City Council - Regular Meeting

Are we ready? Ready. Okay. Welcome everyone to the Tuesday, September 15th City Council adjourned regular meeting adjourned from September 18th move to today. Thank you for being here. Roll call please.

Mayor Gilman? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Mack?

Here.

Council Member Rule?

Here.

Council Member Lang?

Here.

Council Member Whitman?

Here.

Would you lead us in the pledge, please?

Of course. Thank you. Honorable Mayor, Council, community, please rise as you are able. Ready to 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.

Mayor? Yes. Sorry, it's a very small correction. I believe you said the meeting was adjourned from the 18th? From the 8th.

Did I say 18th? I meant to say 8th. Okay. I just want to make sure everyone can appreciate that.

Thank you.

On the approval of the agenda, I know there's two things. One is to postpone, so not take up today, item 14. the general plan update proposed survey questions regarding climate that's a staff request yes please and the other is also a staff request and that is to move up number 12 to number one the secural security corporation agreement contract so that those staff need not stay any other changes to the agenda we would be moving that to number eight yes thank you to number eight the first item under discussion the first item of discussion thank you any objections to that or any other changes no okay yes ms will you're okay okay thank you so we will move forward then we have a presentation first a quarterly progress update and presentation on finding of the city of ohio's targeted forensic review hello hello

and I'm waiting for my PowerPoint to come up. But in the meantime, honorable mayor, members of the council, I'm Christy Billings, and I'm providing the second quarterly update on the progress made by the city for the findings within the full report. was hired to perform a targeted forensic review which was presented to the city in December of 2025 and included in that review were 23 findings which were broken down by key areas of observation and the list of the findings and their status has been provided as an attachment to the administrative report. So there were 23 findings within the report. 16 of those tasks, I am pleased to report, have now been completed. Four remain in progress and three are in discussion. As an explanation to the status provided, these are city staff terms. In discussion means that staff has begun meeting on the task, working towards a solution, and has not quite come up with the process yet. In progress means that full implementation hasn't yet been observed. So it's already moving forward, but not quite there. And then completed means complete, we've met the goal. within the next few slides I'm going to walk through all the tasks by area of observation which is the same order they're listed within your packet so let's take a look what this means because some of the tasks were discussed during the last presentation I'm only going to comment on those tasks that have a status check so within the area of accounts payable there were three findings since the last quarter all three have been completed And as you can see, if it's something that changed, that's written there in the bull print where it says completed. So as of the last update, these were reported to be in discussion, but we now have consistent descriptions, so the task is complete. we've also prepared procedures for accounts payable so we're marking that complete and the purchasing system is implemented i must confess we're not quite using the purchase orders yet but staff is meeting on that and they should be coming around the corner accounts receivable two findings one was completed last quarter and one is in discussion staff is working with software and coordinating with deposits and we will have more progress on this task in our next update so it's the review of aging of accounts that one is still in discussion budget management The need for stronger oversight was noted and is now complete. Better oversight is in place and staff is monitoring the budget. claims progress process. Within this area, there were two findings, one in progress and one is now completed. So one has moved from in discussion to in progress, and that's beginning the process of documenting the repair costs so that we can send them in for claims. But the formal claims process, we now have a contract with Carl Warren and Associates who will handle any of these on our behalf. Digital security, this one was in place last time, so there's no update. Employee management, two findings, both are complete. So we are running audit reports for payroll so that we can ensure, better ensure that employee changes are reviewed and records remain accurate. And we are now doing frequent employee list reviews and making sure or reviewing for fraud or mistakes. Employee separation. We have moved that from in progress to complete. We now have a checklist to outline steps for employee departure. grant management two findings one completed one in discussion we have put together a centralized grant listing that was in place the last time the grant tracking improvements still working on it that's just something that's going to take a little bit more time and coordination among the departments Hiring process, we had one finding, and it was completed as of the last time. Mail receipt and distribution, one finding which was completed the last time. Physical security, this is one that's changed. We now have a way to ensure we are storing our check stock as well as our other monies that are within the city, so we've improved that security. Positive pay, this was completed before. And positive pay, I know we talked about it last time, but this is where the bank verifies the payee and the amount before a check is cashed. So that system is in place. record keeping we needed a standard for making sure that the general ledger was a better more standardization on that input and we are in progress still with getting that exactly like we want we want to see a few more renditions of it with all the staff we have up and running now i think that one close vendor management, we had four findings. So the ones that have changed, the master vendor list maintenance, this is a little bit bigger task than we envisioned, so it's in discussion, we're working on it, but it's not complete yet. And you can see that the system-generated onboarding and the conflict of interest reviews have moved from in discussion to in progress, so we're making steps. We just need to observe that they are indeed up and running. Our vendor... Go back. So overall, here we are. We are now at 70% complete with these tasks. 17% are tasks in progress, and 13% are tasks in discussion. So are there any questions for anybody?

Go ahead.

I just have a couple.

On page 27, would the employee departure funding, please?

I think it was completed in the last four months or so. Ms. Holman provided me with a copy of the checklist, so then I was able to state it was done. So not quite when we did our last review, but finished now.

Yeah. With your task summary overview, so how long, could you give like a ballpark month so you think you can have everything done? I was going to ask the same thing.

I am hopeful that we can get things completed in the next quarterly update. I will tell you that some of the tasks are a little more onerous than we realized, such as the vendor master update report. We have not found a... way to delete the old vendors for instance globally we're having the only way we're seeing right now is to go in one by one i i have hope and faith that there's a better way to get this done so um some of that is going to take a little more effort on not that we're not working on it it's just that we're real we're getting roadblocks with ideas we have of let's do it this way and it's not quite there I am hopeful that you only have to have one more update from me, and then this will be behind it. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Israel, did you have something? Yeah, actually, I had a question to follow up with.

Yes, so it was the same as Mayor Pro Tem Meng mentioned, the employee separation, the employee departure checklist. I'm wondering if there is an exit interview in that. And if there isn't, can there be? Because I think it's a really good process. Sometimes it's an easy one, sometimes it's not. But it generally gives a lot of insight into processes, et cetera, et cetera. So that's my question.

I'm going to have to defer to Mr. Harvey.

we can i don't know that the checklist specifically requires it it is a best practice as you indicate and we normally do that but what we're not doing probably to full advantage is gleaning some of the things we can learn when somebody leaves us so i'll follow up i'll take that as an action item and work with ms holman on that that would be great and i think um you know when appropriate and that might be always uh you know for the city council also to get a sense of it gives us a sense of workings as well so that would be appreciated thank you yep

It's not a question I sort of a question, but it's more like a statement. I hope that in the midst of this work, which we really appreciate. With, you know, some staffing changes and you, you know, returning in more effort that. You would be clear, I hope with the staff to say, if more resources are needed, don't be shy and. It's something we would definitely want to step forward to and say it's a priority.

Thank you for that support. I think that staff does build a support of city council, and it's reflected in the progress that's being made. Despite a lot of staffing changes, everybody's still rolling forward, and everybody wants to see the best for the city and for the city to be in its best light. So thank you for that. Thank you.

Anything else?

I did have actually one last question. So on employee management, employee listing management, review employee list more frequently. You spoke to that a little bit, but what does that mean? What employee list and what are you looking for and what is the review meant to tell you or not tell you?

Without going into specific details, Councilmember Rule, because I wouldn't want to stand here in a public forum and state the exact process that we use, I can give you a global idea of what that process is.

Yeah, that would be helpful, thank you.

So when you have, for instance, in payroll, you have a listing of I'll say 20 employees, it's a method of going through that and making sure that is there not a ghost employee that has appeared on the list? Has somebody inadvertently rolled in there that shouldn't have or somebody that was terminated still getting paid? You hear those horror stories at organizations. So it's having a third process within the organization, not just the people that are doing the input, but somebody outside of that input, reviewing and making sure that everything is in place. Great, thank you. That makes sense. And for obvious reasons, we don't want to say precisely what we're doing.

Yeah, no, no. I was unclear on the concept. No, I'm not. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bailey. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you. Okay, moving on to commission reports. I know we have at least one.

Yes, we have Brian, Commissioner Brian Akins of the Historic Preservation Commission. Welcome.

Thank you very much. My name's Brian Akins. I am a 12 plus year historic preservation commissioner. I'm here as a commissioner sharing this report at the direction of the HPC and staff. Tonight we issued this proposal for an award that honors one of the most important figures in the history of Ojai, Edward Drummond Libby. More importantly, honors the spirit of beauty and preservation, community and civic pride that he helped establish here more than a century ago. Edward Drummond Libby came to the Ojai Valley in the early 20th century and saw something extraordinary in this place. He recognized that Ojai was not simply another community to be developed. It was a special valley whose natural beauty and architecture and sense of community deserved to be protected and enhanced. Libby invested in Ojai in ways that shaped its identity. His vision helped give us the architecture of the Ojai Arcade, the pergola, the post office. And many of the distinctive features that make OI recognizable today. But Libby's greatest contribution may not have been any single building. It was the idea that a community could deliberately create beauty, and that beauty could strengthen a community. Love that. That idea became associated with what was known as the City Beautiful Movement. In Ojai, that philosophy became uniquely connected in the valley's landscape architecture and quality of life. The proposed Edward Drummond Libby Ojai City Beautiful Award would carry that philosophy forward. The purpose of this award would be to recognize an individual, organization, project, or contribution that has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to preserving enhancing or celebrating the beauty and character of Ojai. It could recognize outstanding architecture or landscape design. It could recognize someone or group who has protected an important piece of Ojai's heritage. Or it could recognize a person whose work, often quietly and without recognition, has made Ojai a more beautiful, welcoming, and meaningful place. And there is an important reason to create such an award today. Every generation inherits Ojai. but every generation also has the responsibility to decide what it will pass on. As Ojai continues to grow and change, we face the challenge of preserving the qualities that make this valley special. The Libby legacy reminds us that progress and preservation do not have to be opposites. THOUGHTFUL DEVELOPMENT CAN RESPECT HISTORY, MODERN IMPROVEMENTS CAN COMPLIMENT HISTORIC CHARACTER, AND CIVIC PRIDE CAN INSPIRE PEOPLE TO CARE FOR THE COMMUNITY THEY CALL HOME. THE PROPOSED AWARD IS THEREFORE NOT SIMPLY A TRIBUTE TO EDWARD DRUM AND LIBBY. IT IS A TRIBUTE TO OHIO ITSELF. It says that beauty matters, and the people who dedicate themselves then and now to make Ojai a beautiful place deserve recognition. Tonight, I hope we can begin a conversation about establishing the Edward Drummond Libby Ojai City Beautiful Award as an enduring Ojai tradition, one that honors our past, recognizes those serving our community today, and inspires future generations to protect and enhance the remarkable character of this valley. In doing so, we would be remembering Edward Drummond Libby and continuing his beautiful vision. A graphic that I put together on what an award might look like, I went and found one of our other awards. It was seven inches by nine inches. I said, I love that size. And this is seven inches by nine inches. This is the older Libby. The first one they put out was the younger Libby when I was doing this. I said, nah, guy looks younger than I am. So I did this. But the other thing in here that's on here, as you can see here, it says education. This talks about the Little Brick Schoolhouse. What we did was we selected themes, different things that we focus on. And so education was key. Without education, we're stupid and arguing. Do that anyway. So I just wanted to put this out and talk to the mayor and give it to Weston so that you can look at it. Again, it tells great things about the Little Brick Schoolhouse, which is lavender red now. Thank you. Thank you all very much.

So thank you for coming. The text of the award, the HPC has already drafted, and it's part of what's being submitted. Am I hearing that right?

No, the text that's in here basically recognizes why we gave it to them. Understood. Okay. Okay, great. So beyond that, no text.

No, thanks. And we have a copy of that. Yes, we do. So that would come up then as an item, a future item to bring up as a part. But you're just starting the conversation. I'm just planning this. Love it. Any questions?

I bet you're going to have a lot of support for that, I suspect. Yes, go ahead. I like what you said.

Yes, it's wonderful. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And thank you for doing all that you do as a part of the commission for really preserving the history and honoring and celebrating those who have made Ojai what we love today.

Truly. Truly. Thank you very much. And thank you all. Yes.

And I'll just point out, you have a unique perspective that's strictly Brian's, and it's always nice to hear it. So thank you very much.

Thank you. I've been in this valley. My wife's grandparents came to Miner's Oaks in the 1920s. So yes, I love Ojai. I tell people I love all things. We go where whatever's historic and historic, we find out before we go there. So again, thank you.

Thank you, sir. Wonderful. So we will bring that forward as an agenda item in the future. Any other commission reports?

No, Mayor.

Okay. So we will move on to the city manager's report.

Yes, Mayor, as I like to sometimes do, I'm just going to read one brief blurb from the weekly update that I sent out to you all this past Friday, just one. Bear with me just for a moment. Okay. This is in regard to the annual audit updates. This past week, staff continued close coordination with our audit team to keep the fiscal year 24-25 audit on schedule. As previously communicated, our auditors have reaffirmed they are targeting delivery of the final draft by the end of this month, which is September. The city remains actively engaged, providing requested documents and responding to follow-up questions so that they can complete their work. Further, city staff alongside Ide Bailey are also making steady progress towards the fiscal year 25-26 year-end close. We remain on track for audit field work to begin in November, and the Finance Department understands the importance of meeting both timelines, the fiscal year 24-25 audit, as well as the fiscal year 25-26 year-end close. We know that this supports financial transparency and provides assistance to you in your policymaking. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Okay, we'll move on to public communications. I have three cards so far. And let me bring up Tim crap first, please.

