City Council - Regular Meeting

of the City Council. The time is now 6.07 p.m., and I'll call the meeting to order. City Clerk, could we have a roll call, please?

Council Member Espinosa? Here. Council Member Beer?

Here.

Council Member Beckmeyer? Present. Vice Mayor Wright?

Present.

Mayor Bowles? Present. Thank you. Just want to remind everyone to put a parking pass... on your car if you haven't already done so. And then I'm just going to read a statement that applies to all public comments throughout the meeting. Public meetings are a limited public forum, meaning that there are rules for commenting at these meetings. Comments on non-agendized items must address matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city, and comments on agendized items must relate to that specific item. Comments do not fall into one of these categories the city will provide you with an initial warning to stay within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city or on topic if the warning is not followed the mayor will direct the city clerk to cut off the microphone and Throughout this warning system. I will seek the assistance of the city attorney and identifying comments Not related to the agenda item or not within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city So I'll start with the land acknowledgement and The City of Pacifica acknowledges that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples, who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We honor the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples for their enduring commitment to Mother Earth. As the indigenous protectors of this land, and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramaytush Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. We affirm their sovereign rights as First Peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramatishaloni peoples. And I'll invite Vice Mayor Wright to lead us in the flag salute.

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.

And before we start going into our proclamations, I want to say something because of what's happening at the national level right now. I want to clarify to everyone that this is a safe space, that here in Pacifica we follow the Constitution and recognize everyone's First Amendment rights to free speech and right to protest. and that this council is united against hate, as you can see on our signs, in any form. In addition, Pacifica is a sanctuary city, and our policies align with the California Values Act, SB 54, which restricts local resources from being used for immigration enforcement. If you want more information, please Google search Pacifica Sanctuary City, and you'll find our ordinance policies and resources from the county in multiple languages to help you understand your rights. Thank you. All right, so we will start with our special, oh wait, sorry, we had a closed session. City Attorney, do we have any reports?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. This evening the council met in closed session, but there's no reportable action.

Okay, great, thank you. So first we're going to have a presentation from the San Mateo County Libraries on their annual report, and I want to invite Hilary Aik, I guess the new Pacifica Libraries manager for the presentation. And City Clerk Coffey, you have the presentation.

Good evening, Mayor Bowles, city council members, and city staff. My name is Hillary Ake, and I am the new community library manager of the beloved Pacifica Libraries, which are a part of the San Mateo County Library System. Thank you for allowing me time tonight to present the library's annual report from the 24-25 fiscal year. San Mateo County Libraries was first established as the County Free Library in 1912, and the Library Joint Powers Authority was formed in 1999. We have 13 library locations across a 351 square mile service area in San Mateo County. We also offer library services to unincorporated parts of the community through our bookmobile. We curate our offerings to meet the needs and interests of our community. This year, we rolled out our new five-year strategic plan. Our new plan grounds us in our shared goals to listen, connect, discover, and engage. We listen to our community and create responsive services and spaces where everyone belongs. We connect people and build partnerships to achieve shared goals. We champion a culture of continuous growth and discovery for all. We engage our communities through meaningful outreach and expanded access to resources. As we put our goals into action, we know our continued success depends on the insights and voices of the communities we serve. As part of our strategic plan, we introduced a new vision and mission to guide our work. Our updated vision, where community grows and thrives, our updated mission, together we build meaningful connections and inspire lifelong curiosity. The programs and collections at San Mateo County libraries were well used. This year we saw 1.7 million library visits, 2.4 million items circulated, and over 11,600 programs and events. We strive to deliver services and offer opportunities where our diverse communities feel seen, heard, and valued. Each of our staff brings unique backgrounds and experiences to the library. This diversity strengthens how we serve through responsive programs, meaningful outreach, and culturally rich collections. Our culture of discovery and exploration is reflected in our 250,000 active cardholders. In the past fiscal year, we saw 2.8 million website visits, almost 42,000 laptop checkouts, four million in-library Wi-Fi sessions, and we had over 23,000 hotspot checkouts. This was a huge increase from the previous fiscal year, which had about 9,000 hotspot checkouts, and this was thanks to additional hotspots added to our collection. We were proud to welcome 14,274 new cardholders. At the local level, the Pacifica libraries had over 79,000 library visitors and circulated over 230,000 items in the last fiscal year. We also saw over 90,000 digital downloads from our Pacifica patrons this past year, and our program attendance at our Pacifica libraries reached over 13,000. In addition to our popular on-site programs, such as Storytime, Gem Painting, Drop In Mahjong, and Tech Tutoring, we make a point to get out in the community. You probably have seen us at Pelican Fest, Pacifica Pride, Fog Fest, and the Rockaway Beach Tree Lighting, one of my favorites. We try to create an environment that fosters growth and curiosity for all our community members, and I'm excited to share some of our accomplishments from the last year. We partnered with the San Mateo County and San Francisco Veterans Services Office to launch a monthly veterans resource tabling program. Through this initiative, veterans can visit the Sharp Park Library to meet one-on-one with Veterans Services staff for consultations, referrals, and information about available benefits. Participants can also receive assistance navigating the VA system and scheduling appointments to file claims, ensuring accessible, personalized support. We also brought the Science Action Club to Ingrid B. Lacy Middle School as a 10-week after-school science club focused on building students' skills as citizen scientists. Library staff led hands-on sessions using three curricula developed by the Academy of Sciences, Bug Safari, Bird Scouts, and Cloud Quest. The program reached an average of 35 students per session with many participants maintaining perfect attendance throughout the 10-week sessions. This level of sustained engagement is particularly noteworthy as consistently capturing the interest of middle schoolers can be a little difficult. I think it speaks to its quality and impact. We offered a free US citizenship test preparation program designed to support community members pursuing naturalization. Participants practiced in the full set of 128 civics questions provided by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services Office. They had an opportunity to engage in a mock citizenship interview to build confidence with the process and received free study materials to continue their preparation at home. The program provided a welcoming, supportive environment for participants to strengthen their knowledge and readiness for the citizenship exam. We also introduced the Memory Lab at our Sharp Park location. For those unfamiliar with this service, the Memory Lab is an in-library resource that allows patrons to digitize a wide range of analog media formats. Our equipment supports the digitization of VHS tapes, cassette tapes, floppy disks, and Super 8 film. We also offer a high quality scanner for photos, slides, and negatives. Many of these materials hold priceless family memories, and digitization makes it easier to access, preserve, and share with others. During this last fiscal year, we offered this service through a mobile memory lab on temporary rotation. We would have it for two or three weeks at a time, but we received a lot of positive feedback from the community, and I'm excited to share that we now have a permanent memory lab at Sharp Park, and you can make an appointment to come down and digitize your precious home memories. This dedicated space provides patrons with consistent access to specialized equipment, and it reflects our ongoing commitment to preserving personal histories and making innovative technology accessible to our community. We are dedicated to serving older adults in our community, and as our programs tailored to patrons ages 55 and older continue to grow, we're creating meaningful opportunities for participants to stay active, learn new skills, and build lasting connections. This short video highlights one of our recent 55-plus field trips, which have been especially popular.

I'm very grateful to the library, to you who were kind enough to bring us here. This is a good thing for us, a good thing for us. I thank you very much in my name and I think in the name of all of us.

We are also helping families spark a love of reading from day one through Dolly Parton's Imagination Library. This nationally recognized early literacy program provides children from birth to age five with a free age-appropriate book mailed to them directly at their home each month, at no cost to families. Parents can choose to receive the books in either English or Spanish, making the program accessible to more households in our community. Since its launch, thousands of children across San Mateo County have enrolled, giving families an easy and meaningful way to build home libraries and establish early reading routines. We're grateful to our partners at the Dollywood Foundation, the Foundation for San Mateo County Libraries, and our friends groups whose generous support make this impactful program possible. Together with our partners, we bring the library into the community in fun and unexpected ways. At the San Mateo County Fair, we created a vibrant reading garden where visitors of all ages enjoyed books and activities. At Library Night with the San Francisco Giants, thousands of fans explored our Maker Mobile, browsed e-books, and took home baseball-themed books. Wherever we go, we remind people that the library is within reach. In this short video, you'll see highlights from Giants Library Night. Our staff are at the heart of everything we do. This year, our library champions embraced growth and new ideas using their creativity and expertise to deliver even stronger services to our communities. From long-time staff with deep knowledge of their community to new team members bringing fresh perspective, each staff plays a vital role in our success. We are also deeply grateful for the support of our volunteers and friends groups whose ongoing dedication helps us extend our reach and serve even more people across the county. Our libraries are community destinations. We provide welcoming spaces to gather, learn, and connect. We're always working to make our libraries more comfortable, innovative, and inspiring. Here's a short video showcasing the reopening of the Belmont Library after it received some recent upgrades.

We are so happy to see you all today, eager to join us in exploring the refreshed library, which is, as everyone knows, really the gem of our community.

Our Pacifica Libraries celebrated important milestones and progress over the past year. One highlight was our partnership with the Pacifica School District to serve as a Big Lift Inspiring Summers program site. Big Lift Inspiring Summers is a four-week summer program designed to support language and literacy development while fostering positive school connections for rising kindergarten through third grade students. And we'll be having it again this year in Pacifica. We're very excited. I'd also like to highlight our community outreach. In the past year, we again increased our efforts to reach people where they are. We visited after-school programs, local preschools, Pacifica Resource Center food distributions and community events. We also brought library programs to schools, San Pedro Valley Park, and the Senior Center. In February, we brought a very popular cave sim program to Ingrid B. Lacy Middle School where sixth and seventh graders learned about the physics of exploring a cave. In conjunction with the City of Pacifica Senior Services, we bring a bi-monthly pop-up library during senior lunches and have provided programming such as drawing classes and a pressed flower workshop. Over the course of the fiscal year, we attended 532 outreach events, reaching 19,428 people outside of the library. I want to give a big thank you to city staff and the council for collaborating with us and championing the library. In particular, council member Mary Beer and city manager Kevin Woodhouse for your work on the library JPA governing board and operations committee. I want to thank the Friends of the Pacifica Library for their ongoing support and advocacy. And finally, I want to take a moment to thank the staff members at the Pacifica Libraries for their committed and passionate work. I feel very lucky to work alongside such a talented group of library professionals. Thank you again for allowing me time to present tonight, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Hilary, for the great presentation. educating us about all the different things that you do, which I'm certainly not aware of them all. I'm going to invite council member comments, and just for the public, if anybody wants to make a comment on this or other subsequent items, there are yellow cards in the back that you can fill out, and then they'll be brought to us. Council members, go ahead.

Welcome to Pacifica. It's really nice to meet you. I look forward to getting to know you better.

Same.

Yeah. I've heard about you already, which is so fun. I mean, the library is the best place for so many things, and it helps so many people in so many different ways. And I've heard stories of people who, they don't have a laptop and they don't have internet at their house, so they get to go to the library and it's helping them do their work or do their schoolwork. I mean, there's just so many things that are provided by the library to our community, and I'm really grateful. I'm specifically grateful, and this is me being selfish, for the art programs that you have, like the paint nights and the little dots. I don't know what it's called. Gem painting. Thank you. Gem painting. Very popular. Oh, my gosh. So fun. And I get to do that whenever I have a moment with my best friend in the whole wide world. So the library can, you know, it creates space for us to go with our friends and our families and our community. Can't beat it. Thank you so much.

I'd like to start out by saying thank you very much as well. It just flashed by for a second, but I noticed those little circle graphs. Pacifica is 5% of the county, and it seems like we have outsized participation, and that's because of people like you, and I wanted to thank you for that. I love our vending machine. I was also wondering what's the best way if volunteers do want to get involved with the library? How can they reach out to you?

You can either visit our website or you can stop by the branch. We are taking volunteers. There's a website we use called Better Impact, which is available to see through smcl.org. But it shows the different library or volunteer opportunities we have at our locations.

What was that website address again?

SMCL.org.

Thank you. And could you speak a little bit about what the library does for visually impaired people?

Oh, that's a great question. So we do have some accessibility tools on our computers that we have at the library. So there's like ZoomText and screen readers. We also are able to access braille collections.

Great, and could you speak a little bit about how the community has been receiving the vending machine?

Oh, the vending machine is super popular, yeah. It's been great. We have staff who work at the Sanchez branch to keep the vending machine well stocked, and people can pick up holds in it. It holds up to 300 books at a time, but often I would say a quarter of the machine is filled with holds for people to pick up, so people can stop by. 24-7 to get their hold. It's been very well utilized. Yeah.

Well, thank you so, so much. I really appreciate it.

You want to go? You go, and then I'll go.

I'm Hillary. There are two other services that I really, really enjoy. One is the mobile library. I really think it's a great way to let people know that you're there. and also the digital courses that you have online. So a lot of people don't know, but I really enjoy taking those courses too. So thank you so much.

Thank you for being here in Pacifica. And I would like to echo the Mayor's welcome, although I did get to do that the other day at the Library Advisory Committee. I wanted to acknowledge our new Library Advisory Committee Chair, Jennifer Lavin is here. Our very long, long-term and very engaged, involved member of the Library Advisory Committee, Cindy Abbott, is here as well. So we have this opportunity to have folks from the community engaging directly with you around the services that are available and how we can improve our library buildings moving into the future. And that's been a high priority for Pacifica for a time, as you know. I know you've had the background given to you already. And thank you to Sarah Coffey for being staff for that committee. Thank you, Sarah. I would like to highlight the newspaper database. So many of us get an article link forwarded to us that someone read in some subscription that they have and want to forward it on and you get stuck behind a paywall. And there is a wonderful database through our public library that with your public library card you can go and use to find, and every time I've done it, even small little local papers to national papers, I've been able to locate the articles. So that's something that you can check with your local public librarians about. And also the other question I had is are there either set times or Is it drop-in if people need help with their electronic devices, such as downloading e-books?

