[0:16] Welcome, everyone, to the city council regular meeting of the Santa Paula City Council. It's Tuesday, July 2nd scheduled for 6.30 p.m. We will now call the meeting to order at 6.35. Madam Clerk, would you call the roll, please. Excuse me. I went out of order. Did I not? Forgive me. I was ready to go with that. First, we will ask for the invocation.

[0:53] Mayer, vice mayor, council members, staff and all those in the chamber here with me and beyond in the virtual community, will you pray with me?

[1:08] Gracious loving God, spirit of life and love, by whatever name you call the Holy, we are grateful to be together this week of Independence Day

[1:20] In this, our beloved community of Santa Paula, we are grateful, again, for our very lives,

[1:29] even as we know that many struggle, even here, even here in our beloved community.

[1:36] May we be reminded that no matter where we live, everyone is our neighbor, everyone is

[1:44] are sibling and that throughout the ages, profits have called the leaders of people to respect

[1:51] and protect the least of those among us, our children, the elderly, the poor, those

[1:58] who are hungry, those who have no homes.

[2:03] We pray this evening for our mayor, for our

[2:07] city officials and in particular for this assemble council. We pray for the agenda set before

[2:14] for them this evening. May our work here this evening may or Leslie Cornelho.

[2:39] A lot of

[2:39] people out here. It's an honor to be here. Thank you, Caitlin. Thank you to the people

[2:46] in it.

[2:49] May all beings be safe. May all beings be at peace. May it be so in the name of the

[2:57] Holy, amen.

[3:00] Reverend, would you stay up at the mic just for a moment?

[3:06] I'd like to thank you for all of your lovely invocations.

[3:10] A little over a month ago, the Reverend retired and had a reception.

[3:16] And so she was presented by a certificate of recognition.

[3:20] And I'd like to also give that again to you this evening.

[3:23] And thank you again for all of your lovely invocations that you've given.

[3:26] Thank you.

[3:27] And just so you all know, I'm not planning to move out of the area necessarily, so you may see me back, because the church has made me a merit us.

[3:36] So, you'll see.

[3:38] That's a good word of merit.

[3:40] There you are.

[3:41] Someone wants a photo.

[3:42] Oh.

[3:48] Thank you.

[3:50] Thank you.

[3:50] That's a great name on me.

[3:55] As we remain standing, I would ask the vice mayor to please leave this in the pledge of

[4:00] legions.

[4:01] Thank you, ma'am.

[4:02] Please put your right hand over the floor.

[4:11] To be followed for which it stands, formation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice

[4:18] are all.

[4:24] Now, Madam Clerk, if you'd so kindly call the roll.

[4:28] Council Member Crosswhite, here.

[4:30] Council Member Juarez.

[4:31] Here.

[4:31] Council members, the bill is absent this evening.

[4:35] Vice Mayor Chavez.

[4:36] President.

[4:37] Mayor Cornejo here.

[4:39] Thank you.

[4:41] And I would like to ask our city attorney, Ms. Castillo, to give a report on our closed

[4:46] session.

[4:47] Thank you, Madame Mayor.

[4:48] This evening, Council recessed into closed session to discuss two items.

[4:55] The first was conference with real property negotiator,

[4:59] opportunity.

[5:00] We're suant to government code 54956.8 about property located at 1430 Santa Clara Street. The terms of the negotiation and price terms were discussed. Secondly, council recess discuss the public performance evaluation of the city manager. That process has concluded and there are no reportable actions on either item. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

[5:29] Thank you. We'll move on to public comment and I won't read the whole paragraph about

[5:39] public comment but you are given three minutes and asked to fill out a card or a paper to

[5:45] be recognized. And at this point for public comment, these are the items that are not

[5:52] already on the agenda at a later time this evening. We do have a Michael Lozano, we call

[5:58] you to speak. Are you here? Please. And you'll be given three minutes.

[6:04] Three minutes. Whole three minutes. Yeah.

[6:06] Good afternoon. City Councilmembers. And this is Prejudifier. You all know that the last

[6:13] several months that the citizens of this city have been enduring relentless firework and it's

[6:25] nuisance and it's not tolerable.

[6:29] If I read the general plan, this is a city shall aggressively pursue enforcement of its

[6:35] noise ordinance to respond and make it noise violations nuisance, noise such as parking

[6:41] dogs, a lot of music shall also be enforcement priority for the city.

[6:47] So I want you to know that and I speak honestly that there are people in this community that

[6:52] are suffering, um, legitimate suffering from the noise of, uh, you know, these fireworks.

[7:00] And I don't know how many of you live within the city, but it's gotten, forgetfully, worse

[7:05] and worse.

[7:05] Well, like Beverly and I have lived in the city, have been homeowners back in that oaks area

[7:09] for about 36 years, and we've watched you get worse and worse.

[7:13] I don't say that, uh, as witness to that, it's not getting better.

[7:19] And it is no fault of our police department.

[7:20] God bless them.

[7:21] They do a great job.

[7:23] I love our police department.

[7:25] I feel safe.

[7:27] I don't like the threat of fireworks

[7:32] possibly causing a fire.

[7:35] We've watched fires on the hill up by the hospital.

[7:39] And we've found fireworks in our neighbor's trees.

[7:44] She calls us crying at 9 o'clock at night, 10 o'clock at night.

[7:49] She is traumatized.

[7:50] She's a widow, and she's a loan, and she's frightened.

[7:55] She's not the only one.

[7:56] If I visit the social media, Facebook, next door,

[8:00] the neighborhood, whatever's called now, it's endless.

[8:04] And I don't accept when someone says,

[8:06] well, you might as well tranquilize your dog,

[8:09] you might as well buy some.

[8:11] Stay the art, headset, mitigate the noise.

[8:13] That's not acceptable.

[8:16] I live in the evasion world,

[8:18] and we're subject to noise abatement, policy procedures, we comply because to not do so the penalty is severe.

[8:28] One warning and then it's $5,000. It doesn't go to me, it goes to the aircraft owner, and that keeps us honest.

[8:35] So we say that approach this problem, not as an illegal firework, they're destroying the evidence before the officers can get there.

[8:46] But you go after the homeowner who is wrenching to a tenant or the tenant themselves and they get a letter first off.

[8:56] And then it is a severe punishment.

[8:59] You can misdemeanor and usually reduce to maybe some sort of refraction.

[9:04] But the penalty is not great enough.

[9:06] There's one more I can say on the subject how they have curved airplane noise

[9:12] in communities like Torrance, Santa Monica, and some of the others I've missed across the country.

[9:18] So, but they have empowered citizens.

[9:22] The citizens have the capacity to send the letter by witness of several neighbors.

[9:29] And then they impose, find it's not the FAA, and it's not a state or a county or city, it is a citizen group.

[9:36] Thank you, Mr. Listen, I'm sorry to time us up appreciate your comments.

[9:41] Thank you,

[9:44] Vice Mayor.

[9:46] Yeah, Mayor Cornel, is that the only public comment we have for the evening?

[9:50] That's on the Nanaget night.

[9:52] It is.

[9:53] Since we don't have any other public comments, I'd like to ask the chief to please come up and

[9:57] just share what our policy is regarding.

[10:00] Starting fireworks so that we can again inform the public about our firework policy in the city. I know that's a bit of video recently, so. If you could just respond to the concerns without a full report since it's not agendized, but certainly we need to acknowledge that. Thank you mayor and vice mayor. Yes, so we have been moving with our campaign forward this season for 4th of July and the other holidays that come later in the year.

[10:30] It is violation to possess even safe and sane fireworks, or any other fireworks that are in the health and safety code categorized and identified as dangerous, which means we could arrest anybody for violation of the ordinance here in the city, or the health and safety code for those dangerous fireworks, whether they are illegal, or they are safe and sane.

[10:53] are not allowable in the city limits and we will look for those violators.

[11:00] We have extra dispatchers on this weekend.

[11:03] We have extra patrols this weekend as well to look out for where those are happening.

[11:08] We ask for the public's patience.

[11:10] We'll respond to those calls and we'll affect arrests whether they have used the fireworks

[11:14] or have a supply on hand that have not been used yet.

[11:18] We have a disposal at our station for anyone who comes into contact with fireworks

[11:22] whether they are have been used or unused, and we will take those and confiscate those to make sure we dispose of those safely.

[11:29] So that's our approach, we've produced a public safety announcement on video, that's been on the website.

[11:39] We have been on our social media to let everybody know that safe and safe fireworks are illegal, and

[11:44] to report fireworks violations as they appear out there.

[11:47] So we'll be out this weekend in force, beginning with our extra enforcement beginning tomorrow through the weekend.

[11:55] Thank you, Chief.

[11:56] Appreciate it.

[11:58] Move on to presentations, 7A.

[12:01] We have a presenter for the Ventura County Fairport poster.

[12:06] We have Betsy Chess.

[12:10] Good evening, Madam Mayor.

[12:13] Council, staff, it's a pleasure to be here.

[12:16] You probably know that our mayor is also on the fair board but she can only

[12:20] were so many hats, so I'm here this evening. And it's my pleasure to make a presentation

[12:25] of this year's County Fair poster. The theme is Fair Ever Young. And this is the

[12:32] work of Stephanie Garcia, she's 17 years old from Oxard. This year there were 340 submissions,

[12:40] so it's quite an honor to be chosen. It was interesting last year, there were only 32 submissions,

[12:45] and this year the change of not having was last year and years previously it was a $10 fee to enter your poster that's been done away with and the other interesting thing was this year entries were open from kindergarten through 12th grade and I've got to tell you there was some remarkable second and third grade art.

[13:06] So it's my pleasure to present this to you and also welcome to the fair. There's 12 days of drone shows.

[13:13] There's all sorts of new exciting things and then there's some returning things the lions will be there doing bingo

[13:20] So there's something for everyone this year at the fair and thank you, and I hope to see you all at the fair

[13:26] Thank you fair director Betsy chess

[13:35] Okay, we'll move on to seven B parks and rec

[13:40] Recreation month proclamation

[13:41] I have the proclamation here

[13:50] Designation of July as Park and Recreation Month, whereas Parks and Recreation programs are an integral part of communities throughout this country, including the city of Santa Paula, and whereas our parks and recreation are vitally important to establishing and maintaining the quality of life in our communities, ensuring the health of all citizens and contributing to the economic and environmental well-being of a community and region, and whereas Parks and Recreation programs build healthy,

[14:18] active communities that aid in the prevention of chronic disease, provide therapeutic

[14:23] recreation services for those who are mentally or physically disabled, and also improve

[14:29] the mental and emotional health of all citizens, and whereas parks and recreation programs

[14:33] increase a community's economic prosperity, through increased property values, expansion of

[14:39] the local tax base, increased tourism, the attraction and retention of businesses, and crime

[14:45] reduction and whereas parks and recreation areas are fundamental to the

[14:49] environmental well-being of our community and whereas parks and natural

[14:53] recreation areas improve water quality protect groundwater prevent flooding

[14:58] improve the quality

[15:00] We have the air we breathe, provide vegetative buffers to the development and produce habitat for wildlife. And whereas our parks and natural recreation areas ensure the ecological beauty of our community and provide a place for children and adults to connect with nature and recreate outdoors. And whereas the U.S. House of Representatives has designated July as parks and recreation month. And whereas the city of Santa Paula recognizes the benefits derived from parks and recreation resources.

[15:30] Now therefore, I, Leslie Cornel, Mayor of the City of Santa Paula, and on behalf of the City Council recognize the importance of access to local parks, trails, open space, and facilities for the health, wellness, development, inspiration, and safety of all Californians, and do hereby proclaim the month of July as Park and Recreation Month in the City of Santa Paula, they did the second day of July 2024.

[15:58] and we have Vanessa Olmos, a committee chair of Parks Recreation here to receive the

[16:03] proclamation.

[16:24] So,

[16:30] good evening, everyone.

[16:32] On behalf of the Parks and Recreation Commission and Department, I want to thank you for recognizing

[16:36] July's Parks and Recreation Month.

[16:39] Our Parks and Recreation Department worked tirelessly day in and day out to make sure that

[16:43] the community has programs and facilities to utilize.

[16:47] Not enough can be said about the entire department, and this proclamation just emphasizes

[16:52] the hard work and dedication that they all have.

[16:55] Whether it's partnering with the school district to make sure our youths have access to

[16:59] sports programs during the school year and programs during the summer, or making sure our seniors

[17:04] are able to access meals and activities for their lifestyles.

[17:08] This team knows no end to the possibilities that are out there for our community.

[17:13] And none of this is possible without the park's crew who take pride in what they do to make sure our facilities are pristine.

[17:21] I know they take pride in the work that they do and without them we wouldn't be able to host such wonderful events in the community.

[17:27] And I urge everyone to participate in some of our facilities and activities, whether it's a visit with the mobile activity center at a park near you,

[17:36] or whether it's the movie nights, which our next one is July 12th at last year of this park.

[17:44] So I want to implore the community to enjoy everything that our Parks and Recreation Department has to offer.

[17:50] Thank you.

[17:51] Thank you.

[17:52] Do you have anyone else here that was on the commission with you?

[17:54] We do have our newest commissioner, Chris Ines, the lease here as well.

[17:59] Great.

[18:00] Thank you very, very much.

[18:01] Okay,

[18:08] item 7c, Community Action, Ventura County, CVIC presentation, and we have here with

[18:14] Asuzi Lopez Garcia, Executive Director, and Julia, is it Louis or Luis?

[18:20] Louis, Administrative Assistant, please.

[18:28] Good evening everyone, my name is Zuzi Lopez Garcia, and this is Julia.

[18:33] So we just wanted to come to the meeting to really give you a more of an overview of community

[18:39] community action and also some of the work we've been doing in Santa Paula.

[18:44] So, community action was established in 1965.

[18:47] We have been serving the whole county of Ventura for since 1965.

[18:52] But in the last year, we actually moved and

[18:55] leased out a space here in the city of Santa Paula.

[18:58] So, we wanted to share some of that information.

[19:02] And we'll start off with our mission.

[19:03] Our mission is helping our community establish pathways out of poverty through advocacy,

[19:08] see partnerships and services that promote dignity and self-sufficiency.

[19:15] What's unique about us?

[19:17] So I do see some familiar faces around the table.

[19:19] Councilmember Crosswhite is a past board member with community action of Intura County.

[19:24] So our board's structure, it really brings together community leaders to collaborate and

[19:29] developing responses to local leads.

[19:32] So what that means is we, our board composition, one third is from the public sector.

[19:38] So each board of supervisors appoints an elected official on to our board.

[19:43] So currently the board member that represents the area of Santa Paula, film or pyru,

[19:49] is council member Christina Villesanyard who sits on our board.

[19:54] The other piece is, so one third is public officials, one third is private sector.

[20:00] And the other third is of the low income sector. So that means it can be a community member who may be low income or a representative or somebody that works representing an agency such as we have had people on our board who represents real economics, different agencies as well. And that really brings all the voices to the table as we make decisions. We have representation across the county and also in our work and serving individuals or households who are

[20:29] of low income that we're taking that into consideration when we're making decisions.

[20:34] The other piece is we definitely depend on volunteer support.

[20:39] We'll share out some of our programs that really, if we didn't have volunteers, we wouldn't

[20:43] be able to serve a lot of the different households.

[20:47] And then maximum feasible participation.

[20:49] We've had clients of ours who have been hired and our staff members now, so we definitely

[20:55] look at that piece as well of people who have come in through looking for services and then at

[21:02] some point may have become staff members of ours.

[21:07] And like I mentioned, we did open up, we just

[21:09] hit our one year anniversary. We have a satellite office out of Pueblo, a center del pueblo who also hosts

[21:18] Pueblo in Latino town hall along with others. So we've been there for a full year now and really that

[21:25] that came about because of our community needs assessment.

[21:28] We conduct the community needs assessment every two years.

[21:31] We look at demographics, we look at data,

[21:35] we ask questions around what are the needs

[21:38] in every community.

[21:39] So we do try to have focus groups in all our cities.

[21:42] We have surveys that go out.

[21:44] So something that kept coming up was there

[21:46] was a need to come into the area to provide services.

[21:50] People would make their way to Oxford where our main office is.

[21:54] We would rent out space, we used a borrow space from Bo-Bulab so we can serve once a month

[22:00] we would come in when I think CAUSE, the first five had different offices here, we would

[22:05] also borrow office space.

[22:06] So it's been a great help to been able to open an office here so that we can then kind

[22:14] of come in, have our own keys meet with clients.

[22:16] If it's outside of the eight to five hours, we're able to make appointments, we're able

[22:20] to have the bigger space to host groups,

[22:24] to host trainings.

[22:25] And then just sharing some of our strategic goals.

[22:28] I do want to highlight number four,

[22:30] making ourselves known throughout Ventura County,

[22:33] unless people access our services,

[22:35] many times they don't know who community action is.

[22:37] So we have been working on that by, again, presentations,

[22:44] social media, talking to everyone we can

[22:47] so that people can access our services.

[22:51] And then a rundown of our programs, the one you might be familiar with that just wrapped

[22:56] up earlier this year was the Water Bill Assistant Lightwap.

[23:00] So I think we hosted a day, thank you to the council members, thank you, council member

[23:04] Tavis, who also kind of asked us like, explain Lightwap to me.

[23:09] So we hosted a day where we had an enrollment and then we processed and we'll share out some

[23:14] data on that program, but it did wrap up earlier in the year.

[23:17] We were able to connect with staff and really work together on that.

[23:21] We also have a community market food hub, so we have a food pantry every Thursday in our

[23:27] Oxford office.

[23:29] We also partnered with Food Forward, and they bring us produce to our Oxford office, and

[23:34] then in turn we organize and get that produce out to about 27 pantries across the county,

[23:41] which includes some pantries here in Santa Paula.

[23:44] community workshops around financial wellness, mental wellness, and then we also just started

[23:50] a new program with Medi-Cal Enrollment Navigator Program, and so that is staff that is helping

[23:57] people stay enrolled or renew into the program.

[24:02] Home weatherization.

[24:03] So that's the other piece we also connected with staff here in Santa Paula.

[24:06] We go into home so we're not only just looking at helping them pay their utility assistance,

[24:11] since we also look at what can be done in the home

[24:13] to lower those utility payments.

[24:17] And so we can do anything from shower heads

[24:22] to light balls or energy efficient

[24:23] out to replacing water heaters, furnaces.

[24:28] We do appliances, washers, dryers.

[24:31] We've just added some refrigerators, microwave stoves,

[24:34] and we also run tests.

[24:36] It's not just about lowering the utility costs.

[24:38] It's also making sure that how safe we conduct tests around carbon monoxide in the home to make sure everything's working properly

[24:46] Utility assistance so the one we are continuing is the gas or electricity and then in our Oxford office

[24:53] We do provide on shelter services so that showers laundry milling address

[25:00] And referrals out for other services.

[25:05] And Julia's going to explain a little bit more of the impact we've had here in Santa Paula.

[25:13] I'm Julia. So if you look on the screen, the graph displays how much Lywap funds went into each city in Ventura County. And Santa Paula was the second city to receive the largest amount of Lywap funds at 200, 200,000, 175,000.

[25:32] $173.35.

[25:37] Over 200 households in Santa Paula received water assistance.

[25:45] In Santa Paula, 39 homes were weatherized, and depending on the services,

[25:51] it takes an average of $4,000 to weatherize a home.

[25:57] An average of 718 households in Santa Paula received utility assistance,

[26:03] and that includes gas and electricity.

[26:08] And out of our Santa Paula satellite office,

[26:11] we do a lot of workshops there.

[26:14] So recently we partnered with everyone on

[26:17] where staff conducted a digital literacy program

[26:20] that was that in Spanish and a consistent cohort of 15 seniors.

[26:26] This workshop was five weeks long

[26:29] and at the end upon completion of the workshops,

[26:32] all the seniors received free Chromebooks.

[26:36] Also out of our Santa Paula office,

[26:39] we partner with Chase Bank,

[26:41] that hosts financial literacy workshops.

[26:44] We also partner with Ventera County Credit Union,

[26:48] where they do those workshops in Fillmore

[26:51] in the public library,

[26:53] but also includes participants from Santa Paula in Fillmore.

[26:58] Another important workshop that we do

[27:00] out of our Santa Paula satellite office

[27:02] This is our mental wellness workshops.

[27:06] Our first connection to Santa Paula was our mental wellness workshops and we started

[27:11] doing those twice a year and as soon as we opened up our satellite office, we started

[27:17] doing them twice a month.

[27:20] Additionally, one of our staff members, Maria Jimenez, coordinates monthly meetings for

[27:25] a women's group that talks about, they focus on community issues.

[27:30] We

[27:38] recently started a new program, and it is a medical enrollment navigator program.

[27:43] This is in partnership with Gold Coast Health Plan, and we have a dedicated staff that

[27:48] is stationed at our Santa Paula office, and she services our Santa Clara River Valley.

[27:56] She can also be found at the East Campus of Inter our College on Wednesdays, and she also

[28:02] takes appointments.

[28:07] In partnership with Food Forward, as Susie mentioned, our food hub provides produce to

[28:13] food pantries in Santa Paula, like, for example, both at Boopalard's pantry, and that's

[28:19] twice a month, and it roughly serves up to 150 residents in Santa Paula.

[28:24] And we also distribute food to love without borders.

[28:30] Additionally, we distribute diapers and baby formula, depending on the amount of donations

[28:35] that we get and we try to do those like semi-alignly or on an annual basis.

[28:46] I did mention in our mission statement partnerships are key.

[28:50] Obviously we can't try to take everything on and we have amazing partners

[28:56] throughout the county who are already doing some of the work.

[28:58] So we are not part of our community needs assessment was also about not duplicating services

[29:02] and making sure we were filling gaps versus duplication.

[29:06] So these are just some of the partners that we're working with.

[29:08] Again, we've mentioned that food have with food forward, the credit unions, the banks.

[29:14] Broadband, we just hosted a focus group around broadband, some of the barriers, opportunities

[29:20] for the plan that's going to go more at the county level, but we did host.

[29:24] We were a part to see if we could host those for Santa Paula in Oxford to really get the

[29:28] community involvement.

[29:31] So those in Santa Paula actually was conducted in Spanish earlier last month to get some

[29:38] of that feedback. We are picturing Maria Jimenez, who I think a lot of community members are

[29:43] familiar with. She initially started with us as a volunteer. So she was our connection here in

[29:48] Santa Paula. Hey, we're going to host this. Hey, can you get the word out? Once we had some additional

[29:54] funding come through, we were able to hire her on part time. So that's been an amazing

[30:00] I hope whenever we do host any of those groups or additional workshops, she's able to help us get that word out. And also, we have joined the Isabella Project, which I know is very important here in Santa Paula. So, we are part of the Isabella Project and working through that.

[30:17] And that is it. So, I don't know if I can take for any questions or can't submit a classified. So, if there were community members who saw this presentation or see it in replay,

[30:31] on Channel 10 and are wondering about getting connected with your services, what would be the best

[30:37] way for them to do that? Definitely come into our satellite office here. So again, it said 113 North

[30:45] Mills Street. They can also call in our main number is the they can call our main number in Oxford

[30:52] and so they can also get directed that way. Right now we do have a medical enrollment staff who is

[30:58] here full time, so between her and Maria Jimenez,

[31:02] they're able to answer questions or let them know

[31:04] when the next staff member who's specific to any program

[31:07] can be here and meet with them

[31:09] and we can set up appointments with them.

[31:13] My name is Mary Chavez.

[31:14] Thank you, Mary Cornelius.

[31:15] Thank you so much for sharing the information tonight,

[31:19] especially the slideshow that shows

[31:21] how many Santa Paula residents were able to access

[31:25] the lip wall program.

[31:26] Has there been any updates regarding that,

[31:29] making a return in the future?

[31:30] I know we that had a significant impact here. I know that we work with your staff to make

[31:37] that provide the community center as a place where we can help people fill out a 13-page

[31:43] application. I think sometimes very difficult for many to navigate that. But do you have any

[31:48] insight regarding that problem because it's very effective? I think it was meant to be a

[31:53] time with the idea of because of COVID, right? But everything is still, the need is still there.

[32:00] We're even struggling with funding. We received the same funding and then the need is still high.

[32:07] We're in the past three years. We had received CARES money, ARPA money, and we were able to use that.

[32:12] So now we're really re-focusing on prioritizing who is coming through and prioritizing. I mean,

[32:20] We're meant to prioritize families with households with children under five, seniors, people with disabilities as they come in for help with that.

[32:30] But with the water, it was asked if community actions were willing to take on if it did come back around and we said yes.

[32:38] But I think it was at the state level of that decision kind of where it was going to go.

[32:42] So we're more than willing because we still, you know, are trying to connect or learn, like who else is there a church?

[32:48] Is there another group doing some water assistance? Where can we refer people?

[32:52] So we try to keep an update a list to see where we can send anyone.

[32:56] But unfortunately, as of right now, we haven't been told that it

[32:59] like a timeline or one it would happen if it does happen.

[33:03] Again, I appreciate you and the staff that work diligently to provide these opportunities for our residents.

[33:07] It really made a difference in our community here.

[33:10] as we saw over 200 families were impacted and assisted.

[33:14] And I also want to thank the staff and city council

[33:17] because this program was completely different

[33:19] from our electricity and gas.

[33:21] Electricity and gas, we just deal with Edison

[33:23] and Southern California gas.

[33:25] With the water, we had to connect

[33:27] with every water district company.

[33:31] And so not every city signed on to work with us

[33:33] right from the beginning.

[33:34] It was kind of like a, do you know someone

[33:36] can the state connect with them?

[33:38] They had to kind of sign in

[33:39] and signed up to work with us and then that was the urgency of disconnection right so having that

[33:45] communication with staff of yes they did come in please don't disconnect we're processing but it's

[33:51] Friday at 3 p.m. So having that open communication was key in serving Santa Paula because throughout

[33:59] we're going to I would give reports every week of like what city signed on there were certain cities

[34:03] that were not on that list and I'm like people are coming because we're promoting we're venture

[34:07] But if that water company or district was not on our list, we couldn't serve that resident and trying to explain that to the resident was a little difficult. So I also really want to thank you because it wasn't just the need.

[34:20] It was also being able to work with the cities or the districts to get that process out. And when we looked at the data, I don't know if you looked at the top three.

[34:28] It's Oxnard, we had an office in Oxnard, Santa Paula, we have an office here, and we also have a center light office out of Simea.

[34:34] And that was also one of the top ones, so we did look at that as well.

[34:38] And I just want to give kudos to our city manager as well as director Ramirez, because it was instrumental for us to be flexible and

[34:46] working that to ensure that our water cutoffs didn't happen because the applications were in process with the state.

[34:52] Thank

[34:54] you very much for your presentation and we appreciate that all that you've done for a city thing.

[35:00] Thank you, and continue to do.

[35:07] Okay, we move on to 70, community and economic development department, quarterly report, director James Mason.

[35:16] Thank you, mayor and council.

[35:20] As you probably well know, like every anyone that's in town, there's a lot going on. But just want to give you some highlights of things. Right now in planning with 28 active projects and we say planning that those are either entitlement projects or just the beginning of development.

[35:38] and that could be probably a differentiation between planning and building, building could

[35:44] be a water heater, planning is going to be something that's actually going to change

[35:48] a site or development.

[35:52] Big initiatives really, as you well know, we're going to be working

[35:56] on code updates, the development code is going to be a big portion of that, and then specific

[36:01] plans, I'll talk about that a little bit later. Building and safety, weekly we are at plus

[36:08] That's a minus 60 inspections.

[36:10] When I did this presentation put this together last week, we just jumped up to about 20 inspections a day now.

[36:18] And that's both small developments and improvements to homes and businesses around town.

[36:26] But a big portion of that is what's happening at Harvest right now.

