Thank you very much.
get a chair.
thank you.
bring this meeting to order and we will start
I'd like to invite elder jeff anderson of christ community church to lead the
invocation.
heavenly father, we praise you god and give you thanks for all of your mighty works.
you are loving, good, and gracious.
thank you for creating us and sustaining us day by day.
thank you for making us in your image to exist in community with other people.
father, you have created us to love you with our whole hearts and to love our
neighbors as ourselves.
we often fall short of these commandments.
we have sinned and fall short of your glory.
we acknowledge that there is a severe cost for us turning our backs on you.
yet you've demonstrated your love for us and that while we were still sinners, christ
died for us.
it is by your grace we have a path to both forgiveness and salvation through faith in
jesus.
you have said that you stand at the door and knock, and if anyone hears your voice
and opens the door,
you will come in.
all who receive jesus and believe in his name have the right to become children of
god.
we thank you for our city.
from lewis moulton's sheep and cattle ranch over 150 years ago, you have blessed this
community with incredible progress.
thank you for our elected officials, the businesses, the churches, the schools, the
families,
and the individuals that make the city the great place that it is.
we know that in your sovereignty, you have placed these leaders here for this time.
grant that our city would be known as a righteous city, a city of peace and hope, a
city with happy homes,
a city that welcomes the stranger, a city that cares for the needy, a city that
defends the innocent from evil.
we are here this evening to serve the people of our city.
we ask for your wisdom for our mayor, our city council members, and all city staff.
give them clear minds, patient hearts, and a strong sense of justice as they make
choices today.
help them to listen well to one another, to respect diverse views, and to seek the
common good for every neighbor.
grant them peace, unity, and integrity in these discussions.
we pray for safety for our first responders and others who provide care to our
community.
we thank you for those who both serve and sacrifice for our city and help our
neighbors who are in need.
we pray that you would continue to bless those who serve here
for our future prosperity.
all the glory of god is yours.
in the name of the father, son, and the holy spirit.
amen.
thank you very much.
and the pledge will be led by council member pezold.
please stand.
place your right hand over your heart and repeat after me.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic
for which it stands, one nation under god,
city clerk who for the roll call city council.
yes.
thank you.
mr mayor let the record show that all members of council are present in chambers okay
I'm gonna take the liberty to move item
three point here it is three point
or
5.3.1 up, having to do with the proposed update to the city of laguna hills banner
program.
we have a special guest, the principal at laguna hills high school,
and I would like to have him to be able to get in and out as expediently as possible.
so with that, we will start with director holland.
thank you.
good evening, mayor caskey and members of the city council.
I have a brief introduction to this item before I would like to introduce our special
guest.
on march 24th, 2026, city council approved a hybrid street pole banner program
consisting of two permanent banner designs and three rotating designs that would
allow the city to incorporate seasonal and community messaging throughout the year.
since that time, the three new banner designs have been installed throughout the city.
the civic center banner, the welcome banner, and the special america 250 banner.
the america 250 banners are scheduled to come down at the end of september.
at that time, they would be replaced with a new seasonal banner, while the civic
center and welcome banners would remain in place.
at the beginning of summer, staff was approached by laguna hills high school about
incorporating high school banners into the city's banner program.
at this time, I would like to introduce laguna hills high school principal brent
dohling to share his vision for the banner program.
welcome.
well good evening mayor caskey members of the city council and those in attendance
this evening my name is brent dohling and it is
truly a blessing to stand before you tonight as the principal of laguna hills high
school thank you for allowing me to speak this
evening about our banner projects on behalf of our school and the hawks that have
soared above the rest for nearly 50 years at laguna
hills high school as the principal of our city's only high school,
I have made it a priority in our school's strategic plan to strengthen the connection
between our high school and our community.
our message at laguna hills high school is simple.
one town, one team.
those words represent more than a slogan.
it connects our high school with our city.
because our students don't just attend laguna hills high school, they represent the
city of laguna hills.
every time they compete, perform, volunteer, achieve, or graduate, they carry the
name of the city with them.
our street pole banner project has two main objectives.
showcase the partnership between the city and laguna hills high school and celebrate
our students in programs that make laguna hills high school special
we want to highlight our athletes artists musicians scholars performers and student
leaders throughout the community they proudly represent imagine a young person driving
through laguna hills with their family and seeing a laguna hills high school student
on a banner
maybe they recognize a friend, a neighbor, or someone they aspire to become.
that creates pride.
it tells our students, this community sees you, this community supports you, and this
community is proud of you.
the school gets to celebrate the city, the city gets to celebrate its students,
and together we reinforce the idea that we are truly one town, one team.
I hope you see this project not simply as a banner program,
but as an investment in our young people and in the relationship between our school
and our city.
because when our students succeed, our entire community succeeds.
thank you for your partnership, your support, and for helping us show the community
why laguna hills high school and the city of laguna
hills what we're all about.
and as always, go hawks.
thank you.
do we have any public comments on this particular item?
not on this item.
and do we have any online?
no.
okay.
why don't you stay there for a second because I'm going to ask if anyone up here has
questions or want to discuss the item
in regards to clarifications.
anybody here?
erica, go ahead.
yes.
okay.
first of all, I want to say thank you.
for being involved with this program.
I think it's extremely important.
this is something that I mentioned the first year that I was on the city council that
this had to happen.
however, I was met with a lot of resistance, which is why it hadn't proceeded until
now.
so I'm very excited to see that there is some program like this that is starting to
occur.
now I have a couple of questions, and the first one is
what is the process?
is it going to be, for example, you see in some cities they highlight seniors so that
the parents can pay.
and then perhaps the city covers, highlights athletic groups or an athlete that has
done exceptional.
what is the, and how many banners?
what are we looking at?
and I guess maybe that's a question for ms.
gannon.
thank you.
I do have a presentation to further take us through this discussion.
I just wanted to introduce principal doling so that it made sense where I was leading
this discussion.
okay.
my apologies.
it's ok.
but in terms of the selection of the individuals, specifically the students that we
chose to highlight,
it was a collaborative decision that we got together with our staff to identify the
specific programs on our campus that we wanted to be
able to showcase, understanding that we weren't able to do all programs.
with the hopes that if this is approved and it's something that the city appreciated
and our in our our school appreciate it as well.
it was something that we can I have one question and it's my understanding that there
will be I mean these banners will go up for a
period of time but there will be some kind of rotating and and you know refreshing of
things over over time correct I
yes.
speaking with holland and also mr.
wingenroth as well and the gentleman that makes the banners, we're looking at
probably a three-year rotation.
okay.
very good.
holland, did you have a continuing presentation to make?
I do, yes.
thank you.
go ahead.
I'm sorry.
I have one more question.
oh, sure.
actually, oh, you?
okay.
dave, go ahead.
oh, no, I just want to say welcome here.
and I noticed you have the baseball and softball, I believe it's right.
I was wondering what everybody remember that laguna has two state champions, football
and basketball.
let me throw one of them in there, too, to celebrate our championship.
I loved it that they did it the year I was mayor.
and I get to present them the key to the city, the first one ever, to laguna hills
high school.
well-deserved.
so we do have a proposed draft of a boys' and girls' basketball banner, as they had a
ton of success, obviously, last year,
winning a state regional championship as well as a cif southern section championship.
and, yes, football is on one of the banners as well.
happens to be our starting quarterback.
go hawks.
awesome.
okay, so we're going to let holland continue with your presentation.
and if we have any more questions for you, we'll pull you back up here.
go ahead.
thank you mayor caskey so as principal dohling mentioned the concept is to install
banners immediately surrounding the high school along alicia parkway paseo
de valencia and laguna hills drive the banners would highlight various sports teams
clubs activities and programs at the high school while also reinforcing
the city's support of laguna hills high school the high school has requested a total
of 32 banner locations for the program this would
still leave banner arms for city messaging in the immediate area
currently, the city has 136 total banner locations.
under the existing program, those are divided among 45 civic center banners, 45
welcome banners, and 46 seasonal banners.
allocating 32 of the 136 locations to the high school would leave 104 banner arms
available for the city's other banner designs.
because adding the high school banners would require a change to the distribution
previously approved by city council,
staff has developed four options for council's consideration.
option 1 would be not to implement the high school banner program and maintain the
existing framework.
option 2 would incorporate the 32 high school banners while maintaining the existing
45 civic center and 45 welcome banners.
this would leave 14 locations for seasonal banners.
option 3 would incorporate the high school banners and redistribute the remaining
locations more evenly among the city's three other banner types.
option four would incorporate the 32 high school banners but eliminate the seasonal
banner program the remaining locations would be divided evenly between the civic
center and welcome designs with 52 of each this would require purchasing a few more
of the existing banners being the civic center and the welcomes
designs the cost to design and print the 32 laguna hills high school banners is
approximately $4,145,
and the estimated cost to install those banners is $4,800.
that results in an initial estimated cost of approximately $8,945 for the high school
portion of the program.
the high school student banners are anticipated to be redesigned and replaced
approximately every three years.
there's also an option to generate revenue by selling the america 250 banners and the
high school banners as they are replaced.
this table provides a comparison of the estimated first-year costs for each option.
for purposes of this comparison, staff included the initial startup costs for the
high school banner program,
as well as the costs associated with producing and changing out seasonal banners.
for the seasonal banners, staff assumed a cost of approximately $100 per banner to
produce each design,
and $150 per banner for removal and installation.
because the seasonal banners are anticipated to rotate three times during the year,
the cost varies significantly depending on how many seasonal banner locations are
maintained underneath each option.
staff is seeking city council's recommendation on how to redistribute the banners.
that concludes my presentation.
I'm happy to answer any questions.
you're okay, so do we have any further questions in regards for holland in terms of
these?
alternative plans questions of clarifications okay, we'll start with erica yes,
I'm wondering so did I hear this correctly that the high school banners would be up
for three years?
that is correct the one-town, one-team design is not anticipated to change, but the
pictures of the students would change every three years, those 18.
okay.
so every year the students will change?
every three years.
for students, every three years.
okay.
and will, for the students, will that cost, is that a cost that the parents can pay
for?
because that's usually something the parents, for individual students being
highlighted.
no.
thank you, council member pezold.
at this point, the city has been planning on paying those fees.
okay.
are we allowed to give our opinion?
this isn't a public hearing.
I don't know that.
are we okay with that?
yeah, I'm just going with that.
okay.
I just want to make sure.
I support option three, but I don't like every three years, especially for a student.
I think that...
if we're going to honor seniors, I think it might be something good to have it
refreshed for seniors.
we're getting into a little bit more than just clarifications at this point.
yes, but I asked if I could provide my opinion.
so I'm wondering if that's something that we can also look into.
but I think three years is to have an individual up for three years might be a little
too long,
especially if you have the seniors
uh...
I know increases the cost and associated but I I I like the idea of highlighting a
senior when it's the senior year and keep
it going move on to uh...
councilman uh...
just a question of kind of bothered me uh...
it's a hundred fifty dollars just to change one banner that is correct at seventy
five dollars to remove the existing manner and seventy
five dollars to replace it with one she's given the replacement have it all off on
their way
put the new one up on the same time up the puddle.
that is $150.
no, no, I mean that if it's $150 to remove it, I'm sorry, 75 to remove it,
then they come back with a new one.
it is all at the same time.
they do it all at the same time?
I'm sorry, but $150 is outrageous.
that's outrageous.
I'm in the wrong business, I guess.
I just want to know which one you recommend.
I personally like the idea of redistributing them all evenly and maintaining the
seasonal banner, which would be option 3, 35 civic center,
34 welcome, 32 for the high school, and then 35 seasonal banners.
okay.
thank you.
okay.
next we'll go to mayor pro tem mathis.
can we make questions now?
I'm just on clarifications, questions.
at this point, if you want to move on and make a motion, that's fine.
sure.
I would move to approve option three for the redistribution of the sign program,
including the high school program with that total first year cost estimated at around
$35,195.
and so I move approval for option three.
okay.
we have a motion.
I'll second that.
we have a second.
yeah.
do we have, and now we're definitely into discussion.
go ahead.
I'd like to make, if we're going to go that direction,
a substitute motion to have the staff work with the high school on some sort of fee
so that perhaps seniors with the program,
they can have the seniors up annually as soon as they get, as soon as a senior, they
have the ability,
I guess six months before or something like six months before
the banner goes up, they can purchase that banner.
I think we should try some, have ms.
gannon work on some sort of program that allows seniors to have their banner up for a
year and perhaps have the parents assist
with that cost and have her work that out.
okay.
so there's a substitute motion.
I understand where you're coming from.
is there a second for that?
and the first year, we go with the initial process, what is presented, but then work
something through for seniors.
that's it.
I'm not sure that we need a substitute motion for that.
this baseline provides the opportunity to build on the program.
I don't know that we need to complicate it at this point.
if the high school has put together this program with all of this three-year rotation
in mind and we want to build on it
further, incorporating parents and so forth, I think we'll leave the high school to
come to us with that program and let them figure
it out.
so I'm not sure that that substitutes the motion...
I was going to suggest, well, if, josh, if you wanted to say something first, but I
have the suggestion.
no, please suggest, yeah.
I was going to suggest that let's pick one of these which we have a motion and
seconded one.
because I don't personally see this as being something that is forever.
I mean, we're going to be working on this and I think your ideas, erica,
are great about kids being able to buy their own banner and maybe move this along,
have it more often.
but you've got to get started somehow.
and I don't see any particular reason to actually have a substitute motion and all
that.
if that's the case, I can pull it.
but the idea is to give direction
to start the process, to build that, to build that so that seniors, that it can be
redone annually,
a certain number or whatever ms.
gannon sees fit with that.
I'm sure she can come up with something with the principal so that we can honor our
seniors.
and I see where you're coming from with that.
now, there's a lot more seniors than there are banners, I think.
but, you know, the point is, I mean, this is really,
a wonderful thing.
it makes all the sense in the world to tie our high school into the city, the whole
pride in our community, our town,
one team, one town.
it's just amazing.
so where we take it from, no matter what we decide, from there I can just see we're
just potentially off to the races.
and so I don't see it as something that we're just one and done and that's it.
dave did you have a comment?
just a question.
I guess I'm trying to figure out here the so we have a one-time cost to begin with
the best roughly 35,000 it looks
like you're then your annual maintenance cost is the 10 5 plus the 15 7 so you know
2026 is that roughly right?
for option three okay, so maintenance one time 35 maintenance 26 is that
are we going to have another initial cost maybe every four years to refresh or
reprint?
or how long will that maintenance process go on without another startup cost?
thank you for the question.
it really depends on how much wear and tear those banners get.
hopefully, if we can keep the, I believe it's 14 or 12 high school banners that are
the one town, one team,
and keep those looking good for a long time, we won't have to do the initial startup
cost again.
however, if we choose to redesign those banners or have a different look for those,
there would be the additional startup cost for those banners.
how long do you expect them to last?
about three years.
three to five years.
okay.
all right.
thank you.
now that we have the wind flaps in them, they've been holding up pretty well.
okay.
councilman sweeney.
thank you, mayor.
I just want to say thank you again to principal dohling for coming out and for
bringing us this and working with holland and coming
up with this.
I mean, it's amazing, and I appreciate the one team, one town, and bringing the whole
community together.
so really great job.
yeah.
and back to you.
yeah, I mean, this is to me a slam dunk.
I mean, to be able to surround our high school with this kind of branding so that
kids that are coming up through elementary
school and junior high can see that there's.
town that cares about their high school and for high school students to be able to
see that every day they drive up and then
opposing teams when they drive into our nest to be able to see that there this high
school is embraced by the town let's
not make it complicated.
I think we approve option three and build from there I'm very much in favor
option three because it also we have the seasonal banners not just disappearing.
I mean the whole deal is to keep it fresh so I'm I'm in favor of that as well any
other comments erica.
it's just one more comment.
I know that we support grad night, but I'm not sure if it's something that given
given a lot of information that's been posting
online about cities donating and
to high schools.
I'm not sure if it fits the profile.
I'm wondering maybe if we move the grad night funding to have additional funding for
seniors to have their banner posted.
so just I think that might be something so then there's actual more revenue going
into that and we can increase the exposure of seniors.
well, one thing that we're very happy about this year is that we were able to cash in
and help the high school cash in on, I think,
about $15,000 in terms of being able to resell the signs that we took down, you know,
with our street signs.
and so that was a big, in a way, donation this year.
and I think there are a whole lot of things that we can do to partner with the high
school.
a lot more involvement of...
of the high school students with this council, all kinds of things that we'll be
talking about in the future.
so I'm very, I'm excited about this.
so any more discussion in regards to this?
okay, with that, then we'll go ahead.
we have a motion and a second.
we'll ask for a roll call vote.
council member pezold?
aye.
council member wheeler?
aye.
mayor caskey?
aye.
council member sweeney?
aye.
mayor pro tem mathis?
aye.
the ayes have it.
I would say they do.
that's kind of unanimous.
so with that, I appreciate it very much.
we're excited about this adventure, and let's see where we can go with it from here,
okay?
all right.
so I'm going to now move us back to the first part of our
and we have presentations and proclamations and we'll start with one point one
wildfire awareness and prevention season proclamation thank you mr.
mayor let me invite reid gibson division chief of ocfa up to the podium here
thank you.
if you've noticed, it's a little hot outside, right, the last few days.
there's a lot of dry mountains out there, a lot of fuel.
and we want to recognize in the public eye
the importance of awareness, and so we are going to present this proclamation about
wildfire awareness and prevention season, whereas in 2020,
california experienced a record-breaking wildfire season with over 4 million acres
burned across the state, and then again in 2024, the state faced 8,000,
over 8,000 wildfires that burned approximately a million acres, reflecting a
significant increase from that previous year.
and whereas the recent wildfires in los angeles county that we all remember,
including the eaton and palisades fire,
resulted in at least 29 fatalities and destroyed over 16,000 structures, and whereas
extreme fires are a growing threat to public health and safety,
homes, and air quality, and whereas every citizen has a key role in preventing
destructive wildfires from occurring,
now therefore I on behalf of mayor caskey and the city council laguna hills do hereby
proclaim the height of wildfire season beginning in midsummer
and running through early autumn as wildfire awareness and prevention season.
thank you, everybody.
again, my name is reid gibson.
I'm your division chief for the orange county fire authority.
I just want to take the time to highlight the orange county fire authority and what
we do.
I brought a few of my partners here with me today to show some support and some
education.
as we did, it is a wildfire awareness and prevention.
and it's not just our 1,600 employees that we have, 1,200 firefighters that are on
the ground, but we have our 400 support staff.
and that includes our mechanics, our finance people, our fire prevention, our
educators.
that we have here.
we have nurses.
we have a lot of support for the orange county fire authority.
and that's just to let you guys know that we are your regional fire department.
and when I say regional, that means not just everyone who's surrounding the city of
laguna woods.
you have 78 fire stations that could come here to help laguna hills at any time.
but what I want to do is introduce our community educator, milton neira,
to show you some of our programs that orange county fire authority provides.
good afternoon, evening, everybody.
I wanted to share a couple of things with you guys really quick.
and not only is it important to me as a neighbor, but also my kids go to laguna hills
high school.
so it's really, really important to everybody here.
but we have lots of resources.
and what I'm going to ask you guys to do right now is take your phones out, if you
don't mind, please.
pull them out.
and I'm going to give you some phone numbers and I'm going to give you some links as
well as my personal cell phone
number so that we can go ahead and move forward and get prepared as a community.
so before anything else, we cannot tell you where the next fire is going to start,
but what we know is that it's going to happen, especially because we live in a
community as beautiful as we are, but the
topography and geography tells us that
we're right in the middle between the urban and the wildland interface.
makes sense, right?
so because of that, we have a responsibility, not just for you, not just to you, but
also to the family and to the community that we serve and that we work with and that
we live in, right?
so very, very important.
so we have something called the ready, set, go program.
so please go ahead and open a browser on your phones
and visit ocfa.org, please.
orangecountyfireauthority.org.
once you're there, let me know.
just kind of wave and give me a thumbs up if that's okay.
and then you're going to see the menu, the bars on the upper right corner.
click on that, please.
and on the left-hand side, you're going to have the menu with all kinds of
information.
a lot of information for you guys, for your family, for your little ones, for your
friends and your neighbors.
please take the time, go through that.
and I'm going to give you a phone number right now.
please write this down or save it on your phone, please.
it is 714-573-6774.
I'm going to repeat it once again.
714-573-6774.
this phone number is so that if you are in doubt and or you're interested and you
want a free assessment of your home
please let us know again I said free make sense okay so give us a call you can
actually do one on your own we
have actually a page I'm going to show it to you guys in a second
you can actually do an assessment of your own home this afternoon and even this
weekend.
and then if you have any questions or anything else, you can go, you know what,
I'm going to call those guys at the fire authority.
and that number that I just gave you, right?
call us up and schedule a free assessment.
we'll come over to your site, to your home, to your community center, hoa.
and we'll do a free assessment of your community, of course, but your home on the
outside.
and we'll talk about, obviously, your home, hardening programs, vegetation, right?
and, of course, securing your home and talking a little bit about the risks.
also, very, very important.
I know the browser, if you can open it up and look for alert oc.
extremely important.
I cannot tell you...
countless of times where we work at the eoc up in loma ridge, and people call and say,
hey, I'm looking for so-and-so,
or my neighbor or my friend or my family member is missing, or I don't know what's
going to happen.
you know, there's an evacuation order at this place, but we don't know where they are.
please plan ahead, and we're here to help you.
so I'm going to give you a bless you.
I'm going to give you another number.
okay, here we go.
it is 949-564-8887.
once again, 949-564-8887.
it is my phone, my cell phone number.
and you can schedule a fire safety class.
again, no cost.
and we can come over to your site, do home evacuation drills.
we'll teach you how to use a fire extinguisher.
we'll do a fire assessment, a fire training for you and your family.
so again, thank you guys for your time.
we have lots of resources for you guys,
thank you, sir.
thank you, everybody.
give them a round of applause for all they do to keep us safe.
thank you.
councilmember pezold, I believe you wanted to make a comment.
yes.
well, first of all, I want to mention that the free assessment is extremely important.
and a couple of years ago,
uh...
during some construction to increase the electricity going to my house a gas line was
hit and a fire occurred at my house and uh...
you don't think about it about uh...
fires until it happens and uh...
it was mentioned to me that thank goodness our trees have been trimmed and that we
were putting the right sort of vegetation
because it would have been problematic and could have lit our whole neighborhood up
because of the aggressiveness of the flames.
and also, we're extremely fortunate because our fire, because they responded so
quickly.
and we're very fortunate.
but if it wasn't for the good practices I had,
we would have, things would have happened differently.
and also, you never know how important a fire safety drill is because when a fire
happens, you go blank.
you just are stressed.
and my son, who was at the time very young, ran out without his shoes and he was
scared, didn't know what to do, and
thank goodness for, thank goodness,
that you know how to handle the situation because my son wasn't scared.
but I will tell you, it's a scary moment when you're in a fire because you don't know.
there's only seconds before something could happen.
so I'm really appreciative of everything that you've done, and I just want everyone
to know, use these services because with me, I
just went blank, and I ran out, and you're just confused.
so thank you.
I want to thank you.
and councilman sweeney.
thank you, mayor.
thank you, chief gibson.
and milton, thank you so much for being out here and for the presentation tonight.
as chair of the orange county fire authority, I see firsthand the extraordinary work
that all of our men and women, our firefighters,
our hand crews, our dispatchers, prevention personnel, and professional staff do at
orange county fire.
and they are all incredible.
they're all extraordinary individuals.
but I wanted to remind everybody that wildfire preparedness is a shared
responsibility and that residents play an essential role in maintaining your
defensible
space around your homes, making sure to reduce your combustible vegetation.
register for those alerts, please, and have a family evacuation plan in place.
because wildfire doesn't recognize a boundary.
embers don't stop burning at a certain street or a certain boundary.
but the preparation is really made before our emergency and before our firefighters
get there.
and that's the best opportunity for them to be able to protect lives and property is
that preparedness that you do ahead of time.
so I strongly support this proclamation.
I would like for all of us to use it as a commitment for continued public education
throughout the height of wildfire season.
so again, please, I encourage every resident out there to sign up for ocfa's ready,
set, go and get the
resources there and take at least one action for preparedness in your home.
so thanks again.
thank you.
okay.
thank you very much.
we're moving on to item 1.2, which is a presentation by octa in regard to the el toro
road interstate 5 interchange project update.
and I'm going to ask melanie masud and potentially rose
casey to make that presentation.
thank you.
mr.
mayor before the presentation starts I actually represent octa on a different matter
out in irvine it has nothing to do with the city
of laguna hills and nothing to do with this matter but to avoid the appearance of
impropriety I'm gonna go ahead and conflict out on
this tom clark our special counsel has agreed to field any legal questions on this
matter.
okay.
thank you all right rose
good evening, mayor caskey, mayor pro tem mathis, and council members.