That's a really great question. You can stop by the library anytime if you need some help with technology. We are launching a new program series. It's called the Digital Literacy Hub, and we're gonna have a dedicated staff member to help with one-on-one tech help for 15 hours every week. So once we get the schedule set for that, we will have those hours available for the public, and you can just stop by anytime when we have our tech helper there. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you again for being here tonight, Hillary. When you mentioned that you have 250,000 cardholders in the county, I quickly Googled, like, what is the population of San Mateo County? And it's 750,000. So one out of three, and probably some of those 750,000 are babies that are quite, have their own cards yet. So, I mean, I just think you're doing a wonderful job with your outreach and being in all the places, right, to help educate people about all your resources, and I really appreciate you taking that time, not just running the libraries, but, and I love your mission statement connection, but inspiring lifelong curiosity, not just lifelong learning, but curiosity, like, you know, I think that's, I don't know, what keeps us all interested and engaged from little to, you know, 100-year-olds, right, the more we are curious about the world and want to learn and want to connect, the happier we are as humans, too. So thank you. So with that, I don't have any cards. If anybody in the public wants to speak or are there any raised hands? No raised hands? All right. A close public comment. Thank you so much for taking the time. And again, welcome to Pacifica. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you.

Have a good night.

All right. All right. Next item is a proclamation in honor and memory of Marianne Neihart. And I know this has my name on it, but I'm So you are closer to her than any of us. Would you like to read this today?

I would.

Thank you.

Proclamation of the City of Pacifica in honor of Marianne Neihart as a treasured member of the Pacifica community. Whereas former council member and mayor Marianne Neihart, a dynamic leader and visionary force for positive change, passed away, on December 11th, 2025, following a three-year battle with ovarian cancer. And whereas, through her leadership, Mary Ann Neihart earned the admiration and high regard of Pacifica's community members, council colleagues, city staff, and fellow public servants at the regional, state, and federal level. And whereas Marianne Neihart contributed to the betterment of this community for decades in countless ways, including serving eight years as a member of the city council from 2008 to 2016, and two terms as mayor from 2011 and 2013-14. And whereas the city of Pacifica and San Mateo County benefited greatly from Marianne's regional leadership, as chair of the San Mateo County City and County Association of Governments, known as CCAG, from 2013 to 2016, and through her service on the CCAG Administrative Committee, Compensation Committee, Finance Committee, and Legislative Committee, as well as the San Mateo County Transportation Authority and the Association of Bay Area Governments. And whereas, During her eight years on the city council, Mary Ann served as the council liaison to the Emergency Preparedness and Safety Commission, Economic Development Committee, Beautification Advisory Committee, and Fogfest Organizing Group, and as a member of the ad hoc city council committee supporting the Financing City Services Task Force. And whereas, during her first term as mayor in 2011, Mary Ann Neihart nominated Pacifica for the Rand McNally Best of the Road Contest, a precursor to Council establishing the Beautification Advisory Committee in 2013. She also created the Mayor's Beautification Award to recognize property and business owners who beautify their homes and establishments. And whereas... Prior to serving on City Council, Mary Ann Neihart was appointed to the West Sharp Park Advisory Committee from July 2006 through November 2007 with a focus on improving infrastructure, economic development and viability, business retention, landscaping, street lighting, and undergrounding of utilities and general vitality of the Palmetto Avenue. And in 2008, co-chaired the Measure N Committee, resulting in voter approval of a parcel tax for the Pacifica School District to protect elementary schools from budget cuts. And whereas Mary Ann's professional accomplishments over her 30-year distinguished career in the field of psychiatric mental health nursing includes establishing the first psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner residency program at San Francisco Veterans Affairs Healthcare System in conjunction with the University of California, San Francisco, where she was Associate Clinical Professor in the School of Nursing. And whereas Mary Ann Neihart was a bright light whose contributions will have a lasting impact on her friends, family, colleagues, and community, now I, therefore, Sue Beckmeyer, On behalf of Christine Bowles and the entire City Council and all its residents, do hereby honor the memory of Mary Ann Neihart and the love she shared with the Pacifica community done this 26th day of January, 2026. Thank you.

amazing list of accomplishments and work she's done over decades and that's not even all I mean it was just what could fit on a page really so again I'll invite councilmember comments first and I don't have any cars right now but if anyone wants to speak please fill out a card in the back go ahead first of all sue thank you I don't know how you got through that

Yeah, Marianne was such a force of nature in our community, and when I first met Marianne, it was when we just started the partnership for a safe and healthy Pacifica, and we were working on alcohol policy. It brought a bunch of kids here, and we didn't understand that that we couldn't just have a presentation that you had to get like three minute cards. So she helped us and we got three minute cards for like 12 kids and they lined up and they gave this presentation, but we wouldn't have been able to do that without her. So things like that are very, very important in our community. And she challenged me to start working on prescription drugs. And we've been doing that ever since. Um, And then when I was running for office and I met with her, she said, you know, honey, it's about infrastructure and funding.

And I was like, what?

What do you mean? She said, that's all it's about, infrastructure and funding, so get ready. And guess what? It's about infrastructure and funding. And she did it so well. She really was an asset to our community, and I miss her, and so thank you.

I would say inspirational dedication to public service, and I think each of us up here hopes to be able to measure up halfway to where she was. Thank you.

Well, I never met her, but I went online and I was watching one of those videos where she was presenting. I believe it was that golf course. And she seems to be a very real person. So I thought she was a nice person for what I saw.

She was a powerhouse. Someone said to me earlier this week or over the weekend, she was a great Pacifican. And it is true considering Pacifica was her adopted second home. She grew up in Iowa and moved west after completing her first couple of degrees and established herself here and just didn't give up. She just dug in and dug in and dug in and did so much for this community. She just knew everyone and she used to call, she used to pick up her phone I'm going to the magic phone when she would have, you know, it's like, who do you think we can call about? Oh, let me consult my magic phone. And she would just start with the, you know, texting and all of that. Um, she was an inspiration to me. Um, and I agree if we could achieve a modicum of what she did, you know, I find myself being really good at one thing and messing up totally on the others. And then I go, run over here. Okay, that was a mess up. I'm going to focus on that. And then all these other things slide. And somehow she did it all. And I don't know how she did it. I thought I knew watching from outside. But until I sat in this chair, I did not realize what it takes to be a council member. And what it takes to be a Marianne Neihart kind of council member is amazing. is next level. So, we were very lucky to have her as long as we did.

I'll just say, I had the pleasure of meeting Mary Ann just three times. The first was right after I got elected. And she, once a month we have dinners at different cities. And the Christmas one is always in Colma, their fire station. And she attended there. I think she was going through cancer treatment. I remember her had you know, wrapped in a turban. And she just got a standing ovation. I mean, not just people in Pacifica, but people all over the county. She really did a lot to advance policies and programs for us regionally. And then in January 2025, she reached out to me, actually, to invite me to her house to talk about, you know, some of the difficulties we were having on council, but then it ended up being a whole discussion of some of the things she had started and was working on. We've been trying for decades to redevelop Manor Plaza. She was so close. She had actually knocked and met with every single owner there and had all but one ready to go. It's like, darn it, how can we recapture that and move it forward? And then, oh, I forgot, actually, in between those two times, the Pacificans Care honored her with the Pacificans People Who Care Award in 2023. And they usually honor three people. Again, lots of wonderful things said about Marianne, and it was great that she was there to be able to hear all that and get that award before she passed. But then as I was walking out, she came over and whispered to me and, She's like, you're doing a great job. And it was just, I mean, in the middle of her celebration, and again, in the middle of her being sick later on, she is still thinking about Pacifica and everything she can do to improve our town. She didn't stop. So she will be sorely missed. And there is a funeral for her Saturday.

Celebration of life at the Pacifica Community Center this coming Saturday, the 31st of January from 1 to 4 p.m. All are welcome.

Thank you, Sue. And with that, would anyone like to make a public comment? Again, I don't have any cards right now. You can come speak and then fill one out afterwards.

Hi, Robin Renil's 30, 40-year neighbor and good friend of Mary Ann's here in West Shore Park. Thank you, Council and Kevin, for acknowledging all the work and amazing things that she accomplished while she was here in the city. Sorry. You know, she, I try to keep it light. We got her start very early in the 80s. She moved here, bought a home up in Hilton, and I met her because there was an issue, something that was going on in the city, and I was circulating a petition in the neighborhood, and I met her at her door. And we started talking and I said, well, I'm a neighbor. I live right down the hill. And she goes, she goes, you know, have you, have you heard a rooster crowing in the morning? Really loud bird. Now Marianne grew up on a farm. Okay. And fortunately she was a nurse and nurses, you know, get up early for those shifts. And I was like, um, yeah, where's this bird coming from? She goes right down the hill, right down there. And she's pointing like in my yard and I had a chicken yard and I had a rooster. So that's how we met. It was a petition over a city issue, a neighborhood issue, and birds. And roosters, specifically. And fortunately, she didn't object to it. She thought it was kind of cool. But she did comment that when she moved from San Francisco and she was living on a busy street downtown working for the city, county, and San Francisco in a nursing role in the community, She moved to get away from the noisy city and the sound of the streetcars and buses and traffic and expected to be able to hear crashing waves on the beach. And instead, she got a rooster at five in the morning. But we became fast friends. And I basically hooked her into a lot of real small-time local stuff going on in the neighborhood. We started the Brighton Beach Neighborhood Watch because later in the 80s and the 90s, there really was, especially in the 70s, there was a drug problem in the neighborhood. And so she... She was really active in looking at those issues, signed petitions, attended meetings, and was an amazingly skilled organizer. And as you all know, it kind of took off from there. So what we saw, especially in the work that was done for the sewer plant, trying to get the sewer plant, the secondary treatment plant here moved. It was polluting the ocean and moved to the quarry. That was one of the first big successes that was achieved mainly because of her very important and very skilled work at organizing. So you guys did a wonderful tribute to her. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. And everybody's welcome on Saturday to the community center. Thank you.

Thank you, Robin.

Thanks, Robin.

Okay, I see Tiger has a big stick. And Cindy Abbott.

Cindy Abbott. In 2011, when I was first appointed to the Parks, Beaches, and Recreation Commission, we had a protocol where commissioners would liaison to city council members. And as soon as I got appointed, I became the liaison to Mary Ann Neihart. So I reached out to her and said, what can we do together? And she immediately said, I'm having a meeting next Wednesday. It's going to be held in the offices at the Pacifica Tribune when it was here in the city. And she said, I want you to come. I had no idea what I was getting into. That turned into the best of the road. So I'm glad that got highlighted. Marianne was so passionate about this city and making sure that it was presented so beautifully to share not only our natural beauty but the community spirit. And to me that's what came out of that because for weeks and months we planned and got the word out and got votes and came together with how were we going to shepherd these people that were coming to town. to share the beauty of it. And through that project, we were able to nationally show off Pacifica. And every time I drive into town and I see those big signs at our gateways here coming down Highway 1 or down Sharp Park Road where those signs are enacted, if people were wondering where did those come from, it came from us winning one of those awards. and having those beautiful markers put up. And I think about her every single time that I see those, and her championing our city. She was also a master on the dais. and making sure that the community in a humble way understood why things were being done, you know, raising questions and everything really to bring awareness. And she did a really great job at doing that. you know, circling back to city staff and saying, was this something that we had talked about five years ago? Or where did that topic go that we had brought up three years ago? But she had a beautiful and really diplomatic way of doing that. But anyway, she was a wonderful person and really was a voice for our city. Thank you, Marianne.

Thank you, Cindy. Thank you.

Good evening, honorable mayor and council. I'm Tiger Jastrow's big stick of Pacifica. Part of me, which I've been saying this often as I've been getting out, didn't really want to speak. I think that if not for Marianne Neihart, I would not have spent as much time in this room speaking as I have. And I feel personally compelled to come to the mic and try and say thank you on some level to the spirit of what she created, what she left, that is still very much in this room. She was meticulously even-handed in how she approached every issue and how she tried to incorporate the disparate views of the city into something that could be unified. something that the majority could get behind, something that would genuinely benefit us all. It occurred to me, she did not have children. She treated Pacifica as though it were her child. I was deeply grateful to have her example to learn how local governance worked before it ever occurred to me I wanted to proactively contribute. And when I felt inspired to show up as a result of abject tragedy, I was amazed to see the way she took that tragedy and turned it into not only a solution of creating a culture here in town in which such a tragedy hopefully could absolutely never happen again, but also take that culture and translate it to the entire county so that as a county, we would not have to subject ourselves to such tragedy. And I think of everything I learned by watching her on that dais, that was probably the number one lesson, that lesson being The way we help ourselves is by making those relationships on the other side of the hill. By being a friend to the rest of the county, the county is so happy to be a friend to us. And it was amazing how many people in this county of ours could regard Mary Ann Neihart as a friend. The other lingering thing that occurred to me in my time in this room is that for all the work I felt like I've seen councils accomplish over the last six to eight years, it seems like the only reason they were able to accomplish whatever work they were is because pretty much it was all work that councils that Mary and I Hart served on had set up for success ultimately. Thank you.

Anyone else in the room? Anyone online?

We have one raised hand. It is for Dinah Verbee. Okay.

Please go ahead, Dinah.

Good evening, everybody. Thank you for doing that proclamation. I think Marianne would have been really pleased with that. I had the pleasure of working with Marianne Neihardt on a number of issues, campaigns, political initiatives. And she was nothing if not enthusiastic about every one of those endeavors. And her enthusiasm was really contagious. And even when I would be dragging my feet and saying, oh, I don't think that's a good idea. I don't really want to do it. She somehow got me to do it. But the one that's nearest and dearest to my heart that Marianne was instrumental in achieving was Getting the Pedro Point Headlands designated as a priority conservation area with the county with the Association of Bay Area Governments. That was a brilliant maneuver that she saw and pursued and made happen. And as a result, now we are, the Pedro Point Headlands is now a priority conservation area, which makes us eligible for lots of conservation funding and grant opportunities. So I just wanted to mention that. I don't think that was included in the proclamation, but it's certainly one that was very important. So thanks to Marianne again.

Thank you, Dinah. There are no other raised hands.

Okay, with that, I will close public comment. Will there be someone that we're presenting the proclamation to?

On Saturday.

On Saturday. Okay.

Council Member Beckmeyer will take the proclamation. Thank you.

Okay. And then next item on the agenda are staff communications that have been moved up.

