City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, just as a reminder, we have a special meeting starting. So we're going to convene the regular meeting and the special meeting together at 535. So just in case folks are wondering. My bad. The special meeting starts at 845. I was just operating off of our regular special meeting time. So it is 530. We're going to go ahead and call the City Council meeting July 28th to order. And I would love if Council Member Snell could lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

All rise.

And Councillor Raskin, could you read the land acknowledgement?

The City of Santa Monica is located on the land of Tobongar. With great respect, the city acknowledges the Gabrielino Tongva as the first people of this ancestral and unceded territory of Corvonga, a village that we know today as Santa Monica. We honor their elders, past and present, and the Gabrielino descendants who are part of the Gabrielino Tongva tribes. We recognize that these peoples are still here, and as settlers and kuyam, or guests, we recognize our responsibility and obligation to care for their land in partnership with them. The city of Santa Monica commits to work in partnership with Gabrielino Tongva people to uplift their voices and visibility on their ancestral lands.

Thank you so much, Madam Clerk, for the roll call.

Councilmember Negrete? Here. Councilmember Hall?

Present.

Councilmember Raskin?

I'm here.

Councilmember Snell? Here. Councilmember Zarniskaya? Here. Mayor Potemcwik is not here yet. And Mayor Tarosis?

Here. The Clerk will ask if any Councilmembers are recusing themselves on any items pursuant to the Levine Act. Great. Before we get started, I would move, I would ask for a motion for agenda management to move the City Manager and Mayor's Highlight report to before general public comment. I would also ask that we hear 16F and 11D together pertaining to the same topic, and I would ask that we put 13A on the missing middle housing before 11 um the 11 items on the regular meeting i'll i'll second make that motion oh my apologies my apologies we also would like to just for those of you who are here for the appointments um i'm going to ask for a motion that we move 16c to the next meeting where we have September 8th meeting. Sorry, I was going to say the next meeting where all the council members are here. Yeah, September 8th. I would like to make that motion.

I'm sorry, question.

Is Mayor Prudence not attending tonight?

Well, I don't know, but he's not here right now and I'm moving.

Why would we move 16C beyond tonight?

Because we have a very full agenda and we're trying to be more efficient with our time. And those are not required to happen tonight. You don't have to vote yes on this. Okay. Does someone, Councilmember Snell is making the motion? I'll second it. Thank you.

I'll just note for a couple of all the appointments to the, you probably know this, but the appointments to the Restorative Justice and Housing and Human Services Commissions are separate items.

And they have to happen because there are not any seated members of those commissions, whereas there are seated members of the others. And just in case people aren't following, our council meeting is slated to go very, very late tonight. That's why we're trying to do this, and we're trying to do it in a timely manner. So I guess we have a motion and a second.

So I'd like to make a substitute motion, please.

Okay. Every agenda management you said, with the exception, can we separate the question to do one of the commissions tonight from 16C?

Yes, that's fine.

I would like to do the Planning Commission tonight and do the rest later.

Okay. Is there a second for that?

I'll second that.

Okay. We can do a voice vote for that. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

No.

No.

Okay.

All right. So then we're going to go with this.

We have four votes for that. Yes. Yeah. So we're, just in case everyone didn't hear, to restate We are going to move the City Manager's report and the Mayor's highlight to before public comment. We are gonna hear 16F and 11D together. We're gonna put 13A before 11, and we are gonna continue everything under 16C with the exception of the Planning Commission.

So Mayor, we can now move to the City Manager report.

We do, okay. We, go ahead, City Manager Gee.

I'm sorry, let me see if we have any public comment on that. I guess we can just ask if anyone wants to speak on the city manager report.

Is there any public comment directly on the city manager's report? Ms. Montaner, please.

Before our city manager gives his report, I heard through the grapevine that 1,000 tickets for Ocean Way are put aside for residents, low-income residents, that will be for $15. I remember that I brought that to the attention of Lana Negrete when she was advertising Ocean Way and I was told that they are going to be administered by the social services department and I just want to make known if that is true. It's one of my sources told me that information because it has not been brought to the public and a lot of people are buying tickets that sometimes cannot afford a ticket. So if $1,000 tickets are going to be available for residents of low income for $15, I think today will be a good day to announce that.

Point of personal privilege. She's looking at me, but I did not say that that was the case. She just brought it up to me. I don't know about that. I know there's a 50-50 opportunity where you can pay half now and half later, but I don't know if there's slowing.

You know, I'm not familiar with what source shared that information.

It's a city employee at the city, at the state of the city event, and it was a city employee who shared that information.

I'm not aware of that program, but we'll definitely look into it. Yes.

Well, Mayor Mamdani did something similar and there were thousands of tickets given to New York residents for the FIFA World Cup. And I think it's a good initiative to allow people that live in Santa Monica and that will be impacted by this event in and that are been living for a long time to really consider those residents and get a felt and tickets for them. So thank you so much.

Thank you. Great. Mr. City Manager. Thank you.

Madam Mayor, members of the Council, I have a brief update to share with everyone this evening. First is in the last couple weeks we've had a lot going on in Santa Monica. We're incredibly excited that we're able to welcome Coast back to the city as part of the final World Cup match back on July 19th. City team did a great job in working with Metro and our event partners to develop a terrific open streets festival, which was quickly followed up with our State of the City event this past Thursday. It's the second year in a row that we have done a community focused outdoor festival type event. The team at the city just did a terrific job shutting down Main Street. We had a chance to have multiple booths out on the street. a great activation as part of the mayor stated the city address. We even got to watch some live performances and the reveal of our 2027 Rose Parade float design, complete with Sergio, the carousel horse, who's now living down in the lobby of City Hall. We hope everyone will come by and take a selfie with Sergio.

Why is Sergio important?

Sergio is very important. The carousel horse in the basement named Sergio will be the Sergio carousel horse that is on the actual float as we get ready for the Rose Parade. And all of the folks that had a chance to put their thumbprint or paint it, everyone is part of, all of those folks will be part of our actual float as we get ready for the Rose Parade January 1st, 2027. was mentioned a little bit earlier during public comment, but the inaugural Ocean Way Festival was announced for September 26th and 27th. This is the first year that Santa Monica will be hosting this music and cultural event produced by Golden Voice. The lineup features headliners Olivia Dean, The Killers, a full lineup of other incredible artists that Councilmember Snell and I are busy trying to get to know. A lot of playlists have been updated and we are getting familiar with the incredible acts that will adorn our shore in a couple of weeks. Tremendous buzz, a lot of events and activity and excitement here in Santa Monica and we'll have more to share in the coming weeks. One more note, I hope everyone makes time on Tuesday, August 4th to join us for National Night Out, hosted by our Police Department. On August 4th, the event will last from 5 to 8 p.m. right out in front of City Hall. There is a Hollywood theme this year, Lights, Camera, Community, and it will be a terrific event here in Santa Monica. We encourage everyone to join us. Last notes of this meeting. We wanted to share with everyone our adoptable pet of the meeting is with us this evening that adoptable pet of the evening is still a growing puppy. Carnation. Everyone say hello to Carnation. Carnation is a nine-month-old German Shepherd. And as a growing German Shepherd, sometimes Carnation forgets his own size, but he loves people. He loves other dogs. He has a ton of energy and would love to find a home that would invest in bringing Carnation into their family. If you're interested in meeting Carnation, No, any of our furry friends at the animal shelter, please make sure you contact us and you can, as always, you can, you can kiss carnation and visit the Santa Monica Animal Foundation website to make a donation or shop the chewy wish list.

Does carnation want to come back here?

That Madam Mayor that completes our report for the evening.

Thank you so much. How long has carnation been at the shelter? Do we know? How long has it been? Oh, okay. Carnation needs a home, everyone. Okay. With that being said, we're gonna move on to the mayor's highlights. Nine months, apparently, right? Ish. Very, very cute. All right, so. For our mayor's highlight tonight, we are going to be honoring the finance department for the amazing work that they've been doing. And I want to say a little bit about what has been happening and then we'll read off the names and our team will hand out some proclamations. So one Samo values of humility, integrity, motivation and care are reflected in the work of our finance that our finance department does every day. Well, every team in finance embodies these values tonight. We are recognizing our budget and procurement teams for demonstrating them in extraordinary ways through an especially challenging period. Our budget team has worked tirelessly over the past several years to keep pace with the city's evolving needs while delivering predictable, high quality customer service and strong strategic financial planning. Managing a budget is a year round effort and this team handles that constant workload with professionalism and a commitment to serving our client departments with a smile. During a period marked by shifting priorities, new advisory revenue measures and major organizational changes, Every member of our five-person team stepped up to get the work done. Together, they produced multiple budgets, delivered long-range financial forecasts that shaped council priorities, and supported citywide realignment efforts. These accomplishments reflect a team that consistently meets demanding timelines, provides thoughtful and strategic analysis, and supports major council decisions during a period of constant change. all while demonstrating exceptional commitment, adaptability, teamwork, and unwavering customer service. As we recognize the tremendous work of our budget team, it is equally important to acknowledge the dedication of our procurement team, who have been navigating their own set of challenges with the same commitment to serving the organization. Procurement team. Our procurement team has weathered an extraordinary amount of change over the past few years, working through multiple leadership transitions, shifting service expectations and continuous updates to how we administer the city's procurement policy. The team has consistently adapted to new technologies and new implementation standards, all while keeping purchasing activity moving and supporting departments across the organization. As we now embark on a full modernization of the city's procurement policy, we want to acknowledge how much disruption the entire team has had to navigate. Their ability to stay flexible, their ability to stay flexible, patient and committed has been remarkable. With new expectations for how we deliver procurement services and a major policy overhaul underway, they are once again challenged to think on their feet and pivot quickly to minimize service disruption. Through all of this, the team has shown professionalism, resilience, and a willingness to keep moving forward, and we deeply appreciate the steadiness they continue to bring during a period of constant change. So thank you all. We really, really appreciate you. I know it's been a tough few years here, and so I'm going to call up the budget team. Jennifer Young, Lori Coe, Andrew Lee, Shane Lee, and Laura Perez. If you guys want to come up, we're going to hand your certificates, and then I'll come down. And our procurement team, Ola Skordeev, Monique Carter, Tina Solutos, Denise Mixon, Kelly McDonald, Nicole Hurd, Rahul Bhatia, and Alicia Morinaka. Really just thank you all so much. And now we're going to take a picture. Do you want to say anything, Oscar? Just go tell your team how awesome they are.

Well, they are awesome. I just want to thank them for their hard work and for always being patient and always going with the flow. So we change things and they just adjust. And you guys are great. So thank you. We get our work done because of you guys. So thank you.

We will now move on to general public comment. and comment on special agenda items. And we have 21 speakers and I do not see any on the phone for this.

So yes, we do. We have three.

Oh, we have three that are not on my thing. Okay. So that means we have 24 speakers. Everyone gets two minutes if they need it. Brett Morrow, Susan Whitmore, John Medlin, Bill Davids, Harvey Eder.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. I just want to say congratulations on the homeless count. I mean, these are encouraging results. Everyone involved from the Housing and Human Services Department, our outreach teams, our nonprofit partners, our police department should be proud of the progress. An 11.6% decline in homelessness, an 18.7% decline in unsheltered homelessness, that's significant, especially when there were increases across the county, across the city of Los Angeles as well. And what these numbers do tell us is that the direction is right. You know, we can't take our eye off the ball. 718 people experiencing homelessness in this city is still too many. But we know now, housing first works. Strong coordination works. Partnership works. Homelessness prevention works. And yes, harm reduction works. When we invest in proven strategies and stay focused on outcomes, we help more people move from the streets into housing where they can receive the services and support that they need. Thank you.

Thank you. Is Susan Whitmore here? I am.

Hi. I'm Susan, and I'm a grandmother, a single grandmother of three. My biggest concern is safety and violence in movies. Right now, I took my grandkids to see a PG-13 movie. And the trailers were for a movie called Ice Cream Man. And they were violent. And they were just awful. And my grandkids, of course, wanted to see it. So is there any way that we could prevent that, those trailers from being in the movies?

I'm asking that's all I'm sorry this is not a unfortunately not a question and answer of time but I'm sure our staff could chat about setting up okay yeah thank you but thanks for being here thank you John Medlin Bill Davids Harvey Etter Jonathan Foster good evening mayor city council members

Today there are three dates to remember. First, July 28, 1945, 9.40 a.m., an American B-25 bomber in dense fog crashed into the Empire State Building in New York City. Twelve people died. At that same time, I was born in Charleston, South Carolina. Second, April 4, 2016, Pico neighborhood filed suit for equal district voting. Third, October 26, 2016, 89 days from today, LA County Superior Court will again hear the case 10 years and $14.5 million later through June of 2025, not 26. So far in fiscal 26 at $4,283 per day, physically distressed Santa Monica, has accrued an additional $1.7 million in legal costs. Aside from the historical pain to our Hispanic and racial minorities over the 70 years before the case was filed in 2016, now is the time for this current city council to finally grant power to the people, power to our neighborhoods, October 26, 2026, 89 days from today. Do your job, folks. Thank you.

Power to the people and power to the neighborhood. Thank you. Bill Davids, thank you for Madam City Attorney.

First, I want to acknowledge Romy's responses to tenants concerning 220. I'm here because we still have issues in the building. I'm a senior, and I'm very concerned about the debilitated and failed conditions of the tenants in the building who are seniors. And we also have tenants who have medical conditions who are not seniors. There has been a one size fit all approach to what has been going on at 220. It's unacceptable. I would like to see the City Council agendize a much better way of doing in-place tenant construction, because what is happening at 220, in my mind, is reprehensible, unacceptable, and this has to be agendized, and it could never happen again in the City of Santa Monica. I'm concerned about my fellow seniors, and I once said that I'm a youngster compared to some of the seniors who are in the building. I haven't reached the point where I'm completely falling apart. I'm on my way, but I haven't completely fallen apart yet. But I did email Council Member Negrete concerning some suggestions for an ordinance to correct what we have been going through. Something very productive and constructive has to come out of the ashes of 220. Thank you.

Great. Thank you so much. I I don't want to get into a topic here, but I believe our city attorney team is working on this, and there there is some stuff in the realignment plan to address this particular issue. But again, I think it would be helpful if we continue to take feedback from Mr. Davids. I know this is not like a discussion. This is not agendized, so we're going to move on. Harvey Eder. Okay, Jonathan Foster. Oh, Harvey editors here, and then Jonathan Foster.

Good evening. My name is Harvey. I'm speaking for myself for public solar power coalition for housing, energy, transportation, climate projects. We've submitted several documents to you, some that we did before with improvement. It was a pre notice given at the last meeting of stuff that we gave before about litigation that you all threw away. A couple of times, it's all illegal and outrageous. There's no information in here, and we've been working with from the Housing Commission, from Commissioner Gordon, that there's a case, homeless people in Sacramento, the union against city and county of Sacramento, and step up. Okay, now they're saying, because there's a $3 million a fraud penalty that was paid to Department of Justice by Step Up. And because of that, they said there was an illegal eviction in Sacramento and they should not have been consorting or contracting with them. That applies to y'all. You just gave $120 million across from 2nd Street, a million dollars a unit, okay? So that case is a federal case out of the Eastern District of California. I'm incorporating by reference 01186 2-26, okay? It's 49 pages, and we've been working with those folks. So this is also, from 22, there was the housing industrial complex. That's what's up. And they gave a Pulitzer Prize this year for working poor. So that's up as well. And this is what's being challenged, and it applies here to equity and whatnot. Okay, so also we have in here on the 17th, the work that we're doing with the Air District. It's about these fires and air pollution and all this. This PM is killing people and coming from the vehicles and from the fires. And that's climate, and that's real. And Trump was in denial of this, but he said it wasn't a Chinese hoax on 60 Minutes and 18. And he's got to be slammed on it. We've got to take out Republicans that cannot be able to run for office because their party is illegal.

Thank you. I'll call a few more names as Mr. Foster comes up. Joanne Leslie, Reverend Jim Kahn, Vivian Rothstein, Denise Barton. Are you ready, Mr. Foster, or do you want to defer? Is Joanne Leslie here? Yeah, we would love to hear from you.

Thank you. I'm Joanne Leslie, a 30-year homeowner in Sunset Park and a retired deacon at St. Augustine's Episcopal Church. You already know that Santa Monica needs more housing, especially below market rate housing. But I'm here to sound a note of urgency. We won't ever meet the city's affordable housing needs depending only on exclusionary zoning and density bonuses. They aren't enough. Santa Monica needs entire buildings, or better yet, communities that provide mixed levels of all below market rate homes. So I urge you to look again at the opportunity offered by the closing of the Santa Monica airport. There's still time to instruct staff to consider housing in the EIR. We could build 3,000 units of attractive, below market rate homes on the urban edge of the park without in any way spoiling a great park. Just think how many people and businesses Santa Monica could help this way. Thank you. Thank you. Reverend Jim Kahn.

Oh, sorry. I'm going to go ahead and let Jonathan Foster speak. Hi, thank you. There are some pictures.

This is me at three. All I am is a drum set. If we could go to the next one. That's all I think about all day long since I was two and a half, two years old. This is the drum set that was stolen. That drum set was made for me by Premier. No one owns that drum set on Earth. No one. It was a beautiful, beautiful custom-made set. And there was a third picture. It's OK if it's not up. So this is somebody stole my stuff. So the hardest part is the symbols. And I said to people I was going to take work here, everybody comes to me on Third Street, why aren't you in a band doing something? To be honest with you, I still have a hard time selling cigarettes. I have a hard time selling alcohol, which is what a bar is, cigarettes, alcohol. And then outside, everybody goes to their car and snorts Coke and takes acid, and everything comes back to the show. And I have a hard time with this. Even being a deadhead, liking the Grateful Dead, I just have a hard time with this kind of stuff. Of course, my mother has also been a real pain in the butt on this. But if you could go back to that picture, Denise, that drum set was in pristine condition. I bought it brand new. It basically sat in cases. There wasn't a scratch on it. And that reflects how beautiful I am really as a person. Two of those symbols up there were from 79 and another one from 1980 that I bought. The snare drum has a micro on it. They took the microphones and all the cable that goes with it. So it really, for a person like me who's homeless, who's trying to do this on my own without my mother as best as possible, to have this happen is really disgusting because I worked for 25 years to get to these days to use that damn thing. And it's, it's very hard. So I appreciate everybody putting up with me on Third Street. I really am trying to get, you know, a job doing what I was born to do. God bless everybody.

Thank you. Hopefully you filed a police report and our police are here. Okay, great. Reverend Jim Khan.

Mayor, council members, I'm Reverend Jim Kahn. I'm here tonight on behalf of Cloverfield Commons and CLU. I'm advocating for you to keep below market rate housing at the Santa Monica Airport in your minds all the time. So tonight, as you grapple with adding housing around transit centers and protecting renters, keep housing at the airport in your mind. As you discuss a new direction for homeless policy, keep housing at the airport in your mind. Closure of the airport is on the horizon. So keep below market rate housing in your mind. Thank you.

OK. The reverend is in the house. Vivian Rothstein, Denise Barton, and then Zoe Moutonier.

Good evening and thank you for your service to our city. I know it's not easy. The housing affordability crisis is growing locally, regionally, and nationally. I urge the City Council to consider the long-term needs of Santa Monica's teachers, nurses, first responders, hotel workers, and others who make our local economy flourish and can't live anywhere nearby. They all need housing within reach. The redevelopment of the Santa Monica Airport is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build a great park and a perpetually affordable community of 3,000 units to address this crisis. A 2025 telephone survey of Santa Monica voters found that 65% wanted at least some housing in addition to parks. and open space on the airport land, and 46 wanted an even divide between housing and parks. The airport land is owned by the people and should serve the people. Not everyone uses a park, but everyone needs a place to live. Thank you.

Thank you. Denise Barton, Zoe Widener, Clarence McDowell, Daniel R., and Wade Kelly.

Ms. Barton, how many minutes do you want

Good evening. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy you gave the disabled a month instead of just one day, but there are no city activities or events for it, unlike the plethora of the city has for the LGBTQ community two months a year, really making the gesture look, and what you said about it, look extremely hollow. There's no ADA person for the housing authority I found out after Kelly Phillips threatened my affordable housing several times, after which I requested a change to the ADA person, but I was told there were 2,000 people ahead of me. which doesn't reflect well upon your claims either. Oh, but I forgot, the ADA person is actually in the Public Works Department. Not to mention you're not having reasonable accommodations for seniors and the disabled to be able to speak at the beginning of in-person city council meetings, only over the telephone where you can be left until the end of the meeting to give public input, as has happened to me, further showing your hypocrisy. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Barton.

Ms. Bouchonere? Yes, I have some pictures, if Denise can load them. In the meantime, I want city council to consider to get those tickets for low housing and low income residents. This is my grandfather, Maximilian Cohen. He was a Jewish man. He was a police officer. This is 1954. He was 31 years old. And he's the one who taught me about Jewish values. He told me that the civil rights movement in this country was mainly done by a lot of Jewish lawyers. And he said, you know, they got involved because they knew that they could be the next one in line. So at the last city council meeting, I was horrified to see the person who's going to speak after me and the person who spoke already about their issues with housing, and that's what prompted me to pull papers the following day to run for rent control. Because I think right now the city is working in silos, code enforcement, separate from rent control and the city attorney, and it's not working. And you saw in one meeting three people, and three people that are just particular groups of people of color, elderly, and disabled. And it exposes the city to scandal, litigation and embarrassment and we have to do better. This is a renter's city and we are not operating like a renter's city. I didn't want to run because I know how difficult it is and I know all the lies and all the comments that are coming my way but I also want to talk about Lana Negrete's newsletter. She talked about her father. This is my father who served in the military at 18 years old because his father passed away and he had to take care of five people. When I went to the state of the city, someone named Alan, that is a resident, apparently very influential, said, I'm not going to vote for you because you're Puerto Rican. This is the level of racism in our streets.