[36:29] If you have a chance to drive through there, I'm sure Vice Mayor Chavis has that chance to drive through there.

[36:35] there's the speed that those houses is going up is pretty amazing and then 12

[36:42] permits issued a week and 17 plan checks a week and it's exciting to have

[36:48] not only the engaged and competent staff that we have right now but it's just

[36:53] exciting to actually have staff right now to be able to do this level work because

[36:57] there's a lot of demands. Code compliance. I can't just ask that you're still not

[37:02] We're fully staffed though, correct?

[37:03] Correct.

[37:04] But you have gains in privacy.

[37:07] Yeah, great, thank you.

[37:09] Code compliance, active closing out code cases.

[37:13] One thing, we have 102 active code cases of those active ones.

[37:17] We've had one close in this last quarter, but what I should qualify is we have code

[37:22] cases that come up every week that are opened and closed before they're really actively

[37:27] opened as a case.

[37:28] It's one thing we appreciate about the community is when people are aware of non-compliance.

[37:35] They're generally very responsive and take care of that.

[37:39] The challenge that we've had just want to clarify and quantify.

[37:43] We did hire a full-time code inspector with hopes of starting to get a handle on those 102

[37:50] active cases.

[37:51] And with this incredible increase in development, especially in harvest right now, we're

[37:58] just barely able to keep up with the inspections.

[38:01] So that's really taken a little bit of hit on our code person

[38:04] because he's backing up those inspections.

[38:08] Development engineering, as you know,

[38:10] contract services with M6 and Wildand.

[38:12] Economic development, business as usual

[38:15] will collaborate with the city manager's office,

[38:17] PBIT and the team member of commerce.

[38:18] And also with the EDC, the economic development collaborative.

[38:21] And they've been really helpful in both making connections

[38:24] with businesses that are interested in the area.

[38:26] Yeah, our big growth opportunity right now is really an economic development.

[38:31] On the one side, as we have growth in employment is retail and services.

[38:38] But on the other side is we have, at least for our town, our size.

[38:42] We have more industrial land per capita and per size of our town than any other city within Ventura County.

[38:49] And the demand for industrial property is very high.

[38:52] So our hopes are to be able to attract those jobs and we're working actively to do that.

[38:58] Kind of just go over this quickly, you're well aware, we have planning commission, economic development, standing committee, housing and homeless standing committee, development agreement, ad hoc committee, cannabis standing committee, affordable housing, trust fund, oversight committee, brand new committee, we'll be meeting within the next week to 10 days.

[39:13] So kind of a lot of groups, but it keeps us moving.

[39:18] I mentioned a lot of these before, all of these are moving forward and they're really close

[39:24] to the finish line.

[39:25] Industrial shell building at Bender Industrial, they're just finishing up some of their

[39:31] approvals from the fire department on that and they'll hopefully be going vertical before

[39:40] the end of this year on that space.

[39:42] It's going to take some time, it's tilts up concrete building so that takes a little

[39:46] a little bit more on site development.

[39:50] Santa Maria Industrial Park, Santa Paula RV Storage

[39:53] and Santa Paula Self Storage 2, they're finishing up

[39:56] what has been a long process of getting FEMA approved.

[40:00] And our hope is to have that finished up probably by the end of this month, which will allow them to start doing some of the vertical development that they need to do on the site.

[40:12] Action pack just found out that there, as a business, there's been some decline in their business and demand for what they do. They manufacture a manufacturing, packaging manufacturing machinery. And they're recalibrating what they're going to do at their site.

[40:29] they may be downsizing, they may be selling, so we'll see what happens moving forward.

[40:33] ARP is expanding, Ben Pack, we've talked about this before, that's one of our biggest opportunities,

[40:38] it's 230,000 square feet total in Santa Paula, they're slowly moving out of Santa Paula,

[40:45] and we're working to try and backfill that space as quickly as they move out.

[40:50] And we're excited about that because I think and believe this is one of our best opportunities

[40:55] to turn mostly warehouse space into manufacturing space and more jobs than just storage.

[41:02] And in Santa Paula West Business Park, we just got some of the finalization from Lafko

[41:08] as far as all questions have been answered.

[41:11] And we're hoping to go to the next Lafko board, I hope, if not the next one, the one after

[41:16] that.

[41:16] I think we've checked all the boxes, so I'm pretty excited about that.

[41:22] Downtown activity in the last quarter, gun smoke is, I got coming soon on there, they're up and running.

[41:28] Lots of rosas still working on their event center.

[41:34] Event center space, took a while, they had a lot of seismic retrofit on that.

[41:40] And that's a good lesson, I'm trying to remember, I think it might have been,

[41:44] Vice Mayor Chavez mentioned this before, I think, about just lessons learned

[41:49] and being able to get businesses together, and that's a really good example.

[41:53] The seismic retrofits, that's a hurdle that some folks are afraid to address.

[41:58] And I think being able to get some of these folks together and talk with their contractors about how do you do it?

[42:03] How do you make that happen?

[42:04] That's one of the biggest hurdles we have in downtown development is how do you make these buildings current and do it affordably?

[42:12] Park 1055, if you have a chance to drive by there on the corner of Ohio Street and

[42:16] In Maine, it's getting really close to finish.

[42:18] Their patio is looking pretty amazing, hopefully in the next 60 days to open.

[42:25] And then a good orchard cafe and event center, they're just about done with everything

[42:29] as far as all their permits.

[42:31] They should be starting work on that pretty soon.

[42:34] They've done some preliminary demo inside the building, but that is exciting to have another

[42:39] space, both for event and for food and beverage.

[42:42] And then on the East Area Gateway over towards Harvest, to Harvest Medical Bavillion Development,

[42:50] kind of waiting with Bated Breath to see what happens with the hospital decision and how

[42:55] that links to the medical offices there.

[42:58] They are still moving forward with the plan check and design for that medical office.

[43:05] So we're moving forward with that.

[43:07] McGailic Finch property, that's the retail property across from Harvest.

[43:10] just still in discussions with them.

[43:13] We plan to have their plans submitted within the next probably two weeks or less, and tenants and that yet to be determined.

[43:23] There have been some challenges in the retail market of just attracting tenants, but we'll see where we go on that.

[43:28] And in the East Triangle property, I expect when council gets back from break, we should have a proposal and a discussion regarding a development of that site.

[43:38] some of the kind of preface to that is looking at some retail and looking at

[43:45] electric vehicle charging stations is the proposal that we have right now.

[43:48] So we'll see where we go from there.

[43:51] Those are the sites, but really quickly on harvest as you know phase one is all been closed out.

[44:01] Phase 1D which is what I was talking about, that's the 121 units are going up very quickly.

[44:09] I think right now they've got somewhere between 35 and 40 units that are up out of the

[44:15] ground and they did last weekend before last, they did their ribbon cutting, grand opening

[44:22] of the models.

[44:24] Phase 2, the tentative maps are approved, designs are underway, they're going to start site work

[44:29] there very soon.

[44:30] And if they go at the speed that 1D and it's all the NAR on phase two,

[44:35] it'll be a really interesting two years as far as how much development because that's over 500 homes up on the hillside.

[44:44] And Halleck Center in phase three, we're working on that which includes duplex and some other development sports park.

[44:54] just waiting on finishing site work and sign off on...

[45:00] City acceptance, main thing is, as you well know, I'm heard from our parks and rec director, Mr. Barnes, that waiting for turf and some of the other aspects of that to just be finalized. Bridge negotiations still continue for the Santa Paula Creek Bridge. There just seems to be hiccups with the core of engineers and working with watershed. Kind of have all hands on deck working on that. I believe our next step is also to work

[45:29] through our supervisor's office to hopefully keep that moving.

[45:34] It's more than just about fish, it's about people in a city encirculation.

[45:39] We really need to keep that moving.

[45:44] Housing development citywide, people's place, they are really close.

[45:48] They're waiting for Edison activation.

[45:51] They hope to be moving people in within the next 60 days.

[45:55] date for a grand opening, we'll get that to you with some good leeway so Council can attend that.

[46:03] That's an exciting project and opportunity.

[46:06] 11th Street Town Homes getting ready to do site work on that within the next 30 to 60 days.

[46:13] And then senior housing you can see at 603's main street, they've already started to clear out the retail on that site.

[46:20] So that'll be starting very soon also.

[46:22] So, Faulkner Hall, residential rehab, that's adjacent to the Methodist Church, which was the Good Orchard Cafe.

[46:29] As soon as they finish up on the Good Orchard Cafe, they're going to continue that.

[46:35] It's 14 affordable units in that Faulkner Hall.

[46:39] Redtail, we've kind of gone through that, waiting to see in August if they've got their state funding, and we'll keep moving with that.

[46:47] And the K-Mart site, we're looking at demolition in September and site work to begin at the beginning of the year.

[46:56] So 224 units still working with them on the actual plan and how many affordable units based on our inclusionary housing, it would be 35.

[47:05] So we'll see how that and those are town homes that will be for rent.

[47:11] Permit and the activity, this is really interesting and I think perplexing in some ways.

[47:16] But if you notice, we've had challenges getting revenue from the standpoint of projects that we expected to come in.

[47:24] We've had a lot of small projects.

[47:26] The challenge that we've had prior to this year in the last quarter is we just did not have the staff to be able to keep processing permits.

[47:36] They would start backing up because we don't have enough time and enough people in the office.

[47:39] And that's so what we've done in the last quarter we've actually rotated putting all hands on deck so we've put people from planning and our building inspector and our code inspector assisting with getting permits out and that's making phone calls having people coming in and getting checks so you notice a dramatic jump and a lot of that's been the the pressure of what we faced as far as you know finances coming into the end of this fiscal year going into the next one we want to try and be able

[48:09] more efficient in how we can get these out.

[48:12] Mr. Mason, I think Vice Mayor has a question.

[48:14] Yeah, I have a question in regards to that.

[48:16] It looks like staffing issues are somewhat created a bottleneck now in terms of processing these permits

[48:21] and these permits lead to jobs, potentially revenue sources.

[48:25] Have you considered short-term employment opportunities so we can push that along so

[48:30] that you don't take away staff that might be key in other areas?

[48:34] And that's, if you remember, we had the city gates kind of audit of ideas, and that was one of the things that they highly recommended.

[48:44] So we will work with what we have, and it's a balance between what we have budget availability for.

[48:52] And that's not just our department, but citywide, that we have a maintain that balance, and do the best it can with what we have.

[48:59] But that's definitely something we're looking at.

[49:01] And a lot of that, it's not singular.

[49:05] We have plan checks that need to get process that have revenue coming in.

[49:11] We have building permits that need to be processed that revenue coming in.

[49:14] We have consultants and projects that need to be paid for going through.

[49:21] So there's a lot of different moving parts that, when one ramps up, the other ones ramp down.

[49:26] And then to your point, inspections and other things code, it also involves revenue based on citations.

[49:34] So there's a lot of layers.

[49:36] And I think it's working through in the next couple of weeks we're going to be kind of working as city staff to look at those recommendations from city gate and look at an implementation plan that can help us get there with the budget we have and with the staff that we have.

[49:53] And then we'll move to where we can from there, but I'm really proud of what the folks are doing with what we have.

[50:00] We're doing a great job. Thank you. And then lemonwood business park. That's, again, that's action pack and ben pack. There's some great activity happening back there. Santa Paula materials as. Got interest actually has control of property at the back of lemonwood and dov court and they're doing expansion of their facility back there. And there's I would say every week I am talking to either a developer or

[50:31] a business that's interested in properties back there, so it's just finding the right fit

[50:35] and someone that will pull the trigger.

[50:38] One other thing I want to mention on the economic development side is actually more in the housing

[50:42] side, but I have been here just about nine years and I have never seen the level of activity

[50:51] in real estate as far as interest in people wanting to sell and interest in people wanting

[50:56] to develop. And it's kind of exciting because one of the challenges you have in small towns is

[51:02] people have family trusts and have property that they've owned for generations and they're not

[51:08] really sure what they want to do with it. And right now we're having people that are motivated and

[51:12] interested and people that are from out of town that are motivated and interested. So it's creating

[51:16] some great opportunities. So you just have to stay on it and keep it moving. I've got good

[51:20] relationships with brokers and I hope great things in this coming year.

[51:28] We talked about city gate and we'll be looking at process improvements in the implementation

[51:34] plan. Hunt our city wayfinding program. We're meeting with them, believe next week to talk

[51:41] about implementation and next steps and that will be providing some updates to council when

[51:46] and you come back.

[51:48] Then city negotiations kind of gone through all of these.

[51:52] We're working on Palm Avenue sales right now.

[51:54] We're hoping to wrap those up by the end of this month.

[51:59] And as you saw, temporary fire station is all up

[52:02] and they're getting ready to demo within the next couple

[52:05] of weeks the old fire station.

[52:08] And trying to wrap up permit coordination

[52:12] for the security fencing and improvements at City Hall

[52:16] and the police station and other facility improvements around the city.

[52:26] One other thing I want to mention, we are working with homeless facility operations funding with spirit, and we had a meeting this past week, our new management analyst, Cesar Hernandez, and I met with a group of affordable builders and for housing, and

[52:48] And operations management, so we had about eight different individuals representing companies to talk about what we can do around spirit on the triangle piece that we bought and other vacant properties in that area to try and look at not only sheltering but transitional housing and permanent housing that provides a continuum of all that we're coming out of the ground that we can think about all the how all these things work together.

[53:13] Just real quickly, one of the challenges that we've had in getting grants is we are so

[53:19] landlocked and so locked as far as where people are in living spaces that for us to be

[53:24] able to make transitions of moving people out, there's no place for them to go.

[53:28] Good example is the Santa Paula Motel.

[53:30] We'd like to do something with that property, but there's people living there and if we

[53:34] do something with that, there's no place for them to go.

[53:36] So as we start to have things like people's self-help and red tail, it'll give us an inventory

[53:40] That will provide a continuum that will give us everything from homeless and farm worker to market re-housing and provide people an opportunity not only to move but to move up.

[53:51] With that, we'll entertain any questions. I appreciate the opportunity.

[53:58] That's what it was. I'm going to ask someone to maybe close that door.

[54:01] Mr. Minneskin, thank you for your report.

[54:04] Sir, I'll come back to Code Compliance, and we realize that you're short staff,

[54:09] but how are you in staffing on your Code Compliance?

[54:12] And you mentioned that for those that aren't in compliance, you have general response.

[54:18] For those that aren't, does that Code Enforcement Officer wear a lot of hats?

[54:23] Or is that the only thing that person does and how much follow-up is there to the violations?

[54:27] Well, we have the person who's doing the field calls, and we also have staff in house that's writing letters whether it's a planning violation or a building and safety violation.

[54:37] So we've got several that are kind of longstanding and a couple that are very challenging.

[54:45] And in this past week, past two weeks, we've had probably four that we've issued citations that may lead to, I don't want to say threat.

[54:55] but that leads to, I'll leave.

[55:00] On the property that the next step will be a lien on their property if they don't comply. So that's, and the challenge we have is through, to document and go through the process, we generally have about a 30-day cycle working through, through things, 30 days citation, 30 days notification and working through that. And the documentation allows us to take that final step. Every situation I've had since I've been here, that's dealt with a lien on the property.

[55:28] there's either been compliance or if it was a tenant they were evicted and then it was cleaned

[55:35] up so I have a really good track record on that the challenge is it takes time to make sure

[55:40] it's documented and done correctly hope that helps answer yeah and we realize it's a qualitative

[55:46] life issue so the longer it takes the less it seems like we're reactive to the concerns so thank you

[55:52] Thank you for that.

[55:52] Thanks.

[55:55] Can someone request?

[55:58] So the couple of things.

[56:01] One is just a clarification.

[56:03] It mentions in the staff report that the Regional Housing Needs Assessment 6-cycle, it

[56:10] refers to it as the SCAG 6-cycle.

[56:14] It should be the Housing and Community Development Department of the State.

[56:19] and then SCAG, yes, is part of the process of dividing it up, but the numbers come from

[56:25] HCD. So I just want to make sure that as we go forward, that even though both entities

[56:31] are involved, that SCAG doesn't get the blame for what happens with the cycle numbers because

[56:39] it's actually the state that sends those down. So I'm sure you know that, but I just wanted

[56:45] and to make sure that as we refer to it,

[56:47] we don't refer to it as the scag green of it.

[56:49] It's the HCB from the state that issues it.

[56:54] And then in terms of the bridge, do you know,

[56:59] so that means that it won't be this year.

[57:01] They won't be able to start

[57:02] because they're gonna run into the same problem

[57:04] that VCTC's run into where if you don't start early enough

[57:08] in the year, you can't get it finished

[57:10] and then there's all of the runoff in the winter,

[57:12] which means we're looking at at least 2025 for that construction starting, correct?

[57:18] As it stands now, there's still a window.

[57:21] There's still a chance.

[57:22] What it comes down to is the reason they need to be in that window, which is May to

[57:27] October, so we're halfway through it, is just enough time to be able to build

[57:33] supports within the floodway that will allow them to support the bridge while it's being built.

[57:38] So we're waiting, we won't we won't know until time lapses.

[57:45] So they're still hoping that there will be enough time to get those supports in before the winter window closes.

[57:52] But otherwise it would be a year, yes.

[57:54] And is there any sort of pre-manufacturing that they can do, or does everything have to be built on site?

[58:01] Not sure, how they're doing that.

[58:03] And then just a comment on the medical pavilion, hopefully we can keep engaged with the county on that to make sure that that does in fact move forward to any extent that we can be involved in encouraging that.

[58:22] Thank you.

[58:27] Thank you, Mr. Mason,

[58:31] to you and your department because you've done a lot with less.

[58:34] Obviously, staffing has been an issue for the last several years and your department is

[58:40] really key to our success in the future.

[58:43] And so, I know this council is committed to finding ways to provide you and your department

[58:49] the resources it needs so that we could push things along, especially because of the urgency

[58:56] with shortfalls in the future. I do have some questions that I wanted to ask you.

[59:03] You know, there's a nice sore on 12th Street and Harvard, and I brought it up several times before.

[59:11] What's being done there? Can you please inform our residents in terms of that status?

[59:16] We've provided multiple citations regarding graffiti and one thing I want to kind of

[59:24] preface with one of the biggest challenges we have with a potential development site.

[59:29] So they've submitted for plans for development of that site is that pressuring someone

[59:36] or encouraging someone to do demo prior to them having a building permit based on bank

[59:43] loans in that whole chain is challenging and that's the same thing with K-Mart.

[59:49] When you have sites that are an attractive nuisance, if there was nothing there, there'd be nothing to tag.

[59:54] That would be a whole lot better way to approach that.

[59:57] that he's been general

[1:00:00] It's really responsive on the tagging. It's just the day after it gets cleaned up. It's the next day, and then it's a couple of weeks before it gets done again.

[1:00:11] That, I don't know how much detail I can go in based on citations, but did the citations have been-

[1:00:18] What's the enforcement mechanism we have currently when we have a property of that nature?

[1:00:22] It's a notification followed by citation, followed by action that would involve both fine and

[1:00:30] alien on the property, and that's, and we've been following that process.

[1:00:35] And so it's in process in terms of making sure there's some sort of enforcement.

[1:00:39] Correct.

[1:00:39] Okay, thanks.

[1:00:41] The triangle property, Mr. Mason, we purchased, I was at last year, or this year.

[1:00:48] Just maintains that property, and we own it.

[1:00:52] We do.

[1:00:53] Okay.

[1:00:53] And I think it was just taking care of just great.

[1:00:56] Thank you.

[1:00:56] Because it's a nice or when we see all the weeds that I've been growing in that corner,

[1:01:00] it's definitely a gateway.

[1:01:04] Councilmember Crossright mentioned the issue regarding the bridge harvest.

[1:01:09] You know, there's been conversations and concerns regarding safety in terms of residents being

[1:01:15] being able to exit harvest because there's only one entry into harvest currently.

[1:01:22] With the new housing being built at a speedy rate, and that's because it's private development,

[1:01:27] right?

[1:01:27] It's not like we're putting the money, flipping the bill for that.

[1:01:30] But are there population requirements that are going to go into play since we have this

[1:01:38] expansion of housing in that community?

[1:01:40] And if so, how is that going to go or fall in line with that bridge?

[1:01:48] That's an excellent question.

[1:01:51] We have the 121 units plus about 200 of the foothill is the maximum that they'll be able to build without that bridge.

[1:02:05] So, that becomes a little bit of a linchpin in development for harvest, so without that bridge and the timing of that development, that conceivably mean that harvest stalls, so it's really important.

[1:02:21] And it's trying to get a gauge of how quickly that foothill will start, because that's the other thing is mobilizing and then having to stop.

[1:02:29] They've got seven different plans that they're doing within that development, all done by Lunar, so they'll be working quickly.

[1:02:38] So it's really important.

[1:02:40] But you hit kind of the nail on the head.

[1:02:42] It's a public safety issue more than anything else.

[1:02:45] How do we provide circulation?

[1:02:48] And they're doing improvements on 126, but that's not enough to get people in and out in the event of emergency.

[1:02:55] In the meantime, we do have an emergency access exit that will be available, and that's just about done, but it's not permanent.

[1:03:02] Yeah, Madam Mayor, if I can add to Mr. Mason's report there, there is a, as Mr. Mason just said, there is a second, secondary emergency access roadway that's being negotiated right now as a condition of the Ventura County Fire District fire evacuation.

[1:03:24] end of the election.

[1:03:24] I'm gonna do a presentation.

[1:03:25] Standards.

[1:03:26] And they're taking into

[1:03:26] consideration.

[1:03:27] Also, when you open the

[1:03:28] sports complex and you're

[1:03:30] gonna have more

[1:03:30] population in that area.

[1:03:32] Right.

[1:03:33] Okay.

[1:03:34] My other question is, you know,

[1:03:36] I brought up a previously

[1:03:38] looking at what other cities

[1:03:40] do regarding vacant

[1:03:42] properties in terms of

[1:03:43] ordinance, and I don't see

[1:03:45] much on the presentation

[1:03:46] today on that issue, but I

[1:03:48] think it's a really a key

[1:03:50] issue that we need to, especially

[1:03:52] in our downtown area, if

[1:03:53] we're going to have a thriving downtown.

[1:03:55] We really need to set some sort of standards

[1:03:57] in regards to vacant properties

[1:03:58] because they're impacting the business next door.

[1:04:00] That's the, and they, I just want to express urgency

[1:04:05] on that as well.

[1:04:07] Obviously the came art site, you mentioned already.

[1:04:10] You know, staffing, thank you again for doing a lot with last.

[1:04:14] There's a lot going on.

[1:04:15] And if you look at all these projects and these timelines,

[1:04:18] we're going to be in a very different place in two years

[1:04:20] if once we get these developments in place and so kudos to all the work that's being done.

[1:04:30] And also I invite our residents to go to our website and actually want to take this opportunity

[1:04:34] to see if the clerk can put the website online because this is really key for your department

[1:04:40] is all of the active projects that are happening with plans and you want to know what's happening.

[1:04:46] Go to the website and check out our community development.

[1:04:49] I want to see if we can put that website online now because there's a lot of projects happening here.

[1:04:57] It's exciting, right?

[1:04:58] And like

[1:05:00] Again, if there are needs that your department has and working with city manager, if we have to reprioritize things to put resources behind these investments, the time is now because we're in the midst of going into the second year of our two year budget. So now's a time to make any recommendations and I just urge you if those recommendations exist that we as council can hear

[1:05:29] them in the near future.

[1:05:37] And so if you go to departments, ladies and gentlemen, just

[1:05:41] click on departments up on top, Julie.

[1:05:48] And then you go to community economic development.

[1:05:51] And I love it because it's been revamped. So now there's icons, right? So go to community

[1:05:55] and economic development. Yeah. And click on that active projects.

[1:06:01] And you can see the amazing

[1:06:03] work that staff and the city is doing to make a community a better place to live.

[1:06:09] And again, these are all things that are happening, moving parts.

[1:06:15] I know people are impatient, I know there's a lot of questions, a lot of chatter.

[1:06:20] But if you want the answer, go to this website and know what's going on in our city in regards

[1:06:25] to economic development.

[1:06:26] So I just wanted to point that out to you again and please share this council support for

[1:06:31] for all the work that's being done in reimagining our community through community investment.

[1:06:41] Councillor Miller-Warris.

[1:06:42] Thank you. Thank you, Vice Mayor Chavez, for pointing out about the trying of property that we're responsible for.

[1:06:47] But there's other properties that are eye-sourced, but we have no responsibility for, but we know who owns them.

[1:06:53] For example, there's the property at 12th in Harvard, which is the old custom on Yonna site.

[1:06:57] I know we've gotten some emails about that and becoming a place for transients.

[1:07:02] It's one of the entrances to the city by South Mount Road, and it looks really bad.

[1:07:07] The other one is Kmart.

[1:07:08] That's one of the three major exits off the freeway.

[1:07:10] Toral is leasing or renting that property, and I don't know whether they have any say on how who maintains it.

[1:07:16] But it looks really bad, and Kmart looks really bad.

[1:07:19] And I realize that it's going to be demolished, but in the meantime, people get off the freeway, and that's what they see.

[1:07:24] I hope there's somewhere we can encourage or urge the property owners to keep it cleaner.

[1:07:30] Thank you.

[1:07:30] Thank you

[1:07:32] Council requested

[1:07:34] So going back to there was a sort of a question about the

[1:07:40] Some of the work that the economic development standing committee because I know that it was listed in your power point

[1:07:45] Where where are some of the major what are some of the major things that the economic development standing committee?

[1:07:51] Has been working on and do you have any anticipation of when those items might be coming back to council probably the

[1:07:57] The two biggest items, one was already mentioned by the vice mayor, which is kind of vacant property and how to address within the central business district.

[1:08:07] So that's we've discussed that come up with some options that should be coming to council.

[1:08:13] Probably we have one more committee meeting before I think before council meets again, and we'll probably have direction from that committee on what to bring to council.

[1:08:22] Also, in that committee, for that next meeting, we're looking at the nexus between what we did a few years ago as far as a SWAT analysis and economic development strategic plan and dovetailing that with the council's strategic goals.

[1:08:40] So, as we go into the next kind of fiscal year and strategic goals, we start to have

[1:08:46] some things that link and have a plan that makes sense based on what community needs and

[1:08:52] demands are and what council's direction is.

[1:08:54] Thank you.

[1:08:57] I would just like to reiterate a couple of things that have been mentioned by the council

[1:09:05] already today and two of them are the work towards the Medical Center on the 126 and the bridge.

[1:09:19] We've done a good bit of communications relationship building with other electeds,

[1:09:26] lobbying even with Washington with Congressman Brownlee working with the Army Corps of Engineers.

[1:09:34] So if more is needed, please call on us.

[1:09:38] We all stand ready to help move that along if whatever is needed because those are things that are deeply concerning and

[1:09:46] stalling some of the progress in our city and if we can be of any help, that's just we stand ready.

[1:09:54] So please staff and your department and everyone, just let us know who we can talk to or what meetings we need.

[1:10:00] We need to make to move these things along. We'll do what we can. Okay, and we really appreciate all the worthier department. So please pass that on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Mason.

[1:10:15] Okay. We will move on to 7e, city manager's department report. Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council and the public. I don't have the benefit of a PowerPoint, but a number of accomplishments to highlight by members of the administrative function of the city,

[1:10:33] which include HR and IT and our clerk and our deputy city manager and fellows.

[1:10:41] On the major initiative side, we're really pleased to celebrate the donation that Chevron

[1:10:48] made to our community, not just of the historic union oil building but of whole block of our

[1:10:55] downtown as well as the $2 million that we'll go into and endowment to help keep that building

[1:11:01] up.