Thank you, Mayor Bowles, Vice Mayor Wright, Council Members, Kevin Woodhouse, City Manager. I wanted to move up staff communications and take the time, brief moment, to introduce two key new staff members in the city. And if I could have Michael and Gretchen come up to the podium, that would be terrific. And I'll start, read a brief bio, and then we can hear some comments. Gretchen Heckman is the city's new economic and housing development manager, joined the city on January 5th. Gretchen brings over 15 years of experience in public, nonprofit, and private sector real estate development, including managing major master-planned districts and community-focused initiatives. Prior to joining Pacifica, she served as project manager for the Mission Bay redevelopment project areas in San Francisco, where she led development approvals, infrastructure financing, and multi-agency coordination for one of the city's largest districts. Gretchen holds an MBA from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and is deeply committed to advancing thoughtful economic and housing opportunities in alignment with Pacifica's goals and values. Let me read Michael's bio first and then turn it over to the both of you for comments. And then next is Michael Christensen, who has joined us as Deputy Director of Community Development, and I think maybe two weeks in or so, is that correct, right? Michael joins us after a decade of working in San Francisco, where he worked on major waterfront developments, including Mission Rock and Pier 70. Throughout his career, he's tackled a wide range of unique and complex cases, developing a strong ability to unpack challenging situations and help drive toward practical solutions. Michael's also led process improvement and technology initiatives, including implementation of financial management systems, permit and project tracking systems, and document management systems. Michael's a passionate cyclist and often spends his weekends cycling along our beautiful coastline. So with that, two key positions, new positions in the city. In a couple months, we'll do a bigger introduction of many new employees over the last six months, but I'm pleased to have Gretchen and Michael here tonight. I want to turn it over to both of you to any comments you'd like to provide. Thank you.

Thank you, City Manager Woodhouse. Good evening, Mayor Bowles, Vice Mayor Wright, Council Members Beckmeyer, Beer, and Espinosa. As City Manager Woodhouse stated, I am Gretchen Heckman, and as you now know, the Economic and Housing Development Manager here at the City of Pacifica. I started earlier this month and I've been working closely with our city manager's office, small business representatives, developer representatives, our consultant partners and other city departments to get up to speed on existing and future economic development plans for the city. As City Manager Woodhouse mentioned, I'm coming from the city of San Francisco, where I spent 10 years working at the former redevelopment agency, first as a housing specialist and then in project management overseeing the Mission Bay North and South redevelopment project areas. Prior to the former redevelopment agency, I worked in nonprofit real estate development, including affordable housing development. I'm very happy to have landed in this beautiful and very engaged community. I look forward to working closely with council and continuing the great work it has done along with staff in the past couple of years. Thanks for your time.

And good evening, Mayor Bowles and Council Members. My name is Michael Christensen, and I'm honored to join you here tonight as your new Deputy Director of Community Development, starting week three officially today. I come here after spending about a decade with the City and County of San Francisco, where I worked as both a planner with the San Francisco Planning Department for about half the time, and as a project manager with the City Administrator's Office for the second half of the time. In my role here with Pacifica, I'm focusing on three main priorities. First, to support our planning team and the planning commission to deliver excellent service to the community. Second, to modernize our technology systems to make our processes more efficient and transparent to both the staff and to the public. And third, to ensure our department operates as a true partner to residents, businesses, and developers navigating and understanding our planning and environmental review processes. What excites me most about Pacifica is the opportunity to work in a community-oriented city where local government can have real, tangible impact on people's daily lives. Having spent my career in a much larger jurisdiction, I'm really excited for the chance to work more directly with residents and to see the results of our work shape this beautiful coastal community. I look forward to working with all of you, and I'm grateful for the warm welcome I've already received from Director Updegraves, city staff, and the community at large. And thank you very much.

Welcome, Gretchen and Michael, both. We're lucky to have you. Great job stealing from San Francisco, city manager. Your experience and these issues that you're going to be working on are just so important and critical to the survival of us as a community and a city here. So thank you so much. with that we will move on to our consent calendar items one to four are there any council members who want to pull anything from consent seeing none I will open public comment if there are any I don't have any cards on those items you can speak up now or Emily is there anyone on Okay. No? All right. Closing public comment. Are there any questions or comments or anything? Otherwise, I'll entertain a motion.

I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

Okay. Please vote.

With the motion to approve the consent calendar made by Council Member Beer and seconded by Vice Mayor Wright, the motion passes unanimously. Thank you.

And with that, we'll move to public comments for any items not on the agenda. I have two cards here. Again, anyone else who wishes to speak, please fill out a card in the back. Otherwise, I have Cynthia Knowles followed by Brian Rennero.

Good evening, everyone. So nice to see you. My name is Cynthia Knowles, resident of Pacifica. I'm formerly of the Parks, Beach, and Recreation Commission from 2017 through 2021, an avid cyclist, road cyclist, Love riding Pacifica and surrounding areas, but in 2020, we presented the bike and pedestrian master plan to the city, to the city council, and I have recently heard about CCAG funding available for some bike and pedestrian projects. I haven't been active in the commission or in these issues in a few years, but if the funding is available, I would like to know, and just to back up a little bit, Alta was the author of the master plan, solicited considerable community input, And the commission was active in providing that input as well, the PBR commission. And I would like to know if we're considering applying for a grant. If so, what are priorities, which priorities are you discussing? Have any of those priorities come out of the master plan? And if you're working with the PB&R commission on those priorities. So I encourage you to apply for the grant, maybe you're already considering it, I don't know, but I encourage you to do that, look at the master plan, work with the PB&R Commission to get some improvements going. I know I've seen around the city, we have made improvements, there are new bike lanes, but there's a lot of community input in that plan and I hope that we can move forward with some more ideas, thank you.

I HAVE A SET OF QUESTIONS THAT I WOULD LIKE TO ASK OF THE CITY COUNCIL PLEASE.

I'm curious to know when the list of permitted STRs are going to be published to the city's website as per the ordinance that was passed by the council last April and put into effect in the non-coastal zone in November. I don't see it on the city website and I'd like to see that that is enforced as part of the ordinance to get that list. I'd actually like to know what the date that city staff and the city manager are planning to make that published. There should be a plan, I would expect there is. And I'd also like to know how many of the STRs in the non-coastal zone have been issued their QR code signs that they're required by the ordinance to display at their premise, at the property. A final question that I have is that given, and I've asked this question three times in public comments now, Given that there has been so much contention and unhappiness and issues, calls to the police over various STRs over the past three-year period, I'd like to know how many STR revocation hearings the city has conducted. Can the city commit tonight that this is at least a non-zero number? Can they confirm that tonight? Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. Mark Seppard, that's the last part I have.

Thank you. I also have questions. We've been doing this for three years. I've been asking the same questions for two. A couple things come to mind immediately. There's been an audit of compliance SDRs to reissue the 2026 permits. None of this is on the website. Nobody knows what's going on. So if you have a SDR that did not resubmit their license, they may be under the table. In fact, I actually found one when I was hunting around. Two, There's no understanding what the code requirements are to the average citizen, so if you see a possible problem, you don't know if that aligns with anything the city's doing. One of the things that I've suffered through on the SDR camp, and none of the audits, of course, are listed, but if you have a greasy spoon anywhere in California, your health inspection is posted on your front door. But the city of Pacifica, for some reason, does not do that on stuff with such a high impact to our neighborhoods. Revocation hearings and Caitlin Quinn. I have heard nothing but horror stories from her, justifiably, about Beach Boulevard. There are hearings going on that nobody knows what the terms are or anything about the details. So can the complainant attend a hearing if you ever get one? The answer is no. No witnesses, we don't know. Results posted? No. Does the neighborhood know when the problem is cured? No. So, you know, this is the 21st century. Planning hearings and file are open. Planning and zone appeals are open. Appeals to this council are open and debated ad nauseum. Court hearings are all open, but for some reason, Pacifica runs in secrecy, and this council lets it happen. So we have no idea what's going on on Beach Boulevard. We don't know if the hearing's been concluded because nobody will say anything. The investigation quote is done, so this is really nothing more than a zoning appeal or a business permit getting pulled 498 Copeland, Marabella is going to 31 days. The question is how do you monitor that? How do you know when 39 days is hit? Are they subleasing in the 31 days scheme? Because they are falling off the radar scheme. 728 Noriega is not registered, but on Airbnb it's illegal. 1138 Grand Teton, my favorite of all time, sold in 24 with four beds, went to SDR two to three months later with six beds. Now in 2026, it's five beds and permitted. Now there's no website declaration on the shuffle of bedrooms. Was the four, six, five beds considered a permit strike? But nobody knows because the city won't tell us. So your website's really unusual. There's no list for anything that informs the neighborhoods. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark. Okay, seeing no other cards here. Is there anyone?

We have one raised hand. It is for Caitlin Quinn. Okay, thank you.

Go ahead, Caitlin.

Hello, hi. Mayor Bowles and city council members, lovely to see you on my screen. Sorry, I can't be there in person. Yeah, I also want to weigh in on what I see as such a huge lack of transparency on city staff's part. Time was in the past, you could call HDL and find out if an SDR in your neighborhood, give them the address and they would tell you whether it had a permit or not. And now when residents call, They're told that city management has instructed HDL to not give that information out anymore. and instead there's an incredibly difficult, many steps to use portal and you put an address in and it just says, either you get a permanent number or it says zero records. I have no idea what zero records means. It feels to me that this was information that was always public knowledge and now it's being swept away and hidden away and instead of moving toward more transparency which was what council had directed we are somehow for some reason going in the wrong direction and i really hope that council can address this and fix it thank you thank you caitlyn there are no other raised hands okay um with that i'll close public comment um and city manager what else would

Would you perhaps, you or some staff, be able to answer some of these questions on short-term rentals? And especially knowing that our hearing is before the Coastal Commission coming up soon, it would be helpful to know. I mean, the memo that we got most recently, I think, said that all the permits should be finalized, all the inspections and so forth, by now. Where are we and when might that information be added to the website?

Yeah, I'm not prepared in detail to answer all the questions from the residents tonight, but city staff has been working diligently on the review and renewal process for this complex ordinance and all of the inspections of the units that is required. We're still on target to complete that by the end of the month, and that would be prior to the Coastal Commission hearing. In December, staff gave a detailed update, written report, status report to the City Council, and so we'll be doing that once we complete all the processes, and again, the completion of the renewal process is targeted for the end of January. It's a very complex and time-consuming process that we've been going through. As the council is aware of the complexities of the ordinance, and, you know, it just takes time, and there's, you know, intentions. We're going to meet all the provisions of the ordinance, all the transparency, you know, aspects that were built into that ordinance and publishing information on the website, et cetera.

Okay, but I think the memo had said that by the middle of the month, we should be done, and I understand it might be taking a little bit longer, but is it possible to start listing, I mean, we have a certain number that have been permitted to at least put those addresses on so that the public can help alert us if they're finding others, like we heard about some today that don't seem to have their permits. That was the reason for the transparency, right, to be able to all help in the enforcement of this. So do we have Do we know when that might start being added to the website?

I can talk to the team about, you know, what we might be able to begin to upload, but all of the focus is on completing the entire renewal process. So that's taking all of the staff focus to do that. But if in the meantime we can, you know, start building that or uploading that, I'll talk to the team about doing that.

And if at all possible, if we could get a written update before... the Coastal Commission hearing. I think that would be really helpful for everyone.

Yeah, I think, and at the hearing, we are going to be, you know, prepared with some of the data as well that will be important for the hearing.

Okay, and can you just remind everyone when that hearing is for the Coastal Commission?

It's, that's a Thursday, right? Oh, sorry.

I think it's the, I have the 4th, 5th, 6th, but I have Pacific on for the 5th.

I'm going to ask Ms. Updegrave, Community Development Director.

I couldn't hear what the city attorney said because she's not speaking into the microphone.

Yeah, I'm going to ask Community Development Director Updegrave to just confirm the hearing date because I can't remember if it's Wednesday or Thursday.

Hi, Samantha Updegrave, Community Development Director. The Coastal Commission hearing is Wednesday, February 4th in Half Moon Bay.

And what item number are we?

I believe 15, but I can double check.

And just to tell the public, the Coastal Commission really tries to agendize items that affect the local community locally, so really encourage you all to come out, and there are opportunities for public comment there as well. Okay, thank you.

And I believe that you can go on Zoom to watch that if you cannot make it in person.

Could I ask staff for a look? Kevin, there was mention of CKAG funding that's available. Could you speak to some of the past funding we've gotten from CKAG, and can you speak about the two different sets of grants that are available from them?

Again, I'm not prepared with the specific details. I know we're always tracking those, and Deputy Director Yip could come up I believe he's here and he could speak to some of the specifics we have applied for and received significant funding in the past and are constantly looking at the projects that are either ready for design or shovel ready that meet the criteria of the different OBAG4 and other grant programs that are available. But perhaps Mr. Yip can talk a little bit about some of the successful applications and then what we're tracking now.

The community should be aware, too, that Pacifica is better represented than any other city in the county on that particular committee. That's right.

Yes, Mayor. I don't know if you want to remind the community of who our council members are.

Yeah, we have both Mary Beer and Vice Mayor Wright sitting on the CCAG Bike and Ped Committee. So we are actively looking for funds and have been doing projects. Yeah.

Good evening Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council Members, Deputy Director of Public Works slash City Engineer, Roland Yip. So in terms of the CCAC, I also don't have the specifics with that grant. I need to look it up, but we have a grant consulting third party that we meet up with monthly and they go over all the grant opportunities that are available to us and if we can put something together for a grant application that is from our bike pet master plan we will do so in terms of one recent projects we have done we applied for the SMC TA cycle seven pedestrian bicycle program funding for our Oceana bicycle bike lanes and that was a two-millimeter $2 million grant request. Unfortunately, we only received $150,000 or so for design, and so we're looking to get an RFP out, and we recently some proposals in so we're looking to award that we have um gone after uh the lecardo's fiscal year 26 community project funding for the manor drive overcrossing project uh safe streets and roads for all this ss4a for the highway one and crespi intersection improvements that was a three and a half million dollar project uh we've gone after several grants for for BBRP, the Beach Boulevard Infrastructure Resiliency Project. So we've gone after it for, you know, several fiscal years from Division of Boating and Waterways and for the Shoreline Erosion Control, that was $2.5 million. We went after a, we got a NOAA community projects for our peer rehabilitation for the design, that was close to a million dollars. We have ongoing Safe Routes to School grants that we receive. Those are close to $20,000 to $30,000 grants. So we're pretty active. Another one that we recently received was for our... For the TDM, this is the Transportation Demand Management Cycle 3. This is for our PACES project, Pedestrian Access and Crossing Enhancement for Students project, and this is for Cabrillo and Sunset Ridge Elementary School Safe Routes to School Enhancements, and that was around a $450,000 grant. We also applied. for a bike project for that grant as well, but we did not receive grant funding for that. So we're pretty active, we're applying to wherever we can, wherever we can qualify for, and sometimes we get it, sometimes we don't, but yeah, once we get it, we're happy to implement these bike improvements.