Hello. Good evening, Council, staff, Mr. Mayor. I've got a couple of things here I'd like to read to you. First is an admin report from Ben Harvey and Bethan Burgess dated August 25, 2026. And a couple of comments down here. I'd like to read some of the things that they had put in this report. Wait a minute, I need to back up.

Okay, no problem.

Could we please pause the timer? Thank you.

Mr. Kratt, would you like somebody to go first and then you come next? Okay, Larry Stengel, please.

Hello. Hope everybody is well. Larry Steingold. There's been discussion about charging a fee for a tax on homes that are not someone's primary residence. Just recently, four days ago, a California appeals court upheld a decision striking down San Francisco's vacant home tax. The court found that it conflicted with state law because it effectively pressured property owners to rent their homes. I'm not saying that OHI can't do anything. I'm saying we need to know exactly what we can legally do before we create another policy that ends up in court. What can OHI legally do? I'll leave that up to Ms. Burgess. They do have in San Francisco a fee on commercial buildings. that would help incent owners to be more flexible in their leasing and their disposition. But that also comes with a permitting process that becomes now 30 days. Because if you can't penalize somebody without giving them an off ramp. And I think we should look into that because too many properties have sat vacant too long for a whole host of reasons, none of which obviously is pricing. And if we're going to do some sort of economic diversity, we need to give people an opportunity. Sales tax. I don't think, based on what I've been talking to people, I don't think sales tax is in the... realm of reality for voters here, nor is taking part of the excess reserves or going below the reserves because our budgets are increasing faster than our income as a percentage. So that probably should be taken to effect as we review all our expenses and push the expenses first before we ask for more money. If there's some way to track our budget, on a continual basis so that you can look at what our budget is what our numbers is on a daily basis it would be more helpful to you so that you can see where things are going and then on to something else The idea that we should be pushing more income when we should also be looking at what we're spending and why is important. And I don't think that eventually we want to do something to help create a better economic environment. In one of the mayor's interviews, he mentioned participating with the building or business going in at Pacific Bank. I don't know how that shakes out. I'm not necessarily against not participating in a business because cities and governments participate in economic development all over the place. But it's in the details, the percentages, the exit strategy, where we're going with that and what happens. So I look forward to that.

Carla Ferrante, please. And then Tim, are you ready to go? Okay, you'll go next. Okay.

thank you uh city council mayor gilman city manager pleased to be with you for a few minutes to share another event that we're bringing to you from the chamber of commerce if you can kind of see this with the television audience i'm not sure where the camera is we have vintage ohio which is a new event for ohio it's going to be this saturday in libby park We wanted to share that with the community, invite everyone to participate. We will have vintage trailers on display, vintage clothing, vintage jewelry, our regular vendors. And we're very excited for the car buffs out there. We have a 1936 Woody station wagon towing a Woody trailer. a 1960 Shasta, known as the canned ham original, for those of you familiar with trailers. We also have a 1967 Cardinal. So we have quite a few treasures from around the Ojai community. What I wanted to express was my gratitude and appreciation Not only for the city staff and the Ohio Rex Department and Public Works helping us put this together, but also collaboration with the other events in town. As you know, this weekend is going to be very busy with the mountain film tours at the Ohio Valley School Lower Campus, as well as the Big Thief concert with the OVM collaboration on Libby Stage. So we're all working in partnership to make sure that our public spaces are used by a variety of different endeavors to bring enrichment to the community through the entirety of the weekend. So we look forward to your support. We look forward to seeing you in Libby on Saturday. Thank you.

Thank you. Tim Kraut, please.

And Mayor, we'll restart and give him a full three minutes.

Thank you.

If I apologize, I grabbed the wrong notes. All good. All right. So my comment tonight is about e-bikes. As all of you are aware, they can be very dangerous when not driven properly, just as vehicles are if not driven properly. I've seen kids texting and eating while driving these bikes. They run stop signs, exceed the speed limits, weave in and out of traffic, all of which is dangerous. We need to do something to stop this. I was hoping maybe the chief was here tonight. I was going to ask him, maybe he and some of his colleagues Traffic people could come up with something to slow this down. One solution could involve mass notification to all the schools. Then it allows some time before enforcement starts. Then when caught in a violation, the kids and their parents would be warned. And then if caught again, their bike is confiscated with a fine to the parents and require the child and parent to complete a bike safety class before the bike is returned. I've been thinking about this for some time, and I just feel that as a community, we need to do something right away before someone gets hurt or killed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Cobb. I can tell you or tell the group that the Public Safety Commission is taking this as one of their items also the chief did reach out to OUSD to extend the education there too so it's something maybe we can accelerate it but something that we're definitely thinking about and it's been Randy Coggin please

i'm hoping that i'm not going to show my eight in fact that i've already said something about this so um as if my plate wasn't already full enough i was recently asked to join the ventura county fire department historical foundation Established in 2003, the DCFD Historical Foundation is a nonprofit funded entirely by private donations. Their purpose is to collect, preserve, share, and promote proud history of the Venture County Fire Department, history built on courage, sacrifice, and unwavering service to our community. As described by other local fire departments, we're here to restore old fire engines and old firefighters through behavioral health. um we're humbled and excited to share that we've begun preparations for a really monumental occasion a century of service the 100th anniversary of venture county fire department which will occur in 2028 we are going to have a number of events leading up to that we've already had one major fundraiser in thousand oaks We are looking for donations. We're going to be having a big dinner, which we'll be selling tables to organizations to be at. We also are, as part of this, we are going to be building at the old Santa Paula fire station an actual museum that will showcase a lot of the old memorabilia as well as the original fire engine will be inside that that museum that originally served santa paula so we're just going to stay in touch each of us has been assigned to kind of be a liaison with city councils and obviously i got you all but i did want to make you aware of it and ask you to you know be on the lookout for fundraisers that are going on and i'll make sure that i keep you advised to our activity but i'm really proud to be on that group and excited thank you so much thank you wonderful

That's the extent of my cards.

Is there anybody online? Mayor, we have a few participants on Zoom with no raised hands. I'd like to tell our Zoom participants that this is our general public comment period. And just give them a moment. And we can move on.

OK. So we'll move on to the consent calendar. And as we are trying to adapt a new little policy, are there any public comments on the consent item before we potentially pull any items or discuss them? Okay, still no raised hands on Zoom, Mayor. Thank you for that. Does anybody here want to pull any consent?

I just wanted to pull item number six just to congratulate our commissioner.

Yes, I don't think she's here because she coaches this night, I'm told. So I said do not come, stay coachy. But Catherine Donwin, of course, some of us know her through other work, and I'd like to congratulate her.

She's a wonderful choice. She is, absolutely. I'm very thrilled to have her.

I'm glad you agreed.

She was my top choice for Parks and Rec, but we didn't end up having seven members. So I'm happy that she's got a role.

She's eager to participate. Great. So with nothing then, I move to approve our consent calendar.

I'll second.

Do we do a roll call on that? Thank you. Yes, Mayor. motion and a second recorded council member Whitman yes council member Rule yes mayor Pro Tem May yes mayor Gilman yes council member Lange yes wonderful okay we'll move on to our discussion and then we'll we're bringing forward item number 12 to now be item number 8

SECURAL SECURITY CORPORATION AGREEMENT CONTRACT EXTENSION AND NOT TO EXCEED INCOME EXCUSE ME MAYOR YES ONE THING TOO I DON'T KNOW IF IF THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO KNOW THAT WE'RE MOVING THAT WE'RE MOVING THE CONVERSATION ABOUT THE EL ROBLAR TO NEXT MEETING I DON'T DIDN'T KNOW IF ANYBODY IN THE PUBLIC WAS WAS LOOKING AT LAST WEEK'S AGENDA AND THINKING THAT WE WERE GOING TO REPLICATE IT THIS WEEK

Thank you for saying that. So for anybody, if you were here for El Roblar and needed to be publicly noticed, as we did in the paper, that is coming on next week's agenda, so that's not tonight. So if you're here for that, that's not tonight.

Mayor, it may be worth noting now, we did not continue that item, which is item 7. Everyone should be seeing the same numbering of our discussion items here for ease of discussion, so there should be no complications there. There's no item 7 on this agenda.

I have also noticed that on the printed packets versus the electronic file, it's one page number off before we get to, let's see which number. Anyway, it's not a big deal, but I'll be calling this out, but it might not match exactly our printed documents. So we'll see how.

No big deal.

Okay. So we are on to, thank you for bringing that up. We're on to number 12. Now move to number eight, Secure All Security Corporations.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, staff in the community. Thank you for bringing this item up. I was worried it's been moved a couple of times and I wanted to make sure that it got heard tonight because the last agreement was already over. So the city of Ohio is presenting amendment number three, the professional services agreement with Secure All Security Corporation, which provides contracted security services at Kent Hall parking lot and unhoused encampment, also known as Ohio Tent Town. SecureLaw has delivered reliable overnight security since June 2024 with one uniformed officer on site seven nights a week, including weekends, holidays from 4 p.m. to 7 a.m. This amendment increases the cumulative not to exceed contract amount to $767,000 to cover anticipated operational costs for fiscal year 26-27. and corrects a prior reporting error in amendment number two. It also extends the contract term through June 30th, 2027, ensuring uninterrupted security services and aligning with the anticipated completion of the Ojai Permanent Supportive Housing Project. All other terms remain unchanged and secure all continues to coordinate closely with city staff and the Ventura County Sheriff's Department. Staff recommends approval of amendment number three, which directly supports city council goal number five, public safety, by maintaining a stable and familiar security presence and ongoing support for the unhoused community here at OTT. And I want to stress the part that's familiar. They've been here, the participants know them. They know how to interact with them, they know their personalities, so they built a good rapport with them.

two questions yes um the first is the the numbers are slightly misleading potentially but we're talking about a 14 000 increase in my i'm doing my math from when i look at the 40 the 542 400 and then the correct amount should have been 572 what's being asked tell me if i'm incorrect here what's being asked for is really a 14 000 increase from the current

So what happened with the original contract was $30,000. Amendment number one did not carry that $30,000 into the NTE. So it was reported wrong as 217,500 when it should have been 247,500. So that was the error back in the amendment number one. So we're just correcting it. We found that mistake here when we're looking at amendment number three and we're correcting it so that the numbers are correct.

But aside from, excuse me, the number disparity, the important thing is we just need this contract to be extended until the end of OTT and hopeful transition over to permanent supportive housing project.

Correct. What is the total time frame that is encompassed by the 7-6-7? it the contract originally started in 2024 so it's what we're three years going on now the numbers there it's july it's july 1st 2024 under the discussion so i interpreted that number to be from that yeah okay so it's roughly three years and roughly 260 or something like that per cumulative yeah per year All those numbers just got me confused. That's what I meant. That's why I was trying to clarify.

I just had a question. Just going back, I know that we've been working with them for a while, but I just wanted to ensure that we had an RFP process for this security firm and that there were competitive bids for it.

We did not have an RFE process. This was put in place as an emergency measure, really, at the time it was installed. We have since continued it. As Ms. Mara indicated, this is something where I think there would be some harm caused potentially to participants and possibly the city with the disruption of the providers that we have.

Because they're familiar with the population.

Yeah. their vulnerabilities, and what we've seen is when we change any type of service within OTT, even if it's seemingly for the right reasons, any type of change can be problematic, and so we try to keep continuity, if at all possible, with everything.

And when we move into the permanent supportive housing, it will go out for a bit?

Well, this, okay, so just to clarify that part, We, and Council Member Whitman is aware of this, we are working on an RFP for the operator for the development and the direction from Council, and that's what we have the Ad Hoc Committee is to work on that RFP. We're looking for local contracting, and we're looking for an all-inclusive type package for that.

Thank you, I was not aware of that part, sorry. It's okay. I didn't know I included the security. Yes.

So the goal is that we'd have a contractor they would handle operations of the new community and those operations would include the provision of security provisions.

Yes, and the other huge difference is, and we talked about this a bit before, it's a very different environment going from a campground in a parking lot to a secure facility with a wall, logging doors. The security needs will be very different there than they are here. You don't have the vulnerabilities that we have here.

I'm taking this to be, this is the end, more or less, if everything goes on track. This is the last time we would be doing this and then we transition. Yeah, we're hoping it all aligns.

I just was going to follow up with Council Member Lange's inquiry. Is there a carve out, I mean, what are the legal sort of ramifications around doing an emergency RFP and then continuing it? Is there a carve out for special circumstances like we just heard, which are obviously special circumstances?

