Remarks by Brad Steward
115 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 4 of 5
- Play at 4:19:01
“important distinction okay thank you just uh jumping around on a couple of questions i have and again just checking my understanding the zoning piece is permanent and the cup is not necessarily permanent would that be a correct statement”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 4:19:43
“But in the scenario where you roll forward to another owner at some future state, that that zoning adjustment would be permanent where the CUP might not necessarily be permanent.”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 4:20:54
“Yeah, and Jeremy, I'm asking that question not necessarily, I'm using the hypothetical not necessarily for the purposes that I believe that will become true. Only for the purposes of just kind of keeping it square in my head, we're actually proving kind of two things a little bit. And so I'm just keeping that clear in my head and getting it on the record.”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 4:28:47
“Yeah, it's interesting because on the part of the application is local people are going to be able to use this. And I think we should specify that and put some barriers around that so that we know When those periods are because I think what's true a little bit is what you say is correct. It's essentially an amenity where where it's sort of a Percentage of users of the hotel will use the spa if you will. Okay Then there's kind of another operation which is well a lot of people in town have communicated if we're gonna change this PL To VMU we want to be sure we have some sort of usage. We…”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 4:31:14
“Okay, that meets exactly. I'm sorry I missed that. Yeah, it further clarifies. That's the exact guardrail.”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 4:32:30
“Yeah, and we want to give you flexibility because the term spa is changing a lot, you know, and if you think about contrast therapy and all these things that are, you know,”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 4:50:44
“I like the middle ground here a little bit that you were proposing. I like having the HPC have their eyeballs on it. I don't like limiting their scope and I can understand why that might be more efficient but I think they should get a clean look at it and then I think from there it could go to council and so we could each get a little bit of what we need there.”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 4:54:32
“I could just give you my perspective on my thinking. So I like the middle ground. I think there was enough traffic on letters on the topic whether people understood the details or not on the move from PL to VMU that I think the check step actually is owed on the historical side. not at the cost of causing you extra time or delays or anything like that because the council does always have the ability in the end, play it out that they get given some information that they feel needs a little bit of a deeper study, they can always kick it right back to us. but I would rather roll with the bet…”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 5:00:46
“Hang on a minute. Just to make sure I have my information correct, I'm seeing on item four 87 average daily trips versus 122 for the prior office use.”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 5:01:00
“that's traffic, but it would also, the knock-on effect would be parking, you know?”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 5:03:20
“Well, what's true, and probably a little bit crass, but it's late. What's true is the business could underperform because the very operator ran a business that underperformed, which you bought. So it is true that that condition could happen and there might be a way that you say at some state we're conveying this to somebody else and something else is going to happen. So it is true that that is within the realm of possibility. I mean, the big thing I'm struggling with is I'm just looking at the numbers and seeing that if the average daily trips are reduced, what do we believe will drive more…”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 5:04:58
“And you guys are owner-operator. There's not a management company or a third-party provider or something. So you guys are directly owner-operator here.”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 5:05:57
“Can you come up with one, Brad? I'll try to form a late night motion here. I would like to, and help me here a little bit. My motion would be to approve the staff recommendations as written with the exception of mandating that the HPC get a look at this to then deliver a report to city council. That would be my particular motion.”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 5:06:44
“In shorthand, I'm agreeing with her that we're not gonna relitigate all of the old issues, that I'm accepting what's been drafted as the recommendation with the exception of getting the HPC going directly but but going directly to the City Council under the logic that if they see something that they feel is requires a Planning Commission viewpoint they would immediately say we're sending that to Planning Commission and I agree with you it runs a risk of actually delaying the schedule But given some of the commentary that there may be different things built in different periods that had…”
Planning Commission · Aug 5, 2026
- Play at 2:40
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 31:38
“Yeah, and I have a few questions if no one else wants to come up.”
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 57:43
“you have some questions brad uh yeah just a few things um and i'm gonna start with just a couple of questions for the staff uh to help me get my head around this a little bit um and i have a lot of experience i've lost several trees and have applied for the emergency policy and so Unfortunately, I know this world a little bit. Question for the city. What is the annual revenue from these kind of penalties look like for the city? How often do we have revenue from these kind of penalties and what are they like?”
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 58:56
“Okay, and so there's no annual budgeting or appropriation or hey, we're planning on 25 grand a year that we put in the city budget or P&L, 25,000 a year that we set aside because we know we're gonna have 25,000 bucks worth of fees or anything like that.”
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 59:18
“Okay. Does Crotone have any history of tree violations? Is this the first time?”
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 59:28
“Yeah, okay. You know, and I think it's pretty clear At least it'd be interesting to hear from maybe the guy who actually cut the thing down, but it does appear that the circumstances are pretty well agreed with everyone on the fact that somebody came in and cut the tree down and kind of jumped the gun a little bit. I guess kind of a follow on question with that. I've dealt with several of the tree vendors in town. There is a wide range of quality in people who cut trees in the city of Ojai. And I'm wondering on our side as the city, if I want to come here and be an arborist or do something…”
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 1:01:20
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I only ask because I've had very specific experience here with people who are represented. They have arborist licenses. I followed up and checked on those licenses. Yes, you did 10 years ago. You do not have one today. You've done a bunch of work here and solicited work from us and so on and so. and kind of the root of that question is could a person reasonably grab an application and think it was a permit and would there would there be anything that they had familiar familiarity with to say hey that's permit that's a that's an actual application for permit and so I'm…”
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 1:02:43
“And in terms, so I live in the Arbolada and every Saturday at 8 a.m. the chainsaws crank up. And people presumably are cutting on the weekends when they know no one's gonna be around inspecting. And it can be a little bit irritating for sure. And I guess I'm wondering, to me there are signals that violators put off a little bit. They do it, somebody mentioned under the cover of night. That's a signal. Another thing they do is they do it on a weekend or a Sunday afternoon or something like that when nobody's around. Typically a signal of someone violating a process, to me, would not be that…”
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 1:09:10
“I just have a comment kind of based on what you were saying, Katrina, a little bit. You always have to ask the question, are we giving people the tools they need to catch what we are pitching? So we're pitching a policy that I think everybody agrees with. I don't think there's any opinion otherwise on this. But that catching piece, if I knew a vendor that was city certified or city educated or had the little sticker on it you know that tells me this person has gone through some vetting or education of something as a buyer that would certainly give me a a much higher confidence in their…”
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 1:30:25
“Planting a tree for stability and we have an expert in house here I'm sure who could testify this planting for stability typically happens in younger trees planting a large tree actually nearly guarantees the tree is gonna fall over because the roots are developed and they're not developed in the way that a young tree being planted would develop and So we're a little bit wrong-headed with some of the guidance, but I actually think that, Lucas, you said something really important. I'm paraphrasing, but you said there's really not a clear definition on what's hazardous or not. Now, I look at…”
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 1:39:18
“Okay, is anyone ready to do a motion on this to... Let's talk about real quick what the motion would look like so that we're precise. My understanding of the...”
Planning Commission · Jul 15, 2026