City Council - Regular Meeting

Call to order the city of Seaside City Council and the successor agency. I call to order the city of Seaside City Council and the successor agency to the redevelopment agency of the city of Seaside regular 5:00 pm meeting on Thursday, February 5th, 2026. City Hall chambers will come to order. Roll call, please. Council and agency member Miller here. Council and agency member Burks here. Council and agency member Garcia Arizona here. Mayor Pro Tim and Vice Chair Pacheo. Mayor and Chair Oglesby uh here. You do have a quorum.

Uh thank you so much. Is it a moment of silence?

We'll have a moment of silence and then I'll ask uh Council Member Burks to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. Thank you. United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Uh thank you. Next we have reviewed agenda. Uh city manager is any addition, deletions, adjustments to the agenda? Mayor, there are no requested changes at this time. Thank you. Uh thank you. Uh I do anticipate some type of break around the 7:30 hour. Uh public comment item number five. Members of the public are wishing to address the city council on matters underneath our jurisdiction but not on this agenda may do so during public comment. Uh you may have up to three minutes to make your public comment. This is also the time to comment on presentation items. For the benefit of the public, it would be helpful if you state your name.

Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone.

Good evening, Mr. Miller. City Council Seaside. I'm Peter Kaiser, longtime citizen. As there was only a moment of silence, I'd like to offer a prayer for the city. Let us pray. Lord, we glorify you and adore you. Thank you for sending your son to die for our sins and allow us to be in heaven with him as we surrender our lives to him. Lord, we confess our sins and ask for your forgiveness. Although this sinful nation deserves to be cursed by you and judged severely by your grace, please forgive our nation and restore it to you and your Bible. We have lost almost two generations, seven 70 million babies through abortion and we deserve to be judged severely. But by your grace, please forgive us for this as we turn around and have no more abortions and abortion will become unthinkable in America and around the world where there are about um 50 million abortions deaths a year. Help this city council um to close the planned era abortion clinic next door and give this council wisdom to do and know your will. uh bless the prayer vigil there at 6:00 p.m. tonight in just about an hour in front of the clinic to protect the innocent and um Lord also be with city council as they hear a report on vacancies in uh commercial buildings and stuff. San Francisco tried something like that and they had four parts to it and the courts denied those um fees for empty residences. So, um, and also help the help the city council to help defeat

that bill in, uh, that passed the assembly to have the 6 to9 cent, um, fee per mile of driving for California citizens. So, please contact Senator Leairard and help them defeat that bill. If you drive maybe 30,000 miles a year in your family, you might have about a $2,500 extra bill. And they also add about 60 cents per gallon. My sister lives in the east and sometimes uh their gas is like $3 or less per gallon and ours has gone up to a premium. Some places it's $5. Thank you very much. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone. Hello, Linda Cunningham, member of the homeless commission here speaking as a seaside resident. Hi everybody at the city council, mayor, attorney, manager, guru of all things, speaker and the screen. Uh, thank you all the city. I mean, we're just so lucky to have so many great people in our city just making it happen every day. They're like little elves. You can't even see them, but they sneak around and do things. We've gotten an Ace Hardware. They're hiring. You're looking for a job. Ace Hiveware with a holiday or Hollywood video used to be they're hiring. I saw their signs out. I'm so excited to get an Ace. America's Tire. I keep seeing cars there. People are getting tires. It's so beautiful over there. And when Meals on Wheels refurbishes that auto looking building, that's going to be beautiful. It's just making it look so nice over in that part of town. Um, I do

want to comment, somebody last time mentioned solar doesn't work in the fog. I'm not sure where they get their information. We've had solar for 20 years. We actually start producing solar energy earlier on foggy days because the fog bounces the fog the sunlight around. And um when panels get too hot, they don't perform as well as all electronics do not perform as well in the heat. I'm also very grateful that um from the presentation last time from C3E or whatever their combination of letters was with the energy folks. I'm just so grateful Seaside is working on freeing its citizens from the yoke of this 100year-old technology and energy. We do not have to be slaves to the oil state. Norway over 90% of their cars are elected. Pakistan. Pakistan. Think of what you think Pakistan looks like. 40% solar. They just decided to put solar on everything. We're going to have plug-in solar soon. It's just so exciting. Let's go forward. Let's let go of that ancient tech that funnels money to the oil oligarchs. We don't need to be entangled with those horrible. The oil just makes those countries just behavior so awful. I saw somebody sitting on a bench on General Jim Moore this morning. I noticed public works extended those so you can have your your wheelchair, your buggy, whatever you got going on up there. Is so beautiful seeing this man looking at the beautiful view. Best view on the peninsula is from seaside. Absolutely. Um police parking lot looks great. I hope it performed well in the rain. I um would really like the city to give us an option to get social media off of blue sky. I don't want to participate in the oligarch social media space with Facebook, Instagram, X. I don't want to participate with them. I'm on blue sky. I'd like to see CES Sun on there. Uh the auto mall bummer. They're going there. That's closed. I think we should make that a PART OF DOWNTOWN. LET'S PUT IN

housing shops. It could be beautiful. It's a huge space. Let's do it. And the landscape around city hall looks great. And the palm tree lights look wonderful, too. Thank you. Diane Nielsson. You now have the floor to make a public comment.

Thank you. Good evening, city council. Um, I'm Diane Nielsen and I have a couple of one request and one announcement and it my request is for the public works department I believe is who puts up the saw horses with the no parking on such and such a date. We're not the only city that does this, but you see, you can read the city of Seaside from far away, but for some reason, the dates are always tiny and you have to get out of your car to see what dates are there, or you have to park your car and then you see what dates are there. I'm wondering if the city um could ask the public works department to write those dates either with a thicker pen and bigger like with a a Sharpie, not the fineoint ones, so that we could actually read those before we get out of our car. And it's not my vision because I do have good vision. So that is my suggestion and request. and in and for no parking on such and such a dates. And the other thing I want to announce is there's a uh FOSPA, Friends of Seaside Parks Association work day on this Saturday as there is every Saturday and it's going to be at Havana Sol Park which has pollinator plants, it has fruit trees and it has a food garden. And when we do work in that park, um there's usually a potluck afterwards. So, uh there will be a potluck at noon afterwards. And it really is a good time

for people who want to know more about and get to know some of the people that um regularly volunteer for FOSPA to uh talk to them and see if they're interested in joining us. And that's it. Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone. uh city council. My name is Alto Lust with the car is local 646 and I'm just here to express the uh concern about public works just uh ensure that the actual public works are beatly uh there's no mclassifications on the actual bids as far as as notice on the area there's a lot of projects are being mclassified employers are actually getting uh the bids are being actually lowered due to mis classification of workers there's a lot of kickbacks around the area and I will make sure that the actual city of seaside hopefully gets a chance to implement some type of language that promotes even for the community healthcare and apprenticeship and also labor compliance for the projects. As I walked around the area, I covered the Monterey area and Santa Cruz area. There's a lot of mclassifications on around a lot of bids being lowered than they supposed to be due to mclassifications and kick back to the employees. Thank you for your time. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone.

May I know the members of the public have come forward to make public comment. Uh thank you. Seeing no one else here, no one else. Uh public comment is closed. Mr. City Manager, any questions, issues, or concern you can speak to at this time? Uh, yeah, we can have our public works department take a look at our notification process for no parking uh and the clarity of those notices and then we'll all as as we always do, we'll continue to uh analyze our bid process and our procurement measures.

Uh, thank you. Next, we'll go to item number six, which is public agency communications. a receive a presentation regarding the funding forecast for the Kasa Notra Buena. Um, Mr. City Manager, tonight we'll have a presentation from Kasan Buena, Robin McCrae, and I believe that's Sean Stone from CHS.

Good evening, city council. Uh, my name is Sean Stone. Thank you. Uh, my name is Sean Stone. I'm the chief operating officer at Community Human Services. Uh with me today is microphone, sorry. Uh with me tonight is uh Stacy Alzer Perkins. She's the executive director of Gathering for Women. And uh tonight we are presenting on um the funding shortfall that we are experiencing for the two uh women and families uh shelters.

Apologies. Uh we're going to be speaking on the two shelters for women and families. Um Schuman Heartouse is uh operated by community human services. Kasa NA Buuena is operated by uh Gathering for Women and Community Human Services. And uh we also want to acknowledge that we understand the funding shortfalls that a lot of um homeless service agencies are experiencing. very instrumental in opening casuena. So I first want to open with saying thank you that is here in beautiful seaside and that has made a huge difference in many of women and and families with children on our peninsula. As you probably already know the both shelters serve uh they have a 35 bed emergency shelter serving homeless women and families. The typical length of stay is between 90 days and and 6 months. And the annual number served by each shelter is around 80 80 individuals, 25 women and 15 families in both shelters. Both shelters are intended to stabilize and transition people to permanent housing and improved income, self-sufficiency, and well-being. All their basic needs are met. They have meals, they have hygiene supplies, laundry, showers, and baths for the children. They have computer and internet access. They also have housing focused supports such as case management, housing navigation, and rapid rehousing financial support. Stabil stability supports also include access to um mental health and addiction services, access to mainstream benefits to help them find housing and and sustain housing, employment services, and financial planning. So something that's we're really uh

proud of is the outcomes. So uh the statewide benchmark the average outcomes for uh exits to permanent housing is around 23%. Kasano Buena exits 50% to permanent housing. So over double and 24% exit to temporary housing which is still what we would consider a positive exit. Schuman Hard House uh also uh has a very good uh e exit to permanent housing. 57% exit to permanent housing and 17% to temporary housing. So compared to the state very good outcomes and you know we provide wraparound services with comprehensive case management and we think that these outcomes are a result of that. Casaba applied and received 1.3 million of HEAP funding. They also raised 400,000 from the community and renovated the county-owned property that's uh for rent for a dollar a year, which is a module building in front of the DSS office. Schuma Heart House was developed mostly by by uh philanthropy, private philanthropy uh for the most part. So, in terms of sustaining the the two shelters, both uh Kasano Buena and Schuman Hard House, it it costs approximately $1.2 million per year to operate. Um Kasa or CHS and Gathering for Women established a special purpose fund through the community foundation uh for community fundraising. Uh in addition to that for both shelters we apply for government grants uh including but not limited to HAP ESG CDBG and also again um additional private philanthropy. So our current and nearer funding gap um is

is quite grim. uh in the upcoming fiscal year, Kasano Buena's shortfall is uh just under $300,000 while Schuman Heartouse is about $650,000 the following fiscal year. Uh and these numbers are non-cumulative assuming no new funding in 2728 $650,000 while Schumann is uh running a $900,000 deficit. 2829, $700,000 for CASA and $960,000 for Schuman. And in 29 uh30 uh we're expected to run a uh $760,000 deficit for Kasa Noa and uh approximately 1 million for uh Schuman Hard House. And key drivers of this gap uh is that HAP 5 uh and city of Monterey PHLA funds are being fully depleted this fiscal year. And in 2627 uh our special purpose fund that we've been fundraising uh and contributing to uh throughout the five years that cost Bueno has been operating will be fully depleted. uh half three funds and half four again will be depleted and $764,000 of deferred revenue uh will be fully depleted. So without new funding streams uh of a structural deficit uh uh this marks the beginning of the uh structural deficit without intervention.

So one of the reasons why we're bringing this to your attention at this point is because we want to make sure that you're aware of this deficit. We also want to avoid service reductions and and shelter closure. And we want if we have to, we want to phase in reductions or closures while pursuing funding. Without additional funding or system level support, reduction in service or capacity will occur. We'll have to eliminate some of our case management or all of our case management. We might have to convert it to an overnight shelter or a seasonal shelter or partial or full program closure. Of course, any of this affects all of our homeless women and families on the on the peninsula, including Seaside, and we definitely do not want to do this so we don't have to. So uh in conclusion what we are asking for is uh number one we really appreciate being having the opportunity to speak here with you um and just to be considered uh during uh budget deliberations in you know upcoming months but also uh potential partnerships that can be maintained uh between uh Kasano Buena Schuman heart and other providers uh as well as uh the city and cities stabilization or possible bridge funding uh for 2627 as Stacy mentioned while we're uh exploring and exhausting all avenues that we can to maintain these shelter beds. Uh ex exploration of uh replacement funding or coordinated system solutions as well as uh commitment to preserving these services. Uh you know there was a lot of time, money and effort put into establishing these programs. Uh the outcomes are incredible and uh you know it it would be a shame to consider that so much effort went into making something so successful and um having to curtail or uh at the worst case uh

eliminate these services would be uh dire. So that's our request. Uh we really appreciate the opportunity to speak here with you. Um thank you. We recognize that there are there are budget problems at all the city levels, county levels, everywhere. And we recognize that we are not the only nonprofits that are dealing with these these crises, but we do welcome any partnerships or any ideas that you have to to help us. And we welcome any questions. Uh thank you so much. Are there any questions? Um may pro

once through the staff. Historically, I guess that we give uh I think it's $30,000 to CDBG out of CDBG refunds for over the years. Is that a true thing? And I assume that you're going to apply for that again.

It's my understanding that the CDBG is project based and it's an application process and that amount may change every year and is scored by committees prior to award. just I'm sure you know this but just for numerous years I think it's pretty consistent of the $30,000 at least 105. Second question is there a timeline or a vision that you have if you have to make these cuts which seems kind of possible what the first area may be and especially as it relates to CASSA.

That's a a great question. We we are looking at coming up with plans. Um Oh, good. It's on the slide. Uh there there are ideas in terms of reducing capacity, reducing services offered on site, um uh general budget reductions, and we're coming up with plans in the upcoming months to make decisions for this upcoming fiscal year. Um but we have not um solidified any of those yet.

Okay. Well, thank you and I hope you uh thank you for what you do. It's an important service. hope you continue to apply for that CPBG funds or ask for more or something because it's a really important service. Gathering for women did apply for $12,000 um and we presented last night at the commission meeting. Okay. Um we're hopeful that that will be well $12,000 over two years. So actually $24,000. So hopefully that will contribute to the pool. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Uh Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh thank you Sean. Um I've you know had the benefit of serving on the CHS board and kind of know some of the answers but uh just for understanding why does it cost $1.2 million a year to run the shelter and what is the bulk of that cost?

Absolutely. So the bulk of that cost uh for for any of our services is staffing. Um we have uh families, we have children on site. Um there are some who are med medically fragile. So we have staff who are there uh at all times. We'd love the ratio to be high uh higher have more staff. Uh but at this time we have at least one staff member on site uh at any given uh at any given time uh as well as case managers and um administration to help support the program. So the vast majority is is just staffing for both programs. There's also about $100,000 worth of food included in that.

Okay. So, the the vast majority is uh staff and then some food and other expenses related. Is there are there strategies to work at a lower amount or is that that's like with the bare minimum service is 1.2 million.

So, at this point uh there there are always other options. Um, this was the service model that we proposed when receiving the $1.3 million for HEA funds. Um, it is the service model that has resulted in the highest outcomes. So, it is something that we have seen as successful, but there are uh other options. There are shelters that don't operate like a low barrier navigation center where there isn't comprehensive case management on site or supportive services um or even meals. So there are programs that operate where there is um it's overnight emergency shelter where um there's a staff member or two and uh it's a safe haven. But um the goal for our programs and missions that we have between CHS and gathering for women is to really support individuals and families become self-sufficient and stable and uh services that are emergency overnight although are a beautiful thing um don't help propel people to independence. So we're exploring all the options that we can.

I see. So there are I mean before the the tragic loss of the facility, it could be that just services could potentially be reduced. Yes. And my last question is u the the county owns the property. Is that correct? Yes. And the county owns the building that's on the property as well, the social services building. Yes. Is that correct? And there's discussion at the county supervisor level that wants they want to do something with that building. Is that correct?

Um that was discussed. There was proposals at that location, but they were considering um moving CASA or um in including it in some way, but they've they've taken that off the table. Kasa is going to stay where it is. They may do something to the DSS building, but they will not touch CASA. I see. Because it would be I mean if the county came in and redid this redid the building with the understanding that castle is going to stay there and then castle shut down that would be the worst case scenario I believe. Yes.

We are doing this presentation to all the cities the city of Selenus um the coalition uh a couple major funders anyone that we can be in front of. We'll make sure that the county is aware of that. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you for allowing us to be here. Thank you so much. Thank you all. Thank you.

We'll go to item number 6B. Sees city uh broadcast news broadcast and comments from uh the city manager. Uh whoever wants to, however you want to do it, Mr. City manager Thank you. Let's dip into this week's edition of Seaside City News, covering more of the events happening this February. The city of Seaside continues to make progress on the campus town project with several construction activities scheduled over the coming weeks. On February 5th, crews will pave the turn lane into CSUMB from Light Fighter Drive. From now through February 27th, residents and commuters can expect ongoing utility work along General Gymmore Boulevard. Beginning March 1st, traffic lanes on General Gymmore Boulevard will shift to the east to allow for reconstruction of the sidewalk and adjacent parcel on the west side of the roadway. Motorists are encouraged to plan ahead and use caution while traveling through the area as improvements move forward. Join the city of Seaside and our community partners for a powerful Black History Month program on Sunday, February 15th from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. at the Oldm Center. This afternoon gathering will honor the legacy, culture, and ongoing contributions of black leaders, families, and organizations who continue to shape our community and our nation. Come ready for reflection, celebration, and connection as we lift up history, amplify voices, and move forward together. The Walter Lee Avery Gallery at Seaside City Hall is currently hosting a special Black History Month exhibit celebrating

culture, creativity, and community. The exhibit, running through February 27th, features work by local artists highlighting powerful stories and artistic expressions rooted in black history and experience. The exhibit is free to the public and open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The community is also invited to attend a special artist reception on February 6th from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. The exhibit is presented by the Avery Gallery and sponsored by the Seaside Art and History Commission. Thursdays in Seaside means it's time for the Seaside Farmers Market at Laguna Grande Park. The spring market runs from 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. with box distribution happening from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. or until the boxes run out. So, come after 3:00 p.m., pick up your ticket, and reserve your spot. Be sure to bring an ID such as an EBT or medical card proving low-income status in order to receive your free weekly box. Don't miss it. Fresh food, friendly faces, and community connection every Thursday in Seaside. The city of Seaside invites you to take part in the 2026 tree giveaway. Be part of raising awareness about the many benefits trees provide and help increase Seaside's local tree canopy on private properties. Seaside residents with suitable planting conditions can receive one free 1gallon tree and a free bag of fertilizer while supplies last. Apply online at ci.caside.ca. us/42/parks or attend an upcoming event hosted by Friends of Seaside Parks Association or Sustainable Seaside. Select your free tree and fertilizer voucher, then pick up your items at Hana Gardens. Grow green, seaside, one tree at a time. Seaside Recreation invites you to a night of memories, music, and magic at the annual father-daughter dance and evening with my gal. Join us Friday, February 6th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Laguna Grande Hall inside the Old Demier Center. Dress to impress and enjoy a

special evening celebrating the bond between fathers and daughters. The first 25 to register will receive a free gift, so don't wait. Admission is $10 for father and daughter, $5 for each additional adult, and $3 for each additional child. Make it a night to remember. An evening with my gal presented by Seaside Recreation. Float, swim, and watch a movie all at the pool. Pullo Swim Center presents Float and Flick. Join us Friday, February 6th from 7:15 to 9:00 p.m. for a splashtastic movie night featuring Shrek shown right on the pool deck. Admission residents $575, youth residents 350, non-residents $7, youth non-residents $4. Grab a pool noodle, bring your friends, and float while you watch. But please leave your large floaties at home. It's a fairy tale night of swimming and smiles at Pulo Swim Center. Don't miss it. Looking for hidden treasures and great community vibes? Join the city of Seaside's older adults program for a community flea market happening Sunday, February 8th from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at the Old Demier Center. Shop a wide variety of items including clothing, kitchen wear, books, toys, home decor, and more. Whether you're hunting for a bargain or cleaning out your closet, we invite you to join us or register today as a vendor. For more information on vendor registration, call 831-899-6809. That's the community flea market presented by the city of Seaside's older adults program. We'll see you there. Join Fosba on Saturday, February 7th at Havana Solis Park and on the 14th at Mascal Neil Park for a day of service and outdoor fun. For more information, including future workdays and locations, visit friends of seaside parks.org. Love is in the air. Seaside, the Seaside Older Adults program invites you to a Valentine's Day dance at the Oldm Center. Join us on February 19th with

doors opening at 10:30 a.m. Enjoy live entertainment by the Edge band, plus great food and plenty of dancing. Lunch is served at 11:30. Dancing begins at 12:30. Admission is just $4 for lunch and dancing or $2 for dancing only. Whether you bring a friend or you'd like to meet someone new, come celebrate Valentine's Day with music, movement, and community at the Ultimire Center. We'll see you on the dance floor. Looking for affordable spay and neuter services for your pets? Snip Mobile Spay and Neuter is coming to Seaside on February 24th, offering low-cost spay and neuter services for dogs and cats. Just $25 per pet. The clinic will be located at 1271 Canyon Delray Boulevard in the empty lot next to the Chili's restaurant. This clinic is for seaside residents only and appointments are required. To schedule, call or text 925-96710001. Two vaccines, rabies and a booster are included at no cost. Microchipping and sedatives are available for an additional fee. Sponsored by the city of Seaside, this clinic helps provide safe, affordable care for our community's pets. Again, that's February 24th, Snip Mobile Spay and Neuter in Seaside. Call or text 925-96710001 to make your appointment today. We appreciate you tuning in to Seaside City News, where we work to include, innovate, and inspire. We'll be back with more exciting events to share with you later this February. Until then, be safe, live fully, and enjoy all our city has to offer. Thank you, Seaside. In addition to uh this this news update, there are a couple updates for public works I want to mention to the community. The U city crews are are working on landscape improvements to the medians on Canyon del Rey. You might have seen that today driving by. Uh in June, the city council approved that project in partnership with the

neighborhood improvement commission, which allocated $25,000 to those efforts. And so those are underway. Uh permanent signage reflecting the city's ordinance prohibiting aggressive and unsafe pan handling within the rideways and medians is being placed uh throughout the community by staff. Currently, 10 street lights along Sand Dunes Drive have been repaired and are fully operational now. Um, and then finally, just an update. Many of you have seen the palm trees on Fremont uh were recently pruned to prepare for the installation of uplighting um similar to the the palm tree in front of city hall here. Uh the lighting uh is intended to improve safety, visibility, and aesthetics on one of Seaside's most crucial commercial corridors. And with that, that's all for this time.