So this contract is a little bit, I know some of the context for this question I think probably stems from the Civil Grand Jury Report and all of the discussions related to that and some of the other comments that have come to City Council about competitive solicitations. So this particular contract is not governed by the provisions of the California Government Code that require a qualifications-based award through a competitive solicitation process. So this is exempt from the statutory requirements. It would be subject to the city's local purchasing ordinance requirements related to professional services. But there is a provision in the municipal code that allows the city council to approve non-competitive contracts by exception, where you make findings that that's appropriate. So in this case, it's also a little different when you're amending a contract versus awarding a new contract. There aren't specific requirements in the purchasing ordinance for contract amendments. um i think as a practical matter you know we would my office would always recommend um you know if if you were not in a situation where you needed this service for 12 more months while you complete the permanent supportive housing project um we would probably recommend you know not just amending a sole source contract um you know over and over again but i think here there is sufficient justification to support a one-year amendment given that any new contract, you know, we would need to go not only through a competitive process but we would end up needing an extensive transition period to ensure that, you know, the services for the residents are, you know, the transition is as seamless as possible and that we have as few negative impacts to the residents as possible. With that being said, I think here it's justified and warranted to do an amendment rather than a new competitive process for, you know, ultimately a service provider who would probably only be providing the services for a few months before we would transition to something different again.

And just a process question. When you talk about findings and making a finding of an exception, is that something that you overtly need to do just for future reference?

If we were doing a new contract, that would be something that we would ask you to do. But again, because this is an amendment, it's sort of outside that process. Thank you.

That's very helpful. So what is the circumstance that takes this contract outside of the government code?

Because it is not for professional design, engineering, landscape, architecture, construction management services, security services. The little what they call the Little Brooks Act. And the government code only applies to those specific categories of services identified in the statute. And this is not one of them.

Okay. I have no public comment.

No raised hands, Mayor.

Okay. Well, I would move that we accept the amended amount.

I'll second. Okay.

Any more discussion? Roll call, please.

Yes, Mayor. Councilmember Rule.

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem May.

No.

Councilmember Whitman. Yes. Yes.

Mayor Gilman yes Councilmember Lange yes motion passed thank you thank you appreciate it okay moving on we are now on item number eight resolution appointing a voting delegate an alternate voting delegate to the 2026 League of California cities thank you mayor yes through the city manager I was asked with this item

This is an annual item to appoint a voting delegate and alternate to the League of Cal Cities event. It's a fairly simple and routine item that we do annually. This year, we have in attendance Councilmember Lange, Councilmember Rule, and Councilmember Whitman. So those will be the three Councilmembers up for deciding by you, the Council. I will prepare a resolution that the League of Cal Cities needs to participate, and it's noted that the General Assembly is the last session on the last day of the conference, so those who take that commitment are committed to that time period as well. Anything else to add, Mr. City Manager?

Well done.

Yeah, go.

Yeah.

So I did it last time, but I'm happy to, and I will be there on Friday, so I'm happy to either nominate Council Member Whitman or... Yeah, so I've gone each year, haven't been a delegate yet.

I'm interested in the resolution, so I'm really interested in being the delegate this year.

Great. And I would second. I mean, I'd make a nomination that it be Council Member Whitman.

And I can be an alternate if for any reason you can't be there. But I think you'd be an excellent choice to represent us.

Great.

Do we have a motion and a second? Pardon me. I was dealing with a public comment card. Was there an alternate that I heard? I'll be an alternate.

Thank you.

We also need to take public comment.

Yes, we do need to take public comment.

Oh, did I not offer that? Okay, any public comment on item number eight?

No, Mayor, and none received. Sorry that I opened that.

Thank you.

Any objections? Okay.

okay sounds good mayor sorry to make you repeat could i just have a repeat of the motion maker and the motion is uh that council member whitman will be the delegate and that council member lang will be the ultimate and council member rule made the motion thank you that's what you asked for thank you for taking that any objections to that you want to do a roll call just to be official yes do it

Roll call. Council Member Whitman. Yeah. Mayor Pro Tem May.

Yep.

Council Member Rule.

Yes.

Council Member Lange.

Yes.

Mayor Gilman. Yes.

Okay. Sounds good. Moving on to number nine. Authorization to release a request proposal for owner's representation construction management services for the permanent supportive housing project.

Thanks, Mayor. This item is an RFP where we're looking for your review input and or approval so that we may solicit proposals for an owner's rep for the permanent supportive housing project. This will be a third party who will interface with the contractor in dignity moves on behalf of the city, making sure that the progress meets its milestones, moves forward, questions are addressed, problems are solved, and then provides reports on a quarterly or more frequent basis to the council and the community. I've heard from a couple members individually as to slight tweaks they might want to see in the RFP. Be happy to entertain that and either make those adjustments tonight or bring it back to you at a later date. Currently this role is being served on a de facto basis by myself and the community development director. We both are very supportive of this proposal and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Yeah, I have a question. So I'm interested in having a I like the construction management component of this because I think our city manager has plenty of stuff to do. And maybe this isn't exactly what he was trained to do. But I'm also interested in having a component of this and maybe it's a different person um and and that's where my question is coming from it with the idea that they are going to be um our advisor as to um the the contractual relations that are taking place between the builder the city so essentially uh being the um the owner representative basically and giving us independent advice uh i one of the reasons that i want to see if we can do that is that i'm um there there's been a lot of scrutiny of our relationship the city's relationship uh with dignity moves and i think having bringing somebody in as a second kind of independent thing to handle that kind of administrative component and working with us and giving us advice. And then the next part about it is that I would want somebody in that position to do everything they can to bring the project in for budget and to find savings and all of that. And I think that would also be better served by somebody independent as opposed to our city manager. And I also believe that our city manager has so much stuff to do that it would be good to take it off the plate. So my question is, is that feasible under what's in front of us tonight and is it feasible or appropriate to have look for one person. I've done a little bit of research on that. It doesn't sound like one would fit both, would fit both roles, so.

I was gonna ask, if you look at page 121, at least in mine, I hear what you're saying. it looks like both of those components are at least listed out here now if that's unreasonable that's a different question but i'm looking at e contract administration f quality assurance d budget management so at least at least on paper it's asking but your point might have been you're not sure one person right i think i think that the uh the person who has the construction management skills that that we would need

is not necessarily going to have the same skill set. But I mean, that's what I'm asked, really, is the question. Am I wrong?

You're both correct. I think it just depends on your read of this. We could be more explicit, and we can certainly add that tonight. We could add a, maybe perhaps we're seeking a firm with bench depth to provide at least two identified roles, if not more, to complete this something like that, so that it's clear that we're not asking one person to be everything. We see a division of labor, if you will. Full disclosure, and this is obviously, I think, apparent to you, Councilmember, it may increase the cost of the proposal slightly, but I understand the concern, and you're looking for somebody who can really talk construction versus somebody who's more of a contract administrator type who understands milestones and things like that.

Yeah, I was going to say, the city attorney, because... Yeah, having had a lot of experience advising clients on major capital projects and programs of work, what I anticipate we may see would be some sort of an engineering firm, or multiple engineering firms, hopefully, who would be responding to this RFP. And I think most of those, at least the larger engineering firms who work in this space would have the ability to provide both the kind of day-to-day construction management project, like field management of the project, as well as the contractual support, the change management support. I think one thing in response to your question that is not explicitly listed that we might want to add to the list of responsibilities would be that value engineering component and a lot of those firms do have you know estimators and other project engineers who could assist with value engineering and I think what we would be looking for with the RFP would be a team that they would propose so you would end up with people who are fitting multiple roles there And just to also highlight, we do have specifically included in here that one aspect of the project administration services that they would be performing would be providing regular updates to the city council so that the city council would have the ability to receive the direct report out from whoever is selected if the council decides to move forward with this RFP. And eventually the award of a contract.

So you're, just to say, I want to ask you again, so you're saying the city council would also weigh in on the award?

I think, no, that's not what I said. I said they would be reporting out to the council. If council, as a separate question, if council would like thank you to be a part of the selection process that's also something that the council okay um the council could request as thank you but to clarify the award it's hard to jump in is coming back to the account so yeah the award will come back the size of it requires

And then just a point of clarification, and maybe this is just adding to the skillset, but I'd prefer somebody in that position who had the experience of going to city council to ask questions about you know contracting and so somebody with maybe like the quasi city manager experience but focused on the construction

I don't know that you would have someone who has like the city manager type experience but I will say again a lot of the firms that do this work for public agency public works projects you know would be accustomed to providing I mean I represented a former client that would have their kind of program manager for one of their major capital programs regularly providing the updates to City Council

And then, as I understand it, so we'd be focusing, we'd be targeting firms, and then we'd be asking them to give us the biographies, CVs of the individuals who are going to take lead roles, and that would be a way for us to assess how they provide that skill set to us.

I don't know that the RFP specifically calls for that, but we can insert that. What I wanted to touch on really quickly.

We do have that as item number five under the section dealing with proposal submittal. One of the things that each firm will have to submit, they're actually, it's item two and item five, they have to provide the information regarding their personnel verification, details about their general qualifications, but also provide

resumes of any staff who would be part of the team that they're proposing but going back to a prior question under the project scope and specification section there is section G pertains to meetings and this lists out construction meetings owner architect meetings funding agency meetings utility coordination progress means of the quality excuse me quarterly City Council progress So it is within there. I would suggest that we maybe add in a section K for value engineering or something like that.

I would probably recommend that we either add that to, it could be added under contract administration where we talk about change management. Sure, that's fine too. It could also be under budget management because it's sort of an element of that as well.

So that would say value engineering. Yeah, we would just add that to one of these.

So this seems like we're kind of veering into discussion. So I don't know that we want to do that, but I have a question that veers into discussion that I can hold back or add it. Either way. I would say go ahead and ask. Yeah, so I also want to acknowledge that you and I have spoken deeply about this matter. So your experience in having dealt with exactly this, I trust that you are on top of this. My question is, if we're going to do this, we talked about having sort of a case study or a deep dive into process from the beginning and what occurred. Would this be a place to have or hire someone to do that while they are doing this? Or is that just in a different world?

I would probably recommend that that would be separate from this. Okay. Because that's almost more like an audit of... Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. But then, you know, this would be folded into that as well because you want to have something for the entire process, you know, from beginning to end, including where you inserted a, you know, a manager, an owner's, you know, an owner's representative. You'd want to see that in there as well. But okay, thank you.

And question, I don't know if this is the right time, like, I, I think it would be nice to have a council member be a part of those meetings and all that, because transparency has been an issue. I know, we're flipping things changing, you know, but to have a council member go to attend all of these meetings, so they have some kind of knowledge and are in the loop. A nice look, beneficial.

So I think there are kind of two questions I'm hearing, and we'll hold the discussion for the discussion portion. But I think the questions are, one question was, again, can there be a council member who participates in the evaluation and selection? And the answer to that question is yes. In terms of whether you would have, you know, a council representative who stays a little bit more engaged in the project, I think if that's something that the council would like, almost like a council liaison for the project, I think that's something... the council could do, I think the one caveat I would give is that under your municipal code, the contract administration functions of all city contracts are really delegated to the city manager. So we would wanna make sure that the role of that council liaison is very clear. But I think if council wanted to have an individual council member more involved, you could.

I worry about that I think that maybe a better solution would be having you can increase the report out that this individual provides the council it doesn't have to be it could be a weekly update could be something like that monthly or every other month there could be more instead of quarterly it would be unusual to have a council member in that role because quarterly just seems like we can change that to whatever you want if you want weekly daily whatever we could make that part then the city manager report could have that addendum as well and then they come here well i i see the concern like i would want this person to be reporting directly you know i'm going to be in the loop obviously but you know if council wants a weekly update on the project so be it make that a requirement in the rfp

Why don't we go to the public comments, because then we can keep talking. I have no comment cards on this, but let's check on nine.

Mayor, we have no raised hands for item nine.

And actually, before we move to public comment, I know Mr. Vantes was going to mention this. We did note that after the agenda was originally published, that thanks to a public comment we received, that we do need to make one revision in the first sentence of the scope of services. It had inadvertently as you may recall in the original agenda we had both the um the property management and supportive services the operator contract for permanent supportive housing and this rfp on the agenda in the same meeting so we just there's a correction we need to make in that person page 120 in the packet yes it's the first sentence so yeah so we'll make that correction in the final version

So I have no public comment cards and nobody's online.

Okay. So I have a question that's kind of following up on what we were ending up with. So city attorney mentioned that there's a provision within our municipal code that has the city manager performing the contract oversight negotiations.

The day-to-day, well, it's really the contract administration. So the day-to-day processing of, you know, obviously for changes that would result in a change in a contract amount, the city manager would bring those types of changes back to city council because the contract value here is above, will be above his signature authority. But in terms of the day-to-day practical, the documentation and document management of that would be a city manager function.

