[0:28] I'm going to call this meeting to order. This is a regular meeting of the Pistil Beach City Council. It is Tuesday, April 15, 2025, at 5.30 p.m., roll call, please.

[1:06] The

[1:09] next item is acceptance of the agenda and he changes from the published agenda to

[1:15] agenda for the council?

[1:17] Seeing none, we have a presentation.

[1:20] And with the council's begin reading the proclamation.

[1:24] And Mr. Juan Ramirez, could you join me at the podium?

[1:28] A proclamation of the City Council

[1:29] of City of Pizmo Beach, California,

[1:31] recognizing April 2025 as Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

[1:35] Whereas sexual assault awareness month

[1:38] calls attention to the fact that sexual assault

[1:40] is widespread and impacts every person in Pizmo Beach.

[1:43] And whereas luminalized provides essential life-saving services for survivors, their children and families throughout San Francisco County in Pismo Beach and

[1:53] Where as sexual assault, assault can result in physical injury,

[1:59] psychological trauma, and even death. The devastating consequences of sexual assault

[2:05] can cross generations and could last a lifetime.

[2:09] And whereas there is a need to focus on the individualized needs of sexual assault survivors,

[2:18] and whereas the marginalization of certain groups in society, including undocumented individuals,

[2:26] transgender individuals, and those living with disabilities increase their vulnerability

[2:32] to sexual assault.

[2:34] And whereas Lumina alliance continues to provide a safe environment to those affected by sexual assault with a 24-hour crisis line, advocacy, therapy, transitional and emergency housing and prevention education with the help of dedicated volunteers and professionals.

[2:56] And whereas Lumina alliance has received our 2000 calls to the crisis and information line provided housing for 171 emergency shelter clients including 70 children and provided more than 4,200 hours of therapy and whereas Lumina alliance serves as a bright light during dark times for survivors of sexual assault illuminating a path towards safety and healing.

[3:24] And, whereas the City of Pistomal Beach strongly supports the efforts of Lumina Alliance,

[3:30] how every segment of our society can work together to address sexual assault,

[3:36] and how to help survivors connect with services.

[3:41] Now, therefore, the City of Pistomal Beach hereby recognizes April 2025 as sexual assault awareness month.

[3:49] dated this 15th date of April 2025, Ed Waggy-Mayor.

[3:58] And with me is Mr. Juan Ramirez from Aluminum Alliance Board of Directors who will be accepting

[4:04] the proclamation and we just appreciate all that Aluminum Alliance does to help those that

[4:09] need.

[4:10] So if you'd like to say a few words.

[4:12] Yes, thank you Mayor.

[4:14] Thank you to the City Council members for this proclamation.

[4:18] My name is Juan Ramirez, I'm the Board of Directors for Lumina Alliance.

[4:22] For over 40 years, Lumina has been supporting survivors of sexual assault and intimate partner violence.

[4:28] Our mission is to empower those impacted through, in the very support, healing and prevention programs.

[4:38] We provide a 24 hour crisis and information line, legal referrals, emergency shelters,

[4:45] First, transitional housing, self-sufficient services,

[4:48] individual group therapy, and comprehensive prevention program.

[4:53] A closing, again, thank you Mayor.

[4:55] Thank you City Council members.

[4:57] We're so grateful for this block of mission in your ongoing support.

[5:01] On behalf of the Luminati Alliance, part of the directors, staff, volunteers.

[5:05] We thank you all for taking action this month to create the safe, thriving, and equitable community.

[5:11] Thank you.

[5:12] Thank you very much.

[5:16] We appreciate all that you're doing to help those out there that need your services. Thank you.

[5:24] The next item is public comment on items that are not on the agenda. I have no speaker slip. Anyone like to address the council on an item not on the agenda?

[5:36] Seeing none, we'll move on to city management report. Mr. Garcia.

[5:40] just thank you mayor members of the city council. As you will notice tonight are normal city clerk

[5:46] Miss interleaders not here she's way at training for our laser fish software that we utilize

[5:52] so Mr. James is filling in in that role today so I'd like to welcome him to my right hand side today.

[5:58] A few updates for the community. First one of us start with acknowledging the unseen heroes in our

[6:05] community which is our public safety dispatchers. It is dispatcher appreciation week. So Chief Smith and

[6:12] several members of our community have been going above and beyond to really show appreciation and

[6:17] acknowledgement for our dispatcher. So I'm sure they appreciate all the treats and goodies that

[6:23] they'll be getting throughout the week. Just a small way for us to appreciate those who take those

[6:28] calls. Usually they are not calling the police department on their happiest days. It's usually because

[6:34] something serious has happened, so we appreciate the work they do, often unseen, but a very important part of our public safety family.

[6:43] Did want to also let the city council and the community know that in our public works department, we are participating in the California Streets and Road Assessment Survey.

[6:55] This is a part of a joint program with the County Engineers Association of California, the League of California Cities.

[7:02] And this is to help us maintain 85% of all of our roads in California, which are local roads.

[7:09] So the cost continues to go up, but the normal revenue streams that we have, such as gas tax are not.

[7:16] So our participation in the survey is going to help provide a report card and

[7:20] suggestion so that we can work collaboratively with the state on how we can maintain our vast transportation infrastructure.

[7:27] So this really shows the importance of local roads and investment, but as well as the deficiencies that exist within the existing framework.

[7:36] So Ms. Gaglioni and her team are working to get that filled out.

[7:41] So if anyone in the community hears about the streets and roads assessment survey, that is what it is.

[7:48] It is an important part of what we are doing.

[7:50] It did also want to highlight two upcoming community events that are happening.

[7:55] This Saturday, April 19th, our beloved extravaganza is happening once again at Dinosaur Caves Park,

[8:01] so it'll be between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. with the first egg hunt for the smallest of our

[8:07] Easter bunnies.

[8:09] We'll begin at approximately 10 a.m., the full schedule is on our website.

[8:13] We are once again excited to have this event, so a big thank you to our Recreation Department,

[8:17] public works and our police department for helping to coordinate and get all of these

[8:23] activities as well as the countless amount of volunteers. We could not put on our events

[8:28] without a strong, strong bench volunteers that we have throughout the community. So really

[8:35] appreciate everyone getting together so that we can have this amazing community event.

[8:39] And for our mothers, our beloved Mother's Day concert is scheduled for Sunday, May 11th.

[8:46] This really starts our concert series.

[8:49] Again, at Dinosaur Caves Park, that is from 1 to 4 pm.

[8:53] So if you are looking for a fun way to celebrate Mother's Day at Dino Caves Park, 1 to 4,

[8:59] you can even tell your mother that you got free tickets.

[9:03] So we're excited to have this event once again, and that concludes my updates for today.

[9:08] Any questions?

[9:09] I want to add that Damon Castillo, the seal, sorry, is playing on another stage.

[9:16] That is correct, yes.

[9:17] I'm excited about that.

[9:18] Very good.

[9:20] Other questions, comments?

[9:22] Seeing none, we'll move on to City Attorney's Report and any close session.

[9:25] Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

[9:27] The City Council did meet and close session under Government Code Section 54956.9 subdivision D1 on a conference of legal counsel on existing litigation in Andrew Crow Family Trust versus the City of Nismo Beach.

[9:37] there was no reportable action.

[9:39] Thank you. We'll move on to city council committee reports and committee reports.

[9:47] I've just got a few fire safe council meeting tomorrow.

[9:52] There's a couple more grants announced, PG&E's announcement and also the California fire safe council has a grant

[9:59] help on administrative overhead costs which have been very effective.

[10:03] And I have a ethical meeting Thursday, and it's mainly a budget and work plan for the coming year.

[10:11] And it's not too busy right now, but it's going to get pretty busy later on this year.

[10:16] That's all I have.

[10:18] We'll now move on to the consent calendar.

[10:23] I have no speaker slip on consent.

[10:25] Anyone in the, here in the chambers, wish to comment on any item under consent.

[10:33] I'll bring it back to Council. Anyone like to fool any items on consent?

[10:37] The I like to pull item 9-H.

[10:42] 9-H is the thrown ordinance.

[10:48] That's great.

[10:49] And I would like to pull 9-E, please.

[10:51] 9-E is the encroachment, the rail fence, any others.

[10:58] And again, both cases the pull for separate discussion, okay.

[11:02] All right, an entertainer motion to approve the rest of consent minus 9E and 9H.

[11:16] I make a motion we approve the consent calendar with the exceptions of items 9E and 9H.

[11:22] It's our second.

[11:24] Second.

[11:26] We have Mr. Clerk.

[11:29] We have a motion the second.

[11:30] Roll call please on consent minus 9E and 9H.

[11:36] Councilmember Newton?

[11:38] Yes.

[11:38] Councilmember Guthrie?

[11:39] Yes.

[11:40] Councilmember Inman?

[11:41] Yes.

[11:41] Mayor Patten-Rese?

[11:42] Yes.

[11:43] Mayor Walgay?

[11:43] Yes.

[11:44] Motion passes.

[11:45] Okay.

[11:45] We'll move on to 9-E.

[11:47] Mr. Garcia.

[11:49] Yes.

[11:49] Thank you, Mayor Rembers of the City Council.

[11:51] Item 9-E is an encroachment agreement to allow an open rail fence in the city right of way along

[11:58] the Water Street property frontage at 306-Pierre Avenue.

[12:02] There is an exhibit to the encroachment agreement itself.

[12:07] If there are specific questions, happy to answer those, also happy to give a presentation.

[12:13] Our public works director is available as well as our city engineer.

[12:18] Ms. Gaglioli, would you prefer to do a presentation or just answer questions?

[12:26] I think we just answer questions if that is easier for us.

[12:30] Yeah, I was looking at the photographs, thank you for those.

[12:33] and this is, there's a white fence and then there's outcroppings of land with foliage, not foliage, little plants.

[12:46] And the reason I wanted to separate this is because I know that this is in Shell Beach and there have been other properties where certain residents have been required to change their

[13:04] footprint, I'll say, due to encroaching on the cities right away.

[13:10] So I think it's important for the council to see the pictures because before, at least

[13:18] with one property, which is Mr. Meiner's property, we required a change so that it didn't

[13:26] go over the city right away.

[13:27] So I'd like everyone to be sure we want to allow this encroachment.

[13:31] And I wanted to know how long it was, Mr. Eric, which I'm not thinking your last name right now, sorry.

[13:37] Eldridge, Mr. Eldridge.

[13:40] Good evening, everyone, Eric Eldridge, City of Pisma.

[13:44] The case of Mr. Minor was he had a retaining wall that was encroaching in that wasn't allowing additional parking and kind of a view triangle there.

[13:56] which is a little bit different than the case that's before you today where they've actually done their gutter and their curb improvements and there is a frontage parking and the encroachment,

[14:09] they have a 50 foot wide right away and so they're encroaching in about 30 inches with their fence, but it's not impeding the parking or those frontage improvements.

[14:19] So it's a little bit different case with Mr. Minor on that one specifically.

[14:24] So could we see the picture so you could kind of point out for us how it encroaches there there are two pictures in our package

[14:33] Sorry, I don't have anything

[14:36] Can

[14:41] you describe where the encroachment is sure so

[14:49] Yeah, so at the at the top of the screen where it says water street and then you can see the heavy

[14:55] Dash broken line. That's the city right away and the city right away is about

[15:00] 50 feet wide. And then you can kind of see then the hatching, the hatch pattern. That's the area. That's the zone of where they encroached with their picket fence or that decorative fence. So they encroached into the city right away about 30 inches there, along there, along water. And then they, they were able to pull back in as it made the curb return and then it went down pure avenue. And then if you go into scroll down and go to the color photo. So you can see the street light there.

