City Council — February 26, 2026

We will call this meeting to

All right, if we could please have roll call.

this evening although... Just one moment no none this evening that's fine.

The suspense was killing

me. That's

okay. None this evening, we're good We will move to public comment for any non-agendized items.

Yeah. I had mentioned AB 1421, a state assembly bill. Just make sure to speak into the microphone. The state assembly bill, the mileage tax... Everybody I talked to, I can't find out anything about it. I was wondering what your positions were on it?

Okay, so I apologize. So for public comment on

comment okay perfect

moving along will now move on to our consent calendar and those will be four items one through oh just one two three

I move to approve but also abstaining from the minutes. Is that acceptable? Motion? Yes? Okay.

Seconded.

Do we need a separate motion for the minutes to be approved or that's okay?

No that's okay. Perfect

and now moving on to public hearings

All right. Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, there are two public hearings this evening. The first public hearing is a consideration of Ordinance No. 26-01, an ordinance of the City Council of the city of Buellton, California, revising City of Buellton Municipal Code Section 2.12 regarding city clerk. This is for the introduction and first reading only tonight, and our staff contact is our city clerk, Linda Reed.

All right, thank you mayor and council members. When the city incorporated back in 1992 the City's Municipal Code was created by adopting much of the counties of Santa Barbara's municipal code and then we would revise and add sections to fit Buellton's needs through the years. One example would be section 2.12 regarding the city clerk position allowing the city manager or the authority to appoint terminate set compensation And assign duties to the city clerk. The original code section 2.12 and the red line version are attached for your reference, and staff recommends that the council consider these few changes in the introduction of first reading of ordinance number 2601, and if approved it'll be brought back for second reading at the March 12th meeting.

That concludes my report I'm happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Is there any questions for staff at this time from any of the council members?

No questions.

And before I ask if there is any public comment, if anyone wants to do public comment on this item please go ahead and do a form. Seeing none we'll go ahead and close public comment. Do we have any items for this?

No sorry no nobody online.

Okay so we'll bring it back Well, I think it's a great idea.

I just have one philosophical question. Do we think that this was brought this way as a checks and balance? And are we losing a check in balance by making the switch?

I'm not sure how it was, how and why it was positioned this way. There are some cities around the state that have this. There are also some cities around the state for which within which the city clerk is an elected position When it's an appointed position, the issues that this brings up with me as a city manager is I would have essentially a member of the staff and a member of the executive staff, the confidential staff that is not within the organization. They report to the City Council directly which In and of itself isn't necessarily a problem. But in our case, where we have a city clerk and a human resources director, the human resources director portion of it would be would fall under my authority. The city clerk would fall into the City Council's authority.

The other issue that I have is more philosophical. It's ethical in nature. The city clerk is the elections officer for the city, and to my mind it puts the city clerk in a really interesting position to be the elected elections official but to be beholden to the parties that are elected to office and it opens up the possibility for or increases the possibility for some undue pressure on that position. ≫ Thank you.

See if I can do this pops up there. No, it does not want just a second. It's where it belongs. Okay, great.

Good evening Mayor Silva, members of the City Council. So before you tonight for public hearing our proposed updates to the city's outdoor lighting standards. Our zoning code was last updated for lighting in 1994 and they're very minimal standards. There were some guidelines for outdoor lighting and Scott you can go to the next slide actually Um, there were some outdoor lighting standards adopted in our 2005 community design guidelines and these were mostly for minimizing light trespass and glare.

There were also one general plan policy in 2005 as well regarding lighting. So together, these have formed an informal policy for a dark sky friendly lighting ordinance. The planning department has carried out this policy with We Watch for the last 15 years or so and We Watch is a local San Ynez Valley based The city of Buellton is a resource conservation organization. They have a save our stars committee, they provided guidance to staff over the years for best practices on dark sky friendly lighting And then, um, recently there have been some in the last couple years issues with some problem lighting around town and there's been a. Desire it seems from counsel in the community for updated lighting standards so.

We've been working with we watch for the past year couple of years actually on a model ordinance they had. So the lighting standards that you see tonight is based upon that model ordinance along with. Next slide, please. So we have a lot of parts from other ordinances around neighboring jurisdictions and from dark sky international which is kind of the preeminent dark sky friendly lighting organization.

