City - Regular Meeting

There we go.

Thank you. Okay. I think we probably want that. Okay. Good evening everyone. It's 5 p.m. It's September 16th, 2026. Special session meeting agenda. I'm calling this meeting to order. All council members are present for the record. All seven council members are present. We have... may i entertain a motion to approve this agenda which is only one item second motion by ralph second by emilio on item a closed session um any further discussion seeing none i will take a voice vote all in favor say aye aye any opposed hearing none passes unanimously and we this is the all let me name the item and also um invite public comment this is item a conference with labor negotiators government code section five four nine five seven point six city negotiators chipper interim city manager fred marsh admin services director shay johnson libert cassidy whitmore employee organization general employees association and police management association pma at this time is there any public comment either in chambers or online on this particular item thank you mayor doesn't appear we have anyone in person or online okay i'll note for the record that only staff appears in chambers and only staff appears on in our attendees in the zoom session so we will adjourn to closed session and return at 6 pm for the regular meeting thank you very much recording stopped Are we ready to go, Sandra? Okay. All right. Good evening, everyone. This is the regular meeting of the Pacific Grove City Council. It's Wednesday, September 16th, 2026 at five o'clock or six o'clock. I apologize. That was our slow session. We did have a meeting at five. I'm calling the six o'clock regular meeting to order. I will note for the record that all seven council members are present here in chambers. So, no absences, and I will recognize my colleague council member to lead us in the pledge of allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. And now I will entertain a motion to approve said agenda.

Second.

It was a tie. Yeah. Okay. We got a motion by Ralph, second by Paduri. Any discussion on the motion? Yes. Yeah, we can do that if you want. Which one is this again? 6A?

Yes, 6A.

Okay, we're pulling 6A. We're going to talk about it in more detail, and we're going to hear it right after consent. So it'll be right before 11A. So it'll be 6A, then 11A, and those will be the two primary items of the evening. Any further discussion? Okay, we'll take a voice vote on that particular agenda approval. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you for reminding me about that poll. And we're going to go on to presentations. We have one presentation this evening, 2A, although we're listening to. I'll let you know on the second one in a second what happened. But first up is 2A, Mayor's Proclamation, Paint the Town Purple. And I have a proclamation that I prepared. for Paint the Town Purple Week, and I just have to give a second for my mic to turn on. It takes about three seconds. Check.

Not yet.

There we go. See, there's a slight delay there. Okay, so I have a proclamation I'm going to read for Paint the Town Purple Week, September 28th to October 4th. Whereas Alzheimer's disease is a progressive brain disorder that affects millions of Americans, their families, and caregivers, and whereas Alzheimer's The Alzheimer's Association works to advance research, provide support services, and raise awareness to help those impacted by Alzheimer's and other dementias. And whereas the Walk to End Alzheimer's is the world's largest event dedicated to Alzheimer's care, support, and research, and the Monterey County Walk to End Alzheimer's will take place on October 17th, 2026. Do we have a representative? Why don't we come on up? I saw some purple over there, and I go, wait a minute, why are they still sitting down? What's going on here? Okay. Anyone else? Okay. Whereas during Paint the Downtown Purple Week, Pacific Grove businesses and community members unite to raise awareness of Alzheimer's disease by decorating storefronts and public spaces in purple and encouraging participation in the Walk to End Alzheimer's. And whereas the City of Pacific Grove recognizes the importance of supporting individuals living with Alzheimer's disease, their caregivers and efforts to advance research toward a cure, Now, therefore, I, Nick Smith, Mayor of the City of Pacific Grove and the City Council of the City of Pacific Grove, do hereby proclaim September 28th through October 4th, 2026 as Paint the Town Purple Week and encourage all residents, businesses, organizations, and visitors to participate in activities that raise awareness of Alzheimer's disease and support the walk to end Alzheimer's on October 17th, 2026. Signed, Joe Emilio, Mayor Pro Tem. Here you go. Congratulations. Thank you for doing what you do. Would you like to make a statement?

We just want to thank the city and the city council and the business owners of Pacific Grove for helping us recognize the walk and also the work that the Alzheimer's Association of Monterey County does for our citizens. Thank you.

And are you with the Alzheimer's County? Oh, okay. All right. Well, thank you so much for what you do. Let's have a quick picture of Joyce.

Oh, sure.

Let's go over here.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much for coming up. Thank you, Michael.

Appreciate it.

