City Council — February 9, 2026

Or.

Hello all. Today is

February 9th, 2026. Welcome to the Carpinteria City Council meeting. The session will open formally. So let's make a list. Nomura here. Mayor Solorzano here. Clark here. Mayor here and Mayor Alarcón here. And if you are willing and able to stand up for the flag

of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. And we will start our meeting with

the first item, which is a presentation by the District of Residual Waters and Carpentry on its installation, challenges and opportunities in the district, and about the Advanced Purification Project for Residual Waters and Carpentry. Well, good evening. Mayor Salarcon, members of the Council, thank you for inviting me. I'm going to make a brief presentation.

Well, I'm going to tell you things that probably you already know but maybe the public doesn't know about the district of Aguas Residuales that normally think it's part of the city. Thank you, Brian. Yes, we can go to the previous slide. The Residual Water District of Carpinteria was founded in 1928, so soon we will celebrate 100 years. We have a board of directors with five members and some years ago we went through elections by divisions. So five geographical divisions.

We have members of our team, so it's a pretty small team. We have operators with personal and professional licenses and we also have a director in charge of the laboratory, a lab, and also people dedicated to economic matters, and also managers. And we have these people who just started working there, people who are over 30 years old. We serve about 4,500 people every year.

24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 360 days a day. At the moment we have 4500 residential clients and 93% of our clients are from residential housing. And the majority of clients pay $825 a year for the service. The non-residents pay, depending on the amount of money they spend. We have a website at carpsand.com and we also have social media presence, so we try to make our message public as much as possible. As for the facilities, we have more than 42 linear miles Most of the pipes were built by gravity. Many of them are from the 1930s. The one in the center is from the 1930s, and most of it was built as the city was being built. The pipes go from 6 inches to 24 inches, and most of what was used in the 1960s

of that over the years, so it's now lined a fair bit of it. But

it is still

in perfect condition.

And we have communities that we serve in good local conditions. We're serving three points to the south to the coast using a low-pressure sewage system outside the city. So we cover our stations from two of our And we have a wastewater It covers from 20 houses up to 60% of the entire flow in the main fire stations. And as for the treatment plant, it was initially built in 1951 and was designed So now you have a capacity of 2.5 million gallons per day, and normally we have a flow rate of 1.25, so it's just the capacity. In the last 20 years, we've also seen a reduction in flow due to...

Obviously, we are conserving water and the treatment plant is a fairly standard one. We also have a secondary treatment plant that disinfects the water before it ends up in the ocean And as far as the equipment, we had to rebuild it basically in the 90s and 2015. We also had to update... I know that they are in very good condition and we have a workshop on 6th Street, 5300 6th Street, which was rebuilt in 2022. And we also have an event hall so that they can have community meetings and so that they can also use the profit-making agencies. And I think that's all, Brian. So if you find the treatment plant, it is there next to Carpinteria Creek in the north of Cerro Carril and La Playa Estatal. So near the center is a photograph And twice we won the best treatment

plan in the state of California. We're

part of that. The challenges and the opportunities, I call them big challenges. And then the biggest

challenge is cost of living and

hiring a person who's just a few years old. We had about 50% of our staff working in carpentry. Now people are moving to Ventura County and for us that means longer response times when we need someone to come here. And we have also seen a very important change, an increased pressure on salaries and benefits given that we have several agencies competing for the same group of people. But when we also try to hire qualified people for higher positions it is always complicated. Another challenge is inflation and also inflation in the cost After the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw a sharp increase in the cost of materials and equipment. The

tariffs have not gone down

since then and the impact of the tarpaulins has been real or simply apparent. They are affecting us mainly for the equipment And it has also greatly increased the cost of all the underground works, which have multiplied by two or three. We have overcome inflation for the municipal governments. In terms of good things, throughout the city we are also managing our electricity sources. We have solar panels and we will also implement We can also use batteries to store electricity, to improve the sustainability of the network and also to save costs for treatment plant operations. Because we use a lot of electricity this will allow us to save money. And now we are making a transition to use electric vehicles Part of it is voluntary, but it's also because the state is forcing us to do so.