Thank you. Mr. McDowell. Good evening.

Good evening, Council, Madam Mayor. My name is Clarence McDowell. I live at 1011 Pico Boulevard. My wife and I have been there for 20 years. And the last night I slept in my home was 327 days ago. 159 days ago, the city issued a houndability order ordering a landlord to pay a per diem until I get placed back in my place due for repairs. And 91 days since the building permit was issued and nothing has happened to my unit. Not one day of construction. But I'm here to report a crime. that was witnessed by city officials five weeks ago and nothing has happened. On June 15th, my property manager sent an email with false relocation documents attached to it. stating that the per diem that I was to be paid, my families to receive, was canceled for comparable housing, and the doctor documents have been relied upon to remove per diem that is now accumulated over $60,000 that my family is owed, that we have been paying out of pocket to be out of our home for 10 months now, waiting for repairs to be done. Not one violation, not one citation, not one order to force this property manager and owner to do anything So I'm asking somebody, please, consumer protection, work for the consumers.

Thank you, Mr. Merchel. I know you're here last time, and I know this is obviously not like a meeting forum, but I know that our city attorney had been in touch. I mean, I would love to schedule a meeting, not while we're sitting here, because unfortunately, we're not here as the finders of fact in this circumstance. Yeah, but really appreciate you coming.

The city attorney said they would be with me last time.

That didn't happen either. Okay, we will make sure. Thank you for letting us know. Okay, Daniel R., Wade Kelly, Joe DeRosa, Ashton Sinclair.

Is that on?

Hello, good evening. I want to speak about homeless issue, please, because one time in my apartment building, I was doing laundry. When I went into the laundry room, I found a homeless person sleeping in my laundry room in my apartment building. So that was very unpleasant to see. He was also high on drugs because he had a fentanyl dose vaccine with him. So that was very unfortunate to see in our city. And housing opportunity is also a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to have in our city because we need to support everybody in our city with homelessness, everybody with drug use and drug rehab. And Santa Monica Airport closure in 2028 will be a once in a lifetime opportunity to have Over 3000 units bill for everybody to be affordable housing to market rate because housing is opportunity for everybody to live in Santa Monica since Santa Monica is one of the lifetime city in Santa Monica is towards the of. Of the century, thank you.

Thank you so much appreciate you for coming Wade Kelly.

It's going to reset. Thank you. Hello. My name is Wade Kelly, Christopher Wade Kelly. I am a member of the Measure GS Resident Oversight Committee. I ran for Santa Monica City Council two years ago. And my address is 503 Olympic Boulevard in Santa Monica. the people concern Annenberg access there. That is also where my driver's license, it has that address. My car is registered there. And I am also registered as a senior, low income senior for below market housing. I'm on the list here in Santa Monica using that address. Yesterday, I was told that under the new realignment plan here in Santa Monica, the people concerned, as of 8-24-2026, the Access Center will be providing the following services. One meal a day, showers, laundry, lockers, mental health services, Venice Family Clinic. No more mail service. I don't have an address anymore. I don't know if I can run for office anymore.

Mr. Kelly, are you speaking about 11B, which is an item that's agendized on the agenda, or just general public comment? Because if it's 11B, you'll have to come back for that one.

I'm not sure. Is that specifically going to be addressed then? Yeah, I mean, is it going to be changed? Because I mean, I've just found this out yesterday.

Sure. You can direct your comments to general things not on the agenda. But if any, if anything pertaining to what's on the agenda, that would be more proper in the comments for 11B. Just letting you know.

All right. So it is going to be addressed. And I don't have to worry about all those people being thrown off. the voter rolls, the people that might vote for me because they are homeless as I am. And I think it's just incompetence that's happening once again by the city in their plans to deport people, deport homeless people out of the city of Santa Monica so they can say that they're having a reduction 75% of all the arrests last year in Santa Monica were homeless human beings. Less than 1% of the population were arrested 75% of the time. We do need to build affordable housing on .

Okay, thank you. If you want to have any direct comments on that item, that will be up later. All right, Joe DeRosa, Ashton Sinclair, St. Clair, Andrew Hoyer, Tamay Kipper.

HONORABLE MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL, WHEN THE CITY COUNCIL ENDED THE EXCLUSIVE NEGOTIATING AGREEMENT WITH LIVE NATION, YOU DIRECTED THE STAFF TO EXPLORE ALTERNATIVE OPTIONS FOR THE CIVIC AUDITORIUM SITE, ASSESS THE HIGHEST AND BEST USED, ANALYZE CONSTRAINTS INCLUDING HISTORIC PRESERVATION, PARKING, ADA, SEISMIC ISSUES, EVALUATE NEW PARTNERSHIPS AND STUDY MARKET CONDITIONS AND FUNDING STRATEGIES. I'M ASKING YOU TO DO EXACTLY THAT WITH AN AWARD-WARNING FORAMORPHOSIS LED BY PRITZKER PRIZE-WINNING ARCHITECT FOUNDER Tom Main will deliver phase one feasibility concept visioning study producing three design alternatives, along with an analysis of the site capacity, hotel integration, parking, public space, economic impact, and investor presentation package. To start phase one, the request is $40,000. Morphosis has agreed to limit its own expenses to $2,500 to keep the risk minimal. The funding could be raised privately. We are not here because the city is the only possible source. We are here because a city partnership would be a clear symbolic gesture that Santa Monica is willing to explore the opportunity in good faith precisely as the council directed. The $40,000 could also be allocated from the $2 million the city received for the I-10 grants or from other grants that were already provided to the Economic Development Department. No need to draw from the general fund. A world-class conference center can drive tourism, jobs, long-term tax revenue, civic pride, and private investment. Approving the $40,000 would fund the study and signal the city as an active partner in shaping the future of this iconic site. I respectfully urge your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Ashton Sinclair.

Good evening, Mayor Terosis and Mayor Pro Temswick and the other members of the Santa Monica City Council. My name is Ashton Sinclair, and I play on the Santa Monica College women's soccer team. I've lived in Santa Monica for 14 years, and it's an honor to represent the city that I grew up in. Last season, we won our third consecutive conference championship. We've had multiple players named all league. Our goalie was goalkeeper of the year and we're ranked 17th in the nation right now. Our team is made up of 30 dedicated student athletes and many of my teammates have gone on to play for D1, D2, and D3 schools. So far we launched our fundraising campaign last month and we've raised $11,710 towards our $20,000 goal. Today, I'm respectfully asking the Santa Monica City Council to support our team using your discretionary funds. This will help cover essential expenses that make our season possible. Your investment would help my team and my experience success on and off the field. Thank you for your time, your consideration, and your continued support for Santa Monica students.

Amazing. Great job. Andrew Hoyer, and then we have to make Kipper, Kiper, sorry, Mark, Karen Mielek, and then there were two late chits, but we'll take the three on the phone first. Yeah.

Good evening. My name is Andrew Hoyer, and I am known to wear many hats. At this moment, however, I am speaking strictly for myself. the power of incumbency should be well known. For most of this city's history, it has been a difficult obstacle to overcome. There are a few recent examples where this was not the case, but otherwise, our council members have served until they no longer desired to run. This election cycle, one incumbent decided not to run, which leaves one seat on the City Council wide open. I feel that it is important to focus on who would be the best candidate to fill that seat. In my mind, there is one person who I think it should be. This candidate helped feed forgotten community members and assisted residents in obtaining rental assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, while also successfully advocating for changes to the requirement of a good credit rating to obtain below-market housing because people living in poverty have excellent credit. They chaired the Intercultural Equity and Excellence Advisory Committee for the school district and served on the board of Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. While serving on the Rent Control Board, they were instrumental in the creation of the rent banking policy, data protections for domestic violence victims, and racial bias training for the board itself. She made history as the first black woman to serve as the chair of the Rent Control Board and currently represents Santa Monica on the national level as the regional director of the National Black Caucus. This November, I will be voting for Erica Leslie. I hope everybody out there listening right now will vote for her as well. Thank you.

Thank you so much. To make Kiper, Kiper, sorry.

Hi, good evening.

I'm Tamaya Kiper. I'm here for item 16c, so I can wait till September or I can explain considering my application to serve on the Commission of Sustainability, Environmental Justice, and the Environment Board. You can just generally public comment that you're introducing yourself to us if you'd like to do that. I would love that. Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. I'm Tamay Kipar. I've dedicated the past 15 years to sustainability. Today, I lead responsible investment in an investment management firm in Santa Monica. Throughout my career, I worked on climate risk, greenhouse gas emission, waste management, and I had the opportunity to work directly with Bill McDonough cradle to cradle products sustainability, including base reduction and circular economy initiatives. I've continued to build on that foundation through executive and professional education, but I'm here today because sustainability is my passion and Santa Monica is a leader in sustainability. So I chose to make sustainability my home. I've been a long time resident here. Thank you so much for all your efforts, all your sustainability efforts here. I am proud to be Santa Monica. And while I know this commission benefits from members with different backgrounds, I know I can contribute to this commission of sustainability, environmental justice and environment in different ways. So ultimately, I'm applying to be an applicant because I really care about this city. I believe my experience can contribute meaningfully to the commission, and it would be a privilege to work alongside the fellow commissioners. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Mark.

Good evening. My name is Mark Verville.

I'm a former chair of the city's Audit Subcommittee, and I live in Sunset Park. I'm here this evening to address the actual scale of the city's homeless crisis and the city's chronic misuse of the point in time counts in its communications and policy setting. The 2026 PIT count of 718 has been hailed by council members as a huge improvement over 2025's 812. The reality is that neither addresses the massive scale of the city's homeless crisis. As residents are being asked to believe that 718 or 812 homeless individuals are responsible for 2,000 annual arrests, 70% of total arrests, 28,400 annual homeless-related SMPD dispositions, and the ongoing collapse of the city's visitor economy to the point of requiring relocation of homeless shelters out of downtown. The reason none of this makes any sense is that the PIT counts are being deliberately misused. The PIT count only represents the number of migratory individuals that have paused in the city during one evening. The damage to the city is driven by the total annual migration through the city, which is 20 to 30 times the number that are present in the counts. The city's HMIS system recorded over 6,000 annual new arrivals in the 2017 to 2019 period, the last time complete data was available to the public. Metro and end-of-line surveys indicate disembarkations of a minimum of 60 homeless individuals per evening for a possible total of over 20,000 per year. The PIT count implies that the average homeless person stays in the city for two to four weeks and moves on. Since city policies are justified solely by PIT counts, they have no credibility. Consequently, policies that include the entire shelter strategy and especially residential placements exacerbate rather than mitigate the city's crisis.

This gaslighting of this critical issue needs to end.

Thank you. Karen Bielek, John. John Maynard and Oscar De La Torre signed up after the cutoff, but we'll give them one minute, yeah.

Good evening. I'm Karen Mielek, Vice Chair of the Recreation and Parks Commission, speaking for myself. What is going on with the Santa Monica Airport conversion project? For a year and a half, the planning process for Suzuki moved along on schedule for the first three phases, ending with a presentation to you last July. Then the project came to a screeching halt as far as the public could see. The three additional phases of work with Sazaki contract due to finish in early 2026 have not been completed. Instead of getting approval for a final scenario with a CEQA kickoff, All we've gotten is a high-level framework presentation in March and April. The only community engagement was an online survey in April for which the results have not been shared. The RPC was told the framework would be presented for approval at an April City Council meeting. That hasn't happened. It's now more than a year since we've heard anything on this project at a city council meeting besides the great news that we got $10.5 million in grant funding. Aren't you concerned about that? I am. Lack of communication and not seeing progress, those were the reasons you did not extend the ENA with RPG. Is this a double standard? How could the project plan and contract with Suzuki change so dramatically with no city council review or community input on such an important project that has a specific deadline? With no news, I can only think the worst, as many of us don't trust the city council and city staff to do what's best for the residents. The work on this project should not be distracted by the housing and airport advocates. What is going on and what can be done to get this project back in track with community engagement?

Council Member Hall.

Thank you. Yes, thank you, Mayor. Just a point of order. I believe we have to suspend the rules to allow former Councilmember De La Torre and Mr. Mann to speak for a minute. So I move that we suspend the rules to allow that. I'll second that.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay. I guess we'll go to them first and then the phones. Okay. Councilmember De La Torre, you have one minute. John Nathan Mann was first, but that's fine. You're standing up. You have one minute. Yeah. Okay.

GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE. MY NAME IS OSCO DE LA TORRE. I'M SPEAKING HERE TODAY AS A CONCERNED RESIDENT. 18 YEARS ON THE SCHOOL BOARD, I SERVED FOUR YEARS ON THE CITY COUNCIL, AND IT TAUGHT ME THAT GOOD GOVERNANCE IS TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT. IT'S VERY IMPORTANT FOR US TO RESTORE THE PUBLIC TRUST WHEN WE'RE TALKING ABOUT VERY COMPLICATED ISSUES, THE ISSUE BEING HOMELESSNESS, WHICH YOU'RE GOING TO TALK ABOUT LATER TODAY. Lana Negrete, Dan Hall, Ellis Raskin, Caroline Taurosis, Jesse Zwick, Barry Snell, Natalia Zarinskaya. ALL OF YOU HAVE A PERSONAL POINT OF PRIVILEGE TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION. HAVE YOU RECEIVED ANY MONEY FROM ANY OF THE HOMELESSNESS PROVIDERS, PEOPLE THAT PROVIDE SERVICES IN ANY WAY, ANY CAMPAIGN DONATIONS THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED? IT'S IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO DISCLOSE THAT. I KNOW, NATALIA, YOU CAME BEFORE THIS DIAS MANY TIMES, ALLEGING THAT I HAD A CONFLICT OF INTEREST.

NEW SPEAKER. NEW SPEAKER. NEW SPEAKER. Do you want to finish with that?

Yeah, I'm trying to finish. So I think it's very important that the public knows that you violated the Levine Act. And so I just want to ensure that no one else has that type of violation. Thank you.

Thank you. I see Council Member Zuranskaya.

Uh, yes, mayor as a point of personal privilege. Um, I, when I ran in 2024, I did receive a campaign donation from John. Uh, there was a complaint filed with, uh, the, um, alleging that a vote that I took regarding, um, a housing project that the people concerned was a subcontractor on, uh, was a violation of the living act. However, earlier this year, in May, the FPPC issued a no action letter and found that there was no violation. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Mann? Or did you want to? No.

I just put myself in there that I have not received any donations from any of the parties.

Mr. Mann?

Can I just say as a point of public information, all campaign donations we receive are public information posted on the City Clerk's website.

Thank you. Mr. Mann, you have one minute. Yep.

A fellow before Wade Kelly said I could have his time that he didn't use up. Okay, I'm Jonathan Mann, a man for the people, 17th time I've run for city council. I made a little change to my sign here. One exception is Lana Negrete. SO I WANT YOU ALL TO TAKE NOTE OF THAT. I'VE BEEN SENDING A LOT OF TEXT MESSAGES AND E-MAILS TO YOU GUYS AND I DON'T GET ANY ANSWERS. THAT'S ONE OF THE REASONS WHY I'VE BEEN ADVOCATING FOR A VIRTUAL TOWN HALL ON THE CITY WEBSITE FOR ALL THESE YEARS. so the people of the city could have a voice in city government obviously you don't want us to have that voice because you won't put a virtual town hall on the city website it doesn't cost that much one of the suggestions that i'm making in my campaign to save money instead of raise revenue to get rid of all the wasted and overtime is to have compensating time often and return to the five-day work week for the police and everybody else in the city who's getting over

Thank you. He did not have leftover time. That's not how it works. You can finish your sentence. Okay. Okay, thank you. This is okay. Okay, thank you, Mr. Rand. We will now move on to the phones.

Okay, now we're moving on. Our first caller is Jacob Wasserman.

Thank you. My name is Jacob Wasserman, Planning Commissioner, though I'm speaking for myself tonight, and a resident of Wilmont. I just wanted to, well, one, say that people seeking appointments on commissions, like one of the other public commenters, took time out of their evenings, and this is the second time it's been postponed. So I do think it's a little rude. I know you have a busy agenda, but, you know, it's going to be like two months that they're waiting to apply. Maybe they got babysitters. Maybe they're taking time off. But I actually wanted to address the end of service on Big Blue Bus to Hilgard Terminal. If you know UCLA, Hilgard Terminal is the end of a number of lines. It has been in operation since 1929, but just short of its 100-year anniversary. It is going to no longer have service. And a large part of UCLA's North Campus, including iconic buildings like Royce, Yonge Research Library, the Sculpture Garden, are no longer going to have a one-seat ride to the city of Santa Monica. And the reason is that a few neighbors who moved in long after the 1929 opening of Hilgard Terminal have objected to buses on a busy street. When Santa Monicans and other stakeholders use this terminal every day, I used it just today, And I'm sad that it's going to stop service on August 7th. Now, when this came before your council, you got staff to admit that the closure of Hill Guard Terminal was never discussed with any stakeholders in any of the outreach prior to the plan being published. It's a shame that we're going to lose service to this valuable stop. And so I hope that you can introduce a 16th item to restore service to Hill Guard Terminal I can't believe that something since 1929 is going to be shut down by a few people who object to transit service for those who most rely on it are UCLA students are Santa Monica residents and our workers in Westwood thanks so much, I hope you can get that restored.

Our next caller is Morgan hunter gross.

Hello, my name is Morgan Hunter-Gross. I miss you. And this is my report from the other side of the Transcontinental Railroad. Yesterday, Natalia said intent is not always the same as outcome. I say a service may exist, but people can still be excluded by application periods, registration deadlines, limited hours, meeting codes, and call-in windows. That is how people slip through the cracks. Two weeks ago, I was at mile zero in Sacramento, read your report to council, but I missed the previous day's registration deadline. I read my report on YouTube instead and continued east with the second Transcontinental Expedition and President's School. The other day, we completed a 10-hour mobile multi-camera composite live stream over Starlink. I followed native walking paths into horse paths, wagon ruts, railroads into Lincoln Highway into the Eisenhower Interstate, air travel and digital connection. geology and water established the routes politics land and underground resources moved through bottlenecks railroads created towns highways divided communities and redirected redirected economies santa monica repeats these patterns through rail corridors industrial pollution and the 10 freeway dividing pico from north of montana july is disability pride month A Wisconsin hotel I disclosed my disability and employees said she would only use certain entrances and exits. That sounds unbelievable until we remember Santa Monica was locking accessible bathrooms until six months ago. Access must be measured by what people can use, not by what institutions say they provide. Thank you all.

Our next caller is Bradley Haislip.

Hello, good evening, Council. I want to talk tonight about a pattern with this mayor. It's always say one thing, do another, and never really explain the gap between. Mayor Terosis, you know, you talk about transparency, but residents, we don't see it. What we see instead is a mayor whose positions on homelessness align again and again with the county's agenda and not this city's. You are employed by the county. Your approach to the unhoused, your support for bringing in more county run services, tracks what the county wants and not what Santa Monica residents are asking for. That is not transparency. That is taking direction from your employer and calling it policy. Meanwhile, basic stewardship of this city gets ignored. The coral trees on San Vicente, a signature piece of Santa Monica's identity, are struggling. And this mayor has not treated their protection like the priority it should be. You don't have the bandwidth to fight for the trees that define one of our most iconic streets. What does that say about your priorities? And well, we are living with the results. These policies have drawn people in crisis to Santa Monica from skid row, from outside the city, from outside the state and residents in the business community are the ones absorbing these consequences. More people in crisis on our sidewalks, more strain on public safety, more businesses struggling because customers do not feel safe. And instead of pausing to address that, this mayor wants to bring in more, more programs, more sites, more of the same policies that got us here, while never ever being straight with residents about the trade-offs. Santa Monica needs a mayor who is honest about who she's actually working for, who protects what makes this city worth living in, and who listens to residents and businesses before doubling down on policies they're already paying the price for. Mayor Taroso.

That was two minutes.

Yes, we'll never know.

Just because my name was invoked, I would encourage that caller to listen to our council agenda tonight because we were actually talking about divesting from the county and investing in our own system of care. So I would just, again, disavow all of those comments, but we will continue on. We will now go on to public input on items under the consent calendar and closed session only. WE HAVE ONE COMMENT. OKAY. SO WE ONLY HAVE YOU, WOULD YOU LIKE TO COME UP OR NO? No, tonight, this is the agenda item on consent calendar in closed session only. Okay, great. We will now move to consent calendar. Just I'll ask again, is anyone recusing themselves from any of the items under the consent calendar? Council members Wick, then Hall.

I will be recusing myself from items for Ian for F, due to my employment as a Southern California director at the housing action coalition, which advocates for housing production and the use of 79.

And I'm recusing myself from item for F, because my residence is located between 500 and 1000 feet of 1 of the gateway master plan parcels and 1 of the city on sites that is proposed for exemption from the zoning ordinance. Thank you.

Okay. Um, with that being said, I would move that we then move item. for A through C and for G through K. I would make that motion. Oh, I motioned. I moved. I'll second. Thank you. Great. You recuse yourself from, yeah, but did I? Yeah, for A through C, for D, my apologies. Yeah.

Council Member Zarniskaya?

Sorry, Madam Clerk. Madam Mayor, could you please just restate the motion clearly? Thank you.

We will be moving items 4A through 4D and 4G through 4K.

Thank you. And I second that motion.

Okay. Council Member Zarniskaya? Yes. Council Member Snell? Yes. Mayor Pro Tem Zwick? Yes. Council Member Raskin? Yes. Council Member Hall? Yes. Council Member Negrete? Yes. And Mayor Terrosis?

