City Council - Regular Meeting

I'm here. Council Member Espinosa? Here. Council Member Beckmeyer is here. Present. Vice Mayor Wright?

Present.

Mayor Bowles? Here.

Thank you. Thank you all for being here today. I love seeing a full room. So I just want to start by reminding everyone that you need to put a parking pass on your car if you're parked out here in the lot, and those are little slips that are found right downstairs. And then I'm going to start with just a general announcement about public comments at the meeting. So public meetings are a limited public forum, meaning that there are rules for commenting at these meetings. Comments on non-agendized items must address matters within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city, and comments on non-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. So I'll start with taking a breath and reading our land acknowledgement. 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 Ramatishaloni peoples for their enduring commitment to Mother Earth. As indigenous protectors of this land, and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramatishaloni 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 Ramatishaloni peoples.

Council Member Espinosa, would 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 which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

So we are starting our council meeting with a couple of proclamations. The first is about Suicide Prevention Month, and I want to invite Verna Barrientos from the San Mateo County Suicide Prevention Committee to join us. So I'll read the proclamation first. I need my other glasses. Whereas the City of Pacifica and San Mateo County will join the country and state in honoring Suicide Prevention Month in September, National Suicide Prevention Week, September 6th to 12th, and World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10th, to spread the message that suicide can be prevented. And whereas in 2025, 65 people died by suicide in San Mateo County and 9,212 calls, 1,073 chats, and 1,735 text messages were received by the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline that is operated by Felton Institute's Peninsula Suicide Prevention. And whereas residents of the City of Pacifica are urged to play a role in supporting each other in preventing suicide by knowing the signs of suicidal thoughts, finding the words of support, and sharing connections to local resources, including the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, Alternatives to Suicide Peer Support Group by Heart and Soul, Suicide Loss Support Group by Mission Hospice and Home Care, and Be Sensitive, Be Brave and Mental Health First Aid trainings. And whereas the San Mateo County Public Health Policy and Planning Behavioral Health and Recovery Services Suicide Prevention Committee and partners are collectively organizing activities that our community can participate in throughout September Suicide Prevention Month, including free in-person and virtual events, advocacy days, and communication campaign with ongoing updates posted at smchealth.org slash suicidepreventionmonth. And whereas the 2026 theme, The Weight We Carry, recognizes that many people, particularly LGBTQ plus individuals, racial and ethnic minorities, veterans, men and boys, and people with severe psychiatric diagnoses carry heavy, often silent emotional burdens, trauma, and mental health struggles. It is a reminder that no one has to bear that hardship alone, and asking for help is an act of deep courage. And whereas the Governor's Executive Order N-31-25 focuses attention on men and boys with disproportionately high rates of suicide that are often overlooked, yet who carry invisible burdens such as emotional pain, stress, grief, isolation, and expectations. And whereas the 2024 San Mateo County Board of Supervisors Resolution declaring loneliness a public health crisis calls on our community to reduce stigma strengthen social connection and belonging, and ensure that no one has to carry these burdens alone. And whereas beyond September, you can join the San Mateo County Suicide Prevention Committee, which provides oversight and direction to suicide prevention efforts in the county and advances this mission by focusing on strategies and activities in the Suicide Prevention Roadmap 2021 to 2026. The roadmap recommends activities that span across the continuum of care, including stable housing, education and trainings, and risk-appropriate treatment. Now, therefore, I, Christine Bowles, on behalf of the City Council of the City of Pacifica and all its citizens, do hereby designate September 2026 as Suicide Prevention Month in the City of Pacifica and call upon everyone in the City of Pacifica to find their role in suicide prevention. Would you like to? Say some words, Verna.

Yes, I would. So thank you and good evening. So my name is Verna Barrientos. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm a licensed clinical social worker and a member of the San Mateo County Suicide Prevention Committee. So I just want to let folks know that the Suicide Prevention Committee meetings are open to the public. Everyone's welcome to attend. And these meetings are on the first Tuesday of the month via Zoom. So I would like to thank the City of Pacifica, Mayor Bowles, and the Pacifica City Council members for recognizing September 2026 as Suicide Prevention Month. I know the topic of suicide as well as mental health challenges are difficult to discuss. And the best way to support those of us living with mental health challenges and suicidal ideation is by talking openly and honestly about these topics. Suicide prevention is near and dear to my heart. In October 2023, my stepson Joshua Marsland completed suicide. Not a day goes by that I don't think about him, what his life could have been, and just that I miss him dearly. As a suicide loss survivor, I feel it is important to talk about suicide prevention so that hopefully others do not go through the pain and anguish that myself and my family has been through. Suicide affects a lot of people. Researchers have found that up to 135 people are affected to some degree by every person lost to suicide. 135 people. That is a lot of grief in the world. While talking about suicide can be uncomfortable, I assure you, living through a suicide attempt or completion feels a lot worse. A few ways all of us in this room can make these conversations easier include getting comfortable with some of the following. For example, ask the question, are you thinking of killing yourself? This opens a dialogue and lets the person in distress know you are someone they can talk to. And no, you will not put the idea in someone's head if you ask this question. In fact, the opposite is true. You just might have to save a life. After asking someone if they are thinking of suicide, you can direct them to call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. 988 is available nationwide and is open 24-7, 365 days a year. You can also offer to sit with the person while they make this potentially life-saving call. A heads up, 988 is not just for those going through a mental health crisis. 988 also offers emotional support as well. This is a great resource for family members and friends of those who may be having mental health challenges and want someone to talk to themselves. So I ask you, please help to spread the word about 988. Again, this could save a life. For more information about suicide prevention, I recommend checking out 988lifeline.org and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention at AFSP.org. So thank you again to Pacifica for this proclamation and for standing with San Mateo County community in preventing suicide, promoting connection, and reminding everyone that help is available. Together, we can help ensure that we practice our own self-care and support each other. Thank you. Thank you so much, Verna.

Would any council members like to comment? I'll go ahead.

Hi, good evening. Thank you so much for being here tonight. I really appreciate it. The most important thing is to prevent suicide, right? And By having taken the Be Sensitive, Be Brave training a couple times, I think it's just such a worthy training for our communities. And we were able to bring the training here through the libraries at one point, and I think we need to do it again. We should probably do it on an annual basis, just so folks can experience what it feels like to learn how to talk to each other, right? Because it's such a taboo topic, you know? There was two suicides in my family. And I don't think we ever really talked about it, right? It was like pushed under the wood. Well, he did this, but, right? And I think the beauty of having these coalitions and commissions and trainings is that we learn that it's okay to talk about it and that there's resources out there to support family members who are grieving, right? But first and foremost, is to support the folks that are suffering and thinking of ending their own lives. And so I really appreciate you being here, spreading awareness, and we'll work to get that training here again.

Thank you.

Not an easy topic for anyone, and it is a true tragedy that we've lost 65 people in our county. At the same time, though, it's through the work of people like you that take those 9,212 calls, and those are small victories in comparison to the tragedy, but they are small victories. Together, we can demonstrate that there's hope and be there for each other and listen to each other and help each other, and I want to thank you for trying to turn a tragedy into something that potentially could prevent some in the future. Thank you.

I would like to echo what Council Member Beer said about bringing the training back. I wasn't able to do it myself, and I would like to add to that outreach to Pacifica School District and to Jefferson Union High School District, just at the top of my head, that are local to see about staff training in the same vein. And thank you so much for sharing your story and for being here.

I will say if, you know, well, I grew up with 14 siblings and we were usually paying attention to each other. We knew each other. And I think it's important to pay attention to see, like, what we do is that if we see someone depressed, we will ask them to, let's go do something. Let's do some activities to take them out of, you know, where they are. And I believe that we have to pay a little more attention to our friends and relatives. And they don't have to suffer alone. We should be there to help them and get resources. There are resources available, so try to make sure that we pay attention. Thank you.

I appreciate that you say it's okay to ask the question, are you thinking about suicide? I would never think about asking that. You see someone who's maybe a little aloof or sad and I don't know. In our society, we say, oh, how are you? And you just expect a happy answer, or I'm OK, and nobody ever follows up. But if you're sensing something, take another little minute to try to find out how they're really doing, and maybe spend a little time with them, and maybe get to asking that question. When my daughter was in her first year of college at MIT, there were three suicides among her class that first year. It's like, you don't know. There's so much pressure. I mean, we talk about all the different parts of society that have so much pressure, but our kids are under so much pressure. And to think of these smart kids who did all that work to get there, and yet it was too much to take their lives just when they were starting with Promise. They designed their school rings with a star for each one of those kids, which is really beautiful. But it's a life that didn't need to be lost. So, yes, let's do what we can, help get the word out, help get more training so we can protect our people that have full lives ahead of them. Yeah, thank you so much. So I have a proclamation here. I don't know if we have a lot on our... We can take a picture or just give it to you as you... I would love a picture. Okay, okay. Okay.

Thank you.

And then we have one more proclamation for National Preparedness Month. And so I want to invite Clyde Preston from the North County Fire Authority Safety Inspector. Thanks for being here with us tonight. Okay. Proclamation of the City of Pacifica and Reclamation of National Preparedness Month, September 2026. I'm sorry. I need my other glasses. Whereas, during September, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FINEMA, and the National Preparedness Month Coalition urge all Americans to better prepare their families for emergencies by acknowledging this year's theme, Americans Stand Ready. And whereas, National Preparedness Month encourages individuals and families to take an active role in their own preparedness, including creating emergency plans and building kits, which include three days of nonperishable food and water, a battery-powered or crank radio, a flashlight, first aid kit, whistle, dust mask, cell phone with charger, moist towelettes, medications, duct tape, and other supplies. And whereas National Preparedness Month promotes the use of technology resources, including SMC Alert, the Genesis Protect app, and websites like northcountyfire.gov, protect.genesis.com, and ready.gov, which provide educational resources as well as up-to-date information about critical emergencies, weather, and evacuations. And whereas it is highly recommended that our citizens become better educated by participating in local and regional classes, such as tsunami and earthquake preparedness classes, and fire prevention and medication provided by Pacifica Police and North County Fire and others, And whereas, in the event of a major city or regional disaster, emergency responders may be overwhelmed with large-scale issues, and we strongly encourage residents to participate in Community Emergency Response Team, or CERT, training. CERT provides education for residents about disaster preparedness and trains in basic disaster response skills, such as fire safety, light search and rescue, team organization, and disaster medical operations, so that CERT members can assist others in their neighborhood or workplace following an event when professional responders are not immediately available to help. Now, therefore, I, Christine Bowles, on behalf of the City Council of the City of Pacifica and all its citizens, do hereby proclaim September 2026 as National Preparedness Month in the City of Pacifica and encourage all Pacifica residents to increase their knowledge of proper safety measures to follow before, during, and after a disaster, and to prepare now to ensure the best protection of their families and neighbors in the event of a disaster.

