UnGovr Transcript
iHow this transcript is madeUnGovr transcribes the official recording with automated speech-to-text, separates speakers by voice, and matches voices to the seated roster. Names and attributions are AI estimates and may contain errors.Verify any quote yourself: click anywhere in the transcript and the official video jumps to that exact moment, so you can check any quote against the recording.0:04 – 0:109 turns
We will call tonight's meeting to order at 6 p.m.
Thank you very much. Can
we please get roll call?
Roll call, called by City Clerk
Show transcript
Any reordering of the agenda tonight?
No reordering this evening Mr.
Agenda Discussionitems moved / continued / pulled, click to expand
Mayor but I would note that um we have two presentations noted on the agenda uh numbers one and two We have a number of items on the agenda. The first two are after these two prior to
public comments that are not listed on the agenda but as Mr. Murphy would like to have me note and he may want to embellish on a bit, they are not on
We'll try to limit questions just so we don't get into anything approaching a discussion. Thank you.
Great. All right, well then we'll go to our first item for the evening. Our honoring of Anne McCarty on her retirement as Executive Director of the North County Rape Crisis and Child Protection Center and I was informed before the meeting that you've received far too many proclamations for us to actually issue anything for you at this time. So before we get into any of our Council Members making comments was there any public comment of anyone who wanted to say I'm already looking at one person who I assume might want to say something. Okay, Ms. Howerton has passed so did you want to say anything before we get started here at all or if we can just tell you how nice you are at this moment if you'd like? I
am humbled in more ways than one. You know the last The last several months have been a whirlwind, both physically, emotionally and mentally as I prepare to leave the Rape Crisis Center after 32 years. And as I've thought about different highlights in my career Some of the most important ones have come when we've won cases in court, right? And when I had been able to stand in front of all of the city councils in Mid and North County and talk about the Rape Crisis Center.
As I said, I've been humbled for all this attention on me retiring for 32 years what everybody needs to know is that I didn't get here alone I have had the absolute honor and pleasure to work with many, many wonderful individuals over the years. I've had great mentors, Joyce Howerton being one of them. Distinctly when I first started and Joyce was working with the center, she was a community educator at the time.
And I was 1 of those young kids that wanted to learn everything because I thought someday I want to be an executive director. I should have rethought that business plan. But, but I remember sitting in the back of a classroom watching Joyce present and how she just commanded the room and how she connected with the young people in the room. And I said my gosh one day, I hope I can do as well as she did. Well, I will never measure up to Joyce Howerton, never.
And I'm not trying to, but I'm thankful for the mentorship But you know, there are a few people sitting behind me that are going to be here long after I leave. And they're the ones that you're going to be seeing for years to come and I'm proud of that. I leave the Rape Crisis Center fulfilled, very sad, not quite ready to retire but I know it's time I know it's time for them to take over and lead us in a new direction.
And a new direction is a healthy direction. We're doing great as we are, but we can always be better and I know that these women behind me sitting right here are going to do that and I'm proud to present them to you, to the city of Buellton and to all the different cities that we've been able to go to over the last couple of months as I've received all those proclamations.
But it has been an honor Mayor Silva Thank you for allowing me to be here with you, to have presented to you, to learn that you have taken things away from me when I've stood up here and talked to you. And I thank you for embracing our organization and allowing us to come into the city of Buellton and teach and provide direct services
0:10 – 0:1621 turns
Thank you so much. I want to first recognize that you have shined
a light in such a systemic problem we're dealing with. You've really provided a voice for the voiceless, and you've really just been in the trenches. I think that, as it was Linda just saying to me now whenever she goes to Vegas she thinks about what you did and all those tips. And it's just, I feel like you helped remove blinders on so many people to not just be aware but to also feel empowered of how we can move the dials just in the smallest of ways.
It is a thankless job to work as an executive director for any organization, and you've carried that though with the thing that it's so clear that it's the passion for the work that you do that has gotten you up every day to combat such a critical issue that our community is facing. And I just want to thank you for everything you've done and to uplift the voices of other women. And it's great to see bringing forward the future leaders for this organization, and it's a long legacy of strong women advocating for women. And so I just want to thank you for everything you've done for our community. And I hope you somehow find a way to relax in retirement though I doubt you seem like the person who will do that. You'll start a new nonprofit just wait.
I just want to thank you for your tireless commitment to this cause and for everything you've done, and for the lives you have changed and saved and brought back from the brink because of your direct action there. So thank you for everything you've done, and we are so grateful to have had you be part of this organization for so long.
Thank you.
Anyone else want to add anything? So we have, assuming no one else will say anything. We have a gift to present with you but we're also going to require you to do one last photo with us up here if you
don't mind.
So if you want to come up here so we can take a group photo. We'd love to have our new... Can we get your names as well?
Sure this is Dr. Nidia Delgadillo she's their new executive director and we have Jennifer Nova who is our child safe, our school education coordinator but she also does counseling in our Lompoc and Santa Maria offices. Laura Navarrete is our we changed her title and you know I'm outgoing so I don't remember anything anymore. What did she what are you now? There she is, Counseling Services Advocate. That's my associate or NIDIA's Associate Director Sabrina Ross and as you all know Joyce Howard.
Did I get everybody? All right
well if we could all come up in for a photo so we can get y'all together we'd appreciate it.
Thanks for everything, all your hard work. Thank you so much. One, two, three. Thank you. You
want to open it on camera, too? Okay. You've been asked to reappear, Ms. McCarty. If you wouldn't mind re... The request has been for you to open the gift here. Oh! So it's like a big unboxing. It's like YouTube for you
now. Like
a ticket?
Yeah, please.
Oh
yes.
Our at-home audience needs to see this. This is killing them.
It's like the two-factor Oh my gosh. He said he just wanted to make me cry.
That was Linda's goal.
It says difference maker. A remarkable person who turns small actions into lasting impact through kindness, integrity and dedication. They inspire others to grow, achieve and dream bigger. Also known as Anne. Thank you.
And I'm going to do one more thing. I think it's a standing ovation round of applause.
0:16 – 0:219 turns
Thank you. What was spelled wrong? Nothing. I'll say again, Bob thanks you for the bubble wrap. It's a twofer gift. What's
that? It's
We will now move to our second item for presentations this evening, which is our proclamation recognizing Americans with Disabilities Act Day July 26th, 2026. I believe we do have Ms. Jillian Knight here to receive that so I'll go ahead and read the proclamation and invite you up for any remarks if that works? So...
Yes, and actually this is Dave. Hi, how are you? This is Dave. I don't want to mispronounce your last name. Mark. Why are you doing this to me? Maggiannis. Magallanes from the Triumph organization is also here. Great,
we have two for this thank you very much for being here tonight so our proclamation will be whereas the Americans with Disabilities Act ADA was passed on July 26th 1990 to ensure the civil rights of citizens with disabilities and whereas the city of Buellton affirms the principles of equality and inclusion for persons with disabilities as set forth for the state of California and is embodied in the ADA the laws of the state of California and ordinances of Santa Barbara County and the city of Buellton And whereas numerous organizations in the City of Buellton and the State of California work with constituents and communities to bring forth the promise of hope and freedom that is envisioned by the passage of the ADA.
And whereas the City of Buellton celebrates July 26, 2026 as the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act through the presentation of this proclamation Now therefore I, Mayor David Silva and the Buellton City Council do hereby recognize July 26th 2026 as Americans with Disabilities Act Day in the city of Buellton and encourage the communities to join in this observance presented this ninth day of July 2026. And we have two guests here to speak at if they'd like so Miss Knight would you like to go first?
Good evening, Mayor, Councilmembers and everyone here tonight. My name is Jillian Knight and I'm the Interim Executive Director for San Ynez Valley Therapeutic Writing Program and I also oversee operations for the San Ynez Valley Children's Museum here in Buellton. On behalf of both organizations, thank you for recognizing the Americans with Disability Acts Day and for reaffirming our community's commitment to inclusion, accessibility and equal opportunity. The ADA is more than a law. It is a reminder that every person deserves the opportunity to participate, contribute and belong. When we remove barriers, we don't just improve access for people with disabilities, we create a stronger, more welcoming community for everyone.
We are especially grateful to the city of Buellton for supporting inclusive programs like ours At Therapeutic Riding, we serve 70 students a week all with either mental and or physical disabilities. Through the healing power of horses individuals in all abilities build confidence independence strength and connection. We also appreciate your partnership as we build Santa Ynez Valley Children's Museum where accessibility and inclusive design are being incorporated from the very beginning so every child and family can learn play and explore together. Thank you for your leadership, your partnership and helping build a community where everyone belongs and everyone has an opportunity to thrive. Thank you. Thank
you very much. Would you care to make a few remarks as well sir?
Sure. Hi my
name is David I'm representing with TRAM Foundation I didn't always be making a speech today, but thank you for recognizing American Disabilities Act Day and also for being Triumph Foundation. We support most of you with spinal cord injuries although everybody is welcome we have what we've been doing is having some sporting events wheelchair rugby wheelchair baseball and hand cycling clinics. We've done at least three here in Buellton now, and we're trying to increase our activity up here in the Central Coast area so we have I see some familiar faces that have been at our events thank you for participating and supporting us.
Our website is triumphfoundation.org. I'm gonna put that because there's like a thousand triumphs if you If you Google that, but we also have, we don't just show up for events once a month. We have a support group meeting which is an ORCUT. We have the exchange site where people are getting rid of or giving away equipment. We visit the newly injured in the hospitals and let them know that It's going to be different, but it's not over. That makes me emotional.
But it is true I mean, I'd like to say the doctor comes in says by the way you're not gonna walk again have a nice day and then we come in and we're like hey we're living life we're getting you know we're working we're out we're being busy we're volunteering and we know the shortcuts we know what it's like we know we can help you with all kinds of things so including grants so okay that's it
0:21 – 0:267 turns
So
I just want to say thank you both so much for being here and really appreciating it. We I've really taken a heart, especially getting involved with the triumph organization. I'm very grateful to Dave and Andrew and Randy. They've really shadow like, I'd never heard of adaptive sports before and there was a clinic here at the park and they said get in this wheelchair you're going to play rugby with us. And I was like, okay, and that kind of. Acceptance and attitude and willingness to show me something different from their point of view really opened my eyes. And so I'm so excited that we are partnering with triumph. We're working to get more adaptive sports programs here, and to me the best part about these programs and Jillian, I know yours is the same.
