>> can you hear
me okay?
>>
yes.
>> wonderful. All right. Welcome,
everyone, to the regular meeting of the martinez
city council. It is wednesday, may 1st,
and it is 7:10 p.m. First order of
business is
the pledge of allegiance. Since you
are closest, will you kick everyone
off,
please?
>> I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the united states of america
and to the republic for which it stands
one nation under god
indivisible with liberty and justice for
all.
>> thank you. Clerk
, can you please call the roll?
>> [ roll being called ]
>> all right. Next up, our presentations.
our first presentation will be from
contra costa
county mosquito and vector control
district.
>> well, thank you so much for having
me and
inviting me tonight. I appreciate
it. It's a wonderful opportunity to
share about the
contra costa
mosquito and vector control district
and the services we provide
to the residents of martinez. I am
presenting on behalf of our trustee
to
martinez, daniel pellegrini.
so the district's mission statement
is the contra
costa
mosquito and vector control district
is a public health
agency dedicated to protecting the
community from mosquitoes and other
vectors of disease. And county residents
voted
to create our district back in
1926 and
we opened our doors in 1927. That
means we are just three years away
from
our 100th anniversary. In 1993,
contra costa county transferred its
rat and mouse program and rabies risk
reduction programs to the district
.
and that is when we changed our name to the
contra costa
mosquito and
vector control district and that is the
name that we still remain
today. So the district
services we provide. We provide
public health services to reduce the
risk of
mosquitoes, rats and mice,
skunks, --
that is our rabies risk reduction
program --
ticks, ground messaging
yellow jackets specifically, and education and
inspection for honeybees. We are
funded through property taxes and
benefit assessments across contra
costa
county so we encourage martinez
contra costa use us as we need , because
there is no additional charge
when we cannot to
provide one of our public health services.
we have as an independent special district
--we are governed by our board of
trustees.
we have a total of 22 trustees that represent
the 19 cities within contra costa
county and then
three of our trustees represent the
county at large. Currently we
have vacancies on our board of trustees
for the
cities of lafayette, san pablo ,
and antioch .
when it comes
to the district's board of trustees,
the job of a trustee is to represent the
best
interests of your community, ensure
the delivery of essential
local services and infrastructure,
and faithfully serve the people
--their good
while upholding the law.
and your martinez trustee, daniel
pellegrini, has been a trustee since
october
of
1997. He is currently our secretary
of the board and serves on
the docket of audit and personnel committees.
when it comes to
the services that we have provided so
far for the people of contra costa
county this year , we have received
12 requests for mosquito service,
10 requests
for mosquito fish service, two reports
of neglected swimming pools
, 12 requests
for rat and mouse service, two for skunk.
one for ticks I.d., one for honeybees, and
one for ground nesting yellow jackets
so
far in 2024. And in addition
to providing residential services, district
employees also inspect
and treat
these areas as needed. Public waterways, pastors,
parks, and other agricultural areas
where mosquitoes and
vectors of disease or harm can cause issues
for neighboring residents.
now, one of the ways that
we provide
public health protection as a vector
control district --one of
our tools is we survey areas that
are difficult to inspect on foot or by
off-road
vehicles completely . It's
by using unmanned aircraft systems
, also known as uas, or
commonly known as drones . The district
has two drones
that have allowed for more
efficient inspection of large wetland
and pasture areas
in particular.
the information gathered by the drone
helps
the district plan appropriate treatment of these areas
more efficiently.
and that is what I have for you today
.
does anyone have any questions?
>> thank you so much for the presentation.
I'm not sure if anyone has any questions,
but I did want to convey
my appreciation for your staff over
the past year. We
had quite a few issues with yellow jackets
in our local
parks. And I know that several parents
submitted requests and I also
know that mosquito vector control district
worked hand in hand with
city park and public works employees
and address those issues really quickly.
I just
wanted to convey my appreciation to
you and
your staff.
>> thank you very much. I
will be
sure to pass that along to our personnel
who handle the
inspections and treatment.
>> anyone
have any questions for her this evening?
go ahead.
>>
go ahead, debbie.
>> thank
you for the presentation. Thank you
, danny, for your service over
the years. In 1997. Quite a run. Thank you.
I just have a
question about something that was stated
at a previous update you gave. I think it
was last year
may be.
there was an area of martinez that
had an invasive
species of mosquito. I think they were
called ankle biters. They were a black and
white
striped mosquito. And there was some
concern at that time because
they had the potential of spreading
diseases, which --kind of
scary ones. Fever. Zika virus.
yellow fever. Not that we see that too much
here. But
I was just wondering
, how effective was the quarantining?
are these eradicated
in our community? I have seen recently
they are seen down in southern california.
I'm
just wondering , do we still
see them here in little areas or have
they been eradicated and is there
anything
we should know about those nasty varmints?
>> thank you so much for your
question. It is a really good question
and I do appreciate it.
for martinez, it was 2022 that we
did find
some of these invasive mosquitoes.
their common name is actually the
yellow fever mosquito. Their
scientific name
--they do tend to
stay low to the ground. They are very
stealth like
. When we did find them in 2022, we
went door-to-door. We conducted
trapping and did everything
we could to try to
mitigate that issue right then
and there. In 2023, we continued our work
but did not find
any more evidence of those mosquitoes
in martinez. We continue to conduct
surveillance in
that area . And we have not found
any more
in martinez.
however, I can tell you they have
been in southern california for more
than
10 years. If you look at a map on
the
california department of public health, it
has a map
that shows they are virtually
right up interstate 5
right up to northern california. They
are in sacramento county . They are
around us. The bay area has
not seen a lot of them
at all
knock on wood. But we do know that
they
are spreading. They are the reason we
actually changed
our messaging from just dumping out
standing water
to dump and scrub because
these mosquitoes will a sticky
individual eggs right above
the waterline. So right now
when the weather
is getting warmer and we may be thinking
about bringing out potted plants and things
like that , you want to be very vigilant
to make sure to dump out
in
the pan underneath the potted plants
especially because they can be very
nutrient filled
with mosquitoes. Be sure to dump out
that water and scrub
those containers
to make sure that you knock off
any because this particular mosquito
can have eggs that you put away your
patio furniture and everything that
may have
some bags in it on them for the winter
. They don't. The eggs can stay viable
for six months or longer
. Even when they're not in contact
with water.
so they are very serious mosquitoes as
he
said. They can transmit causative
agents of
chicken and yellow fever. We have
seen local
transmission in southern
california now.
so it is really important that all
of us work together, dump out
standing water and scrub those
containers to knock off any potential eggs
to reduce
the risk. But thank you so much for
your question.
>> thank you for
your answer. Hopefully people listening
or people that listen to this at a later date
will hear your message and hopefully
keep it eradicated from our area.
one
other thing is
, would bleach help? I know people
put bleach
in with the water. Without also be
an effective way to kill the
eggs?
>> from what our entomologists
tell us, they are ultimately the best
thing
to do -- just scrub them off to get
rid
of them. Any other way
may help temporarily, but it's not
going to
help long-term.
>> okay. Thank you so much. >> thank you.
>> that was my question
. And also
to congratulate danny
on his [ inaudible ] appreciate
it.
>> thank you. >>
that
covers my question as well. I was curious
about swimming pools. What do you
guys do when somebody calls in. I
have a swimming pool.
>> that is a
great
question. One of the first things
we tell folks is
,
folks can report a swimming pool they
see from their upstairs and their
neighbors' yard. If
it looks green or they are experiencing
mosquitoes. The first thing I do
want to explain is we are bound to
privacy. We cannot divulge
to a neighbor who may have reported
a pool what we did at the pool.
we can only talk to the resident about
what can be done.
but there are
things that can be done because one neglected
swimming pool particularly we saw
during the great recession
--one
neglected swimming pool can be an
issue for an entire neighborhood because
depending on
how much stagnant water is there, they
could actually have mosquitoes
that will fly around the neighborhood
and they can have
many,
many, many mosquitoes out of one neglected
swimming pool. So the key things that we
recommend --number
one, regular maintenance on the swimming
pool. If it is good enough to swim
in, mosquitoes will not be there.
if someone is unable to take care
of
their swimming pool, they can request
mosquito fish service. That is a service
we have . A part of our mosquito program
where we will come out and take a
look at the
swimming pool.
if there are no mosquitoes or young mosquitoes
in the water,
we can place mosquito eating fish
in that pool. Those fish will eat up the
young mosquitoes before they become
adult mosquitoes.
if there are adult mosquitoes coming
out of the water,
we have to use different ways to deal with
that particular
swimming pool. But the bottom line is
we really encourage folks to maintain
their swimming pools. If they are unable
or no one lives at the property anymore
and there is a swimming pool behind,
then absolutely report it
to us .
but if you are not the resident, understand we
are prohibited from
sharing
any information of what we did on
the property to someone who does
not live on that property.
>> I like
the sense of privacy. You are not
out to get
anybody. You are just there to take care of
the problem.
>> that's right. I will tell you
in cases where there is
a resident and we do talk with them,
we are trying to get
through to them to take care of their
pool. If there is a resident
and they are not responding to us,
we will send them
letters, ask them
--
all folks have to do if they have
a swimming pool that has been reported
to us as being neglected
. But the resident knows it is in
good working condition.
all they have to do is use one of
our letters that we have sent to
them, take a selfie or have someone
take a picture of them that shows
the letter and the pool in the background,
and they can send that to us.
easy peasy. They are good to go. But when
we don't hear
from folks
when it has been reported, we do try to follow
up with them.
>> thank you. >> thanks for your service.
>>
thank you as
well for all of your dedicated service
. The entire team over
there. I just wanted to echo and extend
my heartfelt gratitude to
mr. Pellegrini for his many years
of dedicated service.
this is an agency that plays a critical
role
in our local public health in maintaining
local public health and sometimes
it gets overlooked by the general public
,
but we really appreciate the presentation
here outlining
all the services that you all provide. So
thank you very much.
>> thank you
for your kind words. Thank you so much.
>> thank you
so much for the presentation.
>> thank
you.
>> all right. Next
item is an update on staff. I understand
assistant city manager
--will
you be giving this presentation today?
>> sure. I will go ahead
and jump on here. I'm going to go ahead
and turn it over to our finance
director, june.
>> sorry. We do have one
new staff. Her name is
.
she is county tech two. She started working
with
the city initially with robert half
since last year. So she has been on
board
for a while.
she right
now serves at the front counter for
the public. Thank you.
>> thank you. >> next
we will turn to chief white.
>> thank you. Good
evening, counsel , members of the
public. Tonight I have the unique
opportunity that our promotion is sitting in
the back of the room. Captain patrick solomon
. He was promoted today actually from the
position of
police lieutenant to police captain.
he has served with the department for
many years beginning back in april
of 2005 .
he has worked in many positions in
the department, including being one
of the
s.w.a.t. Team commanders working in
investigations and pre-much
everything that goes on with the department
he has been involved in one way or
another. So we are very grateful that
he has taken on this position. A
lot of responsibility comes with it.
but I know that he is going to do
a great job and continue to serve
the city of martinez for years to
come.
so congratulations, sal.
>> [ applause ].
>> wonderful. >> that concludes
.
>> wonderful. Thank you.
all right.
we were going to move into public comment. Before
public comment starts, I want
to give cause number molly an opportunity
to welcome
the members of the public here today.
>> thank you very much
, mayor zorn. I just wanted to
take a quick moment of personal privilege
here to help welcome and acknowledge
my cousin
, pinky, who is visiting us all
the way from new delhi, india
. Her first time
to america. First time to martinez.
so please join me in welcoming her
here tonight.
>>
thank you.
>> welcome to martinez.
>> I
would be remiss.
thank
you, vice mayor. I would also be remiss
if I did not
acknowledge my mother. Thank you, mom.
>> great. Thank you. We're going to
go ahead and open up public comment.
city clerk, do you mind
reviewing either the speaker cards
or anyone else who
might have their hand raised that
is interested in speaking in council
chambers ?
>> we don't have any speaker
cards. So I will open it up.
>> it should already be on. >> I
believe you're talking about joltin
joe tonight. I just want
to say that so many --
>> kristin, I'm sorry.
if you're going to make public comment on
joltin joe, we will have to wait until
that item.
>>
it is tangential. Okay. I will just
go
straight into the meat of this, which
is that
it is not just the famous people that
are historic . Sometimes they are
not historic at
all. As you know,
I put italian history on the national
registry of historic
places because the historic
society and the county and most of the
council got together and said there is
nothing historic
about down there. So somebody could
get a lot of money for
their property. And that was, like
, genocide to me. And it just
shook me up. So I pursued that even though
we lost
the lawsuit for some years and put the
--just the history on the national
register of historic
places. Joe dimaggio is just one tree
--one standout tree
--in these trees that in 1940 could not
even write the cities giving them
the coast
line to fish for one dollar.
they are giving them because they
contributed so much
. And I think it is important. I
don't, but everyone does
--to see when we were so
closely connected to the environment.
and that goes for
the italian fishermen
. And as ai comes
and were more separated and separated
and separated from
everything with other people telling
us what to do and think and feel and
taste. Only
people who get put up on screens get
to tell us what we should value.
their history is even more important
to us as human beings
connected to our environment
and connected to being alive. And
I will say more when I'm allowed to when
joltin joe comes
up . Thanks.
>>
thank you. Anyone
else in council chambers wish to make
comment?
I see no hands, so I'm going
to move to
zoom participants. If you would like to
speak
tonight on a non-agenda item, please
use the rays hand featured now.
I have no hands.
>> okay. Great. Thank you, kristin,
for the public
comment. Thank you for coming back
on the joltin joe agenda item later
this evening.
let's move forward with
the consent calendar. The consent
calendar is made up of items three
through eight.
does anyone on council wish to pull one
of those for discussion?
>>
yes, madam mayor. I would like to ask
that item number seven
be pulled.
>> okay. Anything else?
okay. Seeing none, I'm going to open
it up to
public comment. Consent calendar items
three through
six and eight. Does anyone have comments
on those
five items?
>>
I see no hands in council chambers.
moving to
zoom
participants. If you wish to make
a comment on items
three through eight except
for number seven, please use the rays
hand featured now.
I have no hands.
>> okay. All right. I will
bring this back to council for
any discussion or motion three through
six
.
>> motion to approve items three through six and number
eight.
>> second.
>> all right.
thank you for your patience with me
tonight. All of our
boats need to be done by voice.
>> yes.
>> [
roll being called ]
>> motion passes. >> okay.
councilmember
14
malhi, what was your question?