Right. And so I'm envisioning a relationship with this firm where they're supplying somebody who's going to be playing that role. as as that you know as the role that we have in our municipal code so could we you know could we do the agreement in such a way that it it delegates that i'd still want the city manager to receive the reports and be aware of what's going on do you mean um an apologies for interrupting but do you mean the administration of the dignity moves contract or development management agreement or do you mean Really any anything

involved with moving from where we are today to the completion of construction of the project so what i would anticipate with this um with this firm is that if for example dignity moves were to request a budget amendment for the development management budget that this firm would review that request and that they would you know they would review the change that was the basis for that request Then they would provide a recommendation for city staff so so and if you look at the the list of services that they would be providing. Where that fits under this list would be under paragraph D, where it talks about reviewing the construction costs, including the drawdown requests via progress payment packages, change orders, allowances, contingencies, applications for payment. So they would be reviewing that. But ultimately, in terms of exercising any approval authority by the city, that would still be someone on city staff.

but they would be reviewing it and providing a recommendation to city staff I would not be in favor of removing the city's obligation to finally oversee it to the firm but I would be looking to the firm to take on the duty because it seems like it's an enormous task Right and part of my concern is I want

and this is as much for the city manager's benefit and our operations in general is that I don't want as we're going through this process to have the community being concerned that somebody who the grand jury called out is not keeping the proper arm's length distance from the developer. I'm not saying that that happened. I'm just saying that that concern is out there and we've heard plenty of it. I'd like to do as much as we can with this. get that issue out of the way and provide the community with confidence that we're getting advice on how to handle this from this independent source.

If I could jump in, I think with the reporting that you're going to be receiving, you know, the frequency of that, the type of reporting that you're going to be receiving, you're going to be able to have that. I'm not going to be doing these duties if this is put in place. But from a real practical perspective in the council manager format under which we operate, it's not feasible to cede this to somebody else really or to cede it to the council would either have to meet every day or every, you know, you're a body. So as your delegate, I would need to be interfacing with this firm, but I'm going to be sensitive to what you said, of course, and I consider it myself. Basically, any type of major decision is going to be coming for you, any type of major update. I don't envision myself laterally with this structure in place being in a position to make those because you've hired a firm to do that.

If I could just follow up on the same issue. I think that maybe as long as the reporting by our advisor is not just going to the city manager, but we're getting copied on those reports. And then any one of us, I don't necessarily envision myself doing this, but any one of us who sees something that raises a concern for them, then we'll have the ability to dig in deeper with

Yes, and that's exactly what I was speaking to under G, meetings. I mean, you can see under G that it lists out all different types of meetings, but you could change that to, oh, and then project reporting too. G and I can both be tweaked. to whatever frequency or cadence and we can also add specifics in there too we could simply say these reports are going to be delivered you know to the city council now i would always ask as with anything that you receive that i'm included in there because invariably you have questions i need to follow up on that but I appreciate your highlighting.

So what I'm envisioning is something like the Kroll reports, that level, that detail, that sense of expertise, our confidence that we're actually getting the real story. I think that we have a past history with Dignity Moves, at least on my perspective, that we were never really getting the story. And that was concerning, and I think at least it led me to a place that I was not comfortable with. And so I understand the desire to make the communication more direct to the council, something like Kroll. But I also trust, I mean, I'm laying a heavy burden there on you, Ms. Burgess, but I trust Ms. Burgess also to be a gatekeeper around these types of contracts. And she and I discuss things at this level during our meeting. So I would think that any one of us could meet with her and discuss things at that level. I see her level of experience and expertise. We could hire her to do this, is what I'm saying. And so we have her on staff.

You don't want me doing the financial or field management.

No, no, no, but the overview.

Or her hourly rate.

Right, right, right. Well, we might end up paying that hourly rate, you never know. But that's the way, I think that's a compromise way to handle it. But yeah, having a detailed presentation where we are confident that we're hearing what we need to hear in the way we need to hear it. And then asking deeper questions to whomever it seems most appropriate.

And then I would also understand that the purpose tonight is to get the language out there for the RFP and that fine tweaking of the internal reporting can come as we go.

I would say with one caveat that if, you know, for purposes of the scope of services here, so, you know, what we're asking for council direction on or approval tonight of is to move forward with either issuing the RFP or not. And then if there are any changes that the council would like to see to the RFP scope of services, um and you know as has been brought up you know whether the council would like um to have a member or two members of council who would serve as members of the evaluation committee and because this will come back to you after the procedurally we will issue the rfp we will receive proposals, we will evaluate proposals, and then the proposal, the evaluation team's recommendation will come back to city council for consideration and approval of an award of a contract. So those three things. So do you want to move forward at all? If so, are you comfortable with the scope of services? And three, do you want to add any additional requirements to the RFP process, such as including a council member or two on the evaluation team? I think in terms of the scope of services, the question, so this is responding more directly to your question, Councilman. If the Council would like reports more frequently than quarterly, it would be better to go ahead and make that change to the scope today, just because that may be something that would affect price. And so that's a performance expectation as far as the frequency that they will be reporting. So I would recommend that we go ahead and make that change. So whether that's monthly or every other month.

It says monthly right now.

Well, right now it says quarterly in terms of the meetings. So if you want them to attend a meeting more frequently than quarterly with council, we should add that.

Would the information just like an update?

I think just the, you know, something along the lines of what Ben gives us as a weekly, I just, you know, progress report, so maybe, you know, add that into the,

expectations is we're gonna get a weekly summary of you know so I would progress not non-detail just so miss Burgess if you see under prod I project reporting provide monthly and quarterly reports including we can see you can add week yeah we can add absolutely but so here's the changes that I noticed tell me if I'm missing anything one was adding a bullet point of value engineering and we'll take a look to make sure we put that in the right place okay yeah then you had remove the first sentence under scope of services on page 120 and revise it oh revise it thank you and then I would propose that two council members are part of the evaluation committee I agree with that and if I would be so bold I would suggest Ms. Maying and Ms. Ruhl this was Ms. Ruhl's original idea to bring this forward if you were interested if you're not don't worry about it

I'm happy to do it. If someone else has a burning desire, I like learning about this stuff. But, you know, all right, Ms. Meng. I mean, pretend, Meng, it's you and I, baby.

I was suggesting you because this is actually your idea.

It is my idea. Yeah, and I'm interested, so.

And the two of you have been the grinders on the, on our, I'm drawing a blank.

No, on our, on our, Warrant report? A warrant report. Oh yeah, that's right.

The two of you are meticulous about looking through the warrant reports.

I think you're both kind of... Yeah, and I think we'll complement each other.

The last thing was the weekly report.

And then I had one other issue and I don't know if... It requires, you know, to spell out this idea that we're looking for these, you know, two roles, one construction manager, the other more owner's representative.

We do talk about the types of tasks we want accomplished, but we can go through that, I think, and just make sure that it's very clear.

I'm thinking in terms of giving the, because I'm going to be looking for that when we get the proposals in, giving them the fair shot to know that we're looking for those distinct areas of expertise.

It seems like the rewrite of the first sentence of 120 could do that. that the second sentence, the full scope of both functions is described below, but you're gonna rewrite the first sentence? So you could, at least you could denote that there's kind of a couple of general umbrella.

Yeah, and I would say that maybe another tweak we would make, going back to that paragraph under scope of services, it states lead applicant, and that lead applicant could mean an army of one, but we could also embellish that a little bit to make it clear that we're looking for a proposal that's robust, that covers all these areas, and it may require multiple individuals in order to fill all the roles or something like that. It is a team that would have to fulfill these roles. Maybe team is preferable.

That might be.

Team is preferable.

That sounds great.

Yeah, that's great.

So if it's easy enough, I would offer with those five edits proposed that we initiate the RFP requests. Is that clear enough? Yes.

It's clear for us, I think. I'll second it.

Okay.

Motion and a second. Motion understood. Okay. We'll call Mayor. Yes, please. Councilmember Rule. Yes. Mayor Pro Tem May. Yes. Councilmember Whitman. Yes. Mayor Gilman. Yes. Councilmember Lange.

Yes.

Okay.

Yay. This is great. How is everybody feeling? Five-minute break? Are you okay? Want to keep going? We've only been at it an hour and a half, we can keep going? Okay, let's do it. So item number 10, city of Ojai policy for commemorating, naming, and donations.

Yes this item has been discussed for some time and has not been discussed recently but as we were bringing this project forward it became clear that the city needed a policy in which to be able to review and accept donations this doesn't just only apply to the permanent supportive housing project this applies to the city and other projects and facilities in general so this is a Very comprehensive policy that can cover almost any type of donation that we may receive. It's particularly helpful, however, for the permanent support of a housing project. We may have the opportunity where firms or individuals or organizations want to donate receive recognition in certain ways this puts the framework in place so city attorney I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have on this but this is just another step in bringing things forward so that we can accept donations in a manner that's understood what the rules are and then we can also share this with prospective donors so that they understand these are our requirements this is our policy

Thank you. And one other thing I would add is that since this was first presented to the council, I believe possibly in December of 2025, we did make a couple of changes in section, it's Roman numeral three, section C. under donations under procedures if you look at paragraphs two and three and we previously in c1 we had this language at the beginning that said except where a donation is made as part of a formal fundraising campaign approved by city council, but we had lost that concept in paragraphs two and three. So in this version that is coming back before city council, one update is then at the end of section two, we have added this unless otherwise approved as part of a formal fundraising campaign approved by the city council. And for item three, we added the same type of language at the end. And the reason for that is if, for example, the council approves a list of donated items, those are technically earmarks if someone makes a donation for that specific item. So we wouldn't necessarily want all earmarks to have to come back to council if you've already approved a list of specific donations that would be allowed. But again, the premise here is that you have council approval of the framework for that particular fundraising campaign or project.

That's what's resting on formal fundraising campaign.

Yeah, so that's something that would come back to council.

I had a question. So just making sure that this would also include something like public art. Would this

We have some other provisions in place for public art. We can follow up. I know that we have other provisions in place, and I'm reticent. I think that this interplays with that, but I know that there are also other requirements, too. I wish Ms. Morrow was still here. She knows it inside and out.

And also last week at the HPC meeting, they were discussing donations and stuff, and we didn't know if there was anything in place. So that's another thing. So I don't know if it would be a different angle, like you just said, for art with HPC with the trail plaques and all of that stuff. So that's definitely a concern of theirs as well.

Sorry, just hitting on that is... The concern was the donation of the plaques or was it other things related to the plaques that are gonna be placed? Sorry, I can watch the meeting myself.

It was other things as well, Mr. Eckert.

He's gonna come up in public comments in one second, yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

I have one more question, too. So I know that this policy gives the city the right to deny or withdraw any kind of recognition. Do we need to be more explicit about how that process would work? For example, saying, you know, shall the rights be, shall it be deemed that they are to be withdrawn, a committee will, or they'll come before council, do we need to be more explicit about how we withdraw that to avoid potential problems where a donor gets their feelings hurt or gets offended or we have a controversy?

We could put that here, but for naming rights, which is where you're really going to see that come into play, we will also have an agreement. And those would have to come back to city council any time there was going to be an approval of a naming right. So, you know and as opposed to simply embedding that in the policy we could just include that in our form of agreement To be candid. We don't I don't know that we have that naming agreement prepared yet because but but before we would Ask City Council to approve a naming, right? We would bring that back to council So I don't know that we need it in the policy, but we would certainly want it in

in the agreement that we would enter into with someone that we were you know who was making a significant contribution that warranted a naming right great thank you and just to say that what i'm seeing on the public art donation just so we're clear the arts commission first gets is authorized then it's the committee to approve public art would look at that as a public art piece so that does have a whole process that's different yeah sure and um just one other question so we've got

the naming agreement but do we also have a gift so like someone's making a gift um are we do we have like a formal document an agreement related to that gift that doesn't include naming

So we wouldn't necessarily have an agreement for that. What we would probably do or what I would recommend and what I've done in the past is that we would just provide an acknowledgment letter acknowledging that we received the donation or gift. And if it's a

it's a donation of substantial value they may also request that we approve the IRS form just acknowledging receipt of the donation it's in what you brought up under procedures one and two it says basically any gifts or donations that's part of the formal fundraising campaign would would fall under the protocol but if it if it was out of the formal campaign it would be different

so if it's if it's a gift that is for unrestricted cash or tangible personal property not part of a formal campaign um if it's within the city manager's signature authority it could be approved by the city manager and if it's above that it would it would come back to city council i don't know if that answers your question councilman

I think it does. You're not doing a gift agreement unless it's a naming opportunity.

It would be more of an acknowledgement of receipt.

I would imagine most gifts would not have a name request attached, but some would, but most wouldn't.

Most of them probably won't. It would be larger, more significant gifts that might be considered. And if you were to do a project where you wanted that kind of significant contribution, it might even be something that you would want to solicit donations for and give more than one person an opportunity to provide such a substantial gift and receive some naming recognition. Okay.

Why don't we go to public comments? I have one card, Brian Aikens, please.

Oh, for number 10?

Okay. That's number 10. Maybe I'm missing it. Okay. Anyway, go ahead.

Hello, Brian Akins. Again, HPC hat on. Hello. So as Councilwoman Mayor Pro Tem, sorry, I didn't have my glasses. Meg was just mentioning, we were talking about the fabulous ad hoc group and proposal and the signs that are going to be along the railroad right of way. DOING A GREAT JOB. BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL POSTERS. AND SO THE DISCUSSION, I BROUGHT IT UP, COUNCIL MAYOR PRO TEM. So it came up there. And the question is, so these plaques, the information's getting out. I know Chamber of Commerce mentioned it to me. She was going to do it. So there are people want to sponsor the sign. So if I have a business, I love the railroad and I want to sponsor the sign. How would I do that?

yeah so i think what i would recommend for that is that we would bring that back as as another one of these like formal campaigns that could be considered by council um in this case maybe with some input from the world right this is a recommendation from the hbc yeah if we had that we would we would have we would bring that back to council that makes perfect sense yeah i would uh include uh our commissioner uh

McCann, no, she's the chair, Craig Walker. So yeah, so again, you know, sponsoring, people want to support, some people just want to donate because they love the science, they love to see it. And some people just want to make a gift. So thank you. Look forward to the guidance from the council.

Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Stengel, I had number 11, but you wanted also 10? No 11, okay. Okay, anybody online?

No raised hands on Zoom, Mayor.

All right. A lot happens in the questioning, so. Yeah.

We're pretty close. i talked to somebody who knows something about organization and gifts and they said that it that there's a big advantage to having a gift agreement even if there's not naming rights attached it's uh typically just a form that a person giving a gift would fill out and has some essential details and then there's a addition to that there's then a process for accepting the gift that's formalized and the reason for doing that is that then you don't have misunderstandings in the future about what was intended by the gift or or or or a problem when a decision not to accept a gift is made and you can go to the process and say well this is how we do things so it doesn't appear that we're doing something arbitrarily So those are my thoughts, that we should add that to the policy, that we have a form gift agreement, and that we also have a process for approval and acceptance. The second we've got, the first we've got.

um we do contemplate here except that we have again this carve out where we have donations made as part of a formal fundraising campaign we do have this concept that a donor completes an application that gets submitted to the city I mean, if we're thinking like a very simple form, you know, that could be something that we. Yeah, I mean, that could be something that we embed into that application form that, you know, describes the donation and has a place where city staff would document, you know, whether we're accepting or rejecting the gift.

The language under procedures number one. except where a donation is made as part of a formal fundraising campaign approved by city council prior to making a donation valued in excess of a thousand dollars the donor shall complete a donation application and submit the application so i guess we just don't have the content

And we could, I mean, and you could make the application form a part of every donation as opposed to just, you know, and I mean, I still think it's probably beneficial to have some financial threshold, but we wouldn't even have to do that.

Well, I guess that was going to be one of my other questions or comments, is that we would need to define the threshold by which the city manager can use his discretion to accept it. And I think we talked about the idea that we have a test.

So we have in paragraph two there, we have the requirement provision that city manager may accept donations of unrestricted cash or tangible personal property if the donation is in compliance with this policy and also complies with the applicable state law and that gifts in excess of the city manager's signature authority shall be submitted to the city council for approval unless otherwise approved as part of a formal fundraising campaign. So for example, if council approves a fundraising program where you want to allow the city to solicit or accept donations of something that's gonna cost $100,000, that would have to come back to council unless it's part of this approved program. So if council says, and for example, with the next agenda item, that you want to allow staff to accept a donation of, and not to get into the substance before we get there, I'm just trying to provide an example, of sewer connection fees, for example. That's going to be more than $30,000. If you approve that on the list, then the city manager could accept that donation without coming back to city council first because council's already approved it. Otherwise, a donation like that would have to come back to city council.

But you're saying that as long as it's under the 30,000?

If it's under the 30,000, it would not need to come back to council under any circumstance. If it's over 30,000, it would come back to city council unless council has already approved

the campaign with that list of items it's to me it sounds like we're trying to build a system where we could all be comfortable but that every single donation does not come for us so what's the threshold that we're comfortable with not having every single

and again the recommendation here was thirty thousand would be the normal amount because the city manager has authority to to expend up to thirty thousand dollars to go acquire property it it seems that it would be reasonable for him to accept personal property of up that amount And when I say acquire property, I mean personal property. Yeah.

Can I ask? Yeah. So let's say Shell Oil, this is the example we used last time, but let's say Shell Oil gives us a $2,500 gift, and that doesn't come before us, and some of us think, well, that doesn't align with our values. Could we as a council...

But I'm required to also follow the policy, and so I need to, under D, the right to reject, I need to make sure that whatever I accept that's within my spending authority, you know, it states here, Burden on City Resource. That's what I wanted to make sure.

I have to follow this, too. Thank you. I wanted to make sure of that, that there would be some kind of measurement by which you would accept or reject a gift.

It is subjective, though. I mean, in some sense, right?

Of course.

Well, and so I will double down on that. And you've seen this before. Sometimes I bring things before you that are within my spending authority. I can go out and purchase them, but I want you to be aware of it. It'd be the same type of thing. If I had any type of concern, I would come to you. But some of them are going to be, I hope most of them aren't this way at all, but there might be some.

Like here's some solar panels for the tent town.

yeah clean that was very easy right and free yeah did you have a question okay

I think the only question I would have is whether you want us to make very clear that you know an application would be required for all donations regardless of dollar amount or maybe above some particular threshold and whether you would also direct us that that would be not just an application but some it would it would have be a basic agreement regarding you know the commitment to provide the donation and acknowledge the city's acceptance because we could do that all in one that could be that agreement if you want it to be an agreement not just an application make it painless like you know like we don't want to yeah

yeah yeah just like you know the city reserves the right to give you your donation back you know but thank you very much we appreciate it deeply but you're saying painless you're saying not a long detailed agreement i mean don't make someone really have to go through sure jump through hoops you know we don't want them to hire an attorney in order to no that makes sense interpret the document but

can you can you bring back a form or or i'll try to solicit some forms that other organizations have used that we can do that i mean we'd be happy to to either bring if council would like us to bring it back we can or if someone has some suggestions and you're comfortable allowing staff to prepare that with city attorney review we can we can do that i might suggest

If we're waiting on donations for this policy to get approved, I would not wait for the application, if that's the case, personally, but if reviewing an application.

We can bring the application back. I think we can probably do that. Maybe not at the next council meeting next week, because we have a pretty cool agenda, but we can bring the form back in October. I think that's reasonable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, I guess I'll make a motion to approve this.

Approve the policy. Approve the policy pending the approval of an application.

That's what I was suggesting not to do.

Yeah, that's kind of what I heard too.

So I was saying approve the policy and then review the application at a second. If there are donations ready to be offered.

i'm not seeing the application so my motion would be to approve it and approve it as is and direct and direct staff to bring back the application i would say motion understood roll call okay mayor pro tem may yes

Council Member Rule?

Yes.

Council Member Whitman? Yes. Council Member Lange? Yes. Mayor Gilman? Yes.

Okay, we'll take a five minute break and come back in for our final items. ready to go yeah okay so um we with by good suggestion i think if if the council agrees we will change the order of our last two items we'll move number 13 forward uh that would be the uh the pickleball tennis Libby Park issue and then we'll move number 11 to the final if anybody okay all right so we're moving on to number 13 introduce ordinance amending article 5 of chapter 3 of title 4 of the Ojai municipal code prohibiting the use of Libby Park tennis courts for any activity other than tennis with limited exceptions

OK, yes, Mayor. I think I'm going to, actually, I was not at this meeting, so I might ask if a city attorney who was here could handle this one. I'm sorry to put you on the spot.

So we are here tonight with the reintroduction of Ordinance Number 974, amending Article 5 of Chapter 3 of Title IV of the Ojai Municipal Code. to add section 4-3.511, prohibiting the use of the Libby Park tennis courts for any activity other than tennis with limited exceptions. As the council may recall, we brought a draft of this item to the council at the second meeting in August. There was discussion amongst the council and a question regarding whether we could amend the proposed ordinance to allow or provide an exception for alternate uses as part of the city's Ojai Day festivities. And so what you have before you is a revised ordinance. and in the packet we've actually included a clean copy as well as a redlined version but if you look at the redlined version what you would see would be those revisions that were made and so specifically we've continued to allow the closures of the tennis courts at Upper Libby in connection with a permitted event at the Libby Bowl or otherwise in Libby Park. But we have added this paragraph C that allows the city manager or a designee to approve a temporary use of up to two Upper Libby Park tennis courts during the city's Ojai Day event and that in advance of approving any such temporary use the city manager would solicit and consider the input of the Ojai Valley Tennis Club regarding potential impacts to the tennis courts and recommendations for specific mitigation measures It does require the tennis club to respond to any requests for that input within two business days so that city staff can continue with processing the permit request. And then it also includes language that makes clear that the city retains the sole authority to ultimately approve or deny the temporary use contemplated during Ojai Day. But with that, that would be the only change, substantive change that we made to the ordinance.

That's clear. Any questions? Public comment? Yes.

Just clarifying, just so that I'm making sure that I'm getting this all right. So if Libby Day, if on Ojai Day an organization wants to use the tennis courts, so with each event, uh that would go before the tennis court so the tennis court would each year look at a proposal or look at a at an option and then decide yes so in advance of so each permit is issued individually we wouldn't issue permits for multiple years so

So whenever the city staff receives an application for the temporary use as part of Ojai Day, upon receiving that application, they would refer that to the Ojai Valley Tennis Club for the input on the impacts to the courts and any mitigation that might be needed. And then based on that information, staff would approve or deny the request with any other requirements that they may have.

and a qualifying piece the staff hypothetically there's an ohai day and people come forward with ideas for what to do on the court the staff person would want would want to work with the applicant to bring something forward it is there's nothing an automatic hearing just because they want to i'm making that assumption

It would, so it would be, there wouldn't be an automatic hearing if staff denied the approval, theoretically that could be appealed to city council, but otherwise that would be something that would be made a decision at the staff level.

And this is just for Ojai Day, correct? The exception is just for Ojai Day?

The exception for use would be just for Ojai Day. The exception for non-use would be for any kind of Libby Bowl event or if there's some other activity within Libby Park that necessitates non-use of the court.

so if you had another city festival that you know in which there was some reason why it made sense for some to allow a reservation for non-use of the court um that that might be permitted and if our if our park and rec director christy if uh if they wanted to uh if they wanted to offer some kind of programming on ohai day would that Would that sort of take precedence over any other permitting request that comes in?

So I think in terms of prioritization, we would probably, I would recommend that we handle that the same way we currently do for permit and other uses where it's basically on a first come, first serve basis. If there's already a court reservation, that would I mean and so in the same way that if the city issued a permit the next person who requests a permit would not receive it we would handle those requests on a first-come first-served basis I have Leslie Gash probably pronouncing that wrong okay great thank you so I'm here to support the city adopting the board

one as written and um oh thanks okay thank you all right this dispute we're talking about arose from a pickleball group wanting to use lower Libby courts for a tournament by exploiting a loophole in the current city ordinance so let me state it once again that there are 13 pickleball courts total in the valley at Sol Park City Hall and Lake Casitas and the valley has only eight tennis courts free of I'm saying free for public use, which should remain reserved for tennis only. And that's because the USTA teams, Katya's tennis clinics, these courts are busy, busy. They're busy every week during the prime hours. And at the meeting in August, council member rules that the courts were available at Nordhoff and Villanova. And I just want to clarify that. There are courts at Nordhoff that are open to the public during non-school hours. and they require payment at $50 an hour. That's quite steep. The courts at Villanova, OVS, Oak Grove, Ojai Valley Inn, OVAC, and the Weill Academy are all private courts. And Matilaha has courts, but they are unplayable. So this just leaves the eight Libby Park courts for tennis only, and they're free to the public. so i really urge the city council to adopt this ordinance 974. thank you

Hi, um, good evening council members. My name is miles and I'm a senior at North high school. I'm here tonight to ask you not to adapt ordinance 974 as it is currently written. I understand that the goal of it is protecting Libby parks, tennis courts. Uh, and making sure tennis players can actually use them. But I think banning every activity other than tennis goes further than necessary and has unintended consequences for people like me and my friends. Every Sunday night, my friends and I meet at Libby Park to play small-sided soccer games. and have brought together people from different schools, ages, and backgrounds. It's something we look forward to every week. But there's an important distinction. We play at night when the courts are normally empty. We aren't kicking tennis players off the court. We aren't asking tennis players to stop playing. And if a court is being used for tennis, we don't use it. We simply are using a public space that would otherwise be sitting empty. You might reasonably ask, why don't you just play at Serrazotti? The answer is simple. Lights. We play at night because that's when people are out of school or work. And with winter coming, it's going to get dark earlier and earlier. Without a lighted place to play, our Sunday games become extremely difficult, almost impossible. Libby works because it gives us a safe, well-lit place where everyone can meet after their responsibilities are finished. I understand that concerns about pickleball and other uses may have led to this ordinance, but soccer games aren't creating a conflict with tennis. That's why I don't think the solution should be a blanket ban on every other activity. If the concern is protecting tennis access, then regulate the actual problem, people interfering with tennis. Don't prohibit responsible use of an empty court just because it isn't tennis. To conclude, public parks should bring people together, and our Sunday games do exactly that. We're not asking you to choose soccer over tennis. We're simply asking you not to ban responsible use of an empty public park. Please reconsider Ordinance 974 as it currently stands. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. Bill Miley, please. We could ask Ms. Ferrer to come up.

Hello. Hello. I want this ordinance to pass tonight. In the future, First of all, for many years, I have been a member of our citizen group for a sound pickleball policy, as you probably know. So I want this ordinance to pass tonight. In the future, I'm going to advocate for removing the exemption for the Ohio Day pickleball play for the reasons that I've been expressing for years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miley. Katrina Raeschmidt, please. Hello.

