City Council - Regular Meeting

I apologize.

Yeah, we're ready. Oh, here it is.

Good evening, everyone. Just want to call the meeting to order for the Oxford City Council for Tuesday, September 15th, 2026. Madam Clerk, may we have a roll call? Can we see the agenda, please?

Excuse me. Council Member Peralo? Here. Councilwoman Perez? Here. Councilwoman Rodriguez? Present. Mayor Pro Tempteran? Here. Mayor MacArthur?

Here.

The agenda for this meeting was posted in the kiosk at City Hall, the Oxford Public Library, the City Administrative Offices, and on the City's website on Thursday, September 3rd. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Prior to closed session, we will take public comments on the closed session agenda. May the City Attorney please provide a statement prior to closed session.

Thank you, Mayor. The City Council will recess to a closed session pursuant to government code section 54956.9 subdivision D1 to confer with its attorneys. The matters being discussed are Baraglia versus City of Oxnard et al., Sosa versus City of Oxnard et al., and City of Oxnard et al. versus Titan Global Holdings LLC et al.

Thank you, City Attorney. Madam Clerk, do we have any public comments prior to closed session?

Excuse me, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Members, there are no requests to speak on closed session in person or virtually. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. The City Council will now recess to closed session and at 5.30 p.m. we will begin with an appointment item followed by our regular scheduled council meeting. Thank you. Good evening everyone the City Council has just emerged from Closed a session, and I'm going to ask our city attorney. Mr.. Fisher if he has any announcements to make Thank you mayor.

There are no reports out of closed session this evening.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Mr.. Fisher We'll go to the next item on the agenda. This is an appointment item that's scheduled for 530 and This is from the city manager's department. Community Relations Commission 2026 annual report. And the recommendations that the City Council, one, receive the 2026 annual report from the Community Relations Commission, and two, present a proclamation designating October 2026 as Global Diversity Awareness Month here in the City of Oxnard. And we are pleased to welcome the Community Relations Chair, Ms. Dureas, who will be delivering tonight's presentation. Welcome, Chair. Thank you, Chair Doris. Thank you.

All righty. Well, good afternoon, good evening. My name's Kalila Duraoze, and I'm the current chairman of the Community Relations Commission. This is my second term as the chair, so I won't be it next year, hopefully. That's okay. No, it's a joy to be the chairman, and I'm glad to be here with you all. Before we get started, I'd like to introduce the community relations commissioners that are present. And I'll introduce everyone.

Okay.

I have my glasses on so I can see. Okay, so as I said, I'm the chairman. And then to my left is Cynthia Gonzalez. She's our vice chairman of the Community Relations Commission. And then behind me is Tiffany Lopez. SHE'S ONE OF OUR COMMISSIONERS SERVING ON THE COMMUNITY RELATIONS COMMISSION. MS. RENEE CAMPER-STEWART, ALSO A COMMUNITY RELATIONS COMMISSIONER, MS. HELENE STALLION, ALSO A COMMUNITY RELATIONS COMMISSIONER, AND SHE SAID THAT SHE'S ACTUALLY TERMING OUT AT THE END OF THIS, SO I'M GOING TO MAKE IT, PUT IT ON THE RECORD THAT I'D LIKE TO HAVE A RECOGNITION FOR HER.

SO THANK YOU. bears her in front of everyone.

OK, great. And then, of course, I know it's not Lopez.

Castro.

Castro, Commissioner Castro. He's one of our newest commissioners. And then not present is Commissioner Megan Salas. All right. OK, and would you guys like to tell the city council and mayor a little bit about yourself?

Well, I'll go first. Sure. I am Helaine Stallion. I have been a commissioner for eight years. Eight is a fruition number. It has been a joy and pleasure to serve on this commission. I will carry it with me for the rest of my life. I love Oxnard. The city is great. And I'm just grateful. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Stallion.

Hello, I'm Renee Camper Stewart, and I have actually been a resident of Oxnard for over 60 years. I'm a member of the Links Incorporated Channel Islands Chapter. I'm also a member of the Noontimers Lions Club, and we meet here locally at Tomas Cafe. I just absolutely love my community. I know what it has to offer. I'm very happy to be in a position to help make it come into fruition.

Thank you, Ms. Camper.

I AM THE YOUNGEST AND NEWEST COMMISSIONER TO THE COMMUNITY RELATIONS COMMISSION. I love this city. I love Oxnard, everything we have to offer. And I'm here to serve this city. I want to see more youth involvement. I want to see more events, more just more involvement from our youth, because I believe this city is so amazing. And we have such an amazing youth that are passionate for so many different things and have so many bright ideas. And so I'm hopeful and I'm grateful that I have this position to be able to help this city with

that youth involvement but thank you thank you mr gastro thank you tiffany hi everyone tiffany lopez my longest member of the community relations commission i know all of you and i'm just happy to be here um i am also a board member of the downtown improvement association And I have involvement with Boys and Girls Club of Oxnard, Ventura County Community Foundation, the Oxnard, well, the Lions Club is a little bit of a hiatus, but my passion is really nonprofit families and community involvement. So that's really what I strive for and should just be involved. And my big passion on our commission is the Multicultural Festival, so I'm really glad it's coming back. Thank you for support, and we're really looking forward to it this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lopez. Cynthia.

Hello. Good evening. My name is Cynthia Gonzalez, and I believe I've been on the commission for six years. You know, COVID kind of stole a year from us, so it's hard to remember. I am a resident of Oxnard. I am a mom, a wife, and I'm a lawyer. I sit on a few different boards. I am a Delta. And I just enjoy working with my fellow commissioners to work and do as much good as we can for our community. So thank you so much for having us tonight. We appreciate it.

Thank you, Ms. Gonzalez. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS.

THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS. THANK YOU, MR. RIAS I'm looking forward to presenting to you this evening and then if there's any questions. So I'll let our vice chairman is actually going to initiate our presentation for today.

Okay. So the lawyer gets to tell what our powers and duties are. So powers and duties of the CRC are included in the Oxnard City Code and define the focus area of the CRC including analyze, define, and investigate community relations issues and needs in the city and advise the City Council on matters involving group prejudices, racial tension, intolerance, or differences in treatment or favoritisms of persons on a basis other than individual merit. Disseminate information and educational materials and reports that will assist in the elimination of practices involving group prejudices, racial tension, intolerance, or differences in treatment or favoritism of persons on a basis other than their individual merit. Endorse community events that improve community relations in the city and are consistent with the duties of the Community Relations Commission. One of the things that we do is we have different organizations come out and give presentations. One of the ones that I really connected with that came out over in 2026 was the county's collaborative efforts of addressing human trafficking. And the Seroptimist Club came out along with the Ventura County Task Force, and they talked about human trafficking. And the reason that that related to what we do as a commission is because there are more of our marginalized communities are affected by human trafficking. So it was really important to hear about the efforts that our county and the task force are working together to create so that we have less issues with human trafficking. So I am grateful to have had that presentation. My 13-year-old says that she doesn't like it when I have those types of presentations because then I come home telling her how we're going to keep her safe. So she does not like that. She doesn't like my job on those days. Thank you.

Thank you.

If we could go to the next slide.

Is there a clicker?

Oh, great. Oh, yes. Thank you. I was sitting there like, how do I get it to the next slide? Okay. Okay. So one of the things we do for the Community Relations Commission is as Vice Chairman said, is we invite various community organizations as well as city staff. Our city manager has come and spoken to us, city attorney, various others have come to speak to us. So we had Sergeant Jose Diaz speak about human trafficking. And then we had Enla Ketch, to come and present to us regarding Cesar Chavez and the Cesar Chavez Memorial Event and the Black History Month. We had the third annual Fatherhood Summit, which is a former chairman of our commission, Adam Lopez, his church puts on. And I believe they said they had over 100 people present. So it was a wonderful event. And it's nice for us to be able to hear about that and just that encouragement of fatherhood in our community. And then this one's a little personal to me. Kelsey Newman came to speak to us about his mother. He lost his mother last year, Ms. Odessa Newman. And she was the first African-American, period, so not just woman, but first African-American to serve on the Oxnard School Board of Trustees. And he spoke about her legacy. And one of the things I'd like to share with you is my grandmother worked on her campaign back in the 1970s. So my family has been here a long time. I was not born then, but they were here representing and doing community work. Just want to make sure you let you know. Okay. And then of course we had the Juneteenth celebration of Ventura County also come and speak to us. OK, SO WE WILL HAVE OUR COMMUNITY RECOGNITION AWARDS, AND YOU MAY HAVE SEEN IT OUT ON SOCIAL MEDIA. WE HAVE SIX CATEGORIES THIS YEAR. SO COMMUNITY VOLUNTEER, YOUTH VOLUNTEER, SENIOR VOLUNTEER, BUSINESS, NONPROFIT ORGANIZATION, COMMUNITY GROUP, AND CULTURAL AWARENESS, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION. AND THE 2026 AWARD RECIPIENTS WILL BE SELECTED AT OUR NEXT MEETING, WHICH WILL BE NEXT MONDAY. And we normally invite them to come to the Multicultural Festival. We didn't have it last year just because of the environment, but we are excited to have it again this year. So we hope that you all can come out and support and just celebrate the diversity of our community. So a few things that various members have attended or we make sure we highlight. The Insect Festival, I know lots of you are excited about that one, but it actually looks really neat. Quite a few of my team members at work, like I said, I work for the Navy, they participated in the Insect Festival, taking their children out to see the various insects. Juneteenth, Martin Luther King Jr. Day at the Community Center. Immigration forums. We have the stakeholder meeting. I know I've seen a few of you there at that stakeholder meeting that we're having in the every first, usually the first Monday of the month. And then various community events. I know I have Tiffany right here. Her mother hosts the Bolsa.

Rebosa.

Rebosa Festival. And I know that raises over hundreds of thousands of dollars for scholarships in our community. We try to advocate and support not only just community, not just city events, but oh, yes, Swap Meet Justice as well. Yes, at Oxnard College. So we've had various people come and speak to us, but then also we want to make sure we support those that are doing great work in our community. Okay. Just really quick, just want to make sure you put it on your calendar. Saturday, October 3rd. is our multicultural festival. And it will be right here in downtown at Plaza Park. I believe it's 10 to 4 PM. So I hope that you can come out. Like I said, we will honor our community relations awards recipients. We'll get their awards that night, that morning. And then like I said, we'll have lots of festival, food, fun, music. So please come out. We hope that you can join in with us. It's a wonderful event for our community. So thank you. Oh, yes, go ahead.

One thing. And we also do want to acknowledge our city liaison staff member, Martha Guillen. She's with us tonight. She does a wonderful job. I know she wears many hats with the city, but she does a really wonderful job communicating with us. She's very professional, and we're just grateful to have her.

Yes, great. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner. Yes, and I echo that sentiment. We appreciate Ms. Martha so much. We appreciate her very much. All right. I guess there's comments or any questions for us?

Thank you, Ms. Dorais. Yeah, any Council Member comments?

Council Member Peralta, go ahead. Thank you. Just a comment. I don't have questions. Thank you all for the time and trouble that you go through and put yourself through. Sometimes it's considered a thankless job because sometimes the meetings can get very hot Very hard questions can be asked of you and they expect an answer and an accomplishment or a result immediately That's welcome to the world of being the council member But thank you all for the time and trouble you put in and stick to it of this. Thank you very much Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, absolutely any other questions comments. I I just take the time to miss Gonzales and Tiffany, Ms. Darius, and everyone here, thank you so much for your time that you've committed to being part of this commission. It's invaluable what you do for our community. So thank you very much for that. Madam Clerk, do we have any public comments on this appointment item?

Mayor and council members, there are no requests to speak on the appointment item in person or virtually. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Did you have anything?

I just wanted to thank you all because you can see the passion for the city of Oxnard, and it's really a labor of love. So thank you for your countless hours. I'm glad to see that the Multicultural Festival is coming back this year, so we'll be able to recognize more communities. So it just speaks a lot about your own leadership when you just want to recognize other people doing good work in the community. So if people still want to nominate, where do they do that, and is it still available?

The nominations are closed, but we are still open if anyone would like to sponsor or have a booth. Wonderful. Please submit. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. And also, Mr. Rice, we'll coordinate to ensure that we recognize Ms. Stallion for all her years of service. So we'll do a very proper recognition for you, Ms. Stallion, for everything you've done for us. Thank you so much. Thank you. No, but let me say more thoughtful things. No, we are genuinely, sincerely, like it's not, for me it's not just lip service, but thank you, because only you know the sacrifices you make to be here. You could be elsewhere, but you believe enough to come here and give of your time, get ready, have these meetings, invite, you know, community members to engage with you. And it's a lot of work. And we certainly know it. So I sincerely thank you for what you've done for us. So we'll give you a very proper commendation when the time comes with a big audience to recognize your efforts. Thank you, Ms. Dahlia.

Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor.

And if all of you want to come up here, Ms. Kamperer and Mr. . We have a proclamation to provide for you. This is for Global Diversity Awareness Month. And as they're making their way up here, I'm just going to read the proclamation that we've crafted. Each year, the United States observes October as Global Diversity Awareness Month. to celebrate and recognize the rich variety of cultures, backgrounds, traditions, and perspectives found globally and within communities and workplaces that make up our society. Global Diversity Awareness Month serves as a reminder of the positive impact a diverse culture of people can have on a society as a whole. Diversity in all its forms is a fundamental strength that enriches communities, fosters innovation, and promotes deeper understanding and respect for cultural differences or among people. The population of Oxnard is composed of many different races, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds that remind us that by embracing our varied backgrounds, we can continue to build a more inclusive and equitable world There are many different ways to celebrate Global Diversity Awareness Month. Each include hosting a multicultural movie night or foreign film, attending a cultural art exhibit, enjoy music from different parts of the world, a visit to a restaurant, that serves cuisine from around the world, supporting minority-owned businesses, or creating celebrations that promote peace and understanding. And whereas the Community Relations Commission of the City of Oxnard works to celebrate the diverse cultures in the City of Oxnard throughout the year by highlighting community groups, programs, and events, now therefore I, the proud mayor of the City of Oxnard, On behalf of the entire council, do you hereby recognize October 26th as Global Diversity Awareness Month? It's my honor to provide this to our Community Relations Commission. Thank you, Mr. Reyes.

Thank you.

And I know, Chair, I know that you've already spoken, but if you or Ms. Kamperer, Ms. Gonzalez, anybody want to speak on behalf of this proclamation?

Oh, well, thank you so much for this proclamation. And I think I speak for all of us when I say, as you've heard each one speak, that we're very passionate about this community, and we won't stop until we drop.

Do you want to say something?

We certainly invite everyone, you know, we really value our diversity that we have here in our city and our entire region. We've all spoken out about how much we provide to it, just enriching our community. And so we want to invite all of you. I know Martha Guillen has worked hard together with the commissioners from a community relations commission to put together the October 3rd event. So we invite all of you to come out for the multicultural festival from 10 to 4 o'clock. We'll have a kids corner. Well, we have the Cool Arrows. We're going to make sure I pronounce that right. The Cool Arrows will be there. We have live entertainment among, you know, beyond them. Kids' Corners, some vendors, arts and crafts. So come out and enjoy the time with us from 10 to 4 o'clock. All right, Ms. Rice, thank you. So I hope to see you all there. I know Bishop Lamont Hayes will be there, front and center. All right. Thank you, everyone. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you, ma'am. We'll see you soon. Mr. Castro, thank you, ma'am, for joining us. Of course. Thank you for having me.

Absolutely.

We have another. Oh, we do?

Yeah, but no one's coming up for that one, because they're not here. Do you want me to read this out publicly? Hello, good evening, everyone. Just want to call the meeting to order. for the Oxnard City Council and for the Oxnard Housing Authority for Tuesday, September 15th, 2026. Madam Clerk, may we have the roll call and posting of the agenda, please?

Commissioner Andrade? Here. Councilwoman Commissioner Basuwa?

Here.

Councilmember Commissioner Parallo? Here. Councilwoman Commissioner Perez? Here. Councilwoman Commissioner Rodriguez? Present. Councilman Commissioner Starr? Here. Mayor Pro Tem Vice Chair Teran? Here. Mayor Chair MacArthur?

Here.

The agenda for this meeting was posted in the kiosk at City Hall, the Oxnard Public Library, the city administrative offices, and on the city's website on Thursday, September 3rd. And then I also have an announcement to read. Pursuant to government code section 54952.3, each member of the Housing Board of Commissioners present will receive $50 pay for convening this meeting, with the exception of Commissioner Starr, who has declined to receive compensation. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. The next item is the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence. We're going to take a moment of silence for Mr. Lynn Malhart. Mr. Malhart was with United Water, but his family dates back here, settling in Oxford back to like 1870, the Malhart. So just a really kind gentleman. He may have seen his farm right at the corner of Camino del Sol and Rose Avenue, that corner lot right next to Del Sol High School. That's the family's property there. So we'll take a moment of silence for him. And I'm going to turn this over now to Councilman Basuwa to introduce the young student from Chatham High School. Thank you, Ms. Basuwa.

Thank you, Mayor. I would like to welcome Jaime Castro Martinez up to the podium. He is a student athlete. Come on up. He is a student athlete at Channel Islands High School, and he will be leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Please stand for the pledge. A moment to take off your caps and hats, please. 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. You may be seated.