[15:29] in the fence, go down one more. So right there, so that's a good looking line there. So,

[15:37] so even though they're about five feet back from the face of curb, so from the existing

[15:44] face of the concrete curb they're about five feet back. Technically they're still 30 inches in

[15:48] coaching. Okay, I mean it looks very nice and the way the encroachment I'll call resolution

[15:56] is written, I think, really helps protect the city of Tizmović, but I want everyone

[16:02] to see it because we made different decisions in the past.

[16:07] Why just had a quick question since we got this up.

[16:12] When people are making improvements, don't they do a survey, or was this just a landscape

[16:17] job that they followed the, you know, maybe the line of that was already existing?

[16:24] I'm just curious as to how this happened and are we going to look for something or if there was a reason that we could pinpoint are we going to look for?

[16:34] So they had a full topos survey done. They did frontage improvements. The whole house is new.

[16:42] They did a landscaping change, which is very common. People do it all the time where when you first go with your landscaping and then by the time you're done they change it.

[16:51] And in this case, they didn't have that walkway connection.

[16:55] So where you can see the home here,

[16:57] and then you can see the paper pathway.

[16:59] This whole zone was actually just landscaping,

[17:02] and then they added that,

[17:03] and then they kind of changed their landscaping palette,

[17:06] which is really normal, everyone does it.

[17:09] And then the fencing, when that got laid out,

[17:12] it just, I can't speak for them because I wasn't there,

[17:15] but they got moved.

[17:18] I think the other slight nuance on this one,

[17:21] And I think why some of the elements changed is originally there was sidewalk that was proposed.

[17:27] When the original policy was there, there was a sidewalk that was required, then the council subsequently changed its policy that did not require sidewalks.

[17:37] So then that also threw some of the original landscaping off so then they moved the sidewalk or the walking path there to allow for access into the home.

[17:51] that the owners in a wheelchair here, and so they had a connection from their driveway where then they would go around on the city sidewalk and go around and then once they didn't have to build the sidewalk anymore on either frontage, then they added one along the house frontage.

[18:07] So, I don't know how to catch this in the future, but I do know accumulated impacts very

[18:16] well because I've seen it happen over the last 25 years with traffic, with parking, with

[18:21] everything else.

[18:22] So we've got miners who encroached 17 inches, we've got 30 inches here, so I'm just kind of

[18:30] thinking of, and I, it might not be a big deal now, but as things change along Ocean Boulevard,

[18:37] another, you know, having a two-way road is going to be very important. So, and I'm

[18:45] not trying to make a big deal about this, but I do think that, you know, that we should

[18:49] look at this and think, okay, how can we prevent this from happening in the future? Because it

[18:54] might not be, it might have to be undone, because you know what I mean, it might have to end up.

[18:58] So those are great points.

[19:00] This one, we don't have a picture where if they rotated slightly in the street,

[19:04] you would see that they actually widen the street here.

[19:06] So they actually, what I would call curb to curb, it's not fully built on the other side.

[19:11] But the full street with that the city's seeking, they did that obligation.

[19:18] So it only came down to the actual concrete sidewalk.

[19:21] And this one, the whole reason why we're bringing it before you as an encroachment agreement,

[19:27] Is it is that's a agreement that's recorded against their title that at any future date we can take it back

[19:34] So we can say hey at their cost or we will charge them they have to remove it and then we can

[19:40] So this met this is a mechanism where we the city are protected where then we can come back and claim our property

[19:48] Yeah, I understand that and I understood it when miners, you know when we did that with miners

[19:53] I would just like to avoid that

[19:55] But that's kind of my preference, and I don't know if that's even realistic, but that would be my preference.

[20:01] Any other questions?

[20:02] Just a comment, you know, when we did improvements or minors, we also didn't force them to go all the way back.

[20:08] We kind of met somewhere in the middle, because it conformed with the existing homes that were already developed there.

[20:14] And with this here being a fence, being a non-permanent structure, I don't see the issue with it.

[20:21] Okay. Any other questions? Let me go out to the public. I haven't spoken to any public

[20:26] comment on this item. Seeing none, I'll bring it back to Council on the further deliberation.

[20:32] If not, we have a I believe a resolution. Yes, we have a resolution.

[20:39] And my comments were not specific to this property because I don't have as much of a problem.

[20:45] It is properties in the future where the choice is not going to be just accepted. It's going

[20:50] to be reduced, so I'm just trying to figure out a way to catch it.

[20:54] I agree. That's why I brought it up. It's the accumulation effect and how that continues

[20:58] and how we need to watch for these kind of things.

[21:02] I guess this is actually an accroachment agreement, not a resolution.

[21:07] I make a motion. We approve item 90.

[21:11] Is there a second?

[21:13] I'll second. Mr. Clerk, I have a motion to second.

[21:16] Roll call please.

[21:18] Councilmember Newton? Yes. Councilmember Inan? Yes. Councilmember Guthrie? Yes. Mayor

[21:23] Pro Temries? Yes. Mayor Waggy? Yes. Motion passes, 5-0. Okay, we'll move on to the next

[21:29] pulled item, 9-H, which is the, I'll be forward to it as the drone ordinance.

[21:36] Sure. I see you. Yes, thank you, Mayor. That's exactly what this item is. This is the second

[21:40] reading. Following the first reading, we did make the changes as directed by City Council.

[21:45] Those are outlined in the staff report.

[21:48] We're happy to answer any questions or if the council has any specific request.

[21:55] Go ahead.

[21:56] Let's make your point.

[21:57] Yeah.

[21:58] So, how did this item come to be on our agenda?

[22:02] Because I don't recall the council requesting it.

[22:05] I don't remember the public standards, the issue with drones or anything.

[22:08] So I'm just, how did this get on our agenda?

[22:13] There's a couple of reasons it came to the council.

[22:16] Well, the first and foremost was we had some concerns that for special events that were operated by the city, the drone operator could not legally fly on behalf of the city because of the city's ordinance.

[22:28] So we did kind of a ground up look at what the city's ordinance said to see if it was impinging on that ability.

[22:35] In that time frame, we also had a number of people who were actually cited by the police department for it.

[22:40] One of the cases went to trial and found in favor of the defendant, but on the basis that

[22:46] there were not enough signs stating that this was prohibited.

[22:50] So when we looked at kind of a global view of the ordinance, we realized that there were

[22:55] some potential infirmities in there that we could have an opportunity to tighten up and understand

[23:01] where the limitations were in our existing ordinance.

[23:05] And so that's where it came from basically.

[23:07] Okay, so I mean, if I hear this correctly, so we lost a case in court and this is our correction.

[23:14] No, that happened in after we were looking at it anyway for our special events because we had some concerns about special events drone operators and they were coming to the city manager for waivers of our existing ordinance as part of the special events process.

[23:32] That waiver was not explicitly provided for in the ordinance, it's something we were doing administratively.

[23:38] And so there was a concern that, well, we don't really have the authority to be waiving it, so let's fix our ordinance.

[23:43] So the city manager can get out of the business of issuing these waivers for our special events, because the drones do benefit our special events.

[23:51] We've got people that are flying on behalf of the city for either filming the special events or filming for publicity purposes, but they were prohibited under our existing code from doing that.

[24:00] And so that's what the genesis was the citation that came out of that was during the process of our review of the ordinance

[24:07] So just provided an additional basis for us to do a revise of the of the ordinance

[24:12] But it's still expanded from the safety zone to essentially the entire city

[24:17] Well, the issue was what is our regulation? What is our ability and

[24:23] There was nothing stated elsewhere

[24:25] So we wanted to make sure that we were giving clear direction to those who would fly within the community as to where they could and could not because it wasn't clear from the beach safety zone, what you could and could not fly? Where did it exactly prohibit? In other words, could you take off it just said I believe

[24:43] We have to leave, operate or land within the beach safety zone, and operate runs into that federal preemption issue that we discussed when we're talking about the ordinance.

[24:54] They can operate in the sky, and we have no control over it, so we looked at, okay, let's designate where they can take off and where they can land, so that it is very clear, so that no one's going to have a concern about when they send a drone up, that they're going to get a citation, whether it's on behalf of the city as part of a special events process, or anywhere else in the city.

[25:11] Right. And since we can't regulate the sky, we're back to the same old thing that if you are, if you live 251 feet away from a park,

[25:20] you can fly your drone to the park, but if you live 249 feet, you can't.

[25:27] Well, it's more where you can take off and land. If you were in Grover Beach and you sent it up from Grover Beach, you could fly the whole city at Pizmo Beach.

[25:36] It's the FAA preemption.

[25:39] What we're trying to do is, excuse me, strike a balance between public safety for people

[25:45] who are operating the drones so that they don't endanger other people while they're operating

[25:50] them.

[25:50] And that's kind of the comprehensive strategy.

[25:54] Council is the decision maker on this.

[25:57] If you don't want those restrictions, then you can give us direction to come back and just

[26:00] just remove the reference to drones in the beach safety zone and then it will be anyone

[26:06] can fly anywhere on but we don't have any restrictions then and if someone gets hurt

[26:12] by a drone because of improper operation or dangerous operation or someone's privacy

[26:17] is invaded because someone is hovering over then we don't have those regulations so this

[26:22] is just a tool that we would use. We would use it sparing like we use most code enforcement

[26:27] tools but it just provides us the opportunity to regulate where where that can be a problem.

[26:32] I understand your concerns I mean but I did look and I mean fortunately there's already existing

[26:36] law that does cover a lot of things like we talked about before regarding firefighting aircraft

[26:44] e-dropping on people where people expect to have a right to privacy like there's already

[26:47] state law that covers almost all of that but you know what I want to make sure we don't do is overreach

[26:54] on this. You know, I understand public safety and it's not a problem. But, you know, fortunately,

[27:02] you know, if they have so many of these fact sheets that you can open up, right? But the

[27:07] one that concerned me was is that you may not substantially interfere with the property

[27:11] owners actually use an enjoyment of the property with the restriction. So if I can't launch

[27:18] a drone from my house, I think I'm interfering on someone's right to enjoy

[27:25] I'm not familiar with that portion of the FAA's regulations, but I can certainly look at it.

[27:31] But ultimately, if the council wants to strip down version of this, we'll take direction

[27:35] to do that and bring you back something that is, I don't want to see more user-friendly,

[27:40] but less restrictive.

[27:42] That covers the highlights that we were looking to do.

[27:45] But what we were concerned about is just having unregulated drone flights throughout the

[27:49] the community where they can take off and land anywhere and the one you know that the person got

[27:55] cited for was taking off from the the peer and that can be a severely impacted area during the

[28:02] summer so if we don't have those regulations in place we may have people setting off their drones

[28:06] from the peer without any regulation at all. And do we know if that person was doing it like in an

[28:11] unsafe manner? I don't know the nature of it to be honest. I just don't know how that came about.

[28:19] I did want to mention one other thing that came out of that citation.

[28:23] There was some concern that for that person of the amount of the fine that was imposed

[28:27] by the court, I looked at the citation itself and the court imposed the wrong fine.