Hello. Good evening, council and staff. My name is Katrina Rice Schmidt, and I'm the executive director of the Ojai Tennis Tournament. I support the ordinance as written. It responds to and reflects to the many, many meetings, public hearings, and discussions ad nauseum across the years. The ordinance is a nod to the historic tennis tournament now in its 125th tournament year and the historic tennis courts at Libby Park. The ordinance, if one reads between the lines, emphasizes the significance and importance of having quality, purpose-built tennis courts at Libby Park. The ordinance also represents an acknowledgment of the sweat, equity, and public donations of support for quality championship tennis courts at Libby Park for hopefully another 125 years, at least, of tennis tradition. Thank you.

And then I have Katarina Matasevac. Am I saying that right, the last name? Thank you very much. I appreciate the correction.

Yep.

I know, we're high tech around here these days.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Hello everybody, how are you guys doing? Good. Okay, hello. I am Carolina Malaseedak, and a neighbor of the Libby tennis courts. I support rule, R-U-L-E, rule. Number 974, to prohibit the use of Libby Park Tennis Court for any activity only tennis. Other sports like pickleball are loud and disturb us as neighbors. They don't belong on the tennis courts. Just last week, three guys were playing pickleball on the upper course for two nights, late from 8.30 until after 10 p.m. It was so loud. All of us neighbors were disturbed, but my neighbor even called the police. I ask you to please pass this rule, 974, tonight. And please put up better signs to tell people not to play pickleball. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. And Celeste, please.

Thanks again.

Yes, thank you.

Celeste Matasevac, and I am representing the neighbors of Libby Park Tennis Courts Upper and Lower. I am a neighbor. And although we are not really happy about the compromise, it kind of sends a wrong message to the community to play pickleball on that day. But we accept that this seems to be the compromise that we'll be going, we ask to pass tonight. On behalf of the neighbors, we urge the council to finally implement this from the 2023 recommendations that the Ojai Parks and Recreations Commission did after an exhaustive 13 month advising against any pickleball on the courts. And all the noise study that was done also during that time. The nuisance of the noise was demonstrated, like my sister said, three different nights, and it was over the last two weeks. And it's... There's been some trees that fell through that there's more access to seeing the courts and the loud noises, more access to all of the neighbors coming through. And yes, my neighbor... Can I say her name? Mary Kennedy. Katarina and Mary were out there, and they did call the police. And finally, the police came this one night, and they had no idea that pickleball wasn't allowed on the courts. And they said, well, we didn't know that. We didn't see any signs. So I personally haven't gone this past week to look at the signs but as Katarina said we need better signage and I hope that the that you will pass this and I want to say like, I think it was named Mr. Miles, was it? He said, let's pass it tonight. So thank you. Thank you.

Tim Kraut, please. You may need to raise that up a bit.

I got it.

Well, good evening again, council and staff. I do have an administrative report here in front of me that was by Ben Harvey, city manager, and Bethany Burgess. And there's a couple of sentences and a couple of paragraphs here I'd like to read to you under discussion. The tennis courts are public park facilities intended to provide recreational opportunities for the community. paragraph down from that the municipal code does not currently contain a provision expressively limiting the use of libby park tennis courts exclusively to tennis That's in the staff report. So what the tennis community has been saying for years now, that they own those courts, is not the case. It never has been. I guess if you say a lie enough times, everyone starts believing it. Now I want to read a portion of the grant deed. that it shall make appropriate portions of the park or additions thereto available for a tennis tournament, music festival, and similar nonprofit civic, cultural, and recreational events such as has been conducted in the past and may reasonably be expected to continue or expand in the future. If ordinance number 974 passes, this would be a huge injustice to the wishes of the Libby estate. It would basically limit the Libby Park to single usage. Is that what you really want? And if we, the people, can't use the park to the maximum utilization, as State Assemblyman Ken McDonald said of the grant money in 1976, which built Lower Libby using federal and state grants, why should a for-profit company be able to use the park? Does that make sense?

thank you sir that's my last card anybody online yes mayor we have two raised hands okay and it looks like we have a little more in okay please first we'll have brenda followed by renee and then larry okay good evening

I've been researching some old newspaper articles and I found some interesting facts. All of you as city officials, I mean you may be aware of this historic information. I didn't know about all of this. But the Ojai Tennis Association members keep stating that they own the Libby courts, especially the lower ones, because they are the ones who spent the money to build them. Well, the articles that I have found from 1965 through 1976 tell a different story. Apparently, there were federal and state grants that built these courts. There were some donated funds, but the primary source were from these grants. As I understand grants, and you can ask your attorney, that most grants usually come with requirements that must be adhered to. and I believe that was the case with these grants. One article from 1975 quotes State Assemblyman Ken McDonald as saying, the grant money must be spent to develop an urban type park for maximum utilization. Apparently, maximum utilization for a park varies through the years. Because in another article from the 1970s, the city council, your predecessors, were discussing removing the four upper tennis courts so that they could expand the activities at Libby Bowl. So is maximum utilization of this urban-type park still tennis? With eight Libby Park tennis courts being utilized by the public, I say the public, 20% to 30% of the time, I think that is not the case. I know that many of you are wanting to appease your friends by passing this ordinance and granting the exclusive use of a public park to a certain group of people. However, if you do this, I think you will be violating the terms of the grants that built these courts. As some of you may know, if you ever walk through Libby Park, those courts are used most by a for-profit company, the Wild Tennis Academy. I don't think that was the intent of the Libby's, the civic organization or the requirements of the grants. The intent is for maximum utilization by the public, not by one group. Grants are taxpayers' money. Consequently, that is why the requirements of the grants was for maximum utilization by the public. Do the requirements attached to grants expire? I don't think so. So you might want somebody to look up these articles for you, too, instead of just a piece.

Thank you. Rene Roth, please.

Good evening, everybody. Renee Roth here. Before you adopt ordinance number 974, I really believe the city has a responsibility to read and cite the contents of the 1971 grant deed that gave this property to the city of Ojai from the civic association. Do you have a copy of the grant deed? I would expect you do. I've never seen it cited in any staff report at any time. And I've been looking. The deed says that the transfer was intended to carry out the purpose of the original Libby grant deed. It also says that the city has a responsibility to maintain the parks. The city has a responsibility to maintain the parks. Not the tennis association, but the city. The grant deed actually says the city has a responsibility to maintain the parks. So I was really surprised when I found this document from Steve McCleary, the former city manager. And I did want to file that today with you, Weston, where it does say acceptance of the lower Libby tennis court improvements. And the lower Libby tennis court improvements, $245,000. was given to the city of Ojai as a gift to make the improvements to the lower Libby courts. It had been over 30 years before the city had done anything to the lower Libby courts. The Tennis Association wanted to use it for their tournaments. They said, OK, we'll give you the money. We'll pay for it. And in perpetuity, we want to be able to use the courts for our Tennis Association. events and for other youth events and they wrote that into the contract with the city so they have in perpetuity free use of the tennis courts for all of their events which has anybody ever reported on this or told you in a staff report that this is happening Well, it was in the staff report in April 20, 2010. So to continue to this legacy, you know, I remember, Mr. Whitman, you just said we have to have proper arm's length from a developer. Well, the Tennis Association is who developed those courts. And now that Tennis Association is saying, and by the way, we want exclusive use to use those courts for tennis. That is not right. That is not acceptable. And it does not meet the intent of the grant deed. You have to revisit and come back.

Thank you. Larry Stengold, please.

It starts snowing in here soon. Hi, Larry Steingold. I think there's a difference between giving public property to a private organization, just like an encroachment permit or a director's exemption allowing a freezer on public land in perpetuity. That young man would like to play soccer once a week or twice a week or every night. Why can't he? It's not being used as a tennis court. He's not playing pickleball. And I just think that the idea of prohibiting other uses and putting the tennis courts under a private organization where they tell the city, oh, you can only use it for Ojai days, is wrong. That's back ass words. It should be the other way around. should be like hey you guys can play tennis go for it great everything has to go through park and rec or we set it up where you want to have your tennis tournaments great you reserve the courts for a week a month whatever it is that's fine and that's a good thing because we need that and there are lots of tennis players pickleball it's a noisy thing that can be figured out okay but in general just the idea of giving public property to a private organization sets a bad precedent and we really have to stay away from that because that's just not right because if it is public property, let them pay rent. OK, I mean, reasonable rent. But that's not the issue. The issue is giving somebody else control over public land. And the idea of, and I don't want to, that young lady said a loophole. Park and Rec had the right to give an organization the use of it. We use loopholes all the time. We just rolled over contracts through a loophole. we did a freezer through a loophole director's exemption we use loopholes all the time they don't call them loopholes they call them exceptions they call them carve outs they give them all sorts of fancy names but at the end of the day you try to put in you're trying to thread a needle so you can accomplish certain things because there's a prohibition so you have to have an exception and that's considered a loophole Okay, it's part of the deal. But again, the youth want to use it. They want to have soccer. They want to have other things. There's no basketball court. I mean, maybe we should do other things, but don't put the tennis courts under the control of the Ojai Valley Tennis Association. They can certainly have dotted lines and certainly use it, but not control. It should be the other way around. Thank you.

And we have our online people now? Yes, Mayor. We have two raised hands. First, we'll have Susan, followed by Ian. Okay. Susan, you have the ability to unmute, and you may speak.

Thank you. Thank you, everyone. This has been going on for years. It's kind of incredible that we're still discussing it, and I appreciate that other people want to use the court for various purposes. We are neighbors very close to the park. Just last night, at 10 PM people were playing pickleball on the lower courts and it, we could hear it as if it wasn't, you know, a few feet away. It's a deeply disturbing, um, element of our, our daily life. It's already at city hall. We just ask you to please stop. Maybe these discussions have, have worn themselves out and, and please just pass the ordinance. limiting and restricting the use of the Libby Park tennis courts to tennis. It's clear that those who are caring for the courts have invested a tremendous amount, both in the maintenance, the upkeep, Without compromising them for other purposes, you know, it sounds like we could really use a place for kids to play soccer and and to play basketball. But this, these courts in such a such close proximity, not just to neighbors who are wanting the peace and quiet of their home, but even people in the park to introduce pickleball. I, we would be immensely grateful if you would just. Put a full stop and pass the ordinance this evening as requested by so many of us both here and who have written in to please. Not use the tennis courts in Libby for any purpose other than tennis. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next we have Ian and you have the ability to unmute. You may speak.

okay can you hear me okay yep awesome thank you um first of all i just want to quickly start off by thanking the city i was playing earlier today the improvement with the led lights at libby park is great you guys also installed the push button timers earlier this year definitely going to encourage players to be out there more and you know being able to play longer into the night on the the shorter days throughout the year so first just wanted to start by saying thank you for that Um, you know, and one thing that keeps on coming up this, you know, everybody's kind of making this like it's the Ohio Valley Tennis Club versus the pickleball community or that it's the Ohio Valley Tennis Club wanting ownership over Libby Park. That's not at all that. It's just that, you know, we have a very dedicated group of people at the tennis club that are willing to show up every single night to continue to fight this fight for a lot of people. I want to start by saying I'm speaking on behalf of a group of about 20 of my friends. We're all recreational tennis players. They're not board members or volunteers for the tournament. They're people who play tennis. They're on USTA leagues. They can't make it in person to support the ordinance. Some of them have emailed them in ahead of last week's meeting. But they all have expressed that they support a ban on pickleball at the Libby Park Courts. You know, they can't make it into these meetings because we've had to fend off these attempts of a takeover of the courts for five to six years now. They've attended multiple meetings in the past. And to be quite honest, like we're all exhausted fighting this fight. You know, many of these friends also play pickleball over at Soul Park and They've told me that they've talked to other pickleball players and that this group that continues to fight for Libby Park is in the minority here. Most of the pickleball players are playing at Soul Park. They're happy with the courts that they have. They're not asking to take over Libby Park. There's a huge crossover of players that play both, and they want to keep the Libby Park courts for tennis. So what we have here is a five- to six-year persistent attempt to take over our courts by pretty much one very small group that has tried to create a loophole to exploit the You know, the pickleball community got their brand new courts at Soul Park. They got courts installed at Lake Casitas. They got their City Hall courts reopened. All the tennis players have asked for is to keep the Libby Park courts for us, for tennis, which has been a non-issue for over 100 years. Pickleball has never been permitted at Libby Park courts, nor have any other activities, but there aren't any other groups here trying to wrestle for court time and make reservations for special event loopholes or whatever. This animosity between the communities doesn't need to continue. And I just ask that the council put a final stop to it because it's exhausting. We're all tired of having this conversation. You know, we're redefining what a pickleball or what a tennis court is at this point. And, you know, I just ask that you vote in favor of ordinance 974 and put this issue to a final conclusion so we could you know, uphold support for our large and prosperous tennis community, which this doesn't take anything away from what the pickleball players already have. So thank you.

