not the time to speak. This is only for non-agendized items. Why don't we give it up before our staff leaves? Why don't we give it up to our staff one more time? So I'll start with folks on Zoom. For folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function while you're navigating your way there. I'm gonna ask folks in the chamber as you're transitioning to just keep your voices down so we can continue doing our business. Hey, folks, folks. Hey, hey. I'm gonna ask the comments to just be down a little bit so we can continue. For folks in the chamber that wanna speak for general public comment, I just ask that you stand up to the left of the podium. I think we have one, two takers. Anybody else in the chamber wish to speak for non-agendized items for general public comment? All right, so I'm gonna cut it off to the two in the chamber. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. And there's nobody on Zoom, so we'll go ahead to the chamber.

sorry about the confusion um good evening again i'm kathy chimonko my husband and i lease space from the city at lake alistair for our paddle boat business alistair boating um we in our own way um are part of the city and um in the we hire a lot of local youth we've been there for decades um it's been in my husband's family um In our own way, we give back to the city too. Which brings us to the problem. We were here, I was here two weeks ago to inform you about how the lake has been shut down because of the invasive weed that's growing there. We closed August 23rd. The city let the lake be overrun by the invasive weed and the algae for two years. We've laid off four employees. That's helpful to no one. We can't open again until the major rainfall tamps the weeds down. It thrives in the summer months, then the heat and the sun, and the rainfall will tamp it down, but it comes roaring back. We're thinking maybe January. Last year, we didn't have to close down, but we couldn't operate at full tilt, and we lost $123,000. This year is going to be a lot more. This has lost revenue to the city. We pay 12% of our gross sales. Right now, we're losing our best season. The Department of Fish and Game controls what's done to the lake by a code. That code requires a permit. The code is 1602. Last council meeting, I gave the council a copy of the code. I don't know if any of you got to see it. That permit triggers a public resources code 21108. That code needs a massive amount of approvals, permits, and fees. There's only three points in the code that apply to a lake and none apply to weed removal at Lake El Estero. A permit is definitely not needed. We met with city officials and they agreed that are permits not needed but they applied for them anyway to be safe that's what we were told they couldn't answer to us what safe means this lengthy permit process might be done by april of next year i'm here tonight to tell you to make matters worse we just learned the city contracted with a big outside agency to secure all these unnecessary permits THIS IS A HUGE WASTE OF TAXPAYER MONEY. THAT AGENCY CAN'T BE CHEAP. WHY DIDN'T THE CITY DO IT INTERNALLY? WE'D LIKE TO SEE THE FINAL COSTS FOR THIS. I'D ALSO LIKE TO TELL YOU WE STILL PAY MONTHLY RENT WHILE CLOSED. WE HOPE THE COUNCIL WILL CONSIDER RELIEVING US OF THIS MONTHLY RENT WHILE CLOSED DUE TO THE CITY NOT HARVESTING THE WEEDS AND DELAYING IT WITH THESE UNNECESSARY PERMITS. THANK YOU.

Mayor, City Council, I'm sure you know who I am. Anyway, real quick here. I have a Robbie's Ocean Fresh seafood down here on the wharf. I have seven vehicles, which I pay seven permits a year, which is a little over $4,000 in permits. And it was an honest mistake. I was moving one vehicle from another and a permit fell out. We found it, put it back in my dashboard. Apparently it was from 2025. It's in the dirt lot. And I just came back. I was in Europe, Italy for two weeks, came back on Friday, went through my mail, and I had a citation that there was a ticket on one of my, we didn't know which one it was, what vehicle. So I came into the wharf this morning. I said, I wonder if it's the one in the dirt lot. So I pulled over. I got seven parking tickets. on one truck. And I'm not asking for any special privileges, but I've been in business here for 26 years on the word for Monterey. Paying taxes, paying fish and game, paying sewage, paying more money than a lot of people in Monterey with businesses. And I can understand one, maybe two tickets, but to put seven? My phone number is like 18 inches big on the side of my truck, and it says Robbie's Ocean Fresh. I got seven vehicles. I'm just asking if the city of Monterey can, I say overlook it, but overlook these tickets for this one time after 26 years in business to kind of push under the carpet, throw them in the garbage, whatever we can do here. I called parking this morning. One of the ladies there, I guess, didn't know who I was and said we can deduct $10 a day or per ticket. I don't think that's good enough. So I'm coming to city council to ask if they can dismiss this and get on with it. Not that they could have called me and said, hey, Robbie, your permit on your truck is wrong. What happened was it fell on the ground. Somebody found it. We put it back in the truck, but it was the 25th or 25 rather than 26. So honest mistake. And I'm just asking for a little bit of, you know, I guess you might want to say after 26 years of giving money to the city of Monterey for all that I do here, plus donations and all different organizations that I contribute to, to wipe out seven little parking tickets. I don't know who to go talk to if I have to go to parking or if you guys can put an award into the parking division and...

Well, I think Dante hears you.

I mean, it's not criminal.

What I would ask is just make sure you submit your formal rebuttal and staff will take a look. I know you made the call in, but I want to avoid getting too much back. Sure, I understand. But submit your formal request and then we'll have staff. To the parking. That's correct. Okay. All right. That's fair. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thank you. all right with that we're going to go ahead and close general public comment and we're going to move to adjourn to consent agenda of the ocean view community services district meeting item eight on the agenda is to receive ocean view communities i'm sorry consent there's a whole section of my notes that i just glossed over i like reverse i like the timing and hope though we like the hope but yeah i'm gonna get it together here all right I apologize. We're not going to adjourn to the Community Services District. We're going to stay in the council meeting. We're going to go to consent agenda. I understand that Council Member Garcia is going to abstain from voting on item four due to a conflict. He resides near the Casanova-Oakland Park Improvement Project. Is there a request to pull any items from the agenda from the council?

No, but I have a question of the attorney before we vote on item number four. Just, I want to make sure the NCIP project release does not contain my address. And I'm sorry, I did not look to see if there was anything in my address.

I think Council Member Garcia was the only one that had a conflict within 500 and 1,000 people. Okay.

And I'm sorry, I didn't look at the list. Yeah, no worries.

And also, just to clarify, Council Member Garcia can vote on that item. It's just a sub-item of that agenda item. So he can...

Perfect. So just to clarify, I'm abstaining from the project that's at Casanova Park. Perfect.

Okay, any other request to pull anything? All right, we'll take it up for public comment. So this is an opportunity for the public to request an item be pulled or speak on anything related to consent. But if you're wishing to pull something, if you're wishing to speak on it and have us take action, then you might want to request for it to be pulled. So for folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function while you're navigating your way there. While you're navigating your way there, I'll check in with the chamber. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on anything that's on consent? All right, seeing no takers, I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Nobody on Zoom, bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation. I'll make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Okay, it's been moved and seconded. Any other discussion? Okay, so we're going to approve, we're going to vote on the consent with the abstention from Council Member Garcia on the Castle of Okinawa Park project on item number four. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes unanimously. We are now going to adjourn to consent agenda of the Ocean View Community Services District meeting. Item A on the agenda is to receive Ocean View Community Services District quarterly report and adopt a resolution. With that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff presentation.

Thank you, and I'll let our city attorney handle this item.

Thank you, city manager. This is a consent item, but I will point out that the new request is that the board authorize an application to LAFCO to dissolve the district. It's no longer necessary given the permits for the project have all expired. There's no entitlements pending. So the district is no longer necessary. So this would just start what will probably be a year long process to dissolve the district.

Perfect. So do we need action today? yes to um adopt the resolution to um allow us to do an application to lafco okay so moved um okay so moved and seconded let's take it out for public comment for folks on zoom you can use the raise hand function anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item all right seeing none i'll do a countdown for folks on zoom to five four three two one here's one on zoom we'll go ahead and take the caller yes uh mr evans you could go ahead

Hi, I'm Bob Evans. I live in New Monterey, just up the hill from the proposed Ocean View Plaza, otherwise known as OEP project. Regarding the application to LAFCO to dissolve the OEP special district, it's about time. I've lived in Monterey for over 40 years and visited Monterey many years before that. And during that time, the only things that have happened on that site are the destruction and removal of the historic San Xavier warehouse. And now the San Xavier fish reduction plant is being demolished by neglect. So it's time to work with the developer and or other agencies to come up with a plan that will pencil out and serve both the community and the commercial interests. It can be done. We should get with it and do it. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Evans. With that, we'll go ahead and close public comment, bring it back to the council. Any other discussion, please?

Yeah, I don't know. It's a complex property, complex issue, and been going on for a long time. I know there's been the legal matters of the ownership, and apparently the developer's not in a position to move ahead. So I'm just wondering, by this action that we would request that LAFCO dissolve this district, does that... at this time de-emphasize or de-motivate something else to happen with the development through the ownership piece. So I guess it's a question of I know a new owner would have to start things up and do their permit process. I know water's a topic. It's got difficulty with the the Coastal Commission getting through. But I'm just wondering if we might want to hold off on this just a little bit longer just to determine if there's anything in the works that this district might actually benefit something else happening.

Uh, okay. I'll try to answer your question. Um, and the first is that the project, all the projects entitlements are expired. So it's, there's nothing pending. It's starting from scratch. Um, whether it's the current owner or some future owner, there'd have to be a new application to get processed. And so there's really no reason to have this district, um, the sole purpose for which was entirely connected to that project to provide desalination, um, to And at the time, it was a county ordinance that required public ownership of DeSalle. That ordinance is no longer on the books for Monterey County, or it's no longer enforceable pursuant to a settlement agreement. It's just not... It was tied to the project, which is now dead.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

And I certainly don't know planning in the world of planning enough to know, but if everything is dead in the entitlements and the city has no responsibilities for anything being held for our previous approvals, but it makes sense that we would dissolve it. But I just don't know the topic well enough to say, okay, it's only been about six months since the dispute in ownership was resolved. So I just am wondering if we shouldn't hold this for just a little bit longer until there is nothing else moving in the private sector for that property. And I know, and I acknowledge it would have to start over.

And so it probably, so the district is completely tied to this owner and this one parcel. It's not bigger, doesn't encompass any more of the city other than this project area. Okay. So I can't, I guess I defer to the council on this. If you can debate, if you want to.

So one follow-up question to that is, does having a special district authority for this council give them anything else of a privilege to get information or to be informed or a requirement that owners have to communicate with us? Do we lose anything by stepping out of a special district while this property is certainly going to be something that somebody else is going to try and buy it, somebody else is going to try and do something with it? Does that, do we lose any leverage in knowledge?

If that were to happen, there would be a whole new application, which may or may not even authorize a desal, probably not given what the Coastal Commission has said already on this project where they're not going to... That was a whole issue of dispute that went before the coastal. So, you know, the laws have changed a lot since the approvals of this initially. And so we're operating under current laws with whoever applies next. I can't currently think of a reason, but I could be missing something, too, because this this district is for the sole purpose really of. public ownership of the decal, so the developer was to construct it, then the city was to take over the ownership and operate it as a water utility, but just for those parcels. And since that was the only power of the district, I don't see how that would be necessary given that this project is no longer in existence.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Okay, we're gonna take out for public comment. For folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand. Wait, no, I'm sorry, we did that. We did the process a little bit different this time, so it threw me off with the motion before. All right, any other questions? Let me just make sure. All right, all those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 4-1. We're gonna now adjourn back to the council meeting. And next up, we have public hearing for our afternoon session. It's item nine first. Oh, we're going to do nine and ten together. So I'll read nine first. First reading to amend Monterey City Code section 19-103, the schedule of fees and services charges to reduce the amount of the city's cost recovery for specific encroachment permit and inspection fees to less than 100%. And item 10 is to amend resolution 26-071 to include fees to new encroachment permit and inspection categories, update descriptions, reduce five categories of encroachment fees to reflect city cost sharing and revise subpoena fee. And with that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff introduction.

Thank you, Mayor. We appreciate the opportunity to combine these because they are pretty closely linked. So I will turn it over to Andrew Easterling to give the presentation.

Good afternoon, council. So yes, you mentioned some two items. So we're going to have before you one presentation, but then I'll ask you to split it to take it to discussion and questions, then have two different votes. So this is for the equipment permit and the psych EP update.

Use your mic on.

Can you hear me now? All right, thank you. Thanks for letting me know. I didn't give the whole presentation.

With no one hearing it.

