City Council - Regular Meeting

one to the Tuesday June 9th regular City Council meeting for the city of Ojai roll call please mr. Montgomery yes mayor mayor Gilman here mayor Pro Tem May councilmember Rule here councilmember Lang here councilmember Whitman here and would you lead us in the pledge please of course thank you community please rise as you are able ready begin I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands

Thank you. And on the approval of the agenda, I know one change is that the Ojai Fire Safe Council is moving to our next meeting on the 23rd. Any other changes to the agenda? No objections? Okay, we will approve the agenda then. We have one presentation, which is the proclamation honoring Pride Month 2026 and Helen Allen. The proclamation is up there at the podium if you want to go up. Yes, thanks. And if we want to do a photo here, just call us out and we'll come up.

Welcome to Pride Month, everyone. Yes, exactly. Thank you. Thank you. We had our annual pride flag raising ceremony on last Friday. And I want to thank Mayor Gilman and Weston and Ben and all of the staff for making it happen. This year was really special because the entire Ojai community lost one of our truly great members, community members, Helen Allen, who passed away this year. And Helen and her wife Lynn started, they were the first ones who started the Pride Walk, I think 35 years ago, is that correct, Kate? 35 years ago. And so everything that we've built to honor the Pride Month is really standing on the legacy that Helen and Lynn provided for us. So with that said, I'll read the proclamation. And I'll ask, I think we have Kate is here. And any other members of Queers of the Valley? All right.

Oh, my goodness. We are just so grateful to be in this wonderful valley, to be with all of you. The fourth annual flag raising this year was the best yet. May that continue to just get better and better and better. 35th annual Pride walk, like you said. Our third annual Pride celebration, which expanded on all of the work that Lynn and Helen had been doing. for those 30-something years. And we're just so honored to be a part of this, working. with all of you with everyone in the valley to try to make this as welcoming of a place as possible not just to queer and trans folks but to all of the intersectionalities to people of every race every immigration status every gender identity every socioeconomic status whether you're housed or not um so what a great place to get to be doing that together

All right. And with that said, we'll go ahead and read the proclamation. Whereas the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning LGBTQ plus communities form an integral part of the vibrant culture of Ojai, and whereas the diverse LGBTQ plus community continues to contribute to the widespread academic, economic, artistic, and social spheres within the Ojai Valley and beyond, and whereas june is designated as pride month to commemorate the stonewall riots which occurred in june 1969 and are recognized as the catalyst of the lgbtq plus rights movement and whereas the city of ohio is committed to protecting the civil rights of all its citizens as well as celebrating diversity supporting families fighting discrimination and protecting the most vulnerable lgbtq plus community members among us our youth, seniors, and the unhoused. Whereas the city of Ojai has adopted a flag policy and now raises the pride flag at Ojai City Hall as a statement of inclusivity of the LGBTQ plus community in the city and beyond. Whereas this last year we lost pride pioneer Helen Allen. Helen's contributions were vital. in the initiation of inclusive LGBTQ plus community programming and social opportunities. Whereas Helen's commitment to enhancing the vitality of Ojai for members of the LGBTQ plus community has been evident in their tireless efforts to promote Ojai as a vibrant destination for both residents and visitors throughout the Ojai Pride Walk and social gathering opportunities continuously over the past 34 years will not be forgotten. therefore be it resolved that the ohio city council and on behalf of the city of ohio recognize june 26 2026 as pride month in honor of helen allen in ohio and encourage all residents to recognize the enduring efforts and ongoing contributions of the lgbtq plus communities in ohio and nationwide thank you

Take a photo, guys.

Yeah. Let's do it. Come on.

Let's stand in front of our new diets.

Okay, thank you for that. That was wonderful. Any commission reports?

None received, Mayor. Okay, and then City Manager's report, please. Yes, Mayor. I'd like to call our Public Works Director to the podium to give a brief update for us, please. Ms. Palmer.

Good evening, all. So Ben asked me tonight to come and speak about an issue that some of you may have heard about. I know I have. And that is our handicap ramps that we're installing alongside our paving projects. So as we pave our roads, we get to an intersection, a four-way, a three-way, a two, whatever it is. And we like to look at every corner to see if we can put a handicap ramp in. We get some economies of scale when we have our contractor out there doing the concrete work. So I met with a group of citizens out at Mountain View and Grandview. I lost my train of thought. So at Grandview last week, just a small group, and explained to them the reasoning behind those four curb ramps on those four corners. So number one, it's near a school. It's in a school zone. So it's a half a block west from Topatoba. And what we are trying to prepare ourselves for, staff in Public Works is also researching some Safe Routes to School grants. And if we are successful in getting a grant, my recommendation to all of you would be we start in school zones because that seems to be a really good spot to start putting in sidewalks if you so choose. So we look at all of the intersections when we're paving. Some of them we delete these from the plans because it makes no sense because it's a bridge to nowhere. and we recognize that that appears to be the case out here at this intersection, but we talked about it and talked about it and just decided to go ahead and do it, so we're in a really good position if we ever decide to put sidewalks in. Furthermore, there's four crosswalks at that intersection, so we know children are crossing. So at the very least, in the immediate future, they have somewhere to land if they cross the street and don't have to step in the street. And I think Ben, he gave you all a weekly update last week. But I'm happy to talk to anybody or answer any questions.

You did mention that before. Thank you for saying it again.

Yes. Questions? Anybody got questions?

Thank you. Appreciate it. Anything else? There is something else. The chairs. Fourth of July. You guys were gonna say something about that.

I think we might withhold comments until the future agenda items portion of the meeting, if that's okay to the council.

I have my note. Remind them to say something about this.

Your notes are excellent.

Sorry, should have connected with you on that. Thank you, Mayor.

No problem.

My chair isn't out there yet.

Neither is mine.

I thought you had the couch. Thank you so much.

Wonderful. Okay, then we will move on to public communications. of which I have a few. Ron Solorzano, please. River, this is gonna be about the budget item, so that's gonna be later, not public comment, unless you have something else to say. Yeah, it will be for that item. Larry Stangle, please, and then Helen Pasquarello.

Hi, Ron.

All right. Hello.

Yes. Thank you. Members of Council. My name is Ron Solorzano. I am the regional librarian for the Ojai Valley. And the main thing I want to talk to you all about today is our summer reading program. Summer reading began on June 1st. So just very recently, it's going to run through the end of July, ending on August the 1st. And as usual, we have the youth program. It's a little bit different this year. And for those of you who are here, you'll be able to see this. If not, this is all going to be on our website as well. But this year, in addition to being able to log minutes, we have created a sort of grid of other activities that children and families can take part in in order to earn points in the program. These include things like visiting a community park or, you know, planting something in a garden, you know, creating a video about nature to post, things like that. So, you know, you still get points for reading. In fact, you get the most points for reading, but you also get points for these other activities. And as the summer progresses, as we get into July, those points are going to be able to be used in the prize store. So as of July, the prize store will open and children can go in and spend the points that they've earned on a variety of prizes as part of this program. In addition to the reading and logging and doing the activities, we also have certain programs that are going to be taking place at the Ojai Library. We're going to have things going on every Wednesday, every day of the week really, but there are certain one-time events that I do want to highlight. On June the 14th and on July the 12th, we're gonna have imagination stations set up at the library. These are geared towards children ages three to six, and they're basically extended sessions where we can work with them to kind of imagine that they're involved in a certain type of, So we have a farmer's market setting that we're going to have them do, and then a pizza parlor setting later for the one in July. Unfortunately, there will not be pizza there, but it's like a nice family play session for those dates. We're also going to have a presentation on shorebirds for June 15th. I also don't believe there will be actual birds, but it's going to be an educational presentation on shorebirds in the area that's going to be another part of the program here. And then, of course, finishing off, we have a final family day on July the 28th near the end of the program that's going to include the Kona Ice Truck and then also a game truck for kids. We had it last year, if anyone remembers. It was a lot of fun. And then short on time here, so I'm just going to also plug that there is an adult version of the program as well. It has its own little bingo card of activities, so adults can go there and log the books that they read, write reviews for the books, and complete activities to earn points and chances to win prizes as well. More information on our website. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Larry Stengel, please.

Good evening. Yes, don't we all? Good evening. Thank you for your service, and it's sincere, because it takes a lot of work to do what you do. Going forward, is it possible for two things to be added to the agenda? One is discuss recording of audio and video of closed meetings. Just put it on the agenda and have a conversation. Vote on it, don't vote on it, but move it along, because it has been a big deal around here for years. Also, having a biweekly meeting to have conversations beyond three minutes, because otherwise we have to track you down and have conversations, and people don't do that. Is it also possible to get a list of all the lawsuits and the costs involved? Because we've been spending millions, and some of that obviously has come from the road budget, which is now down to two and a half million. But continue, please, to do what you're doing. and hopefully oh if we could have visions it would be nice if we could each have a vision of everybody a vision of what you want to see the city one year five years from now because we don't really hear that from the council on a group maybe the plan yes but your individual vision your vision thank you thank you mr steingold ellen pascarella please limit

Good afternoon, everybody. It's been a while since I've been here and remodeled. It looks so official now. Thank you for letting me take this time to speak to you. I'm not talking about Palestine or the fact that we're in another illegal war in Iran. I'm talking about something local today. And last week on June 2nd, I was at the Vons parking lot and I heard this horrible crash and screaming and there was an accident. And I don't know if you heard about the accident on Highway 33 going into Vons, right? I'm still kind of shaking from it because there was this young woman who was in the car who hit the motorcyclist and he was like ejected into the other side of the road like 20 feet from his motorcycle. And for the first five minutes he didn't move and I was consoling her and she was screaming because she thought she had killed him. So my question and my concern is that afterwards he moved and I was like, he's alive, he's alive. But the thing is that I've seen other people make that illegal turn. Are there any plans for putting up maybe like some type of, you know those little plastic cones that are tall that they have like on HOV lanes, something like that. Because people don't realize it. And I spoke to the other people who were witnesses as well. And we all have seen people do that. And it was just, you know, I don't want to wait until somebody dies. So are there any plans? Do you know?

After you're finished, I'll ask the chief to respond.

Okay, thank you. I'm done.

Okay. Yeah, chief, would you mind talking about the efforts so far?

Thank you.

We on? Yes. Yeah, no, I know it's been an area of concern. I actually just tasked my motor officer probably a few months ago reaching out to Caltrans for a proposal to get delineators put up. And the feedback and the assessment from Caltrans was that there was not enough crash information. to evidence you know support that putting the delineators up but i'm aware it's a problem and that's one of the topics tonight you know our motor program um which the timing is perfect you know it's invaluable the motor program and that's another area of concern that i've tasked deputy burnett with focusing on there um yeah and it's something we're going to just keep an eye on and focus our resources on that you know that's you know the angle that i'm going to take and just probably zero tolerance for a while until the tone gets set thank you for bringing that up anybody online

No, Mayor, we have no raised hands.

OK, that was a big accident that we all saw. OK, so moving on to the consent calendar, I know that I'm interested in pulling five and six because we have speakers here. How do people feel about three and four?

Yeah, I want to pull three.

OK. So shall we approve four?

I'll move to approve four.

Second on that.

Let's do a roll call on four and then we'll go down the line.

Yes, Mayor.

Thanks.

Thank you, sir. Roll call, Council Member Whitman. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Meng. Yes. Council Member Rule. Yes. Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Lange. Yes.

Wonderful. Okay, let's move on to three. Mr. Mayor, what were you thinking of?

And give us a moment if you would, so Ms. Cho can join us up here, if you don't mind. Thank you. Switch out the name badge really quickly if we can. Just give us a moment. Sure, sure. Thank you.

Okay.

Thank you. So, Council Member, I believe you pulled this item. We're happy to take your question. Did you have a question on 3?

On 3? Yes. That's the minutes of City Council, right?

No, 3 is the warrants.

Okay. Which one was the minutes? That's what I wanted to know. Oh, you, okay.

We just approved the minutes, so we misunderstood. Okay. You had a change for the minutes?

No, you know, the problem is I'm looking at, minutes okay so which item was that the minutes were for yeah so okay so on item them can I what can we just we're attracted and make the the here here what the change request is is that easy enough we can do that okay and just take another vote okay yeah all right okay so on item four there's actually um three places okay i think could be more accurate on for from the minutes item number seven uh consideration of city's ability to shift it says no action taken i think to be accurate it should say that a vote was called for but since the majority indicated it would not support change, the city attorney and the city manager concluded that the proper handling was to report as no action.

That sounds like there's intention language in it.

Oh, I don't need any intention. I just wanted to report the fact that a vote was called for and then that didn't occur.

What page was that on, if you don't mind me asking? 20. 20, okay, let's see.

So no, I think officially no motion was made and therefore no action was taken. We could say that, that no motion was made to.

Well I think I did make a motion.

That's my point, is that I did make a motion and then it was concluded that a motion wasn't appropriate if we weren't gonna take action. So I don't care how the wording is. I'd just like it to reflect.

Let us revisit that, and we'll put these on the next meeting's agenda. We'll post on this item.

Thank you. The next one is in the future agenda items, the next page. And it said the full council requested a call up of the planning commission's denial. My recollection is that the mayor asked for the call up and it was seconded by Leslie. I know that I didn't participate in that, I don't think.

So would it be correct to say that the council

requested a call up because right whatever it needs to be we can correct that in the next meeting okay and then the very next item references a future item for fire ember screens And what I recall is that we discussed the idea of an item to address highly hazardous or flammable trees and that ember items was added to that.

I heard it I remember it the opposite but you too I remember it the opposite because I made the motion that's fine I mean however we want to do that but it was specific to ember screens I did want it to include the ember screens I also wanted to to include the idea that we're

of identifying hazardous trees and look at mitigating that.

Maybe we can put that on future agenda items. We could put it on today.

I mean, if you feel like it wasn't, if it didn't happen at this meeting, let's put it on under future items at the end of today's meeting. Those were all the comments on them. Okay, so I'm hearing you'll go back and we'll look at the recording. Staff is happy to do that, yes. Thank you. So then we'll retract that. And we'll bring them back, obviously, the next week. Thank you. Thank you. So was there, did somebody want to pull the warrants number three?

I just have one. Okay. On page 11, check number 80708, the JMG security systems.