So we have the first closed-circuit television system for inspection of vehicles, and I think we are the first in the state. And now we are making a transition to also buy electric pickups and we are also concentrating on climate change. In the next slide you will hear from Bob McDonald about the Director of the District of Waters And so we have a project in collaboration with the District of Residential Zones and the Water District. We've been planning for 10 years and developing this project, and we're getting to the design phase. And then the city originally participated in a feasibility study and so we are going to lend part of our facilities to the Water District. Our staff is going to operate the new advanced treatment plant. It is mainly a project for water supply, I know that the city will finance much of this project but we are also going to provide the place for the facilities.

We will take care of these plant operations The Advanced Purification Plant is going to be a big change for us, but it's a process that we're implementing. We've already demonstrated that it works. We are implementing the Our Resilience District in Orange County. It's a multi-step process. Subterranean. Disolvents in the water. And the last step is to use an ultraviolet light and also an advanced oxidation system, a high-intensity light and an oxidization agent

Purified water systems are highly

regulated, so we have to add some alkalinity to this project so that it is not corrosive. The purified water systems are very regulated in California

and

we have obtained a series of permits to be able to operate

to

follow the California standards. We also have a very advanced sampling system for different operations, and now we are going to build an advanced publication system. This

district received $61 million

from AWS for its construction, which was granted by AWS Construction. that will begin in spring. This project has been going on for about three years, and this takes a lot of time because it takes a lot of time to start the works and to be able to build all the electrical systems. And then at the end there is also a long process in order to get a good view, to make sure that everything has been built well so that it will have a very long useful life. One of the main components is a concrete equalization tank of 150,000 columns And also all the water that comes out of the wastewater plant has to go through this cycle and through the treatment plant. We have to build

This project is going to

be a 100% flow. It will be the first state in the world that has been able to do this volume of districts. What will go out will really be just the ocean osmosis in order that the process checks or doesn't allow it to pass through And the only thing that will end up there is what does not go through the reverse osmosis process. And then we just

have a few slides to look

at, Brian. If you remember that overview photo where everything was seen with that solar in the treatment plant, that's where the advanced purification plant goes and here also in the next slide Thank you. Any questions? First, I wanted to thank you for being in our district accessible to us. Fortunately, I went to a tour there in its facilities one year ago and was very impressed by the water purification process, also the CAP process. So for those who have a question about CAP or want more information, where would you refer them? I'm sure they have something on their website but where can they find more information? Yes, thanks for your question. There is a website dedicated to the CAP process and that's very easy going to the main page of the Water District Our website also has a lot of information there.

The Water District has a public relations team that is also doing a lot of publications the impact of this project and also a lot of information about

the

project itself. Thank you, because I know that this is very difficult for many people to understand but having seen at first glance all the filtration system and also having understood better directly from you what this CAPE project implies It was a very good presentation, Craig. You said that 15% of the water will end up It's 15% of the total flow. I think that's what I said, but one of the important things is to understand

that

most of the water that ends up in the ocean It's more or less the amount of water that will end up in the ocean, more or less similar to what we have at this time. And we have a pilot program and for that reason we've been meeting with regulatory agencies but we make sure to comply with all requirements. So it is going to be a little bit more concentrated with fewer water molecules but the net effect will be similar so the same quality as the water that ends now in the ocean

Beginning

with some

questions regarding the, I would say,

filtration and concentration of the other components. And then, according to the question about osmosis, is it going to be possible to filter all the drugs? Yeah, thank you for that question as well. Removal of pharmaceuticals will not eliminate the ultraviolet system, more or less. So this treatment process is going to remove 99.9% of the drugs, many of them through reverse osmosis. There are some components with very small chains that can go through the reverse osmosis system, not drugs, but I could tell you... For example, 1,4-Dioxano.

NDMA, these are products that can go through small amounts through the reverse monsters process but then the ultraviolet system ends up destroying them at a molecular level. So it's a process that has been proven to work very well over the last 30 years. All of this was better for the public to know Thank you for your presentation. I think you are right when you say that there is a lot of residents who believe that the city is part of the city, but in reality Our board meets on the 1st and 3rd of every month at 5.30 in our facilities, 5300 6th Street. Sometimes we have members of the committee open to the public as well But our doors are always open. If anyone has a question, they can come and just say hello and ask us.