Uh thank you. Well, well said, city manager. We'll we'll move on to item seven, presentations. A, annual crime report for 2025. Uh, Mr. City Manager. We will have a annual crime report update from police chief Nick Borges.

Members of council and members of our community. My name is Nick Borges. I am the police chief here in Seaside. I just want to start off before I get going in these slides just to kind of give a recap. Uh last year when we looked at overall crime in Seaside, we had a decrease of about 4%. The year prior to that, we had a decrease which was massive of about 37%. The years prior to that, we kind of fluctuated up and down with crime, which is very common in in every community. Um, but I'm very proud to report to you that this of last year, we reduced the crime again by a substantial number of an overall 38% of reduction of crime. 33% down in property and 56% down in crimes against people. That is something to be proud of as a community and as a city. This is kind of a snapshot. I'm not a numbers person, so I have a slide after this that'll be a little bit easier for my eyes, but I wanted to highlight the very first uh item here, and that is homicide. If you look at that row starting from 2021, if you look at the very top, moving up to 2025, you'll see from 2021 to 2025, we've had one homicide. In 2023, that was the murder of Miss Jackie Robinson. And prior to this, it was 2019, and that was Mr. Tmaine Callaway, who was murdered. Um, we did not have a homicide in the last couple of years. That is significant for Seaside. That is something knowing this area's history and see how to see how far we have come to not have a homicide is something that we can be very proud of here in the city of Seaside. Uh, here is a little bit easier on my eyes. You can actually see the graphs starting from the left of the three columns of the red kind of gold and uh, gray from 2021 to now. You can see just in a snapshot how crime against uh uh property theft etc. and people have reduced substantially. This is something

I I'm very excited when I see this kind of data coming in. Um with that being said, we have seen an increase in collisions. So this chart here just shows a 5-year comparison in traffic accidents starting from the very left which is 2021 and moving forward. The blue indicating uh total amount of crashes that we have. The yellow is non-injury. The light green will be injury. The kind of white color is pedestrians and the orange is bicyclist and the red is motorcycles. So, we have certainly had more crashes. I'm going to really break down crash data since that's that was our problem area this last year. Um, these are our top areas. This is not uncommon. This is our main thoroughares through the city of Seaside, Fremont, Delmani, Kang Delray, Broadway, Machua. And you can see that um Fremont significantly increased. The other areas, the other roadways, give or take about the same uh from from years past roughly, but we certainly saw an increase on Fremont Boulevard. That's where we saw more crashes. Um here's some of the primary factors, which is going to be a little bit different than we may expect. On Fremont Boulevard, we have a lot of fail to yield right of oil and unsafe turns. And what that really is is, keep in mind, Fremont has the most intersections. It has the most street lights. It has the most intersections where people are going to be making a left turn while another person on the opposite direction is making a left turn or vice versa. And you get a lot of confusion and somebody will steal somebody's right away. And we get a lot of uh collisions that happen like that. A lot of unsafe turning, turning, changing into lanes. And I will tell you as we go through the themes of this, one of the things that we really can't capture data on, but we know is happening is the use of cell phones. A lot of people you'll see cars are getting hit all over the community. It's not just because somebody had an unsafe turn or they're avoiding a speed hump. We have people that are on their phones, they're texting, they're looking down, and when they look up, they have this situation happening. Uh Delmani is

unsafe turns, lane changes, very similar. CDR was really the only road that had the speed issues related to crashes. We have people racing lights trying to get over to Highway 68 or down towards Highway One or Mong or vice versa all the way around. uh Broadway. We have a lot of visibility issues on Broadway. So, we have people pulling out of residential and they're taking that risk. They're glancing going through and we have uh crashes occurring like that. And unsafe turns again, we have main thorough affairs. We're going to have people changing lanes, not paying attention. Mocha Buen is very similar with unsafe turns. Um here's some street community concerns. These are the areas that we get the most citizen-driven complaints to us. I also had military on here, but I will just tell you, I looked at the military data. We had two crashes on military. Another um complaint driven area is Plumis. I think the last crash we've had on Plumus was four or five years ago. Um something to that effect. There was zero crashes on Plumus. So, I kept that information out for this purposes. But I did want to highlight some of these areas. And these are the areas. Hilby, Kimble, Lasal, San Pablo. Hillby being in red, Kimell blue, Lasal in the gold color, and green for San Pablo. The one that really stood out to me that was kind of troubling was Hilby because um we increased, if you see in red, from last year to this year substantially on Hilby. And I'll break down a little bit what we saw on Hillby to see what that really is. And keep in mind, the traffic calming wasn't fully complete in 2025. There were areas that were um some of that did contribute to it, but uh we we'll get get in depth with that in a second. So let's look at Hillby Avenue as its own. We had nine crashes occurred between January and July. So these are happening towards the beginning of the year. A lot of those are parked cars getting hit. And I know there is some that have to do with the speed humps. If you on Hillby Avenue and some of these other roadways with speed humps, people if there's not a police car directly

behind them, they are avoiding these things. They're moving to the side. and we have had issues with that where they're hitting parked cars or even going into opposing lanes of traffic and we're having issues with that. So, that is something we're still adjusting to. Uh, two were minor injury, one was a DUI and one was someone who ran red lead light at Fremont Hillby. Um, five of these collisions occurred between July and December and a lot of those were related to visibility and parked cars. All but one of these happened west of Noa. So, only one happened above Noa. The rest of these hap happened west of North Buena all the way down um to the end of Hillby. That is somewhat promising because the traffic calm me that we did that the city did on upper Hillby, we did not see any crashes happening up there. So, there was some progress with that. We just really have to keep analyzing what's happening west of that location. Uh Kimble Avenue, we had three total crashes. One crash occurred at the start of the year. It was a parked car. Uh two during the holidays we had a visibility issue on one uh pulling out again of a residential and cars going by and one was a vehicle pursuit where the car crashed uh non-injury no injuries happening on Kimble three crashes total. Uh Lasowl accidents we had these crashes occurred during the summer and the end of the year. Two were a minor injury, a DUI and again another visibility issue. One was a rear end. Uh one was a an unsafe start. uh somebody pulling away from a um curb way, entering traffic and crashing that way, not not paying attention. Um one was an unsafe lane change, one was running a stop sign, one was a car versus a bike. I read this report just to get more detail, minor injury, a person was crossing the roadway. And just to touch on bikes, when you're on a bicycle, and this is more for the community, you are not considered a lawful pedestrian. So, a lot of people that get on a crosswalk and they're on the bike riding it, your bike is considered a vehicle, not a

pedestrian. If you are walking your bike, you are a pedestrian. And we have a lot of bicycle traffic and they go through crosswalks and intersections. They have to obey the laws as if they were driving a vehicle. Uh, two were unknown uh crashes and these these folks exchange information on site and all these crashes occurred between the 1100 block and the 1400 block of Lasal. That's actually quite a wide range when you look at the map, but um that's the areas where they're happening. Uh San Pablo, San Pablo, all crashes occurred during the spring and summer, all between Baker and Lincoln, which again is a pretty big stretch. Lincoln goes up into some of the uh traffic colony that was completed on Upper San Pablo. Five of these were hit and runs. Uh two were uh uh parked cars, two fell to yields, another not paying attention, stealing somebody's rideway. One was a DUI. Uh four fell to yield the ride ofways. two DUI non-injury and went back into another vehicle. Total of 12. So, we we really did analysis of what the crashes are and we'll talk a little bit later about our our priorities leading into this year. Um, traffic citations, we have had a decrease in our our traffic citations and I can tell you that in 2024, we already seen a slight decrease, but we had three part-time motor officers. We now only have one. So part of our goals in 2026 is to rebuild this traffic enforcement team. We have the equipment. We just need to get some folks trained and and through the schooling to really emphasize the traffic enforcement piece. Um parking citations, parking citations have uh gone down quite a bit in large part because of staffing. We lost one of our very valuable um parking enforcement or parking compliance specialists last year, but I am happy to say they stayed in the city of Seaside and we're with ESCUS at last I had heard, but that definitely uh affected some of the numbers. And I also want to say even with the staffing, we are also seeing

more compliance. So if you look back around 2022, 2021 we didn't have a parking team. 2022 we implemented a parking team. Our citations in increased substantially. In 2023, we have two full-time people that are really uh in invested in what they're doing. It's at the highest peak we've probably ever had in the city of Seaside of Parking enforcement. And then in 2024, we see that decline. So, you can see how the parking has done it, but but compliance is really what we're seeing. People now know if you park on Broadway for over two hours on Lower Broadway, you might get a ticket. People understand the 72-hour parking issues and some of these things that are happening. And it's not all about enforcing and giving tickets. A lot of this is education and compliance to the city's uh rules and laws. Uh domestic violence, this is always a difficult situation to to deal with because domestic violence is very challenging to uh minimize because a lot of domestic violence occurs in people's homes behind closed doors. We don't know people's dynamics and things that are stressing people's families or what's leading up to domestic violence. But I can tell you looking at a 5-year snapshot of uh domestic violence reports that's reported to the Seaside Police Department, it's hard to tell on this graph, but there's only two cases. So almost every case in the last 5 years that we are called to of domestic violence where somebody is injured in a domestic violence case, we take the report and there's some form of resolution, arrest, a filing with the DA's office. In addition to that, we have a system set up that every time we deal with a domestic violence case, we forward these reports to our family and community support team so they can conduct follow-up and try to do the things that I just mentioned that it's hard for us to capture. So, we do have domestic violence. The numbers are kind of consistent. If you look at 2021, we have to remember coming out of 2020, we had COVID. In 2021, we were still living in the COVID era. We know a lot of domestic violence was occurring. We also

know a lot of people weren't reporting it because nobody wanted their loved one to lose their job to be in jail because everyone was struggling during that time. Here's some some data from the youth diversion. We have a very proactive uh resource center. The police department, five referrals in 2025, one diversion. When I looked at that number, I thought, boy, that's that's pretty low. And in talking to Mr. Teddy Black, they have 48 referrals and one diversion. in part is that we're not seeing juveniles commit the crimes that that we did see in the past and the other part is the proactivity of our seaside youth resource group. They are proactively on campuses. They're proactively engaging the youth and they're doing so many things. These are just the documented. This won't even capture the things they do on a day-to-day um basis at the resource center. Uh calls for service. So last year, this is pretty big number. It's not uncommon for our years past, but we had 33,94 calls for service. Our family anduh community support team. We have 55 um completed callouts where we call them out to a scene to try to assist. And 200 plus support activities. So that's where either they're not available or the scene is too chaotic or we've we've had a domestic violence issue and we've taken the person to jail and there's not an immediate response needed and our family can be support team can schedule appointments in the comfort of their their office space and follow up with people but they are definitely out working hard and um and doing a good job with that. uh flock safety. This this is a very hot topic right now and and I will say even our city manager is very proactive in constantly talking to me and making sure that our data is secure for our community. And I need to highlight a few things here. Number one is we only archive data for 30 days. So if you're driving in Seaside today and you pass one of these cameras, 30 days from now it automatically gets deleted. The most important thing in the calls and that I

receive from our community is the concern of us sharing data with federal agencies. We do not share data with federal or outside agencies. The only exception we have is we share flock data with the city of Las Vegas. And that is only because historically we have had people who were wanted for very ser serious crimes who have fled to the city of Las Vegas. So that's really the only nexus we have with that particular area. But again, that's Las Vegas police. Um we do audits on this probably every week. And what we do is we check our features to ensure that we are not sharing every entity that wants to access our data. They have to seek permission from our administrators which is Commander Doza and myself and we have to give approvals. We have not received any uh request to my knowledge from any any federal agency and we don't intend our intention is to keep seaside safe from state crimes that we enforce. That's our mission and goal. That's our commitment to the community and we will do that. If anything changes with this, you all will be the very first to know and we ask for other action. Um the alerts on this, these are the type of things that these cameras are alerting our police officers. Stolen cars, felony vehicles, that could be somebody that's wanted for a serious crime from out of the area in California. Missing people, Amber alerts, and silver alerts. In the past 30 days, and this looks like a big number, we have a,54 alerts and hits that came in. And keep in mind if there's an alert or a sound detection that goes off, every device that captures that will count as an alert. So if you had a stolen vehicle driving in seaside and they start over here at Fumont Re and they drive through the city and they leave at Monterey Road, they might hit 15 cameras with that car. Each one of those will count as an alert. Um we have 32 license plate readers and 18 sound detection devices spread out throughout the community. And here's some of the things in the last 30 days that we have used our flocks to help us resolve issues. Attempted homicide. I think a lot of people saw

some of that on our social media. Stolen cars that come in the community that we would never know even entered our our city unless these cameras were alerting them. Um we had a major drug dealer that was in our community and a vehicle came through and we had a major arrest. Uh a robbery from outside of the area that came in. Um reckless vehicles. We have a vehicles. We'll get alerts from other cities nearby saying this car just crashed into four cars and headed your way. And here's a license plate and we'll alert to that. That has happened in the last 30 days. Hit and runs. You saw we had a lot of hit and runs in our data. We we can look. Somebody says, "I saw a gray car." We can enter that information and do some research and now we have some leads to resolve these things to hopefully lessen our hit and runs. Um fireworks. I I don't know if everyone's aware, but we do have an issue here in Seaside with fireworks. We use that a lot. One came out just the other day and we had officers respond. There wasn't a citation, but it got us in the area where someone started lighting off fireworks uh near Mariposa. We were there very quickly and the fireworks didn't uh go off the rest of the evening. Um gunshots. This one is kind of surprising. We don't get a lot of gunfire in Seaside, but it's surprising like during New Year's and other dates where nobody will call us about gunfire and we will have an alert with you can hear it. It's clearly somebody firing a gun. Likely in the case in this one in the air, nothing was hit. But uh that's something that we would like to know if somebody's gonna negatively shot uh shoot off a gun. Uh and missing persons. We had a lady that was driving around town who was suicidal and missing and we're able to track her down, get her some help, and get her some resources. So, we are using this responsibly and again, if anything changes with this, we will absolutely alert this to city leadership. Um, I want to talk a little bit about some of our achievements because for this little police department, we do quite a bit here in our city. I have a couple busy slides here, but this is kind of how my brain works. Um, I want to start off just the picture on the left. That's actually a picture of me mowing a lawn in South Chicago at a

training that this city sent me to. I'm sending two new officers to this training this year. And this is a training on how to engage the community in different ways. And part of that training was to spend a Saturday to go out to one of the roughest neighborhoods. There was a police officer killed in this neighborhood two days before this and engage with a community who does not have a good relationship with police and and I was one of the many that went out there and it was a phenomenal experience. I was able to bring back some good ideas and now I'm sending our officers to go and experience things like this to get new ideas to bring to our community to really build strong relationships. Um the next one is uh we have Nancy Grace here. This is a television show. It's it features on um Peacock and I believe Prime, the city of Seaside, the police department will be featured in this. This is going to air. We've already filmed for this. Uh I believe some some people in this room already have some access to this. We've given some some private access to this from the producers, but we've filmed an episode of this. This will be a very powerful documentary about a bad time in Seaside, but a very positive story. It has to do with the murder of Annie Fam, who was killed on January 21st, 1982. Uh 48 hours also featured a story here in Seaside on some cold case work that we did that is due to air on CBS and I believe Netflix um probably around April or so. If I get a sooner date, I'll I'll publicize that. But Seaside really is on the map. We are doing things that are being recognized on the national level. We're not reaching out to people saying, "Hey, will you look what we're doing?" They're hearing about things that we're doing. They're looking into it and they're wanting to do stories. So, I'm very proud of that. That's not a common thing for our area. Um, we also led a or featured a guest speaker at a technology summit for the California Police Chief Association and we got to speak about how we were doing things differently with using technology here in Seaside and we were up speaking with very large agencies, but we were on the map in California that was held down in Southern California. On the very top

here, we had Mr. DJ Daniel come in here and one of our our locals, Mr. Reggie Jackson, Hall of Famer, came and helped us really honor this young man. Um, the pictures on the right here, it looks like some some kids filming. They're actually filming a um independent film and they used our car. The car is named as Mur. I actually kind of forgot why our former chief had the name Murm, but I think his daughters created that name. our 1970 old police Mercury. They were filming a scary movie based in the 1970 era in this in South County and they asked if they can use that car for the film. Um I think it's Wind Tree something another film that will be coming out at some point uh independent film. So I said, "Yeah, get it." I said, "You can use a car as long as you make sure the sign logo is in it." So they said it would be in there and uh we'll see if that happens. Um we're honoring our employees. This lastly here, this is just achieving uh an interaction of the month. We don't look at arrest of the month or case of the month. Sometimes that will happen if it's really unique, but we want to encourage a culture here of having positive interactions with our community. So, we're celebrating our staff. We have hired a ton of people. I have to thank our HR department for helping us hire so many people in 2025. They've been working around the clock. We hired a lot of people during during 2025. new faces. You're going to see more and more people. And this is just a snapshot of some of the people that joined our team in 2025. Community outreach. Again, another busy slide here. We literally do a lot. Our goal is to change the culture. Our goal is to really build a genuine relationship with our community. Not just I'm the police, you're the community. I want our officers to know people at a personal level so we can help people and solve crime and keep people safe at a personal level. There's so many things here. I won't go through each one, but you can just take a look and see some of the things that we're doing here and some of the programs we have. I do have a mountain line because we did have a mountain lion issue that

we publicize and put stories out and had our animal control get all over uh that that story and educate the public. Fireworks. And again, I I always say this when I talk about fireworks, I credit our city attorney. Our city attorney has been instrumental in helping us address fireworks. We have a long way to go, but we are doing a really good job. And with the addition of our city manager, a lot of the back uh u behind the scenes work that he did with letters really helped us improve. We're on the right track. We have a long way to go, but what the team is doing with our fire department and our public works department, especially on the 4th of July, we're working hard. We have a long way to go though. Enforcement a snapshot. I could probably break down each one of these cases, but it's just important to know that in addition to what I'll show on the next slide, we're doing our job. At the end of the day, the public wants to make sure that people that want to come into our community and cause harm and uh uh put us at risk that we're going to do our job. And our philosophy is very simple. I have two hands. One is for compassion. I want to help you change your life. And the other is consequence. If you cross the threshold, we're endangering the community. We're going to hold you accountable. If we can help change your life before this happens, we're going to help you change your life and get you on the right track. We do a ton of training. This is the just keep in mind the OJ Simpson case 30 years later the lead detective here it's just Tom Lang on the right and Ko Kalin who was one of the key kind of star breakout witnesses in the case for the 30-year anniversary of the OJ Simpson trial. They were in the city of Seaside promoting a training for law enforcement to share their stories, their unique experiences to help us be better. I I'm just so proud of that that they were here in Seaside below Reggie Wright. That was the be beginning of 2025. Reggie Wright was the head of security for Death Row Records. He was directly involved with Sug Knight, Tupac, Snoop Dogg, uh a variety of other high uh uh

uh player names. And then his father, Reggie Wright, Senior, who was a Compton, very well known in his in his world. He was a legendary cop in Compton. They were here teaching not only seaside, but regional police officers how to have better relationships with the community. And Reggie was really telling the story about how the gang of life really exploded in the death row, east coast, west coast era. And on the left here we have we just did this in this room a couple of weeks ago. This was exclusive just the seaside staff. Any just a leadership orientation we held in here very positive. And I'll move down to the lower slide. We have we have uh enforcement challenges with exotics. So what we have here, we did a statewide training was held at the MPC Academy, South Bay Academy. And this is a training where CHP came in to certify 14 of our staff and staff from all over the area on how to uh pop a hood on a car to do what's called the state refest where you can actually look at any illegal modification and give our officers some tools other than I pulled you over cuz your car is very loud. It gives them some tools to actually enforce things that are illegal beyond just an exhaust. Um so that's going to be a powerful tool. Before this training, there was two people on the peninsula that had this certification. One was in Monteray, one was here. Now we have 14 just in Seaside who have this certification.