Yes. Great. And now for E, Mayor Pro Tem Zwick will move out. And then I would entertain a motion.

Wait till he leaves the room.

No, they're waiting.

All right, I'll move item 4E.

And I'll second that, assuming the item of the motion is to move the staff recommendation.

Yes. And adopt the attached ordinance.

Okay, Council Member Negrete. Yes. Council Member Hall. Yes. Council Member Raskin. Yes. Council Member Zarnaskaya. Yes, yes, yes.

And this is the second reading of an item we discussed last week. I will move for F. I'll second that great.

Council members are in the sky.

Yes.

Councilmember Snell? Yes. Councilmember Raskin? Yes. Councilmember Negrete? Yes. Emerita Rosas? Yes.

And now can I ask the two recused Councilmembers to come back? But we're not actually voting on anything, so maybe Madam Clerk, can you read the closed session agenda? Yes.

closed session we have the first we have 5a it's a conference with a bunch of John Doe's and then we have next we have a existing litigation City versus I see SOP then we have another existing litigation Waymo versus the city of Santa Monica Next, we have a real estate negotiation, and this is for portions of Park and Lot 4 South and portions of Beach Park 1. The city negotiator is the city manager. Persons to be negotiated with is the WANDA for AD Media House LLC, India House, under negotiation price and terms of payment of license. We have another real estate. This is for, again, parking lot four. This time it's beach parking lot five south. And this is negotiating with Florian, goes for Olympic Austrian. And this is, again, price and terms for the lease. And then finally, we have city property, another real estate negotiated. And this is for parking lot four south, portions of parking lot five, and portions of Tongva Park. City negotiator is the city manager. Person to be in this is for the Brazil Olympic Committee. Brazil House under negotiation is price terms and payment for license. City attorney?

Do you think we can do this in an hour? What do you think?

That was going to be my estimate.

Great. so we will return um at 7 40 or excuse me we will return no earlier than 7 40. um might be a few minutes after that just depending on what's happening with the closed session thank you recording stopped

If anyone's here to speak on appointments other than the Planning Commission, they have all been continued, except for the Restorative Justice and the Housing and Human Services.

Okay, the time is 7.59. Thank you so much for your patience. We're going to go ahead and move forward with the meeting. We just returned from closed session. I'll ask our city attorney to let us know if there's any reportable action.

All items were heard with no reportable action taken.

Okay, and just because I didn't ask for it earlier during the mayor's highlight, does anyone have any travel announcement or any travel they'd like to report out? Okay, seeing none. So due to agenda management, we are hearing 13 A before the 11 items. But before we do that, we will ask for public input on the remaining agenda items only. And I will go ahead and read the names in the order that they were called. We, I hate to say this, have many, many more than 25 speakers, so everyone will have one minute. All right, Brett Morrow, and how many do we have on the phone? We have some people on the phone? Okay, great, so you'll just remind me when we're done. Brett Morrow, Kim Reeder, Harvey Eder, and Mark Jaffe.

Good evening. My name's Brett Morrow. Good to speak with you again. I'm speaking on item 16B, and I'm honored to be an applicant for the Housing and Human Services Commission. Every decision this commission makes will affect real people, the family wondering if they can afford to stay in Santa Monica, the senior hoping to age in the community they've called home for decades, and the worker commuting farther each year because housing is out of reach, or the person experiencing homelessness who deserves dignity and a pathway back to stability. I believe good government starts by seeing people first. That means approaching every decision with compassion, accountability, and a commitment to solving problems. And I've worked across local, county, state, and federal government on public health, strengthening the social safety net and making housing more affordable. If appointed, I'll bring that experience to help build practical solutions that make people's lives better. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Kim Reeder. Hi.

Hi, thank you so much. My name's Kim Reeder. I am a resident here in Santa Monica. I live in Community Corp, below Market Housing. I'm also formerly unhoused. And I wanted to make a comment or a few comments moving forward as the city's planning on taking over and creating your own continuum of care. that I do think it's very important to understand that there's a great diversity in the unhoused community, as Council Member Negrete pointed out so well in her opinion piece today. And in that, I want to make certain moving forward that everyone's getting their needs assessed properly, because over the last five years, Two and a half years unhoused, close to three housed, my needs have never been assessed. And I think it's very important that we understand that people, different people have different needs, and we need to be serving unhoused.

Thank you. Thanks, Ms. Rader. Harvey, Etter, and then I'll just call some more names. We have Mark Jaffe, Denise Barton, Sarah Devine.

So this is on 11?

It's on all the remaining agenda items.

Okay, well, okay. I'm concerned about this west side thing being set up for financing housing, that they have to give priority to poor people, homeless people, and whatnot, and that's got to be written into that, and also the tax credits for housing and for solar have to be integrated. I'm concerned about this stuff about... 14th and 11th, the Park Hotel, the people concerned. One woman mentioned, Denise, there's $1.4 million that are being investigated, and then there's tens of thousands of dollars in a $200,000, $300,000. They're being investigated by Fed Department of Justice in October last year and going back to early 24 for state. A step up paid a $3 million for fraud. And they're being blackballed in Sacramento, saying the city shouldn't do that. The city here gave $100 million for a housing project. And it's illegal. They've got conflicts of interest. And one of the stuff has to be looked at.

Thank you, Mr. Adder.

I have three items. But you can't cut out people's items. Okay, yes, but 25 speakers, it should be per item. Then you're taking away the public's ability to speak.

So my understanding, maybe the clerk can help walk through this. So the trigger to limiting it to one minute is 25 per category, right? But I still think you get to do one minute per item that you're speaking on. Is that correct? As an individual?

Yeah, she is listed multiple times. So, uh, we need to, we do need to bring the rules back because that was 1 of the things that we did ask for to come back. But if the city attorney is interpreting it as 1 per item, how many items are you speaking on? Great 3 minutes.

Good evening. Adam 11A. Giving the West Side Cities Council of Governments a say about anything that has to do with the city's affordable housing, why would we do that? Especially when the city has to pay administrative costs for it. What, does the city not pay enough administrative costs for affordable housing already? It kind of looks like the West Side Cities Council of Governments is going after cities that are separate or independent from Los Angeles cities. Would that be because all the other cities have joined and because cities like Santa Monica keep their affordable resources separate from any other city's funding? So this again looks like it's just for more administrative funding for the West Side City Council of Governments and not what's best for the City of Santa Monica. Next, on item 16E, Councilmember Snell's travel expense request to go to Vienna for this social housing field study program. Here I'd like to refer to the California Legislative Information Code Section Group, Title V, Division II, Part I, Chapter IX meetings, where in government code group, five four nine five two point three a refers to part in part two compensation and stipends but under b it states that compensations and stipends should not include amounts reimbursed for actual necessary expenditures incurred by a member remember in the performance of the members official duties including but not limited reimbursement of expenses related to travel meals and lodging so council member snell can you tell us right now what official duties you have in vienna for which you're making this travel expense request And finally, item 11B. Is this part of Mayor Taroso's plan to shift the homeless population in LA to Santa Monica? And can Santa Monica even afford these facilities? Do you not think putting more homeless facilities in the Pico neighborhood is like putting the majority of affordable housing in the Pico neighborhood? And wouldn't that collate with the district voting case? Then if 72% of police calls are now for the homeless, will this facility take more police resources away from the rest of the city? Or as the city and city council will not enforce Supreme Court's grant pass decision, isn't the city and city council creating this problem? And why is the city of Santa Monica City taxpayers to support LA's homeless services and LA's funding has gone away? Isn't some of Santa Monica's funding going away too? And finally, how can you or the community expect the human services, aka social services, whatever you rename them, department to have a history of not posting funding that is received for over 200 days to be able to manage a program like this? Thank you.

Thank you. Sarah Devine, and then John Alley Williams Selby. Hajar Daniel are. Is there Mark Jaffe? I don't see Mark Jaffe. If Mark Jaffe's here, he's next after. Sorry, go ahead.

Hi, Sarah Devine. Hello council members. I'm speaking on behalf of the Pico and Gandara Park neighborhood. I have lived in Santa Monica for over 30 years, about 12 years on the north side and the rest of the time in the Gandara Park neighborhood where we purchased a home. We bought it on this beautiful tree-lined street and we Did it so we could keep our kids in the Santa Monica School District. Also, it was one of the one areas we could afford to buy a house in Santa Monica. We were drawn to this neighborhood as well because it's multicultural aspect. The day we moved in is the day we began a fight to stand up for our neighbors and our neighborhood. A neighborhood that has a rich history as displayed in the underpass of the freeway, a neighborhood that's been given, been seen under attack, divided by the freeway, a location for the city dump and landfill, the maintenance yard, which we fought two or three years to not put there, and many other things over the years, a neighborhood that has been burdened by so many things.

Thank you. John Alley.

speaking for 11 B and C, so a minute per each. I just need two minutes. I'm John Alley. Tenants in my apartment and commercial properties in the city are my partners. If they do well, I do well. I'm speaking for them tonight. I'm also speaking on behalf of residents throughout Santa Monica and occupants inside San Michelle right now who call our team. They've been assaulted, robbed, and threatened. The San Michelle facility is run by People Concern and CEO, John Masseri. The Santa Monica, or People Concern, will also run the Palm Motel. It's laughable. John Masseri's financial contributions to some of your political campaigns should disqualify you from even being in discussions for three new no public bid contracts worth 9.5 million. In the future, your support for city opening new sites in and around the city shows zero intellect. At the community meeting, your new staff members claimed it worked in other cities, city manager, but then admitted they couldn't name which city and provided zero metrics. Get on your bikes, scooters, Waymo, visit the large secure campuses that could treat mental health and drug addiction. St. Vincent's in LA's West Lake area, the Salvation Army Bell facility, and the 75-acre Rancho Los Amigos facility owned by LA County in Linwood. You want to see lawsuits that parallel the enormity of the PAL lawsuits? Then go ahead with your next proposal to move residential care facilities into neighborhoods throughout 8.3 square miles of santa monica people concerned manages the laurel police response to calls there has risen 400 percent the people concerned has not passed forensic audience audits this for the city grant that they receive money is missing some unused grant money has never returned whose pocket is it in oliver chi is fast tracking this using a failed Housing First, calling it housing-focused plan. Where's the committee building?

Thank you. Thank you. William Selby, and then Hajer, and then Daniel R. What is your name?

Daniel.

Daniel, you're going to be next after these couple. Yeah, William Selby, Mr. Selby.

Just to clear up, I have one minute or four minutes.

How many items are you speaking on?

11B.

You have one minute.

All right. Thank you. Sorry, I'll start in a minute. I had to edit this a little bit. Specific critical flaws developed in your realignment plan. You can see why when you propose moving the homeless population from neighborhoods and business districts with the most economic and political clout to those with the least economic and political power, it feels a lot like a 2026 version of the institutionalized segregation and social injustice that poisoned our communities many decades ago. The Palm Motel disaster is just one example, but for many reasons I can't list here because I'm gonna run out of time. When the current management of the Palm Motel homeless facility has repeatedly told us that they are not interested or concerned or responsible for any emergency person in need or any other activities beyond their specific property line borders that end at their sidewalk, we've got a big problem. We have some better ideas about how the Palms can help those people who are already working and going to school here.

Thank you so much for being here. Hajar Mukhtasid St. Clair, Daniel R., Sarah Devine Devine, . You can go ahead.

HELLO. I'M GOING TO SPEAK ABOUT CLOSING SAMO SHELL AND I'M GOING TO SPEAK STRONGLY AGAINST CLOSING IT BECAUSE MOVING THE FACILITY TO A PALM HOTEL WILL CREATE MORE DISTINCT HOMELESSNESS IN RESIDENTIAL AREAS WITH TWO ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS NEARBY. GRAND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND WILL ROGERS GROWING COMMUNITY AND ALSO JOHN ADAMS MIDDLE SCHOOL. WE DON'T NEED A HOMELESS PLACE NEAR THOSE SCHOOLS, NEAR OUR CHILDREN, BECAUSE THAT'S GOING TO CREATE A NEGATIVE IMPACT ON OUR CHILDREN, AND CHILDREN IS A VERY IMPORTANT PART OF OUR COMMUNITY BECAUSE THEY ARE OUR TOMORROW, AND WE NEED to support our children and not have them surrounded with drugs and drug addiction, violence, and also creating homes for people in residents or neighborhoods will increase crime and also have Thank you.

Sarah Devine. I think you already spoke. So is this on the same item or a different item? Okay, unfortunately, you only get one minute per item. For some reason, she's in here twice. Okay, apologies. Okay, Furusuchi Roku, Hyunsoo Kim, and Alex Brown. Did I call your name? What is your name? Oh, great, okay.

I have autism.

I've never spoken in front of people like this before. So I thought I had four minutes. Now I have one. So I'm going to try to do this, but I don't know how well that'll go. Sorry about that. OK. So I would like to apply for a seat on Housing and Human Services. Uh, I am currently an worker for my 2 disabled kids who have severe autism and we have been through domestic violence, which left us homeless in through transitional housing into permanent supportive housing and had an emergency relocation. Now are in. regular housing, below market housing. And I have had to do most of the work to get through these things on my own, studying it on my own, having to gather copious amounts of information and do a lot of people's jobs for them and have a lot of creative solutions. And I think I would do a lot better doing it if I had other people to work with. AND I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE ABLE TO HAVE SOME NEURODIVERGENT INPUT ON SOME OF THESE STRUGGLES THAT ARE HAPPENING, BECAUSE I HEAR WHAT'S GOING ON FROM TOWN HALL MEETINGS, FROM NEWSPAPERS, FROM EVERYTHING, AND I REALLY, REALLY APPRECIATE YOU COMING.

THANK YOU.

Thank you. It's a privilege to be here. Thank you very much. We all agree that we have to take care of our vets, elderly, disabled. My question to all of you, have you feed them? Have you sat on a table, shared a meal, eyeball to eyeball? have conversations inside of the Salmo shell. Salvation Army, I do my volunteer works. I've learned things I could not learn from Bibles. That's all, I don't need a minute. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Alex Brown, Jack White, Claire Thomas. Alex Brown.

Hey guys, how are we? Good evening. On behalf of the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce, all of our members, and specifically more than 35 local businesses signed on to this letter specifically, we're proud to stand in full support of the staff's proposal for housing focused system of care. We're sympathetic to the needs of our unhoused neighbors, but we also recognize the current system isn't working as well as it could. We're excited to see the changes that will make Santa Monica an even safer city than it already is. Closing St. Michelle is a great start and shifting towards an interim housing model is exactly the right focus. We hope that if the city does take over the continuum of care, you all continue to take into account the needs of the residents, businesses, and the unhoused on how to best serve the community. The good neighbor policy that is mentioned in the proposal is an imperative point to get correct. We believe in this continuum of care and the city control at every step. We hope that these changes move forward as planned, and we're here to help however we can. Please ensure the good neighbor policy is as strong as it needs to be to keep a peaceful community for all.

Thanks, Alex. Jack White, Claire Thomas, Kelly Fry.

Good evening. I'm here because I'm seeing a spot on the housing commission as well. My entire career, I've been putting on events, producing movies, and making excellent experiences with over 100 events here in Santa Monica in the last eight years, working with Apple on the promenade. I've seen everything on the promenade over the last 10 years. I've seen it change. I've been in Santa Monica for 15 years. And I want to take that experience and bring it to an issue that is the disconnect between the landlords and the tenants in the below market housing program. There's many people that I talk to, landlords as well as participants in the program, that have no idea what they're paying for. They're overpaying. There's disconnect. Landlords don't know what they're supposed to be charging. I didn't know what I was supposed to be charged. And that resulted in me paying about $10,000 over the past two years, more than what I was supposed to be paying. So that's it, thank you.

Thank you. Hey there, my name's Claire Thomas. I am president of the Friends of Sunset Park and I'm a retired physician. I'm here to speak about item 11B. My major concern is that the terms interim housing and stabilization housing with regards to the Palm Motel are being used interchangeably and they are not the same thing. Stabilization housing requires a much higher level of supportive services for people experiencing psychotic breaks or an inactive withdrawal from drugs or alcohol. Interim housing is for those who have already been stabilized and are looking for temporary housing in their progress for full recovery and permanent housing. If the city wants to take over the program from the county, the residents want not good neighbor policies, but a good neighbor agreement, such as what we created with Step Up when they created homes on 26th Street. and signed by the city and whatever entity it contracts with to provide wraparound services so that we have binding and well-defined parameters as to who we host in these interim units. Please don't sacrifice the well-being of your constituents while also trying to help the homeless. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Thomas. Kelly Fry. And then, sorry, I'll call up a few more names as you're coming up, Ms. Fry. Mr. Fumio Nishina, Jillian Gomez, and Chris Burdick.

Hi, my name is Kelly Fry and I'm here to speak on 11B. I am a huge advocate of the people concerned. I fully believe in what they do and what they stand for. However, and they have a very diverse employment. However, I do believe that they discriminate against hiring people with disabilities when every single one of their clients has some form of disability. So therefore, I am against any future business or signing any future contracts with the people concerned until they start hiring more people with disabilities. to match their clientele ratio, and especially in honor of Pride Disability Month that I found out from the gentleman on the phone that July is Pride Disability Month, and I just feel that they need to hire more people with disabilities. Thank you.

Okay, thank you so much, and happy Disability Pride Month. Mr. Fumio Nishina.

Good evening. My name is Eugene Nishina. This is my father, Fumio Nishina. He owns the residence in question in topic 11C regarding the R1 upzoning. We want to register our protest of options one and two and prefer the commission go with option C. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Jillian Gomez.

Hi, good evening. My name is Jillian Gomez. Thank you for considering my application to serve on the Housing and Human Services Commission. Since 2013, I have worked in permanent supportive housing and housing case management in Santa Monica, helping individuals experiencing homelessness navigate the path from homelessness to permanent housing and long-term housing stability. Through this work, I've seen firsthand how city policies and funding decisions directly impact whether someone is able to obtain housing and, just as important, remain housed. That experience has inspired me to serve on this commission. My commitment to affordable housing is also personal. I have lived experience in affordable housing in Santa Monica since 2014. As a parent, I've attended PTA meetings where I've heard affordable housing residents spoken about in ways that reinforce negative stereotypes. Those experiences strengthen my belief that affordable housing is one of Santa Monica's greatest strengths. It allows people from diverse backgrounds and income.

Do you want to finish your sentence?

just want to say is, honestly, I wrote my speech, but I wanted help to make Santa Monica the amazing place I've wanted to live in since I was in high school. I have experience working two years with OPCC and the last, oh, can I just finish? It's just a couple more sentences. I'm sorry. I thought I was going to have two minutes. I apologize.

I think we hear you. Unfortunately, it's one minute per person. I'm so, so sorry. If we do that for you, we have to do it for everyone.

I understand.

We appreciate you coming, though. Thank you.

like just to say i've worked also 11 years it'll be 12 this september with step up and i have worked a lot with in the county and la and with the reformulation of homeless services yeah definitely totally we're going to talk about that when we talk about the item thank you um chris burdick and hootie is after chris maria loya oscar de la tory frank deletto hi thanks for listening

Chris Burdick, I've lived half a block away from the Palm Motel for 41 years. There's no way to address the topic in the one minute that you've decided to give us. So let me give you the quick version. 12 days ago, Oliver and his team came and said they were going to have a meeting at Santa Monica College with the local residents and the local neighborhood communities. About 75 people showed up. It's clear this is already a decision that's been made. This is just checking a box for Oliver and his team, and probably for all of you. We took a poll at that meeting. There were about 75 people from the neighborhood there, and the decision was none of us want it. It was a joke when it was put in by the city, and anyone on this council who votes for it, we're going to vote against you. I would vote for a dog. I would vote for that adorable dog that was here earlier over anyone who votes for this. Just so you know. And we're signing up more people every day. We're going to be taking notes.

Thank you. Hootie? Maria Loya? Oscar De La Torre? Frank Toledo? Lainey Zupeda? And while she's coming up, we also have Andrew Hoyer, Barry Rosenbaum, Kevin Glover.

Hi, it's Lady Zepeda, resident of Santa Monica. Nice to see you all again. I'm just here to reiterate my desire to be on the Commission of Reparative Justice. So just saying it again. Thanks, everybody.

Great to see you. Thank you. Andrew Hoyer.

Thank you. Good evening. My name is Andrew Hoyer. I'm the president of Santa Monica Mid-City Neighbors, but tonight I am speaking for myself on item 11C. Sometimes I wonder why we even have a planning commission anymore. Most of what they used to do has been made moot by new city policies, and now when they do receive an item and spend a good amount of time working out the kinks and coming up with appropriate strategies for new city policies, you just completely ignore them. One of you has previously served on the Planning Commission. Were most of your recommendations ignored? I think you need to heed the well-considered advice of the Planning Commission and choose option C for SB 79. Don't up zone R1 lots in Pico neighborhood. They've suffered enough. Thank you.

Thank you. Sorry, we do happy hands. We do happy hands. Sorry. Thank you all. Barry Rosenbaum. Don't see Barry. Kevin Glover. And then we'll have John Reynolds, Adam Gilbert, William Selby. William Selby is in here again. So he already talked.