I'm rose casey, executive director of planning for the orange county transportation
authority, or octa.
and with me is angela hui, the principal community relations specialist at octa.
so we appreciate this opportunity very much to provide you with an update on the I-5
el toro interchange project.
so the area studied in the draft environmental document is depicted by the red line
boundary and extends nearly half a mile up and down
el toro road, bounded by rockfield toward the bottom of the screen and paseo de
valencia toward the top of the screen,
and it includes approximately two miles along interstate 5.
to provide some important context for this project, the I-5 el toro interchange was
identified as a top priority project by laguna hills,
laguna woods, and lake forest during the development of measure m-2.
in the m-2 ordinance that was approved by the voters in 2006,
the I-5 el toro interchange project is one of several local interchange projects in
the m-2 freeway program, and as a localized improvement,
is to be developed in cooperation with the local jurisdictions and affected
communities.
in last year's update of the m2 next 10 delivery plan,
this project is identified to be environmentally cleared by the end of this year to
be ready for advancement to the next phase.
this slide provides an initial timeline of project events beginning in february 2015
with the planning phase where 15 alternatives were considered to the completion
of the octa led alternatives assessment study in 2021 which studied an additional
seven alternatives.
so in total 22 alternatives were studied highlighting this as a very challenging
project that required a high level of city involvement at every
step.
in march 2022, octa, caltrans, and all three cities reached consensus on the two
alternatives to move forward to the environmental phase for evaluation.
then in january 2023, caltrans and octa restarted the environmental phase.
fast forward to this year, caltrans has completed the preliminary engineering and
environmental technical studies,
resulting in the draft project approval and environmental document that was released
for public review on july 31st.
so this is alternative one, which are the braided southbound I-5 hook ramps.
this alternative includes a two lane I-5 southbound off ramp to el toro road with one
lane assigned to el toro road west using
the existing hook ramp.
while one lane is assigned to el toro road east, that is braided or grade separated
on a bridge over the southbound hook on-ramp.
this ramp then travels over el toro road on a new bridge and then ties into a
realigned avenida de la carlota next to the village
at laguna hills.
this alternative is a design variation of alternative one on the previous slide.
it includes a potential public street connecting the village at laguna hills
development to the proposed signalized intersection of the southbound I-5 ramps and
avenida
de la carlota.
this shows alternative two, which is the flyover ramp with a roundabout.
this alternative was evaluated but eliminated because it is inconsistent with state
policy.
excuse me?
inconsistent with what?
so mayor caskey, according to caltrans design policy, there cannot be access to a
private property.
so if you take a look at the roundabout and looking at the south leg of the
roundabout,
it would provide access to a private property and not a connection to a public street.
okay.
alternative three is the tsm-tdm alternative that includes advanced traffic signal
improvements and other intelligent transportation systems or its enhancements like
traveler information systems
or traffic management center upgrades.
this alternative is a standalone alternative.
it's been evaluated that way, and it could also be incorporated with the other build
alternative.
so the project benefits are that it will reduce traffic congestion, enhance safety,
and improve emergency response times.
all of these benefits are tied to being able to travel on the streets and through the
intersections quicker.
and we'll get into more detail with this next slide.
so this graphic, I know there's a lot going on here and I'll try to explain it,
summarizes the benefits associated with alternative 1a,
including reducing traffic congestion and delays by distributing traffic from the
existing southbound I-5 off-ramp to the new braided off-ramp denoted by the purple
arrow.
a substantial share of the southbound I-5 traffic headed to eastbound el toro, or
lake forest, would shift to the new braided off ramp,
replacing the two left turns of today, so that's shown by the orange path, with two
right turns, and that's shown in light blue.
this will reduce delays at key intersections, so it will take less time to get from
point a to point b in this area.
the highest benefited intersections with a substantial reduction delay or
alternatively takes less time to get through the intersection are circled in green.
so, for example, for today's trip in red, that's basically taking the southbound
off-ramp from the I-5,
making the left on avenida de la carlota, and then making the left on el toro,
heading east.
that trip will be about 35% to 40% quicker during the morning and afternoon peaks.
an important related benefit is that safety will be enhanced as well.
so currently, the I-5 el toro interchange area has the most accidents in south orange
county, south of the 55 freeway,
in the past 10 years.
and these are mainly congestion related.
so with this project, we'll enhance safety by reducing congestion.
and then another key benefit is that with the reduced delays, emergency responders,
including the ocfa,
will be able to move through the area quicker, shortening response times.
and next, angela will share information on the public outreach efforts.
thank you, rose.
good evening, mayor caskey, council members.
again, my name is angela hui, outreach manager for this project.
so I'm going to talk a little bit about our outreach strategy and what we've been
doing to make sure residents, businesses,
and stakeholders are informed and involved.
during the public review period, we are hosting two public hearings in an open house
format, one in person and one virtually,
to provide opportunities for the community to learn more about the project, meet the
project team, ask questions, and provide feedback.
the in-person public hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, august 26, from 5 to 7 p.m.
at the laguna hills community center.
the virtual public hearing is scheduled for wednesday, september 2, from 5 to 7 p.m.
via zoom.
to support the public review and hearing process, our team has developed exhibit
boards and updated project materials, including a fact sheet,
postcard mailers distributed earlier this month, flyers canvassed to surrounding
businesses, and a communications toolkit.
these materials are being used as part of our broader community outreach and public
awareness efforts.
we have also shared these materials with key stakeholders to help inform the
community and raise awareness of opportunities to participate.
overall, our goal is to keep the process transparent and ensure the public continues
to have a voice in the selection of a preferred
alternative later this year.
with that, I'll hand it back to rose to discuss next steps.
so the public review or circulation period closes monday, september 14th.
again, the two public hearings are shown here.
the in-person meeting is tomorrow evening at the laguna hills community center.
the selection of the preferred alternative is scheduled for october,
with the final project approval and environmental documents scheduled for later this
year or early next year.
that concludes our presentation.
we're happy to answer any questions you may have.
that does first of all I thank you very much does anyone here have any questions
clarifications and I actually have a few go
ahead.
go ahead.
no, I'm I'm gonna I might I may actually go on and on so I'm gonna let other people
okay so courtesy okay I just want want to make sure that I understand this um and
it's it's clear um I used to drive
my children to practice and um years ago years ago it was a water polo practice and I
had to take el toro road
and I would be stuck and my children
suffered many consequences being late.
and being late, there was an accident.
we didn't know that what could have been, what should have been a 30-minute drive
could be two hours or an hour or whatever
because you get stuck behind an accident.
and until things are cleared out, and I've been there.
and I've seen also, unfortunately, I have seen really bad accidents on el toro road.
and so to say that you're responding to an urgent matter is an understatement.
it is the busiest area in orange county.
is that correct?
and then another question I have is, is it 1-1 has the least amount of destruction of,
I guess, if you're going...
with respect to businesses, what is the least amount of impact?
you make a statement.
I'm just curious, which one?
the least one.
she's referring to alternative one versus alternative two.
yes, alternative one, excuse me, alternative one versus alternative two.
which one has the least amount of impact currently today on existing businesses?
so starting first, councilmember puzzold, starting first with alternative 1, there
would be an impact on the village at laguna hills property.
and I, we acknowledge that since the july 14th city council meeting, we have been,
the city and octa staff have been meeting to try to come up with a solution that
would allow both projects to move forward.
so yes, there would be potentially impacts on the development property, but we're
trying to minimize that.
we actually, the caltrans designers have been working on an option that would bring
in the
the roadway improvements in closer towards the freeway.
and then the impact on the st.
john's church on the other side of north of el toro is very minimal.
it is basically landscaping area, no buildings, no structures, very limited parking
spaces that would be impacted.
and then for the, and then also the businesses would be impacted in the southbound
off ramp area between avenida de la carlota and el
toro.
so there are a few businesses right now that are within that loop.
and what about number two?
so number two, the flyover alternative as currently shown on the screen,
it would impact the two shopping centers in that lake forest area.
and that is primarily the impact associated with this one.
this doesn't reflect, this reflects the design that it doesn't meet state policy.
the revised design would shift the flyover ramp closer to the homes existing homes in
lake forest and it would also leave potentially a landlocked
parcel as well as a very small remnant parcel that would have very limited access to
rockfield and it would still impact the the two
shopping center properties that are there in that quadrant so essentially the least
impact would be option
as well as it is not, I guess, doesn't have as many legal challenges because it
doesn't go into a private road.
so it's that.
I will say that the project team is working very diligently on moving those
improvements in towards the freeway and minimizing as much as possible
the impact on the on the village property.
thank you okay, councilman wheeler first question so you're having a public hearing
tomorrow yes,
that's correct public hearings used to be about one option I
it will be about alternative one, the design variation 1a, two in the sense that it
shows that it is being eliminated,
and then three, which is the technology build alternative.
okay.
I've got a number of problems with all these,
and in particular there was a comment in one of the earlier slides that there was an
agreement back in 2022
that was the mayor in 2022.
there was no agreement.
we've always, you know, had problems with these drawings.
I don't know where these things come from.
there was no agreement.
I even walked these sites with the mayor of lake forest, and we both thought that the
two was the best one, for
them and for us, because two actually put traffic that belonged in lake forest more
than any of the other options.
and also, you know, helped on some number of things.
yeah, dumping more traffic.
just look at this 1a right here, which is similar to 1.
I guess it's actually four lanes that come off when you get to the road at the first
exit there.
that's going to remain the same, I'm assuming?
yes.
okay, so that doesn't change at all.
and then the other one is going to dump how many lanes off right in the middle of our
proposed new area?
so councilmember wheeler if you're referring to the the new southbound off-ramp
that's south of el toro that would be two two lanes,
but where it meets the intersection it would allow for left turns onto carlotta in
this in this design variation a through lane to the development
and then right turn onto carlotta
so what you're doing there, most of the people by habit probably, at first anyway,
are going to make a right turn off the second one and go right back to el toro road.
so instead of having one turn to the left, you're going to have two turns, one to the
right and one to the left,
and competing traffic from both directions, which does not seem like a good way to
design things.
you have competing traffic, you have, you know, it sounds like it might be a bigger
problem.
also this...
the second 1a here, and one same to its degree, this goes right through a brand-new
proposed hotel,
which will be brought up a little later today.
that basically is going to not do any good for that area.
and it also knocks out all the businesses on the corner, because the freeways
surround the whole thing, pretty much, and the new roads.
so maybe you might get in there, but that's not a good idea.
can you turn to page six?
I had some questions on that.
I have to look at it to remember my questions.
okay.
I guess I can cover them elsewhere.
we've had an alternative proposed by our own director who would bypass all these
things and essentially does what you're doing with that second
ramp only with signs instead of
instead of, you know, all this massive concrete and all this massive work's going to
be done.
if traffic could be redirected to some degree to go continue down, not turn left on
altura, but turn left on the next road.
that would do essentially the same thing as your proposed massively costly product
here.
and I don't know why you haven't considered that.
I mean, for a small, small fraction of what they're going to spend all this money on,
we
could have the whole thing solved with a few signs and a little bit of paint on the
road.
and we're not accomplishing anything because the same amount of traffic is going to
flow through that intersection in that area.
you're not relieving any traffic.
the only way you can relieve the traffic is if you have alternative two and some of
the traffic was taken away from laguna
hills and put over lake forest, at least divide it up a little bit.
so I don't see any value to any of the ones at all.
two has some value to lake forest.
I'll pass some more questions.
I want to yield to the mayor.
okay.
councilman sweeney.
thank you, mayor.
thank you both for being out here tonight.
I appreciate it.
option two was eliminated.
when and how was that eliminated?
councilmember sweeney, that was eliminated in march or april of this year when the
design from caltrans was going to be published in the environmental
document showing the connection that doesn't meet state policy.
and with the revised design to meet state policy, the landlocked parcel, the moving
the flyover ramp closer to the existing homes,
and other impacts deemed it not feasible.
okay.
and you had mentioned that it would take out two shopping centers there on that side.
and sorry to flip-flop, but I'm going to go back to 1a.
but 1a also takes out a shopping center on our side as well, correct?
correct.
if you're referring to the village plaza, is that the one?
yeah, the one that's on the corner of el toro.
yeah.
so I guess both sides are impacted there.
could it?
it just seems interesting.
so is option three still on the table then?
very much so, yes.
okay.
so that is still an option.
gotcha.
okay.
yeah and has there been discussion with merlon geyer and the impacts of what option
1a does and what does that look like?
we have as as octa we have not been in direct conversation discussions with merlon
geyer we've been working through city the city staff
and okay.
all right.
okay.
that's all the questions I have now.
thank you.
okay.
I'm going to chime in here a little bit.
could we go to page 11, please?
and we're going to come back to 7.
I have a lot of comments.
and I see this as a work in process, okay?
I'm up.
generally a pretty positive person, and I believe in making improvements to our
transportation system as much as possible.
but I find it interesting on page 11, I'm just looking at it, that everything where
we just, you know,
have gone through at least the first reading of an entitlement of the merlin geier
property, the old laguna hills mall,
to quite an extensive 68-acre development.
on this particular slide, other than referring to the village, access to the village
in laguna hills, there's nothing in there.
it's empty.
and so I look at that and I'm thinking, I'm really worried that that's what octa and
caltrans really looked at, is
that this was just a great big piece of dirt and they could do whatever the heck they
wanted.
and so it is not the case so much right now.
we are working together on trying to do something.
could you go back to slide number seven?
seven.
yeah.
okay.
there we go.
all right.
it's very difficult for a lot of people in the room to read this,
so I'm only going to basically explain that the same problem
that alternative two had on that side of the freeway is the exact same issue that's
going to occur on our side of the freeway.
basically, you see, you know, a four-lane street sticking off carlotta going straight
into the village.
it goes straight into townhomes.
it goes straight into a hotel.
and so those things really weren't thought about okay,
and we're working on it together today but we're a long ways from from having a
solution here and just say oh look what
we did.
it's all great because it does the same damn thing that that four-lane road that goes
in there the idea of it as far as
caltrans is concerned even though they might change their mind is that that would be a
a full four lane street going through to another public street.
the very reason why you can't do alternative number two on the other side.
okay?
and so that would basically destroy the village plan.
that four lane road would go through the village park.
it would go through the whole foods.
it would go through the northstorm rack.
it would be a disaster if it was to be like this.
but this is what you're showing us.
so I can only go on the basis of what is in front of me today.
and I'm assuming that all of the ceqa stuff that you're doing is based not upon what
the entitlements were from 2022,
but what are the entitlements that we're looking at.
we've only done the first reading and approved that.
we still have another second reading to do.
and I think that's agendized today.
but the point is, is that we're a long ways.
I mean, the easiest thing for you to do right now and actually maybe makes it happen
without it being crazy is alternative three.
or you're not doing any of this.
because plaza drive, which exists right now,
it goes into the mall site, pretty much where this access ramp is, is
basically a two-way street in and out that was met in the entitlement that we have
just approved the first reading of to be the in and out for
whole foods and for king's fish house and all the rest of that.
and so the only other alternative besides this
four-lane road which should go through the entire development would be not to do
anything at all there and then there's no no lane
going in and or out unless we can solve those problems those are the kinds of
problems we need to solve and and we
need to do it sooner than later because we have the marriott hotel who wants to go in?
the site that would actually be uh...
hugely affected by this in terms of a taking in terms of uh...
uh...
you know project uh...
being and they wanted they want to be into that building by the twenty eight olympics
which means they're ready to go into plan
check and all of this stuff is we're gonna vote on it
october and then we're going to do more stuff,
and then we're going to design it how do we move on with a village project if this
thing is hanging over?
everyone's head for years so that's I mean, I'm only pointing these out not to be
adversarial but to basically say this really really
isn't figured out yet not even close I
and I would love it if we could figure it out in the next month because we need to
move on one way or the other.
and we have a developer since the first reading who's ready to rock and roll and make
this stuff happen.
so if we were ever worried about, oh, no, can we really trust they're going to do
this, they're ready.
and so I don't know how we solve this.
and now we can't even do anything because we don't even have the ability to talk
about it in any level other than this
until after september 14th.
because this is the public, you know, you're looking for public reaction.
I don't know what kind of public reaction you're going to get when most people are
going to go to these things and certainly
not understand what I'm talking about right now.
not even a clue.
and so I don't know how that's to the public's benefit to have very little real
information about what this really is.
so those are my comments, but I will end the way I started.
I would like to see us find a solution that works, that's a win-win, or certainly not
a lose-lose,
and something that is done in an expedient way
and not hold everybody up.
and so I'll leave it that way.
let's find that solution, but let's find it quickly.
otherwise, we need to move on.
we have an almost billion-dollar development that we're ready to, if it passes the
second reading tonight, I'll give it that.
but if it does, then we need to move on.
this city needs to move on.
and that hotel is very important to us.
there's two hotels and the tot taxes are really, really fundamental to that whole
development and how it works.
not to mention the fact that this access way goes right straight into town homes.
and we were worried about town homes being close to town homes on the other side.
this goes straight into them.
so I don't know.
mayor caskey, if I could comment on your timeline and the urgency.
similarly, we have a schedule to complete the environmental phase on this project.
once the public comment period closes on september 14th, the team is going to be, and
actually is working on it now, but
we'll be summarizing all the comments received.
we will meet with the three cities and with caltrans to talk about all the comments
received,
and then the plan is to meet in october.
so it's between now, august 25th, and october.
there's time there, but we're going to be getting on this as quickly as we can to try
to find a solution.
and in the meantime, I'm hoping that we're
trying to find a real solution and not just say, okay,
we've got the public comments and we're going to just move ahead with what it is.
because you had three cities who would have done the flyover in a flash, all of us.
and the problem really is the hydraulics.
I think erica brought it up.
the hydraulics, the traffic hydraulics on el toro between the freeway and tribuco is
a joke.
on the other side.
and that's not criticizing our colleagues on the other side,
but just creating these off ramps is not going to really get the traffic flowing
again until things are in sync.
we've got way too many traffic lights on the other side.
we have five exits on our side from the freeway, five.
we don't have a real problem.
and that's not even to mention what wheeler, sorry, councilman wheeler was talking
about.
we lose another, it's a small, but another shopping center.
I mean, it goes on and on.
so, okay.
mayor kaskin, council members.
those are my comments.
I would, you know, all the traffic study that's been done is,
if I could boil it down, there's a lot of data in it, a lot of analysis, is that
basically with the build alternative,
whether it's 1, 1a, would reduce congestion in the area by 35 to 40%.
so the tsm-tdm one,
also would reduce traffic as well or reduce congestion by about 9%.
done in conjunction with each other, it could be around 44%.
so I think if I had to answer the question of what are the benefits for laguna hills
is that
believe it or not, the traffic study shows that more than half of the traffic stays
on the laguna hills side.
but regardless, if we split traffic to the two sets of ramps, it will improve those
intersections that are on the laguna hills side.
it will help people get to the medical facilities on the laguna hills side quicker,
and it will help emergency responders and also provide potentially
more direct access or closer access to the village at laguna hills.
so those are some of the general benefits.
that sounds like everyone's made up their mind.
so I beg you to differ.
but I thank you for your presentation.
I think it was well done in at least laying out the time frames and all the rest of
that.
and I will assume that it is an honest assessment
effort on the part of caltrans and octa to be working to make a solution that
actually works for people and not just trying
to ram something down a whole community's throat.
so thank you very much.
any other comments?
oh, yeah.
yes.
councilman wheeler.
yeah, no, I have another.
you inspired me.
it's okay.
it doesn't matter.
just not late for dinner, right?
to continue something don said, in one way you look at this like 1a dumps the traffic
on the laguna side and 2 dumps
it on lake forest side, either into our shopping center or our area that we're
building or their area.
but the big difference is lake forest wants it.
they want it dumped in their area for the reason is they can use the money there to
rehab, you know, refurbish their area, which will help them a lot.
so that's the big difference.
they want it.
I got a question on one thing.
you said, I don't know who does your traffic studies.
I'm not a traffic expert, but I do know volumes and physics.
and how, if the traffic is not going to reduce,
so how could you possibly have a 35 to 40% reduction in conjection when you have the
same amount of traffic going in that area?
I mean, it goes the same place.
where's the reduction?
councilmember wheeler, what that benefit is coming from is the distribution of
traffic to different intersections.
say that again, please.
the benefit, the traffic benefit, comes from distributing the traffic that's
currently coming off at one location and making a bunch of left turns
to different intersections.
so it's spreading the traffic volume.
well, yeah, but if you look at the map there, okay, you've got two exits instead of
one.
okay, you spread it out, but it comes right back down del toro road.
so just because you split a river into two sections, it's still going to come back
together at the end.
it doesn't reduce it at all.
it's, there's a difference in the flows of traffic that would come north to el toro
and then come,
those that come around south of el toro.
so signal timing, lanes, turn lanes, number of turn lanes, all of that's analyzed to
come up with the traffic flow.
I don't know what they're doing.
there's a thing called deconservation of mass in physics.
you have the same mass in that area and you're not changing it at all.
so I don't know what they're doing.
it's just, it's not possible.
the only alternative is if you divert some of the traffic at the second exit down to
the left, down to the next one.
I forget the name of it.
los alisas, I believe it is.
and that's the option that our directors has explained to you that you can do with
signs.
that would be the only way you'd reduce the congestion.
the second part, you said 50% of the traffic that comes off that exit goes into
laguna hills?
I can't believe that at all.
we had to create years and years ago, before I was even on the council, coming off
that first southbound lane there,
there are three lanes going left over into lake forest.
three lanes.
only one goes straight and one to the right.
and we have no housing in there.
the people would go to maybe laguna woods, which is
I mean, they're retired mostly over there.
they don't have a whole lot of traffic coming off freeway at dinner time or in the
morning going to work.
all the traffic goes to lake forest.
so the half of it goes into laguna hills.
again, I just can't believe that's a true number.
we wouldn't have three lanes going left if that were so.
we'd have equal lanes going both directions.
and that hasn't been that way for decades.
I don't know what you guys are doing.
it just doesn't make sense as it goes.
council member wheeler, the traffic study, the existing traffic is based on traffic
counts and also data that's used now in the industry from cell
phones and connected vehicles.
so there's about two sets of data.
there's counts and then, you know, other data that's fed in.
okay, perhaps you'd make those studies available to us.
we could look at them.
because maybe I'll learn something doing that, but it doesn't make sense to me.
okay.
last question right now.
you said you had discussed with maloon dyer.
what did you talk about?
what do they want?
councilmember ruler, I believe I said we have not had discussions as octa.
I thought you said you did have a conversation with us.
you haven't talked with them at all.
I think she said that, but she's correcting that, right?
okay, yep.
to be clear, octa has not had direct discussions with merlongaia.
okay, all right.
that's a good thing to clarify.
okay, so dave, this is going to be a fun one.
I couldn't agree with your observations anymore, okay?
how about that?
and we've both lived here a long time.
this is recorded, right?
yeah.
but erica, go ahead.
yeah, I just, unfortunately, I have to point out some facts that may not be very...
nice to hear right now.
so as I'm like thinking about this, let's just see.
I'm just looking this up we are a pass-through city and if you look at the
populations so I'm just pulling these populations very
quickly so we're a pass-through city for laguna woods
laguna beach, laguna negal, alisa viejo, and many times dana point.
so if you think about the populations across the street to the other cities,
and you think about the population that are coming through our cities, you have I
think alisa viejo is 49,000.
then you have the population of laguna negal that's 64,000.
and then you have the population of laguna beach that's 23,000, and then you have
laguna woods at 17,000.
and that is why this is a very serious location, because it feeds the other cities.
we're bearing the weight for pass-through traffic, and that's why it's a dangerous
intersection.
that's why everything, so it's not because of our population,
it's because cities like aliso viejo doubled their population within the past few
years through land use deals.
and they've changed.
and what's happened is because aliso viejo, we're bearing the burden because aliso
viejo just has increased their population.
laguna niguel has increased their population.
we see a little bit with laguna woods.
laguna beach, I mean, they have increased theirs a little bit, but we've seen a
doubling in population recently in aliso viejo.
that doesn't happen without an infrastructure consequence.
and that infrastructure consequence is occurring with accidents.
and that's something that you can't just say, well, you know, it's not going to
happen.
but those are the numbers that we're seeing.
so I'm just pointing out the reality of population increases, land use decisions,
decisions to increase the population through these land use issues without
understanding the sheer consequence that happens.
and we're encountering the sheer consequence today.
and this is the result of what's happened over the past 10 years in aliso.
just pointing that out thank you.
okay.
I just have one last officer.
are you done?
I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to interrupt you but I will I will add to what you're saying erica
those very population gains have affected oh so la paz and
alicia that's where those real numbers are hitting us big time.
65,000 on, I think, alicia alone.
and this is a chump change compared to that.
and yet, I don't understand this.
the last little note that I wanted to just put out here is that the entitlement that
was given to merleau and geyer in 2022
for what was the village of laguna hills at that time,
had more than 400,000 square feet of class a office buildings that they were
expecting to do, two major parking structures, and maybe 60,000,
70,000 square feet more in retail space.
and when we're talking about the numbers that you guys have looked at and how they're
all affected,
are you using the impacts from that old entitlement?
or are you taking into consideration the new entitlement, if it's granted, the final
copy of it, or second reading of it?
and it is considerably less traffic.
considerably.
and yet, all the numbers that are supporting this
seemed to be going back to something that was completely different.
so I'm confused.
so mayor caskey the one this traffic study was done it was back before it was back
during the time the development plan included
the office buildings since then that has changed I think in general the trips now
that are associated with the revised development plan on the whole
or less as you say but the majority of the traffic so that is that would be trips
associated with people who are traveling
to and from the development, the uses on the development.
there also is a lot of traffic that is coming from around the city, from the coast,
north, west, east.
there are trips, origins, and destinations that are in addition to the village at
laguna hills development.
so that is a factor, definitely, but there is traffic that is using the I-5 el toro
interchange
for a variety of trips in the area.
and you mentioned oso and alicia and la paz.
those interchanges were actually improved as part of oct's measure m2 freeway program
and done with the freeway widening.
so definitely needed and completed.
thank you.
appreciate that.
all right, so we'll bring this to a close unless you had anything else you wanted to
add.
sorry.
one more thing.
sorry, erica.
okay, so also laguna beach is a very popular city,
and el toro feeds to a very popular destination city where people go to the beach.
okay, that's one comment.
and then I also wanted to say why doesn't octa get involved with all of the arena
events
land use issues that could create a lot of weight.
so, for example, why isn't there some sort of check where cities have to check with
octa to see if it's even possible to increase
the population and the burden that it could create?