Sorry. Sorry, which page number is it? Page 11. Okay.

Check number 80708, second from the bottom. Okay. JMG security systems. It says deposit for installation of security equipment. And I was wondering what that is and what the total cost would be.

I believe that is for the rec department. They needed an upgrade in their alarm system.

Yes. Sorry. Thank you. It took me a moment, but that is exactly what it is. Thank you.

All right.

Perfect. Thank you.

I think that's it. OK. So I'll move to approve a consent item number three then. Second from anyone?

I'll second.

Wonderful. So let's call a roll on that, and then we'll go to the other two. Thank you. Roll call.

Council Member Rule.

Yes.

Council Member Lang. Yes. Mayor Gilman. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Mang. Yes. Council Member Whitman.

Yes. Wonderful. And then now on number five, appointment of the Area Housing Authority Commissioner. Mr. Dolan is not here, but we have Ricardo Torres from the Area Housing Authority to come up and say a few words about the agency. Thank you, sir.

Can you guys hear me okay? Yep. Good evening. Mayor Gilman, Mayor Pro Tem Mang, esteemed members of the city council and city staff. My name is Ricardo Torres, Director of Government and Community Affairs with the Area Housing Authority of the County of Ventura. So we proudly serve the city of Ojai, Fillmore, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, City Valley, Moore Park, and the unincorporators of the county. I have the privilege of working with a 15-member board of commissioners, which keeps me pretty busy. as Westman can attest to. The Housing Authority is proud to serve the residents of Ojai through our public housing and housing choice voucher programs, which help families, seniors, veterans, and individuals with disabilities access safe, stable, and affordable housing.

One thing unique about our board is that

jurisdiction that we serve gets two citizens appointed to our commission, and then we have a resident commissioner. For a few years now, the City of Ojai has only had one commissioner on our board, and that's Commissioner Steve Mason, who does a wonderful job representing the City of Ojai. And fortunately for the City of Ojai, our resident commissioner uh also uh is a citizen in uh of roth apartments in ohio so in essence you know you also have that representation as well um but there for a really long time has been one seat uh available and i think that's the item that you have before you today so we're really excited to kind of uh see the the council uh appoint that um back that seat As of today, or actually as of March 31st, which is when our data is current, we assist Ojai residents through 50 housing choice vouchers, and we have 135 public housing units in the city of Ojai. Behind those numbers are individuals and families who are able to remain housed and maintain stability and continue contributing to the community they call home. I really want to take this moment and this evening to express our appreciation to the City of Ojai for its continued partnership and collaboration. The Housing Authority serves seven jurisdictions, as I mentioned, and one thing that we have learned is that strong partnerships are essential to addressing the housing needs of our communities. We are fortunate to have a strong, positive, productive working relationship with the city of Ojai, and we greatly value the city's commitment to supporting its residents. On behalf of the Housing Authority, thank you, staff, city council, and the Ojai community for your continued support and partnership, and we look forward to building that partnership in the years ahead. And then lastly, just a quick update for the council. Our board recently appointed Ms. Carrie Sabatini as our new Housing Authority Executive Director. Carrie has served as our deputy executive director and has been an integral part of the organization for many years. We're really excited for her leadership and look forward to continuing our work in service to Ventura County's and Ojai's residents under her direction. And thank you for your time, for your partnership, and thank you for your consideration to fill the vacant Ojai seat that we have on our board.

Thank you so much. Appreciate that. or I'd like to move that we forward Mr. Dolan to the Ventura County Area Housing Authority Board with many thanks. Any discussion?

I just have a comment. I think I've raised it before, and especially with these boards where their activities don't frequently come in front of us, I think it would be good to have some type of protocol where we get like a quarterly report, a presentation from one or the other of the commissioners so that we are aware that that's going. I would like that as well.

Okay, any more discussion? I would like to make sure that Mr. Whitman's request is noted so we can work on that.

Yes, thank you. Sorry, this has been brought up before. We'll put this on the working agenda and the parking lot item to make sure we schedule it. Thank you. Okay, thank you.

All right, roll call, please. Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Whitman. Yes. Council Member Lange. Yes. Council Member Rule. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem May.

Yes.

Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Torres for coming. And then item number six, the inaugural vacancy of the Public Safety Commission of forwarding of Mr. Randy Coggan to service there. Mr. Coggan, if you'd like to come up and say a few words. Thank you. That's okay.

We got all the time in the world. enjoy this it'll probably be the fewest words you ever hear from me i am truly honored to be given a position if approved on the commission and i look forward to using my very public safety background along with larry and jim and the other two tbd commissioners and to make this commission example for all boards so again thank you and thanks for your confidence in me and Rachel I can't wait to hear what you're going to share with us in July

Thank you very much. Any questions?

Just congratulations, Randy. I can think of very few who are as good of a fit for this as you. And you're just going to be such an incredible contributor to this commission. So thank you for your service and for being a part of this.

Many thanks. Does that sound like a motion?

I'll move to approve.

Second that. Let me not usurp.

You were about to.

Okay, second. Any more discussion? Roll call, please.

Council Member Rule.

Yes.

Council Member Whitman. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Meng. Yes. Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Lange.

Yes.

Wonderful, thank you for your service again. Wonderful, okay, moving on. We are on item number seven, public hearing report and public hearing of the City of Ojai job vacancies and recruitment and retention efforts.

Yes, Mayor, I'm gonna hand things over to Ms. Holman once she's situated. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

You got sparkles on today. I did.

I have a little sparkle. Great. I love it. Oh, look at that. More sparkle. Alrighty. So good evening, honorable mayor and our city council members. I appreciate the opportunity to present our annual public hearing regarding the city of Ojai's job vacancies and our ongoing efforts in recruitment and retention. This presentation is made in accordance with government code section 3502.3. This section of the code falls under the Myers-Millius Brown Act, or MMBA, which ensures local public employees have rights related to labor matters, It also requires public agencies to meet and confer on wages, hours, and other conditions of employment. With the passage of Assembly Bill 2561, effective January 1, 2025, all public agencies were required to publicly address position vacancies as part of their ongoing responsibilities. Even though the city of Ojai does not have any recognized employee organizations, AB2561 still applies to us. That's why we're holding the hearing today. to report out on our current vacancies and share updates on recruitment retention efforts before adopting our annual budget in compliance with the legislation. Since our last report of May 1st, 2025, we have actively recruited for nine full-time positions and six part-time temporary or seasonal positions. As of May 1st of 2026, the following positions are vacant, accountant, transit operations supervisor, trolley driver, recreation leader, lifeguard,

And I lost the rest of my page.

And rec leader. Recreation leader and lifeguard. Because the transit operations supervisor role is a critical role, it is currently filled with an interim appointment as we go through our active recruitment. Speaking of active recruitments, we are recruiting for all the vacant positions listed except for the position of accountant, which we successfully filled as of May 26 of 2026. While we have not identified any policy changes that are needed to address any hiring obstacles, we did implement some improvements to strengthen our recruitment and retention efforts. We enhanced the use of our applicant tracking system to make recruitments more efficient and to expand our outreach. This included utilizing the automated background check feature that the program has, interview scheduling, and sponsored job boards. We developed a benefit summary that gives employees a clearer one-page view of their benefits package. We introduced an online benefits portal to help onboard new hires and manage annual open enrollment elections. And we continue to recognize our employee contributions through appreciation events and awards. So this was a very brief presentation for our public hearing. This is my conclusion of our job vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts, and I welcome any questions you may have.

Questions? It seems as robust as I've ever recalled. So, wonderful. Nice work. Thank you. I have no public comments on this. We currently have no raised hands on Zoom, Mayor. No questions. Thank you so much. Wonderful. Yep. OK. Mayor?

Yes? We will need some council action.

Oh, discussion.

To receive?

There's no action on this one. I believe it's just receive the report and conduct the public hearing. No worries. But if there's no public comment, we can close the public hearing and move to the next item.

OK. Oh, it's interesting. Okay, so on the public hearing is only number seven and not doesn't go to eight and nine, just just for the budget.

It's technically a separate fine with me.

Okay, we'll close the public hearing and move on to item number eight. So the city of Ojai proposed budget for fiscal year 2627.

Thank you, Mayor, and I'm just gonna briefly ask the Chief to vacate his seat so that we can have.

Stay close, Chief, though.

Our finance team come up to deliver this, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Montgomery. Mayor, we've got a presentation loaded, so ready when you are.

Ready.

Good evening, honorable mayor and city council members. I'll be presenting the proposed fiscal year 2026, 2027 budget. So to begin the finance and budget committee has reviewed the proposed fiscal year 2627 budget at the main 19th and June 2 meeting finance staff has also met with two members of the committee following the preliminary review changes have been made to the budget document to reflect the feedback and comments from this committee. The budget document outlines the financial plan and priorities of the city. Developing and monitoring the budget is an ongoing process and can be modified throughout the fiscal year to respond to changes in forecasts, unanticipated events, and to allow for the pursuit and achievement of established city council goals, which are listed on this page. This slide highlights factors of the budget in relation to personnel and staffing. Included in this budget is a cost of living adjustment of 3.5%, does not include the city manager, and has an impact of approximately 172,000. The budget also considers staffing changes to address operational needs and to create growth opportunities. Five positions have been changed to full time as well as nine positions have been elevated, most of which are budgeted halfway into the fiscal year. This slide highlights some of the anticipated costs that are also included in the proposed budget and a couple that are not included for council's consideration. The current agreement with the Ojai Fire Safety Council does extend a few months into the new fiscal year. However, at this time, there are no new fire safety projects or proposals included. Also to note, with the budget document, it does provide a line item detail of the budget, and that also includes the percentage change from the current budget to the proposed 26-27 budget. The three major revenue sources are projected with HDL, who specializes in revenue analysis and economic insights. For the prior fiscal year, the city received $2.3 million in sales tax, and when looking at how much we received through April, in comparison to the same measurement period as last fiscal year, we are trending to exceed the current budgeted amount of $2.4 million. Sales tax for next year is projected at $2.5 million. Per HDL's analysis of the latest sales tax update for quarter four of 2025, the city saw a growth of 9.6% when compared to the same quarter in 2024. And for comparison, the county saw a growth of 1.7% and the state saw a growth of 1.1% when comparing the two time periods. The current budget for secured and unsecured property tax is 2.4 million. The 26-27 projection of 2.6 million takes into consideration a 2% CPI adjustment. Additionally, for properties that were sold in 2025, the projection also considers the difference between the value that's on the tax roll and the price paid for the property as property is reappraised when there's a change in ownership. and just to note the graph here does show property tax around trending at 4 million that's because this includes the vehicle license fees as well the trend for transient occupancy tax continues to rise with next year's forecast to be approximately 8.1 million in the general fund and 12.16 million citywide including measure c This slide shows the allocation of the general fund expenditures by department. And as seen here, the police or public safety accounts for roughly 23% of the general fund budget. And just to reiterate, the individual line item details are included in the budget document. This is just a visual graph to see by department where the allocation is. This slide is an overview of the balanced budget policy and minimum fund balance policy. This highlights that operating revenues must cover operating expenditures, though it is allowable for expenditures to exceed revenues in the case that the fund balance is used towards capital projects or one-time non-recurring costs. Additionally, the minimum fund balance policy states that the minimum balance is to be 100% of the prior year's general fund operating expenditures as the minimum reserve amount. This slide shows the general fund is structurally balanced, where recurring revenues are greater than recurring revenues, resulting in a structural surplus of 119,000. The one-time cost includes the OUSD grant match and historic inventory survey, which ultimately decreases the fund balance by 94,000. This table is a summary of the general fund balance. The table starts with the beginning balance, followed by revenues and expenditures. The net operating is the difference between revenue and expenditures, and that's followed by the non-recurring costs to get to the ultimate change in fund balance. The ending balance takes into consideration the total change in fund balance and the amount under the 100% reserve column is prior year's operating expenditures. The unallocated column is the amount beyond the 100% reserve amount. The middle row of this table shows the estimate general fund balance at the end of this fiscal year to be approximately 21.7 million, leaving 5.6 million of the balance unallocated or beyond the 100% reserve amount. And this is a projection of expenditures based on spending through mid-May. The projected ending fund balance for next fiscal year is 21.6 million, of which 4.3 million is unallocated. So that concludes my presentation, and of course I'm available for questions.

Thank you for that. Questions before we go to public comments and then discussion?

I'm going to ask for clarification. So it says a structural surplus. This is slide nine. The OUSD grant match one time is what we have. It takes it out, $125,000. It's deducted, correct? Yes. But it hasn't been spent?

It hasn't been spent yet. It was originally included in current year's budget. But I think after discussion, we're anticipated to have that pledge for next fiscal year. The amount of the structural surplus takes into consideration the ongoing revenues and expenditures. So the $125,000 in this scenario would dip a little bit into that structural surplus. This summation of the OUSD grant match and the historic inventory survey is about 200-some thousand. So instead of seeing a negative 200,000, it's negative 94, because we're taking into consideration we're going to use part of that surplus and dip into the reserve balance in this scenario.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Just on that piece, it was because they needed to make sure they got to that level of the grant, which they not that long ago did. So it didn't come out of our current fiscal, it's gonna come out of the next one.

Right, right, right, exactly. Okay. Cool.

And only if we were doing a matching, right? So it only is coming out of the grant. I believe that they're there.

They're there. Yeah, I believe they're there. But we'll let them speak for themselves. Any other questions?

I have questions, but I think it goes into the general discussion. Okay. So I'll hold on.

Okay. All right. I have two cards for public comments. Larry Steingold. And then I have River Savagnol. Larry? Larry?

The budget shows less money for roads. It was allocated $4.5 million. It's been cut to $2.5 million. Have you told the people in your districts which roads aren't going to be paved for more years because this was part of the deal? You spend the money for the roads, and they all get done. Because 30-year roads, 15-year money, this keeps getting stretched out. There are roads that won't get paid for how many more years? Four or five? I mean, this is uncalled for. This is just, you know, it's a continuation of decades of not repairing things and taking money from the low-hanging fruit, which is the roads. I mean, everybody's aware that if you need more money, take it from the roads because people don't complain. They just live with them. But once the roads are done, then it's maintenance. It's easier to maintain than it is to do what we're doing on some of these roads. And then you're going to want to build sidewalks. And the money is going to come from the roads. And then they're going to need a sidewalk on Bryant. And the money is going to come from the roads. So there are roads here that may not get paid for I don't know how many years. And it's just not right for these people who have been waiting for, it seems, decades. So please put money back into the budget for the roads or take it from somewhere that's not a priority that we can live without for at least the next three years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Stengold. River 7-0, please. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. My name is River Sauvageau.

