Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good evening. It's May 27th, 2026. Our regular meeting of the Murita Planning Commission is called to order. It is 6 p.m. Would the secretary call roll for determination of a quorum, please?

Thank you, Chair. Chair Vrooman.

Here.

Vice Chair Wojciech. Commissioner LaPaglia.

Here.

Commissioner Beamish. Here. Commissioner Rose. Here. Commissioner DeSena. Present. Let the record reflect, all commissioners are here with the exception of excused absence for Vice Chair Wojciech.

All right, this moves us on to the Pledge of Allegiance. Commissioner DeSena, would you be so kind to lead us? All right, now moving on to the approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda?

Seeing none.

All right, looking for a motion and a second to approve the agenda.

I'll make that motion to approve.

I'll second it. All right, we'll cast our votes when it comes on the screen. Now we do. It's got the mover as Commissioner Rose. Okay, so we need to change it. It was myself. Yes.

Let me go back. Do you see it now?

No, it's still the same. Still showing Rose instead of LaPaglia as the mover.

Unless it's easier for Commissioner Rose to make the motion.

I got that.

Okay.

Who's the second?

Myself. DeSantis is the second, which was correct on the screen. We just Okay, we have it now corrected to the mover being LaPaglia and second being DeSena, which was the original, so we'll just stick with that one. Let's go. All right, feels better. Cast our votes.

Motion carries unanimously, 4-0.

Okay, next item is public comments. At this time, we'll take public comments. Any person may address the Planning Commission on any subject pertaining to city business, which does not relate to any item listed on the agenda or the consent calendar. Normally, no action may be considered or taken by the Planning Commission on any matter not listed on the agenda. Speakers are limited to three minutes. Madam Secretary, do we have any non-agenda public comments?

Seeing none.

All right, thank you. So this closes our public comments. Let's move this on to our discussion item tonight. First discussion item is a proposed addition to the Capital Improvement Plan, or CIP, for fiscal years 26-27 through 2030-31 in conformance with the City of Murrieta General Plan 2035. And I'm looking for Looks like Mr. Mendoza, you're here to give us a staff report.

Yes, I am, Commissioner. Good evening, Chairman, Chair Vrooman, Commissioners DeSena, Rose, and LaPaglia, R.N. Mendoza, financial analysts with the Finance Department. Presenting with me tonight is Senior Civil Engineer James Ozaf, and we're here to present the proposed additions to the CIP program. from 26, 27 through 30, 31 as it relates to general plan 2035 conformance. We're gonna go through just quickly our CIP background, the new CIP projects, future actions, and the recommended action for tonight. The CIP is a long-range five-year planning for all individual capital improvement projects and funding sources. The plan also implements a funding plan for one-time non-recurring and reoccurring projects. The list of the proposed new projects will be presented to the City Council through a budget workshop on June 23rd, 2026. And the 19 projects with the corresponding general plan policies are also included in your agenda packet tonight as exhibits A and B. As required by government code section 65401, city staff has brought forward the proposed additions for the planning commission to review and report its conformity with the city's general plan 2035. On Tuesday, July 7th, 2026, the city council will hold a public hearing and the proposed CIP plan will be final and the budget will be adopted. Tonight, a total of 19 projects will be presented There are a total of 16 new and three annual CIP projects under five categories. Namely, there are two projects under the building category. This addresses and projects conform to the land use element and the example of these are to reduce infrastructure costs and make better use of existing and planned public facilities. The projects identified were the police department office updates, and the city hall first floor improvements. Next category is the other improvements category. There are eight projects that conform to the safety element of the general plan. It is to ensure that appropriate apparatus to provide emergency operations and fire suppression for mid and high rise buildings and large warehouses pursuant to the community risk assessment standards of cover. Projects identified are the tiller truck and approximately seven fire department apparatus replacement. Under the parks category, There are five projects that qualify for this category is to pursue the development of active recreation through improvements to parks and existing facilities, as well as the development of facilities in new parkland. The projects that were identified are three under the citywide tot lot replacements, the equestrian park maintenance phase one, and the citywide beautification of the parks and landscape. And lastly, the traffic signal category addresses and aligns with the circulation element to improve signal coordination and advance traffic management systems at major intersections. The project identified is the Clinton-Keith and Nutmeg signal modification. Lastly, The annual public works maintenance projects have three proposed projects that this commission has reviewed previously on an annual basis. The street and highway projects have been previously reviewed by the planning commission that it did conform to the city's general plan. There are approximately three asphalt resurfacing projects with slurry seal project and also the pedestrian safety enhancement project. As mentioned in an earlier slide, future actions include a workshop on May 23rd and a public hearing to adopt the capital improvement plan 2627 through 3031. And on July 7th will be the final adoption before city council. The recommended action before you is to adopt a resolution as a planning commission making a finding to the city council that the new proposed additions to the capital improvement plan fiscal years 2627 through 3031 are in conformance with the City of Murrieta General Plan 2035. Project managers and staff are available should you have any questions. Thank you.

All right, look to my colleagues, starting with Mr. Luccaglia. Do you have any questions of staff?

Sure. Thank you for the presentation. Could you pull up the first or second page that had the list of Uh, CIPs that we were, this one here. Yeah. So a fire department or two things, the tiller truck, um, that's like the, the, the ladder truck, right? Um, that's correct. Did we, did we purchase one from Pechanga already? Yeah.

So there is a reserve truck that was purchased from Pechanga, but there is one that is incoming. I have Division Chief Perez to explain further the purpose of the project.

Okay, sure. I remember last year or two years ago, Pechanga was giving us a good deal on one of their slightly used trucks.

Yeah, thank you. for this opportunity to explain it. That is correct. We did purchase a ladder truck, a tiller, what we call a tiller, a TDA, from Pechanga. It was an old apparatus they were putting in reserve status, and we had an opportunity to purchase it for a very good price. to use as a training truck. Currently, we don't have a tiller. They're very complicated to operate. So we took advantage of that and then to provide that training for our people prior to the arrival of our new tiller truck. So when it does show up, we're ready to put it in service.

Oh, cool. Cause I feel like I have seen it around town. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously have the operator in the back, you know, operating the rear of it. So, so we bought that truck and have trained on it and it's, it's I'm sure service some calls and things like that.

The idea is it's really not equipped at the moment to respond to calls. However, it's going to be an ongoing training vehicle for us. So as we onboard new employees, the lowest level of our employees, the firefighters, they're the ones that actually sit in the back and drive the tiller portion. So it's going to be a training tool that we hope to use for many years. Oh, good.

So we'll keep it in the fleet. And like you said, keep training with it and then graduate to the new training. Bright and shiny one.

Correct.

That we're getting. Okay. Yep. Cool. Um, and, and what exactly is like a, so there's seven fire apparatuses, like, um, I thought apparatus was kind of just like a vague term for, I don't know things, but what, what is that?

So they're, they're different types. So I'll kind of go down the list and keep it very simple. We talked about the tiller truck that obviously the, the noticeable thing is a ladder on top and that allows us to gain access to, you know, elevated buildings, roofs, and multiple floors. Uh, The other one is what we call a type one engine. That's the most common one that you see run around town. Its primary function, it's got a pump, carries water, and a lot of hose. They're the ones that respond and they're putting out the fires. We have medic patrols included in there. They're the smaller pickup-looking vehicles, quick response. They primarily run on the medical aid, so they're light duty. They can handle the increased call loads. And then the other one that you'll see in there is what we call a Type 3 or a brush truck. Those are... the short wheel base but very tall four-wheel drive looking vehicles and they're primarily designed to go in the foothill areas in the wildland urban interface, the wildland fires that we have here in town.

And do we own any of those type trucks right now or is that just primarily CAL FIRE that has those?

No, we currently have two that we own and then one that is actually owned by the state that we operate. All those vehicles that I just described are actually replacing current vehicles. I see.

I see. Okay. Cool. Awesome. Thank you for that explanation.

No problem.

Appreciate it. Mr. Mendoza, the equestrian center maintenance. I know a little bit about that, maybe a little bit more than I kind of want to know, but I have some friends that are pretty closely tied to that. Jack DeLemme being one of them that It's kind of been there since the beginning when it was privately owned, the city bought it, and then it's kind of like fallen into disrepair. I mean, like major, major disrepair. So what kind of maintenance, I think, what is it called? Yeah, phase one maintenance is like scheduled for that.

Yes. I have our management analyst, Crystal Aurora, to answer the details of those. Great. Thank you, Crystal.

Of course. Hi there, commissioners. Good evening. So we're approaching this in a phase one. So city council has actually formed a subcommittee that Kristen Crane and I are a part of so that we can see what their vision is moving forward for the equestrian center. But our main goal is to put a limit on the disrepair that has already started. So we're going to have the Adobe buildings there just monitored to see what extent of damage they've received, anything that we might need to address to keep them from further dilapidating, addressing any of the roof issues that you see there on the horseshoe barn around there and going along the building. So it's really just kind of taking a check mark of all the things that need to be done and then through the subcommittee process taking the next steps. So we don't have a full laundry list of everything that we want to do. It's kind of acquiring based on a different committee that we formed internally with staff of the things that we think would need to be done. So it's not necessarily to move forward with having anything too large to occur, but it's just the next steps.

Okay. So, so you just said that phase one is to kind of like evaluate like what, what's needed. And then I would assume to like prioritize and put a cost to each of those. So is there any money like allocated towards that yet? Or is it still just kind of like this?

So the phase one is, I don't have the exact number. It's around 750,000 is the, the projected number.