I mean, it seems like we're not discussing these very important issues, and octa is
encountering this.
this is what you're doing.
you're chasing after all of these entitlements and all of these build-outs, and
there's so many consequences that are happening, but no one's communicating.
maybe some of these projects that have been passed, there's been five in our city,
and in the newspapers you read all these other ones.
why isn't it there's a law that states you have to go through a cta first to see if
it's even possible?
to bear that burden, just out of curiosity why we're not having these communications
on a state level.
so cta being a transportation agency, we are part of the scag, or southern california
association of governments region.
they do the land use planning, all of the land use plans,
general plans and so forth feed into that.
we use all that information in our traffic model to determine how much traffic will
there be in a certain area.
and then when there are developments that are released for environmental public
review, generally speaking,
we get that as octa to comment on what are the traffic impacts, what are other
impacts associated with that development.
thank you.
thank you for your presentation.
mayor caskey, what I would say is thank you very much for this opportunity to talk
about the project,
and I would just say that we are committed, octa and caltrans are committed to
working towards a solution that's beneficial for both projects.
I hope so.
we're working on it together.
all right.
so we're going to move on here.
I do want to move another item forward, but what I am going to do
actually go ahead with the schedule of future events and also public comments but
before the consent calendar we're going to move on to another
item and move it up so with that we'll go on to schedule of future events
thank you, mayor caskey.
mayor caskey, members of the city council, and members of the public.
the city council and planning agency will next meet on tuesday, september 8th.
the meeting will begin at 6 p.m.
here in the council chambers.
the events, communication, and beautification committee regular meeting will be held
on monday, september 14th at 10 a.m.
in the admin conference room.
the traffic commission will have their regular meeting on wednesday, september 16th
at 6 p.m.
also here in the council chambers.
moving to community activities and events.
the pacific symphony will be returning to laguna hills tomorrow night for our
symphony on the go performance at 6.30 p.m.
at cabot park.
parking is available along rapid falls drive.
the next day we have an excursion and will be traveling to ramona for their annual
rodeo at the fred grand arena.
kicking off the weekend on friday, august 28th, we will be going to culver city for
their annual fiesta la bayona.
then on sunday, august 30th, we will be going to l.a.
for a tour of the academy museum.
later that week we have an excursion to the laguna art museum on thursday, september
3rd.
that same day, we will be hosting orange county library's meet the author event at
6.30 p.m.
in the heritage room, where award-winning author tess gerritsen will be talking about
her latest book and series that is in development for tv
with amazon studios.
on friday, august 4th, we have another excursion and we'll be heading to orange for
their international street fair.
the next day, we will be on the road again, but this time for an excursion along
route 66 from santa monica to barstow.
finally, we have our always popular sold-out excursion to the getty villa on sunday,
september 6th.
as a reminder, city facilities will be closed on monday, september 7th in an
observation of labor day.
our next community event will be our second annual harvest in the hills on saturday,
october 10th from 4 p.m.
to 6 p.m.
on the town green of the community center.
it will be a family-friendly evening of fall fun with crafts, face painting,
community partners, a pie-eating contest, and a magic show.
that concludes my report, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
thank you very much.
any questions?
ok.
so with that, we're going to move on to public comments.
this is a time to address the city council on any matter not listed on this agenda
that is within the subject matter jurisdiction
of the city council.
public comments are limited to three minutes per person.
and I'm going to open that up to city clerk and ask if there are any public comments.
yes, there is, there is one in person, yining wang.
good evening, mayor and member of the city council.
I'm here again.
thank you.
so my name is yi-ning wang, and I'm the owner of the dealer massage and facial in
laguna hills.
so thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak again today.
I'm here to start talking my expansion for my current next bar.
so, okay.
so I'm here to respectfully to ask for your approval to expansion into my next doors,
1600 square feet for current business.
so first, I want to make one thing very clear.
the expansion is not for more massage rooms.
we will keep our non-massage rooms exactly at the same, nothing change.
so the new space will be only using for facial and skin care service.
so every facial room, we will have its own sink to meet california healthy and
licensed requirements.
when we opened, we only had one facial room.
it wasn't enough, but we have almost three years.
not enough anymore.
sometimes we have customers waiting for one hour to have the service because we're
using the facial room and the massage room together and then
we have some other massage room we have to use for facial room.
we have to go outside to grab the water for the customers to clean their facial.
it's very unprofessional.
so we want to, my next door, they move out, we want to for
only for facial.
I promise, only for facial, not massage, because we already have nine rooms, it's
enough.
it is already enough, just one new room for facial.
so we have more than 400 reviews online from the yelp and then google.
it is 4.9.
it is really hard to get a 4.9 from the reviews from the yelp.
we always follow city and state laws.
the city check us for every four months.
everything we follow the city and state laws.
I'm not asking to become a different business.
we simply want to be better service to our existing customer.
and create more local jobs, and then continue serving in the laguna community.
and we respectfully ask your support, and thank you so much for your time and
consideration.
I'm happy to answer any question.
all right, do we have any questions?
clarifications?
erica.
yes, I'm wondering, were you able to speak with staff since the last time you came?
yeah, I came.
city manager bob, he called me, so he say, I'm not really understanding for the city
law and the attorney what they...
because we expansion just for facial rooms, not for massage.
it's only for facial.
mr.
burns, can you comment on that?
I'm not familiar with the specifics of what the applicant has done, but normally you
would submit an application to planning,
and if there was disagreement of what the planning director's determination was, then
you can appeal that up to likely the...
likely the council.
at this point, we don't really have an item before us to act on.
this is just a public comment on an unscheduled matter.
so I'm sure that staff would be happy to discuss the process with you after and help
you out with some of the logistics
of how to go through the process of getting an opinion.
but at this point, there's just nothing on the agenda for the council to decide on.
I know because I don't know what is this for or continue for one year or two year or
how long because the next
door is not forever there, you know.
it's opportunity for me.
is it possible to request that you work with staff?
yeah, I think this is something where public comments are usually when you come up
and you're
making a comment to us.
it's not an agendized item, so it's nothing we can act on as a council.
so what I would suggest you do, and you're getting it from two other directions here,
is that you work directly with staff who might be able to work with you based upon
your comment and see what we can do to
help you resolve your issues.
I don't know where I can find who can help me to...
continue this one I'll remind my colleagues they already had an application that was
part of a previous meeting right to expand their location
so they've already worked with city staff it just so happens at that very moment.
we passed the ban on massage establishment, so they've already had one bite at the
apple and so unless you're willing to
deal with the ban.
I don't know that there's much anybody can do is well this is my question if it is a
legitimate business that isn't like
the ones characterized is there a way to?
make an exception during this time.
mr.
burns.
I'm you know what area I would I would suggest is that that you work with staff and
if if it comes back to
from your side that we should agendize this and come back in a deeper way,
then I would think that that's a better way of doing it.
there's nothing that we can particularly do tonight.
so I think whether we're going to kick it down or take it up to another level is
something that I think needs to come
through a process that we have no ability to do.
between us and you during public comments.
I'm a little bit confused.
I have one question.
because the city, I think her name is jennifer.
she's saying no because she talked to the city attorney.
and then they say, because I have an existing business, it's called massage.
but I also, when I open, I have the facial, too.
in the beginning, I have the facial and the massage, but the city just gave me the
massage for the license.
right.
we're not equipped to deal with that tonight.
okay.
I understand what you're saying, and we're taking it in.
we're making a suggestion that we work with you, and if it's something that needs to
come back to the council...
in a larger way, then we will agendize it.
but we can't do anything with it right now, right here and now.
so when I can get my answer for next month or next week, I don't want to wait forever,
you know.
all right.
well, I'm going to have to bring it to a close here because it's been, you know,
I think hopefully we can work with you on that, okay?
don, if I might.
okay.
yes, go ahead.
excuse me, ma'am.
if you speak with ms.
lowe over here at the end afterward.
she can take care of it.
she handles that stuff.
okay.
thank you.
she's very nice.
thank you.
all right.
thank you.
all right.
any online public comments or anything else?
not this time.
all right.
so now what I'm going to do is we're moving things around a little bit.
I am going to move to item 5.2, report by the assistant manager, assistant city
manager, and I...
doing that partly because there are a lot of people here.
I see kids in the audience, and I think it's courteous to let's let's get onto this
and especially if we have some folks
who'd like to speak on that let's get it out of the way so 5.2,
and I'm going to move to joanne's assistant city manager
thank you, mr.
mayor.
yes.
item
5.2.1 is review of petitions received regarding establishment of proposed residential
permit parking districts for the streets listed on the screen in the subject
line.
next slide, please.
so by way of background, at the march 18th traffic commission regular meeting,
city staff made a presentation regarding requests received by the city from residents
desiring the establishment of a residential permit parking district that would
prohibit overnight parking on streets near beckenham park, camberwell street,
beckenham street, and in the sunset place neighborhood without a parking permit.
next slide, please.
as a reminder, to designate a neighborhood as a permit parking area within the city
of laguna hills,
the laguna hills municipal code requires that a city create a petition form be
submitted to the city with the signatures of at least
67% of the property owners supporting the proposed permit parking area.
so residents residing on or near campbell street as well as in the sunset place
neighborhood described undesirable quality of life issues due to non-resident
vehicle parking and lack of enforceable street sweeping as a basis for requesting the
establishment of a residential permit parking district next slide, please
so then during the march 18th traffic commission meeting,
residents residing on or near camberwell street as well as in the sunset place
neighborhood described those issues to the traffic commission.
and there was a discussion also how, over time,
the establishment of nearby residential permit parking districts resulted in more
parked vehicles being displaced onto those streets,
presumably as a result of the lack of available parking at or adjacent to nearby
multifamily housing.
next slide, please.
so currently we have existing permit parking on the yellow streets shown on the map
above.
and then the purple line and red line, or the purple line was actually added recently
by the city council for no parking,
overnight parking around beckenham park.
next slide please.
so in response to those comments at that traffic commission meeting,
the traffic commission recommended that city staff send out petition forms to those
residents.
and then the traffic commission also recommended the establishment of that no
overnight parking on streets adjacent to beckenham park.
and on the side of the street closest to the park, and the establishment of no
overnight park on the south side of beckenham,
extending from acacia lane to wilkes place.
that's the purple line on the previous slide.
next slide, please.
next slide.
so at the april 14th meeting, the city council passed the purple line, no overnight
parking adjacent to the park.
and those parking restrictions were implemented by city staff shortly thereafter.
next slide, please.
and then so the petitions that the traffic commission recommended that we send out
covered the streets shown in orange.
we sent out a total of 308 petition ballot forms, is what we're calling them,
that would allow for residents to either individually return interest in permit
parking or could canvass for signatures.
the orange and red looks very close.
is the red just that one little line?
yeah, the red is just that tiny little line.
most of it's orange on the screen.
thank you.
next slide, please.
and then so more particularly, the blue areas are the parcels where the ballots were
sent out to, and the red area already has
existing permit parking no overnight parking without a parking permit next slide,
please so on june 9th related mayor pro tem mathis and councilman wheeler requested
city staff returns to a future city council meeting with a report
discussing parking and street sweeping issues and also request the city staff look at
it allowing overnight parking on the south side of laguna
hills drive next slide, please
and then june 15th, we mailed out the ballot petitions to those 308 property owners.
the deadline for receipt of those petitions was 5 p.m.
on july 15th.
next slide, please.
june 23rd, I provided a comprehensive presentation on parking and street sweeping
issues to the city council.
and specific to solving the parking issues near beckenham park, camberwell street,
beckenham street, and the sunset place neighborhood,
city staff also recommended allowing parking on the south side of laguna hills drive
between indian hill lane and pasadena valencia in order to decrease
the number of vehicles parked in or near the above neighborhoods.
next slide, please.
so the blue line is what was just
passed by resolution by the city council and it was recently implemented with marked
parking stalls on the street and the residential the residents
and residing in the nearby apartment complexes were notified of that new parking on
the street by their management company next slide please
and so, yes, the city council adopted that resolution, and those parking spaces were
striped, signed, and available as of july 14th.
next slide, please.
so on july 15th, the traffic commission reviewed the results of the ballot petition
process.
so I've taken this in two parts here.
we had the sunset place neighborhood, and then we had the neighborhood around
beckenham park.
the sunset place neighborhood,
based upon the return of signatures, 39 of 68 residences indicated that they wanted
permit parking, which was only a 57% approval rate.
my observation was, based upon the ballots returned, that people in the outer portion
of the circle generally wanted it, but in the
inner portion of the circle generally did not return anything.
signed petitions.
next slide, please.
so regarding camberwell street, hinton street, calle carmel, villa balboa, avenida
avalon, luzon, casto, salford, derby circle, york circle,
the city staff reviewed those results also with the traffic commission, and the
traffic commission received comments from the public,
including comments from one resident who indicated wilks across from the park should
be included in any permit parking district because the surrounding streets
had supermajority interest in permit parking and but based on the results available
at the time the traffic commission recommended a limit some of those
denoted in combination for map which is attached to tonight's agenda report I'll
review that momentarily and what that means well,
I take a swig of water here excuse me microphone for that however
after the traffic commission meeting, city staff received eight more signatures that
were postmarked the day before the traffic commission meeting that didn't arrive
until after the traffic commission meeting.
we consider those submissions to be timely due to the postmarked date.
therefore, the final results of the ballot petition process are as follows.
and this was also the subject of the revision I made to you today regarding a hot
envelope.
making sure these numbers were notated correctly for the agenda report so these are
the results based upon those eight additional signatures and so unfortunately
there are fortunately or unfortunately it's just an observation that some of the
streets are
I have a clear supermajority wishing to participate in permit parking, and some fell
well short of a supermajority.
and so if you take it in total, you've got approximately 48 percent of the residents
collectively among all those streets wanted to participate
in permit parking.
next slide, please.
and so while the ballot petitions received did not allow for all streets to be
included in the proposed residential permit parking district because
the area as a whole did not reach the threshold,
there are several streets or portions of streets where the majority of residents
desire permit parking, and I'm calling them majority interest streets.
and some of these streets are contiguous with one another such that a logical,
clearly defined boundary could be implemented for permit parking if so desired by the
city council.
additionally, because the percentage of some majority interest rates are much higher
than 67%, as you saw in the previous slide,
you can combine it with lower percentage streets where you can still reach that 67%
threshold.
next slide, please.
and so there are different combinations and permutations about how that can be done.
and so our assistant engineer, samantha vu,
I went through the painful exercise of going through all of those different ways
where you can reach 67% by putting other different consiguous
street segments.
and so I'm going to show them to you right now.
next slide, please.
so combination one.
the yellow shows the existing permit parking areas that exist today.
the streets in green were generally those streets or segments of streets that
returned ballot petitions above 67%.
and then generally speaking, residents on hendon street west of camberwell and east
of camberwell
returned a significant number of petitions, but short of 67%.
and the folks on hendon street, where the knuckle occurs going south to costeau
street, had very little participation.
it's not exactly shown on this slide.
but our assistant engineer is showing that if you wanted to include all of the light
blue properties in here,
you would still, on a combination or a total basis, have a supermajority,
and you would have continuous street sign in this scenario for permit parking.
next slide, please.
so here's combination two.
the difference between this combination and the prior combination is that
the four properties across from beckenham park on wilkes, it's actually wilkes, not
camberwell, it's wilkes right there,
where one of the residents said that they really wanted to be included in the permit
parking district.
that wouldn't be included in favor of having additional properties on avenida avalon
and the cul-de-sac be included in that.
underneath that combination.
that total represents 68% threshold being met.
next slide, please.
combination three is just shown for illustrative purposes about how if a derby circle
were included, what that looks like.
however, only 50% of the residents on derby circle requested participation in permit
parking.
next slide, please.
and then we have combination four.
this is closest to what the traffic commission at the time recommended without having
the benefit of the additional information of the eight ballots,
which were principally submitted by people on villa balboa, avenida avalon, and the
western portion of hendon street.
and so this is combination four.
and then fifth combination.
next slide please is this combination here which also allows for continuous
continuous permit parking along hendon street as a whole but at the sacrifice
of the four residential properties across from beckenham park
so those are the five combinations that we were able to come up with.
a 66.7%, some would argue is not 67%, however you could also argue that you can round
up, I don't know.
I'll let you guys decide that.
next slide please.
so again, while combination four was a good choice based upon the information
available,
to the traffic commission at the july 15th meeting.
with the addition of eight additional ballot petitions being cast, a larger group of
properties can now be included closer to beckenham park.
therefore, city staff would prefer or suggest that maybe a combination of one or five
be considered by the city council.
especially in light of the fact that salford street, york circle, derby circle, and
costeau street, south of salford street,
return ballot petitions at much lower rates than the other street segments.
and so it's my recommendation against including any of those residences in that
permit parking district based upon this new information.
next slide, please.
and so I'm going to leave it.
city council to choose one of the boundaries for permit parking and then if you
provide any direction on permit parking to city staff
I would be I would be prepared to return to city council september 8th with the
assistance of our city attorney and implementing resolution
and couldn't do that at this point tonight because I need a direction on that first
and of course any proposed permit parking district require
a permit to park on the street between the hours of 10 p.m.
and 6 a.m.
as currently envisioned and would include a street sweeping parking restriction for
the days and hours of street sweeping that concludes my presentation at this
point in time happy to answer any questions okay
thank you very much.
and that was quite extensive.
so I will start with public comments.
and I ask the city clerk if we have any public comments in person or online on this
particular agendized item.
we have one in person, curtis van buskirk.
good evening, mayor caskey, mayor pro tem mathis, council.
really appreciate the opportunity to speak in front of you again.
this, as you can imagine, has been quite the journey.
it taught me a lot about public service and everything that you guys do, so I
appreciate, first and foremost,
taking the time to listen through everything that we've gone through.
this is a year and a half effort at this point, and I'm excited to see that
we have what seems to be a pretty fruitful solution to come forward.
I also want to recognize the great effort by city staff that went through a diligent
process in this.
it was very exhaustive, I understand.
there's a lot that goes into this.
it's not simply just sending out a ballot and getting responses back.
I reviewed the packet ahead of time.
I agree with assistant city manager joe ames on option five.
I think that offers the most comprehensive district for what we would consider a
geography or logistical area that would encompass the area that's
most experiencing the issues today.
there's two things I'd like to add.
one, if you go back to option five and you look at where wilkes, camberwell, and
costeau tee off, there is one resident,
and I think assistant manager ames did bring this up, was adamant about being
included.
in this petition because their frontage effectively is right at the t, and
they do experience a lot of the parking in front of their home as well.
it's kind of considered this no man's land to some extent in this little geography.
I recognize that maybe the other three residences, most of which actually are rental
properties and long-term living cares,
that did not respond to the petition who live in those homes today.
the second item, and I know this is a big ask, but I
want to recognize the fact that a lot of the pushback we received from our residents
in the neighborhood was the cost associated to this.
so a component of this, or at least a consideration,
is to consider not charging for these permits for those that have lived in this
neighborhood, that have lived here for many,
many years with a peaceful neighborhood not having to deal with this previously and
only are trying to solve for a solution that was
recently evident by the overflow parking from the apartments.
I will tell you thank you for making those adjustments on laguna hills drive.
that did ease some, did not ease enough though.
there is still a pretty extensive parking on the opposite side of the park there.
I'll...
I'll wrap up here.
finally, I just want to impress upon council staff to work with expediency.
as I had mentioned, a year and a half has now gone by, and we have gone time and time
again making phone calls.
there's cd activity.
my daughter, my wife, all will wake up at the wee hours of the morning from someone's
exhaust
system you know your old car alarm.
that's going off in the middle of the night we we have just a myriad of different
issues with garbage and trash and I for all the
reasons I presented in my original you know presentation to council I just want to
work with some level of expediency,
so I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the group here thanks for bringing your
whole family
it wasn't a choice.
there was only parents allowed at open house tonight, so we had to divide and conquer.
okay.
I just wondered if any of them need to speak on this subject.
yeah, that little one right there.
or maybe just go to bed.
yeah.
okay.
so any questions?
go ahead.
dave, you had a question?
just one question.
which option do you prefer?
option five was the one I preferred.
thank you.
any other questions for speakers?
yes, I do.
okay.
so just to be clear, option five, but what you're asking for, well, there was two
things,
but just in specific to extension of the permit, there's four properties across from
beckingham.
yes.
you would want those included in five?
ideally, yes.
right.
I recognize that there's some level of supermajority or, you know, maybe it's, you
know, a factor, but yeah.
but, well...
yeah, I'll save my commentary for later.
but, yeah, I just wanted to be very clear.
yes, yes, that would be the ideal outcome.
okay, thank you.
okay.
thank you.
so, thank you very much.
thank you.
I'm going to go next to questions of our assistant city manager in that very, very...
inclusive report anybody have any questions or clarifications of that?
sure yeah, go ahead sure thank you mayor well first of all before we start on the
questions I want to thank the residents
for coming out first and foremost because you guys have been the one out there ones
out there communicating with the neighbors you've been
going through the whole process.
you've been doing this for a year and a half like you said at least and
and just continuing to advocate for a solution.
you've been to the traffic commission meetings, you've been here,
and it's a significant amount of work that you have put in to a genuine problem that
has been involving safety, access, street sweeping,
and the quality of life, like you mentioned, being woken up in the middle of the
night several times.
but I also want to recognize the chair of our traffic commission, scott miller, for
also jumping in and being very proactive and working in conjunction with council and
the traffic commission and you guys too.
so you guys have all been a collaborative effort, but really appreciate everybody
coming out and really doing this first and foremost.
for joe, real quickly, the overall number in the staff report is 113 petitions.
from 238 properties.
so what I want to make sure is that we give that percentage overall context because
like curtis mentioned,
some of the petitions that were not
returned it's hard to count them mathematically because the neighborhood includes a
lot of owner occupied homes so we have rental properties with absentee
owners.
there's homes operated as residential care senior care businesses so those those
different circumstances significantly affect whether the petition or
reached the appropriate person or whether the person understood the neighborhood
impact and whether response was returned.
so among the residents who live in the neighborhood,
I want to see if we're able to pull some sort of report to see how many of those
homes are either like a senior
care home or rental property.
are we able to parse that out of the petitions at all?
no, unfortunately, I don't have that didn't have that information available the the
ordinance the city's ordinance requires that the supermajority to return from the
property
owners yeah, and so it doesn't recognize unfortunately if a neighborhood is mostly
renter occupied versus homeowner occupied
the the city since those ballot petitions to the property owner address for that
reason hoping that the folks would receive them but also
that the word around in the neighborhood would would get around and for some of these
folks who are interested in the same program
to also contact their landlords to effectuate that.
in terms of like group homes and that kind of thing, I can understand potentially why
that would be a whole different scenario,
but the city's ordinance doesn't really reflect any part of that.
yeah, so there's several of those, and I just want to make sure that that's brought
into consideration tonight as well because a lot of
that never, the votes never came back because of those reasons.
so when we look at the actual homeowners that live in the area that aren't rental
properties and such,
I would say probably close to 90% of them actually, you know,
responded so it's a it's a big variance there and that would be the only reason why I
would say that some of the percentages
were we're not matching so and with a super majority requirement I think that that
has to be that has to be front of mine
for you joe I appreciate everything because, again, I know you went through
painstaking amounts of back and forth and trying to figure out how to get
this.
but there's a couple things that we need to also look at.
curtis also mentioned it.
laguna hills drive was great.
and opening up that south side definitely was a pressure relief valve for some of the
parking but it didn't alleviate all the parking
so I just want to see if if in the next meeting if we can bring back opening that
north side of laguna hills
drive and adding some more spaces over there as well so then we would have both south
and north on laguna hills drive as a possibility
to alleviate some of that parking if that's possible
and is that something we can bring forward next time?
it would be helpful if I got a second from one of your colleagues on that.
okay.
can I get a second on looking at the north side of laguna hills drive being open to
partners?
we're still in questions and clarifications.
yeah.
I mean, we've got other people who maybe just have questions at this point.
sure.
yeah, so we'll get to that then, and we'll do it in a minute.
so thank you.
now, I also wanted to bring up the permit costs because before we discuss who should
pay for the permits,
I know there's a lot of math that went on behind the scenes for you, but the
report states that the program has approximately thirty two thousand five hundred
dollars in annual fixed costs plus seventeen dollars and fifty cents for each
permit and at roughly fifteen hundred permits for the whole city that produces a
total annual cost of approximately fifty eight thousand seven hundred
fifty dollars and so the city would collect absorb the remaining twenty one thousand
two hundred fifty dollars is that kind of how that would
work in?
in terms of the math on that?
so the number that's missing there is the, what we would absorb in that is the loss
of the revenue.
and so the revenue is the difference between the two.
so it would be the,
the program, the way it's currently structured and will be rolled out is the 58,750
number.
and then the net cost was 21,250 after, if 1,500 permits were issued.
so that difference is approximately, is that 37,500?
sorry, that's not the right number.