Thank you so much, Deputy. Is it okay for me to comment?

Yeah, please.

I just wanted to let you know, and I will send everything through to Kevin, but the TDA Article 4 Funding, the call for projects is coming out February 16th. And then we have the OBEG 4, and that call for projects is coming out in May. But we will definitely keep you updated because there's lots of money coming in, and we would love to have CIFICA put something in there.

And I just sent you screenshots to your cell phone of some of the charts that were at the last minute.

Thank you so much, everyone, for working on these and trying to bring more money and improvements to our city. Thank you. Okay. With that, we'll move on to our consideration items. So item five is appointing a city council liaison to the Climate Action and Resilience Committee. Sarah, clerk, coffee, could we have the staff apprentice?

I'll provide a brief staff report. At the meeting, the city council meeting on January 12th, the city council made appointments and assignments of council representatives and liaisons to the various city committees and commissions as well as the regional boards and committees and community organizations. The one that the city council postponed making any city council meetings liaison appointments to was for the city's Climate Action and Resilience Committee, or CARC as we call it, as that committee had not yet met at that time. It's a new committee that held its initial meeting on January 14th, which was following the January 12th City Council meeting. At the January 14th CARC meeting, the members determined that its regular meetings would be held once a month on the second Wednesdays of each month at 6.30 p.m. And that would be at the Civic Center Community Development and Engineering Building in the large conference room at that location. So with that information of when the regular meetings would be held, which is on the second Wednesdays of each month at 6.30 p.m., the council may now determine if liaison assignments, a primary and or an alternate liaison would like to be assigned to the Climate Action and Resilience Committee at this time, and which council members may be available to take those positions.

Okay. Thank you. and I saw some disappointment in a couple of council members already that I think these are dates that a lot of us have conflicts, but we're not here to rearrange other committees, right? We're just looking at this item today, correct? So, okay. Any questions or comments before public comment? Seeing none, I'll open public comment on the item. Again, I don't have any cards. Anyone online? Sarah, since Emily is not there.

There are no raised hands online.

Okay. Then I will close public comment and bring it back to council. So, I was looking at the schedule that Sarah so kindly shared. Greg, you have a PRC the second Wednesdays. Sue has the library advisory second Wednesdays. Mary has the youth advisory board second Wednesdays. Myra works Wednesdays. So that leaves me. But I'm free. And I'm certainly happy to serve in this capacity. But if anyone else is dying to, I mean, if we want to revisit something else, I'm assuming we'd have to put that back on the agenda.

You can take public comment.

Oh, I did. Oh, you did.

Oh, yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, I'm so disappointed that it's on a Wednesday because everything's on Wednesdays. And so, yes, I'm disappointed that I can't participate. That's it.

I just wanted to say this is going to be a super impactful committee, and they have done incredible work thus far. I look forward to great things continuing to come out of that committee. And after everyone's made comment, I'd be happy to make a motion to put you there.

Well, I just wanted to observe that we did have a conversation when we were doing these appointments initially in January, early whenever we did that, that sometimes if there's conflicts, we might not go every single month to a given committee. I'm glad you're available all the time on the second Wednesdays, but I wonder if perhaps, you know, since everyone else has an obligation, I know, Myra, you have work, so that's not that negotiable, but other commitments, if you would be interested in being an alternate, and that would mean, of course, not going to your other commitment if needed as the primary. on that night.

Yeah, is anyone interested? That's the youth meeting for me that night, so I will not.

And it's PRC for me, so.

And it's library for me.

I had to be at work.

I had to be at work. Well, and I think, I mean, we didn't appoint alternates to other committees for the same reason, right, because none of us are available the third Wednesdays. I mean, I will make it a priority. I mean, I think it is a really important committee, I think, especially in this first year when they're starting and looking for additional funding. You know, I'm in the climate space in a lot of different places at the county and now the state. And so I think I could help.

You're the best fit.

Keep us informed. Oh, absolutely. Thank you. So I need a motion.

Moved.

Second.

Well, I guess you should state the motion, sir.

Okay. I move that Mayor Bowles appoints herself to be the liaison.

Second.

Okay, can I move it, please?

I know, right? Can we just speak?

And with the motion made by Vice Mayor Wright to appoint Mayor Bowles to the liaison to the Climate Action and Resilience Committee, seconded by Council Member Beckmeyer, the vote passes unanimously. Great. Thank you.

Thank you all. And I promise to report back and share, because I know these are important issues to all of us. And we're very excited that the committee is starting their work. We are glad you are available. Yes. Okay. I would like to request just a five-minute break. I need a bio break myself. So we'll adjourn right now. It's 729. We'll be back by 735. At 7.38, so our next item, item six is a local coastal land use plan implementation, coastal access and resilience program, and shoreline adaptation program. And I'll ask City Manager Woodhouse to introduce the item.

Thank you, Mayor Bowles, Vice Mayor Wright, and council members, Kevin Woodhouse, city manager. I am excited that we're at this milestone of preparing for the next significant steps in implementation of our local coastal land use plan. And without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to Director Updegrave to kick it off.

Thank you, City Manager Woodhouse. Good evening, Mayor Bowles, Vice Mayor Wright, council members. I'm Samantha Updegrave, Community Development Director, and I'm joined this evening by Caitlin Snodgrass, our Associate Planner, and Samuel Coussade, our Civic Spark. And we're here tonight to present on the local coastal program and the next stage of our shoreline adaptation planning. In the study session, we'll provide just some overview information to help build a common understanding of the adopted policies and the regulatory framework, including our local coastal land use plan, Senate Bill 272 on sea level rise, special shoreline resilience areas, shoreline adaptation program, and our coastal access and resilience program. We'll look at community engagement and next steps and conclude with requests for council direction. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Snodgrass.

Good evening. I'm Caitlin Snodgrass, Associate Planner with the Planning Division. The Cities of Pacifica's 2040 Local Coastal Land Use Plan, or LCLUP, was certified by the California Coastal Commission in May of 2025. This certification follows more than 10 years of hard work and community input. The 2040 LCLUP guides long-range development within the coastal zone and specifies kinds, locations, and intensities of land uses. It establishes development policies, and it considers coastal hazards, vulnerable resources, and other unique concerns present along the shoreline which were not originally incorporated within the 1980 LCLUP. Senate Bill 272, or SB 272, for sea level rise planning and adaptation requires local governments to develop a sea level rise plan within their local coastal program by 2034. Local governments deemed in compliance with SB 272 are prioritized for funding opportunities to implement adaptation strategies and projects. The city's 2040 LCLUP established specific requirements and timelines to allow for short, mid, and long-term adaptation planning to be conducted with meaningful public involvement. The LCLUP requires the initiation of two adaptation-focused programs, the Shoreline Adaptation Program, or SAP, and the Coastal Access and Resilience Program, which we call the Coastal CARP. Now I'll pass it over to Samuel.

Thank you, Caitlin. Good evening, council members. Good evening to the public as well. My name is Samuel Coussade. I am the Civic Spark Fellow assisting with the local coastal land use plan. And that very plan establishes a phased approach to adaptation planning that employs a mix of strategies which are most protective of coastal resources and critical infrastructure. The city adopted and the Coastal Commission certified the special shoreline resiliency area policies as part of the phased approach to address the unique conditions of the Rockaway and West Sharp Park sub areas, including coastal hazards and vulnerabilities. It is an innovative policy solution crafted to maximize adaptation and resiliency benefits citywide. The policies enable oceanfront critical infrastructure and development inland of it to rely upon hard armoring. Here you can see the areas in which the SSRA policies may apply. SSRA provisions are purposefully limited in area, scope, duration, and applicability. Sunrising or making the SSRAs effective is a regulatory requirement established by the certified LCLUP. Therefore, the SSRAs depend upon enhancements to citywide public access amenities and refined long-term adaptation planning. The Sunrise measures are intended to result in better long-term coastal resource protections. The SSRA policies may only go into effect when certain milestones are reached in the development of the SAP and the Coastal CARP. And the Sunrise programs are critical components of the City's compliance with SB 272 and associated access to funding. Long-term adaptation planning, the SAP is a long-term adaptation planning effort which addresses coastal vulnerabilities and protects coastal resources. It includes but is not limited to establishing baseline conditions, goals and actions, and funding opportunities. For the SSRAs to go into effect, the city must develop the SAP's public engagement plan, work plan, timeline, and identify necessary technical assessments and funding measures. It must be certified by the Coastal Commission by 2035. The Coastal CARP, on the other hand, is an iterative citywide menu of mitigation projects. It shall identify coastal access projects and locations, timelines, efficacy monitors, and potential funding. Development and submittal to the Coastal Commission will meet the SSRA sunrise requirements and the city must complete projects from the list following submittal and it must be updated every five years. Now I will hand it back off to Director Updegrave.

Thank you, Mr. Coussade. So the city council and the public have expressed an interest in improving community engagement, particularly around shoreline adaptation planning. And it is important to, because this is our long-term shoreline adaptation planning envisioning, it is important to establish positive, productive, and inclusive community engagement. including voices that have historically been absent from these conversations. Community engagement will help define community goals and priorities and inform decision-making. And additionally, the Coastal Commission does have some published guidelines around the process and community engagement in their sea level rise policy guidelines that we'll also be looking at. In terms of the next steps, community development is working on a request for proposals for a consultant or consultant team with coastal and community engagement expertise to help develop the community engagement plan, the SAP milestones and create our coastal carp in order to sunrise the SSRAs. We currently have in this in our current budget, $150,000 to initiate shoreline adaptation planning and community engagement. And we'll also be applying for state funding in the next couple of months under Senate Bill 1 for planning, as well as looking into Proposition 4 under the California Climate Bond. So in preparation for the RFP, the city manager is requesting input from the city council on ideas for how to make community engagement effective. You know, the anticipated first task for our consultant team will be to develop a community engagement plan, and council's early input to help guide that engagement plan will make the RFP and consultant selection process smoother. So council members may wish to discuss what has or hasn't worked well in the past for coastal planning or other significant projects, what you've heard has worked well for other agencies, how success in public engagement should be measured, and expectations about resources related to public engagement. Specifically, the city manager is seeking input on whether the council wants to appoint an ad hoc subcommittee OF TWO MEMBERS TO HELP GUIDE THE RFP AND CONSULTANT SELECTION PROCESS. AD HOC SUBCOMMITTEES HAVE TO HAVE A DESIGNATED SCOPE AND A LIMITED DURATION AND COULD INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING. PROVIDING INPUT, ENSURING ALIGNMENT WITH COUNCIL PRIORITIES ON THE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT GUIDING PARAMETERS TO BE INCLUDED IN THE RFP. PARTICIPATE WITH STAFF IN THE INTERVIEW PROCESS WITH THE TOP PROPOSAL CONSULTANT TEAMS. and provide input into the selected consultant's first task of developing the community engagement plan. And that concludes our presentation, and we are available for questions.

Thank you, staff. Are there any council clarifying questions before we go to public comment? Okay, I only have one card right now. So yeah, we're hoping for a lot of input from the public, so fill out your cards. And get in line behind Michael Wallman, who's the card I have currently.

Hello. Always great to spend an evening with all you fine folks. My name is Mike Wallman. a constituent in District 2. My opinions are my own, not necessarily representative of my employer or any commissions that I may be appointed to. I have a significant amount of experience, both in the military and government, and disaster planning and emergency response, both before a crisis, tabletop exercises in response to major disasters. The seawall should be the most paramount concern of this body, the public, and public safety in general. Should we have a catastrophic failure of our seawall, there will be hundreds of millions plus dollars of lost homes, businesses, recreational opportunities, et cetera. Yes, sorry. Thereby, we know that if we lose the seawall, it will have a massive impact upon the city's strategic plans as well as the Sharp Park specific plan. We would not have a hotel here. We would lose almost all of our businesses. and especially the desire to build a hotel here. It is absolutely imperative that we resolve this problem. Anything that can be done to increase revenue, grants, other methods like propositions for additional funding that may go to the taxpayers, reduction of expenses, everything needs to be on the table. This is the most important issue in the city. Thank you.

Sam Casillas and then Cindy Abbott.

Good evening, Council. I will mostly comment on the community engagement portion. Unlike the last time, I am imploring you all to first be transparent as to what the goals are. Are we prioritizing people's current homes and infrastructure or developers? Also, don't cherry pick the data or how bad the global warming crisis is and ignoring the true severity of the climate crisis. Also, we can't leave out the dangers of rising groundwater levels, storm surge, and storm intensity, along with the sea level rise. We also need to put all options on the table and be honest about the costs What would it take to move the Sharp Park sewage pump? And what is the true cost of the seawall? We really need to consider that. We also need to be considering nature-based solutions as alternatives, where there are billions of dollars available for nature-based solutions right now. They put up Prop 4, that's what we need to really be talking about. And also considering that we were supposedly going after some other grants that we lost that was for the seawall. So where's the money for the seawall gonna come from when we currently have billions of dollars available for nature-based solutions through Prop 4? Probably most importantly is don't have a predetermined outcome where the feedback you receive from Pacificans is misrepresented and also ignoring the data that your citizen scientists present you We need to be honest brokers in this and really listen to people this time and not ignoring the data. If we present you with data that demonstrates that a field turns into a lake every year, maybe we need to understand why it all of a sudden looks like it's supposed to be a great place for houses. Finally, you need to fully collaborate with the Pacifica Land Trust, which is the only group developing a climate resiliency study that is identifying sites for nature-based solutions in Pacifica to protect our homes and infrastructure. Please note that the Pacifica Land Trust will be holding a community forum on March 28th to discuss and educate the public on nature-based solutions. I encourage the City of Pacifica to work with the Pacifica Land Trust to develop climate resiliency plans to help our citizens who are in danger from the climate crisis. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. Cindy Abbott, followed by Kimberly Finale, and that's the last card I have.