[28:33] I contacted the court's administrative staff and I said, what are you doing?

[28:38] Why is that so high?

[28:39] Our fine for an infraction is $100 and they said, oh, well, in the absence of something on

[28:45] our bail schedule, we just assume that it's the maximum.

[28:48] And I said, wrong assumption basically, and so they took care of that and addressed that for the violation of that particular code section.

[28:56] So hopefully that's resolved at the court.

[28:58] But we don't see anywhere near that amount of money out of a citation.

[29:02] If we have $100 fine, I think the last time I looked we get $17 out of that.

[29:08] It's not a significant portion. The rest of it goes to the court administration.

[29:11] Okay. And did we send this? I know I looked at the FAA's website on drones and they said if you're

[29:16] proposing an ordinance of municipality, you can send it in for a preview and comments.

[29:21] Did not. We can certainly do that if the council would like a second set of eyes on it. I'm not sure

[29:26] at this point what the status of the FAA's review program is on that. I know that a lot of the FAA's

[29:33] operations have been curtailed as with many other federal agencies. So I'm not sure how long

[29:40] that turnaround time would be okay and then our current ordinance we don't allow any launches

[29:47] from the peers that correct it's no operation or landing I think is what it says currently

[29:53] doesn't say anything about taking off right so I'm just curious with our commercial events I mean how

[30:00] Are our commercial operators keep line of sight, which is also required, and do the job of promoting the event or the city? Well, there are different regulations once they're in the sky. If they're a part 107 pilot, they have lesser restrictions on the line of sight provision. They can fly over people, they can fly at night, but they have to basically go through very similar training to what a commercial airline pilot has to go through. They're not actually flying an airplane, but they are flying an aircraft.

[30:29] And so they have to go through the same kind of training, they have to go through the flight school, ground school to get that certification.

[30:35] They get a little card that shows they've got that part 107.

[30:38] And so they have fewer restrictions than the hobbyist drone operator.

[30:42] But they couldn't be a single person operator then.

[30:45] Because they had to launch their drone from elsewhere.

[30:48] Beyond the peer to watch the surf and event to bring it over.

[30:52] Correct. Yeah.

[30:53] So we're in the end making them have to have staff.

[30:57] Well, we're not looking to increase the administrative burden on there

[31:03] We're looking to protect public safety and where there's a balance between public safety and administrative burden

[31:08] That's going to be a policy decision for the council to make a determination

[31:12] So if the council wants to make it less burdensome, but potentially have situations where there's an increased risk to the public

[31:19] That's a policy balancing thing and we'll take direction as to the council about how you'd like to do that

[31:23] Okay, and then there's one other part in that in the Rose Ordnance, and I understand maybe a little gray area needs to be clarified.

[31:31] It talks about you have to obtain a city film permit in order to film as a commercial user.

[31:38] So, when you look at our current rules to get a film permit, you know, it's not a simple process, it's a $1,400 application.

[31:48] And in here it doesn't say there's going to be a new film permit process, something else like that.

[31:55] So can you tell me what that would default?

[31:57] Sure, I'll answer that one.

[32:00] So what we were proposing and anticipating is if the ordinance moved forward tonight,

[32:05] then we would bring forward a resolution to establish the fee for drone use.

[32:12] The film permit fee as it currently exists within the municipal code

[32:16] is really poor film production. When we have TV commercial shoots, TV movies that come in,

[32:25] most of the time it's on the beach. Other times it's in other locations, but the vast majority

[32:29] when people want to film commercials, the most recent one that we had a couple years ago was

[32:33] Rivian. When they were getting ready to launch the Rivians here in the United States, they film

[32:39] on our beach. That requires a lot of coordination, safety, shutting down areas of the beach,

[32:47] doing different things to help accommodate that. That level of film production, insurance,

[32:54] oversight doesn't necessitate the $1,400 fee. And arguably, it's quite low. Several other jurisdictions,

[33:01] it's in the tens of thousands. But that was the number based on what we could calculate for

[33:07] or staff time impact to process that.

[33:10] So we were envisioning a fee,

[33:14] like a one-time use fee closer to $20,

[33:17] an annual fee of something like a hundred

[33:22] for drone type use,

[33:25] for commercial purposes.

[33:27] If it was for lack of a better term,

[33:31] Johnny in the backyard using a hobby drone

[33:35] to fly over his house, there would not be a fee for that, and that's not a commercial use, so that was what we were anticipating.

[33:44] Okay, my last question is, in the ordinance, it talks about being the 250 feet from any city property.

[33:50] I mean, is there an issue since the city does own every road in Pismo?

[33:56] The intent was the real property where there's actually a specific designation.

[34:04] We can certainly tighten that up and say that it doesn't apply to roads, that it only applies

[34:08] to city parcels for which there's an assessor's parcel number of some description.

[34:12] We can do that.

[34:13] It's just tightening up the ordinance, but we wanted to bring something forward to you as kind

[34:19] of a regulatory structure and it's up to you as the council to tell us how much regulatory

[34:24] structure you want to have. If you don't want to have a regulatory structure, we're

[34:28] fine with that, too. We're just trying to provide some tools to protect the public safety.

[34:33] I define the common kind of funny because you can't fly near any parks, buildings, anything

[34:37] else, and you better know that. But if you're on the pier, we're required to have a sign, which

[34:43] is what we lost the case on. Well, that's what the judge-

[34:46] conflict for users. That's what the judge ruled. There was no provision in the municipal

[34:50] code requiring signage, though. That was the judge requiring that.

[34:55] So when I looked at a municode under 12, 2,200, it says that for the rules above it, the

[35:04] Department of Public Works shall be responsible for adequately posting area described in this

[35:07] chapter, advising the public prohibited activities within these areas. So I assume that's what

[35:13] So that was put the judge found, but if anybody else

[35:17] has any questions, I'll say it by comments.

[35:23] I just want to make the council aware after we discussed it

[35:28] during the previous meeting, I was informed by the friends

[35:33] of Price House that they've had several instances where

[35:36] people are taking off with drones.

[35:38] They're in the parking lot at the park and then buzzing people

[35:41] at the park, actively buzzing people, not just flying around recreationally, if you will.

[35:48] But I think when I learn that, and part of the problem is we discussed earlier the price

[35:56] of these drones is so cheap, no, almost anyone can get one.

[35:58] So I think we need some balance here, I'm hearing maybe we went too far, but we also have an issue

[36:05] where we need to make sure we do protect the public in case we're definitely needed.

[36:10] I also just wanted to point out I took a look at the signage provisions in the code.

[36:14] It talks about signage for prohibitions on claiming and the closure of the beach safety

[36:18] area.

[36:19] So those are the two provisions that require the signs.

[36:22] Okay.

[36:23] Of course, I've said everything basically about it, but we can do all that later.

[36:28] Well, I got a call from a business person that photographs real estate from the air that's

[36:35] coming on the market.

[36:36] And of course, I was confused, you know, you can't.

[36:41] So the city manager, or maybe it was Scott.

[36:44] I don't know, he emailed and got the correct information.

[36:48] I didn't have the heart to tell him, well, if you're over a city street,

[36:51] there's a chance you might get a ticket.

[36:53] And I realized, now that's a commercial use.

[36:56] He's doing it, but he doesn't make a ton of money.

[37:00] So getting, having to put more regulations in with him,

[37:04] I was told he didn't need a permit, but it was a commercial use, so I'm a little confused about that.

[37:11] So for a commercial use, even today, notwithstanding the ordinance as it's proposed,

[37:18] if you're operating a commercial business within the city, you're required to get a business

[37:22] license. So that would still be a requirement with or without this ordinance. So they would be

[37:30] required to at least have a business license because they're transacting business activities

[37:34] within the city.

[37:37] If this was approved in its current, that's our regulation, all business activity, all

[37:44] folks that do business within the city, even photographers that the city utilizes are

[37:49] required to obtain business license, that's a standard requirement.

[37:55] So, for the example, real estate photos, would they need to get a filming permit?

[38:04] The current regulations as it sits, as it's proposed, what we would be proposing is that

[38:10] there would be an annual fee for that, an application so that the operator has the proper

[38:17] or FAA license and insurance.

[38:19] They have that, it's a minor fee of, we have not created it,

[38:23] we were going to create it.

[38:26] Hypothetically, let's just say it was $100,

[38:28] it'd be $100 annual fee.

[38:30] We did receive an email earlier that proposed,

[38:33] if there was a business license that that could substitute

[38:36] for that, we're open to that.

[38:39] This is not a revenue generation for us,

[38:42] but any business license, I'm sorry,

[38:45] or any business does require a business license

[38:47] that is a requirement in the city.

[38:50] So, with the mayor's example,

[38:55] that can be enforced without the ordinance.

[38:58] Because the rules existing with FAA

[39:00] says you can't do what the mayor says you do.

[39:03] So it could be enforced without the ordinance.

[39:08] You're not allowed to buzz people.

[39:10] Correct.

[39:11] It'd be a federal regulation.

[39:13] It's not something the city would be a city regulation.

[39:17] So if somebody was launching from a city park with this regulation, it would, you'd be able to enforce it.

[39:26] But if somebody was launching from their property above price house and buzzing people, we couldn't enforce it.

[39:36] They would be able to operate it, yes.

[39:38] Yeah. Okay. So there's a part of me now. I've in 27 years, I've had one drone exposure that I think

[39:47] probably is a little obnoxious and the more I thought about it, he was probably sitting on the hill

[39:51] watching us all react. This was about 10 years ago or so. But I I'm feeling like we're over regulating

[39:59] this. I really am. It's not really a problem. If we want to put a sign on the pier and that says

[40:07] I just don't think it's going to offer solutions to what we're intending it to do.

[40:12] If you want to regulate it on the peer, I see that's a highly congested area and

[40:18] I see it's a more appropriate, but I just, I think we're over regulating the city.

[40:24] I honestly do fill that way, and I just don't, if it was a chronic problem or

[40:28] is the problem in the future, then we can address it, but I think what we're doing is just

[40:34] just making rules that aren't needed and aren't going to be effective in the long run.

[40:41] If somebody really wanted to launch from their property and buzz people or do something

[40:45] they're not supposed to do, so I just think it's over-regulating.

[40:51] And just we should be asking questions at this point.

[40:54] Any, let me go to the public list, there's more questions at this point.

[40:58] I have no speaker slip, any public here in the council chambers would like to address this item.

[41:07] You have three minutes.

[41:17] I'm a little confused.

[41:19] No person should launch a land, private property, other than a property owner, the property owned by the city without prior written consent of the property owner.

[41:31] Who's going to verify that they have the written consent of the property owner?

[41:35] I mean, are we creating a nightmare for policing?

[41:40] No person shall launch a land, et cetera, properly owned otherwise controlled by the city unless granted prior permission.

[41:48] Pursuit to a special event permit, that's the big dollar item.

[41:52] So any time it's commercial, it's going to the big, especially event permit, there's no other way around it.

[42:02] No person shall launch your land at UAS within 25 feet of another person except the U.S.

[42:08] they operate or the operators does it need.

[42:10] What do you have a large parcel in downtown Pizmo?

[42:14] It's not 25 feet, it's 12,000 feet and you've got people out there that are using it.

[42:22] Maybe they're your relatives, maybe they're not.

[42:25] Do you have to give a permit to yourself to launch?

