Remarks by Andrew Whitman
56 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 3
- Play at 27:25
“I'll just add that it was a pretty detailed discussion before we selected one of the multiple proposals that was in court in front of us. I know we can't go into details about what that was. I was not going there, but it was a very thorough conversation.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 31:39
“Thank you. I would say that we're relatively aggressive and confident about pulling things off if we have things to say about the item.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:20:12
“so um i just want to make a few yeah comments because i've gotten to live through this for most of my time on city council and you know my first exposure to this was getting the report from the parks and rec and speaking specifically of soul park The ad hoc committee concluded that the sound generated by pickleball on the Soul Park courts was not conducive to residential and how close they were to the courts. and they looked at mitigating the sound from the courts and decided that there was no feasible way to actually mitigate the sound. And so they told city council, go look for other places…”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:29:47
“I can't support that unless the tennis community, the folks that are investing in the service and making sure that they would have the ability to weigh in and say, this activity will cause no harm and therefore it should be allowed, or this activity could cause harm and you've got to change it. So I would like them to, if there's going to be an exception created, I would want the folks who are actually investing all the money in having this kind of semi-pro caliber courts be involved.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:33:22
“I would want the tennis. You want the veto from tennis? At least the input and the recommendation as to whether, I think it should go through them to make their findings as to whether this is potentially hazardous. I'm all for that. I agree with that.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:35:21
“I would second that. Yeah. And then just for clarification, God forbid that this review process happens and there's some upset or disagreement, I assume that the way things would work is that the permit would be issued for Ojai Day.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:37:38
“It seems to me like we've agreed or there would be a majority vote to allow a permit application using the tennis courts on OID, just the upper courts. and that the only thing that's missing is a process that allows the tennis knowledgeable people to say whether the use is going to be damaging or not damaging to the court. So it seems like if that's all we're trying to get interjected and we don't have the precise language,”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:40:11
“I had assumed that it was because the courts aren't being used because it's Ojai Day at the upper courts, but the courts potentially are being used for tennis at the lower courts. Are they closed?”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:44:17
“yeah I have a question somewhere in the staff report was a statement that we already prohibit fireworks and but we didn't there wasn't like a reference the ordinance or what the ordinance says so I'm asking I can pull that up in just a moment”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:45:16
“And the grand jury report is not about the public. It's not about the public. Display of fireworks.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:46:55
“So one of the things that the grand jury asked us about was whether we were oriented towards social post liability and I didn't think this was really kind of clarified or spelled out but a social post ordinance would say that if you invite people to your property and one of them lights off fireworks and causes damage, you're liable whether you knew that was going to happen or not. on your own property if it's on your property and you invited them to your property you're responsible for what they do vis-a-vis fire i think that might be a little harsh for this community given the fact that…”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:48:03
“I could be wrong, though. No, normally, well, I defer to the attorney, but I do practice in this area a lot. Normally, you would have to establish... that the homeowner did something that a reasonable person wouldn't have done in the way that they managed the property. So just as an example, if you lend your car to somebody, you're typically only liable for their bad driving if you had reason to believe that they were going to drive poorly. Understood. So... This, so passing a social host ordinance wouldn't prevent, would allow somebody to sue, you know, have property damage covered or…”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:51:15
“the city of Ojai this is last paragraph of finding F05 says the city of Ojai prohibits the discharge of fireworks and supports regional public education that's a good point so what it probably should say is that the discharge of fireworks is prohibited within the city of Ojai it's it's not a prohibition by the city of ohio it's a prohibition by the ventura county fire protection district that applies to the city of ohio so so maybe this the statement should be that we that we enforce and adhere to the county prohibition i've got the ordinance right here too if we need it so i tell me if i'm…”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:55:48
“So if we take the hypothetical of the parents are off in Europe on vacation and the kids, the teenage kids invite their friends over and are lighting off fireworks, would the parents be liable or would it require a social host ordinance to pick up that light?”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:57:10
“I would say that the ordinance as written probably does not imply strict liability so to have that we might need a host that's a situation where potentially the homeowner would argue I'm not negligent because I didn't know what was happening and then there'd be a legal issue about whether they nonetheless had responsibility for overseeing their kids, which I don't think is a very clear, it would go back to a negligence standard.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:57:49
“So if we wanted to, we could create a strict liability”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:58:22
“is you start a fire. And that could be anything from a quarter acre to thousands of acres. I think very close to where I grew up, there was a fire, I forget the name of it, but kids were lighting off fireworks in mailboxes, and it burnt from Koningstein Road and Upper Ojai all the way across Nordhoff Peak.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 1:59:29
“I'm sure it does. So the grand jury is asking us to consider the adoption of a social post. But that just means that we're agreeing that we'll bring it up at some future council? I think we probably should, not that I would say I would adopt it, but I think we ought to let the community come in and weigh in.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 2:00:48
“Yeah, that's fine. Just say that we've decided that we're going to take it up at a future council meeting.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 2:02:02
“Okay and then we're in that finding or the response to finding F05 that first sentence of the last paragraph is going to be modified to say something about us enforcing the county prohibition”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 2:16:41
“does that make make it ai generated entirely no um partially yes i see yeah no that's probably what most of us are doing in some fashion i i think that it depends on what you're presenting how much you know detailed review is required i know that i cannot use chat gpt as a reliable source to write a legal brief so i can't say this is the law because i got it from chat and i and and the same applies to facts and so you know if you're if you're presenting uh you know if you're doing a a memo for an agenda item and you you're relying upon AI, you have to independently verify that either the…”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 2:19:37
“So I don't see that being a problem if you're using AI to clean up a memo so that it reads better.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 2:19:47
“But I think it's important that we use AI responsibly if we're asserting, you know, facts and rules.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 2:20:32
“No, not right now. Yeah, like I said, I think it's a distinction if you're just having AI help you phrase what you're trying to say, as opposed to if AI is helping you, you have a big question, you go to AI, it gives you an answer. and now you're gonna present the answer, I wanna make sure that there's adequate training and vetting of the source material.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 2:21:56
“Yeah, but it lets you in those, um. Those citations are only valuable if you take the time to click on them and read them and see if they say what the text says. And I think that's one of the risks.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026