City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, welcome everybody.

We're going to come back to order now with a roll call from our city clerk, Kathy Valdez.

The records reflect that all members are present.

And we're coming back at a closed session. No reportable actions were taken in closed session. And Council Member Contreras is going to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance this evening.

pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Now our city clerk, Kathy Valdez, has some procedural items to cover.

Thank you, Mayor. In accordance with the Brown Act, I'd like to announce that as a result of convening simultaneous meetings, the members of the Buena Sanitation District will receive compensation of $147.75 for the district meeting pursuant to Buena San District Ordinance 2006-1. I would like to remind everyone that the VISTA Municipal Code requires members of the public to observe order and decorum at the meeting and to conduct themselves in a courteous manner. The ordinance was adopted to allow for public input and to facilitate city business without disruption in the meeting. Applause is appropriate for items listed under the presentation portion of the agenda only. Students wishing to receive credit for attending this evening's meeting must stay for a minimum of one hour. However, we ask that you stay for the completion of an item rather than leaving in the middle of a discussion. When you are ready to leave, you may ask one of the staff members at the back of the room to sign your paper. Thank you.

To speak on an item on tonight's agenda piece, fill out the speaker slip with the number of the item you'd like to speak on and give it to the clerk, secretary, staff here at the dais. Speaker slips are available on the table just outside the council chamber doors. For members of the public participating via Zoom, you may use the raise your hand feature to indicate you'd like to speak. or press star nine on your touch tone phone. We will announce when to raise your hand to indicate you'd like to make a comment on the specific item being discussed. Speakers will have three minutes each to address the council. Now we'll go to our city manager, John Connolly, for approval of tonight's agenda.

Thank you, Mayor. No changes to this evening's agenda.

Thank you. Now we have two presentations tonight, so I'd like to invite my fellow council members to join me at the podium for those. All right, our first proclamation is one declaring September 17th through the 23rd as Constitution Week in the City of Vista. Accepting this proclamation is Jacqueline Vervins of the Santa Margarita Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Jacqueline, are you here? Come on. Thank you. Hi there. Thank you for coming.

You all want to come back here?

Yeah, come on back here.

Would you like to show this off for everybody while I read it? Okay.

Our proclamation reads, whereas September 17th, 2026 marks the 239th anniversary of the signing of the United States Constitution by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, whereas it is fitting and proper to officially recognize this foundational document to honor its enduring significance and commemorate its anniversary through patriotic observances, Whereas in 1955, the Daughters of the American Revolution petitioned Congress to set aside September 17th through the 23rd annually for the observance of Constitution Week, and that resolution was adopted by the United States Congress and signed into law on August 2nd, 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Whereas Public Law 915 designates September 17th through the 23rd as the annual observance of Constitution Week and provides for an annual presidential proclamation commemorating the occasion. Now, therefore, I as the mayor and the members of the Vista City Council do hereby proclaim the week of September 17th through the 23rd, 2026, as Constitution Week in the City of Vista. We urge all citizens to reaffirm the ideals envisioned by the framers in 1787 by vigilantly protecting the freedoms guaranteed to us by the Constitution, the guardian of our liberties, and by always remembering that rights once lost may never be regained. And I just want to say a personal thank you to the Daughters of the American Revolution for making sure that we don't forget Constitution Week. Thank you for bringing this to us. You know, I started my career in government on Capitol Hill about 25 years ago But long before that I had a copy of the Constitution that was given I think it was to my parents before I was born and I've read the Constitution many times and I always tell young people so we have so many of them here tonight Does anybody know how many sheets of paper they wrote the original Constitution on? Anybody have any idea? Hold up It's four sheets of paper. Four sheets of paper. So now the amendments are a little longer than that, but it's a very simple document. And really, I'm going to tell you, because I'm coming to the end of my time as your mayor here, And this is really pertinent for all of you. This is your government. And, you know, the woman came out of the constitutional or Ben Franklin came out of the Constitutional Convention. And a woman came up and said, Dr. Franklin, what have you given us? And he said, a republic, if you can keep it right. This government, the federal government, the city government, the state government belongs to you. And this Constitution is the contract that you signed when you were born. When you became an American citizen on your birthday or if you were naturalized, you signed this agreement called the Constitution. Your signature doesn't appear on it, but Nonetheless, you are a signatory to the social compact. And these are the rules that we have agreed to abide by. And so it's really incredibly important for you to know what it says. And one of the things I love to ask young people is, where does it say in the Constitution this, that, or the other? And they go, well, that's got to be in the First Amendment. And it's like, nope, not in the Constitution. So it's important. It's such a short document. It's important for you to know what it does say, what it doesn't say. Okay, what have you got to add to all of that, Buster?

Thank you, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for honoring one of the most important documents our country holds dear, the United States Constitution. July 4th, 1776, our forefathers announced with formal intention the creation of a new country, free from foreign rule. This past July 4th, we celebrated the 250th anniversary of that Declaration of Independence. We must remember though that it was our Constitution that made this celebration possible. The Articles of Confederation were adopted November 15th in 1775, forming a governing mechanism that saw us through the war, which ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783. This league of friendship had a weak central government, thus was ineffective in holding the states united during time of peace. To remain as a United States, something was needed. From May 25th to September 17th, 1787, 55 delegates from 12 states met to forge a new government, creating a democratic republic. As evidenced in the first three words of the preamble, we the people. Since President Eisenhower issued the first proclamation in 1955, city governments have called attention to the document with proclamations of their own during annual Constitution Week observances September 17th through the 23rd. Members of the Santa Margarita Chapter, National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution are here this evening to receive your proclamation and thank you for your public support. It would please us if you would accept In return, the 2026 winning Constitution Week poster for public display. And two, to the audience as well as to the council, we would be honored to have any of you join us Thursday, September 17th, just before one o'clock at the San Luis Rey Mission to participate in an initial commemoration with Bells Across America. Bring your own bell, or one will be provided for you. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Would you take a photo with us?

Get a couple of you on that side as well. Want a couple of you down here too? Let's go like this.

All right, our next presentation is to present letters of appreciation to our Guerreras en Accion for Un Vista Limpio. I'm gonna read the names of our participants, and if you would, please come forward when I call your name. Yes, I do.

Thank you very much, Deputy Mayor.

Okay, let me first read this letter of appreciation. This letter of appreciation celebrates the seventh year of Guerrera's inaction, Poron Vista Lempio. Your continued commitment to keeping the town site and District 1 community clean, healthy, and welcoming is appreciated very much by this city council and your mayor and our residents. Through your dedicated weekly litter abatements, you've made a meaningful and lasting difference, removing thousands of pounds of trash from our streets, sidewalks, and parks, while helping prevent debris from reaching our precious waterways. Your generosity, consistency, and willingness to give time exemplify the very best of community spirit. Week after week, your volunteerism brings people together, strengthens connections, and inspires others to take pride in the place we call home. Together, Guerreras reminds us that meaningful change begins with individuals who care and are willing to take action. Your commitment helps to make our community more resilient, sustainable, and beautiful for everyone. The City of Vista is grateful for your continued dedication and the positive impact that you make each week. Thank you for showing what it means to be a true community champion. And now, let's welcome up to begin with Jovita Serafin, who is the leader and founder Muchas gracias.

Thank you very much.

Next is Michelle Veloz. Thank you, Michelle. Abdulla Diaz. Maria Sierra De Martinez. Brandon Suarez. Erlinda Serafin. Magaly Sosa. Rosa Elvira Diaz. Ramiro Diaz. Giovanni Lombardini Roman. Santa Rodriguez. Marquise McClellan. Stephanie Martinez. And Alejandro Martinez.

Would you like to say?

A huge thank you to all of our Guerreras and to their leader, Jovita.

Buenas tardes a todos. Primeramente le doy gracias a Dios por permitirnos salir cada semana a recoger basura con mis compañeras. Gracias a los miembros del concilio también por reconocer nuestro trabajo y especialmente a mis compañeras que siempre están conmigo miércoles tras miércoles recorriendo las calles de vista para recoger basura, colillas de cigarro. También le agradezco a Corina Contreras por su gran apoyo, que ella fue la que nos ayudó a formar el grupo hace siete años y pues les hago un llamado a los residentes de vista también para que nos apoyen porque Pues más que nada por nuestra gente es que está sucia las calles, tiramos basura por donde quiera y la verdad está muy pesado para caminar nosotras, ya que lo donde nosotros recogemos y ponemos la basura es una carriola, la que nos ha acompañado por siete años. Así que por favor ayúdenos a mantener limpio vista, para que sea una ciudad de ejemplo para otras ciudades. que vean que nuestra comunidad hay apoyo de nuestros residentes para mantener limpio. Gracias.

All right, now to bring us to oral communications. Any member of the public may address the city on agency-related matters not on the agenda by requesting to speak during this section of the agenda. If you're participating via Zoom, please use the raise your hand feature or press star nine. Now, if you'd like to speak, the number of speakers that will be heard during this segment is limited to 10 and we already have 10 who have requested. Any remaining speakers will be heard under the second oral communications item. We will start with Sarah Gengler or Gengler and then we'll hear from Darcy Thompson and then from Carolyn Theis-Aird. If you heard your name called, go ahead and grab a seat in the front row and be ready to speak. So come on down if you heard your name called and we'll be ready for you. And we'll start with Ms. Gengler or Gengler.

Greetings, good evening. I just wanted to take a moment to express my appreciation to our Deputy Mayor O'Donnell and our Council Members Karina Contreras and Katie Melendez for their hard work and dedication to improving our community and the City of Vista and I just want to say I appreciate you and I'd like to encourage all of those residents of Vista to please vote for them in the upcoming midterms. I know Katie Melendez is not running, but our Deputy Mayor Dan O'Donnell and Council Member Contreras are both running for the council again, and I would just like to encourage people to vote for them so that they can continue the work that they've started. Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Evie Wood. For the remainder of our meeting, according to our ordinance, applause and any outbursts are not in order after our presentation. So if you would please hold all of your applause and any outbursts of any kind. Next is Darcy Thompson, followed by Carolyn Theis-Aird, followed by Barbara Garcia.

Hi. So I picked the right day to come. I wanted to talk about civic education. And we're filled to the max with students, so it's perfect timing. I'm excited to see all these young people here. And I wanted to start with a quote from Thomas Jefferson. Whenever people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government. A significant majority of Americans, roughly 70% to 75%, nationally fail basic civics literacy tests. And they lack the confidence to explain how the US government functions. Here in San Diego County, 61% of adults consider expanding and prioritizing civic education to be a high priority. State studies show that civics frequently is sidelined because it's not included on standardized testing, leaving high schools to fulfill requirements with just a single semester, while students are required to take three civics courses in the 1960s. If you lack the knowledge of what the word authoritarianism means, how can you understand whether it's something you support or not and whether to fight against it if you don't support it? A large percentage of our voting population lacks knowledge on how city, state, and federal government agencies work and what each branch controls. In a 2024 survey of 3,000 college students, 60% did not know the length of the members of Congress' terms. People cannot uphold what they cannot comprehend. Without reversing these deficiencies and understanding how our government works, we are risking the long-term health of our democracy itself. This is particularly relevant to know that the Constitution says states control elections and should be protected from federal takeover. The current administration has removed a section of the Constitution regarding habeas corpus from its very own website. To end with another quote Obama said in his farewell address, we can't take our democracy for granted. All of us, regardless of party, should throw ourselves into the work of citizenship. It falls on each of us to be guardians of this democracy.

Okay, and next up is Carolyn. Please, again, hold your applause for the remainder of our meeting. Next is Carolyn Theis-Aird, followed by Barbara Garcia, followed by Carol Jeffries.

Good evening. Again, my name is Caroline Theis-Aird, and I'm here for a change to give thanks this evening. I want to offer my sincere gratitude for the improvements in infrastructure that I've seen over the past couple of years in Vista. Right now I'm super excited to see that we have sidewalks on Sunset because that's always been a really dangerous neighborhood for kids, especially walking to school, et cetera. And it's great to see improvements in public safety in terms of streetlights that have gone, you know, I've seen it expand and it's really exciting. And I'm really appreciative in particular of council members Contreras and Melendez for their work on that. And lastly, I really wanna offer my thanks to our brave firefighters who got that fire out so quick at Brangle Terrace. We had plans with friends, my husband and I that morning to go to the car show. And we have friends who live right near there and we were gonna go help them pack up. And before we had a chance to pack up, they had it out, so. We really appreciate them. So thank you. Thank you all for your service.

And we all second that. Barbara Garcia, followed by Carol Jeffries, followed by Gabrielle Jackson. Please come grab a seat in the front row. I'll be ready to speak when your name is called.

Good evening, elected officials. It's been a while, right? Hello. First, I want to acknowledge the fear and trauma many families are experiencing related to immigration enforcement. I hope we could continue listening to impacted families and strengthen trusted, accessible resources and communication to our local neighbors. I also want to thank our firefighters as well and first responders for the quick response to Sunday's fire near my neighborhood. Their communication made a difference, and I was one of the ones that was evacuated, but I was able to go to Rod Run, enjoy my chai at milk, so it was actually a decent day, and no lives were lost, so it was really... Good operations. Thank you. Thank you to our teachers and school staff supporting students through this extreme heat. I hope we can expand cooling spaces and proactive communication for families. Yesterday was a holiday. There was not much cooling spaces. I think that'd be great to see that, especially in our area for our seniors and our children. As well, lastly, I'd like to thank Kathy, Esmeralda, Jonathan, our city team for continuing to respond to all my emails, privileged questions, and just the engagement. I really do appreciate your services. To my council member, Fox, I want to see about a potential truly small business crawl. Engagement is something we could do with the city. You're pretty responsive to my emails, so I'll follow up then. Thank you. And thank you, everybody else. Appreciate it.

Carol Jeffries, followed by Gabrielle Jackson, followed by Ann Pate.

