City Council - Regular Meeting

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?

Here. Thank you. So I just want to remind everyone that you need a parking pass on your car, and the papers are downstairs. And then I'm just going to read an initial... PARAGRAPH ABOUT PUBLIC COMMENTING THAT APPLIES TO ALL OF OUR DIFFERENT AGENDA ITEMS TODAY. SO PUBLIC MEETINGS ARE A LIMITED PUBLIC FORUM MEETING THERE ARE RULES FOR COMMENTING AT THESE MEETINGS. COMMENTS ON NON-AGENDIZED ITEMS MUST ADDRESS MATTERS WITHIN THE SUBJECT MATTERS JURISDICTION OF THE CITY AND COMMENTS ON AGENDIZED ITEMS MUST RELATE TO THAT SPECIFIC ITEM. If 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, I will direct the city clerk to cut off the microphone. And throughout this warning system, I'll seek the assistance of the city attorney in identifying comments not related to the agenda item or not within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. And with that, I'll read our land acknowledgment. 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 the 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 Ramaytush Ohlone peoples. Council Member Espinoza, could you lead us in the salute to the flag?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for

So, we have a few special presentations to start our meeting off this morning. The first one is related to CORA, Community Overcoming Relationship Abuse, and I want to invite Socorro Salazar and Celeste Mercado to the podium for the presentation.

Good evening everybody. Thank you City Council for having us today. My name is Celeste Mercado and I'm with CORA and I oversee our 24 hour programs which is our 24 hour hotline and emergency response program. CORA is a non-profit agency that offers support to victims and survivors of domestic violence with an intimate partner and all of our services are free and confidential. Through our program of emergency response program, which is ERP, is our collaboration with law enforcement. And the reason we're here today is to nominate an officer that went beyond of just making a referral over to us. This particular officer has done great collaboration and great advocacy that really made a difference to a victim that you had in the city of Pacifica. He provided support, connections, reassurance, and most of all, safety to this particular survivor, what we call survivor, and her children. This is the second time we nominate this officer, and it just shows how outstanding work he has done throughout his work here in the... Excuse me, the city of Pacifica. So we want to nominate Officer Roberto Martinez as an award and an appreciation for all his hard work and dedication. And Socorro is actually going to say a few words from the survivor.

Hello, I had the privilege of speaking to the survivor and in so doing, I gathered her thoughts and she so very kindly put together some words and I'm going to read a little bit of an excerpt of what she stated. This is along with a thank you letter that we will also give Officer Martinez. And I quote, one of my children has long wanted to become a police officer. After everything that happened, I told my child something I never expected to say. I was grateful every time I saw Officer Martinez. You showed me, she says to him, you showed my family what a police officer should be, kind, respectful, caring, reassuring, and professional. I know police work can be thankless, but my children and I want you to know that your care and compassion made a lasting difference in our lives. I am deeply grateful and honored that you are being recognized. You deserve it, end of quote. I also want to join in this and say to Officer Martinez and law enforcement in general, thank you for all you do, but especially Officer Martinez, as this is the second time that you are chosen as the ERP Quarterly Award, we want to say thank you from the bottom of our hearts and on behalf of the survivors.

First of all, thank you. I'll be honest, I haven't had really anything prepared to say, but I just do want to say I can't take all the credit. I definitely want to give thanks to my team working that night, and especially Cora. You know, I was just making the referrals, and I just did my job to keep in touch with the victim and the survivor and her children. Thank you.

So don't go away. I know we want to take a picture before you go, but I want to invite some council member comments first. And if anybody in the public would like to speak, we just ask you to fill out a yellow card in the back. Thank you so much.

It's always a beautiful thing when a young person can realize what it looks like to be a good police officer. That's like gold. So I thank you so much for that and for taking care of our community.

I've had very beneficial experiences with you as well, and even though it doesn't surprise me, it heartens me. I remember you driving by. We were working on a beautification project, and you stopped, and you pitched in. Kept your radio on, doing two jobs at the same time. That's the kind of officer you are. how you represent Pacifica in a very Pacifica-type way. We're Pacificans, not Pacificants. And I appreciate you so, so much for that, and I'm glad that the community is seeing it as well.

Female Speaker 1 Thank you for taking care of our community. We appreciate you.

Female Speaker 2 Thank you for being an inspiration and a leader.

I know how important the CORA collaboration is. When we toured CORA a few years ago, they called out Pacifica as being one of the better municipalities for really working with them to identify domestic violence and to educate people about what services were available. We're so grateful for you. It takes more than doing your job, but a sense of compassion of really seeing someone, and I love that that community member has seen that in you too, right there in the moment when you're doing your job in a really beautiful way. Thank you so much, Officer. And you've helped me directly too, so I can attest to your amazing service as well. I do have two cards from the public, one from Lila Manero, well, Manero, and sorry, and then I think from Ron Makel. So if Lila would like to come up.

I just got him a little out of breath. Good evening. I'm here to say some words about Officer Martinez. I'm not surprised to see him being recognized for his actions and service because I've had the firsthand experience of watching him save a life. Back in January, I noticed a man lying down on the sidewalk at noontime, and it didn't seem like a right situation, so I pulled over, called Pacifica Police, And while I was on the phone with dispatch, I walked over to the man to check on him and advised dispatch that the man was not responsive. And I think it was before I even got off the phone, Officer Martinez arrived and immediately took control of the situation. He started CPR right away while somehow simultaneously cutting off the man's wetsuit. He advised another neighbor to get the defibrillator out of the back of his patrol car and just got it quickly set up. And it was kind of like... The movies, you know. It all happened really quickly. And the defibrillator worked. The surfer was breathing again by the time the paramedics arrived. The overall response was super impressive. Watching a real emergency unfold in real life is intense. And it was clear how critical those moments were. Officer Martinez's training, composure, and determination absolutely made a difference. I'm very proud of you. and of the entire emergency responders who arrived that day. As a witness, I just want to say thank you because of your quick response. Surfer Jim is alive and well today. He's back home with his family and is back in the water. He lives to surf another day.

And just as a little reminder, we're clapping today, but in general, we're going to try to just wave our hands so it's not... It doesn't disturb our, a lot of work we have to do in our agenda tonight. Ron, I'm not sure if your card was for this or for public, general public comment later. Okay, we'll save you. Okay. Okay. And I hear there's no one online, so we'll come down and take our picture now. And bring up all the officers. Yeah, please do.

Come on, guys.

One, two, Okay, one, two, three. Thank you.

Okay. Well, thank you, everybody. That was delightful. So, our next special presentation is an introduction of new city employees. So, I wanted to invite our human resources manager, Zach Harris. for the presentation.

And Mayor Bowles, while Mr. Harris is getting situated up there, I just did want to kick off and comment that as the council knows periodically we like to do this and introduce new employees and for those that can make it to the meeting sometimes they're here in person and as I've been reflecting recently and wrote about in my farewell report tonight I got to reflect on the organization and the employees of the organization. And this is just so important to kind of humanize the employees of the organization so the public knows who these employees are that are doing this difficult work that the organization delivers. And this is one way in which we can do that. And so, that's part of the goal of us starting this a couple years ago, to do that. So, with that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Harris. Mr.

Appreciate it, Kevin. Is my presentation gonna... I can wing it. So I have nothing on this screen.

Do not move screen.

Thank you. That helps. think it's on the other screens maybe it's not on your screen yeah I can wait a second or two I do have notes in front of me and can go with the presentation but we do have some nice headshots available yep

I'm sure it's just like an on-off button. Like the monitor's not turned on.

Thank you very much.

There we go. Thank you, PCT.

Pardon the technical difficulties. Good evening, Mayor Bowles, Vice Mayor Wright, and members of City Council. Oh, I lost it again. It is my pleasure to be introducing our new hires from September of 2025 to present. Probably the most exciting part of my position is bringing these new hires to city council. And we do have quite a few here with us today. But I'll go through and do some little quick intros, some fun tidbits about our staff. And I have it segmented by departments here. So first of all, community development and engineering. It keeps flashing out. So Mike Molina is our new code enforcement officer. He started with us back in September of 2025. He holds many certificates that I am very glad he has to keep our code enforcement up to snuff. Mike couldn't be with us today, but he did express his want to be here. But he's out doing his work. And Gabrielle DeLavalade, excuse my pronunciation there, joined us back in September as well. Excitingly, Gabrielle actually started with the city as a consultant and wanted to stay with the city and submitted her interest when we had an opening and we're really glad to have Gabrielle on board. A theme you'll see in this presentation is we've been able to RETAIN STAFF, WHETHER IT BE INTERNS, THOSE THAT WERE INTRODUCED VIA CONSULTANCY, AND REALLY BEEN SELLING OUR CULTURE OF THE ORGANIZATION ON WANTING OUR EMPLOYEES TO STAY AND GROW WITH THE CITY OF PACIFICA. AND KIMBERLY LA ROLE ALSO JOINED IN DECEMBER OF 2025. An interesting thing about Kimberly is she actually owns a small business here in Pacifica, which is awesome. We love to see that. Really glad to have Kimberly on board as our new permit technician. And I know Michael was already introduced, our new deputy director of community development, but I didn't want to exclude him from our formal presentation. He joined us back in January of 2026. I know he likes cycling in his free time, but we're really glad to have Michael joining us and taking on a very important role with the city as a deputy director. All right, and I mentioned, gave some sneak peeks to the presentation that we have some internal... or interns that were promoted, and Justin Yee is the first one in the presentation. He was an engineering intern, and we were extremely happy to extend an offer to Justin in February to be brought on as an assistant engineer with the city. In the free time, he likes all the Bay Area sports and playing basketball. All right, moving on to parks, beaches, and recreation. So Susanna Crook joined us as an administrative assistant back in October of 2025, and she's been an active member within Pacifica for quite a while. She is a city resident. She is really happy to be working where she lives. Her family grew up here, and we're really happy to have Susanna on board. Jared joined also in December of 2025 as our new recreation coordinator. Turn my page here. And I thought this was pretty interesting. He's seen the band Sting 31 times. I'm like, oh, you probably got those lyrics memorized, I'm assuming. All right, Robert Mills also joined us in December of 2025 as a recreation coordinator. He enjoys skiing, surfing, mountain biking, and kayaking in his free time. All right. And Katie McGee joined us also in December. So we filled our rec coordinator positions back in December of 2025. She really enjoys Bay Area sports and also is an active coach with youth in Marin. All right, police department. So Daniel Kaye joined us in September of 2025. He was an active Marine and deployed, and he wanted to continue that work with Pacifica in public safety. Heidi Ng joined us as an administrative assistant in November of 2025. I thought this was kind of fun. She has two pet dogs, Porkchop and Luna. I'm like, those are great names. Food name is always the best for dogs. She also enjoys visiting or going to concerts and music festivals in her free time. And I know she's already taken on a big role in PD and providing a lot of great support. She's here today as well. All right. And Brandon Fatalale joined us in February, this February, and he was a CSO for San Mateo, and this is kind of, I'm not a big risk taker, comes with the role, but Brandon enjoys skydiving in his free time.

I'm like, there's no way you're gonna catch me doing that.

All right, and moving on to City Hall. Gretchen Heckman is our new Economic and Housing Development Manager. I know that she's been introduced. But again, want to include her in our formal presentation. And we're really happy to have her on board. It's a very important role. Lots of work to do, and we're really glad to have her. And to wrap things up, we have Ethan Hom, who was a intern with us last go around for our internships. And he's our new IT analyst who joined us in January. And just to shout out our internship program, which was extremely successful. We are about to start our interviews and revving that up. So with how successful our last internship program is, I'm really looking forward to getting a new group in and seeing how they can bring excitement and new ideas to the city of Pacifica. All right. And that's it.

Thank you. Yeah.

Zach, could you mention how it is that if people are interested in participating in the internship program, how they would get a hold of you for that?

So we work within San Mateo County. We partner with the county, with various other cities, and we get the word out in quite a few different ways. So we have active outreach, but we also will post online as we traditionally do, but we do get the word out to our community college peers as well as reaching out to some local universities.

And the information is available on our website?

It's available on San Mateo's website. If you look up the internship opportunities, they also have fellowship opportunities on San Mateo County's website. Our information for the internship program, we have on Cal Ops. If you look at our job postings, we have individual internship opportunities for each department, and they're specialized per department, and it goes into detail there. Thank you. and that's calops.org.

Could maybe the new employees that are here come up to the podium with you?

I think that would be great.

Okay, awesome. Yeah, well we have to do ours first.

I guess we're doing a photo.

Well, first, I mean, I guess we can do a photo first, and then we can say, do a photo.

Thank you, Mayor. Oh sure, thank you.

Do any council members want to say anything official?

I want to say hooray. Because, you know, all we hear about and tell ourselves all the time is, oh, my gosh, we're so understaffed. We don't pay well enough. We're behind the county. And I think Zach really put it well when he talked about values and what draws people to work here. And we know that it isn't only money. So I really, my hat is off to the leadership, to our HR director, to our city manager, to everyone who sets that tone, all of our E-team, because that's what draws people to work here. Thanks.

I'd like to echo those comments and say that the culture that's been developed here in Pacifica feels more like a family, and I hope that our new hires get to feel that. warm embrace much the way I have felt it and the support that I felt from staff and our fellow Pacificans.

And welcome to our Pacifica family. We don't count ourselves as being above you. We're all part of the same team hoping to advance the priorities and make the city a better place. So looking forward to our partnership. And well done, Zach and HR team. Thank you. And I should ask, I don't have any cards, and I don't see Emily. Sarah, are there any hands online?

There are no hands raised for public comment.

All right. I will close public comment. And that moves us to another special presentation. I'm going to welcome Scott Leslie, the Director of Park Speeches and Recreation, to introduce our Poet Laureate, Erin Christ. Hello.

Good evening, Mayor, members of City Council, and members of the Pacific community. I am Scott Leslie, Director of Park, Beaches, and Recreation, and tonight I have the distinct pleasure to introduce Pacifica's new Poet Laureate, Erin Christ, who will be coming up here in a minute. The Poet Laureate serves as a cultural ambassador for the city, helping capture the spirit of our community through poetry and public engagement. Erin brings a thoughtful voice and a strong sense of connection to this role, and we are grateful that she has accepted the appointment This evening, she will be sharing a poem entitled Gratitude. Erin, welcome, and the podium is yours.

Scott, is there a stool, like a step thing for her? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I would like to be able to see her.

Yeah.

All the way up here. Hello, everyone. My name's Erin, longtime Pacifica resident. I grew up here. I was actually born here, not in the hospital. All right. So I'm reading a poem titled Gratitude. And this is actually for Kevin as we move forward with future endeavors. So I am grateful for the motor neurons which make my muscles move. contracting my lungs and allowing me to pull air into them. Pushing that air with force, I am grateful for the vocal cords, which take that air and power and turn them into vocalizations, allowing me to speak to you right now. I'm grateful for all of these moving pieces, none more important than the next and all working together to think, to breathe, to breathe, to speak. I'm grateful that I'm able to speak before you today. Like all of the muscles and neurons and organs in my body working together to create vocalization, we see ourselves working as a body in the city too. Parts of a whole, the vocal cords are useless without the air full of lungs, useless without the muscles that move that air. Parts of a whole, working together to make our community stronger. I am grateful for this and for the people whose actions prove that we are a body. I'm grateful for those who clean up our beaches, the muscles. I'm grateful for those who plan community events, the motor neurons. But our bodies are connected by layers of strong connective tissue linking our muscles, bones, and organs, allowing each unique part to perform their individual functions. And in this grand analogy, it is the connective tissue overseeing budgets, managing operations, setting priorities, moving them forward, guiding, coordinating, implementing, doing it all to make sure our success is possible. The connective tissue holds it all together and is with this support that the muscles can push air into my lungs that allow me to breathe, allowing our city to breathe, allowing me to speak, allowing our city to speak. So thank you, Kevin, for being our connective tissue.

Can you speak, Mary, or are you too emotional? I don't know if I can. I see tears in Sue's eyes.

Okay, I'll start. Okay, Erin Christ. I've known Erin a long, long time, and I've seen you blossom, and I'm so proud of you.

Thanks, Sue. I do believe you were friends with my mother. Yes. Shirley.

Shirley. Oh, no. Yes.

So she is shining down on you right now because my mom loved to write poems. And so when I knew it was you, it just made me feel so happy because I know she would be so happy for you. So it's great. That was beautiful. Thank you.

Thank you.

Absolutely amazing. I'm jealous of the way that you're able to put words together. Stunning. Thank you for being part of us and being a voice for us.

Thank you, Aaron. I enjoy your poem.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The reminder to breathe. I'm trying to do meditation, and I have a wonderful Buddhist leader. That's where everything starts, right? To be able to slow down, count your breaths, listen to your heart. And yeah, otherwise we run around like crazy and we're not happy and we're not necessarily the nicest people operating in the world. And I appreciate the reminders of how it all comes back down to that. Can you tell us a little bit more about what your role is in the city this year, right? You're being named Poet Laureate for the year. Yeah.

Yes, it's a three-year term, and I will be working with the city for speaking at various events. So one of them that I've been told about is the Fourth of July celebration. I really hope to be doing some givebacks to the city, doing some poetry open mics. doing some poetry workshops. And also I have a couple of ideas on my mind about future art poetry related installments. So we'll see what comes from it. But I'll be around. I'll be a voice for the community and helping out in any way that I can.

We're so excited to have you. Congratulations. Thank you. I don't have any cards, but I see Cindy Abbott would like to speak.