Madam Mayor and members of the City Council, thank you so much for declaring September National Preparedness Month here in the City of Pacifica. And the timing is perfect, as I just want to let everyone know here in the audience tonight and watching at home, that there will be a cert series of classes starting Next week, as a matter of fact, next Thursday night, it's hosted by our own Pacifica Police Department. It'll be at the police station, and it'll be for seven Thursday nights and one Saturday, and they still have openings. So if anybody who's watching tonight would like to get involved with CERT, the Community Emergency Response Team Training, it is free, open to all Pacifica residents. You can go online to the Pacifica website, type in CERT. It has all the information, and you can sign up. It's excellent training. It is somewhat of a time commitment for those seven Thursdays and that one Saturday, but it is information that you can use to protect your home, your family, your coworkers before, during, and after an earthquake. So it's time well spent, and we encourage all residents to take advantage of that. If not this series, there's going to be other series as we have done in the past. So thank you so much for raising that awareness for the community here tonight and for this month.

Thank you. Anyone like to say anything? We don't all have to say anything.

Well, I would definitely like to start out by saying thank you. You guys are out there looking out for us 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. I think going through something like the CERT program, we're talking about Seven days plus one Saturday, it's not that big an ask. And at the very least, to just have us consider thinking about it and doing a little bit to prepare to take care of our own selves isn't a big ask or a big lift. But the first part is getting the communication out there. You're out there doing that, representing us, trying to help us all help ourselves and help our neighbors. I'm truly thankful for that. I want Pacifica to be a safer place. We do have tsunamis. We do have earthquakes. We do have threat of forest fires. And thanks for being there and taking care of us all.

Thank you.

I want to say something.

Thank you so much for keeping us safe. All of us live here on the coast, so preparedness is not an option. We have to do that. And I encourage everyone watching, every family watching, to just take a small step to prepare a bag just in case. You never know when something's going to happen. Thank you.

I'm going to encourage people to check their bag. I used to keep one all the time. And I opened it, and the baby clothes were in there. The kids were 10. And I said, Yeah, that's not going to work. Need to make sure that you have that crank radio, that flashlight, I mean, right? And pet food.

That's what I was just going to say.

And that, you know, those are just things that I hadn't really thought of. And because kids grow fast, having those extra clothes or whatever you might have in there, you might need to update that, even though you know you have the bag ready. Thank you so much for all you do.

Thank you.

And I just want to make another plug for the CERT training. I did it with my husband and my kids, one in middle school and one in high school at the time. And let me tell you, they were really studying that book. I mean, I can still tell you what kind of fire extinguisher you need and how to use it, but it's really about you not being a victim first, helping your own family, and then you might have seniors or others in your neighborhood, so you look out for each other so you're there because it may take a few days before our firefighters and police can arrive in the event of a major disaster like an earthquake. Loma Prieta was October 17th, coming up on its anniversary. My go bag hasn't been checked in a little while. And then we might have a Super El Nino coming this winter. So have your sandbags ready ahead of time. Look at those hills that might have some erosion and landslides. And really just be careful and mindful you know, every day and report things, make sure storm drains are cleaned around you. It's about us all being prepared individually and then together as a community. So, yeah, thank you so much.

Yeah, and I'll just thank all the first responders for everything that you do for us every single day. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

And would you like a picture or would you like? How do you not talk very much?

No. Okay. Amen.

So a couple things before we move on to consent. If anyone would like to make a public comment about the two proclamations, you can come up now and fill out a card later. And do we have anyone online? We have one raised hand. OK. Please go ahead.

It is for Lila Raniero.

Go ahead, Lila.

Hi. Can you hear me? Yep. Hi, this is Lila Rodero. I have done the CERT training, and it is so informative and awesome. Just one clarification, though. The upcoming CERT training program with the Pacifica Police Department is currently full with a wait list. I know this because I just tried helping my young adult daughter to sign up today. It is full, and my daughter is number one on the wait list.

Okay. Thank you for letting us know, Lila. I appreciate it. Is there anyone else on? There are no other raised hands. OK. And then Kimberly Finale.

Good evening, council members and community members, city staff. I'm Kimberly Finale, Pacifica resident. I wanted to just express my sincere appreciation for both the proclamation and the presenters of them. The awareness on both topics is really, really important for all of our community members And I have personal experience with the CERT training. I was in the first graduating class after COVID, after the pause from COVID, and it was just an invaluable experience. I did it with my dad and his wife, and we just had a really nice time. But the seven weeks goes by really quickly. The training is excellent. The training is free. They just do an amazing, an amazing job. So I want to give my heartfelt thank you and urge any community members who are interested in community emergency response to take advantage of this free program because anyone can learn it and you will feel like a superhero when you graduate. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Kimberly. Okay, with that, I'll close public comment. And then one of the things I forgot to do was to ask if there was a closed session reward. our meeting yes I do want to note for the record that there is no reportable action from either of the closed sessions tonight great thank you so much all right so that moves us to our consent calendar so are there any council members who'd like to pull an item off consent item five And I'm going to ask the city manager to do a presentation first, so if you can just hold your question on that. I have a question on item nine. Okay. Should we allow you to do the presentation first and then maybe take questions on the other before public comment, city manager?

That would work.

Okay. Thank you. So this is about the pier.

Good evening. Sean Charpentier, city manager. So to provide a quick update on item number five, just a little bit of background. On June 4th, a large crack was identified in the abutment at the Pacifica Municipal Pier. The pier was promptly closed. The city declared a state of emergency. The county declared a state of emergency for us. We submitted to Cal OES for the governor to declare a state of emergency. and for emergency technical and financial assistance from the state. We are still in the emergency stabilization mode, and the action before you tonight is an important milestone in that process. It is to ratify my execution of a contract with Power Engineering Construction, to do investigation, design, and construction of the emergency stabilization work at the municipal pier. The good news is that we will be moving forward with hopefully design and construction projects that will stabilize, provide the emergency stabilization necessary to prevent the pier situation from getting worse. One note is that this work will not do the designer construction work necessary to bring the pier back to its original use. And that is next phase. But before we can get to that phase, we have to ensure that the pier is stabilized and the deterioration slows or stops altogether. And that is what this contract does. There are several phases. It is an iterative contract. The first one is investigation. They will be preparing their own investigation of the existing conditions. And then they'll move into the design of the phase that would stabilize the first span of the pier. And right now they're proposing to do that with pylons and a bracing. And that would help to prevent the abutment from sinking further and also take tension off the other spans of the pier. Then they will move into the design and construction of efforts to protect Beach Boulevard. And there are two aspects that we're looking at. One is a sort of sheet piles along the edge of Beach Boulevard. And then one is a sort of protective sheet piles around the abutment. And both of those would serve to help to stabilize Beach Boulevard from future damage. It is set up as a progressive design contract, so we'll be working with the designers of the contractor, and the work will be authorized in phases. And for the fiscal impact, as mentioned, we have submitted to Cal OAS for financial reimbursement, and we're also working with our insurance company. And it's our intent to complete this work in advance, or as to the best of our ability, in advance of the winter storms. And that concludes my presentation, or my summary, and we're available if there are any questions.

Did you have some questions?

You can answer some of them, but what is the total cost ceiling on this agreement, or there is no cap at all?

There is a process, if you look at section 3.5 in the contract, it allows us to authorize work in phases. The contractor did provide some rough order of magnitude construction estimates, but they were very preliminary, and those are in the contract as well. So the work will be authorized as we accomplish each stage and as available funding from, as mentioned, either Cal OES or the insurance company is available.

I understand that we only got one bid on this job. Is that right?

That's correct. We submitted, so under our emergency authorization, we submitted the proposal to three maritime construction firms. And it's really the known universe of qualified maritime construction firms in Northern California and much of California. and we were in close contact with all of them, and we did receive one bid. That's correct.

Yeah, it's kind of difficult to see, to find out that's the fair price, because we only had one. So it's kind of like, but what can we do? So the other one is that share of the total cost. Does staff expect insurance? You already talked about the insurance. I understand that. So, and... What is the city exposure if reimbursement falls short and you don't have ?

We would limit that exposure by not authorizing that work until we had funds.

Okay.

That is the goal. The risk of doing nothing is great, given the need to stabilize it, and now is the time to be doing construction before the winter storms occur. SO THAT EXPLAINS WHY THAT'S THE RATIONALE FOR MOVING FORWARD QUICKLY AND UNDER MY EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY AND ASKING THE COUNCIL TO RATIFY THAT.

OKAY. I HAD A COUPLE OF FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS, TOO. SO YOU SAY WE'LL BE GETTING PRICES FOR THE DIFFERENT PHASES AS WE GO. DO THOSE END UP COMING BACK TO US WHEN THERE'S A LITTLE BIT MORE INFORMATION OR DO YOU HAVE FULL EMERGENCY AS THE EMERGENCY MANAGER? to approve those?

I think it depends on the order of magnitude. We know the amount that we are reasonably likely to receive from Cal OES or insurance. So as long as it's within that, and also if there's timing, we come back to council. But we are in an emergency situation where we don't want to miss a week.

And if we're not spending the money, if it's coming from others, it's probably not something that we need to necessarily especially in this emergency. Like when we go to the next stage of what are we doing with the pier, that's a different conversation.

Yes. And we can work with the council to give regular updates as council sees appropriate on what work's been authorized and what funding has been committed.

Okay. And then I know some of the boulders were taken from the seawall south of the pier to be able to shore up the abutment, you know, from... Yeah, deteriorating further. I understand that's a whole separate project and contract that we'll also be working on simultaneously here before the winter. Maybe you could talk about that a little bit.

It is our intent to... So we did mine boulders from south of the pier to shore up the abutment, and that was one of the reasons why we think the sinking of the abutment has slowed so dramatically. We did this in the early days of the emergency. And it is our goal and intent... to replace those boulders before the rainy season. And we're looking at a variety of ways to do that through either this contract or other emergency contracts. But we're fully aware of that concern and plan to remedy that before the rainy season. Great. Thank you so much.

Okay. And then item nine, you had a question? Yes.

Just a quick question on this particular project. study that we're being asked to approve, who is paying for the cost for that?

The applicant property owner will be paying the cost for that, and the city will not proceed with any work until funded by the property owner. Great. Thank you.

Okay, and with that I'll... That will move on to public comments on the consent calendar, and A few people didn't say they were on consent. So, again, these are only comments related to items 1 to 11 on the consent calendar. There'll be a time right after this for comments on anything not on the agenda. So, Katagoms, you wrote to MGTAC number one, but I don't think number one is on the consent calendar. Is that for general public comment? Oh, the peer. Okay. All right. Well, you can come up now. and then Michael Wallman, and then Sam Casillas.