All right. So on item 2B, this is our shoe game victory. We're going to celebrate that on October 7th when the team is more is available to come through. And there was some availability issues today. So we're going to go ahead and we've spoken to staff over there at the school district and we're setting it up for October 7th. So we're going to have fun that night with the team. Yes, of sorts. Council and staff announcements. 3A report on closed session by the city attorney, Mr. Lorca.

Thank you, Mayor. With respect to the YM on closed session, the council was given an update by staff and direction was provided, but no reportable action was taken.

All right. Thank you very much. Any council member announcements tonight? Council Member Emilio.

Thank you. I don't want to take anything away from anybody, but we just had 9-11. Everybody knows, as I see the people in the audience, you know exactly where you were on 9-11 in history. I still remember when JFK was assassinated. I'm not going to tell you what grade I was in, but that's what happened. I just wanted to honor the servicemen, the EMTs, the policemen, the firemen that risked their lives and lost their lives. Okay, let me finish. So. Everybody that participated in the 911 recovery. I think it's important that not only New York, but the crashes that occurred at the CIA in the. in Pennsylvania where the plane went straight down. And so everybody's been affected. And Leon Panetta, who was the budget director, couldn't go home because all the planes had stopped. And he drove home, which he was in Carmel Valley. And there was an amazing amount of people that were still shocked. And I could still remember 9-11. I'm sure looking at the audience, you do remember 9-11. So I want to honor all the police and everybody that recovered in that area. And I have a few slides, and I think it's a good reminder that even though we have a lot of things going in the city of Pacific Grove, in perspective, see how many people have lost their lives from 9-11. I just want you to know my daughter was there 9-10. Thank God nothing happened. So, Sandra, could you go ahead and go through those slides for me?

Yeah.

Okay.

Oh, goodness. Okay.

Slides speak for themselves. Go ahead.

Yeah. Thank you.

Oh, they did. You did play through them?

Yeah.

Okay.

They're playing on our screen, but we're getting them on the displays in there.

No worries. Okay. I just wanted to mention that it's important to remember in perspective all the lives that were lost on 9-11. That's the end of my report.

You're done with the report, Joe? Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much for that reminder. I know a lot of us, yeah, we all remember where we were that day. It's not a good day. So we appreciate you reminding us of that. And we'll remember those that are the fallen. So, and the affected continuing, continuing to be affected by it. Any further council member announcements? Councilman McDonald?

Thank you yeah I wanted to let everyone know that i'm on the board of Community human services and they've started something new. With the new board leadership, and so now we are going and visiting all the different cities that are served by Community human services in our region, and we are the first city to be visited, so we will be having the meeting. here in council chambers tomorrow morning at 11 a.m. They do have a finance committee meeting earlier at 10 a.m., so they usually have us kind of wait and come in right at 11 so that we're not disturbing that meeting. But for anybody who's interested in finding out more about the day-to-day processes of the Community Human Services Board and all the great work that they do serving our local communities, that is available. Thank you.

Thanks for that. Appreciate it. Any other council member announcements? Staff announcements. Mr. Rehrig.

Yes, thank you. Mr. Mayor members of Council to to congratulations the 1st and our amazing library directors here the summer reading program this year had in excess of 7000 participants, which is almost twice as many as last year. So. I know there were some questions last night at the candidate forum about youth services, but I think we really need to thank our library staff and the good work that you've done to create that program and maintain it. So it's very popular. The second is for our finance department. For the fourth year in a row, we have received our certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting. And this is the highest honor. that a local government jurisdiction can get for their annual comprehensive financial report. And what it really shows is transparency in government accounting and financial reporting. So again, I think we need to thank Mr. Marsh and his staff for for the transparency that they put in, not only to our budgeting, but to our entire financial system. So we can clap real briefly for them. And then I have received a question regarding where we are with George Washington Park, and I'll get with Mr. Goh tomorrow. The last I heard, we were moving into the interior of the park to work on the trails. So again, I'll get answers for you, council, and for members of the public who have asked. So that's all I have, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll go ahead and go to general public comment. General public comment deals with matters subject to the jurisdiction of the city and the city council that are not on the regular agenda. If there are anyone in chambers, please come forward, Mr. Amar, and be first, and then we'll go to the online. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Amar.