Thank you, sorry. That's okay. I tried. You tried, and that's a big thing.

I am, I lead the making of Ojai's largest public art project, the Ojai Day Mandala, and this will be our 34th year. Since we've been painting around the fountain in the park since 2020, the mandala gets to last for a couple of months. We have probably about 200 people that come and paint with us and participate. And then over those two months, we have thousands of people who get to view the mandala as it is fresh and then it slowly fades and then gets washed off. It's something we, I think it's one of the most unifying projects that are, that happen in Ojai where people of all ages, literally we've had one year olds painting in the mandala to 84 year olds so far. So all ages, all artistic skills, because you don't have to be an artist to paint in the mandala and have it be yours. And then also for people from all economic backgrounds and all political and religious beliefs. So it is really unifying. So last year, the city kindly supported us, and again, this is my 34th year. For many years, the city did pay for our materials, but I never got paid, and that was okay for me. But now, this is something that really defines Ojai in a lot of places and for a lot of people. and I'm asking for the Ojai de Mandala be part of a permanent budget item in Ojai, and I'm asking for $7,000, because right now I'm in a legacy period with this, because after 33 years, I hope to paint for many more years to come, but I am training the next generation. and that takes a few years, and I wanna do, and I do weekly workshops right now. I also have started the Mandala Medicine Movement, which is to bring this out into the world, and our logo has Chief Peak and Topa Topa Mountain in the middle, so that wherever we go, we know we come from Ojai, that this is based in Ojai. So I'm just really happy to be a person living here for 48 years. I love this community. I have over 40 years of volunteer experience in the arts here, and so I'm asking for your support, and I thank you.

Thank you, Fabinia. Can you say one more time the amount?

$7,000.

I just wanted to make sure I heard that.

You did hear that right. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

That's my last card. Anybody online? Mayor, we have two raised hands for this item. First, we'll have Mr. Miley, followed by Renee. Mr. Miley, you have the floor.

Hi. Hello. I participated in the recent Finance Committee meeting I participated in the recent Finance Committee meeting. I understand the budget. It has reserves. And I support this proposal. Thank you. Thank you.

Next we'll have Renee. Renee, you have the ability to unmute and you may speak.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the Council and staff. Oh, hello. Hi.

Yes.

Oh, okay. You can hear me. Okay. Good evening, mayor and members of the council and staff. I have just a quick comment. I want you to look for fire safety in the budget. Um, it needs to be in there. It's not in there. Uh, we have a current contract with. The Ohio Valley fire safe council, and I would expect that the city would take the lead. On discussions about what the future needs are, but I know they need to get that feedback from the city. Council members on how you are going to scope and approach fire safety. and mitigation efforts in the coming year. And that hasn't really happened yet. So I'm hoping you have time or can begin that process. So I think something should be in there and it's there's zero for next year. The other thing is regarding the historic inventory survey, it's listed as a one year item. uh it was on your presentation as well but if you look at the budget for historic preservation commission it's in the 25 26 budget and on the 26 27 budget for 88 000 and my understanding it was supposed to be for one year so i'm just curious uh if it is a one year or if it was carried over Uh, like the grant for the proposal. And then legal services, um, we didn't really discuss this at the budget and finance committee meeting, but. I do believe the 900,000, uh, budget for legal services. Is very optimistic. Um, and if you look at what we spent over the last 2 years and. where the outstanding lawsuits that we're currently haggling over, I think it needs to be looked at and it needs to be more realistic. And in terms of the structured surplus, I think it might be a better understanding to understand the categories where money is reserved. There are certain accounting terms used to classify that structural surplus, such as certain amounts are reserved for committed expenditures that you're already committed to spend. And I think it might be good to have more detail. Thank you.

Thank you.

That's all on Zoom, Mayor.

Okay.

Yes, go ahead. Oh, I know I have a few items, but I'm happy to have somebody else start or me start. Anybody wants to begin? I'll jump in. Okay.

I know that we talked about raising our fees and doing a fee study, and I'm not seeing that incorporated. I'm perpetually interested in the amount of money that it's gonna take to complete the permanent supportive housing project. I know that we've discussed about the idea that there's gonna be a need for a construction manager at roughly three quarters of a million dollars and there are items that are in the project that aren't being covered I'd really like to know what that amount is. And I'd like to know details about the operating costs and when those will begin. I'm Not 100% clear on Measure C money. I was kind of surprised to see code enforcement as part of Measure C, and I know that it's in the language of the measure, but the way the measure reads, I would understand that code enforcement to be related to the measures. that are implemented that then require code enforcement so that code enforcement as a general proposition should come from the general fund as opposed to Measure C. The idea behind Measure C is that the residents were asked if they wanted to increase the tax with the idea that the tax would be specified for very specific purposes. I was also going to ask about roads because I know at one point in time we were talking about accelerating the paving project and now we're kind of shifting towards I think slowing it down and I have a very general support for the idea that That should be at the top of our priorities is to get the paving done. It is a correct assessment that the more we delay, especially the worst of our streets, the more expensive it's going to be to get them into repair. It's also... that once we get to the point where all of our streets are in pretty good shape, then the annual maintenance of that is gonna be much better. And I'll eventually have a new list or streets um hopefully libby's being taken care of in the next few months uh it's on the list yeah just anecdotally say that i was up on uh north montgomery not too long ago and oh and I drive the street next to El Roblar virtually every day. And I don't understand how a construction project occurred and then the street wasn't paved at the close-in conclusion of the construction project. So... As a general proposition, the recreation department is shown to generate 565,000 a year and the expense of it is 750,000 a year and I would you know like for us to be looking at a break-even proposition so maybe looking at our fees for services for classes and all the rest of that.

We can come back to you. Yeah, that's fine. Okay.

Do we want to address the questions all at once or individually? How would you like to proceed?

Yeah, no, good question. Some of these I also have on my list, so if you did want to address some of them now, you can, and then I won't have to.

It's however you want to have the discussion.

Why don't we, let's give it one pass. Yeah, do you have anything you wanna say right now?

Okay, I'll go.

So the fee study is something that I was also interested in because that will change a lot of our dynamics as that report generates. That's one item I was hoping to see or that we can talk about. The roads are interesting, and Ms. Palmer, tell me if I say anything incorrectly right now. So the design phase has been budgeted. So for the next part of the road paving, Ms. Palmer mentioned they're working on the design right now so that when the funding comes in, there won't be a pause. And I thought that we would look at this report and see what is that unallocated piece? That's the first piece. and decide or ask the question, should we keep the road paving on track? I think there's a lot of motivation to do that potentially. But then secondly, the budget committee is taking two important pieces that they've already stated publicly to evaluate and bring forward to this body. One is an evaluation of the reserve policy. That's one of the next things we'll be taking up. Not to say it needs to change, but even a 10% change in that would yield a substantial amount and the second is measure c how should the allocation of measure c work so those are two items that have already been publicly stated that i my hope would be as the year progresses we do see the road paving stay on its current track not slow down that's that's one other piece finally um i actually have two more sorry i would suggest we do what we did last year which is it's uh page 82 of the the large packet And if you see in fire mitigation that line, I propose that we do what we did before. We put in $1 million as a placeholder, not dedicated to anything yet, but we know that's something we are going to be doing, and that the Fire Safe Council, as just one vendor among many, has already begun having conversations about when their contract ends at the end of September, what's next. So anyway, that's a proposal there that I would hope we would entertain. Then, as was mentioned earlier, for the rec department budget, this would be page 65. I don't know if this is the right line item, but under contract services, let's say, or whatever makes the most sense, I would propose a $7,000 increase, and that would be for this year's mandala and also training for future mandalas, which we did something similar last year. Last, this is really for the Budget Committee to take up, but we did get some public comments last time and also over email around just looking again at the cannabis tax. I would love to see the Budget Committee look at that and evaluate it. Not hold up the budget now, but just... It's not a huge line item, but it is something that we just evaluate that compared to other cities and bring that forward to our council again. Those are my few items.

And I would second that. Cool. Yeah, I think it's worth reviewing. Okay, great.

That's it. Well, you've thrown my thunder. Dang it! I'm joking. No, I'm joking. So actually so I had some of this similar thoughts one adding a million dollar we'd already talked about as a council Making fire mitigation and fire resiliency a top priority And so I'd like to look at at adding a million dollars and and and for fuel reduction in particular as Councilmember Whitman was was saying earlier also, I I want to look at I had a thought come in from a constituent about waiving fees for fire hardening and tree trimming for fire. And so I want to have the budget committee look at that. And then I also am in favor of adding $7,000 for the mandala. Honestly, knowing what murals cost and knowing what public art costs, that is reasonable.

Okay, so you said have the budget committee look at what a fee reduction or elimination related to fire mitigation. Okay, thank you.

Yes, thank you. And then I also had a question for, I forgot to ask you earlier, Ms. Cho, but is the, for the parks and rec budget for the expenditures, did we, is some of the grant for the renovations, the park renovations, is any of that included in the revenue or the expenditures?

Are you speaking to the playground grant? Yes. Yeah, it's not included in expenditures.

Would that be CIP?

We have it, yeah. We have it listed in CIP.

Great. Thank you so much. And then I also am in favor of looking at the recreation, the balance with the staffing as well. And so those were my main things.

Okay.

Yes, so I, as one of the future agenda items around the fire, the amber casting, I'd like to seriously consider that and make that a budget item that the city covers the cost of that. I mean, I'd like a discussion around what that would look like with the idea towards the highest priority is to get this done. and the city take that on as a responsibility to make sure that it does get done. You know, regardless of cost, really. I mean, if the city has to cover the cost, I would like that discussion to happen because I think, you know, I don't want to get bogged down in, you know, means testing and this and that and, you know, administrative things. So I'd like to bring that forward. And I wanted to see, and perhaps I can come back to this. At one point I looked at where the help of Ojai was.

The help of Ojai?

Yeah, wasn't that in here? Or was I somewhere in some other world?

There's a system support help of Ojai. That would be on, but that's out of the encampment resolution funding grant 78.

Yeah, there are several areas that we pay help of OI. So we pay them for transportation. We also pay them for case management for OTT. We also have an allocation in this current fiscal year for rental assistance. And I might be forgetting, I think those are the three that I'm, right.

Yeah, so I guess when Help of Ojai comes back with their report, I want to look at, you know, I want to look at that again and see where we might do a gap analysis on what's not being covered, what should be covered, and things like that, and where, if we're not spending the money, if, you know, if we've given a criteria such that, you know, it's hard for people to fit into that, I'd like to look at that as well and to see where those needs are and hear from Help of Ojai and think about potentially, you know, adding a little bit or reallocating, rethinking that.

And I believe, Councilmember, you're speaking of the rental assistance allocation? Yeah.

Okay, thank you. That is on page 60 right now, so you see the $100,000 not included this time, but... what possibly in that case I was thinking, I like what you're saying. Let's get a report out. Is it effective? Is it working? What needs to happen? How can we further assist and then adjust as needed? Yeah, I would like to do that. Very much.

And I guess, you know, everything else has kind of been covered certainly for the public art, the mandala. There's just no... That is the largest public art that anyone can come and do. And there's no... There's no judgment on your artistic interpretation. It's just like, come and be creative with us. And I think that's one of the only places that that is the case on a drop-in basis. So I would like to support that as fully as needs to be supported. I think at some point, how much do we... Did we put in $10,000 at one point, or was that my? $5,000. $5,000, so $7,000 is good, yeah. It's such a great project, and once again, it is the true public art. So I support that completely. And other than that, we're going to get to a couple of things that will come up. So that's it.

Thank you. Yeah. General comments also embrace the money for the mandala. That seems like kind of a no-brainer. With each of these expenditure areas and it being brought back to us like on the fire mitigation issues, especially, I would wanna know what state and federal grants are available and what we're doing about pursuing those. I know that CAL FIRE gives out a lot of money, but also, and this goes to the budget in general, I spent some time reading about, you know, the the the the prospects for federal monies being cut. and California being a target of cuts and the likelihood that the state is going to be looking at their own cuts. And so I think we need to anticipate and be protective of that. And so that may impact. the reserve policy and how we discuss that. But the other I was a little bit concerned that we, you know, we, we had this combination of unused measure C money, plus this year's measure C money, and we're basically spending all of it. And I generally lean towards at least saving something for a rainy day or unforeseen consequence. You know, I'm kind of interested in the idea of not necessarily, you know, the money is there to be spent, but as opposed to maybe spending it all in one fell swoop, divvy out the unspent, you know, past funds on a two- or three-year basis as projects and need arises, and maybe we're not able to meet it elsewhere.

I think that's a reasonable approach. I think also we need to have the discussion, and we should have the discussion, about the amount of money that we have and if we're going to spread out past Measure C money into the future. That kind of begs the question is that we will then have new Measure C money that we didn't spend. so it's kind of that way it's really a question and I think it's it's a question that this council should really engage with is are we on a are we thinking of in our mindset are we at a scarcity mindset or are we at an abundance mindset And where do we fall in that as far as what we need to do? Once again, to me, if a fire comes and we're not prepared, everything else is irrelevant. It's just irrelevant. So, you know, where we look at a scarcity approach to some things, we should also look at an abundance approach to other things that are fundamental and essential to, you know, beyond the thriving of the city but the survival of the city. So, and I think that that is a philosophical discussion. It's also a very, you know, nuts and bolts, dollars and cents discussion as well. And so that's how I would like to frame it, really, when we do have that discussion.

I would offer this. It's on page 42 of the packet. And if you, it's the Measure C budget and the Measure C highlights. And it's true, when you look at the fund balance, the revenues, and then the expenditures with only $200,000 left, but you look to the right of that and you see The projects, every one of those seem good to me. And I think from my reading of the measure where the punctuation is, it does seem like it's code enforcement generally because of where the semicolons are placed. So it seems like a good spend. But what I would suggest is if something happens that requires an urgent response, we continue to have not only our 100% reserve, but That dollar amount that's over the reserve, so I think we're okay if something came up that we had to respond to immediately, even if that measure see is exhausted for now on the spent yeah yeah.

yeah.