Cindy Abbott, and I'm going to speak as one of the members of the Park Speeches and Recreation Commission. And I was also honored to be part of this year's selection committee for the Poet Laureate. There were three of us. It was a tough decision because the quality of what we heard from the candidates was really wonderful this year. Erin, though, sparkled in that interview process and sharing with us her enthusiasm as a lifelong Pacifican and, as you just heard, her desire to be out there and engaging with the community. We haven't really had an active poet laureate since the pandemic, and so it's really exciting to be able to bring this, you know, cultural... voice back to the community. And as you heard, Erin's just going to do an amazing job for the city of Pacifica over the next three years.

Thank you so much, Cindy. I don't have any other cards here. Is there anybody on the line? Okay. We'll close public comment and I see a request for a photo. So would you like to have a photo with us? Sure. Especially since you know us well.

I think that's wonderful.

That's okay. Thank you.

Okay. And our next proclamation is a little harder one for our city manager Kevin Woodhouse's retirement after eight and a half years here serving the city of Pacifica. So we have a proclamation here and I've asked all the city council members to read a portion of it. So we'll start with Myra.

Proclamation of the City of Pacifica in recognition to City Manager Kevin Woodhouse, whereas Kevin S. Woodhouse is retiring from a distinguished public service career after 36 years in the public sector. Serving most recently as City Manager for the City of Pacifica from October 9, 2017 through March 11, 2026. And whereas prior to this position with the City of Pacifica, Kevin Woodhouse served as an Assistant General Manager, Visitor and Field Services for the Meet Peninsula Regional Open Space. And a Deputy City Manager for the City of Mountain View.

And whereas under the leadership and guidance of City Manager Woodhouse, the City of Pacifica achieved several significant milestones that will have a positive impact on shaping our city and community for years to come. And whereas City Manager Woodhouse led significant efforts in strategic planning, including spearheading and advancing the City Council's strategic plan and work plan progress tracking, completing an economic opportunity study, economic development strategic plan, an award-winning Vision 2025 strategy, and ICMA promotional video, while strengthening organizational culture, ethics, transparency, professional development, and staff retention, as well as fostering regional, state, and national partnerships, and...

Whereas the City of Pacifica benefited from City Manager Woodhouse's prudent fiscal and budget management by producing award-winning budget and financial reports, financing bond debt and achieving AA plus ratings, improving financial and accounting system, securing $40 million in state and federal grants, implementing two successful voter-approved revenue measures, and funding strategic financial reserves. And whereas during City Manager Woodhouse's tenure, the city completed the Plan Pacifica initiative by completing a comprehensive general plan update, local coastal land use plan update, housing element update, and shark park specific plan, as well as a climate action and resiliency plan to guide Pacifica's future development and preservation.

whereas significant capital and program investments advanced during City Manager Woodhouse's leadership, including improvements to streets, bicycle, and pedestrian safety, ADA-compliant sidewalks and curb cuts, storm and wastewater infrastructure, initiation of the Beach Boulevard Infrastructure Resiliency Project, completion of the Civic Center renovation project, and wet weather equalization basin. Progress on the, there's so many things. Progress on the Pedro Point Headlands Coastal Trail, 2212 Beach Boulevard Hotel site, advancement toward new libraries and the creation of innovative community programs, including the temporary safe parking program and surf camp policy diversification. And whereas throughout his tenure, As City Manager Kevin Woodhouse exemplified the city's core values, including collaborative teamwork, a healthy workplace, heartfelt service, resource stewardship, and visionary planning.

And... And whereas, City Manager Woodhouse helped lead collaborative efforts with other Bay Area cities to start the United Against Hate campaign in 2017, mobilizing local action against rising hate and racism. which has grown to over 200 communities regularly hosting events to foster inclusivity. And whereas, in collaboration with the City Council, the more positive, affirming, and actionable message of a united in love was added. Now, therefore, we as the City Council, and I on behalf of the City Council and the City of Pacifica and all its citizens, do hereby extend our deepest thanks and appreciation to City Manager Kevin Woodhouse for his distinguished service to the City of Pacifica and wish him all the best in his retirement and future endeavors. That was a lot to get on one page.

I thank my council members for sharing in the reading.

Eight and a half years is a long time, and a lot has been done under your leadership. So thank you. And I just want to start by inviting comments from council members.

Start with me, the one who's going to cry. Kevin, I want you to understand how important you have been to the city, to the staff that you worked with, to every single council member who you ever got to work with, and to me personally. You taught me so much. You taught me how to stand my ground. You taught me how to trust my intuition. You taught me how to have confidence in my thought process, in my questions, and in my decisions. I could not have asked for more. And I want you to understand how important you are to me. I got to sit on a panel with you and talk about relationships between council members and city managers. And I get to do that again in October. Thank you for that opportunity. And thank you for helping me become better at what I was so afraid to do. I'm going to miss you a lot. And I'm still mad that you didn't wait another six months until I was finished. But that's okay. I forgive you. No. Love you very much. Thank you.

Kevin, I was super green, like any new council member when I first came. You have served as my reference librarian, my shoulder to cry on, my person that I can bounce things off of. our Monday meetings to get me prepared to come in here, sit in this seat, and actually sound like I have a clue. That's all because of you. It didn't come from here. I'm going to miss you so incredibly. You know, you've always been there for me, answering my emails on Sunday nights, on Saturdays, in the evening. You're always, always there. And it's going to feel a whole lot emptier without you. Thank you so much for being here. And I hold a grudge for you.

Thank you, Kevin. I didn't get to know you longer, but I appreciate you for what you did to me, for your help. And I know you're happy every time you talk about retiring, you smile. So I guess you're happy to start your new journey. And definitely, we're going to miss you because we're going to start with a new person here. And I think we already know you, so it makes me more comfortable. But I had to say thank you to you for your service and for I know it is hard to work with different people. I get that. But nevertheless, you did. And I appreciate that. So thank you. And I hope you enjoy your free time now.

Kevin, I could talk for like all night long about, you know, back. when we first were appointed and did our oath. But I'll be honest, it was a little rough at first because I thought I just had to do everything, every single thing. And I had to know it all immediately. And if I didn't, I had to learn it right now. And you helped me realize that's why we have a staff. That's why there's co-council members. And that notion of teamwork began to gel very quickly. So I'm very grateful for the fact that I think it was February, you know, like get sworn in in December, having a conflict in February. That's sort of like pretty close to in proximity, considering how little we do in January, right, with your basic beginning of year meetings. But that was a great way to start because it helped me learn fast how to build relationships, how to utilize the opportunities that we have with our staff, how to recognize roles and responsibilities, how to know what the difference between a policymaker and a staff member is. And those are not things that I had down, obviously, before I was elected. And so I know you have made me a more effective council member. I know there are many in the community who would say, you still have some way to go, not you, me, but that's okay. I mean, I've learned that we just have to keep working together and have a pure heart and do our very best. So thank you for your example. Thank you, Karen. Thank you for sharing Kevin with us for eight and a half years. I know there were many nights, weekends, weeks, a pandemic. I mean a lot that took him away from you and the family at a really important time in your lives with your boys growing up and all. And so thank you for being steadfast and being part of this relationship. Thank you. Thank you, Kevin.

I think when I got on council, I didn't really realize all that a city manager did. I have to say, I don't think our community mostly does, right? We get to see more glimpses because we are meeting with you every week, besides being here. This isn't our only time with Kevin, right? There's a lot in the background, our closed sessions, our one-on-ones, our special briefings on particular items. I can't imagine a harder job than being the city manager. I mean, you have to be on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There could always be an emergency, and you have to be the one you know, to respond. Or you appoint someone. You'd have Yulia or Police Chief Sarasua step in, you know, the times that you go away. It is nonstop. And, you know, for, especially for a city that is under-resourced the way we are, you know, like our community was disappointed sometimes, right? We're disappointed sometimes. We want to do more in our tenure, too. But your job is really to balance everything. You know, we only have a certain number of resources. We have an amazing staff, but there aren't enough of them, right? And we're not paying enough of them. But you have, you know, our top priority has been, you know, fiscal and organizational sustainability since I got on council. Maybe it was before in 2023. And I think that's an area that the public doesn't necessarily see, but where you've really shined, right? And bringing together this team and still being able to hire amazing people partly because of the culture that you have created that allows people to want to stay here even though they're not being paid how much, you know, the money that they could be making across the way. Maybe because there's not, you know, if they're still doing the job of one and a half people because we're short staffed, right? So you've brought a lot of stability to the organization that might not. have been here, you know, otherwise without that leadership. I too have learned so much from you. I think sometimes maybe I've been a thorn in your side because I always have a lot of questions. I get so excited about our one-on-ones because I always have a lot of questions like, oh, I just heard about this and I want to know that. And how does that tie into this, right? Because I'm For me, I'm always trying to tie things together and then see how we can bring resources to the city in other ways. But you have five bosses, and then those bosses change. I see a couple of others, at least two, that are in the audience down there that had very different needs and priorities than the five of us here. And so it's a job that demands flexibility, right? how you work with people and how priorities might shift as a council majority might shift. And that's probably frustrating, you know, at times when you've worked hard on something and then, or you see something that you think is important to the city for the budget and the council's listening to the community and maybe we want to do something a little different, right? To understand that THESE AREN'T PERSONAL THINGS AGAINST US, BUT ANYWAY, JUST BEING ABLE TO ACCEPT THAT AND MOVE FORWARD AND ALWAYS TRYING TO DO THE BEST FOR OUR CITY. AND WE MADE SOME IMPROVEMENTS THE LAST YEAR DOING AGENDA PLANNING AND SO FORTH THAT I THINK SOME OF THESE THINGS WILL REALLY HELP THE CITY AND THE COUNCIL MOVING FORWARD WITH THE NEW CITY MANAGER TOO. And it is good to see Karen in the audience. I love hearing about your trips when you are able to go away and get away. And I'm amazed your long hiking and 20 miles of skiing in Alaska and the freezing cold and dark of what you're capable of doing and where you want to spend your time with your family and those relationships that continue. And such a gift that Karen's also retired and that you have that time while you're both still young and healthy to spend together and decide your next priorities. And you're not done. I know that the City Managers Association and you leading that organization forward, you're going to keep making a difference in this profession, even if not right here in Pacifica. So, thank you. Yeah, Michelle? Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.

Could I say something?

Yeah.

So I can never say that I have a favorite because I have a lot of cities. I've worked with tons of city managers, so I can't say that. What I will say, Kevin, is that you have been such a significant city manager for me Taught me so much. What I've admired most is your leadership. Your leadership not only with the council, but with your staff. I don't think I've ever seen a city manager who has been able to lead a team the way you do. And that includes me. And I will forever cherish the partnership that we've had for eight and a half years. And I wish you all only the best.

I know you're talking later, so I don't know if you want to say anything now. But otherwise, I can open it up to public comment. But I wanted to give you the opportunity if you.

I do have some brief comments that are probably more appropriate now than later for the sort of business report. And I'll try to be brief. I'll shorten them a bit. I really want to thank you for this kind and generous recognition. I do also want to say that I can't take credit for it all. These accomplishments are due to incredible efforts and teamwork of the council members, of staff, of partner agencies, and of community members, community volunteers. It's hard for me to believe that this moment has come, that it was almost six months ago that I made my announcement about moving on to a new phase in my life after eight and a half years as city manager here. and that I've been working in local government public service for 35, 36 years. So I just have some thank yous that I do want to say, and they're a little bit similar to the other night. So first, to all current and former city council members that are here or watching, thank you for this amazing opportunity to serve as Pacifica's city manager for more than eight years. You have a difficult role in a challenging community and I have enjoyed our work together in partnership to make Pacifica better in both little and big ways. I want to give a special call out to council members Beckmeyer and Beer for with whom I've had the unique privilege of working with for more than seven of my eight and a half years. Thank you for all you've accomplished for the Pacifica community and your support of the city organization. I also would be remiss if I didn't next say thank you to current Pacifica executive team members, other staff, and Burke William Sorensen attorneys. Thank you for your incredible work, dedication, and resilience. Pacifica is a better place because of you and your professional expertise, and I'm a better city manager and person because of you. I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO CALL OUT TO THE MANY COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS IN PACIFICA WHO HELPED MAKE PACIFICA BETTER. THANK YOU FOR YOUR DEDICATION AND TIME, WHETHER VOLUNTEERING ON CITY COMMISSIONS AND COMMITTEES OR OTHER NONPROFITS IN TOWN. YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO THE FABRIC OF THIS COMMUNITY. AND LAST AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, to my wife, Karen, who is here, and my sons, Keegan and Luke. I couldn't have done this career without your support, understanding, kindness, listening, perspective, and steadfast presence. Thank you, and I love you. You all know while I may be retiring from Pacifica, I will be continuing to be involved in the city management profession in my Cal-ICMA presidency role and other related endeavors. So I hope to see you and stay in touch with many of you. Thank you so much.

Well, I'll open public comments, and we'll start with Mike O'Neill, representing, I'm sure, himself as well as Ray Muller.

Hold on, I'm going to kick the platform in.

What, you don't need the stepstool?

No, I don't. So I'm here in my capacity as working for Supervisor Ray Mueller, but I did want to take a little personal privilege since I was on the council that actually hired Kevin. I remember when he came in and interviewed and, you know, we had like four or five finalists at that point and stuff, but I'm glad to hear that we made a good choice, you know? I mean, and you know, one thing that impressed me about Kevin is he was always very detail-oriented, okay? And as he was walking out of the closed session, walking over to his chair today, I said, so Kevin, last one, right? And he said, yeah. And I says, how many has there been? And he said, 315, okay? So he actually had it in his head. I didn't. I don't know. That might be more than I've attended. I don't know. I was there 10 years at times. Actually, it is because I was 10 years and then, you know, 24 a year. Because there's two, yeah, you actually done more than I did, you know? And stuff. But anyhow, I did want to, you stole a lot of my thunder because I was going to also say thank you to Karen for letting us borrow him for so long in the long nights and probably wondering, is he going to make it home tonight at all or just stay overnight down there, you know? But what didn't always impress me with Kevin was that he was able to balance his family, As well, I remember when he first started and, you know, he called up and he says, I need a couple days off because, you know, his parents lived in paradise. And he had to go up and help take care of his parents. And he was a good son, went up, helped his parents. And then, but also through the years, it was always a family. You have family pictures, the card or whatever saying this too. But he also always supported Pacifica. And even though we might have had disagreements, he took in, I know he always had the best intentions and best of heart in his thought processes. And as I was preparing the whereas resolution, I was looking at this and I was thinking, wow, look at all this stuff that was, again, detail-oriented, 315 meetings, but also the opportunity you have given this city and the opportunity you have given the next city manager as a foundation to say, well, the plan Pacifica did this. The issues you're doing with the CRISP plan through Liccardo's office and the openness you have for trying to add there, but also the sign of a good manager is the people they hire. And I don't think I've ever saw a staff or the head of a department that we would say like, oh God, got to get rid of this guy.

You know what I mean?

You had excellent taste in your hiring and their capabilities. So this is a resolution from the County of San Mateo signed by every supervisor. acknowledging kevin's not just pacifica but also his work at the mid peninsula open space district which covers a lot of pacifica and i think at your event the other night what i got a kick what i was noted was how many people from the past were there you know former city managers former staff members People from the Mid-Peninsula were there, and former council members were there, and they all were there to say, congratulations, a job well done, Kevin. Thank you. From my heart, there.

Thank you, Mike.

The resolution. Thank you.

So I have two other cards. If anyone would like to speak, please fill out a yellow card in the back. Thomas Walsh, followed by Ron Makewell.

Hi, I really just wanted to say thank you. I came here to show Greg Wright that I own a hat as well. And I really appreciate all of you and, you know, your manager, Kevin Woodhouse, and Officer Martinez, and what a great meeting I came to. I just think Pacifica is amazing, and I'm really honored to be here. My wife and I are really happy that we took the time to visit you all and say hello. Thank you so much for all you do.

Thanks for being here. Thank you. Yeah. Okay, Ron, and then tie your desk for all space.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, good evening, Mayor, Council. Good to see you all. Beautiful day. I don't know where to start. I really appreciate everything that's been done here lately, over the years. You know, of course, the restoration of this building, the Civic Center, everything. And I know you were part of it. I actually, one time I approached him and I was expressing my appreciation for the remodeling of this council chamber. He said, well, You can't thank me. You need to thank another person. That was Mary, he said. She's the button pusher. So the fact that he shifted that, you know, appreciation to someone else, that's very respectful. I appreciate that. The other thing is the first time I don't know him that well. I've seen him here in the meetings a lot of times. But he did introduce himself when he first got hired here. I think this might have been 2018 or somewhere. around there, but he came to the Open Space Committee, which we are having over in the police station, and he introduced himself, and of course, because he came from Mid-Peninsular Open Space Trust. So I thought that was nice. I've lived here for 55 years. Some of you may know I've served on committees, on the planning commission, a lot of things, and I remember having encounters with Dan Pinsetich, you know, city manager, and of course, Joe Tanner, and David Carmody, and And then I didn't really encounter much with the interim managers. But at any rate, you know, great, great job. He's been here for a long time. But one of the things I'll never forget, Kevin, when you came in and introduced yourself, you shared an experience with us that you had, and correct me if I'm wrong, you said that you had a close encounter with the San Francisco Garter Snake when you were there. I don't know if you... saw it closely or he had the opportunity actually even hold it or not but anyway i remember you mentioned that and i've had a few of those myself so you're you're a comrade in that respect okay because those san francisco garters make few and far between you know they're not that many and they're very elusive but somebody having a close encounter with them like that that's a that's a great experience but anyway i appreciate everything you've done really appreciate it so thanks thank you ron um tiger

Good evening, honorable mayor and council. I'm Tiger Jastrow's big stick of Pacifica, speaking also as a former council member. Sitting over here thinking about what I could possibly say, encapsulate in three minutes. Gratitude was a darn good word to come out of our poet laureate tonight. I think the word that I'm more focused on as I get up here is balance. Pacifica intrinsically means peace. It's not a far stretch to go to Harmony, which entails a necessity of balance. And that is what you have brought to this place. I was in that chair before you got hired, and so I got to see your entrance from that chair. I got to see it from up there, in like three of those seats. And now I get to watch the end again from that chair down here. Part and parcel with that gratitude for Karen, I know that just four years of trying to help the city in some way or try, immediately real life butted up against that and I needed to choose real life because I think that trying to serve sincerely necessitates giving yourself chunks of yourself on a regular basis to what is not merely a job. I don't know how other city managers do it, but you handle it as though this is your priority and I can't see how that couldn't mean that you have also made a great deal of sacrifice over at least eight and a half years. And as for that thing, any of us who are any good at any form of leadership say, which is I had nothing to do with it, when you speak that intrinsically to a point, it is of course a lie. You're responsible for bringing forth a lot of these people, most of these people at this point probably, at least a lot of them, who enabled you to take that direction and turn it around to make sure that it got done. It was because of your capacity to balance between direction and action and figuring out what would do it without harming ourselves, which is often an unforeseen byproduct of just doing what you want. And that juggling act was you. And without that juggling act, it all would have fallen under the weight of its own gravity. Thank you.