Good evening, City Council staff and community members. My name is Kata Gomes, Ramaytush descendant from the village of Tamektawk along Calera Creek. You know, it takes a very special person to be able to have the vision of taking a negative situation and turning it into a positive. And I want to thank the former speakers and representatives who make that their life's work. I think the situation with the pier is an opportunity for us to have a more long-term vision of what could happen here, to take a negative and take this pier that's crumbling and falling apart and to use it in the future as a possibility of having an offshore reef. And normally I'm opposed to any armoring or seawalls. It's a very short-term vision, a band-aid on a situation that's much larger. So I would like it that The pilings that are being installed in the future could also be part of that offshore reef. And I hope that our city leaders here can have the vision to look beyond the immediate emotional attachment to this structure and to think about how it could benefit the whole community not only to stabilize and to diminish the impact of erosion along the coast from the offshore reef, but also to create habitat. So that's always a priority for me, is creating habitat. So I thank you all, and I hope you keep a broad vision on what can be as we move forward into the future. Thank you. Thank you so much, Katja.

Okay. MICHAEL FOLLOWED BY SAM AND THEN SEBASTIAN. I'M NOT SURE IF YOU'RE ON GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT OR ON THE CONSENT AGENDA. SO COME UP IF THAT'S APPROPRIATE.

HI, MICHAEL. VICE MAYOR. YOU DONE? MY TURN? OKAY, GREAT. HI, MIKE WALLMAN. THANK YOU, MAYOR, VICE MAYOR, CITY COUNCIL, STAFF, AND MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC. SPEAKING TODAY ABOUT THE CONSENT CALENDAR ITEM ONE, GENERAL BUDGET, APPROVAL OF CHECKS, AND LOOKING THROUGH THE LIST, AND IT'S NOT REALLY SUPER CLOSE TO A GENERAL MEMBER OF THE PUBLIC AS TO WHAT EACH OF THESE EXPENSES ARE. I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S EVEN NECESSARILY CLEAR TO CITY COUNCIL OR TO THE STAFF, BUT IT WOULD BE EXTREMELY HELPFUL TO BE ABLE TO DRILL INTO THESE AND SEE, HEY, THIS EXPENSE IS RELATED TO THIS CONTRACT. THIS IS MILESTONE SIX. THIS IS WHAT'S LEFT IN THAT BUDGET ITEM. because I see items in here of the five million where like 2.5 million dollars I could ascertain what this was plan JPA apparently this is a joint insurance program for multiple city municipalities great awesome well you know what does that provide us for coverage well what percentage of that is is that a one-time fee is that monthly quarterly it's semi-annually no way to tell that from here other things I mean I see law enforcement tools I see um money to an RV park. It's just not at all clear what the expense is, what the frequency of that expense is, what the ceiling of that expense will be. And without that kind of information, how can people understand what is it we're spending on? So I know we have a budget crisis here. We need to raise more incomes. but we also need to track our expenditures. So please provide the public and city staff a method by which we can actually look into these items. My preference would be perhaps an online tool that you can just search, maybe see an Excel spreadsheet, click into it and say, ah, this is how much we paid the sign guy this year. Thank you.

Thank you. Sam? Please go ahead. Hi.

Good evening, City Council. Tonight I would like to address consent item number nine, the approval of the consulting services agreement with Rincon Consultants for the Hillside Meadows project. I am providing comments on it because there is a serious issue with the contract and the full scope of the project. I'm a lifelong advocate for affordable, safe housing, and this project just isn't it. The whole community is opposed to this project because it is an ecological hazard zone that most likely should not be built on, contains protected species, and should be considered in the larger scope of the full true development that includes a Linnemar development application which sits on a fire hazard zone. The applicant needs to include both parts of the development application as one development to appropriately address all EIR issues. In Task 4.1, the Updated Biological Resource Assessment, there's several issues with it. First, the total impact of traffic mitigation, including emergency egress, cannot be adequately addressed without including the full potential build-out of the parcels that need to include SB 9, SB 10, and other recent density bonus considerations and the impact of the larger Lindemar Woods project. The project also sits in a natural depression since it sits in a watershed of the Lindemar Valley and also includes a watershed runoff coming from Shamrock Ranch. This site will naturally have a shallow water table and underground springs causing any development on it to result in significant flood water runoff to the adjacent homes down below in Lindemar, which we know we have to protect. This runoff impact needs to be addressed in the EIR. The proposal also states that Rincon will assess the existence of protected species, including crotches, bumblebee, and the western pond turtle. But it does not address the assessment of the California red-legged frog, which has a high likelihood of habitat at this site due to the wetland characteristics and the identified habitats upstream at Shamrock Ranch and the area below San Pedro habitat, San Pedro Creek habitat. For all these concerns outlined above, the site requires a much more expanded scope for the EIR to address all the practical environmental impacts and is necessary to be compliant with CEQA. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Sam. And Sebastian, I'm guessing I'm going to save your card for general public comment. So that's all I have on the consent calendar. Is there anyone online? There are no raised hands. Okay. With that, I'll close public comment. If I could just ask just a couple of follow-up questions to some of the public questions. So, yeah, Agenda Item 1 has all the checks and disbursements where I'm used to seeing more detailed information about what is spent and how it's allocated goes on the quarterly financial reports. Is that correct or is there some other process of sharing more information?

That is correct. The quarterly report has much more detail about the items than the annual checks. It's sort of a disbursement registry. And we are working on an online portal that would offer more details on budget that would give people the ability to lifetime. which is always risky because a lot of what we do is lumpy, as was mentioned by one of the other speakers with our insurance plan payment. But it will give the public an opportunity to see where we are in actual year-to-date as of that day. And hopefully we'll be able to roll that out in the next couple of months.

Okay, thank you. And then on the EIR for Hillside Meadows, I know generally the first step in an EIR is a notice of preparation where the public can be involved and bring up these kind of issues to make sure things are covered. Is that still the appropriate way to do that? And then if we're approving a contract for a certain amount but then more work needs to be done, you would just come back to us, I assume, with a greater fee, right? I mean, all this is reimbursable to the developer.

That is correct. We would follow that process, and the notice of preparation is the stage in which issues in the EIR can also be raised.

Okay, great. Thank you. Any other questions, comments from counsel?

I have a quick question for the city attorney. Is it necessary to acknowledge any ex partes in regards to any of the items on the consent calendar?

Yes, if there are ex-parties, it would be appropriate to reference those.

Then I've had at least four conversations with David Mick, the president of Powers and Associates, trying to understand and get a better understanding of what's going on out there. So I am familiar with him as engineering.

Does that set up a complication for voting to approve this calendar? No, conversations are fine. That doesn't represent a conflict. Okay. All right. Great. Thank you.

All right. With that, I'll take a motion.

I'll move approval of the consent agenda.

Second.

Okay. Please vote.

The motion to approve the consent agenda made by Council Member Beckmeyer, seconded by Vice Mayor Wright. The vote passes unanimously. Thank you.

Okay, and that moves us to comments, public comments on items not on the agenda. And I have a bunch of cards I've not counted. But we have a short agenda today, so I want to make sure everyone has their three minutes. So we'll start with Sebastian Strasser. followed by Max, followed by Pete Shoemaker. And if you don't mind lining up so that we don't lose too much time in between, that would be really great.

Should I start now?

Yes, yes, please, welcome.

We have all of these commissions dedicated to supporting the city in climate resilience, economic development, zoning, and so on. It's straightforward that the city council can't do every business on every matter on its own. We get stakeholders to do the tough job of asking hard questions and doing the harder work of governing for us all. At least I would hope that with this we can do better than the cities that would force AI data centers down their throats and in other cities where local governments are giving up their neighbors to ICE. And with that, I see no reason why automatic license plate readers should be any different. Policy 435 is Pacifica PD's guidance on capturing, storing, and using all the data from ALPRs. It says, quote, that reasonable suspicion or probable cause is not required before using an ALPR, end quote. That is a gross, blatant violation of warrants, probable cause, and individualized, particularized suspicions of wrongdoing that the Fourth Amendment requires to use to search us. In a time where a Texas sheriff can use Flock to access thousands of camera databases to target the women who got an abortion and others who have stalked their partners, Pacific can rise up and do better. It is in my personal opinion, as someone who has lived in this town for nearly 20 years, that flock safety outright just should not be welcome in our town. But as far as all of our shared collective governance is concerned, let's get some serious oversight. Let's support our friends in the city council. There should be an advising body to the city council with some real power in its hands to conduct public hearings and ask serious questions. We need watchdogs that are wholly outside the Pacifica PD command structure that go through the very same public appointments process as the aforementioned commissions I said earlier. Everyday Pacificans, workers, activists, parents, students, a lawyer or two perhaps, should deliberate on pauses, bans, and other reforms. Please, city council, get to work on giving all of our rights the reverence that they deserve. Because if Pacifica PD has nothing to fear on this issue, then they should have nothing to hide. Thank you. Thank you, Sebastian.

Thanks, Sebastian. Max, follow up. I'm going to interrupt you. Yeah, we try not to clap because it interrupts and slows down the meeting. So your hands are better if you agree. And we can see you better that way, too. So I really appreciate that. So Max, Pete, and then Ren Murphy.

Hello, my name is Max Marino. I am a Mexican-American citizen, and I feel like we should take a flock, not in Pacifica. Because I have been doing data, and I realized that ICE uses flock. And I don't think any kid or any teen should be afraid for their parents or having nightmares of their parents getting deported or getting shot by ICE agents because they don't want to leave a stolen land. And I don't think no one wants to see their own parents in a car getting dragged out of a car because they want to have aliens out of a stolen land. And I don't think any kid should be thinking of that. Or I don't think any adult should be having to worry about, oh, am I going to get deported the next day? Oh, I'm scared to go to work because what if they call ICE on me? I don't think no one should think of that. And I think we shouldn't be having flock cameras anywhere in the San Mateo County or anywhere in the United States, honestly. So thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Max.

Pete, Ren, Murphy, and then Adam Dobrowski.

All right. Pete Shoemaker, Valimar. I'm speaking on a measure that's going to be on the upcoming ballot November 3rd. This is Measure BB. This is the one cent tax on non-essential items that is going to Pacifica. Only 100% goes to Pacifica and is desperately needed to maintain our essential services and keep the city financially stable. Brief background on me so you can judge and see if my opinion on this is credible or not My wife and I came here 37 years ago raised our kids here working on the grandchildren We've been involved I've been involved in city stuff from the beginning from the tunnel to coaching soccer to being on all kinds of committees when the general plan was up for review I read every page of the 400-page general plan and most of the 1,000-page environmental impact report, unfortunately. And also, about a dozen years ago, I was at a city financing committee with a lot of other citizens. We literally went over every line item of the city budget. So in all that time, and continue to do so, I've seen that Pacifica has been managed very reasonably and responsibly, certainly on par with other cities in the region. Any city can look back and look on decisions that they should have made better, and we have that of course, but no more than other cities in the region. Right now we have a new city manager, staff, the current council, upcoming council, and all the watchdogs that are here, I feel like we've got a lot of people watching to make sure that this money is spent responsibly. So in looking over the city line item of the city budget, I was impressed not with the waste, fraud, and corruption that a lot of people allege, unfounded from what I've seen, but I was impressed with the efficiency and the belt tightening that I saw in there. Any idea that came into my head that I think, ah, the city ought to do this and save money, either they had already thought of it, done it, or were about to do it, and if they didn't do it, it was probably not a good idea. So I am very confident that we really, really need this measure, Measure BB, and I urge you all to vote yes on the upcoming BB on November 3rd. Thank you.