>>
very quickly, just wanted to clarify
a couple of items. With
respect to
the proposal in front of us today, as
you may recall, we
did have a previous discussion about
sound mitigation efforts at the pickleball
courts. I
was just wondering if the
selected bidder
, if you will, had
brought forward any additional information
on
that or any additional input to help
minimize those sound impacts, which
I know
have been a concern
by some of the local residents. Just
wanted to see
if there was any updates on that that
you might be able to
share tonight.
>>
no updates with the proposed contractor
.
communication with him
is just confirming his bid that he
was still interested in moving forward
and preparing the
contract documents pending tonight's
award. He is working
on preparing project submittals and
schedules and so forth.
the mitigation measures were incorporated
into the design. It
was part of the contract award.
>> they did not raise any questions
or concerns about that. They
felt it was very doable and appropriate.
>> correct. >> great. The second piece
I wanted
to confirm in the staff report it
did note that there was
a shortage between
what we thought it was going to -- what we
thought it was going to cost and what
it came in above
the original estimate. And to help
make up for that
shortfall, one of the proposals is
to take $22,000
roughly
out of the pg&e mitigation
funds, which if I understand correctly
where
to help with landscape restoration associated
with the replacement of the tower
. Is
that right?
>> correct.
pg&e damaged
some of the landscape. We knew we
had this project moving forward rather
than have them install
the landscape
previously and right in the middle
of our work
zone, we took the contribution for it
and that work
is incorporated into the contractor's work.
so it is kind of
--they paid us and we are
paying the contractor for the impacts to
the project
.
>> the only reason I bring that
up as
I know some residents had also expressed
some concern to me about just wanting to
make sure that we were able to kind
of spruce that place
back up to what it was originally.
and
so I just wanted to make sure that
we are still on target
and it will still look aesthetically pleasing
when all is said and done.
>> correct. >>
okay. Great. That's it. Thank you
so much.
>> anyone else from the dais
have
any follow-up questions?
all right. Seeing none,
any questions or comments from the public
on consent calendar item seven?
>> we will start
with chambers. Is anyone present who
would
like to wish to make a comment?
I have no hands. I will turn to contra
costa
--zoom. Please use the rays hand feature
if you would like to comment on item
number seven.
I have no hands.
>>
all right.
council for a motion, please.
>> I would like to make
a motion to adopt a resolution of
the city council of the city of martinez
accepting the did of
saboo, inc. As the lowest responsive
and responsible
bidder and authorizing the city manager
to execute
a contract and
any change orders until the completion
of the hidden valley park sports
courts. Project
c5407 in accordance with the approved
plans and specifications
in an amount not to exceed
$1,620,000
, which includes a 10% contingency
of 147,460
. And approve the transfer
of 55,000 dollars
of npdes funds. $22,020 of pg&e mitigation funds
and 132,000 of
park and recreation impact fee funds
to project
number
c5047.
>> second.
>> councilmember jay
howard.
>> [ roll being called
]
>> motion passes.
>>
excellent. Thanks, everyone. Moving
on. Public
hearing
item number nine. Conduct a public hearing,
waive the reading, and introduce the ordinance approving
zoning map and zoning text amendment
to amend the martinez municipal code
. And I will turn this over. Who
will be reading this item this evening?
>> that would be me.
associate planner dan gordon.
>> hi,
dan. Please proceed. I won't read
the rest of
the public hearing items . Please
proceed with the presentation.
>> thank you, mayor. Good evening,
members of the city council.
I'm associate planner dan gordon.
I'm here tonight to present the proposed
zoning text and zoning map amendments.
it is another whopper, so I appreciate
your patience
and in the interest of brevity I will read
the full recommendation at the
end of my presentation. A lot of this
you are seeing tonight should be familiar to
you
since we have had study sessions on
it. Okay.
so the primary goal of this ordinance
is
to come principally update the permitted
and conditionally permitted
uses in the code. But several other
items have also been included
in this ordinance and these include
new and revised definitions to go
with those uses
. The inclusion of industrial zoning incentives,
a new chapter on
temporary use permits, which contains
new regulations for food trucks
, some changes to the regulations,
rezoning of parcels and some other
minor changes.
so let's go over why these changes
are necessary in the first
place. There are four main reasons. The
first is that the municipal code was
last
competently updated in 1975. So most
of the uses listed are not
just dated
but downright archaic. I'm just going
to list a few of the
uses the code specifically identifies to illustrate
this point. It does include messenger offices
, shops, telephone exchanges,
stores. Umbrella repair
shops. Telegraph offices, and my own
personal favorite, ice storage sheds.
why this is problematic is because martinez
has what is known as permissive zoning.
that means that only the uses that are
specifically listed in the code are
allowed to operate within the city.
so we have a situation now where the
uses that were commonplace 50
years ago are now restricting the businesses
we can and cannot have in
the city. The second main reason is
the housing element.
the housing element obligates the
city to complete several programs
by the end
of this year. These programs are also
reflected in the planning division's
workplan that
you reviewed. These revisions propose
to accomplish the following four tasks
from that workplan.
task 28 updating accessory dwelling unit
regulations. Task 36. Updating food
truck regulations.
establishing industrial zoning incentives.
task 41. Updating the permitted and
additionally permitted uses of
code. The third reason is consistency
and ease-of-use.
there's a lot of overly complicated
terminology, jargon, and
phrasing to introduce more user-friendly language.
last
is the evolving needs of the community.
this goes hand in hand with the archaic
language problem since we want to
make sure martinez is ready to take advantage of
the new businesses and technologies.
so let's dive into these proposed
changes. The first
is the update to the permitted uses.
staff is proposing to move from a
very long list of
specific uses since we have now a
category of based approaches that are
more flexible.
for instance, instead of having things like dry-cleaning
and pet grooming
listed individually, these
would be grouped under the broader category
of personal services. This provides
more flexibility
and helps code as it
leaves open the potential for businesses
that haven't been
yet. One notable change to the
permitted uses is the heavy industrial
zoning district. The elimination of
refining as a permitted use.
however, this won't affect any active
uses in the heavy industrial zoning district.
pbf energy does not actually conduct
any
refining within city
-- within the city limits. So their operations
are limited to storage, which would
continue to
be a permitted use in the heavy industrial
zoning district.
definitions have also been included in
this update. Primarily these relate
to
the new year's categories I mentioned
being established
and some definitions were revised
for clarity or modernization of language.
here is a list of all of the definitions.
I'm not going to
get into the mall. I will just
call out some of these new categories.
for example, categories for things
like craftsmanship
, financial institution,
personal services, professional services,
public entertainment venue, at wholesale establishment.
next
up is the new chapter on temporary
use permits. Temporary
use permits --you will be
familiar from our study session.
they don't run with the land. They
are time-limited and
processed at the administrative level.
they make a lot of sense when you
are permitting
uses like christmas tree lights or
uses that merit regular
reinspection like construction staging.
and why we are recommending temporary
use permit chapter is twofold. First,
it is just good practice since
a lot of cities see temporary uses
all the time. Second is that
your special study session you endorsed using
temporary use permit process to
regulate food trucks throughout the city.
and the city council also endorsed
some of the regulations that would
apply
to food trucks that I will get into
next. Specifically focusing on mobile vendors
, a.k.a. Food trucks.
I will just briefly touch on these.
sorry. Let me just make
sure. Yeah.
specifically those food trucks that operate
in the public
right-of-way. Essentially the city
cannot prohibit food trucks from operating
in legal
parking spaces
. However, the city can impose what
are known as time, place, and
manner restrictions so long as those
restrictions have a health and safety
rationale. The city is
proposing such restrictions.
restricting hours of operation to
7:00 a.m. To 10:00 p.m. The requirement to
provide a
waste receptacle. Prohibition from operating
is greater than 35 miles per hour
for pedestrian safety.
and if the food truck is parked in its
space for longer than one hour, a
requirement to be greater than 100
feet to
locate greater than 100 feet from other
food
trucks in a parking space and a requirement
to be located within 200 feet of a readily
available restroom facility.
sorry.
okay. The next change
is setbacks and building
separation requirements. This one
should be familiar to you since it was
included in the cloud
--code cleanup package you
endorsed last year. Moving the city
from using a pump comp
located equation to cockfighting setbacks
and building separation requirements
to a
standardized easy to use table.
and
as I have mentioned, we have already
done this for residential districts
last year. So this would just bring
consistency between all the cities
and
zoning districts. As part of the update
to the new uses
, staff is proposing to include a
section on
performance standards specifically for industrial
and research development zoning districts.
this just reflects the
reality that the uses in these districts have
the potential to pose greater impacts
in
neighboring products then uses in
presidential --residential or commercial districts.
things like noise, vibration, radioactivity, electrical
disturbances, explosive materials,
air pollution, heat, dust
in particular manner
--matter. Performance standards differ from
required conditions
, which is a required
section of the code, because they
include ongoing activities. Required
conditions just regulate
the condition of the property. Speaking of required conditions, in the
commercial district
chapter, there were multiple duplicative
sections on required conditions. Staff
is proposing to condense and simple
by these into
a new section on enclosure fencing
and requirements. One new change
being proposed
as part of this is a requirement for
anyone seeking a planning
entitlement to activate the ground floor frontage
of any tenant space
in the central commercial zoning district by
providing some
sort of visual display as this
will help create a vibrant feeling downtown.
this requirement
would apply to all commercial uses but
nonretail uses like restaurants or
nail salons
would be able to satisfy this requirement
by having fully transparent windows
so you can see the activity going on.
the city council
also had a special session last month
to discuss
zoning incentives to incentivize high-value
industrial development. And
they endorsed several revisions.
municipal code on that respect. These included a
decrease in the minimum setbacks for
the research and development and industrial districts
to 10 feet for the front yard, zero feet
for the rear
and side yards, except when abutting
a residential zoning district
where greater setbacks would be required.
also an increase in the permitted flooring area
ratio from
.4 to 2.0
. A reduction in required front yard landscaping
from 100% of the front yard
to 15%. The establishment of a community
benefit program
for greater floor area ratio
when
a community benefit is provided. All
of these revisions have been included
in this effort with the
exception of the changes to the floor
area ratio and community benefit bonus
program.
those will have to be included in
a later effort as they require a general
plan.
and just to quickly illustrate
the point of how restrictive some
of the
current development standards are
for the city's industrial zoning districts, I've
got
two little diagrams for you.
the first is a parcel in the heavy
industrial district. You can see it
here on the
screen in green. It is technically
two parcels. Let's just say somebody wanted to
develop it as one. You can see this is
the existing parcel. In
the next one is the amount of space
they would actually be able to develop.
they would
be severely restrictive. Similarly,
periods of parcel in the light industrial
district on how road outlined here
in green
in the purple area.
and this is the area that they would actually be
able to
develop. You will notice the current state of
this parcel
does not actually even comply with the
existing requirements . Staff believe it
makes sense
especially in these instances because
it is surrounded by other
industrial uses. The new industrial uses
they
go into a parcel like this in light
industrial zoning district have much
fewer impacts
on neighboring properties than the light
industrial uses
that were envisaged in the 1970s when
this section of
the code was introduced.
and as staff reviewed
all of the uses in the code, we also reviewed
the zoning districts in the
code and determined several of them could
be eliminated. These include the thoroughfare commercial
recreation, controlled industrial,
and undesignated zoning districts.
the thoroughfare commercial zoning
district only applied to the commercial
stretch of ambra avenue between
the high school as
well as three parcels on arnold drive
. The only additional uses
that this district allowed over the neighborhood
commercial district
where mortuaries, vehicle sales and
repair, public entertainment like
bowling
alleys and veterinarians offices.
so these uses are proposed to be included within the
neighborhood commercial district for
properties along
specifically major thoroughfares and
alhambra
avenue is identified as a major thoroughfare.
so it will allow all of
those uses to be active uses.
the commercial recreation zoning district
only applied to four parcels near
the
intersection of
mir road and
central avenue. None of the parcels have
an active use that could be considerably
described
as existing recreation.
so these parcels are proposed to
be rezoned to neighborhood commercial,
which allows for both offices and theaters.
the controlled industrial district
is
oriented to agricultural uses like horticulture
.
yet the only area zone controlled
industrial is a collection of business parks
and a storage facility off of the
station road.
the partials on arnold drive
have
mixed zoning with p.a. Professional administrative
and are proposed to be rezoned from
professional administrative
and industrial to professional administrative/research and
development
allowing those business parks to continue
their active uses.
the storage facility currently zoned
environmental
conservation district
is proposed to be rezoned in environmental
conservation district/service commercial.
the last zoning district proposed to
be eliminated is the u undesignated
zoning district. This was previously
a holding zone for parcels, which the
city annexes
but does not simultaneously rezone. However,
it has not been used for this purpose.
to do so
would not actually be good practice.
and several parcels have retained
the undesignated zoning designation
for decades
since annexation. So
these parcels are proposed to be rezoned
consistent with the
general plan. And going forward, annexation and
rezoning of annexed parcels will be
conducted concurrently so there is
no
reason to have the zoning district anymore.
additionally, several parcels with
designations that were holdovers from the
county and were
not updated post annexation are proposed to
be rezoned. These include all parcels
zoned rb
retail business, which will be
rezoned neighborhood commercial. All
parcels
zoned multifamily m 29, which will
be rezoned
r1 .5 residential.
and you can see here the existing zoning
of these parcels
. The parcels to be rezoned are outlined in
red.
and the next slide
--I can pull these back up. Once the
rezoning
is complete.
now onto adu.
legislative session in california saw
several laws passed that required
us to update our adu relations. Requires
the city to
allow adus to be conveyed separately
from
the primary dwelling from a condominium plan.
extends
the prohibition of owner occupancy
requirements until 2025.
and 8013 32, which requires cities to
adopt
preapproved detached adu plans
and adds a 30-day requirement for any
adu application. Utilizing preapproved
plans from
many previously approved adu application.
in addition, staff is proposing further
revisions related
to rooftop
decks and balconies for adus. Previous
inconsistency was
identified for balconies and rooftop
decks to be built closer to property
lines
than was originally intended. Staff is
recommending requiring
balconies attached to
a tick to conform to setback requirements
for the primary dwelling to minimize
privacy impacts.
and there are some other minor changes
included
in this effort. I will run through
those really quickly. Continued removal of
references --
excuse me --
references to the board of adjustments.
as functions of that body have
been assumed by the planning commission
and zoning administrator.
revisions to chapter 22.08
district designations consistent with
the elimination of several zoning
districts. Updates
to some of the purposes for the affected
zoning districts to modernize them.
simplification and clarification of
use permit findings
for bars for the ability for massage businesses
applying for use permits to be brought
before the zoning
administrator instead of directly
to the planning commission. And the
addition for
tables for setback height and other
requirements for ease of use.
lastly there was significant community
outreach for this ordinance per the
city council
held two special study sessions on various
components of
this ordinance. Namely one on food
trucks and temporary use and the
other on industrial zoning incentives
and uses. Staff held a community information
meeting on food trucks
, temporary use
permits, and updating the uses. More than
700 active business license holders
within the city
were notified
as were all property
owners subject to rezoning and anyone who
had filed a regular request for such
notice. And
there was also medication between city staff
and the chamber of commerce. Martinez
and
company in the local restaurant.
the planning commission considered the draft ordinance at
its april 9th meeting. It
has forwarded a unanimous recognition of
approval to the city council. The
only change the planning commission
identified first further consideration by
the council was to trucks to operate
later than
the proposed 10:00 p.m.
closing time. However, they thought
it could make sense
to consider this in tandem with the
noise ordinance, which will be considered
next
year. So the full recommendation tonight is
to --bear with me
--conduct a public hearing, waive the
reading, and introduce the ordinance,
approving a zoning map and text amendment
to
amend the municipal code by, one,
come pensively updating
the uses for commercial and research
development and districts. Amending chapter
four definitions to
remove the
individual numbers
and I definitions consistent with updated
uses. Amending chapters 22.14, confessional
and administrative office assistance.
industrial districts. By
revising
setback and standards to be consistent
with other zoning districts. Four, amending
chapters 22.15
research and development districts.