Good evening, Mayor, members, city council, staff, and the public. My name is Mo Amar, and I'm here with you this evening to announce that Mom's Place, the furniture store right next door to City Hall at 246 Forest Avenue, is celebrating 40 years in business. Owner Mugo Tarsakian and his lovely wife Taline are hosting an open house celebration this Friday from 5 to 7 p.m. And they'd like to invite the public staff and the council to this special event where we will have wonderful. Armenian food, Armenian music, and a huge celebration. I will also share with you something that I'm very, very proud of on behalf of Mr. Mogo Tersakyan is as long as I've known him, he's been in the top 40 sales tax revenue producers for the city of Pacific Grove. and his clients not only come from monterey county but he's got clients from san jose and san francisco because of the the service they provide that's so unique and the delivery service so thank you mogul thank you talin and i'm hoping for another 40 years thank you very much council members thank you very much i think we got another uh

general in chambers. Okay.

Evening city council. My name is Mike Gibbs. I'm president of Pacific Grove. I was president last night at the, uh, care for him. It was really, really interesting. I appreciate everybody showing up, being prepared and, uh, there wasn't too much duking it out. Everybody was pretty polite, which I was a little bit disappointed with, but that's okay. Right. There was a lot going on and I got it all here in my little book.

I'll look right here.

And a couple of issues came up that were interesting. Cannabis was another shot at that again. And before Mr. Mogenson left about six months ago, I had suggested to him in an email that we put a pause to this thing in cannabis. We say the process is broken. We blame HDL. Announce that we're going to pause it. And then we probably would have been further ahead at this point if we had stopped it and done it right. And there was some good discussion last night about that. But the general consensus is we're on our way to a lawsuit. I have to do a use review and all that kind of stuff. But some people are not me, but some people are going to be unhappy with that. Second issue was, and it's kind of related to this whole discussion about AI. Is it creating jobs? Are we losing jobs? Are we losing control? Is the great hell going to take over and we're all doomed? I don't know. We'll see. And if you're not, if you're even slightly suspicious. 40 years ago, 38 years ago, I worked for a surveillance company. We were in the defense business. It was a small company called HRB in Pennsylvania. And we did contracts, surveillance contracts, at this time of signal analysis and telemetry and that kind of stuff. Because none of the internet was around then. And our customers were through lettered agencies of the United States government. You can imagine what they were. And I knew too much. And what I knew then was if they said, we don't capture your data,

Not true.

And so going back to Flock, Flock is an AI system, right? It gathers and compiles data. It's an AI system. You can query the system. How many times has, you know, council member so-and-so's car gone by? It will tell you the time, how long it was gone, when did it come by, come back. It will also tell you if there are other cars associated with it traveling at the same time. Right. And so there's just a whole lot of open questions 2025 room room camera system and flock came to an agreement, the flock system and the ring system are now compatible with permission of the owners of the ring system flock and download data. My neighbor across the street can see who visits me and the car license plates number in my driveway of visitors. That can end up in the flock system. The last thing that I would say about flock is that they told us they wouldn't sell data, transfer data, compile data. Not true. They formed a separate subsidy called traffic analytics. Traffic analytics. They compile the data and they sell it to private customers and who knows who that has access to this data. It's not your raw data. but they compiled it all up. I think I have four seconds here. So just be aware and be suspicious about what's going on. And I liked the discussion last night. We're going to maybe pause and talk about this. Right thing to do. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Gibbs.

great job last night you guys cynthia nick uh i also want to thank public works for helping close the shortage of restrooms by bringing the portables in over labor day weekend but um on sunday around two o'clock oh actually they came in on friday so can i just tell you what It was like by Sunday, the odor was so strong. A friend and I were at the cafe there, ordered food and then couldn't even stay there to eat. I wondered why there was such a long line for food, but yet empty tables. Well, anyway, so it's really not fair to Kevin, the owner there, people left before ordering. So I just think there should be some kind of follow-up or maybe it's in the contract that they either be cleaned or before sitting there for four days or certainly they could be further away from the cafe, further down near the point. So I thank a lot of you for your attention on this whole bathroom bone that I'm not going to drop. So it's obviously not a problem just for tourists, it's locals. We use Jewel Park. We talked about that last night. I don't know if any of you actually recreate here, like hang out at Levers Point, play tennis or pickleball or whatever, but the bathrooms at the community center are closed on Sundays. And of course, Jewel Park, even though it's on the city's inventory, confirmed that it's a restroom there. It's described as a public park with a lawn gazebo and meeting facility. And the chamber actively promotes that for community and visitor use, but it's locked all the time except for farmer's markets. So I just don't understand why a union contract for public employees, which they were here the last meeting wanting more money, blah, blah, blah. And that I just don't see how that could be a rational arrangement. I don't, know that much about the unions but every city to me has somebody on a sunday to unlock a bathroom so can someone look into these kind of contracts and it shouldn't be big overtime my sons are in the trades if they have to work seven days sometimes depending on things but anyway i would like you to familiarize yourself with these facilities their lack of upkeep I don't know why. I'm going to bring pictures next week. I didn't get him in on time of the Levers Point bathrooms. I mean, again, we're not a third world country, so I don't know why these facilities aren't on some kind of regular upkeep. Thank you.