It's not just for people who are differently abled. It's for everyone, able-bodied through differently abled and I just find it amazing that there is something that you can do in your community that is truly for everyone when we were at the rugby game like when we were at the rugby down in the park there was girls that were as young as eight and nine years old playing with us all the way through older gentlemen who had spinal cord injuries And I it's just amazing to me that this organization has created something that.
It's basically limitless, the people that can participate and just to learn about that at my age now of someone who was involved in sports their whole life is really exciting and I'm so glad that you're here in Buellton with us and I'm so glad that we're building out those programs. And Jillian, I know that Therapeutic Writing has been here for quite a while. I know that you're doing incredible work and I'm again so grateful that we have these organizations that are built on inclusivity and making sure that inclusion isn't just this extra thing we do it's a foundational piece of Buellton at this point and I think that is one of the proudest things about being on council like I am so proud that Buellton has become this place where inclusion is just The norm versus the exception.
And so thank you so much for trusting us and thank you so much for partnering with us, and thank you for continuing to push us to be even better because I want Buellton to be the best right? And so thank you so much for continuing to educate us on how we can be better and I really appreciate both of you. Thank you so much.
I also thank, I went down there and got in the wheelchair. Well, first time I went down there, I got on a bike and I pedaled the bike with my hands and got sore doing that. Then the next time I played rugby with gloves ended up with blisters and knew I was doing something the next day with my arms. And anyway it was fun to be included in the group and it's an honor to be there with you and I'm glad you come to Buellton and enjoy it so thank you.
Thank you very much. I also, if we could take a group photo but I also realize this is a moment where it's a good awareness for us let's come down because there's a step and I think that these are these moments where it's good for us to become aware of yeah there's work to be done clearly so I will come down into the audience or just take a photo here and thank you for bringing that to my attention.
Can we move this away?
Oh, you
must be in front of here. Clearly, he needed to do one. How's she doing? They were saying that she had to have surgery. All right.
0:27 – 0:3210 turns
We will now
move on to the next item.
Mayor, thanks for allowing me to be here. My name is Casey McKean, proud principal of the middle school and a resident of this great city of Buellton. Just like the vice mayor I want Buellton to be the best and I want Hodden Middle School to be the best as well. And I think Scott is doing a great job on the tech. No don't say that. A little over a year ago, maybe a year and a few months ago I was here and I presented for the City of Buellton Community Organization Support Grant. Honda Middle School was granted it we were in dire straits with tech Chromebooks. Scott's pulled up just a couple pictures for you guys to see.
And I do want to say that night it was kind of like the Hunger Games. There was a pot of money, there was a lot of funds and all these organizations are presenting for presented the reasons why and the need when you guys I think the way you handled it was perfect everybody walked away very happy that evening so we appreciate that So what you're seeing on that screen is the bane of my existence for the last three years. These are Chromebooks from about the 2019 era. School Chromebooks are supposed to last about three years, so this is what Honda Middle School was running on going back from when I got there about three years ago until the City of Buellton saved the day.
You allowed us to purchase about 60 brand new Chromebooks and you kick-started our phased technology implementation plan So the plan now is every sixth grader in our 6th through 8th school gets to come in and they get a brand new Chromebook that follows them throughout the years as it should be. It's their own, they take it to school from school, they turn it at the end of the year, they get it back at the beginning of the next school year.
So you allowed us to do that? So when Scott gets it going, I'll show you a picture of the new ones. Those are the ones every single month this would pile up in my office. The screens were going, the batteries were going, the keyboards, the chargers so every month I'd get a pile of about 20 and we were just burning through these things and if you go to the next slide The ones on the right is thanks to you guys. Again, you saved the day. Those are our brand new Chromebooks that all of our sixth graders got. It will follow them throughout their years. On the left, sorry seventh and eighth graders, that's what you got. You're running with the old version and we're going to run those things until they die.
And surprisingly, that evening when I was here over a year ago, I found out I'm sitting with Rusty Lindsay, the PTSA president. We had no idea that this was a two-year reoccurring grant So that night we got very excited and the gloves came off and we wanted that money. So this year again, we're going to be able to purchase a brand new fleet for our entire incoming sixth grade class so our sixth grade group will be set our seventh grade group will be set. And you guys again, you've kickstarted this and we now have a plan in place to make sure this never happens again what you're seeing on the left.
And we're just
gonna end there
Scott. These people got families they gotta get I do have gifts, the monetary value of these gifts for you guys. They are nowhere near what you've given Ananda but I think the appreciation behind these is there so you're going to see we are setting the standard in the valley if you read a newspaper you're going to know that. We've won tons of awards California Distinguished School ERP Honor Roll as well as California Schools to Watch this year the 3p in one year. So Scott I'm gonna leave this with you give those out everybody's a winner here tonight oh It's like Oprah.
Look at this! You get a card, you get a card. Thank
you very much and really great to see the grant in action. And thank you for everything you're doing, I know that schools are continuing to have to make more with less and so we appreciate everything in the partnership and it's great to see all the great work you guys are doing at
I'd like to thank you as well. I was a proud recipient of my, I have a grandson that lived with me during COVID and we got to do our work at home at the dining room table and so I know the use of how that is with those computers in schools. Thank you. You're an honorary
grad!
And then next up we have Sue Isageri from NatureTrek who will be giving a presentation as well.
0:32 – 0:353 turns
Well,
it's a hard act to follow because I didn't bring gifts. But I do want to say thank you very much for your support this past year. Your funding helped offset some of the costs for 194 students from Oak Valley Elementary School to attend three different field trips or to attend three field trips there were all different students on the trips and And these were meaningful, hands-on experiences that sparked curiosity and helped build confidence in the children and a connection to the natural world. But beyond that you were supporting the local economy somewhat too because with our accessibility program we lent out the tracks, the Freedom Tracks 124 times last year And a lot of those people come to our office right next door to pick up the tracks and we'd often hear, We're going to go get lunch.
We're going to go grab a coffee. Little King Coffee loves us. And so that was another way of supporting your investment supported the economy as well. This is just a short video or slideshow of what you're seeing of the students experiencing the trip at Refugio State Beach and the other one will be Elwood Mesa. The third location they attended was Nahoe Falls This past year we were able to reach 4,800 students countywide with 100 field trips.
Additionally, many of our volunteers live right here in Buellton and actually two of them that use wheelchairs are volunteering with us. And actually Steve volunteered with us from the very beginning and we did just celebrate our 15th anniversary of Nature Track. Total to date, we've served 55,000 students throughout the county. We've served 1500 wheelchair users throughout the county and actually the Wheelchair Program Desk of Statewide And 88 senior groups have been able to experience the beach because of our assisted living program with taking the tracks out.
And that totaled 344 participants of seniors who were out on the beach and that was it, but thank you very much really appreciate your support.
Thank you for being here. And I think with that, I'm going to just give us a quick two-minute pause to normalize for anyone who would like to exit this time before we move into public comments. We're just gonna do a quick break and allow Scott to get everything set for tech going forward on here too so we'll do a quick two minute break.
0:40 – 0:4611 turns
We will bring us back
into our regular scheduled meeting and we will go to public comments. Is there any public comments for items not on the agenda tonight?
One public comment from Billy Cibola.
Great.
Thank you. All right, good evening Mayor City Council and city leaders. I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for recognizing and honoring Americans with Disabilities Day on July 26th of this month. I believe our city is earnest in its support of all our residents as evidenced by our proclamations and the thoughtful policy approaches ensuring Buellton is ahead of the curve with regard to accessibility and inclusion for everyone who makes up a part of our community We are our brother's and our sister's keeper, and I hope our city continues to lead by example.
But I also want to plant a seed tonight, or maybe put a bug in your ear. Whichever metaphor works better for you. I work in the field of special education at St. Ann's High School going on 22 years and have also worked for tri-county nonprofits serving adults with developmental disabilities for another eight. In this time, I've learned that accessibility and inclusion are important cornerstones that assist the disability community but in some cases are just the basic steps that allow for a productive life Even more so is the recognition that individuals with disabilities can contribute in myriad ways to our valley through the world of meaningful work.
For individuals I work with, having a job, volunteering or participating in community endeavors underscores the notion that contribution facilitates greater independence and fostering greater independence through work and the paycheck it brings enhances self-worth and a greater love for the community in turn. I would ask that the city consider developing work contracts with individuals and groups with disabilities to provide support services to the city in meaningful ways.
Buellton should partner with Tri-County's Regional Center and the Department of Rehabilitation to explore ways to employ individuals ready, willing, and able As a teacher, I support students with disabilities who are transitioning from high school to the adult world and would benefit from the opportunity for work exploration, volunteerism or possible apprenticeships with the city.
The costs for these programs are minimal but provide invaluable experience and pride to those who know they're contributing something back to our city. When I first started in this field some 30 years ago, I remember an early point my mentors made in my training that I want to leave with you. I was told that for a great majority of Americans there is not a question of if we will experience a personal disability in our lifetime but when.
As I reflect on that it underscores the notion that promoting independence where possible improves the quality of life for all involved And in watching this council meet and emphasize service leadership to enhance the quality of life for all of our residents, this seems to me something that might be right up your alley. Thank you for your time.
Thank you very much. If you don't mind filling out a form after we will need your contact info.
Sorry, I wasn't planning on saying anything. Joyce Howerton, Mayor, City Council staff. I came tonight to recognize and be a part of honoring Anne McCarty but I got to thinking that I wanted to point out to you, I know that the city of Buellton as well as Solvang is talking to the city of Lompoc in terms of law enforcement coverage. Years ago most of you weren't around The City of Lompoc actually was talking to the Sheriff's Department about contracting services many years ago and one of the things that the city manager at that time recommended is that we did it quietly and privately, you know so that we could keep it in-house so that people didn't know.
I want to caution you not to do that That I would encourage you that if you're in these talks, that you have town hall meetings. You invite the public to come in. You talk openly about what you're talking about, what you are looking at, what you think the benefits would be and with the drawbacks because what happened years ago was people went crazy when they found out. I mean, I can't even begin to tell you but I could show you scars if you're interested where people just a lot of things Just, you know, they weren't true. They were real inflammatory and it created a lot of problems both for the City of Lompoc and for the Sheriff's Department because we both entities had to spend a lot of time just killing the rumors so I really encourage you as you have discussions to do it publicly and openly so people understand.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Any further public comments? Anyone on Zoom?