Good evening. My name is Kevin Glover. I'm here to talk about item 16B, the appointments to the Housing and Human Services Commission. I've been able to serve on the Human Services Commission over the past year. And beyond that, I've served the city by volunteering with local outreach organizations. I currently go out every Wednesday with a help team. and volunteer at the Salvation Army as well as other nonprofits serving the community. Through that, I've also built strong professional relationships with the housing and human services departments and the HPI department. And like many residents, I definitely understand the frustrations with homelessness in the city. Sometimes I deal with homelessness on my own street, but I also see the investment because my boots are on the ground of what the city has poured into solving the problem and alleviating the problem as much as can possibly be done so i definitely appreciate the consideration uh to the housing and human services commission and i would really like to bring my experience and my commitment to the city to the um commission thank you thank you is john reynolds here come on up thank you very much council

Mayor, it's not 75 people. 168 people attended the town hall about this issue, 11B. And before the city council approves $9 million for the owner of Palm Motel and the people concerned to run the homeless program at 2020 14th Street, those 178 people and the friends of Sunset Park want to see a signed good neighbor agreement. that includes regular meetings between nearby residents, people concerned staff, property owner, the city staff to address any problems, as well as detailed management agreement. We've done this before. We did it in 2004 and 2007. And we can do it again if you're willing. We want to specify screening procedures that will prevent people with mental illness and drug addiction from being housed at the Palm Motel. Until then, the 178 people in that town hall and Friends of Sunset Park oppose this. To quote a member of ours, residential neighborhoods should not be the default location.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Okay, that was you. William Selby already talked. Dustin Porlis, Erica Leslie, John Cyrus Smith.

Dustin? I'm Adam Gilbert. I want to talk on 13A, though.

Oh, my apologies. I skipped over you, Adam Gilbert. Yeah, go ahead. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Come on. Oh, I didn't see him. Okay.

Evening, Mayor, Council. I'm Adam Gilbert, Santa Monica resident. I'm a real estate and land use consultant, and I want to talk about 13A and the missing middle. And I just ask that the City Council take this proposal seriously and look into it. As you've seen, zoning changes have really allowed large-scale developers to come in and, with economies of scale, build large projects. These types of projects meet two needs. One is it allows smaller property owners to take value out of the real estate, but it also creates smaller-scale housing. And I really would like the city to look into this and bring a different type of land uses and multifamily to the city. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Gilbert.

I only got one minute, and then Denise points out that we should have one minute on each item. At least get another minute, come out on 11B.

Okay. Mr. Eder, I have not called you, so let's finish the folks, and then we'll address this.

About Sarah Meagher?

No, but is that?

That was after Adam Gilbert.

Dustin Porlis, Erica Leslie, John Cyrus-Smith, I don't see, is she in yours? Okay, well then you should call, okay, yeah, she should come up then. She's not on mine for whatever reason, but yeah, she should. Erica, you wanna talk while we're? Oh, okay. Sure.

Good evening, City Council. I'm here to speak on two items. I am here to speak on the closing of the Samo shelter and you guys taking over the continuum of cares and possibly doing your own programs. I want you to know that I'm a caregiver to an 82-year-old man who is a victim of domestic violence, also simultaneously battling cancer and dementia. Dementia in our city constitutes mental illness if it has gotten to the point where the person is violent and aggressive. We have no services for this man. I have spent the past five years advocating by myself and finally got it together. But you know what? There is not one mental health bed for an 82-year-old, 60-year resident of Santa Monica. They tried to ship my client off to Sacramento to a mental health bed because he has dementia. We need to care for our own people in the city. I know it makes some of the new people uncomfortable, but we need to care for our own. That was my first item. Sorry. My second item, a little nicer. So I am here to support the appointment of Gina DeBaca to the Restorative Justice Committee. I have known Gina my entire life. She is a pillar in the community. She has been such an inspiration since I was a little girl. She is the reason that I am involved so heavily in politics, so the horror and joy of some. But, um, I think she is an absolute asset to the community. She knows the neighborhood black and brown communities and has advocated for all of us. She is the moment and I hope we uplift her for everything she has done for this community. Thank you. Thank you.

Um, Dustin portless, not here. Erica Leslie. Thank you.

Good evening. This is the perfect comeback after what she just said. I just want you to consider that homelessness comes in different levels. As the young lady said about those with mental health illnesses and those that are working class, homeless, invisible, those that are not counted because they're not living on the streets. As you consider closing Sam O'Shell, it affects them as well because every bed that we have available is another bed that somebody cannot sleep on the streets. Because this is exactly what we don't want here in Santa Monica. So please take that into consideration as you deliberate on this item. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Leslie. John Cyrus-Smith.

Hi, Mayor, Council. I have two items, so I get two minutes, right? Okay. So what do you do, one and then you do one more? All right, so this is 11B and 16F are like the same item. So I'm just going to talk for two minutes. Good evening. I learned a little bit about homelessness when I was on the Parks Commission for 12 years. And I was looking through some stuff, and I pulled up this LA Times article. And it quotes the mayor of Santa Monica saying, our patience is being taxed. Enough is enough. We're overwhelmed. That article is from 1986. And the mayor being quoted in the article is Christine Reed. 40 years ago, and we're still talking about the same problem, and maybe it's gotten worse. But we've had town halls, we've packed this chamber, we've vented on Facebook, and I've seen people write, no one's doing anything. Well, tonight, the city is trying to do something. And finally taking some action. And for decades, we've tried to rely on LA County. And I think LA County has kind of failed us. And so I think all of us would agree the system has failed us. So now we have this opportunity to take responsibility for what happens in our own city. It's not so popular. And I know the motel idea is not the greatest idea, but it's a foothold towards a solution. And based on, I mean, we just got the homeless count from LA County six months late and it's all raw data. I mean, it's sort of like the epitome of what's not going right. So anyways, I think the city plan deserves a chance. And doing the same thing over and over again doesn't make sense. Homelessness is already here. The question is, can we manage it better? I think the answer is yes. I think this gives Santa Monica the chance to do exactly that. So 40 years from now, someone like me isn't up here quoting a 40-year-old article and wanting

Thank you. I now see another commenter who just popped up. I don't know what's going on here. Charles Dobik? Is Charles Dobik here? He's coming. And while he's doing that, I don't understand the Harvey Etter situation. He signed up for one comment. He commented, is there a different item that you want to comment on, Mr. Etter? OK, well, we'll let you talk for one more minute. And then Mr. Doback.

OK, hello. My name's Harvey. I'm talking for myself, PSPC, et cetera. I've been paying $4,000 a month at 11th on Pico at a dumpy hotel. I got rats. I got shit in my toilet. I got no heat, no hot water. This thing on the Palm Motel, I've been number six on a waiting list. I've been number one. They're supposed to move from the county to the city. I've had the last two weeks, my rent's been paid by mental health. I've been moved by Shea Stevenson out here as a crazy person. and labeled this and violence and all kinds of other crap. And it's outrageous. T-Mart and all these, you got the GS programs. They got $10 million a couple months ago and they got a right to counsel 20 in both of those, a five and a 10. And there's another 15 for homeless disabled seniors from the county. Nothing's going on. There's another 200 million a year for Measure A. Now that's up and that's all this stuff. You had the community court, all this stuff, about 9 million buying this. It ought to be going to co-ops. And we had to own these places. That's the law. We recorded in the paper saying that you're putting market rates and it's illegal. And the 40% is supposed to be low.

Thank you, Mr. Eder. Mr. Doback.

Good evening. My name is Charles Dobeck. I reside at 2964 Delaware Avenue next to 2958, which has been torn down and going to be rebuilt. I am opposed to all this reconstruction and what you're planning on doing on Delaware east of Dorchester. I live west of, I'm sorry, I live west on the corner of Dorchester and Delaware. But you're going to change the whole neighborhood, allowing 12, 20 unit buildings to ruin the placas trees that are already dying from lack of water and lack of care. I realize you're stuck in a rock and a hard place, but you're changing a community that I've lived in for 35 years. present that my nice neighborhood that moved there for the trees and for the quietness is going to change to a very overcrowded population. So I just.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. OK, we I'm so sorry if we could just happy hands. Thank you. Thank you. Now we have the callers phone. OK, can you bring us in on the phone?

We have three colors.

Our first caller is Jacob Wasserman.

Thank you. Yes, my name is Jacob Wasserman, Planning Commissioner, but speaking for myself really quickly. So on 11C, the Planning Commission, I just want you to interpret what we voted correctly. We were told that upzoning R2 and R3 was the only option, the only feasible way to make the SB79 delay threshold. Later, the other options were developed by staff. So just don't interpret what we voted more than what we were presented. Second, on 13a. I just encourage you to take a look at the memos that were submitted in the Planning Commission agendas passed on missing middle upzoning and on charging impact fees by parking space instead of by square foot. That's a much fairer way to do it. And third, I just want to recommend my good friend Mike Terranova to the Housing and Human Services Commission. The guy has an incredible eye for detail, passionate about homelessness policy. He's an engineer, an involved growing place parent, I can't think of anybody better to serve our city, so I hope you give Mike Terranova your consideration. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Chanal Harrington. Ms. Harrington, press star six to unmute.

Good evening, Mayor Tarotha, honorable members of the city council and city staff. My name is Chanel Harrington, and I am honored to express my interest in serving on Santa Monica's inaugural restorative justice commission. I am a proud fourth generation Santa Monica resident and a double Bruin having earned dual bachelor degrees and most recently a master of social welfare at UCLA. Everything I've accomplished academically has been in preparation for a career of public stewardship. And there's no greater honor than the opportunity to bring that knowledge and experience back to the city that raised me. I most recently completed my graduate internship with the City of Santa Monica's Human Services Division, where I supported initiatives focused on behavioral health, youth development, and intergenerational programming, conducting policy, research, facilitating focus groups, analyzing data, and helping develop recommendations to strengthen the community well-being across generations. restorative justice is more than a professional interest to me.

That was one minute. The next speaker is Karen Croner. Ms. Croner, press star six to unmute.

Mitchell, can you unmute her or does she need to do it?

I can only give permission to unmute. Might have lost her.

Is there another is there another caller?

She is the last caller.

Okay, that concludes then the public comment on these items. We're going to, pursuant to our agenda management, we're going to go ahead and move on to item 13A.

If I may, for a moment, ask the clerk to convene the special meeting. Oh, thank you. Because it's 845.

It's about to be 845. So then should we do the public comments for the special meeting now?

Before we adjourn, did I miss it?

No, we are going to call to order.

There's a Brad Ewing here. Oh, I didn't see Brad Ewing. I may have put myself in the wrong queue.

Feel free to make your comment, and then we'll call the special meeting to order. You are on the special meeting, Ms. Moutonier. She's in the special meeting queue.

You're in the special meeting.

I'm this as well. I want to be on the special meeting.

I'm this.

Okay, great. Let's hear the comments.

All right. Sorry about the confusion. Good evening, Mayor, council members. Brad Ewing speaking on my own behalf tonight on 11C. I'm asking you to direct staff to pursue option two. Firstly, this likely builds missing middle ownership housing in the city under the proposed standards, what's likely to pencil are townhomes and small lot homes that people are going to buy. RIGHT NOW OUR CITY OFFERS ALMOST NO PATH TO OWNERSHIP FOR A HOUSEHOLD THAT CAN'T AFFORD $2 MILLION OR MORE TO OWN A HOME. THIS OPENS UP THAT PATH AND THE PROPOSED STANDARDS ARE BARELY AN INCREASE FROM WHAT IS ALLOWED UNDER SB 1123 ON THOSE LOTS TODAY. SECONDARILY, R1 PARCELS ARE ALMOST ALL OWNER OCCUPIED. THE STAFF ANALYSIS PLACES ALL 212 IN THE UNLIKELY DISPLACEMENT RISK CATEGORY. COMPARE THAT TO OPTION 3 WHERE TWO-THIRDS OF THE PARCELS IN THAT OPTION ARE HOME TO RENTERS. A broader upzoning diffuses any land value increase and reduces the pressure to redevelop existing rental homes. If we have to add capacity somewhere, add it where the displacement risk is minimized. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. And Ms. Moutonier?

The minutes for 11B of the regular agenda, this emotional item. One minute, okay. I want to ditto especially the comments of two of the leadership people of Sunset Park regarding the good neighbor agreement. And the reason is because my neighbors downstairs are cannabis users, but chronic. And if you don't have this type of agreement, And cannabis, you know, people smile, but the latest research, people can get psychotic breaks on this, really. As someone who has used cannabis in the past, I'm telling you, it's not a judgment. It's that I live with them under me. The police has been called 10 times to the building. They have assaulted me twice, battery. The police comes and they have not been arrested. Where are we living? THIS LOOKS LIKE PUBLIC HOUSING. IT ACTUALLY PAILS. I HAVE FRIENDS THAT LIVE IN PUBLIC HOUSING THAT HAS A BETTER LIFE. AND I HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS.

SO YOU NEED AND I BELIEVE MS. LOYA IS HERE NOW FOR ONE MINUTE. THANK YOU.

Good evening, everyone. Hi, my name is Maria Loya, and I'm here representing the Pico Neighborhood Association. I'm here to ask that you take a position to delay this and to stop the dumping into the south side of Santa Monica of undesirable and harmful developments without the proper plan and mitigation. this is going to have a detrimental impact continue to have an impact on the residents that live in the area and i think it's important that there be a plan in place and at that at the present moment there is no mitigations in place for the type of impact that this kind of facility is is currently taking an impact on the residents and will continue to do so On July 16th, the PNA and Friends of Sunset Park had a town hall meeting. In that town hall meeting, it was clear that there was no plan in place to provide safety and security.

Thank you, Mr. De La Torre.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH FOR LISTENING TO OUR RESIDENTS ON THESE ISSUES. I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT TODAY WE STOP THE PATTERN OF DUMPING UNDESIRABLE AND HARMFUL DEVELOPMENT IN THE SOUTH SIDE OF OUR CITY. THAT WE REALLY STOP THAT. WE SHOULD TAKE A PAUSE. AS MARIA JUST SPOKE REGARDING THE TOWN HALL, WE DON'T HAVE A MITIGATION AND SAFETY PLAN. AND I THINK THAT RIGHT THERE EVEN JEOPARDIZES OTHER SERVICES IN THE CITY BECAUSE WHEN YOU START HAVING THE PROBLEMS THAT WE'VE SEEN WITH SOME OF THE OTHER YOU KNOW, PROGRAMS, AND IT GOES UNMITIGATED, IT'S JUST PROBLEMATIC. THE OTHER THING THAT I THINK WE NEED TO DO IS SUPPORT MORE REGIONAL SERVICE PLANS. WE DON'T ALWAYS HAVE TO HOUSE EVERYTHING IN SANTA MONICA. WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO LEVERAGE RESOURCES WITH OTHER CITIES TO HAVE A GREATER IMPACT OUTSIDE OUR BORDERS. THE CURRENT PATH THAT WE'RE ON IS UNSUSTAINABLE, AND I HOPE THAT WE TAKE A PAUSE SO THAT WE CAN DEVELOP A BETTER PLAN. THANK YOU.

Thank you so much. So again, I do not see any additional comments.

We'll now call the special meet.

Sorry, we'll now call the special meeting to order. It's past 845. And we are having a joint calling of the special and regular meeting. Correct, City Attorney?

Yes. And if the Council may want to do some agenda management and take the public comment for the special meeting now, you may or you may wait until the conclusion

Yeah, I'm going to use the prerogative to take the comment now, if that's permissible. We have Sarah Meagher, Zoe Moutonnier, and Harvey Etter. Did you want to comment on this? These are related to two ballot initiatives. OK. Zoe Moutonnier, did you want to comment on the ballot initiatives? And then Harvey Etter, and then we will proceed.

AT THE LAST CITY COUNCIL MEETING OR TWO CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS AGO, I SHARE WITH JESSE SWICK THAT I WAS PLANNING TO BRING A BALLOT MEASURE AND IT'S A LOT OF WORK AND DANNY SAINT TOLD ME THAT. INSTEAD, BECAUSE OF WHAT HAPPENED AT THE LAST CITY COUNCIL MEETING, I DECIDED INSTEAD OF RUN FOR RENT CONTROL AND TRY TO ACCOMPLISH MY GOAL WORKING WITH THE PEOPLE OF RENT CONTROL, THE CITY ATTORNEY AND CODE ENFORCEMENT. HOWEVER, WHEN I READ that you're rescinding the resolution number 11 7 8 5 the language all that is exactly what has happened to me four times in the city so it's a roommate situation there's a drama with the landlord I filed complaints with the city attorney. Everybody is throwing the problem to everybody else. Nobody wants to take responsibility. And I have to end up moving to a new apartment. So this is just textbook what has happened to me. And the city attorney has not been able to solve it. Rent control also does not solve it. Code Enforcer semi-solved it, but then they quit the city and go, and I see other people having the same problem. It has happened to me four times. So please explain what this language means, like Lana Negrete did at the meeting of Sunset Park in plain English. What is that you're rescinding, and what is that you're supporting? Because right now, the language alarms me a little bit. Thank you so much for listening. And I'm going to fill an application for one of the commissions, but that is going to be in another meeting. So I'm not going to speak tonight about that. Thank you.

Howdy again. My name's Harvey. I'm speaking for myself with PSPC, et cetera. I want to say Bill Selby was here, and he wanted to speak on this item. And he was a professor of environmental studies at the college, and I had him as a teacher, and he's excellent. He left, and I'm concerned about that. Anyway, reading this, it seems like there's the interaction between the homeless and other folks and Measure 79 and trying to keep people out of neighborhoods and whatnot. And just like the stuff about the Palm Motel and all these meetings going on, this stuff is not open and available to everyone. And I'm really kind of upset and confused. And so I see kind of a generic systemic type of thing here. And I just want to be on the record speaking to that. And there's big problems here and it's got to be taken constructively to do something so we can survive. We've got major problems like in the world happening in the Middle East and whatnot with energy and Iran and all this and, you know, We're ready. They're telling people that we're ready for World War III. Political economics is my background. That's my degrees. Environmental studies. I was the first student of environmental studies at UC.

Is this related to the ballot initiative?

This is related to the ballot initiative. This is the political economic analysis. All right. Enough.

Thank you. thank you um we will now move on to is there a staff report for the 13 or is um commissioner landris going to just give us you're next sorry we said we were putting the 13 items before the 11 items oh we are going to deal with the special meeting first i didn't realize i thought we were taking them together yeah

So for clarity, perhaps Council would like to just decide how it would like to proceed. And we understand that agenda management before was to hear the 13 item before the 11 items on the regular meeting agenda. If you would like to, for clarity,

conduct this the eleven items for on the regular meeting agenda and then the eleven items for the special meeting agenda perhaps that's not that that's what i assume we're going to do but apologies i shouldn't assume anything um is that okay does anyone have an objection to that no great uh commissioner landris apologies

Thank you. Good evening, Council.

Sorry, just before you commence, how many minutes did we say? I don't have that in here, I don't think.

Ten? And I should have a, I do have a PowerPoint. I thought we said five.

Did it say ten on the agenda?

Should I open it?

It has five on my agenda.

Oh, five?

Yeah. We can ask additional questions with the presentation's five minutes.

You got it? Okay.

All right. Then I'll speak fast. Really fast.

Sorry. My apologies. Sorry.

Yes. This wasn't on my list, but just, you know, we're not taking action tonight, but out of an abundance of caution, I'll just step outside and, you know, not influence you all with my facial expressions.

Thank you, Mayor Proton.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND COUNCILMEMBERS. I'LL SPEAK FAST. FOR THE LAST REPORT WE HAD TEN, SO I AIMED FOR EIGHT ON THIS ONE. THANK YOU FOR GIVING THE PLANNING COMMISSION THE OPPORTUNITY TO PRESENT THIS PROPOSAL. I'M SEAN LANDRIS HERE ON THE COMMISSION'S BEHALF, AT LEAST FOR THE NEXT FEW MINUTES. WE VOTED UNANIMOUSLY TO BRING THIS TO YOU, AND WHAT YOU HAVE BEFORE YOU IS THE MISSING MIDDLE HOUSING REALIGNMENT PLAN. THE IDEA BEHIND IT IS SIMPLE. SANTA MONICA can build homes for its own workforce on the open market if we let the building forum do the work um let me let me show you how so um the definition of middle missing middle housing is before you and it refers to building types that are between a single family house and a large apartment building and it's two reasons there are two reasons we call it missing middle one is the size and also because it is these are homes for households between let's say 120 to 200% of the area median income, folks who earn too much for subsidized housing but too little to buy here in Santa Monica. If we get the size and the density right, we can get workforce prices on the open market plus some deed-restricted units that ensure that. So just to give folks a context, a firefighter and a teacher making together $162,000. a police officer and a working spouse, a nurse raising children. Not one of these households qualifies for subsidized affordable housing, but nobody can buy a median home here, which now runs well over a million dollars. And about 90% of the people who work in Santa Monica live somewhere else. The proposal from the Planning Commission is to consider the cottage court. This is an old solution that's been around for a long time. We're talking about six or seven small detached cottages around a shared courtyard, seven on an R2, six on an R1. There are about 850 square feet, and you need to build this to our three standards. And I'll come back to that. But that gets you a uniform street facade. And the way we've designed it at the Planning Commission is that at least one cottage in every court is permanently price restricted at 200% of area median income. But the others are small enough that they'll sell at good prices. This is not a special exception. This is part of the broad framework, and we recommend that this apply in R1, R2, the moderate income housing overlay, and the community assembly parcels where I'll remind council that we were before the state of California in trying to encourage congregations to develop their parking lots. So I'll keep going. Eight policy updates that this involves, which we're asking you to direct staff to study. Density would be one per 800 square feet. We would do a ratcheted fee trade on AHPP fees. And so the more units you develop, you'd get your exchange for the 200% AMI workforce covenant. We'd like you to disaggregate the transportation fee so that there's a parking fee Per parking space and then a multimodal fee per bedroom So zero parking projects pay less and cars pay basically expedited approvals for pre-approved plans You would save 10% on hard costs if you went to our three building code for some folks they might need some bridge financing so a revolving capital fund and lot consolidation, and then just briefly to say there's a bill pending called AB 1070, which would study the R3 and R2 approach, which other states have adopted. I'll just finish briefly by saying that as progressive as it was, our community assembly pathway has built zero units. So this is an opportunity to look and see whether this might work. And I think it might work in the sense that the congregations might even make enough on the units to be able to finance their own parking replacement for the small number of spaces that they need. This is again some details on the Community assembly think about Community land trusts think about nonprofit development partnerships. And a different slightly different affordability mix that would probably make these projects pencil in ways that they have not so far, which is why they're not getting built. We think, based on the research that I did before the Planning Commission, that there are probably 300 cottages potentially buildable out of this, depending on what R1 and R2 owners did with their properties, what families put together, and then what congregations can do. And that is the program. So tonight we're requesting three actions from the council. We're asking you to define missing middle housing for Santa Monica in both its building forms and a Santa Monica-sensitive workforce income band, direct staff to study the elements of this plan as part of its housing element work, including the enabling components and the feasibility and fee studies, and third, formally support Assembly Bill 1070. If you will permit a personal note, my own term on this commission is ending extremely shortly, so this timing could hardly be better, and I'm grateful to close out my 11 years of commission service with a practical plan for progress. Thank you, and I'm happy to take your questions with 30 seconds returned.