[42:30] You own the property, it's large, it's, I have a 12,000 square foot parking lot, and I can't launch from it.

[42:36] By the way, I don't have the device, but it's a question.

[42:42] And then no person shall engage in commercial operation within the city without having to change the city business license.

[42:49] That kind of goes without saying, if it's a business, you have to have a business license.

[42:53] But I looked at the fees and they're less than $30 to $50.

[42:58] It's a tax, it's not a money generator.

[43:02] It's a tax, so you have some recommended, some tracking.

[43:06] I didn't even got a cup more.

[43:09] No person should launch her lawn within 250 feet of a school facility with a prior notification,

[43:15] written authorization from the school officials.

[43:17] What is a school official?

[43:18] Who is a school official?

[43:20] Is it the janitor?

[43:21] They're officially working for the, or is it the principal, or is it the vice principal?

[43:31] No person should learn to learn to do it within 250 feet of any city owned property without prior notification written on the position of the city manager.

[43:40] So on a beautiful day, you're walking around on the pier and all of a sudden you see a gorgeous opportunity to take a picture of the ocean of a sunset.

[43:49] that you've got to run down this gentleman here

[43:51] and get him to sign something,

[43:53] or you have to anticipate it ahead of time.

[43:55] You don't know whether it's going to be like tomorrow.

[43:58] So I question that.

[44:00] I mean, I don't know the answer, but thank you.

[44:04] Thank you very much.

[44:05] Any additional public comment on this item?

[44:09] If you could fill out a speaker slip afterwards

[44:11] to the blue speaker slip at the end of the chambers.

[44:18] I am a photographer. I run a real estate photography company. I'm not the one that called

[44:24] in, but I am one of them. And I saw this through a post on social media that kind of spread

[44:30] like wildfire and not in a good way. So long story short, I agree with the council members.

[44:37] I think this is over regulation in general, but that being said, like I understand that there

[44:42] some jurisdictions that have regulations on this like Malibu or county of LA? I understand

[44:49] that. I'm not saying that all regulation is bad or anything like that. I'm just saying

[44:54] I think this is probably a little bit too far as far as how it's currently written.

[44:58] and some cons

[45:00] Next for at least real estate photographers, we charge maybe like 100, maybe 200 for drone work. So in terms of like real revenue generation for us, and I know you said the permit is mostly for film productions, you're not gonna get 1400 from us. We'd rather launch from Grover and fly over Pizmo within line of sight, all things considered.

[45:26] Other thing that I wanted to say,

[45:29] just for information, so the FAA does have, of course, various laws that we have to follow.

[45:36] As far as beyond visual line of sight and operations over people, there are technically

[45:43] some drones that are allowed for that and have been approved for that, but they're very

[45:47] minimal, so I would just encourage you to make sure the person that you're hiring for those

[45:52] operations has that specific equipment. Because most of us don't. There's certain drones

[46:00] that are not good, especially in nighttime, I'd say. And if you're going to have these

[46:05] events at night, yeah, I don't know. I made my point there. Night flight, that's a lot

[46:11] easier now, thanks to the FAA.

[46:15] Yeah, as far as the people buzzing, they're going to buzz

[46:17] no matter what. The way that this is ran is only going to hurt the people that are already

[46:21] lawfully flying. I trust my guess. Any additional public comment?

[46:30] Again, if you can feel

[46:31] as speakers to it, we appreciate it.

[46:37] In the past 20 years, I've been drawn flying for about

[46:41] eight. I'm a part of a 2007 commercial license flyer. I completely love your guy's input on that,

[46:51] as the drone laws are happening and people can get drones anytime. It is tough because

[46:57] There's the common sense that has to come into the situation where somebody can just put

[47:04] their drone down and launch it around hundreds of people and they're not thinking.

[47:09] And when we're taking tests it's being sure that it's a safe thing to do and most people

[47:14] don't care.

[47:15] So that's the thing we have to, you know, I think that's the most difficult thing and

[47:20] you're trying to figure out a way to regulate that is difficult because now you have people

[47:25] are doing this for a living, commercial work, and then hobbyists that are not following rules and

[47:30] causing us to be here. So I think if there's a way to, you know, like you said, not overregulate it,

[47:41] but find a way a middle ground and keeping people that have spent years studying and flying properly

[47:49] and safely being able to continue business in our area.

[47:54] Yeah, I think that's one thing, because yeah, I don't want to put a $1,400 tag on my

[48:00] client's work, because spending 30 days to try to do something is just kind of insane.

[48:07] So yeah, I can just put that out there and see what happens.

[48:11] Thank you for your time.

[48:13] Thank you.

[48:13] Any additional public comment?

[48:14] I

[48:30] just found out about this item on your agenda and I just, I'll be very brief, I'm against $1,400. Seriously, I really would like for you guys to seriously reconsider this.

[48:44] A lot of the photos that are being done by drones are actually promoting the city of Pismo Beach and you're not paying for them.

[48:52] You're getting value out of the professional photographers that are working and doing that and you're putting them out of business with this and so I'm absolutely

[49:03] adamantly against it and I just beg you to reconsider your original idea. Thank you very much.

[49:09] Thank you and additional public comment on this item.

[49:15] Steve, now I'll bring it back to council and close public comment.

[49:17] We had some questions on them had to do with the property owner written consent and that's kind of a

[49:30] it's written consent is the only way you can prove the property owner gave permission, right?

[49:35] Yes, and it's one of those enforcement tools that if a police officer sees someone and there is a complaint about a drone going up and down off a piece of property that the police officer has the ability to just ask.

[49:49] Hey, do you have consent for this?

[49:52] And saying just the response, yeah, I've got consent.

[49:55] Doesn't necessarily, and the discussion on there were written consent would.

[50:00] Mr. Day also was concerned about the 25 foot regulation.

[50:04] That 25 foot regulation is you can't take off or land within 25 feet of another person.

[50:10] Has nothing to do with the property itself or the size of the property.

[50:13] It's just a safety radius from that drone so that it's not going to hit someone on its way up.

[50:20] There are a couple other issues that Mr. Day had some concerns about the school officials.

[50:27] The janitor is an extreme example.

[50:30] It's going to be someone who's got authority to speak on behalf of the school.

[50:34] That's how we would interpret it.

[50:35] So if someone is flying within the distance of a school and he says the janitor approved it,

[50:42] we're going to say, well, that's not someone who has the authority to speak on behalf of the school.

[50:46] So it's a question of reasonableness in that situation.

[50:52] Do I see this being used on a regular basis?

[50:56] No, most of the ordinances that we have in the city, we don't enforce on a regular basis.

[51:02] They are there as a tool to allow us to both protect the public safety and

[51:06] to prevent nuisances in the air or otherwise in the city.

[51:11] It's just a tool.

[51:12] how about property owner launching a drone from his own property and bringing it back to the own property?

[51:21] That shouldn't be a problem, that's legal, right?

[51:24] That's the property owner's ability to do that.

[51:29] And with respect to SEC Special Events Committee.

[51:36] The ordinance actually has, there's a comma in there that talks about permission of the city or a special event permit.

[51:43] So the way it's set up that if someone comes in says, Mr. Garcia, do I have permission to fly from this place?

[51:51] Mr. Garcia can say, yes, here, signed, we're done.

[51:55] It was intended to make it easier and more clear rather than what we've been doing, which is having Mr. Garcia sign waivers that there's no authority for

[52:04] or under the code, we're just making it more explicit

[52:08] that he has that authority.

[52:09] So if I think we'll comment later,

[52:12] they didn't want to bother Mr. Garcia,

[52:13] but all they have to do is send an email,

[52:15] and they're going to reply from Mr. Garcia's at the extent of it.

[52:19] That's the process that we've currently utilized,

[52:22] and that has been for our special events,

[52:24] whether city events or the surf competitions,

[52:28] that's the genesis of where that comment came from.

[52:32] So what we've been doing is where there's been used for a drone, whether for city purposes,

[52:39] or the surf competitions use it either to help look for rip currents, help with the event safety planning,

[52:48] as well as for filming for commercial purposes, we have allowed launching off of the pier.

[52:55] That's what it's been for.

[52:58] So that is what was referred to as the city manager, I'm having to track down the city manager and that's been through the special events permit that's gone through our tourism and events department.

[53:08] They send me an email and I respond.

[53:11] And there were several comments about the cost of, I guess the question is if your commercial drone operator, what would it take to operate within our city under say the new.

[53:23] Yeah, so for absolute clarity, we were never proposing for real estate photos or any

[53:29] other minor commercial use of $1,400 fee, that would be limited only to substantial commercial

[53:37] activity, such as the Rivian commercial. I think that's a very easy example for people to

[53:43] understand the extent and the difference between the two. And they actually did use drones in addition

[53:49] to fix cameras during that operation. So it was a combination of both when they have that event.

[53:57] It would just be a business license. Again, we were proposing that we would come back and

[54:02] establish some sort of a fee under $100 for an annual use. And that would coincide with the

[54:09] annual business license fees. Again, those proposed fees would have come back to the City Council.

[54:15] We cannot set those fees administratively, the council has to approve those fees.

[54:20] And so the issue was, I think you kind of asked the question about if you have a prop to answer Councilmember Guthrie's question or comment, if you have a real estate someone doing drone use for real estate purposes, which is very common, if they launch from the property and land on the property, what would they have to do?

[54:43] They just need to have a business license and if the ordinance moved forward in some form,

[54:51] but as it's currently written, they would need to have some type of an annual permit fee

[54:58] or day use fee.

[55:01] We wouldn't envision having both a one-time fee because some photographers may only come

[55:07] one time and only do one project in Pismo Beach, but you may have other photographers who do

[55:12] a lot of work in the city. So to simplify it, just like we have day peddler permits for

[55:19] a business license activity, we also have annual business license fees. So we would use the same

[55:23] model. So we would envision a small, minor fee for a day use or weekend use, for example, and then an

[55:31] annual fee, both to be a nominal amount. Okay. I think that was all the questions. Mayor Proton?

[55:40] We had correspondence come in and I think that's a person that's in the business and they may be covered entirely on this and I don't know that for sure but would you address the things that were in there so yeah, so I believe if it hasn't already it will be included in the court and

[56:02] respondents that was provided to the City Council and it was related specifically to

[56:08] the operations and not wanting to have to get special dispensation every single time.

[56:14] So the way I read the email and we certainly can follow up with the center of the email

[56:22] is that they would be in support of having some type of an annual permit so that this does

[56:28] It does not have to happen every single time, it can just have a single permit that allows them to operate.

[56:35] So I think it's a good point which is why we were proposing both a single use versus an annual permit would be the proposal.

[56:44] However, as Mr. Feliceman mentioned, this is up to the City Council.

[56:49] If the Council would like to have no regulation, some modification, or set priorities, and then we can always come back.

[56:57] any substantive changes would have to come back for a first reading anyway.

[57:03] So whatever direction the council would like to give us,

[57:06] whether to move forward with the ordinance as proposed,

[57:09] to make modifications, specific modifications,

[57:12] or to give us broad policy statements,

[57:14] and then staff can coordinate,

[57:18] address them, and then bring that back for a first reading at a subsequent meeting.

[57:21] I guess then my next question would be, is, how do you inform people that have drones?

[57:31] How are they aware that there's a regulation there?

