City - Regular Meeting

recording in progress. Are we ready to go? Okay. Good evening everyone. Uh this is the regular meeting of the Pacific Grove City Council. We're here in u uh council chambers. It's Wednesday, March 4th, 6 pm with city hall at 300 Forest Avenue in Pacific Grove, California. calling this meeting to order at this time. And I'll ask that uh we have all council members present tonight on the day as well as our city manager and city attorney. And I at this time I'll ask Council Member Garfield to lead us in the pledge of

allegiance to the flag of the United States of Americ.

Thank you very much. And at this time item one, approval of the agenda. Entertain a motion to approve the agenda tonight. So moved. Second. We have a motion by Ralph, second by Paduri. Any further discussion? Seeing none, we'll take a voice vote. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously. We'll take the agenda as stated. Moving on to item two, presentations. We have one presentation tonight. Presentation recognizes the Pacific Grove 12U baseball team, the 54s, for their participation in the July 2026 Coopertown, New York baseball tournament and their tribute to the 54th Coastal Artillery Regiment. Coach Toe, I'll uh have you come up.

Okay. Microphone, please. Um, nice to see everybody. So, um, we decided we're headed to Coopertown this year in July and we decided to do a little bit more than just baseball. Um, the team here is all gathered from Pacific Grove and other communities and we thought we combine a little bit of Pacific Grove history um, and some of the Larry experience as well as well as just practicing baseball and get ready for our our tournaments and our season. So, I'll let I'll let uh this gentleman start off the uh presentation. Thank you.

Good evening, members of the Pacific Grove City Council. My name is Hunter Toe and we are here the 54 baseball club. My teammates and I have grown up playing baseball here in PG and Monterey County. Tonight, we're here to share our news about our 12U baseball team and to highlight the meaningful local history connected to our name. This summer we will uh be traveling to Coopertown, New York, and compete in a national baseball tournament alongside teams from across the country. We will also tour the National Baseball Hall of Fame, home of America's pastime. Our team named the 54s is in honor of the 54th Coastal Regiment Artillery Regiment who was stationed near Point Pinos Lighthouse here in Pacific Grove during World War II. The 54th Coastal Artillery Regiment was the only all Africanamean heavy artillery unit in the US Army during World War II. During World War II, America had a segregated military where citizens of different ethnic and racial backgrounds could not serve side by side. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the regiment was deployed in n February 1942 to guard against potential Japanese invasion along the California coast. The 54th occupied key positions including Lighthouse Point in Santa Cruz, Point Pinos Lighthouse in Pacific Grove, Moral Bay, and Pismo Beach. Pacific Grove. The regiment was stationed near near the Point Pinños Lighthouse. Some of the 54 soldiers had played baseball in the Negro Leagues. During wartime in Pacific Grove, the local players and soldiers forgot their differences and played baseball together and created the Twilight League.

The regiment's presence in California had a lasting social impact. After the war, several members of the unit returned to the Central Coast with their families. Honor returned from Coopertown. We hope to create a permanent plaque in honor of the 54th and its unique contribution to Pacific Grove. Thank you for your time and we hope you see you at our booth at good old days. And if you have any questions, ask. Well done. That was excellent. Thank you so much. Coach, do you have any other comments?

No, we're just again, thanks for the opportunity to come in. Um, it's been uh it's it's a lot of fun. these these kids have all played together for a long time and uh you know going to Coopertown for us is kind of like the culmination of their little league experience. So we're honored and look forward to spreading more about what we're trying to do and raise awareness of you know a very unique historical event here in Pacific Grove. So yes, absolutely. That's wonderful. Council member Ralph, if people would like to donate to your cause, how how would they do that? Um, in the mic so people PayPal or I don't know. We have a Instagram account. Okay. Well,

p54 baseballclub.com I think is our website. Then I'll be resending that out and I'm pretty sure Joyce will pick that up as well. Thank you. Congratulations. Sure.

Yes. Uh, thank you. I know my both of my kids play baseball. So, first of all, Coach Tupe and all the coaches here and everybody else coaching in PG and other surrounding areas, thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for actually elevating PG uh on a national scale here and thank you for also elevating the 54th article. First of all, I in addition to all of those, I think uh I actually like the design of your hats and uh 54 is something that we can proudly wear. So I think as you look towards u kind of funding yourselves and working for the future too with other with other folks that are in town, it may not be a bad idea to also sell kind of some of these merchandise because I'm I'm I'm I'm for one like my son collects caps. So this is one of those things that we do all the time. So I appreciate what you're doing. Thank you all for coming here and uh you guys hit it off the park. Thanks.

Awesome. I like the hats, too, Joe. Yeah. I just uh wanted to wish all of you well in Coopertown and think of all of you all of you could be on at Coopertown someday. Name blazed on the wall. Thanks a lot guys. We really appreciate it. Great mission and I want you know I love the hats. I love the the mission and everything you're doing for the community. Thank you. So, we'll move on to number three, council and staff announcements. Uh, so we'll start with council members. Do you have any council member announcements? Uh, council member McDonald.

Thank you. I actually have um three announcements tonight. And first is just to let people know that we are in the time that the seal ordinance is in effect. So no allowed work is allowed on the public rideway from Early to 10th Street along Ocean View Boulevard. On a semi-related note, unfortunately um they have determined that there is aven flu now in Anu Noeo. Um they have seen that in some of the marine mammals there. So we're letting people know that it's important to keep a safe distance from wildlife. That includes pets, especially dogs, because it is contagious to both pets and people. We haven't seen it in Pacific Grove here yet, but we want people to be aware that it has transitioned into the marine mammal population. Um, just so this is on the record, if you see a dead or injured seal or sea lion, please contact the Marine Mammal Center hotline at 415289 SA L, which is 7325 and they can either respond or they may refer you to the Noah hotline because the Noah hotline responds to the deceased animals. And so that number would be 8667676114. Um, and we also wanted to let people know there was a seal with a fresh shark bite this morning. It's the only seal we've seen at Hopkins unfortunately for the last week or so. Um, but be aware if you are in or near the water that we are seeing shark activity again.

Thanks. Anyone else? Uh, council or staff member announcements. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We do have a couple announcements tonight. Uh, first announcements will come from uh, Deputy City Manager Hali, and the second will come from Chief Day if he wants to queue up as well.

Good evening, honorable mayor and members of the city council. I'm excited to announce that we have released information related to the cannabis lottery process. So, phase three, which is the cannabis lottery, will be held on Monday, March 30th at 5:00 PM here in the city council chambers. We will also be providing viewing via Zoom. All of that information, including some additional details about how the lottery process will go, is available on the city's web page, city of Pacific Grove.org, and it's linked there on the news section. Second announcement is recreation department 2026 summer programs are now available for registration. We got a really great listing of opportunities for summer programming. Everything from dance, swim, um, and engineering type camps. So, we encourage everybody to take a look at our website and view the offerings as well as register. And then lastly, our recreation department is recruiting for camp counselors, sports assistants, lifeguards, and swim instructors. And all of that information related to these jobs are available on the the city's website as well. Thank you. All right. Good evening, Mayor Smith and honorable city council. Uh it's my esteemed pleasure to publicly announce the implementation of our coastal enforcement and education program. So, um, really this was kind of an idea that had, uh, come to light with previous administrations, but through some hard work and planning, uh, in correlation with the city manager's office, we were able to kind of identify some of the the boxes that we needed to check to make this a reality. And so, uh, some of that had to do with, um, training up our community service officers through PCA32, which is, uh, certification for powers of arrest. RCSOS uh by authority

of the vehicle code are authorized to uh write things like parking tickets uh but really nothing uh above uh that kind of nature of a citation. And so what 832 does is certify them and authorize them to enforce uh other more significant uh issues such as city ordinances, meeting codes, things of that nature. And so, um, really the emphasis is on education and just having a presence, uh, in our coastal area and on the rec trail and also in, you know, those, uh, incidents where it's necessary to take enforcement action. And so, uh, prior to, uh, the council being seated tonight, I just put a stat sheet, uh, out in front of each of your chairs. And so, this is a really unique way for us to kind of analyze our progress over the next year. um not that the stat the collecting of stats will end after the first year, but uh really a way for the police department to efficiently uh study trends and statistics and you know quality of life issues and you know dispel misnomers and actually factually address those issues that are are most important to the community. So we do see it as a very efficient uh use of public safety personnel and deployment and um you know again just it's very exciting because this is something I think that's been talked about around here for quite a number of years and of course uh I used the city manager to uh you know just kind of develop and go down the list and see what it was that we exactly needed to do to accomplish that. So I think we've made it a reality. I'm very proud of it. Uh March is March 1st was the implementation date. Um and you know it'll be kind of a ramp up through the first month in March. Um you know these CSOs are newly trained. We have one that is currently transferring from the PST role to the CSO. So there will be that field training uh time. And then I always like to say wait there's more. Um as far as the patrols that are going on down in the coastal area and on the rec trail, the CSOS will actually be

deployed on police ebikes. though. Uh the idea there is to cover more ground in a shorter amount of time and be able to respond to emerging issues uh in a in an efficient time. So uh that concludes my announcement, but I'm happy to answer any questions if there are some. Thank you, Chief. We appreciate the announcement. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. One quick question. Is there any change to the policy if people notice something on the trail or is it still just called the non-emergency hotline? You know, I think we we'll we'll consistently and constantly be evaluating that. For now, uh we have not made changes to that. Um really the priority is getting our CSOS situated down there. Uh getting the proper equipment worked out and just kind of seeing how the first few weeks roll out.

Great. Thanks so much. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Appreciate it. Um okay, so we're staff complete. All right. Uh we'll go ahead and move on to four general public comment. Uh this is comment on matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city but not on tonight's regular agenda. So if you have such a comment, please step forward. We'll take chambers first. We have someone in chambers. Go ahead.