Wow, so efficient. Thank you. I love that. Does anyone have questions? Okay, Council Member Zernitzkaya, then Raskin.

So for folks who might not be aware of what it is, what is a community land trust and how would it help in this type of situation?

Sure. Thank you, council members. So a community land trust essentially traditionally owns the land. And then the improvement, which is what we call the building or the home on the property, can be sold without the land underneath it. And anybody who gets a property tax bill in the mail, or has seen a property tax bill frequently seen is that the land is far more expensive than the building, which means when we're selling buildings instead of the underlying land, it's a lot cheaper. The gains on those properties go up far less. And if we deed restrict the building while letting the land stay in a nonprofit vehicle, we're actually reducing the profit taking on that property and we're ensuring that forever and ever and ever, amen, that those are homes for people at a particular income level. And the idea here is that frequently congregations are not equipped to do land management or facilities management themselves. And so by partnering with a nonprofit community land trust to either take over that land or advise them on the land, we could create a structure that would facilitate the development of this kind of housing for really long-term benefit for our community.

And would it be accurate to say that community land trusts also allow for more stability for the folks who are living there?

100%, particularly because if a community land trust rents those homes instead of selling them at a deed restricted rate, they are not pursuing a profit motive. They're pursuing a motive to maintain those homes in good repair, to create community for the folks who are living there. And so that is essentially an incentive to build community and keep people in their homes as long as possible.

Thank you. Councillor Ruskin.

Commissioner Landers, this is really coming full circle here. You and I were colleagues for four years on the Planning Commission, and this is really, I think, a fitting capstone to your accomplishments in the Planning Commission. This has been something you've been passionate about for a long time. I'm hoping you just kind of speak to what the path forward is for incorporating this into our future planning, including future housing element work. and how this can serve as a model for potential really large reallocations they expect to get in the next cycle?

100%. So I think, first of all, Adam Gilbert's comment was really well taken in terms of the fact that building housing isn't just for large-scale developers, right? There are opportunities here for people who are not looking to build large-scale projects. In particular, When I did the feasibility work on this, and it was reviewed by some experts, it seems that this is really an option for people who are longtime homeowners who maybe would like to downsize and preserve a small unit for themselves on the lot, but also make additional housing available for family members or just sell it or just rent it. and have retirement income. So it's true. This doesn't pencil for somebody who's going to buy a home and flip it. That just doesn't pencil. But for somebody who wants to work with it, who's had that property for a long time, it'll definitely work. I also think for you all, and because our request is, let's see if this works, right? We've laid out a number of policy options that we think the right way for you all to move forward is to direct staff to incorporate this into the prep for the next housing element. But there are two pieces that I really would want to stress. One is the disaggregation of the impact fees. We charge a transportation impact fee that's based on square footage. And the truth is, I mean, I'll say this out loud. I am not sure that it is sustainable in the long term because we are charging non-vehicle owners for vehicle related costs. We should charge vehicle owners for their costs and we should then charge everyone per bedroom a much, much, much lower rate for the cost of walking and biking and taking the bus and ride share and all the things. And that's far, far lower than one vehicle. So disaggregating those impact fees, but that requires feasibility studies and nexus studies that we need to do before the housing element. And the second piece is the ratchet. And if you'll permit me, I want to explain it in a little more detail because I didn't know about it before I started. And Portland is the one that experimented with this. But essentially the idea, and I wrote you a letter about your other 11 item on SB 79 exclusions, is that When we give away far we don't have to just give it away, we can say you get this far with minimum unit counts so it's. 0.5 FAR for a single family home. And the minute you go to two units on that property, maybe it's 0.75, maybe it's 0.85. And if you're gonna go to three units, then you get 0.95, one. And if you're gonna go to five or six units, then you get your 1.25 FAR. What we're saying as a city is that we're gonna give away this density by right, but we're gonna expect, or for a trade, right? But we're gonna expect a minimum unit count so that we essentially disincentivize mansionization and we disincentivize the production of large, Townhomes that these days are selling for, I mean, I've looked it up 2.1 million, 2.2 million. They are not accessible to the people who work in this town. Now there's a place for them in our housing mix, but what I'm talking about here is creating a pathway that says, well, let's find a way to build smaller units and, and, and let the developer make a fair return on those smaller units, but they're going to make their return at a lower price point to the, home renter or home buyer.

I want to first thank you for putting this together. I have so many questions, but tonight is so deep. One of my questions is, does the program include any kind of anti-displacement type protections? If so, can you

So, I mean, it's a little bit off the shelf in the sense that the state has developed some standards on anti-displacement. I believe that I looked up the toughest anti-displacement rules when I wrote the plan. So it's the seven-year look back on rent control. I mean, it's a seven-year look back. It's a seven-year look back and the three-year look back so that you would not be able to displace existing renters, and you obviously would not be able to displace any unit that has been temporarily removed from the market. And I think there would be a challenge around the rent control law because we're dealing with largely single-family homes. Obviously, any property that is under rent control protections would remain under rent control protections. I was looking at SB 330, which I think still has the strongest anti-displacement protections, even stronger than SB 79. I mean, yes, I know they're stronger than SB 79.

And then my other question has to do with a little bit with construction costs. I think you looked at a number between 380 to 455 per square foot. How would we, with a program like this, maybe adapt to costs that might be rising? And is there something?

So that's a challenge. And, you know, I was afraid I was before we sent this to you last month, I went and reran the numbers to make sure that they hadn't moved in the you know, like the Iran war has, you know, knocks things up and we've all lived through the commodity price increase and interest rates being higher than they used to be. So that is why we need feasibility studies. But the R3 piece here, and this goes back to our request that you endorse AB 1070, A number of states, so I'll back up and say, when we build R2 units in Santa Monica, there are a lot of requirements on those units that do not apply in R3. One of them is a sort of minimum sprinkler count, I think, that applies in R2 that doesn't apply in R3. Now, obviously, fire is a danger, but we have very different fire risk and Santa Monica in 2026 than we did in 1956, right? So a number of states have experimented with allowing California residential building code instead of commercial building code in R2, in their versions of R2. There has not been a single safety incident as a result that can be attributed to the reduced standards. And that will knock 10% off your construction costs. So what AB 1070 will do is, it's moving very slowly, but it will direct housing and community development and building and safety, I think it's mostly in building and safety, to convene a working group to study What would happen if we allowed our three standards, California residential code, to be applied in R1 and R2? And if we could pull that off here, I believe we have some flexibility as a charter city to issue some waivers if we choose. But since we're not looking at doing this before the housing element, Let's say the more conservative approach would be to endorse AB 1070, let the study group do its work, and then go from there. I will say that I think a few of us take it as a personal victory that we managed to get the high rise definition in Santa Monica changed to 75 feet with all appreciation for the fire department. The 55-foot rule was designed when fire trucks could only reach two stories, and we can now reach higher. Council Member Raskin remembers these conversations. So that took us, I think, 10 years to get that change. So let's see if we can get this one a little faster.

And then my last question, believe me, I have so many more, but not to tonight. I mean, the program talks a little bit, well, the report talks a little bit about the racial disparity in Santa Monica. And how does the program specifically prioritize the displacement of the families and communities of color with respect to it? Or do you have some kind of thoughts about that?

well i mean i you know a huge part of my service on the planning commission i think and i want to give a shout out to commissioner nina fresco for really leading the work on this going back to to 2020 but we've spent a lot of time studying uh displacement risk and the history of displacement in santa monica particularly of the african-american community one of the challenges of course is it's one thing to say sure you can move back it's another thing to say you can afford it. And what I have always felt very strongly about, and it's why I wrote this, is that we can't just write paper rules. We can't just upzone on paper. We have to upzone in a way that things actually get built and that they do so in a way that provides real housing diversity in our community at all income levels across our community. This would, you know, a homeowner north of Montana could subdivide a property very nicely and build some beautiful housing there. In fact, there is missing middle housing north of Montana. There are a handful of multifamily properties that you don't know that they're multifamily because they're in that envelope of missing middle. And that's one of the most racially, it was called out by HCD as racially concentrated neighborhood when we studied the housing element. So this program, I would like to believe, would contribute to not only responding to our city's history of displacement and housing racism, but also create a pathway to actually doing the repair. It's one thing to say you're sorry. It's another thing to actually offer people a pathway to a solution to make things right. I just want to thank you again for all my questions.

Great. So I just want to get some clarification from our city attorney. We are not taking action on this item tonight. We can only hear it.

Yes, that's the nature of the thirteen item. It's just it's just a report from the board and commission. Okay. So you could give you could give direction to staff to return at a later time. But usually these board and commission, um, traditionally, um, they, they're just to receive information.

Okay. So. I would direct, give direction to staff to incorporate this analysis in our housing element preparation and have our intergovernmental affairs team come back to us as to whether or not it would make sense or helpful for us to take a position on AB, which bill is it?

1070, 1070.

Yeah, sorry, I was going to say 1710. 1070. Thank you. And that would be my direction.

I'd second that. Do we need to read the motion on that? I would like to. I'd like to have a motion on it.

Okay. Councillor Raskin.

I just want to make a brief comment. I can say that after the motion.

Okay. So we have moved staff to come back to us about taking a position on state legislation that would help us effectuate this plan and also incorporate this information as we're working on our next cycle housing element to really push for more missing middle housing with the expectation that this council does want to create more of these types of opportunities. And Council Member Snell had seconded it. with great appreciation to uh commissioner landers in the planning commission and thank you so much thank you very much for your service and independent thought leadership on this thank you are we are you about all those in favor aye any opposed Any abstentions? Okay, great. Thank you so much, Commissioner Landers.

I just think a brief comment to Council Member Snell's point. You know, in the time since Commissioner Landers has been on the Planning Commission, there really, I think, has been a greater focus on the impacts of the past harms in our city. And I'm really proud of the work that Commissioner Landers has done on that, really proud of the work that we've done on that as a council. And I can say, you know, as your former colleague, and seeing the work you've done, that you've left a really, really great legacy in bringing our focus to building a more just and equitable city. So thank you.

Great. We will now move back to the 11 items, 11a.

Item 11A is adoption of a resolution approving membership in the West Side Cities Affordable Housing Trust.

Oh, sorry, Councilmember, Mayor Pro Tem Jesse Zwick needs to come back. Is he recused on this? Okay, okay.

Coming back to say that I have to recuse on this item due to my employment at the Housing Action Coalition, which advocates for greater development of both affordable and market rate housing.

Just to be clear, sorry for your time, I think you're recused on everything until 16, correct? Not 11b. Oh, my apologies. Okay, great. You may, oh, he's, wait till he crosses the official threshold. Great. Thank you.

All right. Good evening, City Council. My name is Natalie Villinich. I'm the housing manager tonight. We have Westside City COG staff as well as consultants from Harrison Associates that will be doing a brief presentation tonight about the Westside City Affordable Housing Trust Formation. And with that, I'll hand it over to Dima from Harrison Associates. Thank you.

Thank you, Natalie. And good evening, Mayor Taurosis and council members. My name is Dima Galkin. I'm director of community development and housing at Harrison Associates, and we're the consultant assisting the West Side Cities COG on this effort. I'm here tonight to present a quick overview of the proposed West Side Cities Affordable Housing Trust, including the formation process, the benefits, and current funding opportunities. SO FOR THE HOUSING TRUST, POTENTIAL MEMBER CITIES INCLUDE THE CITIES OF SANTA MONICA, BEVERLY HILLS, CULVER CITY AND WEST HOLLYWOOD WHO ARE ALSO MEMBERS OF THE WEST SIDE CITIES COG. And formation would be done by member cities voting to form the trust. This would be done by resolution, which is what is presented to you tonight. On June 11, the COG board voted to endorse the member cities forming the trust. And key documents to the formation of the trust include the Joint Powers Agreement, or JPA, which lays out the purpose and key terms for the housing trust, and the bylaws which prescribe the board structure and other key operational elements of the trust. The study and formation for this trust are covered by a REAP 2.0 grant provided by SCAG. And in order to meet the deadlines of the grant, we are currently pursuing trust formation under Senate Bill 20, or SB20. SB20 requires that trust boards have at least three elected members from the trust member cities and at least two technical board members who are described as experts in homeless or housing policy that are not elected officials. And so for the west side cities, the current proposal is to have seven total board members, including one director per member city and three technical or expert members. The technical board members will be appointed by the elected members and would have voting rights on the board. It should be noted that we're also coordinating with the COG team to prepare a plan for special legislation that would allow for additional flexible options, including a different structure for the board, for example, one that only includes representatives from the member cities. This legislative route, I'll note, also would allow the trust to fund moderate income housing, which is not currently allowed by Senate Bill 20. And there may be potential for the trust to receive an allocation of state funding like we've seen with other housing trusts throughout LA County and throughout the state using this legislative process. Now, how will the trust help member cities? First, it's important to note that at this time the member cities would not need to pay to join the trust, nor to pay any dues, and that the formation of a trust would not create or increase taxes. Measure A funding, which I'll describe more later, would be used to fund the administrative costs for at least the first year. Some of the benefits include that the trust can more effectively and quickly deploy funding than if the funding were distributed among member cities separately. And the question of geographic equity or equity among the member cities is a question that would be decided by the Housing Trust Board at a later time. Local decision-making would be maintained. As proposed, the trust would only fund developments that have local support. And the trust could fund developments on city-owned land or those that have city funding included in the mix, also known as the capital stack, as well as developments without other local funding. The trust will provide resources and expertise for funding awards and could help member cities by providing technical assistance or other services to supplement existing city efforts and capacity. And the trust could be more competitive for certain funding sources. For example, LHTF, or Local Housing Trust Fund, is a state program. And Senate Bill 417, which was recently passed, will put the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond on this November's ballot. And that bond would include a $200 million allocation for LHTF. As part of our process, we created a strategic plan for the trust with four pillars. One is to create deals, by which we mean to support participating cities in identifying opportunities, advancing project readiness, and building or expanding the pipeline of viable affordable housing projects. Also is finance deals, by which we mean to deploy available funding resources strategically, expand financing opportunities, leverage additional investment, and support affordable housing production and preservation throughout the region. There's also to track and communicate deals, which includes developing the systems, reporting tools, performance measures, and communication strategies necessary to support transparency, accountability, and informed decision making. and then also to build relationships to enable deals. This includes strengthening collaboration among cities, developers, lenders, public agencies, nonprofit organizations, and other stakeholders to support housing implementation and long-term organizational success. Now, how much funding might be available? The slide here shows potential funding for an upcoming Notice of Funding Availability, or NOFA, and this assumes that all four member cities were to join the trust. Again, the funding here is provided under Measure A, which is a half-cent sales tax countywide, and La Casa is the organization that allocates and distributes funding to both large cities and regional COGs and trusts. SO HERE WE HAVE THE POTENTIAL NOFA AMOUNT THAT COULD BE RELEASED LATER THIS YEAR IS ABOUT $8 MILLION, WHICH INCLUDES ABOUT $3.7 MILLION REMAINING FROM FISCAL YEAR 25-26, AND APPROXIMATELY $4.3 MILLION FOR FISCAL YEAR 26-27. AND THIS IS NET OF ALL THE ADMINISTRATIVE COSTS THAT WOULD BE TAKEN OUT UNDER THE MEASURE A FUNDING. AND THE TRUST COULD ALSO PURSUE ADDITIONAL OUTSIDE FUNDING TO ADD MORE TO THIS. And I'll conclude with a bit of a timeline here. So just to provide you all with some additional context, Beverly Hills has held a study session to discuss the trust formation. And here we are tonight where the resolution is presented to you to approve the city's membership in the housing trust. The other cities who could join the trust plan to meet in August or September to vote on their joining the trust. And if all goes according to plan, we anticipate issuing a NOFA this fall and having funding recommendations by the end of the year. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions along with Cog staff.

Great. Council Member Hall.

Thank you, Mayor. So I understand there are some funding considerations that's driving the timeline of this approval. Is that correct? And what are those considerations?

That's correct. So the funding I believe you're referring to is the REAP 2.0 funding provided by SCAG. And that covers the cost for our study and preparing all the documents necessary to form the trust. And under that REAP 2.0 funding, the activities funded by that would need to be concluded by December 31 of this year. But additional activities with other funding could be could continue beyond that.

In addition to that as well, at the June COG meeting, there was the first year allocation was allocated to this regional housing trust if it was created prior to October 26, or sorry, October 2026. And that allocation has a year expenditure deadline under La Casa to Find a suitable or eligible development under that that obligation as well. So there's really 2 deadlines that are driving this.

Got it. Thank you. Um, with regards to the appointed technical. Subject matter experts on the board, can you walk us through what their purpose is? I didn't actually realize they were required by law, um, under under this law. allowing these. So could you talk us through what their purpose is?

Sure. Generally speaking, their purpose would be to provide their insights on matters of the Regional Housing Trust. With other housing trusts that we've worked with, potential technical members have come from city staff representatives, as well as from universities and other people who have experience in affordable housing development, services provided, that kind of thing. And so they would bring their expertise and participate and contribute to the discussion and decision making of the trust board.

Okay, thanks. Last question I have is around the quorum definition. So the joint powers agreement states that a quorum is a majority of the board of directors present at the meeting. So does that mean in theory that you could have a meeting where financial decisions are being made by a quorum that consists of a majority of appointed subject matter experts instead of elected representatives?

In theory, I believe that that's accurate. But there'd be opportunities for all of the members to review, you know, there'd be transparency around the decisions being made by the trust. And so the other members would have input in one way or another.

Sure. Okay, thank you.

Councilmember Snell. I JUST HAVE A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS. IS THERE AN EXIT PROCESS IF FOR SOME REASON WE WANTED TO WITHDRAWAL FROM THIS?

NEW SPEAKER YES. THE JPA DOES INCLUDE TERMS FOR WITHDRAWAL FROM THE HOUSING TRUST.

NEW SPEAKER OKAY. IT DOES. AND THEN REGARDING PERFORMANCE OUTCOMES, WHAT ARE THE MEASURABLE PERFORMANCE OUTCOMES? ARE THERE ANY AT THIS POINT?

Yeah, so specifically for the Measure A funds that would be used, there are several performance outcomes and measurements and annual reporting required to be provided to La Casa. And so they're tracking the use of the funds that come under Measure A. Beyond that, the trust board could set additional policies and requirements for annual reporting and monitoring and gathering information on outcomes and results.

And then my last question. How many affordable units are projected to produce or preserve over the next three to five years?

By the housing trust? Right. I don't have that. I know we've looked at that. I don't have that on me. We can get back to you if you'd like.

And then, you know, if there is any dispute amongst the group, is there any kind of discussion on how do we have any resolution with respect to disputes amongst them?

Yeah, just to clarify, you're asking once the trust board is formed and there's dispute among the board members, it would be kind of the regular public meetings and discussion among board members and decisions made by majority?

Simple things like Maybe if 1 of the cities doesn't pay the administrative fees, I mean. What happens with respect to that?

The JPA so, if the trust board were to decide to levy administrative fees, which would require approval by the board and by the members. And 1 of the cities chose not to pay. THE JPA JUST, I GUESS, CONSIDERS THAT THE MEMBER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR PAYMENT OF THE DUE. I DON'T REMEMBER IF IT GETS INTO WHAT ACTIONS MIGHT BE TAKEN FOR NONPAYMENT.

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU.

So I think this is this picking up on on themes that customer all customers told us that I mean, I'm hoping you can use it as a candidate assessment of the availability of measuring funds to fund this project moving forward. You know, I think we're all cognizant of the potential for member contributions. But you know, what's what's the forecast of measure a funding for this?

Yeah, so measure A funds are, as I mentioned, based on sales tax revenues. And so then they can vary year to year. But under the La Casa guidelines, up to 12.5% of the funding can be used for administrative costs. And so, again, for last year and this year, we have the... THE ESTIMATE FOR LAST YEAR AND THE PROJECTION FOR THIS YEAR OF ABOUT $4 MILLION PER YEAR, AND SO THAT FUNDING COMES WITH IT OR BRINGS WITH IT AN ADMINISTRATIVE ALLOWANCE.

NEW SPEAKER DO YOU HAVE ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS? OKAY. I HAVE SOME QUESTIONS. Oh, is that okay? Did you have additional questions? Okay. So can you just talk a little bit about the special legislation that you mentioned? Is this going to be similar to what legislation was required when La Casa was set up? Or is it something separate?

It would be different from the legislation forming La Casa. I would say it's more similar to legislation that formed the San Gabriel Valley Regional Housing Trust or Orange County Housing and Finance Trust, just to name a few. And it's special legislation that includes within it more flexibility than is permitted under Senate Bill 20.