[57:36] Well, one of the ways, excuse me, one of the ways is you see them very frequently in national

[57:43] parks, no drone zone, and it's just a picture of a drone, and it says no drone zone, and

[57:48] that puts people on notice that there is a restriction of drones in a particular area.

[57:55] One of the things that we have discovered from a code enforcement standpoint is there's

[58:00] a lot of signs in the city and not everyone will pay attention to the signs.

[58:04] And I did want to point out Council Member Newton is correct.

[58:07] I found the section that he was referring to about public court staff putting out signs.

[58:11] But if you go down to the pier, there's a lot of signs.

[58:13] There are signs on the pier that say no dogs, and we still cite people for taking dogs on the pier.

[58:19] So it's a question of the cost-benefit analysis of where do you put the signs that will have the most impact?

[58:25] Where is the issue the most acute?

[58:28] And so putting a sign that says no drone zone at the pier is probably going to inform people that you shouldn't be flying there without some kind of look into what the regulations are.

[58:38] But where additional signs are placed, you may put them in parks, you may put them near schools.

[58:46] It's up to the council how extensive you want to make that.

[58:53] But again, just by two cents worth, I certainly don't want to go overboard on drone regulation,

[58:59] but we need also public safety and for having people, at least in the instance of Price

[59:05] Historic Park, where some of the volunteers that are every day, and we're reporting that frequently

[59:13] Currently there is the droning, the drones coming in and buzzing people and they take off from the parking lot there at the park and they may not be aware they can take off from a private property of their own private property area, but I think that's unlikely.

[59:30] I think the key thing is, it's a public safety issue and I think we need some kind of a means to regulate that portion without being onerous for those that are legitimate users that have a, especially if they have an FA license to operate with the advanced features that are required by the FA.

[59:50] I was reading some of the regulations too in the FA and they cover all kinds of things but

[59:55] It's some would be impossible to bring in the FA to

[59:59] regular

[1:00:07] I think we're limited and that's why the regulations are kind of quirky because we can only regulate where they take off from or where they land. So it's because of federal preemption. So where do you want to go from here?

[1:00:27] I'll just say is, you know, if it has a nice little handbook, no drone zone, drone response

[1:00:34] playbook for public safety, but this is for police departments and almost every rule

[1:00:39] we're talking about when it deals with public safety is poured in here.

[1:00:44] So I have no problem with regulating them for safety issues, but that's about the end of

[1:00:51] it.

[1:00:51] You know, I mean, we talked about can Mr. Day operate a drone out of this parking lot?

[1:00:56] Actually, you can't because he's within 250 feet of the police sub-station downtown.

[1:01:01] There's no way anyone could be expected to know where they can and cannot fly him.

[1:01:08] All, in my opinion, all we need is reasonable restrictions that kind of allow us to do local enforcement

[1:01:15] for what's already on the books at a federal or state level.

[1:01:18] which would cover exactly what you're talking about.

[1:01:21] You can't on a federal level, you can't go buzz people.

[1:01:25] And so if I had my way, the commercial users,

[1:01:29] they get a business permit, that's their,

[1:01:32] that's their, maybe they have a little thing,

[1:01:34] they fill out extra, they put their information,

[1:01:36] but that's their license, the user drone.

[1:01:38] You know, they're already our professionals,

[1:01:41] and we need to treat them as so.

[1:01:43] And just for clarification,

[1:01:44] they're the ones that have FAA license.

[1:01:47] That is correct.

[1:01:47] Basically the same as you find an aircraft and the most to lose because if they get caught they'll lose it right?

[1:01:53] Yeah, for them find with that and I mean they should be my opinion a lot to use them on the pier

[1:01:58] They are professionals. They're not gonna land if there's people everywhere

[1:02:01] They don't want to lose that right and the ones person to spoke to that, you know

[1:02:06] We do gain from the city's promotion from all these videos

[1:02:10] All those go away overnight. Yes, but they don't go away. They just go some other beach

[1:02:14] So we're getting free publicity out of these

[1:02:17] So to me that doesn't make sense and the only person is going to be hurt I mean our public speaker said it correctly the bad actors are going to remain the bad actors.

[1:02:27] We're going to hurt the people that actually follow the law which will mean none of our commercial users are going to be taking footage off the beaches.

[1:02:35] And I definitely don't think if we're going to regulate anything, it's maybe the peer but it's not all of our parks not all of our properties.

[1:02:41] I think that's just way overreaching and at the peer, I mean the most strict I could get is maybe allowing commercial users and the rest would have to have some type of permit.

[1:02:52] But even that might be pushing it for me.

[1:02:54] To me, if you can cite people for operating in an unsafe manner, that's the enforcement.

[1:03:00] Well, I think I heard you say your suggestion we can enforce federal law and we can't.

[1:03:08] No, no, we can duplicate it in our municipal law.

[1:03:12] But we can't, it's federal preemption once they leave the ground.

[1:03:16] Well, because we can't enforce, it becomes an aircraft according to the FAA and we have no regulations.

[1:03:22] But the FAA is allowing cities to put regulations in place, and you can look, there's about 14 other cities I want to guess that have restrictions in place that talk about the unsafe use such as buzzing people can or if you're with aircraft, it just allows us to enforce that locally and not have to call the FAA, which I agree, they're not going to do any enforcement, right?

[1:03:46] But I mean almost everything in ours is already in there.

[1:03:50] We can duplicate their language and keep it at a much higher level.

[1:03:53] And actually get the people that we're most worried about.

[1:03:57] And then I'm going to look for direction.

[1:03:59] If that's the case, if we can enforce federal law, and I didn't think.

[1:04:03] We can recreate it on a city level.

[1:04:05] Well, even I guess I'd like to get some clarification here.

[1:04:10] We can regulate on the ground.

[1:04:13] We can't regulate once it's in the air.

[1:04:15] So if someone is operating it in the air recklessly, that's an FAA issue.

[1:04:19] If they are endangering people on the ground by taking off or landing, we can regulate that portion of it.

[1:04:27] So it's that kind of tenuous balance.

[1:04:30] Now, the FAA does occasionally go after people.

[1:04:32] There's a drone pilot in Philadelphia that got hit for $180,000.

[1:04:36] There was a guy in Las Vegas who was filming the strip.

[1:04:40] He got hit for $15,000 on one violation.

[1:04:45] Yeah, so it does happen, it's out there, but that's in the air, so what we're looking at is just trying to place restrictions for safety purposes and business regulation to make sure that we are getting the good actors, the ones that have the part 107 so that we have that and if we, if the council's direction is to strip it down, we can strip it down, I can bring it back where it's just commercial operators on the peer and obby operators on the peer with permission from the city.

[1:05:12] The annual license fee for commercial purposes is incorporated within the city business license.

[1:05:18] No additional regulation is required of that.

[1:05:21] That is policy direction that we can bring back to you.

[1:05:24] Just clarification, does this pamphlet say that cities can regulate once in the air?

[1:05:32] On the FAA's website, they list all the California laws that have been put in place and city laws have been put in place.

[1:05:40] And they talk about, you cannot operate them in a nuisance manner.

[1:05:45] Yeah, I read through it.

[1:05:47] Yes, you can't buzz people.

[1:05:48] And if you reflect over people, there's a lot of issues.

[1:05:50] But you know, we do put that rule in place.

[1:05:52] Just as, or see a attorney said, you can't force it.

[1:05:57] Well, but that's where I, I think we need something that, again,

[1:06:01] I'm not sure that we can.

[1:06:02] Limiting the takeoff and landing.

[1:06:04] Kind of predict where people are going to use these.

[1:06:07] We're chasing a flight.

[1:06:08] But we still, I don't want people at the park,

[1:06:12] at the price park, I know it's happening,

[1:06:14] I'm not sure where else.

[1:06:16] Nobody wants it to happen.

[1:06:18] But right now, we can't, if we don't have any regulations,

[1:06:21] we can't do anything, I'm not sure that we,

[1:06:25] you're suggesting that we can somehow regulate

[1:06:28] once they take off.

[1:06:30] I'm saying, the very least, let's look at how

[1:06:32] it's been done elsewhere before we go overly broad

[1:06:37] I'm fine, we're looking at how it's been done elsewhere to see what-

[1:06:40] Probably the best thing, honestly, is to get staff some direction and table it and have them come back.

[1:06:46] Yeah, I don't think we're ready to sign off anything tonight.

[1:06:49] I want to make sure we get some clarity in the direction that if we can regulate once they take off,

[1:06:56] which I don't think we can, that'd be great.

[1:06:58] But lacking that, what can we do?

[1:07:01] And if there's examples, I think you mentioned some of the Californians.

[1:07:04] And if he does have, like I said, they have an email just set up for questions regarding local laws.

[1:07:12] But I'm looking at protecting our residents and our parks, in this particular case, or elsewhere,

[1:07:17] where whatever reason they're out there doing this, and I'd like to make sure we can enforce it.

[1:07:25] And I think where I am is I'd like to see the staff look further and see what other cities have done,

[1:07:33] and where there's an effect of enforcement mechanism

[1:07:36] for the problem areas, but that sound like

[1:07:38] it's the council, like you're the right council.

[1:07:40] I'll just say at some point, people have to have common sense.

[1:07:45] I mean, I'll tell you, the biggest hazard

[1:07:46] I see on our beaches right now is easy ups.

[1:07:49] The wind blows, they hit people, they're dangerous.

[1:07:52] But guess what?

[1:07:52] I'm not banning them because I like to have the council

[1:07:57] on this issue, go ahead.

[1:07:58] Well, I think I heard the city attorney say

[1:08:01] that he could bring something back that was less onerous as this is and accomplish the same

[1:08:08] thing so that we can enforce rules so that we don't get hit with a bunch of stuff and maybe this

[1:08:16] is too much and this is what the objection is. So I would say let's table it and have the attorney

[1:08:23] come back. What I was trying to do is shoot for the stars land on the moon with an acceptable regulation

[1:08:28] for the council. I looked at pretty much every other city that has drone ordinances in place

[1:08:35] and tried to bring from those cities what they did in their ordinances and put it into this

[1:08:41] ordinance. So it sounds to me like the council wishes to step back from that, make it a more

[1:08:46] streamlined user friendly. That's great policy direction. I can do that and we can bring that back

[1:08:51] in some point in the future. And if we, it doesn't sound like most of the council want to do this,

[1:08:58] But if we are still going to have some kind of limitation near all city property, there needs to be exclusion for city streets, some kind of language, specifically dealing with that.

[1:09:09] What I'm hearing is the council's most interested in the peer area.

[1:09:12] So, if I'm bringing back an ordinance, that's what I'm going to focus on.

[1:09:15] If the council thinks there are other areas of town that are deserving of regulation, we can put that in.

[1:09:21] But I'm hearing the peer area.

[1:09:22] Yeah, I think price how I guess I think parks and parks, but yeah, I want to make sure we can protect people in parks and I don't and I think the amount of the fee where the operator should be within the business license. I agree with that.

[1:09:46] Okay, do you think we should regulate the parks to them?

[1:09:52] I'm trying to get some direction.

[1:09:54] There was certainly, there was some peer issues.

[1:09:57] But you know, it's a public park, there's people in it, if they're doing it safely.

[1:10:05] I don't know how much it would be regulated anyway, but I guess I'm looking for a suggestion.