Cindy Abbott, West Sharp Park. And I want to align myself with the comments just made by Sam Casillas. I highly agree and support that we don't go into community engagement with predetermined outcomes. I think the community engagement that took place over the past several years was all about, here's a menu of things that we're going to offer you. We're not going to listen to any of your input, though, or feedback. And we're going to move on with what we decided in the first place. That was really disheartening. And I think over the time progressed, you had less and less people attending community meetings because we all heard, regardless of what we were thinking about, that our voices were not heard. So, in a public comment that I submitted earlier today, written, I provided some different consulting groups with some different options that might be worthwhile looking into that engage in a much more engaging way and works with people not in rooms like this, but I think that it's important that we actually go outside to the areas that we're talking about and hold those meetings out there. We need to be up in the Manor area. It's critical. Their needs are very disastrous. Same thing down in Lindemore. They're the area that regularly floods. So while Sharp Park is important, all of the Pacifica coastline is important. And the visioning needs to be done for the entire city, because it is not, unfortunately, for folks in Sharp Park, just about us here. It's about the future of the entire city of Pacifica. I think it's important too that we not use any of the consultants that we've used in the past. I think we need a fresh start. I'm concerned too to see SB 272 coupled with the sun rising of the special shoreline resiliency areas. while they use the same words of needing to develop an adaptation plan, there is no tie-in between SSRAs, which, by the way, it was a little humorous, I'm sorry, to hear that they were an innovative idea, because hard armoring is the oldest form of adaptation, and we've seen that it doesn't work. So I hope that we can, again, have honesty and transparency and decouple that conversation. because SSRAs are not a requirement by state law.

Thanks. Thank you, Cindy. Kimberly Finale? Mm-hmm.

Good evening, mayor, vice mayor, council members, city clerk, and staff. I'm Kimberly Fin... Oh, also I wanted to welcome Gretchen and Michael aboard. I'm Kimberly Finale, Pacifica resident. Let's see here. One of the things I love about community engagement is we get to do it right here in our own community, the place we love the most. What's touching about this is that we meet people where they are. When you meet someone at the beach, you already have something in common with them. Meet them on a dog walk, bird watching, something in common. Hiking trail, the library, or grocery store, the ice is already broken. We're both here on purpose. We have that in common. Community outreach is easy when you're meeting your people where they are. It's also helpful to have visible outreach be committed to attending all events, large and small, for a predetermined period of time, for example, a year, to reach a broad spectrum of residents, including youth. It's helpful to present to the Youth Advisory Board to recruit a youth partner or two. Goals of community outreach should include an educational element or component so that engagement maximizes high-quality informed responses. This means being well-read on the LCLUP. Community outreach and engagement is fun, and you can be guided with a smile, a copy of the certified LCLUP, and a clipboard. Community outreach shouldn't be burdened with complicating overthought. Some of our most productive community engagement for the City of Pacifica's Climate Action and Adaptation Plan was done spontaneously on the fly at pop-up events and locations. An excellent spot for that is Pacifica's second Saturday neighborhood market, the Farmer's Market, even the sidewalk at Lindemar Beach on a beautiful weekend afternoon. My working and successful motto is keep it simple, smile, and have a good time. If your outreach team is guided in this way, people will come to you. We didn't have a sign for tabling, so I made one. It was rickety, but people loved it. If I could have had one prop for support and visibility, it would have been a real sign to show that we are on a mission and we want you to join us. These are just some of the highlights of our community outreach and engagement campaign for the CAP Task Force. I hope you will find them useful as we invite our friends and neighbors to be a part of this valuable and important process. Lastly, please ensure that our chosen consultants have a deep relationship with Mother Nature. Our human connection to the coast must be considered above all. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Kimberly. So I have two new cards, Sue Degree and then Mark Howell.

Good evening. Yeah, so one thing, realism, reality, and outreach to the public. So I have been a constant complainer, unfortunately, or fortunately, that outreach to the public, we really don't do a really robust job. I think we think we do, but actually, I don't think we do. It's not that easy to reach out, especially when we don't have a paper on the corner, maybe online, but Not everybody reads online. So I think that people find out things after they happen and then that's painful and we lose trust. The other thing is data driven. Really listening because we do have citizen scientists and we also have people who aren't citizens who notice things. it's extremely important that we are honest and we have integrity and that we listen, and I repeat again, really robust outreach. Now it does say to listen to voices that we don't normally hear. That's going to be interesting. I think that's very important and we need to spend some time initially as to who, where are those voices that we don't normally hear. I repeat again, I guess I'm a teacher, you never shut up repeating, is that Outreach has to be robust. Maybe you should think of it as more robust than robust, and even more robust than that, and that there will be all kinds of comments. Some may seem silly, some may seem horrible, some may be screaming, some may be crying. It doesn't matter. It's all very important. We're talking about the sustainability of our entire city. That means our economy as well as our health and safety. And the pipes underground that serve us for main things like fresh water and sewer things, what's the state of those pipes? how are where they are are they safe there how how much salt water has been sitting on them for years and years that was my nightmare on councils i'm going to wake up someday and all the pipes were destroyed and we had sewage all over the place anyway data public and listen to everybody thanks thank you sue um mark hubbell and that's the last card i have

Good day. My comments are based upon the last experience we had with the seawall thing where we decided to choose a company that was not based in the United States that had very limited experience with the seawalls and we really got in my opinion a horrible product and just so I went to every meeting I attained every possible bit of information that I could and I was just EXTREMELY DISMAYED ON THAT PROCESS. I HOPE WE LEARN SOMETHING FROM THAT AND WE CAN MOVE AHEAD WITH DOING SOMETHING, YOU KNOW, WITH A LITTLE BIT MORE COMPETENCY. THANK YOU. BYE.

THANK YOU, MARK. EMILY, DO WE HAVE ANYONE?

THERE ARE FOUR RAISED HANDS. THE FIRST IS FOR CLIFF. OKAY. CLIFF LAWRENCE, I ASSUME.

GO AHEAD.

Hello, Cliff Lawrence here. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor, staff, council people. Thank you. Just to share what my experience has been so far in the times that I have had the opportunity to participate in what has been billed as public engagement. Particularly when we were divided up to separate tables at those discussions, somebody took notes, summarized that, and then bubbled it up. What I found was, or what I felt was, to be more correct, those summaries seem to be slanted towards what was a predetermined solution or answer. I didn't hear the things get pushed up that I heard at the table. And so it caused me to feel that people weren't really listening, and this was performative, and it was disheartening. So what I encourage is not only do we really need to listen, but we need to be willing to hear. It's... Credibility is very important here. You need to establish it and keep it, because if you lose it, it's too difficult to restore. That said, I agree with... all of the prior speakers on what they said, and getting out in the communities, making this more accessible, and bringing it closer to the people so that they feel that they are actually being invited to participate. And I would like to see more participation from our larger community. Thank you.

Thank you, Clare. The next raised hand is for Peter Loeb. Go ahead, Peter.

Good evening, council. I want to support, I guess, what Sam Casillas and Cindy Abbott were saying. I would summarize it as asking the council to think about what is the purpose of this meeting. community engagement in this case. What is the outcome you're looking for? If this is just to build support for what you've already planned, then it's just, as Cliff said, it's just performative. It has no actual purpose other than just continuing to the same thing. I'm asking the council to think about what's your vision about how this would proceed? What would happen in a public engagement process and what would the outcome be for it? If this is being done primarily because the legislation requires that there is community engagement in order to sunrise the SSRAs, what happens if there's a whole bunch of people in the public engagement process who are going, we don't really think the SSRAs are a good idea? Would this engagement process be open to that? And could it result in any change? Or if no change can happen... in the plans going forward, then the public, the community engagement process is a sham. I'm really just posing the question. I'm asking the council to think about, to answer the question for themselves. How do you really see this playing out, what would happen in the community engagement process? What's the purpose of it? What do you want the outcome to be? If you just want the outcome to be support for the current plan, then it's a waste of city resources, quite honestly. If you're doing community engagement, you need to be open to whatever the community engagement produces whatever the community says. And I'm suggesting that the council members ask themselves, are you really open to that? Is that what this is about? Or if it's just about building support for what you already have decided, then it's a waste of my time and yours. Thanks for your time.

Thank you, Peter. Is there anyone else, Emily?

The next raised hand is for Dinah Verbee.

Okay, go ahead Dinah.

Thank you, Dinah Verbee. Well, Peter Loeb pretty much must have been reading my notes because he pretty much said everything I was going to say. My first question is, what is the purpose and objective of the public engagement? You've got the Coastal CARP plan, which I understand is the shorter-term plan, and you've got the Shoreline Adaptation Program, which is the longer plan. You have different goals for each. Are you trying to do one public engagement process for both of those things? It's really unclear what it is the public engagement is for and what it's going to be focused on. And the other questions from some of the other speakers are good ones. What are you going to be asking for input on how to go forward with projects that rely on armoring, which is what the SSRAs are currently set up to do? Are you going to be looking for mitigation projects to satisfy the offset requirement for the SSRAs? What if you don't identify any viable funding source? Because we've all been told over and over again, there will be no funding for armoring projects. And in fact, my understanding is most of the grants that we might get won't fund mitigation projects. So if the conclusion is there's not going to be viable funding for armoring, what then? Will the options the public will be asked to look at include moving the public infrastructure, as one speaker mentioned? Will it include nature-based solutions? Or are you only going to be focused on the narrow part of protecting the seawall and expanding the seawall. So all those questions need to be answered, it seems to me, before you can go forward with a meaningful public engagement process. And I'll just stop there. Thank you.

Thank you, Dinah.

The last raised hand is for Suzanne Moore. Go ahead, Suzanne.

Good evening, everyone. I guess I have a few thoughts. First of all, on ways to engage the public. One of the ways that I have found most invaluable is door-to-door surveys. It is amazing what information is divulged by the public in a relatively short period of time when you meet them at their door and they respond to a survey. So I just want to put that out there as a method. Secondly, community education is incredibly important, and I hope that we will not restrict our consultants to certain options, that we ask them, based on their expertise, to present the options that our community should consider. And as we talk about these options, there's three things that are invaluable to help my understanding. Cost, lifespan, and impact. How much will a project cost and can we realistically achieve funding? What is the anticipated lifespan of the project? And what will its impact be on the beaches and our environment? on future infrastructure plans, and on future replacement of that project. So those are the three things that I'm always trying to best understand when this information is being presented. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Suzanne. There are no other raised hands. With that, I'll close public comment and bring it back to council. I want to organize our discussion a little bit around a few areas so that we're not all over the map. And I think what is the purpose is actually a good place to start. So we know we need to, you know, based on our LCLUP as staff presented, We have some tasks that we've identified that council has committed to. One, to sunrise the special shoreline resiliency areas through the program and the projects as mitigations for allowing armoring in those two areas to continue. And then also to start on the shoreline adaptation plan. I appreciate that the staff report said that it was important to do both of those things, even though the shoreline adaptation plan has a 10-year, you know, deadline. But I do think there's overlap. And one of the things I learned at Cal City is just last week, you know, there's a lot of money already in the climate bond that's out and available for grants. Next year, there will also be another big chunk to where actually 50% of the $10 billion will be allocated in the first two years. And so I think because we have some critical needs that we're not yet working on, as much as we can do as possible in a short amount of time to make us eligible for that money is really important. I do want to understand, so I understand I asked this question and it was raised, again, by a member of the public. The SSRAs, and again, I understand it was a council goal and, you know, that is the direction that we have, but it was presented as this is a requirement of our LCLUP, but my understanding is it's, I mean, if we, and correct me if I'm wrong, if If for some reason we're not able to sunrise the SSRAs or even if we sunrise them if we can't find money for the projects, it doesn't mean that our LCLEP will become decertified. I don't think. Is it? Are we really not eligible for SB 272 if we don't have the SSRAs?

That's a good question, Mayor Bowles. One important I think distinction is that really what we're focused on is the coastal CARP, so that Coastal Access and Resilience Program, and the Shoreline Adaptation Program. And so it's really the substance of those two programs that are how we are starting to address our sea level rise requirements within the LCP. And those are specifically tied to the sun rising of the SSRAs, but really it's those two programs that are the driver. And those are really important for us to be successful at. And so in terms of, I'm not aware of a decertification process. We do have sort of continual milestones throughout the life of those SSRAs in order to keep them in place. But I think really the bulk of that tie to the sea level rise is really those two programmatic pieces that we're working on.

And Mayor, if I may add, just regarding the question, I think that it's important to look at the LCLUP as a policy document that the City Council approved and the Coastal Commission certified, and it includes all kinds of policies. The SSRAs are one of those with all kinds of policies wrapped into them. The SSRAs are not, you know, sea walls or those kind of projects. They're a set of policies that fulfill the neighborhood's approach, direction and phased approach that the city council built into the approved LCLUP and the Coastal Commission certified. So it's our intention as staff and it's the council's goal to implement the LCLUP program. which includes sunrising the SSRAs. That's not why we're kicking off the shoreline adaptation planning and the coastal cart process. The purpose of those is for this community to arrive at a long-term vision for what Pacifica's coast is going to look like in the future. In doing so, the effect of the SSRAs and all the related policies will be sunrised, but the focus is really, hey, community, we have these very complex issues along our coastal, along our coast that everyone is very passionate in different ways about. How are we going to come together for the long-term vision 30, 40, 50 more years of vision for what Pacifica wants to be in the future. That's the way I look at it.

Right. And, I mean, I wasn't part of those conversations before, but starting, you know, back in 2009 when we were doing our LCLUP, and those are when, you know, a lot of the meetings got contentious and difficult in our community. And so, I mean, I'd love to hear from you all who were part of those, you know, What happened? What can we do differently? How do we bring people along? Because what I'm hearing, and even the SSRAs, I mean, the projects we have to identify, and the Coastal Commission gave us a list of, you know, that's somewhat prioritized. They're all good things for our community. They're all things that we want to be doing, right, if we can find a path to do those. Anyway, so just back to purpose. I mean, what do you all see? I mean, besides those two documents and the specific things, and are we really open and wanting to listen and somehow absorb and work with our community?