22.18 industrial districts by modifying standards
to incentivize industrial development
and establish
standards. Five, repealing chapters
22.30
on designated districts. Six, adding 22.31
, temporary use permits, to regulate
temporary uses such as
mobile vendors. Seven,
revising section 22.36060 , parking
industrial uses, to an reduce
requirements. Accessory
dwelling units
to comply with state law and
clarify existing regulations. Nine,
revising chapter 22.08
to be consistent with the
elimination of thoroughfare commercial
recreation controlled industrial and undesignated
zoning districts.
then, approving the zoning map amendment
for 45 parcels
zoned thoroughfare commercial and
neighborhood commercial
to neighborhood commercial for six
parcels to neighborhood
commercial. Commercial regulation
to neighborhood commercial. For 11 parcels
to r1 .5 residential. For 12 parcels,
zoning professional
and administrative
industrial to professional and administrative
research and development. For 14 parcels,
zoned
retail business to neighborhood commercial
and for one parcel, zoned environmental
conservation district controlled industrial
to
district service commercial. 11, improving
a zoning map amendment
to appropriate
zoning designations consistent with
the general plan. 12, other
minor revisions. Thank you.
in terms of next
steps, if approved, this ordinance will
go to a second reading of the mid-50s council
meeting it would become effective
on june 15th of this year. So I
really appreciate
your patience while I went through
that lengthy presentation. Thank you
very much for
your attention. Welcome any questions
you may have read
>> thank you. I
appreciate
the report.
I want to thank you
for a couple of very specific things
that I heard. One, I absolutely agree
with you
. I had to go on mute because I giggled
out loud when you mentioned ice boxes,
which is clearly decades behind schedule.
so I very
much appreciate the attention to detail
to remove some of these outdated terms.
I
also want to acknowledge that several months ago
we talked about massage parlors and
one of the
things I asked was
to change that. We have not talked about it
since. I
did notice you changed that terminology
everywhere to massage business. Thank
you very much
for doing that. I want to ask if you
could provide a
few minutes of clarification.
you made a description about activating first-floor
windows and
businesses. Can you talk to that a
little bit more?
>> yeah.
city staff did some research
with how other municipalities
are trying to
enliven their downtowns. One of the
things we identified was
that when a business goes through
an entitlement
--say they're looking for a conditional use
permit. As part of that
entitlement process requiring them
to have some sort of activation of
any ground-floor space within the downtown
. So this could include anything from
visual display of products to some
sort of artwork or do something else that would
engage pedestrians as they
walk by to alert
them to the fact there is an active
business use there. This would only
apply to retail uses
as I
mentioned. Uses like restaurants or
nail salons. Having a fully transparent
window where
you could see into the business and see
the activities going
on there would qualify as activation for
purposes of
this requirement. But it is just good
practice because we
don't want
empty windows downtown when we have
an active business there. We want
people to know
that there is something going on .
if somebody can kind of spy something
if they are half a
block away and they see
something in the window that maybe draws
them down further, it is good for
business. It is good for the city.
it is good for pedestrians.
>> would that apply to existing businesses
? Or it is only if they are applying
for permits through
the city?
>> it would only apply to
businesses going through a new
entitlement process.
>> for example
,
insurance companies or law firms.
things like that. Because
that is not considered retail, I don't
think. How would that be
impacted by this ?
>> they would be
subject to
the requirement
to have a fully transparent window. So
people could see in --see office workers.
that sort of thing.
>> okay. Great.
my only comment. I know we are still
in the question and answer period.
I'm not
particularly supportive of the idea
of extending mobile food vendors past
10:00 p.m. That is inconsistent
with all the other rules that we have
in place so I just want
to put that out there now. I am in
support of having that end at
10:00 p.m. Anyone have any other questions or anything
specific they
would like to ask?
>> councilmember ross. You want to
kick everybody off?
>> sure.
with all due respect
, madame mayor --when you look at the
noise
ordinance next year, I think the food trucks
should go past 10:00. But I said that
before. But that is not for tonight. When
you consider that a year
from now, maybe the echo of
my voice will be heard.
anyway. Speaking of
food trucks , on
the regulations
and changes that I saw in there, they
refer to
the requirements for a food truck
parked in public parking stall.
with these apply to somebody that
has been parking a food truck on a
private property downtown
?
>> yeah. Different regulations
would apply. They would have to go through
the temporary use permit process.
and regulations would be imposed at
that stage by
the zoning administrator.
so it
would depend --it would be a case-by-case situation.
we would review it based on where
they are proposing to locate and what
type of offerings they are
proposing to have. Those sorts of things.
>> so a fixed location would require
the hearing.
>> correct. >>
and an application to have --you
can park anywhere.
>> no.
the tuv could be location limited.
they would have to have the
approval of the property owner
, at which point we would
review the application and approve them
to locate
in one specific location or to have
food trucks located in that location. They
could potentially swapout other food trucks.
different food trucks coming in. We
would allow them to be approved
to have
food trucks in a certain location but
it wouldn't necessarily have to be
the
same food truck.
>> and the ones
[ inaudible ] public parking.
>> if it was
in public parking, they would
be subject to public parking regulations.
so they would
have to if they are located longer than an
hour, they would have to have access
to a bathroom facility. If they are
located less than an hour, we
have very little leeway with what
we can impose on them, but we
would be able to wire inspections
that they have all of their licenses
from the fire department
from public health as well as requirements to
remit
sales tax within the
city limits. And
what was the other requirement
? I'm blanking on the other one. But
we are limited.
>> okay.
just briefly , tell me
. If I have a food truck [ inaudible
] I've
got two choices. Park in a public
space, or
I can park [ inaudible
] is each
path equally
--is there as much work for each path
if you pick one or the other? Sounds like
the private property might be a
little more cumbersome.
>> so we tried to
keep it fair and
we did not want to incentivize people parking
in
the public right-of-way since we know
that the direction from the council
was to really promote it on private property.
so it does provide a
lot more flexibility if you go through
the temporary use permit process. Essentially
you're going to
have to move around a lot if you're
parking in a public
parking spot. The requirements
to
be within 200 feet of a readily available bathroom
and more than 100
feet from
another food truck,
we were hoping it would incentivize
people to go for the temporary use permit
process. And that
also provides
opportunities for the existing businesses
in town to partner with food trucks
to
maybe offer something that they don't already
offer and provide something interesting
to the public that they
would be
--they would help feed the business and
the food truck
and not take away from existing businesses.
>>
I had some of the questions.
but I would just save them
for now. Thank you.
>> that is a great report.
that is
a lot. You guys have been working
your tails off on all
of this. Okay. So I just wanted to
follow-up with
councilmember ross'
thought train. If we
are doing all of these food trucks, that's
great. I like the diversity. Who
keeps them honest?
>> so, we keep
them honest
. The planning division would require
proof that --well,
let us split this up for it in terms of
food trucks working in a public right-of-way
we
would inspect
them for having a business license,
having their fire certificate, public health certificate.
in terms of the temporary use permit
, we would work with the property owner to
make sure that they are adhering to
all of the regulations
or requirements that were imposed
through that temporary use
permit process. In terms of the
food trucks and making sure they are
not staying for longer than an hour,
we
would not have to rely on the community
and business community in
terms of potential using our code
enforcement staff to report if some
of these
are located longer
than an hour and they are not within
the distance of a restroom or too
close to another food truck.
>>
kind of the honor
system.
>> it is a little bit the
honor system.
>> I would
like to clarify. If they are going to
be parking on public property as part
of
their temporary use permit application,
they would be demonstrating how they
plan
to comply with those distance requirements
that
dan gordon just mentioned.
they
would indicate that as part of their application
when we are evaluating the temporary
use permit.
saying that, as dan indicated, they
could always potentially
park somewhere differently than where
they indicated they were going to
be parking for longer than
an hour in that instance. It would
be reliant
primarily on a code enforcement complaint
basis as we
do it.
>> okay.
that's great. So can I
switch gears ? Very good.
the adus
setbacks are going to be the same
as the main house
. Is
that what I heard you say?
>> that
is correct.
>> can you
talk about that a little bit? I thought
we were trying to help these people
get the adus in there. It sounds like
that would be cumbersome.
>> let
me clarify. This would be for attached adus
that have balconies, decks,
or rooftop decks. We wanted to make
sure that
those specific elements
would not be
able to be closer to the property
line than if you had built them
on the primary residence since
especially because it is an attached
adu it is going to be
part of that primary residence and
this could potentially allow somebody
to
push that envelope a little bit. And
we all know that with
adus not everybody uses them
as a special rental. A lot of people use
them
as parts of their primary residence
. So we did
not want to create some sort of loophole
or workaround where people could then
build a deck in a location
that you would not be
able to unless you declared it as
an adu.
>> I like that.
that makes sense. I appreciate that
and I really appreciate all the hard work
you guys have done
to bring
the consistency between all of those
zoning districts because I know it
was before it was just all over the place.
and I think this whole thing that
you
are working so hard on his part of
that. Being consistent
and bringing us up to date
. I know nothing
has been done on this. Or not much
has been done since 1975. So I applaud you
for all of that.
>> all right. Thank you. I too just want
to echo the
comments here. I know what a herculean
task this has been to try
to clean up mountains of
codes that just have not been touched. It
is really
important. And I know that I think
all of us are
eager to move this city forward
and help it grow and flourish in a
way that we
all want. But we cannot do that
if we don't have codes that work in
the
21st century. Write? So this is a big
, important step in helping do that.
I just want to commend
you at the staff level. Thank you
so much for all the work you have
put into this. Just a couple of questions
I
would ask
on the food trucks. Real life scenario
that has emerged over the past few
years. No secret. I think you all are
familiar with it. Food trucks that
decide now moving forward that they roll
up in one of our city parks. Parks
that were for instance
little league has a concession stand.
talk to me in layman's terms. How
does the new procedure that we have
outlined here
--
how would it impact that scenario?
I know that is a concern
that we have heard from some of our
--
some of our folks over in the little
league. And I think it is a valid
concern. They are operating a snack shack.
they rely on the sales of the concessions
from that
snack shack. You know. To truck rolls up.
and obviously that is going to put
a dent
in their sails. So talk to me a little
bit. I want
to make sure they understand how this
--what we have laid out here is
going to help
mitigate those concerns. Does that
make sense?
>> great question. Yes.
that was definitely at the forefront of
our minds
when we were crafting this. The proposed
regulatory framework would essentially
require any food truck located
on public property in a public park
to get
the approval of the city. And a temporary use
permit. So if
it is something that would be impacting the little
league concession stand, obviously as
the city we
would not want to see that. We would
not be approving a food
truck to be able to locate within
such distance of that concession stand.
they would not
just need
approval of the city as the property
owner,
but they would also have to go through
the temporary use permit
process where we would employ other restrictions.
let's say we did
approve it
for some reason. We would only approve it when
that concession stand was not operating.
>> so
I appreciate that. That's really helpful
to know. To piggyback on what councilmember
just brought up with respect to enforcement.
you just obviously referenced
code enforcement and what have you.
these situations sometimes arise outside
of normal business hours. Let's say
they arise on the weekend. Saturday
you were down. The place is packed
to the brim.
you have a food truck that rose up
that is already taking up valuable
parking spaces.
I get a call from somebody at little
league councilmember. What are
we doing about this?
what can be done? Is this something they
would call pd on
and ask pd
to enforce it and ask those folks
to either show their documentation
or
have them remove ? How does
that work
? I'm just trying to play through
that because I can
see that scenario arising and I want
to know what
we do in that situation.
>> I believe
that is the case as
with most off-hours. Violation of
municipal code. It would go to our
wonderful colleagues.
>> assuming they would be trained
and well versed in
the policies.
>> what I
would add to that is if we got complaints
that opened over the weekend, if the
complainant could identify what the
food truck company was
because usually there is
fairly significant branding on the
outside of the vehicles. So I suspect
we
would have a pretty easy way that we
could follow-up
during business hours as well. Maybe
not immediately solve the issue at
the time. We
could take some action to prevent future
problems that would
occur.
>> that is really helpful.
I appreciate that candor because that
is something
. Like I said, I have heard it on
more than one occasion. I just want
to make sure that everybody is on
the same page here and we understand
that we are actually trying to be responsive
to
the concerns that have been brought
forward. And that is
a very real world scenario that has
been brought to our attention. Again,
thank you, both, for that. Kind
of two general questions
not on the food truck that I had was. Earlier
this year I believe we had
a presentation
from some economic development consultants.
they had given
us a presentation in which they
laid out
some general observations
and some recommendations and things
to keep
in mind . And I'm just kind
of wondering if you can speak to how what
is before us tonight
more or less aligns with what
they highlighted
as part of their
presentation.
>> absolutely. A big
part of that presentation
from mr. Greenwood, the city's economic
development consultant
, was about these development standards
in our heavy industrial and light industrial zoning
districts and how much more restrictive
hours are compared
to neighboring municipalities . So
this does cover quite a few
of the recommendations that he brought to
your
attention, including
the reduced setbacks,
reduced landscaping requirements,
greater height allowances as well as
allowing for
greater variety of types of uses to
go into
those districts. Things like
data centers, renewable energy
that were specifically mentioned in
the code before so we
could not actually permit them.
so it covers quite a large chunk of
the recommendations.