Thank you. I'm just going to take a quick moment of silence. Thank you, everyone. Thank you. Thank you, Jaime. Ms. Ramos called me and apologized. She couldn't be here. Her little one is the principal of Channells High School who otherwise would have been here supporting you. So go ahead, Jaime.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Jaime Castro and I go to Channells High School. I'm a senior. I wanted to thank Ms. Ramos and the city council for giving me an opportunity to share my story. I was born without my hand. and struggled with self-confidence in bowling since I was young. I was always the smallest in my class and would constantly get into fights over defending myself and over my hand. When I moved to Oxnard with my family, I had just finished my third grade year in Woodland Hills and I attended Tierra Vista here where I finished my fourth and fifth grade. Here in Oxnard was very different to my old school. I had friends, which I still talk to now, but then COVID happened, and I would hardly talk to any of my friends. When middle school started and we returned to in-person classes, a lot changed for me. Kids who I once thought were my friends became very mean and gang-oriented, and I found myself once again facing bullying for my hand. This really affected my self-esteem, and I became really quiet during my eighth grade year. My neighbor Earl introduced me to volleyball and I loved it. Even though I wasn't the tallest or strongest in my class, I loved it. We would often go to play at Oxnard College with some other friends. During this time, my parents were going through a separation and I found it hard to concentrate in school. I became anxious all the time and this caused my grades to drop. This carried on until my freshman year, and my grades were not very good until I met Ms. Mendoza and Mr. River. They were my math teachers at CI my freshman year and really encouraged me to try harder and help me pick up my grades. Shortly after, I discovered ASB, my school student government, and became involved with rallies and workshops. I met a lot of great people and would go every day after school to help paint. ASB helped me with my anxiety as I had to talk to a lot of new people in there. I continued doing volleyball and tried to help around campus as much as I could. I found sports being my way of relieving stress and I joined cross country as well as basketball during my high school years. During my junior year of high school, everything was going well. until my dad decided it was best to sell the house. Me, my mom, and my sister found ourselves looking for an apartment and being worried about where we were going to stay. I decided it was best to look for a job to help my mom with my expenses, as it was the least I could do. Going into my senior year, I hardly had any friends, and I felt alone at times. The only people who I really talked to were my sister's boyfriend and his little brother. I tried reaching out to a lot of my friends, but they were busy most of the time and I would get left out of plans and hangouts. I grew to like being alone and I started doing stuff I loved, like volleyball. I joined a club. and started taking it serious. I started going to my school's wellness center where I met Ms. Kim and Mr. Hontes, who I talk to basically every day now. They helped me in putting myself out there and enjoying my senior year. In my future, I hope to attend UCSB or CSU Long Beach to get a degree in mechanical engineering. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you, Amy, for having the courage to give us so much insight about your life and allowing a lot of young people that are here and those watching an opportunity just to have a window about your life and the struggles and how resilient, right? And also thank you for highlighting the educators that are interceded and, you know, a big believer in mentorship. It certainly provides the right guidance to promote self-esteem that leads to academic success and making right decisions in life. So thank you for sharing about yourself. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Jaime, but I think you were very modest with your speech, so let me brag a little bit about him. He is an AP honor student, you know, something he forgot to mention. He does, he did or does cross-country football and basketball. You did mention volleyball, so very well-rounded all around. And I'm just very, very proud of you and all your accomplishments. And I know you will do great things. And when you go off to college, just make sure you come back.

Thank you.

Thanks for being such a good guy, you know. Thank you. And we have a really nice certificate for you. Absolutely. Go ahead, Council Member.

Wish you the very best in luck in the future. And you've accomplished a lot getting where you are right now. It's obvious you have a tremendous amount of community support. But your smile. Your smile will carry you a long way, young man. You've got a terrific million-dollar smile. Thank you for sharing your life with us. Thank you.

Thank you, Henry. Thank you. I think that clap was for your smile, apparently. If you want to come up here, we have a really nice certificate we put together for you. Thank you.

And you can bring your mom and your sister up, too. and anybody else you brought with you.

Thank you.

Now we're all checking our smile.

We're all going to check.

One, two, three. Thank you.

We're just going to remain standing. We also have a proclamation for the League of Women Voters. And I know this is going to be especially significant. I see Brett Nyberg here this year from the District Attorney's Office. Thank you, Brent, for being here. But the League of Women Voters couldn't be here, but I'm just going to read the proclamation. This is proclaiming Constitution Week being September 17th through the 23rd. September 17th, 2026 marks 239th anniversary of the drafting of the Constitution of the United States of America. The story of the framing and adoption of the Constitution constitutes one of the most inspiring and significant chapters in the history and the foundation of our country. Whereas the Constitution Week gives every American an opportunity to reflect upon the vision, hope, and promise represented by this vital document and the fortitude of our forebears in creating it. And whereas Congress, by joint resolution, set aside the week beginning September 17th of each year as Constitution Week, a time for the contemplation, and commemoration of the historic acts which resulted in the formation of our Constitution and laid the foundation of the birth of the United States of America. Whereas the city of Oxnard wants to invite every citizen and institution to join in this national commemoration of the Constitution and gain a better understanding of the privileges and obligations that are set forth in this document and the groundbreaking ideals upon which this nation was established and built. So now, therefore, I, the proud mayor of the city, on behalf of the entire city council, proclaim the week of September 17th through the 23rd, 2026, as Constitution Week. And so we will deliver this to the women voters. Thank you. The legal women voters. Thank you. And we will go to the next item on the agenda. This is the presentation of accommodations to students who participate in the Summer at City Hall program. I know there's some students that couldn't be here, but for those that are here, if you can come up as I read your name. And this is Alex Flores. Alondra Resendiz. Annabella Romero. Ashley Vargas. Katelyn Pasqua. Jocelyn Sepulveda. And Marissa Ganoa.

Thank you so much. Thank you.

And Theresa, I don't know if you or Olympia, would you like to come up and just maybe say a few words about the program?

You guys can come in the middle, too. Thank you so much. Good to see you, my friend.

Thank you. I see, I also want to recognize, I trustee this here, Genevieve. We just want to recognize you. Thank you, Genevieve. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Olympia Hugo, Cultural and Community Services Supervisor, and these are representatives from our 2026 Summer at City Hall High School Internship Program. And so these students represent the 24 students who are selected in our partnership with the Oxnard Union High School District. to complete both a summer school class for credit and then also working alongside 20 of our city staff members who served as mentors for the students during a four-week program where they worked inside offices and programs throughout the city. And so we're very grateful for the staff who served and who continue to reach out to the students, check in with them, to mentor them as they grow in their academic journey, and then also prepare for professional work. Since the program, we actually have at least two students who've been hired in a part-time capacity to continue work with the city of Oxnard. We're very proud of them. And I also want to recognize Teresa Tellez and Jaime Moreno, our district partners. And I believe we also have a video that we can show that highlights different aspects of the program, specifically from this past summer.

The summer at City Hall is a hands on paid internship program in collaboration with the city of Oxnard that gives students the opportunity to learn, engage and experience local government from the inside. Students learn about structure and functions of city government, explore how different departments serve the community and gain real world experience working alongside city employees and professionals. The program encourages civic engagement and community involvement while helping students discover the many career opportunities available within local government. Most importantly, the summer at City Hall helps build a pipeline of future employees by connecting students with departments, careers, professionals who can help them see a future working in public service.

Hello, my name is Jaime Moreno, and I teach the internship program for the public service summer school program that we have here at the Oxnard Union High School District. The biggest goal for me is to get these kids experience in the workforce, really get to enjoy working for the city, earning high school credits and earning money. It really does give them something good to put on their resume and a really, really good life experience.

I'm an intern working in the records department for the city of Oxnard. Here I scan documents into police officers and people's criminal records. What I definitely enjoy about this program is definitely working with the police department. It's been really nice. We've gone on trips to see the SWAT and the fire department.

Hello, my name is Firefighter Caden Clark. I work at Oxnard Fire Department, Station 4. Today we had Oxnard High School students stop by to learn about the fire service and requirements to become a firefighter, what we have at the station, the tools we use on our fire engine, and then the types of calls we respond to. They got to check out where we live, we're home away from home. Some of them got to put on turnouts, get to feel what it's like carrying our gear and getting ready to respond into the houses that are on fire or rescues we go on. So we love having you guys visit, stop by, learn what it's like to become a firefighter and what Oxnard Fire Department does.

Today we're working for Oxnard Cultural Arts Department and we're doing murals because we want to make the community look better. And I think this internship has really helped us in terms of like getting the experience and like helping us like be responsible, communicate.

Last year, we had a few interns that interned with us as well as other departments in the city of Oxnard. And we had enough money in our budget for cultural and community services to hire some of them on. So we were very excited to welcome them into being a part of our team.

This internship, it really did help me get in the job with the city. I did my first internship during my sophomore year going into junior and my second junior going into senior. I graduated in 2026 and thanks to the internships, I was able to work here at DePaul. I would really, really recommend every student to go ahead and give it a try, even if you're scared.

Sometimes even going out of your comfort zone can really prove to you that you're capable of a lot of stuff.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Ms. Moreno.

Olympia, thank you.

And Teresa, thank you.

I'm certainly a big

supported this program. I know I had an opportunity to speak at the onset and I'll tell you for me it's personal. Some of you know I got my shot at working for the city when I was about 15 and a half years old as a student trainee and thanks to that opportunity it allowed me to work in the police department. It also allowed me to work for the parks department where I went out on weekends and picked up the trash at various city parks and cleaned the restrooms and stuff. I tell you, it's opportunities like that, like, look, you fast forward, and some 35 years later, I'm still here, right, thanks to the opportunity that I have with the city of Oxnard. A lot of what I have, I certainly owe to the city of Oxnard and the police department. They gave me an opportunity to work there. So congratulations to all of you, and hopefully you get a window to see public service. And hopefully some of you will stay and work here and make our community better. So thank you. Thank you very much. Any other comments?

Thank you very much. It's a tremendous accomplishment what you guys have done and the adults that are leading the program. I'd make a recommendation. or possibly this year, if you can work with these students. There's a lot of things in public works where there's an opportunity to make a tremendous income, stay local, and learn something. Water treatment, wastewater, tremendous opportunities for people that are interested, and I hope that you get a tour. I know Mr. Janhouser and Michael Wolf would do whatever they can to assist you to find out what it is. It's not all stinky sewers. There's a lot of things, and it's an extremely important part to the health, safety, and welfare of this community. or any community where they get their foot in the door.

I WASN'T GOING TO SAY MUCH, BUT I DO WANT TO RECOGNIZE THE PROGRAM. I'VE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO WORK ALSO WITH THE SCHOOL DISTRICT IN MY OTHER CAPACITY, AND I JUST WANT TO REALLY QUICK SHARE A STORY. MY FIRST TIME WORKING WITH THE DISTRICT, WE HAD A YOUNG LADY THAT INTERNSHIP WITH ME, AND SHE WAS 16, GRADUATED, ACTUALLY CAME BACK AS A TEMP. and is now still with me as a full-time employee. So that is the possibility for all these students and the opportunities that the city brings with this program is just amazing. So I do want to congratulate every single one of you and hopefully we will see you back working here at the city.

Thank you so much. And I just, you know, I'll close up. You know, these things don't happen by accident. They happen because of the vision of our leadership, of the collaboration, our highlight, Genevieve, who's here with the school district, the collaboration that we have with the schools, our clergy that's here, and various others that push us to really enact programs like this that benefit our entire community. So we are making an investment. and all of you to just propel you and give you that impulse that you need to start your life and give you that experience. So thank you very much for believing in us and participating in these programs that we put together.

Thank you.

And now we'll go to the next item on the agenda. This is the presentation by the Oxnard-Ocotlan Sister Cities Committee on their recent visit. And Melissa Garcia is going to provide an update. Thank you. And thank you, students. Thank you again, Teresa, Olympia. Thank you so much for coordinating this. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moreno. Thank you. Thank you.

I don't know if you guys want to sit down for this one. We're going to stand up and . Take it off. After, yeah. I'll wait till they get .

Good evening. My name is Melissa Garcia, and I have some members with me, Lupe Garcia, Priscilla Hernandez Herrera, Joaquin Romero, Margaret Herrera, Jaime Arroyo. GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL MEMBERS AND THE CITY OF OXNARD. I'M THE PRESIDENT. I'VE BEEN SERVING ON THE BOARD FOR TWO YEARS NOW, AND I CAN TELL YOU A LITTLE BIT ABOUT OXNARD'S SISTER CITY. FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO DON'T KNOW, IT WAS FOUNDED IN 1964. WE'VE BEEN A MULTICULTURAL SISTER CITY WITH OZLAN, MEXICO. IT'S IN THE STATE OF JALISCO. And every year we do an international exchange of families. And Tiffany Lopez and her family was one of the founders then. So we fostered lasting relationships with the understanding between the cities. As we navigate the complexities of today's world, our organization remains committed to promoting international friendship and exchange. We envision a future where our sister city Bond serves as a model for global understanding and cooperation, We will be at the Multicultural Festival on October 3rd, and we'll have our booth there. And also we're having a fundraiser at the Cabo Restaurant on October 19th. This past July, some of us were able to visit, and we have some things presented to Mr. McArthur and the city. On behalf of their mayor of Ocotlan, and they have and they're president of um okafon sister city thank you so we're gonna go up can we come up and present to you okay so okafon is actually there this is to mr mcarthur they're actually a furniture city maybe known for their um webless like furniture and so they have like a little chair and here's their little um person and this is their um church from oklahoma so we'll come up and yeah thank you thank you thank you yeah

Just a quick question. If somebody wanted to get involved with the sister cities, how would they be doing so?

Yes. So we'll be at the multicultural festival and I have pamphlets. Thank you very much. Thank you.

This is beautiful, look at that. This is gorgeous. so cute i have more stuff really wants you to come yes Well, it's here.

Let's see. It does nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's very difficult. OK. OK. Oh. Oh, she has it. OK. OK.

We have to really coordinate for you to go.

Thank you. Thank you so much. My little chair. Thank you.

Thank you again, Melissa. Thank you, Mr. Herrera. Thank you. Margaret, thank you so much. And Joaquin, thank you. We were really honored to have Mr. Andres Herrera up here, former city councilman. Mr. Andres Herrera, thank you so much. Thank you, sir. We will go to the next item on the agenda. I'm just going to make a quick announcement for myself. right around 7 o'clock. Please forgive me. I'm going to excuse myself to walk across the street to Plaza Park to participate and say a few remarks with the Mexican Consulate's office and with our radio station, Lime 103.7 FM, who is coordinating the celebration of Mexican independence. Tonight commemorates the evening back in 1810 when Padre Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla made a cry at the Pueblo of Dolores, where he essentially asked the people to fight and rebel against the Spanish crown to seek the Mexican independence. So I'm going to participate here. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to walk across the street. This also launches Hispanic Heritage Week where a lot of Latin American countries celebrate their independence here in September. So please forgive me, I want to excuse myself, but our Mayor Pro Tem Gabe Teran will lead the meeting. Thank you so much. We'll go to the next item on the agenda. This is item G. This is for public comments for items not on the agenda. And we have a few speakers. We'll start with Mr. Luis Garcia. Followed by Starla. Thank you, Mr. Garcia.

Good evening, everybody. I've been here a couple times already. And today I just wanted to recognize a lot of the work that the city has done for my request for services. They fixed the sidewalk on Staten Road. There was no sidewalk. It was taken over by a building. Now we have a sidewalk. We have high school students walking through there, which is awesome. I'm very happy. They also fixed Rose Avenue where they have a lot of potholes on the sidewalk. They went and covered all of them up, which is great. So I am happy for the work that's done. A year ago also I came and I brought attention about the railroad traffic because the railroad goes really fast. And I said the railroad signs are really old and worn out. And one of you guys said, oh, that's a good idea, or I need to do that. Nothing has changed. The signs are old. They're from 1950. They haven't been taking care of it. So it came to my mind that we have a serious accident here on Fifth Street turning into Ross Avenue. So I went, I took the time because it's part of the railroad safety that I'm concerned. So what I notice is there is a sign there, you know, it says there to stop here on the sign on the street. Minimum you have to stop minimum 15 feet from the railroad, not from the arm that it comes. The arm comes and then there is a line on the road. And 15 feet beyond that there is a sign. And the sign says, please stop here when flashing. Stop here. But the sign on the road is 10 feet forward. So cars park 10 feet forward from where it says stop here when flashing. I was stop, I was watching a heavy fuel tank came over, went past the line where the railroad, the arm comes down. He was stuck there. See, if the railroad arm comes down, where is he going to go? He's going to go to push forward or he's going to try to back down? So there is a sign that needs to be there. Either when you say stop here, if it says flashing, put the line on the street that says stop here, not 10 feet ahead. Or if you want to put a designated place, put a sign that says stop here with the red light. If it's red, stop here because it's confusing from what I saw. And I took pictures and video and I was upset. I went to the other side of the road on Ross Avenue and on Fifth Street when you turn to the right, there is no crossing signs on the road that says you're going to turn into a crossing railroad tracks. So I think you should go look at it. I went to look at it because I care. You should too. Anyway, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Garcia. Thank you for sharing. Thank you. Starla? Followed by Noemi Valdez.

Hi.

Hi. I hope you can hear me.

I have, my name is Starla Binger.

I live at Sycamore Apartments. I was with housing, but now they're taking it away in three and a half months from me. I don't know why, because they said they had funds for us and that we could stay there. So we signed the lease and now this letter says THIS LETTER SAYS HARDLY NOTHING, JUST IT'S DEPLETED BY THIS REALLY COLD, REALLY COLD LETTER. NO, WE'RE SORRY, WE CAN'T, NOTHING. AND I CALLED HOUSING AND THEY TELL ME NOTHING.

AND I DON'T HAVE ANSWERS. NO ONE'S GIVING ME ANSWERS.