Good evening. I have a couple of things I wanted to talk about. One of them got fixed today because I was really annoyed with the very poor asphalt job they did on Civic Center where they're building that apartment complex or whatever because I come out of my speed hump neighborhood and then I'd have to go over the uneven asphalt.

So they fixed that today, so check.

Yesterday I was driving with my son and we, I was driving, but we were coming off of Vista Way onto Civic Center and I almost got killed by a red light runner again. This has been a, this is like the fourth time this has happened to my family with red light runners. One of them was when my son got hit on his bike right here at the corner of Eucalyptus and Civic Center, right in front of your building. And I've been almost hit with another one of my kids at the same intersection in a car, another one of my kids over here yesterday, and I've also almost gotten hit at Crescent on Civic Center. We need a traffic calming. This is ridiculous. I don't care if it takes people 10 minutes more to get to Fallbrook. I don't want to get killed. I don't want to be the one that you have to make the traffic calming because I got killed or one of my kids got killed or any of my neighbors. So I really would like to see something done about the speed that people go on these main roads. And then also, I also was going to bring up cool zones. This happened two years ago. Labor Day was the hottest day of the year, and the library was closed, and the senior center was closed. We need more cool zones. We need them to be open later, and we need them to be open every day that is necessary. I really fear for people. There's so many older houses in this community that do not have air conditioning. And then also, I just wanted to get on my soapbox and talk about how This community only works if we all work together and we care for each other. And traffic doesn't work if people run red lights. And laws don't work if people don't follow them. And we need to care for each other. And I implore you guys to make things safer for people and to make the community work better so that we can all, all of us, including you, enjoy a safer and happier and more friendly society here in our town. I love this town. And I will keep beating my drum until it gets better and better and better. Thank you.

All right. Gabrielle Jackson, followed by Ann Pate, followed by Gail Martin.

I'm sorry. Sorry, I should have asked for the assisted hearing. I can't, I can't. I've been having a really hard time hearing. Is this like the, I can just talk about anything right now?

You can talk about whatever. Sorry. Whatever relevant to the state.

Okay. I'd like to talk about private easements. I live on, my name is Gabrielle. I live on Franklin Lane. Shortly after we moved into our home on Franklin Lane, we got a notice from the city that our road would be resurfaced. And I was so overjoyed. But then after the work was done, it stopped. like before all the potholes. So I emailed Matthew Atterbury here at Vista, and he said that I live on the private easement and that the city is not responsible for taking care of the road where I live. So, and I asked him, well, you know, what do we do? Because it's like really dangerous. And he said that we had to, he sent me a map with like the lines drawn on who is responsible for this part of that part of the street. And so it turned out that The part of the street that's really bad is right at the top where all the water pools up and there's huge potholes there. And everybody going down the hill and to where I live has to drive over these. But this one man who's the landlord of the apartment house next to where I live is responsible. His name is Peter Burnell. And we got his number from the previous owners of our house. So we called him and we asked him if he would... fix the potholes and he said that he couldn't decide if he wanted to do it correctly and like expensively or just like do it on the cheap and we So we didn't care, we just needed to do something, but he didn't do anything, and five years later, we had that big rain last year, and I sent him an email with pictures, and I'm saying, I said, you know, it's really not safe, and you are responsible, and he wanted to argue with me, but I sent him the picture that I got from the city. Anyway, so he came and dumped some asphalt in the holes. Well, I'm just kind of flabbergasted that a property owner like myself or a tenant of an apartment has the only recourse we have to have safe streets is to sue. He said we had to sue the guy if he wouldn't do it. I don't have the resources to sue somebody, and I know that the tenants in the apartment store don't have the resources. I pay the same property taxes, of which I do not begrudge, because it's for the good of the whole city. I don't mind paying the taxes, but I just wish that my little area could be maintained, and I don't feel like I should be the one responsible for dunning the guy for payment to do that. I mean, it's like streetlights... the streets themselves, all those things.

Thank you. Next is Ann Pate, followed by Gail Martin, and then Rachel Belden.

Good evening, everybody. My one question for the city in regards to 165 Eucalyptus Avenue in downtown Vista is, why is this property not a completely vacant lot? I mean, readily available public sources indicates the developer, LLJ Cross Park LLC, which appears to be a one project limited liability entity attributed to a Mr. Greg Drakos, at 750 B Street, Suite 3020 in San Diego. It appears it's like one project entity, and it's had a long history with this property here in Vista, culminating with 165 Eucalyptus being declared a public nuisance earlier this year, and the city loaning, I presume, this LLJ entity, $500,000 for demolition. Repayment is a question for another council meeting. But I know half a million dollars doesn't go very far nowadays. But even to the untrained eye, it appears demolition is incomplete, with graffiti-covered walls still standing right across the street from where some council members have offices. So how long will these graffiti-covered walls continue standing? Another month? Another year? In perpetuity? So again, the question is, why is this property not a completely vacant lot? Thank you.

Next is Gail Martin, followed by Rachel Bell, and then Phil Church.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, city staff. I'm very pleased to see our new solar streetlight petition process go online August 31st. I'm also very appreciative to be able to use our City of Vista Report a Problem site to submit traffic calming concerns to ensure safety for our residents and visitors. Thank you so much.

Rachel Bell, then Phil Church.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. I'm here this evening as a resident in District 2 near Bringle Terrace Park to say thank you to our firefighters for their incredible work last Sunday. I woke up to the sound of incredibly loud sirens, louder than I'd ever heard before. Ran outside, my husband and I ran outside and could see from just next to our property, we could see flames shooting high end of the sky. All of our neighbors gathered to decide, do we need to get hoses? Do we need to hose anybody's yards down? burning ash and things floating in the air. One of my neighbors had a tarp over a car that started to smolder and everyone quickly hosed that down. But by the time all of that happened and we got into our homes to prepare to evacuate, the fire was out. It was incredibly scary. The closest, if you live in San Diego County, you've had an experience where you've been near a fire, had to evacuate. It was terrifying, and I'm so incredibly grateful for the quick response of our firefighters. We could hear them verbally evacuating the apartments. We could hear them verbally saying, you know, get out. It was an incredible response, and I saw it truly from a bird's eye view. So I wanted to say thank you. I know other speakers spoke to that tonight, too, and I think we could line up hundreds of people with our gratitude that our homes and our families are safe. Also, thanks to the little bit of rain that began to drizzle at that exact moment after months of no rain was pretty incredible. And then with the last little moment of time I have, I just want to make sure everyone is aware that they're invited to join us at the Linda Rhodes Community Center this Sunday from noon to four for Vistas Fiestas Patrias. It's an incredible celebration of Vistas culture and Mexican Independence Day and all kinds of wonderful vendors, performances, contests, And it's hosted by the Chamber in partnership with the city and our county supervisor, Jim Desmond. So we hope to see you all there. Thank you very much.

Mayor Paterson. Phil Church.

Good evening, Mayor, Council members, neighbors, Most on the dais know who I am. Some are glad they do, and some are glad they do because then they can avoid me. I want to follow those who mentioned their thankfulness for the response of the fire department on Sunday morning. And because I was right in the line of flames coming, I appreciated the public emergency warning system that text messaged me. And it showed a map. of the evacuate now and the prepare to evacuate when we let you know. Unfortunately, that map was kind of a really generic one with a red part and a yellow part that didn't show streets. It had a code that I don't recognize for anything. Thankfully, I was in the maybe evacuate later, but just for clarity for others. Disappointment in that system was trying to find out after some period of time what the status of the fire and the evacuation were. We called the non-emergency sheriff's line, and they told us that they're not emergency, so they can't tell us things like that. We were never text messaged that the danger was over and that we could unpack our cars and go back to having Sunday breakfast. That would be handy and probably not too difficult to program into the system. Everybody that got the warning, please cancel the warning. That would be a good thing. Traffic calming that I've been up here several times to comment upon still remains irritating for scientific and political reasons. I request that the Environmental Commission look at the environmental impacts of stopping and going, braking and accelerating at each new stop sign and each new speed bump. Being a scientist, they're creating small particles. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Perfect timing. Okay, that'll bring us to our consent calendar. The recommendations on the following consent calendar will be enacted in one motion unless an item is removed from the calendar. Any member of the public may remove an item by submitting a request to speak card to the clerk secretary by using the raise your hand feature on Zoom or pressing star nine. Items removed from the consent calendar will be considered immediately following the adoption of the calendar. We have six consent items tonight. And item C1 has been pulled from the consent agenda. And we have a speaker on that. And Council Member Melendez.

I will make a motion to approve the balance of the consent calendar.

Deputy Mayor. Second. Okay, we have a motion to second. Please cast your votes. That item is approved unanimously. That'll bring us to item C1, conflict of interest code biennial review. And we have a public speaker on this item, Adina Flores.

Good evening, council. I see that you're revisiting annually the biannual review of your conflict of interest code, and this specifically is regarding staff. However, I emailed your city attorney and the entire council regarding severe conflicts of interest with our elected and appointed officers that are representing the city of Vista, and that hasn't been addressed, so... It's essential that we address this before you move into reviewing economic development strategy because it's all very well connected. So I want to take the time to thank Mayor John Franklin. He's actually the only one that I've ever received a response from. So thank you, sir. That being said, Councilwomen Melendez and Contreras have significant conflicts because I did pull, that's why I wanted to give your city attorney the opportunity to do his job, but I went ahead and took the time to pull all of the local agencies that Ms. Contreras is lobbying and getting paid to lobby as a transportation policy individual representative. And so Ms. Melendez was serving on SANDAG and approving the funding for those projects. So that is therefore driving economic development. That is a terrible conflict of interest. I see these two ladies, at least Ms. Contreras, have endorsed your planning commission chair, Ms. Lisa DeJesus that I emailed you about. That concerns me because Ms. DeJesus' significant other, Damian Busby launched a business that is being sued for fraud while he was incarcerated in prison. So he was incarcerated for willful child endangerment and attempted murder. And so Mr. Jesus is using him as her CEO, the face of the ADU company. And of course, housing and ADUs are driving economic development. So these ladies are supporting predators. They are supporting conflicts of interest that financially benefit themselves. And the city hasn't addressed this. So I do expect that you address this within the next 24 hours because I'm going to be writing an article. I already notified you. I'm reporting these ladies' conflicts of interest to the Fair Political Practices Commission. And if they want to get fined, that's up to them. But I do expect a response because your constituents have been asking about these matters for a long time. And it shouldn't take somebody coming nine hours from Sonoma County to make sure that they get answers. So thank you again to Mayor Franklin for making sure that we have common sense in our decision making. God bless you guys.

Okay. And please hold your, any outbursts. Council Member Melendez.

Yes, Mayor, do we have a presentation on this item from staff? Could we receive one, please?

If you'd like to receive one.

This item is an update to our conflict of interest codes, which is the code that we use to manage interaction between staff and the public related to any kind of city business. We're updating it based on changes to some of the positions and some of the titles of those positions, so they change in the code so that we accurately reflect who's subject to the conflict of interest code.

Okay. Could I get word from the city attorney on this item as well?

Yeah, so the state law requires us to do a biannual review and to make sure that the people, the staff members and employees listed need to file the economic disclosure form. So we update it biannually to make sure that the correct people are on the list. As we add new positions, those positions are checked to make sure whether or not they need to disclose financial information. And so again, by state law, the city has to bring this to you every two years.

Thank you. So I definitely don't want to be out of compliance with state law, and I definitely don't want to be delayed in updating these positions to reflect our code. So I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve item C1 now.

Deputy Mayor.

Second.

Motion is second. Please cast your votes. That item is approved unanimously. That'll bring us to the first of four discussion items this evening, D1, regarding the VISTA Economic Development Strategy, or VEDS. If any members of the public wish to speak on this item, they may indicate so by using the raise their hand feature by pressing star nine or submitting a request to speak card. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our Economic Development Manager, Aaron Schultz, will introduce this item.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND MEMBERS OF THE CITY COUNCIL. WITH ME THIS EVENING IS MANAGEMENT ANALYST LENDON ADAMS. THE ITEM BEFORE YOU IS THE PROPOSED VISTA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY OR VEDS FOR THE YEARS 2026 THROUGH 2029. The city implemented its first economic development plan in 2009 and the most recent VEDS was adopted in 2021. Prior strategies have helped support growth in the business park, downtown activation and the craft beverage industry. Updating the VEDS will position VISTA for future economic opportunities and growth, connect economic development efforts with current city plans and council priorities, and establish practical actions to guide future economic development work.

The proposed VEDS was developed through a stakeholder-driven process. The VEDS committee included local businesses, the VISTA Chamber of Commerce, a local developer, a commercial broker, education and regional partners, two members of the city council, and city staff from community development and economic development. The committee members reviewed city planning documents such as the previous feds, the general plan 2050 draft, climate action plan, the consolidated plan and downtown committee recommendations. They also reviewed demographic, real estate market and industrial data before performing a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, also known as a SWOT analysis. The committee then provided input on the development of the vision, values, goals, objectives, and action items for the beds.

The resulting document highlights target industries and areas of business growth with a focus on marketing and business attraction, land use and development opportunities and infrastructure and workforce development. The action items represent the economic development work plan for the fiscal year and staff will present an annual update to city council to review progress over the previous fiscal year and propose the work plan for the following year. The proposed actions tonight are that the Council receive and discuss the VEDS and adopt the City Council resolution authorizing the adoption and implementation of the VEDS. This concludes my report. Staff are available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Okay, we have two speakers on this item. We'll start with Rachel Beld and then we'll hear from the Zoom caller with phone number ending in 1415. Ms. Beld.

Thanks, Mayor and Council. Just a quick comment to say that the Vista Chamber, that we appreciate the opportunity to participate in the VEDS committee. Working with Aaron, London, and the team was really great. I'm excited for the VEDS strategy as it's presented. It's an ambitious work plan over the next three years, but there's already great energy behind this work, and I'm excited to hear your feedback on what you think of it. And it was great working with our two council representatives, council member Fox and Melinda's on the committee as well. So thank you for your support. It's important to have basically a roadmap for how economic development staff, the chamber, the city, and how all of our partners can work together to stimulate economic activity in our city. So thanks so much.