Okay, and I just want to confirm on the record that our membership in this does not actually obligate us to approve fund or say any project.

That's correct.

Okay. And if we are agreeing to divert measure a money for this purpose. Can you just clarify for me, what are we foregoing? Is this money that's competitively applied for, or is this money in our formula funding that would have gone to the COG anyways, and that this COG is choosing to use for the housing trust?

Right, I appreciate the question. So the funding in question would go to the COG, or will go to the COG regardless, if the trust has formed the COG based on DISCUSSION AND DECISIONS MADE SO FAR WOULD REALLOCATE THAT FUNDING TO THE HOUSING TRUST. I'LL DEFER TO THE COG TEAM IF THEY'D LIKE TO ADD ADDITIONAL INSIGHTS ON WHAT DISCUSSIONS I'VE HAD ABOUT IF THE TRUST IS NOT FORMED AND HOW THE COG WOULD HANDLE THE FUNDING IN THAT CASE.

NEW SPEAKER I JUST WANTED A CLARIFICATION OF WHAT OTHER OPTIONS WERE DISCUSSED OR IS THIS TRULY THE ONLY OPTION? LIKE WHAT TRADE-OFFS ARE WE MAKING BY DECIDING THAT WE'RE USING OUR MEASURING MONEY FOR THIS PURPOSE?

Good evening, Mayor Teresas. Good to see you. Who are you? Tell us who you are. Cecilia Solano, Executive Director, Westside Cities Council of Government. And as noted in the staff report, this whole process was started because of a SCAG grant. And so the part of it was to explore this. The board moved forward and recommended adoption by and then now we're going through all the city council. So in terms of what else has been considered, there's been work on this for about three years now. And some changes in the composition of the West Side Cities Council of Government Board over that time. But generally speaking, the goal in setting up this trust is to be able to better leverage funds, to be able to give loans instead of grants, which is a more acceptable way of trying to leverage funds for affordable housing projects and to get that capital stack going. But in the event that The way this works is there are at least three members of the West Side Cities Council of Government have to approve the formation of trust. If three don't move forward, then we won't have a trust. The money will still go to the COG, and then the COG would have to find a way to allocate those funds and come up with programs. In the last year, we used that money to do kind of like a mini NOFA. for grants and we did a competitive process and we awarded, we made sure that we used the La Casa scoring criteria and basically said, Westside cities were really expensive. So what the best of our cities projects moving forward will provide grants. And then if they are able to get the La Casa grants, then they can get our money. And so we did that and we awarded one project. So we'd probably have to do something like that. We could do some technical assistance, but we wouldn't be able to use the typical loan format that trusts have been using. So that's really what our alternative would be.

I appreciate that. That was very helpful. And just to reiterate, Measure A is covering all the administrative costs and setting this out, correct?

EXACTLY CONSERVATIVE IN OUR WAYS OF BUDGETING THIS PROPOSAL. OUR CONSULTANT ACTUALLY SAID, YOU KNOW, YOU COULD GET MORE MONEY OUT OF IT. WE SAID ABSOLUTELY NOT. WE WANTED TO MAKE SURE THAT WE ONLY SPEND WHAT IS IN MEASURE A. WE ARE VERY COGNIZANT OF THE TYPE BUDGETS THAT OUR MEMBERS HAVE, AND WE ALSO NOTE THAT OUR BUDGET AS THE COG BASICALLY IS FUNDED BY DUE. AND SO WE KNOW YOU'LL HAVE TO APPROVE IT AT YOUR CITY COUNCIL IF WE WANT TO GO OVER OUR BUDGET. as our intent is to only fund what Measure A provides.

Fantastic. I see this as low risk and high upside, but I don't know if my colleagues want to make any comments. Council Member Hall. Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

So I want to say or just start by saying I generally support what the COG is trying to do here. I think a housing trust would be great for the reason our COG's executive director just stated, such as accessing philanthropic dollars. and issuing loans instead of grants. And for those reasons, I voted to support this at the COG. However, I would like to continue this item to our August 25th meeting because I want staff to go back to renegotiate some points in the JPA. So when the West Side City's COG, when this was presented to us at the COG, it was presented to us that La Casa WOULD BE FUNDING MEASURE A AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ESTOLANO JUST GAVE US A VERBAL COMMITMENT THAT WE WOULDN'T BE PROVIDING ANY ADDITIONAL FUNDS OFF THE TOP OF OUR MEASURE A BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT THE JPA ACTUALLY SAYS IN WRITING. IN OUR STAFF REPORT FOR TONIGHT IT SAYS THAT IF AND I WOULD PRESUME WHEN THOSE FUNDS RUN OUT IT WILL BE FUNDED VIA A FORMULA OF CONTRIBUTIONS FROM MEMBER CITIES SET BY THE JPA BOARD. PER THE AGREEMENT ONGOING COST ALLOCATION, ANNUAL ASSESSMENT FEES AND IMPORTANTLY PROGRAM COST CONTRIBUTIONS ALL WILL BE DETERMINED IN THE FUTURE BY THE JOINT POWERS AUTHORITY BOARD OF DIRECTORS. SO PERSONALLY, I THINK WE NEED TO DETERMINE THAT FORMULA NOW BEFORE WE AGREE TO JOINING THIS JOINT POWERS AUTHORITY. I DON'T WANT TO ABDICATE THAT AUTHORITY TO A BOARD THAT HAS YET TO BE CREATED. As you probably could tell by my questions tonight, I'm uncomfortable with the definition of what a quorum of the Board would be in the JPA. As it currently stands, you could, in theory, have public financing decisions being made by a majority of unelected technical advisors instead of elected representatives of member cities. And I last thing is you know this is a really significant decision for us to be making we do a really good job of investing our own money in affordable housing projects here in the city and in fairness to us, in fairness to the community, in fairness to all of our affordable housing partners. You know, we were provided the draft of this agreement on July 22nd, and it's a July 28 meeting. So I would like to continue this. I would like to provide direction to staff to renegotiate some of those points and figure out what this formula might be before voting on it. Thank you.

Council Member Raskin.

Yeah, I find myself in agreement with what as Councillor Hall is saying here, and, you know, Councillor Hall, you're our elected representative to the Westside COG, I, too, am very much in support of this project, and I hope we can figure out the way to thread the needle. I think that these are some important details that I agree we should probably fine tune before we go forward. I think my question at this point is about timing, and I don't recall the exact dates that were on the timeline that were shown. We're taking our Council's annual summer recess between August 11th and our first meeting in September, and I'm wondering if that would provide sufficient time to come back and give the direction that's needed here. We're not meeting in late August.

Is anyone on staff able to answer that question on the timeliness matter?

I mean, I think this is important enough to potentially do a special meeting for.

Yeah, can you tell us what the drop-dead deadlines are? Because it sounds like you're doing a tour of all the city councils.

Yeah. Um so in talking with the COG staff and consultants we we could potentially aim for September 8th of coming back um and I believe that that would have also allowed time to go to the other COG cities as well.

Is that going to prevent us from applying for any grant funds that we need?

No because the La Casa funds are not automatic. Okay. We'll automatically go through.

Uh did you have a follow-up question council member Raskin? group comment maybe we should get clarity on whether we're actually meeting on the 25th i thought we'd cancel that but it's on our online agenda it's canceled it's canceled yeah i mean i'm happy to do a special meeting if we need it i guess you'd no sorry i'm not happy to do a special meeting um we're happy to get this done when is a timely manner so in a timely manner so can you tell us if september is okay september 8th yes okay do you want to make a motion council member hall

I move that we continue this item to well I'm not sure if continue is the right motion here if we're asking for a renegotiation of terms yes you're continuing your approval in order to renegotiate the term so that would be okay so I move that we continue this item until our September 8th meeting with direction to staff to renegotiate based off of our public discussion tonight I'll second that

With thanks to the team who's here. I mean, this is obviously, it's been tremendous amount of work that's gone into this. And I think we're all looking forward to seeing this happen just, you know, with the points that Councilmember Hall made.

We don't want the San Gabriel Valley or Orange County beating us, do we?

Or the South Bay.

All those in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Okay, that passes unanimously. We can bring Council Member Swick back, or Mayor Pro Tem Swick. Thank you to the team for being here. Really appreciate it. Excited about this. All right. Yeah, feel free to go ahead and let us know.

FOR THE PUBLIC'S AWARENESS, I AM RECUSING MYSELF FROM ITEMS 11B AND 16F BECAUSE THE ITEMS CONTEMPLATE RELOCATION OF SHELTER CAPACITY AWAY FROM SAMO SHELL TO OUTSIDE OF THE CITY'S DOWNTOWN. MY RESIDENCE, WHICH I RENT, IS IN THE DOWNTOWN, LOCATED BETWEEN 500 AND 1,000 FEET OF SAMO SHELL AND MAY BE AFFECTED BY THE RELOCATION OF SHELTER CAPACITY AWAY FROM THE SITE.

Thank you. Steph?

Hello, Council. My name is Eileen Reynolds, and I have the privilege of serving as the Director of Housing and Human Services. And today I'm here to talk about several agreements we're looking to enter into as an initial step in building out the housing-focused system of care to address unsheltered homelessness in Santa Monica. I know the proposals covered in today's presentation are dense and any discussion on homelessness brings out varying opinions, perspectives, and experiences. Often opportunities for change are passed over to avoid having these difficult conversations. I want to remind everyone that the foundation of this discussion and these proposals is about people. Behind every count, every call for service, every bed is an individual who is struggling. We're looking to expand our homeless intervention system to improve outcomes and help our most vulnerable. I want to start today's presentation by centering on the status of homelessness in Santa Monica. We just received the 2026 point in time count from the county last week, so although the staff report references 2025 numbers, I'm presenting today with 2026. We're happy to report from the 2026 point in time count that was conducted in January, there are 718 people experiencing homelessness in Santa Monica. We are happy to report that this is an 11.6% decrease in 2025. Even more significantly, unsheltered homelessness fell 18.7%, meaning more people accepted shelter and came indoors and less people were on the street. However, this is still a significant number of people who need assistance. And most notably, the majority of unhoused population observed in our city is unsheltered. Likewise, while these figures demonstrate an improvement in the landscape, it does not negate the reality that the community is dealing with. We have heard from the community about the quality of life issues they're facing and the safety concerns they experience. Both things can be true. We can be helping improve the landscape and we can still have a lot of work to do. We've also heard concerns about the methodology in the PIT count. PIT counts are a federal standard and a critical source of data about the number and characteristics of people experiencing homelessness in the United States. And this is also how Congress determines distribution of resources federally. However, due to the nature of the PIT count being one night per year, we understand this data is limited. It also does not include important demographic data we want to know, such as how someone became homeless and where they're originally from. For this reason, we're partnering with rands to conduct a bi monthly homeless count that includes demographic surveys to have a better understanding of the unsheltered population Santa Monica. We look forward to having this more robust data set to track our progress in addressing homelessness in the city and advocating to our general our regional partners for assistance. It's also important to contextualize this presentation in this moment in time when many things are in flux in LA County. There have been significant shifts and reductions in funding at the county level for homeless programming and services. Further, the future of federal COC remains unknown as the county and LA City pursue litigation against federal government withholding funds for the continuum of care. Our service provider nonprofit partners are struggling in the face of these funding cuts and the city is and will continue to be impacted as services turn off. While we continue to work with our regional partners through the West side cities, cog, our supervisorial district and our county contacts, we need to make local changes now to ensure the ripple effect of disinvestment does not negatively impact our city. The realignment plan identified the need to reimagine the City's sheltering model and close San Michelle. In recent years, unsheltered homelessness has continued to be a complex challenge in our community. The status quo is not acceptable for our residents, businesses, or the unhoused community, and the City is proposing these changes to offer a different approach to homeless intervention programs. However, misunderstandings about our proposal have been circulating the community and causing confusion. We saw this in some public comment tonight, and so I just want to be clear about what we are and are not proposing. So San Michelle is not being relocated to the Sunset Park or Pico neighborhood. The proposal today discusses the Palm Motel, which has been operating as interim housing for over two years, and no new facility is being proposed in any neighborhood. Walk-offs will not be allowed at any of our proposed locations, and we will require 24 7 security at all of our in all of our agreements. Good neighbor agreements are built into the proposed service provider contracts, and the city is enthusiastic to develop additional good neighbor agreements in partnership with surrounding neighbors. Assessment for physical health, mental health, and substance abuse will take place prior to program enrollment and determine client level of need. So if an individual needs a higher level of care than our service providers can provide, they will not be referred to our programs and they'll be referred elsewhere. And any act of physical violence or extensive property destruction would be a violation of program participation agreement and would result in program termination. So again, we understand change is hard and we're asking for a new investment in strategy and addressing a problem that's beyond the city's complete control. However, if we do nothing, we believe things will get worse for both house and unhoused folks in our community and we want to do better. As a final piece of background, and I apologize in advance for the length of this presentation, but I want to remind everyone of the larger strategy that the department and the city are taking to address homelessness. The 2025 Homelessness Strategic Plan identified four main strategic pillars, prevention, intervention, coordination, and communication. As prevention is the most effective step or strategy in addressing the homeless crisis, obviously by preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place, the City has invested in various prevention programs. Most recently, the Council adopted both the Prediction Prevention Pilot and launched Santa Monica Renter Aid. Thank you for your support on those programs. Today, we are sharing proposals to address the intervention strategies to assist those already experiencing homelessness in our community and prioritizing coordination in our approach. The system of care being presented today envisions a fundamentally different approach than historical programming, one where the city has access to and control over infrastructure at each step of the continuum. Targeted shelter matched population acuity, interim housing that provides step down care and permanent housing pathways that deliver durable exits from homelessness. Now, some of the reasons for these proposed changes. Our current only city-funded shelter program is Sam O'Shell, a 60-bed congregate shelter located downtown where individuals sleep in an assigned area of a large room with other people. We are looking to move away from congregate shelter and offer individuals seeking assistance a more dignified place to stabilize and recover. While these programs have successfully placed hundreds of individuals in permanent housing over its tenure, this is a result of service providers navigating a complex and dispersed resource landscape that leaves people competing for resources and staff stretched thin. Offering a city-controlled continuum streamlines operations and allows for appropriate triaging of resources. Additionally, the fragmented framework results in a lack of accountability for the entire system. In our community engagement sessions that we had, a lot of community members shared that they don't know who to call, who can help, who should be held responsible, and the city is looking to do our part in contributing to the system of care by being accountable for our programs and infrastructure. Ultimately, we're a city in a larger county, state, and national landscape that's looking to address the crisis that is homelessness. When other jurisdictions or private entities open facilities in Santa Monica, we have little control over its operations or outcomes. So by investing in a city-funded and managed system of care, we can provide oversight and ensure proper protocol is followed for the programs we control. Our proposal today is an initial phase of a larger infrastructure build out. We're naming the housing focused system of care. We're looking to create a mini continuum of care in Santa Monica where the city will have both control and access to each step of the system. Namely, emergency stabilization shelter options for people to exit the streets, come inside and be connected with a breadth of services for stabilization, such as physical and mental health care, food and hygiene, substance use treatment options and more. Interim housing to continue assisting people by providing case management services to help people find housing and live independently successfully. And ultimately, permanent housing resources to completely exit homelessness. For those who need a higher level of care than our system can provide, our first responder teams remain committed and connected to emergency response services. We conducted 14 engagement sessions across a variety of stakeholders, neighborhood groups, and providers, and today's proposal incorporates feedback from those conversations. The housing focused system of care builds on the strong network of outreach and first responder teams we have in our city. Outreach and first responders would interact and connect with individuals experiencing street homelessness as they do today. But for those who are looking for help and shelter, they would be able to refer directly into emergency stabilization. When an individual is brought to intake, a biopsychosocial assessment is done to identify the individual's needs and a care plan is adopted to offer services tailored to that individual. As they continue with their care plan and begin to heal, interim housing is offered as a step-down process to continue transitioning to living independently indoors while still having the support of a suite of services. The goal of the system of care is to exit individuals into permanent housing, connecting people with ongoing services, even after being placed into permanent housing. Knowing that a number of interim housing programs and shelter options are closing or losing funding across the region, we're looking to issue a request for expressions of interest to identify sites we could potentially partner with to build up non-congregate bed capacity for people experiencing homelessness. We're aware of underutilized hotels or apartment buildings that may be available for this purpose. Building up this capacity would allow us to demobilize Samoshell moving away from the temporary tented congregate shelter without anyone exiting into the street or the city losing bed capacity for our outreach teams to refer into. Two sites have already been identified as timely opportunities for expanding or preserving interim housing capacity. The Bell Shelter is a regional shelter run by the Salvation Army and has bed capacity with no funding to support it. By activating these beds, we would have a resource to connect individuals to while also creating more interim housing capacity for the region at large. Also, the Palm Motel has been operating the county's Pathway Home Interim Housing Program for the past two years. As the county demobilizes the program this summer, the city has the opportunity to step in and preserve this resource for city exclusive use. This would allow us to offer interim housing to Santa Monica's experiencing homelessness. The system of care discussed thus far addresses how the city delivers homeless intervention services, but shelter and interim housing alone do not end homelessness, and permanent housing is ultimately what provides durable exits, reduces long-term shelter demand, and breaks the cycle of individuals returning to the streets. As described in the March 24 staff report on the realignment plan update staff continues to explore additional pathways to create permanent affordable housing in Santa Monica so that the continuum proposed here connects to the housing outcomes it's designed to produce. Right now, in addition to the affordable housing already existing in our city, we have 90 units of permanent supportive housing in our pipeline that would be made available as an exit option for people participating in our housing focused system of care. Okay, so how would this all work? I'm going to provide some examples of case scenarios of how this would play out to try and visualize this a little bit more clearly. In this example, number one, an older adult is experiencing homelessness and interacts with one of our city-funded outreach teams. They find out that this individual has had economic hardships that landed them homeless after being evicted from their home in Santa Monica, and they want help getting back on their feet. The outreach team would refer them to the POM and the intake team would conduct a biopsychosocial assessment to understand their needs. On this site, the individual will be given a room to stay. They'd be connected with mental health services, physical health services, food and hygiene services. Over time, their onsite case manager would work with them to develop a housing plan. In this example, the case manager thinks that they'd benefit for housing for older adults. Section 8 and supportive services to help them thrive long term. When they're ready, the individuals referred to permanent supportive housing building and exit homelessness. That's example number one. Example number two. An individual experiencing homelessness is having a mental health crisis on the street. The city's first responder teams are called and Santa Monica's APU unit arrives on scene to do a health assessment. The first responders conclude that the individual is in crisis and cannot make decisions independently and needs immediate medical attention. Referral options for this individual include transport to a local hospital. They could also call the county department of mental health. for a PMRT outreach team to access a bed in a psychiatric facility, or they could refer to a psychiatric urgent care center for immediate assistance. In this example, this individual would not be referred to one of the interim shelter sites we're proposing because they need emergency medical and psychiatric assistance. And the last example today is what happens when law enforcement interacts with a homeless individual committing a crime. In this example, SMPD identifies an individual experiencing homelessness using drugs in a public place. In this case, SMPD would offer the individual two options, arrest or accept a diversion program at Samoa Bridge. The individual selects the diversion program and SMPD transports them to Samoa Bridge. As I think many of you know, at Samoa Bridge, the individual is offered a recliner, shower, and snacks. And as the individual is stabilized, the person begins working with Exodus staff to enroll into temporary housing, health services, and start a 90-day case management plan. Exodus connects the individual to a detox program and sober living facility. And after successfully completing their 90-day case management plan, no misdemeanor charges would be filed. So I hope these three examples provide a little bit more of a real-life... Oh, no. There we go. A real life example of how this would work. So I want to restate the benefits of the city oversight and management of services by having city oversight and contractual obligations with the Palm, Bell Shelter, and any future site identified through an RFEI. It would allow us to enforce standards for 24-7 security, good neighbor agreements, and standards for the inflow of referrals into each program. City staff will be tracking length of stay at each step of the continuum, aiming to emphasize progress to the program. We also will be tracking the service connections made to assistance stabilization. This proposal is about helping our most vulnerable neighbors and doing it in the best we can. We're looking at how veterans experiencing homelessness connect with mental health services, women fleeing domestic violence developing a safety plan, someone struggling with substance use disorder connecting to detox and outpatient, older adults who are living on a fixed income find affordable housing, and many others. We will track the outcomes of our programs, make adjustments as needed, and can commit to making data like this available to the public to hold us accountable. So now I'll frame each individual policy decision for council to consider. The first policy decision is whether we should preserve the Palm Motel as interim housing resource under city control. So what's true today is that the Palm Motel, as I stated before, has been operating as interim housing under the LA County's Pathway Home Program for the past two years, and LA County is defunding that program in August in just a few weeks. If we don't act to preserve the Palm Motel, we'll lose this resource and the property owner will reutilize the site in whatever manner they see fit. Under city control, the city would have a direct lease whereby the city, not the county, gets to decide how the site is run. The city decides who is referred into the facility. Referral-only access will be coordinated through city outreach and first responders with no walk-ups. The city will direct security and site management with staffing levels set by the city. A written good neighbor agreement with a named city contact and enforcement teeth will be developed. and a performance-based operator in this proposal of the people concerned, the contract will be deployed with specific standards reporting and consequences. The second policy decision for Council to consider today is supporting the regional system by investing in the Salvation Army Bell Shelter. So Salvation Army has a facility in the city of Bell as stated earlier. This particular facility has available bed capacity but not funding and therefore has beds sitting empty because there's no funding to operate them. The city's investment would fund a regional homelessness sheltering strategy. Given that the majority of homeless population we encounter in Santa Monica are from the broader region, part of our new strategy is to provide support for unused capacity so it serves the whole region. This would include giving our outreach teams a real option to offer people who want off the street but have no Santa Monica connection. And other jurisdictions in LA County will also be able to utilize this resource as they're partnering with the Salvation Army. To be clear, the city's not looking to export our problems. We're looking to support the regional shelter facility that needs funding to operate and not just relocating or exporting a problem. The facility that we would help activate would be accessible by any jurisdiction that partners with Salvation Army in addition to ourselves. And any placement from Santa Monica into the Salvation Army facility would of course be voluntary, service-connected, and advance the goal of moving a person from a sidewalk to a bed. And the last third policy decision before you today is staff pursuing a request for expressions of interest and subsequent RFQ requests for qualifications to find new and additional options for bed capacity in Santa Monica and beyond. So in order to identify additional locations for family shelter and interim housing access, the City is looking to publish an RFEI. Through the RFEI, we'd be soliciting property owners who may have a block of rooms or an entire property that we could master lease for integration into the housing-focused system of care. We would be seeking properties well-suited for use as interim housing in Santa Monica, as well as possible partnerships in other parts of LA County to offer more options for households looking to get off the street. In tandem with that, we would also look to publish an RFQ so we could build a bench of service providers who could be called on to contract for these services in partnership with the property. So through this process, we'd be seeking experienced service providers who have capacity to deliver holistic care of services to households transitioning from homelessness to housed. General funds for the first year of these programs are available in the current fiscal year, twenty six, twenty seven housing human services budget without years repurposing financial funding for this new system to fund the remainder. Staff recommends that council appropriate funds from the Providence St John's Development Agreement Fund. Additionally, staff has submitted a five million dollar grant application to the California Housing and Community Development Encampment Resolution Program or RF. THAT COULD PROVIDE A PORTION OF FUTURE FUNDING. OTHER AVAILABLE FUNDING SOURCES CURRENTLY UNDER CONSIDERATION INCLUDE COC, MEASURE GS AND MEASURE GSH TO OFFSET IMPACT TO THE GENERAL FUND. IN CONCLUSION, HERE ON THIS SLIDE ARE THE RECOMMENDED ACTIONS FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION. I'M HAPPY TO GO BACK TO ANY PREVIOUS SLIDE THAT SPLITS UP THE DECISIONS A LITTLE BIT MORE CLEARLY AND HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS. THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Okay, just in the interest of time, I'm going to have each council member kind of think about your questions, gather them, we're going to do one round. And then if we need to do another round, we will, but then we'll go into comments after that. Council Member Negrete.