[1:10:14] Looking for a suggestion that-

[1:10:17] If you have a hobbyist drone operator and they're flying over a park and there's people under that,

[1:10:21] they're in violation of federal law because they're endangering the public by doing that.

[1:10:25] So that's the concern, do you want to prohibit that and not give them the opportunity to take off and land from the park to prevent that?

[1:10:34] Yes, the good actors are going to do it correctly, but we don't draft our municipal code to regulate the good actors.

[1:10:43] We draft those to take care of those outlier situations that constitute a hazard for the community.

[1:10:55] I guess one solution is to bring back an option for the parks and see what it looks like.

[1:11:01] Is that work okay?

[1:11:05] The only park that I support is the peer on a limited basis.

[1:11:10] I just don't think, I think we're regulating a non-problem.

[1:11:18] I would disagree.

[1:11:19] Okay.

[1:11:19] And I'll tell you, I'd be one of the ones violating the rule if we put it in for all parks.

[1:11:24] I take my Thanksgiving family photo every year with a drone because it's wide angle.

[1:11:30] We go to memory park and guess what, you can get all of this because they can just sit there.

[1:11:35] But now all of a sudden, I'd be violating the ordinance.

[1:11:39] So does the drone take off from the park and land?

[1:11:43] And about five feet in front of me goes up about six or eight feet, look on your phone,

[1:11:50] make sure you like the picture of your family, put your phone to your side, push the button

[1:11:53] and it takes the picture.

[1:11:55] No one dies.

[1:11:57] It's amazing.

[1:11:58] No,

[1:12:02] it's possible to get someone else to take a picture too, but that's beside the point.

[1:12:06] Okay.

[1:12:07] I would recommend bringing back an option with the parks, I think.

[1:12:14] Parks, use of drones and parks can be a problem.

[1:12:22] We haven't voted on it yet, I think you can bring both, you can bring one with a subset

[1:12:27] about parks and one without it, and then the majority can disillusion.

[1:12:32] I hear council direction to give you a menu of options.

[1:12:36] Okay.

[1:12:36] I'm going to do that.

[1:12:38] I hear you loud and clear that what the direction is.

[1:12:40] I think we've given you a direction that we don't think we need a motion, do we?

[1:12:44] I just have a quick question.

[1:12:47] So, in the meantime, if somebody, no, I really want to clarify this.

[1:12:54] In the meantime, if somebody wanted to film the beach, film their, you know, some surfing

[1:13:00] competition, that 1,400 is not even going to be considered, right?

[1:13:06] It's a business license with a drone.

[1:13:08] As long as they have a business license for commercial purposes.

[1:13:15] We have not the last time I remember us charging a film permit fee was for the Rivian commercial.

[1:13:24] We do not require that for our normal operations, for anyone who is doing commercial, filming, for real estate, calendars.

[1:13:36] What's the permission for you, the waiver?

[1:13:40] For launching off of the peer.

[1:13:42] Okay.

[1:13:43] Because right now it is prohibited as a part of the beach safety zone.

[1:13:56] And that's part of the concern.

[1:13:58] So I'm not going to go out and put signage until we figure out what the council would like

[1:14:02] to do.

[1:14:06] So yeah, if we had a special event tomorrow that required drone use.

[1:14:12] I would continue the practice of having that so that we could continue to allow it if there was a purpose.

[1:14:18] Now, if someone just wanted to go fly a drone on the beach for fun, we're not going after that.

[1:14:34] There's only a certain amount of beach you can regulate though, I think, if I'm not mistaken because I can't get trash cans out.

[1:14:41] to a certain point that he said it was state parks.

[1:14:45] For the most part, we put the trash cans out.

[1:14:47] It's usually tied, specific.

[1:14:49] Yeah.

[1:14:50] Okay, we're going to move on.

[1:14:51] We have a public carrying item.

[1:14:53] Mr. Garcia, 11-A.

[1:14:56] Yes, thank you, Mayor.

[1:14:57] Item 11-A is levying the 2%.

[1:15:00] Annual assessment for the PISMO beach lodging, business improvement district, otherwise known as LBID. For fiscal year, 2026, and that is July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026, Ms. Fieser will give this report.

[1:15:39] So on April 1st, 2025, the Council of City Council adopted Resolution R205-014, that did

[1:15:49] three things.

[1:15:50] It approved the CBB and ELBID Advisory Board's Annual Report and Business Plan for Fiscal

[1:15:56] Year 2026, declared the Council's intention to levy an annual assessment of 2% of gross

[1:16:02] lodging revenues for transient rentals in the district for 2026 and also set up public

[1:16:08] hearing for today to consider loving the assessment. This 2% assessment is the same level

[1:16:14] of assessment from the previous year. The resolution of intention and the company annual

[1:16:19] and report and business plan for 2026 was published in the new times on April 3, 2025 and

[1:16:26] mail to all lodging properties within the city on April 4th.

[1:16:30] The fiscal impact of the resolution if approved could generate 2%

[1:16:34] elbit annual assessments for fiscal year 2026 for approximately $2.7 million,

[1:16:40] which could be used to promote the lodging business and

[1:16:42] PISMO beach and support physical improvements that are designed to improve

[1:16:46] lodging occupancies, revenue, rev par, and TOT taxes, which benefit all the residents of PISMO beach.

[1:16:54] As a reminder, the LVID-1% is remarketing of lodging properties in the city, Pismo Beach,

[1:16:59] and the other 1% is for visitor-serving improvements, such as the AdiStoot bathroom and improvements,

[1:17:04] Christmas decorations, annual beautification, public art contribution, butterfly grove,

[1:17:08] trails, signage and cross-locked beach cleaning equipment, a surf rake, the downtown strategic

[1:17:13] plant update, and the lighting of ball fields.

[1:17:17] And of course, some of those projects could be multi-year.

[1:17:20] The primary purpose of this agenda is to hold a public hearing to hear all interested

[1:17:24] persons and receive any protests.

[1:17:26] At this point, we have not received any protests.

[1:17:30] After the public hearing, the council may consider adoption of the resolution, levying the

[1:17:35] Elbit Assessment for fiscal year 2026.

[1:17:37] That concludes my presentation.

[1:17:39] Any questions?

[1:17:42] Seeing none, I'll open the public hearing.

[1:17:45] What do we like to address the council on this public hearing issue of the

[1:17:48] Elbit assessment?

[1:17:52] Saying none, I'll close the public hearing. Bring it back to

[1:17:56] council. We have a resolution. This is any other discussion.

[1:18:02] No, they've been wonderful to us. So let's approve this. I'll move to. I'll move to

[1:18:08] Levy, the 2% annual assessment for the PISMA Beach Lodging Business Improvement

[1:18:13] District for fiscal year 2026, which is July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026.

[1:18:20] Basic staff recommendation, resolution reads slightly differently, but yes.

[1:18:25] Is there a second?

[1:18:27] Second.

[1:18:28] Mr. Clerk, I have a motion to second.

[1:18:31] The roll-complease.

[1:18:32] Good.

[1:18:33] Council Member Inman?

[1:18:34] Yes.

[1:18:34] Council Member Newton.

[1:18:35] Yes.

[1:18:36] Council Member Guthrie?

[1:18:36] Yes.

[1:18:37] Thank you, Mayor Fulton-Marie.

[1:18:38] Mayor Wagi?

[1:18:39] Yes.

[1:18:40] Motion passes, 5-0.

[1:18:42] The next item by Spaniel Road, Heinz Avenue Improvements, Mr. Garcia.

[1:18:47] Yes, thank you, members of the City Council.

[1:18:49] This item is going to be presented by our Public Works Director, Ms. Gaglioni, who is going

[1:18:54] to provide you with an update and a couple of options for the intersection improvements.

[1:19:00] We don't want to call it any particular item.

[1:19:02] We want to refer to it as intersection improvements as we're going to present you with two

[1:19:07] different ways that you can accomplish that for this intersection as well as a potential

[1:19:11] broader view. So I'll turn it over to Ms. Gaglione.

[1:19:14] Thank you very much, Mr. Garcia. And I also have senior engineer Nate Stong here with us

[1:19:18] in case there are additional questions.

[1:19:27] On March 4, the Council directed staff to return

[1:19:30] with a discussion on potential options for the intersection of Price Canyon Road and Bell

[1:19:34] Street. There was an interest in a holistic view of the traffic patterns and road wage

[1:19:40] geometry that make this a challenging project, and Council was interested in taking a second

[1:19:45] look at the peanut roundabout as a similar intersection, a similar roundabout at the intersection

[1:19:50] of Union Road at Golden Hill Road and Pasal Robles has been working quite well.

[1:19:55] This is that roundabout.

[1:19:56] This actually appears to be a really well designed roundabout, and I'd like to first just talk

[1:20:03] a little bit about what makes roundabouts function well.

[1:20:06] The designers play a few psychological tricks on us to make us behave well in the round

[1:20:11] about.

[1:20:12] One of those is we know that if we're turning a corner and we take it a little too quickly,

[1:20:18] we actually feel ourselves sort of get pushed out away from the curve.

[1:20:23] And so that makes us automatically slow down.

[1:20:26] Roundabout designers do this by slanting the road to the outside from 2 to 5 percent.

[1:20:32] So you always feel like you're slightly going too fast.

[1:20:36] Another thing if you take a look at the plantings in the center of this roundabout, which

[1:20:40] of imagining we'll get much larger, it slows you down because you can't see to the other

[1:20:46] side.

[1:20:47] And so when you can't see where you're going or on the other side, you tend to slow down

[1:20:51] and take it more safely.

[1:20:53] The other thing is if you look, and I made my cursor really big, hopefully it's easy,

[1:20:59] You're coming from a wider road, and as you enter the throat of this approach, you will

[1:21:05] have a constriction, and that narrowing makes you stop and say, whoa, I've got to pay

[1:21:10] attention.

[1:21:10] I have to slow down.

[1:21:11] I don't have as much space now.

[1:21:13] And then as you go, you come into what is known as a deflection curve.

[1:21:17] And the deflection curve is made to slow you down further.

[1:21:20] And as you come into this curve, you see a crosswalk, and you're alerted to other things

[1:21:24] that are important.

[1:21:25] This roundabout also will allow a semi-truck to turn but use this apron to handle the off-tracking

[1:21:34] the trucks will often do.

[1:21:35] If you look at the size of the vehicle's relative to the roundabout, you'll see that there's

[1:21:40] ample room for whatever vehicle is supposed to be on the road to navigate this roundabout.

[1:21:47] We'll just keep some of those things in mind.

[1:21:49] This is an overview of Price Canyon Road at Bellow Street if we went with the traffic control signal.

[1:21:56] You'll notice everybody knows who's driven it. It's an oddly skewed intersection.

[1:22:01] There's just a lot of things to consider. You have heels and everything else around you.

[1:22:06] And every leg coming in is at a different elevation, which can make it challenging.

[1:22:12] Now here's a look at the PISMO peanuts.

[1:22:14] And one of the things you notice is there's an orange line here that shows that vehicles should go around if they wanted to make a left completely round and do that.

[1:22:25] One thing that stands out is in this tight space, I don't see that they were able to get the deflection curve that would actually slow vehicles down very much.

[1:22:35] And then you'll notice here that it's a flat space. There are no plantings to obscure view.

[1:22:41] So, we looked at a comparison of the two roundabouts and the top is the pink Paso peanut

[1:22:49] and the lower one is the Pismo peanut.