There are no public comments.
Okay, thank you very much. Moving along now to our consent calendar we have items three through seven. Would any item like to be pulled at this time? If not is there a possible motion for approval?
I move to approve.
Roll-call vote Passed 3–0 move to approve. Second. Okay · 1 under review
Show transcript
0:46 – 0:5225 turns
Moving along, we'll move on to our public hearings. Item number eight. Thank you Mr. Mayor. Members of the City Council before you tonight is a public hearing. The public hearing incorporates two documents that are being placed before you. One is an ordinance, Ordinance Number 26-06 and then there's a Resolution Number 2016. Our staff contact for this is our Human Resources Director and City Clerk Linda Reed.
I'll let her do the explanations.
Thank you honorable mayor and council members. In 2013 CalPERS adopted the California Public Employees Pension Reform Act, it's called PEPRA in order to address unfunded public pension liabilities The act applied to all new members hired after January 2013, and prior members are referred to as classic members. As part of the Pepper Reform Act CalPERS increased the minimum retirement age to 62 it was 55 required members to pay their membership portion and eliminated benefit multipliers like special compensation.
At the time of PEPRA's implementation, no formal contract amendment was required for contracting agencies because PEPRA requirements apply as a matter of state law. But since that time CalPERS is now requesting that agencies update their contracts to reflect the PEPRA compliance. And with that, we consider the introduction of first reading of ordinance 2606 and the approval over resolution 2616 to adopt that revised contract for the city of Buellton.
And that concludes our information that we have for you and we're happy to respond to any questions that you might have.
Roll-call vote Failed 0–3 · 1 under review
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questions.
All right so any public comment on the item? So just so I understand that what the recommendation from staff is that the motion you'd be looking for is to do an introduction, first reading and then we're wait my title only. And then we're waiving the second reading. So is that Mr Murphy? Could you walk us through what you need to hear in a motion? It's just to make sure we get this right.
I actually need two separate motions one on the ordinance and then one on the resolution after the ordinance move forward. Thank you sir.
We're waiving the further reading of the ordinance, but not the second reading. We will have the second reading at the next council meeting if it's approved.
And that'll be in August?
Yeah. Okay.
So I move to approve Ordinance No. 26-06, an Ordinance of the City Council of the City of Buellton authorizing an amendment to the contract between the City Council of the City of Buellton and the Board of Administration of the California Public Employees Retirement System by title only introduction and first reading.
I second that. Okay, then I will do a resolution. I move to approve Resolution Number 26-16, a resolution of the City Council of the City of Buellton, California approving a resolution of intention for an amendment to contract between the City Council of the City of Buellton and the Board of Administration of the California Public Employees Retirement System. And I stop there?
Roll-call vote Passed 3–0 · 1 under review
Show transcript
Thank you very much.
I'm curious if there was any desire on Council's part to ask staff to inquire what it would take to plant trees in our new parking lot below the library. I know that construction has recently been completed, but with our new Tree City designation, I was wondering if we could even get a cost estimate as to what that might look like?
There's some planners that you can get, like in Santa Barbara they're big round or big square or big triangle whatever. And we could actually just add a nice planner instead of digging up the new... But if we did it right, we could have beautiful planners and make them mobile if we wanted to move them. You know? We can get a big forklift to move it but... It's something for us to discuss.
That's a good idea and I think that the purpose would also be to provide shade but if we, I think the first step is to get it on the agenda to discuss.
Yeah, I'm good with it. I think yes everyone's go at least look into a cost estimate exploration and bring it back to the agenda for further discussion.
I think that's
a
great
idea. Thank you. Okay, my only other comment was I mentioned this two weeks ago but I wasn't sure if anybody else on council had any ability to inquire with our sister city of solving as to this abandonment of the 2 46 in pieces and what we could actually financially do I know in talking with Solvang City Council members, prior understanding was that you'd have to adopt in bulk including traffic lights and everything else. But my understanding is the regulations therein have somewhat changed. I know in talking to staff that it might not still be feasible but I think it would behoove us to find out what might be feasible. And I'm talking specifically just for this portion of the 246 that's from Avenue Flags and 246 west of town.
So my comment would be if we could give staff direction to at least inquire and report back.
I'd
argue
no. You can
say no, yeah.
I don't find the need to do so, so no thank you.
I'm happy to just sit and watch a little bit and see how it plays out in solving but we got the trees agreed upon but I'm not gonna...
0:52 – 0:5818 turns
That's all I got. Okay,
Council Member Lewis any comments?
Just want to thank the Mokey company, I'm not sure if they have a new name for allowing us to use them, Moke sorry, for the 4th of July it was awesome kids had a blast and there were a ton of people so thank you for organizing that for us and thank them for letting us use them Or I know we paid, but like thanks for letting
us. Thank you for
your service on the 4th of July. Thank you.
Thank you to the Rotary and the City of Solvang for the work that's one of the best events of the year, for sure. And they did a nice job and I think everybody had good time and thank you for having someone in the city council there like thank them personally and the Sheriff's Department they all worked together and it was a wonderful event so thank you
So I just wanted to make a public statement that at Allen Hancock, Friday July 10th from 9am to 12pm they're having a Santa Maria Valley Senior Expo. Triumph Foundation will be there as a number of other community partners including SenCal Health, Community West Bank like just a bunch of different resources for our seniors and I know that Buellton has been trying to connect with And that's it.
And the only one I had was actually just building off of from public comments and I was just hoping to see if it's possible to get contact information from Mr. Silva about how we might be able to integrate some of the ideas for kind of those work contracts and stuff like that, so if it's possible just to get that on into our Rolodex, I think that'd be a useful thing for us to see if there's further exploration there.
I don't summarize as well as what you explained, Mr. Silva but those work study or the work accommodation concepts. It's a non-profit vendor, but
they have contracts with all kinds of entities and nonprofits and other businesses. But also government agencies doing work, and it's a small contract. Usually it's for a group or an individual with a developmental disability. And so that's something that goes through Tri-Counties or the Department of Rehabilitation.
If it would be possible to get your contact information with everyone, that'd be great to pass along. I'd
be happy to look into that if we have consensus from the Council on that. Are you looking for something
brought back at some point? I would like to have that look into that.
Yes,
please. Thank you. Thank you.
Roll-call vote Failed 0–4
Show transcript
and none for me moving right along
All right, we're now on to business items. Business items, thank you Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council. Item number nine is consideration of arts and Buellton Arts & Culture Project applications. We have two applications this evening that have been reviewed and recommendations have been conveyed by the Arts & Culture Committee and the staff contact for this this evening is Allison Fiery.
Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of Council. We're bringing two proposals as Mr. Wolfe just said before you this evening. The first is from the St. Helens Valley Botanic Garden Foundation for their artistic metal privacy screen for their garden community deck The Botanic Garden is an accessible, free community-built garden located in Buellton serving as a regional gathering place for environmental education, volunteerism and arts and culture.
The garden attracts visitors from across the Central Coast, serves local schools and youth organizations and provides one of the few outdoor learning and community spaces here in the Valley. Each year hundreds of residents participate in the gardens' free or low cost educational workshops and environmental programs This year they're asking for funding in the amount of $10,000 to enhance their garden community deck space by installing a permanent The goal of this project is to transform the deck into a fully functional outdoor space that reflects the beauty of the garden and elevates the visitor experience. In discussing this proposal with the committee, it was pretty unanimous that we recommend funding in the full amount of $10,000 that can be believed said it's a worthwhile project and that the screen will help hide that utility area behind the stage while enhancing opportunities for performances, cultural programs, wedding, and other community events.
One thing I did not note in the staff report is they also want to work with arts and culture to invite any other applicants to use that stage as well when it's finished, and would work out any kind of funding agreements and things with that in mind. So we were really in support of the project. And if you have any questions, the artist said that he's happy to answer anything.
≫ Did you have prepared remarks you wanted to add on at all? Great.
0:58 – 1:0522 turns
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. From donated arbors, beautiful mosaic creations on stone. A hand carved plane car and train sculptures of stone and wood. These are all profound unsolicited expressions of generosity and creativity from the community. They have worked closely with me and know that this will be another step in the final development of our gathering terrace or the stage, both from a standpoint of public safety and aesthetics.
And Puck would like to thank the city and the commission for encouraging a real connection and expression of our diverse community through the arts. Sincerely, Puck Erickson. And then on a personal note we've got the beautiful stage. We recently had the first concert down in the park which was a big success Currently, the backdrop for our stage is a tool shed and a propagation shred. So it's not ideal for performances. So what we're trying to create is a defined yet versatile backdrop for that stage. So something that will look beautiful on the day-to-day basis when it's not being used as a backdrop but also can be a versatile backdrop for multiple different settings say It's not just going to be locked into one thing, so they'll be able to use it for different reasons.
And yeah, that's all I've got for you. Appreciate your time.
Thank you very much. And then we'll bring it back to Council for any questions of staff. To start this joint, any questions for Councilmember Sanchez?
No. Thank you.
Vice Mayor Mead.
They said that, excuse me, you're saying pending requests. They did say all their other funding has come in and so we would be the last 10,000. It came in after they had submitted.
So we're the last piece? Yes
sir.
Okay great thank you any public comment on this item?
All
right we'll bring it back to council for further discussion or a possible motion at this time I would have a comment that
the arts and culture committee, I believe our first thing that happened was a day of the dead. I would like to make a motion to approve. We have a motion and a second.
And now the next slide.
Thank you. Our second proposal is coming from Martha's Farm Animal Sanctuary for their Healing Arts Program. The sanctuary's mission is to provide a lifelong sanctuary for neglected and rehomed animals while cultivating spaces of care, connection and compassion where animals and people restore one another through presence, dignity and a shared belonging. They are wanting to start a pilot program and they're asking for funding in the amount of $1,950 which would begin with outreach to the local senior care communities in Buellton. And then with future plans to expand access to veterans families and caregivers and then hopefully also our Buellton school district The participants in the pilot program will enroll in a three-part series rather than a one time class, in order to foster connection, consistency and community building.
Each session will include a guided sanctuary tour, an interaction with the animals, time for reflection and connection with nature, and a two hour facilitated art class led by Santa Barbara artist and educator Nila Barja. After discussing this proposal, the community voted to recommend full funding in the amount of $1,950 with the provision that the pilot program is geared toward Buellton senior citizens and students first.