Thank you very much. Have a good evening.

Now we're going to move

on to public comments about this presentation. We have no one who has asked to speak here. Someone in Zoom, Ryan? No one has raised their hand. In that case, let's conclude the public comment period Do we need to vote on this? Yes. I ask to receive and file this presentation, the second one. We have a motion that has been seconded, two in favor. Anyone against it? No, let me ask you...

I think very quickly, we also have the Public Services Committee that meets with the Department of Water.

Thank you. I have talked

to them,

and I think we're going to coordinate with John Olason and try

to get him up on the agenda for that. That was good, thank you. Well, we've been talking about this for a long time on our agenda which is a two-month monthly meeting, so we'll be able to see it. A board meeting of the Carpinteria Library. President Alarcón, all the members of the board are present and have met all the requirements to notify the public of this meeting. We will first move on to public comments. These would be public comments that are not part of the order of the day of the meeting of the Board of Carpinteria City Council.

I move that the contents of the regular meeting held January 12th, 2026. Second? I move that the contents of the regular meeting held January 12th, 2026. Second? I move that the contents

of the regular meeting held January 12th , 2026. Second?

I move that the contents of the regular meeting held January 12, 202 6. Mayor, Council Member, it is a pleasure to present the report of the Carpinteria Community Library for this month. So January was quite a busy month. We had Cafecito Hazard de Carpintería on January 8 the Teenage Advisory Committee, 16 and 30, also the History of Teens class on January 21. We had a music group of Santa Bárbara on January 24th. We also had a basic bilingual computation class of the City Council of Santa Bárbara on January 26th, we also had a talk about condos on January 27th and then...

And we also had a couple of meetings of the Adolescent Advisory Committee twice, during January and it was fantastic. We had 17 students Two high school students and five high school students gave us many ideas. They identified three main things to focus on. I would like a club for teenagers, They have their own club and they also want to create a

collection of materials

focused on teenagers. And the last one is an initiative for marketing, so that you can post on social media stories and things like that. They are eager to collaborate with the library and also to develop programs led by them. We are still accepting new members for this Advisory Committee of Adolescents, so the next meeting will be on February 13th, so on Monday, Friday at 3 p.m. So it's a great feeling to meet again The second program that I would like to highlight

is the basic computer

class of Santa Barbara City College. We

have 20 places throughout Santa

Barbara City College, but at this moment we have 23 students And we have 20 computers. We need a computer per student, which brings us more computers. And then they asked us to conclude those projects in order to sign

up.

But obviously there is a demand, all these people speak Spanish. There is a need in the community and the library also likes that the community

feels safe with us and

they are actually now gathered at the library right now And the third program that I would

like to emphasize,

the presentation on California condors. We have 56 people who attended. It was very nice to see the response of the carpentry community to learn more about how the condors in the program I would also like to say that we have ongoing library programs and I want to take this opportunity to mention some of them. The library continues to offer a whole series of programs for conversational English and also stories for preschoolers,

a group of

carpentry writers and also a group of conversational Spanish and also a workshop for songwriters. The program of the babies is the best, and also the group of carpentry needleworkers. We have a support group for those who take care of people with dementia. Every Friday we have the group of carpentry ornithologists. We have two more classrooms of the Secondary School of Carpentry, and then we have 50 students who came to the library. And there again

we have the library card for those

who want to come here. I received the results last week, very interesting. I would like to present the results in our report so that you can see

Carpinteria sees that

library as an external agency, what they need or what they aspire to. That's all from me. Do you have a question?

Any questions from the Council? Yes, a question about the team.

Yes, the City Advisory Board. Is there any process

to register? If there is registration, it can be online. There's a link on our website and you can also do it in person too. Or you can come to our next meeting. What are the expectations? Go to meetings, try to go to all meetings or... No, we have this group as flexible as possible. You can go once a couple of times or you can go every week and every meeting that you like.