Whoa, perfect timing. Do we have anyone on the line? Okay. With that, I'll close public comment. I think we all have some individual gifts for you, but there's one that we want to present now, and I'll just unwrap it for you, and then we'll come down and take a picture. This is a photo of Pacifica. It's by this wonderful photographer, Falu Bakrania, who also teaches at San Francisco State. Greg thought a sunset, sort of on the sun setting of your tenure here, would be appropriate And I very carefully picked one with no infrastructure that you have to worry about. So you can remember all the good, beautiful parts of Pacifica. Because we have many of those. So with that, we'll come down and take some pictures and give you proclamations. And then we're going to have a little break, too. So what I want to do is take a picture first. And Karen, you can come and be a part of this, too. with council, with Tiger and Mike as previous council members. And then I want to bring everybody up, staff and the community, for a picture, too. Who's taking the picture? And then we'll take about a 15-minute break. There are some refreshments in the back.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm having a hard time seeing the city church. Okay, everybody, thank you so much.

Beautiful, gorgeous. I'm gonna do one with this one.

Good job. I don't know if I can read her voice. Thank you.

On the line? No.

I do have a question for staff.

Okay. Let me, closing public comment. Go ahead, Greg.

Just one quick question. Could you reiterate for me on the lease of the pier that there is no additional responsibility being incurred by the city for us renewing the lease on the pier.

Thank you for that question, Vice Mayor Wright. The lease does have some changes. It was a very old lease previously, and it's a modernized and updated one. I guess it depends on your question what you mean about additional responsibilities.

It needs a lot of work. We're responsible for the work anyway.

Regardless that's right. We were always responsible.

We always owned the pier responsible for upgrades to it and such so there's no changes on that front Yes, and I would just add that based on these amendments the city would Take whatever income is received from the sublease and put that into a fund and that fund would be used for repairs maintenance Towards the pier so that is a change from the original permit requirements.

I And I just wanted to make a quick comment, maybe ask a question about item five, the Lindemar sewers, just yay, thank you Public Works for completing that project. And I saw there were 105 sewer lateral grants, and I thought this might be a good opportunity to let people know that there are grants available for Valleymar and Rockaway for sewer laterals.

Yeah, that's right. And I'll turn to staff for any specifics regarding that. But if specifics aren't needed at this time, we do have every year our lateral grant program that's tied to the major replacement work that we're going to do. I can't remember what the amount is. $2,000.

I looked it up on the site.

$2,000, yeah, which is a significant amount. The grant, I mean, to have your lateral replaced is more than that. It depends on the circumstances, but it's a great program, and we do encourage anyone and everyone that would qualify to do that.

Yeah, and we're really trying to improve all our... collection system so that the sewage treatment plant doesn't have as much work, especially in the rainy season. So, I just want to encourage everyone to do that. Okay. With that, I'll take a motion. Does anyone have a motion?

I move approval of the consent agenda. Second.

Okay. Please vote. Okay. And with that, we'll vote. One more.

With the motion to approve the consent calendar made by Councilmember Beckmeyer, seconded by Councilmember Beer, the vote passes unanimously. Okay.

All right. And that moves us to public comment on items not on the agenda. I have five cards, and we'll start with Anita Reese, followed by Cindy Abbott, and then Kimberly Finale. Thank you.

I can't see you, my glasses. Hi, Anita Reese. I'm with the Pacifica Resource Center. And I just wanted to share a couple of updates and just remind folks that we continue to be open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday from 9 to 5, Wednesday from 9 to 7, Fridays from 9 to 1, and one Saturday a month from 9 to 1. We are closed for lunch Monday through Thursday, 1230 to 130, and our next Saturday open hours is this Saturday, March 14th. Our Unhoused on the Coast outreach team will respond to requests to outreach to unhoused folks in Pacifica through Pescadero every Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday, Sunday, and holidays from 9 to 5. So if you see someone living outside or in vehicles or in a place not meant for habitation, please email us at ucoutreach at pacresourcecenter.org or call us at 650-452-6279. As of today, we have 93 unhoused folks in Pacifica. Twenty-five of those folks are in our temporary safe parking program. There are eight encampments. Again, two of those are for the temporary safe parking program. So there are 68 folks who are unhoused that are not part of the safe parking program. Sixty-five of those folks, again, including the 25 that are in the Safe Parking Program, are in encampments, or what are considered encampments, and 28 are individuals who are not living in an encampment but are living someplace on the street. I wanted to note that our one-day homeless count was on Thursday, January 29th, and we expect the county report to be released probably in May or June. The info gathered during the one-day homeless count, along with the work that we do in homeless outreach, those things combined are used for the county to determine how they're going to distribute resources. So, the one-day homeless count is really important, but it's also the work that we do throughout the year, not just us, but the other homeless outreach teams. So, as a city considers ways to address homelessness, I just encourage you to explore a regional approach. I think that's the best way to get the most resources for this community along the coast. I wanted to note that our next grocery distribution is on March 25th at the American Legion Hall, which is 555 Buell. If you haven't already signed up and you need groceries, you can arrive to the American Legion Hall around 4 and we'll continue to serve you. Otherwise, folks have an appointment and they show up then and they can pick up groceries. And, as always, if you need any support, please give us a call at 650-738-7470, or check out our website at pacresourcecenter.org, or you can email us at info at pacresourcecenter.org. Thank you.

Thank you, Anita. Cindy, followed by Kimberly, followed by Ron Meikle.

Good evening, Cindy Abbott, Sanchez Arts Center. I'm going to save you singing and I'm going to read something. As I walk through this wicked world, searching for light in the darkness of insanity, I ask myself, is all hope lost? Is there only pain and hatred and misery? What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding? As I walk on through troubled times, My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes. So where are the strong and who are the trusted? And where is the harmony, sweet harmony? What's so funny about peace, love, and understanding? It's a song from the 1970s, I'll Date Myself. And it's been ringing through my head of late with the sadness, the anger, and the difficulties. war and violence that's in the world today. So in response to that, decided to do something uplifting, and in our East Gallery right now is a beautiful exhibition themed What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding. invited 11 artists, one of whom is in this room with us tonight, to share their work on this theme, to bring people together, to give us some respite and relief from what we're dealing with, looking at the news and just facing in the world today. And so the exhibition is open through Sunday, March 22nd. But this Saturday on March 14th, we're going to be having two special events with regard to the exhibition. I learned that, and I guess I didn't need to know it, but many people are responding as artists generally do to things. And we were reached out to by an artist who had some of the same feelings about all of the hate, the violence, the negativity. And so she's created a project called Spread Love. It's a drop-in project. It starts at 2 o'clock on Saturday. And you can come, make a heart, take a heart, take hearts to share to other people in the community to do what we need right now to spread love. And then at 3.30, we're going to be having a gallery walk and artist talk for the exhibition. And just look forward to being in community with everyone. Sharing love, finding the goodness, and coming together with the awareness that as community we can do something. We can speak out against what's happening in a lot of different ways. This is just our response for right now. So I hope to see you.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Cindy.

Saturday, March 14th. 2 o'clock for Spread Love, 3.30 for the Gallery Walk. The shows are through March 22nd.

All right. Thank you, Cindy. Kimberly, followed by Ron Makel, and then Joaquin Jimenez.

Good evening, Mayor and council members. My name is Kimberly Finale, Pacifica resident. With all due respect, something has been bothering me since our last city council meeting on February 23rd, and I feel it necessary to address here today. We are currently in the fight of our lifetimes to preserve our constitutional rights. Many of us spend countless hours writing postcards or standing on Highway 1 protesting a hostile federal government. We call our congresspeople and other representatives to voice our opinions and demand that they stand up for our rights. We are told by this council that this is a safe place. We trust you with our thoughts, opinions, ideas, and feelings. But during public comment on February 23rd, a caller had some critical words for our city government and its wasteful tendencies, as is his right. Following those public comments, one city council member took offense and felt it necessary to defend the city manager. I quote, people think they know what they're talking about, but they don't. And it's not fair. Well, in case your mother never told you, life isn't fair, and it's not realistic to expect all public comments to align with your agenda. As a matter of fact, public discourse is largely protected by the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, assembly, and petition against government restriction. It protects the right to express opinions, even offensive or unpopular ones, in public spaces. If you want to fawn over the highest paid public employee in our city, fine, but that's not what you were elected to do. In this country, in this city, some of us are fighting every day to save what is left of our democracy. That includes our right to criticize the local government. The highest paid city employee is not exempt. Don't agree? That's your right too. But if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. Publicly defending the city manager, a grown man, is pitiful. We do our best to keep it positive, but positivity isn't always possible. I have personally been so angry with Kevin. I've found him unapproachable, manipulative, and misleading. That's my view. I'm not sorry, and it's my right. Sam is passionate, intelligent, and engaged in the democratic process, and that is to be commended, not defended against. Please stand with us in our fight, not against us. To publicly suggest a caring member of our community of not knowing what they're talking about is disgraceful. I'm not here to defend Sam. I'm standing up for democracy and our right to criticize our government. If we don't exercise and stand up for our rights, those rights are at risk of being eroded or taken away. Thank you.

Thank you, Kimberly.

Mirables, can I just request a quick break? The Zoom went down on my side. I just want to check. Sure. Emily, is the Zoom? It's also down on my side.

Okay.

So at this point, it looks like Zoom is coming back up. Give me just a moment.

Recording in progress.

The Zoom is functional again. Thank you.

Can you clarify? I think in the past we could continue our meeting even if it wasn't working. I know the laws are changing.

Currently we are able to continue. The Zoom is listed as an alternative method of observing and participating in the meetings. The law to require The two-way remote participation takes effect on July 1st of this year. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Can I ask a follow-on question to that?

That law pertains to city councils only or all elected bodies in the state? It pertains to city council and may apply to the planning commission, but not to all of the advisory committees and commissions.

And I would just add, Madam Mayor, that the City Council will need to adopt a disruption policy that deals with disruption to technology during those meetings. Okay.

So before June, that needs to come to us.

July, yeah.

Before July 1st. Okay. Thank you. Sorry for the delay. Ron, please go ahead.

Okay. Good evening once again. Ron Maykel, a long-time resident here. I just want to... share a little experience I had over the weekend on Saturday. My wife and I decided to come down to the Palmetto District. We don't get down here all the time. And we just went to this little bakery coffee shop and kind of just were chilling out that day. And we had some, I can't think of the name of the little shop. They have these beautiful little pies there and stuff. And so we had coffee and these little pastries and decided to go check out the museum there at the Civic Center. You know, our new... The old brown church, the old police station, you know, the old railroad. But at any rate, we went there, and I'm always humble when I go there. I've lived here for a long time, done a lot of things, and I always thought I knew everything about Pacifica. But when I went in there, that museum, I was very, very humbled. Kathy McGuire, I don't know if you know who she is. She was there, and also Joanne Arnos. But Kathy gave my wife and I a tour, especially upstairs. There's so much information in that museum. It's just... It's unbelievable, really. It's awesome up there. And my favorite part of it is because it was by a good friend of mine, Shirley Dry, her Ohlone Lifeways exhibit she has there, all the arrowheads and the abalone, all the various elements of Ohlone lifestyles. It was just so wonderful. Then of course we parked in the new Civic Center parking lot. There was lots of parking there, much easier to park there now than it used to be. My wife really hadn't seen the Civic Center yet then, so we took a little walk around. She was really very, very impressed and really appreciative like I am. I just wanted to express that little experience and thank all of you, really, for everything in that respect, and also the Pacific Historical Society for the wonderful job they do there in that museum. So thank you.

Thank you, Ron. So Joaquin Jimenez, followed by Jessica Shepard, and that's the last card I have.

I have something for the council members, the mayor, who do I give it to?

Give that to the city clerk. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Go ahead. Good evening, honorable mayor, council members, city staff, members of the public. My name is Joaquin Jimenez. I've been a resident of San Mateo County for almost 40 years, living in Half Moon Bay. I only left Half Moon Bay to go to college. I got a sociology degree from Chico State University. with a minor in ethnic studies. I came back to Half Moon Bay to the coast to work. I'm a former teacher for an elementary school in Half Moon Bay. I'm a former juvenile correctional officer for San Mateo County. I'm a former employee of Puente de la Costa Sur in Pescadero. I'm a former employee of ALAS, Ayudando a Latino a Soñar in Half Moon Bay. I'm a former employee of Job Train in the coast. I am the founder of organization Rancho San Benito, Rancho San Benito's organization to work with the community members to teach them how to run a business in agriculture and ranching. I would like to announce that I am running for county supervisor. I've seen the changes. I live the changes. I am the son of retired farm workers of the coast side. I am an advocate for farming and ranching, you know, our legacy in the coast side. I don't want to lose that. I respect open space, I like my open space, but also food security is one thing that we never talk about. San Mateo County Coastside, we are the largest farming community in the Bay Area, east of Tracy, I mean west of Tracy, north of Gilroy. We are the largest farming community and we have to protect that. I am running on economic mobility, giving opportunity to new businesses, also on affordable housing for everybody. Public safety. I am big in public safety. I've been around during the pandemic nonstop. I was there for the floods. I was there for the shooting. I was there for the fire. I've been present for the community of the coast side. And I would like to do that for the San Mateo County and represent the community that's been underserved. I worked with the homeless population for many years. I've been an activist and organizer for over 30 years, pretty much since I was in high school. So I've been around, and I've been affected by pretty much everything. I grew up in a crowded home. I'm a second language learner, English. You know, when I came from Mexico, I'm an immigrant. And I want better changes. I want something better for our community. And a vote for me is a vote for democracy. Thank you.

Thank you, Joaquin. Thank you.

and you can visit my website. I'm gonna leave a couple of these papers in the back, so you can scan the QR code, and please take a look at my website. You can search me, Joaquin Jimenez Halfon Bay, and you will find my work in the web, as well as videos, so thank you.

Thank you, Joaquin. Okay, Jessica Shepherd.

Good evening council and good evening community. My name is Jessica Shepherd. I am a newer resident to Pacifica as I've only lived here for a year and a half. However, I have been enamored with its beauty, its kindness, and all of its beautifully flourishing local businesses. However, we are the best kept secret in the Bay Area. And as much as I enjoy the beaches being a little emptier, I do believe that we are a city that deserves the props and recognition that we deserve. I would like to call to attention the lack of accessibility we have around this place. First of all, obviously, we are a car-centric city. Despite having public transportation and bike lanes available to us, getting here is very difficult from any major transit hub. It is also a place where it is difficult to navigate our website. When applying for a job for this city and county and community, I spent over an hour waiting for pages to just load. It is a struggle, but it is one that I think is worth pursuing in making sure that the city remains accessible and engaging. I am one of the 31% of people in this city who rent. As you can imagine, it is high. And I do not mind paying for the luxury of what we can do here. However, I think that there needs to be an investment in making sure that this place remains accessible to renters, that it remains an accessible place to find on the internet, and that we just maybe invest time and energy. I understand money is a resource that we don't have a lot of. However, time and energy is worth spades. I... Also want to call to attention the fact that there are not a lot of youth involved right now in this city council space, partially because people are really exhausted for all the reasons people mentioned earlier. However, engaging our local community, especially our young adults, especially our renters, who are 58% of our population, 18 to 64 in this community, is a massive part. That's the 2020 census, by the way. So I'm sure that will increase. However, when thinking about the future and thinking about adults, especially young adults in these spaces and making them accessible and making them engaging, I implore you not to think of us as young people, as the future, but instead we are people of the present that are passionate and ready to work with you if we know about you. Thank you.

Thank you so much. That's my last card. Do we have anyone on mine?

We have three raised hands. The first is for Rich.

Okay. Go ahead, Rich.

Yeah, thank you. How much time do I have again?

I'm sorry? Three minutes.