All right, I'm going to check online.

Tyler Welling, you have the floor.

Thank you and I apologize if I missed it was the quarterly report from the traffic safety commission added to discussion under item 11.

No, it's not.

Okay, then I'll proceed since it won't be discussed. Good evening, everyone. I'm Charlie. I wanted to speak briefly about the traffic safety commission's recommendation regarding pine and earthly contained in its quarterly report. First, I really appreciate the commission's responsiveness to residents who have raised concerns about this intersection. The commissioners reviewed multiple vehicle versus structure collisions that have occurred there. They recommended that public works conduct a traffic study, including looking at whether stop signs in both directions of traffic on early may be appropriate. I encourage the council to move forward with the commission's recommendation and ask public works to review what can be done to improve safety at this intersection so residents can feel safer in their homes and avoid future car versus structure collisions. Thank you very much for your consideration.

Thank you.

No further hands are raised, Mr. Mayor.

All right, we'll go ahead and close public comment and bring it back to the council on the consent agenda. But before we get there, I have one additional announcement that... The discussion and public comment made me think of that the video of last night's candidate forum will be on the chamber website in a few days once the data is compiled. So if any members of the public wish to review that information, they can do so. on that website thank you very much we'll move on to the consent agenda dealing with routine and non-controversial matters one item has already been pulled the 6a travel policy which will be heard next uh does is anyone on council or in chambers wish to pull an item off consent council first any other items okay anyone in the audience wishing to pull any items

It will be online, Mr. Mayor.

All right. We'll go ahead and I'll entertain a motion on consent. Thank you. Motion by Paduri, second by Rao. Any further discussion on consent? Absent 6A. Hearing none, we'll take a voice vote. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes unanimously. Thank you very much, everyone. We'll move on to the regular agenda, inclusive of item 6A. is the city travel policy i believe credit card policy as well let's get that let me get that exact title 6a adoption of resolutions amending city credit card travel policy 400-7 and travel expense reimbursement policy 000-2 and i will recognize uh mr marsh thank you very much so uh yeah these are policies that have been in place a while at the city and but we had a chance to kind of take a fresh look at both of the policies in place

And basically are kind of recommending several procedure adjustments for both our travel policy and our credit card policy, partially to give some flexibility for staff in the use of their credit cards. Also to better define, you know, what are authorized and non-authorized uses as well, too. And also to have a better defined section on the use of credit cards for related to council members. So with that, be happy to open it up to any comments or questions from council.

yes let's go ahead and we have a redlined version of the policy that you did correct yes we do both of them all right so everyone the public's had a chance to review the the item and they know what the changes that we've made so i'll go ahead and go out to the public for any public comment on item 6a anyone online wishing to comment on item 6a and mr kubica come on up

Thank you, Mayor and City Council. My name is Andy Kubica. I'm Chairman of the Planning Commission, but I'm not speaking as a member of the Planning Commission right now, speaking as a resident. I looked at this policy and I looked at the presentation and it seems to increase the limit on a credit card from $5,000 to $10,000. without any justification. It also doesn't seem to list. Does this apply to all employees? Does this only apply to directors? Does this only apply to the at the council people. I couldn't find any of that information in the presentation. So then I thought, well, maybe if I go back and look that there are people have been bouncing up against the limit on the credit card. So I went back and I looked at the check register for the last six months and I couldn't find any place except one credit card, one bill in May for $41,594. And that was Public Works doing a They had to do a permit, and they had to pay somebody for a permit. Everybody else was down around below 2,000, and most people were below 1,000. So I couldn't understand why we're increasing the limit if there's no need for the increasing limit by the usage. I then went back and said, well, maybe I should go back into 25, and that's when I started finding – less than satisfactory information in the last three months of 2025 or four months of 2025 there were multiple times where no check register was presented to this to the council and i don't remember anybody complaining about that if i go back to march of 2026 and i look at the check register it says that it was for the february check register so uh but then when i look at the actual checks

It's a copy of the January check register.