Now we'll hear from the Zoom caller with phone number 1415.

I just wanted to point out that I actually did have my hand up for the last item. The conflicts of interest item. And would it be OK if I address that to within my speech on this item.

You have 3 minutes I'll allow that.

Okay, cool. Great. Okay, so here we go. Gwen Swallow here. And I honestly don't even know which angle to approach this thing because it's entirely gross. And it comes across like there are people coming to our county trying to instill justice. Yet what they're actually instilling is divisiveness, chaos and hate. And there's no room for that within San Diego County. So if you want to talk about policies, stick to policy. You want to expose corruption? Great. You want to call out government abuse? I'm right there with you, baby. You want to defend children and people who cannot defend themselves? Absolutely. But when you start going after consenting adults and making their private lives and personal choices your political playground? Nope. That's where you lose me and a lot of people, quite frankly, okay? So people's private lives are none of your concern. And when we're talking about especially consenting adults, people who claim to be libertarians, because I was the first party who actually promoted same-sex marriage before it was a thing between Republican and Democrat, okay? Libertarians were the ones who did that. So... Honestly, I'm still trying to figure out what the heck people are doing here within our county and what their purpose is. So, yeah, I'm hearing a whole lot of noise, but nothing else. And although this being presents themselves as being mature, you're coming across as juvenile. And you're calling out people's lifestyles, yet you go into churches and Dress the way you're dressed, the audacity. And it's just, gosh, there's so much more. Honestly, I'm not here to judge. But at the same time, I will call out the ones who are judging. And until the jackassery continues, I will be here. Because my county is in need of people calling out the corruption, the fraud, waste, and abuse. And anybody claiming to be Christian, well, at least, well, I'm not even going to go that route. But it's just so funny. It's just so funny how these people, my tongue is sharp. My tongue is sharp. I have so much more to say, but I will end for now. And also to the mayor, senor, please don't lie when you're speaking to the young people.

Please hold your applause. Our next speaker is Judy Stroyer on Zoom.

Yeah, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Wow, you could let these women go on and on like that last speaker. I can't believe you guys tolerate that. That's great. Good for you guys. Free speech wins in Vista. We'll see if you guys could stick with that. I applaud what Adina Flores is doing in your city. And she's fighting for regular people. So what I'd like to talk about is the Jews shutting down free speech in the United States using the ADL to silence criticism of genocide. But they obviously got away with that over the last three years. But they also silence Americans.

This is not relevant to the item being discussed in your comments at this juncture required to be relevant to the item being discussed. So we'll suspend that. You can wait for oral communications if you want to speak. Next is Council Member Melendez.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you so much, staff, for your presentation on this VISTA economic development strategy update. It was great to work with Council Member Fox and all of the other committee members. We had a great showing from our local business community. really covering a whole range of areas, right? We had folks that are in the restaurant industry, folks that are involved in local media, folks that really care about our local brewing scene that has really become renowned in our region, right? We have a lot of talent here in Vista, some really incredible people. And having grown up here in Vista, born and raised, you know, this has always been a place that I believed where people can make an opportunity for themselves. And our Vista Economic Development Strategy working with our committee has been designed so that our folks here in VISTA can have more opportunities. It was really important for me to make sure that there was language in our plan that gave opportunities to small businesses, right? Gave opportunities to businesses of all sizes. That also expanded areas that we feel like we're not getting enough focus. And one of those areas for me is tourism and hospitality. Like I said, I grew up in Vista my whole life. We live in the most beautiful place in the world, right? We see our... our neighbors like Oceanside and Carlsbad, they are booming with tourism because they have the ocean right there. And there's a lot of drawbacks to that because what is the public benefit to all of those new tourist-based businesses, right? What we can do is design a economic development strategy that will allow for more opportunities while also providing a really great public benefit back to the community. In my first four years on the council, I accomplished everything I promised I would do. We have new affordable housing. We have better infrastructure and safety on our streets. We have sustainability policies for our future. And moving forward, I really wanted in this next term to focus on our economic opportunities for everyone in Vista, making sure that we have a strong tax base for the future to continue projects. And our local businesses are a really big part of that. So I'm really honored to have been able to work with those businesses. But also, one of the things that we can focus on in the future is arts and culture. And that's another thing that you'll see in this VEDS document, is that there's a really big highlight of what does our local talent have to offer? And so I want everyone, as we review this document, as my council reviews it and approves it, to understand that this is meant to be for our entire community. If we feel like there's anybody who's being left out in this process, or if we find that maybe there is a strategy that could be a little stronger, let's go ahead and talk about it. But we do have this strategy up for every three years, so it has to be something that's attainable. And I think in the next three years, something that's very attainable for us is to provide more opportunities for arts and culture, and hospitality and for people to come and visit, enjoy our city, spend their good money here and give some resources back into our community. That's really my hope. And I would love to hear my council's feedback on this process, but I really had a wonderful time. I know that there's a lot of work to do. There's a lot of action items, but I think that it was a very fair and accessible plan for everyone. And I'm really proud of the work we were able to do. And thank you to staff and all the committee members. You did a really great job.

Councilmember Contreras.

Yeah this is a fantastic just fantastic goals and I really appreciate the way that it's outlined. Thank you to everybody on the committee. I was part of the first VEDS and it was a surprise when we were able to realize so many of those goals. So I'm looking at you know some of the goals here and For example, the enhance economic mobility and elevate workforce training, and I think these objectives are critically important. Someone who grew up here in Vista, I was really limited in understanding what kind of workforce opportunities there are at a young age, because I was really limited by the network of opportunities that I saw in my own family, which were very, very limited. And now as an adult, I see that there are so many different pathways, but I know that a lot of our youth and our families just aren't aware of those. So the more that we can build really clear pathways for people to succeed, to become entrepreneurs themselves as well. I think that's critical. We can continue to expand economic opportunity and mobility here in Vista. This really sets us up to continue to grow these opportunities. I remember not too long ago I was at the North County Economic Development Summit And I was sitting at my Vista table and we high-fived because we saw that there were only two cities in North County that had positive economic growth and Vista was one of them. And it's because of the work of this council, of our business community, our staff, our residents working together where we can continue that trend. It is incredible that such a small city, 100,000 people, 19 square miles, has the type of economic engine that we do, and we're looking to roar it and grow it bigger. I just want to say something because I'm feeling the heat. Are you all hot out there? Do we need to turn the AC up? It's at max. Okay, we're going to have to figure this out because... Climate change is real, and we are feeling the impacts every single day, including in an air-conditioned building that doesn't feel like it has too much AC right now. So I apologize for that. We'll try and see what we can do to figure that out in the future. But, yeah, great job. I also think... seeing Front Wave Arena open, seeing that there's more opportunities for tourism here in the future. And I do think that we can be a resilient community that has, that's a place where people wanna come, bring their family, bike, go walk around, go to the Moonlight, go to the Avvo, our downtown plan, one day we can realize that and have a public plaza in our historic downtown. All these things are going to continue to push us forward and make sure that folks get the economic opportunities that they deserve. And so for anybody out there who wants to look at this document and offer any advice, comments, recommendations, please send them over to us. We wanna continue to make sure that we have as much community participation, because this is what they call a living document. So to all you students, You're going to be inheriting this planet and this economy. Let us know if there are gaps here that you see that you want us to take a look at and embed into this plan. But thank you for all the hard work that's gone into this. I'm very excited to adopt this.

Deputy Mayor.

I will echo all the same comments, and I'm ecstatic to see so many young individuals out here. You really are the wave of the future. Your opinion matters. Your voice matters. Do not be afraid to use it. Please give any feedback, not just about this, but always to your city council, to your government officials, whoever it might be, because it is very important and valuable to us. I echo all the same comments my council members have made regarding this list. I think it's fantastic. I want to thank our committee for working on this, Council Members Contreras and Fox, as well as staff for your hard work. I'm sorry, Melendez, thank you. There's only a couple things in here that kind of stuck out to me. So item number 12, we talk about the hotel market study. Are these items listed in a priority rank, or how are we listing them most important, or how do we figure that out?

Thank you Deputy Mayor. So they're not listed in priority order. They're just kind of following the order of the goals in the plan.

So yeah, not in a particular priority. Okay. So the reason why I would just put that one lower is because we currently have two hotel projects that are not getting off the ground right now. The incentive piece of it that you have in item 13, I think, is really, really good. And if we can find a way to get developers that can be incentivized to come here and build hotels, especially in spaces, I mean, there's one that's been sitting approved since I was elected four years ago that hasn't gotten off the ground. They've gone through a different iteration and still can't get a shovel in the ground. There's another one on the south end of Melrose that, you know, approved for a project site, but it's so expensive to build right now. Not just hotels, but housing and everything that if we can find a way to bring them in i think that's something we should prioritize first when we're looking at what we're going to do with hotels in the city of vista because i'm sure there's other areas in our city whether it be downtown, off the exits, wherever it might be that could benefit from a hotel, but I would prioritize that one first. The other thing is item number three. We had the craft beverage marketing program. This is less for you two and more for our city attorney and city manager, but I know we approved wayfinding signs. It's gotta be eight to 10 months ago and nothing has been done yet. I know that there was an issue with design. and needed to come back, but what is the delay on that, and when can we expect them to be put into the business park?

I don't have an answer for you, but we are working on it with the consultant to come up with a uniform design that we can push through the park, so I'll get the status on that and bring it back to council.

With respect, I'm gonna push back on this a little bit, because we have approved wayfinding signs in our downtown area, correct?

Yes, the problem with the concept that was created for the business park is it was not conforming to our traffic manual, so we had to go back and do a more uniform sign. So coming up with something that met all the criteria that Council wanted us to include in this wayfinding program while still being generic to the brewery industry and the business park has proved to be challenging. So we're getting there.

If there is something that can be equally as beneficial but we can scale back a bit, I'm happy to bring it back before the council and work with the chamber and work with our businesses just because I think it's important to try and highlight that. So that's not on you. I know that there's an issue with it. I'll follow up. But if we can do that sooner rather than later, I think that'd be great. The only other thing that I would mention, so this past weekend I had an opportunity to recognize Carlsbad Pet and Feed, which is oddly enough located in Vista off Sycamore and Melrose, on their 10-year anniversary as well as Aztec Brewery on their 15-year anniversary. So I bring that up because it provides a great... benefit to them to be highlighted for their remarkable achievements. And so if we can build something into this as far as a social media platform or marketing, it doesn't have to be expensive. It doesn't have to be crime. It's literally, it was just handing out a proclamation, talking a little bit about what they do and just making sure that the public was aware that they were there. And the amount of people and eyes that have been on that, you know, I don't recommend going on Nextdoor very often, but I posted one of them on Nextdoor. And I mean, it's reaching from Rancho Santa Fe all the way to Oceanside and everywhere in between. So the eyeballs that are getting on there to see what's there. So if we don't have that plan in place, and I know that we might, but we should definitely be working with our businesses to find out when their five, 10, 15 year anniversaries are. So that way we can start highlighting them and I see Ms. Bell in the back over here. I think it'd be a great idea. I know not everybody is a member of the chamber though. So if we can work with our local businesses as well to either get them to be members of the chamber or just get that information, I think it'd be really beneficial and we can work on that from the city standpoint. Other than that, great job.

Council Member Contreras.

I just have to say, Deputy Mayor, that is a fantastic recommendation. I love it. I think that's great. Being able to highlight our businesses at those milestones, it just makes, it makes a big difference. So thank you for bringing that up. And I think that's definitely something that can be integrated. And then I also echo your sentiments on the wayfinding because I thought that It was going to be a lot easier, but apparently we're running into roadblocks. So anything that we can do to bring that to fruition is great, especially because there's just a lot of hidden gems in the business park. And when you're driving through there, you have no idea. No idea that there's all these cool businesses that you can visit that are doing really great work, that are employing people. So thank you for making sure that we... bring our wayfinding to fruition in any way that we can do it on a smaller timeframe would be great.

Council Member Fox.

Thank you, Mayor. Just first, I think maybe it was last year, I think I pestered Kathy into creating me a list of businesses with their anniversary dates, and I just never followed up on it. So that is something that I would love to work with you on if you're interested in it. Yeah, but other than that, I just wanted to thank the rest of my committee, including my fellow council member who sat on that with me. It was a really great experience for me, and I think we got a lot of really good work done Every single person on that committee had some really impressive ideas and shocked me in a good way. Pretty much every conversation, it was, of course, that's such a great idea. Why didn't I think about that on pretty much everything we talked about, which is a super cool experience. I think the two things that stood out the most for me that I thought was a little bit different than we had done things in the past was, number one, how well it integrated with a lot of the other plans. The fact that we are coming out with our general plan SOON THAT THAT'S SOMETHING THAT'S A WORK IN PROGRESS GAVE US THE OPPORTUNITY TO INTEGRATE REALLY WELL INTO IT WITH THE DIFFERENT OPPORTUNITY AREAS THAT ARE BEING CALLED OUT IN THE GENERAL PLAN AND US BEING ABLE TO TIE OUR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INTO THE AREAS THAT WE ARE LOOKING TO WE ARE DEEMING OPPORTUNITY AREAS AND LOOKING TO be able to create more economic impact in. And then the other was starting with our core values. And so that was another piece that I think was a very important exercise for us was to create a lens for us to look at all these goals and all these objectives and all these action items through of what are our values here? What do we want to do with this strategy? And how do we want to gauge ourselves on whether this was successful or not? So we in there had a lot of things like... MAKING SURE THAT WE HAD TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY, THAT WE WERE KEEPING TRACK OF HOW THINGS WERE GOING, REPORTING OUT CONSISTENTLY, THAT WE WERE MAKING SURE THAT EVERYTHING IN HERE, THERE WAS OPPORTUNITY FOR EVERYONE, NOT JUST FOR A SPECIFIC GROUP IN ANY ONE OF THESE, EVERY ONE OF THESE GOALS. AND SO I THOUGHT THAT WAS SOMETHING THAT I WAS REALLY HAPPY THAT WE STARTED WITH THE ENTIRE PROCESS WITH. AND SO THOSE TWO REALLY STOOD OUT TO ME. AND THEN I WAS ALSO REALLY I really liked how ambitious that we were with the goals, or with the action items. Because, you know, it was... It would be easy to just... take the low hanging fruit and just stop there and then wait for next year to keep going. But, um, you know, our staff was, was, uh, they, they wanted to be ambitious with it and, and, you know, if, if give us something to shoot at and then we can, you know, as long as we're, that, that makes it so we can actually, if we don't hit everything, we still did way more than we would have if we didn't. So, um, thank you again to all the staff and to the rest of my committee members. It was a really great experience. And I think, I think this is going to be a very powerful tool for Vista for the next three years. And do we need a motion for this? It's a discussion, so. Okay, then I'd like to make a motion to accept staff's recommendations and receive the economic development strategy and adopt council resolution, well, I guess it's not in there, but that's okay. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor.