Thank you. Mayor, we have two more raised hands. First, we'll have Mark, followed by Paul. Mark, you have the floor.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Mark Hapik. I'm a 30-year resident of the City of Ojai and the current president of the Ojai Valley Tennis Club. Libby Park Tennis Court should be available for tennis only as we only have eight public courts in Ojai. Leslie alluded to that earlier. And I spent a lot of time in and around Libby Park and especially in the mornings and the evenings, court time is at a premium. It's especially limited in the morning and the evenings during the week and through the day on the weekends. As mentioned earlier, the new Nordhoff courts are locked up and not available for public play. Or you can pay 50 dollars an hour to play. That is not an option. There's also Villanova and several other courts that were mentioned. And the August 26. City council meeting saying that they're available to play. Those are all private. So. That was not an accurate statement. I will also mention that the 8 Libby part courts, both upper and lower Libby. They've got to be in pristine shape or we just cannot, we can't put on the college conference or the Ohio in particular. We want to keep that 125th anniversary. It's coming up. We want to keep it going for another 125 years. So it's even more reason to restrict what activities are approved that could damage the courts. In closing, The City of Ojai should adopt Ordinance 974 to confirm that Libby Park tennis courts are to be reserved for tennis activities only and for no other recreational activity subject to a carve-out for annual Ojai Day activities. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, sir. And our last raised hand we have will be Paul. Okay. Paul, you have the floor.

Yeah, thank you mayor and council members. I too heard a pickleball match going on last night at about around 10 o'clock in the evening. I'd also like to ask about enforcement of the city's ruling on pickleball and signage, which I think is going to be really important. Just about everything else has already been said, so I will leave it there. Please pass the ordinance.

Thank you. That's all on Zoom, Mayor.

Thank you. One, I'm checking with the city manager here. When I'm looking at the CIP budget, I do see Zarzodi Park construction of basketball courts in the next fiscal year, 27-28. So I'm just trying to think through kind of in the spirit of having other resources available in other places.

That is on the list. I do recall that.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. So and the other thing I guess I'm inclined to say, I don't want to stop any discussion that anybody wants to have. I do want to say to have the entire discussion again doesn't make sense to me because I feel like we had it and today is about we have the ordinance in front of us and we are talking about the Ojai Day exemption that's what it seems like in front of us it seems like it's met the need that we requested so that's my two cents so are you asking for a motion Well, if somebody feels they need to say something more, but I feel like it keeps being said, and it seems like we have an opportunity for clarity. Please go ahead.

I do need to say something more. Absolutely. So what is new information is this deed information. And there are questions. Are we legally bound by words that were in a deed when it was transferred over to us, or are we not? And that's, you know, that's a question we don't even really know what those words were and what they mean, but I mean, that's also a question. The other thing that occurs to me is, you know, it's always been tennis versus pickleball, but now this world has opened up to some soccer players, for instance, who want to use the courts. And we've talked before about single use courts are a thing of the past. It just takes up too much time. We don't need to go in again about whether or not the courts are in full-time use during prime hours. What is that, four to six every day or something? I mean, we walk by those courts. We know they're not being used during a good part of the time. So claim what you will. You just simply need to walk through the park to know how used they are and how used they aren't. But I think this deed idea is very relevant and also the idea of are we going to say that this large part of a public entity is reserved only for tennis? Are we gonna say that? Maybe we are, maybe we aren't. I think we also don't know, the impression is given that the Tennis Association takes care of these courts. But what I just heard was the city has put in lights So we don't even know how much the city is actually investing in these courts. We've always just assumed that the courts were taken care of by the tennis association. I don't think that's the case, but I don't know. I know that I walked by there, and if the city hasn't leaf blown it, the leaves are still there. And I used to go to Living Park every morning, and there were not people playing. There were a couple of singles players who played occasionally three or four times a week, but the courts were not being used. And is that something that we're okay with? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. It's prime real estate, and I think we need to consider that question. And it's not only tennis versus pickleball. It's public football. utilities it's public spaces that are being really segmented for a very particular group of people and quite honestly it's a small group of people um it may seem like a lot but i respect tennis i love tennis i was raised playing tennis my favorite picture is my dad and i when i was seven years old with tennis rackets and i'm in that little short skirt with the fluffy underwear um But at some point, we really have to look at whether or not this is the best use of those courts and that space. And we have to be apprised of what the city is actually putting in to make those courts usable. There are lights at Sarzodi, but they go off at odd hours. They're on till 10 if there's an event, some soccer players or something. But there's not a lot of space at Sarzodi. So I just think that there are other questions to ask. I want to know about the grant requirements. I want to know about the money for lower Libby. I want to know when that was given to us, to the city. I want us to think about single use courts, which the park and recs department did not sort of evaluate. I want to know what prime time is at city when it's claimed. I think that those lights are really important for people. We've heard kids over and over say there's not much for them to do in the city. Well, that is something.

You know, all of these are questions.

It's not tennis versus pickleball. It's a huge public space that is being designated for a very small group of people. But there is wonderful tradition there. Nobody denies that. So it's an issue to be discussed. It's an issue to be worked through. And, you know, I will say it's the tennis folks and the anti-pickleball people that keep bringing this back. And the pickleball people, in my opinion, have to come here and respond. And that's really what the issue has been. So those are my issues. I think there were new things brought up that I would like to have looked at in concepts around public use of public facilities outside of just a pickleball versus tennis sort of mentality.

Thank you. I mean, I'm looking at some of those deeds right now. Nothing's obvious to me, but do you have anything to say on the matter?

I have it open. I'm taking a look at it right now. I have looked at it. I looked at it a few months ago, but I would want to look at it one more time before I respond to that.

And it's been raised many times. Going back for at least a couple of years, there is some idea that the deed grants a use, and I don't, I don't think it's ever been interpreted that way, and I wouldn't interpret it that way.

This is the first time I've heard the 1974 deed. I've heard of the Libby deed, but this is the first time I've heard of maximum use

But I think one thing about this ordinance is that it doesn't say that we're giving the courts to the tennis club. I mean, it still says that the city, whereas the city owns and operates the public tennis courts located at Libby Park, whereas the city currently regulates the, so it's all, the ordinance spells out that the city owns these, that the city's responsible for these. And while the tennis club might contribute to maintaining them for their tournaments, there's nothing in here that says, the only thing that says that adds the tennis club is with regard to Ojai Day. But everything else, everything else says that the city owns them. So that to me, that to me fits within the deed, the language of the deed.

I guess I have to say it does feel like we have a chance to just keep I This issue turns into the base foundation conversation again. I don't think Yeah, I just have one comment and I

It goes to the mayor's comment earlier about Sarasota. I did get a comment from somebody involved with one of the youth sport leagues. that they would benefit greatly from nighttime lit areas because you know we're starting to get into a time of year when and so I would love to see Parks and Rec take a look at what we can do in terms I'm not saying light up the tennis courts so that we can have other things going on there I'm saying that there's there's lots of places in the city where we can provide a place for either either organized or disorganized nighttime lit opportunities and I also final comment I agree we don't want to relitigate everything but I you know go back to making a huge investment of city money in pickleball courts at Soul Park so that we could put an end to this, but there was never a thank you. Say what's necessary.

I heard plenty of people say thank you to Lindy every time she showed up on the court.

I would love to not do this. Let's just focus on what's needed.

But I do have to say something. Sarzodi has lights. So it's just a matter of turning them on. They have lights. And when they have nighttime events, they're on until 10. But then if there's not nighttime sporting events organized, they go off at 8 or 8.30. So I'm just saying the lights are there if we want to have them turned on. That's all I'm saying. And that is true.

i would love that to be that's in our control so there's our director right over there and maybe if any of the if any of our young young soccer players want to talk to the parks and rec department we will make it we will make it possible for you to be able to play at night time i promise we can also try to accelerate and there there she is she's right there She's raising her hand right there.

There are people, there are young people playing soccer in the dark every night. So if you go to Sarzodi, you could probably get a pickup game. Seriously, there are kids out there practicing in the dark. Their kicks, you know, the field goal things are right there. They roll them out. There's always a handful.

But we'll figure out lights. We'll figure out lights for you. And we're going to have a basketball court. And so there will be plenty of opportunities because we all...

value healthy living and recreation and fun we do we do have leagues that you know yeah there's a nominal cost with that but they do play it at night there are leagues currently yeah they do and in the days that they don't you know the free you know let's have fun people show up yeah let's have some good time in the grass I'm going to move that we accept the ordinance I'll second that okay roll call please yes mayor

Councilmember Rule?

No.

Councilmember Lange?

Yes.

Mayor Pro Tem May?

Yes.

Mayor Gilman? Yes. Councilmember Woodman? Yes. Motion passes four to one.

No need, no need. Okay, we'll go on to our last item of the day, which is, yes, the number 11, furnished by owner and installed by owner items.

Thanks, Mayor. I'm going to give Mr. Seibert a more comfortable seat just for a few minutes since he's been here all evening. He may have a few items he wants to add to this list. I just thought I'd bring you up here for fun, Lucas. Thank you for humoring me. The furnished by owner, installed by owner list for the permanent supportive housing project, this has been out there, if you will, for a while. You may recall we first talked about this back in 2025 when there was the design presented for the project. One of the concepts that the developer mentioned was that it was common in the nonprofit development housing world to have a list of items that weren't included in what the developer provided to the client. And this was things like appliances and window covering and doormats and beds. Anyway, council heard this and the direction was, please develop this list and bring it back to us. long time coming here here we are finally with the list but in concert with an earlier item this is also the potential of the council wants to to be the initiation of a fundraising campaign to seek donations for these items I have just a couple quick housekeeping items It is a little bit confusing if you look at the list because you see some things related to utility connections, and these are included in the budget for the project. However, we were hopeful, and that's why they're on this list, to buy down that amount, if you will, and the thought was if you buy down some of these amounts, notably the sanitation district charge is extraordinary, you could have money for other parts of the project. um some items are consolidated so like if you look at number two it says desk closet chair bed nightstand i mean okay maybe that should be split out um individually but um that's what that's what this is so mr cyber did i forget anything about this that needs to be mentioned that you can think of

This list is relatively the same list that we had seen about a year ago. But to Mr. Harvey's point, 32 is kind of an interesting one because we're working through those various groups right now, having those conversations early on as to what those fees are. We're seeing kind of the writing on the wall what those fees are going to be and trying to figure out a way to draw down some of those.

And we've enlisted our city attorney in that effort. She has a lot of experience in this area, and she's been very helpful. So she's part of that team as well. Anyway, we're happy to take any questions you might have.

One question is, and I think I know the answer, but I'm trying to ask publicly. So other projects that are similar that Dignity Moves has also been a part of, this is a normal part of that process? There's nothing unique about Ojai in this regard?

This is not unique. And we have had some informal interest from folks wanting to be a part of the project and specifically interested in particular items. Yeah, I think people are aware that this is part of the effort. Okay, other questions?

Yeah, and I think I know the answer to this too, but just for the record, also Dignity Moves, would I be correct in saying that Dignity Moves has procured these through fundraising efforts for other projects? That's correct. For example, I know in Thousand Oaks, they had IKEA donate the furniture. That's right. And in previous meetings, they've said that they would go through the same process of seeing if they could procure some of these for us. Is that correct? That's correct, too.

Okay, thank you. Mm-hmm. Other questions? Yeah.

I don't know if it's, are we going to have public comments?

Yes, but this would just, only if you have a question.

Oh, and if I could just add one more thing. Yeah, please. One other feedback we've received, and we're happy to do this. This is not a prioritize or monetize list, and we could put some pencil to paper and try to determine amounts, and that might be helpful for those who want to make a donation. So we could do that.

And I think that would be helpful because it says what's not funded from here comes out of it then. So that's why I think that would be important to include those numbers.

Okay, yeah. Okay, I have one card, Larry Stengold.

What do you think? Larry, I think Councilman rule who suggested we do a postmortem on this entire project is probably something that you should do. Because you've got, to me two parts, you've got the people part, which we've taken on as an obligation or responsibility. And that's what we're going to do, no matter what happened. And that's going to go forward. But it seems to me that we've sort of running a assisted living facility, we're going into the business of that. And all the things that we're looking for donations are consumables. These are things that are going to be wanted all the time. The sheets, the lights, the bulbs, the broken refrigerators, everything. This is an ongoing operation. So I don't know if we're going to be begging forever or it's just going to be part of our working operation expense. The fact that Dignity, this is how they financed this project, this is how they planned it. Oh, they're going to build a building. They get a half a million dollars to manage it, sort of. We now have to go out and hire a manager to actually put the whole thing together. And then we still have to go out and pay for things and beg for things to hook up the water, to hook up the sanitation, the sewer. That should have been part of the real estate deal to begin with. It should have been the whole part of it. Here's the project that's done. The solar, that was a big deal. Don't we want everything to be solar? What is it, net zero, where we don't want anybody to consume electric? We're going to have B plugs, but now we don't have solar panels because, oh, it's too expensive. $9.5 million, and we now have to go beg for solar panels and plug-ins? I just think that this whole project... is either a very bad learning experience or something that we're all just going to have to learn to live with because we've taken on this obligation and responsibility. But the consumables, I mean, this is going to be on forever, which is, that's part of it. Okay, so I just think we need to build that into our budget and keep it on because to keep going out and looking for sheets and things is not the right way to run this thing. It's just going to be a mess. And it's continually looking and asking. Are we going to get all the old sheets from the Ojai Valley in? We're going to get blankets from El Roblar? Where are we going to get all this stuff? So I think we just build it in and just accept it. So thank you. Thank you.