Peggy Gibbs, CEO and co-founder of Pacific Grove Cares. PG Cares is proud to be a member of Keep America Beautiful. And just last week, I was honored to attend the National Summit, joined by more than 500 nonprofit executives, state leaders, mayors, and local officials from communities just like ours. We heard remarkable stories. In Tennessee, one affiliate is leading cleanup of the Tennessee River. In a small Indiana town of 500, they have 400 volunteers. Imagine that. almost everyone. What an impact. What we witnessed was deeply inspiring. People on fire for their communities. Volunteers dedicated to hours of picking up litter, planting trees, revitalizing parks, and strengthening civic pride. Stories of service, personal responsibility, and neighbors helping neighbors. We met leaders building powerful partnerships between nonprofits, local governments, businesses, and civic groups. These collaborations are transforming neighborhoods, not just physically, but socially. They are building connections, pride, and resilience. Keep America Beautiful has been doing this work since 1953. Today, it represents nearly five, excuse me, 700 local affiliates and millions of volunteers across the country. Its mission is simple but powerful to spark action and pride in the places we call home. Because everyone does deserve to live in a clean, green, and beautiful community. Pacific Grove absolutely embodies this spirit. Our participation connects us to coast to coast network of innovation, best practices, training, proven programs, and grant opportunities. Grants that can help us multiply the impact of every hour and

every dollar donated. Together, they create a big impact. Beautification is not cosmetic. It's foundational. Clean and welcoming public spaces support local business, strengthen tourism, improve public health, and enhance civic morale. They bring people together. What we saw at the summit affirms something important. Small towns can lead. Pacific Grove can lead. PG Cares remains committed to the work the city is doing and to maintain a vibrant and connected community, one volunteer, park, and block at a time. And we are honored to work with you. Thank you.

Thank you. Am online. We have one hand raised. Mayor Jane Haynes. Can you hear me now? Yes.

Okay. I want to address uh four issues during this public comment. Uh, first I want to thank the Pacific Grove 2 baseball team for reminding us of this city's history and for representing Pacific Grove in Coopertown. Um, I think that's great and thank you. Second, I want to thank staff, particularly Sandra, for understanding and responding to my request that comment letters be posted in a manner that preserves their meaning. Sandra understood my concern and promptly assured me that will be done in the future. It will further the council's goal of encouraging public participation in city affairs and I greatly appreciate it. Third, I want to mention that the housing element states on page 320 that a rental assistance program would be presented to the city council by January 2026. That time has passed. The program's goal is to assist at least 10 lower income renter households to obtain housing. Will staff please clarify when and if the rental assistance program will come before the council. Um I would appreciate staff providing that information. Thank you. That's all.

Thank you. There are no other hands raised. Mayor Okay, thank you very much. We're going to go ahead and close general public comment. Go and move on to the consent agenda. The consent agenda deals with routine and non-controversial matters and may include actual resolutions, ordinances, or other public hearings for which testimony is not anticipated. Uh, this consent agenda is Are there any members of the council that would like to pull an item? Walking sticking stick. Uh, 8A, please. 8A storefront cannabis. Okay. 8A's pulled. Yeah,

that's what I was going to pull. Okay. All right. And anyone online? We've already pulled ADA cannabis. We do have one. Um Amara Morrison. Uh thank you. Good evening, Mayor Smith and members of the council. Um and staff. Uh I I am going to address the council on item 8A. Uh if that is permissible. It's been pulled. It's been pulled. So, we're not able to comment at this time on that item. Will there be an opportunity to There will be. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Are we we good? Okay. Yes.

All right. Can I entertain a motion on consent uh accepting 8A there from? So moved. All right. We have a motion by walking six, second by Alio. Uh, all in favor, all in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose? Seeing none, passes unanimously. Thank you very much, staff, for bringing these reports. We'll we'll now turn our attention to item 8A, storefront retail cannabis, uh, business licensing information. And I'll recognize city manager.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Yeah. So, the item A8A tonight is intended to be anformational only item. It addresses some of the questions that we've received over the last um I guess couple of months and they've been in different iterations of those questions. So the the memo that was that was posted uh was simply to intended to provide a history of how we have addressed those comments in the past and um that pretty much speaks for itself I think from that standpoint. Okay, we'll go ahead and go to public comment on the item item 8A. Thank you. Anyone wish to make public comment on this item? Miss Morrison did want to make promise. Amara Morrison. You have the floor there.

Thank you very much. Uh again, my name is Amber Morrison. Uh and I'm an attorney with Redwood Public Law. And I'll just point out I'm a former city attorney for two East Bay cities. Um I'm here tonight as council for Nug Pacific Grove LLC. Uh one of the applicants in your commercial cannabis permitting process. Um appreciate the opportunity to address the council relative to consent calendar item 8A. I hope that uh you received our letter which was submitted yesterday and which relates to our request this evening. Uh and the request is as follows. We respectfully request that the council pull which you already have consent agenda item A uh but agendaize the memo for a full discussion and deliberation at a future council meeting. Um, and we request that you do so either before the lottery, uh, which was just announced is going to be held on March the 30th, or we ask that you postpone the lottery until the deliberations on the memorandum can occur. Um, and the reasons for this request are as follows. Um you obviously know there are uh 10 applications uh for the one commercial license um which have been determined to be eligible for u proceeding to the lottery phase. Um as we have argued previously, we believe and argue that eight of these applications are interrelated and they're subject to common and overlapping ownership interests. Um, we've previously stated on the record in writing and before the council, even at last month's council meeting, uh, that we feel it's improper for the city to ignore its own ordinance's definition of quote owner. Um, the city's definition of owner mirrors, uh, the definition found in the state's cannabis licensing statute. We've outlined kind of the four elements of what constitutes an owner. Um, I won't belabor that point. It's in our letter. Um, and so we request that

as a part of the council's deliberation on the memo, uh, staff and the city's consultant be asked to explain how or why common ownership and parent companies or affiliated enterprises is not relevant under state law uh, or under the city's own ordinance. Um, I just want to point out that the memorandum omits the city's basis uh for proceeding with the permitting process um without undertaking the kind of ownership inquiry that our client frankly has been requesting for many months now. Um, in other words, the city's cannabis permitting process web page just simply asserts the city's categorical compliance with require with requirements of state law without any kind of explanation as to how the permitting process complies with state law. Um, particularly around the question of of various applicants ownership interests. Um our our client has uh submitted a P request to moderate uh related to similar commercial cannabis permitting or licensing effort. Um we've included the results of that P uh request um which show a clear inter relationship

between applicants. Thank you. I just want to note it's this is a question of fairness and equity and the council. Thank you ma'am. Yeah. Okay. Uh, no, their phones are raised. Okay. So, um, just going to state this for the record. Uh, this is anformational only item and it has not been agendaized for action that's on here. So, with that, I'll recognize uh, Council Member Walking Stick.

Thank you. Um, yeah, this this has been deeply concerning. I've uh watched this hoping that the process that we had put in place um on uh on June 18th when we decid when we approved the updated uh cannabis licensing ordinance, I certainly hoped that uh permit application stacking would have been prevented in that. But um I will I'll take uh my share of the blame for uh my own lack of vision on how this process would have turned out. And uh I'm not happy with how it's going right now. I'm unhappy with the fact that uh we don't have according to the report that just came in um says twice in the report uh there's clearly nothing in Pacific Grove's cannabis ordinance that prohibits the stacking of applications by related parties. goes on to further say the city stated in its response that nothing in the city's licensing process prohibits the alleged affiliation with common entity. Those are problems. Those are those are major structural problems with our process and we still have time to fix it and this this kind of feels like uh a lot like our lot last offramp to do that. So, I would rather do the right thing and maybe step on some toes than allow the wrong thing to happen and try and clean it all up afterwards. I think taking care of it ahead of time, being more proactive with this and taking responsibility for it now will help us in the long run and will make this an easier process in the long run instead of setting ourselves up for a future disaster. Um, and and most importantly, I want us to be in the right and craft good law. And I I we tried and a process isn't necessarily a oneanddone. We try things, we get

feedback, we see where it's it's got failures, and then we fix it. And this to me, I think this is then we fix it part. This is the fix it part. So, um, and I can get shot down on this maybe later, but I've got justification for it. Uh, I move that we pause the permit award process and agendaize a discussion regarding an ordinance uh to prevent that prevents cannabis permit application uh, stacking. I base this on uh, advice from Brian Purick. uh was emailed to uh to Matt Mogansson uh city manager Matt Mogansson on April 14th, 2025. Quote, "The legislative body may take action related to the agenda item as described in the subject section of the agenda even if that action is not included as one of the specified recommendations. Um this is very clearly storefront retail commercial cannabis business licensing and that is exactly what I'm trying to address is I want that licensing process to be fair. I don't feel it is fair right now. So, I've got a motion on the floor.

Um, I'll recognize city attorney to talk to the uh efficacy of the motion. The uh this is agenda only and it's explicit under the options there that it's it's not been agendaized for action. So, motion on this would be improper. Thank you. Um, council member or no partia.

Thank you. I have some questions, clarifying questions on uh 8A. Um has the um city maybe Mr. Morgansson's can answer this or uh Miss Halibby. Has the city followed the u the lottery process on this? I I understood Miss Halib talked about it. the lottery process is going to be followed.

Um yeah, some so council member um our duty has been to implement the ordinance which is exactly what we've done so far as it's been approved and written by the council years ago. Okay. I um I have a couple other uh has there been out of the uh eight or nine applicants uh out of the 10 or whatever it was um was there an appeal process uh in the uh from the applicants was there any appeal process?

So there there are different appeals processes throughout the the um process if you will to get all the way to cannabis getting a permit. Um, but the process or appeal part you're talking about is on the applications that are eligible for the lottery. Yes, there was a 10-day appeal process that ran I think the beginning of January, January 5th for 10 days. The the And did we get any appeals within the 10 days? No, we did not. Okay. Um, those are some of the questions I had. I may have some later. Um, mayor. All right. Well, um and we'll take further any comments people have and then then that'll be it though.

Thank you. Um I so I um I know this has been floating around with these letters and questions etc. So I just want to have a few things like just clear just for my sake here. Uh one is we the we obviously the city's laws allow um staging to take place. Am I correct on that or not? So, council member, I think what I could really direct you back to is the memo. I will say that the memo and all of our responses to this has been at the advice of our special counsel, you know, so staff has not come to these representations by herself. So, it has been vetted.