Second.

Council Member Melendez.

Whoa, hold your horses. We had a couple of modifications. Yeah, do we want to give direct feedback to staff on marketing program? I heard feedback on anniversary program for businesses. These action items are so specific. The reason why I want to ask is because everybody's going to be working really hard over the next three years to get this done. So just making sure, Erin, do you have enough with the feedback that you've received tonight to maybe we can amend the motion to accept staff recommendations alongside consensus from the council?

Yeah, that works. Yeah, I'd be happy to amend the motion for that.

And please let me know if there's consensus for this last item. I do want to just make one adjustment. So under goal one, we're focusing on strengthening our manufacturing and maker ecosystem. And the language here is focused on the business park. which I know is a really important area for our manufacturing businesses. But we have a number of industrial zones throughout the city. There's a number in District 3. And in some recent R&D where I was able to visit another city and visit a brewery with great food food and atmosphere that was within kind of this industrial area that really reminded me of some of my neighborhoods in district three. So I would really love to expand the language of this manufacturing and maker ecosystem to be more all encompassing to some of the other industrial areas of the city. So if you would support me in that, I would really appreciate it.

Absolutely. Deputy mayor.

All I was going to say is that, yes, I do accept the friendly amendment to that.

Councilmember Contreras.

Yeah, that's a great idea. I mean, there's some on North Melrose in my district, so I am 100% in support of that amendment.

Okay, we have a motion and a second. Please cast your votes. That item is approved unanimously. Just gonna take about a two-minute recess here. Don't go anywhere for long. Let our students clear out, get their signatures. Don't forget to read your constitution, students. It's very important. I agree, we should have had some constitutions.

You should have added that to the...

I'll bet our congressman's office would have given them to us. Write to your congressman. He'll send you a constitution.

Thank you.

Our conscripted audience left. Okay, we're gonna go ahead and come back to order. Our next item is regarding the Avvo Playhouse Priority Maintenance. If any member of the public wish to speak on this item, they may indicate so by using the raise your hand feature by pressing star nine or submitting a request to speak. Our speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our Recreation and Community Services Director, Margaret Hammer, will introduce this item.

Good evening, Honourable Mayor Franklin, Deputy Mayor O'Donnell, and Council Members Contreras, Melendez, and Fox. We're here tonight with the item with my colleague, Operations Manager Shelby Coghren, to discuss the Avil Playhouse Priority Maintenance that we previously reviewed, and you wanted to have it come back so that you could see what our priorities were. I wanted to start though and just highlight that the Avvo is truly downtown Vista's cultural arts landmark. I heard you just previously discussing the Vista economic development strategy and I know that the Avvo really is that iconic location in the designated arts and culture district that was established in 2015. So it's really a pivotal building and icon there in downtown Vista. It pops out, that's a view from Palm Drive, and it just pops out of downtown as really a highlight. And as you can see in the past picture, just a great spot for gathering and appreciating the arts. So why? And I'll state it again, you know, why do we want to make this investment in the Avvo? As you heard just recently in the last item, was the one-year action item that was listed, and one of those items was Avvo Playhouse Improvements. So, we know this is really important, not only to us in Recreation and Community Services and our cultural arts lovers, but also our business community. So, really the AWO is developed into so many of the different goals and action items to showcase arts and entertainment as a destination for Vista. Another item that was in the VEDS plan is a arts and culture plan. We are working with the Public Arts Commission on that. We've already launched a survey, and we'll be developing highlights and different items that we believe are a priority for arts and culture in VISTA. Some of the items already listed, although is mentioned, you know, people would like to see more. They would like to be more involved. They want more access. So we know that music and entertainment is very important to the Vista community. A quick review of the items that have already happened is the committee that you developed in 2024. They met for over a year and they had these recommendations in 2025 and that was on the top of it was performing the deferred maintenance with upgrades. At that time it was 1.3 million and it has already increased 40% a year later. So I wanted to emphasize that as well. It's fine to delay things but they do just increase in costs. I just heard your hotel comment, and I feel like anything that we're trying to develop or do is... Is that a materials cost that you're speaking of? that is improvements of that we're finding deferred maintenance for the avo yes um so other these were other items that you had from your appointed committee was just transforming the avo increasing the number of rentals incentivize avo theater in near term to increase awareness and opportunities which downtown vista and avo and plug did very successfully Changing the rental hours, we recently had done it from a 10 hour block to a five hour block, and we'll review doing hourly options in the future. So again, where are these allocating funding will come from. Another mention was city hire staff to promote, book and manage the OVO, which right now we don't have additional staff, but The Cultural Arts Division still does oversee that. And then last but not least, the city released an RFP in November 2025 that was non-responsive because it included the deferred maintenance. So we know that an operator could be very impactful for this program, but they're not willing to do the deferred maintenance. We know that's important. I just wanted to give a quick snapshot of rentals. We know it did increase in 25-26 with the accent of Downtown Vista and Alva Unplugged. So we saw a lot of different fun and engaging different activities that happened there and really opened the doors for some different engagement. And now I'm gonna go over the priority list. Working with Public Works and our Cultural Arts Division and everybody taking a look at it, we identified different buckets. It doesn't mean that you have to just select one bucket. I'll go over it in detail. But these are the different priorities. The total is over 1,800,000. And again, those costs have increased since the last year. So as you can see, the aesthetic improvements, everything from replacing carpet, front doors, restaining the exterior and repainting, 123,000. The audience experience, which I know is a priority for everybody, is the sound and video, 120,000. Energy efficiency, something to think about as being important is if it's going to be more activated and people will be there more, this will lower the price if we're more energy efficient. So replacing ceiling lights, all the different lights with LED, lighting upgrade to dimmable, seating area, and replace the marquee with digital displays, $410,000. This is the big bucket, safety priority. Listed are the seating area, new ceiling tiles, replaced theater seats. They are quite worn down and we do get complaints about those. The sign tower needs to be replaced or rebuilt. We've been told that the wood ladder is wearing and there is leaking of water. And then upstairs subflooring needs to be replaced. So this is obviously the highest ticket item. We did go back to our different stakeholders, the people who use the Avvo more regularly, which was Downtown Vista, and they shared what they were interested in. There is a newly formed nonprofit called the Friends of the Avvo. They also shared their interest, the Sign Tower Sound and Video. We, of course, consulted with the Moonlight Cultural Foundation They are a huge fundraiser for Moonlight Stage Productions, and they operate youth theater there. So they also gave us their top three. We also shared with our staff at Moonlight Stage Productions. They're the operators. They are the staff that are in there running the boards, interacting with the renters. And of course, they'd love to see the full coverage, but also ranked some different priorities. And then we took it to our Vista Public Arts Commission asking for their input as well. Theirs was a little bit lighter. They talked about how they could help with the painting and maybe some engagement. One of the commissioners mentioned, you know, capital campaigns or grants. And we do work with our grant administrator here at the city and we know that she is also always looking for grants. So this discussion carries no direct fiscal impact. The full deferred maintenance estimate is 1,803,000. Funds are not currently budgeted, but we previously discussed maybe year-end funding to the project in November, 2026. and we wanted to present this for you all to have an opportunity on what you would like to prioritize and we introduce you to discuss the next steps for the Avvo Playhouse and what you would like to see when this comes back or what you would like to prioritize depending on the funding when it comes back in November.

Thank you very much. Next we're going to hear from Bill Hornung.

Good evening, everybody. We were part of the Avvo Unplugged program. So we've had some experience, did about a dozen events in there. First of all, kudos to the whole staff that helped us neophytes do a lot of these events. So we can't say enough about that. The one thing we just kind of wanted to talk about was, number one, the Avvo's good to go. right now. I mean, we had 12 events in there. People loved it. And I know money is always an issue on these things. And so if there is any priority that needs to happen, as Margaret mentioned, the audio and video is really key to everything. That's the only complaint we ever received from anybody. It's like, The audio wasn't working, the video's kind of minimized. But we know safety is obviously a priority and we understand that. The only thing we suggest is maybe to go look again at the ceiling tiles and the seats now that the roof is repaired. Maybe it's not quite as much of an issue. And if some of that money, as Margaret mentioned, I think is really important, that some of that money could be moved into programming. Because we could have the best facility in the world, but if you don't have great programming in there, nobody's going to show up. And we kind of learned that through the experience we had. The other item I wanted to mention, shout out to JJ Abera here. The Friends of the Yavo is just starting to form a nonprofit. So there's a group of businesses downtown that are very interested in really seeing this get activated a lot more. And they're trying to put their weight behind that as well. So I think there's a ton of support for what's happening there. Like I said, the priorities is going to be up to you, obviously. But key thing is the experience, number one, in our view of things. And then assuming everybody's safe. And then some of this other stuff that's a little more aesthetic. Right now, people are not complaining about it a whole lot. but it always would be helpful. Thanks.

Thank you. Next we'll hear from the caller ending in 1415. Please keep your comments germane to the subject matter. Yeah, that caller is not present when called upon. We'll now close the opportunity for public comment, and we will hear from Council Member Melendez.

Thank you. Thank you so much for this presentation and to our speakers and friends of the OVO, really appreciate everyone being here for this discussion. So this is coming back to us with more detail and I really appreciate that. I think my favorite is this page, the community and stakeholder inputs. I really love this approach, right? Because I can look at this list of costs and pick my favorite things that I think are the priority. And I think I'd get pretty close to the right idea. But when we bring in some stakeholder feedback, we get a clearer picture. And it sounds like safety is a priority for a lot of groups. That being the ceiling tiles, am I understanding that right? Would that be the biggest safety imperative? And is that because we're afraid of them falling on people's heads while they're watching a show?

I'm not a building expert, but they have fallen. So it has happened and those complaints have come forward. So, yes.

Well, I would agree that that's important. It does put a liability on the city for us to not have our facilities up to date. It could be an even greater cost if there are damages to someone because our facilities are not up to date when we have been made aware that they need to be updated. So I would prioritize that. But then I would also prioritize the audience experience with the audio visual. I think that in and of itself will help with programming. We'll get a lot more acts and opportunities there. And then I really love the Arts Commission recommendations for painting. The exterior, I think employing local artists to paint the exterior while also saving costs for not having to restain, that's a great idea that's so community-oriented and what we need. And just speaking about being community-oriented, a couple of years ago, I started pushing for the Moonlight to have a little bit more attention. In my opinion, it's a public building. Just like if you're standing in the middle of a public park, there shouldn't be this big gate in the way, right? People should be able to access their public facilities. And so we started these conversations about reprogramming, reducing the cost of entry for people renting the facility. We were able to get some just incredible talent coming through. I could not have asked for just a better response from the community of people that are involved in downtown businesses, right, people that are involved in some of the the AVO acts that have come through, that we need to have an inside-outside strategy for the work that we're doing here so that we can move things along. And the piloting of the AVO, right, it's been informal, right, but the informal piloting of the AVO as this cultural center and as this amazing venue I think has gone really well. And so I would like the council to think seriously about how are we going to next invest in this facility to get the most public benefit? And that includes two things. One, being able to break even, right? Being able to book the venue so that you know, the costs that we're putting in to make it better are actually coming back in and we're able to have good business accounts for this facility. And then secondly, to really enhance the public benefit of the space, making sure that it is accessible, safe, that people can pay for reasonably priced tickets in order to enjoy and act downtown. So I think those would be my two priorities is accessibility and cost while also being able to make this a project that we can maintain the cost of overall. So we'd love to hear from my council members of what you think the most pressing items are for us, whether it's safety, whether it's lighting, really appreciate everybody's feedback. And I love how this has been presented. It's very helpful for us moving to the next step.

Deputy Mayor.

Thank you for the work on this. I really do appreciate it. I agree the Avvo is a gem downtown. I'm a bit of a nostalgic, so if we do end up getting rid of the big sign, I think we should move it over to the Vista Historical Museum because I just think that's a piece of our city and our history that should not be just tossed in the trash. Just my opinion. Don't know if we can do it, but I think it'd be a great idea. I honestly, God, I don't want to see this piecemealed. I think that when you see the cost increase by 40% over the course of 12 months, I know that in the future we're going to be facing, I don't want to call them financial downturns, but hurdles that might exist, especially with the amount of year-end fund balance. So my priority would be to do all of it at once, or at least fund all of it at one time, prioritize that in the year-end fund balance once we put our reserve portion away and see what other items might be available. If you've ever heard the expression, it's like trying to staple jello to the ceiling. It just doesn't work. I don't want to piecemeal this because once you start doing one thing after another and then you might defer it again for another three years or two years and then you just find yourself with a bigger problem. And if we are truly trying to activate it and get an RFP out there for somebody who might want to come in and activate the space, I think that once the all the improvements are completed, it just gives us a better opportunity to have more individuals that would be interested in it. But I agree with all the comments that are made about programming. I think it's extremely important that we move that forward so we can break even and if not be profitable on it, so we can invest in REINVEST IT BACK INTO THE ABO IS WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO DO WITH ANY PROFIT THAT WE RECEIVE. BUT THAT'S WHAT I'M AT. I DON'T KNOW IF WE NEED A MOTION THIS EVENING, RIGHT? THIS IS JUST DIRECTION TO STAFF. SO THAT'S WHERE I'M GOING TO BE AT, AT YEAR END FUND. SO IF WE HAVE THE MONEYS AVAILABLE, THIS WOULD BE MY PRIORITY TO JUST DO IT ALL AND GO FROM THERE. BUT IT WILL BE UP TO THE REST OF THE COUNCIL. BUT THOSE ARE MY THOUGHTS.