[1:22:53] And you can see that the external diameter here is 115 feet as compared to 80 feet

[1:22:59] for the peanut roundabout Pismo.

[1:23:02] Again, here I see that these really nice deflection curves coming in but I don't see that so much

[1:23:10] here. And this is an area where you have vehicles coming in at a high rate of speed and you

[1:23:15] want to slow them down. The other thing is that I haven't seen before, these red arrows

[1:23:21] say that a truck will make a left turn over the center of the roundabout. And I'm not sure

[1:23:28] how that really works in reality because you could have a truck sitting here waiting for

[1:23:34] a chance to turn left and backing traffic up so it wouldn't necessarily create a more

[1:23:39] efficient situation, and then this radius at 20 feet, your standard curb radius at a residential

[1:23:46] area is 25 feet, so it's even smaller than that.

[1:23:51] So as we look deeper at the alternatives, flaws emerged on both of them.

[1:23:55] As I said, roundabouts require adequate space to function properly, and there's not enough

[1:24:01] space at that location without acquiring additional right of way.

[1:24:05] And any roundabout at that location will need to accommodate truck traffic because price

[1:24:09] catered road is a 65-foot truck route.

[1:24:13] And then with either a roundabout or a signal control, we're going to need coordination

[1:24:17] with the signal and heines and price.

[1:24:21] So sometimes you get buried in the solutions and you have to step back and say what's the

[1:24:26] problem we want to solve.

[1:24:28] So the intersection of price-cainting road and bellow street is heavily congested during

[1:24:32] the PMP, level of service is currently at a level of service D and that's on an A to F scale.

[1:24:38] It will decline to a level of service F, it build out.

[1:24:42] And that's because the vehicle's on Bella Street experience a lengthy delay.

[1:24:46] And then traffic on Price Canyon Road does back up for a significant distance.

[1:24:51] So requirements for the solution are that during the PMP hour, we need to improve traffic flow so

[1:24:58] that vehicles waiting to turn from Below Street on to price canyon road do not experience

[1:25:02] significant delays while not increasing but hopefully reducing the eastbound queue

[1:25:08] on price canyon road. We know that some of our challenges are that

[1:25:13] price canyon road functions as highway. It has a vertical and horizontal curves coming

[1:25:18] into this intersection. It's a root of regional significance. It's carrying traffic from the

[1:25:23] the city of slow and slow under unincorporated

[1:25:26] and in the valley, all to the Southbound 101.

[1:25:30] The amount of traffic will continue

[1:25:31] because there's significant development

[1:25:32] going on in those areas.

[1:25:34] And when there's congestion to the north of us

[1:25:36] on Highway 101, it encourages drivers

[1:25:38] to go down to 27 to price canyon to the Southbound 101.

[1:25:43] So it's just a layout of our regional traffic.

[1:25:47] And you will see the slide a couple of times.

[1:25:49] It wasn't a mistake.

[1:25:50] I think it's good to highlight where these cars

[1:25:53] are coming from and where they're going.

[1:25:55] We also have intersection geometry.

[1:25:57] We know it's skewed at acute angles, which

[1:26:00] complicates design.

[1:26:01] The elevation differences also complicate design.

[1:26:04] The topography can impede site distance

[1:26:06] and also complicate design.

[1:26:08] Acute angles also make it more difficult to look behind you

[1:26:11] because you have to look so far back.

[1:26:14] And price skating road is a 65 foot truck route.

[1:26:18] And it's trucks with the kingpin.

[1:26:19] So it's the cab and the trailer in the back.

[1:26:21] So tractor trailers, fire engines, and PG&E trucks regularly navigate this corridor.

[1:26:27] And from price at Heinz Avenue, traffic backs up from that intersection eastward past

[1:26:33] bellow.

[1:26:34] So vehicles couldn't make the turn on the price canyon road from bellow if the middle

[1:26:39] of that intersection is jammed with other cars.

[1:26:42] So you can't just focus on this one intersection.

[1:26:45] There's also a southbound one-on-one off ramp on Heinz, just east of Price, just add to the

[1:26:49] party.

[1:26:49] And then downstream is Price Street at Stimson Avenue, which has the highest number of collisions

[1:26:54] in the city.

[1:26:56] And here is some of that information.

[1:26:59] This is from Slow Cogs Regional Road Safety Action Plan, the 2025 draft.

[1:27:04] For eight of our priority locations, four of them are along this route.

[1:27:09] Price Canyon, Invello, Stimson and Price, Ocean View and Price and Price and Hines.

[1:27:16] Again, our regional traffic.

[1:27:18] So, if we take a step back to recalibrate, we have an opportunity to design a solution

[1:27:24] for multiple problems, not a guarantee, but an opportunity.

[1:27:28] If we can take the price of the route, from price canning road of Bellow Street through

[1:27:32] price of hines and then through Stimston and Ocean View Avenue, and make sure they function

[1:27:36] as a system, then we could potentially improve traffic flow and reduce conditions at all

[1:27:42] of the intersections along this route.

[1:27:44] We would be able to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety and potentially create a gateway

[1:27:49] to Pismo Beach at the 101.

[1:27:52] So staff's recommendation would be that Council direct staff to develop a request for proposals

[1:27:57] to retain a consultant to perform a holistic evaluation of this regional route and all of

[1:28:03] its impacts and potential opportunities for improvement.

[1:28:05] That staff and consultant would return to Council with options for additional study and

[1:28:10] And that we continue to work with SlowCog to emphasize the importance of this regional

[1:28:14] route to the County of San Luis Obispo and its impact on the city of Pizmo Beach and

[1:28:19] the need to invest in the solution.

[1:28:21] And that concludes my presentation.

[1:28:24] Thank you.

[1:28:25] Very thorough.

[1:28:26] Questions?

[1:28:28] Go ahead.

[1:28:29] I had a quick question.

[1:28:31] So based on what you're saying, the peanut for price canyon would be really challenging

[1:28:39] not sure if it would address the solutions because of the trucks, the turning, and so with

[1:28:48] the light and working on the other intersections, if I'm understanding you right, you're saying

[1:28:54] that making multiple improvements will, that's the key to the flow.

[1:29:00] Is that what you're saying?

[1:29:01] That is correct.

[1:29:02] That is correct.

[1:29:02] Addressing all of those intersections, all of that entire route as one system, you can

[1:29:08] When you think of a traffic, you have water sheds and traffic sheds, and if you look

[1:29:14] at traffic as water, at least water will spill out when it gets to a roadside.

[1:29:18] The traffic won't, it just keeps backing up, so you need the intersection, the next intersection

[1:29:23] to be clear if you want the intersection you're working on to work properly.

[1:29:30] Go ahead.

[1:29:31] I had the opportunity to drive to the Paserovelas peanut that a week ago, and it's very well

[1:29:37] laid out and you're right that I didn't even realize it was a peanut because of the

[1:29:43] foliage in the middle of it because you don't really see the other people on the other

[1:29:48] side and what they're doing. So it wasn't until I was halfway through that I realized that

[1:29:52] was the peanut and because that area is so small compared to the area in Paso Robos, it

[1:29:59] does.

[1:30:00] It seemed to me to be difficult and I don't understand the logic in having trucks go over that peanut. So I'm glad you showed us all of that and how that works and how it works in Paso and how it would likely not work here. And so I really like the idea of looking through this whole region. There's a lot of things we need to look at.

[1:30:28] What you've got opinion on, can we solve it or just make it better?

[1:30:33] So,

[1:30:36] in terms of trying to make things a little better, we have asked a traffic engineer

[1:30:40] to give us a proposal to recalibrate the timing at Price and Hines, but there's, through

[1:30:46] there's like 1,600 cars in an hour during the PM peak going through there.

[1:30:50] We're talking about a lot of vehicles.

[1:30:53] So, we have to be able to flush those vehicles through Price and Hines.

[1:30:59] So, how do we, how do we do that?

[1:31:02] It may come out that you have a signal at price,

[1:31:07] and maybe you have roundabouts further on.

[1:31:09] I don't know, but you have a lot of vehicles

[1:31:12] to get down there and through those two intersections.

[1:31:15] And you need to do it quickly.

[1:31:17] One of the things is this intersection

[1:31:20] and what is here exists now,

[1:31:22] and so sort of grandfathered in

[1:31:24] from a design immunity perspective.

[1:31:26] But anything we do that's new needs to work and needs to be safe and check all of the boxes and so that's why it's just really important that we don't try to look at one piece and think we're gonna solve it and create any problem.

[1:31:41] Yeah, I didn't know what the traffic counts are, it's even possible to push that many vehicles through it during those crunch time periods.

[1:31:48] I would say if you would move them through slowly, you wouldn't have the backup, you would

[1:31:56] have to set, if you had a single tool, you would have to set that, you'd have to set

[1:32:02] it so the price canyon road is green unless triggered by bellow.

[1:32:06] And you'd have to reduce the amount of time that you have that green for bellow and you

[1:32:11] You need to flush out Heinz at price around about could probably handle a tremendous amount

[1:32:18] of traffic.

[1:32:19] And then go ahead and see if you're moving that many cars through it during that time.

[1:32:24] Now you have less of a gap as you come through Stimson and Ocean View.

[1:32:29] So what is the best way to deal with that traffic that drivers who want to come out are not

[1:32:35] going to have the gap that they had when there was a traffic signal?

[1:32:38] I know we're doing a downtown study too.

[1:32:40] So, we would do this first and incorporate their results into our downtown study, is that

[1:32:46] what you're thinking?

[1:32:47] Yes, I would suggest seeing if there is a layout that works for this, and then we can

[1:32:53] work with the downtown study to see if there's impacts from that.

[1:32:58] Okay.

[1:32:59] Last thing, if you want to see how bad traffic can get, let's wait until they start the

[1:33:03] highway 101 construction and everybody de-tours around, so we will be able to see how much

[1:33:08] worse it can really get.

[1:33:10] We'll see our future.

[1:33:12] Glass half full, glass half dimpy.

[1:33:15] Once it's done presumably it'll be some of traffic in 227.

[1:33:19] But there's also a couple of roundabouts at Buckley and at

[1:33:29] which both were the golf courses, the Rancho.

[1:33:36] And when those are done that could move traffic

[1:33:39] through that area perhaps a little bit quicker

[1:33:41] because that's currently backing up there so this is part of slow cogs effort and I think

[1:33:46] I'm hopeful that once we get that managed lane done that that will be some pressure

[1:33:52] you know using your water analogy through that area any other questions

[1:33:57] I have one question following up but what you were commenting so as you were suggesting the lighting

[1:34:04] to work and and the flow through did you say it's potential that you would have a

[1:34:09] around about at price and price canyon and price street.

[1:34:17] So when council member Newton asked, is there possible to get that much traffic through

[1:34:21] there?

[1:34:21] Yeah.

[1:34:22] If you, if around about can move a lot of traffic.

[1:34:25] Yeah.

[1:34:25] Right.

[1:34:25] And so that's a potential option.

[1:34:28] It's interesting.

[1:34:29] And I, I don't want, I don't, I don't want to, I don't want to put my finger on the scale

[1:34:36] anywhere, and I won't even do it with the consultants. I really want someone to look at this and

[1:34:40] look at the whole thing. Correct. Right. To move everything. Okay. I like that idea a lot. Thank you.