[1:11:03] You had a presentation from the Ventura County Community Foundation about the Isabella

[1:11:08] Project and our support for early childhood education. This has come about because of

[1:11:15] essentially a grant, although it's not a monetary grant that we have with the National League

[1:11:19] of Cities, one of only nine communities in the whole country that have been selected to work

[1:11:25] on this issue. So we're really pleased to be part of that and work with the school district

[1:11:29] and the whole Isabella team, and then finally that we've been part of work trying to

[1:11:35] garner input and support from our residents about what we've called the Santa Paula Speaks

[1:11:41] initiative to really better understand the community's priorities as we face decisions

[1:11:47] about possible funding and the council at your last meeting moved forward with placing

[1:11:53] a ballot measure on the November general election that will give our residents a chance

[1:12:00] to decide if that's something that they're wanting to support and what that would do for

[1:12:07] our community.

[1:12:08] So there'll be a lot more initiatives in that respect.

[1:12:11] Our deputy city manager, along with the fellows, was hard at work on a number of initiatives.

[1:12:17] I won't go into all of them there in your report, but I will highlight some of them, including

[1:12:22] Speaking of the Union oil building, the selection of tenants and that effort continues and is represented on the council by, I think, Councilmember Sobel and the mayor.

[1:12:36] So we're making progress and expect to be back to you guys in August about that.

[1:12:43] The Clean Power Alliance transition is finally concluded.

[1:12:47] Councilwoman Crosswhite has been serving the city on that joint powers authority.

[1:12:55] 92% of our community has transitioned to the Clean Power Alliance, so although they'll continue to get Edison bills,

[1:13:04] their power sources will actually come from 100% renewable energy through the CPA,

[1:13:10] or if they chose to go for a different tier that might be 50% renewable.

[1:13:18] We're pleased to kick off a new employee engagement program this year called Made in Santa

[1:13:25] Paul.

[1:13:25] It stands for making a difference every day, engaging our employees in topics of importance

[1:13:32] and getting their input.

[1:13:33] On the economic development side, we are launching with the economic development subcommittees support

[1:13:41] Or a new program called Business Connect.

[1:13:45] And this is an opportunity, primarily for the staff members or

[1:13:51] a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and also the mayor to sit down with some of our businesses.

[1:13:57] And so we've already reached out to eight or ten local businesses to make that invitation.

[1:14:03] We'll see how many of them take us up on it, and it'll really give us an opportunity to understand what some of the business needs are in our community.

[1:14:10] what their challenges are, how we can be supportive, and help them, and what makes our community tick.

[1:14:19] As you know, on tonight's agenda, you have the opportunity to take a step forward in some beautification efforts, and the Deputy City Manager,

[1:14:28] working with our PBIT was instrumental, along with one of our fellows, who will be presenting tonight on selecting new trash cans for our downtown.

[1:14:37] town, you've already had a presentation on the wayfinding and new signage.

[1:14:43] On the grant side, two notable grants that we've secured $85,000 from VCTC for a new

[1:14:50] police vehicle, an incident response vehicle that we are now securing, and 20,000 in funding

[1:14:57] to help with our broadband efforts.

[1:15:00] And then as you all know, on the legislative affairs side, both the mayor and Mr. Royus had an opportunity to go to Washington, D.C. Had some really meaningful meetings with our Congresswoman, our two state senator offices and merchant McIntyre who's our lobbyists in Washington, D.C. And has been successful in these last two years in securing federal funding and continues to

[1:15:30] to meet with encouraging opportunities in that regard.

[1:15:36] We've also had the mayor and vice mayor meeting as we've tried to do every year with both our senator, state senator Monique Limone and assembly member Stephen Bennett as well as our board of supervisor representative Kelly Long.

[1:15:55] long. And you'll see in your staff report a number of support letters for legislation

[1:16:01] and opposition letters that have been written. And we continue to try and make our voice

[1:16:07] heard in Sacramento and Washington when it comes to matters that might affect our community.

[1:16:15] Our fellows have been, oh, and finally I should say, well, our fellows have done most of this.

[1:16:22] We have continued to try and keep the community informed about the Harvard Boulevard Project which is now finally coming to a conclusion.

[1:16:31] Final chapter of that long awaited public improvement and paving is well underway.

[1:16:38] It's a bit of a mess this week, a little bit last week and will be somewhat next week before that is concluded.

[1:16:45] But we're getting quite close and it's really great to see that coming together.

[1:16:49] Our fellows have been instrumental in creating and assisting with the establishment of our

[1:16:57] first ever future leaders academy.

[1:17:00] The 18 participants that went through that inaugural program just graduated this last

[1:17:07] Tuesday and we're pleased to already see many of them getting more involved in community

[1:17:14] and it's just really comforting to know people actually care to learn more about their

[1:17:20] community and what we do and how we do it and how we can be better at it, too.

[1:17:27] And our fellows have helped with a number of initiatives, again I won't go into too

[1:17:32] much detail, you'll hear about one of them tonight.

[1:17:36] On the human resource side, they have been busy helping with a number of trainings, traffic

[1:17:47] control, and flagging.

[1:17:49] We had a successful program on teamwork.

[1:17:54] We also had lunch and learn on coping with stress, kind of a personal wellness activity.

[1:18:03] and then did some Cinco de Mayo celebrating that all of you were at, we, things have slowed

[1:18:10] down finally a little bit on the recruitment side, so HR processed the recruiting efforts

[1:18:16] for four new positions and successfully hired four new employees to and police and to and

[1:18:22] public works, and we have other recruitments that are going on currently, but compared to

[1:18:28] The last quarter when we had, well, like 13 police employees and numerous others, it's

[1:18:38] nice to have things quiet down a little bit.

[1:18:41] Our IT folks have also been instrumental in completing some projects, getting communication

[1:18:48] systems out to East Area 1 where we have new water pumping and tanks, facilities moving

[1:18:56] the equipment on the new Mesa tanks and getting a set up because those are an important communication

[1:19:02] point for our town because of the location. And then also completing power and network

[1:19:09] extensions to accommodate our police command post because our police department is about to get

[1:19:17] started with a number of site improvements and upgrades. And so we're having the temporary

[1:19:24] they relocate some of them to the trailer that we have out front.

[1:19:28] And so we've hooked them up into our computer network and made some other accommodations so

[1:19:33] that that can sit there in assistance to the department.

[1:19:38] And then finally, our city clerk has been busy in active process 14 different city council agendas

[1:19:46] and minutes attended for bid openings, process 69 public records requests.

[1:19:53] and has begun the election process for the November election, and finally, and...

[1:20:00] Actually, probably most significantly is working with the consultant that we've hired an expert at helping us redo our whole records retention system. Our current records retention policy was adopted in 1999. They sang a song about that year. That was 25 years ago. It's in desperate need of updating. And so Julie is spearheading that effort. And we'll look forward to bringing that to council for approval.

[1:20:29] And then most importantly, moving forward with the disposal of a lot of records we don't need to keep

[1:20:37] and doing a better job of documenting and keeping records that we do, so more to come on that.

[1:20:45] That concludes kind of where we've been at.

[1:20:48] I'm sure I missed a number of things, but just wanted to give you that update and take any questions.

[1:20:53] Thank you, Mr. Sanger, I see Vice Mayor.

[1:20:56] Yes. Thank you, Mayor Cornel. Mr. Singer, can you share, you know, we just went through a public

[1:21:04] crisis with our water system. I think it's helpful to share

[1:21:11] what took place as a way to inform our residents. And I know there's an agenda item for

[1:21:18] a consent item, but I think coming from you as our leader here that runs city operations,

[1:21:23] it would be helpful for you to give information to our community about what took place and how we're going to prevent something like that from taking place in the future, because if it takes one idiot to shut down half the water system in our city, then our system is not functioning, and I'd really want to hear from your leadership on this.

[1:21:44] I appreciate that I had it noted as part of my regular city manager's report, so I can either do it then or do it now, whatever your choice, whatever.

[1:21:53] Whatever it is.

[1:21:53] We'd like to hear from you on it.

[1:21:55] Would you prefer to do it as part of your report as or now?

[1:21:59] I can do it now unless Chief Aguilar, were you going to cover much of that?

[1:22:04] Good.

[1:22:05] Then let me do that now just because it is such an important topic.

[1:22:11] right so I'm sure most of the public has been tuned in to the fact that last

[1:22:17] week we discovered a breach of our main reservoir which exists up off of

[1:22:22] 10th Street you know as a water agency we are subject to the regulations of

[1:22:29] the State Department of Water Resources and they force us essentially to go

[1:22:38] through them both for any questions about water quality and water safety and reliability

[1:22:45] as well as how we message that. So they dictate what we need to do when we come across any type of

[1:22:53] crisis. That could be as simple as a rupture in a mainline where we think there's been intrusion.

[1:23:01] And so there's maybe a boil water notice or a significant shutoff of water to a group of

[1:23:07] customers. But in this case it was quite unique and it's funny because I've heard stories

[1:23:14] about how that reservoir didn't use to have a cover on it and people in town used to

[1:23:19] actually go and swim in there. Long are those days gone. It's now covered with security

[1:23:25] fencing. But as you noted, Vice Mayor, there was a breach of that. And what became quickly

[1:23:34] clearly clear to our staff and our police was that it looked like a person had either been inside the reservoir,

[1:23:41] at least had some clothing items outside of it, and some of those were floating in the water.

[1:23:48] So we were quick to respond to that.

[1:23:51] You know, not surprisingly when it comes to water safety and water reliability, the Department of Water Resources and the city take those very seriously.

[1:24:02] So out of an abundant of caution in terms of the state's direction, we quickly shut down the reservoir so no waters were leaving that.

[1:24:18] And that's, I should point out that that's already treated water.

[1:24:21] So that reservoir is holding treated water. It's not like a lake that's just water storage.

[1:24:27] So that water that was treated is going into the water system.

[1:24:31] So we shut down the use of it.

[1:24:34] We obviously the police immediately were searching for this person that we thought existed.

[1:24:40] We inspected the tank to make sure that there was no person in it and obviously removed

[1:24:45] the couple of clothing items.

[1:24:49] And the state said, you know, because what we didn't know is how long things had been

[1:24:56] in that way, and whether or not somebody had intending to do it.

[1:25:00] Conventionally poisoned, in some way, the water source that we needed to issue would do not drink notice to those people that are on that eastern side of town, which is about half of our city. Thankfully, our water team, our police team, our public information officer, our emergency preparedness officer really pulled together quickly, and I'd say cooperatively, they immediately tested the water and sent that out.

[1:25:27] So we're in touch with DSW, controlled the flow and the output by cutting off the sources,

[1:25:38] started the notification process using VC alerts with text messages, voicemail messages

[1:25:43] in English and Spanish, social media posts, a press release.

[1:25:50] and then probably most importantly notified the community within hours of

[1:25:57] discovering this that we would make sure that there was free drinking water

[1:26:02] available on the safe side of town over on the Steckel Parkside and so we had

[1:26:09] volunteers our explorers and our police that came out tried to help in an

[1:26:13] orderly way allow the community that needed it to come and get drinking water at

[1:26:18] at no charge. Thankfully within 24 hours this issue was abated and the state allowed us

[1:26:27] to lift the order. The water division had started draining a lot of what was in the reservoir

[1:26:34] and then co-mixing fresh water with it. And so the issue, the crisis, if you will, was fairly

[1:26:43] short in its lifespan, but still critical nonetheless.

[1:26:48] It clearly created confusion and uncertainty.

[1:26:52] It obviously brought criticism to us, which we take seriously.

[1:26:59] And I certainly want to let the community and the Council know that we've taken

[1:27:04] this matter seriously.

[1:27:05] This morning, in fact, we had kind of a debrief, what we call an after-action

[1:27:10] a report with 20 different employees from a number of our departments working together

[1:27:16] to talk about what went well, what didn't go well, and how we can respond better in the

[1:27:21] future and what needs to happen.

[1:27:25] Our emergency services coordinator facilitated that.

[1:27:28] She's actively putting together her notes.

[1:27:30] We'll have, you know, kind of an internal lessons learned report.

[1:27:36] And there was room for improvement.

[1:27:38] You know, I'll be the first to admit that there were things that could have been handled

[1:27:44] more smoothly.

[1:27:46] And certainly on the security side, a big takeaway for us is we need to work to harden

[1:27:54] the system.

[1:27:55] In other words, to create greater surveillance and security there.

[1:28:01] Surveillance cameras, you know, I saw a number of posts on social media, you know, surveillance

[1:28:06] surveillance cameras are cheap. Why don't we have them? That would not have prevented this.

[1:28:12] And so we should be clear about that. People that have surveillance cameras on their house

[1:28:16] doesn't mean that they don't end up getting their house broken into. It would have been

[1:28:20] informative. It would have helped our police. And so we're looking at a much more comprehensive

[1:28:27] system than just cameras where we need to have kind of a better prevention from allowing

[1:28:35] people to even enter that area, just so that it is secure, because it is our main source of drinking water for half of the town.

[1:28:44] And so we're going to look at that immediately, both short-term solutions as well as more permanent ones.

[1:28:53] Great, I really appreciate you sharing that information, especially when it comes to, what can we do in the future to prevent this again, 1% to cause all this ruckus?

[1:29:02] unbelievable to me.

[1:29:06] How soon will we hear back on these recommendations because at the end of the day it's also about resources

[1:29:12] and resource allocation if we need stronger barriers, security cameras,

[1:29:19] et cetera, they're going to be an audit and a timeline of that security audit

[1:29:23] for us to hear from you on what we need to do because

[1:29:28] because we also put the one-cent sales tax initiative on the ballot and the information

[1:29:35] on the ballot initiatives as protecting our drinking water.

[1:29:38] And I think we need to make it clear that this is part of ensuring that we secure our

[1:29:44] infrastructure, not only our streets, but our drinking water.

[1:29:49] It's critical to our city and our public safety, thank you.

[1:29:52] Our IT director is already planning to reach out to security.

[1:30:00] Security, resources to come and do an assessment, to make recommendations about what's really the best solution there, so that we can come to you with some type of capital improvement project. And I don't expect that we'll wait. We have, you know, under tonight's agenda, you have an opportunity to ratify the emergency proclamation, I issued last week, in doing so it gives us some flexibility on how quickly we can react.

[1:30:29] and respond to some of these issues.

[1:30:34] And so we'll look at doing what we can in the short term and then coming to council

[1:30:38] with the fuller explanation and request if needed.

[1:30:43] Not just for this facility, we have, you know, we have water tanks all over town.

[1:30:49] It's a critical part of providing the community with safe and reliable drinking water.

[1:30:56] Councillor Neill.

[1:30:57] Thank you, Mayor.

[1:31:00] people have sought me out by phone and in person and I think you touched upon the security

[1:31:06] measures that we have in place and we're going to improve and again without compromising

[1:31:10] the security of our infrastructure I'm glad you brought that to the forefront and there

[1:31:16] are some things that we're going to look at I think you mentioned and improve upon so thank

[1:31:20] you for that. But this also brought up the fact that our 1610 radio which last was utilized

[1:31:26] revised during COVID would have been very instrumental for this, and it comes up every month at the

[1:31:32] students of the core meeting, and I think we talk today that we're going to move forward with getting that

[1:31:38] operation again. And this is a prime example where it would have been very beneficial, because there are some people,

[1:31:44] especially some of our elderly and econically challenged, that don't have a smartphone, don't have a computer.

[1:31:50] They have channel 10, or they have a radio, so it's important that we reach out to those folks in

[1:31:55] every possible means. Thanks. Appreciate it.

[1:32:00] Thank you very much for the report and again just to follow

[1:32:05] up on what has been said here as well. Thank you. Have a known was heard and it was an important

[1:32:13] exercise in finding out where our strengths are and where the weaknesses are so that we can be better

[1:32:19] prepared in the future. So I appreciate that and thank you for the entire report and I'll just

[1:32:22] that. So thank you.

[1:32:25] Okay, we'll move on to item 7F, the police department report. Plenty

[1:32:31] old reports tonight.

[1:32:36] Please Chief Abigail, please go ahead.

[1:32:40] Thank you Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council, City staff, and our residents watching tonight. I'm

[1:32:49] here to provide a police report on the department, the men and women of the police department have

[1:32:54] been working diligently to address crime issues and provide other services to the community.

[1:33:02] And so tonight I'm going to cover an area of several months beginning with January

[1:33:08] 1st through the actual end of June.

[1:33:11] So we have our crime stats that have become available.

[1:33:15] So I just like to go first and foremost to go over the crime stats.

[1:33:19] This again is a comparison for the same time period June 1st, or January 1st through June 30th, for the last three years, 2022, 2023, and currently year 2024.

[1:33:32] On the column on the far right, the comparisons are from this year to 2022 and this year to 2023.

[1:33:41] So I'm going to go all the way to the right hand column in comparison to last year.

[1:33:47] and just go over quickly some brief highlights.

[1:33:51] Our violent crimes compared to last year at this time are down 7%.

[1:33:57] And noted here, the aggravated assault number has gone down significantly, which is good news for us.

[1:34:06] And we'll go into that and talk about some of the other crimes related to that.

[1:34:09] And in some more detail, our property crimes went up a bit.

[1:34:14] And overall, the bottom right, bottom, corner there, part one crimes are up total between

[1:34:22] property and violent crimes, up about 15%.

[1:34:26] You may see an increase on arson under property crimes.

[1:34:31] We had an increase from 2023, where we had one, or I'm sorry, yes, one, and then we had

[1:34:36] an increase so far this year to three.

[1:34:38] And I'll just let you know that two of those arson's of the three were related, and the

[1:34:43] rest was made on those two. So we only had one other arson that has not yet been solved.

[1:34:49] And these are reckless fires or not damaging large properties or what not.

[1:34:56] The other increase, as you have seen, is underprop-

[1:35:00] Property crimes is theft, so again, our numbers went up from 90 in 2023 to 117 incidents currently

[1:35:10] this year. So overall, crimes is down on the violence side which is important for us, and

[1:35:18] we're still working on the property crimes part of that on some of the increases. Any questions

[1:35:25] on this particular chart before I move forward.

[1:35:35] Okay, let me go back just really quick.

[1:35:38] Grand Theft Auto, our numbers went up 13% compared

[1:35:42] to last year at this time.

[1:35:44] So we've been working hard to try and reduce that number

[1:35:47] and the number is 27 so far to date.

[1:35:51] And so I'll go over it by month, how many,

[1:35:55] how many stolen vehicles we had

[1:35:57] and how we've been working hard to strategize

[1:36:00] and reduce those. In January we had nine, February we had four stolen vehicles. In March we had eight, April we had four, May we had two, and in June we had zero.

[1:36:14] So thanks to our officers on patrol, working looking at time frames, looking at times of the day, looking at where they're occurring on main thoroughfares in some residential areas.

[1:36:25] So kudos to all of us, all of them at the police department for

[1:36:29] working on reducing our stolen vehicles.

[1:36:38] I just want to touch a little bit on domestic violence, that has come under the forefront because our aggravated assaults were up because our felony domestic violence arrests were up.

[1:36:47] But now we have had a reduced aggravated assaults statistics so far this year, just giving you some updates on that.

[1:36:55] So our calls for service both this time, this year, and compared to last year, at the same time period, the calls are about the same.

[1:37:05] However, the arrests are down, which means we're not making as many arrests, which means that lower the aggravated assaults, especially on the families.

[1:37:14] So in total, this year we have 60 arrests for domestic violence.

[1:37:18] were last year we were at 87 so again the drop in domestic violence related

[1:37:24] crimes and arrests. Good news. And on that before I move on to training I did pull

[1:37:34] up some response times for emergency calls which are our priority one calls and

[1:37:39] in comparison from last year to this year this time period and right about our

[1:37:45] priority one in emergency calls, we sponsor time, which means the time it was dispatched by the dispatcher to the time of arrival.

[1:37:52] So those times are for this year, just around two minutes, and last year we were out almost about two and a half minutes.

[1:38:01] So I can tell you that we have more officers on the street, we have staffings up, hence we're going to be able to respond in a better time frame.

[1:38:09] We're going to continue to work on reducing that number.

[1:38:12] We

[1:38:16] are continuing with ongoing briefing training, and that is for all of our employees.

[1:38:21] We have lots of new employees, so we want to make sure we continue that training aspect.

[1:38:27] Our executive consultant, Micah Randa, has helped out with doing instruction on employee due process, which means this is the information provided for

[1:38:40] employees if they are subject to either an administrative

[1:38:44] inquiry or investigation, it gives them their due rights, due process and was available to them.

[1:38:49] So it's good to clean that to all of our employees so that they're aware and can make informed decisions.

[1:38:55] Secondly, we have had the district attorney's office, different deputy district attorneys come in and provide training for all of our officers.

[1:39:03] So the four areas we've been focusing on recently, the last few months,

[1:39:06] Victim advocate, training, gang investigations, gun violence restraining order, or GVROs,

[1:39:14] and juvenile interviews and interrogations.

[1:39:18] So we appreciate our partners at district attorneys for coming out, coming down several

[1:39:23] days each week for a couple of weeks to touch all of our employees, our officers, to provide

[1:39:29] them with training.

[1:39:30] The other training we have also done is we've updated our DUI enforcement forms to help our

[1:39:36] officers be more efficient and also cover all the areas necessary to have a

[1:39:41] prosecutable case for the district attorney. So we worked on that as well.

[1:39:48] And in doing so, I'm happy to share with you because of that training and because

[1:39:52] more officers on the street we have literally almost doubled the amount of DUI

[1:39:58] rest from

[1:40:00] Last year, to this year, same time frame. And that for us means safer streets and saving lives. So we're really happy to see that number. In fact, we have one of our officers will be honored in a couple of weeks at the mother's against drunk drivers awards for his work the past year in providing the highest number of DUI arrests for the station.

[1:40:28] Let's talk about wellness. We continue to have wellness and peer support.

[1:40:32] But our peer support staff received more training on resiliency and critical incident

[1:40:38] review.

[1:40:39] Also, Port Raynimi Police Department had a abrupt loss of one of their civilian employees

[1:40:47] at a young age.

[1:40:49] So our peer support stepped in, they went over to the police department and consoled them,

[1:40:54] provided empathy and also provided a meal that we prepared, we had picked up and delivered

[1:41:00] delivered over there and spent some time with them.

[1:41:02] It's all about working together in the brotherhood of the history of law enforcement in the county.

[1:41:06] And we were there for them as I'm sure they would be there for us.

[1:41:10] Our newsletters for peer support still came out.

[1:41:13] You might see a picture of the donut up there.

[1:41:15] That's a mean that we're telling people they eat donuts.

[1:41:18] We just had a special observance of national donut day just as a fun thing.

[1:41:23] So we're not telling her after the donuts, although we enjoy them very much.

[1:41:28] So,

[1:41:30] okay, moving on to department projects, as Mr. Singer had said, we are now at the beginning point of our projects at the end of the month, we will be starting our phase one of our public lobby lobby being expanded, and so that will require some impacts to our staffing inside during this and we'll have to be moving staff to other locations, either it's community development or our detective trailer.

[1:41:59] and what not. So that project will begin at the end of the month. Our fencing project to

[1:42:04] enclose the fence at the City Hall parking lot will begin the first week of August. So we

[1:42:09] will have simultaneous projects going on. Needless to say, the parking impacts in the City Hall

[1:42:15] parking lot will be impacted. And so we're working together with all departments to find out more

[1:42:22] options for parking and to make everybody's life just a little bit easier during the tough time.

[1:42:29] I want to say thanks to Greg Barnes over at Park NRECT and our Executive Consultant

[1:42:33] Mike Arana for marshalling this forward to the point now where we're seeing this happen

[1:42:38] and we're excited.

[1:42:39] We're going to have to go through some challenges, but at the same time the end result is going

[1:42:43] to be great for all of us here at the city, so we appreciate that.

[1:42:53] All right, I'm again happy to report our recruitment and our hiring.

[1:42:58] This past March we graduated two recruits from the Ventura County Criminal Justice Training

[1:43:03] meeting center, which is the academy over in Camarillo at the airport, historic on many

[1:43:09] accounts. Those two officers are currently on field training, but we had not graduated

[1:43:15] recruits from the Sheriff's Academy there in about ten years. So this was historic for

[1:43:20] us to get back to saving money, providing good training, getting our recruits out, and getting

[1:43:26] them to be successful out on the field after they graduate from the academy. What's also

[1:43:31] We look great as our honor guard has expanded, we participated in that celebration of the graduation with our own member of our honor guard joining those from other agencies who had graduates, so another great, a great showing for Santa Paula PD.

[1:43:50] Our promotional recruitment has continued, we have finished the recruitment testing process for police commander and we will be making, I'll be making a selection soon on that so that's coming just around the corner.

[1:44:02] As far as our other staffing are dispatchers, we have hired, we're fully staffed at dispatchers.

[1:44:09] We have a couple dispatchers finishing up training, and we anticipate we'll have those

[1:44:14] full staffing of six off of training sometime soon.

[1:44:18] Our sworn vacancies we have approximately three.

[1:44:22] We have hired a reserve officer, and we have two other reserve officers in background.

[1:44:26] So we our goal at the end to reach at the end of this calendar year is still to be having five reserved officers

[1:44:32] So we're happy about that and the progress with our volunteer services

[1:44:39] Just a review of some of the grants that are going on for us. We have our alcohol beverage control grant

[1:44:45] that has been instrumental for us in

[1:44:48] providing extra hours of over time to work at the city parks doing alcohol beverage

[1:44:53] enforcement, those who have open containers of alcohol, drinking, that we observe, we've been issuing

[1:45:00] Item citations and arrests. And also, ABC has joined us and come out on Main Street. You may have seen that cruise night recently. They joined us to make sure we were doing compliance check on everybody's ABC licenses. We actually had an issue or they issued a notification warning to one of our establishments that refused to comply with the directives we had on one evening. So appreciate the cooperation from them and the ability for us to continue to do

[1:45:29] doing license compliance checks.

[1:45:32] Our Office of Traffic Safety Grant continues.

[1:45:34] We're doing DUI saturation patrols during the holiday times

[1:45:38] and staffing that with our officers

[1:45:41] because of our increased staffing.

[1:45:42] We're able to send some cars out for extra patrols

[1:45:45] and our Ventura County Transportation Commission grant.

[1:45:49] We have purchased two traffic message boards

[1:45:51] and those message boards also track speed.

[1:45:54] So when Harvard Boulevard is finally paved

[1:45:58] we anticipate there would be some speed problems and we're going to monitor that and put our

[1:46:02] message boards out there, speed surveys are already in progress to make sure they're updated

[1:46:07] and so we can make sure we do some traffic enforcement for safety.

[1:46:11] We also are in the process purchasing the incident responder vehicle which will provide equipment

[1:46:17] for us to show up at critical scenes such as injury to serious injury traffic collisions,

[1:46:23] other detective investigations and whatnot.

[1:46:25] So we're glad to have that and we've been making that purchase very soon.

[1:46:32] Just a few things on engagement.

[1:46:34] I just want to, again, thank Greg Barnes for working with us on Police Activities League.

[1:46:41] This recent event we had, which is, I believe, the week and before last,

[1:46:45] Oxard College hosted a soccer tournament in our PAL team,

[1:46:49] which had young men age 15 to 17 enter into this tournament.

[1:46:53] They played games Friday, Saturday, and on Sunday, I attended their third game on Sunday,

[1:47:00] they won and went to the title match, and they won.

[1:47:03] So we're really excited about that.

[1:47:05] In fact, tomorrow, we're having a meeting for dinner, for a meal, complements of the

[1:47:10] police officer's association to recognize them for their awesome work.

[1:47:14] And just watching the coaching and the adjustments to the players made and their commitment to working

[1:47:20] hard.