>> what I would add to that as well
is when staff was
preparing these regulations, they
were reviewed in draft form by the
consultants as well to ensure that
we adequately captured all of the recommendations.
>> I'm really
happy to hear that. Thank you. I just
wanted to make sure we
were all communicating with one another
as we were going through because I think it
is really important for me as we are
modernizing the code. We have an eye
toward the future. We need to have
--we're
trying to figure out how we can continue
to grow and sustain and broaden our
economic base so that we can bring
additional sales tax dollars to
help continue to provide the high
level of service that our residents have
come to rely upon
. Certainly as we are kind of navigating
through some --
let's just say some less than ideal budget
--upcoming budget. And we're making our
way
through, but it is really important we
have an eye toward the future knowing
that
the one
time dollars that the federal government has
provided us
have more or less been exhausted at this
point so we really need to. The
planning for tomorrow began really
yesterday. We need
to figure out how to
take those steps to grow our economic
base. And this is
a really critical component to it.
again, really appreciate that.
last question I had going back to
the presentation
that the economic development consultants
had
presented to us . If I
remember correctly --please correct me
if I'm
wrong. I believe
they reference some potential surface
county properties within the city limits.
that
could potentially
be subject to a swap of some
kind or a sale or exchange. Maybe
I'm not understanding that correctly. But
I am kind
of thinking in terms of future uses.
if that
were ever to come to fruition, we would
still have the ability to make
modifications to accommodate that
possibility
. We are not set in
stone just because we are doing this
today. We still have some flexibility to respond
to
any new --a new
project that may come forward .
>>
absolutely. This
does not hamstring you in any way
of considering
changing it in the future or adding
or removing uses
. Changing the development standards.
in response to a project. Not at all.
>> okay.
>>
I think that is all I had. Thank you
so much. Really
appreciate it.
>> hi, dan. Thank you so much for
all the
work that you have done. Most of my
questions have been asked
by my fellow councilmembers. So that
is great.
I did have a question about the frontage
requirement
that mayor
brianne zorn had asked you about earlier.
I'm still not sure I understand
but I think I understand it. If a
new business were to want to go
into a building downtown and there were
no windows
in that storefront
, there would be an obligation to create
some
sort of window or some sort of
opportunity for people to
be able to look in and see what actually is going
on in their provided
it is a certain type of business.
so that would require some
construction at the front of the door
that would have a
window in it or something along those lines. Is
that what you are kind of
getting at?
>> you asking specifically
if there are no windows.
>> yes. >> there would be a couple
different ways where
they could comply with this requirement.
it would not necessarily need to put
a window in.
we have a catch all at the end of
that requirement where it says other
pedestrian oriented visual display.
that could be sums
--some form of public art they put on
the building. Even something
like a mural.
those could all satisfy the requirement.
>> okay. Some of
those are low cost as opposed to more
expensive costs. I appreciate that.
like I said, most of my questions
have all been answered. I do want
to say that I'm glad we have eliminated refining
because I don't think we want to see
anymore refining
occurring in the city of martinez.
so I super appreciate that being changed.
and I don't really have any other
questions. Just a comment
about what
satinder malhi mentioned
about the hypothetical situation of
a baseball game and a food truck rose
up . The
concern that I have and I'm sure you
do too is that I don't think
many people know or understand that they could
call the police department and have
a
food truck
--a conversation with the food truck
about their presence
there or not. People don't know to
do that. But the food truck could
impact the
sales that the kids have at their
little
snack shack.
so that is my concern. It has to be some
sort of public awareness
that if there was a truck that came up
-- or mobile vendors
. People know what
they can do because I don't think
people understand
what they can do. The tools they have
available to them. So that is
just my concern. If there is
these mobile vendors taking advantage
of an opportunity, then no one understands
that there may be rules
and policies and ordinances. They
are not thinking that.
so that is sort of where
I'm going with this. Maybe we can
also do some outreach so people know
in
those certain areas that they have
an opportunity to reach out to
try to make their
case known so that maybe the truck
can no longer reside there.
>> we can
definitely work on doing some public
outreach if these regulations become
effective june 15th. We would want
to do some outreach to the
community just to raise awareness.
>> that is all
I have. Thank you so much. This has
been, like, a huge task.
in looking at the agenda here. This
item takes up the entire page. So
if that goes into showing how
much time and effort went into this
,
it is commendable. So thank you, all,
for all the work you have done in putting
up with us and everybody else that
has been asking for changes.
thank you.
>> thanks, everyone. Before I
opened it up to public comment, any
last comments from
the council?
yeah. Councilmember ross.
>> back
to the food truck
scenario again.
just wanted to make a
comment. I know that we are separating
food trucks .
one strategy down the road may be
to allow them to collate and
be together
in order to
have a bathroom facility nearby. I
think the bathroom question is going
to be the
sticking point here. Open the door
to
it. But we release a trapdoor because
we have no public restrooms downtown.
so how they meet that requirement
-- I still don't see how that --maybe
they
will. But
one of the questions about the little
league scenario
. What if the little
league themselves decided to partner with
a
food truck and instead of having
to man the
hotdog stand , lease
the opportunity.
is that something the city would get involved
with?
>> yeah. Great question. The city
would get involved with that since
presumably they would be
locating the
truck on city property. They would
need the approval of the city and
they would need to go through the
temporary use permit process and get
a temporary
use permit to do that. That is absolutely
something that could be accommodated
by this framework.
>> any
other entity . To say the sportsman
club had an
event. Danny does his
own cooking. Doesn't need a food truck
down there. Say some group
had a building . They are on
private property.
they invite a food truck to come on. They are
not necessarily --they invited
a food truck for
private property as opposed to public property
. With the
have to go through the same
process?
>> yes. Anytime a food truck
wanted to
locate on
private property, they would require
a temporary use permit. Even for a
one-time event. Yeah.
it is
a low fee. $450 fee
. So we wanted to make sure that it
was not
prohibitive so if somebody wanted
to do a one-day event or
two-day event, it would not discourage them
too much from having that food truck.
but because it would
have to go through a staff process
and cost
staff time,
we did need to impose a
fee.
>> $450 for one day. >> that
is
correct. Yeah. If they were doing it
for one
day, I would encourage them to get the
temporary use permit for the year. And
then they could have other times where they
have that event again.
but yes. Even for one day.
>> are
there any chances
exclusions or exemptions for charitable organizations
if it was
a fundraiser for a charitable organization?
>>
I would defer to the
planning manager on that question.
>>
so if you're wanting to make exceptions
for application fees, that would be
something that would
need to be codified as part of the
fee schedule.
at this point in time, it
would be based on the adoptive fee
schedule.
>> we can do
that later. We could revise the
fee schedule
.
>> it could be done at a later date.
yes.
>> sorry to interrupt. Just to clarify
, dan,
to repeat back what you said, the $450 is
for a temporary use permit
that does apply to the entire year.
if they want to
come back
two days in the next calendar year,
it
is the same cost. If they want to
come back 100 days, which we allow in
this provision, it is still the same cost.
>> yes, mayor. That
is correct. Renewal fee
and $225
if we renew for a subsequent year.
>>
so if
--a way to get around that is if there was
[ inaudible ] with a charitable organization
, they
could use that same permit continually
. A different organization could use
the same truck
over the year.
>> yes. Absolutely. >>
last question. If we have a
food truck
that does research and development on
a deck on an
adu.
we will pass on that.
>> okay. I'm going to open this up
to public comment. Thank you so much
for all of the answers, dan. Anyone
in council chambers that
has any comments or questions on all
of the items that were presented
this evening?
>> if you would like
to make a comment, show of hand.
I have no one here in chambers. I
will move to
zoom. If you would like to make
public comment on item number
nine, please use the rays had featured now.
I have no hands.
oh. Sorry.
the last minute. All right. I will
ask you to unmute.
jb,
are you there?
all right. Let's move on. I have
no hands.
>> all right. Thank you
so much. I'm going to bring this back to
council for any last
comments
or to make a motion if you choose.
>>
I have one last question.
>> sure. >>
so if I was
having a private party at my home and I
wanted to have a mobile
vendor come onto my personal property
onto my driveway for my guests
to have tacos or something, is that same
temporary
use permit required?
>> yes, it is.
>> okay. Just wanted to check.
okay. Thanks.
>> I have a very easy
question because I
know this is the answer. But we have in fact
been in thorough consultation with
the chamber with downtown martinez
on this and they are good . Write?
>> yes.
I just wanted to confirm on
the record that we have kept them
in the loop every step of the way.
that is all I needed.
>> to
your point, I would recommend if you're
having a party and you want a food
truck,
you can park it legally outside of
your house
and you don't have
to get a temporary use permit if it
is an illegal parking spot.
>> for less than an hour. >> less
than an hour. Then the have to move.
>> wait. So you are saying vice mayor wants
to have a party. The truck
parks in a legal space for one hour.
they have to move
at least one legal parking
space away and now they
have another hour.
>> that's correct.
>> to clarify,
you would still need to have that
--the food truck would still
need a business license. They would
still need all of the other regulatory
permits such
as environmental health and all of
those items.
>> they don't have
to pony up the 450 if they are in a
legal parking
space. The state has prevented us
from allowing that.
>> that's right. >>
to follow up, sorry
to keep talking about this item.
right now
-- I'm going to go ahead and make
reference to one food truck that I
know of. They come to our school
every day on wednesdays for an hour
or so.
shaved ice. I see them all over the
city. They do
a great job. They get back to ptas
and local nonprofits and
things. So our existing food trucks
that are
operating in the city .
have they had to get this temporary
use permit?
and will
-- as long as they are less than an
hour, doesn't really
matter, but there has kind of been
an incentive for some of the local
businesses
that might want to be called for parties to go
ahead and get the temporary use permit
because that really gives them a lot
more flexibility throughout the year.
>>
yeah. That's right. It does give them
a lot more flexibility. And if they
are located
on school property, they would not
need a temporary use permit
if they are in a parking space. They
would not.
>> they are currently in a parking
space. I was just
thinking about it because I think the
reason this conversation started with respect
to food
trucks was actually in the downtown
we had a food trucks operating elsewhere
in
the city and now the supplies are
basically citywide. I appreciate
councilmember
malhi
bringing up some of these questions about
our parks and little league and things like
that because the driver for this original
discussion really was not
our parks and food trucks coming to
the parks. It was really more
of the downtown corridor. Thank you
for that clarification. I think there
will probably be a little bit of growing
pains over the next couple of months and
maybe
a year as people get used to what the
new nuance of the rules
and how they impact existing businesses
in the city.
go ahead. Councilmember
ross.
>> madame mayor,
I would ask the indulgence to
-- we are talking about speaking
with the chamber and hopefully the
restaurant community was talked to.
the speaker that
was online --the
public comment her online did not connect
.
I'm presuming that was jb, one of
the local restaurant
s. I would implore if we could perhaps
--is he still?
>> if he is listening
and would like
to attempt to make a comment ,
just raise the hand and I will
[ inaudible ]
>> he says he has raised his
hand.
>> he did. He just needs to unmute
himself now.
he is still muted.
now he has lowered
his hand and he is still muted.
I think we will have to move on at
this time.
>> okay. Thank you. >> I think it
is
fair since many of us know him it is
worthwhile for us
to reach out and see if he has any
additional comments on that. Really
quickly, one
thought about
other events
such as national night out and various
things like that. How would
these types of rules impact
those gatherings of mobile
food vendors?
>> they would require
a temporary use permit if
the event takes place in a public park
or during a
street closure .
again, there are ways to get around
that if we locate them
in illegal parking spot and move them
every hour. Otherwise
they would still require the $450
temporary
use permit.
>> okay. Thank
you. All right. Council,
any
final questions or comments or emotion, please.
>> I would be happy to make the motion.
but I
would have to get my reading glasses.
>> can you make that contact with city attorney
and
ask her how much of that you need
to read aloud?
>> it will be
sufficient to say, move the staff
recommendation. That is why dan read
the whole
thing into the record for you.
>>
that is what I kind
of figured .
>> thank
you.
>> I would like to move the staff
recommendation on number nine.
>> second. >>
all right. Please vote per the
clerk's prompts.
>> [
roll being called ]
>>
motion passes.
all ayes.
>> all right.
before we move to the next item, I
wanted to check with staff. I
understand there are some folks in
the audience that are here to provide comment
on item number 12. I was just wondering
--assistant city manager, is there anyone
in the audience here to talk about
item 11? If
not, can I swap those two items?
>> I would certainly be okay with
it if it is
okay with the city manager.
>> I'm
so sorry.
I just completely jumped ahead.
I apologize.
>> that is fine. >> okay.
I think I would like to pull 12 up
before 10 and
11. I think 10 and 11 will be items
that might be discussing
a
little bit longer. So I'm going to
go ahead and jump ahead. Our next
item
on the
agenda is item 12.
receiver portable discussion and provide
direction to staff regarding terms and
conditions under which the
city can transfer the joltin joe
to the joe dimaggio hometown hero
project.
>> thank you
. I will be presenting this item tonight.
the joltin joe as you know is a beautiful
22-foot
sportsman boat . That was given to
joe dimaggio
in 1949
by his fans in new york city.
the vessel was
donated eventually to the city of
martinez in 1994 , which was
also the year of a restoration project
that took place for the boat.
as many of us
are familiar with some of its history
in 2010, several community groups
came together to work together on
another restoration of the boat, which took
several years . Several hands. This a
lot
of fundraising
. Since that --that was completed
about 2015.
since that
restoration, the joltin' joe has since
been displayed at community
events. In fact we have a format the
city for people to
fill out if they are interested in
having the boat
displayed. More intimately it has
been brought out during
our fourth of july parade, which the
city council has had the pleasure of writing
in
as one of our city floats. It has
really been a prized
asset to the
city and community. We have heard
nothing over the years but really
positive things about the experience
and excitement that the community
gets when they have an opportunity
to see
the boat and also get a chance to
get up close with it at community events.
over the years, however,
the lack of good-quality storage
options has been a problem for us.
we do have it stored in a city
facility that is closer to the waterfront.
it is not really climate controlled.
so that has been an
ongoing concern that we have. We also lost
staff expertise on the
boat. We used to have a team of people
that were very passionate about the boat
who have since left
. So the most common feedback I
hear from our new generation public works
workforce is that they are not in
the boat business. They don't have
that understanding.
also funding. So we don't
have a city budget
right now to actually preserve and
maintain the boat. I would just
also add that at
present when community groups
do ask to bring it up for display at
community events, typically we pay
overtime costs.
so this is anywhere from
on
average 5 to 8 hours we ring a public
works person
and they have to stay with
the boat the whole time and
bring it back in. So there is a city
cost to kind of providing
this benefit to the public. I will
say that the
city proactively last year
after we were seeing some of these
challenges occur
--we did
have an assessment or appraisal done
through our city
insurance. So the
most recent number is
that the boat is valued at just
over $246,000. During the march 20th
city council meeting , a
few of you expressed
interest in transferring the joltin'
joe to the joe dimaggio hometown hero
project. This is a nonprofit organization
established in 2014 to
preserve the legacy of joe dimaggio in
this community.
subsequently, about a week or two
later, the organization submitted
a letter
of interest to the city, which was
attached to the
staff report expressing their interests
to seek a transfer of the
boat so they can again take it, preserve
it, display
it, and really
maintain it as a prized asset of the
community. The
benefits that staff
sees to a potential
transfer is, number one, it supports
the restoration and preservation of the
boat that staff just cannot
do today.
the organization would be in better position
to fund raise than the city would.
so they
can get those outside funds to support
those
efforts. It would save on insurance costs
because it is
a city asset. And potentially
the nonprofit would
be able to explore new opportunities to
display the boat
for new partnerships that can be formed
where
other new audiences could
enjoy the boat as well.
so what we are
asking the council tonight is just
your direction on
before we start exploring further
in agreement and
terms and conditions regarding this transfer
and an agreement with the hometown
hero project.
we're looking for your feedback tonight
on whether this is something
you would want
us to go further on. If so, the city
attorney would be assisting us
in putting together terms that would
include purpose and transfer
, public
displays. So at minimum, what would we
expect the nonprofit organization
to do
in terms of making the boat available
to the community
?
if the organization
was not able to meet the terms and
conditions of the agreement,
what would
b then the protocol for the city taking
the
boat back into our own ownership?
and then also insurance
for the
organization among many other.