COUNCIL MEMBER CONTRAS.

So how much do we have set aside for the Avvo right now? Do we have any set aside?

I think we have $250, if I'm not mistaken. I think that was spent on the roof. Yeah, so we don't.

Okay, so one of the things too that might be important is adding this to our legislative advocacy as one of the goals, right? I think that will happen soon enough where we get to talk to electeds higher up and ask Hey, can you get us some money here in Vista so we can have our economic engine roaring? And that's how we got the $250,000, so maybe there's more there. I wanted to, I like your comment, Deputy Mayor, about just trying to do it all at once. I mean, honestly, I would love to do it all at once. I'm wondering, too, what the downtime for construction looks like. Probably if we, the more that we can do at once, then we can have less delays, right, and make sure that the calendar is free and open. And I think the calendaring might be something that we need to work on, too, make it very accessible to the public. So I'm in favor of that. I just don't know how much of the money we're going to have because it's a pretty significant cost. But I would love to just see this get done. When it comes to safety, part of the safety, let me go scroll back up. So replace the theater seats. Are we replacing all the theater seats or are we leaving some of the front rows empty so that there could potentially in the future be dancing when it is prohibited or unprohibited in the future? Because I may have been there at an event where folks wanted to dance and it's really hard to do that when the seats are all the way up to the stage. I think it could lend itself to becoming a more dance-friendly venue sometimes, and I don't think that losing some of those seats would be detrimental. So when we're looking at replacing the theater seats, what is the scale? Is it a one-for-one, or are we looking at maybe doing it slightly different?

I do believe there's seats that are damaged and it would be difficult just to replace a handful of them. So I do believe it would be a complete renewal of the seats. I did mention to our public works team that you had mentioned those two rows or three rows. And they did say that's a very simple change. And they can just, you know, they can flatten that space and fill the holes where the seats were. So that is a very easy fix. But when it mentions the seats, it is because some of them are deteriorating or there's wood scraping. And again, those are complaints that we have received. So we've been made aware of that. So if you're going to replace a few, you should be replacing them all.

And the seats are how old? I don't have the exact date, but I believe they're over 30 years old at least. So much so that the company, the seats that are in there, they no longer exist. They don't make them. So we would have to get a new set so that everything matched.

Fantastic. Okay, yeah, I just want to, and maybe... you know, before, I would assume that this would probably come back to council with some more scope of work and, you know, maybe other dollar figures since we're seeing that this is increasing it might be even higher but so we'll bring it back when we do the year-end fund balance to talk about what we're going to put into it but then all the contracts for the most part that were over my authority would come back to council so all the construction details will come back to you yeah i think that would just be good just to and i mean this is just coming from me i don't know how the rest of my council feels i don't know how the community feels but I do know how they felt when I was there and they wanted to dance and we couldn't, it was really hard. I mean, people still did it. I may have been one of them, but, um, so that is just a comment, but I would love to be able to see kind of like those specs and just maybe that's even a community workshop at the Avvo where we can even see, you know, and, and have the community come in. I, you know, I love opening up the Avvo. It's like my favorite thing. Um, And we always get people, it's their first time ever being in that building, right? So thank you so much for putting all this together. I would be super happy if we had all the funds to be able to do it at year-end fund balance. I think if we don't, we definitely need to conquer the safety as a priority and the sound and video for the audience experience. I think those two things are... are my priorities if we only have a certain amount of funding. And I love deputy mayor save the sign. I would hate for that sign to go, honestly, even if it gets, if we, you know, modernize the AVO. I mean, it's just, I know that there's issues with getting the lights and stuff like that. It's just such a cool sign and it just really sets the downtown apart. So thinking of the AVO not having, you know, the big neon sign on the top is, is, Yeah, it's kind of sad to me. If we could figure out a way to retrofit that, it would be amazing. Let's see. Oh, yeah. Friends of the Avo, amazing. Thank you so much. I think that's great to see this community going in that direction. And then huge, it was huge to move it from 10 hours to five hours, and it will be even bigger. better once we can reduce it below five hours. I thought I heard a one hour, maybe that could be cool, but even just getting down to the three hours would be amazing because the more that we can make it affordable for community to access it and different acts to access it, then there's more of a profit margin for them. There's more people going to the events and our businesses in downtown can really, um, have the help that they need. So those are my only questions and comments at this time. Thank you so much.

Council Member Fox.

Thank you. Yeah, I also would be very upset if we found out the sign was irredeemable in this process. But hopefully if we can retrofit it, and if not, we can make something very similar that pays a good ode to it. Because, yeah, I think we'd make a lot of people very sad if that got removed. My first question was on the sound and video, are we sure that that budget is adequate? Because I know that some audio equipment and for full speaker stacks and some of that and video equipment, just working on the very basic level of professional video and sound on my side can be extremely expensive. And so when I see round numbers and these kinds of things, I'm like, is that placeholder? Are we confident that we can get a pretty good system for that?

I believe that is for the video being for a projector and a screen and then a new sound board. So not necessarily a full system, but a board.

And is that, I think that's something we'll probably have to talk to community and see if that's, that's adequate. You know, if, if they, if the, um, actual sound equipment if if all of it is is deficient or just the soundboard itself because i think that that audience experience piece um is obviously what people have been asking for for you know directly for a good long time um and obviously with the safety pieces we don't want it's gonna be more expensive to have a tile fall on someone's head than it is to get new tiles. So I think that that's a no-brainer. I do think that I'm a little shocked that it's $350,000 for ceiling tiles. Like that's, I think those are things are made out of drywall or something, but you know, I'm sure you guys did your research, but that shocked me. It's the current year, I guess. So that was a little shocking. I know lighting was another thing. The dimmable LEDs was originally kind of a little bit more in the audience experience section as well. I know that some people were talking about how not being able to dim the lights made it tough for certain types of acts and things like that as well. So that would be something I'd be interested in potentially moving over there or, you know, depending on how we prioritize things. A PROGRAMMING BUDGET, I THINK THAT IS AN INTERESTING CONVERSATION. I'D LOVE TO TALK OFFLINE WITH SOME OF THE GROUPS THAT ARE LOOKING TO DO SOME OF THAT AND SEE WHAT THAT WOULD LOOK LIKE. I'M ALSO CURIOUS IF THAT WOULD TECHNICALLY FALL UNDER THE LINE OF FUNDABLE BY CDBID, NOT TO COMPLETELY BRING UP SOMETHING THAT, YOU KNOW, OPEN AN ENTIRE CAN OF WORMS WITH THAT, WHICH I MIGHT HAVE JUST DONE. BUT IF THAT, YOU KNOW, IT IS A DOWNTOWN EVENT THAT POTENTIALLY COULD PULL PEOPLE INTO THE AREA. I don't know. Sorry, CVBID, if I just opened up a can of worms. And then also, along the same lines of the Friends of the Avo and a lot of that, the nonprofit being formed around it, is there some fundraising opportunities for things? I know when I took a tour of it, A FEW MONTHS BACK WE DID SEE THAT SOME OF THE UPFRONT SEATS DID HAVE PEOPLE'S NAMES THAT SPONSORED THE ORIGINAL AVO. IS THAT SOMETHING OBVIOUSLY IF WE DO REMOVE THE FIRST COUPLE SEATS IT WOULD BE NICE TO KIND OF TAKE THOSE NAMES AND MAYBE MOVE THEM BACK A LITTLE BIT AND NOT JUST THROW THEIR SEATS AWAY BUT ALSO TO POTENTIALLY REOPEN THAT WITH SOMETHING NEW. I KNOW A LOT OF PLACES DO BRICKS WITH YOUR NAME ON IT OR SOMETHING BUT IS THAT AN OPPORTUNITY FOR ANY KIND OF FUNDING FOR FUNDRAISING

I believe anytime you're renovating or reimagining a space, it's always an opportunity to get the community involved, as Council Member Contreras had said, bringing everybody in, talking about it, and seeing what the appetite is for the local community. We know that the Moonlight Cultural Foundation is very also much connected to that space, and now we have a Friends of the Yavo, so there really is, you know, developing and expanding base for care and investment in the space.

And we'd have to partner with a nonprofit to do that, correct? We wouldn't be able to go out and try to fundraise on our own as a... Or would that be weird?

I do believe we could fundraise. You know, it's not that it cannot be a municipality. Nonprofits have a 501c3 designation that municipalities do not have. So it does allow them to have more opportunity. But we write grants regularly for parks and all types of things. So I wouldn't say no. It would just have to be the appropriate one. But having that expansion of the Cultural Foundation and Friends of the a door to more.

Okay, that makes sense. And I think partnering with other people, you know, is probably better than trying to run it and go it alone anyway. So yeah, I think that that's, I also agree timing wise, this is something that, you know, it's one of those things that it's not going to get cheaper and the quicker we make the investment, then the quicker we start actually getting to use it and having benefits from it. You know, and so again, the pieces that are necessary, the safety things I think are just necessary out of pure, you know, it's going to be more expensive to not do them if something bad happens. uh you know some insurance up front is uh better than the alternative and then the audience experience piece is for sure so um yeah i think that's pretty much it from me but uh i think i'm um hopefully the rest of my council agrees and we'll see what goes

I haven't heard the plan to bring the paying customers in. If we just want to give community access, I don't think we need to spend a million plus dollars to give the community. I would just open the thing up and figure out how to remediate the actual safety issues. And I wouldn't replace every seat in the Avvo. I just replaced, I don't care if they match. Now, if you're going to bring programming, that's designed to be commercially successful and will pay for all these beautiful sound systems, whole new set of matching chairs, the $350,000 gold coffered ceiling. But here's the point that I'm trying to make. We're getting the cart ahead of the horse. The whole conversation should be first about the programming that's going to draw paying customers in. About alcohol sales, which is what's going to be necessary to have young people come listen to music and spend enough money that there's enough profitability. We got a great venue. It could be profitable. It could be commercially successful. But you got to dump a bunch of money into something that nobody's going to use. and it's gonna be just a sunk investment and it'll sit there and all these new chairs, they'll all go and it'll all be defunct in 30 years, but will it ever get used? So I would suggest setting this entire conversation aside until we've really come to agreement on what the programming is gonna be. And if it's just, if we're gonna have slam poetry on Thursday nights, that's fine. But I just don't see the need to re-outfit the thing with a million and a half dollars worth of improvements. Is that, what's the number we're talking about here?

Yes, it's a million and a half. A million and a half. 3,000.

Yeah, I don't wanna spend a million and a half for slam poetry. I mean, what are we talking about here?

I believe the goal in 2025 was the RFP to actually have an operator come in. Yeah, that's what we need. The entertainment and the serving.

We should be doing that instead of creating this. Yeah, please.

We did an RFP in 2025 with the AVO and the condition that it's in.

Right.

We got no responses. If we're going to have a programmer come in, we have to show them a nice facility that they're willing to take on and program. We're not going to program it. We're going to have a private entity come in and run a program that's going to generate revenue for us. So that's our plan. But nobody was willing to do it in the condition it was in. That's why we're recommending some improvements. We don't have to do 1.8 million, but we need to fix it up.

All I care about is that we don't proceed. I mean, we could set the money aside. But I just don't want to proceed with it without being in counsel with this operator because they have to embrace a vision. So I'd like to put something up and I'd love to see somebody put some equity into something. Maybe we get an operator that's willing to invest a half a million dollars and we put up 1.3 million and that way they've got some real equity in something and they've got a contractual entitlement and We want somebody that's gonna really try and make a go of it and make this thing successful.

Understood. So we will bring this back at the year end and we can decide what you want to put toward it, but we will pursue the operator and bring back maybe some information that we can get from them that was willing to participate in the prior RFP.

Yeah, I think if the council signals that we're willing to put up a million and a half dollars or a million eight or whatever, it sounds like what you're saying is you're going to have a very different interest level from operators. Okay, well, let's do that. But before we actually commit the money, I should say before we spend it, we can commit it. But before we expend it, let's talk to the people that we want to operate. Let's pick an operator that shares a vision with us and let's work cooperatively with them to plan the expenditure. And let's all be bought in on a vision. I mean, to get somebody who's gonna take a real risk maybe invest some capital and really make a go of it. You got to bring them in at this moment right now and say, let's talk together about what your vision is to make this thing successful. That's my thoughts. Council Member Melendez.