If I could jump in, that was our rationale in putting this together. What we didn't want to do was create several different reserve funds. You may recall in years past, there was a light item that was in the budget, and this is years ago, it was like a $400,000 contingency set aside. So just to keep it clean and simple, you have your 100% reserve policy and then the amount on top of that. And as has been mentioned now several times, the Finance and Budget Committee is gonna mention, excuse me, is gonna review this and come up with some recommendations on how to maybe use that in a more strategic manner, looking at other jurisdictions that are in a similar position to Ojai, that are visitor-based economies, et cetera. But we don't specifically set aside something for Measure C just because of what was mentioned. And similarly, it's difficult for staff not having, I'm not faulting the council, we don't have a clear policy that explains how to divvy that up. So it's important for the finance and budget committee to make that recommendation and bring it back here. And if it's a percentage, if it's a dollar allotment, whatever it is, just something so that we know what the rules are.

And I think we've talked about that and the need to do that so that we are all clear on how to divvy things up.

I think that'll be a really, actually a really interesting, fun conversation to have to bring the talk.

I have just one quick question. Page 60, halfway down, OTT. I'm sorry. Page 60, middle of the page, OTT, proposed $400,000. What is that?

So that is the ongoing expenses of running OTT. That's salaries. That's secure all. That's supplies. That's roughly the amount of money that we spend each year to keep that afloat.

So it jumped from 322 to 400?

We, looking at expenditures, we felt that that was a more accurate reflection of what it actually would cost.

Okay, and then we had spoke before, and I'm just curious, there were things that we've paid out that you have told me that they're reimbursable. Is that, so how much of that, or you don't have to give me the answer now, but I would like to see those numbers.

So the reimbursable part of OTT is from the grant are the case manager allotments, so that's help of OHI, and then a portion, 50% of Ventura County Behavioral Health. And all total, it's probably around rough numbers, $250,000, maybe thereabouts annually, that is reimbursable from the ERF grant and reimbursable when, well, sorry, I was making it more complicated. Reimbursable now and then a different bucket of money hopefully will become available once the development opens to sustain that.

Okay.

But if not, we have $500,000 per year for four years set aside as part of the grant, $2 million to pay for that for the first four years while we're identifying what the long-term source is.

And then just a quick question, not to do with the budget, but how many people are in Tent Town now? Because I know the numbers fluctuate. It's mid-20s. Mid-20s.

Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah. So what you're asking for today is this conversation, so you're taking a few items back that you will, do you want to see a list of what to take back or what would be useful to you now? Can I ask a couple questions? Sure.

I heard, and I just want council to give us some guidance. Head nods. I've heard, I'm going to start with the big picture items. I've heard a desire for a $1 million allotment for fire-related items. I think that some have said this. I know that there are also some discussions about a desire for grant matches to go with that. The reason why I'm asking is it's a pie, as we've talked about before, and there's one of two ways to address this. You either can reduce spending in another area, You can also take the approach that you want to pull this as a one-time type activity from your allotment over your reserve. But it's one of those two approaches that you need to give us guidance on how you want us to proceed. I understand that part.

At least I'll just give my own opinion. It would come out of the unallocated after the 100% reserve. But not to all be spent or even, there's no vendors sort of in the queue. It's just to understand. A set aside, if you will? A set aside, yeah.

Okay.

Which is what I believe we did last year.

And I guess one of the other questions is would that be appropriate for Measure C because that's actually one of the very specific things that was promoted that we could do with Measure C is address fire medication.

And I guess I would just respond back only in this sense that it does seem like it would be a Measure C piece but then All of those, but all of the Measure C highlights, if they don't fall into Measure C, I would move them somewhere else. So then we're just shuffling piles, I suppose. That's right.

You're just, you're moving, if you want fire specifically to be in Measure C, then something else needs to go to that.

Now, if we were not in the financial position we are in at 116% of the reserve, that would be a different conversation.

Mm-hmm. This is a new thought, but I've thought about it a lot. I might have raised it once or twice. There would be some value in putting aside an amount of money to fend off those people who come here and say, we're going to sue you unless you give me what I want, and our lawsuit's going to take you into bankruptcy. And I know that there's one organization in town that created one of those funds. The Defense Fund. They haven't been spending it. The idea is that you have that so that you don't get in the situation where somebody can kind of bully you around by their by their threats. Is this dependent on the fire conversation? No, this is a more general.

Oh, so I have a thought, if I could, Councilmember, on that. One thought is this could be direction given to the Finance and Budget Committee as they're strategically looking at the reserve. That would be a logical layer, if you will, a defense fund as part of the Strategic reserves have layers, cash flows at the bottom, emergencies, and so forth, but with the amount that this city has, you could have several layers. One of them could be a defense fund.

I'm not opposed to that at all. Not instead of fire, but if we want to.

No, I'm not suggesting instead of fire at all. I'm just thinking of the idea that, you know, and I don't know where we're going to be on any of these issues, but if we didn't want 2,500 units to go in across from Nordhoff, But the developer was saying, we're going to crush you unless you approve this. We'd not have to start figuring out where we get the defense from our budget. We'd be able to say, okay, this has been set aside. And then you'd decide whether to access that. And the money can be there kind of useful or I think you and I talked about this before, that the money can actually be not put into a vault, but usable, but only in certain ways and circumstances that preserve the ability to allocate it.

Well, something I think you'll like is that if we were to take, if we look at that 116% after the 100% reserve and then the extra. But going back to FIRE for a second, if you said a million dollars is set aside for FIRE, that money then reduces by a million dollars? What I like about that is, so instead of 4387, it's 3387? It just helps us understand what we have to play with because we know this is a priority for us. If their defense fund falls into that, great. But you see my point, though, is that we don't just look at this dollar amount and think, oh, we can do X, Y, and Z. Sorry if I could step on you, Mayor.

I think a better use of your funds, and again, I think this is a great discussion for the Finance and Budget Committee, because it's unknown. What you know is you want to establish a fund, but you don't know what it needs to be. And so if you just have a layer within your reserve that's just allocated for that purpose, Then I'll give you a doomsday scenario. Let's say you have this huge lawsuit. Your layer ends up not being up. Then you need to go into the next layer, which is emergency. That's where a really detailed reserve fund policy can help you. But then you're also not tying up this money or using funds that you could be using for a capital project because it's just not known. I understand the prudence of having the fund. It makes sense to me. But I think that's a very good layer in your reserve policy for consideration.

I'm all for it. So you were going to go down a list. You said which part does the money come from, and then...

So, okay, the big elephant in the room. So we talked about this fire allotment. The other one is I've heard some discussions about wanting to spend more on roads. That's a... You could... So what happened is we're spending a lot of money on climate, a huge amount of money. And that's also something that's identified in Measure C. And it's a multi-year project, and it's going to hit all city facilities, and it's going to be very impactful. But again, going back to that pie scenario, you have to pull this money from somewhere else if you want to do both, or make pieces smaller. And so that's the hard decision. Did you ask anyone? I'm sorry. Oh.

No, I was going to say, in a way, I'm just throwing it out there. We might not have to make that decision right now. And the reason why I say that is that when the audits come back for 24, 25, and we see that and also look at revenues, it might be, and we also have that advance. In other words, We're spending less on roads at the moment. That could move forward. So maybe we don't have to decide that yet.

We could come back. It's a living document. If it was the pleasure of the council, we could come back as often as you'd like to re-decide things, and that's totally fine. You don't have to make all your decisions right now. Because the work is progressing right now. If you just think about this as a general spending plan, that's what you're doing tonight. And if you have some items that are follow-up or we need to make adjustments during the year, that's acceptable. Yep.

Is that okay for now for you?

Yeah, that's fine.

I have one thing that I wanted to bring up, which was at some point I made a suggestion that we look at making the trolley free. And I know that some of my calculations weren't correct because you don't actually lose the amount of money that you got through your trolley. toted the payments, you actually lose something else. But I'd still like to look at that because I think if it's within a reasonable amount, it is one of the first steps to getting people out of their cars and dealing with traffic, as well as making the trolley free for our community. But it also is, I think, a firm first step in getting people to just get on and get off.

So we could certainly have that as a concept review item if it's a pleasure of the council. What we've been told, and I'll ask Ms. Cervantes to jump in, we lose grant funding unless we charge some amount for the trawling. So we can reduce the fares. We can offer it for free, but then we're not entitled to the grant funding that we rely upon to fund the program.

Is there some other way to do it whereby we work with tokens? In other words, can we get creative with the charging of fees?

We could bring it back as a concept review. But I think that what the BCTC and others have told us is that you need to charge some amount in order to get there.

I mean, if we charged a dime and we gave them a dime. Yes, we could figure out something like that. So that's an item to come down.

yeah so if we could think and think creatively about ways that we could make this free with the idea so awesome mr. Montgomery to park that item as well and we'll we're happy to bring that back thank you yep and then we heard the mandala yeah I'm sorry I'm just going down yeah the list of questions if you can just give me a second to catch up Oh, okay, so questions about a fee study? I believe that we did put that into the budget. Ms. Cho, can you remind me where we put that?

Yes, it's in the finance department. We did budget for a fee study.

Right, so we will be bringing that back to you. Amount of money allocated for the permanent supportive housing project, that is on page, I marked it. It's in the CIP, page 90. You see in the facilities section.

Just while you're doing that, the fee study is on page 57. Yeah.

So yeah, we've got 1.5 anticipated to be expended this fiscal year for the permit supportive housing project, and 8 million in this coming fiscal year. And that's for the construction. And it's anticipated right now to be completed in July of 27. And we hope to have some information out to you this week. And we anticipate we could be doing a groundbreaking as early as this month. But more details on that later this week.

Going down the list of questions.

Operating costs, when they begin, again, we touched on this briefly, that's gonna be borne, for the first four years, it's anticipated to be borne from the ERF grant, and two million has been set aside and approved by HCD for that purpose, $500,000 a year to run that. We have not brought back a construction manager position for the project. We can still do that. We don't have a funding source for that. Really, we could dip into the city's successor agency funding for that. I don't think it would be $325,000. I think it would be closer to $250,000. But we could certainly bring that back if council wanted us to. There's a desire for that.

Well, I think maybe, and it doesn't have to be on the budget, I think there should be a discussion about Just like how we allocate Measure C, how do we allocate that successor fund that was created by the housing authority?

We could do that.

Was that the redevelopment authority?

Right, exactly. Would you like that to start with the Finance and Budget Committee and come back to you? Or would you like it to come right to Council?

I think probably come to council.

I'm seeing some head nods. Mr. Montgomery, let's put that on the parking lot as well. Yeah, Ms. Cho, do you remember the balance in there?

I believe liquid, about $600,000, but there are, it's a bigger fund balance, but there are receivables out there related to housing.

Okay, sorry. We already talked about the Mandala.

And I would say that conceptually, if we're talking about breaking ground, we need to be talking about whether or not we want to hire a construction manager because at some point, we want them to happen at the same time. So we have to make a decision.

We have two items coming back to you in July related to the project, and we could bring a third item as well. We have one related to the donation policy, one related to the DMA modification, and we could add that as a third item to the July 14th meeting, Mr. Montgomery, if you want to put that on there too. Owner's representative for Ohio Permanent Supportive Housing Project. So there'll be three items coming back to you on the July 14th meeting.

Great, thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay, just looking. I think, did I miss anything that you guys mentioned?

Mr. City Manager, one clarification.

We currently place that on August 11th, just to confirm. The permissible housing items? The donation policy and the- Let's move those to July. Confirmed. Mm-hm. And please let me know if I've missed items we talked about.

That's what I had. so um i think rather than take up our time discussion uh maybe i will talk with you directly about um page 42 and the measure c projects and yeah just how they fit in so that I understand more the rationale, because I want to make sure we're doing voter intent.

Yeah. No, and that's why we're very much wanting this policy, because then it's just left to interpretation, and we reread the language over and over again, like, oh, that's not included.

Well, look how the language is so broad. It really is.

Yeah. Yeah. So, and just on that topic, I think it's in here. I hope I'm not speaking out of turn, but we are funding two maintenance employees. Am I remember this correctly? Right. So two public works maintenance employees are being born from measure C funds. And, you know, this is just illustrative of, why we need a policy but our rationale was it speaks a lot to maintenance and infrastructure and the way that we accomplish that is yes it's through contracts but it's also through people taking care of that every day so that these are maintenance worker employees and that's really all that they do but that's subject to council's determination that's what we put in there but that doesn't mean that that's what you guys want right And we're also trying to be mindful. We could have gone down a slope where, oh my gosh, well, this person also is involved in that, and that person's involved in that. And we just decided to say, no, these are people who are just truly working for infrastructure improvement.

I think when the Budget Committee does look at it, we will look not only at, well, obviously, we'll carefully look at the language again. And then when we look at allocations, look at activities that we think are legitimate and bring that forward.

OK. Super. Do we have any questions that we didn't address?

No, but just to confirm, for the roads, that would be coming back? I believe so. For a discussion? Yes. As we can always update the budget throughout the year. Thank you. OK, perfect.

And this budget is the clearest budget I've ever seen. So thank you for the hard work.

The finance team did a great job. And really, kudos. It's outstanding. And just in case you're wondering, you are going to get a hard copy of it. And it will be much, much, much more soon than you got it last year.

I just want to confirm that when we're looking at fees, while we're looking to increase some fees, we're also potentially looking to decrease and or abolish some fees that might

So you can establish a fee for something, and then council only has the ability to waive fees or subsidize fees. So I sense a broader discussion. I heard talk about recreation fees. I heard talk about fire hardening fees.

Or tree permitting fees. Or tree permitting fees. Absolutely.

So what we would do with the fee study is we would establish what the actual cost is of the service, because you're only allowed by law to charge what

Right.

But then the council can say, you know what? That's fine. We don't care that it costs us $70 for this permit. We don't want to charge for it.

Okay. Thank you.

Yeah. But on the administrative side, I just want council to know we're not able to waive fees. So we come to you guys.