We currently are still evaluating the full cost prior to the city council workshop that I mentioned on June 23rd. So we will get back to you via email through Mr. Steele on the projections, but we welcome the commissioners to join and attend that meeting on the 23rd and also the 7th, as we will have a firmer more concrete, no pun intended, on the costs.

And that was June 23rd and July 7th? Correct. Okay. And I'm sorry, Miss, what was your name?

Miss Crystal Aurora. Crystal.

Well, I think maybe separately I could get in contact with you through Mr. Steele and maybe put you guys in contact with a couple of people that have just kind of known like the ins and outs of that, maybe help fast forward some stuff. I mean, just, you know, where utilities are located and, you know, how things are built or how things are not built. Because, yeah, I mean, I just, I wouldn't want it. I'd love to see that operating again and be a great amenity for the public, especially over here in Westside Marietta. But, you know, I think it could turn into a pretty big I don't want to call it a money pit because it's worth fixing, but you know, it could, it could be a big one.

That's what this evaluation is for to really see what we're looking at in the long run. Cause of course it's still a public park. People are still welcome to utilize it as such every now and then when you drive out there, you'll see folks using the corrals, but. again, it's sat there for a while and we really want to see.

Yeah. Well, just for the record, it would be great to see it thriving again, because I feel like it would have a lot of interest. It just, yeah, it needs definitely need some TLC. So happy that there's a subcommittee and you guys are working towards that. So thank you.

Yeah. Especially with the recent parks master plan that we passed. So we're starting to align with that as well to address those issues. Right.

And I think it's been used as like a, what do you call it? Like a, like a fire, like a,

Yes, it's for our EOC.

Rescue type storage place.

Yeah, animal shelter.

Animal shelter, thank you. Not storage, shelter.

So we open up our pipe corrals for folks in the area as an emergency shelter during fires.

Cool, great. All right, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Let's see. Okay, the city-wide beautification for parks and landscape, that's good to see. This is obviously just for all of our existing parks, or some of them. Now, how do we select which ones are getting which money?

I was going to defer to MSD with that question. Municipal Services Department, Mr. Bryce Wilson, our management analyst.

Okay.

Good afternoon, Commissioners. Hello. Right now it's a preliminary plan, but it is for the maintenance, the beautification of our landscape, so for all the public spaces. And so right now the plan is to create a plan to get started on trying to come up with a plan to beautify these open spaces.

It was identified as one of the city council priorities, so we are bringing it forward. Before it was a request at a prior council goal-setting workshop, so MSD is bringing it forward. We are hoping to kind of get the full scope and that cost down by the 23rd.

Okay. So here tonight, it's just kind of like, yeah, the idea of doing it and then evaluating it between now and the 23rd to put some numbers towards, you know. Correct. Okay. Okay, cool. Cool. Well, I think, you know, I mean, I've got three little kids and we're at parks all the time. So I love seeing, you know, some... some funding going towards that and making them nice because we have some beautiful parks and uh you know just like the equestrian center just like everything i'm helping the little league you know restore hunt park right now and it takes a lot of time a lot of you know what do you call it um you know labor and then of course some cash so um yeah appreciate that uh that's all i have chair thank you all right thank you commissioner rose i just had a quick question on the clinton keith's nutmeg

Is that a reprogramming of the signals, or is it the establishment of total different signals and stuff?

Our senior civil engineer could describe it in further detail. Commissioner Rose, thank you.

Thank you for the question. Currently, at that intersection, it's a... what I call a free left turn. So as you're coming south down Nutmeg and you're turning left to go east, it's essentially a free left. So anyone turning left has to yield to someone that's going straight. So with this modification, we plan to make it a protected left turn phasing as most signals are within the city. So this will improve signal coordination and also safety is a big factor.

Okay, thank you. It's not construction of different lanes or anything. It's just the modification of the signal system.

Correct, but we are installing a new pole and a new mast arm so that it can reach further and line up with the opposing traffic so there is a new signal that will be installed.

Okay, thank you.

I don't have any questions.

Commissioner DeSena.

I'm curious about that. I take that road quite often. I feel like I do have a protected left signal. Otherwise, because it does turn left with an arrow, is that not a protected left signal?

It's not a protected left. Yeah, if you see the little left arrow and not a green ball, that means you're supposed to yield to oncoming traffic.

Okay, fair enough. So I guess the question that I have is, what are we actually voting on tonight? I know that sounds ignorant, except for the fire department. That makes the most sense to me. But it sounds like there's not a lot of... information yet established.

So essentially, what's before you is making a finding that what staff's proposing is consistent with the general plan. And this kind of gets into what we'll talk about in the second item tonight, like sort of what the commission entails. So you're not really voting on the funding of these projects, whether or not you think they're a good project or not. It's really, do the projects align with the general plan? So the questions like Commissioner LaPaglia was asking about, you know, fire trucks and the beautification and the equestrian center, that kind of relates to, you know, the safety element and the open space element, right, which are parts of the general plan, right? And so how do those align? So that's kind of like where you want to address your questions. If you're not sure where these align with the general plan, that's what's in the staff report, and that's what staff can give you more information on. But essentially, the validity of the projects, that's really up to council. So it's really, do the projects align with the general plan or not?

Okay, sounds good. That was my only question, thanks.

All right, Mr. Mendoza, thank you for your presentation. I appreciate it. Good job putting this together. The landscaping, as Commissioner LaPaglia had brought up, was there... essentially basically to maybe replace landscaping, those type of things like that to reduce costs, ongoing maintenance costs, to find different alternatives. Is that kind of the bigger goal?

Yes. So part of the, we don't have the full details, Chair Vrooman, but as Mr. Wilson mentioned earlier, it's essentially they're assessing the current, PARKS AND LANDSCAPE SITUATION CITYWIDE, AND THEN IT WILL BE ESSENTIALLY, AS WE MENTIONED TO COMMISSIONER LEPAGUE, WE WILL ASK CITY COUNCIL ON JUNE 23RD HOW TO MOVE FORWARD WHICH AREAS TO PRIORITIZE AND COSTWISE. BUT AS OF TODAY, WE ARE STILL EVALUATING AND ANALYZING THAT PIECE OF THE PROJECT.

And would that include, like, center medians as well, too, as far as a beautification?

It's all public places, medians, like I said, all public places, landscaping, medians, hillsides, everything. So it's going to be part of our investigation and plan to move forward and try to come up with some consequences. And like I said, we're reaching out to landscape architects now to create a plan and to help us come up with a plan to do the whole city.

Sounds good. I know it's been talked about for years, but is there any plan within that plan, so to speak, to add some marquees or some entrance marquees in the city medium so you know when you come into the city of Murrieta? It's been talked about for years, but is that part of what would be incorporated?

Everything is on the table, so that's what we're looking to get from these landscape architects to help us create

something to to bring in when you just The flash and make the city when you come in it's going to be beautified it's going to be But yes, that's all part of it yeah because we've been talking about it for years that you know when you come in from Urieta to from Temecula or any other area cities and There's there's nothing that you know kind of a big welcome to it's just you see the city population sign and other cities have Incorporated that into their city medians or you know some of the common landscaping on the freeway overpasses Exactly exactly, you know you go in you go on the 15 freeway goes You know when you're in like else more because you see it on the on an overpass the same thing up in the Rupert Valley East they all those type of things like that, but to incorporate something like that when you know you're in Marietta because you you see something there. Okay, so that's been thought of and that's part of the plan. That will. Cool.

Everything is being investigated, so yes, it will be a part of the plan.

Okay, then one other, somewhat related too, because it was on this for last year, but I haven't really seen any changes, is we've had seemingly about an eight to 10 year street sign improvements basically adding the the blue and the white street signs with the reflective that it's a safety issue for our police and fire right so they can see it it's reflective at night time. And it's started roughly about 10 years ago and for the first few years they were chipping away at it replacing the street signs but haven't seen any movement in the last year to 2 years is that incorporated as a CIP it was before or is that moved into just other annual funding mechanism why it's not specifically listed on

Correct. So we didn't bring it forward as you were used to seeing our long 12-13 project annual list. It's been consolidated. Part of the city council's February 2026 goal setting workshop was consolidating and prioritizing. So municipal services, I'm speaking on behalf of Mr. Wilson and his department. We have identified that we do, they are moving forward with a street name sign replacement project. I believe that has already been considered for this upcoming year. So I am unsure of which locations or streets that it will be a part of, but it is already within the CIP as approved by city council back in June, 2025.

Yeah, I guess where I'm going with it is it's been in there for years. It just seemingly never gets done. Or I know of a couple neighborhoods that I know particularly that I've looked at for years that have not been finished. 0 way to get a status report is to work plan like a which ones are going to be swapped out or when when's this going to be complete.

We we can get back to you and we'll ask our project managers within MSD municipal services. As Mr. Crawford on that but will get to you through through Mister Steele yet give you some update on that.

That would be great because it like I said I think this started back in 2016 and it's still still going. And so I think originally it was designed to be about a five year project and it would be done and here we are at 10 years. So we'll get chair room. OK, that's that's the only thing that I have. So with that, just looking for a motion in a second public comment first.

Oh, sure.

Absolutely. Oh, public comment. That's right. That's right. Madam Secretary, do we have any public comments?

Seeing none.

Then that will close our public comments, so I'll bring it back around and looking for a motion and a second.

I can read the recommendation for you, Chair, if that pleases the Chair.

That would be great.