I will chime in. I echo what I heard in public comment about a long-term vision and what the city manager said. I think we need to establish that. And I think it wasn't that we weren't going to. It just wasn't really, at least to answer your question, Christine, it didn't come across that way to me initially. When we were doing the... Sea level rise adaptation plan. I don't, I mean, it was intended, and when you look at the plan, it definitely speaks to that because it talks about certain triggers and, you know, responses that will happen when certain conditions ensue in the different segments of our shoreline. But it didn't have, it didn't feel like a 50-year planning document to me. It didn't feel like a 50-year visioning process. And it could be because I didn't understand that much about it when I first became aware that that project was underway. So then what did make a big impression on me was the contention in the community and the difficulty with armoring, not armoring, managed to treat or not, immediate impact to my property, future valuation, all of these questions that became very polar. And I think we missed a step. And I've said before, if we could do it over, I would say, let's start with a vision. Let's talk about what are our conditions. I heard many times data driven science-based, well, no one said that word, but I know that's what we say and we mean about what are data-driven, science-based strategies for addressing changing conditions on our coast. So I think part of it is learning what are those options. Part of it is listening to each other about what is important, what we value about Pacifica. You know, what do we want to maintain in our community and how can we go about doing that? For me, that is the purpose of this. And while it is tied to implementing certain policies, SSRAs among them, in our local coastal land use plan, This effort should exist independent of that. Communities up and down the coast are needing to do this. Some are. Many aren't. It's not easy. It's not cheap. And it takes a lot of time. And people don't necessarily have the time to engage all the way through the process. So I think what I'm looking for is some kind of structured way to describe what we're looking for so that it can be pitched to various consultants to help us think about outreach strategies. But we have to hone in on what are those larger driving questions. Because the ultimate outcome is to be the shorter term CARP, Coastal Access and Resilience Program, And of course the shoreline adaptation plan, which we have one of, sea level rise adaptation plan, it really was. So to, I think some public comment was made about we can't ignore groundwater rising. We can't ignore other coastal hazards. And so perhaps the scope of that original plan was too narrowly focused on sea level rise. So perhaps it's worth expanding the conversation to include all of the coastal hazards about which we have policies in our LCLUP, right? So that's my initial response. Thank you.

Well, and that's... So I appreciate all the public comments. someone who does outreach a lot for my job, there has to be a plan in place. And the only way you can have an outreach plan in place is you got to know what you're doing and what kind of information we want to gather from our community. And it seems like there's a few things here. One is there has to be some learning. So some information has to be shared in many ways, in many different places. And then we need to gather information. So I appreciate what you're saying about visioning. What I heard from our community was that we tried to do visioning and then we didn't listen to it. And so we don't want that to happen again. We really need to think about what worked and what didn't work, right? And how can we move forward with strategies that are going to be the best for our community? How are we going to include youth involved? How are we going to hear the youth voices? And how can the youth help us with the outreach? There's so many questions I have around an outreach plan. But you can't answer any of those questions until we figure out what is it exactly that we would like to know. And I don't feel like that question is in our staff report. Right? The question is provide input about the RFP. But before we can even do that, and if we have only $150,000 to do that, which isn't very much, we all know that, then we have to be super specific about how we spend that money to make sure that we get enough reach to our communities. I love what Kimberly Finale says, you know, you go to the beach, you meet someone and you have that in common. I love that. Simple things like that. But even those things, right, it costs money and planning and staff time. So I feel like there's just so much to talk about. And I'm glad that you, when I first saw the agenda, I was like, what, there's only two things on the agenda. But I'm really glad that you did it the way you did it, Christine, because it allows us to really look at these questions. Because I don't have a clear idea about what that vision is. Like what kind of information do we want to gather from our community that we are going to listen to and do something with? And how is that going to fit into the LCLUP that we have? I have more questions than answers, I'm afraid.

I think that's a good start and I appreciate your thoughts.

And the other question is, when we gather all this information, how are we gonna share it to the public so they know this is what everybody wants or this is what everybody, or getting a poll where you say, oh, this amount of people saying this, this, other people are saying that. So we need to be clear on that. And also, like Mary says, what question are we gonna ask to the public? And I have few ideas of how we're going to reach out because we already ran for council, so we know how to reach people. But a lot of people are very intimidated to come to talk at the microphone. So we need to reach out and go and meet them at their own place where they feel comfortable to speak. And how are we going to do that?

So I think maybe we'll tackle these one at a time. We'll talk about engagement and who to engage and different ways that we might want to pursue. Do you have any other thoughts? Just starting with purpose. What is the goal? What are we doing? What are we open to?

I would like to see the process be about education, both us educating the public on what our current plan is and having the public educate us on what it is that they would like to see. It should be a two-way street. One thing I think that we all up here have some experience with that was actually brought up by Suzanne Moore was door-to-door surveys. I don't know about you, but when I campaigned, I knocked on a lot of doors, and that was extremely informative to me in terms of getting a better idea of what the community thinks. And I really liked that idea. It touched me from a getting input perspective. And then she brings up how can we get youth who these decisions are going to have the greatest impact on. Yeah. Oops, sorry.

No, no. You know I'm always ready to jump in on that.

So, you know, maybe, maybe, In this process, there's some room to have them do some of the surveying for us. I don't know. That was just something that I wrote down.

Yeah. There are ways we can use our community to do this work and not necessarily have to have it all done by a consultant.

Correct. It can be a collaborative.

Yeah.

Yeah. And we have buy-in. Right. Right. Right. Young people can gather information in a lot of different ways just like we can, right? There's surveys, there's focus groups, there's, you know, key informant interviews. There's so many different ways. Small, you know, tabletop conversations, which are really important in our community. I'm still not answering any of the questions. That's okay.

None of us are going to get exactly what we think is the best thing. It's going to be a collaboration. if we all get a little bit of what we want, we're going to be a heck of a lot further down the road towards a solution than we are sitting here right now.

And just back to purpose for a minute. So a long-term vision, and I think, you know, people have said, I mean, there's things that they need to know, right? So I think an education piece as part of that... I mean, we'll be getting our new maps updated, right, that we can present about the different areas. I'm a little cautious about that. I remember talking to Jim Kramer, who was on the Sea Level Rise Working Group before, and I think there were a lot of people who... I guess didn't quite want to accept the science, right? That, you know, well, maybe we'll do better. Maybe sea level rise won't be as much. But to Sue's point, I mean, it's about a lot more than sea level rise. And I think whatever we can do as part of the education, you know, what are we seeing that are the storm impacts? What are we seeing already? Because... And then what's happening at King Tides because that is a glimpse of what is going to happen more often and worse as we move forward. Like tying it back to what people see. And somewhere I read like the very best vulnerability assessment. Like we had our vulnerability assessment done by consultants, you know, before back in 2017, 18. But actually listening to the people as part of the listening, like what are you seeing What are you seeing, this field that's flooding every year, this coastal path that has eroded that I don't have access to anymore? Letting them tell us what they're seeing so that it's helping to understand what is happening and then also out of that what we want for our coast in the future, the things that are important to us. Right? So my thought was, how can we have some listening sessions first? Not necessarily having a whole plan for public engagement, but letting that unfold as we share information, as we hear from the community and the different ways that we can reach out to them. People mentioned public works and understanding the vulnerable infrastructure and the costs, full disclosure. educating about possible solutions like personally I don't know what all is possible with nature based solutions right I mean I was really hoping last year to try to get NOAA to give us a presentation on that and all their funding has been cut so we heard the land trust is doing a presentation they've gotten a grant so that's an opportunity we're It doesn't have to be a consultant. It can be our own community that's bringing things to us that we can partner with and listen to and share.

At the same time, we still need a plan. I appreciate the looseness of what you were talking about. I think there's a flow that you were talking about. In order for our staff to be able to you know concentrate on they're going to need a plan too right and and and is that going to come from tonight or is that going to come from an ad hoc committee that's actually going to sit outside of this and really think about it and come back to council and have that discussion again because we not we might not be ready yet And also, you better get some tennis shoes.

Well, maybe just to keep us moving, so maybe we don't have this purpose all defined quite yet. I mean, our purpose is, I mean, we do have certain things we need to do. You know, the... So what I understand, you know, even though we do have an adaptation plan with strategies, those were never adopted. That's where things got to be very difficult, right? So at some point in the community.

Was the sea level rise adaptation plan adopted? Wasn't that required prior to updating the LCLEP?

The adaptation planning process that we went to was the early phase, the feasibility phase, leading to the LCLUP policies that then went through all those iterations you're aware of to get to the certified LCLUP. So there was a lot of work there. There's some ideas there. But this is the shoreline adaptation program is a specific, you know, The LCLUP now has some prescriptive contents that it needs to include, and staff could talk about those that are in the LCLUP. That's part of the work that's necessary to do to get input on. How are we going to monitor...

But I'm talking about the document that was produced by ESA in 2017 or 18. Was it required to be an adopted document, or was the informational process to inform...

Right, my recollection... Assistant City Attorney can correct me, but that was the process to be able to develop the policies that would then become the LCLUP.

But those were all taken out. That's my understanding from the Coastal Commission. We struck all those policies that were by area.

Right, so it went through all of those iterations in the submittal to the Coastal Commission and then back, and we went through the modern years of the LCLUP certification. So there's some information there, right? There's some work there, but all of that is now old data and needs to be updated, and so I think all the different technical studies that the Shoreline Adaptation Program, that the Coastal Commission expects to see in the Shoreline Adaptation Program, and for compliance with 272, would be updates to those. Again, I would turn to staff to be able to summarize those, but how are we monitoring erosion on the coast? What are those studies looking like? What are the technical studies? Those are all components of the shoreline adaptation program that need to be developed.

Perhaps staff can give us a little bit more clarity on that, what studies are needed, what information, because I know that there's been some new legislation that we can use some data that we have, right? That's correct, Mayor Bowles.

I think there was some legislation that amended SB 272 that does allow prior work done on sea level rise to be incorporated into the LCP. We really need our consultant with the coastal expertise to help us define what studies we need what information we have that can be used, what needs to be updated. So that's all part of their task of helping us develop the starting framework for our shoreline adaptation program, which includes identifying what studies we still need. And we'll be looking at the existing studies and information, including the coastal vulnerability mapping update that you mentioned.

But that would be a different consultant most likely than a public engagement consultant.

So we're looking for a consultant with coastal expertise and community engagement expertise. And so that may be one firm with different staff. It may be a team of consultants. Sometimes different consultants will come together. They have sub-consultants. And so... we're really looking at for someone to fill both of those roles.

We had a written public comment that suggested a couple of, I don't know if you saw it, Samantha. I did. With a couple of firms that were listed, two or three. Would you, have you looked at those already or? If not, can I ask that Council consider looking deeper into what those offerings are? Because it sounds like it's very community focused in getting that kind of conversational back and forth going on.

Yes. Thank you, Council Member Breckmeyer. We are compiling a list of different consultants and groups. And so those will be added. into that. But we will have to go through an RFP process where we put it out. And our intention is to make sure that all these different organizations are receiving that RFP. I think that's really an important part of that process is making sure we're outreach to a broader, maybe a broader swath.

But maybe there needs to be a little screening to I mean, what we're after that, I mean, like people have said, like the consultants we've used before, I mean, I probably agree. We want to look outside, right? And somewhat I'm hearing from, there's been a lady doing research on this from the University of Chicago, and I've heard this from Bob Battaglio. Like it's for, it's not just a science and data question. It's really a sociology problem and how to get people to think long term, how to get people to think beyond just holding on to what they have, right, that they think that's the best there is, right, versus something could be better, understanding that change and, you know, adaptation means change, that Pacific is not going to be the same. So these are really difficult, personal, you know, angsty conversations and it's not just I don't know, someone who holds a meeting and, you know, lets people talk and, you know.

Mayor Bowles, if I can just jump in for a second, because I want to try to frame this up to help the council's discussion. The type of thing that you just said is exactly the high-level guiding parameter information that staff needs right now. Okay. That we are looking at an engagement process that is looking at, you know, very difficult you know, core value issues that people are passionate about, and it's not just a data-driven thing. There's a sociological component to it. That's all information and other comments that were made, you know, even more detailed, whether it's door-to-door surveys or youth being involved. We're looking for all of that high-level guiding parameter information because what we need to do is put together an RFP that goes out There's all of the technical pieces of the shoreline adaptation program that the LCLUP talks about that we will need to address throughout the process and have community engage about and talk about. And there's how the community engagement is going to be done. We provide high-level guiding parameters. And what I would envision is that the first thing the consultant team is going to do this could be the first task that we identify would be to come in and interview people go to listening sessions in order to design the community engagement process so it's like engagement to design the engagement process you know so and this is a multi-year process and regarding while i'm thinking about it i did want to mention because council member beer raised it the city has been allocated $150,000 to begin this process. The other goal is that once we have a consultant on board and they're designing the community engaged process and all the pieces to this, that we're going to be positioned to apply for significant grant funding. Because this whole process is going to be potentially a million dollars over three years or whatever, however many years. It's going to be a very expensive process. with all the time and resources that are involved. And so this is the first step to be able to provide enough information for consulting teams to organize themselves, propose on, be selected, come in, and start engaging with the community and learning more about what will the best engagement process over the long term be, what are all the issues that we're engaging about, If that makes sense. I'm just trying to frame it up a little bit.