Okay, thank you. So I came here to speak tonight. I'm urging the council to pass a resolution declaring that the city does not support another war fought on Israel's behalf. It's time we prioritize American citizens' interests over foreign agendas that drain our resources and compromise our values. Let's start with the financial burden. Every year, American taxpayers put the bill for billions in aid to Israel. over 3.8 billion annually in recent years, with a cumulative total exceeding 300 billion since World War II, adjusted for inflation. This money, drawn from our hard-earned tax dollars, funds Israel's genocide, while our own communities struggle with infrastructure, education, and health care needs. Why are we subsidizing a foreign power when our own residents could use those funds right here at home? Legislation like HR 8445 seeks to treat IDF service members the same as US military duty personnel, potentially granting them protections under the law as meant for our own troops, including health and employment benefits. Why should Americans health insurance or veterans perks go to those fighting for another country? This blurs the lines of loyalty and puts foreign soldiers ahead of our own veterans. Then there's this disturbing pattern that's taking place. Sexual predators are fleeing to Israel to evade justice. The reports document 60 cases since 2014 where U.S. suspects exploit Israel's law of return for automatic citizenship, making extradition difficult. High-profile examples like Malka Leifer, who allegedly abused dozens before hiding in Israel, highlight how the loophole shields criminals while victims in the United States are left defenseless. We must also address Israel's treatment of Christians, which has been a disturbing rise in attacks in 2014. 2024 alone Over 111 incidents of violence, harassment, spitting, and vandalism targeting Christians in Jerusalem and beyond, fueled by religious hate. Clergy are spat on, churches vandalized, and cemeteries are desecrated. Acts like this erode religious freedom in a land sacred to many faiths. Critics point to passages in the Talmud.

I'm sorry, I'm going to need to interrupt you. I think you veered off of the subject matter of jurisdiction of the city, and I'm seeing a nod.

I'm asking the city to pass a resolution condemning Israel.

So Madam Mayor, we're asking the Speaker to speak on topics that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the City Council, but not on the agenda. So we'd ask the Speaker to redirect his comments towards items that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the City Council.

Can I continue? May I continue?

One minute remaining. What I'm hearing recently is not within our subject matter jurisdiction. So you have one more minute if you can stick within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. And if not, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to cut you off.

I mean, other cities around the country have passed resolutions condemning the conflict in Israel and Palestine. So I would believe that your city could also pass the same resolution as other cities have. But if you're going to infringe on free speech tonight, that's fine. I just would encourage you guys to uphold the Constitution and let people speak, regardless if you like it or not. Regardless if it hurts some people's feelings or not, people can say what they want. So thank you.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, and I'll just clarify, Madam Mayor, that when we're asking speakers to speak on items that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the body, it is fine to discuss and encourage the council to adopt a resolution, that is certainly within the subject matter jurisdiction of the body. But when people are speaking on topics that don't relate to that specific issue or that are not within the subject matter jurisdiction of the body, so issues of religion and other issues that the speaker raised about foreign affairs, that is arguably not within the subject matter jurisdiction of the council.

So this was a little mushy today. Right.

And we offered the speaker the opportunity to redirect his comments, and he did.

And he did. Okay. And I worry a little bit that we've maybe cut off a little bit of his time in that three minutes with the interruption. Can you comment on that?

Mayor Bowles, I paused the timer while the city attorney and mayor were providing direction to the speaker to redirect comments. So the speaker had the full three minutes and used all but about 22 seconds of the comment period.

All right. And again, we welcome your comment sticking to the subject matter jurisdiction at our next meeting. Thank you.

The next raised hand is for Sam Casillas.

Go ahead, Sam.

Hi, City Council. A few months ago, we heard members of the City Council voice concerns about the lack of trust from the community in our city government, grounded in a lack of open communication and transparency public input that has been ignored in community forums where the outcomes were already predetermined. This council said that one of its main goals was to gain back the trust of the public And you're even going to hire a consultant to figure out how to develop better communication and trust from the public. Yet once again, we find ourselves in the middle of a major decision where the public's input is being ignored and decisions are being made behind closed doors. Yet we are being told to trust you and your lack of transparency as you make the most consequential decision for probably the next decade. The choice of our next city manager will affect all our lives. Yet all we have heard is excuse after excuse as to why the public can't be involved in this process. Many of us have given examples where other cities where a panel of the public was chosen to review the candidates under an NDA, but no valid counter argument has ever been given to us as to why this hasn't been done. And instead this council has stubbornly dug in their heels in order to hire the city manager as quickly as possible Again, we have asked, why are we rushing to hire such an important position? A new city manager who hopefully can start to undo all the damage this current city manager has done to the city is quite important. We asked you to delay the hire since at least two of the current council members will not be here and to force this higher on the city council that may take us in this city in a new and better direction. Yet once again, here we are in a situation where the public isn't being heard, a process with a lack of transparency where the only outcome is deep mistrust in our own city government. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. The last raised hand is for George Lantz.

Go ahead, George.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay, you violated that gentleman's rights earlier, and your lawyer's explanation is going to be parsed. This is a recorded meeting, by the way. He was speaking to a topic, and he was explaining his topic, and you cut him off. That's a violation of his First Amendment, and I think you're going to be held accountable for that, as you will if you violate me here. This is non-agenda items, and we are speaking about items you may not want to talk about, but that is viewpoint discrimination when you use your... rules in the wrong way to stifle people's free speech. You don't have to agree with what someone is saying. You don't have the right to shut him off for it. And you will be having a civil rights complaint against your city. I bet you anything for that one. The meeting's public comment period is limited forum. In a forum, you may restrict certain things like time, place, and manner. But you can't discriminate based on viewpoint. That's settled constitutional law. And you just did it. It's recorded right here. He was on topic. And as I am, I am asking for a resolution against Jewish supremacy, which is exemplified in the Jeffrey Epstein tapes where the world's elite of banking and finance and politics talk about the Goyim 3,000 times. I would like the public to be informed by a resolution that your public body may put in. And you could put that in the same way as you've been influenced by the Anti-Defamation League to put in anti-Semitism resolutions in the past. We are asking you to put in a resolution against Jewish supremacy. And this is in a time where the world is seeing that this whole idea of white supremacy was just a trick being done to us by jewish supremacists like epstein bill gates the clintons everybody who works for the rothschilds it came out it's disclosed by the federal government it's no longer a secret and just because your board cucks to jewish um influence doesn't mean that we don't have the right to speak you can't cut this off no matter how much you don't like it just because your jewish daddies make you um press the mute button every time someone says it if public want a

So, Madam Mayor, the Speaker has not speaking on subjects that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the body. So, I would recommend that you ask him to redirect his comments back to topics that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the body. So, if he wants to talk about why a resolution would be helpful, why he wants the council to consider a resolution. What other jurisdictions have considered a resolution? Those are all appropriate topics that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the body Okay, George you have not lost any time.

I ask you to keep your comments to items that could be helpful to us within our subject matter jurisdiction.

Okay, can you hear me? She mentioned I can give you reasons why we should have this anti-Semitism and we should have this anti-Jewish supremacy resolution. One reason why is that they're raping our girls and they're talking about us like we're goyim. That's one reason. Another reason is their supremacy in banking and media. That's another reason to put through this anti-Jewish supremacy resolution. You can't control my speech, chubby lady. I can call you whatever I want, by the way, too. Disrespecting public officials is backed by the Constitution. I could quote, if you want, every single case law and statutory law. You cannot stop free speech here, if you like it or not. And it's very rude for you to try to twist yourself in a pretzel to do it. You take people off their speech. You should be able to enjoy diversity of opinions. This is not your forum. It's not your bedroom. This is a public meeting, and you need to let people speak and not keep showing your viewpoint discrimination. And you will be hearing from us. Time's up.

It's the time. Sorry, your time is up. Thank you. There are no other raised hands. All right. That, I'm closing public comment. Thank you.

Close public comment.

Okay. I've had a request for an agenda change, City Clerk Coffey, to move Item 9 before Item 8. Do we need an official motion?

I'm sorry, Madam Mayor, what item did you want to move up?

Item 9, the mid-year budget review, to do that first and then the housing element.

Yes, so we would take a motion on that. Okay, so moved.

Second.

Please vote.

And with the motion to amend the agenda to move item number 9 on the mid-year budget before item number 8, motion by Council Member Beer and seconded by Vice Mayor Wright passes unanimously.

I would also like to encourage my council members that, you know, we've been here for almost four and a half hours already, so let's move efficiently now.

I'd actually like to make one more change in the order of agenda. That's with the permission of the mayor. I'd like to consider Kevin's farewell to be the last thing prior to adjourning the meeting in honor of Kevin.

I'm happy to do that, but we haven't done council communications in a long time, and it's always something that we find we can drop if we need to, and so this would be putting that first before Kevin's.

I just wanted to offer him the opportunity for the last word on his last meeting.

So, I second.

Was that a motion?

That was.

I second. Is there any discussion before the vote?

Okay. All right. And with the motion to adjust the agenda to move the council and staff communications prior to item number 11 on the agenda, the city managers farewell report. MOTION MADE BY VICE MAYOR WRIGHT AND SECONDED BY COUNCILMEMBER BECKMEYER. THE MOTION PASSES UNANIMOUSLY.

OKAY. I THINK WE HAVE MS. CARTER AND ASSISTANT CITY MANAGER CARTER AND FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DIRECTOR GOMEZ PROVIDING THE STAFF REPORT AND PRESENTATION.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and council members. Tonight, we are presenting the fiscal year 25-26 mid-year budget update, which provides status update of the city financial conditions and performance halfway through the year. And it's an annual process. We do it every year. So we have several budget amendments to go over tonight and to make sure that the budget is aligned with the adopted budget. and current revenues and expenditures are still on track. All right. So, we'll begin our overview of the mid-year budget review objectives, and we'll go over the general fund today, review revenues and expenditure amendments, projected fund balances for the general fund, and some fiscal strategies and alignments of the assumptions that we've made before during the budget adoption. And then we'll move to the non-general funds, revenue and expenditures, and summarize everything we've discussed and ask you to adopt the resolution to amend the budget. But before we dive into details, We wanted to give you a little bit overview of the methodology that we usually use for the mid-year budget adjustments, and we use the same methodology year after year. So, essentially, what we do, we review the assumptions that we make before the budget adoption and see how close we get to based on the fiscal conditions at mid-year point. We review proposed budget adjustments with you, and again, we have few slides related to that. Some provide analysis on year-to-date revenues and expenditures, propose some necessary adjustments and some recommendations. And something that we are going to do new this year is just give you an update to the connection of the strategic plan, because last year you approved a few adjustments, a few budget recommendations that aligned with the strategic plan. We just wanted to give a little bit more update where we are, and I want to thank our finance and administrative director, Marisol Gomez, for recommending this change in our annual methodology. I'm in trouble with this clicker. And, again, based on the methodology, so we start by closing the quarter two, which is the second quarter, as of December 2025. We provide all the analysis, and you saw some financial reports coming in last council meeting. So, we have all the data for the half of the year. Since the budget is adopted, we also closed the previous fiscal year, so we take all the audited fund balances and tie this together into the adopted budget, so to bring this as close as possible. As we implemented the ERP system last year, so again, some additional improvement that was implemented during the year is Our system now allows and the finance staff is allowed to do carry-forwards throughout the year to bring more accurate information as we go along. And we captured those as well. And as staff brings forward different recommendations throughout the year that sometimes modify the budget, so we also capture all those adjustments in the mid-year budget report, and those adjustments are reported in attachment A to the mid-year report. So, we are not going to go into details of those, but we listed them for you just to refresh your memories of what resolutions modified the budget. And finally, we'll just go, again, over revenues and appropriation adjustments. and goals and the council's considerations for tonight. And at the bottom of the slide, you can see we're using the same methodology. We are looking at the big picture view. So, when we asked departments to analyze the revenues and expenditures, we wanted to see 5 percent and 25,000 threshold. So, we are not chasing every single dollar. But we are looking at the service level adjustments to the revenues and the expenditures. So, that's our methodology, and it stays, again, consistent throughout the years. And in the next slide, you can see very big picture view. This is across all funds. Well, keep in mind, it's not just the general fund. It's just our total budget. You can see that we are pretty close on the revenues. I believe it's like 1.4 percent variance between the adopted budget and the mid-year adjustments, and a little bit more variance on the expenditures. But again, most of this is previously approved, and we'll go over some of the adjustments in the future slides as well. Again, keep in mind, this is citywide across all funds. So, the variance of the general fund is much, much smaller than that. It's less than 1 percent on the revenues and about 3 percent on the expenditures. And with that, I want to turn it to Marisol to dive a little bit deeper into general fund.