Recommendation is to adopt a resolution of the Planning Commission in the City of Marietta, California, making a fine in the City Council that the new proposed additions to the Capital Improvement Plan for fiscal years 26-27 through 30-31 is in conformance with the City of Marietta General Plan 2035.

I will make that motion.

What's that?

Oh, thank you.

There we go. We have a motion by Commissioner LaPaglia and a second by Commissioner DeSena. Register our votes.

Motion passes unanimously, 4-0.

Thank you, Chair and Commissioners.

Thank you. Appreciate the presentation and the goals moving forward. Very much appreciated. All right, which brings us on to our next item, which is our workshop. It's our Planning Commission Training and Workshop on Community Functions, or Commission Functions, the Public Process, Public Record Act Request, Ethics, and the Brown Act and State Law. It looks like we have Mr. Ramaya and Mr. Steele.

Back down the well. Yeah, we're in for a good one. Yeah, so we're taking advantage. We need to have a meeting for the CIP. This is kind of like a, I guess we'll call it sort of a biannual training that we've been doing. The last time we did this was two years ago. Some of this may be familiar to, at least as we get into the first part of the meeting, it will be familiar to the chairman and Commissioner LaPaglia. But it's new for Commissioner Rose and Commissioner DeSanta. We haven't covered this information with you before other than when we brought you on as commissioners, you know, we had individual meetings with you. It's good to do this in the public forum and kind of like have a refresher on what the commission does. So tonight we have Martin consent is a sense of what's with us who's filling in for all you he'll be hailing his part for the dice if you're my deputy director here next to me and I'm your city planner, Carl Steele. So we'll do a bit of an overview. It's kind of, it's broad reaching. We do this on purpose. We want to give you an opportunity to talk about things if you have questions about sort of like what the commission does. We kind of were getting into this towards the end of the last meeting. The chairman had some questions. So this is free for you guys to ask questions. Feel free to stop us while we're talking if you have questions. But we kind of want to talk about What does the commission do? What's the role of staff? Our public process. City attorney will help a bit with Brown Act and the meetings and how public records can get requested, which can be concerning. So it's a good thing to talk about. And then... Deputy Director Ramaya is going to talk a bit about sort of next steps in our sort of partnership together between staff and the Commission and City Council, what's coming up with the housing cycle, and a little bit more about state laws. We had a workshop a couple months ago about the new state laws. There's more work that Sacramento is doing, unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it. And so Deputy Director Ramaya is going to talk about that. So I'll try to quickly hop through these. As I said, a couple of commissioners are somewhat familiar with this, but... So your planning authority, it's built into the federal law. It's also in the state constitution. So you have the ability as the commission to set essentially land use within our jurisdiction. Your specific authority obviously is in our development code. It's in our municipal code. As you know, just for the public's sake, you're appointed by the city council. your job is essentially to represent the residents of the city. You all possess knowledge of the community, as you kind of already illustrated in the previous item. You all have different views as being members of the community. You're part of different organizations. Some of you actually formerly worked for the city, so there's really good experience there. You're tasked with being basically familiar with the development code, what we call our zoning, essentially, and the general plan.

Hey, real quick, back on that one. Sure. poses knowledge of the community organizations and city departments. Like, are we, elaborate on that one a little bit.

It's a good idea if you're not sure about the different departments in the city, it would be a good idea for you to familiarize yourself. So if you want, if you want a tour, that's something that we could set up. We could walk you around here at City Hall, introduce you to other department heads so you understand what all the different departments do. Some of you have been on the commission longer, such as yourself or the chairman might already kind of possess some of that knowledge who each of the department heads are. But for Commissioner Rose, Commissioner DeSena, if you want to meet more staff, maybe learn more about what different staff do. That's something we can assist you with, but it would be beneficial for you to be familiar with different city departments, the organizations that we regularly interact with. I mean, something else you can do also is, is watch the council meetings or attend the council meetings. Cause you'll learn a lot about what's going on with the city that way.

And when we come to council meetings, are we allowed to come up and speak as a resident of the city or how does that work?

Yes, you are. Um, you should probably want to identify that when you speak, say I'm, I'm here. My name's Michael. I serve as planning commissioner, but tonight I'm speaking as an individual.

Sure.

That's kind of like how you'd introduce that. But yes, you're welcome to come. You're welcome to be part of the meetings and attend. But yeah, essentially we do, we think it's beneficial, we as staff, for the commission to be somewhat familiar with the different city departments. It's good you met some of the other staff tonight, but you'll meet more of the staff when you come to like, or watch council meetings, you'll see them regularly interacting with the council. And that can be beneficial to you all to understand a bit more about what's going on at the city.

Sure. Mr. Steele, can I interrupt for just really quick? I got a message from a member of the public saying that on our live feed, There's no sound on.

Yeah, I think we've let the IT folks in the back know that.

They're working on that right now. So we're aware of it and we're working on it?

We're aware of it.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

Yeah, thanks, Carl. Appreciate that.

Sure, sure. Feel free to jump in. I want you guys to get what you can out of this. So your function essentially is what we do tonight, right? It's to hold public hearings. You advise the council on the general plan, some of our programs, as we just did tonight, the CIP, zoning. We just talked about the objective standards at the last hearing. And then when we bring you specific plans, those are kind of big things. So you deal with what we call legislative matters. So that's like the objective standards that we were just talking about or the hillside ordinance. and you deal with what we call quasi-judicial reviews, that's essentially projects, but you kind of act as an arbiter on projects, right? So like the bar we did a month ago. So your role, in part, is to support the city council. That's part of why they select you and put you on the commission. You have a relationship with staff, but staff report to the city manager. We don't report to you. That's kind of how that works. You can disagree with us. That's totally within your power. You have a relationship with the public as well, and we do want you to have a community perspective. And we'll talk a little bit about bias, but You're appointed here to represent the citizens of the city, not essentially yourself or your own interests, right? We want you to be cognizant of the public. There will be hearings when we have a lot of people here. If you think of when it was Chair LaPaglia, he did a great job when we had 100 people in the room for the school site. He did a really good job. You were very respectful, I thought, at that hearing, and you did a great job of kind of communicating with people in the room and letting people know that we're here to hear you. So that's what we want to do. And we may have hearings like that sometimes, right? So you want to balance your interests. Commission shouldn't be political. You're supposed to be apolitical. It's not all technical. So you kind of want to sort of balance things. It's good to educate people. And if we talk about that school hearing, I do think Commissioner LePaglia did a really good job. He kind of, in part, at that hearing was educating the people as to how we run a commission meeting, right? Sometimes the only commission meeting a person comes to is for one item, right?

Sure.

So we have to tell them this is how we do things, right? And it really does help when the commission steps up and do that. So each of you may serve as chairman and that's something to think about like, okay, this person who's coming up, they're really nervous. They've never been here. How do I help them get through this, but still communicate to us what they're trying to tell us. Right. Yeah. So, and obviously we want people to be ethical and fair. So you have a big impact on the community. The commission's had a big impact on the city. You can save us money with some of your decisions. You can set the expectations, especially for the public, by kind of tempering people's expectations or explaining what's within your purview, right? It supports economic development. The commission's done a lot of great work for the city, getting things built in the city, not just housing. I know you've dealt with a lot of housing, but we've got a lot of good projects we've done in recent years, too. You provide a forum for the community. You help promote public health. You mitigate a number of hazards. We deal with all kinds of different hazards, whether it be wildfires. We talk about the safety element, whether it be flooding, whether it be earthquakes. When different things come up, we do talk about those things here related to projects, right? Equity and reducing barriers. We've built a lot of different types of housing in recent years. We've actually done a really good job on that, and it's something the commission's been a part of, and we're providing opportunity for everybody to live in the city. We want to reduce environmental damage where we can, and we do want to conserve resources. And we've done some of that. We've worked on that through the general plan. We've also worked on that through the parks and rec master plan, which was here last year with you all.

So I have a quick question. So my previous question earlier, like I understand the point that we're here for voting on it to meet the general plan, the specific plan. And that's what we're voting on. What I see here is saves money. So I think my question earlier was like surrounding the, I forgot her name, the young lady that was up there. Crystal Aurora. Yeah, Crystal. She kind of blurted out it was going to cost $750,000, right? And then finance, I'm still learning everyone's name, so I apologize.

RN Mendoza.

And he said, he kind of backtracked on that and kind of said, like, we don't know. So I think my question was surrounding more like, the saving money thing. So if you can explain that, because my question was surrounding like, if it's gonna cost $750, is that even enough money? Because I've been to that question center and it's like collapsing.

I'd say in this context, in this training, it's more about the big picture of the city and that the commission can help the city sort of overall save money. We're not really talking about individual budget items. That's really the council's purview and not yours. But the commission can help the city in essentially, well, I would throw it out there working on the objective standards and helping us move that forward that's we're essentially doing that where someone's doing helping us do that for free and you guys took that in one we did a workshop with you you took it in one hearing we really appreciate that that is going to help save us money help moving that forward because it's you know essentially free money that we got from the state to do that so um there are other ways that you help us in that in that regard too and we try to communicate that to you for example like in that staff report we told you right up front right like This is covered by the state. You don't have to worry about it. So let's move it forward. We'll try to do that when we can. But that's kind of more the big picture is how you can help us. But we'll try to outline it for you, I guess, is my response. Like when we know, we'll try to highlight that for you, that you're helping us kind of with the city budget, whatever it might be. In the case of the CIP tonight, they really can't get into the numbers yet because the council is going to decide on that. So that helps.

Thank you.