I'm sorry.
I'm going to do the quick math here.
so the additional cost of waiving permit parking fees as a whole based upon 1,500
permits issued per year would be$37,500.
okay.
and just so we're clear, and for the record, that's talking about the whole city.
this isn't just this neighborhood.
this is the complete city.
so I want to make sure that that's clear for everybody.
I don't have an exact number on how many permits would be issued in this area.
combination 5 map has 102 residential properties that are slated for participation.
city staff generally estimates that two to three permits would be issued per address.
I won't know exactly how many people actually want to buy permits until the program
actually rolls out.
that's just a general average.
okay, very good.
and, yeah, that's...
legitimate there the other thing I want to bring up is the street sweeping and ask
you a question on that because the street
sweeping becomes part of the overnight parking but we need to pay attention that
schedule and it's been brought to my attention by several
residences and that a lot of them have either high school kids or college-age kids
that are driving,
and it's hard to move the cars completely out of the neighborhood on those
street-sweeping days.
so if we could devise and, you know, between now and the next meeting,
look at a schedule where we could do one side of the street maybe on one of the weeks
and the other side of the street
on the other week so that we're able to
flip flop so that they can just move to the other side of the street then that would
be extremely helpful for a lot of the
families in the neighborhood as well yeah, and I know that there's a lot of
considerations with everything on that so I appreciate that okay
that's all the questions that now.
thank you so I'm going to try to take this back to less in deliberations and a little
bit more make sure everyone's in
got their questions and clarifications basically answered.
erica, you were next on the docket.
do you have any questions or clarifications, or are we ready to move on to?
we have one other person who wants to.
okay.
so I have some concerns.
so if you look at this whole map, so it seems like a good, I mean,
so you have the existing permit parking is in the yellow.
then you have the streets above 67.
and then there's also a strong interest in the potential combinations.
so what I am really concerned about is that you're going to have a strong movement
that the traffic's going to explode on the other
streets.
and I'm wondering, can the city council supersede and just put permit parking
throughout that whole area
just so that it alleviates a potential problem and the chasing after, because this is,
what's happened is one street does it, the
other one does it, the other one.
I think you're talking about whack-a-mole.
yes.
so as a question, joe, can you answer that?
I mean, the question was, can the city council just override this thing and...
and do a much more blanket approach.
yes.
yes, I'm staring at you, mr.
city attorney.
if you have any input on what the city council can and cannot do regarding an
ordinance that's on the books and what it
says, I'd appreciate some insight into that.
yeah, I mean, you could take that action.
you just have to change your ordinance.
okay.
so did you have any other questions or clarifications?
because there's one other.
so changing an ordinance, we'd have to put that on the agenda, and then we'd have to,
are you
saying that that's the process versus trying to solve a huge problem that is about to
happen,
a wave of unhappy individuals that they're going to all of a sudden see the parking
on their streets?
councilmember, the ordinance is currently written, says that to establish a district,
we have to go through this process.
so if we wanted to do something different, we would have to change the ordinance.
okay.
you've answered the question.
okay.
and sure.
oh, that was my question.
that was your question.
yeah.
there you go.
wow.
great minds think alike.
okay.
so that brings us fully around to, even though I think we've been kind of discussing
it as we've gone along,
do we have any recommendations and or further discussion before we move ahead?
if I may mr.
mayor I have one more thought if the four properties on wilkes across from beckoning
and park are important theoretically you could consider and a combination
5a.
that's not on the screen here and just find four properties off of
for instance, henden or somewhere else that would allow you to change that to include
those four to keep it at 67%.
but it would be that might be difficult.
so just a thought.
okay.
I am now going I see no other lights on.
what are we it's the pleasure of the council.
so basically, if I'm understanding this, so it would be to have 5a would include
those four properties,
and you would just remove four from...
it's just an observation.
it would be at the sacrifice of...
you know removing four properties elsewhere is what that would look like it would
look a little bit closer to combination one at that point
in time but it could also be on hendon street as an example I just did to have to
you'd have to decide how
that would work could it could it be homes that maybe didn't respond and
that's the hazard here is that I don't have all that information right in front of me
right now just to go through the 115
petitions that were returned to see what specific addresses were returned on hendon
street.
our assistant engineer did go through this.
exercise trying to break up.
you'll see, for instance, on this slide here, hendon street, actually it's already
written right here,
hendon street northeast had a really strong participation rate.
and then you had hendon west
that had a lower participation rate.
and so that would be maybe potentially a bad suggestion on my part.
but if you go back to combination one, slide 20, 21, robert, I'll just show you what
that looks like.
there's an example of where you would be able to include it.
regardless, there are a few different ways of making something happen here,
but that's up to the city council to decide how they wanted to do that.
so I can't read the street, unfortunately, but the street here where you see just a
few homes that are blank,
is there a way to just cover that street, include
I'm not sure if you can see it.
no, yeah, I see what you're saying.
yes.
is there a way to include those and then just go with this map?
well, let me do some quick math.
okay.
it's the cul-de-sac that's missing.
so you have green, you have high interest above 67%, and there's one, two, three,
four, five, six.
it's literally the cul-de-sac, so I'm wondering if we can include those and go with
this one.
can you go back to slide 25, robert?
so we had one on avenida avalon that was 67.
and then go back to slide 21, please.
67 over 95.
anybody who was in attendance of the traffic commission watched this process play out
painfully when we were counting up individual properties.
I was just trying to get the most bang for...
yeah, so what that would result in is, based upon my math, 66.3%.
so we have to go with the other one.
okay.
all right.
or you find some other...
or you basically were off by one.
let me see if what happens when we get to 68.
sorry, when we get to 67 divided by one.
if you exclude one property on any of that scenario somewhere, on hendon street, for
example, then you would get to 67%.
you'd have to figure out which one you want to exclude.
maybe the corner, I don't know.
so maybe just stick to the combination five for now?
yeah, maybe stick to combination five for now.
it's up to you.
okay.
well, for action, combination five.
I actually have a question.
now we've got everybody lit up.
joe, you have worked on this thing immensely.
I mean, and it's complicated and all the rest of that.
and I would just like to ask you,
after all of that, what is your recommendation?
I mean, obviously it's the council's decision, but you have the insight of having
done all this work, and I would like to know.
I think what I would do, my understanding, and I need the help of curtis here,
my understanding is there's no direct access from the park to avenida avalon and that
cul-de-sac.
is there any pass-through between the park and that cul-de-sac?
isn't it all fenced off?
so my revised recommendation would be then to the combination 5a that I'm referring
to would be to exclude the cul-de-sac on avenue to avalon
because it's a hidden cul-de-sac that people are unlikely to find.
of course they're watching a public meeting tonight, but I mean unlikely to find for
open parking and then take the four properties across
from beckenham park and include those in the permit parking so okay
thank you.
I'm going to, you know, we're with councilman sweeney.
okay.
thank you mayor, so I wanted to just move this along and move forward and I want to
just make a motion that we do
exactly that what joe just suggested and we'll kind of make that 5a so we'll we'll
exclude the four properties on the cul-de-sac.
we'll add the four properties there and and then
subject to staff and city attorney confirmation that it satisfies the applicable
petition requirements and creates a logical enforceable boundary and direct staff to
return
on september 8th with the implementing resolution because we want to keep this moving
forward and I appreciate councilmember pazel but I want to keep
it moving forward since so much time has already been spent on this and in addition
to that I'm going to add what I had
kim had said earlier that I want to further move the staff return with an equitable
citywide option for the city to absorb the cost
of the standard resident and guest permits, number one.
number two, I want an alternating side or staggered street sweeping schedule that
preserves necessary service.
number three, an evaluation of additional overnight parking on the north side of
laguna hills drive.
number four, a resident education and warning period before citations.
number five, a process for monitoring displaced parking and allowing adjoining
streets to petition for inclusion.
and six, a six-month review of effectiveness, enforcement, resident concerns, and
unintended consequences.
all of that, are we able to, mr.
city attorney, are we able to then add to direct staff at a later date to return with
an ordinance that would then be
able to include the whole neighborhood if we changed that?
or is that, would we be able to do that now or should we do that as a separate item?
it's better to do that as a separate item.
okay.
under items for future consideration.
yeah.
perfect.
okay.
okay, we have a motion on the table.
do we have a second?
I have some confusion.
go ahead.
so there was a lot added to this initial motion.
I say we keep it simple and pass the 5a right now.
I don't know if some of the other things are on the street sweeping is something that
we have to bring back on the agenda
because it's something that should be addressed as well.
having the city subsidized when all, I don't think I've heard, I don't think I know
of any other neighborhood who has had
parking permits subsidized and I think that's something we need to have a robust
conversation because it would be unfair for all of the other
areas who have to pay for the process?
we would have to have a discussion about that and so I think we just go with I mean,
I I'm not okay with the substitute.
so do we let that?
do we have to vote on the substitute right now?
well, you might just make a suggestion you're making a point
would you would you make your own amendment to that on that basis or do we need an
amendment?
so I'm open to the amendment.
here's here's the thing on that number one
the street sweeping is better off to look at now because once this is done and we're
going to spend the money on the signs
going up, so then we'd have to go back and if it was done at a later date,
then you'd have to go back and replace all those signs with a different cost.
so it makes sense to look at it now and bring it forward now to just have that
something looked at because we still
have to wait until the next meeting to bring all this forward to have a final vote on
it.
so why not just look at that and see if it's something that is possible.
okay, we still have a motion on the table with no seconds.
I want to make sure I'm clear, too.
so is the motion, hey, let's pass 5a and put that list of six things on the next
meeting's agenda to be able to address
those things?
well, it was my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, mr.
ames, when I spoke to him earlier about this,
it was something that they were going to be able to look at and bring forward for the
next meeting on some of those
items.
okay.
so is that the motion I guess yeah pass 5a and bring those other items to the next
meeting yeah?
just for clarification.
you're not passing 5a tonight.
you're directing city staff to draft a resolution yeah for the next meeting where
you'll actually vote on 5a correct
do we have a second?
we still don't have a second.
yes, I'll second that, that we're putting the other resolution for 5a to be able to
vote on it at the next meeting so that we can
bring this to resolution and that the other items are brought up for discussion that
you listed on your motion.
correct.
okay.
now I'm going to turn back to you, erica, and do you still want to substitute motion
or not?
I mean, for the sake of all of the residents who are here tonight, I think they want
action.
and so I think that what we should do is vote on 5a, get that rolling,
and then come back and talk about the other elements.
and so I just want to have something where the residents feel like there's resolution.
so that would be my substitute motion.
we bring all that other stuff back to discuss, but have 5a for sure in the process.
that's what we're doing.
well, I thought the whole thing would be to bring everything together.
the whole thing was to direct staff to be able to look at that and give us the
information.
we'd still pass 5a, but I want to have staff looking at that other information in the
meantime.
I was a bit confused with that because I thought that it was, it's very confusing.
it's still going to come back on the next meeting.
right.
and what we're really doing is asking staff to prepare it for us to actually vote on.
okay.
is there a separation with the fees, a separation with all of that?
it's all separate.
okay.
so with, I mean, is this normal, mr.
burns?
the manager didn't have adequate information or direction to prepare a resolution for
tonight so that's what he's seeking tonight is some direction to bring
something more concrete and documented at the next meeting and and we can we can add
some other areas of consideration when we bring
the packet back at the next meeting okay, I understand any other discussion
I see lights on, but just want to make sure.
all right.
then I think we're going to go ahead and do a roll call vote.
council member sweeney?
aye.
council member pezzel?
aye.
mayor pro tem mathis?
aye.
council member wheeler?
aye.
mayor kosky?
aye.
may the ayes have it.
ok.
thank you.
all right.
now we're going to go back.
I've been dancing all around this agenda here.
well, no.
let's see here.
I had it here.
we were to, believe it or not, the consent calendar, which is usually right at the
very beginning of our meetings,
but we've had a lot of meetings.
so we're back to the consent calendar, item no.
4. And so all of the matters under the consent calendar, which there are many, are
considered routine and will be enacted in one motion,
approving the recommendation listed on the agenda.
there will be no separate discussion unless members of the city council or city staff
requests specific items to be removed from the consent calendar.
so for that, I'm going to ask for public comments on the consent calendar.
are there any?
yes, there is.
and we wanted to pose it to you as the chair.
you can take them all at the beginning.
however, if any of these items are going to be pulled, then we could call them at
that time.
it would be up to you as the chair.
let's do that.
okay.
so that is more pertinent to any that are pulled.
absolutely.
I have comments for 4.15, 4.16, and 4.17 for in-person comments.
and then I do have numerous online electronic comments I would read names for for
those items as well.
all right.
do we have any online comments?
so I'm gonna ask let's get right to the chase I'm gonna ask the council members or
staff if they'd like to remove any
items give your pencil ready thank you six seven
8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19.
let me just make sure I have it.
6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 19.
correct.
okay.
this is going to be a real quick consent calendar.
19 okay, so why don't we?
we're just gonna go ahead and go and ask for a motion to approve the balance of the
consent calendar do we have a motion
almost to approve yeah move the balance okay in a second okay,
and call for a roll call vote on the consent calendar the items that are not removed
meritor I'm sorry mayor pro tem mathis
aye.
councilmember petzold?
aye.
mayor caskey?
aye.
councilmember wheeler?
aye.
councilmember sweeney?
aye.
that's approved.
okay.
so I circled them myself, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we're starting with
4.6?
yes.
since councilman mathis is exiting, could we take a five-minute break?
sure.
everybody?
I think I'm fine with that.
we'll call it a party break.
thank you.
and we're going to start with old item 4.6, treasurer's investment report day.
mr.
orrish, could you bring up the agenda packet?
yeah, because it would be illustrative if I point to the pages I'm talking about for
the question.
they're relatively simple, the first part, anyway.
page 74 of the agenda packet, robert.
the little block will expand to full screen.
there we go.
now blow it up.
more, please.
okay, if you go up and tap the second one down, it looks like a ribbon.
up one.
no, up one.
that one, yeah.
where did it go to?
okay.
oh, there we go.
okay.
if you expand that, that will allow you to skip to the section immediately.
make it bigger to readable.
this must have been done on somebody's big screen.
the question will take half this time.
okay, could you scroll scroll down please?
down to the numbers please keep going
yeah, right there.
that's good.
okay.
actually, 4.6 and 4.7 are the same comment.
if you notice, it shows down there that our totals, current monthly market value of
33 million, prior month 33 million.
these numbers are actually kind of misleading.
because, you know, I've talked with eric, and he can chime in if I go wrong here.
our real bank account totals are more on the line of about$20 million,$19 to$20
million.
so when we see this every month, it's sort of artificial because we have outstanding
debts.
sometimes we have outstanding revenue we haven't collected, but more often it's debt.
we've maybe committed to a cip or something like that.
so I suggested to eric earlier today, and hopefully we can do it maybe next time,
to have another little section down below that says these are, you know,
I guess, revenue and expenditures that are not shown, but it's still money we don't
really have because it's been allocated.
and then you'll have another little line that will subtract off.
so it shows more realistically what we really have in the bank.
it's just a way to give us a better idea of what we really got.
it was 27 last month, I think, the last time we looked at it, and it was 33,
when we really had about 19 or 20.
eric, are you still here?
yeah.
do you want to comment?
I asked eric about this earlier today.
but that's not what this chart is.
this is just a list of our investments.
it's not a net report.
you're asking it for it to be a different report.
well, what we really want, though, is to see what we've got in the bank.
well, but that exists in other places.
but, I mean, this is an accurate portrayal of what our investments are.
but as far as the till is, it's terribly misleading.
but the number is right.
it doesn't mean that's our ending balance in our bank account, but that's a different
report.
but that's what we need to see on this report.
it would be handy.
we see this every month.
you'd like another report added on to this that tells us what our balance is?
no, I think this one suffices just to give us an idea of what we really got.
because we don't have 30 million is a totally fictitious number.
it really doesn't tell you anything.
so, eric, would you like to comment on that?
yes, thank you, mayor and members of the city council.
so, yeah, this report is truly a snapshot in time.
we do this once a month.
it shows where the cash is at the end of the month.
so the$33 million at the end of june 30th.
2026 is a true number.
it's cash and investments that we owned to mr.
councilmember wheelers point it does not show for example bills that maybe haven't we
haven't paid yet, and I
think that's the point he's getting at if you go to the next page robert
to further clarify the point here, 33 million is the total across all funds that we
have.
you'll see on the top right corner there's a$22 million balance.
that's the general fund balance.
that's more in line with what councilmember wheeler was talking about.
the rest of that money is reserved for capital projects, gas tax money, measure m
money, clean air money, senior mobility money,
and down the road there.
and that ties up to the$33 million on the bottom there.
so I'm going to work with councilmember wheeler and try to figure out maybe some more
data I can add to the bottom of this
page.
nothing too fancy, nothing too much, but maybe something that speaks to his point.
I can definitely do that for everybody.
yeah, that was my point.
with that, I'll move to pass both six and seven.
okay.
I'll second, but I do want to say thank you to councilmember wheeler for pointing
this out because this was a frustration I had
because a lot of people think this is what you have in reserves, this is what you
have.
a lot of people get confused by these numbers,
and I think it's really important to show what we actually have so that when we make
decisions financially, what the fiscal impact is.
and this is one reason why the council in the past has always been very fiscally
responsible.
all right, we have a motion and a second.
let's do roll call vote on six and seven mayor pro tem mathis.
hi councilmember sweeney.
hi mayor caskey.
hi councilmember wheeler.
hi councilmember pezold.
hi the eyes have it okay, we'll go on to 4.8.
okay 4.8 unfortunately, I have a chance to get with mr.
ames about these if you go to page 96, please in the presentation
can you blow that up a little bit?
okay.
my question to these was just some of the charges.
some of these seem rather large, particularly the$54,000,$55,000 to community center
bike trail asphalt.
I don't know of any asphalt trail near the community center, so I'd like to ask what
we spent$55,000 for.
there is an asphalt trail that begins on the
eastside of the community center that connects up to low salutes,
so I'm sorry up near laguna hills drive and poseida valencia by the high school and
that goes down the east side then circles
around in front of the staircase the community center and that continues towards
along alicia parkway
underneath the tunnel that goes around the pocket park that's done near vialomas.
all of that was repaved.
we had a lot of complaints from bicyclists and from pedestrians on there that we have
problems with the asphalt buckling,
especially due to tree roots.
so we fixed all of that.
and we obtained a few proposals for that, and quickle paving was the best proposal
for that work.
and it turned out to be an excellent job along there.
we got a nice smooth trail along there wrapping around the community center and out
towards villa lomas.
okay.
I wanted to pick on one other one, the 38,000, the juniper removal.
juniper removal was a project that was discussed in front of city council was the
juniper removal on the slopes on poseidon valencia that was
specifically authorized for work by the city council.
I'm sure I know who wanted that one okay it's not a bad thing,
but I just curious that was an awful lot of money to just tear out a bunch of weeds
or a bunch of plants
we approved a lot more than that
that's just the beginning, or maybe it's the end.
if that's the end, then we did okay.
okay.
with that, I'll motion to move.
do we have a second?
second.
motion and second.
I will call for 4.8.
4.10 holiday lighting and decorations agreement.
yeah 1011 sort of go together.
I just want to point out and ask one question and point out a couple things on 10 I
there was a question about the specifics on the decorations.
I brought up something about the dancing trees.
are we getting those back?
that was such a neat thing we had two years ago and didn't have it last year.
yes, council member wheeler, there are the trees on the plaza area that will be
synchronized with the light show at the community center.
so it would be more similar than to two years ago?
that is correct.
okay.
and the other thing, I just want to comment that the financials on both of these,
the 125 for 4.10 and then 4.11 mentions the activities, I guess I'll call it.
that is a combination.
so our additive 11 is not part of 10, so the total is like 156.
so we were sort of in the range in the past of the christmas, about right at 100.
now we're up to 156.
I just wanted to point that out for consideration for, you know, economics.
if there's no other comments with that, I'll move to pass.
I have some comments on 410.
okay.
I'm sorry.
so I just want to...
I'm looking at the thing myself, so I'm...
it's okay.
so the christmas schemes, are they here today?
no.
they are not known they are not okay um okay I so I noticed on the staff report my
apologies why isn't the staff
report a nelly gill ranch sign that was a sample of what we were looking for to
decorate the entry monuments okay all right
thank you for for answering that and then another question that I have is there any
possible way I can
ask for just a minor adjustment, and there's a reason for this adjustment.
so if possible, so on el toro, el toro usually we decorate with a number of
decorations.
is there a way to remove one of the decorations and add some decorations in front of
the civic center where people take photos,
wedding photos?
yes, thank you, councilwoman hazel.
so you would like to remove some from the medians and allocate that budget towards in
front of the civic center?
yes, like the area where you have, I think there is, it's...
where a number of pictures and photos are taken.
I think that would look really nice and be well received.
just adding some white lights or something like that, if possible.
is that too much to ask?
no, I would just like to clarify what you would like removed from el toro.
the boxes on the...
can you remove one of the trees?
wrapped around trees or something?
is that okay?
maybe to statter them instead of every tree, maybe like every other tree or something?
do something where we can just sort of...
so what decoration are you looking to see at the civic center and where, may I ask?
some lights.
there is some sort of a structure in the front of the community center.
and just some lights wrapped around that structure, if it's possible, if there's even
an outlet that we can do that.
or maybe something in front of the civic center, like something that would be nice
for people to take photos.
okay.
if I may suggest, I think what we can do with that is you can keep the decorations on
el toro road,
and I'll work with essex property management on the request for lighting at the civic
center.
essex normally handles lighting of the civic center, so there's a very specific
request.
why don't I work with you on that, if that's okay?
yes, that would be wonderful.
perfect.
and by the way, I just want to say thank you.
after going through this, it looks great.
thank you.
once again, I'll move 10 and 11.
I have a question myself.
if you're ready to move it, then I take it.
I'm very impressed with the proposal.
and I'm very impressed with, by the way, the items that they've put in that they've
done in a lot of other places as well.
I'm assuming some of these things, which are outstanding, are a lot more expensive.
I'm understanding that this, did this proposal come in on budget, over budget, or
under budget?
the proposal came in at$10,000 under budget.
the line item is$125,000 allocated for this year.
their budget or their item came in at$115,000.
okay.
well, I'll just throw this out.
I'm not on ecbc, but in looking at some of the things that I've seen in some of the
actually other local cities,
I'm not terribly impressed with the ornament, the walk-through ornament that would be
at the community center.
it seems like something that we've had before.
I would really like it if we could suggest that we get back to these guys and ask
them if that can be done
in a way that is something that is enhanced over that which they are proposing.
that's right on this.
I don't know if everyone can see what they're proposing.
maybe they love it.
if they do, that's great.
but I would certainly love to see if we can't enhance that staying within our budget.
and I don't even mind exploring a little bit, if not this year but in the future,
what we can do you know in and around the city hall we do this stuff on the street
right here el toro all the
rest of that and at the entrances, but are you suggesting that we amp that up also?
I I you know I think we need to pass something tonight as far as I'm concerned but I
don't know whether we can
come back and amend it based upon you know some
don't know how we do that on the dais here.
you know without having discussion with them, and I would like to see it oh, yes, the
the
item will be moved forward as mentioned by the assistant city manager it was
mentioned that essex does the lighting here at the civic
center, so it's a different it's a whole different issue so as mentioned we would
just have a discussion about some ideas and then just leave the bid and everything.
I'll fall back off of that piece, but I would like to see if we can't at least
explore doing something within our budget
that has a little bit more wow factor than what I'm seeing there.
and I don't know whether my colleagues agree with that or not, but, you know.
like I said, I was like the dancing trees.
that was cool for me.
it's like a mini spectrum that they have up there.
theirs are fantastic.
yeah.
just a quick temptation along those lines.
oh, now I'm going to forget what I was going to say.
do we have any time on this?
if we continue that to maybe add a few more things like mayor caskey wants, or do we
have to do it pretty soon?
we do have time.
I would say I can come back with an alternative proposal at the next city council
meeting.
I would recommend that we get a contract approved on that date.
okay, I'll leave that up to my colleagues if they want to do that or not.
that would be a continuation of just 410 then.
I'll second that.
that's what you're...
okay.
I'm sorry, josh.
and I agree with you, mayor caskey, with that stuff.
I don't know.
I do want to keep this moving forward and not stall anything,
but I don't know if there's a way to work behind the scenes, but
first, I want to express my gratitude to ms.
gannon for all the hard work she's put into this and for coming in under budget and
doing an amazing job and adding a second
seating for the breakfast with santa and so many other amazing things.
and I briefly had discussed with her and brought up
to enhance the tree lighting ceremony because in years past, people kind of come and
then they leave pretty quickly and it's not...
that's 4-11.
we're only doing 4-10?
all right.