Thank you, Pete. So Ren, Adam, and then Elizna Vanzel.

Welcome, Ren. Hello, everyone. It's nice to see some familiar faces tonight. For those who do not know me, my name is Dr. Ren Murphy. I have a doctorate in organizational psychology and experience working as a researcher and statistician for the last 10 years. Now, the first thing that they taught me in Stats 101 is that correlation does not equal causation. That basically means that just because two things happen around the same time, it doesn't mean that one caused the other. For example, it would be silly to say that I get a sunburn every time I eat ice cream. We'd be missing the context that the sun plays. So I suggest in this case that we can't forget about context when we talk about flock cameras and lowering crime rate. I did do my own research to educate myself on how we can increase public safety for the people of Pacifica. I used years of publicly available Pacifica crime data and GPS coordinates of those cameras. I also reviewed published academic studies to see what folks in criminology, sociology, and public health had to say. And my findings were clear. There is no statistically significant difference in crime near the cameras before or after they were installed. And this is pretty on par with what decades of research on ALPR's effectiveness of lowering crime says. Crime rates typically follow regional trends or economic shifts. Correlation does not equal causation. So I ask the council here tonight to consider this. Instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars on reactionary surveillance subscriptions that have not proven to make us safer, We should invest in true prevention. I'm talking about prevention that is rooted in community care and not fear. I do have three examples. One is that we could put money towards upgrading our street lighting, which has been found to reduce outdoor crime at night. Two, we could create community-engaged public spaces, as they have been found to significantly deter violent and property crime by fostering natural, community-driven social control. And finally, you could expand PRC's emergency financial assistance because one-time financial assistance has been proven to drop overall crime, especially violent offenses. I would be very, very happy to meet with any of you and all of you to talk about these interventions and review my research one-on-one. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Okay. So Adam, Elizna, and then Kim Cahill.

GOOD EVENING, PACIFICA CITY COUNCIL MEMBERS AND FELLOW PACIFICA RESIDENTS. I'VE BEEN A PACIFICA RESIDENT FOR OVER SIX YEARS AND I WORK IN THE COMMERCIAL CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY. I'M HERE TONIGHT TO TALK ABOUT NOT ONLY THE RENEWAL OF THE FLOCK CONTRACT POTENTIALLY IN PACIFICA BUT JUST GENERAL USAGE OF FLOCK TECHNOLOGY AS A WHOLE. When government asks us to surrender privacy in exchange for safety, history tells us that we should be extremely skeptical. We have been here before. After September 11th, Congress passed the Patriot Act. Section 215 was ultimately used to justify the NSA's bulk collection of Americans' telephone metadata, collecting records on millions of people, not because they were suspected of crimes, but because the government argued that collecting information in bulk could help find the people who were. In ACLU versus Clapper, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that this bulk telephone records program was not authorized by the Patriot Act. Think about that lesson. An extraordinary surveillance power was created in the name of public safety. The government interpreted that authority expansively. A massive database was built. And only years later, after the program became public, did our federal appeals court conclude that the statute being relied upon did not authorize the bulk collection. This is exactly why we should be cautious about building surveillance infrastructure first and promising safeguards later. The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that technology changes the constitutional equation. In United States v. Jones, the government tracked a vehicle by GPS for 28 days. The Supreme Court held that the government's conduct constituted a Fourth Amendment search. Five justices separately recognized the profound privacy concerns created by prolonged tracking of someone's movements. Then, in Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court confronted historical location information from cell phones. The court recognized that aggregating location data can create a detailed chronicle of a person's movements and held without obtaining the records at issue constituted a Fourth Amendment search requiring a warrant. Flawed cameras raise the same fundamental concern. One camera seeing one license plate is one thing. A network of cameras recording where thousands of innocent people travel, storing those observations, making them searchable, and potentially connecting them across jurisdictions is something fundamentally different. There is no longer simply observing a car on a public street. It creates the infrastructure to reconstruct a person's life. The overwhelming majority of people being recorded are not suspected of committing any crimes. The ACLU reports that less than 1% of vehicles scanned by LPR systems are associated with suspected wrongdoing. That means we are not merely surveilling suspects. We are surveilling the public in order to find suspects. Those are very different principles. And surveillance infrastructure does not remain confined to the jurisdiction it's originally given to for those creating it. California has already seen litigation involving law enforcement sharing millions of license plate and location records with hundreds of federal and out-of-state agencies.

I'm sorry, your time is up. Would you mind, if you have more to share, would you mind putting it in an email to us, citycouncilatpacifica.gov?

Yeah.

Thank you so very much. Thank you. Thanks for being here. So Elizna, followed by Kim, and then Kata Goetz.

Good evening, City Council and fellow neighbors. My name is Elizna Van Zyl, or Liz is what I go by. And I've been a Pacifica resident, that was my husband there, for the last several years. I work as an emergency department pharmacist in the South Bay. Through my work as a healthcare professional, I've come to appreciate the way that individuals' privacy should be guarded and respected. Our privacy is tightly linked to our ability to authentically and freely move about in the world, express ourselves, and to feel safe doing so. I'm reaching out to you because of the Pacifica Flock contract that will renew if the council does not vote to cancel it. Because of ALPRs, every single one of our neighbors, even persons with nothing to hide, are being surveilled indiscriminately. We are being exposed to mass data harvesting and vulnerable to the technological weaknesses of these cameras. The cameras are like an AI-enabled dragnet that captures the movement patterns and digital fingerprints of innocent and guilty alike. And the rapid expansion of ALPRs, such as Flock and Axon, and their exponentially expanding capabilities worry me a great deal. At the time of the initial FLOC pilot program, there was not a lot of information about the security weaknesses that these cameras pose. With the information that the Council had at the time, I understand why it obtained and trialed this technology. However, as many folks in cities across the U.S. are discovering, there are irredeemable privacy issues with the Indiscriminate Surveillance Program. Multiple cities' 55 contracts in the last 21 days have terminated their contracts with FLOC as a result of the serious violation of the public's trust. and Fourth Amendment rights. I rely on you to keep my family and my neighbors safe from surveillance, data theft, and abduction. I humbly ask to protect us from warrantless surveillance by not only the police, but by government agencies like ICE and DHS who have unrestricted backdoor access to flock and their agglomerated data. If you would like to meet or speak with me in person, I would be very appreciative of your time. Thank you for your time and your service to Pacifica, and have a good night.

Thanks, Elizna. So Kim Kata and then Laura Obergine.

Do I get a warning buzz, or is it just a first buzz?

Yeah, there's a one-minute warning, so it'll turn orange, and then you have one more minute after that.

All right, good evening, thanks for having me. My name is Kim and I've lived in Pacifica for 30 years, raised two daughters here, and I'm also a member of the local indivisible group. I want to express my concern with the flock cameras in Pacifica and ask that you cancel the contract and remove the cameras. I urge you to take some time to learn about flock safety. It is a flawed organization. Their network is not secure. It is easily hackable and they are driven by profit, not by safety. Flock cameras and mass surveillance is dangerous. Citizens are presumed innocent until proven guilty of a crime. Mass surveillance removes the presumption of innocence and assumes that we are permanently suspicious of a crime. It's an assault on what it means to be an American. There are many instances of errors made by their cameras. It will only take one error for someone to file a lawsuit against our city. We say that we're a sanctuary city. It is not difficult for a bad actor or corrupt federal agency to tap into the flock network and data collected in Pacifica and use it to terrorize women, immigrants, and marginalized communities. Your position with these cameras is that if we give our personal liberty and freedom, you will keep us safe. By implementing mass surveillance in Pacifica, we weren't asked if we wanted to give up our freedom, our personal liberties, and our privacies. You guys just took it with all due respect. Trading our liberty and freedom for safety is fundamentally a bad bargain. When citizens hand over their freedoms for safety, we assume the government's benevolent. However, mass surveillance databases create an unprecedented concentration of power that creates room for severe abuses of power. The ACLU has found agencies routinely violating laws, policies, and guardrails that protect our privacy. I don't have an issue with the police. This is not a problem with the police. This is a problem of giving any agency or person so much power and hoping that they will have the will to not abuse that power. I believe it would be difficult for anyone, including myself, to hold so much power and not be corrupted by it. I understand the allure of wanting safety, wanting to ensure that we are all safe. Unfortunately, there is no world in which we are all safe. It does not exist. Our best chance for a safe community is for the community to work together and support each other. Flock cameras will only create more divisions and make us less safe. Thanks again for hearing me out. Thank you.

Kata, Laura, and then Robin Reneals.

Kata Gomes. I'm here to bring attention to the city of an environmental lead contamination that exists at the former rifle range at Sharp Park. I recently attended a meeting at Lake Merced where the San Francisco Utilities Commission just completed an environmental cleanup of a former rifle range there at Lake Merced where the contaminated lead soil was removed from the site. This is not the case that is happening right now in our community. The city of San Francisco, who has the responsibility for this cleanup, has merely put a cement cap on the contaminated area I spoke with Christopher Campbell, the natural resource manager of Sharp Park, and asked him specific questions about the testing. He informed me that there has been testing done on the soil, but that no testing of the nearby stream that wraps around two sides of this capped contaminated area has taken place. This is the primary watershed for the San Francisco garter snake and the red-legged frog and the multitude of other wildlife that reside in that valley. This is a huge concern to me, and the price of cleaning this up and the responsibility falls on the city of San Francisco. It would cost the city of Pacifica nothing to pressure San Francisco to clean up the site. They just did it at Lake Merced. I would like to see this happen here as well. Thank you. Thank you, Kata.

Okay, Laura, Robine, and then Margo, Mike.

Good evening. I'm Laura Obergon, and I'm a citizen of Pacifica, and I'm here to talk about the flock cameras as well. I recently was invited by my neighbor to a Rotary Club meeting, which I'd never been to, and our new city manager, you, were there talking about the budget. And I was quite frankly horrified about our budget. I've not really been involved in politics or the city that much to this extent, and it was pretty scary. I am a member of Coastside United Indivisible, and we recently were taught about the flock cameras, and it seemed like a pretty easy connection, get rid of the flock cameras that are costing us money to help with our budget issue. The more that I've learned about these cameras, it seems like such a violation on our Fourth Amendment right and how it's gonna divide the community instead of make us safer. Pacifica is such a special place to live and we have so many things going for us. We are supposed to be a sanctuary city here where we are looking out for our community and the citizens here, and these flock cameras are doing the exact opposite. They also, one of the things is there's California SB 34 is a state law that explicitly bans sharing ALPR data with out of state federal agencies. So many audits have been done that show that out of federal agencies and ICE are able to use backdoor ways and to get this data and that it's extremely concerning to me. I think one of the ways that the The city should look at this money issue and making us safer is take this money that we're using for flock and build up our communities, make our communities safer with making sure every citizen here is supported in whatever they need. So I'm asking that you please cancel the contract. Thank you.