[1:47:21] They practiced two or three days a week over at Las Vegas Park and it really is amazing

[1:47:25] I was really come in these young men for doing a great job so

[1:47:30] That's one of the things we're very happy to watch them

[1:47:35] Neighborhood watch we are now back in neighborhood watch mode. I'm glad

[1:47:39] the commander and I and our volunteers

[1:47:42] Martha Brown and Jimmy Fagata have helped us resurrect this great and

[1:47:46] and needed program, and it's going out in the neighborhoods and just talking about current issues they have in their neighborhoods.

[1:47:54] We've done two talks already, our third neighbor watch meeting in East Area 1 is next week.

[1:48:00] And we hope to see all of our residents there to talk about not only concerns but

[1:48:06] any other things that they have questions about about the police department or other services that we provide.

[1:48:10] So it's great to be out there well-attended advance on the first two.

[1:48:14] We had, I think, 22 on the first one, on the second one, about 15 or 20.

[1:48:19] So, really glad to get the interaction out there and meet people in the community,

[1:48:23] let them know that we're there for them, and we're in nexus to help reduce crime in their neighborhood.

[1:48:33] Some of the other engagement this year, we coordinated our peace officers memorial.

[1:48:37] The police memorial committee, I worked with them, and we held a great, great event on during National Police Week.

[1:48:44] the event had bagpipers, the release of doves, and the play of taps by one of our Santa

[1:48:51] Polo high school students in a marvelous job, and really, really felt the moment of those

[1:48:56] who gave their lives for all of us.

[1:48:59] So it was a good event.

[1:49:01] The other event, our honor guard also attended along with the commander, was the Ventura County

[1:49:05] Peace Officers Memorial, which was the following week.

[1:49:08] And we showed our interest in our participation, the honor guard participated with the others

[1:49:13] from all across the county, and another event recognizing those who have given their lives for all of us.

[1:49:22] All right, and some emergency preparedness news.

[1:49:27] We had our graduating cert class, which was on March the 9th.

[1:49:32] I was glad our emergency services coordinator Kate walked into the amazing job coordinating this program along with Ventura City Fire.

[1:49:41] And we got, and I believe, not all of them were there.

[1:49:44] I think we had about 12 or 13 total graduates, so I was very honored to go out there and stand with them.

[1:49:49] And since then, we've had them participate in events.

[1:49:54] On June the 22nd, they participated in the Santa Paula Services Coalition Fair, which was that veteran.

[1:50:00] It's part, it's always good to have them there in case we need them not just for offer services or offer information, but to be there in the event of an emergency. And then as soon as, as recent as June 25th, the Santa Paula Water Distribution during the Water Reservoir incident, they provided assistance at the Water Human Plant, helping distribute water to our residents. So again, those are the, those are the types of callings that we want.

[1:50:29] our cert team out on and I know that Kate is also working on another cert class to expand our

[1:50:35] cert program. So really happy about that.

[1:50:41] Recognition, I just am proud to say that on June 17th,

[1:50:46] our officer, Yvette Solis, was recognized for her great work this past year, 2023 for the amazing

[1:50:55] job that she did. She worked in detectives. When we felt we felt shorthanded, she went back to

[1:51:00] and has been doing field training to all our new officers.

[1:51:04] She's done an amazing job.

[1:51:06] She was recognized by Polar Polar Polar for an award for her success as a woman in the community.

[1:51:15] And so we're very happy to have her recognize along with other officers from across the county on June 17th.

[1:51:20] Our police officer's association was there to also assist us in congratulating her in that evening.

[1:51:26] So it was a great evening.

[1:51:27] Congratulations to the event, she's great.

[1:51:32] And National Volunteer Week, we recognize our own police department volunteers.

[1:51:36] Those are citizen volunteers, explorers for what they do.

[1:51:40] And so Commander Starron had a head of that one up, and we were able to provide those who've been here for several years prior to service explorers or police volunteers.

[1:51:48] We recognize them.

[1:51:50] And so we thank them for the endless hours again.

[1:51:53] I'll give you an example of how reliable they are and appreciative we are of them the other night when we needed help for

[1:52:01] the water distribution hand out. I called our explorer advisor an hour before this distribution

[1:52:08] started and I said I need as many explorers as you can get. He said no problem. An hour

[1:52:14] later at the start of this event we had 11 explorers and we needed every one of them to

[1:52:19] get those cars through and that involved traffic traffic direction at the intersection of

[1:52:23] Steccal and Maine all the way in and around the wraparound of the drive through we did. So

[1:52:27] So they worked well with the parameters and we're able to improvise when necessary.

[1:52:32] So again, the volunteerism of Santa Paula stood again in the eyes of our explorers providing

[1:52:40] great, great service, so I appreciate them.

[1:52:43] And that wraps up my presentation for my report tonight and I'd be happy to answer any questions.

[1:52:50] If I may, I'd like to start only because I was going to mention later on that evening of

[1:52:55] the water incident, we had a meeting here at City Hall

[1:52:59] and as I drove home, I drove past the water distribution

[1:53:02] and just nothing but explorers, working, smiling,

[1:53:08] assisting, they were happy to be there to help

[1:53:11] and it was just wonderful to see

[1:53:13] so I'd wanted to make special mention to them

[1:53:16] at this one but I appreciate the report.

[1:53:18] Anyone have a question?

[1:53:19] Thank you, Mayor.

[1:53:20] Council Member Morris.

[1:53:21] Thank you, Mayor.

[1:53:21] I see Kate Watkins in the room.

[1:53:23] Can we confirm that date?

[1:53:24] We learned it today at Susan's core meeting will be August 14th, does that seem right?

[1:53:37] Okay, and also August 14th.

[1:53:41] Okay, and we understand there might be, or there will be a Spanish instructor, or possibly,

[1:53:48] the, the, I'm sorry, Susan, the search training, forgive me.

[1:53:52] If we could have her speak up at the Dias so that she's heard by the public as well, please.

[1:54:02] No, I apologize for the infusion, the message is that has been requested in our community.

[1:54:09] There is emphasis for that, however, countywide there is a shortage of Spanish certain

[1:54:16] structures.

[1:54:17] And so we're looking for them.

[1:54:18] So that is a push with all of the cities in our county to find that because we recognize

[1:54:23] is that that is a needed class that we really do want to provide for our community.

[1:54:29] So that is something we're looking into, but the class will be offered in English on August 14th.

[1:54:35] All right. And what's the best way for somebody to let or to apply or let you know they want to attend?

[1:54:40] Yes. We first and foremost, they can always contact me via email.

[1:54:46] Secondly, with the last class, we put this up on our city website.

[1:54:51] So, that is www.spyty.org, and those would be great ways as-

[1:55:00] Well, we had such a humongous interest last time. We're trying to fill those spots. I've had emails from people asking. We had several students who were not able to complete all six weeks. And so we are extending the invitation to them as well to get them to recover their classes. But we saw such a great turnout in the first and such a huge interest. We will continue to offer this and build those classes up and get our community involved.

[1:55:27] All right. Thank you. And this, again, let me start off by saying, for the cert training.

[1:55:32] Yes, for the cert.

[1:55:36] Any other questions for the Chief, Council Member Crossway?

[1:55:40] Just one quick question.

[1:55:41] When the officers respond to the domestic violence calls,

[1:55:46] are they also referring the victims in those calls to the Family Justice Center or?

[1:55:52] Yes, so we have the domestic violence pamphlets we can hand them.

[1:55:55] They refer them to the District Attorney Victim Advocate

[1:55:59] or a family just a center if it applies depending on what the services they need.

[1:56:03] Sometimes it's 2-1-1, sometimes it's a family just a center and sometimes it's DA.

[1:56:07] But we make sure we cover all those aspects with them so that they get the services they need.

[1:56:11] Thank you.

[1:56:13] Thank you, Chief, very much for your report, today.

[1:56:16] I appreciate all the work, the department, oh, did you have a question?

[1:56:18] Okay, I appreciate all that you and the department do, thank you.

[1:56:22] Thank you, Council.

[1:56:24] Okay, Vice Mayor Chavez.

[1:56:26] I was going to ask if you and my fellow council members would be able to accommodate several members of the public that are here for agenda item 11-A noting that the time is 8-30 to allow them the opportunity to speak because I know that we're going to be going very late this evening.

[1:56:46] That would be to skip the art, replace, skip over the consent agenda to the first action item of 11-A.

[1:56:54] to accommodate public comments.

[1:56:56] Is that the only item we have public comment on?

[1:56:59] Check.

[1:57:02] We have two public comments for that,

[1:57:05] and then another one for later,

[1:57:06] another action item later.

[1:57:07] So.

[1:57:08] What's the second one?

[1:57:11] 11, see,

[1:57:15] stousing, housing.

[1:57:21] I'd like to see, first, if there are,

[1:57:26] well, that's right, we have to do the reports and all, too.

[1:57:29] So yeah, I was just thinking we just

[1:57:30] I just had to consent agenda.

[1:57:31] Yes, I will use my prerogative to go ahead and go ahead and move to taking item action item 11A at this time.

[1:57:41] Moving that up on the agenda for the public speakers, and then we'll continue with our regular agenda after that.

[1:57:49] We went kind of long on reports and all which are important, but I understand the interest of time for the people here.

[1:57:58] We can go ahead and take that item without objection from the staff or questions.

[1:58:04] Or could we just move our reports to later and that way I just I feel a little bit bad

[1:58:12] if we move one item that has not the rest comments and that's actually a very good suggestion.

[1:58:17] Would you be all right with that as well?

[1:58:18] There's a ton of.

[1:58:19] We just move the both of those items up front yeah to be equitable.

[1:58:23] Well at that point they were moving almost all the other action items.

[1:58:25] I actually like the idea of moving our reports, taking the consent agenda, and then moving

[1:58:31] right into 11 a and reports after it, that's all right.

[1:58:35] Okay, but appreciate the issue being brought up, so let's accommodate.

[1:58:39] Let's, we will move items 8 and 9, City Council and Manager reports to later, and we will

[1:58:51] we'll take our consent agenda.

[1:58:55] Item 10, we have no public comment at this point. Do

[1:58:59] we have any items in the consent agenda that need to be addressed or pulled before

[1:59:05] vote? I have a couple of questions on 10B.

[1:59:10] 10B? Okay.

[1:59:15] Any others? Okay, so what are your questions in on 10B? Let's go ahead and

[1:59:19] There it goes. Is there someone who knows about Tendi?

[1:59:24] Yeah, good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Member.

[1:59:27] Jonathan, do you know why on my original understanding was that the route that the broadband was going to take was going to be just along the railroad?

[1:59:40] Do you know why it deviates and goes down Santa Barbara Street instead of continuing along the railroad through Santa Paula?

[1:59:47] Council Member Crossway, there's actually two reasons.

[1:59:50] They've been in partnership with us the entire time, having conversations.

[1:59:54] As councils aware, we also have a latter grant, and we're looking to put out an RFP on

[1:59:59] that.

[2:00:00] From process to identify internally in Santa Paula where we could do connectivity and fiber connections. The main first reason is that along the rail cord or at that juncture where it ventures off on the Santa Barbara, the plowing or the equipment that's utilized to do the trinching underneath the ground because we wouldn't be disturbing the roadway. Essentially, we'd be going underneath boring under the street. Doesn't fit in that narrow passageway.

[2:00:29] along the rail corridor in that particular area.

[2:00:32] I'm not too sure exactly how far that area extends out,

[2:00:36] but that was one of the main reasons is that there's a large portion

[2:00:39] where that just equipment will not accommodate.

[2:00:43] The second reason when they looked at it,

[2:00:45] the engineers, is they realize that we already have

[2:00:48] fiber connection points up 10th street or the SR150

[2:00:52] that end at Santa Barbara Street.

[2:00:55] And then you also have commercial businesses

[2:00:57] and a corridor there, so it actually from an economic development standpoint and from

[2:01:01] a standpoint of connecting to our existing city infrastructure, it actually makes a lot

[2:01:07] more sense to actually run the conduit in that particular region on Santa Barbara.

[2:01:13] And in talking with our chief information officer, he agrees, it's funny we're actually having

[2:01:19] this conversation and he's like, I hope they don't go along the rail corridor in that particular

[2:01:24] area because if they could just bore into Santa Barbara Street, we already have actually

[2:01:28] the fiber connection right there, which will be great because we'll be able to make

[2:01:33] a connection from city hall up to street to that connection, utilize the fiber that goes

[2:01:40] along that corridor and then reconnect with the community center. So thereby kind of completing

[2:01:46] the circuit for us.

[2:01:48] All right. That's helpful. I just saw that and I was like, wait, I don't remember that.

[2:01:52] And so then will they have to work with CalTRans when it gets to 10th Street?

[2:02:00] I'm not like part of the conversation do you know?

[2:02:02] I can't speak to that that portion at this time.

[2:02:05] It would just be something I know that you've been talking with them.

[2:02:07] If you would just take that back and make sure that if they need to because I know that on the

[2:02:11] map it shows it going through 10th Street and I know that the 10th Street corridor is CalTRans.

[2:02:18] So just making sure that if they also need an MOU for that one block with

[2:02:22] Caltrans that they've had that conversation and maybe they already have but

[2:02:26] Okay, just wanted to flag that. I will note that

[2:02:29] And then do you know

[2:02:34] If

[2:02:35] What how when they use the word commercial do they just mean like so the two strands of fiber that we would have access to the dark fiber

[2:02:43] it says that

[2:02:45] We can't use it for commercial purposes

[2:02:47] does that just mean generating revenue,

[2:02:50] or do they mean we couldn't have anyone other than the city use it?

[2:02:54] We can generate revenue off of it.

[2:02:56] We can utilize it in other manners, but we can't charge for.

[2:03:01] Right, but like, so let's just, I'm just going to throw out a wild.

[2:03:05] Like, let's say we said, oh, we want the library to be able to have access

[2:03:08] because we've realized we had extra capacity.

[2:03:11] If we offered that as a public service, is that something we could offer

[2:03:15] for free as a community space or not because it's not technically a city property.

[2:03:22] As I understand it and speaking with them, libraries have been brought up as an example,

[2:03:27] connecting other infrastructure in the community.

[2:03:29] Don't want to give you 100% positive answer right now?

[2:03:32] Potential.

[2:03:32] As long as we're not making money off of it, could potentially have community partners that

[2:03:40] that we designated as a beneficial public use.

[2:03:44] Correct.

[2:03:45] And the other idea behind it too is just economic development.

[2:03:48] If the city were to see fit, those dark fiber cables would be ours to do it.

[2:03:54] So if there were economic development reasons in that particular region where we felt

[2:03:59] that it would help bring in businesses or help kind of activate that area, we could do

[2:04:05] that.

[2:04:05] That would be up to us.

[2:04:07] And then I don't know, city attorney, do you know when it talks not that we would ever need to execute a termination clause, but when it talks in the termination clause about a public hearing, is that a public hearing like we do for a housing project where it has to be moved in the paper?

[2:04:24] Or is that just are they just referring to a public meeting?

[2:04:29] Council Member Crossfight, that would be a notice hearing, it's more formal to give them

[2:04:35] to process.

[2:04:37] And then my only other comment is we just need to make sure that the final

[2:04:40] version that we sign actually has a county designate written on the line right now there's just

[2:04:45] a line. So those are all my questions. Thank you. And that was the only item that was had

[2:04:53] Any questions on it. Thank you, Mr. Rice.

[2:04:56] I motion to approve consent calendar.

[2:04:58] Okay.

[2:04:59] I would.

[2:05:00] Second, items a through g, George.

[2:05:04] Any other questions? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. We have passed the consent agenda. I have a request for a, I know we want to move to 11 a, but I have a request for a 5 minute comfort break. So if you will indulge us for just a few minutes, and please come back quickly, if you may, if you can.

[2:05:24] We

[2:05:43] convened after a brief break moving on to action items 11 a ordinance amending SPMC chapter

[2:05:52] 124 relating to dining entertainment permits in the commercial business district zone.

[2:05:59] We would ask that we do the staff report first by our presentation by director James Mason.

[2:06:06] And then we will ask for public comment.

[2:06:18] Thank you mayor and council.

[2:06:19] So

[2:06:35] we've had a lot of growth and development within downtown as far as new restaurants and VR a community that's about not only entertainment but activities.

[2:06:50] So we do have an existing chapter within the municipal code chapter 124 that addresses dining entertainment.

[2:07:00] But we made some modifications to kind of relate to some of the needs that we have and to really start to try and regulate how we move through the process with the understanding that as things grow.

[2:07:15] I kind of want to preface this by saying this is something I see as being somewhat organic and we may address this again as we move forward and see what the needs are, what the concerns are and how we can modify it to better serve both the community.

[2:07:30] and the businesses that want to do this.

[2:07:32] So what we have before you, staff recommending,

[2:07:35] introduce and wave first reading of this ordinance 1339,

[2:07:39] which is entitled in ordinance of the City of Santa Paula,

[2:07:43] amending chapter 124 of the municipal code,

[2:07:45] relating to dining attainment permits

[2:07:47] in the commercial business districts on.

[2:07:50] And again, this relates just to businesses within

[2:07:53] the central business district, businesses outside

[2:07:57] But side the central business district that would have some type of dining or entertainment would be under a conditional use permit.

[2:08:09] And the municipal code requires an active cafe entertainment permit or dining permit for businesses to offer live entertainment that includes amplified music within their establishment.

[2:08:20] This permit process is exclusive for businesses within the central business district, as I mentioned.

[2:08:25] Central business district from 8th Street to 12th Street, really it's businesses that front on Main Street primarily.

[2:08:36] What I also included is businesses that either have existing music or potential or proposed music in the future, so right now I believe we've had four businesses that have music intermittently.

[2:08:52] and then another three that potentially would be having music, but that's what we know

[2:08:59] right now. There could be more later.

[2:09:03] This code kind of dovetails with our chapter 93, which is noise. It was one of the major

[2:09:09] elements dealing with live entertainment, amplified music is our noise ordinance. And one thing

[2:09:16] And one kind of, that overshadows all of this is when we're dealing with compliance within this dining and entertainment ordinance,

[2:09:26] it really relates to compliance with our municipal code in several different areas.

[2:09:32] And this is one of them related to this area of commercial and office, which the central business district is considered a commercial office district.

[2:09:42] 70 decibels is what's allowed at any time within that district and when we're

[2:09:48] talking about the sound level limits for live entertainment and that's at the

[2:09:53] property line that's not at the point of disbursement of that noise.

[2:10:01] So right now at an overview, we have a loud locations, a central business district. The current license deposit is $1,300. This is within our existing ordinance for retaining that same deposit. And I say deposit because depending on the level of demand on review, an example, the scale goes from a business that is a restaurant that has acoustic

[2:10:30] acoustic music and no alcohol, that'd be basic.

[2:10:33] You don't have an ABC license, you don't have any requirements for police background checks.

[2:10:38] You've got someone that's got someone in the corner playing an acoustic guitar.

[2:10:42] The review on that is very simple, they don't even have any expansion to their facilities,

[2:10:48] no patio expansion or anything like that.

[2:10:50] That'd be a brief staff review, probably related to building safety, maybe planning.

[2:10:57] Now, you take something to the other FARC stream where you have someone that maybe has a space where they have dancing, where they have live music, that's amplified music, they have an alcohol license.

[2:11:07] Now, we have to review their enforcement permit with the City Council for alcohol, ABC license.

[2:11:16] If they haven't had complete background checks on ownership, that would need to be done.

[2:11:20] So now you start to add in more departments, building in safety if they have a patio area, fire department if they have a patio area.

[2:11:27] So again, a deposit that may, portions of that may be refunded or all of it may be used depending on the stringency of what they're requiring.

[2:11:38] Number of performers, I put a asterisks next to some things that were major changes or at least some changes.

[2:11:44] It was pointed out to me by a couple of the businesses that our current ordinance required that any

[2:11:52] live performances had to be less than four members in the band, which I think at least one person in the council

[2:12:01] can relate to many bands around here that have less than four people.

[2:12:04] So that was problematic, let alone Maryachee or any larger groups or brass or something like that.

[2:12:13] Location restrictions, it's indoor or approved patio space, and approved patio space as a couple of different layers.

[2:12:20] One is if it's obviously, it's outdoor dining with the patio as it's related to a restaurant.

[2:12:27] But if there's alcohol served, there's requirements from the ABC as far as what's allowed for outdoor patio alcohol service,

[2:12:35] which requires a barrier between public space and private space.

[2:12:41] So that, all of those things come into play.

[2:12:44] In addition, if it's a patio space, it needs to be reviewed and approved by fire department and

[2:12:50] building safety and ensure that if it has a covering, it's safe and that there's access in and out of that patio space from a fire protection standpoint.

[2:12:57] point. So that's the term approved patio space with that would be based on their license

[2:13:04] application that it defines where the space is and that it's reviewed by the appropriate

[2:13:08] departments and approved.

[2:13:11] Excuse me, just a second, Mr. Mason, Council Member Fires has quick question. So I realize when

[2:13:18] you just mentioned about an approved patio space, if they have to get an ABC license, it's

[2:13:22] more or less like a beer garden scenario for patio. But I looked for and I couldn't find

[2:13:26] Anywhere where the description or restrictions on what is defined as a approved patio space?

[2:13:33] As I just said, it would be what is approved based on what they submit it within their application,

[2:13:39] as a space that they want to use for a patio, that they're defining that, and that it meets our requirements

[2:13:45] from the building and safety and fire department.

[2:13:49] So as long as they define that as they want to outdoor space for dining and music,

[2:13:54] And that it meets the code requirements of building code and fire code and then that would be fine.

[2:14:00] Okay, thank you very much.

[2:14:01] Thank you.

[2:14:01] I have a follow up to that same, but I'm going to ask regarding the defining indoor for practicable purposes.

[2:14:14] Your business having a mariachi band or any group would have to have these requirements met for music,

[2:14:23] even if their business establishes and goes beyond that time frame?

[2:14:28] We're talking about time limits now.

[2:14:31] Well, it says that this, you're putting restrictions on indoor, right?

[2:14:36] You're making rules regarding indoor activity of a business.

[2:14:41] Indoor, live music or amplified music would fall under this category and has consistently

[2:14:47] fall under this, that's our way, this is not a change in order.

[2:14:49] So we have multiple event centers coming to town,

[2:14:52] La Terraza and the other one, we also have Palacios.

[2:14:56] How do they comply with this?

[2:14:58] They're in door.

[2:14:59] The one.

[2:15:00] It's, like, Palazio, for instance, is under a CUP and it's generally private events. And that

[2:15:06] will get to that when we get to exemptions. If it's a private event or fits under other

[2:15:12] different classifications, then it doesn't fit within this ordinance. It still fits within

[2:15:17] our noise ordinance. It still fits within a couple other ones, unruly gatherings and other

[2:15:25] things like that. And then time limits amplified entertainment right now

[2:15:31] Monday through Thursday, 5 to 9 Friday, 5 to 10, Saturday, noon to 10, and Sunday noon to 9.

[2:15:39] Had discussions with several businesses and also with just other residents of things like

[2:15:48] Well, when you think about major urban areas and live music and or entertainment, a lot

[2:15:56] of restaurants that serve alcohol are open till 1 a.m. or up until midnight, and even

[2:16:02] downtown Ventura when the sidewalks aren't rolled up.

[2:16:08] But the intent in this was to kind of test this as far as times because we just don't have

[2:16:18] of moving too far into late night activity in a community that's not used to that and having the pendulum swing the other way to where this is too much and for us to push the limits too much.

[2:16:31] So this is kind of to test the water based on times that's very consistent with what we have right now.

[2:16:37] And as I said at the kind of the preface to this, I look at this as somewhat of an organic ordinance and as we look at our code update depending on where we are in that cycle,

[2:16:47] So we may want to revisit this based on those hours, but I think the key is to see,

[2:16:52] test this and see how this works, both for the businesses and for the community.

[2:16:55] My hope is, entertainment and activity in a central business district is the lifeblood of a community.

[2:17:03] And I can see, at some point, it being actual, an actual attraction for

[2:17:08] people wanting to live and develop housing downtown because it's an activity center where people would want to live and do things.

[2:17:16] And then the other kind of caveat to that is extended hours on holidays can be approved by

[2:17:21] city manager or designee within a request within 10 days in advance.

[2:17:25] So if there's a special event or something associated with something that somebody wants

[2:17:29] to do that's one off, there's an opportunity for that.

[2:17:33] I don't at this point the ordinance doesn't have a limit to how many times that can happen

[2:17:38] within a year, but basically it's based on a request and approval.

[2:17:43] The enforcement policy is really compliance with the Santa

[2:17:48] Poly Municipal Code and no verifiable complaints.

[2:17:51] So the ordinance talks about complaints that with six

[2:17:55] complaints, verified complaints, license could be revoked.

[2:18:00] And the key to verifiable complaints is that complaints are

[2:18:04] violations of the municipal code, violations of building

[2:18:09] in code or violations of, in case of alcohol, violations of their enforcement agreement with City Council and their ABC license.

[2:18:17] So really what it comes down to is the statutory and code requirements that they have to fulfill to operate as a business if they're in violation of that.

[2:18:27] And I say complaint based, but those complaints need to align with that, and maybe I don't say this flippantly, but if somebody just didn't like the kind of music, that's not a complaint.

[2:19:00] It needs to be in alignment with our code.

[2:19:03] on whether they approve of that type of activity.

[2:19:08] Their approval does not, their approval as a license is not contingent on the approval of their neighbor.

[2:19:17] It's just for us to get an indication of where there may be complaints.

[2:19:21] Again, the only thing that creates a loss of their permit or impact of their permit is a violation of city code.

[2:19:31] And

[2:19:34] then we're going backwards.

[2:19:40] So again, mentioned the amendments.

[2:19:44] One thing we did change throughout the whole thing, before it said cafe entertainment,

[2:19:49] we changed it to dining entertainment.

[2:19:51] It was just more clear cafe, it can mean a lot of different things.

[2:19:55] And again, we changed, we're talking about the number of individuals.

[2:20:00] Those that are allowed to perform fewer than four, we removed that section in there. And then we also added within permit location if there's a change of ownership of more than 10% or an alteration to the existing facility. So if somebody has a license in place but we have a new owner, we need to make sure that we have a background check. If there's, especially if there's alcohol involved, that's an ABC requirement. And then also if there's an alteration to the facility.

[2:20:29] They're going to submit how they're going to use the facility, what the layout is, and

[2:20:32] if there's a change in that, that can impact fire and building and safety codes.

[2:20:37] Limitations on outdoor dining permits should say dining again.

[2:20:41] Dining entertainment is limited to ground level and approved patio areas.

[2:20:47] Talked about the time already.

[2:20:52] And then permit modifications, suspension, revocation, progressive enforcement for noise

[2:20:56] complaints with escalating actions up to 12 months suspension.

[2:21:00] if the permit after six valid complaints, and again, complaints that are in alignment with the municipal code.

[2:21:07] One thing we have yet to do, and that's to work with the police department on actual sound metering, we've done some research on devices, you can get a sound device on your phone, but it's not certified, it's not calibrated, and it definitely wouldn't hold up in court.

[2:21:29] So, that's our goal is to find the right sound measuring instrument that we can use for the city, and it will be helpful for a lot of other things for construction and code enforcement too.

[2:21:41] And then public notification, as I mentioned, all adjacent neighbors adjacent property lines must be contacted by the applicant at intent of the entertainment.

[2:21:50] just really quickly going through exemptions.

[2:21:53] The following types of entertainment establishment are exempt from permit requirements.

[2:21:58] So entertainment authorized through a special event or park event.

[2:22:01] Entertainment held at a city owned facility authorized pursuant to a contract.

[2:22:08] Entertainment sponsored by the city, by the county, various boards of education, any political subdivision of the state of California.

[2:22:15] a charter school's educational or instructional program,

[2:22:19] then entertainment provided by radio, music recording machine,

[2:22:22] jukebox television, video games, video programs,

[2:22:25] recorded music.