I will pause and ask the city attorney, are
there any
other elements that would be useful
for the council tonight regarding
terms and conditions?
>>
I think you actually covered it.
those are the main terms. The chief
among them are some
direction because it is a
valuable asset . And
we are --
the proposal might include transferring it
as is
with
no compensation but with many conditions, chief
among which would be the requirement
to have some ongoing display
so that the community
could enjoy the historic asset . So
that would
be an important thing. And lauren
did
mention that. Of course a right of
reverter clause
in case for
some reason the nonprofit overtime
couldn't
comply with the terms or disbanded
or something the asset would come
back to
the city
and there would be an enforcement mechanism
at
the cost of the nonprofit if we had
to go
to court
to enforce that right of reverter clause.
>> in closing, what I
will add before I turn it back over
to you is that
we do have bob hear from the hometown
hero project. So if you would like
for
him to offer any public comment, he
is available. And
I will turn it over to you.
>> great. Thank you so much.
I will absolutely invite him
to speak during public
comment, but let's go ahead and start
with council comments.
does anyone have any questions for staff
or any items
that were discussed?
I see a couple leaning forward.
>> hi. Good evening.
I just want to speak on this matter.
full disclosure.
I am an honorary member of the
joe dimaggio hometown hero project
.
I actually worked with attorney
to create the 501(c)(3) paperwork
and
bylaws for the organization.
so
just want to let you know I have some
affiliation, although it is honorary
with
that organization. So with that said
,
I just want to say that this boat
is more than just a boat. It
means something very deeply to me. This
boat is part of
my family. Joe dimaggio is my cousin.
I have many cousins here
. And this boat was under the care of my
grandfather,
my uncle, and my great uncle, mike
dimaggio
. So I really
do care about what happens to this boat.
it is a very
special treasure to me and
to my entire family
. And I don't want to go without saying
that
this boat would not be what it is
today if it wasn't for the hard work and
dedication of so many people that
came together from
the sons of italy, from the martinez
carpenters union .
so many people worked for years
on this boat. Weekends. Blood, sweat,
and tears. A lot of these names I
feel like people
should know who worked on this boat.
this
boat did not just appear one day and
we just had a boat. After
it was
donated to the city years ago, it
was outside in the elements and
completely decrepit. The work to
restore this boat --
truly phenomenal. Bob
can talk to the amount of time that
people spent on this boat.
we
have others including don curtis,
who was the restoration expert who helped
derive this project forward. And all
the fundraising
that happened.
rick was another key component. There
are so many names. I don't want to
read them , but I just want
to make sure it is clear to everyone
how important this boat is not
only to me and my family but to the
city. So with
that said , I do believe that
there should be
some organization that can take pair
-- care
and make sure the boat is showcased.
people should see this boat. It is
beautiful. So I do feel that there
is another
--the joe dimaggio hometown hero project
is a good organization to care
and preserve this boat.
however, I would not support this without
the clause that was mentioned
earlier called the right of reverter clause
because of
this organization were to ever be
dissolved, disbanded,
or for some reason has no funding
or just collapsed in some
way, that boat should never go into
the hands of a single individual.
that boat longs
to the citizens and residents of this
city and I feel that boat
should come back to the city and be
under our care.
so the only
way I would support that is to make
sure that would never happen.
that this boat would never be in the
hands of one individual.
so that is my opinion
. I will let my
other colleagues
take the microphone.
>> thank you
for the
wonderful report. I just want to piggyback on
what madame vice mayor
just said . This boat means so much to
this community. I remember working
with don curtis
, who taught me so much
about restoring boats . And he
would tease us all the time
. Working harder. I thought you were
a carpenter. I am a boat
builder. We had so much fun down there.
the camaraderie.
regard ridge driving us so hard to
get this
done.
the city and the mayor has promised me that
it
will be saved and restored. So I feel
it is incumbent upon us to
get it to somebody that is going to
take care
of it. My daughter and I would spend
our saturdays
down there just trying to help out
. And so I too feel
very connected to this boat. It is
a part of our community. And I'm
very interested in hearing how bob
and the hometown hero people are
going to display it because I think
that is the biggest
thing. To see it down there in the warehouse
basically
rotting away
is just devastating . And I
know we are not in the boat building business.
so all the things that lauren was
talking about. It is so important
that we get this boat
to somebody . We're
talking about what I said when I brought
this up. Heavy hitters.
these are bob cellini
and scott
--steve perry. These
people are
dedicated to the city. I
really want to put this in the hands of
people that have time, money,
and inclination and expertise to take
care of it.
I do want to hear
about how they're going to display
it. We have already had conversations
about getting
it to the giants and getting it out
there. So I know they
are making these plans and I cannot wait
to hear
the report.
>> thank you.
>> councilmember
ross, do you have any questions or comments?
>>
no. It
has been a labor of love . I cannot add
any more to
it. It deserves a better home than
it has now. I
wholeheartedly endorse
support.
>> thank you. Council member malhi.
>>
yes. So I too just want to
echo the comments here. I support what
councilwoman mckillop says. I think
it's only appropriate that we make sure
we do have a clause in there that
just says years from now for
whatever reason the circumstances
change --which hopefully they won't, but
in the event that they do, we will
ensure it does
not go into the hands of a private individual.
that it does revert back to
the control of the city. Up to a future council
to decide how
best to handle that at that point. But
I would really love to hear from
mr. Cellini . I may
have additional questions after that.
>> thank you
very much for everyone's comments.
thank you for
the reminder
, vice mayor mckillop, about
your concern. I think that is something
that I had heard a couple times and
I would like
to reiterate in the hands of a single person.
I think the
part of that that
resonated with me is less of the person that
is holding it and more that
there would be one person that would profit
from the acquisition or sale of said
boat. So from
my perspective it is almost
less who
has it and more that someone sold
it. So from my perspective, giving it
to the hometown
hero project is a way to ensure that
loving hands continue to
maintain it. We can hopefully see
that it gets to a home where
there is an environment where
the
temperature is controlled. More of
a museum appropriate
space rather than where it is likely
being held
right now as an interim measure. I
thank you
very much for that reminder.
since today we are not taking action
and were just providing guidance, I
think it seems pretty unanimous from
all of the
council that that is their interest.
so with
that said, I would like to open this up
to public comment. Clerk, can you
let me know. Are there any speaker
cards
or anyone queued up to speak?
>> I
have no speaker cards. We have one
--
>> [ inaudible ]
>> okay.
>> hold on, kristin. I cannot hear
you.
make sure you are at the microphone.
>> this is actually tangential to this.
when
the joltin' joe was brought out of storage,
it was at the time
when this whole thing was
going on.
and lorraine and her friend wrote an
article that
lorraine I discovered it in storage.
people came many times
asking, where is it? Let's get
it out.
but you were not in the business of taking
care of boats,
but you are in the business of acknowledging
your history in your general and specific
plans. And I just want to say
fame is not necessarily historic significance
. Ignorant
--historic
significance are things that represent
the broad
important occurrences that happen
to humanity in a local level
or a larger level. And
joe dimaggio is just the standout
tree
in these italians that came here and
fished
and did all of that.
and I believe that boat was taken out
to get the italian I off of what the
historic society at the
time, the county, and the city
would say there is nothing historic about
that neighborhood
. So
you get two for one. You get the boat
and the history in the national
register. Great for you. But don't
forget you are in the business.
registering the true history of this
town and not just famous people and
respecting that. There is a reason
,
malhi
--satinder malhi. There is a reason
why the state
office of historic preservation in every
single state.
and we're not just living in the past. We
live in a
continuum. Okay? These human beings
affected the built
environment and they affect the way
we live now. And we
need to remember what is supposed
to be remembered. This really had
nothing to do
about the boat. Except that, wow. You
are in the business of this town's history. Thank you.
and thank you mayor and council for considering
our request
for the transfer of guardianship, that is
how I want to state it. When I
was employed with the city and this
first came out we were mutually
in this together. With the hope that
someday it would end of
in a museum, things change, I understand
that. I think
the direction we are going now
and the availability that was offered
to us, we have a
opportunity to expand what the boat
means to martinez. Every time I have
taken it out to different events,
it brings a array of questions from
people all over the country.
I cannot agree more with
lawrence report, I
agree with the city attorney.
this is not a possession we are looking at.
I
made a obligation
to paulo,
I asked her
when we first conceived of this opportunity to
transfer so we can better promote
and maintain and display it. One thing
she said to me and I will
always honor that,
is that she does not wanted to fall
back in
the condition it was in when it was
exposed.
I do agree
that the city should have first right
of refusal but hopefully by that
time there may be a permanent place
to house
the boat. Our mission is a nonprofit
has not changed. We
have four goals,
they were promoting the italian fishing
community. My
grandfather was a part of it, his
name is on the plaque. Honoring
my father who is a immigrant,
taught me baseball, I met joe dimaggio
when I was eight years old.
in the future this
boat means what we can bring
to the next generation. Educating
them about the game, sportsmanship, and
the dedication to stay committed.
that being said,
if you have any other questions for
me I would love to
answer them.
>>
let's see, if it is okay,
let's
see if there is any other public comment
and then we will go back to counsel
for questions.
anybody else in council chambers who
would
like to speak?
>>
I see no hands, I will moved to zoom,
if you
would like to make
a public comment, please use the ray's
hand feature now.
I have no hands.
>>
let's kick it this back to
the councilmember. You can ask your
questions now.
>>
assistant city manager, you mentioned
the value of the boat, you said it
was
just under a quarter million.
I would
venture
to ensure something
like that, I do not know what the
cost is on that, I
do not know the state of your financials,
is that something you guys have the
wherewithal to cover?
>>
let me give you a quick
rundown on current financials,
right now our current
assets is just under 30,000 and we have
a little more than 11,000 in merchandise we
use for
fundraising. We have decent fundraisers
but again with guardianship
of the boat, we would have
broader opportunities and
we have future events
we can take
advantage of. As far as ensuring the
boat, I know when we
requested insurance,
a one-day event was $350. A one-day event
was more costly than
blanket coverage, there are specialty
insurance with
the ability to ensure
classic boats and cars , vintage things.
we do not
have that but I believe with our continuous fundraising,
and
the councilmember notes we have yearly fundraisers,
also with the transfer of guardianship,
it enables us to bring in
your corporate sponsors. That is part
of our responsibility, to maintain that because
we will have to show that proof each and
every year, I am sure that is part
of the agreement.
it is no different than what you do with
main street and the chamber.
there is accountability.
>>
was there anything in
the presentation that concerned you
as far as the stipulations
that are being talked about here as
part of
a transfer?
>>
note there is not,
my only concern is that,
when it is transferred
and I transport it to a event,
making sure that the city is not liable
for anything that may possibly happen
so
how we separate those two
entities,
that would be a legal question I cannot
answer but that would
be my concern so that the city is
in no way liable.
>> I have nothing further to add other
than to reiterate
what I said earlier. I appreciate
what the mayor said as well, I think
it is a valid point.
hopefully back gives
some clarity
to you
madam assistant city manager in terms of
where I am coming from
on this. I value the rich history,
those of us that had
the good fortune
of growing up here, we know well how special
mister dimaggio is
and was and certainly the family
and his rich legacy and
we want to see that
continue to endure and sustain
for future generations to come. I
really appreciate the partnership
here and hopefully I
think we can get this done in short
order.
>>
bob, can you talk about your plans
for displaying the boat?
>> we
were given a gracious offer from bills
hardware to display it in the a's
truck box
where the original ace hardware was.
it will allow
the public to view it six days
a week. It is under
better constant conditions, it is
secure, it is
locked and I have accessibility for in
and
out privileges but I want to be specific, I
do not want
to take the boat out every weekend.
the boat is
between the agreement with the city
events, as president,
my
requirement is it needs to be displayed for
special occasions
and circumstances that will give it
the biggest benefit bringing
it back to the city of martinez
and its citizens, that is
what it is tied to.
>> bob
, I want to
thank you and commend you for all
of your
efforts, your heart and soul is in
this boat,
I truly believe that, I trust that
you
and the dimaggio
hometown hero
project will be great guardians
of this boat. It kills me to know it has
been sitting in the
kenny building in the heat for all
of these years after restoration
and
it is successful at the amateur boat
shows, it is something that should be
showcased, it is something people
should
see and understand. The fact that
you will take
the boat into the broader community
and educate people and teach them
about the history of
martinez, and
joe dimaggio, baseball, how it became
his boat, all of the
history. That warms my heart to know that.
so I
am grateful that
the organization has stood up and offered
to do this enormous task. It is
a lot. I am thankful to bill
and ace hardware for
their contribution to house
it in a environment that is conducive
to saving the wood and
making sure it is not
adversely impacted
from all of the temperature variations
and things like that. We want it
to be water where the
and not sink. We need to keep the
boat in the best condition possible
so that is great. I want to also shout
out
retired councilmember delaney
and
her efforts over the years to promote
this organization and all she
did to lead the organization forward
so I do appreciate all that she
has done and she was there for many years
and I believe even now she is there.
a key stakeholder in this organization.
that is it.
thank you.