How much of a pre-RFP discussion do you have with potential consultants? Could you repeat the question? How much of a pre-RFP level? In other words, we can tell you what we want. We want a big vision. We want engagement. We want it back and forth. We don't just want one-sided. We don't want to, I can say for myself, go, here's the plan, let us educate you about it, and give us your feedback. That's not what we're talking about. On the other hand, we're also not talking about, here's the LCLUP that we just got certified, let's throw it out the window and start all over. That's not happening either. Because we have to move forward. The idea of Senate Bill 272, even though the exact parameters are not well defined, we ask the question, What are the specific requirements to comply with Senate Bill 272? Right now, we don't know. We don't know that the Coastal Commission has that well-defined yet. There's some guidance because they had a deadline last year to get their guidance together about that. The BCDC on the Bayside had the same deadline. That's all coming from state legislators. Senator Laird was the one who pushed 272. And it was all in an effort to get people doing this work. Because it's too easy. Well, first of all, the work is hard and expensive. And therefore, it's just too easy to rely on, well, we'll just stick with our 1980 plan. That one's already certified. So we have a certified LCLEP. Yeah, we do, from 1980. So everyone that I talk to is grappling with the same exact thing that we're grappling with. So we don't want to reinvent the wheel. We know that. I know you've been talking with, Santa Cruz and others about what are you doing, how are you doing, and who are you working with? And I think that, you know, the funders, OPC and the Coastal Commission, prime among them, and the Coastal Conservancy could be good resources for us because they're the ones that are seeing these proposals come in with, you know, costs attached to them saying, and we need a consultant for this to do this and this and this. So, you know, while we have unique conditions in Pacifica, we don't have unique requirements, say, of our larger governmental statewide agencies. That's universal for everybody on the coast. But we do have a unique history, right? Every community has its own history. So I know, for example, in Pismo Beach, they had a big because they had a lot of erosion happening, but they had homes on the bluff top. And the people on the bluff tops wanted to put sea walls down here to protect from the bluffs eroding and affecting their homes. Same in Del Mar. So these, we have that too, but in slightly different ways. And our, how do I say it, socioeconomic status in Pacifica is a little bit different than Del Mar. So you have sometimes groups of very wealthy individuals driving the process. I don't sense that that is the case in Pacifica. Some would say, yes, it is. That's why we had all that problem with Samcar. That's why we had all that problem with realtor pushback when we started talking about retreat as a possibility. When we talked about, I mean, I didn't want to retreat. No. And If you look closely at the project that we already did in Pacifica at Lindemar Beach, that's what that was. That's what that was. Now, there was no one living in the house, two houses that got removed. So that wasn't a big problem. But when you come closer to homes people are actually living in, then the triggers you know, start happening. And so how do we engage in a process where we lessen the intensity and find a way to talk about these things in a respectful, informative, information-sharing way that is science-based, that is data-driven, and that is reflective of reality? We can say, even though we don't have baseline measurements, I know they backed into them, like... Charles Lester and some of the researchers have backed into what the rates have been because they know what the picture looked like 30 years ago and they know what this shoreline picture looks like now. And so they can tell you what happened from this date to this date and you can average it over time but we all know and we've talked about it doesn't all happen on a nice smooth even basis, right? Some years you have a ton of bluff tops sloughing off, sometimes not so much. What are strategies that we can put in place to smooth that, to help smooth that? You're never going to hold back the ocean. Yes, I know. But what can we do to lessen the impact while we figure out? And that's the other piece. So when I talk about a long-term vision, Tiger talked a lot about this when we were engaging on... the seawall and the Bieber, if we're going to move infrastructure, what does that even take, right? I mean, let's talk about that. That's not like, let's move it. Come on, guys, get the truck out and let's dig up the trench and move that pump station. It's incredibly intense. And I think to just have some kind of... you know, presentation or information about what that would look like, that's part of what we got to figure out. I mean, it could take 10 years to plan just that. 10 years while we have more erosion, we have more overtopping, we have more flooding, we have more damage. We have $180,000 this year on Beach Boulevard, and it wasn't even as bad a year as we thought it might have been. Although let's don't get ahead of ourselves, the year's not over. but at least the king tide season by and large is over. So long monologue, but this is, you know, what I imagine is we need to, I think Kevin put it well, having the big overview so the consultant can help us design this too, right?

I really like what you said about talking about exactly what it would take to move the infrastructure, things like that. Not just a chart that says, well, it's going to cost this much or this much. Because that doesn't mean anything to my eyes, right? So I like that idea. I also think there's a couple of things I just wanted to say as far as like an overview of what I also think that we are needing to do. So there's different pockets of our community, right? We have community people who don't even know what LCLUP is, right? What do those letters mean, right? And so how can we get the information to those folks and get information from them? But then we have our community groups and our community scientists who are doing work out there. And I think that's two separate outreaches, like what information do you have to share, community scientists, right? Pacifica Land Trust. And so there's different types. And I want to make sure that that's covered because we do have so many brilliant people in our community. And then we have the brilliant people who don't know anything about city government and maybe might want to learn a little bit.

And if we're talking about a vision for Pacifica, I mean... The ocean is a big part of the reason we're all here. And so whether you live next to it or you live up the hill and you just walk on the berm once a month or something, it's still an important part of your choice to be here. And one of the things I always say is like seeing our meetings and how sometimes they're contentious, right? Like some of the LCLUP meetings were contentious. you know, we have a bell curve of people in terms of the spectrum, you know, and we might, the people that are usually in the room are maybe the people on closer to the opposite ends. But how, if we're going to move a vision forward, we have to bring everybody together and we're going to need these voices in the middle. Yeah. Right. And so I think, yeah, really actively engaging. Um, I mean, speaking to all our community groups, the rotary, you know, the, um, I mean, Sue just made a list of all the different groups for the city manager recruitment. So many. We have so many good partner agencies to partner nonprofits and groups in town. Like, look at the Beach Coalition. I mean, we could have little pop-ups at every cleanup, right, that there's somebody there, whether it's, Again, it doesn't have to be a consultant. It can be potentially someone from the CARC or someone from PB&R or, you know, whatever. If we give our community members the resources and the questions that they're asking, you know, how much of this can we do ourselves and not spend the money so we can save the money for the actual projects or for the staff we need, right, to help manage all this. Okay.

Do you all think we need a, oh, no, I lost my words.

Ad hoc committee.

Ad hoc, thank you. I hate it when that happens.

Yes. Yes. I do. I think we do.

No, I think so, too, because we're going to need people that are going to be able to put some time into this.

I THINK IT'S HELPFUL. I MEAN, SUE AND I HAVE ALREADY BEEN MEETING AND TALKING ABOUT THIS BEFORE THIS MEETING, TRYING TO TALK TO OTHER CITIES, OTHER NONPROFITS, TO SEE WHAT'S WORKING, WHAT'S NOT WORKING IN OTHER CITIES. YOU KNOW, I DIDN'T FINISH MY THOUGHT, THE COMMENT FROM JIM KRAMER IS, LIKE, HE THOUGHT WE WERE MAKING A BREAKTHROUGH IN THE ADAPTATION PLANNING WHEN the timelines were understood and like the triggers, right? Because, you know, we've talked about needing short-term, medium-term, long-term plans, right? Like the seawall is one, but the Coastal Commission is expecting us to do long-term planning without the seawall, right? As the next steps to and after the 20 years. So this is where like the data is maybe a little bit important as we start to refine this, but what is the trigger? When the beach is this far, or this narrow, or the bluffs have eroded this much, or there's flooding now so many times a year. So that it's not like some science at two feet of sea level rise, which means nothing to anybody, and when is that going to happen? Is that going to happen? Could it be way more than that? Yeah, something that's defined by what we're seeing can help move the conversation.

So I have the whole, like, long list of questions. So can I just, like, send? Go for it. No, I don't need to ask them now. Oh. But maybe I can send them to the city manager, and city manager can make sure that the ad hoc committee sees them all. I mean, there's a ton of them. And I don't think we can't just answer them tonight because we don't know which direction we're going in. So, okay.

So, Madam Mayor, if I might interject here. Yeah. It sounds like there is a majority consensus that wants an ad hoc committee. So, maybe the next steps the council can take is to establish that ad hoc committee and then give them direction to either do some work and come back to the council or do some work and work with staff on preparing the RFP, whatever the council desires. But at least if we take that step in establishing the ad hoc, then we can focus on what the direction for the ad hoc is.

And we do have a slide that has the, you know, potential recommended scope of the ad hoc committee.

And that's slide 12.

Are there thoughts on this? Are those good items? Is there more that we want to talk about?

I have a concern that over time, the ad hoc committee may be tasked with more than they may have time to do. And what I'm wondering is, is it possible for us to limit the scope of the ad hoc committee to something achievable and then address additional needs in the future just so that we do something well before moving to the next thing or do way too much not very well.

Do any of these things feel like THEY SHOULDN'T BE ON HERE YET?

NO, I'M AFRAID THE LIST IS GOING TO ROLL ON TO THE NEXT FOUR PAGES.

I DON'T THINK THERE IS FROM STAFF. IT'S ONLY ONE SLIDE. I CERTAINLY HAVE MORE IDEAS OF WHAT THE AD HOC COMMITTEE CAN DO.

AS I'M SURE WE ALL DO.

THAT'S KIND OF MY POINT. Yeah, and again, ad hocs need to be limited in scope and duration, you know, typically a year. And, you know, these three tasks could be a year because task number three is the first implementation task once you have a consultant team on board to begin developing the community engagement plan. And so the council can discuss the scope of this, but This was staff's brainstorm about the sort of limited scope and duration. And then in future years of this whole process, there could be a different ad hoc committee related to different subtasks or pieces to the development of the shoreline adaptation plan.

Well, I think what we were hearing, I think, from several of us is that number three might be too soon, right? Like, we need to have some engagement listening sessions before.

I'm sorry. No, go ahead. I think number one is going to take a long time. So I don't see three coming around for a while. Given all the input we've already provided tonight, there's going to be a lot of work that goes into number one.

And would the council like the RFP to come back to council to confirm the tasks and so forth before we go to number two, you know, send it out and start the interview process.

Yeah. Yes, please. Okay. I think so.

I mean, I don't think it's important to have all of our input. This is such an important work that's going to lay the foundation for work years to come. And we need to do it well.

So it sounds to me like a process of ad hoc meetings with staff, bring back. report back to council as we get closer to defining what the parameters are, right, as it says in number one. Because it could be make a 50-year plan. You know, that's pretty broad. I think, like when I was asking you before about do you have pre-meetings or pre-discussions with potential bidders or whatever, responders.

Council Member Beckmeyer, we typically will post an RFP and then have a period for questions and do responses to questions. So there is that opportunity to engage.

And I want to hear more what you think about this concept of listening sessions and how that plays into this in one, two, three. Like, does that happen after the RFP, before the RFP, to inform about what the RFP should include? Like, what are you thinking?

You're asking me or staff? I mean, I'm guessing we're going to need a consultant to help us with the listing sessions. I mean, at a minimum, to moderate things, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, so maybe that could be a simple RFP to start with, you know, and then letting them know that then we will, you know, from that meeting, then define our next steps.

Regarding the listening sessions idea, when I was thinking about this, I think that's what falls into number three. So the consultant comes, says, we're going to interview stakeholders throughout the community about what type of engagement works for them. We're going to schedule listening sessions that the whole council is listening to community. You know, that's the kickoff to this whole long process in order to arrive at what the community engagement plan is going to be. If you and it's council's prerogative to insert other earlier steps and RFPs, but then this is, this whole process is becoming very long and expensive, and I, you know, would be remiss if I didn't mention that this is not the only thing that community development has to work on. Really? And so one of the values that has to be balanced here throughout this whole process is effectiveness of resources and efficiency. And how do we achieve all that effectiveness in a reasonable way to move the ball forward on our, you know, I would also say these issues are so urgent to Pacifica. We don't want to take 10 years to develop and have a shoreline adaptation plan approved. We want to do it sooner. We want to be ahead of the curve. We want to be the first ones in line for grant funding for actual projects that are going to be implemented having finished our plan. you know, try and, those are just some values that need to be balanced as you think about the different steps in this process.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's all true, and we understand the urgency. I don't, you know, I don't know what staff capacity is. I don't know, I mean, we're lucky to have, you know, a fellow here with Sam, you know, helping us, and I mean, with some of the conversations Sue and I had with Oceanside and other cities, I mean, Granted, the cities we've talked to so far are larger cities, and we're trying to figure out, you know, more cities our size that have the same resource constraints. But most of them have a dedicated staff person that's like their coastal zone administrator or whatever. So it's not planning. Planning works on the documents and so forth, and it's not public works. But they work with both of those because it's all integrated. But, you know, like The Oceanside, I mean, the coastal zone administrator person is the one who does all the public outreach and does all that herself. I mean, so, I mean, that's one option is that we actually find, you know, a staff person. I know we can't hire someone long-term, right, but as a short-term thing. And then I know there are grants from the Coastal Commission that Oceanside got for staffing, and then those were supplemented. with additional grants from Resilient Cities Cablist, which is another group that I've been talking to that I'd love to share with you all a little bit more too. So there are resources there that we can bring in that can help us do this work. I mean, I agree. We need to, you know, man is falling in the ocean. We need, you know, and other needs, other communities that are flooding. We need to get going, but we need to do it right. And I think Because, I mean, we've heard, there's not trust in the community based on what we've done in the past. And so we need to go slow when we start to build that trust and educate and make sure we're doing it right. Because, you know, if we're going to get projects approved, we want community support. We may have to ask for community funding, right, for things too. So the more we can get the community on board and prioritizing, you know, strategies and options and specific projects, that's going to help us in the long run.

And that's where the Ad Hoc Committee can come in handy, balancing that need between there's a guy that used to sit back there that used to say paralysis by analysis versus making sure that we get enough input from the community and that we do a good enough job educating the community on what Some of the constraints that we're facing are because it's very different to sit up here than to have a perspective up there because there's other considerations. And this is big, really, really big and really, really scary. And so there's going to be a lot of feelings either way. And this is probably the single biggest challenge we have facing us.

I agree.

Okay, so I move that Sue Beckmeyer and Christine Bowles are ad hoc committee. Are we supposed to do that tonight?

Do you guys accept her nomination? I do.

I do, too. And we've been working really well together this past year.

Then with that, I would second that.

Proud of you.

And Madam Mayor, to the maker of the motion and the seconder, do you want to include the direction like by number on the slide in front of you? So, you know, for the ad hoc committee to complete item number one and two and then come back to the council or one and then come back to the council? Or do you want to give some other direction?

Number one. Number one. Come back to council.

So bringing back guiding parameters to be included.

Yeah. I think. I mean.

I agree. We can discuss it. Yes. But we should vote. We should. I mean, but you wanted as part of the motion. So ad hoc committee. I amended the motion. To do these things, but starting with number one. Like that's our main focus initially.

Right, but so it was to the maker of the motion, Council Member Beard.

That was a friendly amendment.

Friendly amendment. And then Council Member Wright agreed.

I will.

Yeah.

Okay, we have to vote. Are you ready for us to be clerked?

Waiting for Sarah.

Oh, Sarah's, you know, she just wanted to do her thing, didn't I?

You notice? So I heard a motion by Council Member Beard, seconded by Vice Mayor Wright. Excuse me. to appoint an ad hoc subcommittee, an ad hoc committee consisting of Beckmeyer and Bowles with the direction to provide input, ensuring alignment with council priorities on the community engagement guiding parameters to be included in the RFP. And with that, I will take the council member's vote. And the vote passes unanimously.

Could I make a brief comment?

Of course.

I just want the community to be aware what it is that you, how much time it is that you guys just volunteered to give to this community. Again. And it's a big, huge deal. It's a big lift. And I want to express my appreciation for your willingness to take on this Herculean task. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. And also, City Manager Woodhouse, I sent questions not for you to answer, but for you to share with the Ad Hoc Committee. So you don't have to answer them. OK.