All right. So this item is for the encroachment permit and inspection fee update. As you mentioned, this is going to be actually two different votes or two different actions by the council. The items are so closely related, I thought it made sense to combine it to a single presentation. Can you control those slides or do I have to get in here? All right, thank you. So the first item will be to pass a first reading on an ordinance to amend the Monterey City Code section nineteen dash one oh three to reduce the cost recovery for five encroachment permit categories. And then the second item will be item ten on your agenda will be a resolution for a fee schedule. uh to amend resolution 26-071 to add three new categories updated descriptions and fees uh to consolidate and move some fees we're moving fees out of community development into public works and to revise the police subpoena fee uh that all makes sense hopefully perfect say that last line again revise the what to revise the police subpoena fee police subpoena yes thank you So a bit of background. We recently adopted the new citywide master fee schedule on May 19th. The updated fees were set to full cost recovery, so it was a little bit of a jump from where they were previously. That was based on the estimated staff time to review, process, and inspect the typical encroachment permit category. Since then, we've had some public concerns and feedback. We've taken an opportunity to review all the permit types, review the concerns, look at the staff hours, and identify more specific categories. So previously, we had some of the categories were grouped, which had a wide range of work that might be involved. So that combined what might be with some more complex projects that involved a little bit more staff time with some more simple projects that had lesser efforts. We reviewed all the permit types, the public concerns, and we've made some updated recommendations to update the fees, the categories and the grouping. And then, of course, move the fees, which were listed in the fee schedule and community development to public works. So the three new categories that we're proposing to be created, one would be for a temporary pot or dumpster. We previously only had one category for temporary encroachment, and we do sometimes get requests for these pods or dumpsters or something to go into the parking area. which is a little less involved than, say, PG&E doing tree trimming work or something of that nature. And so when we were reviewing the fee categories, again, we felt there was an opportunity to split this, create a new category for just the pot and the dumpster. And that way, if someone's moving or they needed to move stuff into storage and they're just occupying a parking space, they're not paying the same temporary encroachment fee that, say, a utility company would be doing if they're working on the roadway. So that was an opportunity to split that category, create a category that's going to be a little bit less involved. The next new category would be minor permanent encroachments. So we set a threshold of maybe 100 square feet, which would qualify for a minor encroachment permit. What I've heard from our building department is that oftentimes an applicant will come for maybe a sign or some hardscape that's relatively small that's not like, say, the airport that's building a roundabout right now. So it's going to involve a lot less staff time, a lot less review and inspection and administrative time to process them. and we felt it would be fair to split that category so we're not paying the same fee that say the airport roundabouts paying or a giant calum main replacement projects paying so we created or we're proposing a new category for minor encroachment permits for 100 square feet or less And the last new category that was proposed tonight is traffic signal operations. Oftentimes, or occasionally, contractors will need to put traffic signals on flash when they're doing major road shifts across intersections. This happened recently when PG&E was doing survey work, and we had to send city staff out there to the controller cabinet to flip a switch, turn it on the flash operations, and then come back out when they were done doing the work. flip it back on the flash. If the signal is part of an adaptive corridor, sometimes there's additional contractor or traffic signal maintenance contractor staff time involved, we're getting the adaptive system operating properly again. So we felt that that was an opportunity to split off some of the traffic control, the temporary traffic control fees, and to create a new category that's only used when a contractor needs it. So that's it for the new categories. In addition, we're also proposing five fees to have a public subsidy so that they're not paying the full cost recovery rate. Those fee categories include the street opening for sewer laterals, The minor encroachment permits, so that's that new category we just created. Driveway or sidewalk encroachments, the traffic review fee, and the sidewalk maintenance and repair fee. So that's for sidewalk slicings or grindings that a property owner may have to do. So those are the 5 categories that we felt there was potentially some sort of shared public benefit where the city could participate in the cost sharing. And the staff from the various departments that were involved, recommended a proposed subsidy for street opening that was set to 30%. So the applicant would still be responsible paying 70% of that cost. The minor permanent encroachment would be set to 50%. The driveway or sidewalk encroachment we set to 30%. The traffic control review fee would be set to 50% and the sidewalk maintenance repair fee would be set to 50%. So those are the five key categories that would potentially have a reduced cost recovery rate with the new ordinance. Of course, if the city is reducing those fees, there is a potential impact. So we did look at the past 12 months of how many of the various permit applications there were for traffic control and sidewalk maintenance. We did kind of have to make some estimates based on the data that was available. So a best guess, but this was the last year is what we estimate. how many of these different applications we'd see. And if we were subsidizing it by those rates, this would be the cost of the general fund. Altogether, that comes out to roughly around $192,000 annually if we adopt all the subsidized rates. So, the resolution improves organization clarity. It consolidates encroachment permit fees into the public works fee section. So, where it was previously, the encroachment permit fees were kind of, I wouldn't say disorganized, but were scattered in the fee schedule into two different categories. You see them in community development, again, in public works, and I think that caused confusion. So, with the The improve organization, we're moving it all into public works, the street opening fee with sewer connection. We're labeling street opening feed with sewer lateral occasionally when people were processing those permits. If if the connection wasn't going to the main, I think that caused some confusion. And now that we're recommending that we subsidize that we want to make sure that they're just doing lateral work, not connecting to the main that still qualifies for that subsidy. um the updated fee description incorporates stack staff activities not previously considered in the fee calculations on this last update i think there was some staff time across different divisions departments outside of engineering that we didn't recognize and so we've added a half hour for building admin to process the fees and then when they're doing the sewer lateral connected to the main there's staff time involved with pressure testing the main afterwards that wasn't previously considered And then the, uh, the changes to the police, the peanut fee, this is piggybacking on the engineering presentation, but it is changing the amount from 150 that was previously adopted to the amount required by state law. So that's the only change to that 1, but I did want to touch upon it. And with that, I'm going to open it up to questions and comments, but I'm going to ask that we split this into two separate discussions. So the first would be to pass the first reading of the ordinance amending the Monterey City Code section 19-103 to establish the proposed reduced cost recovery levels. And then we'll take the next one after that.

Yep. So let's take questions on that specific item first. Are there questions on that part? Please.

I'm sorry, I don't know which part it really belongs to, but give us a description, an example of a permanent encroachment fee that's staying at $2,470. What is a permanent encroachment?

So a permanent encroachment would be something that is built into the right-of-way and then is left there. So an example would be the one I just gave as top of mind. If the airport's building a roundabout as part of its off-site improvements for its terminal project. So that roundabout that's being left in the right-of-way is a permanent encroachment.

Is it my driveway? Is my driveway an example?

Your driveway could be a permanent encroachment. That is actually under a different fee category, the way it's organized. But when you construct that driveway or that sidewalk along your frontage, that would be an encroachment into the public right-of-way. But it falls under a different fee category because we do have a specific fee for driveways and sidewalks.

So perhaps the first time I create a new part of my driveway, it's a permanent?

encroachment yes and then if i were to put a gutter under it that might be a driveway or sidewalk encroachment yeah so the culvert that runs under a lot of driveways uh that's still considered a private encroachment that's that's private property that's installed in the public right-of-way um so that would be the permanent encroachment oh it would so it would be the big one so we do so i'm calling it the perm it is a permanent increase but we do have a specific category for driveway sidewalk so that would include the gutter and anything associated with the driveway so would the gutter be 24 17. is a gutter a permanent encroachment fee for 24 17 in a private home

I'm just trying to see how this really affects people.

Sure. So if it's under 100 square feet, it would qualify for the minor. But if you are on, essentially, if you're the fee category, driveway or sidewalk encroachment. So if it's part of that sidewalk system, it would qualify for that driveway or sidewalk encroachment fee. Okay. All right.

And say, well, I mean, this is real. I bought my home. I knew nothing. I put up a small retaining wall because the dirt was crumbling into what someone might call a half a gutter. There's no sidewalks. How do I even know? When I bought the home, I didn't get anything from the city about rules and regulations. I had no knowledge. So how can we help? people know that they're expected to be communicating with the city and, and for, for lots of reasons to keep the homeowner out of trouble, but to get some kind of some kind of a consistency in, in the gutter system, in the drain drainage system, you know what I'm talking about? And can, can we start sending out our codes to new home buyers or?

Yeah, I think that's a good suggestion. I definitely know that we need to do some education. I think there's misconceptions and so. I think some outreach would be beneficial to the community. I know we have material available on our website. I don't know how that would work if there was a transfer of property. How I think that would trigger us sending mailers to the homeowner. Somebody has to do it. Yeah, I don't think that administrative infrastructure is in place to do that right now, but I definitely recognize the point you're making and that we do probably need to do some education.

Thank you.

So I can appreciate what my colleague Jean was talking about with the outreach part. But realtors, just so you know, realtors always, when we close with the different clients, we always tell them to check with their city and county for any type of improvements. We kind of say that in general anyway. So hopefully they do. But I totally agree with you about the education of it. And that was actually my question is, If these changes are approved tonight, will they be highlighted since they're different categories? So they're new. I think that should be highlighted specifically. And then for the changes so that other people who are dealing with the different permits are highlighted on the website. Or how would that be highlighted? It's my question.

Yeah, I can definitely put some information on the website to highlight the changes. I think, I don't think there'll be any issue with the actual fee schedule with changing the format to highlight something that's new or that has a reduced rate. Just some way of, I don't know, more attention to it.

yeah drawing attention that it's a new fee i i don't think there'd be any issue with that uh just in the formatting of it uh but we could definitely update the website too to highlight that to draw yeah i think anything new like new highlights like have a section where people can automatically go to any type of new highlights that may come in that they may not know about or anything that's been changed as far as like these uh changes of the uh cost going down so that they are aware of that as they get ready to plan any type of projects

Yeah, we can definitely look into that.

Yeah, I was going to say we can definitely do some outreach, right? But it's a dynamic process, right? It changes over time. And we will create collaborations and linkages like with realtors and others to make sure we get the information out. but it's also kind of a responsibility too that we need to kind of make sure that property owners, when they do work, some people try to circumvent purposely city permitting process and some just don't know, but I think it's a dual responsibility for the city to do the outreach, but people who are property owners need to actually request and talk to the city.

Totally agree. And that's why we do work together in saying to see your city or your county when you're doing any type of transactions like this. But I think any type of thing with a highlight because of this specifically, I'm not talking about every single one of them, but specifically new categories coming forth because no one would have any idea what to look for. So I think just highlighting it on the website might be A good way for people to be able to be aware. Yeah, I think that's certainly doable. All right. Thank you.

Yeah, I'm trying to track what the difference was before we did the update. And I'll pick out one as an example. The sewer opening fee, the sewer lateral that we're calling it now, when we approved our most recent increase, that was gonna be 1,600 and change. And now the proposed rate goes to a 70% cost recovery and 30% would be covered by our general fund. So it goes down to 1,183 as the proposed. Yes. What's that increase over what we were before the July approval. Because I think we were at 500% over in an increase.

Street opening with sewer lateral is what it was called previously. So the old, old fee was $588.84. When it was updated in the 2526 adoption, it changed to $1,554. That indexed up in year 2627 by the CPI to $1,613. And so what we were saying now is the full cost recovery was $1,702.14. As I recommended earlier, when we did this kind of deeper dive into the fees, we actually identified additional staff hours that weren't previously revealed. on the last go around. So there was a half hour for a building administrative aid or assistant to process the application. And then we had street workers that were outside of engineering that weren't previously considered that have to flush and pressure test the main after the new Y connections installed. So there was hours that were actually, even though we're reducing it now, that were actually, when we did our review again, we identified that were revealed and then we included into the fee update. That are now being proposed in the full cost recovery, but then backed out and reduced with the reduced cost recovery rate.

Okay, so I get the flush if if the sewer lateral is going to the main. But if I'm going to do a sewer connection, because my pipe on my property has failed. I'm going to put in a new sewer line on my property and then once I get to the city, the edge of the city. I'm connecting it in many times to a pipe that is okay. That's under the sidewalk and so the connection for the sewer lateral is from the property to a few feet. So, is this the fee we're talking about? That's. The recommendation is 1183 for a sewer lateral connection from the property to the pipe that goes under the street or under the sidewalk.

Yeah, that's a good question. And we didn't aggregate, or sorry, we didn't kind of divide out the fees so granularly that we split the lateral and the two different laterals. A lateral that connects to the main and a lateral work that doesn't. So this is a combined category that... that averages it and and considers that the staff time connecting to the sewer main so we could split it further and divide it out and say sewer lateral just not connecting to the main and sewer lateral connecting the main and and that would um essentially eliminate a couple let's see how many hours It would eliminate a couple hours of a street maintenance worker going out there.

I would be interested in that because so many times you get a plumber, a homeowner's already paying, well, with this it'd be $1,000 plus, and then the cost of the sewer lateral. And maybe it's $8,000 to $10,000, but we're not going to the street. They're going to the property line where that first line is okay. And that's exactly what happened with us. Oh, then that doesn't even involve encroachments.

If it's all contained within private property, then that's just a building permit fee, and that doesn't even involve encroachments.

Okay, so what you're saying is this lateral fee is only once you leave the property, but if you go under a sidewalk, and you might go four feet under a sidewalk, but you're not going to the middle of the street.

Correct. There's a potential of that scenario, exiting the property line, but only taking it a couple of feet and not going all the way to the main. So there is a potential scenario where we can divide it up further and separate that work out.

Yeah, I think I'd be interested in being able to do that because I think many cases, I mean, if it's an extra 500 bucks off of that fee, because they're not going to the middle of the street, they're maybe going to the sidewalk level. or to one foot past the sidewalk. But if you're talking about another 20 feet to the center of the line, then that's a whole different charge. I'm just looking for ways that we don't overcharge.

Yeah, I understand. And I don't have the exact cost estimate. Essentially, it's an hour and a half of a street maintenance worker plus the vehicle. And so I don't have the exact number. But the vehicle for that rate is $30. And it's an hour and a half of a street maintenance worker time. So we can create a new category and separate that further.