Appreciate the questions, though. It's good discussion. So general expectations from staff. We just want to be prepared for meetings. Contact us in advance with important questions. You guys have been doing a good job on that. This really I keep this slide in here because it's good practice. But two years ago, I would say it was a little different. You all are doing a good job. I appreciate the calls sometimes when you guys want to talk about things. I appreciate the emails and the questions. We a number of you have done that. Keep doing that. When you're not sure about something, it's totally okay. When you get a staff report and you're like, I really don't get this, give me a call, send me an email, whatever you want to do, we can chat. We want to perform our hearings in a manner that's fair, courteous, and responsive. Obviously, I think you're all doing a good job of that. This isn't a critique of you, but this is just kind of our expectation. you wanna think about your decisions in essentially general overall public good. So that's the hard part about being a commissioner sometimes I think is to take a step back and not think about it necessarily from your own viewpoint, but is this the best thing for the city all around, right? And it's not necessarily even about what staff thinks. It's about what's good for the people outside, right? You want to avoid bias. We're going to talk a little bit about that on a subsequent slide. You want to avoid conflicts of interest. When you're unable to attend, let me know. Again, you've all been doing a good job of that. Let me know when you have a vacation scheduled. We'll make sure Tanya knows. We've had some issues in the past, but I would say it's been going really well. I know sometimes we cancel the meetings. We had a slew of meetings canceled in a row. That was nice. Kind of give you guys some time off. We're back here again. every uh every two weeks but um yeah just keep us in the in the loop when you when you can't make it and we'll try to make sure we can still have at least three or four of you to run the meeting um real quick sorry mr chairman just want to let you know we got our audio uh taken care of so we're on thank you all right um So essentially, and then just to lay the groundwork, what's staff doing for you? Staff does a lot of work, right? We're spending a lot of time. We do a professional analysis. We have excellent staff here. A number of the staff that Jared and I have developed since we've been in charge here doing a great job. And we're bringing you the best projects we can bring you that we've spent the time to make sure they're the best we can. We'll bring you a recommendation. There'll be a professional analysis in there. Essentially, like I said before, you kind of have two things that come to you. You'll have the legislative matters, like the ODS or the Hillside Ordinance. That's really going to be about you kind of putting on your hat that, hey, how does this work with zoning? How does it work with the general plan? Then you're going to have these quasi-judicial matters, is kind of what we call it. That's projects, right? So that's like the bar we did a month ago, right, where it really gets technical, and it's about how does this project meet the code? If there's CEQA impacts, we talk about that. Staff's gonna give you recommendation and we talk about things like what are the operating hours? You know, how many customers are they gonna be right? So sort of like a different you put on a different hat there, right? Staffs available for questions, but and I think you guys did good on this and some of the more recent items For the why questions like hey, why why does the bar want to stay open until 2 a.m? Why why are you guys changing the hours, right? Save those questions for the applicant and the applicant should be here, right? If the applicant spent all this money to process a project, they should show up and be at the hearing, right? So ask the applicant those questions. The good questions for staff are like, hey, I didn't see how tall the building was in the staff report, staff. How tall is the building? Is the wall really white, staff, or is it blue? I couldn't tell by the slide, right? That kind of stuff, right? But if you're not sure about the business, hey, what's the deal with this business? Commissioner Harlan used to like to get into that stuff. that's really questions you want to ask the applicant. So appreciate that if you kind of think about that when someone comes up, try to think about how to, you're going to talk to staff first, but you can definitely grill the applicant and ask them lots of questions.

And we always ask, we always talk to staff first and then the applicant. It reserves time to come up and answer, rebuttal, right? And then we can- Every time.

Okay. It's the same. So you're going to talk to staff first. Really the best, and this is my advice as staff, the best time to ask staff those technical questions really is in that timeframe, right after you've made the presentation. Ask those technical questions. Hey, staff, I saw in the CEQA document that we're doing an override. Are we doing an override, staff? Can you explain a bit more of why we're doing that? You know, things like that, if there's a technical question, that's a good time for that. And then when the applicant comes up, then you get into the details. Hey, applicant, oh, you want to do a new business. Okay, well, have you ever run a business like this before? The questions on the bar were really good, and we found out, you know, for example, that gentleman was a former sheriff. I appreciated that line of questioning, and we kind of asked him, hey, what's your security plan? Those were really good questions. And, you know, city attorney Paul, Martin's filling in for Paul tonight, but Paul was really impressed, I would say, with all of you at that hearing. I thought you guys did a good job asking questions.

Yeah, was I here for that? What was the bar?

It was Champions Bar. You might have been out that one. Where's that at? It's Margarita over near the Hot Springs Resort. Oh, okay. Then they're expanding their hours. But I'm sorry, I'm throwing it out there because it's a fresh example. But I just want to say, and it's a good time to compliment the commission, I thought you did a really good job at that hearing, and I appreciate the commissioners who attended. I know you would have done a good job. Yeah, no problem. We would have done it again. So it's all right. So I just want to kind of lay the groundwork. That's kind of how we want to do things. I think you all know this, but... One of the things that was talked about a lot a couple years ago, there was a commissioner who kind of constantly asked staff about, hey, when are we noticing? Why are we noticing? How do we notice? And wanted to maybe do more noticing. So we provide plenty of notice. We provide the notice that's basically in state law. We also provide the notice that's in our development code. So people have plenty of opportunity to be noticed. If it's a project, there's probably a sign on the site. There's the notices that have gone out around the site. There's been an ad in the newspaper. It's also on the city website. It's like people get noticed. So just want you to understand we follow the procedure. We do it by the book. Tonya does a great job for us with the newspaper. We do the noticing that we're required to do. If you're not sure, please ask me in advance. As staff, I would ask not to bring that up like out of the blue at a hearing. If you're not sure, ask me in advance and we can explain to you how we noticed it. But you can ask staff. You know, if it comes up and someone says, hey, I didn't get a notice, and you've done this before, I think all of you have done it before, you can ask staff, hey, staff, can you just remind us, how was this project noticed? And then staff will be able to walk you through, we did a newspaper ad, we put a sign on the site, we noticed within 300 feet of the site. We can walk you through that. But essentially, we have codes and regs that we follow to make sure we do it the right way. And it gets done every time.

Yeah.

And the goal there, it is to make sure people know they have an opportunity to come here. We don't go down the street and bang on a drum, you know, like that's not required in state law. And I don't think anybody does that in any other cities, but we do everything we're required to do. And if people are interested, they can be here. And we don't, as you all know, we leave the doors open here. People can come in anytime. We do want to give people an opportunity to raise all issues. It's okay to limit the time. We typically, you know, we do limit it to three minutes, but sometimes special hearings, we give people more time. For example, at the last hearing with the hillside ordinance, you know, it's an important item to a few people. We gave them additional time. I thought the chair did a great job on that. It's also okay to reopen the hearing if you, you know, maybe somebody shows up late. and they're waving to you and they're like, hey, Dennis, I told you I was going to be here. You could say, hey, we want to reopen this item. If you're still on the item, you can do that. I've seen that happen before.

Yeah, or in that case, I think there was somebody who wasn't on the list, didn't fill out their card, but they're waving. Right, right. Okay, we'll let you jump in.

That's chair's discretion. And yeah, you've done a good job on that, Chair Vrooman. So that's just something for the commissioners to be aware of. You can help people out if you want to. I mean, they've come all the way down here. Let's let them have a chance to say their piece. Obviously, you want to be impartial. Pay attention to what people say. You can also ask a speaker to clarify something. If they come up and they say something and they're, you know, people get nervous, right, and they're speaking quickly. If you're not sure what they said, it's okay to say towards the end of their time, say, could you clarify what you were saying? Is this what you were asking about? It's okay to do that.

Sometimes it's like it feels like we can't. we can't have like an open dialogue with the person speaking.

Yeah, the city attorney can chime in. Yeah, you don't want to have an open dialogue, but you can say I didn't hear what you said. Okay. Yeah, Mark.

Basically, that's exactly right. You really, you can ask a clarifying question, but you really don't want to encourage all of a sudden a discussion or somebody challenging you and having a back and forth. That's not what public comment is for.

When I was chair, sometimes, like, you have the urge to, like, want to make someone feel comfortable because some people are super nervous. And I've been there before, and I was super nervous. But, like, you can't, like, besides saying, like, welcome or, you know, state your name or anything like that, there's really nothing more you should elaborate on.

Yeah. But it's okay to say, hey, you know, we didn't get your name, right? Maybe someone says, hey, I didn't hear what they said their name was. So it's directly clarification. Can you state your name, right? Clarification type things. Yep. Obviously review things in advance. That way the public knows that you've reviewed things too, right? That's always good to convey. So we'll just talk a little bit. I'll wrap up on bias and conflict of interest, and then Martin's going to talk a little bit about running meetings. So obviously we want to avoid bias. Please come in impartial. Don't bring in your own steak. I always use, I like the example of like, you know, people like ice cream or they like frozen yogurt right and if a guy comes up and says I want to do an ice cream place and you say well I'm not voting for this because I like fro-yo right don't do that so just check your bias of the door it doesn't matter what it is you like it's really like we talked about earlier it's about what's best for the city and just try to think about it from sort of a neutral standpoint Let's have a fair hearing. We've talked about this before. Please disclose if there have been ex partes. That would be, so for example, if an applicant contacted you and said, hey, let's go out to lunch, and you guys went out to lunch and you talked about the project, you should disclose that on the dais before we hear the item so that everybody on the dais knows, the public knows, everybody that's in the room knows, okay? That should not be something that comes up when he walks up to the lectern and says, hey, Chair Vrooman, when we went out to lunch and talked about, yeah, that's not good. And trust me, I've seen that happen at more than one hearing in my career. So yeah, please, please, if someone reaches out to you, you see them on the golf course, you're talking to them, just disclose it, right? It doesn't hurt. You can say, hey, yeah, I saw the applicant when I was at McDonald's. He talked to me about the project. He just told me about it and just letting everybody know, right? Safe. Obviously avoid commitment when you have those conversations with people. Please just tell them, hey, I'm a commissioner, you're welcome to talk to me about it, but I can't tell you about what I'm thinking about the project, right? And then please, when you're here, reach your decisions basically based on the evidence. What we want from commissioners, we want you to walk in the room and not have decided anything. You should walk in, you've reviewed the materials, You're coming in to hear everything that's said, staff's presentation, the applicant's presentation, and then you're going to take that all in and make your decision.