Thank you. Do we need any more direction? I don't know. Yeah, we can come back and get more specifics. I do want to share one resource on the Coastal Conservancy website. They have a Tips for Meaningful Community Engagement. Good. And I really encourage everybody to look at that. And I'm happy to send a link to the city manager and you guys can look at it. They talk about community engagement as a spectrum. So, yeah, five different steps. And And so sometimes community engagement is really defined as just the first two steps of that, right? So the five steps are inform, consult, so getting public feedback, involve, work directly with residents, and consistently to consider their, ah, sorry, my reading. That's a faint print. WHETHER CONCERNS AND ASPIRATIONS COLLABORATE, PARTNER WITH RESIDENTS IN DECISION-MAKING, INCLUDING IDENTIFICATION OF SOLUTIONS, AND EMPOWER RESIDENTS ARE MAKING DECISIONS AND LEADING SOLUTIONS-BASED EFFORTS. SO THEY TALK ABOUT, LIKE, BEING WILLING NOT JUST TO INFORM AND SHARE, BUT TO SHIFT THE POWER OF THE DECISION-MAKING A LITTLE BIT. SO ANYWAY, IT'S A SPECTRUM, SO I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT to know where we wanna be, right? So thanks for you all to think about. Okay. We have enough information for you now and are there any other specific questions or input you wanted from all of council besides the ad hoc?

Thank you, Mayor Bowles.

That was what we were looking for direction on. Okay, great. Did you learn a lot tonight, Samuel?

Yes, I did.

I bet you did.

I'm glad you're here. All right. Well, closing that item moves us to Council Communications. Who would like to go? It's only 9.15 p.m. I will get us out of here by 10 at the very latest.

How about 9.30? Me? Okay. Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming. Hi, Marty. I didn't even get to say hi to you. I want to... Just make sure that we definitely talk about the funding that's available through CKAG, the OBAG 4, and the TDA Article 3, which are coming up quickly. We have a timeline. We'll send that to the city manager so the city manager can get it to Public Works, and then we can take a look at the bike and pedestrian plan and see what's on there. That'd be great to, like, communicate with Park and Rec Commission about these things. That's what our commissioners are asking for. they're asking for that back and forth communication that we don't really get to have. And so I love that. And they asked for it again at OSPAC. And so it was fun being back at OSPAC. I'm super happy to be there. Um, they're like kind of looking for direction from us. Like what do you want us to do? And we're gonna have an opportunity to talk about that. But I think we need to keep talking about that and figure out a way where we can give direction to our with and to our committees and commissions like once a year or something, because I feel like we don't necessarily do that. We hear them come up and they give their presentation and we go, yay, great work, but we don't have this back and forth communication about the work that we can all do together. And so I really like where they're coming from on all those pieces, one with PB&R and then OSBAC, and I'm sure everyone else would like the same thing too. I want to thank the Fog Fest organizing group. They changed their meeting so they'll be on the first Wednesday of the month at 7 o'clock so that I can attend. I did attend their retreat. They had a full day retreat. I attended online, so I actually was listening from my retreat. Anyway, there were so many things that they were talking about, I was really glad I was there. So the president and the co-president are going to gather up all the questions that they had that day and bring them to us so we can answer them. So I'm actually really excited about being there. And yeah, that was great. And I want to thank Cherie Chan for coming out to our CKEG Bike and Pedestrian Advisory Group meeting. It was really good to have you there, Cherie. Thank you so much. And again, that's the kind of back and forth communication that's really important. And then, yay for Lynn Adams retiring. It was so fun. That's it. Yeah, that was.

Just to, I guess, keep it brief, a couple of things that happened. We had a transition meeting on LAFCO to some new appointed people. I met with the newest commissioner. I got re-elected to budget committee. Really enjoyed being at CCAG Bikebed with you. I look forward to being able to hopefully, yes, carpool amongst other things. It was also nice to have some of our public there as well in person. I think the only... that was represented by the public in person, which was pretty special. And I'm just really appreciating the work. It's been a little bit over a year now, and it is very meaningful, and it lets me appreciate each of you up here and those out there who have sat here before me. And it means a lot. Thank you.

Thank you, Greg. I had a meeting of the Resource Management and Climate Protection Committee last Wednesday. I need to get the slides to send through the city manager so everyone can get them. There was a very robust presentation about EVs. It was very high level electric vehicle adoption over the last almost five years, data presented, you know, everyone's looking at 2035 because there's specific state guidelines around EV adoption and what they're trying to look at is, okay, if that's where we need to be in 2035, where are we now? You would be so surprised how very little actual adoption, I mean, maybe you wouldn't because you go to PCE all the time. a little surprised. And it was a little, made me ponder because, you know, of course we're very focused locally and we're focused in California, but then they had a little bit of national data too and it was even way tinier adoption. So that was a little bit of an eye-opener. But as it always comes back around to access to charging infrastructure. And I'm putting a little pin in that not because I have any answers for that specifically, other than they did indicate the governor had put $200 million or something into his budget. But it sounds like a lot of it is tax credits. So I don't know how that helps us with, you know, let's get some more EV infrastructure. Maybe that's more of a CKEG level. I know there was a grant that Half Moon Bay was part of last year that got him like half a million dollars for EV infrastructure. And I'm like, yay, can we get some? So I want to figure that out. Greg, I had a specific question in that regard. They talked about beam EV charging modular units. I think you told me about this, that you can drop in places without trenching And they have solar panels on top of them. Is this something that you know about?

Not to speak intelligently enough about it.

Okay. I can't even ask an intelligent question, so great. But I will share the information that came out. It was actually brought forward by Betsy, one of the members of the committee. So I'll see if I can get some more information because that sounded like possibly a more quick build, because it's not that much of a build. And perhaps like in our parking lots that we own, it might be a possibility. So anyway, that was very interesting. I'll get the information out. And there is a webinar on food impact to climate goals on, I can't even read my own writing, February 3rd at 12 to 1.15. The Sustainable San Mateo County is putting it on. And they also have upcoming climate awards on Wednesday, March 25th. I forgot where. but it's gonna be awards, there's a youth poster session, and then awards for different, they've done it before. Didn't you get one? Yeah, for your house. So that's coming up, I just wanted to report that out. And then the Library Advisory Committee met, and they are taking a step back and a new tact on looking, they were waiting to hear from us, are we doing a bond or not? We're not, as we know. Not this year, not right now. But there's an organization called Every Library. And Cindy Abbott brought forward a book that was written by one of their founders. And it talks about the actual information process that needs to go out and be part of, you know, very much imbued into the community way prior to a ballot. So the upshot was having almost like a book club, book group study of parts of this book over time. And I think that will be really beneficial. But one question was, how can we get the book? And Sarah was going to investigate that.

Council Member Beckmeyer, I ordered that book today for the committee members. I reached out to the American Library Association and was able to get it at a discounted rate.

Aw. Thank you, John Traska.

Wonderful.

So we'll keep you apprised. But I think it's a good approach. We had some new members that are bringing their energy and their insights, so it's good. And I'm going to turn over the floor to you, or you, but I did have a question about our upcoming committee and commission appointments. Those are going to be for which committees and commissions?

We have one position, we have a few positions on, I believe three positions on the Planning Commission, one vacancy on the Open Space and Parkland Advisory Committee, and we have, I think, two positions on the Beautification Advisory Committee. Those recruitments are open now. They are available on the city's website under Committees, Commissions. The information was posted in the Connect with Pacifica e-newsletter on Friday and is out on social media. The deadline to apply is noon on Friday, February 6th. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah.

And that's my report. Thank you, Christine. I want to remind you to look out for the lights.

Oh, you don't have to look at my, it's been on, but just, yeah, just, you know. Sorry, I forgot. Would you like to say something now, or is that old?

No, it's from before. I know, but it's off the chart.

But it's on six.

It's not even on your name.

Oh, that's because I'm on six now. We need to figure that out. But thank you. Please do remind me, because I forget things. Let's see. Piggybacking on something Sue said about... EV charging. So I was at the Cal City's mayors and council members conference last week and then the environmental quality policy first meeting on Friday, which were all really good. Actually, it was just a lot of the presentations focused on municipal finance and really getting into the details. I sent the city manager and Greg an email today. There's a book that they highly recommend that helps us understand all the different funds and where cities can get more money and where they can't. And charter cities, again, have a little bit more leeway now, but that may be going away next year with some things on the ballot. But one thing I did find out about, it was a new fund that I wasn't aware of called the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund that has... money for EV charging and climate infrastructure. And Cal Studies is pushing for this money to be used for things that, for unfunded mandates that the state pushes on us. So like fleet electrification and EV charging and things like that. So those are definitely things that we should look for to meet our requirements and also help with things. The state's looking at putting so many requests for money on the ballot this year, but a $10 billion housing bond. So they'll be banking the decision, but the goal is to put it on the ballot in June. The state itself is not funding housing this year, so trying to get money from the rest of us, which is desperately needed. Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, the governor's budget just came out, and he's projecting a sizable deficit, but they're saying that it's actually going to be a lot more than that, that he's very optimistic in what he's saying. So, you know, got to be mindful of cuts that might be coming. The Strong Towns event... was on Saturday. I want to thank Pete Shoemaker for bringing that together and for city staff for attending. Samantha was there and Yulia and Greg. Thank you for being there too. They have a great book, so for those of you that missed it, I think that it was Jim Creamer was recording, so hopefully the recording will be out. The speaker was a little bit disjointed, but their main premise is that a lot of cities are broke because we have sprawled and, you know, having denser, um, um, development, um, and compact, you know, public infrastructure, roads and sewers and so forth is a more sustainable model. So, um, I mean, I think really we're doing all the right things and are planning to, you know, densify what we have and along the freeway and so forth for that. They did, um, They did have some other ideas about the public investment process and talking about how little things can make a really big change. It doesn't have to be a huge project and lots of studies and things like that. And this is something, you know, it's maybe a little harder for cities to do, but he described four steps. One, to humbly observe where people in the community struggle. what is the next smallest thing we can do right now to address that struggle? Do that thing and then repeat. So you're building small things that can build, that obviously help the city, but also show that we're making progress and doing things. I mean, it can be an easy thing like a curb cut that's not working or a bus stop or whatever, but paying attention to where the community struggles. Anyway, I thought that was, oh, and a couple of the ideas, like talking about Sharp Park for just, I mean, like planting trees, those were part of the plan. Trees add so much value and atmosphere, right, for bringing tourists and so forth in, putting in twinkle lights, you know, things like that, that just make it look homey and cute and nice. They don't have to be big things that we do. And I did want to talk a little bit, I'm going a little bit longer today, if you can be patient with me. As I mentioned, Sue and I talked to Oceanside, and they're working on a really cool project right now, but it didn't start off that way. So just as an example, because we've struggled in our community to build consensus around a project. So they're a beach community. They're losing their beaches. They have a lot of erosion, too. They had gone down the path of, doing beach nourishment with some groins, and they have a harbor that's also blocking some of the sand movement and so forth, so it's a little bit more complicated than us, but there was a lot of opposition. There were community groups formed for opposition. Surfer groups didn't like the groins because they messed things up, what they realized is that they couldn't just keep pushing this project forward that the city had identified and was moving towards. And they partnered, got introduced to this group, Resilient Cities Catalyst, who I've had a meeting with and soon are going to try to have a follow-up meeting with them. They're an international nonprofit that's actually trying to help communities struggling with coastal adaptation all over the world. And for right now, they have actually decided to focus a lot of their energies on California because we seem to be a state that's wanting to solve the problem and legislators at the state level and in communities are really trying to move things forward to where other communities aren't necessarily at that place yet. And so their advice to Oceanside for that particular thing was you need to start over And you need to open up to whatever creative ideas might come. And they ended up, for this one area, recommending a design competition and got all these creative ideas from international firms. And then on their committees to actually pick the project moving forward, they They intentionally put people who were opposed to the projects before on these committees so that they could learn about the project, learn about the choices, and help make those decisions. So you're empowering, again, the decision makers and trying to bring consensus around it. Anyway, they're doing really great. There's a lot of community excitement around their Rebeach project that they're doing. And anyway, and this... Group Resilient Cities Catalyst is still acting as an advisor to their staff. One thing they do, which I haven't heard other organizations do, they're also looking for private venture funding. And so they've gotten some of that reaching out to corporations and so forth that are interested in working with the city. And so they've gotten that for projects and for staffing. Anyway, so... I don't know if they're interested in working with Pacifica. They've picked five communities in California to work with now. I do. Um, so it's Oceanside, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Fort Bragg, and Alameda. So, um, yeah, well, Alameda's got a whole lot of sea level rise issues and they've actually been doing some great public engagement, um, recently around that. I saw their merit conference.

I thought about looking at them.

Yeah. Okay, so that's all about that. Anyway, I think the more we can learn from other cities, we're all having the same struggles, and we don't all need to reinvent the wheel. And then the other thing I just wanted to say is that tomorrow... There's a vigil at 6.30 in memory of Alex Preddy, the VA nurse that was killed by ICE over the weekend in Minneapolis. So that's 6.30 in front of the San Francisco VA Medical Center on Clement and 42nd. So I'm planning to go if anybody wants to go with me.

At what time is that?

At 6.30. Okay.

And where? I'm sorry.

It's at the San Francisco VA Medical Center on Clement and 42nd. It's being organized by some of the unions and medical workers and so forth. And with that, if there's nothing else, I'd like to adjourn the meeting in memory of Robert Coughlin, who passed away last weekend. We all met him at the Offshore Reef presentation a few months ago. I wrote something for the Tribune, and I'll just read that. He was a lover of the ocean and an incredible environmental activist with deep understanding and skill in political advocacy, stemming from decades of experience at the highest levels of government and nonprofit leadership. I had the honor and pleasure of getting to know him the past couple of years through his work with other Pacificans on a vision for a creative idea for our coast. He had a knack for making everyone he met feel valued, and his huge, genuine smile lit up a room and made you want to be there working hand in hand with him. The offshore reef proposal for Shark Park opened our collective eyes to potential creative solutions to building resiliency in ways that help maintain our beaches, provide habitat, and potentially increase good surfing. He actually learned to surf in Pacifica and was surfing here regularly his whole life. Thank you, Rob, for your vision, creativity, sense of humor, and passion. Many of us whom you've inspired will try to continue your visionary work right here in Pacifica. So with that, I'll adjourn our meeting. Thank you, Christine.