I thought we were combining both into...
yeah, we can talk about both of them.
they're together.
no, they're not.
we both said.
are we on just 4-10 or...
or were you bringing up both of them together?
well, I brought up the combination because they're related.
one is like the decorations from the christmas cakes, and the other is the activities
like, you know, santa and those kind of things.
but they're all sort of together.
okay.
well, so it's been moved and seconded that we
bring back at least the lighting part to the next meeting and see if there is an
alternative that we have an appreciation for or would
just accept it.
you know the way it is right now and and I will add by the way to that the work
that's been done by director
but your whole staff on this thing is is immense and it's timely and
and it was under budget and you'd be credited for that.
so even though I'm trying to dot an I across a t here,
that is not to take away from the effort and the amazing work that you guys do.
so with that, why don't we move at least on 410 and take a roll call vote on the
continuance to the next meeting.
can we discuss just one element?
just one element.
can I say one thing before we move to vote?
is there a way that we can just move forward and then just have mayor caskey work
with ms.
gannon on the item that you would like to be changed?
I'm going to be good with that if council's fine.
I'm fine.
anytime you want to streamline something, it's fine with me.
so I'm comfortable and confident that you'll be able to find something that will work
for you.
what I don't know is whether it would change the price, and if that's the case,
then maybe it should be coming back to the council.
that doesn't hurt.
that's why there's plenty of time.
I mean, I'm giving the flexibility.
I'm not looking to make it go over our budget as well.
wanted just give the flexibility yeah, let's just let's just give a complete motion
that gives the flexibility of going up to the budget
and then whatever you decide behind the scenes and we'll just there you go fine with
that okay,
so we will amend the motion according.
are you okay?
okay?
well, what's the amendment on that?
try that given given mayor caskey the ability to meet with miss gannon to go over the
extra stay with you know up to whatever
the budget was because it's 10,000 under the budget right now, so
whatever they decide if it goes up to that center okay portrait piece the motion
would be that we have a second on that I
assume right yeah, okay?
we'll call vote for 10 just clarify councilman pez you were seconding that motion
yes, it's for the piece, that one piece, yes.
for 410 on allowing, authorizing the mayor to work with director gannon on this item
going up to the budget?
aye.
council member wheeler?
aye.
mayor caskey?
aye.
mayor pro tem mathis?
aye.
council member pezzel?
aye.
council member sweeney?
aye.
ayes have it.
okay, 411.
and then 410 says slam dunks.
move 410, or 411, I'm sorry.
you're moving it?
yes.
I have something to say on 411.
all right, erica.
okay, so with respect to 411, it's interesting that council member sweeney mentioned
the tree lighting ceremony.
I agree.
I think that we need to have something extra
with respect to the tree lighting ceremony and the holiday events, the budget isn't
just the budget that is provided.
there are donors and sponsors of these events that bring the budgets lower, or excuse
me, that assist with the budgets.
in fact, I will be throwing a donation for the extravaganza to assist with the budget.
but I wanted to see if it was possible to bring in some singers and dancers from osha.
it doesn't have to be ballroom.
it doesn't have to be a specific genre.
but I think it would be nice to have something like that to enhance the tree lighting
ceremony, just something.
I know that's done in other areas.
and I think it'd be nothing extravagant, but I think it might be a little more
engaging for the kids to see something that is
instead of...
I mean, the carolers are great, but you can only hear them in one small location.
and so, anyway, that is my...
I don't know if I need to get support from the council for something like that, but
that's...
my recommendation, and I'll yield the comments to hear what councilmember sweeney has
to say.
okay, I'm going to go down the list here, or up the list, and josh, you're next.
thank you, mayor.
yeah, just revisiting that, I think it's important for our city to all come together,
especially during that time.
we also need to look at involving our chamber of commerce, and so what I was thinking
is
along with councilmember pezold, expanding the tree lighting ceremony just a little
bit.
and what I'm thinking is expanding it into more of a european-style christmas or
holiday market experience where we can invite our local restaurants,
our local retailers to operate booths there, offer some seasonal food and merchandise,
and help the residents maybe discover some of the local businesses at that same time.
and about a month ago, we also had the children's market that ms.
gannon put on where young people sold their artwork and their crafts and different
creations they had.
and I'd love to incorporate a children's artisan area into the tree lighting ceremony
night so our young entrepreneurs can participate in that and sell
alongside the local businesses too.
but just create a nice atmosphere for everybody that the whole community can come out
to.
I did like your idea, councilwoman pezold, about the carolers.
and I think one thing that would help a lot of us is every year we sort of stand up
on the hill,
try to do the whole light switch to light the tree.
I think it would be nice to have, you know, just a small stage, but a smaller stage.
and then maybe the carolers and other people that are performing can be up on the
stage because it's kind of hard to see
everybody on the ground in the mix of everything.
so if we had...
a little bit of a raised stage there, I think that would greatly increase the
visibility for everybody.
so those are some ideas and comments that I wanted to put out there.
all right.
sure.
well, I think we just ate up your 10 grand,
so I think you're going to have to be happy with that big walkthrough ornament.
the stage is absolutely critical because everybody being on the same level, it's hard
for people to see.
that's an easy one.
and I'm all for extra entertainment, but if we're going to do it, let's have people
from laguna hills.
let's have kids from laguna hills high.
we have a wonderful band program.
let's do that.
we don't need to bring in people from outside the city.
this is a laguna hills celebration.
let's celebrate laguna hills.
that would be my suggestion on that.
and so, you know, we have the principal here today.
we're supporting them in increasing their brand exposure within our community.
we should do it any chance we get.
and I think if you're going to bring in people to sing and have a choir or something
like that or band,
that's where we should go.
but with that...
I think, holland, you're doing a wonderful job, and these are nitpicky things, but
that would be my two cents.
hang on.
now I'm going to make a comment.
the one piece of continuity I see in all of this and these comments is that in
regards to the tree lighting ceremony,
we can amp it up.
and make it a little bit more of an event that, you know,
it isn't just about flicking a switch and having bubble machines and stuff, which I
think really actually helped, by the way, a few
years ago.
but making it a little bit more of a community event.
and what I'm hearing, you know, out of mayor pro tem is that not only that, but, you
know, it's laguna hills.
so in every in any and every way that we can emphasize you know our community and the
participants you know from our community
all the better and so um I think all of those are great ideas and something that
maybe you can run with if not you let us
know I think we're trying to give you some feedback it's still incredible and uh
and, you know, most of these events, like the santa event, you know, the breakfast
with santa, I mean, they're already, you know,
sold out and people anticipate them with great, you know, vigor and excitement.
uh...
anytime that we can do something that just answered up a little bit more makes it a
little bit more special although all the better
I don't know that we need motions back and forth for all of this but uh...
I'm going to ask go back to uh...
day first and then erica you know I I
I'm encouraged.
everybody is so enthusiastic about this.
it shows what a neat time of the year it is and activities.
I particularly like what josh said about having the vendors.
I actually got a chance one time to have chestnuts over an open fire in london at
christmas.
I didn't much care for them, actually, but the experience was interesting.
but little things like that would be bringing vendors to do special christmas-type
stuff or that unusual stuff at the time of the season.
I think that's great.
that would be really, really cool.
it's worth exploring.
erica.
yes.
and that was something we tried to do in the beginning, is to encourage the vendors.
and that was the purpose of having the holiday events, was to bring the vendors.
so I'm glad that council member sweeney is mentioning this,
because it is the purpose to try to bring the businesses and the community together
in a positive way.
and so I do support that.
but as I'm listening to all of these
I have a couple of things.
first of all, in the history of trying to find talent, while it's nice to have laguna
hills high school, I've spent hours,
countless hours calling the high school and seeing if I can get the students over and
it's their break time and it's hard to have
a commitment and to have a program put together and to have something.
so there are programs such as osha
where these students are from laguna hills, and they train in laguna hills, and
that's the profession.
and it's a program where it's where they actually do this, and they have the costumes
and everything.
so I'm just saying that while we can still try to bring in the kids from laguna hills
high school,
which I think is great.
maybe we try to communicate with the drama department.
it's not that it's the city has tried and tried for years.
I appreciate that.
I just say laguna hills first and give them the option.
there's a new principal, new band teacher, new drama teacher.
we can live.
there's no need to worry about what happened in the past.
I just think if we're going for our best ideal.
and it doesn't mean that it has to be only them, right?
but I think you've got to try and get them there first.
so with that, I can sense, and if I'm wrong, let me know, ms.
gannon.
I think that given the robust discussion thus far, I think that we should at least
increase, because renting a stage costs.
it's not cheap, and that would dig into the budget quite a bit, and there might be
sound required.
so just those two things I'm thinking is, in addition to some of the others, I think
we should increase costs.
the holiday budget by 10,000, which is what councilmember or mayor pro tem mathis has
sort of thrown out as a number,
but I think that would be a conservative amount.
that was just the gap between what we were spending on the ornament or the overall
plus what dawn said we might be able
to spend up to.
not advocating bringing in another 10.
well, would it be all right to support, in order to support, well, ms.
gannon, would it assist to have the extra$10,000 to make sure that these asks could
be accomplished?
thank you, councilwoman paisled.
in the staff report, staff has estimated that the costs for the 2026 events will
be$31,465,
which is just about$10,000 over budget as is.
so, yes, money is always helpful.
we are already anticipating going over budget.
luckily, our...
a lot of the holiday event series budget is from the special events.
bigger pool of money, that's for throughout the year.
so this is just what we allocate.
so it's kind of robbing peter to pay paul.
we'll probably have to cut other things or more events from later in the year.
but yes, being able to add$10,000 to tree lighting or to the holiday event series
would be very helpful.
I would like to make a suggestion.
the council has already given me some latitude to work with you in regards to the
ornament.
I really would like to see us maintain our budget.
I think the ideas of the stage and the other kinds of things.
what I'd like to do, if it's okay with the council, is to work with you on...
on a number of those items, okay?
and if we need to bring back a small amendment at the next meeting,
if we really feel that we've looked at it and it is going to push our budget beyond
something,
that we take that part back to the next meeting.
but my suggestion is that you hand it back here to councilman wheeler and that we
kind of move ahead with this with the budget
we have.
unless we need to, after doing some research, I just don't want to add 10,000 from
out of the blue.
oh, yeah, 10,000 would be nice.
so would 50, you know, that kind of thing.
so, you know, so I don't think we need to legislate that on the spur of the moment
just because.
let's work on it.
well, one point is I think that would be a brown act because they have the ecbc
usually deals with,
the events, the holiday stuff that's usually at the ucbc meetings.
so then that would be adding in another.
you know what?
I'm wondering.
I'm fine.
whatever you guys want to do.
I'm going to turn it back over to dave.
and dave, you brought this one off.
I brought up the point of the budget to make sure we knew how much we're spending
that's going to be involved here.
but it's good stuff.
and I'm I'd still like to watch the money.
I don't think it would be a brown act violation as long as don or even me talk to
holland separately.
then we can give her an idea.
that's not a conflict.
and yeah, I'd say we really allowed a little latitude on 10.
so we sort of, anything you find at 11 that might be additional carryover,
I think we can go ahead and if it's necessary next meeting to increase or touch it up
a little bit, I
think we can deal with it then.
so again, I'll take a motion to move 11.
with the 10,000?
no, just as it is.
just as it is.
second.
that's why I preface it.
some people are going to work with holland, and if it comes up, if there's something
really neat that costs a few dollars more,
then we can make a minor adjustment next time.
okay, it's been moved and seconded.
let's call for the board.
we need to move on.
I understand we need to move on, but I would like to just express as somebody that's
been involved in events and understands in ecbc,
you understand how much our asks are.
I understand how much our asks are, and I think that we should
well, if you want to take it back to ecbc, then be my guest.
have the extra tenant talk about it at ecbc.
when you say our asks, I mean, the one...
these are just individual asks, almost like advice to holland.
I mean, there's no consensus here about what...
we would be willing to pay for.
there's been no price tag put together.
what dave is saying is that we can take a pause, bring this back, and take a look at
what those things might cost.
well, I think ms.
gannon can tell based off of her experience approximately what that would be.
well, this was more to let her take this and maybe explore some sponsorship, some
vendor participation, community partners.
maybe, I mean, there's other partners that may want to even donate for this.
so there's other possibilities out there, but she's great at doing all that.
so we're just putting it back on you.
I think it is a staff issue.
yeah.
so let's, it's been moved and seconded.
mayor pro tem mathis.
aye.
mayor caskey all right councilmember wheeler.
aye. Councilmember pezold.
aye. Customers rainy.
I I have it all right for 12 okay, yeah, I'll put a little apology here for taking
all these items off the consent,
but I did I did try to work sixty in our page pack and I didn't talk with every one
of the directors and try to get it all
done also the city manager so they're sorry bear with me okay, number 412
uh...
that has to do with I believe the releasing of uh...
of one of our use and my question just uh...
are we uh...
as far as our leasing our our management of our building are we getting you know
market rate is it is it going up uh...
system generics from uh...
mister mister uh...
thank you for the question council wheeler uh...
we, the market rates that we're getting are good, especially on this one.
this particular lease is one of five offices within a larger office suite.
so the actual per square footage price on this one is higher than what we typically
would get for a whole office on a per
square foot basis.
these folks are going to pay$350 a square foot.
our normal range here for general office is$225 to$255 a square foot here in the
building for a general office.
so actually, and then our medical uses here in the building are closer to$340 to$350.
this is actually a pretty good, it's a win-win for both of us.
they only want a small space, and we're getting a higher per square foot price on
this one.
okay.
that sounds good.
with that, I'll move to approve.
second.
okay.
roll call.
council member wheeler.
aye.
mayor pro tem mathis.
aye.
council member sweeney.
aye.
council member pezzel.
aye.
mayor kosky.
aye.
ayes have it.
okay, 413.
this one I believe is about the city side fiber running some cables and the fiscal
impact said nothing,
but yet I still saw$1.2 million mentioned in the last sentence.
so is it no impact or 1.2 million or how those two fit together?
mr..
ames so this agreement does not involve city side fiber.
this is a agreement with the city of laguna woods for the city of laguna hills to run
fiber optic cable and their conduits
so we have redundant connectivity to our signals in north laguna hills and
so I the agenda report was meant to convey that it's a similar kind of arrangement to
where we have a city side fiber
where we have a conduit sharing agreement and then I went in further into the agenda
report to indicate that we have some cost
savings due to the city side fiber agreement on our existing regional traffic signal
synchronization projects currently under design
that will allow for this redundant loop that our engineering consultant is
recommending.
so because we are saving money here, we have the ability to do this there to have a
redundant traffic signal network loop in case
a conduit is cut.
it's pretty commonplace in the traffic engineering world to have at least some
redundant loop somewhere for connectivity,
especially in north laguna hills where we would otherwise only be able to run fiber
optic cable at carlotta.
okay.
all right.
so that's good.
I saw cityside fiber.
I didn't know if they fit in with vad or not, but I understand what you're saying.
okay.
with that, I'll motion to move.
second any discussion any okay roll call customer wheeler.
aye. Councilmember pezold.
aye. Councilmember sweeney.
aye. We're perfect.
I'm at this.
aye. Mayor caskey.
ayes have it. 4.14 okay now the more serious ones the uvsp update
I was kind of upset when I saw this on the agenda because there was no mention of it
that I could see before.
director lowe corrected me on that.
it was in the last or in a previous meeting.
and there was a from to, but I'd gone through the first, you know, 15 or 20 pages and
didn't see anything.
so I assumed it was just a repeat of what the new one is supposed to be.
I went all the way through it actually yesterday and found the additional things.
and I just wanted to point out that it's not bad changes.
the only thing in there is a new paragraph that discusses sort of the details and
three little caveat changes.
and all of them deal with single detached family homes because there are some single
family detached homes that were not in the previous
uvsp.
so I just wanted to, first of all, confirm with director lowe that I'm correct on
that.
thank you, council member wheeler.
yes, you are correct.
okay.
and just to point out to the city council.
so I guess I would move to approve.
second.
roll call.
mayor pro tem mathis.
aye.
council member sweeney.
aye.
council member pezold.
no.
council member wheeler.
aye.
yes.
mayor kosky.
aye.
the ayes have it.
okay.
and these next two items, or next three items, I do have comments for them.
okay.
4.15. And do we have public comments on 4.15?
approval of the ordinance adopting an amended and restated development agreement
between the city of laguna hills and mgp fund x laguna hills llc for the
village at laguna hills project public comments
mr.
mayor, if I can make a procedural comment just to remind the council.
we did have a public hearing.
it was noticed and it was closed.
the brown act provides that the public has an opportunity to comment before any item
that's going to be considered on the agenda.
so under the brown act, we need to allow public comments, but for due process
purposes,
you shouldn't allow any additional facts to change your opinion.
you can always deliberate over the two weeks or however long it's been since the
first motion, but you shouldn't take additional facts tonight.
just as a due process issue, you've
of course, you can always change your mind after deliberation, but the time to
consider facts is closed.
all right.
so the short of that is that we should not have public comments.
that's going to be additional information.
no, the way I summarize it is people have to be able to speak, but you can't be able
to hear.
okay.
hey, we're all awake.
that's good.
okay, I need some clarification on that.
go ahead.
okay, whenever you bring anything before the council, we always have the opportunity
for the public to speak.
and just because we voted one way on initial reading doesn't mean it will go the same
way the second reading,
and we all gather information presumably between those two time periods.
so what you said I do not understand why we can't hear everything.
to make a final deliberation on all the facts that we hear, since it's all in public.
well, so it is all in public, and the public does have a right to comment.
but the notice went out, and we had an evidentiary hearing.
and we closed that evidentiary hearing.
if any additional facts, if the council wanted additional facts or anything else,
we would have had to re-notice another public hearing or continue the public hearing.
generally speaking, we've considered the facts, and the time to present the facts has
been closed.
so procedurally speaking, that's where things sit at this point.
but isn't the public notice of this meeting, and this is an agenda item?
it is an agenda item.
that's sufficient.
the public does know about it.
that's true, but at the last meeting we closed the public hearing.
that's true.
true, but does the mayor have a right to reopen a public hearing if we re notice?
I'm sorry.
we would have to re notice okay, so I'm asking our city attorney do I?
entertain public comments yes on that basis or not yes entertain public comments,
but in your deliberations you it's it's difficult to do but you need to be able to
parse through new facts versus facts you
already heard there.
I just want to okay.
yes, all right, so city clerk bruce johnson you
welcome, bruce.
thank you.
mr.
mayor, members of council, and ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving me the
opportunity to speak tonight.
I promise you old facts tonight.
nothing new.
my name is bruce johnson.
I'm here on behalf of rona henry and the welcoming neighbors home initiative.
we're a coalition of residents who believe that the lack of affordable housing
is one of the most critical issues of our time, one that is only becoming more urgent.
we remain in support of this council approving the revised development agreement for
the village at laguna hills.
there are three main benefits that we see to the revised plan.
this project will provide 200 lower income senior homes,
we're pleased that 10% of the units will be reserved for people at 30% of the area of
median income, about$30,000 a year.
it's commendable that the affordable housing would be built in the first phase of
construction.
and finally, we like its location by the oc bus depot and memorial hospital.
our coalition continues to believe
that this site would be ideal for multifamily workforce affordable housing.
moreover, because it's so badly needed, we urge you to work to facilitate the
building of multifamily workforce affordable housing in laguna hills into the future
as well.
we understand that it's important to approve this plan now so that the developer can
meet the fall deadline for getting financing for the project.
if the project is not approved now, there's a real danger that construction may be
significantly delayed.
the revised plan is a definite improvement over the previous one, and we ask you to
vote yes on the revised development plan.
any thanks.
thank you for your thoughts and your comment.
any others?
kathy udovch.
this meeting's been going on for a while, so I'm going to be quick.
this is opinion, so don't worry about any facts being spilled out.
my name's kathy udovch, and I live here in laguna hills.
I've lived here for about 15 years.
I cannot wait for something to happen to that mall project.
I want some demolition.
I want to see things being built.
I want all the noise because it knows that something's going on.
I do appreciate the fact that you're going to have one of your first constructions
that's going to be the senior living with the lower
income included in that.
that's really great.
I also wanted to mention that I love the idea of a central community park.
because it gives us just another place for community activities and everything like
that, which I know is over at the civic center,
so I really like, not the civic center, community center.
and so just having another place to actually have activities and have people
gathering, shopping, eating, living, and just visiting people.
so that's really awesome.
it helps our little city sort of have a central place
gathering place since we are a little city although we're kind of spread out so this
puts it a little bit more in the middle
especially for me who on the other side of laguna woods I also like the idea that
there's going to be two hotels built
soon as a travel advisor.
I can't wait to start booking them just saying and yeah, that's that's pretty much
all I had to say about this so yes,
please go ahead and do your thing and
thumbs up.
that's what we do.
we do our thing.
thank you for your comment.
all right, thanks.
I have no more comments, but I do need to read the names of all the online
submissions.
please do.
michaela nozaki, kathy temple, christine morinello, barbara siry, jeffrey gothard,
holly magana, judy northrop,
bruce johnson, rayna hamre, laura shapiro, carol mcvay, vicki hines, marcella lawson,
ann beltran, sayre weaver, rona henry, david salahi, alice soto, john mendonca,
keith tuominen, wendy washington, and cesar covarrubias.
okay.
back to you, dave.
do you have any?
you pulled it off, so...
okay.
I've got a few things to say, and I think my colleague has a few things to say.
you want to go first?
I'll let you.
okay.
let me start with a couple things.
actually, robert, could you open up the thumb drive thing I gave you?
there's one slide in there.
the slide I meant for the next two things, but one of them is pertinent at this point.
okay, that's not it.
right there.
that's the one that's...
can you go up a little bit more?
I want to see what else I have in there.
okay, okay.
go back to that one then.
yeah, that one right there.
okay.
I'll go in detail about this chart said it was meant for another purpose tonight,
but I want you to look at the yellow line this project for our total commercial area
in the el toro area in general
there.
it's about ninety nine point seven seven acres approved or allocated and the
allocations mainly to the quote-unquote mall project and
the triangle across the street is also included there,
but that's that's small potatoes compared to this eighty two point eight the what's
the fifth column over there to date we have had
zero affordable housing houses or apartments or anything built the percentage of loss
now of that area commercial area is now eighty three percent
so eighty three percent that whole area around the el toro is gone for
for commercial.
and I even allocated the 82.8.
I actually added back in 10 acres for the little few commercial things that are left
in the mall.
that's an overestimate.
it's probably much smaller than that.
so it's probably higher than 83%.
so I just want to talk to you that we are giving up the prize jewel of all laguna
hills and now we're given
away and lost or will lose 83% of our best area for commercial.
the uvsp, we already talked about that the changes were minor.
I've contended, and I will repeat it again and probably forever, this project does
not meet and never met the uvsp.
the uvsp actually had a lot of wise things in what was written.
they thought ahead and they said, okay, we don't want to go hog wild into something.
that's why they put limitations in there.
we can only change the commercial by so many square feet.
we can only change the residences by so many, like the limit was 200.
that was total for each change.
it was so that we wouldn't go just, you know, like I said, hog wild in one direction
and realize we've made a mistake.
we wanted to grow slowly and gradually so we could take in the new situation that's
happened all the time.
and if any project is a lesser of that, it's this one.
the property was bought in 2013, and nothing has happened except it's been torn down.
and every, I guess it's about average, about every four years, my loan guard comes
back and says, oh, everything has changed now.
we can't do it the way we did it before.
and this is the same as last time.
I mean, first, it's so we can't have any...
we can't have that much commercial or that much retail because nobody goes to malls.
then it was, oh, well, we can't have any office building because nobody's taking
their business and operating out of office anymore.
where all these things are true, they keep changing every four years, and we're
getting nothing, nothing at all done,
and we're giving away all of our future for el toro.
I'll yield to my colleague now.
that's all.
erica?
so first of all, I want to point out that the developer that merlone geier,
it seems that they have multiple llcs depending on which property they are dealing
with.
and these are protections for merlone geier, but we are in a development agreement
with an llc.
and I think that we need to have specific discussions, and perhaps we should bring
this up in a...
we need to have discussions because we just had a presentation about the land and
about...
with respect to where the roads are going to go.
I think there's a lot of things up in the air right now.
and...
groups could perhaps, there could be legal consequences.
and I think we haven't flushed that through.
and I think that that's something that we should have had some conversations because
if there is some sort of legal ramifications,
who is going to wind up with the bill of that, especially if an llc decides to abandon
and essentially, I mean, if an llc just stops, who pays for after that?
so I think that we have, I think that we, and this is something I did bring up in the
last meeting.
I also want to point out this is something that has been discussed.
and I'm curious, I guess I don't know if we're allowed to ask, but this is something
that we have,
a city council are the client of our attorney and being a client that means there are
five body members that are a client
and should be treated equally equally as such I don't recall receiving a phone call
about what are my thoughts are on this development
agreement I didn't have any discussions with respect until right before the meeting
the attorney reached out.
and that is, I am just saying I am the client.
and that is something that was a huge mishap.
and that and usually with clients you want to make sure that you
have conversations with your client.
so I'm just pointing that out and I'm not sure if councilmember wheeler had that and
I'm not sure how many conversations councilmember sweeney
had that we as being having legal representation.
I don't know if I'm allowed to ask.
okay.
okay, and and I just want I just want to make aware that we are and that's that that
we are the client and that that is
with any legal issue everyone should be treated equally and I feel and this was a
disrespect with respect to the council and a client
and the client we were overstepped
and that's completely inappropriate, especially when it's a legal document.
every person on the council should have been contacted, questions answered,
everything should have been flushed through independently so that concerns could have
been discussed about legal issues with the legal document,
especially when you have a hired attorney for that purpose.
I am very concerned about the development agreements
I mean, inadequate public benefits and infrastructure provisions, weak accountability
and enforcement.
I think that there are inadequate financial assurances, like performance bonds,
letters of credit, security promises, like to insure.
we don't have the letters to make sure that there's backings.
what about what about the checkpoints and the mandatory progress reports the
checkpoints and what are the consequences?
we have had a number of situations over the past number of years where the property
is laid completely vacant and we've had issues
and I and we were told on the dais that we can't enforce it because it wasn't in the
development agreement.
but then we're told, oh, we should have that in the development agreement so they can
leave the property essentially vacant.
and they can leave it, but we don't have a way to make sure that that property looks
nice.
I mean, that is one of the largest complaints in the city, yet we're not addressing
that.
and so I think that...
that wasn't handled.
I think that we also, cities with da s that aren't strong, which is what I believe
this da,
they end up with stalled or incomplete projects.
stalled is a sign, a negative sign with any da, and we have it twice.
that is a huge red flag.
in it also creates locked in miss mismatch developments it can create issues within
the city and the stalled cities end up with stalled
incomplete projects I mean there's just just a number of red flags where it doesn't
benefit our city I think that we I think
that we also should have had these conversations.
I'm concerned about the public outreach and our vulnerability.
we did not have
any public outreach and I don't believe that our committee had open houses to engage
with the community and see what our community wants.
see about how a number of people feel about the project and where it stands and the
community was absent because they feel like
their voices are no longer necessary and they feel railroaded in this process.
so and it's very evident that we are being railroaded in this process and I am
worried about the fiscal the financial stability of our
city.
I I want to I would like to really stress financially it has been told that the path
that we've been on we stand
we if we don't make a huge shift bankruptcy
is in our trajectory.
seven years.
and this project, I don't, it doesn't look like it satisfies it besides increasing
the population.
it doesn't pay for itself.
so I think that we are not, we are looking at things that are not positive and we
have to be very cognizant of that.
so with that, I mean, I can put this out there, but I understand it can't be weighed
on, but I at
least can put this out there.
I yield my comments.
are you adding a comment?
yes.
okay, go ahead.
I'll let you do that.
hopefully it's not duplicative.
excuse me?
hopefully it's not duplicative.
we've heard pretty much everything but the kitchen sink here.
well, one thing is duplicative because it deserves to be, and that is that there's no
time to review this.
we were given it a few days before the meeting.
this was the you know, the subcommittee's report, and it's like, you know, and we
refused any ability to review it and said, you know,
you don't need to, basically.
we made the decision, and I don't appreciate that.
I had no chance to see what was in there.
there was some inaccuries, I think, in the presentation, one of which was about the
financials.
there were two things, and only two things, that the ad hoc got
that wasn't already in the agreement.
I mean, the quimby funds and all those other things,
they were already there from the time that jeanine and I were on the ad hoc committee
the first time.
there was nothing new there.
the two things that were new, the tot for the second hotel, that is new, that is an
addition.
and the other thing that is new, and it's a pittance, and I probably need...
uh director lowe to to check this out but uh and that is that when you change from an
apartment which you get like
fifteen hundred dollars for or fifteen thousand dollars and you go to a house a
single family you get 18.
so you get you get a few a few dollars more for that other than that the city gained
no financially I didn't have
any financial gain at all on this and what we eliminated was approximately 120,000
square feet of retail
which again impacts our ability to do taxes and have any money come in.
and I also, after the earlier discussion we had with the octa came in here and wants
to put a road right through the hotel,
we brought this up a bit last time, and we were told, well, we'll just move the hotel
if that actually happens.
but I've heard no assurance that that hotel will be moved and will be kept to
maintain that one large input in the financial
stimulus.
and I don't know, I guess we can't ask the applicant of that because you said dexity
closed everything.
we're going to call him, but...
but I don't know.
maybe I can ask our counsel, though.
or you can ask the applicant questions that are germane to what was already
considered as part of the evidence during the last hearing.
you know, a lot of this that's being discussed was part of the facts that came up
during the last hearing.
so it doesn't mean you can't discuss anything.
we just don't want to bring in something completely new.
all right.
I would like to ask the applicant, then, if there, and also the counsel, if there is
solid,
ironclad assurances in the da that the hotel number two
if the road goes through it, then it will be moved and it will be built in a timely
basis.
mr.
clark.
is this on?
yes.
councilman wheeler, I can't give you any assurance that the hotel will be built if
the road goes through.
they are obligated to provide an alternative facility.
for hotel number one, which is where the area that it's interfered with, and they
can't proceed with the rest of the development unless they complete, unless they
commence construction of hotel number one.
okay.
hotel number one then.
okay.
let me be more specific so I understand this.
if the, if octa wins, they go eminent domain or whatever and they get that, it goes
through one
then that hotel has to be moved, and it still has to be built basically first before
anything else,
and that's if that would slow down the whole project?
the first phase includes the two retail buildings, the two anchor buildings and
retail one,
along with hotel one and the low-income housing for the senior project.
okay, so hotel one isn't...
isn't the first part, so if something impacts that, no pun intended, and it can't be
built,
the rest of the project gets delayed and stopped?
correct.
okay.
that's not a good thing, and it's a big question about whether we should even be
proceeding on that.
okay.
that's all I have for right now.
all right.
there were a couple of accusations made about
some legalities as to whether, you know, due notice was made and all the other kind
of things.
I'm just going to ask you, I thought we put all of that to bed in the last meeting.
do we have an issue here with any notices to council and all this other stuff?
we passed this the first time around.
it did.
in the first reading.
it passed the first read.
notice went out to the public.
and council received the agenda packet at the same time that it was released to the
public.
that's the legal requirements.
okay.
thank you very much.
so I'm going to make a comment.
almost everything that my two colleagues on the right-hand side of me said I disagree
with.
we worked very, very hard for three years to make this a reality for this city.
and for 12 years, it was not a reality.
I wasn't here.
I wish I was.
and, you know, maybe it would have happened earlier.
the 70,000 or 80,000 square feet of retail that's gone is basically a theater and a
gym, okay?
it's not real retail.
it's not creating sales tax.
I mean, I could go on and on and on, and I won't.
so I move that...
item number 4.15 be adopted in a second reading.
do we have a second?
we have a second.
roll call vote.
no, you have to have a discussion first.
you have to have a discussion after the second.
we have a second.
I know.
you have to have a discussion after the second.
you have to ask for a discussion.
I'm not following it.
sorry.
I can't hear everybody.
I don't believe the city follows robert's rules of order specifically, but under
robert's rules, which is often used as a guide,
after there's a motion and a second, then it's open for discussion on the motion.
yes.
we've always done it that way.
okay.
I don't know why you disagree with stuff I said.
there's only two new revenue streams, tot and the change in the apartment to houses.
can you tell me of another one?
already made my comments.
I'm ready there's no if I'm if I'm wrong that there's another benefit financially the
city I like know what it is I think
it's all been out there before we're just going over the same old stuff.
no, that's the problem.
it has not been out there.
that's the problem.
I had no chance to review it before the first reading.
I don't agree with anything you're saying.
no reasonable chance at all to review that.
and now that this appears, you know, you haven't contradicted me, so I say there is
nothing else but those two.
and you talked about, you know, the theater and the gym didn't produce much.
well, you put on whole foods, right?
a whole food sells food.
food is not taxed in california.
so that's another big zero.
okay, there we go.
so that's, you know, nothing.
I'm not getting involved in this filibuster.
this is a bunch of baloney.
no, it's not a bunch of baloney.
it's a fact.
okay, well.
this is a red herring.
we shouldn't even have this thing in the first place.
all right.
okay.
I moved the question now.
I I have a second I have some things to say the questions been called and seconded.
it's I I still can speak
not when you call the question.
I can still speak.
we're voting on the call of the question.
I can still speak.
no, you cannot do that.
to stop conversation, you have to have a 67%, two-thirds majority.
you do not have that.
yes.
so I don't think we follow robert's rules of order specifically.
it's used as a non-binding guide.
generally speaking, the mayor serves as parliamentarian and makes the final calls.
usually, the final call stands unless it's overridden by a majority of council.
I assume that's what the process is here.
there's been a call to the question and a second,
and I think the parliamentarian has the ability to make the call on this point.
I don't think you're bound and constrained by robert's rules.
thank you.
so we're going to do the question first.
so you're basically violating our right to speak.
we're elected by the people, just like you.
how long do you want to speak?
as long as I want to.
yeah, until midnight?
if I want to speak until midnight, I'll speak until midnight.
yeah, that's what this is all about.
yeah, and that's why robert's rules, a professional, and even mr.
mathis said he's an expert on robert's rules award.
he knows what it says.
it's two-thirds.
that's 67%.
you've only got 60.
you can't do it.
you're denying us the right to talk.
I don't even want to call the question.
roll call vote.
is this for the motion to the question, or is this for the approval of the item?
you want to draw the question?
sure, I'll draw the question.
go ahead.
roll call vote on the 4.15.
ok.
we can still have a discussion.
we'll call vote for...
if he withdraws that, she continues to talk.
I'm sorry?
if he withdraws the motion to stop talking, then she gets to vote.
she gets to keep talking.
that would be up to the chair?
no, it's up to the vote.
it's the vote.
I have very strong concerns, and I will tell you it's regarding our police and our
fire.
so our emergency responders, so we lose the hotel.
what we're doing is we're hurting our police services.
we're hurting them.
they're overburdened as it is.
the fire authority, they receive property tax revenue.
this isn't filibustering.
this is talking about something that's valid and important.
we had a discussion earlier about the consequences of building too much and how the
freeways are so full by building too much.
this is a consequence.
why are we doing this to the people that save our lives?
why are we doing this?
why aren't we thinking through how to pay for it?
so just to let you know, the fire authority receives their money from property taxes.
there will be a little boost, but then with
the apartments, it doesn't satisfy.
and we're going to overburden our already, it is the busiest fire station all around.
why are we doing this?
and then the police.
do you have any idea how much work they do on a daily basis?
they're so busy.
and then we're going to increase the population with a hotel that may or may not, and
we can't afford it.
this is why you have to be responsible.
this isn't filibustering.
that's not the pattern.
what I'm trying to let you know is a consequence, because you can turn back the
minutes,
and any person who supports the police can turn back and say, you had two council
members that said x, y, z
about protecting our residents.
this consequence is the increase in response times.
it's making it so that it's more difficult and challenging.
I'm just pointing it out.
why are we doing this?
I speak to people that work for the fire department all the time.
and do you know what?
they're overwhelmed.
and they can't say it here.
but they're overwhelmed.
as well, we have our police.
they're not saying it.
they're not coming up here.
but you can talk to people in private.
and we have an explosion of population in orange county.
what are you talking about, orange county?
we have our orange county.
an explosion of population in orange county.
yes, yes.
ok, here we go.
I mean.
and our city is replicating.
call the question.
4.15. That's it.
let's vote.
council member pezold?
no.
council member sweeney?
aye.
mayor caskey?
aye.
mayor pro tem mathis?
aye.
council member wheeler?
I refuse to vote.
we have not been given due process.
okay.
4.16. Is that an abstention?
no, it's a refusal to vote.
because I've not been given due process to review this material.
you heard my answer.
it's on the recording.
okay.
motion passes.
all right.
4.16, dave.
okay, 4.16.
robert, would you bring up my thumb drive?
k this item has to do with the uh...
no net loss uh...
uh...
work very very long and hard trying to find alternatives at last meeting we had uh...
d e f which might not mean something to a lot of people areas in the city that were
allocated to fulfill no net
loss and also uh...
we had an area called ends
d and f are underperforming.
there's nothing been there for a long time they there's it's it's a legitimate area
that could be redeveloped and have something done to it and
however has businesses there?
it is also not currently zoned for housing a lot of the area of the north and a lot
of areas in the city
are zoned for mixed use so conferring them over to sort of
submit then for the renewed process is not as big a deal as taking an area that is
totally zoned for a commercial and then
removing it.
it sets a horrible, horrible precedent.
you go to the first slide, please.
okay.
this slide is similar to the one I brought up last time in the meeting, but there's
been a few things added.
the second column so I third column actually seats purple title I I and then all the
properties that are both approved but I
mean I proved the uh...
the mall area of the triangle the uh...
la paz village and the uh...
uh...
mill creek areas those books are approved or allocated allocated up means the areas
that we've all would actually put into the rhna process
saying if they're eligible
and they all add up to meet our hcd requirement.
so the numbers are a little different.
if you notice, the whole city only has 483.46 acres of commercial property left.
I mean, that's all there's in the whole city.
117.40 acres.
and I can read the acres to make it somewhat, you know, something you get your handle
on.
people know what an acre is.
it was a meter squared before, which I apologize for.
I was just doing the ratios.
this maybe you can, you know, have a little better handle on it.
and just to give you an idea, an acre, everybody's seen a football field or laguna
hills high school football field.
a football field, and I'm talking about just the field, you know, goalpost to
goalpost, side to side.
that's about 1.32 acres, just to give you an idea of the magnitude.
this new net loss proposal with the def and n add another 20.1 acres.
again, the fifth column.
to this date, no affordable housing has been built.
the percent of commercial property lost, 24%.
that's to date before the no net loss addition.
the no net loss addition, as you can see to the last column, adds about 4.1%.
so for the whole city, we already have lost almost 30% of our retail commercial area.
and there's a line added down at the bottom, the magenta line.
I added in the one area that we've also reallocated residential.
this is also kind of a problem because we start reallocating residential.
my guess is the next step will be they'll come over and take a lot of the large areas
in nellie
gail because large housing they convert them all to apartments.
that's why the big red thing is we've actually put residential in there.
it doesn't add up to our loss of commercial but it's worth noting.
I think this slide speaks for itself.
the north, we've lost 15%.
the north part of laguna hills supplies most of the money that we get in revenue, tax
revenue, to run our city.
the el toro, as I pointed out earlier in the discussion about the da, with all the
allocations we've made,
we've lost 83% of our el toro area.
the only thing we have left is the
the furniture store, the total wines, and the little corner across the street from
in-n-out burger.
and that is also an area that's in jeopardy because octa wants to put a road through
it.
excuse me.
next slide, please.
ok.
like I said, I was trying very hard to protect our businesses that are in n.
this particular picture shows
shows the areas that are of concern in my discussion here.
I won't talk about de and f.
those are probably legitimate.
much as I hate to give up commercial, they're reasonable choices.
and I say it's not a reasonable choice.
and it's the orange area that is lowest on the chart sort of down and to the right.
did you go to the next slide real quick?
okay.
that other area that was up in the northern part of my drawing there, those two areas
in orange,
I want to explain what they are.
the orange area to the left, which is the larger one, that's an area that has already
been requested to build,
I think it's 100 houses on that, and we'll talk about that a little later when we get
to 19.
that's everybody, you know, done the authority proposals put in.
the area to the right of that, and it sort of curves around it, is the
area that I propose that we substitute for n.
it's called area c.
if you note, area c is very contiguous with something that's already going to be
apartments.
it's right there on avenue de carlota.
it keeps it together.
it doesn't put shotgun holes through our whole north.
if you go back to the previous chart, please.
and you can see that the area in c is only 8,300 square meters.
again, I'm sorry I couldn't convert that.
the computer program wouldn't do that.
but just to give you relative size, the n is 37,000 square feet.
so it's a smaller footprint, but still gets the job done.
and I might note that the n area would supply units for rhna twice as much as what we
need, roughly speaking.
so it's a much better choice.
now the objection to that one, the c was, if you go back to this next chart,
the objection to c was that the owner didn't say, hey, I want to build apartments
here.
I want to build housing there.
that is the main reason that n was picked over c, because the owner of n actually
wants to build his whole area.
if you go back to the next, I'm sorry.
if you notice, just north or up,
from n at the bottom, the whole area that's sort of pinkish there, not counting the
thing to the left,
which is the mobile home part, they wanted all of that.
we gave them a portion.
the only other difference is that the c has had some improvements on it.
so for those two reasons, ann was picked over c.
even though c is a much better choice, c would come much closer to just meeting our
no net loss as opposed to going
way over what we don't need.
therefore, I do not think we should accept this.
I think we should go with the c over the n for the reason I just stated.
do you need a second or is that a motion?
I would just like, as I mentioned before, I think the n is not a good idea because it
is enhancing in revenue.
and businesses are trying to find a way to find locations.
and that is an area where businesses have moved from
and they've moved businesses to that area where n is.
and I've had many discussions with business owners and the stress that they encounter
when something is going to rezone.
it affects their livelihood.
it affects when you have to start a business and move, or when you have to move your
business.
this impacts them greatly with their revenue stream.
it impacts them.
and so we're going to create more stress for groups that have started.
I mean, we talked about the dance
groups, many of them, there are people that live, many kids that live in laguna hills
go to these dance studios.
the parents take them and sway ballroom and a number of them, sway was on la paz,
they moved.
a number of groups have moved.
why are we wanting to create this stress and chaos?
I mean, this is, with respect to a
site that is increasing.
it's organically doing something so I I support councilmember wheelers suggestion I
think that n should be off the table another comment back to dave
have another comment.
I'll yield to my colleagues if they would have something you have another comment yes
I can't show this in public because it involves proprietary information, but I can't
talk about it in general.
our finance director gave me the new hdl data that basically tells us how much income
in the form of sales tax we're getting
from all of our businesses around the city.
I incorporated the new 26 data in my database.
and ran some scenarios.
we're trying to figure out, you know, the city manager and I and director lowe are
trying to find some ways to study our
businesses, to help them, and figure out what it is we can do to enhance laguna hills.
when I ran the data, I ran basically 2024 and 2025.
two years.
I wanted to get a whole year of data.
and I ranked them.
I ranked 25 first.
and I actually included the
first quarter 26, with the second quarter through fourth quarter 25, and
then 24 second quarter through 25 first quarters to get a whole year, two consecutive
years.
and I ranked the 25-plus, I'll call it, data to see who were our best producers,
what were our businesses that were really contributing to the city.
okay, that was interesting.
and then I went back, and I went to the next column, and I resorted the whole group
for the 24.
so with only one year difference, I was shocked, and I'm going to share this with you.
when I looked at what happened, which was what happened, when I went down the list,
number three and number four were not there.
they were gone.
so in one year, we lost our number three and our number four best producing companies.
and also missing was number 11.
and I was like, made me feel bad.
we're losing top 10 companies in the city.
that's a bad thing.
and now we're giving away more areas.
in particular, now we've gone to n, which I've been complaining about, that n is an
area that has businesses.
it is zoned only for commercial.
and what are businesses thinking about us or what have they thought about us that
we're doing that and we've lost three, four,
and 11.
I can show you the data.
any one of the council members, I can show you the data.
you're allowed to see it.
it can't be releasable to the public, so I can't present it in a meeting.
actually, I can't give it to you either way.
I'd have to give it to you through our lawyer, I guess, or through the city manager,
because I don't want to provide like brown act.
but the data is, you know, you have the right to see it.
but, you know, I just, you know, we're giving up our businesses.
we're just giving up our businesses.
and it's just shocking.
I do have a public comment if you wanted to move that unless you wanted to keep going
with discussion.
is it the same instructions, colin?
we had one online comment submitted from cesar covarrubias that was in favor and then
the one in person is patrick strader thank you
counsel my name is patrick strader I'm with starpoint rangers yes you have great
perseverance
I do this a lot.
I've had six projects approved in four cities in orange county in the last 60 days.
I do this a lot.
with all due respect to the city attorney, I think testimony on a second reading is
something you can consider because you have a letter
in front of you from my client that owns the row, which is site n.
it was submitted today as a public comment.
we would encourage you to continue to vote to approve site n, but we do have a nuance.
the original proposal that we've worked with your staff on included more of site n
and at a lower density.
so I watched the last hearing, and I've got to say it was one of the most confusing
hearings I've ever heard because it
rarely talked about the items that you guys were actually looking at, and it talked
about a lot of other things.
so I apologize for being blunt,
your staff is fantastic.
jennifer and jay have been working at this a very long time.
we started meeting with them last november and we submitted a letter that you have
attached to the letter today in january of this
year saying that in order to help the city meet its no net loss provisions,
please consider the portion of the row that does not include the retail businesses.
and if you read today's letter,
you will see that the owner of the row, george urban, has actually increased the
business in the retail.
they've opened up docent brewing.
they're investing in the front of the retail.
and the reason why they believe that redeveloping the site behind it with the
industrial is they have not had so much luck with those
buildings.
they can get leases, but they turn over very quickly.
they've got a lot of empty spaces at different times.
they roll at different times.
it's very difficult.
as a property owner.
but with docent and investing in the retail along the frontage,
having residential immediately behind it will actually encourage the economic
development of the city because you'll have more people to feed into that retail.
you will increase the sales taxes.
I'm running out of time, but I worked on the orange village mall.
I worked on the westminster mall.
I worked on the bristol and sunflower project for related in santa ana.
I worked on the great park for 15 years.
these are not guesses.
we know how this works.
we know how to plan.
I heard testimony in the last meeting that you guys were considering 120 units to the
acre.
nobody is building 120 units to the acre.
the highest that's being built anywhere in orange county is 72 units to the acre.
and at the moment, there's no financing for that.
20 units to the acre, you can finance all day long for sale.
the state requires 30 to the acre, and so that's why your staff has done their best
to try to give you a plan
that meets the state law so that you can keep moving through without them taking your
permitting authority away.
so I do also support d, e, and f and ask you to, again,
approve n with the addition of the entirety of its property behind the retail center.
I can answer any questions if you have them.
thank you.
any questions?
dave.
yeah, a straight man.
I've got a slide that deals with something you just said.
perfect.
let's see, should I do it now?
let me ask the clarification question first.
sure.
you talked about a letter.
yeah.
are you the owner?
no, I'm the consultant, land use consultant to george urban.
as I mentioned, the reason that n was predicted by our consultant over c was because
there was a letter.
saying you know I'd like to build houses basically okay,
well I want to go back to what happened before it's a prelude to the question what
happened before in our last rounds we
pick we picked areas for the same reason you know this this area this is the person
owned that you know they said you
know we want to build houses because they went okay of all those and you saw my first
charter program sure yeah that of those
out of all that whole area and all those four things we approve and
there's not a single affordable house unit that came out of that that's built to date.
and all of them skirted around the issue.
and when it came down to the point where we asked them, hey, pony up.
we need to meet an arena that's 75% affordable.
and that'll be the next issue on inclusionary.
but none of the letters said, yeah, we'll support affordability.
the question now, I'll get to it.
does your letters and the letter of your client, does that support and give us a
reasonable large amount of affordable housing?
I don't know how to answer the word large because you are attempting to adopt 15%.
do you consider 15% large?
you can answer percentage-wise.
I'm sorry.
your inclusionary ordinance that's on the next item is 15%.
is that large?
no, 15% is on the next item.
I consider it pathetic.
we have to do 75%.
I understand.
my client will definitely comply with the city's inclusionary housing ordinance.
meaning you only give us 15%.
not only, we will comply with the city's inclusionary housing ordinance and may elect
to do density bonus and provide additional.
we do that on a lot of projects I'm working on right now because density bonus
enables you to waive objective design standards and do
other sort of things.
so we are absolutely committed to meeting the city's inclusionary requirements, and
we will do everything we can.
but if we're cut out or our site is cut in half,
I don't know how we could possibly plan to do affordable housing for you.
ok.
I have some verbal questions for you.
it gets into the debate, I'm afraid.
all right, thank you.
all right, dave, did you?
yeah, I have some things.
I can't ask the gentleman because it's a question, but I'm going to comment on it
anyway.
yeah, like I said, the letters are not followed.
and as far as having more clients there to shop at the stores out front,
there's a whole big trailer park back there that will have many, many more residents.
so if you don't have it already, you're not going to get it.
and it's kind of a weak argument.
what I want to ask him, but I can't ask him, is what's the highest percentage that
he's ever built affordable?
I wish I knew that.
can he yell it out?
I don't know.
we were never looking at 120 units.
80 is the most we've ever looked at.
and I agree with many of your observations in terms of the marketplace and what's
really happening out there.
let me go on and pull up my other slides.
even though they're men's specific for inclusion, they cover both so you can
just remember then we get the next part of it.
robert, would you bring up my slides again?
at least I'll hit one of the pages.
that's fine.
let's do that.
we need to move on.
okay, down one, please.
another.
I'm sorry, you're going the wrong way.
okay.
you've seen this chart before, so I won't repeat that right now.
next slide.
okay, there was my just illustration of the football field so you have a feeling of
how much we get.
next slide.
density.
this applies to both the no net loss and what we're talking about now.
I did little, you know, matrix here.
and said, ok, we've got acres that we now have available,
and that 346 number is the number of acres that we have left when we take out the
parts that's already been allocated to the arena
process.
so we have 346 left.
that's 346 football fields, not a whole lot.
if you had a density requirement of two, look at the second column now, ok, it would
take
4,000 acres to meet that.
acres remaining, of course, none because 4,248 is much bigger than 346.
so we have no percent remaining, zero.
if you go out there, you'll see the four and the eight.
and by the way, the two is executive houses.
that's nellie gale.
the four is large houses.
the eight is small houses.
when you get to 20, you start getting into condos and townhouses to some degree.
again, you can't do it at 20.