Yeah, so it's almost like a sewer lateral category A, sewer lateral category B. But it seems like we wouldn't need to charge for the full Monty. If you're not going to the center of the street, then we should only charge for the appropriate where it stops. That's the only question I have right now.

Can I ask a quick follow-up on that? Is there a reason why we created it to where it's all combined versus breaking it down further?

Yeah, typically, if they are taking it to the street, it's going all the way to the main. If it's all contained on private property, then it wouldn't even trigger an encroachment permit. There are probably some scenarios where they only take it to halfway into the street or a part of the way. The way our tracking system works, I don't think I have an easy way to filter through that, but I think it is a scenario that could happen.

But you're saying it's probably done this way because more likely than not, it is going to go all the way to the... Yeah, typically if they're leaving the private property and going into the street, they're going to go all the way to the main.

But if it's staying on the private property, then it wouldn't even trigger an encroachment permit. Okay. All right. Any other... Please.

This might be a little bit outside of what we're discussing here, but I think still relevant. Can you remind me for a resident who has to do some work on their property. An encroachment fee is triggered, but they're experiencing financial hardships. Is there a mechanism that's triggered for us to support that resident?

Not to my knowledge. I'm not involved with the intake. I might look to community development.

If they're a low income resident, you can apply for Mr. Fix it grant for interior plumbing repairs, but it doesn't. I do not believe our program addresses sewer lines to the street. If that helps, could it be expanded to maybe i would need to find out i need to do a little bit of research under community development block grant funds because that's how our mr fix-it program is funded or the the liens against the property it wouldn't be included in in that ability i'm i'm not aware where we um issue liens against properties for these types of improvements

Did you have anything else?

Anybody else? Yeah, I've got to go back to something else. It's connected to what we were talking about. So if there's a sewer lateral, well, they don't have to get a permit for sewer lateral because they're not having to go to the center of the street. And sometimes that's determined once they're on site and they determine where the problem is. So if it stopped with the property line or maybe into the sidewalk, then if it was a sidewalk stop, they're doing the sewer work on the property, then would they get a driveway or sidewalk encroachment fee? So that there may be, they're tearing up two feet of the sidewalk to get to the connection to connect the sewer.

Yeah, I think in that scenario, they would have to go back and apply for an encroachment permit fee. So once they cross that property line, if they were doing work under a building permit, and they were thinking it was all contained, but then ended up having to chase it into the public right away, that would trigger the additional encroachment permit.

Okay, so then they'd be talking about under this proposal that fee is reduced by 30%. So it'd be a $746 sidewalk encroachment fee. According to the staff report.

Yes. So if it was just the sidewalk work, that would be the sidewalk fee. But if it was the sewer lateral, it would be under that category. The $1,191.

And there's no other building permit or any other permit that one would have to require for the sewer work on private property?

On private property? Yeah.

Is there anything else that they have to get with the city?

Yeah, so it's a building permit they'd have to do. If they're doing work on the private property, I believe it's just a building permit.

Yeah, so if it's plumbing, sewer work on the property.

Correct, plumbing permit.

So what the plumbing permit in addition to this. Yes. And what's that fee? The plumbing permit fee to do the sewer.

I don't have that one committed to memory. Sorry, that's outside my wheelhouse.

Yeah, so I guess it's under the philosophy of like, It seems like those two ought to be connected because if it's a sewer, you're doing a sewer work, they're also having to do a building permit draw. So before anybody's even written a check to do the actual $8,000 to $10,000 work, they're already into the city for close to two grand. So I think that's the whole point is... We're adding on and adding on. It's not you. You're not making this stuff up. So I'm not saying that this is your fault. I'm just saying that as a city collecting the fees, these are just too much. They're too great. And we've got to figure out where else we can reduce it. And I've got other questions on your other category, but we're going to get to that soon.

OK. Any other questions on this part? All right. Let's take it to the next part.

Do you want to, I guess... I don't know how this works. Take the public comment and then a vote, or do you want...

If I could, if I may. Please. The sequence in the order is very specific because the first item, number nine, is setting the amount of cost recovery to reduce it from 100%. So if that does not pass, we don't really need to be discussing number 10. So we really need number nine to be separately discussed, voted on, and approved. And then... the subsidies in number 10 will make sense. And then when we get to number 10 again, I do have some changes to the effective dates on some of these things, but I can hold that until that happens.

Awesome. So I'll go ahead and open it for public comment at this time. So for folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. While you're navigating your way there, I'll check in the chamber. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item, just ask you to stand up to the left of the podium or identify yourself by raising your hand. I see five takers. Anybody else in the chamber? All right, I'll cut it off to the five. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. And there's one on Zoom. We'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Okay, first of all, Andrew, I appreciate the work you're doing on this, but I think the fee study we did initially back in 2024, I think that needs to be thrown out completely because I don't think any of the five areas that were studied on it took it seriously. I think those numbers are gonna be thrown out. They're all inflated. Other thing, 99% of the time, this is all I do for sewers, is you have to get, to do a sewer lateral, 99% of the time, you do the full lateral. You get an encroachment permit, you get a building permit. You're not just going to get an encroachment without a building. Other thing, the Y permit. So if the jetting fee, he said, wasn't added in there, that's a separate permit. That's $275 to get the city jetting fee done on that. So we're already in there on that. The... I mean, we're taking it down $400. We're still at $2,200 with this permit that was $594 initially. We are not there yet. We cannot base this off of the study that was done in 2024 off these numbers that we know are wrong. We know these numbers are wrong. I hope you guys don't vote on this tonight. Kim, I heard you on the forum, you talked about affordability. That's one of the huge things you're running off of. I'd like to talk to you personally about this. If this is affordability, this is not it. This is still a 400% increase. Another thing, city of Carmel, About two years ago, they raised their sewer prices from 375 to just over a thousand dollars. And they ended up, council brought it down to like 775. That was awesome. Mayor Byrne came back and because it's a mandate that the cities have to have that city of carmel has to replace their sewers um and the city's making them do it they brought that permit price for sewer lateral down to 275 because they're forcing them to do it i'm not saying you guys have to do that but maybe that's a track we could go on but i really don't want you guys to vote on this tonight i don't think anybody here has enough information on it my name is tom barrera Please, if you guys care about this item, which I think this is a very big ticket item for a normal homeowner, please get in contact with me. I'm available anytime you guys want to talk. I appreciate you guys looking at this again. And I think that Jeff Ray has a lot of knowledge on this. Reach out to other people. But this is a high ticket dollar for people in Monterey. Thank you for your time, guys. I appreciate you.

Hello. I agree with the previous speaker. We're concerned about affordability in this community. This is kind of where it starts, these permits. The permit fees are supposed to only recover the cost of service that's being delivered. And what I see is the stacking of fees to where it really starts to get to kind of an incredible level. So let me use an example. I go down to my local home improvement store. I buy a 4x4, a couple sacks of concrete, and a mailbox. And I say, I want to put a mailbox down by the curb. I have no sidewalk. I want to put a mailbox there so the postal carrier doesn't have to walk up to my front door. How much of the permit fee is going to be for that? I heard permanent encroachment permit being somewhere in the $2,000-plus range. The cost for me buying that mailbox, a 4x4 and two sacks of ReadyCrete, is probably going to be $500 with a nice mailbox. So you're really pricing yourself way out of reality, I think. So another example, a real world example, has nothing to do with public works type fees. I recently replaced five solar panels on the roof of my house. so as a part of that of course i got a permit for that and the permit alone cost me like 500 something dollars i figured exactly how much along the way i needed to re do some rewiring i moved some fmc flexible mechanical metallic conduit from my attic space down underneath the house it's same conduit same conductors i just moved it'd be no different from you having an approved set of plans that say i want to have a wall outlet way up there and instead during construction you moved it down there well now i learned i have to pay another 250 almost for a permit revision fee I did a simple sketch that showed what I did. And it's not going to take more than 20 minutes of somebody's time to sit there and look at this simple little sketch. The inspector was already out there. I'm the one that pointed it out to him. I said, oh, by the way, I rerouted this FMC from my attic down under the house, took a look at it. He said, oh, yeah, this all looks great. Just threw a clamp over there on that one piece of conduit you forgot. OK, great. Did that. 250 more dollars. It just doesn't make sense. It loses credibility. So I applaud you for this move. I think it's in the right direction, but I really do think your fee structure is kind of stretching credibility. Thank you.

Mayor, Councilman Nelson-Begin, as a person that hires Tom Barrera to do sewer lines all the time, and when I get the thing of what it costs, it's just staggering. And I think that you should just have a smaller fee, and the city should subsidize this and be done with it. Because what you want to do is encourage people to replace sewer lines. When the cost gets so high, they just keep snaking it, snaking it, snaking it, and it continues to contaminate the water table, etc. And that's not the purpose of it. The purpose is to put a sewer line so it never leaks anymore. I think if you just put a flat fee of $275, be done with it, and allow it to be subsidized by the city, who certainly subsidized everything else around here, because this is an area that is just... It's important because you want these people to take care of these sewer lines and you want the sewer to go to the district and be processed, et cetera, et cetera. And there's a lot of low-income people. There's a lot of small landlords. And I just called Tom, Tom, take care of it. I'm in a different... category than most people, but I sympathize for the smaller homeowners, the smaller property owners, that some of these things and costs is just staggering to these people. And it's something that should be done because if you want compliance, you should help. Thank you for your time.

Good afternoon, Mayor Williamson and Council. Thank you for considering reducing the proposed encroachment permits for sidewalk repair and maintenance. You are correct in assuming these costs might remove a financial disincentive for property owners. The City is currently asking taxpayers to consider extending Measure S, which generates roughly $12 million annually. You could waive all administrative fees for sidewalk repairs, which cost roughly $12,000 annually. That is just 0.1% of all the tax revenue generated by Measure S. Measure S promotional material states streets, sidewalks, and storm drains, but it appears that this 0.1% is just too costly for the City to consider waiving fees to help the very property owners you are asking to continue funding for Measure S. You, as a council, had the opportunity to help homeowners, but this token reduction in encroachment fees is a snub to your constituency. How hard would it have been to consider waiving all administrative fees for a property owner repairing a city sidewalk? Show residents that the city is listening. I have been supportive of Measure S, but the council's petty and insignificant response has given me pause to reconsider.

if measure s fails to reach a two-thirds majority in november i hope you will not be surprised thank you good afternoon tom raleigh i'm a realtor by profession and my partner rita painter lives has a rental right around the corner from where the mayor lives on clay street and she called up to see how much it was going to cost her to move her mom and her sister into the house. And the cost for a pod was a thousand bucks. And she said she's about choked over the phone. And now there is the, what was on the list of the five things you had was to lower the price, which is a move in the right direction. I think I mentioned this to Ed Smith during a recent conversation, a thousand bucks. It's overwhelming. So It's probably good, you know, coming down 30%. But it didn't indicate on there how long. You know, you want a couple days to offload what you're shipping in. It's actually somebody that's moving here. Unbelievably, they're not moving out. So we want to encourage that. But $1,000, it's just atrocious. So the question is, you know, you guys didn't ask how long. What are you talking about? It's for a pod, for somebody moving. It's for convenience. So... I would think somebody would have asked that question. Thank you.

I think we have one commenter online.

Mr. Hoyer, you can unmute and go ahead.

Yes, Rick Hoyer. I'm a resident of the city of Monterey. I applaud you for looking at reducing the fees, but you're looking at reducing the fees after jacking them up in the first place, based off of a study that from a lot of things when people really looked at it is very questionable in the first place. I think you need to start over with a realistic study, look at what the cumulative impact of all these fees are, because all you succeed in doing is encouraging people, first of all, to do things without permits, and second of all, not to fix things that really would be helpful to have fixed, like sewer lines. I think you need to just pause this entire process, start over, look at a new realistic study, or take a hard look at that existing study with other folks involved in that process to see what's really involved to do some of this work. How much cost is there really to the city to put a pod in a parking space in front of a house? It's just and when we're saying you know that as long as the sewer line is done to the property line, then you don't have to. You just have to have a thing. Well, the property line is actually the other side of the sidewalk. The sidewalk happens to be part of the property owned, but it's the city right away. But the property line is actually, I believe. Up next to the edge of the city, but yet you're having to pay a fee for it to put it on to encroach into that. It makes no sense to the average person. Thank you.

All righty. With that, we're going to close public comment, bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation.

Mayor, were we going to get to the other one next after? Because you had that one on the board. Well, that was the new ones that you wanted to create.