The committee believes that this program will help promote wellness and emotional connection through artistic opportunities and interaction with the animals. Part of the inspiration for this project was actually what they have seen being done through the therapeutic writing program, so it's neat that tied together tonight. Just so you know there is $142,321 remaining in the arts and culture budget For the 2026-2027 fiscal year, if this project is approved along with the other one that was approved it would leave us with $130,371 remaining. Thank you.
Any questions for staff at this time? I'm just going to do a quick look instead of going down the line here okay any public comment? All right we'll bring back to council for possible motion or further discussion
I move to approve the Martha's Farm Animal Sanctuary Healing Arts
Program.
For $1,900? Yes for the full asking price.
I'll
second.
There we go, $1950 on the record
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 move to approve the Martha's Farm Animal Sanctuary Healing Arts Program. For $1,900? Yes for the full asking price. I'll second. There we go
Show transcript
Excited to see how this goes. Thank
you very much.
1:05 – 1:164 turns
All right. Mr. Mayor, members of the Council, the next item on number 10 is the consideration of a funding request for proposed movie in the park event. I will be your staff contact. At your last meeting June 25th, the City Council directed staff to return with an agenda item to consider the request to fund an event on August 28 Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I will let Ms. Arona give all the pertinent details to this. I will note that there is a funding request in the amount of $5,870 for this event. The budget breakdown is included as attachment one in the staff report and so as not to steal any more thunder here, I would call up Ms. Arona to...I mean, I'm happy to answer any questions the council may have but they're probably better geared towards.
Thank
you very much. When we first reached out to Allison to be considered for the Arts and Culture Fund, we realized two things. First of all that we were off cycle and we caught the process right as you were resetting your timelines for reviews and approvals so what we've provided hopefully looks a lot like all the material that would be sufficient for an application for consideration but we realize we're outside of that process We are trying to align with the mission of the Arts and Culture Goal by bringing the movie-going experience back to the Valley. And that's what our nonprofit is all about.
Scott, thank you for bringing up slides. I'm going to give you just two minutes of background on who we are and then spend as much as I can on what the event is all about. So Scott could you
move to the next slide please? Before we really got established it as a nonprofit, we started by doing a couple of key things And it was primarily serving our community on what it meant and what was the impact when our beloved Buellton-based theater was closed in 2020. What did it mean that the moviegoing experience was 35 to 40 miles away? And so as a result of that, we were validating demand and what there was a community saying they really wanted. One of the top things they told us is that 97% of our respondents so far have said if we opened a movie theater Right size for our community, they would come. 92% told us that distance was the biggest barrier for enjoying movies or film going experience so that distance is significantly changing arts engagement and experience behavior.
86% told us that they would support a community sustained film going entity And we're asking about 60 questions. This is really just the dashboard of it, but the other behavioral thing that they told us is that they would come two to three times per month if we were opening something that was actually serving the community locally. So our mission is, if you'll
move to the next spot, our mission is to bring Moody Night back to The Valley and make it a valley community sustained entity and something that really gives us connectivity Amongst everyone in the valley. And we are building it as a permanent civic entity or location so that the community has a sense of place and another venue for the most accessible art form, and the most cost-effective. And something that commonly serves everyone from every background to every age group. And we're thinking of it as something that serves like the community like a library or a park or a theater or something else that we recognize as common community scaffolding and infrastructure. Okay, so keep moving Scott. I'm trying to do this quickly. What does it bring back?
Why is this important? How does this matter to the people who live here? It's really something that delivers civic pride and a sense of belonging most importantly for some of our younger people. There are research data that tells us regular access to arts and forms of arts in a place to go and experience that leads to better adolescent mental health Thank you for joining us today.
It also helps us instead of that gap, the real distance gap of getting to a cultural experience or something trendy and something that we're not part of the common conversation because we have to drive so far to get. And finally, it's telling all the untold stories that we don't get to participate in. Most importantly, it's bringing people out of their living rooms and away from their phones and back together in one room or under the stars together having the same experience at the same time.
Okay, I can move on really quick. There is a economic driver that we shouldn't ignore. We don't have much to do, especially for young people at night or families or people to go out together. And so there is something that will help drive an evening economic basis, something to do after as a nightcap from your wine tasting, drive it as an authentic valley experience because the vendors, the concessions and the supporters will all be local. And then it is more something that we can have an intergenerational experience, a true family night.
Okay, two more slides and I'll tell you about the event. What we are bringing is a true film center experience. First run films, blockbusters, independence documentaries and series of films. So we are bringing world-class programmers. We're not doing this ourselves. We're bringing world class programmers who have the studio relationships into our organization. We intend to provide youth oriented low cost and accessible screenings just for kids field trips for our schools and private events. Similar to what we're going to talk about next is, we will hold a private or corporate event or an event in a movie going in a winery or wherever your venue might be so we can make this a mobile experience as well.
Last bit is film series which we intend to tie to our other cultural identity experiences in the Valley whether it's a Western theme, Western heritage theme, a Danish theme We're really seriously talking about tying things to the Chumash Museum and our next pop-up might be associated with the intertribal powwow. So, tying things to what give us valley identity through another art form is really part of our mission. Educational and filled caps which will bring Summer things for kids to do and hopefully give them vocation over time. And then finally panels and workshops were special screenings will bring guest speakers in to give even adults like a sense for how to appreciate cinema in a new way.
Okay, so the event we're talking about. Is the next slide Scott? Thank you. This is our pop-up screening we are doing pop ups on our way to a permanent place, we've already had a first pop up in May it was pretty successful full house great buzz this event is meant to target a much broader community event, and it's summer-oriented which is why we were time sensitive. We need to while the weather is warm so we're targeting at the end of August a movie in the park under the stars and we'd like to show E.T., this is the one we've got reserved.
So we're also tying in a space but a family space imaginary space theme With food concessions and a co-sponsorship with Space Force. So they're working through their legal process to get approvals to send their team out, to support our event as volunteers who run it but also as a speaker to you know take 10 or 15 minutes in part of the program before the film rolls and give families an opportunity to take photos with the They're not really astronauts, but they're the space launchers.
And we've got our website is still under construction so not all of this data is exactly accurate but I asked our team to give us it's a demo version of the site and when you scroll through you can make a reservation for the meal which are trying to keep no cost or low cost. It also gives you information at FAQ and also gives you some really cool details about the film so we're trying to generate some excitement along the way. This is the event that we're hoping to partner with the City of Buellton and a few other sponsors, we had VisitSYV come on board, we've got Hanada Ranch on board and Space Force is onboard and we're still securing the rest of our sponsors Last point, so what do we get? We get a family film classic. Something that is I think everyone can relate to on a large screen with high quality AV experience under the stars with a gourmet meal served to order in a cookout truck it is cooked to order and provided we can serve we're targeting serving about 250 people for the evening, a full meal.
Blankets under the stars so we're imagining people coming and laying out families laying out their blankets or their low profile chairs and enjoying the movie in Riverview Park and then finally photo ops and some you know experiences to shake their hands and get to know that the people who are heading us into space, not bringing people down. I just wanted to point out that there are opportunities for sponsors to get to promote their either their role in the event or their concessions and so this is the structure that we use to either become a friend of the cinema community sponsor or to take a position in the presentation of the program and have a position on our website and all of our marketing material as we promote the event. And this is how we're finalizing the rest of the funding for that, for the event in there and to complete the budget that we've shown you.
That's the last slide, and I'll take questions. I did want to point out there was one more thing that was part of your application process that I believe I did not provide but it is on our live website which is solvingcinemaarts.org and that is who's behind this and who's providing? I think you even asked in the application who has the experience put these events on we do have a producer with film credits We also have an infrastructure specialist on our board.
1:17 – 1:2326 turns
Yes, thank you.
Good evening. I want to say that I love the idea. I mean, I know that we hear a lot that the community is upset about the movie theater closing and the answer has always been well it wasn't profitable so i think that a non-profit coming in and providing that service to the community is a fantastic idea A couple questions I have though. So, I understand that the Riverview Park has been identified as the pop-up place right and has your outfit or is the city to anybody's knowledge gone out and talked to the residents there about this potentially coming?
Not yet okay not yet we don't have I think we could as part of our process once you know
And so the other question is, like. So the concept is fantastic. The idea of a nonprofit but why now? Because it's outside of our cycle right? Like that's the question.
Yeah well if it's going to be outside under the stars we should do it in warm weather and Ideally, when people can stay out till 9 or 10 o'clock at night without with feeling still very comfortable. So it is positioned as a summer event.
Okay and it's like are there going to be? Are you just getting on your feet here? Is that what's going on? Okay
well we are just starting and we are pop-ups to permanent place We are a new nonprofit. We have already done one pop-up, we are fiscally sponsored by the Santa Barbara Foundation and it's not designed as a fundraising event, it's designed as a community awareness event so one of our main objectives is to make people aware but get community together and ask people to give us more data in the survey.
Okay and you said you're gonna have a permanent location do you know where that would be?
We're looking at real estate now. We don't have an answer yet, but we are. We've looked up and down the valley east to west so we are looking for a 2 screen footprint as soon as we can.
I guess my question there is is, I mean, are there any places in Buellton that might be able to speak?
We've looked, we have. I think it's also going to be a function of timing that search is probably a longer conversation and we have looked at the coastal vineyard building that's I think it's for sale next Albertsons and it looks great from the outside. It's a great. We had to go and look at it. It's not a visual structure from the inside, it's really bespoke from the building. We had our architect go and look at it with us.
And the build out we determined would be too costly.
Thank
you.
Any questions? If everybody would pay to be in the movie club and that money would go towards the foundation, can you be a member?
It's a great question. It is meant to be membership driven or membership based much like a museum doesn't preclude you from participating. You can still buy a ticket but there are benefits that come with membership and membership is built We want to construct a sustainability, a community-supported entity. But every dollar whether it's a ticket sale, a membership, a donation or concession is in and for the community as a nonprofit entity. And that is a model by the way that we could talk at length of that. We are not inventing that model. We are copying it from other nonprofits across the country that are successful in scaling back for smaller markets and smaller rural communities. And they've been doing it for five years or more.
Would you also work with the schools?
