[0:03] Thank you very much.

[0:25] get a chair.

[0:52] thank you.

[1:12] thank you.

[1:30] thank you.

[1:50] thank you.

[2:16] thank you.

[2:37] bring this meeting to order and we will start

[3:05] I'd like to invite elder jeff anderson of christ community church to lead the

[3:09] invocation.

[3:17] heavenly father, we praise you god and give you thanks for all of your mighty works.

[3:23] you are loving, good, and gracious.

[3:25] thank you for creating us and sustaining us day by day.

[3:29] thank you for making us in your image to exist in community with other people.

[3:33] father, you have created us to love you with our whole hearts and to love our

[3:36] neighbors as ourselves.

[3:38] we often fall short of these commandments.

[3:41] we have sinned and fall short of your glory.

[3:44] we acknowledge that there is a severe cost for us turning our backs on you.

[3:47] yet you've demonstrated your love for us and that while we were still sinners, christ

[3:50] died for us.

[3:52] it is by your grace we have a path to both forgiveness and salvation through faith in

[3:56] jesus.

[3:57] you have said that you stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hears your voice

[4:01] and opens the door,

[4:02] you will come in.

[4:03] all who receive jesus and believe in his name have the right to become children of

[4:06] god.

[4:08] we thank you for our city.

[4:10] from lewis moulton's sheep and cattle ranch over 150 years ago, you have blessed this

[4:14] community with incredible progress.

[4:17] thank you for our elected officials, the businesses, the churches, the schools, the

[4:21] families,

[4:22] and the individuals that make the city the great place that it is.

[4:26] we know that in your sovereignty, you have placed these leaders here for this time.

[4:30] grant that our city would be known as a righteous city, a city of peace and hope, a

[4:35] city with happy homes,

[4:37] a city that welcomes the stranger, a city that cares for the needy, a city that

[4:41] defends the innocent from evil.

[4:44] we are here this evening to serve the people of our city.

[4:47] we ask for your wisdom for our mayor, our city council members, and all city staff.

[4:52] give them clear minds, patient hearts, and a strong sense of justice as they make

[4:56] choices today.

[4:58] help them to listen well to one another, to respect diverse views, and to seek the

[5:02] common good for every neighbor.

[5:05] grant them peace, unity, and integrity in these discussions.

[5:09] we pray for safety for our first responders and others who provide care to our

[5:12] community.

[5:13] we thank you for those who both serve and sacrifice for our city and help our

[5:16] neighbors who are in need.

[5:19] we pray that you would continue to bless those who serve here

[5:22] for our future prosperity.

[5:24] all the glory of god is yours.

[5:26] in the name of the father, son, and the holy spirit.

[5:28] amen.

[5:29] amen.

[5:30] thank you very much.

[5:32] and the pledge will be led by council member pezold.

[5:38] please stand.

[5:39] place your right hand over your heart and repeat after me.

[5:42] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic

[5:47] for which it stands, one nation under god,

[6:00] city clerk who for the roll call city council.

[6:04] yes.

[6:04] thank you.

[6:04] mr mayor let the record show that all members of council are present in chambers okay

[6:11] I'm gonna take the liberty to move item

[6:16] three point here it is three point

[6:22] or

[6:22] 5.3.1 up, having to do with the proposed update to the city of laguna hills banner

[6:30] program.

[6:32] we have a special guest, the principal at laguna hills high school,

[6:36] and I would like to have him to be able to get in and out as expediently as possible.

[6:44] so with that, we will start with director holland.

[6:51] thank you.

[6:53] good evening, mayor caskey and members of the city council.

[6:56] I have a brief introduction to this item before I would like to introduce our special

[6:58] guest.

[7:00] on march 24th, 2026, city council approved a hybrid street pole banner program

[7:03] consisting of two permanent banner designs and three rotating designs that would

[7:08] allow the city to incorporate seasonal and community messaging throughout the year.

[7:12] since that time, the three new banner designs have been installed throughout the city.

[7:16] the civic center banner, the welcome banner, and the special america 250 banner.

[7:20] the america 250 banners are scheduled to come down at the end of september.

[7:23] at that time, they would be replaced with a new seasonal banner, while the civic

[7:26] center and welcome banners would remain in place.

[7:29] at the beginning of summer, staff was approached by laguna hills high school about

[7:32] incorporating high school banners into the city's banner program.

[7:35] at this time, I would like to introduce laguna hills high school principal brent

[7:38] dohling to share his vision for the banner program.

[7:43] welcome.

[7:48] well good evening mayor caskey members of the city council and those in attendance

[7:53] this evening my name is brent dohling and it is

[7:57] truly a blessing to stand before you tonight as the principal of laguna hills high

[8:00] school thank you for allowing me to speak this

[8:03] evening about our banner projects on behalf of our school and the hawks that have

[8:07] soared above the rest for nearly 50 years at laguna

[8:11] hills high school as the principal of our city's only high school,

[8:16] I have made it a priority in our school's strategic plan to strengthen the connection

[8:21] between our high school and our community.

[8:25] our message at laguna hills high school is simple.

[8:28] one town, one team.

[8:31] those words represent more than a slogan.

[8:34] it connects our high school with our city.

[8:37] because our students don't just attend laguna hills high school, they represent the

[8:41] city of laguna hills.

[8:44] every time they compete, perform, volunteer, achieve, or graduate, they carry the

[8:50] name of the city with them.

[8:53] our street pole banner project has two main objectives.

[8:57] showcase the partnership between the city and laguna hills high school and celebrate

[9:01] our students in programs that make laguna hills high school special

[9:06] we want to highlight our athletes artists musicians scholars performers and student

[9:11] leaders throughout the community they proudly represent imagine a young person driving

[9:18] through laguna hills with their family and seeing a laguna hills high school student

[9:21] on a banner

[9:23] maybe they recognize a friend, a neighbor, or someone they aspire to become.

[9:29] that creates pride.

[9:31] it tells our students, this community sees you, this community supports you, and this

[9:35] community is proud of you.

[9:38] the school gets to celebrate the city, the city gets to celebrate its students,

[9:43] and together we reinforce the idea that we are truly one town, one team.

[9:51] I hope you see this project not simply as a banner program,

[9:54] but as an investment in our young people and in the relationship between our school

[9:58] and our city.

[10:00] because when our students succeed, our entire community succeeds.

[10:04] thank you for your partnership, your support, and for helping us show the community

[10:08] why laguna hills high school and the city of laguna

[10:11] hills what we're all about.

[10:14] and as always, go hawks.

[10:18] thank you.

[10:20] do we have any public comments on this particular item?

[10:25] not on this item.

[10:26] and do we have any online?

[10:28] no.

[10:29] okay.

[10:30] why don't you stay there for a second because I'm going to ask if anyone up here has

[10:35] questions or want to discuss the item

[10:39] in regards to clarifications.

[10:42] anybody here?

[10:44] erica, go ahead.

[10:46] yes.

[10:46] okay.

[10:46] first of all, I want to say thank you.

[10:49] for being involved with this program.

[10:52] I think it's extremely important.

[10:54] this is something that I mentioned the first year that I was on the city council that

[10:58] this had to happen.

[11:00] however, I was met with a lot of resistance, which is why it hadn't proceeded until

[11:05] now.

[11:06] so I'm very excited to see that there is some program like this that is starting to

[11:10] occur.

[11:12] now I have a couple of questions, and the first one is

[11:16] what is the process?

[11:18] is it going to be, for example, you see in some cities they highlight seniors so that

[11:22] the parents can pay.

[11:24] and then perhaps the city covers, highlights athletic groups or an athlete that has

[11:29] done exceptional.

[11:32] what is the, and how many banners?

[11:35] what are we looking at?

[11:37] and I guess maybe that's a question for ms.

[11:39] gannon.

[11:41] thank you.

[11:41] I do have a presentation to further take us through this discussion.

[11:45] I just wanted to introduce principal doling so that it made sense where I was leading

[11:50] this discussion.

[11:51] okay.

[11:53] my apologies.

[11:54] it's ok.

[11:55] but in terms of the selection of the individuals, specifically the students that we

[11:59] chose to highlight,

[12:02] it was a collaborative decision that we got together with our staff to identify the

[12:06] specific programs on our campus that we wanted to be

[12:09] able to showcase, understanding that we weren't able to do all programs.

[12:14] with the hopes that if this is approved and it's something that the city appreciated

[12:19] and our in our our school appreciate it as well.

[12:22] it was something that we can I have one question and it's my understanding that there

[12:29] will be I mean these banners will go up for a

[12:34] period of time but there will be some kind of rotating and and you know refreshing of

[12:39] things over over time correct I

[12:42] yes.

[12:43] speaking with holland and also mr.

[12:45] wingenroth as well and the gentleman that makes the banners, we're looking at

[12:48] probably a three-year rotation.

[12:50] okay.

[12:51] very good.

[12:53] holland, did you have a continuing presentation to make?

[12:58] I do, yes.

[12:58] thank you.

[12:59] go ahead.

[13:00] I'm sorry.

[13:01] I have one more question.

[13:03] oh, sure.

[13:04] actually, oh, you?

[13:06] okay.

[13:07] dave, go ahead.

[13:08] oh, no, I just want to say welcome here.

[13:10] and I noticed you have the baseball and softball, I believe it's right.

[13:14] I was wondering what everybody remember that laguna has two state champions, football

[13:17] and basketball.

[13:19] let me throw one of them in there, too, to celebrate our championship.

[13:23] I loved it that they did it the year I was mayor.

[13:25] and I get to present them the key to the city, the first one ever, to laguna hills

[13:28] high school.

[13:29] well-deserved.

[13:30] so we do have a proposed draft of a boys' and girls' basketball banner, as they had a

[13:34] ton of success, obviously, last year,

[13:38] winning a state regional championship as well as a cif southern section championship.

[13:42] and, yes, football is on one of the banners as well.

[13:46] happens to be our starting quarterback.

[13:48] go hawks.

[13:49] awesome.

[13:51] okay, so we're going to let holland continue with your presentation.

[13:56] and if we have any more questions for you, we'll pull you back up here.

[14:01] go ahead.

[14:02] thank you mayor caskey so as principal dohling mentioned the concept is to install

[14:06] banners immediately surrounding the high school along alicia parkway paseo

[14:10] de valencia and laguna hills drive the banners would highlight various sports teams

[14:14] clubs activities and programs at the high school while also reinforcing

[14:18] the city's support of laguna hills high school the high school has requested a total

[14:22] of 32 banner locations for the program this would

[14:25] still leave banner arms for city messaging in the immediate area

[14:31] currently, the city has 136 total banner locations.

[14:34] under the existing program, those are divided among 45 civic center banners, 45

[14:38] welcome banners, and 46 seasonal banners.

[14:41] allocating 32 of the 136 locations to the high school would leave 104 banner arms

[14:46] available for the city's other banner designs.

[14:49] because adding the high school banners would require a change to the distribution

[14:52] previously approved by city council,

[14:54] staff has developed four options for council's consideration.

[14:59] option 1 would be not to implement the high school banner program and maintain the

[15:02] existing framework.

[15:04] option 2 would incorporate the 32 high school banners while maintaining the existing

[15:08] 45 civic center and 45 welcome banners.

[15:10] this would leave 14 locations for seasonal banners.

[15:14] option 3 would incorporate the high school banners and redistribute the remaining

[15:17] locations more evenly among the city's three other banner types.

[15:22] option four would incorporate the 32 high school banners but eliminate the seasonal

[15:26] banner program the remaining locations would be divided evenly between the civic

[15:30] center and welcome designs with 52 of each this would require purchasing a few more

[15:33] of the existing banners being the civic center and the welcomes

[15:37] designs the cost to design and print the 32 laguna hills high school banners is

[15:41] approximately $4,145,

[15:44] and the estimated cost to install those banners is $4,800.

[15:48] that results in an initial estimated cost of approximately $8,945 for the high school

[15:54] portion of the program.

[15:56] the high school student banners are anticipated to be redesigned and replaced

[15:59] approximately every three years.

[16:02] there's also an option to generate revenue by selling the america 250 banners and the

[16:06] high school banners as they are replaced.

[16:11] this table provides a comparison of the estimated first-year costs for each option.

[16:15] for purposes of this comparison, staff included the initial startup costs for the

[16:18] high school banner program,

[16:20] as well as the costs associated with producing and changing out seasonal banners.

[16:25] for the seasonal banners, staff assumed a cost of approximately $100 per banner to

[16:29] produce each design,

[16:31] and $150 per banner for removal and installation.

[16:34] because the seasonal banners are anticipated to rotate three times during the year,

[16:38] the cost varies significantly depending on how many seasonal banner locations are

[16:42] maintained underneath each option.

[16:45] staff is seeking city council's recommendation on how to redistribute the banners.

[16:49] that concludes my presentation.

[16:50] I'm happy to answer any questions.

[16:56] you're okay, so do we have any further questions in regards for holland in terms of

[17:02] these?

[17:04] alternative plans questions of clarifications okay, we'll start with erica yes,

[17:13] I'm wondering so did I hear this correctly that the high school banners would be up

[17:18] for three years?

[17:21] that is correct the one-town, one-team design is not anticipated to change, but the

[17:27] pictures of the students would change every three years, those 18.

[17:35] okay.

[17:37] so every year the students will change?

[17:41] every three years.

[17:42] for students, every three years.

[17:44] okay.

[17:51] and will, for the students, will that cost, is that a cost that the parents can pay

[17:57] for?

[17:58] because that's usually something the parents, for individual students being

[18:03] highlighted.

[18:05] no.

[18:06] thank you, council member pezold.

[18:08] at this point, the city has been planning on paying those fees.

[18:15] okay.

[18:18] okay.

[18:20] are we allowed to give our opinion?

[18:21] this isn't a public hearing.

[18:26] I don't know that.

[18:29] are we okay with that?

[18:30] yeah, I'm just going with that.

[18:33] okay.

[18:33] I just want to make sure.

[18:35] I support option three, but I don't like every three years, especially for a student.

[18:43] I think that...

[18:45] if we're going to honor seniors, I think it might be something good to have it

[18:48] refreshed for seniors.

[18:50] we're getting into a little bit more than just clarifications at this point.

[18:56] yes, but I asked if I could provide my opinion.

[18:59] so I'm wondering if that's something that we can also look into.

[19:04] but I think three years is to have an individual up for three years might be a little

[19:10] too long,

[19:11] especially if you have the seniors

[19:14] uh...

[19:14] I know increases the cost and associated but I I I like the idea of highlighting a

[19:20] senior when it's the senior year and keep

[19:23] it going move on to uh...

[19:26] councilman uh...

[19:29] just a question of kind of bothered me uh...

[19:31] it's a hundred fifty dollars just to change one banner that is correct at seventy

[19:35] five dollars to remove the existing manner and seventy

[19:38] five dollars to replace it with one she's given the replacement have it all off on

[19:42] their way

[19:44] put the new one up on the same time up the puddle.

[19:48] that is $150.

[19:49] no, no, I mean that if it's $150 to remove it, I'm sorry, 75 to remove it,

[19:54] then they come back with a new one.

[19:56] it is all at the same time.

[19:56] they do it all at the same time?

[19:58] I'm sorry, but $150 is outrageous.

[20:02] that's outrageous.

[20:04] I'm in the wrong business, I guess.

[20:06] I just want to know which one you recommend.

[20:14] I personally like the idea of redistributing them all evenly and maintaining the

[20:19] seasonal banner, which would be option 3, 35 civic center,

[20:23] 34 welcome, 32 for the high school, and then 35 seasonal banners.

[20:28] okay.

[20:28] thank you.

[20:29] okay.

[20:31] next we'll go to mayor pro tem mathis.

[20:35] can we make questions now?

[20:37] I'm just on clarifications, questions.

[20:40] at this point, if you want to move on and make a motion, that's fine.

[20:44] sure.

[20:44] I would move to approve option three for the redistribution of the sign program,

[20:52] including the high school program with that total first year cost estimated at around

[20:58] $35,195.

[21:01] and so I move approval for option three.

[21:04] okay.

[21:04] we have a motion.

[21:05] I'll second that.

[21:06] we have a second.

[21:07] yeah.

[21:08] do we have, and now we're definitely into discussion.

[21:12] go ahead.

[21:12] I'd like to make, if we're going to go that direction,

[21:14] a substitute motion to have the staff work with the high school on some sort of fee

[21:21] so that perhaps seniors with the program,

[21:25] they can have the seniors up annually as soon as they get, as soon as a senior, they

[21:31] have the ability,

[21:34] I guess six months before or something like six months before

[21:36] the banner goes up, they can purchase that banner.

[21:40] I think we should try some, have ms.

[21:43] gannon work on some sort of program that allows seniors to have their banner up for a

[21:49] year and perhaps have the parents assist

[21:52] with that cost and have her work that out.

[21:56] okay.

[21:57] so there's a substitute motion.

[22:00] I understand where you're coming from.

[22:01] is there a second for that?

[22:04] and the first year, we go with the initial process, what is presented, but then work

[22:09] something through for seniors.

[22:12] that's it.

[22:18] I'm not sure that we need a substitute motion for that.

[22:23] this baseline provides the opportunity to build on the program.

[22:28] I don't know that we need to complicate it at this point.

[22:30] if the high school has put together this program with all of this three-year rotation

[22:36] in mind and we want to build on it

[22:39] further, incorporating parents and so forth, I think we'll leave the high school to

[22:43] come to us with that program and let them figure

[22:46] it out.

[22:48] so I'm not sure that that substitutes the motion...

[22:54] I was going to suggest, well, if, josh, if you wanted to say something first, but I

[22:59] have the suggestion.

[23:01] no, please suggest, yeah.

[23:02] I was going to suggest that let's pick one of these which we have a motion and

[23:08] seconded one.

[23:11] because I don't personally see this as being something that is forever.

[23:17] I mean, we're going to be working on this and I think your ideas, erica,

[23:22] are great about kids being able to buy their own banner and maybe move this along,

[23:27] have it more often.

[23:30] but you've got to get started somehow.

[23:32] and I don't see any particular reason to actually have a substitute motion and all

[23:39] that.

[23:41] if that's the case, I can pull it.

[23:42] but the idea is to give direction

[23:44] to start the process, to build that, to build that so that seniors, that it can be

[23:49] redone annually,

[23:51] a certain number or whatever ms.

[23:53] gannon sees fit with that.

[23:56] I'm sure she can come up with something with the principal so that we can honor our

[23:59] seniors.

[24:02] and I see where you're coming from with that.

[24:04] now, there's a lot more seniors than there are banners, I think.

[24:07] but, you know, the point is, I mean, this is really,

[24:14] a wonderful thing.

[24:16] it makes all the sense in the world to tie our high school into the city, the whole

[24:21] pride in our community, our town,

[24:25] one team, one town.

[24:26] it's just amazing.

[24:28] so where we take it from, no matter what we decide, from there I can just see we're

[24:34] just potentially off to the races.

[24:38] and so I don't see it as something that we're just one and done and that's it.

[24:44] dave did you have a comment?

[24:46] just a question.

[24:47] I guess I'm trying to figure out here the so we have a one-time cost to begin with

[24:52] the best roughly 35,000 it looks

[24:54] like you're then your annual maintenance cost is the 10 5 plus the 15 7 so you know

[25:00] 2026 is that roughly right?

[25:04] for option three okay, so maintenance one time 35 maintenance 26 is that

[25:11] are we going to have another initial cost maybe every four years to refresh or

[25:14] reprint?

[25:15] or how long will that maintenance process go on without another startup cost?

[25:20] thank you for the question.

[25:22] it really depends on how much wear and tear those banners get.

[25:25] hopefully, if we can keep the, I believe it's 14 or 12 high school banners that are

[25:32] the one town, one team,

[25:34] and keep those looking good for a long time, we won't have to do the initial startup

[25:40] cost again.

[25:41] however, if we choose to redesign those banners or have a different look for those,

[25:45] there would be the additional startup cost for those banners.

[25:49] how long do you expect them to last?

[25:50] about three years.

[25:51] three to five years.

[25:52] okay.

[25:53] all right.

[25:53] thank you.

[25:54] now that we have the wind flaps in them, they've been holding up pretty well.

[25:58] okay.

[25:59] councilman sweeney.

[26:00] thank you, mayor.

[26:01] I just want to say thank you again to principal dohling for coming out and for

[26:06] bringing us this and working with holland and coming

[26:10] up with this.

[26:10] I mean, it's amazing, and I appreciate the one team, one town, and bringing the whole

[26:14] community together.

[26:15] so really great job.

[26:17] yeah.

[26:18] and back to you.

[26:20] yeah, I mean, this is to me a slam dunk.

[26:23] I mean, to be able to surround our high school with this kind of branding so that

[26:28] kids that are coming up through elementary

[26:31] school and junior high can see that there's.

[26:34] town that cares about their high school and for high school students to be able to

[26:38] see that every day they drive up and then

[26:42] opposing teams when they drive into our nest to be able to see that there this high

[26:47] school is embraced by the town let's

[26:50] not make it complicated.

[26:51] I think we approve option three and build from there I'm very much in favor

[26:57] option three because it also we have the seasonal banners not just disappearing.

[27:03] I mean the whole deal is to keep it fresh so I'm I'm in favor of that as well any

[27:08] other comments erica.

[27:11] it's just one more comment.

[27:11] I know that we support grad night, but I'm not sure if it's something that given

[27:19] given a lot of information that's been posting

[27:24] online about cities donating and

[27:26] to high schools.

[27:26] I'm not sure if it fits the profile.

[27:29] I'm wondering maybe if we move the grad night funding to have additional funding for

[27:36] seniors to have their banner posted.

[27:39] so just I think that might be something so then there's actual more revenue going

[27:43] into that and we can increase the exposure of seniors.

[27:49] well, one thing that we're very happy about this year is that we were able to cash in

[27:56] and help the high school cash in on, I think,

[27:59] about $15,000 in terms of being able to resell the signs that we took down, you know,

[28:06] with our street signs.

[28:09] and so that was a big, in a way, donation this year.

[28:15] and I think there are a whole lot of things that we can do to partner with the high

[28:19] school.

[28:21] a lot more involvement of...

[28:23] of the high school students with this council, all kinds of things that we'll be

[28:27] talking about in the future.

[28:30] so I'm very, I'm excited about this.

[28:33] so any more discussion in regards to this?

[28:37] okay, with that, then we'll go ahead.

[28:39] we have a motion and a second.

[28:41] we'll ask for a roll call vote.

[28:44] council member pezold?

[28:46] aye.

[28:48] council member wheeler?

[28:48] aye.

[28:50] mayor caskey?

[28:51] aye.

[28:52] council member sweeney?

[28:53] aye.

[28:55] mayor pro tem mathis?

[28:56] aye.

[28:56] the ayes have it.

[28:58] I would say they do.

[29:00] that's kind of unanimous.

[29:01] so with that, I appreciate it very much.

[29:04] we're excited about this adventure, and let's see where we can go with it from here,

[29:08] okay?

[29:10] all right.

[29:12] so I'm going to now move us back to the first part of our

[29:19] and we have presentations and proclamations and we'll start with one point one

[29:27] wildfire awareness and prevention season proclamation thank you mr.

[29:35] mayor let me invite reid gibson division chief of ocfa up to the podium here

[29:46] thank you.

[29:48] if you've noticed, it's a little hot outside, right, the last few days.

[29:53] there's a lot of dry mountains out there, a lot of fuel.

[29:56] and we want to recognize in the public eye

[30:02] the importance of awareness, and so we are going to present this proclamation about

[30:07] wildfire awareness and prevention season, whereas in 2020,

[30:12] california experienced a record-breaking wildfire season with over 4 million acres

[30:16] burned across the state, and then again in 2024, the state faced 8,000,

[30:22] over 8,000 wildfires that burned approximately a million acres, reflecting a

[30:26] significant increase from that previous year.

[30:30] and whereas the recent wildfires in los angeles county that we all remember,

[30:33] including the eaton and palisades fire,

[30:36] resulted in at least 29 fatalities and destroyed over 16,000 structures, and whereas

[30:41] extreme fires are a growing threat to public health and safety,

[30:46] homes, and air quality, and whereas every citizen has a key role in preventing

[30:50] destructive wildfires from occurring,

[30:54] now therefore I on behalf of mayor caskey and the city council laguna hills do hereby

[30:59] proclaim the height of wildfire season beginning in midsummer

[31:04] and running through early autumn as wildfire awareness and prevention season.

[31:20] thank you, everybody.

[31:21] again, my name is reid gibson.

[31:22] I'm your division chief for the orange county fire authority.

[31:26] I just want to take the time to highlight the orange county fire authority and what

[31:28] we do.

[31:30] I brought a few of my partners here with me today to show some support and some

[31:34] education.

[31:35] as we did, it is a wildfire awareness and prevention.

[31:38] and it's not just our 1,600 employees that we have, 1,200 firefighters that are on

[31:43] the ground, but we have our 400 support staff.

[31:46] and that includes our mechanics, our finance people, our fire prevention, our

[31:49] educators.

[31:51] that we have here.

[31:51] we have nurses.

[31:52] we have a lot of support for the orange county fire authority.

[31:55] and that's just to let you guys know that we are your regional fire department.

[31:59] and when I say regional, that means not just everyone who's surrounding the city of

[32:03] laguna woods.

[32:04] you have 78 fire stations that could come here to help laguna hills at any time.

[32:12] but what I want to do is introduce our community educator, milton neira,

[32:16] to show you some of our programs that orange county fire authority provides.

[32:22] good afternoon, evening, everybody.

[32:23] I wanted to share a couple of things with you guys really quick.

[32:27] and not only is it important to me as a neighbor, but also my kids go to laguna hills

[32:31] high school.

[32:32] so it's really, really important to everybody here.

[32:36] but we have lots of resources.

[32:38] and what I'm going to ask you guys to do right now is take your phones out, if you

[32:40] don't mind, please.

[32:42] pull them out.

[32:43] and I'm going to give you some phone numbers and I'm going to give you some links as

[32:47] well as my personal cell phone

[32:49] number so that we can go ahead and move forward and get prepared as a community.

[32:53] so before anything else, we cannot tell you where the next fire is going to start,

[32:57] but what we know is that it's going to happen, especially because we live in a

[33:00] community as beautiful as we are, but the

[33:02] topography and geography tells us that

[33:04] we're right in the middle between the urban and the wildland interface.

[33:08] makes sense, right?

[33:09] so because of that, we have a responsibility, not just for you, not just to you, but

[33:13] also to the family and to the community that we serve and that we work with and that

[33:17] we live in, right?

[33:18] so very, very important.

[33:19] so we have something called the ready, set, go program.

[33:21] so please go ahead and open a browser on your phones

[33:25] and visit ocfa.org, please.

[33:29] orangecountyfireauthority.org.

[33:32] once you're there, let me know.

[33:34] just kind of wave and give me a thumbs up if that's okay.

[33:36] and then you're going to see the menu, the bars on the upper right corner.

[33:40] click on that, please.

[33:41] and on the left-hand side, you're going to have the menu with all kinds of

[33:44] information.

[33:46] a lot of information for you guys, for your family, for your little ones, for your

[33:49] friends and your neighbors.

[33:51] please take the time, go through that.

[33:53] and I'm going to give you a phone number right now.

[33:54] please write this down or save it on your phone, please.

[33:58] it is 714-573-6774.

[33:58] I'm going to repeat it once again.

[34:00] 714-573-6774.

[34:10] this phone number is so that if you are in doubt and or you're interested and you

[34:14] want a free assessment of your home

[34:17] please let us know again I said free make sense okay so give us a call you can

[34:22] actually do one on your own we

[34:24] have actually a page I'm going to show it to you guys in a second

[34:26] you can actually do an assessment of your own home this afternoon and even this

[34:30] weekend.

[34:31] and then if you have any questions or anything else, you can go, you know what,

[34:34] I'm going to call those guys at the fire authority.

[34:36] and that number that I just gave you, right?

[34:38] call us up and schedule a free assessment.

[34:41] we'll come over to your site, to your home, to your community center, hoa.

[34:46] and we'll do a free assessment of your community, of course, but your home on the

[34:49] outside.

[34:50] and we'll talk about, obviously, your home, hardening programs, vegetation, right?

[34:54] and, of course, securing your home and talking a little bit about the risks.

[34:58] also, very, very important.

[34:59] I know the browser, if you can open it up and look for alert oc.

[35:05] extremely important.

[35:06] I cannot tell you...

[35:07] countless of times where we work at the eoc up in loma ridge, and people call and say,

[35:11] hey, I'm looking for so-and-so,

[35:13] or my neighbor or my friend or my family member is missing, or I don't know what's

[35:17] going to happen.

[35:18] you know, there's an evacuation order at this place, but we don't know where they are.

[35:22] please plan ahead, and we're here to help you.

[35:24] so I'm going to give you a bless you.

[35:25] I'm going to give you another number.

[35:26] okay, here we go.

[35:28] it is 949-564-8887.

[35:33] once again, 949-564-8887.

[35:34] it is my phone, my cell phone number.

[35:40] and you can schedule a fire safety class.

[35:43] again, no cost.

[35:44] and we can come over to your site, do home evacuation drills.

[35:49] we'll teach you how to use a fire extinguisher.

[35:51] we'll do a fire assessment, a fire training for you and your family.

[35:54] so again, thank you guys for your time.

[35:56] we have lots of resources for you guys,

[35:59] thank you, sir.

[36:00] thank you, everybody.

[36:00] give them a round of applause for all they do to keep us safe.

[36:06] thank you.

[36:12] councilmember pezold, I believe you wanted to make a comment.

[36:15] yes.

[36:17] well, first of all, I want to mention that the free assessment is extremely important.

[36:23] and a couple of years ago,

[36:27] uh...

[36:28] during some construction to increase the electricity going to my house a gas line was

[36:34] hit and a fire occurred at my house and uh...

[36:39] you don't think about it about uh...

[36:43] fires until it happens and uh...

[36:47] it was mentioned to me that thank goodness our trees have been trimmed and that we

[36:51] were putting the right sort of vegetation

[36:55] because it would have been problematic and could have lit our whole neighborhood up

[36:58] because of the aggressiveness of the flames.

[37:01] and also, we're extremely fortunate because our fire, because they responded so

[37:09] quickly.

[37:11] and we're very fortunate.

[37:14] but if it wasn't for the good practices I had,

[37:18] we would have, things would have happened differently.

[37:21] and also, you never know how important a fire safety drill is because when a fire

[37:27] happens, you go blank.

[37:30] you just are stressed.

[37:32] and my son, who was at the time very young, ran out without his shoes and he was

[37:36] scared, didn't know what to do, and

[37:39] thank goodness for, thank goodness,

[37:45] that you know how to handle the situation because my son wasn't scared.

[37:49] but I will tell you, it's a scary moment when you're in a fire because you don't know.

[37:53] there's only seconds before something could happen.

[37:56] so I'm really appreciative of everything that you've done, and I just want everyone

[38:01] to know, use these services because with me, I

[38:05] just went blank, and I ran out, and you're just confused.

[38:09] so thank you.

[38:09] I want to thank you.

[38:13] and councilman sweeney.

[38:15] thank you, mayor.

[38:16] thank you, chief gibson.

[38:17] and milton, thank you so much for being out here and for the presentation tonight.

[38:22] as chair of the orange county fire authority, I see firsthand the extraordinary work

[38:26] that all of our men and women, our firefighters,

[38:29] our hand crews, our dispatchers, prevention personnel, and professional staff do at

[38:34] orange county fire.

[38:36] and they are all incredible.

[38:38] they're all extraordinary individuals.

[38:40] but I wanted to remind everybody that wildfire preparedness is a shared

[38:44] responsibility and that residents play an essential role in maintaining your

[38:49] defensible

[38:50] space around your homes, making sure to reduce your combustible vegetation.

[38:55] register for those alerts, please, and have a family evacuation plan in place.

[39:00] because wildfire doesn't recognize a boundary.

[39:03] embers don't stop burning at a certain street or a certain boundary.

[39:08] but the preparation is really made before our emergency and before our firefighters

[39:13] get there.

[39:15] and that's the best opportunity for them to be able to protect lives and property is

[39:18] that preparedness that you do ahead of time.

[39:21] so I strongly support this proclamation.

[39:25] I would like for all of us to use it as a commitment for continued public education

[39:29] throughout the height of wildfire season.

[39:32] so again, please, I encourage every resident out there to sign up for ocfa's ready,

[39:38] set, go and get the

[39:40] resources there and take at least one action for preparedness in your home.

[39:45] so thanks again.

[39:52] thank you.

[40:11] okay.

[40:12] thank you very much.

[40:14] we're moving on to item 1.2, which is a presentation by octa in regard to the el toro

[40:23] road interstate 5 interchange project update.

[40:28] and I'm going to ask melanie masud and potentially rose

[40:35] casey to make that presentation.

[40:37] thank you.

[40:38] mr.

[40:38] mayor before the presentation starts I actually represent octa on a different matter

[40:43] out in irvine it has nothing to do with the city

[40:46] of laguna hills and nothing to do with this matter but to avoid the appearance of

[40:49] impropriety I'm gonna go ahead and conflict out on

[40:51] this tom clark our special counsel has agreed to field any legal questions on this

[40:55] matter.

[40:57] okay.

[40:57] thank you all right rose

[41:02] good evening, mayor caskey, mayor pro tem mathis, and council members.

[41:07] I'm rose casey, executive director of planning for the orange county transportation

[41:11] authority, or octa.

[41:13] and with me is angela hui, the principal community relations specialist at octa.

[41:18] so we appreciate this opportunity very much to provide you with an update on the I-5

[41:22] el toro interchange project.

[41:28] so the area studied in the draft environmental document is depicted by the red line

[41:32] boundary and extends nearly half a mile up and down

[41:35] el toro road, bounded by rockfield toward the bottom of the screen and paseo de

[41:39] valencia toward the top of the screen,

[41:42] and it includes approximately two miles along interstate 5.

[41:48] to provide some important context for this project, the I-5 el toro interchange was

[41:53] identified as a top priority project by laguna hills,

[41:57] laguna woods, and lake forest during the development of measure m-2.

[42:01] in the m-2 ordinance that was approved by the voters in 2006,

[42:04] the I-5 el toro interchange project is one of several local interchange projects in

[42:09] the m-2 freeway program, and as a localized improvement,

[42:14] is to be developed in cooperation with the local jurisdictions and affected

[42:18] communities.

[42:20] in last year's update of the m2 next 10 delivery plan,

[42:23] this project is identified to be environmentally cleared by the end of this year to

[42:27] be ready for advancement to the next phase.

[42:33] this slide provides an initial timeline of project events beginning in february 2015

[42:38] with the planning phase where 15 alternatives were considered to the completion

[42:43] of the octa led alternatives assessment study in 2021 which studied an additional

[42:48] seven alternatives.

[42:50] so in total 22 alternatives were studied highlighting this as a very challenging

[42:55] project that required a high level of city involvement at every

[43:00] step.

[43:03] in march 2022, octa, caltrans, and all three cities reached consensus on the two

[43:07] alternatives to move forward to the environmental phase for evaluation.

[43:12] then in january 2023, caltrans and octa restarted the environmental phase.

[43:18] fast forward to this year, caltrans has completed the preliminary engineering and

[43:22] environmental technical studies,

[43:25] resulting in the draft project approval and environmental document that was released

[43:29] for public review on july 31st.

[43:34] so this is alternative one, which are the braided southbound I-5 hook ramps.

[43:39] this alternative includes a two lane I-5 southbound off ramp to el toro road with one

[43:45] lane assigned to el toro road west using

[43:49] the existing hook ramp.

[43:52] while one lane is assigned to el toro road east, that is braided or grade separated

[43:57] on a bridge over the southbound hook on-ramp.

[44:01] this ramp then travels over el toro road on a new bridge and then ties into a

[44:06] realigned avenida de la carlota next to the village

[44:10] at laguna hills.

[44:17] this alternative is a design variation of alternative one on the previous slide.

[44:21] it includes a potential public street connecting the village at laguna hills

[44:26] development to the proposed signalized intersection of the southbound I-5 ramps and

[44:31] avenida

[44:32] de la carlota.

[44:41] this shows alternative two, which is the flyover ramp with a roundabout.

[44:45] this alternative was evaluated but eliminated because it is inconsistent with state

[44:50] policy.

[44:51] excuse me?

[44:54] inconsistent with what?

[44:57] so mayor caskey, according to caltrans design policy, there cannot be access to a

[45:03] private property.

[45:06] so if you take a look at the roundabout and looking at the south leg of the

[45:11] roundabout,

[45:12] it would provide access to a private property and not a connection to a public street.

[45:17] okay.

[45:23] alternative three is the tsm-tdm alternative that includes advanced traffic signal

[45:28] improvements and other intelligent transportation systems or its enhancements like

[45:33] traveler information systems

[45:35] or traffic management center upgrades.