Yes.

Okay. Thank you. Wow. Great. Wonderful. Okay, moving on, we're on, thank you so much. We're on item number nine, levying collection of assessments for landscaping and lighting district.

And welcome, Ms. Palmer, thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome back, Chief.

So good evening, Mayor and Council. So tonight I am bringing forward part two of what I brought a couple of weeks ago. So two weeks ago on May 26th, I brought to you the preliminary engineer's report. This is for our annual assessment to levy the assessment for our three maintenance districts. So tonight I'm asking you to open a public hearing and adopt a resolution approving the final engineer's report, assessing the levies and ordering the work to be done. asking, directing staff to report to the county so these assessments can get on next year's tax roll. So I can just recap briefly. So we have lighting and landscape districts one and three, and we're asking just to maintain that assessment that we've carried for many years now. And for the Plaza Maintenance District, the proposed in the engineer's report is for a reduction of $36,000 to be spread out amongst the property owners out there based on the square footage of their building. And so that would be prorated accordingly. And I've got the data in my office if anybody is out there wanting to know what their reduction is going to be. Kristen? So I would encourage anybody who's listening to give our office a call and I'm happy to share that information. So that's kind of it.

Any questions? We went over this before, of course. I think this is.

And this is a public hearing. This is a public hearing.

Yeah, I have no public comments on this item. Yes, come up. Thank you, hello.

I'm Kristen Raines, and I'm here representing the property owners since our family owns the building where Rainbow Bridge and Raines Department Store, as well as business owner Raines Department Store. I'm not sure that you and I are actually talking about the same thing because what the report I read showed a change from 41 to 33 cents. Is that the thing? That is, yes, per assessment unit. Well, thank you again for the opportunity to talk about this. So while that sounds like a great idea to do a reduction, unfortunately, it doesn't come anywhere near the costs that we've actually incurred since the change in the assessment district. In the past, it was originally established in 1988 by my father and other local business people. And the idea originally was that it would beautify the plaza, maintain the plaza, and the trash for the local businesses was consolidated into three areas. We subsequently Recently have learned that it was not legal to do that. And so that service trash service has been removed from Businesses we no longer not no longer included in the assessment and the cost of that is substantial for example rainbow bridges cost of From zero or what was on the assessment to eleven thousand five hundred So this is a huge cost of added cost to the businesses. Rains is almost $7,000 annually now. It's had a huge impact when Bridge had to fire an employee because they couldn't afford to do it. So it's had a very negative impact to the local businesses. So the change in the assessment for, based on the calculations, for the 209 East Matilaha Street property would be only $763. So that doesn't even make a dent in the $11,500 cost that Rainbow Bridge is incurring now. In addition to that, I reviewed several of the property tax statements, and I noticed a couple of discrepancies. For example, it looks like our property at 218 East Ohio Avenue is being charged 51 cents a square foot, and 254 East Ohio Avenue, where Uniburger is, that's at 54 cents. So I think that there are some concerns there. In addition to that, I found several property tax bills that don't show any LLA-D1 or 3 taxes. So there's a lot of discrepancies that I think deserve a thorough review. In addition to that, the plaza, when it was the first...

Sorry, but you can also write things up. Is there something that you need to say that you could say in like 10 seconds?

I can't. Okay. The plaza was a lot smaller than it was in 1988, and we're still being at that same level, so we have concerns about that.

No, I'm not inviting you to go on.

I was saying if you could say in 10 seconds then. Okay, thank you. That was my 10 seconds. Thank you. Okay.

Mayor, we have one raised hand on Zoom from Renee. Yes, please. Renee, you have the floor. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening. And I don't know if this is the right place or the time to bring up this question. But over on Church Road, there's not a lot of streetlights. In fact, there's I don't think any at night. It's pretty dark over here. And I know the city is doing an energy upgrade of. HVAC and climate, you know, ready kind of energy upgrades. And so I'm wondering if there's any way to do dark sky lighting over on Church Road that might make it safer to walk. We do have sidewalks, fortunately.

Mayor, this is very specifically for the landscaping and lighting district, not for the general discussion about street lights or dark sky policy.

Are you okay postponing for Renee till another time?

Yeah, and also the sidewalks are pretty uneven, and so it's not safe to walk. So both of those, I don't know when or where or how to bring that up, but it has to do with lighting and maintenance. And that area was actually on the map. I looked to see if there was an area defined on the map, and there is.

Renee, it's a different subject.

But we do have two safety commissioners here. So take note, my friends. Take note. This is going to be your job.

Thank you, Renee. All done. Okay. So any more comments online? No, ma'am. Okay. So I guess I do want to respond to Ms. Raines, what she said. So I do remember when the trash became forward. Yes. So I guess, Ms. Palmer, I'm wanting to ask this question. Is this conversation worth something larger? Do you feel like it's been had more? What's the next step here?

So the conversation has definitely been had. We spent, Public Works spent about 18 months trying to peel back the layers of this onion. So it came to our attention by EJ Harrison that they hadn't been paid for their trash service since 2016, and it came to us in 2024, I think. And so we started looking into it, looking into it. Had not been paid. So we had our prior legal team do a deep dive into whether or not the Lighting and Landscape Act that formulated these assessment districts would allow or was even lawful to provide trash services to the businesses. So we've got the trash enclosures that are behind Rainbow Bridge, and we've got them over on Montgomery, towards Montgomery. And those are community bins for the property owners. And it is, we don't pay, the city does not pay for private trash service for anybody in the city, and it was unlawful for us to do that based on the formulation of this landscape, or this Arcade Plaza Maintenance District. The trash service that is referred to in the engineer's report is in the common areas, it's in the park. Of course, Plaza Park is a city park, so we pay for the refuse service there. So this was a long, laborious process and rather painful of trying to have all of the property owners out at the Plaza Arcade come in and sign up for trash service. So now that trash service, the city sort of stepped away from the calculation on that and so the property owners were dealing directly with EJ Harrison and coming up with what EJ, they're the professionals, they know how to figure out what trash service, so that's what they did. So we didn't set those rates at all. Now E.J. Harrison is getting paid for the pickups.

So I'm not sure that I understood everything that was said. But what I understood, and I could be wrong, was that the assessment as it was originally set up included trash. But then the assessment stayed the same, but a fundamental service that was part of the assessment that was assumed was taken away. Is that what I mean? Am I understanding this correctly?

It appears at some point originally, the city was covering the cost of the private trash service. But again, that stopped in 2016. That stopped a long, long time ago. And nobody was paying for the trash service.

Yeah, no, I get that. But when the assessment first came up, it included trash.

it probably did but it was unlawful it was not it was not allowed based on the legal formulation under this lighting and landscape if I could jump in the other thing that I recall from this discussion was city's records were not very good at this time and when we did the forensic accounting it's not clear if the city just received the bill and paid it out of the general fund or how it was paid

No, I'm just saying that, for instance, as a landlord, if I take away something from someone that has been included in their rent, I have to compensate them for that. I'm not allowed to do that. I'm not allowed to say, you used to have a parking space. Now you no longer have one, right? So I'm just trying to figure out if that's what's happening here. not that I have any opinion one way or the other, but if this assessment district was formed in 1960, or whenever it was formed, I don't know when it was formed, but for that period of time, this was part and parcel of that assessment tax. But then it wasn't.

I want to be clear on that part. Yeah. It never, okay, regardless of what was explained by the city erroneously or otherwise at the time, landscaping and lighting district refuse is not one of the services that you're able to pay for from that assessment. Unless it's ancillary items like Lindy's and Ms. Palmer's indicated, a trash can in a landscaped area that's part of a park.

Right. I understand that.

Isn't it that to make your analogy make sense, it would be, if I understand correctly, something was being offered. So the tenant is receiving something and you have come to the conclusion that it was illegally offered. Right. So when you say, well, we're taking away your parking spot. I see that the experience is I'm getting less than I used to get, but it was wrongly given in the first place. That doesn't mean there's not a mitigation thing here.

Right, right, right, no, and I understand all that, and even if it was wrongly given, it was given. I just wanted to make sure that I understood what was being said and how it was being said, and I also was curious, you know, when that first, this district first came into being, so how many, 19, thank you.

Thank you for reading for me, I appreciate that.

So 1972, so we're talking about almost 50 years. And so I'm just saying. No doubt. I wanted to be clear on the point.

And as Ms. Palmer indicated, we involved the city's attorney's office. We have a lengthy memo which we could resend out to the city council that kind of goes through the whole saga that explains everything. And the headline was, Harrison was picking up the trash but not being compensated for it since 2016, if I remember correctly. So they just were- understand all of that but I want to jump to the reason why I'm painting all this there is another option you could it has to be a vote of the property owners you could create a business improvement district and we did talk about this with the group and the business and the group could decide what they wanted to pay for from assessing themselves and they could decide trash would be one thing security whatever sidewalk cleaning and that's commonly done in downtown

Yeah, and I understand the comment. I understand how it's difficult for the city to take this on or to reevaluate.

I think what would be most helpful is we will redistribute this very lengthy memo from the city attorney's office that kind of explains everything.

Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. I don't, you know, I get it. I just was curious. I didn't get it.

I'm interested in getting that memo. Okay.

Ms. Palmer, can you redistribute that?

I guess I'm interested in getting it, too. Not really.

And, you know, I'm interested in understanding the issue better and whether the city would have a role on it. Yeah.

Right. I'd like to hear.

Council says about it and I'm also concerned about the idea that people had the understanding they were paying for trash and then suddenly they discover that they're not actually they didn't discover it because the vendor kept collecting it without insisting upon it So I'm interested in taking a look. I don't want to suggest a huge staff time expense, but I would like to understand the issue better and what our options are.

We can bring that back as a future agenda item. And I'm happy to share the memo. No, please redistribute the memo.

We'll do that at the start. And I remember.

Yeah.

as clear about the situation as I could have been at that time.

Am I correct in understanding that we met the businesses halfway for a period? We did. We did.

We ended up covering the trash service for a number of months. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah.

Right, while we were solving it. While we were solving it. So, I mean, it might feel like it's brand new, but it's not. We talked about it already. We can talk about it again.

Yeah, I understand we talked about it. I don't want to...

So we can bring that back and we'll distribute the memo. It's critically important that this gets approved tonight so we can get it on the tax roll for next year. We have one opportunity a year.

I think the issue that's been addressed, correct me if I'm wrong, everybody, but the adjustment to the assessment does not really impact what we're talking about here, the The trash collection issue is outside of what we're doing, and so we can still address that.

And I think, to your point, we have, I mean, we need to move this forward, but we might revisit.

And when we had this conversation, when I had this conversation with the property owners out there, my commitment to them was, I'm gonna dive deep into this this year and see if we can somehow give a smidge of an offset. You know and but we have to we also don't have an escalator in this so we want to be very careful That it covers the assessment covers the cost of maintaining what we need it to maintain Without going out to a prop 218 vote to the to the property owners and saying hey We need to put an escalator in this which most of them do most of these special districts do have an escalator It keeps pace with inflation. This one does not and nor does one or three. Okay, so right

Understood.

Yes, so we will move forward with these three tonight is the proposal and then we'll address the other issues separately Okay, I mean, I think we're always open to hear from our of course owners about ways that we can support 100% Motion from anyone

I'm happy, I'm entertaining motion one, two, and three. We've conducted the public hearing, adopt the resolution, and then direct staff to transmit the necessary documents to the county. Is that sufficient? Mm-hmm, okay. I'll second.

Thank you.

Any more discussion?

Okay, roll call, please. Council Member Lange. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem May. Yes. Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Rule. Yes. Council Member Whitman.

Yes. All right. Let's take a five minute break and we'll come back and get on number 10. Ready, ready? Check. One, two, one, two. What's this? Oh, yeah.

OK. No worries.

Okay, I think we're ready. Are we on? Okay, wonderful. So we'll move on to item number 10, adoption of resolution calling for and giving notice of the City of Ojai's general municipal election on November 3rd, 2026.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you. Honorable Mayor and City Council, as your Chief Deputy City Clerk, in tandem with our elected City Clerk, Steve Quillacy, we are labeled as your elections official, elections officials, as defined by the California Elections Code. So we have a pretty technical report in nature, but this is everything that we need to approve and submit to the County of Ventura to consolidate our election services. So we're asking you to review and adopt three resolutions. One is calling the election. One is requesting consolidation services from the Ventura County Elections Division through the Board of Supervisors. And the third is a regulations on candidate statements. And a part of that although the no action was taken by council recently there was healthy discussion We do have to identify the seats specifically so up on the November 3rd 2026 general election for the city of Ojai we have the mayor the two-year term for mayor and the four-year terms for each council district one two and three mm-hmm and Ms. Burgess and I are here to answer questions, and I would just like to say that we do always thank Michelle Ascension, the elected clerk for the County of Ventura and her elections division, and the Board of Supervisors who take on the big task of running our elections for us, and we're very happy. Last note here is Mr. Quillacy and I, and along with our admin staff, Bridget Mara, We attended the elections kickoff meeting at the county, and Mr. Kulisi and I are ready to undertake the nomination process. So everything after this adoption tonight will allow us to conduct the nomination period, which begins on July 13th and runs through August 7th, as defined by the elections code. And Mr. Kulisi and I are prepared and ready to meet with any respective candidates and answer all questions.

Great. Any questions? I have no public comments on this. Anybody online?

No raised hands.

It was very clear.

All right.

So I have a, I guess I have a question. It's not, it's only a very tangentially related But I've always been curious why we have kind of an unbalanced situation where we have three up every two years and then we only have one up the other year.

It's because we have the mayor be two years two times in our election cycle instead of staying at four. it would rotate three and two the way the council used to do it. Is that what you mean? Yeah. Well, I know.

So I think it was an unintended consequence. I'm not sure that it makes a difference that it is the way it is, but it is... It seems like an anomaly to me.

Yeah, if I may, there are some options under the law to rebalance that if that's something that council would like to consider. And if that's something that's of interest to the council, we could bring that back as a future agenda item. bring more information about what that looks like. Yeah. I don't know if you want to make changes.

I don't know that I want to either, but I'm...

But we can provide the information.