Yes. Absolutely, so our current outreach right now is in fact I've got a meeting with Alan Hancock tomorrow. But our current outreach is to the Boys and Girls Club in Buellton, the PHP Youth Group. We are targeting all of the local schools from Dunn to Hanada to Solving School for things like field trips, for things like access to the survey to make sure kids are telling us what's gonna get them off their phones and into the movies together And we're looking for them to help us identify interns as well and volunteers.
Schools are a big part of this program.
Thank you. Any further questions? Vice Mayor Mead, any questions?
Yes I was wondering how is the survey distributed and who were the people that took that survey?
Yeah, the survey right now is hard copy. We just went live on our website less than 30 days ago so now it's available online which is a digital process if you don't like the digital process we have a printed version. We have distributed by hand either in our pop-ups or through community groups that we've actually gone out and met with.
So they've
been
distributed to
Buellton community groups? Not yet Well, I can't say that if we haven't actually promoted it online to Buellton groups. What we'd like to do is put this event in Buellton Buzz and on Discover Buellton and as much online presence as we can to target this part of the community specifically.
That kind of leads into my next question, then. Because on here you're asking for $1,470 for marketing and I was just wondering what's that going to look like? So because obviously Buellton Buzz and Discover Buellton is with us so what are the other costs associated with that?
Yeah, part of it is the website development and the social media and the marketing campaign. And the costs we've gotten some advice that instead of making this event a totally free event to make sure that people stick instead of giving food away and having We're having to build in some e-commerce capability
1:24 – 1:2917 turns
So then will the e-commerce part of your website be permanent that Buellton is paying, that we've paid for with this event?
It's actually built around a reservation system and it is purpose built to get 250 people through a meal. Literally as a time to base meal reservation so that we can get 250 meals. We're planning for maximum in an hour and a half window. That's how we're building the e-commerce capability.
Will you continue to have that e-commerce capability passed at this
event? Yes, but it will exist but it is not our ticketing system and it's not our membership sales system.
This is a very, I think this is an incredibly ambitious event. 250 people can you compare that to you? You were referenced your solving pop up like can you compare those two events like was the solving event similar? Was it different and then you can also answer the second question which you mentioned your board does anyone on your board have experience putting on its one thing to be a film producer. It's much different thing to put on a giant nonprofit event so kind of those two questions
together. So our producer, Bruce Christian is also one of the original founders for the Key West Film Festival. This is and he's been doing that for 12 years and still does it. That is what he does his film festivals. He is a producer of series, film series. So I'm confident in that experience. Sorry what was your other question? I'm so sorry.
Can you compare how this event compares to your Solvang event and if it's dissimilar or similar?
Yeah the Solvange event in May was an indoor event. It was capped at 50 attendees because that was the size of our theater and it had a cap on this certificate of occupancy at 50 seats So we hand, we sort of kind of hand managed manually manage the invite process. But we ended up with a full house. We had actually a greater than full house but some people just came for the pre event and didn't stay for the movie.
So the marketing was very different. This will be a much bigger viral marketing approach and much different size. Okay those are my questions thank you.
I have a follow-up. Yeah, I'll do mine really fast and then we'll go for seconds it sounds like, a revisit if you will. Okay good you're going to go through the panel again but my question I guess is just holistically and I'd love for you just be able to speak with us. You're before the Buellton City Council asking for a sponsorship for an event to Solvang Cinema as a check to be written to it. I just guess I would like to know, I think a number of council members in myself included worry sometimes about Buellton is a place that you come for money, you come for a proclamation but then something else happens in a different community. Could you just explain to me how the Buellton resident would say my tax dollars going to this event is a benefit to me and not that it's gonna be outsourced to make something great and solving?
So the event is in Buellton. Is the concern about what we call ourselves?
No, it's more just I want you to be able to speak to if this is an event we're putting on, the goal was to launch Solving Cinema to make a permanent structure. We don't know if it's going to be in Solving, if it will be in Buellton, if it will be in San Ynez.
Permanent structure is still serving the entire market, and ideally primarily our valley. We aren't going to turn anyone away but if you looked at our stats we are targeting 20,000 local residents that is the population of our valley that is our addressable market and that's how we based all of our financials to prove that we could sustain ourselves
So Buellton sits as a critical piece to the overall
mission. You are critical because you have the municipality structure and you understand when we say things like, we plan on building civic infrastructure. I think leaders like you understand what that means and what that looks like and what it takes to build it but we are building something for the entire community. Thank you.
Bring on back to Council Member Hornick for round two. Oh thank you. I just want to be clear about the event. Are you saying that people have to pay to attend this event?
We're asking for a minimum payment. We're thinking on the order of five or seven dollars, and it is not a ticket sale. It's meant to reserve something that costs which is the meal for the food.
Thank you. So when this originally was discussed, it was brought up as a bit of a partnership with the Buellton REC and we're just wondering what would the expectations on the Buellton REC be? How would they be involved and are you looking for support in terms of staffing and that type of thing to make sure that we would be able to accommodate that type
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We aren't asking for any labor support or anything out of your typical processes where you would grant an entity to run an event. We plan to run it, we would ask that you include us in some of your marketing materials. I think that helps direct and ensures that your community comes out in force like you're doing for your barbecue bonanza a little bit We are making it exclusive to Buellton, like Barbecue Bonanza looks for your zip code. We're asking to mark it specifically to Buellton with your help. Okay thank you.
Any further revisits before Ms. Serrano sits down? I was just wondering if you were going to be selling
popcorn? There are two things we're still working on. I don't think it will sell popcorn, we definitely want to offer it. It will be offered one way or the other and we're still working on that purveyor and we're also planning to offer sweets in the form of ice cream until we've nailed our purveyor. There will be concessions. We'll probably throw those around for the
kids.
Thank you very much.
Is there any public comment on this item at All right, we can bring it back to council for further discussion or possible motions. I
would make a motion to approve the funding request for the movie in the park event.
In the amount of $5,870? Yes. OK. I would second that.
Roll-call vote Passed 4–1 motion to approve the funding request for the movie in the park event. In the amount of $5,870? Yes. OK. I would second that. OK,
Show transcript
All right. Thank you very much for being here tonight, we look forward to working with you for this project and we look forward to having our staff be very much involved with the marketing of this so we'll see how this goes.
See at the movies.
Nice line.
Okay
great all right moving along
we'll move on to item number 11
Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of Council. Item number 11 is a resolution, Number 26 to Act 22, a Resolution of the City Council and the City of Buellton establishing conditions for the demolition of buildings located at 376 Avenue of Flags and removing the historical landmark designation from the property located at 376 Avenue of Flags in the city of Buellton.
376 Avenue of Flags is better known in town here as the former location of P. Sup Anderson's Back in 2020, the City Council designated that site as a historical landmark along with several other historical landmarks throughout the city. With the intent of ensuring that whatever occurred on that site post sale of the property was appropriately managed This is a historic site.
It has been a part of Buellton's history obviously for that amount of time, but it's also been a rather large part of the reason Buellton expanded to where we're at right now. It was a stopping point, a waypoint for travelers going back decades and it has a lot of significance here within the city. However with the closure of the business in 2024 The building became a very attractive location for folks who didn't really belong there. We had groups of people who would I'm going to start by saying thank you to the city of Buellton for allowing us to be here today.
The first time we walked through Things within the building that might be historically relevant that could be saved and preserved when the time came for construction to take place or demolition of the building to take place. As I mentioned, we came back to that site about three weeks later to find that a good number of the items that we had identified both on the inside and the outside of the building had been destroyed or removed by vandals.
The longer the building remains there, the fewer aspects of historical significance will remain. And God forbid should someone be in there and a fire starts or just There's a lot of broken glass laying all over the place. There are heavy pieces of appliances and such that have been moved around and if one of those were to tip I'm going to take a moment to really take a focus on what can be done to accelerate the demolition of that building We're going to be moving forward with this project because a historic report has been provided by the applicant of the building, or excuse me, the owner That historical report identified the components of the building that would qualify for listing under the State Historical Landmark designation. And unlike our City's designation, which incorporated the entirety of the site The state listed or the state listing eligible portion is only a small portion of the building.
It is it is the what used to be kind of the front door to the building and that first little two story section of the building facing the parking lot and highway 246. The rest of the building is a much later construction, I was kind of added on as time went by. And while there are some Aspects of that building remaining, which we've identified and the property owner has agreed to attempt to preserve as part of this process.
We find that it would be a whole lot easier to preserve the remaining portion If the remainder of the building were demolished, that would leave a smaller footprint for the property owner to have to secure. It would make for a much more open and visible site. Right now, a good part of the site is behind the building and can't be seen from anywhere. There's a lot of things that go on behind that building that no one would know because there are no lights in the area right now. So we approach this from the standpoint It is important from a historic preservation standpoint to attempt to minimize the potential for damage to the historic structure and the historic aspects of the site that remain. But we're looking at it on a more immediate perspective, from the standpoint that it's...
We want to avoid a catastrophe there. We want to avoid either the building burning down and taking all of it with it or someone I think the best way to accomplish that is The first item on the agenda is to adopt a plan which would be to abide by the provisions of the city's historical landmark designation ordinance and adopt what would We have in the staff report given a proposed list of mitigation measures and that's based upon staff's review of the building inside and out, discussions with the property owner And what you'll find is that there are a list of items that should be preserved, that could be preserved prior to any demolition taking place. Some of which are historical in nature, some of which are just culturally significant. Primarily the signs on top of the building, some of which may be historical, some of which may not.
The stained glass windows which everyone seems to point out but which really are not I'm not going to go into the specifics of this. There is a requirement if we are going, well the second component is after identifying the list of mitigation measures to be taken would be to remove the historical landmark designation. The local historic landmark designation from the site and at that point that would allow the demolition of that portion of the building. One of the conditions that's in The property owner acknowledges that any future construction on the site will be subject to future CEQA action for the remaining portion of the building, the actual state listing eligible portion of the building. So we've kind of locked that in there so everyone's aware that still has yet to be dealt with when it's time.
So there are two aspects of this. The first is to identify and give direction for staff to impose the mitigation measures that are listed in a staff report. Second would be to adopt the resolution, and I believe actually the mitigation measures are actually in exhibit to the resolution so adopt that resolution which would remove I know this was a long and rambling report. I apologize for that. There's kind of a lot of moving parts here.
I'm happy to answer any questions the City Council may
1:40 – 1:4724 turns
have. Okay.