Okay. So, so with that being said, um the so it was my it is my understanding per the report that um the st we had communicated to all the applicants the existing laws that Pacific Grove had that included the fact that somebody could actually submit more than one application or or effectively stack everything um that was provided to the applicants. Correct. I'll ask Miss Halibby if she can respond to the FAQs and how that kind of came together.

Yes, there were two FAQs that are relevant um to the question you posed. So throughout the application process window, we allowed questions and we constantly responded to the questions received. There was one question, can multiple applicants be submitted on the same property by different entities that have no common ownership? And the city's response was yes. There are no restrictions in the existing ordinance that would prohibit this. And then subsequently, we received a question. What if said owners or individuals applicants with common with no common ownership in the applying entity have common ownership in other entities, a parent company or private contracts that constitute economic ownership? And the city responded, "There are no restrictions in the existing ordinance that would prohibit this."

Okay. So what I'm getting at is uh effectively um it was a level playing field from what I understand from how staff has responded to this FAQs meaning anybody could have submitted more than one application for through the process. Uh I understand there's some questions around ownership here and and my question to the attorney here is um effectively there was a higher kind of governing body for this the MA messa or the department of cannabis. Do you know if we have vetted our process with either of those uh higher agencies?

Yes. before my time when when that went through I don't know if staff recalls the the process um by the state or some so so what is the answer sorry I didn't catch that it was before my time but as I as I hear it um it appears it wasn't although it it didn't necessarily need to be vetted by the state as it was being drafted

sorry I was my question is this like there's some ownership related questions that have come across has department of cannabis agreed that that doesn't come into play here or has come into play here but we're okay. Uh the city manager and I had a a meeting with department of cannabis control last week and that issue was not brought brought up to us as as any kind of issue or problem. to say and in my tenure that's the only communication I've had with that with that administrative agency. You may have to talk to special counsel directly on some of these questions.

Okay. And and I don't see like special counsel here. So it seems like department of cannabis actually contacted us or we contacted department of cannabis and vetted something at least. Right. It appears to be based on if I could back up to your first question. I think the the answer to has the department of cannabis ever vetted our ordinance? I I don't know the answer to that right now and but I also don't know that that's required. Um you know we can pass our or owned ordinance. On the second question, we were contacted or the city attorney's office was contacted by an attorney at the department of cannabis and he asked some questions and this was not one that came up.

Okay. Um so here's where I am. So I so I think we've the city from from a legal standpoint, we've done what we can to provide communication and information to everybody. Uh I think the intent of the lottery was to keep it really fair and I think we're we're so far we're communicating the right things to the applicants to say to keep it fair. I understand the the the way it's looking right now is certainly it looks like lottery by volume rather than lottery by competition. But uh but the fact is uh at least from a procedural perspective we seem to have done all the right things to make sure that everybody is able to submit as many applications as they can which unfortunately doesn't seem to have happened. So that's where I stand right now unless I I I think uh we have more insight into anything that is going on. Seems like at least in my opinion we have um in some to some extent wetted what is required from the department of cannabis and or HDL may have done their work to ensure that the ownership uh kind of does not come into play here. and and and actually on that note sorry does HDL review these applications for uh for ownership uh kind of like status quo between applications do you know so so there's there's obviously there's eight applications seems like all of them were effectively submitted by one kind of owner or or I don't know but seems like they're all interrelated does HDL um kind of look into the interrelatedness of these applications

unless you have a better answer. I I will say that um so we had administrative rules and regulations that the council passed last summer I believe um that were going to be used to vet the applications. So between the administrative rules and regulations and our ordinance those are the the um review criteria that HDL used to review all the applications that came in. So in terms of like the ownership structure and everything, you know, their review of it was they're not violating the ordinance and what they have done. Okay. All right. So this is a received report. I just can answer questions. So we'll see how this turns out. But but thank you for the information. Council member,

thank you. I'd like to back way up to understand what the assertions are that are floating around. Um, it sounds like if you look at this most negatively, people are asserting that there's something shady going on. I don't know that it is, but I want to make sure we're looking at that to make sure we're not being party to u somebody pulling a fast one. So when you say they're all the same, I'd like to know what the actual complaint is for the people saying that things are being done improperly uh when they talk about ownership uh shared governance. Could somebody please explain that to me?

If you guys understand the question and can respond to it. Um, council member, I don't know that I can entirely characterize everything wholly accurately, but I believe that the speaker who just spoke um was that was the the heart of their issue is what they described to you and they felt was wrong and it's probably encapsulated in their letter, too.

Okay. Okay. So, I've read the letters and I've I've tried to follow through on this, but the assertions seem muddy enough that I don't really fully understand what's being asserted and I want to make sure that we're not enabling something to happen that's not a good outcome for the city. So, I would be happy if anybody can clarify that. Um, I mean, are are these applicants In what way are the applicants related to one another? Which applicants? We have 10 applicants. Nine of which are supposed to be somehow interconnected.

Okay. You're asking how are the nine interconnected? Exactly. How are those supposed to be interrelated? Okay. And so just to this is an information only. I So if you have the information, let's we'll share it at this time. If not, we'll send a memo to the council on that issue. So the the eight applications as best I could could characterize it as well because I um is that there appears that there's a parent company if you will and then there's there's applications that have been submitted by individuals who are somehow associated with that parent company but they're all under individual name. So but what do you mean by somehow associated? I think that's really muddy. That's that's

I mean that's what's being asserted. But I don't get why they they feel like that's a disqualifier in what if if if they're interrelated because they are aliases and they're trying to fool us into thinking that these are actually individual people and they're not. Um that's one thing. But to say that they are part of a network or they are a part of an association um of course that would be that would be a perfectly understandable thing. I don't understand what they're asserting is wrong with the folks that are supposed to be interrelated because I don't understand they're not say stating the interrelatedness specifically.

Okay. Council Row, each one of these has a unique and different LLC. Is that correct? And each one has a different EIN. Is that correct? Have a different LLC. That's correct.

So, I mean, what it looks like to me is that somebody followed the rules. They read the FAQs. They saw that it was allowed. They spent at least 64 thou $6,400 making different LLC's. They um and in addition to the $10,000 application fee for each one of these. I mean, you know, I think what happens is that if you play by the rules and then you somebody wants to change the rules, I think that's not going to bode well for the city. And so from my perspective, they knew what the rules were. They played by the rules. It's time to enter the lottery drawing and let's see where it goes. I mean, this, you know, we don't know who's gonna get who's going to win in the lottery, right? So, this may be, you know, this may be all for not. So, um, from my perspective, they followed the rules. Let's let's move the program forward.

Yeah. And I'm going to go ahead and close this item out for the night. I think we've gotten a lot of asked a lot of questions and answered a lot of questions and given a lot of information on information on the item. We're starting to get into discussing the policy and um, and debating and I think that we're getting a little bit far out from the item. So, we're going to go ahead and move on. So, where are we? I think we're 11 A. 11A FY 2526 midyear budget modifications.

Good evening, mayor and fellow council members. Uh so tonight again, um we're having our assistant director, uh Jessica, kind of give the presentation on the mid midyear. Um kind of some good news overall, which we'll talk about just in a second, but I'm going to turn it over at this point to Jessica. Evening, council members. Mayor Smith, bear with me. I'm just going to get this set up so I can share the slideshow with you. Great. So, I'm presenting the midyear financial update, which also includes the midyear amendment for fiscal year 2526 budget. Uh, just a little bit of background on the fiscal year 2526 budget. Council will remember we actually approved a two-year budget back in June. And so, both years were based on projected conservative, excuse me, projected conservative growth. And both years were projected to meet the general fund reserve requirement of 25%. Um it is worth noting that in that budget we also had a five-year forecast and the five-year forecast did project uh fund deficits for each year lowering the fund balances. This is just a summary of the fiscal year 2526 budget, the proposed amendments, and then the overall changes from those proposed amendments. So, the fiscal year, excuse me, fiscal year 2526 budget projected revenues of about 32.7 million, expenditures of about 33.8 million, and capital outlay expenditures of 870,000. So, we originally proposed an operating

deficit of about 1.9 million and with current amendments, we're proposing revenue increases of about 700,000 as well as additional expenditures of about 294,000. So, overall, it is an improvement, but unfortunately, we're still projecting deficits of about 1.5 million. a little bit of background on what's driving those changes. So, we're looking at updating the revenues for 700,000 and the two factors on that are increased property taxes, projections for 200,000 of increased property jack, excuse me, property taxes and also increase projections for an additional 500,000 in transient occupancy tax. And the reason for the increases on the transient occupancy tax were twofold. one, we're performing a little bit better this year than we were last year, year to date, between like four and 5% increase in uh performance. And then when we originally proposed the budget, we did not include transient occupancy tax projections for the Kimpton Hotel. It's going back to being conservative. We wanted to make sure the hotel was up and operating beforehand. So now we can update the budget to include those projections. And then the expenditures um for a general fund that we're proposing, we really tried to keep it at a minimum for obvious reasons. And so um what we have here are really just essentials. Um the first one is an increase in the Monterey Fire contract and that's because we came to council late last year for uh TrueUp. And so we went back and looked and on average the trueup invoice that we get from Monterey Fire is usually about 3% of the overall contract. Uh, additionally they did inform us to expect the trueup to be a little bit

more this year because of added paramedic services. And then we're also proposing 115,000 for elevator repairs at the youth center. That summarizes everything on the general fund budget amendment. The next items are related to non-general fund budget amendments. I should note that everything on the next two pages are just uh expenditure budget amendments. We didn't adjust the revenues uh for non-general fund as those revenues don't fluctuate as much and we don't anticipate them changing. So everything that we're proposing in the non-general fund budget amendment will be funded through current non-general fund balances that exist. Um so some of the key items to highlight are an additional request from gas tax fund for 111,000 for speed surveys and then also in funds 30 34 and 36. Those are all related to grant funding for housing projects. So, housing rehabilitation is what we have set up for those projects at this time. And moving on to the second page are our enterprise funds. Um, I'll just point out there's the large amount in sewer fund for 1.3 million, but I do want to note that that was already approved in the 2627 budget. Um, it's just that public works is looking to move the timeline up on the project because there's some time constraints. So where we'll see this budget request for increased funding in fiscal year 2526, we'll see a reduction um in the requests for sewer fund in fiscal year 2627. And then golf fund, there was a lot going on with golf fund this year. So overall, we're looking at expenditure savings of about 29,000. And mostly this is due to the

renegotiation of the lease contract for Corsco um that we expect the utility cost to go down a little bit for that. Uh the overall adjustments for non-general fund budgets is 1.7 million. And that's the conclusion of the presentation and the recommendations are on the screen.