And also from Torrey Utah So the purpose of the ordinance is dark sky friendly lighting plus the reasons listed here. These are the purpose this is It's to conserve energy, preserve community character and maintain nighttime safety and adequate visibility. Also to protect the night sky people wildlife from adverse effects of nighttime lighting. And then implement a good neighbor policy.

Next slide

okay

so this ordinance would be applicable to all new and replaced outdoor lighting The non-conforming lighting that is existing on sites where a discretionary permit, like a conditional use permit would be required would be, that non-conforming lighting would be needing to be brought into conformance with the new standards. And this would also be for major modifications.

Exemptions... Would include some low-level lighting like you see here for landscape, architectural lighting. String lighting if it's partially shielded so just a cover on top so it doesn't shine upwards into the sky. Temporary lighting for events, seasonal holiday lighting these would be exempt and also emergency lighting and lighting for already exempt government facilities like schools.

Next slide. Prohibited lighting would be some high-intensity lighting like floodlights you see here, permanent blinking or flashing lights, lights that interfere with vehicle operations and digital billboards. Next slide. So some standards that would apply to projects with new or replaced lighting would be that the light has to shine downward In most cases, there are some exceptions.

Shielding, so this means that really the bulb is not seen if you're looking at the light straight on. So it has to be either recessed into the fixture or flush with the fixture. You can see some examples on the right-hand side of the screen and that all of those images you can see unshielded versus shielded lights And then there are some more standards for minimizing light trespass onto neighbors' properties and direct it away from sensitive areas like natural areas, creeks, rivers, homes.

Other requirements would be for LED or high-efficacy lighting, maximum heights, lighting controls. These are things like motion sensors, dimming timing controls Photometric plans would be required as well, and these would measure the brightness on a site. And then color temperature would. Be required to be a maximum of 3000 Kelvin so the image that you see at the bottom lights or can be warmer in appearance for cooler in appearance.

Uh, 3000 Kelvin is right in the middle there, so it tends to lean warmer. The lower Kelvin you go, the warmer the light appears. The higher you go like at 5,000, the cooler it appears. So red or warmer lights are more beneficial to nighttime lighting, not as disruptive to sleep and then 2700 Kelvin is shown to be kind of the max that would be That would not be harmful for wildlife, so we've required 2700 Kelvin in sensitive natural areas.

Next slide. So some exceptions to our lighting requirements would be that internally illuminated signs would still be allowed in the commercial zones or in the CR zone on commercial developments. And this would include some neon signage would be allowed in the Avenue flags area in limited amounts. And then other exceptions have been made for lights in the Avenue of Flags area, just because Art Deco lends itself to really unique lighting styles that could shine outwards but they would need to be diffuse so that the glass couldn't be clear. It would still have to have a top to cover the light so they don't shine upwards.

And then the Planning Commission made a recommendation I'm going to go ahead and open it up for public comment. We had mentioned at their last meeting that they would want to see porch lights allowed that have uplighting as long as they're covered under a porch or similar. So outdoor recreational lighting, this has some specific needs And then there's one section on exceptions, and this includes some accent lighting for objects of public interest. So flags art architectural features on historic buildings things like that.

And then, so everything I've been through so far is made to our main lighting section in the zoning ordinance. There is one other section in our code that talks about lighting and that's in the mixed use ordinance. So that language has just been removed because it's inconsistent with what is proposed. So part of the recommendation tonight would be I would like for the council to direct staff to come back with a resolution to update the community design guidelines, and this would just be updates for consistency with the new zoning ordinance amendment.

This would pertain to uplighting lighting height exposed bulbs some So the zoning ordinance amendment would be exempt from CEQA. This is under the common sense exemption, and there would be no potential to cause a significant effect on the environment because no physical development would be proposed with the amendments and the amendments would actually benefit the environment in terms of protecting wildlife and plants.

Next slide. So the recommendation is that the City Council introduced by title only and waive for the reading of ordinance 26-02 as stated, and direct staff to prepare a resolution to update the community design guidelines. This would come back with a second and final reading of the zoning ordinance amendments. And that is it for me but I'm available for any questions.