Excuse me, just on that point, because you brought up like McDonald's. I know that sounds silly, but just for my own clarification, let's say they want to buy you McDonald's.

Well, that's your decision, right? If you want to do that, and I would let the city attorney weigh in on that if he's interested. It's really more about, did they talk to you about the project? Because you don't want them to come up and say, hey, I talked to you, Commissioner DeSena, about this, and when we talked, this is what I said. That does not look good for you or for the city. So it's really just disclosing that you did talk to someone if you talked to them.

And as far as having them buy you meals, FPPC regulations are there. Any gift over $50 needs to be reported. Any gift over, right now I think it's $668 from a single entity is prohibited during an annual period. My advice in these situations has always been Pay for your own lunch. It's just to dovetail on what Carl was saying. In these ex-party communications, they're talking to you only for one reason. They want to take your vote. And if they're talking to you, they're talking to everybody else. And you're running a chance of a surreal meeting, and we'll cover that a little later. And I've seen some very embarrassing moments in my time when somebody stands up there and lies and says, well, when we had lunch together, you said you were going to vote for this project if I do this. And you have a commissioner saying, I never said that.

And sort of like what Martin's getting at, it's good for you to head that off at the beginning of the hearing. And it can happen, right? You could be at the grocery store, and you run into the applicant, and he talks to you for five minutes. Head that off. When you get here and the item kicks off, say, yeah, I ran into Joe Blow at the grocery store and he talked to me about the project, just letting everybody know. That's it, right? All right. So that's bias. And then I'll wrap up with when to recuse. We kind of talked a bit about this with one of the commissioners recently. Essentially, when there's a conflict of interest. So if it seems like there could be any material financial effect, then oftentimes that's if the project's near your property, right? So... We'll try to identify this when we see it. We know where your properties are. We know where you are. So we'll try to help you with that when we can. But if you're not sure, this is a good time to reach out to staff, right? When you get the staff report and you're like, hey, I'm not sure, and we'll look, and yeah, you're 502 feet away. You're okay. So we'll look at that. But let us know if you're not sure. And we've had a couple commissioners do a really good job reaching out to us on some recent items and said, hey, I'm not sure, and we talk about it, and we'll bring in the city attorney if we need to. So with that, I'll turn it over to Martin to cover Brown Act, and you just tell me, Martin, I can move the slides ahead when you're ready.

All right, I will. Thank you. Thank you, Carl. Commissioner, Senator Rubin, just A couple of words about the prior slide. There are various kind of situations where you want to think about recusal. The obvious ones are financial effect, the property, proximity to the project. But if, for example, your neighbor comes out before you with a project, and your neighbor has four barking dogs and you have very bright lights on your house and for the last five years you and your neighbor have been fighting it out in small claims court or doing whatever else it is that you're doing to each other, when that person comes up there and asks for a project to be approved, you need to search inside and say, can I be impartial? So there are other kinds of conflicts or recusal situations which you should be considering when you're sitting up here. Just to finish up what Carl was talking about. So Brown Act. In the late 50s, one of the senators, Ralph Brown, decided that all business, of the government should be done in open and should be viewed by the public. All decision-making processes, all deliberations need to be in an open meeting, except for the state. Brown Act does not cover state legislature. So it's been handed down to the cities. It is a good law. It is a law that apparently was needed in those days. I think it's still needed now. I've seen situations that are not something that should be tolerated. So it is good that we have the law and we should all follow it. Brown Act requires you to, any legislative body, we'll talk about the Planning Commission, to meet and deliberate all items in open session. It has to be properly noticed on the agenda 72 hours before the meeting. I'm not going to dive into the little tiny details, but it has to be agendized. It has to be an action item. Then you can deliberate and take action on it. Now, what does that mean? What should you be careful about? Well, there are several things that should be avoided, obviously. And I think we'll get to that in the next slide. But the important part is for you to remember is that anytime the majority of you, three of you, are discussing anything that's within the jurisdiction of the planning commission for the city, you need to be in a notice meeting. And if you're not, then you need to not do that. You need to stop. With it goes also perception. You're all residents of the city. I spend a lot of time talking to legislative bodies about small and big cities. It really doesn't matter. But always remember also what it looks like. If three of you are sitting in a dark corner of a restaurant here about four in the afternoon, two days before, Planning Commission meeting and you're sitting there and you're drawing stuff up and you're talking and doing that and somebody sees that they're gonna go You know, they're talking about this big project that's coming up whether it's the bar whether it's the hillside ordinance Well, you happen to be planning your kids birthday party Or a graduation, you know, you're not doing anything has to do with the city But what does that look like? What is the perception of that? So just keep that also in mind when when you accept the appointment of sitting on this body, with it comes certain restrictions and certain responsibilities. And it's just something that as you go through your everyday life, you always need to keep that in the back of your head. Is it, excuse me, is it three or more? Or it has to be three or more? It has to be three, a quorum, a majority of you. But also... beware and be careful and we'll get into serial meetings. When it's just the two of you talking about something, you both are trusting each other, then neither one of you will be talking to any other commissioner about that because the moment the one of you does, you've committed an illegal serial meeting if it's not agendized, if it's not in the meeting. So any direct communication employed by majority of you that is not agendized, not during a regular meeting or a special meeting of the planning commission is an illegal meeting. Whether it's one of you doing hub and spoke, talking to the rest of you, or whether it's serial, one says one, then the next, then the next, then the next. It basically constitutes an unlawful meeting. Most of the time, you know, It's just embarrassing. The issue with it isn't that the world's gonna end or something's gonna, it's just that you do not want to have a member of the public sitting here or coming before the city council and saying, hey, look at this, these guys were before this meeting, these guys were meeting and this was all planned out. When they turned this down, they had it all planned out, it was all set up. And people will try to, do anything they can to get their way in front of a legislative body, whether it's you, whether it's the city council. They will stretch the truth. They will make assumptions. They will take things like you sitting in a restaurant planning a birthday party as a sign of you breaking the law. So again, we go back to that. Remember your role in the city, and it doesn't start and stop at 6 o'clock and and at 8 or whenever the meeting is over. Social media. It was a... very tricky part of the Brown Act when social media became very active, a lot of I like or responses on Facebook. And for a long time, it was basically a fairly prohibitive practice. We would advise legislative body, don't do that. Unless you have an account that's a separate personal account, not a city-involved account, Don't respond, don't reply all, don't engage in these communications because all of you more than likely are tracking the same items on Facebook or Instagram or whatever other platforms exist now. Law was passed recently, Senate Bill 707, which relaxed the rules a little bit. You may participate in these as long as there is no cross communications among you. So in the past, even if you just were replying to everybody, it constituted deliberation in a meeting. Now it's a little bit more relaxed. I still say be very careful. I'll give you an example. There's a case five years ago, maybe a little longer than that. By now, yeah, probably a little longer than that. Down south, a board of supervisors, like in Georgia, I think, A supervisor unliked somebody for 16 minutes after a meeting. There was a big tumultuous meeting. She went home and she blocked one of the public speakers on her. And then I guess came to her senses 16 minutes later and unblocked him. He sued and received an award of money from the court. Because the court said, if you use your social platform, whether it's your Facebook, your Instagram, for public purpose, if you're talking about your job as a council member, board of supervisor, planning commissioner, and you're expressing opinions about the city, about the project, it's a public platform. And once it becomes a public platform, you cannot stop somebody from speaking because you're violating their First Amendment rights. So it's an extreme case, but it's a case that illustrates how significant these little, what we think of, oh yeah, I'm just going to do that. So again, just kind of keep in mind, when you're on social media, keep in mind who you're talking with and what you're talking about, because it can make a difference. Contacts with constituents. Again, I think Carl covered that really well. But you obviously... they can reach out to you, they can communicate with you, do report it.

In this context, it might be concerning if you each say, yeah, I ran into the applicant at McDonald's. Hey, I ran into the applicant at McDonald's. Yeah, that's not good, right? That kind of gets into this. So hopefully only one of you said you ran into the applicant at McDonald's. I ran into the applicant at Ruth Chris.