Thank you. I'm not opposed to what the mayor is suggesting, but as someone who enjoys downtown, actually goes out and patronizes our local businesses and goes to events hosted by Avvo Unplugged and You know, I enjoy the city that I live in. I'm just a short walk from downtown. You know, I don't believe the idea that the Avvo is destined to be an unsuccessful project for us to invest resources in. It is, at the end of the day, a publicly owned facility. So regardless of our intent, whether that's to make a lot of revenue or to just host poetry slams, we do have an obligation to public safety and making sure that things are up to date. That's why we're able to get the $250,000 from Assemblymember Laurie Davies to assist with some of those repairs. So those things are just essential. It's a responsibility for us as a municipality to take care of our facilities. But I do think that the Avvo can be a commercial success and I think that Avvo Unplugged and some of the independent acts that have come in have shown us in a piloting way that this is possible. And one of the groups that I don't want to, you know, miss out on acknowledging where we do have so many stakeholders, right? We of course have the expertise from the Recreation and Community Services. Thank you so much. We have AVO Unplugged. We have Downtown Vista. We have the Moonlight Cultural Foundation. We have the new friends of the AVO that's forming. But we also have IATSE, the International Alliance of Recreation stage employees and theatrical employees and we have a contract with them to provide their technical experience and their labor in the AVA when it's rented out. I have been meeting with them. I think we can make progress on how we arrange our programming and hours so that they are still able to have meaningful work, right? We have to we have to We have to sustain our current contracts, right? I'm not ready to just turn the OVO over to another entity. I wanna make sure that we're doing right by the relationships that we currently have. And the most important relationship that we have is with the public. So I'm totally open to partnerships. If there is an operator that wants to envision a revamped OVO with us, that would be amazing. We've already gone through that process and I'm happy to do it again. But it's definitely always going to have a public focus for me and make sure that there's always gonna be a public benefit and be as accessible as possible.

Deputy Mayor.

Mayor, my understanding what you wanna do is create another RFP with us expressing that we are willing to invest if we can find the right operator?

Yeah.

So I'm not entirely opposed to that. My only concern is I don't want to have another wave water park on our hands where this thing sits vacant now, you know, we're talking 1.8 million this year and then all of a sudden we're talking 5 million in a couple years from now. So I'm okay supporting what you want to do, but I still want to make sure that we are actively pursuing grants to try and get this because if we can get the funding to fix it up prior to that, then I'd still want to be finding mechanisms to try and fix the existing issues. But I actually like the idea, before we spend $1.8 million, seeing if there's an RFP we can put out and see if there is an operator that would be like, hey, now that we're going to be willing to fix all the issues that kept you away before, knowing that we'll invest the money, are you willing to come here and what can you bring us? And see if we get any bites on that. If we don't, then we're going to have a whole other conversation, I think, about how we're going to activate this space. But I like the idea, and I just want to give my comments on that.

I'm all about charging forward as long as it's not our general fund money. I mean, a little bit, okay, but a million-plus dollars, we've got a lot of... We have a lot of needs in the city. And then in addition to that, I think, you know, the great way to work with an operator is to, you know, is to sit down and counsel with them before we plan and make the expenditure that way. I mean, obviously we have, certain architectural, historical things that we wanna preserve. I mean, I'm 100% on board with getting the exterior illuminated signage rebuilt, get the old fluorescent turned into an LED, that kind of a thing, ensure it's long-term aesthetic for the next generation. I think that's very important. So, okay, it sounds like you got enough input on that. and stick around because our third item is regarding Luz Duran Park improvements. If any member of the public wish to speak on this item, they may indicate so by using the raise your hand feature by pressing star nine or submitting a request to speak card. Speakers will be called upon after the presentation. Our Recreation and Community Services Director, Margaret Hamer, will introduce the item.

For this item, I'd like to introduce Senior Engineer Gabe Grohe, who's been overseeing this project, and we're both available for questions after.

Thank you. Tonight, I'll be presenting an overview on the completed Luz Duran Park improvements, as well as options for future improvements at the existing building site. Capital improvements were completed in July, 2026 and include a new restroom facility with four individual user stalls, landscaping, and a shaded picnic area. The improvements also modified the on-street parking to include back-end diagonal spaces. This increased the overall parking capacity by 11 spaces. Staff also evaluated the existing 1,800 square foot building for future potential improvements. This building was previously used as the sheriff's substation prior to the relocation to Vista Village Drive. Based on its size and occupancy limitations, the building is more suitable for small meetings or classroom style uses rather than as a traditional community center. IN THEIR EXISTING GROUP B BUILDING OCCUPANCY CLASSIFICATION PROGRAMMING WOULD BE LIMITED TO 10 OCCUPANTS BASED OFF THE SQUARE FOOTAGE 150 SQUARE FOOT PER PERSON I WILL PRESENT FOUR PROJECT OPTIONS ON THE FOLLOWING SLIDES OF THESE OPTION THREE AND FOUR WOULD ALLOW FOR AN INCREASED OCCUPANCY THIS WOULD THIS WOULD REQUIRE CONVERSION TO A GROUP A3 ASSEMBLY OCCUPANCY CLASSIFICATION AND IT WOULD TRIGGER ADDITIONAL PARKING ANALYSIS AND BUILDING CODE UPGRADES So project option one has a budgetary estimate of 161,000 and includes demolition of the existing structure and conversion of the site into open parking space. Project option two has a budgetary estimate of 338,000 and includes a limited rehabilitation of the existing building. This option would primarily replace finishes and building components such as flooring, paint and roofing. However, it would maintain the existing interior layout and the group B occupancy classification. Project option three has a budgetary estimate 1.17 million and includes major rehabilitation and reconfiguration of the interior layout. This option would create a larger open space for meetings and community activities, but it would require significant modifications and replacement of various building systems. Project option four has a budgetary estimate, 1.48 million. This includes the same improvements as option three, but it also includes the conversion of the garage space. That garage space was what was previously used for the park restrooms prior to the new restroom being installed. Options three and four would allow the building to be converted into assembly use, allowing for larger occupancy. However, the parking requirements and other code compliance upgrades would need to be evaluated and incorporated in the project as necessary. So not included in these four budgetary estimates presented is the replacement or expansion of the existing building. Staff currently estimates that the site could accommodate a building footprint of approximately 3,000 to 4,000 square feet. A larger facility could potentially be feasible with future grant funding, which I will discuss next. So there's a current grant opportunity available through the California Strategic Growth Council's Community Resilience Center Program. This program funds the planning, construction, and retrofit of community resilience centers throughout California. This program is intended to strengthen community's capacity to prepare for and respond to emergencies while building long-term resilience. It encourages meaningful community engagement, cross-sector collaboration, community-based partnerships and shared governance and decision-making. It also helps mitigate the public health impacts of extreme heat and other emergencies impacted by climate change. The Community Resilience Center programs provides planning and implementation grants to develop neighborhood level resilience centers that provide sheltering and resources during climate emergencies. This program also supports and requires year round community services and programming. A minimum of two partner organizations are required as a part of the grant application. For this funding round, approximately $55 million is available statewide. The implementation grants are available for up to $10 million per award. The grant application deadline was extended to September 30th and grant awards are anticipated in spring of 2027. So the fiscal impact, the previous improvements at Luzerand Park and the new Sheriff's substation were funded through a $1.6 million OGAL state grant. This has been fully expended and is currently being closed out. There's an additional 40,000 in general capital project funds in the project, as well as the 1 million that was allocated during last year's year-end fund balance. Of the 1 million, 500,000 was allocated towards building rehabilitation, and 5,000 was allocated towards programming. Staff recommends that the City Council provide direction on the preferred improvements at Luskerand Park and adopt a resolution authorizing submission of the application to the Community Resilience Center's grant program. This concludes staff's presentation. We're available to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And now we have a caller ending in 1415. Okay, and they're not available when called upon. We'll proceed. We'll close the opportunity for public comment at this time.

We now have Magali S. Magali.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes.

Hello, my name is Magali Sosa. I am a resident of District 1, and I'm speaking... to urge the council to pursue grant funding for the building of a full community center for Luz Duran in the surrounding neighborhood. I live within walking distance to the park, and I think we are long overdue for a community space, especially compared to our neighbors in the city of Oceanside. They have multiple spaces like these that are always full of programming and community events, and I think We should have similar opportunities here. I'm part of a lot of different organizations in the community. I know we could use the meeting space. We could use a pooling center, especially as we continue to have these heat waves, as we saw for the past couple weeks. So please commit to pursuing the grant funding for this opportunity. Thank you.

Okay. Opportunity for public comment on this item is now closed. And we'll hear from Council Member Contreras.

Yeah, thank you so much for all the work that's gone into this. Thank you to our council. I brought this forward as a discussion before, and right now we just have $1 million set aside.

We have the remainder of the grant that we received from assembly member that we got back in 2024, I believe, or 2023 to move the sheriff's substation over. That was a $1.6 million grant. There's about 700,000 of that grant left, plus the million we set aside in the year-end fund balance.

Okay. So... First of all, I am so excited about the opportunity to go for big grant money. So we can go up to, we can go for how much with the grant money again? Is that 10 million?

10 million. So grants range from one million to 10 million.

And are we looking to go for the 10 million?

Yes, currently. It's a community resilience center. There's a lot of extra features. That's how it drives up. It would cost quite a bit.

Right. Is any of that funding of the 10 million, is any of it for programming or is it all hard costs for the capital improvements?

Yes, some of it will be for programming.

Okay, fantastic. So I would really implore the council to say heck yes to the $10 million grant. I think we should definitely go for it. The whole idea of a community resilience center is great. And, you know, right now... the temperatures that we're experiencing it being like 101 degrees the the only cool zones that we have are all in one district they're all over here and it just makes it really difficult for folks to get to a place where they can get some relief from the heat and we know that for seniors And for our youth, they're at higher risk of heat-related illnesses. So in my district, you know, there's a lot of density around Luz Duran Park. A lot of folks do not have AC. To be able to build a community resilience center is going to be huge, not just for District 1, but for the entire community. Thankfully with the fire, it was able to be extinguished, but we need to have a place that's an emergency center for folks that has that built in, and that's the whole idea of a community resilience center. And I learned about this some years ago, and now to see that there's a grant opportunity that we can go for is huge. For that $10 million price point, are we looking to do the maximum facility that we can by pursuing that $10 million grant?

Yes. Currently estimate around a 5,000 square foot. It would have to be a, if we went for the maximum size, we would have to go to a two story.

Yeah.

So, but we are looking at the maximum size.

Okay. And so that's what I was thinking. Maybe a two story. I mean, that's going to, it's just going to be important to communicate that to the neighbors as well. But a two-story would be great. Maybe there's one floor that can be available for community space, for rentals, for programming of different activities, and then maybe the second floor is kind of like a learning lab or something like that, right? I'm not sure, but definitely going for the maximum if we can. I highly encourage that. In the event that we don't get the funding, which I really hope we do, I mean, are we a little bit more competitive since we have this money set aside that we can, are we putting that in our application that, hey, we have money set aside, we're ready to leverage that money?

So we're including the $1 million as leverage funding. So I think that will make it more compatible, but it's hard to tell right now how many other agencies are applying.

Okay. Are we able to put the full amount in there, or is it just the $1 million? Because we have like $1.7 million, you said.

So the $700,000 was expended for all the restroom.

Okay, so that's gone.

So the grant is being closed out currently, the $1.6 million, and the $700,000 for the park was expended with the improvements that were completed. Okay.

Okay, yeah. So we only have $1 million set aside. And that was from the year-end fund balance. Okay, so... I just really hope that we get this. I don't know what else we can do to just let the state know this is a huge, huge, huge deal for the VISTA community to be able to have a community resilience center. But in the event that we don't receive the grant funding, We can't have a community center with an occupancy of 10. It's just like, there's just no way. I definitely want to see us have that occupancy at 4950. That does allow for some more community programming. Of course, it has a larger expense. You know, I think we... go for option four because that converting the garage to usable interior space and being able to expand the building a little bit more, I think it just makes sense to do that all at once. So I want to hear from the rest of my council what you all think, but this is super exciting and I'll go ahead and, you know what, I'll wait. I was going to make a motion, but I'll just wait to hear from my council. But please, let's at least go forward with applying for this $10 million grant. And if we don't get it, let's just do the full revamp, because it's a small footprint. And I'm gonna be lighting all my candles and saying my prayers for this $10 million.

Council Member Melendez.

Well, I think that this is a great update. I'm in complete agreement with our speaker and with the council member of this district that there needs to be a community center here. There's been a lot of great improvements to Luz Duran under Council Member Contreras' stewardship. There's been improved fencing so that folks aren't getting whacked in the head with basketballs while they're playing on the playground. There's been the playground improvements, the turf there or the kind of spongy texture. And this is just so needed. It's such an active park. It's beautiful over there. So we definitely want to provide that for the community. I support a full rehabilitation. But I want to make sure that we're shovel ready, ready to go. If there's any additional direction that you need from the council in order to submit these applications or request funds from higher level elected officials or apply for grants, if there's any more details that we can assist in covering, please bring those before us as soon as you can or if there's more sufficient information we can give you tonight. Yeah, I'm definitely ready to rehabilitate this space and offer it as a cool zone, community center, a space for just knowledge and empowerment for our community. I think that that would be wonderful, and I really appreciate that this is going to be an opportunity for the neighborhood.

Council Member Fox.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, I think... So we have the year-end fund balance that we set aside, $1 million. I think, did we end up spending any of it for programming, or was it all still, I know we talked about that at one point, but I don't know if that was, if we ended up spending anything.

We didn't spend any of the $500,000 that we set aside.

Okay. Because, yeah, I think, I mean, obviously I'm very supportive of going out for the grant for this. We have money set aside to do the project. I think it is a... A community center in District 1 makes a lot of sense. It is, you know, spreading them out across the city. It makes, you know, sounds like a good idea. I also agree that if you're trying to do a space, a cool zone type thing where you can have people get out of the heat, only having 10 people kind of seems like not like it would really work. That being said, I'm a little concerned with the footprint and the shell of the building and investing a million and a half dollars into it. Are there any other options? If we don't get this grant, are there other grants that we could apply for more park type grants or more community center type grants that maybe we don't have to do all of the, you said there was higher thresholds for the specific grant we're going for that would make it more expensive. but are there ones that would be, if we don't have to fulfill those requirements, that wouldn't be as expensive, something that we could do that doesn't split the difference but gets us to where our goals are, getting more people that can use it without having that grant in particular.