Yeah, so let's hold tight. We'll get to 10 after we... vote on item nine um but i just want to ask a quick question there's a question that's coming up around the study i'm assuming that a new study wasn't done that generated what's in front of us today it seems like it's a lot based upon the previous study so has there been a hard look at the study and the numbers that were used to bring us to the numbers that we're looking at today yes

So, so, and I'll, I'll let you let you add to this. Um, so this study was was done when I came in, but but I took a good look at it, um, essentially, and the analysis and. That's what kind of led and staff had already started discussing kind of different scenarios and are there ways to kind of tear the rates. In reality, and I have experience from other communities, it's the same methodology that's used. The bottom line is kind of the hours and the assumptions of the effort that it would take to complete different types of permits. So, in my opinion, there's no problem with the study. The issue, and this is a realistic point of view of what it costs, essentially, with some tweaks and us looking at the tiering of actually drilling down to look at the minor work that we need to do and reducing some of that. This is what it costs. Now, I can also say that Council has the ability, you can't charge more than what the study says and what we can draw a nexus between costs, but you can charge less, essentially. And you have the ability to subsidize it. What that means, obviously, is for user permits, it means everybody pays for it right as opposed to just just the user of those permits but that is something that is definitely within the council's purview and we wanted to try to come up with a compromise to produce at least some subsidy so that there's a shared partnership with the property owner i so one of the things that i heard so tom and i've connected prior to

having us re-agendize this. And I know that part of his process that he did was clock time and provide that to staff for notice of a variance between what the study shows and what his experience is. I recognize that his experience is probably gonna be different than some other customers that we have coming in because they're not a subject matter expert and they're not gonna come in and make it smooth and easy for staff. But did we, I guess I have concern that we're basing it, it'd be helpful to just have a deeper look at those numbers from the study. I know that they were provided in the agenda previously. I guess I just, I don't know what staff's thoughts are as it relates to, I mean, it sounds like we're sticking by what the original study said. which is hard to get somebody that's trying to help us figure out the right space to fall. It seems like we're just ignoring that.

I can maybe elaborate or just at least pull the curtain back a little bit. Tom's interaction with staff isn't the only staff time that's actually involved in responding to his permits. And so I know he might come into the office and talk to Billy for 30 minutes, but Billy also has time to process, to review the permit applications, to put together response letters, to upload those. So there's staff time that's involved in the program that maybe Mr. Breyer isn't seeing. The same with our inspectors. The inspectors oftentimes have two or three days to respond to a sewer lateral. So initially there's the work to actually do the lateral to connect it. Then there's the restoration work. Ideally, there's a warranty period inspection. So we're not responding to resident requests when something fails a year after the patch has been placed. At the inspector time, they have dispatch in the morning where they see their inspectors log. They understand where they're going to be going throughout the day. They do have travel time that's involved going to the different locations that's associated with the permit. So I know Tom is seeing a portion of staff time that's involved the permits, but he's not seeing all the staff time that's happening behind the scenes that's maybe out of sight. So I do know he's clocking us and we're looking at it, but When we did this re-review, we put a microscope over it and we talked to all the people that were involved. I think these hours are reasonable, if not conservative, in the estimated time that's involved in the program. So we're presenting that to you as what the actual potential costs are. It is a policy decision if you wanted to subsidize it further. If you say, hey, we think these are high, we'd like to lower them further, you could Adopt a reduce or further reduce cost recovery rate than what staff's proposed. That's a policy decision, but the numbers of the staff are presenting. We, we think. Are reasonable and conservative if anything.

I'm just going to. bring up another part of the conversation that i had with tom and part of the reason why i'm doing this is because it's hard for us to have a conversation with the public once we're discussing it on the dais like there's we're not opening it back up for public comment to go back and forth so i'm trying to recollect elements of our conversation um my understanding is that there have been experiences where He brings in the paperwork, it's all ready to go. He's clocking the time and they're like, yeah, this looks good. And they sign off and they're done. So I'm hearing that there's not like a submittal of something waiting to hear back and then a reproval. It sounds like it's kind of like a simultaneous thing that's happening in that moment. No.

No. We will have discussions and answer questions. We have sometimes office hours where staff will be available. But there is an application, the process, there's an intake, and then staff does have time to respond, to actually sit down and review the application. I know sometimes applicants will come in with a sketch and will say, hey, approve this. And we can offer guidance. We can offer suggestions or resources to go to. it never really that fast of a turnaround uh there there is a process uh our staff isn't on standby where they're just you know sitting waiting for an application to come in they're busy with other work so it gets added to their their their queue uh as kind of week time as time frees up and their work scheduled they will review process put together notes provide a formal response not an over-the-counter thumbs up thumbs down um it's a little bit more involved than just coming in and saying hey does this look good and then we're off to the races. It's more involved. Okay.

So I'm obviously interested in hearing what my colleagues think. My assumption is that there may be a desire to look into this more and have it come back. I think the space that I'm residing is, can we get something that allows us to have a fee that allows us to get through for now. And then we can have this deeper conversation around affordability. I don't know if we're going to solve all of these pieces now, but like, how do we find that right spot to settle so that we can get something implemented and then give ourselves time to further talk through this? Because my assumption, this isn't the only fee that we would want to have a consideration for. We're talking about one segment of work on a property. So anyways, I open it up for my colleagues, Dr. Barber.

Yes. So, and Tom, yes, let's connect. No problem with that. But this is exactly why I proposed the cost of living task force to be able to look further into all this, not only just this, but all the different types of fees and different processes that we have in the city and collaborations in different places where we can be able to make adjustments. So for me, I'm kind of erring on the same side of what the mayor was talking about of having a little bit more information and conversation because I'm hearing conversations of different things that I don't have privy to, and that's not helping me to be able to make that decision. So my thing is being able to have more of an idea of what the actual cost is, looking at the study and having some comparison so that we could be able to look and see if there is a gap, if there are some variances and what that looks like and what that percentage would be so that we could actually know what type of subsidy we could look at. I think that information needs to be there. So there's some comparison to see what kind of subsidy we could actually look at and be able to provide within what's viable for us at this time. So that's where I am right now.

Next, please.

Yeah, agreed. I think this merits a little bit more discussion. So I'm trying to think about maybe the best way to move forward and maybe a question here for staff. so if council approved this tonight i mean that in essence would uh initiate the process towards some reduction of fees correct um and then in the meantime and this is where i think i need a little bit more clarity in the meantime staff would go back and take a another stab at this but is that Is that efficient? Is that a good use of our staff's time? Or should council hold off on voting and then try to take a second stab at this?

so so in my opinion um if council were to support this this is an immediate reduction it doesn't preclude you from taking a deeper look at it if you wanted to look at other fees and do a deeper dive we definitely could do that we we would want to know kind of what is the goal here. Are we going to be going back to all of the fees in the Master Fee Study and going line by line? Are you looking at a certain subsidy? And we can get into those, we don't have to get into that discussion tonight. But to answer your question simply, yes, you could do both. You could approve something tonight that immediately reduces things, and then we could bring back

uh another item to do a deeper dive where we get additional direction from city council okay thank you and and that's helpful and i think part of what we're why we're reviewing this item tonight is because there has been interest strong interest from uh uh a number of folks to to see a change in this um in this fee structure, so I would also make the motion then to move to approve staff's recommendation.

Hi, do you want me to go? Is there a second on the motion?

Second.

Okay, so moved and seconded. Please.

So, I applaud the city for being nimble and quickly getting on this, and That's very meaningful to me that we did it quickly, that we saw we were in error, that some of them were too high. And it gives me hope that we are responding quicker to the public. And that's important. Is it enough? I don't know. I like the idea of hearing more. I like the idea of experts combining with our experts and perhaps getting more information, but we need some relief today and we need to support the staff that were quick and adroit and responded to the neighborhoods and the residents speaking up. So I'm with you.

So what I would be looking to support a motion would be, and I'd be okay to acting on this tonight because I agree We want to reduce these fees, and we don't want to have to wait any longer. And it gets complicated. If you keep the fees where they are, and you're collecting that, and then in four months we make an adjustment, that means we're having to program these prices into our system, and we're overcharging people in the short term. So here's my touch points. On the street opening fee, the sewer lateral, I think that should be categorized, as we talked about. And and more definitive with 2 prices. And I understand when it goes to the center of the street. Yes, that that's maybe the higher fee, but I think when it's not going. To the center of the street, and it's maybe going to go 4 feet into the across city line. It just it just doesn't make sense to me to charge such a full price when it's not full work. on some cases. So I think that needs to be scaled back. I would prefer that it be 50% reduced because I think the 1183 is still too high. And I've done this map over and over, and I understand there's internal costs. We're not even talking about the car that the person drives to go to the site. That employee gets wages, yes. He gets workers' comp. He gets insurance. There's a car cost. There's a gas. I get all that. But it just seems like the price added on top of a building permit for sewer work is a double charge. I would like to see us not charge a building fee if it's a sewer lateral work because it's a licensed contractor. This is almost like the building building fee. So it seems like it's a double charge. So I think internally we should be able to adjust that as a policy. I don't know if that's something that needs to be in the resolution, but it seems like that shouldn't be a double charge. The other one that is standing out is the driveway or sidewalk encroachment fee. I know there's variables to that. It depends on the design, depends on the location, depends on the distance, depends on a lot of factors. But on top of the fee, does that driveway and sidewalk encroachment fee require a building fee, a building permit?

If they're doing work in the private property, then that could involve a building permit as well.

Yeah, so they're bringing a earth mover, they're digging, they're putting gravel, they're bringing stone in, so that's a building permit. To me, that's another one of those double charges. I think it should be one charge, not two charges. And I think, again, the driveway and sidewalk encroachment, I think it's too high. So I think, for me, I'd need both of the street opening fee sewer lateral to be at 50% and the driveway and sidewalk encroachment to be at 50% as well, subsidized. And then another look at how we divide that sewer lateral. and get rid of the double fee with the building permit. So I'd like to ask the maker of the motion, excuse me, that was upside down and backwards, wasn't it? The motion maker, if he would take a friendly amendment to those points. Reduction of 50% for those two, as well as having staff directed to not do that double charge of the building permit.

So thank you, and I can appreciate what you're presenting here. I'm not going to support it, and I'll tell you why. I think those items are very specific, and I think we should offer staff the opportunity to look at a broader call it assessment, right, of fees in general. So for that reason, I'm not gonna support that.

Is your motion asking the city to do that broader assessment and come back to us with a date certain time?

No, and that's, I'm not defining it. So tonight I'm just supporting what staff has recommended. They're listening to us, right? And my assumption here, correct me if I'm wrong, you're going to go back and review this and at a later time bring it back to council. That's how I'm operating.

Okay. So let me ask another question on a friendly amendment. If we divided what my ask was and understand that policy can be worked out at the direction of the city manager, would you entertain a reduction to 50%? on those two categories, because I think those dollars are too high. And to get to 50% on those two categories, the driveways and the sewer laterals.

Again, I'm not gonna support it because I think they're very specific. You mentioned that you've crunched the numbers, but I'd like to see what staff comes back with. And I don't want to restrict staff to those parameters. I think they need to be able to, you know, be able to play with all the data and then come back to us.

Okay. And for that matter, Mary, I can't support the motion. Okay.

Can I ask a clarifying question?

Yes, please.

So on the pod, can I presume if that pod is Entirely on private property, there's no fee. That's correct.

It's not an encroachment.

We're talking about a pod sitting into the driveway, into the encroachment, into the sidewalk. Parking aisle or sidewalk, yeah.

Okay, all right. Yeah, but that topic's going to come up next because we haven't covered that one yet.

I was going to ask a question and it left me.

Would Councilmember Garcia, would you entertain any adjustment of those percentages if we took the 70s down to 60?

Same response. I think that, and at least for me, and it's something that I'm also sensing in general, that there's still more analysis, I think, that would be helpful here. So I don't want to restrict staff with very specific parameters And I think they're better suited to come back to us with what they think is better, given our discussion tonight.

Is there a way to set up, when this does come back, a group that can be identified, however, by staff, who can... allow for a little bit more of a debate on the discussion so that we can have a little bit more dialogue because it's hard unless we go back out to public comment over and over again is it possible for us to allow a discrete group of residents to be able to present and engage with questions from the council and comments so that we can have a little bit more of a fluid conversation. And my question is to Chrissy. I just kind of wanted to see if procedurally, could council direct staff to identify community members that would be appropriate for that, and then they would be distinctly able to engage in a debate with the council and staff on this in a way that prevents us from having to continue going out to public comment?

It could be in maybe in the format of a study session, but we couldn't limit who got to participate.

But if we like identify a group as like subject matter experts that we're using as part of the presentation, I guess is what I'm saying. Would it, would it allow us to avoid having to identify those individuals as members of the public that are giving public comment? Does that make sense? Like they're working collaboratively behind the scenes with staff.

I can just envision that there might be a bunch of plumbers that feel they're on the same standing in the society of our community. And if we only pick a couple that might not go down well.

But I guess part of my point is that we're direct, I guess I can understand the perception, but from a legal perspective, do we have that ability to be able to identify a discrete group of folks that we'll work with in collaboration to operate in that function?

I think the best format for that, because members of the public should generally be treated the same and have the same opportunities to participate in our meetings. If the mayor wanted to establish some sort of blue ribbon committee outside of a council meeting, it wouldn't be subject to the Brown Act. You can meet with an advisory group and then come back with a report. Similarly, the city manager could establish a committee of professionals or whatever group he wants and similarly come back with a recommendation. Or there could be a study session, but the public should be treated the same with respect to public comment, in my view.

So if the city manager identified these folks as a committee or could that be the nuance that allows them to come and present and engage in that debate when we're bringing it to a vote? Just similarly to if we had the planning commission, a joint session with the planning commission or something like that, I'm just trying to find a way of like having us continuing to do this and I just want to like do it, do it right, have that healthy discussion and move on with it.