U moving on to acts of kindness. And again, I'm going to try to be brief here. If I go back just a little bit here, this is important. This is super important, like I said, but just as equally important is humanity, acts of kindness for our community. And with everything here, I want to highlight two briefcases. One is the top left. This is an act of kindness. And this is recently. This is earlier or late last month. A police officer stops a guy who does a California stop. Clearly, he was in a hurry, but he wasn't doing anything over the top. He's a military veteran. He just found out that his cousin was uh probably going to pass away at the hospital. He was on his way the next morning he'd be on his way to the LA area to go to a funeral of a retired police commander in Southern California. And they gave him a break as they do with many people, but they decided they wanted to take it a step further and they ended up buying him a Starbucks card and um I think they got him some donuts and a card just to say, you know, best wishes to you. delivered it at his seaside home the next morning when they knew he'd be leaving and made a difference in this man's life that I know he'll never forget. That was very powerful. And on the bottom right here, this one is probably our most uh celebrated post we've ever done in Seaside. It has over I just checked it before this meeting, over 263,000 views on Facebook of this post. Um, it shows like 2,700 reactions, but it's almost over 260,000 views. Officer Antinet Raisner goes to a call of one of our beloveves um senior citizens who her caretaker had left and all she wanted was some assistance warming up some food and her she was calling family who were out of the area and they just wanted to make sure everything was fine. She would be fine but make sure this brand new officer who just got off of a training program, she's brand new. She hasn't even been here a full year. Decided not only she was going to get permission to help her, she cleaned her dishes. She

did this all in about 10 minutes. Cleaned her dishes, rearranged her fridge, and warmed her some food and brewed her a cup of coffee. I just that to me, we have time to do the stuff, the enforcement piece, but that is the stuff I want everybody's family member in Seaside to know you have access to. We're going to help you beyond if we have the time to do so. I just love it. So, I'm excited about that. Um, here's some priorities that we're going to focus on in 2026. Obviously, we need to increase traffic enforcement. We need to publicize additional traffic safety PSAs and really get the word out in English and Spanish of some of these challenges we're seeing. I want us to reduce traffic accidents. That's now it's always been, but even more so after seeing the data in this. I want to continue to ramp up our fireworks enforcement. I want to respond to the community needs with that. Um, we also have a concern with minimizing unlawful encampments, people who are blocking sidewalks within our community. I had a meeting with Mr. Thomas with public works yesterday. We have a game plan on how to move forward on this with not just enforcement but the compassion piece as well and including our family community support team. Even though we had good numbers or high numbers with their team, I want to continue to increase our engagement with the family and community support team and get them involved in a lot more because there's opportunities everywhere. And the one thing that I definitely know we need, our cars are starting to break down less is beginning a budgeting new fleet as budget allows. Um, and with that, I believe that was the last side slide. With that, I will be happy to take any questions.

Wow, what a wonderful report. You know, you got to let everybody get it out your system. Your system. But it was a lot of good news. But but uh I'll let the council ask a couple questions. Do they have any questions? Any uh Mayor Pro Tim and then uh council member Garcia? About four or five years ago, you were down 10 to 12 officers. What where are we at now? I'm sure it's a lot better than that. We are We are down zero officers today. We are down zero officers. Great.

Um with that being said, we have two vacancies. One is for a parking position and one is for um will have a vacancy because we're going to be promoting a sergeant in the near future and that will create a vacancy with police officer. Um and I have more data on staff, but yes, that's great. Okay. on the um block program. Do you share information with Monterey Marina because I know you all help each other cities? Do good. And that's effective as far as arrest and solving some problems. Extremely effective.

Great. Um on the um youth um the city do mentioned the youth resource program helping proactively. The city has donated money to uh Miss Green's program, the village project CPY that do the outreach and proact. So all those groups combined with the with the youth resource you believe has helped reduce in a proactive way crime as such? Absolutely.

Okay. And then the family um when there's domestic vi violence and an officer, do you also call out What when does the family re community service staff come? Do they come at the same time? Do they come a day later? Because I know that program was designed to be proactive in dealing with the small not small as domestic violence, but think that they can deal with to keep the officers on the street.

Yes, they they'll respond when it's safe. In short, when it's safe, they will respond. If we can have them respond upfront, we do not even have to respond, we will do so. Um, there are a lot of situations like that where we can do that. Um, but there are also a lot of situations where we cannot we need to go in first. A good example is somebody's relative passes away. The police have to go, they have to take over that scene. They have to turn that scene over to the corner. But that at that point, once that's all been completed, that's when we would reach out to the family community support team and have them respond to be with the family to help comfort them through that. So we call them out when it's safe and any opportunity we can get them out there instead of us which was I know the intent of our council we look for those opportunities and do that.

And then my last question is you mentioned the traffic accidents on I believe broad Broadway San Pablo and um Hillby I believe and a few others. You said the vision is that when a lot of times the cars are parked to the stop sign and they can't see to make that right or left turn. Is that kind of And with the red curb, are we considering those areas that if that is the concern, are they considering adding more red curbs to those areas that are more problematic? Um I we don't have an ability to do the red curtain at the moment but to your question of visibility. Absolutely visibility. Great example is and this happened to me yesterday. I was on Wheeler Street pulling off of Kimble or excuse me Hillby and as I pulled off I looked left and I looked right and I felt it was clear and I was making a left turn. As soon as I made the left turn there was a car coming right up the street and I had to accelerate so I avoided a crash. It's not so much the curb there because we have some space in that area, but it really is the visibility. It's that car that's coming. It could be that car going a little quicker. It could be that car is low profile. It's a smaller car and you have an SUV parked on the roadway and and you pull out and those where a lot of the crashes are happening. And I've been trained if that happens on certain things I can do to avoid those things, but a lot of the general public has not. And some people will freeze or they'll slam the brakes and now you have a t-bone crash there. But the visibility issues we are seeing are certainly people that are pulling out lawfully out of areas and either they're not checking, they're not paying attention, or they just misread whether or not there's traffic coming.

And then my last one, same issue in the areas that they have put red curves at the 15 ft, 20 ft, whatever. Has that been helpful, not helpful? Yeah, I think that has been helpful. The red curb is helpful and um yeah, it has. Okay. Thank you so much and thank you for your wonderful report and great news.

Thank you for the report. And my questions were similar as council member Pacheco's um regarding daylighting. Do you know if the intersections which have been sort of addressed with red curbs on on on near CISA High School, has that decreased any type of collision? Has that helped? Uh I guess I want to see the the other side now. Right. Now that some places have been addressed, has there been a reduction in collisions?

Absolutely. So, yeah, Military had two last year, two crashes. Many of them related to that intersection. That's probably one of our best intersections that we did because not only does it have the red curb, it also has the uh delineators that are there and the painting that uh you know, not to park there. You you know, there's visibility there. That has helped substantially. And it's it's our high school, so it's really been helpful in that area. Gotcha. Thank you. And then on slide number 15, when it comes to domestic violence reports, I see these are official reports. They're not calls that we're receiving. Correct. Is is the number similar or are the calls for domestic disputes higher than the actual reports that have been filed?

So, yeah. So, domestic dispute may be um a good example would be a couple may be in an argument. Uh that's not reflected in those numbers. That's that's different. That would be considered a dispute, a verbal dispute between whatever that relationship is. It could be uh father son, etc. That's not reflected in those numbers. No. Awesome. And maybe this is a question from Mr. elder who who we're referring these cases to or support. But do you know how if these constituents have been taking advantage of the services that we provide through the family resource specialist?

I I can only speak to what he has relayed to me and he tells me it's very successful. I have not seen it physically but um he would be the best person to answer that. According to him, it's successful. Gotcha. And then fireworks data, flock safety. I'm not sure if you I was in the restroom when when you were presenting on flock, but I know it's been super helpful for fireworks. You you mentioned it here in your slide on slide 18. I guess I would want to see what that decrease has been in fireworks. How how successful has Flock been in helping us address the fireworks issue if that makes if I'm making sense here?

Yeah. Yeah. I think in terms of like citations and things of that, maybe we haven't seen a major difference, but what has helped us do is be proactive. So when we get a firework alert, we can send out a proactive letter to the entire neighborhood and let the neighborhood know there's been fireworks activity in your neighborhood. Please call us if you see this. This is unlawful. It's helped us be more proactive to where before without this it's somewhere that way in the sky. It looks like it's up the hill somewhere. Uh it's helped us narrow that down. But it's specific data of uh I'll be very honest you cannot yet pin an exact location to a house. If a flock goes off with a firework, it will not give us this is the address where the the firework went off. Often time because those are shooting up into the sky or they're they're moving with a different trajectory. um where they branch out and you it'll cover six or seven houses with the the the flower that it it branches out in. So, it's we have to be fair and I will tell you our city attorney will be very firm with us if we don't have ex precise evidence if it's the exact location.

Okay. Um and when it comes to us sharing data with other local municipalities on the peninsula, do they share their information with us as well? They do. Yes. If I'm not mistaken, they were one of the first to start sharing it with us. Right. We we had flock before I think any other city on the peninsula had. Yes. We were the first in the region. And then once we share our information with the other neighboring municipalities, what are we sharing? What kind of data are we sharing with them? T

typically what we'll share is if we have something that's on the like a hot list. Let's say we have a domestic violence call and somebody's wanted for physically abusing someone with serious injuries and we know what they're driving. We can enter that license plate into a system and now because we share with the city of Montre Carmel if that vehicle goes through their flock cameras they will get live alerts on their police computers to say that vehicle just passed this camera and it's now wanted by the city of Seaside and we'll get those alerts. It's also the same for and again we get very hung up because it's primarily used for criminal activity but this is also used for missing people and one of the data that we shared this this last 30 days was a missing person who was suicidal who was traveling throughout the peninsula and we were able to share that data in a license in the license plate in the system so any other agency would be able to be alerted of this person and um it's very effective when we share it with very responsible and restrictive uh manners

and and do Do we know how long they hold on to that data? The other municipalities once we share it with them, theirs, I believe they fall into the same as us is the 30-day window. Gotcha. Perfect. Um, and then going back to daylighting, are are we doing any type of outreach or educational outreach to constituents on I guess it's kind of basic, but looking both ways before you you turn a street?

We have before and that's part of our priorities moving forward as part of our traffic safety and PSAs for our community. But yes, we have videos out there. Um, we've done social media posts about it when the lot's brand new and we have our parking team which is now down to one that uh give this education when we're out in the community. Okay, perfect. Thank you. Uh, Council Member Miller.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. uh, Chief. Um, in regards to the flock on slide 18, you know, there like you like you mentioned, there's a lot of discussion over this. So could you maybe explain why the retention is 30 days and if that is truly a good number? I mean it seems like that kind of seems long but then I hear you say that the data could be used a week later. I mean why is it 30 days?

Well 30 days is kind of a reasonable amount of time if if somebody comes to us to report a crime and there could be a vehicle associated with that crime. I think it's reasonable to have a 30-day window. Anything beyond the 30-day, if somebody came to us and said, you know, this car hit my car three months ago, that's kind of unreasonable for us to hold data in case somebody had a crime like that. But 30 days is a good window, not only for us to get the report of the crime, but to investigate the report of the crime. We get fortunate because we have incredible detectives and police officers and we solve things very quickly, but we're not naive to think we're better than anyone. We're going to have cases that are high-profile where we may want that 30 days to be in that system so we can capture things. We don't want to lessen that if we can. Uh it's worked for us well. There's been no uh type of misconduct with that. Everybody that by the way that enters or accesses any data to include us, we have to enter a reason, our names, uh case number, there has to be a report related to that particular search. We can't just go in there and randomly search a case just because we're curious. There has to be a report and an active case that's being worked. And that goes for outside agencies. And outside agencies that wants to access our data, they can't do that unless they enter into our database their case number, their reason for and who's doing it. And we capture that's permanent. We capture all that data of who's uh trying to access our system.

Okay. Thank you for that answer. And and um are you familiar with some other jurisdictions or cities that have recently cancelled their their subscription? Yes. And um I don't I mean I know you're the seaside police chief, but are you able to speak on some of those issues of some of the cities and why?

Absolutely. At least one of those cities that uh made local news, they weren't managing their data. They weren't going into their security features to make sure they weren't sharing. So if there was an email that came across for a particular agency to access data, if someone just accepted it without looking at it, it would automatically go through. We have people and if you haven't met Commander Doza, please meet him. He is a very tech-savvy guy. He's on top of things. He does an auto that I say weekly, it's probably more like every other day. He makes sure that we are make our features are locked in. We also understand that people could breach data. People could access it because we have other cities like Mountain View where there's been breaches, but if you're not constantly doing these audits, you won't catch it. If you are doing those, you can catch it and stop it before anything even happens. So I think the key is for us we have to maintain these audits which we do on a regular basis and it is just going into your dashboard and seeing where your features are who you're sharing with and if anyone has slipped through you can we control whether or not we kick them off or not. We haven't had a breach yet. Um but these other cities that wasn't happening. I think there's a a false sense of we're with them. It's probably managed fine. Let's go to work. We don't do that in Seaside. We are on top of things. We trust but verify here.

Right. That makes perfect sense. I know uh Commander Doza and no I I I um that makes sense. Thank you for that. I'm going to move on to the traffic accidents and uh in regards to our it's my understanding that u we like in a police department maybe motorcycles are used for traffic calming. Is that true? Correct. Yes.

And so we have we typically have had three motorcycles but I think you said we now have one. Correct. and we're going through the process of possibly training to do that. And since we're seeing such high um collision rates, I you know, I encourage that. Um and then yeah, the example that you gave about you turning left and you were struck that that same scenario happens on my street on Darwin and Lasal and so you can barely see anything. So, are there strategies that we as a city should be doing to improve that besides the red curb or what is your suggestion for that?

I I wouldn't say as as a city um other than PSAs uh public service announcements, but my pet peeve is blinkers. There's nothing that will get me more excited than someone who makes a lane change or turns in a certain direction and does not use a blinker. Please community, use your blinkers, use your signals. They're helpful. And then also remember to turn the move so nobody falsely thinks you're turning when you're not and you have a crash. But if you I want you to really pay attention the next time you're going um maybe uphill, you're going to make a left. Pay attention to cars that are coming straight. If they're going to turn, they're going to have no blinker and make a turn or make a left turn right in front of you and there's no blinker. That is what's causing a lot of crashes. So using the things that are in front of you in your steering wheel are going to help us reduce crashes.

Thank you. And in my last question is in regards to our fleet, in regards to our vehicles. I' I've noticed that some of our stickers and our decals maybe show some sign of wear. So, you know, if there is a way to freshen that up, but it sounds like the city might need need to improve our fleet or update our fleet. Did I understand that correctly?

Uh, we actually are working on getting that. We use Monteray signs here in Seaside. We're going to work on getting one of those. The Sun really bakes them in the back lot. Um, but it's new fleet that we're going to need in the future, probably in the next year or two. We have older cars. Um, we've done a very good job of maintaining them through our our vehicle maintenance, but we're going to see this year hopefully if we can get a new car or two, if budget allows, um, we're going to look at some of those options, but I can tell you the next three years for sure, our fleet are we're going to start everyone's going to be driving the 1970 car with me otherwise. So, we're good at the moment. Okay. And so are are those budget items going to be in part of your budget for the year for the year? I

I'm going to be working with finance and the city manager to see where we are and what we can um ask for uh responsibly. Yes. Thank you so much. Thank you, Council Member Burst and Council Member Garcia.

I think all my questions were answered. Just wanted to say congratulations to you and the team for all the reduction in crime. Um social media posts are amazing. I get people from outside of our area that are constantly just giving us kudos for all the like you said the community outreach. Um and then I just appreciate the domestic violence um data. I know that was something we've been asking for and I think there's probably a lot more that aren't reported or we don't know like you said it's very sensitive. So, I think we're going to be able to now strengthen like access to resources um and maybe even community um just outreach um so we can like you said the PSAs, right? Preventing everything we can do ahead of time versus dealing with it after the fact. So, thank you, Chief. Thank you.

Thank you. I just want to go really quickly back to Flock. Um you said there isn't a data breach yet. What preventative measures is the department taking to to strengthen or or establish guard rails from a breach happening? Audits. Audits is the number one. The second thing is Flock is doing a lot of work. We get a lot of uh the numbers and emails from them with Zoom meeting to understand what they're doing on their end to prevent some of the breaches that they're seeing at a more national broad level. But for us it's it boils down to audits.

Is training a component into a part does does training play a part into that as well who you're who who oversees it? Every officer that that uses our flock, it gets extensive training from Commander Doza specifically and our supervisors. Um, yes, but the audits there's only a few people who can even access the data controls and um, Commander Doz and myself are the two. Gotcha. Thank you. Uh, I just want to pick up that thread about the flocks, chief. I heard a lot about flocks and everybody, hey, we need to get rid of ours. We need to do this, but those are game changers for us

and they're they're multipliers. They're force multipliers. And so when you talk about breaches, right? Can you just give an example of of what we're talking about? you know. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the most common breach that's really causing the stir and the panic in the communities and that is there's no security features on the certain flock system with a certain organization. ICE goes in and they see they can access that data. They access that data. They're looking for somebody for an immigration purpose and now they know that that call for the person they're looking for is in that community. That is the biggest breach that is happening that has caused uh national panic and that's one of the things we're monitoring extremely closely.

Yeah. And and I think a lot of people share that concern, but you have mechanism. What I'm getting to is your security mechanisms are there anyway, right? They're there for the officer that's just looking for looking for a friend's car, for example, right? Like you said, the person has to come in. It has to be a crime related or we're looking for a missing person or something like that. Yeah.

Right. No, I I just I just think the what our shared vision is coming about about this community policing and the things you're doing every day, your team are doing, uh, your leadership team and your other officers are doing are coming together with community safety, right? And I want to make sure I throw the public in there by you respecting them and working with them has allowed these um uh crime statistics or of crime to dissipate. Right? People for whatever reason are not doing what they're doing and a lot of it is it you can't do it in seaside and get away with it. But it also is the respect that you give our citizens and they know they can call their local police officer and and feel comfortable reporting on a crime and feel comfortable that they don't need to do a crime uh to satisfy some type of need. So that's what I want to give kudos to you because the proof is in the details uh and so and the data. Uh so thank you so much.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to item 7B, uh, quarterly, quarter 2 strategic plan update. Mr. City Manager.