We do have a grant administrator who is always looking and searching for those opportunities. I'm not aware of any at this point in time. I think another thing to remember is that if it was going to be redone, that would then be a center that RCS would need to operate and would be attached to staffing and some additional costs as well as maintenance. With the $10 million grant, I just wanted to share because it's exciting. It's only required to have two partners. We can add on more if we wanted, but we've had an amazing response and I have over five already interested with a meeting with San Diego Food Bank tomorrow. So we've had a lot of interest and we also found out that Vista Fire already initiated a Vista Community Resiliency Coalition. So there's a lot of organizations and leaders in VISTA right now who already have this mission in place. So again, I'm also very optimistic about the grant because I think it's the best, healthiest path for this location.

Yeah, and hopefully all that makes a more, you know, impressive grant application for the, you know, so. But, you know, and I think that's, I wouldn't want to, you know, if this $1 million that we have set aside helps us be more eligible for future grants, spending it and even allocating some extra funds to it and then doing kind of like a piecemeal short-term solution for it, I'm just a little worried that that makes us not competitive to then potentially do what the space actually needs in the future. So I'm not tied on a specific thing, but I just wanted to air my concerns on it just with that, with the footprint itself and the The fact that it is an old house that very much still looks inside like an old house and very much on the outside like an old house, that it's going to need new roofs and walls and electrical and everything. It's basically a complete rebuild while keeping to the same limiting factors that we have now. So that's just my concern. So I'm not fully against doing something like that. It's just I think that if it was... I'd much rather... go with the original plan of trying to get enough to do something like what the space actually deserves rather than do something fast, but not what we actually need. So thanks. Sure.

Just as a quick question, but I did hear you say that you're in favor of having an occupancy of more than 10. Okay.

Yeah, I think if it's a community center of 10 doesn't,

Okay, I just wanted to make sure, because that's part of the direction that we're giving, is that we want to have more than 10.

It's a meeting room. Yeah, we have meeting rooms in my office that can fit more than that.

Thank you.

Deputy Mayor. Yeah, my kid's daycare class is bigger than 10. So we just spent $700,000 on the bathrooms, right?

The bathrooms and other improvements around it.

Okay, so if we were to get a $10 million grant, Would that entire investment be bulldozed and rebuilt? Is that my understanding? Or that would be, it would not, okay.

No, it would be preserved. The new facility we'd work around kind of where the existing building footprint is at on that site.

That is fantastic news. As someone who's just out talking to residents this week in 97 degree heat, I could not agree more that we need more cool zones in the city of Vista, especially in this neck of the woods. So I am happy to support the investment of the $1 million. I would prefer grants, obviously, as we all would for every project that we get. And it sounds like we're going to be pretty competitive. Do we know when we would hear back?

we should be finding out in spring 2027. So there'll be about a couple months review.

They love to wait as long as they possibly can. But that's exciting. So yeah, I'm all in favor for it. Obviously pursue as many grants as we can. If we can get $10 million, I would love to see that area and that space get rejuvenated to create a community center over there in an area of the city that I think that desperately needs it. So I'm on board. But yeah, those were my only questions. Thank you and good work.

Me too, Council Member Contreras. Okay, seeing none.

Yeah, no, I'm good. Thank you for the discussion. Thank you, staff. I'm good.

Okay, that was just direction, right? Do we need a motion? Council Member Contreras, do you offer a motion?

All right. I'm gonna go ahead and put the following motion on the table here. to pursue the $10 million grant for the Community Resilience Center at Luz Duran Park in the event that we do not receive the grant to move forward with a community center building that has an occupancy of more than 10. Is that sufficient? I think we were kind of all on board with that, so. Okay, perfect.

Deputy Mayor.

I'll second.

Okay, you got two seconds. Motion in two seconds, please cast your votes. It is rather warm and humid, yes. Yeah, so keep that in mind when you make your remarks. Okay, yes, and one more for Director Hamer. Final item regarding the Thibodeau Park Pickleball Court Hours. If any member of the public wishes to speak on this item, they may in any case so by using the raise your hand feature by pressing star nine. There's so many requests to speak. Our speakers will be called upon immediately after the presentation. Deputy Mayor O'Donnell asked for this item to be placed on the agenda, so we'll ask him to introduce it.

Thank you, Mayor. Yeah, so the Thibodeau pickleball courts two years ago were taken away because we were adding in more pickleball courts to Brangle Terrace. There was overwhelming community feedback that they would like those to remain. And so we made an agreement to bring them back under the understanding that we would eventually find a suitable replacement, which we have found. And that is going to be located in the, it will be renamed later, but Breeze Hill Park next to the courthouse. So we'll be adding four pickleball courts there in the spring of 2027, correct? And so at this time, I have heard from numerous residents that live next to Thibodeau Park. And the reality is that this was not a court that was ever voted on. It was just implemented during, I believe it was COVID when it was put in. The residents weren't asked. The neighbors weren't asked. I've been down there. It is extremely loud. All the reasons we were shutting it down to begin with in the past. I HAVE HEARD, AND I WILL GO TO YOU IN A MOMENT, BECAUSE I'VE HEARD SOME ISSUES THAT WE'VE HAD THERE, BUT ONE OF THE THINGS THAT I'VE HEARD MOST IS JUST THE NOISE COMPLAINT, NOT JUST FROM PICKLE BALL, BUT THE PICKLE BALL PLAYERS, AND THEY'RE ACCESSING THE PARK IN HOURS THAT ARE NOT MEANT TO BE ACCESSED. SO MY RECOMMENDATION IS GOING TO BE THIS, AND THE MOTION I WILL MAKE IS THIS, AND THE REASON IT'S COME BACK BEFORE THIS BODY IS BECAUSE WE CHANGED THE HOURS BASED ON A VOTE PREVIOUSLY. Right now, the hours are from 9 a.m. to 8.30 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The motion I'm going to make is make the hours from 9 a.m. to 8.30 p.m., Monday through Sunday, until the remainder of the time. So even if it goes into next summer and there's a hiccup with the new courts being built over by the... The courthouse, we're going to maintain those hours just to give some peace and quiet and a little bit of relaxation to the neighbors that live in the area. So I'm asking this council to amend the hours to make them from 9 a.m. to 8.30 p.m., Monday through Sunday, and make that consistent until the new courts open next spring. Ms. Hammer, I know that you shared a note with me about people entering the courts prior to the 9 a.m. time frame. Can you tell me a little bit about that or what's taking place and what we've done to correct it?

We have found that pickleball players who are very passionate about their sport have gotten creative on how to break into the courts using their paddles inside the gates to try to unlatch, even though our public works department does have it automatically unlock. So because this has been coming to our attention, it actually happened even on 4th of July. They started at 7 a.m., we will be having a lock and chain, a traditional lock will be set each night on the courts and then will be opened at 9 a.m. in the morning just to ensure there's no shortcuts for entry.

I appreciate that and I hope they don't scale the fence. THEY MIGHT. I DON'T THINK ANY OF US I DON'T THINK ANY OF US ANTICIPATED THIS WOULD TAKE 48 ANTICIPATED THIS WOULD TAKE 48 MONTHS FROM WHEN THIS WHOLE THING MONTHS FROM WHEN THIS WHOLE THING TRANSPIRED TO NOW AND THEN AN TRANSPIRED TO NOW AND THEN AN ADDITIONAL SEVEN, EIGHT MONTHS ADDITIONAL SEVEN, EIGHT MONTHS AWAY BEFORE THE COMPLETION OF AWAY BEFORE THE COMPLETION OF THE NEXT ONE. THE NEXT ONE. SO THAT'S WHY I'M BRINGING IT SO THAT'S WHY I'M BRINGING IT FORWARD. FORWARD. SO I WOULD APPRECIATE SUPPORT ON SO I WOULD APPRECIATE SUPPORT ON THIS FROM THE COUNCIL AND THIS FROM THE COUNCIL AND HOPEFULLY LIKE I SAID IT WILL HOPEFULLY And just so everybody is aware, once the Breeze Hill courts do open, the Thibodeau courts will close permanently to pickleballers and will be restriped into tennis courts.

I will second that. And you and I have both been hearing from the neighbors surrounding those pickleball courts for ever since we put them in. I won't. I won't say which of Ms. Hammer's predecessors didn't tell us how loud pickleball was going to be, only told us how popular it would be. And they were certainly right about that, but we had no idea how noisy pickleball was. Hopefully we're taking really good steps to make sure that we're not going to have complaints at Breeze Hill about the pickleball noise. We want to make sure we don't jump out of the, what do they say, jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. But yeah, I think this is the right thing to do. So I definitely second it. Council Member Melendez.

I was wanting to maybe hear from the city manager about the status of the Breeze Hill updates.

Just gonna mention that we have completed a sound study for the Breeze Hill courts to determine that they are going to comply with our noise requirement and we're gonna have a mitigating sound blanket around the courts to confirm that it will meet our noise requirements and not be a nuisance. So we're not gonna jump from the fire into the frying pan or vice versa. That's good.

Thank you. I also want to support your motion, Deputy Mayor. I just don't think it's fair to the neighbors to have to hear profanity from the pickleball players before 9 a.m. No one should have to hear that. So thank you for bringing this forward.

Council Member Contreras.

Yeah, I just wanted to offer my support as well. And I know that you've done a lot of work talking to the neighbors, so I am in support of your research and discovery there, thank you.

Motion to second, please cast your votes. That item is approved unanimously. And that's gonna bring us, thank you very much. Thank you. We have some oral communication speakers for our second oral communications. Let's see, we had Adina Flores. I'm not sure she's still in the chamber. Okay. Sayarhe Manalu. Manikov. Manikov. Sorry, I butchered your name. I apologize.

Good evening, everyone. Yeah, it's unreadable. It's Sergei, but it has the H. Sergei. Sergei.

Sergei.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to speak. I attended the previous council meeting, and I learned about the streetlight program, and I I appreciate that and we heard today positive feedback that how helpful can street lights be in the areas of like where there's significant crime rate or food traffic at night in the dark. But I also wanted to say that in the areas where there is minimal crime rate or there's almost no food traffic at night, we have to balance this with the negatives of the street light, which is very clearly the simplest one is the light trespassing into people's property, privacy concerns and also, of course, degradation of the night sky. So I only lived here for four years with my family, but part of the reason why we decided to make Vista our home was because we loved the semi-rural feel of some of the neighborhoods and we love stargazing and I know that our neighbors appreciate that too. So I really like the idea of having that petition, but when I went to the website, there is actually no way to find out about these petitions. So I emailed the city and I heard back from person London Adams and they told me that there is actually a petition on the next block to our house, which might be as close as 600 feet from us. I appreciate that there is an idea to inform people about 200 feet next, but it's not a large distance, and especially if you end up to be down from that light, it can result in a significant deterioration of the night, just appreciation of this dark skies. So I would appreciate, I submitted a formal public comment but I just wanted to express here personally that I would appreciate if a greater radius of people could be informed well ahead of time so we can learn about the height of those lights, how strong the lights are so we actually have the opportunity to voice it. I think it's a great program that clearly benefit in people. So let's make sure that benefits more people and does not deteriorate conditions for others. Thank you.

Next is Alita Dirdo followed by Jan Zalasko.

I'm here tonight as a member of the Friends of the Rancho Buena Vista Adobe. Finally joined up, and I am so happy to say that we are all working very diligently and trying to get the Adobe into a condition, well, the information that surrounds the Adobe into a condition where we can start having tours and accessibility for the residents of Vista. One of the things that just recently came up is we had heard some talk about the city doing investigation about the fountain that's in the courtyard. It is a very iconic object And it is very prominent in everything you see. When you see a picture of the adobe courtyard, you see that fountain. You see it on the city website. That's the first thing you notice with that drone shot. And we're a little concerned that we heard some talk about it possibly being demolished or moved or something that is not in keeping with the fact that it is almost 100 years old. And it is a very historic part of the Adobe. It was installed by Margarita Fisher, who was our silent film star that moved to Vista and became a very important resident here. We're just concerned that if that fountain is lost, that we'll be losing a very important iconic part of the adobe and we just wanted to make it known that we would like to collaborate or work with the city whatever way we can to help keep that fountain intact or at least in some way get it refurbished to a point where it is not looking so Well, old is what it is. But the poor thing, it needs to be refurbished. And that's what I'm here to talk about. Thank you.

Thank you. Council will be having a discussion about that fountain later this fall, so stay tuned. I'm sure that there are many of us that join you in wanting to preserve it. Jan Zalasko.

Yes, hi, my name is Jan Salasco. Almost a, oh, I'm sorry, there we go, sorry. Short people, you know. Almost a 40-year resident of Vista, a long-term member of the Friends of the Rancho Buena Vista Adobe. The Friends started back in 1992. shortly after the city finally purchased, was able to purchase the Adobe. And so the friends have been in existence for going on 35 years. It's true that we went dormant around the time of COVID, but we are back and we're happy to be back and we are really pleased and encouraged by the city staff that has been working with us so that we can start going. Some of our immediate plans are, of course, to have the hope to have the Adobe open more days. When we were there, we were typically there about three or four days a week. And people could just walk into the Adobe, ask questions, do impromptu tours. We also provided large-scale tours to different groups besides having a gift shop. a gallery, and the Adobe is not just a historic site, it's a museum. We have close to 5,000 different artifacts that have been registered, photographed, labeled, and the city has access to that. So, moving forward, we do understand there's going to be some renovations. One of the renovations we are encouraged about, and that's the brick driveway. And so, that definitely needs to be replaced. It's a huge accident waiting to happen, but it is iconic. And we are pleased to hear that the historic bricks, as much as possible, are going to be taken up and then replaced. Actually, we were rather interested about that. How does that work? I'm sure you don't take a bulldozer in and just take the bricks up, but I think that would be a great story to share with the public later on how the city preserved that driveway. And also to piggyback on Alita's comment, yes, the... The historic fountain almost 100 years ago was a silent film movie star, Margaret Fisher Pollard, and her husband, a film director. They worked together. And actually, they lived at the Adobe for 20 years. Well, I take that back. He died about five years into the residency. So she lived there. And one of her... main confidence and helper, because they also had more land at the time, was her landscaper, and he's the one that designed this iconic.