We'll start with staff or questions for staff at this time. Council Member Hornick, any questions for staff?
Yeah, just quickly. I'm on page 85 of 159. We have the project parcel designated in red and the former Buelltmore Hotel designated in green. Which of those if either are being demolished?
The site itself is outlined in red. The Buelltmore hotel portion of the building that's the state listing eligible portions that would remain The rest of the building can be removed. And you'll see the small footprint that's left there would be much easier to secure and much, much easier to view from the outside. Council Member Luce, any questions?
No questions.
Council Member Sanchez? No questions. Vice Mayor Meekham?
So just to, my only question is to summarize what you said there. What you're looking for tonight is the staff recommendation is to remove the historical site designation for the red section that's on this map. Leave the green section alone which is required by state CEQA and all of that. The developer is going, sorry, We're going to try and keep stained glass windows.
We will not disclose the storage location. However, I will let you know that the property owners' architects have indicated that they can have those aspects removed from the building and we will secure a storage location for those items. Smart.
Sorry, I have another question when you're done
Great. And then my only other question is, this has nothing to do with the Buellton Historical Society items that used to be stored at the site have already been removed and are in a different location and already taken care of? That was not compromised at all during
this time? When the restaurant was closed in 2024, much of that material was removed from the building and moved to one of two different locations. One of which is stored in a remote location off-site I believe the Mendenhall Museum wound up with some of that. As far as I'm aware, the Buellton Historical Society as an ongoing concern, as an entity may not exist at this point Those materials belong to the Historical Society, not to the city. But at least as far as the materials that did not go to the Mendenhall Museum, it's been indicated that if the city were to create a new historical . . .
And Mayor, you mentioned CEQA. The big CEQA EIR for the historic, the state eligible historic resource that is taking time so because that you have the ability to de-designate the local historic element, the CEQA to do that is much simpler it's included in the resolution and we're comfortable moving forward.
Great I believe Council Member Hornick had a follow up. That was Mr. Murphy's comment how long do we anticipate that? Do we have any idea at all?
I'm
not sure if that's the right term for it. That's
fine. Because otherwise there's not really a project unless we're going to look at actually removing and demolishing that portion of the building, which may or may not be necessary depending upon what the final instruction of the building site is like.
Okay. And then the Exhibit A memorandum, you know, go through and save these things of interest? Does that apply for the whole parcel or just the secret portion?
It's it is the exhibit a portion here applies to Everything but the structure for the old Buelltmore Hotel. So there are signs which sit on top of that Buelltmore Hotel, which will be preserved, which will be removed and preserved. Thank you. There is artwork on the side of that, you know, the old paintings of Happy and Peewee to the extent that those are still there, those will be removed, preserved and maybe restored in the future. That's a question for later.
Any further questions at this time?
Do we have a timeline of how soon this could start?
I don't at this point. There are some hoops to have to jump through as far as, you know, we have an agreement that would need to be signed by the property owner and then we have to get plans from the architect showing how they're going to button up the remaining portion of the building. And that's in the works right now.
I actually went in there today. I trespassed. The door was kicked in.
Yes, that's been a perennial problem here.
There's
probably a million dollars worth of... I'm not sure if that's the right way to put it. There is going to be a million dollars worth of demolition there and time wise, this looks like the best idea to get things going as soon as possible.
1:47 – 1:5219 turns
I think it's a good idea. Do you want to turn that into a motion? I move to approve.
I'll second. Is
that enough Mr. Murthy? That's enough. Okay.
Roll-call vote Passed 5–0 move to approve. I'll second. Is that enough Mr. Murthy? That's enough. Okay.
Show transcript
All right. Any other pleasure to hear from the owner?
I just think, I only wanted make one correction We have a motion to approve the
Thank you, Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Item number 12 is a conceptual review of options pertaining to Historic Highway 246 driveway locations, roadway frontages and circulation between US 101 and the Avenue of Flags and potential amendments to the Avenue of Flags specific plan. Our staff contact for this is our Planning Director Andrea Kiefer.
All right. Good evening, Mayor Silva and members of City Council. I do have just a PowerPoint slide to go with it if you can pull that up. That would be all start but... So this evening what staff is hoping to obtain direction from the council on are a couple of things so two things. The first would be policy direction regarding the future driveway alignments for the southern section of Highway 246 between AOF and the 101 on and off ramps So there will be two options presented this evening on that. And the second item for direction is sort of a yes or no question, and that is whether or not we should look into setting policies related to building setbacks in this area to allow for potential future protected bike lanes to be installed.
Again, do you want staff to look into this further or not? You can go to the next slide, Scott. Sorry. As the Council is aware, we are currently undergoing a comprehensive general plan update. The Public Works Department and City Engineer Department is working on design plans for Caltrans for the western portion of Highway 246 traffic calming program. And we also have an established Avenue of Flags specific plan that we are in the process of trying to implement both from a public infrastructure side and private development and private investment side of things.
So currently the city does not have any clearly established policies related to driveway alignments for this portion of Highway 246. However, as staff has worked on the general plan update along with our consultants it has become very apparent of the importance of this particular segment of roadway and the opportunity that is currently present to create sort of a welcoming front door to our city and to our downtown. So one important consideration in this regard is traffic circulation and roadway design, both from a safety standpoint and also from So, yeah.
We are again currently in a unique position to be able to establish a set of policies to help guide future development in this area in order to achieve some of these objectives. We do currently have two development project applications in process that are located on this roadway segment and one challenge So again, we're hoping to get some guidance from the City Council that will enable us to bring back a staff-initiated Avenue of Flag specific plan amendment that addresses, that hopefully would address the gaps in this policy in order to provide clear guidance for future development.
However, it is important to note that we are not asking council to review any aspect of the two development projects that are currently in process. As each of these individual projects will be brought back separately for formal review by the City Council at a later date.
In fact if I can jump in, it's really important for reasons of future public hearings that we not talk about the development projects themselves tonight because if we talk about them somebody could accuse one or more members of the council of having prejudged them based on your comments tonight. I would hate for you to do that
Quick question,
can we
ask like what the impact on any current projects could be in these decisions?
Yes you can ask the director based upon the sort of high level pre-application review. You've seen one of them, the other has gone to the commission. How would it change them that... Like
would it cause them to incur more I don't know if it's time delays or money delays. I can ask that.
You can ask that?
That's really what I want to ask.
But I really... What I'm really hoping we avoid is, I really like this project and so I don't want to do anything to harm it. That kind of thing would be... Not a good
choice.
Right. Thank you.
Okay, so...
1:53 – 2:0515 turns
≫ Thank you.
So staff has had numerous conversations with Caltrans, with associated transportation engineers which is our traffic consultant, transportation consultant. And with Sergeant Town Planning who is a sub-consultant on our general plan update working on some design elements of that. Well, there is no perfect solution. We've kind of talked through it with all of the different parties here and there's no perfect solution in terms of how to align Highway 246 or kind of given what you're given to start with at this point.
And we have not yet gotten any formal approvals from Caltrans on this issue. All have agreed that of the importance of reducing the overall number of driveways along Highway 246 So because too many driveways along Highway 246, or any highway for that matter with just kind of the proximity of all of our different intersections and basically causes turning conflict movements.
You know you've got multiple driveways and if you've got cars turning left and right out of all of them. It slows traffic down. It's also a safety concern from, again, turning movement conflicts and that sort
of thing. This is where we have the two Amigos and then the gas station, right? Is that what we're talking about how they're so close and then you can... Correct. Yeah, yeah.
So when you'll see some exhibits for the exact area we're talking about but yes just lots of traffic turning movement conflicts.
Maybe we just let the staff finish the report at this point. You can see you're burying the sale here.
So basically for the number one item that I am requesting input from the Council on this evening, the two options for the driveway alignments are number one what the two development projects currently have proposed or combined sort of overlaid on top of each other to show that as well as number two which is what the city's consultant sergeant town planning and city staff I'll just quickly go over. This is the existing I'm going to talk a little bit about the current existing driveways that are there now.
And again, you'll see on the subsequent slides how we are the different options sort of try to reduce the overall number of driveways on the section of highway 246 and also So this is basically, and I'll point out a few things on here. This is basically the two development projects currently as proposed in terms from a driveway location standpoint. So it's a little bit hard to compare apples-to-apples to the aerial I just showed you to this but basically what Basically, they'd redevelop the site but the general location of the driveways would remain the same. And it's hard to see on here but as you can see sort of between the colored image and the black-and-white image those are kind of what separate the two development projects. You can see right now those two driveway locations would I believe be within 15 to 20 feet of each other so you know you could imagine And I believe what's being proposed is right in, right out on the project to the left here.
But basically this alignment could contribute to what I was just talking about which is sort of those conflicts with turning movements because you have to remember also there's the north side of Highway 246 that has cars turning right and left and in and out as well. And so, you know, there's not a whole lot of space to work with. So but I'll just point out a few things here. So as the option number one shows, basically along Highway 246 each project in this scenario would have two access points.
But again, the two access points that are nearest each other in particular could have some traffic. So I'll
move on to the next slide. So this is option two, we're just calling it long-range alternative. This exhibit basically and if you'll recall the existing condition showed in terms of the red But it would necessitate basically a shared driveway. So I think we call it a consolidated shared driveway there, so we would basically be taking the two driveways that could create those conflicts that I was just speaking about and creating one shared driveway between the two parcels. And that's essentially the change that we would be looking at. So again less driveways, less traffic conflicts and amongst all the professionals that we've spoken to So, yeah, you can see just kind of what's going on there with the consolidation from 5 to 3.
If you want to
move to the next slide, so just to summarize here, option 1 again would be as currently proposed, We are not a part of this. But this option from a staff perspective, there is some concern of creating additional traffic movement turning conflicts It would reduce the overall driveways in the segment and it would attempt as best as we could to resolve traffic movement turning conflicts from adjacent The goal is to reduce the overall number of driveway curves. That is sort of the goal and also not really mentioned or highlighted here, We're going to try to do the best we can to resolve at least increasing the traffic conflicts that currently exist on Highway 246 in this area.
Okay, so that was number one. So there's those two options. This is number two request in terms of input from the council this evening. One of the things that has come up in working with our consultants on the general plan update is this idea for, you know, multimodal transportation and connectivity in the general plan update and trying to aim towards that.