Marisol Reyes- Thank you, Ms. Carter. I appreciate that introduction to the mid-year budget. And thank you again for being here tonight and going over our midyear amendments. I'm going to be taking you through the general fund revenue and expenditures and summarizing the all funds changes and just recapping back to the recommended action for tonight. So here you have the general fund revenues. You can see that we have a net increase in general fund revenues of $462,000 roughly. just a little bit under 1%. We have a lot of ups and downs within the revenue assumptions. As Ms. Carter mentioned, we review all of our revenues line by line to see where we are tracking and make adjustments at mid-year. Some of the increases include property tax increases. As we do our budget, we're only having an estimated figure in there that we get from the county. But throughout the year, there are some assessments that get applied to our tax roll. And this year, we're projecting an increase to the mid-year budget of about $260,000 there. As you guys know, property tax is one of our biggest revenue sources at 34% of operating revenues. We want to capture some of that increase in there from the trends. Some more increased categories are TOT and utility users tax. With utilities users tax, we don't set the rates that the utility users tax gets applied against. We only set the utility users tax rate. So the increase is showing some of those VARIOUS RATE INCREASES ACROSS GAS AND ELECTRIC ACROSS VARIOUS CUSTOMERS OF ALL SIZES, AND IT'S HARD TO ESTIMATE, SO WE ALWAYS WANT TO CAPTURE ANY UPS OR DOWNS AT THE MIDYEAR. THIS YEAR WE'RE SHOWING A POSITIVE INCREASE TO THAT. MEASURE Y IS ALSO SHOWING A SLIGHT INCREASE, THE COUNTY POOL ALLOCATION. had some updates with some of the recent HDL assumptions and going over our third-party consulting that goes over sales tax and measure-wide. On the other hand, the sales tax bracket itself is showing a decrease. Some of those declines are in certain business sectors, including cannabis. So cannabis is also another decreased area that you'll see here, and that's after last year's decrease as well. As you guys know, we partner with HDL to do some of those audits on our cannabis tax operators, and we're continuing to do so every year. However, this trend is statewide still in a decline based on those updated economic information from HDL. Some of the other categories that I wanted to point out is in our Investment earnings, we're showing a slight increase. That increase is accompanied by a budget form brought forward by the Administrative Services Department. We want to be able to capture some investments that we're leaving on the table in order to enhance our revenue stream. We've done an excellent job over the past couple years in capturing some of that interest earnings, and we always follow safety and liquidity over yield. But we do see some area of improvement there, and we want to be able to capture that. One of the other items to note on the revenues is a decline in our county funding for senior services. Unfortunately, the Older Americans Act has been reduced. and we have a budget reduction form that came from our PB&R department explaining this. Unfortunately, the county has provided Some feedback that they're reallocating their sources and our city among other cities are getting a reduction in this particular area. The PB&R fund department as well is showing a decline in their services to have a net zero impact to the general fund. So, they're absorbing this reduction as much as they can within this year. It comes out to about 106,000, which is a big chunk of their senior services funding, unfortunately. I'll move on to the general fund expenditures. Overall, we're showing an increase here of 1.9 million, which is 3.7 percent. As Ms. Carter mentioned, we're rolling in previously approved council budget amendments, which is attachment one, as well as carry forward from year end. What we did this year, as she mentioned, is we reviewed line by line all of our purchase orders, and if we had renewed contracts or projects that were not complete as of last year, we met with every single department and went over those purchase orders to make sure that we only rolled forward the ones that were necessary and per contract. So that's why those are considered previously approved, because they're in the budget from from the authorized budget appropriation, and we're bringing them forward to continue services. We do that every year, but this year we're able to capture that, if that makes sense. So, we're, you know, glad that we're able to do that because we want to enhance our transparency in budgeting. One of the other items to note for the expenditure category is Mid-year appropriation amendments are set to increase $289,000, about there. Some of those changes are brought forward by just a few mid-year requests, department requests. We have the police department is, for this fiscal year, asking to have a part-time evidence clerk reclassified to full-time, and that's due to a failed recruitment. We had another retirement. We had a part-time clerk that's been with us for almost 30 years, and they recently retired. That vacancy went out for recruitment, and it has failed. There is a high compliance factor with this position in particular. And the part-time factor of that did not allow for a good applicant pool. So the $33,000 cost for that is for this fiscal year. There will be ongoing costs if this is approved for the full year. FULL FISCAL YEAR THAT WILL WORK INTO THE BUDGET PROCESS. ANOTHER REQUEST FROM THE POLICE DEPARTMENT IS 48,000 TO PURCHASE EQUIPMENT TO ENSURE THE REFRIGERATOR EVIDENCE INTEGRITY. THEY HAVE SOME COMPLIANCE NEEDS AND THEY'VE HAD A COMPLIANCE AUDIT A FEW YEARS AGO. THEIR REFRIGERATION AND FREEZER EQUIPMENT NEEDS TO BE UPDATED in order to support the chain of custody for the evidence that we hold on to. And this is really important for that integrity of the evidence. The 48,000 would be to support the purchases for those cooling equipment. Another request is from Public Works, 87,000. Their request is a different request than the normal because this one was for asbestos and mold remediation. If you guys recall, we had some incidents at the police department and also at the library where our public works team had to act fast. in order to remediate some of those issues that were coming up in those facilities. We're requesting that the total, the two for those, minus any claims that we received from our IRMA grant, we received about 1,700 that we applied for, to come from the facilities reserved You guys may recall that the facilities reserve is a part of our fund balance, and we set aside about 200,000 every year for emergencies. We thought that these two cases would fit into that category, and we're requesting that the 87,000 be pulled from the facilities reserve. The last department request from the general fund is going to be a zero impact to this fiscal year, but if approval, have ongoing cost to reclass the limited term economic development and housing specialist to a permanent position. Currently, the limited term is within the current year's budget. That's why there's zero impact to the current budget. and we're looking to have some guidance on this in order to support the ongoing economic development work plan that was presented to Council not too long ago. Those are the summary changes for the general fund, with the net increase of $1.9 million. Again, that's including previously approved and carry-forwards. I'll move on to the general fund balance and discuss the strategies and how we were able to balance the general fund changes with the revenue increases against the general fund changes in the expenditure increases to bring us to a balanced budget. So one of the other changes that I didn't highlight in the revenue slide, as you all know, is the VLF reduction. We only received two-thirds of our budgeted VLF backfill that was due to us from two years ago. So we did not receive $771,000 of that money. We had the foresight to bring to you a budget strategy to put aside some fund balance to be reserved just in case we didn't get this amount from the state. So, as you see here, our revenues and expenditures are not balanced, but if we pull in that $771,000 that we had reserved through our budget strategies, that helps offset some of that cost that we lost. Sorry, some of that revenue that we lost. As well as, when we came to you with our labor agreements, and we successfully approved the We moved from two-year to three-year agreements. We had some MOU estimates that we provided. And those estimates were offset by 5% salary savings, if needed. So at this point, we said we would bring it back at mid-year with some updated estimates. So we were able to look at our salary and benefits. And there's some ups and downs within the whole salary and benefit category, of course, when we have known changes in our benefits that are now known that when we estimated, of course, weren't known at that time because our benefits changed as of January. But with that, we were able to incorporate not 5 percent, we only needed 2 percent salary savings of that approved 5 percent budget strategy to bring us the $730,000 that with the VLF funding brings us to a zero net effect to the general fund. So with that, we can move on to the breakdown of the general fund budgetary reserves. What does that all mean, right, for the general fund bottom line? So for our mid-year assessment, we're showing $22 million as the beginning fund balance for our general fund budget, or sorry, fund balance. But with those changes that we talked about with the ins and outs with revenues and expenditures, we're showing an ending fund balance of 21 million. That is actually a positive change of 1.9 million over the fund balance that we projected when we adopted the budget. Part of that is because we ended last fiscal year and we were able to move in those updated fund balances to this amount, and we had a positive increase there. So part of that, as we had mentioned earlier, gets consumed from the budget carry-forward items, the PO balances and whatnot that were already committed. But we still have a positive balance of a change compared to the adopted budget. One item to note, as you can see in the yellow square, is that's where we put the $2.3 million SET ASIDE FOR THE VLF BUDGET STRATEGY. SINCE WE PULLED THAT OUT BECAUSE NOW WE KNOW WHAT FIGURE WE NEEDED TO APPLY, ONE OF THE THINGS IS WE MIGHT CONSIDER UTILIZING THAT STRATEGY AGAIN WITH FISCAL YEAR 26-27. AS WE ALL KNOW, WE'RE HAVING SOME CONTINUOUS CHALLENGES WITH THE VLF FUNDING UNFORTUNATELY. SO THAT MIGHT BE A BUDGET STRATEGY THAT YOU GUYS APPROVE IN THE FUTURE. But with that pulled out, we do show an unassigned fund balance of $14 million, which is 26% of the general fund operating expenditures. We're still hitting our mark of the GFOA recommended unassigned fund balance, which is two months of operating. That comes out to $9.2 million. SO WE'RE ABOVE THAT GFOA RECOMMENDATION AS WE STAND NOW WITH ALL THE KNOWN MID-YEAR BUDGET ADJUSTMENTS. I'LL SPEND JUST A COUPLE MINUTES ON THE NON-GENERAL FUND REVENUE AND EXPENDITURE AMENDMENTS. THIS IS JUST REAL SUMMARY HIGH LEVEL BECAUSE THE DETAILS IN THE STAFF REPORT AND THE ATTACHMENTS ARE GOING TO HAVE MORE INFORMATION. for you, but as a reminder, the non-general funds, the other funds as we call them, are just made up of the enterprise funds, the special revenue funds, capital funds, internal service and debt funds. So, the revised 2526 other fund revenues is going to be showing, is going to be having a total balance of 92.4 million across, sorry, That's total. But the other funds are $38.8 million, or 41% of the city's $92.5 million. So as we mentioned earlier, we talked about the general fund more in detail. All the other funds get totaled up, and our total citywide is $92.5 million. We had some changes in this category as well on the revenue side. Well, some of our assumptions that we created at the beginning of when we adopted the budget, we revised them. Most of the other revenue sources we receive in certain timeframes throughout the fiscal year, like sales tax and property tax, we receive it in certain cadences. So, when we reach mid-year, we sort of know if we had a good idea of the assumptions or not. There is a decrease that we're showing for the gas tax fund, unfortunately. Measure M has remained largely flat, but we had an assumptive increase to that revenue source. In discussing this particular revenue source with the county, it's hard to estimate year over year because that's based on the number of vehicle miles, and they do the analysis, and then they give us the estimate. It's almost like a year behind. It's like a half a year behind. So we're sort of trailing on the estimates whenever we receive them. Unfortunately, this year, that means we are showing a decrease of $222,000. And when we build the 26-27 budget, we're sort of right-sizing that estimate for that fund. The Street Improvement Fund is showing a slight decrease due to a budget increase that we created erroneously for the Street Improvement Fund. A portion of our recology agreement sets aside the franchise amount for the concrete or the heavy vehicle use on our streets. And we had factored in a CPI increase. That actually stays flat. So we're, again, taking a keen eye on some of these other funds' revenues because we're gearing up for a 26-27 budget. When we reduce revenues in other funds, it may or may not impact the general funds. So that's why you're seeing some of these changes here. The Tree Replacement Fund is one of the last ones here in this category, is Fund 229. We're having an increase because we're reflecting a transfer in from the general fund in order to replenish that fund. Based on our audited numbers, that fund is trending negative. And our budget was showing some, this year wasn't showing any revenue coming in, and we were trying to estimate, you know, that fund gets tree and loo fees and donations. And there are some charges that hit a few years ago that we were trying to recuperate. At this time, we don't expect that there's going to be enough revenue hitting that fund in order to compensate for those charges. So, we are asking for a general fund transfer to make that fund whole in the amount of $55,000. The other funds, the 25-26 other funds expenditures, we have just a few things to go over there, but largely there's a net increase of $2 million in that, the other fund expenditures. Again, this includes a lot of those previously approved items, which again is in Attachment 1 that go fund by fund on the differences. One of the questions earlier was the Roy Davis. The $1.8 million is included in the previously approved amount for that fund. Just high level here, Fund 207 is asking for a budgetary increase. It's a supplemental law enforcement services grant. There's plenty of funds in there for the purchases that have been happening, but we just need to get the budget authority in there for for those purchases. The gas tax fund 210, they're asking for an additional $40,000 in traffic signal and street light maintenance. The street light maintenance cadence is outpacing what was budgeted, and they're asking for an increase in order to keep our CITY STREET LIGHTS ON AND FUNCTIONING. THE STREET IMPROVEMENT FUND IS ASKING FOR 38,000 FROM FUND 215'S FUND BALANCE FOR ADA COMPLIANCE AND THE MANNER CROSSING BEACONS. THOSE HAVE BEEN REPORTED OUT IN A FEW AREAS IN MANNER AND THEY'RE NEEDING TO GET THEM REPLACED WITH THE FUND BALANCE AND FUND 213. wastewater fund 518 this requests in 518 there's three forms that accompany this fund we have 150,000 that's being requested to go to the Linda Marr stormwater pump and the other two are actually project to project transfers so there's a net zero effect to the 518 fund for those other two there's more detail for those budget amendments in the wastewater forms that are in attachment to. The risk fund, we had a request from the Public Works Department specifically for a courtyard security system and installation. They've done some informal bidding and found a vendor that is able to equip the corp yard with a security system and camera system in order to better support the safety of the equipment and the personnel in that area. We're asking of that from the risk fund because of the need for this situation. The motor pool fund 672, there is a request to provide a transfer from the motor pool, sorry, from the wastewater fund to the motor pool to account for some vehicle purchases that were approved as of the latest 2017 bond revenue eligible uses. If you guys recall, we had a resolution brought forward by the Public Works Department that added some eligible projects to the use of the 2017 bond revenue funds, which included some vehicle purchases for the wastewater maintenance team. So this is just getting it into the motor pool replacement fund in order to get those purchases and the last few we have are in the motor pool our police replacement vehicle and a 42,000 and 26,000 for vehicle maintenance to be moved from the general fund we had a We had a Police car damage earlier this year and it needed to be replaced and were asking for that replacement from the general fund. And this $42,000 is after some of the claims recovery for that incident. So we just have a couple more slides. Thanks for bearing with me. We just wanted to show the overall all funds fund balance summary. As we mentioned, you know, we try to break down the general fund from the other funds just to give you more detail on those. But all in all, we have a total fund balance of all funds of $61.8 million projected. Attachment 5 has more detail on fund balance for fund by fund. With these changes incorporated, with the revenue and expenditure changes, Attachment 5 is going to show you the new fund balance for all funds. In summary, we have our revenues in the general fund and our expenditures in the general fund going up 0.9% or 3.7%. And in all other funds, our revenues are increasing 2.2% and our expenditures at 10%. Again, that's incorporating some of the previously approved Council by Council items and the last slide is just the recommendation to adopt the attached resolution to amend the fiscal year 25 and 26 operating and capital budget again attachment 5 is going to bring you to The resulting fund balance after all these changes in more detail fund by fund And with that I'll open for questions. Thank you. I

Thank you so much. That was a lot. Really appreciate the detailed information. Council members, do we have any questions now or have public comment and come back and ask for questions? Is that all right? Okay. I don't have any cards on this item. If there are any questions, come on up. And nobody online? Okay. Well, closing public comment. All right. Bringing it back to council. I don't have any lights right now. Oh, I have a question. I'll turn on my light. There you go. Okay. All right, you beat Greg by a split second. Go for it.

Could you roll back a couple of slides? I want to ask a specific question, and I don't have my packet, so I have to go off the slide. I think it was in one of the tables. Not that one.

General fund?

I can't remember. I'll know it when I see it. No, not that. Nope. Must be general fund, there it is. Okay, policy level, I'm looking at the assigned reserves section and the policy level of 10% of expenditures. So the italicized figures, two-thirds for emergency fund, one-third for economic contingency, those figures, the total amount of the 10% is the $5,314,400, is that correct? So we were able to go ahead and fund those emergency fund and economic contingency fund this year, correct?

No, you want to?

Yeah, so what you see here in assigned reserves, so this is fund balance designation. So it's not an expenditure, it's not a revenue, it's a bucket of money set aside just in case if there is a, Emergency or economic contingency that requires us to tap into those reserves.

So that is the balance of our fund. Yeah, that's portion of the balance. Whatever?

Designation, right. Something fund is $5.3 million. That's your 10% of expenditures set aside just in case if there is an emergency or economic contingency that requires.

Okay, thank you.

similar to what Marisol explained with VLF, right? So we had unexpected heat, and we were able to tap into this reserve.

Got it.

Thank you. Okay. Member Wright.

First, I wanted to start by telling you how much I appreciated the briefing that you gave to me and our mayor, and how forthcoming and immediate you were in having answers. with my usual plethora of questions. To further my plethora of questions, I noticed that contract services have increased 14.7% and I assume that's due to a lot of things like builders remedy projects needing attention and things to that effect. That's not a permanent thing, that's for a specific use things. So it's not necessarily recurring. Is that true?

Exactly. So when we start building our 26-27 budget, what we do is pull out any of the one-time amendments that happen year-to-date. So we definitely want to bring the budget back down to the necessary amount.

Yeah. And I also noticed that the material supplies and maintenance numbers were also up, but you can't predict things like breaches in the seawall or things like that. Is that where some of those expenses showed up, or perhaps new furnishings for our new building, things like that?

Yeah, so these are not CIP-related. When you're looking at the general fund, the CIP-related would be in Fund 322 and the other funds. But yes, we have some of the smaller equipment purchases that happen and some of the, you know, the supplies that just support the other general fund facilities and functioning. And again, going back to the carry forward after year end, we were able to make sure that some of those contracts that are in progress and active carried forward.

Male Speaker 1 But that's not necessarily indicative of a trend that kind of 12.9% increase. It's just one time for some good reasons.

Yes, and I'll follow up with that too in our attachment too where we have our forms. There is a checkbox that says one time or ongoing and we utilize that because we want to be transparent in these requests and we use that information to pull back out any budget amendments when we do the 26-27 budget.

And I wanted to also note and express appreciation for addressing the mold and the potential asbestos things, the health safety things. I appreciate the flexibility in the budget having it built in to address those kind of things. I was wondering if it's possible to find out perhaps from public works if that asbestos was friable or not.

I'll invite Public Works Director. And I want to say, you know, HR worked closely with PD and the library team as well as our risk team and Public Works to handle both of these situations. So I appreciate them and all that they do to keep us running.

Great, great. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, Melissa Tigbao, Public Works Director. You were asking about the police department?

The asbestos in the library.

It was not friable.

Okay, great. Well, I really appreciate your addressing it anyway, even though it was a lower hazard than when you hear the word asbestos, you get all excited, but that it wasn't becoming airborne.

Thank you.

It rests my heart. Thank you.

I have a question on that subject.

Hold on, Myra. I don't think Greg was quite done.

One last question, and then I will stop with my too many questions. For things like PPE for our employees, people such as turnouts for our fire department that have cancer-causing agents in them, I assume that we save a little bit of money every year since we replace those turnouts every five years, I think it is. Where is that reflected?

So that's going to be reflected in all other funds. We actually have a fund set aside specifically for those purposes in working with the And CFA, we calculated, you know, they have a figure, even though that sort of figure goes up every year, as we know, costs increase every year. But we have sort of a target cadence. And we put aside funds in that fund every year. This year we put aside. Yes. The fire equipment replacement fund, 674, we put aside $125,000 annually unless directed by council for other.

And that's an exact example of what happened for an hour and a half in the office with our meeting where I asked you a question and you found me the answer immediately. Thank you.

Well, thank you, Assistant City Manager Carter, for bringing that up on the other screen.

Well, and I also want to point out that this is one of the best practices to address issues like this. So you have annual policy of allocating fund and accumulating fund balance. So when those expensive purchases are due for replacement, you have your plan ahead of time.

Thank you.

Council Member Espinosa.

My question is about the mold and the asbestos remediation. You know, how did you find out about, like, Was there any signs of asbestos, you know, because the material, but the mold? And do you know if there are other facilities that you might think kind of like we have the same risk of having mold too?

Typically, we notice the mold, it's visual, and then once it's visual, that's when we have someone test it. So we have an environmental firm come out to test it. If it's positive or whatever it is, we will have it remediated.

Did you guys, like when it's mold in an area, usually it might be a leakage. Are you guys addressing any possible leakage issues? It could be that water damage. Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you.

And our public works director has been modest. So our public works team did a fantastic job on this library remediation efforts. It was absolutely professionally done. It addressed immediately. It was a leak. And I just want to compliment the whole team. It was really, really well done. And tested and again. Luckily, it wasn't friable. So we got this done and got this addressed with no damage.

Through the mayor? I want to give a shout-out to PB&R on that one, too, because quickly, in a big hurry, the library had to close for two days because of that work. And PB&R was really helpful in figuring out a way to have the after-school homework club that meets at the library still be able to meet and go on. And Sarah, our city clerk, helped a lot with that, too. So it was kind of an all-hands-on-deck addressing all of the impacts of that. And thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, everyone.

And my question, I haven't finished yet.

My other question is about the Davis Trust.

Have you, have we found the parks? I'm concerned about not using that money for the parks.

Right. So this year, the parks project and the special parks project was brought forward as a previously approved by council item. $1.8 million was put into those projects from the Roy Davis Trust Fund, and that's underway. And those coming up here, those parks include the The Sky Ridge Park, Imperial Park, Marvillo Park, and Brighton Mini Park.

And there is nothing left. Is that right?

Oh, no. There is a little bit of funding left in that. I'll get you that balance.

I think that was in my hand. No, it's up there.

Attachment 5 has the fund balances. What page is that? Packet page 247. 247.

So it's about $618,000 in the fund balance. Okay. Oh, my goodness.

Okay. Well, thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome.

Council Member Beer?

Yeah, I just wanted to, well, express my gratitude for them. Thank you so much. And I'm really sorry that there was funding taken away from our senior services. It's very upsetting. So I appreciate you, PB&R, Scott. Thank you for all the work that you do to keep things going down there. And, yeah, it's like I lose my words when things like that happen. But we're just going to carry on and see what we can do. All right.

I have a few questions, and that's actually where I wanted to start, too, so thanks for teeing that up. And I was just Googling the Older Americans Act, and so that's federal money, is that right? So the federal government is reducing what they give to...

So the communication that PUNR received was from the county. I know they didn't directly mention the federal pass-through or how much of it is federal pass-through, but there's some implication that that might have been some factor into the reductions that they had to provide. And I don't know if Scott wants to provide more detail there.

Yeah. Director Leslie, and come on up because I have a couple more questions related to that.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council. Scott Leslie, Park Beach and Recreation Director. That is correct. So it's never a straight line, but federal dollars, which passed through the state of California and then the county of San Mateo, eventually made its way to us. And we thought the rejections might be more significant, but they are significant. $100,000 is not something we want to lose. They are actually over three different grants, transportation, congregate lunch, and our Meals on Wheels program. And the county had to make hard decisions of where they were going to make those reductions, and a portion of that did, unfortunately, come from our grants this year.