Thank you. So I apologize, that's the end of your time. Yeah, but thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Ms. Bramwell.

Good afternoon, council people. Anyway, I'm here again to talk about my opposition regarding the jail that the council and whoever is deciding to demolish. However, My community does not approve of this big, beautiful detention center that you want to build, along with some of the private people that want to invest in it. I don't see how that is gonna help the community, that is to help the investors. And like I said in my previous visit here, traffic is very bad here in Vista, as some of the people talked about. So I want you to consider voting it down when it comes up for approval or whatever, okay? So that's part of it. However, today what I saw at this meeting was this lady that came and deranged our elected leaders here. And I think that was inappropriate because she was from Orange County or Sonoma County, wherever she was, and she has no business in talking here in the community of Vista. And I thought it was, what can I say? a way for her to spread this information. We had a lot of young people here and there was no reason for her to get on like that with our beautiful community council people that we have that have improved the city of Vista. I've lived here since 1988. And I have seen a lot of work that this council people, and you of course, Mayor, and your city members have done to improve the community of Vista. And I don't think, I'm not apologizing for her, but I don't think she was, she should be speaking here as someone that is not, does not belong in this county, thank you.

The Great Brown Act protects everybody from all over the world's right to speak, whether we like what they have to say and sometimes we don't like what they have to say. I agree that's the law. I don't disagree with you, though. I don't disagree with you at all. I did want to point out, though, that the jail belongs to the county. And this council won't have a vote with regard to approving or disapproving because it's on county land and belongs to the county. It'll be your board of supervisors down at 1600 Pacific Highway. That's downtown. Yeah, they've got the authority over that. So go down there and give them an earful. I don't agree on that one, but this council won't have the ability to start it or stop it. You might want to go down there and share that with them. Our next speaker is Diego Amareño.

Good evening city council members, I'm Mayor John Franklin, my name is Diego Moreno and I'm a student at RBV at Rancho Buena Vista High School.

I am speaking today to respectfully request that the city consider adding additional traffic calming measures to improve safety on Avocado Drive going up to Vista View Apartments. Particularly a speed bump, additional pedestrian warning signs or other measures that could help reduce speeding and protect pedestrians. I believe these changes will make avocado drive safer for both pedestrians and drivers. This road is frequently used by pedestrians, including people walking through the neighborhood and along the roadway. However, I have noticed that many vehicles regularly travel at speeds that appear to be above 35 miles per hour. Because pedestrians and vehicles are sharing the same area, I believe this creates an unnecessary safety concern for everyone who uses the road. I have personally experienced situations while walking along this roadway where I have nearly been hit by a vehicle. These experiences have made me concerned that it may only be a matter of time before a pedestrian is seriously injured if additional safety measures are not considered. For this reason, I respectfully ask the city to consider installing a speed bump or other traffic calming measures. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Okay, now we'll go to Zoom. We'll start with Barbara Gordon and then we'll go to Becky Rapp.

Good evening. Tonight I wanted to share with you the results from a statewide organization getting it right from the start that collected data from 86 tobacco retailers in California for the sale of illegal intoxicating products. This data demonstrates that the sale of psychoactive products by tobacco retailers is a widespread problem. Products are sold like Kratom, which acts on opiate receptors. It's highly addictive. Repeated use leads to intolerance, dependence, and the need for progressively higher doses. Another product is nitric oxide. which is used legally for medicine and in dentistry and food industry, but is a growing source of abuse by teens and youth, causing an increased number of deaths, severe burns, serious neurological injury. Products sold as psychedelic mushrooms can cause significant impairment, psychosis, and other adverse health effects. The greatest hazard for this is the danger behavior such as walking or driving while unable to think or perceive clearly. The intoxicating hemp products containing THC. These products are available to teens and youth who are particularly vulnerable to the adverse effects. like psychosis and addiction. These packaging are typically marketed to youth. Again, all these products were found at local tobacco retailers. Having a tobacco retail license is not a license to sell drugs to kids. There needs to be more local policy and enforcement efforts to stop the sale of these products. Thank you for letting me speak.

Next is Becky Rapp.

Good evening. My name is Becky Rapp, and I wanted to bring to your attention an important bill that Governor Newsom signed into law on August 31st, and that was AB 2249. This legislation strengthens the protections California voters were promised when they passed Proposition 64, which gave cities and counties the ability to permit pot shops in our communities. Voters were promised that safeguards would be put into place to protect our children and youth, but clearly Prop 64 was not clear enough, as the industry was left to decipher what was appropriate. We've seen this in advertisements on billboards and on packaging. This bill strengthens and clarifies those protections, and it specifically addresses cartoons and child-oriented imagery, candy, and sweets and products that mimic goods primarily marketed to children. These protections are crucial and long overdue. The California Poison Control System reports that cannabis-related calls more than doubled between 2016 and 2024, and even more concerning, cannabis exposure calls involving children under six increased by 445%, and youth ages six through 19 increased by 151%. Most reported exposures in young children were unintentional, and edible cannabis products were involved in the vast majority of these cases. These numbers remind us why this issue is not just about packaging. It's about real children and real families, and our city must act now. Please support and implement. AB 2249, educate local marijuana businesses about the upcoming requirements and encourage businesses to review their packaging and marketing now. This bill only works when it is enforced. Thank you.

Zoom caller ending in 1415. Madison rap.

Hi, good evening, mayor and council members. I'd like to speak tonight as a mother and someone who cares deeply about the health and safety of our community's children. I'd like to talk about a form of waste we see everywhere but often overlook, cigarette butts and discarded vape devices. Cigarette butts are one of the most commonly littered items in the world. They contain toxic chemicals that can leach into the soil and waterways, and the plastic filters do not just disappear. They break down into smaller pieces and contribute to the growing problem of microplastic pollution. Vape waste creates an additional problem because these products contain batteries, plastics, electronic components, and leftover nicotine. When they are tossed onto sidewalks, into parks, or into regular trash, they can become both an environmental hazard and a waste management problem. And perhaps most concerning to me as a parent is where this waste often ends up, places that we see it like our sidewalks and our parks and our beaches and other places where children play. A child should not have to encounter discarded vapes or cigarettes while walking to school or playing at a park. We should be thinking about the full life cycle of these products, not just what happens when they are sold, but what happens when they are thrown away. I encourage the city to continue looking for meaningful ways to reduce cigarette and vape litter, increase proper disposal options, and hold the tobacco industry accountable for the waste its products create. Protecting our environment, also means protecting the places where our children live, play, and grow. Thank you.

Okay, we're going to try the caller ending in 1415 again.

Hey, yeah, Consuelo here. Yeah, just before I start, I just wanted to say, yeah, please do remind, because I did have my device on mute, and I didn't, I was talking, but... Anyway, so, yeah, just please, if you can remind the speakers, because I waited the entire meeting just to say what I have to say. And unfortunately, the person's not there, but that's OK. So just to address what the previous lady mentioned, I just wanted to encourage her to please do show up at the county and speak about that issue. It's always nice to have people calling in or even addressing our county supervisors Let's see, another thing, I was really glad that I got to chime in and hear, you know, just the priorities of VISTA and where they're at. With that being said, I want to encourage my North County neighbors to do their due diligence and start looking into the United Nations agenda for the 21st century. And we are actually already there with plot cameras and with the whole breakdown of society where inequitable, dangerous bike lanes are prioritized over struggling families and homeless veterans who sacrifice their lives only to be treated like junk after their service. So these lanes are costing us a million dollars a mile. They claim that the majority is paid by grant money, but we gotta be real and note that the majority will not be using them in their lifetimes because it's just, it's not equitable. A lot of seniors, a lot of disabled people will not be able to use those. So it's all by design. It's all to room society into a behavior that we're penalized for driving with roundabouts and like these bike lanes. Anyways, what else do I have? Let's see. I just want to point out also that the government agencies are in fact laying down the blueprint for these 15-minute cities, these smart cities, whatever you want to call them. Living in a fishbowl is the new normal. All fall under the guise of safety, equity, sustainability, all for the greener climate and the global warming. But our warming is being engineered. That is all engineered. People have no questions when it comes to what they're spraying in our skies, but yet they want to be quick to run to the global warming narratives. What else? Please note that everything that is happening within our legislation, within our local county governments are all by design. It is very unfortunate, but it is all too common that the majority of our selected officials do in fact work for globalists and not for their constituents. The name of the game and how they keep it going is to keep us distracted, divided, and in fear of one another. Again, please do your

Okay, sadly we didn't get to hear the end of what they had to say, but that was their three minutes. Do we have any comments from our city clerk's office? City attorney? City manager? Well, that's fantastic. Council Member Fox.

Perfect. I had my North County Dispatch Joint Powers Authority meeting. We're doing a, we just approved a study doing standards of cover, BLS, and fleet management study for all of the different agencies across the region. So Vista will get to benefit from that information and how it would be able to interact with other agencies alongside of us to be able to have better coverage for our fire and public safety. We also were told that our VISTA workforce, young professionals that were studying to be firefighters got to actually go to that dispatch center agency and see what the dispatch workers do on a day-to-day basis and got to shadow them. So that was cool to hear that Vista got called out that our people were there shadowing. So that was nice to get that little shout out. Other than that, we have Fiestas Patrias coming up September 13th at Linda Rhodes Rec Center from 12 to 4. It's a great event. I've been in the last, I think this is going to be the third annual, I think. But it's put on by the Vista Chamber of Commerce in combination with the City Vista, and it's a fantastic event. And then other than that, we also have the second ever SoCal K-Pop Anime Fest coming up on... September the 19th from 3 to 9 p.m. It'll be downtown Vista and I believe actually in the Avvo as well. So that might be relevant to tonight's talks is one of the things that they're doing over there. So I also stopped by that earlier this year and it was quite a spectacle. I recommend everyone check it out. So it's very interesting. And other than that, it's Taco Tuesday. So enjoy some delicious tacos. And I love my wife very much and thank her for letting me serve.

Council Member Melendez.

Thank you all for the great discussions tonight. I have the exciting opportunity to share an update about our Vista Viking Festival that's gonna be happening in just a few days on September 19th and 20th. That weekend is sure to be a lot of fun. The Vista Viking Festival celebrates all sorts of cultural expression within this Viking realm of fantasy and also lore and history. So I hope everybody gets to enjoy it. It'll be at our Antique Steam Engine Museum and get your tickets now. I also want to say thank you so much to the folks who showed up for our presentations. We had the Daughters of the American Revolution for Constitution Week. As well as, what is the pronunciation? Guerreras and Accion for their wonderful weekly exercise of picking up trash in our community. It's really exciting to see that that's been going on for several years now. We're very proud of that. And I just want to say thank you all for your public comments tonight. I really appreciate everyone expressing their freedom of speech and also expressing your trust in me to serve as your council member. And the last thing I want to say is to my mom and to my aunt, Therese, who recently lost her husband, my uncle, Bob, may he rest in peace. And I'm just wishing my entire family lots of calm and peace since he had suffered a great deal. And I just hope everybody has a great night. Thank you.

Council Member Contreras.

Well, I don't have any SANDAG updates or NCTD updates since We have been dark for those, but I do have, I returned to SANDAG representing the city this Friday, so I'm sure I'll have some updates. And other than that, I just want to thank my council for some really good discussions. I thank the public for coming forward and letting us know what concerns you and opportunities that you see in our city to make it better. And I hope everybody has a really good night.

Thank you, Deputy Mayor.

Yep, just a quick report from Encina. We're doing a lot of projects over there. I'm not gonna bore you with all the details, but a lot of it's air purification. And because the facility is, decades old, the wastewater has eaten away at the concrete and the coating, so they're recoating a lot of the stuff, eventually making it safer and it will lower the cost or at least keep it maintained for many, many more years. So that's my update from them. Congratulations once again to Carlsbad Pet and Feed. They are located in District 4 on Sycamore and Melrose, right behind the gas station over by Mr. Taco. They are having on Saturday, September 12th, a community service event or community event for all of their patrons. So please show up. It's from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. We're gonna have raffles, caricatures, vendors, a lot of big savings in stores. So if you have pets that you love, go there, check them out, maybe get a free meal, whatever you wanna do. Congratulations to Aztec Brewing on their 15 year anniversary as well. Thank you to our fire department. I know everybody mentioned it this evening, but that was one hell of a job that you did. By the time I heard about it, it was basically already being stomped out. So great job on that and keeping the community safe. Outside of that, my wife, Allie, I love you. Thank you for letting me serve in this capacity. You all have a wonderful Tuesday, and we will see you in a couple weeks. I will. Oh, wait a minute. I apologize. The city presents its last free movie in the park this summer, this Saturday, September 12th at Brangle Terrace Park. We'll be showing Disney's Zootopia at 8 p.m. Have fun.

All right, good work. I wanna invite all the community to join us this Friday, September 11th, for the 25th anniversary of the remembrance of Friday, September 11th. It's gonna be led by our Vista Fire Rescue Department. The ceremony will provide an opportunity to remember the lives lost on September 11th, 2001, and honor the courage, service, and sacrifice of the first responders who answered the call that day. The program will include the traditional tolling of the bell, the ringing of the four fives, and a ceremonial wreath placement. We hope you'll join us and the City Council, Vista Fire Rescue, and the Vista Sheriff's Station as our community comes together in remembrance of something that was very poignant and touched all of our lives in a very dramatic way. For more information on this and other events, please visit the city's calendar at vista.gov. And thank you Deputy Mayor O'Donnell for starting the great tradition of thanking our families for allowing us to serve. I want to thank my wife Shauna for allowing me to serve. Thank you to all of your families for giving up all the time with you to serve. And to all of our staff, thank you for taking the time away from your families to do the people's business. We appreciate that. And I know that there is a real cost to it. So thank you. And God bless you all. Have a good night.