Okay, that'd be good. Even the last time that the mayor two-year term went to the vote again with this anomaly or problem in mind, the thinking was, let's get it back on track, and it got voted again to have it stay at two years. So there's two votes to have the mayor stay. Anyway. Cool. Well, we have a motion then to approve.

I make a motion to approve.

All right. Adopt resolutions A, B, and C. Yep. Second that. Roll call.

Yes, please. Thanks. Mayor Pro Tem Meng.

Yes.

Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Whitman. Yes. Council Member Rule. Yep. Council Member Lange. Yes. Motion passed.

Wonderful. On to item number 11, consider appeal of planning commission denial of 242 East Ojai Avenue, Ojai Mountain Farm Restaurant.

Mayor, I'm going to ask the city attorney to please help me with this item, if I can.

All right, so this item, under your municipal code in section 10-2.3002, a process is established for appeals of decisions from the either planning or community development department staff or the planning commission related to decisions made under the city's zoning code. Under those provisions, there are effectively a few different ways that an appeal of a planning commission decision may be heard. One of those is if an appeal is brought by an appellant, an appeal can be brought by other interested persons, or there's also a process provided for appeals that may be brought by the city council. And so under that process, it's effectively a three-step process where the first part of the process is that a member of council requests an opportunity to discuss a decision rendered by either community development department staff, the community development department director, or the planning commission. In having that discussion, Council may decide whether to appeal any determination rendered by any of those individuals or by the Planning Commission. If Council wishes to appeal, it must be approved by an affirmative vote of a majority of the Council. And what this effectively means is that Council is appealing the decision of the Planning Commission. if council approves moving forward with an appeal by a majority vote then the matter gets set for a public hearing at a future city council meeting and so the reason i'm making these remarks at the beginning of this discussion is that the item on the agenda tonight is a follow-on from a request by a member of council to bring an item forward at the last council meeting This is not an item to discuss the merits of the application that was considered by the Planning Commission. That would be the subject of a planning, or sorry, of a public hearing if the Council decides to proceed with the appeal. So the purpose of tonight's discussion is exclusively to decide whether or not the Council will appeal the decision of the Planning Commission. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions, but I also just wanted to make it very clear what this item is and what it's not, because if council decides to proceed with a public hearing on an appeal, that will be a quasi-judicial hearing subject to the city's quasi-judicial hearing procedures and for which the applicant for this project will have certain due process rights. So by getting into a discussion in the merits tonight, when we haven't had a notice public hearing, we run the risk of depriving the applicant of those due process rights. So I'm happy to take any questions. Otherwise, we can move into public comment and then council discussion.

Yes, go.

If we decide the council votes not to appeal, what are the consequences of that, or what are the ramifications of that?

So if Council does not move forward with the appeal, effectively the decision of the Planning Commission would stand. The Planning Commission's decision on this item was considered at the Planning Commission meeting, I believe on May 20th. And so under the municipal code, an appeal of a planning commission decision must be requested within 15 days after the decision that was made on appeal. So the period for appeal or for filing an appeal by the applicant would have expired. So if council does not take this up on appeal, then the planning commission decision would be deemed final.

Other questions? Yeah.

This is a more broad question, and I don't want to belabor anything. But when we, my question is very direct. We will be acting as a quasi-judicial body. The Planning Commission is a quasi-judicial body. We had an administrative appeal where we also had to act as a quasi-judicial body. So regardless of anything that comes to us on appeal, whether it be an administrative decision or it is a quasi-judicial decision from a commission that is quasi-judicial in nature, our

our process is always quasi-judicial is that correct that is correct but the one kind of clarification i would make here is that the appeal process for appeals under the zoning code differs a bit from the appeal process you've heard a few different appeals in recent months right exactly um and so one of those was brought under title one of your municipal code which outlines an appeal process for general appeals under the municipal code. You also heard an appeal on a transient occupancy tax audit determination, and that appeal is governed by, under the terms of your transient occupancy tax ordinance, it's governed by the procedures in that ordinance, and it also refers back to Title I, For appeals of decisions that are made under the zoning code, we have this kind of specific appeal process for how the appeals get filed. And so under each of those provisions, the process is a little bit different.

But us acting as a quasi-judicial body remains the same for any of those? That remains the same. Okay, thank you. I was just curious.

But the process for a council appeal under Title I is a little bit different than the process for a council appeal under Title X. Great. Thank you.

More questions? Yeah.

I'm just curious, Andy, like what is your goal or what was the reason for you bringing this? What did you hope to accomplish?

That seems like the discussion, which I'm happy to have, but maybe we'll wait a moment. But I'm happy to answer that now.

And then the other thing, I'm concerned because we spoke about this briefly today, like if any of us were to say anything when the tables turn or if they come back to us, could it silence us for anything we say today?

So there is a requirement when you're talking about quasi-judicial matters for purposes of due process. And just in general, with respect to counsel acting as a quasi-judicial body, there's an expectation that counsel will act in an unbiased fashion. And so part of the reason we wait for the substantive discussion on the item is because we want to wait until You know, all of the presentations have been made to the Council on the substantive aspects of the application and until the applicant has had an opportunity to present their case in defense of their application. And then, you know, Council will deliberate and consider all of that information at the same time. um so so i would highly recommend and it's like it's an un it's an annual unusual circumstance where you have this kind of three-part process but um because we have the three-part process identified in the code you know my recommendation is that you know we avoid the substantive discussion of the application and and hold that for um a public hearing if if there are three votes to move forward with the appeal

and then does voting yes or no constitute a substantive communication in my opinion it does not otherwise the code would not contemplate the ability of or the requirement for a vote okay so I do have a couple other questions You mentioned that the consequence of not appealing is that within two weeks of the decision, it would become final. But does the applicant still have the right to, I mean, I'm guessing he couldn't come back with the exact same conditional use permit application, but he could come back with an amended one, correct?

I believe that's correct.

His rights aren't severed by the denial of the conditional use permit that he did bring.

There may be some time, I would have to review the specific provisions in your code related to denials of permits by the planning commission. Some codes include a requirement that the exact same application can't be resubmitted within a certain period of time. But there are generally opportunities for amended or revised applications that address the issues identified in the Planning Commission's or review authority's findings. If those were addressed in an amended application, it could come back to the Planning Commission.

And if I understand correctly, the status quo is that the applicant is conducting business, he's using the space that is the subject of the conditional use permit?

I do not know whether the, so there are two aspects of the application that require a conditional use permit. One aspect of the conditional use permit is for a freezer. And the other aspect of the conditional use permit is for an expansion or an amendment to an existing conditional use permit that allows for an expanded outdoor dining area. And so it is my understanding that the freezer is currently being used. I do not know if the expanded outdoor dining area is being used. I guess I don't know the answer either, but there's... And we can, we could look, that would be something that could be brought forward as part of the public hearing if one is scheduled by the council.

There's no dining happening outside.

There's been no dining?

No, and I walked around again today just to, and it's not... No, it's open during the week?

Yeah, yeah. Inside and the front.

Any other questions before we open it up for public comment?

Okay. No, so this, just to be really clear, this is only to decide if we are going to hear the appeal. That's correct. Whether council is going to appeal, correct? Right, to hear the appeal.

Council will appeal to hear the appeal.

I just want to make sure that that's really what we're dealing with. So we're not talking about the merits of the project or how we feel about the project.

We're just talking about whether or not we should deliberate on this matter.

At a future time.

At a future time. And date.

All right. I have three cards. Mr. Larry Steingold, Bill Weirich, and then Craig Walker.

So to be perfectly clear, we can't talk about the specifics.

You can talk about anything you want. Public comment may make any members of the public mean. No, you can. It's fine. You can.

You're not bound. Why? I mean, the optics of trying to get this approved is is not very good because to me it's your protect you either trying to protect the staff because i think the phrase used during the trend the trash at the arcade was it was wrongly given Okay, so it was wrongly given. How do you unwind it? How do you put a thread through this needle? Because let me tell you, this is a real problem because if you approve it, if you go forward and it gets voted on to approve, it's like putting a stake in the heart of the arcade because then it really becomes a slippery slope. And a slippery slope is based on incline percentage. Friction and time. Well, by approving a precedent, friction is now removed. And now anybody can go in and say, well, you gave me this, you gave me that. And to privatize public land is wrong in the first place. Give them a lease. That's not a big deal. Afraid of a lawsuit? I don't blame everybody. I really don't want a lawsuit. It's my money. It takes away from the roads. It takes away from climate. It takes away from everything. So this thing is a mess because you don't want to be tied in feathers being part of destroying the arcade. If you vote to approve it, you become part of that. If you disapprove it, we end up in a lawsuit because it was wrongly given. He spent the money. Now what do you do? He also didn't help himself because in planning, he didn't, they said, you know, nothing changed. The eight-foot fence inside the drip line, God forbid you should build in a drip line in this state, in this town. Okay, they'll tar in front of you, right? So you don't do that. That's part of the tree ordinance. The eight-foot fence, nobody's allowed an eight-foot fence. We've all got six-foot fences, right? So there's that, just on the face of it. The freezer, I'm sorry, it's there. Can you brick it up, make it look part of the arcade if that works? I don't know. But this is going to get really expensive and really bad for everybody if you can't figure this out because this is just a mess. And then you have to put the post-mortem on the people who did it. Did somebody direct somebody to do it, or did they do it on their own? Okay.

And that seems to be part of the problem as far as I'm concerned.

So I hope you can figure this out really quick without causing a ripple. Please. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Steingold. Bill Rehrig, please.

You know, it's not appropriate to blame the applicant for this situation. Let's just step back a little bit. We have a problem with process integrity, and we still need to be fair to the applicant. CEQA is very clear, as well as best practices in the planning profession, piecemealing causes problems. This is a problem because of piecemealing. I have eight sites here in case law, not just best practices in planning profession, that you should not piecemeal. This project got piecemealed, and that's why you're facing this problem. To give one example from one case law, impermissible piecemeal review occurs when a large project is chapped into many little ones, each with a minimal potential impact on the environment and requiring only a ministerial permit, which cumulatively may have significant consequences. I have several more sites. So what to do? I feel for you in this situation. First of all, I would suggest that we have a general problem with creeping privatization of the common area. I don't agree with using CUP. When we initially looked at this, we were looking at leases because that doesn't establish a perpetual property right over a common area. So I don't understand why we keep talking about CUP when we could have leases for use if we want to provide that. I would suggest that you not vote for this appeal, but do direct some way of coming up with a fair solution to the applicant. I personally don't agree with having a walk-in cooler outside the original lease building footprint. But, you know, that would be a matter that I would think that you could constructively come to an agreement with without establishing a poor precedent by going with an appeal of the Planning Commission final decision, which has, by the way, been discussed a couple of times by the Planning Commission. Also, they are dining outside. I've been there a couple times. I saw the owner, and the owner said, oh, I have a permit to dine outside, just not to use the walk-in cooler. So they are dining outside right now. Thank you. So anyway, I'm just—and he says, yeah, everybody's been walking by and saying that you can't dine outside. And I said, yeah, I know you're in a problem, and I feel for you. I feel for the whole situation. So please just try to find a way to settle this without digging the hole deeper. Find a way to, maybe with a lease situation, preserve integrity of process while being fair to the applicant.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Weyrich.

Craig Walker, please.

Good evening. Craig Walker, I'm speaking against the council appealing this decision. Both the Historic Preservation Commission and the Planning Commission oppose this project because of the harm it would do to the city. The project impacts a historic building that is more than 120 years old. It transforms a peaceful public plaza into a service area with loud refrigeration equipment, fencing, ductwork, and other alterations that diminish the character of one of Ojai's most important public spaces. it changes an open welcoming courtyard into a more enclosed commercial space obstructs walkways and views through the plaza and places an eight-foot fence around a tree that has long served as a natural canopy these changes will go with the store's deed even though they are located on public property Dozens of residents have voiced their opposition. The questions before you are simple. On what basis would you overturn the decisions of your own commissions? Why is the council bringing this appeal and not the applicant? The Historic Preservation Commission did its best to review the project in spite of there being no initial study to review. The Planning Commission then reviewed it thoroughly. In fact, the project was sent through the process twice and both bodies reached the same conclusion. If the intent was not to respect their findings, why then were they asked to review it at all? What concerns me most is not simply this project, but the process that led us here. Too often CEQA exemptions are granted before potential impacts are adequately examined. In this case, the project was piecemealed and treated as exempt from the beginning. Neither Commission learned of it until months after approvals had been granted and alterations had already occurred. CEQA requires historic review first, then looking at possible exemptions later. When projects are approved first and reviewed later, everyone pays the price. The applicant, the city, and most of all the citizens of Ojai who rely on their government to protect Ojai's environment and historic resources. the council's focus today should not be on legitimizing a mistake it should be on understanding how this happened and ensuring it does not happen again approving the project by overruling your commissions will not solve the underlying problem It will establish a precedent that environmental review and historical preservation requirements can be bypassed and pushed through later on appeal. The city has already dug a hole in its approval process, but an appeal by the council will only dig that hole deeper. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Walker.

One comment on Zoom. Okay. We have Mr. Miley.

Okay.

Go ahead, Mr. Miley. You have the floor.

Okay. I am very confused by this administrative write-up. It goes against all I know about the appeals process. It also lacks key information on what the Planning Commission listed as the reasons for denying. It does not even include their conclusion and their vote. What's going on here? There is no applicant appealing his denial. As I read the report, the applicant had a choice. They decided not to appeal. So why is the mayor appealing this? Is he advocating for the applicant? Does he want the refrigerator there? What are his reasons? He should have spoken as a citizen at the Planning Commission meeting if he wanted to make an impact. This administrative report is very weak in logic, lack of facts, inappropriate protocol, and confusing as hell. Unless the applicant appeals, I see no reason for this to be on the agenda. Both the Historical Preservation Commission And the Planning Commission questioned its elements, wanted more study, and Planning said no. Please vote no. Thank you.

Thanks, Mr. Miley.

One more raised hand from Steve Quillacy. Hi, Steve. You have the floor. Steve, if you can hear us, you have the ability to unmute. And it's your turn. Give you one more try. You have the ability to unmute.