Thank you, Laia. Rubin, Margo, and then Tokuno, Hirana.

Hi. Good evening, council members, Madam Mayor. Thank you. My name is Robin Reniels, a 50-year resident of West Sharp Park. It's hard to say. Makes me think of my age, but that's even worse. But anyway, I'm here as a member of the board of the Pacific Coast Fog Fest. And I'm here on my, it seems like it's an annual thing I've been doing for years, which is the public sector arousing of registrations for the parade. And first I'd like to say council members, thank you for your registration. It's done. You're all set for the fire truck with the fire department. And I'm going to go through the departments. I'd like to first invite our new city manager, Mr. Carpentier. We would love to honor you in the parade this year, and we'd love, I think, joining us and registering for the parade. We'll get you a car, or PD can provide you a vehicle. And I think it's a wonderful way for you to meet Fogfest for the very first time, is to go down the middle of Palmetto Avenue and meet the locals. So please register. Registration closes one week from today on the 31st. So that's a very important thing. So please come to the website, pacificcoastfogfest.com, and just go, you'll see a button for the parade and registration, and since you are city officials and city businesses and elected officials, registration is free for you. I'd also like to invite the PD to catch up on the registration of your two vehicles. She's not listening. And then Public Works also needs to catch up and get their registration in for the myriad of giant vehicles that go down the street every year. And Parks, Beaches, and Rec. We would like Parks, Beaches, and Rec to come back. They were honored as Grand Marshals last year. Speaking of Grand Marshals, this year we'll be honoring the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America. So, after 250 years, we will be honoring, as Grand Marshals in the parade, our local veterans, our veterans of foreign wars, and we will have some interesting vehicles that we'll honor them and they can ride in. We will also be honoring equally the very first inhabitants of this land, which is the Ramatuchaloni. And we have families representing that group that will be in the parade also. So everyone come on down and please register. One week left for registration. And tomorrow I go after Recology and North Coast County Water District. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much, Robin. Welcome Margo, Takuko, and then Sophia and Jonah.

I'm going to use the box. Hi there. I have two things to discuss. Margo Meiman representing, first of all, the Pacific Beach Coalition. I want the community to know and city council to know about Coastal Cleanup Day on September 19th. It's the statewide event here in Pacifica happening between 9 and 11 a.m. To note, all of our events are happening on September 19th instead of the rotational schedule that we normally have. Our only event that is happening on its normal rotation is the Lindemar Habitat Restoration, but all the rest are happening on Saturday, September 19th. It's notable that this is the event where we count every single piece of trash that we pick up, every single bottle cap, food wrapper, cigarette butt. We keep track of all of that and we send that data to the California Coastal Commission. And it's this kind of data that can impact state legislation. So for example, it was coastal cleanup data that helped to enact the state's 2014 ban on single-use plastic bags and also help to inform the more recent update of that ban in 2026. So we would like to invite the community to join us for that event. And also there's going to be an informal celebration afterwards at Humble C and everybody is welcome to that as well. So now, switching gears, representing myself as a resident of District 5 and also giving voice to people who couldn't be here tonight in the community, I debated about whether to talk about this now or in the consent calendar, having to do with the Hillside Meadows project. I just want to Reiterate, there is a lot of community opposition to that project because of the environmental impacts, traffic implications, infrastructure demands, all of the above. I do want to say that I'm glad to see that Rincon Consultants is on the job to do the EIR, the Environmental Impact Report. Rincon was the company that did the greenhouse gas emissions analysis for the Climate Action Plan. Rincon Consultants is engaged with the San Mateo County and individual cities throughout the county on their sustainability efforts. I have faith that when Rincon does their environmental impact report, they are going to find all number of issues that will prevent the project from going forward. But I do want to reiterate that transparency is really, really important, keeping the community up-to-date on what the steps are happening and when the community can be involved. Thank you.

Thank you, Mariko. So Titicuco, Sophia, and then Latte Ramos. And I'm not seeing Takuko come up. So Sophia Entrana. She's there. Oh, she's there. Okay. I see you. So if the other two people could line up too, please. So Sophia and Latte. Sorry, did you call my name? Yes, I did. Yeah. Sorry, I'm not loud enough apparently. And yeah, please do use the little step there so we can see you.

Thank you.

I'm scared. Okay.

Good afternoon. Can you hear me?

Yeah, please put your mouth close to the mic so we can hear you properly. Hello.

Thank you. I think that public art should inspire love, peace, warmth, kindness, compassion, and generosity. Furthermore, that environment should bring feeling of safety and humanity. This building you are in right now is one of the best looking Spanish style building in Pacifica. When someone painted black on the outside wall of this building, I immediately felt uncomfortable. You do not paint black on Spanish style building. Spanish style architecture does not use black paint on wall surfaces. I called the planning department to find out more about public artwork. She said, you'd love a red lobster. I'm sorry, red octopus. And then she said, if you don't like the artwork, you can use a different street. So am I supposed to detour my everyday drive course and waste my gas and time to avoid public art? Red Octopus in Dark World as a public artwork appears in other cities too. However, the monster octopus which we have now is very scary to me. Why don't you walk alone next to the octopus wall after dark? Why don't you bring your children, grandchildren to octopus wall at night? One shiny eye on the wall look at you and red long leg will wrap around your body. There is enough scary things going on in the world. Why don't you have another scary things in peaceful Pacifica? City of Pacifica does not have to copy artwork from another city. I strongly suggest you replace a scary monster red octopus with a new artwork which convey love, peace, warmth, kindness, generosity. I hope city future public artwork always promote safety and humanity. Finally, I want to tell you that combination of red and black is color of Dracula, color of Dracula, red and black. So do not use red and black for your house. Each color has a meaning. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dr. Selfridge.

So Sophia Latte and then Anita Reese.

Good evening council members. My name is Sophia Introna and I'm a resident of Pacifica. I live on Esplanade Ave. I'm here tonight because I want to speak about an issue that has become increasingly frustrating for residents who live along Esplanade. The ongoing presence of large RVs parked along our street for extended periods of time. I want to be clear that I understand the complexity of homelessness and I understand that people living in vehicles need compassion and access to services. This is not about wanting to criminalize people for being unhoused. The truth is the RV issue at the present moment is actually being largely caused by individuals who park their RVs and aren't Pacifica residents. They're parking their RVs, playing a weekly Tetris game, and they're renting their RVs for people to live in them, with my knowledge is illegal. I think that this is something the city of Pacifica should investigate and these reports deserve to be looked into. Pacifica already has a 72 hour parking rule under the current ordinance, a vehicle that remains in the same location for 72, hours must be moved and at least a thousand feet and cannot return within a thousand feet for another 24 hours. The city also has an abandoned vehicle hotline which I think is a great resource. The problem is that from the perspective of residents on Esplanade, enforcements have not been consistent. Residents can make the calls, we can document the vehicles, We provide license plates and addresses, but when the same RVs continue to occupy the same area, sometimes for weeks or months, residents understandably begin to feel like the ordinance isn't actually being enforced. And this isn't just about parking. There are sanitation concerns associated with long-term RV habitation. When people are living in vehicles without access to regular sanitation facilities, there are inevitable concerns about trash, human waste, wastewater, and the cleanliness of the surrounding public space. This is a very practical safety issue. Last year, the bike lane markings were put in a long esplanade in effort, in part to create a clear separation between traffic, parking, and cyclists. But the RVs continue to park over the line, When these oversized vehicles extend to the bike lane or roadway, they create an obstruction and undermine the safety purpose of the infrastructure we've already invested in. And I think we should be willing to look at what other cities are doing. San Francisco implemented a two-hour parking restriction for large vehicles, including RVs. And I think we can do that. I believe they... And I'm out of time. Well, I'll come back and talk about this.

Thank you, Sophia. And you have my email. Latte, and then Anita, and then Kimberly Finale.

Hello, my name is Lottie and I'm Sophia's neighbor. I live on Esplanade for the last five years I also like to add to Sophia's comment like during my daily walk this morning I found soiled paper tissue on the beach also a soiled sweater and Of course, the regular coffee cups, soda cans, and beer cans, beer bottles. And it's just getting out of control. It's like I've been walking there every single day, and now it's like before I could carry the trash with my two hands, but now I feel like I have to carry a trash bag just to keep up with the trash. But, oh, we also have the wheels this morning, so... Thank you.

Thank you. So Anita, Kimberly, and then Cindy Abbott.

I probably should stand up, but I'm not going to. You're tall enough. I see you. My name is Anita Reese. I'm the Executive Director of the Pacific Air Resource Center, and I wanted to give you all some updates. We continue to be open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, 9 to 5. Wednesday is 9 to 7, and Friday is 9 to 1. And one Saturday a month, 9 to 1. We are closed for lunch Monday through Thursday, 12.30 to 1.30. Our next Saturday open hours is actually going to be in October because we have Palma Palooza this month, I mean in September, as well as Fogfest. We are continuing to provide groceries weekly at our pantry, and our next grocery distribution is this Wednesday at the American Legion Hall, which is at 555 Buell. If you haven't already signed up and need groceries, please arrive to the American Legion Hall around 4 o'clock, and we'll be sure to serve you and sign you up for next time. Our Unhoused on the Coast outreach team will respond for requests for outreach to unhoused folks in Pacifica through Pescadero every Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday, Sunday, and holidays, 9 to 5. So if you see someone living outside in vehicles, or another place not meant for habitation, please email us at ucoutreach at pacresourcecenter.org or call us at 650-452-6279. As of today, there are nine encampments in Pacifica, including two that are for the Safe Parking Program. This includes 84 individuals who are in those nine encampments and 48 that are not in encampments but in Pacifica. That means that there are 132 folks who are unhoused in Pacifica as of today, including 21 that are in the temporary safe parking program. I will say that that has increased slightly since the last time I came to council, and we have seen a decline in the number of people in encampments, most likely because of some closures and cleanups that have happened across the city. As part of our work with Partnership for the Bay's Future, we are having the second of three workshops on Wednesday the 26th at six o'clock at the Pedro Point Firehouse. The topic is Understanding Pacifica's Housing Element. The third workshop will be on the 9th of September and it will be on learning effective ways to influence policies. So hopefully folks can attend that. I also wanted to let you know that this year we provided 170 Pacific youth so far from 100 families with gift cards for backpacks and school supplies through our back to school program. And even though school has already started, please reach out if you need help. I'm running out of time, so please call us at 650-738-7470. Go to our website, pacresourcecenter.org, or email us at info at pacresourcecenter.org if you need help. Thank you.

Thank you, Anita. So, Kimberly, Cindy, and then my last card is Michael Waltman.