[45:38] this alternative is a standalone alternative.

[45:40] it's been evaluated that way, and it could also be incorporated with the other build

[45:44] alternative.

[45:48] so the project benefits are that it will reduce traffic congestion, enhance safety,

[45:52] and improve emergency response times.

[45:55] all of these benefits are tied to being able to travel on the streets and through the

[45:59] intersections quicker.

[46:01] and we'll get into more detail with this next slide.

[46:06] so this graphic, I know there's a lot going on here and I'll try to explain it,

[46:10] summarizes the benefits associated with alternative 1a,

[46:14] including reducing traffic congestion and delays by distributing traffic from the

[46:19] existing southbound I-5 off-ramp to the new braided off-ramp denoted by the purple

[46:25] arrow.

[46:28] a substantial share of the southbound I-5 traffic headed to eastbound el toro, or

[46:32] lake forest, would shift to the new braided off ramp,

[46:37] replacing the two left turns of today, so that's shown by the orange path, with two

[46:42] right turns, and that's shown in light blue.

[46:47] this will reduce delays at key intersections, so it will take less time to get from

[46:51] point a to point b in this area.

[46:54] the highest benefited intersections with a substantial reduction delay or

[46:58] alternatively takes less time to get through the intersection are circled in green.

[47:04] so, for example, for today's trip in red, that's basically taking the southbound

[47:09] off-ramp from the I-5,

[47:12] making the left on avenida de la carlota, and then making the left on el toro,

[47:18] heading east.

[47:20] that trip will be about 35% to 40% quicker during the morning and afternoon peaks.

[47:27] an important related benefit is that safety will be enhanced as well.

[47:31] so currently, the I-5 el toro interchange area has the most accidents in south orange

[47:36] county, south of the 55 freeway,

[47:39] in the past 10 years.

[47:40] and these are mainly congestion related.

[47:43] so with this project, we'll enhance safety by reducing congestion.

[47:48] and then another key benefit is that with the reduced delays, emergency responders,

[47:52] including the ocfa,

[47:54] will be able to move through the area quicker, shortening response times.

[47:59] and next, angela will share information on the public outreach efforts.

[48:06] thank you, rose.

[48:07] good evening, mayor caskey, council members.

[48:09] again, my name is angela hui, outreach manager for this project.

[48:13] so I'm going to talk a little bit about our outreach strategy and what we've been

[48:16] doing to make sure residents, businesses,

[48:18] and stakeholders are informed and involved.

[48:21] during the public review period, we are hosting two public hearings in an open house

[48:25] format, one in person and one virtually,

[48:28] to provide opportunities for the community to learn more about the project, meet the

[48:31] project team, ask questions, and provide feedback.

[48:35] the in-person public hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, august 26, from 5 to 7 p.m.

[48:40] at the laguna hills community center.

[48:43] the virtual public hearing is scheduled for wednesday, september 2, from 5 to 7 p.m.

[48:47] via zoom.

[48:49] to support the public review and hearing process, our team has developed exhibit

[48:52] boards and updated project materials, including a fact sheet,

[48:56] postcard mailers distributed earlier this month, flyers canvassed to surrounding

[49:00] businesses, and a communications toolkit.

[49:04] these materials are being used as part of our broader community outreach and public

[49:07] awareness efforts.

[49:09] we have also shared these materials with key stakeholders to help inform the

[49:12] community and raise awareness of opportunities to participate.

[49:17] overall, our goal is to keep the process transparent and ensure the public continues

[49:21] to have a voice in the selection of a preferred

[49:24] alternative later this year.

[49:26] with that, I'll hand it back to rose to discuss next steps.

[49:35] so the public review or circulation period closes monday, september 14th.

[49:41] again, the two public hearings are shown here.

[49:43] the in-person meeting is tomorrow evening at the laguna hills community center.

[49:47] the selection of the preferred alternative is scheduled for october,

[49:50] with the final project approval and environmental documents scheduled for later this

[49:54] year or early next year.

[49:57] that concludes our presentation.

[49:58] we're happy to answer any questions you may have.

[50:07] that does first of all I thank you very much does anyone here have any questions

[50:15] clarifications and I actually have a few go

[50:20] ahead.

[50:20] go ahead.

[50:21] no, I'm I'm gonna I might I may actually go on and on so I'm gonna let other people

[50:30] okay so courtesy okay I just want want to make sure that I understand this um and

[50:38] it's it's clear um I used to drive

[50:42] my children to practice and um years ago years ago it was a water polo practice and I

[50:51] had to take el toro road

[50:55] and I would be stuck and my children

[50:58] suffered many consequences being late.

[51:01] and being late, there was an accident.

[51:03] we didn't know that what could have been, what should have been a 30-minute drive

[51:09] could be two hours or an hour or whatever

[51:13] because you get stuck behind an accident.

[51:16] and until things are cleared out, and I've been there.

[51:19] and I've seen also, unfortunately, I have seen really bad accidents on el toro road.

[51:26] and so to say that you're responding to an urgent matter is an understatement.

[51:37] it is the busiest area in orange county.

[51:39] is that correct?

[51:42] and then another question I have is, is it 1-1 has the least amount of destruction of,

[51:51] I guess, if you're going...

[51:55] with respect to businesses, what is the least amount of impact?

[52:03] you make a statement.

[52:04] I'm just curious, which one?

[52:06] the least one.

[52:07] she's referring to alternative one versus alternative two.

[52:11] yes, alternative one, excuse me, alternative one versus alternative two.

[52:16] which one has the least amount of impact currently today on existing businesses?

[52:24] so starting first, councilmember puzzold, starting first with alternative 1, there

[52:30] would be an impact on the village at laguna hills property.

[52:37] and I, we acknowledge that since the july 14th city council meeting, we have been,

[52:44] the city and octa staff have been meeting to try to come up with a solution that

[52:49] would allow both projects to move forward.

[52:53] so yes, there would be potentially impacts on the development property, but we're

[52:56] trying to minimize that.

[52:58] we actually, the caltrans designers have been working on an option that would bring

[53:03] in the

[53:05] the roadway improvements in closer towards the freeway.

[53:09] and then the impact on the st.

[53:14] john's church on the other side of north of el toro is very minimal.

[53:19] it is basically landscaping area, no buildings, no structures, very limited parking

[53:27] spaces that would be impacted.

[53:32] and then for the, and then also the businesses would be impacted in the southbound

[53:40] off ramp area between avenida de la carlota and el

[53:47] toro.

[53:48] so there are a few businesses right now that are within that loop.

[53:51] and what about number two?

[53:53] so number two, the flyover alternative as currently shown on the screen,

[54:02] it would impact the two shopping centers in that lake forest area.

[54:08] and that is primarily the impact associated with this one.

[54:16] this doesn't reflect, this reflects the design that it doesn't meet state policy.

[54:21] the revised design would shift the flyover ramp closer to the homes existing homes in

[54:26] lake forest and it would also leave potentially a landlocked

[54:31] parcel as well as a very small remnant parcel that would have very limited access to

[54:37] rockfield and it would still impact the the two

[54:41] shopping center properties that are there in that quadrant so essentially the least

[54:47] impact would be option

[54:50] as well as it is not, I guess, doesn't have as many legal challenges because it

[54:59] doesn't go into a private road.

[55:04] so it's that.

[55:07] I will say that the project team is working very diligently on moving those

[55:12] improvements in towards the freeway and minimizing as much as possible

[55:19] the impact on the on the village property.

[55:21] thank you okay, councilman wheeler first question so you're having a public hearing

[55:30] tomorrow yes,

[55:32] that's correct public hearings used to be about one option I

[55:35] it will be about alternative one, the design variation 1a, two in the sense that it

[55:42] shows that it is being eliminated,

[55:45] and then three, which is the technology build alternative.

[55:52] okay.

[55:54] I've got a number of problems with all these,

[55:55] and in particular there was a comment in one of the earlier slides that there was an

[55:58] agreement back in 2022

[56:02] that was the mayor in 2022.

[56:03] there was no agreement.

[56:05] we've always, you know, had problems with these drawings.

[56:07] I don't know where these things come from.

[56:09] there was no agreement.

[56:10] I even walked these sites with the mayor of lake forest, and we both thought that the

[56:15] two was the best one, for

[56:17] them and for us, because two actually put traffic that belonged in lake forest more

[56:23] than any of the other options.

[56:26] and also, you know, helped on some number of things.

[56:29] yeah, dumping more traffic.

[56:31] just look at this 1a right here, which is similar to 1.

[56:33] I guess it's actually four lanes that come off when you get to the road at the first

[56:40] exit there.

[56:41] that's going to remain the same, I'm assuming?

[56:46] yes.

[56:47] okay, so that doesn't change at all.

[56:49] and then the other one is going to dump how many lanes off right in the middle of our

[56:53] proposed new area?

[56:56] so councilmember wheeler if you're referring to the the new southbound off-ramp

[57:04] that's south of el toro that would be two two lanes,

[57:10] but where it meets the intersection it would allow for left turns onto carlotta in

[57:16] this in this design variation a through lane to the development

[57:22] and then right turn onto carlotta

[57:26] so what you're doing there, most of the people by habit probably, at first anyway,

[57:30] are going to make a right turn off the second one and go right back to el toro road.

[57:35] so instead of having one turn to the left, you're going to have two turns, one to the

[57:38] right and one to the left,

[57:40] and competing traffic from both directions, which does not seem like a good way to

[57:44] design things.

[57:46] you have competing traffic, you have, you know, it sounds like it might be a bigger

[57:49] problem.

[57:54] also this...

[57:56] the second 1a here, and one same to its degree, this goes right through a brand-new

[58:02] proposed hotel,

[58:05] which will be brought up a little later today.

[58:10] that basically is going to not do any good for that area.

[58:14] and it also knocks out all the businesses on the corner, because the freeways

[58:18] surround the whole thing, pretty much, and the new roads.

[58:21] so maybe you might get in there, but that's not a good idea.

[58:28] can you turn to page six?

[58:29] I had some questions on that.

[58:31] I have to look at it to remember my questions.

[58:38] okay.

[58:41] I guess I can cover them elsewhere.

[58:44] we've had an alternative proposed by our own director who would bypass all these

[58:48] things and essentially does what you're doing with that second

[58:52] ramp only with signs instead of

[58:55] instead of, you know, all this massive concrete and all this massive work's going to

[58:57] be done.

[59:00] if traffic could be redirected to some degree to go continue down, not turn left on

[59:04] altura, but turn left on the next road.

[59:07] that would do essentially the same thing as your proposed massively costly product

[59:12] here.

[59:13] and I don't know why you haven't considered that.

[59:15] I mean, for a small, small fraction of what they're going to spend all this money on,

[59:21] we

[59:22] could have the whole thing solved with a few signs and a little bit of paint on the

[59:24] road.

[59:26] and we're not accomplishing anything because the same amount of traffic is going to

[59:28] flow through that intersection in that area.

[59:31] you're not relieving any traffic.

[59:32] the only way you can relieve the traffic is if you have alternative two and some of

[59:35] the traffic was taken away from laguna

[59:37] hills and put over lake forest, at least divide it up a little bit.

[59:40] so I don't see any value to any of the ones at all.

[59:45] two has some value to lake forest.

[59:49] I'll pass some more questions.

[59:49] I want to yield to the mayor.

[59:51] okay.

[59:53] councilman sweeney.

[59:54] thank you, mayor.

[59:57] thank you both for being out here tonight.

[59:58] I appreciate it.

[1:00:01] option two was eliminated.

[1:00:03] when and how was that eliminated?

[1:00:07] councilmember sweeney, that was eliminated in march or april of this year when the

[1:00:13] design from caltrans was going to be published in the environmental

[1:00:19] document showing the connection that doesn't meet state policy.

[1:00:24] and with the revised design to meet state policy, the landlocked parcel, the moving

[1:00:31] the flyover ramp closer to the existing homes,

[1:00:36] and other impacts deemed it not feasible.

[1:00:42] okay.

[1:00:44] and you had mentioned that it would take out two shopping centers there on that side.

[1:00:51] and sorry to flip-flop, but I'm going to go back to 1a.

[1:00:53] but 1a also takes out a shopping center on our side as well, correct?

[1:00:57] correct.

[1:00:59] if you're referring to the village plaza, is that the one?

[1:01:01] yeah, the one that's on the corner of el toro.

[1:01:04] yeah.

[1:01:07] so I guess both sides are impacted there.

[1:01:16] could it?

[1:01:16] it just seems interesting.

[1:01:20] so is option three still on the table then?

[1:01:23] very much so, yes.

[1:01:24] okay.

[1:01:25] so that is still an option.

[1:01:26] gotcha.

[1:01:26] okay.

[1:01:29] yeah and has there been discussion with merlon geyer and the impacts of what option

[1:01:37] 1a does and what does that look like?

[1:01:44] we have as as octa we have not been in direct conversation discussions with merlon

[1:01:49] geyer we've been working through city the city staff

[1:01:53] and okay.

[1:01:54] all right.

[1:01:56] okay.

[1:01:58] that's all the questions I have now.

[1:01:59] thank you.

[1:02:02] okay.

[1:02:04] I'm going to chime in here a little bit.

[1:02:07] could we go to page 11, please?

[1:02:13] and we're going to come back to 7.

[1:02:14] I have a lot of comments.

[1:02:19] and I see this as a work in process, okay?

[1:02:23] I'm up.

[1:02:24] generally a pretty positive person, and I believe in making improvements to our

[1:02:30] transportation system as much as possible.

[1:02:35] but I find it interesting on page 11, I'm just looking at it, that everything where

[1:02:40] we just, you know,

[1:02:42] have gone through at least the first reading of an entitlement of the merlin geier

[1:02:48] property, the old laguna hills mall,

[1:02:52] to quite an extensive 68-acre development.

[1:02:56] on this particular slide, other than referring to the village, access to the village

[1:03:01] in laguna hills, there's nothing in there.

[1:03:05] it's empty.

[1:03:07] and so I look at that and I'm thinking, I'm really worried that that's what octa and

[1:03:12] caltrans really looked at, is

[1:03:15] that this was just a great big piece of dirt and they could do whatever the heck they

[1:03:17] wanted.

[1:03:19] and so it is not the case so much right now.

[1:03:23] we are working together on trying to do something.

[1:03:27] could you go back to slide number seven?

[1:03:32] seven.

[1:03:33] yeah.

[1:03:34] okay.

[1:03:37] there we go.

[1:03:38] there we go.

[1:03:40] all right.

[1:03:40] it's very difficult for a lot of people in the room to read this,

[1:03:43] so I'm only going to basically explain that the same problem

[1:03:50] that alternative two had on that side of the freeway is the exact same issue that's

[1:03:56] going to occur on our side of the freeway.

[1:04:02] basically, you see, you know, a four-lane street sticking off carlotta going straight

[1:04:10] into the village.

[1:04:13] it goes straight into townhomes.

[1:04:16] it goes straight into a hotel.

[1:04:20] and so those things really weren't thought about okay,

[1:04:24] and we're working on it together today but we're a long ways from from having a

[1:04:31] solution here and just say oh look what

[1:04:35] we did.

[1:04:35] it's all great because it does the same damn thing that that four-lane road that goes

[1:04:41] in there the idea of it as far as

[1:04:44] caltrans is concerned even though they might change their mind is that that would be a

[1:04:50] a full four lane street going through to another public street.

[1:04:55] the very reason why you can't do alternative number two on the other side.

[1:05:00] okay?

[1:05:02] and so that would basically destroy the village plan.

[1:05:06] that four lane road would go through the village park.

[1:05:09] it would go through the whole foods.

[1:05:11] it would go through the northstorm rack.

[1:05:15] it would be a disaster if it was to be like this.

[1:05:19] but this is what you're showing us.

[1:05:21] so I can only go on the basis of what is in front of me today.

[1:05:25] and I'm assuming that all of the ceqa stuff that you're doing is based not upon what

[1:05:32] the entitlements were from 2022,

[1:05:39] but what are the entitlements that we're looking at.

[1:05:41] we've only done the first reading and approved that.

[1:05:44] we still have another second reading to do.

[1:05:46] and I think that's agendized today.

[1:05:49] but the point is, is that we're a long ways.

[1:05:53] I mean, the easiest thing for you to do right now and actually maybe makes it happen

[1:06:00] without it being crazy is alternative three.

[1:06:05] or you're not doing any of this.

[1:06:08] because plaza drive, which exists right now,

[1:06:11] it goes into the mall site, pretty much where this access ramp is, is

[1:06:17] basically a two-way street in and out that was met in the entitlement that we have

[1:06:23] just approved the first reading of to be the in and out for

[1:06:28] whole foods and for king's fish house and all the rest of that.

[1:06:35] and so the only other alternative besides this

[1:06:39] four-lane road which should go through the entire development would be not to do

[1:06:45] anything at all there and then there's no no lane

[1:06:49] going in and or out unless we can solve those problems those are the kinds of

[1:06:55] problems we need to solve and and we

[1:06:59] need to do it sooner than later because we have the marriott hotel who wants to go in?

[1:07:06] the site that would actually be uh...

[1:07:10] hugely affected by this in terms of a taking in terms of uh...

[1:07:16] uh...

[1:07:16] you know project uh...

[1:07:18] being and they wanted they want to be into that building by the twenty eight olympics

[1:07:24] which means they're ready to go into plan

[1:07:27] check and all of this stuff is we're gonna vote on it

[1:07:32] october and then we're going to do more stuff,

[1:07:35] and then we're going to design it how do we move on with a village project if this

[1:07:40] thing is hanging over?

[1:07:43] everyone's head for years so that's I mean, I'm only pointing these out not to be

[1:07:51] adversarial but to basically say this really really

[1:07:57] isn't figured out yet not even close I

[1:08:02] and I would love it if we could figure it out in the next month because we need to

[1:08:06] move on one way or the other.

[1:08:09] and we have a developer since the first reading who's ready to rock and roll and make

[1:08:15] this stuff happen.

[1:08:17] so if we were ever worried about, oh, no, can we really trust they're going to do

[1:08:22] this, they're ready.

[1:08:25] and so I don't know how we solve this.

[1:08:30] and now we can't even do anything because we don't even have the ability to talk

[1:08:35] about it in any level other than this

[1:08:39] until after september 14th.

[1:08:41] because this is the public, you know, you're looking for public reaction.

[1:08:49] I don't know what kind of public reaction you're going to get when most people are

[1:08:53] going to go to these things and certainly

[1:08:55] not understand what I'm talking about right now.

[1:08:59] not even a clue.

[1:09:01] and so I don't know how that's to the public's benefit to have very little real

[1:09:07] information about what this really is.

[1:09:12] so those are my comments, but I will end the way I started.

[1:09:16] I would like to see us find a solution that works, that's a win-win, or certainly not

[1:09:23] a lose-lose,

[1:09:25] and something that is done in an expedient way

[1:09:29] and not hold everybody up.

[1:09:32] and so I'll leave it that way.

[1:09:35] let's find that solution, but let's find it quickly.

[1:09:39] otherwise, we need to move on.

[1:09:42] we have an almost billion-dollar development that we're ready to, if it passes the

[1:09:48] second reading tonight, I'll give it that.

[1:09:53] but if it does, then we need to move on.

[1:09:57] this city needs to move on.

[1:09:59] and that hotel is very important to us.

[1:10:03] there's two hotels and the tot taxes are really, really fundamental to that whole

[1:10:08] development and how it works.

[1:10:11] not to mention the fact that this access way goes right straight into town homes.

[1:10:18] and we were worried about town homes being close to town homes on the other side.

[1:10:22] this goes straight into them.

[1:10:25] so I don't know.

[1:10:27] mayor caskey, if I could comment on your timeline and the urgency.

[1:10:33] similarly, we have a schedule to complete the environmental phase on this project.

[1:10:39] once the public comment period closes on september 14th, the team is going to be, and

[1:10:44] actually is working on it now, but

[1:10:46] we'll be summarizing all the comments received.

[1:10:50] we will meet with the three cities and with caltrans to talk about all the comments

[1:10:54] received,

[1:10:56] and then the plan is to meet in october.

[1:10:58] so it's between now, august 25th, and october.

[1:11:05] there's time there, but we're going to be getting on this as quickly as we can to try

[1:11:09] to find a solution.

[1:11:11] and in the meantime, I'm hoping that we're

[1:11:13] trying to find a real solution and not just say, okay,

[1:11:17] we've got the public comments and we're going to just move ahead with what it is.

[1:11:21] because you had three cities who would have done the flyover in a flash, all of us.

[1:11:29] and the problem really is the hydraulics.

[1:11:32] I think erica brought it up.

[1:11:34] the hydraulics, the traffic hydraulics on el toro between the freeway and tribuco is

[1:11:41] a joke.

[1:11:43] on the other side.

[1:11:44] and that's not criticizing our colleagues on the other side,

[1:11:49] but just creating these off ramps is not going to really get the traffic flowing

[1:11:56] again until things are in sync.

[1:12:00] we've got way too many traffic lights on the other side.

[1:12:04] we have five exits on our side from the freeway, five.

[1:12:09] we don't have a real problem.

[1:12:12] and that's not even to mention what wheeler, sorry, councilman wheeler was talking

[1:12:16] about.

[1:12:18] we lose another, it's a small, but another shopping center.

[1:12:23] I mean, it goes on and on.

[1:12:26] so, okay.

[1:12:27] mayor kaskin, council members.

[1:12:28] those are my comments.

[1:12:29] I would, you know, all the traffic study that's been done is,

[1:12:34] if I could boil it down, there's a lot of data in it, a lot of analysis, is that

[1:12:38] basically with the build alternative,

[1:12:40] whether it's 1, 1a, would reduce congestion in the area by 35 to 40%.

[1:12:44] so the tsm-tdm one,

[1:12:49] also would reduce traffic as well or reduce congestion by about 9%.

[1:12:55] done in conjunction with each other, it could be around 44%.

[1:12:59] so I think if I had to answer the question of what are the benefits for laguna hills

[1:13:03] is that

[1:13:07] believe it or not, the traffic study shows that more than half of the traffic stays

[1:13:12] on the laguna hills side.

[1:13:14] but regardless, if we split traffic to the two sets of ramps, it will improve those

[1:13:19] intersections that are on the laguna hills side.

[1:13:23] it will help people get to the medical facilities on the laguna hills side quicker,

[1:13:29] and it will help emergency responders and also provide potentially

[1:13:35] more direct access or closer access to the village at laguna hills.

[1:13:39] so those are some of the general benefits.

[1:13:42] that sounds like everyone's made up their mind.

[1:13:44] so I beg you to differ.

[1:13:45] but I thank you for your presentation.

[1:13:48] I think it was well done in at least laying out the time frames and all the rest of

[1:13:54] that.

[1:13:56] and I will assume that it is an honest assessment

[1:14:02] effort on the part of caltrans and octa to be working to make a solution that

[1:14:08] actually works for people and not just trying

[1:14:13] to ram something down a whole community's throat.

[1:14:19] so thank you very much.

[1:14:21] any other comments?

[1:14:22] oh, yeah.

[1:14:22] yes.

[1:14:23] councilman wheeler.

[1:14:24] yeah, no, I have another.

[1:14:25] you inspired me.

[1:14:26] it's okay.

[1:14:28] it doesn't matter.

[1:14:29] just not late for dinner, right?

[1:14:36] to continue something don said, in one way you look at this like 1a dumps the traffic

[1:14:41] on the laguna side and 2 dumps

[1:14:44] it on lake forest side, either into our shopping center or our area that we're

[1:14:49] building or their area.

[1:14:52] but the big difference is lake forest wants it.

[1:14:55] they want it dumped in their area for the reason is they can use the money there to

[1:15:01] rehab, you know, refurbish their area, which will help them a lot.

[1:15:05] so that's the big difference.

[1:15:06] they want it.

[1:15:09] I got a question on one thing.

[1:15:10] you said, I don't know who does your traffic studies.

[1:15:13] I'm not a traffic expert, but I do know volumes and physics.

[1:15:17] and how, if the traffic is not going to reduce,

[1:15:21] so how could you possibly have a 35 to 40% reduction in conjection when you have the

[1:15:25] same amount of traffic going in that area?

[1:15:27] I mean, it goes the same place.

[1:15:30] where's the reduction?

[1:15:34] councilmember wheeler, what that benefit is coming from is the distribution of

[1:15:38] traffic to different intersections.

[1:15:41] say that again, please.

[1:15:42] the benefit, the traffic benefit, comes from distributing the traffic that's

[1:15:46] currently coming off at one location and making a bunch of left turns

[1:15:50] to different intersections.

[1:15:52] so it's spreading the traffic volume.

[1:15:56] well, yeah, but if you look at the map there, okay, you've got two exits instead of

[1:15:59] one.

[1:16:00] okay, you spread it out, but it comes right back down del toro road.

[1:16:04] so just because you split a river into two sections, it's still going to come back

[1:16:07] together at the end.

[1:16:08] it doesn't reduce it at all.

[1:16:11] it's, there's a difference in the flows of traffic that would come north to el toro

[1:16:16] and then come,

[1:16:18] those that come around south of el toro.

[1:16:21] so signal timing, lanes, turn lanes, number of turn lanes, all of that's analyzed to

[1:16:26] come up with the traffic flow.

[1:16:29] I don't know what they're doing.

[1:16:30] there's a thing called deconservation of mass in physics.

[1:16:32] you have the same mass in that area and you're not changing it at all.

[1:16:36] so I don't know what they're doing.

[1:16:38] it's just, it's not possible.

[1:16:39] the only alternative is if you divert some of the traffic at the second exit down to

[1:16:43] the left, down to the next one.

[1:16:45] I forget the name of it.

[1:16:47] los alisas, I believe it is.

[1:16:49] and that's the option that our directors has explained to you that you can do with

[1:16:51] signs.

[1:16:53] that would be the only way you'd reduce the congestion.

[1:16:56] the second part, you said 50% of the traffic that comes off that exit goes into

[1:17:02] laguna hills?

[1:17:05] I can't believe that at all.

[1:17:06] we had to create years and years ago, before I was even on the council, coming off

[1:17:10] that first southbound lane there,

[1:17:13] there are three lanes going left over into lake forest.

[1:17:18] three lanes.

[1:17:19] only one goes straight and one to the right.

[1:17:22] and we have no housing in there.

[1:17:24] the people would go to maybe laguna woods, which is

[1:17:29] I mean, they're retired mostly over there.

[1:17:30] they don't have a whole lot of traffic coming off freeway at dinner time or in the

[1:17:35] morning going to work.

[1:17:38] all the traffic goes to lake forest.

[1:17:39] so the half of it goes into laguna hills.

[1:17:42] again, I just can't believe that's a true number.

[1:17:45] we wouldn't have three lanes going left if that were so.

[1:17:48] we'd have equal lanes going both directions.

[1:17:50] and that hasn't been that way for decades.

[1:17:53] I don't know what you guys are doing.

[1:17:55] it just doesn't make sense as it goes.

[1:17:57] council member wheeler, the traffic study, the existing traffic is based on traffic

[1:18:02] counts and also data that's used now in the industry from cell

[1:18:06] phones and connected vehicles.

[1:18:08] so there's about two sets of data.

[1:18:10] there's counts and then, you know, other data that's fed in.

[1:18:13] okay, perhaps you'd make those studies available to us.

[1:18:16] we could look at them.

[1:18:17] because maybe I'll learn something doing that, but it doesn't make sense to me.

[1:18:21] okay.

[1:18:21] last question right now.

[1:18:22] you said you had discussed with maloon dyer.

[1:18:25] what did you talk about?

[1:18:26] what do they want?

[1:18:29] councilmember ruler, I believe I said we have not had discussions as octa.

[1:18:38] I thought you said you did have a conversation with us.

[1:18:40] you haven't talked with them at all.

[1:18:41] I think she said that, but she's correcting that, right?

[1:18:45] okay, yep.

[1:18:46] to be clear, octa has not had direct discussions with merlongaia.

[1:18:50] okay, all right.

[1:18:51] that's a good thing to clarify.

[1:18:52] okay, so dave, this is going to be a fun one.

[1:18:55] I couldn't agree with your observations anymore, okay?

[1:18:59] how about that?

[1:19:02] and we've both lived here a long time.

[1:19:03] this is recorded, right?

[1:19:05] yeah.

[1:19:06] but erica, go ahead.

[1:19:07] yeah, I just, unfortunately, I have to point out some facts that may not be very...

[1:19:16] nice to hear right now.

[1:19:17] so as I'm like thinking about this, let's just see.

[1:19:20] I'm just looking this up we are a pass-through city and if you look at the

[1:19:30] populations so I'm just pulling these populations very

[1:19:38] quickly so we're a pass-through city for laguna woods

[1:19:45] laguna beach, laguna negal, alisa viejo, and many times dana point.

[1:19:54] so if you think about the populations across the street to the other cities,

[1:20:00] and you think about the population that are coming through our cities, you have I

[1:20:06] think alisa viejo is 49,000.

[1:20:10] then you have the population of laguna negal that's 64,000.

[1:20:14] and then you have the population of laguna beach that's 23,000, and then you have

[1:20:19] laguna woods at 17,000.

[1:20:23] and that is why this is a very serious location, because it feeds the other cities.

[1:20:35] we're bearing the weight for pass-through traffic, and that's why it's a dangerous

[1:20:39] intersection.

[1:20:41] that's why everything, so it's not because of our population,

[1:20:45] it's because cities like aliso viejo doubled their population within the past few

[1:20:50] years through land use deals.

[1:20:54] and they've changed.

[1:20:55] and what's happened is because aliso viejo, we're bearing the burden because aliso

[1:21:00] viejo just has increased their population.

[1:21:05] laguna niguel has increased their population.

[1:21:08] we see a little bit with laguna woods.

[1:21:10] laguna beach, I mean, they have increased theirs a little bit, but we've seen a

[1:21:14] doubling in population recently in aliso viejo.

[1:21:18] that doesn't happen without an infrastructure consequence.

[1:21:22] and that infrastructure consequence is occurring with accidents.

[1:21:28] and that's something that you can't just say, well, you know, it's not going to

[1:21:32] happen.

[1:21:33] but those are the numbers that we're seeing.

[1:21:36] so I'm just pointing out the reality of population increases, land use decisions,

[1:21:42] decisions to increase the population through these land use issues without

[1:21:46] understanding the sheer consequence that happens.

[1:21:49] and we're encountering the sheer consequence today.

[1:21:53] and this is the result of what's happened over the past 10 years in aliso.

[1:21:58] just pointing that out thank you.

[1:22:01] okay.

[1:22:01] I just have one last officer.

[1:22:03] are you done?

[1:22:03] I'm sorry.

[1:22:04] I didn't mean to interrupt you but I will I will add to what you're saying erica

[1:22:12] those very population gains have affected oh so la paz and

[1:22:19] alicia that's where those real numbers are hitting us big time.

[1:22:29] 65,000 on, I think, alicia alone.

[1:22:34] and this is a chump change compared to that.

[1:22:37] and yet, I don't understand this.

[1:22:40] the last little note that I wanted to just put out here is that the entitlement that

[1:22:46] was given to merleau and geyer in 2022

[1:22:51] for what was the village of laguna hills at that time,

[1:22:56] had more than 400,000 square feet of class a office buildings that they were

[1:23:02] expecting to do, two major parking structures, and maybe 60,000,

[1:23:08] 70,000 square feet more in retail space.

[1:23:14] and when we're talking about the numbers that you guys have looked at and how they're

[1:23:19] all affected,

[1:23:21] are you using the impacts from that old entitlement?

[1:23:28] or are you taking into consideration the new entitlement, if it's granted, the final

[1:23:35] copy of it, or second reading of it?

[1:23:40] and it is considerably less traffic.

[1:23:45] considerably.

[1:23:47] and yet, all the numbers that are supporting this

[1:23:51] seemed to be going back to something that was completely different.

[1:23:55] so I'm confused.

[1:23:57] so mayor caskey the one this traffic study was done it was back before it was back

[1:24:02] during the time the development plan included

[1:24:05] the office buildings since then that has changed I think in general the trips now

[1:24:10] that are associated with the revised development plan on the whole

[1:24:15] or less as you say but the majority of the traffic so that is that would be trips

[1:24:21] associated with people who are traveling

[1:24:25] to and from the development, the uses on the development.

[1:24:28] there also is a lot of traffic that is coming from around the city, from the coast,

[1:24:34] north, west, east.

[1:24:36] there are trips, origins, and destinations that are in addition to the village at

[1:24:42] laguna hills development.

[1:24:44] so that is a factor, definitely, but there is traffic that is using the I-5 el toro

[1:24:51] interchange

[1:24:53] for a variety of trips in the area.

[1:24:55] and you mentioned oso and alicia and la paz.

[1:25:01] those interchanges were actually improved as part of oct's measure m2 freeway program

[1:25:05] and done with the freeway widening.

[1:25:08] so definitely needed and completed.

[1:25:12] thank you.

[1:25:13] appreciate that.

[1:25:14] all right, so we'll bring this to a close unless you had anything else you wanted to

[1:25:18] add.

[1:25:20] sorry.

[1:25:20] one more thing.

[1:25:21] sorry, erica.

[1:25:22] okay, so also laguna beach is a very popular city,

[1:25:27] and el toro feeds to a very popular destination city where people go to the beach.

[1:25:32] okay, that's one comment.

[1:25:34] and then I also wanted to say why doesn't octa get involved with all of the arena

[1:25:41] events

[1:25:43] land use issues that could create a lot of weight.

[1:25:46] so, for example, why isn't there some sort of check where cities have to check with

[1:25:53] octa to see if it's even possible to increase

[1:25:57] the population and the burden that it could create?

[1:26:01] I mean, it seems like we're not discussing these very important issues, and octa is

[1:26:06] encountering this.

[1:26:08] this is what you're doing.

[1:26:09] you're chasing after all of these entitlements and all of these build-outs, and

[1:26:13] there's so many consequences that are happening, but no one's communicating.

[1:26:18] maybe some of these projects that have been passed, there's been five in our city,

[1:26:21] and in the newspapers you read all these other ones.

[1:26:25] why isn't it there's a law that states you have to go through a cta first to see if

[1:26:30] it's even possible?

[1:26:33] to bear that burden, just out of curiosity why we're not having these communications

[1:26:37] on a state level.

[1:26:41] so cta being a transportation agency, we are part of the scag, or southern california

[1:26:46] association of governments region.

[1:26:48] they do the land use planning, all of the land use plans,

[1:26:53] general plans and so forth feed into that.

[1:26:55] we use all that information in our traffic model to determine how much traffic will

[1:27:01] there be in a certain area.

[1:27:03] and then when there are developments that are released for environmental public

[1:27:07] review, generally speaking,

[1:27:09] we get that as octa to comment on what are the traffic impacts, what are other

[1:27:13] impacts associated with that development.

[1:27:18] thank you.

[1:27:20] thank you for your presentation.

[1:27:22] mayor caskey, what I would say is thank you very much for this opportunity to talk

[1:27:26] about the project,

[1:27:27] and I would just say that we are committed, octa and caltrans are committed to

[1:27:30] working towards a solution that's beneficial for both projects.

[1:27:34] I hope so.

[1:27:35] we're working on it together.

[1:27:38] all right.

[1:27:39] so we're going to move on here.

[1:27:46] I do want to move another item forward, but what I am going to do

[1:27:53] actually go ahead with the schedule of future events and also public comments but

[1:27:58] before the consent calendar we're going to move on to another

[1:28:02] item and move it up so with that we'll go on to schedule of future events

[1:28:12] thank you, mayor caskey.

[1:28:13] mayor caskey, members of the city council, and members of the public.

[1:28:16] the city council and planning agency will next meet on tuesday, september 8th.

[1:28:20] the meeting will begin at 6 p.m.

[1:28:22] here in the council chambers.

[1:28:24] the events, communication, and beautification committee regular meeting will be held

[1:28:28] on monday, september 14th at 10 a.m.

[1:28:30] in the admin conference room.

[1:28:31] the traffic commission will have their regular meeting on wednesday, september 16th

[1:28:35] at 6 p.m.

[1:28:36] also here in the council chambers.

[1:28:38] moving to community activities and events.

[1:28:41] the pacific symphony will be returning to laguna hills tomorrow night for our

[1:28:44] symphony on the go performance at 6.30 p.m.

[1:28:46] at cabot park.

[1:28:48] parking is available along rapid falls drive.

[1:28:51] the next day we have an excursion and will be traveling to ramona for their annual

[1:28:55] rodeo at the fred grand arena.

[1:28:58] kicking off the weekend on friday, august 28th, we will be going to culver city for

[1:29:01] their annual fiesta la bayona.

[1:29:04] then on sunday, august 30th, we will be going to l.a.

[1:29:07] for a tour of the academy museum.