>>
thank you all for the comments and
I appreciate staff moving forward
on this. Assistant
city manager, do you need additional instruction
or is it clear the
direction by counsel this evening?
>> it is clear, thank you. >> thank
you so much.
in that case we will move on to the
next item.
>> I can
propose,
it is not a clock and we can use a
short break.
>>
all right.
normally
I do not take breaks until 10:00 but
I am happy to give a
quick one. We can come back at
915 and we will start then.
>> thank you.
>>
it is 9:15 pm, if everybody can take
their seats. If
you can hear me.
>>
if I can please have
city councilmembers returned to the dais.
>> it
is hard to take a five-minute break,
I know. Thank you.
>>
please note the microphones
are hot so mind your words.
>>
all
right, we are going to move forward
,
actually, we will take the general
business
items backwards. We will move
forward on item 11.
a motion directing staff to
coordinate with community partners
--federal environmental and justice
community change
grant. Will this
be led by the city manager tonight?
>>
they will, I will be efficient
on this one. For a number of reasons,
one of which is the fact that
it hurts to speak. I am sorry I am not
there in person but I am seriously
under the weather now so
apologies for not being there. If
we can please advance josh
burnham, david
marquez and bert --
as well. I want to mention
before I go into a brief introduction
on the
item, josh has a
hard stop at 9:30 pm. I appreciate you
moving this item up so we can
address it and have josh have the
opportunity to speak. Very briefly,
bringing this forward tonight to the city
council and public because this grant
opportunity for
the environmental and justice community
change
grant is both a significant undertaking in
front of us
but also a very
significant opportunity. It provides
up to 20 million
and importantly it does
not require any match whatsoever.
so that is a remarkable opportunity
in the
staff's evaluation in the last couple
of months. We determined
it is definitely worth going for.
if you remember back in october 2020
when
we came before the council to address
serious concerns at the fishing pier, we
saw it the council's approval to move forward
on the city's timeline
for a prop 68 grant which took six
months and allowed us to position ourselves
well for a future
earmark for the fishing pier even
though we did
not get the prop 68 grant. In terms of
this grant, you will
note in the staff report it does have
several requirements but it does afford
us
a potential opportunity to build on
what we had already done on the master
plan which was recently adopted and also
the anchor qa is doing for the city
on the seawall and breakwater redesign
and repair.
all of these
things coming together with components
that are already addressed
in the waterfront master plan
such as a education and event center
envisioned at the waterfront
and numerous other aspects,
make us potentially eligible for
a grant that I would say a year ago
did not make us a good candidate for.
I want to bring this forward
to you tonight for your consideration. I
have
a motion to definitely move forward
on this opportunity.
those
that advanced, they include josh burnham,
the consultant
with anchor
qa working on the design of the seawall
with a short footprint
and also the breakwater repair and
--is the proposed
community benefit organization partner.
the city needs to have a cbo
and we worked many
years with new leaf and the potential
they bring
as far as eco-literacy opportunities
at
the waterfront along with several
other
potential partners some
of which we already had the opportunity
to reach out to.
such as the environmental science department
at the college, they can play a role
in this
for education and work for us opportunity.
it is more than just asking for funding to fix
the seawall
and breakwater, we know it is 12 1/2
million. We
need to be very ambitious on this grant
and go for a lot of things to make
it more viable, attractive
and competitive.
just like all
federal grants, it is a competitive process.
first I want to turn it over to josh,
he has
a hard stop at 9:30 pm and he can
speak a little bit to some of
the work we are proposing at the waterfront
and the work he has done already
and what that may mean for the restoration,
a new look
at the waterfront they should be attractive
to the epa. Josh can walk
us through that.
>> thank you everybody. I came straight
from little league, sorry I am not
there. I think mike teed
it up well.
the way these committee action grants
are broad, they are competitive but
they do
before the opportunity for substantial
funding without a match which is a
valuable thing and the best way to
think about the grant is it
brings together
--in order to
be successful it requires us to ring
together multiple elements of the
waterfront master plan, not just
the infrastructure, to meet the test
of the grant it forces us
to look at community and if it's,
it causes us
to want to move
forward with something I have been
passionate about
for a while which is restoring the
ponds and reconnecting them to
the bay.
in terms of
habitat restoration, carbon see restoration,
treatment runoff and providing
climate resiliency to the marina and
waterfront by creating a
buffers zone for storm surges and
other things so adding in that singular
element of restoring the ponds to
their natural state provides a lot of
the benefits the grant is targeted
at
and I know alan will speak and I have not
met her yet but
obviously once we
do that we have the opportunity for
community education
, interpretation, wildlife viewing
and things that
bring a benefit to the community as
well once we have restored
the ponds. Obviously there are other
community benefits that
can be reached. The way to think about
it is, approaching this
grant is more than just
the seawall and
docks. It really is a opportunity
to advance several elements of the
waterfront land, maybe not the most commercial
uses but wants to focus on
habitat, climate ,
community --
when you think about it from a holistic's perspective,
restoring the
pawn system, reconnecting to the bay,
redoing the storm flows in the area,
repairing the seawall and all
of the
advantages to the community that can
be gained, I feel like
we have a good chance, obviously there
are no guarantees in a competitive
grant
space but we definitely feel like it
is worth a try. I will stop
there.
>> thank you
josh. Alan, you can say a few words.
>> thank you.
I am the executive
director, we
have been providing hands-on science, nature
, appreciation and
literacy education
in martinez and through the county.
we appreciate
the long-standing relationship with the city
of martinez and I think this is
a exciting opportunity for martinez.
we are committed to work with city
staff in applying for the
grant opportunity and working together
to implement a education
and learning event center that can
provide opportunities for education
and ecology and stewardship.
nature appreciation and other
topics josh touched on.
as well as potential career pathways
to revitalize the martinez waterfront.
we are happy to be
a part of it.
>> one
little-known
fact not everybody would know is that
over a decade ago,
ellen, myself, and
the rest of her team at new leaf and
our management analyst
gary rivers who was a intern at
the time, all worked together on a competitive
power cycle grant application
which was almost 100 thousand and
we got it.
so we
definitely have a good relationship working
on the grant.
bringing a lot of education and
information to the youth of martinez.
lastly
we have david marquez, you met him
before
from california consulting, he worked
on a prior grant application we did for
urban greening which we did not get
but recently he worked on this particular
grant for another agency.
brooke was on the
call earlier and had to drop off but we
have been working with him
on initial discussions on what the
grant would look like and
provided a lot of information, our
analyst steve
in the audience tonight has been coordinating
all of this effort and getting everything
set up
so we can start with ernest so david if
you would like to say a couple of
words about the grant and how
you foresee us moving forward.
you are muted.
>> I always do that, I am sorry.
quick note, I told
brooke to go to bed, she lives in
new york
, she has three young boys.
I told her when it
hit midnight, go and I can do this
but she will be the principal working on
this but I will
be working with her. We have worked
on this grant before, one
that was applied for in la county.
a different level
of capacity.
this grant is due in november but there
is a reason
why it is a november date, it does
require a lot of
work, a lot of investment in time, like
all
grants it will be competitive. What
I do want
to say is we went to the vetting process
to see and evaluate if we
can be competitive with this grant.
I know we have
had several discussions over several
meetings at
length looking into the six
requirements there and if we can meet
them so
I do believe
that it is not about eligibility.
it is
about need.
there are many cities in california
that are eligible and need this. We
can take a look
at the requirements and see
which activities we can engage in
that would demonstrate we are ready
and I am happy about the partnership.
I am trying to be objective but the
project
is really fascinating and
from my perspective I believe the epa
would like to
look at it. A lot of times with grants
they are a sickly
case studies, you get funded and they
want to
know how you do it and they want to evaluate
and report. It is
a investment in learning and like
I said,
a case study
so when the grant comes out next year they
look at its impact
on the community and with regards
to the impact on the community we
are
looking at a sustainable change
that
is why the grant requires many
parts in motion but it is almost like
a generational
grant in terms of impact
so I am glad to be working with the city
of martinez on it.
>>
thank you david, two other things
you will note in
the staff report, there is the community
engagement piece
and we already reached out to our
friends at swi a group who did a
great job on the waterfront master plan,
dan, steve and I will have
a call with them tomorrow. They are interested
in continuing to work with us and
help us
with some of the community engagement aspect
to move forward on this with the council's
direction so I want to put that out there.
I think that pretty much covers it.
we are happy to get any initial feedback
from council or the public
on this. Steve is in the audience, if
I missed anything that needs
to be covered, please speak up
steve.
>> thank you so much for that recitation.
I know we have been talking as
a council at every council meeting
on
how we will move forward and flip
the switch
on implementing
the trust land use plan and I think
this is a
great opportunity for a
large ticket grant that may
make a
huge splash at the marina. Thank you
to everybody on the call that put some
of the due
diligence and that is needed for such
a large grant and I am very much aligned
with
your thinking.
city manager and all of the
staff that helped work on this,
I will provide guidance tonight and I'm
sure my
counsel as well, I think this is a
great thing for us to
work on. To echo what david said earlier,
the peen
april and november,
it is not a lot of time but I think
it is
worthwhile. I dropped off for a second,
I do not
know if you mentioned this, as everybody
remembers, we did put a ton
of effort into the prop 68 grant we
did not get
and we are
easily able to
resubmit that for something else and
we were
able to get that. Even if we do not
get the grant
it is a worthwhile investment for all
of us because the waterfront is
so important. I
did want to acknowledge come in a
separate report
we make reference to collaborating
entities, I know there
is a handful of other entities in
martinez that will absolutely be
aligned
with reduction of greenhouse gases and
pollution and all of that so I want
to make sure
we do not forget about healthy martinez,
all of the work they did
this last year, the absolutely aligned
with the intention of this grant.
--creek has been doing
tons of work, another group
that has worked on this grant. I hope
you are able to maintain
those relationships.
>> have you talked
to them already?
>> no, but they are on
the radar. Again we
are running against the clock a little
bit. Obviously we wanted to do our
initial assessment and have a dialogue
with california consulting might
have dialogue with josh and
see how those components may align and
have a dialogue with new leaf, to
give them time to evaluate. You are
spot on, those are
organizations we have in mind and
there are others as well
we intend to reach out
to. Some exciting aspects of this
in
terms of the partnerships that we
can create.
you said it very well, it is a
big project but it
can
really move the needle at the waterfront
and open us up to exciting new possibilities
that honestly we all know we need
down there.
>> sent we are being recorded, do
not forget cd and --parks, they
would be
good folks to have on the team. A
question for josh,
part of the waterfront master plan
discussion was about converting sediment
water ponds and reintroducing them to
title
flows but the expectation was that
it would
be part of mitigation for the development we planned
to
do as part of the design
so we originally discussed this, remember the vice
mayor even asked, why are
we not restoring the title
marsh first and the answer is we are
waiting because there is mitigation and
we want to go side-by-side, so I am
only partially concerned because it feels
like this grant will warrant what
this mitigation
ultimately wants to be and we are
trying to use the same project twice.
can you
speak to that a little bit?
>> obviously
the grant is a opportunity we
may not want to pass up
even if it slightly adjusts our strategy
there but I
do not know if they
are mutually exclusive. We have had success
in the past talking to agencies and
saying we will
advance something for habitat but
take note of the fact we are doing
this
so when we come back
--I cannot tell you in particular
for sure exactly how
the math will work out but I do think
if we
successfully pivot
to the grant I do not think it eliminates the
possibility of getting
mitigation credit
at least on some level. It is a conversation
we have
to have with the agencies. As long
as it is in a reasonable timeframe.
we need
to brief the waterfront plan to the agencies
so when
we get
to some of these things that may require hardening,
I want you to remember we did this because
for us this is all part of one plan.
I cannot
exactly how the dialogue will go but
we have had success with that and
other
places in the past. To get
10-20
million of free money to advance the plan
is difficult to overlook. I do
not think we would give up on the mitigation
piece and we would have some reasonable
negotiation with the agencies about
some banking of credit for the project.
>>
just one comment mike, regarding
the staff report, it makes
reference to the prefab building.
I just
want to voice my slight concern
about that,
I am excited about the idea of a environmental
learning center and event center at
the waterfront and I do not want us
to
make the first building a prefab
amma what I am picturing is
probably not what you are picturing.
I do not want to
settle for something
too small if it is our first foray
into making physical improvements. No
response
required I just want to acknowledge
my concern.
I am going
--I am looking at the rest
of the council, anybody with any questions? How
about we start with
jay and go from there.
>> that
is wonderful,
I want to thank ellen, david and josh
for
the collaboration. This is right up
our alley.
anything that will turn those
wetlands,
the dredge ponds into wetlands, I
am excited to get any
kind of funding out there. Is it
a 20 million grant
or can it be anywhere between 10
and 20?
>>
it can be anywhere between 10 and 20.
>>
okay, I
get that it is a competitive bid process.
I want to know, who owns
the dredge ponds now?
do you know mike?
>>
they are part
of the granted trust lands so that is
under the city's purview but we work
with
state lands on what we do with the
waterfront and they are
excited about this as well by the way.
I already sent our intention on this
so this
is a opportunity they would
definitely support.
>> I am very excited
about this,
especially the community strength plan
part of it. That is all I have, I
am
definitely for all of this. Go ahead.
>>
thank you josh
david and ellen. Bring
those to the table, as
david said
, this may be a
case study
that would be interesting. We have
a impacted
community. We have a geographic location
with
the confluence of fresh and salt water.
all of these factors that the environmental
community and
--historical factors, the indians
thought this was the center of the
universe because of the
east and west migration of the fish and
north-south migration of the birds,
I do
not know if that will give us extra
points but I do know we have
a lot of
aspects,
including indigenous ones going for
us in this and we have the right people
to suss all of that out and connect
the dots.
you have the heart
and soul
we also have to thank you for the
work and anything we
can help you with, we have everybody's support.
>> I would also like to extend my thanks to
everyone here.
it is no secret I have been pounding
the pavement
since I have been on the dais for
the need
for us to be more aggressive when it
comes to seeking out
state and federal dollars to help
us with any number of projects throughout
the city.
this is chief among them and this
is exactly what I
have had in mind so let's do this
team. I am pumped. This would
be huge for us.
if we were able to get this. As
the mayor pointed out, even if we
do not, it sets us up for success
later on
down the road. Basically what we have
seen. I am going in
with the mentality that we will
get this so whatever you need from
us, let us know.
a couple of comments and observations.
as part of
the community engagement piece a couple of
thoughts come to mind. Or tina's is one
of the rare cities where we are a
city of
7000 residents, we have two
congressional representatives and
I think it is
important we engage with both members
of congress and have them go to bat
for us.