[1:34:46] Any other questions? Go ahead. Need to have a motion. Well, first of all, I need to go public.

[1:34:53] I'll let you do that. Thank you. I have no speakers.

[1:34:57] Let me public comment on this item.

[1:35:02] Seeing none, I'll bring it back to council.

[1:35:04] or further discussion deliberation and I think what you're looking for is your recommendation is to say go ahead and fix this problem by getting a consultant.

[1:35:17] And is that, do you need a motion to that effect?

[1:35:20] No motion, I think, as long as we have consensus from the Council that we want to take a more comprehensive rather than focus on one intersection.

[1:35:29] Yeah, my only comment is I think the solution is going to definitely be so huge that it's a more of a slow-cog responsibility than a city responsibility because I don't think it's all Pisma residents.

[1:35:39] No, we're starting that conversation.

[1:35:43] I know Mayor Wage mentioned that the last council meeting that he's having conversations he's on the slow-cog board as well.

[1:35:49] And I know Miss Gaglioni is also starting to have those conversations with slow cog.

[1:35:54] We need to start planting the seed, but this is a regional problem that happens to be

[1:36:00] in PISMO beach, but it is a regional problem in PISMO beach.

[1:36:06] So that's the messaging that we will definitely be pushing very clearly and aggressively.

[1:36:13] I've been making this point to slow-cog for about the last eight years, so they're very

[1:36:22] well aware of it.

[1:36:23] It's kind of on their list, but like all things, it's going to be cost and funding and revenue

[1:36:30] available.

[1:36:35] So it's not going to happen always takes longer when you have to get money from somebody else

[1:36:40] but it's on the list.

[1:36:41] Any other comments, discussion on this?

[1:36:44] I think we've given direction to move forward

[1:36:46] with our new Public Works Director recommendation.

[1:36:52] Move on then to our final item, which is item 12B.

[1:37:00] Yes, squirrel control, Mr. Garcia.

[1:37:02] Yes, this item is also going to be presented by Ms. Gaglioni.

[1:37:07] An item that continues to evolve,

[1:37:09] All we've most recently just received even more updates from the state of California on some potential developments.

[1:37:17] So we'll provide an overview here and happy to have any direction that the city council may have on how they would like us to address some of the concerns.

[1:37:28] Thank you, Mr. Garcia, Mayor, council members.

[1:37:31] We do have a squirrel population problem in some of our parks.

[1:37:36] Since we stopped baiting them a couple of years ago, the population has exploded.

[1:37:43] We do have people feeding them, they will come up and eat from the hands of folks.

[1:37:49] I had a very interesting experience going to Eldone Park with Mr. Garcia and Mr.

[1:37:54] Eldridge, and as he spoke and pointed, they came up ready to be fed.

[1:38:01] Yes, that's correct, that's correct, but they are rodents.

[1:38:06] And there are diseases that squirrels can carry, and so all they look cute, they're not a great thing for the parks.

[1:38:13] The other thing is their tunneling moves water through and out the bluffs and helps to accelerate the collapse of the bluffs.

[1:38:23] So FEMA made the comment about that when they were out here at one of our sites that we need to take care of the squirrel problem because it's impacting the bluffs.

[1:38:32] So, we started getting in touch with the county and then with the state and what we have found out is the system of baiting that we used to use is no longer legal.

[1:38:45] So, that's off the table.

[1:38:47] We have our carbon monoxide machine, but it hasn't been effective because there's probably a whole underground city under there now and it dissipates the gas plus on the other side is open air with the bluffs.

[1:39:00] So, what we found out is our options, our legal options at this point is a poison called

[1:39:07] rosal. The only problem is it's not recommended due to high toxicity to people in animals, especially

[1:39:14] dogs. You can't use it near a lot of people, you can't use it on walkways, you can't use

[1:39:19] it near water. So, that is something that obviously isn't going to work for us. We have checked

[1:39:27] on birth control, and if someone in Europe is trying to work on this, but they don't have

[1:39:33] anything yet, but we do know they breed two times a year from June through August and

[1:39:38] from December through February, so those are good times to take action. So, as I said,

[1:39:44] the carbon monoxide poisoning hasn't been effective because there's just too much area under there,

[1:39:49] so the other option is called mechanical control. And mechanical control, we trap them on site,

[1:39:55] we dispatched them on site and then disposed of them.

[1:40:00] That there's a couple of ways of doing that that are recommended by a council of veterinarians

[1:40:06] that advise the state on these matters.

[1:40:08] One is shooting and the other which could be pellet gun or blight powder.

[1:40:15] The other is they actually sent us a plan for a small gas chamber.

[1:40:20] So, once they're caught,

[1:40:23] they can be placed in the chamber where we can concentrate the

[1:40:26] carbon monoxide, then they just go to sleep.

[1:40:30] Problem is we have to do it on site because we're not supposed to transport these squirrels

[1:40:34] from one place to another.

[1:40:36] Is that a regulation?

[1:40:37] Yes.

[1:40:39] Well, they don't want you potentially bringing squirrels with this disease to an area where

[1:40:45] squirrels don't have that disease yet, which is why most of those, and you can't take them

[1:40:49] and set them free somewhere. They don't want that. They are rodents. They're pests.

[1:40:55] So that is, I mean, we would like to hear if Council has any direction for us, but I believe

[1:41:02] at this point, the only option we have is either shooting or a gas chamber.

[1:41:09] Well, I know I have three friends that already engage in shooting behavior in their backyards

[1:41:14] in another county. That's kind of a joke, because I'm sure the police chief doesn't want shooting happening of squirrels in our park, so I would go with the CO2, it puts in the sleep. It's not as agree just in my opinion.

[1:41:35] would be CO. Yeah. Right. Bad question. Well, I, in fact, before we give direction, I guess, I'd like, before we give direction, I'd like to go through questions and give a public comment and bring it back for direction.

[1:41:53] Okay. Can I ask a question? Are you going to go the public? No, go ahead.

[1:41:58] Has anyone considered a dual approach, especially for feeding the squirrels on educating the

[1:42:07] public on why, because a lot of people don't realize that squirrels are undermining our

[1:42:14] cliffs.

[1:42:14] They're coming in from an agricultural area where they're not thinking about that, their kids

[1:42:21] are seeing acute squirrels so if we can educate people I mean you could do it in a cartoon form

[1:42:27] a fun you know however about feeding the squirrels and the damage that they're doing I don't know

[1:42:33] if that's affected but for me if I'm going into an area and I see a video and I'm like when my

[1:42:39] daughter was little I would have easily said let's make sure we don't feed the squirrels I understand

[1:42:43] it's very harmful so I might my mayor may not work but has that been considered maybe a public

[1:42:49] I think we have not considered that explicitly, but I think it's a great idea and it's something that we can easily do and put together.

[1:42:58] So I think that should be a component of any solution.

[1:43:02] So I think that's a great idea and something we can work with our team on.

[1:43:08] Any other questions? Let me go out to the public. I have no speakers left. Any public comment on this item?

[1:43:15] Seeing none, and I guess rather than I realize you're looking for direction, I'm inclined

[1:43:25] to say do what you think is because you're going to have to care out the program and

[1:43:29] both of them can be effective, but rather than I don't feel comfortable saying, here's

[1:43:37] the best way to do it, I would rather rely on your professional experience and how you're

[1:43:42] working with your staff on how we can take care of.

[1:43:44] I think certainly the signage is important.

[1:43:47] We need to tell people you feel a scroll

[1:43:50] and the fluff's going to go away

[1:43:51] and there goes whatever.

[1:43:53] We won't be able to sit here anymore,

[1:43:55] stand here anymore.

[1:43:56] I think certainly education is important,

[1:43:59] but I guess I'm be more comfortable

[1:44:01] with this giving you direction to take care of the problem

[1:44:04] as best you can,

[1:44:05] because there's very few options.

[1:44:07] Seems like.

[1:44:08] Did you have a question or a comment?

[1:44:10] Any others?

[1:44:11] Well, I'm sad there's not an adoptive school program, you know, and it's not illegal.

[1:44:15] But I want to agree with the mayor is, you know, we give them things may change over time.

[1:44:21] Maybe other practices that are better.

[1:44:23] So I would say leave it to their professional opinion on what's most effective.

[1:44:27] Yeah, you have very few tools and I'm not going to try to use my judgment to tell you what the best tool is.

[1:44:34] Go ahead.

[1:44:34] No, I agree also because we have the same issue with the pigeons and I think we've kind

[1:44:41] of managed that, so right.

[1:44:45] Okay, anyone else?

[1:44:47] I think consensus is use your judgment best way to take care of it along with some signage.

[1:44:53] Is there anything else on this item?

[1:44:56] Okay.

[1:44:56] Thank you.

[1:44:57] Okay, this is our last item. Any council?

[1:45:00] Comments or requests? Go ahead. I'm going to say, um, I don't know, uh, our law enforcement is doing a special operation in Shell Beach, but it was great to see the enforcement this weekend. Um, seen a pullover, everyone that's rolling through the stop signs. I went by one way. I mean, there's people just pulled over all day to the point where you want to just pull over and watch because I mean, we all know their stop signs, but obviously some people don't. Yeah. And I think quite a few, uh,

[1:45:29] We've got a little citation.

[1:45:32] So it's great to see the enforcement.

[1:45:34] Thank you.

[1:45:34] Just a little levity here.

[1:45:36] Perhaps if the chief let us know where these are,

[1:45:38] the council can hold up signs.

[1:45:40] This was a 10 or something.

[1:45:43] It's horrible what they're doing.

[1:45:45] It's just,

[1:45:48] I think enforcement,

[1:45:50] and I think you fact, do you want to address that or something?

[1:45:53] I think maximum enforcement sometimes,

[1:45:55] where you catch everyone with everybody is one way to handle it.

[1:45:58] Do you have any thoughts, any comments on that, chief?

[1:46:02] We have been given officer's son direction I know in the last month we've been focusing on

[1:46:06] just structure driving because that's one of the main collision factors.

[1:46:10] So we have officers out doing that special enforcement just looking for individuals who

[1:46:15] are looking at their cell phone, talking on their cell phone, things like that.

[1:46:19] So again, as we have things that we realize our problem, we are trying to focus on that and

[1:46:27] address it throughout the year.

[1:46:28] I appreciate that. Go ahead.

[1:46:32] Did you get any bikes?

[1:46:34] No, Willie. She'll be, I'll be stopped at a stop sign and there'll be one that'll zoom.

[1:46:38] It freaks you out when you're stopped. You're thinking, why don't they, I agree.

[1:46:42] You know, and again, it's something that I've, I've been forced.

[1:46:47] I don't know how many bike sites, but we are asking that and I know one of the other concerns

[1:46:51] that Mr. Garcia's brought to my intention is just been more concerned with dogs off leash.

[1:46:57] I have heard a lot of the citations happening over the weekends also, so, again, as those

[1:47:03] things come into me, we definitely get that information out to either our CSC or our

[1:47:07] traffic officers to, you know, make sure we're addressing those concerns.

[1:47:11] Well, good comment. I had heard about the enhanced enforcement or distracted driving. I wasn't

[1:47:19] sure if we were doing part of that. I knew the CHP was, looks like we were doing it, too.

[1:47:23] Okay, thank you. Anything else? Seem none of this meeting's adjourned.

City Council Regular Meeting

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