[2:22:26] So really this is about live, either amplified

[2:22:30] or unamplified music, it's a band playing, or a DJ.

[2:22:35] Exemptions, entertainment provided by private clubs,

[2:22:38] entertainment provided by private residents,

[2:22:40] entertainment provided by nonprofit organizations,

[2:22:43] entertainment in theaters, entertainment through dance lessons, theatrical and performing arts,

[2:22:48] entertainment through book readings, book signings, poetry, and spoken word.

[2:22:53] And entertainment provided at fundraisers for political causes.

[2:23:00] That was kind of quick through that, but I'm open to questions interested to hear public comment.

[2:23:09] At this point, we would have questions for verification, then we'll go to public comment and then discussion.

[2:23:15] So do I have any questions by council members before we move to public comment?

[2:23:20] I have questions, but I think I'd like to hear the public comment first.

[2:23:22] Shall we do that then?

[2:23:23] Okay, let's go ahead with that.

[2:23:25] Thank you, Mr. Mason.

[2:23:26] Thank you.

[2:23:29] Okay, we have public comment.

[2:23:32] We call Valerie Valencia.

[2:23:42] So I'm here to, my name is Valerie, and I'm a resident of Santa Paula.

[2:23:46] I

[2:23:49] want to hear you.

[2:23:51] I'm here to discuss the ordinance of 1339, chapter 124.

[2:23:58] I've heard that there were being enforced on a minority on a woman-owned business here

[2:24:08] in town, and I'm wondering if this enforcement is being implemented for all small businesses.

[2:24:14] When I first moved here to Santa Paula, there was not much here.

[2:24:19] We didn't have, you know, we had very few restaurants.

[2:24:22] We didn't have a grocery store.

[2:24:23] We didn't have a movie theater.

[2:24:25] And after several years, that has changed, and I have seen more businesses opening up

[2:24:29] in our community, which makes me very happy for our growth.

[2:24:34] Prior to these new business coming to our town, I would go out of town, instead because

[2:24:39] there wasn't enough offered here in our community.

[2:24:44] I like the fact now that we have options with regarding to entertainment and eating establishments.

[2:24:50] It saddens me that our leaders of our community want to enforce restrictions on small businesses.

[2:24:55] If you have these restrictions, it affects our financial business not only for their families

[2:25:00] But for their workers as well, not to mention the tax revenues that our city receives. I would hate to see our city lose small business owners due to the restrictions our city is trying to enforce. In the state of California, we have a large number of corporate and franchise businesses, but we need to focus on supporting our small business owners. I would ask you to reconsider the restrictions you're trying to put on our small business owners, because I would hate to see them leaving

[2:25:29] and close in our doors and live in our community.

[2:25:32] Thank you.

[2:25:34] Thank you.

[2:25:36] Next comment, Elizabeth Arrenas.

[2:25:50] Good evening, councilmembers.

[2:25:51] Mayor, my name is Elizabeth.

[2:25:53] I am the owner of Edgabriture Restaurant on Main Street.

[2:25:55] I'm here to discuss the new ordinance

[2:25:57] regarding the Dynand Live Entertainment.

[2:25:59] After reading the initial draft multiple times,

[2:26:02] I found it very complicated.

[2:26:04] The second draft introduced to additional requirements

[2:26:07] making it even more restrictive for downtown businesses.

[2:26:11] Have you ever looking to the noise, time, and parking ordinance?

[2:26:16] New dining in front of...

[2:26:18] So we have tables and chairs in front of our establishment.

[2:26:22] So unless we are 50 between feet of the driveway,

[2:26:26] either, and there's two driveways next to us.

[2:26:29] So this is something new.

[2:26:31] And as you guys know, since it's been Vince's coffee shop

[2:26:34] that restaurant's been there since 1979. It is Vintage Cafe DBA El Capriccio, but I talked to Alice

[2:26:41] over the weekend, which is the former mayor, the former mayor, I'm sorry, the former owner, Alice

[2:26:46] Montes. And she was, she was surprised to hear all this. So she said she was here years ago,

[2:26:53] also arguing about the tables and the chairs to be outside. The Ornus does not require specific

[2:27:00] specific numbers, a space of parking, but neither does it tell you anything about how much

[2:27:05] spaces needed until the implication is filed.

[2:27:08] That's after I spent the $1300 and gone through all that paperwork.

[2:27:15] So there's going to be more paperwork as what I feel it's going to be, not just submitting

[2:27:19] one application.

[2:27:21] It's confusing permitting requirements.

[2:27:24] It's out on my day, out on my focus on my business.

[2:27:27] I urge the council members to consider the issues and to work with the

[2:27:31] default as a straightforward and practical ordinance that supports a

[2:27:36] downtown business community. And as I wish to grow and expand one day here in

[2:27:41] this town, I was born and raised here and to be doing this is an achievement for

[2:27:47] me. Maybe you guys don't see it that way because it's tiny, but you guys

[2:27:52] Let's watch. Thank you.

[2:27:57] Thank you. I don't see any other public comment at this point.

[2:28:01] We're going to open to discussion or other questions.

[2:28:05] Right there. Mr. Macy, can you share how this process was to bring this up to Council?

[2:28:15] I'm sorry, how the process was. Yeah, like this is coming to us as a first reading, right?

[2:28:20] But what's, what work has been done behind the scenes to get this to come to forward to us?

[2:28:27] We looked at other cities as far as what they had, we looked at what we have as far as

[2:28:35] an existing ordinance, really minor changes to the existing ordinance.

[2:28:40] We just wanted to, we did go to planning commission to get some feedback from them, and

[2:28:48] which wasn't necessary, but we went through that process.

[2:28:50] us.

[2:28:50] What about Peabit?

[2:28:52] Share information with Peabit or any other consulting group of small businesses?

[2:28:57] No.

[2:28:58] We did not.

[2:29:02] And then outreach to businesses I've spoken to that potentially would have or have music.

[2:29:10] Sure.

[2:29:11] You had a question?

[2:29:15] Go ahead.

[2:29:16] Sorry.

[2:29:16] Just a question about the Central Business District and I realize that there's other establishments

[2:29:22] It's off the business district, like on Mill Street, South

[2:29:24] Hill, North Mill, and sometimes they have a lot of music, but

[2:29:27] that might or amplified music, but that might be private

[2:29:30] parties.

[2:29:32] So why aren't these areas not included in the ordinance because

[2:29:36] they're part of the, they're not the central business, but

[2:29:39] they're in that corridor of the business district?

[2:29:42] We, Councilmember, whereas we expanded the central business

[2:29:46] district from where it was before, and we looked at other areas to

[2:29:49] expand, for example, down Mill Street because of

[2:29:52] Glen Tavern, eventually Good Orchard Cafe, but it's not a contiguous business stretch.

[2:29:58] You've got residential.

[2:30:00] So I had traditionally central business districts will morph over time based on development. Right now we don't have that. Glenn Tavern for instance has been long under a conditional use permit, both for private parties and for public events. So it's, as I mentioned, those businesses that are outside of the central business district. This is an existing ordinance and with some modifications are existing ordinance and are existing.

[2:30:29] municipal code has live entertainment within the central business district, anything outside

[2:30:34] of the central business district comes under a conditional use permit if it's ongoing.

[2:30:39] If it's a one time or a periodic thing, it could be a temporary use permit.

[2:30:45] Let's say within a year they're going to have three events they could do a temporary use

[2:30:48] permit for that.

[2:30:49] So there's other paths and options.

[2:30:53] More specifically to that point, there may be some opportunity to expand our central business

[2:30:57] district and expand the Peabit but that's will be incremental over the years depending on what

[2:31:02] the demand and the opportunity is. And I don't want to open Penter's box but just something to

[2:31:07] consider years ago there would be bands of two three you know Spanish style music and singers

[2:31:13] that would just go a restaurant to restaurant and play. Now it doesn't seem to fall into this where

[2:31:17] it's part of the establishment but how would we handle something like that if they start coming in

[2:31:23] again in the future. Now it's just interesting you say that because I was looking through our

[2:31:27] ordinance because I was, I haven't seen much in Ventura County from a standpoint of,

[2:31:32] you know, what they would call buskers or people that, you know, play music either on the street or would.

[2:31:37] And so we really don't have anything clear within our ordinance that defines that maybe something we want to look at at some point.

[2:31:43] Because on regulated it can be a really attractive thing for a community and for a downtown unregulated it can be a nightmare.

[2:31:50] But anyway.

[2:31:52] Yeah.

[2:31:52] And just a suggestion, since you do list the decibels for the noise ordinance or the music ordinance,

[2:32:00] it would probably might be a good idea to find out what devices are acceptable for the court in case it does make it to the court.

[2:32:06] And they're probably going to mandate that those be calibrated frequently before and after use and so forth.

[2:32:13] I appreciate that.

[2:32:14] Thank you.

[2:32:18] Councilmember Crosswright.

[2:32:19] I'm trying to figure out where to start.

[2:32:23] So I want to start with the definition of outdoor dining because it talks about sit-down

[2:32:34] restaurants.

[2:32:35] So we have establishments, one of them had a star on it that isn't technically outdoor

[2:32:43] dining or a sit-down restaurant, but has outdoor live entertainment.

[2:32:49] Are we saying that that falls under a different thing, but it's in the Central Business District?

[2:32:56] There are currently under a CUP that was under a broader use that involved market and

[2:33:04] other broad uses within when they did their CUP.

[2:33:08] So the CUP, that CUP includes the live entertainment?

[2:33:13] One thing we haven't addressed yet, and that's what is the transition for some of the other

[2:33:19] the things that we may have in town from a standpoint of grandfathered versus coming

[2:33:23] under this permit and we have a discussion about that.

[2:33:28] That was another question I had because I wouldn't want us to so if some places are already

[2:33:34] have different roles.

[2:33:36] Right.

[2:33:37] We need to find a path to bring everyone under the same level of compliance and requirements

[2:33:43] and just I'm not sure, we haven't kind of

[2:33:49] approached that process yet, but that'd be

[2:33:52] the next thing to look at.

[2:33:56] A

[2:33:59] couple of other questions.

[2:34:01] If someone has a question why I look for mine.

[2:34:03] Let's go.

[2:34:04] Thank you, Mayor Cornel.

[2:34:06] What year did the ordinance go into a fact regarding the noise?

[2:34:11] What year did...

[2:34:12] Yeah, when the ordinance was created regarding the noise issue,

[2:34:18] when was that created?

[2:34:19] And the reason why I'm asking Mr. Mason is, you know, there seems to be a level of urgency

[2:34:26] on this issue and I don't really feel that there should be because we're in the midst

[2:34:32] of trying to create a thriving downtown and the decision on the kind of downtown we want

[2:34:42] is made by this council in regards to sensible enforcement right we're

[2:34:54] creating additional obstacles for something where we can't we have other

[2:34:59] more important.

[2:35:00] Issues to deal with. I appreciate businesses I try to bring nightlife here because the majority of people here are under 18 and the vast majority of the average age is 28. So businesses that are creating nightlife so that residents can stay here instead of going to Ventura, I think it's part of the change in culture that we're seeing in our community. People move to the woods because they want to be quiet. People don't move downtown because they want to

[2:35:29] to be quiet. They want nightlife. They want community. They want engagement. And we have

[2:35:35] businesses that are going to be coming, as you've noted earlier regarding event centers

[2:35:40] and having more traffic downtown. And, you know, those people are going to be attracted

[2:35:46] by the fact that you have a restaurant that could be open providing entertainment past nine

[2:35:52] o'clock or ten o'clock. And those things I think are really important as we think about

[2:35:57] this and this could be an issue of timing. As you mentioned, it being about, or being organic,

[2:36:07] we're barely scratching the surface when it comes to developing a more substantial night life

[2:36:12] here and I think we've got to give that, our business is an opportunity, especially the ones that

[2:36:16] are coming in, to help us develop policy in the future. I know people are always in a complaint

[2:36:21] about noise, you know? That's just a reality of life, right? Everyone's going to complain about

[2:36:26] That's something, but I think for the greater good we got to let our businesses help us, and

[2:36:33] maybe this could be an opportunity to work with them and the new ones that are coming in as well to help us create sensible policies that are enforceable, actually enforceable.

[2:36:44] And so I'm really in favor and I'm speaking for the young people because I remember when I was 28 and 29, I want to go hang out, I want to have a couple of drinks, I want to walk downtown.

[2:36:53] And I got that chance because I lived in LA in Hollywood.

[2:36:57] But the people here want that same opportunity.

[2:36:59] And so we want businesses that provide that.

[2:37:02] And so I don't see the level of urgency on this.

[2:37:05] I think we have to do some more work on the ground so

[2:37:10] that we can really have a conversation as what do our people want?

[2:37:15] In terms of the kind of entertainment and spaces that are going to

[2:37:19] bring at the end of the day a nightlife tax revenue.

[2:37:22] And I applaud those businesses that are bringing those tax revenues.

[2:37:25] 9 o'clock or 10 o'clock, I mean, do we really want people driving, drinking, and

[2:37:32] driving outside of the city limits?

[2:37:34] Let's have them stay local, drink local, and have a good time here.

[2:37:39] And so I really see this as a little premature, unless you can explain to me a little bit more

[2:37:47] of the urgency in bringing this up at this moment in time?

[2:37:52] Ms. Mayor, the real urgency was to just, we can work with the ordinance as it is and

[2:37:59] work through that process, but some of the limitations are still there.

[2:38:04] So the question is, this was an attempt to provide some modifications that, again, a recommendation

[2:38:15] I am very attuned to what you're saying from the standpoint, and I say this a lot.

[2:38:20] What we have as far as ordinance process and everything else is to ensure that we have

[2:38:24] the ability to enforce things and maintain order, but ultimately everything that we have is

[2:38:30] to serve a community and serve people and what their needs and what their desires are.

[2:38:34] So you have to, that's the lens we definitely need to look through.

[2:38:38] And we're trying to do that.

[2:38:39] And I'll just add one last thing, when I look at rules that are very defined as, okay,

[2:38:46] Monday to Friday, Saturday, schedule, right?

[2:38:50] We need to have some flexibility, because the reality is we want nightlife, maybe not

[2:38:55] all year round, but potentially maybe have some sort of exception, or maybe later hours

[2:39:01] during summer, right?

[2:39:04] Because we, again, those are the months where we have a more thriving community coming out,

[2:39:08] And wanting to spend their dollars because of the weather right so I think we want some flexibility as well

[2:39:12] I would see some flexibility in the timing at least for a certain part of the year as well.

[2:39:20] I have one question actually too.

[2:39:24] If these are in compliance with our noise

[2:39:28] restrictions in the city

[2:39:30] Were we to pick a later hour?

[2:39:34] Would that go in would that conflict with the noise ordinances that we have in the city?

[2:39:40] Mayor, as our noise ordinance stands right now within business districts, the decibel level is 24-7.

[2:39:49] So it's 70 all the time.

[2:39:53] So it doesn't create a conflict of hours.

[2:39:56] And the thing, it was brought to my attention that, you know,

[2:40:00] 70 decibels could be allowed conversation, but that's at this point right here, but as our ordinance defines, it's that property line, so depending on what's done as far as sound attenuation, how, how speakers are set up and everything else, that's off property. So that's gotta be significant. The people that are within that space, if it's in 70 at the edge, they're probably not having conversations and having your damage. So that's, there's some flexibility with them.

[2:40:29] My other question is, were we not to pass this this evening, the changes to the ordinance?

[2:40:42] Would that create problems for any existing businesses that we have?

[2:40:46] For example, the number of performers allowed.

[2:40:51] So if we don't change that, it remains at a maximum for by ordinance, by current ordinance.

[2:40:58] So it seems like to help businesses at least in that, that part needs to change.

[2:41:04] So I don't know, creates a problem where we're struggling with part of it, but

[2:41:10] we want to help in the other way.

[2:41:11] In the end, we'd like to help the community, we'd like to make it better for

[2:41:19] the business owners to do what they want to do.

[2:41:24] So it's a little bit complicated as it is right now.

[2:41:27] How can I add one quick thing before I lose my memory?

[2:41:31] Do you want to know a lot about the second era?

[2:41:35] Let's say you have a business and we have this curfew, right?

[2:41:40] You're also regulating what happens inside, right?

[2:41:43] So which means if the curfew is 10 o'clock,

[2:41:45] you're telling me that the business can't go even though it's indoors,

[2:41:48] it can't go past 10 o'clock?

[2:41:52] Music, can't go past 10 o'clock.

[2:41:54] If it's indoors, again, we're regulating, creating

[2:41:57] in order to regulate inside a building.

[2:42:01] I'm sorry, but if you have a choice, right?

[2:42:03] And you want to be in there, you choose to be in there.

[2:42:05] How is the noise factor going to impact something

[2:42:09] that happens inside a contained area, especially

[2:42:14] in our downtown where we don't have a lot of housing, right?

[2:42:17] So shouldn't our businesses be free if they want to have music

[2:42:21] that's contained within their structure?

[2:42:23] It's not outside, right?

[2:42:24] It's inside.

[2:42:25] Shouldn't we have some flexibility

[2:42:26] ability and maybe massaging the ordinance so that it's not to the level of that type of restriction.

[2:42:34] I have two suggestions, one with the help of our attorney.

[2:42:40] The first one is, as stated within our ordinance, understanding of the climate that we're in,

[2:42:48] it's pretty normal for indoor businesses to have windows that are open, doors that are open,

[2:42:53] and that kind of has a little bit more flow in space

[2:42:57] than you would have in other areas of the country.

[2:43:00] So, and more of what we're getting as far as businesses

[2:43:03] that case in point Park, 1055, they will have an outdoor space.

[2:43:10] They could do entertainment indoors too

[2:43:12] based on the size of their space.

[2:43:13] All their doors roll up.

[2:43:15] So, they've got two major doors on the eastern side

[2:43:19] of their facility that will be basically indoors

[2:43:22] the outdoors becomes outdoors. So that was kind of the thought process behind that.

[2:43:28] But to kind of overshadow that, we're here with you for our first reading.

[2:43:34] We've got feedback from community. And I don't, the question is, is there enough information

[2:43:43] that there could be guidance from council on some modifications that if we came back with the

[2:43:48] second reading, it would make enough sense to move forward.

[2:43:54] So we don't, so the mayor's comment, we don't lose kind of don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[2:43:58] There's a few things in here that could be instrumental to businesses being a succeed.

[2:44:04] So that's my thought in this.

[2:44:08] I can make a suggestion for an approach that kind of allows us to move forward with something tonight.

[2:44:16] It sounds like the limit of four persons in, I guess, the musical entertaining is a little

[2:44:25] restrictive and restrictive. So, you know, I would say some of the more common sense

[2:44:36] This edits, maybe in the less subjective ones of sound time, that can be pushed to a

[2:44:45] later discussion with more feedback from the community.

[2:44:50] But this is, tonight is just a first reading and introduction.

[2:44:53] This does not have to go back to planning commission, it's not part of the development code.

[2:44:57] These are, this is the,

[2:45:00] Basically, permit requirements and procedure. So, you know, that's one option to do, you know, go through your red line and see what of those markups council would like to move forward. And then that will be brought to you again at the next regular meeting for reintroduction.

[2:45:26] community conversation that has to take place, and there's some homework that we have to

[2:45:31] do as the representatives of the community to take this, talk to business owners, talk

[2:45:39] to groups that are involved, maybe take it a p-bid, and for us to also, you know, communicate

[2:45:46] what the intent is, and also come up with maybe recommendations, it's something that I'd

[2:45:53] I would like to see that we do as the elected representatives, because, you know,

[2:45:58] it does change the culture again, right?

[2:46:00] It's going to impact our downtown area.

[2:46:03] We're making a significant, we're creating rules on the kind of downtown we want.

[2:46:12] And I think it goes beyond just the four of us tonight, but five, but.

[2:46:18] Sounds number one, I said at a point.

[2:46:20] Thank you.

[2:46:20] No, we're elected to your side.

[2:46:21] I mean, the best way in charge makes a good point.

[2:46:23] You know, here we want to have a thriving community

[2:46:25] with draw people in and if the sidewalks roll up at 10 o'clock,

[2:46:29] it doesn't really lend itself to a nightlife,

[2:46:32] like you had mentioned.

[2:46:34] Councilmember Sobel and I left here one night

[2:46:35] after meaty went up town and it was last call.

[2:46:38] It's like, wait a minute, it was only like 10 o'clock.

[2:46:40] So anyway, and so you don't want to deter business,

[2:46:44] but on the other hand, how do we promote it?

[2:46:47] And I don't know, for our attorney,

[2:46:49] Do we have anything at our disposal for a variance of any kind, or does it have to be handled as a total ordinance with those changes and edits?

[2:46:59] When it comes to restrictions like this, there's no process to get around it.

[2:47:06] If it's a land use, like CUP, or meeting certain design requirements, you can go through a variance process.

[2:47:16] but that is pretty cumbersome and difficult to prove that you're excused from standards that are real.

[2:47:25] So that's a comply with.

[2:47:27] And I agree, not do anything tonight, as the mayor mentioned, limits you to where we are right now at this moment in time.

[2:47:34] And it's really not beneficial to move forward dealing with ordinances have been in place for 25 years or whatever it is.

[2:47:41] So, one thing I did want to mention, as stated in there, there is a special exception based on application for an event or a seasonal thing that could go past hours or whatever else.

[2:47:56] That's kind of one-off type stuff.

[2:47:59] The other thing I did want to make clear, if we're going to do community outreach, I mean, it's as valuable and challenging to be beyond businesses too,

[2:48:09] because there's residents and other people that will have input.

[2:48:12] So it's understanding what is the general consensus going to be, and I have no idea.

[2:48:21] I mean, it could be overwhelming that this needs to be modified dramatically to ensure that we have that nightlife.

[2:48:28] I mean, that's our economic goal in future, but also there may be feedback that's not supportive.

[2:48:35] So we're always going to get two sides of it.

[2:48:37] So, but that's public process and I think it's important.

[2:48:40] Well, you've been like that 10-day requirement for a special event during the holiday season.

[2:48:46] I mean, it does really say that's that for the time of application or, you know, you have to have it completed by that 10th day and there's 10 business days and so it's 10 days before the event.

[2:48:56] 10 days before, yeah, so all right.

[2:48:58] Yeah, thank you.

[2:49:01] Thank you, Mayor Cornel.

[2:49:03] On the slide, you have a lot of groups that are exempt from this, right?

[2:49:09] Can you put up that slide so we can look over to these groups?

[2:49:12] It

[2:49:15] wasn't my family.

[2:49:17] Oh, no.

[2:49:40] So, there's three slides.

[2:49:41] So, that's the first one.

[2:49:42] Special Debt Park event.

[2:49:44] City on facility.

[2:49:46] So, the city is on Apollo.

[2:49:47] We haven't even had various boards of education.

[2:49:50] Any political subdivision of the state of California?

[2:49:53] Can you define political subdivision, Marika?

[2:50:00] So, that's a term of art, and it's very much, it could be like a city or a district, a special district, anything that has a lot of district, a lot of district, yeah. Okay, so a charter school is educational or instructional program, right? So if they do a fundraising event on a Friday, and they want to go to one o'clock in the morning,

[2:50:30] They're fine, right, because it's a charter school or it's for fundraising and educational

[2:50:34] purposes.

[2:50:36] Under that case, since they actually don't, the charter school, it would have to be a charter

[2:50:43] school on the central-

[2:50:44] Mr. Reale.

[2:50:46] I don't think they're in the central business district.

[2:50:48] They're just outside the corner.

[2:50:49] But regardless of that, anything that would be a special event would require either

[2:50:54] a temporary use permit or a conditional use permit, regardless of where they are,

[2:50:58] If it was anything on here in that entertainment sponsored by and the previous page would require a special event permit, temporary use permit, or conditional use permit, which would regulate hours and all the things associated with that.

[2:51:14] And again, when we start to delve into that, we're talking about police presence, security, all those other things that are required when you have an event.

[2:51:23] as opposed to something that happens, could happen every single night as a part of a license.

[2:51:30] But in our language it says indoor, right?

[2:51:33] Right.

[2:51:33] So again, if it goes beyond the indoor, it could, it's going to be, these are going to be exemptions for that as well.

[2:51:44] You're treating basically indoor and outdoor the same.

[2:51:47] And that's one of my concerns is the very different.

[2:51:51] Having loud musicians in an indoor setting is very different than having a bond out side,

[2:52:00] right?

[2:52:01] The noise factor.

[2:52:03] And the choice factor, you choose to go into a place that has a rock and roll band, right?

[2:52:09] We're still regulating the inside of what's taking place in a business.

[2:52:13] As I said before, I think it's,

[2:52:18] it may be to your argument,

[2:52:21] It could be maybe too comprehensive, but also understanding, if you've been down

[2:52:26] Broadway in Nashville or been Hallstead Street in Chicago, every place it's got

[2:52:30] its doors open and walking from place to place, you can't hear yourself.

[2:52:34] But that's, and that's not who we are right now, but yeah, very different.

[2:52:40] But I'm just saying, that's the idea of having open spaces that can be open all the time.

[2:52:45] That was the intent behind this, whether it's right or wrong, that's a recommendation

[2:52:49] at this point.

[2:52:51] It looks to me, honestly, as in the process of solving some problems revamping the entire

[2:53:00] policy, and I think some of the council members are having trouble with some of the new policy,

[2:53:05] new policies, or we'd like to have some discussion about that, I think, a little more philosophical

[2:53:11] about the direction.

[2:53:13] But it doesn't mean that some of these aren't logical and needed to be in place to be more

[2:53:18] practical for our enforcement. So that's why we're having a bit of a dilemma about this.

[2:53:24] Councilmember? Well, along the practical piece, like it's in the original version of the

[2:53:32] ordinance, it's really unclear who they're supposed to notify. And so that's a piece that

[2:53:39] needs to be clarified because it just said in the original which didn't get struck and I'm

[2:53:44] Not quite sure why.

[2:53:44] They must attempt to notify all affected persons by reasonable means, is that everyone

[2:53:52] in Santa Paula, I mean, so the old ordinance language wasn't clear either.

[2:54:01] And so I think, because then you have a later note that I think defines what that was supposed

[2:54:08] to be all adjacent property lines must be contacted but both of those things are still in there

[2:54:18] and so I think maybe both of them don't need to still be there would be something to look at

[2:54:27] but I mean just in terms of some of the practical things it should be clear

[2:54:31] from the ordinance? Who exactly are they supposed to notify? Is it just the lot lines? Is it

[2:54:40] anyone who might be impacted? Is it, you know, within a radius?

[2:54:49] And it is, Council Member Crossway, it is the lot lines so striking that other stuff would provide more clarity.

[2:54:55] So we could do that.

[2:55:00] Let me go to exemption G George,

[2:55:06] entertainment provided by nonprofit organizations, which are exempt from the internal revenue code section 501c3. Is that the only one we're going to accept as being exempt? Because there's a lot of other organizations, church, fraternal chambers, a different 501c status. Are we limited to by law to 501c3? Or is that what we wrote in? That's what we wrote. But that could be expanded religious organizations. A lot of other 501c organizations after that.

[2:55:32] That could benefit from being exempt.

[2:55:34] And there are nonprofits that aren't 501C3, that might be, have another designation.

[2:55:39] Yeah.

[2:55:45] So, if I could ask how we can move forward from here, with at least speaking, a couple of the changes that we want to clarification,

[2:55:54] for example, notification around your property by the line of the property, the number of performers that are allowed.

[2:56:04] about the, trying to think what else that should be, should move forward just for the benefit

[2:56:14] of the businesses and the people who want to to be there, and then we can have another

[2:56:18] discussion about should it be 11, should it be midnight, should it be Bourbon Street in

[2:56:25] New Orleans, where everyone's drinking and partying all night, but you have people on horses,

[2:56:34] law

[2:56:34] want to have about that, and that's the extreme.