They're coming back in the two meetings we've had. In fact, we already

had three

in February. So, the 17 have returned and we would like to invite more teenagers because I think it's important to invite as many teenagers as possible to hear their ideas. Yes, that's good. It is also good to know that it is a relatively casual commitment that they can go to meetings where they can. Yes. The interactions you have are very interesting. At first they have I'm a little bit shy thinking about what it's about, but on the contrary. They have already sent me a letter sending requests for library materials. How nice! Are they

planning

to come to this meeting next month? Yes, they want to come and make comments and

they will pressure the director of

the library On the Santa Barbara City College Bilingual Basic Computer Class, En la clase bilingüe de computación clásica de Santa Bárbara City Council, hay 23 participantes. Les dan las computadoras, las prestan, tienen que usarlas en el sitio. Hasta hoy están usando los computadores de los sitios. Hay planes para que SBCC ofrezca computadoras a todos los estudiantes que terminen las clases o sea que al final de la clase The most probable is that they can receive the computer to keep it. But until now, you only need to use the computer in class. 23 participants said carpentry or everywhere? They are all carpenters. Yes, I would be very interested in talking with you about the computer process And I'm looking forward to seeing that in the social media accounts.

Seeing that there are no more questions, let's open the public comment. I don't see any golden card and no hand raised. We close the public comment. Any other questions, councilors? I propose that the monthly report of the library be received and archived. All in favor? Thank you very much. Item number six is new discussions Business and conversations, seeing that we do not go to point number 7, which is the closure of the fiduciary board

of trustees.

We resume

our usual meeting of the city

council and now we will receive public announcements and reports from our chief of police. Welcome.

Good evening,

Mayor

and council members. This month I just kind of

threw several

different cases out there just to give you

an idea what we're dealing with. In 5300 Carpinteria Avenue, we had indecent exposure. One of the officers responded to a call by someone who was exposing himself in front of the carpentry school on the east side of the school with his pants still down and he was arrested for indecent exposure and taken to prison. Then in 5900 Black Hickory Street, we had a violation of an order from the court in an apartment within 100 yards of the person protected with services of an emergency protective order.

At Amtrak station, we had an intoxicated female person disturbing people. She was asked to get off the train. They called us to support them. They made an arrest of citizens and she was extremely intoxicated. The officers escorted her. to the arrest, to get out of the train. And she took one of the teams from one of the agents and finally ended up arresting her. She went to

prison with multiple cases and tried Unsuccessful,

that's why I was working that day and unfortunately that's why it is assault and not hit. Then we had a young man on an electric motorcycle in Linden and Sandy Land. The young man was operating an electric bicycle. He refused to stop at the stop sign traveling about 22 miles per hour. The officers followed him at a safe distance. He continues to drive dangerously.

He got on the bike path, almost collided with a cyclist and the officer tried to contact him, follow him but he was escaping from him and we ended up locating him. And we recognized him for what he had been using. And in fact, the police officer had given him an alert and a warning. Reprimenda hacía unos días anteriormente y ahora se lo había puesto en una retención de 48 horas. Miembros del público de 18 años o 14 a 17, si tienen el permiso de los padres pueden solicitar salir en una de las And accompanying the officers, you can spend a shift or a portion. Our shifts are 12 hours, so they're long, but you can be with one of the agents in the passenger seat to see what the work is about And if you are interested, you can talk to us. Have a conversation with the official agents on the tactical part of different situations, scenarios and videos.

On January 27th, our Deputy Mayor Solorzano was participating in our information meeting and also He spent about four or five hours with us, joining us on our patrol. I must say it was very useful and very good to know more about the training that the officers carry out day by day and being able to experiment

What

does it feel like to be with the police officer in their vehicles? What are they seeing, what are they monitoring? It seemed very useful. And the police officer reiterated something I heard from you that our representatives of the Alguaciles are not trying to be Officials of immigration compliance, that was praised and I think the residents feel safer when they see their vehicles.