And I'm going to just add a couple quick comments too. I really want to commend staff um our staff basically. Um if you looked overall in the presentation um the adjustments are relatively minor. I mean the expense adjustments are less than 1% and you know our revenue is pretty much right on about 2%. So really again want to commend staff shows the effectiveness you know of the two-year budget approach that we do. The other thing that was mentioned in the staff report too I just want to highlight very quickly was that it's proposed to take one of our um associates planners and basically reclassify it um as a senior planner. Um basically there really won't be any net effect because we were already underfilling uh our principal planner as a senior planner. So as a result what'll happen we'll have two senior planners um and one associate planner. The net effect of that reclass was about 19,000 but because it was in the staff report not in our PowerPoint um I just wanted to call attention to that as well too. So thank you.

Thank you guys. Appreciate the report. Um we'll go to public comment on this item 11A. online, mayor. Okay, we'll go ahead and close public comment on this. Bring back the council for action. Appreciate the staff report. Um, appreciate the good news on the revenue change, 700,000 plus. That's great. That's always good. Yes. The great thing is we're still meeting our 25% um overall goal that council established last year as well, too. The reserves. The reserves. Exactly. Got it. Yes. Absolutely. Go ahead.

So, I know that we tend to we tend to air on the side of caution when we project that $500,000 for the Kemp. That is a conservative projection. Is that correct?

It's a conservative. Basically, what we look at a couple things I really have to commend Jessica. She did a very thorough job in kind of looking through our revenues, you know, for this year. So, the 500,000 is kind of a combination of a couple things. We were, as you know, you mentioned earlier, a little bit conservative with our toot because it does tend to fluctuate um quite a bit. Um and with Kempton, obviously it came online a little bit later, you know, than we thought. So, we wanted to kind of hold down um those as well, too. There's a little bit of uncertainty with the economy right now. So, again, we wanted to kind of just be cautious because that could affect both toot and sales tax. So, go ahead. Um Jeff,

thank you. uh and thank you for preparing this report. Uh I I would first of all to your point like commend staff and entire staff to like take a prudent approach. Uh being conservative helps. I know like from a just uh comparing even neighboring cities I I think we're we're on a better footing here. So thank you. Uh and and my my question just was to ask a very simple question. Do we have some revenues from the Kimton that that we know of right now? Because one full month has passed. Uh do you know? So, if I remember right, Jessica, I think it comes Does it come monthly or quarterly? Go ahead.

Do you know that one? I I think I think it's monthly if I remember right. And because they literally just started in February, they have basically 30 days from the end of the month for payment. So, we likely won't get it until like sometime this month or April. So, it's a little bit early at this point. So, but we're awfully excited about it. Okay, great. So, so I think more to follow, but but but thanks for keeping us in check and hoping to continue this trend moving forward. Thanks.

All right, Mayor Perto. Yeah, I'm going to make a motion on this, but I just prior to the motion um uh I was at the recreation commission meeting with one pretty long time and um they were talking various things and you know on the back of my mind always is the skateboard park and I didn't see that in the budget.

We just we did not put that in the budget so far. So the only uh thing you know it's in the back of my mind still my recreation department is doing a subcommittee dealing with that. So, but anyway, uh I'd like to make a motion to introduce and hold the first reading of the ordinance to amend the operating capital pro budget and employee position allocations for the fiscal year 2526 and the publication of the ordinance will be satisfied by publication of the reapproved by the city attorney. Second motion by Mayo, second by council member. Any further discussion? Council member Garfield.

Yeah, thank you. Um, again, I really appreciate the the um approach you all take where we estimate revenues low and expense is high and when we turn out to be uh that the actual result is more moderate, then it's all good stuff. I would and I do appreciate that I've looked at the the five-year implications of this small amount of lessening um a draw on our surplus and it does carry out. There's only the fourth year where we fall fall below 25% um out of the five years. So this is not an improvement just for this year. It it does ripple through. I would however say um I hope that this will happen again. Uh we have some expenses coming up that we're already committed to in in terms of the um breakwater at Lover's Point that's going to require some money. Um we have a big some expenses coming up for um our uh capital assets like Chakqua Hall. So, uh, looking ahead for a full five years is really important and not getting too too giddy about, um, a little bit of extra money.

Absolutely. Yeah. Anyway, um, thank you. Appreciate all of your work and the fact that how well you work with, um, the other departments to bring in everything. So, thank you.

Thank Thank you. Okay, we'll go ahead and take a voice vote on this. All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Hearing none. Passes unanimously. Thank you very much for staying on top of the budget. Um and and we appreciate the information in a in a very well done and succinct manner. Appreciate that. Um now we'll move on to item 12A. This is the status update and uh review of work plan. Uh city manager Matt Morgansson. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Um, so we typically do do a two-year work plan and our budget's been annual, but every year we've been checking in about this time in the mid of the two years to make sure that I guess first of all to give you a better update than we do just quarterly, which is a consent calendar item with the narratives. Um, but also sometimes, you know, you want to make some adjustments based on budgetary stuff. This year it's a little bit different. you know, you just saw our mid-year budget is it's pretty pretty bare bones of what we were changing and what we're asking to change. So, what I, you know, would like to do is give you a deeper update, but at the end of it, if there's anything within here you feel that we should reconsider and maybe not pursue at this time, this would be a good time to probably discuss that. There's also a list of projects that that have been allocated or been directed by the council that are outside of this work plan that I also wanted to kind of update you on to make sure that you know the status of that. And then we have um more staff level contract or projects if you will that are significant work efforts that need to be done that are kind of things that are important to the city. Um but we'll update you quickly on that as well. So with that uh Sanders put this chart on the screen and hopefully you can see it. I'm going to use a hard copy just case. So the good news I want to report on is you see the green the green boxes with check marks in them. Those are those are items that are already done. So at this point, we are we are midway through the third quarter of our first year of this

cycle and we've completed nine of 2 nine of 27 of our supporting tasks so far. So I think we're on a good track here and we've tried to lay these out in somewhat of a strategic manner so that you know some build on on others and so that we could get through the whole plan within the two years. But to um we won't go through the ones that are completed but if you have questions at the end please feel free to ask. Uh so the first one you come to that's still under development is develop options to fund the long-term storm drain infrastructure needs. This is a big project and um it's something that is definitely going to take us until quarter two of next year to have just some different ideas and options we can bring back to you to start to talk about. Um but we are keeping our keeping our feelers out there and looking for the different ways that other cities are accomplishing these types of things. So that's the first item that's still in the works. Um the next one is uh under the goal of identifying reduced expenditures and enhanced revenues uh recover low no cost recovery programs for effectiveness or I'm sorry it's review uh for effectiveness and recommend improvements. So we have um we've already started undertaking this. We're looking at our recreation programs currently and we're also reviewing um fees and both that and our seat community development department and and those are two of our higher programs that are just program based. So meaning that people pay for the use of those programs. So the idea is to hit certain cost recovery levels. Um so we're we're evaluating that and we'll bring those results back to council. Um so you'll notice in this first overall area, it's called fiscal sustainability and it goes hand inand with what Fred just presented, but most of this is frontloaded because we really want to jump on our fiscal issues and try and make a real difference as we go through our two years. So you'll see that that's the heaviest area so far that we've completed things. Another big one in here is um we've had a risk management assessment done by we're a member of the California Joint Powers Insurance Authority. So they've come in and they've looked at our whole

operation, all of our policies and procedures and they've given us a list of recommendations of how we can improve to lower our risk if you will or costs that we have in the long term because we pay for all of it. So the idea is to lower that as much we can. So there's a whole lot of things that come out of that item that are on our plate that that are not that nobody sees as well. So going down to the next category, the next area is infrastructure. And within um infrastructure, um we've completed the five-year the initial five-year CI that we started working on. As you'll remember, we still need to work on the the um I believe the sewer, the storm water, um and some of our recreational infrastructure. Um, but we have a good start on that and that's where some of the numbers came out to be presented to you recently, which is that we need closer to $4 million to keep up on our on the infrastructure costs that we have. A new asset database system is being born out of the um the uh facility assessments that we had done last year. So, we're going to take all the data within that and we're going to put it into schedule. So, that's something that we're we're looking to get done this quarter. Um, we're working on that. Uh the next the next item, the sidewalks is is another one of these items that is a big uh you know it's a big project. It's a big idea if you will. So we do have a sidewalk program policy that we're looking at how can we up or revamp that policy um so to try and either accelerate sidewalk in and installation or to um accelerate sidewalk repairs as well. And some of um I mentioned our risk management program that kind of goes together with that. Um, so we need to finish a sidewalk inventory around the whole city and from there we'll know where there are more issues with sidewalks and then we'll be working with the people who own those sidewalks to to fix them in one way or another. And um, so that's a program that we'll be coming back and discussing with the council before too long. But that's probably what's really going to make the biggest change when it comes to installing new sidewalks. That's going to be a, you