And then I see it's on packet page 226 that talks about, you know, the cuts to various different programs, so events, salaries, food. Okay. I'm just wondering, it's $100,000 and we've found other money, right, that we've kind of improved our overall standing since our original budget. I'm just wondering if there might be room to find that money for just to finish off this year. And, you know, and then we obviously have to have a hard look at our budget moving forward. But, I mean... Can you just talk a little bit about what this really means to our seniors? How are they really going to see the impacts of these? Are you not feeding them as well or not feeding them as much?

We definitely try to feed them as well as possible. There was some reduction in our food budget, which makes sense because two of the main grants that were cut were nutrition related. So what we did is we took a hard look at the budget, saw that unfortunately after the budget was finalized that we were going to receiving a reduction and looked at areas where we could temporarily reduce. Unfortunately, unfortunately, our driver resigned midway through the year. So a lot of these trips were going to be canceled anyway. So that's the reason why that was targeted. The food costs are directly tied to the grant. And some of the other pieces were just sort of surgically pulled out for this year, and we'll do a better job of maybe explaining that and making it more clear for the next budget we'll put forward. In a normal situation, we wouldn't pull out a bunch of small areas, but that's just the way we felt to balance it out.

Okay. And so you're comfortable with these cuts that you're not cutting services too much at this point?

Not very much. And honestly, the food in the menu has not changed much, but there are some minor things that people would notice, but it's not significant, and our goal is to make it more seamless and clear for next fiscal year.

Okay, great. Thank you, Director Leslie. And then I wanted to ask about the trees a little bit. So it was an extra 50-some thousand. Is that Tree maintenance? Is that planting trees? Fund 229?

It's actually accounting transaction right now. So we just replenish the fund. The fund is currently negative. So it's not the allocation. It's just a cleanup that we have to do before the year end. And it's one of the best practices to do it at mid-year. Sometimes we

wait until the year end but we are bringing it to you now so the fund is now negative without this transfer so we're just transferring money to to make it whole okay so it's not a whole bunch of new work that no it's it's actually filling the gap from the previous work that was done that created and then and then we are going to be looking at the tree fees right as part of our cost allocation plan and yes part of what we were discussing last saturday of maybe charging more in fines and being able to actually build that fund, right, to have a sustainable balance. Okay, thank you. And then on packet page 233, I wanted to talk about the economic and housing development specialist position. So, my understanding, so this was originally Tara Schiff's position, who left the city a few months ago. And what I understood the plan to be was to phase out that position over this year. So we haven't really, I understand it's not a cost change now, but if we're approving this new position, then that's an extra $200,000 a year that we have to come up with in budgets moving forward, right?

And that's a delicate item to address, but the reason why it's coming to you at mid-year, because positions vacant now, it's already in the budget, it's already accounted for, and it creates the right structure for the department, because what is happening now, so the department is supported by economic and housing development manager and a portion of the management analyst, and that's not the right structure, the right skill set. So creating or having the specialist position on the books creates, first, the right skill set for the department, second, it creates potential promotional opportunities within the city for staff to progress. And to your point, Madam Mayor, yes, we are looking at significant budget deficit. So at the upcoming year, Depending how the internal recruitment or external recruitment will play out, we might be bringing either this position back to you for reconsideration or management analyst or some additional positions for potential freezing them.

Okay. It worries me to be creating a new long-term position right now. Right, that we're not having this discussion as part of our overall budget because we also need people in planning and we also need people in police and to look at this in an isolated, you know, I mean, I know economic development is, you know, really important to the city to help pull us out, but we also haven't talked about the Economic Development Committee's work plan and how they can help and, you know, maybe know hopefully revitalizing the chamber to take some of the work off of staff too I just for me that makes me very uncomfortable to make this decision tonight that's that's ongoing budget you know moving forward um can I ask a question about that issue yeah is the management analyst position that's currently in the budget is that a permanent position or short-term position it is a permanent position

And is it the intention to have the economic development specialist position be additive to the management analyst position or replacing the management analyst position?

Well, for the long-term structure of the department, the right structure would be to have a manager position and economic development specialist. And that's what you see across the board, like if you look at are the city's structure. And it's not common to have the management analyst working on economic development. So what is happening right now, management analyst is working partially on economic development, partially for city manager's office, and it will likely change down the road. But again, it's a little bit premature to discuss how it's going to play out. And one other thing I wanted to mention, so we presented our economic development workload I mean, the work plan for the department. And it's pretty aggressive. And if executed correctly, it will result in some additional revenues. So, the margin, potential margin that you're looking at, the difference between management analyst or economic development specialist will be easily offset by potential revenues if if the implementation is full speed. I hope it makes sense. So economic development is a...

So it'll pay for itself.

It essentially pays for itself.

Well, I mean, and we've created this new position just last year, right? Gretchen's position of Ecomonic Development Housing Development Specialist. So that's also an extra... That was more than $200,000, right, a year that we created that position last year in addition to what we had. Well, it was an upgrade of the position. But we still have the other position too, right? And now you're saying to keep that other position also. So, I don't know. For me, I feel uncomfortable making this, you know, until we're looking at the whole budget. But, you know, I'm just one voice on here. It just, it came as a surprise. Like, I just didn't, I hadn't heard this was coming and in the works at all. And so I just, I feel like... We just need to really think carefully about it. I mean, people are afraid that we're laying people off, right? And I just want to make sure that we're not doing that and setting us up for failure in other departments. I feel like we need to look at the whole of the city.

And you have to look at benefit, too. It's not only the salary, the benefit.

I think that's included in the budgeted amount.

And then I also saw that you know, a portion of the salary is still supposed to come out of the housing fund, which, again, is not a long-term solution either. And I'm, you know, didn't read enough of the description to understand, you know, what of that position would be, you know, affordable housing related.

Right. And we actually, if you notice in the form, we actually... change the allocation between the funds. So, if the Council approves the position, again, it's all subject to recruitment, right? And the reason why it's coming in now, because it gives us opportunity to open it up and see how it's going to play out before the budget. But you can see, when we brought it to you, the budget, it was 60-40 percent split, and we are changing it to your point. 80-20, yes, because it will be just mostly focusing on economic development work plan and only 20% to assist the manager with the housing project.

But at some point, you know, we're spending the housing action fund money pretty quickly, right? And so at some point, and we're not putting any money into that, so eventually that's all going to come out of general fund money if that position continues to be funded.

Correct, but except if the project's moving forward. Right. So once the project is moving forward, the revenues are coming in.

Yeah, but still from the general fund. Okay. Well, that's just how I feel about that. We can deliberate on that later. And then I don't know when this happens, but when does money get returned to the housing fund? So we approved Gretchen's position in July, and she didn't start until January. And then Tara left, and her position's been vacant. So is this not the time that we would be seeing those budget adjustments going back to the Housing Action Fund?

The money don't get returned. They're just not spent. If the position is vacant, the fund is not being charged. Okay. So it will stay in the fund. On paper, it will go back or stay there. And this position stayed vacant for the whole year, and as a limited term, it didn't make sense for us to recruit for three months remaining.

So it won't be returned to that 5% vacancy rate. It's going to be returned to the housing fund is what I'm hearing.

The 5% vacancy rate applies to general fund only.

Right.

Okay.

And then one more question on packet page 251. So this is just sort of general updates on service enhancements. And this is under economic development number three. So conduct feasibility evaluation of district-based financing. So the item is delayed and re-requested at budget adoption because staff resources are prioritized for Beach Boulevard, which I assume is the 2212 Beach Boulevard Hotel. So is this... When you say evaluation of district-based financing, is this what we've been talking about in terms of the community finance districts? Finance districts, yes. Okay. So we talked about those being important as a way to be able to potentially collect money from developers because we have a lot of big development projects, especially our Builders Remedy project, projects now. And so my concern is if that's being delayed, if we're missing those opportunities.

Well, and the reason you see this update here, it's been on our radar for last couple years at least. So we already built it in the scope for the consultant to do the study. But again, without the staff to execute, we just will not be able to to move on some of the projects, like we discussed on the strategic planning. So, some of the items, that was one of the items that was off track. But it is on the radar. It's not falling off. And now, as we have a manager position on board, and again, Gretchen just joined us in January. So, we definitely plan to execute this moving forward.

Do you think at this point it's not going to happen before the election, though? This is something that needs to be on the ballot, is my understanding.

So what we would have to do next, we would have to study. And the study will have to be conducted for the feasibility of the districts and what exactly needs to be done. So I'm not sure what the timeline would be, but we definitely plan to move forward with the project.

And I would add to that that CFDs are typically not on general municipal election ballots. Those are special ballots that are handled separately at whatever time they occur.

Okay. Okay. Sorry, I misunderstood the question. Yes.

Okay. And then just one other comment that I learned as we were looking at different tax measures And I know we decided not to pursue a utility users tax. But I've just heard that Santa Barbara has actually been in a lawsuit with streaming companies and that they've won that, that utility users taxes could be taxed on streaming services. They had to sue Disney and all these really big streaming companies. And I just want to say, for me, that's an easier one to ask for to be on the ballot because it's not something that is like a critical life, like water, sewer, electricity for residents who are struggling to pay their bills. It's sort of an optional thing to pay for streaming. So anyway, I just want to say that's something I'd certainly be willing to consider in the future. All right, any other comments or questions?

Just one more quick one. What's the potential impact of the VLF fees being withheld by the state of California?

For next year, you mean?

Yeah, next year, just so our public can know.

It's a little bit over a million, roughly 1.1 million for the upcoming year. What? For the backfill, 1.1, yeah, roughly. 1.1.

So I was just looking through the agenda. Is there a motion or something that you're asking for us tonight? Can you point us to that language?

Yeah, asking you to adopt the resolution. Oh, adopt the resolution.

Yeah, I move to adopt the resolution authorizing the mid-year FY 2025-2026 operating capital budget amendments.

I second. Okay, and if I want to object to the economic and housing development, again, I just want to delay this to the budget discussion, then... Do I vote no? Yes. Okay.

But if you want to discuss it, I'll tell you why I seconded.

Okay.

I seconded it because I want them to be able to get the position posted and get going on it and not wait until the budget discussion for July 1.

But by then, if we've hired someone, we're committed to that person, right?

What was our number one discussion on Saturday? For me, this is an action in support of that. I don't think we can get our economic development engine to generate funds for us if we don't put people who are appropriately skilled for the job at hand in place. I think we'll have a better shot at getting it done if we have the right people on the job. So that's why I second it. Okay.

Okay, so please vote.

Ready for one more vote.

Did you vote?

I don't know. Did you?

Oh, you didn't.

Let me re-vote. Re-vote.

What is it? Everybody re-vote.

Press your buttons again.

There is one that did not register.

Okay, there we go. And with the motion for item number nine made by Council Member Beer, seconded by Council Member Beckmeyer, the vote passes three to two, the no votes by Espinosa and Bowles.

Thank you for your time tonight, Council.

Thank you all for all your work. I really appreciate it. Okay, and that moves us on to item eight, our annual... PROGRESS REPORT ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF OUR HOUSING ELEMENT OF THE GENERAL PLAN AND IMPLEMENTATION ON OTHER ELEMENTS OF THE GENERAL PLAN.

Okay, thank you. Good evening, Mayor Bowles, Vice Mayor Wright, Council Members, I'm Samantha Updegrave, Community Development Director, presenting the city's planning-related annual progress reports. The city is required to report annually on the housing elements of the general plan as well as other elements of the general plan. So we'll go through those tonight and conclude with staff's recommendation. So the city is required to prepare these two separate annual reports. They're due by April 1st of each year and they cover the previous calendar year. So although the housing element is considered part of the general plan, it's reported separately to Housing and Community Development, whereas other elements of the general plan are reported to the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation. And then the report also provides an opportunity for public comment. So the APR on the general plan again covers the 2025 calendar year. The general plan is our policy document mandated by state law to address issues related to physical development and conservation of resources. And the city did a comprehensive update to the general plan in 2022 and it contains eight elements. So I'll just provide a few highlights from each element from 2025. Under economic sustainability, the city advanced the city owned catalyst projects. So we initiated and completed the surplus land act process for 2212 Beach Boulevard, which is a key city owned site identified in the general plan. SHARP PARK SPECIFIC PLAN IN THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STUDY AND DRAFTED THE REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS FOR INTERESTED DEVELOPERS. UNDER COMMUNITY DESIGN, THE CITY ADOPTED THE HOUSING ELEMENT REZONING PROGRAM. which included objective design and development standards for new high-density residential and high-density mixed-use residential zones, addressed things like building form, building sidewalk interface, pedestrian-oriented development, and street frontage. And then this work that was done by the Planning Commission and the City Council on these standards will also inform our future and upcoming work on citywide objective design and development standards. Looking at the land use element, established zoning provisions to facilitate compact mixed-use redevelopment of properties along Crespi Drive, consistent with mixed-use center and mixed-use neighborhood designations. The city approved the third largest project in 10 years at 570 Crespi Drive, providing 19 residential units and horizontal mixed-use developments. with three mixed use below market rate ownership units and 3,000 square feet of commercial use facing the street, which contributes to a more diverse center of activity along Crespi. Under the circulation element, the Sharp Park ADA pedestrian improvement project closed sidewalk gaps, improved sidewalks to current ADA standards, installed ADA-compliant driveways and corner curb ramps in six blocks around the downtown area. Under open space and community facilities, the city completed the final bid documents and playground plans for the priority parks projects. and includes modernization of Imperial Park, Marvello Park, Sky Ridge, and Brighton Mini Park. And then for the PagerPoint Headlands, the City Manager, Public Works, and Community Development participated in a multi-agency working group with representatives from National Park Service, Golden Gate National Recreation Area, and the Coastal Conservancy to continue advancement of that project. Under the conservation element, the city adopted the climate action and resilience plan and established the new climate action and resilience committee. Under wastewater and water systems efficiency, the lower Lindemar rehab and repair project replaced 30,000 feet of sewer mains and the ultraviolet disinfection system replacement project will use up to 80% less energy. And then for removal of barriers to public participation, the Climate Action and Adaptation Plan Task Force utilized a game, Climate Loteria, which they're also doing next weekend, which was designed to reach Spanish-speaking communities and is based off a popular Mexican bingo game. For the safety element, police, fire, community development, and public works participated in the multi-jurisdictional local hazard mitigation plan kickoff meeting and Cal Office of Emergency Services training and distributed community surveys to gather input on hazards affecting local neighborhoods across multiple platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor, and Connect with Pacifica. We're also required to report out on general plan amendments. So we had two general plan amendments in 2025. The rezoning program, which created 12 residential and commercial land use designations and revised our conservation policies to align with Fish and Wildlife's current requirements for construction during bird nesting season and pre-construction bat surveys. And then there were also redesignations of the portions of 570 Crespi Drive to conservation. Looking forward, you know, these changes and achieving these policies will require updates to the local coastal program. So the rezoning program, land use designations, as well as the shark park specific plan and the coastal hazard mapping. And then changes to the zoning ordinance to create consistency with the 2040 general plan and the overall modernization, streamlining, and objective design and development standards. That's part of that work. So moving into the housing element APR, before we dive in, just the big picture recap. Council adopted the revised housing element in March of 2025. In August of 2025, adopted the rezoning program. And in September 2025, our housing element was certified by HCD. So a lot of big things happened in the housing element last year. So just a little background, the housing element is required to be prepared on the very complicated forms that are in your packet. They are not how we would necessarily choose to do it, but those are the required forms. And just like the general plan, it reports on the progress during the prior calendar year, so 2025. And it includes reporting specifically on our regional housing needs allocation or RHNA numbers and implementations of our programs. So some of the information that they use are how many housing applications were deemed complete, status of projects approved through certificates of occupancy, indicators of overall progress towards RHNA, implementation of programs, and some other miscellaneous items. So some of the key observations in terms of housing production was that our overall housing unit approvals based on building permit issuance was actually exactly the same. It was 20 units in 2024 and 20 in this year. Applications deemed complete included 40 housing units in 2025. So that was It was 297 in 2024, but that included two very large projects, Pacifica Gateway and Sea Cove. So 40 is, I think, pretty standard when you take out those two big projects. Twenty-eight housing units were entitled in 2025 compared to only two in the previous calendar year. And the city issued 31 certificates of occupancy. Certificates of occupancy, so for accessory dwelling units is also something HCD specifically looks at. And we issued seven certificates of occupancy and received applications for 23 ADUs in 2025. Those are all processed ministerially so they're not part of the planning entitlements. Some key programs that we made progress on in 2025, again, the housing element certification by HCD, completing the zoning and associated general plan amendments and the environmental review for RHNA. Initiation of zoning modernization and objective design standards, so we're doing the Well, we launched that. We hadn't started it yet in 2025. We were just launching it, the internal, as well as the public sites planning initiative. We also advanced ADU development via shared services like the ADU Resource Center and launching our online plans gallery. We also initiated inclusionary housing and density bonus ordinance updates. supported and extended the temporary safe parking program, working on the planning for sewer replacement and rehabilitation projects for Valimar and Rockaway Beach, completed the Sharp Park ADA pedestrian improvements and Esplanade and Palmetto bike and pet improvements project, and participated in the Heart of San Mateo County's shared housing capacity program. And so the recommendation for tonight is to just adopt a resolution accepting the city's 2025 annual progress report on implementation of the housing element and other elements of the general plan and to direct the city manager to transmit the reports to HCD and Land Use and Climate Innovation, Office of Climate and Land Use Innovation. And that concludes my presentation. I'm available for questions.

Thank you so much. Again, I'll just ask, are there any pressing questions before public comment?

After.

I can wait until after public comment.