What I suggest, because people will try to get an answer from you. What do you like about the project? Well, don't you like? How are you going to vote? What can I do to get your support is what you're going to hear from some developers. And Carl identified perfectly. It's... Right now, I'll gladly talk to you, show me what you have, I'll look at the site, I'll do whatever, inspection, I'll hear what you say, but until I have a staff report in front of me, until I hear from the public, during the meeting, the public is gonna tell me what they think about this. And until, most importantly, or as importantly, I hear from the other four commissioners about what they think about this project, I'm not gonna make up my mind. I'm not gonna make a decision. So that gives you a little bit of an out, without saying, no, I'm going to tell you, it's like it all needs to happen first, and then I'm going to make a decision. I forced a council member in a city where I was a city attorney to get off the dais on a very, very big, important project because he wrote a letter to the developer just saying, smashing the project, just, this is the worst thing, you can't do this, blah, blah, blah. Two months before the project even came before the council. So just, again, be careful about expressing your opinions about things that you later are going to be presiding over, because Clearly, you cannot be unbiased if two months ago you told the developer that you hate this project or this is the worst thing that could ever happen to the city. How can you sit down later here and give them due process and give them a fair hearing? when that happened. So you will develop your own opinions about projects. You will go and look at them. My recommendation is keep them to yourself and keep an open mind. Because sometimes what you hear from people about a project, either pro or against, is colored by their desired goal. And there are times when they're not telling you everything there is to know, or what they're telling you is just simply not true.

I guess in that regard, the better option, obviously, if we do have concerns with something, it's not to communicate directly with an applicant, but to have staff voice our concerns indirectly. And they may be hearing the same from other commissioners or council portions as well, too. And so that's how the message about things should get relayed.

You should... communicate with staff. I would be hesitant to have staff be a messenger of your message to a developer, but I would be very supportive of you speaking with staff and saying, do you share these concerns, do you have, You know, what are you doing about the traffic mitigation? This thing is going to bring 400 people in here every hour. Are we planning to force a light at this intersection? Are we doing an extra lane? Are they going to pay for it? Those are the kind of things that are very, very much fair game for staff. And staff is probably already talking to the developer about it. If they're not, they will, but they'll bring it up as a... City concern, not us.

Yeah, and forgive me, that's basically what I meant, not us, not me personally, but saying, hey, here's some bigger overall issues, and that's a great example is like, hey, is there going to be a traffic signal here associated with this project or something along those lines? It's not, they wouldn't relate. Hey, this is coming from Commissioner so-and-so. So there's also an onus on their part. They would just say, hey, there's some concerns and they would voice it, but we wouldn't want to communicate directly with an applicant on something like that.

I wouldn't recommend it. I mean, you can meet with the applicant again and listen to what they have to say, but I would not try to shape the project in that meeting. That's really something that I would recommend you communicate with staff about, and then staff will do whatever they can to carry that message forward and to put it into the project. Every meeting needs to be properly agendized. Agenda needs to be posted again. The materials that you receive must be available to the public and every city does a great job making sure that that is available. There are times when things change. You post the agenda, you post a staff report and new piece of information comes in or somebody overlooked something. There is no Brown Act violation if staff brings you a supplemental agenda and says, hey, let's put this in the agenda packet. There's 15 copies available to the public lying on the table. It's up on the website. It's an amended agenda now. So you can receive additional information after the posting of the agenda, and that's not a violation. Also, you will often, one of the favorite approaches of a lot of the environmental groups is to send a 14-page letter a day before the meeting, or the day of the meeting, an email. We will distribute that. Staff distributes that. It's part of the record. I think I've seen once or twice where the item was continued on staff's request because issues were raised that perhaps staff wasn't prepared to address or needed a little bit more time to evaluate. We've done that, yeah.

But Martin's right. Sometimes it's a matter of like, hey, what's in the letter? And if we're covered, then we plow ahead. I think we've had both sort of scenarios with some of you longer time commissioners, but... But yeah, as Martin's getting at, people might show up here with a 10-page letter and hand it to you on the dais, and that's their right, and we'll look at it if we can in the time we have. But yeah, documents can be presented at the meeting.

It just becomes part of the record, and I don't think there is an expectation that... everything stops and you analyze the letter and staff analyzes it and you change course or direction or don't change course or direction of the item. People who submit these type of materials on the last minute day of the meeting or day before the meeting, they do it at their own risk. if in fact a Action ensues afterwards a challenge a writ to or an appeal to the City Council Of your decision that that letter will be in there as part of the administrative record But it'll also be with a note that it was received an hour before the meeting or day before the meeting, etc Public Records Act requests much like the Brown Act, in order to have everything be transparent and the way the government does business, the way the the land use department, the planning department does business and you do business, is all open to the public with very, very few exceptions. So all documents that are produced as part of the city's business, let's focus on planning commission, as part of preparing projects, part of receiving documentation, applications, permits, all of that is public record. So these documents, somebody can come in and request them and ask for them. That's the easy part. Here's the hard part. Documents that in the old days was passing notes on the dais, that becomes a public record. Nowadays, any phone communications, cell phones, texts, If you're texting with each other, if you're texting with staff, somebody can say, I want all the texts pertaining to item number six the day of the meeting. And that is a valid Public Records Act request. At this point in time, the state law of the law is, if it's your personal phone, the city staff will ask you, do you have any texts pertaining to item number six on this day? And you will respond. And the city will accept that response, and that response will move forward in the response that we provide to the requester.

And to back up a little bit of what Martin's saying, just know that our emails to you are public record. So if we send you an email and then a member of the public finds out about that email, they can ask for that email from us, but they can also ask for that email from you. through the city, both. So just be cognizant of that, right?

And your response.

Right. All of it, yeah. So my friendly advice to staff is if you're worried about something that's a little sensitive, you don't want to put it in an email or a text, Give me a call. We'll set up a meeting. We can sit down and talk face-to-face. There's nothing illegal about that. And we'll have that discussion that way, okay? If you don't want to put it in an email, you don't want it to be on the front page, let me know. We'll just talk.

Time for a call question mark is one of my favorite texts that I get from my council members and staff. And it's not illegal, it's not being sneaky, it's not being, it's just being smart. Because in order to have a, with me it's a little easier because my communications are privileged, so most of them I can protect. But between staff and you, it gives you an opportunity to have a robust discussion. It gives you opportunity to discuss it, talk about it, what ifs and this and that. And if you put that in writing, somebody, again, is going to grab it, analyze it, and pick out three words that they don't like, and they're going to run around with those three words saying, oh, Commissioner so-and-so said this and this. And you really didn't say that. What you said was, what happens if somebody says blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? So that's why verbal communications are a really good way to deal with issues that you know, maybe somewhat sensitive in some fashion.

That's perfect, Martin. I really appreciate you pinch hitting on filling in on those slides. And then we'll turn it over to Jared and he's going to bring you home with a little bit more about our sort of strategic partnership between staff and the commission. But that's kind of the refresher for the long timers. The rest of it's all new stuff.

No, and thank you, Martin. It's always good for me as staff to rehear that because the Brown Act is something critical for myself. And thank you, and thank you, Carl. These guys did a great job. I'll try to keep it up here. You know, a strong strategic partnership between planning staff and the planning commission is the foundation of effective local governance. When the planning team and the appointed commissioners are closely aligned, it streamlines coordination, builds public trust, It ensures that development projects navigate the public hearing process efficiently. You know, if we go back to 2018, we noticed as planners, the legislature was starting to ramp up on changes of housing law. This is the Housing Accountability Act. In 2019, Colin and I attended a conference in Santa Barbara. It was the APA conference. And Senator Scott Wiener was the guest speaker. It was quite shocking what he told us. He told us as planners we had driven the state into the ditch with our love affair for single-family housing. And I kind of shook for a moment. I said, wow, this is the first time I'm hearing such a strong legislative change. Now, at that same time in 2019, we started to see laws that would go after subjectivity versus objectivity. So if your code as a local jurisdiction had any subjective code, you could not defend that with an applicant submittal. You could only defend objectivity. So I wanted to highlight that at the same time, our city council was identifying that and felt that we needed to do better. And so through a grant that Carl earlier alluded to from the state, we were able to hire a consultant and staff worked on objective design guidelines. So we brought that to you back in 2023 and just a couple of weeks ago. And so I wanted to just give credit that you guys have done things already to secure the city on behalf of the public and the city council. But I just wanted to say that that was a great first start. You know, people might not recognize that roof lines and articulation and recessing is a big deal, but it's a big deal. And because of your hard work in getting us an objective design standard, that's helping us already. with our city. It's starting to look good and it's starting to stand out from other codes that haven't been changed. But I just wanted to start with that as something that I think we all did well together on behalf of city council, which is on behalf of our public. I often have to attend seminars and trainings just to keep up with the amazing amount of new laws that are affecting us as planners. I just wanted to say that findings trying to understand HCD's next move, that's housing and community development, and how best to provide our city council with defensible recommendations. That's really what I come to work every day for. You know, training helps us sharpen our toolkit, You know, ensuring that decisions are well written, you know, the findings are strong and that you can rely upon it. You heard earlier that if the finding isn't good, ask those questions. Let's dig that out at the hearing. The staff report is a good springboard for you, but we want to make sure that the findings that we wrote in your resolution are sound and can be defended by you or the city council if you're a recommending body. You know, I think what we're noticing is that affordability in California is the mantra for where people are living. And so you are seeing houses get smaller. We are seeing a lot of multifamily. I think that a lot of that is coming back to demographic shifts, but really affordability. I think we keep hearing that time and time again.

This is just an open conversation, right? Of course. Are we like live on? Yes.