And I would just say if we ask somebody's question, maybe in the interest of time, we don't repeat it. Don't repeat questions. Ask it. I think we're all asking questions to move the thing forward.

I'm going in a row for put themselves in the queue. So Negrete Raskin.

Thank you for the presentation and I also just want to notate I really appreciate the examples because I think it provides clarity in a picture of who would go where okay as it pertains to the palms when the county stops funding it what happens to the palms motel.

Yeah, so as part of the county's demobilization program, they find more housing or interim housing options for residents at that motel. So it's the county's responsibility to relocate the individuals who are there. And then the future of the site is up to the business owner of what they would be able to do in order to run that business. And we are proposing a city takeover here, yes.

And currently, are these SMP, Santa Monica priority patients, or are they just all from around the county?

It's a mix, yeah.

Okay. Will the Palm Motel then be emptied? Yes. And then the city would then prioritize Santa Monica?

Correct.

So if there's somebody in there now, because I happen to know that there's somebody in there that's actually born and raised in Santa Monica, that person would still be prioritized?

Yeah, so we're working with the county closely on individuals who may be part of the demobilization plan who have connections to Santa Monica to be able to assist them here locally.

Can you differentiate for me between the comment that was made between stabilization and interim housing? Interim being somebody who is working through a program, and I'm going to ask a two-part question. On that note, will there be a robust drug testing, whatever program is allowed to assure that ACTIVITY THAT IS THERE IS GOING TO BE CONDUCIVE TO SOMEONE MOVING INDEPENDENTLY AND SECOND TO THAT, WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STABILIZATION AND INTERIM HOUSING?

Yeah, so just to answer the second question first, the terminology here, I know it's jargon and it's confusing. When we say stabilization housing, we're really talking about the ability for our first responders to be able to refer in 24-7. That's what we're turning on here so that we can directly refer folks who are on the street who need to come indoors right away. Interim housing is more of a broader term meant to just be temporary housing for individuals looking to transition through to permanent housing with case management services. So that's the distinction here. It's a little interchangeable, but we're framing it as stabilization is from straight to housed, and then interim often is from stabilization to temporary housing.

And when you say housed, you mean bringing someone indoors?

Yes, yeah, yeah, sorry. And then in terms of screening, so we are not currently proposing drug testing. We are proposing that individuals would be willing to engage in a care plan that could include treatment or detox or outpatient if that's applicable to them. Also, there would absolutely not be a permitted drug use on site. That would be considered a violation of their agreements, any sort of illegal activity of that nature. would be part of the agreement that they enter into. And for someone to be successful in these programs, they need to be engaging their care plan and making advancements. And if someone is non-compliant completely with making any progress, that would also be considered for Maybe this site is not the right fit for them, and we need to refer them to a different location that has different services. So that would be a natural part of.

A care plan as well, so to be more specific with stabilization or interim housing be offered at the palm. Because stabilization you categorized as someone being 24 7. I'm assuming this biopsychiatric intake means that you described it earlier, that there's a different place for somebody who might be experiencing a drug-induced or psycho-induced episode and exhibiting that they can't make decisions for themselves. That's right. Palms, I would presume, is not for that person.

Yeah, absolutely not. This would the palm would accept our proposal has the palm accepting 24 seven referrals, but they would be referrals that are vetted by our outreach team to ensure that they're appropriate for that setting.

Would an example be I was on a ride along and there was a 70 year old eight year old woman and a 50 year old son in a car in the middle of the night, those would be that would be someone that would go into the palm and okay, is the is the palm intended to replace Sam O'Shell?

No.

Okay. What percentage of Sam O'Shell clients would potentially move there? I guess I should back up and say, what percentage in the shelter at Sam O'Shell are Santa Monica priority participants, roughly?

Roughly, it's around 10%. I think that's what I have in the staff report. 10% of residents at the Sam O'Shell are connected to Santa Monica. The proposal right now does not propose moving anyone from San Mochel to the Palm. The demobilization of San Mochel would be an independent effort to rehouse or find opportunities for people in San Mochel. The only people that maybe would be considered would be people who are SMPP if they needed, you know, relocation.

So shutting down San Mochel does not have anything to do with anything opening in Pico Neighborhood or Sunset Park.

That's a separate decision.

And then the beds in Shell and Bell, if there's presumably 60 beds in Sam O'Shell, is it possible that some of those folks would go to the City of Bell?

Yeah, we would make that option available to them, yes.

Okay. Before when the motel was a motel, I happened to live three blocks from there. What was the do you have any data to show what the police calls or responses were like in comparison to what it's been existing for the past few years?

Yeah, so I do. So, before the pathway home program started in the hotel, the motel, the types of crimes that we were getting calls for were more serious. Understanding that a motel, you can't vet who's staying in the motel in the same way in other locations. There were more serious incidents at the location. There also were arrests on site and the police posture was generally reactive. Under the Pathway Home program, there were very rare crime events and zero arrests in the past two years. Most of the calls have been proactive, meaning a welfare check on someone or ambulance first response for a medical issue, things that we would expect partnerships like this to go. And again, it was more proactive. So based on this data I got from my colleagues in the police department, the rate of response and the or the reason for the response has changed significantly in a positive way.

Is contracting with the people concerned, do we have to do that or is it possible? Are they just finishing out? I guess they finished out their contract in August. Why is it that we chose the people concerned just because they're already there?

Yeah, so they're onsite. They have the staffing infrastructure already. Our intention, if we can proceed, is to be able to move this quickly and be able to turn on the palm Uh, immediately with the infrastructure that the people concerned already has there in addition to our, um, more robust framework around good neighbor agreements and security and the things that are important to us. Um, the alternative would be for us to do a competitive process where we put out a. RFP and ask for a service provider to come in and. Or to put a proposal in, which we could do, but that would certainly delay the opening of this motel by. Many months.

Okay. 2 more questions. 1, what happened to, and maybe this is just all of our, our city manager are my staff direction. I can't remember if it was in January was in relation to the ocean Avenue project where we. put together a map and I asked I gave staff direction to show a map that would be available online that shows every service provider related to homelessness and everything that comes with that whether it's city funded county funded or privately or nonprofit funded and then also a legend to show like who's funding it how much we're spending and I'm also hoping that we can compare that to Where we sit in the region and spa 5, do we know where that's?

Yeah, certainly we, um, we have, um, the outline of the facilities that we're aware of that we're currently coordinating into, um, the documentation that's been requested. In addition, we've also, as part of our conversations with RAND, some of what's being described and being asked for in terms of services being provided locally in Santa Monica compared to other jurisdictions, it's hard to identify and quantify that across the entire LA County region. One of the things we have talked to our partners at RAND about is conducting exactly that kind of more in-depth study. So in addition to the by monthly counts that will be starting this summer that Rand will be doing for us. Those counts will include survey-based work for an effort to identify the demographic population, where folks are from, why they're here, what the issues are. We're talking to Rand about doing a more intensive study on service delivery across the region. We think that's probably more effective than us scouring and trying to find where locations are across LA County. But within the next couple of weeks, we should have the final listing of the sites that are viable for identifying we have some domestic violence shelters that we don't think we should add to the list. So we're doing a lot of vetting to make sure anything that is distributed or created is isn't done in a way that creates a bigger problem for the locations that are operating. But certainly the information that is available and is public, we should, you know, certainly comport with the council's direction previously. So all that's coming.

So we'll be able to understand how many we have, where they're concentrated and how the money is being spent. And maybe the point in time count is also going to include now a monthly date. Are we going to start doing a daytime point in time count?

It'll be a bimonthly count where we will be doing that, not just in the evening. It'll be taking place during the day. There's a much more intensive methodology that Rand will be deploying as part of the count. And I think the commitment from the staff, we're not looking for a lower number. I think that's what sometimes gets lost in this once-a-year point-in-time count. Your number goes down, you did good. Your number went up, you did bad. And it's so much more complicated than that. What we're trying to get is reality, and then let's try to make it better. And so we think having actual data with RAND doing more regular identification of what's happening locally, that's a good thing to do, absolutely, because it will inform really our housing focus system of care and where we should be directing resources, how we should be directing our outreach teams, and how we can support the broader regional effort to address this issue That's just massively hard. We understand this is a complicated, hard issue to deal with. There's a reason why Sam O'Shell, that tent structure, it's been there over 30 years. Because shifting a system that elicits as much emotion as homelessness is difficult, we believe at the staff level, if we have the facts, we have the data, let's go figure out what's happening. Let's go try to make it better.

the best thing that we can recommend to the council as we move all this forward when we move forward with the good neighbor plan and we make sure that it's not just a contract that the city has that's not enforced but it's like a real good neighbor plan can we tie it to also continuous updates on a very regular basis as to the success and hold whoever at this point would be the people concerned accountable to those metrics. I feel like that is where people feel like there's organizations who have done things and they might relate that to the success of these programs and they don't have any trust that it's going to be successful.

Yeah, so we're planning on integrating data like that into our dashboard that would be publicly available. And then we can also talk about if there's any additional data that the good neighbor agreement would generate on top of that. Yeah.

And then lastly, just you can't force someone to go really anywhere. Is that true? Yes. And do is there conservatorship. Laws that exist that the Santa Monica is allowed to. And for some people that might be right way out of your scope, but I'm just putting it out there because people keep mentioning that.

I don't know if my city attorney thinks differently, but I don't believe we have conservatorship.

No, the standard for detaining somebody against their will really you have to reach the level of a fifty one fifty hold where the individual is demonstrating or eliciting behaviors that could be a harm to themselves or to the general public or others. It's a high standard in order to meet that threshold before you can really compel an individual into a treatment facility. Other than that, if there isn't a crime being committed by an individual, it is not constitutional to deprive someone of their rights It's not illegal to be homeless, but behaviors are what we can certainly enforce. And in addition, the system that we're building really is intended to support, as Aileen described in the three examples, proper person looking for help put into the right facility. That's what the program is intended, voluntary placement. As our outreach teams develop relationships with those that are unhoused currently, how do we help those that are ready for help to get matched with the right service level that we control? That's ultimately the intention of this program that we've been developing.

If we don't take over control and the buyer of the owner decides to sell the palm, is it possible that either a primitive supportive housing development could go there in the future that we would not have control over.

Certainly that's possible. It could be run, again, as a motel. As Aileen illustrated earlier, we've talked with our police department staff. When it was run as a motel, the types of incidents occurring there were much more serious and there was a lot more arrest activity in the last two years. There have been zero arrests at the Palm Motel. I think it's a demonstration that if facility is well run, we can mitigate issues. If we don't take it over again, we've heard that the property owner will explore other options for how to properly use your property to generate income.

And so does the city have the ability to opine on what happens next?

No, it's private property, it'll be up to the property owner what they do.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Council of Raskin.

A lot of my questions have been answered. Thanks, Councillor Negrete, for asking a lot of the ones I had in my list here. Can you just briefly talk about how long the length of stay is in the interim housing now in the current POMs and also what the anticipated length of stay would be in the future?

Yes. Sorry, I'm just going back. So our goal for emergency stabilization shelter is less than 120 days, with the maximum being a whole year, 365 days. We don't think temporary housing should be used for More than a year, and the ultimate goal would be less than 120 days that they would be able to move on to a more stabilized location. I don't have data on what the current residency is of the palm, or at least I don't have it available right now because it's on our program. I think, you know, at San Michelle, for example, we see a wide range of people who are able to move on and just a few weeks or months. And then we have folks who unfortunately have been there for longer than a year because of lack of. resources or challenges in documentation size or other things that prevent someone from accessing public resources that will continue to be a challenge, but is particularly challenging right now. Yes.

For sure. Yeah, I mean, if it is available, I'd be curious to see it at some point after today. And just to put a finer point on a question the council member In theory, in the continuum of care that we're talking about, would somebody be placed, you know, from being on the streets directly into a motel?

Yeah, that is currently being proposed, yes.

Okay. And to what extent would we have control over the terms of a contract to put stipulations on, I don't know how else to put it, but, you know, I mean, you talked about, you know, conditions on, for example, you know, only a certain, you know, types of people and, you know, being fit for the location. I don't have a really well formed thought as to how to ask this, but can you just give a little more detail as to like, what those stipulations would look like? I know you talked about it a little bit before, but I'm trying to get a little bit more clarity on what those stipulations would look like.

Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, when our outreach teams have robust assessments that they currently do when they interact with folks on the street, right? And I think especially our help first responder team in SMPD, of course, immediately are assessing for, is there a crime occurring? Is there a safety risk? Secondary, they're assessing, is there a medical emergency happening here? Is there a psychiatric emergency happening here? In those cases, the flow stops at one of those things being true to divert into the emergency services that that individual needs. If someone is not doing either of those things, right, and they're just experiencing homelessness, then that's when the conversation happens about, you know, Would you like to accept help? What are you struggling with? Asking questions about someone's background in terms of whether they're connected to the city or not. And sometimes it takes multiple conversations, right? We have outreach teams who are invested in our unhoused neighbors and know them by name and work every day to try and get them to accept services. And we understand that it's not gonna be necessarily realistic that someone would accept services on day one and they wouldn't also necessarily Have a sense of what would be best for that person on 1 interaction. Right? So that is just to demonstrate. The robot, the robust assessment or outreach teams are doing to determine, you know, what would be best suited for them. I hope that's a little helpful. I can try and provide a little bit more happy to take recommendation if there's something specific you're looking for.

Yeah, it's helpful. I mean, I, I, I. Yeah, I mean, I know I. I'm really curious what the exact contract language would look like in defining this, Adam. I know that it's really a case-by-case assessment when you're working with unhoused individuals. I think, for me, I'm just trying to get a better understanding of what parameters could potentially be put in here. I'm sorry, this is not the time for the audience to be speaking. I guess my last question is, to the extent that San Michelle remains online, while the Palm Hotel contract comes online, would individuals potentially be placed in in, you know, whichever facility is best suited for their needs?

Sorry, do you mind repeating that?

Change the weather, they are coming. They're what? More coming, more homeless coming. Your plans?

Sorry, we have to, point of order, need to just stick to the presentation. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you. So my last question is really, you know, if we've got San Michelle online and Palms online under the new contract, how would a determination be made as to where people are placed? Is it just based on where there's space, what facility is best suited for them, something along those lines?

Yeah, so our recommendation is that if we return the Palm Motel on, anyone who our outreach teams interact with, who are interested in accepting services and shelter, who are SMPP, have a connection to the city, would be referred to the Palm. That would be the resource available to them. And then if San Michelle were to remain open, then that would be an offer for people who do not do not meet the SMPP definition, and potentially in addition to a Bell resource offer. So it would just be added to the suite of offerings that we can provide people.

Got it. Thanks. Yeah, this is informative. Thank you.

Council Member Zweck.

I thank you for the presentation. I'll try also not to repeat any questions, to a large extent. I think, you know, what I've heard, and you did a good job, I think speaking to was the concern from neighbors. And by the way, in my neighborhood as well in Sunset Park, that there was a new facility and a new population that was being moved into their neighborhood. And I think the question, you know, setting aside terms like interim or stabilization or whatnot is, is the population that is being served there currently roughly equivalent to the one that we would then be sort of referring the same kind of population to now?

Yeah, it'd be very similar. I mean, the main difference again is that we'd be prioritizing Santa Monica priority participants for that location. Um, I would say that there have been some high acuity placements there that we maybe would under the county model that we maybe would. REFER SOMEWHERE ELSE JUST BECAUSE OF THE RESOURCES THAT ARE MADE AVAILABLE. BUT AGAIN, BECAUSE WE WEREN'T REFERRING FOLKS INTO THE POM, I DON'T HAVE A FULL UNDERSTANDING OF NECESSARILY EVERYONE THAT'S BEEN THERE IN THE PAST TWO YEARS. BUT YES, GENERALLY, WE'RE NOT WE'RE DEFINITELY NOT PROPOSING A SHIFT TO A HIGHER ACUITY POPULATION THAN THAT'S THERE RIGHT NOW.

NEW SPEAKER THROUGH INTERPRETER THERE'S A REQUEST TO EXPLAIN WHAT HIGH ACUITY MEANS.

NEW SPEAKER THROUGH INTERPRETER So high QD means high level of service needs to someone who has likely dual diagnosis or is struggling with a few different things.

So what you said was, if anything, There may be more cases in which there's an individual with high acuity that we would have the discretion to not refer there under our proposed model.

Yes.

Okay. And then you said the current service provider there is the people concerned?

Yes.

So our proposal is just, again, to continue what is already happening. Okay. And in terms of funding, you mentioned that there's an allocation in this cycle from some combination of general fund, Measure A, and this specific settlement, or sorry, DA agreement. Um, and then looking outwards is the idea that that dollar amount roughly could be made up for by the money that we are using currently in operating sandwich. I'm not sure how much we spend annually on that and how that level.

Yes. So the sandwich budgets a little more than 2Million dollars. So it would be a portion of this funding, but there still would be remaining funding that we would identify other sources for.

Okay, and that would be for these, uh. These essentially, like, the, the motel service provider and the other facility and bell 3 things that there would be a shortfall that we'd have to think about further out. But for now.

Yeah, past year too. Yeah.

Okay. Um, that's it for me. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner council members.

Thank you. And I'll try not to repeat questions, but I apologize if I do. So to start, I'd like to dig a little bit deeper into the proposed use of city funds to fund the Salvation Army shelter in Bell. What type of shelter is it? Is it congregate housing? Is it a different type of model? What does that look like?

Yeah, so it is really interesting. It's like a campus style with a lot of different on-site housing options for individuals. They do have concrete model on-site, but they have options where there's a low barrier shelter option where individuals can go in, anyone who's just looking for shelter. They also have a sober living location for people who are interested in living. among other people who are sober and experiencing or dealing with substance use disorder. And then they also have interim housing connections from that site to other facilities to move people on. So it's a bit of a multi-purpose location with a well-rounded service program.

So with the Santa Monica investment be funding a particular portion of that or just in what would that be going towards?

Yeah, so the Salvation Army has our proposal with them is to kind of have a fluid agreement with them where we're paying for the proposal is 35 beds right now, but they would allow us to have those beds at any locations on their site, which is helpful for flexibility.

And my understanding from the staff report is that any jurisdictions that work with the Salvation Army would be able to use the beds that those 35 beds at Santa Monica would be funding. What would happen if Santa Monica has someone who would like to stay there, but all those 35 beds are already full?

Yeah, so I mean, luckily, this is a long standing partnership with the Salvation Army that we think we'd be able to facilitate, you know, remediation in that situation. But the model or the setup proposed would be, we reserve or pay for 35 beds, we would have essentially priority to refer into them. But if those beds are vacant for A period of time, very short, right? Like, 30 days or less than other jurisdiction could use them just to make sure that we kind of have 1st dibs if you will. But then other people in the region can can utilize it. So, to answer your question, if all the beds were full, we could not refer in there. We would just refer them to other resources that we have. We wouldn't necessarily be able to go over what we fund.

Okay. And if we don't fund the Bell shelter, the Salvation Army Bell shelter partnership, those 35 beds, what happens to that shelter?

It remains underutilized. They just have a lot of room and not the staffing or service dollars to support its capacity.

So these funds would be for the staffing and for on-site services and it's not, okay. So moving on to Sam O'Shell, my understanding is that there's 60 beds there. How many of those are occupied on an average night and what's the average length of stay? And I apologize if this was something you already answered.