[1:29:10] later that week we have an excursion to the laguna art museum on thursday, september

[1:29:13] 3rd.

[1:29:15] that same day, we will be hosting orange county library's meet the author event at

[1:29:19] 6.30 p.m.

[1:29:20] in the heritage room, where award-winning author tess gerritsen will be talking about

[1:29:24] her latest book and series that is in development for tv

[1:29:27] with amazon studios.

[1:29:29] on friday, august 4th, we have another excursion and we'll be heading to orange for

[1:29:32] their international street fair.

[1:29:35] the next day, we will be on the road again, but this time for an excursion along

[1:29:40] route 66 from santa monica to barstow.

[1:29:44] finally, we have our always popular sold-out excursion to the getty villa on sunday,

[1:29:47] september 6th.

[1:29:49] as a reminder, city facilities will be closed on monday, september 7th in an

[1:29:52] observation of labor day.

[1:29:55] our next community event will be our second annual harvest in the hills on saturday,

[1:29:58] october 10th from 4 p.m.

[1:30:00] to 6 p.m.

[1:30:01] on the town green of the community center.

[1:30:03] it will be a family-friendly evening of fall fun with crafts, face painting,

[1:30:06] community partners, a pie-eating contest, and a magic show.

[1:30:10] that concludes my report, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

[1:30:14] thank you very much.

[1:30:14] any questions?

[1:30:16] ok.

[1:30:18] so with that, we're going to move on to public comments.

[1:30:21] this is a time to address the city council on any matter not listed on this agenda

[1:30:26] that is within the subject matter jurisdiction

[1:30:29] of the city council.

[1:30:31] public comments are limited to three minutes per person.

[1:30:34] and I'm going to open that up to city clerk and ask if there are any public comments.

[1:30:43] yes, there is, there is one in person, yining wang.

[1:31:08] good evening, mayor and member of the city council.

[1:31:12] I'm here again.

[1:31:13] thank you.

[1:31:14] so my name is yi-ning wang, and I'm the owner of the dealer massage and facial in

[1:31:18] laguna hills.

[1:31:20] so thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak again today.

[1:31:23] I'm here to start talking my expansion for my current next bar.

[1:31:31] so, okay.

[1:31:35] so I'm here to respectfully to ask for your approval to expansion into my next doors,

[1:31:42] 1600 square feet for current business.

[1:31:46] so first, I want to make one thing very clear.

[1:31:51] the expansion is not for more massage rooms.

[1:31:58] we will keep our non-massage rooms exactly at the same, nothing change.

[1:32:04] so the new space will be only using for facial and skin care service.

[1:32:11] so every facial room, we will have its own sink to meet california healthy and

[1:32:16] licensed requirements.

[1:32:19] when we opened, we only had one facial room.

[1:32:24] it wasn't enough, but we have almost three years.

[1:32:29] not enough anymore.

[1:32:30] sometimes we have customers waiting for one hour to have the service because we're

[1:32:36] using the facial room and the massage room together and then

[1:32:41] we have some other massage room we have to use for facial room.

[1:32:45] we have to go outside to grab the water for the customers to clean their facial.

[1:32:50] it's very unprofessional.

[1:32:54] so we want to, my next door, they move out, we want to for

[1:33:02] only for facial.

[1:33:04] I promise, only for facial, not massage, because we already have nine rooms, it's

[1:33:08] enough.

[1:33:09] it is already enough, just one new room for facial.

[1:33:12] so we have more than 400 reviews online from the yelp and then google.

[1:33:20] it is 4.9.

[1:33:21] it is really hard to get a 4.9 from the reviews from the yelp.

[1:33:30] we always follow city and state laws.

[1:33:33] the city check us for every four months.

[1:33:37] everything we follow the city and state laws.

[1:33:44] I'm not asking to become a different business.

[1:33:49] we simply want to be better service to our existing customer.

[1:33:54] and create more local jobs, and then continue serving in the laguna community.

[1:34:00] and we respectfully ask your support, and thank you so much for your time and

[1:34:05] consideration.

[1:34:07] I'm happy to answer any question.

[1:34:09] all right, do we have any questions?

[1:34:13] clarifications?

[1:34:14] erica.

[1:34:15] yes, I'm wondering, were you able to speak with staff since the last time you came?

[1:34:24] yeah, I came.

[1:34:26] city manager bob, he called me, so he say, I'm not really understanding for the city

[1:34:35] law and the attorney what they...

[1:34:41] because we expansion just for facial rooms, not for massage.

[1:34:46] it's only for facial.

[1:34:48] mr.

[1:34:49] burns, can you comment on that?

[1:34:55] I'm not familiar with the specifics of what the applicant has done, but normally you

[1:35:00] would submit an application to planning,

[1:35:03] and if there was disagreement of what the planning director's determination was, then

[1:35:07] you can appeal that up to likely the...

[1:35:10] likely the council.

[1:35:12] at this point, we don't really have an item before us to act on.

[1:35:15] this is just a public comment on an unscheduled matter.

[1:35:19] so I'm sure that staff would be happy to discuss the process with you after and help

[1:35:23] you out with some of the logistics

[1:35:25] of how to go through the process of getting an opinion.

[1:35:28] but at this point, there's just nothing on the agenda for the council to decide on.

[1:35:34] I know because I don't know what is this for or continue for one year or two year or

[1:35:40] how long because the next

[1:35:42] door is not forever there, you know.

[1:35:44] it's opportunity for me.

[1:35:48] is it possible to request that you work with staff?

[1:35:52] yeah, I think this is something where public comments are usually when you come up

[1:35:58] and you're

[1:35:59] making a comment to us.

[1:36:00] it's not an agendized item, so it's nothing we can act on as a council.

[1:36:05] so what I would suggest you do, and you're getting it from two other directions here,

[1:36:11] is that you work directly with staff who might be able to work with you based upon

[1:36:17] your comment and see what we can do to

[1:36:21] help you resolve your issues.

[1:36:24] I don't know where I can find who can help me to...

[1:36:29] continue this one I'll remind my colleagues they already had an application that was

[1:36:35] part of a previous meeting right to expand their location

[1:36:41] so they've already worked with city staff it just so happens at that very moment.

[1:36:46] we passed the ban on massage establishment, so they've already had one bite at the

[1:36:52] apple and so unless you're willing to

[1:36:58] deal with the ban.

[1:36:59] I don't know that there's much anybody can do is well this is my question if it is a

[1:37:05] legitimate business that isn't like

[1:37:08] the ones characterized is there a way to?

[1:37:13] make an exception during this time.

[1:37:16] mr.

[1:37:17] burns.

[1:37:18] I'm you know what area I would I would suggest is that that you work with staff and

[1:37:25] if if it comes back to

[1:37:28] from your side that we should agendize this and come back in a deeper way,

[1:37:34] then I would think that that's a better way of doing it.

[1:37:37] there's nothing that we can particularly do tonight.

[1:37:41] so I think whether we're going to kick it down or take it up to another level is

[1:37:46] something that I think needs to come

[1:37:49] through a process that we have no ability to do.

[1:37:54] between us and you during public comments.

[1:37:58] I'm a little bit confused.

[1:37:59] I have one question.

[1:38:00] because the city, I think her name is jennifer.

[1:38:03] she's saying no because she talked to the city attorney.

[1:38:07] and then they say, because I have an existing business, it's called massage.

[1:38:12] but I also, when I open, I have the facial, too.

[1:38:17] in the beginning, I have the facial and the massage, but the city just gave me the

[1:38:21] massage for the license.

[1:38:24] right.

[1:38:24] we're not equipped to deal with that tonight.

[1:38:27] okay.

[1:38:28] I understand what you're saying, and we're taking it in.

[1:38:32] we're making a suggestion that we work with you, and if it's something that needs to

[1:38:37] come back to the council...

[1:38:40] in a larger way, then we will agendize it.

[1:38:44] but we can't do anything with it right now, right here and now.

[1:38:49] so when I can get my answer for next month or next week, I don't want to wait forever,

[1:38:58] you know.

[1:38:59] all right.

[1:38:59] well, I'm going to have to bring it to a close here because it's been, you know,

[1:39:05] I think hopefully we can work with you on that, okay?

[1:39:10] don, if I might.

[1:39:10] okay.

[1:39:11] yes, go ahead.

[1:39:12] excuse me, ma'am.

[1:39:14] if you speak with ms.

[1:39:16] lowe over here at the end afterward.

[1:39:19] she can take care of it.

[1:39:20] she handles that stuff.

[1:39:21] okay.

[1:39:22] thank you.

[1:39:24] she's very nice.

[1:39:26] thank you.

[1:39:27] all right.

[1:39:27] thank you.

[1:39:29] all right.

[1:39:30] any online public comments or anything else?

[1:39:33] not this time.

[1:39:34] all right.

[1:39:35] so now what I'm going to do is we're moving things around a little bit.

[1:39:39] I am going to move to item 5.2, report by the assistant manager, assistant city

[1:39:45] manager, and I...

[1:39:49] doing that partly because there are a lot of people here.

[1:39:51] I see kids in the audience, and I think it's courteous to let's let's get onto this

[1:39:56] and especially if we have some folks

[1:39:59] who'd like to speak on that let's get it out of the way so 5.2,

[1:40:05] and I'm going to move to joanne's assistant city manager

[1:40:11] thank you, mr.

[1:40:12] mayor.

[1:40:13] yes.

[1:40:15] item

[1:40:15] 5.2.1 is review of petitions received regarding establishment of proposed residential

[1:40:21] permit parking districts for the streets listed on the screen in the subject

[1:40:27] line.

[1:40:28] next slide, please.

[1:40:30] so by way of background, at the march 18th traffic commission regular meeting,

[1:40:35] city staff made a presentation regarding requests received by the city from residents

[1:40:40] desiring the establishment of a residential permit parking district that would

[1:40:46] prohibit overnight parking on streets near beckenham park, camberwell street,

[1:40:49] beckenham street, and in the sunset place neighborhood without a parking permit.

[1:40:53] next slide, please.

[1:40:56] as a reminder, to designate a neighborhood as a permit parking area within the city

[1:41:00] of laguna hills,

[1:41:01] the laguna hills municipal code requires that a city create a petition form be

[1:41:05] submitted to the city with the signatures of at least

[1:41:08] 67% of the property owners supporting the proposed permit parking area.

[1:41:14] so residents residing on or near campbell street as well as in the sunset place

[1:41:18] neighborhood described undesirable quality of life issues due to non-resident

[1:41:23] vehicle parking and lack of enforceable street sweeping as a basis for requesting the

[1:41:27] establishment of a residential permit parking district next slide, please

[1:41:32] so then during the march 18th traffic commission meeting,

[1:41:35] residents residing on or near camberwell street as well as in the sunset place

[1:41:39] neighborhood described those issues to the traffic commission.

[1:41:44] and there was a discussion also how, over time,

[1:41:46] the establishment of nearby residential permit parking districts resulted in more

[1:41:50] parked vehicles being displaced onto those streets,

[1:41:54] presumably as a result of the lack of available parking at or adjacent to nearby

[1:41:58] multifamily housing.

[1:41:59] next slide, please.

[1:42:01] so currently we have existing permit parking on the yellow streets shown on the map

[1:42:07] above.

[1:42:09] and then the purple line and red line, or the purple line was actually added recently

[1:42:15] by the city council for no parking,

[1:42:18] overnight parking around beckenham park.

[1:42:20] next slide please.

[1:42:22] so in response to those comments at that traffic commission meeting,

[1:42:28] the traffic commission recommended that city staff send out petition forms to those

[1:42:33] residents.

[1:42:35] and then the traffic commission also recommended the establishment of that no

[1:42:37] overnight parking on streets adjacent to beckenham park.

[1:42:41] and on the side of the street closest to the park, and the establishment of no

[1:42:44] overnight park on the south side of beckenham,

[1:42:47] extending from acacia lane to wilkes place.

[1:42:49] that's the purple line on the previous slide.

[1:42:51] next slide, please.

[1:42:56] next slide.

[1:42:58] so at the april 14th meeting, the city council passed the purple line, no overnight

[1:43:03] parking adjacent to the park.

[1:43:07] and those parking restrictions were implemented by city staff shortly thereafter.

[1:43:12] next slide, please.

[1:43:15] and then so the petitions that the traffic commission recommended that we send out

[1:43:21] covered the streets shown in orange.

[1:43:24] we sent out a total of 308 petition ballot forms, is what we're calling them,

[1:43:31] that would allow for residents to either individually return interest in permit

[1:43:36] parking or could canvass for signatures.

[1:43:42] the orange and red looks very close.

[1:43:44] is the red just that one little line?

[1:43:45] yeah, the red is just that tiny little line.

[1:43:48] most of it's orange on the screen.

[1:43:49] thank you.

[1:43:50] next slide, please.

[1:43:52] and then so more particularly, the blue areas are the parcels where the ballots were

[1:43:58] sent out to, and the red area already has

[1:44:03] existing permit parking no overnight parking without a parking permit next slide,

[1:44:09] please so on june 9th related mayor pro tem mathis and councilman wheeler requested

[1:44:15] city staff returns to a future city council meeting with a report

[1:44:20] discussing parking and street sweeping issues and also request the city staff look at

[1:44:24] it allowing overnight parking on the south side of laguna

[1:44:27] hills drive next slide, please

[1:44:29] and then june 15th, we mailed out the ballot petitions to those 308 property owners.

[1:44:35] the deadline for receipt of those petitions was 5 p.m.

[1:44:39] on july 15th.

[1:44:39] next slide, please.

[1:44:43] june 23rd, I provided a comprehensive presentation on parking and street sweeping

[1:44:46] issues to the city council.

[1:44:49] and specific to solving the parking issues near beckenham park, camberwell street,

[1:44:52] beckenham street, and the sunset place neighborhood,

[1:44:55] city staff also recommended allowing parking on the south side of laguna hills drive

[1:45:00] between indian hill lane and pasadena valencia in order to decrease

[1:45:04] the number of vehicles parked in or near the above neighborhoods.

[1:45:08] next slide, please.

[1:45:10] so the blue line is what was just

[1:45:17] passed by resolution by the city council and it was recently implemented with marked

[1:45:22] parking stalls on the street and the residential the residents

[1:45:28] and residing in the nearby apartment complexes were notified of that new parking on

[1:45:33] the street by their management company next slide please

[1:45:39] and so, yes, the city council adopted that resolution, and those parking spaces were

[1:45:44] striped, signed, and available as of july 14th.

[1:45:47] next slide, please.

[1:45:48] so on july 15th, the traffic commission reviewed the results of the ballot petition

[1:45:54] process.

[1:45:56] so I've taken this in two parts here.

[1:45:59] we had the sunset place neighborhood, and then we had the neighborhood around

[1:46:03] beckenham park.

[1:46:05] the sunset place neighborhood,

[1:46:07] based upon the return of signatures, 39 of 68 residences indicated that they wanted

[1:46:15] permit parking, which was only a 57% approval rate.

[1:46:21] my observation was, based upon the ballots returned, that people in the outer portion

[1:46:25] of the circle generally wanted it, but in the

[1:46:28] inner portion of the circle generally did not return anything.

[1:46:31] signed petitions.

[1:46:32] next slide, please.

[1:46:34] so regarding camberwell street, hinton street, calle carmel, villa balboa, avenida

[1:46:38] avalon, luzon, casto, salford, derby circle, york circle,

[1:46:43] the city staff reviewed those results also with the traffic commission, and the

[1:46:46] traffic commission received comments from the public,

[1:46:50] including comments from one resident who indicated wilks across from the park should

[1:46:54] be included in any permit parking district because the surrounding streets

[1:46:59] had supermajority interest in permit parking and but based on the results available

[1:47:03] at the time the traffic commission recommended a limit some of those

[1:47:07] denoted in combination for map which is attached to tonight's agenda report I'll

[1:47:11] review that momentarily and what that means well,

[1:47:15] I take a swig of water here excuse me microphone for that however

[1:47:24] after the traffic commission meeting, city staff received eight more signatures that

[1:47:28] were postmarked the day before the traffic commission meeting that didn't arrive

[1:47:33] until after the traffic commission meeting.

[1:47:35] we consider those submissions to be timely due to the postmarked date.

[1:47:40] therefore, the final results of the ballot petition process are as follows.

[1:47:44] and this was also the subject of the revision I made to you today regarding a hot

[1:47:50] envelope.

[1:47:52] making sure these numbers were notated correctly for the agenda report so these are

[1:47:59] the results based upon those eight additional signatures and so unfortunately

[1:48:06] there are fortunately or unfortunately it's just an observation that some of the

[1:48:09] streets are

[1:48:11] I have a clear supermajority wishing to participate in permit parking, and some fell

[1:48:17] well short of a supermajority.

[1:48:21] and so if you take it in total, you've got approximately 48 percent of the residents

[1:48:26] collectively among all those streets wanted to participate

[1:48:31] in permit parking.

[1:48:33] next slide, please.

[1:48:35] and so while the ballot petitions received did not allow for all streets to be

[1:48:39] included in the proposed residential permit parking district because

[1:48:43] the area as a whole did not reach the threshold,

[1:48:46] there are several streets or portions of streets where the majority of residents

[1:48:49] desire permit parking, and I'm calling them majority interest streets.

[1:48:53] and some of these streets are contiguous with one another such that a logical,

[1:48:57] clearly defined boundary could be implemented for permit parking if so desired by the

[1:49:02] city council.

[1:49:03] additionally, because the percentage of some majority interest rates are much higher

[1:49:06] than 67%, as you saw in the previous slide,

[1:49:09] you can combine it with lower percentage streets where you can still reach that 67%

[1:49:14] threshold.

[1:49:16] next slide, please.

[1:49:17] and so there are different combinations and permutations about how that can be done.

[1:49:21] and so our assistant engineer, samantha vu,

[1:49:26] I went through the painful exercise of going through all of those different ways

[1:49:31] where you can reach 67% by putting other different consiguous

[1:49:35] street segments.

[1:49:37] and so I'm going to show them to you right now.

[1:49:40] next slide, please.

[1:49:42] so combination one.

[1:49:46] the yellow shows the existing permit parking areas that exist today.

[1:49:51] the streets in green were generally those streets or segments of streets that

[1:49:58] returned ballot petitions above 67%.

[1:50:03] and then generally speaking, residents on hendon street west of camberwell and east

[1:50:08] of camberwell

[1:50:10] returned a significant number of petitions, but short of 67%.

[1:50:17] and the folks on hendon street, where the knuckle occurs going south to costeau

[1:50:21] street, had very little participation.

[1:50:25] it's not exactly shown on this slide.

[1:50:27] but our assistant engineer is showing that if you wanted to include all of the light

[1:50:32] blue properties in here,

[1:50:34] you would still, on a combination or a total basis, have a supermajority,

[1:50:41] and you would have continuous street sign in this scenario for permit parking.

[1:50:50] next slide, please.

[1:50:51] so here's combination two.

[1:50:53] the difference between this combination and the prior combination is that

[1:50:57] the four properties across from beckenham park on wilkes, it's actually wilkes, not

[1:51:02] camberwell, it's wilkes right there,

[1:51:06] where one of the residents said that they really wanted to be included in the permit

[1:51:09] parking district.

[1:51:10] that wouldn't be included in favor of having additional properties on avenida avalon

[1:51:15] and the cul-de-sac be included in that.

[1:51:19] underneath that combination.

[1:51:20] that total represents 68% threshold being met.

[1:51:25] next slide, please.

[1:51:27] combination three is just shown for illustrative purposes about how if a derby circle

[1:51:34] were included, what that looks like.

[1:51:37] however, only 50% of the residents on derby circle requested participation in permit

[1:51:42] parking.

[1:51:43] next slide, please.

[1:51:45] and then we have combination four.

[1:51:47] this is closest to what the traffic commission at the time recommended without having

[1:51:51] the benefit of the additional information of the eight ballots,

[1:51:54] which were principally submitted by people on villa balboa, avenida avalon, and the

[1:51:59] western portion of hendon street.

[1:52:03] and so this is combination four.

[1:52:05] and then fifth combination.

[1:52:09] next slide please is this combination here which also allows for continuous

[1:52:16] continuous permit parking along hendon street as a whole but at the sacrifice

[1:52:24] of the four residential properties across from beckenham park

[1:52:29] so those are the five combinations that we were able to come up with.

[1:52:32] a 66.7%, some would argue is not 67%, however you could also argue that you can round

[1:52:37] up, I don't know.

[1:52:39] I'll let you guys decide that.

[1:52:40] next slide please.

[1:52:42] so again, while combination four was a good choice based upon the information

[1:52:47] available,

[1:52:49] to the traffic commission at the july 15th meeting.

[1:52:53] with the addition of eight additional ballot petitions being cast, a larger group of

[1:52:57] properties can now be included closer to beckenham park.

[1:53:02] therefore, city staff would prefer or suggest that maybe a combination of one or five

[1:53:08] be considered by the city council.

[1:53:12] especially in light of the fact that salford street, york circle, derby circle, and

[1:53:16] costeau street, south of salford street,

[1:53:19] return ballot petitions at much lower rates than the other street segments.

[1:53:24] and so it's my recommendation against including any of those residences in that

[1:53:27] permit parking district based upon this new information.

[1:53:30] next slide, please.

[1:53:33] and so I'm going to leave it.

[1:53:35] city council to choose one of the boundaries for permit parking and then if you

[1:53:39] provide any direction on permit parking to city staff

[1:53:44] I would be I would be prepared to return to city council september 8th with the

[1:53:48] assistance of our city attorney and implementing resolution

[1:53:52] and couldn't do that at this point tonight because I need a direction on that first

[1:53:56] and of course any proposed permit parking district require

[1:53:59] a permit to park on the street between the hours of 10 p.m.

[1:54:03] and 6 a.m.

[1:54:04] as currently envisioned and would include a street sweeping parking restriction for

[1:54:08] the days and hours of street sweeping that concludes my presentation at this

[1:54:13] point in time happy to answer any questions okay

[1:54:21] thank you very much.

[1:54:23] and that was quite extensive.

[1:54:28] so I will start with public comments.

[1:54:33] and I ask the city clerk if we have any public comments in person or online on this

[1:54:38] particular agendized item.

[1:54:41] we have one in person, curtis van buskirk.

[1:54:59] good evening, mayor caskey, mayor pro tem mathis, council.

[1:55:05] really appreciate the opportunity to speak in front of you again.

[1:55:08] this, as you can imagine, has been quite the journey.

[1:55:13] it taught me a lot about public service and everything that you guys do, so I

[1:55:17] appreciate, first and foremost,

[1:55:19] taking the time to listen through everything that we've gone through.

[1:55:23] this is a year and a half effort at this point, and I'm excited to see that

[1:55:29] we have what seems to be a pretty fruitful solution to come forward.

[1:55:37] I also want to recognize the great effort by city staff that went through a diligent

[1:55:41] process in this.

[1:55:43] it was very exhaustive, I understand.

[1:55:45] there's a lot that goes into this.

[1:55:47] it's not simply just sending out a ballot and getting responses back.

[1:55:52] I reviewed the packet ahead of time.

[1:55:54] I agree with assistant city manager joe ames on option five.

[1:56:01] I think that offers the most comprehensive district for what we would consider a

[1:56:08] geography or logistical area that would encompass the area that's

[1:56:14] most experiencing the issues today.

[1:56:17] there's two things I'd like to add.

[1:56:21] one, if you go back to option five and you look at where wilkes, camberwell, and

[1:56:29] costeau tee off, there is one resident,

[1:56:33] and I think assistant manager ames did bring this up, was adamant about being

[1:56:38] included.

[1:56:40] in this petition because their frontage effectively is right at the t, and

[1:56:46] they do experience a lot of the parking in front of their home as well.

[1:56:52] it's kind of considered this no man's land to some extent in this little geography.

[1:56:58] I recognize that maybe the other three residences, most of which actually are rental

[1:57:02] properties and long-term living cares,

[1:57:06] that did not respond to the petition who live in those homes today.

[1:57:11] the second item, and I know this is a big ask, but I

[1:57:15] want to recognize the fact that a lot of the pushback we received from our residents

[1:57:20] in the neighborhood was the cost associated to this.

[1:57:25] so a component of this, or at least a consideration,

[1:57:28] is to consider not charging for these permits for those that have lived in this

[1:57:33] neighborhood, that have lived here for many,

[1:57:37] many years with a peaceful neighborhood not having to deal with this previously and

[1:57:42] only are trying to solve for a solution that was

[1:57:45] recently evident by the overflow parking from the apartments.

[1:57:51] I will tell you thank you for making those adjustments on laguna hills drive.

[1:57:55] that did ease some, did not ease enough though.

[1:57:58] there is still a pretty extensive parking on the opposite side of the park there.

[1:58:04] I'll...

[1:58:06] I'll wrap up here.

[1:58:08] finally, I just want to impress upon council staff to work with expediency.

[1:58:15] as I had mentioned, a year and a half has now gone by, and we have gone time and time

[1:58:20] again making phone calls.

[1:58:23] there's cd activity.

[1:58:27] my daughter, my wife, all will wake up at the wee hours of the morning from someone's

[1:58:32] exhaust

[1:58:34] system you know your old car alarm.

[1:58:37] that's going off in the middle of the night we we have just a myriad of different

[1:58:42] issues with garbage and trash and I for all the

[1:58:45] reasons I presented in my original you know presentation to council I just want to

[1:58:49] work with some level of expediency,

[1:58:52] so I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the group here thanks for bringing your

[1:58:58] whole family

[1:58:59] it wasn't a choice.

[1:59:04] there was only parents allowed at open house tonight, so we had to divide and conquer.

[1:59:08] okay.

[1:59:09] I just wondered if any of them need to speak on this subject.

[1:59:13] yeah, that little one right there.

[1:59:16] or maybe just go to bed.

[1:59:17] yeah.

[1:59:19] okay.

[1:59:19] so any questions?

[1:59:21] go ahead.

[1:59:23] dave, you had a question?

[1:59:24] just one question.

[1:59:25] which option do you prefer?

[1:59:28] option five was the one I preferred.

[1:59:30] thank you.

[1:59:32] any other questions for speakers?

[1:59:34] yes, I do.

[1:59:34] okay.

[1:59:36] so just to be clear, option five, but what you're asking for, well, there was two

[1:59:39] things,

[1:59:40] but just in specific to extension of the permit, there's four properties across from

[1:59:46] beckingham.

[1:59:47] yes.

[1:59:48] you would want those included in five?

[1:59:50] ideally, yes.

[1:59:51] right.

[1:59:52] I recognize that there's some level of supermajority or, you know, maybe it's, you

[1:59:56] know, a factor, but yeah.

[1:59:59] but, well...

[2:00:00] yeah, I'll save my commentary for later.

[2:00:02] but, yeah, I just wanted to be very clear.

[2:00:05] yes, yes, that would be the ideal outcome.

[2:00:07] okay, thank you.

[2:00:10] okay.

[2:00:10] thank you.

[2:00:12] so, thank you very much.

[2:00:14] thank you.

[2:00:16] I'm going to go next to questions of our assistant city manager in that very, very...

[2:00:26] inclusive report anybody have any questions or clarifications of that?

[2:00:35] sure yeah, go ahead sure thank you mayor well first of all before we start on the

[2:00:39] questions I want to thank the residents

[2:00:43] for coming out first and foremost because you guys have been the one out there ones

[2:00:47] out there communicating with the neighbors you've been

[2:00:50] going through the whole process.

[2:00:51] you've been doing this for a year and a half like you said at least and

[2:00:55] and just continuing to advocate for a solution.

[2:00:58] you've been to the traffic commission meetings, you've been here,

[2:01:02] and it's a significant amount of work that you have put in to a genuine problem that

[2:01:08] has been involving safety, access, street sweeping,

[2:01:13] and the quality of life, like you mentioned, being woken up in the middle of the

[2:01:16] night several times.

[2:01:19] but I also want to recognize the chair of our traffic commission, scott miller, for

[2:01:23] also jumping in and being very proactive and working in conjunction with council and

[2:01:27] the traffic commission and you guys too.

[2:01:30] so you guys have all been a collaborative effort, but really appreciate everybody

[2:01:35] coming out and really doing this first and foremost.

[2:01:40] for joe, real quickly, the overall number in the staff report is 113 petitions.

[2:01:49] from 238 properties.

[2:01:52] so what I want to make sure is that we give that percentage overall context because

[2:01:59] like curtis mentioned,

[2:02:02] some of the petitions that were not

[2:02:05] returned it's hard to count them mathematically because the neighborhood includes a

[2:02:09] lot of owner occupied homes so we have rental properties with absentee

[2:02:14] owners.

[2:02:15] there's homes operated as residential care senior care businesses so those those

[2:02:19] different circumstances significantly affect whether the petition or

[2:02:24] reached the appropriate person or whether the person understood the neighborhood

[2:02:27] impact and whether response was returned.

[2:02:32] so among the residents who live in the neighborhood,

[2:02:35] I want to see if we're able to pull some sort of report to see how many of those

[2:02:41] homes are either like a senior

[2:02:44] care home or rental property.

[2:02:45] are we able to parse that out of the petitions at all?

[2:02:50] no, unfortunately, I don't have that didn't have that information available the the

[2:02:55] ordinance the city's ordinance requires that the supermajority to return from the

[2:03:00] property

[2:03:01] owners yeah, and so it doesn't recognize unfortunately if a neighborhood is mostly

[2:03:07] renter occupied versus homeowner occupied

[2:03:12] the the city since those ballot petitions to the property owner address for that

[2:03:21] reason hoping that the folks would receive them but also

[2:03:28] that the word around in the neighborhood would would get around and for some of these

[2:03:32] folks who are interested in the same program

[2:03:35] to also contact their landlords to effectuate that.

[2:03:39] in terms of like group homes and that kind of thing, I can understand potentially why

[2:03:43] that would be a whole different scenario,

[2:03:46] but the city's ordinance doesn't really reflect any part of that.

[2:03:50] yeah, so there's several of those, and I just want to make sure that that's brought

[2:03:53] into consideration tonight as well because a lot of

[2:03:56] that never, the votes never came back because of those reasons.

[2:04:01] so when we look at the actual homeowners that live in the area that aren't rental

[2:04:05] properties and such,

[2:04:08] I would say probably close to 90% of them actually, you know,

[2:04:13] responded so it's a it's a big variance there and that would be the only reason why I

[2:04:17] would say that some of the percentages

[2:04:19] were we're not matching so and with a super majority requirement I think that that

[2:04:28] has to be that has to be front of mine

[2:04:37] for you joe I appreciate everything because, again, I know you went through

[2:04:43] painstaking amounts of back and forth and trying to figure out how to get

[2:04:49] this.

[2:04:50] but there's a couple things that we need to also look at.

[2:04:56] curtis also mentioned it.

[2:04:57] laguna hills drive was great.

[2:05:00] and opening up that south side definitely was a pressure relief valve for some of the

[2:05:04] parking but it didn't alleviate all the parking

[2:05:07] so I just want to see if if in the next meeting if we can bring back opening that

[2:05:12] north side of laguna hills

[2:05:14] drive and adding some more spaces over there as well so then we would have both south

[2:05:19] and north on laguna hills drive as a possibility

[2:05:23] to alleviate some of that parking if that's possible

[2:05:28] and is that something we can bring forward next time?

[2:05:35] it would be helpful if I got a second from one of your colleagues on that.

[2:05:39] okay.

[2:05:40] can I get a second on looking at the north side of laguna hills drive being open to

[2:05:45] partners?

[2:05:46] we're still in questions and clarifications.

[2:05:48] yeah.

[2:05:51] I mean, we've got other people who maybe just have questions at this point.

[2:05:55] sure.

[2:05:56] yeah, so we'll get to that then, and we'll do it in a minute.

[2:06:01] so thank you.

[2:06:02] now, I also wanted to bring up the permit costs because before we discuss who should

[2:06:07] pay for the permits,

[2:06:10] I know there's a lot of math that went on behind the scenes for you, but the

[2:06:15] report states that the program has approximately thirty two thousand five hundred

[2:06:19] dollars in annual fixed costs plus seventeen dollars and fifty cents for each

[2:06:23] permit and at roughly fifteen hundred permits for the whole city that produces a

[2:06:27] total annual cost of approximately fifty eight thousand seven hundred

[2:06:31] fifty dollars and so the city would collect absorb the remaining twenty one thousand

[2:06:38] two hundred fifty dollars is that kind of how that would

[2:06:44] work in?

[2:06:48] in terms of the math on that?

[2:06:51] so the number that's missing there is the, what we would absorb in that is the loss

[2:07:00] of the revenue.

[2:07:02] and so the revenue is the difference between the two.

[2:07:06] so it would be the,

[2:07:09] the program, the way it's currently structured and will be rolled out is the 58,750

[2:07:14] number.

[2:07:16] and then the net cost was 21,250 after, if 1,500 permits were issued.

[2:07:23] so that difference is approximately, is that 37,500?

[2:07:29] sorry, that's not the right number.

[2:07:30] I'm sorry.

[2:07:30] I'm going to do the quick math here.

[2:07:41] so the additional cost of waiving permit parking fees as a whole based upon 1,500

[2:07:51] permits issued per year would be$37,500.

[2:07:57] okay.

[2:08:00] and just so we're clear, and for the record, that's talking about the whole city.

[2:08:04] this isn't just this neighborhood.

[2:08:05] this is the complete city.

[2:08:07] so I want to make sure that that's clear for everybody.

[2:08:10] I don't have an exact number on how many permits would be issued in this area.

[2:08:16] combination 5 map has 102 residential properties that are slated for participation.

[2:08:22] city staff generally estimates that two to three permits would be issued per address.

[2:08:29] I won't know exactly how many people actually want to buy permits until the program

[2:08:32] actually rolls out.

[2:08:34] that's just a general average.

[2:08:36] okay, very good.

[2:08:38] and, yeah, that's...

[2:08:43] legitimate there the other thing I want to bring up is the street sweeping and ask

[2:08:49] you a question on that because the street

[2:08:52] sweeping becomes part of the overnight parking but we need to pay attention that

[2:08:56] schedule and it's been brought to my attention by several

[2:09:00] residences and that a lot of them have either high school kids or college-age kids

[2:09:04] that are driving,

[2:09:06] and it's hard to move the cars completely out of the neighborhood on those

[2:09:10] street-sweeping days.

[2:09:12] so if we could devise and, you know, between now and the next meeting,

[2:09:16] look at a schedule where we could do one side of the street maybe on one of the weeks

[2:09:20] and the other side of the street

[2:09:22] on the other week so that we're able to

[2:09:24] flip flop so that they can just move to the other side of the street then that would

[2:09:28] be extremely helpful for a lot of the

[2:09:30] families in the neighborhood as well yeah, and I know that there's a lot of

[2:09:37] considerations with everything on that so I appreciate that okay

[2:09:45] that's all the questions that now.

[2:09:46] thank you so I'm going to try to take this back to less in deliberations and a little

[2:09:50] bit more make sure everyone's in

[2:09:52] got their questions and clarifications basically answered.

[2:09:57] erica, you were next on the docket.

[2:09:59] do you have any questions or clarifications, or are we ready to move on to?

[2:10:05] we have one other person who wants to.

[2:10:06] okay.

[2:10:08] so I have some concerns.

[2:10:10] so if you look at this whole map, so it seems like a good, I mean,

[2:10:17] so you have the existing permit parking is in the yellow.

[2:10:21] then you have the streets above 67.

[2:10:23] and then there's also a strong interest in the potential combinations.

[2:10:28] so what I am really concerned about is that you're going to have a strong movement

[2:10:35] that the traffic's going to explode on the other

[2:10:40] streets.

[2:10:41] and I'm wondering, can the city council supersede and just put permit parking

[2:10:46] throughout that whole area

[2:10:49] just so that it alleviates a potential problem and the chasing after, because this is,

[2:10:55] what's happened is one street does it, the

[2:10:59] other one does it, the other one.

[2:11:00] I think you're talking about whack-a-mole.

[2:11:02] yes.

[2:11:03] so as a question, joe, can you answer that?

[2:11:10] I mean, the question was, can the city council just override this thing and...

[2:11:17] and do a much more blanket approach.

[2:11:19] yes.

[2:11:20] yes, I'm staring at you, mr.

[2:11:22] city attorney.

[2:11:24] if you have any input on what the city council can and cannot do regarding an

[2:11:27] ordinance that's on the books and what it

[2:11:30] says, I'd appreciate some insight into that.

[2:11:33] yeah, I mean, you could take that action.

[2:11:35] you just have to change your ordinance.

[2:11:37] okay.

[2:11:39] so did you have any other questions or clarifications?

[2:11:43] because there's one other.