know, again some policy discussions we need to have. you know, because currently if somebody does more than $40,000 of improvements to their property, they have to put in a sidewalk in front of their house is and we also at times the city will go ahead and do infill. So, it's one of those situations where we maybe want to think about a more equitable program in the long term of how we do that and maybe we'll be able to accelerate some of the sidewalk um installations. So, one of the major things we really need within in the city is an enterprise resource system. So, our system, I don't know the exact year. I'm sure that we could we could ask uh Fred and Jessica to come tell us about how difficult it is to work with, but it's really old and we we really need to replace it. So, one of the main things we want to get a get a leap on here is just putting together the RFP, which is a big project by itself. So, that's something in the works and you can see that that's a quarter two delivery. Um within our IT infrastructure um issue, we also have a lot of work to do there and I mentioned we've done an assessment. We have a six and a 12-month program. John Joyce is now leading up those efforts to help us get on track with that. We're also looking though to get into some um some other some other items within there. So, we'll be working on that and that some of those deliveries were quarter four. So, that's going to be more of a probably again a a layered entry. Um, so develop a plan to to retain key staff. And you know, there's a number of things that HR has been working on that. And I would say that overall what we've started doing is more all staff meetings. We're trying to bring people together more often to to bring them up to to speed on our budget issues and other things that are happening around the city. Uh we're also looking at some new training ideas. Um, and we also uh awarded the first um city manager beacon award this year and that went to Arlon Moore. I will let you know about that. He's at Arland works at our public works yard and he is um he had some great ideas. One was he took a two cars and

made him one and saved us a bunch of money with that. So, so he won the award this year. So, if you see him, say congrats. Uh let's see. Trying to move along here for you. So, addressing critical physical infrastructure. Um back to the sidewalks. That's a um we're working on that to help to work on our safe routes to school plan. I think through the recent project we did that finished sidewalks on Synex down the Congress is a big was a big um improvement on that. Also, there's been some Pine Avenue improvements that are being monitored right now and they seem to be making a difference and we'll hear I'm sure as we go. Couple other things there that are not yet started. Our downtown streetscape improvement plan, um we we'll see as we get into this uh how much we can we we're able to do within that. Uh but we'll come back and we'll talk about it more. and the sewer master plan. So every I believe it's been 10 years since we last said a sewer master plan. So next year we really need to start going again because that's how we set our fees. So without doing the plan we won't we won't be able to set new fees which we'll need to start recouping. Climate action and adaptation plan is coming to you in April. So that's recently been in the BNRC. Um fire safety inspections, those the first year of those in the high fire severity zones were completed by Monterey Fire. This year they're going to move to the outer ring, which is the next moderate zone, and then next year they'll go back to the high fire severity zone. So, they'll kind of flip-flop back and forth, but those are those are under underway. George Washington master plan, um you can see the quarter four deliverable on that. Same with um title 12, actually that's quarter three. So, that'll be coming forward after the climate action plan, I believe, or those might be reversed to be honest with you. I believe those are reversed. So the the George Washington Park master plan will be first. Assess the wildlife protection efforts that is ongoing. I think you know the new cso plan that chief day just rolled out is going to be a big not only start to this

but also a big data gathering um effort. So that is what doing well and also the recreation drones band is also I think um an effort towards this. U so moving in the last uh focus area here we have in our community development. Um, so ADUs are are something that we're probably going to be looking at. We need to update our ordinance and we also need to come up with our model ADU ordinance and we also wanted to talk about a amnesty program of some kind in order to permit ones that are out there that might not be permanent at this point. So that would help add to our to uh check off some numbers on our arena arena requirements. Uh affordable housing project location. That's we're we're planning on bringing a discussion in in May that kind of kicks this off and talks about it. So, we'll that'll be coming back pretty soon, evaluate the city's water allocations. I'm sorry. So, we've done that. We've also done the business license um uh process. So, we've taken a look at that and uh the deputy city manager has made some some um streamline within that process to to shorten it. We're looking for feedback on that, you know, and so far we haven't heard the negative feedback and obviously and often that's the way we know if things are working better or not. We don't hear negative stuff. So, uh, evaluate timelines and permit processes for the CD department. And that is also something that, um, our our community development directors need deep in right now. And we'll be making a lot of process changes. So, to quickly jump over to the other items that are council directed projects, um, as I mentioned before here, the cap will be before you in April. Uh, I'm sorry, we're going to jump past that table and go down to additional city directed work plan items. The the golf course lease, um, we believe that'll be coming on the next agenda already. That's moving along really well. Uh, so we currently have the council the council has decided to put the stipen measure on the ballot. So that's out there. AI policy is going to

be coming to you in most likely April. That's coming together and we're learning a lot and ready to discuss that with you. Um drone ordinance, we will revisit the um the commercial and the the uh other institutional um provisions within their ebike ordinance. The traffic safety commission has kind of taken this on which is I think is what the the council wanted. So they're going to hold some of their own meetings and then make some recommendations up to the city council. Uh we just finished up the polling on the long-term finances of the city that that the council authorized in January and we'll be presenting the results on that on 318. Shitakaco Hall improvements. We've hired the architect and the funding agreements in place and uh those designs will be happening soon. Uh we also need to bring you back the Shiitaka Hall policy uh information. That was a direction recently. Chinese pavilion is it is similar to to Shitakqua Hall and then we're going to hire an architect and we're gonna have a funding agreement and and we will uh bring you plans to review on that. Uh so the sign program the coast trail there's there's been a lot of interest in new signs on the coastal trail and we thought it might be good to first inventory what we have and kind of take a look at that. So we're going to bring an inventory of those signs and some ways we can improve. Dancing Monarch Sculpture was a project that I think was directed I want to say in fall of last year and we've as we've gotten into that we've realized it takes a little bit more work than we initially thought. We're going to need a CDP. Um it also needs more substantial um footings and things that that's all being going to have to be costed out a bit more and we're going to have to come back with a CIP on that but it's underway. Cresby pond maintenance. We've talked about this quite a bit but there's still some work to go here on this with permitting. We needed a permit from the water resources board and the CDFW and then um I believe then we'll be ready to award an actual contract for or actually the golf course is going to do that. So that will um hopefully within six months or

so that work can get done. Central Lighthouse um Congress intersection that's going to come back in April or May with a proposal for a four-way stop. recreation program stats that's been recently uh directed to staff and we are we're working on that. So I just you again I'm just going to highlight a couple of these staff level ones. So emergency preparedness, you know, so Chief Day is has taken control of this one and we're we're going to be doing some more drilling. Um we're going to get staff up to speed on training to make sure that we're we're the best we can be when it comes to emergency preparedness. Public information, we put a lot more effort on that lately and I think our social media numbers are greatly expanded. um economic development. We are, you know, doing our we're working with Councilman Pradori as the former EDC um liaison and we're we're looking at a number of things. So, we'll come back in the near future and actually talk about that in more detail. Organizational assessments, you you know about those. We've had several of them done. So, we're making quite a few adjustments internally um and things we can do to improve. ATC is just waiting on the developer to to eventually submit. Um, another project coming soon will be a parking meter retrofit project. And that's to look at taking our coin operated meters around the ATC and making them more of a park mobile, something that's more efficient for us. And then also talking about the idea of maybe expanding some of that parking district. And then uh I mentioned business license and then records digit digitization. So that's that's all the projects that are outside of just the day-to-day stuff that staff, you know, tries to keep up on the basic services of the city. with all that as longer more than you wanted to know, but if there's any feedback on the work on the general work plan of things you would like to reconsider or um it would be great to hear that feedback tonight. All right. Thank you very much. Comment on this item. Uh this is the work plan item.

Any takers? They'll be online, sir.

We'll go ahead and close public comment. Bring it back to the council for this is a received report but also provide direction. So, um I'll just lead off today on this one. Um I think it's very organized. I mean, you know, uh tells us exactly what we're doing on each little item. So, it's a nice thing to have. You know, you kind of put it on your fridge or something like, you know, these are all the things that we got to do. Um but yeah, so and everyone seems to be working on um something. So, you know, it's it's a good thing. I mean, uh, all of these things are important priorities for us and I think it reflects a well done set of goals. You know, keep it to a limited scope set of goals and then be able to tackle and hit all of the goals. So, that's that's what I'm seeing here. It looks great and I really appreciate I think it's this is important to take check have checkpoints and check milestones and when right here with the nine or the two out of eight quarters is probably a really good time to do that. So that's those are my comments on this item. Um who would like to go first? I think it's Chapson and I'll go to

Thank you. Um I like the bridge comment. Um but the um first of all I I would like I'd like to appreciate what staff is doing here broadly speaking. Uh like um making it succent for even for us to follow this uh and also I I see a lot of items that a lot of council members were interested in that were moving making progress on. So I I really think that's a that's a great thing. Um I also would like to take this opportunity to recognize uh the deputy city manager slash city manager more prom. She's she's been really uh I would say taken on the role with with enthusiasm and really show the work shows whatever she's doing behind the scenes. I know a lot of staff are doing great work, but I I just want to mention that the DCM thank you for stepping up and and doing what you're doing. Um I I I did have a couple of uh questions. One is uh we we do have the Cedar Street uh sorry not the Cedar Cedar Street but the uh the intersection the roundabout u the the Sunset Corridor project and I don't see that listed anywhere here and I wanted to know why it's not listed or is it like tracked somewhere else or does it need to be listed etc. Uh on that same note I also wanted to get some feedback on um the the lovers point pier where does that stand in the grand scheme of things? Are we just um kind of like holding it off for for later? How does that work?

So, council member act um actually both of those projects are in our capital improvement program and this isn't all inclusive of a capital pro improvement program either. So, there is another whole another group of projects that are within that. So, the um the roundabout is still within the CIP and there's still work going on on that on the on the outside by the engineering firm who's working on designing it. um in Lovers Point Pier. So our um public works director, deputy city manager Dan Go has acquired 750,000 towards the one 1.5 million. So we'll be back in I believe April to talk to the council about the remainder of those funds. Um but that project has been I think designed and permitted now and we just need to I think move forward uh on it to my knowledge. Um so like I said I we could have brought that list as well. Um but this this did not include CIP. There is a couple things in there that are cap but

okay thank you for making that distinction. I I just saw some projects being called out and I'm like why are these not columns? So that's my my bad but u I think great work and I I actually like the format that you have. I know the fridge comment was there but like really I like the format and I think it it is really beneficial for us to review time over time what is going on with this format which keeps it really easy for us to follow too. Thank you. Council Garfield. Sorry, I forgot. I forgot. Go ahead, Council Member Garfield.