And my friend looked up a lot of the things for me and said, oh, you're being treated really bad. They're ignoring you. They don't care about what you're going through. I got this letter Friday. And when I got it, I was shocked. The whole weekend was awful. I've been crying a lot. I feel like they're just abandoning me. Where am I going to be in three and a half months without that? And I've used it faithfully. I don't take advantage of anything or anyone. And it just scares me that I've done good with the voucher. I never took it for granted. And people are taking that for granted and getting away with it. And I never did that. I was so grateful. six years that I lived there to have a voucher and I can't pay the whole $1,800. So it's a big question mark right now in my life in three and a half months where I'm going to go and what I'm going to do. I feel so awful and it's not my fault. It's like they're taking the rug from under me and no one's giving me answers or We have resources, which I would promise we have resources. Don't worry. Well, nothing's going right. Nothing. That's why I came today, so you guys could know and be aware. If it was you, all of you, in three and a half months,

What would you do? Thank you, Ms. Binger. If you would just leave your information or our city manager will talk to you. We'll circle back. I see that we have members of our housing authority department here. We'll circle back with you, Ms. Binger. Thank you.

Mayor, the first individual that spoke about pictures. He's standing in the back. I don't know if he has pictures to share. Sure, Mr. Garcia.

Mr. Garcia, if you can just coordinate with maybe the police officer and we'll get those photos from you, okay? Ms. Valdez? Thank you, Alex.

Good evening, Mayor McArthur, council members, city staff. My name is Noemi Valdez, and I live in District 2 in the city of Oxnard. I am the proud president of Seroptimus International of Oxnard, and I have here my colleague, Ms. Sylvia Paniyawa, who is the director of services for our club. Seroptimus International of Oxnard has been a nonprofit organization in the city of Oxnard for more than 80 years. We are a worldwide organization, one of a few with a seat at the United Nations. Our mission and vision is to bring awareness of matters impacting women and young girls and not only bringing awareness but actions leading to educational and economic empowerment for women and young girls experiencing breast cancer, human trafficking, and domestic violence. Our dreams programs provide career pathway information to high school girls and monetary awards to head of household women who are continuing their educational goals. Seroptimus is preparing for our annual Bras for a Cause event on Saturday, October 3rd. This fundraiser supports the programs and services I mentioned as well as comfort kits for mastectomy patients. These kits are created, were created by our club members through direct feedback from from patients about the needs for and during their recovery. The kits are distributed by St. John's Hospital Cancer Center to patients throughout Ventura County. This year we are very proud to be partnering with the Ventura County Family Justice Center to fund a closed closet at the new, and I'm sure you've heard of, the Carmen Ramirez Family Justice Center in Oxnard. Now, statistics say that women and their families leave a dangerous environment with zero and nothing, so we feel that this closed closet is going to be essential in the recovery for women and their families. The center is scheduled to be open, I believe, and we believe next year, and it will deliver services in a caring and self- caring and safe environment for women and children impacted by domestic abuse. Oxnard residents are currently being served, but from the Ventura location. And this new location will address access barriers currently experienced by women and children of Oxnard. We mailed all of our council member and our mayor invitations early last week for the Bras for a Cause event. And I am here with a personal invitation to this worthy cause and for you to hear about how these services directly serve the Oxnard community. I have, and I believe Ms. Lully has passed out. Copies of a flyer which will be, which have been passed around to you with information on accessing tickets. I thank you for your consideration and we hope to see you at the event.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Valdez.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Question. Question. So for those that want to be part of this event, what's the best way for them to know about that? Is there a website they should go to?

Yes, there are. And at the very bottom of that flyer is our email and our website.

Could you tell the public that?

Sure, absolutely. Our website is oxnardseroptimist.com. And our email address is oxnardseroptimist at gmail.com. So we have a website that has all the information about our club and about all of our events. And then the flyer itself has the link to the tickets.

Thank you very much. I really hope you have a successful event.

Thank you so much. Thank you. It takes a village, as they say. Thank you.

Thank you, Normie. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bishop Lamont Hayes. Bishop.

To the honorable Mayor Lewis MacArthur, Mayor Pro Tem Tarrant, and Michelle Perez, and to our council member, our district, All of you, our city manager, Alex Nguyen, and then is he still back there? Yes. Chief Benitez, hopefully I get an invitation to the retirement party. God bless you. Thank you so much. I am happy to be here before you all again. I'm here with my representation and to my left I have I HAVE MY MEDIA AND MY PR PERSON SANDRA ROSE AND I HAVE MS. BOBBY GRANTHAM, MY TREASURER FOR THE VENTURE COUNTY RESOURCE CENTER. WE'VE BEEN OPERATING HERE IN THE CITY OF OXFORD FOR NOW FOUR YEARS. WE WORK WITH THE CITY PROVIDING RESOURCES TO THOSE WHO ARE IN NEED, PROVIDING transportation to the elderly, moving them, those who are disabled, providing resources to those who can't get to their appointments. A lot of the elderly that can't move, we help them move out of their homes free of charge, moving out of their storage units free of charge, out of their homes free of charge. And for the last couple of years, We have been helping providing free resources, rock the block events in your community. So we are helping this year. We're planning next year for the armed forces day parade. The city of Oxnard has not honored the armed forces. We're going to do this next year for the inaugural armed forces day celebration. we are bringing the armed forces celebration to the city of oxnard to this county i've reached out to the armed forces and they are excited to bring this to the county the senators has already responded that they're going to come and support and so i'm looking forward to you all the council to be there to represent i've left you some information as well and we're looking to do College Park. College Park is not an impact on the community, but we can actually use the circle and it's not an impact on the community. And the street that you can see on the parade route, I'm using the college, which I've already worked with the college, to use their parking lot H as staging and use the loop. And we're going to use the pavilion as a source of food so the military families and the dignitaries will have free food. You all will have free parking and designated parking. And so you will have come in and you will have a private parking and tenant area to see the parade and start and be able to have a, they will have, what's that? I'm sorry. It would be, it would be, you would actually have some places where you have seats. And so those are actually there for you. So the information is there. So please look at that. It would be grandstands was the word I was looking for. Grandstands will be there. So the information is there. So please look at that. And I'm asking for you all to put on the agenda, agendize a opportunity to do that, please. Thank you. I appreciate it, Bishop. Thank you. I would like to go with you on that walk. So I'm going to go with that.

Okay. Just hang out. We'll walk together. We're going to go on that walk. Sounds good, Bishop. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Rose. Thank you.

Mayor, we have some online people as well that might want to speak.

Yeah. We can go to the virtual speaker next, Madam Clerk.

Virtual speaker, if you can press star six to unmute and you have three minutes starting now.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor, members, staff, and the public. When I specifically asked how the Measure E $20 million shortfall would be covered if it fails to pass, a key star supporter replied, I quote, by reducing redundant administrative staff, end quote. His words, not mine. so the star slate would whack 150 to 200 positions from the city payrolls because eliminating staff is really the only path to cut 20 million dollars public safety personnel and the enterprise fund employees would be largely immune with everyone else's fair game programs benefiting children and senior citizens would be decimated the service center would be a ghost town Measure O allows our basic fire departments to have the best equipment and training in Ventura County. Do you want to lose that? City services are already stretched thin. Can you imagine the disruption in services if Measure E fails to pass? I was a proud city worker for 31 and a half years. I worked alongside many incredibly hardworking, dedicated individuals. We had a job to do, and we did it with pride for both our city and our community. To city staff, are you redundant administrative staff? I would suggest that all employees of the city of Oxnard take this libertarian takeover very, very seriously. Organize, get out on the streets, knock on doors, pass out flyers. Tell your family and friends to vote for council members Parilla, Teron, and Basuwa. These are your jobs. Our city's future is at stake. Thank you for the time and have a good evening.

Thank you. We'll go to the next virtual speaker, Madam Clerk.

Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem and council members, that concludes our virtual speaker.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Thank you. Sarah Bochewski. Thank you, Sarah.

I'M HERE TO GIVE YOU YOUR UPDATE ON ICE ACTIVITIES SINCE THE LAST CITY COUNCIL MEETING. current abduction numbers as of 7 30 p.m on september 12th is since the since january of 2025 we have had 2 650 people kidnapped in the 805 area code 1 256 of those in ventura county and 268 in oxnard Since the last meeting on the 1st, there have been, they confirmed ICE incidents with four abductions. On the 8th at 10 a.m., there was, we saw some of the ICE vehicles driving around in Fairborn. On the 9th, we, we saw the several of their vehicles um sorry i'm trying to read this but we confirmed two abductions on that morning on the 9th and community on the 11th community reported on ice on cooper road pulling over and an additional two confirmed abductions. And then this morning we had another abduction that we are confirming. So thank you.

Thank you, Sarah. Rubio? Followed by Mr. Larry Stein. Take it, Mr. Rubio.

Hello, Mr. Mayor, council members and city staff. I'm here representing the Chumash community. I'm a member of the Coastal Band Chumash Nation, and I am I sit on the board of directors as elders representative. I am also a member of the Cultural Resource Management Committee for the Coastal Band Chumash Nation. And we represent and have membership in the tri-county area of Ventura County, Santa Barbara County, and San Luis Obispo County. I'm also an employee here in Oxnard. I work at Entre Amigos, Among Friends, a nutrition and health center for seniors and developmentally disabled individuals. It's been brought to my attention by my supervisor at Entre Amigos and a member of the senior commission here in the city of Oxnard, Maggie Tapia, that the Carnegie Art Museum is in possession of human remains and has been in possession of them for quite some time, and that they've entered into an agreement with the Cogstone Research Management to repatriate those remains. But for some reason that has been stalled. There hasn't been any action on it for about a year. And as someone who has worked in cultural resource management, we identify human remains and all grave goods, archaeological sites as cultural resources. So we call this cultural resource management when we enter into the mitigation process for a disposition of those sorts of things. And so I'm here to ask the city of Oxnard and the city manager to include me in the discussions and dialogue with this organization, Cogstone, and the further disposition. And also I'm requesting that Those things be given to us. Those remains are the remains of our ancestors. We're the original people here in this area and in the Tri-County area. And I have reached out to the reservation and to several other Chumash organizations, and there's nobody who's been informed about this stuff is what I've been told. So I would like to find out who the city has informed about these remains. and who Cogstone management has informed about and how they've included the native indigenous people in the disposition of these human remains. It is in violation of NAGPRA, the Native Americans Protection and Repatriation Act. Thank you, Mr. Reel. To continue to possess them. And I want to lastly state that, This report that I received says that those remains are in a state of deterioration. They're covered in mold. And they're deteriorating even as we speak.

We're out of time. If you just leave your contact, I know we've got your name here.

I have my business card for my tribe, and I'd like permission to give it to the city manager.

Happy to take it. Very quickly, just for the record, the information you have is woefully outdated. Sir, the information you have is woefully outdated. We are following the NAGPRA rules and we'd be happy to give you an update later this week. I would like that very much. But your information is very outdated. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Mr. Rubio. Mr. Stein? Mr. Stein, you'll be followed by Senior Pastor Greg Runyon.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Good evening, members of City Council, staff. My name is Larry Stein. I'm the chairman of Lemuel Neighborhood. We're having a neighborhood meeting this Thursday starting at 6.30 where the items on the agenda will be first the discussion on Measure E, both pro and con, followed by a presentation by each of the candidates or the 5th District Council members. So I encourage the members of the public to attend. To my knowledge, it's the only time that there's going to be a discussion on Measure E, both on the pro and con positions. All the presentations I've heard about have only been on the pro positions. So people have ideas. There are many people who are in favor of Measure E. There are many people who are against Measure E for a number of reasons. And I'd like to take the opportunity to have these members make presentations, including Gabriella, who will be speaking, as well as the other candidate for 5th District, Naomi Corpez, if I'm pronouncing it correctly. But they'll be speaking again Thursday at 6.30 at Lemonwood School. I do need a translator. If anyone wants to volunteer translators, either from the quorum here or from somebody in the audience, I'm going to have to welcome a translator. Again, you can reach me at LPS00713 at Yahoo.com or OccidentActivist at AOL.com. Or you can call me on my cell phone, 805-824-4978. That's 805-824-4978. On a separate matter, I've made multiple requests to get documents pertaining to Measure E, particularly Spanish literature. I've gotten the English versions of the pro and con arguments of Measure E but anybody will get the Spanish versions of the arguments on Measure E, both pro and con. This community, as far as I understand, is at least 75% Hispanic. A large percentage of those people do not speak English, even though they vote. So I think it's a disservice to the community if the city is not providing documents to our residents who can understand English and Spanish, or Spanish, to get a full understanding of the pros and cons of Measure E. It can benefit people. It can hurt people. But it's up to individuals to read the documents and pay attention to what's going on in the city. I have a personal viewpoint on Measure E, but I went out using that viewpoint Thursday night. I encourage people to attend the meeting. I don't know how many people are going to show up, but I hope more than 20, but I would be surprised if we get less than 10. That would not surprise me, but again, that's excluding staff that would be attending. But anyways, again, I'd like to get a large number of people attending the meeting so we can hear what people have to say, both pro and con, on Measure E. It's very important to the city and the residents of the city. Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, Mr. Stein. Senior Pastor? THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. YOU KNOW THAT I'M GOING TO START YOU KNOW THAT I'M GOING TO START CALLING YOU SENIOR MAYOR. CALLING YOU SENIOR MAYOR. LONG STANDING. LONG STANDING. MAYOR AND VICE MAYOR COUNCIL, MAYOR AND VICE MAYOR COUNCIL, IT'S GOOD TO BE HERE. IT'S GOOD TO BE HERE. A COUPLE OF THINGS. A COUPLE OF THINGS. FIRST OFF, I WANT TO GIVE YOU A FIRST OFF, I WANT TO GIVE YOU A LITTLE ADVANCE NOTICE. LITTLE ADVANCE NOTICE. WE ARE FORMING A GROUP CALLED WE ARE FORMING A GROUP CALLED CLERGY IN ACTION. CLERGY IN ACTION. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A MEETING WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A MEETING OCTOBER 26TH AT THE VENTURA ROOM the OPAC, it'll be from 530 to 630. We will provide water, no meal. And it's going to be kind of a informational connection group where we want to connect the city, public safety, governmental agencies, and faith-based folks so that we can become a community again. I feel that we're so divided and we would like to have all of you attend and be a part of that to grow our connection together. Part of that is I was part of the clergy council years ago that did some really good things. And one of the great things from that group is I got to form relationships since 2008 or 2009. I was on the chief's advisory board. And I was very fortunate to see Jason and his growth and his presence in our city. And I just want to say that it has been an honor to watch him lead our community as not just a police chief, but as a community member and as a magnet. It took a lot of He's taken a lot of unfair criticism, but he's taking it as a solid man, as a good man. And he's always done, that I can tell, he's always done what has been best for our community, not what's been best for Jason Benitez. And so I just genuinely want to say thank you. I also want to say that I think we are very fortunate to have our new police chief be Rocky. I've known him and his family for a long time and I hope I don't get emotional, but he's always been there and he's always had a selfless heart. I know his family, not just his wife and his kids, but his extended family. he has always been there for them and i know that he will always be there for us so i hope that all of us can agree to try to be supportive of our community and even when we criticize them to do it with the idea of can we make oxnard better together so chief and oncoming chief thank you thank you pastor runyon and thank you mary we'll

Keep the place standing for you when you come back. All right. All right, Madam Clerk, do we have any additional speakers or is that the last one?

Mayor Pro Tempteron, we have a virtual speaker. Virtual speaker, if you can press star six to unmute and you have three minutes starting now.

Hello, Madam Clerk, I have a video to present and then a comment to make after the video.

Diego, if you can play the video.

Remember how Councilman Aaron Starr recruited three hand-picked candidates to run in the 2026 City Council election? Three people that he said would be part of his robust libertarian agenda? These three are John Barak running for District 1, Lizanne Nanez running for District 2, and Noemi Korpis running for District 5.

What I've done is I've recruited three candidates. Not only have I been recruiting candidates, but I've been raising money for them.

Something else that was discovered that linked all three candidates directly to Starr was all of them using the same out-of-county treasurer, Corey Wells. But you may wonder, so what? Well, let's take a quick look at their shared treasurer and some questions, maybe even red flags that have come up. First is an FPPC investigation into Wells. He was the treasurer for a ballot measure committee from the 2024 election and ultimately admitted to five counts of violating the Political Reform Act. He was delinquent in required financial filings and thus failed to timely report thousands of dollars in financial activities. In another instance, as the treasurer for the Tulare County Republican Central Committee, the committee was forced to pay $2,160 in fines to the Secretary of State under Corey's watch. So who recruited Corey Wells? Like the three Oxnard candidates, was Wells interviewed and handpicked by Starr and then imposed on his three recruits? But more importantly, a few key questions remain. First and foremost, are these three aware that they were recruited for the purpose of implementing Starr's libertarian agenda? Second, if Star did pick him as treasurer, do Star's chosen three candidates know about Corey Wells' past and current issues? And if they are just finding out about those issues, maybe even finding out because of this video, will they each terminate Wells as their treasurer? If Wells is some kind of Star acolyte, will the three candidates be bold enough to go against Star, the very person who himself has admitted to raising funds for them? web search of the phrase Corey Wells treasurer reveals even more questions and possible red flags. Just putting the questions out there. Let's see if they actually answer.

Another question that should be asked is to candidate John Baric. As a law and order prosecutor, did he not know or did he just not care that his campaign treasurer has a very questionable past? Are these the kind of people he and Starr associate with? We look forward to his and Aaron Starr's response to these questions. Those are my comments.