I do not know if any letters of support are
required but we should definitely
be engaging
with both of our
congressional members,
be engaged with their staff
in the early stages.
keep them in the loop. I think
they can be a valuable asset for
us. I think it is important
that for all
of the recreational environment
benefits there is economic development
associated as well and we need to
keep that in mind as
well. The other thought is part of the community
engagement
piece, one thing I would note here,
because it is talking
about making sure
that we are working with
a collaborative governance structure
and engaging a wide variety of community
stakeholders as part
of the process. One untapped resource
that I feel like we have not
done a good enough job at his engaging
the
folks at
the california maritime academy. I
know the sea scouts have
a relationship with them but I feel like
there is something more
that can be done on that front. There
are seven maritime academies in the u.s.
,
degree awarding academies.
there is only one
on the west coast of the u.s. Which
just so happens to
be located 15 minutes away from us
, across the bay.
so we need to tap into that.
I think it would behoove us to
figure out how we can
further solidify or make some
inroads on the partnership.
I have had some
conversations
in the past with the folks at the
maritime academy to my previous
day job and I think it would be
beneficial for us to loop them in and
see how we can maybe include them
as part
of this process. I think that will make
our application all the more
stronger so that is all. Thank you.
>>
I like everything I have heard. Thank
you to
everyone. Steve, mike,
josh, dave, ellen, thank you
to my colleagues for all of the suggestions,
we will
not solve it tonight but I will keep
this short
and sweet, I love the relationships
we are building to make this
grant happen. It is truly a opportunity.
I write several grants
a year in my day job and if I was
a
grant manager I would hand
the city of martinez 20-tonight because
I think we will get
this one so I fully support it. Thank
you for all of your work that
you will be doing in the future.
>> I
love the enthusiasm.
>>
one additional item, counselor, thank
you for reminding me. We discussed
partnering with
the confederated villages
for the next
iteration of planning for the
waterfront and I think this is a great
opportunity to partner with them
more formally
so has any outreach been done
for the purposes of this grant to
that group?
>> not yet, we have just been doing
evaluation and research.
it is potentially more than the confederated villages
that we have been working with to a
great extent
but there may be some other potential importantly
it will boil down to what we
can offer
that has value from this and we have
ideas and we need to flesh that out
first. Those are some of the questions
we want to work through and then do
the outreach.
I note there is potential opportunities
down there for them that
hopefully they would be interested
in pursuing.
that is
in the near future we will be sharing
that
sort of outreach.
>> I appreciate
that very much. I
know after the
previous park naming discussions there
was a lot of interest in
partnering with tribes on
naming future
components of the waterfront so I
appreciate you
considering this and I want to ensure
this is one
of the players in this grant
application. I will open it to public
comment. Is there
anybody in council chambers that would
like to speak on this item?
>> please raise
your hand. I have no one.
I will move to zoom, please use the
raise hand
feature if you would like to make
a comment on this item. We
do have one hand. I will ask you to unmute.
>>
hello, local citizen
on the parks
and rec commission, I would urge everyone
who is on this meeting to
go down and walk around the ponds
to get a feel for it. Walk around
the horse ring and the refinery,
it is really beautiful this time of
year and it is
getting dry as we speak.
the nicest time is december
through now. It helps
to get a visceral feeling of
the view and the water and what could
be
done there. That
is it really. This
is all going in the right direction
and I am looking forward to seeing
where it
goes. Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> I have no further
hands.
>> all right,
let me bring this back to counsel.
what was the action?
we
want a motion to direct you to coordinate this?
and that
case bring it to counsel for any final
comments
or motions.
>> I would like to make a motion directing
staff to coordinate with the
community partners, develop necessary
capital budgets and write and submit
a
federal environmental
community change grant of up to 20
million focused on transforming and
vitalizing
the martinez waterfront and marina.
>> second.
>> councilmember
jay.
>> yes. >> councilmember ross.
>> yes. >>
councilmember.
>> yes.
>> vice mayor.
>> yes. >> mayor. >>
yes.
>> the motion
passes.
>>
thank you to everyone for speaking
on
this item this evening.
>> thank you.
>> good night david,
ellen and josh. Moving backwards to
10, adopt a resolution of approving
a loan of 50,000 from the general
fund to the marina
enterprise fund. Will you be
presenting this as well?
>> yes it
will still be me. If we can
please advance jim hayes and betsy.
I appreciate their patience.
if you recall a couple of weeks ago
we
had this discussion regarding
the supplemental funding for the marina. It
was a healthy discussion, one of the things
that came out of the
discussion was the apparent need to
make changes at
what is
currently called the marina bait store,
it has been identified
as the biggest source of
operating losses and contravening to
the ongoing deficit in marina operations
and unfortunately, jim hayes,
the chief operating officer was unavailable
to attend that last meeting and the
counsel indicated
they wanted to continue the item and
have a chance to hear
from jim. Jim is here tonight virtually
as well as
betsy, the hardware master
done at the marina. Unfortunately
on the
city side, community economic development
jill who has been working on this item
with me for the last
couple of months now, she is not yet
back from her trip so
she will be part of the ongoing work we
will continue to do. I know from catching
up with
jim since he returned he does have
updates regarding some of the changes
that have already been made at the
bait store and
some of the plans for potential
next steps as we evaluate ways to improve
operations
down there. I will also mention, I
got late information from betsy,
last
weekend when we had glorious weather,
we had a really good
three day weekend at the bait store
and that is two weekends in a row
and I say that knowing
full well there is a solid chance
of rain this
coming saturday but what
can you do? There is a correlation
between good weather and
better operations at the bait store
even with
the unfortunate circumstance of the
fishing pier
obviously still closed as we
work toward the restoration project so
anyway
if we can
promote jim and betsy said they are
available
to speak. They are, great.
that is it for the introduction to
the item.
>> thank you mike, I
appreciate it. We
appreciate your consideration for
additional funding for marine operations.
as you heard,
last week from our cfo we are struggling
at the bait store but we are currently working
to improve that.
we are getting a lot of help
from the city, jill especially, she
has been a amazing job providing us
with ideas on how
we can promote the bait
store. Mike is always a big help and
we appreciate that. We already started
on
some of the items
that do not cost a lot of money
that we can take advantage of right now
and a
lot of it has to do with the physical plant of
the bait
store and how it looks. We are removing
some
unnecessary signs
. We are repairing the deck outside. Replacing
exterior window frames and
taking care of some of the landscaping
that is
there now. After that
we are moving on to some items that
will have a cost.
so we are gathering the
costs now, considering the fact we
will be doing some
rebranding we will
need new signage, we are looking at
furniture and umbrellas for outside
on the deck. Hopefully bring
color and activity there. Additional activity
usually promotes more activity so
maybe we can bring other
people in. We are looking at expanding
the offerings to
not just bait and tackle. We have not done
that much before but looking at maybe
providing a place where people can
go
for lunch. Come down for coffee or
things
like that. So we are working
on those items now. Once we get some
pricing
we can present it to
mike and jill and see if they can
give us a
idea if they would like to move forward
or not. We are also working with
social media. We already started some
social media campaigns. One that
has been working out good is what
we call a blast.
it is
pretty important
that bait is available for fishermen so
being able to promote that
before the weekend has been helpful,
letting them
know what will be available
and so far that is working out great.
right
now as mike said, the weather has
helped us.
one of the reasons we are in this
situation
now is because the last year
is probably the worst weather we have
had in 100 years and it
has been difficult. The beginning
of this year has not
been better.
we started to have good weather the
last couple of
weeks and it has shown in the performance.
we are looking forward to
making it work
and we are working on these improvements
and we
are pretty sure it will work out.
>> thank you.
did anybody else want to
speak?
>> that is
probably it.
>>
thank you.
thank you for the
verbal reports, I know we had a in depth
discussion last time
so I appreciate you being here this
evening to answer our questions.
would any of the counsel like
to ask any of their burning questions
this evening?
>> sure I have a couple of questions.
I appreciate your
report jim and I am excited about getting
that
bait shop going. It
is such a ideal location, you get
a lot of people
down there, you get some sandwiches
going and
I think there is a lot of potential.
a couple of coats of paint, I
think that will definitely make a
difference. In talking to your financial guy
last meeting, he
was talking
about the slips in the dock were pretty
financially secure, would you agree?
>> I would. >>
that is great, the biggest thing is
the bait shop
where we are struggling
financially to stay afloat, right?
>>
that is correct.
>>
if we
did not keep the bait's door open,
are you saying we would not have
to pony up the 50 k?
>> it is
too late now because we are already behind. We
will need
funds regardless but yes, if the date
store is closed
the marina could survive on its own.
>>
now you are saying the marina is coming
back,
we have good weather and we are moving
in the
right direction.
>> yes, honestly
the biggest issue there
was the weather, I was not kidding
when I said last year
is the worst weather we have had in
a lot of years
and if the weather is bad nobody goes fishing.
that put us in a jam from
last year.
the beginning of this year has not
been better
so if the weather continues to get
better, the date store will do better and
as you know right now we are only
open three days a week. If the
weather improves, we can open it seven
days a week and things will improve.
>> I would like to take
a tour of the marina to see the slips
and the maintenance
and the kind of work you guys do.
I am
sure you have your hands full.
it is not
a brand-new set up by any means but
if you would like to
give us a tour, if any other counsel
would like to go I would love
to go down and take a look. I understand
that this is
our baby. The buck stops with us.
I would love to see things get
turned around, I would love to see
you guys cranking
out a profit as I know you would.
I will leave the rest of the
questions to my colleagues.
>> councilmember ross?
>> I
am in favor of this , I do
not want to see the bait shop closed, I
understand
the issues that have occurred, the
fishing pier and
the weather so I will be
voting for it. That is all
I can say. I will cough if I talk further.
>> counsel member
molly, any questions?
>> good evening
jim, thank you for being here tonight.
I
was pleased to hear your short
presentation
on the changes
you are implementing and you
will continue to implement to try to
rebrand the bait store into something
more than it is and use
social media and all of the opportunities
available through the city to do more
with the bait shop
than what it has been historically.
I know
we met at the waterfront and marina
subcommittee and
we discussed these items in the past and
I have been a proponent of having
you
find ways you can bring people down
to
the marina through the bait store
and the
name of the bait store can be
changed to something else. You want
to make sure people
know that is a place where they can
go and get something besides bait.
they
can get
beverages, food, other things
so I was hoping to hear we will take
full advantage,
you have a wonderful
location down there and there is people
to go down there all the time and
I note the weather has been poor but I
am hoping we
will see better weather in the months
to come and
we can have this little treasure of
a place blossom and
have more people know about it. So
I
know earlier tonight we
talked about mobile food vendors and
trying to think outside of
the box. If you had a mobile food
vendor down there paying the
fee and had a
beer garden you could have a different
food truck every evening and
probably do
really well so continue to think outside
the box and continue to
try to find ways to draw
business into the
bait store.
I wanted to be called something else.
I hate to say bait
store.
>> joe came up with
great ideas
on different names so that is definitely
something that
will happen. We do not want to generalize
it so much that it
is just a bait store so we
will definitely rebrand to make it
sound like it is more than
just bait and tackle.
>> I appreciate that, I think it will go
a long way to
draw people in. Continue your efforts,
much appreciated.
>> councilmember molly, any
questions?
>> no questions, just
supportive of these newfound efforts
to hopefully turn this
ship around. I look forward to seeing progress.
that is it.
>>
I have one question, maybe this is
for you. One of the concerns I had
at the last council meeting was with
respect
to
writing a blank check to make up for some
of the losses
that occurred without clear investments
to make changes, some of the things
you listed sounded great. I am
excited about the idea of more color
and more products for sale.
the resolution and
the way
it is worded
, does not say, here is some funding
so we can have all of these things
that need to get done.
how do we know
the improvements you
are mentioning during the meetings
will actually get implemented? There does
not appear
to be
a connection between the funding and
the actions. Who will take
the responsibility of investing in signage
and inventory which
costs more money up front? Can you
talk to that a little bit?
that can be jim or mike.
>> I will
give it a shot. At
this point,
the money we are asking for is for
the operations of the marina.
just to keep it going. We are not
asking for
any money for improvements right now.
this is just the reserve
we would keep so we can operate the
marina. If there are any
other major expenses, we
would ask for that. We would come
up with a plan
on what those items would be, we
would give you costs and prioritize what
we think are
the things that should be done.
that is where I think we are. Mike
can add to that.
>> yes,
I think we need to get more granular on
some of those things and what they cost.
requested, and the cfo
presented, his
estimation,
kind of a status quo, not
anticipating major changes, he thought
it would last 6-9 months
of operations, honestly we are trying
to evaluate ways where money can be invested
that would help long-term so you
would be
putting good money into the arena
that would have more they impact.
the things
we are talking about, some of which
that do not cost any money that have
artie been
accomplished, other things will cost money.
in the past, I will give you a example,
omar came to the city with
a request to paint
the hardware masters building and
it ended up being just shy of 10,000.
they built
up a significant enough reserve,
they were just asking we sanctioned
that but did not
ask
for the city to provide the money
because they already had it in the
reserve. They do
not have a reserve anymore, they have a
fund balance of
1100. If they dip
below that like I said last
time, with everything in terms of
operating expenses that are
not covered through
the income generated by the marina will
fall back on the city with
the exception of
the management fee and all of the
other third-party
bills they have to pay and the obligations
they have outlined in the staff report.
so I think in working with jim and
looking over the
cost of some of these things. I do
not necessarily agree
with everything. If there is a nominal $3000
paint job for the bait store or whatever it
will be called,
that amount with the 50,000, I
would argue, with the city's approval we can use the
money we have to make that change.
because we all feel that
more investment into the bait store
and rebranding can bring about some change.
the only thing that is
diluting the 50,000 so we
need to to come to a
situation hopefully this summer where
the bottom line
at the end of the month is a
operating profit. Omar, as you saw from
the ledger that is now a
attachment in the staff report,
there were significant operating profits
and a healthy reserve and money that
went back to the city as revenue to support
the
marina and obviously that is not the case
anymore. So we do need to give
it a couple of months, make some changes
and see what we can accomplish with
the changes. I know we do have on the
books, I think it is june 10 or
12th, there is already a waterfront
marina subcommittee on the books.
that is a perfect time
to come back with a report
to the subcommittee. Reporting back
to
the council on changes
being made. Have those
changes been made? Again, some of
the changes
that have been done
,
jim may have
a update today but that had not all
been done as of the time we wrote the
report last week. So those are things
that will save money
actually. We are also looking at ways
to make more money in the marina
retail operation
to not call it the bait store
anymore.