Thank you very much for that presentation. I just wanted to remind everyone, if you're here in the audience wanting to do a public comment on this make sure to get your slips to our Deputy Director Kat Derry who will bring it back to Council for any questions of staff. It looks like you're ready to go Council Member Hornick.

I don't have any questions actually thank

you. Any questions? Questions,

thank you.

Council Member Sanchez?

Yeah, do we know what the lighting lumens are on avenue flights in front of like PCP Anderson's right now?

I do not know what the specific lumens are.

I actually had a complaint about it's too dark, you're out walking at night and you can't see as well as you should especially on public thoroughfare. I'd like to make it at least add a minimum public safety lumen thing. It's nice It's a low lighting, but in the public you need to see something. There was recently there was a big crime with the one that's Tucson and everybody was looking for their cameras to see if they could read anything or see anything. And the whole thing was Tucson is so dark and they don't like lights there. So nobody had any...

Nobody could see any cars in there. You know, their cameras. So I think there should be a minimum amount of light in public thoroughfare and at least have that threshold. It's nice to have the dark side but you don't need to have it dark on Avenue Flex in the middle of night.

And on the public right-of-way there are public work standards that would have minimum lighting in the right-of way on public property ≫ I have a question for you, Mr. Mayor. On private property, that would be as proposed up to the private property owner to determine the security needs on the site. If you wanted to add something on private property for minimum lumens or minimum brightness, we could discuss?

Well, it's a safer spot to go. If there is a lower level or if there is a set level.

I was

going

to say, I received the same complaint. I've yet to look into it fully but I suspect that the cause of that has to do with light fixtures which were put in with PSU Anderson decades ago. And they just haven't been updated, perhaps the bulbs are not. I think

that was all a city project with lighting on the side. It

could well have been but I'll look into it. I'll make sure that that I'm sure we do have minimum lumen standards for street fixtures like that and if these don't meet it will look at bringing those up to code

public safety light.

If there is a need to adjust the municipal zoning code for this, it probably would not be as a part of the night lighting or the outdoor lighting section. This is geared more toward lighting color and trying to diminish the lumens we want to put that in our public safety standards under lighting so I'll look into it and if there's a need to bring

I had a couple actually if you don't mind. I just curious was there a reason of settling between 3000 and 2700?

So the 3,000 is what's recommended by Dark Sky International as kind of the maximum overall for citywide. And that's been shown in research to be less harmful than higher lumens. The 2,700 would only be in sensitive natural areas and that research has been shown on wildlife that 2,700 Kelvin is the max that does not disrupt wildlife patterns at night.

≫ Thank you. So if you have like a redevelopment of a site, so there's an existing building So by passing as is right now, and if we went through and adopted all this basically the current status of lighting would be maintained. And only if any project wanted to do any kind of realistic adjustments that's when we'd see any kind of impact from this. Correct. Okay thank you. And then my only other question was what's enforcement look like?

So we have done some enforcement on nuisance lighting so far and it's been, if a property replaced their lighting or put in new lighting that was not compliant with our current standards and would be the same with the new ordinance if it was not for our new standards. We would go through the code enforcement process and get that property to Put in lighting per the standards.

Including so even like residential that would fall under the same.

If new or replaced, yeah it would apply to new or replaced lighting for residential. But

if you're upset with your neighbor's lighting right now this is not going to change that course of action? Yeah just new and replaced. Perfect just wanted to make sure we're understanding the baseline thank you very much.

But can I ask, can i jump in? Do you have a question? Sure go for it! But if your neighbor replaces lighting that doesn't conform to standards that would be a code ordinance violation?

Potentially yeah.

I triggered another question if I may. I don't want to, okay. Thank you. You did inspire it, thank you. That's the word I was looking for. I noticed that a lot of the lighting, the Kelvin choices and the shielding were to reduce wildlife impact as well. I was wondering, did we consider like the LED flashing? Like the fact that LEDs by their nature are flashing is that in that affects wildlife? Did that come into play at all?

Is

it in our ordinance at all?

Yeah, we didn't come across anything with LEDs. But I mean flashing lights are prohibited obviously flashing lights but you mean the LED. Well

yeah so LED is like by their nature right they flash and they flash at a pattern that's fast enough for our eye not to catch it but other animals see at a different frequency than us so they see it. I don't know if that was factored in.