So there's another check register missing at that time. So this being one of the main objects of the city council here to maintain our budget and pay attention to it, the fact that we're getting check register produced and published and it's still online is incorrect, is very disturbing. And I wish that we could fix this errata or we could make changes to it. and also explain why we're raising the limit without any justification to the public or to the council. Thank you very much.

Thank you. I mean, I'd be happy to address those. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. Anybody online? Okay, thank you. Go ahead and close public comment on the item and bring it back to the council for discussion. And I'm going to let Lori kick it off and then we'll have, you can answer questions that you've heard or whatever you'd like. Go ahead, Lori.

Okay, thank you. Yeah, and so that would be a great one to get questions on. The other thing that I pulled the item for is there is an item which is um number three on page 30 under um additional meeting travel policies applicable to councils and boards and in the new edition it has a restriction that no more than three council members should attend an event um and so my inquiry was Sometimes it's beneficial for all council members, whether it be a call cities meeting where there are multiple different meetings to go to different people can attend bring back that information to share with the Council for meetings that benefit the Community. As well as Chamber luncheons, for example, where they like Council to come and represent our appreciation. for our businesses, for example, that that's all built into a budget for council. And as long as we're not exceeding that budget, I would rather have us not have a limit to three. And so that was my recommendation to not incorporate that new limit to three council members only.

Yeah, absolutely. So what council could do if the council so desires, it basically, it could adopt the policies with an amendment, basically striking that one clause. And then basically, when we publish the final version of it, that version will be striking from it as well, too. So just to address the previous speakers.

Yeah, just go ahead. If you mind recapitulating the question that you're answering.

Oh, sure. Yeah. So the question was, this is basically in the city council section of the travel policy. There's a line in there that basically restricts the number of registration for conferences to three council members. And so it was requested by Councilman McDonald to basically strike that clause to allow more flexibility in registering um additional council members this might be a conference where there's a lot of value for saying right now but i'm talking about you said you were going to answer a question from the day yeah oh sorry oh yeah no problem um so on his question uh two things number one uh the reason why we're proposing to raise it to ten thousand dollars was there are three different areas um where staff has given me uh they've suggested that we should raise it to 10 um for the city city manager's department because uh at times they're registering multiple council members for different conferences basically um for our police department the same thing is you know we have a fair you know a decent number of staff members and there are several that time they're um they're registering for different conferences in advance and so they need to have a higher amount on their credit card and the third is for public works he had mentioned as well too sometimes for some of our capital projects there's things that they have to use their credit card for so that's why basically the recommendation and the idea is we would really only rec increase it for those that need it everybody else right now has a limit of up to five thousand dollars and his question was does who has it we strictly limit those so pretty much it's you know just the department head and managers there's a few selected staff but we purposely limit who we give out city credit cards to as well too. And just, I was going to mention the check register. I checked on our website. It is current through July. And once council adopts the check register for August, we'll post it through August as well too.

All right. Thank you so much. Covered a lot of ground. I'm just going to say two things. One is that as council member for the last 10 years, I've never had, and mayor, I've never had a credit card. So that's one thing. And I don't think anyone else has either. And then secondly, this notion of the increased limit is not It doesn't mean we're going to spend more. It just means that they need that limit. If they put like four people in a conference, it's going to exceed the $5,000 limit. So they would just use a different card or something, which would make it more cumbersome and difficult for staff.

And I think you bring up an excellent point because we're not raising the per transaction limit. That's still staying at 2,500. Gotcha. Okay, perfect. Council Member Garfield.

Isn't there something in here that part-time employees cannot have a credit card anyway? And since we are part-time employees, we couldn't get a credit card. Did I catch that?

The idea is it's limited to specific employees, and we generally have, I don't think we've ever given it to council, to be honest. Exactly, yeah.

We've been charging it on our own personal credit cards and then waiting several months for reimbursement because the current policy was you can't get reimbursed until you've actually gone to the conference. And if you're scheduled... and you're paying the airfare and the hotel and the conference fee on your personal credit card, you're carrying that for several months until you've been to the conference and then you get reimbursed.