And so one of the things that came up was hey, we should look into a protected bike lane in this location And so I'll kind of show you some inspirational imagery of what it could look like. But really, and just to mention here, if the council wanted us to look further into this and we were to go forward with something like this, it could require that any development project in this stretch We are currently in a unique opportunity.
We have a lot of questions about what that protected bike lane could look like. Of course we would have to coordinate with Caltrans and all of Um, so go ahead. Okay yeah and again just it's a unique opportunity that can be leveraged now um would need we would need Caltrans approval and it could a protected bike lane could contribute significantly to meeting many of our circulation and connectivity goals that we are currently working on So again, just the question of does the council want us to dive deeper into this? So again, just the bottom line here.
We've had many conversations with Caltrans, our traffic consultants, our design consultant Sergeant Town Planning and they're all asking us the same question what does the city want to do which is why we're here this evening asking our Council for direction on what ≫ Good evening, everyone. Thank you for joining us this evening. If you want to go to the next slide. I just summarized in this one slide what we are requesting of the Council this evening and so I will sort of summarize it here. Our recommendation So again, the first is to provide input on future driveway alignments on this section. Either option one or two and to let staff know whether or not we should look any further into the feasibility of a protected bike lane in this area.
That concludes my report and I'm available for any questions.
And before we go to any council member questions, Mr Murphy could you please say the rules of engagement one more time to ensure that we stay within our purview?
We really want to focus on these two policy issues And if necessary, and yes you can ask the question of the director. Have the current applicants been met with this and what were their thoughts? That's perfectly fine but to some extent you have to treat this as though the current applicants might not develop their projects. And so is this a policy? Is this a change that you would wanna see notwithstanding the current property owners who are working through applications. And so we're going to please, please stay away from any substantive discussion of the projects themselves so that you don't harm your ability to weigh in on them down the line.
Thank you and with that asterisk we'll start with council member questions. Council Member Hornick
Um, why the laughter?
So. For these proposals. So the setback provision specifically, my understanding was that we were working with Caltrans to what was the phrase that you called it like the 246 safety
traffic
calming process. My understanding is we are working with Caltrans to narrow the 246 in order to allow potentially for a median slash protected bike lane Is that so this is a dual part question, right? Like it sounded like staff was in touch with Caltrans about this. So then my question would be did they incorporate this idea of the 246 traffic calming measures as well and if so why would the project owners need to have a further setback if the narrowing
2:05 – 2:1112 turns
At this point, we don't know what Caltrans is willing to approve and what they're not. They've been very guarded in their responses to us in that regard and so if I would imagine that if we get what we're looking for with regard to the narrowing of those lanes, we may not have a need for the further setback of buildings however If it turns out that we're not successful in that stretch of the highway getting the narrowing of lanes sufficient to provide that protected bike lane, then having a policy such as this would be beneficial in ensuring We can make changes if we have the flexibility to do that.
We're not. This is just again,
≫ Thank you. Any questions?
I want to make sure that we are not creating our own roadblocks or impediments to development. We have tried very hard for a very long time to get development on the avenue and all of those things, and then I understand how sometimes reviewing these things can lead I want to make sure. Maybe I'm interpreting that incorrectly and it doesn't cause that sort of like, my husband's a contractor. And when the plans change midway through he's like now we have to rip everything out and redo. Like are we doing that to the people that we are trying to attract here to get businesses here? Is that like, are we doing them?
So I think, hopefully this answers your question. So I think what we're trying to avoid is being reactive. I think the challenge is that you know again sort of things are all colliding at the same time. We're updating the general plan which we are looking at these things sort of at the same time we happen to also have development projects in process here So the way we are looking at this as regardless of what development project goes there, and yes you are correct. We are really trying hard to attract development but we also want to make sure that what development goes in there does not create future problems issues or further exacerbates already existing traffic issues and so we are trying to... In some sense we're actually trying to give clearer policy guidance so that regardless of what project goes in there I would like to chime in here a
I want to start by saying that while yes, a change to policy or an establishment of a policy right now might cause an individual project owner to have to change a plan right now. The goal here is to ensure that projects that are approved If we allow things to continue the way they are with multiple driveways, we can approve projects like that. There are safety concerns, yes. The bigger issue from the developer standpoint is that they now have an approved entitlement that they take to Caltrans and Caltrans says no, we don't like it. We told the city we didn't like it and we're not going to approve it. And now what? Are they gonna have to start all over again?
And so we're trying to catch this now because we didn't get clear policy direction from Caltrans. We got preference, a recommendation but we didn't get no we're not going to approve it.
Yeah
and they want to make sure that whatever gets approved has the best possibility of getting through Caltrans review and actually being built because an entitlement that can't be built isn't worth a whole lot.
That's what I was against yeah and just to kind of elaborate on that we have had conversations with Caltrans and while they didn't give us any clear guidance You know, in our conversations with them we felt oh you know we were trying to hear them out and hear what their concerns were. And that is sort of what caused us to come up with this particular option number two is what we're calling it. So thanks. Thank
you.
That's it. Thank you
very much. Any questions?
Yeah a bunch. I'd like to ask the lawyer in your verbiage you say setback if we decide to have a setback is that We have a motion to approve.
2:11 – 2:1715 turns
Well, every property has setbacks and so the issue here would be where to put the setback. And so the question for the council is do you want to slide it? Slide the front setback farther back than it currently is to allow for the possibility of the protected bike lanes or would you want to leave it where it is? In some cases, you want very little setback. You want everything right up on street level.
I have a couple of questions. One is about the single family home properties, you want a much bigger setback because you want a front yard and
And just to kind of elaborate on that, I think the idea here is for the specific plan in particular. The idea is to have the buildings as close to the street as in general, as a general rule of thumb, as close to the street as possible to create that walkable, bike-able commercial frontage. So the idea is not necessarily to increase the setback like oh you're going to have 10 feet of landscaping plus... The idea would be that the increased setback would simply be to accommodate We would still be looking at bringing the building as close to the street frontage as possible.
It's a wide open street. It's wide open for trucks and everything. How did we get around creating something that's not
saved? This is a pretty drawing. That's built to show what this could look like. There is not a proposal at this point in either the specific plan or in any of the developer projects to plant trees in the middle to do that and I you know obviously we've seen the limits of what Caltrans will allow us to do when You see kind of the number of trees and the size of trees they're willing to accept. This is this was a drawing that was done by Sergeant Town Planning, and it was done without any concern to what Caltrans requirements might be. It was simply as Andrea said an inspirational image to show That's part of our contract.
It is possible to look at this in the longer term. And, you know, CalTrans requirements do evolve over time and we would not be the only location with trees in a median on a state highway but it's something we would have to work with just similar to what we're doing with the traffic calming program It's a years-long process. This hasn't been included in what we've dealt with right now, and based on where we're at right now I wouldn't suggest we try and include this until that process is resolved. Let's not muddy the water by throwing more into the pot than we need to. This is not on the table at this point.
The left hand turn lane sometimes there's six or eight cars there you gotta full trip. You need every
inch of it.
We're here to discuss option one or option two and then if we want space for the bike. Exploration of it. I just want to make sure we stay on that.
Not that we're not reviewing those projects, but if the concern is having one of our project applicants object to that. Andrea, is that correct? Neither project would be adversely affected by the increased setback for the bike
lane. I assume it's a lot of effort and if Caltrans can say no thank you, right? And they say no, we spent all this time and energy doing something that... I mean, if Caltrans says We're not going to go with that. Then we just
spend
all our time spinning our wheels.
Yeah, kind of to follow up on that, I think that's kind of what we've been doing up until this point is, you know, Caltrans like it's like hey Caltrans what do you want to see? And then they're asking us what do you want to see so you know at this point we're kind of saying okay council what do you want to see and then we can work toward that goal in working with Caltrans if it makes sense.
Any further questions for staff Councilmember Sanchez? Vice Mayor Mead any questions?
Yes, I know that you're asking us to consider these two options separately. But looking at what I'm not a biker but what I know about biking is that less turning into places makes biking safer. So therefore in your opinion and the work that you've done going with with option 2 less CalTrans I mean, I know that Caltrans it says like, you know, STP connectivity, ATE traffic circulation and Caltrans basically option two is what Caltrans is looking for. Am I interpreting this correctly?
Yes, although they that is my sort of okay. I'm going to call it a preference.
2:18 – 2:2121 turns
And I have no questions.
Okay, so we'll bring it back to Council for further discussion and maybe we should start with just letting everyone do a straw poll here. Just going down of option one, option two, yes bike lane no bike lane and we can just show our chips that way? Does that work for everyone and we can just get a feel before we get too far into the weeds?
Sure. I'm all for feeling.
Okay
you know then go ahead. Option
two bike lane.
Same. Council Member Sanchez I'm
sorry. Do we want a bike
lane? Do you want option one and option two or option two and then the other? Could you bring the slide back up?
We don't. You don't need to slide with the driveways? No, we need this. Can we have the final slide so you can see it? Hold on. What's wrong here? Yeah, it's option
one.
Oh, next. There we
go. Yes. So option one or two. Option one has more driveways. Option two has less driveways. So it's what your preference is there and then do you want to explore further setbacks for bikes?
The option one was the preferred Caltrans. Option two is the preferred Caltrans.
Yeah, option two. Option two and then yes or no on this building setbacks in the area to allow for future protected bike lanes? Would you... I
didn't want a setback building. You said just plenty of room for bike lanes. You're talking about setbacks?
Yes. So on item two, are you a yes or no?
And
I'm option two yes to bike lanes. So with that we have five option twos and we have four yes to bike lanes.
Yeah, I don't know John, Council Member Sanchez do you want to revisit this the bike the setback idea because I believe City Manager Scott Wolfe addressed it? He said there's no setback. I just want to make that clear.
We'll take that direction and start looking at the potential for a staff initiated specific plan and bring something back at
2:31 – 2:3822 turns
Now we will bring everyone back. Thank you all for that quick break
there. I believe we are on to item number 13, City Manager Scuttle.
Thank You Mr. Mayor and members of the Council. Item number 13 is resolution number 26-20 a resolution of the City Council approving and adopting amendment excuse me amendment number two of the guidelines or procedure for city council meetings and related functions and activities As the Council will remember, on June 11th an agenda item was requested to come back to consider changing the regular meeting night of the City Council. Direction was also given for me to poll the individual members of the City Council and determine what nights if any might be preferred for a meeting night change if that were to take place.