[2:56:37] The other is concerned for the people who are still residents downtown, because we do

[2:56:42] have some residents that just may just go crazy if there's just too much noise all the

[2:56:46] time.

[2:56:46] And I understand that there's a sensitivity for that too, because in an area that's changing

[2:56:51] which is a mix of residential and business, we don't want to hurt residents that have lived

[2:57:01] there for many, many years, even sometimes generations, and yet you don't want to inhibit

[2:57:06] new businesses and the thriving, exciting things that are happening in our downtown.

[2:57:11] So it is a longer conversation to have, I think, about those hours more than anything.

[2:57:18] So I don't know how we can split this.

[2:57:22] Mayor, one thing you did say that I think is important, again, my goal in this is to serve

[2:57:30] the community, you know, both the businesses and the community in general.

[2:57:35] And the question could also be brought up based on hours.

[2:57:39] Do we have police enforcement and availability depending on those hours?

[2:57:45] And that may be something else to consider too.

[2:57:48] And then again, we serve a community and those are modifications that would need to be made

[2:57:53] if that's the decision, but, but your question, how do we do that?

[2:57:56] Yeah, so it's just a consulting law enforcement as well as to the effect on some of these changes as well Councilmember Crossway.

[2:58:04] So the question I have is for my colleagues is other than the hours of operation.

[2:58:10] Is there any other part of the changes in the red line version that we have in our packet that someone has an issue with?

[2:58:18] Because I do think that there's a larger conversation to be had about the hours that indoor outdoor.

[2:58:24] I mean, I know that prior to 2020, there was at least one business that regularly had live music until

[2:58:31] after midnight and folks went and danced and enjoyed and so

[2:58:39] I'm not sure if I'm ready to say today that nothing indoor or outdoor should happen after 10 pm.

[2:58:49] I mean, it even says that if I'm reading this right that if you were going to do karaoke

[2:58:54] you would also have to end by 10 p.m.

[2:59:00] I think some of those are part of a bigger conversation,

[2:59:08] but what about the other pieces?

[2:59:12] Councilmember Crosswell,

[2:59:13] I'd just be interested in exploring more about

[2:59:15] the exemptions on G for nonprofits.

[2:59:20] Item H, dining entertainment is limited to ground level

[2:59:24] in approved paddocks areas.

[2:59:26] I think we need more guidance on the language that's being used here, and that's definition.

[2:59:33] And what if we have music on a second floor?

[2:59:40] That's the intent not to have music on the second floor.

[2:59:43] Then we should spell that out.

[2:59:51] Subsequent floors above ground floor patio.

[2:59:54] What

[2:59:59] was the...

[3:00:00] The thought process. Just sound projection.

[3:00:08] Seeing that another ordinance is based on sound projection. And my experience adventure with the rest of example, watermark where they had music on the roof. And you could hear the words from half a mile away. Even within the sound requirements.

[3:00:29] because it's just, and we're in a valley on main floor, the buildings attenuate the sound.

[3:00:40] Mayor. Councilmember Crossway indicated an earlier version talked about contacting neighbors, but it didn't really give parameters.

[3:00:48] This one does say all adjacent neighbors adjacent property lines. That just mean the next door neighbor and that's it.

[3:00:56] Because there are people that may be affected that are two doors away.

[3:00:59] For example, there's a hotel, there's residential neighborhood on North 11th Street with a bunch of, you know, people go to work early in the morning and you're going to have loud music like half block away.

[3:01:09] So maybe that should be expanded to so many feet instead of adjacent, adjacent property lines.

[3:01:21] So if the sound goes higher than the decibel level allowed, that's where you stop at not how far away you are.

[3:01:30] Yeah, that's what I was thinking is it depends on what your decibels are right because if your decibels are within a certain amount then

[3:01:37] you shouldn't be

[3:01:40] negatively impacting

[3:01:42] Something a block and a half away

[3:01:44] right the the experience that I've had in this

[3:01:48] Based on the ordinance. It's at the property line. That's why it's those adjacent property owners

[3:01:55] And I'm sure you all can relate to this

[3:01:57] Somebody gets a dog that they didn't have before.

[3:02:01] It could be well below what requirements are as far as the decibels.

[3:02:06] But that change in noise can be the most annoying thing ever.

[3:02:09] You know, somebody's working in their shed.

[3:02:12] It's under the decibel levels, but it's a noise that's new and it becomes a complaint.

[3:02:17] So it's trying to put some brackets around that understanding that our noise ordinance is the buffer in what those requirements are.

[3:02:28] as opposed to a subjective.

[3:02:30] City Attorney Castillo.

[3:02:32] Yes. Thank you Madam Mayor.

[3:02:33] Earlier, Vice Mayor Chavez asked the date that the noise ordinance was adopted and it was in 2004.

[3:02:43] And to keep something to keep in mind tonight, what isn't before council is altering the noise limitations.

[3:02:52] questions. Our noise ordinance isn't on the agenda tonight. So doing nothing doesn't affect those restrictions.

[3:03:05] One thing to add to that when I kind of confirmed this and looked at the ordinance and our noise ordinance,

[3:03:11] it was very consistent across the country as far as residential versus commercial,

[3:03:17] you know, very few exceptions to that. You know, Manhattan's probably one of the few exceptions.

[3:03:28] So to clarify, we can make changes or no changes to the noise ordinance.

[3:03:38] Not to the noise ordinance, but just to the ordinance before us.

[3:03:42] Correct.

[3:03:42] You can make changes to this permit ordinance.

[3:03:49] And you said this is a living document.

[3:03:51] You can bring it back six months later.

[3:03:53] We can make adjustments to it as we wish.

[3:03:56] Can we live with not having time limits on this and just using the sound restrictions?

[3:04:07] I know we have limits as far as filming because of noise. Is that because of a filming ordinance?

[3:04:14] No, it's actually more because of a curfew ordinance. We haven't even gotten into that.

[3:04:18] Okay.

[3:04:21] What we would need to do is just-

[3:04:23] No worms.

[3:04:24] Mayor and Council, look through our existing ordinance and make sure there's no restrictions

[3:04:28] based on timing.

[3:04:29] And then the- I mean, this is a suggestion or recommendation would be to have the permit,

[3:04:38] the license request to find those hours and that'd be subject to staff approval.

[3:04:44] Approval, okay.

[3:04:45] That would be one way to approach it.

[3:04:49] Then would we eliminate the time limit portion of this and have it subject to approval by staff based on staff's understanding of the sentiment that is coming.

[3:05:00] To you from council?

[3:05:04] Or is that?

[3:05:07] We're putting you in a very sticky situation. Yes, we are. Yes, we are. I'm at the judgment call on something that really is our responsibility. I would don't want to put that on you. But there's two pieces of that. One is, what do we have in our existing ordinance that regulates that? And then we also have the noise ordinance, which if they are in violation of our municipal code based on those hours of operation,

[3:05:32] or they have issues that are police calls or anything like that, they're going to lose the license.

[3:05:37] Again, that becomes an enforcement challenge, but we don't have that many businesses that are doing this right now.

[3:05:47] Council member, cross-fied?

[3:05:49] Well, I have a question, because there weren't hours in here previously.

[3:05:53] Correct.

[3:05:55] So, I guess what I'm trying to figure out is, were there hours somewhere outside this that regulate that or is that what you're wondering about if there's hours somewhere else?

[3:06:05] because I think that would be one concern, not having this be part of the entire municipal

[3:06:11] code update at this moment, not knowing if this would then put that in conflict with

[3:06:17] something else. So I guess what I'm wondering is,

[3:06:25] is there another way, city attorney, to

[3:06:28] address the hours that wouldn't permanently bake them into the ordinance, but that also

[3:06:34] So wouldn't leave it completely subjective, right?

[3:06:41] Like could you say subject to a resolution that sets the hours or something where that

[3:06:47] could be an ongoing conversation, community outreach, but that the ordinance piece, I'm

[3:06:54] just trying to figure out if there's a way to move through this that still gives us some

[3:07:00] an opportunity to think on the hour's piece.

[3:07:05] Yeah, so there's a tension here.

[3:07:08] You don't want to give too much discretion to a public official

[3:07:13] and have an ordinance give all that discretion

[3:07:15] because then you risk an equal application.

[3:07:18] Right, right.

[3:07:20] And then to introduce some sort of resolution process

[3:07:25] or formal process that creates even more

[3:07:29] cost and burden to applicants and staff and decision-making bodies so it's

[3:07:37] something to think about. So if I search my memory banks correctly we used to

[3:07:43] got a loud music calls people would always come up and say well it's not 10

[3:07:47] o'clock but we would tell them it doesn't matter the law is or at least our rule

[3:07:51] ordinances that anytime you disturb someone else would with a loud and

[3:07:57] unreasonable noise at any time, and that's really what we utilize, and that might exist somewhere in our ordinances that you can disturb your neighbors, and that's because we would go to a lot of music calls in residential neighborhoods, and they would think it would be 10 o'clock, but it really if we remember the ordinance, it's whenever you it disturbs your neighbors at any time.

[3:08:14] I believe it's 102 unruly gatherings, I think it's defined in there.

[3:08:21] And it also relates to police calls, number of police calls to a specific location.

[3:08:26] So, after a secondary call, then it becomes?

[3:08:30] So, maybe that's what we relied upon, and this just is pertinent to the downtown noise or music ordinance.

[3:08:44] Not sure how to move forward with this, because I'd like to see most of this passed.

[3:08:51] just for the benefit of the businesses, and for clarification for everybody.

[3:08:57] But we're just struggling with the hours on this.

[3:09:01] Do you want to look like you wanted to say something?

[3:09:03] I feel like we spend a lot of time in this and that's a indication that I think we should table the item.

[3:09:09] Provide direction of staff, have staff come back with what they've heard tonight.

[3:09:15] My only concern is any problem that it creates for any businesses that would want to have more performers than three.

[3:09:24] I mean, it hasn't been enforced as it, how have we been enforcing this?

[3:09:29] It's kind of like the cruising ordinance that I brought before, right?

[3:09:32] Oh, it's not enforced, so let's not bring it up until we have something come up.

[3:09:35] So I think we need to move on on this issue, Mayor Cornie-Hole.

[3:09:38] So, one other thing to keep in mind, we don't have another council meeting till August 7th, so there's an opportunity to come with something more fully baked in that process, especially with the input that you've raised on this, yeah.

[3:09:56] And the public input too.

[3:09:58] Because there's some good in here too.

[3:10:00] So, we're struggling with some of the issues here. So, could we ask that you bring it back to us, either to an August meeting, the first or the second, whenever you could have it ready? And with the input that you have from here, just kind of. Yes. And making sure that on the application, it also clarifies whatever you're suggesting that neighbor is if it's a lot of line. Because that was on the application itself, that was a little bit.

[3:10:29] Yeah, unclear

[3:10:31] I've got a question for those that have pending applications. Are they in limbo? They do nothing they move forward

[3:10:37] What would be the recommendation from our attorney?

[3:10:42] Well, we have this ordinance already in place it exists so it needs to submit the process according to our cup

[3:10:49] Right, but then as vice mayor Chava said, you know, what if they want five members in the band?

[3:10:53] I know you can only have four. Okay, who doesn't get paid tonight, right?

[3:10:56] Well, it's about enforcement at the end of the day and we've been looking over enforcement on many, many issues including fireworks.

[3:11:05] So let's just come back in August on the issue and then also take it a peabit.

[3:11:13] And I think staff has heard our concurrence that four members were not enforcing that part of the ordinance.

[3:11:21] Okay, all right. Are you all right with that? Everyone will just move forward with this and ask that you bring it back to us. We understand we appreciate the work.

[3:11:30] Also in when you need to correct some of it, you want to go ahead and revise everything that needs to be done at that point.

[3:11:38] But I think there just needs to be some some more work a bit more work done on that is particularly with our current concern for the limitations of the hours.

[3:11:46] And if you could bring that back to us in August, we'd appreciate that, so thank you.

[3:11:51] All right, and just to add to that comment, and work for us because we have to go and

[3:11:57] talk to the community members and let them know what this means, right?

[3:12:01] It'll give us a little bit of time for us to do our work that we have to do with our constituent.

[3:12:05] If we've got, we'd like to talk to constituents and get feedback to you as well through the city manager.

[3:12:11] And we can get that to you as well, so yes.

[3:12:12] May I suggest that you move for staff to bring back this item on not necessarily August of the future?

[3:12:23] When ready?

[3:12:24] Okay. Is there a motion to that effect?

[3:12:26] I move that this item be moved to a future meeting sometime after our break in July.

[3:12:33] Okay.

[3:12:34] Any other discussion?

[3:12:35] Beaton it to death.

[3:12:36] All those in favor?

[3:12:37] Aye.

[3:12:38] Opposed?

[3:12:39] No.

[3:12:39] Motion carries.

[3:12:40] Thank you, Mr. Mason. We appreciate that. Thank you.

[3:12:44] Yes.

[3:12:45] So in this case, do I need a temporary CUP at this point?

[3:12:51] I would direct that question to enforcement.

[3:12:53] Work with the department, and they understand how we feel about this too.

[3:12:58] So thank you.

[3:13:02] All right. Let's move on everyone. Thank you.

[3:13:06] Item 11B seems like whenever we're making appointments to commissions and committees

[3:13:10] So we make them wait a really long time.

[3:13:13] Yes.

[3:13:14] So in the interest of efficiency, does anyone have the three returning applicants?

[3:13:22] Fireworks, speaking of the three returning applicants.

[3:13:25] Does anyone mind if I make those three as one motion since they're just returning and have no?

[3:13:31] Competition moved.

[3:13:33] I guess I'm such a human.

[3:13:37] And do you want to state who those are?

[3:13:40] So we would be, or I guess you made the motion, so.

[3:13:44] So motion to adopt, to the appointments of senior advisory committee, Veronica Hedon?

[3:13:55] No, no, no, no.

[3:13:57] Those are not.

[3:13:58] Those we have to talk about, I was like about the last three, the Susan Williffard for the

[3:14:02] Santa Paul Housing Authority, Jason Herbert to design assistance, and Karen Harris and

[3:14:10] to the mobile home rent review, because they were already in that position and

[3:14:15] they were the only person to reapply.

[3:14:16] I withdraw my motion, can you pick it on?

[3:14:19] So I move those three.

[3:14:21] Did somebody second that?

[3:14:22] She moved, I have moved,

[3:14:28] and is there a second on that?

[3:14:30] I'll second that.

[3:14:31] Councilmember Juarez seconds, all those in favor?

[3:14:35] Aye.

[3:14:36] Opposed?

[3:14:36] Motion carries, so we have three reappointments, now we'll move on to the new appointments.

[3:14:47] I believe we have two applicants for three positions on the senior advisory committee.

[3:14:54] Do we have a motion on the side if we're, that was why I wanted to come back to that, because we have to decide if we're doing the two that we-

[3:15:00] We have to the two full terms, or if either of them get the one partial. So I'd like to make a motion to give Ron

[3:15:07] Merson the full term to the senior advisory committee.

[3:15:13] Second. Second. Okay. Any other discussion on that? All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Congratulations, Mr.

[3:15:25] person has waited patiently.

[3:15:28] Motion, Veronica, heat on stone to the partial term on the senior advisory committee.

[3:15:35] Second.

[3:15:37] I'll second it.

[3:15:39] Any other discussion?

[3:15:41] All those in favor?

[3:15:43] Aye.

[3:15:44] Opposed?

[3:15:45] All right.

[3:15:46] Second, congratulations.

[3:15:48] And then we have two applicants for parks and recreation and one opening.

[3:15:52] We have two candidates that were interviewed.

[3:15:56] I know we had, we always have excellent people that apply for these commissions and it's

[3:16:02] very unfortunate when we have more applicants that we have positions and in this particular

[3:16:08] one for the Parks and Recreation Commission we have two qualified applicants and a Varella

[3:16:13] and Monique Vargas and unfortunately we only have one spot so I prepared to make a motion

[3:16:19] or make a motion towards recommending one, unless there's just anybody else wants to say anything before?

[3:16:24] Go right ahead and we'll go from there.

[3:16:28] He has someone to nominate. Go ahead and make a nomination we can discuss.

[3:16:32] I would like to nominate to my colleagues Anna Verella for the position on the Parks and Recreation Commission.

[3:16:39] Second. Any other discussion on that?

[3:16:43] I just want to say again I reiterate the fact that we have two amazing candidates and what's interesting is that

[3:16:48] sometimes you don't get it on the first round and as one of those people she did

[3:16:53] not make it the first round and then she came second time so I encourage the

[3:16:59] other canary will need to come back and she said she was gonna come back so she

[3:17:03] will be sitting on one of our commissions very soon especially because she's

[3:17:06] gone through the leadership academy and she's just an amazing person and a

[3:17:10] candidate that has a big heart. It's extraordinary the people that we have

[3:17:15] willing to serve on these boards, we've just had some fabulous people by.

[3:17:20] So with that motion then, for Ana Varella, all those in favor?

[3:17:25] Aye.

[3:17:26] Opposed?

[3:17:27] Okay.

[3:17:27] Motion carries unanimously.

[3:17:29] Congratulations to Ms. Varella, and we hope to see Monique Vargas very soon again applying to another commission appointment.

[3:17:36] Commissioner Board.

[3:17:38] Okay.

[3:17:38] I think if we've got all of those done, is that correct, Madam Clerk?

[3:17:41] Okay, very well, we'll move on to item 11c, application to the California Department of Housing and Community Development, HCD, seeking a pro-housing designation by the state.

[3:17:52] Okay, we have a presentation by Management Analyst, Cesar Hernandez, bringing it back to us.

[3:18:01] Yes.

[3:18:05] Get any mayor, council?

[3:18:09] June 5th, 2024, staff presented a consent item requesting that council

[3:18:14] consider a proposing designation program app to the California Department of Housing

[3:18:19] and Committer Development after discussing the item.

[3:18:23] City council determined that the item be continued to address council's questions and provide

[3:18:28] clarification of the application process.

[3:18:32] So on the application staff did its best to explain the application scoring process.

[3:18:40] The timeline and then answer questions from the June 5th, 2024 CC meeting.

[3:18:48] So if there's any questions, staff will be happy to answer at this point.

[3:18:55] Any additional questions we've had time?

[3:18:57] Yes, Councilmember Crossway.

[3:18:58] We do have one public comment, yes.

[3:19:00] So any clarification questions for you if not, then we'll go to the public comment and then discussion that okay are you're all okay if we move on to public comment we have one I'd like to go ahead and hear that first in case I don't

[3:19:15] know if they'll want to stay through the item or not, but since it's almost it's 10 o'clock and I know I know I would like to at least go ahead and hear the public comment.

[3:19:22] Let's do that for Jorge de Leon, please.

[3:19:25] Welcome, and thanks for your patience.

[3:19:26] We're going to close the happy hour.

[3:19:28] Hey, I know.

[3:19:30] We'd like you to come in.

[3:19:31] Last call.

[3:19:32] Too late for last call.

[3:19:34] And I just want to say that it's kind of sad that we're who can't.

[3:19:36] So my name is Jorge de Leon.

[3:19:38] I'm here on behalf of the Ventura County Coastal Association

[3:19:41] of Realtors, we're a membership of over 2,000

[3:19:44] real estate practitioners.

[3:19:47] And as you've heard before, Santa Paula was my home

[3:19:50] when I was a child and a teenager.

[3:19:54] So we are here to commend you and basically come

[3:19:57] with a very positive and very resound.

[3:20:00] In pro support of this resolution or this ordinance, we understand that there's a lot of construction going on, and I think it's great that Santa Paula is getting the much needed housing, the report that Mr. James Mason presented with a lot of the housing that's coming. I think it's phenomenal because the city of Santa Paula needs it. We get to see multiple applicants for the limited time amount of housing that's available in Santa Paula.

[3:20:29] So speaking specifically to the resolution before you this evening, specifically to assembly bill 101, it provides those incentives in the form of additional points and other preferences in the scoring of the competitive process, right?

[3:20:44] Under this legislation, which is pro housing, there are several points I would like to point out to you.

[3:20:51] It's reducing the parking requirements for sites that are zoned for residential development.

[3:20:54] The adoption of zoning, allowing for use of right for residential and mixed use development.

[3:21:01] Zoning more sites for residential development or zoning at higher densities that are required

[3:21:07] to accommodate the minimum existing regional housing need allocation for the current housing

[3:21:13] element cycle.

[3:21:14] Obviously, the adoption of accessory dwelling unit ordinances and other mechanisms to reduce

[3:21:20] the barriers for property owners to create accessory dwelling units.

[3:21:24] The reduction of the time frames for the processing times, the creation of the objective development

[3:21:31] standards, and the reduction of development impact fees.

[3:21:35] I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the fact that it's been wonderful to work with

[3:21:41] the department, specifically Mr. James Mason and Cesar, with regards to this, and we feel

[3:21:49] We hope that these are changes that are common sense and very pragmatic, that reduce those barriers to additional housing and we support them all.

[3:21:57] We hope to see the continue to see the city to take that all of the above approach when it comes to this.

[3:22:06] And for you to continue to be the talk of the town in a positive note as to creating housing opportunities for the county.

[3:22:13] Okay. So that's what we're here for. Again, we're all in and we continue to commend you for taking this and considering this as a pro housing city.

[3:22:25] Thank you.

[3:22:25] Thank you for your comments.

[3:22:29] Council discussion or questions for staff?

[3:22:32] I just had a question I had of Mr. Singer today and he had me bring it up tonight maybe.

[3:22:37] Excuse me, excuse me, the little, excuse me, my bringin' up, and that's, what did they use for the rating points?

[3:22:42] One through three? I never saw a rating key.

[3:22:48] You said radiant points.

[3:22:49] Yeah, you know, listed rating one.

[3:22:52] Oh, rating point, I'm sorry.

[3:22:53] I didn't see how you came to that, you know, what, what each one, where, you got that figure from.

[3:22:59] Oh, the ratings, how they came up with the rating system?

[3:23:02] Yeah, yeah.

[3:23:02] So, I very simply, if you look on the application that's attached on page 225,

[3:23:12] if you look on the top,

[3:23:18] there is a government code section that says 655-889.9, okay?

[3:23:25] In that government code section, it allows HCD to come up with the program or the incentives.

[3:23:32] So, say, for example, the program was created for incentives for jurisdictions

[3:23:37] locations that are compliant with the state housing element like law, like the city of Santa

[3:23:42] Paul is when there are six cycles and we enact pro-housing policies.

[3:23:47] These incentives as stated will take the form of additional points or other preference

[3:23:53] instance scoring of applications competing housing infrastructure programs and those are listed

[3:23:58] in the front as I have here at the beginning in the staff report such as favorable zoning

[3:24:06] I think acceleration of housing production, reduction of construction, and financial subsidies that could be enacted like rent, rent assistance.

[3:24:15] The administrators of HCD are responsible for creating the program and they determine the value of the form.

[3:24:23] That's really what it boils down to.

[3:24:25] Okay, thank you.

[3:24:31] Anyone else?

[3:24:32] Yes, Council Member Crosswright.

[3:24:33] So, I just wanted to re-ask.

[3:24:37] It's our understanding that HCD won't see SOAR as an impediment to housing.

[3:24:46] No.

[3:24:47] I believe so.

[3:24:49] Okay.

[3:24:49] It was a little unclear in the response in the packet, so I just wanted to clarify.

[3:24:54] Right.

[3:24:55] Right, and stuff understands where you're getting at, because Sora is...

[3:25:00] Not to discuss or too much in extension, but it more or less, the cities are voting into open space, but it doesn't mean it's restricting any housing within the city limits. So it's, what goes, it's more applicant. The city based application is based on going into the open space areas that are not annexed or not part of the city limits, more or less than anything, but not restricted to a number of housing limits.

[3:25:28] I just wanted to check because I know that when I'm part of conversations regionally there are some entities

[3:25:34] especially at the state that look at Ventura County sideways as if we're just

[3:25:40] trying not to

[3:25:41] Build anything so I just I just wanted to to make sure that staff didn't think that they would

[3:25:47] Look at oh, well you're in Ventura County, so we're just gonna, you know, toss it right now without looking at it

[3:25:53] So I just wanted to check.

[3:25:55] And it's a valid point, you know, we could, we make it a comment from HCD when they review it for 60 days and look at that point as, oh, wait a minute, but we could be ready to respond to them if that's the case.

[3:26:07] Okay, right.

[3:26:08] Great.

[3:26:09] My spare.

[3:26:10] Thank you, Mayor Cornelio.

[3:26:12] As a follow-up question to Councilmember Crossway, in no way disconflicts with our housing element, it basically compliments it.

[3:26:21] Correct? Absolutely. Okay, great. I'm ready to make a motion on that says another question.

[3:26:26] Just one more quick question. Go ahead, please. Thank you, Mayor. You know that they're on page

[3:26:33] 248 where it talks about homeless encampments. I'm sure this was written before the Supreme Court made a

[3:26:37] decision on encampments in public. So this is again probably a living document that's going to be

[3:26:42] changed according to. Exactly. So that you're talking about the seven points. Yes. So in light of

[3:26:48] Friday's or a ruling by the Supreme Court, I'm assuming not to speak on behalf of HCD that they probably may modify that.

[3:26:56] Okay, that's what I'm saying.

[3:26:58] Thank you very much, that's fine.

[3:27:01] Okay, go ahead then, please.

[3:27:03] Motion to adopt resolution 7521 authorizing the City Manager's desk need to submit the pre-housing designation program application to the California Department of Housing and Community Development, HCD.

[3:27:14] and if the application is approved by HCD to execute all documents,

[3:27:18] the necessary or appropriate to participate in the pro-housing designation program.

[3:27:23] I'm all second. Okay. Any other discussion?

[3:27:27] Just a clarification. So part of the reason for this is it opens up more opportunities in terms of grants and funding, correct?

[3:27:38] That's correct. All right. Okay. Thank you. All right.

[3:27:41] All right, all those in favor.

[3:27:45] Aye.

[3:27:46] Opposed?

[3:27:47] Motion carries.

[3:27:48] I heard a lovely wave putting housing in terms from some of

[3:27:52] what I was speaking to in the real estate business that this has to do with housing for all.

[3:27:57] And I think this encourages that and I appreciate that.

[3:27:59] Thank you for all your work on this.

[3:28:03] All right, let's move on to item, and thank you all.

[3:28:06] Item 11D, purchase of downtown trash and recycling receptacles.

[3:28:10] and we have Deputy City Manager Jonathan Royce presenting, and fellow Esteban.

[3:28:18] Yes, good evening Mayor, Vice Mayor Council.

[3:28:22] Staff comes before you this evening, along with our management fellow, Mr. Esteban Herrera,

[3:28:28] to talk trash about our downtown trash receptacles.

[3:28:32] So I did want to thank our fellows that have worked on this project, actually for the last year,

[3:28:39] including Mr. Miguel Perez, who isn't here this evening, but kickstarted this project

[3:28:45] off. And then Mr. Herrera, this evening, will bring us across the finish line, hopefully.

[3:28:50] So I will let him take over, and he has a presentation for you.

[3:29:00] Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, Council Members. Yes, I'm here today to talk trash about purchasing

[3:29:06] of downtown trash and recycling, receptacles. I come to you this evening with a recommendation

[3:29:13] of one wave form of bidding requirements and consent to purchase a trash, recycling receptacles for an amount not to exceed

[3:29:21] 132, 130,713 dollars and 40 cents based on the finding that purchase of receptacles is desirable or necessary

[3:29:30] pursuant to the Santa Paula Municipal Code section 4110 and two authorize City Manager or his designee to execute a purchase agreement with forms

[3:29:41] services using American Rescue Act Plan funds.