Driving through the city was a very positive, very illustrative experience and I recommend it to everyone. Thank you. I'm glad that it has been something positive for you and that you have learned a lot. As far

as the chief's message, going

back to what is the indecent exposure, I want to thank whoever called And he told us that this was happening. And I want to remind the members of the community, please continue to participate and be involved and call us when there are problems, when you see suspicious things and you see something, call immediately because the truth is that we have received calls before but we had not managed to find the person in fact. Then we had a lot of arrests for driving under the influence and I want to remind people or let them know that in front of your house you can be considered drunk in public. It's not that we're going to arrest him for having a beer, but if he is intoxicated to the point where he cannot control himself You're not going to listen, and it's just a little south.

Go to your house, lie down and go out without putting anyone in danger or yourself. No problem. But if you are having dangerous behavior due to being intoxicated, that's another issue. And speaking of what the restriction orders are, if you are the unprotected person,

a no contact clause, or is it within

the order of distance

will

be arrested if she's in violation. That means if you're the person who doesn't have to have contact with another person due to an order from the court and the protected party invites the

restricted party

over or calls them, then the protected party isn't going to be allowed So can we invite them in or not?

A lot of people, I don't think

understand that. But even if the person who is being protected by the order of protection invites them or invites them to know that they are breaking the law and there is another mathematical clause that has to

do with a no math that says do not molest, annoy, threaten or harass.

People can be good No questions. Thank you for your report. Very

good. We

open the public comment. There is no voting

card, very well. Or yes. Rogelio

Delgado, resident of Carpinteria. I have a question

Citizens are arrested.

Do you have to have the evidence? Before you call the sheriff or

Because a couple of people last year told me that. They didn't know

they could make an arrest. Someone was shouting for several minutes in

the

middle of the night at a neighbor,

In the morning, she told me that she didn't know what

she could have done. She didn't think

it was serious

enough

to

call it something like that. And she didn´t know she could have carried out an arrest of a citizen. What about

He says, she says issue.

What if the other person

denies that?

How does the London

officer react to

that? I know of a

case like

that.

That's basically the questions that I have

That's the question I have, basically. Thank you very much for your comments. Is there

another speaker?

Brian, do we have someone on Zoom? No. Very good.

We'll

close public comment. I'm going to ask the chief if he can provide an explanation about what is citizen's arrest. A citizen's arrest is when... I wasn't sure if they were talking about a knife,

whether it was a

minor or major

crime.

We cannot arrest

We could write a report or

what, but I mean, you know, for that was something transpired by someone who made citizens arrest them. That doesn't mean they actually arrest them although technically it's possible if something happens.

If we take

custody of this person for whatever happened and the citizen

is the one technically arresting this

The citizen

is

technically arresting the person or member of the community.

is going to have to go to court because

we're just simply

write what happened.

And they're going to go to court and testify about it. We weren't there to witness if it was a minor offense as well. I don't know, I didn't understand if the evidence has to happen or not He said, I think something like if someone was threatening with a knife or something. But a threat with a knife is 417 of the Penal Code. That's a major crime if someone has a knife in their hand.

I mean, it is a major and minor crime. But if it's about a situation where he said or she said something, you have to look at the totality of circumstances because many times we go out and it isn't really a crime or if it's about a situation where he said or she said something And this person has a lesion here, and the other one has an inflammation.

If there's no evidence,

it's like 2 plus 2 is 4. But if there's no evidence, you can file a complaint with the district attorney. Pickett and sometimes complete a complaint with the DA. Sometimes citizens complete an arrest of citizens, and other times we are in charge. It is also useful that you do not necessarily recommend doing it. Call us And if you have any questions, call us. That's why we're here.

If

you have any questions, call us. Thank you and thank you for your presentation. Now let's go to the city manager report.

Thank you Mayor, Council, community members. Sorry

it's a little

identification through the phone, through the computer. I suppose I'll start by saying, I feel really

bad about sitting here drinking my tea. I want to start by saying that I feel very bad about drinking my tea here. Maybe you guys feel the same way, but I apologize for that. So just an update on our recruitment. I'm going to start by saying that we don't always cover everything in the city administrator's report. We motivate those who are listening from home or here in person to go to the website, to the administrator's report where there is more information and in great detail. This is not a point considered as an agenda item but Topics that can be added to the agenda or a general global information. In terms of recruitment, we have the lifeguard coordinator programs 1, 2 and 3 half-time. We also have a new employee, Casey Iwasaki, Aquatic Instructor 2 half-time, which is going to start soon.