And we'll have to move on. Okay. I can say very easily it has nothing to do with the project or me wanting anything. It has to do with, as I read in the staff report and also in the HPC and the planning commission reports and being there, the language like on page 141, this is just one instance, and there are several here, where it says in those second two paragraphs, In the middle, staff found the revised proposal consistent with the Yard-Cade Plaza design guidelines. And then in the second paragraph, staff, however, determined that because the proposed environments do not alter the contributing historic structure itself, no further environmental review is necessary. It's simply this, not wanting to really overturn anything, but it's rare that we see that kind of difference of interpretation. So it seems to me we're in the position then to be the arbiters of that difference. It's that simple. We may come to exactly the same conclusion, and that would be perfectly fine, or some other solution, but it's really just that. So I think this is the body that would look at those strongly differences of views and try to come with a determination.

I just have a quick question. So did you know that information when you made the rule to have this on the agenda or just because of what you read in the agenda?

No, no, no. It was there even when the staff reports went to planning and also you can see it was clearly there that they said that. That's why they moved it forward. But again, I mean we've all seen a lot of commissions go and sometimes commissions do offer things that the council differs and most of the time that's not true. So it does seem to me more investigation is warranted to try to understand the differences between those groups.

And I agree. We can't deliberate now. I think that if you want to do a postmortem, the only way to do a postmortem is to do a deliberative process. This is open to us. It's part of the process, so it's not outside the process. And I think that there's a lot of things I would like to speak to that I'm not able to speak to here. And I would like the opportunity to speak to them Not the least of which is I can't speak to it I mean I could but I'm not going to based on our city attorney, you know So for me, it's it's it's the ability to actually have the deliberative process with the council and for that reason I would bring it forward there is a there's no good reason not to have the discussion with the council, in my opinion. I'll just say this, the commissions are advisory bodies. So they are advisory bodies to advise us not to determine that we should follow them because that's what they said. And we ask every commissioner that, do you understand that you're an advisory body? And we need to make really clear. So that's something also, as well as CEQA and many other things that I think are up for discussion and are up for me to learn more about. And so I would like the opportunity to learn more about it.

I am feeling the same way. I think Mr. Weirich was correct in that we have a complicated situation where we want to honor the findings of the commissions and what's in the best interest of the city separate and also assess the mistakes that were made in this process and see how we can work with the owner and come to some kind of win-win situation. And I think the only way that we can do that is by hearing the appeal. And if I'm choosing to move forward with hearing the appeal, that does not say at all how I feel about the freezer or about the outdoor dining elements. It just says this deserves, this warrants more discussion.

That would be my position.

So I've made many, many, many, many, many recommendations with the client about whether to appeal a decision. And I've written many, many, many appellate briefs. And I know that this administrative decision doesn't track on that exactly, but the core of what you do when you say you want to appeal is you're saying that there was an abuse of decision-making discretion And it needs to be corrected. And so you ask somebody to go in and correct what happened. And I don't I don't perceive that there was something that was done that was incorrect. And I think what, you know, the majority of the council is suggesting is that we use the appeal as a guise to change the rules for an applicant. And I also I also I have concern that we would take the, well, I don't want to say anymore. I would not support the idea that we would appeal this. Yeah, go ahead.

So without going into the topic, from what I, from the information that we have, there was a mistake. Not with the plan, not with the commissions, but there were some miscommunications that happened. And that, and because of that, I think it, it would, I can't say anything else except that I do think that there were some errors that could be addressed.

And I guess my response to that would be that if there was something about the process that is needs to be cured, that's potentially something that staff and the applicant work out and bring back to us as a solution, but.

Did you have anything you wanted to add?

I have a lot, I would like to say, but I'm .

Okay, so then I will motion that we do appeal the Planning Commission's May 20th decision and bring it to this body. Is that the correct way to say it, Ms. Burgess? I don't think your microphone's on.

Correct. There would be a motion to proceed with a council appeal of the Planning Commission decision.

OK.

I'll second it.

OK. Roll call, please. Yes, Mayor.

Council Member Rule. Yes. Council Member Whitman. Abstain. Mayor Pro Tem Meng.

No.

Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Lange.

Yes.

Motion passed. Okay. All right. Moving on. 12, authorized to purchase one 2026 BMW police motorcycle.

All right. Thank you, Mayor. At this point, I'm going to turn this over to our Chief of Police.

Okay.

Thank you all. Thank you. We've got a little PowerPoint presentation here for you. Thanks. There we go. All right. Very good. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Requesting before you this evening is approval for purchase of one new motorcycle, BMW, to replace our current existing one. You have the staff report in front of you, their admin report, the quote, and all that. So I'll keep it brief. What I want to focus on, go through this quick PowerPoint. operational purpose of the motor officer program how it's currently being used within the community and the rationale behind replacing it this is not a request to expand the program or add any staffing this is simply a request to sustain an existing public safety and community focused program that has truly become a regular operational resource for this community I'm gonna briefly walk through the program's purpose community impact operational benefits and the current condition and then I'll open up for questions All right. Purpose of the motor program, we're all aware that it was essentially launched in February of 2025. Deputy Burnett was selected, chosen. He's a fantastic choice, extremely mature, smart, highly emotionally intelligent. So he was a perfect person to roll this project out and kind of made you test this program here back in Ojai. The vision was increase community safety. Traffic safety is a big issue in this community, but also community engagement is a very big thing with e-bike safety, things like that. So as this thing was launched and rolled out, it was rolled out very smartly, in my opinion, more heavy on the education component side. So we're about 16 months into that program and we're probably about 60, 40. Now 60% of the people being stopped are probably giving warnings, breaks, education. 40% of those folks are probably getting sites. I'm to the point now I feel comfortable with the community. Enough contacts have been made. Multiple people have been stopped multiple times, things like that, community members. They're comfortable with things now. So I kind of want to increase that maybe 50-50. Enforcement, education. But with a motorcycle you get the high visibility Presidents accessible the community engagement is fantastic with it. I can't speak enough on that how many contacts he makes And ultimately the goal is to save lives and truly is All right as we go through this deputy Burnett's made approximately 1,600 contacts orders this is a year period we evaluated for over the year April to April 350 plus citations, but the best part of this program is we truly have a force multiplier with a motor officer. We have a one man traffic unit essentially up in Ohio, which is fantastic. It allows us to focus in a timely manner community complaints. We're hearing those daily from emails, from council members, from city staff, from people I talk to out in the community. Sometimes within minutes I can task Deputy Burnett with a problem and send him to a neighborhood and start focusing on things. The school zone visibility has been fantastic, and obviously the e-bike education is kind of at the forefront everywhere nationally right now. It's an issue everywhere. But he's been fantastic in that with outreach, talking to kids, supplements DUI saturation patrol. He was going to be here this evening to answer questions and kind of just be present, but he actually made a solid DUI arrest late. Yeah, so he was down at booking and booking someone on a DUI arrest. So hopefully we saved a life tonight. The rapid response is incredible, like I mentioned, and then the downtown visibility and especially the maneuverability on the bike path is second to none.

All right, so the current status. That's why we're here requesting this.

As this thing was initially rolled out, a smart decision was made to kind of test the waters, so they bought a used motorcycle, as everyone's aware. The truth be told, when that was purchased from Thousand Oaks PD, that bike was pretty much at the end of its life. So by the definition and by the standards, you know, at a bigger station out in Thousand Oaks, they wouldn't have that bike in normal cycle. That thing would be miled out and probably sold at auction or what have you. so we're at 11 years old right now has over 69 000 miles and it doesn't sound like a lot face value on a bike or if that was a car right but when you really compare it if this is a patrol vehicle um hard braking hard steering hard acceleration um the motor's on all day you're looking at a car equivalent probably close to 200 000 miles So things are just starting to kind of wear and tear and break on the bike right now. It's still a functional bike. It's still a safe bike. It's just not as functional as we need it to be for long-term operational capabilities. And it's not as safe for the rider, in my opinion. All right, so if not replaced, that's kind of the big why, right? Can we buy another year? Perhaps. But really, the city's in a great place right now. The money's been set aside. It's been allocated, set aside, which allows us to be proactive in getting ahead of this thing. Um, if the council chooses to approve this, it's going to take 90 to 120 days to get this bike built out. Um, so we can be proactive, get ahead of it, uh, while the bike's still serviceable and running at a decent, a decent, uh, clip here right now. Um, the maintenance is very expensive. I mean, we paid, uh, the city paid approximately $10,500 to purchase a bike in about a year in service. Now the maintenance is equal to purchase costs. We're about a little over $10,000 as you can read in the report. Um, it's harder to find original equipment, manufacturer parts on these bikes. Um, they're phasing them out. They're building new bikes. So things are just more expensive and things are breaking quicker. Um, what I fear is that the potential disruption, and this is where the proactive comes into play, is if we wait and prolong this, excuse me, and the bike has a catastrophic failure where that bike completely goes down, now we might not have the money set aside, the city, and also by the time we take time to order that thing, get it built, get the specs, we're probably looking at five, six months. So potentially without a motorcycle in the city for five or six months, and I don't believe that's a good decision. That's why we're requesting the purchase of a new bike. All right, operational and fiscal considerations. So financial impact, there's no additional general fund appropriation required. It's already fully funded, the money set aside within the existing budget. It's aging equipment and the increasing maintenance and downtime. It's going to sustain a really solid program. No staffing increase and the community benefit. And I just want to give two examples. I obviously didn't plan on speaking about this, but I feel it's relevant. And it's hard with, you know, you're talking about traffic and tickets and things like that and arrests and law enforcement. It's very statistic heavy. But you really can't put a metric on this last Friday. Deputy Burnett was patrolling on Ohio Avenue. Um, and just the very nature of being on the bike, you can hear things better, see things better. You can smell your senses are fired up. Um, he had a weird feeling about a car that was kind of encroaching in traffic near the arcade there in front of Ohio Avenue. And he was able to kind of get around. And from the bike's perspective, he was able to see a little six-year-old girl in the middle of traffic on Ojai Avenue, just standing there. So he was able to cruise up, get to her, save her, get her to the side of the road. And it's a very heartbreaking thing. But ultimately, this investigation kind of unpacked. The child was living in a very, very rough circumstance. She was not healthy. She was not being cared for. So I don't want to speak too much because it's an active case still, active investigation. But ultimately, the child had to go to CPS. But the one positive thing is I could maybe say the patrol deputy might have seen that child. Um, but what if, right? And so I look at it, that's a win for us. And that's something you can't put on paper. It's not a statistic, but hopefully it's a bright spot for that young child. And she's going to hopefully live a better life and get the life she deserves. Um, organically enough later that afternoon, there was another call, um, with a missing at risk juvenile was having mental health breakdown. The parents were extremely concerned, called. They were trying to get her into a care home, get her treatment. She took off, ran away, you know, she was having a breakdown. The parents were freaking out, justifiably so. They couldn't find their daughter. Well, Burnett was able to cruise down, Deputy Burnett, on the bike path and find her very, very quickly and essentially rescue her, calm her down, and get her the help she needed. So that's just two things, and there's countless examples I can give you. Obviously, I want to keep the presentation brief. But the impact with this motorcycle, it goes far and above just traffic stops. So I think it's a solid investment. It's an investment in the community. And I appreciate you all and thank you for your time. And if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer it. Thank you, Gene. Any questions?

I just have a comment. Nothing against you or your motorcycle. I just want to bring this up. I remember when we were purchasing a motorcycle and the discussion was that, yes, it's used, but because of the staff that did the investigating of the motorcycle to make sure it was sound and all of that stuff. And you know, so that's why we went ahead and purchased a used bike. And the same, you know, it just, I go to that spending that money on something that wasn't, we were talked into something that maybe wasn't a wise investment at the time. And the same thing, you know, like with the trolleys. So it's just, it's like, seems like a pattern to me. And it's, you know, it's money, it wasn't a lot of money for that first bike, would you say like $10,000, but it's still that we were told that it was, you know, it was good and all of that. And you're saying Thousand Oaks, it was the end of its life cycle. I just, it's, I just had to say it.

Okay, go ahead. I have a question. I know, I've never heard of this, but are there EV units available on a motorcycle, you know, that would be suitable for... A police patrol bike?

Yeah.

Yeah. No, there absolutely are. It's a great question. And we did look into that. Ultimately, BMW was selected because that's the industry standard right now. It's the most durable. It's the... Best warranty, which is huge, and that's why there's an extended warranty included with this purchase price. It really is the best of the best right now. There's a lot of safety features, a lot of safety with the lighting features. It's just top notch. The e-bikes, the electric motorcycles, some of them are very good. A lot of those are very similar in price, but ultimately right now the battery life and the durability, the range, it's just not there. I can't bank in good faith for the community or for my deputy is going to an emergency call or it's a life-endangered call, life-saving call, and his battery runs out. And that's been known to happen. It depends. They'll tell you you can get 150 to 200 miles on a battery on some of these bikes. We've called around, we've talked to people. That's not so much the case because it depends on good driving habits, acceleration, braking, turning, wind elements. So the mileage, the range really is not there. And the other thing I've heard, they're not as robust and just tough, just durable as the BMW motorcycles are. Truthfully, I think your five, 10 years down the road, they're going to be probably on par and probably just as good and just as durable. But right now, really, in my opinion, they're not where they need to be for a patrol bike day in and day out.

So in a typical patrol day, how many miles is it?

Uh, he's probably over, I would say over a hundred miles probably. And he, so the motor officers, they're allowed to commute from their home. They take the bikes home, keep them clean, service them, park them in the garage, keep them safe. Um, so they're putting, he's probably putting over a hundred miles on that and he's working a four 10. So he's working at least minimum 40 hours a week. That bike's on all day, 10 hours, um, city driving, hard driving. Um, so, you know, and the BMWs are just tried and true. The motors are fantastic in them.

What would you say for Ojai would be the lifespan?

I would say at least seven years, eight years, yeah. And I think we're ultimately going to run out that warranty, and that's the goal. And that's the really good part, especially with Long Beach BMW. They have a really solid reputation. They work exclusively with CHP. They're just kind of Johnny on the spot. They're very good. And the warranty, you know, everything's covered, all the major components, just normal wear and tear, like replacing tires, things like that. But everything else is going to be covered. So it's really a good investment, in my opinion.

Any other comments, questions? Okay. I have no public comment cards on this item.

We have one raised hand from Renee. Renee, you have the ability to unmute. You may speak.