Good evening council members and staff. I just want to begin by acknowledging the city clerks, Sarah and Emily. Elections are before us and I know this adds a layer of work to the heavy load they already carry with such grace and professionalism. Thank you. My name is Kimberly Finale. I'm a resident of Pacifica. Grateful to be here. On Wednesday, August 5th, I made an intentional decision not to leave work early in order to attend the special council meeting held here as a procedural matter to place a new sales tax, Measure BB, on the upcoming November 3rd ballot. I rarely believe this, but I knew my two cents would make no difference as this body had already made up its mind. By all appearances, our citizens' local taxpayer dollars have been mismanaged for years, which would be why, it seems, we are headed towards bankruptcy. Now a decision has been made to continue us on the same old irresponsible path as has gotten us here, more status quo. The definition of insanity, repeating the same actions over and over again, expecting a different result. For some reason, the city of Pacifica and this council refuses to take a look at the top line items on our budget. The result is to continue to nickel and dime residents on the lower end of the income spectrum already struggling to put gas in the car and food in the fridge, enabling the city to continue mismanaging our funds. all while telling us, day in and day out, we need more affordable housing. Remember the last time a tax was added to the ballot for schools? Folks voted to pass that because they want quality education for their children, only to have Ocean Shore School close shortly after. That went over like a lead balloon and so will this new sales tax measure disguised as a stream of income to secure public safety when in actuality it will be directed to the general fund. Could this have anything to do with the mailer that I received a few months back suggesting that results to the city's recent survey with leading questions creating response bias and skewed data regarding public safety then mailing this to residents, the stated responses to the polling, which coincidentally resulted in a predetermined outcome. I find this scheme to be manipulating and a total misrepresentation. The City and Council has failed to request or look at alternatives regarding police and fire, only to suggest a higher tax on the people. I will vote no on the sales tax measure, and so will my fellow community members and neighbors who are struggling to make ends meet as we sit here tonight. Thank you.

Thank you, Kimberly. Cindy, and then Michael is my last card.

Good evening, Cindy Abbott. I'm happy to share with you that on August 11th, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved an e-bike ordinance for the unincorporated areas of San Mateo County. The hope is that this will be rolled out to additional jurisdictions using their work as a model, of course, making adjustments as applicable to the other cities, but to create an equal playing field across the county. Because bikers really don't necessarily have to pay attention to city lines. Additionally, AB 2595, Pappin, was approved on August 17th in the Senate by 36 to 1. On August 19th, the California Assembly approved it 75 to 0. This is another great way. It's on its way to the governor's desk, and it's a pilot program through to 2030 that establishes a program in San Mateo County authorizing local jurisdictions to restrict the use of class one and two electric bikes to children 12 years and older. The measure gives local communities tools to address young riders operating powerful e-bikes on neighborhood streets, bike paths, and school campuses. It's focused on youth, but accountability is shared with parents, guardians, held jointly responsible for problems. And it resolved things with a small fine structure, but ultimately the goal is to educate the community. Fines can be removed if an educational program takes place. I really hope that in the months to come we can have the eBike conversation that's on the work plan and to know that these are some tools that we have available to us, well-vetted programs that Pacifica can take part in. Thank you. Thank you, Cindy.

Okay, Michael.

Hi, Mike Wellman, D2. Good to see you again. So regarding flock, I've heard a lot of people mention that today. And there's reasonable concerns about public rights, Fourth Amendment, et cetera. However, I'm hearing the concern about finances. And we know that our police department is understaffed. We know that we have a budget crisis. And I think it will be important for the police when they give the presentation about automated license plate readers, both fixed and mobile, that we also hear about the benefits. How many crimes have been solved by the use of ALPRs? I don't know. I don't think anybody else in here does either. What would be the cost to increase our law enforcement as far as additional officers, more cars, additional gas, additional maintenance? What is the cost of that versus the cost of the ALPR system? We need to come into this conversation fully understanding what the impact will be if we remove these systems and how we will address that gap. It's going to be a tough conversation when that conversation comes up. Obviously, there's a lot of people both in Pacifica and around the US that are concerned about this technology. However, we do need to be mindful of how understaffed our police department is and the use of that tool perhaps bridging some of that gap. So let's make sure there's a full cost-benefit analysis of that tool and how we will address anything that's lost if it's removed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michael. Do we have anyone online, Emily?

There are two raised hands. The first is for Sarah Matlin.

Go ahead, Sarah.

Good evening. I live over the hill, but I'm walking in Pacifica because my best friend lives there. But while she and I search for whales using Pacifica whale spotting, ICE may be searching for our neighbors using Pacifica's flock cameras. Pacifica leaders are trying really hard to protect our community in the face of immense pressure. But over the last year, ICE took 140 of our San Mateo County neighbors from our community, and many of them were driving or getting out of their cars when ICE took them. To protect our community members from being kidnapped and to decrease the chances of another costly lawsuit, City Council should not renew the flock contract. But if you're going to insist on renewing a contract, I urge you to pass an ordinance with the best practices included to avoid some of the problems that have gotten other cities in trouble and even sued for violations. I'm one of a few local volunteers that are drafting a model ordinance the city could adopt, and I look forward to being in contact with you about that in the future. So, as an example, Pacifica's surveillance camera policy promises to implement guardrail processes to decrease improper data sharing. But according to the county's civil grand jury report, Pacifica's search logs reflect that data was shared with other agencies without using those processes, violating the city's own policy. The city shouldn't continue the FLOP contract, at least until you've studied the grand jury report and addressed problems in the FLOP contract and your surveillance camera policy. My best friend, a Pacifica homeowner, resident, and voter, is a naturalized citizen, and she's worried for her own safety in Pacifica because she speaks with an accent. So please don't assume Pacifica's block contract should be renewed. Surveillance cameras may seem like a cost-saving measure, but there's a huge hidden cost to paying flock to feed information into a violent deportation machine that is tearing our community apart. Please allow the contract to expire and instead use those funds to better protect our community. Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah.

The next raised hand is for Lila Raniero.

Go ahead, Lila. Hello? Hi.

Can you hear me?

Yep.

Okay. Good evening, mayor and council members and everyone. Given the city's current budget concerns, I think we need to look seriously at enforcement, collecting fines, and making sure we aren't leaving money on the table. When SDR operators are allowed to operate without a required permit, the city is losing not only the permit revenue, but also so many other revenues and fines associated with noncompliance. When our budget is under pressure, we simply cannot afford to overlook that. It also doesn't make sense to spend limited staff and taxpayer resources investigating violations if chronic violators can continue operating without meaningful consequences. We also need transparency. The public should have a clear easily accessible place to see where an SDR stands with respect to compliance, whether it's permitted, whether violations have been identified, whether enforcement is underway, and whether outstanding fines have been paid. If we're serious about addressing our budget challenges, we need to make sure that we are collecting revenue that is owed to the city, enforcing our ordinances, and not allowing noncompliance to be the cost of doing business.

Thank you.

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

With that, I will close public comment. City Manager, can I just ask, I know when we're doing agenda planning, sometimes we have things that are tentatively on the agenda, and FLOC is tentatively on the agenda for October 12th. When will we know for sure when that is coming to us?

So, there is a civil grand jury report on automated license readers in the county, and we are a named recipient statutorily required to provide answers. This is all public information. I don't want to stray too far on things that are not on the agenda. And we have a statutory deadline to provide comments to respond to that by the end of October. So within that time frame, we'll make it.

Okay, so sometime before the end of October.

Yes.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Just a little follow-up on that. What is the best way for people to get information about the FLOC program in Pacifica?

I think I'd reserve that answer until we come back with those responses and additional information on the contract. This item is not on the agenda. I do want to be cognizant and careful. You may have someone who may want to help you with that answer. I don't want to go too deep into this topic tonight. It's not on the agenda.

I know that's not appropriate. Thank you. But if people have questions, is it appropriate to email the police department with questions?

They can email me. They can email the police department.

Okay. Askcharpentier at pacifica.gov. And is it Pacifica Police at Pacifica.gov? I'm not sure what the general email is. hear that from our chief. And thank you so much for being at the Pacifica Democrats talking about this very issue just a couple weeks ago.

You're very welcome. Good evening, Madam Mayor and Council Members. Maria Sarasou, I proudly serve as your police chief. So any questions related to the flock camera system can be directed to our email address at police at pacificapolice.org or our transparency portal, which is on our department website. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Okay. Sorry. That brings us to item 12. I'm wondering if we need a little 10-minute break. That'd be great. Okay. So we'll take a break until 9 o'clock.

Recording stopped.

I NEED EVERYONE ELSE TO QUIET DOWN, PLEASE, INCLUDING MARA ESPINOZA IN THE BACK. ALL RIGHT. OKAY. SO OUR NEXT ITEM IS ITEM 10, WHICH IS A CONTINUATION OF THE PUBLIC HEARING TEXT AMENDMENT ABOUT THE DENSITY BONUS PROGRAM. ITEM 12. and the zoning regulations. So City Manager Charpentier?

Yes. So a public hearing on the proposed amendment to the density bonus and BMR's inclusionary housing program was scheduled for this meeting and staff required more time to pull together the documents and the complete staff report. So we are requesting that THE COUNCIL TAKE ACTION TO CONTINUE THE ITEM TO THE NEXT REGULARLY SCHEDULED MEETING ON SEPTEMBER 14TH. AND IF THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO WOULD LIKE TO PROVIDE PUBLIC COMMENT ON THIS ITEM BECAUSE THEY ARE HERE, WE WOULD RECOMMEND THAT WE TAKE THAT PUBLIC COMMENT.

OKAY. ARE THERE ANY COUNCIL QUESTIONS FIRST BEFORE PUBLIC COMMENT? NO. OKAY. OPENING PUBLIC COMMENT ON ITEM 12. I DON'T HAVE ANY CARDS. You can come up to the microphone if you want to speak. Is there anyone online, Emily? There are no raised hands.

Okay.

Closing public comment.

I move that we postpone the item to September 14th.

I'll second. Okay. Please vote.

The motion to continue the public hearing to September 14th, made by Councilmember Beckmeyer, seconded by Councilmember Beer, the motion passes unanimously.

THAT BRINGS US TO ITEM 13, THE DESIGNATION OF A VOTING DELEGATE FOR THE LEAGUE OF CALIFORNIA CITIES ANNUAL CONFERENCE. THAT'S TO YOU AGAIN.

SO CALIFORNIA CITIES IS THE STATEWIDE ORGANIZATION THAT IS DEVOTED TO REPRESENTING THE INTEREST OF CITIES THROUGHOUT THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA. THEIR ANNUAL CONFERENCE IS MID SEPTEMBER IN ANAHEIM STARTING ON SEPTEMBER 22 OR 23. And the action before you for this item is to, and at that meeting, they have an action item among their general members with one delegate from each city, I believe, voting on that action item. And the request before you tonight is to appoint a member of the Pacifica City Council to be the delegate and an alternate.

Okay. Any council questions?

How many members are attending?

The following are registered to attend. Vice Mayor Wright, Council Member Beckmeyer, and Council Member Espinoza. You're waving your hand like you're not sure.

You are. Okay. Okay. So all three of you. So it'll be between the three of you. Okay. Well, why don't we open up public comment first? I, again, don't have any cards. Don't see anybody getting up. Is there anyone online?

There are no raised hands.