So, yes, I could definitely convene something and talk with experts, you know, people who are actually doing the work. You know, the bottom line, though, is we can talk and we can go back and figure out if we can tier some of the fees, but the costs are the costs, right? And we need to provide a legal nexus for how we establish our fees. I'm not sure how much a group is going to have input to that, right? I guess I say that all to say it's all going to come back here to council to say you have the ability to reduce and subsidize as much as you want. Our recommendation is going to move forward with, here's how much it costs, essentially. We will make some recommendations like we did tonight about, you know, reducing and maybe protecting smaller businesses, homeowners, some of the smaller guys, essentially, for these fees. But it's still going to be this...

critical kind of analysis that we need to use essentially to draw the nexus to the fees and asking council is this appropriate um for this community yeah yeah i mean i think to your point i to me that seems to be the issue i mean i'm hearing concern around how we're coming up with the numbers and and i'm on the other side i'm hearing we stand by our numbers. And so it's like, how do we fix that bridge? I will say I hear the conversation around affordability, which is why I feel like that's a deeper conversation we need to have later. I have concern around us trying to do all these things right now. And we see in the agenda report, this is anticipated to be close to 200,000. and we're moving in the wrong direction, right? But I also understand that piece where, how many people are not doing it or maybe doing it illegally in order to avoid the fees. So again, I think a larger discussion, but I think I can support the motion just so that we can provide some relief. I definitely think that we need to do a deeper dive though.

Let me try a different direction with a substitute motion and see if that fits the bill. The substitute motion would be that we direct staff to come back And we have a study session to have a presentation on what the input we've given staff tonight. And that was the couple of tiers on the lateral, lower income adjustments, if possible, some of the nuances that we were all talking about. And do that in the format of a study session. And that gives staff, well, that would be my motion. And the reason I would offer that is it gives staff the opportunity to work with these numbers, work with any community member that they need to go out to, come back in a format of a study session so we can have that dialogue with our residents And there may be additional fees that are not listed here that need to be examined the outliers and that gives staff more time to be able to do that. And then we would have a rate based on what we accept tonight. And that's the other part of the motion study session and accept this tonight. with the caveat that after that study session there may be more adjustments to this fee schedule that go down. So to accept this tonight, but to come back with a study session.

I could support that.

Okay, so it's been seconded. Okay. So you're basically saying the same thing, but just coming back to it for a study session. Sanjay, what do you think in regards to that as a next step? That's doable. But do you think it's the best pathway forward given where we are at this point?

I do because I think it gives people some immediate relief, plus it's a promise to do a deeper dive and have a public discussion.

Okay. Okay. All right. All right. So we have a motion and a second. Any other discussion?

I guess one question. Mr. City Manager, the numbers that we came to, you're saying that those are validated and even these reductions are subsidizing?

Yes. Okay, so under discussion, what I want to do is give staff more time to be able to. I mean, I asked him a lot. And it's going to take some time and I want to come back and be accurate with what their internal policies if they're dividing these into 2 categories. If we are. possibly coming back to eliminate building fees that are already being captured in the plumbing fees. I'd be interested in that. That gives staff the opportunity to be able to look at the other book that we're not looking at tonight, which is the building codes or the building permits. I'd like that study session to give them time to do that and be able to present that because I don't feel like I've got enough of all of the data to say, yeah, I'm good with this and let's go marching forward. I just think there's so much more to this that we need to be comprehensive. And I think the study session would allow us to do that.

I think the only point that I was making is the staff has already provided us the study. So that's publicly available. That's information that we can look at. I think the thing that I'm aiming for is how do we have that healthier debate between those that are questioning those numbers so that we exhaust that conversation. That's what I'm looking for.

And I too want to do that because I've looked at the rates in the schedule and I looked at the last time we did it and the numbers of 400 and 500% just don't make sense to me. And then I do the salary calculation. Okay, gas, it's an hour and a car at workers' comp and went crazy with all the numbers. And I just think that it's so comprehensive. Staff needs time to be able to do that. And I look forward to dialogue with other people that are in the trades

we heard from some tonight but i think there's others out there that would come back okay i'm going to call the question so we're going to vote on the um substitute motion all those in favor aye all those opposed motion passes unanimously and that will move on to item oh um we're over our our 5 30 time so i just kind of want to do a check-in with council in regards to think it's probably appropriate for us to do at least item 10 since it's connected and we've already had the presentation on it but i kind of wanted to get a sense from you all in regards to 11 as well i'm i'm good on all the time doing it now yeah just keep going i'm good on doing it now i'd like to start the seven o'clock at seven o'clock for the benefit of staff and the public for sure oh yeah okay no absolutely okay okay so we're going to power right through so we we had his other category we didn't even talk about it though on the pod doing that now okay

All right. I don't think I need a full presentation, but just as a reminder, this item is to amend the Resolution 26-071 to include new fees. That's a temporary pod, dumpster, minor sidewalk, parking area, temporary encroachment. The new category, minor permanent encroachment of 100 square feet or less. Traffic signal flash operations. Updating the permit and inspection descriptions and fees. And that includes kind of the reorganization of them. And then the new or the updated fee for a police subpoena fee. And that's it. Any questions?

Yeah, so what is the fee for a pod parked in a parking spot?

So we didn't have one traditionally. This would be a new fee category for the pod parked in a parking spot, and that would be $400. Oops, my phone went off. Yes, $416.

$416, and how long do they get to park in that space?

So I wrote down that question when we created the new category. I did not establish some sort of policy on an upper time limit, so that's something we'll have to look at in our Encroachment Permit Policies, but that's undefined.

Oh, okay. So we're approving of a new category.

A new fee category for a temporary pod dumpster that does not have some sort of policy on an upper time limit.

Okay. And that's the only fee that they would get charged?

Yes, if that's the only work they're doing, that's the only fee they'd be charged.

And what if they are renting that pod from a company? Does that company have to pay the city in anything, or it's just the homeowner?

It would be just whoever is dropping the pod on the street, so it would be just the homeowner. And the homeowner pays it, or the pod owner pays it? I don't think we distinguish who would be responsible. Sometimes we have contractors pull permits and pay the fees. Sometimes the homeowner does. I don't think we distinguish who's responsible, just that someone does it if there's an encroachment.

Okay. Maybe you don't have the answer tonight, but I wouldn't want to approve of this if it was one day. I would be okay if this was seven to ten days. I mean, but... There's some variables. And that seems like a better fee than was quoted to a resident of $1,000. I think the 486, you said?

416, I believe. Yes, 416.

So in theory, if you had a $48 parking ticket, it would have been paid by a resident who would have parked in that spot, and they were over-parked, and we gave that person a ticket, and we did that 10 times in 10 days, that seems like this is a fair replacement for what revenue the city would have had.

Mm-hmm. I'm sorry. I'm going to have to correct myself. It's 208 for the pod. I'm holding pages. I said, of course, it's 208.

It's just getting better all the time, Andrew.

Yeah, sorry. We're happier now. I have a very long table that I'm trying to connect.

Let's keep lowering it.

That's what they call the cats out of the bag.

That's right. Any other questions at this time? All right. Take it to the public. Folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item?

Wait, wait, wait. Follow the process.

hold tight hold tight anybody else in the chamber wish to speak on this hold on hold on hold on hold on anybody else in the chamber we should speak on this item okay so we have two takers anybody else we'll cut it off to the two in the chamber i'll do a countdown for folks on zoom to five four three two one and we have one on zoom please yeah again my partner rita painter she was quoted a thousand bucks by over the phone

from somebody in the corporate department she called the city. And so she store in the pot someplace else not very inconveniently for her mom and the sister who are moving in right around the corner from you are spare. Thank you is the one that painted yellow. Park in front of her house someplace house is just a random question I know I think is the second house over.

Yeah, but you let him charge put it in your driveway for less money.

yeah i'll take it why not make a little make a little something something on the side just i'm not actually doing that so for the record it was not just a joke not to beat a dead horse about it but when you do a sewer ladder on the street i'm typically opening up a four foot by six foot area in the street it sounds like it is a minor sewer lateral or a minor encroachment permit fee so if it was that 461 i'd be good with it

Okay, and then we'll go to our public commenter on Zoom.

Mr. Hoyer, you can go ahead.

This is Rick Hoyer, resident of City of Monterey. I guess, how do we get $200 worth of staff time? A pods, people come out, drop the pod off on the edge of the street. How are we coming up with 200 some odd bucks of cost to the city for that? Are you talking about potential lost revenue for parking tickets? My understanding is what you're looking at is what is hard cost to the city, potential revenue loss isn't. So how much staff time is spent when pods comes out and drops off a pod and two days later comes out and picks it up and leaves? It doesn't make sense.

Okay. And with that, we'll go ahead and close public comment and just pass it back to staff to see if there's any thoughts on the questions that were posed. Sure.

I could answer the question with the pod staff time. So there's a half hour for our building admin to intake the application. There's 15 minutes of an engineering assistant staff time. And that's essentially to ensure that it's not parked right next to a driveway or an intersection or on a curb or sight lines would be an issue. For a fire rider. or a fire hydrant. It's a quick engineering check, so that's 15 minutes. And then there's a half hour for an inspector just to do a drive-by. And so that's all the staff time that's estimated for a pod review. Again, I think that's maybe lean. If anything, it doesn't consider if there was an issue or it was a sight line where there'd be a repeat application or a revised middle, I think all these estimates are actually conservative.

And Mayor, for the other question about the pods and the time issue, I'd like our Community Development Director to come up and talk about the process, how that's determined.

I don't know how much you remember for an appeal we had probably about a couple years ago regarding this specific issue. And what we sort of resulted from that is on the application, the applicant specifies how long they want the pod. And then based on the review of the location, sometimes that impacts the review. So, you know, sometimes it's only out for a day. Usually it's two days minimum, a day there and a day pickup. But a lot of times it can be there for a week. It can be there for a more extended period. So we allow the applicant to tell us. what they want, and then our teams, mainly public works team, can review if that's appropriate based on the proposed location. And there was an appeal that you heard, maybe not this group, but it wasn't that long ago, there was a fairly lengthy public hearing on this item.

Okay. Thank you, staff, for the additional info. Bring it to the council for motion and deliberation.

So we, oh, we need, I'm super sorry to interrupt. I just have a special request to be added to the resolution. Some, um, sorry about effective dates. No, it's, it's, I would anyway, thank you for the time. So the ordinance that you just passed in the last item that will become effective November 5th, and that triggers a series of other dates. So. if the resolution could reflect if this is approved that the the items that are at full cost recovery um that will be effective november 16th if they're building and planning encroachment type related the subpoena change will be effective immediately for the five that are not at full cost recovery those will not be effective until january 4th 2027.

Is there a reason why it has to wait so long for January?

Yes, because the subsidy ordinance that you just passed won't be effective until November 5th, and then those fees can't go into effect for 60 days.

Oh, okay.

So there's a time limit on that.

There's a time limit.

Okay. Okay. I'm going to make a recommendation, make a motion to approve staff recommendation.

Okay.

Is it moved and seconded? Any other discussion? All right. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. And with that, we're going to move to item, our public appearance item 11 is to approve a minor sidewalk repair pilot program, authorize a finance director to appropriate measure S fund, award a job order contract in the amount of $1 million to Precision M Prize. llc and dba precision concrete cutting for on-call sidewalk repair project and direct staff to bring forward a major sidewalk repair pilot program at the second council meeting in december that'll pass it to dante for staff introduction thank you and i'll let our public works director uh provide this presentation

Good evening, Mayor, Council members. I just have a very, very short presentation. And just recapping, we had a presentation on September 1st about the alternatives that address sidewalk repairs. And we're here tonight for Council approval for the following items. Approving a minor sidewalk repair pilot program. appropriation of measure us funds awarding a job to contract to precision and price and directing staff to come back with a major repair program at the second meeting in december and i'm sorry i'm just going to check on the presentation sorry thank you Thank you very much so again, this is funded my measure pns and this is approving the minor sidewalk repair pilot program it's a three year pilot program 500,000 per year staff will return when major sidewalk repair pilot program on the second meeting in December for Council approval. Okay, I can just keep going. So right now we have roughly 2500 locations that need minor repairs. So thank you Clementine. This is just basically slicing. And once more inspections are performed, then more locations will be identified before these 2500 locations, we estimate that it will be about $280,000 for the minor repairs. Thank you. And these are again the priority areas and benefits to the property owners. This improves also pedestrian safety and accessibility. It is a highly cost-effective and fiscally sustainable method of addressing these minor faults of the sidewalks. and the majority of the sidewalk defects as we talked about on december 1st are minor and this does have a low administrative burden once contracts are signed and we can mobilize the contractor this is something that can happen quickly and again we'll come back on a second meeting in december to present a major sidewalk repair program this is the end of the presentation i can answer any questions

Awesome. Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and... I'm gonna make a motion now because I wanna be able to get public comment on it. And I will articulate to the public and the council that I know there were some confusion in regards to where we left off on this item at the end of last meeting. And so I reached out to Rick Hoyer with the Taxpayers Association to try to better understand where the gap was between where we left off and where we were trying to get to. So I'm gonna go ahead and make a motion to approve staff recommendations number one through four and modify staff recommendation number five to approve a pilot program that includes a 50-50 cost sharing and a subsidy for the associated fees for major repairs and sidewalks funded by measure S with specifics on program implementation to be adopted at the second meeting in December of 2026. Second. All right, it's been moved and seconded. We can now open it up for questions. Any questions? All right, with that, we'll go ahead and open up for public comment. For folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item, just ask that you stand up to the left of the podium. We have three takers. Anybody else? We'll cut it off to the three, and 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 in the chamber.