Yeah, thank you, mayor. Um, thank you, chief, for that report. Um, I get the pleasure now to to follow that up and and zoom out a little bit um from from a city level and give a quarter 2 update for our strategic plan. Uh, this is just my opportunity to to be able to explain the hard work that's happening uh throughout our departments. um specifically just for October through December. So everything I mentioned I would consider successful advancements of projects and initiatives outside the normal uh operations of just doing business as a city. Um so I will walk through these briefly and then explain where you can find uh this report and uh and more information. So again just a a rehash of our strategic plan. It's built on five pillars. Uh the council developed in coordination with staff and community through a strategic planning process. Uh this time last year uh we developed five pillars uh with strategies under each of those pillars. And so I'm going to walk through the successes. Our first pillar is effective accessible governance. Um just some highlights and takeaways here. Our youth resources uh representatives and staff obtained be there mental health certification. Implemented field training inspection for the public works staff. completed citywide upgrades to Windows 11 and Office 22 24. Participated in multi- agency cyber cyber security tabletop exercises. Advanced digital records organization and retention alignment through the city clerk's office. Increased website traffic and newsletter subscriptions by 25%. Advanced our transition to their.gov uh domain for the city email website which will be occurring at some point this year uh to provide additional security to city systems. developed internal agenda preparation and distribution toolkits through the city clerk's office as well. Our finance department was able to secure the GFOA, the government finance officers association's certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting. That is the highest form of uh recognition for the city's CAFER, which is the comprehensive annual financial report. Uh we held an ad hoc legislative

committee meeting to align our our legislative goals for 2026. We advanced planning to relaunch the citizens police academy. And then uh lastly, just again notable, we joined the national league of cities with uh integration into the university communities uh uh council as well as the military communities council. So again, trying to reach out and be part of those national conversations. Under our pillar number two, a vibrant local economy, some actions this quarter, we launched seaside at your fingertips, which is uh for us to provide local businesses with free data through our Placer AI system. This is analytic business software that's accessible free to businesses if they call our our economic development team. Not only to that, but it also speaks to data that may be uh available and interesting to somebody wanting to open a business in an existing site. We evaluated and advanced our main gate mixeduse development proposals and hopefully we'll be able to share some information on that shortly. Our campus town phase 1A began utility installation and roadway modifications. We advanced our campus town phase 1B to 80% complete. We began reviews for campus town phase 2 and the conceptual plan. We facilitated new business establishments on Fremont and Broadway corridors which our economic development team will talk about here shortly. We conducted strategic meetings with the seaside Grand Hyatt Hotel and Resort. We reopened the community development block grant application cycle and we sponsored the 2026 we were a sponsor at the 2026 Institute for Innovation and Economic Development winter night market at CSUMB. Two pillar three diverse inclusive community. A couple takeaways here. We launched our rental assistance program, assisting already 22 uh applicants to date. Almost uh a quarter of a million dollars has went out from that fund into the community for a rental assistance program. We released an RFP for the seaside housing collaborative for potential development opportunity. Participated in the first annual seaside music festival. Uh we provided $20,000 in emergency funding for local food assistance programs. We held the 50th

community holiday lunchon for older adults program. celebrated the region Monterey black gold mural along Fremont. Launched the postcard program celebrating seaside's heritage and local artists. We hosted the fourth annual Seaside Stars program at a new location on 705 Broadway. We held speaking series with lead detectives and witnesses from the OJ Simpson case, as the chief mentioned earlier, and both the fire department and police completed their annual toy drops. Moving on to the fourth pillar, which is enhanced physical infrastructure and abundant water supply. Uh, we secured an additional $4 million for the Broadway Complete Streets project. We completed sidewalk improvements near Co Peralta Avenues, successfully vacated the Bubble Corks Boneyard, completed the Seaside Green initiative with over 100 employees participating in that initiative. Secured permits for Lagona Grande Park trail improvement. We completed Fremont and Monterey Road sidewalk improvements. Replaced failed storm drainage infrastructure on Mingo, Kenneth, and Douglas Court. Demolished the Corporation yard tower, eliminating a blighted safety concern. uh made substantial progress on the police uh parking lot rehabilitation which is uh substantially complete awaiting a fence uh for the final piece of that project. Completed the San Pablo traffic calming project along with a hillby traffic calming project as well as traffic improvements uh near Dlamp and we also ordered equipment on our duck bill uh and spillway fabrication for our 90-in sanitary outfall. And then finally to pillar number five, we secured uh funding for a PD electric golf cart to assist with our community engagement events. We received cold case and Monterey funding uh to assist a 1982 homicide investigation. Two of our police officers during this quarter completed field training and were cleared for independent patrols. We completed the fire station kitchen remodel. We installed pedestrians uh crosswalks, really safety improvements at Broadway at the intersections of Hillsdale and Calaveris. We received our delivery of our type 3 fire apparatus from BME which was purchased in 2022. We had fire station number two plans were

complete and advanced to the point of submission prior to the year end and the new building codes. We replaced oldmire placed a fire alarm at the older center. We partnered several times with CalFire gambling crew uh to uh to help us with vegetation management and fuel mitigation. And we uh like the chief mentioned earlier, we had m enforcement of multiple seaside car week violations and additional training of those officers. And then we re restriped the seaside parking lot to improve safety and circulation. Um I reference that because I'm extremely proud of what this this community and this organization can accomplish in a quarter. And again, that's not a citizen interaction. These are major projects and initiatives that align with the city council's pillars. Um, we do have a color-coded tracking sheet with these goals which will be posted to our website within the next 24 hours and we encourage citizens to just sip through there along with this presentation and and look at what uh your community is is uh doing in these initiatives. With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Uh, thank you, city manager. Any questions? Just uh Mayor Pat, just one on the AI program. Are business taking advantage of it? And if so, how much? and can we do to maximize that? Yeah, I believe they are. We've had several meetings so far with local businesses. I know uh one one local business that uh is starting to make some business changes based on the the results and the data that they were provided. So, yes, I believe our our team is actively uh working with local business, but we do encourage uh anyone to take advantage of that. So, please call and schedule a meeting with our with our economic development staff.

Thank you. I said, "Please call." That's good. No, I would just add I marked one thing, but I'm sure it was couple, but but mine was things that you don't notice are missing. The the Coryard fire tower, you know, it's it's just gone right now. You don't see it, but that's quality of life. They just used to be there. And so sometimes residents look up and and and blight is re removed, but you don't realize because you got used to it. So, I just want to give you credit for all the things you guys did and that was just highlights of what you did in the second quarter. Just in the quarter, correct? Just the highlights. Just the highlights.

Just the highlights. Um, and so we will continue those quarterly reports. Um, yeah. I just want to say it's it's a lot of work done, city manager, not withstanding the limited personnel. We want to the council want to acknowledge that, too. But, all right. If there's no other questions, we will go on to the consent agenda. Agenda 8A, approve minutes from January 15, 2026 regular meeting. B approve and file city checks for the tune of 2,243,45.77. C. Approve and file assess agency checks for the tune of $5,31810. 8 D. Approve appointments to boards and commissions. E approve a proclamation recognizing Ramadan from February 17th to March 19th, 2026. 8 F. Adopt a resolution appropriating funds from the three-year contract for a three-year contract with Counterpoint, Inc. in the amount of $7,560 and selecting new rates for the EV charges in the city hall parking lot. G. adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to award two professional service agreements in amount of $250,000 each for on call pavement management support design and inspection professional services for projects to Nicholas Consulting Engineers and Pavement Engineers Incorporated. H adopt a resolution authorizing new classifications and salaries for a human resource assistant and communication specialist and updating the confidential

compensation plan and position control list. 8 I approve a co-sponsorship of sustainable seaside 2026 sustainable seaside earth celebration at Lrrena grande park lakeside entire right and eucalyptus area on April 19th 2026 in the amount of $3,679. That completes the reading of the consent agenda. Is there any items that anyone from the council would like to pull out the consent agenda? Is there any item anyone from the public would like to pull out the consent agenda?

Elani, do you have a item that you'd like to pull from the consent agenda? Oh, no. I I just had a city question. That's all. Thank you. Uh here no one bring it back to the dots. What is the will of the council? Move approval. Second. Probably moved a second. and we'll take it out to public comment. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone.

Elani Matakias, you now have the floor to make your public comment.

Oh, hi. I'm Elaine. I live in seaside right near older. Um I have to cross Hillby and Kimble um Monday through Friday to walk down to Hillby and Schaffefer down where um Jazz picks up. And I'm I was wondering could this city put like a crosswalk or a stop sign like between Hillby and Kimble because that intersection is so dangerous. Someone's going to get killed there. Sorry to say, but it won't be me. And I'm I'm just really scared about getting hit by a car there. Uh yeah, I'm done.

Thank you for your comments. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone. Mayor, no other members of the public have come forward to make public comment. Uh thank you so much. Public comment is closed. On the question, all those in favor of passing the consent agenda signify by saying I.

I. Oppose. Say no. Abstensions. Hear none. Eyes have it. Motion carried unanimously. Uh 9A public hearing. A civic plan amendment SBA 2025-002. A a resolution to approve an amendment to the campus town Pacific plan modifying the review process and submitting requirements for development application. The proposed action is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to section 15061B3 of the SQA guidelines. Mr. City Manager.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Tonight we'll have a presentation from Andrew Merrick, our housing and planning manager.

Thank you, city manager, city council. Um, as you mentioned, this is a specific plan amendment to the campus town specific plan. The campus town specific plan was originally adopted in March of 2020 and provides a blueprint for the development throughout that entire area. Um, we haven't received applications yet. However, in anticipation of receiving applications for the development of that area, staff did a review of the processes which are included within the specific plan for the review of those applications. And as part of that, staff determined that there's actually several areas where we feel that we could find some more efficiencies and do things a little bit faster than are currently in there. So, just to be clear, we're not talking about what the specific plan actually would be. The development would remain the same. What we're talking about is how staff will review the applications that are coming in. So, some of the uh this is all going to be in chapter six of the specific plan. Some of the features of that chapter right now are that all development applications are required to undergo a peerreview process. And that's not something that we have in our zoning ordinance. What it says is that um all the applications that we get as of today, we would take those and send those to an architect for an outside review. Uh the materials and the items that are being reviewed will be the same as what we're reviewing as staff, but this is an additional level of review. Um, another feature in our current um, spec specific plan um, is that all ministerial decisions are reposted in the zoning administrator hearing agendas. So, we used to have zoning administrator hearings. We've since eliminated those and we just either do a planning commission or we approve it administratively. Um, we therefore do no longer have

agendas for zoning administrator hearings. Um, it has two separate reviews. It has a review for completeness and then a separate review for conformance which is not typical for a ministerial application. Typically we just review conformance and completeness together at the same time and do one review instead of two. And we also require both physical and digital submitts. Um, so there's physical materials that are required to be submitted, including my favorite, which is an 11 by17 board that has all of the materials and colors and everything on it. Those are very difficult to file. Um, so what the proposed amendment would do was it would eliminate peer review for most projects. Uh, we did talk to the developer and the developer didn't want to eliminate it completely, which is understandable. There are good reasons for that. However, most of what we review doesn't require it. For example, we don't need an outside architect to review a grading permit. Um, we don't need an outside architect to review an encroachment permit. When you're building homes in a subdivision, what normally happens is you'll approve a plan for the house and then for every house, it'll just show where on the lot it's going to be. And so for each one of those permits, you're getting an 8 and a half by 11 sheet of paper that says we're going to build the house that you've already looked at on this lot. Under the current specific plan, we would have to do a peer review for every single one of those. This that would no longer be the case. We would do a peer review for the original model once and then every time that house gets built thereafter, it would not need a separate architectural review. larger projects like say a uh commercial center or a hotel or something that would still require architectural review or peer review. Um we would change the posting of ministerial decisions so we don't

have the zone administrator hearing agenda anymore. They would instead be posted with the planning commission agenda. Instead of doing two reviews, we would do one. We would review for completeness and compliance at the same time. And if there's an issue, they would get a response with not only whether or not it's complete, but also whether or not it's compliant. We would allow for digital digital only submitts and some other clarifications and cleanups. So, planning commission uh reviewed this and they recommended approval and staff is also recommending approval of the resolution. Happy to answer any questions you might have. Uh, thank you. Uh, questions. Uh, Mayor Patton,

just real quick, just, uh, thank you very much for getting rid of some of the bureaucracy so we can move some of these projects forward, uh, a little quicker and saving staff time and probably some money along. So, I I appreciate the idea of uh, simplifying it and making it easier for everybody to follow and get the job done. So, thank you. Anyone else? A couple comments for uh Well, I'll wait. Well, uh public comment is open. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone.

Good evening, uh mayor and city council. Uh my name is Juan Barbosa. with the uh Carpenters Union. Uh thank you for the uh opportunity to speak tonight. Um I want to begin by recognizing the positive steps the city of Seaside is taking with the new campus town development. Um as we consider these amendments, I believe that there's a major opportunity to stren strengthen this plan even further by including workforce development, specifically an apprentichip program tied directly by to the projects being built. Uh many members of our community, especially our youth and working families, are actively seeking a pathway into the construction industry. Uh you know, we can't, you know, not everybody can go to college or is willing to go to college, right? Um uh they want careers uh not just temporary work. Uh unfortunately to many of them of them are finding that these opportunities simply don't exist since very few contractors are providing apprentichips or clear career paths for young people here in Seaside. On top of that many contractors do not prioritize local hire and do not investment invest in the workforce that is building these projects. That leaves our community behind while development uh moves forward. Uh this is where the city can lead. Uh by adopting um language uh similar to what cities like Los Gatos, Palo Alto and Santa Clara have already implemented implemented in their housing elements. Seaside can set clear expectations language that supports apprentichip programs, local hire and workforce standards uh ensures that development benefits uh the PE people who live here uh not just the contractors building uh in Seaside. By embedding these requirements into the campus uh campus amendment plan, the city can uh create real career pathways, economic stability, and long-term opportunity for uh the residents here in the in seaside. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone. Mayor, no other members of the public have come forward to make public comment. Uh, thank you so much. Public comment is closed. Bring it back to the DIS. What is the will of the council? Make a motion to approve 9A. Second.

Is there a properly moved and second? Uh, on the question, any comments? I I'll make a a few. I I I want to echo the mayor prom uh comments about appreciate cutting the red tape and and making this more efficient and effective. You know, I'm just trying to figure out why those things were included back in the day, but that's that's neither here nor there. But we appreciate the work to again cut the red tape and cut the drag on. And so when the u the mayor prompt talked about uh uh cutting the cost, you are cutting the cost because that would be passed on to the homeowner all those checks and rechecks and things of that nature. So making it more efficient. So I want to thank you for that and that was it. All those in favor use sign voting which is I have the same right abstensions eyes have it. Motion carried. Uh nine, public hearing B, zoning ordinance amendment Z0A 2026-001, a an amendment to the Seaside Municipal Code to modify the definition of public safety facilities to include uh contracted public safety facilities. The proposed action is not subject to the California Environmental Quality Act pursuant to section 15061B3 of the SQA guidelines. This is a first reading. It will be a roll call vote. Mr. City Manager.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. We'll remain with Andrew Miner, Housing Planning Manager.

Thank you again. So again, this is a zoning ordinance amendment. A little bit of background here. So the city uh has received an application regarding a potential operation of an ambulance service by AMR medical services. So AMR is a private company but provides ambulance services under contract with the county of Monterey. Um no local governments that we're aware actually provide ambulance services. So this is in fact the public ambulance service available in this area. Um the location we've now received an application. So when this had first started, we hadn't received one yet, but now we have. It's for 1191 Echo Avenue. This is the former location of Enterprise. And what this consists of is there would be ambulances on site. There are no staff on site. They would store medical supplies there and keep ambulances there. employees would come to work, park the car, get their supplies, get in the ambulance, and drive off to wherever their staging area is, and they would wait there for calls, do calls from those locations, and then at the end of the uh shift, they'd go back, get out of the ambulance, drop off supplies, get in the car, go home. So that's important because what we're going when we what we're going to be looking at here is get into some definitions. And whenever as a as planners, whenever we're implementing the zoning ordinance, when someone comes in with a proposed use, the first thing we have to do is figure out what does the zoning ordinance call this use. And the reason for that is that we have a whole bunch of tables in the zoning ordinance. And the uses are all listed here. The zones are all this way. And so if someone says, I want to do auto repair, we go, okay, auto repair is, you know, in a CC district is permitted or a use permit or not allowed. So if we don't know what

the use is, we can't direct people to the correct process. And the zoning ordinance has language that says if there is no acceptable, if there's no use that's defined, it's generally not allowed. So in looking for what is this use and most these uses are defined and so we found two potential uses that could potentially apply. One of these is public safety facility which says a facility operated by a public agency including fire stations, other fire prevention firefighting facilities, police, sheriff, etc. Um and then there's also specialized transportation dispatch facility which is a base facility where ambulances, taxis, limousines, armored cars, tow trucks and similar vehicles for specialized transportation are stored and from which they are dispatched and or where ambulance vehicles and crews are not based at a hospital where fire department standby for emergency calls. So each of these has some issues with public safety facility. It's the language operated by a public agency. Um, this is a contractor. It is not a public agency. This is not the county itself. This is a private company under contract with the public agency. As far as specialized transportation dispatch facilities, it says uh from which they are dispatched and or where ambulance vehicles and crews not based at a hospital or fire department stand by from for emergency calls. Well, when calls come in, the ambulances are not leaving from this location, nor is there anybody standing by at that location waiting for a call. So, neither of these really fits very well. Um, however, staff believes that public safety facility is closer to the operations and intent of the proposed use. And so there is a provision in the zoning ordinance that allows for the zoning administrator

to make an interpretation that a use is substantially similar to a use in here. However, that provision says that following the issuance of that permit, the zoning administrator is supposed to come back to the council and do a zoning ordinance amendment. Since we had advanced notice of this use, they only submitted about a week ago. Um since we had advanced notice, we started this process early so that we could come and council first and see if you are approve if you approve of the zoning ordinance amendment rather than doing the permit and then asking for permission afterwards. So planning commission has reviewed this. They've recommended that council adopt the revised language. Um the use permit itself will be considered as a use permit under separate under it separate use permit process. So that the actual use itself is not before the council tonight. This is another entity operating under contract with the public agency doing everything exactly the same. So that is staff's presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Uh thank you so much. Any comments? Uh, Council Member Miller, I think one of my biggest issues is that we're amending our code, our municipal code to cater, you know, for certain things that want to happen in the city. And if we continue down that path, we're going to be just continuously amending our code. And for me, it's I mean, I'm okay. I guess I'm okay with this language, but I mean what point are we going to say, hey, you know, we're going to interpret our code the way it's written instead of amend trying to amend every time.

So, no code can anticipate everything that comes before it. It's a this is a necessity from time to time. It happens occasionally. Um, generally speaking, um, usually what we require is the applicant needs to submit the zoning ordinance amendment and there is a process for which people can submit an application to modify the code. In this case, since we're dealing with a I'll call it a quasi public entity. Uh, staff initiated it ourselves. Um however um it is necessary from time to time as situations arrive arise you don't want to not implement a project that will have a public benefit just because the rules at that exact moment say no that's why and every zoning ordinance amendment must go before the council so the council still retains that policy discretion

thank you that that makes sense of course I think that's that's good but and in regards to this site here. This site. So, no one's going to be manning it. It's just they're going to it's going to be used for their storage if I understood you correctly. Yes. Basically, and so what benefit is that to the city?

So, the ambulances being here and I don't believe they are available tonight uh to answer these questions. Maybe the fire chief knows uh something more about this. But in my conversations with them, they did explain that by having the ambulances stored at this facility, it would enable them to be in this area for longer periods of time because otherwise the ambulances would be stored in Selenus and would have to be brought over. But you said this is not their staging area where they go to get called. They're just going to be stored there.

Yeah. So the employees will report to work in Seaside and get the ambulances from Seaside and and maintain their supplies in Seaside as opposed to doing so in Selenus. Right. And in regards to this language contract with a public agency, you're saying that they're uh under contract with the County of Monterey. Correct. So a private service would not be able to take advantage of this. They would not be a public safety facility. And so there's a contract with the AMR and the county of Monterey. Are we included in any contract?