[2:11:44] so changing an ordinance, we'd have to put that on the agenda, and then we'd have to,

[2:11:49] are you

[2:11:50] saying that that's the process versus trying to solve a huge problem that is about to

[2:11:55] happen,

[2:11:56] a wave of unhappy individuals that they're going to all of a sudden see the parking

[2:12:02] on their streets?

[2:12:06] councilmember, the ordinance is currently written, says that to establish a district,

[2:12:08] we have to go through this process.

[2:12:11] so if we wanted to do something different, we would have to change the ordinance.

[2:12:14] okay.

[2:12:16] you've answered the question.

[2:12:17] okay.

[2:12:19] and sure.

[2:12:20] oh, that was my question.

[2:12:22] that was your question.

[2:12:23] yeah.

[2:12:23] there you go.

[2:12:24] wow.

[2:12:25] great minds think alike.

[2:12:27] okay.

[2:12:28] so that brings us fully around to, even though I think we've been kind of discussing

[2:12:32] it as we've gone along,

[2:12:36] do we have any recommendations and or further discussion before we move ahead?

[2:12:43] if I may mr.

[2:12:44] mayor I have one more thought if the four properties on wilkes across from beckoning

[2:12:50] and park are important theoretically you could consider and a combination

[2:12:57] 5a.

[2:12:57] that's not on the screen here and just find four properties off of

[2:13:02] for instance, henden or somewhere else that would allow you to change that to include

[2:13:08] those four to keep it at 67%.

[2:13:12] but it would be that might be difficult.

[2:13:16] so just a thought.

[2:13:19] okay.

[2:13:22] I am now going I see no other lights on.

[2:13:25] what are we it's the pleasure of the council.

[2:13:28] so basically, if I'm understanding this, so it would be to have 5a would include

[2:13:33] those four properties,

[2:13:36] and you would just remove four from...

[2:13:40] it's just an observation.

[2:13:43] it would be at the sacrifice of...

[2:13:47] you know removing four properties elsewhere is what that would look like it would

[2:13:51] look a little bit closer to combination one at that point

[2:13:55] in time but it could also be on hendon street as an example I just did to have to

[2:13:59] you'd have to decide how

[2:14:01] that would work could it could it be homes that maybe didn't respond and

[2:14:07] that's the hazard here is that I don't have all that information right in front of me

[2:14:14] right now just to go through the 115

[2:14:17] petitions that were returned to see what specific addresses were returned on hendon

[2:14:22] street.

[2:14:24] our assistant engineer did go through this.

[2:14:27] exercise trying to break up.

[2:14:30] you'll see, for instance, on this slide here, hendon street, actually it's already

[2:14:37] written right here,

[2:14:39] hendon street northeast had a really strong participation rate.

[2:14:45] and then you had hendon west

[2:14:48] that had a lower participation rate.

[2:14:51] and so that would be maybe potentially a bad suggestion on my part.

[2:14:57] but if you go back to combination one, slide 20, 21, robert, I'll just show you what

[2:15:06] that looks like.

[2:15:22] there's an example of where you would be able to include it.

[2:15:26] regardless, there are a few different ways of making something happen here,

[2:15:31] but that's up to the city council to decide how they wanted to do that.

[2:15:37] so I can't read the street, unfortunately, but the street here where you see just a

[2:15:43] few homes that are blank,

[2:15:45] is there a way to just cover that street, include

[2:15:50] I'm not sure if you can see it.

[2:15:52] no, yeah, I see what you're saying.

[2:15:53] yes.

[2:15:53] is there a way to include those and then just go with this map?

[2:15:57] well, let me do some quick math.

[2:16:00] okay.

[2:16:02] it's the cul-de-sac that's missing.

[2:16:04] so you have green, you have high interest above 67%, and there's one, two, three,

[2:16:09] four, five, six.

[2:16:10] it's literally the cul-de-sac, so I'm wondering if we can include those and go with

[2:16:14] this one.

[2:16:15] can you go back to slide 25, robert?

[2:16:24] so we had one on avenida avalon that was 67.

[2:16:29] and then go back to slide 21, please.

[2:16:31] 67 over 95.

[2:16:47] anybody who was in attendance of the traffic commission watched this process play out

[2:16:51] painfully when we were counting up individual properties.

[2:16:55] I was just trying to get the most bang for...

[2:16:58] yeah, so what that would result in is, based upon my math, 66.3%.

[2:17:02] so we have to go with the other one.

[2:17:08] okay.

[2:17:08] all right.

[2:17:10] or you find some other...

[2:17:14] or you basically were off by one.

[2:17:16] let me see if what happens when we get to 68.

[2:17:18] sorry, when we get to 67 divided by one.

[2:17:23] if you exclude one property on any of that scenario somewhere, on hendon street, for

[2:17:27] example, then you would get to 67%.

[2:17:30] you'd have to figure out which one you want to exclude.

[2:17:36] maybe the corner, I don't know.

[2:17:41] so maybe just stick to the combination five for now?

[2:17:44] yeah, maybe stick to combination five for now.

[2:17:47] it's up to you.

[2:17:50] okay.

[2:17:51] well, for action, combination five.

[2:17:53] I actually have a question.

[2:17:55] now we've got everybody lit up.

[2:17:58] joe, you have worked on this thing immensely.

[2:18:02] I mean, and it's complicated and all the rest of that.

[2:18:06] and I would just like to ask you,

[2:18:10] after all of that, what is your recommendation?

[2:18:14] I mean, obviously it's the council's decision, but you have the insight of having

[2:18:19] done all this work, and I would like to know.

[2:18:24] I think what I would do, my understanding, and I need the help of curtis here,

[2:18:31] my understanding is there's no direct access from the park to avenida avalon and that

[2:18:36] cul-de-sac.

[2:18:38] is there any pass-through between the park and that cul-de-sac?

[2:18:43] isn't it all fenced off?

[2:18:45] so my revised recommendation would be then to the combination 5a that I'm referring

[2:18:51] to would be to exclude the cul-de-sac on avenue to avalon

[2:18:56] because it's a hidden cul-de-sac that people are unlikely to find.

[2:19:01] of course they're watching a public meeting tonight, but I mean unlikely to find for

[2:19:05] open parking and then take the four properties across

[2:19:09] from beckenham park and include those in the permit parking so okay

[2:19:30] thank you.

[2:19:32] I'm going to, you know, we're with councilman sweeney.

[2:19:38] okay.

[2:19:39] thank you mayor, so I wanted to just move this along and move forward and I want to

[2:19:45] just make a motion that we do

[2:19:48] exactly that what joe just suggested and we'll kind of make that 5a so we'll we'll

[2:19:53] exclude the four properties on the cul-de-sac.

[2:19:57] we'll add the four properties there and and then

[2:20:03] subject to staff and city attorney confirmation that it satisfies the applicable

[2:20:07] petition requirements and creates a logical enforceable boundary and direct staff to

[2:20:12] return

[2:20:13] on september 8th with the implementing resolution because we want to keep this moving

[2:20:18] forward and I appreciate councilmember pazel but I want to keep

[2:20:22] it moving forward since so much time has already been spent on this and in addition

[2:20:26] to that I'm going to add what I had

[2:20:29] kim had said earlier that I want to further move the staff return with an equitable

[2:20:34] citywide option for the city to absorb the cost

[2:20:38] of the standard resident and guest permits, number one.

[2:20:42] number two, I want an alternating side or staggered street sweeping schedule that

[2:20:47] preserves necessary service.

[2:20:49] number three, an evaluation of additional overnight parking on the north side of

[2:20:53] laguna hills drive.

[2:20:56] number four, a resident education and warning period before citations.

[2:21:02] number five, a process for monitoring displaced parking and allowing adjoining

[2:21:06] streets to petition for inclusion.

[2:21:09] and six, a six-month review of effectiveness, enforcement, resident concerns, and

[2:21:14] unintended consequences.

[2:21:20] all of that, are we able to, mr.

[2:21:24] city attorney, are we able to then add to direct staff at a later date to return with

[2:21:31] an ordinance that would then be

[2:21:34] able to include the whole neighborhood if we changed that?

[2:21:38] or is that, would we be able to do that now or should we do that as a separate item?

[2:21:43] it's better to do that as a separate item.

[2:21:44] okay.

[2:21:44] under items for future consideration.

[2:21:47] yeah.

[2:21:47] perfect.

[2:21:48] okay.

[2:21:49] okay, we have a motion on the table.

[2:21:50] do we have a second?

[2:21:52] I have some confusion.

[2:21:54] go ahead.

[2:21:54] so there was a lot added to this initial motion.

[2:21:57] I say we keep it simple and pass the 5a right now.

[2:22:00] I don't know if some of the other things are on the street sweeping is something that

[2:22:04] we have to bring back on the agenda

[2:22:07] because it's something that should be addressed as well.

[2:22:10] having the city subsidized when all, I don't think I've heard, I don't think I know

[2:22:14] of any other neighborhood who has had

[2:22:18] parking permits subsidized and I think that's something we need to have a robust

[2:22:22] conversation because it would be unfair for all of the other

[2:22:26] areas who have to pay for the process?

[2:22:29] we would have to have a discussion about that and so I think we just go with I mean,

[2:22:35] I I'm not okay with the substitute.

[2:22:38] so do we let that?

[2:22:39] do we have to vote on the substitute right now?

[2:22:42] well, you might just make a suggestion you're making a point

[2:22:49] would you would you make your own amendment to that on that basis or do we need an

[2:22:54] amendment?

[2:22:55] so I'm open to the amendment.

[2:22:56] here's here's the thing on that number one

[2:23:02] the street sweeping is better off to look at now because once this is done and we're

[2:23:06] going to spend the money on the signs

[2:23:08] going up, so then we'd have to go back and if it was done at a later date,

[2:23:12] then you'd have to go back and replace all those signs with a different cost.

[2:23:15] so it makes sense to look at it now and bring it forward now to just have that

[2:23:19] something looked at because we still

[2:23:21] have to wait until the next meeting to bring all this forward to have a final vote on

[2:23:24] it.

[2:23:25] so why not just look at that and see if it's something that is possible.

[2:23:30] okay, we still have a motion on the table with no seconds.

[2:23:34] I want to make sure I'm clear, too.

[2:23:35] so is the motion, hey, let's pass 5a and put that list of six things on the next

[2:23:41] meeting's agenda to be able to address

[2:23:44] those things?

[2:23:45] well, it was my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, mr.

[2:23:49] ames, when I spoke to him earlier about this,

[2:23:52] it was something that they were going to be able to look at and bring forward for the

[2:23:56] next meeting on some of those

[2:23:58] items.

[2:23:58] okay.

[2:24:00] so is that the motion I guess yeah pass 5a and bring those other items to the next

[2:24:05] meeting yeah?

[2:24:06] just for clarification.

[2:24:08] you're not passing 5a tonight.

[2:24:10] you're directing city staff to draft a resolution yeah for the next meeting where

[2:24:14] you'll actually vote on 5a correct

[2:24:22] do we have a second?

[2:24:24] we still don't have a second.

[2:24:25] yes, I'll second that, that we're putting the other resolution for 5a to be able to

[2:24:30] vote on it at the next meeting so that we can

[2:24:33] bring this to resolution and that the other items are brought up for discussion that

[2:24:37] you listed on your motion.

[2:24:39] correct.

[2:24:40] okay.

[2:24:40] now I'm going to turn back to you, erica, and do you still want to substitute motion

[2:24:44] or not?

[2:24:46] I mean, for the sake of all of the residents who are here tonight, I think they want

[2:24:53] action.

[2:24:54] and so I think that what we should do is vote on 5a, get that rolling,

[2:25:00] and then come back and talk about the other elements.

[2:25:03] and so I just want to have something where the residents feel like there's resolution.

[2:25:08] so that would be my substitute motion.

[2:25:10] we bring all that other stuff back to discuss, but have 5a for sure in the process.

[2:25:17] that's what we're doing.

[2:25:18] well, I thought the whole thing would be to bring everything together.

[2:25:26] the whole thing was to direct staff to be able to look at that and give us the

[2:25:30] information.

[2:25:31] we'd still pass 5a, but I want to have staff looking at that other information in the

[2:25:36] meantime.

[2:25:39] I was a bit confused with that because I thought that it was, it's very confusing.

[2:25:44] it's still going to come back on the next meeting.

[2:25:47] right.

[2:25:48] and what we're really doing is asking staff to prepare it for us to actually vote on.

[2:25:54] okay.

[2:25:54] is there a separation with the fees, a separation with all of that?

[2:26:00] it's all separate.

[2:26:02] okay.

[2:26:03] so with, I mean, is this normal, mr.

[2:26:08] burns?

[2:26:11] the manager didn't have adequate information or direction to prepare a resolution for

[2:26:14] tonight so that's what he's seeking tonight is some direction to bring

[2:26:18] something more concrete and documented at the next meeting and and we can we can add

[2:26:21] some other areas of consideration when we bring

[2:26:24] the packet back at the next meeting okay, I understand any other discussion

[2:26:34] I see lights on, but just want to make sure.

[2:26:38] all right.

[2:26:38] then I think we're going to go ahead and do a roll call vote.

[2:26:45] council member sweeney?

[2:26:46] aye.

[2:26:47] council member pezzel?

[2:26:48] aye.

[2:26:49] mayor pro tem mathis?

[2:26:50] aye.

[2:26:51] council member wheeler?

[2:26:51] aye.

[2:26:53] mayor kosky?

[2:26:53] aye.

[2:26:54] may the ayes have it.

[2:26:56] ok.

[2:26:57] thank you.

[2:27:01] all right.

[2:27:02] now we're going to go back.

[2:27:04] I've been dancing all around this agenda here.

[2:27:12] well, no.

[2:27:15] let's see here.

[2:27:15] I had it here.

[2:27:17] we were to, believe it or not, the consent calendar, which is usually right at the

[2:27:23] very beginning of our meetings,

[2:27:26] but we've had a lot of meetings.

[2:27:29] so we're back to the consent calendar, item no.

[2:27:32] 4. And so all of the matters under the consent calendar, which there are many, are

[2:27:39] considered routine and will be enacted in one motion,

[2:27:46] approving the recommendation listed on the agenda.

[2:27:50] there will be no separate discussion unless members of the city council or city staff

[2:27:55] requests specific items to be removed from the consent calendar.

[2:28:00] so for that, I'm going to ask for public comments on the consent calendar.

[2:28:07] are there any?

[2:28:09] yes, there is.

[2:28:10] and we wanted to pose it to you as the chair.

[2:28:13] you can take them all at the beginning.

[2:28:15] however, if any of these items are going to be pulled, then we could call them at

[2:28:18] that time.

[2:28:19] it would be up to you as the chair.

[2:28:21] let's do that.

[2:28:22] okay.

[2:28:23] so that is more pertinent to any that are pulled.

[2:28:27] absolutely.

[2:28:27] I have comments for 4.15, 4.16, and 4.17 for in-person comments.

[2:28:34] and then I do have numerous online electronic comments I would read names for for

[2:28:39] those items as well.

[2:28:41] all right.

[2:28:42] do we have any online comments?

[2:28:50] so I'm gonna ask let's get right to the chase I'm gonna ask the council members or

[2:28:55] staff if they'd like to remove any

[2:28:58] items give your pencil ready thank you six seven

[2:29:09] 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19.

[2:29:11] let me just make sure I have it.

[2:29:16] 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 19.

[2:29:17] correct.

[2:29:17] okay.

[2:29:17] this is going to be a real quick consent calendar.

[2:29:35] 19 okay, so why don't we?

[2:29:39] we're just gonna go ahead and go and ask for a motion to approve the balance of the

[2:29:43] consent calendar do we have a motion

[2:29:46] almost to approve yeah move the balance okay in a second okay,

[2:29:51] and call for a roll call vote on the consent calendar the items that are not removed

[2:29:59] meritor I'm sorry mayor pro tem mathis

[2:30:05] aye.

[2:30:06] councilmember petzold?

[2:30:07] aye.

[2:30:08] mayor caskey?

[2:30:09] aye.

[2:30:09] councilmember wheeler?

[2:30:10] aye.

[2:30:11] councilmember sweeney?

[2:30:12] aye.

[2:30:13] that's approved.

[2:30:16] okay.

[2:30:18] so I circled them myself, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're starting with

[2:30:22] 4.6?

[2:30:24] yes.

[2:30:31] since councilman mathis is exiting, could we take a five-minute break?

[2:30:36] sure.

[2:30:37] everybody?

[2:30:38] I think I'm fine with that.

[2:30:43] we'll call it a party break.

[2:30:44] thank you.

[2:31:10] thank you.

[2:31:39] thank you.

[2:31:41] thank you.

[2:32:11] thank you.

[2:32:28] and we're going to start with old item 4.6, treasurer's investment report day.

[2:32:59] mr.

[2:33:00] orrish, could you bring up the agenda packet?

[2:33:05] yeah, because it would be illustrative if I point to the pages I'm talking about for

[2:33:08] the question.

[2:33:10] they're relatively simple, the first part, anyway.

[2:33:18] page 74 of the agenda packet, robert.

[2:33:40] the little block will expand to full screen.

[2:33:47] there we go.

[2:33:49] now blow it up.

[2:33:50] more, please.

[2:34:08] okay, if you go up and tap the second one down, it looks like a ribbon.

[2:34:17] up one.

[2:34:18] no, up one.

[2:34:21] that one, yeah.

[2:34:24] where did it go to?

[2:34:29] okay.

[2:34:30] oh, there we go.

[2:34:30] okay.

[2:34:31] if you expand that, that will allow you to skip to the section immediately.

[2:34:39] make it bigger to readable.

[2:34:41] this must have been done on somebody's big screen.

[2:34:49] the question will take half this time.

[2:35:12] okay, could you scroll scroll down please?

[2:35:25] down to the numbers please keep going

[2:35:36] yeah, right there.

[2:35:36] that's good.

[2:35:38] okay.

[2:35:39] actually, 4.6 and 4.7 are the same comment.

[2:35:43] if you notice, it shows down there that our totals, current monthly market value of

[2:35:49] 33 million, prior month 33 million.

[2:35:54] these numbers are actually kind of misleading.

[2:35:56] because, you know, I've talked with eric, and he can chime in if I go wrong here.

[2:36:01] our real bank account totals are more on the line of about$20 million,$19 to$20

[2:36:04] million.

[2:36:06] so when we see this every month, it's sort of artificial because we have outstanding

[2:36:10] debts.

[2:36:12] sometimes we have outstanding revenue we haven't collected, but more often it's debt.

[2:36:16] we've maybe committed to a cip or something like that.

[2:36:19] so I suggested to eric earlier today, and hopefully we can do it maybe next time,

[2:36:22] to have another little section down below that says these are, you know,

[2:36:27] I guess, revenue and expenditures that are not shown, but it's still money we don't

[2:36:32] really have because it's been allocated.

[2:36:36] and then you'll have another little line that will subtract off.

[2:36:38] so it shows more realistically what we really have in the bank.

[2:36:41] it's just a way to give us a better idea of what we really got.

[2:36:44] it was 27 last month, I think, the last time we looked at it, and it was 33,

[2:36:48] when we really had about 19 or 20.

[2:36:50] eric, are you still here?

[2:36:53] yeah.

[2:36:54] do you want to comment?

[2:36:55] I asked eric about this earlier today.

[2:36:58] but that's not what this chart is.

[2:36:59] this is just a list of our investments.

[2:37:02] it's not a net report.

[2:37:06] you're asking it for it to be a different report.

[2:37:10] well, what we really want, though, is to see what we've got in the bank.

[2:37:12] well, but that exists in other places.

[2:37:16] but, I mean, this is an accurate portrayal of what our investments are.

[2:37:22] but as far as the till is, it's terribly misleading.

[2:37:24] but the number is right.

[2:37:25] it doesn't mean that's our ending balance in our bank account, but that's a different

[2:37:28] report.

[2:37:30] but that's what we need to see on this report.

[2:37:31] it would be handy.

[2:37:32] we see this every month.

[2:37:33] you'd like another report added on to this that tells us what our balance is?

[2:37:37] no, I think this one suffices just to give us an idea of what we really got.

[2:37:41] because we don't have 30 million is a totally fictitious number.

[2:37:44] it really doesn't tell you anything.

[2:37:46] so, eric, would you like to comment on that?

[2:37:49] yes, thank you, mayor and members of the city council.

[2:37:52] so, yeah, this report is truly a snapshot in time.

[2:37:56] we do this once a month.

[2:37:57] it shows where the cash is at the end of the month.

[2:38:01] so the$33 million at the end of june 30th.

[2:38:05] 2026 is a true number.

[2:38:07] it's cash and investments that we owned to mr.

[2:38:11] councilmember wheelers point it does not show for example bills that maybe haven't we

[2:38:18] haven't paid yet, and I

[2:38:20] think that's the point he's getting at if you go to the next page robert

[2:38:25] to further clarify the point here, 33 million is the total across all funds that we

[2:38:30] have.

[2:38:31] you'll see on the top right corner there's a$22 million balance.

[2:38:35] that's the general fund balance.

[2:38:37] that's more in line with what councilmember wheeler was talking about.

[2:38:41] the rest of that money is reserved for capital projects, gas tax money, measure m

[2:38:46] money, clean air money, senior mobility money,

[2:38:49] and down the road there.

[2:38:52] and that ties up to the$33 million on the bottom there.

[2:38:56] so I'm going to work with councilmember wheeler and try to figure out maybe some more

[2:38:59] data I can add to the bottom of this

[2:39:01] page.

[2:39:02] nothing too fancy, nothing too much, but maybe something that speaks to his point.

[2:39:05] I can definitely do that for everybody.

[2:39:09] yeah, that was my point.

[2:39:10] with that, I'll move to pass both six and seven.

[2:39:14] okay.

[2:39:15] I'll second, but I do want to say thank you to councilmember wheeler for pointing

[2:39:18] this out because this was a frustration I had

[2:39:21] because a lot of people think this is what you have in reserves, this is what you

[2:39:25] have.

[2:39:26] a lot of people get confused by these numbers,

[2:39:31] and I think it's really important to show what we actually have so that when we make

[2:39:35] decisions financially, what the fiscal impact is.

[2:39:39] and this is one reason why the council in the past has always been very fiscally

[2:39:44] responsible.

[2:39:47] all right, we have a motion and a second.

[2:39:50] let's do roll call vote on six and seven mayor pro tem mathis.

[2:39:56] hi councilmember sweeney.

[2:39:57] hi mayor caskey.

[2:39:59] hi councilmember wheeler.

[2:40:01] hi councilmember pezold.

[2:40:03] hi the eyes have it okay, we'll go on to 4.8.

[2:40:06] okay 4.8 unfortunately, I have a chance to get with mr.

[2:40:11] ames about these if you go to page 96, please in the presentation

[2:40:41] can you blow that up a little bit?

[2:41:10] okay.

[2:41:11] my question to these was just some of the charges.

[2:41:14] some of these seem rather large, particularly the$54,000,$55,000 to community center

[2:41:22] bike trail asphalt.

[2:41:25] I don't know of any asphalt trail near the community center, so I'd like to ask what

[2:41:29] we spent$55,000 for.

[2:41:32] there is an asphalt trail that begins on the

[2:41:37] eastside of the community center that connects up to low salutes,

[2:41:42] so I'm sorry up near laguna hills drive and poseida valencia by the high school and

[2:41:48] that goes down the east side then circles

[2:41:51] around in front of the staircase the community center and that continues towards

[2:41:57] along alicia parkway

[2:42:00] underneath the tunnel that goes around the pocket park that's done near vialomas.

[2:42:06] all of that was repaved.

[2:42:08] we had a lot of complaints from bicyclists and from pedestrians on there that we have

[2:42:15] problems with the asphalt buckling,

[2:42:18] especially due to tree roots.

[2:42:20] so we fixed all of that.

[2:42:22] and we obtained a few proposals for that, and quickle paving was the best proposal

[2:42:28] for that work.

[2:42:31] and it turned out to be an excellent job along there.

[2:42:33] we got a nice smooth trail along there wrapping around the community center and out

[2:42:37] towards villa lomas.

[2:42:40] okay.

[2:42:40] I wanted to pick on one other one, the 38,000, the juniper removal.

[2:42:49] juniper removal was a project that was discussed in front of city council was the

[2:42:53] juniper removal on the slopes on poseidon valencia that was

[2:42:57] specifically authorized for work by the city council.

[2:43:03] I'm sure I know who wanted that one okay it's not a bad thing,

[2:43:10] but I just curious that was an awful lot of money to just tear out a bunch of weeds

[2:43:14] or a bunch of plants

[2:43:15] we approved a lot more than that

[2:43:21] that's just the beginning, or maybe it's the end.

[2:43:28] if that's the end, then we did okay.

[2:43:31] okay.

[2:43:34] with that, I'll motion to move.

[2:43:37] do we have a second?

[2:43:38] second.

[2:43:40] motion and second.

[2:43:42] I will call for 4.8.

[2:43:47] 4.10 holiday lighting and decorations agreement.

[2:43:49] yeah 1011 sort of go together.

[2:43:50] I just want to point out and ask one question and point out a couple things on 10 I

[2:44:12] there was a question about the specifics on the decorations.

[2:44:16] I brought up something about the dancing trees.

[2:44:19] are we getting those back?

[2:44:22] that was such a neat thing we had two years ago and didn't have it last year.

[2:44:26] yes, council member wheeler, there are the trees on the plaza area that will be

[2:44:28] synchronized with the light show at the community center.

[2:44:32] so it would be more similar than to two years ago?

[2:44:34] that is correct.

[2:44:35] okay.

[2:44:36] and the other thing, I just want to comment that the financials on both of these,

[2:44:40] the 125 for 4.10 and then 4.11 mentions the activities, I guess I'll call it.

[2:44:49] that is a combination.

[2:44:51] so our additive 11 is not part of 10, so the total is like 156.

[2:44:57] so we were sort of in the range in the past of the christmas, about right at 100.

[2:45:01] now we're up to 156.

[2:45:02] I just wanted to point that out for consideration for, you know, economics.

[2:45:10] if there's no other comments with that, I'll move to pass.

[2:45:14] I have some comments on 410.

[2:45:16] okay.

[2:45:19] I'm sorry.

[2:45:19] so I just want to...

[2:45:20] I'm looking at the thing myself, so I'm...

[2:45:23] it's okay.

[2:45:24] so the christmas schemes, are they here today?

[2:45:26] no.

[2:45:28] they are not known they are not okay um okay I so I noticed on the staff report my

[2:45:34] apologies why isn't the staff

[2:45:37] report a nelly gill ranch sign that was a sample of what we were looking for to

[2:45:42] decorate the entry monuments okay all right

[2:45:46] thank you for for answering that and then another question that I have is there any

[2:45:51] possible way I can

[2:45:54] ask for just a minor adjustment, and there's a reason for this adjustment.

[2:46:01] so if possible, so on el toro, el toro usually we decorate with a number of

[2:46:08] decorations.

[2:46:10] is there a way to remove one of the decorations and add some decorations in front of

[2:46:17] the civic center where people take photos,

[2:46:22] wedding photos?

[2:46:28] yes, thank you, councilwoman hazel.

[2:46:31] so you would like to remove some from the medians and allocate that budget towards in

[2:46:36] front of the civic center?

[2:46:39] yes, like the area where you have, I think there is, it's...

[2:46:44] where a number of pictures and photos are taken.

[2:46:47] I think that would look really nice and be well received.

[2:46:52] just adding some white lights or something like that, if possible.

[2:46:56] is that too much to ask?

[2:46:58] no, I would just like to clarify what you would like removed from el toro.

[2:47:03] the boxes on the...

[2:47:05] can you remove one of the trees?

[2:47:07] wrapped around trees or something?

[2:47:09] is that okay?

[2:47:10] maybe to statter them instead of every tree, maybe like every other tree or something?

[2:47:15] do something where we can just sort of...

[2:47:21] so what decoration are you looking to see at the civic center and where, may I ask?

[2:47:27] some lights.

[2:47:28] there is some sort of a structure in the front of the community center.

[2:47:34] and just some lights wrapped around that structure, if it's possible, if there's even

[2:47:38] an outlet that we can do that.

[2:47:40] or maybe something in front of the civic center, like something that would be nice

[2:47:45] for people to take photos.

[2:47:47] okay.

[2:47:53] if I may suggest, I think what we can do with that is you can keep the decorations on

[2:47:58] el toro road,

[2:47:59] and I'll work with essex property management on the request for lighting at the civic

[2:48:05] center.

[2:48:06] essex normally handles lighting of the civic center, so there's a very specific

[2:48:09] request.

[2:48:11] why don't I work with you on that, if that's okay?

[2:48:13] yes, that would be wonderful.

[2:48:15] perfect.

[2:48:16] and by the way, I just want to say thank you.

[2:48:19] after going through this, it looks great.

[2:48:21] thank you.

[2:48:23] once again, I'll move 10 and 11.

[2:48:27] I have a question myself.

[2:48:29] if you're ready to move it, then I take it.

[2:48:35] I'm very impressed with the proposal.

[2:48:39] and I'm very impressed with, by the way, the items that they've put in that they've

[2:48:44] done in a lot of other places as well.

[2:48:47] I'm assuming some of these things, which are outstanding, are a lot more expensive.

[2:48:55] I'm understanding that this, did this proposal come in on budget, over budget, or

[2:49:01] under budget?

[2:49:03] the proposal came in at$10,000 under budget.

[2:49:05] the line item is$125,000 allocated for this year.

[2:49:07] their budget or their item came in at$115,000.

[2:49:10] okay.

[2:49:10] well, I'll just throw this out.

[2:49:11] I'm not on ecbc, but in looking at some of the things that I've seen in some of the

[2:49:13] actually other local cities,

[2:49:32] I'm not terribly impressed with the ornament, the walk-through ornament that would be

[2:49:37] at the community center.

[2:49:40] it seems like something that we've had before.

[2:49:43] I would really like it if we could suggest that we get back to these guys and ask

[2:49:53] them if that can be done

[2:49:57] in a way that is something that is enhanced over that which they are proposing.

[2:50:04] that's right on this.

[2:50:06] I don't know if everyone can see what they're proposing.

[2:50:09] maybe they love it.

[2:50:10] if they do, that's great.

[2:50:11] but I would certainly love to see if we can't enhance that staying within our budget.

[2:50:17] and I don't even mind exploring a little bit, if not this year but in the future,

[2:50:24] what we can do you know in and around the city hall we do this stuff on the street

[2:50:29] right here el toro all the

[2:50:31] rest of that and at the entrances, but are you suggesting that we amp that up also?

[2:50:38] I I you know I think we need to pass something tonight as far as I'm concerned but I

[2:50:46] don't know whether we can

[2:50:49] come back and amend it based upon you know some

[2:50:53] don't know how we do that on the dais here.

[2:50:56] you know without having discussion with them, and I would like to see it oh, yes, the

[2:51:03] the

[2:51:04] item will be moved forward as mentioned by the assistant city manager it was

[2:51:10] mentioned that essex does the lighting here at the civic

[2:51:15] center, so it's a different it's a whole different issue so as mentioned we would

[2:51:22] just have a discussion about some ideas and then just leave the bid and everything.

[2:51:29] I'll fall back off of that piece, but I would like to see if we can't at least

[2:51:34] explore doing something within our budget

[2:51:38] that has a little bit more wow factor than what I'm seeing there.

[2:51:44] and I don't know whether my colleagues agree with that or not, but, you know.

[2:51:49] like I said, I was like the dancing trees.

[2:51:50] that was cool for me.

[2:51:53] it's like a mini spectrum that they have up there.

[2:51:55] theirs are fantastic.

[2:51:56] yeah.

[2:51:58] just a quick temptation along those lines.

[2:52:00] oh, now I'm going to forget what I was going to say.

[2:52:05] do we have any time on this?

[2:52:07] if we continue that to maybe add a few more things like mayor caskey wants, or do we

[2:52:12] have to do it pretty soon?

[2:52:15] we do have time.

[2:52:16] I would say I can come back with an alternative proposal at the next city council

[2:52:21] meeting.

[2:52:24] I would recommend that we get a contract approved on that date.

[2:52:27] okay, I'll leave that up to my colleagues if they want to do that or not.

[2:52:31] that would be a continuation of just 410 then.

[2:52:34] I'll second that.

[2:52:36] that's what you're...

[2:52:38] okay.

[2:52:39] I'm sorry, josh.

[2:52:41] and I agree with you, mayor caskey, with that stuff.

[2:52:44] I don't know.

[2:52:45] I do want to keep this moving forward and not stall anything,

[2:52:48] but I don't know if there's a way to work behind the scenes, but

[2:52:50] first, I want to express my gratitude to ms.

[2:52:53] gannon for all the hard work she's put into this and for coming in under budget and

[2:52:58] doing an amazing job and adding a second

[2:53:01] seating for the breakfast with santa and so many other amazing things.

[2:53:05] and I briefly had discussed with her and brought up

[2:53:10] to enhance the tree lighting ceremony because in years past, people kind of come and

[2:53:15] then they leave pretty quickly and it's not...

[2:53:18] that's 4-11.

[2:53:20] we're only doing 4-10?

[2:53:24] all right.

[2:53:27] I thought we were combining both into...

[2:53:29] yeah, we can talk about both of them.

[2:53:31] they're together.

[2:53:32] no, they're not.

[2:53:33] we both said.

[2:53:35] are we on just 4-10 or...

[2:53:38] or were you bringing up both of them together?

[2:53:39] well, I brought up the combination because they're related.

[2:53:42] one is like the decorations from the christmas cakes, and the other is the activities

[2:53:47] like, you know, santa and those kind of things.

[2:53:51] but they're all sort of together.

[2:53:55] okay.

[2:53:57] well, so it's been moved and seconded that we

[2:54:02] bring back at least the lighting part to the next meeting and see if there is an

[2:54:08] alternative that we have an appreciation for or would

[2:54:13] just accept it.

[2:54:14] you know the way it is right now and and I will add by the way to that the work

[2:54:21] that's been done by director

[2:54:26] but your whole staff on this thing is is immense and it's timely and

[2:54:32] and it was under budget and you'd be credited for that.

[2:54:35] so even though I'm trying to dot an I across a t here,

[2:54:41] that is not to take away from the effort and the amazing work that you guys do.

[2:54:47] so with that, why don't we move at least on 410 and take a roll call vote on the

[2:54:53] continuance to the next meeting.

[2:54:57] can we discuss just one element?

[2:55:00] just one element.

[2:55:01] can I say one thing before we move to vote?

[2:55:05] is there a way that we can just move forward and then just have mayor caskey work

[2:55:11] with ms.

[2:55:12] gannon on the item that you would like to be changed?

[2:55:20] I'm going to be good with that if council's fine.

[2:55:22] I'm fine.

[2:55:23] anytime you want to streamline something, it's fine with me.

[2:55:26] so I'm comfortable and confident that you'll be able to find something that will work

[2:55:33] for you.

[2:55:34] what I don't know is whether it would change the price, and if that's the case,

[2:55:39] then maybe it should be coming back to the council.

[2:55:41] that doesn't hurt.

[2:55:41] that's why there's plenty of time.

[2:55:44] I mean, I'm giving the flexibility.

[2:55:46] I'm not looking to make it go over our budget as well.

[2:55:49] wanted just give the flexibility yeah, let's just let's just give a complete motion

[2:55:53] that gives the flexibility of going up to the budget

[2:55:56] and then whatever you decide behind the scenes and we'll just there you go fine with

[2:56:00] that okay,

[2:56:02] so we will amend the motion according.

[2:56:05] are you okay?

[2:56:05] okay?

[2:56:06] well, what's the amendment on that?

[2:56:09] try that given given mayor caskey the ability to meet with miss gannon to go over the

[2:56:13] extra stay with you know up to whatever

[2:56:16] the budget was because it's 10,000 under the budget right now, so

[2:56:19] whatever they decide if it goes up to that center okay portrait piece the motion

[2:56:25] would be that we have a second on that I

[2:56:29] assume right yeah, okay?

[2:56:32] we'll call vote for 10 just clarify councilman pez you were seconding that motion

[2:56:39] yes, it's for the piece, that one piece, yes.

[2:56:42] for 410 on allowing, authorizing the mayor to work with director gannon on this item

[2:56:48] going up to the budget?

[2:56:50] aye.

[2:56:52] council member wheeler?

[2:56:53] aye.

[2:56:53] mayor caskey?

[2:56:54] aye.

[2:56:55] mayor pro tem mathis?

[2:56:56] aye.

[2:56:56] council member pezzel?

[2:56:58] aye.

[2:56:58] council member sweeney?

[2:56:59] aye.

[2:57:00] ayes have it.

[2:57:01] okay, 411.

[2:57:02] and then 410 says slam dunks.

[2:57:05] move 410, or 411, I'm sorry.

[2:57:07] you're moving it?

[2:57:08] yes.

[2:57:09] I have something to say on 411.

[2:57:11] all right, erica.