Yes. Yes. It's a public meeting.

continue on thank you okay okay so for our department we're focused on creating a housing specialist position Carl found money in our Housing Authority budget this is money that we wouldn't have to so much add to the pile but money that we're sitting on and we want to make sure that we have a position that's very proactive and helping us with addressing some of the legislation in Sacramento so we are trying to get a new position that will help us in this endeavor Now, I cut and pasted this from HCD's website. What's in purple is from them. They want to highlight to the public what their mandate is. And I'll just read. A jurisdiction does not have the authority to determine that its adopted element is in substantial compliance, but may provide reasoning why HCD should make a finding of substantial compliance. I just want to start off with that. Because we do need to ramp up to the bills that are being approved and being proposed for next year, we do have some friends. We have the California League of Cities. They do offer webinars and conferences. Some are coming up right now. We have a webinar coming up on June 3rd. We have the annual conference in September that's really more for city manager and city council, but there's nothing wrong with commissioners attending. And then we also have the big show, the Planning Commission Academy in next March. And so we're gonna be underscoring that you gentlemen will be joining us at that conference. It's a few days and so we'll take care of the tickets and the airlines and the hotel rooms, all that. But we have budgeted as we do each year for you guys to attend. But I think of all years, I think it's now time for us to really focus on some strategy and how to help us with the city of Murrieta and our city council.

I have a quick question. Just because I'm trying to understand a few things. So it seems like the state's mandating quite a bit of stuff. How does it work with the city rezoning property? So if it's like if the precursor, right, if land is zoned for like rural residential or something like that, and Can the state touch that? Meaning, can the state require us under these legislation to build multifamily homes on that or like these apartment complexes? Or do we have to rezone it?

No. So most of what the state's done, and I think the last time we kind of talked about this was maybe a training we did a year ago. Most of what the state's done is they locked the density in. that exists on the ground. So in the old days, and Martin and Jared and I have been around a long time, there were times when, for example, an applicant might bring a project to the planning commission that was under the density that the zone required, and the commission had the discretion to approve a lower density project, maybe even very low density. And cities and counties did that. That all changed when the state pass SP 330 and a number of laws around 2019. And they essentially locked in density everywhere across the entire state, you cannot approve projects below essentially what the base density of the zone is. So the big difference now is, we have to we when applicants come to us and propose a project, they have to meet the minimum density. And some applicants struggle with that and would like to do a less dense project. But the state as of right now hasn't changed our, so for example, our rural residential zoning or our single family zoning. They haven't changed it, but there are a myriad of different laws that they've passed that allow for certain types of projects anywhere a certain type of zoning is located. and that's also not something they were doing a decade ago. So the newer laws like SP 35, and there's a number of them, Chris and I talked about it the last time we talked about the state laws, but in the places where we're zoned for residential, If someone proposes one of those projects, and they typically have an affordable component, if they propose those projects, not only do we have to process it, we have to approve it. If they meet all the requirements in the law, there's no discretion by the city. We have to process it, we have to approve it. So a big part, tying back to what Jared was talking about, a big part of why we need these objective standards that you've now, a number of you have worked on more than once, is because when someone comes in with one of those projects, we want it to be the best project it can be. The state's already basically taken our power away. So we want it to look the best, we want it to design the best, and that's why we spent the time on these objective standards with you all, to make sure that we're sort of covered there, right? But we've lost a lot of the ability to control those projects because of what the state's done. essentially a mandate. They say we're still in a housing crisis. They haven't stopped with this housing crisis. We're still in it. And they keep passing laws sort of piling on.

So have we ever just because I don't know the history as well as everyone else up here. Have we ever like rezoned land before? I mean, obviously we have. But have we ever rezoned land that has kind of now become these high density areas because the law changed and that wasn't like predicted?

I guess the thing to say is we can't down zone anymore. So in the areas where we have higher density zoning, for example, where we're building all the apartments near the freeway, we cannot reduce the density there. We could have six or seven years ago, the council could have decided that was something they wanted to do. Nobody knew this was coming, by the way. I'm sure 500 cities out there would have done it if they knew it was coming. But we can no longer have reduced the density in those areas. So the places... North of the triangle where we have 30 dwelling units breaker. That was a city council 20 years ago that put that in place in two housing cycles ago. And we cannot change that. We can't take that away. We can increase the density in other places if we want to. I would just say the council and the commissioner are reluctant to do that. because we have so much high density already baked into our general plan and zoning. It's out there, right? We still have vacant land that's high density for this area. So we don't really need more of it. So you're not seeing us make a lot of changes. The last time we made land use changes was the general plan update that Jared and I worked on in 2020. And the only residential changes we made there were in the northern part of the city. Where the property owners were asking to change from office to residential? Along Whitewood and Clinton Keith and we made changes up there for those people and now those projects are being built Those are you know the the rustic meadows project up by the high school and the villas project that's currently under construction on Whitewood You know though that area we rezoned in the 2020 update But we didn't make any other changes in this immediate part of the city in the downtown and near the triangle we haven't made changes in more than a decade we've been the same and The problem is the state has passed all these laws and now we have very little flexibility. So we're doing our best to try to sort of play tennis and hockey, I guess we like to say sometimes, depending on the game, with the state and trying to make sure we protect the city's interests, but we don't want to get into hot water with the state either, right?

So to that end, so basically because somebody who said, okay, it was community commercial or whatever and they decided we're going to put apartment complex in there so it be but it becomes a multifamily which it wasn't originally zone for that. So we have now a condominium or apartment complex were originally we thought that it was going to be a commercial center. And but now you you have an area that was maybe zone for apartments. And you go, okay, well, there's no way to trade that off and actually turn that into commercial.

It's difficult to do. That's kind of like a whole other discussion. Of course, there's another law. I'm going to keep saying that over and over again. There's a law about transferring density within your city. So if you attempt to do that, there's a law out there right now that essentially says, okay, you want to get rid of the density on this site, you have to find another place in the city to put that density. There's a law in the books right now that says that. That gets really tricky. I'm sure there's developers out there on the street that say, man, I can make a deal for you, but there's not a lot of cities doing that.

This is the converse of it. The fact that they made something that wasn't going to be any zero density because it wasn't going to have any housing on it. It was zoned commercial. And so the fact that now it's now going to have an apartment complex or some type of condominium or whatever multifamily housing on there that originally wasn't, there's not a way to basically trade off and go, okay, now we need commercial to offset it because now we have something that, basically they use state law to get it.

So we haven't, I would say the one thing I would say is we haven't seen a lot of those projects here. So the areas where we're getting development are areas where we already were zoned for the higher density housing. All the projects you're seeing here close to city hall and over by the triangle that zoning was already there. It's, they're not taking advantage of the new laws. They're really just building using the existing zoning that we had in place for a decade. The TOD was in the housing element in 2008, I think. We're getting on close to 20 years now. So it was sitting there all that time. When I got here and Jared got here, there were developers that said, no one's ever going to build 30 dwelling units breaker. Are you crazy? That won't pencil? Well, yeah. that ballgame changed. So, you know, the economics changed, sort of a little bit of what Jared was talking about. The ballgame's changed somewhat. It does pencil now, right? We got all these apartments under construction along the 15 south of here, too, and the other city south of us. That ballgame changed for them, too.

And you say it's partially because it's subsidized by government funding?

I would say it's more about the, and Jared might want to talk to this, it's more about the the cost to build at the coast has now gotten so high that it does pencil for them to build three and four-story apartment buildings here in our area now, whereas it didn't maybe seven or eight years ago. Those projects just didn't pencil out, but the rents have gone up enough. And then the construction cost is still a little bit lower around here compared to building, you know, maybe closer to the coast. And so it's just sort of like this synergy where now you're seeing them come here and build those projects. We have a slew of developers who've all kind of rolled in here who used to, we dealt with them in San Diego. And they're not building down in San Diego and Orange County anymore. They're out here, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. I was just going to talk about the state. You know, we talked about the state. The state's like this big monster that, you know, can come take over the city. And, you know, we've seen examples of it, I think, in Beverly Hills and, yeah, Encinitas. I was thinking of Huntington Beach.

Huntington Beach, Encinitas. They took over the building department in Encinitas for a while. Really? The city wasn't issuing building permits. The state was.

Wow. So that was my question. You guys have done a great job being very cautious and you know, always taking that very seriously. Have we ever been contacted by the state? Like, do they call and, like, check in like a, you know, like a landlord or something?

I'm stealing Jared's thunder here. I'll talk a little. I'll try to stop talking. It gets me excited, though. So HCD has a part of what's been going on with HCD is the state has been putting more money into HCD in the budgets, and they've been giving them more enforcement. and they've been hiring.

Just for clarity, what is HCD?

Housing and Community Development. Thank you. It's the agency for the layperson. It's good for us to explain to the people watching.

It's another government bureaucracy that's being created.

Yeah, you don't say. Yeah, it's a state department. Essentially what they've always handled is the housing elements that all 500 plus cities and counties do, and they process those in a cycle, right? And they give us mandates as to this is how much housing we're supposed to build, which is somewhat unrealistic, but in my professional opinion, not the city's opinion. But so we deal with HCD a lot. What's changed in more recent years, I've been dealing with them my entire career, they're actually being funded now from the state, whereas in the past they really weren't funding them. So now they're hiring staff, and we know some of the staff. I got a letter once in the last couple years signed by a planner I knew, and I'm like, so then we had a phone call because we had to clarify what was in the letter, and I'm like, oh, you used to work at the city of Carlsbad. You're working for HCD now. So they're hiring professional staff now. They're plucking them from cities, and they're using those staff as their enforcement tool. Wow. And so we do get letters from HCD. We've had more than one letter on different projects. Developers are getting savvy to it, where developers will go to HCD and cry a story to HCD. HCD will send us a threatening letter and say, we need to have a meeting. And we've had that happen. Thankfully, HCD has not, as you've seen, not shown up at any meetings, not sent us any nasty letters that you've seen in any of your projects. We try not to get to that point. We try to mitigate things with them. But there are ugly things that can happen with HCD. And they will work with the Attorney General and go after cities on specific projects now. And the Attorney General has gone after cities more recently when the city doesn't pay attention to them. essentially, it feels like at times they're turning it over. They'll turn it over to the Attorney General, and then the Attorney General takes the city to the court, and then the project gets approved anyway, right?