[3:29:47] Here are just a couple of photos I've taken going up and down Main Street.

[3:30:00] Or in public works at the moment, often you will see that lids completely off the bottom two, mismatched lids and often there are other examples I've seen where the lids are just not there, right? And very easy for someone to get in. Often we see people going through the trash, looking for like aluminum or bottles throwing everything out, finding what they can. And then just leaving, not cleaning up.

[3:30:29] and on the left we see here is in the alleyway there are multiple examples of this there's one a little bit further down and believe looks the same way as we can see.

[3:30:40] I think it's pretty clear that what we're seeing right now is just the state is in poor condition of pretty much all the trash cans across the downtown district.

[3:30:54] And here's a map that was created with the previous fellows kind of my help as well.

[3:31:01] While these are just outlining the current trash cans, as we can see in the top left, the green are just regular trash cans, the blue.

[3:31:09] It's kind of hard to see, they're kind of overlapping, but they're paired with a couple of the trash cans and the five black we see are kind of just unbranded, unlabeled black trash cans.

[3:31:21] And for the most part, we would work with Parks and Rec and Public Works to determine if we were to purchase new trash cans kind of their placement, generally in the same area, if not, maybe new spots, maybe on belief A, and we talked about 11th and 12th Street could use a few more.

[3:31:48] And the research done by other members and a little bit of myself, we looked at what other cities are doing, just to get a sense of what, I guess, modern, quote unquote, like out-to-date trash cans are doing it, and as we can see, if you've gone to Ventura, you see the big belly since Max, these things are crazy.

[3:32:08] They're expensive, they're super high tax, they're the art, maybe not exactly what the city needs but it is an example of what other cities are doing and city of Monterey and Pisman Beach.

[3:32:21] Those are using cans made from the vendors that we actually got proposals for, so they give us a better example of what to look for, what other cities are doing.

[3:32:33] Again, kind of in terms of aesthetics design, something that's been brought up when I am

[3:32:40] talking to different departments is kind of a requisite that they bring up, something

[3:32:48] that we see on both of these are the top, they're covered, kind of providing a little bit

[3:32:53] of cover from the rain in particular, that was a big point brought up and I believe on

[3:33:01] both there's a side opening instead of something that was brought up from city core is that sometimes when the trash, if it's loaded just from the top, pretty hard to pick up, especially if it's full, they can kind of strenuous rather than to side opening,

[3:33:19] make it out, take it out, put a new line or sign it back in.

[3:33:28] Feedback received from Athens, parts and recreation staff, city core, streets of vision,

[3:33:33] property business improvement district.

[3:33:35] One, the need for additional recycling cans to encourage, encourage proper waste,

[3:33:39] recreation, and recycling cabinets among residents and visitors.

[3:33:43] This is the big one.

[3:33:45] If you see the previous map, there's only nine current recycling bins.

[3:33:50] and our aims are to bring that balance to pretty much even where we have an equal

[3:33:57] number of trash receptacles with recycling. Another point was convenience

[3:34:04] that was brought up. I was told when talking to someone from parks and

[3:34:08] recs, sometimes often if someone's walking around with trash on their hand for

[3:34:12] an extended amount of time, like if you have an aluminum can and you don't see a

[3:34:18] So I think it is important to have both, to make it easier for someone to not misuse trash cans to security-locking mechanisms to secure trash inside.

[3:34:34] This is I think one of the bigger ones that I think Jonathan brought up along with other people

[3:34:38] talking to kind of just getting their input on what to look for in a trash can and when I get

[3:34:45] to the three proposals I believe all three of them have a security lock. They're all side-opening.

[3:34:50] They're all pretty secure. It was explained that they're the furthest one of the cans we're looking at.

[3:35:00] The idea was it's easy to open, but it's hard to break. I think the idea is whether or not we would like. People are going to try to access these, and if it's harder for them, obviously, that'd be good. It's less to clean up and dealing with broken locks, you know, can add up over time. Number three, lids or rain guards, which could not be removed. This is also another big one. I think probably the biggest. Often we see.

[3:35:27] the trash cans without the lids, downtown, again, people going through them, either it's

[3:35:34] emptying them out or looking for something to recycle and across all the three different

[3:35:42] proposals, we've gotten all have a ring guard slash a cover pretty much that is unable

[3:35:48] to be taken off.

[3:35:49] I think if you look at the, what other cities are doing, that's a pretty common trend

[3:35:55] the theme versus what we have now where some mornings I watch some of the

[3:36:03] out-and-house just take the lid off toss it aside and then it's just there

[3:36:07] like that all day like it's less worried about it and also you know I feel

[3:36:12] Liz gone from a trash can like who's going to pay for that like how are we going

[3:36:16] to get that back and for inclusion of durable graffiti resistant cutting to

[3:36:21] maintained receptacles efficiently, so far in all the proposals, all the color options

[3:36:27] and variants we've seen, they've all been powder coat, which I believe is a little easier

[3:36:32] to clean up rather than what we have now talking to someone from Parks and Rec.

[3:36:38] It seems to be that the way to tackle like graffiti if we were to buy these new ones, if they

[3:36:47] or graffiti, it's overall pretty easier to maintain

[3:36:50] and get the graffiti off rather than having to

[3:36:53] buy a whole load of new paint, paint it over,

[3:36:55] which can cost you know, over time.

[3:37:00] And now we have the three kind of main,

[3:37:04] looking

[3:37:08] for, three prospects that we're looking at.

[3:37:10] These are all the fairly similar models

[3:37:13] across the three different vendors,

[3:37:15] form services, effective salient, do more.

[3:37:18] What these all kind of have in common is that

[3:37:19] they are 36 gallons.

[3:37:21] They are side-loading, meaning the side-opens to take out the bin and change it, easy access.

[3:37:30] And these photos are configured in the way we would like.

[3:37:35] There's a bunch of different configurations, but these are the ones we kind of proposal for,

[3:37:41] demonstrating the rain lid and kind of the color and overall look.

[3:37:47] Victor Stanley and Doomer are, I think, what we typically picture when we think of like a trash can,

[3:37:53] like pretty standard looking stuff, but when it comes to forms and surfaces, what's really cool and

[3:37:58] what Jonathan kind of pointed out when going through the different configurations.

[3:38:04] He can recross this lid, which the model is going to be, you know, a little more expensive.

[3:38:08] But the cool part is that the bottom part, again, this regular trash receptacle, 36 gallons,

[3:38:15] You know, easy load-in load-out at the top is a dedicated recycle compartment.

[3:38:22] And the idea is that instead of having to have one bin dedicated for trash,

[3:38:31] or one bin dedicated for a cycle,

[3:38:33] we can have the same like one uniform trash can to be easier,

[3:38:40] and just be more convenient for someone to walk it around.

[3:38:43] they don't have to walk far to see both trash and recycle.

[3:38:53] Tonight a new purchase will result in at least 40 new trash cans of receptacles in the

[3:38:57] downturn versus what we have currently, which is 24, 40 recycling receptacles in the

[3:39:02] downturn versus the nine we have, just less trash in the floor because more per units per

[3:39:08] square feet in the downturn means Jonathan, we're talking about it, Daisy Land, there's an anecdote

[3:39:15] out where I think like Walt Disney, he watched people for a day and counted how many feet

[3:39:20] they step before throwing something on the trash. So it just gives people who are just

[3:39:25] downtown easier access to see and more spread out opportunities to use the trash and less

[3:39:35] time looking for a trash and deciding like, oh, I'll talk to this in the bush. And better

[3:39:42] aesthetics as if we go with this form surfaces one it can be like a uniform color and it

[3:39:51] would be just a little bit more consistent for the people in the downtown.

[3:40:00] Again, the recommendation would be to waive formal bidding requirements and consent to purchase of trash recycling receptacles for an amount not to exceed $132,000 as a big number, $713 and $40,000. Based on the finding purchase of the receptacles is, quote, unquote, desirable or necessary, pursuant to Santa Paula Municipal Code Section 4110. And, again, authorize city manager or his days of fee to execute a purchase agreement.

[3:40:29] with forms and surfaces using American Rescue Act Plan funds.

[3:40:35] Thank you for your time.

[3:40:37] I am having to answer any questions.

[3:40:39] I've Jonathan here who obviously has more experience as well,

[3:40:43] going back to the previous fellows.

[3:40:44] And do we have Chris on the Zoom was able to join us?

[3:40:48] We have a representative from Chris,

[3:40:51] way of it Chris from forms and surfaces as well,

[3:40:56] ready to answer any questions.

[3:40:59] and that I might not be able to?

[3:41:02] Is it possible to have the power point up as well at the same time?

[3:41:06] We'll be able to have him.

[3:41:08] We'll be on the near end, and we need to see.

[3:41:17] Thank you.

[3:41:17] I have two questions.

[3:41:19] One is, is this amount, because I don't recall, already a line item in the ARPA funds,

[3:41:27] is it already listed as the amount that would be covered by the ARPA funds?

[3:41:32] As far as I know, no.

[3:41:33] No.

[3:41:35] Well, the monies that were set aside for ARPA were very broad, so they basically were

[3:41:44] labeled as downtown beautification farms.

[3:41:48] Some of those are being put towards the wayfinding effort.

[3:41:53] I think early on we used some towards American and Bloom for their efforts.

[3:41:59] We've improved lighting on the tree well lights, and this would be kind of one of the last pieces.

[3:42:06] The amount that we had kind of theoretically set aside in our minds was something in the $75,000 range.

[3:42:13] This is obviously a lot more than that.

[3:42:15] That will erode some of the monies we would have left over for sign implementation.

[3:42:21] But there is ample money to pay for this project, if the council favors doing it less

[3:42:30] expensively we can either do fewer cans, we can not customize the cans, or we could look

[3:42:37] for a cheaper product, or if you're more inclined to go for quality and aesthetics, then it just

[3:42:44] means that we'll use up the ARPA monies and it means that as we tackle downtown wayfinding

[3:42:50] signs, we might have to find new monies for that.

[3:42:54] Okay, so the monies are there and it's money that expires at some point if we don't use

[3:42:58] it.

[3:42:58] So there's, I do know that PBID has looked at this and would be thrilled to have new trash

[3:43:06] cans on the streets and more of them.

[3:43:11] How is, this might be a question for Chris.

[3:43:14] How is delivery and availability for these units?

[3:43:20] It takes 8 weeks to build them, it takes approximately one week to get across country.

[3:43:25] Okay.

[3:43:27] And the policy you're talking about, I think, included delivery and all of that, right?

[3:43:31] Okay, I think.

[3:43:32] Those are my questions, anyone else?

[3:43:34] What about the customization, what do you mean by that?

[3:43:39] No, I'm not having our city seal on there or logo or whatever.

[3:43:42] Vice Mayor, if I might add, so we have discussed with the forms and

[3:43:45] services, Mr. Kelly, the customization of the units.

[3:43:50] So this evening you're approving an amount not to exceed.

[3:43:53] What we'll do is actually, if you do approve this process, we will go back to Mr. Mason

[3:43:59] and team along with the way-finding team and we will hone in on the aesthetics and the design

[3:44:05] options related to this in terms of, there's different aesthetics, there's different colors,

[3:44:13] and there's also we have the option of putting in our logos on there so we

[3:44:18] would do that at a minimum we would be able to deliver 40 cans to the

[3:44:22] downtown but we just need to approval this evening on the dollar amount not to

[3:44:26] exceed. Councilor Crossway follow up on that so because that was what relates to

[3:44:33] one of my questions was we saw at least three different designs of can so what

[3:44:38] you're saying is that the actual design you would try to work with the way

[3:44:42] finding because this one has scallops and one in here that just has bars and then there was the

[3:44:48] one from the other city that looked pretty. So what you would work with them go. There's one in

[3:44:57] your staff report that isn't in the presentation.

[3:45:05] It was the nicest looking one and it had their logo on it and it said trash on the bottom and it had recycling on the top. That's our aim. That's what we're going for. So we'll work offline with Mr. Mason and the Hunt wayfinding team to make sure that the delivered product aesthetically fits and fits properly in the downtown. What is the capacity up there?

[3:45:29] the recycle portion. It's hard to tell scale.

[3:45:35] It is approximately 16 gallons.

[3:45:42] I was just trying to get a sense of how many water bottles would fit in there.

[3:45:46] One thing I might add that I wanted to elaborate on Mr. Herrera's portion.

[3:45:53] This is a really innovative unique design. It really encourages recycling at each of the locations where

[3:46:00] There's a footprint of one of these particular units which to remind council based on the research

[3:46:06] we only have nine recycling units in the downtown corridor right now.

[3:46:11] So we're drastically going to increase that.

[3:46:13] The other thing that we find is that typically I guess the term now I learned this is they're

[3:46:18] called urban minors, is that there's essentially transits are homeless looking in the trash bins.

[3:46:25] they actually dig and rummage through the bins to find the valuable aluminum and bottles.

[3:46:31] Here, if people are utilizing them properly, they'll actually put those materials up in

[3:46:35] the top, and you actually are encouraging those urban miners to basically pull the items

[3:46:41] out of there easily.

[3:46:43] They can take them with them and turn them in if they want to, or they can leave them,

[3:46:47] and Athens and our city core team will collect them.

[3:46:51] So.

[3:46:51] So, I think the idea is, yeah, we would see less of the entire can being dug up, emptied out, and then only, yeah, the cans and bottles, rather than I think it's inevitable that people will go through them.

[3:47:04] So it would make it easier to get exactly what you're looking for if you're going through it and leave the rest of the trash intact and in the bin.

[3:47:14] That's very important.

[3:47:15] Thank you, Mayor.

[3:47:16] We're going to school right along with our down time beautification, so I'll come forward.

[3:47:20] But it begs question, what do we do with the old containers?

[3:47:23] It'd be nice if we could repurpose them and make them more secure, because I'm sure there's other parks or some place in town we could utilize them, but certainly not if it's going to create the problem and the mess that it does downtown.

[3:47:34] So the other alternative would be if we don't repurpose them, maybe we could donate them like to the school or something.

[3:47:42] We can look into that, Councilman.

[3:47:43] Yeah.

[3:47:44] Say first, if there's other places where we could repurpose them, make them more secure within our parks, whatever.

[3:47:50] First.

[3:47:54] Just for clarification, we have into December 31st of this year, right, on our defense.

[3:47:59] Correct.

[3:48:00] To obligate the funds.

[3:48:05] More questions?

[3:48:06] Any motion?

[3:48:13] So I'll, let's see, I'll wave, let's see, we're on, yeah.

[3:48:16] Wave formal bidding requirements and consent to purchase of trash and recycling

[3:48:20] receptacles for an amount not to exceed $132,713 and $0.42, based on the findings

[3:48:25] that purchase other receptacles is desirable or necessary,

[3:48:29] I'm sorry, a person to a San Paul Minism Code section 4110

[3:48:33] and authorize senior manager or his designate to execute a purchase

[3:48:37] agreement with forms plus surfaces using American Rescue Plan

[3:48:40] Act Arpefants.

[3:48:43] So second?

[3:48:48] I guess a little second.

[3:48:49] We're getting tired here.

[3:48:52] I'm sorry, I was waiting to make a motion to extend the meeting

[3:48:55] when the item was done.

[3:48:56] No, it's okay.

[3:48:57] So you wanted to do that one.

[3:48:58] I was ready to hear that too.

[3:48:59] Okay.

[3:49:00] All right.

[3:49:00] I just want to put this out there for folks

[3:49:04] that don't understand the term ARPA.

[3:49:06] Kid, you can staff elaborate what ARPA is for those that are watching, so that, and

[3:49:12] specify what the intent of those funds are, that these are necessarily funds that we can

[3:49:19] use for simply other sources.

[3:49:21] Sure, Vice Mayor, excellent question.

[3:49:24] So American Rescue Plan Act funds are funding, bless you, that came through after the COVID-19

[3:49:32] experience and was funny, money that was transferred down from the federal government through

[3:49:37] the state down to local governments.

[3:49:40] And every city, including Santa Paula, was given an allocated amount based on a particular

[3:49:46] amount of factors.

[3:49:47] Our particular city received approximately $7.1 million in two separate tranches in the

[3:49:54] past three years thereabouts.

[3:49:56] And those funds are meant to really provide a

[3:50:00] There are a few different things in the community, economic stimulus, based on the after-effects of COVID-19, utilizing the funds for general city services where a lot of cities actually either had to dip into reserves or cut down on staff. There were a lot of ramifications from it. So, staff has come over the past 30 years to council extensively to understand your priorities and considerations related to that.

[3:50:28] the $7.1 million just to share out there a large portion of that ARPA funding actually went

[3:50:36] to the Harvard Boulevard Paving Project and also the Mesa Tanks. That was one of the kind

[3:50:41] of the first big areas that you put large chunks of that money into. There's several

[3:50:47] other categories that have been outlined and I have made a note it is not there yet but

[3:50:53] But it's still on my list.

[3:50:54] We will get a full accounting on the website of all the different areas that you've allocated

[3:51:00] for your ARPA, monies, including this transaction tonight.

[3:51:06] Great, I'm glad to cut that.

[3:51:08] Okay.

[3:51:09] We'll call for the question.

[3:51:10] All those in favor?

[3:51:12] Aye.

[3:51:12] Opposed?

[3:51:13] Motion carries.

[3:51:15] I would make a motion that we extend our meeting past 1030 so that we can finish our meeting

[3:51:20] with the request that we make our council reports quick at the end.

[3:51:24] I'll stick at that.

[3:51:25] Thank you, Council.

[3:51:26] Thank you, Mr. Herrera and Mr. Royas.

[3:51:28] We appreciate your time on this.

[3:51:30] We're very excited about the project.

[3:51:32] And so we need to call for the extension of our meeting.

[3:51:38] All those in favor?

[3:51:39] Aye.

[3:51:40] Aye.

[3:51:40] Opposed?

[3:51:41] Okay, we will continue because we want to hear from Christy.

[3:51:46] Is that the next one?

[3:51:47] No.

[3:51:48] Oh no, it is not.

[3:51:49] Not, it is the ballot first, sorry, 11E, ballot argument concerning in one sent one, city transactions and you sales tax measure on the November 5, 2024 ballot.

[3:52:02] Madam Mayor, we're joined by BBK representative Jim Priest, although this might be passed as bad time, so I'd like to say thank you for staying with us wherever you are.

[3:52:13] It's going to be still available, you'll recall.

[3:52:17] Can you hear me?

[3:52:19] Yes.

[3:52:20] And you'll recall meeting him at your meeting two weeks ago.

[3:52:23] This item is returning to you for any further considerations based on that direction.

[3:52:29] Mr. Priest, did you want to give a little overview or should we just?

[3:52:33] I can give a quick overview and I promise I will be brief.

[3:52:38] Good evening, Madam Mayor.

[3:52:39] members of the Council, honorable staff, Jim Priest, best, best, and career.

[3:52:43] The Council will remember that at your last meeting you adopted three resolutions to place

[3:52:48] the sales tax measure on the November 5th ballot.

[3:52:52] One of those resolutions set rules and deadlines for arguments that would be printed in the ballot

[3:52:58] for and against the measure.

[3:53:01] Consistent with the Elections Code, that resolution authorizes the following persons to write

[3:53:06] an argument for against the measure.

[3:53:07] the Council or any members of the Council, an individual voter who can vote on the measure,

[3:53:13] a bona fide association of citizens, or any combination of citizens and associations.

[3:53:20] As a last housekeeping item, staff is requesting Council direction as to whether the Council wishes to

[3:53:29] delegate authorship of an argument for against the measure to a subcommittee so that the Council would

[3:53:36] be authoring an argument or whether the council wants to just allow individual citizens

[3:53:42] and associations to write an argument and the city council would not be writing one.

[3:53:49] If the council decides not to submit an argument or delegate to a subcommittee, then no further

[3:53:55] action is necessary this evening. If you do want to do so, then you should delegate those

[3:54:01] members tonight. It could be one or two members.

[3:54:04] We do have some ground rules written in the staff report if the council does decide to delegate writing an argument to a subcommittee.

[3:54:13] But again, if the council chooses not to do so this evening and just leave it to citizens and the associations out there in the community to prepare the arguments and know for their action is necessary this evening.

[3:54:26] And that'll conclude my report. I'm happy to answer any questions the council may have.

[3:54:29] Thank you, Mr. Priest, questions, staff, and vice mayor Chavez.

[3:54:35] I have a question,

[3:54:39] and it's regarding, we made a motion to put something for the voters, right?

[3:54:46] And so,

[3:54:49] what is our limitation on what we can advocate for, on something like that?

[3:55:00] Thank you, council member. If the council wants to delegate to a subcommittee to write an argument in favor or against the measure, you can certainly do this evening. Now, in your private time, not using city time, or using city public resources, you are still free as a private citizen that you can go and advocate in favor or against the measure, whatever is your particular position. But again, you cannot be using public resources.

[3:55:29] or public time to do that, and as indicated in the staff report should the council designate

[3:55:37] a subcommittee to write an argument. We have some ground rules listed in there where

[3:55:41] city staff, the city attorney's office, other higher consultants on the public, publicly

[3:55:48] public retainer cannot be used to draft or consult on an argument either. The subcommittee

[3:55:55] would basically have to come together as like two private citizens write the argument

[3:56:00] in their own time on their own resources like their own computer or something like that.

[3:56:06] And then they would file that directly with the city clerk.

[3:56:08] The city as a public agency would have no involvement in writing that argument.

[3:56:14] And again, if you do not designate this evening, then any citizen or association out in the

[3:56:19] community can do so, and likewise, they would be doing that themselves.

[3:56:24] They would not be coming to the city, asking for any resources or assistance in writing that.

[3:56:31] But now it's the measures on the ballot in your private capacity, in your private

[3:56:35] citizen capacity, not using public time or public time.

[3:56:39] You can still advocate and trade over the measure.

[3:56:42] You can certainly do that.

[3:56:43] You just have to be very mindful of when you're wearing your public servant hat and

[3:56:47] when you're wearing your private citizen hat.

[3:56:50] To clarify that, then would that be using your title to, I'm assuming we've not be able

[3:56:56] to use our title.

[3:56:57] We would just use our name as an individual, is that correct?

[3:57:01] I tend to think it's not that big of a deal to use your title because there is not a

[3:57:09] particularly monetary value in using the title.

[3:57:14] So I'm comfortable with you even as a private citizen using your title I would advise that if you are in a private citizen capacity that if you express an opinion of support or opposition that you make it clear that this is my personal opinion my personal position.

[3:57:33] This is not expressing the position of the city.

[3:57:36] Okay, and Mr. Singer had a point out.

[3:57:38] Yes, if I could just interject, BBK has helped to put a simple kind of one-page reminder of the do's and don'ts, kind of the rules of the game.

[3:57:48] I just distributed that to our staff earlier this week, it will be in my Friday update to the council this week.

[3:57:56] So I'll make sure you have that in your hands and it's just a helpful reminder to the vice mayor's question.

[3:58:02] Thank you. So this is requesting direction not necessarily a vote. Do we have a strong

[3:58:12] opinion on this as a council on whether we want to be responsible for putting the argument

[3:58:20] on the ballot or not? Councilmember Crossweight.

[3:58:24] I'm inclined to say we're giving the community a choice, and if community would like to put together a ballot argument, then that would be the direction that I personally would lean.

[3:58:40] I don't know if someone feels strongly in the opposite direction.

[3:58:43] Not in the opposite, but I also feel, as I mentioned last time, I think we should stay as impartial and unattached to this as much as possible as public officials.

[3:58:54] But it comes from a cross-white said, certainly give free reign to anybody out there in the community that would like to speak on behalf of this.

[3:59:03] Any other, same or opposing?

[3:59:08] I think the clarification that was given, you know, provides us guidance in terms of

[3:59:14] our individual ability as private citizens to advocate for something.

[3:59:20] I actually believe the opposite.

[3:59:22] I don't believe we live in Switzerland.

[3:59:23] I think neutrality on this issue, especially in the space that we're in, in the environment

[3:59:29] We're in with social media that we're purviewed to a lot of information that our residents don't necessarily know, understand, know how to navigate.

[3:59:46] So they elect us, they trust us to be a voice for them on these issues.

[3:59:51] and I think we know, you know,

[4:00:00] So, where we stand in terms of our finances, our budget, where we're heading, and I believe

[4:00:10] in being and being a strong advocate for something that I know is the right thing to do.

[4:00:16] Not only for our residents, but for our staff, the future of our community. This bond measure

[4:00:24] There is, in my view, a make it or break it moment in time.

[4:00:32] And because of that level of urgency, you know, we see where the numbers are.

[4:00:37] We have a finance presentation coming up right after this where we're going to get some

[4:00:41] bleak information.

[4:00:45] We have to, I believe, in using our influence as a body to make a statement because we have

[4:00:53] that information.

[4:00:53] We have that knowledge knowing what's ahead and I don't want to be in a position where we're going to have to make

[4:01:00] cuts or we're not going to be able to fix our streets in the timely manner that our community is expecting and

[4:01:09] So I counter the argument of neutrality on this issue because it is going to be a nail-biter

[4:01:15] We see that when we double step up and we just let things happen we look at the school board

[4:01:23] bond. And we know what a bond measure can do for the learning environment of the school district,

[4:01:31] the community. And so this bond measure is really critical to our ability to best serve our

[4:01:42] residents. And I would urge us to, if we're going to take a stand on something, this is something

[4:01:52] that we should take a stand on, because of the influence that we do have, currently with

[4:02:00] being gatekeepers of sorts for the community.

[4:02:05] But I do respect the neutrality that my colleagues represent.

[4:02:10] But I'm glad that we have guidance in terms of whatever decisions made here tonight.

[4:02:16] I'll respect that decision, and I will put my neck out and

[4:02:19] in the line as a private citizen out there because I believe in this measure.

[4:02:25] Metambees.

[4:02:26] I just want to caution before somebody else speaks that not to get into the merits of the

[4:02:33] ballot measure again since we already discussed that the last meeting and this item is about

[4:02:40] delegating somebody if council so chooses.

[4:02:42] I appreciate that.

[4:02:45] It's actually for that same reason that I'm going to weigh in on the allowing the public

[4:02:51] to speak on the ballot because certainly members of the public who would advocate for this

[4:02:58] would make the argument and the numbers greater not smaller than being just limited to a council

[4:03:07] advocating can be seen politically in a different way.

[4:03:11] And so, to attempt to keep us separate from the political part of the discussion in the arguments and allow us individually to go out and advocate as individuals for this, should weigh as much, especially if allowed to use a title to identify ourselves rather than saying I am a member of the council, but I speak for myself on the benefits of this, I think would be sufficient.

[4:03:40] and so I to feel have some reservations about putting it on the ballot and also being the

[4:03:47] the the the sole argument for for the passage of that. But yes.

[4:03:54] Well, just to add just to be clear, I'm not advocating that individually outside of this

[4:03:59] meaning we don't take we can't take a position. I'm just saying that in terms of the actual

[4:04:06] Well, argument, I'm not sure that we're the ones that should be making the ballot argument, one way or the other.

[4:04:17] So with a majority of you feeling that inclination, which would be not to have the council endorse something and allow the residents to do so.

[4:04:29] So, would there be any objection to an individual council member volunteering to be part of, I think we're allowed up to five signatories to the argument?

[4:04:47] Mr. Singer, if I am, I just jump in for a second.

[4:04:52] If the council is inclined to delegate an argument to a subcommittee, they can certainly entertain.

[4:05:00] In that motion, this evening, if they are not inclined to do so, then they can just not take any action this evening. And individual council members are still free to politically associate with those in the community. And if they want to visually sign an argument, that's their prerogative. And they can certainly do that. There doesn't have to be any action this evening to authorize them to do that. And I didn't mean to imply that. I'm looking kind of more from a decorum standpoint.