[2:57:13] okay, so with respect to 411, it's interesting that council member sweeney mentioned

[2:57:22] the tree lighting ceremony.

[2:57:27] I agree.

[2:57:28] I think that we need to have something extra

[2:57:30] with respect to the tree lighting ceremony and the holiday events, the budget isn't

[2:57:37] just the budget that is provided.

[2:57:40] there are donors and sponsors of these events that bring the budgets lower, or excuse

[2:57:47] me, that assist with the budgets.

[2:57:51] in fact, I will be throwing a donation for the extravaganza to assist with the budget.

[2:57:59] but I wanted to see if it was possible to bring in some singers and dancers from osha.

[2:58:07] it doesn't have to be ballroom.

[2:58:08] it doesn't have to be a specific genre.

[2:58:12] but I think it would be nice to have something like that to enhance the tree lighting

[2:58:18] ceremony, just something.

[2:58:21] I know that's done in other areas.

[2:58:25] and I think it'd be nothing extravagant, but I think it might be a little more

[2:58:30] engaging for the kids to see something that is

[2:58:34] instead of...

[2:58:35] I mean, the carolers are great, but you can only hear them in one small location.

[2:58:40] and so, anyway, that is my...

[2:58:45] I don't know if I need to get support from the council for something like that, but

[2:58:52] that's...

[2:58:55] my recommendation, and I'll yield the comments to hear what councilmember sweeney has

[2:58:59] to say.

[2:59:02] okay, I'm going to go down the list here, or up the list, and josh, you're next.

[2:59:08] thank you, mayor.

[2:59:10] yeah, just revisiting that, I think it's important for our city to all come together,

[2:59:13] especially during that time.

[2:59:15] we also need to look at involving our chamber of commerce, and so what I was thinking

[2:59:21] is

[2:59:23] along with councilmember pezold, expanding the tree lighting ceremony just a little

[2:59:27] bit.

[2:59:28] and what I'm thinking is expanding it into more of a european-style christmas or

[2:59:32] holiday market experience where we can invite our local restaurants,

[2:59:37] our local retailers to operate booths there, offer some seasonal food and merchandise,

[2:59:43] and help the residents maybe discover some of the local businesses at that same time.

[2:59:50] and about a month ago, we also had the children's market that ms.

[2:59:53] gannon put on where young people sold their artwork and their crafts and different

[2:59:57] creations they had.

[2:59:59] and I'd love to incorporate a children's artisan area into the tree lighting ceremony

[3:00:04] night so our young entrepreneurs can participate in that and sell

[3:00:09] alongside the local businesses too.

[3:00:12] but just create a nice atmosphere for everybody that the whole community can come out

[3:00:16] to.

[3:00:20] I did like your idea, councilwoman pezold, about the carolers.

[3:00:26] and I think one thing that would help a lot of us is every year we sort of stand up

[3:00:30] on the hill,

[3:00:32] try to do the whole light switch to light the tree.

[3:00:34] I think it would be nice to have, you know, just a small stage, but a smaller stage.

[3:00:38] and then maybe the carolers and other people that are performing can be up on the

[3:00:42] stage because it's kind of hard to see

[3:00:45] everybody on the ground in the mix of everything.

[3:00:47] so if we had...

[3:00:48] a little bit of a raised stage there, I think that would greatly increase the

[3:00:51] visibility for everybody.

[3:00:53] so those are some ideas and comments that I wanted to put out there.

[3:01:00] all right.

[3:01:01] sure.

[3:01:02] well, I think we just ate up your 10 grand,

[3:01:04] so I think you're going to have to be happy with that big walkthrough ornament.

[3:01:10] the stage is absolutely critical because everybody being on the same level, it's hard

[3:01:14] for people to see.

[3:01:17] that's an easy one.

[3:01:19] and I'm all for extra entertainment, but if we're going to do it, let's have people

[3:01:24] from laguna hills.

[3:01:26] let's have kids from laguna hills high.

[3:01:29] we have a wonderful band program.

[3:01:31] let's do that.

[3:01:32] we don't need to bring in people from outside the city.

[3:01:35] this is a laguna hills celebration.

[3:01:37] let's celebrate laguna hills.

[3:01:38] that would be my suggestion on that.

[3:01:41] and so, you know, we have the principal here today.

[3:01:45] we're supporting them in increasing their brand exposure within our community.

[3:01:49] we should do it any chance we get.

[3:01:51] and I think if you're going to bring in people to sing and have a choir or something

[3:01:56] like that or band,

[3:01:59] that's where we should go.

[3:02:02] but with that...

[3:02:03] I think, holland, you're doing a wonderful job, and these are nitpicky things, but

[3:02:09] that would be my two cents.

[3:02:11] hang on.

[3:02:12] now I'm going to make a comment.

[3:02:16] the one piece of continuity I see in all of this and these comments is that in

[3:02:22] regards to the tree lighting ceremony,

[3:02:27] we can amp it up.

[3:02:28] and make it a little bit more of an event that, you know,

[3:02:32] it isn't just about flicking a switch and having bubble machines and stuff, which I

[3:02:36] think really actually helped, by the way, a few

[3:02:39] years ago.

[3:02:42] but making it a little bit more of a community event.

[3:02:45] and what I'm hearing, you know, out of mayor pro tem is that not only that, but, you

[3:02:52] know, it's laguna hills.

[3:02:56] so in every in any and every way that we can emphasize you know our community and the

[3:03:02] participants you know from our community

[3:03:05] all the better and so um I think all of those are great ideas and something that

[3:03:11] maybe you can run with if not you let us

[3:03:15] know I think we're trying to give you some feedback it's still incredible and uh

[3:03:21] and, you know, most of these events, like the santa event, you know, the breakfast

[3:03:26] with santa, I mean, they're already, you know,

[3:03:30] sold out and people anticipate them with great, you know, vigor and excitement.

[3:03:38] uh...

[3:03:39] uh...

[3:03:39] anytime that we can do something that just answered up a little bit more makes it a

[3:03:42] little bit more special although all the better

[3:03:45] I don't know that we need motions back and forth for all of this but uh...

[3:03:50] I'm going to ask go back to uh...

[3:03:52] day first and then erica you know I I

[3:03:55] I'm encouraged.

[3:03:56] everybody is so enthusiastic about this.

[3:03:59] it shows what a neat time of the year it is and activities.

[3:04:03] I particularly like what josh said about having the vendors.

[3:04:07] I actually got a chance one time to have chestnuts over an open fire in london at

[3:04:10] christmas.

[3:04:11] I didn't much care for them, actually, but the experience was interesting.

[3:04:15] but little things like that would be bringing vendors to do special christmas-type

[3:04:19] stuff or that unusual stuff at the time of the season.

[3:04:23] I think that's great.

[3:04:23] that would be really, really cool.

[3:04:25] it's worth exploring.

[3:04:27] erica.

[3:04:27] yes.

[3:04:28] and that was something we tried to do in the beginning, is to encourage the vendors.

[3:04:32] and that was the purpose of having the holiday events, was to bring the vendors.

[3:04:36] so I'm glad that council member sweeney is mentioning this,

[3:04:40] because it is the purpose to try to bring the businesses and the community together

[3:04:44] in a positive way.

[3:04:47] and so I do support that.

[3:04:49] but as I'm listening to all of these

[3:04:54] I have a couple of things.

[3:04:55] first of all, in the history of trying to find talent, while it's nice to have laguna

[3:05:02] hills high school, I've spent hours,

[3:05:05] countless hours calling the high school and seeing if I can get the students over and

[3:05:10] it's their break time and it's hard to have

[3:05:13] a commitment and to have a program put together and to have something.

[3:05:17] so there are programs such as osha

[3:05:20] where these students are from laguna hills, and they train in laguna hills, and

[3:05:25] that's the profession.

[3:05:27] and it's a program where it's where they actually do this, and they have the costumes

[3:05:32] and everything.

[3:05:34] so I'm just saying that while we can still try to bring in the kids from laguna hills

[3:05:40] high school,

[3:05:41] which I think is great.

[3:05:42] maybe we try to communicate with the drama department.

[3:05:46] it's not that it's the city has tried and tried for years.

[3:05:52] I appreciate that.

[3:05:53] I just say laguna hills first and give them the option.

[3:05:56] there's a new principal, new band teacher, new drama teacher.

[3:06:01] we can live.

[3:06:02] there's no need to worry about what happened in the past.

[3:06:04] I just think if we're going for our best ideal.

[3:06:07] and it doesn't mean that it has to be only them, right?

[3:06:11] but I think you've got to try and get them there first.

[3:06:14] so with that, I can sense, and if I'm wrong, let me know, ms.

[3:06:21] gannon.

[3:06:22] I think that given the robust discussion thus far, I think that we should at least

[3:06:28] increase, because renting a stage costs.

[3:06:32] it's not cheap, and that would dig into the budget quite a bit, and there might be

[3:06:37] sound required.

[3:06:39] so just those two things I'm thinking is, in addition to some of the others, I think

[3:06:45] we should increase costs.

[3:06:48] the holiday budget by 10,000, which is what councilmember or mayor pro tem mathis has

[3:06:55] sort of thrown out as a number,

[3:06:58] but I think that would be a conservative amount.

[3:07:02] that was just the gap between what we were spending on the ornament or the overall

[3:07:08] plus what dawn said we might be able

[3:07:11] to spend up to.

[3:07:13] not advocating bringing in another 10.

[3:07:15] well, would it be all right to support, in order to support, well, ms.

[3:07:19] gannon, would it assist to have the extra$10,000 to make sure that these asks could

[3:07:26] be accomplished?

[3:07:28] thank you, councilwoman paisled.

[3:07:31] in the staff report, staff has estimated that the costs for the 2026 events will

[3:07:34] be$31,465,

[3:07:35] which is just about$10,000 over budget as is.

[3:07:36] so, yes, money is always helpful.

[3:07:37] we are already anticipating going over budget.

[3:07:38] luckily, our...

[3:07:54] a lot of the holiday event series budget is from the special events.

[3:07:58] bigger pool of money, that's for throughout the year.

[3:08:00] so this is just what we allocate.

[3:08:02] so it's kind of robbing peter to pay paul.

[3:08:05] we'll probably have to cut other things or more events from later in the year.

[3:08:12] but yes, being able to add$10,000 to tree lighting or to the holiday event series

[3:08:18] would be very helpful.

[3:08:21] I would like to make a suggestion.

[3:08:22] the council has already given me some latitude to work with you in regards to the

[3:08:27] ornament.

[3:08:29] I really would like to see us maintain our budget.

[3:08:32] I think the ideas of the stage and the other kinds of things.

[3:08:36] what I'd like to do, if it's okay with the council, is to work with you on...

[3:08:41] on a number of those items, okay?

[3:08:44] and if we need to bring back a small amendment at the next meeting,

[3:08:50] if we really feel that we've looked at it and it is going to push our budget beyond

[3:08:54] something,

[3:08:56] that we take that part back to the next meeting.

[3:08:58] but my suggestion is that you hand it back here to councilman wheeler and that we

[3:09:05] kind of move ahead with this with the budget

[3:09:09] we have.

[3:09:10] unless we need to, after doing some research, I just don't want to add 10,000 from

[3:09:15] out of the blue.

[3:09:17] oh, yeah, 10,000 would be nice.

[3:09:19] so would 50, you know, that kind of thing.

[3:09:22] so, you know, so I don't think we need to legislate that on the spur of the moment

[3:09:28] just because.

[3:09:30] let's work on it.

[3:09:32] well, one point is I think that would be a brown act because they have the ecbc

[3:09:38] usually deals with,

[3:09:41] the events, the holiday stuff that's usually at the ucbc meetings.

[3:09:47] so then that would be adding in another.

[3:09:51] you know what?

[3:09:52] I'm wondering.

[3:09:53] I'm fine.

[3:09:53] whatever you guys want to do.

[3:09:55] I'm going to turn it back over to dave.

[3:09:57] and dave, you brought this one off.

[3:10:01] I brought up the point of the budget to make sure we knew how much we're spending

[3:10:04] that's going to be involved here.

[3:10:06] but it's good stuff.

[3:10:07] and I'm I'd still like to watch the money.

[3:10:10] I don't think it would be a brown act violation as long as don or even me talk to

[3:10:15] holland separately.

[3:10:18] then we can give her an idea.

[3:10:19] that's not a conflict.

[3:10:22] and yeah, I'd say we really allowed a little latitude on 10.

[3:10:27] so we sort of, anything you find at 11 that might be additional carryover,

[3:10:31] I think we can go ahead and if it's necessary next meeting to increase or touch it up

[3:10:35] a little bit, I

[3:10:36] think we can deal with it then.

[3:10:37] so again, I'll take a motion to move 11.

[3:10:40] with the 10,000?

[3:10:42] no, just as it is.

[3:10:43] just as it is.

[3:10:44] second.

[3:10:46] that's why I preface it.

[3:10:49] some people are going to work with holland, and if it comes up, if there's something

[3:10:51] really neat that costs a few dollars more,

[3:10:53] then we can make a minor adjustment next time.

[3:10:55] okay, it's been moved and seconded.

[3:10:58] let's call for the board.

[3:10:59] we need to move on.

[3:11:00] I understand we need to move on, but I would like to just express as somebody that's

[3:11:05] been involved in events and understands in ecbc,

[3:11:09] you understand how much our asks are.

[3:11:11] I understand how much our asks are, and I think that we should

[3:11:17] well, if you want to take it back to ecbc, then be my guest.

[3:11:22] have the extra tenant talk about it at ecbc.

[3:11:27] when you say our asks, I mean, the one...

[3:11:32] these are just individual asks, almost like advice to holland.

[3:11:36] I mean, there's no consensus here about what...

[3:11:40] we would be willing to pay for.

[3:11:42] there's been no price tag put together.

[3:11:44] what dave is saying is that we can take a pause, bring this back, and take a look at

[3:11:49] what those things might cost.

[3:11:53] well, I think ms.

[3:11:55] gannon can tell based off of her experience approximately what that would be.

[3:11:59] well, this was more to let her take this and maybe explore some sponsorship, some

[3:12:04] vendor participation, community partners.

[3:12:08] maybe, I mean, there's other partners that may want to even donate for this.

[3:12:11] so there's other possibilities out there, but she's great at doing all that.

[3:12:15] so we're just putting it back on you.

[3:12:17] I think it is a staff issue.

[3:12:18] yeah.

[3:12:19] so let's, it's been moved and seconded.

[3:12:24] mayor pro tem mathis.

[3:12:25] aye.

[3:12:26] mayor caskey all right councilmember wheeler.

[3:12:28] aye. Councilmember pezold.

[3:12:29] aye. Customers rainy.

[3:12:31] I I have it all right for 12 okay, yeah, I'll put a little apology here for taking

[3:12:36] all these items off the consent,

[3:12:39] but I did I did try to work sixty in our page pack and I didn't talk with every one

[3:12:43] of the directors and try to get it all

[3:12:45] done also the city manager so they're sorry bear with me okay, number 412

[3:12:52] uh...

[3:12:52] that has to do with I believe the releasing of uh...

[3:12:58] of one of our use and my question just uh...

[3:13:01] are we uh...

[3:13:01] as far as our leasing our our management of our building are we getting you know

[3:13:05] market rate is it is it going up uh...

[3:13:08] system generics from uh...

[3:13:09] mister mister uh...

[3:13:11] thank you for the question council wheeler uh...

[3:13:16] we, the market rates that we're getting are good, especially on this one.

[3:13:24] this particular lease is one of five offices within a larger office suite.

[3:13:30] so the actual per square footage price on this one is higher than what we typically

[3:13:35] would get for a whole office on a per

[3:13:38] square foot basis.

[3:13:39] these folks are going to pay$350 a square foot.

[3:13:42] our normal range here for general office is$225 to$255 a square foot here in the

[3:13:47] building for a general office.

[3:13:50] so actually, and then our medical uses here in the building are closer to$340 to$350.

[3:13:57] this is actually a pretty good, it's a win-win for both of us.

[3:13:59] they only want a small space, and we're getting a higher per square foot price on

[3:14:03] this one.

[3:14:04] okay.

[3:14:05] that sounds good.

[3:14:06] with that, I'll move to approve.

[3:14:10] second.

[3:14:14] okay.

[3:14:15] roll call.

[3:14:17] council member wheeler.

[3:14:18] aye.

[3:14:19] mayor pro tem mathis.

[3:14:21] aye.

[3:14:22] council member sweeney.

[3:14:23] aye.

[3:14:23] council member pezzel.

[3:14:24] aye.

[3:14:25] mayor kosky.

[3:14:25] aye.

[3:14:26] ayes have it.

[3:14:29] okay, 413.

[3:14:32] this one I believe is about the city side fiber running some cables and the fiscal

[3:14:40] impact said nothing,

[3:14:42] but yet I still saw$1.2 million mentioned in the last sentence.

[3:14:46] so is it no impact or 1.2 million or how those two fit together?

[3:14:51] mr..

[3:14:51] ames so this agreement does not involve city side fiber.

[3:14:56] this is a agreement with the city of laguna woods for the city of laguna hills to run

[3:15:03] fiber optic cable and their conduits

[3:15:07] so we have redundant connectivity to our signals in north laguna hills and

[3:15:13] so I the agenda report was meant to convey that it's a similar kind of arrangement to

[3:15:19] where we have a city side fiber

[3:15:22] where we have a conduit sharing agreement and then I went in further into the agenda

[3:15:26] report to indicate that we have some cost

[3:15:29] savings due to the city side fiber agreement on our existing regional traffic signal

[3:15:34] synchronization projects currently under design

[3:15:38] that will allow for this redundant loop that our engineering consultant is

[3:15:43] recommending.

[3:15:44] so because we are saving money here, we have the ability to do this there to have a

[3:15:50] redundant traffic signal network loop in case

[3:15:54] a conduit is cut.

[3:15:56] it's pretty commonplace in the traffic engineering world to have at least some

[3:16:01] redundant loop somewhere for connectivity,

[3:16:05] especially in north laguna hills where we would otherwise only be able to run fiber

[3:16:10] optic cable at carlotta.

[3:16:13] okay.

[3:16:14] all right.

[3:16:14] so that's good.

[3:16:15] I saw cityside fiber.

[3:16:16] I didn't know if they fit in with vad or not, but I understand what you're saying.

[3:16:20] okay.

[3:16:21] with that, I'll motion to move.

[3:16:25] second any discussion any okay roll call customer wheeler.

[3:16:35] aye. Councilmember pezold.

[3:16:37] aye. Councilmember sweeney.

[3:16:38] aye. We're perfect.

[3:16:39] I'm at this.

[3:16:39] aye. Mayor caskey.

[3:16:41]

[3:16:41] ayes have it. 4.14 okay now the more serious ones the uvsp update

[3:16:53] I was kind of upset when I saw this on the agenda because there was no mention of it

[3:16:56] that I could see before.

[3:17:01] director lowe corrected me on that.

[3:17:02] it was in the last or in a previous meeting.

[3:17:06] and there was a from to, but I'd gone through the first, you know, 15 or 20 pages and

[3:17:10] didn't see anything.

[3:17:11] so I assumed it was just a repeat of what the new one is supposed to be.

[3:17:14] I went all the way through it actually yesterday and found the additional things.

[3:17:21] and I just wanted to point out that it's not bad changes.

[3:17:25] the only thing in there is a new paragraph that discusses sort of the details and

[3:17:31] three little caveat changes.

[3:17:35] and all of them deal with single detached family homes because there are some single

[3:17:41] family detached homes that were not in the previous

[3:17:45] uvsp.

[3:17:47] so I just wanted to, first of all, confirm with director lowe that I'm correct on

[3:17:50] that.

[3:17:53] thank you, council member wheeler.

[3:17:54] yes, you are correct.

[3:17:55] okay.

[3:17:56] and just to point out to the city council.

[3:17:59] so I guess I would move to approve.

[3:18:02] second.

[3:18:03] second.

[3:18:05] roll call.

[3:18:09] mayor pro tem mathis.

[3:18:10] aye.

[3:18:11] council member sweeney.

[3:18:11] aye.

[3:18:12] council member pezold.

[3:18:13] no.

[3:18:15] council member wheeler.

[3:18:16] aye.

[3:18:18] yes.

[3:18:18] mayor kosky.

[3:18:19] aye.

[3:18:21] the ayes have it.

[3:18:23] okay.

[3:18:25] and these next two items, or next three items, I do have comments for them.

[3:18:29] okay.

[3:18:29] 4.15. And do we have public comments on 4.15?

[3:18:36] approval of the ordinance adopting an amended and restated development agreement

[3:18:41] between the city of laguna hills and mgp fund x laguna hills llc for the

[3:18:47] village at laguna hills project public comments

[3:18:56] mr.

[3:18:57] mayor, if I can make a procedural comment just to remind the council.

[3:19:01] we did have a public hearing.

[3:19:02] it was noticed and it was closed.

[3:19:04] the brown act provides that the public has an opportunity to comment before any item

[3:19:07] that's going to be considered on the agenda.

[3:19:09] so under the brown act, we need to allow public comments, but for due process

[3:19:12] purposes,

[3:19:14] you shouldn't allow any additional facts to change your opinion.

[3:19:16] you can always deliberate over the two weeks or however long it's been since the

[3:19:19] first motion, but you shouldn't take additional facts tonight.

[3:19:23] just as a due process issue, you've

[3:19:27] of course, you can always change your mind after deliberation, but the time to

[3:19:30] consider facts is closed.

[3:19:32] all right.

[3:19:34] so the short of that is that we should not have public comments.

[3:19:39] that's going to be additional information.

[3:19:43] no, the way I summarize it is people have to be able to speak, but you can't be able

[3:19:47] to hear.

[3:19:48] okay.

[3:19:52] hey, we're all awake.

[3:19:53] that's good.

[3:19:55] okay, I need some clarification on that.

[3:19:57] go ahead.

[3:20:00] okay, whenever you bring anything before the council, we always have the opportunity

[3:20:02] for the public to speak.

[3:20:04] and just because we voted one way on initial reading doesn't mean it will go the same

[3:20:08] way the second reading,

[3:20:10] and we all gather information presumably between those two time periods.

[3:20:14] so what you said I do not understand why we can't hear everything.

[3:20:18] to make a final deliberation on all the facts that we hear, since it's all in public.

[3:20:24] well, so it is all in public, and the public does have a right to comment.

[3:20:30] but the notice went out, and we had an evidentiary hearing.

[3:20:34] and we closed that evidentiary hearing.

[3:20:36] if any additional facts, if the council wanted additional facts or anything else,

[3:20:43] we would have had to re-notice another public hearing or continue the public hearing.

[3:20:47] generally speaking, we've considered the facts, and the time to present the facts has

[3:20:50] been closed.

[3:20:51] so procedurally speaking, that's where things sit at this point.

[3:20:59] but isn't the public notice of this meeting, and this is an agenda item?

[3:21:03] it is an agenda item.

[3:21:04] that's sufficient.

[3:21:06] the public does know about it.

[3:21:08] that's true, but at the last meeting we closed the public hearing.

[3:21:12] that's true.

[3:21:16] true, but does the mayor have a right to reopen a public hearing if we re notice?

[3:21:20] I'm sorry.

[3:21:22] we would have to re notice okay, so I'm asking our city attorney do I?

[3:21:31] entertain public comments yes on that basis or not yes entertain public comments,

[3:21:36] but in your deliberations you it's it's difficult to do but you need to be able to

[3:21:40] parse through new facts versus facts you

[3:21:42] already heard there.

[3:21:42] I just want to okay.

[3:21:43] yes, all right, so city clerk bruce johnson you

[3:22:01] welcome, bruce.

[3:22:02] thank you.

[3:22:06] mr.

[3:22:06] mayor, members of council, and ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving me the

[3:22:10] opportunity to speak tonight.

[3:22:13] I promise you old facts tonight.

[3:22:16] nothing new.

[3:22:17] my name is bruce johnson.

[3:22:19] I'm here on behalf of rona henry and the welcoming neighbors home initiative.

[3:22:26] we're a coalition of residents who believe that the lack of affordable housing

[3:22:31] is one of the most critical issues of our time, one that is only becoming more urgent.

[3:22:37] we remain in support of this council approving the revised development agreement for

[3:22:41] the village at laguna hills.

[3:22:45] there are three main benefits that we see to the revised plan.

[3:22:49] this project will provide 200 lower income senior homes,

[3:22:54] we're pleased that 10% of the units will be reserved for people at 30% of the area of

[3:23:00] median income, about$30,000 a year.

[3:23:04] it's commendable that the affordable housing would be built in the first phase of

[3:23:08] construction.

[3:23:10] and finally, we like its location by the oc bus depot and memorial hospital.

[3:23:18] our coalition continues to believe

[3:23:20] that this site would be ideal for multifamily workforce affordable housing.

[3:23:27] moreover, because it's so badly needed, we urge you to work to facilitate the

[3:23:31] building of multifamily workforce affordable housing in laguna hills into the future

[3:23:37] as well.

[3:23:39] we understand that it's important to approve this plan now so that the developer can

[3:23:43] meet the fall deadline for getting financing for the project.

[3:23:49] if the project is not approved now, there's a real danger that construction may be

[3:23:53] significantly delayed.

[3:23:57] the revised plan is a definite improvement over the previous one, and we ask you to

[3:24:02] vote yes on the revised development plan.

[3:24:07] any thanks.

[3:24:08] thank you for your thoughts and your comment.

[3:24:11] any others?

[3:24:13] kathy udovch.

[3:24:29] this meeting's been going on for a while, so I'm going to be quick.

[3:24:32] this is opinion, so don't worry about any facts being spilled out.

[3:24:37] my name's kathy udovch, and I live here in laguna hills.

[3:24:40] I've lived here for about 15 years.

[3:24:43] I cannot wait for something to happen to that mall project.

[3:24:47] I want some demolition.

[3:24:49] I want to see things being built.

[3:24:51] I want all the noise because it knows that something's going on.

[3:24:56] I do appreciate the fact that you're going to have one of your first constructions

[3:25:00] that's going to be the senior living with the lower

[3:25:03] income included in that.

[3:25:05] that's really great.

[3:25:08] I also wanted to mention that I love the idea of a central community park.

[3:25:14] because it gives us just another place for community activities and everything like

[3:25:17] that, which I know is over at the civic center,

[3:25:20] so I really like, not the civic center, community center.

[3:25:26] and so just having another place to actually have activities and have people

[3:25:30] gathering, shopping, eating, living, and just visiting people.

[3:25:35] so that's really awesome.

[3:25:37] it helps our little city sort of have a central place

[3:25:40] gathering place since we are a little city although we're kind of spread out so this

[3:25:45] puts it a little bit more in the middle

[3:25:48] especially for me who on the other side of laguna woods I also like the idea that

[3:25:52] there's going to be two hotels built

[3:25:55] soon as a travel advisor.

[3:25:58] I can't wait to start booking them just saying and yeah, that's that's pretty much

[3:26:04] all I had to say about this so yes,

[3:26:07] please go ahead and do your thing and

[3:26:10] thumbs up.

[3:26:11] that's what we do.

[3:26:12] we do our thing.

[3:26:13] thank you for your comment.

[3:26:14] all right, thanks.

[3:26:17] I have no more comments, but I do need to read the names of all the online

[3:26:19] submissions.

[3:26:21] please do.

[3:26:22] michaela nozaki, kathy temple, christine morinello, barbara siry, jeffrey gothard,

[3:26:28] holly magana, judy northrop,

[3:26:32] bruce johnson, rayna hamre, laura shapiro, carol mcvay, vicki hines, marcella lawson,

[3:26:38] ann beltran, sayre weaver, rona henry, david salahi, alice soto, john mendonca,

[3:26:46] keith tuominen, wendy washington, and cesar covarrubias.

[3:26:51] okay.

[3:26:53] back to you, dave.

[3:26:54] do you have any?

[3:26:57] you pulled it off, so...

[3:26:59] okay.

[3:27:01] I've got a few things to say, and I think my colleague has a few things to say.

[3:27:04] you want to go first?

[3:27:07] I'll let you.

[3:27:09] okay.

[3:27:09] let me start with a couple things.

[3:27:14] actually, robert, could you open up the thumb drive thing I gave you?

[3:27:19] there's one slide in there.

[3:27:20] the slide I meant for the next two things, but one of them is pertinent at this point.

[3:27:31] okay, that's not it.

[3:27:36] right there.

[3:27:37] that's the one that's...

[3:27:38] can you go up a little bit more?

[3:27:48] I want to see what else I have in there.

[3:27:51] okay, okay.

[3:27:52] go back to that one then.

[3:27:53] yeah, that one right there.

[3:27:54] okay.

[3:27:57] I'll go in detail about this chart said it was meant for another purpose tonight,

[3:28:02] but I want you to look at the yellow line this project for our total commercial area

[3:28:10] in the el toro area in general

[3:28:14] there.

[3:28:14] it's about ninety nine point seven seven acres approved or allocated and the

[3:28:19] allocations mainly to the quote-unquote mall project and

[3:28:25] the triangle across the street is also included there,

[3:28:27] but that's that's small potatoes compared to this eighty two point eight the what's

[3:28:34] the fifth column over there to date we have had

[3:28:38] zero affordable housing houses or apartments or anything built the percentage of loss

[3:28:43] now of that area commercial area is now eighty three percent

[3:28:49] so eighty three percent that whole area around the el toro is gone for

[3:28:54] for commercial.

[3:28:55] and I even allocated the 82.8.

[3:28:58] I actually added back in 10 acres for the little few commercial things that are left

[3:29:02] in the mall.

[3:29:03] that's an overestimate.

[3:29:05] it's probably much smaller than that.

[3:29:07] so it's probably higher than 83%.

[3:29:08] so I just want to talk to you that we are giving up the prize jewel of all laguna

[3:29:14] hills and now we're given

[3:29:17] away and lost or will lose 83% of our best area for commercial.

[3:29:24] the uvsp, we already talked about that the changes were minor.

[3:29:28] I've contended, and I will repeat it again and probably forever, this project does

[3:29:33] not meet and never met the uvsp.

[3:29:37] the uvsp actually had a lot of wise things in what was written.

[3:29:42] they thought ahead and they said, okay, we don't want to go hog wild into something.

[3:29:47] that's why they put limitations in there.

[3:29:49] we can only change the commercial by so many square feet.

[3:29:52] we can only change the residences by so many, like the limit was 200.

[3:29:55] that was total for each change.

[3:29:59] it was so that we wouldn't go just, you know, like I said, hog wild in one direction

[3:30:02] and realize we've made a mistake.

[3:30:05] we wanted to grow slowly and gradually so we could take in the new situation that's

[3:30:09] happened all the time.

[3:30:11] and if any project is a lesser of that, it's this one.

[3:30:15] the property was bought in 2013, and nothing has happened except it's been torn down.

[3:30:20] and every, I guess it's about average, about every four years, my loan guard comes

[3:30:23] back and says, oh, everything has changed now.

[3:30:26] we can't do it the way we did it before.

[3:30:28] and this is the same as last time.

[3:30:31] I mean, first, it's so we can't have any...

[3:30:33] we can't have that much commercial or that much retail because nobody goes to malls.

[3:30:37] then it was, oh, well, we can't have any office building because nobody's taking

[3:30:41] their business and operating out of office anymore.

[3:30:46] where all these things are true, they keep changing every four years, and we're

[3:30:49] getting nothing, nothing at all done,

[3:30:51] and we're giving away all of our future for el toro.

[3:30:56] I'll yield to my colleague now.

[3:30:59] that's all.

[3:31:00] erica?

[3:31:02] so first of all, I want to point out that the developer that merlone geier,

[3:31:14] it seems that they have multiple llcs depending on which property they are dealing

[3:31:18] with.

[3:31:20] and these are protections for merlone geier, but we are in a development agreement

[3:31:26] with an llc.

[3:31:30] and I think that we need to have specific discussions, and perhaps we should bring

[3:31:35] this up in a...

[3:31:39] we need to have discussions because we just had a presentation about the land and

[3:31:47] about...

[3:31:50] with respect to where the roads are going to go.

[3:31:52] I think there's a lot of things up in the air right now.

[3:31:56] and...

[3:31:58] groups could perhaps, there could be legal consequences.

[3:32:04] and I think we haven't flushed that through.

[3:32:07] and I think that that's something that we should have had some conversations because

[3:32:13] if there is some sort of legal ramifications,

[3:32:17] who is going to wind up with the bill of that, especially if an llc decides to abandon

[3:32:27] and essentially, I mean, if an llc just stops, who pays for after that?

[3:32:33] so I think that we have, I think that we, and this is something I did bring up in the

[3:32:41] last meeting.

[3:32:43] I also want to point out this is something that has been discussed.

[3:32:49] and I'm curious, I guess I don't know if we're allowed to ask, but this is something

[3:32:53] that we have,

[3:32:56] a city council are the client of our attorney and being a client that means there are

[3:33:03] five body members that are a client

[3:33:07] and should be treated equally equally as such I don't recall receiving a phone call

[3:33:15] about what are my thoughts are on this development

[3:33:20] agreement I didn't have any discussions with respect until right before the meeting

[3:33:28] the attorney reached out.

[3:33:32] and that is, I am just saying I am the client.

[3:33:38] and that is something that was a huge mishap.

[3:33:43] and that and usually with clients you want to make sure that you

[3:33:49] have conversations with your client.

[3:33:52] so I'm just pointing that out and I'm not sure if councilmember wheeler had that and

[3:33:57] I'm not sure how many conversations councilmember sweeney

[3:34:02] had that we as being having legal representation.

[3:34:07] I don't know if I'm allowed to ask.

[3:34:12] okay.

[3:34:16] okay, and and I just want I just want to make aware that we are and that's that that

[3:34:23] we are the client and that that is

[3:34:26] with any legal issue everyone should be treated equally and I feel and this was a

[3:34:32] disrespect with respect to the council and a client

[3:34:36] and the client we were overstepped

[3:34:40] and that's completely inappropriate, especially when it's a legal document.

[3:34:45] every person on the council should have been contacted, questions answered,

[3:34:49] everything should have been flushed through independently so that concerns could have

[3:34:54] been discussed about legal issues with the legal document,

[3:35:00] especially when you have a hired attorney for that purpose.

[3:35:05] I am very concerned about the development agreements

[3:35:09] I mean, inadequate public benefits and infrastructure provisions, weak accountability

[3:35:16] and enforcement.

[3:35:20] I think that there are inadequate financial assurances, like performance bonds,

[3:35:27] letters of credit, security promises, like to insure.

[3:35:32] we don't have the letters to make sure that there's backings.

[3:35:38] what about what about the checkpoints and the mandatory progress reports the

[3:35:43] checkpoints and what are the consequences?

[3:35:48] we have had a number of situations over the past number of years where the property

[3:35:53] is laid completely vacant and we've had issues

[3:35:57] and I and we were told on the dais that we can't enforce it because it wasn't in the

[3:36:01] development agreement.

[3:36:03] but then we're told, oh, we should have that in the development agreement so they can

[3:36:06] leave the property essentially vacant.

[3:36:09] and they can leave it, but we don't have a way to make sure that that property looks

[3:36:14] nice.

[3:36:15] I mean, that is one of the largest complaints in the city, yet we're not addressing

[3:36:20] that.

[3:36:21] and so I think that...

[3:36:23] that wasn't handled.

[3:36:27] I think that we also, cities with da s that aren't strong, which is what I believe

[3:36:37] this da,

[3:36:39] they end up with stalled or incomplete projects.

[3:36:42] stalled is a sign, a negative sign with any da, and we have it twice.

[3:36:49] that is a huge red flag.

[3:36:55] in it also creates locked in miss mismatch developments it can create issues within

[3:37:04] the city and the stalled cities end up with stalled

[3:37:11] incomplete projects I mean there's just just a number of red flags where it doesn't

[3:37:17] benefit our city I think that we I think

[3:37:21] that we also should have had these conversations.

[3:37:25] I'm concerned about the public outreach and our vulnerability.

[3:37:30] we did not have

[3:37:33] any public outreach and I don't believe that our committee had open houses to engage

[3:37:38] with the community and see what our community wants.

[3:37:43] see about how a number of people feel about the project and where it stands and the

[3:37:50] community was absent because they feel like

[3:37:55] their voices are no longer necessary and they feel railroaded in this process.

[3:38:01] so and it's very evident that we are being railroaded in this process and I am

[3:38:06] worried about the fiscal the financial stability of our

[3:38:11] city.

[3:38:12] I I want to I would like to really stress financially it has been told that the path

[3:38:21] that we've been on we stand

[3:38:24] we if we don't make a huge shift bankruptcy

[3:38:29] is in our trajectory.

[3:38:31] seven years.

[3:38:33] and this project, I don't, it doesn't look like it satisfies it besides increasing

[3:38:37] the population.

[3:38:38] it doesn't pay for itself.

[3:38:40] so I think that we are not, we are looking at things that are not positive and we

[3:38:44] have to be very cognizant of that.

[3:38:48] so with that, I mean, I can put this out there, but I understand it can't be weighed

[3:38:54] on, but I at

[3:38:55] least can put this out there.

[3:38:59] I yield my comments.

[3:39:05] are you adding a comment?

[3:39:06] yes.

[3:39:07] okay, go ahead.

[3:39:08] I'll let you do that.

[3:39:10] hopefully it's not duplicative.

[3:39:12] excuse me?

[3:39:13] hopefully it's not duplicative.

[3:39:15] we've heard pretty much everything but the kitchen sink here.

[3:39:19] well, one thing is duplicative because it deserves to be, and that is that there's no

[3:39:23] time to review this.

[3:39:26] we were given it a few days before the meeting.

[3:39:28] this was the you know, the subcommittee's report, and it's like, you know, and we

[3:39:32] refused any ability to review it and said, you know,

[3:39:36] you don't need to, basically.

[3:39:37] we made the decision, and I don't appreciate that.

[3:39:40] I had no chance to see what was in there.

[3:39:44] there was some inaccuries, I think, in the presentation, one of which was about the

[3:39:48] financials.

[3:39:52] there were two things, and only two things, that the ad hoc got

[3:39:57] that wasn't already in the agreement.

[3:39:59] I mean, the quimby funds and all those other things,

[3:40:02] they were already there from the time that jeanine and I were on the ad hoc committee

[3:40:04] the first time.

[3:40:06] there was nothing new there.

[3:40:07] the two things that were new, the tot for the second hotel, that is new, that is an

[3:40:11] addition.

[3:40:13] and the other thing that is new, and it's a pittance, and I probably need...

[3:40:19] uh director lowe to to check this out but uh and that is that when you change from an

[3:40:24] apartment which you get like

[3:40:26] fifteen hundred dollars for or fifteen thousand dollars and you go to a house a

[3:40:31] single family you get 18.

[3:40:33] so you get you get a few a few dollars more for that other than that the city gained

[3:40:38] no financially I didn't have

[3:40:40] any financial gain at all on this and what we eliminated was approximately 120,000

[3:40:43] square feet of retail

[3:40:48] which again impacts our ability to do taxes and have any money come in.

[3:40:54] and I also, after the earlier discussion we had with the octa came in here and wants

[3:40:58] to put a road right through the hotel,

[3:41:04] we brought this up a bit last time, and we were told, well, we'll just move the hotel

[3:41:07] if that actually happens.

[3:41:10] but I've heard no assurance that that hotel will be moved and will be kept to

[3:41:15] maintain that one large input in the financial

[3:41:19] stimulus.

[3:41:21] and I don't know, I guess we can't ask the applicant of that because you said dexity

[3:41:25] closed everything.

[3:41:27] we're going to call him, but...

[3:41:30] but I don't know.

[3:41:31] maybe I can ask our counsel, though.

[3:41:34] or you can ask the applicant questions that are germane to what was already

[3:41:36] considered as part of the evidence during the last hearing.

[3:41:39] you know, a lot of this that's being discussed was part of the facts that came up

[3:41:42] during the last hearing.

[3:41:43] so it doesn't mean you can't discuss anything.

[3:41:45] we just don't want to bring in something completely new.

[3:41:46] all right.

[3:41:47] I would like to ask the applicant, then, if there, and also the counsel, if there is

[3:41:51] solid,

[3:41:52] ironclad assurances in the da that the hotel number two

[3:41:57] if the road goes through it, then it will be moved and it will be built in a timely

[3:42:01] basis.

[3:42:04] mr.

[3:42:05] clark.

[3:42:08] is this on?

[3:42:09] yes.

[3:42:11] councilman wheeler, I can't give you any assurance that the hotel will be built if

[3:42:16] the road goes through.

[3:42:19] they are obligated to provide an alternative facility.

[3:42:22] for hotel number one, which is where the area that it's interfered with, and they

[3:42:28] can't proceed with the rest of the development unless they complete, unless they

[3:42:31] commence construction of hotel number one.

[3:42:35] okay.

[3:42:35] hotel number one then.

[3:42:36] okay.

[3:42:37] let me be more specific so I understand this.

[3:42:40] if the, if octa wins, they go eminent domain or whatever and they get that, it goes

[3:42:44] through one

[3:42:46] then that hotel has to be moved, and it still has to be built basically first before

[3:42:51] anything else,

[3:42:52] and that's if that would slow down the whole project?

[3:42:55] the first phase includes the two retail buildings, the two anchor buildings and

[3:43:02] retail one,

[3:43:04] along with hotel one and the low-income housing for the senior project.

[3:43:09] okay, so hotel one isn't...

[3:43:11] isn't the first part, so if something impacts that, no pun intended, and it can't be

[3:43:16] built,

[3:43:17] the rest of the project gets delayed and stopped?

[3:43:19] correct.

[3:43:19] okay.

[3:43:20] that's not a good thing, and it's a big question about whether we should even be

[3:43:23] proceeding on that.

[3:43:27] okay.

[3:43:28] that's all I have for right now.

[3:43:29] all right.

[3:43:33] there were a couple of accusations made about

[3:43:37] some legalities as to whether, you know, due notice was made and all the other kind

[3:43:41] of things.

[3:43:43] I'm just going to ask you, I thought we put all of that to bed in the last meeting.

[3:43:47] do we have an issue here with any notices to council and all this other stuff?

[3:43:57] we passed this the first time around.

[3:44:00] it did.

[3:44:01] in the first reading.

[3:44:02] it passed the first read.

[3:44:03] notice went out to the public.

[3:44:07] and council received the agenda packet at the same time that it was released to the

[3:44:11] public.

[3:44:13] that's the legal requirements.

[3:44:15] okay.

[3:44:16] thank you very much.

[3:44:17] so I'm going to make a comment.

[3:44:22] almost everything that my two colleagues on the right-hand side of me said I disagree

[3:44:29] with.

[3:44:31] we worked very, very hard for three years to make this a reality for this city.

[3:44:37] and for 12 years, it was not a reality.

[3:44:41] I wasn't here.

[3:44:42] I wish I was.

[3:44:43] and, you know, maybe it would have happened earlier.

[3:44:46] the 70,000 or 80,000 square feet of retail that's gone is basically a theater and a

[3:44:53] gym, okay?

[3:44:54] it's not real retail.

[3:44:56] it's not creating sales tax.

[3:44:59] I mean, I could go on and on and on, and I won't.

[3:45:03] so I move that...

[3:45:05] item number 4.15 be adopted in a second reading.

[3:45:11] do we have a second?

[3:45:12] we have a second.

[3:45:13] we have a second.

[3:45:15] roll call vote.

[3:45:16] no, you have to have a discussion first.

[3:45:19] you have to have a discussion after the second.

[3:45:20] we have a second.

[3:45:22] I know.

[3:45:22] you have to have a discussion after the second.

[3:45:25] you have to ask for a discussion.

[3:45:29] I'm not following it.

[3:45:30] sorry.

[3:45:32] I can't hear everybody.

[3:45:33] I don't believe the city follows robert's rules of order specifically, but under

[3:45:37] robert's rules, which is often used as a guide,

[3:45:40] after there's a motion and a second, then it's open for discussion on the motion.

[3:45:44] yes.

[3:45:45] we've always done it that way.

[3:45:47] okay.

[3:45:48] I don't know why you disagree with stuff I said.

[3:45:51] there's only two new revenue streams, tot and the change in the apartment to houses.

[3:45:58] can you tell me of another one?

[3:46:02] already made my comments.

[3:46:03] I'm ready there's no if I'm if I'm wrong that there's another benefit financially the

[3:46:10] city I like know what it is I think

[3:46:14] it's all been out there before we're just going over the same old stuff.

[3:46:19] no, that's the problem.

[3:46:20] it has not been out there.

[3:46:21] that's the problem.

[3:46:21] I had no chance to review it before the first reading.

[3:46:23] I don't agree with anything you're saying.

[3:46:24] no reasonable chance at all to review that.

[3:46:27] and now that this appears, you know, you haven't contradicted me, so I say there is

[3:46:30] nothing else but those two.

[3:46:34] and you talked about, you know, the theater and the gym didn't produce much.

[3:46:39] well, you put on whole foods, right?

[3:46:43] a whole food sells food.

[3:46:45] food is not taxed in california.

[3:46:46] so that's another big zero.

[3:46:48] okay, there we go.

[3:46:49] so that's, you know, nothing.

[3:46:51] I'm not getting involved in this filibuster.

[3:46:53] this is a bunch of baloney.

[3:46:56] no, it's not a bunch of baloney.

[3:46:57] it's a fact.

[3:46:58] okay, well.

[3:46:59] this is a red herring.

[3:47:01] we shouldn't even have this thing in the first place.

[3:47:02] all right.

[3:47:07] okay.

[3:47:08] I moved the question now.

[3:47:10] I I have a second I have some things to say the questions been called and seconded.

[3:47:19] it's I I still can speak

[3:47:24] not when you call the question.

[3:47:25] I can still speak.

[3:47:27] we're voting on the call of the question.

[3:47:29] I can still speak.

[3:47:30] no, you cannot do that.

[3:47:32] to stop conversation, you have to have a 67%, two-thirds majority.

[3:47:38] you do not have that.

[3:47:40] yes.

[3:47:43] so I don't think we follow robert's rules of order specifically.

[3:47:47] it's used as a non-binding guide.

[3:47:48] generally speaking, the mayor serves as parliamentarian and makes the final calls.

[3:47:56] usually, the final call stands unless it's overridden by a majority of council.

[3:48:00] I assume that's what the process is here.

[3:48:04] there's been a call to the question and a second,

[3:48:06] and I think the parliamentarian has the ability to make the call on this point.

[3:48:10] I don't think you're bound and constrained by robert's rules.

[3:48:13] thank you.

[3:48:15] so we're going to do the question first.

[3:48:17] so you're basically violating our right to speak.

[3:48:20] we're elected by the people, just like you.

[3:48:22] how long do you want to speak?

[3:48:24] as long as I want to.

[3:48:25] yeah, until midnight?

[3:48:27] if I want to speak until midnight, I'll speak until midnight.

[3:48:29] yeah, that's what this is all about.

[3:48:31] yeah, and that's why robert's rules, a professional, and even mr.

[3:48:35] mathis said he's an expert on robert's rules award.

[3:48:37] he knows what it says.

[3:48:38] it's two-thirds.

[3:48:40] that's 67%.

[3:48:40] you've only got 60.

[3:48:42] you can't do it.

[3:48:43] you're denying us the right to talk.

[3:48:48] I don't even want to call the question.

[3:48:50] roll call vote.

[3:48:54] is this for the motion to the question, or is this for the approval of the item?

[3:49:00] you want to draw the question?

[3:49:01] sure, I'll draw the question.

[3:49:03] go ahead.

[3:49:04] roll call vote on the 4.15.

[3:49:06] ok.

[3:49:09] we can still have a discussion.

[3:49:15] we'll call vote for...

[3:49:18] if he withdraws that, she continues to talk.

[3:49:22] I'm sorry?

[3:49:23] if he withdraws the motion to stop talking, then she gets to vote.

[3:49:27] she gets to keep talking.

[3:49:29] that would be up to the chair?

[3:49:31] no, it's up to the vote.

[3:49:32] it's the vote.

[3:49:36] I have very strong concerns, and I will tell you it's regarding our police and our

[3:49:42] fire.

[3:49:45] so our emergency responders, so we lose the hotel.

[3:49:50] what we're doing is we're hurting our police services.

[3:49:53] we're hurting them.

[3:49:55] they're overburdened as it is.

[3:49:57] the fire authority, they receive property tax revenue.

[3:50:02] this isn't filibustering.

[3:50:04] this is talking about something that's valid and important.

[3:50:09] we had a discussion earlier about the consequences of building too much and how the

[3:50:14] freeways are so full by building too much.

[3:50:18] this is a consequence.

[3:50:20] why are we doing this to the people that save our lives?

[3:50:25] why are we doing this?

[3:50:26] why aren't we thinking through how to pay for it?

[3:50:30] so just to let you know, the fire authority receives their money from property taxes.

[3:50:34] there will be a little boost, but then with

[3:50:39] the apartments, it doesn't satisfy.

[3:50:41] and we're going to overburden our already, it is the busiest fire station all around.

[3:50:49] why are we doing this?

[3:50:51] and then the police.

[3:50:51] do you have any idea how much work they do on a daily basis?

[3:50:58] they're so busy.

[3:50:59] and then we're going to increase the population with a hotel that may or may not, and

[3:51:05] we can't afford it.

[3:51:08] this is why you have to be responsible.

[3:51:12] this isn't filibustering.

[3:51:14] that's not the pattern.

[3:51:15] what I'm trying to let you know is a consequence, because you can turn back the

[3:51:19] minutes,

[3:51:20] and any person who supports the police can turn back and say, you had two council

[3:51:25] members that said x, y, z

[3:51:27] about protecting our residents.

[3:51:30] this consequence is the increase in response times.

[3:51:35] it's making it so that it's more difficult and challenging.

[3:51:39] I'm just pointing it out.

[3:51:40] why are we doing this?

[3:51:42] I speak to people that work for the fire department all the time.

[3:51:47] and do you know what?

[3:51:48] they're overwhelmed.

[3:51:49] they're overwhelmed.

[3:51:50] and they can't say it here.

[3:51:52] but they're overwhelmed.

[3:51:54] as well, we have our police.

[3:51:56] they're not saying it.

[3:51:58] they're not coming up here.

[3:52:00] but you can talk to people in private.

[3:52:01] and we have an explosion of population in orange county.

[3:52:05] what are you talking about, orange county?

[3:52:07] we have our orange county.

[3:52:09] an explosion of population in orange county.

[3:52:11] yes, yes.

[3:52:12] ok, here we go.

[3:52:14] I mean.

[3:52:16] and our city is replicating.

[3:52:18] call the question.

[3:52:21] 4.15. That's it.

[3:52:23] let's vote.

[3:52:27] council member pezold?

[3:52:31] no.

[3:52:32] council member sweeney?

[3:52:33] aye.

[3:52:35] mayor caskey?

[3:52:36] aye.

[3:52:37] mayor pro tem mathis?

[3:52:38] aye.

[3:52:39] council member wheeler?

[3:52:40] I refuse to vote.

[3:52:41] we have not been given due process.

[3:52:49] okay.

[3:52:49] 4.16. Is that an abstention?

[3:52:52] no, it's a refusal to vote.

[3:52:54] because I've not been given due process to review this material.

[3:52:58] you heard my answer.

[3:52:59] it's on the recording.

[3:53:02] okay.

[3:53:05] motion passes.

[3:53:06] all right.

[3:53:09] 4.16, dave.

[3:53:11] okay, 4.16.

[3:53:13] robert, would you bring up my thumb drive?

[3:53:21] k this item has to do with the uh...

[3:53:23] no net loss uh...

[3:53:29] uh...

[3:53:29] work very very long and hard trying to find alternatives at last meeting we had uh...

[3:53:36] d e f which might not mean something to a lot of people areas in the city that were

[3:53:40] allocated to fulfill no net

[3:53:42] loss and also uh...

[3:53:44] we had an area called ends

[3:53:49] d and f are underperforming.

[3:53:51] there's nothing been there for a long time they there's it's it's a legitimate area

[3:53:55] that could be redeveloped and have something done to it and

[3:53:59] however has businesses there?

[3:54:01] it is also not currently zoned for housing a lot of the area of the north and a lot

[3:54:06] of areas in the city

[3:54:08] are zoned for mixed use so conferring them over to sort of

[3:54:12] submit then for the renewed process is not as big a deal as taking an area that is

[3:54:17] totally zoned for a commercial and then

[3:54:21] removing it.

[3:54:21] it sets a horrible, horrible precedent.

[3:54:24] you go to the first slide, please.

[3:54:27] okay.

[3:54:27] this slide is similar to the one I brought up last time in the meeting, but there's

[3:54:30] been a few things added.

[3:54:34] the second column so I third column actually seats purple title I I and then all the

[3:54:40] properties that are both approved but I

[3:54:43] mean I proved the uh...

[3:54:45] the mall area of the triangle the uh...

[3:54:48] la paz village and the uh...

[3:54:50] uh...

[3:54:51] mill creek areas those books are approved or allocated allocated up means the areas

[3:54:56] that we've all would actually put into the rhna process

[3:55:00] saying if they're eligible

[3:55:02] and they all add up to meet our hcd requirement.

[3:55:07] so the numbers are a little different.

[3:55:10] if you notice, the whole city only has 483.46 acres of commercial property left.

[3:55:17] I mean, that's all there's in the whole city.

[3:55:20] 117.40 acres.

[3:55:23] and I can read the acres to make it somewhat, you know, something you get your handle

[3:55:27] on.

[3:55:28] people know what an acre is.

[3:55:30] it was a meter squared before, which I apologize for.

[3:55:32] I was just doing the ratios.

[3:55:34] this maybe you can, you know, have a little better handle on it.

[3:55:37] and just to give you an idea, an acre, everybody's seen a football field or laguna

[3:55:42] hills high school football field.

[3:55:45] a football field, and I'm talking about just the field, you know, goalpost to

[3:55:48] goalpost, side to side.

[3:55:50] that's about 1.32 acres, just to give you an idea of the magnitude.

[3:55:55] this new net loss proposal with the def and n add another 20.1 acres.

[3:56:02] again, the fifth column.

[3:56:04] to this date, no affordable housing has been built.

[3:56:08] the percent of commercial property lost, 24%.

[3:56:14] that's to date before the no net loss addition.

[3:56:18] the no net loss addition, as you can see to the last column, adds about 4.1%.

[3:56:26] so for the whole city, we already have lost almost 30% of our retail commercial area.

[3:56:35] and there's a line added down at the bottom, the magenta line.

[3:56:41] I added in the one area that we've also reallocated residential.

[3:56:47] this is also kind of a problem because we start reallocating residential.

[3:56:52] my guess is the next step will be they'll come over and take a lot of the large areas

[3:56:56] in nellie

[3:56:57] gail because large housing they convert them all to apartments.

[3:57:01] that's why the big red thing is we've actually put residential in there.

[3:57:04] it doesn't add up to our loss of commercial but it's worth noting.

[3:57:10] I think this slide speaks for itself.

[3:57:11] the north, we've lost 15%.

[3:57:13] the north part of laguna hills supplies most of the money that we get in revenue, tax

[3:57:19] revenue, to run our city.

[3:57:24] the el toro, as I pointed out earlier in the discussion about the da, with all the

[3:57:29] allocations we've made,

[3:57:31] we've lost 83% of our el toro area.

[3:57:34] the only thing we have left is the

[3:57:36] the furniture store, the total wines, and the little corner across the street from

[3:57:41] in-n-out burger.

[3:57:44] and that is also an area that's in jeopardy because octa wants to put a road through

[3:57:48] it.

[3:57:51] excuse me.

[3:57:51] next slide, please.

[3:57:53] ok.

[3:57:54] like I said, I was trying very hard to protect our businesses that are in n.

[3:57:59] this particular picture shows

[3:58:03] shows the areas that are of concern in my discussion here.

[3:58:07] I won't talk about de and f.

[3:58:10] those are probably legitimate.

[3:58:13] much as I hate to give up commercial, they're reasonable choices.

[3:58:18] and I say it's not a reasonable choice.

[3:58:20] and it's the orange area that is lowest on the chart sort of down and to the right.

[3:58:28] did you go to the next slide real quick?

[3:58:29] okay.

[3:58:30] that other area that was up in the northern part of my drawing there, those two areas

[3:58:35] in orange,

[3:58:36] I want to explain what they are.

[3:58:38] the orange area to the left, which is the larger one, that's an area that has already

[3:58:45] been requested to build,

[3:58:47] I think it's 100 houses on that, and we'll talk about that a little later when we get

[3:58:49] to 19.

[3:58:50] that's everybody, you know, done the authority proposals put in.

[3:58:57] the area to the right of that, and it sort of curves around it, is the

[3:59:01] area that I propose that we substitute for n.

[3:59:04] it's called area c.

[3:59:07] if you note, area c is very contiguous with something that's already going to be

[3:59:12] apartments.

[3:59:13] it's right there on avenue de carlota.

[3:59:18] it keeps it together.

[3:59:19] it doesn't put shotgun holes through our whole north.

[3:59:23] if you go back to the previous chart, please.

[3:59:26] and you can see that the area in c is only 8,300 square meters.

[3:59:31] again, I'm sorry I couldn't convert that.

[3:59:33] the computer program wouldn't do that.

[3:59:34] but just to give you relative size, the n is 37,000 square feet.

[3:59:40] so it's a smaller footprint, but still gets the job done.

[3:59:44] and I might note that the n area would supply units for rhna twice as much as what we

[3:59:51] need, roughly speaking.

[3:59:55] so it's a much better choice.

[3:59:59] now the objection to that one, the c was, if you go back to this next chart,

[4:00:04] the objection to c was that the owner didn't say, hey, I want to build apartments

[4:00:08] here.

[4:00:09] I want to build housing there.

[4:00:11] that is the main reason that n was picked over c, because the owner of n actually

[4:00:16] wants to build his whole area.

[4:00:19] if you go back to the next, I'm sorry.

[4:00:22] if you notice, just north or up,

[4:00:25] from n at the bottom, the whole area that's sort of pinkish there, not counting the

[4:00:30] thing to the left,

[4:00:32] which is the mobile home part, they wanted all of that.

[4:00:36] we gave them a portion.

[4:00:39] the only other difference is that the c has had some improvements on it.

[4:00:45] so for those two reasons, ann was picked over c.

[4:00:49] even though c is a much better choice, c would come much closer to just meeting our

[4:00:56] no net loss as opposed to going

[4:00:59] way over what we don't need.

[4:01:03] therefore, I do not think we should accept this.

[4:01:07] I think we should go with the c over the n for the reason I just stated.

[4:01:14] do you need a second or is that a motion?

[4:01:23] I would just like, as I mentioned before, I think the n is not a good idea because it

[4:01:30] is enhancing in revenue.

[4:01:33] and businesses are trying to find a way to find locations.

[4:01:37] and that is an area where businesses have moved from

[4:01:42] and they've moved businesses to that area where n is.

[4:01:47] and I've had many discussions with business owners and the stress that they encounter

[4:01:54] when something is going to rezone.

[4:01:57] it affects their livelihood.

[4:01:59] it affects when you have to start a business and move, or when you have to move your

[4:02:03] business.

[4:02:05] this impacts them greatly with their revenue stream.

[4:02:09] it impacts them.

[4:02:11] and so we're going to create more stress for groups that have started.

[4:02:16] I mean, we talked about the dance

[4:02:19] groups, many of them, there are people that live, many kids that live in laguna hills

[4:02:25] go to these dance studios.

[4:02:29] the parents take them and sway ballroom and a number of them, sway was on la paz,

[4:02:35] they moved.

[4:02:36] a number of groups have moved.

[4:02:39] why are we wanting to create this stress and chaos?

[4:02:42] I mean, this is, with respect to a

[4:02:46] site that is increasing.

[4:02:48] it's organically doing something so I I support councilmember wheelers suggestion I

[4:02:59] think that n should be off the table another comment back to dave

[4:03:08] have another comment.

[4:03:09] I'll yield to my colleagues if they would have something you have another comment yes

[4:03:19] I can't show this in public because it involves proprietary information, but I can't

[4:03:23] talk about it in general.

[4:03:29] our finance director gave me the new hdl data that basically tells us how much income

[4:03:36] in the form of sales tax we're getting

[4:03:40] from all of our businesses around the city.

[4:03:42] I incorporated the new 26 data in my database.

[4:03:45] and ran some scenarios.

[4:03:46] we're trying to figure out, you know, the city manager and I and director lowe are

[4:03:52] trying to find some ways to study our

[4:03:55] businesses, to help them, and figure out what it is we can do to enhance laguna hills.

[4:04:00] when I ran the data, I ran basically 2024 and 2025.

[4:04:03] two years.

[4:04:03] I wanted to get a whole year of data.

[4:04:05] and I ranked them.

[4:04:06] I ranked 25 first.

[4:04:06] and I actually included the

[4:04:15] first quarter 26, with the second quarter through fourth quarter 25, and

[4:04:21] then 24 second quarter through 25 first quarters to get a whole year, two consecutive

[4:04:26] years.

[4:04:28] and I ranked the 25-plus, I'll call it, data to see who were our best producers,

[4:04:34] what were our businesses that were really contributing to the city.

[4:04:38] okay, that was interesting.

[4:04:39] and then I went back, and I went to the next column, and I resorted the whole group

[4:04:43] for the 24.

[4:04:45] so with only one year difference, I was shocked, and I'm going to share this with you.

[4:04:51] when I looked at what happened, which was what happened, when I went down the list,

[4:04:55] number three and number four were not there.

[4:05:00] they were gone.

[4:05:02] so in one year, we lost our number three and our number four best producing companies.

[4:05:07] and also missing was number 11.

[4:05:10] and I was like, made me feel bad.

[4:05:14] we're losing top 10 companies in the city.

[4:05:19] that's a bad thing.

[4:05:19] and now we're giving away more areas.

[4:05:24] in particular, now we've gone to n, which I've been complaining about, that n is an

[4:05:27] area that has businesses.

[4:05:29] it is zoned only for commercial.

[4:05:32] and what are businesses thinking about us or what have they thought about us that

[4:05:36] we're doing that and we've lost three, four,

[4:05:39] and 11.

[4:05:40] I can show you the data.

[4:05:42] any one of the council members, I can show you the data.

[4:05:43] you're allowed to see it.

[4:05:44] it can't be releasable to the public, so I can't present it in a meeting.

[4:05:47] actually, I can't give it to you either way.

[4:05:49] I'd have to give it to you through our lawyer, I guess, or through the city manager,

[4:05:52] because I don't want to provide like brown act.

[4:05:54] but the data is, you know, you have the right to see it.

[4:05:59] but, you know, I just, you know, we're giving up our businesses.

[4:06:03] we're just giving up our businesses.

[4:06:05] and it's just shocking.

[4:06:12] I do have a public comment if you wanted to move that unless you wanted to keep going

[4:06:15] with discussion.

[4:06:18] is it the same instructions, colin?

[4:06:26] we had one online comment submitted from cesar covarrubias that was in favor and then

[4:06:35] the one in person is patrick strader thank you

[4:06:40] counsel my name is patrick strader I'm with starpoint rangers yes you have great

[4:06:44] perseverance

[4:06:46] I do this a lot.

[4:06:48] I've had six projects approved in four cities in orange county in the last 60 days.

[4:06:53] I do this a lot.

[4:06:55] with all due respect to the city attorney, I think testimony on a second reading is

[4:06:59] something you can consider because you have a letter

[4:07:03] in front of you from my client that owns the row, which is site n.

[4:07:07] it was submitted today as a public comment.

[4:07:09] we would encourage you to continue to vote to approve site n, but we do have a nuance.

[4:07:15] the original proposal that we've worked with your staff on included more of site n

[4:07:20] and at a lower density.

[4:07:22] so I watched the last hearing, and I've got to say it was one of the most confusing

[4:07:27] hearings I've ever heard because it

[4:07:30] rarely talked about the items that you guys were actually looking at, and it talked

[4:07:33] about a lot of other things.

[4:07:35] so I apologize for being blunt,

[4:07:40] your staff is fantastic.

[4:07:42] jennifer and jay have been working at this a very long time.

[4:07:46] we started meeting with them last november and we submitted a letter that you have

[4:07:51] attached to the letter today in january of this

[4:07:54] year saying that in order to help the city meet its no net loss provisions,

[4:07:59] please consider the portion of the row that does not include the retail businesses.

[4:08:05] and if you read today's letter,

[4:08:07] you will see that the owner of the row, george urban, has actually increased the

[4:08:10] business in the retail.

[4:08:13] they've opened up docent brewing.

[4:08:14] they're investing in the front of the retail.

[4:08:17] and the reason why they believe that redeveloping the site behind it with the

[4:08:21] industrial is they have not had so much luck with those

[4:08:24] buildings.

[4:08:25] they can get leases, but they turn over very quickly.

[4:08:27] they've got a lot of empty spaces at different times.

[4:08:30] they roll at different times.

[4:08:32] it's very difficult.

[4:08:33] as a property owner.

[4:08:34] but with docent and investing in the retail along the frontage,

[4:08:38] having residential immediately behind it will actually encourage the economic

[4:08:41] development of the city because you'll have more people to feed into that retail.

[4:08:45] you will increase the sales taxes.

[4:08:49] I'm running out of time, but I worked on the orange village mall.

[4:08:53] I worked on the westminster mall.

[4:08:55] I worked on the bristol and sunflower project for related in santa ana.

[4:08:59] I worked on the great park for 15 years.

[4:09:01] these are not guesses.

[4:09:03] we know how this works.

[4:09:04] we know how to plan.

[4:09:05] I heard testimony in the last meeting that you guys were considering 120 units to the

[4:09:12] acre.

[4:09:14] nobody is building 120 units to the acre.

[4:09:16] the highest that's being built anywhere in orange county is 72 units to the acre.

[4:09:21] and at the moment, there's no financing for that.

[4:09:24] 20 units to the acre, you can finance all day long for sale.

[4:09:28] the state requires 30 to the acre, and so that's why your staff has done their best

[4:09:32] to try to give you a plan

[4:09:34] that meets the state law so that you can keep moving through without them taking your

[4:09:37] permitting authority away.

[4:09:40] so I do also support d, e, and f and ask you to, again,

[4:09:46] approve n with the addition of the entirety of its property behind the retail center.

[4:09:52] I can answer any questions if you have them.

[4:09:53] thank you.

[4:09:54] any questions?

[4:09:56] dave.

[4:09:57] yeah, a straight man.

[4:09:58] I've got a slide that deals with something you just said.

[4:10:01] perfect.

[4:10:01] let's see, should I do it now?

[4:10:04] let me ask the clarification question first.

[4:10:06] sure.

[4:10:08] you talked about a letter.

[4:10:09] yeah.

[4:10:10] are you the owner?

[4:10:12] no, I'm the consultant, land use consultant to george urban.

[4:10:17] as I mentioned, the reason that n was predicted by our consultant over c was because

[4:10:22] there was a letter.

[4:10:24] saying you know I'd like to build houses basically okay,

[4:10:27] well I want to go back to what happened before it's a prelude to the question what

[4:10:31] happened before in our last rounds we

[4:10:34] pick we picked areas for the same reason you know this this area this is the person

[4:10:38] owned that you know they said you

[4:10:40] know we want to build houses because they went okay of all those and you saw my first

[4:10:44] charter program sure yeah that of those

[4:10:48] out of all that whole area and all those four things we approve and

[4:10:52] there's not a single affordable house unit that came out of that that's built to date.

[4:10:58] and all of them skirted around the issue.

[4:11:00] and when it came down to the point where we asked them, hey, pony up.

[4:11:05] we need to meet an arena that's 75% affordable.

[4:11:09] and that'll be the next issue on inclusionary.

[4:11:12] but none of the letters said, yeah, we'll support affordability.

[4:11:16] the question now, I'll get to it.

[4:11:17] does your letters and the letter of your client, does that support and give us a

[4:11:22] reasonable large amount of affordable housing?

[4:11:27] I don't know how to answer the word large because you are attempting to adopt 15%.

[4:11:31] do you consider 15% large?

[4:11:33] you can answer percentage-wise.

[4:11:36] I'm sorry.

[4:11:36] your inclusionary ordinance that's on the next item is 15%.

[4:11:39] is that large?

[4:11:41] no, 15% is on the next item.

[4:11:44] I consider it pathetic.

[4:11:46] we have to do 75%.

[4:11:47] I understand.

[4:11:48] my client will definitely comply with the city's inclusionary housing ordinance.

[4:11:55] meaning you only give us 15%.

[4:11:57] not only, we will comply with the city's inclusionary housing ordinance and may elect

[4:12:01] to do density bonus and provide additional.

[4:12:04] we do that on a lot of projects I'm working on right now because density bonus

[4:12:07] enables you to waive objective design standards and do

[4:12:10] other sort of things.

[4:12:12] so we are absolutely committed to meeting the city's inclusionary requirements, and

[4:12:16] we will do everything we can.

[4:12:18] but if we're cut out or our site is cut in half,

[4:12:21] I don't know how we could possibly plan to do affordable housing for you.

[4:12:24] ok.

[4:12:26] I have some verbal questions for you.

[4:12:28] it gets into the debate, I'm afraid.

[4:12:29] all right, thank you.

[4:12:34] all right, dave, did you?

[4:12:40] yeah, I have some things.

[4:12:41] I can't ask the gentleman because it's a question, but I'm going to comment on it

[4:12:43] anyway.

[4:12:47] yeah, like I said, the letters are not followed.

[4:12:49] and as far as having more clients there to shop at the stores out front,

[4:12:55] there's a whole big trailer park back there that will have many, many more residents.

[4:13:00] so if you don't have it already, you're not going to get it.

[4:13:03] and it's kind of a weak argument.

[4:13:10] what I want to ask him, but I can't ask him, is what's the highest percentage that

[4:13:13] he's ever built affordable?

[4:13:15] I wish I knew that.

[4:13:21] can he yell it out?

[4:13:24] I don't know.

[4:13:27] we were never looking at 120 units.

[4:13:30] 80 is the most we've ever looked at.

[4:13:34] and I agree with many of your observations in terms of the marketplace and what's

[4:13:40] really happening out there.

[4:13:43] let me go on and pull up my other slides.

[4:13:46] even though they're men's specific for inclusion, they cover both so you can

[4:13:50] just remember then we get the next part of it.

[4:13:53] robert, would you bring up my slides again?

[4:13:58] at least I'll hit one of the pages.

[4:13:59] that's fine.

[4:14:00] let's do that.

[4:14:01] we need to move on.

[4:14:05] okay, down one, please.

[4:14:08] another.

[4:14:10] another.

[4:14:12] I'm sorry, you're going the wrong way.

[4:14:14] okay.

[4:14:15] okay.

[4:14:16] you've seen this chart before, so I won't repeat that right now.

[4:14:19] next slide.

[4:14:20] okay, there was my just illustration of the football field so you have a feeling of

[4:14:25] how much we get.

[4:14:26] next slide.

[4:14:29] density.

[4:14:31] this applies to both the no net loss and what we're talking about now.

[4:14:37] I did little, you know, matrix here.

[4:14:40] and said, ok, we've got acres that we now have available,

[4:14:44] and that 346 number is the number of acres that we have left when we take out the

[4:14:50] parts that's already been allocated to the arena

[4:14:54] process.

[4:14:55] so we have 346 left.

[4:14:57] that's 346 football fields, not a whole lot.

[4:15:03] if you had a density requirement of two, look at the second column now, ok, it would

[4:15:09] take

[4:15:11] 4,000 acres to meet that.

[4:15:14] acres remaining, of course, none because 4,248 is much bigger than 346.

[4:15:20] so we have no percent remaining, zero.

[4:15:23] if you go out there, you'll see the four and the eight.

[4:15:25] and by the way, the two is executive houses.

[4:15:27] that's nellie gale.

[4:15:28] the four is large houses.

[4:15:30] the eight is small houses.

[4:15:31] when you get to 20, you start getting into condos and townhouses to some degree.

[4:15:37] again, you can't do it at 20.

[4:15:40] 25 is the first place where it goes positive as far as having anything left and I say

[4:15:44] left I mean that we have

[4:15:46] any retail or commercial left you have six acres left which is basically one percent

[4:15:52] of our of our current?

[4:15:56] commercial area and you get 30 then you have 80 acres left,

[4:16:01] but you've used up all but 17 percent of our of our commercial area when you have 250

[4:16:10] you have 193 acres left, but you've used up 60% of our retail area and turned it over

[4:16:15] to housing.

[4:16:16] and, of course, you go up to 80, which they never let us go 80.

[4:16:19] the consultant was saying that the best year we get is like, you know, 60s maybe.

[4:16:25] and even at that rate, you've lost almost half of your retail.

[4:16:34] so that's all, robert.

[4:16:36] I'll go into the details and how it relates to the...

[4:16:40] inclusion area when I get to that so I just cannot support this we need to we need to

[4:16:46] think about our businesses I

[4:16:49] have miss lowe I

[4:17:01] how many housing projects have been approved since?

[4:17:19] how many of those have broken ground, showed financing and are building right now?

[4:17:26] zero.

[4:17:27] but we wouldn't require proof of financing.

[4:17:29] no, I understand.

[4:17:30] okay.

[4:17:32] how many businesses have opened approximately within that period, space of time?

[4:17:37] I do not have that data in front of me.

[4:17:42] well, how many ballpark?