Me too. Okay. Again, I have no cards. If anybody in the public wants to speak, you can come up now and give your card later.

We have one raised hand. Okay. It is for Sam Casillas. Okay.

Go ahead, Sam.

Hi, Council. First, I just want to say that you guys have to put up with a lot and you don't have to put up with a lot of what you heard earlier. And so at the end of the day, regardless of what I say and how you feel about what I say, at the end of the day, I appreciate the hard work that all of you do. Okay. And that includes everybody on city staff as well. So thank you very much. But my comments as it relates to this is I'm still a little bit perplexed as to why hasn't the city acted on our requirements from SB 379, which is supposed to be within our local hazard mitigation plan. And then that bubbles up to our general plan, which then also feeds into our housing element plan, as Samantha's talking about. You all were talking about, you know, how are we able to get some of our local control back? And this is an area where we definitely can get local control where environmental and geologic hazards are identified. This would eliminate a lot of the SB 330 applications or allow us to actually work out a good solution, especially like an East Fairway, which is in a fire hazard zone, the quarry, where there's obviously a lot of flooding issues and other issues there, including specifically environmental sensitive sites. And these sites are all at high risk. So again, I saw it in our local coastal plan where we were supposed to act on SB 379, and it's been lagging. And these are the consequences of it if we don't, if we start getting all these SB 330 applications that get out of control. Thank you, and again, thank you guys for all the hard work that you do. I really appreciate you. Bye.

Thank you, Sam.

There are no other raised hands. Okay, with that, I'll close public comment. Can I maybe ask Sam's question? And if you're not ready to answer that tonight, planning director, community development director, up to grave. So SB 379 is about climate adaptation and resiliency strategies. I think that's the one that he's referring to.

A safety element for the protection of the community from unreasonable risks associated with the effect of various geologic hazards, flooding, and wild land and urban fires is what the bill text reads.

Yeah. Thank you, Mayor Bowles. I don't have a lot of information about it. SB 379, I believe the city has been addressing it through our climate adaptation and resiliency plan, our prior climate action plan, as well as our safety element was updated in 2022 with the general plan. And we are currently working on the multi-jurisdictional local hazard mitigation plan update, and so I'm not aware of anything that's particularly lacking at this point in time, but I'd be happy to look into it more.

Martin Blaser- Follow-up through the chair? Would it affect our RHNA numbers in any way?

Karen Vanderhoof- I don't believe this is related to our RHNA numbers.

Karen Vanderhoof- Yeah, I think, I mean, we've put all of our sites outside of hazard areas, so I wouldn't think so. Martin Blaser- Right. Yeah. And Mr. Casillas also mentioned maybe it ties into the local hazard mitigation plan. So I appreciate you getting more information. I do remember when we were doing the general plan update that we did not update it for SB 379. So maybe it's something that's on our plan, you know, at some point. I don't know what triggers that. Okay, we can look at that later. I appreciate you following up. Okay, are there other questions from council about the housing? Oh, look at my lights. Look at you, Margaret. You are first, Ms. Espinoza. Please go right ahead.

Can I? Of course.

The mayor has called upon you.

So we need to, we need 1,806 units within five years. Are there any sites in the pipeline that could meaningful accelerate the unit counts? And my other question is what happens if we don't get any significant amount of units in five years? Are we going to be having some builder remedies? or people trying to build things without any kind of restrictions.

Thank you, Councilmember Espinoza. So the RENA allocation doesn't require us to build 1,897 units within the planning period, but requires us to provide the regulatory framework to allow. that amount of growth. And so, that was the driver behind the general plan amendments and the zoning amendments that were just passed last year during this period. So, it basically increased the capacity and density allowances at various sites throughout the city to accommodate that growth. while we don't have to build all 1,000, we have no control over what gets built. So while we don't need to build those, we do need to be making significant progress within our programs, looking at things like governmental constraints, removing barriers, doing projects like the zoning modernization, looking at our public sites, and various things. And so in 2027, we're required to do a mid-cycle review. And at that point, I think we'll have more information about how HCD perceives our progress and how we're doing. We are starting to see applications come in on housing element sites, which is really promising. I think our public sites work is going to be really promising and we do have several large projects in the pipeline and So we're you know just we're moving through those and and and working through those to to make significant progress How many amendments are we allowed to do to the general plan per year I believe it's three and

And are we able to do multiple tranches? In other words, is it only one thing, or can we do three clubs?

Yes, we want to consolidate them into a single resolution to the extent possible in order to have what we need.

Okay, and then... You mentioned a number of times objective design guidelines and the Sharp Park specific plan. And I seem to recall the Planning Commission being really prudent in their passing of the Sharp Park specific plan and had a number of guidelines in there. And I think they did some real excellent work on that. And I'm wondering since that's already in place, And that process seemed to have worked very well. If that's something we could look at going forward to widen those guidelines out a little bit or use it as a basis for forming more guidelines in the future.

Right. That's a great suggestion, Vice Mayor Wright. So we, so the SHARP, there are objective standards in the SHARP Park specific plan. that could certainly be used as a basis. They're pretty, as you know, because I think you worked on them, they are really specific to our downtown. And so, I think, you know, as we start on our outreach, as we start hearing from the community, as we come to the council and planning commission for a joint study session, Those are certainly things to consider. It's great when you don't have to start at zero sometimes. Other times you want to start at zero. So I think that's definitely something that staff will be looking at, you know, both Sharp Park specific plan and the rezoning.

Yeah, what my concern is, is the state is being more and more restrictive about allowing us to do more and more overlays and more and more changes and since that's already in place, I'm wondering if we can't kind of use that as a wedge to continue to do more work to keep Pacifica more like Pacifica and have it decided by Pacificans rather than top down.

I see what you're saying. I don't know that the objective design and development standards WILL REQUIRE AMENDMENTS OR CHANGES TO THE GENERAL PLAN ITSELF. YOU KNOW, THE OBJECT THOSE ARE THINGS THAT ARE MORE EMBEDDED WITHIN ZONING ORDINANCES OR SEPARATE OBJECTIVE DESIGN STANDARDS.

IT'S THAT INABILITY TO MAKE THOSE CHANGES COMING THAT I'M FEARING AND WHY I'M MAKING THE SUGGESTION.

Inability to make those changes. What are you talking about?

In the future, I'm afraid that the state's going to tell us that we can't inhibit people and we're going to end up with a bunch of ugly, boxy buildings.

And I think that's why we want, I think that's why we're moving forward with objective design standards because the current ones that we have, I mean, in Rockaway Beach, they're from 1986 and the rest of the city, I believe, 1992. And there's not a lot of objectivity in them. And so, the more we can move toward providing those objective standards, like, that's where we have the opportunity to really shape our built environment.

Female Speaker 1 And the older ones are really with a height limit of 35 feet, right? Female Speaker 2 Some of them, yeah. Female Speaker 1 That's where things will be very different.

Male Speaker 1 I'm just looking forward to, we have a good basis. Female Speaker 2 Yeah. shape Pacifica in the way that we think is best. And I want to continue on that work. Yes. To stop basically what I call Richmond specials, because I used to live in the Richmond district where the whole, where the old late 50s and 60s buildings are just a big wall.

Right, like a big block. Yeah. Right. We need community character in an objective design standard sort of way, right? Yeah. Okay. That was exactly my question, so I don't need to press my buttons. Okay.

Well, just as a follow-up to that, I mean, I, well, first, I just want to say, in general, like, honestly, looking at all the lists and all the different tasks that you all have to do, I'm very sorry. I mean, we were just talking at goal setting and looking at Achieve It, but most of those things aren't even on Achieve It, right? I mean, like, there is so much work on your plates, and, you know, just to tell the people in the public, I mean, our planning department is overwhelmed, and the state keeps putting, changing the laws and putting more and more unfunded mandates on us that are hard to keep up with and hard to review the projects as we go. So, Bless you for doing the work you do, and we're very grateful. So I know the state doesn't hold us to building the units, but if we, I notice some dates are slipping, right, and some of the goals and objective design standards were one of those. How do they look as things start to slip, you know, in our implementation and, you know, working on these policies?

It's a good question. I when you look at table D which lists out all of the housing element programs and every single implementing action and every single metric there's no way that any city would accomplish completely all of those programs within a six-year period you know even though our housing element wasn't certified to I will just back up pull out and say you know even though it wasn't certified until last year you know the city's been working on those programs as well so we're not just starting as of you know September 2025 so we have been making progress continue to make progress and you know one of the things that you know that I'm looking at is you know what are the what are the the big priorities you know what are those projects are gonna have significant impacts you know such as like the public sites planning and really important work focused on affordable housing, looking at publicly owned sites. You know, it's an area where, you know, the city does actually exercise quite a bit of control. And, you know, and then what are the what are the low hanging fruit projects that have a big impact, too? And so, you know, we've really been working to prioritize those things based on the overall strategic plan. for the city, and kind of weighing those factors, right? So impact, you know, our ability to complete them. And we're very fortunate to have partners like Heart of San Mateo, you know, who are kind of working in the background, doing things like developing guidelines, right, for below market rate units, you know, helping us administer our affordable unit programs, you know, working on, like, local preference, you know, local preference policies. So, there's a lot going on, and it's definitely not all going to get done, but that's how we've been trying to wait and prioritize things.

I'm really glad we added, you know, actually trying to build some affordable housing on Saturday, right, as a goal, and the public sites are a good start to that. I noticed, well, I wanted to ask, I mean, a couple of Builders Remedy projects that I know were submitted last year, the one at the Quarry, Coastal Quest, and Ridgeway aren't on your list. Is that because those are not yet deemed complete, so they're not. That's correct.

Yeah. So we don't, the HCD has very specific criteria on what we report. And so the criteria is housing development applications that were deemed complete.

Okay.

Okay. That's helpful. And then on the builder's remedy projects, let's say the ones that are complete, I mean, is it, Is it too late to impose objective design standards now on those?

Karen Vanderhoof- So, those projects are vested to the codes that were in place at the time that they made the application, but, you know, staff continues to work with applicants to try to bring forward the best project. You know, and as Vice Mayor Wright was saying, you know, we do have some, you know, kind of examples of different standards. And so, I mean, that's sort of the give and take, right, of the review process. But we can't impose new standards on those projects.

So if we had those now, like for the ones that aren't yet deemed complete, then we could? Or no, because they've already submitted?

For projects that were vested under preliminary applications prior to the adoption, we couldn't impose new standards. So they vest at the time they submit.

of the the preliminary application requirements okay so that that includes the quarry to then okay that's too bad okay and then the housing action fund I mentioned that I mean there's a County Grand Nexus study right so we need to try to find more money for our housing action funds Can you tell us where we are on that? Yes.

The county is doing a, so we're part of the multi-jurisdictional, it's called the Grand Nexus and Residential Feasibility Study. So Pacifica, because we don't have a lot of commercial development and we don't currently have commercial linkage fees for affordable housing, we're participating only in the residential feasibility. And so that's looking at inclusionary housing, you know, everything from percentages, to fees, to alternatives, you know, whether it's off-site, those kinds of things. So, those are the substantive changes, the more substantive changes to the inclusionary that we'll be looking at. I want to, it's, the study is underway, and I believe it will be completed either late this year or early next year. Teri Manolio- Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

I think we need to do a time check. Yeah, it's almost 10. I think we could finish by 11, which is the question to ask. So, okay. Yes. Teri Manolio- Okay. And then just one more thing. I noticed there's a community engagement plan outreach on multiple levels are under different housing implementation numbers, HEI 3, HEI 4. Is there a plan? And I know the PBF fellow, that was part of their scope of work, too. I don't know where they are on their two-year timeline. Is there a rough idea of when that might be coming as a community meeting?

Yes. We have two, the two major initiatives that we started planning for last year that we were reporting on are the zoning modernization and objective design standards. And that includes all the streamlining work in there too, as well as the public sites. And so we're looking right now as we're developing those plans looking at where they intersect, how to, where they, yeah, like where they can come together and kind of leverage the same meetings or strategies. And then, you know, just thinking about, yeah, like how do those come to council? Do they come together? Do they come separate? So those are things that we've been developing. Right now we're just starting to work on very early stakeholder engagement. So tomorrow our consultant is interviewing the planners about their experiences with certain codes and processes, and they'll be doing separate stakeholder interviews with, Architects or developers. So we're really just in the very preliminary stages You know hoping to do some Preliminary events in the next couple of months around some of the public sites planning to start gathering that early input that you know outside of the chambers of So, that we can hopefully reach two more people and be able to bring that information back to council to get direction as we, you know, as we start to move these projects forward. So, very early stages. And the PBF fellow and our community partners too are part of that community engagement.

Teri Manolio- Great. I just, I think the PBF fellow's term is expiring. I can't remember when this year, but. I think it's February of 2027. Oh, 27, okay. That's what I thought, another year. Okay, that's good. I'll talk to you separately. There's some housing advocates and some churches that are interested in partnering, and I was reading, like, there's some good synergy in some of your things, like, you know, trying to find, you know, more households for the hip housing program. Right. like just sort of educating the community about what the program is. I'm told we only have four families that are renting now, but like having an event where they come speak and talk about their experience, right, things like that. And then I know Reverend Penny Nixon, who does a lot of work with churches, is really interested in helping educate them about what they can do under SB4. Yeah.

That's great, and I'd love to get those contacts, too, so that we can include them in the work that we're doing now. Great, great. So we'll connect.

We can have Kevin Joyner from HIP Housing come. He comes to the collaborative.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay, that's all I have. So anything else from anyone else?

No, but I'll go ahead and make a motion. Please do.

I move to adopt the resolution accepting the city's 2025 annual progress report on the implementation of the housing element of the general plan of the 2025 annual progress report on the implementation of other elements of the general plan and directing the city manager to transmit the reports to the California Department of Housing and Community Development and the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation.

And with the motion for item number 8 made by Councilmember Beer, seconded by Councilmember Beckmeyer, the motion passes unanimously. Thank you, Senator Samantha.

Thank you. Okay. That moves us to item 10, the consideration and adoption of a resolution appointing Yulia Carter as Assistant City Manager and a approving the employment agreement.

And I believe City Attorney Kenyon will lead the staff report. Denise Bozzano, Assistant City Attorney filling in for City Attorney Kenyon this evening. So, before you this evening is an item to adopt the resolution appointing Yulia Carter as interim city manager and approving the employment agreement between the City of Pacifica and Yulia Carter for the interim city manager services position. As council is aware, the current city manager, Kevin Woodhouse, is retiring in a couple days as of March 11, 2026. And the council is in the final stages of recruitment process for a permanent city manager position. And that position will not and that recruitment process will not be completed prior to Mr. Woodhouse's retirement. As such, the city is in need of appointing an interim city manager until a permanent city manager has started employment with the city. As a result, following an interview and subsequent deliberations by the council for an interim city manager position, the city council has determined to appoint Yulia Carter as interim city manager until a permanent city manager is appointed and this item tonight will formalize that appointment. In accordance with government code section 54953 subsection C3, the city council is required to receive an oral summary report of the salary and compensation including fringe benefits paid to any local agency executive prior to taking final action. Under the terms of this interim agreement proposed for this evening, the interim city manager would be entitled to receive the following compensation and benefits. A monthly salary of $24,666.67, which equates to an annual salary of approximately $296,000. The same holidays, sick leave and long-term disability benefits, retirement benefits, insurance benefits. including but not limited to life, health, dental coverage, and vacation, will be provided in the same manner to her as the assistant city manager, as detailed in Resolution No. 65-2025, approving compensation and benefits for unrepresented management and confidential employees group. So that would conclude the oral report that's required pursuant to the government code. Just briefly, Ms. Julia Carter, the current Assistant City Manager, has more than 20 years of experience in local government leadership, including the past five years with the City of Pacifica, where she has served in executive management roles, supporting citywide operations, and strategic initiatives. Ms. Carter currently serves as the Assistant City Manager, and over the course of her tenure, has provided executive leadership and coordination across key operational and administrative functions, including finance, human resource information technology, risk management, and economic development. I also wanted to note that, as indicated in the fiscal impact section, approval of the proposed employment agreement will result in cost savings during the interim city manager period. The monthly salary of the interim city manager will be approximately $1,500 less than the compensation currently provided to the city manager. In addition, the assistant city manager position will not be backfilled during the interim period, resulting in additional salary savings to the city of approximately $21,113 per month. I also wanted to note that the term of the agreement is from March 12th, 2026 until the position of the city manager is permanently filled unless the position is terminated earlier. And that concludes my report. I'm available for questions if anybody has any questions.

Any questions from council before public comment?

Just one, well, maybe more than one. If we were to have a retiree come be city manager, would that have been more expensive or less expensive?

Well, likely more expensive, but also would have taken more time to fill that position. And as mentioned earlier, the city manager is leaving in a couple days, and so there There is a gap that is opening up once he departs.

Isn't there a law that we would have to pay the higher salary of the departing city manager to fill that position in the event we had a retiree come back?

Well, the salary would have been negotiated by the person, but there is a low number for the city. There is a range for the city manager position, certainly.

Okay. So, Yulia is offering to do, like most Pacifica employees, more for less.

Yulia Pakman- Right. Yes.

David M. That's all.

Yulia Pakman- Okay. I, again, I'll open public comment. I don't have any cards. Is there anyone on the line?

Female Speaker 1 We have one raised hand, and it's from Sam Casillas. Yulia Pakman- Okay. Go ahead, Sam.