Thank you. Good memory. Thank you. I appreciate it. Um, so first of all, it's very good to stop and remember how much is being accomplished. Um, this is it. We we tend to like want to do more, more, more, more. And it's really easy to forget what's being accomplished um behind the scenes, smoothly, effectively, and and so bravo. This is I mean really well done. I think the team is working very well together. Um so one of the things I've talked about before is the importance of having the whole team uh coralled and working well together and in that I include the BCC's. How do we make the best use of our um established conduit to the public? And the members on the BCC's are there to reflect on things and give us feedback and interpretation of what's happening. That's why they they speak about things. Anyway, so I went back to their quarterly reports and found that many of the BCC's are in fact working very well on some of the the the have a a strong correlation with the goals that council has set out. However, um I would like to propose to the BCC's that they get on board uh more firmly with our important goal of fiscal sustainability and look at the projects that they're doing and working on and looking at ways to streamline, make things more effective, make things more efficient, um and to be more knowledgeable about the actual resources that will be involved in things that they're working on. that to me would be make their work even more helpful. Um, and I don't know how to go about that, but I would like to suggest that we invite the BCC's to be more savvy about

the fiscal implications of what they're working on and how they can propose things to us more filled out so we understand them better. Anyway, that's how I think we can work better with the BCC's than we have been.

Mayor Mayor, thank you. Mayor, I I like your idea of putting it on the refrigerator, but I'm going to have to take some pictures of my kids off the refrigerator. So, anyway, uh just a couple of questions. Thank you, Mr. Morgansson, and the staff for working on this. Um now, I got three questions on this. It says sidewalk policy review update. Does this include the money park also? Council, there's currently a sidewalk, city council sidewalk policy that covers the whole city. Um it's got maps in it that shows where our brakes and sidewalks are and stuff. So, it would Yes, it would definitely include the money.

Okay. Thanks. Uh the other thing is is um on the ADU uh I know we were pretty aggressive on having ADU units, but what if a a family wants to start a ADU? Well, I guess this is a procedural question I ask offline. Uh someone's mentioned to me that they were thinking about an AD unit, but they're not going to rent it out. They're going to put their family in it. I I guess it really doesn't matter if they put an AD unit up, right? or so, council member, I'm not, you know, um I would imagine a family is just fine to go into an ADU if they chose to do that. I would probably direct them to our planning counter where they can learn a lot more about

Okay, I'll do that. And then uh the the other thing I want to talk about is um the Chinese pavilion um the Mario bait uh Chinese association been really diligent about I don't know how much they've raised two $300 thousand or something. Uh will they be do aren't they supposed to do the plans for that? I was just curious about that. Um I will ask director go if he has a little more details to that but I believe it's working the same as hall where we hire the architect

pro Tim Alio. So we've have not expended that much money yet. We've uh solicited the services of a landscape architect to do initial drawings concepts as we're weighing through what we want to do. Um, we'll be bringing forth a item to the city council for consideration that will include a funding agreement for reimbursement very similar to what we did with the Heritage Society and Shitakqua Hall to anticipate that that will be before you if we're ready in April, but it might slip to May because it's a lot of ideas and they have raised approximately $200,000 for that.

Okay, great. Thank you, Mr. Go. The other question I had real quick, uh I'm sure the traffic commission is going to be happy about the uh Lighthouse Central and Congress intersection with the stop signs coming up. And uh I you already explained a little bit on the ATC project. They're just waiting for plans to be submitted. Is that correct? I guess council member our next step is just when they submit plans, we review them against all of the approvals and so Okay. Just to wait and see. Great. And the uh we'll hear some more about the parking your retrofit is am I correct on that? Yeah. So that'll also be something that's coming to I believe in um probably early April.

Okay. And again it's going to be a initial proposal to just replace the existing parking meter heads that we have from coin operated to more of a park mobile so people can do it through an app. Okay. And um yeah we don't have to collect coins and charge batteries and stuff. Okay. And thanks to the all you and the staff for uh dogging this uh work plan. Thank you uh council member Ralph.

Thank you your honor. I would like to join council member Pedori and say that I think one of your most effective uh things that you've done is to ask Miss Halib to step up and I think she has done an outstanding job. you know, this whole work plan review has uh it takes me back to the very first report I read, which was the report from the consultant about the deficits in the way that the city has been running. And one of the first things that it said is that we are a little city trying to do big city things. And I think this work plan, I think that the thing the items that we're working on speak directly to that. And I think you and your staff are doing yman's work to work through these on a shoestring and also uh with you know very thin staffing. So I look forward to the proposal about making us more efficient on the technology side so that we can even do more with less. I think that's going to be great. I also am very excited about the Lighthouse Central Congress um since that's where I live and that's where we walk multiple times a week. Um I think that's outstanding and I've really enjoyed the the updates because you know people will say what do the staff do all day? Well let me just tell you here a lot. So uh you and your staff should be commended for everything that you've done. Thank you, Mr. Go. Thank you to everyone else that's sitting in the audience. We really appreciate your efforts.

Thank you very much. If there's no further comment, uh, we will receive this status update and I think that, uh, it's very well done and we're always going to continue to keep working on things and we'll send emails and questions and have meetings with you and Joyce and Dan and continue to move the ball forward on various topics and any attendant or ancilliary topics can be brought up in separate agenda items as well. So we'll go ahead and receive the report, move on, and now we will welcome Mr. Shuto here from waterway onewater to give a presentation. Really appreciate the opportunity.

You're awesome. Thank you. No timer. No timer. I'm a little scared to say that, but no timer for him.

Put the one minute timer up. Thanks all. Um, I really appreciate the time to go do a quick overview on Marray Onewater as well as some upcoming things that we have going on. It's been a little bit of time since I've been before you, so it's it's great to be back. Um, my name is Paul Shudo. I'm the executive officer of Monterey One Water. So, we're your regional wastewater and recycled water purveyor. Um, our treatment plant is out in Marina and I'll get into a little bit of what we do and then go into what we have planned. It's nice to see um the projects you have going on particularly from an infrastructure perspective because we're just going to sort of build on that with this brief discussion. Next slide please. Um so like I said we're the recycled water people around our mission as you see there we take very seriously um because we do we are a regional entity we're a joint powers authority that serves from Moss Landing all the way here through Pacific Grove on the coast um and the and the city of Selenus. So we do serve the northern part of the community. Our five strategic goals that we try to work around are as you see water and energy obviously what we do day-to-day our community serving our community whether that be through agricultural irrigation portable reuse whatever we can do when I we say employer of choice obviously to do the type of work we do we need to attract and retain really skilled people in addition we want to make sure that all our vendors and consultants and contractors are treated fairly ly paid reasonably quickly. So they keep coming back to us. An appropriate use of technology as you can imagine with all the outlying facilities and everything that's at that

treatment plant. We use a lot of technology, a lot of instrumentation, programmable logic controllers, the amount of infrastructure that our operators have to operate, control, keep an eye on, alarms is tremendous. and having that resilient and um well resilient and multiple backups is required. And then lastly, positioning oursel within the industry from a policy and regulatory perspective. And we'll get into that in a little bit as well. Next slide, please. So, what do we do? You actually mentioned your sewer plan. And so Pacific Grove, when the water goes down your drain or out of your shower, comes out of your house, Pacific Grove takes care of the conveyance of that waste water until our pump stations. And that's true for all of our member entities. So we operate uh we own six large pump stations and about 30 miles of force manes. So large diamond force manes to convey the water treatment plant which is the next little circle on there. Wastewater treatment. On our 100 acre campus we have a 30 million gallon per day treatment plant capacity. On average we get about 17 million gallons a day. So that is 247 365. So you can imagine the amount of infrastructure necessary to process, clean and either reuse or discharge. Where the water goes after that is a sort of it's not exactly a fork in the road. I guess it is. There's like there's three options. So a three tine fork. One is recycled water for agricultural irrigation. Since 1998, we have been irrigating or help irrigate 12,000 acres in the Selenus Valley with recycled water. At the time it was incredibly innovative. We were the first one to use recycled water on uncooked food crops and there's a number of studies that went over a

decade proving the safety and efficacy of that. Um the next place the water could go is our portable recycling water plant or Pure Water Monteray. Uh you may have seen back in October we stood up our expansion of pure water Monteray that originally started in February of 2020. So as of the end of last year we're producing with recycled water about 60% of the total water demand for the Monterey service area of Calam not on the on the resource recovery because it's actually being discharged. There is some waste water that we still discharge to the ocean through our outfall which goes about two miles offshore in the marine sanctuary about 130 ft deep um and meets all ocean California ocean plan requirements as you can imagine moving and treating water it takes a lot of energy. We're our our energy bill is on the order of about 9 $9.2 million per year just for buying electricity and gas. So our board has been kind enough to allow us to embark upon a more aggressive renewable energy strategy for about 30 something years now. We have used bio gas. So in the wastewater uh processing we have we generate bio gas that goes to fuel three co-generation engines. They're frankly older internal combustion engines and we produce about 90% of the power demands for that primary that main wastewater treatment plant. Well, when these other ones came on, our uh particularly the pure water plant, our demands increased 136%. Even though I mentioned it's a 30 million gallon a day plant, pure water is only 7.6 million gallons a day. So even though it's small, takes a lot more energy. So last December, we brought online a food waste receiving station so