Good evening, Council. I remember when this item first came up, and I remember this was gonna be a trial program. It wasn't going to be a permanent staffing position that was added to our public safety budget forever. And it sounds like we kind of missed that discussion and we're now into having a permanent safety position in the budget. and a permanent safety vehicle added to the fleet that our officers use. So this seems to me to be a little bit of scope creep. Um, in fact, major scope creep, it might be worthy of really saying. Is this something the city wants to continue and what is the cost long term, including. The vehicle for the officer and the vehicle, and what's the return on the investment? What are the benefits received? Is this something we need and want to do forever? I could see the officers wanting and advocating for this position to be forever. But I'm just wondering if this is the highest and best use of. Our public safety dollars, I also remember we were going to share this position possibly. with Ventura County. There was the option of having Ventura County absorb part of the costs of this police officer if we decided we didn't want to have a full time officer. So I kind of feel like we're putting the cart before the horse on this and it might just be good to go back and revisit those conversations and really you know say yes good job well done i think the e-bike thing has been educated and drivers have been educated but is this something we need to do full-time and what is the cost full-time i don't think we're seeing the full picture thank you thank you ms roth no more okay yes go ahead

I had the similar concerns as Ms. Roth expressed, because I was not in favor of having the motorcycle cop as a large budget item in general. I have to say, tonight, hearing about the six-year-old girl, I don't know. You know how to get to my heartstrings. Like, oh, we have to keep the motorcycle cop. And I think the bigger question is still looming in my mind of, is this really the best use of our resources? That said, if we are, since we do still have this in the budget, we still have plans to keep our motorcycle cop here. He needs to have a, or she at some point, needs to have a good...

motorcycle and would i be correct in saying that we could sell it if it if we decide next year that we we don't want to this is something that we could resell or that if we didn't use it again or speak more to that but yeah sure so it'd be a two-part step so in the budget that you just heard we have included as you saw on the slide the funding to continue a motorcycle officer so if you decided you didn't want to do that you could remove that from your budget and you could sell the asset One important thing that was not discussed tonight, which I need to bring up to you, that has been a change since last year, is you've now brought on a new hotel that's been fully occupied in the downtown. That has had a significant impact on flow and traffic and so forth, and it's really beneficial for us having somebody dedicated to traffic, because without the motorcycle officer, you don't have anybody dedicated to traffic. Officers respond to calls for service. And yes, we try sometimes to stage them to do traffic-related things, but as soon as they get a call, they're gone. Because it's life and safety first. So that's the nice thing about having the motorcycle officer. It doesn't mean that in a big emergency he isn't called away too, but most of the time, he's dedicated to just doing traffic, which is huge. In this year, I think we've kind of forgotten, it was quite ridiculous for a while there with the e-bikes. I mean, I recall many times downtown wheelies all the way down Ojai Avenue, nothing to stop kids. And I don't see that anymore. Yes, there's some enforcement still needed. It's an ongoing process. But if you stop the program. It's going to go right back the way it was.

Right, right. And I acknowledge that it has been, that he has done a great job. That's great to hear. I've heard positive feedback from him.

So this was kind of a wrap-up of the year, but we can come back and give you more information. We can. My big fear is that we've made a lot of forward progress, and if we stop, we're going to slide backwards.

Mayor? Mayor? Yes? We received a comment card from Mr. Steingold, if you'd like to. Is it necessary?

You actually can't ask that, Mayor. Go ahead. Go ahead, Larry. You can't ask that.

Sorry.

I appreciate you.

As a citizen, not as a commissioner, the question is, has the motorcycle officer been effective? And as Mr. Harvey talks about, All right. It will go back because we're still seeing kids on bikes. The two officers in town are not doing traffic stops, really. All right. And I think him wandering around the city on top of what the accident that that happened at the Y when he was out, you know, it's important that we have him for the time being and we can sell the bike. I mean, you know, so I would continue with it for the sake of peace of mind right now until parents actually take action on their own. Thank you.

I'll never ask that again. Yeah. Sorry, but. Not at all. You're right, you're right. I think that the Chief Abbott illustrated some of the versatility that the motorcycle officer has that a unit doesn't. Not just availability, but maneuverability. The e-bike issue has not been conquered. I perceive that it's better, but I also perceive that there's a serious issue. Safety for those kids and safety for The rest of the community, I think it's really important that we continue to have the ability to address that. The motorcycle officer really gives us a great ability to do that. I'd love to see us go to an e-bike when they're able to match the performance including maybe selling this one before it's use for life if a model comes up. I'll take the chief's word that it's not quite there yet for the versatility and go with the more functional bike that I think we should look to reducing emissions whenever we can. I'm gonna support that.

expenditure this the current bike can be sold i presume as well it could yes the city owns the bike yeah it's a city asset

Okay.

But I'm just wondering like that. So if we kept it, if the bike had to go in for maintenance or whatever, then the one that he's currently using could be the backup. Oh, that's a good point.

The plan is to keep it as a backup. Yes. Good thinking. And I kind of didn't explain that very well, but yeah, absolutely be a backup. We could also use it to bring in an additional motor trained deputy for parades, events. So in theory, we could have two bikes at a moment's notice. It gives a lot of flexibility and redundancy. So it's, yeah. you.

Secretly, I thought about buying the bike just like a minute ago, but oh well. Sorry. I know again. I could buy another bike. You want those sirens. Well, okay.

I support it. I think that I could just call him Patrolman Eric. I think he's awesome. I see him all over the place. I have seen a marked improvement with kids in e-bikes. They're wearing helmets. They're still two or three to a bike sometimes. But I see them as being more cautious. And I don't know if it's just peer pressure, but it's made a difference. I mean, they kind of hang out in my area. I think Eric's been great, including the times he's pulled me over.

Just saying.

That's unbiased.

Just saying. I appreciate it, yeah. He is amazing. And I see him at the park talking to people. I see his bike park there, and he's doing outreach. He's talking to parents. He's talking to kids. And I was not aware of the situation where he's helped these children, and that's awesome. that's really great and i would not have known that and i would not have thought about that sort of versatility um so i i wanted i supported him i supported the patrol officer a year ago and i continue to support him and i think that we need to give him you know we need to give that role that proper equipment so i support this expenditure would you be willing to make a motion Sure. I'll make a motion that we authorize the purchase of one new 2026 BMW police motorcycle for an operational need.

I'll second it. Wonderful. All right. Roll call, please.

Yes, Mayor. Council Member Lange.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem Meng.

Yes.

Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Whitman. Yes. Council Member Rule.

Yes. Sometimes I just don't wear my seatbelt. He's looked at me and my seatbelt's not on. And he's like, come on over, let's have a talk.

I meant no disrespect by saying cop. I'm so sorry. Instead of officer. Okay, okay. is that a disrespectful term i need to be schooled if so chief i have to ask yeah sorry don't go don't go home yet but just yeah all right moving on to item uh 14 award maintenance agreement for janitorial services

Yes, Mayor, this item is coming before each night, brought back at council request.

Oh, sorry, did I miss?

13. 13. Did I say 14? I meant 13. I was on 13, yeah. I meant 13. Thank you. Sorry.

Understood. And so this will be co-presented by Ms. Palmer and Ms. Holman. Ms. Palmer?

Sure, yeah. So as Ben mentioned, we brought this back. So the recommendation tonight is to, one of two things, two part, authorize Ben to sign this agreement. This is a three year agreement for Kelly's Cleaning. We went out to bid RFP for this. and we'd like to go out for a three-year term so we don't have to go out every single year, and then authorize Ben to execute future amendments to one-year extensions so the total term could potentially be five years. Or... direct staff to appropriate funding for two full-time maintenance employees. There was some question about the analysis of whether we do something in-house or we contract it out. So we have, that's why Kathy is sitting here with me tonight because she has done an analysis on what the staffing would be, what kind of staffing would be required for something like this, so.

So with staffing, with in-house.

Thanks. Are we on now? Yep, yep.

With in-house staffing, things to be considerate of is that you need coverage. One person isn't enough because you have unanticipated absences, planned absences. You also need safety because all this work happens after hours at night or very early hours in the morning. So to have... To fund two positions, it's about $110,000 fully loaded for a full-time maintenance worker. So times that by two. You also have the added expense of a vehicle. So I would estimate a minimum of $50,000 for that, plus all the related equipment that we currently have set up. I mean, it sounds miscellaneous, but once you start putting it, adding it all together, it adds up over time. But, you know, you need vacuum, steam cleaners, buckets, mops. I mean, you have all this stuff that we don't currently have. In addition, there's a challenge of supervising the staff. So... Having after-hour staff out there without supervision, there is a risk. I'm not saying that anybody's going to do anything bad or negative. It's just typically in an employment model, you have supervision on site. It can happen. I'm not trying to say it can't happen. I'm just saying there is a cost associated with it. benefit of going with the contract service is that this is their business and they may not need a full eight hours a day to do what we're doing so we may you know there there's going to be some learning curve for us as well and determining the number of hours that we actually need but we started with full time because typically that is what's going to be needed to to be able to clean all the facilities daily I'm sorry. Is there anything else you guys would like to...

Your microphone's not on, I don't think.

Thank you. The contract for a one-year term is $115,000 by going out to Kelly's Cleaning, and they've been servicing our buildings and our facilities for as long as I've been here, so a number of years. And so the figures that Kathy was throwing around, it looks like it's about $270,000, and that's for the first year. And then, of course, it would drop because we wouldn't have the $50,000 vehicle. So it's about... it's about twice as much to go with employees with staff time versus the contract, in this particular case. Some other contracts might be more suitable for a more comparison, but we have found that janitorial services in-house, it just doesn't, it's not generally what happens for public agencies. So.

Question. How many,

staff are we getting from kelly um you know i don't know the number i know what they're doing though well i could jump in okay go ahead so i've been here many times late at night and they're here and it's often it's usually at least three but often up to five that are here when i've come in so they're it so it's they're coming in for two hours or I don't know how long they're here, but I would, you know, come in here, do some work, and they're here the whole time, and then I leave and they're still here.

Yeah, it's definitely a team. It's more than two. I know that. Yeah.

There's always been at least three.

Yeah.

So maybe the other question would be, so how many hours per day are we getting from Kelly in terms of janitorial service?

You know, I don't know if we've quantified it per hour. What we're looking at is groups, so they visit every one of our parks every single day before seven or at 7 a.m. and clean the toilets, clean the bathrooms, whatever, and they're here in all of our, in our eight facilities every Friday after we close, after business closes. So we could look at the actual hours and see if they can quantify it that way for us, but we're looking at it more as sort of lump sum, not hourly.

And the other thing, because we're on questions.

Yeah.

Never mind.

Okay.

So I guess my next question is, because I'm interested in whether we need two full-time staff people if the second person would simply be picking up when the first one was on vacation or sick or whatever. It seems like there would be other ways to accommodate that so that we had the one staff person.

So we wouldn't envision, if I could just jump in, that one person is just on standby. They would be working together. But that way, you could have one of them go on. You couldn't have both of them on vacation or leave at the same time. When one was on leave, the other would basically essentially be doing double duty for the time when that person is on leave. That's how it would have to work.

And the

The parks also get service seven days a week, every holiday. So we need to ban it seven days a week. It wouldn't be, you know, so just keep that in mind as well.

The parks are touched every single day, 365, 365 days a year.

Any other questions? I have no public comments on this. None at all. Okay.

Yeah, I just wanted to say that the other thing, because I'm often at Sarzodi early in the morning and also at night after council meetings. I go there to decompress. And there are crews there at night, every night. So what occurs to me as well is that These things happen at the same time, right? So things get cleaned at night at the same time. So, you know, they're not sequential. Something doesn't happen at, you know... 10 and midnight. Right, exactly. They all happen between 10 and midnight. You know what I mean? And they happen between 6 and... 7 30 in the morning no matter what park you're at that's where it's going on and that's when it has to go on because you can't actually close down facilities you can't close down the rec center because you want to clean it so To me, this actually makes perfect sense that this is the kind of situation where you would, in fact, contract it out because you need multiple people in multiple places at relatively the same time. And I see them. I see them all the time at night and in the morning. The guy's there at 7 o'clock, different guy, and then there's a team there at night at Sarzodi cleaning everything. I don't see how an individual staff member could actually do that in that same way, have it prepared and ready for opening. You know?

That makes sense. I guess when I, it's funny, it's in our warrants for today, but when I look at the WILDAN engineering on page 13 and I see all the code enforcement, that actually seems more like a bright opportunity for an employee, in my opinion, than the janitorial services. So I actually like the idea of having employees over contractors when appropriate. This doesn't seem like that, but I don't want to give up that quest.

to if we see a lot of contracting services going out that we do look at an employee i would suggest this one is the contract yeah i agree i mean in theory i i agree yeah and just to jump in really quick we're still scheduled to bring back a general item on not general specific item talking about contract versus in-house and detailing the city's major contracts and then you can give us direction okay super

so did we have no cards or no cards this is it okay on the final discussion yeah I guess did you have any I don't want okay so yeah I'm I am I am concerned that if we are we're spending money that whenever we can we spend it in Ojai so that there are local people who benefit directly from our employment of somebody whether that's as a contractor or whether that's as an employee and so that I understand we're not at a position where we could easily do hire an employee right now. But I want to be, you know, flexible enough that if we get the word out that potentially there's some local person who wants to engage in this service. So having a three-year contract would make it problematic for the shift. So, I mean, if we've been doing one-year contracts with Kelly, I'd be more in favor of extending it one year and making a bigger effort towards I don't need the person to be an employee. I like the idea of employees, but if we're going to hire a contractor, I like to hire a local contractor. That's it. That's the end of my comment.

We put it out there in the plan rooms and really get it out there, and we got one proposal. I mean, we would love to have local vendors submitting proposals, and we try as often as possible. In fact, we just had this conversation in the office last week. If we can buy local, if we can do things local, we would love to. Unfortunately, this was the process, and this is what it yielded.

Their office is on Donlon. That's not Ojai. It's Ventura, but it's not Los Angeles.

No, it's not. It's not Simi Valley. It's not far, but yes, and I totally appreciate that.

They have an office. I think they're all open. They have an office in Ventura.

Yeah, the address is on Donlon.