Thank you very much. And we have one final speaker, Alicia Purcell.

Well, that was interesting. I do wonder if Mr. Manuel Herrera will be doing a new video on two city council members who have been three and four years late with their filings i'll be very interested to see mr herrera's video on that as opposed to a vendor hired by people city hires plenty of vendors with lots of issues and we haven't seen videos on those but we all know the deal thanks thank you very much

Does that conclude our speakers, Madam Clerk?

Mayor Pro Tem, Eduardo Huerta would like to speak on this item.

Okay, Mr. Huerta, you'll be our last speaker. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Council. How are you guys? So, just really quick, I kind of just walked in and I walked into this video. I can be very vocal and very clear what's going on with this campaign, or I can be Like everybody else, join the club, join the circus. Communities haven't been put first. I think relationships, positions, you know, since I think 2017, I think after Carmen's passing, our city, District 5, became a major circus in our county. And at the end, it's position making. Everybody wants position. Everybody's been in council probably before COVID. A lot of us fought hard advocates, community members, ICOs, staff, you know, and take me back to the measures a little bit. It goes back to the the I guess the authors of the measures are the reason why they presented the measures infrastructure at the time it was presented. And so I think a lot of these issues should be credit to the right people. But at the end, a lot of the outcasts of the campaigns is what's really going to throw off the vote here and really get our community forward. I think we talk about defamations, we talk about bad characters, bad character judgment. You know, I think we let a lot of people retire and not take responsibility and help us. And they're kind of leaving our community on a hang. And that's very unfortunate because they think about their own retirements and they really don't think about our community or the people behind the movement or the families behind the movement. THE FAMILIES IS OUR COMMUNITY, AARON'S DISTRICT, AND I THINK THAT'S WHY AARON'S BEING BASHED RIGHT NOW BECAUSE OF EVERYBODY BEHIND THE MEASURES. WAS IT JACK VIA? EVERYBODY. uh this is something a few that i've been following because i've been i used to actually volunteer uh and help clean up medians with public services here and you know and so that's why i found out that we were having issues with our infrastructure and then i ran into gabe and i talked to him then things became personal between me and him because his connection with law enforcement at the time we were running for campaigns and endorsements so you know we're back into the same boat again And at the end, there's no pull for our community. Our nonprofits really need the support for Aaron's taking us to court. No pun intended. It's just the same issue from the very beginning. I think that if we all would have grouped together and I guess somebody I think was the pastor that mentioned about somebody mentioned about division. I think when things were presented to counsel as a constituent presenting to counsel, that was that was the concept of it. Avoid it. But then at the end, you guys kind of help. identify a lot that needed to be identified in order to move our county forward so i think it's really to take some responsibility on that position and i think that right now um you know i'm back in the v to run for district one i'm not here to advocate for my campaign because at the end i'm neutral my work supports everybody in council it supports my community supports my supervisors supports everybody so just want to make sure you guys are focused thank you thank you

Okay, we're going to move on to the next item, item H, report of the city manager, executive director, secretary. Mr. City Manager, you have the floor.

Thank you. Diego, if you can bring up the slide, and I'm going to invite our emergency services manager, Ms. Campbell, to come talk about this big training event. Ms. Campbell.

Good evening, Mayor Pro Tem, council members and community members present, as well as city staff.

Oh, sorry, I'm a little short.

I'm Candy Campbell, emergency manager with the Oxnard Fire Department, and we are planning a disaster preparedness event at the end of the month, September 26th, just in time for the projections for the Super El Ninos that are going to be hitting California with the severe weather we are projecting that's going to hit Oxnard. This community, this free community event will be themed to better prepare our community members. At this event, we're going to have four activity zones with multiple activities within each zone. Each zone is themed and will have different activities such as fire extinguisher training, first aid, pet first aid, pet preparedness, smoke alarm installation, flood preparedness, properly stacking sandbags, which is going to be important for potential floods in Oxnard. And this is a free community event and all Oxnard community members and outside of Oxnard that are going to be attending will also have the chance to win free emergency items that they can take home with them and start to build their emergency go bags. Yes, highlight those. Thank you. So we're really, really excited for this event. We're partnering with the Oxnard Police Department, Cultural and Community Services, and the American Red Cross to put this event on. This is the first of its kind. We're super excited. We really hope that all of our community members will come to this event with their families and take away just those basic skills so they can be better prepared for emergencies. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Ms. Campbell. Do we have any brief questions of her regarding the event? Very much look forward to being there. Hope the community comes out. Thank you for the update.

Thank you. And more information can be found in all of those individual activities at Oxnard.gov slash events. And you can click on Prep in the Park. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Additional items, Mr. City Manager? Is that it? Okay. Yes, sir. Okay. So we will now move on to the next item, item I. This is City Council Housing Authority Successor Agency Financial, excuse me, Financing Authority Business Committee reports. At this time, member of the legislative body may make a brief announcement or make a brief report on their activities. Further, members of the legislative body may request to schedule consideration of whether to place an item on a future agenda. Legislative body cannot enter into detailed discussion or take action on any item presented during this report. Members report shall not exceed three minutes unless additional time is granted by the presiding officer. So we'll start with the order the mayor typically goes in. We'll start with Councilwoman Perez if you have any updates for us.

Yes, thank you, Mayor Pro Tem. Just a quick update since our last meeting. I've attended our Blackstock Neighborhood Council and just wanted to take a moment to thank the leadership there, the community members that come out. I know that community is very active and really just takes lead on making sure that the neighborhood is welcoming place and just a place that neighbors can enjoy so just wanted to mention that. I also had the opportunity to attend the food share groundbreaking in South Oxnard and also just looking forward to continuing to attend all neighborhood council meetings to be able to provide that feedback to the city and just really appreciate all the the communication happening overall with constituents throughout the district. The last thing I wanted to report is that in partnership with the city of Oxnard. There is going to be a coastal cleanup by coastal keepers that will happen this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the end of Perkins Road and just wanted to make that invitation out to the community. And that is my report.

Great. Thank you.

Council Member Perlow. Thank you very much. Thank you to the speakers that came forward since the last council meeting. had the opportunity to attend the River Ridge Windsor North neighborhood council meeting the mayor had a discussion about like putting lights in Cardi Park it was not agendized but the discussion took place the meetings that I've attended or a bicep in a VCOG meeting coming up LAFCO and the VRSD meeting I do want to express my interest in the gentleman that talked about the railroad crossing. That sounds like something that we need to have a little further. And I do hope that he's got his photographs and he shares it with us. But again, thank you very much for the people that did take the time to speak.

Thank you, Council Member. I'll note that we did receive an email from the Public Works Director already just during this meeting about that. I haven't had a chance to look at it thoroughly, but it sounds like we might have some update to the gentleman's comments. Okay, Councilwoman Basuwa.

Thank you. I was thinking you were going to go next. No, no, no. So first of all, I would like to take the opportunity and really thank and congratulate CHIEF BENITEZ ON HIS UPCOMING RETIREMENT. VERY WELL DESERVED. THANK YOU SO MUCH. I'M SURE WE WILL GET TO SAY A LOT MORE. BUT DEFINITELY CONGRATULATIONS. AND ALSO TO OUR INCOMING CHIEF, YOU KNOW, I KNOW ARTISTS GOING TO BE IN GOOD HANDS JUST LIKE CHIEF BENITEZ SAID. SO I DID WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT I ACKNOWLEDGE THAT TODAY. I DON'T HAVE MANY UPDATES, BUT I DO WANT TO CLARIFY SOMETHING FOR THE RECORD. I AM GOING TO ATTEND THE LIMONWOOD NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL MEETING. MR. STEIN DID ASK IF I WOULD TALK AS A PRO FOR MEASURE E SINCE I WAS A SIGNER. HE THOUGHT I WAS A SIGNER ON THE MEASURE. I CORRECTED HIM AND I TOLD HIM I WAS NOT A SIGNER. SO I WANT TO MAKE THAT CLEAR. I'M NOT A SIGNER. but I did tell him I am versed in Measure E, and if invited, I can speak about Measure E. I do not plan on debating anybody. That was not what the ask was for, and I made it very, very clear. So he can go back to his emails and verify that. So I just wanna make sure that I am extremely transparent. It is what I call funny season, and it is funny season. I never agreed. to that. I will be there. If people ask questions, I will answer those questions. But I am not a signer on the measure. And I want to make sure that I clarify that. And those are all my comments.

Thank you. I'll have to update my notes from what I wrote earlier. Okay. Council Member Starr.

Thank you. So I attended the Rio Lindo neighborhood council meeting. A very interesting presentation by, I think her name is of the Venture County Public Health Agency. She gave a presentation on the opioid overdose prevention program. There are, I forget what they're called, but you can give them to somebody in an emergency when they're overdosing. Thank you. And they're giving that away for free, and it's harmless if it's used on somebody who is not having an overdose situation. So I think it's good that that's being promoted. I went to the West Village Neighborhood Council meeting. some discussion on the sports park and its possible future and Hopefully the folks there at the West Village neighborhood council will figure out what it is that they'd like to see they're they're having discussions about that and WENT TO THE EAST VILLAGE NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCIL MEETING, DISCUSSION OF MEASURE D, THE BOND MEASURE BY A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED WATER DISTRICT. IT'S A $350 MILLION BOND MEASURE, MOST OF WHICH IS TARGETED FOR THE SANTA FELICIA DAM SAFETY IMPROVEMENT PROJECT AT THE LAKE PYRO RESERVOIR. One interesting thing came up during the East Village meeting, which had to do with the parks. So we have neighborhood parks. And what I learned was that while we have a reservation system for the community parks for their use, we don't currently use such a system for the neighborhood parks. And the complaint I was hearing from some residents was that sometimes there are large groups of people that will attend, have an event at the park, they will not clean up after themselves, and it causes a problem for everybody else. The idea that was presented or suggested was that perhaps we could have some sort of refundable cleaning deposit for groups over a certain number, 20, 25 people, whatever it is. And that way, if folks are there, at least they'll be incentivized to clean up. after themselves if they do reserve a spot. And if they don't reserve a spot, then hopefully that will be readily visible by anybody who's looking at the reservation system. And they can call code compliance and say, hey, we got somebody here who's AT THE PARK IN A LARGE GROUP AND THEY HAVEN'T RESERVED A SPOT. SO MY REQUEST IS THAT STAFF LOOK INTO THAT, WHETHER THAT'S SOMETHING THAT'S PRACTICAL OR WHAT OUR OPTIONS ARE. THERE WAS A, I ATTENDED A VCOG MEETING WITH COUNCILMEMBER PERRELLO. ONE ITEM THAT CAME UP WAS THE, THERE'S SOME LEGISLATION, IT'S BASICALLY A PEPPER MODIFICATION. pension reform measure that was adopted I want to say back in 2012 or 2013 and there's a legislation I think it's on the governor's desk awaiting his signature which will basically roll back some of these pension reforms what what I'm told is that it will increase PENSIONABLE COMPENSATION, SO THE TYPES OF WAGES THAT ARE SUBJECT TO PENSION, AND IT WILL REDUCE THE RETIREMENT AGE, I WANT TO SAY FROM 57 TO 55 YEARS OF AGE, AND ALL THAT'S FINE, BUT MY REQUEST TO STAFF IS I'D LIKE TO KNOW, ALL RIGHT, WELL, IF THE GOVERNOR SIGNS THIS, OR LET'S ASSUME THE GOVERNMENT HAS SIGNED IT, uh what what will it cost us what's what's what's the dollar exposure to us for the additional pension costs and the cost of recruiting people because other people are retiring earlier that sort of thing so if assuming the governor signs it uh i'd love to have that report thank you thank you councilman rodriguez

Thank you for the recognition. I had my September 5th Councilwoman Hours at the library and I've had new people come and visit. It was great to see different folks from District 4 come and share different issues. I followed up with Housing, I followed up with Public Works, and hopefully folks are getting the responses that they need for the health, wellness, and safety of our community. I will be there again on October 3rd, and shortly after that I'll go to the Multicultural Festival. I went to Station 1 for the raising of the flag and honoring the 25th anniversary of September 11th. I can't believe it's been 25 years since that tragedy for our country and for all of us. I also had the opportunity to go to Frank Middle School because they have a personal connection to folks who were in one of the flights, the flight that crashed into the Pentagon. Frank Middle School has a memorial on their campus They were actually expecting some middle school kids ages 10 through 12 who were supposed to come and go to the Channel Islands and they didn't make it because they were on one of the planes that didn't reach their destination. So that was a very heartfelt way to celebrate or not celebrate, remember the 25 year anniversary of 9-11. I just want to remind folks for the Kamala Neighborhood Council, there is a meeting this week on Thursday, 6 p.m. at Kamala School. And then last but not least, Last weekend, I know I was busy with a lot of celebrations for Hispanic Heritage Month and Mexican Independence Day. I went to Oxnard College, and they had a lot of vibrant live music and much more. So I was in community with a lot of folks there. That's it for now. Thank you.

Thank you very much. All right. So just for me real quickly, there's a Fremont South Neighborhood Council meeting September 24th, 6.30 p.m. That'll be at the Police Activities League in their meeting room. And then River Park will have their next meeting on October the 1st at 10 a.m. And I also attended the September 11th Remembrance Ceremony at Fire Station 1 and saw Councilwoman Rodriguez there. And I believe I've attended that once. I remember that ceremony at Station One for a number of years. I believe the only time I wasn't able to go was when I was out of town for work. And it's great to see that it's a lot of the same community members who come each year and see them. But it's a bigger crowd this year, and I think because of the 25th anniversary, excuse me, the 25th remembrance of it. It is just a very poignant moment to remember the impact that that had on our country and on us as community. So thank you to all who put it together, and thank you to fire and police who were there, well represented. And my last item is... So last week, or excuse me, the week before, there was an issue that came up on lawn wood in the Carriage Square neighborhood, where I had a call from a neighborhood council member who stated that trees are being trimmed, but they're being trimmed improperly. and when it was looked into they weren't being trimmed improper they were being cut down and so the neighborhood the folks who live on that street especially were taken aback that their the trees along their street were going to be removed and there hadn't been much notice beyond a no parking sign on the tree and so Long story short, I want to give full thanks to the residents and to our public work staff for coming together and for our public work staff stating to the residents their apologies for missing the mark on that and not giving notice ahead of time. There were a number of things that fell into place that led to the trees being kind of a last minute thing for the contractor. for them to take on as a project. And they realize now that that was not the best pathway to do. And to everybody's credit, just last night, a last minute meeting for the Cary Square Neighborhood Council was held where the project was discussed in detail. about the trees, their failing health, and what the process would be after the removal, the replacement, and things moving forward. And so I want to thank Mr. Brandon Lopez and Steve Howlett and Mr. Wolf and all their team for jumping in on that. That could have certainly been a contentious A THING AS YEARS PAST, IT MAY HAVE BEEN, BUT THE CITY WE HAVE NOW AND THE STAFF WE HAVE NOW TOOK ACCOUNTABILITY AND CAME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD AND GAVE THEM ALL THE INFORMATION AND ANSWERED EVERY QUESTION AND EVERYBODY'S ON THE SAME PAGE WITH WHERE WE'RE GOING NOW. SO THANK YOU ALL WHO WERE INVOLVED IN THAT. YES, COUNCILMEMBER PERELO.

THANK THE COUNCILMEMBERS FOR THE REPORTS. I'D LIKE TO SHARE THAT I WENT TO FIRE STATION 6 FOR THE EVENT And it was an extremely sober event. But hearing the number of people that showed up at some of the other stations, I need to share this with the public. There were only five people there, two adults and three kids. And my credit to the parents that brought those kids, because there was also a reporter there. And the reporter asked me my concerns and my thoughts. And I told him, when I was born, Pearl Harbor Day was a big deal. I was born in 1950 after World War II. Pearl Harbor was a big deal. And as time went on, as a little kid, you knew it was a big deal, and time goes on and time goes on, and you find that you're getting older, the world goes on. Those little kids were not alive when this happened. There were some firemen that were not alive when this happened. I hope that we never forget, whatever your views on the matter, this was an attack on this nation. And I want to thank those two adults that brought their kids and the reporter that asked the questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember. City Manager, did you have something?

Yes, just a quick update on what I call the PEPRA unreform. Several months ago I participated with a group of city managers in the Central Coast area with Senator Limon's office, and everybody on the call made it very clear to them that this bill is a horrible idea. It would be a tremendous setback. Hopefully the governor will not sign it. BECAUSE IT WILL, AND THIS IS NOT JUST ABOUT OXNARD, IT IS EVERY CITY AND COUNTY, EVEN SOME, NOT ALL, BUT SOME, BUT CERTAINLY MOST, ALMOST ALL CITIES IN CALIFORNIA, IT WILL BE A TREMENDOUS SETBACK. SO IF THE GOVERNOR DOES SIGN IT, THEN CALPERS WILL THEN PROCEED TO RUN THE ACTUARIALS FOR ALL OF THEIR MEMBERS, INCLUDING US, AND SO AT SOME POINT WE WOULD GET THE NUMBERS. AND THEN WE WILL HAVE THEM FOR YOU THEN. BUT HOPING FOR THE BEST.

Thank you very much for that brief update. All right, next item on the agenda is review of the information consent agenda. Members of the legislative body will consider whether to remove info consent items for discussion later during the meeting. It seems that we have speakers on this. We'll get to those in just a moment. Do any council members have any consent items they wish to discuss? Council Member Starr.

Three, four, and eight. Three, four, and eight. One second here.

Okay.