We are very happy. As for training, The city maintains its commitment to training staff continuously and there are so many that are practically monthly. Of the 29 staff members, they have received training from California Joint Powers Insurance Authority or CGPIA for their acronym in English And the staff learned about legal considerations, municipal response efforts, environmental protocols, security protocols for employees in refugee camps and others. Empathy, patience and also

I just want to remind

people that the electoral ballots for what is the district You can submit your vote until March

9,

when the public hearing is. And if people have lost their voting ticket or want to change their vote, you can come here to the City Council and get a new voting ticket. or you can change your vote to wish for it. And a couple of quick things about recreation, HOL is holding a workshop And then we also have the Luao Aloha party on Friday at 5.30 pm in the veterans hall, and people can book their seat by calling 805-879-8222

881-1279 or by sending an

email to hul.carpinteria.ca.gov. It's a two-part event, a workshop. The first part is on February 5th from 1 to 2.30 PM in the Veterans Hall. with a workshop on February 12 from 1 to 2.30 in the same place, and finally, The community garden in January, the garden compost system has diversified 128.5 pounds of food and garden waste from the landfill. And this has been restarted on September 20-25 at the community garden by the coordinator So, I'm going to be receiving the materials and instruction. And I'll be available for your questions if we don't have the Community Development Director, Nick Paffroth, to give his portion of the update. Any questions from the Council? No? Very good.

Good evening Mayor Alarcon, Council

Members. I have a couple of updates regarding development projects. First, I wanted to give you an update on several of our pending housing project

applications

via Real. The project of horizontal houses is the 6380 Villarreal project, which has been incomplete for the third time last week. We are getting closer to things in all requirements And they will be returning their applications in the next few weeks, if we can determine that it is complete. The other update is the project at 5885 Carpinteria Street. where the project of residences here next door in the property of T-Time, on the corner of 1st. They have had their application letter at the end of the month and with it we have had the environmental report and we have also worked together with the environmental consultants to prepare that report and we will be presenting it here to the council sometime in March.

Here this Thursday, February 12th will be the next meeting of the Board of Architectural Review and we will have the final review of the Villarreal project in 4041-10 Villarreal. The meeting will take place at 5.30 this Thursday here in the City Hall, in the main room and finally In the administrator's updates, I want to remind viewers that The environmental report or EIR, again for what is the SARFlighter project will be available to the public until March 9 and a public meeting will take place in the Environmental Review Committee on February 18 at 5.30 here in the City Hall. And the objective of that meeting will be to share the conclusions of the environmental report ¿Y esto concluye mi actualización? ¿Alguna pregunta?

I have a question about the property near T-Time. Has the application been completed? Mayor Larcon, yes. The application had been declared incomplete more or less for Christmas and since then we have advanced to the next steps to start with the environmental review process and the consistency analysis of the project. Thank you very much!

There's disagreement here about what I said, deemed complete or deemed

incomplete. They're in disagreement if I said it was complete or not complete. For me, I had heard incomplete, but yes, the request was declared complete for project number one on the cliff, but not for the remediation building. We hadn't reached an agreement For anybody that's Yes, we do have a page on the website. On the city's website, it is easiest to go to CampinteriaCA.gov. Go down to the hot topics section and you will see within housing, you can see the different sections and you will see a section I do not remember what it is called exactly but something like housing pending projects or something like that And there you will be able to see the different projects that we have in terms of housing, and there you will be seeing all the correspondence back and forth with the applicant, the letters they have sent us, our answers, and so on.

The plans for the project, information and technical studies, materials available and everything we have available here at City Hall

Mayor, I'm happy to take any more

questions.

But I

do have one other question for Nick or Denny if you don't mind. Thank you, Nick. I would like to bring up