And I think the reason behind that is what we have. In fact, one of the things with this policy is we're redesigning our travel reimbursement form. The idea is just to streamline the reimbursement process. Usually we just have it done all at once. I think that may be the reason for that.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

go ahead um councilmember thank you um i think a few things i since this was pulled um um i think it'll make a lot of sense if uh such items have a description behind why these changes are being made it is right now i hear that like it was being made because of x y z reasons but there has been several edits here and uh including like what councilmember mcdonald said and why was that edit made i don't know why what actually what is the justification for making that edit i i don't know i also think that we need to start thinking in terms of districts which means that we cannot allow like or limit folks to only three or four because once you're in districts every district person will want to attend and so on and so forth um so i think it for the future when we're making redline comments because there's so many in here i don't want to ask every for why did you make each edit is to just say along with the red lines put a comment saying why the edit was made and that'll help us that'll help everybody else who's reviewing this too but otherwise i'm i'm really open to making these changes i also think that you mentioned that you had a control in place to say only so many people will get that additional limit perhaps that can be in the policy too to say that should be limited to five people or something like that we could definitely if council likes we could put that as a second amendment to it as well too yeah and i think that'll make sense so so that we are also limiting the liability losses etc um and then uh i would say the the final thought is really uh the the the resolution over here says which one is this the the travel policy resolution revised uh It has the date as 2022 September, just correct it to, that's a minor edit, September 2026. So while making the change. But I would just say that for the future, if you can, would appreciate some more descriptions or information, which will help us too. Happy to do that. Absolutely. Thank you.

So I'm hearing, I think we have pretty much, I'm going to say unanimity on no limit of council members. We've had ones last year, I think we went five people or something like that. And it was a great event. So no limit on the council members would be one amendment. The second would be, correct me if I'm wrong, Council Member Paduri, but you're saying name the individuals that are going to be getting the, name the positions?

I was thinking just the number of cards that have, so limiting it to the number of cards that will have the higher limit. So like five.

Yeah, and pretty much they're going to be what we use is what's called departmental cards. Police is a very good example. So they have a departmental card. So we would only increase their departmental card to 10. And then I forget on the city managers, is it a departmental one we have or is it?

It's a city council.

It's a city council. Okay. So it's a city council kind of like departmental cards. So we've increased that one. And then public works, I would just double check. I think they have a departmental card too. So it's literally only those three. So you meant the higher limits to the departmental cards, yes?

okay can you put that language absolutely and then the third thing was um maybe that was that was a 2022 2026. oh just a minor error okay so i i have support i think for the policy with those amendments um any other comments yes

Can I ask a clarifying question? So there is a policy allowing for advances and that would still stand, correct?

It still stands, yeah. Okay, great.

Because that's important for council members and staff with less means who can't afford to pay and wait for reimbursement. I don't want that.

Yeah, we do try to encourage whenever possible, you know, just reimburse them. But yeah, this advances are still allowed.

And we've actually- Back anything not spent anyway.

We've kind of streamlined the forms for obtaining that as well too, so.

Great, thank you so much.

You're welcome.

um they have a question uh uh you said the reimbursement forms have been revised yes uh making it easier for reimbursement they should we are hoping and obviously when you see we're going to release them after council adopts this but um and if you have any comments after you see them let me know okay in full disclosure here there was my first term all Seven council went to the League of California Cities rather than two or three.

Right. That's fantastic.

Council Member Rowe?

If everybody with the discussions completed, I'll go ahead and make a motion.

I think we're discussions completed.

A motion to approve the changes as described.

Second. Second.

All right, perfect. And the changes of the no limit on council members in attendance limit the three cards, 10,000 limit and the date error. Okay, any further? We got a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and take a voice vote. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously. Thank you for the excellent discussion. I think we've made some good progress. Thank you, Council Member McDonald, for pulling that. Let's go to item 11a. This is the budget amendment request for the Cal Home Reuse Fund 36 for fiscal year 26-27 budget. And we're going to invite Mr. Anderson, Senior Housing Manager, to give the presentation.

Hello, council members, mayor. My name is Philip Anderson. I'm the housing program manager for the community development division, or department, excuse me. I've done a short presentation on our CalHome reuse budget amendment. The housing division uses this money for the housing rehabilitation loan program. Currently, the program uses two funding sources, the Cal Home, which we have the budget amendment for, and a community development block grant. The budget amendment that we are asking for is, the budget is currently $22,000. Available funds are $149,346. We're asking to transfer to the budget $120,000, which will give us $142,000 to spend on new loans for this program. Currently, we have one project that is in the final stages of completion, and we have a new approved project that's in pre-development stage. And I will answer any questions that you have. Thank you.