Any other council members? So we will pull items three, four, and eight for discussion. I do want to share that as I've done with past items pertaining to agreements with the County of Ventura, I'll be recusing myself, Madam Clerk, from item L7 and L8, because L8 has been pulled for discussion. I'll turn the meeting over to Councilor Parillo when we get to that point. All right. So before we get to that, we're going to go to public comments for the info consent agenda. At this time, a person may address the legislative body only on matters appearing on the information consent agenda. The presiding officer shall limit public comments to three minutes. And we have a couple of cards here. If there's anyone else who would like to speak on the consent agenda, please place a card with the City Clerk, you may write your name if you'd like, but we do need to know who to call, or we need to know someone wants to speak. All right, so our first speaker is going to be Mr. Larry Stein, followed by Ms. Alicia Purcell.

Good evening, council members. MEMBERS OF STAFF AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC. I WISH TO SPEAK ON THE ITEM OF THE GRAND JURY REPORT OF FIREWORKS. I'M REALLY HAPPY THERE'S SO MANY ACCOUNTS THAT WORK FOR THE CITY BECAUSE EVERY TIME AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FISCAL PERIOD WHETHER IT'S JANUARY 1ST OR JULY 1ST PEOPLE WANT TO CELEBRATE THE FIREWORKS. ALL THESE ACCOUNTS ENJOY THIS OPPORTUNITY TO DO THE STARTING OF THE NEW YEAR. We have a lot of police cars out in the cities at this point in time. But why are these cars marked instead of driving around unmarked cars? Because many officers say, well, we can't find anybody because we're driving around marked cars, and people see marked cars, they stop. Well, this has been going, what, for 20, 30 years now? You drive around unmarked cars, and people see a marked car, and they stop. Why? Why don't you drive around unmarked cars if you really want to stop the problem? Perhaps not the same intent to stop the problem. Some people enjoy the fireworks. Some people don't. Some people find it annoying. My cats find it annoying. I find it somewhat annoying. When I'm in my office trying to get work done and fireworks are going off, it's somewhat disconcerting. Right behind my property is acres of ag land, county land, different jurisdiction, and now city land. but somehow a lot of fireworks are being distributed and go off all sorts of times. But when I call for service, because we provide exceptional service by the police department, when I call for service, I can't get a response. I've called five to eight times. They might respond once. So if we have this wonderful police department that provides exceptional service, how come I can't get it? Is it because I'm making the phone call and not somebody else? I'm somewhat concerned. If the city police wants to control fireworks, drive around unmarked cars and take action. If you don't want to enforce fireworks, go ahead and let people complain about it and ignore them. That's what seems to be going on to me. I make calls as often as 4 o'clock in the afternoon. The lights are still up. People are shooting up fireworks. Again, many people are complaining about the fireworks. If I call it five times, is it going to count as one call? Or does each time I call, is it reported as a claim? LINES ARE SO BUSY THAT MY CALLS DON'T GO THROUGH SOME OF THE TIMES ON THE CELEBRATION OF FISCAL PERIODS. AGAIN, THERE'S SO MANY ACCOUNTANTS IN THE CITY WHO CELEBRATE BEGINNING FISCAL PERIODS BOTH IN JULY AND JANUARY. I'M REALLY PLEASED WITH THE ACTIONS OF THE NUMBER OF ACCOUNTANTS THAT ARE REALLY CONCERNED ABOUT OUR CITY. THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR TIME.

THANK YOU, MR. STEIN. OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS ALICIA PURCELL FOLLOWED BY DOUG.

My comments relate to item L4, and I just want to point out that we're still waiting for this report to include the contracts that are under $100,000. I first requested this some months ago, and staff said, sure, we can do that, no problem. You know, still waiting for that to happen. I recently looked online at the contracts that are posted there. And again, you know, just as with this report, it only shows ones between 100,000 and 220. It doesn't show the under 100,000 contracts. And those don't come to council. So the public is not likely to know they exist. They don't come. They don't come here. But another thing I see there, I do see there, is a lot of contracts that are either single source or sole source, which means they haven't been bid out. And this includes things that, at least at first blush, seemed to me like they would be available from many vendors, and thus we could bid them out. So the number of those I thought was... And lastly, I just have a question. Maybe staff could clarify for me the difference between a sole source and a single source. What are the difference between those two definitions? That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. And we have Doug.

Good evening, everyone. The agenda item I'd like to talk about is the fireworks. I've come before the council many times about the fireworks. I got involved with the fireworks issue back in 2020 when my wife was a dialysis nurse. And at that time, she had to get up at 3 o'clock in the morning. They put their patients on dialysis at 4 and they treat them for about three hours. And then that way they can go to work. And so my wife was getting up very early. And we were experiencing just a tremendous amount of the really loud dangerous kind of fireworks and they were going off at all times of the day and into the early morning hours and maybe because it was coven people were blowing off steam and. You know, it was just a really bad year for the fireworks. It was 2020, and that's when I got involved. And I posted on social media about the issue. I posted a lot of suggestions that I had to mitigate the issue. And I actually got a call from the mayor. Mayor Tim Flynn called me. I didn't know how he got my number, but he called me. And I had never really been involved with anything locally in terms of politics or anything like that. And he asked me to start a task force about the fireworks. So I did. So I worked with Tim on that. And unfortunately, it didn't go as well as I hoped because we kept in touch about it. I was actually patrolling nightly to find out where the fireworks were. The police department was suggesting that people take pictures or videos and call it in. And there was an email that you could call these things in. And I was doing that actively. I mean, I called in like 22. And I mean, I had the address. I had a video. I had everything they were asking for. And I'd wait for them to show up. And sometimes they did and sometimes they didn't. But little was done. And when I stopped patrolling and just kind of threw up my hands is when some lady posted a ticket she had gotten. And it wasn't a ticket. And she was upset because she wasn't lighting the fireworks. But she had gotten a warning. And then I had asked the police department, are you just giving warnings? And yeah, they were just giving warnings. So it's like, no. And now we've passed an increase in fine structure for fireworks, but we're just not getting the enforcement. We're not going to solve fireworks. People are always going to do fireworks. It's illegal in Oxnard. But we can mitigate it. And a lot of cities have taken a lot more measures. A lot of the suggestions that I presented to my councilman, and he blocked my email, wouldn't even talk to me about it, were from other cities that actually had mitigated their problem with about the 11 items that I listed as what worked in other cities. Maybe we could try that. No, can't try that. Well, here we are six years later, and we're dealing with the fireworks.

Thank you very much. Madam Clerk, do we have any additional speakers for the consent items?

Mayor Pro Tem and council members, that concludes our speakers in person and virtually for the information and consent agenda. Thank you.

Thank you. Before we move on, I don't wish to pull this item for discussion. I just want to make a comment on L9 for the fireworks, the grand jury report. I hope folks will take a look at the report. It's actually telling across the county what many people experience here. They can see what other cities are dealing with. But I want to make note that the grand jury report actually commended the city of Oxnard for doing the most out of all of the cities in the county. And it's right there in writing by the grand jury themselves. And yes, there's a lot going on, but I think that tells you the scale of it if they're saying we're doing the most about it. So anyways, I encourage folks to take that, take a look at the grand jury report. It is available on the website and I believe it's on our attachments. Okay, so let's go ahead and go to the pooled agenda items. Let's see here, excuse me. Oh, excuse me, do we want it? I'll entertain a motion for the items that have not been pulled with me recusing from item L7, Madam Clerk.

I'll make that motion that we approve the items that we have not pulled.

We have a motion by Councilor Starr. Do we have a second?

Second. I'd like to also compliment the City of Oxnard because the grand jury complimented Oxnard extremely multiple times. And I hope the two individuals that made their comments, I hope that they take an opportunity to read that report. It was amazing how much City of Oxnard got complimented.

Thank you. Madam Clerk, we have a motion by Councilor Starr and a second by Councilor Perlow. May we have the vote, please?

Mayor Pro Tem and council members, if you can go ahead and cast your vote. Thank you. And this motion carries six to zero. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay. So we have, let me get myself situated here. Excuse me. We have item L3 that we are pulling. This is Deferred Development Impact Fee Agreements for Aspire Apartments.

Excuse me.

Internet's slower, here we go. Okay, recommendation that the Oxnard City Council approve and authorize the mayor to execute an agreement with Aspire Apartments, LP, a California limited partnership A-8614 deferring development impact fees until the time of final inspection or the date of certificate of occupancy is issued, whichever comes first, in the amount of $2,207,359.89 for the Aspire Apartments Project PZ21-200-01 Downtown Design Review Permit. And we have Mr. Pangilli here. And are we excusing the commissioner? Madam Clerk?

um mayor pro tem and council members if we can have a motion for items l2 l5 and l6 and that would be for the housing authority thank you yes excuse me mr pingley let's take a step back on that may i entertain a motion as mentioned by the clerk just now so moved

I SECOND.

WE HAVE A MOTION BY COUNCILWOMAN RODRIGUEZ AND A SECOND BY COUNCILWOMAN STAR. MADAM QUIRK, DO WE HAVE A VOTE ON THOSE HOUSING ITEMS?

VICE CHAIR THERON AND COMMISSIONERS, IF YOU CAN GIVE ME ONE MINUTE JUST TO ADD, COMMISSIONER, THANK YOU.

YES. AND EXCUSE ME, A MOTION BY COMMISSIONER RODRIGUEZ AND COMMISSIONER STAR.

And Chair Thidon and commissioners, if you can go ahead and cast your votes. Thank you. And this motion carries 7-0 for the Oxnard Housing Authority. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Does that conclude our housing business for the evening, Madam Clerk?

Vice Chair Theron and Commissioners, yes, that concludes the business for the Ochsner Housing Authority. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Commissioner. Okay, so let's pivot back to item L3. And we have Mr. Pangilli. I'll turn it over to you, Council Member Starr.

Thank you so much. So I did, I looked at this and I said, oh, this is familiar. So it was back at the May 19th meeting. We also deferred about $2.2 million for permit fees. I do see that there's a reference in there then to that meeting in the staff report But but what I had my request is that if a future agenda item is to defer fees on our projects I'd like the staff report to mention the cumulative deferrals approved to date on that project and whether there are additional deferrals that are anticipated so that would kind of get a big picture of Whether for a given project how much we're going to be deferring a payment of fees THE OTHER ITEM I WANTED TO MENTION WAS THAT AT THE TIME I DID MENTION THAT I'M GENERALLY FINE WITH THE CONCEPT OF DEFERRING FEES UNTIL THE BUILDING IS COMPLETED. I MADE A REQUEST THAT LOOKING AT GOVERNMENT CODE 66007, I KNOW THERE'S SOME LANGUAGE ON THERE THAT SAID THAT ON OR BEFORE AUGUST 10TH OF EACH YEAR, THE BUILDING OFFICIAL OF THE LOCAL AGENCY SHALL FURNISH IN WRITING TO THE COUNTY AUDITOR A DESCRIPTION OF EACH PARCEL OF LAND FOR WHICH A PERFORMANCE BOND OR LAW OF CREDIT HAS BEEN not been posted within the local agency jurisdiction upon which fees or charges are unpaid and the amount of the unpaid fees or charges. So I don't know if that's been filed yet, but my request is that when it is filed, if we can have a copy of that, that would be very much appreciated.

THANK YOU FOR THE QUESTION. THANK YOU FOR THE QUESTION. MAYOR PROTEM COUNCIL, JEFF HENGELY, MAYOR PROTEM COUNCIL, JEFF HENGELY, COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR. COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR. ON THE SECOND QUESTION, WE ALWAYS ON THE SECOND QUESTION, WE ALWAYS REQUIRE A SURETY BOND OR BOND OF REQUIRE A SURETY BOND OR BOND OF SOME SORT SO WE DON'T HAVE THE SOME SORT SO WE DON'T HAVE THE AUGUST 10TH FILING REQUIREMENT. AUGUST 10TH FILING REQUIREMENT. SO WE'RE ALWAYS CAREFUL TO GET SO WE'RE ALWAYS CAREFUL TO GET THAT. THAT. AS TO YOUR FIRST QUESTION, I'LL AS TO YOUR FIRST QUESTION, I'LL GET SOME CLARIFICATION. GET SOME CLARIFIC

Since the first time we deferred 2.2 to 3 million, I think it would be helpful to have that also mentioned in this report so that I know that so far we're in for I guess 4.43 million at this point in deferred fees. And maybe if there's additional ones that are coming down the road, it would be nice to know what those would be as well. I understand your question.

They're not to be added together and that should have been clarified in the report. FROM MAY 19, YOU MENTIONED THE DOLLAR AMOUNT A MOMENT AGO, 2.23, ROUGHLY A MILLION DOLLARS. THAT IS EFFECTIVELY REPLACED BY THIS NEW DEFERRAL. SO IT'S A SLIGHTLY SMALLER AMOUNT, ABOUT $15,000 LESS.

THAT'S VERY ILLUMINATING. THANK YOU. COUNSELOR PERLOW.

I HAVE A QUESTION, MAYOR I appreciate you asking these questions, and I appreciate that you read very detailed questions that you had. I mean, really detailed. And I'm wondering, did you have the courtesy to share it with staff so we wouldn't blindside staff? I think that's a common courtesy a councilman could do to staff, because I see the gentleman looking for the paperwork where you didn't even give page numbers. You can do better than that, I hope. I mean, I think as one councilman, I hope. I don't know how the rest of them feel, but I would hope that you wouldn't do that to a staff member.

I think that our staff members are very well prepared.

They are, but you didn't answer my question. Did you give them a heads up, Mr. Starr?

Are you done with your comment, Councillor Perlow?

I guess I don't get one.

Thank you. I think that point's taken. I think we've made it a number of times on this dais, and I have to remind myself of that at times as well. So thank you. Okay, so that will conclude the questions regarding item L3. And the recommendation on this was as read earlier, I'll entertain a motion from the body. What's the pleasure?

I move the recommended action so that we approve the mayor to execute the agreement, et cetera, et cetera. I'll second the motion.

Thank you. We have a motion by Councilwoman Rodriguez and a second by Councilwoman Perez.

Mayor Pro Tem and council members, if you can go ahead and cast your vote for L3. Thank you. And this motion carries six to zero. Thank you.

Thank you very much. ALL RIGHT, SO NOW WE ARE GOING TO MOVE TO CONSENT ITEM L4, SUBJECT MONTHLY REPORT OF THE LIST OF CITY MANAGER APPROVED CONTRACTS WITH ACCOUNTING OF ALL RECEIPTS, DISBURSEMENTS AND FUND BALANCES, RECOMMENDATION THAT THE CITY COUNCIL RECEIVE AND FILE A REPORT AND ACCOUNTING OF ALL RECEIPTS, DISBURSEMENTS AND FUND BALANCES FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE 2026, AND TWO, RECEIVE AND FILE THE LIST OF CITY MANAGER APPROVED CONTRACTS FOR THE MONTH OF JUNE 2026. AND I'LL, COUNCILOR RESTORE YOU PULL THIS ITEM, I'LL TURN IT OVER TO YOU. Thank you.

So we've got the advantage of being able to see a full year versus a full year of activity. Often the timing differences that you might experience in one year wouldn't be the same as the timing differences in the next year. So my hope is that this covers the entire period at this point and it's not, there aren't further other than normal audit adjustments that are made, that there aren't any further adjustments to the unaudited figures. Is that correct?

Good evening. Chief Financial Officer with the City of . And no, it won't be correct because we're still making journal entries through the month of July and through the month of August. As an example, sales tax are not received until, for the month of June, are not received until the end of August. And that's just an example. for the modified accrual that applies to the general fund. We have up to 60 days to recognize expenses through the fiscal year. So the answer to that is there's still transactions that have been posted since the publication of this report. that will be reported to the auditors in the final trial balance.

So I'm trying to get to an apples to apples comparison. And if one year has the modified accrual basis and the other year does not yet, it's hard for a member of the public or a council member to look at these figures and go, OK, I've got some solid figures here for both years. I can compare. So I don't know what the solution is to that. But when you look at the figures, it almost looks like we're running about roughly 91% of what last year's figures were for sales tax. And if the case is that we simply have additional amounts that need to be recorded, YOU KNOW, IT WOULD BE HELPFUL TO KNOW WHETHER WE'RE ACTUALLY GETTING CLOSE TO WHAT OUR TARGET WAS OR AT LEAST AS GOOD AS WHAT THE PREVIOUS YEAR IS. RIGHT NOW, FROM WHAT I'M SEEING, I CAN'T DISCERN THAT FROM WHAT I'M SEEING HERE.

NEW SPEAKER SO THAT'S WHY WE, WHEN THESE REQUESTS CAME TO PREPARE THESE REPORTS, staff basically indicated that the challenge of those comparisons and we recommended that the best way to do those comparisons because it's a final audited numbers complete activity for the fiscal years is to compare the audited financial statements, the information that is published in the ACFR. And like we are indicating in the report, this is just a reference. We're always going to have those timing differences, and that's why we recommend that to make those type of comparisons, it's the best thing is just to look at the audited financial statements.

Well, I'd like you to consider the possibility that you could do it on a cash basis for both years for comparison purposes. I get it that it's great to have audited figures, But comparing audited figures with unaudited figures just makes it difficult. So if there's a way, if there's a way to get the figures before the change, before the audit adjustments, so that we can compare apples to apples, that at least be something.

I'm not sure if I follow the request.

We can talk afterwards. Okay.