I did manage to contact each and every one of you, and I will say that council members had one of two choices. The preferences were either no change or remain on Thursdays, or they were changed to Monday nights. I'm going to go ahead and start by saying that as you know just as general background. My understanding the reason this was brought forward is because we've had a number of instances over We have not had enough council members present in the room to hold a meeting, to develop a sufficient quorum to hold a meeting.
And by moving our meeting night outside of the conference schedule, the typical conference schedule days, we would avoid some of that in the future. In the past, council member attendance at conferences was much less than it has been in recent years And now with more and more council members attending, not only the primary JPIA conferences and the League of California Cities annual conference but other ones including the new mayor and city council member conference that California or the City Leaders Summit, pardon me is what it's called.
and others, the likelihood for a lack of quorum is increased. So I'm going to turn this over to you as a body to discuss. I'm happy to answer any questions or let you know kind of what's going on. I will let you know that from a staff perspective either option of Thursday or Monday is we're already on the Thursday schedule that can work fine. Monday will not cause a problem for us in fact it may be There may be a slight benefit to that, because by running a Monday night council meeting we would then turn right around and have our typical Tuesday morning staff meeting and prepare the next council meeting staff reports that week. That puts all of our city council meeting activities in one week, meaning that the off-week is for, in my case anyway or We have a number of items on the calendar that are free from council meeting preparation or staff report preparation and we can focus on non-council meeting business to take care of.
So then again, not changing it is fine too. We're already on the calendars so it's not going to be an issue. We'll start with just questions of staff. How did, on June 11th it was requested that I come back with this?
I guess maybe it's more of a question to City Council members. So I guess let me just ask the question. Did staff run the numbers on like how many potential meetings could be missed by moving the meeting via city council meeting day-to-Monday due to holidays versus how many we might miss due to conferences?
Yes. And what was that? It's essentially one meeting a year that falls on the second or the fourth Monday. Excuse me, one holiday per year and that is Memorial Day I believe it's in May that falls on the fourth Monday of the
last month. So we might lose one per year if we switch to Monday versus like two or three if we keep up with the conferences?
That's my question. Council Member Lewis, any questions?
No questions.
Council Member Sanchez, any questions?
Yeah on the holiday deal if there's a holiday on a Sunday to take the Monday off
Yes, that is how that works. And I don't know if that was factored into that we can do
is it's going to change next year you know
so yeah every once in a while I may have something
like maybe next year right then
well we would if the meeting has changed the second Monday because if before the 4th of July 5th is always gonna be that first week
so
but there may be others yes you're right
The month what you said about Monday and then they're meeting to the next day, then whatever things that we accomplished or decide on Monday of the rest of the week to be right on it instead of wait till next week to figure out what we did last Thursday. And when you have your Tuesday meet.
Typically, the week before a council meeting on Tuesday we will have a staff meeting and decide what's going on the agenda and start preparation of reports with the goal of having the agenda published by Thursday afternoon or Friday morning. If the council meeting date were changed It's just that the agenda packet would be produced on Thursday night or Friday morning, and the council would have an entire week to look at it as opposed to five days.
You don't have a meeting every Tuesday?
We don't have one every Tuesday. We only have one the Tuesday of the week before the council meeting. That's when
you want your meeting... When you have your
2:38 – 2:4315 turns
We would have a council meeting on Monday night and then the next day we would come in and hold our Tuesday meeting and prep staff reports so that the packet can go out by Friday We do it on Friday, but we don't do our staff. I'm not suggesting that that's a better approach. I am suggesting that it works for us that way. Right now, we do things on Tuesday. It gives us four days or so to make sure that packet can get out.
Changing it to Mondays just allows it to fit into the Monday that is already open for us and then it frees up the following week. I have no questions.
≫ All right. We can bring it back for staff discussion.
It's hard enough to get public engagement. They know it's been Thursdays for a long time, changing it would just kind of throw a wrench. Now that's not to say that they can't adapt, right? I mean sure they could adapt but it's just one more thing and I think what we missed, we canceled one or two conferences a year. It doesn't seem like that big a deal to me but if that's the way council wants
Selfishly, by Thursday of every week I'm exhausted. So I prefer to just get it done on Monday and be done. Not that I don't love visiting with all you wonderful folks. So for a purely selfish reason, I would prefer Monday. However, I do have the same concerns as to making sure everyone is aware that we blasted out there, that we make sure that like we are doing our best to get the word out there if that is what ends up happening so that people aren't left It's been a while since we've had a meeting like this. So I don't know if they're showing up on a Thursday thinking
that they're going to make a
comment and they missed it. Councilor Sanchez? Whatever, you know. What changed, I guess is the meetings. We've been missing two meetings a month. No big deal with one meeting or
I even just looking through it, I checked the entire cities of San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura County. All meetings take place to seem to take place on primarily Tuesdays or Mondays and I think that there's a reason for that one of them has been because There's this is why everything that has a large board meeting with it takes place on later in the week for that reason. And I think that this puts us in better alignment with other local agencies, gets us in a better flow within cycle with everything. I think that when we often tell people it's a Thursday meeting night, it's confusing or even just like, why do you meet on Thursdays? And I think that this would get us better in alignment with the workflow of how every government agency is kind of moving things along with it.
So I prefer the Monday as well. So I'll make a motion to move our City Council meetings amending the resolution number 2620 to move our meetings to
Monday. And Mr. Mayor, just for the record would that be effective with the council's meetings in August or would you like to make it effective for example in September if there's a concern about the public knowing You know, we could amend the resolution to say that it's effective a month later to give time. But that's up to you, sir.
I would also like to piggyback on that concern. Can we do it next election cycle so that we can't rejigger our... It's coming up.
You mean like start of January 1st 2027? Yeah.
I would prefer to do it now. I think we don't have a meeting again until August which means there's kind of a baked in 30 day notice that already occurs so this seems like a good time when our July 2nd meeting in July is canceled, I would suggest, I would like the motion to reflect beginning immediately with our next, the first meeting scheduled
Roll-call vote Failed 2–2 motion to reflect beginning immediately with our next, the first meeting scheduled
Show transcript
Okay, so if we can start getting that pushed out through the proper channels and it'll make sure we take personal responsibility to make sure we advertise that appropriately.
Move on to item 14. All
right thank you Mr. Mayor members of the council Item number 14
is resolution 26-21, a resolution of the City Council of the city of Buellton, California approving the fourth quarter budget amendment resulting from operational changes for fiscal year 2526 through June 30th, 2026.
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Good morning, everyone. My name is Marissa Buellton. I'm the mayor and members of the City Council. Tonight I will be proposing fourth quarter budget amendments for fiscal year 2526. Let me go ahead and share my screen just to facilitate We're going to go ahead and start the budget process. We review the budget in quarterly intervals. One of one of the. Okay, so I don't know where my PowerPoint went okay here we go.
So one of the things that we look at in 4th quarter. Is our budget to actuals and the proposed budget amendments tonight reflect our review of any budget savings versus any budget. Increases and transfer them within funds are not fun stuff transferring to them between departments that did not use Some of their budget and money. So, as a result, the proposed budget amendments net to 0.
So on the left I have the current budget on the right. I had a proposed budget amendment which shows there's no net impact. To the proposed budget amendments. One thing that I want to note is that due to some budget savings, the water fund actually drew less from the reserves of about $116,000. And I will just go, um, I'll give counsel an overview of the changes instead of going line by line item of those changes.
So overall general fund operating budget increases that were proposed tonight. We're about 152,081 dollars. Those are offset with budget savings so as a net fiscal impact of $0 some other departments that incurred those changes were city council city manager non departmental. Finance, recreation and planning. Some of these had to do with salary and benefit adjustments, increased hours for the accounting technician, some recreation facility and program needs, vehicle maintenance and fuel costs.
These costs were offset by vacancy savings, savings in some operational expenditures, liabilities, assistant programs, equipment and deferred maintenance. The wastewater fund also showed a net fiscal impact of $0. The proposed budget amendment increase is 51,255. Some of the reasons for the increase is due to laboratory testing and compliance requirements, increased electricity and operating costs.
These were offset with some vacancy savings, some reduced overtime and deferred maintenance. And lastly, we have the water fund. The water fund showed an appropriation increase of 1455 largely due to. And this overall impact reduced transfer from reserve in the amount of have a net zero impact to the current budget. So with that, staff recommends that City Council approve Resolution 2621 and I am now available to answer any questions City Council may have.
Roll-call vote Failed 0–4
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questions.
And none from me. Any public comment on this item? All right, so we'll bring it back to Council for further discussion and then possible motion for approval.
I move to approve resolution number 2621. Is that fine or do I have to read the whole thing? That's fine. I'll second that. Thank
you.
Roll-call vote Passed 3–0 move to approve resolution number 2621. Is that fine or do I have to read the whole thing? That's fine. I'll second that. Thank you. Okay, · 1 under review
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Thank you very much for being able to create a net balancing of zero across all those funds. That was really great accounting. Thank you for being on top of that. You're welcome, Bill. All right.
Move on to our city manager's report. All right. Thank you Mr. Mayor and members of the council. As was just approved by Item number 13 here. Our next meeting will be in August on August 10th, which is Monday. There will not be a second meeting in July this month. We will note that the City Council election for this year, papers are available beginning this coming Monday July 17th and the filing period will run through August 7th.
Anyone interested in running for City Council either in District 1, District 4 or for the Mayor's position should contact the City Clerk's Office at City Hall and make an appointment to discuss pulling of papers with the City Clerk's Department. And lastly, my final reminder for everyone watching this. The Buellton Barbecue Bonanza will be held on the 25th of this month which is Saturday. The postcards which will serve as meal tickets will go in the mail tomorrow and so everyone keep an eye out for your postcards coming in. It's the traditional red tablecloth gingham pattern on the front of the postcard so it should be really easy to pick out and just hang onto those And with that, I am happy to answer any further questions but this concludes my report.
Any questions for our
City Manager? No
questions. All right,
and then I will have our City Attorney read us into closed session.
Thank you Mr. Mayor. Councils will now move into closed session on three items one a performance evaluation of the city manager one consideration of initiation of litigation and one discussion of existing litigation with the caption listed on the agenda thank you much. Thank you very much we'll now adjourn into closed