>>
a subcommittee meeting
maybe a good time for a tour of the
marina. Maybe we can
list that
is a open house or something like
we have done in
the past.
>>
if the yacht club has space we can
host the meeting down there. Something
like that.
>>
let's see. I will open
this up to public comments.
we will
come back to last
comments from counsel. Anybody in
the chambers?
>>
there are still attendees, anybody
here that wishes to make a comment?
I have no interested parties.
I will move to zoom. If you
would like to make a comment please
use the raise
hand feature.
I have no hands.
>>
bringing it back to counsel then,
I want to convey
my total support in investing
in the
retail establishment at the marina.
I support
city investment were actions to invest
in all of this and
city involvement.
I am still not completely convinced
about the transfer of funds, like
I said I am interested
in making
investments I am just concerned about the
transfer but
I will open
this up to the rest of my colleagues to
see how they feel about
this item.
>>
I would like to make a motion on the
human, fish interactive nutrition center
resolution. We will not call
it a bait shop.
making a
motion to approve a resolution of
the city council of approving a loan
of 50 thousand from the
general fund to the marine
enterprise fund and then a payment to
the marina for general
expenses needed to sustain operations at
the retail establishment at
the marina. Do I have
a second?
>> I will second. >> councilmember
.
>> yes. >> councilmember.
>> yes.
>> councilmember
>> yes. >> vice
mayor
>> yes. >> mayor.
>>
no.
>> motion
passes 4-1.
thank you for the
conversation and mike we can discuss
more about a war or something down
at
the marina per the suggestion.
>> absolutely. >> thank you jim for
joining the conversation.
>> sure. >> I think
that is the last item.
that is it. I put us out
of order
so I have to double check. The next
item
is from the chief of police.
>> I
have three brief updates, the first
one, the local hazard mitigation plan
was presented
with those cities being in
annex and it was submitted to the
state and the state rejected it, they wanted
a
additional public comment opportunity
so we are pushing that information
out and on the screen
it will show a qr code so you will
see this flyer up at a
lot of different places including
digital signage in front of city hall,
it is a
opportunity for residents to add comments
regarding the hazard mitigation plan.
it is a short window that they reopened
through the end of this month and then
it
close again. If you follow the link they
have the survey in a multitude
of different languages. The second,
when --
last presented there were to counsel
questions,
one regarding the reentry team
that works out of the jail, they did
get funding for three years
beginning july 1, 2024, they would
do different services related
to folks being released from the jail,
they will be
at
the jail and it will be
providing services to all reentry
to the population. There was a
question about funding that was handed out,
they are unable to determine how
much but
they wanted
you to know they offer up to 5000
per individual and all recent exits
were
referred to the program. They indicated
in the future they can provide updates
from successes from the program but they
do not
have the dollar amount. The last one,
you asked
for direction regarding
the pedestrian bridge over the railroad and
we talked about coming back with
a ordinance, instead of coming back
with a ordinance on the 15th
we will come back with more significant
details and that
has to do with timing for publication
as
well as the fact that the
supreme court is deliberating on a case
that can
impact that ordinance so we are trying
to follow it and time it appropriately.
that concludes my
remarks, tanks.
>> thank you
so much. Next item is updates from
the city
manager. Any updates for us?
>> thankfully no.
>> is there anything
about the pbf
energy refinery update from steve
this evening beyond what is listed
in the staff
report?
>> no.
I know this safety and culture assessment
is going to be
coming out very soon if not already.
we will be on the lookout for that.
I know that will be a topic of
great interest for counsel in the community.
that is going to be very soon
if not already something that will be
available for
review and comment.
>> I hope we can get them
on the agenda to come and report on
that. Rather
than as generally making comments,
it
would be nice to have face time with
those folks.
great, thank you so much.
moving on, there is
no appointments to commission or subcommittee report,
the only thing left is comments from
city council. I
started with
councilmember howard for every comment
so let's start with the
vice mayor.
>>
--
>> debbie I will have you adjourn
the meeting tonight so if you have any
additional counsel comments.
>> just real quick a number of us
were at golden hills
park saturday to celebrate arbor day.
I want to
thank the
parks and rec department, the public works department
and all of the citizens that
showed up and everybody from the city that
helped. Lauren
was there and so many people were there.
eve was there. Her children
were there as participants and
they did some poetry reading.
it
was a amazing event. I am sure my colleagues
will comment and
we planted 10 trees in the park and
I want to shout out
to white, the director of 100 thousand
trees for
humanity who
donated 100 seedlings and he was there
helping us
plant the trees along with arborists
and
to others. It was a
great event. It was fun, it was a
beautiful day and we helped humanity
by planting trees
that will be there long after we are
all gone. With
that I will pass it on.
>> thank you very much mayor.
I
also want to acknowledge and thank
all of
the volunteers, the city staff
and community members who turned out
for all
of the events we have had in the past
10 days or so, we had
the john
mayer earth day birthday
celebration which was a resounding
success. I was excited to see so
many people turn up for our arbor
day
weekend park beautification
that took place not only in golden
hills
but also we had
part two the following day at hidden
lakes park where we had nearly 2 dozen
volunteers
show up to help
remove a excess
of 70 pounds of trash in
and around hidden lakes park and the
surrounding open space.
it
is quite a lot.
a
certain councilmember may or may not
have fallen into the lake briefly
to
retrieve some trash but let it be said
that said councilmember does not go
above and beyond the
call of duty.
thankfully only up to my knees. Again
I
do want to thank everyone
who helped with all of those events.
it is great
to see the community engagement we got
and I really appreciated that.
on a more serious
note I just want to bring forward
and I think this
may be something
we talk about at
a future council meeting but it is
no secret that some of our residents
are having challenges
with getting their property
insurance renewed because
of the challenges with
the insurance market being what it
is. I actually
talked to 2-3 residents over the weekend that
came up to me and expressed
that concern . Obviously
that is something that is
being discussed in sacramento
right now, I know the state lawmakers
are hopefully working on a solution
to help alleviate the issue but just
food for thought, one of
the reasons why folks are getting denied
is because of issues surrounding fire
hazards or perceived
fire hazards, you have excess
weeds were trees around your home and
it may not be right in your
backyard, it may be in the surrounding
area and some of
those areas are areas that could potentially be
in the city and that got
me thinking, I know we have a good
partnership, we sent out a newsletter
today highlighting the partnership
we have with
con fire, helping to
clean out
areas with excess weeds but it is
a good reminder that
we really --to the extent we have some
things that
are under our control to help alleviate
that issue. We should try.
I know we are doing it but
I want to be a short the residence
that came up to me over the
weekend at these events that I would
bring this issue up to all of you.
to our staff and
just note that is a concern we hear
and I think it warrants further attention.
with that
I will pass it on.
>>
mike can we get that on a upcoming agenda?
we talked about in
the past.
I thought it
may be on the agenda in the next couple of
months,
can you speak to that at all?
>>
yes there was a significant delay in
the local
resource area maps which are the ones
we
have to adopt. Their process
with that from recent conversations
we had with the fire chief and staff and
that
is a calfire thing, not
a local con
fire thing, that process was delayed because
they had a significant issue
getting the state
resource areas adopted, they finally
did that so we
will pick that up and find
out where that is in the
process because --we learned this
a couple of years ago, those maps,
that needs to be part of a public process
for all of the affected area residents
to participate in.
these are not town halls
held specifically at each jurisdiction.
there is education
and information
but really it is a county board of
supervisors engagement.
when the official public comment period
will be.
to the extent that we can get ahead
of it and
provide additional information on
that. Also regarding the insurance issue.
I
think we may have more insight into that.
it is something that is not unique
to martinez by any stretch,
a lot of our neighbors in places like
lafayette
have struggled with this issue as
well, with lack
of homeowner
insurance policy renewals.
so I do not want
to commit to the next couple of meetings,
I would like to have a
subsequent talk on this and if there
is a opportunity to invite some of our
partners in fire
that may be able to give insight in this,
I would like to engage them.
this process
with the maps, it has been delayed more
than they thought.
even through the state resource
map adoption, it just happened in
the last couple of months.
>>
I just wanted councilmember molly
to know I obviously assumed it would
be on the calendar by now,
so at least, if we do get
these types of questions
again in the future, we can say it
is on our
radar and we will address it at some point.
months is probably the
more appropriate way to word it.
>> that would
be the target.
>>
add
to it, councilmember molly,
the citizens and what they
can do, I know in past years I believe
it is the contra
costa county fire protection district
had
grants that they would give out to neighbors
if they came together in the community,
they could get money to help mitigate
some
of the vegetation needs like
dead trees and things like that because
they are costly to remove
and there were community grants they were
using to help citizens
reduce fire hazards within their yards
but they had to
come together as a partnership
to use the funds
so that maybe something that may be
available again this
year because
I am sure people would want to take advantage
of that especially if they have costly
removals like trees and shrubs and
things
like that.
>>
thank you, councilmember ross.
>> did somebody say plant trees? Yes.
interesting how we can
go from one to another,
maybe plant trees in
a smarter way but on the insurance
thing, it is not just vegetation.
gregory gardens it is a
area where policies are being
canceled. You would not necessarily
think of the area
as a forested area.
the different companies have
different algorithms.
sometimes it is not necessarily the vegetation
around
a certain home, it is
if they have 4-5
million dollar homes in a row,
they will take out
two of them to mitigate the risk.
so it is
not all about trees and vegetation,
there are homes in martinez that are
threatened to be canceled
that do not have a tree for blocks
around them.
there
is no leaf that can fall on the property
that are getting canceled, so
the algorithms are designed
in ways that
are not just vegetation. It
affects sales, you cannot
purchase
a home without getting insurance or get
a mortgage without insurance. One of
the
things I learned a year ago is that
this
will get fixed in 25
or 26 and most of it will be legislatively
driven because
california has regulations and requirements other
states
do not have, it has
nothing to do with wildfire risk,
it has everything to do
with reserves, requirements, accounting procedures
that the insurance companies do not
like. Just
like when prop 206 got past
years ago,
we had a previous insurance
crisis, it was more financially and
politically driven
,
they are
trying to get california to
conform, pull out and cause
mayhem and then we will go back in
and charge a higher price and everything
will
be good. So it is not exactly what
it seems, they are using
the wildfire risk as a cover to get
what they want legislatively and to
get them to bend their way and relax regulations.
it does not
mean they will come back at the same
price, that is
my two cents. Maybe
the former mayor can comment, give
us
a insight. It is really troubling
and it
is a big problem for our community
that we do not
talk about enough. I do
want to acknowledge that arbor day
was great.
the memorial for
officer tarantino was good.
a good attendance there.
also today
, on a future agenda I want to
put the community monitoring
upgrades system
that the --will be putting in
place for communities like ours,
a new program they will put in place,
I would like to
get that on the agenda and today we passed
, we did not pass it, we are
moving forward on a community benefits
package that will help
communities in regions
that are affected by toxic
incidents and polluters that are fined
by the air district and we are coming up
with a schedule
as to how the massive fines can be
returned to the communities that
were affected. Chevron
will be paying a $22 million fine
enrichment, that
will be the forefront.
if you look at what martinez is going
to get
,
mrc
fines and all of those issues are down
the road so we
do not know what
will be incurred there. What will happen
is the air district will have a
process in place. We will
have community input as
to how the dollars can be spent
.
hopefully we will have
much more detail
on that. I did not cough once
during that.
>> I want to
follow up on arbor day. Debbie
leading the planting charge, I am
impressed that we got
10 trees planted and that was a
lot of fun. I want to remind everybody
we are doing a evacuation drill and
maybe we
can get --to speak to it
before hand. It is june 22 and it is
east, up in the hills
above greenstreet or my place.
so
everybody is going to evacuate down
to city
hall so down front here
and there will be red cross,
con fire, genesis and other
evacuation personnel. It will be
nice to have them come speak to that
so we can all be prepared. That is it.
thank you.
>>
chief right, will we get a update
on the
june 22
event
before then as a counsel?
>> we can
if you like.
>> if you could, that would be great.
even if it is
as simple as
during one of
your reports but that would be helpful
for all of the counsel to be aware
of
the details.
>> no problem. >> thank
you. My only comment
is with regards to coordination with
the tribes.
christian henderson brought it up
at the beginning
and the came up a couple of times
throughout the
meeting and I appreciate, if we could
on a upcoming agenda, add
reporting on some of
the coordination that is happening with
local tribes. If it becomes part of
the update
as part of the epa grant
that is great and if not if we can
have
a standalone update
even if it is just the city manager
portion of the agenda, that
would be appreciated.
>> will do.
hopefully
--doing the public engagement for
the grants.
>> thank you. That is it
for tonight, instead of me adjourning I will
hand the gavel
to vice mayor and let her adjourn
the meeting tonight.
>>
thank you
mayor and to my colleagues for allowing
me to close to nights meeting in memory
of my
mother jerry .
my mother lost her battle
with alzheimer's on june 14
2023 at the age of 81.
today is may day, a special day I shared
with
my mom. Today we celebrated a long-standing
tradition of giving flowers to each other
and to the ones we loved.
so
tonight I am carrying on her tradition
by sharing her favorite flower with
all
of you and that is why I have this flower
on the dais.
my mother appreciated
the beauty of a single red rose nestled
in white
b's breath adorned with
cleopatra fern.
my mother loved the music of johnny
mathis, she loved to sing
and dance.
she loved to cook and kept a immaculate
house. She loved movies
and the academy awards. She loved
vanilla ice cream.
root beer floats, juju beans, red
hats, white cadillacs and
trips to hawaii. She was a
bulldog, class of 1960.
a bank teller, a businesswoman, a
wife and
a fourth generation
citizen of martinez.
my mother was married to richard
for 59 years. Raised
three children and fulfilled her dream
to live in the valley. My mother
embodied elegance, walked
this earth with grace and charm. She
loved and cherished her family and
I know
she will always and forever love
me unconditionally.
my mother was born on may
12, 1942. This year I will
celebrate her birthday
on mother's day.
before I close
to nights meeting I want
to share a short poem by david hawkins.
the poem is titled, she
is gone.
you can shed
tears that she is gone or you can smile
because she
has lived.
you can close your eyes and pray that
she will
come back or you can open your eyes and
see all that she has left.
your heart can be empty
because you cannot see her
or you can be filled with love that
you shared.
you can turn your
back on tomorrow and live in yesterday
or you can be happy for tomorrow because
of yesterday.
you can remember her
and only that she is gone or
you can cherish her memory and
let it live on.
you can cry and close
your mind, be empty and turn
your back or you
can do what she would want, smile, open
your eyes, love, and
go on.
thank you.