All right. In a close public comment, would any of the three of you like to do it? I've done it before. You did it last year, right? Right, I think.

Sorry, I don't remember. I think I might have been the devoting delegate.

I think you did. I think I did it the year before. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I nominate Myra.

Second.

Do we need to vote?

Yes. Council members, also it requests an appointing an alternate or two alternates. So if you'd like to amend the motion to an alternate.

I propose, Greg, as the alternate. Okay.

Yes, I agree. Second.

Do we need to vote?

Yes.

Okay, so the motion is Myra as the representative and Greg as the alternate.

Yay.

See, I'm going to repeat the motion. Just like JPA.

And with the motion made by Council Member Beckmeyer to appoint Council Member Espinosa as the delegate and Vice Mayor Bright. as the alternate. The motion was seconded by Council Member Beer and passes unanimously. Perfect.

Okay. And then I think this is missing something. We have a discussion also about the resolution that's going to Cal Studies. I'm sorry, I don't see that. I'm 14. Oh, that is item 14. Okay, moving on to item 14. Thank you. So this is direction to the voting delegate regarding the conference resolution packet. And so I understand this is about a potential committee working group to look at some of the housing laws and perhaps finding a way to push back a little bit on the state and all that they're taking away in authority from us. But I should probably let city managers say all this instead of me that might be saying it wrong.

That was a better summary than the dry summary I'll give you. So the next action is related to the council providing direction to their delegate for that vote in the General Assembly. Cal Cities accepts resolutions from its member agencies for the membership to vote on. This one was prepared by the city of Murrieta. And specifically it is to direct the Cal Cities, the League of California Cities, to support the development and advancement of a state constitutional amendment or other legislative policy or ballot-based initiatives that restore and strengthen local authority over housing and land use matters within municipal boundaries, including general plans, housing elements, zoning, design, and development standards, project siting, and the approval or denial of housing development applications. And as was noted in the resolution from Murrieta, the state in the last 10 years has passed over 500 bills controlling or limiting what cities can and can't do. And my recommendation is to support this effort and be part of it as it proceeds through the Cal Cities process. It does not commit the city to ultimately supporting any particular outcome, but I think Pacifica has a unique voice in these questions given its role as a coastal community and also one who is a net housing provider.

And this committee, if I read correctly, would be, if they're looking at a ballot measure, that would be something in four years. So it's potentially a longer study.

I don't know what the timing would be. Or it could be legislation, or it could be both, as in legislation is please do this, or we're going to return to the ballot. I just don't know. But it is to try to have the cities have a unified voice on recognizing that there is a need for housing, but what is the appropriate way for the state and the appropriate balance of power between the state and the cities to best move that housing agenda forward.

Should we go to public comment?

Yeah, we can take public comment. Again, I have no cards. There are no raised hands. No raised hands. Okay. Closing public comment. In the future, may I? Yeah, yeah.

It's a bit of process. Assuming it is legislation or a ballot measure, it would come back to the council for support. So this does not denote support, sort of a blanket support for anything. Right, yeah.

Mayor Balz, we called for public comment rather quickly, and I did see a hand raised on Zoom.

Oh, I'm happy to reopen public comment, sure.

The raised hand is for Lila Raniero.

Okay, go ahead, Lila. Sorry to cut you off too quick.

No worries. I'm just going to say I'm all for the JPA action. I don't know all the details, but what I do know about it, it sounds like a great way to move forward and be united, especially for the multiple issues that we have, the SDR issue and also potentially the RENA numbers. That's it. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you so much, Mila.

There are no other raised hands.

I haven't studied the exact resolution. And I'm not sure what typically happens in these meetings. Like, would the delegate be voting on the exact wording in the resolution, or is there some discussion?

Well, I can give you a little overview. If you look at packet page... Oh, shoot, where is it? I was just looking at it. Oh, there's... some policy committees that it goes through. And one of those is going to be before the conference on September 17th, which it looks like is a Zoom opportunity. You don't have to go down there.

The housing community. Yeah, that's on page 361. Is it the 17th? And then there's 61.

There's a couple of meetings during the conference itself. So page 361. So the general consideration of the General Assembly at 8.30 in the morning on Friday the 25th. And oh no, there's the resolutions committee on Thursday the 24th at 1 p.m. at the conference. So if you want to learn more about the actual debate or discussion, I found going to that session on Thursday the 24th is supplements reading the material that we have in our packet. And then the actual voting, the time that the delegate does the actual voting is on Friday the 25th. But sometimes at that committee meeting, Like the resolutions committee could amend it so much or do something that it negates even having the vote on Friday morning. I've seen that happen. So be prepared that the vote is happening, but you'll be notified if it's off. Now, so that's the process as I understand it. Then the issue is we're supposed to, on this item, give you direction of our feedback, kind of. of what we think about this resolution.

And the resolution itself, it starts on page 366. It's just a page and a half long.

And I don't know if a state, I mean, I think it'll come out of committee as to whether the correct decision is to do a state constitutional amendment. It seems like that's one of the possibilities that they're, well, that's exactly what they're calling for. They want a working group to consider a state constitutional amendment or other form of initiative to ensure final local authority over housing and land use decisions. So I support that and I think like all things, the details are what matter. I did take a quick glance at the cities that had signed on and had letters of support And two of them, Norco and Torrance, are charter cities. So that's one thing, charter cities are different than general law cities, and we're a general law city. So basically, as it states in the packet, in the analysis, we as a general law city must conform to state laws. Charter cities have more leeway and ability to modify them, but we have to do what the state law says. And so that's what I think the frustration level with these cities that have put this forward is they want to bring back some of that control through the possibility of doing this working group at least to start and then decide if there should be a measure, a statewide measure or constitutional amendment. So I don't I think at this point, find out, right? I mean, we've certainly had a lot of impacts. I think for us, the biggest one I would carry forward is we are subject to the Coastal Commission, and we are subject, like everyone, to Housing and Community Development. And there's a lot of tension between those two, and it's often not clear which one we answer to. Well, they both say me, and And sometimes there are conflicts there. That's just one thing to bring forward from our point of view.

And they don't mention that here. So that's something that I think is really important to bring up to make sure that that's something that they include in their study.

Yeah, because I don't, I mean, honestly, I'm really bad with geography, but it doesn't look to me like any of these are coastal cities. The ones that submitted letters. That doesn't mean there might not be coastal cities attending that session on the 24th.

They're not. They're mostly Inland Empire.

Yeah.

Torrance is close, but maybe not right on the coast.

They're one of the charter cities.

So one of the paragraphs in the resolution that I thought really explained this very well says, whereas increasingly prescriptive statewide housing mandates and development approval requirements CAN OVERRIDE LOCALLY ADOPTED PLANS, ZONING STANDARDS, AND PUBLIC REVIEW PROCEDURES WITHOUT ADEQUATELY ACCOUNTING FOR DIFFERENCES THAT EXIST IN EACH UNIQUE JURISDICTION IN INFRASTRUCTURE CAPACITY, WATER AVAILABILITY, WILDFIRE AND EVACUATION RISKS, ENVIRONMENTAL CONSTRAINTS, FISCAL IMPACTS, PUBLIC SURFACE NEEDS, AND COMMUNITY PRIORITIES. SO THIS IS WHERE LIKE ALL THE STATE LAWS ARE TAKING AWAY OUR ABILITY TO EVEN REVIEW THESE PROJECTS AND CONSIDER THESE THINGS. And it is becoming more and more problematic. So that'd be great. And then I said the first meeting is of the housing subcommittee. Sorry, what were they called again? The policy committee. Yeah. So that's the housing community and economic development committee. And I don't know if you know Rebecca Flynn. She's on the council in Portola Valley, but she sits on that committee. So she'd be a good person to talk to. I can introduce you by email or something ahead of time if you'd like. Yeah.

Not to stifle discussion, but I'm prepared to make a motion.

Any other concerns, questions, input? All right, then go for it.

I'm prepared to move that we follow Sean's recommendation to move this forward.

Second.

So we vote, Sarah? Is that enough? This is a voting item? Yes. What he said. Okay. Okay. Move it forward. Yes. I voted.

And the motion to support a position of approval, providing that to the delegate to the Cal Cities, made by Vice Mayor Wright, seconded by Council Member Beer. The motion passes unanimously.

Great. Great. SO WE HAVE TWO MORE THINGS ON OUR AGENDA, COUNCIL COMMUNICATIONS, WHICH WE HAVEN'T DONE IN A WHILE, AND THEN STAFF COMMUNICATIONS. SO ANY COUNCIL MEMBERS LIKE TO PROVIDE AN UPDATE? I CAN START IF NOBODY IS READY. IF YOU WANT A LITTLE MINUTE. I still feel like I have to say this. Peninsula Clean Energy, now Westlight Energy, we met in July. And one exciting thing, we've just approved the first microgrid project for the county, which will be in Pescadero. So that's a community that gets really isolated. Their power goes out a lot, and with their power goes their water supply, which is also... well-based. And so they've just been awarded a PG&E grant to do that work, plus $10 million from West Light Energy and $3 million from the county. So that's quite exciting. And then we've been talking about the GovPV programs, and that's how we've gotten the solar carport at the Civic Center and the solar on our community center and batteries are still optional for both of those projects. So they want to continue investing in helping cities electrify and reducing their electric bills and greenhouse gas emissions, but are deciding not to fund all this themselves because it takes away from their investments in other projects. So they were looking at iBank financing. And unfortunately, the rates are too high to make sense for cities to take that up. So we're regrouping about that. But that program is still a commitment that West Light Energy wants to work on. So just a few things. I want to highlight the county VLF meeting. on the 13th was really powerful. And Jackie Speier ended up taking my recording and my testimony up there for the Finance Committee at the state level. But unfortunately, they didn't really get any sympathy. The hope was that the state might put something on a trailer bill that would fix this problem more long-term. So I think the county is still working on an action plan, but it's really going to need to focus now on Becerra and then continued pressure on other assembly members and senators. A lot of them and the rest of the state have this impression that we're a wealthy county and we don't really need this money, and that's just not true. So this is part of our fair share that all the other cities and counties get. And we happen to be a donor County giving back more to the state and taxes then then they return to us Just like the state is to the federal government, but that doesn't mean we don't have needs to take care of our our staffing and Community services and so forth so this four and a half million that's at risk for Pacifica next year would just be devastating on top of our budget issues and I'm sure most of us were at the short-term rental hearing in person or remotely. Thank you all for being there. I just want to make sure people know there's a joint council and planning commission meeting tomorrow night starting at 6 right here to talk about next steps. And then Myra and I went to an Urban Land Institute training last Friday. was a joint program with Partnership for the Bay's Future that the city has an intern working with too. So this was officially like urban planning for elected officials. So we had like a fake city with multiple blocks that they had a fire and we had to figure out the combination of housing and commercial parks and other services and not just like design the layout, but also like run the financials. And my team had a very beautiful one, but we lost because we didn't make as much money as the others. She had a lot of open space. Oh, really?