Anybody online? No more Zoom participants. Okay. just to remind us like just as a kind of a context um mesa as a case in point just finished a six million dollar fundraising campaign successfully i'm only bringing that up to say to to have a project where you are soliciting donations even in an ongoing way is exactly how things work in these realms so it's not absurd to think that we would also be doing that So I only bring that up to say it is part of the ethos, it seems to me, not only of our Valley, but of philanthropy.

I was wondering, too, if anybody or would they reach out with the state recruitment list with heavy duty? So you can't go, yes, you can get a good deal at IKEA for 30 beds, but how long are they gonna last? Or if you had something more of an industrial spring type furniture, it would probably like you may spend a little more I don't know but I think the extension of the item would probably take us further than replacing every I don't know with cheaper more affordable and one other thing too beds are not on this list

Well, they're actually, that was kind of what I was getting at. If you look at number two, or excuse me, three, desk, swash, closet, chair, bed, nightstand in the unit. So what I was saying is, yes, it probably would be when we revise this to break each one out. And we can specify, to your point, commercial grade so that we're looking for items that are sturdier.

And then also, I don't know out of this list, how many items, do we have to have all of these before we can have a move-in date? No. Okay, so that would be kind of nice.

I mean, so for instance, I would argue you don't need... you don't need bike racks, you don't need umbrellas with a base. So would it be nice? Yes, and that'd be great, but not all of them are required.

If it was organized in that way, that might be useful besides monetizing, you would say, nice to have, need to have.

Yeah, so that was the comment that I got earlier, was prioritize and monetize.

And then maybe perhaps electrical, the pre-wire for EV and stuff, and you don't have to go through just hit and miss or whatever. Sorry, clarify that one, please. I was wondering, like with the EV chargers, I don't know what the price is, but could you do something, have the electrical, have it pre-wired, like have it there, but then when the money comes in, to go ahead and do it instead of having it right from the get-go? I don't know if that could be an option or not.

That's an Edison question. I don't know how much of that I'd have to be like solar.

And then the other thing would be, you know, how many, so how many EV chargers, how many dryers, how many washers? I don't know. I guess I'm assuming with washers and dryers, once again, it will have to be industrial spring because if you have 30 people, but I don't know how many people.

For the washer and dryer just as a reminder we do have we do have those contemplated in the construction plans and so they're part of the drainage fixture count so those there's it wouldn't be 30 washers and 30 dryers I think it's it's it's one central location yeah but the other thing washers and dryers is going to be one big I think it may be to address. Yeah. Yeah. There would be a, like a, not a commercial laundry room, but a laundry room that has, you know, large, a large, like high capacity washer. It's in the construction plans. I don't have, Lucas may not remember exactly.

If I recall correctly, there's eight in total. And one of those sets are going to be industrial so that you can do larger sheets and such like that.

It seems to me what you're asking for is basically setting the stage so that you can start soliciting these donations.

That's what we're asking for. And the desire to further clarify the list, split it out, monetize it, prioritize it would be helpful with that effort, obviously.

Yep.

Would so I'm aware, I mean, just some of the things like we were talking about, like art, decor, welcome mats, I would imagine that some of the residents would want to, to pick out their own sheets, or, you know, have pick out decorate their spaces. Have we have we can have we consulted with any of the case managers or with help of Oh, hi, to see

This kind of fits in with the other effort that's ongoing now to develop the other RFP for the operator. These are all leases with individuals, and so the thought was have the units move in ready, but you're right. I mean, there's going to be a lease, and the person's going to be paying a third of their income to live there. It's their space. Certainly they don't have to accept the items if they wanted to use their own furnishings. And I don't necessarily agree that we're on the hook to provide all these items forever going forward. I do think it would probably go with the project that you would want to have things available, obviously, as things break and needs arise. But it's certainly not my, it was never my expectation that forever forward, every unit is immediately, including everything that one could need. that that's that's sort of what i that's what i was getting at too and like with some lease circumstances you have coin operated laundry and that's important too i mean you're probably aware of this artist up on you but there are um programs in town currently at at least one laundromat that i'm aware of that our participants use currently where they're able to go over certain days of the week and and use the machines at a reduced rate and that will i would think that would probably continue

okay thank you well i'm i'm a little surprised that like the sanitary hook up the water hook up the sce connection and the associated fees Those weren't part of the original contract.

No, that's what I was saying. Those are in the budget. Those are included. What we're hoping to do, so take for instance the sanitary hookup. I think the quote that we got was $272,000. We're working with the sanitation district currently. We believe that they're not using the correct formulas to determine that number. So we're hoping that there could be some folks that want to buy down those amounts, if you will. That's why they're on here. They'll probably be, as I'm prioritizing the list, I'd probably keep those on the bottom because I don't think that those are going to be as attractive as somebody who might want to provide microwaves.

Right. I was thinking that it would be potentially, you know, a marketing type of approach to say, you know, X will supply one room. Yep. Yeah, that's a great idea. So, you know, 10, whatever, just draw a number out of it. $10,000, you furnish a room.

Let's take it further. Let's say if you want the Andy, it's $8,000. If you want the Rachel, it's $14,000.

Well, no, and actually, no, I was heading for that with the idea that you could.

I'm kidding.

No, on the one hand, you could just do, you know, bed, desk, dresser. Period. But you can ask for another level where they get curtains and that type of thing.

You sound like you've been talking to somebody who knows this type of thing. uh yeah capital not enough you just got back from africa no but this no seriously all kidding aside i i have contemplated what you're talking about i think that's a very great people like that maybe if they you know did a room mr stengel if you mr stengel if you can't right here's what it includes i i think it's a terrific area terrific idea i really do

Well, I mean, just to say, it seems to me this goes back to the naming convention. If you had somebody like a solar company donate all the solar panels and they would have a plaque similar to what we have in Libby Park or something like that, we're all ears. Great, let's work with them. And that makes good sense. So it does seem like a really wonderful marketing opportunity for people like that.

And I'm just just with the solar panels, is there like a certain wattage or whatever that you're looking at? I know it varies, right? Because you want it all the same. Yeah, there's a there's a base rate.

Yeah. So they do an establishment and base rate. Right.

I mean, there's a lot of detail. Right. And if any of you individually would like to be involved, we would welcome. Be great.

I am. interested in the EV charger, I'm assuming, maybe incorrectly, that none of our residents will be EV owners.

But I could be incorrect. Not true. Not true. Yeah.

Were you talking about bikes? Were you talking about cars?

Well, we have both. We actually, until recently, we did have a participant who did have an EV vehicle. I think we had to get rid of it. But we do certainly have those with bikes, and we do certainly have some with golf carts and other... And so do we have a...

projected number of EV chargers that we would need?

No, but I need to come up with that. And that should be part of the list as well. And as the Mayor Pro Tem said, you know, maybe we, not maybe, let's figure out what's the pre-wiring that is required so that if you get that donation, it's plug and play. Just like the solar panels. We need to make sure it all butts into what we need.

That'd be a great donation for Edison.

Well, on that note, sorry, because I've been talking to them. Unfortunately, they're very fixated, or fortunately, however you look at it, on fire hardening efforts, and they've gotten away from... Historically, they used to donate to projects like this, and now that they're all about how does it reduce fire, and can you show us that? Yeah. So if you think of a good idea or an angle, tell me, please.

I can think of one. We're undergrounding all the utilities. They weren't impressed with that. That seems like a logical one. We'll get pitchforks.

Say that again, Mayor Bertram, sorry. The Waymo Ojai edition. Yes, exactly.

We should get a donation. Filled up with Pepperidge Farm Ojai cookies. Yeah, totally. Yeah, that would be hysterical.

or hysterical depending on how you look at it right i so you're looking for an approval of the list and then you gotta well and i think we're we're taking the feedback we need to refine this further and we're happy to bring it back again that's totally fine with those details um but we also would like your permission to initiate the fundraising campaign yes yes let's do it okay creative with the work rooms in the outdoor i think this i really think it's awesome that's actually that's a great way to build interest

And I've run capital campaigns before, so I'm happy to contribute. Would you like to move, then? I'll make a motion to move forward with this and to have staff come back with those changes. A reprioritized list. Yeah, a reprioritized list.

Right, with additional description and numbers needed. And numbers. Right, and things split out. We'll make much more detail.

Great.

Second.

Roll call. Okay. Council Member Whitman. I'm going to pass at the vote. Mayor Pro Tem May.

Yes.

Council Member Rule. Yes. Council Member Lange. Yes. Mayor Gilman. Yes. Council Member Woodman.

Yes.

Okay.

Thank you, everybody.

Well, any council member reports? I have one thing.

I have one thing to say to you as well. Okay. Go for it. So I'm the chair of the Gold Coast Transit District Board this year. And thank you. Thank you, Mr. Miley. And we have our long-term planning meeting on October 7th. And so I want to invite any members of the community, if you have desires that you'd like to see for public transportation, more bus routes, more connections to different parts of Ventura County. If you are a bus rider, if you are a paratransit rider and are looking for more access to safe rides or to paratransit rides, I would love to hear your feedback before we go into our planning session. So that's happening on October 7th. And I welcome any feedback or any public comments if you'd like to zoom in or to write a comment or even come to the meeting.

quick announcement is that um thursday october 1st the city of ohio student council will restart again with the new school year that is at the rec center from 6 to 7 30 with pizza provided and some some stuff to drink and some chips and all that um we end up getting usually students from about five or six high schools and the two things that are kind of on the agenda one is Planning a, a valley wide dance of all the schools. That's 1 of the big things that we're looking at. And then also a booth at a high day, so the student council group may have a booth at a high day. So. You're all welcome to come and again, it's in the rec center in the main point center area where the games are. There's the October 1st, 6 to 7.

So I have a couple of future agenda items if we're to that point.

I have one report out if we want to continue with that then. So I just wanted to give an update on the Ventura County Animal Services. kind of what we're doing. We're reviewing the bylaws just to let you know that we've been paying only for services. We've not been paying for capital improvements. The county has been shouldering that burden and they no longer wish to shoulder that burden. And they are looking to build a new shelter, so that burden will now be shouldered by the individual cities. So VCAS is going around to every city to renegotiate the contract, to add to capital improvements. In other words, 100% coming from cities, no longer. I think the county was handling at least 50%. The advisory board right now, I mean the commission board right now is advisory only. We meet once every three months for an hour and a half. So we are re-looking at the bylaws to see if that does indeed need to change as the cities will now be providing all of the funds. So perhaps there is a governance structure rather than an advisory structure. So that will be something that I'm working on and Mayor Pro Tem, I think you are the alternate, are you not? If you'd like to work through the bylaws with me or thinking about that, you know, you got a money mind. So we need to think about that. So anyway, that's my update on that.

Thank you. small little there's two fundraisers that are this weekend one is for the shelter on Saturday and the second is for the search and rescue

future agenda items yeah so I'm on the liaison to planning and they just I think last week or last meeting had a project that involved tree removal and the inability to replace them on that lot so we have an in lieu of fee system and it came out that we have a $33,000 balance So I would love to see us take a look at what we should be doing with that money, probably connect with Ojai Trees. Maybe crew and come up with a plan of the best way to use the money to sustain the community forest concept that we have.

Just as a quick thing, Ojai Trees is now integrated with the Green Valley Coalition, so they're one and the same.

Lovely. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm looking for staff to bring it back to us with ideas because I don't. think as opposed to letting the money sit there uh make sure we have a plan for using it to its best potential super the other future agenda item is i'm gonna uh bite the bullet and do my own town hall and what i want to do is address What I hear frequently is this concern, what are we gonna do, what's the plan for when we have a disaster? And I'd like to have the city manager speak to the city components of that, the police chief speak to their operations, there's actually a lot of resources that we can look to but i think it'd be helpful to walk through it and um give people a better understanding that i mean i've spent a lot of time in the last few months because of um people's expression of concerns and and i'm very impressed with how much is in place but there's a lack of communication of that into the community. And so I think a town hall is a good way to do that. And then, you know, we'll maybe have an hour or so of open questions from the community. That's wonderful.

i'm glad you said that because i i had been thinking the same thing after the last town hall was like this is one of the biggest topics of conversation that i hear too so thank you for bringing it up and i i fully support that

So for an agenda item, I'd like an update on the million dollars that that nice foundation has offered us and any other monies that we might be having coming in that we'd like to hear about. That would be nice. Let's get some money going. The other thing is that I am also planning another town hall. I'm having the county DA, Eric Narasenko, come up who's going to talk about election integrity and what that's going to mean. I think we have a tentative date scheduled. I think it's going to come up as our... resolution or agreement is that comes up for the council approval so we're going to try to put that on the consent calendar for next uh next meeting and i think we have scheduled for october 14th he's going to come up and talk about election integrity which i think is really important and i think that people are worried so um it'd be good to find out what those laws are and you know what our rights and uh you know can be and might be and also options for you know doing grassroots protection of integrity other people brought this up and that's great that you're doing it yeah that's super just come to me i'll do it no super great okay meeting adjourned