[4:05:29] point to not have conflicts amongst our elected officials and make sure that there's just

[4:05:36] a nod that you're not uncomfortable if an individual was part of those residents that

[4:05:43] stepped forward.

[4:05:44] I think that the attorney's advice does not make me uncomfortable.

[4:05:50] I would agree.

[4:05:53] Good.

[4:05:54] I think.

[4:05:55] Good.

[4:05:55] I cannot act at this point.

[4:05:56] Could I add one more thing in there, and Mr. Priest, if you can correct me if I'm wrong, there can only be one rebuttal, so if one council member wants to do that on their own, and then another one wants to do it on their own only one rebuttal will go through, is that correct?

[4:06:14] If you could bring that to the attention of us.

[4:06:17] Certainly, certainly.

[4:06:19] Under the elections code, what happens is there's an opportunity for an argument in favor

[4:06:25] and argument against to be five.

[4:06:28] If multiple arguments are filed on one side or the other, there's a priority list of the

[4:06:33] elections come that helps the city for determine which one gets selected.

[4:06:38] And if that one is selected, and there is also an argument selected for the against side,

[4:06:45] then there can be rebuttals.

[4:06:48] But there was only one rebuttal for each sign that's written by the people whose argument was selected for the first argument.

[4:06:56] You cannot have, you know, completely separate groups doing rebuttals from the primary argument.

[4:07:04] Thank you.

[4:07:06] Appreciate that.

[4:07:07] So, we, the direction is to not take a, take action on this at this time.

[4:07:12] Is that correct?

[4:07:13] Okay.

[4:07:14] That is sufficient for your purposes, correct?

[4:07:18] Yes.

[4:07:18] Thank you.

[4:07:19] Okay.

[4:07:20] Thank you, Madam Mayor.

[4:07:21] All right.

[4:07:21] Thanks for-

[4:07:22] Thank you, Mr. Priest.

[4:07:23] And for waiting us out tonight.

[4:07:25] We appreciate your time.

[4:07:28] Thank you.

[4:07:30] Okay.

[4:07:30] With that, we will move on to item 11F, fiscal year 2325, mid-cycle budget.

[4:07:37] Please.

[4:07:38] Director Ramirez.

[4:07:39] Thank you.

[4:07:40] meeting mayor and council. As noted, we'll be presenting the mid-cycle budget for fiscal year

[4:07:47] 2325. That's 2324 and 2425, the biannual budget that you adopted in June of 2023. The fiscal year

[4:07:57] has technically closed. However, we do have a 60-day crawl period, which I'll get into a little bit more.

[4:08:04] I want to start off before we get into the weeds of the figures of the mid-cycle

[4:08:11] adjustments, touching on two topics that are one that was previously presented to you

[4:08:16] and one that is being presented to you tonight for adoption.

[4:08:19] Previously presented to you was a balanced budget policy wherein we requested to have counsel

[4:08:28] adopt a policy really encompassing the idea of a two-year budget, where that budget would

[4:08:35] be balanced over a two-year period. Council had some very valid questions that were asked

[4:08:43] of staff on June 19th. I apologize. There are questions I should have asked myself

[4:08:48] and I normally do. I think we're hoping to get it before the June 30th deadline. And staff

[4:08:57] has since gone and researched per council's direction.

[4:09:03] Unfortunately, that research had two outcomes.

[4:09:09] The first is that the auditor said they had no problem

[4:09:11] with the idea of a two year balance budget.

[4:09:17] As long as in the first year,

[4:09:18] you're not using reserves to balance

[4:09:19] the revenue that would be coming in in the second year,

[4:09:22] which kind of defeats the idea of a balance budget, right?

[4:09:26] in reality then all you're doing is using carry-over surplus funds.

[4:09:31] The local comparison that we use from another city included language regarding a minimum

[4:09:37] fund balance which again kind of has the same idea of at the end of the day you're just

[4:09:43] using existing fund balance for them it might be a little bit different in that they don't

[4:09:48] move any excess or surplus at the end of the year to their reserve fund and that might be

[4:09:54] the difference between that city and our city. Again, my contact there isn't

[4:09:58] longer there, so I wasn't able to.

[4:10:00] Follow up and kind of dig a little bit deeper into their thought process. But with that, that means that we are not returning to you with a balanced budget policy for adoption. Instead, what we're going to do is we're going to return to you with a request to use reserves for the first fiscal year shortfall. As you know, staff has come to you multiple times throughout this past year, letting you know that there were going to be revenue shortfalls.

[4:10:29] some of which we're going to be permanent.

[4:10:32] They were not going to be revenues that were going to be realized because of project changes

[4:10:37] to certain development activity.

[4:10:40] Others were revenues that were going to be realized in the coming fiscal year due to delays

[4:10:46] to some development activity.

[4:10:49] So the budget is balanced for 2324 on the permanent revenue side.

[4:10:55] However, for the delayed revenue, that's where the idea of the balance budget came in because we're no longer pursuing that.

[4:11:05] We'll need to return to you just like we do with emergencies to request the use of reserve funds.

[4:11:12] Thankfully those reserve funds will be supplemented or replaced within the first couple of months of the year because like we said,

[4:11:21] the revenues expected is just delayed.

[4:11:26] However, because while we are in July, we do have a two-month

[4:11:30] period where revenues continue to be received, so we'll have a better idea in August of where things

[4:11:37] stand. Most significantly for cell stacks. Cell stacks happens on a two-month look-back period,

[4:11:46] and the first two months in every quarter are advances based on prior

[4:11:50] your activity and the third quarter is when they really true up the total. So

[4:11:55] that money won't be receivable around August 25th but they'll let us know by

[4:11:59] August 12th so we should be able to come to council at least communicates a

[4:12:03] council what the final figures will be towards the end of August and then come in

[4:12:07] September with a resolution for that.

[4:12:13] The other option the other item that's being

[4:12:15] And presented is the GAN Annual Limit, that is something that has noted in the staff report on this slide is an adoption that occurs every year typically on a one year budget cycle.

[4:12:30] It gets adopted with the budget for this year and last budget cycle, we've had to come to you in the middle of the budget cycle to adopt this year's because we don't receive the data from the states or from the department of finance.

[4:12:45] with the present population that includes the numbers that we use to calculate until May.

[4:12:51] So that is also being presented to you today.

[4:12:57] So we have two slides really, then encompass what is being requested.

[4:13:03] Again, unfortunately decreased revenues.

[4:13:07] The good news is that for the most part, the two big numbers that you see up there are numbers that were previously communicated to you.

[4:13:15] and have been addressed with expense decreases and expense as we'll get into in the next slide.

[4:13:23] The building permits and plan check fees decreases of one point, almost $1.2 million

[4:13:30] related to the same development activity that had their project scope changed.

[4:13:35] The school resource officer reimbursement, originally we had around $300,000 that we were

[4:13:42] hoping to get reimbursed in the past that would amount was closer to 250 and as it goes,

[4:13:48] as time goes, you know, that amount increases because we had new officers who didn't have

[4:13:57] the significant unfunded accrued liability costs associated with them in those positions.

[4:14:01] We ended up getting lower revenues recognized. This is actually still reflecting two officers,

[4:14:09] to full-time school resource officers, so if we end up not having to, that number will go down again.

[4:14:16] For property taxes, we've increased, actually let me stick to the decreases.

[4:14:22] Sales tax is another figure that we communicated in the past to be lower than the projected amounts,

[4:14:30] and we'll know whether that figure of 260,000 for next year's revenues of 3.4 million

[4:14:36] and is reflective of what we're seeing based on the August activity on the positive side.

[4:14:46] The property taxes, we don't typically budget for residuals because they range significantly.

[4:14:54] This past year, we had $200,000 in residuals.

[4:14:57] the year prior to that was I want to

[4:15:00] We're going to see 90,000, so it really ranges. I'm comfortable with 100,000 that's a little conservative amount. And what we're going to do is we're going to we're going to do a really detailed analysis of a breakdown between residuals and regular ongoing property taxes because that's one of the questions that always gets asked of us is how much is just our regular portion of property taxes and then how much is the true up when people buy a house and they have to do supplemental taxes.

[4:15:29] So we're going to have a more detailed analysis, but for now I'm very comfortable with

[4:15:34] 100,000 and I actually feel like we might be able to go a little bit higher.

[4:15:40] So that shortfall in revenues is being offset with a significant change in the budgeted expenses

[4:15:51] and primarily those are going to be, I'm going to narrow it down to three categories.

[4:15:57] categories. The first is actually four categories. The first is a lot of savings in IT. You have a

[4:16:06] very confident and capable IT manager who feels that he has already saved a lot of money, and he likes to

[4:16:13] remind me of it every time, but can find additional savings or at least postpone some things that can be

[4:16:20] postpone to another year. The second is $40,000 for the re-key system of City Hall that

[4:16:29] is the Parks and Recreation Director feels can wait another year. And the last is the implementation

[4:16:37] of the Compton Class Study for this year because obviously we didn't have the Compton Class Study

[4:16:43] last year. So we do have in the increased column $50,000 identified within that $75,000 for

[4:16:54] the Compton Class Study. And the hope is that in the future we will have the funds to

[4:17:00] be able to implement what is found in the Compton Class Study. And also included in the increased

[4:17:06] This column is $27,000 for, oh, I should note, Council originally budgeted $50,000.

[4:17:13] We are requesting $75,000 for the Compton Cast Study this year, because we are seeing

[4:17:18] increased estimates of that study.

[4:17:22] Second is the increase of $50,000 for legal costs, which we can discuss more, but we're finding

[4:17:31] that the retainer amounts that was agreed to were exceeding that amount for a variety of

[4:17:41] different reasons including public records requests and some other investigations and

[4:17:46] whatnot that were going on. And lastly is $55,000 for the Mark 43 system. Mark 43 is the new

[4:17:58] system in PD that thankfully ARPA was able to fund. However, what was not

[4:18:07] incorporated was the difference between TrackNet, the previous system of

[4:18:11] $26,000 per year versus Mark 43, the ongoing annual amount of $8,000 per year.

[4:18:18] So this is incorporating that difference. Any questions before I move on from

[4:18:24] on this side.

[4:18:26] Okay.

[4:18:29] So that's obviously not the same amount as the revenue shortfall.

[4:18:34] And this is the last category that I mentioned earlier and that is the savings, the salary

[4:18:41] savings from vacant positions that are expected in the next fiscal year. And the City Manager

[4:18:47] will speak more on that. I will say that if anyone notices that the amount is balanced

[4:18:54] and perfectly from the revenue shortfall to the amount that is being decreased, that

[4:19:00] is intentional.

[4:19:01] We do actually anticipate that there might be more savings.

[4:19:04] There should be more savings.

[4:19:06] There will be more savings.

[4:19:07] Let me be more confident on that.

[4:19:09] There will be more savings from these vacant positions, and also from the hiring of newer officers,

[4:19:17] and staff will come back to you, we're currently doing a more detailed analysis and updating

[4:19:22] our complete budget numbers so that we have very specific figures to come back to you.

[4:19:29] It also is a more conservative approach just like we are doing with the property taxes.

[4:19:36] So as you know, labor is our largest expense.

[4:19:39] It is for any governmental organization, it's our people that are out there doing the work.

[4:19:46] So being able to identify either freezing or reducing the time that bodies are spent in positions.

[4:19:54] At the beginning of a fiscal year, it allows us also to realize the greatest cost of savings.

[4:20:01] We went into an exercise with the executive team three weeks ago, both on the supplies and services, as Ms. Ramirez just covered with you, where it is that we know we're going to need more money, but also where it is we felt we could save money. And we also have come up with opportunities to reduce costs related to personnel savings. So I want to be clear about just a few things.

[4:20:30] A few things here. One is that we're not proposing elimination of any of these positions.

[4:20:36] We would hope to be able to fill many of them, even this fiscal year, that might just have to come later in the fiscal year if things are looking up.

[4:20:47] And these all come with the support of the departments who had requested them.

[4:20:53] So I just wanted you to know this isn't a top down, okay, Dan took a knife to these positions.

[4:21:01] These were offered up from our departments all trying to do their part to help us have a balanced budget.

[4:21:09] I want to mostly point out that in the police department, because I'm sure you would have concerns about taking sworn officers off the street.

[4:21:19] That's not what's happening here.

[4:21:20] As you know, we had a fairly significant departure of more tenured personnel in the police

[4:21:27] department that we have since hired back and are almost fully staffed at the officer level.

[4:21:37] We have one upcoming resignation that the chief is already in the process of looking at

[4:21:44] replacing.

[4:21:44] So, what we do have, however, is at the higher levels at the sergeant and senior officer levels,

[4:21:53] vacancies that we don't yet have people ready to fill.

[4:21:58] We are going to do some external recruiting for some of our sergeant vacancies

[4:22:04] and also some internal promotions.

[4:22:06] So, we anticipate trying to fill one or two of those spots.

[4:22:10] But that last sixth position, we could realistically see being vacant for at least this next year.

[4:22:21] And then with some of the senior officers that would still open up the opportunity for internal promotion.

[4:22:27] But realistically with a lot of the new hires, they simply wouldn't have the mandatory requirements to move up until they've got a few years under their belt.

[4:22:37] So this just reflects the opportunity to save money in positions we're not going to be able to fill, but it's not related to getting

[4:22:46] cops out on the street and I just wanted the public to understand that and also the council to be clear on that and

[4:22:51] Mr. Aguilar is still holding down one of the seats in the back of the room if you have questions for him

[4:22:59] as are some of our other directors.

[4:23:00] Directors where you see like three months or six months listed what it relates to is that it will

[4:23:09] mean if if there's three months of savings, it means that we will allow that position to be filled, but

[4:23:15] Realistically, we might just now be starting to advertise for it and so we know that

[4:23:19] We'll have three months of salary savings until we get someone in that in that chair

[4:23:26] Same thing was something that might say six months

[4:23:29] where we do still anticipate filling the position, we'll just do it a little later into the fiscal year.

[4:23:36] With that, I'll take any questions about personnel, and then, either Ms. Ramirez or I could answer questions about the budget recommendations.

[4:23:47] I see.

[4:23:50] In terms of community and economic development, there's two positions listed on here, Associate Planner and Community Development Technician.

[4:23:58] We talked about there being a bottleneck and your team having to basically all hands on Zach, which again, this is a department that we're relying on for future growth, economic growth, that's going to bring in tax revenue.

[4:24:17] You know,

[4:24:20] of these two positions would freeing up one of those positions at least, help with speeding up the permitting issue.

[4:24:36] And my big concern is that when you have it all heads on deck, something falls through the cracks.

[4:24:42] and I believe that you've been, your department has been doing a lot again with last but we really,

[4:24:51] if we're going to do something that's going to have an impact, you need more hands

[4:24:56] or there needs to be more people to help you.

[4:25:00] For all the great things that are happening within your department. So, can you elaborate a little bit about how these two positions, what their roles and responsibilities are and? Yes, based on being able to get permits out and get plan checks done. What's really critical, that could help us is that community development technician. And this six month period really fits within that. We need to modify that. I've already talked to HR about modifying that

[4:25:29] that position, that community development technician is very much entry-level planning position

[4:25:35] and we'd like to have the job description be more in alignment with what the title is

[4:25:43] that it's a, we call it a utility player within the department.

[4:25:48] So modifying that position, advertising for that position, that six-month period makes

[4:25:55] make sense for us to be able to work through that to have that available and and we can

[4:26:00] start to recalibrate what we have inside and we'll have input and implementation of

[4:26:05] city gate stuff. So it's it works with what we want to do and what we need to do.

[4:26:11] Because we will need to come back to council with a new job description and classification.

[4:26:15] Yeah. My biggest concern is that we cut six months down the road. And then we don't have the fund.

[4:26:24] Well, what's not listed on there, which is still in recruitment is building inspector, which frees up our code person and gives us another person.

[4:26:34] So that, so we're on the same page.

[4:26:38] And if I may mention the community economics development technician used to be 12 months when we started this process and your city managers had the same thought.

[4:26:46] and so that was changed to six months for the same reason.

[4:26:51] Accelerate that.

[4:26:55] Councilmember.

[4:26:55] Thank you, Mayor.

[4:26:56] Well, I'm looking at the accounting specialist.

[4:26:58] Is that a position that, because we don't have it,

[4:27:01] we're not making billing or keeping up with revenue coming in?

[4:27:05] I mean, wouldn't that position kind of help pay for itself?

[4:27:08] So I'm biased, obviously, and I actually just

[4:27:14] I had a conversation with my existing accounting specialist who's doing double duty and in the context of another conversation, I said, hey, I noticed the CPI increase didn't happen on this and he said, I'm so sorry, it was just I dropped the ball with having both positions so there's definitely an impact on staff and on what's occurring, I would hope that we are still doing our best to follow up on accounts receivable as needed.

[4:27:43] However, most more importantly, that position covers business licenses.

[4:27:49] So we felt that the three months was the most that that position could be not filled because that would get them to be hired in October.

[4:27:58] Business licenses, you know, normally goes out in November for renewals.

[4:28:02] So again, your city manager to his credit also said if we're able to fill that a little bit sooner.

[4:28:10] But like Dan said, everyone wanted to make sure that they were doing their part in considering the short fall revenue shortfall.

[4:28:16] All your department directors thought hard about what we could do without and that's what we thought for three months.

[4:28:23] And like we said, Dan said, we could start recruitment for now.

[4:28:27] Well, thank you, and it's understood that you'll work, somebody mistakes are going to happen, so.

[4:28:32] But thank you, but that's a good consideration to wait because of the explanation you gave.

[4:28:37] Okay.

[4:28:40] Any other questions?

[4:28:43] Do we have the motion to raise your vote?

[4:28:45] There's a, I don't adopt, yeah.

[4:28:49] Can I ask a question about savings where there I know the, so the chief in his presentation

[4:28:59] tonight talked about the utilizing the Sheriff's Academy, we saved money, and for the benefit

[4:29:05] To the public, I understand how it works when getting reimbursed from post,

[4:29:10] but can maybe the chief or finance director can explain that those reimbursements from post or

[4:29:16] peace officer standards of training are, you know, into the next fiscal year or the next year.

[4:29:21] And so how do you, how do you reconcile that?

[4:29:24] That's a wonderful question.

[4:29:25] So you now have a chief of police who is very supportive of finance staff and

[4:29:29] has said that he would be willing to let us, you know, get into the weeds and reconcile

[4:29:34] because we, the revenue, so it's difficult. Number one, post tells us we're only going

[4:29:40] to reimburse you $75 per day. So it's without the detail, it's hard for us to reconcile

[4:29:46] of what was spent, how much is getting reimbursed, what was actually submitted to get reimbursed,

[4:29:51] that's just we're not very hands on on the financial side. But again, Chief Aguilar has opened

[4:29:58] the door for us. There's been a

[4:30:00] A couple of hiccups with post and getting approval and authorization, but we are on the path to having a better answer for you. Right now, what I can tell you is that some of the revenue that is received or at least was received in 2324 was from years past. So there is a significant delay in that.

[4:30:23] It's not urgent obviously, but sometimes down the road it would be nice to see over these last 10 years how much we've saved versus going out of the county for training and thank you Chief for bringing training back to venture county.

[4:30:37] That information I can give you because we did do an analysis of that and there was a mixture because there is obviously a cost savings to not having $10,000 spent on.

[4:30:51] and on hotel costs because this is not,

[4:30:56] it sounds like a lot, but they're there for months on end.

[4:30:59] So it's for lots of weeks worth of hotel accommodations.

[4:31:03] But there's also been a change

[4:31:06] from having folks share rooms, having individual rooms

[4:31:10] and we've asked other cities, do you make folks share rooms

[4:31:13] and the answers no?

[4:31:15] So I think we're doing, at the time we were doing the best

[4:31:18] we could, we're obviously doing better now

[4:31:20] All by having no hotel costs and having it be local, but we can definitely provide you that information.

[4:31:26] No, I'm not advocating for you to do any extra work right now.

[4:31:30] Take your time if it takes a year or two, but it'd be nice sometimes down the road to know what we've saved or actually more.

[4:31:35] So how much more we were expanding that we probably shouldn't have.

[4:31:38] But it's not important this time.

[4:31:40] Thank you very much.

[4:31:43] Okay, any other questions or a motion?

[4:31:46] Motion to adopt resolution 7523 amending the fiscal year 2425 budget, and adopting the fiscal year 2425 GANN limit.

[4:31:59] I'll second that motion, Mayor.

[4:32:01] Okay. Any other questions before we vote? All those in favor?

[4:32:05] Aye.

[4:32:06] Opposed? Okay. Thank you very much and also for being here so late.

[4:32:16] Okay.

[4:32:16] Okay, we skipped council reports and City Manager Report, so we can run through those relatively quickly.

[4:32:29] I believe we'll just pull that line so

[4:32:37] we will go back to items 8 and 9, Vice Mayor, do you have a report?

[4:32:44] I'm going to skip my report for this evening.

[4:32:46] All right.

[4:32:47] Council Member Crosswhite.

[4:32:49] Just real quick, I did attend two board retreats, one for the Clean Power Alliance, which short version is it was one of the best-run interactive things like that that I've done.

[4:33:05] It was really great.

[4:33:06] They had lots of small group conversations around everything from rate-setting to governance to business models and all kinds of things.

[4:33:15] it was great. And then I also attended a two-day SCAG executive board retreat.

[4:33:23] And then just of all of the other things that happened, just really want to re-emphasize

[4:33:30] how great it was to be able to be there at the graduation for our future leader academy.

[4:33:37] We had a great group of individuals and I really hope that we'll see that again. Thank you.

[4:33:44] Councilmember Horace.

[4:33:45] Thank you, Mayor.

[4:33:45] Just a few things.

[4:33:47] On the 20th, I went to the regional sanitation district where we talk about some expansion and renovations going on the landfill.

[4:33:55] And as it happened, I went yesterday to the landfill to take some personal trash up there in Saisal.

[4:34:02] First hand, some of the improvements are doing.

[4:34:04] I went on the Friday the 21st and robin of a new superior court judge.

[4:34:09] This was Judge Dana K. Caudill, it's only the second one I've ever attended, it's a very nice ceremony where a judge is elevated by a point of a Governor Newsom to the bench.

[4:34:22] I attended, as other council members, it's the youth pride event on the 23rd Sunday.

[4:34:26] We all had a Joint City Council Planning Commission meeting on the 24th.

[4:34:30] I think most of us attended the future leaders' graduation.

[4:34:34] There was an annual historical site dinner where we talked about the 122 years of law enforcement chief Aguilar and retired chief of dare spoke as well.

[4:34:45] Let's see, obviously yesterday we had some interviews and then today myself and the mayor helped cook breakfast for the senior, I guess it was the 4th of July pancake breakfast at the senior center.

[4:35:00] And there was a citizen's court meeting at 10 o'clock, and I attended virtually, as we have been, and Chief Williams is in the room, and I did ask him about some of the efforts during the fireworks season. And he said that every year during our fireworks display, they actually have engines or station, just in case just like years ago, there was a mishap at a fireworks display. But because we're using drones this year, he didn't mention that there's going to be a 20 person hand crew that's going to be going between the county line of Ventura to say.

[4:35:29] part of the valley during the firework season.

[4:35:33] And as you heard earlier tonight, there is a upcoming cert training, right, and say

[4:35:40] cert on August 14th, and that's my report, Mayor.

[4:35:43] Thank you.

[4:35:44] Thank you.

[4:35:46] I have a long report.

[4:35:47] I'll give the short report.

[4:35:50] Again, it was really special to be a part, attend the graduation of the Santa Paula Future

[4:35:55] leaders of the academy and what a successful program that turned out to be thanks to a lot

[4:35:59] of work staff, including Mirka, and I've forgotten her last name, so forgive me because I go

[4:36:07] by first name, so it was so many here.

[4:36:10] I intended two memorials over the weekend, Gary Nasal Road and Ruben Gaeta.

[4:36:17] Each one was attended by 350 to 400 people.

[4:36:21] different segments of the community but it was just really touching to see such huge

[4:36:27] communities turning out and they all talked about the importance of family and friends

[4:36:33] and just very common things to bring you back to reality and all the rest has been mentioned

[4:36:42] or can be assumed that we were at other meetings so I'm going to call it that city manager how

[4:36:48] How about you?

[4:36:49] Thank you, Madam Mayor, members of the council, and thank you ice mayor for asking me to do the water thing earlier.

[4:36:58] It's helpful, but just a couple of announcements and some upcoming issues.

[4:37:05] The first is that we've been experiencing some phone telephone problems, especially in our billing and finance department.

[4:37:13] We've been in communication with our providers.

[4:37:16] Our IT officer today confirmed for me that he's been doing kind of a work around, but I just wanted the public to know if they're experiencing dropped calls, it's not because our employees are dropping those, we're having system problems, so we're trying to get those addressed.

[4:37:36] We will be closed, of course, for July 4th.

[4:37:38] The evening of July 4th will have our first ever drone show instead of a fireworks show

[4:37:44] And we're excited about that. You might have seen the article in the star will be the only city in the county to do a drone show

[4:37:51] Now that's not to say that there aren't other drone shows, but for the 4th of July will be the first

[4:37:58] As you know, the X Games just did some and the fair will be doing drones this fair season

[4:38:04] And Harvard has finally gotten started.

[4:38:10] As we said earlier, we're moving quickly.

[4:38:14] Contractors are making great progress, the weather helps, I think.

[4:38:18] And appreciate the community's tolerance of all the problems there,

[4:38:23] especially the businesses that are being impacted.

[4:38:26] But they're moving through quickly, and we would hope by end of next week to pretty much be near done.

[4:38:33] Now, eventually, they'll have to come back and do the striping, but it'll be really nice

[4:38:38] to see.

[4:38:39] Cruise night is this next Friday, don't forget that.

[4:38:45] And finally, thank you for your patience in such a lengthy meeting tonight, but for

[4:38:53] as a reward, we go dark for the rest of the month, so enjoy your time off, enjoy July.

[4:38:59] why we do not anticipate any special meetings being necessary, and we'll look forward to reconvening in August.

[4:39:08] Very well.

[4:39:09] Yes, please.

[4:39:11] I just want to add something so when the City Manager and I were driving down hard, we're curious because we said hey, that looks like almost four inches of asphalt.

[4:39:19] So we actually jumped out real quick and measured it and it was about three and a half, three and three quarter inches thick.

[4:39:25] So I know you've seen on different medias that it's like two inches or whatever, but it's actually three and three and a half

[4:39:31] Maybe a little bit more three and five eights, but

[4:39:35] And that's at the apex, right and there's something different about maybe a little bit at the slope or so

[4:39:41] Anyway, just thought I'd bring that up. Thank you. It's a lot of asphalt. Yes

[4:39:47] It's really exciting. There's a lot of celebrating going on with that. It's just pretty amazing when you drive on that just

[4:39:53] A lot of shouting and hoots.

[4:39:55] We will plan kind of a grand opening.

[4:39:58] Obviously the street will be open.

[4:40:00] Throughout, but probably looking at late and August. Pretty exciting. Simple pleasures, but boy, it's really- We're all in town. Wonderful. We appreciate that. And also with- we have future agenda items, anything to mention at this point to- that's on the agenda. They are not a future agenda item, but what is the progress for a question of future presentation?

[4:40:26] Future presentation? Run it through the mayor and the city manager. Okay.

[4:40:30] Thank you.

[4:40:31] Thank you.

[4:40:32] Great.

[4:40:33] Anything else?

[4:40:34] Are the good of the order?

[4:40:36] I wish everyone a safe and wonderful 4th of July and wonderful month off and we'll see you

[4:40:43] early Augusta.

[4:40:45] And we are adjourned.

City Council Regular

Agenda

Transcript