[4:17:44] how many have opened?

[4:17:46] new businesses have opened in the city.

[4:17:48] just ballpark.

[4:17:51] I couldn't tell you that.

[4:17:52] I don't know our certificate occupancy data.

[4:17:54] maybe 10, 20, 30?

[4:17:59] I'm sorry, I really can't estimate that.

[4:18:01] I would hate to give you a number that wasn't accurate.

[4:18:04] it's okay if it's not accurate.

[4:18:06] just clarification.

[4:18:08] I could answer that, but I'd have to run that computer program.

[4:18:11] it's just ballpark.

[4:18:12] nobody really knows.

[4:18:14] it is so nebulous, you can't answer it.

[4:18:16] I could even, I've run the data and I've gone over and over,

[4:18:18] I couldn't even answer it and I've looked at it in detail.

[4:18:21] so, the point I'm getting at is that with...

[4:18:24] the only two real new ones, we've had rei come in, we've had...

[4:18:29] marshalls.

[4:18:30] marshalls, trader joe's, but trader joe's goes back a little bit, not a whole lot.

[4:18:36] so, I'm just pointing out that the theory and this idea that businesses are dead and

[4:18:40] that shopping is dead when it's really about

[4:18:43] strategic shopping, it's really important to understand that element and that our

[4:18:49] city has been busy, arguably, with these new businesses, small business owners.

[4:18:56] that's still happening today is what I'm trying to say.

[4:19:00] and even though we don't have the number, a concrete number, it's more than zero,

[4:19:03] substantially more than zero.

[4:19:07] and so I just wanted to point out that because of that, trying

[4:19:12] to take out and carve out a section that supports small businesses is anti what the

[4:19:19] trend is in the city.

[4:19:23] that goes against the trend.

[4:19:25] the trend, arguably, is that small businesses are small businesses as well as other

[4:19:31] businesses are starting to

[4:19:36] they're doing better, and based off of councilmember wheeler's data, especially

[4:19:40] within the n area, and I understand,

[4:19:43] it's always nice when you look at a site and you think, oh, well, we could do this

[4:19:51] with it, but the

[4:19:53] reality is unless you have the financing, which right now it's very, very challenging

[4:19:56] to obtain the financing.

[4:19:59] right now we're just essentially

[4:20:01] in a position where we are eliminating something that we desperately need.

[4:20:07] and I can't support the site when it can support small businesses, and a number of

[4:20:15] them.

[4:20:16] it is a carve-out.

[4:20:18] these are people's livelihoods.

[4:20:21] and from what we've seen, we've seen from across the street, we have a great,

[4:20:25] brilliant,

[4:20:26] amazing example how a mall has been completely gutted

[4:20:31] and it's dirt, and it's been sitting as dirt, and all of those people, all of those

[4:20:36] businesses gone.

[4:20:38] we have on la paz, businesses are leaving, and it's just not leaving but being forced

[4:20:44] out because of developers, because of development.

[4:20:50] and yet they're sitting vacant.

[4:20:51] those businesses are sitting vacant because a developer doesn't want to sign a new

[4:20:54] contract right now, but

[4:20:56] they can't get the financing to make sure to make this happen.

[4:21:00] does this make sense to keep this pattern and this trend up?

[4:21:03] it doesn't make sense.

[4:21:04] we're just dealing with vacant.

[4:21:06] we have an on the pause.

[4:21:10] we have boarded up businesses on the pause.

[4:21:14] a boarded up business.

[4:21:16] I don't know if you, I don't know.

[4:21:18] I mean, I lived in camden, new jersey at some point.

[4:21:22] and that's where you get boarded up places.

[4:21:26] I'm just saying that is unusual for orange county to have a boarded up business.

[4:21:30] and what are we doing?

[4:21:31] it's just sitting there.

[4:21:33] point of order.

[4:21:35] is this germane to the item that we're supposed to be talking?

[4:21:38] it is because what we're doing is.

[4:21:39] and are you not on council?

[4:21:42] are you absolving yourself of any responsibility as to what may be happening or not

[4:21:46] happening on la paz?

[4:21:47] you've been here longer than anybody else along with dave.

[4:21:51] I mean, exactly, saying no to everything is a wonderful thing and very convenient

[4:21:54] when you know what the vote is going to be.

[4:21:58] but to actually do something proactive for the city, that's where it's really

[4:22:01] difficult.

[4:22:02] and I take objection to the characterizations of the work that this council has done

[4:22:07] on all of these issues.

[4:22:10] and you have a property owner consultant who's now told you what's happening on that

[4:22:14] property, and yet you don't believe it.

[4:22:17] because you don't have the experience as being a property owner.

[4:22:20] you don't know what a landlord is all about.

[4:22:23] you don't know exactly what development is about.

[4:22:26] so I would suggest that you understand and maybe listen to the folks that are living

[4:22:32] it on that property instead of making all

[4:22:35] these wild accusations about what things are or are not.

[4:22:39] so to me, let's try to zero in on the actual issue at hand.

[4:22:44] I'm going to call this back to order in the sense that

[4:22:48] make your argument.

[4:22:50] you don't need to go for a half hour, 45 minutes on every single one of these.

[4:22:56] make your argument and be done.

[4:22:57] and then let's move on.

[4:23:00] I am pointing out facts in the city that are happening and the trends.

[4:23:04] when it becomes rant, then that's...

[4:23:07] this is valid information that applies to eliminating a number of businesses.

[4:23:12] I'm not going to argue with you about that kind of stuff.

[4:23:15] you're just going to have a boarded up city.

[4:23:18] oh, god.

[4:23:20] we'll have empty, vacant businesses all around until they can obtain financing.

[4:23:26] and where are you going with that?

[4:23:28] is that the city council did that?

[4:23:31] who did that?

[4:23:32] and did we board up those businesses ourselves?

[4:23:36] it's just going on and on and on.

[4:23:41] the city council made those decisions.

[4:23:43] and I have a chance to, yes, I use my vote correctly.

[4:23:49] good.

[4:23:50] I want you to use your vote.

[4:23:52] I'm not trying to stop you from voting.

[4:23:54] and I just want to point out, since I have been on the council after the destruction

[4:23:59] of the mall,

[4:24:00] we've had a lot of businesses try to open because we've been focused on that.

[4:24:03] that's where my energy and emphasis has been on.

[4:24:06] and we have had great businesses come in.

[4:24:08] all right.

[4:24:12] josh.

[4:24:13] josh.

[4:24:13] thank you, mayor.

[4:24:14] point of procedure, it's now 10:28, and we're still considering pulled consent items,

[4:24:19] and we have substantial business remaining.

[4:24:23] I'm concerned that continuing indefinitely will undermine the quality of our

[4:24:27] deliberations and the public's ability to participate.

[4:24:30] so before proceeding, could we ask the city manager and city attorney whether any

[4:24:34] remaining items must legally be acted upon tonight?

[4:24:53] I believe the bid rejections also need action, but I'd have to ask the assistant city

[4:24:57] manager.

[4:24:58] ok.

[4:25:01] so.

[4:25:04] based on that, I just recommend that we complete only those items that are genuinely

[4:25:09] time-sensitive and continue the remaining substantive items to our

[4:25:13] next regular meeting, and that will allow council and the public to address them when

[4:25:16] everyone can give the attention they approve.

[4:25:20] we're going into the 11 o'clock hour, and we're still on consent.

[4:25:26] thank you, mayor.

[4:25:30] we've gone to midnight and 1 o'clock.

[4:25:33] that's fine.

[4:25:34] do our job.

[4:25:36] but not when it's just going repetitive, repetitive, repetitive, same stuff over and

[4:25:40] over and over again.

[4:25:47] you know, I think on 4.16, which, by the way, happens to be something that is known

[4:25:54] at law school,

[4:25:56] we're actually responding to state law, and based on time frames and all the rest of

[4:26:02] that, I

[4:26:03] think we need a motion one way or the other, up or down, and let's go.

[4:26:06] let's deal with it.

[4:26:08] so do we have a motion on that?

[4:26:10] because I don't think we're going to get it from over here.

[4:26:12] so moved.

[4:26:14] second.

[4:26:15] second, okay.

[4:26:17] I have one comment.

[4:26:19] yes, go ahead.

[4:26:20] I'll let you do that.

[4:26:21] all right, it'll be short.

[4:26:22] we've been at each other's throats.

[4:26:25] this is not the first time, and it probably won't be the last, and it's actually not

[4:26:29] any of our faults.

[4:26:31] the fault lies with sacramento putting this stuff on us and giving us no reasonable

[4:26:36] way out.

[4:26:39] so let's, yeah, let's put the blame where we squarely know that it needs to be.

[4:26:46] but we're dealing with it within the law and the things that we have to deal with.

[4:26:50] so remember that november.

[4:26:51] yeah.

[4:26:52] so with that, let's take a roll call vote on 4.16.

[4:26:56] council member wheeler?

[4:27:00] no.

[4:27:01] council member pezold?

[4:27:02] no.

[4:27:03] council member sweeney?

[4:27:04] aye.

[4:27:05] mayor caskey?

[4:27:06] aye.

[4:27:06] mayor pro tem mathis?

[4:27:07] aye.

[4:27:07] ayes have it.

[4:27:12] did you pull that one, dave?

[4:27:14] I lost track after 4.16, or was it just jumped to 4.19?

[4:27:17] I'm not sure all the stuff should have been.

[4:27:20] okay, 17.

[4:27:21] yeah, 17 and 19.

[4:27:22] all right.

[4:27:25] I think everything after 17 might be a bit long, but the rest of them should be very,

[4:27:28] very short.

[4:27:29] we love the whole agenda, actually.

[4:27:31] okay, robert, could you go back to my charts again, please?

[4:27:35] it's going to be a bit of a repeat, but I'll try to minimize that.

[4:27:40] okay, up please.

[4:27:44] up towards the beginning.

[4:27:48] other way.

[4:27:49] okay, right there.

[4:27:52] like I said, this is a repeat from before, but I want to emphasize that for this 15%

[4:27:58] inclusionary,

[4:28:02] all of you know our total number is 1985.

[4:28:07] of those 62, 64.2% are some form of below market rate, either extremely low, very low,

[4:28:16] low or moderate.

[4:28:19] okay.

[4:28:20] if you do the inclusionary, which is only 15%, then you basically divide the

[4:28:25] 64.2 by 15 times the 1985 and you get 8,496.

[4:28:35] that is our new rhna number that we have to do to meet the rhna.

[4:28:42] that's just flat-out straight numbers, no fuzz on it.

[4:28:44] just to give a perspective, like I said before, we have about 10,500 family units in

[4:28:48] the whole city of laguna hills.

[4:28:51] that would be a city increase of about 81%.

[4:28:53] next slide, please.

[4:28:57] this, again, is just my example to give you a feeling for what an acre is so you can

[4:29:01] sort of visualize it.

[4:29:03] like I said, it's not the track around it.

[4:29:04] it's not the place of the prayers.

[4:29:06] it's only between the lines, between the goalposts and between the sidelines.

[4:29:10] next slide, please.

[4:29:10] I went over this before, but you need to look at it and understand this, okay?

[4:29:17] to meet the rhna, here's what we have to do.

[4:29:20] we have to build at least 25 and whatnot.

[4:29:23] all of our retail is gone.

[4:29:24] all our commercials are gone.

[4:29:26] we get to 30 and 50.

[4:29:27] you know, 30, we even lose almost all of it.

[4:29:31] 50 and 80 and we're keeping roughly half it it takes the 26 acres to complete that's

[4:29:40] this would be 25 if 50 residents

[4:29:44] take up 60% of our commercial, I'm sorry at 50 residents it takes up 60% roughly of

[4:29:49] our commercial land basically.

[4:29:51] I'm just pointing out the eyes we're gonna have anything left we just won't have

[4:29:56] anything left.

[4:29:57] we're going to degrade or

[4:30:00] or whatever you want to call it.

[4:30:02] we're going to go to a totally residential city.

[4:30:05] and then sacramento is going to come in and say, well, your residents are too big.

[4:30:09] you've got to tear some of them down and build a townhouse or something.

[4:30:14] and don't think it's not going to happen.

[4:30:15] I've been up to santa ana.

[4:30:17] and some of the cities in northern orange county, and I've literally seen that

[4:30:20] there's houses, you know, nice, one-time house,

[4:30:23] a really nice neighborhood, a reasonably nice-sized house that was, you know, the

[4:30:28] american dream, and immediately,

[4:30:30] immediately behind it is an apartment complex that has, you know, 10 to 15 apartments.

[4:30:38] I'm sorry, the property values went right through the floor board.

[4:30:40] it looks terrible.

[4:30:42] it degrades all things.

[4:30:45] that's what we're going towards.

[4:30:52] seeing no other comments do we have a?

[4:30:56] motion we do have public comments on this huh we do have public comments.

[4:31:00] oh, we do okay absolutely bruce johnson welcome back

[4:31:23] my name is bruce johnson.

[4:31:24] I'm representing the welcoming neighbors home initiative.

[4:31:29] ours is a ministry of tapestry unitarian universalist congregation, which advocates

[4:31:34] for affordable housing in south orange county.

[4:31:38] we have many members who live in both laguna hills and laguna woods.

[4:31:44] we believe that the proposed inclusionary housing ordinance is an important policy

[4:31:49] step toward meeting the need for more affordable housing in laguna hills.

[4:31:55] a recent example shows how having this policy in place can produce more community

[4:31:59] benefit than not having it adopted.

[4:32:03] earlier this year, laguna hills approved the terra vida project and was able to claim

[4:32:08] only 5% of the homes as affordable to help

[4:32:11] meet its regional housing needs allocation.

[4:32:15] a week later, mission viejo approved the vista del lago project, and it included 15%

[4:32:20] of the new units as affordable because it had, in

[4:32:24] june 2024, approved an inclusionary housing ordinance similar to the one now being

[4:32:30] considered by this council.

[4:32:34] this policy won't solve the equation for meeting all of the city's housing goals, but

[4:32:38] without it,

[4:32:39] it's unlikely to meet as much of its lower-income housing goal as it would with the

[4:32:43] ordinance in place.

[4:32:47] we've seen this policy be successfully used in nearby cities and believe it's time

[4:32:52] for laguna hills to adopt this ordinance so that much needed

[4:32:56] affordable housing will be part of new building housing developments now and into the

[4:33:01] future.

[4:33:03] thank you.

[4:33:07] any questions?

[4:33:09] thank you.

[4:33:11] kathy udovch.

[4:33:27] hello.

[4:33:27] thank you, city council, for sticking it out and letting us talk.

[4:33:32] again, my name's kathy udovch, and I've lived here for 15 years.

[4:33:37] excuse me.

[4:33:38] before that, my dad lived here for 35 years before he had to move into a retirement

[4:33:41] home.

[4:33:43] so we got to hang out for a while, you know, just a block apart from each other.

[4:33:50] excuse me.

[4:33:50] I've had a cold for like a week and a half, so...

[4:33:54] so when it comes to the inclusionary housing ordinances I know it's an imposed thing

[4:34:00] and it's down to percentages and all this wonderful

[4:34:04] confusing math but having something some sort of guide to aim at really is helpful

[4:34:14] when it comes to

[4:34:18] dealing with getting the homeless off the streets, possibly, by making them not

[4:34:23] become homeless, which is sort of the goal

[4:34:27] of getting people into housing they can afford.

[4:34:31] so I always see that as a plus.

[4:34:34] if we can get somebody off the streets or just somebody losing their own house

[4:34:37] because they couldn't afford it any longer.

[4:34:42] and obviously we've seen success with some of the other, our neighboring cities.

[4:34:48] and I'm sure there's some that, I guess, some are more high density.

[4:34:53] and I think here in orange county, we do sort of value all of our space.

[4:34:57] I mean, I've grown up in houses that were huge.

[4:35:01] you know, you could have like a half basketball court in the house I lived in in lake

[4:35:04] forest,

[4:35:05] just the other side of the freeway.

[4:35:06] so I know what's what we're used to here in this area, but sometimes we're probably

[4:35:11] going to have to eat it.

[4:35:13] and the terravita looks like it's going to be a little bit more dense.

[4:35:17] looks like they have more room for what they're going to build in the laguna hills

[4:35:21] mall area.

[4:35:23] that's awesome.

[4:35:25] but I am going to say that when it comes to, this is the affordability for the next

[4:35:32] generation.

[4:35:34] and an example is just like my own family, my sister's family.

[4:35:39] my niece just graduated high school, and she just got moved up to cal poly pomona.

[4:35:45] and as they were packing her up, the dishwasher broke and flooded their whole kitchen.

[4:35:51] and so now they don't have a kitchen at the moment.

[4:35:54] they've been storing everything outside and moved the refrigerator into the garage so

[4:35:59] they can repair that while sending her off to school and paying

[4:36:04] for what she's going to be doing at school.

[4:36:07] and they're very concerned about whether or not in the next couple of years her kids

[4:36:11] are going to be able to afford

[4:36:13] to live somewhere in the same area.

[4:36:16] and so that's just sort of like an example of why we want, you know, affordable

[4:36:20] housing.

[4:36:21] so I am asking you guys to continue to vote positively for the inclusionary housing

[4:36:28] ordinance.

[4:36:31] and I finished on time.

[4:36:32] slid into home plate.

[4:36:34] yeah.

[4:36:35] okay.

[4:36:35] thank you so much.

[4:36:38] any others?

[4:36:39] patrick strader.

[4:36:42] thank you, mayor and council.

[4:36:43] patrick strader from starpoint ventures again.

[4:36:45] I'm glad I got to come back up because I can answer councilmember wheeler's question

[4:36:50] from earlier.

[4:36:51] I have delivered multiple projects that are 100% affordable.

[4:36:56] I'm a founding member of the irvine community land trust since 2007.

[4:36:59] I think we've delivered seven 100% affordable projects in the city of irvine for

[4:37:04] I don't know, 2,000 units.

[4:37:06] the way we do it there is we take either land dedicated by the irvine company or we

[4:37:10] take in lieu fees paid for by developers

[4:37:13] or sometimes we go out on our own and we actually just did this.

[4:37:16] we bought a six acre site.

[4:37:18] we are building 100% affordable on a portion of the site and we are selling finished

[4:37:22] lots to d.r.

[4:37:23] horton for the highest price ever paid in the city of irvine.

[4:37:26] so affordable developers can do that.

[4:37:29] it can be done.

[4:37:30] but the cities need to make it incentivized and need to make it something that can

[4:37:34] happen.

[4:37:36] I read, so please don't anybody tell anybody I know that I'm here speaking in favor

[4:37:40] of an inclusionary housing ordinance because I would

[4:37:43] never do that.

[4:37:44] but I know you have to adopt it.

[4:37:46] I looked at tonight's draft ordinance, and it's silent as to the actual fee.

[4:37:52] it says that there will be a fee adopted later on the in lieu fee.

[4:37:55] I read the keyser marston report.

[4:37:57] it is insane.

[4:38:00] $41 to$62 as a range is not anywhere near market.

[4:38:03] I took some notes just to read to you.

[4:38:06] I know you're not adopting a specific number tonight.

[4:38:08] so as you adopt your inclusionary tonight,

[4:38:11] great.

[4:38:12] you need to do it.

[4:38:12] 15% is appropriate.

[4:38:14] as you come back later and set it in lufi, costa mesa had a very similar report from

[4:38:19] keyser marston.

[4:38:20] I was there at that meeting.

[4:38:21] they did $10 a foot.

[4:38:23] santa ana, $15 a foot.

[4:38:26] anaheim, 23.

[4:38:28] laguna woods, 32 per market rate square foot.

[4:38:33] irvine, off the top of my head, is about $33,000 a door.

[4:38:37] so when we're talking about apartments, we just take like 1,000 feet.

[4:38:39] I mean, it'll go up or down.

[4:38:41] if you guys were to take the keyser marston high number and put $62,000 of doors and

[4:38:46] in lieu fee,

[4:38:47] there's not a person that will come to this city by choice.

[4:38:50] if they can go to the two or three cities immediately adjacent and pay half that,

[4:38:54] they will do that.

[4:38:55] so as I stated earlier,

[4:38:57] if the city wants to deliver affordable housing, please pick a rate that will

[4:39:01] incentivize developers to come and do it.

[4:39:04] adopt the one in front of you this evening,

[4:39:06] but please invite industry back to come and speak about an appropriate per square

[4:39:10] foot in lieu fee.

[4:39:11] and I promise you when you get your in lieu fees,

[4:39:13] you'll be able to find somebody who can come build a 100% affordable project.

[4:39:18] any questions?

[4:39:19] I'm happy to answer.

[4:39:20] thank you.

[4:39:21] any questions?

[4:39:21] yes, dave.

[4:39:23] well, I've never met anybody that's built 100%.

[4:39:25] I would like your card, please.

[4:39:28] and I would like to discuss that you know sometime afterward how these things are

[4:39:31] done and get some get some insight because I

[4:39:33] need some insight in this absolutely be happy to it is easier if the land is

[4:39:40] dedicated if there are not costs of the land

[4:39:45] to build a building and charge the rent less or sell it for less the land dedication

[4:39:52] is

[4:39:54] is for the land transfer is a huge element in allowing for affordability.

[4:40:01] I think I'm just going to lay this out.

[4:40:05] I understand this will it will I am in a losing position.

[4:40:09] but I want to I've lived in many different states and many different states have

[4:40:16] dealt with population increases in cities and population movements.

[4:40:24] and they've always allowed for the natural economy to work its way through.

[4:40:30] and so there are college campuses that people created apartments in their own house

[4:40:39] so that college students could afford to rent.

[4:40:45] and then the individuals that own the property would be able to have a boost of

[4:40:51] income.

[4:40:53] I know that's the adu concept, but perhaps maybe pushing this out to the community

[4:40:58] makes it so that homeownership is more affordable,

[4:41:02] especially if somebody is renting a section of their home out.

[4:41:07] but I just think that those are the answers naturally with the economy and a number

[4:41:14] of that's how other cities you see it

[4:41:18] happen.

[4:41:19] and so with that, I yield my comments.

[4:41:24] yeah, some comments to provide some of the feedback on some of the things that were

[4:41:28] said just recently here.

[4:41:32] numbers are very important.

[4:41:34] if you fail to look at the numbers in your personal life, you will go bankrupt and

[4:41:37] have a lot of problems.

[4:41:40] I work with nasa, department of navy.

[4:41:43] you miss by a fraction, you know, and you're not on the moon, you're out in space,

[4:41:47] and lost in space becomes a reality.

[4:41:50] learn the numbers if you don't know them.

[4:41:52] it's extremely important.

[4:41:54] second thing, building more houses does not, and I repeat, does not solve the

[4:41:58] homeless problem.

[4:42:02] absolutely not.

[4:42:03] I've spoken to secretaries of state deputies in washington, d.c.

[4:42:07] I've spoken to the police.

[4:42:08] I worked with the homeless for five years in the costa mesa.

[4:42:12] the homeless, a lot of them, most of them, don't want to live in a place.

[4:42:16] they want to be free.

[4:42:18] you build houses for them, they'll destroy them.

[4:42:20] that's exactly what happened to laguna hills.

[4:42:23] we were forced to turn one of our hotels into a covid hotel, but it was designated

[4:42:27] for only homeless.

[4:42:30] they destroyed every single unit.

[4:42:32] they had to go back and they had to redo and refurbish the whole place.

[4:42:36] that is not a solution.

[4:42:38] and you're crazy if you think it is.

[4:42:41] the homeless are probably 90% of mental problems or drug problems or a combination of

[4:42:46] the both.

[4:42:47] if I work within a costa mesa, we'd have people come in.

[4:42:50] everyone wants to know.

[4:42:51] we've got a family or somebody that was just down on their luck.

[4:42:54] they can be fixed, and they can be made whole very quickly, and all of them were.

[4:42:59] the others, it's just crazy to think.

[4:43:04] it's not true, and you're not going to accomplish anything.

[4:43:08] as far as affordability, mill creek and terravita were mentioned, I believe.

[4:43:13] those are not affordable.

[4:43:15] the starting price for those units is $1.5 million.

[4:43:19] if that's affordable to you, then okay, it's affordable.

[4:43:21] I don't think it is.

[4:43:23] so it's another total fallacy.

[4:43:25] they're not affordable.

[4:43:29] this is just a bunch of social engineering from sacramento.

[4:43:32] and they screw things up more than they solve.

[4:43:34] if they let the marketplace deal with it, they would do like everybody's done for

[4:43:39] centuries.

[4:43:40] when it's too congested or too expensive an area, you go out further and you build

[4:43:45] something more inexpensive.

[4:43:47] that's how orange county came about.

[4:43:48] it used to be oranges.

[4:43:51] that's how riverside used to be desert and stuff out there.

[4:43:54] you go out past them, there's nothing out there.

[4:43:56] there's land as far as you can see, not a house on it.

[4:43:59] you build up where you can.

[4:44:00] so I want to talk to the gentleman here about what you could really do, what you

[4:44:02] should be doing,

[4:44:04] and the people from brona's group.

[4:44:07] I wish you'd quit, you know, leaning on cities and go lean on the county and take all

[4:44:11] the vacant land that's out in the east

[4:44:13] of the county that nobody's out there, build stuff out there that this gentleman

[4:44:16] could probably help you with.

[4:44:20] thank you.

[4:44:21] thank you, dave.

[4:44:24] okay, I...

[4:44:27] not gonna get me to argue with the the market ruling what we should be really doing

[4:44:34] but that said I will make a motion

[4:44:37] to approve of 4.17 approval of ordinance adopting rzne-0015-2026 for inclusionary

[4:44:46] housing program and I'm not

[4:44:50] going to read the rest of it, but it goes right in accordance with the your agenda and

[4:44:58] do we have a second?

[4:44:58] second.

[4:45:00] all right.

[4:45:03] any other comments?

[4:45:07] all right.

[4:45:07] call.

[4:45:08] roll call.

[4:45:10] council member wheeler?

[4:45:11] no.

[4:45:12] council member pezold?

[4:45:13] no.

[4:45:15] council member sweeney?

[4:45:16] aye.

[4:45:17] mayor caskey?

[4:45:18] aye.

[4:45:19] mayor pro tem mathis?

[4:45:19] aye.

[4:45:20] ayes have it.

[4:45:24] all right.

[4:45:26] dave, we are to 4.19.

[4:45:28] 4.19.

[4:45:30] robert, would you bring up that part of the agenda?

[4:45:45] scroll down just a bit.

[4:45:50] okay, first a preface and a...

[4:45:54] perhaps on a question for director lowe, I think you said we had five properties.

[4:45:58] I only remember four.

[4:46:01] we had terravita, mill creek.

[4:46:02] we had the la paz village.

[4:46:05] we had the triangle, I call it.

[4:46:06] we had them all.

[4:46:07] so for the five properties, we've had the la paz village, the oakbrook plaza, your

[4:46:14] apartment.

[4:46:15] is that the triangle?

[4:46:16] yes.

[4:46:17] okay.

[4:46:17] and then followed by terravita.

[4:46:19] I'm sorry?

[4:46:20] yeah, terravita.

[4:46:21] and then followed by the khoshbin site, and then now followed by the mall

[4:46:24] redevelopment.

[4:46:25] was it that?

[4:46:26] khoshbin, so 23161 mill creek road, located just north of the terravita site.

[4:46:31] oh, I see what you're saying.

[4:46:31] yeah, I consider that part of terravita.

[4:46:33] okay, I understand how you're counting.

[4:46:34] okay.

[4:46:34] okay, thank you.

[4:46:38] overall comment, this chart, which we review every month, need to include those, even

[4:46:42] if they're passed, just to know what's going on, please.

[4:46:48] this first one, a 100-house project up in the north, this is actually, I believe,

[4:46:52] the one I was pointing to in my charts earlier, where I was suggesting we do c

[4:46:56] instead of n.

[4:47:01] I guess, well, is this scheduled for hearings?

[4:47:06] no, the application is not ready to be presented to the council yet.

[4:47:10] the application is not ready to be presented to the city council yet.

[4:47:13] when do you expect?

[4:47:17] I would say maybe best case scenario in the next two, three months.

[4:47:23] that would be the best case.

[4:47:24] we're still working through some of the application items.

[4:47:27] okay, thank you.

[4:47:28] next, please, robert.

[4:47:32] scroll down just a little bit, please.

[4:47:35] to the next chart.

[4:47:41] oh yes, the quick quack.

[4:47:43] what are they doing on that?

[4:47:48] are they proceeding to break ground?

[4:47:51] so quick quack is still working through some of the comments that we received from

[4:47:56] the edc and staff on how to improve the architecture

[4:48:00] and the site layout.

[4:48:01] and then they will be resubmitting to the city.

[4:48:03] and then we'll do a final review.

[4:48:05] and if it's good to go, we'll schedule it for public hearing.

[4:48:07] okay.

[4:48:08] okay.

[4:48:09] and the four we're missing, what is terravita doing now?

[4:48:12] and both of them.

[4:48:13] are they breaking ground?

[4:48:15] are they going?

[4:48:16] they're not breaking ground yet.

[4:48:17] so they have plans.

[4:48:19] so part of the site has been submitted to the city for plan check and review.

[4:48:24] demolition of two of the office buildings that will be constructed housing by toll

[4:48:29] brothers.

[4:48:31] and then kingsmart also has submitted plans to look at the other office buildings for

[4:48:34] demolition.

[4:48:36] they're working through some of the other items that are required prior to building

[4:48:39] permit issuance.

[4:48:41] they have submitted also, I believe, some preliminary grading to public works as well.

[4:48:45] but there are some milestones that they have to satisfy in terms of the map

[4:48:48] requirements and everything prior to getting any permit issued.

[4:48:52] okay.

[4:48:53] okay, we know what the mall is doing.

[4:48:55] the triangle, are they doing anything?

[4:48:58] the triangle site, oakbrook plaza, the senior apartments, no, there has been nothing

[4:49:02] submitted from them yet.

[4:49:04] okay, still treading water.

[4:49:06] okay, and last, but maybe it's the least, but la paz village.

[4:49:10] as erica mentioned, there are two boarded buildings, the 7-eleven and a restaurant

[4:49:13] that was a favorite sushi place of many people.

[4:49:16] they literally have boards on it, which does look terrible.

[4:49:20] what are they doing?

[4:49:21] and then also, don't they have some kind of limitation on their approval?

[4:49:25] because they were built at remedy, not regular.

[4:49:27] right, so the site development permit is valid for two years.

[4:49:31] the property owner, nick buchanan of cape point, is working with some issues with

[4:49:36] ocfa and negotiating easements for the fire lane.

[4:49:41] so that has to be satisfied also prior to permit issuance.

[4:49:44] my understanding was, yeah, the fire problem that the real estate group was not going

[4:49:48] to budge and they weren't going to change.

[4:49:50] is that altered or is that still the case?

[4:49:53] I don't actually know where they are.

[4:49:54] I do know that they have not agreed to any terms to grant the easement the last time

[4:49:58] I heard.

[4:50:00] it looked a little different as far as the layout, but I'm not sure how that's going.

[4:50:05] okay, when is there a limitation on their bill to remedy approval?

[4:50:08] I believe we took that to public hearing september 23, 2025, so two years from that

[4:50:13] date.

[4:50:14] so their time's up in 27?

[4:50:17] yes.

[4:50:17] okay, thank you.

[4:50:18] do you want to move?

[4:50:21] unless someone wants to ask a question.

[4:50:25] yeah.

[4:50:25] do you want to move to?

[4:50:27] yeah, unless they may have a question job move to move to I'll second very good.

[4:50:31] we have a second all right it's been moved in second.

[4:50:37] we'll take the vote call vote mayor pro tem mathis.

[4:50:40] all right councilmember pezold.

[4:50:42] aye. Councilmember sweeney.

[4:50:43] aye. Mayor caskey.

[4:50:45] aye. Councilmember

[4:50:46] wheeler?

[4:50:47] aye. Ayes have it. We re going to persevere here a little bit.

[4:50:59] I would like to move on to city manager's report.

[4:51:03] I think it's important that we handle that one tonight.

[4:51:07] thank you, mayor and members of the council.

[4:51:10] on may 19th, the orange county grand jury released a report titled, wildfires hit

[4:51:15] home.

[4:51:17] the grand jury issued six findings and three recommendations.

[4:51:21] and all orange county cities were required to respond.

[4:51:26] we received excellent, and I mean excellent, support from the orange county fire

[4:51:30] authority chief.

[4:51:32] thank you very much for the help you've given to me on this.

[4:51:36] and I want to just move to the most important piece of this, which is the output is

[4:51:44] our response.

[4:51:47] and so based upon reading that, the proposed response that's before you, council,

[4:51:55] is that the city agrees that the risk of severe wildfires are more frequent.

[4:51:59] the city believes that home hardening can prevent wildfires.

[4:52:04] the city agrees that safe homes grant funds may assist residents in hardening their

[4:52:08] homes.

[4:52:10] the city will participate in countywide fire-pretention fairs

[4:52:15] and the city will partner with the orange county fire authority to engage and educate

[4:52:20] our residents through public education and wildfire safety guidance.

[4:52:26] and so the recommendation before you is that the council approve this response and

[4:52:31] authorize the mayor to execute the response and then direct

[4:52:37] me to submit the response as required by applicable law.

[4:52:42] I'm available if anyone has any questions.

[4:52:45] any questions first?

[4:52:50] actually, do we have any public comments on this particular one?

[4:52:55] not on this item.

[4:52:56] okay.

[4:52:56] sorry, I got ahead of myself a little.

[4:52:59] erica, go ahead.

[4:53:00] I just have one.

[4:53:01] so if possible, there is somebody, andre perron, who is very active in trying to

[4:53:12] assist

[4:53:13] with fire prevention, if possible, it would be nice if you could have some

[4:53:17] conversations with them because you may have some suggestions.

[4:53:23] so I'd love to get that contact information.

[4:53:26] yeah.

[4:53:26] and I'll follow up with it.

[4:53:27] thank you because there are concerns in some areas.

[4:53:31] so thank you.

[4:53:32] okay.

[4:53:33] thank you.

[4:53:34] okay.

[4:53:35] any other comments?

[4:53:37] josh.

[4:53:39] yeah, I just want to say I support the substance of the response and appreciate the

[4:53:44] recognition that ocfa serves as the city's fire

[4:53:47] department and technical wildfire prevention partner.

[4:53:51] and I would like to recommend, I would like recommendations r3 and r4 to be more

[4:53:54] concrete.

[4:53:56] but the grand jury specifically asked cities to establish a direct contact for

[4:54:00] residents.

[4:54:02] could we identify the responsible city staff physician and explain how residents will

[4:54:06] reach that person and set a target date for placing localized

[4:54:11] wildfire prevention, home hardening, defensible space, and such?

[4:54:16] I'll turn that back over to bob.

[4:54:21] ok.

[4:54:21] and then so with that,

[4:54:25] as ocfa board chair, I'm committed to ensuring this partnership produces measurable

[4:54:29] resident education and preparedness, not simply a written response.

[4:54:33] and we should approve an accurate response, assign responsibility, set dates,

[4:54:36] communicate clearly, and then measure our progress.

[4:54:40] and I would like to move approval of the response with direction that staff identify

[4:54:44] the city position serving as the direct resident contact

[4:54:48] under recommendation r4.

[4:54:50] establish a resident facing wildfire information page or equivalent communication

[4:54:54] channel and return to the council with the implementation of the update of

[4:54:58] recommendations

[4:54:59] are to through our for including evaluation of an appropriate community level risk

[4:55:06] reduction designation second moved and seconded any other discussion hearing none

[4:55:13] call rule customer wheeler.

[4:55:15] I got the member sweeney.

[4:55:16] all right, mayor caskey.

[4:55:18] aye. Mayor pro tem mathis.

[4:55:20] aye.

[4:55:21] council member pezold?

[4:55:22] aye.

[4:55:23] ayes have it.

[4:55:24] all right.

[4:55:26] we're going to persevere here, but I will tell I'm going to ask chief burk

[4:55:33] I mean, just because of the lateness of the hour and all the rest of that, I think

[4:55:37] your reports are always so amazing.

[4:55:40] I want to make sure that it's not lost on a crew that's pretty well spent.

[4:55:45] I would like to postpone your report, with your permission, until our september, 1st

[4:55:51] of september meeting, september 8th.

[4:55:55] mayor, that's not a problem at all.

[4:55:59] so let's move on to

[4:56:02] our assistant city manager.

[4:56:04] I think we've got one of these things off the docket, but let's continue on.

[4:56:10] that was the longest one.

[4:56:11] these two should be shorter.

[4:56:13] this one does involve another decision point, however.

[4:56:16] so thank you for listening to me.

[4:56:19] item 5.2.2, rejection of bids for cip 101m, the citywide local street rehabilitation

[4:56:25] project.

[4:56:26] next slide, please.