we can co-digest food waste with our bioolids, increasing bio gas production. so we can run those engines a little harder. In I'm going to say May this year, we're going to be requesting of the board to May June to um award a renewable energy project to contractors to condition the bio gas because we're increasing the production to make renewable natural gas that we can put back into the grid, sell to PG&E. In addition, we're going to replace those old internal combustion engines with a new technology. They're called linear generators. They're more efficient. They have less uh emissions. If there's any downside to them, it's that when you turn on your 500 horsepower pump that you have that end rush of current, like, you know, when everyone turns the lights on in your house and it sort of flickers for a second. Same sort of thing in the treatment plant. Those new generators really can't sustain that. So there's other technology we can bring online. Anyhow, it's sort of a comprehensive look at how we can do better and have some price stability for our customers. As we all know what our electricity costs are doing and gas costs are doing. We want to have some input and control over that being that we use so much now. Yeah, I mentioned 35 years old the the generators and and so on. So that's the next thing. Um next slide please. Last year, our treatment plant celebrated its 35th birthday. So, yes, we had cake and it's to celebrate all of our employees that have been doing a great job keeping it going. Um, the maintenance is is extraordinary if you can think about everything that's out there. And I would certainly invite all of you if you'd care to come on out for a tour. We have set tours uh that our public relations staff take you on and we'd love to show you everything we have. Um, now the downside of this, the 35-year-old thing is in a marine

environment and wastewater environment which is tremendously aggressive, a lot of that infrastructure is starting to come to its end of its useful life or it's past the end of its useful life. In all, we have about a billion dollars worth of assets at the treatment plant and our pump stations, not our microphones because I do beat those up a lot. So, that value is down. Um, you can tell I'm Italian. Um, so we have to reinvest in that. Now, um, so this is where we start getting into what we've done, what we need to do, and the rates. But next slide, please. So, what have we been doing? You've probably seen we've been doing some upgrades and pump stations. We've done some in Pacific Grove. Currently, we're working on one in Monterey and in Seaside. a lot of work going on at the treatment plant at at our main campus there and then replacement and efficiencies that goes to the power generation and frankly a lot of new instrumentation as you can imagine with whether it be our cell phones or our computers technology improves dramatically so things that I feel are new that I know we put in 12 years ago are bordering on obsolete now so it's this constant renewal that's what we're doing currently with our with our rates that we get from all of our customers. Next slide, please. This is sort of the big thing that's in the future, electrical reliability. We're trying to replace pretty much our entire electrical system because that is 35 years old and there is an end of useful life to it. In addition, um as you're doing a sewer master plan, we just embarked upon a treatment plant master plan looking at what is the next 35 years look like for us. And then may seem a little odd and not as glamorous, but our bioolids management process um with certain state regulations, we can't

just take all of our bioolids next door to regen Monterey. Um AB1383 is saying it needs to be reduced greenhouse gas emissions, etc. So, we're looking at different ways to number one try to get rid of it in a more cost-effective manner than we're doing and number two trying to reuse it. There are technologies out there where um high temperature paralysis where we can create biochar which is a usable product not only for us for agg and the construction industry and elsewhere. So these current priorities when you line them up and we've scrutinized them with our engineering director who said hey I really think we need this many projects. We've squished it down and extended the time frame because of the financial impact. Even with doing that, we're looking at about $500 million of capital projects over the next 10 years. It's not a straight line $50 million a year. There's, you know, little curves up and down, but that's the nut to crack as we see it. Uh, next slide, please. So, when we look at our rates, and I get this question a fair amount, is I'm a wastewater customer. Am I paying somehow for Pure Water Monteray? Or I'm a Pure Water Monterey customer. Am I paying for a irrigation? And and the simple answer to that is no. As you as any public entity, we have four discrete enterprise funds. So we don't have different customer classes subsidizing others and we try to keep those in their own silos, if you will. What I'm going to I'd like to talk today is a little bit more about the wastewater fund because that's what's coming up before us. But just to touch on the recycled water in the blue, the non-potable, that is entirely paid for with a contract with Monterey County Water Resources Agency. The beneficiaries of that water is those 12,000 acres of a land, which has, if

I'm not mistaken, somewhere around 26 land owners and a growers. On the recycled water side, we have a se separate enterprise fund for pure water monterey that is entirely paid expense or revenues coming in from the Monterey Peninsula water management district which ultimately gets their revenue from Calam and Marina Coast Water District is also a customer of the pure water project. Lastly, we just brought up an energy uh discrete enterprise fund because we see that string of cash coming in the future. So we wanted to establish that now so then it could distribute out to the other three funds. But on the wastewater side it's our 65,000 customers that you know the rates account for about 95% of our revenue. We have interest and other things that occur acrew also but the bulk of it is all of us paying our rates and the businesses. Next slide please. So what drives the rate process? We have a rate consultant. It's fairly standard in the utility industry. You look at your revenue needs. Obviously, there's um operations and maintenance. I already mentioned the $9.2 million worth of electrical costs. Uh that's in our on&m bucket. We have about a little over $8 million of chemical costs. So, there's some substantial costs just to do what we do. So, O andM salaries and benefits for all those employees that I just referenced that are the highly skilled and trained that make this all happen. But the big shift from past years is the increase in capital improvement projects. That ends up being about 40 to 45% of our overall budget. It's an investment in everything we own. So you look at those revenue needs um and then based on the number of customers you come up with that rate model of what do we think it's going to

look like. Um the board just last month did direct staff to keep with a um a flat rate system like we have had for a number of years. So that will be the same. No change there. But we staff and our consultants are going to propose to the board in the near future a rate increase over some period of time under Proposition 218. We can do that between 1 to 5 years and we'll be uh heading to the board in March with that. We're still looking at a lot of the numbers right now. So, I don't have a discreet, hey, it's going to be this amount, but I can tell you with the rate schedule and the preliminary information, it looks like we're going to be asking for about an 8% rate increase, which I know is substantial. What that means for that 85% of revenue from all of us paying right now, our rates are $54 per month for a single family dwelling. at the 8% if the board agrees to go forward with it and then approves it, it would be $58.32. So that's sort of the difference that we're looking at that in conjunction with some existing EPA lowinterest loans, some bond issuances in the end of 27, early 28, we feel we can address that $500 million worth of projects that we have strung out over that period of time. Um I want to come back to I I understand that that is an incumbrance to a lot of people in our service area when you think about what we serve. The board did ask us um probably about three years ago now maybe four years ago now time flies to um put together a customer assistance program and we've done that. This year we funded it through non rate revenue because that's the only way we really can do it. We can't be taking from rates to subsidize someone. So it's non- rate

revenue. We have about $200,000 in that account as of last year. We've helped out 900 customers that have applied and qualified as lowinccome or or meeting those. The downside of it, we actually had 50 other people that applied that we ran out of money so we couldn't do that. So, we'll be coming to the board again and say, can we have a little bit more? Can we shift around? Here's the impacts to our budget. We just feel that um it has to work both ways and there is a vehicle to get that done. Next slide, please. So, I mentioned the Proposition 218 process. It is what we are legally obligated to do and it is that part of getting the feedback from the customer trying to understand where everyone sits. Um you'll see we're sitting here in in March. In February I mentioned that the board voted to keep the structure the same. in March, um we'll bring the draft rate study that has those revenue requirements and in general ask the board to say, "Yeah, you know, we want to do a five-year or no, we want to do a threeyear, whatever it's going to be, and here's the proposed rate increases." That allows us to go back and start printing the Proposition 218 notice and all the legal requirements. It goes out to all the customers. It's not until April 27th that the directors will see what the exact rates are. If it's 8% for 85% of the people, it's that 5832. But for the dentist office and the restaurant and others, we'll have to calculate all those out as well. So, if they agree to um put that on the 27th, there's that public period. We send out notices. People have 45 days to comment and whether that be send a letter back to us, an email, call in, show up at a board meeting. That's we keep tabs on

all that. In June is that public hearing. So people can come and express their wishes and then it's up to the board to make a decision at that point hopefully. Because what's the reason I say hopefully is those decisions are contingent upon what our budget looks like approving a budget before the end of the fiscal year. Thank you. So we've tried to do a very tight job planning and trying to optimize what kind of projects we're doing as well as what the impacts are financially. And um yeah, I mentioned last year we got our pure water expansion done. We stood up the the food waste receiving station, not to mention keeping the thing running for the entire year. I I think we've shown that we have an incredible team. I mean, the staff, they get a lot done. They're well respected in industry and we're ready to keep moving. Doing all these projects can be hard though on everyone, but we're there. Um, I do want to just highlight real quickly if it's okay, the Pure Water Project. And next slide, please. So, like I said, ribbon cutting last October came online. We're producing about 60% of the portable water demand. That is six, I'm sorry, 7.6 million gallons per day that this plant that you're looking at can produce. It's what you're seeing there. Um, it's reverse osmosis treatment. Now, something that I think is phenomenal that our um external affairs staff helped out with and frankly drove is you see that the overall cost of this expansion was about 63 million bucks plus or minus through state and federal funding of, you know, beating down doors, putting in

applications, doing everything they need to do. We do have a lobbyist in Sacramento and one in in DC that helps us out. We brought in $42 million of grant funds for this $63 million project. So twothirds of the project cost for this community was outside funding. The remainder was a low interest rate loan that we were able to qualify for with EPA called the it's WIFIA program. It's water infrastructure. You know how the federal government loves their acronyms. I don't remember what that is in all honesty, but it's just a testament to I think when you plan ahead, you can whittle down costs appropriately. And with that, I can answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Shido. As always, what a great presentation. And uh my only comment I'm going to let my colleagues if they want to make comment or ask you any questions but um my only comment is that even though these wonderful beautiful things like the the our ro in our wonderful new facility and I was there that day in October, we have those things, we also have really old other things that are are necessary uh for the plant and those things are what have been um decaying over time over the last 40 years. So those are the those are what you're trying to address and so I'm supportive of that effort. Um and anyone else want to uh council member Garfield.

So um one of the things I know you're addressing is the uh we have a hand raised. Do we need to go out to the public first? We yeah I I'm I just saw my hand so we can do that. Would you like to wait? I'll hold off on that. Thank you, mate. Go ahead and recognize Lawrence.

Thank you, Sandra. I guess all I had to do that time was raise my hand. Yes, Mr. Shudo. That was a very slick presentation, and that's what everybody does when they're asking for money. Uh yes, I'm very glad that you have the lower income assistance program now which basically gives me two months two payments of less less less. That's all because you're talking in Pacific Grove that has doubled with our own sewer add-ons this fee. We are talking a huge amount here. We're not talking $53, you know, that you're talking about. We're talking about a lot more. And because Pacific Grove has put so many add-ons on it, and yes, I always fill out a 218 in a nay way, and that's what I will be doing again because, you know, we just can't take it anymore. I mean, I can't. I'm a homeowner, but I'm elderly. I am infirm and it is just plain too much for me and Pacific Grove is the one who doubles the bill. But thank you for your little uh public assistance for the lower income. Now that is very helpful. I've been outspoken at those meetings also. So thank you for your presentation. I know what to do.