I can say it and I know you're being very respectful. I'm sorry I have to chime in here. I know I know you're being extremely respectful, but this is what happens when we think we know and we don't know. I would encourage Mr Star to please please give an opportunity to staff. If you have questions, ask them governmental accounting is just so different than you know. the private sector. And to compare, you're comparing apples and oranges. And I am so sorry that you are in this spot. It just goes on and on to see the inability of some people just not to see that we're a government. And I'm trying to be as nice as I can. But I apologize. I feel for staff. I really do. I get to wear your hat. And I am so sorry. I apologize. I don't know what else to say.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Are there any additional comments, Mr. Chaglin?

No, that's fine.

And I did have, did you have something, Councilmember Perlow? Yes. Because then I'll let you speak again, Councilmember Star.

Thank you. If you want something, Mr. Starr, you said cash to cash. Why don't you make a suggestion to have the Finance and Governance Committee consent that versus asking our Chief Financial Officer to change the whole policy the City of Oxnard's going? You're trying to sidestep the process that you're in support of.

Thank you. Counselor Astari had an additional comment, and then we're going to move on.

Yeah, one of the questions that was asked was, and I don't know if you know the answer to this or somebody else does, but one of the speakers mentioned single source versus sole source, and I was wondering if some member of staff could provide a definition, if there's a distinction between those two terms, or if they are actually just synonymous with each other.

So there is a distinction, and we actually have a form that we have for each of our procurement contracts, RFPs, RFBs. It actually defines that, and I can get that to you tomorrow. But, yeah, there are clear definitions of sole source and single source, so we can get that information to you.

OK, thank you very much. And I heard you offer to our CFO to speak afterwards. So perhaps at the next council meeting, you can update us and council member comments on the outcome of that discussion. So thank you very much. Or not. It's up to you. All right. So that was a receiving file. So there's no action required on that.

I have a question. Mayor Pro Tem, you asked the council member to update us on he's going to have a discussion with the chief financial officer. And I think I heard Mr. Starr say maybe not or not. You won't address whatever you find out and share with the council. I could have misunderstood you because sometimes it's difficult to pick up your voice. Your voice gets kind of buried. Okay, council member. Can you tell me?

We're going to go ahead and move on.

No, Mayor Pro Tem, I want an answer.

You would like an answer to my recognizing he offered to the CFO that maybe we can talk afterwards? I said, well, based on that conversation, perhaps you can update us at the next council meeting. He said, or not. That was what I heard as well. He's nodding his head yes.

That's what I'm asking. Is that what you said, Mr. Starr?

I was pretty clear. Okay.

All right. Thank you. All right. At this point, we are going to now move on to the last agenda item that was, excuse me, consent item that was pulled. This is item L8, and I'm going to turn it over to you, Councilor Parillo, to steer the ship for a few moments. While you're looking up the, or turning to that page, Mr. City Attorney, as it's been the practice with past consent items that were pulled that I'm recusing from, I don't have to leave the dais, correct?

However, since there is individual discussion going on on this, had it been a group and you're taking a vote on that, then you don't have to leave really, but this one has been separated out.

Yes. Well, I wanted to say I'm going to leave, but I wanted to just get that on the record just because we have past practices, but. Oh, excuse me, Councilor Parilla, there was a receiving file for item L4, so we've moved on from that. Thank you, though. Okay, I'll turn it over to you. Thanks.

ITEM L8, SUBJECT, FOURTH AMENDMENT TO COST SHARE AGREEMENT FOR THE NAVIGATION CENTER BETWEEN THE CITY AND THE COUNTY OF VENTURA. THE RECOMMENDATION THAT THE CITY COUNCIL, NUMBER ONE, APPROVE AND AUTHORIZE THE CITY MANAGER TO EXECUTE THE FOURTH AGREEMENT TO AGREEMENT NUMBER A8462 FOR FISCAL YEAR 2026-2027, INCLUDING ANY CHANGES NECESSARY TO EFFECTIVATE THE AMENDMENT WITH THE COUNTY. 2 Establish a January to January annual rate of inflation and point 3 Authorize the city manager to execute future amendments for inflation adjustments This item did not originate in committee.

Mr. Starr Mostly this is just a comment. I do intend to vote against this I I don't believe that contract should be just on some sort of automatic pilot where adjustments are made administratively. I think that if there's going to be a request for an increase, whether it be at the rate of inflation or something below that, I think it really should come back to this council for that decision. So that's just a minor issue that I have, but for that reason I'll be voting no. Thank you.

Any other council members have a comment? Or does staff want to address the comment that Mr. Starr, you did? Ms. Lopez?

Brenda Lopez, housing director. So just to add clarifying language, the budget will not be administratively approved. In the staff report we do describe that we are requesting setting a benchmark for us from January to January just so that we can budget and we can prepare. But the budget does get approved on an annual basis with our regular budget process. So we would not be approving a budget without first bringing it back to council via our regular budget process. It's just that right now the agreement does not specify what month. It just says you can do it in May. But we need a benchmark so that we can do our math, calculate, prepare, present it before council for budget approval. Then it gets signed. So just to clarify, we would not arbitrarily change a budget. The budget has to be approved via our regular process.

I'm talking about the the agreement so the agreement talks about change to section 2e where it says that City staff seeks authorization for the city manager to execute such I'm reading this from page 174 City staff seeks authorization for the city manager to execute such amendments administratively as well If approved annual adjustments that do not exceed the rate of inflation may be executed administratively by the city manager and My my issue is that I don't think that that should be approved administrative. I think it's I still think it should come back to us For our final approval. I think it's reasonable to say that inflation would be probably a reasonable adjustment but I still think that should come back to us so we can decide hey maybe we're maybe we shouldn't be on automatic pilot maybe we should spend less on this maybe spend more certainly if we consider spending less that's something that should we should the opportunity to look at and right now we won't if this is just automatically uh adjusted each year thank you do you wish to make a motion in that vein No, I was just basically saying that, I mean, unless folks want to do it, my assumption is that you all want to do this and that I'm just going to be voting no and that's okay. But if folks want to strip that change, I'm certainly open to that.

Appreciate that and I offer you the opportunity to make a motion because I know there's a tremendous difference between wants needs and desires And I don't know if that was just simple want or a desire that you have that you want that Basically is part of this action. Do you want to make a motion to that?

I just before before we go into making a motion, I just want to make sure that I understand fully when we approved our budget, we gave an allocation to what we would be spending in housing. And what I just heard Miss Lopez clarify was the administrator or the changes to account for inflation or anything like that wouldn't surpass the budget that we've already approved. I think what I'm hearing from another council member is that every amendment, any change needs to come back to this board for full evaluation. My concern with creating that precedent would mean I don't want to be delaying things that potentially we've already approved a certain line item in that budget. and having to bring every single thing back to our desk may delay things. I'm just not sure on the timeline. So something to consider. But I do appreciate somebody shining a light on a concern on the potential loopholes, what I'm hearing, if there was changes to administrative costs and somebody having a discretion over it or not.

Thank you. So just to clarify, this agenda item seeks an amendment to the agreement. So today, the way things stand, it comes back to us. That's going to change in the future if this is adopted, where it just won't come back to us, at least if it's under the rate of inflation or at the rate of inflation. So that's just my position. My position is just simply that I don't want to have that sort of administrative I'm not proposing a motion at this time because I don't think there's the appetite for it. But that's where I'm coming from, and that's why I'm voting no. Does any of the council members have?

Council Member Basuah?

You know, what I'm hearing today is a lot of micromanaging coming up from a body that is here to set policy. My intent is not to micromanage staff. BUT LET'S TALK ABOUT CONTRACTING. WHEN WE ISSUE A CONTRACT, THERE ARE AMENDMENTS TO THE CONTRACT BASED ON YEAR ONE, YEAR TWO, YEAR THREE. WE DON'T, AND THE REASON WE DO THAT IS BECAUSE THE AMOUNT OF TIME THAT IT TAKES STAFF TO PUT A CONTRACT TOGETHER CAN BE WITHIN SIX MONTHS. FROM THE TIME IT GOES OUT TO BID, EVERYTHING COMES BACK, THEY'RE CHECKING EVERYTHING. SO THEY WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT, YOU KNOW, WE ARE SETTING You know, staff have, we have the right to ask for another year extension, another year extension. The company has a right to, you know, have an increase. If we were to go out and do this every year, you'd never get any work done. That's one thing. Second thing is, is that we would not get any contracts because you're trying to tell somebody that you're trying to do business with, by the way, If there's no inflation, you don't get a raise. By the way, your employees are not worth it because you're asking for a 3% increase on year two and I'm making the decision that you're not worth it. That is what our council members asking us to do. I again go back to we are a body that we create policy. This is not good for any city to be able to micromanage. We would never get anything done. And to add additional issues with contracts that are already hard for government to do, because we have to ask for bonds. We're asking for all this overhead to happen. And I can't capture that in my mind. So I just want to make sure that, you know, I address that and that I acknowledge all the hard work that goes into this. And what Mr. Starr is asking will be detrimental to the city.

Do you have anything you want to say? Any other questions? Housing director, do you have any final comments?

Yes, I just, I want to reaffirm just for clarity because what I'm hearing are two things. So to confirm understanding on this, this is the cost share agreement with the county of Ventura. We have an agreement in place where they pay half of the cost for our navigation center. So this goes into effect July 1st of every fiscal year. So the county is able to execute on their end and say your city council approved such and such budget for this fiscal year. We're going to pay half and we need to have a contractual agreement in place. The county is ready to sign saying we will cover half of the cost. The city also needs to be able to sign. So we're here before you asking for that authority so that we can sign. But I want to reiterate again, the budget comes before you before all of this comes into play. So you would have approved the budget. But for us, we need a benchmark so we can come before you so we can assess, do we recommend a contracted, updated amount? We're looking at a benchmark. And then we come before you. REITERATE THAT YOU APPROVE THE BUDGET BEFORE THIS. SO IF YOU LOOK AT THE STAFF REPORT, BUDGET WAS APPROVED, IT'S GOOD TO GO. THAT WAS APPROVED. WE ARE SIGNING THE COST SHARE AGREEMENT SO WE CAN START OUR REIMBURSEMENT PROCESS WITH THE COUNTY.

CAN I JUST ALSO ADD, PLEASE, GOING BACK TO SECTION 2E, SO THIS IS SOMETHING THAT APPARENTLY THE COUNTY HAS ALREADY MADE THE DELEGATION OF AUTHORITY AND IS VERY SPECIFIC ABOUT THE BUDGET INCREASE Within the inflation number and it states that I think this is the final sentence Any proposed budget increase that is greater than the annual inflation? Would remain subject to City Council and County Board of Supervisors approval So you're approving this within that range. So that doesn't seem to me to be unreasonable. I'm not sure what you're meaning, Council Member Starr, about this thing being on autopilot from that perspective. So this is a funding agreement and a partnership between us and the county to provide various homeless services. So it's not entirely similar to a contract, though I would say in the contracts when we approve the budget, there's a contingency. AMOUNT AND THEN USUALLY IT'S THE IN MOST CASES THE PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR WOULD MAKE THOSE DECISIONS. BUT IT'S ALREADY APPROVED. SO I DON'T KNOW IF YOU WANT TO GO SO FAR AS TO ASK FOR THOSE TO COME BACK AND GETTING TO THE POINT OF BASICALLY GRINDING THE GOVERNMENT DOWN A LITTLE BIT TO AN EVEN SLOWER SPEED THAN WE'RE INFAMOUS FOR. THANK YOU.

Thank you. Any further comments for council? Housing Director Lopez, thank you very much for what you've added to this discussion.

I'm looking for a motion on this item.

I'll second.

Okay.

Madam Clerk, can we vote?

Council members, if you can go ahead and cast your vote, please.

The speakers have already spoken.

Thank you, and this motion carries four to one.

Thank you Thank you Mayor pro-chamber it's gonna be back Oh

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. THAT CONCLUDES THE CONSENT AGENDA. ALL RIGHT. SO OUR NEXT ITEM ON THE AGENDA IS ITEM M1 HOUSING DEPARTMENT. THIS IS THE TENTH AMENDMENT TO THE FISCAL YEAR FISCAL YEAR 2021 ANNUAL ACTION PLAN FOR CARES ACTS FUNDS SUBSTANTIAL. Recommendation that the City Council, one, conduct a public hearing regarding the 10th Amendment for the Fiscal Year 2021 Annual Action Plan, AAP, for CARES Act funds substantial. Two, approve the 10th Amendment to the Fiscal Year 2021 AAP substantial recommending use of the special allocation of Community Development Block Grant, CDBG funds under the CARES Act for two new and one existing public services programs to prepare, prevent, and respond to the ongoing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Three, authorize the city manager or his designees to incorporate the amended CDBG funds under the CARES Act grant allocations into the fiscal year 2020-2021 AAP and authorize any necessary budget appropriations and corresponding revenue recognition in the CDBG Funding Fund 201 for the project. Four, authorize the city manager or his designees to execute the required documents for the submission of the amended fiscal year 2020-2021 AAP. Five, receive and file any comments made during the 30-day public comment period or made in person at the public hearing with the amendment. And six, authorize the city manager or his designees to execute and sign all necessary agreements related to the implementation of the AAP amendment. including subrecipient and interdepartmental agreements, as well as amendments to existing program agreements for programs receiving additional funding through this amendment process. This item did not originate in committee, and we have Ms. Brenda Lopez, our housing director. We'll start with the city clerk certification of publication and written communications, if any, Madam City Clerk.

Mayor Pro Tem, there is a legal notice for this public hearing published in Viva newspaper on August 13th and the city clerk's office has received no written communications on this item. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Do any council members have any ex parte communications or other disclosures regarding this matter to state for the record? We'll start with Councilwoman Perez.

No.

Councilman Perrello. No. Councilman Basuwa. No. Councilman Restar.

No.

And with Councilwoman Rodriguez absent for the moment for ex parte disclosures, Mr. City Attorney, how would we proceed on that?

With him absent, I guess he would have to augment the record. Should he come in? Councilwoman Rodriguez, who just stepped away. Oh, Rodriguez. Oh, come back when she returns. Okay. That's fine.

All right. And I do not have any ex parte communications as well. When she returns, we will check in with her. Members of the public were invited to sign up to speak on this item on the city's website, and a person who did not sign up may do so now by submitting a speaker card or following the instructions posted on the agenda for this meeting and at the city's website, oxnard.gov slash city hyphen meetings. Lorraine Mendez, grants manager, posted a video presentation regarding this item and is available to answer any brief clarifying questions council members may have before we take public testimony on this item. Then the council will deliberate after the public hearing has been closed. Council Member Rodriguez, before we proceed, do you have any expert take communications for item M1?

I apologize. I did not have any expert take communications.

All right. Thank you very much. Do any council members have any questions at this time? Council Member Starr.

Thanks. So I just want to make sure I'm on the same item here. I am. Good. So I think back, I want to say it was back in March we had a similar sort of allocation of funds, right? And back then we did the senior nutrition program and the stories to stay outreach program. I think that's what we funded. So I'm looking on page 452. And I see that we had seven applicants who applied and staff is recommending funds be given to three of them. I was wondering can you tell us about the applicants that applied and were not recommended and just how you came to that decision?

Brenda Lopez, Housing Director. On a high level overview, as explained in the staff report, we have an upcoming deadline. This is probably our last amendment to this annual action plan, as we need to close out by March 2nd. Keep in mind, March 2nd is closeout. That means we probably need to finish all projects around January, February. So that was something that was at the forefront of our minds when we came out and said, We have an opportunity for remaining funds. These remaining funds are due to project savings. And also when we look at our program administration expenses, we foresee that we're not going to utilize all the funds. So we said, OK, we have about 225 available. We want to make them open to the community. When we reviewed our applications, what we tried our best to do was to see, based on history, based on where the project is at and utilization, will those projects be able to enter into agreement with us fast enough and be able to expand their services and spend the funds. So we're looking at not only eligibility, experience, but also reality of being able to expend this funding. As it was mentioned on page 452, we have a little table of the seven applications that we received, and in particular two that were not funded, which were Habitat for Humanity and Turning Point. At a high level, the programs would not be able to expand, set up, and be up and running quick enough. So as much as we appreciate their application, it was unrealistic based on the deadlines that we have.

So it wasn't a question whether they were appropriate. The question was whether we could execute on a timely basis.

Correct. We did what's called limited solicitation to 20 organizations that we knew have or we know have the proven capacity. But again, it came back to these are phenomenal projects, but they would not be able to get up and running fast enough to be able to expend the funds.

That helps a lot knowing that because I know some of these organizations that are not being funded There's a lot of merit to what they're doing. Correct.

Absolutely.

Thank you, Council Member. Are there any additional questions of staff before we go to the public testimony portion? Okay. Seeing and hearing none, I'll open the public testimony portion of the public hearing. Speakers have three minutes to speak on this item. Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers for this item?

Mayor Pro Tem and council members, there are no requests to speak on this item in person or virtually. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk. If there are no additional speakers, then we're going to go ahead and close the public hearing. All right. So the public hearing is now closed. Does any council member wish to comment? Seeing and hearing no comments, I'll entertain a motion. Excuse me, Councilor Perlow.

Yes, I support the work that the Housing Authority has done. It's a tremendous job, and it's a hard job. Thank you for the work you're doing and the presentation you've given us. And if there are no other comments, I'd move the recommended action.

I'll second the motion.

Thank you both very much. We have a motion by Councilmember Perlow and a second by Councilwoman Perez. Madam Clerk, may we have the vote?

Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmembers, if you can go ahead and cast your vote, please. Thank you in this motion carries six to zero. Thank you.