Kevin Dayton speaking as Government Affairs Liaison for the Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce encouraged you to vote for this pilot project and for the plans for the meeting in December to talk about funding of major repairs. Our interest in this, we believe that measure S renewal is important for the city and economic development. We figure that tourists and people looking for possible conferences here and military officials thinking about what basis to cut. You know, we want to make sure that when they come here that the streets and sidewalks are in good shape. And in fact, people talk about how quality of life and community character is an important part of what brings people to Monterey. We want to make sure that when people come here to see the city, that the sidewalks and streets are appropriate. and well maintained we also note that this has come up because some people are concerned about measure us spending and they would like to have you know spending done on sidewalk repair and residential properties we hope that all the groups and individuals who are talking about that and demanding that in exchange for supportive measures take this seriously and hope they'll join the chamber in supporting it thank you

Thank you, Kevin.

I just want to confirm my disbelieving ears. So I think what I heard was that now it's going to be a 50-50 split on the major repairs starting whenever tomorrow. If a demand letter comes to somebody like Mr. Roja talked about at the previous meeting, $28,000, the city will pay for 50% of it. So if you can clarify that just to make sure that's the case. bravo you're spot on okay great super that's that's a great move forward um i actually just turned in an nip nomination form late last week to supply a pot of money to backfill the other share of sidewalk uh repairs for citizens so that hopefully if that got approved then that would mean 100 through nip plus the measure s funds for sidewalk repair so there wouldn't be any out-of-pocket expenses to the residents so thank you very much i think it's a smart move and hopefully measure s passes thanks tom

Good evening, Tom Raleigh, Vice President MPTA. Would you please clarify this item when we finish here? But anyway, I understand you're making a commitment for the alternate two now rather than December. Is that correct? That's correct. That's all I want to know. You'll hear from Rick Hoyer. Thank you. Thanks, Tom.

With that, we'll go to our public commenter on Zoom.

You can unmute and go ahead, Mr. Hoyer.

Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, my name is Rick Correa. I'm president of the Monterey Peninsula Taxpayers Association. I applaud your motion, as you know, and we supported the previous two instances of Measure S. We had concerns over sidewalks, particularly since we've had two cycles or eight years' worth of all the city-related ones being fixed, and Measure S proposed would include fixing sidewalks. i think this measure this motion as presented would allow us to get behind measure s and support it uh because it's making a commitment tonight not a nebulous one in in december but you got yes there's details that have to get worked out but you're committing tonight to do the 50 50 cost share uh thank you mr mayor for your motion i hope that clarifies our position

Thank you, sir. All right. I think we only had, was it only the one? I saw two hands. Perfect. Okay. All right. With that, we're going to go ahead and close general public comment. Bring it back to the council. Any last minute comments quickly here?

Is there a limit of 2,500 or is the limit gone away?

I think that was what staff had originally proposed, but that was what we're going to figure out those details in December. I think that's how staff's going to present it. but I think we're good with what we have just because all parties have agreed to the motion that has been presented tonight. So I think I would just ask the council to, let's just get this across the finish line and the details of it. If you have questions on it, maybe talk to staff in the interim, but we'll figure that all out in December and finalize that then.

Well, if the decision... I like it. I'm going to vote for it. I think it's critical that if we're making a commitment to a 50-50 split that's unlimited, we acknowledge that, or there's a cap on it. I mean, that's a financial piece.

So what I will say is that when I talk... with Rick, and I apologize for speaking for you, Rick, here, but my understanding is that there wasn't an issue with the $2,500 cap. There was no issue with the $2,500 cap, so I believe that's what staff's going to be presenting to us when it comes back.

Okay, so I think we need to have heard that and acknowledge that and absorb that. I'm fine. I would vote either way, but if it's $2,500, I'm fine with it.

Any other comments? It's just the other comment is, it's a real quick question. I know staff will have to go and prepare for going out to bid. And it's not, it can't be the same bid that we're using for the miners because I understand they don't do that kind of work. So there is a lot of things the city has to do. So if anybody's asking questions, why can't we start this now? There are a lot of details that have to come back to us in December, but we are committing to do minors and majors with a different approach for the approach of use of Measure S funds. Thank you, Mayor.

All right. With that, I'm going to go ahead and call the question. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you for that lengthy discussion. With that, we're going to get ready to adjourn for closed session, but I want to take public comment on closed session agenda items. So we have conference with legal counsel on various litigation. The list is published. Yeah, I'm just sorry. And then And then we have conference with legal counsel, existing litigation pursuant to government code section 54956, tack 92E3, receipt of a government claim from Danny Clark. I can't tell if that's separate or if that's part of this... yeah perfect perfect um okay with that open up for public comment for folks on zoom you can use the raise hand function while you're navigating it right there i'll check in the chamber i see only one taker so cut it off in the chamber to the one and i'll do a countdown for folks on zoom to five four three two one nobody on zoom mr raleigh yeah tom raleigh uh

President of the Fisherman's Flats Homeowners and Residents Association, I attended the court hearing on item number eight on your list today. It's unfortunate that this was never really discussed when the city put in its program to the state as a buffer 50 acres which is landlocked. There's no current access to it. Judge Wills was reluctant to hold the hearing that he held on this lawsuit because apparently there was something that was supposed to be submitted by one of our stellar law firms that was received late by the city. and it would have been nice if the city had said well we'll still hear what the complaint is but the city fought it all the way and basically my understanding is judge will said you were too late we can't count your arguments why this is not an appropriate buffer 50 acres at tarpey flats on the east end of tarpey flats next to the 60 some acres that was obtained recently by the local indian tribes so right now that 50 acres has been recommended by the 711 committee of the mpusd as to be surplus property it's not accessible it would be very expensive to try and develop it and it's quite frankly in my opinion not appropriate for buffer property but judge wills i understand did not really rule on this he it was a very he listened to it for half a day and he was very very patient So anyway I'm disappointed that the result with this case and that this was included in the submission that the city made it was never really discussed by this planning by this in detail by the planning commission or by the city council before it was submitted. to and i've watched this very carefully and it as far as i know it was never discussed in depth by the city council before that was stuck in the housing element which was then later approved by the state so this is just not appropriate for a buffer property for anything it has no services it would be mega mega billions to put their services out through that lot thank you

right with that we're going to go ahead and adjourn to closed session thank you everybody um reconvene in today's council meeting for our evening session give me one second here something's going on with my computer here we go um yes and with that we will turn to dr barber to lead us in the pledge of allegiance

Ready? Begin.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Dr. Barber. And with that, we'll open up for general public comments. This is an opportunity for folks to speak for non-agendized items. So if it's on today's agenda, this is not the time to speak. This is for non-agendized items. How the public participation process works is we identify folks at the beginning of the public comment period. Once those folks are identified, we will cut it off, and then only those folks will be able to speak. So if you try to identify yourself after the cutoff, you will not be able to speak, but everybody has an opportunity to do so. So just make sure that you identify yourself at the beginning of the public comment period. We're gonna start with folks on Zoom. For folks on Zoom, you can navigate your way to the raise hand function. While you're navigating your way there, I'll check in the chamber. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak for general public comment? We have one taker. Anybody else? All right, we'll cut it off to the one. And then I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. And we have one on Zoom. We'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, Luis Osorio. It's election season and there's a bunch of interesting things happening. One of them is the candidate forum last week. I attended the forum and found it interesting that all non-incumbent candidates claim to have the silver bullet to resolve the city's structural budget deficit, like most candidates in the last 20 to 25 years have claimed. Also interesting is the story on the weekly on August 27th about the candidate running against the mayor. The story quotes the candidate as saying, our current leadership has failed us. The story tells that the candidate who previously practiced dentistry had his dentistry licensed, suspended for 30 days, and was placed on probation for seven years after agreeing in a settlement agreement to resolve accusations of sexual assault by his assistant and accusations by a patient of inappropriate sexual comments and touching during medical procedures. The candidate played $15,000 in fines and had to complete community service. This according to the weekly. So in a flashy ad in the weekly also last week, probably trying to save face, The candidate reduces all of these to a, quote, professional licenses disagreement. He does not mention that such settlement agreements are usually entered into among many factors to avoid having damaging details come out during the trial. Everybody has a right to make amends on wrong actions during their life. As such, the candidate gave up dentistry apparently and went on to open casinos in Nevada. His applications were denied when he failed to demonstrate adequate business competence and failed to disclose significant number of important items such as lawsuits, foreclosure, business interests, and the like. At the forum last week, he called those trying to find details about his past a swamp. At a meeting with the public at the former train station, he stated that, quote, you cannot run a community like a slush fund because there is a bunch of wackos. Now we find out that a local woman has requested a restraining order against the candidate because quote, she is afraid of retaliation and harm. I find all these very interesting in an election season. Thank you.

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

Yes, we've got one telephone caller and you can unmute and go ahead.

Good evening. This is Nina Beattie. I'm sure you've seen the news. Hormuz and Red Sea Straits are essentially closed, controlled by Iran and Yemen, and the Saudi East-West pipeline was blown up by unknown parties in multiple places. Oil and gas and fertilizer deliveries have already been impacted for months, and I understand that diesel is now double what it was last year. That means shipping food, goods, filling grocery stores, and supplying our local restaurants is challenging um we had a much depleted car week i couldn't believe how few cars there were in town and labor day cloud crowds just didn't really materialize around here we're having rising prices of everything and less availability fewer people traveling here and our area's chief industry is tourism you are seeing the consequences to the illegal attack on iran which has not been called out by local authorities and the relentless name-calling and demonization of other countries by U.S. officials and the Pentagon, including those here in Monterey. The Navy carried out many of those attacks, and our president did this in his decisions, helped by previous presidents and our congressional representatives. The Navy just murdered and wounded people at an Iranian wedding party. At least four people killed and 67 injured, and it's likely the Navy pulled the trigger that killed the schoolgirls at Minup. with language training of soldiers here at DLI to incite and train mercenaries and dissidents to overthrow other sovereign countries. What's wrong with us? What's wrong with this city that it doesn't look to the blowback here and how the military's aggression is harming Monterey residents and people throughout the world? And now we have an announcement that there are weapons in space by the US. In April, physicians, primarily psychologists and psychiatrists, sent a letter to Congress calling on them to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office. But can they do that for the other people, the people in the Pentagon, especially those we've been widely reported who believe in Armageddon and say it's no big deal if we have a nuclear war? American exceptionalism is just another name for ultra-nationalism. Next week is the equinox, that day twice a year in the spring and the fall where everyone on earth is the same distance from the sun. It's historically been in ancient times considered a day of power. How much powerful does it get? Then people worldwide can literally and figuratively be on the same page at the same place. And that place has to be relationship, respect, communication, deprogramming from years of propaganda from our governments, honesty, humility, openness, and care. These people worldwide are our relatives near and far. There is one person or one living creature that isn't our relative and I ask the city to start acting like it and kick the Pentagon to the curb in Monterey. Finally, Marina Tonight is considering a moratorium on data centers. Please join Monterey Park that has already adopted a ban on

on data centers and bring this before the election in the april election thank you and then with that we'll go ahead and close general public comment thank you for those that shared um with the public today at this point we're going to go to announcements from closed session thank you mayor

On the matter of item number nine on the agenda, Richard and Mildred Zelinskas versus the City of Monterey, on a unanimous roll call vote, confidential direction was given to legal counsel. On item number 10, John Alexiao versus City of Monterey, workers' compensation matter, on a unanimous roll call vote, Confidential direction was given to legal counsel. On item number 11, Goudens-Panholzer versus the City of Monterey workers' compensation matter on a unanimous roll call vote, confidential direction given to legal counsel. And finally, on conference with legal counsel, existing litigation discussing the receipt of a government claim by Danny Clark, also on a unanimous roll call vote, confidential direction was given to legal counsel. All the remaining items on the agenda were not heard or considered.

Thank you, Chrissy. And with that, we will move on to our public hearing item for today. Item 13 is to adopt the fiscal year 25-26 CAPR and authorize submission to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. With that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff introduction.

Thank you, Mayor. And I'm going to turn to Jacob Barania, our housing analyst, to provide the presentation today.