Yeah, and I don't mean to extend this meeting longer than it needs to be, but give us a little recap on what happened in Encinitas for the public.

I know a few people that used to work there. So they essentially are a city, if you just want to know a little bit about their history, they're a city that incorporated in the 1980s. I know people who went to work there early in my career. They never adopted a housing element. They literally existed as a city for more than two decades without a housing element. Went through multiple housing cycles, no housing element. They finally, the state finally took them to court. And there was a time when Essentially, there was a court order to step in, and they didn't have permit authority. So all their projects had to go through the state first before it came to the city. And the state was basically telling them, here's your projects. You have to approve these. And they did not have permit authority. Now, that's a really outlandish case that's only happened 1% of the time. as I'm looking at the city attorney and he's nodding his head. That's only happened to a few cities out there, but that's a really, it is a bad example. And one good example to think about, that's why we want to make sure we have a housing element that works. We did a lot of work on this last housing element, which we brought to you all in 23. And we got that squared away. But we'll be coming back to you here soon enough, as Jared's going to get into the next housing element cycle is just a couple of years away.

Thank you. I did have a follow up. I had one more question based on what I was speaking about before. So we've had a couple instances here, and I'm putting my history hat back on here in the city, where there has been land that has been rezoned that was commercial. and through a citizen initiative ballot process, land was rezoned. One in particular was at the corner of Clinton Keith and California Oaks. It was supposed to be a shopping center. It was long before your time. This is back in the 1990s. And so there's currently a housing tract there, but it was going to be a supposed to be a supermarket shopping center. The other one is the corner of Washington and Nutmeg just north of the LDS, the Mormon Church right there. That was going to be community commercial and then through a citizen run ballot initiative was changed. So my point is is that does the state law preclude those type of situations where if land We, the city, can't change it, but if there's a citizen-run ballot initiative to change something, where does that stand?

Martin and I are both shaking our heads. I don't think so. I think the state law is going to trump that, and you would be stuck with the same scenario we're in, which is you'd have to somehow lasso another property and make a deal with somebody else somewhere to shift the density and The developer, like I said, developers will tell you, oh, I can do that. And I've never met a developer who's done it since the new laws have passed. So it doesn't sound like an easy thing to do to get property owners to line up in density.

I have a question. At what point does a city go, we're not going to take this anymore? I know Beverly Hills started doing it, and there's this fine, a very hefty fine for doing it. Like, at what point can the city turn, and this might be for you, turn around and say, like, we're going to band together, we're going to shut this down.

I'd say, so this is where we get into a little bit back what we talked about at the beginning of the meeting. So the commission's not political, so your job is not to get into that.

Okay.

The council can get into that, and that's for the city council to deal with. And I see Martin's nodding his head.

Yeah, Huntington Beach Tribe, and now they're, paying for a lot of attorney's fees and have to hustle up and try to get the housing element certified. It is getting more and more difficult to have any subjective say in the way that development is moving forward. But cities who are proactive and good like this one, because you have the objective standards, you have all that in place. You just take the best road you can. And then in adopting your housing element, just some of the questions that the Chair was talking about. As long as you can show that you have accommodated and provided land that could meet the assigned demand, whether it's low income housing or just housing at all. But most of it now revolves around low income, very low income housing. So that's where the rezoning part comes in. You can't rezone a piece of property if you don't have enough land that somebody who would want to build on would build on. So you have to have enough land in the city zoned in a way that is supposed to be zoned in order to meet your RENA number which is your regional housing need assessment, which without being political, I agree with Carl, there usually are much higher than, very rarely have I ever seen, I've been doing this for almost 40 years, have I ever seen a city meet its RHNA numbers.

And I just want to point out, I wasn't trying to be political in any way, because the previous slide said, like, we represent the people's interests. So I wasn't trying to be political. I was just saying, like, this is obviously a public thing. I was just trying to represent people.

No, Commissioner DeSantis, this is a good forum, and I appreciate the question. It's a good forum for you to bring that up. And I know people are frustrated, and so it's good for us to have this dialogue, I think, to make sure the commission and staff are on the same page. So I appreciate the question.

Commissioner DeSena, that's exactly why I have this slide up here. And earlier you'd asked, how do we save money? Sometimes you can save a whole lot of money by not walking into something, right? So when the state says, I'll fine you $10,000 a door per day, let's not go there. But that is the acumen that staff, planning commission, and city council and our city manager have is, making sure that we don't make it easy on our attorney general to make an example of us. So, coopetition. Coopetition is a business term. It means how do you cooperate and compete? It's not really a government term, but I feel that we've been pushed into that. We have to cooperate with another government by law. But when they're playing unfair, in my opinion, I think we have to have better strategies to get around that. More how do we help our city council, right, with our recommendations and our findings. Now I'm just gonna go through some of the approved laws and some of the pending laws, not to go through each one of them. Chris and Carl did that really nicely last month for you guys. I just wanna go over some buzzwords because when I try to look at tea leaves, I wanna see where are we going, I wanna read what HCD's up to, and we're going into our next RHNA cycle pretty soon in the next two years. There's a lot of stuff that HCD and the legislature are doing now to maybe tripwire us. So I just wanted to say that when I look at laws that say commercial to residential adaptive reuse and office conversions, exemptions specifically for rezonings, strict postal entitlement permit approval shot clock, prohibits, requires, tightens, All of these things are very difficult for staff and commission and city council to accommodate. They're telling us you got to chart it more, you have less time to do it, and there's more rules and regulations around you. Here's more, enhancing fines and penalties against local governments. Local agencies must ministerially consider that carves you out. on and on and on. Happy to say in two days we're gonna close out some of the bills that are moving to the floor, but there are some that are of concern. And I just wanna say thank you Planning Commission, because often the public doesn't know how hard we all are working on behalf of our city council and our city manager, and all that's for the public itself. What I wanna leave you with tonight, forgive me, is as one of the staff of this great city, I've observed a lot over the last eight years with the housing mess. I put this image of the chess pieces on purpose here because we're going to play chess, not checkers, right? We need to put our city first. And we can do that by working together, training, and threading. But I'm really excited because staff and planning commission do have a wonderful role together. We're not always going to get along. We're not going to always agree. But the fact that we all care about this city so much in the face of heightening housing laws is what I'm interested in. So hopefully we're going to get that housing specialist position and we'll have more under our hood. But also we want to serve you guys well and we want to make sure that you're getting the training and support that you need. But that's really tonight. I really thank Carl and Martin for this presentation. But I just really wanted to spend some time with you all and let you know that we got your back and we have a lot of work to do.

I really appreciate that, honestly. I'm a newer commissioner, so it really did help, so thank you. Just a quick question. I know everyone wants to get out of here. People are tired of listening to us. But if we know these bills are being brought to the table or to be passed to the floor, do we work with like the city attorney and things like that to try to get ahead to mitigate it as much as possible?

So city council works on a legislative agenda. That's something that city, they work with the city manager. So it's, It's something the city manager's office handles. I see David nodding. So it's not really something that we as staff get involved with. It's more of something in the city manager's office. But we as staff, I guess the bad news is we as staff, when the laws are passed, we come and tell you about them, as you know. And we've been doing that on the regular. And that's part of our job, is to come and tell you, hey, they passed something, and this is something that might affect a project that you see, right? But when it comes to advocating against the laws, that's kind of in the political realm, it's the council and city manager that will handle that.

Thank you for creating that demarcation between the two. I think that's been really helpful for me. No problem.

Yeah, let me know. Like I said, let's have a call if you guys want to chat about stuff. It's a crazy world out there, and I appreciate all of you who've done that, but it's no problem. When you want to have a chat, let me know.

And that's not a Brown Act violation. You can each talk to Carl. Yeah, call him. Don't email him. And his job is to make sure that what you talked about or your questions or opinions don't get passed on to the next person that he talks to on the commission. That is absolutely legal and highly recommended. You know I like to talk, but I won't tell people what you say. That's funny.

All right, anything?

That's it for us. We really appreciate your time. And I appreciate you all just paying attention. It's good to get through this with you all and make sure we're all on the same page.

So appreciate your time tonight. Yeah, much appreciated again, you know, just with the updates, the legal updates and what's going on. And of course, this brings a whole host of different new laws and things like that. And of course, we'll see what happens with our next governor. eventually and where the legislature ultimately goes that direction and what what changes and what doesn't Carl would you like to do your city planner comments from from in the well yes yeah I think we'll likely have hillside ordinance back to you I'm hoping at the next meeting so try to keep that rolling outside of that I don't have anything else to add chair appreciate your time thank you very much Mr. Sidney, attorney, welcome again, first time here. Thank you. Anything else?

I just want to express, first of all, I'm immensely impressed with the staff, with you, the process. Again, I've seen many, and this is really top-notch. So thank you for allowing me to be a part of it. I greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

We're glad to have you here. Any comments from you? Any of my colleagues?

No, just that was very informative from staff and city attorney. So thank you guys all very much. Love going over the CIPs always as well. So it was a good night for me. So appreciate your time. Thank you.

All right. Anybody else? Nothing? Okay. Nothing for me. Then with there's no objection, we're looking to adjourn 7.50 p.m. Good.