Thank you very much Okay, this is a time and place set for a public hearing on item m2 Community Development Department subject renaming of Cesar Chavez Drive recommendation that the City Council one conduct a public hearing and to Find the project exempt from environmental review pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act sequa guidelines section 15061 and three, select a name and adopt a resolution approving the renaming of Cesar Chavez Drive with the selected name inserted, and four, authorize reimbursement of up to $250 per residence and waiver of city-imposed fees associated with the name change. Our contact is Mr. Jeff Pangilli, our community development director, and we'll start with the city clerk's certification and publication and written communications, if any, Madam Clerk.

Mayor Pro Tem, there was a legal notice for this public hearing published in Vila newspaper on September the 3rd and the city clerk office received one written communication on this item. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Do any councillors have any ex parte communications or other disclosures regarding this matter to state for the record? We'll start with you, Councilwoman Perez.

No.

Okay, Councillor Perlow. No. Excuse me. Did you have something else? Okay, Councillor Star. No. Councilwoman Rodriguez?

No.

And we'll check in with Councilwoman Basuwa when she returns. Members of the public were invited to sign up to speak on this item on the city's website, and a person who did not sign up may do so now by submitting a speaker card or following the instructions posted on the agenda for this meeting and at the city's website, oxnard.gov slash city hyphen meetings. And Mr. Joe Pearson, planning manager, posted a video presentation regarding this item and is available to answer any brief clarifying questions council members may have before we take public testimony on this item. The council will deliberate after the public hearing has been closed. Do any council members have any questions at this time? Councilwoman Perez.

I just, no question, but I just wanted to make a quick comment if that's okay. Just wanted to.

I'll pause you right there, Councilwoman. This would be strictly for questions. We will have comments after the public testimony portion. As a quick question, I have Mr. Pangilli. I know that this is a public hearing and there was a video posted by Mr. Pearson that outlined the information that was available for the public. I'm wondering if we can get just a brief synopsis on the item in front of us and some of the outcomes from the attempt to outreach to the 39 residences and three home-based businesses and just some of that information that we have thus far.

Yes, absolutely. Again, Jeff Vengeli, Community Development Director. If you recall, back on April 7th, we came to this council with a overview of the process of street renaming and a request for what the council granted was a finding of this being in the public interest and will benefit the public welfare and to provide direction to the staff on the process, et cetera. So we did outreach to the community in the form of mailers that had QR codes and web addresses where they could register their vote. We have the votes summarized or the suggestions summarized in the staff report. I could read through them if you'd like. And what we're asking is for ultimately a selection of a name. And as I pointed out in the staff report, We could go with any of the qualified names that were listed here. We also listed those that were deemed by the street naming committee to be unqualified for specified reasons, but we wanted to have full transparency and just put them all out here. The city council can choose a name that was not generated from the survey. And in doing so, the council can deviate from any aspect of the street naming policy, such as the alphabetical grid system or the Spanish language theme, et cetera. And that's because of the finding that this was necessary to serve the public interest and benefit public safety. So with that, I can read through the qualified names in no particular order. Queso Drive, Pablo Drive, Plumeria Drive, Port Veneer Drive, Querencia Drive. Forgive my pronunciation. The last two, there was a little bit of concern with the pronunciation, but they weren't disqualified. OTHER NAMES NOT SELECTED WERE PALOMA DRIVE, CONFLICT WITH ANOTHER STREET NAME IN PORT WANEME, PICO PARKWAY, THERE'S ALREADY A PICO PLACE HERE IN THE CITY, PABLO PICASSO DRIVE, WE ALREADY HAVE A PICASSO DRIVE HERE IN THE CITY, AND AGAIN THE CONCERN WITH THE SIMILARITIES IS CONFUSION ON DISPATCH AND MAIL AND EVERYTHING ELSE AS YOU CAN IMAGINE. PALMA DRIVE, AGAIN, THERE'S ALREADY A PALM DRIVE AND A LAS PALMAS STREET. PILAR PARKWAY WAS NOT DETERMINED TO BE A SPANISH LANGUAGE THEMED NAME. THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE NAMED PATIO DRIVE THAT WAS FOUND TO BE VERY SIMILAR TO THE OWNER'S NAME THAT WAS SUGGESTING THAT. NICE TRY. Another one was not a complete name, just Avenue. I don't know if they had issues with the form, but we did send out notices two different times, giving them time to respond. And then two of the responses were suggesting that the name not be changed. THE OTHER THING WE'RE ASKING IN THE STAFF REPORT IN THIS AGENDA ITEM IS TO WHERE STAFF IS SUGGESTING THERE'S NOT A WHOLE LOT OF INFORMATION FROM OTHER CITIES, BUT THERE WERE SOME REMNANTS OUT THERE. SO WE'RE SUGGESTING ON THE ISSUE OF REIMBURSEMENT OF THE COST TO THESE RESIDENTS, WE'RE SUGGESTING A MAXIMUM OF $250 PER RESIDENCE. WITH THE $100 WOULD BE JUST ONE PER RESIDENCE, NOT PER HOUSEHOLD, NOT PER RESIDENT, NOT PER RESIDENT AND BUSINESS, JUST $100 IF YOU CAN VERIFY ONE OF THE AFFECTED ADDRESSES SUBJECT TO THE STREET NAMING. IF YOU HAVE MORE EXPENSES THAN THAT, YOU COULD SUBMIT FOR UP TO $250 WITH SOME MORE DETAILED JUSTIFICATION RECEIPTS, ETC. So we're trying to balance that where if somebody just has some simple expenses and they want to get the $100 back to recoup that, it would be a little bit more of a straightforward process. If they have more expenses than that, then we would spend a little more staff time verifying that and they would be troubled a little more in providing receipts and furnishing that as part of the process.

Okay. Thank you very much. I want to thank you for this synopsis there. We're not able to show the live presentation or reenact it tonight. And so I wanted this on the record for folks to be able to see if they're watching the meeting live or if they're watching it in the future and they don't have that reference point, that context, and they can't go back and watch it again. And so thank you for that. And before we move on, I know we're doing questions at this point, but we're about to go to the public testimony portion. I would like to share that I did speak with staff ahead of time on after pondering this item all of last week. I did request discussion that I'll put opposed to this council and I wanna state it now so that the public can hear it if they wish to weigh in as well. Looking at the requirements of a street that starts with the letter P or Q is a Spanish word and is easy to pronounce and is not similar to another name in the city of Oxnard or in the service area. I did put forward Poderosa Drive, Poderosa Drive. And this is the feminine version of the word poderoso, which is powerful or empowered. And thank you to staff for looking at that and speaking with the naming committee. There is concern that that name might be too close to Ponderosa Drive in the city of Camarillo. There's certainly other suffixes, Boulevard, Avenue, et cetera, but I did request, well, what about Calle Mujer Poderosa, or Mujer Poderosa Avenue, Boulevard Street, or also Calle Poderosa. And so they did send that forward and discuss that. and landed on Calle Poderosa was deemed acceptable by PD and fire representatives from a dispatch perspective. So I just wanted to put that out there for folks as well. But when we come to that portion of the discussion, you know, we'll have it, but I wanted the public to hear that too in case they want to consider that before their comments are made. Okay, Council Member Starr, did you have something?

Yeah, just on the survey questions itself, were we asking only what their name recommendation was or did we also ask them if they even wanted the change? I saw some people that volunteered the answer, they didn't want it changed, but the premise seemed to be that this is going to change. At least that's how I'm reading this. Yes, that was council direction was to make a change. Okay. So that was from the April 7th meeting?

Yeah.

Okay. And is that something that we could revisit if we wanted to? The survey itself? No, just the question of whether to even change the name.

It sounds like if the council decided tonight not to make a change and to send it back to the community, is that your question, Mr. Starr, or Councillor Starr? I'm wondering whether we even need to change the name.

Okay. I get that. It's been so long since the April 7th meeting. It seemed to me at the time that there was a difference of opinions on the council at the time as to whether to move forward or not with that. But maybe my memory is faulty. Did you have something, Councilwoman Rodriguez?

Oh, no. I think he's asking if we would have to have any change at all. And I think if we were persuaded by the two individuals that said, no, don't change it, leave it as is, if it was 30 individuals, like, it could definitely make a case as well. So that's not off the table, I would say.

Right. I think that given that we didn't actually ask people whether they wanted to change the survey and two went out of their way to say, you know, of a very small number of people total, two went out of their way to say we don't want that changed. I think that what we show here is perhaps understating the representation of those who would like to keep the name as it is. Okay. Thank you.

All right, so are there any additional questions of staff before we move on to the public testimony portion? Okay, I will now open the public testimony portion of the public hearing. Speakers have three minutes to speak on this item. Madam Clerk, I have one speaker card here, Mr. Eduardo Huerta. And if anyone else would like to speak, please, you may submit a card to the clerk with your name or not on it, or you may raise your hand using star nine if you're on Zoom.

Mr. Huerta. Good morning, Council. How are you? So first of all, UFW, right? This is what we're kind of facing here. Andres Chavez, he's a friend of mine on my Facebook. They've been advocating for our farming community. I met Ramon, who is obviously endorsing you, told me this weekend, endorsing Gabe and endorsing our supervisor. What a cliche, huh? The subject. You know, where we started and where we're at today and where our farm working community is at. So this issue is very personal to me. And, you know, we're all men here. We're talking about a man that was obviously accused of assaulting a woman. And at the end, we named schools after him. It's been a national movement. So at the end, Cesar Chavez Drive, we have a choice. Either we set an example for our community and our state on how we take these issues and how important these issues are, especially when it comes down to renaming streets. It's going to cost our taxpayers money. And at the end, we do have resources and better and better resources where funding can go. It's only a name. I'm not saying it's OK, but I'm just saying that we should set an example of the maturity level on how our campaigns have run since twenty twenty nineteen. I think the maturity level on these issues and what Aaron Starr is going to going through right now with this campaign, I think we've made this whole issue with administrations very political. And at the end, these issues are very personal to people that have been affected by sexual harassment, assaults, a issue that I spoke to you about a while back. And so at the end, we have to take in consideration that either we're going to change the name for the right reasons or to support the organization that, not saying that hasn't supported our community, but has been an imprint of movements nationally for our time of when we were toddlers. So at the end, it's something to consider. You know, you've set an example, you know, Poderosa, you know, it's for me, I think those are just names. I think, I think I've, that's highly not important to what our farm working community is and being affected by. And I think Gabe and Bert, it's time you guys take these issues really serious when it comes down to our farm working, because at the end, I was talking to Diane from the INCO. You guys have a lot of support, but at the end, you guys seem to deviate and fall for you know partisan issues and at the end when we come as constituents you guys we come with real life issues and this is an example um i come from farm working parents and so this issue is very important that either you know that we kind of base ourselves if we're going to change the name and do it for the right reasons but not make it a controversial issue okay thank you guys thank you madam clerk do we have any additional speakers um mayor pro tem and council members that concludes our speakers in person and virtually for this item thank you

OKAY, IF THERE ARE NO ADDITIONAL SPEAKERS, THEN WE'RE GOING TO GO AHEAD AND CLOSE THE PUBLIC HEARING. AND THE PUBLIC HEARING IS NOW CLOSED. DOES ANY COUNCILMEMBER WISH TO COMMENT? AND I THINK WHAT WE'LL DO HERE IS WE'LL GO DOWN THE LINE HERE WITH COMMENTS AND WE'LL START WITH COUNCILMEMBER PEREZ AND THE USUAL ORDER THAT THE MAYOR DOES.

SO COUNCILWOMAN?

THANK YOU, MAYOR PRATAM. I KNOW JUST TO KIND OF REFERENCE THE LAST CITY COUNCIL MEETING THAT WE HAD, A LOT OF THE CONCERNS WAS REALLY AROUND the financial impacts. And I know as listed in the staff report around government IDs and vehicle updates, home-based business expenses, other hidden out-of-pocket costs, and I just want to appreciate the extension to provide those resources should folks need to get a reimbursement. So I wanted to just thank staff for looking into what the options are for families because I know folks were a little bit concerned about what potential costs would be incurred on just the financial implications of that so I think being able to provide reimbursements is a good thing and I know in terms of this issue thinking about the future the future generations and The precedence that we set when it comes to safety in our community, I think, is something that I keep in mind and just wanted to share that. So those are my comments.

Thank you, Councilwoman. Before we continue, I was reminded by the city attorney, Councilwoman Basuwa, you were away for just a moment. We did ex parte communication disclosures. Do you have any ex parte communications for this item? I DON'T REMEMBER IF I SAID I DID, BUT I'LL SAY IT AGAIN IF I DID. I DO NOT HAVE ANY AS WELL. COUNSELOR APRILLO, WE'RE ON TO COUNCIL MEMBER COMMENTS FOR THIS ITEM.

NEW SPEAKER. NEW SPEAKER. YES. I APPRECIATE THE SPEAKER, BUT I THOUGHT I UNDERSTOOD YOU TO SAY ACCUSED OF GROPE. I THINK THAT'S WHAT I HEARD YOU SAY. WHAT DID YOU SAY? WHAT DID YOU SAY HE WAS ACCUSED OF? MR. CHAVEZ. Didn't say anything? Okay. My reading of the newspaper articles, it's rape. There's a big difference. And that's why I was concerned. Those are my concerns. I just want to make sure that we understand what the issues were and what led the schools to change some names and other communities. I think it's very important. I know enough to stay out of this argument about the picking of the name, but I also know enough to know that I sat in the audience when Coach C, Coach Cianovic, they changed part of the name for Coach Cianovic and people said, WOULD BE HARD TO PRONOUNCE. IT WAS A SUCCESSFUL CHANGE. SOME OF THE STAFF REPORT I THINK IS TREMENDOUS. I DIDN'T SEE THE REQUEST THAT THE MAYOR HAD MADE FOR THE OTHER NAMES IN THE STAFF REPORT SO I APPRECIATE HIM SHARING THAT WITH US. BUT I DO THINK IT SHOULD BE SOMETHING THAT PEOPLE CAN PRONOUNCE OR TAKE A WHILE TO LEARN HOW TO PRONOUNCE. THAT'S THE ONLY THING THAT I HAVE TO SAY.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU.

I DO THINK, I MEAN, I UNDERSTAND WHAT COUNCIL MEMBER STARR SAID, BUT I DO THINK THAT IT'S APPROPRIATE TO CHANGE THE NAME BASED ON THE ALLEGATIONS THAT CAME FORTH. SO THAT'S ONE THING. BUT THE OTHER THING IS, I LIKED WHAT COUNCIL MEMBER TORONTO SAID. SO, I MEAN, I REALLY DON'T HAVE ANYTHING OTHER THAN THAT.

OKAY. THANK YOU. COUNCIL MEMBER STARR.

You know, all heroes that we've had over the years have flaws. There's nobody out there that's perfect, which makes me wonder why we name streets after people at all, because eventually you're going to be disappointed when you hear something about it. But we are talking about charges that were never adjudicated. There's been no court of law that's ever decided that this happened. I get that there's accusations. I get that there are probably even credible accusations. But I feel like we're dragging somebody through the mud by going through this exercise. Beyond that, I'm not enthusiastic about this given the hassle that residents will likely have for a long time to come if you make the change. There'll be issues with deliveries. ISSUES WHERE SOMEBODY IS TRYING TO CONTACT THE FOLKS WHERE THEY PAY BILLS AND GET THE ADDRESS CHANGED AND IT'S FAR MORE COMPLICATED THAN WE THINK. It's sort of like moving, but without actually having a recognized street address in the system. It's a tough situation to put them through. I just don't see how it can be clearly demonstrated that a majority of inhabitants in these 39 households want this change. I don't think we ask them the question whether they want this change. We're just simply telling them, I get that there's people in the community that have But I think I would have preferred a survey where we asked if they wanted to change it all. Having said that, if we are to change the name, I have some suggestions. When you look at Google maps, if you look at Cesar Chavez to actually dead ends in West Village, there's like a little break in the, There's a street just over that's parallel, actually, in line with it, called Ocotlin Way. And that uses an O. So I think we can get away with using an O for the name. So you see right here, Ocotlin. So Ocotlin is worse. It's Sister City, too.

I'm sorry, what? Sister City. Yeah.

Yeah. So what I would suggest is this. If you go to the other side of Caesar Drive, turns onto Gibraltar, and within like 50 feet or so, it's Ocaso Place. And I'm wondering if it might be less burdensome if we simply change the name Cesar Chavez Drive to Ocaso Place. I think Ocaso means sunset, I think, in Spanish. But I think that's something that is worth considering. Because then when a delivery comes and someone's looking for something on Ocaso Street or Ocaso Place, rather, they'll get to that address and go, hey, I don't see it. Oh, it must be further down. So they're going to drive to these other addresses to get there and just figure out that, well, this is just part of Ocaso. So I think that would be less disruptive. I guess another name, if you're insisting on it, P word, you know, I think pinos, like mountain pinos, which I think that means pine cone or pine tree, is a possibility. Another possibility, if you want a Q word, quinceanera is something that I think sounds really festive, and I can see how that could work pretty well. So those would be my thoughts, but my general tenor here is I really don't think we should forces change down people's throats. If the council wants to, is going to insisting on doing that, then I suggest a CASA place or Pinos or Quinceanera.

Okay. Councilman Rodriguez.