So, so I I want to stay on on task here. We're talking about changing the ordinance and and that uh ambulance company could be included, but we're not talking about them specifically tonight. We're not doing a permit tonight, are we? That is correct. Okay. We just need to talk about the ordinance. So, but please continue. I mean, I I lost my train of thought. Thank you. Yeah. I want to stay focused on the ordinance, not what's going to be there. They gave us some background information, but whether you like them to be there or not. That's for the permit. Okay.

We're doing the ordinance change. So, any entity can go in after. Is that correct? Any This This will apply for any entity. Correct. Okay. All right. But, Mr. Mayor, we started off with talking about AMR. I I was and and which is a good point. which is a good point and maybe and maybe we gave too much information but if we start talking about whether we like them when they potentially may come up for the permit I think that's off the agenda agendaized item itself is that correct am I yes is that correct mate

secretary turn thank you uh Mr. Mayor, yes, this is a general code. It applies to any contract, any entity, not just AMR, not just He used that only as an example to set the stage for the language, but this language is going to apply across any contract with any public agency that would qualify as a public safety facility. So could be ambulance, could be a substation, could be a fire station. It would apply to multiple scenarios. This is a general ordinance change and clarification.

So uh again, Councilman Miller, please continue. Thank you. I had one more question. So how many public a or how many uh businesses would apply under this rule that are operating under contract with a public agency in Seaside? I'm only aware of one at this moment, but that could change. And what is that one? The Yeah, the we have an application for a use permit for AMR. Thank you. Yeah.

No, I don't disagree though. I just don't want the conversation about the permit to continue. Uh cuz I don't think that's agendaized. Just one briefly just to clarify. You amend ordinances of this nature and other opportunities based on the time basing on your review. It's it's done I can't say frequently but it's done on occasion if it makes the city better and services better or opportunities for business to do better. Is that a fair statement?

Yes. And there have been times in the past few years where we have brought zoning ordinance amendments or reszones before the council because a particular situation had arisen that was a positive thing but um or potentially a positive thing but the code didn't allow it as it stood. Exactly. Yeah, that would just be the point I was trying to make. Thank you. No, that's a good point. That's what I was talking about is not the particular entity because I don't want the council be talking about prejudging a permit uh because that's left up to the planning commission. That's left up to the zoning administrator. But I thought we did this a couple times. I think we did it for the Meals on Wheels,

right? And I and I and I think it was something about the hardware store too, right? Am I correct?

Yeah, that that site. Yes. Right. And so I appreciate um you guys giving us the opportunity to allow other things other than uh I believe a closed down uh uh lot that used to uh have stored cars waiting to be rented there, right? And so uh I guess it could have been it could be it could be used for that too. Um, but this this new entity came about and so again, you gave the example. I just didn't think it was appropriate to talk about whether we agree with it going there. This opens it up for many possibilities. And the ordinances, the ordinance is a living document. It does change. And like you said, what you don't do is uh turn down uh not allow or not update or uh what is it? um enhance create your ordinance to allow your community to grow as it as it shapes, right? It's not it's not it's not a round ball, you know, we grow where we can, you know, and and we have the possibility here. So, uh thank you for that. We'll take it out to the public and then we'll bring back to the the council.

Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone. Carla Lobo, you now have the floor to make a public comment.

Can you hear me? Yes, we can.

Okay. So my question is when was the last time that this ordinance was changed to appease whatever application we might have down the pipeline? I agree with the mayor and we're not talking about the potential occupant that will be in that building. But because our individual, our staff was very forthcoming with that information, we got a lot more than we wanted. So then we wanted to discuss about it. But it's not agenda so we can't discuss it. But I asked this question because ordinance are not meant to be ambiguous like this so that we can make changes like that's not what the purpose of an ordinance is. It's to maintain the environment or the atmosphere of that neighborhood or to encourage a certain brick and mortar to be in there. So, I want to know how long this lease is going to be for this particular uh applicant and or andor what is the typical lease terms specifically because it sounds like every time that this particular property is going to be utilized, there's going to have to be an ordinance change. And even though yes, it's still going to be in the discretion of the council, it doesn't matter. That's so many changes. That means anybody can really come in and buy y'all off, meaning staff. And they and it could be considered favoritism, which was kind of what Alex was raising the question to. And then Pacheco was trying to backtrack and say, "Oh, well, if it's a benefit to the community, realistically, staff is making the choice because they're coming forth and doing the work that they specifically already said that the applicant has to do themselves. So, uh, perhaps it's because, you know, they're a city partner, uh, in collaboration

with the county and we're trying to, you know, appease that. But nevertheless, this is going to come up again. And if if it's going to be every 3 to four years, then the language is too ambiguous. We we need to taper it down more so that we're not constantly having new applicants come through because that is not the you know to change the ordinance cuz that's not the purpose of the ordinance. I get the rest of my time.

Thank you for your comments. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone. Mayor, no other members of the public have come forward to make public comment. Uh, thank you so much. Public comments close. Uh, there was a few questions in there, I believe.

Sure. So, the question as to when do we last change the ordinance, um the one that's coming to mind is the um the the Meals on Wheels building, and that was originally supposed to be for Ace Hardware. Um, but that's I think a good example of how the ordinance is not tied necessarily to any particular applicant because it was originally commercial automotive which only allows for automotive related uses and the council changed it to commercial general regional general commercial and at the time the thought was going to be that was where ACE was going to go but ACE didn't end up going there. However, Meals on Wheels, their facility wouldn't have been allowed under CA. It was only able to move forward at that site because it was changed to CRG. So, that is an example, I think, of separating the actual user and what's being presented from the change in the code. And yes, we do do that. And um I will I guess I just will have to respectfully disagree. I do not believe that ordinances should remain walked in stone. That um they need to adapt because you can't think of everything ahead of time and it should be done judiciously and rarely and most the rules are there for a reason. Um, I think in this case it just was something that when it was written, this was probably written in 2004 or earlier. This is probably very old language because I I don't think it's been modified recently. Um, that was another question. Um, I do not know what the lease terms are. Uh, we don't usually get involved in that kind of thing. Um, use permits run with the land, so they would it would be it would be permanent for all intents and purposes.

And uh yes, I suppose staff does occasionally need to make a call as to whether or not an item um should be moving forward. Um in this case, um our analysis was that this is something that would be beneficial for the community and that the council should have the opportunity to weigh in on it. Uh any other questions, comments, or I have a comment or should I say that for the second? I'm fine either way. What is the will of the council? Make a motion to approve and I'll speak on a second. I second.

They're probably moved and second. Uh on the question just briefly I the city was born in 1954. During that time there's been hundreds and thousands probably ordinances that were created. one, I don't I'm very confident in saying no one's been bought off or to do a for any particular goal or service. It it's just not worth it. Uh two, if we are not flexible to some level often, i.e. the Meals on Wheel facility or the um maybe M&S or other projects throughout the city over the years, we'd be stuck in cement without the ability to move anything forward. I just believe that often times we stay consistent without the opportunity of growth and new opportunities when they present themselves. If the council or staff or a combination thereof feel it will enhance the community New York enhanced business uh environment or improve the overall betterment of the city. I think that's the goal when we try to make ordinance changes. I would strongly believe and hope that staff brings forward ideas that will move the city forward and the council would bless those things. as far as um making sure that we improve the city with the changes because without change we're we're in deep trouble and would have so I think that I appreciate your bringing this forward and the council weighing in. So thank you very much.

Anyone else? Anyone else? Yeah, I would just want to piggy back on what the mayor prompt said. You don't need to apologize or respectfully disagree about anything. The ordinance is a living document. There's there's no way it cannot change. There's no and I and I know you know this, right? But there's no way it cannot change. It's supposed to change, right? It's supposed to change as cities see they want to do different things. And for example, as that ordinance uh uh and those zones designated a lot of space for uh uh what is it? vehicle sales and automotive. We may not need that space in the years going forward, right? As some of these car dealerships shrink, go out of business, move other places, you have to be a change your ordinance to take advantage of that. I mean, that just, you know, it's just the concept of it doesn't change. That's just I just want to make sure the public understand it's supposed to change and it's supposed to change es especially when there's opportunities uh that people come up and they say they want to do things in your community. Uh the best place for it or a reasonable reasonable place for it may be here, but it may require a zoning change. And so that's a reasonable thing for the the um the council to do because like you said earlier is you don't have we don't have a crystal ball that says hey you know somebody's going to come for housing development but they need us to increase the size of this block or that block and we mad to make it. And so, um, in full transparency, you added in exactly where this came from and exactly the possibility of this or this, uh, this organization, uh, getting a permit on that site, but that's not before us today. And so, we should just be clear about this language. We update the

ordinance and those things that fit in that category can go there. Uh maybe years from now uh if that parcel is blank and somebody want to buy the houses on each side of it and put up an apartment complex uh that may be something people want to do but we have to live in the world that we have uh right now. So um what I appreciate is uh city manager is not waiting for the permit to go out and then asking us right this is a cleaner way of doing it. just allow this this if we did it the other way that'd be more of we're doing it for this particular project which that doesn't mean we wouldn't do it but I think this is a cleaner method so I appreciate you uh Mr. Mrick for doing that. Um, all those in favor use the record sign voting which is I. It's going to be a roll call vote. Okay. All right. You guys had me on a roll.

Council and agency member Miller. Hi. Council and agency member Burks. Hi. Council and agency member Garcia Arizona. Hi. Mayor Pro Tim and Vice Chair Pacheo. Mayor and Chair Oglesby. I.

Your motion passes unanimously. Let's see if we can get to uh business item uh 10 10A. adopt a resolution awarding a construction contract to the JMS cement for amount not to exceed $61,725 plus a 10% contingency for construction and assembly of the Lincoln Cunningham Park 5 through 12 year old playground structures and provide an update on the 2 to 5 year old playground structures. Mr. City manager. Yeah, thank you mayor. Tonight we'll hear a presentation from Andreas Beer, our senior engineer.

Uh thank you, mayor. Thank you, uh city council and staff. I appreciate the time. My name is Andreas Bearer. I'm the associate uh assistant public works director uh here for the city of seaside and I am here to give you a presentation uh about the Lincoln Cunningham Park a little bit about the status uh of the park um provide a little background and then uh move on to to request uh request uh your approval of a resolution the construction contract uh for the for the 5 to 12 year old playground area. Uh so in general the park um the park well the city council uh uh had an initiative and and uh and and decided to make it a make make parks a priority a few years ago. Uh one of the one of the worst parks in the city at that time was Lincoln Cunningham Park and a lot of effort and work and planning went into uh to developing a um a a park conceptual plan. uh city council and staff reached out to uh to the community um and uh and held a held a bunch of uh meetings to gather feedback on what the priorities were for the park and developed a conceptual plan that that that provided a a new park uh with ADA access uh multi-use trails that that was that allowed uh that connected the community uh and the schools together um in installed a basketball court added a 5 to 12 year old playground area 2 to 5y old playground area a central plaza, the fitness area, um and and and other other things. Um the park was partially funded and uh phase one of the park went out to bid back in 2024. Uh that phase one of the park was was really the ADA improvements, the ADA parking spaces, and the and the uh multi-use trail uh that's shown there uh at the end of the park at the end of that project. Uh the park is going to be reopened

um with the basketball court, that trail, and uh and uh and some temporary pathways. Um the bids came in uh well, the low bid for that project came in very very low, $35,000 uh below the next low bid. Um and there was a substantial amount of uh additional budget left in the project. Um, with that additional budget and uh with some support from council, um, we we asked we asked council to to amend the uh the project and add in um add in the installation of underground utilities uh below the hard scraped area, construction of a central central plaza, construction uh and installation of a 5 to 12y old playground. uh uh construction of the hardscape around a 2 to 5-year-old playground um and um and authorization for additional for additional construction of the of the park that would bring us closer to our final goal. Um the that was approved by the city council. Uh an RFP was put out for the 5 to 12 year old playground area. um that RFP came back and and the selected playground the the the the selected playground the final cost for that selected playground was about $291,000 substantially more than we had budgeted for the playground. Um staff negotiated that project that that the price of that playground equipment down to $29,000 and eliminated the installation of that playground equipment with the goal of installing that playground uh inhouse. We I have to apologize. I I thought we had the capacity to install the uh the playground in house. We we we were not. Staff has not had the had the had the capacity to install that playground in house. Um so we are now asking you for

for additional support to uh to install that playground and and also the the the support to uh install the five the 2 to 5year-old playground area. Um on January 20 January 26, just last month, you guys approved uh $250,000 uh to be spent at the at the park uh on both these on both those initiatives on the 2 to 5year-old uh playground as well as the 5 to 12y old playground area. Uh the 5 to 12y old playground area. Just uh just to show you some some some concept designs. Uh this this is the concept design that was selected for the 5 to 12 year old playground area. Um it you know I don't know it went through a it went through a selection process. We had both members of the community uh members representing FOS FOSPA uh as well as city staff uh and city recreation staff, city engineering and city recreation staff on the panel and selected this playground. We think it's it's really advanced, modern, unique uh and hopefully will be a lot of fun for the kids. Um the 5 to 12y old playground area construction schedule is tonight award the construction contract um have a contract in place by the end of the month by March 1st uh begin construction and and be in construction of the 5 to 12y old play play area uh the month of March hopefully finishing uh finishing construction by April 1st. Our schedule for the two to five year old playground area is to um is ideally to take uh the the award uh uh take a take a bring a bring a council item back to council uh next council meeting uh authorizing the purchase of of equipment and installation. Um we think it'll take a it takes a purchase of equipment cannot happen immediately after council

approval. It takes a while to get submitts and to go through the contract process. We hope by the end of April to have accepted and approved all the submittals and to be be ready to place the uh place the order for the equipment and installation. Uh that equipment installation takes um you know 9 to 12 weeks um possibly longer to to actually be manufactured and shipped uh and arrived. So, we are hoping by August uh by the by mid August to have all the equipment uh in place and to be installing the equipment um end of August and September of 20 2026. Um I have some before and after pictures of the of the playground. This playground has the park has come a long way since it since it started um in 2020 2024 right before starting starting construction. Uh you can see well there's three different different areas of the park pictured there. Uh the pictures on the left are all the park's existing conditions. Um it has not had the park has not had irrigation for a long time. All the pathways were deteriorated down to gravel and dirt and the park had a lot of room for improvement. Um, again, here are some before and after pictures uh where there's now a nice main patio and uh and a central plaza area. Uh before was just a a dirt lot with weeds. Uh I think it's substantially better today. I appreciate council's uh council support of this this park and uh the park has been uh really greatly supported by FASA and and and and we appreciate our partnership with Fosa and Fospa has gone um you know had had what the north the northeast corner of the park and and had and has a a beautiful native garden planted in the

northeast corner of the park. Um after we finished this phase of work, uh there was an adult fitness area at the northeast also or adjacent to the to Phospha's corner of the park on the northeast corner that that was unfinished and Fosa has volunteered to uh go ahead and wood chip and plant out the planter areas in that northwest uh corner as well as to uh fill in the the empty fitness area and create a community space with with with log seating and uh and and nice ground cover and they've really done a great job of making this making this a habitable, you know, usable um um pleasant area of the park. And I and I appreciate it and there's some pictures of it. Uh, and so I am asking I'm asking for a I am asking for the council to adopt a resolution to award the construction contract to JMS uh JMS event in an amount not to exceed 61,72725 uh plus the 10 10% contingency um um uh for construction and assembly up the Lincoln Cunningham Park 5 to 12y old play area.

Uh thank you so much. Are there any questions? Uh Mayor Pep just um well thank you for the report. Uh I think this has been a very long process and I'll I'll just leave it at that. Um but since you talked about how wonderful the park looks and you know we may disagree and that's okay. Uh, I hope you look at you enter the park via San Pablo. Even on the there's weeds right on the It's just not a very good presentation. Um, especially in 2 million dollar park time you get done. But I won't go into that. My biggest concern though in the report is we talked about the fitness area last time and I asked if was here at that time they're not interested. Nobody is seemingly interested and the mayor and I don't mean to if I'm wrong I'll apologize. Um the mayor asked point blank if we get to my recollection and not saying if we get the um 2 to 5 year old playground done and the 5 to 12 year old will this project be done with hesitant there was some ooing and eyeing but the bottom line the answer was yes and he I I may be wrong on this point he double asked that question and the answer was yes. But then we come back and then the conversation was let's take the fitness area off the the the U page and then tonight we have the fitness area back on there and so I'm just saying are we still have the fitness area? I heard it's 100% done if this is done. I mean, as far as the So, that's the part that's a little

frustrating if I was correct in what I heard the mayor say. Um, I have not revised the parks uh conceptual plan. I have not we've not made a we've not gone out for public input. We haven't revised the park's conceptual plan. Uh, as as far as I know that that that is the conceptual plan that that that we're working with. I don't have any funding for installing the fitness area. I understand that that that there's a there's some strong arguments against uh against a a fitness area and and uh I'm open to do whatever the council wants to do. Yeah. Go ahead and then I'll come back because I'm a little frustrated.

Right. No, I I I get it. I get it. But what I want to do is eliminate the frustration. Right. So, uh, to the city manager, I I thought this council said on numerous occasions that that we no longer support the fitness plan being in that conceptual plan. And maybe it's just a oversight on striking that out on the uh slides, but especially when you you say you don't see any money uh for it, I don't think there would be any money put for it, right? So, however you guys want to do that, however it's appropriate to bring it back and and get a updated u um uh conceptual plan passed through or the city manager can just do his magic and just go ahead uh wipe that out on any uh thing going forward and then we'll turn it back to the

Yeah. And I can I concur because somebody had the idea of a fitness area. I know who that person. I think we all know who that person was. The council never said they were for the fitness area. There's other areas for fitness area. Council has said countless times, let's get rid of the fitness area. Staff has said the project's done after the 2 to 5 and the 5 to 12. We have the the Havana Solless Park to worry about as far as that connectivity, etc. So that's just my point. Thank you. No, I think they heard you. Okay. That's what I'm saying. And I and I think we we should not I'm going to let the same answer in a second, but I I think we we probably won't hear about it anymore.

Okay. Well, that's good. This correct. This is just a conceptual plan that was put in the PowerPoint presentation and we have not updated the the conceptual plan. So, we will scratch that from future renditions. Well, we we'll scratch it from future presentations.

Anyone else? I I did have a a a question. I don't know if this slide was on there. The slide of the 5 to 12 year old playground equipment. I I must have missed that. Could you go back please? And then I guess slide eight. That's what I have on. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out what what is all there and and what is those poles standing up and and and how far we think kids are supposed to climb up those poles. They're just sticks in the ground that they are.

It seemed to me it's it's it's seem like a lot of money just and the kids can it's one little step you can step on. But I mean if that's the new model, if that's what's going on, I just want to understand and then it's two slides. It seemed like infant slides too, right? And then two regular slides and then another one. But that's the difference between the fifth. But that's supposed to be which age group again? five to 12, but it seems like you got slides for infants over there uh to the to the left. Doesn't that seem like those baby slides where you sit in a a seat swings? Yeah. I mean, it seem but those swings seem like they're for uh

Well, that's what that's what I want to understand. So, you you look at them as ADA. Yeah. Okay. And then Okay. What what about the What about the ones on the right? The bucket ones will be for babies, right? And so why would that be in the 5 through 12? And so I'm really going I'm what I'm getting to is uh you know we have limited funds and we have we have a couple opportunities to get this right. I won't say one, but we have a couple opportunities to get it right and to start off with

swings and and hold on, let me finish. And so I know families, you know, they come in all sizes. So your little brother may need a swing, but then what happens when we go to the what is it the uh the two to five, right? So I I just think a little bit more thinking need to be going in there uh city manager uh and then then then you and then uh Andreas can chime in. Thank you, mayor. Uh point taken. This is actual equipment that was um shown in public meetings uh in input with council community and FASPA to my knowledge and this is the equipment that was ordered, purchased and is awaiting installation on site. Correct.