Okay. Let's go out to the public and see if we have anyone wishing to speak on this item. Okay. It's cold sometimes. Okay. Anyone else? All right. Close public comment. So, having been involved in this program, I'm going to say it's in Mr and I recently seeing the program in action. It's people using the funds to rehabilitate single family dwellings. And so it's really it is a part of our arsenal. Housing arsenal, so I'm glad that we've got it on the agenda tonight to daylight the. the meeting that we have is at 10 a.m. on a Thursday when everyone's in the middle of either working really hard or drinking a cup of coffee or having a good time, I don't know, but not here with us. So it's not a real popular meeting. So in any event, we have these funds. It's a separate fund, so it's not like, you know, in with the discussion of the various taxes and all that this is a separate fund it's put aside for this very purpose just so set the stage a little bit and uh we'll hear from other council members councilman garfield

Thank you. It's always a pleasure to hear that we're doing such good things with other people's money. A little bit. But so $122,000, what is this homeowner going to be able to accomplish with that? I mean, what will it result in for this person? And is this an extraordinarily large or about average grant for this purpose?

Thank you for the question. So actually, it's probably on the lower end right now. The resident is in a historic home and needs to replace their windows, the shingles, and a little bit of work in the basement. So it's $85,000 the loan is approved for. We are getting calls every day about other work, and we're hoping to incorporate some of our lower sort of handyman kind of items and have people do that as well. And with this little bit of money overage, we should be able to do some more housing improvements for people.

Great.

It sounds like if you can engage handyman or person services early enough, you can prevent some damage from deterioration. So I like the idea of getting it a little earlier in the life cycle of a house. So you're doing good work. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam Garfield, just a little bit more information. The loan that we did provide, all the loans are simple interest at 3%, but they're not due and payable until there's a title change. So that's when we basically, we glean the principal and interest that's been accrued, and then it goes back and it refunds this fund so we can continue to go out and... And one of the things that my limited time here, I've asked Mr. Anderson and Mr. Biggs is to celebrate our successes. And we have two display boards on the outside of the chambers, on the outside of the building and to refresh those and make sure people know that these funds are available for exactly this purpose. So it is something that it's relatively rare that a city gets to do this, but it really is an important part of our arsenal. Whoever used that word, I think is very appropriate. Thank you.

Just may I ask just a quick follow on? It seems like so some some folks are using this to make a house more habitable for them to live in for a longer period of time. But are some of them using it to make the house saleable so we can get a quicker turnover in the loan process?

It's for health and safety. So it's not for upgrading your house to be able to sell it. And the ones we have worked on, we did two last year. Both were seniors that needed to have their homes upgraded to ADA standards. And then the current one we have is the same thing. It's the Age in Place project. So none of it is for upgrading someone's home to make a profit. Wow, thank you.

Council Member Paduri, then Mayor Prichard.

Thank you. I'm supportive of this just generally. These are just questions. So after we take the 120K out, the Cal Home Fund will have 20K odd left in it. So does the fund require rehabilitation or how does that work?

We would have two sources of funds. We could apply for further grants, but so far we've been consistently seeing the payoffs of the loans. So that was what we call program income. And that comes back into that pool of money that becomes available again to loan out to other projects. So it's a continuing effort to help preserve our housing stock and make it habitable and safe.

Okay, that's fantastic news. So is it okay to expect this fund to be like at a 150k level all the time? Or are there stats to say how is it trending over the years?

So last year, we should the past this past year, we've had over $200,000 in payoffs, including the interest that goes back into the fund. That was just because people had transferred their title. We had two residents who passed away. And then one just paid her bill off, the loan off. So it really just depends on what's happening in the city. These were from 2013. So part of that money was cal home and then part of it was an old cdbg grant that we had i'm in the process now of changing our um current cdbg account into a program income where we can do a reuse for it as well so um that's in the process right now with the state okay

all right all of that is great news so so noting that like this this fund is going to be depleted for the for the most part like 20k only left um is that enough for the rest of the year the fiscal year that is

If I had a source of income, I would use it. But we have what we have. There might be a payoff during this time. And as they go, I'd have to get with Fred about adding another budget amendment for those payouts. Okay.

This is a great thing going on. I just want to understand how we could actually continue it, make it more better. So that's where my line of thought. But thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you very much, Mayor Bertram. Amelia?