My Lord, I'm starting to feel like a gadfly here. Anyway, thank you guys for staying up so late. Earlier I spoke of the lack of open communication that has led to a lack of press from the public. Decisions that are made in an echo chamber rarely have good outcomes. This council has now squandered an opportunity to bring in an outside interim city manager who would have years of experience and come in and diagnose and find solutions to many of our city's issues. Yet instead, you have chosen to to elevate someone who would continue the failed policies of the past eight years and has been complicit in driving many competent city staff out. This is a prime example of failing upwards. And frankly, it appears as an incompetent decision-making. I heard this council ask many questions during the goal setting workshop the other day that went unanswered. Is our turnover rate similar or higher than other cities that are similar to Pacifica? What should our target rate of sales tax versus property tax be? And how can we build those sales tax revenues? How can we get our city staff to work more efficiently? What goals should be top priorities? And I asked, how can we develop better measurements of success and also hold each other accountable for key performance indicators? And as I stated on Saturday, is the number of grants written versus how many are successfully awarded important? Really the measurement that our city staff or a city manager wants to measure and sell by? Ask yourself that. And maybe if you had hired an outside interim manager, they would have said that the city runs like a well-oiled machine on what we have in our budget. But I highly doubt that because now we have squandered an opportunity to get some real insights into how the city is run. And instead, you have chosen to continue with the failed policymakers who have driven the city on the verge of bankruptcy. And again, you will be coming to Citizens of Pacifica for another tax measure to cover for those failures instead of holding people accountable and by squandering a great opportunity because of another poor decision to quickly hire a city manager for reasons you only know and haven't shared with the public. Thank you.

Thank you, Sam. There are no other reasons.

Okay, I'm going to close public comment. I'D LIKE TO ADDRESS SAM'S COMMENT A LITTLE BIT. WE ARE CAREFULLY GOING THROUGH THE CITY MANAGER RECRUITMENT PROCESS AND WE'RE HOPING TO BE ABLE TO SHARE INFORMATION VERY SOON. IT IS OUR HOPE THAT WE ARE ACTUALLY GETTING A NEW CITY MANAGER HERE IN THE NEXT SIX TO EIGHT WEEKS. THERE'S STILL WORK TO BE DONE. WE'RE NOT DONE. and there will be an opportunity for the public to meet this person. Assistant City Manager Carter has served in the position as acting City Manager a number of times when City Manager Woodhouse is away. And we feel it's really important to have a leadership transition for a short period of time that is someone who has the knowledge and the trust of staff to be able to carry us through to this next phase. And, um, and, and quite honestly, she is the only person, um, really qualified to do that, um, in our city right now. Um, we, um, appreciate that, um, um, This is a difficult time for all of us, and I know there are issues with trust that I'm really hoping that we're going to be able to address very quickly as we can share more information. But right now, for me, I believe this is the best decision for the city for the next couple of months.

I concur. I think the most important thing for us to focus on right now is stability of the organization. We are going to be getting the answers to some of the questions that were asked on Saturday. I'm the one who asked the question about turnover rate. But right now, we're in the middle of, well, not the middle yet, the leading edge of budget preparation cycle. That is always a busy time for every department in the city because they have to conduct all of their fairs that they're responsible for and prepare their budget presentation at the same time. So having someone who's familiar with the way in which the budgeting is done is important for us to be able to get that work accomplished timely. Of course, we face the June 30 budget deadline. So I'll just speak for myself. Evaluating the choices, you know, I see the point of view of the opportunity to bring in a different person, different eyes, fresh eyes, fresh approach, different look. And the truth of the matter is that would cost us a good deal of money and it would be for such a very short period of time that I don't see the benefit. From a cost benefit point of view for me, given the timeline that we are looking at, this for me is the best decision. And, as noted by the Assistant City Attorney, Assistant City Manager Carter has served the city well. There is disagreement in the community about approach on some things. There's frustration in a particular sector of the community, a lot, a lot of frustration around the issue of short-term rentals. And I think that falls unfairly on Assistant City Manager I think it's something that we're all stuck with due to the fact that we had a flawed short-term rental ordinance that we passed in 2019 or whatever. We worked to fix it. It takes time. And I know that it's just unacceptable. So we're working hard on that and doing the best we can in the time we have allotted. So for me, this is a good decision. I think it will be the easiest way and the most efficient way for the city staff to continue to move the city forward during a very significant leadership change. And that is always very disruptive to an organization. I've worked in big organizations a lot, and I'm telling you, it's very disruptive that our staff is as highly functioning as it is right now, is a testament to their teamwork and their trust of each other. So I'm just going to ask the community to trust us. I know you're not trusting us, some of you, but please do, because I think we're doing a good job.

Yeah, and I want to reiterate, too, on the fact that the stability of our staff is really, really important. I know you just said that, but that is one of the reasons behind my decision-making here. And also, of the assistant city manager, the assistant city attorney explained the cost savings, and maybe it would be helpful if you could explain that one more time.

Sure. So, there, Madam Mayor, if I may?

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So, it's in the fiscal impact section of the report, but basically what is being said is that the monthly salary of the interim city manager will be approximately $1,500 less than the compensation currently provided for the city manager. So, there's cost savings there. There's also cost savings in the fact that the assistant city manager position, which is Ms. Carter's current position, won't be backfilled during the interim period. So, she will likely be juggling both duties, but it won't be backfilled with somebody else. And so, the interim period will, during this interim period, that would result in additional salary savings, and we've calculated an approximate amount of $21,113 per month.

Plus the $1,500, so $22,500 per month. And again, I think just because we're really hoping that this is a short term, we've also heard from our recruiter and so forth that even if we were to bring in someone from the outside, you know, they would just be babysitting, basically. There's not a lot of change that happens in that amount of time. You know, if the recruitment ends up taking a lot longer, I mean, we're going to have to revisit this. I mean, it's also not sustainable for Ms. Carter to continue two jobs in a long term, right? So this contract is at will, and, you know, we as council can make changes as we need to. Yeah. So with that, shall we? Oh, I'm sorry.

That was an old light, actually.

Okay. Okay. Old light. Anyone else?

Yeah, the only thing is, yeah, we just not going to be there for the whole term. It's just like a couple of months. And that's one of the reasons why we think it's the best. approach to hire her, and also she's working on the budget. If we bring somebody new, they're not going to know what to do, and she's going to be doing the work anyways. So that's one of my reasons.

Okay. If there are no other comments, do I have a motion?

I don't have the language, but I'll move to approve the interim city manager contract as presented. And just clarifying, so it would be to adopt the resolution appointing Yulia Carter as interim city manager and approving the employment agreement between the City of Pacifica and Yulia Carter for interim city manager services.

Teri Manolio- Perfect. Thank you.

For item number 10, with a motion made by Councilmember Beckmeyer, seconded by Councilmember Beer, the vote passes unanimously.

Okay, thank you. And thank you, Interim City Manager Carter, for being willing to take on this role. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Staff is clapping. Do you want to take a couple minutes? Okay, go ahead. We don't take a minute.

We're really hoping to finish, but I mean, go ahead and take a minute if you need to. What I was going to do is just start council communications, because I think it'll, so we've just moved the agenda around, right, so we still have item number 11, but we haven't had council communications in the last month, and so if anyone has anything pressing to share, now's the time. I don't see any lights right now. I have one. I mostly want to let the community know this is from an airport roundtable meeting in February, I guess. Expect a lot more airport noise, flight noise. Yeah, so San Francisco is working on repaving the major runways. which is a long period of time. It's a really huge project from starting March 30th to November 14th. So all the flights that right now go over the bay that then go to L.A. are also going to be coming across the northern end of town. Ideally, they're supposed to be turning after they pass Manor Fairmont over the ocean. But I just want to let people know if they're sensing a lot more noise to make sure they use the – there's a website with the SFO noise office, but also there's an app called jetnoise.net. So if flights start to vector off, that's something I can follow up on to try to make sure that they meet those standards. It also means that there's a lot fewer of the night hush flights, which right now go over the bay, because that's, again, the runway that's going to be closed. So especially for those of us on the north end of town, it's going to be a lot more noise for a long time.

Could I ask a follow-up question on that? Is there a phone number for citizens to call to complain about?

There is.

Is there one for the FAA as well?

The FAA, no. And the FAA has just not been very responsive since the federal government runs the FAA.

I just figured that citizens might want to have the opportunity.

I don't know if I have a phone number. I will see if I can find it. I do also have, like, details about the runway and stuff that I'm going to give to the city clerk that we can post on Facebook. connect with Pacifica with more detailed information. And I'll make sure I find a phone number to go with that.

Female Speaker 1 And that will include the relative dates?

Female Speaker 2 Yes. Female Speaker 1 I'm sorry, I wasn't fully listening. Female Speaker 2 Yes. Starting March 30th to November 14th. Really long time. Female Speaker 2 That's so long and horrible. Well, okay. Female Speaker 2 Anybody else? I also had a really fun event for the Ocean Shore Railroad at the Historical Society a week and a half or two weeks ago.

Did you get to tour the train? I toured the train. It was so fun. It was so jealous. I know.

We really need a community calendar, and that's something I want to work on in the next couple of months, and a council calendar so we know about events. But the one super exciting thing, there's a family that is moving to Pacifica. They're trying to build a house. here in town and the wife actually has a a non-profit that's dedicated to historical issues and she's gotten involved with the historical society and so it's bringing money to the train but also bringing a staff member to help with all the records there I mean it's just a huge gift so they've gone from like scrounging right in your little rummage sale to really having a co-sponsor, and it's super exciting. Shirley Gibbs is so happy right now. Yeah, right?

That's great news. I just wanted to let you know that there was a big presentation, a balanced presentation at the Resource Management and Climate Protection Committee meeting on February 18th that had a lot to do with the Tuolumne River And water releases from Hetch Hetchy and the other, I forgot the name of it, Pedro something, Pedro Reservoir up in Yosemite. And there's a debate between the PUC and the Tuolumne River group around how much water should be released, and it has to do with salmon and steelhead. And the population is declining, and they're going back and forth, and it's going to be even longer. there will be ongoing information to share such as soon there will be some kind of public meeting about it. But what I'm seeking to do is get the slides just in case anyone's interested to sort of peruse through it. But that is something that was cooking at the resource management and climate protection. And there wasn't anything too urgent Outside of that there's going to be urban water management plans that all agencies are putting together and for us our agency is North County Water District And I know because we were at that meeting like another page ago on the also the 18th the same day that That our North County Water District has is hired EKI EKI consultants to work on the urban water management plan for our area and of course where we always think about and we're concerned is fire protection fire suppression and making sure that their Infrastructure is protected and they have the ability to use it And didn't they institute their new program for?

Looking on the computer to see if oh, yes 80 and

Five percent completion, I think, or more of the automated metering. Ninety-five percent of the meters have been replaced to date, and the rest should be completed by the end of February. So you can go on their website and log into your account and be able to look at your water usage directly because we have these smart meters now. I haven't done it personally yet.

Craig, did you want to talk about the child care program? I was there late.

Go ahead. Bring your microphone down if you want to.

Yeah, I was there late, so if you have anything to say about that. Do you remember anything? Go ahead. Let me see.

Well, I was just going to ask, Sue, did you want to talk about Pacifica School Volunteers or... I thought it might be a good idea for you.

There's information that's going out this week and in the coming weeks. So people who have been volunteering with Pacific Coast School of Volunteers, which is an organization that's been in our community for 25, 27 years, unfortunately, due to funding and lack of ongoing sustainable funding, the organization is going to be closing its services at the end of this school year. So the volunteers that are in place will be continuing to work in classrooms and with teachers through the end of this school year. And they're certainly welcome to continue volunteering next year under the auspices of the individual school sites. But Pacifica School Volunteers as an entity will not be coordinating volunteers for read-aloud events such as at Sunset Ridge and Ocean Shore that we had a week ago, two weeks ago. And then last Wednesday, Mary, you were at such an event at Balamar School. And those kinds of activities, they won't be able to be coordinating any longer.

Yeah, it was a very hard decision. It was very sad. Yeah.

So it is what it is.

We can move forward.

On the child care thing, it's still in process. I think her name was Kristen. Follow it up with me, and we're going to have a meeting in the future. So when I have that coffee, I will have more information to bring forward. Okay.

I just want to thank Horace Henshaw for another wonderful Sports Hall of Fame Awards night. It's always so much fun. Yeah. And I just think... We've been working so much, like so many nights. I don't even know. Last week we had something every night and then Saturday all day. And so I feel like that's where all of my energy has been.

Yeah.

And other than that, I really want to thank the Sanchez Art Center for asking me to put my art.

They're so cool. And you really must go see the show.

And her work is beautiful, I can attest. And it's really neat to see Marie in front of it.

I went there yesterday.

Okay, guys, let's move on.

Okay. Are there any staff communications before we go? Any staff communications besides all our council communications?

The one, thank you, the one communication I'd provide is I asked Rose on our website about the SF noise overflight number, and you can call. 650-821-5100. That's the SFO Aircraft Noise Abatement Office. They handle the noise complaints. Wow. Thank you, Rose. And the city has a whole web page on overflight noise, and it's on that page.

What was that number again? I was trying to write it down.

He was so excited. 650-821-5100. Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Well, if there's nothing else, we will now move back to item 11, the city manager's farewell report. And I'll hand it over to Kevin.

Yeah. Thank you, Mayor Bowles, Vice Mayor Wright, and council members. So it wasn't my intention to, you know, give a big, long presentation about this report. This report was really a written agenda item for the record that was the opportunity to summarize some of my observations. Some of it is in the form of noting accomplishments over the last year that we've all collectively achieved, but in the spirit of identifying challenges looking forward. And so that's really where this report comes from, as former Councilmember and Mayor Mike O'Neill mentioned, he had asked me about a number of council meetings, and I didn't do an exact count, but estimated it was probably around 350 regular and special meetings over those years. And then I thought, okay, well, what does that mean with how many staff reports I've actually reviewed and or written? And I couldn't even count that. But if it was an average of 10 per council meeting, then that's 3,500 staff reports over that time period. So, you know, for context, in our form of government, the council manager form of government, city managers are in the unique position of hearing and understanding a broad range of perspectives of elected officials, professional staff, community members, and the many layers and intricacies of issues related to all of the factors, economic, legal, political, technical, professional considerations. And so from a city management perspective, you know, it's based on this knowledge and experience and with the utmost of humility and respect for my responsibility to transparently transfer my observations to my successor, to council members, to staff and the community that I submitted this report. I don't know if many city managers do this. I know of at least one other that has done this type of thing, but I wanted to do it. And again, I wasn't intending to go through and present information, really. I'm happy to answer any questions. The report, for those that haven't seen it, touches on a handful of important topics, financial sustainability being the foremost of those topics, economic development, Plan Pacifica, climate action and coastal adaptation and resilience, infrastructure and capital improvement program, organizational culture and community trust, the pandemic, strategic planning and work plan stability, which I spoke a little bit about on Saturday, and then a catch-all category about other topics. So, you know, I'm happy to answer any questions about it. I would say one thing that was fun was this report gave me the opportunity to actually add up grant dollars over the past eight years. And so the city has brought in more than $40 million worth of grants over that time period just as a rough calculation. So that was cool. You know, that's a significant dollar amount that I think helps the city. And, you know, a lot of the information in here regarding economic development. The council received a thorough study session on the ED work plan recently, so I don't regurgitate that, but just highlight, you know, the importance of the multilayered strategy for economic development that's really important for the city moving forward. And I just really appreciate the opportunity to be able to write this and submit it, and I hope it's, you know, useful moving forward. But it's just really been my honor and privilege to serve in this position. And as you know, as I said earlier, I'll be around, you know, I'll see you at conferences and whatnot, but I'm really looking forward to the excellent hands on the interim basis that you're turning over to Ms. Carter in the interim, and then to see

what happens under the new city manager moving forward so happy to answer any questions about any of the topics in here but that was really that was really it I really appreciate you taking the time to write that and um and really trying to do a clear handoff um right you've been here a long time you there's so much in your head and um we really appreciate um yeah all that all that effort and and like you said you you kind of forget right and over the period but yeah a little grant here and a little grant there and you know it adds up to a lot when you look at you know eight and a half years yeah are there any questions we need to take public comment on this too yeah okay again I don't have any cards so maybe anybody wants to speak go for it Tiger you can give me a card later

Good evening, honorable council, mayor, staff, Tiger Jazz Trolls, Big Stick of Pacifica. I didn't think I was going to have a second opportunity, but there was one thing that I didn't go into, and that was what may or may not equate to practical advice to an outgoing anybody who's done something for the last eight and a half years of their life. And that's... that transition can have elations and it can also have a great deal of mourning attached to it. And it is my sincere suspicion that as you transition into this next stage, there's gonna be a moment breaking form and not knowing what that means or how to do it gracefully. And within that context, please allow yourself that grace. There might be a mourning period. There might be a discomfort period. There might be a certain energy of everything you've been doing for most of a decade that just keeps running and you don't know why. And so give yourself some space to explore that. Allow it to be what it'll be. Expect about half a year of just figuring out what that means within the context. cool thing is that you're going to be doing a lot of the things you have been doing in certain ways and your mind gets to still be there um practically and pragmatically but that notwithstanding be gentle with yourself and try to notice that and i know that you're somebody who's quite adept at recreation um in healthy ways so it all looks good but do be kind and gentle with yourself and um And congratulations not having to withstand the slings and arrows of constitutional rights that may or may not have full appreciations for everything that you have genuinely and from the fullness of your being done for the entirety and everybody in our community without exception. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I would hope that some of these words may carry the weight of the consideration of others. May you enjoy this future you have before you.

Thank you, Tiger.

What a way to go out.

Are there any raised hands? Okay. Well, I will close public comment. Do we have to do anything to accept your report officially? We accept your report. No action needed. No action needed. Okay. So with that, I... We'll adjourn our meeting in your honor.