I am sorry, I did not share my recommendation to staff because I was waiting to see what people were going to recommend and how many people would show up to speak on it. I did have an idea from Cesar Chavez to Campesino Drive, only because Campesino is the Spanish word for farm worker. And if folks really wanted to honor the farm worker movement, and he was supposed to be the face of that, movement i think campesino would be a word that folks could possibly comfortably say i don't know maybe um that that was my recommendation so that way it honors folks who are working in the farms it speaks to a legacy of this being an agricultural area and it's not specific to anybody's last name um i i also like the the flower plumeria but those are my my two my two cents

Thank you very much. All right. So I appreciate all of the input we had and thank you to the speaker for speaking in the public testimony portion. And I'll just say that this wouldn't even be a discussion had it not been for people coming forward, having the courage to come forward and raise the alarm. And it's not one person, it's multiple people. And it's unfortunately been discussion that's been happening for some time amongst people and now is at the forefront. And I mentioned the last time this came forward, growing up, Cesar Chavez was viewed as a revered person in my circles, within my family. And so it is with mixed emotions and feelings that we look at this, but as a one of seven elected people up here, how would I feel in knowing that we could have done something to not have people living on a street with someone who's demonstrated abhorrent behavior and victimized women? Multiple people, multiple women. You know, it was on the drive to Riverside when I had all this time to think about it and really kind of bring my thoughts together after thinking about it all week. And for Calle Poderosa, I bring that forward because it lands on me what we're changing the name from and what we're changing it to. And Poderosa being, if it was Mujer Poderosa, it'd be like powerful woman, right? It's not lost on me how often in history and how often in present times we collectively, men in positions of power, do not come through for women, especially women who have been victimized. And if this is something that we can do to at least not elevate a person who has victimized women, then I'm glad we're at least having this discussion no matter where the council decides to go with this. But I did want to add, too, we had a comment that was sent to us that I highly agree with and appreciate them sending it in. And it has to do with the pronunciation of the Spanish names. So, like, Porvenir was one of those. And The point made here is the following street names are in Oxnard. Brigham, McLaughlin, Beaumont, Ukiah, Friedrich, I think I'm saying it right, Eielton, and Pyrite. And these are all names that were approved without consideration and are difficult to pronounce for some of the general public. And by that, non-native English speakers, when you see some of these words, I mean, they can throw you for a loop, Eielton, like how do I know that the S is silent in that, right? So when it comes to pronunciation, I'm willing to bet that we have people who are able to make that work, just like people who aren't from this area have no clue what the name Wainimi High School, how that's pronounced. And as far as the similarities for Some of the names I bring up that I'm glad we had this discussion because in my neighborhood we have Bottle Brush Place, Bottle Brush Court, and Bottle Brush Circle, all on the same street. And some of them are cul-de-sacs and one of them is a through street. And if you just tell someone I live on Bottle Brush and you type that into a map app, it's not gonna work out well for you, or at least not easily. So with that, I do appreciate the work that's happened. It sounds like we did send out the survey. We notified people at least twice via mail that this was something the council was looking at. And it sounded like we had the 15 responses, two of which said they weren't interested in changing, and the rest who had suggestions on name changes. So with that, did you have something, Mr. City Manager?

Yes, just a couple of quick points. And I think I mentioned this last time. In terms of the role of public policy, it's this body's role to make the decision on behalf of the city, the entire city, about whether or not to make such a street name change in light of the revelations. Which is different from the consideration that our policies have with regard to OUTREACHING TO THE ACTUAL RESIDENTS WHO LIVE ON ANY SUCH STREET THAT YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHANGE FOR VARIOUS REASONS. BUT THE PUBLIC POLICY QUESTION BELONGS TO THE COUNCIL. RIGHT? AND THEN THE NAMES, THE RECOMMENDATIONS, AGAIN, THE CONSIDERATION ARE FOR THE RESIDENTS. SO THAT'S POINT ONE. POINT TWO, WITH REGARD TO THE NAMES AND THE PRONUNCIATION and multiple streets with similar names. Look, a lot of this has developed over time. And just because there are some names that are less than easy to pronounce that were put in place decades ago doesn't mean that we should continue that from the perspective of we're simply looking at public safety and dispatch. This is not about language learning for the entire community not about perfect perfecting the the the correct pronunciations or anything like that this is just very very simplistically just for for dispatch and sometimes those calls go out not just to our fire department or our police officers who know the streets like the back of the hands but sometimes We're asking other agencies to come in to provide aid for us. So we're trying to make the system better, right? So I don't think looking back at, look at those names, they're impossible. I don't think that's the way we should go forward. Same with multiple names. We're just trying to do, improve the system as we go forward.

Thank you. All right. Thank you, Mr. City Manager. Okay, so with that, we've conducted the public hearing. We're going to do, if we move forward with the CEQA stuff, the resolution and the reimbursement, if I can get a motion. What's the pleasure of the council on this? We do. This is the time to bring something forward if we'd like to do so.

I think Councilwoman Rodriguez had a good idea.

Yeah, I would like to consider the name Campesino or Campesina if you, I mean the female empowerment, the victims of potentially the harassment, we could make it female. I don't have a preference, but the concept would be not a name. It would be honoring our history here in Oxnard.

So yeah, Campesina, Campesino, either way.

Can somebody who doesn't speak Spanish try to say that? Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay, Campesina. Okay, I'm okay with that. if folks are okay. Yeah, that's a motion.

And I'm looking it up on Google Maps real quick.

Yes, please look it up, see if there's another one close by.

It's at Campesino Park, 79 miles away. We should be okay. Ooh, Campesino Restaurant.

And honestly, a lot of folks in our community who still work, you know, picking whatever crops in the fields would see that and probably, you know, see themselves represented.

I think the honoring of the woman is a big deal. But the other issue is it's all workers. It's all workers, field workers, men and women. Correct.

Correct. Mr. Pearson's just checked with all of our neighbors and no one has it. Okay. Well, that's a motion.

Is your motion for Campesina or Campesina? I know you said you're good either way. I'm wondering if you'd be willing to go with Campesina to go along the train I thought I had for the naming of the street.

Yes, that's fine. Yes, my motion would be Campesina Drive.

We have a motion by Councilwoman Rodriguez and a second by Councilor Perlow. Councilor Starr?

Yeah, is there any appetite to making it just a continuation of El Caso Place? I think it will be less disruptive to the residents if we were to do that.

Is that a motion to amend, Councilor Starr, or are you just asking if?

I guess I'd like to just get, you know, feel the temperature in the room for that. If there's no appetite, there's no appetite. Okay.

The council member has brought this forward. Do we have any? I'm not seeing or hearing anything. So is that sufficient for you, council member?

Yeah, that's fine. If there's no appetite for it, there's no appetite for it.

Thank you. For me, what exactly are you asking? And I apologize. You have a very soft voice. It doesn't carry as well as I wish.

Okay. I apologize. So where Cesar Chavez ends on the east end, turning into Gibraltar, immediately there's El Caso Place. If you can look on it. And my suggestion is that it would be less disruptive to the residents if we were to change that whole Cesar Chavez Drive to also to El Caso Place. And that way when deliveries happen and someone looks for a delivery at, you know, 1030 Ocaso Place and they're getting to, on their maps they only see it up to, like, down to 1300 or something like that, you know, they're going to go, huh, well, I should just keep driving until I get to the address. So I just, just as, to me it would just be courteous to the residents make it far less disruptive for them if we were to do that. Because, I mean, you know how it works as far as address changes and street changes.

Being a former mailman, I do understand that. But I also know that the newer mailmen and everything in the UPS, they got a screen. It tells them where to go. If I did, it's put into there. The individual is a different screen.

And that's great when the screens are all updated. But that could take a long time. Who knows when Google Maps would update it? I have no idea. You know, there's mapping software that people use, and I wouldn't count on this being immediately updated. So I just, I think that we're asking a big burden of people if we do something other than El Caso Place, or other than change the name at all.

Yes, go ahead. I personally think you bring up a good point. But I personally think if we're going to change the name of the street, we change the name of the entire street and we change it to one consistent name. And that's just my view.

And I just looked up the Gulf of Mexico, and that name is not what it was before on Google Maps. So they do act on changes.

That's true. Very, very big changes they'll make. But I have a feeling that the streets, individual street names, it may not be as quick. Sure.

Okay.

So we have a... And I saw folks Googling, are there any concerns with Campesina Drive? Just I know that folks were looking for neighbors and all that good stuff.

There were no conflicts with Campesina Drive. There is, what is the nearest name that's closest to that? Acadia. Campanula Avenue. So that's not really close. The only concern about the continuation of Ocaso Place is that it would have to jog up a small segment of Gibraltar. So it either stops and it becomes Gibraltar and then becomes a cost of place again, or that segment of Gibraltar gets renamed as well. I know in discussions with emergency services, there's not a, you know, it happens over time as cities develop, but it's not preferred to have a street stop and start. It's not the end of the world, but I just wanted to bring that up. There's that one segment. It's not just an offset. It's another street for a short segment.

Thank you, Mr. Pangilli. Okay. Are there any other comments on this? Okay, we have a motion by Councilwoman Rodriguez and a second by Councilwoman Perez. And this is for all of the recommendations with the name Campesina Drive, correct?

Okay.

Yes, correct.

Madam Clerk, oh, excuse me.

Sorry, Mayor Pro Tem, I just have a quick question logistically. For, would there be an opportunity, I know we have it as Campesina's Drive, an opportunity to explore like Campesina's Place or Campesina's, Yeah, just thinking about that logistically.

There were, as I recall, and I see our community of inlet staff discussing it, there were some suffixes that were, if that's the right way to pluralize that word, there were a number of suffix options that were mentioned in there. Mr. Pangilli, do you have any additional insight into that?

I'm trying to find what the street, if we follow the strict protocol, the street naming, policy in a normal circumstance, what those suffixes are. But council has the authority to set forth things that don't meet strictly the policy because of that public finding, public safety and welfare finding of the prior council meeting. So let me look at that. But that would be an option. And I did have a question. Was the motion or plural?

It was singular, Campesina.

Singular, okay.

But yeah, so I'm okay with it, Campesina. Even if it's Campesina Place, that's fine.

Okay, and I see Mr. Pearson's stepping up here. If we have a distinction between a place versus a drive, I want to make sure we do that right.

Thank you again. So strictly per the policy, if we're not obligated, the council is not obligated to follow that policy, the suggested suffix would be Boulevard, Parkway, Road, Avenue, or Drive. But again, that can easily be modified as part of this process. Okay.

Thank you very much. So we do have latitude on that, but typically the suffix options he named are the ones that would be for a street of this length is my guess.

Yeah, I think moving forward with place would be good.

It allows for that sense of place and groundingness, I think. So you would like to say to call it campesina place? Correct. Okay. I'm okay. I'm open to that.

Are there any ground rules in this field for what type of suffix is actually used? I mean, is there, I mean, how would I know to use way versus drive versus boulevard versus, I mean, is there any meaning to it or is it just, that's just a bunch of names for the same thing anyway?

I don't have the underlying genesis of those rules. It's spelled out in the street naming policy. And I think it's similar to themes being selected for certain quadrants. And obviously you generally want Boulevard to be a larger street with more lanes. That's what I would think.

Yeah. So I just didn't know whether there was any best practices when it comes to naming a street, whether it be drive or way or street.

I believe that's articulated in the policy. But yeah, Avenue and Boulevard would generally be larger streets.

Right. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay, so we have, just to clarify the motion, Councilwoman Rodriguez is okay modifying her motion to be Campesina Place?

Does anybody have any objection to that? I'm open to the amendment.

And it was seconded originally by Councilwoman Perez. Correct. Okay. So, Madam Clerk, I think we're ready for the vote on that, whenever you're ready.

Mayor Pro Tem and Councilmembers, if you can go ahead and cast your vote, please. Thank you. And this motion carries six to zero. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And thank you to my colleagues for that robust discussion and where we landed with that. And thank you, Councilwoman Rodriguez, for the suggestion.

Thank you. Okay.

All right. And thank you to our community development staff for all the work on that. Thanks to the development staff. Okay. Our next agenda item is item N1, Fire Department. Subject authorization to submit an EMS WIOA 15% funding workforce development grant application to the California Employment Development Department, EDD. Recommendation that the city council one authorize the city manager or designee to submit a workforce development grant application to the California Employment Development Department, EDD, to provide EMT and paramedic training to young adults in Ventura County. in the amount of $1,500,000. There are no matching funds required. Two, authorize the city manager or designee to execute all documents, including but not limited to applications, agreements, and amendments necessary to secure grant funds and implement the approved grant if awarded to the city. Three, authorize the finance director or designee to submit financial reports and grant claims, approve budget appropriations for the use of the grant funds, and perform all other required financial actions. Four, authorize the fire chief or designee to submit non-financial reports and administer programmatic requirements associated with the grant. This item did not originate in community. And I see we have the assistant chief here. And do any council members have questions for staff? Seeing and hearing none. Let's see. Before we get into discussion, we'll receive public comments. Speakers will have three minutes to speak. Anyone wishing to speak can put in, may put in a card with the clerk or raise your hand using star nine. Madam Clerk, as of now, do we have any speakers for this item?

Mayor Pro Tem and council members, there are no requests to speak on this item in person or virtually. Thank you.

Okay. And not seeing anyone rushing the clerk's desk there, we'll go ahead and move on. There are no additional speakers. Do council members have comments on this item? Council Member Perlow.

Yes. I support this entirely. I will say that I have attended two of the graduation ceremonies. I think one of the most impactful things that I've ever heard in the city of Oxnard, I mean it, most impactful, was, and I'm going to get his title, EMS Coordinator Jamie Villa. And he was talking about a graduating class. and people talk and they say things. And he said, if it was my family that needed help, every one of you of that brand new graduating class, I would trust to take care of my family. And if you think about that, ladies and gentlemen, that's a tremendous statement. That's a huge statement for an individual that helped train these kids but they were kids, they are kids, and what they would be expected to walk into, take care of, and a member that knows what's going on would entrust his entire family. That was extremely important to me, and I'll never forget it. I want to thank you for saying that. And if there's no questions, I'd be honored to make the motion to approve this.

I will gladly second that motion. And I too am very excited. I'm so proud that we are actively seeking these opportunities for WIOA and our young people to be exposed to these life-changing career opportunities. So thank you.

Thank you very much. We have a motion by Councilor Parolo, second by Councilwoman Rodriguez, and I'll just, before we take the vote, I will thank you both, chiefs, for your work on this. I've had the privilege to be able to attend the graduations as well, but I'll remind this council and members of the public that we've had a number of the EMS Corps participants come and do the Pledge of Allegiance and share their story, and some of the experiences that these young people have had in their years It just surpasses all expectations what they've overcome and how they've ended up where they are within your stead and your care. And I appreciate you all giving them these opportunities for advancement and success because you can see it in their eyes. You can hear it in their words that they are absolutely taking that in and having great success with it. So thank you both for this opportunity. And Chief, did you have something?

Mayor Pro Tem, I'm Assistant Chief John Colomarino. I'm the Operations Chief. I just want to say thank you for offering your thanks to both of us, but I just want it to be known that Chief Villa is the absolute mastermind behind this, and he is the one who has done all the work. I truly deserve none of that. I appreciate it, but it should all go to him. I just wanted to say that.

Very humble. Thank you. And definitely, Chief, thank you for your work on this. We've heard your name brought up again and again at those graduations and seeing them. And I'll invite my colleagues up here. I live near the Police Activities League where they are based in the two-story building where they do their training. And you can go by there any day when they're there and you'll see them. carrying mannequins into the ambulance. They're practicing compressions. They're doing vitals on each other. They're running up and down the stairs doing their exercises. And so they're working hard there and really positioning themselves for some great success here in this field later on. Okay, so we have the motion and the second. Madam Clerk, may we have the vote?

Mayor Pro Tem and Council Members, if you can go ahead and cast your vote. Thank you. And this motion carries 6 to 0. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. We're now on to item N2, Public Works Department. Subject termination of the emergency order and authorization of the approval of an agreement with Toro Enterprises Inc. for the emergency sewer collection systems repair at Hemlock Street and Patterson Road. Recommendation that the city council, one, authorize the city manager to execute a public project agreement number 32700164 with Toro Enterprises Inc. for a total amount not to exceed $500,000. And two, ratify the director of public works declaration of the termination of the emergency order to dispense with public bidding requirements pursuant to public contract code section 22050 to make emergency repairs to the city's sewer collection system. This item did not originate in committee and is an item previously presented to council on September 1st, 2026. And we have Mr. Wolf, our public works director. Do council members have any questions for Mr. Wolf or staff? I see we have Mr. Hauser here as well. Did you have something, Councilmember? Okay, apologies.

I have no question. Okay.

All right. So we're going to go ahead and take speakers at this time. Speakers have three minutes to speak. Anyone wishing to speak may fill out a card and submit it to the clerk or raise their hand using star 9 on Zoom. Madam Clerk, do we have any speakers at this time?

Mayor Pro Tem and council members, there are no requests to speak on this item in person or virtually. Thank you.

Okay. And not seeing anybody making their way to the front or on Zoom, let's go ahead and move on. If there are no additional speakers, do any council members have comments on this item? Did you have something, Councillor Perlow?

I appreciate the fact that Public Works was able to get on this, the quality of work they're doing, the explanation that they had the first time this came up, and now the extension of the contract, the staff report that's put together, why there might be some that go, wait a minute, why didn't this go out for a whole entire bid process? I support this in the work of Public Works and the explanation that you put together in the staff report. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Councilmember. Any other comments from the council? What's the pleasure of the council at this point? Move the recommended action.

Second.

Okay. We have a motion by Council Member Perrello and a second by Councilwoman Rodriguez. Madam Clerk.

Mayor Pro Tem and Council Members, if you can go ahead and cast your vote. Thank you. And this motion carries six to zero. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I told the mayor I'd get through this quick enough that he wouldn't make it back in time, and it looks like I fulfilled that. So there being no further business on the agenda, and without objection, we are adjourned. Everybody have a good evening.