Yes, I am also supportive of the program, but is there a checklist or a person applies to rehab their home? Is there a certain, I know there's not an age limit, but I'm just curious, how do they apply for this? And I am in support of it. I think it's a great program.

the housing website on the our website has the application and information about it so they can get all the information there it is income qualified and you can't make over 80 percent of the area median income so to be able to to do the program um but all the information is on our website and where to apply and everything and they can always call me because that is probably the best first step would be the color of the housing division and talk to me and I can give them a sort of a overview on if they qualify or not and um

see how that goes and then they can go the next step thank you i missed the what's the the money qualifying on that

It's the 80% of the area median income. Okay. So basically low income. But in Monterey County, it's 87,000, I think, for a single person. So two people is like 90-some. And most of our – all of our applicants have been – on a fixed income. So they're mostly seniors and they usually do qualify.

Good. Okay.

Thank you.

That's my morale.

And thank you, Mr. Anderson for the presentation. I can't think of anything more important than helping our seniors to age in place. It's a very, it's really a, a soft spot in my heart. And so I would just say that if there was anything that we could do, if we find out that there's more need, you know, through the budget process, let's see if we can, you know, add a little something to this project. I think allowing seniors to be able to age in place, I think is a really good thing. And I heard a comment, and usually we don't do this, but I am going to. And I think that if there was a person who owned an apartment who had seniors that were aging in place and they needed a ramp or something like that, you know, I would, because of that senior, because of that income level, even though it doesn't favor the business or the property owner, I still think it's really important. We figure out a way to keep our seniors to age in place. And I mean, safety is paramount. We all know what happens after a certain age, if you fall. So I think this is just exceedingly important and I'm ready to make a motion. If, absolutely go ahead i'd like to make a motion to uh follow recommendation in number one and also in number two direct that the publication ordinance be satisfied by publication by the city attorney second uh councilman morland do you have any comments on this you looked at me i didn't know if you

I'm going to ask, you mentioned that there is potential to apply for more grants. I don't think that's how we can, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You said there's potential to apply for future grants. And then we mentioned earlier, like we do want to look for all options for funding. Is that something you need direction from us? Or is that something that's just ongoing? That's my only comment.

We applied for the CDBG new allocation this year and did not make the competitive bid. So there'll be another one next year that we'll apply for. And the CDBG reuse will be in that same program. But those take a long time to come back. and we're fortunately getting the fruit from the you know 2013 2000 you know um but yeah cdbg is next year and cal home program is no is not doing anything right now so we are dependent on their reuse only that's right question thank you thank you um councilmember donald

That basically entered mind because I was wondering, do we have additional need that people are seeking that we don't have funds for where we would need to try and find additional sources? Or is it pretty much meeting the demand that we're seeing?

There is a caveat on our local housing allocation. is specifically for lower income, like 30% AMI. So it's very, very low and extremely low. We have a time limit on those, so we have to get it allocated and out the door pretty quick. It's not like these other ones that we have the opportunity to turn it into program income. So there's a small amount of options for us to use that money for like some of the smaller types of um emergency loans we'd have to have resolution for that um but we also have emergency loans for anyone like under 10 000 but those are very far we don't have done that many and we did one last year We have requests, but right now we don't have a whole lot of requests. I know there's a lot of need, but the problem is we don't have enough money for the need. And if we were to do a lot of promotion, we would not be able to fund everyone for sure.

So I don't know if it's the kind of thing where there are other if these are the only 2 possible funding sources and I suppose we don't have other options for funding and it sounds like other than waiting for them to be repaid but if there's anything you know of the council could do to make more availability or other things we could look for a please do let us know thanks.

If they make a council want to you know if if Mister Anderson can do some research when we come back at mid-year budget review. Mr. Marsh in January? January, we can tell you if, as Council Member Rouse suggests, that we need more money and we can tell you where we are with the budget for last fiscal year and close it out. And then where we are at this fiscal year. And again, if there's a reconciliation resolution that we can ask you for to ask for more money, we'll do that. So we'll make a note of that and see how we're doing.

That sounds great. I think that's a good idea and I'd like to see that myself. We have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? All right, great. We'll take a voice vote. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Thank you, Mr. Briggs. Thank you, Mr. Rourke. We appreciate all the work tonight. I think that brings us to the end of this agenda. And is there anything else on there? I lost my agenda. Okay. Thank you very much, everyone, for sticking with us. Meeting was adjourned.