[4:56:28] so on june 23rd, the city council authorized the rebidding of the subject project.

[4:56:35] and at that time, the bid proposal included a base bid and three additive bids.

[4:56:40] the base bid was for zone d streets that have been identified by city staff and its

[4:56:45] consultants for an asphalt concrete overlay.

[4:56:49] additive bid one was for the remaining streets in zone d to

[4:56:53] for slurry seal work, additive bid two was for zone a streets identified for ac

[4:56:58] overlay work,

[4:57:00] and additive bid three consisted of concrete improvements scattered between the two

[4:57:05] zones.

[4:57:06] next slide, please.

[4:57:08] so we got bids on july 30th, and I find myself in the same situation again where the

[4:57:16] lowest bidder provided high additive bids

[4:57:20] again.

[4:57:21] normally I would have expected during a re-bid process to have had bids that were a

[4:57:25] little bit more in line with the second

[4:57:28] lowest bidder and did not happen.

[4:57:30] I haven't.

[4:57:31] encountered this before.

[4:57:33] so there's the table of the results there.

[4:57:37] as you can see, if all american asphalt had just had a $8,000 lower base bid,

[4:57:44] then we would have gotten some good choices between additive bid one and additive bid

[4:57:49] two if that was what the city council wanted

[4:57:52] to award.

[4:57:53] but instead I've got higher additive bid one and kind of a high additive bid two from

[4:57:58] the lowest bidder.

[4:58:00] so based upon that, I'm rejecting the bids, but I want to have a checkpoint here with

[4:58:06] all of you, so

[4:58:07] just one second here.

[4:58:08] next slide, please.

[4:58:10] so as I was just mentioning, the lowest bidders is...

[4:58:17] would be more expensive to go with if the city council wants to award an additive bid

[4:58:20] as well.

[4:58:21] next slide, please.

[4:58:23] so just for recollection, here is zone d.

[4:58:26] pink streets are the base bid work that we're trying to bid out for an asphalt

[4:58:30] concrete overlay.

[4:58:33] and then additive bid one is all the colored streets which would receive slurry seals

[4:58:38] and area dig outs for any deficient pavement.

[4:58:42] and then next slide please.

[4:58:45] zone a is asphalt overlay work.

[4:58:50] that would be, that was an additive bid.

[4:58:52] next slide please.

[4:58:54] and these are the locations of where concrete work was to occur for repairs.

[4:59:00] next slide please.

[4:59:02] so here are some choices here.

[4:59:05] so what I'm looking for from city council is this idea of bidding out additive bids

[4:59:11] is not working out.

[4:59:13] what I would like to do is go out and bid one complete project just the way it is,

[4:59:22] where we determine everything is a base bid, there are no additive bids,

[4:59:28] so I'm looking for a decision point from the city council based on what scope of work

[4:59:33] you want to do.

[4:59:35] so one of the choices you could say is zone d ac overlay work plus zone d slurry seal

[4:59:42] work plus concrete work.

[4:59:45] based upon the bids last time and the time before, the estimated construction cost on

[4:59:49] that is $3.1 million.

[4:59:53] and choice two is base bid zone d ac overlay work plus zone a oversee work, overlay

[5:00:00] work,

[5:00:02] and concrete work where the estimated construction cost is $3.4 million.

[5:00:07] there's some pros and cons to each one of those.

[5:00:09] choice one, you would complete one entire zone, which would be zone d, and you'd

[5:00:13] defer zone a to later.

[5:00:15] so it would look complete, I think, to the residents.

[5:00:20] but choice 2, you know, addresses the immediate needs of the worst rated roadways by

[5:00:26] paving them now and not deferring half the job

[5:00:30] until fiscal year 28, 29.

[5:00:33] but then that might cause some anxiety for some people because they see that their

[5:00:37] entire neighborhood hadn't been done.

[5:00:42] the only problem with all of this is that when you add in the construction inspection

[5:00:46] and materials testing minus the total available budget,

[5:00:51] choosing either one of those things would require an estimated contribution from the

[5:00:54] general fund reserves of $800,000 and $1.1 million.

[5:00:59] if you end up choosing that, we got to bid again.

[5:01:01] that's where I think we're going to wind up.

[5:01:04] a choice three that's not on your screen now is to do the zone d ac overlay work only

[5:01:10] for $1.2 million,

[5:01:12] but then that leaves...

[5:01:16] about that same amount on the table that would be unused in the current capital

[5:01:19] improvement project,

[5:01:21] and it doesn't get us very far with our overall local streets program.

[5:01:25] so those are kind of the choices.

[5:01:28] I don't know if I have a next slide.

[5:01:30] do I have a next slide?

[5:01:33] nope, that's it.

[5:01:34] so if you would kindly tell me which choice you would like to do, and if you

[5:01:39] need to look at the maps again so I can go out to bid where everything's part of a

[5:01:42] base bid, I

[5:01:44] think that would finally get somewhere, and we'll be paving then in october, november,

[5:01:48] and we'll see if the super el nino gives us rain now or after january like what

[5:01:52] happened last time.

[5:01:54] okay.

[5:01:57] do we have any public comments on this item?

[5:02:01] we do not.

[5:02:03] you don't have any public comments, scott?

[5:02:07] just checking to make sure he's awake there.

[5:02:12] so we have no public comments.

[5:02:16] do we have any questions?

[5:02:18] let's just go questions and discussion on this one.

[5:02:22] no problem.

[5:02:22] let's move it along.

[5:02:25] anyone?

[5:02:26] dave?

[5:02:28] okay.

[5:02:29] just a couple of quick ones.

[5:02:30] page 7, please.

[5:02:33] back one.

[5:02:35] I'm sorry, go back again, another page.

[5:02:39] more.

[5:02:41] I wrote down the wrong number.

[5:02:42] more.

[5:02:45] more.

[5:02:46] there we go.

[5:02:48] okay, I need to ask a question since I don't know what it means.

[5:02:50] what do you mean by additive bid and base bid?

[5:02:56] so what we were trying to accomplish with the re-bid and the original bid was that

[5:03:04] the base bid is the bare minimum of the work

[5:03:09] that we would award to the contractor.

[5:03:11] it signals to the contractor that no matter what,

[5:03:19] zone d asphalt concrete overlay would be awarded to the to the low bid contractor

[5:03:24] unless the bids were rejected additive bid were optional

[5:03:29] bids that the city council could consider so we packaged it up to try to give the

[5:03:34] council options based upon how the bid

[5:03:37] results came in to try to allow for if there was some great bargain that came out on

[5:03:42] slurry seal for instance

[5:03:45] you might change your mind and say, let's do zone d, asphalt overlay, and the slurry

[5:03:50] seal project and call it a day.

[5:03:52] or you might have said, well, we got a really great bid because...

[5:03:56] hold on, you're starting to confuse me.

[5:03:57] sure.

[5:03:58] okay, let me get slow here.

[5:03:59] the base bid, does the base bid do the job?

[5:04:02] the base bid, in my mind, doesn't...

[5:04:08] whatever you don't do this year, you're going to need to catch up and do again in two

[5:04:13] years.

[5:04:15] and so in my mind, I would recommend that you dip into your reserves eventually and

[5:04:22] at least do one of the two zones.

[5:04:26] we used to be on a program here where we would do two zones every other year.

[5:04:29] that's okay.

[5:04:30] I don't need no details.

[5:04:31] yeah.

[5:04:31] so this is...

[5:04:32] so the base bid would do it, but you're saying we'd have to do it again sooner.

[5:04:37] the base bid will do 25% of what we should be doing.

[5:04:41] a base bid plus an additive bid will do about 50% of what we should be doing this

[5:04:46] fiscal year.

[5:04:48] and so that's, you could do just the base bid and do about 25% of what we would

[5:04:53] normally do in a fiscal year,

[5:04:55] but then you're also leaving, you're not spending $1.2 million that you had allocated

[5:05:00] for this project.

[5:05:02] okay, when you say 25%,

[5:05:03] do you mean 25% of the area we need to do or 25% as the core of the job at the one

[5:05:10] place?

[5:05:11] 25% of the area of the two of the neighborhoods that we would normally do.

[5:05:16] so basically what we could do is just stretch it out and do fewer areas.

[5:05:24] we could.

[5:05:24] and then we could stretch it out.

[5:05:25] and basically instead of doing a six-year cycle, we go to an eight-year cycle.

[5:05:31] I had originally mentioned in the past about like a 10-year cycle kind of thing.

[5:05:35] I don't see that as an option.

[5:05:36] I think that's probably the best.

[5:05:39] I hate dipping into our reserve because it's a bad present because we'll start doing

[5:05:42] it, and pretty soon there won't be any reserves,

[5:05:44] as I've mentioned many times.

[5:05:46] but, yeah, I'd like to see an option.

[5:05:48] since you want to reject these anyway, I'd like to see the next time you stretch it

[5:05:52] out.

[5:05:53] give us the option of stretch.

[5:05:54] okay.

[5:05:55] you don't have to reject bids tonight.

[5:05:57] you could direct city staff to instead award a contract to harding and harper for the

[5:06:03] base bid for $1,182,000 and authorize the city

[5:06:08] manager to execute the contract.

[5:06:10] you could do that.

[5:06:12] I haven't typed up the agreement.

[5:06:13] you'd have to assume that I would type up the agreement.

[5:06:16] we would award it that way, but we could award it that way.

[5:06:19] okay.

[5:06:20] I'm going to leave that to my colleagues.

[5:06:21] I'm going to go to jared next, and then I have some comments.

[5:06:25] so what gets all of area d done?

[5:06:30] is that the base and the additive bid?

[5:06:32] that's the base bid and additive bid one.

[5:06:36] right, so 2.275.

[5:06:39] well, that's if you wanted to award it tonight.

[5:06:42] oh, all-american.

[5:06:43] yes, that's the problem is that hardy and harper's got$400,000 higher on additive bid

[5:06:50] one.

[5:06:51] got it.

[5:06:52] but if you gave me direction, for instance, that that's the direction you wanted to

[5:06:54] go and I put it out to re-bid again,

[5:06:56] then maybe we'd save that kind of money.

[5:07:00] I think, you know, spreading this stuff out does make sense,

[5:07:03] but completing one area together at the same time is nice if we can do it,

[5:07:09] understanding that there may be impact on the reserves,

[5:07:12] but less than trying to get two districts or two zones partially done or even with

[5:07:20] additives.

[5:07:21] so, I mean, I would be in favor of just covering d with the base and additive bid if

[5:07:27] that's

[5:07:31] if that gets us where we want to go and actually makes a difference in the quality of

[5:07:35] life of the residents in that area

[5:07:37] and then you focus on other areas later.

[5:07:47] parsis up as I could I could make the this base bid work equal to the combination of

[5:07:53] asphalt overlay and slurry seal but I

[5:07:56] think adds it to about 2.5 million dollars and then to be a small additive bid on

[5:08:00] that and then if that doesn't get

[5:08:03] done but then you won't have a complete job for zone ds so then that would be the

[5:08:07] hazard again would be the perception

[5:08:09] of not completing the whole area so I yeah, I whatever the city council would like me

[5:08:13] to do.

[5:08:14] I'm happy to do I

[5:08:16] okay, I have some remarks, and I go back to eric then after that.

[5:08:21] could you go back to the actual bids?

[5:08:24] yes.

[5:08:25] okay, there you go.

[5:08:27] okay, the interesting thing about this, and it's not the first time I've seen

[5:08:31] something like this,

[5:08:34] is whenever you do notice that these additive bids, you know, are like twice as much

[5:08:39] as the base bid.

[5:08:41] and so the game of public works is

[5:08:46] is uh...

[5:08:47] you know you they try to win on the base that that they're hoping that you're going

[5:08:50] to take an additive did and they're

[5:08:52] actually going to end up more money than elvis and it doesn't become people anymore

[5:08:59] you got it two weeks these bits and these

[5:09:03] guys are really pretty savvy about how they go about doing this so I really like the

[5:09:08] idea of of let's simplify this thing

[5:09:11] one way or the other and it would it seemed to me that your your basic

[5:09:16] your budget was 2.5 million, which you really had, and so you

[5:09:22] were looking at whether you did a certain amount and you ended up going into the

[5:09:27] piggy bank by $500,000 or $600,000 is one

[5:09:30] thing, and the other one was more like a million, million, one, something like that,

[5:09:34] if you go the other way.

[5:09:36] I do like the idea of not doing some partial job, and I think we should simplify it.

[5:09:45] I don't have a problem with...

[5:09:48] I'm not really excited, as dave is, going into the general funds at all.

[5:09:54] but if we can keep the thing cohesive to some extent, then, you know, half a million

[5:10:05] is...

[5:10:07] as opposed to 1 or 1.1 is more to my liking.

[5:10:13] peacemailing this thing out

[5:10:15] completely over, you know, a huge period of time.

[5:10:20] you know, each one of these things that need to be done is not really exciting to me

[5:10:25] either.

[5:10:27] so that's my thought process with that.

[5:10:30] erica.

[5:10:32] no, I just, I think this is not good news.

[5:10:38] and I personally think that we have,

[5:10:43] been so fiscally responsible in all the years.

[5:10:45] I know I was very proud when we had a proper pavement plan and that our city has

[5:10:51] dipped into it and made decisions

[5:10:54] where we've lost that.

[5:10:56] I just, I can't see us, I mean, it's just not fiscally responsible to make decisions

[5:11:02] and then say, okay, that's it.

[5:11:05] you know, we want to pull, I mean, it's a million, it's a huge

[5:11:12] amount of money out of the reserves.

[5:11:14] so if we keep making these decisions, what are the reserves and the reserves are

[5:11:18] there for a reason.

[5:11:20] so it is, I am very concerned because we don't just pull money out of reserves for

[5:11:29] paving roads.

[5:11:32] we're being asked to make a decision to pull a lot of money out.

[5:11:39] but I do understand

[5:11:42] the necessity if you I mean to jump around I think that cost is uh and uh mr ames

[5:11:49] jumping around is that also

[5:11:52] does that increase the cost of the project because you're jumping to streets

[5:11:57] so it is helpful to keep it in a somewhat helpful, not entirely helpful, somewhat

[5:12:02] helpful to keep it in a geographic area,

[5:12:05] which is I think zone d makes more sense.

[5:12:10] the more we're talking about it is just to finish off a job in an area.

[5:12:14] but the paving contractor is not the same people as the slurry seal contractor.

[5:12:20] so all you're really saving there is that sort of remobilization from going from zone

[5:12:24] d in the middle of the city down to zone

[5:12:27] a to do that overlay job.

[5:12:32] I don't think it makes a significant difference in this case.

[5:12:36] there's enough work there where they would just mobilize and do the work.

[5:12:40] I don't know if that answers your question.

[5:12:43] would it be worth going back out to bid if you increase the area to see if they'd be

[5:12:47] willing to...

[5:12:49] change the bid numbers.

[5:12:50] I don't want to add more work, but I'm just wondering if changing the strategy

[5:12:55] no, the whole idea of doing the additive bids was already to sort of change strategy.

[5:13:01] if I add more work, I'm not going to get appreciably lower pricing.

[5:13:05] we actually got, surprisingly, despite the current situation with oil prices, we

[5:13:10] actually got some pretty good bids for an asphalt concrete overlay.

[5:13:16] I was surprised they came in where they were at.

[5:13:18] I was expecting something worse, which

[5:13:23] really tells me that the second lowest bidder pricing and the third lowest bidder

[5:13:28] pricing is, you know, it was really good.

[5:13:31] actually, the second lowest bidder pricing is really good.

[5:13:36] so I was, anyway.

[5:13:40] we're not going to get a whole lot better by just adding more quantities, trying to

[5:13:44] drive down the unit prices.

[5:13:46] are you done, erica?

[5:13:48] you're done.

[5:13:49] okay, I have a couple things to add to that.

[5:13:53] I think you got the right idea.

[5:13:55] let's get rid of the additive bids and go out and keep this straight up because

[5:13:59] you're going to get better.

[5:14:01] I think you're going to get better bids than people plan the base bid, additive bid

[5:14:05] thing,

[5:14:06] and I think you're going to get better bids altogether.

[5:14:11] that's just my own personal experience.

[5:14:13] but, you know, the other thing that I would just like to point out, when I came to

[5:14:18] the city five,

[5:14:20] five and a half years ago,

[5:14:23] I was very interested in all these kind of numbers as well.

[5:14:26] and one of the things I was acquainted with right away which told me that this is not

[5:14:32] some thing that is brand new to the

[5:14:35] city as far as a problem.

[5:14:37] we had, I seem to remember, $36 million worth of things that we could lay out that we

[5:14:43] needed to do.

[5:14:46] and we needed to do them within four years or whatever the amount of time was.

[5:14:52] and the reality is the amount of money that we could spend per year, okay, was about

[5:14:57] one-fourth of that.

[5:15:01] and so this issue of having to pick and choose, push things off, it goes way back.

[5:15:08] it's not something that we just discovered day before yesterday.

[5:15:13] and it might be getting more serious, no question about that.

[5:15:17] and we've got to do economic development.

[5:15:19] we've got to do a whole lot of things.

[5:15:21] I'd like to approach it in a much more positive way instead of just looking at it and

[5:15:25] saying, oh, well, we're doomed,

[5:15:27] you know.

[5:15:29] and so, but I do think bottom line, keep it simple.

[5:15:35] and that really gets down to whether we want to spend a dime over$2.5 million or not.

[5:15:42] or we're willing to do these in some kind of parts and take a risk that by doing a

[5:15:49] straight bid and not additive

[5:15:52] bids, that we're not going to be dipping into our general funds very much at all.

[5:15:58] so that would be my advice.

[5:16:02] dave.

[5:16:05] sorry, okay, you're good do we have a anyone want to make a motion or move this along

[5:16:13] I

[5:16:17] well, I think I just pretty much did it.

[5:16:20] except I really would like to hear from someone else as to whether or not we should

[5:16:26] be going for zone d or not.

[5:16:29] how do we all feel about it?

[5:16:31] I think it makes sense.

[5:16:33] I think it's definable.

[5:16:35] and...

[5:16:38] communicates a good message if we can do it all together.

[5:16:42] and I agree going out with one bid instead of the additive bids and see what we get

[5:16:47] and then see what we can

[5:16:49] afford.

[5:16:49] but I will say.

[5:16:51] I mean, the fundamental responsibility of the city is to make sure that we've got

[5:16:55] solid roads and, I mean,

[5:16:58] if we're going to start, you know, pinching on that over other things, you know,

[5:17:03] property values, so many other things,

[5:17:06] quality of life are tied to this basic blocking and tackling of a city.

[5:17:12] and so I think as it ranks among other things that we may or may not spend money on,

[5:17:16] this

[5:17:18] is very much high on the list.

[5:17:20] economic realities are that I think maybe it was mr.

[5:17:23] ames had said to do this stuff cost twice as much as it did what five years ago if

[5:17:29] something like that or 50%

[5:17:31] more percent higher.

[5:17:32] yeah, so I mean you know that that's something that that isn't just endemic to laguna

[5:17:38] hills.

[5:17:39] that's across the board so we just got to figure out how to manage it, but I

[5:17:42] think doing one area at a time makes sense and we got to figure out how we can

[5:17:46] sequence it down the road, but

[5:17:49] so yeah, if that's a motion I would I'll make a motion okay.

[5:17:53] I'll make a motion that that you go out to bid with essentially your base bid and a

[5:18:01] zone d as one setup deal

[5:18:04] okay pretty clean and and then let's roll the dice see where we're at and then you

[5:18:09] also include the reject of all all the

[5:18:12] current bid proposals in your motion okay

[5:18:17] do we have a second?

[5:18:18] second.

[5:18:18] okay, we have a second.

[5:18:21] any other discussion?

[5:18:22] dave?

[5:18:23] yeah, I wanted to understand this a little better.

[5:18:26] okay, so your proposal is, well, let me ask joe, what does the base and the slurry,

[5:18:31] so those go together?

[5:18:34] so what I'm understanding is the motion on the table is to reject all bids placed and

[5:18:43] then to create bid specifications and re-advertise.

[5:18:51] I would also like to get clarifications.

[5:18:54] sorry, what?

[5:18:55] too much detail.

[5:18:57] is the base and the slurry the same thing?

[5:19:00] no, the base bid is for the asphalt overlay of robert.

[5:19:05] could you go to slide six, please?

[5:19:08] the base of the asphalt.

[5:19:10] sorry, go to slide five.

[5:19:11] and the slurry is over top of it to seal it up?

[5:19:14] no.

[5:19:14] okay.

[5:19:15] so this is zone d.

[5:19:19] the pink streets would receive a one and a half inch asphalt overlay.

[5:19:27] okay.

[5:19:28] okay.

[5:19:29] over those streets.

[5:19:30] different streets and different things.

[5:19:33] different streets.

[5:19:34] the other colored streets will receive area digouts of any deficient asphalt and then

[5:19:42] a slurry seal treatment on those streets.

[5:19:48] okay.

[5:19:48] so going back to the bit again.

[5:19:49] for cost effectiveness.

[5:19:50] going back to the bit again.

[5:19:54] okay, so in area d, some streets need a base, some streets need a slurry.

[5:20:00] yes.

[5:20:01] period.

[5:20:01] okay.

[5:20:02] I understand what that is.

[5:20:03] one is to lay the whole thing, one is to put the...

[5:20:05] sort of patch it up.

[5:20:06] so we're going to go out and do, okay, basically call two and call three.

[5:20:13] I don't know how much better, but you'll get better.

[5:20:15] it should be better.

[5:20:16] the second, third, and fourth lowest bidders, if you add up those numbers, they all

[5:20:20] add up to almost exactly the same dollar amount.

[5:20:24] and you know what?

[5:20:25] just an observation.

[5:20:28] when things are clean like that and they're looking at it and they know it's one

[5:20:32] number and it's all base bid,

[5:20:34] you're going to find these guys sharpen their numbers.

[5:20:37] yeah, I actually had two more little points.

[5:20:38] sure, go ahead.

[5:20:39] no, I like that you have a keep it simple kiss system.

[5:20:42] yeah.

[5:20:45] as far as the...

[5:20:48] the people that do this, are we under the restrictions of the state that we have to

[5:20:51] use the most expensive people,

[5:20:53] like we have to use unions with full detail, etc., etc.?

[5:20:59] all contractors doing this work must pay prevailing wages as determined by the

[5:21:03] department of industrial relations.

[5:21:05] so there is a minimum amount that all the workers must be paid.

[5:21:09] I hear a yes in the cities.

[5:21:11] yes.

[5:21:11] sort of like a$20 way for people working at mcdonald's.

[5:21:16] okay.

[5:21:18] oh, I have another one.

[5:21:19] I can't remember it now.

[5:21:20] welcome to public works.

[5:21:23] okay.

[5:21:24] I can't think of it.

[5:21:25] okay.

[5:21:28] jarrett, you have your light on.

[5:21:30] but nobody's home.

[5:21:33] okay.

[5:21:34] so with that, let's call the roll.

[5:21:38] just to clarify, what is the question now?

[5:21:41] go ahead.

[5:21:41] reject this and go back to work for base and additive critique.

[5:21:46] base and zone d.

[5:21:50] so it won't be an additive.

[5:21:52] it'll all be one big base.

[5:21:54] how's that?

[5:21:55] could I also ask the city council, would you also consider starting to come back

[5:22:00] again on september 8th, the

[5:22:03] authority to re-advertise for construction?

[5:22:09] or do you want to see the revised bid schedule proving that I'm going to do it that

[5:22:12] way?

[5:22:16] as far as I'm concerned, whatever you think is the right way to go.

[5:22:19] I would appreciate that.

[5:22:20] it would help speed things along so we might have a hope of paving by halloween.

[5:22:24] I don't want to micromanage you on that kind of stuff.

[5:22:28] you know what you're doing.

[5:22:31] by the way, before we vote, I just want to say the amount of work that you did on all

[5:22:35] of this, I mean,

[5:22:37] the research about what we need on what streets and all the rest of that is stellar.

[5:22:43] and I want to talk about saving money.

[5:22:46] mean that was that's the that's the big job of just not throwing.

[5:22:50] you know one one shoe fits all kind of thing at it so kudos to you for doing that I

[5:22:56] have an amazing staff.

[5:22:58] thank you.

[5:22:59] yeah, well all of you all of you together when I say you I mean your old unit so with

[5:23:04] that we're gonna call

[5:23:07] the roll mayor pertain mathis.

[5:23:09] hi councilmember wheeler.

[5:23:11] hi mayor katsky.

[5:23:13] hi.

[5:23:13] come over sweeney.

[5:23:14] hi.

[5:23:15] that's a little abstain.

[5:23:18] I have it.

[5:23:18] okay.

[5:23:23] and now we're to the last item, rejection of bids on authority and authority to

[5:23:28] re-advertise for the construction of park improvements for cabot,

[5:23:33] el canejo park, mckenzie park, san remo park, and v ranch park.

[5:23:40] so thank you for that.

[5:23:43] next slide, please.

[5:23:45] so on june 24th, we opened up bids for five park improvement projects, and we got

[5:23:50] mixed results.

[5:23:52] and as I was typing up this agenda report,

[5:23:54] I was trying to figure out what the best way of describing what happened with all

[5:23:58] this was.

[5:24:00] and so I think I've done a good job.

[5:24:02] so for cabot park, the two lowest bidders failed to include the signed addenda,

[5:24:07] and the third lowest bidder's price was significantly higher than the lowest bidder's

[5:24:10] proposal.

[5:24:12] for el caneo park, the lowest responsive bidder provided an unacceptable additive bid

[5:24:16] for a neighborhood desired improvements that we would have otherwise recommended

[5:24:20] a city council for approval.

[5:24:22] for mckenzie park, we got a bid protest.

[5:24:25] we thought that the bid protest may have merit.

[5:24:28] and rather than fight that one out, I would reject all bids there.

[5:24:32] next slide, please.

[5:24:34] for san remo park, again, added bid might have been a problem.

[5:24:39] and then v ranch park, the lowest bidder withdrew the bid due to a clerical error,

[5:24:43] which they were entitled to.

[5:24:46] underneath the code.

[5:24:47] and the next lowest bidder's base proposal is$100,000 more.

[5:24:51] and based upon how, when I was reading the results of the additive bids,

[5:24:56] I think some bidders misinterpreted the schedule making comparisons of those bids a

[5:25:00] little difficult.

[5:25:03] the only shining or silver lining in all this was that the good news is that all the

[5:25:08] base bids for each project appear to be within

[5:25:11] the original budget that I provided to city council for all of this.

[5:25:15] so I'm just recommending the rejection of all bids and the re-advertisement of the

[5:25:18] project.

[5:25:20] and I've self-identified some improvements to the plans and specifications

[5:25:25] I think will work and will work better and I still am not willing to throw out

[5:25:30] additive bid schedules I still like additive

[5:25:33] bid schedules despite our experience with the prior paving job.

[5:25:37] I think it's important for the city council at least have some options on these park

[5:25:41] projects I will look to package them up a

[5:25:43] little bit more and

[5:25:45] and while those improvements to the bid schedule aren't included in tonight's agenda

[5:25:49] packet because I was out of the office due to a family

[5:25:53] emergency, I'm requesting authority to re-advertise now in the interest of time.

[5:25:58] so that's the end of my staff report.

[5:26:01] the next slides, if you care to see them, are, again,

[5:26:06] showing what the base and additive bids were that were being shown to the bidders of

[5:26:11] what the park improvements were.

[5:26:15] so then please let me know if you have any questions any discussion once again keep

[5:26:21] it simple,

[5:26:22] and I think you're gonna get it this next time around hopefully I

[5:26:39] all right.

[5:26:40] so we have been moved and seconded.

[5:26:42] we'll take a roll call vote.

[5:26:44] council member wheeler.

[5:26:49] your vote.

[5:26:50] oh, I'm sorry.

[5:26:51] I didn't hear you say my name.

[5:26:52] aye.

[5:26:54] council member sweeney.

[5:26:55] aye.

[5:26:55] council member pezzel.

[5:26:56] aye.

[5:26:57] mayor furtan-mathis.

[5:26:58] aye.

[5:26:59] mayor kesky.

[5:26:59] aye.

[5:27:00] aye.

[5:27:00] cabot.

[5:27:02] okay.

[5:27:04] thank you, captain burke, for your comments.

[5:27:08] flexibility and we'll look forward to hearing your report at the next meeting, okay?

[5:27:15] and so we're now to city council committee reports councilmember pays old did you

[5:27:19] want to report on anything?

[5:27:21] my apologies there are a number of presentations provided at the tca meeting.

[5:27:40] but I think it's more important right now to move to the orange county mosquito and

[5:27:46] vector control.

[5:27:50] and the reason why it's very important is that right now there's a lot of buzz around

[5:27:57] removing certain chemicals.

[5:28:00] there's a lot of stuff happening.

[5:28:02] in ladera ranch, there's a lot of, there's just a lot of things, and many discussions

[5:28:08] that are being had.

[5:28:11] and what we're seeing right now at orange county, at oc vector is an increase in the

[5:28:19] west nile virus mosquito samples.

[5:28:24] and I just would like to make mention that there is not a lot of communication about

[5:28:32] some of the consequences with west nile with the mosquito and why it's important is

[5:28:38] that in the meeting um there was a an individual

[5:28:43] that said that her her neighbor is a doctor and he sees a lot of meningitis and um in

[5:28:49] meningitis the symptoms are very

[5:28:53] quick and you can die very quickly and there isn't really a lot of conversations

[5:28:58] whether or not it derived from the mosquito

[5:29:01] but it's happening.

[5:29:02] there's increases.

[5:29:03] and so with the increases of west nile, I think that we have to be very cautious.

[5:29:09] we need to alert.

[5:29:10] and by the way, I applaud ms.

[5:29:12] gannon.

[5:29:13] I believe that she has been posting this on social media.

[5:29:17] but this is a concern in our area, and I think we need to try to send information.

[5:29:22] the information out.

[5:29:23] there is a video, a four-minute video.

[5:29:26] I don't know if we want to even look at the video, but the consequences are dire,

[5:29:31] and I think we need to alert the public of the signs and symptoms that they could

[5:29:34] have that could change their life.

[5:29:38] but I just, I mean, and with lack of time,

[5:29:41] I don't know if anyone thinks maybe what we should do is post it online, the video,

[5:29:46] or if you'd like to see it.

[5:29:50] it's up to you, whatever you would like.

[5:29:53] if you'd like to see the four-minute video, we can play it, but...

[5:29:57] you know, what I would suggest is it might be better to do it at the next meeting,

[5:30:03] and you might even have some people out there who could actually see it, just not...

[5:30:07] so maybe post it online, or we can post it in the beginning of the meeting.

[5:30:10] yeah, or something like that.

[5:30:12] okay, fair enough.

[5:30:12] I think the idea of getting that kind of thing out to the public is...

[5:30:16] important oh yes a few a couple days is life is life-altering my my husband's

[5:30:24] sister-in-law died of meningitis just recently within very quickly

[5:30:32] and that stuff comes and you have very little warning and you're gone okay, and so

[5:30:40] you're counseling

[5:30:43] yeah, just a quick question.

[5:30:45] I see you have some tables there.

[5:30:48] what is the mosquito increase in laguna health?

[5:30:51] are we on there?

[5:30:54] thankfully, we are not, but the neighboring cities are seeing the increased activity.

[5:31:01] like mission, lake forest?

[5:31:04] abrea, coasta mesa, cypress, fountain valley, fullerton, garden grove, huntington

[5:31:10] beach, irvine, las amidas, lajabra.

[5:31:14] lagoon, newport beach, orange, placentia, santa ana, seal beach, stanton, villa park,

[5:31:21] westminster.

[5:31:23] okay.

[5:31:23] I'm hearing all those are farther north.

[5:31:25] nothing that close.

[5:31:27] just an incidental anecdote of my wife's.

[5:31:29] been getting a lot of mosquito bites and just never happened before and over last

[5:31:32] year was like a little this year it's a lot

[5:31:35] yeah I think we've got us I think we've got a serious problem it's huge okay my

[5:31:40] report make it real quick uh the oaac

[5:31:43] uh they had a nice presentation it's uh basically how to how to conduct your affairs

[5:31:48] as talking about you know powers of attorney

[5:31:52] when you for your estate, having trusts.

[5:31:56] very, very good information.

[5:31:58] it's mainly meant for seniors of the audience, but it's good for everybody.

[5:32:04] one other comment.

[5:32:07] the membership there is like 35 delegates or 35 commissioners.

[5:32:12] that's a big meeting.

[5:32:14] I was the chairman of the goals committee.

[5:32:16] they accepted all my goals, and I also chaired the metrics to meet those goals.

[5:32:22] and I supplied them a table for our first metric meeting, and the executive committee

[5:32:26] is looking at it right now.

[5:32:29] so we're moving along and trying to get things done for the older adults, which now

[5:32:35] number over a million.

[5:32:38] oh, we have one additional thing.

[5:32:40] the lawyers did give me permission to supply them with data, so I can now

[5:32:46] legally supply them with data addresses and things of these seniors in orange county

[5:32:50] so that we can access them and try to help

[5:32:52] them that was a big guess and a million.

[5:32:55] I'm assuming is somewhere between 25 and 33 percent of the whole county population.

[5:33:02] no.

[5:33:02] oh, you mean the seniors?

[5:33:04] the population county is what I

[5:33:13] I don't even know I don't know significant and the and I can't like I thought so much

[5:33:18] accessibility I have addresses for every

[5:33:21] single one of them phone for 30 percent and an email all right that leaves us to city

[5:33:25] council member comments any comments tonight

[5:33:28] I oh, just one comment.

[5:33:43] we as a council received a letter from a cynthia mcmullen who mentions that nellie

[5:33:53] hill ranch homeowners association without permission had announced that they

[5:34:04] were going to fly drones all over the hoa without permission

[5:34:10] and I'm just wondering if our city manager responded, if this is something we need to

[5:34:17] have a discussion with council.

[5:34:21] so I just wanted to know if there was a response to her email.

[5:34:29] yeah, absolutely.

[5:34:32] I'll hand it to you.

[5:34:33] thank you.

[5:34:38] josh.

[5:34:39] thank you, mayor.

[5:34:41] since it's getting late, I would like to demonstrate the curfew policy I previously

[5:34:45] brought forward and say that it might be good to bring

[5:34:49] that back.

[5:34:49] but anyways, first I want to thank captain burke for sticking it out and the orange

[5:34:52] county sheriff's department.

[5:34:55] I also want to thank the orange county fire authority.

[5:34:58] public safety remains our highest responsibility, and I deeply appreciate the

[5:35:02] deputies, the firefighters, paramedics, dispatchers,

[5:35:05] and professional staff who protect lugana hills every day.

[5:35:09] I also want to clarify several statements that were made tonight.

[5:35:13] the city attorney's client is the city as an organization, acting through its

[5:35:18] authorized officials.

[5:35:21] the fact that every council member did not receive a separate private consultation

[5:35:24] does not establish that our city attorney failed to represent the city

[5:35:28] or properly review the agreement, and I fully support our city attorney and

[5:35:31] professional staff.

[5:35:34] I also reject the suggestion that this council is disregarding police or fire

[5:35:38] protection.

[5:35:39] development can create additional service demands, but it also creates assessed value,

[5:35:45] property tax revenue, including revenue supporting ocfa,

[5:35:50] development fees infrastructure and other municipal revenue and as chair of the

[5:35:54] orange county fire authority I'm aware of no ocf a finding presented

[5:35:59] in this record concluding that this project will diminish fire protection the city's

[5:36:04] fiscal analysis projects more than 3.8 million in annual revenue at full

[5:36:09] build-out approximately

[5:36:10] 1.5 3 million in additional municipal service costs and estimated annual surplus of

[5:36:15] approximately 2.2 6 million

[5:36:19] those are projections, not guarantees, but they do not support claims that the

[5:36:23] project provides no financial benefit or the city will inevitably be

[5:36:28] bankrupt in seven years.

[5:36:30] finally, the potential octa impact on hotel 1 was not ignored.

[5:36:36] section 12.4 expressly anticipates possible relocation and preserves the developer's

[5:36:40] obligation to build the hotel.

[5:36:43] we may disagree, but

[5:36:45] serious claims about our legal counsel public safety and the city's solvency should

[5:36:49] be supported by evidence and I will continue supporting our city

[5:36:53] attorney our staff ocsd ocfa and decisions grounded in the written record leadership

[5:36:59] is not measured by how long we debate a problem but by whether

[5:37:04] residents can fill the solution and with that before today becomes tomorrow and with

[5:37:09] that

[5:37:15] I'm going to adjourn this meeting at 11:41, and our next regular meeting will be

[5:37:21] september 8th at 6 p.m.

City Council / Planning Agency Regular Meeting

Agenda

Transcript