No, I know our goal with the we have a defined 5 to 12y old playground area and a defined 2 to 5y old playground area. uh our our goal and the thought and the RP was put out to include uh one swing set instead of two separate swing sets and include and include equipment that could be played played on by by younger younger students also. So we did we did go out with a little bit of flexibility in the two playground areas. Um the the equipment it's different than than equipment we saw installed in the 90s and and certainly different than than the old equipment we grew up playing on and uh and not shown here is a is a Margo round that that offers ADA accessibility and is actually integrated into the you know it's off to the corner of the of the image not not shown there but but you know we're trying to to provide an environment that that is natural that fits with the natural environment that allows uh uh you different kinds of learning opportunities and and this is these these the log climbing is supposed to offer, you know, dexter dexterity challenges for the for the children. um the the tower, you know, with a net landing instead of a instead of a plank landing and and and difficulty, you know, not being easy to climb up onto, you know, having having to acquire some dexterity, some more advanced, you know, 5 12-year-old type of kid uh challenges is is is is really designed for the older kids to play on. And uh and so we tried to we tried to present or we tried to select um equipment that that we thought met you know was was appealing and met the and met the you know would would be attractive to kids um these days.

May just to clarify this is equipment in hand. This is what it's going to be. Correct.

Is it possible and I'm not sure the mayor or the city manager can correct me on this. When you bring forth this the two to 5 year olds will the we didn't I don't know if the council saw this. I don't remember saying this. Can we see the 2 to 5 year olds before or recommendations or suggestions prior to it being approved? I'm not sure if that's the norm or not norm uh but if there's concerns about not seeing this until tonight and appreciate frost I didn't probably at that I'm guessing so my they may not have thought the two to five playground was going to come anytime soon maybe they were just trying to throw something in to appease that age group that is a possibility and now that we've found the funds for the 2 to 5 year old which is great maybe if it's possible and that's up to the mayor. Uh we can see the two to 5 year olds. Wouldn't that been recommended? Maybe that would be a help or not. You know, just a thought.

Yes, we can make that happen. Thank you. And I apologize earlier. I assumed that had happened on this. So again, that's what I think this was ordered quite a while ago. This equipment. Yeah. Anyone else? No, I think you're right. You you made a good point about it's it's been ordered. has been it came before the council and all of that stuff. Um but I still wanted to say what I said about you know going forward we're tied on cost. So as we look for the you know what is it five to seven or what is it

two to five you know how do we make sure they have all enough that more than a couple families can go over there and have a nice time. So, uh, uh, thank you so much. Uh, we'll go out to public comment. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone. Mayor, no members of the public have come forward to make public comment.

Okay. Thank you. Public comments closed. What is the will of the council? Make a motion to approve. A second. It's been probably moved and second on the question. All those in favor use rec.

I n have the same right. Abstensions hearing. None. Eyes have a motion carried. We're going to break or we're going to go go through uh the vacancy. Get that out the way. Uh we'll we'll we'll take a break uh for a few minutes. Return at the sound and gather. You're right.

Coming back from recess, uh, we'll go on to item 10B, report on commercial property vacancy in Seaside. Mr. City Manager.

Yes. Thank you, Mayor. We'll have a presentation now from Jose Bazour, our econ economic development director. Good evening, mayor and city council members. This presentation will provide a highlevel snaps of commercial vacancies, discuss factors influencing commercial vacancies, and highlight efforts to activate and fill vacant spaces and lots. There are 26 identified commercial vacancies. Most are concentrated on Broadway and Fremont, ranging in size from small mediumsiz sweets and nine vacant lots. There we go. All right, there. Now, let's break down the numbers. 26 properties identified, six for lease, two for sale, nine vacant commercial spaces, and non- vacant lots. As you can see, the commercial vacancies are clustered on Broadway and Fremont. Now, here are some factors that influencing the vacancies. Retail and consumer behavior skills, I mean shifts, high tenant improvements in construction cost, water availability, infrastructure limitations, and access to viable financing. Id like to share an example of a business owner going through the entitlement process. There was a 3300 square foot building that was retail and became vacant. The owner purchased the building and use it besides retail. Decided to change the use since the building is greater than 2500 square ft. that triggered a sprinter

system install due to health and safety codes which led to a $36,000 investment. A new property owner new use required the business owner to acquire water. That's a $17,000 investment that was made. On top of the building's new sprinkler system and water acquisition, the building required about $48,000 $4,800,000 in improvements plus 10,000 in permits and $25,000 in fees. Overall, the total investment was approximately $560,000 with a 24 month timeline. What I'm trying to illustrate here is that when you change the use of a building, it triggers certain costs, certain timelines. So, it requires capital and time for a business owner who wants to come in. Now, the city manager will speak on the other two slides.

Yeah, thank you, Jose. I just want to highlight uh some of the efforts staff is doing to address uh vac commercial vacancies in our in our community. uh first um this year or in 2025 the city approved a contract with Placer AI uh to start providing datadriven uh support to our local businesses and our potential business owners. So in addition to in addition to helping existing businesses thrive by pro providing um uh data uh real time data uh for those business owners to make a decision that it also can help site selection. So, uh, somebody looking to lease a space or to go into space can also contact our staff and get historical data on the business traffic, foot traffic, uh, demographics that may be in that or a similar use. It just simply improves the transparency for the property owners and potential entrepreneurs as they uh go into some of these these these properties. Um, we're also trying to to establish an environment here in Seaside where we have a coordination and predictability for permitting and water allocations. So, as we work through the process, um, one of the things you'll you'll hear us talk about this year is the the need for additional software and systems so that we can improve and streamline our building permits, our our planning process, our code reviews. These are all efforts as time is money and in retail development uh to to streamline that and coordinate that for potential entrepreneurs. Um, we have also uh signed a contract with retail strategies LLC to provide some national retail recruitment assistance. And with that uh they also have representation at the ICSC uh conferences uh all over the United States throughout the year representing Seaside and those potential national tenant um occupancies. They are also developing a recruitment plan uh for the city of Seaside uh and assisting us with our property catalog and our prospect list. through that recruitment plan. Uh a company like Retail Strategies will work with our staff and and work with our existing opportunities and vacant spaces to identify potential um perfect fits for uh vacant spaces in the community and vacant land opportunities. They will match that with

national tenants who are looking to uh national firms who are looking to locate in our market and and know exactly what kind of data and demographics they may need, whether that be traffic counts or demographic um um incomes that uh make that business successful. So, retail strategies closes that gap and is an extension of city staff for us to directly contact national retailers uh for those opportunities. Uh earlier on this agenda, item 8D approved uh several new um new uh repres representatives to various uh various city commissions and one of those is C jobs the seaside uh uh um what what's that? Yeah, commission on jobs and opportunities in seaside. Uh so that activation of the sea jobs uh will begin in March with uh with a new u rehash of of getting sea jobs up and off the ground uh to to look at how they can provide assistance to filling our vacant opportunities. Uh staff is also working on the draft of a econom economic development action plan. So our our seaside general plan chapter 4 uh provides a road roadmap for economic development in our community. staff is working to to take that and uh put it into an action plan. That's a five-year roadmap for city staff to meet the goals of the of of the community that are adopted in chapter 4 of the general plan. Um in addition and not listed here, one of the things we're working on currently is to set up quarterly meetings with the auto mall uh stakeholders and that'll provide us an opportunity to have quarterly meetings and direct contact with his auto mall so we can help u not only them uh work together on on shared initiatives but for the city to also talk about infrastructure and other things to help them be successful. Next slide please. And then simply uh this is uh all everything we're doing in economic development aligns with a strategic plan not only in section two which is the vibrant local economy but also the connections to uh enhanced infrastructure and then of course community safety and quality of life.

Now so look let's look at some recent successes. The Underground Forest, Monterey Clay Studio, America's Tires, Kong Go, Deja Blue Event Center, and Hak Restaurant. Also, does not appear that we were able to open up was the Lily Ko and Crush Cycling. This is my presentation. I'm here to answer any questions. Uh, thank you so much. Any questions? Uh, council member Garcia,

thank you for the presentation. I have a question. When it comes to the timeline, the example you provided says 24 months. Is that standard for any type of building modification or what's the what's the average timeline for a development cost? It's it's hard to it's hard to say cuz each use is a different timeline. this one from acquiring the the property to opening up the business. That was the timeline which is one of the larger square footage building sizes. Actually, there's another one that's uh much larger that for this particular one that's was the timeline. It took about 24 months or 3,300 ft² building size. Mhm.

What's the average building of vacancies that we have? What's the average square footage of vacancies in seaside that we have? The average it's going to be skewed because we have one that's 6,000 square feet. We have one that's 3,000 square feet. We have another one that's only about 800 square ft. So the average doesn't really how to put it it each unit each property has its own challenges. So let's say it's a 1,400 square ft² building that's vacant and there needs to be modifications. What would the timeline be for that? If it's retail and it's uh allowed under the West Broadway uh specifically, it doesn't take long for the go through the planning process through Andy Shop and then through anything have to do with fire. So within three to four months if everything aligns. Okay. And what is the average time of vacancy in or that we're seeing for the 26 properties that you mentioned? Each one of them is different. And I'll give you an example. There was there's one 1235A 12 A and B on Fremont in Hardcore. I mean on Fremont and Hardcourt that lasted about 12 months. And the reason it took that long because it used to be about um a little over 2,000 ft². What made that um go fast is that it had two bathrooms. So after talking to the property owner, we convinced him, why don't you partition that side, make it smaller, made it into three. So one the users can share the bathroom and there can have his own bathroom. Now, if you go on that corner, there is now a gift shop, right? Anita's

gift shop. And right next to the corner in Hardcourt in Fremont, they're in the process of going down to the health and uh health department to open up a coffee shop. So, that only lasted 12 months once we figured out, look, when we best how do we move this property? And after talking to the owner, they decided, look, yeah, you're right. We're going to take a shot. Let's do it. Let's partition. So each once again each property is unique and has its own challenges which I appreciate but out of the 26 identified commercial vacancies what would you did you find an average of length of vacancy for the buildings?

We have one that's uh since coming up in August I'll be here 3 years. So we have it to almost two years that's been vacant and we're trying to work with the owners. It used to be an old furniture store that's been difficult to move. And that's why going back to the uh things we're looking into is that first picture where you can see the middle, you can see yourself in the white coat there where we did the underground forest is we're looking into coal tenencies where we have retail in the front and then we have other shops in the back of that in order to fill such large sites. So, we're trying to be creative and stay within the ordinance within a specific plan that we can go ahead and activate some of these sites. Okay. Council was provided a PDF with the commercial properties and there's a tab that says time vacant. There's a couple if not a majority of them say over 36 months. So, I I I'm I'm kind of confused. Is it would the average be 24 or

if you're looking at the first page? Well, I'll say about 24 months. And it like I said, it really depends on the site. Okay. And did the property owners express why it's been vacant? Do they have interest in in renting these out?

Some of them do. they have an interest and we we'll push there's there's we um majority of them are open to the we get tenants we get leads and we push them out to the property owners and say look here's somebody who's interested in your side would you like to meet and make that meeting happen and it's up to them to negotiate if this is valuable so we are doing our due diligence by referring potential Oh abs absolutely we we're proactive about it. Okay. Yeah. So, we we do a market analysis. We see we get calls or we're making calls, hey, are you expanding? And if you are, look, we got a perfect site for you.

You know, this could be a nice uh coffee shop that sells sandwiches, type of that doesn't require a lot of water. And we try to work with them. Yeah. And try to be active and and push the tenants toward them. But it comes down to negotiations. Can the tenant pay that square footage? And also, can they pay for that buildout because it gets expensive? And it's okay if you don't have this off the top of your head, but on a yearly basis, how many inquiries regard regarding potential businesses do you receive that you then hand off to the property owners?

That's a good question. Um, it depends on the site. And I'll give you a good one. the um the corner the corner of Calvas and Broadway the one with the big buildings and we're constantly getting uh that's a perfect shop for something small eery in there if we on on uh on a given month we get about three inquiries about that and it's up to the owner see if he wants to lease that right now it's under going into some negotiations right I would love to see certain eers in there but it's up to the owner, what does he want and what is that tenant willing to pay? So when a unit it really depends on the site and what can they pay for that square footage

and those inquiries are they local constituents or are they larger retailers outside?

Well, some of them are local. Some of them are local. We've had numerous inquiries from locals who come in and say, "Hey, look, I want to open XYZ business." My first comments I tell them, have you ever operated a business? Number one. Number two is that do you have a capital for this? And it's for me it'll be I can tell them and say, you know what, yes, you should use your 30,000 life savings. You never opened the business before and go ahead and do this because I know they're going to fail. So I try to guide and say, look, you need to develop a business plan. You have to be sure that this is where the route you going to be. We show them the site. We meet with the owners and sometimes we do partner up with Monarch uh SBDC and we that's where the city manager the uh the mention of the PCI one of the things we're doing is you can improve your business or oh by the way this is a traffic hub this is why this will work there but it comes down to capital do you have that capital

and I know you mentioned you you refer them to Monarch Services or SB SBDC small uh group. Do people follow through? Do our locals follow through? And do do we ensure that that connection is established or do we just say here are the services and go on about your day?

We follow through. We have those meetings. As a matter of fact, in in uh coming up in uh I believe in March or April, we have a standard meeting with Jose, I'm sorry, with Jose Luis. And we're going to go business to business on Fremont, Delmani, and Broadway. So that way the business owners know that what's being offered and we finish my thought with placer AI is that we're not only giving them here's the here's the traffic report this how many people coming here you need to develop a marketing plan and guess what Jose and his group can do it for free with this data so we follow through with that okay thank you

welcome uh Um, this is good information. Is there a purpose or a plan with the report? Is I've heard concern at least four or five residents uh being concerned about an occupancy state tax and this is it purpose of the report or is it just for purpose of information? This is the information for uh for just to showcase the vacancies and what's out there and what staff has been doing and will continue to do. We're very proactive. Um vacancy tax, that's a policy issue that needs to be discussed.

That was not the initial plan of this report though. No, to your knowledge. Okay, great. Um lots of questions this time you were talking. Um there I know the mayor doesn't like this but there's been other B know there's in other cities they're closing business because the cost of rent some or people you hear moving to areas west of us or or further north that are leaving there and they're getting all these new businesses in the area and it seems like we are the perfect candidate again. Are we on the businesses in Carmel that have left that area because of the in the paper as well as businesses that left a secondary store in Monterey to over here over there? Are we reaching out to those potential businesses that are circumventing us to go around us or to the ocean side of us or to the east of us or wherever?

Great question. As a matter was having a conversation, one of the local residents right now. She asked me, "What would I like to see down on Broadway? I would like to see a nice Mediterranean restaurant." That's my preference, right? Something of that nature. Something that offers that'll be open a little bit more longer than 9:00. So, we do reach out to some of these business. We don't catch that either expanding or leaving a certain area. We reach out to them and say, "Hey, look, we have this spot for you. Would you be interested?" and we follow through not in a not pestering them but in a very professional way. This is why we are a good fit for you. Give you uh an example. The uh where the underground force is located. They're not they're not paying triple net. They're playing gross net. Does that mean it's just one figure? and the owner worked it out with them and I was there. They say, "Look, just pay me this much. This is going to go for the rent and I'm paying for the utilities." That's why that's happening. That's when we were able to get that business in there.

Are we well, first of all, some some of the stores on Broadway have been empty for 10, 15 years. I mean, I could think the furniture stores especially. But are we meeting with the vacant lot owners following and following making sure those empty lots are following the ordinances as far as clear windows or furniture junk not stored in the frontage of the store. Are we ensuring that the owners maintain their facility so it doesn't look like a blighted facility?

Yes. Actually, one of the things that has helped out in this program since I started here, as you recall, is that we we were still use code enforcement. So, if we see that the owners are stacking up and creating a fire hazard, then yeah, we have code enforcement to deal with that issue and we usually comply when it comes to that. We go ahead and apply other measures in order for them to comply because we can't let these invest a lot of money on Broadway. They're going to do their part, but he's keeping the windows and clear and clean.

In our downtown area, we have laundry mats, part stores who were really nice businesses, etc., but they don't necessarily match what it was conception of a or at least my perception of a downtown. Are we trying to reach out to I don't I'm making this up. um restaurants, bookstores, wineries, uh clothing stores, etc. to make it more I stole your question. I apologize. Uh making it more downtown touristy kind of a thing. We are that's why we work closely with uh C mono on on a given on a given Sunday on a spring a lot of tourists will walk from the embassy male the company and they go to certain restaurants they want that experience you'll see them in lotto and then they come to Puerto Ronaldo the tourists they like that experience and they come for that night experience you'll see them in deja vu. So we we try to we're going to try we go ahead and do and try to create a marketing seal so that when tours come in say there's other options besides the aquarium it'll stay in monitor here. Let me try and I appreciate that. In the upcoming months, are we trying to market or whatever uh a restaurant or a restaurant or stew store or tourist friendly kinds of things versus a I a garbage uh a a maintenance yard or a maintenance part? Are we trying to market towards the the concept of a downtown

or are you just taking anybody that you can?

No. There's certain there's certain businesses that that just don't fit here in any any downtown. I would love to see a bookstore. I'm an avid reader. I would love to see the closest one is in Gilroy, I believe. Right. I would love to see a a bookstore. There's there's a couple that reached out in the in Los Angeles. I think I mentioned one to you when you went out there in Long Beach. It's a coffee shop and a bookstore that is geared towards the Latino community and they're uh part of a Monaka bakery. I want them up here. It's a matter of does the demographics fit that business. So no, it's not reaching out to whomever comes in. And there's certain business I try to go out there that I know would be a perfect and comes down at the end to financing to some of them.

And then I I think and I'm not sure this we allocated more water for Broadway for planning purposes or something um uh a while back. Are any people any businesses understanding that concept of potentially more water in the planning purposes that the water district gave us? If I'm correct on that, I may not be correct.

No. Uh you are. As a matter of fact, the city manager just mentioned that you streamline the process working with the water allocations. Business do come in and they say, "Hey, I want to put for example, I keep doing the coffee shop out there, right? Okay, from approximation, this is how much water you will need. This is the process that you will have to go through in order to get that water. So, they're aware of that. We make them aware of all they have to do cuz it's a huge investment somebody takes on. They just we don't just say, "Yeah, we here and they're spending signing lease and they say, you know what, you forgot to tell me this."

Yeah. The water allocation uh table that was created and approved by council last year is getting used. In fact, there was a water allocation meeting just two weeks ago for 1250 Fremont, I believe, for a new restaurant. So, so that allocation is being made available and through the committee process. Thank you. Um, and this may or may not there's I think last time you gave a report you mentioned that the Broadway grocery store on Fremont, uh, I can't think of the name of it. Broadway in Fremont. Yeah. The grocery uh

Yeah. was two or three months it was going to happen. Are you on somebody's back? Let's put it that way. Um to to try to make that happen. Yes. That's I'm interrupt. I'm sorry.

Go ahead. Uh that's my daily bread. I get asked that over and over. And the reality is this is that right now it's it's with an outside agency with PG& and uh that's what they're dealing with and the owners I mean would not have to enforce this and most of them budget it and it's on their time but I'm constantly on the phone with them if not every week every other week you know do you need assistance like our city attorney what do you need to get you over that line what you need what assistance can we provide and I think some of the council members here have been actively behind the scenes trying to make that happen. But yes, we're we're constantly anything that we can do to help businesses open up as quick as possible. Like the chiefs is fond of saying, we want you to open up quickly so you can get jobs in here and tax revenue. Sorry, M.

No, no, you fine. It's fine. I'm not sure if this is over the line, but do you ever reach out to PG& and say this is important or is it just to the owner of the store? And that may be over the line. I don't know. Yes, the city has reached out several times to try to spur some activity from PG& on that property.

Okay. Um my last one, um I'm glad you're meeting with the property ordinances, but do you hold their hands for lack of a better word throughout the entire even when it comes to negotiating a deal or do you stop at a certain point where good luck, God bless, and open your business soon? Uh no from cradle to grave we follow through because this is be this is going to be right here. If you guys remember the last slide with all the numbers that is the behind the scenes where staff tries to massage the deal working with planning working with other agencies to get to this spot right here. So we know we we get together on a firstname basis. We we uh if they can't meet with us at 4:00 or 4:30 with the right after work at 5:30 or 6:00. So we adjust our our schedule to make things happen.

So you meet when I know I'm sorry. So, you meet with the property owner of a vacant lot, the potential purchase of the grant when they're into the negotiations to help um escape transition or do you let it go before then?