No, no, it's okay. I'd say like 58 to 60 beds are generally filled every night. It's almost always full. I don't know the length, the average length of stay. I'm looking at Allison to see. It's a wide, yeah, it's a wide range. Like I said earlier, we have folks who have been there for over a year due to, you know, restrictions and them being able to find housing options. And then we have folks who are able to move on in just a few weeks. So I can get back to you on the actual data of the average stay.

And of those, you know, 58 to 60 beds that are occupied, generally speaking, who controls who stays at Sam O'Shell?

Our outreach teams refer into St. Michelle, yes.

So somebody can't just walk up and get placed into a bed. They have to be referred by, through some sort of pathway through Santa Monica. Correct. Okay. So going back to the bi-monthly count of people experiencing homelessness with RAND, when are we going to start that and when will that data begin being available to the public?

Yeah, so we're looking to start that by the end of the summer. We're just finishing up negotiations right now, so we hope to start in the next few weeks. And then we can discuss when we can make that data available. I think we wouldn't want to publish just one month's of data without any context. I think we'd probably want to see maybe a quarterly update or something that has a little bit more context in it, but we can certainly commit by the end of the calendar year But probably sooner that we could have that information publicly available.

Okay.

And it seems like these, um, these proposed policy decisions. Are just are part of a larger system. What pieces of this are we still missing or will we will need to come back to us for for future discussion?

Yeah, so policy decision number 3, which is doing an RFI is right like a preliminary step. Of course, if we got responses to the RFI of a location that we wanted to contract with, we would be able to come back to you all and. Propose that, and that would what we're really looking to build out is that more interim housing capacity in Santa Monica and nearby. And so that would likely be what we would come back for. And then, as I mentioned earlier, our permanent housing exit options are obviously a huge priority for us. And we are engaging in many different initiatives around permanent housing development that would come to you naturally anyway. So I can certainly contextualize it when I come back that it would be part of this housing focused system of care, but it is also just something we generally come back to you for anyway with proposals for development.

And for folks who aren't familiar with the joys of government processes, what is an – I see the request for expression of interest. What is an RFEI? Who applies to those kinds of things? Is it the services providers? Is it property owners? What does that actually mean?

Yeah, so the RFEI – is for property owners to essentially let us know that they have vacancy, they have empty rooms, they have capacity, and they'd be interested in doing a partnership with us. It's kind of like a miniature RFP process, but it doesn't have the commitments of having to result in an award, so it gives us the flexibility of seeing what comes in, what interests us, what seems to fit in our model, and then come back to you with why we want to proceed with it as opposed to saying today this is what we want to rfp for and we're going to award it based on a certain set of criteria this is a little bit more open-ended and so it will be posted on our website should you direct us to proceed this way with like a web form and we'd be able to accept inquiries on a rolling basis and as i said earlier i've already had some outreach from folks even in advance of this have suggested they have opportunities And then in parallel to that, we would do a similar thing. The request for qualifications with service providers, because obviously, if we opened. Master leasing program with a, you know, apartment building, for example, we would need a service provider to go in there. So that would be the tandem.

Thank you and 2 more questions. Sure. So. you know, if we would be taking over this continuum of care kind of element from the county to specifically to Santa Monica, how would we make sure that people don't fall through the cracks as they're moving from one to the other?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the fact that it would be the city oversight of this really ensures that there's less risk of that. The city would be monitoring enrollments at each location, what their care plans are, how long they've been there. And then as people move through and ultimately, you know, resulting in referrals into permanent housing, like our PSH, like that would be, again, a managed referral process. through us so that we're able to see, you know, John Doe was a resident at the Palm Motel, now they're interested in applying for a Section 8 voucher at this new location, we're watching them move through the system. And we're looking to have regular meetings with the providers at these sites to do case conferencing. Our staff will be onsite at some of these locations to also be present and to get to know the residents who are benefiting from these programs. And so we're looking to have a much more heavier hand in this process to ensure that people do not fall through the cracks. That's our intention.

And then, you know, once somebody ultimately does get into permanent housing or, you know, a long-term housing, I'll say, what will we be doing or what are we doing to make sure that they're able to remain stably housed? I understand supportive housing has wraparound services, but for those who, you know, for the types of permanent housing that might not, for people who might not need the same level of wraparound services, What will we be doing? What are we doing? Are we performing needs assessments to go back to something we heard from public comment earlier?

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's probably a good example of something to your point that would be a future build out that we'd come back to you with. But for example, in our, I referenced that we submitted an application to the state for some funding for this. We included housing stabilization aftercare programming, which is essentially like a light touch service program where when people enter permanent housing, they have a case manager check on them and case conference with them throughout their first year of being in permanent housing to make sure that things are going well. And so I think we're looking to potentially build out that infrastructure. So for folks who don't necessarily need permanent supportive housing with onsite services, but could still use follow up after they're placed in the housing, we would build out opportunities for service connection there too. And, you know, those stabilization models have existed here before, like we did it with the EHB program. So, yeah, that would be something we could come back to you on as well.

Thank you. In the interest of time, I'll- Great. Councillor Arsenault.

I have two questions. Okay. And you've- I want to preface it that you already discussed this to some extent, but I want a clear definition of a congregate model and a non congregate model that we're dealing with.

Yeah, so congruent model is when many people sleep in a single room, often with assigned areas, but not a lot of privacy and they're usually separated by gender. So that folks are separated in that way with shared bathrooms. in common areas. That's the current setup of San Michelle and a lot of other shelters that have existed. Non-congregate is more of moving towards what we are used to when we talk about housing. So it's a private room. Sometimes it's a private room in apartment with many rooms. So you might share a bathroom with one or two roommates and shared housing. That's not what we're proposing today. But that's an example, or the motel model, you know, most of us have stayed in a motel before you have your room and a bathroom that's yours, but then you have common areas kitchen and other areas that you would be able to congregate with other folks. So that's amazing.

Difference and so then with the palm hotel, yes, based on your discussion, there's 34 rooms.

Yes.

And up to 48 occupants and they could be families. Is that a situation adult families? Yeah. And you may not be able to answer this question at this present time, but. What do you believe would be an optimum number in Santa Monica? Which we would need to manage these particular care if we had the ability to do it.

How many beds would we need? Yeah. So I think I can't answer that right now, but I think I hope with the Rand partnership, we will be able to answer that question in the next few months. Because again, I think a lot of the undercurrent of that question is, you know. We know from the pick count, there's 718 people in 1 single night and. Unsheltered or in our city experiencing homelessness. I think there's probably a consensus that we should not create 718 shelter beds in the city, knowing that the composition of that population is not all just from Santa Monica. So through the RAND study, one of the demographic questions we'll be asking folks is, do you have a connection to Santa Monica? Are you from here? Have you been here a while? And so we'll be able to have a better breakdown of this homeless census by SNPP and not. Once we have that data, I will be able to answer your questions because it will be based on that information.

Ideally, obviously, there are homeless individuals that grew up in Santa Monica that aren't living here that may come back. So it's a net difference. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, just for the sake of clarification, I'll make it super quick. Can you just tell everyone, I know we've mentioned the Santa Monica priority population multiple times, can you just define to everyone what that means?

Yes, so a Santa Monica program participant...

Sorry, program participant, I keep saying priority population.

I think I said that too. is someone who has been experiencing homelessness in Santa Monica for three years, or who's been experiencing homelessness for any amount of time, but has a previous lease or residence was in Santa Monica. someone who has a child attending school in the Santa Monica school district or the kind of last definition is someone who maybe can't document any of those aforementioned things but is a regular user of our first responder teams and so is known to our service providers, our fire and PD is a high utilizer of these systems that use a lot of intervention and dollars and could be used as SNPP as well.

These are not just people who showed up YESTERDAY IN SANTA MONICA. THESE ARE PEOPLE THAT WE HAVE SERVED OR HAVE A CONNECTION TO SANTA MONICA. AND JUST PLEASE RESTATE, THE PEOPLE THAT WE POTENTIALLY WOULD BE PUTTING AT THE POMP MOTEL UNDER THIS PROPOSAL WOULD BE PEOPLE THAT HAVE THIS DESIGNATION THAT ARE SMPP SANTA MONICA PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS WHO HAVE SOME RECORD OF HAVING BEEN SERVED HERE. THESE ARE NOT RANDOM PEOPLE. THANK YOU. And so just really quickly, this Providence St. John's money, I thought that that money was supposed to go to the West LA Armory. Why are we tapping into that money for this?

Part of the development agreement with Providence St. John, there's $10 million in funding that's been allocated to the city. A portion of that's always been reserved for programmatic elements. There's a couple of programmatic elements that have been delayed in implementation. And so that funding is being shifted and recommended for use towards this effort.

got it because i thought we had made some sort of agreement with the cog that we were going to be funding no that's not okay i was told incorrect information then um palm motel before it was taken over as pathway home do we have any evidence that there was like a security team with case management happening there no it was a motel And now that Pathway Home is happening there, is there a security team at the motel?

Yes, 24-7 security guard.

Correct, as stated. And would we plan to continue that when the city takes over? Yes. And can we publicize the stats that you referenced in the PowerPoint of what was happening before it became Pathway Home and after? Because from what I was reading on the screen, it looks like things have improved since this became Pathway Home.

Yeah, we can work with PD to make that available.

Yeah, I just would like to see the numbers because I think there are gonna be people who say I don't believe any of that. We would love to see the numbers. Sure. So for residents, and by the way, I live down the street, not enough to be recused, but I lived on the street for residents that, you know, are concerned, is anything going to look different in the neighborhood? When the city of Santa Monica, if the city of Santa Monica takes this over?

It should not look different. The main difference would be that you may see city staff on site and supporting the location there, our presence.

okay really just last question and then we can be done can you tell me what specific criteria are going to be in the RFEI to prevent the over concentration of any of these facilities in like residential neighborhoods and specifically and Councilor Raskin can speak to it are 16 item in the Pigo neighborhood in the surrounding yeah

So absolutely. So again, the RFEI is just a expression of interest. So we're just gathering information for folks who may want to partner with us to then further investigate, negotiate, and come back to you all. Some of the information we're collecting is, of course, the address. And so understanding council's direction, and we support, of course, the equitable distribution of these sites across the city, we would consider that. When we bring things to you to propose and make sure that, you know, we support council direction in that way, but the, again is not committing to anything. It's just collecting information that we would come back to you all with the actual proposal that we'd want to pursue and. Following whatever direction we hear from you today that can limit what we bring back to you.

Great any comments now. Okay, time for comments council member is 1st in the queue.

So I just want to clarify that I was probably a bunny hop away from being having to recuse from this item. I walk my dog past it multiple times. My kids get off at the bus right there and walk home. I live on 14th, two stop signs away from that location. So when I say I live near it, I'm not talking about eight blocks, ten blocks or on the other side of Sunset Park. I live right next to it. I also do know who the owners of the Palm are because I grew up with one of them. And I say that only to say that there's been a presence of the owners on site to the extent that people thought that they lived there, and they don't. there i did not know on council it was not brought to the community when it became pathway home and i did not agree with that and that was upsetting not just to myself but for everybody in the community because they didn't know this transition had happened and i will say firsthand that i had a lot of presumptions as to what must be happening and what happened there and what i started to discern was the difference between the loitering that happens to the adjacent gas station where there's an air pump, a small liquor mart, and just the activity that you get on the corner of 14th and Pico near a bus stop. And probably because of the surrounding things that are there. And I realized that with the 24-hour security, they were managing the fact that there was no visitors allowed. And that loitering was separate and unrelated to I live in a rent controlled apartment that's poorly maintained with no gates and we continuously prior to this being what it is would have people in our carport sleeping there, defecating and also using drugs in our laundromat to the point where my kids are no longer able to go to the laundromat because they're scared to they won't go in the one that's in our apartment building. So I just want to point out that I have been staunchly about limiting the I don't want to say resources, but I'm just going to speak plainly because I think that's the problem and it may offend people. And quite frankly, I don't know what to do about that because I just know how to say the things I know how to say. And I think part of what's confusing is we use these delicate vocabulary words to appease people politically. And that is the problem because we don't get to just say what we're doing. I think the reality is there's a few things in front of us. There's the idea that a congregate shelter, even within the homeless model, the folks that work in that field realize that that adds more PTSD and stress on people. And I have talked to because i do regular weekly outreach ride along things and i've done a variety between the dmh stuff the hamster teams have done it all and i actually get to see a boots on the ground look at what is happening women will not go into that shelter most mostly because they're afraid and other people feel afraid in congregate shelter that their stuff will get stolen and whatnot TO ME, THAT IS ONE VOTE. AND I DON'T WANT TO CONFUSE PEOPLE THAT THIS OTHER 16 ITEM THAT MENTIONS THE PICO NEIGHBORHOOD, THAT SOMEHOW BY KEEPING THE SAN MOCHEL OPEN, THAT YOU'RE PROTECTING THE PICO NEIGHBORHOOD. I THINK THE CONGREGATE SHELTER MODEL, WE HAVE SAID 10% OF IT, ROUGHLY, IF WE LOOK AT 60 BEDS, ROUGHLY THAT'S SIX BEDS ARE GOING TOWARDS SANTA MONICA PRIORITY FOLKS. THAT MEANS WE'RE FUNDING SOMETHING WHERE 54 OF THOSE BEDS I'M NOT BEING EXACT, ROUGHLY, ARE SERVING PEOPLE THAT ARE NOT FROM THE COMMUNITIES. THEY'RE COMING IN THROUGH THE REGION. AND I WOULD PRESUME THAT THOSE OUTREACH TEAMS ARE REFERRING PEOPLE INTO THAT SHELTER. AND I KNOW FROM FIRSTHAND, IN ALL THE YEARS I'VE BEEN DOING THIS ON COUNCIL, ON A REGULAR BASIS, I HAVE MET ON ONE HAND PEOPLE WHO ARE FROM CALIFORNIA OR ANYWHERE NEAR OR AROUND SANTA MONICA. THE MAJORITY OF FOLKS AREN'T EVEN FROM CALIFORNIA. THEY'RE HERE FOR WHATEVER REASON. SOMEONE SAID THE WEATHER. And oftentimes they're also here because where they live, they tell them to come here because there's more services. I also know that there's a poor drug rehab system that's poorly managed. And I know for a fact having a sibling and an uncle that has gone through this exact thing, which is why I want to be a part and I want the city council to... agree to support caslar that when people run out of their 90 day opportunity to get drug rehab and they're from alabama they're often put right out on our streets so when you meet someone and they say they're from somewhere else dig a little deeper and you might find out that they're here because they've been transported here through body brokering and that's a separate issue So this is a massive issue, and we're all very upset about the disorder that it's created, the impact to our fire and police, and all the other departments that partake in what it takes to deal with the variety of folks on the streets. And I think when we talk about it in a lot of political jargon and we use phrases that people in their mind have defined, like housing first, it pisses people off. like myself who are struggling, who can't just knock on the door to City Hall in Malibu and say, I'd like to live here and I'd like an ocean view while I'm at it. It pisses people off at the thought that someone is living in a million dollar unit and so i think what we need to say is right now the county is in large part supplementing most of the programs that exist across the region and in our city and therefore when there's a problem at a facility i.e the manor where there was just a murder i mean let's just not let's talk about the fact that we may not be discussing it here, but an average person is feeling the effects that there was just a murder at the manor and everything gets related to what we're talking about here. We know that it's separate things and that that's a county-run program and that that's a different population of people. You aforementioned high acuity, meaning somebody suffering from Potentially multiple mental disabilities and psychosis, maybe self-medicating with drugs. We don't know. But that is a different facility that we have for years as a resident wanted to do something about and cannot do something about it because it is a privately owned facility that is funded by the county. To the extent that we do nothing, we do exactly that, we do nothing, and the underfunded now, programs are going to spill over into the city, and if we do nothing, then we are left with an increase of all the things that come with, forget about the point in time count, the fact that my staff Rochambeau's every week at the Santa Monica Music Center over who's gonna pick up human feces. That's not a joke. And that is not OK for small business owners. The fact that my kids sometimes take a different exit off the bus when they're going places because there's somebody acting out on the corner. So earlier we were trying to define who goes where. And for simplicity, I had recommended that we really need to just say there is 100 million different types of folks on the streets for a bajillion different reasons. and i know we want we i think we can all say we're all compassionate in our hearts and want to help people but people are angry and pissed because drugs like methamphetamines have created in many ways a psychosis that is unresolvable through granola bars water bottles high fives and outreach teams with lanyards who are getting paid too little to be able to do the work and are under trained to meet these people with the medical medicalized psychiatric help and detox that they need that go far more than 120 days or 365. So what we're left with is what do we have? We have a shelter that is congregate that is next to an access center that also creates a line so that when you drive into our city, you look over and see a 30-year-old tent and 50 people in line for a shower and a locker and whatever else the access center provides. In my estimation, what would help not only the economy, but our public safety officers, and to the extent that we're serving a majority of these people in the region and a very small percentage of our folks, is that we close that down and we invest in a system of which you aforementioned has more things in the city of Bell than just a congregate shelter. Originally, there was a proposal of 50 beds. It's been reduced to 34. I would like to see that if that's successful, we continue to do it. And what I say to the folks who say we shouldn't be shipping people out, what's so ridiculous about it is we are currently not taking care of people that are even from California as my, you know, I don't know. I don't have a, I didn't go out and confirm, but I can say just from what I've done in talking to people, most people aren't even from California. So to the extent that we fund something, we're already funding the region, but we're funding it in a different way. We're funding it with people sitting in front of my music store. I'll just speak for myself anecdotally, pooping and crapping and using the emergency room system and then laying in front having I have to use Narcan on someone to open my store. It impacts me in a ripple effect ways. People don't come to the store anymore. I have to close for an hour in the morning before I move somebody. That has an effect on police, on fire, on all the people who have to serve that one person. So to the extent that we're spending more money to invest in a system outside the city, I think it's beds that are already there that are being underutilized, and it makes sense. TO THE QUESTION ON THE PALM, I'M ALWAYS HERE TO SUPPORT WHAT THE PEOPLE IN THE COMMUNITY WANT, AND THIS IS A TIME WHERE MISINFORMATION, UNFORTUNATELY IN PART BECAUSE I THINK WE COMMUNICATED POORLY, BECAUSE WE'RE SO WORRIED ABOUT OFFENDING PEOPLE WHO REALLY SUPPORT THESE MODELS, and are in the model. And when you work at the city staff level, you might interact with these people and it's uncomfortable to kind of talk smack about their field. But the reality is people are not happy with the people concern. And there is a feeling that we continue to fund nonprofits that haven't delivered results. So to the extent that we could have an opportunity at some point in the near future, if we move forward with the POM, based on an evaluation of whether or not it's successful that we start to diversify our programs. I would like to see other people. I've worked a lot with Exodus at the Samoa Bridge program, and I've seen success there. And maybe there's other programs. I visited Culver City's site. The neighbors thought they were going to be upset about it. It's not. And so I think with the Palm Motel, I think that Samoa Shell can close. And the Palm Motel can start to serve these people who, by the way, is I'm just going to say it like this, and if people get offended, I'm really sorry. The person who's dragging a hatchet down Lincoln Boulevard that got shot with a less lethal in the face the other week talking to themselves completely soiled is not the person that goes into the Palm. And I want to be clear about that because we use these fancy words to determine who's going there. Let's just be real. If we put this into three buckets, there's the person who you're like, oh, my God, that person is having a mental breakdown. You can't have a dialogue with them. They probably are going to be going to an emergency room service, potentially Exodus or some other facility that we don't even currently have in Santa Monica to get a different type of help. now you might say oh but then that person ends up back on the street these are now things that we need to take up with the county and the state and other officials but we can close san michel because i think it's better to close it and reduce that foot traffic there put folks in a better facility and we can continue to fund something and continue to watch the palm but in terms of looking at other spaces, the RFEI congregate interim housing. I can see, if I'm reading this as a resident, that when it says locations in and around Santa Monica to transition away, I'd like to just be very clear. I think wherever the opportunity exists to not have things in Santa Monica, period, because whether it's Pico, Sunset, Mid-City, nobody is going to feel like they want to have anything like that near them for a myriad of reasons. But also, I think we still haven't done that map. And if we look at Spa 5, we will find that Santa Monica probably is the only person with a congregate shelter. And we probably have 3, 4, 5, 10 times the amount of facilities in our city, which is creating more pressure because we have the end of the line and it is affecting everything. So I would like to just propose, sorry, I'd like to propose that the policy decision, which is to close Sam O'Shell be separated out and not connected with these other things because it is a separate decision. So I think that's policy decision. Where is the part where we're closing Sam O'Shell? What is that in one, two or three?

It's not in any of them. The direction to demobilize Saint-Michel was given in the realignment plan. So it's not mentioned here as any of the recommended actions. So we're happy to take direction, but this is all consideration separate from.

So to be clear, we've already given direction to close Saint-Michel.

Via the realignment plan. Yes.

Okay. So if there's a motion, I just wanted to make sure because the 16 item was confusing. I think it added to confusion because we were already saying that things weren't going in the Pico neighborhood. And by restating Pico neighborhood connected with Sam O'Shell and Sunset Park, it sort of reformulated this idea that was ruminating around Sam O'Shell and the Palm Motel being connected. And I want to be very clear that those are not connected. Well, I don't know why that item was out there. I don't know if it was a political thing or if it was to try to explain to people that we weren't looking to do anything there, but... We've expired the 10 minutes. Is Council Member Raskin, are you giving direction or is that... Well, yeah, I was just saying that you guys put, you smushed your item in with this item, so I'm confused because it says don't close Sam O'Shell unless we know that we're not opening something up.