≫ Thank you.

I'm here tonight to represent WeWatch. I'm on the board and Nancy submitted a letter which you should have in your packet, but I just had a few comments in support of the ordinance so here it goes. ≫ Good afternoon. Your staff has carefully developed an outdoor lighting ordinance that is even more thorough than the county's excellent ordinance adopted last year.

It balances varied interests, including ours. We urge you to adopt it as recommended by the planning commission. It protects the abundant wildlife that lives in Buellton by including the requirements that the river, creek and open space areas light fixtures use the warm light of 2700 Kelvin bulbs as recommended by wildlife researchers. We encourage the use of these bulbs wherever one finds wildlife which includes much of our valleys urban as well as rural areas. We strongly support the requirement that the major modifications of 25% or more be made subject to the ordinance, as it will speed up retrofitting of noncompliant lighting fixtures.

The required partially shielded string lights will mitigate the problems they cause neighbors and the night sky. Fully shielded string lights are available too and we encourage their use. The ordinance, including the planning commission's revision helps control uplift lighting a major source of nightlight pollution. We look forward to working with you your staff and residents on implementation of this ordinance to begin this work I'd like to share 2 brochures. I've got copies for you.

I do want to address Councilman Sanchez's concern with safety. If those lights are shielded on the top, they're protecting our night sky and allowing that light to shine down

Thank you very much.

All right, we'll bring it back. Any other comments? Perfect. Bring it back to Council for discussion at this time or comments. I have a couple but still many. We'll pause for the distribution of flyers.

It's like a deck of cards. Thank you. Yeah. All

right. ≫ Thank you. ≪ ≦ The only comment I have and it's just something I think we should be mindful for is, ≫ I agree. I strongly support I just want to make sure we leave that open. I think that's something we can look at with anything. I just think we should keep it open as like if this doesn't fix the problems of complaints, I would feel bad to find out oh, we adopted this after a nuisance was established and there is no recourse for a resident. Just wanted to leave it open as a dialogue in the future.

I move to approve ordinance number 26-02, an ordinance of the City Council of the city of Buellton revising title 19 zoning of the Buellton Municipal Code regarding outdoor lighting introduction. First reading.

I'll second

Thank you for all the work.

Is that to give direction for staff to come back with updates to the community design guidelines as well?

Yes.

Do

we need to add an addendum?

We could just add... I amend my motion to include that additional direction. Will you second that?

Oh, seconded. Let's do another vote. Why

You know, I don't really have any comments. Okay, Councilmember

Lueb?

Asked me to mention that somebody had fallen on McMurray Road, on the south side of McMurray with a street and they, on a Chuck Muller, or into... That we would take care of the surface of the road down there. I know it's in disrepair. We've been waiting for it to be done after the development. If it's after the development, I'd rather get it sooner than later.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's, I'll have to go out and take a look or someone from our engineering staff will have to go out and take a look and see if there is an actual existing hazard such that we would need to take immediate action on that. But otherwise we'll, if there's not, we'll let the developer take care of that if there is one. Would

it be before they get occupied?

If there's an immediate hazard, if there's an actual hazard, yes,

I'm going to go ahead and close the meeting.

Thank you for

joining us.

I wanted to say thank you to Santa Barbara Humane, ASAP Cats and the SYD Humane Society and DOG. Those three organizations participated in World Spay Day and SYD Humane and DOG got to participate and basically complete 17 spay and neuters for local families so I appreciate the collegiality of those animal rescue and animal welfare organizations working together to provide services for the valley.

I also wanted to mention that I was able to attend the Youth Making Change Award event. It was a really exciting event, that's through the Santa Barbara Fund. The two grant award winners were a group called Close Up Washington which is getting funding to allow students to visit Washington D.C., which is very exciting. We might have some potential city council members in the future going on that trip so it's always exciting to see young people so civically minded And the other group was the Takeo Youth Group's Indigenous Youth Docu-Series, which has the purpose of elevating indigenous and migrant voices through a docu-series basically sharing the experience of indigenous and migrant youth. So just a really wonderful award ceremony. It's always like I said exciting to see young people so civically engaged in caring so much about their community.