25 is the first place where it goes positive as far as having anything left and I say
left I mean that we have
any retail or commercial left you have six acres left which is basically one percent
of our of our current?
commercial area and you get 30 then you have 80 acres left,
but you've used up all but 17 percent of our of our commercial area when you have 250
you have 193 acres left, but you've used up 60% of our retail area and turned it over
to housing.
and, of course, you go up to 80, which they never let us go 80.
the consultant was saying that the best year we get is like, you know, 60s maybe.
and even at that rate, you've lost almost half of your retail.
so that's all, robert.
I'll go into the details and how it relates to the...
inclusion area when I get to that so I just cannot support this we need to we need to
think about our businesses I
have miss lowe I
how many housing projects have been approved since?
how many of those have broken ground, showed financing and are building right now?
zero.
but we wouldn't require proof of financing.
no, I understand.
okay.
how many businesses have opened approximately within that period, space of time?
I do not have that data in front of me.
well, how many ballpark?
how many have opened?
new businesses have opened in the city.
just ballpark.
I couldn't tell you that.
I don't know our certificate occupancy data.
maybe 10, 20, 30?
I'm sorry, I really can't estimate that.
I would hate to give you a number that wasn't accurate.
it's okay if it's not accurate.
just clarification.
I could answer that, but I'd have to run that computer program.
it's just ballpark.
nobody really knows.
it is so nebulous, you can't answer it.
I could even, I've run the data and I've gone over and over,
I couldn't even answer it and I've looked at it in detail.
so, the point I'm getting at is that with...
the only two real new ones, we've had rei come in, we've had...
marshalls.
marshalls, trader joe's, but trader joe's goes back a little bit, not a whole lot.
so, I'm just pointing out that the theory and this idea that businesses are dead and
that shopping is dead when it's really about
strategic shopping, it's really important to understand that element and that our
city has been busy, arguably, with these new businesses, small business owners.
that's still happening today is what I'm trying to say.
and even though we don't have the number, a concrete number, it's more than zero,
substantially more than zero.
and so I just wanted to point out that because of that, trying
to take out and carve out a section that supports small businesses is anti what the
trend is in the city.
that goes against the trend.
the trend, arguably, is that small businesses are small businesses as well as other
businesses are starting to
they're doing better, and based off of councilmember wheeler's data, especially
within the n area, and I understand,
it's always nice when you look at a site and you think, oh, well, we could do this
with it, but the
reality is unless you have the financing, which right now it's very, very challenging
to obtain the financing.
right now we're just essentially
in a position where we are eliminating something that we desperately need.
and I can't support the site when it can support small businesses, and a number of
them.
it is a carve-out.
these are people's livelihoods.
and from what we've seen, we've seen from across the street, we have a great,
brilliant,
amazing example how a mall has been completely gutted
and it's dirt, and it's been sitting as dirt, and all of those people, all of those
businesses gone.
we have on la paz, businesses are leaving, and it's just not leaving but being forced
out because of developers, because of development.
and yet they're sitting vacant.
those businesses are sitting vacant because a developer doesn't want to sign a new
contract right now, but
they can't get the financing to make sure to make this happen.
does this make sense to keep this pattern and this trend up?
it doesn't make sense.
we're just dealing with vacant.
we have an on the pause.
we have boarded up businesses on the pause.
a boarded up business.
I don't know if you, I don't know.
I mean, I lived in camden, new jersey at some point.
and that's where you get boarded up places.
I'm just saying that is unusual for orange county to have a boarded up business.
and what are we doing?
it's just sitting there.
point of order.
is this germane to the item that we're supposed to be talking?
it is because what we're doing is.
and are you not on council?
are you absolving yourself of any responsibility as to what may be happening or not
happening on la paz?
you've been here longer than anybody else along with dave.
I mean, exactly, saying no to everything is a wonderful thing and very convenient
when you know what the vote is going to be.
but to actually do something proactive for the city, that's where it's really
difficult.
and I take objection to the characterizations of the work that this council has done
on all of these issues.
and you have a property owner consultant who's now told you what's happening on that
property, and yet you don't believe it.
because you don't have the experience as being a property owner.
you don't know what a landlord is all about.
you don't know exactly what development is about.
so I would suggest that you understand and maybe listen to the folks that are living
it on that property instead of making all
these wild accusations about what things are or are not.
so to me, let's try to zero in on the actual issue at hand.
I'm going to call this back to order in the sense that
make your argument.
you don't need to go for a half hour, 45 minutes on every single one of these.
make your argument and be done.
and then let's move on.
I am pointing out facts in the city that are happening and the trends.
when it becomes rant, then that's...
this is valid information that applies to eliminating a number of businesses.
I'm not going to argue with you about that kind of stuff.
you're just going to have a boarded up city.
oh, god.
we'll have empty, vacant businesses all around until they can obtain financing.
and where are you going with that?
is that the city council did that?
who did that?
and did we board up those businesses ourselves?
it's just going on and on and on.
the city council made those decisions.
and I have a chance to, yes, I use my vote correctly.
good.
I want you to use your vote.
I'm not trying to stop you from voting.
and I just want to point out, since I have been on the council after the destruction
of the mall,
we've had a lot of businesses try to open because we've been focused on that.
that's where my energy and emphasis has been on.
and we have had great businesses come in.
all right.
josh.
thank you, mayor.
point of procedure, it's now 10:28, and we're still considering pulled consent items,
and we have substantial business remaining.
I'm concerned that continuing indefinitely will undermine the quality of our
deliberations and the public's ability to participate.
so before proceeding, could we ask the city manager and city attorney whether any
remaining items must legally be acted upon tonight?
I believe the bid rejections also need action, but I'd have to ask the assistant city
manager.
ok.
so.
based on that, I just recommend that we complete only those items that are genuinely
time-sensitive and continue the remaining substantive items to our
next regular meeting, and that will allow council and the public to address them when
everyone can give the attention they approve.
we're going into the 11 o'clock hour, and we're still on consent.
thank you, mayor.
we've gone to midnight and 1 o'clock.
that's fine.
do our job.
but not when it's just going repetitive, repetitive, repetitive, same stuff over and
over and over again.
you know, I think on 4.16, which, by the way, happens to be something that is known
at law school,
we're actually responding to state law, and based on time frames and all the rest of
that, I
think we need a motion one way or the other, up or down, and let's go.
let's deal with it.
so do we have a motion on that?
because I don't think we're going to get it from over here.
so moved.
second.
second, okay.
I have one comment.
yes, go ahead.
I'll let you do that.
all right, it'll be short.
we've been at each other's throats.
this is not the first time, and it probably won't be the last, and it's actually not
any of our faults.
the fault lies with sacramento putting this stuff on us and giving us no reasonable
way out.
so let's, yeah, let's put the blame where we squarely know that it needs to be.
but we're dealing with it within the law and the things that we have to deal with.
so remember that november.
yeah.
so with that, let's take a roll call vote on 4.16.
council member wheeler?
no.
council member pezold?
no.
council member sweeney?
aye.
mayor caskey?
aye.
mayor pro tem mathis?
aye.
ayes have it.
did you pull that one, dave?
I lost track after 4.16, or was it just jumped to 4.19?
I'm not sure all the stuff should have been.
okay, 17.
yeah, 17 and 19.
all right.
I think everything after 17 might be a bit long, but the rest of them should be very,
very short.
we love the whole agenda, actually.
okay, robert, could you go back to my charts again, please?
it's going to be a bit of a repeat, but I'll try to minimize that.
okay, up please.
up towards the beginning.
other way.
okay, right there.
like I said, this is a repeat from before, but I want to emphasize that for this 15%
inclusionary,
all of you know our total number is 1985.
of those 62, 64.2% are some form of below market rate, either extremely low, very low,
low or moderate.
okay.
if you do the inclusionary, which is only 15%, then you basically divide the
64.2 by 15 times the 1985 and you get 8,496.
that is our new rhna number that we have to do to meet the rhna.
that's just flat-out straight numbers, no fuzz on it.
just to give a perspective, like I said before, we have about 10,500 family units in
the whole city of laguna hills.
that would be a city increase of about 81%.
next slide, please.
this, again, is just my example to give you a feeling for what an acre is so you can
sort of visualize it.
like I said, it's not the track around it.
it's not the place of the prayers.
it's only between the lines, between the goalposts and between the sidelines.
next slide, please.
I went over this before, but you need to look at it and understand this, okay?
to meet the rhna, here's what we have to do.
we have to build at least 25 and whatnot.
all of our retail is gone.
all our commercials are gone.
we get to 30 and 50.
you know, 30, we even lose almost all of it.
50 and 80 and we're keeping roughly half it it takes the 26 acres to complete that's
this would be 25 if 50 residents
take up 60% of our commercial, I'm sorry at 50 residents it takes up 60% roughly of
our commercial land basically.
I'm just pointing out the eyes we're gonna have anything left we just won't have
anything left.
we're going to degrade or
or whatever you want to call it.
we're going to go to a totally residential city.
and then sacramento is going to come in and say, well, your residents are too big.
you've got to tear some of them down and build a townhouse or something.
and don't think it's not going to happen.
I've been up to santa ana.
and some of the cities in northern orange county, and I've literally seen that
there's houses, you know, nice, one-time house,
a really nice neighborhood, a reasonably nice-sized house that was, you know, the
american dream, and immediately,
immediately behind it is an apartment complex that has, you know, 10 to 15 apartments.
I'm sorry, the property values went right through the floor board.
it looks terrible.
it degrades all things.
that's what we're going towards.
seeing no other comments do we have a?
motion we do have public comments on this huh we do have public comments.
oh, we do okay absolutely bruce johnson welcome back
my name is bruce johnson.
I'm representing the welcoming neighbors home initiative.
ours is a ministry of tapestry unitarian universalist congregation, which advocates
for affordable housing in south orange county.
we have many members who live in both laguna hills and laguna woods.
we believe that the proposed inclusionary housing ordinance is an important policy
step toward meeting the need for more affordable housing in laguna hills.
a recent example shows how having this policy in place can produce more community
benefit than not having it adopted.
earlier this year, laguna hills approved the terra vida project and was able to claim
only 5% of the homes as affordable to help
meet its regional housing needs allocation.
a week later, mission viejo approved the vista del lago project, and it included 15%
of the new units as affordable because it had, in
june 2024, approved an inclusionary housing ordinance similar to the one now being
considered by this council.
this policy won't solve the equation for meeting all of the city's housing goals, but
without it,
it's unlikely to meet as much of its lower-income housing goal as it would with the
ordinance in place.
we've seen this policy be successfully used in nearby cities and believe it's time
for laguna hills to adopt this ordinance so that much needed
affordable housing will be part of new building housing developments now and into the
future.
thank you.
any questions?
thank you.
kathy udovch.
hello.
thank you, city council, for sticking it out and letting us talk.
again, my name's kathy udovch, and I've lived here for 15 years.
excuse me.
before that, my dad lived here for 35 years before he had to move into a retirement
home.
so we got to hang out for a while, you know, just a block apart from each other.
excuse me.
I've had a cold for like a week and a half, so...
so when it comes to the inclusionary housing ordinances I know it's an imposed thing
and it's down to percentages and all this wonderful
confusing math but having something some sort of guide to aim at really is helpful
when it comes to
dealing with getting the homeless off the streets, possibly, by making them not
become homeless, which is sort of the goal
of getting people into housing they can afford.
so I always see that as a plus.
if we can get somebody off the streets or just somebody losing their own house
because they couldn't afford it any longer.
and obviously we've seen success with some of the other, our neighboring cities.
and I'm sure there's some that, I guess, some are more high density.
and I think here in orange county, we do sort of value all of our space.
I mean, I've grown up in houses that were huge.
you know, you could have like a half basketball court in the house I lived in in lake
forest,
just the other side of the freeway.
so I know what's what we're used to here in this area, but sometimes we're probably
going to have to eat it.
and the terravita looks like it's going to be a little bit more dense.
looks like they have more room for what they're going to build in the laguna hills
mall area.
that's awesome.
but I am going to say that when it comes to, this is the affordability for the next
generation.
and an example is just like my own family, my sister's family.
my niece just graduated high school, and she just got moved up to cal poly pomona.
and as they were packing her up, the dishwasher broke and flooded their whole kitchen.
and so now they don't have a kitchen at the moment.
they've been storing everything outside and moved the refrigerator into the garage so
they can repair that while sending her off to school and paying
for what she's going to be doing at school.
and they're very concerned about whether or not in the next couple of years her kids
are going to be able to afford
to live somewhere in the same area.
and so that's just sort of like an example of why we want, you know, affordable
housing.
so I am asking you guys to continue to vote positively for the inclusionary housing
ordinance.
and I finished on time.
slid into home plate.
yeah.
okay.
thank you so much.
any others?
patrick strader.
thank you, mayor and council.
patrick strader from starpoint ventures again.
I'm glad I got to come back up because I can answer councilmember wheeler's question
from earlier.
I have delivered multiple projects that are 100% affordable.
I'm a founding member of the irvine community land trust since 2007.
I think we've delivered seven 100% affordable projects in the city of irvine for
I don't know, 2,000 units.
the way we do it there is we take either land dedicated by the irvine company or we
take in lieu fees paid for by developers
or sometimes we go out on our own and we actually just did this.
we bought a six acre site.
we are building 100% affordable on a portion of the site and we are selling finished
lots to d.r.
horton for the highest price ever paid in the city of irvine.
so affordable developers can do that.
it can be done.
but the cities need to make it incentivized and need to make it something that can
happen.
I read, so please don't anybody tell anybody I know that I'm here speaking in favor
of an inclusionary housing ordinance because I would
never do that.
but I know you have to adopt it.
I looked at tonight's draft ordinance, and it's silent as to the actual fee.
it says that there will be a fee adopted later on the in lieu fee.
I read the keyser marston report.
it is insane.
$41 to$62 as a range is not anywhere near market.
I took some notes just to read to you.
I know you're not adopting a specific number tonight.
so as you adopt your inclusionary tonight,
great.
you need to do it.
15% is appropriate.
as you come back later and set it in lufi, costa mesa had a very similar report from
keyser marston.
I was there at that meeting.
they did $10 a foot.
santa ana, $15 a foot.
anaheim, 23.
laguna woods, 32 per market rate square foot.
irvine, off the top of my head, is about $33,000 a door.
so when we're talking about apartments, we just take like 1,000 feet.
I mean, it'll go up or down.
if you guys were to take the keyser marston high number and put $62,000 of doors and
in lieu fee,
there's not a person that will come to this city by choice.
if they can go to the two or three cities immediately adjacent and pay half that,
they will do that.
so as I stated earlier,
if the city wants to deliver affordable housing, please pick a rate that will
incentivize developers to come and do it.
adopt the one in front of you this evening,
but please invite industry back to come and speak about an appropriate per square
foot in lieu fee.
and I promise you when you get your in lieu fees,
you'll be able to find somebody who can come build a 100% affordable project.
any questions?
I'm happy to answer.
thank you.
any questions?
yes, dave.
well, I've never met anybody that's built 100%.
I would like your card, please.
and I would like to discuss that you know sometime afterward how these things are
done and get some get some insight because I
need some insight in this absolutely be happy to it is easier if the land is
dedicated if there are not costs of the land
to build a building and charge the rent less or sell it for less the land dedication
is
is for the land transfer is a huge element in allowing for affordability.
I think I'm just going to lay this out.
I understand this will it will I am in a losing position.
but I want to I've lived in many different states and many different states have
dealt with population increases in cities and population movements.
and they've always allowed for the natural economy to work its way through.
and so there are college campuses that people created apartments in their own house
so that college students could afford to rent.
and then the individuals that own the property would be able to have a boost of
income.
I know that's the adu concept, but perhaps maybe pushing this out to the community
makes it so that homeownership is more affordable,
especially if somebody is renting a section of their home out.
but I just think that those are the answers naturally with the economy and a number
of that's how other cities you see it
happen.
and so with that, I yield my comments.
yeah, some comments to provide some of the feedback on some of the things that were
said just recently here.
numbers are very important.
if you fail to look at the numbers in your personal life, you will go bankrupt and
have a lot of problems.
I work with nasa, department of navy.
you miss by a fraction, you know, and you're not on the moon, you're out in space,
and lost in space becomes a reality.
learn the numbers if you don't know them.
it's extremely important.
second thing, building more houses does not, and I repeat, does not solve the
homeless problem.
absolutely not.
I've spoken to secretaries of state deputies in washington, d.c.
I've spoken to the police.
I worked with the homeless for five years in the costa mesa.
the homeless, a lot of them, most of them, don't want to live in a place.
they want to be free.
you build houses for them, they'll destroy them.
that's exactly what happened to laguna hills.
we were forced to turn one of our hotels into a covid hotel, but it was designated
for only homeless.
they destroyed every single unit.
they had to go back and they had to redo and refurbish the whole place.
that is not a solution.
and you're crazy if you think it is.
the homeless are probably 90% of mental problems or drug problems or a combination of
the both.
if I work within a costa mesa, we'd have people come in.
everyone wants to know.
we've got a family or somebody that was just down on their luck.
they can be fixed, and they can be made whole very quickly, and all of them were.
the others, it's just crazy to think.
it's not true, and you're not going to accomplish anything.
as far as affordability, mill creek and terravita were mentioned, I believe.
those are not affordable.
the starting price for those units is $1.5 million.
if that's affordable to you, then okay, it's affordable.
I don't think it is.
so it's another total fallacy.
they're not affordable.
this is just a bunch of social engineering from sacramento.
and they screw things up more than they solve.
if they let the marketplace deal with it, they would do like everybody's done for
centuries.
when it's too congested or too expensive an area, you go out further and you build
something more inexpensive.
that's how orange county came about.
it used to be oranges.
that's how riverside used to be desert and stuff out there.
you go out past them, there's nothing out there.
there's land as far as you can see, not a house on it.
you build up where you can.
so I want to talk to the gentleman here about what you could really do, what you
should be doing,
and the people from brona's group.
I wish you'd quit, you know, leaning on cities and go lean on the county and take all
the vacant land that's out in the east
of the county that nobody's out there, build stuff out there that this gentleman
could probably help you with.
thank you.
thank you, dave.
okay, I...
not gonna get me to argue with the the market ruling what we should be really doing
but that said I will make a motion
to approve of 4.17 approval of ordinance adopting rzne-0015-2026 for inclusionary
housing program and I'm not
going to read the rest of it, but it goes right in accordance with the your agenda and
do we have a second?
second.
all right.
any other comments?
all right.
call.
roll call.
council member wheeler?
no.
council member pezold?
no.
council member sweeney?
aye.
mayor caskey?
aye.
mayor pro tem mathis?
aye.
ayes have it.
all right.
dave, we are to 4.19.
4.19.
robert, would you bring up that part of the agenda?
scroll down just a bit.
okay, first a preface and a...
perhaps on a question for director lowe, I think you said we had five properties.
I only remember four.
we had terravita, mill creek.
we had the la paz village.
we had the triangle, I call it.
we had them all.
so for the five properties, we've had the la paz village, the oakbrook plaza, your
apartment.
is that the triangle?
yes.
okay.
and then followed by terravita.
I'm sorry?
yeah, terravita.
and then followed by the khoshbin site, and then now followed by the mall
redevelopment.
was it that?
khoshbin, so 23161 mill creek road, located just north of the terravita site.
oh, I see what you're saying.
yeah, I consider that part of terravita.
okay, I understand how you're counting.
okay.
okay, thank you.
overall comment, this chart, which we review every month, need to include those, even
if they're passed, just to know what's going on, please.
this first one, a 100-house project up in the north, this is actually, I believe,
the one I was pointing to in my charts earlier, where I was suggesting we do c
instead of n.
I guess, well, is this scheduled for hearings?
no, the application is not ready to be presented to the council yet.
the application is not ready to be presented to the city council yet.
when do you expect?
I would say maybe best case scenario in the next two, three months.
that would be the best case.
we're still working through some of the application items.
okay, thank you.
next, please, robert.
scroll down just a little bit, please.
to the next chart.
oh yes, the quick quack.
what are they doing on that?
are they proceeding to break ground?
so quick quack is still working through some of the comments that we received from
the edc and staff on how to improve the architecture
and the site layout.
and then they will be resubmitting to the city.
and then we'll do a final review.
and if it's good to go, we'll schedule it for public hearing.
okay.
and the four we're missing, what is terravita doing now?
and both of them.
are they breaking ground?
are they going?
they're not breaking ground yet.
so they have plans.
so part of the site has been submitted to the city for plan check and review.
demolition of two of the office buildings that will be constructed housing by toll
brothers.
and then kingsmart also has submitted plans to look at the other office buildings for
demolition.
they're working through some of the other items that are required prior to building
permit issuance.
they have submitted also, I believe, some preliminary grading to public works as well.
but there are some milestones that they have to satisfy in terms of the map
requirements and everything prior to getting any permit issued.
okay.
okay, we know what the mall is doing.
the triangle, are they doing anything?
the triangle site, oakbrook plaza, the senior apartments, no, there has been nothing
submitted from them yet.
okay, still treading water.
okay, and last, but maybe it's the least, but la paz village.
as erica mentioned, there are two boarded buildings, the 7-eleven and a restaurant
that was a favorite sushi place of many people.
they literally have boards on it, which does look terrible.
what are they doing?
and then also, don't they have some kind of limitation on their approval?
because they were built at remedy, not regular.
right, so the site development permit is valid for two years.
the property owner, nick buchanan of cape point, is working with some issues with
ocfa and negotiating easements for the fire lane.
so that has to be satisfied also prior to permit issuance.
my understanding was, yeah, the fire problem that the real estate group was not going
to budge and they weren't going to change.
is that altered or is that still the case?
I don't actually know where they are.
I do know that they have not agreed to any terms to grant the easement the last time
I heard.
it looked a little different as far as the layout, but I'm not sure how that's going.
okay, when is there a limitation on their bill to remedy approval?
I believe we took that to public hearing september 23, 2025, so two years from that
date.
so their time's up in 27?
yes.
okay, thank you.
do you want to move?
unless someone wants to ask a question.
yeah.
do you want to move to?
yeah, unless they may have a question job move to move to I'll second very good.
we have a second all right it's been moved in second.
we'll take the vote call vote mayor pro tem mathis.
all right councilmember pezold.
aye. Councilmember sweeney.
aye. Mayor caskey.
aye. Councilmember
wheeler?
aye. Ayes have it. We re going to persevere here a little bit.
I would like to move on to city manager's report.
I think it's important that we handle that one tonight.
thank you, mayor and members of the council.
on may 19th, the orange county grand jury released a report titled, wildfires hit
home.
the grand jury issued six findings and three recommendations.
and all orange county cities were required to respond.
we received excellent, and I mean excellent, support from the orange county fire
authority chief.
thank you very much for the help you've given to me on this.
and I want to just move to the most important piece of this, which is the output is
our response.
and so based upon reading that, the proposed response that's before you, council,
is that the city agrees that the risk of severe wildfires are more frequent.
the city believes that home hardening can prevent wildfires.
the city agrees that safe homes grant funds may assist residents in hardening their
homes.
the city will participate in countywide fire-pretention fairs
and the city will partner with the orange county fire authority to engage and educate
our residents through public education and wildfire safety guidance.
and so the recommendation before you is that the council approve this response and
authorize the mayor to execute the response and then direct
me to submit the response as required by applicable law.
I'm available if anyone has any questions.
any questions first?
actually, do we have any public comments on this particular one?
not on this item.
okay.
sorry, I got ahead of myself a little.
erica, go ahead.
I just have one.
so if possible, there is somebody, andre perron, who is very active in trying to
assist
with fire prevention, if possible, it would be nice if you could have some
conversations with them because you may have some suggestions.
so I'd love to get that contact information.
yeah.
and I'll follow up with it.
thank you because there are concerns in some areas.
so thank you.
okay.
thank you.
okay.
any other comments?
josh.
yeah, I just want to say I support the substance of the response and appreciate the
recognition that ocfa serves as the city's fire
department and technical wildfire prevention partner.
and I would like to recommend, I would like recommendations r3 and r4 to be more
concrete.
but the grand jury specifically asked cities to establish a direct contact for
residents.
could we identify the responsible city staff physician and explain how residents will
reach that person and set a target date for placing localized
wildfire prevention, home hardening, defensible space, and such?
I'll turn that back over to bob.
ok.
and then so with that,
as ocfa board chair, I'm committed to ensuring this partnership produces measurable
resident education and preparedness, not simply a written response.
and we should approve an accurate response, assign responsibility, set dates,
communicate clearly, and then measure our progress.
and I would like to move approval of the response with direction that staff identify
the city position serving as the direct resident contact
under recommendation r4.
establish a resident facing wildfire information page or equivalent communication
channel and return to the council with the implementation of the update of
recommendations
are to through our for including evaluation of an appropriate community level risk
reduction designation second moved and seconded any other discussion hearing none
call rule customer wheeler.
I got the member sweeney.
all right, mayor caskey.
aye. Mayor pro tem mathis.
aye.
council member pezold?
aye.
ayes have it.
all right.
we're going to persevere here, but I will tell I'm going to ask chief burk
I mean, just because of the lateness of the hour and all the rest of that, I think
your reports are always so amazing.
I want to make sure that it's not lost on a crew that's pretty well spent.