Parks don't count. And not only that, the city had to pay 50% of that open space, plus they didn't have enough houses. So rate of return was very low.

Myra's team did better. All right, Myra's team, what did your project do?

Same thing. Well, one of the things that they didn't, we have some open space too, but not like Christine. But the people who did win, they were not like, I didn't like their project. They didn't have any, only one park. And the other thing is, like, the council were investors. How could you present that to them? They liked that project because they have a lot of houses. But anyhow, it was a lot of fun to do that.

It's a good day, isn't it? Yeah. And the other thing I learned, and I think Community Development Director Updegrave knows about this too, but The Urban Land Institute has this, they call it a TAP program, Technical Assistance Panels, where cities can invite them to look at an issue. It could be related to ordinances. It could be related to urban planning. And I was thinking that would be a super cool thing to do for Manor, you know, between all the housing and redevelopment of Manor Plaza, the freeway going in, and then the issues with coastal erosion. You know, it's quite complex. So anyway, we'll have to talk about that a little bit more next year if we have capacity to bring that on.

Through the mayor, we are in discussion with them about a tap.

Uh-huh. Awesome. Nice. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Okay. Anybody else?

I have a couple notes from North County Water District meeting on the 19th. And I keep listening carefully whenever they talk about recycled water because I know that there's a lot of folks that are anxious to be able to go to the new North County Water District facility and collect their recycled water. There are people very near to us sitting on this dais who are also part of those desiring that. There's some bioassay testing that has to happen in our wastewater area and also at North County Water District and that work is supposedly happening next week. So I'm fingers crossed that they're going to pass with flying colors and very soon we'll be getting notice of when we'll be able to get water. The other thing that I mentioned to the city manager that I wasn't aware of is implementation of Assembly Bill 1572 which is the use of potable water on non-functional turf. And there are three deadlines, Jan 1 of 27, 28, and 29, depending on who you are, what entity you are, and cities and school districts are in the first batch. And so there's definitions of what is functional turf, obviously playing fields, things like that. But I was interested to hear in the presentation that even if it doesn't seem like functional turf, but there are trees present, then it's considered functional turf, helping to hold water, I guess, for the trees or whatever. So I know city staff will be on this in terms of assessing what is our potentially non-functional turf. I think the big issue is we may have what we consider to be turf, it's all about are you irrigating it or not. So we were thinking about the area next to Sanchez Library. I don't think that's irrigated. I mean, grass grows there sometimes, but it's also really kind of, you know where the Frisbee golf thing is? So anyway, that was interesting and useful. And the next tank that they're going to work on is the Fassler tank. They've completely signed off, I'm pretty sure.

On the Sheila tank.

On the Sheila tank, yeah. Yeah, so. And then we heard that there may be an increase in the height of the existing cell tower that they have there. Oh, in fact, I think that is going to be increased, which, you know, good news, bad news, people don't like seeing those. But on the other hand, it might help her. really not good coverage in that area of town. So that's all I have there. Then the other thing I wanted to report that I don't have the specifics on, I can share once I get the slides and look for the real information. I understand that the funding source in the, I don't know, probably hundreds, Sean, you could tell us, hundreds of thousands at least, maybe more, from PG&E that supported all kinds of things like RICAPs and, you know, which we use to help our... Climate Action Plan. Climate Action Plan, all of that. It comes, the source of these funds, one big source is PG&E, and there's some kind of grant program to the county. That is not going to be renewed. That funding source is going in a year. I think it's not, like, immediately. But there were, at the resource... Management and Climate Protection Committee meeting, a whole host of things that we just, I just sort of take for granted as existing, and now they're in jeopardy. Because, and certainly with VLF, it's not like, oh, the county will just pick it up. Do you have any other information on that?

The county, it flows through CCAG, and PG&E provides $800,000 to a million a year, and it does expire They indicated that they were ending the program, I think, in December of 27, I think. And it does fund a lot of the climate action protection activities, a lot of the technical support for all of our climate action plans. It is a huge risk.

Yeah. So that wasn't good news. That's what I have.

I'll go ahead. Okay. Yeah, so the Coastal Commission meeting was interesting. Thank you for those of you out in the audience who were there. I think that made a huge difference, having us be there. I think it made a difference to our community, seeing us there. I wasn't able to stay for the whole thing, but I certainly listened the whole way home. And then when I got into the classroom, listened with the students that I work with, my leadership program. So yeah, there was some learning moments there as I was screaming my head off in the classroom. But yeah, so I just felt good to represent our community for this whole entire time, right? This whole time we've been talking about SDR. So I look forward to our conversation tomorrow night with planning. You know, I just want to say a couple little things about OSPAC, our Open Space and Parkland Advisory Committee. For one, I want to thank Aaron, who is the chair. And he is doing a fantastic job. Awesome. You know, you put someone with a lot of energy in a leadership position, and you just let them go. And he's doing great. So way to go, Aaron. And I just want to thank them. They're doing some really great work. You know, they have trail days. once a month, and they're doing a lot of youth involvement, which is wonderful. They're going to do a program with the library, with stickers, and all kinds of things. So they're doing some really innovative things in OSPAC. So it's fun to be there. So way to go. And then I just want to remind everybody that we are, I'm a board member for HOPE, which is Healing Overdose Prevention Education. And we are having our memorial walk, our third memorial walk this weekend, Saturday at Valley Mar School from 10 o'clock to 3 o'clock. It's a long event, but there's really great speakers and some educational components and resources. And then there'll be a memorial walk down to the memorial gardens. So please join us. It's really also empowering to do work with people who are grieving. And I know, you know, from the experiences that my family had when we were grieving and we started doing work in prevention, so it's really good for me to be a part of that and kind of help them through that, those pieces, because it can get very personal. Yeah. And so come out and join us. It's going to be great. And thanks, Greg, for being there.

Happy to do it. I've been doing a few things. I've been working a little bit on the VLF thing, both at the meeting we went to and quite a bit of work behind the scenes. I've done a little bit of reaching out to a lot of our state representatives to work on some things. I've been trying to work on a bunch of stuff with PRC. I'm very much hoping that we get to make their dream come true at some point. Through a bunch of advocacy work in collaboration with some people at the county, similar to what some others sitting up here are doing, I hope that we see we can make a wish come true. That would just be a very wonderful and inspirational thing. And I'm on a number of other committees and commissions as well, doing advocacy. Love the work that we've been doing on BPAC. That was fun. And having some successes and bringing some stuff home. I was very disappointed with the Coastal Commission hearing, both from a process perspective and a results perspective, but I was really glad that we were there and that, Myra, you were online there supporting us behind the scenes. I greatly appreciate that. And it is a refreshing change to get emails complimenting are extremely hardworking staff when they do extremely good work. And it makes me very proud of our city and proud of our staff and proud to be a Pacifican. And we're lucky to have them. That's about it.

And I just want to thank Sarah Coffey. Sarah is such an expert. an important person on council. Like, I will say, if we don't need anybody, I think we need Sarah Coffey. So you'll be the hero, and you are the hero for all of us, Sarah, and I do appreciate you. I just want to say thank you to you.

Thank you, Council Member Breskinosa. Thank you.

I'm just going to make one other.

Sorry, Emily, you too. Sarah, Emily, both.

It's hard not to then start listing out everybody else's name that's here in the room. I see you. Just one other event that's coming up on August 30th. The Historical Society is having a presentation, Pacifica's Pier, History and Celebration. There's going to be food in the courtyard from Pacifica. between the church and the city buildings. From noon to 1.30, the chit-chat is providing the food that you can purchase. And then from 2 to 3.30, there are displays and a program inside the Little Brown Church. I've met this... writer who lives near the pier and who has written a whole book of beautiful stories. The name is Spell Heaven, and a lot of them about the pier, but more than the structure, the people that are there and the community that are there. And she'll be doing a reading from her beautiful book. And there'll also be paintings of the pier from different community members. And I'm honored. The one I did as a goodbye present for Kevin will be hanging there too. So I can't be there. I'm really sad to miss it.

It's the 30th. 30th. Sunday.

Yeah. It's coming Sunday.

I wanted to mention that I think, I'm not 100% sure, but Fairmont Homeowner Association is going to donate some money for... around the child care center at Fairmont. It is kind of depressing there, so I asked them if they have extra income so they could help us to beautify that area, and they're considering that. So hopefully we will have a nice little garden around that child care center.

And around the new bathroom.

Yes, I'm excited to see that.

All right. City Manager Sharpentier.

Good evening. A couple things. Council Member Espinoza is right. The two most important people in the city structure are the clerk and the person who sends out the paychecks. Just as a friendly reminder, the Council and the Planning Commission have a joint study session tomorrow at 6, and then the Planning Commission has a study session immediately, I'm sorry, a special meeting tomorrow with action items immediately following that on the STR topic. And then we are also recruiting for our committees, and I just want to make sure I use this opportunity to let folks know that we have two vacancies on the Climate Action and Resilience Committee, two positions on the Economic Development Committee, Two positions on the Emergency Preparedness and Safety Commission and three positions on the Library Advisory Committee. And the application timeframe is noon on September 4th, Friday, September 4th.

A little short to find people. Is that September 4th? September 4th.

That's for the applications for the people to put in their papers. Oh, okay. It's been posted.

Our meeting hasn't been set yet. Right. Sarah? No, it depends on the number of applications that come in. Sometimes if we don't have enough applications, we'll extend by a week or two, and that may be the case with the number of positions. We are recruiting for a few youth positions, particularly on the Climate Action and Resilience Committee and also on the Library Advisory Committee.

Someone was asking me about that. Can you clarify? Because we have two youth on the Climate Advisory Committee now, and those are yearly positions.

So are those the two positions? The two positions on the Climate Action and Resilience Committee are for the one-year youth positions that are expiring terms. So for the Climate Action and Resilience Committee, a youth position is defined as youth ages... between 14 and 25, so covering kind of college age, providing that one-year position so that they don't need to commit to a full four-year position.

And then one of the two on the library is a youth?

The library advisory committee, there are two youth positions on that one as well, and those are for one-year terms that expire annually in October. Okay. And for the Library Advisory Committee, the youth positions are defined as under the age of 18.

Ordinarily, it's not best practice, is my understanding. But since we're having a joint study session, should we leave after the study session? Or is it OK to stay and watch the Planning Commission meeting?

No.

Go home, Greg. The safest harbor would be to not be in the same room WITH EACH OTHER GIVEN THAT THE PLANNING COMMISSION ACTION MAY COME BEFORE THE CITY COUNCIL FOR ACTION. AND IF COUNCIL MEMBERS SO DESIRE TO STAY IN THE ROOM AND LISTEN, WHICH WOULD NOT BE THE SAFEST HARBOR, THEN TO SIT AS FAR APART AS POSSIBLE.

BUT THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BECAUSE IT WAS A STUDY SESSION. THAT WAS THE DISTINCTION. prior to it that I was looking for, but I hear you. I will follow the best practice.

Okay. With that, I'll adjourn our meeting at 9.46 p.m.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you. I got to go find Jessica.