Good evening, Mayor Williamson and City Council members, thank you for having me here today, my name is Jacob Rania and I'm an HCD coordinator with the city of Monterey's housing division. And we will be presenting or I will be presenting this evening on the CDBG consolidated annual performance evaluation report, also known as the caper for fiscal year 2025 to 2026. The purpose of the caper is to report the city's progress in meeting Community development block grant housing and Community development goals it's a summary of the year's program funding and it's due to hud on September by September 28 of each fiscal year. The next two slides will provide a more detailed preview or overview of the annual CDBG program timeline, starting with the annual action plan. The action plan process starts usually in the previous fiscal year with the release of the NOFA in late October to early November. Other key dates include May 1st, which is when our annual timeliness test is, and I'll go into a little bit more detail on that in a further slide, as well as May 15th, which is when our annual action plan is typically due to HUD each fiscal year. The next portion of the timeline covers the period leading up to the CAPER submission to HUD, which is due by September 28th of each fiscal year. The caper notice was published in the local newspaper on August 27th, and the caper was made available the same day for review and public comment on the city's website and at the following locations listed on this slide. For fiscal year 2526, the city received approximately 1.5 million in available funds, which includes both our entitlement amount for fiscal year 2526, program income that was received by the city and funds that carried over from the previous fiscal year. For the city's public service program the city provided grant funds to the following agencies in a total amount of 179,808 public services primarily serve low income populations, including funding for people experiencing homelessness seniors disabled and youth programs. The city's purchase and resell program provides home ownership opportunities to low-income first-time homebuyers by purchasing and reselling inclusionary units. The city rehabilitated one unit in fiscal year 25-26, and the city was able to sell two units that were rehabilitated in prior fiscal years. This slide has one of our units at 820 Casanova that was rehabbed through the purchase and resell program this past fiscal year. For planning and administration, the city expended approximately $39,000. This includes administrative costs for quarterly desk monitoring, annual onsite monitoring, and completing NEPA environmental reviews. In total, the city has expended exactly $525,761.95 for fiscal year 25-26. The next slide goes over the CDBG timeliness test that I spoke about, which is an annual evaluation by HUD to ensure entitlement grantees spend their federal funds efficiently. This usually requires that the city must not have spent greater than 1.5 times its annual grant amount remaining in available funds by May 1st of each fiscal year. The city has passed the timeliness test in previous fiscal years, however. In conclusion, our recommendation for this evening's presentation is that city council adopts the fiscal year 2526 caper for the CDBG program and authorizes submission to HUD. This now concludes my presentation and I will pass it over to city council for comments and any questions.

Thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Opening up to council for questions. Please, Dr. Barber.

Thank you for that presentation. You were talking about, was it the rehab and purchase program that you had showed the pictures of? How many participants have participated and have actually gone into purchase since 24? Do you have an idea?

There has been two units, and thank you, Dr. Barber, for the question. There's been two units that have been sold and then there has been one unit that is in the process of being purchased.

Okay. And so how many more units would we have available to rehab and put into purchase?

There's currently two units that are being rehabbed at this time that we are expecting to sell in the next fiscal year.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Any other questions? We received public comment, and so I was just wondering if you could speak to that. I can go question by question, or I don't know if you have those top of mind questions. I think the main one was around the $1 million that wasn't spent in programming.

Of course, yeah. Let me pass it over to my Community Development Director, Kim. Thanks, Jacob.

So the primary question raised by the public comment was that the city has over a million dollars in the bank and why haven't you spent it? And we've been accumulating money in that account and the council approved in the action plan for this year that we could spend $1.5 million towards a loan to the Midpen Housing Project behind City Hall. And that was our plan and it was purposeful to sort of accumulate that money and then to spend it in the near term. What we found out about a month ago is that based on the multitude of funding sources that MidPen has been able to acquire to build the project, that the federal requirements for our CDBG money would change the project financing. And so what you'll hear on the second item tonight or just the next one following up is that we're pivoting to housing successor agency money. So we purposefully accumulated those monies and we were intending to spend them until we found out this new nuance. It will have implications over the next year and the following fiscal year as we try to figure out a way to spend that money and what the appropriate projects are.

Awesome. And then the next part of the questions were related to... the goal of assisting six households and we only assisted two. And so speaking to, I guess, why we couldn't reach our goal.

Yeah, so that's always a guess every year. It's how many units we actually sell. And it's based on, quite frankly, people live out their lives in our low-income units. It's usually two to three that turn over a year. Some years are more, some years are less. So I think we put a goal for six and we were actually able to sell two units.

And then the next question is related to homelessness and just trying to better understand why there was an uptick in the city of Monterey. even though they recognize that it was a point in time count, like why we saw uptick in the city of Monterey where the rest of the county saw a decrease.

Yeah, we're seeing two things that are sheltered populations increased because we do have new homeless shelters in the city of Monterey and in the unsheltered category as well. And I guess what I can say is we're just continuing to look at this number trying to figure out what's causing it. And I think this is, you know, going forward sort of a touch point for us that we need to do more work. in the homeless arena. I don't have an answer about why there are more people in this point in time than the past, other than we have additional shelters. So that explains the sheltered population.

Thank you for that. And I think the last question is just related to some items that seem to be inconsistent with each other. And the example that they gave is that there's a reference to market rate housing being affordable to moderate income households at 20% of AMI, which doesn't match.

Oh, that was a mistake. We should have had. And so that was where we're going to need to correct that number, the 80% versus 120. Okay.

Okay. So that was something we need to fix. Perfect. Perfect. And that's something that can be done administratively, regardless of us doing the approval today. Perfect. Okay, all right, with that, let's thank you both for the presentation and answering those questions. To get out to public comment for folks on Zoom, you can use the raise hand function. While you're navigating your way there, I'll check in the chamber. Anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item? All right, seeing none, we'll go ahead and do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. We have one on Zoom, we'll go ahead and take the caller.

esther you can unmute and go ahead thanks good evening everybody um i have i have two things i want to say but um i want to mention real quickly um since the homeless uh numbers were brought up and that um in this last point and count time we rate our homeless numbers went up But our 2 neighboring cities that are adjacent to us, their numbers went down. So, it stands to reason that those people that left the seaside and PG came to Monterey and bumped us up. I don't think that that's a stretch to figure out. I'm not sure what efforts are being made in those two cities. It might be worth asking staff, you know, in those two cities how they got their numbers to come down or what the incentive was to come over to us that raised this up. But regarding the rehab units that are available or coming available, I'm asking if maybe the staff can take a few minutes to explain how people can apply to qualify for those units that are coming up and where we can go to find out more about those units. If somebody is looking for a condo, they don't need to look into a unit that's a townhouse and vice versa. So finding out a little bit more information about the type of units that are available and might be coming available. so that the public can take the time to look at it decide if they you know want to look into qualifying and then if we could understand the process would be helpful thank you all righty with that we'll bring back to the council for motion and deliberation

I guess the process part, I just was going to see if he could address that before we did that.

Thank you.

Of course. Thank you, Dr. Barber. So the process for applying for the purchase and resale or first time home buyer program would usually be coming into our office in order to fill out an application and submit an application. They could pick one up during regular business hours and fill it out at their own leisure, and then they could submit it to staff based on what they're kind of looking for within our affordable housing stock.

Thank you. Can I ask one question?

Let's let Dr. Barber finish and then I'll pass it over to you. Well, you can go ahead because I was actually going to make a motion. Oh, we'll go ahead and make the motion and then we'll go to her.

So I move that we accept and approve the CAPER report received today. Second.

Okay, so moved and seconded. And Councilor Rush.

So Jacob, on the report Page eight of, it doesn't give any credit for the number of households supported through rental assistance. Is it, there's, I mean, we're helping people with rental assistance, so where would that get factored? Is it just a break in the year?

uh thank you for the question councilmember rash so the rental assistance program is a program that is separate from the cdbg program and it's funded through uh general funds versus cdbg funds so that's why it wasn't factored with into uh this uh keeper report okay correct all right thank you any other

All right. Call the question. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. And thank you again, staff, for the work on that. I know that's a heavy load, so we appreciate the efforts there. All right. With that, we'll move to our public appearance item for the evening. Item 14 is to receive a project update, amend fiscal year 26-27 city budget to authorize $1.5 million from low and moderate income housing asset funds to MP Madison Street Associates LP as a loan to construct an affordable housing project located at 587 and 593 Van Buren Street and 424 and 450 Madison Street adjacent parking lot and area behind the building located at 546 Dutra Street and assign the permanent local housing allocation loan to MP Madison Street Associates LP. With that, I'll pass it to Dante for staff introduction.

Thank you, Mayor. I'll have our Community Development Director come and give this presentation or start it off and the accompanying resolution.

Thank you very much. We're excited to be here tonight. In many ways, this is a milestone for the affordable housing project that our City Council envisioned almost five years ago to be constructed behind City Hall. The City Council entered into an exclusive negotiating agreement several years ago with Midpen Housing. and they've been a great partner with the City of Monterey. And we have three members of their staff here that will help provide a project status update. I'd like to introduce Joanna Carman, Senior Vice President and Co-Head of Housing for Mid-Penn. gina harris the project man manager and carlos carlos verrado the senior associate project manager they're all here in addition there are two project architects on the project justin polly of justin polly architecture a local architecture firm justin's in the audience and paul davis of paul davis partnership is the second architect on the project For city staff, you have myself and Levi Hill. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to the Midpen housing team, who will give you a project status update. And that's the first part of the agenda. And then the second item are some administrative items regarding the loan for the project. With that,

Hi, everybody. Good evening. My name is Gina Harris. I am project manager from Midpen Housing on the Madison Street project. And I'm just really excited to be here today. It's been a while since we've last provided an official update. And like Kim mentioned, there's a significant milestones that we've reached and that we're coming up against. So I'm really excited to be here and celebrate with you guys. For those who are not familiar with Midpen Housing, we're a nonprofit affordable housing developer from the Bay Area. We develop as north as Sonoma County and as south as Monterey County here. And our mission is really ingrained through our residents. We provide quality, safe housing so our community members can have a foundation to thrive in our communities. So that is really at the core of who we are. and why we do this work. Some of you are familiar with our properties in the area. On the screen, you will see a few properties, family properties in our Santa Cruz County and Monterey County areas, namely the Van Buren Senior Housing Project. Wanted to point that out at the bottom right hand of your screen. That's just up the street. That's our senior housing project with 18 units that went into operations in 2018 here. So we are a neighbor here in this area. We do a variety of housing. So multifamily housing properties, permanent supportive housing, mixed use developments, as well as, you know, rural housing where we house special populations like farm workers. So we have a variety of units throughout all of our counties. So as Kim mentioned, these are your team members. They're here in the audience today. We're here to answer any questions you guys might have. And in the future, we're your people if you have any questions. And like Kim mentioned, our design team, really wonderful local architects, Justin and Paul's teams have done a lot of work here on this project, have been very involved here. And Justin is in the audience. If you guys have any questions on the design, he can help answer. So really quickly before we get into the project status update, just a refresher on Midpen a little bit deeper here. So within Midpen Housing Corporation, we do have our own Midpen Property Management Corporation. This is really an integrated piece of our properties. We have community managers and property managers who are there at the properties. doing day-to-day contact with our residents. They are the people who are maintaining the good relationships with our neighbors and with our partners once in operations. And then we also have a really amazing, hardworking maintenance facilities teams, asset management teams to ensure that our properties, again, have this quality to them. They're long lasting and we're sustaining those. And we really do become part of the community through our property managers. We also within MidPenn have the MidPenn Resident Services Corporation. So what's really special here is that we tailor our services, that we provide our communities based off of who's living there and what communities we're serving. So on the screen, you can see a few examples of types of programs we offer. Youth programs could look like afterschool programs or summer leadership programs. For our permanent supportive housing projects that looks like wraparound services in partnership with local service providers as well to fill in the gaps where we might see that there needs to be additional resources. So moving into Madison Street, just a refresher, our current site is located behind this building. You know, this has been a longtime city goal to refresh this area here. And it is an amazing area for housing, really close to amenities, to public schools, to the transit center, transit plaza. And it's also very close to our Van Buren Senior Housing Project. So we're familiar with this area as well. Just to give a project overview for folks. So we are proposing and we have planned for 42 units of affordable housing here. This is a mix between studios, one bedrooms, twos, threes bedrooms units here. The current rent ranges and household incomes you're seeing here, we're serving households that are 30% to 60% of the area median income. And then you're seeing our affordable rent ranges approximately here. This is based on 2026 rent and income limits. And we're really excited to partner with Monterey Peninsula Unified School District here at this property as well. We are going to house families with children who are students within the school district who are in precarious housing situations. So we do have some units set aside specifically for that as well. You might be asking yourself, where have we been for the past few years? We've been hard at work alongside the city here. Most importantly, I wanna highlight that we had submitted for SB 35 entitlements and received those entitlements earlier this spring with the assistance of the city. So I do wanna thank them for all of their hard work and dedication for getting us to that milestone. That was a really big push forward. On the financing side, we've been working on securing additional funds for the past few years. We also have funds from Central Coast Alliance for Health. But most importantly, and most recently, we have received a $30 million state award earlier this year, which allows us to begin construction this year. So this is a really huge milestone. And I just want to say we're really happy to report this and celebrate this moment here. And we will be starting construction this fall. We're also been working through getting ready for construction this fall. So we're submitted for building permits earlier this summer. We're working through plan check with the building department at this time. So appreciate all the work over there with the building department and public works, planning, et cetera. We're also working through our construction site logistics. We are directly behind you guys here. There will be an active construction site. So working through those logistics with our city partners and with our contractor block construction as well. So what you're seeing on your screen now is our site plan. This is pretty familiar to you, and not much has changed since probably the last time you've seen this, but to situate ourselves here, the north, the top of your screen, you're seeing Van Buren Street, and the bottom of your screen, you're seeing Dutra Street. On the left side of the site plan, you're seeing our residential housing, 42 units. These are three stories with a courtyard in the center. We also have our community room here and our property management and services offices. Those are on the left side. They'll be able to be entered into as well off of Madison Street. In the middle of the site plan, you see the 30 parking space parking lot for the city. Also with the trash enclosure at the bottom right-hand side of the parking lot, that trash enclosure is specifically for city offices, the surrounding city offices. We also have, it's really special here on the upper right hand side is the city public playground that we're building here. This is going to be a playground for the benefit of the surrounding neighborhood and community and families. So we've been working quite closely with Parks and Rec on this and really thoughtfully designed the play elements here. These are renderings that we currently have. I think they're really pretty. This is a really beautiful building. We've spent a lot of time going over design, ensuring this fits within the look of the surrounding area, the style of this area, the historical features, along with adding some modern accents here. Like I said, the architecture team is here to answer any specific design questions you might have. So going back to just upcoming milestones here, as I mentioned, we are looking at a construction start this year. We're working on our final sources, with our final sources at the state here. So it's looking like a late fall construction start. It says September, October on the screen. I would probably assume October or early November here. And on that, we would also be going through our construction loan closing, which includes signing of the DDA and the ground lease with the city of Monterey. For just a reminder, the DDA and the ground lease have been reviewed by city council in their final forms about a year or a little bit over a year ago. And we will be signing those at construction loan closing. We're looking at a 16 month construction schedule at the moment. So that puts a construction completion in early 2028. We have a projected application period start, which I'll mention on the next slide. So this is our final slide and the final piece I wanted to just touch base on today. And this is arguably maybe the most important piece is welcoming these folks home and these families to the units here once we're complete. This is a little bit information about how our application process goes. So we'll have an application period that opens up and then there's a lottery system. So the lottery system is randomized and prioritized based on preferences here and then we'll go through eligibility screening. Like I mentioned, those MPUSD units that we're working on, we'll do like a specific referral process with them. But for all other units, they'll go to the Slaughtery System. We typically go through the application period about a few months before construction completion. And the interest list at the very top of the screen is important here. So we will provide an interest list here along the...

Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Here, grab a seat, grab a seat, grab a seat. You okay?

Just for a second.

Why don't we take a Monterey 5?

reconvene from the break thank you everybody for your patience as we transitioned there um i understand that we were on the last slide so i think with that we'll bring it to the council for any questions at this time and well i actually have the second half of the second part of the um agenda this evening is um just a brief flashback in october of 2024 the city council authorized the development and disposition agreement and the lease And a provision of that document included a $1.5 million loan from the general fund to help construct the project. And the city's budget situation obviously has changed. We were looking at different funding options. And the proposal in front of you tonight is to amend the fiscal year budget for 26-27 and change the $1.5 million funding source from the general fund to the low and moderate income housing asset fund to construct the project. There's also a second there was a second item that we were looking at assigning a previous loan a plha loan we no longer need to do that so really the only action before you is to authorize amendment of the city budget and the allocation of the 1.5 million dollars from the low and moderate income housing fund and if you have any other questions i'd be happy to answer them thank you kim all right and with that we'll bring it to the council for questions please

Yeah, thank you. I'm good with the arrangement. I think it's a great thing. Previously, when we did the other project on Van Buren with the midpen, there were some former residents and very, very interested in trying to identify their community room. And there were some negotiations in terms of art and you know sharing is there a place in the future that midpen can do that again with this site because of the significance of uh dutra historical neighborhood as well as the first uh americans uh with the indian nations so that might be an opportunity for them to figure out what would go on the walls the signage of a room and some participation and certainly you know ribbon cutting when it gets to that

And the city will also have an opportunity to name a park. So I think there are some opportunities for interpretation, celebration, that we haven't gotten there yet. But I think there's some real opportunities to do that.

It's a ways away. It's not just about the former Monterey Jail that's on Doudra, which, by the way, has significant history. But we want to also include the rest of the neighborhood.

understand thank you thank you and ghosts uh if they are in existence yes it's questionable but yes it's questionable it's not a no i didn't say no any other questions all right seeing none thank you for the presentation we'll go ahead and open up for public comment for folks on zoom you can use the raise hand function while you're navigating your way there i'll check in the chamber anybody in the chamber wish to speak on this item i see one taker anybody else in the chamber Okay, we'll cut it off to the one. I'll do a countdown for folks on Zoom to five, four, three, two, one. We have two on Zoom. We'll go ahead and start in the chamber.

How's it going tonight? Alec Maness, candidate for District 2 City Council. Super excited to be here. Thanks to all the work that you guys have done. And, you know, to the project manager, I myself am a project manager for an affordable housing developer, and I know how much blood, sweat, and tears go into these deals. So a lot of work being done, not only at the project development portion, but working with the consultants, architects, structural engineers, soils engineers, there's a whole laundry list of stuff that needs to be done. So exciting time for the city, fully supportive of this project. It's been, you know, nearly eight years since we've had some meaningful affordable housing here in the city of Monterey. So exciting time. And just wanted to echo that these are the exact projects that I look to get behind and push forward if I'm elected. So, you know, again, appreciate the work. Great presentation. You know, thanks to you all. Thanks, Alec.

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

Esther, you can go first. Good evening again. I can't even begin to say how excited I am to see this finally coming to fruition. Those of you on the Council for a long time know that I was part of getting this going, and it wasn't really until Mayor Williamson got on the Council that it really finally advanced and moved forward. I'm hoping that the community gets behind future projects that we have hopefully in the pipeline on the three other potential properties for projects like this. There was so much excitement when this first came. The whole community came out. It was not a single objection. The design is beautiful. The concept is great. It's just wonderful and very, very exciting to finally see this. hopefully breaking ground soon. I just wanted to point out that you guys really should think about this El Nino coming and maybe you factor that in a little bit to potential setbacks in construction. Unfortunately, we have to think about that. So I think planning for it rather than waiting for it to happen might be a good idea. I'm hoping also that this project does not take as long as the Van Buren senior housing project took. Mid-Penn did that one as well. And I believe it took 12 years to get something like 18 units built. And from my understanding, Last year, there were still like a thousand people on the wait list for those 18 units. So hopefully we can do better than taking that long to make it happen. But regardless, thank you to staff for really staying on this. Thank you for the council for supporting it and just can't say enough about the excitement behind this. So look forward to more of it to come. Thank you.

Thanks, Esther. And our next speaker is Tom.

Hello. I hope the young lady is doing well, makes a full recovery. I'm excited about this project. I think it's the best location for a great project. I have a couple of technical questions people have been asking me about, so I'd like to hear answers for these. Parking, of course, being the main one. My understanding is there will be parking under the buildings. So could you recite for us what the net loss of parking will be? And then a corollary to that question is, will the residents in this be limited to the number of cars they can own so that we can have some assurance that the cars will actually fit within the parameters of this project. And my next question is something that I just thought of, given the presentation, which was an excellent presentation, by the way. You're working with MPUSD for referrals. What happens in the situation where you have referral from MPUSD and then that student graduates from MPUSD? What happens to their residency status? Can they continue to live on or are they given some kind of time limit that they need to progress to different housing? How will that work for those people? Thank you.

All right. With that, we'll go ahead and close public comment, bring it back to the council for motion and deliberation. Staff wanted to maybe answer those two questions. I will say we don't control how many vehicles people own, but having available on site, I think, is the question, how that process works as it relates to

allocating the available spaces sure and the net loss was part of the question as well yeah i'm not exactly sure on the exact number of the net loss there's a reduction in parking that's all allocated for the use of the city hall complex and for city parking uh the development itself actually doesn't have any required parking based on the sb35 permit path and the fact that it's located within a historic district so all the parking that is being retained is for city use And there is no parking underneath the building, it's proposed.

Thank you for that clarification. If we may be able to find out what the net loss is, and if we can maybe report that, have Dante maybe report that out. I can probably look it up now. Okay, perfect. And then the second question was regarding the MPUSD referrals, like what happens once those students graduate. It's a team effort today. I appreciate it.

Joanna Carmen, I co-lead our housing development team here at Mid-Penn. Typically on projects like this where we have a referral system, know that they do not need to vacate the unit once they've graduated or are no longer of school age. And the next unit that we have that comes available could go to this same program. So that's what we expect to happen here.

Awesome. Thank you for answering that question. And with that, bring it to the council for motion and deliberation.

I'll make a motion that we approve And I think I have to read this exactly right.

You can say staff recommendation. A staff recommendation. Second. Okay, perfect. We have a motion and a second. Any other discussion? Oh, yes. So I'm going to just clarify that there's been an amendment to what was... available in the agenda report. And so I'm just going to go through the changes. It's authorizing amending the fiscal year 26-27 city budget. And it's to change the $1.5 million funding source from the general fund to the low and moderate income housing asset fund. And then skipping to the end, it's just removing the and assign the permanent local housing allocation PLHA loan to Madison Street Associates. um there are some other changes that are outlined in the draft resolution that the council has in front of them so why don't you all just give me a thumbs up once you're you've had a chance to take a look at everything if there's any questions and that would be my motion yeah perfect perfect and then the secondary as well perfect yeah Got a thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up. All right. With that, we're going to go ahead and call the question. All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes unanimously. Thank you to all of our team members for the work that you've done to get us to this point, this really exciting opportunity. And we'll definitely be keeping an eye out for a save the date for the groundbreaking. If you're not there, you're missing out because it's going to be a big celebration. Yeah. thanks again everybody for for the work on that um and with that we will move to council comments i don't have any council comments you're good okay with that we'll move to city manager reports

Thank you, Mayor. I just have a couple. Staff has been really busy on a number of fronts. We have been working on the budget, and this first step for the budget roadmap starts with these budget brews and their drop-ins that we've advertised around the city in different coffee shops. We've had two so far. We have another one scheduled for later this month on the 29th at East Village Coffee at 8.30. And there have been opportunities for people to just show up. We've gotten some good response. I think we've been averaging probably about 15 people or so each time. And the goal is really to just provide information. Let's make sure that everybody understands and has the same facts. before they start kind of weighing in and asking questions about how government financing works and what were the drivers of the deficit and also providing information of, you know, suggestions for things that, you know, they had questions about the city And so those are going extremely well. Like I said, we have several of them. That's going to culminate to our budget workshops. And the first one is going to be at the end of September the 29th as well, but in the evening at the Hilltop Park Center in District 1. And like we gave the report to Council, we're looking at locations for these general public meetings around the city. And then we're going to have another additional one that's a virtual meeting for people who cannot attend any of the district meetings. And there we're going to be talking a little bit more in detail about priorities, talk about tradeoffs, talk about recommendations and different things. Again, we're going to culminate, combine all of that And at the same time, staff is going through their work, essentially, and we're planning to bring all of those back to the City Council early next year to talk about the priorities and moving forward in time and in alignment with our budget season process for the next fiscal year and projections for beyond. So there's been a lot of talk. There's been a lot of engagement at this at this first part. And I think staff is working hard and the community has responded. They want to talk about budget and they want to be engaged. And we're accepting all of that information. The next the other piece that I want to report on is this economic development strategic effort. and um we are engaging business associations um in talking about just swat analysis initially talking uh about strengths weaknesses opportunities a lot of good synergy talking about collaboration uh with the city we talked about um issues that they were concerned about we We again will bring all of that information to the City Council along with some recommendations about how to move forward again next year, early part of next year for City Council to consider adopting an economic development strategy. We have a number of, we met with the old Monterey Business Association. Initially, we have another meeting that is scheduled with a new Monterey to talk with them. And we have reached out to all of our business associations. So more to come on that, but it's going well. People are very responsive and providing us with some good ideas and some good synergy as we move forward.

I'd say continue to be impressed by your work here since being with the city. Obviously, I can imagine it's overwhelming trying to meet all these people and build the relationships with various stakeholders. But you're doing the work, and we just appreciate tremendously the efforts that you're doing to try to help us navigate all these really challenging issues and a lot of wants and needs. So appreciate your efforts. That brings us to the conclusion of our poll. winter storm ready town hall could you just share that with folks real quick as a reminder is that as we get ready for that yes and i forgot my flyer i got september 30 from six to seven thirty yes september 30th at the conference at the conference center right over so as was alluded to earlier As it relates to the Madison Van Buren project, we are going to be heading into a heavy El Nino season here. And so the city has made the efforts to throw this town hall together for the winter storm readiness. So please, if you are able and willing to attend that, we encourage folks to come out and participate so that we're all supporting each other as a community and being prepared for that American I echo that that's great information.

But if somebody just tuned in at the last part of that, where should they look to see that flyer at the city's website?

They can just look at winter storm readiness workshop and they can get the information there.

Beautiful. All right, everybody. Thank you so much. Meeting is adjourned. Have a good evening.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank