City Council - Regular Meeting

today check ready to go all right welcome here everyone to the tuesday august 25th city regular city council meeting roll call please mr montgomery mayor gilman here mayor pro tem bang here council member rule here council member lane here council member whitman Here. And would you lead us in the pledge, please?

Of course, Mayor and Honorable Counsel, welcome community. Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you and on the agenda I thought one small item I would love to do is or like to do is move up 9 to the 1st discussion item just since we have some people speaking if nobody objects to that any other changes to the agenda. hearing none so we'll move nine to before eight thank you okay and then next we will have a presentation from food share ventura county chief development officer jennifer caldwell to provide a report on local services provided thank you for coming Welcome.

Mayor Gilman, Honorable Counsel, thank you so much for having me. Jennifer Caldwell, I'm the Chief Development Officer for Food Share of Ventura County, basically just a fancy title for Head Money Lady. I'm so excited to be here on behalf of our President and CEO, Monica White, and also honored to be joined by our Board Chair and proud Ojai resident, Drew West. came from some moral support. I just wanted to take a few minutes of your time to explain a little bit. I know FoodShare has been a huge member of this community and the Ojai community for quite some time, but sharing a little bit about our work in the community and then specifically here in Ojai as well, and then happy to answer kind of any questions at the end. I always love to start with our history because it is such a rich history. This is truly how we started, tractors chasing us in the fields. picking extra crops before they got tilled into the ground. This was 49 years ago. A bunch of neighbors in Ventura got together, wanted to help out a few homeless veterans that were living under a bridge, and this kind of was their initial start of doing it. That very first year, with buckets in hand, they collected and distributed 34,000 pounds of food, which was tremendous. Today we do that in two hours. So we've grown quite significantly over the years, but that early movement is really what got us to be the food bank that we are today. One of our favorite graphs of how food share works, the very top line is how we get our food in. All comes into food share as the food bank for Ventura County. Kind of picture us like the free Costco without the samples. And then the bottom row is how we distribute that food to the community. I'll kind of highlight just a few of them. Purchased product, we do about $2.5 million worth of purchased food every single year. And we're purchasing items that we don't get donated from the other buckets and for our specialty programs. We have specialty programs for our kids and for our farm workers and for our seniors. So we're purchasing items that we, again, don't get donated and need for specialty items. Retail stores is probably our second biggest bucket. We get about 8 million pounds of our 23 million pounds from retail stores. And those are just like the Vons right here in Ojai, Sprouts, Trader Joe's, Walmart, Costco, Sam's Club. Food that is no longer shelf stable or good by their standards, still perfectly good food. We are able to rescue it and get it out to the community in need. And then we still go to, while we don't go, we're not following tractors or being chased by them, we have great relationships with our local farming community to buy local as well as get donated fresh produce from a lot of amazing farms in here. We also throw the Port of Wainimi, although they aren't a farm, we get literal tons of pineapples and bananas donated from the Port of Wainimi, which is fabulous. And then we have the contract for Ventura County for USDA government commodities, comes through the farm bill through USDA, then goes to the California Department of Social Services, which then disperses it to the 42 food banks within California. So we get great government commodities and a little bit of dollars to help distribute that. Again, all comes into food shares, the food bank, and then we get it out through a variety of partners and programs. Our biggest one, pantries, yes, it looks like a church. Many of our 200 partners are. But it also could be a pop-up in a parking lot once a month. It could be like a Help of Ojai that has regular distributions. It could be a church that does it after their Sunday service. So a variety of different partners and programs that we are able to get our food out. I'll start with kind of some stats for food share, sorry, Ventura County as a whole, and then we'll kind of get into Ojai as well. As much as I love this graph because it really shows how many people that we've served over the years. And as you can see, back in 2019, we were at about 92,000 people on an annual basis. The next couple years spikes aren't really surprising as the pandemic did hit us and we had to increase our services to Ventura County neighbors quite significantly and rapidly. What is interesting is that that spike really never went down, and last year we served 254,000 Ventura County residents, and that is an unduplicated number. So that's about 31% of the Ventura County population that we are still serving. And then as you can see here, again, Ventura County numbers, 254,000. It's about 30% of the Ventura County population. We did just over 21 million pounds of food last year, which equates to 17 million meals that we were able to provide. If we were to take that 21 million pounds and go to Vons and say, hey, we need to purchase 21 million pounds of food, It would cost retail value $67 million, but we are able to do all of our services with a $10 million budget, and which really showcases the power of our network as well as our incredible volunteer force. We have 4,500 volunteers on an annual basis. with our 200 pantry partners that help actually distribute that food to get it out, which is just really fabulous. 37% of that 21 million pounds of food was fresh produce. Our goal is to get that up to 40%. We're at a capacity issue right now, kind of a teaser for later, so we have ways to be able to kind of fix that. Kind of coming back into Ojai Valley, so taking all of those big numbers that I said and showing what we did here in Ojai Valley. And this is all of our pantry partners around here. So 334,000 pounds of that food was distributed, just over 250,000 meals of that equated, being about 30% of the Ojai population based off of the 2020 census numbers with eight different agency partners. Some of those are closed sites, so they aren't listed publicly on our website. And we have one retail rescue partner, Vons. Danny over there is a fabulous partner with us.

Can I ask you one question? Please. But I can wait until the end if you prefer that. No, please, please. If you go back. Yeah. That 30%, is that the city or the valley? That's the city. Just the city by itself? Just the city, yes. All this data is just city? Correct.

So I wasn't able to get census data or population data for the valley. Okay. Yep. A couple of our pantry partners, this is in all of Ojai Valley that we serve, Help of Ojai being one of our biggest ones. They distributed 176,000 pounds of ours last year. And all the food that our pantry partners get from us, whether it's from us at the food bank or picking up straight from Vons or any other retail partner, is at zero cost. We don't charge anything for pickup or delivery. It's my job to raise the funds to ensure that they get out the food to our neighbors. St. Thomas Aquinas is another fabulous partner pantry and does our senior kit distributions as well. And then Secure Beginnings is a diaper bank partner of ours and got out over 70,000 diapers last year. We have a really great app. Obviously, I'm biased, but this is a really great way. It's very easy to download on your iPhone or Android. And this is a great way to be able to help anybody in need at any time. So if you run across somebody that is in need of food, you can pull up this app. It checks your location, and it'll list all of the pantries that are open right now, or you can toggle off the open now and go to every single one of our pantries. You have a copy of this presentation, so you can kind of scan that QR code later and download the app. Just a really great tool to have in your pocket should you come across anybody in need of food services. You have all of that information kind of right in your pocket. And then I wanted to showcase just a few of our partners and programs that we do. One of our largest distributions that did 2 million pounds just at this distribution is College Park in Oxnard. It's a weekly distribution that 1,000 cars come through that line every single week, over 70 volunteers it takes to come through. We started this distribution April 1st of 2020 thinking that we could just, you know, 90 days, let's just get through it. Okay, we were cute. Maybe six months, let's just get through it. And here we are six years later still doing this distribution every single week at College Park with over 1,000 cars coming through. I highly recommend this as a volunteer opportunity. It's just two hours on a Wednesday afternoon to truly see the faces of neighbors in need. They're very, very grateful to be able to receive these services. Something that we also started in 2020 was our Kitchen Free program. This is a really great bag of shelf-stable, pop-top, highly nutritious, low sugar, low sodium food for our unhoused community. And we put these bags together, and they actually go to our pantry partners that are already servicing those neighbors and have those relationships, also where they can get additional services other than just food. And since 2020, we have distributed 70,000 of these bags. Now that you've seen it, I guarantee you'll be seeing them around town on bike handles and people riding by. But it's a really great program to just give our unhoused community that don't have access to a kitchen some resources. Our farm worker program, we have about an estimated 45,000 migrant farm workers here in Ventura County. So we do some specialty programs for them and delivering boxes to them in the fields because they do work long hours where sometimes they aren't able to get to our distributions. So we're able to do farm worker boxes with culturally important foods to them specifically, as well as diapers and women's sanitary supplies as well. And it's been very, very much needed. And then our seniors, we do about 3,500 senior kit boxes a month. This is a USDA government program. It's about a 35-pound box of food. So we've also been able to get some grants and buy some shopping carts for these seniors to bring the box back to their car or back to their home. We have 42 distribution sites, St. Thomas Aquinas being one of them, all over the county to be able to receive this box of shelf-stable food. They also get a box of fresh produce. And government cheese is back. Mm-hmm. And then our kids programs, we have some incredible kids farmers market and kids kitchen where we actually have a nutritionist go to boys and girls clubs after school care programs. The nutritionist does a little bit of an exercise lesson with them, shows them what a healthy plate of food looks like, should look like, and then sends that food home with them with some recipes so they can recreate it with their family. And great news, this had... Prior had always been kind of a grant funded program and we would do this as we got grant funding in and we had a donor came in and said, I want to make sure that you can do it all year round. So this year we'll be able to do it all year round and make sure that kids all over Ventura County have access to this, which is just so fabulous. And then the need continues. I kind of tease this a little bit of our capacity issue. We are 46,000 square feet, but in three different warehouses. Last year, we had to turn away 8 million pounds of produce because we just did not have the capacity. But we absolutely have the need to be able to get it out to our community. So with our visionary board and some really intelligent people where I'm just tell me how much it's going to be. We are building a brand new food bank in the city of Oxnard. We break ground in a couple weeks. You were all invited. I hope you got the information for the groundbreaking. Fabulous. But we are proud land owners. This is 12 acres of land in Oxnard just off of Woolley and Rose. It's a beautiful industrial park there with surprising undeveloped land. And so about four years ago, we purchased this and have been well on our way to designing the food bank of the future. And so we are going to be building an 85,000 square foot facility all under one roof to be able to serve our community for decades to come. This building has the capacity to house and distribute 40 million pounds of food, so truly doubling our capacity by the year 2040. Does the need increase in Ventura County? Of course not. But even if our number stays at 254,000, maybe we can give out two bags of groceries instead of one. this facility allows us to do that and to stop saying no to food and having to turn it away it's a really incredible project and the community has rallied behind it knowing the importance of it it's a 50 million dollar project real estate in california is as you know quite expensive uh so with this 50 million dollar project proud to say we are at 91 of our goal and have currently raised 45 million dollars so i'm here today to ask you for five million okay We're getting there. The community, again, has really rallied behind us to support this project. You will absolutely come to the groundbreaking, and then in two-ish years, hoping the ribbon-cutting and grand opening ceremony of our new food bank But a really beautiful design, really built at Food Bank for the Future, making sure that we can serve all of our neighbors, but we also have to ensure that we can accommodate the 4,500 volunteers that we get on an annual basis. And the next part that we're doing in really inviting the public to support us with this is our paver program. as you can see kind of right at the entrance all of that will be beautiful pavers for our neighbors for our supporters our communities our partners to come together and so we have these amazing options available on our website but i wanted to share with you in case the city of ohio wanted to kind of mark their legacy as this because we are all in this together and we couldn't do it without partnerships and that's really what has helped build this new food bank for the future That's all I got. This is Leah. Say hi to Leah. Any questions?

I want to hear from others, of course. I guess what I'm wanting to ask is, besides the pavers or those kinds of opportunities that you mentioned, do you have any barriers in Ohio that we could assist you with more immediately?

Thank you for that question. Not that I'm aware of. I mean, we have already a partnership with Vons as that kind of solo retail store. They're incredible partners of ours. And then we are constantly asking our pantry partners, what could we do better? We deliver food for free as well. So I know that kind of that barrier of the travel to Oxnard, especially for some of our smaller agencies that don't have the transportation capacity and they're just kind of showing up in their Prius and sticking what they can in the back of it. So we started delivering. We also have trucks for agencies to be able to use for free if that's ever a barrier. But thank you for that invitation. Should anything come up, I know who to call.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Any other questions? Yeah.

Yeah, I have a quick question. What does a food bank of the future look like? How is it different from the food bank present?

Yeah, no, that's a great question. One, it's the capacity. So we're doubling in size. So to be able to serve more food, accept more food, we're tripling our cooler capacity and doubling our freezer capacity. Because again, we've had to turn away specific food for those areas because we haven't been able to accept it in the past. And then we've also designed it I'll kind of show you a little bit if we can the back side of the building Looks kind of just like a grass area, which it is It's a water retention basin which backs up to Woolly Rose But the way that we've built it on this piece of land there say in the year 2040 we get to that 40 million pound capacity and it's just not enough and That land has room for a 45,000-square-foot additional expansion should we ever need it, well into the future, well into my retirement in food banking. So when I say food bank of the future, this is truly our forever home, and we've designed it and built it as such to ensure that future leadership is set up well and the community is set up well to be able to continue to serve them. Thank you very much. Yes, my board chair, please. Yeah, come up.

As the board chair, our focus is to leave this food bank for generations into the future for our community and for the community members that need food assistance without any debt, with resources to go forward, and with a facility that's going to carry us into the future without worry. We're trying to leave this in a perfect kind of legacy situation. We've even gone so far as this facility will have a commercial kitchen in it. so that we'll be able to have education programs and provide flash frozen meals that could be reheated and distributed throughout the community, primarily for our seniors, I would think. But we've also been focusing on disaster recovery during the fires, during pandemics, during floods. This organization has made me so proud because they've been able to scale with all the restrictions and limitations that they have to serve our neighbors that were struggling through these events. We're building this facility so that it will be optimized to be able to address those needs going forward. So there's going to be another disaster. It could be an earthquake. It could be something. It's going to be awful probably, but we'll have to deal with it. We're building it as a future food bank. Building the resiliency for us.

You're building the resiliency, the food resiliency for us come bad times.

Exactly. We're all in this together. Hunger is something we've dealt with since the beginning of time. And we can deal with hunger and make sure people have food, but we have to have the resources to do that and do it well and do it for our children and grandchildren and their grandchildren.

Yeah, this is fabulous. Thank you for the vision. It's really great. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Any other questions?

Can you see why he's our board chair? Yeah, yeah.

Well placed. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Wonderful. Incredible. Inspiring. All right. Do we have any commission reports tonight? No, we do not, Mayor. Okay. City Manager's report?

No report. Okay.

We'll move on to public communication. These are items not on the agenda. And I have Brian Aikens. Tim Kraut, is it a public comment or do you want to comment on the item that's going to be on the discussion? Okay. And then Larry Stengelt.

Hello, everyone. I'm Brian Akins. I'm currently on the Historic Preservation Commission for the City of Ojai. I'm also on the Oak View Neighborhood Council, which we held a rousing meeting last night. We were happy to have Chief Police there keep us somewhat quiet. It's probably why he sat in the back row. And Mayor Gilman was there. He was in the other corner in the back row, but we were happy to have him there. A lot of different things. I figured 50 people showed up because they had the question on everybody's lips. When are they going to fix the bridge there below Oak View and Casitas Pass? And so as both these individuals know, they're shooting for the summer of next year, maybe the fall. But the thing that's holding it up the most is, of course, water flowing under that bridge and with El Nino coming, who knows when it will get fixed. Just giving you, again, answer to one of the things you've been asking most. Anyway, very happy to have them. Atticus was there representing Steve Bennett, other things. I've used Oak View School as quite an example over the years on closing down schools. Well, the bad example is when the county of Ventura moves in and takes over, which is why we had 50-something people who have been paying property taxes for 20 years, thinking that they were purchasing that property, only to find out they're not in control. But there are people that are coming in. And so we talked about that last night, too. Just different things. I do want to, in a little bit, I want to thank Help of Ojai. In case you haven't heard, there's a gentleman

Ken Banks, who the coroners have now determined that he did pass away in the RV fire that took place.

He has been going to Help of Ojai, who are wonderful, wonderful organizations. I took Ken on Wednesday mornings. I missed talking about the weather with him. But they are doing a remembrance for Ken Friday in the afternoon. So I just wanted to get that information out and thank, again, that fine organization. We also had Ron Solanzaro there last night. When it comes to Oakview, he's got to be a little less polite and kind of raise his hand and say, hey, I have something important. He got away before I could call him back down. But again, things are happening in Oakview, lots of good things, some things that we're still struggling with. So just a benefit to that. So again, thank you all for all that you do. I enjoy being here on the mornings. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Jenkins. I do have one question. Go ahead. I just come to the meeting. So the school that is under discussion is Sunset Elementary, is that correct?

No, no, Sunset, actually, they've just looked at shutting down Ventura schools. Sunset is not one of those. Okay, that was my question. I'm talking about the original Oakview school. It's the one that my kids went to. Okay. So right there on Santa Ana Boulevard as you cut down going through.

So I know that Ventura County Unified is in discussion with shutting down schools. But not Sunset. This is just Ventura County.

Ventura County, parks and resources. Okay. Not Ventura County Unified School District. Okay.

So I get it. That's what you were talking about. And as far as you know, Sunset is not on, well, every school is up for discussion. That much I do know. So I was just, I just wanted to clarify.

It is, but it was reported to us last night that they were not on the list.

Great. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Tim Kraut, please. And then Larry Stengel.

Good evening, council staff, Mr. Mayor. I have with me a report on this campus that's about three years old. And I just want to say thank you for taking care of some of the trees that's been mentioned in this report. There was 28 hazardous trees mentioned in this report. You've taken out, I think, two. You've done some other major work on some of the others. You've improved that. But I'm still concerned about those others. and I'm hoping that you will maybe spend some more money on that and take care of some of those trees before you do something with the grounds. So that's what I'm here for tonight, and thank you for doing some of that. There's a lot of trimming that needs to be done. If you walk out there, there's canopies over canopies, and this report is very valuable if you just take some time and look at it. But thanks for the work done so far.

Thank you, Mr. Cobb.

Larry Stengel, please.

Larry Steingold as myself. Good evening, mayor and members of the council. A 360 degree performance review is an invaluable management tool. When done properly, it gives this council an objective, clear-eyed assessment of executive leadership by collecting candid feedback from subordinates, peers, department heads, and other people who may want to contribute. Think of it as a professional report card. But for a report card to hold genuine integrity, two baseline rules must apply. The grading must be strictly impartial, and the student cannot choose the teacher. This contract reflects a continuing attitude that relies too heavily on sole source shortcuts. This isn't about dollars and cents. It's about governance, culture, public trust. Just because an exemption is technically legal under our municipal code does not make it the right thing to do. Just because you can pick the person doesn't mean you should. The law sets the minimum floor, but good governance demands a higher standard of stewardship. When relationship routinely treats a legal exemption as an automatic default, it bypasses the accountability that competitive processes are designed to protect. Awarding contracts without a public scored RFP process, especially when initiated through closed session discussions, inevitably creates the perception of inside dealing loosely defined scopes and diminished credibility. The contract raises three critical questions. Why this firm sole sourced instead of openly evaluated? Second, true independence. The principal of this firm is a former city manager. While municipal experience is valuable, it creates natural peer empathy and sympathy because they've all been there, they all have the t-shirt. As our city manager has prior professional dealings, has he? Organizational ties, personal connections, what concrete safeguards guarantee an uncompromised objectivity? I support transparency. Please go out for someone else, or at least try. I support conducting a 360 review. I've had them done. they aren't fun but public trust demands a standard open competitive valuation routine shortcuts full disclosure disclosure of prior relationships an independently compiled participant list how many will these employees or friends of be chilled because they everyone knows who everyone works for and people talk the way they talk complete council access to unfiltered results Let us ensure this framework is rigorous and transparent so the findings serve as an authentic leadership tool, or as the staff puts it, go for it. Try. At least make the attempt.

Thank you, Ms. Strangold. Ms. Burgess, tell me if I'm incorrect in what I'm about to say. We actually reviewed several proposals. We evaluated them carefully and selected one. So we didn't sole source anything? OK, just to be clear. Okay, wonderful. Yes, go ahead.

I'll just add that it was a pretty detailed discussion before we selected one of the multiple proposals that was in court in front of us. I know we can't go into details about what that was. I was not going there, but it was a very thorough conversation.

Thank you, though. Did you have a public comment? Okay.

Are you aware that your website is down? And you cannot, you're not being recorded. I went online to the city's website, couldn't get on anything. And I thought, not tonight, surely not tonight.

Even right up to when I left. It's on right now for me as well. It's on now? Yeah.

Well, I don't know if it ever stopped being off for at least here.

Okay.

I can confirm it's on. And Ms. Roth, we are happy to help you at any time with access.

All right. I just wanted to make sure. Thanks for the alert, though. That this important meeting is being recorded. Thanks. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Anybody online?

No, Mayor. We have no raised hands on Zoom.

So we're going to continue with what we tried to start with last time, which is we will ask for any public comments on the consent calendar before any council members want to remove anything from consent. I do have one card from Larry Steingold on item seven. And if anybody else has a consent calendar item they'd like to address, please fill out a card and give it to Mr. Esselstyn.

Hello. Three weeks ago, I was limited to three minutes for three. And I understand why. I fully do. But the question came up later.

Just a quick point of order. You can't be limited. Just so you know that. Fair enough. And I apologize for that. You can't be limited.

Oh. OK. OK. The other question, which was more a question concerning afterward, was that this list is for items that are not controversial. Okay, that's what I was told, the consent calendar. So if there are items, who chooses that? Who says they're not controversially?

Keep talking. No, and that's the question. I understand. So this is the place for you to talk, and a council person can engage with you if they wish.

Right, okay. So the question is, if the consent calendar is for things that are not controversial, who puts them there and decides they're not controversial? Because then they're not discussed until they're pulled, or somebody has a minute, or whatever it is. It's a different format, and it's just a question. Thank you.

ms burgess tell me if i'm incorrect here um basically items that would come back for let's say a second reading that would be a candidate um so generally the purpose of the consent calendar is for the consent is it's a portion of the agenda for things that are routine and um generally not as complicated or likely to be controversial so you typically will see things like minutes Here we see also the monthly treasurer's report. Often you will see in some communities they will have lots of different contracts and things like that on the consent calendar, but I think here as a practical matter, um you know the city managers in consultation with other city staff and and the mayor as well um you know we'll evaluate the items on the agenda if we anticipate that an item is likely to require you know significant discussion we will not put it on consent we can't always anticipate that in advance so sometimes you know an item will will end up on consent and then get pulled for discussion

That's the liberty, though, of the council people. What might be uncontroversial to one may be controversial to another and they have full authority to bring it up.

But I think if the council wishes, you know, we didn't have an in-depth discussion of what should be on consent as part of the agenda tonight, but if that's a topic of interest to the council, we could certainly bring that back as a future agenda item.

Thank you. I would say that we're relatively aggressive and confident about pulling things off if we have things to say about the item.

Nobody seems shy about that.

Yeah. right agreed and they shouldn't there's no reason to be there's something to talk about talk about it um but also as just a point for clarification um as as city council in the same way that city council can establish limits on public comment for general public comment and comment for regular agenda items on the discussion part of the agenda the council rules establish that the public may comment for three minutes on any particular item that council is taking action on. So with respect to the consent calendar, it's legal and appropriate for the council to say that members of the public may comment for three minutes on the consent calendar. However, if that's a topic that council would like us to revisit, we could also bring that back as a future item.

I would happily talk about that if people want to. Anything online on the consent calendar, Mr. Montgomery?

Yes, Mayor.

We have one raised hand from Bill.

Thank you. Mr. Miley. Mr. Miley, you can unmute and you have the floor.

Okay. Did you hear me?

Yes.

Good. This is item seven.

Okay.

The grand jury report. I read each of the grand jury statements. I notice the response of city council voted to submit and assess meeting. I support all the conditions statement principally agree. I remember the grand jury's report describing wrongdoings, but it focused on the future. It did not require a redo. It said something like in the future, you shall. I support the city attorney's formulation of the city council's response. It's good. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. That's all mayor. Okay. Moving on to the consent calendar. Are there any items that any council members would like to pull?

Yes. Mm.

Hmm. Okay, so number four. Number four.

Yes. Oh, yeah, here we go, okay. So this is just.

Let me go through and ask if there's any more. So number four and any others? That's okay. Anybody else?

I'll move to approve one, two, three, five, six, and seven.

I second that.

Just for the record, it's two, three, five, six, seven. Two, three, five, six, seven. Yes, two, three, five, six.

And I'm seconding. Do you want to do a roll call on that one, please? Thank you. Yes, Mayor.

Council Member Whitman. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Ming. Yes. Council Member Rule. Yes. Mayor Gilman. Yes.

Council Member Lange.

Yes.

Thank you, Ms. Burgess, on number seven. Bringing that back so well. Okay, now we'll go on to the warrants, number four.

Yes, so if we could look at page 49. Okay. We will see... Four from the bottom, CalPERS retirement, ACH, July 26th payroll expense for $28,000 and change. Then we see on the next page, three down, CalPERS retirement, ACH, July 26th payroll expense. $612,420. Then we see three down from there, CalPERS retirement, ACH, July 26 payroll expense for $30,000. Now, and I'm sure that they're just parceled out in different ways, but I'd like clarification on that because actually when you look at the total under the payroll and benefits, they're all added in correctly, not incorrectly. They are correctly added in so i'm assuming that some of that is back so i just wanted to get clarification and how i would distinguish between those three different uh because you know absolutely so miss palmer's on the line so she can definitely give you more clarification thank you

Hi, good evening. Yeah, thank you for your question. Moving forward. We can definitely add more descriptive detail. So it's easier to see the differences. The payment that was made on 730 for the 612,000 is for the city's annual payment. So is a once once a year. Large payment that the city makes, and then the 2 smaller payments, the 1 for the 30000. And the 28 are for the 2 payrolls that we have in the month. So you should always see those 2 individual for the, the biweekly payroll. And then just on this specific warrant, we have the, the annual payment.

Okay, got it. So the once a year big one, is that our back pay? What we owe? What do we call our liability? Yes. Okay. The unfunded liability. Unfunded liability. Thank you. And thank you for the clarification. Of course.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for noticing that. That's really important.

Yeah, of course. Thank you.

Anything else? Ms. Rule?

Oh, no, I'm sorry. That's all. Thank you.

Wonderful. So I will move that we accept consent item number four.

I'll second.

Okay. We're going to take a roll call on number four, acceptance. Thank you, sir. You're off socializing with the crowd, you know, having a good time.

I was confirming we were not having any technical difficulties with our live streaming. Yes.

Could you please remind me the motion and the second? It's to approve consent item number four, and there was a second by Ms. Rule. Okay. And we're okay on the live streaming?

TBD. I see, okay. Council Member Rule.

Yes.

Council Member Lange.

Yes.

Mayor Gilman. Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem May Councilmember Whitman yes and it looks like we are live sounds like it thank you for checking wonderful guys okay we will move on to discussion and we moved item number nine to the front introduce ordinance amending article 5 of the Ojai Municipal Code to add prohibition of use in Libby Park tennis courts for any activity other than tennis

So I will I will present this item. Thank you So in I believe it was in April of this year as part of an appeal that City Council heard regarding a facility use permit for a special event at the lower Libby tennis courts City Council provided direction to staff and the City Attorney's Office to bring back an ordinance to City Council that would establish a clear policy going forward that tennis courts at Libby Park may only be used for tennis activities and so as part of the ordinance that's being presented tonight on first reading we have an ordinance that is intended to effectuate that direction. It would effectively provide that the tennis courts located at both Upper and Lower Libby Park be exclusively used for the purpose of playing tennis. There is an exception or a carve out in section 2B of the ordinance to allow for temporary closures. of one or more of the tennis courts at the Upper Libby Park in connection with a permitted event at the Libby Bowl or in Libby Park when reasonably needed for event related purposes. So it's effectively an exception for a non-use of the Upper Libby tennis courts in situations where, like for example, in the city's contract with Ojai Valley Music, there's a provision that calls for closure of the tennis courts during an event. And I expect that there would probably be other similar situations involving events at the Libby Bowl where it may be appropriate for tennis courts at Upper Libby to be closed. if council approves this on first reading it will come back to the City Council in two weeks for second reading and that's all that I have questions for staff before we go to public comment I just I guess I'm a clarifying question for me would be I'm looking at page 145 B

So the way that I'm reading this language, it would be something like the tennis courts could not be used for any purpose other than tennis or closed, even if the city were wanting to do something else.

Correct.

Okay. Just to clarify the question. Okay. For example, like something on Ojai Day for anything. It can't be anything other than tennis.

So whether it's basket weaving or...

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

Just to follow up on that, so essentially the city is giving up its ability to use the courts in any way, shape, or form other than for tennis.

Other than for tennis or associated with, again, like a non-use. So the city of Ojai is giving up that right. I would say the city of Ojai is establishing a limit on the use of the test scores.

Is deciding that they will give up that right. Correct. And how would the city of Ojai roll that back if they were so inclined in five years or ten years?

city council could adopt another ordinance amending its existing. So if this gets adopted and incorporated into the city's municipal code, a future city council could always amend that city code provision the same way that the city council can adopt it. And what would be that process? It would be direction from the city council to staff or the city attorney to bring back an ordinance amending the provisions of the city code. And could any city council member do that? I think two members of city, since your policy right now under your council protocols is that two members of city council or the mayor standing alone may bring a request for a future agenda item, that's all that would be required. That would amend the ordinance. To amend the ordinance.

In a simple majority vote.

In a simple majority vote. Okay. Appreciate it.

Any other questions for staff? Okay, I'm gonna, I don't know how to pronounce your last name, Leslie Grach, or Grash? Thank you, please come up. And then I have Mark Hoppage and then Larry Stankold. Thank you.

Good evening. Thank you. I'm here to lend my support to the ordinance. I'm an avid tennis player and I've spoken before, so I think some of you remember me. about banning pickleball and other non-tennis activities from the Libby Tennis Courts. And these courts were designed solely for tennis, and pickleball has no place on them. And beyond the noise factor, which we have discussed extensively, these are the only public tennis courts in the Valley. There are 13 pickleball courts at Soul Park, City Hall, Lake Casitas, and the Valley only has eight public tennis courts. Now, these courts are very busy, and I'm an avid player. I'm down there all the time, and people usually wait for the courts. They are used year-round for USTA matches, and I recently paid and reserved 30 courts for my two USTA teams for the fall season. we also have a men's 4-0 team and a women's 4-5 team playing on these courts so the park and rec also requires reservations for these teams and they limit us to using only 50% of the available courts because the other 50% is reserved for public use so as a result people often wait for courts as they become available now in addition to coach Katia's adult and children's clinics on the lower courts there are training sessions on the upper courts for the men's team and the women's 3-5 team so please don't be misled in thinking that these courts are vacant most of the time And during the height of this summer heat we're having, they are lightly used, of course, at that time, at noon or midday. But early mornings and late afternoons, they are just packed, jam-packed. So my husband plays paddle tennis at Soul Park, and he says the same thing. It's packed in the morning, but during the day, it's just impossible to play. So anyway, I would like to support this ordinance. We should support this ordinance to preserve our legacy tournaments and the integrity of the tennis only on these courts. Thank you.

Thank you. Mark Capuch, please. I'm probably mispronouncing your name, Mark, also. And then Larry Stengelt. Well, I appreciate your generosity.

Good evening, everybody. Mr. Mayor, council members, I always want to start off by saying thank you for your service. Appreciate it very much. And also want to give a big thank you to Christy Rivera and her team that help us during the year for our tennis tournaments. So without them, there's no way we could be successful. I'm a longtime resident of Ojai. Been here about 32 years. I'm currently the president of the Ojai Valley Tennis Club. I want to support and adopt the ordinance of 974 that prohibits the use of Libby Park tennis, that prohibits the use of Libby Park tennis courts for any other activity other than tennis. And I'll explain why in a second here. There are ample pickleball courts in and around the city of Ojai. And as Leslie admitted to, we have eight public tennis courts. That's it for the whole valley. It's a challenge sometimes for USTA matches to take place and other events throughout the year. We have spent $600,000 over the last 25 years at Libby Park to make those courts look good. Got a great partnership with the Civic Association and also with the city to make that happen. The Ohio Valley Tennis Club is going to continue to donate and make sure those courts are in tip-top shape. They have to be because when we bring in the conferences to play every year for the Ojai Tennis Tournament, they come out beforehand and make sure that those courts are in good shape. So it's important. They walk around and we hold our breath, but I tell you, they're in tip-top shape. We have people come out and fix them and so forth. So We're confident that we will keep this going. The one thing we're excited about is the revenue that these crowds bring in when we have our tournament at the end of the year. We have a fall tournament that's coming up in October. It's growing. It's not gonna be the size of the Ojai, but it's getting big. So we welcome those people to come in to take care of our beautiful courts here. um lastly the issue of no pickleball was conclusively resolved on april sixth of twenty twenty three by the park recreation commission unanimous adoption of the recommendation contained in its final pickleball report on march thirtieth of twenty twenty three Following a 13-month-long intensive study, the pickleball report recommended that the city should not introduce pickleball to the current Libby Park tennis courts due to the excessive noise that is created when playing pickleball. This recommendation was not passed by the sitting city council at the time. I think there is something about maybe it wasn't put on the agenda. I think that the city manager, I think there's something in there. I can't recall what it is. Thank you, sir.

Larry Stengel, please.

Good evening. Hello. I want to thank you for correcting or informing me about the RFP for those, because it would be nice if it would make me public. But anyway, giving public land to a private entity is never really a good policy for a city, especially by pressure or what have you. But I understand why, because I was going to agree with it. But Leslie Rule, Commissioner Rule, made a good point. If you have a sunset provision, you build it into the ordinance. So in five years, three years, two years, one year, you review it and you review it. It's automatic or it's mutual. but you make a mutual disconnect. It's in the agreement. You don't have to come back. You don't have to discuss it. It's automatic. You don't have to be bothered by it. Because in three years, it sunsets, or you renew the contract with the deal where they control the tennis courts. But I'm speaking tonight because the permit is not an isolated incident. It's part of a reoccurring pattern where administrative approvals are granted, relied upon, and pulled the moment political aggravation boils over. This is no different than the green walk-in freezer that's going to land right back in your laps very soon. In both cases, people follow the process that required, obtain what they believe is a valid sign-off, invest time and money, and then watch the city pull the rug off from underneath them because the process wasn't backed by clear objective rules from the start. And it's not fair. It chills people who want to come here. They look at the rules and say, oh, if I do all this, I get invested. It's OK. It's not today. It's OK. We're going to pull the permit. Let's be direct about the core parks. Libby courts, Libby Park courts are dedicated tennis courts. And Soul Park is where the city and county invested to establish dedicated pickleball facilities. That will be formalized tonight. They're tennis courts. Those are pickleball courts. And that's the way it is. But when the recreation department routinely issues a legal permit to an applicant who did everything right, then this council has the step in at the 11th hour to kill it. It creates a chilling effect on the entire community. It's no different than keeping unenforced laws or vague regulations on the books just to selectively chill and control behavior. If you have a regulation on the book that's not being enforced, get rid of it. It leaves every resident, business owner, and community group asking, what is a permit actually worth in the city of Ojai? If a stamped approval can be discarded because the temperature gets too high, then getting a legal permit becomes completely irrelevant. Council members should not be micromanaging every park reservation, but you cannot leave staff in the dark.

Thank you, Mr. Stengel, thank you. Renee Roth, please, and then Tim Kraut. Hello.

Hello, everybody. okay uh renee roth and um i'm going to be try i'm going to try to be really nice and polite and respectful and not raise my voice or anything just put a smile on my face and be very polite i do remember the tennis association at the last time this topic was in front of the council And Karen Quinby was here. And a lot of other people were just saying how terrible and awful pickleball is and the noise and awful, awful, awful. I'm glad we don't have that tonight. I also am just reminded, Rachel, I do remember you saying that Karen Quinby was a friend of yours. Karen Quinby is a friend of yours. We know that Karen Quinby is leading the charge to get this ordinance passed tonight. We know that the neighbors who have shown up and the Tennis Association and her public comment that she has spoken about adamantly about how noisy pickleball is, is on the record. So I would hope you would consider maybe recusing yourself since she is a good friend of yours. It might be something worth considering. So I'll just go on to say I love tennis. I came to Ojai. I started taking tennis lessons in the park. I got my kids to take tennis lessons in the park. We went through Park and Rec, and Rick at the park did great tennis lessons. The kids got inspired, went to Wild Academy, da, da, da, da, da. But for me personally, my knees wore out. My knees got too old to play tennis. But you know what? I had a knee replacement and I can play pickleball. I can play pickleball now today. So I appreciate the fact that we can play pickleball. But I do believe that this ordinance, if it's passed tonight, is elitist and it's discriminatory. Think about that, elitist and discriminatory. Basically, you're giving some people more rights than others. You're saying only you have the right to use these tennis courts if you can afford to take lessons, if you can pay for the tennis lessons, and you can go to the extent needed to use these courts. I think it's elitist. I think it's discriminatory. And I do think, my husband said this one, it's a bit like Trump saying America is for white Christians.

Thank you, Ms. Roth. Tim Kraut, please, and then Brian Ekins. Hello, sir.

Good evening, council again, Mr. Mayor, staff. What is a benefactor? It is a person or persons who make a bequest or gift to another person or person. That was Edward and Florence Libby did in 1917, 109 years ago, when they gifted the property known as Libby Park to the people of the Ojai Valley. The Libby's gave this gift through the use of a grant deed. What's a grant deed? A grant deed is a legal document used to transfer ownership of real property from one person to another. The grant deed from the Libby's executed in 1917 clearly defines what the Libby's, Edward and Florence, conditioned that this property be used for and states that if it is not used in this way, the ownership of the property will revert back to their heirs. Nowhere in the 1917 grant deed does it state that this property should be used exclusively for tennis. Quite the contrary. This is exactly what it states. used as a public park and a place of recreation and pleasure for the amusement health and pleasure of the people of the Ojai Valley cannot be used for private gain or advantage or conduct or conduct any private business or enterprise or permit the sale of intoxicating liquors I think this proposed ordinance you are discussing is totally against the intent and explicit conditions of the livis outlined in the 1917 grant fee gifting this property to the people of the Ojai Valley. Proposed ordinance number 974 is in violation of the grant fee. Also, I just wanted to know if you guys had consulted with the Parks and Rec Commission before this became on the agenda. Oh, one other thing. There's six public courts at Nordhoff that are brand new. They didn't mention them, but they're brand new, and it cost $2.4 million to build those. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Brian Akins, please.

Hello, Brian Akins here as an individual, not a tennis player, not a pickleball player. The second one, probably because I'm too lazy. So I sat in that seat, as I always do, in the front row. And I've been to every one of the meetings, frozen my butt off over at nighttime over there. And I sat there, and I remember going, wow, all of those tennis people. have gone to Libby Park, and they have seen this sign that says, no pickleball player playing on the tennis court. So I go downtown a lot. Every time I'm downtown, I go over to the jail, because I'm checking on the Harry Hunt plaque, which is still in fabulous condition. And I went by, and I saw a sign. It was a piece of paper, kind of like this piece of paper, printed on a printer by, some printer that like that printed this that said no pickleball playing on the tennis courts. I could have printed that out. I have no idea who printed it out. There was no indication that it was of anyone that had any authority to put that sign up there. And so I was really kind of deeply disappointed in all of the people that use that sign as proof that no pickleball playing was allowed on the tennis courts. I took a picture too. Thank you all.

Thank you, Mr. Atkins. Katrina Reichmitt, please. Hello. Hi.

Hi. My name is Katrina Reichmitt, and I am the executive director of the Ojai Tennis Tournament. We're now in our 125th year. So it is the longest-lasting tennis tournament um in the same location the u.s open moved so they they took they tout being the longest running tennis tournament in the u.s but actually we are in the same location which is libby park so i think that's a wonderful thing also i wanted to point out that the libby park courts and the tournament itself is a city of ohio landmark and we love our landmarks they give us character and they give us a kind of purpose not a purpose but when you come to Ojai there's a feeling here it's the historic nature of Ojai coming here playing big college d1 championships in a town with oak trees around the courts and having a small downtown it's lovely so i i am for this ordinance um we put a lot of money the tennis tournament and the city have put a lot of money um keeping these purpose-built courts for tennis And I so appreciate City Council for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to put in pickleball courts, purpose-built pickleball courts at Soul Park. Wonderful. Now we both have places to go. Tennis is not an elitist sport, especially in Ojai. Our motto or our goal in the tennis club is to encourage people, children who don't have the resources to play tennis. One of our missions is to get them out to play. So we give donations to the city. We give funds to kids who don't have the means to play tennis. we are a community organization we love everyone to come out and play it's welcome to everyone in the city and beyond so it's not elitist it's just we're doing a sport on sport courts that were built for that sport And there are other options for pickleball. So pickleball is wonderful. Tennis is great. We can all coexist and play on our purpose-built court. So thank you very much for considering it. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate that. That's my last card. Anybody online?

Yes, ma'am. Okay. First we'll have Mr. Miley followed by Ian. Thank you. Mr. Miley, you have the ability to unmute. Sorry, Mr. Miley, it looks like I muted you on accident.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. History clearly shows tennis and Ojai are linked tightly. Diluting the dedicated courts with other sports and recreation activities is wrong. It conflicts. Pickleball can create disturbing behavior noises, and unpleasant results. Pick a ball can redo one tennis court into four smaller courts, each of which can hold four players. Four times four is 16 players versus a maximum of four tennis players. Ouch. Pick a ball sport creates impact and impulse sounds similar to a small gunshot. which can travel hundreds of feet affecting those nearby on courts or in Libby Park with unusual and annoying sounds. I personally have this philosophy that sounds generated by folks for their sole benefit should not disturb those there for other purposes. I fully support is carefully crafted ordinance, tightening the values which created our city. And when you talked about the ordinance, I just read it again. This ordinance does give the city some rights to use the courts for other purposes. Section 4.3 511. Libby Park tennis courts, it says. A. The tennis courts located on the Upper Libby Park and Lower Libby Park shall be used exclusively for the playing of tennis. No person shall use or permit the use of any such tennis court for any other recreational activity or purpose recreational activity or purpose it allows other non-recreational activities so we do have options thank you thank you sir next raise hand we have is from ian thank you and you have the ability to unmute you have the floor thank you can you hear me okay yep

Thanks. Great. Yeah, I just think I'm going to try to be a little less loud because that was the last time I was in there. This time I'm remote from my phone here. Yeah, I just think we should be really proud of how hard this tennis community is fighting to keep our tennis courts for tennis. It's not the same everywhere else in the entire country. Pickleball has taken over tennis courts all over the U.S., but we should be really proud that we have this deep-seated history in tennis. And this history doesn't need to be hijacked by another group We need to embrace the fact that we have one of the most historic tennis courts in the entire country and embrace our history in tennis. Our tennis courts have been published in multiple books and articles talked about as a destination for tennis players all over the world. It's not for pickleball to be played on those. We've discussed this topic a ton. We've discussed how big of a tennis community we have. How frequently the courts are used. We've discussed the stewardship and the upkeep of the courts by the tennis community. Most importantly, the OVTC. We've discussed the noise studies, and we've kind of gone over that conversation. We've discussed the $600,000 that was spent to build new pickleball courts for the pickleball players to accommodate the demand for the sport. We're not debating an interpretive use of a designated space. In this instance, tennis courts. We don't debate the use of pickleball courts for any other sports, do we? I just think it's important to point out that this most recent debate started with the argument that this was just one event, right? This is how this got brought back to the city council meeting, which is the Shangri-La event that got canceled. Well, guess what? That event got canceled. I don't see the pickleball community backing down. So I guess it really wasn't about one event, was it? You know, just further supports what was said at the last meeting, which is this is never just about one event. It was always about testing the boundaries of what they can get approved. And I just think that a vote to shoot down this ordinance essentially is a vote to green light the use of tennis courts for any other event in perpetuity, not just pickleball, which effectively kicks the tennis players aside and says, well, it doesn't really matter how loud you were able to show up to these meetings or how abundant your numbers are. It's favoring a group that is kind of bullied their way to getting whatever they want here, both Libby Park and over at the City Hall courts. And I'm glad that they have their $600,000 pickleball courts over at Soul Park. Those are absolutely stunning. I just think that, you know, this ordinance, I just implore you to vote in favor of it. And just vote in favor of it keeps tennis being played on tennis courts and pickleball being played on pickleball courts. And it's as simple as that. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. No more raised hands, man. Okay, that's my last public comment. Yes, go.

Actually, I just wanted to start because I wanted to speak to Renee Roth's comment about the request to recuse myself. And I just wanted to outline that for the, per the FPCC rules, if we do not have a financial entanglement, there's, my friend, I have a lot of friends all over the town. We have a very small town. I'm very social. I have a lot of friends. um and uh you know if i had any kind of ethical dilemma about voting on this i would absolutely recuse myself but there is nothing according to the fpcc rules that would that would have me do that in addition to that it's actually the tennis players who came to the last meeting and requested this item. And so Karen is one of the neighbors. She's spoken publicly about this, but she's not affiliated. She's not a part of the tennis club. And I have a lot of friends who play pickleball. My wife plays pickleball and not tennis. So I could say the same for either side. And just to clarify, Bethany, city attorney, would there be any reason why I would need to recuse myself?

So the only reason you would need to recuse yourself is if you had a conflict of interest under either the Political Reform Act or if you had a conflict of interest that would result in biased decision making. And so as long as neither of those things exist, there would be no legal requirement to recuse yourself.

and i have actually been very balanced on this issue i have voted in ways that my friends on the neighbor's side have not agreed with uh and so i mean i think if anything council member rule who is a pickleball player and a part of that club would have more right more reason to recuse herself than i would So I take offense with any...

Throw me under the bus, why don't you?

And I wasn't saying that you should.

No problem, because we're going to have a conversation.

Yeah, I wasn't saying that you should. But, I mean, so anyway, so that's all I wanted to say. I just wanted to clear that for the record. um and you know this is something that we talked about when we decided to build the courts at seoul park we talked about having the the tennis courts be designated for tennis only and so this is not this is the next natural step in that process um this is something that the parks and rec commission at that time established as the best practices. There was a whole sound study that happened. The tennis players spoke hours and hours and hours. We spent the first two years of our time in council listening to these arguments and these conversations. And so I see this as being the next natural step in a process that should have been finished at that time. There's only one thing that I—there's just one minor change or minor correction with the ordinance itself, and that is Section 6. It just looks like there is a typo that says, California Government Code Section 636937. And then there's a can A after that. So it's just like. I think that's just a typo. Thank you for pointing that out. We will make sure that gets cleaned up. Yeah, that's it. Thank you. And I was not trying to, I honestly wasn't saying that you should recuse yourself at all. I was just saying that if I'm being asked to, then it just, there's no reason for me to have to.

Right. I'm going to jump in here. A couple of things. One, a financial interest. It does not speak to a bias. So it's very important to say that the FPPC does not talk about a bias. It only talks about a financial interest. So it is up to you to decide if you have a bias. And whether or not, I understand it's a small town. I understand that you have a lot of friends. So it's up to you to decide if you have a bias or not.

And I'm saying I do not have a bias. And in fact, my voting record proves that I do not have a bias.

Okay, very good.

You're clear on that.

Okay, yeah, we're clear on that. So my concern about this is, that basically the city has no power to use these courts at all for anything other than tennis and you know um in in 2024 you know the uh pac-12 dropped out and you were able to get the pac-10 the pac-12 had been there for 70 years so you do have the pac-10 so in other words changes happen in tennis it is a flow and I do take umbrage that the courts are always used. We rent those courts out to a private school to use. I also take umbrage that there are no other courts. There are courts at all schools, Villanova, Thatcher, Nordoff, there are tennis courts. There are tennis courts all over. Please, please, please. There are tennis courts all over.

Just go ahead and say what you need to say.

Yeah, so I just want to say that when it comes up that there are no other tennis courts, we only have these eight tennis courts, that simply is not true. And I wish that there was a little bit more truth telling in this particular situation. And, you know, I think... What I would like to see is a carve out at least for Ojai Day. There has been pickleball on lower Libby courts during Ojai Day for five, six, seven, eight years. It is the only event where family members can all play together. They have jumping balls for kids and they have dunking booths for council members. But there's nothing that families can do together during Ojai Day. It is a celebration of all of the people of Ojai. And to say that we can't use those courts now because the tennis community doesn't want us to seems to me to be unfair to say the least. i don't believe that this particular ordinance should stop the city from being able to allow pickleball to be played on ohai day as it has for years and years and years and we've even had the recreation department come up and say there is there's never been any instance of any kind of damage ever to the courts they go out and expect them everything comes off it's tape um so This to me seems a little extreme, I have to say. I think there should be a carve out for Ojai Day, as there always has been. Those courts are full of families playing together. The only way they can do it at Ojai Day. so to say that you know all the other arguments aside whether or not the deed says this whether or not the deed says that I think for the tennis community to say to this city that no you can no longer play pickleball on Ojai Day you can no longer offer that to the people that are here I think that's that's not right I'm sorry it's just not right if you go there and and and i will go say brian it's it's the it's the connection between your jail and the rest of uh ohai day so you should be really behind it right i mean it's it's like you've got this pathway um it gives people something else to do and uh the other thing is i think that i i agree with uh mr steingold we should have a sunset clause because While you will say that tennis is on the up and up and the courts are always used and I just have to say, not when I go by, and the people that have those courts reserved are the private tennis academy that is there every afternoon. Yes, they pay the fees, but it's a private tennis academy. It's not the people of Ojai, right? It's a private tennis academy that uses those courts, that we allow to use those courts. For that reason, I would like to ask my fellow council members to allow an Ojai Day carve out, as has been for years and years and years, and also a sunset clause because things change.

Thank you. Mark, would you mind coming up one second if I can ask you a question? My first question is going to be how to pronounce your last name. Well, no, tell me so I know. Happy. Okay. Yeah. Tell me if I'm recounting our conversation a few months ago incorrectly.

Okay. Okay.

Did I hear you correctly to say that if it was limited to Ojai Day, that pickleball took place on that day, that would be fine, but not extended in any way beyond that.

Did I understand that correctly? It would be something that we, just to have some kind of a, you know, an olive branch between us and Ojai Day. Mm-hmm. Ojai Day, the last couple of years have been an upper liby, quartz one and two. We would prefer not to have that. It's just that the surface that they put on these quartz now are very soft. It's not like it used to be. So it doesn't take much for them to get a scuff marker to have the paint pull up or whatever. This is not something I make up. I mean, I just see it. I talk to the people that come out and work on the courts and so forth. So we're a little concerned about that. But there has to be give and take. But for all... I think for all, just if my preference or our preference would be, you know, nothing else but tennis on those courts, but we could be open to maybe having an Ohio day. I say that with some hesitation. I understand. I hear you. Okay.

Thank you. I appreciate you coming up again. Thanks. Because it seems... My opinion only, there's so many things we could talk about today that we have talked about many, many times, the sound studies and all those kind of things. And it seems to me this is a little more pointed than that. So I'm agreeing with Miss rule in this regard. If the if the city can maintain the authority of those courts with the full understanding that pickleball and really any sport would be limited only to Ojai Day and nothing else, then it allows the city to use the court for other kinds of things, which they would only do, let's say, on an Ojai Day kind of situation. That's what I would suggest that we do, but to have a gigantic conversation about the large pickleball thing, it doesn't seem to me we need to do that. I think we've done that many times. That's my suggestion as a compromise.

so um i just want to make a few yeah comments because i've gotten to live through this for most of my time on city council and you know my first exposure to this was getting the report from the parks and rec and speaking specifically of soul park The ad hoc committee concluded that the sound generated by pickleball on the Soul Park courts was not conducive to residential and how close they were to the courts. and they looked at mitigating the sound from the courts and decided that there was no feasible way to actually mitigate the sound. And so they told city council, go look for other places where we don't have this intermix with residential properties. And so we adopted the report as a city council, and my notes say, and this is from AI, I didn't go back to our own records, this is the way I remember it, but if someone wants to dispute me, but what I read on AI, and this is how I remember it, we then posted, no pickleball, on the Libby courts after we adopted that. But we didn't somehow go through some additional process, got lost in that. So the next thing we did was to collaborate with the County of Ventura. And to attempt to make a solution, which I believed in my heart of hearts, okay, I've taken care of the tennis players now, and now I'm taking care of the pickleball players, and we agreed to invest $600,000 in the creation of those pickleball courts. um and uh we also asked the city staff to expedite that process we we wanted pickleball to be up and running as quickly as that could happen um and i really did believe that we'd solve things but it turns out that we did and it became an ongoing process so i'm i'm concerned that this is It seems like an issue that is never gonna stop and the best way to stop us listening, having these hearings is to be very affirmative. And so that's why I'm gonna support the ordinance. If the council wants to create a carve out, I'm not sure that's a good message to send because every time we leave an opening, it gets filled with some new demand. I'm actually gonna say something really quickly. It is kind of a pattern of one group from our community to say, You know people too well, and you should recuse yourself, but they never point at the members of their own group and say the same thing. So if there was going to be a recusal based upon friendships, then there should have been either two or all five of us told to recuse. So sorry about that departure. I listened to the concerns of the tennis club about really not wanting to have an exception. And I think we have to mention that I think the total that the tennis club has calculated is something like $600,000 that they've invested in those courts, and we're not giving title to the courts to somebody else, and the park remains open for the public to use, but courts are something special i mean uh and i you know i can relate having been you know somebody going through oi sports and having inadequate you know facilities our courts are this amazing championship caliber that allows these you know championship caliber tournaments to come here and play um so that's where i am

A couple of things I'd like to respond. I have no friends in Ojai. I have no friends in Ojai.

Why are we talking about this? Because it was very clear.

And I wish he hadn't. But he did. But he did. I have no friends in Ojai. I'm very clear about that. I'm sure you agree. I have no friends in Ojai. Then let's stay on the issue, please, if we can. Well, I mean, I have one friend, but they don't come here and talk about anything.

So back to the subject, please.

Yeah, okay. So... I don't agree that it sends a bad message to have one exception on Ojai Day. Like we have a Mandela that's painted. There's an exception. We have bouncy balls. Ojai Day is nothing but an exception. So that argument doesn't hold any water for me. I don't think that making it ironclad, I don't think this opens up the floodgates because it's a limited and articulated exception. It's not come back to us with anything. It's an articulated exception. no more so than Libby Boll saying it has to be empty, right? I mean, it has to be empty during certain performances. So, you know, I would like not to have this come back also, but I also have been and seen kids and families playing during Ojai Day, and it is a great thing for them. It is for all of Ojai. um and you know i i probably not going to get any traction with the sunset clause but things change yeah we can bring back an ordinance or we could just revisit it in five years like what would be the horrible thing about revisiting it in five years um so so for those two reasons there were a lot of other arguments you know that the the come and go, but for me, I would say that pickleball at Ojai Day is becoming as much a tradition as anything else. And I just feel like, you know, to say to the families of Ojai, no, you know, sorry, that's not gonna happen. Yeah.

Ms. Rivera, might I ask you a question? Would you mind coming up to the podium? I guess there's going to be two questions. I think I've understood you to say there's other kinds of activities you have at least pondered on the tennis courts for Ojai Day. Correct. If there was going to be something like a carve-out that was by the discretion of the Parks and Rec Department on Ojai Day with the full understanding that the limits would be only to Ojai Day, is that something that would be manageable?

For sure.

And that you would care for the courts and all that.

We would. Can I ask a question? Yes. Would it be tricky for you to limit it to pickleball, to a paddle sport?

Well, it wouldn't be tricky, but I was also thinking one year, because we were looking for a flat space. And we had a soft play for toddlers. It's just a bunch of big cushions. And I was thinking that's the only flat area for that event. We ended up doing it on the grass anyways. But for special events like Ojai Day, if we could be the ones that decided we wanted to have an event which wouldn't disturb the courts or leave it to the city.

Would that be a defining characteristic, it didn't disturb the courts?

I think that's a good option because you don't want to disturb the courts. Right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Even basketball courts, when we have stuff on there, we are very careful. Right.

Who would judge the harm? Would that be the head of the tennis court? Would it be his discretion on what he would feel would harm the court?

I would say it would be either us or the Public Works Department, because the Public Works Department does work on the courts as well. But it wouldn't be some sort of a damaging event. I'm just thinking of the stuff that the city would sponsor.

I can't support that unless the tennis community, the folks that are investing in the service and making sure that they would have the ability to weigh in and say, this activity will cause no harm and therefore it should be allowed, or this activity could cause harm and you've got to change it. So I would like them to, if there's going to be an exception created, I would want the folks who are actually investing all the money in having this kind of semi-pro caliber courts be involved.

How does that sit with you? For example, if Well, no, be honest.

I mean, it would sit okay, but I think they've already made their decision.

I would say, listening to the responses, they seem very tempered today. But giving power once again to a private organization to render a decision on whether or not courts would be harmed. doesn't sit right with me, once again. I mean, I don't mind bringing them into the discussion, and I don't mind feedback, and I don't mind input, but having final veto power, because it just, it lends itself to what ifs, all kinds of what ifs. What if somebody falls and their teeth go into the soft court? What's that going to do to us? Those kinds of things could be borderline ridiculous, or they could be also very apt and worth considering. I hear you. They could bring great input into this.

I'm going to make the assumption that, tell me if I'm wrong, do you work with other people who use those, not just these courts, but basically all facilities? I'm assuming that you're in conversations with them.

Mm-hmm. Even the Soul Park Courts.

Even what? Soul Park Courts. Even with the Soul Park Courts. Okay, thank you. Stay close though.

I actually have one more question. What is the city's responsibility towards those courts? I've seen Francisco out there blowing them. And I've seen when he's not out there blowing them, it's full of leaves. So, you know, the idea that the city doesn't actually maintain those courts. I mean, you guys are at Seoul Park every morning. I mean, Public Works is at Seoul Park every morning at 730 blowing those courts Monday through Friday. Yeah, talk about that.

I think this might be a little bit of a better question for Public Works, but I do know that we do have maintenance workers out there cleaning them off and maintaining them. When it goes above that, if there's a damage, I do know that I have seen in the past, I don't know if it was last year or so, Juan was out there with some of the tennis people and helping with that. So I think there is some type of cooperation, but what extent, I'm not positive.

I guess what I would be interested in, what happened last time here, I thought was that there was clearly ambiguity about what should take place there. To resolve that would be, I think, in our interest. So I'm all for that, having clarity. So I guess my, again, I'm going to offer what I offered before, which is I love the clarity and I would love to see the city maintain that authority on Ohio Day to decide what to do. That's my proposal to the group.

I would want the tennis. You want the veto from tennis? At least the input and the recommendation as to whether, I think it should go through them to make their findings as to whether this is potentially hazardous. I'm all for that. I agree with that.

Input and feedback, definitely. I mean, we're not experts on tennis surfaces.

I know you're dying to talk and I know you understand how chaotic it could be if everybody comes back and talks some more. Is this something that's factual that would be useful? Okay, I'm gonna make the exception since we have a small crowd. I don't think you should. I know. And I'm gonna have to open up to anybody who wants to talk.

We had a policy that we don't do this.

Okay, then sorry.

We had a policy that we don't do this.

I'm sorry, Christina, I'm sorry. Please no. I'm gonna take the judgment. And that's why we had a policy not to do it any longer. Sorry, we have had chaos. I'm sorry. My fault. Okay, my fault. Okay, so. There's a proposal.

I think it's a good idea to involve the Tennis Association. Don't get me wrong. I started playing tennis with my dad when I was seven years old. And I think it's great. But I want Ojai Day to be a celebration for all of Ojai.

So what if so you say more than I was, I was going to propose that we have staff meet with the tennis tennis group to refine the language of the ordinance, and then bring it back for our consideration.

So you're asking, refine it so that Ojai Day is made as an exception in collaboration with the testers?

That they establish with staff the parameters around which it could be used for Ojai Day.

I would second that. Yeah. And then just for clarification, God forbid that this review process happens and there's some upset or disagreement, I assume that the way things would work is that the permit would be issued for Ojai Day.

and that would be appealable if somebody had a big problem with the permitting I just wanted to make sure that that was we could even clarify that we move forward with the ordinance provided that it has to come before us for a second reading anyway so that we move forward with the ordinance and direct staff to work with the tennis group to modify language around Ojai Day?

So what I would recommend, just given the level of discussion that we've had tonight, generally if we're going to bring an ordinance back with changes for a new first reading, as opposed to simply just bringing it back for second reading as drafted, we either would want to have like very specific changes that are being requested by the council or we would probably in this case i think want to have a little more time to to kind of evaluate what's been directed and so so for example i wouldn't want to move forward with an ordinance with an expectation that we're going to create some carve outs that haven't haven't actually been vetted by the council and discussed with the council yet i think we need a little bit of time to do that which we are happy to do if the direction from council is instead of you know moving forward with introduction as written on first reading to go back and work with stakeholders to um develop some you know an exception for ohi day and for council's consideration we can we can do that and we can bring back kind of two variants of the ordinance. We could bring back something similar to what's been presented here and an alternative version that includes something for council to consider related to Ojai Day.

It seems to me like we've agreed or there would be a majority vote to allow a permit application using the tennis courts on OID, just the upper courts. and that the only thing that's missing is a process that allows the tennis knowledgeable people to say whether the use is going to be damaging or not damaging to the court. So it seems like if that's all we're trying to get interjected and we don't have the precise language,

It was my understanding that you actually can bring that back for a second reading with that language building I guess I would suggest if you said the way you said it if you said working in collaboration with the tennis association whatever the organization to be said that there's the notion that it's in collaboration

city staff working with the tenants so that seems i think what i would still probably recommend is that we bring the revised version back for like a new first reading okay um and if but if the if there's some consensus that the the extent of the revision would be what council member whitman just described um i think that's probably a fairly easy revision for us to make that we could bring back for reintroduction on first reading on September 8th. I think that's the good compromise that I agree.

I think so too. Okay.

Yeah, just, I don't mean to expand, but do we want to limit it to the upper courts only? I mean, because it might be that they want to have young puffer balls or something, you know what I mean? I mean, in other words, the recreation department might want to have something on the lower courts that could also be discussed, in other words. And so I don't know why we would limit it to just the upper courts and limit the park and rec's ability to consider other options. I personally don't really care, but I think, you know, I think Christy is trying to think through things sort of organically and holistically about Ojai Day.

I had assumed that it was because the courts aren't being used because it's Ojai Day at the upper courts, but the courts potentially are being used for tennis at the lower courts. Are they closed?

Come up please, yeah.

Maybe we have to keep them open, I don't know. So we do keep 50% of the courts open at all times for people to come in from the public to play if they want, if we have the other reserve. Another thing that I should have mentioned is any activity on Ojai Day, whether it be the jumpies or whatever we have there, they do take out insurance. So there is an insurance certificate. So I don't know if that helps anything. I think it does.

So limiting to the upper courts is not an issue?

It has to be because 50% have to be kept open. Okay.

Then I think we've got it.

Okay. We'll bring a revised ordinance back for a second first reading.

And I thank you for holding me to our rule. I appreciate that.

We need to hold to the rule. I know. And we got to hold to the rule. We just cause trouble if we don't. I know. And you're right.

I appreciate that. Okay. You have what you need. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you all for coming. All right.

Just quickly, one last thing. Does anybody support a five-year review as opposed to a complete changing of an ordinance? I don't know. I may not get nothing from that.

I don't think I want to subject future counsel to ongoing fights.

All good.

I'm fine with that. Knowing what we've been through the last four years, I'm grateful for all the conversations, and I think we're probably all good.

I appreciate that. Okay, we can move on We're on now item number eight County of Ventura civil grand jury report regarding countywide response to public complaints about fireworks

Yes, so Mayor, City Council, the item before you today is a response to the findings and recommendations from the civil grand jury report for the countywide fire complaints issued in June of this year. So really the highlights for this report are inconsistent enforcement, varied local regulations, and differing response practices within the county. We can go through each response, but really the big picture is we agreed or partially agreed with most of their findings that we were asked to respond to. So happy to answer any questions or further discuss and also our city attorney is here if you have any questions.

And this is a question for the chief. You did a little, you had a little information around specific calls on fireworks in the city.

Yeah, of course. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. So I pulled call records for the past year and we had 14 total calls, firework calls in the city. Seven of those were specific calls for service.

You said 14 total in a, in what time period? A year period. In one year.

Okay. Yeah. One year. All right. Seven of those were actual calls for service. So a deputy was dispatched to a certain address, certain location for a fireworks call. And then the seven others were what we call broadcasts. So typically if the deputies are tied up on a call, or especially these are probably happening most likely on 4th of July. I didn't look at the actual dates of each call. But you're going to get hundreds of calls countywide. So they'll put out what they call broadcast. So it's like in the general area of Drown and Ohio Avenue, fireworks disturbing. And deputies will try to get there once they can clear another call. And then typically the fireworks are gone. Sometimes they're still going on, but typically the fireworks are not going off actively. So we have 14. So my opinion, and this is why I support the grand juries, I appreciate the report, but I don't think it's, I think your question is going with the civil host ordinance. I mean, I'm just in general asking how big of a problem is it literally here? I don't feel it's a significant problem. Okay. Yeah.

yeah I have a question somewhere in the staff report was a statement that we already prohibit fireworks and but we didn't there wasn't like a reference the ordinance or what the ordinance says so I'm asking I can pull that up in just a moment

i actually have a question in the same line we actually do permit fireworks on july 4th at nordhoff is that an exception i mean do we just say is that in a different category the safe and sane ones i think is what i'm sorry the safe and sane ones that would be that were referenced in the report so only the ones that people would buy and use individually not the ones that are sanctioned in a location i guess is the difference okay Because that's true of the other cities, right? In other words, other cities, they prohibit the fireworks that people buy in Fillmore, but they have their shows.

Yes, I'm not.

And the grand jury report is not about the public. It's not about the public. Display of fireworks.

There's just a statement that says that we don't allow fireworks. Oh, okay. And, you know, in actuality, we do.

On page 139, is that what you're talking about? The city of Illinois. Yes. The discharge of fireworks. Yes.

Which, yeah, I mean, that's whatever.

I'm just saying.

I mean, it's easy enough to make an exception. It's easy enough to clarify. Or perhaps we don't feel like we even need to clarify. That's also perfectly fine. I just wanted to bring it up.

Yeah, we can definitely clarify and add that for public shows.

Yeah, for public shows. Of course, you know, if all goes according to plan, this might be the last one. Or whatever. Well, it's to be discussed. It's on our working agenda. Yeah, I spoke too soon. Who knows?

And then one other thing, it's nothing big, but it's on page 138, finding number F-03. And it says that despite numerous and varied efforts by law, the number of complaints, oh, wait a second. I'm sorry. Oh, there was a decrease I saw in the numbers. I think I misread it wrong when I took my notes. So they're saying the number of complaints has not decreased, but going over the numbers, it was lowered from 815 in 24 to 740 in 25.

But that's all the areas that are not included in those cities. So Ohio is a subset of that? Right.

And the same people are still complaining.

So one of the things that the grand jury asked us about was whether we were oriented towards social post liability and I didn't think this was really kind of clarified or spelled out but a social post ordinance would say that if you invite people to your property and one of them lights off fireworks and causes damage, you're liable whether you knew that was going to happen or not. on your own property if it's on your property and you invited them to your property you're responsible for what they do vis-a-vis fire i think that might be a little harsh for this community given the fact that there were 14 complaints in a year about firework usage but tell me if i'm wrong that to me is like sort of by default what you're saying so in other words something happens on your property and somebody does something

I would assume you already have the liability since it's on your property.

I could be wrong, though. No, normally, well, I defer to the attorney, but I do practice in this area a lot. Normally, you would have to establish... that the homeowner did something that a reasonable person wouldn't have done in the way that they managed the property. So just as an example, if you lend your car to somebody, you're typically only liable for their bad driving if you had reason to believe that they were going to drive poorly. Understood. So... This, so passing a social host ordinance wouldn't prevent, would allow somebody to sue, you know, have property damage covered or whatever, or simply inviting the person who did the bad thing without regard to whether you were being a responsible homeowner and how you managed the property for that event.

i guess i was i hear what you're saying i was thinking in this example if somebody bought fireworks in fillmore and took them to your house and used them and you knew they did or even invited them to do that that's the irresponsible behavior that would make you yeah and i and i think maybe uh maybe the chief can help with that but i think that

or city attorney, I think that if,

you know they're lighting the fireworks on your property that you do have some type of responsibility to you know in that circumstance without regard to having a social that's what i would that's the point i was trying to make right yeah that's part of that typically how those are worded i haven't seen how they're phrased in other cities but that's knowingly allowing someone that'd be part of it and that's where it gets challenging with the civil host things it's kind of the fairness the equitableness of trying to establish do they know do they have knowledge Um, so there is a fairness question in there and that's part of, you know, when I, when I think about those things, I. That's where I go fall back. I don't know if we have a significant problem. Um, and then I also look at a practical sense, the administrative side. You know, really the return on the investment to process it's more staff work process. Those collect fees. City attorney's office looking at them, so, um. I just don't see we have the issue personally at this point but it's something we can always reevaluate you know the council's wishes if we see we have it you know an issue creeping up based on data stats it's something we can reevaluate of course I am seeing we we do fall under the Ventura County Fire Protection District and there is the ordinance say so we are under that and if I may I was going to clarify that the city of Ojai does not have a separate ordinance the ordinance that was referred to in the grand jury report

the ordinance that was adopted by the Ventura County Fire Protection District which does cover fireworks within the city of Ohio prohibits illegal fireworks But the report says on page 139

the city of Ojai this is last paragraph of finding F05 says the city of Ojai prohibits the discharge of fireworks and supports regional public education that's a good point so what it probably should say is that the discharge of fireworks is prohibited within the city of Ojai it's it's not a prohibition by the city of ohio it's a prohibition by the ventura county fire protection district that applies to the city of ohio so so maybe this the statement should be that we that we enforce and adhere to the county prohibition i've got the ordinance right here too if we need it so i tell me if i'm wrong but well first of all i don't have any public comment cards on this but is there anybody online please yeah go ahead

Yes, Mayor, we have Mr. Miley with the raised hand. Okay. Mr. Miley, you may unmute. Thank you.

I'm coming.

Thank you, Mr. Miley.

Knowing a little bit more about host liability. It seems to me that the grand jury considers this as an important addition to the county, overall county. Some of the cities have it. The county does not have it. They recommend that the county do it. If the fire district says, that we ban and don't support fireworks in the city, that's good. But what about the family or the person that says, come on over guys, we're gonna shoot a few things from the backyard. I like the idea of host responsibility. I'm not too excited about what Fillmore continues to do. Years ago when our kids were young, we went there, we bought them, we brought them back. It seems to me that they allow nonprofits in Fillmore to raise money for all the good charity deeds they do through the rest of the year. I'm not that sure it's a good idea. I think that people who are fine are found to do that in the city of Ojai. if I light them off, should have to go to a class that says how to operate fireworks legally and safely. Anyway, I think we ought to do something with host liability so people who encourage it to be done are responsible. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

No more raised hands, please.

Ms. Burgess, tell me the conversation that Mr. Whitman was bringing up around They tell me if I'm incorrect here, there's generally speaking host liability when somebody knows somebody is doing something like this on their property right now. So is the question something like for short term rentals?

So the specific focus in the grand jury report was related to short-term rentals. And because in the situation where you have a property owner who is making property available for a short-term rental, they're not necessarily present on site while the... Mm-hmm. I don't want to call them a tenant, while the transient is occupying the short-term rental. And so the host liability ordinance as contemplated in the civil grand jury report is really focused on extending liability to an owner who may not be present at the time that the fireworks are being discharged.

And your point is we already have that 30-day minimum, so it's moot, really.

I think in the city of Ojai that is a lesser risk because you do not allow short-term rentals in the first place. So the situation where you would have an owner of property who is unaware that illegal conduct is happening on their property is less likely because presumably if someone is discharging fireworks on a person's property within the city of Ojai, the owner of the property would be aware of that. So I don't see that as being as significant of an issue as it might be in a community that does allow short-term rentals.

So if we take the hypothetical of the parents are off in Europe on vacation and the kids, the teenage kids invite their friends over and are lighting off fireworks, would the parents be liable or would it require a social host ordinance to pick up that light?

I think the question would be, are the parents criminally liable? I think that would probably depend on the specific standard in the ordinance that's adopted by the county. The way that that is written is it's the possession, manufacture, storage, sale, handling, and use of fireworks basically are prohibited. Um, and so, you know, I don't know if that's been interpreted as a strict liability standard from a, like a criminal standpoint. I think from a civil tort liability standpoint, I think certainly there would be an argument that, you know, are the question would be like, are the, are the owners negligent? I think under like tort theories, like respond to your superior parents could have liability. What I don't,

I would say that the ordinance as written probably does not imply strict liability so to have that we might need a host that's a situation where potentially the homeowner would argue I'm not negligent because I didn't know what was happening and then there'd be a legal issue about whether they nonetheless had responsibility for overseeing their kids, which I don't think is a very clear, it would go back to a negligence standard.

It would probably not be.

So if we wanted to, we could create a strict liability

standard that applied to that situation correct i was thinking of actual examples growing up where something happened at someone's house with teenagers where somebody was injured like with alcohol or something like that and the family was sued and settled i mean so the responsibility does get accepted when teenagers do things and and i think that you know the issue with the fireworks most likely

is you start a fire. And that could be anything from a quarter acre to thousands of acres. I think very close to where I grew up, there was a fire, I forget the name of it, but kids were lighting off fireworks in mailboxes, and it burnt from Koningstein Road and Upper Ojai all the way across Nordhoff Peak.

And to also respond to Council Member Rule's question, the ordinance adopted by the Ventura County Fire Protection District does include certain exceptions for group displays and other limited exceptions.

So the county's exception does allow for the public displays?

I would say, again, without digging too far into it, it likely does, because it specifically calls out group entertainment productions as authorized in a separate section. I'm looking at it right now.

I'm sure it does. So the grand jury is asking us to consider the adoption of a social post. But that just means that we're agreeing that we'll bring it up at some future council? I think we probably should, not that I would say I would adopt it, but I think we ought to let the community come in and weigh in.

What would the timeframe be on that? Because I'm not opposed to it, but I'm opposed to it fast. Yeah, right.

So the timeframe, let me end it. by the Civil Grand Jury. They did not provide a specific time frame. They said they just recommend that Ojai Moore, Park Camarillo, Simi Valley, and Thousand Oaks develop their own fireworks host liability ordinances. They did not provide a time frame. So if council would like to consider that, we can provide a timeline by which

That seems reasonable. I'd support.

I don't think we need to provide a timeline based on that.

Yeah, that's fine. Just say that we've decided that we're going to take it up at a future council meeting.

Just not to lose our train of thought, I did find the provision that says this is in that code. The use of fireworks or fireworks displays pyrotechnics before a proximate audience and pyrotechnic special effects and motion pictures, television, theatrical, group entertainment, et cetera, is under one of the exemptions.

But it's as allowed in a specific section of the health and safety codes.

Yeah, that's what I mean to be saying. It's one of the allowed exceptions. Okay.

Yeah, that sounds good. So what I would recommend then is that we would modify that particular response. Yep. Which is for recommendation number R-02. Mm-hmm. we would modify the introductory clause to provide that this would be subject to, the recommendation would be subject to further, or will require further review, which is another one of the options, and that we just revise the response to read that the City of Ojai will consider whether to develop its own fireworks host liability ordinance and leave it at that.

Okay and then we're in that finding or the response to finding F05 that first sentence of the last paragraph is going to be modified to say something about us enforcing the county prohibition

Yes, so... Because I read that to say that we have an ordinance. Yeah, and that's not exactly correct. Right. So I would recommend... Under F5, did you say? Yeah. Okay. In the second paragraph, we modify the first sentence to read, or the only sentence to read. The city of Ojai enforces the prohibition on the discharge of fireworks established by... The Ventura County Fire Protection District.

That sounds good. So then I presume we need a motion that you would then make those changes

so we could either um you could just provide direction as part of your motion that we make those changes and finalize the report and submit it if you think this warrants further discussion or if council wants to see it again we can bring it back as we did with the other civil grand jury report on the consent calendar I will say this one is not as controversial as the other civil grand jury report. So if council would like to provide the direction to make those changes, we can do that.

I would move for that, the number one. So that we make the changes described and submit. Second, please, from someone. second thank you any more discussion okay roll call please yeah thanks council member lang council member whitman yes council member rule yes mayor gilman yes yes thank you wonderful last item uh city of ohio artificial intelligent use policy and for that one mr hahn is coming to give the presentation thank you mr hahn

Good evening. I would like to provide you with a brief overview of the proposed artificial intelligence use policy for the city of Ojai this policy establishes a government structure for the responsible use of AI systems by or on behalf of the city of Ojai and is intended to ensure consistency accountability clarity as departments begin to use AI tools in daily operations AI has the potential to improve service delivery efficiency and responsiveness in city operations at the same time it introduces risks involving privacy transparency security and community trust and ethics This policy provides a framework for the city to balance these benefits with the appropriate safeguards. This policy incorporates key principles privacy protection transparency and public-facing AI tools monitoring for bias in equitable impacts and maintaining accountability for AI outputs These principles help ensure AI use aligns with legal requirements and public expectations Any AI generated content or recommendations must undergo human review before being used or published. This ensures that staff will remain responsible for the final decision and reinforces that AI is a support tool and not a replacement for human judgment. This policy defines responsibilities for the city council, the city manager, IT staff, departments and vendors. This structure supports consistent implementation and establishes a process for evaluating and approving all and governing AI tools. This policy is designed to be flexible and will be updated as AI technology evolves. IT staff's participation in GovAI Coalition provides ongoing access to best practices and guidance that will inform future revisions. Adopting this policy has no direct financial impact. It establishes expectations and procedures without requiring immediate purchases or any new expenditures. In summary, this AI policy gives our city the framework it needs to navigate emerging technology safely. It ensures our internal operations remain responsible, consistent, and transparent. Thank you, and I welcome your feedback.

I appreciate that. Even on the last issue, I used our AI tool to find the ordinance. Nice. Anyway, any questions for Mr. Haim before we go to public comment?

Yes.

Very clearly presented. Thank you. Any questions? Larry Stengel, please. That's the public comment card I have. Larry Stengel.

Hello.

Mr. Haim, wonderful.

Okay. I think it's a great start. And I used AI to run the AI ordinance through AI twice, a couple of times. We're told this artificial intelligence policy is designed to modernize City Hall and increase efficiency, but if you read the fine print, this document does the exact opposite in reality. As written, this policy creates a bureaucratic straitjacket that will strangle staff productivity, create administrative gridlock, and slow daily city business to a crawl. First, look at the governance structure. It funnels every single vendor fact sheet, pilot evaluation, software update, and compliance and review directly through the IT desk. In a lean city like Ojai, where we really don't want a lot of employees, they're already stretched in managing cybersecurity, server maintenance, and daily operations like trying to get people on their emails. Funneling every departmental tool through one individual or two means routine software approvals may not take days, it may take months or weeks. Standard municipal software updates that happen to include basic AI features will freeze while waiting in the administrative queue. Second, it penalizes the very efficiencies we're paying for. When a policy emphasizes personal disciplinary liability without providing a tiered risk model, staff reacts defensively. They cover their tail. Instead of using enterprise tools to quickly draft routine memos or look up municipal codes, employees will spend twice as much time building paper trails, logging prompts, and oververifying boilerplate language just to protect themselves. They have to verify everything, which is a good thing. However, if drafting a 15-minute memo requires 45 minutes of defensive compliance paperwork, where is the actual savings to the taxpayer? Third, treating every preliminary chat, prompt, and rough scratch pad generation as a permanent, retainable public record creates an immediate legal drain. The moment broad public records requests come in, and they come in a lot, IT and the city attorney will be forced to burn hundreds of expensive billable hours extracting, reviewing, and redacting informal prompt histories instead of focusing on core municipal priorities. We need strong guardrails against surveillance, bias, and data breaches. No one disputes that. We need controls because AI can go get out of control but we cannot allow extreme risk aversion to paralyze city operations send the policy back insert a tiered risk framework a delegate delegate routine administrative drafting to department directors and ensure city hall is built to move forward not grind to a halt because it already takes a lot of time to get things done it's just going to get more

Anybody on my one raised hand? Okay, Mr. Miley. Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Miley.

Okay. Too many unmutes. Okay. First of all, I did not use AI in my response.

Okay.

This is I read the whole thing. I have two sons who are both computer engineers. So I'm aware of a lot of this. I read it all. My only suggestion at the moment is in Section 8, which is transparency and disclosure, has to do with 8 written materials. And it says, quote, written materials published by the city ARE ISSUED UNDER THE RESPONSIBILITY OF AN IDENTIFIED CITY EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT, OR OFFICIAL WHO IS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACCURACY AND CONTENT. AND UNDER 6.3, REGARDLESS OF THE TOOLS USED IN DRAFTING, EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN SECTION 8.4, DISCLOSURE OF A4 USE IS NOT REQUIRED FOR SUCH MATERIALS. THAT'S MY POINT. I think it should be required. Somebody drafts something, put on a newsletter, or to put on a web, or to share with colleagues, or to propose something. It seems to me, and they use AI, it seems to me that the crafting of a document using AI should have a notation that the following question or guidance was used by that individual to get the EI comment. By not including a reference to AI, it sounds like they're really smart or that they've covered everything. I think by not including a reference to AI, it would be deceptive and unfair

the public or colleagues and make it look like it was all my work thank you thank you sir no more mayor thanks i want to ask you two questions related to the public comments um i guess in my reading i did not see a bottleneck and i'm assuming you drafted what we're looking at right now are you pulled from it so i guess on the bottleneck concerned are you do you think that's an

I do not think that's an issue. And as far as where this came from, Christian and I both joined the AI Coalition and we looked at their guidance and then we also looked at what other cities have done and we brought it all together and worked. This has gone back and forth with our legal department

In it for quite a while is that christian telling you you talk too long. Yeah. Um, and on the 2nd question, I, I, that the 1 that Mr. Miley brought up, it caught my ear a little. However, so I'm looking at 8 to the written materials that you would not assign, but I was actually thinking of my own process. And what I thought about was. If I'm drafting something. I might look at many sources for something, I might look at an AI piece, not take it verbatim, or possibly, or I might look at Wikipedia or my look all kinds of places to pull something from and craft it. So if I was gonna list all those places that I referenced, there would be a long footnote there on practically everything I do. So I thought, My view, I had the same concern, but then I realized it's not a concern for me. If you had a picture that's AI generated, you're saying that's clearly identified and you would not have any AI generated content that's not human reviewed. And so I presume edited probably. Go ahead.

Well, that's exactly it. The way that I'm seeing AI used today is people will use it to help soften some of the things they say in emails. um they'll use it to like sometimes if i need to to tell someone something i'll put in bullet points one item one two three four and then prompt ai please make this into a cohesive Paragraph then it comes back and then I edit it and I'm done. So, a email that would have normally taken me 1520 minutes to compose. Might be 5 times. So, um, now, since I'm editing it after.

does that make make it ai generated entirely no um partially yes i see yeah no that's probably what most of us are doing in some fashion i i think that it depends on what you're presenting how much you know detailed review is required i know that i cannot use chat gpt as a reliable source to write a legal brief so i can't say this is the law because i got it from chat and i and and the same applies to facts and so you know if you're if you're presenting uh you know if you're doing a a memo for an agenda item and you you're relying upon AI, you have to independently verify that either the rules or the facts are correct, correctly stated by AI before you use it. I think as, you know, it might be useful when facts and law are being asserted, it might be useful to have a notation that says that the memo is drafted with the assistance of AI. but was verified. The other thing that I had this, I also have an adult son who knows more about computers than I'll ever know. And we were talking about AI recently, and he said, you know, Dad, AI wants to give you the answer that you want to get. It's got that bias built into it. And so he said, you have to be really careful To understand if the computer is, you know, anticipating. That you're going to like, because because it wants you to come back and ask it more questions. So, 1 of my thoughts would be that. Whenever staff is going to use AI for asserting. you know, facts and rules and policy that that person, before they can do that and communicate it, it needs to go through training about the appropriate means of verification. That was the one thing that I didn't see in the policy is that there's like a training process. There actually is one.

That's staff training and AI literacy is one.

So I don't see that being a problem if you're using AI to clean up a memo so that it reads better.

Mm-hmm.

But I think it's important that we use AI responsibly if we're asserting, you know, facts and rules.

It would be, I mean, just to build on that, if you were asserting, if anybody were asserting facts, it would be wonderful if they were always sourced. That would be incredible. Most people don't source them. So I do see there's the staff training 6.1 AI literacy page 151. if if if every memo had a you know memo drafted with ai assistance i'm making the assumption that most memos would have that so is that useful i'm just going on the person

No, not right now. Yeah, like I said, I think it's a distinction if you're just having AI help you phrase what you're trying to say, as opposed to if AI is helping you, you have a big question, you go to AI, it gives you an answer. and now you're gonna present the answer, I wanna make sure that there's adequate training and vetting of the source material.

So one thing that you may not be aware of is the tool we're using is citing everything so it's only using the the city's information that's not going out to the web trying to find things and um when when it presents something you can look on the right hand side and you can see every um memo or whatever it's pulling from it it's all right there just as i'm doing that right this very second so every every instance that comes up you see there's a little circle that's a link

You click on the link and on the right hand side, it gives you the PDF, like, of the ordinance itself. But I think to your point, you could say. You never want you would never want to just copy and paste out of and say, this is the fact that you'd want to say, here's the ordinance. Here's the cited source. I agree with that 100%.

Yeah, but it lets you in those, um. Those citations are only valuable if you take the time to click on them and read them and see if they say what the text says. And I think that's one of the risks.

Well, that's why we say it has to be human reviewed. And it's not just a human review. We usually have a subject matter expert look at it. I'll give you a really brief example. There was a, during a city council meeting, there was a question about zoning. I was able to pull up Madison AI, get the answer that quick. I sent the information to Ben. He forwarded it to Lucas, who was able to verify, yes, this is correct. Then he was able to give you guys the information. And that whole process just took a very short amount of time. Yeah, it's pretty neat how it happened. Yeah, that's that's actually very valuable. Yeah. The Lucas verification is necessary. Yes. Yeah, exactly. And that's why we say you have to have it verified. Right. um so the policy is specific to the new tool that we acquired and and it's it's actually designed to be flexible in that um the reason we went and looked at what every city was doing is we're like we we brought in for example talking about using it to create video we have no intention to to create video but if someone did we have it written in the policy so that we have a governance over what they are allowed to do.

So does this policy apply to a staff member using chat GPT?

We are not allowed to use GPT. Right now, the only two tools that we're allowed to use are Madison AI and Copilot. Both of them are enterprise, and they're both locked down. So the version of Copilot we use doesn't go out to the web and find an answer. It's only looking at the documents we have in our Microsoft tenant or documents that we upload to it. now chat gpt you may have heard this in legal is if you're using the public version and you upload a document to it that removes the confidentiality um there was actually a gentleman who was accused of a crime took the notes from his lawyer uploaded it to chat gpt to To create, um, to like. Study it and the fact that he's putting it on a platform that is. Open to the public that the judge determined that that removed the confidentiality of those. We're not that's why we're we're limiting. You have to use these tools that are approved. is that in the policy yes you have to use those and yes so in the policy it says that i will keep a a list of the approved tools and the way it gets on the approved tools is that we'll have a pilot program and it'll be the city manager and the the i.t manager working together during the pilot program we'll collect the fact sheet Of the of the tool, which think of that, like, the, um, when you're looking at the calories on the side of the food, it tells you what's in it. We have to have all that information before we can improve it.

That's the on page 151, um, maintain oversight and may require departments to alter or cease. A. I use authorizes pilot programs and approves additions. That's under the city manager working with you.

I was actually, when you were guiding me through the system that we have, I was pleased about that just because I've known about the legal challenges. And also, I mean, copyright infringement, I mean, there are a lot of ethical and environmental issues. with AI as well that aren't even a part of this discussion, but I think the way that it's here to stay and if we can do it responsibly, and it sounds like with transparency and with protecting our own systems and equipment and everything, I think this is the best that we can do.

I agree with that sentiment, and there's part of me that would say AI is evil, and it's going to replace human jobs and all that kind of stuff, but it's way too powerful of a tool to ignore it, and so the trick is to use it responsibly.

And I think having a closed system is really, really important so that everything can be cited and you can check. That, I think, is fundamentally the most important thing. It's a closed system.

And to the public comment, the prompts they already have to be recorded because for legal purposes the system the systems we have in place automatically do that nobody's working like writing down oh i prompted this on this day it's weird we have a record of it yeah

yeah so it can be used for any public records request or for full transparency of what we're looking at here so the city has all kinds of confidential records mainly employment records but also potentially healthcare records.

So we're not loading anything like that? All of that's kept out of this. So what we're primarily loading into it is what happens at these meetings, all the ordinances, resolutions, everything. And at this point we have, we've upgraded it. So it goes back years in some places, some cases you can find stuff from the sixties and seventies.

I just, while we were talking, I said, I searched video where the city council discusses the grand jury report on dignity moves. So I said video. And it gave me the timestamp place of the video where we were doing that. Right. Really beautiful.

And the way it's doing that is we have a API to link it to our YouTube just to grab that. It's not going out to the web. It's sticking to that. Pretty cool.

And then some of the AI tools Send the info to the cloud where it gets processed by AI and the cloud Our system is not doing that.

So our system keeps it within so on Copilot it keeps it within our tenant. It is going to the cloud servers, but they are the Microsoft and It's not even just the general the general public's access to Microsoft. We have a government account, so it has to remain within the territorial boundaries of the United States. It can't go overseas, so there will never be an instance where a foreign government could say, Microsoft, you have to give us that.

They don't have it. And everything that's loaded into the system is a public record that anybody could get if they sent a request to the city saying, I want this record. Yes.

So on that point, I mean, at some point, it would be very nice to have this be a public basic tool.

that is that is definitely something that we're wanting to strive for um we're not wanting to jump into it too fast we're wanting to make sure we understand all the implications before we do it and and verify right because i i mean the in a very pedestrian way i would love a resident to be able to say

I want to build a fence on my property. How high can the fence be? And I give the address and it tells you exactly the ordinance and what it is. That would be great.

It is really funny. You say that because I was bragging about what I was doing for work. To my wife, we're sitting in the backyard and I put in that exact question and it came out and spit back there. Good.

That's the, that's the point. But then. I mean, whenever, when we get to that point, I think you have to say, you know, the conclusions have to be independently verified with, the planning department because there are so many circumstances in the law where you can read, okay, this is the law, but there's some case that says that that law doesn't apply. So a disclaimer would clearly appear. So there would need to be some type of a disclaimer that says you need to verify this. Yes.

Yeah, and that's precisely why I'm saying we're taking baby steps towards making it publicly available because there are a lot of implications that we have to understand first.

I can tell that you're going very incrementally and thoughtfully, and it shows in the podcast.

you haven't done the training yet but i'm looking forward yeah i've used ai a ton yeah and you know so for you know my work there's like a there's an ai for doing legal research that's been you know vetted for attorneys at that level and you pay lots of money to use it um but you know then i use chat um to sometimes just to figure out what questions it is that i need to ask all right well i would move to approve the ai policy that's the vote

Let's do the roll call before you walk away, just in case.

Councilmember Lange? Yes. Councilmember Whitman? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Meng? Yes. Councilmember Rule? Yes. Mayor Gilman?

Yes. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Any councilmember reports? You have your event tomorrow?

Yes, I have my event tomorrow. So Sheriff Ryhoff and Chief Abbott will be here. We will be discussing ICE and local law enforcement and the questions that the community would like clarification on and the things that law enforcement would like the community to be aware of. So looking forward.

Yeah. Have you planned?

I have. Have you ever seen any? Yeah, I have no problem.

I wasn't talking about you. No, no, no. I was talking about... Perfect. I just, because you know what I mean?

Yeah, no, and I also, yeah, we have planned for that. We definitely have planned for that. And I won't allow it. I fight you. No, I'm kidding.

Yeah.

Yeah, we'll see how it goes. I have, I have, I think it will be fine. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah. Yeah.

I just wanted to remind everyone that Thursday night is the chamber mixer. And so everyone can come even if you're not a member. And, and it's a monthly event. And it's a great community event as well.

I'm not saying anything that's not public. Um, the public safety commission met again yesterday and. The speed hump policy is evolving. That they will come forward to us at some point, which is more like a sort of traffic mitigation, calming policy. They're looking at other pieces. So I think it's actually an interesting good effort. So you'll see that coming forward and then we're also. Understanding a little better what overlap exists between the disaster committee and the public safety committee. So you'll, you will see that evolve where. We don't want to have redundant work, so you'll see that kind of evolve as as it goes on, but. They have plenty to do. It's working really well. We're missing. We had 1 commissioner who couldn't do the hours. So we're, we have, we have applicants and we're looking through those. So. I think before their next meeting before that, we'll have someone.

and then yes i had a couple um phone calls people were saying that they felt and i don't know i'm just repeating what was told to me that um mr coggen in his position would be a conflict event that's a really wonderful question actually it happened in our ethics training if you recall so if someone serves on a board and they're not paid then it's not a conflict of interest if they serve on a board

So that so Mr. Coggan is on the board of the fire safety council as an unpaid person that actually came up people that are, let's say, involved in a nonprofit and the nonprofit is also involved, let's say, in housing. That came up, I guess, two or three years ago. And so tell me if I misstated the position.

Yeah. That was loud. Our office did evaluate that question at Mr. Coggan's request and found that there was no conflict of interest.

But that's an important thing to remember because it's easy to. I was mistaken about it when our former attorneys gave that presentation. So if you serve on a board, unpaid.

But I recall when we were talking with him that he said that he would refuse himself if those decisions came before. I remember that being part of the conversation, and so I don't know if that's changed since they've done the investigation, but he did say that.

in the interviewing he did say that and i think what it would be is i think he would have to we'd all have to be really clear if it was something like do you agree that we should renew the contract or something like that he would have to be really clear yeah anything else future agenda items we had a lot from last time which they they took anything else okay we're adjourned thanks