I can only go so far and can get involved with the negotiations, but I do stay a breast and I'll definitely call the prop owner. How did it go? and I'll call the potential tenant. You know, is there anything we can do to help? But there's a certain line I can't cross. It's up to the individuals to go ahead and negotiate that.

And I do occasionally do we offer do they does somebody offer incentives to get businesses to be more potentially moving into the city? Be it I don't I can't think of an incent. I can think of incentives that are there incentives that we can offer, owner can offer or somebody can offer to get people to move in.

One thing that we do have in our control is what I would like to call the fancy name buttsman services. But basically, this is what we've been doing is we try to streamline whatever we can with the planning department as Mr. Andy's been and his group are fantastic, the fire department, chief building officials. So, we get them in into the questions you asking get them out as quick as possible. we can get them out in three or four months, if not sooner. That's what we want to do. So that's where we go from cradle to grave and filing so that way nobody falls in the cracks, especially someone who's starting up a business and they don't know what to do. We want to make sure that everything's button up. Thank you so very much,

Council Member Garcia. Thank you. And threading pulling on that thread regarding incentives, if I'm not mistaken, we approve the facade improvement program a while back. Correct. That was before my time, but it was approved. And then my understanding that the funds from that were money, I believe. How many, maybe this is a question for the city manager. How many business owner, property owners utilize that money?

Again, that was before my time, but I I believe the funding dried up uh in two years ago. That's correct. 200 Dan I'm sorry. Do you have any history on that? Do you have the number? If not, less than 10. Thank you. And in a nutshell, just for the record, what did the facade improvement program aim to do?

Marketing with with with facade improvement, it does a couple thing. The main crux of it is marketing. Here's my business. Now, underneath that, marketing is improving even code enforcement issues. Uh, and certain facade improvements also involves a clear coat of paint or certain paint on the outside of it. But the crux of it is marketing, showcasing that business. I'm dig Can you give me another definition of what that means, city manager, or what the program aimed to do?

I can't speak to Seaside's program, but I can speak to facade facades program, facade grants in general, repair exterior facades of buildings, windows, doors, roofs, um paint, uh aesthetics, anything that would that would consider the building more attractive for a potential sewer. So in theory, we had a program that would incentivize property owners to spruce up their correct.

Okay. Thank you. And then you mentioned something and I quote, "We force other meas unnecessary measures to make them comply the businesses or property owners. What other measures do you ensure that business owners, property owners are complying with not having blight in their business?

It could get it could go as far as into health and safety issues. For example, is there a fire hazard? Does this require a need for the fire marshall to inspect it? So, it can it can it depends on the gravity of the building and what's there, but we're not doing that there yet. We haven't gone to any business that will have that at the moment. Okay, thank you.

May I prom just real quick and I forgot was my notes seaside market is your entry way into to um your downtown. Have you talked to the um property owner and said you need to paint this or find an excuse where they have to paint it? uh because it's as an entryway for tourists to come that way and see this as a whatever it sometimes doesn't cross come across. Well, have we done any effort to make that a better appealing area as far as driving through that area?

I'll answer that question, Jose. Mayor Pro Tim, I we have made contact with the property owner and encouraged some facade improvements to that building, but uh it doesn't rise to the level of code enforcement. So, there's really not a lot of leverage that the city has in in forcing a property owner to do that. Um we've also tried to uh restart that project as well, the the the the four-story approved uh redevelopment of that property. So, that that project is still approved by the city. In fact, the architectural review was extended for another year. So that's an active economic development effort to try to make that a reality. Okay.

Anyone else? Uh yeah, thank you for that the last uh comment. You know, cuz when we're talking about I I don't want to say the the white elephant, but when you're talking about the seaside market, everybody on this dis knows for a fact what we have tried to do to get a development going there. and some of some of the public knows, but we all know what we're trying to to assist the developer in doing and what city manager continues to try to do uh every day. Uh what I wanted to ask is um it went from vacant building to vacant lot. Is vacant lots included in this or these just the buildings?

I was ask I'm sorry, mayor. No, just go ahead. Are these vacant lots included? Lots are included in here also. So vacant lots and buildings are in and vacant buildings are included. Correct. And it's only 26 in a city this size. Correct.

Okay. So then I wanted to go to the city manager. What does that number really say for a a community this size to have only 26 vacant lots including? Well, 26 vacant lots included and then some businesses in there as it relates to how many businesses we have open. I mean, what what what does that mean? I mean, you can't I'm going to let you ask a question.

Sure. Uh we have 26 uh properties on this list. Nine of which are vacant lots. And those vacant lots were included because this is staff is already working on this report to provide to retail strategies to help us market these properties. So, these are these are properties that we've identified as vacant lots as development opportunities plus those those retail vacancies that you that you put. As far as a vacancy rate, that is that is a statistic that we need to get to. We haven't been tracking that, but a vacancy rate would be the total amount of square footage in the community available for retail and and then we could be able to track the square footage that's leased and unleashed. And so, um that's where we're headed. uh we are probably 60 to 90 days away from being able to be there from the reports that retail strategies in the city are working on

and that's really what I wanted to get to is it's a lot more data that's that's not here tonight and we're talking about a whole bunch of stuff but we don't have no data from for me it's a lot of open gaps of information and so that leaves about 17 uh so-called vacant buildings there u uh but the lots do do we know you know like like a question is each slot is different each one of these things are different like you you kept saying but but I but I did keep coming to you I thought it was a fair question to say what was the average and we were not able to open that that's what I'm talking about it's a lot of it's a lot of data that's missing because we should be able to say what the average is and what's the average time and so uh that's the information I would like to to see coming forward of of answering the questions that the council uh members had that were not able going to be answered tonight. Um because it goes to, you know, what can that property owner do with that vacant building? And and it's easy to say, "Well, put something in there." Uh until you had to be the one to come up with the money to put something in there. And so I know it's kind of like the chicken and the egg where uh if there were more traffic downtown, foot traffic downtown, uh they would open up. Somebody will open up. Uh but then people don't open up because there's no foot traffic. And then people say, "Well, there's no foot traffic cuz ain't nothing down there to do, right?" And so we can incentivize, we can talk about uh we can do a whole bunch of stuff, but we need to figure out how to encourage uh our residents to shop local, shop downtown, and people will follow those dollars uh downtown. And I understand a lot of people say, "Well, there's nothing I want to spend my money on down there." But you you can't ask a business person to open up some a place where people say they don't want to spend their money, and we don't

know which comes first. So then I then I asked myself over the last year how many businesses have opened up and and I and I guess if you don't know it off top of your head I won't make you guess but that's an answer I would like to to to have. Um but then city man I'll just go you know could you just speak to what is the plan to to get these I understand the the vacant lots right we're always hey anybody you know but the 17 vacant buildings what is the plan to assist them in marketing and and opening up and and I I think sometimes it comes down to well we may have water but is it enough water right um and I and I get example example of the furniture store. You know, we can say as much as we want how long it's been vacant, but ain't enough water going to that building in my opinion. And if you did open up something, you need more than one bathroom that was built in 1952.

And so we we need to be ready so when water comes so when the co is lifted, we can definitely push things u uh down there. But I I agree with the council which is what is the plan city manager about how do you proceed moving forward with um you know marketing grabbing the data pushing these uh u property owners to to open up the stores. Let me just gather a little bit more thoughts. Um and then there's two things. Uh I was say you mentioned something while I'm talking I want you to think about you mentioned something about PG& and Mera but you really didn't go into it and so what is the issue with with PG& cuz people are saying hey it was supposed to be open you know a year and a half ago and it's more than just PG& but now it's PG& but what is the issue with PG& and I know it's straightforward they're not putting electricity in there but you kind of glossed over it a little bit what is what is the issue

the freezers it's been upgraded. There's not enough um volts to meet that. So, they have to put basically a new volt or basically a transformer to carry that electricity. And that's that's on PG& site more than the meteor owners, right? It's on Pen, but Pen is not, you know, you call you just they're not just be able to call Pen and Pine say I'll be there in two weeks. It's been when you guesstimate how long have they been waiting on PG&

they're on a schedule. PG has a schedule. So they're on that schedule and that's where they when you think about it. How long have they been waiting? And and that's okay if you don't know how to answer because I think for me I know

PGE is not providing electricity to a whole bunch of places in this county in this city and other businesses. I'm talking about big-time businesses are on that same list because they are undergrounding and they are prioritizing other things. But maybe that's an answer we can get uh city managers how long they've been waiting because our residents don't understand. They just see the closed business and and they think it's you not going down there and and signing some type of permit when it's, you know, uh, the state PG&E saying, "Well, you're on the list and we'll get to you eight months from now. We'll get to you six months from now."

Correct. This the city of Seaside has been trying to facilitate a resolution between the property owners engineer and PG&E since July. Uh, as as far back as I can remember of 2025 of last year, July last year,

right? Uh, and so then yeah, that that's what I just wanted you to explain because we said PG&E, but that doesn't say why it's been closed, so to speak. And and then my last comment is um, you know, someone said, and I think it was you, Jose, you know, I would like to see something down there. You know, we all would like to see something down there, but how do we get something down there, right? And and it's easy to say, hey, you know, I want a shoe store. I want a steak place. I want this. I want that. Those are the goals and that's what we going to go there for. But where's the stake place that wants to go there, right? And I and I want to see manager speak to how we're trying to track those people down. Not just,

hey, we need to have something, but what are we doing? And I know you have a plan, but I just want to All right. Go ahead.

Yeah. So, there's it's important to understand there's two different approaches to economic development when you're talking about a national retailer versus a local small business or entrepreneur startup. And so those approaches are different. So when we talk about retail strategies, we're talking about national retailers. And not that they wouldn't go into locations in downtown, but they're typically going to be vacant lot development, uh more autooriented than than the local business, which is going to be downtown, which is going to include your local bookstores or coffee shops, those kind of things, which are more pedestrian oriented. So they're two different approaches. So we've got to look at it from a national economic development standpoint which is data driven. It's demographics. It's it's it's a bunch of data driven so that the corporate real estate arms of those national companies know that they will be successful in environments. The local business and when we talk about Broadway the more um more important feature in a in a successful economic development plan is that small business support and seaside. Um most communities have a robust local chamber of commerce that assists with the local small development functions. And so we are trying to grow that uh with our economic development department um to offer some small business um items. The placer AI the seaside at your fingertips which just started this last quarter. We anticipate that being a very robust tool to help entrepreneurship, but that in a in in line with maybe 15 other strategies will be included in a draft economic development a strategic plan. So, a 5-year plan that staff will use an action item. That plan, any any good action plan, a 5-year action plan for community should include KPIs, should include performance indicators and those statistics that we talked about that we have lacked uh for quite some time. And that's that's just um that's just part of what we're working on right now. And again, that that intent is to put that plan through the sea jobs when it's reinstated next month and then get that to council within the next 60 to 90 days after that. Um that plan will include a variety of of of um

strategies to attract. One of the most um successful current strategies in small business development for downtowns is simply the city becoming a facilitator between the opportunity and someone who has an interest. And it's as easy as putting a QR code on businesses. So you can drive by downtown Main Street and see a QR code in a vacant window. And that QR code takes you right to the city's economic development staff who has information about that property, can pair you with a potential real estate arm, and then serve as the function as as the um as the liaison between the city, that small business, and that opportunity to walk them through the permit process to walk them through the fees. Um so long way away saying there's a lot of things we will be doing uh moving forward in economic development to fill these vacancies and those will be put into a draft plan for council to consider relatively shortly. Uh, okay. Thank you. Is there any other uh comments before we move to close? No comments, no thoughts.

Uh, thank you so much. I I think there's a lot of questions out there. Um, you know, I know the city manager will took notes and just uh find answers to those questions and and and put them in u and be prepared for the next presentation um uh when it's called for. I think you laid out a good timeline. Uh thank you so much. We will uh open up for public comment. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone.

Even council members, I'm here tonight to speak in support of council member Alexis proposal about a commercial vacancy tax on empty storefronts in Seaside. For years, residents and business owners have watched too many commercial spaces sit dark and unused. These vacancies don't just represent empty buildings. They represent lost opportunity, lost businesses for local jobs, for neighborhood pride, and for the vibrancy that makes the city feel alive. I know he's been listening through business tours and conversations since his first election, and one concern seems to keeps rising to the surface, but the vacancies seem to be holding Seaside back. even though we have campus town and all of these things coming. So, um a vacancy tax I think will help level the pay playing field get some of these local businesses paying rent um because our local businesses are employers but contributing to city services like police and fire and meanwhile these empty properties um still rely on these same services they're not giving anything back. So, I believe this measure will help everyone in sustaining all that we share. Importantly, this revenue um generating isn't about filling GRA gaps. It's about a reinvestment using these funds as seed money for affordable housing and community priorities to strengthen the foundation of Seaside as a place where people can live and work and build a future. A vibrant city doesn't happen by accident, but happens when policy aligns with values. When we choose community over speculation and participation over neglect. And as we think about filling these spaces, it's critical that we prioritize opportunities for local residents and small businesses, not just large chains or big box stores, local entrepreneurs, bring culture, diversity, and character to our streets. And they reflect who we are. They inspire connection. And most importantly, they show our children what's possible. That one day they too can own a shop, a cafe, a studio, a business right here in the

city that they could. So supporting this vacancy tax is more about buildings. It's more about belief. It's belief in Seaside, in its people, in its future, and where the community is vibrant, inclusive, and thriving. Maybe we can offer some grants to help new businesses um to provide enhancements or other things that we need. I also want to thank our police chief. I feel safe in our city. I'm out here in the meantime, and knowing that the flock cameras are above me, I know that I am safe in the community. I thank you all for your leadership. Adam Pinuritz, you now have the floor to make your public comment.

Good evening, mayor, city council members, and the public and city staff as well. My name is Adam Pinterz. On behalf of the Montterrey County Association of Realtors, representing over,300 real estate professionals serving Mterrey County. I want to express appreciation for the council members for taking a concern in the vacant storefronts in Seaside. It is certainly concerning and I'm glad to hear that city staff are are very diligent with the programs and measures that are in place in making sure that those are leveraged by members of the community. So, you know, let's take stock of where we are. We're we're in a good place, I think, in terms of uh of of we're trying. There's a good effort. Obviously, there's room for improvement. Um but but I want to discuss some important points. The reasons for vacant properties range from a number of factors including market dynamics, local policies, family circumstances, low demand, permitting and construction delays, which the city has influence over, of course, delays in finding suitable tenants. Uh vacant property taxes do not address any of these underlying causes. Similarly, vacant property taxes do not address the underlying causes of homelessness, shortage of supply, housing inequity, or high prices. These are all problems in the community, but this tax isn't going to solve that problem if if you were to move forward with it. Not all property owners are speculators. I think that's an important point. It's easy to paint uh all these property owners the same way, and that's simply not true. who many of them are members of our community who who would probably love to rent it out and and are probably having some trouble figuring out uh how to make that happen. Vacant property taxes harm individual and family prop owners of properties more so than speculators. Most speculators will pay the tax and wait for for what they think is the right price. Many properties are are family or individuals nest eggs. Some homes have and and you know it may have

been owned for generations. So, um, uh, and family circumstances can affect whether or not it's it's being occupied at the time, right? Maybe it's in a transfer of ownership, uh, and that's causing some delay, uh, between family members. I mean, right, if someone passes, vacant property taxes impose new and costly administrative burdens on the city itself and on the staff. Exceptions will have to be made for various types of vacant properties. Vacant property taxes could drive investment in housing and development uh, and businesses to neighboring cities rather than seaside. vacant properties could undermine uh the neighborhoods and lead to uh gentrification by pressuring owners to rent or sell to top biders uh as opposed to locals and uh city the city can partner with land trusts to acquire distressed properties and explore further innovative solutions. Um and and so I think it's really important that to to just be careful because a vacancy tax will hurt owners of individual distressed properties in soft markets uh and and vacant property registration requirements alone uh could hurt the values of the affected properties and thereby also the city's tax revenue. I thank you for your consideration and look forward to considering continuing the conversation.

Thank you for your comments. Elaine Matakias, you now have the floor to make your public comment. Oh, if it's not related to the agenda, should we just email the city? Is that what you would recommend? Yes, please. Linda Cunningham, you now have the floor to make your public comment.

Hi, this is Linda Cunningham, homeless committee commission member, but I'm speaking as a private citizen. I like the sound of this vacancy tax. Some of these buildings have been empty the 30 years I've lived here. I I could uh hearing the gentleman speak before me maybe a year, two year grace period. I don't know. I'm grateful somebody who um the experts will be making these decisions. It just is so frustrating to see these buildings that have been empty for 30 years with no it's detrimental to the other businesses in the area. It constrains growth. I understand that I I'm not quite sure why somebody wouldn't want to register that they own a property and unless it's possible that they're not paying taxes or doing something nefarious that they wouldn't want to show pride that they own these properties. Many of these properties I it just feels like they're just little mini ghost towns like on Fremont that little tiny lot next just north of the liquor store which has a beautiful wall if somebody's looking for a mural um and across from Bank of America there the Auto Zone. What whatever is going to ever happen on that little teeny lot. It could be a little mini park. I'm confident the the businesses that are right there on Fremont would love a little tiny even if it was tiny a little parking lot, but I don't even such a ridiculously small space.

Maybe this vacancy tax will get these owners to make a decision and let the opportunity move on to somebody else. I love this QR code idea to help connect people with the city to to make it easier. And I I hope the PG& can be motivated to help um get that business open that everybody wants to get open. And um thank you very much. That's I'll release the rest of my time.

Thank you for your comments. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone. Mayor, no other members of the public have come forward to make public comment. Uh, thank you. Public comments closed. Uh, bringing it back to the DAS. Uh, Mayor Pim.

Yeah, I just for purposes of clarity, maybe um the city manager probably can answer this. Um my first question and I'm going to read it verbatim. This is a good information. Is there a purpose or a plan with this report as I've heard concern about occasion was no. This is not that discussion and it was for information purposes only. And the city manager in his elegance went beyond that and explained what they were going to do to develop a plan to improve the opportunities I guess through all the computer and studies and research. Am I on a wrong page or am I because this was not a discussion. I was to ask that second question. City staff was in process of creating uh this this database of available opportunities and it we and our list also includes some potential redevelopment opportunities but uh council member Garcia Ozola at a previous council meeting asked for a report on uh vacant properties in Seaside and that's what we've provided today.

Then my second question and and I appreciate that because I think it was a very good report. My second question would be if there was a discussion of a occupants and I am not pushing that idea that would have to get on on the council's agenda. There would be a report by staff then the council would make a decision on that issue. That's a whole totally different subject. Is that a fair question? Staff would provide what the governing body requests. We were not requested for anything but a report at this time. Great. Thank you so very much. I just needed that clarity. Uh council member Garcia.

I was going to wait till council member new council member request. Uh and just wanted to to say that I appreciate this report. I think it's very valuable and insightful for me uh to to see the time a building has been vacant, see the all the commercial properties in our community and just hear about the efforts that we as a city are doing to help our local community residents uh start up a business or or just see what the process entails. Um, so I I I think for me it's very important to to really stay focused on the issue of um vacant properties and and therefore for my council member request, I I'm going to move forward or ask that the council work towards a study um of a potential vacancy tax on the November ballot this year. And that would be my council member request. commercial. Strictly commercial.

All right. Any more uh comments um on item uh 10B? Well, I just Mr. Mayor, I just had a question about that last comment. Um and maybe it's to the city attorney. Is this something that has to go to the voters to decide? Yes. That was all my questions. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Any other comments? Okay. Thank you so much. We'll go to item number 11. Council members request a new council member's request. Uh did you capture uh council member Garcia Roso's request?

I did, but could you provide just a little bit more clarification for what you're looking for? present. I want us to work towards Well, right. Right. R right now it's just what do you want to put on the next agenda? Commercial vacancy tax. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Any other new council members request? One, Mr. Mayor. Yeah. Uh I have a discussion about 1281 Broadway Avenue, county owned property, the social services building. Uh at next meeting you have 90 seconds. I know.