And speaking of that on Saturday, just as an FYI, I'm really excited that Buellton Library is going to be hosting a student advisory council for 30 high school students from the Santa Barbara County area. So if you happen to be at the library on Saturday morning we will be there with a bunch of students talking about lots of different things totally so It's really exciting. So I just really am appreciative of the organizations that are providing so much guidance and so much opportunity for our youth, and I'm happy to get to be a part of it and happy to get to see it.

Thank you very much. Mine are actually just a bit more complaints I got from people at my coffee hour, so I just wanted to pass those along. So one was just to make everyone aware that the asphalt situation at Highway 246 and the Chevron gas station where the sidewalk meets there's a groove that apparently strollers will get stuck in when you're crossing the street and so it's just caused issue. They submitted some photos and I think I got that over to someone, I'm not sure but now it's just I can make sure I reported that for it

≫ Can I add on to that? It's also electric wheelchairs are having a difficulty getting over that. There is an ADA compliance issue we should be aware of. Just to add on, it's not about strollers. A little bit more than that too. Thank you for bringing that up. I apologize but I forgot.

I don't know technical terms, but there's a phone box thing in the sidewalk next to the senior thrift store and kind of between us that had like a groove or something. Or like a pole that was chopped off? Do you know what I'm talking about?

I do. There was a piece of metal extending out over the sidewalk in one particular location. Our engineering crew went out there took a look at it and did what we can I believe there's still a cone stuck on top of it or something like that. That's actually a phone company facility and we can't really touch it, they have to come out fix it but they've been made aware of the problem

Okay, perfect. Thank you for making that a much more technical explanation than the box phone sidewalk poll. And then finally I just want to say I know I got a lot of complaints. I want to make everyone aware that on 246 on the east side entry across from the hitching post right along the Dale property, I just want to make everyone aware that the weed situation has been reported to Caltrans And for anyone wondering, there is no magic phone number to call. I also just submitted a ticket and got a number assigned to it, and it's on their witness. But I just want to make sure everyone's aware that property owner's not able to mow the section that is under Caltrans' easement. So I just wanted to say everyone, like, it's crazy they could mow maybe up to their property line but there was a difference of that and they're not allowed to do so.

If you'd like to keep complaining to Caltrans about the weed abatement, it has been made to their... But I just wanna make everyone aware Feel free to report to Caltrans, but just wanted everyone to know that the property owner is unable to mow at this time because they're not allowed to. Oh the weeds are gone? I made that an okay well my ticket worked way to go! Okay there you go look at that ticketing as i always say Caltrans so responsive to their ticketing thing apparently. So um we'll backtrack that if you want to get the weeds done submit the ticket it works fast. Um okay so now move right along uh we'll go to written communications do we have any written communications tonight? None this evening All right, we'll move to committee reports.

Any committee reports from you? Council Member Hornick, any committee reports?

No, I attended the Ad Hoc Shredder Hills site committee virtually but it was very difficult to hear in the audience and only staff could hear me so I will let you also in attendance report on that. That's all I have. Council

Member Lewis,

anything else? A committee meeting for the Visitors Bureau There's been over 200 people in the that again on the website, the website is brought up a lot more people. They're spending a lot of time on the website and there's over 200 itineraries. It's been a good tool to use. And they're also looking at trying to promote something during the soccer, the World Cup is coming.

So they wanted to have some kind of a theme there's going to be some major practices that just UCSB and you might know about that with what's going on but just to attract some more business here The us during the world cup. Yeah, so I just want to give you a heads up on that they were talking about making that some bill bookstore. Our visitorship and C. C. W.

A. Meeting today and it was a good meeting there's 1 thing. At the end of that was talking about laws. And there's a law, it's SB 872 and it's actually a law that will help repair the levy which is on the way. There's some subsidence on the canal. It's coming our way and it needs to be kind of repaired There's some environmental money coming, there's a big pocket of money. So there is SB 872 which we would like to promote or get a letter to follow up on. I'll follow up with Scott about that and make sure we have our voice in on that.

And everything else is fine when the water's done.

Thank you. Thank you for your time. I wanted to make sure everyone is aware that so long time ago the whole thing with measure A was to provide a lane and train. Look at our previous mayor, Holly Sierra in the audience here who has been you remember that conversation well too. So the lane is allegedly this is like the rain in Spain falls gently on the plane.