Thank you very much. Lindstöm.

Kyle Linstrom, you have the floor.

Okay. Go ahead, Council Member Garfield. Thank you. Public comments closed on this item. Okay, thank you. Um, so I know you're doing things about sea level rise and so I know a lot of folks are are very interested in what you're doing. Um, am I is this the right group about the the project to relocate the electrical systems for the pump station and I know that we have some citizens that are very concerned about that. Can you speak to the process and the opportunities they will have to weigh in?

Yes. So, I believe you're speaking about our Coral Street pump station which is sitting right there in the water and frequently um in ice weather. Waves crash over the pump station. Um our electrical gear is in the pump station. So, we've had times where um we had to wait for PG& to come out to disconnect the power at the street because it was unsafe to send our people in. So, in an effort to be able to access that so we don't have a spill or any environmental issues, we're attempting to move the just the electrical gear elsewhere. The pump station would still be there. So if and when waves crash over or things happen, at least our people can get to it because they can disconnect it, disconnect the electrical elsewhere. So in terms of the process, we did go through an environmental process looking at alternatives and um I don't remember the exact month that we did put that out and we got a number of comments

and so in what we ended up doing is instead of moving it towards our board like the schedule showed, we sort of put the brakes on it just to try to understand people's interests to see if we can address anything while still making this critical piece of infrastructure safe and working. Um, we'll be coming back to your council in the coming months uh to do two things. One is I know it's our process, so it's not your responsibility, it's our process, but to help inform you and get some feedback. Um, I think what had happened, if I may sort of go on a bit of a tangent, is the location that was selected, the architectural renderings that were used, they tried to match the area like the clubhouse and things like that. In listening to what people said is like, what's this giant thing? Well, it was to match it architecturally. From a functional perspective, a lot of that may not have been necessary. So, we're looking at ways to instead of making it appear like everything else, try to make it blend a little better. And hopefully that addresses some of the concerns. I I I know it won't address all of them, but we are trying to look at a variety of options and choose number one the least environmentally impactful as well as one that will work.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Anyone else? Oh, go ahead counselor Tina. Go ahead. Was tag. It was a tie. Okay. Thank you. Um, thank you, Mr. Shudo, for uh coming and providing the presentation. We actually made our entire meeting short so that we could listen to you. So, thank you. Um, and then I took it too long. I'm sorry.

It's it's all good. So, so we'll have time for questions. Uh, but I I I did have a few at least just for my benefit some understanding here if nothing else. Uh, but typically it's it's not just capital equipment, right? like it's obviously aging infrastructure is always like a thing but but you also have like you just finished the PWM expansion so there's ongoing maintenance that you require for for those two so in your like spiel to the board are you considering both of those aspects or just aging infrastructure

no we are looking at the budget holistically so certainly operations and maintenance salaries and benefits and the aging infrastructure it's just when you look at our budget as a pie. The shift has been truly in the capital side of things. But no, what will go to the board is the a comprehensive budget that addresses those operations and maintenance issues and they're increasing dramatically. Um I I mentioned we all know what electrical costs are doing. Chemical costs have gone up just since co which is really interesting to me significantly. a lot of the um manufacturers dropped out of the market during that time or went elsewhere, meaning instead of coming to wastewater or public utilities, they're making chlorine for other purposes. So, what we've seen is a little bit lack, well, frankly, a lack of competition. And a lot of these companies won't even hold their prices good for a year. So if I go back 10 years ago, we could ask you for a a chemical contract and you'll give us three years worth of costs. At this point, they're like, "No, this is this is your cost for 6 months." So there's a lot of variability out in the market right now, but we are addressing that as best as we can.

Yeah. Yeah. I would expect like there's a lot of things going on. I I would say tariffs, I would say labor, there's a lot of components to this. It's not just uh lack of competition. And so so I I would expect so we're all facing the same issue not only here but other boards too. Um the other question I had is uh the uh the prop 218 uh has this been done in the past uh and and my question is has it been done in the past and what is the threshold for somebody to like to say that it's blocked or or or not?

So this has been done in the past. Proposition 218. Um, I don't know when it started. I mean, I've been doing Prop 218s probably since early 2000s. Did it was it the end of the 90s? I'm not sure when it was, but certainly since the 2000s on Yeah, absolutely. It's

Yeah. So, I think my first one I did was like in 03. So, we've been doing this for a long time as an industry in the state of California. Now to your other question of the threshold. The threshold for the board is if you get protests of 50% plus one. So I'm going to round up or round we have 65,000 accounts. So if we get protests of 32,5001 the board could not move forward with those increases. Now, what I will tell you is this board as well as others I've been involved with, it's very difficult to get to that threshold where it's a a no-go, particularly with this many customers. But when we've gotten to literally like 200 protests, the board is really critical. And now from a percentage standpoint that's really small but it's enough of enough inertia that they scrutinize it. So even though the threshold is very difficult to to get to I think the voice of the people does impact the 10 decision makers on our board and

that is also helpful. So thank you. And I think 200 people you can fill up the room for sure. So I think that's it's a problem. Um, just the final point, I know you're addressing affordability and and lower income kind of items. Uh, I would just encourage you to find more avenues to to do it uh so that everybody is taken into account when we're considering this race. But looks like you're on the right track. So, thank you. Thank you, Council.

Thank you, your honor. Thank you, Mr. Shuto. it. You know, it's all fun and games until the sewer doesn't work and then, you know, I mean, I think this presentation helped to better understand. I mean, I've sat on the board, so I understand the headwinds and the things that that you guys are going through, but you know, when you understand the infrastructure needs, it's not unlike what we're going through in our budget process as well. we've got aging infrastructure, we have to make those uh we have to make those improvements or, you know, we're just going to impact the quality of service overall. People throw out a number, it sounds like four bucks. Well, you know, it's it it's expensive. And I think the fact that we've been able to create enough water to hopefully get us out of this TTRO situation that we're in, um I think Monterey One Water has had an awful lot to do with that. Um and I think, you know, with the rest of us just being aware of what it's going to cost, but also being aware that there are a lot of people out there that are struggling today. And I think whatever we can do to help mitigate that or you know ramp that up in a in a thoughtful way so it's not as big of an impact to your customers. I think I mean I hear it all the time people like what are they going to do with well you know it's a delicate balance and I don't envy you having to walk that tight rope but I do appreciate the presentation and um take it easy on us.

Thank you. Yes. Go ahead.

Thank you. Um, and I I would like to say I do appreciate the proactivity to trying to find ways in particular to bring the energy cost down since that is such a huge expense. And I definitely agree with the request to try and do what we can to help. What seems like a little amount to some people can actually be a really big amount to others. So, anything we can do to kind of ramp up and have more consistency in helping, I think that would be great. Um, I wanted to loop back actually to the Coral Street Pump Station and um, so we've heard a lot about, you know, the concerns and that's good to know that at least part of that could be solved architecturally. Um, but is there any chance of a different location being considered something because in looking at the plans it is incredibly close to the neighbors? Um, is there any place else that is being considered as a location?

Yeah. So, um, we did look at Esplan Park. We also, and I don't know if Dan's still here, we looked at a couple other places. Something else was looking at the where the old treatment plant was. Now, some of these get incredibly cost prohibitive. If you think the reason that pump station there, it's at the low point, so everything sort of flows to it. And then we have force veins that leave it. So if we wanted to put it, you know, up over there at the dis, we'd have to reroute all those lines. So it's not necessarily just the cost of the pump station itself. It is making sure everything can flow over there and then the force man that leaves it. So the when I say the over there, I mean um by the the treatment plant, it it gets into the 20 $30 million when you start adding the pipelines in with a pump station. Um Esplanade Park, I think it was very similar concerns in terms of visual and impacts to people. Um, so a number of places were reviewed and and you're right, it is near ohms. Um, I'm not an architect and if you ever come by my house, you'll know that. But I I think there are definitely ways when we've done some of the geotech borings before you hit sort of that bedrock, there's a little bit we could excavate. So maybe we could sink it down a little bit. Would it be more expensive? Yes. But it wouldn't be $30 million to go down the road. And you know, you when you go to other golf courses, you can see those how they build in swailes to

hide where they can store a lawn mower or a ball retriever, whatever it may be. So I've encouraged our consultants to look at that direction. Is it still going to impact people? Yes. But could we make it could we minimize that to a greater degree? And I do appreciate that comment because I know that a lot of the letters because we were being CCD on a lot of them had to do with it is a very active wildlife area as well. So if you are indeed kind of integrating it more to where it flows that would help. I know there's views and and kind of going and standing there and looking at where it's proposed to be. It is

right there practically on the sidewalk. Um, but I'm assuming because of the golf course location in that location, there's no place to put it even slightly move further away from the road. I mean, we I don't know and I apologize that I I don't know that, but I was just going by what was evaluated from an environmental perspective for that document. We can look into that. Okay. And because I know we're going to keep getting these questions and I think they're very important questions. There have been issues of property value as well. Um, and so the kinds of things we need to be mindful of, it would be helpful to know that we've pursued the alternatives that really are kind of respecting all of the concerns that were raised. So that that's much appreciated if that could be addressed.

Absolutely. Um, can we try one more time for Mr. Lindstöm if he's if he's on? We're going to try one more time, but if it doesn't come up pretty quick, we're we're going to move away. Um, I do not see him on. Okay. If he's gone then that's I previously closed public comment but I saw him raise his hand about four more times so I was trying okay any any other comments up here all right thank Mr. Thank you so much. Always excellent presentation. Um and and uh thank you for everything you do at Monteray One Water. We really appreciate you guys. And I think that takes us to the end of the agenda. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much. Meetings adjourned. Thank you. Thanks everyone for joining in.