Uh okay, good. That's good that he has both of them down. All right. 11B follow up on previous request. Uh request to discuss capacity fees including the well site on lot next to Chili's restaurant. Council member Miller.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. On September 7th, 2023, the city council approved a $41,000 contract with Wilden uh financial services to complete a water rate and capacity fee study for the municipal water uh seaside municipal water system. On May 21st, 2025, a letter from Wilden to the city of Seaside stated the study is currently on hold as a as the city undergo staffing changes and works through some financial issues related to water rights. The last time, as my understanding, the last time a water study was completed was in 2019. So, I would like to know and I'm hoping that my colleagues will will also uh be uh interested to learn or to understand why um why are we not seeing the results of the study? When will we be able to see this? And my other um part of this is a two-prong and the second prong is the uh municipal seaside municipal water system, the second well and and I can uh go into depth about that, but I would like to know the capacity of our wells. Uh and then I I believe well number three was inactive as of 2010. And then on the the second part of the wells was the property that we purchased by Chili's. We purchased that property. Uh and actually that property was purchased the day I was sworn in with council member Burks and that uh that property since then we've have we are we using water from that well or what is the status of that well that we purchased that property in Mir Chile. So that's my ask to the council. Um we hear water is a big issue here in the city. We hear water about development. We hear water about uh all kinds of um uh building ADUs, building new homes. So water is extremely important. Our municipal water systems uh serves uh 1,000 customers roughly and uh I think that it's time that we receive some kind of update in terms of the management and the uh accessibility of our municipal water system because I don't think it's been talked about in some time. So I hope my

colleagues will consider placing on the agenda to at least discuss some of these important water issues. Thank you. I there's quite a bit and I I I think that you know most of those things weren't even listed on here. What so the first one was capacity fees. What what do you want us to if if that's what you were talking about? Are you changing it now? What is the capacity fee? Well, in this appro in this uh council member request and then the proposal, the council member request was just simply uh as it as it states on the agenda to discuss capacity fees. And what I would like to know is are the fees that our water rate are the fees that we're charging our customers the appropriate fee? It's my understanding that the last time that was completed was in 2019. And is it possible that we can increase the capacity of our water system?

Okay, that that's all right. Is there any support for that share information to find out where we're not getting the information? I just I'm not clear saying that the report wasn't done and something's on hold, but a little bit of finding out that first.

Well, I I Yes. Yes. Um to council member uh Burks. Yes. Uh it's to to see exactly where we are with that with our rate study. Um you know, all of these municipalities have been raising their rates. Uh I see it in all my utility, in all my bills. And so we what I want to look at is our municipal water system that we're the purveyor for certain customers in Seaside. Are we aligned with the rates? Are are is the system working well? Can we expand the system? So I believe the first approach here is to just get the information and then with the information maybe possibly make some suggestions or some decisions as a policy level to improve our system. If does that clarify?

Is that enough uh city manager to come back with something to get that conversation started about um uh sees MUN? Yes.

Okay. Uh everybody's I mean not everybody but I see three. Okay. And so then the other one was the whale at Chili's. So what what is that? Well, I think that maybe this could be that could be included in in also into the report into the first into the first item and to study our to study exactly the water that we're producing from our wells and the ones that are producing more and where are where are what is the status of our wells currently and that could be included.

Yeah, that makes sense. Uh yeah. Okay. I just, you know, see, man, they're going to come up with something and then it still may be questions because they don't know all they Okay. All right. Um, and that's, uh, I guess that's it, right? Nobody else. Okay. You got enough, city manager? Um, okay. Um, okay. Thank you to my colleagues. Yep. Uh, 12. City attorney, city managers, city council, and mayor's comments and reports on committee assignments. Uh, city attorney.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, and members of the community. Um, since our last city council meeting, I had the opportunity to participate in the Martin Luther King March and had a a wonderful time at doing that. And then um after that march, I did some volunteer work in the kitchen of that event as well, which was very rewarding for me and hopefully uh rewarding for the folks that received um some meals from that um those those efforts. Um and that concludes my report.

Thank you. Um, Mr. City Manager.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor and Council. Um, I also had the opportunity to attend uh the MLK uh march and event uh extremely powerful uh event uh held uh through our community in Oldmire. Uh last last uh for a few minutes uh yesterday evening, I was able to attend the H.B.CU MPUSD event. Um I was only able to stay for a few minutes, but in the five minutes I was there, I watched a young lady, brilliant young lady, uh receive a $100,000 scholarship. So millions of dollars in our went out uh to uh local youth last night. So what an incredible event by MBUSD and uh the H.B.CU uh universities who were there. Um recently I was appointed reappointed to the National League of Cities Universities Communities Council. We had a kickoff meeting last week and the purpose of the UCCC is to really help local governments manage and and leverage and strengthen their town gown relationships. And then finally, I've also been selected for the leadership Monterey County uh 2026 cohort. Uh the first session is later this month. I'm excited to get further connected in um on the Monterey Peninsula with uh various entities and just uh help advance Seaside's interest. Thank you.

Uh Council Member Miller.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh it was uh an honor to be at the um business council lunch with our sheriff. Uh uh went to the uh event last night, the colleges uh college event, the H.B.CU uh college event. also to the Martin Luther King March and I had uh our CHS meeting this month. We're looking we're in the process of hiring a new CEO which is good and we're moving forward towards uh a recommendation for our next meeting. You heard from them tonight uh some budgeting issues but we're working through those. And then also they have right before the Super Bowl on Saturday they have the Super Bowl where you can buy a clam chowder for $40 and it feeds two people. Uh, and so I'd highly recommend that. It's by one of the restaurants on the warf and um it's a great fundraiser for the CHS. And so that was all I had to report. Thank you,

Council Member Burks.

Yep. Um, I was able to attend one of Fosba's events at Capra Park where they unveiled or shared their rock wall that they just had installed. Um, so kids now not only get to enjoy the garden, um, but they also have a little play area to enjoy. Um, I too was at the MLK march and the celebration after at Odmire Center. Um, I did take time this month to go visit the Palenke Arts Teen Center. I learned about current and upcoming events offered to promote an inclusive safe space for our youth here in Seaside. Um, I also had a chance to go check out Tiny Tots, which I haven't been to in quite a while since my kiddo is 13. Um, but their outdoor expansion that we had done looks great. Um, including the new mural. Um, and then I learned that our own STEM program we have here in Seaside goes over there, works with them and our little buckets uh for compost, they use those and they get to feed little worms. So, it's really cool to see the collaboration within the different departments or areas of our own city working together. Um, I had my AMP board meeting. We were able to approve some additional ATL large members to help fill openings for the board. And then I too last night was at the first annual H.B.CU Expo by MPUSD. It was like intense love, joy, energy. Um, seeing kiddos, um, adults out there dancing and getting financial aid was super great. So, I look forward to having MPUSD to continue that and it was open to everybody. So, it was a great event. Thank you,

Council Member Garcia.

Thank you. Uh, I too attended the ME the Martin Luther King um celebration and seaside. I think this was the largest crowd that we have had uh in a while and it was just really cool to see the kiddos to see regional partners come together uh really good nonprofits marching uh and standing in solidarity for for um for Dr. Dr. Martin Luther King. And I I I was really moved by the the discussions that were had, but more importantly, how a legend of ours was also honored. Uh and that was Mrs. Helen Rucker for her years of service and dedication. And we had elected officials come all the way from Solidad as well. So I think it shows that regional partnership and seaside's commitment to continue fostering an inclusive community for everybody. Uh I also attended the Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce annual membership lunchon alongside the mayor. Um and that was a really good uh event. Uh hearing the discussions hearing uh the keynote uh speech from former secretary of defense Leon Petta was always inspiring to to really motivate us uh and move forward as as as a community. I also participated in the United Way emerging leaders society lunch with the leader. Uh that was a really really wonderful event. I was part of the panel uh alongside mayor uh Tyler Williamson from the city of Monterey but also mayor prom uh Fernando Sanchez from the city of Solarad. So we were able to talk with I think it was it was a sold out uh it was the first lunchon that the Emerging Leader Society had done had had ever done and we got a registration of 35 people uh which was really really impactful for us because we had repres people from Seaside Solidad even Prunedale uh Carmemell youth that came out and asked us questions of of of what public service

meant to us but if we would be able to provide them with any tips on how to get involved with public service and it was it was really there was some people that wanted to to participate in commissions uh that wanted to uh be part of a PTA or things of that sort. So, it it was really interesting to to talk to a new generation of of young leaders in our community and and continue to foster uh that opportunity of public service. I also I can't remember I'm mixing up my dates if I reported out on the Mexican consulate being here in the city of Seaside. Um I'm going to repeat it again. Uh the mayor was also in attendance uh with the Mexican consulate. They came out to the older Meyer Center to help out our constituents. They were able to assist 150 people that same morning which was amazing. It saved our constituents time from having to go up to San Jose to acquire services to schedule an appointment. They were able to schedule an appointment inhouse at the Ultimire Center uh for passport services dual nationality. It it was a really uh wonderful event seeing our constituents being able to have those services at home. Um let's see. Yesterday uh Council Member Burks and I met with a group of young community leaders uh which was very moving for me. I was scrolling through through social media and I noticed a video of a group of I think it was like seven, eight teenagers that were doing a day of service out in the community and they were giving out free lunches to our homeless uh population. And that really caught my attention and and Council Member Burks and I really wanted to meet with them and thank them for for doing that. I I think in an era where we're seeing so much news and it can be so frustrating to see content like that and to see the young kiddos inspire other generations was really impactful for me and especially because it was here at home. Uh we had to sit down with them and we also want to thank

the mayor for for providing certificates of recognitions to those students in motivating them and letting them know that their service and their actions are are being recognized by the city and they felt really cool. It was the first time I think that they had been in city hall and they were really happy and thankful for um those certificates and for us bringing them into our community. I also attended the H.B.CU college expo. Um it was a wonderful event. We were there I think 5 minutes in someone got a full ride scholarship which was you could feel the excitement and the partnership between NPSD and these colleges but also the city of Seaside. It was really, really awesome to see those young high schoolers excited for college. And and I was telling someone, I'd rather see them excited for college than to be um annoyed with school. And and you you just sense that that pride from from the kiddos. And then lastly, I just want to shout out the suicide fire department. This is um I guess on a personal note, my someone started a fire in the alley behind my house. uh two nights ago and Seaside Fire Department was there quickly and and put it out. So, I really want to thank you for for helping not only me but also my neighbors and and we appreciate you so much. So, thank you.

All right. Uh Mayor Pa,

thank you. Uh attended a couple of basketball games with Seaside Pal in the recreation department at Seaside High. The league seems to be going well. I think there's over 150 60 kids participating. a lot of good teamwork, a lot of good teaching, uh some fundamental skills. It seems to be going well. Um attended the community awareness fair at the older MyersB uh center sponsored by the Rotary Club. The goal is to bring nonprofit groups together and promoting opportunities for our neighbors, for the neighborhoods and general residents. They did a really good job including dozens and dozens of organizations. also went to the Capra Park uh park cleanup and the the rock climbing wall. Um I think none of the adults uh got on the wall, but it was a good thing. Uh farmers market seems to be going well. Um it's really important if that event continues that we have more um residents involved. I think that's brings success and it brings more vendors. I as well attended the Martin Luther King parade and program. It's a wonderful parade. Positive message and uh thank you to all the organization. I attended the HBCU event. As all of you said, it was lots of energy and just a wealth of information that was shared and gathered and obviously scholarships provided. I think that's pretty much it. Thank you, Mayor.

Uh thank you. did a couple uh park cleanups and and and at Capra, it was good to see uh the climbing wall for the kids there. And I want I forgot the gentleman's name and his company, but he donated that that rock wall for those kids. I just want to highlight that. Uh then uh like the council member Garcola said, we want to thank the councelor general of Mexico for doing uh their uh resident services here in the seaside, saving people, not only the trip to San Jose, but the confusion about you know the process cuz at times some of that information gets lost. sometimes, you know, people are out there selling the appointment spaces when the appointments are free. And so having it uh done here uh saved a lot of that and allowed more people to participate and more part people to um receive the services that they deserve and information. So I want to uh shout out uh to uh Council Member Garcia for u hosting that, making sure that happened here in Seaside. something we've been trying to do for the last couple years. Attended the Seaside Housing Collaborative. Uh we're we're making some progress on trying to uh encourage more housing development here in the city of Seaside. Uh we got some exciting news maybe coming up here shortly and we'll be uh speaking to the council about uh what do they want to do uh going forward. attended the annual Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce uh annual membership lunchon. Uh the seaside received its 25-y year uh certificate. Uh I don't know where we were at the first 25 years of our assistance, but uh it's better late than never. Uh but we had a great time and you know if you are uh that type of business or that professional uh you should be part of the uh Monterey

Peninsula uh Chamber of Commerce. They're a great organization to be part of. I attended the Cal City's environmental quality policy uh committee meeting in Sacramento. I think that day I you know 2 and 1 half hour drive to Sacramento for a three-hour uh meeting and and back. Uh but what we're working on there is how do we uh support and uh more than likely fight some of the bills coming out the legislature uh to make sure we reduce the cost of utilities. as we know uh the cost utilities are going up and so as um as our that's one of the work plans um that we have one of the missions that we have in our work plan is to to fight those bills and do other thing as relates to environmental quality. uh attend a special Lavco meeting. Uh we're in the process of uh recruiting a new executive director for uh Lavco and um uh trying to move forward see uh some um expansions in the south county cities. I think we talked about Greenfield. uh Selenus wants to expand and Solid wants to expand, but what we talked about that day was uh green field and how do we uh make that happen with the environmental uh and mitigation a mitigation policies that we have. So that'll be a big to-do here in the next couple uh uh weeks at Lavco. Attended Monterey Panessa Water Management District meeting uh um routine meeting uh going forward. Tenative Cal City's Monterey Bay Division meeting uh where we we received a uh update surrounding the state budget. As you guys may know, the state is either be either uh well, I want to say the governor says 8 billion and then other people say 18 billion. Um but but I'm I'm going to go

with the governor's number. Uh but it's a a big number nevertheless. And what it does is that means it's going to be less money uh potentially coming down to the cities and the counties uh and then maybe some more unfunded mandates coming down. So, as a division, uh, we talked about how do we advocate and, um, articulate our vision of more local control and that we still need that local money coming down to the cities, uh, from the state government. Attended a TAMC meeting, we had a big update uh, the possibility of char uh, changing the model for collecting the gas tax. Uh someone spoke earlier on um public comment about the gas tax and and and the state is looking to change the model. Um people are driving less uh buying less gas and so uh the money is not there as it used to be. So what model will it take? Um but someone said earlier about you know additional tax on gas and this you know all those are rumors. Uh I think at the end of the day uh the commitment from the legislature is to uh keep it relatively the same. Uh but it probably will be based on miles that you drive. Um but it's not set in stone. Uh but that's what they're looking at and that's what uh we're all going to have to weigh in on as um elected officials attending the first annual H.B.CU college expo like uh others have said before me. I'll just cut to the chase. It was a wonderful event. I had a a a a text in Dr. PK about what was the official uh number that they had that they gave out. I know it's always close

to over a million dollars. It's not is not if it's not $2 million. And yeah, I was in a room when the first person hopefully uh um received a full ride of a value of $100,000. I'm sure they were not the only one, but I don't know the total. But Seesaw should be proud that that took a place in our Odmire Center and those kids life was changed first here by receiving uh whether it's a full ride or it's $7,000, $40,000, $20,000. Um but with that, what it says is you admitted to our school. That's the lifechanging, right? And I'm sure they have other options, but here in the city of Seaside, we did that. And even though it was uh underneath the the rubric of H.B.CU, uh I just want to be clear that the majority of them were not African-Americans. And and there was no problem with that. The object is how do we educate our youth and how do we get them into higher education? And that happened here in Seaside. And I was glad to see all of the kids from different background, different races applying for those scholarships. And I want to thank uh the school district, Dr. PK, Superintendent uh Different Bob, and our very own um uh uh MPUSD board uh trustee Dr. Betty Lus. Uh it was her ideal that started this a handful of years ago, and this just keeps growing and growing and growing. And like someone said earlier, this is the first annual and um uh meaning that it should be in seaside. Again, I just had to talk to PK about that that it's in Monteray, we built a community steam uh that they had going. Uh we had to talk about what community they're exactly in. But I said that and that reminds me uh like Dr. PK said, they

invited kids from throughout the county. So they had kids from Selenas, they had kids from outside the school district. Um, everybody was invited and and I'm sure uh kids came from outside the school district. Uh, and I I think that's it. I want to end with um attended the celebration of life uh for Mr. Ronald uh Shyron uh Tinsley Jr. uh you know he was a cherished son, a devoted father, a loving family man who cared about others as others cared about him. Uh his life mattered as well as how he died matters. I want to extend my condolences to his mother and his family, his loved ones and his friends and and just say, you know, he was um a light in the community, especially for his friends that knew him. Uh and he will be missed and that we just uh hope that, you know, he's rested in peace. Uh but I'm sure the the family and loved ones would trade just about anything to have him back. But I do want to say that um we hope he's resting and we extend our condolences to the to the family. Uh we will go on to item number 12 which the 13 which is close session. The city attorney will read us in the close session.

Thank you Mr. Mayor, members of the council, members of the public. The council will meet in close session to have a conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54957.6. Agency negotiators are Greg McDan, city manager, and Samantha Sacrroni, the human resources director, risk manager. Employee organizations are the Seaside Police Officers Association, the Seaside Firefighters Association, the Seaside Public Safety Managers Association, the Seaside City Employees Association, the Seaside Managers Employee Association, non-represented non-exempt confidential employees, non-represented exempt confidential employees, executive employees, unclassified exempt employees, and unclassified non-exempt employees. They will have a conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government code section 54956.8. Property in question is commonly referred to as main gate. The agency negotiators are the city manager, city attorney at all. Negotiating parties are the city of seaside and potentially city ventures, KB Bakewell, Seaside Venture 2, Monteier Development or Shea. Under negotiation, price, terms of payment or both. They will have a conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government code section 54956.8. A property in question is commonly referred to as a portion of the main gate and in particular at the corner of Devarti and 1st Avenue. Agency negotiators are the city manager and the city attorney. Negotiating parties Fort Hostile Society and the city of Seaside under negotiation price, terms of payment or both. They will have a conference with legal counsel pursuant to government code section 54956.9 on one matter of existing litigation.

That's Monterey County Superior Court case number 24 CV00002872. The case name is the Seaside Highlands Homeowners Association versus the City of Seaside. They will also have a conference with legal counsel on another matter of existing litigation. That's Monterey County Superior Court case number 24 CV00002483. That case name is Landwatch and Center for Biological Diversity versus the City of Seaside. And finally, they will have a conference on two matters of potential litigation. For the benefit of the public, um I do expect that there could be a readout coming out of close session this evening. And that concludes my readin.

Uh thank you so much. Public comment is open on our close session items. Members of the public in the chamber, please approach the podium. Members of the public on Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or dial star9 if you're calling from a phone.

Mayor, no members of the public have come forward to make public comment. Uh, thank you so much. Public comment is closed. We will move into close session. Serious right. It's right in there like

I can show you. It's just one

I don't know the Stop.

You start.

Are we ready? The city attorney will read us out of close session and report on any reportable items or actions. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, members of the public. The council had a conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54957.6. All of the uh employee organizations were um at issue, they gave direction to the negotiators. Uh with respect to item B, conference with real property negotiators pursuant to government code section 54956.8. Um this is a negotiation on the pro properly property commonly referred to as main gate. Um the city council did direct that uh they would be negotiating with KB Bakewell Seaside Venture 2 for that property uh regarding price, terms of payment or both. and we do expect there to be an item on the February 19th um regular meeting agenda regarding that item. With respect to item C, conflict with real property negotiators pursuant to government code section 54956.8. Um property is commonly referred to as a portion of the main gate property. Um the negotiating parties are the four-door to hostile society and the city of seaside. Instruction was given to the negotiators. Finally, they received briefings on two matters of existing litigation and there is nothing to report. One of those cases is Seaside Highlands Homeowners Association versus City of Seaside. The second case is Land Watch versus the City of Seaside. There is nothing to report out on either of those two items. and that there is nothing to report on the conference on two matters of potential litigation. That concludes my readin.

Uh thank you so much. The next item is 14 is adjournment. Our next regular schedule meeting is 5:00 p.m. Wednesday 5:00 p.m. Thursday, February 19th, 2026 here in city hall chambers. There being no further business on this agenda, this meeting is adjourned.