The lane should be done in 2028 but It will run all the way up to back to Union Station around 536 o'clock in the evening. So anyone who's looking to get to Union Station around 536 p.m., there is a train you can catch heading southbound as well. The train portion is pseudo-completed, the lane two more years to go. And then the only other thing I'll say, it actually is referenced earlier on but I want to make sure everyone's aware that Assemblymember Greg Hart will be doing his sidewalk office hours. I believe at 1130 a.m. on Friday the 13th? That sounds correct. Yes, Friday the 13th and that'll be at the 246 and Avenue Flags intersection so if you'd like to talk or make your concerns known to our state assembly person he'll be there and happy to answer your questions.

All right. And a question, the 100 Hills meeting, are we going to be able to see those survey results? I believe it's available actually online

already. Yeah they're posted up on the Buellton Engage

page. Oh thank you. So great moving right along we'll move on to our business items

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. The first business item, Item No. 6 is the establishment of City Council priorities for 2026. I am your staff contact on that so I'll just introduce that right now. The council met on January 10th this year in a special meeting at the library conference room for the purpose Council priorities were set and were placed on the consent calendar for the last City Council meeting. Due to questions that could not be answered because I was not here, the item was continued to this meeting. I have since had discussions with council members who had questions and we're bringing it back to the city council's consideration. I am happy to answer any additional I would like to reiterate these are your priorities. So if you have factual questions about how something might work, that's great but the priorities are yours.

I don't have a recommendation for them other than you give me a list of priorities. Thank you.

Great we'll bring it back to council for any

We have a motion and a second.

Any other questions at this time?

No.

We'll see if there's any public comment on this item.

No public comments on this item.

Okay, we'll bring it back for any further discussion or possible motion. Motion to approve.

Second.

Great.

≫ All right. Item 7. This is resolution number 26-02, a resolution of the City Council of the city of Buellton California fixing the employer's contribution under the public employees medical and hospital care act at an equal amount for employees and annuitants and revoking resolution 25-17.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council members. This is a continuation from last week's discussion in regards to Resolution 2602. This resolution sets the monthly employer contribution to a fixed amount and also revokes Resolution 2517 previously adopted So, a little background. According to city personnel rules health benefits are required to be provided to full time employees also government code section 22892 states that the employer fixed contribution must be set by resolution and that employer contribution must be affixed them out in addition the.

Full-time employees and retirees need to have equal contributions. So, excuse me here. It just kind of went out of order. Okay so looking at attachment 1 on the staff report We highlighted the city's current health plans. The city's health plans are administered by CalPERS and includes two plans, the HMO Blue Shield Access Plus Plan and the PPO PERS Platinum Plan. The 2026 rates for the HMO plan increased 11% and the PPO plan increased by 13.31%.

Health insurance costs continue to rise each year, and adjusting the employer contribution helps employees avoid excessive out-of-pocket premium costs due to these increases. And this increase in the employer contribution coverage or contribution helps employees maintain coverage and avoid additional financial strain. And on this slide, I also included Medicare plans because like I mentioned we also have to provide the same contribution. To the retirees and these are different retiree plans and again they have grown some of the plants have grown significantly as well.

Okay, so throughout this presentation I will be speaking about the important contribution which all mentioned as the just for the ease of the presentation. The current. Is 1800 dollars a month? The last time the employer contribution was set was to resolution 25 dash 17, and it set this maximum amount to be effective. This year as of January 1st, 2026, and that was based on the premium levels.

And it was kind of a standard base provided by other cities. Um, in the employers response is responsible for anything above the 1800. The proposed resolution sets the ERC to $2,190 a month. This is to be effective July 1st, 2026. The method of calculating this ERC is based on 80% of the lowest family HMO premium. Which is the premium amount of 2737.51 so that contribution.

Is 2190 per month and again, the employees responsible paying above the 2190. The proposed ERC increase is an additional 390 dollars. Per subscriber per month. So, the total fiscal impact of this increase is assuming all 19 full time employees are subscribed to the city plan. That would be a benefit increase of $88,920 for full-time employees. And for annuitant it only impacts one retiree who is currently at the max of $1,800.