I would like to postpone your report, with your permission, until our september, 1st
of september meeting, september 8th.
mayor, that's not a problem at all.
so let's move on to
our assistant city manager.
I think we've got one of these things off the docket, but let's continue on.
that was the longest one.
these two should be shorter.
this one does involve another decision point, however.
so thank you for listening to me.
item 5.2.2, rejection of bids for cip 101m, the citywide local street rehabilitation
project.
next slide, please.
so on june 23rd, the city council authorized the rebidding of the subject project.
and at that time, the bid proposal included a base bid and three additive bids.
the base bid was for zone d streets that have been identified by city staff and its
consultants for an asphalt concrete overlay.
additive bid one was for the remaining streets in zone d to
for slurry seal work, additive bid two was for zone a streets identified for ac
overlay work,
and additive bid three consisted of concrete improvements scattered between the two
zones.
next slide, please.
so we got bids on july 30th, and I find myself in the same situation again where the
lowest bidder provided high additive bids
again.
normally I would have expected during a re-bid process to have had bids that were a
little bit more in line with the second
lowest bidder and did not happen.
I haven't.
encountered this before.
so there's the table of the results there.
as you can see, if all american asphalt had just had a $8,000 lower base bid,
then we would have gotten some good choices between additive bid one and additive bid
two if that was what the city council wanted
to award.
but instead I've got higher additive bid one and kind of a high additive bid two from
the lowest bidder.
so based upon that, I'm rejecting the bids, but I want to have a checkpoint here with
all of you, so
just one second here.
next slide, please.
so as I was just mentioning, the lowest bidders is...
would be more expensive to go with if the city council wants to award an additive bid
as well.
next slide, please.
so just for recollection, here is zone d.
pink streets are the base bid work that we're trying to bid out for an asphalt
concrete overlay.
and then additive bid one is all the colored streets which would receive slurry seals
and area dig outs for any deficient pavement.
and then next slide please.
zone a is asphalt overlay work.
that would be, that was an additive bid.
next slide please.
and these are the locations of where concrete work was to occur for repairs.
next slide please.
so here are some choices here.
so what I'm looking for from city council is this idea of bidding out additive bids
is not working out.
what I would like to do is go out and bid one complete project just the way it is,
where we determine everything is a base bid, there are no additive bids,
so I'm looking for a decision point from the city council based on what scope of work
you want to do.
so one of the choices you could say is zone d ac overlay work plus zone d slurry seal
work plus concrete work.
based upon the bids last time and the time before, the estimated construction cost on
that is $3.1 million.
and choice two is base bid zone d ac overlay work plus zone a oversee work, overlay
work,
and concrete work where the estimated construction cost is $3.4 million.
there's some pros and cons to each one of those.
choice one, you would complete one entire zone, which would be zone d, and you'd
defer zone a to later.
so it would look complete, I think, to the residents.
but choice 2, you know, addresses the immediate needs of the worst rated roadways by
paving them now and not deferring half the job
until fiscal year 28, 29.
but then that might cause some anxiety for some people because they see that their
entire neighborhood hadn't been done.
the only problem with all of this is that when you add in the construction inspection
and materials testing minus the total available budget,
choosing either one of those things would require an estimated contribution from the
general fund reserves of $800,000 and $1.1 million.
if you end up choosing that, we got to bid again.
that's where I think we're going to wind up.
a choice three that's not on your screen now is to do the zone d ac overlay work only
for $1.2 million,
but then that leaves...
about that same amount on the table that would be unused in the current capital
improvement project,
and it doesn't get us very far with our overall local streets program.
so those are kind of the choices.
I don't know if I have a next slide.
do I have a next slide?
nope, that's it.
so if you would kindly tell me which choice you would like to do, and if you
need to look at the maps again so I can go out to bid where everything's part of a
base bid, I
think that would finally get somewhere, and we'll be paving then in october, november,
and we'll see if the super el nino gives us rain now or after january like what
happened last time.
okay.
do we have any public comments on this item?
we do not.
you don't have any public comments, scott?
just checking to make sure he's awake there.
so we have no public comments.
do we have any questions?
let's just go questions and discussion on this one.
no problem.
let's move it along.
anyone?
dave?
okay.
just a couple of quick ones.
page 7, please.
back one.
I'm sorry, go back again, another page.
more.
I wrote down the wrong number.
more.
there we go.
okay, I need to ask a question since I don't know what it means.
what do you mean by additive bid and base bid?
so what we were trying to accomplish with the re-bid and the original bid was that
the base bid is the bare minimum of the work
that we would award to the contractor.
it signals to the contractor that no matter what,
zone d asphalt concrete overlay would be awarded to the to the low bid contractor
unless the bids were rejected additive bid were optional
bids that the city council could consider so we packaged it up to try to give the
council options based upon how the bid
results came in to try to allow for if there was some great bargain that came out on
slurry seal for instance
you might change your mind and say, let's do zone d, asphalt overlay, and the slurry
seal project and call it a day.
or you might have said, well, we got a really great bid because...
hold on, you're starting to confuse me.
sure.
okay, let me get slow here.
the base bid, does the base bid do the job?
the base bid, in my mind, doesn't...
whatever you don't do this year, you're going to need to catch up and do again in two
years.
and so in my mind, I would recommend that you dip into your reserves eventually and
at least do one of the two zones.
we used to be on a program here where we would do two zones every other year.
that's okay.
I don't need no details.
yeah.
so this is...
so the base bid would do it, but you're saying we'd have to do it again sooner.
the base bid will do 25% of what we should be doing.
a base bid plus an additive bid will do about 50% of what we should be doing this
fiscal year.
and so that's, you could do just the base bid and do about 25% of what we would
normally do in a fiscal year,
but then you're also leaving, you're not spending $1.2 million that you had allocated
for this project.
okay, when you say 25%,
do you mean 25% of the area we need to do or 25% as the core of the job at the one
place?
25% of the area of the two of the neighborhoods that we would normally do.
so basically what we could do is just stretch it out and do fewer areas.
we could.
and then we could stretch it out.
and basically instead of doing a six-year cycle, we go to an eight-year cycle.
I had originally mentioned in the past about like a 10-year cycle kind of thing.
I don't see that as an option.
I think that's probably the best.
I hate dipping into our reserve because it's a bad present because we'll start doing
it, and pretty soon there won't be any reserves,
as I've mentioned many times.
but, yeah, I'd like to see an option.
since you want to reject these anyway, I'd like to see the next time you stretch it
out.
give us the option of stretch.
okay.
you don't have to reject bids tonight.
you could direct city staff to instead award a contract to harding and harper for the
base bid for $1,182,000 and authorize the city
manager to execute the contract.
you could do that.
I haven't typed up the agreement.
you'd have to assume that I would type up the agreement.
we would award it that way, but we could award it that way.
okay.
I'm going to leave that to my colleagues.
I'm going to go to jared next, and then I have some comments.
so what gets all of area d done?
is that the base and the additive bid?
that's the base bid and additive bid one.
right, so 2.275.
well, that's if you wanted to award it tonight.
oh, all-american.
yes, that's the problem is that hardy and harper's got$400,000 higher on additive bid
one.
got it.
but if you gave me direction, for instance, that that's the direction you wanted to
go and I put it out to re-bid again,
then maybe we'd save that kind of money.
I think, you know, spreading this stuff out does make sense,
but completing one area together at the same time is nice if we can do it,
understanding that there may be impact on the reserves,
but less than trying to get two districts or two zones partially done or even with
additives.
so, I mean, I would be in favor of just covering d with the base and additive bid if
that's
if that gets us where we want to go and actually makes a difference in the quality of
life of the residents in that area
and then you focus on other areas later.
parsis up as I could I could make the this base bid work equal to the combination of
asphalt overlay and slurry seal but I
think adds it to about 2.5 million dollars and then to be a small additive bid on
that and then if that doesn't get
done but then you won't have a complete job for zone ds so then that would be the
hazard again would be the perception
of not completing the whole area so I yeah, I whatever the city council would like me
to do.
I'm happy to do I
okay, I have some remarks, and I go back to eric then after that.
could you go back to the actual bids?
yes.
okay, there you go.
okay, the interesting thing about this, and it's not the first time I've seen
something like this,
is whenever you do notice that these additive bids, you know, are like twice as much
as the base bid.
and so the game of public works is
is uh...
you know you they try to win on the base that that they're hoping that you're going
to take an additive did and they're
actually going to end up more money than elvis and it doesn't become people anymore
you got it two weeks these bits and these
guys are really pretty savvy about how they go about doing this so I really like the
idea of of let's simplify this thing
one way or the other and it would it seemed to me that your your basic
your budget was 2.5 million, which you really had, and so you
were looking at whether you did a certain amount and you ended up going into the
piggy bank by $500,000 or $600,000 is one
thing, and the other one was more like a million, million, one, something like that,
if you go the other way.
I do like the idea of not doing some partial job, and I think we should simplify it.
I don't have a problem with...
I'm not really excited, as dave is, going into the general funds at all.
but if we can keep the thing cohesive to some extent, then, you know, half a million
is...
as opposed to 1 or 1.1 is more to my liking.
peacemailing this thing out
completely over, you know, a huge period of time.
you know, each one of these things that need to be done is not really exciting to me
either.
so that's my thought process with that.
erica.
no, I just, I think this is not good news.
and I personally think that we have,
been so fiscally responsible in all the years.
I know I was very proud when we had a proper pavement plan and that our city has
dipped into it and made decisions
where we've lost that.
I just, I can't see us, I mean, it's just not fiscally responsible to make decisions
and then say, okay, that's it.
you know, we want to pull, I mean, it's a million, it's a huge
amount of money out of the reserves.
so if we keep making these decisions, what are the reserves and the reserves are
there for a reason.
so it is, I am very concerned because we don't just pull money out of reserves for
paving roads.
we're being asked to make a decision to pull a lot of money out.
but I do understand
the necessity if you I mean to jump around I think that cost is uh and uh mr ames
jumping around is that also
does that increase the cost of the project because you're jumping to streets
so it is helpful to keep it in a somewhat helpful, not entirely helpful, somewhat
helpful to keep it in a geographic area,
which is I think zone d makes more sense.
the more we're talking about it is just to finish off a job in an area.
but the paving contractor is not the same people as the slurry seal contractor.
so all you're really saving there is that sort of remobilization from going from zone
d in the middle of the city down to zone
a to do that overlay job.
I don't think it makes a significant difference in this case.
there's enough work there where they would just mobilize and do the work.
I don't know if that answers your question.
would it be worth going back out to bid if you increase the area to see if they'd be
willing to...
change the bid numbers.
I don't want to add more work, but I'm just wondering if changing the strategy
no, the whole idea of doing the additive bids was already to sort of change strategy.
if I add more work, I'm not going to get appreciably lower pricing.
we actually got, surprisingly, despite the current situation with oil prices, we
actually got some pretty good bids for an asphalt concrete overlay.
I was surprised they came in where they were at.
I was expecting something worse, which
really tells me that the second lowest bidder pricing and the third lowest bidder
pricing is, you know, it was really good.
actually, the second lowest bidder pricing is really good.
so I was, anyway.
we're not going to get a whole lot better by just adding more quantities, trying to
drive down the unit prices.
are you done, erica?
you're done.
okay, I have a couple things to add to that.
I think you got the right idea.
let's get rid of the additive bids and go out and keep this straight up because
you're going to get better.
I think you're going to get better bids than people plan the base bid, additive bid
thing,
and I think you're going to get better bids altogether.
that's just my own personal experience.
but, you know, the other thing that I would just like to point out, when I came to
the city five,
five and a half years ago,
I was very interested in all these kind of numbers as well.
and one of the things I was acquainted with right away which told me that this is not
some thing that is brand new to the
city as far as a problem.
we had, I seem to remember, $36 million worth of things that we could lay out that we
needed to do.
and we needed to do them within four years or whatever the amount of time was.
and the reality is the amount of money that we could spend per year, okay, was about
one-fourth of that.
and so this issue of having to pick and choose, push things off, it goes way back.
it's not something that we just discovered day before yesterday.
and it might be getting more serious, no question about that.
and we've got to do economic development.
we've got to do a whole lot of things.
I'd like to approach it in a much more positive way instead of just looking at it and
saying, oh, well, we're doomed,
you know.
and so, but I do think bottom line, keep it simple.
and that really gets down to whether we want to spend a dime over$2.5 million or not.
or we're willing to do these in some kind of parts and take a risk that by doing a
straight bid and not additive
bids, that we're not going to be dipping into our general funds very much at all.
so that would be my advice.
dave.
sorry, okay, you're good do we have a anyone want to make a motion or move this along
I
well, I think I just pretty much did it.
except I really would like to hear from someone else as to whether or not we should
be going for zone d or not.
how do we all feel about it?
I think it makes sense.
I think it's definable.
and...
communicates a good message if we can do it all together.
and I agree going out with one bid instead of the additive bids and see what we get
and then see what we can
afford.
but I will say.
I mean, the fundamental responsibility of the city is to make sure that we've got
solid roads and, I mean,
if we're going to start, you know, pinching on that over other things, you know,
property values, so many other things,
quality of life are tied to this basic blocking and tackling of a city.
and so I think as it ranks among other things that we may or may not spend money on,
this
is very much high on the list.
economic realities are that I think maybe it was mr.
ames had said to do this stuff cost twice as much as it did what five years ago if
something like that or 50%
more percent higher.
yeah, so I mean you know that that's something that that isn't just endemic to laguna
hills.
that's across the board so we just got to figure out how to manage it, but I
think doing one area at a time makes sense and we got to figure out how we can
sequence it down the road, but
so yeah, if that's a motion I would I'll make a motion okay.
I'll make a motion that that you go out to bid with essentially your base bid and a
zone d as one setup deal
okay pretty clean and and then let's roll the dice see where we're at and then you
also include the reject of all all the
current bid proposals in your motion okay
do we have a second?
second.
okay, we have a second.
any other discussion?
dave?
yeah, I wanted to understand this a little better.
okay, so your proposal is, well, let me ask joe, what does the base and the slurry,
so those go together?
so what I'm understanding is the motion on the table is to reject all bids placed and
then to create bid specifications and re-advertise.
I would also like to get clarifications.
sorry, what?
too much detail.
is the base and the slurry the same thing?
no, the base bid is for the asphalt overlay of robert.
could you go to slide six, please?
the base of the asphalt.
sorry, go to slide five.
and the slurry is over top of it to seal it up?
no.
okay.
so this is zone d.
the pink streets would receive a one and a half inch asphalt overlay.
okay.
over those streets.
different streets and different things.
different streets.
the other colored streets will receive area digouts of any deficient asphalt and then
a slurry seal treatment on those streets.
okay.
so going back to the bit again.
for cost effectiveness.
going back to the bit again.
okay, so in area d, some streets need a base, some streets need a slurry.
yes.
period.
okay.
I understand what that is.
one is to lay the whole thing, one is to put the...
sort of patch it up.
so we're going to go out and do, okay, basically call two and call three.
I don't know how much better, but you'll get better.
it should be better.
the second, third, and fourth lowest bidders, if you add up those numbers, they all
add up to almost exactly the same dollar amount.
and you know what?
just an observation.
when things are clean like that and they're looking at it and they know it's one
number and it's all base bid,
you're going to find these guys sharpen their numbers.
yeah, I actually had two more little points.
sure, go ahead.
no, I like that you have a keep it simple kiss system.
yeah.
as far as the...
the people that do this, are we under the restrictions of the state that we have to
use the most expensive people,
like we have to use unions with full detail, etc., etc.?
all contractors doing this work must pay prevailing wages as determined by the
department of industrial relations.
so there is a minimum amount that all the workers must be paid.
I hear a yes in the cities.
yes.
sort of like a$20 way for people working at mcdonald's.
okay.
oh, I have another one.
I can't remember it now.
welcome to public works.
okay.
I can't think of it.
okay.
jarrett, you have your light on.
but nobody's home.
okay.
so with that, let's call the roll.
just to clarify, what is the question now?
go ahead.
reject this and go back to work for base and additive critique.
base and zone d.
so it won't be an additive.
it'll all be one big base.
how's that?
could I also ask the city council, would you also consider starting to come back
again on september 8th, the
authority to re-advertise for construction?
or do you want to see the revised bid schedule proving that I'm going to do it that
way?
as far as I'm concerned, whatever you think is the right way to go.
I would appreciate that.
it would help speed things along so we might have a hope of paving by halloween.
I don't want to micromanage you on that kind of stuff.
you know what you're doing.
by the way, before we vote, I just want to say the amount of work that you did on all
of this, I mean,
the research about what we need on what streets and all the rest of that is stellar.
and I want to talk about saving money.
mean that was that's the that's the big job of just not throwing.
you know one one shoe fits all kind of thing at it so kudos to you for doing that I
have an amazing staff.
thank you.
yeah, well all of you all of you together when I say you I mean your old unit so with
that we're gonna call
the roll mayor pertain mathis.
hi councilmember wheeler.
hi mayor katsky.
hi.
come over sweeney.
hi.
that's a little abstain.
I have it.
okay.
and now we're to the last item, rejection of bids on authority and authority to
re-advertise for the construction of park improvements for cabot,
el canejo park, mckenzie park, san remo park, and v ranch park.
so thank you for that.
next slide, please.
so on june 24th, we opened up bids for five park improvement projects, and we got
mixed results.
and as I was typing up this agenda report,
I was trying to figure out what the best way of describing what happened with all
this was.
and so I think I've done a good job.
so for cabot park, the two lowest bidders failed to include the signed addenda,
and the third lowest bidder's price was significantly higher than the lowest bidder's
proposal.
for el caneo park, the lowest responsive bidder provided an unacceptable additive bid
for a neighborhood desired improvements that we would have otherwise recommended
a city council for approval.
for mckenzie park, we got a bid protest.
we thought that the bid protest may have merit.
and rather than fight that one out, I would reject all bids there.
next slide, please.
for san remo park, again, added bid might have been a problem.
and then v ranch park, the lowest bidder withdrew the bid due to a clerical error,
which they were entitled to.
underneath the code.
and the next lowest bidder's base proposal is$100,000 more.
and based upon how, when I was reading the results of the additive bids,
I think some bidders misinterpreted the schedule making comparisons of those bids a
little difficult.
the only shining or silver lining in all this was that the good news is that all the
base bids for each project appear to be within
the original budget that I provided to city council for all of this.
so I'm just recommending the rejection of all bids and the re-advertisement of the
project.
and I've self-identified some improvements to the plans and specifications
I think will work and will work better and I still am not willing to throw out
additive bid schedules I still like additive
bid schedules despite our experience with the prior paving job.
I think it's important for the city council at least have some options on these park
projects I will look to package them up a
little bit more and
and while those improvements to the bid schedule aren't included in tonight's agenda
packet because I was out of the office due to a family
emergency, I'm requesting authority to re-advertise now in the interest of time.
so that's the end of my staff report.
the next slides, if you care to see them, are, again,
showing what the base and additive bids were that were being shown to the bidders of
what the park improvements were.
so then please let me know if you have any questions any discussion once again keep
it simple,
and I think you're gonna get it this next time around hopefully I
all right.
so we have been moved and seconded.
we'll take a roll call vote.
council member wheeler.
your vote.
oh, I'm sorry.
I didn't hear you say my name.
aye.
council member sweeney.
aye.
council member pezzel.
aye.
mayor furtan-mathis.
aye.
mayor kesky.
aye.
cabot.
okay.
thank you, captain burke, for your comments.
flexibility and we'll look forward to hearing your report at the next meeting, okay?
and so we're now to city council committee reports councilmember pays old did you
want to report on anything?
my apologies there are a number of presentations provided at the tca meeting.
but I think it's more important right now to move to the orange county mosquito and
vector control.
and the reason why it's very important is that right now there's a lot of buzz around
removing certain chemicals.
there's a lot of stuff happening.
in ladera ranch, there's a lot of, there's just a lot of things, and many discussions
that are being had.
and what we're seeing right now at orange county, at oc vector is an increase in the
west nile virus mosquito samples.
and I just would like to make mention that there is not a lot of communication about
some of the consequences with west nile with the mosquito and why it's important is
that in the meeting um there was a an individual
that said that her her neighbor is a doctor and he sees a lot of meningitis and um in
meningitis the symptoms are very
quick and you can die very quickly and there isn't really a lot of conversations
whether or not it derived from the mosquito
but it's happening.
there's increases.
and so with the increases of west nile, I think that we have to be very cautious.
we need to alert.
and by the way, I applaud ms.
gannon.
I believe that she has been posting this on social media.
but this is a concern in our area, and I think we need to try to send information.
the information out.
there is a video, a four-minute video.
I don't know if we want to even look at the video, but the consequences are dire,
and I think we need to alert the public of the signs and symptoms that they could
have that could change their life.
but I just, I mean, and with lack of time,
I don't know if anyone thinks maybe what we should do is post it online, the video,
or if you'd like to see it.
it's up to you, whatever you would like.
if you'd like to see the four-minute video, we can play it, but...
you know, what I would suggest is it might be better to do it at the next meeting,
and you might even have some people out there who could actually see it, just not...
so maybe post it online, or we can post it in the beginning of the meeting.
yeah, or something like that.
okay, fair enough.
I think the idea of getting that kind of thing out to the public is...
important oh yes a few a couple days is life is life-altering my my husband's
sister-in-law died of meningitis just recently within very quickly
and that stuff comes and you have very little warning and you're gone okay, and so
you're counseling
yeah, just a quick question.
I see you have some tables there.
what is the mosquito increase in laguna health?
are we on there?
thankfully, we are not, but the neighboring cities are seeing the increased activity.
like mission, lake forest?
abrea, coasta mesa, cypress, fountain valley, fullerton, garden grove, huntington
beach, irvine, las amidas, lajabra.
lagoon, newport beach, orange, placentia, santa ana, seal beach, stanton, villa park,
westminster.
okay.
I'm hearing all those are farther north.
nothing that close.
just an incidental anecdote of my wife's.
been getting a lot of mosquito bites and just never happened before and over last
year was like a little this year it's a lot
yeah I think we've got us I think we've got a serious problem it's huge okay my
report make it real quick uh the oaac
uh they had a nice presentation it's uh basically how to how to conduct your affairs
as talking about you know powers of attorney
when you for your estate, having trusts.
very, very good information.
it's mainly meant for seniors of the audience, but it's good for everybody.
one other comment.
the membership there is like 35 delegates or 35 commissioners.
that's a big meeting.
I was the chairman of the goals committee.
they accepted all my goals, and I also chaired the metrics to meet those goals.
and I supplied them a table for our first metric meeting, and the executive committee
is looking at it right now.
so we're moving along and trying to get things done for the older adults, which now
number over a million.
oh, we have one additional thing.
the lawyers did give me permission to supply them with data, so I can now
legally supply them with data addresses and things of these seniors in orange county
so that we can access them and try to help
them that was a big guess and a million.
I'm assuming is somewhere between 25 and 33 percent of the whole county population.
no.
oh, you mean the seniors?
the population county is what I
I don't even know I don't know significant and the and I can't like I thought so much
accessibility I have addresses for every
single one of them phone for 30 percent and an email all right that leaves us to city
council member comments any comments tonight
I oh, just one comment.
we as a council received a letter from a cynthia mcmullen who mentions that nellie
hill ranch homeowners association without permission had announced that they
were going to fly drones all over the hoa without permission
and I'm just wondering if our city manager responded, if this is something we need to
have a discussion with council.
so I just wanted to know if there was a response to her email.
yeah, absolutely.
I'll hand it to you.
thank you.
josh.
thank you, mayor.
since it's getting late, I would like to demonstrate the curfew policy I previously
brought forward and say that it might be good to bring
that back.
but anyways, first I want to thank captain burke for sticking it out and the orange
county sheriff's department.
I also want to thank the orange county fire authority.
public safety remains our highest responsibility, and I deeply appreciate the
deputies, the firefighters, paramedics, dispatchers,
and professional staff who protect lugana hills every day.
I also want to clarify several statements that were made tonight.
the city attorney's client is the city as an organization, acting through its
authorized officials.
the fact that every council member did not receive a separate private consultation
does not establish that our city attorney failed to represent the city
or properly review the agreement, and I fully support our city attorney and
professional staff.
I also reject the suggestion that this council is disregarding police or fire
protection.
development can create additional service demands, but it also creates assessed value,
property tax revenue, including revenue supporting ocfa,
development fees infrastructure and other municipal revenue and as chair of the
orange county fire authority I'm aware of no ocf a finding presented
in this record concluding that this project will diminish fire protection the city's
fiscal analysis projects more than 3.8 million in annual revenue at full
build-out approximately
1.5 3 million in additional municipal service costs and estimated annual surplus of
approximately 2.2 6 million
those are projections, not guarantees, but they do not support claims that the
project provides no financial benefit or the city will inevitably be
bankrupt in seven years.
finally, the potential octa impact on hotel 1 was not ignored.
section 12.4 expressly anticipates possible relocation and preserves the developer's
obligation to build the hotel.
we may disagree, but
serious claims about our legal counsel public safety and the city's solvency should
be supported by evidence and I will continue supporting our city
attorney our staff ocsd ocfa and decisions grounded in the written record leadership
is not measured by how long we debate a problem but by whether
residents can fill the solution and with that before today becomes tomorrow and with
that
I'm going to adjourn this meeting at 11:41, and our next regular meeting will be
september 8th at 6 p.m.